Organic Analogy

Herbert Spencer is regarded as the second founding father of Sociology. He was born on April 27, 1820, in Derby in England. He is famous for his 'Organic Analogy'. In Organic Analogy, he identifies society with a biological organism. He says, society and organisms are similar in various ways.

Similarities:

(1) Both society and organisms grow in size. A baby grows up to be a man. A small community becomes a metropolis, a small state becomes an empire.

(2) As they grow in size their structure becomes complicated,

(3) In both, the differentiation of structure is followed by a similar differentiation of functions.

(4) There are three main systems in both individual organism and society. They are the sustaining system, the distributor or the circulatory system and the regulatory system. The organs of alimentation are vital in an organism so are in the society. The second is the distributory system in organism. Similarly the means of transport and communications like roadways, railways, etc. constitute the circulatory system in the society. The third the regulatory system, is the nervous system in organism and the society is the government.

(5) Both societies and organisms face environmental problems and make adaptations to these problems.

(6) Even though, the whole unity may be destroyed the individual parts in both may continue to live for sometime. The parts of both possess a certain independence and continuity. For example if an individual loses its hand, it is not necessary that this may result in his death. Similarly, in society, loss of a particular group does not necessarily mean death of the society.

(7) In societies and organisms there is an interdependence of parts.


Criticisms:

The modern sociologists have criticized the organic analogy of Spencer.

(1) In the words of E.S. Bogardus, Spencer's conclusion contains contradictory elements.

(2) If a society is an organism, it undergoes a cycle of birth, maturity, and death. But according to the principle of progress, the death of a society is not inevitable, but depend on the vision, plans, courage, and activities of that society's members. A society need never die.

(3)Timasheff is of the view that merely on the ground of systematic similarity, society cannot be considered as an organism.

Émile Durkheim: Division of Labour

Émile Durkheim wrote about a fractionated, unequal world by dividing it along the lines of "human solidarity", its essential moral value is division of labour. In 1893 he published "The Division of Labour in Society", his fundamental statement of the nature of human society and its social development. The Division of Labor in Society is the dissertation of French sociologist Émile Durkheim, written in 1893. It was influential in advancing sociological theories and thought, with ideas which in turn were influenced by Auguste Comte. Durkheim described how social order was maintained in societies based on two very different forms of solidarity (mechanical and organic), and the transition from more "primitive" societies to advanced industrial societies.

Durkheim suggested that in a "primitive" society, mechanical solidarity, with people acting and thinking alike and with a collective or common conscience, is what allows social order to be maintained. In such a society, Durkheim viewed crime as an act that "offends strong and defined states of the collective conscience." Because social ties were relatively homogeneous and weak throughout society, the law had to be repressive and penal, to respond to offences of the common conscience.

In an advanced, industrial, capitalist society, the complex division of labor means that people are allocated in society according to merit and rewarded accordingly: social inequality reflects natural inequality. Durkheim argued that moral regulation was needed, as well as economic regulation, to maintain order (or organic solidarity) in society with people able to "compose their differences peaceably". In this type of society, law would be more restitory than penal, seeking to restore rather than punish excessively.

He thought that transition of a society from "primitive" to advanced may bring about major disorder, crisis, and anomie. However, once society has reached the "advanced" stage, it becomes much stronger and is done developing. Unlike Karl Marx, Durkheim did not foresee any different society arising out of the industrial capitalist division of labour. He regards conflict, chaos, and disorder as pathological phenomena to modern society, whereas Marx highlights class conflict.

Comte Positivism

Auguste Comte (1798–1857) first described the epistemological perspective of positivism in The Course in Positive Philosophy, a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842. These texts were followed by the 1844 work, A General View of Positivism (published in English in 1865).

Comte offered an account of social evolution, proposing that society undergoes three phases in its quest for the truth according to a general 'law of three stages'. The idea bears some similarity to Marx's view that human society would progress toward a communist peak. This is perhaps unsurprising as both were profoundly influenced by the early Utopian socialist, Henri de Saint-Simon, who was at one time Comte's mentor. Both Comte and Marx intended to develop secular-scientific ideologies in the wake of European secularisation.

Comte's stages were (1) the theological, (2) the metaphysical, and (3) the positive. The theological phase of man was based on whole-hearted belief in all things with reference to God. God, Comte says, had reigned supreme over human existence pre-Enlightenment. Humanity's place in society was governed by its association with the divine presences and with the church. The theological phase deals with humankind's accepting the doctrines of the church (or place of worship) rather than relying on its rational powers to explore basic questions about existence. It dealt with the restrictions put in place by the religious organization at the time and the total acceptance of any “fact” adduced for society to believe. Comte describes the metaphysical phase of humanity as the time since the Enlightenment, a time steeped in logical rationalism, to the time right after the French Revolution. This second phase states that the universal rights of humanity are most important. The central idea is that humanity is invested with certain rights that must be respected. In this phase, democracies and dictators rose and fell in attempts to maintain the innate rights of humanity.

The final stage of the trilogy of Comte’s universal law is the scientific, or positive, stage. The central idea of this phase is that individual rights are more important than the rule of any one person. Comte stated that the idea of humanity's ability to govern itself makes this stage innately different from the rest. There is no higher power governing the masses and the intrigue of any one person can achieve anything based on that individual's free will and authority. The third principle is most important in the positive stage.[11] Comte calls these three phases the universal rule in relation to society and its development. Neither the second nor the third phase can be reached without the completion and understanding of the preceding stage. All stages must be completed in progress.

Comte believed that the appreciation of the past and the ability to build on it towards the future was key in transitioning from the theological and metaphysical phases. The idea of progress was central to Comte's new science, sociology. Sociology would "lead to the historical consideration of every science" because "the history of one science, including pure political history, would make no sense unless it were attached to the study of the general progress of all of humanity".

Karl Marx : Dialectics

Dialectical materialism is a strand of Marxism synthesizing Hegel's dialectics and Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach's materialism. According to certain followers of Karl Marx, it is the philosophical basis of Marxism, although this remains a controversial assertion due to the disputed status of science and naturalism in Marx's thought. The basic idea of dialectical materialism is that every economic order grows to a state of maximum efficiency, while at the same time developing internal contradictions or weaknesses that contribute to its decay.

Dialectical materialism originates from two major aspects of Marx's philosophy. One is his transformation of Hegel's idealistic understanding of dialectics into a materialist one, an act commonly said to have "put Hegel's dialectics back on its feet". Marx's materialism developed through his engagement with Feuerbach. Marx sought to base human social organization within the context of the material reproduction of their daily lives, which he calls sensous practice in his early works (Marx 1844, 1845). From this material context men develop certain ideas about their world, thereby leading to the core materialist conception that social being determines social consciousness. The dialectical aspect retains the Hegelian method within this materialist framework, and emphasizes the process of historical change arising from contradiction and class struggle based in a particular social context.

Dialectics is the science of the general and abstract laws of the development of nature, society, and thought. Its principal features are:
1. The universe is an integral whole in which things are interdependent, rather than a mixture of things isolated from each other.
2. The natural world or cosmos is in a state of constant motion:
3. Development is a process whereby insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes lead to fundamental, qualitative changes. Qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, as leaps from one state to another. A simple example from the physical world is the heating of water: a one degree increase in temperature is a quantitative change, but between water of 100 degrees and steam of 100 degrees (the effect latent heat) there is a qualitative change.
"Merely quantitative differences, beyond a certain point, pass into qualitative changes." --Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1.
4. All things contain within themselves internal dialectical contradictions, which are the primary cause of motion, change, and development in the world. It is important to note that 'dialectical contradiction' is not about simple 'opposites' or 'negation'. For formal approaches, the core message of 'dialectical opposition / contradiction' must be understood as 'some sense' opposition between the objects involved in a directly associated context.

Marx: Class Struggle

The key to understanding Marx is his class definition.1 A class is defined by the ownership of property. Such ownership vests a person with the power to exclude others from the property and to use it for personal purposes. In relation to property there are three great classes of society: the bourgeoisie (who own the means of production such as machinery and factory buildings, and whose source of income is profit), landowners (whose income is rent), and the proletariat (who own their labor and sell it for a wage).

