CUPRINS

(autori semnificativi din literatura si cultura Britanic si

American)

William Shakespeare: The Sonnets, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Nights
Dream
Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
Jonathan Swift: Gullivers Travels
John Keats
S. T. Coleridge: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice
Charles Dickens: Great Expectations, David Copperfield
Lewis Carroll: Alices Adventures in Wonderland
Thomas Hardy: Tess of the DUrbervilles
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter
Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
Emily Dickinson
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Herman Melville: Moby Dick
Henry James: The Portrait of a Lady
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim
James Joyce: Ulysses
G. B. Shaw: Caesar and Cleopatra, Pygmalion
Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway
F. S. Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby
Ernest Hemingway: Short Stories
Eugene ONeill: Mourning Becomes Electra
William Faulkner: Absalom! Absalom!
T.S. Eliot: Waste Land
William Golding: Lord of the Flies

Jonathan Swift: Gullivers Travels

CONTEXT
Jonathan Swift, son of the English lawyer Jonathan Swift the elder, was born in Dublin, Ireland,
on November 30, 1667. He grew up there in the care of his uncle before attending Trinity
College at the age of fourteen, where he stayed for seven years, graduating in 1688. In that year,
he became the secretary of Sir William Temple, an English politician and member of the Whig
party. In 1694, he took religious orders in the Church of Ireland and then spent a year as a
country parson. He then spent further time in the service of Temple before returning to Ireland to
become the chaplain of the earl of Berkeley. Meanwhile, he had begun to write satires on the
political and religious corruption surrounding him, working on A Tale of a Tub, which supports
the position of the Anglican Church against its critics on the left and the right, and The Battle of
the Books, which argues for the supremacy of the classics against modern thought and literature.
He also wrote a number of political pamphlets in favor of the Whig party. In 1709 he went to
London to campaign for the Irish church but was unsuccessful. After some conflicts with the
Whig party, mostly because of Swifts strong allegiance to the church, he became a member of
the more conservative Tory party in 1710.
Unfortunately for Swift, the Tory government fell out of power in 1714 and Swift, despite his
fame for his writings, fell out of favor. Swift, who had been hoping to be assigned a position in
the Church of England, instead returned to Dublin, where he became the dean of St. Patricks.
During his brief time in England, Swift had become friends with writers such as Alexander Pope,
and during a meeting of their literary club, the Martinus Scriblerus Club, they decided to write
satires of modern learning. The third voyage of Gullivers Travels is assembled from the work
Swift did during this time. However, the final work was not completed until 1726, and the
narrative of the third voyage was actually the last one completed. After his return to Ireland,
Swift became a staunch supporter of the Irish against English attempts to weaken their economy
and political power, writing pamphlets such as the satirical A Modest Proposal, in which he
suggests that the Irish problems of famine and overpopulation could be easily solved by having
the babies of poor Irish subjects sold as delicacies to feed the rich.
Gullivers Travels was a controversial work when it was first published in 1726. In fact, it was
not until almost ten years after its first printing that the book appeared with the entire text that
Swift had originally intended it to have. Ever since, editors have excised many of the passages,
particularly the more caustic ones dealing with bodily functions. Even without those passages,
however, Gullivers Travels serves as a biting satire, and Swift ensures that it is both humorous
and critical, constantly attacking British and European society through its descriptions of
imaginary countries.
Late in life, Swift seemed to many observers to become even more caustic and bitter than he had
been. Three years before his death, he was declared unable to care for himself, and guardians
were appointed. Based on these facts and on a comparison between Swifts fate and that of his
character Gulliver, some people have concluded that he gradually became insane and that his
insanity was a natural outgrowth of his indignation and outrage against humankind. However, the
truth seems to be that Swift was suddenly incapacitated by a paralytic stroke late in life, and that
prior to this incident his mental capacities were unimpaired.
Gullivers Travels is about a specific set of political conflicts, but if it were nothing more than
that it would long ago have been forgotten. The staying power of the work comes from its
depiction of the human condition and its often despairing, but occasionally hopeful, sketch of the
possibilities for humanity to rein in its baser instincts.
Gullivers Travels recounts the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a practical-minded Englishman trained
as a surgeon who takes to the seas when his business fails. In a deadpan first-person narrative
that rarely shows any signs of self-reflection or deep emotional response, Gulliver narrates the
adventures that befall him on these travels.
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Gullivers adventure in Lilliput begins when he wakes after his shipwreck to find himself bound
by innumerable tiny threads and addressed by tiny captors who are in awe of him but fiercely
protective of their kingdom. They are not afraid to use violence against Gulliver, though their
arrows are little more than pinpricks. But overall, they are hospitable, risking famine in their land
by feeding Gulliver, who consumes more food than a thousand Lilliputians combined could.
Gulliver is taken into the capital city by a vast wagon the Lilliputians have specially built. He is
presented to the emperor, who is entertained by Gulliver, just as Gulliver is flattered by the
attention of royalty. Eventually Gulliver becomes a national resource, used by the army in its war
against the people of Blefuscu, whom the Lilliputians hate for doctrinal differences concerning
the proper way to crack eggs. But things change when Gulliver is convicted of treason for
putting out a fire in the royal palace with his urine and is condemned to be shot in the eyes and
starved to death. Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he is able to repair a boat he finds and set
sail for England.
After staying in England with his wife and family for two months, Gulliver undertakes his next
sea voyage, which takes him to a land of giants called Brobdingnag. Here, a field worker
discovers him. The farmer initially treats him as little more than an animal, keeping him for
amusement. The farmer eventually sells Gulliver to the queen, who makes him a courtly
diversion and is entertained by his musical talents. Social life is easy for Gulliver after his
discovery by the court, but not particularly enjoyable. Gulliver is often repulsed by the
physicality of the Brobdingnagians, whose ordinary flaws are many times magnified by their
huge size. Thus, when a couple of courtly ladies let him play on their naked bodies, he is not
attracted to them but rather disgusted by their enormous skin pores and the sound of their
torrential urination. He is generally startled by the ignorance of the people hereeven the king
knows nothing about politics. More unsettling findings in Brobdingnag come in the form of
various animals of the realm that endanger his life. Even Brobdingnagian insects leave slimy
trails on his food that make eating difficult. On a trip to the frontier, accompanying the royal
couple, Gulliver leaves Brobdingnag when his cage is plucked up by an eagle and dropped into
the sea.
Next, Gulliver sets sail again and, after an attack by pirates, ends up in Laputa, where a floating
island inhabited by theoreticians and academics oppresses the land below, called Balnibarbi. The
scientific research undertaken in Laputa and in Balnibarbi seems totally inane and impractical,
and its residents too appear wholly out of touch with reality. Taking a short side trip to
Glubbdubdrib, Gulliver is able to witness the conjuring up of figures from history, such as Julius
Caesar and other military leaders, whom he finds much less impressive than in books. After
visiting the Luggnaggians and the Struldbrugs, the latter of which are senile immortals who
prove that age does not bring wisdom, he is able to sail to Japan and from there back to England.
Finally, on his fourth journey, Gulliver sets out as captain of a ship, but after the mutiny of his
crew and a long confinement in his cabin, he arrives in an unknown land. This land is populated
by Houyhnhnms, rational-thinking horses who rule, and by Yahoos, brutish humanlike creatures
who serve the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver sets about learning their language, and when he can speak
he narrates his voyages to them and explains the constitution of England. He is treated with great
courtesy and kindness by the horses and is enlightened by his many conversations with them and
by his exposure to their noble culture. He wants to stay with the Houyhnhnms, but his bared
body reveals to the horses that he is very much like a Yahoo, and he is banished. Gulliver is
grief-stricken but agrees to leave. He fashions a canoe and makes his way to a nearby island,
where he is picked up by a Portuguese ship captain who treats him well, though Gulliver cannot
help now seeing the captainand all humansas shamefully Yahoolike. Gulliver then
concludes his narrative with a claim that the lands he has visited belong by rights to England, as
her colonies, even though he questions the whole idea of colonialism.
Gulliver - The narrator and protagonist of the story. Although Lemuel Gullivers vivid and
detailed style of narration makes it clear that he is intelligent and well educated, his perceptions
are nave and gullible. He has virtually no emotional life, or at least no awareness of it, and his
comments are strictly factual. Indeed, sometimes his obsession with the facts of navigation, for
example, becomes unbearable for us, as his fictional editor, Richard Sympson, makes clear when
he explains having had to cut out nearly half of Gullivers verbiage. Gulliver never thinks that
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the absurdities he encounters are funny and never makes the satiric connections between the
lands he visits and his own home. Gullivers navet makes the satire possible, as we pick up on
things that Gulliver does not notice.
The emperor - The ruler of Lilliput. Like all Lilliputians, the emperor is fewer than six inches
tall. His power and majesty impress Gulliver deeply, but to us he appears both laughable and
sinister. Because of his tiny size, his belief that he can control Gulliver seems silly, but his
willingness to execute his subjects for minor reasons of politics or honor gives him a frightening
aspect. He is proud of possessing the tallest trees and biggest palace in the kingdom, but he is
also quite hospitable, spending a fortune on his captives food. The emperor is both a satire of the
autocratic ruler and a strangely serious portrait of political power.
The farmer - Gullivers first master in Brobdingnag. The farmer speaks to Gulliver, showing that
he is willing to believe that the relatively tiny Gulliver may be as rational as he himself is, and
treats him with gentleness. However, the farmer puts Gulliver on display around Brobdingnag,
which clearly shows that he would rather profit from his discovery than converse with him as an
equal. His exploitation of Gulliver as a laborer, which nearly starves Gulliver to death, seems
less cruel than simpleminded. Generally, the farmer represents the average Brobdingnagian of no
great gifts or intelligence, wielding an extraordinary power over Gulliver simply by virtue of his
immense size.
Glumdalclitch - The farmers nine-year-old daughter, who is forty feet tall. Glumdalclitch
becomes Gullivers friend and nursemaid, hanging him to sleep safely in her closet at night and
teaching him the Brobdingnagian language by day. She is skilled at sewing and makes Gulliver
several sets of new clothes, taking delight in dressing him. When the queen discovers that no one
at court is suited to care for Gulliver, she invites Glumdalclitch to live at court as his sole
babysitter, a function she performs with great seriousness and attentiveness. To Glumdalclitch,
Gulliver is basically a living doll, symbolizing the general status Gulliver has in Brobdingnag.
The queen - The queen of Brobdingnag, who is so delighted by Gullivers beauty and charms
that she agrees to buy him from the farmer for 1,000 pieces of gold. Gulliver appreciates her
kindness after the hardships he suffers at the farmers and shows his usual fawning love for
royalty by kissing the tip of her little finger when presented before her. She possesses, in
Gullivers words, infinite wit and humor, though this description may entail a bit of Gullivers
characteristic flattery of superiors. The queen seems genuinely considerate, asking Gulliver
whether he would consent to live at court instead of simply taking him in as a pet and inquiring
into the reasons for his cold good-byes with the farmer. She is by no means a hero, but simply a
pleasant, powerful person.
The king - The king of Brobdingnag, who, in contrast to the emperor of Lilliput, seems to be a
true intellectual, well versed in political science among other disciplines. While his wife has an
intimate, friendly relationship with the diminutive visitor, the kings relation to Gulliver is
limited to serious discussions about the history and institutions of Gullivers native land. He is
thus a figure of rational thought who somewhat prefigures the Houyhnhnms in Book IV.
Lord Munodi - A lord of Lagado, capital of the underdeveloped land beneath Laputa, who hosts
Gulliver and gives him a tour of the country on Gullivers third voyage. Munodi is a rare
example of practical-minded intelligence both in Lagado, where the applied sciences are wildly
impractical, and in Laputa, where no one even considers practicality a virtue. He fell from grace
with the ruling elite by counseling a commonsense approach to agriculture and land management
in Lagado, an approach that was rejected even though it proved successful when applied to his
own flourishing estate. Lord Munodi serves as a reality check for Gulliver on his third voyage,
an objective-minded contrast to the theoretical delusions of the other inhabitants of Laputa and
Lagado.
Yahoos - Unkempt humanlike beasts who live in servitude to the Houyhnhnms. Yahoos seem to
belong to various ethnic groups, since there are blond Yahoos as well as dark-haired and
redheaded ones. The men are characterized by their hairy bodies, and the women by their lowhanging breasts. They are naked, filthy, and extremely primitive in their eating habits. Yahoos are
not capable of government, and thus they are kept as servants to the Houyhnhnms, pulling their
carriages and performing manual tasks. They repel Gulliver with their lascivious sexual
appetites, especially when an eleven-year-old Yahoo girl attempts to rape Gulliver as he is
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bathing naked. Yet despite Gullivers revulsion for these disgusting creatures, he ends his
writings referring to himself as a Yahoo, just as the Houyhnhnms do as they regretfully evict him
from their realm. Thus, Yahoo becomes another term for human, at least in the semideranged
and self-loathing mind of Gulliver at the end of his fourth journey.
Houyhnhnms - Rational horses who maintain a simple, peaceful society governed by reason and
truthfulnessthey do not even have a word for lie in their language. Houyhnhnms are like
ordinary horses, except that they are highly intelligent and deeply wise. They live in a sort of
socialist republic, with the needs of the community put before individual desires. They are the
masters of the Yahoos, the savage humanlike creatures in Houyhnhnmland. In all, the
Houyhnhnms have the greatest impact on Gulliver throughout all his four voyages. He is grieved
to leave them, not relieved as he is in leaving the other three lands, and back in England he
relates better with his horses than with his human family. The Houyhnhnms thus are a measure
of the extent to which Gulliver has become a misanthrope, or human-hater; he is certainly, at
the end, a horse lover.
Gullivers Houyhnhnm master - The Houyhnhnm who first discovers Gulliver and takes him
into his own home. Wary of Gullivers Yahoolike appearance at first, the master is hesitant to
make contact with him, but Gullivers ability to mimic the Houyhnhnms own words persuades
the master to protect Gulliver. The masters domestic cleanliness, propriety, and tranquil
reasonableness of speech have an extraordinary impact on Gulliver. It is through this horse that
Gulliver is led to reevaluate the differences between humans and beasts and to question
humanitys claims to rationality.
Don Pedro de Mendez - The Portuguese captain who takes Gulliver back to Europe after he is
forced to leave the land of the Houyhnhnms. Don Pedro is naturally benevolent and generous,
offering the half-crazed Gulliver his own best suit of clothes to replace the tatters he is wearing.
But Gulliver meets his generosity with repulsion, as he cannot bear the company of Yahoos. By
the end of the voyage, Don Pedro has won over Gulliver to the extent that he is able to have a
conversation with him, but the captains overall Yahoolike nature in Gullivers eyes alienates him
from Gulliver to the very end.
Brobdingnagians - Giants whom Gulliver meets on his second voyage. Brobdingnagians are
basically a reasonable and kindly people governed by a sense of justice. Even the farmer who
abuses Gulliver at the beginning is gentle with him, and politely takes the trouble to say goodbye to him upon leaving him. The farmers daughter, Glumdalclitch, gives Gulliver perhaps the
most kindhearted treatment he receives on any of his voyages. The Brobdingnagians do not
exploit him for personal or political reasons, as the Lilliputians do, and his life there is one of
satisfaction and quietude. But the Brobdingnagians do treat Gulliver as a plaything. When he
tries to speak seriously with the king of Brobdingnag about England, the king dismisses the
English as odious vermin, showing that deep discussion is not possible for Gulliver here.
Lilliputians and Blefuscudians - Two races of miniature people whom Gulliver meets on his first
voyage. Lilliputians and Blefuscudians are prone to conspiracies and jealousies, and while they
treat Gulliver well enough materially, they are quick to take advantage of him in political
intrigues of various sorts. The two races have been in a longstanding war with each over the
interpretation of a reference in their common holy scripture to the proper way to eat eggs.
Gulliver helps the Lilliputians defeat the Blefuscudian navy, but he eventually leaves Lilliput and
receives a warm welcome in the court of Blefuscu, by which Swift satirizes the arbitrariness of
international relations.
Laputans - Absentminded intellectuals who live on the floating island of Laputa, encountered by
Gulliver on his third voyage. The Laputans are parodies of theoreticians, who have scant regard
for any practical results of their own research. They are so inwardly absorbed in their own
thoughts that they must be shaken out of their meditations by special servants called flappers,
who shake rattles in their ears. During Gullivers stay among them, they do not mistreat him, but
are generally unpleasant and dismiss him as intellectually deficient. They do not care about
down-to-earth things like the dilapidation of their own houses, but worry intensely about abstract
matters like the trajectories of comets and the course of the sun. They are dependent in their own
material needs on the land below them, called Lagado, above which they hover by virtue of a
magnetic field, and from which they periodically raise up food supplies. In the larger context of
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Gullivers journeys, the Laputans are a parody of the excesses of theoretical pursuits and the
uselessness of purely abstract knowledge.
Mary Burton Gulliver - Gullivers wife, whose perfunctory mention in the first paragraphs
of Gullivers Travels demonstrates how unsentimental and unemotional Gulliver is. He makes no
reference to any affection for his wife, either here or later in his travels when he is far away from
her, and his detachment is so cool as to raise questions about his ability to form human
attachments. When he returns to England, she is merely one part of his former existence, and he
records no emotion even as she hugs him wildly. The most important facts about her in
Gullivers mind are her social origin and the income she generates.
Richard Sympson - Gullivers cousin, self-proclaimed intimate friend, and the editor and
publisher of Gullivers Travels. It was in Richard Sympsons name that Jonathan Swift arranged
for the publication of his narrative, thus somewhat mixing the fictional and actual worlds.
Sympson is the fictional author of the prefatory note to Gullivers Travels, entitled The
Publisher to the Readers. This note justifies Sympsons elimination of nearly half of the original
manuscript material on the grounds that it was irrelevant, a statement that Swift includes so as to
allow us to doubt Gullivers overall wisdom and ability to distinguish between important facts
and trivial details.
James Bates - An eminent London surgeon under whom Gulliver serves as an apprentice after
graduating from Cambridge. Bates helps get Gulliver his first job as a ships surgeon and then
offers to set up a practice with him. After Batess death, Gulliver has trouble maintaining the
business, a failure that casts doubt on his competence, though he himself has other explanations
for the businesss failure. Bates is hardly mentioned in the travels, though he is surely at least as
responsible for Gullivers welfare as some of the more exotic figures Gulliver meets.
Nevertheless, Gulliver fleshes out figures such as the queen of Brobdingnag much more
thoroughly in his narrative, underscoring the sharp contrast between his reticence regarding
England and his long-windedness about foreigners.
Abraham Pannell - The commander of the ship on which Gulliver first sails,
theSwallow. Traveling to the Levant, or the eastern Mediterranean, and beyond, Gulliver spends
three and a half years on Pannells ship. Virtually nothing is mentioned about Pannell, which
heightens our sense that Gullivers fascination with exotic types is not matched by any interest in
his fellow countrymen.
William Prichard - The master of the Antelope, the ship on which Gulliver embarks for the
South Seas at the outset of his first journey, in 1699. When the Antelopesinks, Gulliver is washed
ashore on Lilliput. No details are given about the personality of Prichard, and he is not important
in Gullivers life or in the unfolding of the novels plot. That Gulliver takes pains to name him
accurately reinforces our impression that he is obsessive about facts but not always reliable in
assessing overall significance.
Flimnap - The Lord High Treasurer of Lilliput, who conceives a jealous hatred for Gulliver
when he starts believing that his wife is having an affair with him. Flimnap is clearly paranoid,
since the possibility of a love affair between Gulliver and a Lilliputian is wildly unlikely.
Flimnap is a portrait of the weaknesses of character to which any human is prone but that
become especially dangerous in those who wield great power.
Reldresal - The Principal Secretary of Private Affairs in Lilliput, who explains to Gulliver the
history of the political tensions between the two principal parties in the realm, the High-Heels
and the Low-Heels. Reldresal is more a source of much-needed information for Gulliver than a
well-developed personality, but he does display personal courage and trust in allowing Gulliver
to hold him in his palm while he talks politics. Within the convoluted context of Lilliputs
factions and conspiracies, such friendliness reminds us that fond personal relations may still exist
even in this overheated political climate.
Skyresh Bolgolam - The High Admiral of Lilliput, who is the only member of the administration
to oppose Gullivers liberation. Gulliver imagines that Skyreshs enmity is simply personal,
though there is no apparent reason for such hostility. Arguably, Skyreshs hostility may be merely
a tool to divert Gulliver from the larger system of Lilliputian exploitation to which he is
subjected.
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Tramecksan - Also known as the High-Heels, a Lilliputian political group reminiscent of the
British Tories. Tramecksan policies are said to be more agreeable to the ancient constitution of
Lilliput, and while the High-Heels appear greater in number than the Low-Heels, their power is
lesser. Unlike the king, the crown prince is believed to sympathize with the Tramecksan, wearing
one low heel and one high heel, causing him to limp slightly.
Slamecksan - The Low-Heels, a Lilliputian political group reminiscent of the British Whigs. The
king has ordained that all governmental administrators must be selected from this party, much to
the resentment of the High-Heels of the realm. Thus, while there are fewer Slamecksan than
Tramecksan in Lilliput, their political power is greater. The kings own sympathies with the
Slamecksan are evident in the slightly lower heels he wears at court.
Themes, Motifs & Symbols
Might Versus Right
Gullivers Travels implicitly poses the question of whether physical power or moral
righteousness should be the governing factor in social life. Gulliver experiences the advantages
of physical might both as one who has it, as a giant in Lilliput where he can defeat the
Blefuscudian navy by virtue of his immense size, and as one who does not have it, as a miniature
visitor to Brobdingnag where he is harassed by the hugeness of everything from insects to
household pets. His first encounter with another society is one of entrapment, when he is
physically tied down by the Lilliputians; later, in Brobdingnag, he is enslaved by a farmer. He
also observes physical force used against others, as with the Houyhnhnms chaining up of the
Yahoos.
But alongside the use of physical force, there are also many claims to power based on moral
correctness. The whole point of the egg controversy that has set Lilliput against Blefuscu is not
merely a cultural difference but, instead, a religious and moral issue related to the proper
interpretation of a passage in their holy book. This difference of opinion seems to justify, in their
eyes at least, the warfare it has sparked. Similarly, the use of physical force against the Yahoos is
justified for the Houyhnhnms by their sense of moral superiority: they are cleaner, better
behaved, and more rational. But overall, the novel tends to show that claims to rule on the basis
of moral righteousness are often just as arbitrary as, and sometimes simply disguises for, simple
physical subjugation. The Laputans keep the lower land of Balnibarbi in check through force
because they believe themselves to be more rational, even though we might see them as absurd
and unpleasant. Similarly, the ruling elite of Balnibarbi believes itself to be in the right in driving
Lord Munodi from power, although we perceive that Munodi is the rational party. Claims to
moral superiority are, in the end, as hard to justify as the random use of physical force to
dominate others.
The Individual Versus Society
Like many narratives about voyages to nonexistent lands, Gullivers Travels explores the idea of
utopiaan imaginary model of the ideal community. The idea of a utopia is an ancient one,
going back at least as far as the description in PlatosRepublic of a city-state governed by the
wise and expressed most famously in English by Thomas Mores Utopia. Swift nods to both
works in his own narrative, though his attitude toward utopia is much more skeptical, and one of
the main aspects he points out about famous historical utopias is the tendency to privilege the
collective group over the individual. The children of Platos Republic are raised communally,
with no knowledge of their biological parents, in the understanding that this system enhances
social fairness. Swift has the Lilliputians similarly raise their offspring collectively, but its results
are not exactly utopian, since Lilliput is torn by conspiracies, jealousies, and backstabbing.
The Houyhnhnms also practice strict family planning, dictating that the parents of two females
should exchange a child with a family of two males, so that the male-to-female ratio is perfectly
maintained. Indeed, they come closer to the utopian ideal than the Lilliputians in their wisdom
and rational simplicity. But there is something unsettling about the Houyhnhnms indistinct
personalities and about how they are the only social group that Gulliver encounters who do not
have proper names. Despite minor physical differences, they are all so good and rational that
they are more or less interchangeable, without individual identities. In their absolute fusion with
their society and lack of individuality, they are in a sense the exact opposite of Gulliver, who has
hardly any sense of belonging to his native society and exists only as an individual eternally
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wandering the seas. Gullivers intense grief when forced to leave the Houyhnhnms may have
something to do with his longing for union with a community in which he can lose his human
identity. In any case, such a union is impossible for him, since he is not a horse, and all the other
societies he visits make him feel alienated as well.
Gullivers Travels could in fact be described as one of the first novels of modern alienation,
focusing on an individuals repeated failures to integrate into societies to which he does not
belong. England itself is not much of a homeland for Gulliver, and, with his surgeons business
unprofitable and his fathers estate insufficient to support him, he may be right to feel alienated
from it. He never speaks fondly or nostalgically about England, and every time he returns home,
he is quick to leave again. Gulliver never complains explicitly about feeling lonely, but the
embittered and antisocial misanthrope we see at the end of the novel is clearly a profoundly
isolated individual. Thus, if Swifts satire mocks the excesses of communal life, it may also
mock the excesses of individualism in its portrait of a miserable and lonely Gulliver talking to
his horses at home in England.
The Limits of Human Understanding
The idea that humans are not meant to know everything and that all understanding has a natural
limit is important in Gullivers Travels. Swift singles out theoretical knowledge in particular for
attack: his portrait of the disagreeable and self-centered Laputans, who show blatant contempt
for those who are not sunk in private theorizing, is a clear satire against those who pride
themselves on knowledge above all else. Practical knowledge is also satirized when it does not
produce results, as in the academy of Balnibarbi, where the experiments for extracting sunbeams
from cucumbers amount to nothing. Swift insists that there is a realm of understanding into
which humans are simply not supposed to venture. Thus his depictions of rational societies, like
Brobdingnag and Houyhnhnmland, emphasize not these peoples knowledge or understanding of
abstract ideas but their ability to live their lives in a wise and steady way.
The Brobdingnagian king knows shockingly little about the abstractions of political science, yet
his country seems prosperous and well governed. Similarly, the Houyhnhnms know little about
arcane subjects like astronomy, though they know how long a month is by observing the moon,
since that knowledge has a practical effect on their well-being. Aspiring to higher fields of
knowledge would be meaningless to them and would interfere with their happiness. In such
contexts, it appears that living a happy and well-ordered life seems to be the very thing for which
Swift thinks knowledge is useful.
Swift also emphasizes the importance of self-understanding. Gulliver is initially remarkably
lacking in self-reflection and self-awareness. He makes no mention of his emotions, passions,
dreams, or aspirations, and he shows no interest in describing his own psychology to us.
Accordingly, he may strike us as frustratingly hollow or empty, though it is likely that his
personal emptiness is part of the overall meaning of the novel. By the end, he has come close to a
kind of twisted self-knowledge in his deranged belief that he is a Yahoo. His revulsion with the
human condition, shown in his shabby treatment of the generous Don Pedro, extends to himself
as well, so that he ends the novel in a thinly disguised state of self-hatred. Swift may thus be
saying that self-knowledge has its necessary limits just as theoretical knowledge does, and that if
we look too closely at ourselves we might not be able to carry on living happily.
Motifs
Excrement
While it may seem a trivial or laughable motif, the recurrent mention of excrement in Gullivers
Travels actually has a serious philosophical significance in the narrative. It symbolizes
everything that is crass and ignoble about the human body and about human existence in general,
and it obstructs any attempt to view humans as wholly spiritual or mentally transcendent
creatures. Since the Enlightenment culture of eighteenth-century England tended to view humans
optimistically as noble souls rather than vulgar bodies, Swifts emphasis on the common filth of
life is a slap in the face of the philosophers of his day. Thus, when Gulliver urinates to put out a
fire in Lilliput, or when Brobdingnagian flies defecate on his meals, or when the scientist in
Lagado works to transform excrement back into food, we are reminded how very little human
reason has to do with everyday existence. Swift suggests that the human condition in general is
dirtier and lowlier than we might like to believe it is.
8

Foreign Languages
Gulliver appears to be a gifted linguist, knowing at least the basics of several European
languages and even a fair amount of ancient Greek. This knowledge serves him well, as he is
able to disguise himself as a Dutchman in order to facilitate his entry into Japan, which at the
time only admitted the Dutch. But even more important, his linguistic gifts allow him to learn the
languages of the exotic lands he visits with a dazzling speed and, thus, gain access to their
culture quickly. He learns the languages of the Lilliputians, the Brobdingnagians, and even the
neighing tongue of the Houyhnhnms. He is meticulous in recording the details of language in his
narrative, often giving the original as well as the translation. One would expect that such detail
would indicate a cross-cultural sensitivity, a kind of anthropologists awareness of how things
vary from culture to culture. Yet surprisingly, Gullivers mastery of foreign languages generally
does not correspond to any real interest in cultural differences. He compares any of the
governments he visits to that of his native England, and he rarely even speculates on how or why
cultures are different at all. Thus, his facility for translation does not indicate a culturally
comparative mind, and we are perhaps meant to yearn for a narrator who is a bit less able to
remember the Brobdingnagian word for lark and better able to offer a more illuminating kind
of cultural analysis.
Clothing
Critics have noted the extraordinary attention that Gulliver pays to clothes throughout his
journeys. Every time he gets a rip in his shirt or is forced to adopt some native garment to
replace one of his own, he recounts the clothing details with great precision. We are told how his
pants are falling apart in Lilliput, so that as the army marches between his legs they get quite an
eyeful. We are informed about the mouse skin he wears in Brobdingnag, and how the finest silks
of the land are as thick as blankets on him. In one sense, these descriptions are obviously an easy
narrative device with which Swift can chart his protagonists progression from one culture to
another: the more ragged his clothes become and the stranger his new wardrobe, the farther he is
from the comforts and conventions of England. His journey to new lands is also thus a journey
into new clothes. When he is picked up by Don Pedro after his fourth voyage and offered a new
suit of clothes, Gulliver vehemently refuses, preferring his wild animal skins. We sense that
Gulliver may well never fully reintegrate into European society.
But the motif of clothing carries a deeper, more psychologically complex meaning as well.
Gullivers intense interest in the state of his clothes may signal a deep-seated anxiety about his
identity, or lack thereof. He does not seem to have much selfhood: one critic has called him an
abyss, a void where an individual character should be. If clothes make the man, then perhaps
Gullivers obsession with the state of his wardrobe may suggest that he desperately needs to be
fashioned as a personality. Significantly, the two moments when he describes being naked in the
novel are two deeply troubling or humiliating experiences: the first when he is the boy toy of the
Brobdingnagian maids who let him cavort nude on their mountainous breasts, and the second
when he is assaulted by an eleven-year-old Yahoo girl as he bathes. Both incidents suggest more
than mere prudery. Gulliver associates nudity with extreme vulnerability, even when there is no
real danger presenta pre-teen girl is hardly a threat to a grown man, at least in physical terms.
The state of nudity may remind Gulliver of how nonexistent he feels without the reassuring
cover of clothing.
Symbols.
Lilliputians
The Lilliputians symbolize humankinds wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence. Swift
fully intends the irony of representing the tiniest race visited by Gulliver as by far the most
vainglorious and smug, both collectively and individually. There is surely no character more
odious in all of Gullivers travels than the noxious Skyresh. There is more backbiting and
conspiracy in Lilliput than anywhere else, and more of the pettiness of small minds who imagine
themselves to be grand. Gulliver is a nave consumer of the Lilliputians grandiose imaginings:
he is flattered by the attention of their royal family and cowed by their threats of punishment,
forgetting that they have no real physical power over him. Their formally worded condemnation
of Gulliver on grounds of treason is a model of pompous and self-important verbiage, but it
works quite effectively on the nave Gulliver.
9

The Lilliputians show off not only to Gulliver but to themselves as well. There is no mention of
armies proudly marching in any of the other societies Gulliver visitsonly in Lilliput and
neighboring Blefuscu are the six-inch inhabitants possessed of the need to show off their
patriotic glories with such displays. When the Lilliputian emperor requests that Gulliver serve as
a kind of makeshift Arch of Triumph for the troops to pass under, it is a pathetic reminder that
their grand paradein full view of Gullivers nether regionsis supremely silly, a basically
absurd way to boost the collective ego of the nation. Indeed, the war with Blefuscu is itself an
absurdity springing from wounded vanity, since the cause is not a material concern like disputed
territory but, rather, the proper interpretation of scripture by the emperors forebears and the hurt
feelings resulting from the disagreement. All in all, the Lilliputians symbolize misplaced human
pride, and point out Gullivers inability to diagnose it correctly.
Brobdingnagians
The Brobdingnagians symbolize the private, personal, and physical side of humans when
examined up close and in great detail. The philosophical era of the Enlightenment tended to
overlook the routines of everyday life and the sordid or tedious little facts of existence, but in
Brobdingnag such facts become very important for Gulliver, sometimes matters of life and death.
An eighteenth-century philosopher could afford to ignore the fly buzzing around his head or the
skin pores on his servant girl, but in his shrunken state Gulliver is forced to pay great attention to
such things. He is forced take the domestic sphere seriously as well. In other lands it is difficult
for Gulliver, being such an outsider, to get glimpses of family relations or private affairs, but in
Brobdingnag he is treated as a doll or a plaything, and thus is made privy to the urination of
housemaids and the sexual lives of women. The Brobdingnagians do not symbolize a solely
negative human characteristic, as the Laputans do. They are not merely ridiculoussome aspects
of them are disgusting, like their gigantic stench and the excrement left by their insects, but
others are noble, like the queens goodwill toward Gulliver and the kings commonsense views
of politics. More than anything else, the Brobdingnagians symbolize a dimension of human
existence visible at close range, under close scrutiny.
Laputans
The Laputans represent the folly of theoretical knowledge that has no relation to human life and
no use in the actual world. As a profound cultural conservative, Swift was a critic of the
newfangled ideas springing up around him at the dawn of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment,
a period of great intellectual experimentation and theorization. He much preferred the traditional
knowledge that had been tested over centuries. Laputa symbolizes the absurdity of knowledge
that has never been tested or applied, the ludicrous side of Enlightenment intellectualism. Even
down below in Balnibarbi, where the local academy is more inclined to practical application,
knowledge is not made socially useful as Swift demands. Indeed, theoretical knowledge there
has proven positively disastrous, resulting in the ruin of agriculture and architecture and the
impoverishment of the population. Even up above, the pursuit of theoretical understanding has
not improved the lot of the Laputans. They have few material worries, dependent as they are
upon the Balnibarbians below. But they are tormented by worries about the trajectories of comets
and other astronomical speculations: their theories have not made them wise, but neurotic and
disagreeable. The Laputans do not symbolize reason itself but rather the pursuit of a form of
knowledge that is not directly related to the improvement of human life.
Houyhnhnms
The Houyhnhnms represent an ideal of rational existence, a life governed by sense and
moderation of which philosophers since Plato have long dreamed. Indeed, there are echoes of
Platos Republic in the Houyhnhnms rejection of light entertainment and vain displays of luxury,
their appeal to reason rather than any holy writings as the criterion for proper action, and their
communal approach to family planning. As in Platos ideal community, the Houyhnhnms have
no need to lie nor any word for lying. They do not use force but only strong exhortation. Their
subjugation of the Yahoos appears more necessary than cruel and perhaps the best way to deal
with an unfortunate blot on their otherwise ideal society. In these ways and others, the
Houyhnhnms seem like model citizens, and Gullivers intense grief when he is forced to leave
them suggests that they have made an impact on him greater than that of any other society he has
10

visited. His derangement on Don Pedros ship, in which he snubs the generous man as a Yahoolike creature, implies that he strongly identifies with the Houyhnhnms.
But we may be less ready than Gulliver to take the Houyhnhnms as ideals of human existence.
They have no names in the narrative nor any need for names, since they are virtually
interchangeable, with little individual identity. Their lives seem harmonious and happy, although
quite lacking in vigor, challenge, and excitement. Indeed, this apparent ease may be why Swift
chooses to make them horses rather than human types like every other group in the novel. He
may be hinting, to those more insightful than Gulliver, that the Houyhnhnms should not be
considered human ideals at all. In any case, they symbolize a standard of rational existence to be
either espoused or rejected by both Gulliver and us.
England
As the site of his fathers disappointingly small estate and Gullivers failing business, England
seems to symbolize deficiency or insufficiency, at least in the financial sense that matters most to
Gulliver. England is passed over very quickly in the first paragraph of Chapter I, as if to show
that it is simply there as the starting point to be left quickly behind. Gulliver seems to have very
few nationalistic or patriotic feelings about England, and he rarely mentions his homeland on his
travels. In this sense, Gullivers Travels is quite unlike other travel narratives like theOdyssey, in
which Odysseus misses his homeland and laments his wanderings. England is where Gullivers
wife and family live, but they too are hardly mentioned. Yet Swift chooses to have Gulliver
return home after each of his four journeys instead of having him continue on one long trip to
four different places, so that England is kept constantly in the picture and given a steady,
unspoken importance. By the end of the fourth journey, England is brought more explicitly into
the fabric ofGullivers Travels when Gulliver, in his neurotic state, starts confusing
Houyhnhnmland with his homeland, referring to Englishmen as Yahoos. The distinction between
native and foreign thus unravelsthe Houyhnhnms and Yahoos are not just races populating a
faraway land but rather types that Gulliver projects upon those around him. The possibility thus
arises that all the races Gulliver encounters could be versions of the English and that his travels
merely allow him to see various aspects of human nature more clearly.

MARK TWAIN THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERY FINN

CONTEXT
Christened as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835 in the
small river town of Florida, Missouri, just 200 miles from Indian Territory. In his youth, Twain
was a mischievous boy, the prototype of his character, Tom Sawyer. Though he was plagued by
poor health in his early years, by age nine he had already learned to smoke, led a small band of
pranksters, and had developed an aversion to school. Twains formal schooling ended after age
12, because his father passed away in March of the year. He became an apprentice in a printers
shop and then worked under his brother, Orion, at the Hannibal Journal, where he quickly
became saturated in the newspaper trade. Rising to the role of sub-editor, Twain indulged in the
frontier humor that flourished in journalism at the time: tall, tales, satirical pranks, and jokes.
On his way to Nevada, twelve years after the Gold Rush, Twains primary intentions were to
strike it rich mining for silver and gold. After realizing the impossibility of this dream, Twain
once again picked up his pen and began to write.
Twain joined the staff of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, and became an established
reporter / humorist. In 1863, he adopted the pseudonym Mark Twain, derived from a river pilot
term describing safe navigating conditions.
In 1880, his third daughter, Jean, was born. By the time Twain reached age fifty, he was already
considered a successful writer and businessman. His popularity sky-rocketed with the
publications of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), The Prince and the Pauper (1882), and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). By 1885, Twain was considered one the greatest
character writers in the literary community.
11

