Q. Comment on the Byronic hero in Don Juan.
A hero is the chief person in poem, story, and play. Who is respected for bravery or noble qualities? He is a man of character having strong personality. He works for the nation and not for his own interest. But the Byronic heroes are of unconventional type. In his famous satiric epic, Don Juan, Byron describes the type of his hero in the very beginning line of canto- I
“I want a hero, an uncommon want”
Byronic hero is a vicious and unprincipled character and leads him through those ranks of society, where high external accomplishments cover and cloak internal and secret vices.
Byron creates his hero to disclose the hypocrisy and the corruption of high society. Don Juan is none but a mouth– piece of Byron to disclose his own character, personality and philosophy who is not purely good or dignified, rather a mixture of both good and evil.
Don Juan is the son of Don Jose and Donna Ines. He is a handsome boy of sixteen. He is tall, slender but well- knit. He seems to be very active and precocious. Byron describes him in the following way----------
“Young Juan now was sixteen years of age,
Tall, handsome, slender but well-knit: he seemed active”
Don Juan is rouge. He does not hesitate to illicit physical touch with Donna Julia, a woman of his mother’s age. She is the wife of Don Alforso and a friend of Don Juan’s family, who is unhappy, married. Byron describes his nature as a mischief making monkey from his birth.
Don Juan is wicked to the backbone. But he is humble and obedient to his mother. He never revolt against the rules imposed by his mother. He is always seen greed his mother’s advice. We find Don Juan undertaking sea travel after the liking of his mother. Heroes in general are well educated. But Don Juan is educated on a personal syllabus designed by his mother which is far from being practical. His education includes some religious and moralistic knowledge.
Byron’s heroes are brave and restless. When Don Juan’s illicit love affair is discovered, he is sent to European countries for four years by his mother. He is brave enough to sail out to unknown sea as for an uncertain and risky life. Byron’s heroes are lovers of freedom. Don Juan has been used by Byron to satirize the existing society. Byron does not hesitate to say “only the bond of marriage cannot make a conjugal life happy.”
In context of the delineation as stated above we come across that the poem Don Juan is abound with the elements of Byronic hero and Byron achieves success in evoking it to a great extent.
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Great Expectations
----- Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens is the name of a dominating of Victorian novelist. Social picture is reflected through his novels. Great Expectations is a great novel of Charles Dickens. The title of Great expectations has been entitled according to the expectation of various characters of this novel. It is an autobiographical novel because the struggle and grief of the novelist has been reflected through his mouthpiece Pip.
In the story of this novel we come to see that Pip is an orphan who is being brought up under the nourishment of Mr. and Mrs. Joe. When the parents of Pip died they requested Mrs. Joe to look after Pip and to educate him. Mrs. Joe undertook the responsibility with a great promise but she has broken her promise not to nourish Pip properly because she is highly materialistic. She insisted Pip to be a blacksmith under the guidance of Mr. Joe instead of going to school. But Mr. Joe wanted to educate Pip.
One day Pip went to visit a broken church beside the house of Mr. Joe. Suddenly, he saw a convicted criminal in that broken church. The criminal was tied up with chain, which has fled away from the jail. Criminal threatened Pip to bring some food and file because he was very hungry. At the very beginning Pip refused the request of that criminal named Abel Magwitch. Finding no other alternative Pip went to steal food and file for him. Getting food file Abel Magwitch became set free and he was highly grateful to Pip.
Now Pip is a small blacksmith. Pip got an opportunity from Miss. Havisham, who was looking for a servant to look after her house. Mr. Joe informed Miss. Havisham that there is a boy named Pip. Mrs. Joe was unwilling to permit Pip to go because she wants to make him a blacksmith. But Mr. Joe helps Pip to go to the residence of Miss. Havisham, who is very aristocratic, proud, haughty, cruel and hardhearted woman
At first, Pip is not cordially received by Estella; the proud, haughty and very beautiful girl. She does not like to be the friend of Pip. Actually she is the puppet of Miss. Havisham’s hand. Miss. Havisham has no sympathy for male. Because, she determined to marry Compeyson, but she cheated by him in the field of love. She has taken decision that not to show any sympathy to any lover.
Suddenly, Pip gets another opportunity to go to Landon for his western education. But he does not know who the real benefactor of his life is. It is his idea that Miss. Havisham has undertaken this responsibility of educating him western education. Mr. Jaggars has been appointed as the lawyer of Pip’s education. Now Pip and Mr. Jaggars have reached the city of
Estella marred with Drummule and she is passing her days through a hazardous journey. She cherished a great expectation that she will had a happy conjugal life but all of her hopes and dream are nipped in the bud because the alcoholism of Drummule. The nostalgia has caught the whole identity of Estella that she has mistaken a great mistake to neglect and reject Pip.