Class thus is determined by property, not by income or status. These are determined by distribution and consumption, which itself ultimately reflects the production and power relations of classes. The social conditions of bourgeoisie production are defined by bourgeois property. Class is therefore a theoretical and formal relationship among individuals.

The force transforming latent class membership into a struggle of classes is class interest. Out of similar class situations, individuals come to act similarly. They develop a mutual dependence, a community, a shared interest interrelated with a common income of profit or of wages. From this common interest classes are formed, and for Marx, individuals form classes to the extent that their interests engage them in a struggle with the opposite class.


As Marx saw the development of class conflict, the struggle between classes was initially confined to individual factories. Eventually, given the maturing of capitalism, the growing disparity between life conditions of bourgeoisie and proletariat, and the increasing homogenization within each class, individual struggles become generalized to coalitions across factories. Increasingly class conflict is manifested at the societal level. Class consciousness is increased, common interests and policies are organized, and the use of and struggle for political power occurs. Classes become political forces.

The distribution of political power is determined by power over production (i.e., capital). Capital confers political power, which the bourgeois class uses to legitimatize and protect their property and consequent social relations. Class relations are political, and in the mature capitalist society, the state's business is that of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, the intellectual basis of state rule, the ideas justifying the use of state power and its distribution, are those of the ruling class. The intellectual-social culture is merely a superstructure resting on the relation of production, on ownership of the means of production.

Finally, the division between classes will widen and the condition of the exploited worker will deteriorate so badly that social structure collapses: the class struggle is transformed into a proletarian revolution. The workers' triumph will eliminate the basis of class division in property through public ownership of the means of production. With the basis of classes thus wiped away, a classless society will ensue (by definition), and since political power to protect the bourgeoisie against the workers is unnecessary, political authority and the state will wither away.

G. S. Ghurye

Professor G. S. Ghurye (1893-1983) is justifiably considered the doyen of Indian Sociology. On his return from Cambridge, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation under W.H.R. Rivers and later A.C. Haddon, Ghurye succeeded Sir Patric Geddes as Head of Department of Sociology in the University of Bombay in 1924. He continued to head the Department until his retirement in 1959. After retirement, he was designated the first Emeritus Professor in the University of Bombay.

Ghurye's contribution to the development of sociology and anthropology in India is enormous and multi-faceted. A prolific writer, Ghurye wrote 32 books and scores of papers, which cover such wide-ranging themes as kinship and marriage, urbanization, ascetic traditions, tribal life, demography, architecture and literature.

Ghurye played a key role in the professionalisation of sociology by founding the Indian Sociological Society and its journal Sociological Bulletin. In addition, he encouraged and trained a large number of talented students who, in turn, advanced the frontiers of sociological and anthropological research in the country. With his own voluminous output and through the researches of his able students Ghurye embarked on an ambitious project of mapping out the ethnographic landscape of India.

Ghurye’s rigor and discipline is legendary in Indian sociological circles. In the application of theories to empirical exercises or in the use of methodologies for data collection he was not dogmatic. He seems to have believed in practicing and encouraging disciplined eclecticism in theory and methodology. It would be appropriate to characterize Ghurye as a practitioner of theoretical pluralism. Basically interested in inductive empirical exercises and depicting Indian social reality using any source material –primarily Indological – his theoretical position bordered on laissez-faire.Ghurye’s flexible approach to theory and methodology in sociology and social anthropology in sociology and social anthropology was born of his faith in intellectual freedom which is reflected in the diverse theoretical and methodological approaches.

Ghurye was initially influenced by the reality of diffusionist approach of British social anthropology but subsequently he switched on to the studies of Indian society from indological and anthropological perspectives. He emphasized on Indological approach in the study of social and cultural life in India and the elsewhere.Ghurye utilized literature in sociological studies with his profound knowledge of Sanskrit literature, extensively quoted from Vedas, Shastras, epics and poetry of Kalidasa or Bhavabhuti to shed light on the social and cultural life in India. He made use of the literature of modern writers like Bankimchandra Chatterjee as well.

Darcy

Introduced to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as a tall, handsome, self-absorbed aristocrat, Darcy experiences a change in personality and character. In order to dispose of his existent views on money and marriage, Darcy needed to feel something, to fall in love. Although he was well mannered, he did not know how to treat women with respect, especially those of a lesser economic status. The love of Elizabeth Bennet, however, changed his behavior.

The reader is first acquainted with Mr. Darcy's arrogance at the Meryton Ball. Speaking of Elizabeth Bennet, he so snobbishly says that she was, "tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me". His feelings of superiority to the people of the town lend Mr. Darcy to be judged as a man with a repulsive and cruel personality. The women, who had found him dashingly attractive at first glance, deemed him a man unworthy of marriage because he offered no positive qualities other than wealth. Not only did Darcy refuse to dance with Elizabeth, but he makes it clear that no woman in the room was worthy or met his standards of a suitable partner stating that, "there is not another woman in this room, whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with". In the beginning of the novel, Mr. Darcy is only concerned with the wealth and social standing of the people in the town. Because of their lesser social rank, he feels they are un-deserving of his presence and refuses to communicate with them.

As the novel progressed, however, Darcy became more and more accepting of the Bennet family. He grows most fond of Elizabeth Bennet, the straightforward, clever daughter. Although his first propsal to Elizabeth is not met with an acceptance, he finally breaks and confesses his true feelings of love for her.
                        "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you."

When Elizabeth visits Pemberley, she discovers a different side of Darcy. She is impressed with the taste and refinement of his home. He is obviously a cultured and intelligent man. From the housekeeper, she also learns that he is a generous landlord, a kind master, and a devoted brother. Later in the novel, it is revealed that he is the only son of aristocratic parents and that at a very early age he had to take up family responsibilities which made him independent and conceited.

Darcy’s love for Elizabeth is clearly a conflict for him between head and heart. He thinks he should not love her because of her lower social position and her crass family; but his heart is attracted to her beauty, her sensibility, her independence, and her vivacity. When he proposes to her the first time, he is sure that she will accept. Because of her rejection, Darcy undergoes a metamorphosis from an insolvent aristocrat to a kind, down-to- earth soul. Out of his love for Elizabeth, he silently rescues Lydia by "buying" her marriage to Wickham. Later, he is even kind and courteous to her parents. In summary, Darcy becomes the perfect picture of a thoroughbred gentleman and the ideal husband for Elizabeth.

Egdon Heath

“What is the real stuff of tragedy in the book? It is the Heath” –D. H. Lawrence

                          Every tragic art needs a spetial dimension, the omnipotent reality which broods over the action of the characters and in The Return Of The Native, this omnipotent presence is the Egdon Heath, awaiting in its “brown dress”, “the final overthrow of civilization”. Egdon Heath is all-pervasive, without it the novel would be inconceivable, for it provides it with the special dimension and holds the action of the novel and its characters. The function of the EH is to emphasize the real circumstances in which man lives. What the individual may feel about those circumstances is irrelevant for he never escapes them. The Heath is an extended image of the Nature of which man is a part, in which he is caught, which conditions his every being. His life in relation it is as short-lived as the bonfires which the peasants make of the furze that grow on the heath. The nature of human beings is fleeting and insignificance as compared to the permanence of the heath. It has its own life and provides livelihood to the furze-cutters who work on it. He shows us the heath through all the seasons of the year.

The human inhabitants of the heath are seen by Hardy almost from an anthropologist’s point of view. When the peasants dance in August, time seems to be telescoped; the countries slip by, and the men behave as their ancestors did “for the time Paganism was revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all in all.” The rustics are as much a part of Nature, and of the life of the heath. We become acquainted with them through beliefs, customs, habits, bonfires, the Maypole celebrations, turf and furze-cutting that goes on in the Heath. All of these are described by Hardy in relation to the rustic characters represented by Grandfer Cantle, Christian Cantle, Fairway, Humphrey, Sam, Susan Nunsuch and others.

