Eperialism in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim

Eperialism in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim

Rudyard Kipling’s Kim easily falls into the category of colonial texts, which tried to portary an Orientalized Orient during the colonial age. When Kim was published in 1901, the British Empire was still the most powerful empire in the world. The Indian subcontinent was one of the most important parts of the empire, which thousands of "Anglo-Indians," like Kipling himself, called home. As we go through Kim, we find that Kipling, consciously or inconsciously acts as an imperialist agent. Imperialism was not just the practice of the British Empire's acts of colonization of other lands and people; imperialism was a philosophy that assumed the superiority of British civilization and therefore the moral responsibility to bring their enlightened ways to the "uncivilized" people of the world. This attitude was taken especially towards nonwhite, non-Christian cultures in India, Asia, Australia, and Africa.

In his “The pleasure of Imperialism” Edward Said says that Kim is “a master work of imperialism…a rich and absolutely fascinating, but nevertheless profoundly embarrassing novel.” He re-reads Kim from the post-colonial perspective and says that many of the observations of Indian life presented in Kim as fact are derogatory stereotypes, derived from orientalists' beliefs.

For example, Edward Said writes in his introduction to Kim:

Sihks are characterized as having a special 'love of money'; Hurree Babu equates being a Bengali with being fearful; when he hides the packet taken from the foreign agents.

These derogatory ethnic stereotypes are sharply contrasted with Kipling's portrayals of the British and British culture as more advanced. For example, when Lurgan Sahib attempts to hypnotize Kim, Kim recites the multiplication tables he learned at English school to resist—sharply symbolizing Kipling's belief in the advancement of British law over the superstitious ways of the Asians. Such contrasts throughout Kim serve to support and justify the rule of the "more capable" British over the Indian people.

Moreover, according to Edward Said the portrayal of Kim as an orphaned quite a jungali boy, sensitive and friendly is basically an image of Indian people. Culturally he was making them inferior. In his view Indians were good natured, sensitive, friendly but were jungali and uncultured. He conceives Indian society devoid of elements hostile to the perpetualization of British rule, for it was on the basis of this presumptive India that orientalists sought to build a permanent rule. The Kim (the protagonist of his picturesque novel KIM) is a major contribution to this Orientalized India of the Imagination. For example, “Kim would lie like oriental” or, bit later, ” all hours of the twenty-four are alike to orientals”, or, when Kim pays for train ticket with lama’s money he keeps one anna per ruppe for himself, which, Kipling says, is “the immemorial commission of India” later still Kipling refers to “the huckster instinct of the east” …..Kim’s ability to sleep as the trains roar is an instance of “the oriental’s indifference to mere noise”.

Kipling also develops between "native" and "Sahib" conflicts with the unavoidable fact that the British are the governing class, and the Indians are the governed. Kipling, however, presents the imperialist presence in India as unquestionably positive. This is done most effectively through the main plot of the novel — the endeavors of Indian and British spies to protect the northern border of British India from the encroachment of Russia, thus protecting the imperial interests of the British Empire. It is especially significant that Indian spies are shown protecting British interests. In this way, Kipling constructs an India in which the native population supports the British Empire and thus presents Britain's imperialist presence as a positive good.

The way Kipling assigns Kim the protagonist and Babu Hurree Chander oppositional positions, for example, is also crucial to the power relations within which the narrative operates. The relationship between the colonizers and the natives was indeed a complex one, because there was no tidy transfer of power between the two parties. There are connections between the portrayal of Kim and the Babu but it becomes Kipling’s challenge to assign these two characters distinct roles in his political narrative.

Kipling’s portrayal of Babu Hurree Chander Mookerjee, a native employee in the British administration, is a literary device used by Kipling to depict imperial authority. Indeed for Kipling, who believed that it was India’s own destiny to be ruled by England, it was imperative to stress the superiority of the white man, whose colonial mission was to rule the dark and ‘inferior’ races. He does this by locating the educated Hurree Babu in a position that is subordinate to Kim.

In terms of the social hierarchy enforced by colonial order, therefore, Kim occupies the privileged position by belonging to the ‘rulers’ whilst the Babu is his insignificant ‘other’. Despite this notable fact, both characters are, undeniably, products of a colonial upbringing in a colonized society. Thus, Kim develops as a superior in his role of authority, whilst Babu Hurree Chander is his excluded opposite. In other words, the Babu is Kim’s anti-self, to whom Rudyard Kipling assigns a negative value in relation to Kim. In fact the relationship between the coloniser and the colonized is a tense one, because of the intensity of the British colonial period. This is Kipling’s major dilemma in the novel and a problem that he attempts to overcome. The characters are merely there to highlight how the British Empire affected those at grassroots level, the people most affected by colonial authority. This is also why we see so many male relationships forged throughout the novel. Colonies were essentially run by men and imperialism was driven from a predominantly male perspective.

It is with this social and political context in mind that exposes Kipling’s imperialist ideology as being nothing more than a narrative strategy, to represent Kim’s authority over the native inhabitants of the colony. However, Kipling was arguably an imperialist, and Kim embodies attitudes towards British rule in India, which these days are wholly unacceptable and unpalatable. Kipling believed it was right and proper for Britain to ‘own’ India and rule its people, and so the possibility that this position might indeed be questionable never seems to have crossed Kipling’s mind. However, at the time that Kipling was writing, there was considerable ferment of revolt amongst Indians against British rule but Kipling appears to dismiss this at points in the novel when he could have acknowledged it. This is particularly apparent in Chapter Three when he has an old soldier comment on the Great Mutiny of 1857, dismissing it as mere “madness”:

In terms of explaining colonization and imperialism, therefore, Kim is the ideal embodiment of the conflicting Indian and English worlds. Interestingly, it appears that all of the events of the Great Victorian Empire are inbred in Kim’s own character. As the British Empire sought to discover and entrench its imperial authority in India, so too does Kim seek to find a place in the country in which he was born. Thus, Kim faces an ongoing struggle to create a new identity for himself. “Who is Kim?” “What is Kim?” are two questions that Kim asks himself as the novel progresses. For example on page 331 of Chapter 15, Kim poses exactly these questions from “his soul”:

‘I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim?” His soul repeated it again and again.’
As in the words of Edward Said, “we have been shown two entirely different worlds existing side by side, with neither really understanding the other, and we have watched the oscillation of Kim, as he passes to and fro between them.” As such, Kipling renders a vision of India where intellectual, moral and political boundaries are less than equal. Indeed, if Kipling believed, as he well argued, that East and West can never really meet in the Indian colony, then in Kim he makes sure they do not.

Kipling’s emperialism becomes more evident if we compare him with another victorian novelist Conrad. Unlike Conrad, Kipling did not offer any negative assessment of the imperial project. On the contrary, for him it represented high adventure. It was Europe's moral duty to 'enlighten' the non-white world. Kipling believed in racial difference, that is, in European superiority and for him British rule in India was a solid fact, beyond any challenge.

Thus, the Great Empire had a profound effect on Rudyard Kipling’s literary creativity, especially in the creation of his characters and the distinctive lives that they lead. As Said points out Kipling's Kim embodies the absolute divisions between white and non white that existed in India and elsewhere at a time when the dominantly white Christian countries of Europe controlled approximately 85 percent of the world's surface.

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Objections against the Orientalists as raised by Edward Said in his Crisis (Orientalism)

Objections against the Orientalists as raised by Edward Said in his Crisis (Orientalism)

How did the Western scholars build a negative image of the orient according to Edward Said?



One of the objections Edward Said raises against the Orientalists in his Crisis is that the oriental scholars built a negative image of the orient. According to Said Orientalism was a kind of western projection onto and will o govern over the Orient. He also says that the Orientalists plotted oriental history, character and destiny for hundred of years. During this long course of action, the orientalists also built a negative image of the Orient. The Oriental scholars built a negative image of the oriental language, peoples, religion and cultures. The image they built quickly spread to the Western people, who hold a textual attitude to the Orient.

The Western scholars built a negative image of the oriental language and literature. How they created a negative image about the oriental language and literature is seen through the works of Friedrih Schlehgel.

Friedrich Schlegel, one of the prominent Orientalists, and philologists learned his Sanskrit in Paris. He tried to understand and interpret the Orient on the basis of language. But like other Orientalists he also assumed an unchanging Orient. In 1800 Schlegel typified the orient as the highest source of Romanticism. But the Romanticism he talked about had existed 2000 years ago. As for the Semiles, he “said that heir language was unaesthetic and they were also inferior and backward.” Thus, he made some arbitrary comments on the life, language and religious faith of the Orientals. But he was not qualified to make such comments, as his attitude to the Orient was merely a textual attitude.

But the ideas of Schlegel were widely diffused in European culture. And to the Orientalists, to whom language and race seemed inextricably tied, the good Orient was invariably a classical period somewhere in a long-gone India, whereas the “bad” Orient lingered in present day Asia, parts of North Africa and Islam everywhere.
But not only the individual thinkers, but also several societies and organizations of the scholars joined in the interpretation of the Orient.