In the city of
So, undoubtedly Great Expectations is a famous novel of Charles Dickens. We see the happy ending and also the fulfillment of great expectations. The title is very much meaningful according to the theme of the novel.
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Q. Discuss the four voyage of Gulliver.
Swift is one of the distinguished prose artists of the neo-classical age and his satirical masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels make him widely known. Gulliver’s Travels is a fierce indictment on human vices and follies. It has the rare merit of appealing to both old and young as a powerful satire on man and human institutions and as a fascinating tale of travel in wonderland. Throughout the four voyages, Swift under the persona of Gulliver ruthlessly exposes the shortcomings of every aspect of human life and civilization.
Gulliver’s Travels is an adventure story and a fanciful of account of strange and wonderful lands. The entire work of Gulliver Travels is divided into four voyages; every voyage is an adventure in itself. Every land which Gulliver visits is a wonderful land and Gulliver’s experiences everywhere are strange, exciting or amusing.
In the first voyage of Gulliver’s Travels dealing with the Lilliputians. In Lilliput, Gulliver meets people who are pigmies, are not more than six inches high. The Lilliputians are tiny people; they are smaller than vermin’s, they are in miniature form like dolls. The manner in which several ladders are applied by the Lilliputian to Gulliver’s sides so that they may climb up in order to provide food to him is even more amusing. In the metropolis of Lilliput, Gulliver becomes an object of curiosity; he is given the name “man-mountain”. Gulliver helps the king of Lilliput to defeat the forces of the enemy country which is called Blefuscu. The manner in which he cripples the enemy fleet is exciting as well as amusing. The customs of the Lilliputians are also a source of great amusement to us. This miniature form of man signifies that man is not the best creature; he has no greatness, no nobility and no nationality.
Gulliver’s next voyage to Brobdingnog. In Brobdingong, Gulliver meets people who are like monsters or giants, who are twelve times the height of Gulliver. Here too Gulliver becomes an object of curiosity for the inhabitants though for the opposite reason. The animal and the insects in this land are also very huge. For instance, a cat here is three times larger than an ox in
In the third part of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver is another wonderful land Leputa, Balnibarbi and Japan etc. In this voyage Gulliver gives us an account of the people of the flying island, Laputa. These people too have their absurdities and shortcomings. The women of Laputa, however, are in no way like their men, the Laputian wives are gay, vivacious woman who bridle at their confinement on the flying island. They deceive their husband.
Another strange feature of life on Leputa is that mutton, beef, pudding, and other eatables are given geometrical shapes or the shapes of musical instruments. The men on this voyage island are so busy in their cogitations. In this voyage Gulliver meets people who are scientists, inventors, innovators and philosophers. The projects taken by the scientists of Lagado expose the irrationality of the intellectuals in undertaking researches which can yield no practical results. The account of the Academy is a satire an projectors, academies, planners, intellectuals, infact all people who proceed according to theory are useless when it comes to actual practice. Swift has actually attacked the intellectual values of human beings.
In the fourth part of Gulliver’s Travels we find another wonderful land the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms. This is Gulliver’s last voyage. The Houyhnhnms are actually horses who posses a very handsome appearance. They are naturally virtuous and no evil qualities. They are perfectly national. The horses can even teach their language to a human being. Gulliver picks up the language of the Houyhnhnms and then has regular conversations with his master who is a horse and with whom Gulliver is able to exchange ideas and information. The Houyhnhnms have a wonderful organization and a perfect system by which they govern themselves. They are guided in all their actions by “Reason, Truth and Nature”. On the otherhand, Yahoos who are dirty, ugly looking and brutish and who are completely devoid of reason or rationality. By contrast with the Houyhnhnms the Yahoos are hateful and detestable.
Gulliver was living happily among the Houyhnhnms. In this country there was no danger at all of the treachery of a friend or of any injury from a secret or open enemy, because the society of the Houyhnhnms was totally free from such evils. Gulliver would feel impressed by the virtue and wisdom of the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver had now even begun to imitate the manner of talking and the manner of walking of the Houyhnhnms.
From the above discussion, it can be conclude that it has become almost a practice to consider the views of the protagonist to be autobiographical of the author. Finally, it must be pointed out that it is not enough to describe Gulliver’s Travels merely as an adventure story or a tale of wonder. It is a satiric masterpiece in which Swift exposes human follies and absurdities.