Twain died on April 21, 1910, having survived his children Langdon, Susan and Jean as well as
his wife, Olivia. In his lifetime, he became a distinguished member of the literati, and was
honored by Yale, the University of Missouri, and Oxford with literary degrees. With his death,
many volumes of his letters, articles, and fables were published, including: The Letters of
Quintas Curtius Snodgrass (1946); Simon Wheeler, Detective (1963); The Works of Mark Twain:
What is Man? An Other Philosophical Writings (1973); and Mark Twains Notebooks and
Journals (1975 79). Perhaps more than any other classic American writer, Mark Twain is seen
as a phenomenal author, but also as a personality that defined an era.
ABOUT THE NOVEL: Throughout the twentieth century, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
has become famous not only as one of Twains greatest achievements, but also as a highly
controversial piece of literature. In certain Southern states, the novel was banned due to its
extensive criticism of the hypocrisy of slavery. Others have argued that the novel is racist du to
the many appearances of the word nigger. Unfortunately, the connotations of this word tend to
override the novels deeper antislavery themes, and prevent readers from understanding Twains
true perspective. In Twains time, this word was used often and did not carry as powerful a racist
connotation as it does currently. Therefore, in using the word, Twain was simply projecting a
realistic portrayal of Southern society. Undoubtedly, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is
highly significant due to its deep exploration of issues surrounding racism and morality, and
continues to provide controversy and debate to this day, evidencing the continued relevance of
these concepts.
MAJOR THEMES: Conflict between civilization and natural life: The primary theme of the
novel is the conflict between civilization and natural life. Huck represents natural life trough
his freedom of spirit, uncivilized ways, and desire to escape from civilization. He was raised
without any rules or discipline and has a strong resistance to anything that might civilize him.
This conflict is introduced in the first chapter through the efforts of the Widow Douglas: she tries
to force Huck to wear new clothes, give up smoking, and learn the Bible. Throughout the novel,
Twain seems to suggest that the uncivilized way of life is more desirable and morally superior.
Drawing on the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Twain suggests that civilization corrupts, rather
than improves, human beings.
Honor: The theme of honor permeates the novel after first being introduced in the second
chapter, where Tom Sawyer expresses his belief that there is a great deal of honor associated
with thieving. Robbery appears throughout the novel, specifically when Huck and Jim encounter
robbers on the shipwrecked boat and are forced to put up with the King and Dauphin, both of
whom rob everyone they meet. Toms original robber band is paralleled later in the novel when
Tom and Huck become true thieves, but honorable ones, at the end of the novel. They resolve to
steal Jim, freeing him from the bonds of slavery, which is an honorable act. Thus, the concept of
honor and acting to earn it becomes a central theme in Hucks adventures.
Food: Food plays a prominent role in the novel. In Hucks childhood, he often fights pigs for
food, and eats out of a barrel of odds and ends. Thus, providing Huck with food becomes a
symbol of people caring for and protecting him. For example, in the first chapter, the Widow
Douglas feeds Huck, and later on Jim becomes his symbolic caretaker, feeding and watching
over him on Jacksons Island. Food is again discussed fairly prominently when Huck lives with
the Grangerfords and the Wilkss.
Mockery of Religion: A theme Twain focuses on quite heavily on in this novel is the mockery of
religion. Throughout his life, Twain was known for his attacks on organized religion. Huck
Finns sarcastic character perfectly situates him to deride religion, representing Twains personal
views. In the first chapter, Huck indicates that hell sounds far more fun than heaven. Later on, in
a very prominent scene, the King, a liar and cheat, convinces a religious community to give
him money so he can convert his pirate friends. The religious people are easily led astray,
which mocks their beliefs and devotion to God.
Superstition: Superstition appears throughout the novel. Generally, both Huck and Jim are very
rational characters, yet when they encounter anything slightly superstitious, irrationality takes
over. The power superstition holds over the two demonstrates that Huck and Jim are child-like
despite their apparent maturity. In addition, superstition foreshadows the plot at several key
12

junctions. For instance, when Huck spills salt, Pap returns, and when Huck touches a snakeskin
with his bare hands, a rattlesnake bites Jim.
Slavery: The theme of slavery is perhaps the most well known aspect of this novel. Since its first
publication, Twains perspective on slavery and ideas surrounding racism have been hotly
debated. In his personal and public life, Twain was vehemently anti-slavery. Considering this
information, it is easy to see that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn provides an allegory to
explain how and why slavery is wrong. Twain uses Jim, a main character and a slave, to
demonstrate the humanity of slaves. Jim expresses the complicated human emotions and
struggles with the part of his life. To prevent being sold and forced to separate from his family,
Jim runs away from his owner, Miss Watson, and works towards obtaining freedom so he can
buy his familys freedom. All along their journey downriver, Jim cares for and protects of Huck,
not as a servant, but as a friend. Thus, Twains encourages the reader to feel sympathy and
empathy for Jim and outrage at the society that has enslaved him and threatened his life.
However, although Twain attacks slavery through is portrayal of Jim, he never directly addresses
the issue. Huck and Jim never debate slavery, and all the over slaves in the novel are very minor
characters. Only in the final section of the novel does Twain develop the central conflict
concerning slavery: should Huck free Jim and then be condemned to hell? The decision is lifealtering for Huck, as it forces him to reject everything civilization has taught him. Huck
chooses to free Jim, based on his personal experiences rather than social norms, thus choosing
the morality of the natural life over that of civilization.
Money: The concept of wealth or lack thereof is thread throughout the novel, and highlights the
disparity between the rich and poor. Twain purposely begins the novel by pointing out that Huck
has over six thousand dollars to his name; a sum of money that dwarfs all the other sums
mentioned, making them seem inconsequential in contrast. Huck demonstrates a relaxed attitude
towards wealth, and because he has so much of it, does not view money as a necessity, but rather
as a luxury. Hucks views regarding wealth clearly contrast with Jims. For Jim, who is on a
quest to buy his family out of slavery, money is equivalent to freedom. In addition, wealth would
allow him to raise his status in society. Thus, Jim is on a constant quest for wealth, whereas Huck
remains apathetic.
Mississippi River: The majority of the plot takes place on the river or its banks. For Huck and
Jim, the river represents freedom. On the raft, they are completely independent and determine
their own courses of action. Jim looks forward to reaching the free states, and Huck is eager to
escape his abusive, drunkard of a father and the civilization of Miss Watson. However, the
towns along the river bank begin to exert influence upon them, and eventually Huck and Jim
meet criminals, shipwrecks, dishonesty, and great danger. Finally, a fog forces them to miss the
town of Cairo, at which point there were planning to head up the Ohio River, towards the free
states, in a steamboat.
Originally, the river is a safe place for the two travelers, but it becomes increasingly dangerous as
the realities of their runaway lives set in on Huck and Jim. Once reflective of absolute freedom,
the river soon becomes only a short-term escape, and the novel concludes on the safety of dry
land, where, ironically, Huck and Jim find their true freedom.
SHORT SUMMARY: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often considered Twains greatest
masterpiece. Combining his raw humor and startlingly mature material, Twain developed a novel
that directly attacked many of the traditions the South held dear at the time of its publication.
Huckleberry Finn is the main character, and through his eyes, the reader sees and judges the
South, its faults, and its redeeming qualities. Hucks companion Jim, a runaway slave, provides
friendship and protection while the two journey along the Mississippi on their raft.
The novel opens with Huck telling his story. Briefly, he describes what he has experienced since,
The Adventures of tom Sawyer, which preceded this novel. After Huck and Tom discovered
twelve thousand dollars in treasure, Judge Thatcher invested the money for them. Huck was
adopted by the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson, both of whom took pains to raise him
properly. Dissatisfied with his new life, and wishing for the simplicity he used to know, Huck
runs away. Tom Sawyer searches him out and convinces him to return home by promising to start
a band of robbers. All the local young boys join Toms band, using a hidden cave for their
13

hideout and meeting place. However, many soon grow bored with their make-believe battles, and
the band falls apart.
Soon thereafter, Huck discovers footprints in the snow and recognizes them as his violent,
abusive Paps. Huck realizes Pap, who Huck hasnt seen in a very long time, has returned to
claim the money Huck found, and he quickly runs to Judge Thatcher to sell his share of the
money for a consideration of a dollar. Pap catches Huck after leaving Judge Thatcher, forces
him to hand over the dollars, and threatens to beat Huck if he ever goes to school again.
Upon Paps return, Judge Thatcher and the Widow try to gain court custody of Huck, but a new
judge in town refuses to separate Huck from his father. Pap steals Huck away from the Widows
house and takes him to a log cabin. At first Huck enjoys the cabin life, but after receiving
frequent beatings, he decides to escape. When Pap goes into town, Huck seizes the opportunity.
He saw his way out of the log cabin, kills a pig, spreads the blood as if it were his own, takes a
canoe, and floats downstream to Jacksons Island. Once there, he sets up camp and hides out.
A few days after arriving on the island, Huck stumbles upon a still smoldering campfire.
Although slightly frightened, Huck decides to seek out his fellow inhabitant. The next day, he
discovers Miss Watsons slave, Jim, is living on the island. After overhearing the Widows plan
to sell him to a slave trader, Jim ran away. Jim, along with the rest of the townspeople, thought
Huck was dead and is frightened upon seeing him. Soon, the two shar their escape stories and are
happy to have a companion.
While Huck and Jim live on the island, the river rises significantly. At one point, an entire house
floats past them as they stand near the shore. Huck and Jim climb aboard to see what they can
salvage and find a dead man lying in the corner of the house. Jim goes over to inspect the body
and realizes it is Pap, Hucks father. Jim keeps this information a secret.
Soon afterwards, Huck returns to the town disguised as a girl in order to gather some news.
While talking with a woman, he learns that both Jim and Pap are suspects in his murder. The
woman then tells Huck that she believes Jim is hiding out an Jacksons Island. Upon hearing her
suspicions, Huck immediately returns to Jim and together they flee the island to avoid discovery.
Using a large raft, they float downstream during the nights and hide along the shore during the
days. In the middle of a strong thunderstorm, they see a steamboat that has crashed, and Huck
convinces Jim to land on the boat. Together, they climb aboard and discover there are three
thieves on the wreck, two of whom are debating whether to kill the third. Huck overhears this
conversation, and he and Jim try to escape, only to find that their raft has come undone from its
makeshift mooring. They manage to find the robbers skiff and immediately take off. Within a
short time, they see the wrecked steamship floating downstream, far enough below the waterline
to have drowned everyone on board. Subsequently, they reclaim their original raft, and continue
down the river with both the raft and the canoe.
As Jim and Huck continue floating downstream, they become close friends. Their goal is to
reach Cairo, where they can take a steamship up to the Ohio River and into the free states.
However, during a dense fog, with Huck in the canoe and Jim in the raft, they are separated.
When they find each other in the morning, it soon becomes clear that in the midst of the fog, they
passed Cairo.
A few nights later, a steamboat runs over the raft, and forces Huck and Jim to jump overboard.
Again, they are separated as they swim for their lives. Huck finds the shore and is immediately
surrounded by dogs. After managing to escape, he is invited to live with a family called the
Grangerfords. At the Grangerford home, Huck is treated well and discovers that Jim is hiding in
a nearby swamp. Everything is peaceful until an old family feud between the Grangerfords and
the Shepherdsons is rekindled. Within one day all the men in the Grangerford family are killed,
including Hucks new best friend, Buck. Amid the chaos, Huck runs back to Jim, and together
they start downriver again.
Further downstream, Huck rescues two humbugs known as the Duke and the King. Immediately,
the two men take control of the raft and start to travel downstream, making money by cheating
people in the various towns along the river. The Duke and the King develop a scam they call the
Royal Nonesuch, which earns them over four hundred dollars. The scam involves getting all the
men in the town to come to a show with promises of great entertainment. In the show, the King
parades around naked for a few minutes. The men are too ashamed to admit to wasting their
14

money, and tell everyone else that the show was phenomenal, thus making the following nights
performance a success. On the third night, everyone returns plotting revenge, but the Duke and
King manage to escape with all their ill gotten gains.
Further downriver, the two con men learn about a large inheritance meant for three recently
orphaned girls. To steal the money, the men pretend to be the girls British uncles. The girl are so
happy to see their uncles that they do not realize they are being swindled. Meanwhile, the girls
treat Huck so nicely that he vows to protect them from the con mens scheme. Huck sneaks into
the Kings room and steals the large bag of gold from the inheritance. He hides the gold in Peter
Wilkss (the girls father) coffin. Meanwhile, the humbugs spend their time liquidating the Wilks
family property. At one point, Huck finds Mary Jane Wilks, the oldest of the girls, and sees that
she is crying. He confesses the entire story to her. She is infuriated, but agrees to leave the house
for a few days so Huck can escape.
Right after Mary Jane leaves, the real Wilks uncles arrive in town. However, because they lost
their baggage on their voyage, they are unable to prove their identities. Thus, the town lawyer
gathers all four men to determine who is lying. The King and the Duke fake their roles so well
that there is no way to determine the truth. Finally, one of real uncles says his brother Peter had a
tattoo on his chest and challenges the King to identify it. In order to determine the truth, the
townspeople decide to exhume the body. Upon digging up the grave, the townspeople discover
the missing money Huck hid in the coffin. In the ensuing chaos, Huck runs straight back to the
raft and he and Jim push off into the river. The Duke and King also escape and catch up to rejoin
the raft.
Farther down the river, the King and the Duke sell Jim into slavery, claiming he is a runaway
slave from New Orleans. Huck decides to rescue Jim, and daringly walks up to the house where
Jim is being kept. Luckily, the house is owned by none other than Tom Sawyers Autn Sally.
Huck immediately pretends to be Tom. When the real Tom arrives, he pretends to be his younger
brother, Sid Sawyer. Together, he and Huck contrive a plan to help Jim escape from his prison,
an outdoor shed. Tom, always the troublemaker, also makes Jims life difficult by putting snakes
and spiders into his room.
After a great deal of planning, the boys convince the town that a group of thieves is planning to
steal Jim. That night, they collect Jim and start to run away. The local farmers follow them,
shooting as they run after them. Huck, Jim and Tom manage to escape, but Tom is shot in the leg.
Huck returns to town to fetch a doctor, whom he sends Tom and Jims hiding place. The doctor
returns with Tom on a stretcher and Jim in chains. Jim is treated badly until the doctor describes
how Jim helped him take care of the boy. When Tom awakens, he demands that they let Jim go
free.
At this point, Aunt Polly appears, having traveled all the way down the river. She realized
something was very wrong after her sister wrote to her that both Tom and Sid had arrived. Aunt
Polly tells them that Jim is indeed a free man, because the Widow had passed away and freed
him in her will. Huck and Tom give Jim forty dollars for being such a good prisoner and letting
them free him, while in fact he had been free for quite some time.
After this revelation, Jim tells Huck to stop worrying about his Pap and reveals that the dead man
in the floating house was in fact Hucks father. Aunt Sally offers to adopt Huck, but he refuses on
the grounds that he had tried that sort of lifestyle once before, and it didnt suit him. Huck
concludes the novel stating he would never have undertaken the task of writing out his story in a
book, had he known it would take so long to complete.
W. SHAKESPEARE HAMLET
CONTEXT
William Shakespeares father, John Shakespeare, moved to the idyllic town of Stratford-uponAvon in the mid-sixteenth century, where he became a successful landowner, moneylender, wool
and agricultural goods dealer, and glover. In 1557, he married Mary Arden. John Shakespeare
lived during a time when the middle class was growing and became increasingly wealthy, thus
allowing its members more freedoms and luxuries, and a stronger voice in the local government.
He took advantage of the opportunities afforded him through this social growth, and in 1557
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became a member of the Stratford Council, an event that marked the beginning of an illustrious
political career. By 1561 he was elected one of the towns fourteen burgesses, and served
successively as constable, one of two chamberlains, and alderman. In these positions, he
administered borough property and revenues. In 1567 he was made bailiff , the highest elected
office in Stratford the equivalent of a modern-day mayor.
The town records indicate that William Shakespeare was John and Marys third child. His birth is
unregistered, but legend places it on April 23, 1564, partially because April 23 is the day on
which he died 52 years later. In any event, his baptism was registered with the town on April 26,
1564. Not much is known about his childhood, although it is safe to assume that he attended the
local grammar school, the Kings New School, which was staffed with a faculty that held Oxford
degrees, and whose curriculum included mathematics, natural sciences, Latin language and
rhetoric, logic, Christian ethics, and classical literature. He did not attend a university, but this
was not unusual at the time, since university education was reserved for prospective clergymen
and was not considered a particularly mind-opening experience. However, the education he
received in grammar school was excellent, as evidenced by the numerous classical and literary
references in his plays. His early works especially drew on such Greek and Roman greats as
Seneca and Plautus. More impressive than his formal education is the wealth of general
knowledge exhibited in his works, from a working knowledge of many professions to a
vocabulary far greater than any other English writer.
In 1582, at age eighteen, William Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway. Their first
daughter, Susanna, was baptized only six months later, which has given rise to much speculation
concerning the circumstances surrounding their marriage. In 1585 Anne bore twins, baptized
Hamlet and Judith Shakespeare. Hamlet died at the young age of eleven, by which time
Shakespeare was already a successful playwright. Around 1589, Shakespeare wrote his first play,
Henry VI, Part 1. Sometime between his marriage and writing this play he and his wife moved to
London, where he pursued a career as a playwright and actor.
Although many records of Shakespeares life as a citizen of Stratford, including marriage and
birth certificates, are extant, very little information exists about his life as a young playwright.
Legend characterizes Shakespeare as a roguish young scrapper who was once forced to flee
London under sketchy circumstances. However the little written information we have of his
early years does not confirm this. Young Will was not an immediate and universal success; the
earliest written record of Shakespeares life in London comes from a statement by rival
playwright Robert Greene, who calls Shakespeare an upstart crow [who] supposes he is as
well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you hardly high praise.
With Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, and Titus Andronicus under his belt, Shakespeare was, by
1590, a popular playwright, but 1593 marked a major leap forward in his career. By the end of
that year he garnered a prominent patron in the Earl of Southampton, and his Venus and Adonis
was published. It remains one of the first of his known works to be printed, and was a huge
success. Next came The Rape of Lucrece. Shakespeare had made his mark as a poet, and most
scholars agree that the majority of Shakespeares sonnets were probably written in the 1590s.
In 1594 Shakespeare returned to the theater and became a charter member of the Lord
Chamberlains Men, a group of actors who changed their name to the Kings Men when James I
ascended the throne. By 1598 he was the principal comedian for the troupe, and by 1603 he
was principal tragedian. He remained associated with the organization until his death. At this
time, acting and playwriting were not considered noble professions, but successful and
prosperous actors were relatively respected. Shakespeare was very successful and made quite a
bit of money, which he invested in Stratford real estate. In fact, in 1597 he purchased the second
largest house in Stratford, the New Place, for his parents. In 1596 Shakespeare applied for a coat
of arms for his family, in effect making himself a gentleman, and his daughters married
successfully and wealthily.
The same year he joined the Lord Chamberlains Men, Shakespeare penned Romeo and Juliet,
along with Loves Labours Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, and several other plays. Two of his
greatest tragedies, Hamlet and Julius Caesar, followed in 1600 (or thereabout), and the opening
decade of the seventeenth century witnessed the debut performances of many of his celebrated
works: Richard III in 1601, Othello in 1604 or 1605, Antony and Cleopatra in 1606 or 1607, and
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King Lear in 1608. The last play of his performed was probably King Henry VIII, in either 1612
or 1613.
William Shakespeare lived until 1616, and his wife Anna died in 1623 at the age of 67. He was
buried in the chancel of his church at Stratford. The lines above his tomb (allegedly written by
Shakespeare himself) read:
Good friend, for Jesus sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones
And cursed be he that moves my bones.
ABOUT HAMLET:
Hamlet was likely written in 1600, but the date of composition is uncertain. Most scholars feel
that the play came after Julius Caesar, which is alluded to 3.2.93 by Polonius. The first reference
to the play is by a printer named James Roberts, who entered the play into the Stationers
Register on July 26, 1602. The first known edition is in a quarto dated 1603, but printed by
Nicholas Ling and John Trundell. This text is only 2200 lines long, making it one of the shorter
versions of the play, as well as one of the inferior copies. Many scholars believe this version to
have been reconstructed from memory alone, probably by one or two of the actors in
Shakespeares company. The next edition, in 1604, seems to have used Shakespeares
handwritten draft, and is significantly larger and more comprehensive. The third main edition is
that of the First Folio in 1623. This version of the play seems to have used the promptbook as its
source, and thus more accurately portrays the play as Shakespeares audience would have seen it.
Due to discrepancies in the 1604 and 1623 texts, many modern editors have conflated the two
versions into a unified text.
The narrative behind Hamlet derives from the legendary story of Hamlet (Amleth) recounted in
the Danish History from the twelfth century, a Latin text by Saxo the Grammarian. This version
was later adapted into French by Francois de Belleforest in 1570. An unscrupulous Feng kills his
brother Horwendil and marries his brothers wife Gerutha. Horwendils and Geruthas son
Amleth, although still young, decides to avenge his fathers murder. He pretends to be a fool in
order to avoid suspicion, a strategy which works. With his mothers active support, Amleth
succeeds in killing Feng. He is then proclaimed King of Denmark. There is no uncertainty in this
story, although Belleforets version claims that Gerutha and Feng are having an affair. In fact, in
this version the murder of Horwendil is quite public, and Hamleths actions are considered to be
a duty rather than a moral sin.
This version of Hamlet is likely what Shakespeare knew, along with another play done in 1589 in
which a ghost apparently calls out, Hamlet, revenge!. However, this other play from 1589 is
largely lost, and scholars cannot agree on what parts of it Shakespeare may have adopted or not,
or if it even existed. Assuming it did exist, most scholars attribute it to Thomas Kyd, author of
The Spanish Tragedy in 1587. The Spanish Tragedy includes many of the elements that Hamlet
has, such as a ghost seeking revenge, a secret crime, a play-within-a-play, a tortured hero who
feigns madness, and a heroine who goes mad and commits suicide. This play is focused on
revenge, and actually precipitated the genre of revenge plays of which Hamlet is a part.
The revenge play that Hamlet falls into includes five typical assumptions. Revenge must be on
an individual level against some insult or wrong. Second, the individual may not have recourse
to traditional means of punishment, such as courts, because of the power of the person or
persons against whom revenge will be enacted. Third, the lust for revenge is an internal desire,
which can only be satisfied by personally carrying out the revenge. Fourth, the revenge must
make the intended victim aware of why the revenge is being carried out. Lastly, revenge is a
universal decree that supersedes any particular religious doctrine, including Christianity.
Hamlet is a play a questions. Unresolved questions are constantly being asked, about whether the
ghost of Old Hamlet is friendly or a demon, or whether Ophelia commits suicide or dies
accidentally. The first act sets the scene for the rest of the play, What art thou (1.1.45), Is it
not like the king? (1.1.57), What does this mean, my lord? (1.4.8). The inability to know the
truth and to act on it is encapsulated in Hamlet himself, who is constantly seeking the answers to
his questions throughout the play. This sense of constant questioning is perhaps best epitomized
in the opening line, Whos there? (1.1.1).
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Hamlet as a character remains tantalizingly difficult to interpret. The German poet Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe described him as a poet, a sensitive man who is too weak to deal with the
political pressures of Denmark. The twentieth century has had Sigmund Freud, who viewed
Hamlet in terms of an Oedipus complex, a sexual desire for his mother. This complex is
associated with the wish to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Freud points out that
Hamlets uncle has usurped his fathers rightful place, and therefore has replaced his father as the
man who must die. However, Freud is careful to note that Hamlet represents modern man
precisely because he does not kill Claudius in order to sleep with his mother, but rather kills him
to revenge his mothers death. Political interpretations of Hamlet also abound, in which Hamlet
hides the spirit of political resistance, or represents a challenge to a corrupt regime.
Stephen Greenblatt, the editor of the Norton Edition of Shakespeare, views these interpretive
attempts of Hamlet as mirrors for the interpretation in the play itself. Polonius attributes
Hamlets madness to his rejection by Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern feel Hamlet suffers
from ambition, a desire to succeed his father on the elective throne of Denmark. Hamlets
madness is itself doubtful at times, Hamlet claims to pretending. Claudius doubts his nephews
madness, but at the same time Hamlets melancholy nature is clearly expressed in the beginning
by his continued mourning for his father. In Shakespeares time excessive melancholy was often
associated with forms of madness, and so Hamlet, already exhibiting bouts of melancholy, makes
himself a natural candidate for madness.
The soliloquies are dramatically rhetorical speeches of self-reflection. These have already been
seen in the characters of Brutus in Julius Caesar and Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part. 1 Hamlet is a
culmination of these characters, capable of far more complexity and psychological introspection.
Indeed, in order to allow Hamlet to bring his mind to full expression, Shakespeare allegedly
introduced over 600 new words into the English language in this play alone.
SHORT SUMMARY: Hamlet starts with soldiers changing the guard outside of Elsinore Castle
in Denmark. The new guards have brought along a scholar named Horatio because they claim to
have seen a ghost. Horatio is skeptical of their story until the ghost actually appears. He then
tries to speak to it, but the ghost remains silent until it stalks away.
Horatio tells the guards that the ghost was dressed the same way Old Hamlet (the former King of
Denmark and Hamlets father) was dressed when he defeated King Fortinbras of Norway. He
further tells them that young Fortinbras, the son, has gathered together an army to attack
Denmark. At this point the ghost reappears and Horatio again begs it to speak to him. The ghost
seems about to say something but at that moment a cock crows and the ghost vanishes. The
guards and Horatio decide to tell Hamlet what they have seen.
King Claudius, who is Hamlets uncle and who assumed the throne after Hamlets father died, is
in the castle. He has recently married Queen Gertrude, who is Hamlets mother and the widow to
Old Hamlet. Claudius is worried about the fact that young Fortinbras has raised an army against
Denmark, and so he sends out messengers to the uncle of young Fortinbras asking him to stop
his nephew. Claudius, then turns to Laertes, the son of Polonius, and asks him why he requested
an audience. Laertes asks the king for permission to return to France, which he is granted.
Claudius finally turns his attention to Hamlet, who is standing in black robes of mourning for his
father. He tells Hamlet that it is unnatural for a man to mourn for such a long period of time.
Queen Gertrude agrees, and asks Hamlet to wear normal clothes again. Both the king and queen
then beg Hamlet to stay with them at the castle rather than return to his studies in Wittenberg.
Hamlet agrees to stay, and both his mother and his uncle rush out of the palace to celebrate their
new wedding.
Horatio arrives with the guards and tells Hamlet that they have seen his fathers ghost. Hamlet is
extremely interested in this, and informs them that he will join them for the watch that night.
Laertes is finishing his packing and is also giving his sister Ophelia some brotherly advice before
h leaves. He warns her to watch out for Hamlet whom he has seen wooing her. Laertes tell
Ophelia to ignore Hamlets overtures towards her until he is made king, at which point if he still
wants to marry her then she should consent. Polonius arrives and orders his son to hurry up and
get to the ship. Polonius then gives Laertes some fatherly advice, telling him to behave himself
in France. Laertes departs, leaving Ophelia with Polonius. Polonius then turns to her and asks
what has been going on between her and Hamlet. She tells him that Hamlet has professed his
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love to her, but Polonius only laughs and calls her ignorant. He then orders her to avoid Hamlet
and to not believe his protestations of love. Ophelia promises to obey her father.
Hamlet, Horatio and a guard meet outside to see whether the ghost will appear. It soon arrives
and silently beckons Hamlet to follow it. Hamlet pushes away Horatio, who is trying to hold him
back, and runs after the ghost. The guard tells Horatio that they had better follow Hamlet and
make sure he is alright.
The ghost finally stops and turns to Hamlet. He tells Hamlet that he is the ghost of Old Hamlet,
who has come to tell his son the truth about how he died. He tells Hamlet that he was sitting in
the garden one day, asleep in his chair, when Claudius came up to him and poured poison into his
ear. He was killed immediately, and because he was not allowed to confess his sins, he is now
suffering in Purgatory. The ghost of Old Hamlet then orders his son to seek revenge for this foul
crime before departing.
Hamlet is confused about whether to believe the ghost or not, but he makes Horatio and the
guard swear to never reveal what they have seen. He decides that he will pretend to be mad in
order to fool Claudius and Gertrude until he is able to know whether Claudius really killed his
father or not.
Polonius sends his servant Reynaldo to France in order to spy on Laertes. He order Reynaldo to
ask the other Danes what sort of reputation Laertes has in order to make sure his son is behaving.
Reynaldo promises to do this and leaves for France. Ophelia enters looking extremely frightened
and informs her father that Hamlet has gone mad. She tells him that Hamlet entered the room
where she was sewing and took her wrist. After starting into her eyes for a long while he walked
out of the room without ever taking his eyes off of her. Polonius concludes that Hamlet must
have gone mad because he ordered Ophelia to reject Hamlets affections.
Claudius and Gertrude have invited two friends of Hamlet to come and spy on Hamlet. They are
aware that Hamlet is acting strangely and want the friends to figure out what the problem is.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, eager to please King Claudius, agree to try and find out what is
wrong with Hamlet. They leave, and Polonius enters with news that the messengers are back
from Norway. Claudius tells him to bring the messengers in.
The messengers inform Claudius that after they arrived, the uncle of Fortinbras sent his nephew a
summons. Young Fortinbras obeyed, and the uncle chastised him for attempting to attack
Denmark. Fortinbras apologized for his behavior and received an annual allowance from his
uncle as a token of goodwill. Further, the uncle gave Fortinbras permission to attack Poland.
Since Fortinbras would have to march through Denmark in order to reach Poland, the uncle sent
Claudius a letter asking for safe passage. Claudius, overjoyed by this news, assents to give
permission.
Polonius then tells him that he knows the reason for Hamlets madness. He reads Claudius and
Gertrude one of the letters Hamlet sent to Ophelia in which Hamlet professes his love for her.
Claudius is not entirely convinced, and so he and Polonius agree to set up a meeting between
Hamlet and Ophelia that they will be able to spy on.
Hamlet enters the room and cuts their plotting short. Polonius asks the king and queen to leave
him alone with their son, to which they assent. Polonius then tries to talk to Hamlet, who,
feigning madness, calls him a fishmonger and asks him if he has a daughter. Hamlet continues to
insult Polonius until Polonius finally gives up in frustration.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive and Hamlet recognizes them. He greets them warmly and
asks what brings them to Denmark. They only give an ambiguous answer, from which Hamlet
infers that Claudius asked them to come. Hamlet then reveals to them that he has been very
melancholic lately, and gives that as the reason he has been acting mad. They try to cheer him up
by telling him some actors arrived with them on their ship. Hamlet is overjoyed to hear this
news, and he immediately goes to find the actors.
He succeeds in finding the players and asks them to perform a speech from Dido and Aeneas for
him. One of them agrees and performs the part where Priam, the father of Aeneas, is killed. He
then continues with the part where Hecuba, Priams wife, sees her husband being murdered and
lets out a cry that rouses even the gods. Hamlet tells him it is enough when Polonius begs the
actor to stop. He then asks the actors if they can perform the murder of Gonzago as well some
extra lines that he will write for them. They agree and leave to rehearse their parts. Hamlet
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meanwhile has compared the murder of Priam to his own fathers murder and has become
outraged with Claudius, whom he hopes to reveal as the murderer through the play that he asked
the actors to perform that night.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern tell Claudius and Gertrude that they really do not know what the
matter with Hamlet is. They can only say that he seems distracted, but that arrival of the actors
made him happier. Polonius then tells Claudius that Hamlet is putting on a play that night and
requested that they attend. Claudius agrees to go.
Polonius hears Hamlet coming and he and Claudius quickly made Ophelia stand in clear view
while they hide themselves. Hamlet enters and gives his To be or not to be; that is the question
(3.1.58) speech. He stops when he sees Ophelia and goes over to speak with her. Hamlet rudely
tells her that he never loved her and orders her to go to a nunnery. After he leaves, Claudius tells
Polonius that Hamlet does not seem to be mad because of Ophelia, but Polonius still believes
that she is the real reason for his melancholic madness.
Hamlet puts on a play called The Mousetrap for Claudius and Gertrude, as well as other
attendants in the castle. The play involves a king who is murdered by his nephew while sleeping
in the garden. As the nephew pours poison into the kings ears, King Claudius becomes so
outraged that he stands up, thereby forcing the play to end. He orders light to be shown on him
and talks angrily out of the room.
Hamlet is delighted by this and is convinced that the ghost was telling the truth. Horatio agrees
with him. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern then arrive and tell Hamlet that his mother wants to see
him in her private chambers immediately. Polonius soon arrives with the same news. Hamlet
sends them all away and plans to reveal what he knows to his mother in order to see if she was
part of the plot to kill his father.
Claudius overcome with emotion, prays to heaven to forgive him his sin. He admits to
committing the murder of his brother. Hamlet enters silently with his sword and is about to kill
Claudius when he realizes that Claudius is praying. Since that would mean that Claudius would
absolved of his sins if he died right then, Hamlet stops and decides to wait until he can kill
Claudius when his soul may be as damned and black as hell (3.3.94-95).
Hamlet then goes to see his mother. He immediately insults her for having married Claudius so
soon after his fathers death. She gets scared and calls for help, causing Polonius (who is hidden
behind a curtain spying on them) to make a sound. Hamlet pulls out his dagger and kills Polonius
through the curtain, but he is disappointed when her realizes it is not the king. Hamlet then
shows his mother two pictures of both Claudius and Old Hamlet, comparing them for her. She is
almost at the point where she believes him when the ghost appears and Hamlet starts to speak to
it. Gertrude, unable to see the ghost, concludes that Hamlet must be truly mad and starts to agree
with everything he says in order to get him out of her room.
Claudius, once Gertrude tells him what has happened, orders Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to
prepare to take Hamlet with them in England. He then orders the body of Polonius to be found
since Hamlet has hidden it. Hamlet eventually reveals the location of the body and then leaves
the castle that night.
While traveling away from Elsinore, Hamlet encounters Fortinbras army. Fortinbras has just
send Claudius a message telling him that the Norwegian army is there and requesting safe
passage. Hamlet asks one of the captains what part of Poland they are attacking. The captain
refuses to reveal the exact location, and there remains the possibility that Denmark is the true
target, although this is not revealed in the play.
Ophelia has meanwhile gone mad at the death of her father. Horatio tries to take care of her, but
finally asks Gertrude to help him. Claudius and Gertrude order Horatio to keep an eye on her.
Soon thereafter Laertes arrives with a mob. He has returned from France once he learned of
Polonius death and is intent on killing the murderer of his father. Claudius calms him down and
tells him that Hamlet is the murderer, and since Hamlet has been sent to England there is no one
there to kill. Laertes then sees Ophelia, who fails to recognize him and instead gives him a
flower.
Hamlet send letters back to Denmark. He tells Horatio that the ship was attacked by pirates and
that he managed to escape in the process by joining the pirates for a short while as their prisoner.
He also tells Horatio that he sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on to England, but that he will be
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returning shortly. Claudius also receives a letter from Hamlet informing hm that Hamlet will
soon return home. Claudius immediately plots a way to kill Hamlet by having Laertes fight him
in a fencing match. Laertes decides to put poison on the tip of his rapier so that any small scratch
will kill Hamlet, and Claudius tells him he will also poison a cup of wine and give it to Hamlet
as a backup measure. At that moment Gertrude enters and tells the men that Ophelia has drowned
herself in a brook. She and Claudius follow Laertes, who is once more grief-stricken.
Hamlet and Horatio come across two gravediggers who are digging a fresh grave. They are
engaged in wordplay until one of the men sends the other away to fetch him some liquor. Hamlet
watches as the remaining man tosses up skulls and signs while he works. He finally approaches
the man and asks who the one skull belonged to. The gravedigger tells him it was Yoricks, a
court fool whom Hamlet knew from his youth. Hamlet is shaken by the skull and ponders the
fact that all of them return to the earth. He and Horatio are forced to run and hide when Laertes,
Claudius and Gertrude arrive with the coffin.
They place the coffin into the ground , but the priest refuses to say any prayers for the dead
because Ophelia committed suicide rather than die a natural death. Laertes argues with him, but
finally gives up and jumps into the grave in grief. Hamlet, when he realizes who is dead, comes
out of hiding and also jumps into the grave. Laertes grabs him by the throat and Claudius is
forced to order the other men to intervene and separate them.
Back in the castle Hamlet tells Horatio that before he go off the ship he stole the letters Claudius
had given to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The letters asked the English king to kill Hamlet.
Hamlet, furious at this betrayal, wrote new letters in which he asked the king to kill the
messengers, namely Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
A lord named Osric enters the room and informs Hamlet that Laertes has challenged hm to a
fencing match. Claudius has bet Laertes that he cannot defeat Hamlet by more than three hits
during twelve engagements. Hamlet agrees to the dual even though Horatio tells him he cannot
win. They enter the match room, and Claudius announces that if Hamlet scores a hit during the
first, second, or third bout, then he will drop a valuable pearl into a cup of wine and give it to
Hamlet.
Laertes and Hamlet choose their foils and proceed to fight. . Hamlet scores a hit which Osric
upholds, and Claudius drops his pearl into some wine which he offers to Hamlet. Hamlet, excited
by the match, refuses to drink it and asks for the next round. They fight again, and Hamlet wins
the next hit as well. Gertrude, thrilled at how well her son is fighting, takes the cup of wine from
Claudius and drinks it to celebrate Hamlets hit. Claudius turns pale when he realizes that she has
drunk the poisoned wine, but he says nothing.
They fight again, and Laertes slashes Hamlet out of turn with his poisoned foil, causing Hamlet
to bleed. Hamlet is infuriated and attacks him viciously, causing him to drop the foil. Hamlet gets
both rapiers and accidentally tosses his rapier over to Laertes. He then slashes Laertes with the
poisoned foil, drawing blodd as well. They stop fighting when they realize that Queen Gertrude
is lying on the ground.
Gertrude realizes that she has been poisoned and tells Hamlet that it was the drink. She dies, and
Laertes tells Hamlet that he too is going to die from the poisoned tip. Hamlet, even more furious
than before, slashes Claudius with the poisoned tip. He then takes the wine chalice and forces the
poison into Claudius mouth until Claudius falls dead into the ground. Laertes is also on the
ground at this point and he forgives Hamlet for killing Polonius before he too dies.
Hamlet sees Horatio about to drink the remaining poisoned wine and orders him to stop. He tells
Horatio that only he can tell the people what really happened and thus reveal the truth. Osric
comes in at that moment and informs them that Fortinbras and some ambassadors from England
have arrived. Hamlets final words are to give Fortinbras his vote to become the next King of
Denmark.
Fortinbras arrived and looks over the scene of dead bodies. The ambassadors also enter the room
and inform Horatio that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have been put to death. Horatio asks
Fortinbras to order the bodies placed in the public view so that he can tell the people what
happened. Fortinbras final act is to order his soldiers to give Hamlet a military salute by firing
their guns.
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ABOUT SHAKESPEAREAN THEATER: Before Shakespeares time and during his boyhood,
troupes of actors performed wherever they could in halls, courts, courtyards, and any other open
spaces available. However, in 1574, when Shakespeare was ten years old, the Common Council
passed a law requiring plays and theaters in London to be licensed. In 1576, actor and future
Lord Chamberlains Man, James Burbage, built the first permanent theatre, called The
Theatre , outside London city walls. After this many more theaters were established, including
the Globe Theatre, which was where most of Shakespeares plays premiered.
Elizabethan theaters were generally built after the design of the original Theatre. Built of wood,
these theaters comprised three tiers of seats in a circular shape, with a stage area on one side of
the circle. The audiences seats and part of the stage were roofed, but much of the main stage and
the area in front of the stage in the center of the circle were open to the elements. About 1500
audience members could pay extra money to sit in the covered seating areas, while about 800
groundlings paid less money to stand in this open area before the stage. The stage itself was
divided into three levels: a main stage area with doors at the rear and a curtained area in the back
for discovery scenes; an upper, canopied area called heaven for balcony scenes; and an area
under the stage called hell, accessed by a trap door in the stage. There were dressing rooms
located behind the stage, but no curtain in the front of the stage, which meant that scenes had to
flow into each other, and dead bodies had to be dragged off.
Performances took place during the day, using natural light from the open center of the theater.
Since there could be no dramatic lighting and there was very little scenery or props, audiences
relied on the actors lines and stage directions to supply the time of day and year, the weather,
location, and mood of the scenes.
Shakespeares plays masterfully supply this information. For example, in Hamlet the audience
learns within the first twenty lines of dialogue where the scene takes place (Have you had quiet
guard?), what time of day it is (This now stroke twelve), what the weather is like (This bitter
cold), and what mood the characters are in (and I am sick at heart).
One important difference between plays written in Shakespeares time and those written today is
that Elizabethan plays were published after their performances, sometimes even after their
authors deaths, and were in many ways a record of what happened on stage during these
performances rather than directions for what should happen. Actors were allowed to suggest
changes to scenes and dialogue and had much more freedom with their parts than actors today.
Shakespeares plays are now exception. In Hamlet, for instance, much of the plot revolves
around the fact that Hamlet writes his own scene to be added to a play in order to ensnare his
murderous father.
Shakespeares plays were published in various forms and with a wide variety of accuracy during
his time. The discrepancies between versions of his plays from one publication to the next make
it difficult for editors to put together authoritative editions of his works. Plays could be published
in large anthologies called Folios (the First Folio of Shakespeares plays contains 36 plays) or
smaller Quartos. Folios were so named because of the way their paper was folded in half to make
chunks of two pages each which were sewn together to make a large volume. Quartos were
smaller, chapter books containing only one play. Their paper was folded twice, making four
pages. In general, the First Folio are much easier for editors to compile.
Although Shakespeares language and classical references seem archaic to some modern readers,
they were commonplace to his audiences. His viewers came from all classes, and his plays
appealed to all kinds of sensibilities, from highbrow accounts of kings and queens of old to the
lowbrow blunderings of clowns and servants. Even his most tragic plays included clown
characters for comic relief and to comment on the events of the play. Audiences would have been
familiar with his numerous references to classical mythology and literature, since these stories
were staples of the Elizabethan knowledge base. While Shakespeares plays appealed to all levels
of society and included familiar story lines and themes, they also expanded his audiences
vocabularies. Many phrases and words that we use today, like amazement, in my minds eye,
and the milk of human kindness were coined by Shakespeare. His plays contain a greater
variety and number of words than almost any other work in the English language, showing that
he was quick to innovate, had a judge vocabulary, and was interested in using new phrases and
words.
22

IULIUS CAESAR
CONTEXT
The only authoritative edition of Julius Caesar is the 1623 First Folio, which appears to have
used the theater companys official promptbook rather than Shakespeares manuscript. Some
anomalies exist, most notably in Act Four where there is confusion concerning the parts of the
minor characters. Also its writings from 1614 and 1625 Shakespeares contemporary Ben Jonson
makes fun of a line from 3.1 where Caesar says, know Caesar doth not wrong but with just
cause. The First Folio omits the final four words, yet the fact that Jonson was writing in 1625
appears to indicate that the words may have been used in productions of the play even after the
publication of the First Folio. The Oxford edition chose to add the four words back into the play,
arguing that the apparent contradiction helps to more fully portray Caesars characteristic godlike aspirations.
Julius Caesar opens in 44 B.C., at a time when Rome ruled territories stretching from as far north
as Britain to as far east as Persia. However, Romes military success had come at a serious cost
to the political situation in the home city, which was governed by a senate. Romes senators
became increasingly factionalized causing internal disarray, which allowed the more successful
military generals gain power. Furthermore, the state suffered from class divisions, and the
plebeians had managed to win the right to elect tribunes, or representatives, giving them some
political power. However, women and most of the plebeian men remained excluded from this
franchise. Thus, although the republic showed some signs of democracy, the majority did not
participate in the general politics.
Several men attempted to take over the government during this tumultuous period, most failing
in the endeavor. Julius Caesar was a Roman general who had made a name for himself through
his successful campaigning of northwest Europe. His advantage lay not only in winning battles,
but also in his popularity among the poorer classes in Rome. He possessed innate talent,
charisma, ambition, and luck, which, when combined, allowed his political power to increase.
Supporters of the traditional form of government realized that men like Caesar posed a serious
threat to the republic, and when legal and military attempts failed to stop him, conspirators led by
Caius Cassius and Marcus Brutus assassinated him.
The death of Caesar undermined the very political institution it was meant to defend. Rome was
soon split by civil war, and the armies of the conspirators were defeated by Caesars friend Mark
Antony and his heir, Octavius. The culmination of these events was the defeat of the senate and
the installment of Octavius as emperor Augustus.
Contemporaries of Caesar quickly grasped the importance of these events, documenting them
well. Throughout the centuries since, the events of Caesars time have been interpreted and
discussed at length, and continue to be alluded to even in present day politics. Political
commentators have interpreted the actions of the main figures differently. For example,
Michelangelo viewed Brutus as a defender of human liberty, while Dante placed him (and
Cassius) into the deepest circle of hell in his Inferno. For Shakespeare, this historical drama
presented numerous possibilities for analyzing and exploring conflicting perspective of these
events, and thus was a logical choice for one of his plays.
The story of Caesars death and the resulting political upheaval was especially salient in
Shakespeares time. The play is thought to have been written in 1599, when Queen Elizabeth was
sixty-six years old. Europe and England were ruled by monarch struggling to consolidate their
power. In England, the monarchy ran into opposition from the established aristocracy and elected
representatives in the House of Commons. Since Elizabeth had no direct heirs, many feared
England might decay into civil chaos similar to that of the fifteenth century. Fear of censorship
prevailed in matters relating to political discourse, and so for Shakespeare, the story of Julius
Caesar provided a safe way to comment on many of the important questions of the time.
Shakespeares main source in writing the play was Thomas Norths English translation of
Plutarchs Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. Plutarch wrote in the first century A.D. and
recorded his biographies as an historian. His description of the Roman Republic stated that it was
ruled by at least one or more powerful men, yet rarely more than a few men. Shakespeare adopts
23

this concept of Rome for Julius Caesar, focusing on the actions and influences of a few
remarkable individuals rather than dealing with larger social movements. However, this approach
does not imply a limited awareness of Romes social problems, as the plays opening scenes
clearly address Romes social divisions.
Shakespeare condenses the action in Julius Caesar as in many of his historical dramas, breaking
slightly from historical accuracy. For example, Shakespeare places Caesars triumph over
Pompeys sons with the Lupercalia in February, whereas Plutarch indicates the victory took place
in October. With this time change, the assassination on the Ides of March appears to be in
response to Caesars growing influence and arrogance. Furthermore, in Shakespeares version,
Brutus and Cassius flee from Rome immediately after Antonys speech to the Roman mob, but
Plutarch describes them withdrawing from the city over a year after Caesars funeral. These
differences cause Roman leaders personal flaws and strengths to appear far more important in
shaping the action of the plot.
Shakespeares Julius Caesar is composed of several characters, none of whom dominate the plot;
even the titular hero is merely one of the several personalities in the play. Indeed, Shakespeare
creates only a limited depth to Caesars characterization, mainly relying on the negative reports
from those most hostile to him. However, when onstage, Caesar does not live up the reputation
his enemies claim for him, thereby undermining his ability to dominate the plot at any point.
Brutus is a much fuller character. AS the friend and murderer of Caesar, he provides tremendous
insight into his personality through soliloquies in which he discusses his motives and the
consequences of his actions. Brutus also is portrayed in many different roles, including husband,
military leader and assassin. These different roles allow us to see the internal strife inherent in
Brutus character; he is a man who must justify his extralegal murder while simultaneously
remaining a faithful and good husband.
In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare utilizes one of his great techniques, often called gradual release,
slowly providing pertinent plot information as the play progresses, forcing the audience to
continually revise its interpretation of the action. A good example of this is when Antony
climaxes his famous eulogy by reading Caesars will and speaking of the generosity Caesar has
shown to the common people, mentioning that Caesar has left them all some money. However,
only two scenes later we see him trying to minimize the cost of this generosity by reducing the
amount of money that needs to be given out. The combination of the two scenes forces the
audience to reevaluate everything we know about Antony, and denies us the ability to fix firm
motives on any of the plays characters.
Shakespeare never intended the play to be historically accurate. In fact, he clearly expected the
actors to appear in Elizabethan dress. Furthermore, he gives Rome the medieval invention of the
mechanical clock, a notorious anachronism. However, Shakespeares Romans share a distinct
cultural heritage and society, including Roman societys implicit ideals and assumptions. When
Antony calls Brutus, the nobles of the Romans, he is referring to the specific Roman virtue,
associated with the Republican government Brutus dies defending. The protagonist in the plot
are never able to overcome the pressure of the Roman values, and thus are not completely free to
invent themselves, relying instead on the cultural values provided.
MAJOR THEMES: Heroes vs. Villains:
Both Caesar and Brutus are perceived to be heroes and villains in Julius Caesar. At the opening
of the play, Caesar is hailed for his conquests and is admired for his apparent humility upon
refusing the crown. However, once murdered, Caesar is painted (by Brutus et al) as a power
hungry leader with the intentions of enslaving all of Rome. Brutus speech, which follows
Caesar death, successfully manipulates the plebeian perspective. By the end of his speech, the
crowd is hailing Brutus for killing Caesar, whom they now perceive as a great villain. But, the
crowd is easily swayed once again when Antony speaks. Following Brutus remarks, Antony
gives Caesar eulogy, manipulating the crowd with stories of Caesars kindness, and sharing the
details of Caesars will, which leaves money to every Roman. At the end of Antonys speech, the
crowd is once again supportive of Caesar, mourns his death, and seeks to kill Brutus, Cassius,
and the other murderers. The swaying opinions of the plebeians, and the great differences in
opinion that the play presents leave the audience to determine who, if anyone, is the hero of the
play, and who, if anyone, is the villain.
24