Heath also influences the principal characters of the novel, especially Eustacia. She feels great hatred for the Heath - “Egdon was her Hades.” She was an outsider on the Heath, not born or bred there. Its environment was most hostile to her. This environment could make a woman a poet, but it makes Eustacia saturnine. She longs to live a fashionable life in Paris. In talking to Wildeve, she says, “’Tis my cross, my shame and will be my death.” Clym, unlike, Eustacia, is the product of Egdon and its shaggy hills are friendly and congenial to him. But ironically the Heath swallows him up and absorbs him into its furze. If Clym is the child of heath and Eustacia is haunted by the heath, the reddleman haunts the heath. He knows every nook and corner of Egdon Heath. The heath does irreparable damage to Mrs. Yeobright and kills her. Thomasin thinks it is an impersonal open ground. She calls it “a ridiculous old place”, but also confesses that she could live nowhere else.

However, Hardy’s use of the heath as a background has not been universally convincing. Some critics have not reacted favorably to the prominence which Hardy has given to Egdon Heath. Lionel Johnson, for example, says, “The difficulty with the heath is the way in which it constantly threatens to move from background to the foreground to claim an importance.” But perhaps nobody can deny that the simple everyday actions of the inhabitants were unified and were under the watchful eye of the heath, delivering a greater depth to the reversal and upheaval in their lives.

Woodifield

Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Fly’ is a perfect example of modern short story built upon existential dilemma. Here the crisis or dilemma centres on the theme of death. To be precise, the death of the two sopns of Woodifield and the boss, coming in the wake of the First World War. It is purposely constructed in a way that Mansfield brings only two characters, and since it's a short story, Mansfield hardly delves into their individualities. On the other hand, to serve the purpose of short story, the author intends to use them in a specific way that brings into focus the context of the human situation. Considerede in this light, Mr. Woodifield and his boss are both foils.

Woodifield's first remark about the boss is significant - "Y'are very snug in here". What he suggests is that the boss is very comfortable, nestled complacently in his self-created business firm which is to him his existential identity. But what is more significant is that the boss is happy and accepts existence and worldly possession as the only truth. His smugness springs from his absolute certitude almost like "certain certainties as T.S. Eliot hits off about the modern man in Preludes.

At the outset he turns out to be a typically shabby clerk who temporarily forgets the purpose of his visit. But Mansfield is spinning behind this apparent diffidence something else, which is nothing short of a grim irony. Mansfield so manipulates Woodifield that he is able to shake the fool's paradise in his existence that the boss flaunts. The wine offered by the boss to Woodifield works out as a subtle irony by reviving in the latter a much needed self-reliance so that he eventually remembers the purpose of his visit. He has come to inform his boss about the fine maintenance of the graveyard in Belgium where their sons lie buried. This reminder, which is solely due to the wine served by the boss, turns out to be the undoing of the Burgeois consciousness in the boss, turning him now into a bag of nerves.

Woodifield, on the other hand, is at last in his own elements. Now we find him to be steady, easy, casual and moderately complacent. He accepts in good humour the fate of his son as well as the boss', the ultimate reality and the unchangeable truth of death. His description of the graveyard bears the testimony of composure to mind. A little later, Woodifield shifts to the subject of his daughters’ stay in Belgium, talking about the daily casual little follies of life. Mansfield's own comment also shows his restored confidence -

                              "Then the old man brightened wonderfully"

                                    

All this is meant to denote how Woodifield accepts both life and death in their essential spirit. As it turns out, he is a normal man, although his appearance is calculated to shock the boss as an agent of faith and to make him ultimately accept his son's death just as he himself has done. The irony here is that though initially Woodifield appears almost as a non-entity to the boss, he eventually becomes the cause of his psychic breakdown.

                                "This is the way the world ends

                                 Not with a bang, but with a whimper."

                                                                                        -T. S. Eliot [Hollow Man]

Literary Terms (Paper 4)

Irony

Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions. Ironic statements (verbal irony) typically imply a meaning in opposition to their literal meaning. A situation is often said to be ironic (situational irony) if the actions taken have an effect exactly opposite from what was intended. Other main types of irony include comic irony, dramatic irony, and tragic irony.

O. Henry's 'The Gift of the Magi' has irony written all over it.



Omniscient Narrator

The role of the omniscient narrator is to chronicle the events of a story in an impartial way. He or she has full access to the events and dialogue occuring in the narrative, rendering his or her account the most complete and accurate. This all-knowing, all-seeing narrator type jumps from scene to scene, following characters throughout a story and assessing the progress of the narrative.

Charles Dickens 'Bleak House' and Jane Austen's 'Mansfield Park' have such narration.


Setting

In fiction, setting includes the time, location, and everything in which a story takes place, and initiates the main backdrop and mood for a story. Elements of setting may include culture, historical period, geography, and hour. Along with plot, character, theme, and style, setting is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction.

Eg: The setting of Dublin in Joyce's 'The Dubliners'


Theme

A theme is a broad idea, message, or moral of a story. The message may be about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and are almost always implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character, setting, and style, theme is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction.
 Eg: Theme of war in Hemingway's 'A Farewell to Arms'


Flat Character

A flat character is a minor character in a work of fiction who does not undergo substantial change or growth in the course of a story. Also referred to as "two-dimensional characters" or "static characters," flat characters play a supporting role to the main character, who as a rule should be round.

Mr. Collins in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is such an example.


Stock Character

A stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. Stock characters make easy targets for parody, which will likely exaggerate any stereotypes associated with these characters.


Subplot

A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance. Subplots often involve supporting characters, those besides the protagonist or antagonist.

Distinctive subplots are found in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Austen's Sense and Sensibility



Picaresque

The picaresque novel is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. This style of novel originated in sixteenth century Spain and flourished throughout Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continues to influence modern literature.

Eg: Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews, Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders

The Boss

'The Fly' by Katherine Mansfield, is a short story which can be understood best as social criticism. It has long been a staple of literature for authors to veil social criticism with allegory and symbolism in subtle ways, thus forcing the reader to determine for himself what a story may actually mean. For example, the act of the boss dropping ink onto the fly repeatedly to see what it will do makes little sense if taken at face value, but the scene begins to make sense once it is acknowledged that the boss and the fly, as well as the situation itself, are symbols best understood in the context of World War One.


The boss here can be seen as a symbol of the elder class of British who blindly supported the war for the sake of war regardless of the fate of their sons and grandsons. This question must first be asked: Does the boss truly grieve for his son? It may be inferred from the following references that his attempt to mourn is done in order to prove to himself and everyone else that he is very patriotic and has more reason to grieve than anyone. In fact, the boss seems to have set himself up as chief mourner, “Other men perhaps might recover, might live their loss down, but not he”. After all, “his boy was an only son” who died in the service of the British Empire. The line which reads, “‘I’ll see nobody for half an hour, Macey,’ said the boss. ‘Understand? Nobody at all,'” is a strong indication that Macey and the rest of the office staff know full well that the boss has “arranged to weep”, indicating that the boss’s grief is all for show and that he is trying to fool himself and everyone else that he remains in mourning for his son. His attitude concerning the death of his son seems very emotional on the face of it, but he seems to mourn in a very calculated way, as evidenced in the line which goes, “He wanted, he intended, he had arranged to weep”. However, the fact that, after the episode with the fly, he has completely forgotten that he had “arranged to weep” for his son is strong evidence that his surface emotions are not genuine.


The boss also keeps a photographic portrait of his son dressed in his army uniform in his office, despite the fact that he does not particularly like it. “But it wasn’t a favourite photograph of his; the expression was unnatural. It was cold, even stern-looking. The boy had never looked like that”. If he wanted to remind himself of the way his son really was, then he surely could have picked a better photograph to adorn his office wall. This photograph seems to be there in order to properly motivate him to mourn when he “arranges” to do so, as well as to exhibit his patriotism. It also allows him to preserve the image of his son as a soldier unblemished by warfare. The truth of his son’s wartime death, which was likely very grisly and painful, is something he refuses to acknowledge, as "the boss never thought of the boy except as lying unchanged, unblemished in his uniform, asleep for ever”. After all, “for various reasons the boss had not been across” to visit his son’s grave in Belgium. To do this would shatter the image in his mind of his son being the type of valiant soldier popularised in wartime propaganda.