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Short note:
Jonathan Swift:
Jonathan Swift was born
Q. Explain Keats as an escapist.
Keats is quite objective and impersonal. His poetry is of the beauty, for the beauty and by the beauty. For him, beauty is the truth. He is a worshiper of senses but he is not ‘fleshy’ or merely physical. There is a quality of the spiritual in his poetry.
Keats’s escapism is based on not only his fear for the hard realities of life but his longing for the dreamy world of permanent happiness of the joyous world.
In his Ode to a Nightingale, he represents his escapism. Keats’s Nightingale is a sweet singing bird. It is the voice of the perfect and secures happiness, beauty and love for which the unhappy young poet longed and which always appeared to be beyond his grasp. Keats is an unfortunate fellow. The death of his mother in tuberculosis, his brother’s death and finally Fanny Brawne’s betrayal make him utterly frustrated about life. So he wants to make flight to the world of Nightingale, the world of imagination which will provide him with a utopia free from pangs and agonies of the real life. He knows he is going to die so it pains him because he would be deprived of the beautiful song of Nightingale. He says -----
“Darkling I listen, and for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death”
In his another poem Ode on Melancholy, the poet shows an equal awareness of the final realities of life. He does not indulge in any ideal fabrication of beauty and joy because he already knows that both of them are temporary in character. He says
“She dwells with Beauty–Beauty that must die
And joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu.”
Ultimately Keats comes back to the real world. In fact, art is not an escape from life but an escape into life. Art opens the horizon to lose oneself into the real world. Actually Keats achieves this state of attitude towards life. This lies in the core of Ode to a Nightingale.
A host of critics have said that Nightingale is the symbol of sorrow and agony. So Keats wants to win the adversities of life being overpowered by them. Finally with his last word ‘forlorn’ he abruptly comes back to the real world because art does not make a man escape life, rather it makes the man capable to face life with all its dimensions.
Actually Keats has dealt with each one of them will full poetic justice. All moods have been put across with equal perfection of art and language and this makes the odes of Keats new in themselves. All the Odes of Keats carry the different moods and different ideas.
Pidgin: A pidgin is a contract language or lingua franca, a mixture of elements from different natural languages. Its use is usually restricted to certain groups, e.g. traders and seamen. Pidgin traders communicate with the local population or workers or with their bosses. It has limited vocabulary, reduced grammatical structure. Elements from another language have been absorbed in the form of vocabulary or in the form of sentence structure. e.g. - Bahasa Pasar (pidginized form of Malay) spoken by Chinese, on-Malays in
“It often happens that, to communicate with each other, two or more people use a language in a variety whose grammar and vocabulary are very much reduced in extent and which is native to neither side. Such a language is a Pidgin.”
-----Robt. Hall
“The process of pidginization is usually assumed to begin when a language is used only for very limited communication between groups who speak different native languages. Sharply restricted in domains of use, it undergoes varying degrees of simplification and admixture. If a new stable variety of the language emerges from this process, it might be described as a pidgin.”
-----John Rickford
In the nineteenth century, when slaves from Africa were brought over to
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Creole: when a pidgin becomes a lingua franca. It is called a creole. Creoles are classified according to the language from which most of their vocabulary comes. e.g. - English based, French based, Portuguese based, Jamaican creole, Hawaiian creole, Krio in
“A creole language arises when a pidgin becomes the native language of a speech community.”
-----Robt. Hall
“Pidginization is usually associated with simplification in outer form, creolization with complication in outer form. The component processes of pidginization and creolization occur generally in languages.”
-----Dell Hymes
Thus a creole may acquire a standardized grammar, vocabulary and sound- system. And it may then be spoken by an increasing number of people as their first language. It exist most often in post –colonial areas, where they tend to be the vernacular of spontaneous daily use, are native languages acquired as mother tongues. It has neither such history, nor much prestige either. A creole or a creolized language is a mixed natural language composed of elements of different languages in areas of intensive contact.
Short notes: (A). Regional Dialect. (B). Social Dialect.
A regional, temporal or social variety within a single language is a Dialect. It differs in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary from the standard language, which is in itself a socially favoured dialect. So a dialect is a variation of language sufficiently different to be considered a separate entity within a language but not different enough to be classed as a separate language. Everyone speaks in Dialect. One of the most common Dialects is.
(A). Regional Dialect: A regional dialect is a variety of language according to the geographical location of the speaker. Two factors that come into play are distance and time. A language undergoes internal differentiation a speakers distance themselves from one another over time a space. When speakers of the same language are separated from one another by space or some physical barrier, each group then speaks the language in some distinctive ways. The extent to which members of a language community are isolated by these barriers, their speech patterns will diverge, resulting in speech change.