Omens:
The seriousness with which Romans looked to omens is evident throughout Julius Caesar;
however ominous warning and negative omens are often overlooked or misinterpreted. For
example, Caesar ignores the soothsayers warning to beware the ides of March, ignores
Calpurnias detailed dreams of his death, and ignores the negative omen of the sacrificial animal
who has no heart. After ignoring these omens, Caesar dies.
In addition, after the festival of Lupercali, Casca sees many strange omens, such as a man with a
burning hand, a lion roaming the streets, and an owl screeching during the day time. Cicero, with
whom Casca confers regarding these matters, explains that people with interpret omens as they
see fit, inventing their own explanations.
True to form, Casca interprets these strange omens as warnings of Caesars wish to rule all of
Rome with an iron hand, and to destroy the Republic.
Other omens that play important roles in the play include the appearance of Caesars ghost and
when eagles abandon Cassius and Brutus camp and are replaced by vultures.
Idealism:
Brutus wishes for an ideal world. He is happily married, lives in a beautiful home, and is
successful according to all measures of Roman living. However, Brutus wishes for perfection in
his life, and although he loves Caesar, Brutus fears Caesar is too power hungry, and might
possibly destroy the Republic. Cassius understands Brutus idealism and takes advantage of it in
order to manipulate Brutus into joining the conspiracy against Caesar. At heart, it is Brutus
idealism that causes his ultimate downfall. Antony recognizes this fact when addressing Brutus
dead body at the conclusion of the play, saying This was the noblest Roman of them all.
Identities, both Public and Private:
In Julius Caesar, the audience is able to see both the private and public sides of Caesar and
Brutus. Caesar is a powerful confident man who leads great armies and effectively rules the
Roman empire, yet he is not without weakness. He is highly superstitious, suffers from epilepsy,
an ultimately proves to be human when murdered by closest friends. Similarly, Brutus is strong
and refuses to show weakness when in public, whether it be speaking to the plebeians or leading
an army into battle. However, we see through his intimate conversations with his wife Portia and
with Cassius, that Brutus is often unsure and greatly pained. Specifically, after fleeing Rome,
Brutus learn that his wife committed suicide, and is heartbroken when discussing it with Cassius.
However, as soon as soldiers enter his tent, he pretends to not know of her death, and when told
of it, does not react with great emotion.
Ambition and Conflict:
Caesar is a great man, and an ambitious man. His ambition is what worries Brutus, and
ultimately leads to Brutus joining the conspiracy to murder Caesar. Cassius is also a very
ambitious man, and because he is so jealous of Caesars power, whishes to kill him to gain more
power for himself. Ultimately, the ambition of these two men leads to their downfalls and to
virtual anarchy in the streets of Rome. Great ambition leads to great conflict.
Power of Speech:
Speech plays a very important role in the plot developments of Julius Caesar. The plebeians are
easily swayed into greatly opposing viewpoints through Brutus and Antonys speeches. Antonys
great manipulation of the crowd causes anarchy in the streets of Rome and creates the support for
a mission to avenge Caesars death.
In addition, Brutus is hesitant at first to join the conspiracy against Caesar, but after speaking
with the highly manipulative Cassius, Brutus is more convinced. Then, after receiving an
anonymous letter (actually written by Cassius) that decries the rule of Caesar, Brutus is
convinced he must take action and agrees to join Cassius murderous plot.
IULIUS CAESAR opens with a scene of class conflict, the plebeians versus the tribunes. The
plebeians are celebrating Caesars victory over the sons of Pompey, one of the former leaders of
Rome. The tribunes verbally attack the masses for their fickleness in celebrating the defeat of a
man who was once their leader.
Caesar enters Rome accompanied by his supporters and a throng of citizens. It is the feast of
Lupercalia, February 15, a day when two men run through the street and strike those they meet
25

with goatskin thongs. Caesar orders Mark Antony to strike his wife Calpurnia in order to cure her
barrenness.
A soothsayer calls out to Caesar as he passes and warns him against the ides of March, March 15.
Caesar ignores the man and dismisses him as a dreamer. Upon seeing Cassius, Caesar informs
Antony that he would rather be surrounded by men who are fat and happy than thin men like
Cassius. He is worried that Cassius is dangerous because he thinks too much (1.2.193-196).
Antony tells him not to worry about Cassius.
Meanwhile, Brutus and Cassius meet and talk about how much power Caesar has gained. During
their conversation they are interrupted three times by cheers from the crowd. Cassius informs
Brutus that he is forming a plot against Caesar and wants Brutus to join it. Brutus tells him he
cannot commit to anything immediately. Casca soon joins them, and informs them that the cheers
they heard were Caesar turning down the crown. According to Casca, Antony offered Caesar a
crown three times, and three times he refused it.
Casca meets with Cicero and tells the orator that there are many strange things happening in
Rome that night, such as a lion in the streets and an owl screeching during the day. Cicero tells
him hat men construe omens the way they see fit. Cassius eventually arrives and learns from
Casca that the senators are planning on making Caesar a king the next morning. He starts to tell
Casca about the plot to kill Caesar, but Cinna shows up and interrupts him. He hands Cinna some
letters to plant anonymously in Brutus home and invites Casca to dinner that night in order to
convince him to join the conspiracy.
Brutus discovers the letters from Cinna, not knowing who wrote them. He reads one of the letters
and interprets it as a request to prevent Caesar from seizing power. Brutus attributes the letter to
Rome as a whole, saying, O Rome, I make the promise (2.1.56), implying that he will carry
out what he perceives as the will of the Roman people.
Brutus meets with Cassius and the other conspirators and shakes all their hands, agreeing to join
their plot. He convinces them to only kill Caesar, and not his most loyal friend Antony, because
he does not want them to seem too bloody (2.1.162). After the other men leave, Brutus is
unable to sleep. His wife Portia finds him awake and begs him to tell her what is troubling him.
At first he refuses, but after she stabs herself in the thigh to prove her strength and ability to keep
a secret he agrees to inform her.
Meanwhile, Caesars wife Calpurnia dreamt of a statue of Caesar bleeding from a hundred
wounds. Caesar, naturally superstitious, orders the priests to kill an animal and read the entrails
to see if he should go to the Senate that day. The priests tell him that the animal did not have a
heart, a very bad sign. However, Decius, one of the conspirators, arrives and reinterprets
Calpurnias dream to mean that all of Rome sucked the reviving blood of Caesar for its benefit.
Caesar finally agrees with him that it is laughable to stay home on account of a dream. The other
conspirators, including Brutus and Cassius, arrive at his house to escort him to the Senate House.
On the way to the Senate House Caesar is approached by the same soothsayer that previously
warned him about the ides of March. He again refuses to listen to the man and continues. A man
named Artemidorus then comes up to him and tries to give him a letter revealing the entire
conspiracy, but Decius cleverly tells Caesar the Trebonius has a suit he would like Caesar to read
instead. Caesar refuses to look at what Artemidorus offers him on account of its being personal.
He explains, What touches us ourself shall be last served (3.1.7).
The conspirators arrive at the Senate House and Caesar assumes his seat. A man named Metellus
kneels before him and petitions to have his banished brother returned to Rome. Caesar refuses,
but is surprised when Brutus and then Cassius come forward and plead for the brother as well.
However, he continues to refuse to change the sentence even as all of the conspirators gather
around him. On Cascas comment, Speak hands for me (3.1.76) the group attacks Caesar,
stabbing him to death.
The conspirators, now led by Brutus an
Cassius, dip their hands in Caesars blood and prepare to run to the streets crying out peace,
freedom, and liberty (3.1.111). Antony arrives and begs them to let him take the body and give
Caesar a public eulogy. Brutus agrees, overriding Cassiuss misgivings about allowing Antony to
speak. They move out into the streets of Rome and Cassius and Brutus split up in order to speak
to the plebeians.
26

Brutus defends his murder of Caesar on the grounds that he was removing a tyrant who was
destroying the freedom of all Romans. He ends his speech by asking the crowd if they want him
to commit suicide for what he has done, to which they reply, Live, Brutus, live, live! (3.2.44).
Next, Brutus allows Antony to speak and returns home.
Antony takes full advantage of his speech and informs the crowd that Caesar was a selfless man
who cared for Rome above everything. The highlight of his speech is when he pulls out Caesars
will and reads from it, telling the citizens that Caesar has given every roman a part of his
inheritance, in both land and dachmas. The plebeians now believe Caesar to have been great and
good, seize his body and vow revenge upon Brutus and the rest of the conspirators. Their rioting
develops into pure anarchy. Antony comments that he has done his part in creating social
upheaval, and now must wait to see what happens.
Brutus and Cassius are forced to flee the city, and in the meantime the young general Octavius
Caesar, loyal to Julius Caesar, arrives and allies with Antony. He, Antony and Lepidus form a
second triumvirate and prepare to purge the city of anyone who is against them. They map out
their plans to scour the city and make a list of names of those whom they wish to kill, including
relatives and friends.
Cassius and Brutus set up camp in Sardis, located in what is now western Turkey. Cassius arrives
with his army at the campsite where Brutus is waiting for him, but is furious with Brutus for
having ignored letters he sent asking Brutus to release a prisoner. Brutus has instead punished the
man for accepting bribes, an act which provided one of the reasons for Caesars murder. Cassius
and Brutus argue until Cassius, in exasperation, pulls out his dagger and asks Brutus to kill him
if he hates so. Of course, Brutus refuses. The two men embrace and forget their differences.
Next, Brutus sadly informs Cassius that his wife Portia is dead. She swallowed live embers after
Antony and Octavius assumed power. When two underlings enter the tent, Brutus stops talking
about Portia and focuses on the military matters at hand. In fact, when one of the men asks him
about his wife, he denies having heard any news about her. Brutus convinces Cassius during the
strategy meeting that it would be best for them to march to where Antony and Octavius are
located in Philippi (near modern Greece) in order to defeat them before they get too strong,
gaining additional soldiers on their march. Cassius reluctantly agrees to Brutus plan and departs
for the night.
Brutus calls some men into his tent in case he needs to send them away as messengers during the
night. He makes them go to sleep. He himself stays up reading, but he is disturbed by the ghost
of Julius Caesar who appears. The ghost tells Brutus that he is his evil spirit (4.2.353) and that
he will be on the battlefield at Philippi. Brutus is so shaken by this image that he wakes up all the
men in his tent and sends them to Cassius with orders that Cassius should depart before him the
next morning.
On the battlefield at Philippi, Antony and Octavius agree to their battle plans. They meet with
Brutus and Cassius before entering battle, but only exchange insults. Battle is imminent. All four
men return to their armies to prepare for war.
In the middle of the battle Brutus sees a chance to destroy Octavius army and rushes away to
attack it. He leaves Cassius behind. Cassius, less militarily adept, quickly begins losing to
Antonys forces. Even worse, Pindarus misleads him, telling him Titinius has been taken by the
enemy near Cassius tent. Upon hearing this news, Cassius orders Pindarus to kill him. After
completing the task, Pindarus flees. Brutus arrives, finds his friend dead and remarks, O Julius
Caesar, thou art mighty yet (5.3.93)
Cato is quickly killed, and Lucillius, a man pretending to be Brutus, is soon captured and handed
over to Antony. Antony recognizes him and tells his soldiers to keep attacking until they capture
Brutus. Brutus, now almost completely defeated, begs several of his soldiers to kill him. They all
refuse and leave him rather than carrying his blood on their hands. Finally, Strato accepts Brutus
request. Brutus runs into his sword as Strato holds it for him, killing himself.
Antony and Octavius arrive and find Brutus dead upon the ground. Antony remarks, This was
the noblest Roman of them all (5.5.67). Octavius, unemotional through all of the carnage,
merely ends the play with the lines. So call the field to rest, and lets away / To part the glories
of hs happy day (5.5.79-80).
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ROMEO AND JULIET:

CONTEXT
ROMEO AND JULIET was first published in quarto in 1597, and republished in a new edition
only two years later. The second copy was used to create yet a third quarto in 1609, from which
both the 1623 Quarto and First Folio are derived. The first quarto is generally considered a bad
quarto, or an illicit copy created from the recollections of several actors. The second quarto
seems to be taken from Shakespeares rough draft, and thus has some inconsistent speech and
preserved lines which Shakespeare apparently meant to cross out.
Romeo and Juliet derrives its story from several sources available during the sixteenth century.
Shakespeares primary source for the play is Arthur Brookes Tragical History of Romeus and
Juliet (1562), which is a long, dene poem. This poem in turn was based on a French prose
version written by Pierre Boiastuau (1559), who had used an Italian version by Bandello written
in 1554. Bandellos poem was further derived from Luigi da Portos version in 1525 of a story by
Masuccio Salernitano (1476).
Shakespeares plot remains true to the Brooke version in most details, with theatrical license
taken in some instances. For example, as he often does, Shakespeare telescopes the events in the
poem which take ninety days into only a few days. He also depicts Juliet as a much younger
thirteen rather than sixteen, thus presenting a young girl who is suddenly awakened to love.
One of the most powerful aspects of Romeo and Juliet is the language. The characters curse, vow
oaths, banish each other, and generally play with the language through overuse of action verbs.
In addition, the play is saturated with the use of oxymorons, puns, paradoxes, and double
entendres. Even the use of names is called into question, with Juliet asking what is in the name
Romeo that denies her the right to love him.
Shakespeare uses the poetic form of sonnet to open the first and second acts. The sonnet usually
is defined as being written from a lover to his beloved. Thus, Shakespeares misuse of the
prose ties into the actual tension of the play. The sonnet struggles to cover up the disorder and
chaos which is immediately apparent in the first act. When the first sonnet ends, the stage is
overrun with quarreling men. However, the sonnet is also used by Romeo and Juliet in their first
love scene, again in an unusual manner. It is spoken by both characters rather than only one of
them. This strange form of sonnet is, however, successful, and even ends with a kiss.
It is a worthwhile to note the rather strong shift in language used by both Romeo and Juliet once
they fall in love. Whereas Romeo is hopelessly normal in his courtship before meeting Juliet,
afterwards his language becomes infinitely richer and stronger. He is changed so much that the
Mercutio remarks, Now art thou sociable (2.3.77).
The play also deals with the issue of authoritarian law and order. Many of Shakespeares plays
have characters who represent the unalterable force of the law, such as the Duke in The Comedy
of Errors and Prince Escalus in Romeo and Juliet. In this play, the law attempts to stop the civil
disorder, and even banishes Romeo at the midpoint. However, as in The Comedy of Errors, the
law again seems to be a side issue, one which cannot compete with the much stronger emotions
of love and hate.
The play is set in Verona, Italy, where a feud has broken out between the families of the
Montegues and the Capulets. The servants of both houses open the play with a brawling scene
that eventually draws in the noblemen of the families and the city officials, including Prince
Escalus.
Romeo is lamenting the fact that he is love with a woman named Rosaline, who has vowed to
remain chaste for the rest of her life. He and his friend Benvolio happen to stumble across a
servant of the Capulets in the street. The servant, Peter, is trying to read a list of names of people
invited to a masked party at the Capulet house that evening. Romeo helps him read the list and
receives an invitation to the party.
Romeo arrives at the party in costume and falls in love with Juliet the minute he sees her.
However, he is recognized by Tybalt, Juliets cousin, who wants to kill him on the spot. Capulet
intervenes and tells Tybalt that he will not disturb the party for any amount of money. Romeo
manages to approach Juliet and tell her that he loves her. She and he share a sonnet and finish it
with a kiss.
28

Juliets Nurse tells Romeo who Juliet really is, and he is upset when he finds out he loves the
daughter of Capulet. Juliet likewise finds out who Romeo is, and laments the fact she is in love
with her enemy.
Soon there after Romeo climbs the garden wall leading to Juliets garden. Juliet emerges on her
balcony and speaks her private thoughts out loud, imagining herself alone. She wishes Romeo
could shed his name and marry her. At this, Romeo appears and tells her that he loves her. She
warns him to be true in his love to her, and makes him swear by his own self that he truly loves
her.
Juliet then is called inside, but manages to return twice to call Romeo back to her. They agree
that Juliet will send her Nurse to meet him at nine oclock the next day, at which point Romeo
will set a place for them to be married.
The Nurse carries out her duty, and tells Juliet to meet Romeo at the chapel where Friar Laurence
lives and works. Juliet goes to find Romeo, and together they are married by the Friar.
Benvolio and Mercutio, a good friend of the Montegues, are waiting on the street when Tybalt
arrives. Tybalt demands to know where Romeo is so that he can challenge him to duel, in order
to avenge Romeos sneaking into the party. Mercutio is eloquently vague, but Romeo happens to
arrive in the middle of the verbal bantering. Tybalt challenges him, but Romeo passively resists
fighting, at which point Mercutio jump in and draws his sword on Tybalt. Romeo tries to block
the two men, but Tybalt cuts Mercutio and runs away after he hears that. Mercutio has died.
Romeo fights with Tybalt and kills him. When Prince Escalus arrives at the murder scene he
choose to banish Romeo from Verona forever.
The Nurse goes to tell Juliet the sad news about what has happened to Tybalt and Romeo. Juliet
is heart-broken, but soon recovers when she realizes that Romeo would have been killed if he
had not fought Tybalt. She sends the Nurse to find Romeo and gives him her ring. Romeo comes
that night and sleeps with Juliet. The next morning he is forced to leave at dusk when Juliets
mother arrives. Romeo goes to Mantua where he waits for someone to send news about Juliet or
about his banishment.
During the night Capulet decides that Juliet should marry a young man named Paris. He and
Lady Capulet go to tell Juliet that she should marry Paris, but when she refuses to obey Capulet
becomes infuriated and orders her to comply with his orders. He then leaves, and is soon
followed by Lady Capulet and the Nurse, whom Juliet throws out of the room, saying ancient
damnation (3.5.235)
Juliet then goes to Friar Laurence, who gives her a potion that will make her seem dead for at
least two days. She takes the potion and drinks it that night. The next morning, the day Juliet is
supposed to marry Paris, her Nurse finds her dead in bed. The whole house decries her suicide,
and Friar Laurence makes them hurry to put her into the family vault.
Romeos servant arrives in Mantua and tells his master that Juliet is dead and buried. Romeo
hurries back to Verona. Friar Laurence discovers too late from Friar John that his message to
Romeo has failed to be delivered. He rushes to get to Juliets grave before Romeo does.
Romeo arrives at the Capulet vault and finds it guarded by Paris, who is there to mourn the loss
of his betrothed. Paris challenges Romeo to a duel, and is quickly killed. Romeo then carries
Paris into the grave and sets his body down. Seeing Juliet dead within the tomb, Romeo drinks
some poison he has purchased and die kissing her.
Friar Laurence arrives just as Juliet wakes up within the bloody vault. He tries to get her to come
out, but when she sees Romeo dead beside her, Juliet takes his dagger and kills herself with it.
The rest of the town starts to arrive, including Capulet and Montegue. Friar Laurence tells them
the whole story. The two family patriarches agree to become friends by erecting golden statues of
the others child.
MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM
CONTEXT
A Midsummer Nights Dream is first mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598, leading many scholars
to date the play between 1594 and 1596. It is likely to have been written around the same period
Romeo and Juliet was created. Indeed, many similarities exist between the two plays, so much
29

that A Midsummer Nights Dream at times seems likely to degenerate into the same tragic ending
that befalls Romeo and Juliet.
The play was first printed in quarto in 1600, following its entry into the Stationers Register on
October 8, 1600. This quarto is almost surely taken directly from a manuscript written by
Shakespeare. A second quarto was printed in 1619 (and falsely backdated to 1600) and attempted
to correct some of the errors in the first printing, but also introduced several new errors. It is the
second quarto which served as the basis for the First Folio in 1623.
There is a myth that A Midsummer Nights Dream was first performed for a private audience
after an actual wedding had taken place. The plays three wedding and play-within-a-play
Pyramus and Thisbe certainly would seem to fit the scene, with all the newlyweds retiring to
their respective chambers at the end. However, no evidence of this imagined performance exists.
Rather, A Midsummer Nights Dream was definitely performed on the London stage by the Lord
Chamberlains Men, and the title page of the first Quarto indicates it was written by William
Shakespeare.
The title draws on the summer solstice, Midsummer Eve, occurring June 23 and marked by
holiday partying and tales of fairies and temporary insanity. Shakespeare cleverly weaves
together not only fairies and lovers, but also social hierarchies with the aristocratic Theseus and
the rude mechanicals, or the artisans and working men. This allows the play to become
infinitely more lyrical, since it is able to draw on the more brutal language of the lower classes as
well as the poetry of the noblemen.
One of the more interesting changes which Shakespeare introduces is the concept of small, kind
fairies. Robin Goodfellow, the spirit known as Puck, is thought to have once been feared by
villagers. History indicates the prior to Elizabethan times, fairies were considered evil spirits
who stole children and sacrificed them to the devil. Shakespeare, along with other writers,
redefined fairies during this time period, turning them into gentle, albeit mischievous, spirit.
The final act of the play, completely unnecessary in relation to the rest of the plot, brings to light
a traditional fear of the Elizabethan theater, namely that of censorship. Throughout the play the
lower artisans, who wish to perform Pyramus and Thisbe, try to corrupt the plot and assure the
audience that the play is not real and they need not fear the actions taking place. This culminates
in the actual ending, in which Puck suggests that if we do not like tha play, then we should
merely consider it to have been a dream. One of the most remarkable features of A Midsummer
Nights Dream is that at the end members of the audience are unsure whether what they have
seen is real, or whether they have woken up after having shared the same dream. This is of
course precisely what Shakespeare wants to make clear, namely that the theater is nothing more
than a shared dream. Hence the constant interruption of that dream in the Pyramus and THisbe
production, which serves to highlight the artificial aspect of the theater. Bottom and his company
offer us not only Pyramus and THisbe as a product of our imagination, but the entire play as
well.
Pucks suggestion hides a more serious aspect of the comic fun of the play. There is deep
underlying sexual tension between the male and female characters, witnessed by Oberons
attempts to humiliate Titania and THeseus conquest of Hippolyta. This tension is rapidly
dissipated by the sure solution which the play assumes, making it seem less real. However, the
darker side of the play should not be ignored, nor the rapid mobility with which the actors
transfer their amorous desires from one person to the other.
SHORT SUMMARY:
A Midsummer Nights Dream takes place in Athens. Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is planning his
marriage with Hippolyta, and as a result he is a planning a large festival. Egeus enters, followed
by his daughter Hermia, her beloved Lysander, and her suitor Demetrius. Egeus tells Theseus
that ermia refuses to marry Demetrius, wanting instead to marry Lisander. He asks for the right
to punish Hermia with death if she refuses to obey.
Theseus agrees tht Hermias duty is to obey her father, and threatens her with either entering a
nunnery or marrying the man her father choose. Lysander protests, but is overruled by the law.
He and Hermia than decide to flee by night into the woods surrounding Athens, where they can
30

escape the law and get married. They tell their plan to Helena, a girl who is madly in love with
Demetrius. Hoping to gain favor with Demetrius, Helena decides to tell him about the plan.
Some local artisans and workmen have decided to perform a play for Theseus as a way to
celebrate his wedding. They choose Pyramus and Thisbe for their play, and meet to assign the
roles. Nick Bottom gets the role of Pyramus, and Flute takes the part of Thisbe. They agree to
meet the next night in the woods to rehearse the play.
Robin Goodfelow, a puck, meets a fairy who serves Queen Titania. He tells the fairy that his
King Oberon is in the woods, and that Titania should avoid Oberon because they will quarrel
again. However, Titania and Oberon soon arrive and begin arguing about a young boy Titania has
stolen and is caring for. Oberon demands that she give him the boy, but she refuses.
Oberon decides to play a trick on Titania and put some pansy juice on her eyes. The magical
juice will make her fall in love with first person she sees upon waking up. Soon after Puck is sent
away to fetch the juice, Oberon overhears Demetrius and Helena in the woods.
Demetrius deserts Helena in the forest, leaving her alone. Oberon decides that he will change this
situation, and commands Robin to put the juice into Demetriuss eyes when he is sleeping. He
then finds Titania and drops the juice into her eyelids. Robin goes to find Demetrius, but instead
comes across Lysander and accidentally uses the juice on him.
By accident Helena comes across Lysander and wakes him up. He immediately falls in love with
her and starts to chase her through the woods. Together they arrive where Oberon is watching,
and he realizes the mistake. Oberon then puts the pansy juice onto Demetriuss eyelids, who
upon waking up also falls in love with Helena.
She thinks that the two men are trying to torment her for being in love with Demetrius, and
becomes furious at their protestations of love.
The workmen arrive in the woods and start to practice their play. They constantly ruin the lines
of the play and mispronounce the words. Out of fear of censorship, they decide to make the play
less realistic. Therefore the lion is supposed to announce that he is not a lion, but only a common
man. Bottom also feels obliged to tell the audience that he is not really going to die, but will only
pretend to do so. Puck, watching this silly scene, catches Bottom alone and puts an asses head on
him. When Bottom returns to is troupe, they run away out of fear. Bottom then comes across
Titania, and succeeds in waking her up. She falls in love with him due to the juice on her eyes,
and takes him with her.
Lysander and Demetrius prepare to fight one another for Helena. Puck intervenes and leads them
through the woods in circles until they collapse onto the ground in exhaustion. He then brings the
two women to same area and puts them to sleep as well.
Oberon finds Titania and releases her from the spell. He then tells the audience that Bottom will
think is all a dream when he wakes up. He further releases Lysander from the spell. Theseus
arrives with a hunting party and finds the lovers stretched out on the ground. He orders the
hunting horns blown in order to wake them up.
The lovers explain why they are in the woods, at which point Egeus demands that he be allowed
to exercice the law on Hermia. However, Demetrius intervenes and tells them that he no longer
loves Hermia, but rather only loves Helena. THeseus decides to overbear Egeus and let the
lovers get married that day with him. Together they return to Athens.
Bottom wakes up and thinks that he has dreamed the entire episode. He swiftly returns to Athens
where he meets his friends. Together they head over to Theseuss palace. Theseus looks over the
list of possible entertainment for that evening and settles on the play of Pyramus and THisbe.
Bottom and the rest of his company perform the play, after which everyone retires to bed.
Puck arrives and starts to sweep the house clean. Oberon and Titania briefly bless the couples
and their future children. After they leave Puck asks the audience to forgive the actors if they
were offended. He then tells the audience that is anyone disliked the play, they should imagine
that it was only a dream.
SHAKESPEARES SONNETS
CONTEXT
Shakespeares sonnets comprise 154 poemes in sonnet form that were published in 1609 but
likely written over the course of several years. Evidence for their existence long preceding
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publication comes from a reference in Francis Meres 1598 Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, where
his allusion to Shakespeares sugred Sonnets among his private friends might indicate that the
poet preferred not to make these works public. It is unclear whether the 1609 publication, at the
hands of a certain Thomas Thorpe, was from an authorized manuscript of Shakespeares; it is
possible that the sonnets were published without the authors consent, perhaps even without his
knowledge.
This is but one of the mysteries of Shakespeares sonnets. Another, which continues to spur
debate among literary scholars today, is the identity of the publications dedicatee, the
collections onlie begetter, a Mr. W.H. Speculation largely vacillates between two main
candidates: Mr. William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke; and Mr. Henry Wriothesley, third Earl
of Southampton. Both possible are tenable, as both were men of means and literary interest
enough to be patrons to Shakespeare. In fact the poet dedicated other works to each: his First
Folio to Herbert and his Venus and Adonis and Lucrece to Wriothesley. Those who favor one
man or the other draw on circumstantial evidence concerning his life and character, such as the
amicable terms on which Shakespeare is known to have been with Wriothesley, or events in
Herberts life that may be intimated in the exploits of the sonnets fair lord.
The fair lord is one of three recurring characters in the sonnets, together with the dark and the
rival poet. The real-world referents of these persons are yet another locus of controversy. Some
critics suggest that the fair lord and the collections dedicatee are one and the same, while others
disagree. Still others question the autobiographical nature of the sonnets, arguing that there is no
hard proof that their content is anything but fictional.
These mysteries and others, including the ordering of the sonnets, the date of their composition,
and seeming deviations from the otherwise rigid format (one sonnet has 15 lines, another only
12; sonnets 153 and a154 do not fit well in the sequence), have generated an abundance of
scholarly criticism over the years, and the dialogues they provoke remain highly contentious to
this day.
The 1609 publication of Shakespeares sonnets is today referred to as the Quarto and remains
the authoritative source for modern editions.
MAJOR THEMES
The Ravages of Time: Shakespeares sonnets open with an earnest plea from the narrator to the
fair lord, begging him to bear his child so that his beauty might be preserved for posterity. In
sonnet 2, the poet writes, When forty winters shall besiege thy brow / And dig deep trenches in
thy beautys field How much more praise deserved thy beautys use / If thou couldst answer
This fair child of mine / Shall sum my count and make my old excuse / Proving his beauty by
succession thine! The poet is lamenting the ravages of time and its detrimental effects on the
fair lords beauty, seeking to combat the inevitable by pushing the fair lord to bequeath his
exquisiteness unto a child. By sonnet 18 the poet appears to have abandoned this solution in
favor of another: his verse. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / So long lives this and
this gives life to thee. But the ravages of time return to haunt the narrator: in sonnet 90, the poet
characterizes time as a dimension of suffering, urging the fair lord to break with him if ever,
now; Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, he writes, pleading with him to end the
desperation of hopeful unrequited love. The theme resurfaces throughout the sonnets in the
narrators various descriptions of himself as an aging man: But when my glass shows me
myself indeed / Beated and choppd with tannd antiquity (sonnet 62); And wherefore say not I
that I am old? (sonnet138). It has also been suggested that the poet implies that he is balding in
sonnet 73, where he writes, That time of year thou mayst in me hold / when yellow leaves, or
none, or few, do hang / Upon those boughs ; such an interpretation fits well with the idea that
Shakespeare is in fact the narrator of the sonnets, as extant portraits of Shakespeare show the
poet to have been balding in his later years.
Platonic Love vs. Carnal Lust: The divide between the fair lord sonnets and the dark lady sonnets
is also a divide between two forms of interpersonal attraction. While the narrator of the sonnets
is clearly infatuated with both the fair lord and the dark lady, the language he used to describe
these infatuations shows them to be of disparate natures. The lack of explicit sexual imagery in
the fair lord sonnets has led most scholars to characterize this infatuation as an example of
Platonic love, i.e., a form of amorous affection bereft of any sexual element. Meanwhile, the
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dark lady sonnets are replete with sexual imagery, implying an attraction based largely on carnal
lust. The poet seems to glorify the former while condemning the latter; his heart is at odds with
his libido. If we take the angel of sonnet 144 to be the narrators fair lord, we see this contrast
clearly: To win me soon to hell, my female evil / Tempteth my better angel from my side / And
would corrupt my saint to be a devil / Wooing his purity with her foul pride. It might be argued
that this very incompatibility between the two distresses the narrator most as he learns of their
affair.
Selfishness and Greed: The themes of selfishness and greed are prevalent throughout the
sonnets as a whole, emerging most perceptibility in the narrators hypocritical expectation of
faithfulness from the fair lord and the dark lady. The poet seems at times to advance a double
standard on the issue of faithfulness: he is unfaithful himself, yet he condemns, is even surprised
by, the unfaithfulness of others. The rival poet sonnets (79-86), for example, capture the poets
jealousy of his fair lords having another admirer; dark lady sonnets 133-134 and 144 do the
same, and they may even include a reference to an affair between her and the fair lord that
perhaps was alluded to previously in sonnets 40-42. (For this reason and other, it is sometimes
suggested that the ordering of the sonnets does not wholly parallel the actual chronology of the
events they describe.) Although the narrator does indeed chastise himself for his own
unfaithfulness, perhaps in reference to his wife, his distress at the unfaithfulness of those with
whom he himself has been unfaithful makes him out as a wanting to have his cake and eat it too.
Self-Deprecations and Inadequacy: Self-deprecatory language frequently appears regarding the
poets various inadequacies, in particular his ability to keep his fair lords interest. In sonnet 76
the poet basically calls himself a bore. He begins, Why is my verse so barren of new pride / So
far from variation or quick change? His expressions of inadequacy reach a pinnacle in the rival
poet sonnets, where they transform into pathetic outburst of jealousy. In sonnet 80 we read, But
since your worth, wide as the ocean is / The humble as the proudest sail doth bear / My saucy
bark inferior far to his / On your broad main doth willfully appear; in sonnet 84, Who is it that
says most? Which can say more / Than this rich praise, that you alone are you? The poets selfdeprecation continues as he blames himself for much of that which he disapproves of both in the
fair lord and in the dark lady. He himself is the cause of their abandoning him; his will is
inadequate for resisting the temptations of Love.
Homoerotic Desire:
Although a fair number of scholars argue that the sonnets do not reflect any intimation of
homosexual desire whatsoever on the part of the narrator, others find sonnets 1-126 rife with
homoerotic undertonesat times appearing as explicit expressions of the narrators love for the
fair lord. In sonnet 20, for example, the poet expressly laments the fact that Nature fashioned the
fair lord with male genitalia (she prickd thee out). In sonnet 29, the narrator bemoans his
outcast state, perhaps a direct reference to a homoerotic desire he fears cannot be accepted by
society. Still, just as it is intellectually necessary to confront the idea that homoerotic desire is
prevalent to some extent in the sonnets, it is incumbent on readers not to let the imagination go
astray.
Scholars who accept that homoerotic undertones are present in the sonnets are, nevertheless,
divided regarding what this desire really means. Unlike the sonnets featuring the dark lady (127154), the fair lord sonnets contain no explicit reference to sexual desire; even if the narrator lusts
for the fair lord, it is debatable whether this lust has as its goal any act of sexual consummation.
Financial Bondage:
Throughout the sonnets there is considerable imagery of financial debt and obligation, bondage
and transaction. Many scholars are convinced that the fair lord is not only the objects of the
poets affection but also his financial benefactor. Such speculation has led to the identification of
the fair lord with the begetter of the sonnets, Mr. W.H. Although this argument is difficult to
prove, it certainly has its merits.
In sonnet 4, financial imagery is ubiquitous: unthrifty, spend, bequest, lend, frank,
niggard, profitless, usurer, sum, and audit, and more. Sonnet 79 likewise includes
aid, numbers, robs, pays, lends, stole, afford, and owes. Support for the
hypothesis that the dark lady of the sonnets was in fact a prostitute comes in part from sonnet
134, where the language includes mortgaged, forfeit, bond, statute, usurer, sue,
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debtor, and pays, although it could also be arguing d that the narrator is merely describing
the dark lady as a whore out of jealousy of her affair with the fair lord.
Color Symbolism: This theme emerges most palpably in the dark lady sonnets, where the poets
repeated use of the color black to describe the dark ladys features, both physical and intangible,
ascribes her with the evilness or otherness that the color has often symbolized in the Western
mentality. However, color imagery is present in the fair lord sonnets as well, especially in
conjunction with the theme of passing time. In sonnet 12, for example, the poet draws a parallel
between the aging of nature with the aging of human life, opposing the violet and summers
green with the silver and white of age. Note, though, that the opposition here is not between
black and white, as might be expected, but rather between color and absence of color, the latter
of which is a product of passing time. The poet dreads both the passing of time as well as the
sinfulness of his dark lady, and it is conceivable that the goal of his symbolism is to represent
that which he fears by that which is without color. This argument is complicated, however, by
sonnet 99, where purple, red, and white appear to take on more convoluted roles. Still, it is
possible to find consistencies in the poets use of color symbolism: all three instances of
yellow (in sonnet 17, 73, and 104) are used in the context of passing time, while green is
largely symbolic of youth (such as in sonnet 63).
SHORT SUMMARY
The sonnets are traditionally divided into two majors groups: the fair lord sonnet (1-126) and tha
dark lady sonnets (124-154). The fair lord sonnets explore the narrators consuming infatuation
with a young and beautiful man, while the dark lady sonnets engage his lustful desire for a
woman who is not his wife. The narrator is tormented as he struggles to reconcile the
uncontrollable urges of his heart with his minds better judgment, all the while in a desperate
race against time.
The sonnets begin with the narrators petition to the fair lord, exhorting him to preserve his
beauty for future generations by passing it on to a child. This theme is developed until sonnet 18,
where the narrator abandons it in favor of an alternative plan to eternalize the fair lords beauty
in his verse. But it is not long before the narrators mellifluous depictions of the fair lords beauty
are replaced with the haunting lament of unrequited love. The narrator grows increasingly
enamored with the fair lord eventually becoming emotionally dependent upon him and plagued
by the inability to win his heart. The narrator is further distressed by the incessant passing of
time, and he fears the detriment time inevitably will bring to the fair lords youthful beauty.
The narrators emotions fluctuate between love and anger, envy and greed. We find poignant
examples of the narrators jealousy in the rival poet sonnets (79-86), where the fair lords
attention has been caught by another. The narrators fragile psyche collapses in bouts of selfdeprecation as he agonizes over the thought of forever losing the object of his affection. In
sonnet 87, the narrator bids the fair lord farewell but his heartache long persists.
The reminder of the fair lord sonnets are characterized by the vicissitudes of the narrators
emotional well-being. After his parting with the fair lord in sonnet 87, the narrator grows
introspective, waxing philosophical as he begins to probe the very fabric of love. Throughout
these developments we are made privy to the narrators mounting apprehension that this time is
running short. Finally, in sonnet 126, his love matured and yet still beautiful, the narrator points
out that the fair lord too will one day meet his doom.
The following sonnet (127) begins the dark lady sequence, the group of sonnets dealing with the
narrators irresistible attraction to a dark and beautiful woman. Here the allure is not of love but
of lust, and the narrator is torn between his hunger for the woman and his disgust at the
sinfulness of carnal desire.
The dark lady is described as freely promiscuous, the epitome of lustful endeavor. Drawn by and
at the same time repelled by her darkness, the narrator once again reverts to meditative mindwandering to cope with his situation. In the end, the narrators lust is expressed as an incurable
disease, a burning sensation than can only be quenched if temporarily, by the eyes of the dark
lady.
THE ART OF THE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNETS
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The sonnet is a traditionally rigid poetic form featuring fourteen lines with rhyme, meter, and
logical structure. The form was first developed in Italy during the High Middle Ages, with such
well-known figures as Dante Alighieri putting it to use. But the most famous sonneteer of that
time was Francesco Petrarca, and it is after him that the Italian sonnet got its name.
The Petrarchan sonnets fourteen lines are divided into an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six
lines), with the sestet responding to some proposition introduced in the octave. The rhyme
scheme varied somewhat, but typically featured no more than four or five rhymes, for example
abbaabba cdeced.
Thomas Wyatt introduced the sonnet form into the English language in the early 16 th century.
Although Wyatt stuck to Petrarchan conventions, the form soon evolved into a specifically
English one, and it was used by a good number of Renaissance poets including Shakespeare. In
fact, the English sonnet is often referred to as the Shakespearean sonnet for the same reason the
Italian sonnet is often named after Petrarch. It is also sometimes referred to as the Elizabethan
sonnet, after the era during which it took shape.
The Shakespearean sonnet is distinct from the Petrarchan sonnet in a number of ways. First, the
octave-sestet division is replaced by a quatrain-couplet division, with three quatrains of four lines
each followed by a closing two-line couplet. The rhyme scheme of a traditional Shakespearean
sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg, increasing the total number of rhyme to seven. The meter is limbic
pentameter, five feet of two syllables each (ten syllables total per line), where each foot is
normally an iamb consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. Finally, the
logical structure of a Shakespearean sonnet parallels that of the Petrarchan to a certain extent, in
that the third quatrain sometimes introduces a twist on the theme of the preceding two; but it is
the distinctive couplet that carries the pop, normally delivering a great overarching message or a
deeply insightful thought.
SONNET 116
Whats he saying?
Let me not to marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love
I will not allow myself to admit that true love has any restrictions. Love is not real love
Which alters when it alteration finds / Or bends with the remover to remove:
If it changes in response to change, or if it allows itself to be changed by the one who is
changing:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
Not at all! Love is a permanent mark that persists unshaken despite the harsh winds of change;
It is the star to every wandering bark / Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken.
Love is the guiding, constant star for every wandering ship, a fixed point whose nature is
unknown, although its height can be measured.
Loves not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks / Within his bending sickles compass
come:
True love is not subject to the changes of Time, although beautiful faces do fall victim to the
sweep of Times curved scythe:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks / But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Love does not change with Times hours and weeks, but endures through Time right up until the
day of reckoning.
If this be error and upon me proved / I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
If the above is false and proved against me, it would be as impossible as if I had never written
anything, or if nobody had ever loved.
Why is he saying it?
Sonnet 116 is one of the most famous of the sonnets for its stalwart defense of true love. The
sonnet has a relatively simple structure, with each quatrain attempting to describe what love is
(or is not) and the final couplet reaffirming the poets words by placing his own merit on the line.
Note that this is one of the few sonnets in the fair lord sequence that is not addressed directly to
the fair lord; the context of the sonnet, however, gives it away as an exposition of the poets deep
and enduring love for him.
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The opening lines of the sonnet dive the reader into the theme at a rapid place, accomplished in
part by the use of enjambment the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line of poetry to
the next without any form of pause, e.g., Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit
impediments This first quatrain asserts that true love is immortal and unchanging: it neither
changes on its own nor allows itself to be changed, even it encounters changes in the loved one.
Quatrain two embarks on a series of seafaring metaphors to further establish the permanence of
true love: in line 5 it is an ever fixed mark, a sea mark that navigators could use to guide their
course; in line 7 it is a steadfast star (the North Star, perhaps), whose height we are able to
measure (as with a quadrant) although we may know nothing of its nature (the science of stars
had hardly progressed by Shakespeares time). Both of these metaphors emphasize the constancy
and dependability of true love.
Finally, quatrain three nails home the theme, with loves undying essence prevailing against the
bending sickle of Time. Times hours and weeks are brief compared to loves longevity,
and only some great and final destruction of apocalyptic proportions could spell its doom. Note
here the reference back to the nautical imagery of quatrain two with the use of the world
compass in line 10.
Sonnet 116 closes with a rather hefty wager against the validity of the poets words: he writes
that if what he claims above is proven untrue, then he never writ, nor no man ever loved.
In comparison with most other sonnets, sonnet 116 strikes readers as relatively simple. The
metaphors are reasonably transparent and the theme is quickly and plainly apparent. The
overarching sentiment of true loves timeless and immutable nature is presented and developed
in the first eight lines, but there is no twist at the third quatrain rather a continuation of the
theme. Even the couplet is but simple statement like there you have it. The simplicity is
noteworthy, and perhaps it was deliberate: Shakespeares goal may have been unaffected candor,
sincerity of conviction. It should come as no wonder that the lines of sonnet 116 often are quoted
as Shakespeares authentic definition of love.
Another interesting fact is that this sonnet is found misnumbered (as 119) in all extant copies of
the Quarto (early editions were printed in small books called quartos) but one. Even this fact has
produced speculation about additional encoded meanings.
SONNET 18
Whats he saying?
Shall I compare thee to a summers day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
What if I were to compare you to a summer day? You are lovelier and more temperate (the
perfect temperature):
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May / And summers lease hath all too short a date:
Summers beauty is fragile and can be shaken, and summertime fades away all too quickly:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines / And often is his gold complexion dimmd;
Sometimes the sun is far too hot, and often it is too cool, dimmed by clouds and shade;
And every fair from fair sometime declines / By chance or natures changing course
untrimmd;
And everything that is beautiful eventually loses its beauty, whether by chance or by the
uncontrollable course of nature;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade / Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
But your eternal beauty (or youth) will not fade , nor will your beauty by lost;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderst in his shade / When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
Nor will Death boast that you wander in his shadow, since you shall grow with time through
these sonnets:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see / So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
For as long as people can breath and see, this sonnet will live on, and you (and your beauty)
with it.
Why is he saying it?
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Sonnet 18 is arguably the most famous of the sonnets, its opening line competitive with Romeo,
Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? in the long list of Shakespeares quotable quotations. The
gender of the addressee is not explicit, but this is the first sonnet after the so-called procreation
sonnets (sonnets 1-17), i.e., it apparently marks the place where the poet has abandoned his
earlier push to persuade the fair lord to have a child. The first quatrains focus on the fair lords
beauty: the poet attempts to compare it to a summers day, but shows that there can be no such
comparison, since the fair lords timeless beauty far surpasses that of the fleeting, inconstant
season.
Here the theme of the ravages of time again predominates; we see it especially in line 7, where
the poet speaks of the inevitable mortality of beauty: And every fair from fair sometime
declines. But the fair lords is of another sort, for it shall not fade the poet is eternalizing the
fair lords beauty in his verse, in these eternal lines. Note the financial imagery (summers
lease) and the use of anaphora (the repetition of opening words) in lines 6-7, 10-11, and 13-14.
Also note that May (line 3) was an early summer month in Shakespeares time, because England
did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.
The poet describes summer as a season of extremes and disappointments. He begins in lines 3-4,
where rough winds are an unwelcome extreme and the shortness of summer is its
disappointment. He continues in lines 5-6, where he lingers on the imperfections of the summer
sun. Here again we find an extreme and a disappointment: the sun is sometimes far too hot, while
at other times is gold complexion is dimmed by passing clouds. These imperfections contrast
sharply with the poets description of the fair lord, who is more temperate (not extreme) and
whose eternal summer shall not fade (i.e., will not become a disappointment) thanks to what
the poet proposes in line 12.
In line 12 we find the poets solution how he intends to eternalize the fair lords beauty despite
his refusal to have a child. The poet plans to capture the fair lords beauty in his verse (eternal
lines), which he believes will withstand the ravages of time. Thereby the fair lords eternal
summer shall not fade, and the poet will have gotten his wish. Here we see the poets use of
summer as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty, or perhaps the beauty of youth.
But has the poet really abandoned the idea of encouraging the fair lord to have a child? Some
scholars suggest that the eternal lines in line 12 have a double meaning: the fair lords beauty
can live on not only in the written lines of the poets verse but also in the family lines of the fair
lords progeny. Such an interpretation would echo the sentiment of the preceding sonnets closing
couplet: But where some child of yours alive that time / You should live twice; in it and in my
rhyme. The use of growest also implies an increasing or changing; we can envision the fair
lords family lines growing over time, yet this image is not as really applicable to the lines of the
poets verse unless it refers only to his intention to continue writing about the fair lords beauty,
his verse thereby growing. On the other hand, line 14 seems to counter this interpretation, the
singular this (as opposed to these) having as its most likely antecedent the poets verse, and
nothing more.
SONNET 52
Whats he saying?
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key / Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
I am like a rich person whose wonderful key can open up his dear, locked-up treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey / For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Which he will not visit too often for fear of dulling the excitement of experiencing a rare
pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare / Since, seldom coming, in the long year set,
That is why feasts are so special and rare, for they occur so seldom throughout the year,
Like stone of worth they thinly placed are / Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
Sparsely placed like precious stones, or like the largest gems in a jeweled necklace.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest / Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
Similarly, time (or memory) keeps you like my treasure chest, or like a wardrobe hides the robe
within,
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To make some special instant special blest / By new unfolding his imprisond pride.
Awaiting some special occasion to be brought out, to uncover the pride that has been
imprisoned.
Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope / Being had, to triumph, being lackd, to hope.
You are blessed, you whose worthiness gives measure; to have had you is to triumph, to lack you
is at least to hope.
Why is he saying it?
Sonnet 52 is wild, hotly contested among scholars for its (possible) abundance of sexual
innuendo. It also can be argued that because sonnet 52 comes later in the sequence than sonnet
20, sonnet 52 represents a later stage or evolution of the poets desires but arguments based
purely on the sonnets ordering are shaky at best, since some scholars believe that the ordering of
the sonnets does not conform to any actual chronology of events.
In sonnet 52 the poet describes the fair lord as a locked-up treasure, a solemn feast, a robe for a
special occasion something special and beautiful and blessed, as only something so rare can be.
The language of the sonnet is overtly laudatory and also rationalizing, as it attempts to justify the
narrators separation from the fair lord or the infrequency of his being able to delight in him. As
trough only permissible on special occasions, the robe is awaiting its chance to come out of the
closet, To make some special instant blest / By new unfolding his imprisond pride.
Note the possible sexual innuendo captured in the seemingly phallic fine point of seldom
pleasure, the penetration of a key into a lock, and the unfolding pride. Also note that the
word had (line 14) is found elsewhere in the sonnets referring to sex, cf. Past reason hunted,
and no sooner had Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme (sonnet 129). Such are the
clues that have led some scholars to the idea that sonnet 52 is in fact a revelation of the poets
having been sexually attracted to the fair lord.
But did Shakespeare really intend for this sonnet to be read as replete with sexual innuendo? Or
is it readers with a modern way of thinking who are taken aback by its amorous language and led
to draw conclusions that are merely the products of our own imagination? These questions apply
not only to sonnet 52 but also to the sonnets as a whole; however, in sonnet 52 the language
seems to cross the line, warranting some attempt at explanation.
Some scholars have argued that the sonnet clearly expresses the narrators homoerotic desire for
the fair lord, while others suggest that if there were any such desire on the part of the poet he
would have taken better care to hide it, as homosexuality was viewed as a serious crime during
Shakespeares time, and he could very well have been punished for it. Critics of this latter
conviction sometimes propose the alternative interpretation that whatever innuendo present in
sonnet 52 is there for the sake of humorous double entendre, while deny its existence outright.
As with many of the sonnets enduring mysteries, Shakespeare clever ambiguities are likely to
remain as such forever.