The boss is thus also symbolic of the inept military leaders who never saw the war firsthand but planned the battles from well behind the front and who did not care as much about the fate of the young soldiers who fought their battles as much as winning the war. Indeed, when the boss watches the fly struggle for life, his thoughts read like the type of patriotic, yet hollow‐sounding, slogans a British military leader at the time would try to rally his troops with: "That was the way to tackle things; that was the right spirit. Never say die”. He later adds “Look sharp!” to this list of hackneyed phrases. The act of dropping ink upon the fly after watching it struggle back to life is itself symbolic of the way the young soldiers were sent off to various battles which served no purpose but to reduce the numbers of soldiers on both sides in that war of attrition. One may easily imagine that, if the boss is given an endless supply of flies, he will never grow tired of playing his game with each and every one of them, casually tossing aside their corpses when they prove to be physically and mentally unable to handle the challenges he sets before them, just as the British generals threw a seemingly endless supply of soldiers into the slaughtering grounds of World War One.

Irony and Humour

Of all the novels that Jane Austen has written, critics consider Pride and Prejudice to be the most comical. Humor can be found everywhere in the book; in it's character descriptions, imagery, but mostly in it's conversations between characters. Her novels were not only her way of entertaining people but it was also a way to express her opinions and views on what surrounded her and affected her. Austen uses a variety of comic techniques to express her own view on characters, both in her book and in her society that she lived in. We, the readers are often the object of her ridicule, and Austen makes the readers view themselves in a way which makes it easy for the reader to laugh at themselves. She introduces caricatures and character foils to further show how ridiculous a character may be. Pride and Prejudice has many character foils to exaggerate a characters faults or traits. Austen also uses irony quite often to inform the readers on her own personal opinions. The comic techniques caricatures, irony, and satire, not only helped to provide humor for Austen's readers, but they also helped Austen to give her own personal opinion on public matters.


When an action is exaggerated on stage by an actor, it becomes all the more noticeable to the audience.  An author can exaggerate a character in order to make fun of them. Austen exaggerates many of her characters and therefore makes caricatures of them in order to emphasize their ridiculousness. Mrs. Bennet is such a character. Her extremely unpleasant manner and reactions causes readers to delight in the situations which Mrs. Bennet places herself into. Mrs. Bennet's harsh tongue and simple mind causes the reader to laugh, because it is so exaggerated that the reader thinks that such a person cannot exist. Mr. Collins is another exaggerated character in the novel.  But would such characters seem humorous without somebody to react to them?  Not at all. Such exaggeration works only when the author places them besides another character who seems very real.  Mrs. Bennet is placed besides her husband to make her look all the more ridiculous and Mr. Collins, when placed especially by Elizabeth, seems to be unbelievable at times.  His proposal to Elizabeth would not be as humorous without Eliza's reaction and response to him.  Therefore, caricature, the exaggeration of character is an essential tool to Austen as means of portraying irony in the novel.


Irony is an excellent way for authors to combine wit and drama at the same time.  It works well in many parts of Pride and Prejudice.  Irony can be found in the gradual revelation of Darcy and Elizabeth's feelings for each other. It provides humor for the readers, yet at the same time, it revolves around the basic plot of the story.  It is a great balance between ironic dialogue and movement towards the scenes in the climax of the novel, when the relationship is developed. Another great example of her ironic wit can be found in the first chapter of the novel, when Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Bennet discuss the new tenant of Netherfield Park, Mr. Bingley. Mr.Bennet's remark -"Is that his [Caroline Bingley's] design in settling here?"- is quite ironic and very satirical, although it is his extreme politeness and playful innocence that upsets Mrs. Bennet. That provides humour for the reader as a result of her dramatic character. Mrs. Bennet's character is not ironic in the least, but it is the blending of both characters that bring about the irony. Such foils points out to the readers the ridiculousness of human nature.


Pride in Prejudice is also very rich in satire. Austen disapproves of the way that public opinion always considers itself to be above all other opinions. She demonstrates the arrogance of public opinion in the matter with Darcy and the ball. Public opinion consideres Darcy to be a great man, simply on account of his large income. The ladies consider him much handsomer than Mr. Bingley because his income is much more handsome as well. However, once public opinion hears of Darcy's pride and supposed arrogance, it immediately states that it knew Mr. Darcy was a horrible man, and that it always assumed so. Austen demonstrates that public opinion is so quick to change minds that it often develops an opinion without informing itself of all the details or facts.  This becomes, to the readers, something to laugh at, although most readers do follow public opinion, one way or another.


The great display caricatures, character foils, irony, and satire of provides humor for Austen's readers.  Many of the characters that Austen writes about are often subjects of ridicule. The characters and situations that Austen enjoys satirizing were real for her in her time as well. However, the ultimate irony falls on us, Austen's readers, who laugh at Austen's characters.  We are the characters in the novel to Jane Austen. We recognize ourselves in the characters that Austen enjoys criticizing.  It's that recognization of ourselves that we laugh at and what we find amusing is the fact that Austen makes us view ourselves this way.  We laugh at our own faults.

Elizabeth Bennet

Throughout Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, there are many references to the unusual character of Elizabeth Bennet; she is seen to be an atypical female during those times. Her wit, bravery, independence and feminist views all describe a most extraordinary model for women.

Elizabeth Bennet's wit is both humorous and intelligent. There are repeated instances within the story in which she proves her cleverness and liveliness. Joel Weinsheimer believes that Elizabeth demonstrates her intelligence by acknowledging that marriage does not always bring happiness. This would have been a big step for a woman living in a society in which the sole purpose of that particular gender was to marry well. She also had daily proof of how marriage might not bring happiness in her own parent's relationship. She sees their shortcomings as husband and wife and sees the shortcomings of not being able to respect your life's partner and vows that only the "deepest of love would ever induce her to matrimony". In those days, to not marry would put one in a very precarious situation financially and to be able to denounce tradition for the sake of one's principles is foolhardy but brave.

Norman Sherry takes the approach of basing the intellect on the dialogue and speech of the characters and not just their behavior in certain circumstances. She is under the impression that the dialogue between Elizabeth and Darcy reveals effectively the intelligence of both. Their forcefully expressed opinions provide us with ample indication of the strength of their personalities. Again Norman Sherry points out that the nature of Elizabeth Bennet is shown on the first visit to Rosings. She alone is unafraid. Rosings Park is the manor of the Lady Catherine De Bourgh who is a most unpleasant and bossy woman. Everyone is intimidated by this woman except for Elizabeth who is strong enough in her own mind and character to be least bit worried. This shows immense courage for someone of less breeding not to be worried about the opinion of a lady with greater consequence who could, if in ill favor of her, vex any hope of a good marriage.

Elizabeth is also brave in other ways. Robert Heilman pointedly notes that Elizabeth approaches the letter with "a strong prejudice against everything he might say", but in a little while begins to perceive that "she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd". The letter he refers to is one that Darcy had written to her in reply to her biting accusations that he had behaved in an ungentlemanly-like manner. To be able to realize that one had founded an unjust opinion of someone and to be able to try to make amends for the wrong doings takes an incredible type of courage that can be hard to find in a person.

Elizabeth also shows a lot of independence for one that was raised in a society that was bent on making women dependent on their husbands and families. Her views on an impossible relationship with Collins are extremely humorous and true : "You could not make me happy, and I am convinced I am the last woman in the world who would make you so". To be able to turn down a suitable offer of marriage was highly unheard of back then. Elizabeth would have had to be extremely independent to do so. She also illustrated her self-reliance in her dealings with Lady Catherine. She stood up for herself in a manner that commands respect and praise - "I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me".

Elizabeth Bennet was a feminist for those times and should be praised for making the female gender seem more equal towards that of men. However, she can be seen as both an inspiration and a lesson . She should inspire all to have confidence and courage , but should also bring one's attention to the fault of assuming too much and developing a prejudice towards someone in which their full story has not been revealed.