British Vs American
In hospital In the hospital
Next day The next day
Have you-------? Do you have-----?
First Floor Second Floor
(B). Social Dialect: A Social dialect is a variety of language, spoken by the members of a particular group or stratum of a speech community. There are differences in social dialects between different social groups. Social dialect would be a variety associated with a specific social class, marking that class off from other classes. Social dialects refer to non- regional differences. They depend on factors such as social class, gender and age. Thus, people in the same social group tend to be more similar in language than people from different social groups living in the same region.
Morpheme: Morpheme is the minimum grammatical unit. Such as the four components un, -faith, -ful, -ness of unfaithfulness are called morphemes. Morphemes are customarily described as minimal units of grammatical analysis—the units of “lowest” rank out of which words, the units of next “highest” rank are composed. Morpheme may or may not have meaning, may or may not have a phonological representation. A morpheme may be monosyllabic as (man, a, an, the) and polysyllabic as (happy, nature). A morpheme has been called ‘a grammatical moneme’ by Martinet. Another synonym for the morpheme is ‘glosseme’.
Acquisition Vs learning: The term ‘acquisition’ is used to refer to picking up a second language through exposure, whereas the term ‘learning’ is used to refer to the conscious study of a second language. However, I wish to keep an open mind about whether this is a real distinction or not, so I shall use ‘acquisition’ and ‘learning’ interchangeably, irrespective of whether conscious or subconscious processes are involved. If I wish to use either of these terms with a more specific meaning, they will be italicized and their reference made explicit.
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George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans, who is known to her readers by her pen-name of George Eliot. She was born in Warwickshire in 1819. Her father became the estate agent of Francis Newdigate. In 1801, he had married Harriott Poynton and she had two children. In 1813, he married Christiana Pearson who had three children like Christina, Isaac and Mary Ann Evans. The second family moved from Arbury to Griff. In1824, Mary Ann Evans was sent to a boarding school with Christina in Warwickshire. For a few years, she studied at two private schools, but the death of her mother made it necessary for her to leave school at the age 17 to take the charge of her father’s house. Thereafter, her education was gained by miscellaneous reading. She continued to study French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek and Music. Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Romola and Middlemarch are famous novels of George Eliot. She was one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian age. She died in 1880.
Silas Marner
Silas Marner is a brief tale of the redemption of an embittered miser through love. The character Silas Marner is a handloom weaver. He is a good man whose life has been wrecked by a false accusation of theft. For years he lives a lonely life and a though he makes a lot of money and is able to accumulate quite a treasure but it is all stolen from him by an unscrupulous young son of a good family. Then he is saved from his state of despair by his chance finding of a little girl whom he loves like his own daughter. Silas Marner is allowed to live out the rest of his days with the child in peace.
Discuss the character of Silas Marner.
Silas Marner is the hero of the novel Silas Marner by George Eliot. He is first introduced as a pallid man with brown strong eyes to us. He leads a lonely life. In the novel, he is a human weaver. He is a good man whose life has been wrecked by a false accusation of theft. For years he lives a lonely life and although he lives a lonely life, he makes a lot of money and is able to accumulate quite a treasure but it is all stolen from him by an unscrupulous young son of a good family. There he is saved from his state of despair by his chance finding of a little girl whom he loves like his own daughters. He was allowed to live out the rest of his days with the child in peace.
Silas Marner does not go to the church and also to the village Inn. In the beginning, he is presented to us as a man having no faith in God and humanity. A bit of cynicism has crept into him. He has settled in the
Silas Marner’s purposelessness of life exerts a degrading influence upon him. His life becomes narrow and selfish-the mechanical life of an insect which has no relation with any other being. He grows to be a miser. He becomes to love his gold. His highest enjoyment is to touch and see his gold and to count his gold. Having an eye of his gold gives him more pleasure than his food even when he is hungry. But it was all stolen by an unscrupulous young son of a good family. His grief at his loss is touching in the extreme. He is rescued by the coming of little Eppie. She fills the blank created by the thief. Silas Marner thinks that the child has come in compensation for his gold. His life is changed. He thinks of money only in relation to the needs of Eppie. Eppie links his life to that of his neighbours. His love is revived and his faith in God and man is rekindled. His love for Eppie brings into the play the bright side of the character. For the good of Eppie, he forgets his old routine of hoarding guineas. After that, Silas Marner lives a happy life with Eppie.