By the end of the 19th century all the achievements of the Orientalist thinkers were helped by the European occupation of the entire near Orient. The principal colonial powers once again were Britain and France, although Russia and Germany played some role as well. The colonizers always look for some interests, may it be political, commercial, religious, cultural or military interest. With regard to Islam and the Islamic territories, for example, Britain felt that it had legitimate interests, as a Christian power, to safeguard.

How the Western scholars have built a negative attitude about the Orient is also seen the ways they portrayed the individual Orientalists, their queerness and Islam. The Orientalists have categorized all Orientals. To them, a single Oriental is first an Oriental, second a human being and last again an Oriental.

To the Orientalists, an Oriental lives in the Orient, he lives a life of Oriental ease, in a state of Oriental despotism and sensuality, imbued with a feeling of Oriental fatalism. The whole Orient is depicted as an example of a particular form of eccentricity. The Orientalists are always on the look, as described by Flaubert in his writings, some queerness that can be a new example of what Description de l’ Egypte called “bizarre jouissance.” Thus, when the Orientalists describe something queer about the Orient, it becomes the part of text which is ultimately used to define the whole Orient and Orientals.
The individual Oriental cannot shake or disturb the general categories of Orient. His oddness can nevertheless be enjoyed for its own shake. For example, we may take Flaubert’s description of the spectacle of the Orient.

To amuse the crowd, Mohammad Ali’s jester took a woman in a Cairo bazaar one day, set her on the counter of a shop, and coupled with her publicly while the shopkeeper calmly smokes his pipe.

Flaubert frankly acknowledges that this grotesque is of a special kind. The Orient is watched and the European whose sensibility tours the Orient, is a watcher. They are never involved always detached and always ready for new examples. The Orient becomes a living tableau of queerness.

And this tableau quiet logically becomes a special topic for texts. The Orient get himself confined into the text and presented as a subject under the observation of the West masters. Islam for example was typically Oriental for Orientalists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Carl Becker argued that although “Islam” inherited the Hellenic tradition, it could neither grasp nor employ the Greek, humanistic tradition. Moreover it is a sort of failed oriental attempt to employ Greek philosophy without the creative inspiration that we find in Renaissance Europe. For Louis Massignon (perhaps the most renowned ad influential of modern French Orientalists) Islam was a systematic rejection of the Christian spirit. Its greatest hero was not Mohammed or Averroes but Al- Hallaj, a Muslim saint who was crucified by the orthodox Muslims for having dared to personalize Islam. What Becker and Massignon left out was the eccentricity of the Orient. They threw out all what they found so hard to regularize in Wester terms such as Mohammed. Al- Hallaj was made prominent because he took himself to be a Christ figure.

The Orientalists from Renan to Goldziher to Macdonald to von Grunebaum, Gibb and Bernard Lewis- saw Islam as a “cultural synthesis” that could be studied.

Gibb delivered his lectures called Modern Trends in Islam in 1945 with a severe attack on Arabic civilization. He says that the Arabic students are brought up against the striking contrast between the imaginative, Arabic literature and the literalism, between imagination and reasoning. They are not rational like western students and lack the sense of law. They can not throw off their intense feeling for the separateness and individuality of the concrete events. For their aversion from the thought process of rationalism, Western students fail to understand them. Gibb asserts that the rejection of rationalist modes of thought and of the utilitarian ethic which is inseparable from them has its roots in the atomism and discreteness of the Arab imagination.

So, if anyone even wants to acknowledge or understand modern Islam ; Gibb’s those inaugural biases stand as an obstacle before him. These biases asked us to look at the Oriental Muslim as if he is yet within the seventh century, always different from the Western world. If Islam is flawed, they oppose any attempt to reform Islam, because they believe that Islam is unchanging and any reform is a betrayal of Islam. This is, in fact, the Oriental’s fate.

Eighteen years later in 1963 Gibb delivered another believe another believe on “Area Studies Reconsidered” where he agreed that “the Orient is much too important to be left to the Orientalists.” In his “Modern Trends” a new or second alternative approach to Orientalists was being announced. Gibb’s formula is very intentional here.

He said, “what we now need is the traditional Orientalist plus a good social orientalist working together: between them the two will do inter-disciplinary work.” But he felt that the traditional Orientalist will not bring outdated knowledge to bear on the Orient, he will just remind his colleagues that Orient can never be explained by Western thought and it is just a fancy.

These texts do not give the true history of Islamic countries, so the readers have to depend on the Orientalist’s meaningless language full of admiration for Orientalist wisdom. This is how, a more ad more dangerous rift separates Orient and Occident.

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The Use of Animal Imagery in Ted Hughes’ poem The Jaguar

The Use of Animal Imagery in Ted Hughes’ poem The Jaguar


In a literary work the term ‘imagery’ mainly refers to simile, metaphor, descriptive words etc that evoke the mental pictures, before our minds eyes. It is the picture made out of words and appeals to the senses of taste, smell, hearing and touch, and to internal feelings as well as the sense of sight. The imagery is achieved in any literary work through a collection of images.

The Jaguar, composed by the zoo laureate Ted Hughes, is a poem on the background of a zoo and the poem is well-know for the imagery that the poet uses to portray the condition of the encaged animals and birds and the blind energy embodied in a jaguar, the jungle king. The poem opens with the description of the apes. Line –I depicts them in a spiritless condition, who are engaged in ‘yawning’ and, adoring’ their fleas. By using such words as ‘yawn’ and ‘ adore’ the poet creates two powerful images which suggest that the apes have nothing urgent to do, and so feel sleepy. They also, instead of being annoyed, seem to enjoy the presence of fleas on their bodies while basking in the warmth of the sun. In the next cage the parrots are shrieking as if they were on fire and strutting like harlots attracting the onlookers for a throw of nuts. So the expressions, on fine, and stoat imply two vivid images, the parrots are suffering from untold suffering in their chained life and they make sensual gestures like the street girls to attract the passers by. And the first stanza ends with the description of tiger and lion which have become fatigued and indolent, having been deprived of their natural habitat. They are idly having a sun bath.

In stanza II we have the picturesque description of the boa-constrictor, so coiled and motionless as if it were doing so for ages and turned into a living Fossil. And the next three lines-

“Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw,
If might be painted on a nursery wall”.

It suggests the condition of the other animals. Actually the cages are not empty; they only seem to be so as there is no spontaneity among the encaged animals.

And now in the stanza III the poet introduces us with a cage in front of which the crowd ‘ stands’ and, stares and gets hypnotized at the spectacle of a jaguar. Unlike other animals, the jaguar is restless and a mobile machinery of destructive energy. Through the prison darkness his eyes meet those of the viewers and they are locked in a Fierce-fuse’ that can explode any moment Boredom is unknown to him. He spins from the bass to the cage, the cage then seems too small to contain him. He cannot be contained in any cage. No prison can same such ferocious energy or restrict the jaguar’s inborn spirit of independence. And the poet ends his description with the following two striking lines.

The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.

The zoo is made a world where the jaguar is let loose to reign as the supreme power. The world lies under his feet and the horizon meets the cage bass, thus declaring the boundless power of the jaguar. The poet with the help of such vivid expressions as the drills of his eyes, fierce-fuse, cell wilderness of freedom etc successfully depicts the characteristics of the jaguar, the symbol of energy.

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Nominalism

Nominalism

Nominalism was a popular term in medieval Scholastic philosophy. The doctrine stated that abstractions, known as universals, are without essential or substantive reality, and that only individual objects have real existence.

These universals, such as animal, nation, beauty, circle, were held to be mere names, hence the term nominalism. For example, the name circle is applied to things that are round and is thus a general designation; but no concrete identity with a separate essence of roundness exists corresponding to the name. The nominalistic doctrine is opposed to the philosophical theory called extreme realism (see Realism), according to which universals have a real and independent existence prior to and apart from particular objects.

Nominalism evolved from the thesis of Aristotle that all reality consists of individual things; the extreme theory of realism was first enunciated by Plato in his doctrine of universal archetypal ideas. The nominalist-realist controversy became prominent in the late 11th and 12th centuries, the nominalist position being expounded by the Scholastic Roscelin, and the realist by the Scholastics Bernard of Chartres and William of Champeaux.

The issue between nominalism and realism was not only philosophical but also theological, for Roscelin maintained that the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), conceived in the traditional theology of the church as constituting a unity of one divine nature, cannot be understood, according to the individualizing method of nominalism, except as three distinct and separate gods, a doctrine known as tritheism. The church was therefore irreconcilably opposed to nominalism. The implications for ethics were also far-reaching. If there is no common nature for all individuals, then there is no “natural law” that governs all people; actions are morally right or wrong only because they are commanded or forbidden by God.