Hardy's Philosophy

Thomas Hardy's characters in The Return of the Native live in a world governed by a harsh and indifferent ironic God. Hardy sees the reigning power of the universe as being essentially unjust and morally blind. Instead of rewarding the good and punishing the evil, this entity presides over a universe in which suffering abounds in the form of a perverse irony.  In Hardy's fiction and poetry, the indisputable henchmen of the force of the ironic deity against man's felicity are Chance and Coincidence. Hardy's characters live in a world governed by these twin powers, whose influence all too often is for evil, not for good.

Throughout The Return of the Native bad things happen to good people. Eustacia, the tragic heroine, is stifled by her environment in the heath and marries Clym Yeobright as an escape, despite his mother's disapproval. Her former lover, Damon Wildeve, spitefully marries Clym's cousin Thomasin in revenge for Eustacia's rejections of his charms. None of these characters is evil, but much misfortune befalls them before the book concludes. There seems to be no justice for the good or mercy for the mistaken. The critic Albert Elliot describes Hardy as having no desire to explain experience; he wishes only to present it. Although Hardy is often considered a pessimist as a result of his negative view about the possibility for hopefulness in life, he believed that he was merely treating matters of life just as they were. In attempting to represent reality as he saw it, he wrote novels whose plots were heavily influenced by factors of chance and change, often leading to a negative conclusion. Hardy did not enjoy witnessing the suffering in the world around him, and felt sympathy for almost all of his characters; the 'villain' has almost no place in his works because to him all of humanity is guided by an outside agency and so have little responsibility for the painful outcomes that occur. There is a tight linking of incidents toward doom and, although The Return of the Native concludes with the happier Sixth Book, the overall tone of the text is an ironic and tragic one. In The Return of the Native, Hardy proves a dismal view of life in which coincidence and accident conspire to produce the worst of circumstance due to the indifference of the Will to issues of equity and justice.

Most events in the novel are guided by chance and co-incidence to the worst possible outcome-death, and no reconciliation. If Mrs. Yeobright were not as elderly--if Clym had not fallen into such a deep sleep-if Wildeve had not come to the house--then the tragedy could have been avoided. However, all of these events did occur, proving to the reader that human potentialities for happiness, satisfactions, and good are seldom fully exercised by the universe's guiding force. The shocking discrepancy between what happens and what should happen if Right prevailed in the world is brutally prevailed in Hardy's text. When Clym discovers the part Eustacia played in his mother's demise, the two have a horrific fight and she eventually decides to fly to Paris, where she has always hoped to live, with her old lover Damon Wildeve. They will each abandon their spouses and live together. Their flight, however, is interrupted by a horrific storm and Eustacia plunges into the weir, whether by suicide or accident. Damon and Clym leap into the water to save her, but both Damon and Eustacia perish

The Will is blind and distributes good or bad without regard to merit in Hardy's novels. Eustacia and Wildeve, Clym and Thomasin are all good people without evil intent. It is through misunderstanding and unfortunate coincidence that events drive Eustacia to her death and Wildeve to follow her. Clym's promising life has completely changed direction at the conclusion of the text, and he is now a roaming preacher on the heath. Of the principle characters in the book, only Diggory Venn and Thomasin find happiness. But for incredible coincidence, events could have unfolded in a completely different manner. Hardy would insist that his vision is true to life because the higher power does indeed influence humanity's life for the worse, using its agents of chance, change and coincidence. Unlike many other novels, The Return of the Native shows the workings of higher deity but does not offer the assurance of a continuing restored stability or an explanation of why things are as they are. Other Victorian authors often preferred to end their novels with a happy coincidence, restoring right to the world and humanity's faith in providential justice. Hardy did not see that justice in the world around him, and so it is absent in this text. The ironic contradiction between what is and what ought to be reverberates The Return of the Native, marbling the characters' lives with 'if only's'. Various instruments of fate influence his characters' lives as he believed influenced all of humanity's, and this tragic novel lends great insight into Hardy's philosophy of the workings of our own world.

Feste

."..Self-proclaimed wits are usually not witty at all and it is this lack of self-knowledge that makes them fools," states Ben Knisley in his essay, "The Role of the Fool: Feste's Significance." If this is true, then the opposite must also be true: self-proclaimed fools are usually not foolish at all and it is their lack of self-knowledge that makes them witty. In Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", Feste is a self-proclaimed fool who at first glance may appear to be an actual fool, a clown even, but upon looking deeper we discover that he is one of the most intelligent characters in the entire play. Feste shows us his intelligence through his many displays of knowledge and good decisions.

Feste may be labeled a fool, but if you were to compare his knowledge to that of anybody else's in the play, you'd think they were all fools. One of the most prominent examples of Feste's knowledge is in his implied understanding of the fact that Viola is not, indeed, a man. "Now Jove in his next commodity of hair send thee a beard," (Shakespeare 35) Feste says to Viola when he is having one of his "word bouts" with her. To the innocent bystander, it looks as if Feste is just being funny and commenting on Viola's apparent lack of facial hair, but between Viola and himself, there is a mutual knowledge that he knows she is not a man. This is an example of Feste's intelligence because it shows he has been observing what goes on between everyone in both houses, meaning between Viola and Olivia and between Viola and Count Orsino. This is also a tribute to Feste's intelligence because of the way he brings it up to Viola. He brings it up in friendly banter, a way in which only Viola would know the true meaning of his comment. As Knisley states in his essay, Viola also acknowledges Feste's knowledge. "This fellow is wise enough to play the fool, and to do that craves a kind of wit." (Shakespeare 36). This is the main point where we see the exchange between Viola and Feste become a common understanding of the extent of the other's knowledge. The fact that Feste knows that Viola is a woman and the fact that she considers him witty both signify that he is not actually a fool.

As Knisley mentions, Feste manages to keep himself unattached, both romantically and otherwise, from the other characters in the play. This shows Feste is not a fool because he understands what problems could arise from any kind of a relationship at the time. Also in agreement with Knisley's essay, we can see that Feste relies mainly on money instead of people. If Feste were not the fool (by title, not in actuality), he would have no way to make money in Olivia's court (or anywhere for that matter), so he is making an extremely smart decision to keep his title of fool. It is also key that Feste be intelligent playing the role of the fool, because without his intelligence he would not be able to make his witty comments and would never be able to make the other characters appreciate him, therefore never gaining compensation for his actions. Again, this would leave him penniless. As the fool, Feste uses his possibly disadvantageous title to his advantage and plays the other characters for fools (by obtaining their money, of course).

Feste also contributes to the play by commenting and furthering the reader's understanding of the different things going on in it. This shows his intelligence because, like mentioned before, he knows everything that is going on and he helps us to see this. He also foreshadows events, so if we are paying careful attention as we read, we can notice this for ourselves. "Journeys end in lovers meeting." (Shakespeare 21). This is a line of the song Feste is singing to Sir Andrew, who ironically, is the true fool of the play, and Sir Toby. This specific line is the foreshadowing of the happy ending, where many conflicts dissolve because of the marriage of Sir Toby and Maria, Viola and Orsino, and Sebastian and Olivia. Knisley also mentions Feste mocking Malvolio and commenting on his behavior. Feste is not doing this to be intelligent, per se, but because he is intelligent to know that nothing bad will come of it. Also, he knows that Malvolio does not hold a high place in the eyes of Olivia and that he will just gain more respect from the other characters who reside in Olivia's household. Feste's commentary shows that he understands everything going on in the household and that he has the intelligence to interpret it.

Feste is a fool, but only in the way that fits him best, which is to be a fool by title. He understands all that is happening around both houses and interprets and comments on it to provide a depth in the story that could not otherwise be reached without his assistance. His intelligence keeps him in good standing with all of the characters, which provides his main source of income (when they tip him). So even though he may to be a fool at first glance, we can see that Feste is actually very intelligent because of what he understands and how he uses his resources.

Literary Terms

Chorus

The chorus in Classical Greek drama was a group of actors who described and commented upon the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation. Greek tragedy had its beginnings in choral performances, in which a group of 50 men danced and sang.

As the importance of the actors increased, the choral odes became fewer in number and tended to have less importance in the plot, until at last they became mere decorative interludes separating the acts. During the Renaissance the role of the chorus was revised. In the drama of Elizabethan England, for instance, the name chorus designated a single person, often the speaker of the prologue and epilogue, as in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.