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Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy is a Victorian novelist. He was profoundly influenced by his age and his environments. Hardy’s conception of life is essentially tragic and his attitude of life is melancholic and depressive. He represents the Victorian crisis in his novels. The Victorian period is morally degraded and full of realism but it has a lack of faith. Thomas hardy has a subtle art to represent realism through the story of his novels. As a novelist of the 19th century he has written some distinguished and note-worthy novels. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is one of the well known novels of him and it claims the best novel of the world because it represents the Victorian crisis through some characters.
Tess is the heroine of this novel who was born in a poor family. She is passing her life in poverty and starvation. For her poverty she was educated up to class seven. Though she is poor but she possesses exquisite beauty. The beauty of Tess is compared with Hellenic beauty. Tess is a girl of patience, struggle, endurance at the same time she is a girl of sincerity and honesty. She is not a self-contred girl rather she is self sacrificing.
Tess is a girl who has a closed, relation to with the rustic people. She is highly beautiful and promising girl. Actually, the beauty of Tess is one kind of temptation for the male. Beauty is the most valuable position of the life of Tess. She is very proud for her enchanting beauty. Once we see a black storm in her life, which has capsized the life of Tess. That black storm has been created by the villain Mr. Alec.
Mr. Alec is the villain of this novel, who has a lost of property. He wears a mask. He has dual nature externally he seems to be an angle but externally he is a devil. Alec was worshiped by the so-called people of the then society. One day Alec saw Tess when she was grazing her cattle’s in the field. To see the beauty of Tess he gazed at her with his tempting eyes.
Mr. Alec offered his love to Tess but she denied his proposal. He expresses his love again and again but she does not accept his proposal. At last Alec became angry and wonted to loot her chastity. Tess implored to Alec not to take her chastity but who hears whose word? One night circumstances contrived against her and in a state of semi-consciousness he looted her all, what a virgin can boast of. When Alec seduces her, Tess says ----“I have been lost, I’ve been ruined.”
Tess, after losing her chastity is fallen indulged in the ocean of grief and the darkness. She is thinking that possibility of happy conjugal life has ended. Alec has threatened Tess not to disclose this incident to anybody. She has become pregnant because of the seduction of Alec before the marriage. The parents of Tess are consoling her to forget the incident because she was the victim of circumstances. And at the same time they also advice her to abort the child.
But Tess is fully determined to give her child a golden opportunity because she wanted to take revenge on Mr. Alec. Tess has become the mother of a child. She named him Sorrow because his life is full of sadness and darkness. Tess is very hopeful and optimistic to take revenge with the help of Sorrow. But two years, later Sorrow had died and her all hopes all dreams are ripped the bad.
Now, Tess is seriously shocked and frustrated and her dream has totally been capsized through the death of Sorrow. Tess has continued her lamentation for same days. Gradually smile returned upon her lips, though contemplation had become her temperament. After two long years she again stared to earn her livelihood as a dairy maid. She wants to forget her gloomy past but she cannot forget it. In the dairy where she worked as a dairy maid she introduced with Angle Clare.
Angle Clare is young, energetic, smart, handsome good looking and a well educated man. Seeing the beauty of Tess he falls in love at first sight. He offered his love to Tess and he wanted to marry her because he did not know the gloomy past of the life of Tess. He thinks that Tess is an innocent girl. Tess strongly opposed Angel Clare’s proposal to marry her because she did not want to deceive him. To Angle Clare, Tess says ---------
“If I would tell you my past history
You would begin to hate me.”
Angle Clare is fully determined to marry Tess. He reveals his love to Tess again and again. At last we see the change of mind of Tess and she accepts his proposal. But before marriage she appeals to Angle to say something about her past life because she believes in simplicity and frank speaking. But Angle Clare answered that I don’t hear anything. Actually he is infatuated with the beauty of Tess.
Now, Angle Clare has married Tess but at the wedding night he wants to know about her past life. Tess has fallen in a tantalizing situation and finding no other alternative she is bound to say about her past incidence. Tess confessed her guilt to Angle Clare--------------
“I was a Child – a child when it happened
I know nothing of men.”
Knowing the gloomy past of the life of Tess, Angle becomes very shocked but eventually he consoles his mind that I have married her and she is my wife. The parents of Angle Clare did not accept Tess as a wife of Angle Clare. Because she was born in a poor family and worked as dairy maid. There is a conflict between Tess and the parents of Angle Clare. They decided to send Clare to
Tess has decided to go to her parental house because she thinks that Angle has totally forgotten her. She also thinks that perhaps Angle wills never com back and she has no faith on Angle. Tess is now in her parental house where she meets again Mr. Alec. He wanted to marry Tess but she did not pay heed. He says to Tess that Angle Clare is a cheat he will never come back. At last he is prevailing upon marry Tess. The former she accepted, the latter she rejected. After passing few days we see that Alec is more cheat than Angle. Tess is passing her ways very pessimistically and at the same time she is waiting to take revenge to Alec.