LEWIS CARROLL ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in Cheshire, on January 27, 1832, the man who would become
Lewis Caroll was an eccentric and an eclectic whose varied works have entertained, edified,
enlightened, and evaded readers for over a century. The son of a vicar and his first cousin,
Dodgson was a precocious child who showed early interest in both writing and mathematics.
After studying mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford, from 1850-1854, Dodgson was appointed
to a lectureship there, where he was to continue studying, remain unmarried, and prepare for holy
orders for almost 30 years. Although he never reached the priesthood, he did reach the level of
deacon. During his very successful academic career, he wrote extensively on mathematics and
logic, among other subjects. However, it is not for his academic work that he is best
remembered, but rather the works for children which he created under the pseudonym Lewis
Carroll.
Dodgsons relationship to children has been questioned by recent scholarship, as his photography
of young girls is undeniably erotic, and all his close and enduring friendship throughout his life
38

were with young children, mostly girls. Dodgson was intensely interested in and an advocate for
the freedom and wisdom of childhood, and wrote his books as pleasurable amusements for the
people he admired. His muse, Alice Liddell was the young daughter of the Dean of Christ
Church, who he wrote Alices Adventures in Wonderland for in 1865. The work started out as an
oral tale which he later wrote down as Alices Adventures Underground, but later revised into
Alices Adventures in Wonderland. In 1872, Carroll published Throughout the Looking Glass,
the sequel to Wonderland. The books were illustrated by Sir John Tenniel, a top political
illustrator of the day, whose crisp etching work with Carrolls sly text to create the world of
Wonderland still known today. These books brought Carroll great fame and renown during his
lifetime, but the shy Dodgson made a great effort to distance himself from the fame of his alter
ego Carroll. An intensely awkward and introverted man, he was almost unable to have
interactions or friendships with adults, but was happy and at peace when around children. He
spent most of his later years in the company of young children who he entertained with his
stories and documented in his famous photography.
Along with the Alice books, Carroll published Phantasmagoria and other Poems in 1869, The
Hunting of the Snark in 1876, and Sylvie and Bruno in 1893, though none of his other works
were ever nearly as popular as the Alice duo either in his lifetime or afterwards. He died January
14, 1898 in Guilford, Surrey.
The Alice books were written during the Victorian era, a time now remembered for its stifling
propriety and constrictive morals. Carroll had something of an outsiders perspective on this
world; he was painfully shy, and he often stuttered. His fondness for little girls has raised more
than a few eyebrows, although it is unknown if Carroll ever acted on this obsession. At any rate,
these feelings of his served to accentuate his feelings of isolation.
But his position gave him tremendous perspective on his world. The creatures of wonderland
have many arbitrary customs. Their behaviors are all defensible with strange logic, but the
customs are still silly or even cruel. There are obvious echoes of the Victorian world, as the
animals are opinionated and have strong ideas about what constitutes appropriate behavior. The
creatures preciousness and their arbitrary sensitivities mock the fastidiousness of the Victorian
era.
The Alice books also mock the childrens literature of the day. In keeping with the character of
the time, childrens literature was full of simplistic morals and heavy-handed attempts to educate
the young. Some of the books supposedly for children were quite dry, and at the least suffered
from a lack of imagination.
Alices Adventures in Wonderland was first published in 1865, and it was an immediate success.
Carrolls sense of the absurd and his amazing gift for games of logic and language have made the
Alice books popular with both adults and children, and they have remained some of the bestknown childrens books written in English. The well-known Disney adaptation draws freely from
both books, while retaining the basic structure of the first book and remaining faithful to the
flavor and central themes of the story.
The Alice books deal with the sometimes precarious world of children; the reader should keep in
mind that at the time of their writing, the advent of industrialization had raised peoples
consciousness of child labor and exploitation. Carroll sees the world of children as a dangerous
place, shadowed by the threat of death and the presence of adults who are powerful but often
absurd.
The book is refreshingly complex, refusing to take patronize its young audience with simplistic
morals or perspectives. A point of comparison is Antoine de St. Exuperys The Little Prince:
while The Little Prince sets up a rather simplistic binary between children (who are good, wise
and innocent) and the big people (who are mean, shallow, and foolish), the Alice books satirize
the absurdities of adults while avoiding pat conclusions about the difference between adults and
children. Childhood is seen as a state of danger, and although Carroll has an evident fondness for
children he never idealizes them. Alices challenge is to grow into a strong and compassionate
person despite the idiosyncrasies of the creatures she meets (the creatures symbolizing the adult
world). She has to learn the rules of each new encounter, but in the end she must also retain a
sense of justice and develop a sense of herself. Rather than set childhood and adulthood as
simple opposites, valorizing he former and disparaging the latter, Caroll shows the process by
39

which a good child can become a strong adult. Alice is also not without adult friends along the
way: in the first book, for example, the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat are two enigmatic
creatures who seem to understand how Wonderland works. They help Alice at key point.
The books always retain a sense of mystery and a fondness for the sinister; even the characters
who aid Alice have a dark edge to them. The hints of mortality and the sense of fear in the books
have only contributed to their popularity. The books stand as evidence that childrens literature
need not talk down to its audience. In fact, it is the depth and sophistication of the Alice books
that has won them recognition as some of the best childrens literature ever written.
Growth into Adulthood: This theme is central to both books. Alices adventures parallel the
journey from childhood to adulthood. She comes into numerous new situations in which
adaptability is absolutely necessary for success. She shows marked progress throughout the
course of the book; in the beginning, she can barely maintain enough composure to keep herself
from crying. By the end of the novel, she is self-possessed and able to hold her own against the
most baffling Wonderland logic.
Size change: Closely connected to the above theme, size change is another recurring concept.
The dramatic changes in size hint at the radical changes the body undergoes during adolescence.
The key, once again, is adaptability. Alices size changes also bring about a change in
perspective, and she sees the world from a very different view. In the last trial scene, her growth
into a giant reflects her interior growth. She becomes a much stronger, self-possessed person,
able to speak out against the nonsensical proceedings of the trial.
Death: This theme is even more present in the second Alice book, Throughout the Looking
Glass. Alice frequently makes references to her own death without knowing it. Childhood is a
state of peril in Carrolls view: children are quite vulnerable, and the world presents many
dangers. Another aspect of death is its inevitability. Since the Alice books are at root about
change (the transition from childhood to adulthood, the passage of time), mortality is inescapable
as a theme. Death is the final step of this process of growth. While death is only hinted at in the
first book, the second book is saturated with references to mortality and macabre humor.
Games / Learning the Rules: Every new encounter is something of a game for Alice; there are
rules to learn, and consequences for learning or not learning those rules. Games are a constant
part of life in Wonderland, from the Caucus race to the strange croquet match to the fact that the
royal court is a living deck of cards. And every new social encounter is like a game, in that there
are bizarre, apparently arbitrary rules that Alice has to master. Learning the rules is a metaphor
for the adaptations to new social situations that every child makes as she grows older. Mastering
each challenge, Alice grows wiser and more adaptable as time goes on.
Language and Logic / Illogic:
Carroll delights in puns. The Alice books are chockfull of games with language, to the readers
delight and Alices confusion. The games often point out some inconsistency or slipperiness of
language in general and English in particular. The books point out the pains and advantages of
language. Language is a source of joy and adaptability; it can also be a source of great confusion.
Just a baffling is the bizarre logic at work in Wonderland. Every creature can justify the most
absurd behavior, and their arguments for themselves are often fairly complex. Their strange
reasoning is another source of delight for the reader and challenge for Alice. She has to learn to
discern between unusual logic and utter nonsense.
Alice is sitting with her sister outdoors when she spies a White Rabbit with a pocket watch.
Fascinated by the sight, she follows the rabbit down the hole. There is also a key on the table,
which unlocks a tiny door; through this door, she spies a beautiful garden. She longs to get there,
but the door is too small. Soon, she finds a drink with a note that asks her to drink it. There is
later a cake with a note that tells her to eat; Alice uses both, but she cannot seem to get a handle
on things, and is always either too large to get through the door or too small to reach the key.
While she is tiny, she slips and falls into a pool of water. She realizes that this little sea is made
of tears she cried while a giant. She swims to shore with a number of animals, most notably a
sensitive mouse, but manages to offend everyone by talking about her cats ability to catch birds
and mice. Left alone, she goes on through the wood and runs into the White Rabbit. He mistakes
her for his maid and sends her to fetch some things from his house. While in the White Rabbits
40

home, she drinks another potion and becomes too huge to get out through the door. She
eventually finds a little cake which, when eaten, makes her small again.
In the wood again, she comes across a Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom. He gives her some
valuable advice, as well as a valuable tool: the two sides of the mushroom, which can make Alice
grows larger and smaller as she wishes. The first time she uses them, she stretches her body out
tremendously. While stretched out, she pokes her head into the branches of a tree and meets a
Pigeon. The Pigeon is convinced that Alice is a serpent, and though Alice tries to reason with her
the Pigeon tells her to be off.
Alice gets herself down to normal proportions and continues her trek through the woods. In a
clearing she comes across a little house and shrinks herself down enough to get inside. It is the
house of the Duchess; the Duchess and the Cook are battling fiercely, and they seem
unconcerned about the safety of the baby that the Duchess is nursing. Alice takes the baby with
her, but the child turns into a pig and trots off into h woods. Alice next meets the Cheshire cat
(who was sitting in the Duchesss house, but said nothing). The Cheshire cat helps her to find her
way through the woods, but he warns her that everyone she meets will be mad.
Alice goes to the March Hares house, where she is treated to a Mad Tea Party. Present are the
March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse. Ever since Time stopped working for the Hatter, it
has always been six oclock: it is therefore always teatime. The creatures of the Mad Tea Party
are some of the most argumentative in all of Wonderland. Alice leaves them and finds a tree with
a door in it: when she looks through the door, she spies the door-lined hallway from the
beginning of her adventures. This time, she is prepared, and she manages to get to the lovely
garden that she saw earlier. She walks on through, and finds herself in the garden of the Queen of
Hearts. There, three gardeners (with bodies shaped like playing cards) are painting the roses red.
If the Queen finds out that they planted white roses, shell have them beheaded. The Queen
herself soon arrives, and she does order their execution; Alice helps to hide them in a large
flowerpot.
The Queen invites Alice to play croquet, which is a very difficult game in Wonderland, as the
balls and mallets are live animals. The game is interrupted by the appearance of the Cheshire cat,
whom the King of Hearts immediately dislikes.
The Queen takes Alice to the Gryphon, who in turn takes Alice to the Mock Turtle. The Gryphon
and the Mock Turtle tell Alice bizarre stories about their school under the sea. The Mock Turtles
sings a melancholy song about turtle soup, and soon afterward the Gryphon drags Alice off to see
the trial of the Knave of Hearts.
The Knave of Hearts has been accused of stealing the tarts of the Queen of Hearts, but the
evidence against him is very bad. Alice is appalled by the ridiculous proceedings. She also
begins to grow larger. She is soon called to the witness stand; by this time she has grown to giant
size. She refuses to be intimidated by the bad logic of court and the bluster of the King and
Queen of Hearts. Suddenly, the cards all rise up and attack her, at which point she wakes up. Her
adventures in Wonderland have all been a fantastic dream.
WIRGINIA WOOLF MRS. DALLOWAY
CONTEXT
In 1878, Leslie Stephen and Julia Jackson Duckworth married, a second marriage for both. They
gave birth to Adeline Virginia Stephen four years later, on the 26 th of March at 22 Hyde Park
Gate, London. Virginia was the third of their four children. Leslie Stephen began his career as a
clergyman but soon became agnostic and took up journalism. He and Julia provided their
children with a home of wealth and comfort.
Though denied the formal education allowed to males, Virginia was able to take advantage of her
fathers abundant library and observe his writing talent, and she was surrounded by intellectual
conversation. The same year Virginia was born, for instance, her father began editing the huge
Dictionary of National Biography. Virginias mother, more delicate than her husband, helped to
bring out the more emotional sides of her children. Both parents were very strong personalities;
Virginia would feel overshadowed by them for years.
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Virginia would suffer through three major mental breakdowns during her lifetime, and she would
die during a fourth. In all likelihood, the compulsive drive to work that she acquired from her
parents, combined with her naturally fragile state, primarily contributed to these breakdowns. Yet
other factors were important as well. Her first breakdown occurred shortly following the death of
her mother in 1895, which Virginia later described as the greatest disaster that could have
happened. Some have suggested that Virginia felt guilt over choosing her father as her favorite
parent. In any case, her fathers excessive mourning period probably affected her adversely.
Two years later, Virginias stepsister Stella Duckworth died. Stella had assumed charge of the
household duties after their mothers death, causing a rift between her and Virginia. Virginia fell
sick after Stellas death. The same year, Virginia began her first diary.
Over the next seven years, Virginias decision to write took hold and her admiration for women
grew. She educated herself and greatly admired women such as Madge Vaughan, daughter of
John Addington Symonds, who wrote novels and would later be illustrated as Sally Seton in
Mrs. Dalloway.
Her admiration for strong women was coupled with a growing dislike for male domination in
society. Virginias feelings were likely affected by her relationship to her stepbrother, George
Duckworth, who was fourteen when Virginia was born. In the last year of her life, Virginia wrote
to a friend regarding the shame she felt when, at the age of six, she was fondled by George.
Similar incidents recurred throughout her childhood until Virginia was in her early twenties. In
1904 her father died, shortly after finishing the Dictionary and receiving a knighthood. Though
freed from his shadow, Virginia was overcome by the event and suffered her second mental
breakdown, combined with scarlet fever and an attempted suicide.
When she recovered, Virginia left Kensington with her three siblings and moved to Bloomsbury,
where she began to consider herself a serious artist. She immersed herself in the intellectual
company of her brother Thoby and his Cambridge friends. This group, including E.M. Forster
and Lytton Strachey, later formed what was known as the Bloomsbury Group, under the
Cambridge don G.E. Moore. They were dedicated to the liberal discussion of politics and art. In
1906, Thoby died of typhoid fever and Virginias sister married one of Thobys college friends,
Clive Bell. Virginia was on her own. Over the next four years, Virginia would begin work on her
first novel, The Voyage Out (1915), ahe accepted a marriage proposal from Strachery, who later
broke off the engagement. She received a legacy of 2.500 pounds the same year, which would
allow her to live independently. In 1911, Leonard Woolf, another of the Bloomsbury Group,
returned from Ceylon, and they were married in 1912. Woolf was the stable presence Virginia
needed to control her moods and steady her talent. He gave their home a musical atmosphere.
Virginia trusted his literary judgment. Their marriage was a partnership, though some suggest
their sexual relationship was nonexistent.
Virginia fell ill more frequently as she grew older, often taking respite in rest homes and in the
care of her husband. In 1917, Leonard founded the Hogarth Press to publish their own books,
hoping that Virginia could bestow the care on the press that she would have bestowed on
children. (She had been advised by doctors not to become pregnant after her third serious
breakdown in 1913. Virginia was fond of children, however, and spent much time with her
brothers and sisters children.) Through the press, she had an early look at Joyces Ulysses and
aided authors such as Forster, Freud, Isherwood, Mansfield, Tolstoy, and Chekov. She sold her
half interest in 1938.
Before her death, Virginia published an extraordinary amount of groundbreaking material. She
was a renowned member of the Bloomsbury Group and a leading writer of the modernist
movement with her use of innovative literary techniques. In contrast to the majority of literature
written before the early 1900s, which emphasized plot and detailed descriptions of characters and
settings, Woolfs writing throughout explores the concepts of time, memory, and consciousness.
The plot is generated by the characters inner lives, not by the external world.
In March 1941, Woolf left suicide notes for her husband and sister and drowned herself in a
nearby river. She feared her madness was returning and that she would not be able to continue
writing, and she wished to spare her loved ones.
Over the course of her many illnesses, however, Woolf had remained productive. Her intense
power of concentration had allowed her to work ten to twelve hours writing. Her most notable
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publications include Night and Day, The Mark on the Wall, Jacobs Room, Monday or Tuesday,
Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, A Room of Ones Own, The Waves, The Years, and
Between the Acts. In total, her work comprises five volumes of collected essays and reviews, two
biographies (Flush and Roger Fry), two libertarian books, a volume of selections from diary,
nine novels, and a volume of short stories.
ABOUT MRS DALLOWAY
In Jacobs Room, the novel preceding Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf works with many of the
same themes she later expand upon in Mrs. Dalloway. To Mrs. Dalloway, she added the theme of
insanity. As Woolf stated, I adumbrate here a study of insanity and suicide; the world seen by
the sane and the insane side by side. However, even the theme that would lead Woolf to create a
double for Clarissa Dalloway can be viewed as a progression of other similar ideas cultivated in
Jacobs Room. Woolfs next novel, then, was a natural development from Jacobs Room, as well
as an expansion of the stories she wrote before deciding to make Mrs. Dalloway into a full novel.
The Dalloways had been introduced in the novel, The Voyage Out, but Woolf presented the
couple in a harster light than she did in later years. Richard is domineering and pompous.
Clarissa is dependent and superficial. Some of these qualities remain in the characters of Mrs.
Dalloway but the two generally appear much more reasonable and likeable. Clarissa was
modeled after a friend of Woolfs named Kitty Maxse, whom Woolf thought to be a superficial
socialite. Though she wanted to comment upon the displeasing social system, Woolf found it
difficult at times to respond to a character like Clarissa. She discovered a greater amount of
depth to the character of Clarissa Dalloway in a series of short stories, the first of which was
titled, Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street, published in 1923. The story would serve as an
experimental first chapter to Mrs. Dalloway. A great number of similar short stories followed and
soon the novel became inevitable. As critic Hermione Lee details, On 14 October 1922 [Woolf]
recorded that Mrs. Dalloway has branched into a book, but it was sometime before [Woolf]
could find the necessary balance between design and substance.
Within the next couple years, Woolf became inspired by a tunneling writing process, allowing
her to dig caves behind her characters and explore their souls. As Woolf wrote to painter
Jacques Raverat, it is precisely the task of the writer to go beyond the formal railway line of
sentence and to show how people feel or think or dream all over the place. In order to
give Clarissa more substance, Woolf created Clarissas memories. Woolf used characters from
her own past in addition to Kitty Maxse, such as Madge Symonds, on whom she based Sally
Seton. Woolf held a similar type of affectionate devotion for Madge at the age of fifteen as a
young Clarissa held for Sally.
The theme of insanity was close to Woolfs past and present. She originally planned to have
Clarissa die or commit suicide at the end of the novel but finally decided that she did want
manner of closure for Clarissa. As critic Manly Johnson elaborates, The original intention to
have Clarissa kill herself in the pattern of Woolfs own intermittent despair was rejected in
favor of a dark double who would take that act upon himself. Creating Septimus led directly to
Clarissas mystical theory of vicarious death and shared existence, saving the novel from a
damaging balance on the side of darkness. Still, the disassociation of crippling insanity from the
character of Clarissa Dalloway did not completely save Woolf from the pain of recollection.
Woolfs husband and close friends compared her periods of insanity to a manic depression quite
similar to the episode experienced by Septimus. Woolf also included frustratingly impersonal
doctor types in Bradshaw and Holmes that reflected doctors she had visited throughout the years.
As the novel focused mainly on the character of Clarissa Dalloway, Woolf changed the name of
the novel to Mrs. Dalloway from its more abstract working title, The Hours, before publishing it.
Woolf struggled to combine many elements that impinged on her sensibility as she wrote the
novel. The title, Mrs. Dalloway, best suited her attempts to join them together. As Woolf
commented, In this book I have almost too many ideas. I want to give life and death, sanity and
insanity; I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense.
Furthermore, she hoped to respond to the stagnant state of the novel, with a consciously
modern novel. Many critics believe she succeeded. The novel was published in 1925, and
received much acclaim.
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MAJOR THEMES
The sea as symbolic of life: The ebb and flow of life. When the image is portrayed as being
harmonized, the sea represents a great confidence and comfort. Yet, when the image is presented
as disjointed r uncomfortable, it symbolizes dissociation.
Doubling: Many critics describe Septimus as Clarissas doppelganger, the alternate persona, the
darker, more internal personality compared to Clarissas very social and singular outlook.
Woolfs use of the doppelganger, Septimus, portray a side to Clarissas personality that becomes
absorbed by fear and broken down by society and a side of society that has failed to survive the
War. The doubling portrays the polarity of the self and exposes the positive-negative relationship
inherent in humanity. It also illustrated the opposite phases of the idea of life.
The intersection of time and timelessness: Woolf creates a new novelistic structure in Mrs.
Dalloway wherein her prose has blurred the distinction between dream and reality, between the
past and present. An authentic human being functions in this manner, simultaneously from the
conscious to the unconscious, from the fantastic to the real, and from memory to the moment.
Woolf also strived to illustrate the vain artificiality of Clarissas life and her involvement in it.
The detail given and thought provoked in one day of a womans preparation for a party, a simple
social event, exposes the flimsy lifestyle of Englands upper classes at the time of the novel.
Even though Clarissa is effected by Septimus death and is bombarded by profound thoughts
throughout the novel, she is also a woman for whom a party is her greatest offering to society.
The thread of the Prime Minister throughout, the near fulfilling of Peters prophecy concerning
Clarissas role, and the characters of the doctors, Hugh Whitbread, and Lady Bruton as compared
to the tragically mishandled plight of Septimus, throw a critical light upon the social circle
examined by Woolf.
The world of the sane and the insane side by side: Woolf portrays the sane grasping for
significant and substantial connections to life, living among those who have been cut off from
such connections and who suffer because of the improper treatment they, henceforth, receive.
The critic, Ruotolo, excellently develops the idea behind the theme: Estranged from the sanity
of others, rooted to the pavement, the veteran [Septimus] asks for what purpose he is present.
Virginia Woolfs novel honors and extends his question. He perceives a beauty in existence that
his age has almost totally disregarded; his vision of new life is a source of joy as well as
madness. Unfortunately, the glimpse of beauty that makes Septimus less forlorn is anathema to
an age that worships like Septimus inhuman doctor, Sir William Bradshow, the twin goddesses
Proportion and Conversion.
SHORT SUMMARY
Part I, Section One:
Clarissa Dalloway decided to buy the flowers for her party that evening. Lucy had too much
other work. Clarissa thought of the hush that fell over Westminster right before the ring of Big
Ben. It was June and World War I was over. She loved life. Hugh Whitbread walked toward her
and assured her that he would attend the party. Clarissa thought of her boyfriend before she
married, Peter. She could not stop memories from rushing over her. She knew she had been
correct not to marry Peter. Peter would not have given her any independence, but still her refusal
bothered her. Clarissa realized her baseness, always wanting to do things that would make people
like her instead of doing them for their own value.
Bond Street fascinated her. The same things did not fascinate her daughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth
was fascinated with callous Miss Kilman. Clarissa hated Miss Kilman. She entered Mulberrys
florist and was greeted by Miss Pym. Miss Pym noticed that Clarissa looked older. Suddenly, a
pistol-like noise came from the street.
Part I, Section Two:
The loud noise had come from a motorcar, likely carrying someone very important. The street
came to a stop and Septimus Warren Smith could not get by. Septimus anticipated horror. His
wife, Lucrezia, hurried him. She knew others noticed his strangeness. The car was delayed.
Clarissa felt touched by magic. A crowd formed at Buckinghams gates. An airplane took to the
sky, making letters out of smoke. The plains trail mystified its observers.
44

In Regents Park, Septimus believed the letters were signaling to him. Rezia hated when he
stared into nothingness. She walked to the fountain to distract herself and felt alone. The doctor
said nothing was wrong with him. When Rezia returned, he jumped up. Maisie Johnson, a girl
from Edinburgh, asked the couple directions to the subway. Maisie was horrified by the look in
the Septimus eyes. Mrs. Carrie Dempster noticed Maisie and thought of her younger days.
Carrie would to things differently if she had the chance. Flying over many other English folk, the
planes message writing continued aimlessly.
Part I, Section Three:
Clarissa wondered at what everyone was looking. She felt as a nun returning to her habit.
Richard had been invited to lunch with Lady Bruton. Clarissa felt snubbed. She withdrew
upstairs to the virginal attic room that she had occupied since her illness. M She thought back to
her old best friend, Sally Seton. She had known what men feel toward women with Sally. Sally
taught Clarissa about all the things from which she was shielded at Bourton, her home before
marriage.
Clarissa took her dress downstairs to mend. Abruptly, her door opened and Peter Walsh entered.
Peter noticed that she looked older. Clarissa asked him if he remembered Bourton. It pained him
to remember because it reminded him of Clarissas refusal. He felt that Clarissa had changed
since marrying Richard. Peter mentioned that he was in love with a girl in India. He had come to
London to see about her divorce. Peter suddenly wept. Clarissa comforted him. She wished he
would take her with him. The next moment, her passions subsided. He abruptly asked if she was
happy with Richard. Suddenly, Elizabeth entered. Peter greeted her, said good-bye to Clarissa,
and rushed out the door.
Part I, Section Four:
Peter had never enjoyed Clarissas parties. He did not blame her, though. She had grown hard.
He thought the way she had introduced Elizabeth was insincere. He had been overly emotional
when he had visited Clarissa. Peter associated St. Margarets bells with Clarissa as the hostess.
He had never liked people like Dalloways and Whitbreads. Boys in uniform marched by Peter.
He followed them for a while. He had not felt so young in years. A young woman passed who
enchanted Peter. He followed her until she disappeared.
He was early for his appointment. He sat in Regents Park and felt pride in the civility of
London. Thoughts of his past continued to combat him, a result of seeing Clarissa. He settled
next to a nurse and sleeping baby. Peter thought that Elizabeth probably did not get along with
her mother. Smoking a cigar, he fell into a deep sleep.
Part I, Section Five:
Peter dreamed. The nurse beside Peter appeared spectral, like the solitary traveler. Suddenly
Peter awoke, exclaiming, The death of the soul. He had dreamt of a time when he loved
Clarissa. One day they had gotten in a fight and Clarissa went outside, alone. As the day went on,
Peter grew increasingly gloomy. When he arrived for dinner, Clarissa was speaking to a young
man, Richard Dalloway. Peter knew Richard would marry Clarissa.
After dinner, Clarissa tried to introduce Peter to Richard. Peter retorted insultingly that Clarissa
was the perfect hostess. Later, the young people decided to go boating. Clarissa ran to find Peter.
He was suddenly happy. Yet, Peter still felt that Dalloway and Clarissa were failing in love.
Following that night, Peter asked ridiculous things of Clarissa. Finally, she could take it no
longer and ended their relationship.
Part II, Section One:
Rezia wondered why she should suffer. When Septimus saw that Rezia no longer wore her
wedding band, he knew that their marriage was over. She tried to explain that her finger had
grown too thin, but he did not care. His nerves were stretched thin. Still, he believed that beauty
was everywhere. REzia told him that it was time to go. Septimus imagined Evans approaching.
Rezia told Septimus she was unhappy.
45

Peter Walsh thought of how Sally Seton had unexpectedly married a rich man. Of all of
Clarissas old friends, he had always liked Sally best. Clarissa, though, knew what she wanted.
When she walked into a room, one remembered her. Peter struggled to remind himself that he
was no longer in love with her. Even Clarissa would admit that she cared too much for societal
rank. Still, she was one of the largest skeptics Peter knew. Clarissa had so affected him that
morning because she might have spared him from his relationship problems over the years.
A tattered womans incomprehensible song rose from the subway station. Seeing the woman
made Rezia feel that everything was going to be okay. She turned to Septimus, thinking how he
did not look insane. When Septimus was young, he had fallen in love with a woman who lent
him books on Shakespeare. He became a poet. Septimus was one of the first volunteers for the
army in World War I. He went to protect Shakespeare. He became friends with his officier,
Evans, who died just before the war ended. Septimus was glad that he felt no grief, until he
realized that he had lost the ability to feel. In a panic, he married. Lucreai adored his
studiousness and quiet. Septimus read Shakespeare again but could not change his mind that
humanity was despicable. After five years, Lucrezia wanted a child. Septimus could not fathom
it. He wondered if he would go mad.
Dr. Holmes could not help. Septimus knew nothing was physically wrong, but he figured, his
crimes were still great. The third time Holmes came, Septimus tried to refuse him. He hated him.
REzia could not understand and Septimus felt deserted. He heard thw world telling him to kill
himself. Upon seeing Holmes, Septimus screamed in horror. The doctor, annoyed, advised that
they see Dr. Bradshaw. They had an appointment that afternoon.
Part II, Section Two:
At noon, Clarissa finished her sewing and the Warren Smiths neared Sir William Bradshaw.
Bradshaw knew immediately that Septimus had suffered from a mental breakdown. Bradshaw
reassured Mrs. Smith that Septimus needed a long rest in the country to regain a sense of
proportion. Septimus equated Bradshaw with Holmes and with the evil of human nature. Rezia
felt deserted. The narrator describes another side to proportion, conversion. One wondered if
Bradshaw did not like to impose his will on others weaker than he. The Smiths passed near Hugh
Whitbread.
Though superficial, Hugh had been an honorable member of high society for years. Lady Bruton
preferred Richard Dalloway to Hugh. She had invited both to lunch to ask for their services. The
luncheon was elaborate. Richard had a great respect for Lady Bruton cared more for politics than
people. Suddenly, Lady Bruton mentioned Peter Walsh. Richard thought that he should tell
Clarissa he loved her. Lady Bruton then mentioned the topic of emigration to Canada. She
wanted Richard to advise her and Hugh to write to the London times for her.
As Richard stood to leave, he asked if he would sp. ee Lady Bruton at Clarissas party. Possibly,
she retorted. Lady Bruton did not like arties. Richard and Hugh stood at a street corner. Finally,
they entered a shop. Richard bought Clarissa roses and rushed home to profess his love.
Part II, Section Three:
Clarissa was very annoyed, but invited her boring cousin Ellie to the party out of courtesy.
Richard walked in with Flowers. He said nothing, but she understood. Clarissa mentioned Peters
visit, and how bizarre it was that she had almost married him. Richard held her hand and then
hurried off to a committee meeting. Clarissa felt uneasy because of the negative
Reactions both Peter and Richard had toward her parties. Yet, parties were her offering to the
world, her gift.
Elizabeth entered. She and Miss Kilman were going to the Army and Navy surplus stores. Miss
Kilman despised Clarissa. Whenever Miss Kilman was filled with sinister thoughts, she thought
of god to relieve them. Clarissa despised Miss Kilman as well. She felt that the woman was
stealing her daughter. As they left, Clarissa yelled after Elizabeth to remember her party.
Clarissa pondered love and religion. She noticed the old woman whom she could view in the
house adjacent. It seemed to Clarissa that the ringing of the bell forced the lady to move away
from her window. All was connected.
46

Miss Kilman lived to eat food and love Elizabeth. After shopping, Miss Kilman declared that
they must have tea. Elizabeth thought of how peculiar Miss Kilman was. Miss Kilman detained
her by talking, feeling sorry for herself. She drove a small wedge between them Elizabeth paid
her bill and left.
Part II, Section Four:
Miss Kilman sat alone, despondent, before heading to a sanctuary of religion. In an Abbey, she
knelt in prayer. Elizabeth enjoyed being outdoors alone and decided to take a bus ride. Her life
was changing. She felt that the attention men gave her was silly. She wondered if Miss Kilmans
ideas about the poor were correct. She paid another penny so that she could continue riding.
Elizabeth thought she might be a doctor or a farmer.
Septimus looked out the window and smiled. Sometimes, he would demand that Rezia records
his thoughts. Lately, he would cry out about truth Evans. He spoke of Holmes as the evil of
human nature. This day, Rezia sat sewing a hat and Septimus held a normal conversation with
her, making her happy. They joked and Septimus designed the pattern to decorate the hat. Rezia
happily sewed it on.
Septimus slowly slipped from reality. Rezia asked if he liked the hat, but he just stared. He
remembered that Bradshaw had said that he would need to separate himself. He wanted his
writing burned but Rezia promised to keep them from the doctors. She promised no one would
separate her from him either. Dr. Holmes arrived. Rezia ran to stop him from seeing Septimus.
Holmes pushed by her. Septimus needed to escape. After weighing his options, he threw himself
onto the fence below.
Part II, Section Five:
Peter appreciated the ambulance that sped past him as a sign of civility. His tendency to become
emotionally attached to women had always been a flaw. He remembered when he and Clarissa
rode atop a bus, and she spoke of a theory. Wherever she had been, a piece of her stayed behind.
She diminished the finally of death this way. For Peter, a piece of Clarissa stayed with him
always, like it or not. At his hotel, Peter received a letter from Clarissa. She wrote that she had
loved seeing him. He wished she would just leave him alone. He would always feel bitterly that
Clarissa had refused him. He thought of Daisy, the young woman in India. He cared little about
what others thought.
Peter decided that he would attend Clarissas party, in order to speak with Richard. Finally, he
left the hotel. The symmetry of London struck him as beautiful. Reaching Clarissas, Peter
breathed deeply to prepare himself for the challenge. Instinctively, his hand opened the knife
blade in his pocket.
Part II, Section Six:
Guests were already arriving and Clarissa greeted each one. Peter felt that Clarissa was insincere.
Clarissa felt superficial when Peter looked on. Ellie Henderson, Clarissas poor cousin, stood in
the corner. Richard was kind enough to say hello. Suddenly, Lady Rosseter was announced. It
was Sally Seton. Clarissa was overjoyed to see her. The Prime Minister was announced and
Clarissa had to attend him. He was an ordinary looking man. Peter thought the English were
snobs. Lady Bruton met privately with the Prime Minister. Clarissa retained a hollow feeling.
Parties were somewhat less fulfilling recently. A reminder of Miss Kilman filled her with hatred.
Clarissa had so many to greet. Clarissa brought Peter over to her old aunt and promised they will
speak later. Clarissa wished she had time to stop and talk to Sally and Peter. Clarissa saw them as
the link to her past. Then, the Bradshaws entered. Lady Bradshaw told Clarissa about a young
man who had killed himself. Distraught, Clarissa wandered into a little, empty room. She could
feel the men, who had been Septimus, fall. She wondered if the man had been happy. Clarissa
realized why she despised Sir Bradshaw; he made life intolerable. Clarissa noticed the old
woman in the next house. She watched the old woman prepare for bed. Clarissa was glad that
Septimus had thrown his life away. She returned to the party.

47

Peter wondered where Clarissa had gone. Sally had changed, Peter thought. Peter had not, Sally
thought. They noticed that Elizabeth seemed so unlike Clarissa. Sally mentioned that Clarissa
lacked something. Peter admitted that his relationship with Clarissa had scarred his life.
Richard was amazed how grown up Elizabeth looked. Almost everyone had left the party. Sally
rose to speak with Richard. Peter was suddenly overcome with elation. Clarissa had finally
come.
Part one Section One Analysis:
Woolf begins the novel in her typical fashion, symbolically and methodically. We meet Clarissa
in the first sentence, in a proclamation of independence. She will get the flowers because Lucy
has work to do. The proclamation is thus tinged with a sense of irony because thought Clarissa
has chosen to handle the burden of work herself, the work only consists of buying flowers. The
irony inherent in the entire text will be fleshed out as we continue but, the very first sentences
hint at the underlying theme of social commentary which Woolf instilled in order to illustrate the
superficiality of the members of Mrs. Dalloways social circle.
However, Clarissas character is not meant solely to represent the vainness of a certain social
group. Much deeper and more intense symbolism exists in the novel and in this central character.
The novel is one of moments. Moments of time and life are highlighted and intensely analyzed.
The narrative, though in third person, focuses on Clarissa but moves from character to character,
and often provides insight into the persona of Clarissa. Clarissa, unlike her double whom we will
meet shortly, loves life and embraces the present.
The two exclamations which begin the third paragraph are symbolic of Clarissas attitude toward
life and the moment to moment structure of the book. The ejaculations are short, stark and
positive. They give the language a bursting feeling which will tie into the overarching theme of
the sea in the novel. Note how the second exclamatory sentence ends with the word plunge.
Other imagery at the beginning of this section adds to the feeling of jumping into a pool of water.
Clarissa thinks of opening French doors and bursting into the fresh, morning air. She is plunging
into life, into memory, and into self-evaluation. She is opening the windows of life and plunging
into it. The language has a light airy feel supported by the name of Clarissa herself. The name
originates from the word clarity and alludes to the luminous Saint Clara, as described by Nadia
Fusini.
The sea imagery arises again when Clarissa nears Big Ben. The bells which Big Ben ring break
the hust that Clarissa feels before the bells are to ring. The effect of the bells is described as,
The leaden circles dissolve in the air. This image reminds one of water after a body has
plunged into it. Once water is disturbed, a ring of circular ripples emanates outward from the
central point. This idea provides an insight into the very writing of Woolf. Mrs. Dalloways
character, as well as the character of Septimus and a few outside occurrences, sends ripples
outward into time and life, affecting the being of those around her. Scrope Purvis notices and
thinks about Clarissa, and we enter those thoughts. We also enter the thoughts of Miss Pym,
allowing the reader the knowledge that Clarissa had been very kind, in the past tense. We wonder
what is meant but are told no more. The reader receives glimpses into the ripples which are
affected by day to day living.
The writing reflects the sea and rippling wave imagery broadcast through the characters
intuitions. Woolf refused to follow the conventional format for writing a novel. A member of the
Bloomsbury group and a peer of James Joyce, she did not feel a need to prescribe to traditional
organization, thus allowing for a much more loose form in terms of syntax, plot, and narrative
voice. As critic Irene Simon stipulates, It is just purpose of Virginia Woolf to abolish the
distinction between dream and reality; she affects this by mixing images with gestures, thoughts
with impressions, visions with pure sensations, and by presenting them as mirrored on a
consciousness. Thus the language too is moment to moment, short, and dense. She writes in a
flow of consciousness, floating from sensation to sensation and from the mind of one character
to the next.
Though often descriptive, every thought and phrase in Woolfs writing has a distinct and
analyzable purpose. We learn that Clarissa was sick and now feels a deep, intense anger inside
which never seems to completely disappear. The enigmatic character of Miss Kilman brings
48

about the fury inside of Clarissa though Woolfs description of why is confusing. Again, the text
mirrors the feeling within it. The sentences run-on in a rush of anger, sentences begin with lower
case letters, and adjectives and nouns are chose such as encumbered, scraped, brute, and hooves
which spark harshness and hurt. Woolf constantly blurs the distinction between dream and
reality, both within the plot and the text itself. Clarissa enters the flower shop overcome with
embarrassment, trying to hush her anger, but she is soon overcome and distracted by color. She
opens up her eyes, an allusion to the first metaphor with the open window, and takes in the
flowers. She is transported back to the moment and we are reminded of how transparent the
present is within Woolf. The episode also foreshadows the theme of doubling, as Clarissa quickly
rushes between hatred and love, which will surface with the introduction of Septimus.
Part One Section Two Analysis:
The explosive situation with the car allows us two specific insights into the next. One, it again
highlights the emphasis of the British culture on figure heads and symbols. No one is sure which
great figure resides within the important looking car, but each onlooker feels touched by
magic, as Clarissa notes. Traffic slows and onlookers halt and then rush to Buckingham Palace.
The car, as with many of the objects with which Clarissa surrounds herself, is an empty symbol.
What is inside does not matter. The shell of the car, in a postmodern sense, represents the empty
significance that is often placed on social status within the world of Mrs. Dalloways London.
It is at this moment that we also meet Septimus Smith. At the same time when Clarissa is frozen
in delight, imagining the Queen and Prince and parties, Septimus is frozen by apprehension and
fear. Many critics describe Septimus as Clarissas doppelganger, the alternate persona, the darker,
more internal personality compared to Clarissas very social and singular outlook. However, a
few critics hint that to characterize Septimus as Clarissas double is too limiting for both of their
characters. Perhaps the best way to describe their relationship is to think of it as a means to flesh
out the intensity of the human mind. The novel takes the reader through only one day in Clarissa
and Septimuslives, and yet we learn so much more about their characters and about humanity in
general. These two personas allow the reader to discern how two seemingly opposite characters
correspond and interrelate. Clarissa and Septimus never meet and yet, their lives are intertwined
from the moment in the street to the news of Septimus death at Clarissas party.
We also meet Rezia, Septimus wife, in this section of the book, as she struggles through the
embarrassment of having a crazy husband. The way Septimus is told that nothing is wrong with
him alludes to circumstances in Woolfs life. With her fragile mental state, she encountered many
psychologists, most of whom did not know to treat mentally ill patients. Often, they did more
harm than good. Septimus is the victim of this psychosocial establishment in post-War England.
As a representative of the lost generation, a topic touched on by many of Woolfs
contemporarys most noticeably. T.S. Eliot in The Wasteland, Septimus suffers from delusions
and hallucinations. The husband and wife, as a result, can no longer communicate as they once
had.
Another confused symbol of communication exists in the form of the airplane that spreads
incomprehensible words across the sky, gaining much of Londons attention after the excitement
of the important car passes. Letters are strewn about but no character agrees on the message
delineated. Ironically, however, many people are connected through the inability to communicate
symbolized by the planes skywriting. In his sickness, Septimus believes the plane is talking to
him. Yet, the other characters who view the plane believe in much the same idea.
Part One Section Three Analysis:
We see many echoes of Woolf within the character of Clarissa during this chapter. The theme of
the virgin, symbolizing seclusion, independence, and sexual aridity, takes over as we move from
Clarissa, excited with life, to Clarissa, secluded, reflective, and lonely. Her relief at returning
home is compared explicitly by Woolf to a nun returning to her habit and yet, ironically, she only
ventures to her virginal, narrow attic room when she feels snubbed by society. Because of this
snub, we learn further how much Clarissa cares about societal issues as she meditates on her
worth as a result of it. Conversely, we learn that she enjoys being alone to the extent that she has
slept alone in the attic since her illness. Directly after Woolf describes Clarissas starch white
49

sheets pulled tightly over her narrow attic bed, an overt metaphor for virginal sexuality, she
includes that Clarissa wondered if she had failed Richard. She also states that Clarissa loved
Sally as a man loves a woman, implying that Clarissa had never truly loved Richard in this
manner, and perhaps had never loved any man in this manner. The flaws of communication and
intimacy between Richard and Clarissa are foreshadowed. In the eyes of some critics, Woolf
insinuates that Clarissa was stifled in her homosexual love for Sally by the standards of society
and her own conservatism.
Sally was Clarissas inspiration to think beyond the walls of Bourton, to read, to philosophize, to
fantasize. Woolf describes the kiss between Sally and Clarissa as an epiphany of sorts, an ecstasy.
Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world may have turned upside
down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been
given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look ai it a diamond, something
infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down), she
uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling! (35-36)
As Clarissas relative loneliness and lack of intimacy in marriage is symbolized through the
metaphor of a virginal nun, the most intense sexual moment in Clarissas life is symbolized
through intense religious feeling. Thus, the kiss represents and understates the sexual attraction
and revelation that Sally brought to Clarissa. The present given to Clarissa, the diamond, the
flower picked, the radiance burnt through, all symbolize this sexual experience. It is not
surprising, then, that Clarissa feels so violated when men intrude upon her moment. Peter and
old Josephs intrusion symbolizes the dominance of men in society and the conservatism of
sexual relations that would not allow for Clarissas true yearnings. Whether Woolf had sexual
feelings toward women or not, biographers describe her relationship with her husband as a
strong, caring friendship without much sexual intimacy. This sexual component is similarly
lacking in her proponents life.
Clarissas continued longing for Peter also illustrates that her relationship is lacking with
Richard. At one point in her conversation with Peter, she wishes that he would take her away.
The moment subsides, but the intensity between the two remains throughout the novel. Peters
tendency to play with his pocketknife is a phallic metaphor, symbolizing Peters repressed sexual
urges toward Clarissa. He not only invades Clarissas peace, but her virginal sense of self as well.
Woolf describes Clarissas reaction to the moment of Peters entrance as, She made to hide her
dress, like a virgin protecting her chastity, respecting privacy. (40) Yet, she does feel passion in
Peters presence, a fleeting gaiety and vivacity for life. Representative of the everyman, Clarissa
is prone to wonder what if. These emotions come and go like waves, synecdoche for the theme
of the sea. The waves of time are introduced by the bells of Big Ben.
Part One Section Four Analysis:
The theme of the intersection of time and timelessness arises as we watch Peter walk through
London and wander through Regents Park as Clarissa had done only a few hours earlier. Unlike
Clarissa, however, he does not notice the beauty of the day or feel the effect of the bells on a
cosmic, spiritual level. He does not appreciate the moment as Clarissa often does. Instead,
everything for Peter relates to his past, present, or fantasy. His thoughts are always internalized.
In this manner, time blurs with timelessness as Peters memories blur with present images,
wishes, and fantasies.
As soon as Peter leaves Clarissas home, he is overcome with combative thoughts. He believes
that Clarissa said the wrong thing to Elizabeth, for example. He hates Clarissas parties. Clarissa
dominates his thoughts to the point where external stimuli simply function to remind him of her
in different ways. St. Margarets bells remind him of Clarissa as the hostess. This reference
alludes to Clarissas thoughts earlier in the day of Peter and his comment to her that she would be
the perfect hostess. Thus, the bells symbolize a line of conflict between Peter and Clarissa.
Consequently, Peter is soon reminded of Clarissas heart condition and he pictures her dying.
Clarissas imaginary death foreshadows the death of her double, Septimus, later in the novel.
Peter shake off the bad image because he does not want to think of himself being old enough to
die. He thus uses the next images that come his way, the marching boys and the beautiful young
woman, as symbols of his youth and his courage.
50