The use of the group chorus has been revived in a number of modern plays, such as Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra (1931) and T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral (1935).

Hubris

Hubris, also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.

The word was also used to describe actions of those who challenged the gods or their laws, especially in Greek tragedy, resulting in the protagonist's fall.

Examples of hubris are often found in fiction, most famously in Paradise Lost, John Milton's depiction of the biblical Lucifer. Marlowe's play Doctor Faustus portrays the titular character as a scholar whose arrogance and pride compel him to sign a deal with the devil, and retain his haughtiness until his death and damnation, despite the fact that he could have easily repented had he chosen so.

Anagnorisis

Anagnorisis is a moment in a play or other work when a character makes a critical discovery. Anagnorisis originally meant recognition in its Greek context, not only of a person but also of what that person stood for. It was the hero's sudden awareness of a real situation, the realisation of things as they stood, and finally, the hero's insight into a relationship with an often antagonistic character in Aristotelian tragedy.

It appears in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale plot, where a recognition scene in the final act reveals that Perdita is a king's daughter rather than a shepherdess, and so suitable for her prince lover.

Antagonist

An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or an institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend. In other words, 'A person, or a group of people who oppose the main character, or the main characters.' In the classic style of story where in the action consists of a hero fighting a villain, the two can be regarded as protagonist and antagonist, respectively. The antagonist may also represent a major threat or obstacle to the main character by their very existence, without necessarily deliberately targeting him or her.

Captain Hook in Peter Pan, Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes, The Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood are examples.

Catharsis

Catharsis is a term in dramatic art that describes the "emotional cleansing" sometimes depicted in a play as occurring for one or more of its characters, as well as the same phenomenon as (an intended) part of the audience’s experience. It describes an extreme change in emotion, occurring as the result of experiencing strong feelings (such as sorrow, fear, pity, or even laughter). It has been described as a "purification" or a "purging" of such emotions. The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to use the term catharsis with reference to the emotions – in his work Poetics

. This is clearly evident in Oedipus Rex, where King Oedipus is confronted with ever more outrageous actions, until the catharsis/emptying generated by the death of his mother-wife, and by his own act of self-blinding.

Dramatic Irony

Dramatic irony is the device of giving the spectator an item of information that at least one of the characters in the narrative is unaware of (at least consciously), thus placing the spectator a step ahead of at least one of the characters. Dramatic irony has three stages - installation, exploitation, and resolution (often also called preparation, suspension, and resolution) - producing dramatic conflict in what one character relies or appears to rely upon, the contrary of which is known by observers (especially the audience; sometimes to other characters within the drama) to be true. In summary, it means that the reader/watcher/listener knows something that one or more of the characters in the piece is not aware of.

In Oedipus the King, the reader knows that Oedipus himself is the murderer that he is seeking; but Oedipus does not. In Romeo and Juliet, the other characters in the cast think Juliet is dead, but the audience knows she only took a sleeping potion.

Foil

In fiction, a foil is a character who contrasts with another character (usually the protagonist) in order to highlight various features of that other character's personality, throwing these characteristics into sharper focus.

A foil's complementary role may be emphasized by physical characteristics. A foil usually differs drastically. For example in Cervantes' Don Quixote, the dreamy and impractical Quixote is thin in contrast to his companion, the realistic and practical Sancho Panza, who is fat. Another popular fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, is tall and lean; his right-hand man Doctor Watson, meanwhile, is often described as "middle-sized, strongly built."

Poetic Justice

Poetic justice is a literary device in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished, often in modern literature by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character's own conduct.

English drama critic Thomas Rymer coined the phrase in The Tragedies of the Last Age Considere'd (1678) to describe how a work should inspire proper moral behaviour in its audience by illustrating the triumph of good over evil. Philip Sidney, in Defense of Poetry, argued that poetic justice was, in fact, the reason that fiction should be allowed in a civilized nation.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Dante's Divine Comedy contain examples of poetic justice.

Dénouement

The dénouement comprises events between the falling action and the actual ending scene of the drama or narrative and thus serves as the conclusion of the story. Conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, for the reader. Etymologically, the French word dénouement is derived from the Old French word denoer, "to untie", and from nodus, Latin for "knot." Simply put, dénouement is the unraveling or untying of the complexities of a plot.

 Exemplary of a comic dénouement is the final scene of Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It, in which couples marry, an evildoer repents, two disguised characters are revealed for all to see, and a ruler is restored to power. In Shakespeare's tragedies, the dénouement is usually the death of one or more characters.

Climax

The climax (or turning point) of a narrative work is its point of highest tension or drama or when the action starts in which the solution is given. Although it is not necessarily true, a climax is known in most forms of literature for being the final fight between the hero and villain. While this is true in most cases, the climax may be more of an epiphany the conflicted main character experiences, especially if the story does not have a villain in the first place.

The death of Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is a well-known climax.

Araby: Symbolism

Joyce's short story "Araby" is filled with symbolic images of a church. It opens and closes with strong symbols, and in the body of the story, the images are shaped by the young, Irish narrator's impressions of the effect the Church of Ireland has upon the people of Ireland. In addition to the images in the story, there are descriptive words and phrases that add to this representational meaning.

The story opens with a description of the Dublin neighbourhood where the boy lives. Strikingly suggestive of a church, the image shows the ineffectuality of the Church as a vital force in the lives of the inhabitants of the neighborhood. North Richmond Street is composed of two rows of houses with "brown imperturbable faces" (the pews) leading down to the tall "uninhabited house" (the empty altar). The boy's own home is set in a garden the natural state of which would be like Paradise, since it contains a "central apple tree"; however it stands desolately amid "a few straggling bushes". At dusk when the boy and his companions play in the street the lamps of the street lift their "feeble lanterns" to the sky of "ever-changing violet" (timid suppliants to the far-away heavens). Since the boy is the narrator, the inclusion of these symbolic images in the description of the setting shows that the boy is sensitive to the lack of spiritual beauty in his surroundings. Outside the main setting are images symbolic of those who do not belong to the Church. The boy and his companions go there at times, behind their houses, along the "dark muddy lanes," to where the "rough tribes" (the infidels) dwell. Here odours arise from "the ash pits" which symbolise the moral decay of his nation.

Even the house in which the youthful main character lives adds to the sense of moral decay. The former tenant, a late priest, is shown to have been insensitive to the spiritual needs of his people. His legacy was a collection of books that showed his confusion of the sacred with the secular, and there is also evidence that he devoted his life to gathering "money" and "furniture".

Despite these discouraging surroundings, the boy is determined to find some evidence of the love his idealistic dreams tell him should exist within the Church. His first love becomes the focal point of this determination. In the person of Mangan's sister, his longings find an object of worship. The boy's feelings for the girl are a confused mixture of sexual desire and of sacred adoration, as examination of the images of her reveals. He is obsessed at one and the same time with watching her physical attractions and with seeing her always surrounded by light, as if by a halo. He imagines that he can carry her "image" as a "chalice" through a "throng of foes"- the cursing, brawling infidels at the market to which he goes with his aunt. All other sensations of life "fade from his consciousness" and he is aware only of his adoration of the blessed "image".

Later in the story when he arrives at Araby, he is struck by a "silence like that of a church". This is followed by another image that calls up the image at the beginning of the story, that of the aisle leading to an altar. In this case, it is a hall leading to the booth displaying porcelain vases (chalices for the Eucharist), and flowered tea sets (the flowers on the altar).The great jars guarding the stall can be interpreted as symbols of the mysticism standing guard over the Church.

For the boy, the girl attending the stall, like Mangan's sister, becomes an object of faith. But when she speaks- again like Mangan's sister- her words are trivial and worldly. In a sudden flash of insight the boy sees that his faith and his passion have been blind. He sees in the "two men counting money on a salver" a symbol of the moneylenders in the temple. The lights in the hall go out; his "church" is in darkness. Tears fill his eyes as he sees in himself a "creature driven and derided by vanity", whose "foolish blood" had made him see secular desires as symbols of true faith. He has discovered in his Church and in love (both traditional symbols of ineffably sacred love) only a shoddy imitation of true beauty. Understandably his disillusionment causes him "anguish and anger".