A theory intermediate between nominalism and realism is that of conceptualism, in which universals, although they have no real or substantive existence in the external world, do exist as ideas or concepts in the mind and are thus something more than mere names. Another alternative theory is moderate realism, which locates universals in the mind but also admits a real basis in particular objects. The defense of nominalism undertaken by the 14th-century English Scholastic philosopher William of Ockham prepared the way for various modern nominalistic theories such as those of instrumentalism, pragmatism, semantics, and logical positivism.

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Use of Irony in Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World

Use of Irony in Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World


At the highest intellectual level, we have the use of irony in writing a literary work .This may be inherent in the language, where we find the incongruous linking of holy terms with unholy actions: “Marcus Quin, God rest him, got six months for maiming ewes and he a great warrant to tell stories of holy terms with unholy actions: “ Marcus Quin, God rest him, got six months for maiming ewes and he a great warrant to tell stories of holy Ireland” (p.17); or, again: “Pegeen; Is it killed your father?Playboy: With the help of God I did surely ad that the Holy Immaulate Mother may intercede for his soul.”

More generally, the Catholic Church comes in for some hard knocks, whether through the absurd strictness and narrow orthodoxy of Father Reilly, or through the apparent failures of the faithful to understand his teaching. The most contemptible character in the play, Shawn Keogh, is also , outwardly at least, the most pious; whereas the more spirited Pegeen and widow Quin are prepared to question, even to mock, ecclesiastical authority. “ Stop tormenting me with Father Reilly” (p.17), says Pegeen to Shawn or, again, “Go on, then, to Father Reilly and let him put you in the holy brotherhoods” (p.27). The Widow Quin shows her independence from the spiritual adviser more sarcastically: “It isn’t fitting, says the priesteen” (p.32). The abundant use of holy names has already been commented on. Sara Tanse’s misconception of the function of confession went deeper: “When you’d be ashamed this place, going up winter and summer with nothing worth while to confess at all”.

The attitude to excessive drinking is not spared. Old Mahon’s descriptions of his own excesses are presented as an exploit (p.62) while Michael James’s idea of good wake is one where “there were five men, aye, and six men stretched out retching speechless on the holy stones.”(p.66)

Finally the double-think of the people’s reaction to the law and its apparatus is constantly evoked: “the peelers is….decent, droughty poor fellows” (p.26); “the juries……selling judgments of the English law”(p.41). Law-breaking is often a feat to be admired, respect for the authorities a matter of expediency, rather than of principle.

It should not be concluded that The Playboy is a satire on Irish moral life; but the range of comedy has something for all tastes, from broad farce to skilful irony. Very often the different levels of comedy meet and mingle to the delight of all.

The Irish audiences of the time were not largely mistaken in thinking that The Playboy of the Western World was an attack on the Irish character. They were wrong only in reaching violently to the attack. Synge in this play made fun of certain aspects of the Irish character and the Irish mentality of his day. Such criticism of a nation is often made by authors in their literary works. Satire and irony are freely employed by authors to attack living individuals and whole communities or groups of people. Dryden and Swift are outstanding examples of authors who made use of the weapons of irony and satire to attack their cotemporaries and even the nation to which they belonged. Synge was therefore exercising his right as an author to expose some of the absurdities, faults, and weakness of his countrymen. (He himself was an Irishman). The Irish audiences should have viewed The Playboy with tolerance and good humor. It is noteworthy that Synge’s criticism of the Irish people in this play is very subtle, but the Irish audiences were quick to perceive the criticism which was largely implied and covert and only occasionally open or overt.

An Attack on the Conventional Father-Daughter Relationship

The Playboy attacks some of the accepted values of the settled life of the Irish people of that time. It ridicules certain aspects of Irish domestic life, Irish social life, ad Irish religious life. It is first of all an attack on the conventional kind of relationship existing to submit to the authority of their parents, especially their father, unquestioningly. Now, Synge seems to challenge this aspect of the domestic life of his time. In the very beginning, we find Pegeen complaining that her father is bent upon going to attend a wake and leaving her alone in the shebeen for the night. Pegeen feels that it is not right for her father to leave her alone during the night when he is well aware that there are certain rowdy elements in that region and when she apprehends trouble from itinerant tinkers and cu-throat fellows in khaki. She also complains that her father has not provided her with a pot—boy to help her in her duties in the shebeen and also to stand by her when there is some trouble from any intruders. Her father, however, takes the matter very lightly. He tells her that a pot-boy is hard to find and that he is not going to make a proclamation through a town-crier of Castlebar that he needs a pot-boy. As for her feeling of insecurity, the utmost that he is willing to do for her is to suggest to Shawn that he should spend the night in the shebeen, a suggestion which gives rise to a lot of comedy in Act I. When her father says that she is a “queer” daughter to expect him to come back home during the night after he has taken liquor, she replies that he is a “queer” father to be leaving her alone for the twelve hours of the night. Thus there is a clash between father and daughter, though the clash is a very mild one because of the fact that Michael is a jovial and happy-go-lucky kind of man.

An attack on the customs of arranged Marriage

Then Synge seems to be attacking ironically of course, the custom of arranged marriages in Ireland of the time. Pegeen is engaged to be married to Shawn, but it is obvious that the engagement has been taken place not because she fell in love with him, but because her father found Shawn to be a man of substance and because Shawn had promised to give him a herd of bullocks. Subsequently, when Pegeen falls in love with Christy and tells her father that she has made up her mind to marry that young fellow and not Shawn, her father becomes furious and says that she is “a heathen daughter” to give him such a shock especially when he is already feeling overwhelmed by the excessive liquor that he had consumed at the wake. It is only because Shawn refuses to feel jealous of Christy and because he proves himself a thorough coward by refusing to fight Christy that Michael feels compelled to give his consent to Pegeen’s marrying Christy. It is another matter that events take a different turn, and Peggen is unable to marry Christy.

The Unsatisfactory relationship between Christy and his Father

The comic exposure of this, unsatisfactory relationship between fathers and their children is even more marked in the case of Christy and his father. In the course of his account of his life in the native village, while talking to Pegeen, Christy tells her that his father used to ill-treat him and used to force him to work too hard, that his father was a heavy drunkard who would drink for weeks together and throw stones at the stars, that all Christy’s brothers and sisters used to curse their father who was in the habit of constantly swearing like a military man, and that the old man was often locked up in jail or in a lunatic asylum. Later, Old Mahon has a good deal to say against Christy, accusing the young man of being a good-for-nothing, worthless fellow who did no work but was a “lier on walls” and a “talker of folly”. In the course of a dispute, Christy had hit his father with a spade and the blow seemed to have killed the old man. Later we find that the old man had not died ad that he has now come in search of his son in order to “destroy” him for the attack which he had made upon his old father. Thus the relations between father and son have been extremely unpleasant, and both are full of grievances against each other. It is only at the end that the two become reconciled.

An Unsuitable Wife Proposed for Christy by his Father

In the case of Christy also, Synge exposes in a comic means the undesirability of an arranged marriage. In Act II Christy tells the village girls and Widow Quin that his father wanted him to marry Widow Casey, a woman of forty-five, bulky, lame, blind of one eye, a woman of loose morals, “a walking terror from beyond the hills.” Christy adds that this woman had suckled him for six weeks when he was born, “and she a hag this day with a tongue on her has the crows and sea-birds scattered.” Christy’s account is very amusing and is part of the comedy of the play, but it also brings home to us the point that Old Mahon was acting in a most arbitrary manner in asking his son to get married to Widow Casey. Christy also tells his listeners that his father had certain selfish motives in wanting him to marry that particular woman. It was Christy’s refusal to marry her that had preoccupied the quarrel between him and his father ad had led Christy to attack the old man who had tried to hit him first with a scythe.

An Attack on the Irish People’s Sheltering a Murderer

Then the pay contains also an oblique attack on the Irish people for their strange attitude towards a parricide. The glorification of Christy by Michael, Pegeen, and the others seems to us to be most irrational. Synge has told us that the story of this play was based o an actual incident pertaining to some people in one of the Aran Islands giving shelter to a criminal. Now, it is possible for us to interpret the glorification of Christy by the people of Mayo have been as a satire on the mentality of those people. The people of Mayo have been leading a life of monotony and boredom. Besides, they seem to be very tolerant of violence and even brutality as is clear from Pegeen’s praise for a fellow who had “knocked the eye” from a police constable and for a fellow who used to maim ewes. To us, it seems both objectionable and ridiculous that a man should be praised for his capacity to inflit an injury on a policeman or to cripple dumb animals. Therefore when Christy receives plenty of praise from Philly ad Jimmy and afterwards from the village girls, Widow Quin, etc., just because he had killed his father with a single blow of the spade, we are both amused and disturbed. The attitude of the people of Mayo towards Christy’s murder of his father is by no means commendable. The author is obviously poking fun at all these people including Pegeen who is found praising Christy to the skies, “a man fit to be holding his head high with the wonders of the world.” It is another matter that, in Act III, when Christy once again “murders” his father, this time in the presence of the people, they react differently to his action, turning hostile to him and tying him up in order to hand him over o the police. But even this change in their attitude seems to be a satirical comment on their inconsistency. Pegeen’s remark that there is “a big gap between a gallous story and a dirty deed” is hardly a rational explanation of this change.