He tells himself that he was a rebel when young and that the world needed men like him. Peter is
trying to rationalize the dissociation he feels from the humanity surrounding him. The waves of
emotion he experiences touch on the theme of the sea. The words that describe him following the
young woman allude to the motions of the sea. The phrases are short and choppy, yet rhythmic.
The text states, She moved; she crossed; he followed her But other people got between them
on the street, obstructing him, blotting her out. He pursued; she changed (53). His mood
changes again when he stops to actually look around at the world passing him by. He is
impressed by the civility of London as compared to the Indian culture in which he had been
living. London is a metonym for Clarissa and the type of society she represents. Though Peter
wants to rebel, he cannot help out but yearn for inclusion within the society he tries to despise.
Part One Section Five Analysis:
Much of this section takes place in Peters memory, allowing us to relive the past relationship
between Clarissa and him. However, the beginning of the section relates the interesting
appearance of the solitary traveler. Though Woolfs prose often edges on the poetic, this is one of
the only portions of the novel where her writing becomes extremely abstract. Why? What does
the solitary traveler add to this section or the novel as a whole? Critics suggest that the traveler is
Peter Walsh, as both are male, primarily alone (at least during the day on which the novel takes
place), and over fifty years old. He travels through the wood until reaching the giant figure, who
ironically is one of the least imposing figures possible, an old matron or nurse. Thus, the
archetype of the eternal feminine is evoked. This figure will reappear as we continue through the
novel. The section during Peters dream introduces the idea to the reader abstractly because of
the larger symbolism the feminine figure will hold.
Using Peters recollection as a vehicle, Woolf provides insight into both Clarissa and Peters
characters. Clarissa is often referred to throughout the novel as being cold, as if she missing
something that warmed other humans. The memory that Peter has describes Clarissa as a prude
because she is utterly disgusted by the thought of a woman becoming pregnant before marriage.
This occurrence was not supported by her social circle, but her peers obviously do not react in
the same way as she. Ironically, however, Sally Seton, a figure who loved rebelling as a youth,
deeply attracted Clarissa. Perhaps Clarissa seeks that warmth that other people offer because of
her own lack of warmth.
This absence in Clarissa is also suggested in her manner toward Richard. She is eager to bestow
a maternal instinct toward Richard, as she would her sheepdog, to compensate for that flaw. It is
possible also that the warmth she lacks could inhabit the sense of awakened sexuality that Sally
evidently provokes but whom the men do not. Thus, Clarissa can mother a man or a dog, but not
feel impassioned by them. Clarissa quickly dismisses the passion of feeling that Peter does
awake in her for more tranquil, controllable emotions.
The recollection also illustrates Peters overabundance of emotion as he allows himself to be
ruled by his feelings. He is able to discern future events through his instincts, such as his feeling
that Clarissa and Richard will marry. The memory also presents the separation of Clarissa and
Peter as a couple, a moment that haunts both characters during the novel. The theme of water is
emphasized as the break up takes place at a fountain. The flow of life is symbolized by the flow
of the fountains stream, creating imagery for a change in life that would cause heartbreak,
freedom, and loneliness.
Part II Section One Analysis:
The archetype of the feminine maternal is represented by the woman seen by the solitary traveler
and now, the vagrant woman singing in the subway. She signs of eternal love. The figure serves
as a vehicle to transition the reader from Peter to Rezia Smith, two characters lacking
companionship. The theme of eternal love is examined within the theories held by the love
interests of Peter and Rezia: Clarissa and Septimus, respectively. Clarissa espoused a theory in
earlier chapters when she reflected on the idea that a piece of her remained in every place she has
been. As Manly Johnson, critic, notes, [Clarissas] theory [is] about the affinities between
people and how one must seek out those who complete one: the unseen part of us might
survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that.
51

Septimus theory of the beauty in the world does not differ greatly, and it is through their similar
approaches to the world about them that one begins to see the real similarities between Septimus
and Clarissa. He too notices the ever-present beauty of the moment. In fact, Septimus can be said
to fill the void of feelings that Clarissa lacks. Septimus first applauds himself for not feeling
sadness when his friend, Evans is killed and then punishes himself for not feeling it afterward.
However, as critic, Isabel Gamble, asserts, The real truth is, of course, that Septimus has fell too
deeply, has been shaken and numbed by shell shock and the war, specifically by the death of his
friend, Evans; his feeling have flowed through channels deeper than any so far sounded by
Clarissa. But he has never gone by the first paralyzing numbness to see, consciously, the reality
of his emotions. Septimus believed that his initial emotionless reaction to Evans death is real
and progressively bases his construction of reality on this miscalculation. Instead of facing his
grief, he represses it until the remainder of his reality is shattered. He pictures dogs turning into
men (an inversion of the image he created to represent himself and Evans, as dogs, plying in
front of a fire) because the truth has become demented in his mind to the point of delusion. One
must applaud Woolfs coupling of the sane and insane as an advanced social commentary. She
illustrates the humanity lacking in a sane person and the depth of feeling possessed by an insane
character, reversing the stereotypes that plagued them both.
Septimus represents a lost generation of men following the end of World War I. As the pomp
and circumstance of British upper class society continues, a group of men return from war
unutterably changed but without a resource to ease their frustration. The politics of a Britain still
trying to dominate world politics cannot peacefully absorb a collection of men so altered from
the British civilization that had sent them to the war. The reflection of war, its effect on postwar
society, and the British infatuation with the memory of it are inseparable from the main plot of
the novel, though many readers try to diminish the postwar circumstances within the book.
However, as Lee R. Edwards, critic, mentions, nothing necessitated Woolfs inclusion of
characters comments on the War, characters involved with the military such as Lady Bruton and
Miss Parry, Peters thoughts concerning Empire and the marching boys, or Septimus mental
anguish. The novel takes place five years after the war but exists within its shadow. Simple
contemplation transforms into social commentary when one realizes the import of the many
references to the post-war environment. For instance, Peters simple musing of the marching
boys has a malicious subtext because of the mechanical manner in which the boys are described.
Young and eager, the boys lose their individuality as we watch. As Edwards describes, [They
are] human beings who have shifted their allegiance to some set of monumental abstractions.
Septimus, we learn, shifted his allegiance from Shakespeare and Isabel Pole to the British cause.
However, his goal in signing up for the army was to protect those very things. He is persuaded to
join the army by his boss because he lacked the manliness that only athletics or war could
provide. Yet, turning into a man allows Septimus to keep neither Shakespeare nor Isabel Pole. He
loses the ability to appreciate either. He is stripped of his passions. His mentality is replaced by a
hardened vision that teaches one not to love and not to care. He tries so hard not to feel that the
guilt he does feel incapacitates him. As Edwards deftly theorizes, Surviving, unfortunately,
killed him; for Septimus was finally unable to turn himself into a statue by a simple exercise of
will He feels anguish because of the discrepancy between his feeling that the natural world is
beautiful, the human world corrupt, and guilt because, despite the discrepancy, the feeling for
goodness and the beauty of life persist.
Part II Section Two Analysis:
The more the reader has learned about Septimus, the more he can see that Septimus is slipping
from sanity. He feels so extremely guilty, confused, and powerless that he has lost the power to
control his emotions. Woolf brings to the fore the ineptitude of the days psychiatric help with the
characterizations of Holmes and Bradshaw. These characterizations allow her to air her
grievances, to some extent, against the evils of the doctors whom she has visited throughout her
episodes of mental instability. Bradshaw is capable of noticing the mistakes made by Holmes in
not realizing the severity of Septimuss problems, but he too takes a forceful and dominating
approach to Septimus.
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Woolf imposes an interesting section onto the narrative in which the author appears to speak out.
Though Bradshaw has agreed to help and tells REzia that he will make all the necessary plans,
Rezia feels deserted and betrayed. Why? Woolf responds to this question in her discussion of
proportion versus conversion. In Bradshaws attempt to make his patients adhere to his sense of
proper proportion, he converts them into new, unoriginal form mirroring the doctor himself. In
effect, he takes the life out of them, the agency out of their being. Oolf felt that many of the
doctors with whom she came into contact were more trying to convert her than heal her. As
Johnson notes, In his compulsion to put people away, Woolf casts Sir William as an agent of
death. For insanity, as she describes it, is isolation from people, from things, from all the stuff of
life death, in short. It is not a coincidence that the other doctors name is Holmes and that
Bradshaw wishes to send Septimus to a home. As Septimus asks when told the plan, One of
Holmes homes? After this realization, Septimus equates Bradshaw to holmes. Symbolically,
they both are figures of evil that stifle the life out of an ailing human being. Bradshaws country
home represents the isolation and the conversion, as well as the psychiatric insensitivity, forced
on the mentally ill of Woolfs time.
Similarly, the sterile, stolid character of Lady Bruton is developed during this section of the
novel. She too has little interest in the personalities behind the people with whom she comes into
contact. She is not viewed as malicious by the author or the other characters. Yet, Clarissa senses
that Bruton dislikes her, a feeling that is substantiated in the mind of Lady Bruton during the
luncheon she holds with Richard and Hugh. She excludes Clarissa from the meal, not because
she is mean, but because Clarissas presence woul not have served Lady Brutons desired
purpose. The Lady sought advice, suggestions, and help. She wanted Richards opinions and
Hughs letter-writing ability. Thus, in a parallel manner to the doctors, Lady Bruton uses her
guests as tools to manipulate a conversion. She feels that wives, like Clarissa, distract men from
their proper duties in government and public affairs. Like Holmes, her name is also symbolic
because it refers to the brute force of title, acquisition, and status quo. In short, Lady Bruton
represents England as empire, society as means, and men as dominators. Peter, sensitive to
passion and emotion, sense the changes in London much more acutely than Lady Bruton ever
will. Richard, though swayed by Lady Brutons family history, sees beyond the objective world
into the happiness of his marriage. Ironically, however, he is not motivated to buy flowers for his
wife until he is faced with jealousy, caused by the return of Peter Walsh.
Part II Section Three Analysis:
The theme of the sea as symbolic of life is invoked as Richard returns from the luncheon with
flowers for Clarissa. The suspense is properly built for the moment where Richard will tell
Clarissa he loves her. Clarissa has been visited by Peter that morning, and her thoughts
continually stray to him. Richard has been provoked to this moment of passion by the very
mention of Peter and finally breaks from Hugh so that he can return to Clarissa, the happiness of
his life. As he enters their home, the bell signifies the break in time and progression. Woolf
writes, And the sound of the bell flooded the room with its melancholy wave; which receded,
and gathered itself together to fall once more, when she heard distractingly, something fumbling,
something scratching at the door. The sure-handed prose certainly does not introduce the
seeming moment of passion the reader expects. Instead, Woolfs verbiage here reads more like
Edgar Allen Poe, foreshadowing a dreaded event through repetition and imagery. The
melancholy waves gather their force only to stumble and fumble about. One expects some kind
of monster to enter behind this sea rather than a loving husband with flowers. Woolf foreshadows
the failure of Richard to say I love you and to properly communicate with his wife by
describing the failed motion of a wave, having to retreat after crashing, only to gather, and crash
once more.
Similarly, the reader gets the feeling that Richard has hoped to express his love to Clarissa at
other times as well, but has also failed. The failed connection exists between husband and wife,
between fellow humans. Clarissas conversation still returns to Peter. Richard holds her hand, but
a gulf exists between husband and wife that allows little verbal connection to take hold. The
theme of insanity coupled with sanity appears in this context as Maureen Howard, author of the
introduction to the novel, illuminates. She writes, Virginia Woolf knew from her own illness
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how close to endurance and civilization lay insanity and mayhem It is so difficult to endow
our words with meaning Clarity, like simple sentences I love you is hard to come by. In a
war-torn world, crumbled an disillusioned following World War I, Woolf attempted to illustrate
the difficulty of simply living. Howard elaborates, In Mrs. Dalloway, she began to assemble the
bits and pieces, to find the angles, the original voice that would make us feel and thus,
communicate successfully again.
In this sense, Richard is no more connected to the meetings he attends. In fact, he fails to know if
he is meeting to discuss the Armenians or Albanians. The importance of his societal duties is
undermined by his nonchalance, commenting on Woolfs view of the English upper class and the
state of all-important English duty. The reader is acquainted with Richards many good qualities,
yet his loyalty to the status quo and the establishment is mirrored in his leaving wife for a
meeting that he obviously does not care about and in the awe he feels toward Lady Brutons
family history.
Ironically, Clarissas parties are developed by Woolf, in contrast to Richards work, as entities of
value and significance. Both Peter and Richard, whose opinions she relies most upon, judge
Clarissas parties harshly. However, in this section of the novel, Clarissa comes to realize why
her parties are so important to her and the reader learns that the parties signify Clarissas gift to
the world around her. Woolf once described insanity as a form of death because its intense
loneliness created a human void for the sufferer. In Clarissas parties, she fights this emptiness,
this void. Clarissa brings people together and thus, creates a human dialogue. She creates life,
and thus, sanity. What at first seems quite superficial and vain becomes quite substantial and
meaningful upon reflection.
Miss Kilman, however, is one character that cannot be helped by a social offering of this type.
The woman is so embittered by her experiences, beliefs, and station in life, that she refuses to
open herself to anything that is offered, especially by one viewed as a socialite, such as Clarissa.
Her hold on Elizabeth, though, is quite strong and a sexual relationship between the two women
is even hinted at. Yet, their connection breaks down during the trip to the store an caf. Miss
Kilman is extremely self-involved and dependent as shown by her attempts to keep Elizabeth
with her. The image of Miss Kilman gobbling down her cake stands as a metaphor for her
personality. Though Doris Kilman hungers for companionship and acceptance, she is unable to
see beyond the cake in front of her. The text describes the desperation of Miss Kilman when
Woolf states, If [Doris Kilman] could grasp [Elizabeth], if she could clasp her, if she could
make her hers absolutely and forever and then die; that was all she wanted. Consumed with
jealousy and rage, she loses her grasp on her young friend, becoming nothing more than a
ridiculous caricature fingering the last two inches of a chocolate clair.
Part II Section Four Analysis:
Elizabeth Dalloway is compared often to a blooming flower, the metonym for spring and growth,
as she is a young girl coming into womanhood. Against her will, Elizabeth is being drawn into
adult life. Woolf writes, People were beginning to compare her to poplar trees, early dawn,
hyacinths, fawns, running water, and garden lilies, and it made her life a burden to her, for she so
much preferred being left alone This list of images creates in the reader a sense of renewal
and vitality that is essential to Elizabeths character. Miss Kilman employs Woolfs metonyms
for Elizabeth when she substitutes, Elizabeth had gone. Beauty had gone, youth had gone. As
Elizabeth breaks from Miss Kilman, Elizabeth renews and revitalizes her sense of self. She
enjoys the feel of being alone and outdoors and revels in the noise of the crowds and in life
rushing around her. As she rides the bus through London, she is inspired t think of future
professions and aspirations. Critic, Manly Johnson, relates, There is a Dickensian delight in
movement and sounds in the description of Elizabeths recommitment to life on her own The
ride through London symbolizes a rite of passage for Elizabeth who begins exploring the path
from adolescence to vital adulthood.
Woolf also frequently compares Rezia Smith to a tree or flower of life. Johnson explains,
Crippled within, [Septimus] seeks out Lucrezia to marry her, with the instinctive knowledge
that her health is what his sleekness needs. She appears to him as the tree of life As Woolf
develops the theme of the sane alongside the insane, she again describes Rezia, through
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Septimus, as a flower attempting to protect her battered husband with her maternal petals. Woolf
illustrates, she did up the papers as if all her petals were about her. She was a flowering
tree Rezia too represents vitality and life, and as such, she is incapable of protecting or
understanding her husband. Her attention to detail and the love she gives to her hat making
depicts the care she gives to the world around her. Rezias declaration that she and Septimus will
not be separated is used to explore the necessity of togetherness in sanity. When she leaves to
take the young girl home, Septimus begins to lose his grasp on reality. He falls asleep and when
he wakes up, he has clearly returned to the separate world of his own delusions. His desperation
is reflected in the text: That was it: to be alone forever. That was the doom pronounced in Milan
The devastation caused by the war and his realization that he can no longer feel illustrates
the lack of emotional connection Septimus retains to those around him.
The period that Rezia and Septimus spend together before he falls asleep display a healthiness
and happiness rarely felt in the novel. The hat that the husband and wife create together stands as
a metaphor for life and sanity. The hat allows the two to communicate, playfully and warmly.
They discuss people they know and cooperate in the hats design and construction. The pattern
that Septimus pieces together for the hat symbolizes the novel itself. The novel, as a truly
modern novel of the post-World War I era, is also constructed of fragments pieced together. How
does one learn about Clarissas character, for instance? We learn from Clarissa herself, but also
from comments and thoughts made by others, by memories discovered, and by symbolic
reference. The postmodern novel is a pastiche of reflections, alternating narration, poetic
allusion, direct prose, metaphor, dialogue, and character development. Like the hat, several
layers of emotion, sentiment, logic, character, and motive create the design. The moment of
creation is thus a culmination of life and significance in the novel.
Dr. Holmes, seen as the symbol of the evil of human nature by Septimus, drives the life out of
man. He and Bradshaw represent the figures of conversation and proportion detailed earlier by
Woolf. In their attempts to smooth over Septimus very real problems and ultimately, to separate
him from the life connection he still holds, the physicians force Septimus to his death. Insanity,
in Woolfs eyes, was very near to death. Johnson explains, In his compulsion to put people
away, Woolf casts Sir William as an agent of death. As Septimus awakes from his nap, his
thoughts flow directly to Bradshaws words of separation. Rezia tries to alleviate Septimus
fears, but the arrival of a forceful Dr. Holmes makes the fears very real to Septimus. He feels that
he must escape the grasp of Holmes and Bradshaw. Yet, Septimus does not want to die. Before
jumping, he states, But he would wait till the very last moment. He did not want to die. Life was
good. The sun hot. As he jumps, he screams that he will give it to [Holmes]. Septimus feels
pushed into a position where he must save himself from the smothering hold of conversion and
proportion. Woolf writes, [Rezia] saw the large outline of his body standing dark against the
window. So that was Dr. Holmes. Holmes is a figure, a symbol, of darkness and destruction
whereas Septimus, last alive in the hot sun, reflects ruined innocence and goodness. His moment
in the sun foreshadows Clarissas later reaction to Septimus death and the connection that will
be solidified between them.
Part II Section Five Analysis:
Woolf writes, It was as if he were sucked up to some very high roof by that rush of emotion and
the rest of him, like a white shell sprinkled beach, left bare. It had been his undoing in AngloIndian society this susceptibility. Expanding on Woolfs theme of life as the sea, Peter Walsh
too experiences the waves of emotion that rise and fall in Clarissas life. He notes that his
inability to weep or laugh at the right time has left him as empty and lonely as a beach that is
washed clean after the sea pulls back. In this case, the thematic metaphor functions to illustrate
Peters societal isolation when he is stripped of the metaphoric sea that connects him to life.
Immediately following Peters thoughts in the text, Woolf describes Peters memory of Clarissas
transcendentalist-like theory of living. The theory follows, since our apparitions , the part of
us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which
spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that, or
even haunting certain places after death Clarissa has served this purpose to Peter as thoughts
of her frequently, or infrequently, occur to him, causing him to relive their times together at the
55

most unexpected times. In this sense, Clarissa acts as metaphoric sea in Peters life. Her absence
leaves him empty and wondering; whereas her presence provides connections to a life that he
desires for years after her presence has ceased.
Peter has trouble facing these reminders of Clarissa, these remnants of her unseen surviving, and
thus, becomes embittered when he receives the note from her at his hotel. Unlike her husband,
Clarissa has an easier time communicating and has successfully expressed herself in the written
form and delivered this expression to Peter before he arrives back at his hotel. Peter feels
bombarded by the memories he suffers of Clarissa, and her ghost makes an even greater
appearance in the form of the note. The blue (symbolic of the sea) envelope, recognizably
addressed in Clarissas hand, stands as a symbol of Peters continuing attachment to Clarissa and
his proclaimed susceptibility. He looked at a picture he had carried with him of Daisy and felt a
different sentiment entirely. With Daisy, All [is] plain sailing. This ocean of feeling does not
haunt Peter; this relationship he can navigate.
England as society and civilization passes by and impresses Peter. Yet, he still is incapable of
escaping the past.
Since time stands as Woolfs greatest marker of life and living, it is not surprising that she
signals the changes that have occurred since Peters last appearance in England with a reference
to time. Peter sits on the porch of the hotel and Woolf writes, For the great revolution of Mr.
Willetts summer time had taken place since Peter Walshs last visit. The prolonged evening was
new to him. It was inspiring, rather. Mr. Willetts summer time is an allusion to the adoption of
daylight savings time. The lengthened evening allows Peter to observe much of London as he
slips in and out of his own memories. In this artificial expansion of day, Peter is transported to a
space and time where age and being seem less established and immoveable. He remarks that he
is as young as ever. Past and present intersect in Woolfs writing, which lacks transition and
purposely avoids specifying pronouns in order to emphasize the blurred distinction between the
two. The immediacy of the moment is blended beautifully and generously with the timeless
memories of the past.
Part II Section Six Analysis:
Clarissas role of the hostess is fulfilled with the occurrence of the actual party in the last section
of the novel. The final preparations take place as the servants hurry around with last minute
additions and gossip. People begin arriving and Clarissa is put into play. For the rest of the novel,
she rarely has time to stand with any one guest and speak with him before she must run off to
greet another. She is a servant to societal conventions and her offering to society forces her to
sacrifice herself to its performance. One can see this best when Clarissas great old friend, Sally
Seton (now Lady Rosseter), is surprisingly introduced. Even though Sally has lost some of her
old luster, Clarissa is overjoyed to see her. Yet, a moment later, she is called upon to attend to
another guest. She is pulled away before she knows whom the guest is, and after hearing that is
the Prime Minister, she must show him around the party personally.
As the Prime Minister walks around the party, Woolf describes the guests trying not to laugh or
notice how common the man looked. She writes, He tried to look somebody. It was amusing o
watch. Nobody looked at him. How one is perceived is examined in this section, as the
partygoers clearly notice that the man is trying to look important and yet, they are still impressed.
Their perception of the name, the symbol, the status of the Prime Minister overcomes any
physical evidence in the contrary. The prestigious car that slowly made its way through London,
peaking everyones curiosity and wonderment, foreshadowed this moment of the Prime
Ministers actual appearance. In a similar fashion, the onlookers of the event feel important
simply to have been present. Woolfs description of the reaction to the Prime Minister parallels
the earlier viewing. She describes the crowd, they all knew, felt to the marrow of their bones,
this majesty passing; this symbol of what they all stood for, English society. The figure of the
Prime Minister symbolizes the hierarchy of English society and the deeply encoded sense of
civility and status that still ruled the society even after the devastation of World War I. The
society continues to look down upon young men such as Septimus who have suffered in the War
while also continuing to glorify men such as Hugh Whitbread who do little else but write pithy
articles and attend meetings.
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The Prime Minister is a metonym for English society itself. Even Peter Walsh recognizes that
England has not changed much in this sense during his absence. He comments, Lord, lord, the
snobbery of the English! Peter had foreshadowed the role that Clarissa would play in the
furtherance of English snobbery in his retort to her that she would someday be the Prime
Ministers wife. Standing atop the stairs greeting the guests of her party, leading around the
Prime Minister, she nearly fulfills this prophecy. And, as one critic states, Richards career is not
over, and so she may someday be married to the Prime Minister.
The break in the mood of the party occurs with the arrival of the Bradshaws. After hearing of
Septimus death, Clarissa is no longer worried about making sure everyone is happy or leading
around the prestigious members of the crowd. She retires to a small room in order to deal with
the feeling of death that has invaded her party and her being. She, of course, does not know the
stranger who committed suicide, but the doppelgangers of Woolfs imagination become
connected in this moment. They become physically connected at Clarissa reflects the feelings of
pain and death experienced by Septimus through her body. She identifies with the fall he
experienced and the rusty spikes piercing his body.
She, then, realizes that his death is a sacrifice for her, and for the others at her party and
everywhere, to allow them to continue living. Septimus role as a Christ figure becomes
apparent. Woolf originally planned for Clarissa to commit suicide, or simply die, at the end of the
novel. Instead, she decided that a part of Clarissa, constructed in the form of a man destroyed by
war and society, would take his own life in order for the rest of Clarissas being to appreciate the
life she had.
Woolf is borrowing from Shakespeares play Cymbeline, as she had earlier in the novel when
Clarissa notices the same words in an open book as she walks through Bond Street. The
repetition of the statement emphasizes its significance to the thematic progression of the novel.
Clarissa notes, before returning to her party, She felt somehow very like him the young man
who had killed himself. She felt glad that he had done it; thrown it away. His sacrifice, his
affirmation of lifes inconstancy and immediacy, allows Clarissa to face her own fears and
desires. His death permits her to feel the beauty and feel the fun.
The short time Clarissa spend in the little room is saturated with significant images and allusions.
This time is the climax of the novel. The old lady appears in the neighboring house at this
moment as well. Because of Septimus death and the old lady, Clarissa steps out of the social
circle of her party and connects to the larger sense of life and death occurring around her.
Clarissa returns to the party charged with a sense of life and with a need to assemble with the
people important to her. She has conquered the sense of isolation and returned to social
connection. The novel ends with a scene that can be considered a microcosm of the novel. Peter
is suddenly filled with a sense of ecstasy. He had been looking for Clarissa for a long time and
suddenly she was there. Woolf writes in a simple structure, reminiscent of the short sentences
that begin the novel and permeate its body. It is Clarissa, he said. For there she was. The reader
is filled with an extraordinary excitement as she becomes increasingly involved in the
discovery of Clarissa being throughout the novel. The conclusion of the novel is as much an end
as a beginning.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD THE GREAT GATSBY
CONTEXT
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was a Jazz Age novelist and short story writer who is considered to
be among the greatest twenty-century American writers. Born on September 24, 1896, he was the
only son of an aristocratic father and a provincial, working-class mother. He was the product of
two divergent traditions: while his fathers family included the author of The Star-Spangled
Banner (after whom Fitzgerald was named), his mothers family was, in Fitzgeralds own
words, straight 1850 potato-famine Irish. As a result of this contrast, he was exceedingly
ambivalent toward the notion of the American dream: for him, it was once vulgar and dazzlingly
promising.
Like the central character of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald had an intensely romantic
imagination; he once called it a heightened sensitivity to the promises of life. The events of
Fitzgeralds own life can be seen as a struggle to realize those promises.
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He attended both St. Paul Academy (1908-10) and Newman School (1911-13), where his
intensity and outsized enthusiasm made him unpopular with the other students. Later, at
Princeton University, he came close to the brilliant success of which he dreamed. He became part
of the influential Triangle Club, a dramatic organization whose members were taken from the
cream of society. He also became a prominent figure in the literary life of the university and
made lifelong friendships with Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop. Despite these social
coups, Fitzgerald struggled academically, and he eventually flunked out of Princeton. In
November 1917, he joined the army.
While stationed at Camp Sheridan (near Montgomery, Alabama), he met Zelda Sayre, the
daughter of an Alabama Supreme court Judge, and the two fell deeply in love. Fitzgerald needed
to improve his dismal financial circumstances, however, before he and Zelda could marry. At the
first opportunity, he left for New York, determined to make his fortune in the great city. Instead,
he was forced to take a menial advertising job at $90 per month. Zelda broke their engagement,
and Fitzgerald retreated to St. Paul, Minnesota. There, he rewrote a novel that he had begun at
Princeton. In the spring of 1920 the novel, This Side of Paradise, was published.
Though todays readers might find its ideas dated, This Side of Paradise was a revelation to
Fitzgeralds contemporaries. It was regarded as a rare glimpse into the morality and immorality
of Americas youth, and it made Fitzgerald famous. Suddenly, the author could publish not only
in prestigious literary magazines such as Scribners but also high-paying, popular publications
including The Saturday Evening Post.
Flush with his new wealth and fame, Fitzgerald finally married Zelda. The celebrated columnist
Ring Lardner christened them the prince and princess of their generation. Though the
Fitzgeralds reveled in their notoriety, they also found it frightening, a fact which is perhaps
represented in the ending of Fitzgeralds second novel. This novel, The Beautiful and Damned,
was published two years later, and tells the story of a handsome young man and his beautiful
wife, who gradually deteriorate into careworn middle age while they wait for the young man to
inherit a large fortune. In a predictable ironic twist, they only receive their inheritance when is
too late.
To escape this grim fate, the Fitzgeralds (together with their daughter, Frances, who was born on
in 1921) moved in 1924 to the Riviera, where they became part of a group of wealthy American
expatriates whose style was largely determinate by Gerald and Sara Murphy. Meanwhile,
Fitzgeralds reputation as a heavy drinker tarnished his reputation in the literary world; he was
viewed as a irresponsible writer despite his painstaking revisions numerous drafts of his work.
Shortly after their relocation to France, Fitzgerald completed his most famous and respected
novel, The Great Gatsby (1925). Fitzgeralds own divided nature can be seen in the contrast
between the novels hero, Jay Gatsby, and its narrator, Nick Carraway. The former represents the
nave Midwesterner dazzled by the possibilities of the American dream; the latter represents the
compassionate Princeton gentleman who cannot help but regard that dream with suspicion. The
Great Gatsby may be described as the most profoundly American novel of its time; Fitzgerald
connects Gatsbys dream, his Platonic conception of himself, with the aspirations of the
founders of America.
A year later, Fitzgerald published a collection of short stories, All the Sad Young Men. This book
marks the end of the most productive period of Fitzgeralds life; the next decade was full of
chaos and misery. Fitzgerald began to drink excessively, and Zelda began a slow descent into
madness. In 1930, she suffered her first mental breakdown. Her second breakdown, from which
she never recovered, came in 1932.
Throughout the 1930s the Fitzgeralds fought an ultimately unsuccessful battle to save their
marriage. This struggle was tremendously debilitating for Fitzgerald; he later said that he lfet
[his] capacity for hoping on the little roads that led to Zeldas sanitarium. He did not finish his
next novel, Tender is the Night until 1934. It is the story of a psychiatrist who married one of his
patients, and, as she slowly recovers, she exhausts his vitality until he is a man used up. This
book, the last that Fitzgerald ever completed, was considered technically faulty and was
commercially unsuccessful. It has since gained a reputation, however, as Fitzgeralds most
moving work.
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Crushed by the failure of Tender is the Night and his despair over Zelda, Fitzgerald became an
incurable alcoholic. In 1937, however, he managed to acquire work as a script-writer in
Hollywood. There he met and fell in love with Sheilah Graham, a famous Hollywood gossip
columnist. For the rest of hs life, though he frequently had drunken spells in which he became
bitter and violent, Fitzgerald lived quietly with Ms. Graham. Occasionally he went east to visit
Zelda or his daughter Frances, who entered Vassar College in 1938.
In October 1939, Fitzgerald began a novel about Hollywood titled The Last Tycoon. The career
of its hero, Monroe Stahr, is based on that of the renowned Hollywood producer Irving Thalberg.
On December 21, 1940, Fitzgerald suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving the novel unfinished.
Even in its half-completed state, The Last Tycoon is considered the equal of the rest of
Fitzgeralds work for its intensity.
THE GREAT GATSBY, published in 1925, is widely considered to be F. Scott Fitzgeralds
greatest novel. It is also considered a seminal work on the fallibility of the American dream. It
focuses on a young man, Jay Gatsby, who, after falling in love with a woman from the social
elite, makes a lot of money in an effort to win her love. She marries a man from her own social
strata and he dies disillusioned with the concept of a self-made man. Fitzgerald seems to argue
that the possibility of social mobility in America is an illusion, and that the social hierarchies of
the New World are just as rigid as those of Europe.
The novel is also famous as a description of the Jazz Age, a phrase which Fitzgerald himself
coined. After the shock of moving from a policy of isolationism to involvement in World War I.
America prospered in what are termed the Roaring Twenties. The Eighteenth Amendment to
the American Constitution, passed in 1919, prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol in
America. Prohibition made millionaires out of bootleggers like Gatsby and owners of
underground salons, called speakeasies. Fitzgerald glamorizes the nouveau riche of this period
to a certain extent in his Jazz Age novel. He describes their beautiful clothing and lavish parties
with great attention to detail and wonderful use of color. However, the author was uncomfortable
with the excesses of the period, and his novel sounds many warning notes against excessive love
of money and material success.
Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby was not a great success during his lifetime, but became a smash
hit after his death, especially after World War II. It has since become a staple of the canon of
American literature, and is taught at many high schools and universities across the country and
the world. Four films, an opera, and a play have been made from the text.
Honesty: Honesty is does not seem to determine which characters are sympathetic and which are
not in this novel in quite the same way that it does in others. Nick is able to admire Gatsby
despite his knowledge of the mans illegal dealings and bootlegging. Ironically, it is the corrupt
Daisy who takes pause at Gatsbys sordid past. Her indignation at his dishonesty, however, is
less moral than class-based. Her sense of why Gatsby should not behave in an immoral manner is
based on what she expects from members of her milieu, rather than what she believes to be
intrinsically right. The standards for honesty and morality seem to be dependent on class and
gender in this novel. Tom finds his wifes infidelity intolerable, however, he does not hesitate to
lie to her about his own affair.
Decay: Decay is a word that constantly comes up in The Great Gatsby, which is appropriate in a
novel which centers around the death of the American Dream. Decay is most evident in the socalled valley of ashes. With great virtuosity, Fitzgerald describes a barren wasteland which
probably has little to do with the New York landscape and instead serves to comment on the
downfall of American society. It seems that the American dream has been perverted, reversed.
Gatsby lives in West Egg and Daisy in East Egg; therefore, Gatsby looks East with yearning,
rather than West, the traditional direction of American frontier ambitions. Fitzgerald portrays the
chauvinistic and racist Tom in a very negative light, clearly scoffing at his apocalyptic vision of
the races intermarrying. Fitzgeralds implication seems to be that society has already decayed
enough and requires no new twist.
Gender Roles: In some respects, Fitzgerald writes about gender roles in a quite conservative
manner. In his novel, men work to earn money for the maintenance of the women. Men are
dominant over women, especially in the case of Tom, who asserts his physical strength to subdue
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them. The only hint of a role reversal is in the pair of Nick and Jordan. Jordans androgynous
name and cool, collected style changes her more than any other female character. However, in
the end, Nick does exert his dominance over her by ending the relationship. The women in the
novel are an interesting group, because they do not divide into the traditional groups of Mary
Magdalene and Madonna figures, instead, none of them are pure. Myrtle is the most obviously
sensual, but the fact that Jordan and Daisy wear white dresses only highlights their corruption.
Violence: Violence is a key theme in The Great Gatsby, and is most embodied by the character of
Tom. An ex-football player, he uses his immense physical strength to intimidate those around
him. When Myrtle taunts him with his wifes name, he strikes her across the face. The other
source of violence in the novel besides Tom are cars. A new commodity at the time that The
Great Gatsby was published, Fitzgerald uses cars to symbolize the dangers of modernity and the
dangers of wealth. The climax of the novel, the accident that kills Myrtle, is foreshadowed by the
conversation between Nick and Jordan about how bad driving can cause explosive violence. The
end of the novel, of course, consists of violence against Gatsby. The choice of handgun as a
weapon suggests Gatsbys shady past, but it is symbolic that it is his love affair, not his business
life, that kills Gatsby in the end.
Class: Class is an unusual theme for an American novel. It is more common to find references to
it in European, especially British novels. However, the societies of East and West Egg are deeply
divided by the difference between the nouveau riche and the older moneyed families. Gatsby is
aware of the existence of a class structure in America, because a true meritocracy would put him
in touch with some of the finest people, but, as things stand, he is held at arms length. Gatsby
tries desperately to fake status, even buying British shirts and claiming to have attended Oxford
in an attempt to justify his position in society. Ultimately, however, it is a class gulf that separates
Gatsby and Daisy, and cements the latter in her relationship to her husband, who is from the
same class as she is.
Religion: It is interesting that Fitzgerald chooses to use some religious tropes in a novel that
focuses on the American Dream, a concept which leaves no place for religion save for the
doctrine of individualism. The most obvious is the image of the valley of ashes, which
exemplifies Americas moral state during the Roaring Twenties. This wasteland is presided
over by the empty eyes of an advertisement. Fitzgerald strongly implies that these are the eyes of
God. This equation of religion with advertising and material gain are made even more terrifying
by the fact that the eyes see nothing and can help no one (for example, this God can do nothing
to prevent Myrtle or Gatsbys deaths).
World War I: Because The Great Gatsby is set in the Roaring Twenties, the topic of the Great
War is unavoidable. The war was crucial to Gatsbys development, providing a brief period of
social mobility which, Fitzgerald claims, quickly closed after the war. Gatsby only came into
contact with a classy young debutante like Daisy as a result of the fact that he was a soldier and
that no one could vouch for whether he has upper-class or not. The war provided him with
further opportunities to see the world, and make some money in the service of a millionaire.
Gatsbys opportunities closed up after the end of the war, however, when he found upon
returning to America that the social structure there was every bit as rigid as it was in Europe.
Unable to convince anyone that he is truly upper-class (although his participations in the war
gave him some leeway about lying), Gatsby finds himself unable to break into East Egg society.
While The Great Gatsby is a highly specific portrait of American society during the roaring
Twenties, its story is also one that has been told hundreds of times, and is perhaps as old as
America itself; a man claws his way from rags to riches, only to find that his wealth cannot
afford him the privileges enjoyed by those born into the upper class. The central character is Jay
Gatsby, a wealthy New Yorker of indeterminate occupation. Gatsby is primarily known for the
lavish parties he throws each weekend at his ostentatious Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is
suspected of being involved in illegal bootlegging and other underworld activities.
The narrator, Nick Carraway, is Gatsbys neighbor in West Egg. Nick is a young man from a
prominent Midwestern family. Educated at Yale, he has come to New York to enter the bond
business. In some sense, the novel is Nicks memoir, his unique view of the events of the
summer of 1922; as such, his impressions and observations necessarily color the narrative as a
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whole. For the most part, he plays only a peripheral role in the events of the novel; he prefers to
remain a passive observer.
Upon arriving in New York, Nick visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, tom. The
Buchanans live in the posh Long Island district of East Egg; Nick, like Gatsby, resides in nearby
West Egg, a less fashionable area looked down upon by those who live in East Egg. West Egg is
home to the nouveau riche, people who lack established social connections, and who tend to
vulgarly flaunt their wealth. Like Nick, Tom Buchanan graduated from Yale, and comes from a
privileged Midwestern family. Tom is a former football player, a brutal bully obsessed with the
preservation of class boundaries. Daisy, by contrast, is an almost ghostlike young woman who
affects an air of sophisticated boredom. At the Buchananss, Nick meets Jordan Baker, a
beautiful young woman with a cold, cynical manner. The two later become romantically
involved.
Jordan tells Nick that Tom has been having an affair with Myrtle Wilson, a woman who lives in
th valley of ashes, an industrial wasteland outside of New York City. After visiting Tom and
Daisy, Nick goes home to West Egg; there, he sees Gatsby gazing at a mysterious green light
across the bay. Gatsby stretches his arms out toward the light, as though to catch and hold it.
Tom Buchanan takes Nick into New York, and on the way they stop at the garage owned by
George Wilson. Wilson is the husband of Myrtle, with whom tom has been having an affair. Tom
tells Myrtle to join them later in the city. Nearby, on an enormous billboard, a pair of
bespectacled blue eyes stares down at the barren landscape. These eyes once served as an
advertisement; now, they brood over all that occurs in the valley of ashes.
In the city, Tom takes Nick and Myrtle to the apartment in Morningside Heights at which he
maintains his affair. There, they have a lurid party with Myrtles sister, Catherine, and an
abrasive couple named McKee. They gossip about Gatsby; Catherine says that he is somehow
related to Kaiser Wilhelm, the much-despised ruler of Germany during World War I. The more
she drinks, the more aggressive Myrtle becomes; she begins taunting Tom about Daisy, and he
reacts by breaking her nose. The party, unsurprisingly, comes to an abrupt end.
Nick Carraway attends a party at Gatsbys mansion, where he runs into Jordan Baker. At the
party, few of the attendees know Gatsby; even fewer were formally invited. Before the party,
Nick himself had never met Gatsby: he is a strikingly handsome, slightly dandified young man
who affects an English accent. Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan Baker alone; after talking with
Gatsby for quite a long time, she tells Nick that she has learned some remarkable news. She
cannot yet share it with him, however.
Sometime later, Gatsby visits Nicks home and invites him to lunch. At this point in the novel,
Gatsbys origins are unclear. He claims to come from a wealthy San Francisco family, and says
that he was educated at Oxford after serving in the Great War (during which he received a
number f decorations). At lunch, Gatsby introduces Nick to his business associate, Meyer
Wolfsheim. Wolfsheim is a notorious criminal; many believe that he is responsible for fixing the
1919 World Series.
Gatsby mysteriously avoids the Buchanans. Later, Jordan Baker explains the reason for Gatsbys
anxiety: he had been in love with Daisy Buchanan when they met in Louisville before the war.
Jordan subtly intimates that he is still in love with her, and she with him.
Gatsby asks Nick to arrange a meeting between himself and Daisy. Gatsby has meticulously
planned their meeting: he gives Daisy a carefully rehearsed tour of his mansion, and is desperate
to exhibit his wealth and possessions. Gatsby is wooden and mannered during this initial
meeting; his dearest dreams have been of this moment, and so the actual reunion is bound to
disappoint. Despite this, the love between Gatsby and Daisy is revived, and the two begin an
affair.
Eventually, Nick learns the true story of Gatsbys past. He was born James Gatz in North Dakota,
but had his name legally changed at the age of seventeen. The gold baron Dan Cody served as
Gatsbys mentor until his death. Though Gatsby inherited nothing of Codys fortune, it was from
him that Gatsby was first introduced to world of wealth, power, and privilege.
While out horseback riding, Tom Buchanan happens upon Gatsbys mansion. There he meets
both Nick and Gatsby, to whom he takes an immediate dislike. To Tom, Gatsby is part of the
new rich, and thus poses a danger to the old order that tom holds dear. Despite this, he
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accompanies Daisy to Gatsbys next party; there, he is exceedingly rude and condescending
toward Gatsby. Nick realizes that Gatsby wants Daisy to renounce her husband and her marriage;
in this way, they can recover the years they have lost since they first parted. Gatsbys great flaw
is that his great love of Daisy is a kind of worship, and that he falls to see her flaws. He believes
that he can undo the past, and forgets that Daisys essentially small-minded and cowardly nature
was what initially caused their separation.
After his reunion with Daisy, Gatsby ceases to throw his elaborate parties. The only reason he
threw such parties was the chance that Daisy (or someone who knew her) might attend. Daisy
invites Gatsby, Nick and Jordan to lunch at her house. In an attempt to make Tom jealous, and to
exact revenge for his affair, Daisy is highly indiscreet about her relationship with Gatsby. She
even tells Gatsby that she loves him while Tom is in earshot.
Although Tom is himself having an affair, he is furious at the thought that his wife could be
unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into the city: there, in a suite t the Plaza Hotel,
Tom and Gatsby have a bitter confrontation. Tom denounces Gatsby for his low birth, and
reveals to Daisy that Gatsbys fortune has been made through illegal activities. Daisys real
allegiance is to Tom: when Gatsby begs her to say that she does not love her husband, she
refuses him. Tom permits Gatsby to drive Daisy back to East Egg; in this way, he displays his
contempt for Gatsby, as well as his faith in his wifes complete subjection.
On the trip back to East Egg, Gatsby allows Daisy to drive in order to calm her ragged nerves.
Passing Wilsons garage, Daisy swerves to avoid another car and ends up hitting Myrtle; she is
killed instantly. Nick advises Gatsby to leave town until the situation calms. Gatsby, however,
refuses to leave: he remains in order to ensure Daisy that Daisy is safe. George Wilson, driven
nearly med by the death of his wife, is desperate to find her killer. Tom Buchanan tells him that
Gatsby was the driver of the fatal car. Wilson, who has decided that the driver of the car must
also have been Myrtles lover, shoots Gatsby before committing suicide himself.
After the murder, the Buchanans leave town to distance themselves from the violence for which
they are responsible. Nick is left to organize Gatsbys funeral, but finds that few people cared for
Gatsby. Nick seeks out Gatsbys father, Henry Gatz, and brings him to New York for the funeral.
From Henry, Nick learns the full scope of Gatsbys visions of greatness and his dreams of selfimprovement. Thoroughly disgusted with life in New York, Nick decides to return to the
Midwest.
Nick muses that Gatsby, alone among the people of his acquaintance, strove to transform his
dreams into reality; it is this that makes him great. Nick also believes, however, that the time
for such grand aspirations is over: greed and dishonesty have irrevocably corrupted both the
American Dream and the dreams of individual Americans.
Although The Great Gatsby is generally considered to be a work focused on the American
Dream and is analyzed as such, it has connections to other literary work of its period. The Great
Gatsbys publication in 1925 put it at the forefront of literary work by a group which began to be
called the Lost Generation. The group was so-called because of the existential questioning that
began to occur in American literature for the first time after the war. Many critics argue that this
Generation marked the first mature body of literature to come from the United States.
The Lost Generation was a group of writers and artists who lived and worked in Paris or in other
parts of Europe during World War I and the Depression. This Group includes authors such as F.
Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot. This group often had social
connections with one another, and would even meet to critique one anothers work.
THOMAS HARDY TESS OF THE DUBERVILLES
CONTEXT
Thomas Hardy was born June 2, 1840, in the village of Upper Bockhampton, located in
Southwestern England. His father was a stone mason and a violinist. His mother enjoyed reading
and relating all the folk songs and legends of the region. Between his parents, Hardy gained all
the interests that would appear in his novels and his own life: his love for architecture and music,
his interest in the lifestyle of the country folk, and his passion for all sorts of literature.
At the age of eight, Hardy began to attend Julia Martins school in Bockhampton. However, most
of his education came from the books he found in Dorchester, the nearby town. He learned
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French, German, and Latin by teaching himself through these books. At sixteen, Hardys father
apprenticed his son to a local architect, John Hicks. Under Hicks tutelage, Hardy learned much
about architectural drawing and restoring old houses and churches. Hardy loved the
apprenticeship because it allowed him to learn the histories of the houses and the families that
lived there. Despite his work, Hardy did not forget his academics: in the evenings, Hardy would
study with the Greek scholar Horace Moule.
In 1862, Hardy was sent to London to work with the architect Arthur Blomfield. During his five
years in London, Hardy immerses himself in the cultural scene by visiting the museums and
theaters and studying classic literature. He even began to write his own poetry. Although he did
not stay in London, choosing to return to Dorchester as a church restorer, he took his newfound
talent for writing to Dorchester as well.
Form 1867, Hardy wrote poetry and novels, though the first part of his career was devoted to the
novel. T first he published anonymously, but when people became interested in his works, he
began to use his own name. Like Dickens, Hardys novels were published in serial forms in
magazines that were popular in both England and America. His first popular novel was Under
The Greenwood Tree, published in 1872. The next great novel, Far from the Madding Crowd
(1874) was so popular that with the profits, Hardy was able to give up architecture and marry
Emma Gifford. Other popular novels followed in quick succession: The Return of the Native
(1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess of the DUrbervilles
(1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). In addition to these larger works, Hardy published three
collections of short stories and five smaller novels, all moderately successful. However, despite
the praise Hardys fiction received, many critic also found his works to be too shocking,
especially Tess of the DUrbervilles and Jude the Obscure. The outcry against Jude was so great
that Hardy decided to stop writing novels and returns to his first great love, poetry.
Over the years, Hardy had divided his time between his home, Max Gate, in Dorchester and his
lodgings in London. In his later years, he remained in Dorchester to focus completely on his
poetry. In 1898, he saw his dream of becoming a poet realized with the publication of Wessex
Poems. He then turned his attentions to an epic drama in verse, The Dynasts; it was finally
completed in 1908. Before his death, he had written over 800 poems, many of them published
while he was in his eighties.
By the last two decades of Hardys life, he had achieved fame as a great as Dickens fame. In
1910, he was awarded the Order of Merit. New readers had also discovered his novels by the
publication of the Wessex Editions, the definitive versions of all Hardys early works. As a result,
Max Gate became a literary shrine.
Hardy also found happiness in his personal life. His first wife, Emma, died in 1912. Although
their marriage had not been happy, Hardy grieved at her sudden death. In 1914, he married
Florence Dugale, and she was extremely devoted to him. After his death, Florence published
Hardys autobiography in two parts under her own name.
After a long and highly successful life, Thomas Hardy died on January 11, 1928, at the age of 87.
His ashes were buried in Poets Corner at Westminster Abbey.
Tess of the dUrbervilles, like the other major works by Thomas Hardy, although technically a
nineteenth century work, anticipates the twentieth century in regard to the nature and treatment
of its subject matter. Tess of the dUrbervilles was the twelfth novel published by Thomas Hardy.
He began the novel in 1889 and it was originally serialized in the Graphic after being rejected by
several other periodicals from July to December in 1891. It was finally published as a novel in
December of 1891. The novel questions societys sexual mores by compassionately portraying a
heroine who is seduced by the son of her employer and ho thus is not considered a pure and
chaste woman by the rest of society. Upon its publication, Tess of the dUrbervilles encountered
brutally hostile reviews; although it is no considered a major work of fiction, the poor reception
of Tess and Jude the Obscure precipitated Thomas Hardys transition from writing fiction to
poetry. Nevertheless, the novel was commercially successful and assured Hardys financial
security.
Tess of the dUrbervilles deals with several significant contemporary subjects for Hardy,
including the struggles of religious belief that occurred during Hardys lifetime. Hardy was
largely influenced by the Oxford movement, a spiritual movement involving extremely devout
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thinking and actions. Hardys family members were primarily orthodox Christians and Hardy
himself considered entering the clergy, as did many of his relatives. Yet Hardy eventually
abandoned his devout faith in God based on the scientific advances of his contemporaries,
including most prominently Darwins On the Origin of Species. Hardys own religious
experiences can thus be seen in the character of Angel Clare, who resists the conservative
religious beliefs of his parents to take a more religious and secular view of philosophy.
The novel also reflects Hardys preoccupation with social class that continues through his novel.
Hardy had connection to both the working and the upper class, but felt that he belonged to
neither. This is reflected in the pessimism contained in Tess of the dUrbervilles toward the
chances for Tess to ascend in society and angels precarious position as neither a member of the
upper class nor a working person equivalent to his fellow milkers at Talbothays. Again, like
Angel Clare, Thomas Hardy found himself torn between different social spheres with which he
could not fully align himself. Tess of the dUrbervilles reflects that divide.
SHORT SUMMARY
Tess of the dUrbervilles begins with the chance meeting between Parson Tringham and John
Durbeyfield. The parson addresses the impoverished Durbeyfield as Sir John, and remarks that
he has just learned that the Durbeyfields are descended from the dUrbervilles, a family once
renowned in England. Although Parson Tringham mentions this only to note how the mighty
have fallen, John Durbeyfield rejoices over the news. Durbeyfield arrives at home during the
May Day dance, in which his daughter Tess dances. During this celebration, Tess happens to
meet three brothers: Felix, Cuthbert and Angel Clare. Angel does not dance with Tess, but takes
note of her as the most striking of the girls. When Tess arrives at home, she learns that her father
is at the tavern celebrating the news of his esteemed family connections. Since John must awake
early to deliver bees, Tess sends her mother to get her father, then her brother Abraham, and
finally goes to the tavern herself when none of them return.
At the tavern, John Durbeyfield reveals that he has a grand plan to send his daughter to claim
kinship with the remaining dUrbervilles, and thus make her eligible to marry a gentleman. The
next morning, John Durbeyfield is too ill to undertake his journey, thus Tess and Abraham
deliver the bees. During their travels the carriage wrecks and their horse is killed. Since the
family has no source of income without their horse, Tess agrees to go to the home of the StokedUrbervilles to claim kinship. There she meets Alec dUrberville, who shows her the estate and
prepares to kiss her. Tess returns home and later receives a letter from Mrs. Stoke-dUrberville,
who offers Tess employment tending to her chickens. When Alec comes to take Tess to the
dUrberville estate, Joan thinks that he may marry Tess. On the way to the dUrberville estate at
Trantridge, Alec drives the carriage recklessly and tells Tess to grasp him around the waist. He
persists, and when Tess refuses him he calls her an artful hussy and rather sensitive for a cottage
girl.
When Tess meets Mrs. Stoke-dUrberville, she learns that the blind woman has no knowledge
that Tess is a relative. Tess becomes more accustomed to Alec, despite his continual propositions
to her. She finds Alec hiding behind the curtains while Tess whistles to the bullfinches in his
mothers bedroom.
During a weekend visit to Chaseborough, Tess travels with several other girls. Among these girls
are Car and Nancy Darch, nicknamed the Queen of Spades and the Queen of Diamonds. Car
carries a wicker basket with groceries on her head, and finds that a stream of treacle drips from
this basket down her back. While all of the girls laugh at Car, she only notices that Tess is
laughing and confronts her. Car appears ready to fight Tess when Alec dUrberville arrives and
takes her away. As Alec whisks Tess off, Cars mother remarks that Tess has gotten out the
frying pan and into the fire.
On the journey home, Alec asks Tess why she dislikes when he kisses her, and she replies that
she does not love him and in fact is sometimes angered by him. When Tess learns that Alec has
prolonged the ride home, she decides to walk home herself. Alec asks her to wait while he
ascertains their precise location, and returns to find Tess, who has fallen asleep. Alec has sex
with Tess.
Several weeks later, Tess returns home. Tess tells Alec that she hates herself for her weakness
and will never love him. While at home, Tess admits to her mother what happened and asks her
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why she did not warn Tess about the danger than men pose. Rumors abound concerning Tesss
return to the village of Marlott. In fact Tess is pregnant and has bears the child month later.
However, the child becomes gravely ill before she has had baptized. Without the opportunity to
call a minister, Tess baptizes the baby herself with the name Sorrow before it dies. When Tess
meets the parson the next day, he agrees that the baby had been properly baptized, but refuses to
give Sorrow a Christian burial until she convinces him otherwise.
Tess leaves Marlott once again to work at Talbothays dairy, where she works for Richard Crick
and find that Angel Clare, whom she vaguely remembers, now works at the dairy. The other
milkmaids (Izz Huett, Retty Priddle, Marian) tell Tess that Angel is there to learn milking and
that, since he is a parsons son, rarely notices the girls. Although his brothers are each clergymen
and he was expected to be as well, Angel did not attend college because of philosophical and
religious differences with his father and established church doctrine. He works at Talbothays to
study the workings of a dairy in preparation for owning a farm himself one day.
Angel grows fond of Tess, and begins arranging the cows so that she may milk the ones that are
her favorites. However, Tess learns from Dairyman Crick that Angel has scorn for members of
nobles families, even those whose families have fallen from prominence. Tess realizes that the
three other milkmaids are attracted to Tess, but they know that Angel prefers Tess. When Tess
overhears the three milkmaids discussing this, she feels jealousy at the others attraction for
Angel, and begins to believe that, as a working woman, she is more suited to be a farmers wife
than a woman of equal rank as Angel. Still, Tess retreats from Angels affections until he finally
declares his love for her.
Angel visits his home in Emminster, where he discusses the possibility of marriage with his
parents. While visiting his family, Angel realizes how life at Talbothays had changed him.
Although his parents suggest that Angel marry a local girl, Mercy Chant, angel suggests that he
should marry a woman with practical talents. His parents only consent when they feel certain that
the woman is an unimpeachable Christian. When Angel returns from Emminster, he proposes to
Tess, who rejects him without giving him a reason. Although he persists, she finally admits that
she is a dUrberville, thus a member of the type of family that he despises. When Angel remains
unfazed by this news, she agrees to marry him.
Tess writes to her mother to ask whether she should admit the entirety of her past to Angel, but
her mother assures her that she should not. Tess remains nervous concerning her impeding
marriage, attempting to postpone the date and forgetting to make important wedding plans.
While in town with angel, Tess sees a man who recognizes her from TRantridge and remarks on
her questionable reputation. Angel defends her honor, but Tess realizes that she must tell him
about her past with Alec dUrberville. Tess writes Angel a letter and slips it under his doorway.
The next morning Angel behaves normally. It is only on the day of her wedding that Tess finds
that the letter slid under the carpet and Angel thus never found it.
After Angel and Tess marry, they go to Wellbridge for their honeymoon and remain at a home
once owned by the dUrbervilles. Tess learns from Jonathan Kail, who delivers a wedding gift
from the Cricks, that the girl at Talbothays have suffered greatly since Angel and Tess left. On
their wedding night, Angel and Tess vow to tell one another their faults. Angel admits that he had
a short affair with a stranger in London, while Tess admits about Alec dUrberville.
After telling Angel her story, Tess begs for forgiveness, but he claims that forgiveness is
irrelevant, for she was one person and is now another woman in the same shape. She vows to do
anything he asks and to die if h would so desire, but he claims that there is discordance between
her current self-sacrifice and past self-preservation. Although he claims to forgive her, Angel still
questions whether or not he still loves her. Angels obstinate nature blocks his acceptance of
Tesss faults on principle, and he remains with Tess only to avoid scandal until he tells her that
they should separate.
That night, Angel begins sleepwalking and carries Tess out of their home and across the nearby
river to the local cemetery, where he places her in a coffin. She leads him back to bed without
waking him, and the next morning he seems to remember nothing of the event. Angel tells Tess
that he will go away from her and she should not come to him, but may write if she is ill or needs
anything.
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Tess returns home, where her family remains impoverished and Tess had no place to stay. When
Tess receives a letter from Angel telling her that he has gone to the north of England to look for a
farm, Tess uses this as an excuse to leave Marlott.
Angel visits his parents and tells them nothing about his separation, but they sense that some
difficulty has occurred in his marriage. Angel decides to go to Brazil to look for a farm, although
he realizes that he has treated Tess poorly. Before leaving for Brazil, Angel sees Izz Huett and
proposes that she accompany him to Brazil. When he asks her whether she loves him as much as
Tess does, Izz replies that nobody could love him more than Tess does, because Tess would give
up her life for Angel. Angel realizes his foolishness and tells Izz that her answer saved him from
great folly.
Tess journeys to Flintcomb-Ash, where she will join Marian at a different farm. On her way to
the farm, Tess finds the man from TRantridge who identified her when she was with Angel, and
he demands an apology for allowing Angel to wrongfully defend her honor. Tess hides from him,
and after she is propositioned by young men in a nearby in the next morning, she clips off her
eyebrows to make herself less unattractive.
Tess works as a swede-hacker at Flintcomb-Ash, a barren and rough place. Marian believes that
Tess has been abused and thinks Angel may be to blame, but Tess refuses to allow Marian to
mention Angels name in such a derogatory manner. Izz Huet and Retty Priddle join Marian and
Tess at Flintcomb-Ash, and Tess learns that the man who insulted her is the owner of the farm
where she works. Car and Nancy Darch work at this farm as well, although neither recognize
Tess. Since the conditions at Flintcomb-Ash are so arduous, Tess visits Emminster to ask the
Clares for assistance, but does not approach them when she overhears Felix and Cuthbert Clare
discussing how disreputable Angels new wife must be. While returning to Flintcomb-Ash, Tess
learns that a noted preacher is nearby: Alec dUrberville.
When Tess confronts Alec, he claims that he has a newfound duty to save others and feels that he
must save Tess. Still, he seems to blame Tess for her tempting Alec to sin, and makes her swear
never to tempt him again. Alec begins to visit Tess frequently, despite her overt suspicion and
dislike for him, and even asks her to marry him and accompany him to Africa where he plans to
be a missionary. Tess refuses and admits to Alec that she is already married, but Alec derides the
idea that her marriage is secure and attempts to refute Tesss religious views. Alec accuses Tess
once more of tempting him, and blames her for his backsliding from Christianity. Alec soon
disavows his faith and loses the adornments of it, returning to his more fashionable ways and
giving up preaching. When Alec tells Tess that she should leave her husband, she slaps him and
then refuses to back down when Alec appears ready to return her blow. She tells Alec that she
will not cry if he hits her, because she will always be his victim.
Alec soon tries a different tactic to get Tess to submit to him; he attempts to dominate her by
exerting financial superiority. Alec offers to support her family, but only as a means to make Tess
and her family dependent. Tess returns home to Marlott when she learns that her mother may be
dying and her father is quite ill, but soon after her return her father dies instead, while her mother
recovers. After the death of John Durbeyfield, the family loses their home and must find
accommodations elsewhere. They move to Kingsbere, where the dUrberville family tomb is
located. Although Alec offers to support the Durbeyfields, Tess refuses, even when he offers a
guarantee in writing that he would continue to support them no matter the relationship between
Tess and himself. When the Durbeyfields reach Kingsbere, they find no room at the inn where
they scheduled to stay, and thus must remain in the church near the dUrberville family vault.
Angel Clare returns home from Brazil, weak and sickly, and finds the letter from Tess in which
she claims that she will try to forget him. Angel writes to her home at Marlott to search for her,
but only later finds out that the Durbeyfields are no longer at Marlott and that Joan does not
know where her daughter is. Angel decides to search for Tess, and eventually finds her mother,
who reluctantly admits to Angel that Tess is at Sandbourne, a thriving village nearby.
Angel finds Tess at an inn at Sandbourne, where she has been living a comfortable life with Alec
dUrberville. Tess tells Angel that it is too late, and that Alec convinced her that he would never
return. Tess admits that she hates Alec now, for he lied to her about Angel. After Angel leaves,
Tess returns to her room and begins to sob. Alec finds her, and after a heated argument Tess stabs
Alec in the heart, killing him.
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As the dejected Angel leaves town, he finds Tess following him. She admits that she has killed
Alec, and the two continue along together to escape. They remain at a deserted mansion before
continuing northward to find a boat out of England. They rest at Stonehenge; there Tess, who
realizes that she will inevitably be captured, asks Angel to marry her sister, Liza-Lu, after she is
gone. As Tess sleeps a party of men surrounds Angel and Tess to capture her and arrest her for
Alecs murder. Tess is executed for her crime, while Angel does her bidding and presumably
marries Liza-Lu.
Phase One: The Maiden
Chapter One:
In the first chapter of the novel, Thomas Hardy introduces several of the themes that will be
important throughout the course of the story. This chapter centers on the unpredictability of fate:
the dUrberville legacy demonstrates how, as Parson Tringham notes, the mighty have fallen
through mere bad fortune and missed opportunities. The very telling of the story itself to John
Durbeyfield, the event that provides the narrative engine for the novel, is itself a chance
encounter resting entirely upon Parson Tringhams idea to make a sly comment to Durbeyfield.
The second important theme of the novel is the importance of class within English society. John
Durbeyfield believes himself changed by the idea that he may be the descendant of the noble
Pagan dUrberville, even though there is nothing intrinsically different about him. Class in this
novel confers certain distinctions that Deurbeyfield and his daughter will attempt to exploit.
Chapter Two:
Tess Durbeyfield, the titular character of the novel, is in this chapter introduced as an innocent,
malleable and pure. As a member of the May Day processional, adorned in white, she symbolizes
purity and virginity, while her physical characteristics equally suggest her innocence. Hardy
suggests that this purity comes from lack of experience, foreshadowing her later development as
a person and a character once she is exposed to different and more dangerous forces. However,
despite this innocence and essential purity Tess is not a mere cipher: she does defend her father,
confronting the other girls in the procession who disparage him. Angel is an equal symbol of
purity and goodness, as shown by his name and his demeanor. He immediately realizes that Tess
is special because of her innocence.
Hardy also develops the issues of class introduced in the first chapter. Tess Durbeyfield comes
from a lower class background, but she can affect a higher position because of her education.
This fluidity of her class background will prove significant throughout the novel, for she can
move from the upper to the lower classes.
Chapter Three:
This chapter serves to illustrates the Durbeyfield home life, one in which Joan Durbeyfield has
little respite from the drudge work and little help from the rest of her family, particularly from
her husband, who spends as much free time as possible at the local tavern. In fact, one of the few
chances for enjoyment that Joan Durbeyfield has in the opportunity to fetch her husband from
Rollivers and assume a position of authority over John. However, despite her difficult life, Joan
Durbeyfield is not a completely innocent victim; she proves herself as irresponsible as her
husband, remaining at the bar when she means to take him away from it. Among the
Durbeyfields, it is only Tess who remains committed and responsible; she alone has the sense of
responsibility to know that her family must come home.
Chapter Four:
At this point in the novel, Tess Durbeyfield is a passive character subject to the wishes of her
family and afflicted by their sense of irresponsibility. She is the key to her fathers design to
regain the family fortune, for he intends to marry her off to a gentleman who will provide for her
and for her parents; however, Tess has no say in her fathers plans. Hardy allows for the strong
possibility that John Durbeyfields plans will amount to nothing, with the reminder that other
families have amounted to little despite their former high esteem.
Hardy returns to the idea of the cruelty of fate in this chapter with the discussion between Tess
and Abraham concerning the stars; the two siblings decide that the misfortune they suffer are due
to living on a blighted star rather than any direct sense of cause and effect. This theme is also
illustrated by the accident that Tess and Abraham have concerning the horse and wagon; the
occurrence is a complete accident, yet Hardy instills the event with a sense of determinism, as if
67