On the other side, Angle failed in his experiences over the Brazilian soils. He thinks that he has done injustice with his wife. To seek happiness in arms of his wife he returned to his home and knows about all the calamities which Tess had to face. When Tess heard that Angle Clare has come back she murder Alc. The following morning she is arrested. Angle Clare has heard the news that Tess has murdered Alec he goes to the prison to meet Tess. Tess says -----
“Oh, you have you’re my life all to pieces
Oh, God – I can’t bear this”
After that Tess had asked Angle in the name of intense and true love to marry with Liza-Lu after her death.
Eventually, it can be said that Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles is undoubtedly a pessimistic novel. Here we see the tragic death of our heroine. But as the story progresses the reader is drawn to a very full understanding of Tess’s character. So Tess as the heroine claims to be the brilliant example of supreme sacrifice in the field of love and straggle which she has, of course proved through sacrificing her life.
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Q. What is mock heroic epic? Do you consider, The Rape of the Lock mock-heroic epic?
Alexander Pope’s masterpiece The Rape of the Lock mirrors the picture of the 18th century society. He is very artistically upholds the ins and outs of people’s life, behavior, attitude of that society. He also represents vulgarity, vanity, affection, fashion, fops and false wit, fake social prestige, bondage of the then upper class people.
Mock-heroic epic is a long narrative poem like an epic poem in which trivial things are mockingly treated in a heroic manner. A heroic style is imitated. Little is made great and the great little in order to make the little and insignificant look more ridiculous. So The Rape of the Lock is a mock–heroic epic poem.
In the story of this epic we come to see that there is a conflict between Belinda and the Baron. Belinda is the heroine in this epic who was born in a royal family. She is a very fashionable woman. Belinda is the most famous character in Pope’s poetry. She is a bundle of contradiction. On the other hand she is the object of satire, goddess of beauty and charm. Through this epic Pope describes the flippancy and depravity of the English society through the character of Belinda.
Belinda represents the typical fashionable ladies of the time. What is her life and how does she spend her day? There is not the slightest glimpse of seriousness or sincerity goodness or grandeur of human life in any of he words and action. Belinda is a beautiful lady, she is a flirt and coquette.
“Favours to none, to all she smiles extends
Oft she rejects, but never she offends.”
The Rape of the Lock is a social satire. The aim of it is the reformation of men, women and manners. The poem reflection of aristocratic, artificial life and painted with a humourous, delicate satire. It shows the idle life of the pleasure- seeking young men, women and use it introduces us to a world of frivolity and fashion. Physically beauty bound to fade without good sense. The whole panorama is limited of the 18th century, which is totally meaningless and purposeless.
Belinda loves her lap-dog more than her lovers. The poet satirizes her, for her idealness. After weakling, she must perform her toilet. Her dressing table has a number of expensive beautifying articles like powder paint, jewellery boxes. In tact Belinda is in with her own beauty. The toilet table is like a church to her. Pope calls her the goddess of beauty. Pope says----
“How awful beauty puts on all its arms;
The fair each moment rises in her charms.”
The toilette in fact is the great business of her life and the right adjustment of her hair, the decoration of her face. The beauty of Belinda’s elaborating description of her toilette in this epic. In this epic Pope show her satirical, outward charms and the inward frivolity of fashionable ladies. Their hearts are toy-shops.
In The Rape of the Lock Pope gives a detailed description of the scene. Where Belinda’s beautiful lock of hair is to be raped. The poet in a very subtle manner satirizes of the English queen palace. At was in this palace that Belinda and her companions played cards and enjoyed coffee. And it was here that her lock of hair was cut off. Belinda is a very much frustrated and upset by losing he hair. Pope says----
“With varying vanities from every part
They shift the moving toyshop of their heart”
In fine, it is the masterpiece creation of Pope, where he shown his extra-ordinary creativity. He expresses the fashion, behavior, vanity, affection and the life style of the fashionable ladies of that time.
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Tom Jones
-----Henry fielding
Henry Fielding is the father of English novel. He had a very interesting personality. He had a deep knowledge of life which he gained from his own experiences. He began his literary career as a playwright but his best work is a novel Tom Jones. The title of Tom Jones has been entitled according to the name of the hero, Tom Jones.