A Satirical Attack on religious Narrow-mindedness

The Playboy contains also a subtle attack on religious narrow-mindedness ad on false piety. Shawn is so “virtuous” and “pious” that he refuses to spend a night alone with an unmarried girl in a shebeen even to protect her. He may thus appear to be a model rectitude. But this over-scrupulous attitude makes him appear absurd, and the audience would no doubt roar with laughter at his refusal to spend the night with Pegeen because of the objections that Father Reilly might afterwards raise. The comedy of this situation is heightened by Shawn’s managing to slip away from Michael’s hold and running out of the Shebeen, leaving his coat in the hands of Michael. Shawn’s behavior at this time is most funny and Michael makes us laugh still more when he points out to Pegeen the absurdity of Shawn by assuring her that, when she is married to that fellow, she would not have to keep a watch on his conduct even if he spends a lot of his time in the company of young girls. What Michael means is that Shawn is the kind of man who will never prove unfaithful to his wife. Indeed, Shawn’s subservience to Father Reilly is made to appear extremely preposterous and highly comic. About a dozen times Shawn names the priest, invoking his authority and exhibiting his reverence for the Church. All this devotion on the part of Shawn to the priest, and his compliance with the priest’s moral injunctions, are made to appear comic and contemptible. In this way Synge makes fun of excessive religiosity and exaggerated piety.

A Satire on Excessive Drinking

Synge seems also to be attacking, again in a comic manner, the evil of excessive drinking. We have a number of heavy drunkards in the play. They are Michael James, Philly, James, and Old Mahon. The chief reason why Michael and his friends are keen to attend the wake is that plenty of free liquor flows there. Next morning Jimmy and Philly, who are already semi-drunk, are seen searching for some liquor in the cupboards of the shebeen, and Michael comes home singing in a state of intoxication. Towards the end, when Jimmy and Philly feel afraid of handling Christy, Shawn scolds them for their feeling nervous in going near Christy. On this occasion, he again invokes the authority of Father Reilly, so that his remark becomes comic even though it has much sense in it. Says he: “Isn’t it true for Father Reilly that all drink’s a curse that has the lot of you so shaky and uncertain now?” This remark has considerable truth in it, because excessive drinking certainly makes a man shaky and uncertain. Then there is Old Mahon about whom Christy says that he used to drink for weeks and then, getting up at dawn, used to go out into the yard “as naked as an ash-tree in the moon of May,” in order to throw clods at the stars in the sky. Old Mahon himself tells Widow Quin that on one occasion he drank so much in the company of the Limerick girls that he had almost become a paralic. Both Christy’s account of his father’s drunkenness and Old Mahon’s own account of this drunkenness are a satire on the evil of drinking.

A Satirical Attack on the attitude to English Policemen

Synge also seems to be making fun of the attitude of the Irish people towards the English policemen who were in charge of law and order in Ireland of the time to which this time pertains. Pegeen describes the “peelers” or the police constables in very contemptuous terms, and so does Michael. Speaking to Christy, Michael says that the peelers in this place are decent, thirsty, poor fellows who would not touch even “a cur dog,” much less arrest a dangerous murderer like Christy. May be, Synge shared this attitude of contempt towards the English policemen who were regarded as aliens and foreigners by the Irish and to whom the people at large were bitterly hostile.

Widow Quin’s Murder of Her Husband

Finally, there are satirical touches in the portrayal of Widow Quin who is believed to have murdered her husband and who, on several occasions, admits that she had “destroyed” her man and buried her children. Now this insistence on Widow Quin’s criminal action might have some purpose behind it. Widow Quin herself shows no sense of guilt at all. In fact, she refers unashamedly to her action in having killed her husband. The village girls are also quite tolerant towards her. It is only Pegeen who condemns her but perhaps even Pegeen does so because Widow Quin has become her rival for Christy’s affections. Perhaps Synge seems to imply that Widow Quin’s action in attacking her husband was not, after all, very reprehensible because the fault might have been that of the husband. Under certain circumstances, if a woman hits her husband, she may be justified. There is nothing to show that Widow Quin’s intention in hitting her man was to murder him. 

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John Ashbery

John Ashbery


John Ashbery is recognized together of the best twentieth-century american poets. He has won nearly each major yankee award for poetry, as well as the Joseph Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the gryphon International Award, and a Douglas MacArthur “Genius” Grant. Ashbery's poetry challenges its readers to discard all presumptions regarding the aims, themes, and rhetorical staging of verse in favor of a literature that reflects upon the bounds of language and therefore the volatility of consciousness. within the New Criterion, William mountain peak noted: "Few poets have therefore smartly manipulated, or simply plain tortured, our dusty need for that means. [Ashbery] reminds America that the majority poets United Nations agency offer America that means do not know what they are talking regarding." The the big apple Times critical review litterateur Sir Leslie Stephen bacteriologist characterised Ashbery's voice as "a subdued, at the same time incomprehensible and intelligent whisper with a weird pulsing rhythm that fluctuates sort of a wave between peaks of sharp clarity and watery droughts of obscurity and languor."


Ashbery’s 1st book, Some Trees (1956) won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. The competition was judged by W.H. Auden, United Nations agency magnificently confessed later that he hadn’t understood a word of the winning manuscript. Ashbery revealed a spate of triple-crown and potent collections within the Sixties and ‘70s, as well as The court Oath (1962), The Double Dream of Spring (1970), portrait in an exceedingly hogged Mirror (1975) and barge Days (1977). portrait in an exceedingly hogged Mirror, thought of by several to be Ashbery’s masterpiece, won the Joseph Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and therefore the National Book Critics Circle Award, Associate in Nursing new triple-crown within the literary world. basically a meditation on Francesco Parmigianino’s painting "Self-Portrait in an exceedingly hogged Mirror," the narrative literary work showcases the influence of visual art on Ashbery’s vogue, moreover as introducing one in all his major subjects: the character of the inventive act, notably because it applies to the writing of poetry. this can be additionally, as Peter Stitt noted, a significant theme of barge Days, a volume acclaimed by Marjorie Perloff in Washington Post Book World as "the most enjoyable, most original book of poems to possess appeared within the Nineteen Seventies." Stitt maintained within the Georgia Review that "Ashbery has come back to write down, within the poet's most implicitly ironic gesture, nearly completely regarding his own poems, those he's writing as he writes regarding them." Roger Shattuck created {a similar|an identical|an Associate in Nursingalogous|the same} purpose within the the big apple Review of Books: "Nearly each literary work in barge Days shows that Ashbery's phenomenological eye fixes itself not most on standard living and doing as on the particular act of composing a literary work…Thus each poem becomes an ars poetica of its own condition."


Critics have noted however Ashbery's verse has taken form below the influence of action painting, a movement in trendy painting stressing nonfigurative strategies of picturing reality. "Modern art was the primary and most powerful influence on Ashbery," Helen of Troy McNeil declared within the Times Literary Supplement. "When he began to write down within the Fifties, yankee poetry was strained and formal whereas yankee abstract-expressionist art was smartly seizing the heroic responsibilities of the ecu avant garde." faithful this influence, Ashbery's poems, in line with Fred Moramarco within the Journal of contemporary Literature, ar a "verbal canvas" upon that the writer freely applies the techniques of art movement. Ashbery's expertise as Associate in Nursing critic in France throughout the Fifties and ‘60s, and in the big apple for magazines like the big apple and therefore the Partisan Review strong his ties to action painting. however Ashbery's poetry, as critics have ascertained, has evolved below a spread of influences besides trendy art, turning into within the finish the expression of a voice remarkably his own. Ashbery’s influences embrace the Romantic tradition in yankee poetry that progressed from Whitman to Stevens, the supposed "New House of York college of Poets" that includes contemporaries like Frank author and Kenneth bacteriologist, and therefore the French artist writers with whom Ashbery has dealt in his work as a critic and translator. 




Ashbery's style—self-reflexive, multi-phonic, mistily narrative, packed with each popular culture and high allusion—has become "so potent that its imitators ar legion," Helen of Troy Vendler ascertained within the New Yorker. though even his strongest supporters admit that his poetry is commonly troublesome to browse and wilfully troublesome to grasp, several critics have commented on {the manner|the way|the vogue} within which Ashbery's fluid style conveys a significant concern in his poetry: the refusal to impose Associate in Nursing impulsive order on a world of flux and chaos. In his verse, Ashbery tries to mirror the stream of perceptions of that human consciousness consists. His poetry is open-ended and multi-various as a result of life itself is, he told Bryan Appleyard within the London Times: "I do not realize any direct statements in life. My poetry imitates or reproduces the method data or awareness come back to ME, that is by fits and starts and by indirection. i do not assume poetry organized in neat patterns would mirror that state of affairs. My poetry is disjunct, on the other hand therefore is life." His poems move, typically while not continuity, from one image to following, prompting some critics to praise his expressionist technique et al. to accuse him of manufacturing art that's unintelligible, even purposeless. 