it were part of the Durbeyfield fate. Tesss reaction to the accident is ironic, for Tess believes
herself responsible for an event for which she had no control furthermore, it is her fathers
irresponsibility that caused her to take the wagon to deliver the beehives. Nevertheless, tess feels
guilty for the event; this will leads her to be more susceptible to her fathers wishes.
Chapter Five:
The death of the Durbeyfields horse is the event that motivates Tess to visit the dUrbervilles
and beg them for financial assistance. By going to claim kinship with the dUrbervilles, Tess is in
fact sent to find a husband; behind her mothers request is the assumption that Tess will marry a
gentleman who will provide for the Durbeyfields. It is this aspect of the visit to the dUrbervilles
that disturb Tess most, highlighting her particular sexual innocence. This introduces the theme of
sexuality and innocence that will continue the novel; at this point in the novel Tess represents a
particular sexual innocence. She is unaware of her own sexuality and thus cannot perceive the
danger that Alec d Urberville presents to her.
From his introduction in the novel, Alec dUrberville represents a sexuality that contrasts with
Tess Durbeyfields innocence. However, as important as his sexuality is the danger inherent in
his sensuality. His early attempt to seduce Tess only serves to foreshadow later, more serious
attempts to infringe on his cousins innocence. Hardy even explicitly notes the danger that Alec
dUrberville poses to Tess. The narrative thrust of the novel will concern Tesss reaction to the
dangers that Alec poses for her.
Chapter Six:
Hardy further establishes in this chapter that Tess is unaware of the sexuality that she presents to
others. Although it is evident to all who see Tess that she is adorned to appear attractive, Tess
does not realize the purposes for which she was sent to Trantridge Cross. This lack of awareness
of her sexuality also appears when Tess cannot articulate her objection to going to stay with
dUrbervilles. Her obvious reason for not wanting to stay at Trantridge is the presence of Alec
dUrberville and his advances toward her, but she cannot frame this in terms of sexual anxiety.
Hardy also continues with the theme of Tess as the pawn of others around her in this chapter, in
which establishes that Joan Durbeyfield uses her daughter specifically to make romantic matches
in hopes of raising her own estate. Her explicit purpose is to find a gentleman for her daughter,
and she has pursued this course of action ever since her daughters birth. However, if this is a
sign that Joan Durbeyfield is in some sense manipulative, it also indicates the lowly state in
which Tess mother lives; her one hope for raising herself from poverty is to have her daughter
marry a gentleman. Joan Durbeyfields attempts to find her daughter a gentleman to marry, if not
commendable, are nevertheless the actions of a desperate woman.
Chapter Seven:
Joan Durbeyfield continues to promote the idea of Tess going to Tantridge Cross to marry in this
chapter, in which she dresses her daughter for attracting men, and not for her labor tending Mrs.
DUrbervilles chickens. Her remark that Tesss trump card is her face is the most explicit
declaration that Joan is sending her daughter to find a husband and not to work in a job.
Likewise, Tess continues to resist the idea that she is a sexual object sent for a commercial
transaction that will save her familys financial situation. However, Joan exhibits her first signs
of guilt and self-awareness concerning her actions toward her daughter. This further foreshadows
the impeding danger that Tess faces in going to Trantridge Cross.
Chapter Eight:
The problems that Alec and Tess have on the carriage traveling toward Trantridge serve as a
bridge between two of the most important events in the novel, simultaneously building on Tesss
guilt concerning the death of the family horse and foreshadowing later events in which Tess finds
herself in danger with Alec dUrberville. In this chapter, Hardy intertwines the danger of their
travel along with sexuality, as Alec demands that Tess grasp his waist as the carriage tumbles
down the hill. Alec exploits moments of danger for his own sexual gain, presenting Tess with
danger in order to use her as a sexual conquest. Alec himself symbolizes the confluence of these
two qualities, a character who presents his sexuality along with a great capacity for violence.
Alecs reprimand of Tess as rather sensitive for a cottage girl serves to shatter the idea that
Tess may marry a gentleman. As Alec notes, no matter her distant family connections, Tess is of
such lowly birth that she may consent to be the mistress of a gentleman but not his wife.
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Chapter Nine:
Tesss first meeting with Mrs. DUrberville further serves to place Tess back to her original place
in the social order. Mrs. DUrberville is impersonal and condescending, treating Tess as a mere
rural servant girl and not as a relative; indeed, she does not even know that Tess is a distant
relation. This implies that Alec has brought her to the house under false pretenses; he has not
brought her to claim kinship with him and his mother, but rather for his own personal reasons.
Hardy further establishes Alec dUrberville as a sexual predator in this chapter, a man who even
stalks Tess as she whistles to the bullfinches. Nevertheless, Tess begins to become more
accustomed to Alec, despite the sexual danger he presents to her. Alec ingratiates himself to Tess
by aiding her in her work. This is the first evidence that Tess has let her guard down around a
man whom she inherently suspects. While Tess still does not care for the villainous Alec
dUrberville, she is becoming increasingly familiar with him and receptive to him.
Chapter Ten:
The journey to Chaseborough for dancing juxtaposes with the previous chapters by
demonstrating that Tess, despite her failure to be accepted as a true dUrberville, is in some
considerable sense still different from the common people with whom she must associate. She is
neither the same as the low-class Darch sisters not the aristocratic dUrbervilles. Tess at first
refuses to go on the weekly pilgrimages for dancing, and even when she consents to go she
refuses to dance when it turns more sexual. This returns to the theme of Tess as a sexual
innocent; she rejects both the sexuality of Alec dUrberville and that of the dancers.
Throughout this chapter, Hardy places Tess dUrberville as an outsider among the working class
laborers with whom she travels home. Her status is evident even to Car Darch, who immediately
notices when Tess laughs and ignores the others. While Tess remains without guile when she is
confronted by Car, she nevertheless appears as strikingly out of place among the others. Car
provides a stark contrast to Tess: she is a vulgar, brassy woman who is combative and lewd, in
comparison to the more demure Tess. If the previous chapters emphasized that Tess is not a
member of the upper orders, this chapter disputes the idea that she is one of the lower class.
The rescue of Tess by Alec dUrberville demonstrates the capability for noble behavior that he
may demonstrate, yet even in this action there is the great possibility that he may act out of
ignoble motives. As Cars mother realizes, Tess is now in greater danger with Alec than she
would be around Car. Cars mother thus foreshadows the later tragic events that will come to
fruition.
Chapter Eleven:
The final conquest of Tess Durbeyfield comes to fruition in this chapter, in which Alec
dUrberville uses several factors particular to this situation to seduce his distant relative. The
seduction does not come easily; in fact Hardy leaves the details of the conquest so vague that it
allows the distinct possibility that Tess did not consent at all to Alec. Nevertheless, assuming that
Tess consented to Alecs demands, Hardy constructs several factors that precipitated the event.
At this point in the novel Alec is at his most heroic to Tess, having saved her from Car Darch.
Alec frames his arguments against Tess as evidence that she is frigid, untrusting and ungrateful;
she must defend her refusal to give in to Alec rather than Alec having to defend his much less
excusable behavior. Finally, and perhaps most critical in Tess letting down her guard is that she is
intensely tired and Alecs final proposition of her is unexpected.
Phase Two: Maiden No More
Chapter Twelve:
Hardy continues to leave many of the details of Tesss seduction ambiguous by allowing a certain
space of time to pass between the night at The Chase and Tess return to Marlott several weeks
later. Both Tess and Alec, however, indicate that their sexual encounter was to some degree
consensual. Most importantly, Tess admits that her eyes were a little dazed by Alec and that the
event was a moment of weakness. This is the first concrete indication that Tess realizes her
capability for sexuality; previously unaware of others sexual designs for her and disdainful of
the lust exhibited by others, Tess now admits that she too was capable of some degree of lust for
Alec. This is significant as a development of Tesss sexual attitudes and as an indication of her
inherent self-criticism. She finds herself to blame for Alecs seduction of her, rather than
accusing him of treachery.
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The encounter between Tess and the sign painter introduces the theme of forgiveness that will
pervade the novel. Tess wonders whether or not what she has done may be forgiven, and seems
to find the answer that she cannot in Christian teaching. The encounter also introduces the
character of Reverend Clare, whose son appeared during an early chapter and will play a large
part in future chapters.
Joan Durbeyfields reprimand of her daughter for being seduced by Alec dUrberville is ironic,
for it is she who promoted the idea of a romantic attachment between Tess and Alec. When Tess
submitted to Alec, she essentially followed her mothers orders, yet now faces her familys scorn.
Chapter Thirteen:
Tesss return to Marlott becomes the subject of gossip in the town precisely because it is such a
stunning reversal of fortune for the girl. Although she left to claim kinship with a noble family,
she returns to Marlott in a lower social standing than before, unmarried yet pregnant with alec
dUrbervilles child. The weight of this disdain for Tess as well as her own personal guilt lead
her to shrink from society, finding refuge only in the natural habitat around her. Hardy makes
clear that Tess feels herself a sinner for what occurred to her and that her personal pain and regret
outweigh any social opposition she may face.
Chapter Fourteen:
Hardy once again shifts the narrative forward to bypass momentous events Tesss life; skipping
nearly a year in Tesss life, the story picks up after Tess has given birth to the illegitimate child
borne of her one encounter with Alec dUrberville. This child is the living representation of her
sin; during the first part of the chapter it exists only as a symbol and not as an actual person,
receiving a name only before its death. Even the name that Tess gives her infant child, Sorrow,
represents the aftermath of her sin. Nevertheless, if Sorrow represents Tesss guilt over her
weakness with Alec dUrberville, Tesss reaction to her child is significant. At first Tess claims to
detest the child, yet grows accustomed to it as a part of her, accepting this sin as inherent in her
with a profound sense of self-loathing. However, once the child is near death Tess accepts it fully
by insisting on its baptism. By confronting her sin and naming it, Tess essentially allows Sorrow
to die peacefully.
The baptism of Sorrow is a pivotal event for Tess in which she moves from a simplistic child to,
as her siblings see her, a towering, divine personage. By baptizing her child, Tess also rejects
the social structure around her that perceives the mother as an outcast, performing the ceremony
that marks the acceptance of her child into society without the public declaration of the church.
The baptism of Sorrow is thus a baptism for Tess s well, marking a new sense of self and selfworth that she has lacked. This can further be seen in the confrontation with the parson that
fallows: the once demure Tess demands that sorrow be given a Christian burial, despite the
objection of the parson.
Chapter Fifteen:
Hardy makes explicit in this chapter what he implied earlier, elucidating the transformative
events that moved Tess from a timid girl to a strong and courageous woman. Her rebirth during
the baptism of Sorrow is followed by Tesss decision to leave Marlott for a place in which she
may start her life anew. However, at this point Hardy introduces one of the most important
themes of the novel: the question of the extent to which sins may be forgiven. In this instance,
the question is given explicitly: can Tess regain her chastity after one indiscretion? Although Tess
herself appears as evidence that purity may be regained, this question will provide significant
thematic material throughout the novel.
Phase Three: The Rally
Chapter Sixteen:
Upon leaving Marlott, Tess Durbeyfield once again confronts the ancestors whose discovery by
her father prompted Tess to be sent to find ruin with Alec dUrberville. However, while she was
once intrigued by the idea that she may find fortune and security with the dUrbervilles, by this
point in her life she has rejected such unrealistic dreams. Her journey to the dairy contrasts with
her first journey out of Marlott, for in this instance Tess goes to perform hard manual labor, yet
nevertheless appears more calm and confident on her second journey than her more leisurely
first.
Chapter Seventeen:
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In contrast to Alec dUrbervill and the immediate sense of danger that he presents to Tess, Angel
Clare represents a significant sense of idealism and purity. While Alec presents Tess with a
forceful sexuality upon his first entrance in the novel, Angel is in a great sense desexualized; one
of the milkmaids even thinks that he does not even thing of girls. As Angels family history and
reaction to Dairyman Cricks story suggest, Angel is a person with deep moral convictions,
although the particular religious leanings of Angel will later be revealed. Hardy indicates that the
deeply moral Angel is nevertheless a religious outsider, the only one in his family who did not
enter the clergy. As an outsider in some sense, Angel Clare thus bears some similarities to the
outcast Tess. The meeting of these two characters seems to be the work of fate, for they had a
chance meeting in the opening chapters of the novel. This bolsters the themes of fate and
inevitability that pervade Tess of the dUrbervilles.
Tess finds herself in the first time in an accommodating environment at Talbothays dairy.
Dairyman Crick is cheerful and friendly toward Tess, in comparison to her manipulative parents
and predatory relatives. The atmosphere is jovial and inviting, as Dairyman Crick tells absurd
stories and inquires after Tesss family. Hardy constructs the dairy as an idyllic atmosphere, yet
the relief that Tess finds here is certainly to be short-lived.
Chapter Eighteen:
Hardy shifts the focus of the novel for this chapter, leaving his constant focus on Tess
Durbeyfield for the first time to give biographical information about Angel Clare. Hardy gives
greater indication that Angel Clare is a man with unconventional moral and religious views; in
contrast to the narrator religious beliefs of his father. Angel is open to other moral belief systems
and it is this difference of opinion that leads Angel not to attend college and enter the clergy as
his father expected. Angels political beliefs coincidence with his unconventional religious
beliefs; he does not believe in the primacy of rank and social status, beliefs which clash with
traditional English mores. This disdain for polite social behavior complements Tesss equal
disregard for convention, thus setting up greater similarities between the two characters.
Nevertheless, even as this early point Hardy foreshadows later problems between Tess and
Angel. Angel idealizes Tess as a fresh and virginal daughter of nature, a characterization that
obvious with her more sordid past. The knowledge that Tess does not represent the qualities he
exalts in her will provide area for conflict within the novel, while allowing for the theme of the
permanence of sins. At this point in the novel, Hardy indicates that Tess has found a new purity
and innocence after her troubled history with Alec dUrberville; however, others may find that
her earlier actions have permanently tainted Tess.
Chapter Nineteen:
The romance between Angel Clare and Tess Durbeyfield begins to develop this chapter, a
flirtation that stands in stark contrast to the combative pursuit of Tess by Alec dUrberville.
Angel does not make any physical advances toward her, only bestowing upon Tess small favours
such as arranging the cows so that she may milk her favorites. The situation between the two is
intensely chaste; both seem barely able to openly acknowledge their mutual affection. Angel
even begins to exhibit characteristics appropriate to his name; Tess finds him playing the harp,
thus recalling a literal angel. Nevertheless, even within this idealistic and serene romance Hardy
develops darker undercurrents that foreshadow later difficulties. Tess finds that she must keep
certain information secretive, both her relatively lofty status as a dUrberville and her equally
lowly status as a mother of an illegitimate child.
Furthermore, Hardy develops the darker imperfections of Angel Clares character in this chapter,
demonstrating that he has the capability of being obstinate and judgmental. Although Angel has
great moral convictions, he appears to have little flexibility or foresight. Angel has a particular
scorn for the type of person that Tess represents, thus foreshadowing great conflict once he
inevitably realizes her family history and perhaps details of her personal life.
Chapter Twenty:
Hardy makes explicit that Tesss time at Talbothays dairy is an idyllic respite from her normal
toil and hardship, yet states that this happiness will be short-lived, foreshadowing greater
adversity for Tess Durbeyfield. Hardy compares Angel and Tess to Adam and Eve in the
morning, thus foreshadowing a later fall from perfection. It is the idealism and perfection that
Tess finds at Talbothay that leads to this shaky foundation for her happiness; Angel Clare adores
71

Tess as a representation of perfection. To Angel, Tess is goddess such as Artemis or Demeter, a