Tom Jones, the hero of this novel is an illegitimate child and the foster son of Squire Allworthy. Squire Allworthy regards him as Jenny Jones’s son. He is a well-formed handsome personality. Fielding invests him with the beauty of Adonis and the strength of Hercules, besides; he is a robust, youngman a tireless worker, a fearless rider and a boxer in strength and agility almost a match for a professional.
In the story of this novel we came to see that Tom is a foundling who is being brought up under the nourishment of Allworthy and his sister Bridget. However, sometimes it appears as if Bridge prefers the founding even to her own son. It is both astonishing and praise worthy that in spite of son unfavorable circumstances Tom grows up into a very healthy youngman, free from any mental complexes and retains the innate goodness of heart.
Tom quite a mischievous had has Black George, the gamekeeper, among his friends. The two are together involved in a poaching incident on a neighboring estate belonging to the Squire Western, an ill-tempered boorish country Squire. Tom lies to Allworthy that he alone was involved in the poaching incident. But he lies to save Black George, not himself Tom, in order to save Black George takes the blame upon him and helps his family in many other ways.
Tom gets interested in two women, Black George’s daughter Molly, an aggressive coquets and Squire Western’s daughter Sophia, gentle, virtuous and generous. A series of incidents bring Tom and Sophia together and they fall in love with each other. But this puts Tom in a dilemma. Molly is found to be pregnant and Tom ascribes to himself the responsibility for her pregnancy. Secondly, being a penniless bastard, he knows, he cannot be acceptable to Squire Western who insists on a prudential marriage for his daughter.
Now, Tom and Sophia are both on the road separately of course. Tom desirous of joining the army, runs into a company of recruits and volunteers to join them, but offended by a baloney jest by Ensign Northerton at the expense of mater. Sophia picks a quarrel with him and gets wounded. Tom rescues an old recluse, the man of Hill from being robbed by two ruffians and the very next morning he saves Mrs. Waters from being strangled by Ensign Northerton. He conducts Mrs. Waters to the
The
In the last phase of the novel, Lady Bellaston plays a very crucial role. Sophia being the real object of Tom’s attention, Lady Bellaston with the purpose of getting her out of the way, persuades Lord Fellamar to rape her so that in her disgrace she might be to accept him as her husband. Sophia is fortunately rescued by the timely arrival of Squire Western who takes her in his own custody.
At the end of the novel Jenny Jones gives out the secret of Tom’s true parentage, he is the illegitimate son of Bridget from summer. Though Sophia was indifferent in the beginning, the pleadings of Mrs. Miller, Squire Allworthy and Squire Western who had turned a staunch supporter of Tom, softened her little. The wedding was soon celebrated and Tom and Sophia lived happily ever after
George Eliot
Mary Ann Evans, who is known to her readers by her pen-name of George Eliot. She was born in Warwickshire in 1819. Her father became the estate agent of Francis Newdigate. In 1801, he had married Harriott Poynton and she had two children. In 1813, he married Christiana Pearson who had three children like Christina, Isaac and Mary Ann Evans. The second family moved from Arbury to Griff. In1824, Mary Ann Evans was sent to a boarding school with Christina in Warwickshire. For a few years, she studied at two private schools, but the death of her mother made it necessary for her to leave school at the age 17 to take the charge of her father’s house. Thereafter, her education was gained by miscellaneous reading. She continued to study French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek and Music. Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Romola and Middlemarch are famous novels of George Eliot. She was one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian age. She died in 1880.
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Question: Comment on the narrative technique employed by Emily Bronte in Wuthering heights.
Emily Bronte belongs to the Victorian period (1830-1880). Her literary output was very meagre besides some poetry, she wrote just one novel, Wuthering Heights, which has been recognized as a masterpiece of English fiction and has made her famous. This is a novel of love, revenge, wildness and also a story of two houses or families.
In Wuthering Heights Bronte has used a conventional technique with some innovations. The novelty of her technique is that she has used two narrators instead of one. Bronte has used this technique in order to make her novel objective. She uses first person singular number.
The two narrators in
Lockwood can be regarded as more impartial than Nelly. He has no reason to distort the facts. Lockwood is emotionally a cold kind of person and we can accept him as a reliable story teller. It was essential to Emily Bronte’s purpose that we should believe the story of her novel wholly. Lockwood’s role is to add convincing evidence to what Nelly tells us through him. Through his person, from the very beginning, we feel the tension of the whole story. But we cannot forget that Lockwood narrates very small portion of the story. The greater portion is narrated by Nelly.