Araby: Quest

In his brief but complex story, Araby, James Joyce concentrates on character rather than on plot to reveal the ironies inherent in self-deception. On one level "Araby" is a story of initiation, of a boy's quest for the ideal. The quest ends in failure but results in an inner awareness and a first step into manhood. On another level the story consists of a grown man's remembered experience, for the story is told in retrospect by a man who looks back to a particular moment of intense meaning and insight. This double focus- the boy who first experiences, and the man who has not forgotten- provides for the dramatic rendering of a story of first love told by a narrator who, with his wider, adult vision, can employ the sophisticated use of irony and symbolic imagery necessary to reveal the story's meaning.


The boy's character is indirectly suggested in the opening scenes of the story. He has grown up in the backwash of a dying city. Symbolic images show him to be an individual who is sensitive to the fact that his city's vitality has ebbed and left a residue of empty piety, the faintest echoes of romance, and only symbolic memories of an active concern for God and fellow men. Lonely, imaginative, and isolated, he lacks the understanding necessary for evaluation and perspective. He is at first as blind as his world, but Joyce prepares us for his eventual perceptive awakening by tempering his blindness with an unconscious rejection of the spiritual stagnation of his world.

Religion controls the lives of the inhabitants of North Richmond Street, but it is a dying religion and receives only lip service.The boy entering the new experience of first love, finds his vocabulary within the experiences of his religious training and the romantic novels he has read. The result is an idealistic and confused interpretation of love based on quasireligious terms and the imagery of romance. Despite all the evidence of the dead house on a deadstreet in a dying city the boy determines to bear his "chalice safely through a throng of foes". He is extraordinarily lovesick, and from his innocent idealism and stubbornness, we realize that he cannot keep the dream. He must wake to the demands of the world around him and react.

The account of the boy's futile quest emphasizes both his lonely idealism and his ability to achieve the perspectives he now has. The quest ends when he arrives at the bazaar and realizes with slow, tortured clarity that Araby is not at all what he imagined. It is tawdry and dark and thrives on the profit motive and the eternal lure its name evokes in men. The boy realizes that he has placed all his love and hope in a world that does not exist except in his imagination. He feels he is a "creature driven and derided by vanity" and the vanity is his own.

At no other point in the story is characterization as brilliant as at the end. Joyce draws his protagonist with strokes designed to let us recognize in the "creature driven and derided by vanity" - both a boy who is initiated into knowledge through a loss of innocence and a man who fully realizes the incompatibility between the beautiful and innocent world of the imagination and the very real world of fact. In Araby, Joyce uses the character of the boy to embody the theme of his story.

Ironies of Kingship

Christopher Marlowe’s ‘Edward II’ narrates the dramatic and ultimately catastrophic events of the reign of Edward II based on the chronicle histories written by Holinshed and Stowe. As is typical to Marlowe’s plays “Edward II” deals with the concept of transgression followed by retribution in which Edward II is delineated as a very weak king.

A good ruler is supposed to lead his country and keep his kingdom united but Edward II prefers to waste time and enjoy himself with his flatterers. Edward II is introduced to the audience as a ‘pliant king’, a pleasure seeker who prefers to divide his kingdom than have his lover Gaveston exiled from the kingdom. Later in the play, his orders are disregarded by the nobles and a civil war within the kingdom of England ensues. By the end of the play we see the king at his most tragic, having lost everything including his friends, his lover Gaveston, his kingdom and having been betrayed by his own wife, Isabella.

The play Edward II reaches its emotional climax in Act V, Scene I. It is in this scene that the king’s image as an irresponsible and weak person undergoes a total transformation, and he emerges before the audience as a tragic figure in his understanding of the worthlessness of a king stripped of power just like the King in King Lear. Historically Edward II might not have shown this kind of tragic understanding of life. It is here that one has to look for the poet in the dramatist who expressed the renaissance anxiety for the helplessness of the human beings before Time. In the context of the drama, however, the understanding of the futility of human endeavour is related to another personal fact of the king; in fact, he lost the desire to live after Gaveston’s death, who was half his self. In other words, the king is under the control of death-instinct. With this he has also lost the desire for pomp and pleasure, and what he cares for now are his sense of honour, betrayal, conspiracy and anxiety for the future of his son. His refusal to surrender the crown to the Bishop of Winchester is a symbolic overture to defy Mortimer’s authority. And this is necessary for the dramatist also in reversing the sway of sympathy of the audience in the king’s favour.

The king rises above the ordinary level when he expresses his understanding of the tragic situation of a king remaining in imprisonment in his own kingdom and still remaining the titular head of the kingdom. This kind of situation forces him to understand the tragedy of power or the irony of kingship:

“I wear the crown, but am controlled by them
By Mortimer, and my unconstant queen...”

Though it is rather ironical that he expects constancy from the queen whom he disregarded as long as he had Gaveston by his side, the audience tends to forget that and sympathise with him in his plight. They may fall under the influence of the king’s emotional condemnation of the queen, who “spot my nuptial bed with infamy.” In the next moment, however, he breaks in cold sarcasm when he asks the Bishop of Winchester whether he must resign to “make usurping Mortimer a king”. It is clear now that his mind is being frequented by a variety of moods.

For the king the situation is more pathetic as he cares now for his son, who, according to him, is “a lamb encompassed by wolves”. In utter helplessness and frustration he bursts out in cursing Mortimer. But soon recovers sanity and comments on the tragedy of his situation:

“...weigh how hardy I can brook
To lose my crown and kingdom without a cause...”

Then again he breaks out in grim sarcasm while taking off his crown: “...take my crown—the life of Edward too”. At the next moment, however, he places himself on the flowing stream of time and expresses the Marlovian dilemma in his understanding of the impersonal operation of time:

“Continue ever, thou celestial sun
That Edward may be still fair England’s king”.

These lines are highly reminiscent of those of Doctor Faustus at the final catastrophic moment:

“Stand still you may ever moving spheres of heaven
That time may cease, and midnight never come"


The temporary bliss of wearing the crown makes him refuse to surrender it and he again breaks in hysterical anger, which is now impotent. When Leicester reminds him of the fact that if he refuses to put down the crown, the prince may lose his right, he immediate surrenders his crown. After that he finds it useless to remain alive and comes fully under the operation of death instinct. In a final gesture of his love for the queen, he sends a handkerchief to her. But this does not sound as tragic as his last words to his son:

“Commend me to my son, and bid him rule better than I...”

However, Marlowe’s purpose is to ultimately illustrate weaknesses in kingship and not strength. Weakness does not act but it is acted upon. Even if it acts, its actions are frustrated and ineffective. Thus, Marlowe was forced by the nature of his theme to distribute this weakness over a variety of characters - not only the central figure of Edward but also the agents of corruption who act upon this figure. Mortimer’s rise to power following Edward’s decline is transitory as young Edward goes on to “offer up this wicked traitor’s head”. Marlowe does not delve into the sacredness of royalty but the ironical quirks of fate in which envy, lust and corruption of characters in power or in search of power ultimately proves to be the cause of their tragedy and downfall.

Eustacia Vye

"Queen of night," Eustacia, a native of the fashionable seaside resort of Budmouth, is ever an outsider on Egdon Heath. Her grandfather's house is isolated physically, and she keeps herself apart from the heath dwellers by her walks alone and her frequent nightly excursions to the summit of Rainbarrow.

She has a kind of contempt for the natives, as shown, for example, in her condescension to Charley in allowing him to hold her hand in payment for the part she wants to play in the Christmas mumming. They, in turn, look upon her as unfriendly and too proud; Mrs. Yeobright tells Clym she is idle and probably wanton. Susan Nunsuch even believes her to be a witch. Unlike Clym, whom the heath folk can at least fathom in part, Eustacia is beyond their comprehension. Her view of life is as foreign to the heath as her person. She is a hedonist for whom love as an end in itself is the greatest pleasure: "To be loved to madness — such was her great desire."