symbol of perfection rather than a person with obvious faults and foibles. There is a great irony
in angels adoration for Tess; Angel exalts Tess as a goddess for her strength and disposition, yet
this perfection comes from the adversity stemming from her greatest weakness.
Chapter Twenty-One:
The affection between Angel Clare and Tess Durbeyfield, although not explicitly stated between
these two characters is nevertheless obvious to the others at Talbothays dairy, who realize the
love that angel and Tess feel for one another. Mrs. Crick insinuates that a romance in her
household is the cause for the stalled butter churn, while Tesss roommates become jealous that
she receives the most attention from Angel, whom all of them adore. The jealousy that her
roommates feel leads Tess to a realization that she may have a future with angel Clare, for she
believes that he would want to marry a working woman and not a lady of his own social rank; in
fact, Tess represents both social spheres, having the family history of a noble lady and the actual
history of a working class girl.
Despite Tesss relative happiness at Talbothays dairy, Tess cannot fully escape her past history.
The humorous anecdote that Dairyman Crick tells about the butter churn reminds Tess of the
gravity of her situation; she can find the tragedy in the situation of the girl, while the others focus
on the humorous of the mother and Jack Dollop.
Chapter Twenty-Two:
Tess begins to retreat from any possible romantic engagement with Angel Clare in this chapter,
as he makes his feelings for her more explicit. She rejects Angels affection for her because she
believes that he wants a simple girl as a wife and not a member of a noble family. The rationale
for Tesss rejection of Angel is ironic, for her shame stems not from the more lowly details of her
history, but rather the lofty ones. She fears that she may be exposed as a noble lady, not that she
may be exposed as an unchaste woman.
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Tess continues to resist Angel Clares advances in this chapter, although his declaration of
affection for her is entirely without reproach. However, even if Angel behaves quite nobly to
Tess and the others girls, even carrying them across flooded terrain and refraining from kissing
Tess when he has the opportunity, he remains persistent. There is a great deal of inevitability
concerning the romance between Angel and Tess; she cannot hide that she loves Angel, yet
believes that his affection for her is only passing. Nevertheless, there is overwhelming evidence
to the contrary; Tesss belief that Angel only has a temporary affection for her is based not on
Angels behavior but instead on her own anxieties and experience with Alec, which has taught
her of the inconstancy of mens affections. The test of whether or not Tess will declare her love
for angel is not whether Angel loves her, but rather whether Tess may accept his love.
Chapter Twenty-Four:
What has been obvious yet never stated in the preceding chapters becomes explicit in this
chapter, as Angel makes his first physical advance on Tess and professes his love for her. His
declaration of love is abrupt and oddly out of place, for he kisses her as they milk a cow, yet is
the culmination of the tension that has built between the two characters. Even when Angel kisses
her, he does so as an expression of love and not, as Alec did, as an expression of simple lust. This
declaration of love is a pivotal event, as Hardy comments, yet even here the happiness of their
love seems incredibly short-lived. Hardy reminds the reader that Tess and Angels outlook will
have a new horizon, for a short time or for a long, thus indicating that whatever change
occurred will be a temporary one.
Phase Four: The Consequence
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Hardy once again frames a chapter from the point of view of Angel Clare, as he leaves
Talbothays dairy so that he may speak to his parents about Tess. This visit to his family at
Emminster serves to illustrate the origin of various character traits that Angel Clare possesses.
The members of the Clare family, particularly the parents, hold very strict religious and moral
views at the expense of courtesy or consideration; they even suggest that Angel voice the
familys displeasure at the supposedly immoral gift that the Cricks sent the family. Furthermore,
Reverend Clare has very strict expectations for Angel, particularly with reference to the type of
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women he will marry. Reverend Clare demands that Angel marry a woman such as Mercy Chant
who has the proper religious beliefs; Hardy thus constructs an obstacle for the possible marriage
between Angel Clare and Tess Durbeyfield.
However, the obstacles that Hardy places concerning the romance between Angel and Tess in
this chapter prove ephemeral. Hardy introduces the character of Mercy Chant as a possible rival,
yet Angel professes no interest in her. Whatever religious objections that the Clares pose
concerning Tesss beliefs soon fade as Angel convinces them that Tess certain has the proper
belief systems. However, the possible obstacles that the Clares may pose to Tess fade quickly
once Angel successfully argues his case.
The relative ease with which Angel secures his parents blessing for marriage does nevertheless
contain some indication of future problems that the perpetually afflicted Tess will face. These
obstacles will come in the form of Angel Clare himself and not from his family; the chapter
establishes a family history of dogmatic beliefs and inflexibility. This once again shifts the
possible obstacle to the romance back to Tesss family and personal histories. The one hope that
Hardy allows exists in the contrast that he makes between Angel Clare and the rest of his family.
Angel has come to bear less resemblance to his family than before his stay at Talbothays; the
possibility for a successful romance between Tess and Angel thus rests on the degree to which
Angel departs from his own famlys characteristics.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
In this chapter, Hardy continues to develop the established character traits of the Clare family.
The discussion between Angel and his parents concerning Tess illustrates how little knowledge
Angel actually has concerning Tess Durbeyfield. Angel speaks of Tess in abstract and idealistic
terms, claiming that she is full of actualized poetry but unable to produce any direct evidence
of her morality or accomplishments. Angels exalted claims of Tess are ironic, for he praises Tess
for an unblemished morality that contrasts starkly with her actual experience.
Hardy includes an additional irony concerning the reappearance of Alec dUrberville. This
mention is not haphazard, but rather serves as a reminder of Alecs presence in the novel and
foreshadowing his later return to prominence. This also illustrates the theme of fate that pervades
Tess of the dUrbervilles. Just as Angel met Tess by chance only to return to her life, the chance
encounter between Reverend Clare and Alec dUrberville suggests that Alecs role in the lives of
Tess Durbeyfield and Angel Clare is not yet finished.
Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Hardy shifts the burden of obstacles to the romance between Tess and Angel to Tess in this
chapter, in which she refuses his proposal of marriage. Although Tess claims that it is her lowly
status and the objections that his parents would make to her as the rationale for her rejection af
Angel, the mention of Alec dUrberville serves as a reminder that it is rather fear of her past that
drives Tess to reject Angel. Tess views this as an insurmountable obstacle to her happiness; she
cannot tell Angel about her past because he would reject her in turn, while she cannot keep it as a
secret for he would inevitably learn of her more sordid history.
Chapter Twenty-Eight:
Hardy prolongs the conflict between Angel and Tess concerning marriage throughout this
chapter, thus illustrating Angels persistence and the intensity of his love for Tess. However, in
equal measure this demonstrates the great extent to which Tess believes that her history prevents
any possibility of happiness with Angel Clare. This persistence and intensity serve to
demonstrate the inadequacy of Tesss refusal and inaction. Hardy demonstrates that her refusal
stems from some sense of selfishness; Tess believes that she cannot be happy with Angel if he
knows about her past, yet she cannot marry him without revealing such details.
Chapter Twenty-Nine:
The second anecdote about Jack Dollop serves as instructional purpose in this chapter,
suggesting to Tess that she I justified in not telling Angel about her now dead child. Although
Tess approaches this decision as one of tragedy, she nevertheless appears ready to accept the idea
that she may rightfully withhold this information from Angel. The decreased likelihood that Tess
will reveal her experience with Alec dUrberville foreshadows greater conflict between Angel
and Tess rather than negating the possibility of it; now that Tess may not tell Angel about her past
at an opportune moment, Angel may learn of her secrets under less fortuitous conditions.
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Chapter Thirty:
Hardy postpones a tragic encounter between Angel Clare and Tess Durbeyfield in this chapter, as
Tess reveals the more palatable secret about her family origin to Angel Clare. The ease with
which Angel accepts this facet of Tesss history, however, is more unsetting than cause for relief.
Angel frames the information about her dUrberville ancestry as greater evidence of Tesss
perfection. Tess becomes simultaneously the simple and decent milkmaid and a respectable,
noble lady to Angel. This therefore gives more dramatic weight to the inevitable revelation that
Tess has had a quite imperfect history.
Chapter Thirty-One:
Tess operates under a great sense of guilt and paranoia in this chapter, in which her decision to
marry Angel and not tell him of her past serves as an accumulating burden for Tess. She believes
that her history makes her unworthy of Angel, yet remains on the course of marriage despite this
fact. Although Tess feels reassured by the letter from her mother advising her not to tell Angel
about Alec, Tess regains her worry about Angel once the news of their engagement becomes
public. This paranoia serves as a motivating force for Tess, once again opening up the possibility
that she may confess to Angel her forms sins.
Hardy foreshadows trouble between Angel and Tess with the descriptions of Angel as a suitor.
Angel loves Tess intellectually, conceiving her as an ideal as well as an actual person. This
increases the possibility that Angel may react poorly to news about Tess. This also serves as a
greater contrast between Angel and Alec; while Alec is carnal and ruled by his passions, Angel
operates under his principles and ideals. Yet his dedication to ideals will prove as dangerous to
Tess as Alecs rapacious desires.
Chapter Thirty-Two:
In a state of near-permanent engagement with Angel, Tess may feel secure in her relationship, for
she has no obligation to tell Angel of her past experiences and need not fear the consequences of
divulging this information. Therefore the inevitable fact that she must set a date for the wedding
continues Tesss sense of anxiety. When Tess forgets to publish the banns for the wedding, this is
an action that simultaneously reveals her fear that her secret may be exposed and her desire to
sabotage the possibility of an earlier wedding. During this time in England, a couple had several
means by which they could become married. The most common means by which this could be
done is the publication of banns; this required the announcement of the engagement on several
successive Sundays in church. This means of legally marrying is public and allows the
possibility that a person may voice objections to the marriage; in the particular case of Tess, she
likely fears the possibility that knowledge of her illegitimate child may be exposed. However, a
less public, if more expensive means of marriage is through a marriage license, which Angel will
obtain. Obtaining a marriage license therefore decreases the possibility of exposure for Tess,
even if does not relieve Tesss sense of guilt.
Hardy foreshadows the inevitable return of Tesss history with the dUrbervilles when Angel
secures a former dUrberville mansion as the site of the couples honeymoon. Tess will come to
face her family ancestry at this location; this suggests that she will face her more personalized
dUrberville experiences as well.
Chapter Thirty-Three:
Tess averts the disaster that her reputation provides twice in this chapter. For the first time since
leaving Marlott, Tess confronts her past when a TRantrige man recognizes her and believes her
to be a woman with a tarnished reputation. Although Angel defends her, he does so without
conceiving that the mans accusations against Tess may contain any truth. Tess averts a second
disaster when Angel seems to respond favorably to the letter that Tess writes to him. Angel
behaves as if nothing has troubled him the next morning after he has supposedly read the letter,
and says nothing of its subject; his reaction, as Hardy foreshadows and eventually explains by
the end of the chapter, stems from having not read the letter at all.
The realization that Angel has not read the letter concerning Tesss past serves as a turning point.
The anxiety and guilt that Tess has felt in previous chapters has been internalized. After this point
on the wedding day, Hardy gives this anxiety physical manifestation through several symbols of
foreboding. The appearance of an afternoon crow is a conventional sign foreshadowing ill
omens, while Tesss vision of the dUrberville coach foreshadows tragedy particular to her
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ancestors. This further bolsters the theme of Tesss inability to escape her dUrberville past.
Although now married to Angel Clare, Tess Durbeyfield cannot fully repudiate her ancestry and
personal history.
Chapter Thirty-Four:
Several events in this chapter serve to precipitate Tesss confession in this chapter. Along with
the earlier established feelings of guilt and anxiety, at Wellbridge Tess must face the imposition
of her dUrberville past upon her. The dUrberville history literally faces Tess at Wellbridge, as
foreboding and forbidding portraits of Tesss ancestors loom throughout the mansion.
Furthermore, Tess also faces the irony of Angels treatment of her; when he insists that she wear
the jewelry sent by the Clare family, he envisions her as an esteemed lady, which starkly
contrasts with her actual history. A third precipitating factor for Tesss confession comes from her
realization of the consequences of her marriage; by marrying a man of whom she believes herself
unworthy, Tess instigates Retty Priddles suicide attempt and Marians and Izzs depression.
While the possibility that Tess actually prevented a romance between Angel and one of these
women seems low, Tess nevertheless believes herself responsible. The final precipitating factor
in this chapter is Angels confession of his sins. There is considerable irony in Angels
confession, for he admits to a premarital affair that seems worse than Tesss single moment of
weakness; a further, tragic irony will result from Angels reaction to Tesss similar admission.
While Tess feels relieved by Angels honesty, Angel will have a far more unforgiving reaction to
Tesss sin, which he himself has committed.
Phase Five: The Woman Pays
Chapter Thirty-five:
There is little surprising in Angels reaction to the news about Tesss imperfect history, yet Hardy
finds irony in the external circumstances surrounding this event. For both Tess and Angel, the
revelation that Tess had a child is a momentous event that inalterably changes Angels perception
of his new wife and brings the possibility for Tess to have a happy marriage to an essential end.
However, as Tess notices, the actual external conditions around Tess do not change; while both
characters believe to a great extern that their world has ended, essentially nothing differs from
before.
The character traits that Hardy has previously elucidated concerning Angel Clare become
manifest in this chapter and his reaction to the news aligns completely with these traits. Angel
exhibits a dogmatic inflexibility concerning his belief in Tesss moral infallibility. He cannot
comprehend his own self-delusion toward Tess, for he cannot conceive of Tess as anything less
than the perfect person whom he has envisioned. This recalls Angels intellectualized ideas
concerning his wife. Perhaps more than the actual person of Tess, Angel loves the theoretical
conception of Tess. The news that she is not the chaste woman he assumed too greatly conflicts
with the vision of Tess.
The intellectual character of the love that Angel feels for Tess becomes apparent in Angels
reaction. He speaks calmly and rationally rather than resorting to a burst of anger at the news.
His behavior is cold and clinical, and his words cautious and precise. This contrasts sharply with
Tesss emotional behavior, as she vows that she would die for Angel if he were to so demand.
This lends a particularly chilling quality to Angels newfound contempt for Tess: he grounds his
objections to Tess in such solid and inarguable ground, as when he contrasts her current selfsacrifice with past self-preservation, that he leaves no room for his own personal flexibility.
Angels principles doom him to forsake the woman that he previously loved.
Chapter Thirty-Six:
In this chapter, Hardy focuses on Angels principles and the effects that they have on his
marriage to Tess. As earlier established, it is the idealistic perception that he has of Tess that
blocks his acceptance of her; he can envision her either as a wholehearted saint or sinner, without
any room for more subtle shadings. His stern devotion to these principles causes a certain
inconsistency of behavior. He values his idealized conceptions of Tess as well as values of
courtesy and duty. Angel does not allow Tess to act as a servant because, in principle, she is his
wife and should not behave as such; nevertheless, his principles prevent him from treating Tess
fully as his wife and partner. Angel will behave well toward Tess only insofar as he wishes to
prevent scandal and assuage his guilt.
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Tess thus finds herself bereft at the end of this chapter, recalling her earlier fate after leaving The
Chase. However, in this situation her fate occurs because of opposite impulses from the rejecting
suitor. While Alec behaves only according to his passions, Angel cannot operate on a level that is
not intellectual. Hardy therefore constructs a situation in which Angel, if he were to behave more
like Alec, his entirely unscrupulous polar opposite, he would act more honorably to Tess. Instead,
by remaining tied to his principles of morality, Angel acts far less decently than he would if he
were to be more subject to his passion.
Chapter Thirty-Seven:
Hardy explores the depths to which Angel has been wounded by Tesss revelation in this chapter,
in which Angel, while sleepwalking, reveals the great psychological torment that he feels. He so
fervently believes that his wife is dead that he carries her to a coffin and lays her there. This is a
departure from previous chapters in which Hardy has portrayed Angel as coldly observing his
principles without any display of affection for his wife. Here the unconscious Angel shows that
he still loves the previous conception he had of Tess, yet cannot reconcile it with this new
information about her. His anguish is so great that it possesses him while asleep. However, that
Angel cannot realize what he has done while sleepwalking demonstrates that he is unaware of
the deep emotional vein of his torment; rather, he focuses on the intellectual disappointment.
If Hardy allows Angel greater sympathy in this chapter, he also shows the degree to which Tess
will sacrifice herself for her husband. Tess remains completely submissive to her sleepwalking
husband as he carries her across the river and to the cemetery. She remains open to the possibility
that he may murder her or cause their mutual death, but remains still rather than disturb Angel.
Tess therefore makes manifest her promise to Angel in previous chapters by leaving her life in
his hands.
The final separation of Tess and Angel that ends this chapter leaves some degree of room for
consideration. Angel remains calm, as always, yet realizes that it is he who must change before
he can accept Tess again. He therefore places the burden of acceptance on himself rather than on
Tess, while still allowing for her sustenance. Angel takes grudging steps toward admitting his
own fallibility; his struggle to sacrifice his principles for greater ones and Tesss reaction to her
new fate will provide a great deal of the narrative drive of the rest of the novel.
Chapter Thirty-Eight:
Once again Tess must endure the indignity of separation from a lover, as she returns to the
Durbeyfields for the second time. In this chapter Hardy emphasizes the mistakes that Tess had
made; Joan reminds Tess that she committed a sin by marrying Angel without telling him about
Alec, thus she cannot behave as if her admission to Angel was an act of complete nobility.
However, both Durbeyfield parents focus solely n the effect that Tesss marriage has on them;
just as they manipulated Tess when they sent her to claim kinship with the d Urbervilles, they
can view Tess only in terms of how her fate affects their own. This emphasizes the theme of Tess
as a pawn of others. No matter what actions Tess undertakes, she is subject to her parents wills
as well as Angels.
Chapter Thirty-Nine:
Angel Clare begins to break down his reservations against Tess, yet this process is slow and by
no means reaches a conclusion by the end of the chapter. The most significant step that Angel
takes during this chapter is admitting that he may have treated Tess harshly, but at this point he
does nothing to make reparations. Rather, he admits his own faults without yet taking steps to
amend them. However, just as Tesss guilt over her failure to tell Angel about her past
accumulated before her wedding, Angels guilt over his treatment of Tess builds throughout this
chapter. Hardy constructs this as an interesting parallel; in both cases, their respective guilt
becomes their sole preoccupation and every tangential detail relates to it. In this case, the passage
from Proverbs and the Calres questions about Tess serve as a constant reminder of the actions
Angel wishes to forget.
Chapter Forty:
The result of Angels realization that he has treated Tess poorly is not that he makes amends for
his actions; rather, he descends into undertaking a series of haphazard and self-destructive
actions. Having realized the inadequacy of holding dogmatically to his principles, Angel seems
to abandon them altogether. His conversation with Mercy Chant, although sly and humorous,
76

reveals a decadence and tendency to shock not previously exhibited by Angel Clare, while his
proposal that Izz Huett accompany him to Brazil is an altogether abandonment of his moral code.
Angels decision to go to Brazil itself represents Angels rejection of his principles; when he
discusses Brazil with Izz Huett, he frames the journey as a means to reject the tenets of Western
civilization.
It is only when Izz Huett reminds Angel that no woman could love Angel more than Tess did that
Angel returns to more grounded and rational behavior. This reinforces the theme of Tesss
absolute love for Angel, and serves as a reminder that, even if Tess herself may not have a
perfect personal history, in her love for Angel she is flawless.
Chapter Forty-One:
A combination of shame and honor render Tess unable to ask for assistance from the Clares, not
knowing that they have no knowledge of the details of her separation from Angel, who himself
suffers in Brazil. This chapter serves largely to illustrate the dire situation that Tess faces. She
has essentially no support, despite the advice of Angel which she refuses to heed, and remains
perpetually at the mercy of her past. This second encounter with the man who recognizes her as
Alec dUrbervilles mistress serves to reinforce the idea that Tess is perpetually at the mercy of
her past, which recurs no matter her wish to escape it. This character also symbolizes Tesss guilt
concerning her treatment of Angel; she placed Angel in danger when he defended her honor,
despite the truth of the accusations against her.
When Tess kills the dying birds that were shot by the hunting party, she demonstrates her
compassion and sympathy with the afflicted. She demonstrates mercy by sparing the animals
pain; although a direct analogy between Tess and the wounded birds is a drastic
oversimplification, this event nevertheless introduces the idea of death as a compassionate end to
suffering and thus appropriately frames and foreshadows the inevitable end to Tess Durbeyfield.
Chapter Forty-Two:
In this chapter, Hardy focuses on the innate sexuality within Tess Durbeyfield, framing it as a
force that Tess can do little to control and which remains the center of her lifes maladies. Tess
has remained the focus of sexual attention for primarily manipulative or self-serving reasons, as
when her parents use her looks to gain her a gentleman husband and Alec dUrberville uses her
only as an object for his lust. By rejecting Tess, Angle Clare himself frames Tess in terms of her
sexuality. Her attempt to remove this sexual component of herself by making herself less
attractive therefore represents a measure of self-defense. Tess mutilates herself in order to ward
off the attention that has damaged her.
Flintcomb-Ash serves as a territorial representation of the adversity that Tess faces. The territory
is barren and rough, in contrast to the more idyllic region of Talbothays Dairy; this parallels
Tesss impoverished situation as well as her new appearance. Yet Tess accepts the surroundings
at Flintcomb-Ash largely because of the adversity it offers; she considers it as a form of
purgatory, as shown when she refuses to allow Marian to speak about Angel, whom she still
considers too noble for the conditions she now faces.
Chapter Forty-Three:
Hardy continues to elaborate the theme of the recurrence of past events through the arrival of
several characters present in earlier sections of the novel. Tess finds herself in the presence of the
man who insulted Angel for the third time, now as an employer, while the other girls from
Talbothays dairy also work at Flintcomb-Ash. Even Car and Nancy Darch, whose threats against
Tess served as a catalyst for her nighttime ride with Alec, find themselves working with Tess.
The recurrence of these characters is a particular humiliation for Tess; each of them remind Tess
of humiliations or indignities she has suffered. Tess even learns about Angels proposition for Izz
Huett, thus shaking her faith in Angel. When Tess wears her wedding ring at the end of the
chapter, this is more than anything a mark of desperation. Even without her husband himself, the
one reassurance that Tess has is her marriage to Angel Clare. With so little to support her, Tess
can rely only on a small reminder of what she once had.
Chapter Forty-Four:
Tess continues to suffer indignities during her husbands absence, as shown when she overhears
the discussion between Felix and Cuthbert about Angels seemingly disreputable wife. Hardy
even includes unmotivated embarrassments for Tess such as the loss f her shoes as evidence of
77

her dejected state. However, the seeming evidence that Tess has concerning the Clares opinion
of her remains idle gossip, for Angels brothers merely speculate on Tess without the concrete
evidence that she believes must have.
The reappearance of Alec dUrberville is he culmination of recent chapters foreshadowing.
Having found herself confronted with nearly all of the characters who have been a threat to her
since departing from Angel, Tess now finds the person most responsible for her tragic fate. There
is a certain irony concerning Alecs fate, particular in comparison with Angel; the rigidly moral
son of a minister finds himself a businessman, while the unscrupulous hedonist becomes a
fundamentalist preacher. Nevertheless, the amount to which Alec has changed since Tess has left
Trantridge remains doubtful.
Phase Six: The Convert
Chapter Forty-Five:
The change in Alec dUrberville is significant, yet Hardy almost immediately establishes that his
great conversation is superficial. He remains the same hedonist as before, but has merely shifted
his passion from sexuality to spirituality. This suggests that Alec may easily shift back to his
former ways; he even admits as such when he tells Tess that he risks returning to his former lust
when he looks at womens face. However, the most prominent evidence that Alec remains little
changed from his previous incarnation remains his assured belief that it is Tess who is
responsible for Alecs sins and not Alec himself. Although he claims a duty and devotion to Tess,
Alec essentially blames her for her own troubles, asking her never to tempt him again when she
has done nothing to lure Alec or even show any interest for him.
Hardy takes a very critical view of religion in this chapter. He does not present Alec as atypical
within Christian history. As Tess notes, the religion has a tradition of holding up its greatest
sinners as its greatest saints, yet the evidence that Alec has truly mended his ways seems
incredibly doubtful. Furthermore, Hardy presents Alecs attempt to save Tesss soul as intensely
hypocritical. Hardy even connects Alecs religious conversion to the style of religion promoted
by Reverend Clare, previously derided by Angel as archaic and dogmatic. Perhaps the most
grotesque portrayal of religion in the chapter is the Cross-in-Hand; while both Alec and Tess
assume that this landmark is a Christian cross, it in fact represents grotesque violence. The
Cross-in-Hand thus symbolizes the lack of authenticity within Alecs conversion. This relic that
Alec asks Tess to swear upon seems to represent Christian teachings, but in fact symbolizes
violence and suffering akin to that Alec has inflicted upon Tess.
Chapter Forty-Six:
Hardy makes very clear in this chapter that alec dUrberville has changed little since Tess left
Trantridge Cross, as he continues to behave as before. He repeats many of the same actions that
prefaced his seduction of Tess, following her and using his monetary influence as charity to
endear himself to Tess in order to win her. Alec continues to evade responsibility for his actions;
when he discusses what happened to Tess, he does not blame himself for seducing her, but
blames mothers who do not warn their daughters that men can seduce. He also reiterates his
claim that Tess has caused hi sinfulness by tempting him, rather than accepting the blame for his
weakness of morals.
Alec dUrberville, rather than posing a threat to Tesss devotion to Angel Clare, instead bolsters
her love for her husband. He reinforces Angels purity of belief through contrast, while
reminding Tess of their similarities of morals. Yet there remains an unfortunate similarity
between Angel and Alec that Tess realizes during this chapter when she mentions that Farmer
Groby cannot hurt Tess, for he does not love her. The one commonality that Angel and Alec
have, despite their contrary natures, is that both inflict pain on Tess through love, whether
expressed as an ideal or a physical art.
Chapter Forty-Seven:
The full rejection of religion by Alec dUrberville that Hardy has foreshadowed arrives in this
chapter, revealing the superficiality of his religious conversion. Alec rejects Christianity as easily
as he would reject a style of clothing; he signals this change of belief not by any overt behavior,
but rather by adopting a more stylish appearance and rejecting the austere dress of a
fundamentalist preacher. In contrast, while Alec shows a weakness and adaptability in his beliefs,
Tess demonstrates her core of strength and fortitude. She takes physical action against Alec and
78

refuses to flinch at the possibility that he may hurt her in return. Her claim that she will not cry
out if Alec hurts her because she will always be her victim is ironic, for by confronting Alec in
such a way she makes it very clear that she is far too strong to be the victim of Alec again.
Chapter Forty-Eight:
Alecs offer to aid Tess is yet another example of his use of his financial resources to exert
control over Tess, endearing himself to her by making himself essential for her survival. The
significant difference in this offer to Tess is that it does not aid her, but rather her family. Hardy
has established that the Durbeyfield family exerts a certain control over Tess, as when her
parents goaded her into claiming kinship with the dUrbervilles after Tesss mishap with the
horse. While Tess can survive the physical hardship that she faces at Flitcomb-Ash, she finds it
more difficult to allow her parents to suffer similar adversity. Tesss plea for Angel that he return
to her is therefore her first sign of weakness with regard to Alec dUrberville, who has found the
one way to break down Tesss considerable defenses.
Chapter Forty-Nine:
Hardy remove the center of action from Tess in this chapter to give a brief account of Angels
recent actions and to suggest a change in Angels behavior and attitudes. The obstacle to Angel
reuniting with Tess becomes not whether or not Angel can accept Tess, but instead whether or
not Angel believes that Tess will accept him if he were to return. Nevertheless, this foreshadows
an eventual reunion between Tess and angel, as he no longer feels the strong aversion to Tess that
proved the cause of their separation.
When Hardy does give details concerning the title character, he continues the pattern of greater
suffering that has marked Tesss life since her separation from Angel. The possible death of Joan
Durbeyfield suggests an inevitable change in the dynamic between Tess and Alec; since it is
Tesss devotion to her parents that causes her to weaken against Alecs demands, her fate is
contingent upon what occurs to them.
Chapter Fifty:
Tess returns home to find a neighbor who has been caring for Joan Durbeyfield. John tells Tess
that he is thinking of asking local antiquarians to subscribe to a fund to maintain him as a part of
local history. He says that such societies keep local bones, and living remains should be far more
interesting. Alec finds Tess in Marlott. He asks Tess if her engagement at Flintcomb-Ash has
ended, and mocks the idea that she might join her husband. Tess replies that she has no husband.
Alec tells her that he has sent her something that should have arrived at her house, and insists
that he will help her in spite of herself. When Tess returns home, she finds that her father has
died.
The death of John Durbeyfield is an ironic reversal of fortune for the Durbeyfield family, for it is
Joan, who makes a sudden recovery, whose health seemed most in danger. This plot point is
particularly ironic when considered in reference to his final conversation with his daughter in
which he notes that local antiquarians support old bones of dUrbervilles, and might do so for
living descendants from that family.
Alecs attempt to help Tess appear more sinister in this chapter, for Alec uses them more
explicitly as a means for domination. Alec approaches his efforts to aid Tess as if his kindness
must be inflicted upon her; he essentially states that he will help her whether she likes her or not.
This once again reinforces that, even when Alec appears ready to aid Tess, he in fact proves
dangerous to her, a fact that Tess rightfully realizes.
Chapter Fifty-One:
Tess once again shoulders the burden of her familys troubles in this chapter, as the disreputable
status of her family for which she is partially to blame causes Joan Durbeyfield to lose the lease
to the family house after John Durbeyfields death. This returns to the theme of Tesss inability to
escape her past, yet darkens this theme by showing that Tesss actions have determined the fate
of her family. This turn of events seems particularly tragic, for the dutiful Tess has always taken
responsibility when her family has faced hardship, yet always blames herself. Here Tess actually
is the reason for her familys hardship. The recurrence of past sins is also evident in this chapter
in Tesss worry that Alec is her husband in a more physical sense than Angel, a worry that also
illustrates the differences between the carnal, physical Alec and the spiritual, intellectual Angel.
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The explanation of the dUrberville coach foreshadows a tragic end to Tess Durbeyfield and
neatly parallels the events of Tesss seduction by Alec. The legend posits that a beautifull woman
falls victim to a villainous dUrberville while traveling, recalling Alecs repeated attempts to
seduce Tess while travelling by coach. However, at this point the conflict between Alec and Tess
has not yet reached the point of serious violence.
The offer that Alec dUrberville makes guaranteeing that he help the Durbeyfield family is
perhaps the one act of charity that Tess finds difficult to reject, for in this situation she condemns
her family to the same suffering she has felt. However, this does not necessarily indicate that
Alecs offer is pure; rather, it remains tainted by its actual intent, for like others it is merely a
means for him to secure Tess as his own once more.
Chapter Fifty-Two:
The Durbeyfield family, driven from their home and having bo lodgings, find themselves in the
crypt of the family from which they are descendent. This symbolizes the final descent of the
dUrbervilles, as the last remaining members of the family take residence with the remains of the
dead nobility. Nevertheless, the actions of Izz Huett and Marian to repair the marriage between
Angel Clare and Tess may signal a turning point in the novel. This action reinforces the love that
Tess has for Angel, for if she cared for him less, both girls would attempt to pursue Angel for
themselves. By behaving selflessly, Marian and Izz demonstrate an equal selflessness within
Tess.
Phase Seven: Fulfillment
Chapter Fifty-Three:
The several letters sent to Angel Clare during his separation from Tess play a critical role in
determining Angels course of action once he returns from Brazil. Since these letters give
contradictory information concerning whether or not Tess will accept Angel once more, Angel
must decide which of the two letters written by Tess reveals her true feelings for him. Even the
letter written by Marian and Izz bolsters Angels decision to seek Tess. Angel displays a resolve
toward Tess that recalls his insistence when he wished to marry her, showing that he has
accepted Tess as his wife despite her past. Hardy indicates that Angels suffering in Brazil has
influenced this development. Angel returns to England aged and sickly, having suffered greatly
and matured from the obstinate idealism he once displayed.
However, despite Angels resolve that he shall be reunited with his wife, Hardy implies that Tess
may no longer desire a reconciliation. Her final letter to Angel certainly indicates as such, while
Joan Durbeyfields claim that she does not know where Tess is implies that either Tess does not
want Angel to find her or Tess is in a dire situation in which she is unable to be located.
Chapter Fifty-Four:
Angel continues to demonstrate his great will to find his wife, as when he demands of Joan
Durbeyfield that he know where Tess is located. Hardy constructs this chapter as a retelling of
Tesss actions during her separation from Angel, as Angel himself finds himself in FlintcombAsh, Marlott and Kingsbere and he learns that John Durbeyfield has died. This serves as a
reminder of Tesss travails as a suffering Angel retraces these steps. This seems a trial for Angel,
particularly during his confrontation with Joan Durbeyfield; she gives the location of her
daughter only after Angel proves his devotion to Tess. This confrontation also demonstrates a
growth for Joan Durbeyfield, who realizes her own failings and responsibility for Tesss troubles
by admitting that she has never really known her daughter. Joan has viewed Tess as an
instrument for her and her husbands plans, yet only now realizes that her ill treatment has
caused Tesss downfall.
Chapter Fifty-Five:
The village of Sandbourne proves a stark contrast to the other regions in which Tess has stayed;
this village community is thriving and fashionable, and its description foreshadows the later
revelation of this chapter that Tess has returned to the sophisticated and urbane Alec
dUrberville. Tess herself comes to physically resemble this area, having adopted a more
fashionable and stylish dress that endows her with an appearance of assurance and strength.
Hardy juxtaposes Tess with the now sickly and decrepit Angel, who demonstrates his weakness
in comparison with Tess. However, Angels reappearance breaks Tesss faade of strength,
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demonstrating that her decision to return to Alec is one of weakness and desperation.
Significantly, Tess does not blame Angel for what has occurred, but rather shifts the blame to
Alec. This foreshadows the events that will drive the final chapters of the novel.
Angels realization that Tess had not recognized the body before her as her husband parallels his
earlier condemnation of Tess as a different woman in Tesss shape. In this situation, it is Tess
who rejects Angel, for she cannot reconcile what she believes about her husband with the actual
person in front of her.
Chapter Fifty-Six:
Hardy introduces the character of Mrs. Brooks for several purposes. She serves as an entrance
into the private conversation between Alec and Tess, giving this conversation a secretive and
covert quality. By describing the murder of Alec through Mrs. Brooks information about it,
Hardy leaves ambiguous whether this murder was premeditated, impulse or an act of selfdefense. Yet more importantly, Mrs. Brooks places the murder of Alec in a firmly public sphere.
Hardy leaves no question that the murder is public knowledge and that the identity of the
murderer is in little doubt. This lends a sense of inevitability to the impending tragic end for Tess
Durbeyfield.
Chapter Fifty-Seven:
Tess and Angel finally reconcile in this chapter, but the circumstances under which Angel and
Tess find themselves render this reconciliation short-lived. Hardy finally connects Tess to the
dUrbervilles legacy in this chapter, allowing that her dUrberville heritage has endowed her
with a faulty moral deficiency that has made her capable of murder. Angel himself relates the
murder of Alec to the legend of the dUrberville coach. However, Tesss action may be seen as a
reversal of this legend, for in this instance it is the victimized woman who strikes out against a
rapacious dUrberville. Tess inverts her family history, recalling the dUrberville history and
refuting its legends.
Chapter Fifty-Eight:
For a brief period, Tess and Angel remain happily a husband and wife, yet this happiness is a
nearly grotesque one, for the couple essentially has their honeymoon as they travel as fugitives.
And, as both Tess and Angel realize, this period of happiness is short-lived. Tess knows that she
will be caught, and thus plans for her husband and her family after her inevitable execution. This
emphasizes the theme that Tess is unable to escape her fate; Hardy offers no possibility that Tess
and Angel might escape England where Tess might go unpunished.
Despite the tragic conclusion to Tess Durbeyfield life, both Tess and Angel accept her fate
stoically, for this is a final end to her suffering. Having experienced pain and hardship entirely
since leaving home for TRantridge, Tess can only expect more difficulties, even after reuniting
with Angel. The only option that Angel has before Tesss demise is to ensure that her end is not
protracted.
Chapter Fifty-Nine:
Hardy ends the novel with a brief explanation of Tesss fate that laments the ironic justice that
she received. For suffering throughout Alec dUrberville and the consequences of his treatment
toward her, Tess receives the justice of execution for finally reasserting herself in the face of
her seducer. Hardy also gives a brief indication of Angels fate; he will presumably marry LizaLu in order to make amends to his wife for his treatment of her.
CHARLES DICKENS GREAT EXPECTATIONS
CONTEXT
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England, on February 7, 1812. He was the second of
eight children. His mother had been in service to Lord Crew, and his father worked as a clerk for
the Naval Pay office. The John Dickens was imprisoned for debt when Charles was very young.
Dickens went to work at a blacking warehouse, managed by a relative of his mother, when he
was twelve, and his brush with hard times and poverty affected him deeply. He later recounted
these experiences in the semi-autobiographical novel David Copperfield. Furthermore, the
concern for social justice and reform which surfaced later in his writings grew out of the harsh
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conditions he experienced in the warehouse. Although he had little formal schooling, he was able
to teach himself shorthand and launch a career as a journalist.
At the age of sixteen, Dickens got himself a job as a court reporter, and shortly thereafter he
joined the staff of A Mirror of Parliament, a newspaper that reported on the decisions of the
Parliament. Fast becoming disillusioned with politics, Dickens developed an interest in social
reform and began contributing to the True Sun, a radical newspaper. Although his main avenue of
work was as a novelist, Dickens continued his journalistic work until the end of his life, editing
The Daily News, Household Words, and All the Year Round. His connections to various
magazines and newspapers as a political journalist gave him the opportunity to begin publishing
his own fiction at the beginning of his career.
While he published several sketches in magazines, it was not until he serialized The Pickwick
Papers over 1836-37 that he experienced true success. A publishing phenomenon, The Pickwick
Papers was published in monthly installments and sold over forty thousand copies for each issue.
In 1836 dickens also married Catherine Hogarth, the daughter of a fellow co-worker at his
newspaper. The couple had ten children before their separation in 1858.
Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby followed in monthly installments, and both reflected
Dickens understandings of the lower classes as well as his comic genius. In 1843, Dickens
published one of his most famous works, A Christmas Carol. His disenchantment with the
worlds economic drives becomes clear in this work; he blamed much of societys ills on
peoples obsession with earning money and acquiring a status based on money.
His travels abroad in the 1840s, first to America and then through Europe, marked the beginning
of a new stage in Dickenss life. His writings became longer and more serious. In David
Copperfield (1849-50), readers find the same flawed world that Dickens discovered as a young
boy. Dickens published some of his best-known novels including A Tale of Two Cities and Great
Expectations in his own weekly periodicals.
The inspiration to write a novel set during the French Revolution came from Dickenss faithful
annual habit of reading Thomas Carlyles book The French Revolution, first published in 1839.
When Dickens acted in Wilkie Collinss play The Frozen Deep in 1857, he was inspired by his
own role as a self-sacrificing lover. He eventually decided to place his on sacrificing lover in the
revolutionary period, a period of great social upheaval. A year later, Dickens went through his
own form of social change as he was writing A Tale of Two Cities: he separated from his wife,
and he revitalized his career by making plans for a new weekly literary journal called All The
Year Round. In 1859, A Tale of Two Cities premiered in parts in this journal. Its popularity was
based not only on the fame of its author, but also on its short length and radical (for Dickenss
time) subject matter.
Dickenss health began to deteriorate in the 1860s. In 1858, in response to his increasing fame,
he had begun public readings of his works. These exacted a great physical toll on him. An
immensely profitable but physically shattering series of readings in America (1867-68) speeded
his decline, and he collapsed during a farewell series in England. On June 9, 1870, Charles
Dickens died. He was buried in Poets Corner of Westminster Abbey. Though he left The
Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished when he died, he had already written fifteen substantial
novels and countless shorter pieces. His legacy is clear. In a whimsical and unique fashion,
Dickens pointed out societys flaws in terms of its blinding greed for money and its neglect of
the lower classes of society. Through his books, we come to understand the virtues of a loving
heart and the pleasures of home in a flawed, cruelly indifferent world. Among English writers, in
terms of fame and recognition of characters and stories, he is second only to Shakespeare.
The name is Great Expectations. I think a good name? says Dickens to his editor before he
started publishing the novel.
When Dickens started his thirteenth novel, Great Expectations, in 1860, he was already a
national hero. He had come from humble beginnings, working as a child in a shoe polish factory
while his family was in debtors prison, to become the quintessential Victorian gentleman. He
was involved in all aspects of English life: writing, acting, producing, going on book tours,
publishing magazines, and, as always, active in social welfare and criticism.