Ashbery’s poetry—and its influence on younger poets—remains controversial attributable to simply this split in important opinion: some critics exalt what Paul Auster represented in Harper’s as Ashbery’s “ability to undermine our certainties, to articulate therefore absolutely the ambiguous zones of our consciousness,” whereas others deplore his obscurantism and demand that his poems, created of something and everything, will mean something and everything. reflective upon the important response to his literary work, "Litany," Ashbery once told modern Authors, "I'm quite at a loss by my work too, in conjunction with plenty of others. i used to be forever intrigued by it, however at constant time somewhat apprehensive and kind of embarrassed regarding annoying constant critics United Nations agency ar forever aggravated by my work. i am reasonably sorry that I cause most grief."


W.S. Di Piero represented the reaction of critics to Ashbery's vogue as "amusing. On the one hand ar {those United Nations agency|those that|people who} chide him for lacking the Audenesque 'censor' (that very little piece of writing machine in an exceedingly poet's head that deletes all superfluous materials) or who accuse him of merely being wilfully and immoderately perverse. On the opposite hand ar those reviewers United Nations agency, queerly enough, praise issue|the problem|the issue} of Ashbery's verse as if difficulty were a positive literary price in itself, whereas ignoring what the writer is expression." Helen of Troy Vendler offered her outline of the talk within the New Yorker: "It is Ashbery's vogue that has obsessed reviewers, as they alternately wrestle with its elusive solidity and praise its power of linguistic synthesis. There are in a position descriptions of its fluid syntax, its insinuating momentum, its generality of reference, its incorporation of vocabulary from all the humanities and sciences. however it's popularly believed, with some reason, that the fashion itself is impenetrable. . . . an alternate read says that each Ashbery literary work is regarding poetry."


Ever prolific, Ashbery has revealed over eighteen books of poetry since portrait in an exceedingly hogged Mirror. His critically acclaimed assortment A Wave (1984) won each the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and therefore the Bollingen Prize. The long title literary work was considered his finest since “Self-Portrait.” Ashbery's second verse form, Flow Chart, was revealed in 1991. Lawrence Joseph declared in Nation that the literary work, "more than any of his different books, portrays the essence of Ashbery's method. . . . Flow Chart may be a catalogue, that Ashbery presents as endlessly expansive and receptive interpretation, encompassing among its subject matter—well, the maximum amount because the writer might imagine." Ashbery’s next assortment, building Lautréamont (1992), was met with mixed important response. bishop Everett noted within the Times Literary Supplement, "Those United Nations agency expect poetry to evoke a selected expertise or event, real or fictional, can forever realize Ashbery's work frustrating or simply uninteresting." He added, "Besides, the essential subjects of Ashbery's poetry—subjectivity and time . . .—are themselves general and elusive; and although en passant it says an honest deal regarding them, its means that ar within the finish mimetic instead of discursive."


In more recent Ashbery works, like women on the Run (1999), Chinese Whispers (2002), wherever Shall I Wander? (2005) and a cosmopolitan Country (2007), critics have noted Associate in Nursing infusion of lament because the writer contemplates aging and death. within the Nation, Calvin Bedient stated: "For all his experimentation, Ashbery writes (as the necessary writers have forever done) regarding happiness and woe. If the woe he is aware of is treated funny, it's still woe." whereas laudatory the poems in Chinese Whispers for his or her "light bit and consistent pacing," Library Journal reviewer Barbara Hoffert noted that in "these autumnal items a way of calm predominates" as "things repeatedly fall, ebb, dissipate, or descend." within the Times Literary Supplement, Sir Leslie Stephen Cyril Lodowic Burt compared late-Ashbery to Stevens, another writer of recent age: “if [Ashbery’s poems] don't even request the styles of formal completion we discover in Stevens, they create up for it in their vary of tones—befuddled, loving, bubbly, chastened, sombre, alarmed, and so befuddled once more.” But, Cyril Lodowic Burt declares, “Ashbery looks a lot of modern, a lot of topical, currently than once he started writing, although the culture has modified around him over he has changed: he has become the writer of our multi-tasking, interruption-filled, and entertainment-seeking days.”


Mark Ford, additionally writing within the Times Literary Supplement, compared Ashbery's poetry to Walt Whitman's. "Like Whitman's, it's basically a method of involving the reader within the literary work on what Whitman calls 'equal terms'. . . . Ashbery's evasions may be seen as actuated by an identical need to attain a greater—and a lot of democratic—intimacy by short-circuiting standard modes of address." bishop Jenkins ended within the the big apple Times critical review that Ashbery's poetry "appeals not as a result of it offers knowledge in an exceedingly packaged type, however as a result of the unclearness and mysterious promise of his lines cue America that we tend to forever have a future and a condition of significance to start out out toward." In 2008, the Library of America revealed John Ashbery: Collected Poems, 1956-1987, the primary assortment of a living writer ever revealed by the series.


Ashbery’s art criticism was collected in according Sightings: Art Chronicles, 1957-1987 (1989). His series of Norton lectures at Harvard coated six poets United Nations agency had “probably influenced” his own work, as well as John Clare, Raymond Roussel and Laura Riding. it had been revealed as different Traditions: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 2000. His selected Prose was revealed in 2005. He has translated various French poets, last state capital Martory’s The Landscapist (2008). additionally to his various awards, John Ashbery was the Poet Laureate of recent House of York State from 2001 to 2003. He additionally served as chancellor of the Academy of yank Poets and has been the Charles P. Stevenson, Jr., faculty member of Languages and Literature at Bard school.

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Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich




On May 16, 1929, Adrienne Rich was conceived in Baltimore, Maryland. She went to Radcliffe School, graduating in 1951, and was chosen by W.H. Auden for the Yale Arrangement of More youthful Writers prize for A Change of World that same year. 


In 1953, she wedded Harvard College business analyst Alfred H. Conrad. After two years, she distributed her second volume of verse, The Precious stone Cutters, of which Randall Jarrell composed: "The writer [behind these poems] can't help appearing to us a kind of princess in a tall tale." 


Anyhow, the picture of the tall tale princess would not be seemingly perpetual. Subsequent to having three children before the age of thirty, Rich progressively changed both her life and her verse. All through the 1960s she composed a few accumulations, including Depictions of a Girl in-Law (1963) and Flyers (1969). The substance of her work turned out to be progressively threatening investigating such topics as ladies' part in the public eye, prejudice, and the Vietnam war. The style of these lyrics likewise uncovered a movement from watchful metric examples to free verse. In 1970, Rich left her spouse, who submitted suicide later that year. 


It was in 1973, amidst the women's activist and social equality developments, the Vietnam War, and her own particular individual trouble that Rich composed Jumping into the Disaster area, a gathering of exploratory and regularly irate sonnets, which earned her the National Book Recompense in 1974. Rich acknowledged the recompense for the benefit of all ladies and imparted it to her kindred candidates, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde. 


From that point forward, Rich has distributed various accumulations, including Today No Verse Will Serve: Lyrics 2007-2010 (W.W. Norton & Co., 2010); Phone Ringing in the Maze: Sonnets 2004–2006 (2006); The School Among the Remains: Lyrics 2000 (2004), which won the Book Commentators Circle Honor; Fox: Ballads 1998-2000 (2001), Midnight Rescue: Lyrics 1995-1998 (1999); Dim Fields of the Republic: Lyrics 1991 (1995); Gathered Early Lyrics: 1950-1970 (1993); A Map book of the Troublesome World: Lyrics 1988 (1991), a finalist for the National Book Grant; Time's Energy: Sonnets 1985-1988 (1989); The Truth of a Door jamb: Sonnets Chose and New 1950 (1984); and The Fantasy of a Typical Dialect (1978). 


Rich is additionally the writer of a few books of genuine composition, including Specialties of the Conceivable: Expositions and Discussions (W. W. Norton, 2001), What is Found There: Note pads on Verse and Legislative issues (1993) and Of Lady Conceived: Parenthood as Experience and Foundation (1986). 


About Rich's work, the artist W.S. Merwin has said, "All her life she has been infatuated with the trust of telling utter truth, and her summon of dialect from the first has been startlingly effective." 


Rich has gotten the Bollingen Prize, the Lannan Lifetime Accomplishment Grant, the Foundation of American Writers Partnership, the Ruth Lilly Verse Prize, the Lenore Marshall Verse Prize, the National Book Recompense, and a MacArthur Association; she is additionally a previous Chancellor of the Institute of American Artists. 


In 1997, she rejected the National Decoration of Expressions, expressing that "I couldn't acknowledge such a recompense from President Clinton or this White House on the grounds that the extremely importance of craftsmanship, as I comprehend it, is contrary with the skeptical legislative issues of this organization." She went ahead to say: "[Art] means nothing on the off chance that it basically enlivens the supper table of the force which holds it prisoner." 