Emily Bronte used Nelly as a narrator to give an objective view to the story. Nelly prides herself on her common sense and is complacent enough about her own role in the story to give all the facts without suppression. Lockwood himself admits that Nelly is a fair narrator. Credibility is the principal ingredient in judging the story of a novel. Nelly’s story is credible because she is very close to the persons, events and is confident of almost all the characters. The story is improbable but we forget the improbability when we hear the story from a reliable narrator. But we cannot accept Nelly as a reliable narrator. She has lost her credibility because she helps Heathcliff to make Linton Hethcliff fall in love with Catherine Linton. Despite knowing the nefarious plan of Heathcliff, she helps him to get Catherine’s love for his son. Nelly often passes very ugly comments on Heathcliff and also comments on the principle characters. This attitude of Nelly does not allow us to believe her story.
Emily Bronte used another device to narrate the story. The novel begins not at the beginning of the story; it begins towards the end of the story.
We can raise an objection to the device of using a servant as a narrator. Nelly is not educated enough to remember exactly and in every detail all that had happened so many years before. It is strange that, Nelly should be able not only to recall every little incident and episode but also to reproduce so many dialogues. Not only that, we cannot believe that, Lockwood could reproduce the details described by Nelly. Thus these two narrators are supposed to posses extra-ordinary and supernatural powers of remembering things. In fact, the improbability of the story is aggravated.
The supernatural suggestions used as a narrative device are unconvincing. Lockwood’s dreams have supernatural touch and as a stranger he cannot dream such things that are really related with Heathcliff’s life.
The dramatic scenes and dialogues used by the novelist arrest the attention and interest of the readers and make them believe the story.
The abnormal figures like Cathering and Heathcliff become convincing to the readers because of the psychological basis of the story.
Lockwood’s last visit at
Wuthering Height
-----Emily Bronte
Emily Bronte is a female novelist of Victorian period. She is the contemporary writer of Thomas Hardy. As a novelist she has written many novels in which
One day Mr. Earnshaw visits Liverpool, where he picks up an unknown dirty and ragged child from slum and brings him home to
One occasion Catherine and Heathcliff went to travel near the Thruscross Grange. Suddenly Catharine had bitten one of the dog belonging to the Linton’s family. So Linton detained Catharine for treatment. Catharine was cordially received by Linton’s family except Heathcliff because he is very dirty and untidy. So he feels ashamed in this situation and leaves Thruscross Grange with disappear.
Three years later Edger and Catherine get married. After some months Heathcliff reappears. Now he is totally different from past times. Now he is handsome good looking besides he is now a rich man. Heathcliff visits Thruscross Grange Catherine overjoyed to her the nears and she said that-----
“Oh Edger, Edger
Heathcliff come back”
Isabella, the sister of Edger, to see the Heathcliff she falls in love. But Heathcliff still love Catherine. Isabella expressed her feeling to Catherine. About her love, she says----
“I loved him more then you
Ever loved edger “
One day Isabella runs away with Heathcliff and married him.
After passing some days, Heathcliff shows his cruelty to Isabella. He has not married to Isabella for love. He has married her for take revenge Edger Linton. Heathcliff tortured her mentally and physically. So that Isabella seems him a monster.
Heathcliff secret visits to the Catherine. There is a passionate scene between Catherine and Heathcliff. Catherine calls to kill Isabella. That very night Catherine dies, giving birth a baby, who is given the name Cathy, according to her mother name. Heathcliff became shocked and upset by losing her. He says-
“Oh! God, it is unutterable! I cannot live as without my life,
I cannot live without my soul.”
Isabella gives birth a child who is given name is Linton. On the other side we see that Hindley is totally depend upon Heathcliff and begins to take difference kind of drugs. After passing some days Hindley dies leaving his estate upon the hand of Heathcliff. Now Heathcliff is the master of Wuthering Heights.
Hindley son Hearton has grown up under the guardianship of Heathcliff on the other hand Isabella dies and Isabella son Linton and Catherine’s daughter Cathy grow up altogether.
Cathy falls in love with Linton and they get married. After their marriage Linton dies when Cathy fells friendless. She again feels entrusted with Hareton. Son edger Linton had died. Heathcliff revenge upon two families is almost complete. Now he is the master of both states.
One day Heathcliff utters and pacing his room in a state. He has died with his eye open. Different types of people claim that they have scene Heathcliff and Catherine ghost roaming together, because their love could not fulfill in this world. So their love fulfill after death.
At last we can say that it is her famous and masterpiece creation. She has shown her latent dream through the characters of this novel. Through Heathcliff is the hero of this novel. But he plays the role of villain activities.
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