Her whole personality has a sleepy, dreamy cast to it. Though she is beautiful in an exotic way, it is clear that she is not an easy person to live with or be around. Hardy says of her, "She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman." She is out-of-place and she doesn't quite fit into her surroundings. Themes of survival of the fittest come into play here, as Eustacia is trapped in an unsuitable spot and must either adapt or perish. Eustacia's story is one of lost potential, the interplay of fate and free will, and the consequences of decisions driven by dreams. None of those ideas would have come across if Eustacia was just a one-dimensional villain.

Eustacia is at the center of multiple triangular relationships in this novel: the love triangle between her, Damon, and Clym; the other love triangle between her, Thomasin, and Damon; and the jealousy-driven triangle between her, Clym, and Mrs. Yeobright. Eustacia's relationship with the wider community isn't much better than her personal relationships. She isolates herself and behaves arrogantly to those around her. As a result, the people of Egdon gossip about her, think she's an eccentric, and even accuse her of witchcraft. In the end, they seem to like her a lot better when she's dead-
                                       "All the known incidents of [Damon and Eustacia's] love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and modified, till the original reality bore but a slight resemblance to the counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues.”

Vocal in her condemnation of Destiny, Eustacia is an active demonstration of Hardy's theme in the novel. Yet, there is something unattractive about her readiness to shift the blame for everything that happens to her. It is difficult to accept whatever rationalization she makes for doing away with herself. It seems somehow unnecessary for a young woman of twenty to throw herself in a stream because she cannot find the ideal mate. In the retelling of Eustacia's life story, everything boils down to tragic love. Love and love stories are a very important part of Eustacia's life. In fact, the object of love often seems to be more of an afterthought to Eustacia than the idea of love. As indicated by Hardy's remark - “...she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.”

Clym Yeobright

Clym, the native who returns to his birthplace on Egdon Heath, is an instance of a precocious, highly regarded boy who, when a man, leaves his provincial background to make his way in the world. He then gives up worldly success for what he thinks of as a more important calling on his native ground. In short, Hardy's protagonist is a character who, though still admired locally, is bound to be misunderstood when he chooses to forgo conventional ideas of vocation and success.

His character is almost written in reverse. Clym was cast by his own community as an archetypal hero, and heroes tend to leave home and have adventures. They aren't supposed to return home to small-town life. Clym starts out as a modern man of the world and ends up doing a pale imitation of Jesus delivering sermons as a preacher. It might even be said that he anticipates a kind of martyr's role. Both the heath folk and his mother are doubtful of his plan to be a "schoolmaster to the poor and ignorant"; they view it as impractical as well as less desirable than his commercial career in Paris. Eustacia cannot fathom why a man who has lived in Paris, the center, to her, of all that is desirable, should choose to return to Egdon. But at the basis of Clym's desire to serve his native Egdon lies a general and idealistic view of his fellow human beings. He had a conviction that men seeked wisdom rather than affluence. And, as Hardy points out, "he was ready at once to be the first unit sacrificed."

At the end of the novel, his eyesight still subnormal, his mother and his wife dead, Clym still persists in the same view of mankind, will not complain of the injustice of his lot in life. Though his original plan is considerably reduced in scope, he mounts the summit of Rainbarrow in his role of "itinerant open-air preacher" with as much optimism, Hardy indicates, as he would have shown had his dream of a school been realised.

However admirable Clym's personality may be, certain sides of it are unattractive, but this is a tribute to Hardy's ability to create lifelike characters. Clym is given to self-pity, and he has in him a curious unwillingness to act. His delay in trying to establish contact with his mother after his marriage is repeated in his hesitating to ask Eustacia to come back to him. His inability to act enables Hardy to show him at the mercy of events or circumstances or chance, a demonstration of the theme of the novel. He is meant to be, in other words, a modern man: able to understand but unable to act decisively. As an individual, Clym is about as unsuited to be a husband as Eustacia is to be a wife. At one point, Eustacia describes him to Wildeve as a St. Paul and remarks that the qualities summed up in this allusion hardly make him a good companion. His "inner strenuousness" makes him hard to get along with, not merely for his wife, but for any other human being. Almost the only person in the novel with whom Clym is shown to be content is Humphrey, when the two of them cut furze together.

Clym's decision to return home effectively drives the entire plot of the novel. But for Clym himself, that decision literally causes his world to shrink; he's essentially swallowed up by the world he chose to return to. As a very myopic character, He literally and figuratively fails to fully see the world and especially the people around him, and this leads him to frequently procrastinate. Clym's failure to see clearly also translates itself into his murky status as the novel's hero. Clym isn't very clear on what he wants and, as a result, isn't very clear on who he is or who he wants to be.

The Sub-Plot: The Gulling of Malvolio

The sub-plot of Twelfth Night, the gulling of Malvolio by Sir Toby Belch, Maria, Feste, and Aguecheek, is justly famous as one of Shakespeare's funniest experiments in New Comedy, that is, in a style of comedy which is basically quite different from the pastoral romantic style of the main plot. The basis for the sub-plot is one of the oldest and most popular subjects for New Comedy - the unmasking of the hypocrite, a satiric exposure of apparent virtue so as to humiliate the hypocrite and make him ridiculous.

The duping of Malvolio is linked to main plot thematically in the obvious sense that it deals with a variety of love, namely, self-love, a wholesale preoccupation with self-interest and a refusal to see anyone as important other than oneself. Such a preoccupation leads to a misconception of the world and a total vulnerability to being manipulated into betraying oneself, as Malvolio does, by trusting that one's desires match the reality of the situation. Malvolio is punished—and is relatively easy to punish—because he is so wrapped up in his own importance that he sees no value in anything else or anyone other than himself. His conceit about himself, along with his secret desires for social advancement and power, make him easy to tempt into ridiculous behaviour.

This point is made most obviously by the instant antipathy between Feste, the fool, and Malvolio. Malvolio sees no point in having a Fool around, especially one who seems as old and tired as Feste, in whose jokes Malvolio finds no amusement. It's important to note that the major motivation for the trick on Malvolio is the insult he makes to the Fool when we first meet them, together with his total dislike for any sort of fun.

Malvolio, in other words, is a kill-joy, a person with no sense of humour and with no place in his scheme of things for anything other than what he thinks is important. Everyone recognizes this. Olivia tells him he is sick of self love, and Sir Toby Belch roars at him some of the most famous lines of the play: "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?". This quality in Malvolio makes him, rather like Jaques in As You Like It, the character most at odds with the comic spirit of the play.

But there's an essential difference between Jaques and Malvolio which makes the latter's presence in the play a good deal heavier. Malvolio is Olivia's steward, the person chiefly responsible for running her household, the master of the accounts. Olivia tells us quite clearly that Malvolio is essential to her—"I would not have him miscarry for the half of my dowry". He may be Olivia's servant, not of the same class as Sir Toby or Sir Andrew, and he may be a hypocrite with thoughts well above his station, but his work carries a weight that clearly matters. And that makes some difference to his final words, in which he promises revenge on all those present.

Three times in one scene (Act II Sc 3), other characters call Malvolio a Puritan, using that term in a derogatory sense to indicate someone they hate, someone who needs to be exposed for what he is. This does not necessarily mean that Malvolio is a radically religious Protestant, but it suggests that what they don't like about him is his excessive devotion to those things the Puritans were known for: seriousness, work, enforcing a strict code of morality in which there was no room for fun, colour, and entertainment (the Puritans were the moving force behind those who wanted to close the theatres as immoral places), and a hostility to art generally. In that sense, the Puritan often becomes (as here in this play) the symbol for an attitude excessively hostile to certain aspects of human experience. Exposing Malvolio thus becomes a way of neutralizing his power as a kill joy.

Malvolio is, of course, successfully humiliated and exposed—the trick is very funny (and helps Shakespeare to put into the play his crudest joke) and the punishment in the prison a damning parody of Puritan doctrine. But one wonders about that promise of revenge. If Malvolio is, as Olivia tells us, essential to the running of her estates, the one who does the major work of keeping the place going (and no one else seems interested or capable of doing that), then his departure at the end of the play casts a certain ironic shadow over the communal joy.