That year, Rich was granted the Institute's Wallace Stevens Recompense for exceptional and demonstrated authority in the craft of verse. She passed on Walk 27, 2012, at 82 years old

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TONI MORRISON Themes

TONI MORRISON


Themes


The success of a completely unique depends on the depth and quality of the messages that the author implies. Morrison uses several themes in her works to form deeper that means also as dynamic plots. other than the various individual themes that apply to specific novels, Morrison additionally runs similar themes through many of her works. By taking a better explore a number of these shared themes—such as racial tension, sexism, associated lustful desire—it are going to be evident Morrison’s extreme dedication to making an overall message for the reader to get.




One of the foremost obvious themes in Morrison’s novels is that the plan (and constant presence) of racial tension between whites and African Americans. Morrison presents a ist2_4178397-two-angry-heads-have-racial-confrontationthorough spectrum of views of African Americans by roundly readjustment the opinions several characters of race. as an example, she comments on the social position of blacks in Song of Solomon through Macon Dead: “He knew as a Negro he wasn’t getting to get an enormous slice of pie” (Song of Solomon 63). several of the characters in Morrison’s novels have this same angle that the whites of society dominate the system, which can additionally link to historical happenings of the time periods within which the novels occur. additionally to feelings of inferiority, Morrison additionally suggests a general, bitter sentiment felt by blacks toward whites. These feelings arise from stereotypes and prejudices, associated an example will be seen within the Bluest Eye once young Cholly Breedlove is discontinuous from his 1st sexual encounter by 2 men: “There was no mistake regarding their being white; 6a00d8345263cd69e200e54f51b32d8834-800wihe might smell it” (The Bluest Eye 147), that proves the name Cholly had learned regarding whites. in a different way favouritism was weaved into Morrison’s novels was through concrete samples of segregation, like in Jazz wherever there have been teams shaped for “Colored Boy Scouts” (Jazz 58) and wherever “there were no high faculties in [the] district a coloured woman might attend” (Jazz 6). Obviously, favouritism is a problem of nice importance to the present author; therefore she incorporates this theme into several of her writings.


Another common theme Morrison uses is society’s read on the distinction between men and girls, or, to place it additional merely, sexism. She brazenly displays the favoritism gift within the communities within which the characters of her novels reside. for example, in Song of Solomon, shortly once Pilate threatens Reba’s lover by stabbing him, deliverer comments to Hagar regarding Pilate’s strength. it's then that Hagar responds,images “We area unit weak” (Song of Solomon 95), relating the whole population (with few exceptions like Pilate.) Even Pilate herself admitted that “Women area unit foolish, ya know” (94), that reflects the attitudes and views of the society within which these characters live. In another of Morrison’s works, The Bluest Eye, the females regard the other sex with a special reputation: “Some men simply dogs” (The Bluest Eye 13). Similarly, in Jazz, a number of the ladies, like one United Nations agency speaks to Violet, claim that “Men wear you right down to a pointy piece of animal tissue if you let them” (Jazz 14), any proving that girls area unit “weak” and might be simply persuaded. Morrison deliberately includes this theme of favoritism to denote the gratuitous assumptions created by society and also the effects these generalizations wear the community and its members.


Morrison additionally includes the theme of lust and need in several of her novels. This presence of temptation implies a fair deeper theme of giving in to pleasures. It seems in Song of Solomon once Milkman’s automobile suddenly breaks down ahead of Solomon’s trading post in Shalimar, Virginia. deliverer walks outside, observes the ladies there, and decides that “He needed one in all them bad” (Song of Solomon 263), that clearly implies a desire that he needs to meet.desire_sticker_2pt75x4pt251 Another example of this same desire surfaces within the Bluest Eye once Polly Breedlove is fifteen and still exploring her sexuality: “Fantasies regarding men and love and touching were drawing her mind and hands faraway from her work” (The Bluest Eye 113), and this passage even goes as way as implying distraction from typical daily tasks as a result of she is therefore intent upon her “fantasies.” lust11Violet in Jazz additionally experiences this sense of need once she longs for her husband: “By and by yearning became heavier than sex: a panting, unmanageable craving” (Jazz 108), that shows her extreme devotion to obtaining what she needs. whereas a number of this delineated need could also be utterly healthy, this same need additionally encompasses a negative consequence in Morrison’s works also. the extreme desire practiced by several of her characters results in abuse of some type, in the main sexual. Examples embody deliverer (pursuing Sweet) in Song of Solomon, Cholly and Soaphead from The Bluest Eye, and Joe Trace from Jazz. The presence of lust and need seems over and over in Morrison’s novels to gift the cultural aspects of the characters and to visit feeling upon the readers.


While varied themes will be found plain-woven deep into every of Morrison’s novels, a number of the foremost rife area unit racism, sexism, and desire. She effectively ties her themes into the plots of her stories so the reader will truly get associate overall message that teaches a lesson or makes a comment regarding society. doubtless, the themes in Morrison’s works will connect and relate to additional peoples lives than she in all probability ever supposed, which is what makes her literature robust.

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JAZZ Toni Morrison Character Analysis Violet

JAZZ
Toni Morrison


Character Analysis
Violet

Extreme and forlorn, Violet is an erratic lady whose years of collected hardship at long last get up to speed with her at the age of fifty-six. Violet was raised by her mom, Climbed Dear, in Vienna, Virginia, as one of five youngsters. Her dad would leave the family for long extends of time and when the family's possessions were repossessed, Violet's mom dedicated suicide by tossing herself down a well. At the point when Violet wedded Joe Follow, she tried to escape the difficult times way of life of her youth by moving to the City. Neither she nor Joe had needed kids, yet as Violet develops more established, she starts to feel a profound yearning for something to love. Her association with Joe gets to be strained when she falls into wretchedness. When she discovers that Joe has undermined her with Dorcas, Violet tasks every last bit of her outrage, pity and dissatisfaction by slicing Dorcas' face at her burial service as she lies in her open coffin. In the months that take after, Violet hunt down peace and yearns to mend herself and her marriage, finding, at last, that she needs to "make it" by taking responsibility for bliss and declining to be a casualty.

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JAZZ Toni Morrison Character Analysis Joe Trace

JAZZ Toni Morrison Character Analysis Joe Trace


Joe is a kind-hearted and in a general sense great man who is driven by pity and apprehension to shoot and murder his young significant other, Dorcas. Like his wife, Violet, Joe's affliction stems in extensive part from his shaky and agonizing youth. At a youthful age, Joe is informed that he was embraced and that his mom left him "without a follow." An inclination of surrender and a vulnerability about his character infections Joe from that minute on. Joe subsequently does not know where he originates from and considers, erroneously, that he can't be finished without this data, accordingly conceding his bliss and looking to others to make him entirety. He is exceedingly respected in the Harlem group for being a better than average man and something in his face reminds late vagrants to the City of their rustic roots. He treats Violet well however when she gets to be discouraged he can't keep up a feeling of fulfillment. Regardless he searches for a lady to give the adoration that his mom, Wild, did not, and hence he tries to secure Dorcas' fondness by revering her. At the point when Dorcas disdains him, his torment is aggravated by a more profound anguish as he watches the third lady in his life surrender him. In this way, Joe's anguish blasts into a demonstration of viciousness in his homicide of Dorcas.

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JAZZ Toni Morrison

JAZZ
Toni Morrison


Character Analysis
Dorcas 





Likewise with Joe and Violet, Morrison describes the urgent occasions throughout Dorcas' life that formed her identity, making her more thoughtful than she would at first show up. As a young lady, Dorcas lost both of her guardians around the same time when her dad was killed on a streetcar and her mom kicked the bucket in a blazing building amid the East St. Louis riots, which left her stranded and destitute. Like so a considerable lot of the characters in the book, Dorcas relocated to the City where her life was to be revamped by the fanatical consideration of her auntie, Alice Manfred. On the other hand, as an adolescent, Dorcas starts to defy her auntie's old-molded tastes, and refashions herself as a sexually-alluring lady. Dorcas needs to be taken a gander at and respected and when Joe visits her auntie's home she effectively catches the more established man's look. The ethical quality of laying down with a wedded man who is mature enough to be her dad does not figure Dorcas' choice to be with Joe. Like a young lady, she is energetic for the endowments that he brings her and she gets to be irritable and ill humored when she doesn't get her direction. In any case, Dorcas additionally needs a power figure and when she understands that Joe is totally moldable she exhausts with him rapidly. Her new sweetheart, Acton, guarantees to shape Dorcas and control her, so she permits her personality to be made for her. At the point when Joe shoots Dorcas, she decides to bite the dust with a specific end goal to be viewed, making herself a saint by draining to death instead of setting off to the clinic. Then again, Morrison's storyteller sorts out the strings of her story to show how Dorcas as one sees her doesn't relate with her inside life.

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Theme of Jealousy in "Othello"

Theme of Jealousy in "Othello"


1. Introduction
Jealousy is a mental cancer. It is an emotion, and the word typically refers to the thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear, concern and anxiety over an anticipated loss or status of great personal value, particularly in reference to a human connection. Five characters in "Othello" by Shakespeare are victims of jealousy. Iago and Bianca are jealous about Cassio, Brabantio, Roderigo and Iago are jealous about Othello, and Othello becomes jealous of Desdemona. Emilia is not jealous about anyone but has a theory that jealousy is a constituent part of masculinity. Except Brabantio's jealousy of Othello and Iago's jealousy of Cassio, all characters are suffering from sexual jealousy - a jealousy which is triggered in a person when a sexual partner displays sexual interest in another person.
2. Iago's Jealousy of Cassio
Iago is a soldier who fights alongside Othello in his army. Proving loyal with every fight, Iago assumes that the upcoming promotion for lieutenant is imminent. Unfortunately, the promotion is given to Micheal Cassio instead. Iago cannot understand this appointment because Cassio is an inexperienced soldier who has no practical knowledge of battle. He is a man of theoretical learning. On the other hand, Iago is given the job of Ensign, or flag-bearer that is humiliating for a man who considers himself intellectually superior to everyone around him. Iago thus becomes jealous of Cassio who is now of higher rank and is young and handsome to boot.
3. Iago's Jealousy of Othello
Othello is a general in the Venetian defense forces. He is newly and happily married to an aristocratic Venetian woman, Desdemona. Iago is jealous of Othello's position and his ability to woo the young and alluring Desdemona. It is possible that Iago has his own secret passion for the Moor's new bride, and he is enraged at the idea of the "old black ram" attaining what he himself desires. Moreover, Iago is stuck in a loveless marriage to a woman who frequently nags him. Thus he is jealous of Othello and Desdemona's happiness in love. The jealously gets intensified when he hears a rumor that Othello has been sleeping with his wife, Emilia.
4. Brabantio's Jealousy of Othello
Brabantio is Desdemona's father. He is jealous of the Moor for stealing his daughter's love. He accuses his new son-in-law of being a "foul-thief". He becomes jealous because he knows that he will no longer be the most important person in Desdemona's life. After Desdemona makes it clear that she loves and honours her husband, Brabantio remains vindictive, and bitterly warns Othello that Desdemona may turn out to be a slut:
Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:
She has deceived her father, and may thee
No father has ever expressed a more hateful jealousy of his son-in-law as Brabantio.
5. Roderigo's Jealousy of Othello
Roderigo is a wooer of Desdemona. The lovesick Roderigo has trouble with his feelings for Desdemona and is jealous watching Othello and Desdemona in love. He follows Iago's directions easily because of his jealousy of Othello's relationship with Desdemona. Along with Iago and Brabantio, he berates and criticizes Othello about everything, including race. He expresses his jealousy of Othello's marriage to Desdemona by exclaiming,
What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe
If he can carry't thus!
6. Bianca's Jealousy of Cassio
Bianca is Cassio's prostitute girlfriend. She becomes sick with jealousy when Cassio gives her a handkerchief in order to copy Desdemona's handkerchief for him. Bianca is already unhappy with Cassio because he has not been to see her in a week, and the sight of a woman's handkerchief gives her an attack of jealousy. She throws handkerchief back at Cassio, tells him that he should give it to the whore he got it from, and declares that no matter where he got it, she is not about to copy it. Though Bianca's jealousy exists on a much smaller scale, it illustrates that the sentiment is universal.
7. Othello's Jealousy of Desdemona
Iago plants the seed of jealousy in Othello in Act 3, Scene 3. Iago convinces Othello that Desdemona has been an unfaithful wife; she has an affair with Cassio. Othello believes Iago's lies, despite that there is not much evidence. His jealousy leads him to be too trusting of Iago. As he begins to believe the accusations, his love, affection and kindness for Desdemona fade away. Othello's jealousy reaches its peak when his token of love for Desdemona, the handkerchief, is shown up in Cassio's possession. Othello is completely convinced that Desdemona is unfaithful and he kills her because he has not way to resolve his jealousy.
8. Iago's Remarks About Jealousy
Iago describes jealousy as a "green-eyed monster". The meat that this monster feeds on is a person's heart, which it eats away. At the same time, the monster mocks that person's heart, so that he or she feels shame. And the monster is insatiable, always gnawing away, so that the jealous person is never at peace.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on;
Iago also describes jealousy as a "poison" that consumes the jealous person, eating away at him and filling him with a passionate desire for revenge.
9. Emilia's Remarks About Jealousy
Emilia believes that jealousy does not need a cause. It is a beast that is born of itself and feeds on itself. The root of jealousy is not some action of infidelity but insecurity on the part of the one jealous. Throughout the play, Iago accuses Emilia of being unfaithful to him, just as Othello accuses Desdemona. She has never been untrue to Iago as Desdemona has never been untrue to Othello. Thus jealousy does not need an unfaithful act to inspire it. It is a part of a man or woman's nature.
But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
10. Conclusion
In short, jealousy, rooted in fear and anger, is a bad emotion to feel and bad quality to possess. Jealous people do very foolish things, particularly in the case of romantic and sexual jealousy. Abnormal jealousy is a very complex, passionate and fatal emotion that devours those who allow it to dominate their lives. This "green-eyed monster" kills Roderigo, Desdemona, Emilia and Othello. Brabantio has also died and Iago will die in the near future after a drawn out punishment. It is ironic that almost all of the characters in the play feel jealous about things that never actually happened -- baseless jealousy for the most part provokes their outbursts.
Notes Prepared By: Prof. Shahbaz Asghar

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Symbolism in Blake's Poetry

Symbolism in Blake's Poetry

Introduction
The poetry as well as the whole art of William Blake is abundant with symbols. There is hardly any poem in the "Songs of Innocence and Experience" which does not possess symbols. A symbol is an object which stands for something else as Shelley's wind symbolizes inspiration, Ted Hughes's Hawk symbolizes terrible destructiveness at the heart of nature and S.T. Coleridge's Albatross represents a psychological burden that feels like a curse. Most symbols are not like code signals, like traffic lights, where red means stop and green means go, but part of a complex language in which green can mean jealously or fertility, or even both, depending on context. The major symbols in Blake's poetry are; lamb, rose, children, tiger, garden, stars, forest, looms and net.
1. Lamb
William Blake loves lambs. They connect religion with both human and natural world. Traditionally, the lamb is a symbol of renewal, victory of life upon death, gentleness, tenderness and innocence. White colour of the lamb stands for purity. In the Christian Gospels, Jesus Christ is compared to a lamb because he goes meekly to be sacrificed on behalf of humanity. Moreover, lambs, as baby sheep, are connected to the theme of childhood that runs through the "Songs of Innocence". By contrast, "Songs of Experience" contains only one reference to a lamb. The Speaker of "The Tyger" asks, 

"Did he who made the lamb make thee"?

2. Rose
Sunflower, lily and rose are the common flowers that appear in Blake's poetry as symbols. Sunflower represents a man who is bound to earth, but is pinning for eternity. Lily is a symbol of love which is without any self-reference, neither defending itself nor causing any pain and destruction. Rose, as a symbol, has a rich and ancient history. In the ancient Rome, roses were grown in the funerary gardens to symbolize resurrection. According to medieval tradition, they represent chastity or virginity and thus are associated with young girls. In Christianity, the rose is a frequent symbol for the Virgin Mary, who is called a "rose without thorns". The rose garden is a symbol of paradise. However, the rose of William Blake symbolizes beauty, virginity, innocence and London. 
3. Children
On account of their playfulness and freshness, Blake sees children as symbols of imagination and artistic creativity. He also uses them as an image of innocence. The child motif emphasizes the suggestions of simplicity and lack of sophistication. Much of the moralistic teaching of Blake's day stressed the infant and boy Jesus as a figure with whom children could identify. However, the Gospel accounts of Jesus' birth and childhood include experience of human violence and so emphasize the vulnerability of the child. Thus like the lamb, the child represents gentleness and innocence, together with vulnerability and openness to exploitation.
4. Tiger
It is unclear what the tiger exactly symbolizes. It may symbolize the violent and terrifying forces within the individual man. The splendid but terrifying tiger makes us realize the God's purposes are not so easily understood. At the same time, the tiger is symbolic of the Creator's masterly skill which enabled Him to frame the "fearful symmetry" of the tiger. But the lion described in the poem "Night" offers an interesting contrary to the tiger. Both the beasts seem dreadful, but the lion, like the beast of the fairy tale, can be magically transformed into a good and gentle creature: the tiger cannot. The tiger also represents the energy and imagination of man. Really, the list is almost infinite. The point is, the tiger is important, and Blake's poem "The Tyger" barely limits the possibilities.
5. Garden
The garden is a symbol providing the location of love and temptation leading to captivity. The garden is commonly recalled in the "Songs of Experience". In the garden, mankind is walled or fenced off from his neighbours; man tends his own desires, particularly by self-conscious affections and jealousies. The garden is a sickly consolation among the evils of London. There are "Soft Gardens" and "Secret Gardens". In a garden of delight, mankind is surrounded by shadows. Urizen himself planted a "garden of fruits". This is Eden, never associated with innocence, but always with temptation, the tree of mystery and forbidden knowledge. This aspect of Eden is prototype of Blake's symbol of the garden.
6. Stars
Stars are often used to symbolize heavenly bodies, purity, distance, light in the darkness, unattainable things, good luck and eternity. In dreams, a shooting star is a sign of self-fulfillment and advancement in life. However, Blake uses the star symbol in his own specific sense. The stars are never romantic. At one level, stars and darkness are commonly assumed to endanger health. The symbol of the stars assumes another dimension when it is associated with material and spiritual repression. This is said to reflect Blake's reaction against the rational thoughts of his times.
7. Forest
The forest, that seems to overgrow the hills of Innocence, with its impenetrable superstition, is one of Blake's most powerful symbols. The conventional beginning is seen in the "Poetical Sketches" where the "thickest shades" provide concealment from the sun in "To Summer", and in "To the Evening Star", the lion "glares through the dense forest". This poem is typical in its refined holiness of eighteenth century mannerism, which Blake soon outgrew. In "Songs of Innocence", the groves of "Night" and "The Little Black Boy" still occur in a religious context, and we are moving towards the mention in "America" where the Royalist oppressors crouch terrified in their caverns.
8. Looms and Net
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. In the prophetic books, the symbols of loom, with the action of weaving, the web and the net represent the soft, delusive terror of sexual dominance and these symbols run together. "The silken net" in "How Sweet I Roamed from Field to Field", suggests the trap of tenderness. The eighteenth century sought in public works to slave its conscience over prostitution, poverty and disease. For Blake, it was hypocrisy, while the old order perpetuated itself, and an oppressive social and moral code fostered the destitution and traffic in childhood that all professed to deplore.
Conclusion
It is established that Blake is a highly symbolic poet. His use of symbolism is unique and cinematic. It paints a lively and pulsating picture of dynamic life before us. He has depicted nature and human nature; animals and plants as simple but profound symbols of powerful forces. What is different in Blake is that he is not modeling after any symbols but his own. His handling of symbols is markedly different from that of the French symbolists. His symbols are not mechanical or inflexible. He has used archetypal symbolism in his poetry. In short, symbolism is the main trait of William Blake as a poet and this has been well crystallized in his legendary work, "The Songs of Innocence and Experience".

Notes Prepared By: Prof. Shahbaz Asghar

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Critical Appreciation of "Kubla Khan"

Critical Appreciation of "Kubla Khan"

1. One of the Best Poems of Coleridge
"Kubla Khan" is one of those three poems which have kept the name of Coleridge in the forefront of the greatest English poets -- the other two being "The Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel", and all of the three having been written in 1797 and 1798 dealing with "persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic.". All these three poems were composed when intimate friendship existed between Coleridge and Wordsworth. "Kubla Khan" is considered one of the most famous examples of Romanticism in English poetry. A copy of the manuscript is a permanent exhibit at the British Museum in London. 
2. The Origin of the Poem
One night in 1797, Coleridge was not feeling all that great. To dull the pain, he took a dose of laudanum. Soon he fell asleep and had a strange dream about Kubla Khan, because before falling asleep, he had been reading a story from "Purchas' Pilgrims" in which Kubla Khan commanded the building of a new palace. Coleridge dreamt that he was writing a poem in his sleep, and when he woke up after two hours, he sat down to record the poem. He meant to write two to three hundred lines, but he was interrupted by a tailor from Porlock, who had come to see him on business. When he came back to the poem, he had forgotten the rest. The 54 lines he did manage to scribble out turned into one of the most famous and enduring poems in English literary history. 
3. Title of the Poem
The main title of the poem is just plain "Kubla Khan". It is a pretty great name. Kubla Khan was the fifth Khangan of the Mongol Empire, reigning from 1260 to 1294. He founded the Yuan Dynasty in China in 1271. He was the fourth son of Tolui and a grandson of Genghis Khan. Thus the title sets a tone for the poem. It transports us to another place and time before we even get started. However, there is another piece. The full title is: "Kubla Khan: Or A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment". "A Vision is a Dream" signifies that the poem is an edifice of a charmed sleep. This is "A Fragment" because Coleridge intended to write two to three hundred lines but could only write 54 due to the interruption of a person. 
4. Themes of the Poem
The major themes of the poem are; creative power of imagination, man and the natural world, and time. The power of imagination is the ultimate creative power. In the last part of the poem, the imagination of Coleridge constructs "pleasure-dome in air". The interaction between man and nature is also a major theme for Coleridge. It is painted all over "Kubla Khan", as we go from the dome to the river, and then from the garden to the sea. Sometimes he has focused on human characters, sometimes on natural forces. Finally, different understandings of time is a major theme of the poem. Is Coleridge recalling the Kubla Khan of the past, or someone who transcends our linear notion of time? 
5. Poetic Structure of the Poem
"Kubla Khan" is a fifty-four line lyric. It has two parts and four stanzas. It is written in iambic tetrameter and pentameter. Iambic just means that the poem is made up of lots of two-syllable units, in which the stress is placed on the second syllable. It has an alternating rhyme scheme in each stanza. Stanza one has a rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDEDE, stanza two has a rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDDFFGGHIIHJ, stanza three has a rhyme scheme of ABABCC, and stanza four has a rhyme scheme of ABCCBDEDEFGFFFGHHG. In short, the poem has a disorganized structure and different in structure from other poems composed by Coleridge. 
6. Symbolism in the Poem
The pleasure-dome, the river Alph, mighty fountain, mazy motion, tumult, ancestral voices and mingled measure are the major symbols in the poem. The pleasure-dome symbolizes immortality and majesty. The river Alph is a symbol of life and force. The ceaseless turmoil of the earth, the fountain forced out with half intermittent burst, the fragments rebounding like hail and the dancing rocks represent agony and power. The mazy motion suggests uncertain and blind progress of the human soul and the complexities of human life. The tumult is associated with war. The ancestral voices stand for that dark compulsion that binds the race to its habitual conflicts. The mingled measure suggests the blend of fundamental opposites, creation and destruction. 
7. The Supernatural in the Poem
Supernatural elements are peppered throughout the poem. The sacred river, the caverns measureless to man, the sunless sea, the deep romantic chasm, the woman wailing for her demon lover, the half-intermittent burst of water from the mighty fountain, the ancestral voices prophesying war, the shadow of the dome floating midway on the waves and the Abyssinian maid -- they all create a world of magic, wonder and enchantment. The frenzy in which the poet is in the last part of the poem also contributes to its supernatural vein. 

For he on honey-dew hath fed, 
And drunk the milk of paradise.

8. Imagery in the Poem
The whole poem is a succession of visual, auditory, thermal, kinesthetic and gustatory images. Visual imagery include; the pleasure dome, the sacred river, the measureless caverns, the deep romantic chasm, the woman wailing for her demon lover, the Abyssinian maid, and the poet himself. The prophecies of war, the song of Abyssinian maid and the warning of the people listening the story of the poet are auditory images. Sun and ice are thermal images. Kinesthetic images include; fragments tossing like hail, chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail, the floating shadow of dome on the waves, and the magic circles drawn by people around the poet. Feeding on honey-dew and drinking the milk of paradise are examples of gustatory images.
9. The Romantic Elements in the Poem
Imagination, supernaturalism, sensuousness, exploration of nature and magical spell are the major romantic elements in "Kubla Khan". The entire poem is based on a vision Coleridge had during an opium trance. The woman wailing for her demon lover and the ancestral voices prophesying war; are obviously supernatural occurrences. The bright gardens, the incense bearing trees, the sunny spots of greenery, the half intermittent burst of the mighty fountain and the rocks vaulting like rebounding hail - are highly sensuous images and explore nature. The poet's eyes and his floating hair are connected with magic. In short, like a true romantic poem, it is a product of pure fancy, a work of sheer imagination and is, therefore, a wholly romantic composition.
10. Sounds in the Poem
The poem is a perfect piece of music. It has all kinds of sounds, movements and tones. When the river is crashing through the caves, we imagine the pounding of kettledrums. The word "rebounding" in "Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail" has a hollow, open sound. Then, when we travel through the gardens, we hear the soft sounds of the woodwinds. The scary, flashing-eyed figure that appears at the end reminds us of the horns, sharp and brassy and starling. The words "Beware! Beware!" are blurted out, quick and loud, like the sound of a trumpet blaring out a warning. Thus the poem is a journey of sounds. It tries to use the effects of language as if they were different parts of an orchestra.
Notes Prepared By: Prof. Shahbaz Asghar

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