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Amidst all this, however, Dickens private life had entered a dark period. Dickens had just
separated from his wife two years earlier, there were rumors of an affair with a young actress in
the newspapers, and he was spending more and more time at his home in Chatham.
Dickens himself had risen to achieve greater expectations than any clerks boy could expect, but
he had not found happiness. The idea that one must search beyond material wealth and social
standings and must look within themselves for happiness becomes the major theme in Great
Expectations.
Sometime in 1860, Dickens had started a piece that he found funny and truthful and thought it
might do better as a novel: it so open out before me that I can see the whole of a serial
revolving on it, in a most singular and comic manner, he wrote. Dickens had told friends that he
had gone back and read David Copperfield and was quite struck by the story now that he looked
back upon it. Copperfield was a happy novel, the story of a young man who came into his
fortune though hard work and luck. Its influences and similarities are seen in Great Expectations.
There are, however, some major thematic differences.
Though not considered as autobiographical as David Copperfield which he had published some
ten years earlier, the character of Pip represented a Dickens who had learned some hard lessons
in his later life. Especially strong throughout the novel are the concepts of fraternal and romantic
love, how society thwarts them, how a man should find them.
For financial reasons, Dickens had to shorten the novel, making it one of his tighter and better
written stories. It was published in serial form, as were all of his novels, and the reader can still
see the rhythm of suspense and resolution every couple of chapters that kept all of England
waiting for the next issue.
Though a dark novel, Great Expectations was deliberately more humorous than its predecessor A
Tale of Two Cities, and even while it presented Dickens ever present social critique, it did so in a
way that made people laugh.
The greatest difference between Great Expectations and Dickens earlier novels is the
introduction of dramatic psychological transformations within the lead characters, as opposed to
characters that are changed only through their circumstances and surrounding. The story of Pip is
a Bildungs roman a story that centers on the education or development of the protagonist and
we can fallow closely the things that Pip learns and then has to unlearn.
All in all, Great Expectations is considered the best balanced of all Dickens novels, though a
controversy still persists over the ending. Dickens had originally written an ending where Pip
and Estella never get back together. Many critics, including George Bernard Shaw, believe that
this rather depressing ending was more consistent with the overall theme and tone of the novel,
which began, continued, and perhaps should have finished with a serious, unhappy note.
Nevertheless, Dickens published the ending where all is forgiven and Estella and Pip walk out of
the Satis House garden together.
It was, perhaps, and ending that Dickens would have liked to have had for his own life. Dickens
published one more novel, Our Mutual Friend, before dying in 1870.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS is the story of Pip, an orphan boy adopted by a blacksmiths family,
who has good luck and great expectations, and then loses both his luck and his expectations.
Through this rise and fall, however, Pip learns how to find happiness. He learns the meaning of
friendship and the meaning of love and, of course, becomes a better person for it.
The story opens with the narrator, Pip, who introduces himself and describes a much younger Pip
staring at the gravestones of his parents. This tiny, shivering bundle of a boy is suddenly terrified
by a man dressed in a prison uniform. The man tells Pip that if he wants to live, hell go down to
his house and bring him back some food and a file for the shackle on his leg.
Pip runs home to her sister, Mrs. Joe Gragery, and his adoptive father, Joe Gragery. Mrs. Joe is a
loud, angry, nagging woman who constantly reminds Pip and her husband Joe of the difficulties
she has gone through to raise Pip and take care of the house. Pip finds solace from these rages in
Joe, who is more his equal than a paternal figure, and they are united under a common
oppression.
Pip steals food and a pork pie from the pantry shelf and a file from Joes forge and brings them
back to the escaped convict the next morning. Soon thereafter, Pip watches the man get caught
by soldiers and the whole event soon disappears from his young mind.
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Mrs. Joe comes home one evening, quite excited, and proclaims that Pip is going to play for
Miss Havisham, a rich and grim lady who lived in a large and dismal house.
Pip is brought to Miss Havishams place, a mansion called the Satis house, where sunshine
never enters. He meets a girl about his age, Estella, who was very pretty and seemed very
proud. Pip instantly falls in love with her and will love her for the rest of the story. He then
meets Miss Havisham, a willowy, yellowed old woman dressed in an old wedding gown. Miss
Havisham, seems most happy when Estella insults Pips coarse hands and his thick boots as they
play. Pip is insulted, but thinks there is something wrong with him. He vows to change, to
become uncommon, and to become a gentleman.
Pip continues to visit Estella and Miss Havisham for eight months and learns more about their
strange life. Miss Havisham brings him into a great banquet hall where a table is set with food
and large wedding cake. But the food and the cake are years old, untouched except by a vast
array of rats, beetles and spiders which crawl freely through the room. Her relatives all come to
see her on the same day of the year: her birthday and wedding day, the day when the cake was
set out and the clocks were stopped many years before; i.e. the day Miss Havisham stopped
living.
Pip begins to dream what life would be like if he were a gentleman and wealthy. This dream ends
when Miss Havisham asks Pip to bring Joe to visit her, in order that he may start his indenture as
a blacksmith. Miss Havisham gives Joe twenty five pounds for Pips service to her and says
good-bye.
Pip explains his misery to his readers: he is ashamed of his home, ashamed of his trade. He
wants to be uncommon, he wants to be a gentleman. He wants to be a part of the environment
that he had a small taste of at the Manor House.
Early in this indenture, Mrs. Joe is found lying unconscious, knocked senseless by some
unknown assailant. She has suffered some serious brain damage, having lost much of voice, her
hearing, and her memory. Furthermore, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient.
To help with the housework and to take care of Mrs. Joe, Biddy, a young orphan friend of Pips,
moves into the house.
The years pass quickly. It is the fourth year of Pips apprenticeship and he is sitting with Joe at
the pub when they are approached by a stranger. Pip recognizes him, and his smell of soap, as
a man he had once run into at Miss Havishams house years before.
Back at the house, the man, Jaggers, explains that Pip now has great expectations. He is to be
given a large monthly stipend, administrated by Jaggers who is a lawyer. The benefactor,
however, does not want to be known and is to remain a mystery.
Pip spends an uncomfortable evening with Biddy and Joe, then retires to bed. There, despite
having all his dreams come true, he finds himself feeling very lonely. Pip visits Miss Havisham
who hints subtly that she is his unknown sponsor.
Pip goes to live in London and meets Wemmick, Jaggers square-mouth clerk. Wemmick brings
Pip to Bernards Inn, where Pip will live for the next five years with Matthew Pockets son
Herbert, a cheerful young gentleman that becomes one of Pips best friend. From Herbert, Pip
finds out that Miss Havisham adopted Estella and raised her to wreak revenge on the male
gender by making them fall in love with her, and then breaking their hearts.
Pip is invited to dinner at Wemmicks whose slogan seems to be Office is one thing, private life
is another. Indeed, WEmmick has a fantastical private life. Although he lives in a small cottage,
the cottage has been modified to look a bit like a castle, complete with moat, drawbridge, and a
firing cannon.
The next day, Jaggers himself invites Pip an friends to dinner. Pip, on Wemmicks suggestion,
looks carefully at Jaggers servant woman a tigress according to Wemmick. She is about
forty, and seems to regard Jaggers with a mix of fear and duty.
Pip journeys back to the Satis House to see Miss Havisham and Estella, who is now older and so
much more beautiful that her doesnt recognize her at first. Facing her now, he slips back into
the coarse and common voice of his youth and she, in return, treats him like the boy he used to
be. Pip sees something strikingly familiar in Estellas face. He cant quite place the look, but an
expression on her face reminds him of someone.
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Pip stays away from Joe and Biddys house and the forge, but walks around town, enjoying the
admiring looks he gets from his past neighbors.
Soon thereafter, a letter for Pip announces the death of Mrs. Joe Gragery. Pip returns home again
to attend the funeral. Later, Joe and Pip sit comfortably by the fire like times of old. Biddy
insinuates that Pip will not be returning soon as he promises and he leaves insulted. Back in
London, Pip asks Wemmick for advice on how to give Herbert some of his yearly stipend
anonymously.
Narrator Pip describes his relationship to Estella while she lived in the city: I suffered every
kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me, he says. Pip finds out that Drummie, the
most repulsive of his acquaintances, has begun courting Estella.
Years go by and Pip is still living the same wasteful life of a wealthy young man in the city. A
rough sea-worn man of sixty comes to Pips home on a stormy night soon after Pips twenty-four
birthday. Pip invites him in, treats him with courteous disdain, but then begins to recognize him
as the convict that he fed in the marshes when he was a child. The man, Magwitch, reveals that
he is Pips benefactor. Since the day that Pip helped him, he swore to himself that every cent he
earned would go to Pip.
Ive made a gentleman out of you, the man exclaims. Pip is horrified. All of his expectations
are demolished. There is no grand design by Miss Havisham to make Pip happy and rich, living
in harmonious marriage to Estella.
The convict tells Pip that he has come back to see him under threat of his life, since the law will
execute him if they find him in England. Pip is disgusted with him, but wants to protect him and
make sure he isnt found and put to death. Herbert and Pip decide that Pip will try and convince
Magwitch to leave England with him.
Magwitch tells them the story of his life. From a very young age, he was alone and got into
trouble. In one of his brief stints actually out of jail, Magwitch met a young well-to-do
gentleman named Compeyson who had his hand in everything illegal: swindling, forgery, and
other white collar crime. Compeyson recruited Magwitch to do his dirty work and landed
Magwitch into trouble with the law. Magwitch hates the man. Herbert passes a note to Pip telling
him that Compeyson was the name of the man who left Miss Havisham on her wedding day.
Pip goes back to Satis house and findsMiss Havisham and Estella in the same banquet room. Pip
breaks down and confesses his love for Estella. Estella tells him straight that she is incapable of
love she has warned him of as much before and she will be married to Drummle.
Back in London, Wemmick tells Pip things he has learned from the prisoners at Newgate. Pip is
being watched, he says, and may be in some danger. As well, Compeyson has made his presence
known in London. Wemmick has already warned Herbert as well. Heeding the warning, Herbert
has hidden Magwitch in his fianc Claras house.
Pip has dinner with Jaggers and Wemmick at Jaggers home. During the dinner, Pip finally
realizes the similarities between Estella and Jaggers servant woman. Jaggers servant woman is
Estellas mother!
On their way home together, Wemmick tells the story of Jaggers servant woman. It was Jaggers
first big break-through case, the case that made him. He was defending this woman in a case
where she was accused of killing another woman by strangulation. The woman was also said to
have killed her own child, a girl, at about the same time as the murder.
Miss Havisham asks Pip to come visit her. He finds her again sitting by the fire, but this time she
looks very lonely. Pip tells her how he was giving some of his money to help Herbert with his
future, but now must stop since he himself is no longer taking money from his benefactor. Miss
Havisham wants to help, and she gives Pip nine hundred pounds to help Herbert out. She then
asks Pip for forgiveness. Pip tells her she is already forgiven and that he needs too much
forgiving himself not to be able to forgive others.
Pip goes for a walk around the garden then comes back to find Miss Havisham on fire! Pip puts
the fire out, burning himself badly in the process. The doctors come and announce that she will
live.
Pip goes home and Herbert takes care of his burns. Herbert has been spending some time with
Magwitch at Claras and has been told the whole Magwitch story. Magwitch was the husband of
Jaggers servant woman, the Tigress. The woman had come to Magwitch one day she murdered
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the other woman and told him she was going to kill their child and that Magwitch would never
see her. And Magwitch never did. Pip puts is all together and Tells Herbert that Magwitch is
Estellas father.
It is time to escape with Magwitch. Herbert and Pip get up the next morning and start rowing
down the river, picking p Magwitch at the preappointed time. They are within a few feet of a
steamer that they hope to board when another boat pulls alongside to stop them. In the confusion,
Pip sees Compeyson leading the oher boat, but the steamer is on top of them. The steamer
crushes Pips boat, Compeyson and Magwitch disappear under the water, and Pip and Herbert
find themselves in a police boat of sorts. Magwitch finally comes up from the water. He and
Compeyson wrestled for a while, but Magwitch let him go and he is presumably drowned. Once
again, Magwitch is shackled and arrested.
Magwitch is in jail and quite ill. Pip attends to the ailing Magwitch daily in prison. Pip whispers
to him one day that the daughter he thought was dead is quite alive. She is a lady and very
beautiful, Pip says. And I love her. Magwitch gives up the ghost.
Pip falls into a fever nearly a month. Creditors and Joe fall in and out of his dreams and his
reality. Finally, he regains his sense and sees that, indeed, Joe has been there the whole time,
nursing him back to health. Joe tells him that Miss Havisham died during his illness, that she left
Estella nearly all, and Matthew Pocket a great deal. Joe slips away one morning leaving only a
note. Pip discovers that Joe has paid off all his debtors.
Pip is committed to returning to Joe, asking for forgiveness for everything he has done, and to
ask Biddy to marry him. Pip goes to Joe and indeed finds happiness but the happiness is Joe
and Biddys. It is their wedding day. Pip wishes them well, truly, and asks them for their
forgiveness in all his actions. Their happily give it.
Pip goes to work for Herberts firm and lives with the now married Clara and Herbert. Within a
year, he becomes a partner. He pays off his debts and works hard.
Eleven years later, Pip returns from his work overseas. He visit Joe and Biddy and meets their
son, a little Pip, sitting by the fire with Joe just like Pip himself did years ago. Pip tells Biddy
that he is quite the settled bachelor, living with Clara and Herbert and he thinks he will never
marry. Nevertheless, he goes to the Satis House that night to think once again of the girl who got
away. And there he meets Estella. Drummle treated her roughly and recently died. She tells Pip
that she has learned the feeling of heartbreak the hard way and now seeks his forgiveness for
what she did to him. The two walk out of the garden hand in hand, and Pip saw the shadow of
no parting from her.
D DEFOE ROBINSON CRUSOE
CONTEXT
By the time he took up his pen to write Robinson Crusoe at about the age of fifty-eight, Daniel
Defoe had a broader range of experiences behind him than most can claim for a lifetime. At one
time or another he war merchant, a manufacturer, an insurer for ships, a convict, a soldier, an
embezzler, a political spokesman, and of course, an author.
Defoes life was, to say the least, a strange one. He was born Daniel Foe to a family of Dissenters
in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, London; his exact birth date is unknown, but historians
estimate that it was in the year 1659 or 1660. (Why Daniel added De to his surname is a
subject of speculation. He might have decided to return to an original family name. Maybe he
wanted to give himself a high-born cachet. In any event, in his mid-thirties he began signing his
name as Defoe.) James Foe, his father, a butcher by trade, was a sober, deeply pious Presbyterian
of Flemish descent one of perhaps twenty percent of the population that had relinquished ties
to the main body of Church of England. Very little of known of Daniels childhood. However, it
is reasonable to assume as the son of a Dissenter much of his time was spent in religious
observances. It is likely that this spurred the fervent belief in Divine Providence that is so evident
in his writings. Since they were barred from Oxford and Cambridge universities, Dissenters sent
their children to their own schools. Defoes education began in the Rey. James Fishers school in
Dorking, and later, at about the age of fourteen, he was enrolled in the Dissenting academy in
Newington Green. Newingtons headmaster, Rev. Charles Morton, a plain-spoken Puritan, was a
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progressive educator (despite a belief in storks spending the winter on the moon). He gave his
students a thorough grounding in English as well as the customary Greek and Latin. Morton is
seen as a major influence on Defoes writing style; the other influence was the Bible.
Although intended for the ministry, Defoe settled instead on a career as a commission agent. For
more than a decade he traded in a wide range of goods, including stockings, wine, tobacco, and
oysters. Trade was a loved subject of this man. He wrote countless essays and pamphlets on
economic theories which were advanced for his time. Indeed, had he taken his own advice, he
would have been a wealthy man. While his years as a broker endowed him with insight into
human nature, his risky and unscrupulous ventures (he was sued at least eight time, and once
bilked his own mother-in-law out of four hundred pounds in a cat-breeding deal), combined with
bad luck and faulty judgment, more often than not steered him into debt, deceit, and political
double-dealing. Still, in his mind and heart, Defoe undoubtedly saw himself in the role of solid,
middle-class family man. He wrote numerous treatises which demonstrated that he considered
himself an expert on most, it not all, family matters. However, his own marriage to Mary Tuffley,
a merchants daughter, despite its length of forty-seven years and fecundity of eight children,
cannot have been a model of matrimonial paradise. Defoes unstable fortunes, his extended visits
abroad, and his absence while a fugitive from enemies and creditors would have tried the
patience of the most patient, loving spouse. There is evidence also that, in spite of loving them
deeply, Defoe alienated some, if not all, of his children. A year after his marriage, Defoe took up
arms as a Dissenter in Monmouths failed rebellion against the Catholic King James II. Unlike
three of his former classmates who were caught and sent to the gallows, Defoe narrowly missed
the troops and hastened to safety in London. When the king was deposed, Daniel rode with the
volunteer guard of honor that escorted William of Orange and his wife Mari into the city.
Due mainly to losses incurred by insuring ships during a war with France, Defoe faced
bankruptcy in 1692. With creditors hot on his trail he fled to a debtor sanctuary in Bristol, and
from there was able to negotiate terms that spared him the humiliation of debtors prison. Within
ten years he had repaid most of what he owed. Unfortunately, Daniel never fully recovered from
that fiasco. Debt would haunt him as long as he lived. This circumstance can be credited for his
ambivalent political actions and his prodigious output as a writer. He was able to win King
Williams favor, and was appointed Commissioner of the Glass Duty. He was put in charge of
proceeds from a lottery and became the kings confidential advisor and leading pamphleteer.
Defoes fervent sense of justice often led him to tweak the noses of those in high places. His
essays, The shortest Way, would bring him great grief. A satire that poked fun at the manner in
which the Church and State dealt with Dissenters, it infuriated the powers at large and forced
Daniel to go into hiding. He was betrayed by an informant and brought to trial for seditious
libel against the Church. He was jailed and sentenced to three days in the pillory, a manacle
device that exposed a criminal to public ridicule.
A pardon some months later from Queen Anne hardly was a chance to start over. Defoes tile and
brick business had fallen apart during his absence, and he once again faced debtor prison. A grant
of 1000 pounds from the Earl of Oxford allowed Defoe to climb out of debt and start his own
newspaper, the Review. He ran his views and was frequently in trouble for them. After another
arrest in 1715 for libel, Defoe spent his time covertly editing other newspapers as he worked on
novels such as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. He died in 1731, poor and fighting.
The adventures of Crusoe on his island, the main part of Defoes novel, are based largely on the
central incident in the life of an undisciplined Scotsman, Alexander Selkirk. Although it is
possible, even likely that Defoe met Selkirk before he wrote his book, he used only this one
incident in the real sailors turbulent history. In these days the island was known as the island of
Juan Fernandez. Selkirk was not the first person to be stranded here at least two other incidents
of solitary survival are recorded. A Mosquito (Guyanese) Indian, Will, was abandoned there in
1681 when a group of buccaneers fled at the approach of unknown ships. The pilot of Wills ship
claimed that another man had lived there for five years before being rescued some years before.
Three years later, Will was picked up alive and well by an expedition that contained William
Dampier, a keen observer who was good enough to recount that journey and a subsequent one in
1703, which Selkirk attended.
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Dampier was sailing in command of a privateer ting expedition that consisted of two ships.
Alexander was the first mate on one of them. The purpose was to harry the Spanish and
Portuguese shipping off the estuary. Failing this, the buccaneers would try their fortune off the
shore of Peru. As they reached the area of the Juan Fernandez islands, the ships could not agree
on a course of action. By a stroke of bad luck, the ships were separated. Selkirks ship, the
Cinque Ports, found herself in the Juan Fernandez islands, in great need of repair. Stradling,
captain of the ship, preferred to keep account of the rescue: Twas he that made the fire last night
when he saw our Ships, which he judged to be English he had with him his clothes and
bedding, with a fire-lock, some powder, bullets and tobacco, a hatchet, a knife, a kettle, a Bible,
mathematical instruments, and books He built two huts with pimento trees, covered them with
long grass, and lined them with the skin of goats, which he killed himself he was greatly
pestered by cats and rats At his first coming on board with us, he had so much forgot his
language for want of use, that we could scarcely understand him. Upon returning to England,
Selkirk was interviewed by the writer Richard Steele. His story appeared in the periodical The
Englishman, and was a source of wonder for many. The bottom line: he is happiest who
confines his wants to natural necessities.
ROBINSON CRUSOE is a youth of about eighteen years old who resides in Hull, England.
Although his father wishes him to become a lawyer, Crusoe dreams of going on sea voyages. He
disregards the fact that his two older brothers are gone because of their need for adventure. His
father cautions that a middle-class existence is the most stable. Robinson ignores him. When his
parents refuse to let him take at least one journey, he runs away with a friend and secures free
passage to London. Misfortune begins immediately, in the form of rough weather. The ship is
forced to land at Yarmouth. When Crusoes friend learns the circumstances under which he left
his family, he becomes angry and tells him that he should have never come to the sea. They part,
and Crusoe makes his way to London via land. He thinks briefly about going home, but cannot
stand to be humiliated. He manages to find another voyage headed to Guiana. Once there, he
wants to become a trader. On the way, the ship is attacked by Turkish pirates, who bring the crew
and passengers into the Moorish port of Sallee. Robinson is made a slave. For two years he plans
an escape. An opportunity is presented when he is sent out with two Moorish youths to go
fishing. Crusoe throws one overboard, and tells the other one, called Xury, that he may stay if he
is faithful. They anchor on what appears to be uninhabited land. Soon they see that black people
live there. These natives are very friendly to Crusoe and Xury. At one point, the two see a
Portuguese ship in the distance. They manage to paddle after it and get the attention of those on
board. The captain is kind and says he will take them aboard for free and bring them to Brazil.
Robinson goes to Brazil and leaves Xury with the captain. The captain and a widow in England
are Crusoes financial guardians. In the new country, Robinson observes that much wealth comes
from plantations. He resolves to buy one for himself. After a few years, he has some partners,
and they are all doing very well financially. Crusoe is presented with a new proposition: to begin
a trading business. These men want to trade slaves, and they want Robinson to be the master of
the trade post. Although he knows he has enough money, Crusoe decides to make the voyage. A
terrible shipwreck occurs and Robinson is the only survivor. He manages to make it to the shore
of an island.
Robinson remains on the island for twenty-seven years. He is able to take many provisions from
the ship. In that time, he recreates his English life, building homes, necessities, learning how to
cook, raise goats and crops. He is at first very miserable, but embraces religion as a balm for his
unhappiness. He is able to convince himself that he lives much better life here than he did in
Europe much more simple, much less wicked. He comes to appreciate his sovereignty over the
entire island. One time he tries to use a boat to explore the rest of the island, but he is almost
swept away, and does not make the attempt again. He has pets whom he treats as subjects. There
is no appearance of man until about 15 years into his stay. He sees a footprint, and later observes
cannibalistic savages eating prisoners. They dont live on the island; they come in canoes from a
mainland not too far away. Robinson is field with outrage, and resolves to save the prisoners the
next time these savages appear. Some years later they return. Using his guns, Crusoe scares them
away and saves a young savage whom he names Friday.
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Friday is extremely grateful and becomes Robinsons devoted servant. He learns some English
and takes on the Christian religion. For some years the two live happily. Then, another ship of
savage arrives with three prisoners. Together Crusoe and Friday are able to save two of them.
One is Spaniard; the other is Fridays father. Their reunion is very joyous. Both have come from
the mainland close by. After a few months, they leave to bring back the rest of the Spaniards
men. Crusoe is happy that his island is being peopled. Before the Spaniard and Fridays father
can return, a boat of European men comes ashore. There are three prisoners. While most of the
men are exploring the island, Crusoe learns from one that he is the captain of a ship whose crew
mutinied. Robinson says he will help them as long as they leave the authority of the island in his
hands, and as long as they promise to take Friday and himself to England for free. The agreement
is made. Together this little army manages to capture the rest of the crew and retake the captains
ship. Friday and Robinson are taken to England. Even though Crusoe has been gone thirty-five
years, he finds that his plantations have done well and he is very wealthy. He gives money to the
Portuguese captain and the widow who were so kind to him. He returns to the English
countryside and settles there, marrying and having three children. When his wife dies, he once
more goes to the sea.
J. CONRAD HEART OF DARKNESS
Joseph Conrad grew up in the Polish Ukraine, a large, fertile plain between Poland and Russia. It
was a divided nation, with four languages, four religions, and a number of different classes. A
fraction of the Polish-speaking inhabitants, including Conrads family, belonged to the Szlachta,
a hereditary class below the aristocracy, which combined qualities of gentry and nobility. They
had the political power, despite their impoverished state. Conrads father, Apollo Korzeniowski,
belonged to this class. He studied for six years at St. Petersburg University, which he left before
earning a degree. Apparently, he was physically unattractive and unpleasant. Conrads mother,
Eva Bobrowska, was thirteen years younger than Apollo and the only surviving daughter in a
family of six sons. After his parents met in 1847, Eva was drawn to Apollos poetic temperament
and passionate patriotism, while he admired her lively imagination and warm heart. Although
Evas family disapproved of the courtship, they eventually realized that their daughter would
remain unmarried if she could not have the man she loved, so the two were married in 1856.
Instead of devoting himself to the management of his wifes agricultural estates, Apollo pursued
literary and political activities, which brought in little money. He wrote a variety of plays and
social satires. Although his works were little known, they would have tremendous influence on
his son.
A year into the marriage, Eva became pregnant with Joseph, who was born in 1857. (Conrad is
actually a middle part of his name.) The Crimean War had just ended, and hopes were high for
Polish independence. The family of young Joseph moved quite a bit, and he never formed close
friendships in Poland. Music was one of his earliest memories, and the image of his mother at the
piano was lasting.
Family happiness was then shattered Apollo was arrested on suspicion of involvement in
revolutionary activities. From then on, the family was thrown into exile and unsettled. Eva
gradually developed tuberculosis, and she died in 1865. The seven-year-old Conrad, who
witnessed her decline, was absolutely devastated. He also developed health problems (migraines
and lung inflammation), which persisted throughout his life. Unfortunately, Apollo too fell into
decline, frustrated with his lack of success in stirring up revolution, and he died of tuberculosis
in 1869. At age eleven, Joseph became an orphan.
The young boy became the ward of his uncle, who loved him dearly and essentially replaced
Apollo. Thus began Josephs Cracow years, which ended when he left Poland in 1874. This
move was a complex decision, resulting from what he saw as the intolerably oppressive
atmosphere of the Russian garrison.
He spent the next few years in France, mastering his second language and the fundamentals of
seamanship. The author made acquaintance in many circles, but his bohemian friends were the
ones who introduced him to drama, opera and theatre. In the meantime, he was strengthening his
maritime contacts, and he soon became an observer on pilot boats. The workers he met on the
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ship, together with all the experiences they thrust upon him, laid the groundwork for much of the
vivid details in his novels.
By 1878, Joseph had made his way to England with the intention of becoming an officer among
the British ships. He ended up spending twenty more years at sea. Conrad would take voyages
for a long period and then take rest time on shore. This was a cyclic pattern.
When he was not at sea, writing letters or writing in journals, Joseph was exploring other means
of making money. Unlike his father, who practically abhorred money, Conrad was obsessed by it;
he was always on the lookout for business opportunities.
Once the author had worked his way up to shipmaster, he made a series of eastern voyages over
three years. At this time he suffered a severe back injury from which he never completely
recovered. Conrad remained in the English port of Mauritius for two months. In Mauritius he
unsuccessfully courted to women. Frustrated, he left and journeyed to England for a good long
while.
In England in the summer of 1889, Conrad began the crucial transition sailor to writer by starting
his first novel, Almayers Folly. Interestingly, he chose to write in English, his third language.
This decision showed his commitment to England.
A journey to the Congo in 1890 was Josephs real inspiration to write Heart of Darkness. His
outrage and condemnation of colonialism were well documented in the journal he kept during his
visit. He returned to England and soon faced the death of his beloved guardian-uncle. In the
meantime, Conrad became closer and closer to Marguerite, an older family friend who was his
closest confidant. For six years he constantly tried to establish intimacy with her, but he was
eventually discouraged by the age difference and their disparity in social position.
Then, 1894 was a landmark year for Conrad: his first novel was published; he met Edward
Garnett, who would become a lifelong friend; and he met Jessie George, his future wife. The
two-year courtship between the 37-year-old Conrad and the 21-year-old Jessie was somewhat
discontinuous in that Conrad pursued other women in the first year of their relationship but
since they all rejected his advances, his attention became strongly focused on Jessie by the
autumn of 1895. Garnett disapproved of the match, especially since Jessie was miles below
Joseph in education and intellectual culture. However, they married in March 1896.
The children who followed the union were not warmly welcomed by their father; an absentminded sort, he expressed surprise each time Jessie delivered a baby. His days were consumed
with writing, trying to find the right word for every sentence. His struggle was no doubt
accentuated by the gaps in his knowledge of the English language.
The major productive phase of Conrads career spanned from 1897 to 1911, during which time
he composed The Nigger of the Narcissus, Youth, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, The
Secret Agent, and Under Western Eyes, among others. During this period, he also experienced
serious financial difficulties, often living off of advances and state grants, there being little in the
way of royalties. It was not until the publication of Chance in 1914 that he experienced the level
of commercial success that afforded a prosperous lifestyle.
As his work declined, he grew increasingly comfortable in his wealth and status. Conrad had a
true genius for companionship, and his circle of friends included talented authors such as
Stephen Crane and Henry James.
Still always writing, he eventually returned to Poland, and then traveled to America, where he
died of a heart attack in 1924, at the age of 67. Conrads literary work would have a profound
impact on the Modernist movement, influencing a long list of writers including T.S. Eliot,
Graham Green, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, Andre Gide, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner.
SHORT SUMMARY
There is a group of men aboard an English ship that is sitting on the Thames. The group includes
a Lawyer, an Accountant, a Company Director/Captain, and a man without a specific profession
called Marlow. The narrator appears to be another unnamed guest on the ship. While they are
loitering about, waiting for the wind to pick up that they might resume their voyage, Marlow
begins t speak about London and Europe as some of the darkest places on earth. The narrator and
other guests do not seem to regard him with much respect. Marlow is a stationary man, very
unusual for a seaman. He is not understood because he does not fit into a neat category in the
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same manner that the others do. He mentions colonization, and says that the taking of the earth is
not something to examine too closely because it is atrocious. He thn moves into narration of a
life experience in Africa, which forced him to become a fresh water sailor and gave him a terrible
glimpse of colonization. With the exception of two or three small paragraphs, perspective shifts
as Marlow becomes the main narrator.
He has always had a passion for travel and exploration. Maps are a small obsession of his.
Marlow decides he wants nothing more than to be the skipper of a steamship that travels up and
down the river in Africa. His aunt has a connection in the Administration Department of a
seafaring / exploration company that gathers ivory, and manages to get Marlow an appointment
<he is replacing a captain who was killed in a skirmish with the natives. When Marlow arrives at
the company office, the atmosphere is extremely dim and forboding. He feels as if everyone is
looking at him pityingly. The doctor who performs his physical asks if there is a history of
insanity in Marlows family, and tells him that nothing could persuade him to attend the
Company down in the Congo. This puzzles Marlow, but he does not think much of it. The next
day he embarks on a one month journey to the primary Company station. The African shores that
he observes look anything but welcoming. They are dark and rather desolate, in spite of the
flurry of human activity around them. When he arrives, Marlow learns that a company member
recently committed suicide. There are multitudes of chain-gang types, who all look at him with
vacant expressions in their eyes. A young boy approaches Marlow, looking very empty. Marlow
can do nothing else but offer him some ship biscuits. He is very relieved to leave the boy behind
as he comes across a very well-dressed man who is his exact picture of respectability and
elegance. They introduce themselves <he is the Chief Accountant of the Company. Marlow
befriends this man, and frequently sends time in his hut when he is going over the accounts.
After ten days of observing the Chief Accountants ill temper, Marlow departs for his 200 mile
journey into the interior of the Congo, where he will work for a station run by a mythic man
named Kurtz.
The journey is arduous. Marlow crosses many paths, deserted dwellings, and black men who are
working. They are never describes as humans. Most often, everyone refers to them in animalistic
terms. Marlow finally arrives at a secondary station, where he meets the Manager, who for now
will oversee his work. It is a strange meeting. The manager smiles in a manner that is very
discomfiting. The ship that Marlow is supposed to sail is currently broken. While they await the
delivery of rivets that is needed to fix it, Marlow spends his time on more mundane tasks. He
frequently hears the name Kurtz around the station. Clearly everyone knows him. It is rumored
that he is ill. Soon the entire crew will depart for a trip to Kurtzs station.
The Managers uncle arrives with his on expedition. Marlow overhears them saying that they
would like to see Kurtz and his assistant hanged so that their station could be eliminated as ivory
competition. After a day of exploring the expedition has lost all of their animals. Marlow sets out
for Kurtzs station with the Pilgrims, the cannibal crew, and the Manager. About eight miles from
their destination, they stop for the night. There is talk of an approaching attack. Rumor has it that
Kurtz might have been killed in a previous one. Some of the pilgrims go ashore to investigate.
The whirring sound of arrows is heard. An attack is underway. The pilgrims shoot back from the
ship with rifles. The helmsman of the ship is killed, as is a native ashore. Marlow supposes that
Kurtz has perished in the attack. This upsets him greatly <over the course of his travelling,
inexplicably he has really looked forward to meeting this man. Marlow shares Kurtzs
background: an English education, a woman at home waiting for him. In spite of Marlows
disappointment, the ship presses onward. A little ways down the river the crew spots Kurtzs
station, which they had supposed was lost. They meet a Russian man who resembles a harlequin.
He says that Kurtz is alive but somewhat ill. The natives do not want Kurtz to leave because he
has expanded their minds. Kurtz does not want to leave because he has essentially become part
of the tribe.
After talking for a while with the Russian, Marlow has a very clear picture of the man who has
become his obsession. Finally he has the chance to talk to Kurtz, who is ill and on his deathbed.
The natives surround his hut until he tells them to leave. While on watch, Marlow dozes off, and
realizes that Kurtz is gone. He chases him and finds Kurtz in the forest. He does not want to
leave the station because his plans have not been fully realized. Marlow manages to take him
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back to his bed. Kurtz entrusts Marlow with all of his old files and papers. Among these is a
photograph of his sweetheart. The Russian escapes before the Manager and others cam imprison
him. The steamboat departs the next day. Kurtz dies onboard a few days later, with Marlow
having attended him until the end.
Marlow returns to England, but the memory of his friend haunts him. He manages to find the
woman from the picture, and he pays her a visit. She talks at length about his wonderful personal
qualities and about how guilty she feels that she was not with him at the last. Marlow lies and
says that her name was the last word spoken by Kurtz <the actual truth is too dark.
The logical point from which to begin analyzing this story is by applying the title to the novel.
Darkness is a problematic word with several meanings. It is initially referred to in the context
of maps <places of darkness have been colored in; therefore they have been settled by explores
and colonialists. The idea of a map is an important symbol. They are guides, records of
exploration. They have dual purposes in that they unlock mysteries by laying out the geography
of unknown lands and they create more mystery by inspiring curiosity about unknown lands on
and off the map. The river is another important symbol. Always moving, not very predictable, the
gateway to a wider world, it is an excellent metaphor for Marlows life. Marlow says as a child
he had a passion for maps, for the glories of exploration. Although this description seems
very positive, it sounds ominous. The tone is of one who recalls childhood notions with
bitterness and regret. The reader can extrapolate these ideas simply by taking into account the
first description of Marlow. The sallow skin and sunken cheeks do not portray him as a healthy
or happy. He has had the chance to explore, and apparently the experience has ruined him in
some respect. This is Conrads way of arranging the overall structure of the novel. The audience
understands that it is to be a recollection, a tale that will account for Marlows presently shaky,
impenetrable state. The author is also presupposing knowledge of colonialism. The bitterness of
Marlows recollection demonstrates Conrads own strong bias against colonialism, which he
wants to impart to the reader. The imagery of light and dark very clearly corresponds to the
tension that is arranged between civilization and savagery. The Thames River is called a
gateway to civilization because it connects to the civilized city of London. It is important to
note that the city is always described in stark contrast to its dark surroundings, which may be
water or land, they are so amorphous.
The vivid language of maps becomes more interesting when we consider that the word darkness
still retains its traditional meaning of evil and dread. The fact that Marlow applies the concept of
darkness to conquered territories once again indicates his negative view of colonialism. He
clearly states that colonists are only exploiting the weakness of others. Their spreading over the
world is no more noble than other types of violence and thievery. On the map, places that are
blank and devoid of outside interference are apparently the most desirable. Darkness has another
application <a color of skin. Much of this chapter is spent discussing Marlows primary
encounters with and observations of the natives of the African Congo. The darkness of their skin
is always mentioned. At first glance, Marlow describes them as mostly black and naked,
moving about like ants. While in the shade, dark things seem to stir feebly. There is
absolutely no differentiation between dark animals and dark people. Even the rags worn by the
native people are described as tails. The constant dehumanization of black people is almost
obsessive on the authors part. He is looking to build a very closed-minded picture of the
colonists. Black shapes crouch on the ground, creatures walk on all fours to get a drink from
the river. They are called shadows: reflections of humans, but not substantial enough to be real.
Marlow observes the piece of white string on a young man, and he is taken aback by how much
the whiteness stands out against the darkness. He cannot seem to conceive of mixing black and
white.
As ignorant as Marlows perceptions may appear to our modern reading, it is crucial to realize
that even before he experiences the African jungle, he exists in a class of his own, separate from
everyone else. It is not accidental that he is the only person on the Thames boat who is named
<all the others are presented as titles of their occupation. He is distinct from them because he has
no category that fits him. He is a man who does not represents his class because he crosses
boundaries. His reaction to the African natives may not be sensitive by our modern standards, but
he is more kindly than the other officers at the stations. The chief accountant dismisses the cries
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of a dying black man as annoying. Clearly he has no respect for the lives of the Africans. The
offering of a biscuit to the young boy with the white string is a nice gesture with deeper meaning.
It appears to be somewhat considerate, but it is also degrading. Marlow does this because he can
think of nothing else to do as he looks into the boys vacant eyes. The action is analogous to
giving a dog some meat, that he might be content and retreat back into his corner. Marlow means
well, but he is definitely a product of the society in which he was raised. Immediately following
the encounter with the young boy, he meets the chief accountant who is perfectly attired with
collar, cuffs, jacket, and all the rest. He refers to him as amazing and a miracle. We observe
at this moment the distinctions between savagery and civilization, at least through Marlows
narrow definitions. The diction demonstrates a type of hero worship for this man. His starched
collars and cuffs are achievements of character, and Marlow respects him on this basis. Taking
account the colonialism factor, however, creates bitter irony <to the author, those who look the
most civilized in this novel are actually the most savage. Indeed, the institution of colonialism is
referred to as a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil. Everything it touches turns sour <the
station is an administrative nightmare, and decaying machinery lies everywhere. Marlow takes
this as an indication of poor work ethic, which he despises. For this reason he is drawn to the
blustering accountant, who is a hard worker if nothing else. The natives are the most affected
people, and Marlow in his own bumbling way tries to relate to them.
The sense of time throughout the chapter is highly controlled. Conrad purposely glides certain
events while he examines others in minute detail. He does this in order to build suspicion about
the place to which Marlow has committed himself. Notice that he painstakingly describes
precursor events such as the doctors visit and all conversations that involve the unseen character
Kurtz. Thus begins Marlows consuming obsession with this man. At the moment, it is more or
less inactive, and does not inspire fear. Perfectly placed leading questions such as the one about a
history of family insanity have the desired effect of alerting readers to a rather fishy situation.
That Marlow ignores all of these warnings creates some dramatic irony <it will take him longer
to arrive at the conclusion which the reader has already reached. One level of speech and
communication in this novel exists in the fact that Marlow is telling a story. His recollections
have a hazy, dreamy quality. The narrative is surely an examination of human spirit. As all stories
are subjective, we have to question how trustworthy both narrative speakers are. The outside
narrator only refers to what Marlow says and does <all others are ignored. There is a definite
selection of fact that occurs. Marlows perception of the African environment, which develop
into a larger theme, illustrates this idea.
As far as Kurtz is concerned, there is incomplete communication <Marlow and the reader know
him, and yet not really. He obviously painted as a sinister character. People discuss him in a
hushed sense, always complimenting him. However, the fact that nobody has anything negative
to say about him is suspicious, as if they are all terribly anxious to stay on his good side. The
portrait in the brick maker / first agents room, of the blind woman holding a torch, suggests the
falling of Kurtz: that he has blindly traveled into a situation and become absorbed in it, much as
the woman is absorbed into the darkness of the painting (with the exception of a torch
<insufficient light). This preemptive warning is useful to keep in mind for the subsequent
chapters.
It is important to see that even in this chaotic jungle, there exists a twisted sense of morality. As
the Manager and his uncle discuss Kurtz, they are willing to do anything that will get him or his
assistant the Russian hanged, that the trading field might be leveled to their advantage, since
anything can be done in this country. They both still retain a sense of law, but the most base
components of their personalities control all their intentions; therefore the civilized law of the
Europe continent is discarded for a more vigilante existence. The revealing of such predatory
nature points to the theme of instilled savagery. Modern novels such as Lord of the Flies borrow
much from Conrads piece. There is an integral connection between mind, body and nature.
Again, however, the lines between civilized and savage are blurred. These two men propose a
very savage solution to a seemingly civilized problem of economic competition. The Congo has
a metaphoric effect on the Europeans, Marlow observes the evil uncle extend his short flipper of
an arm for a gesture that seemed to beckon with a dishonoring flourish before the sunlit face
of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness
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of its heart. There is one of the few instances in which a white man is animalized. The land is a
living entity, one which has the potential to create evil. The proprieties observed by the Manager
are all completely fake <Marlow takes this as an illustration of his hollowness. Conrad is making
a general commentary on human nature. One of Marlows more personally distressing thoughts
is the realization that the monstrous tendencies of the black cannibals are not inhuman
tendencies <the white men possess them in a different form. The African land behaves as an
equalizer: in this setting, all that matters is wit and determination. It appears that living here
allows nature to perform a trick on the inhabitants of the land. While travelling Marlow becomes
somewhat delusional <river travel brings back the past, enlarges and distorts it until it becomes
an uncontrollable paranoia that he is being watched. The telling of the tale takes on the tone of an
epic quest that is larger than life. There is pregnant silence and a falling of the senses. Marlow
appears to be travelling deeply into his own mind. His fanatic interest in the proper working of
things is evident when he states that scraping a ship on the river bottom is sinful. The religious
language demonstrates a mounting kind of panic. This paranoia in turn diminishes his sense of
reality, leaving him searching for a sense of truth and stability. This in part helps to explain his
obsession with Kurtz. Behind the myth of this mysterious figure lies a real, substantial person.
He is the most logical entity on which Marlow can fixate. Being lost in this manner, however,
does not seem to be so terrible. The inferiority of the natives is a thread that runs throughout the
story. About the fireman on his ship, Marlow remarks he was there below me to look at him
was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches. The physical position of the body
corresponds to a mental and social state. The author creates a sense of what might be termed
inherent inferiority of the blacks <in all possible aspects they are subservient to the white man,
and even seeing them wear pants amounts to no more than a warped joke. The one time that a
native actually speaks is when the ship approaches the brush, right before attack, and all he has
to say is that any prisoners should be given to the crew as a meal. More than anything the
comment is laughable. An attack is about to occur, and this man is concerned about eating? It is
Conrads underhanded means of demonstrating the simplicity of the natives. The narrator cannot
understand why the white men were not eaten. He cannot credit the blacks with any intelligence
beyond instinct. During the battle, one native is shot, with Marlow and the Manager watching: I
declare it looked as though he would presently put to us some question in an understandable
language, but he died without uttering a sound. There is never any comprehension of blacks.
They are always evaluated and silenced before they can speak. Marlow does feel a real kinship to
his savage crew, which places him above all other whites. However, he has also has
shortcomings <his appreciation of the helmsman after he has died seems more appropriate to a
machine than a person.
The figure of Kurtz grows more enigmatic this chapter, and we return to the theme of voices and
communication. Communication fails when Marlow cannot decipher the book and when the note
has an incomplete warning. Marlows obsession with Kurtz has reached its height. Talking to this
has become the entire reason for Marlows passage through this jungle. The fact that
authoritative, unpleasant figures such as the Manager dislike Kurtz make the reader more
receptive to liking him. Notice that Marlow and Kurtz are the only two characters in the entire
story who are named. Everyone else is titled, detached and therefore dehumanized. This is an
effective means of drawing a relationship between the two characters before they even meet. As
soon as Marlow believes that Kurtz is dead, his presence begins to dominate him more vividly
<Marlow hears his voice, sees him in action. Kurtz is even stronger than death. The reason Kurtz
affects Marlow so deeply is that he has turned his back on his roots and essentially become
native. This demonstrates that there is much more to Marlows personality that what appears. He
is not the average European. The reader understands that we will receive the most accurate
portrait of Marlow through his interactions with Kurtz.
The Russian says it best: I went a little farther Still I had gone so far that I dont know how Ill
ever get back. The Russian and Marlow are the same, both looking for epiphany and
enlightenment. This is the basic catchphrase of Conrads novel, and it gives us much insight into
the character of Kurtz. It is fascinating that he is the most powerful figure in the story, even
though he does not appear until the end. The author is setting forth a challenge <rather than
directly describing Kurtz, he provides various clues that we must piece together in order to
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understand who Kurtz is. The first conversation that the Russian has with his mentor, about
everything in life, including love, points to a man who is sensitive and introspective. Kurtz
speaks in civil and savage tongues. His eloquence is his trump card, because it disguises his
darkness from sweet people like the Russian. The woman back in Europe who mourns for him
speaks of a generous heart, a noble mind and greatness. The impressions of these two people,
strongly contrast with the opinion of people such as the Manager, who say that Kurtz was
unethically gathering ivory by exploiting the locals. Marlow must stand in for the readers
perspective. From what he sees and reports, the reader realizes that indeed all accounts are true.
Yet Marlow does not see Kurtz as evil for his actions toward the natives because of the idea of
intentions. People such as the Manager truly care only about fulfilling an ivory quota and
becoming wealthy. While Kurtz is certainly consumed with his search for ivory (his face and
body are described in terms of this precious resource), Conrad does not provide any evidence
that he is concerned with the material aspects <his house and existence are extremely simple,
despite all of the ivory he has recovered. If money and fame were the only important entities, he
could have returned to England long ago. The Russian states that Kurtz would lose himself
among the people. The staked heads around his home demonstrate a lack of restraint in the
gratification of various lusts. They are necessary for a man with a bog appetite. Apparently, the
time in the African Congo has been a time of letting go for Kurtz, a time in which passions and
appetites become unbridled, and in which the past no longer matters. Undeniably this is a type of
sickness. The image of Kurtz on his deathbed, opening his mouth wide, gives him a voracious
aspect as if he wants to absorb and swallow everything. His need to plan and consume,
however, has consumed his mind and spirit. It is a remarkable case of colonialism gone awry
<the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the
fantastic invasion. Curiosity that leads to exploration can also lead, more tragically, to a loss of
self. Herein lies a sociopolitical message that is not originally a part of you, lest it winds up
controlling you.
Marlow does not condemn Kurtz because he pities him, sympathizes with his tortured existence.
This is the readers response as well. The moment when Marlow stands between Kurtz and the
horned, demonic-looking man is critical <this figure symbolizes the death and darkness of Kurtz,
and he only turns away from complete desolation because Marlow is there to help him back.
Marlows loyalty allies with Kurtz because his demons are much more evil than those of, say, the
Manager or the Pilgrims. He clearly needs help. Despite the sad circumstances, however, there is
an undercurrent of history that quietly says Kurtz deserves what he gets. The devotion shown to
him by the natives illustrates an almost reciprocal relationship between them. While it is most
likely that they help Kurtz without understanding the material benefits behind the ivory, it is
clear that Kurtz enjoys being a part of them as much as they enjoy having him there. He is
definitely the least biased character in the whole book, which speaks highly for him in the eyes
of a modern reader. Unfortunately, he loses himself, detaches from everything earthly. Kurtzs
soul has broken forbidden boundaries because it only concentrated on itself. He dies painfully
both because his obsessive tasks were not complete, and because his soul has been sold. The
horror he pronounces on his deathbed is a judgment upon how he has lived his life. We can
definitely see Kurtzs demise as a possible end for Marlow if he had not left the Congo. As it
was, the wilderness was certainly creeping and merging into his psyche < there was a moment
when he could not tell the difference between a drum beat and his own heartbeat. He appears to
have escaped in time. Marlows lie at the end of story is both cruel and compassionate. While the
woman is comforted, she will have to continue believing in an illusion. She will never know
what Kurtz became. As Marlow states, the truth is too dark to tell. Truly, his terrible decline is
in vain if no one learns of it. This is completely the point of Marlows telling the tale the people
aboard the Thames river ship. The river, which once led to civilization, now leads into darkness.

JANE AUSTEN
CONTEXT

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

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Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at Steventon, Hampshire, England. She was the
seventh child of the rector of the parish, and lived with her loving family, which included one
sister and six brothers, until they moved to Bath, a setting she utilized to advantage in many of
her novels, when her father retired in 1801. Her father, Reverend George Austen (1731-1805),
was from Kent and attended the Tunbridge School before studying at Oxford and going on to
make a living as a rector at Steventon. Her mother, Cassandra Leigh Austen (1739-1827) was the
daughter of a patrician family. Upon her fathers death in 1805, Austen moved with Cassandra
and her mother to live with her brother Frank, and afterwards moved in 1809 to a cottage at
Chawton, where her wealthy brother Edward had an estate.
Like many women of the era, Austen had almost no formal education, but she was an avid reader
and a highly-regarded critical thinker. Although Austens family was neither noble nor wealthy,
Rev. Austen had a particular interest in education, even for his daughter. In 1783, she received
instruction from a relative in Oxford, and then went to study in Southampton. She also attended
the Reading Ladies Boarding School in the Abbey gatehouse in Reading, Berkshire for one year
(1785-1786). From her teen years old, she wrote comic pieces for an audience, and parodies of
famous eighteenth-century novels in the manner of her novel Northanger Abbey, a satire of Ann
Radcliffes famous Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho. In addition, the youngsters in the
Austen family often staged theatrical productions perhaps similar to the production described in
Mansfield Park.
Unlike many famous writer, who lived lives filled with adventure and travel, Austen lived an
extremely quiet, uneventful life. She never married, but did accept an offer of marriage once
from Harris Bigg-Wither, a big and awkward man six years her junior. However, for some
unknown reason she changed her mind and rescinded her promise the day following her
acceptance. In this era, unmarried women were not highly regarded: women of high social rank
were not permitted to work, and thus remained dependent upon their families for financial
support. For Austen, turning down a marriage proposal was an important decision indeed,
because marriage would have freed her from the embarrassing situation of being a dependent.
More than anyone, Austen was close to her older Cassandra, who was her lifelong companion.
The rest of her siblings were brothers. Frank and Charles went to sea an eventually became
admirals. Most of Austens novels contain admirable characters which go to sea and do very
well. For example, Fanny Prices brother William in Mansfield Park begins his career as a
midshipman and is eventually promoted to Lieutenant thanks to Henry Crawford, who arranges
an interview with his uncle, the Admiral. William is one of the finest, most morally upright
characters in the novel.
Plagued by ill-health, Austen lived much of her life in seclusion. (It is thought that she may have
suffered from Addisons disease.) She died in Winchester on July 8, 1817 and was buried at the
citys famous cathedral.
In all, Jane Austen published four novels anonymously during her life: Sense and Sensibility
(1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), Emma (1815). Two novels,
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously, in 1817. Her novels focus on
courtship and marriage, and remain well-known for Austens satiric depictions of English society
and the manners of the era. Her insights into the lives of women during the late eighteenth
century and the early nineteenth century Regency period, in addition to her highly regarded
ability to handle form, satire, and irony have made her perhaps the most noted and influential
novelist of her time. Incredibly, however, she achieved little renown during her lifetime. In short,
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose work is considered to be a strong influence on the
Western cannon of English literature. Austens portrait, a colored sketch by her sister Cassandra,
is available for viewing in National Portrait Gallery in London.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE published in 1813, is Jane Austens earliest work, and in some sense
also one of her most mature works. Austen began writing the novel in 1796 at the age of twentyone, under the title First Impressions. The original version of the novel was probably in the form
of an exchange of letters. Austens father had offered the manuscript for publication in 1797, but
the publishing company refused to even consider it. Shortly after completing First Impressions,
Austen began writing Sense and Sensibility, which was not published until 1811. She also wrote
some minor works during that time, which were later expanded into full novels. Between 1810
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and 1812 Pride and Prejudice was rewritten for publication. While the original ideas of the novel
come from a girls of 21, the final version has the literary and thematic maturity of a thirty-five
years old woman who has spent years painstakingly drafting and revising, as is the pattern with
all Austens works. Pride and Prejudice is usually considered to be the most popular of Austens
novels.
Pride: As said in the words of Mary at the beginning of the novel, human nature is particularly
prone to [pride] (Volume I, Chapter 5). In the novel, pride prevents the characters from seeing
the truth of a situation and from achieving happiness in life. Pride is one of the main barriers that
creates an obstacle to Elizabeth and Darcys marriage. Darcys pride in his position in society
leads him initially to scorn anyone outside of his own social circle. Elizabeths vanity clouds her
judgment, making her prone to think ill of Darcy and to think well of Wickham. In the end,
Elizabeths rebukes of Darcy help him to realize his fault and to change accordingly, as
demonstrated in his genuinely friendly treatment of the Gardiners, whom he previously would
have scorned because of their low social class. Darcys letters shows Elizabeth that her
judgments were wrong and she realizes that they were based on vanity, not on reason.
Prejudice: Pride and prejudice are intimately related in the novel. As critic, A. Walton Litz
comments, in Pride and Prejudice one cannot equate Darcy with Pride, or Elizabeth with
Prejudice; Darcys pride of place is founded on social prejudice, while Elizabeths initial
prejudice against him is rooted in pride of her own quick perceptions. Darcy, having been
brought up in such a way that he began to scorn all those outside his own social circle, must
overcome his prejudice in order to see that Elizabeth would be a good wife for him and to win
Elizabeths heart. The overcoming of his prejudice is demonstrated when he treats the Gardiners
with great civility. The Gardiners are a much lower class than Darcy, because Mr. Darcy is a
lawyer and must practice a trade to earn a living, rather living off of the interest of an estate as
gentlemen do. From the beginning of the novel Elizabeth prides herself on her keen ability for
perception. Yet this supposed ability is often lacking, as in Elizabeths judgments of Darcy and
Wickham.
Family: Austen portrays the family as primarily responsible for the intellectual and moral
education of children. Mr. and Mrs. Bennets failure to provide this education for their daughters
leads to the utter shamelessness, foolishness, frivolity, and immorality of Lydia. Elizabeth and
Jan have managed to develop virtue and strong characters in spite of the negligence of their
parents, perhaps through the help of their studies and the good influence of Mr. and Mrs.
Gardiner, who are the only relatives in the novel that take a serious concern in the girls wellbeing and provide sound guidance. Elizabeth and Jane are constantly forced to put up with the
foolishness and poor judgment of their mother and the sarcastic indifference of their father. Even
when Elizabeth advises her father not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton, he ignores the advice
because he thinks it would too difficult to deal with Lydias complaining. The result is the
scandal of Lydias elopement with Wickham.
Women and Marriage: Austen is critical of the gender injustice present in19th century English
society,. The novel demonstrates how such as Charlotte need to marry men they are not in love
with simply in order to gain financial security. The entailment of the Longbourn estate is an
extreme hardship of the Bennet family, and is quite obviously unjust. The entailment of Mr.
Bennets estate leaves his daughters in a poor financial situation which both requires them to
marry and makes it more difficult to marry well. Clearly, Austen believes that women are at least
as intelligent and capable as men, and considers their inferior status in society to be unjust. She
herself went against convention by remaining single and earning a living through her novels. In
her personal letters Austen advises friends only to marry for love. Through the plot of the novel it
is clear that Austen wants to show how Elizabeth is able to be happy for refusing to marry for
financial purposes and only marrying a man whom she truly loves and esteems.
Class: Considerations of class are omnipresent in the novel. The novel does not put forth an
egalitarian ideology or call for the leveling of all social classes, yet it does criticize an overemphasis on class. Darcys inordinate pride is based on his extreme class-consciousness. Yet
eventually he sees that factors other than wealth determine who truly belongs in the aristocracy.
While those such as Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, who are born into the aristocracy, are idle,
mean-spirited and annoying, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are not members of the aristocracy in terms
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of wealth or birth but are natural aristocrats by virtue of their intelligence, good-breeding and
virtue. The comic formality of Mr. Collins and his obsequious relationship with Lady Catherine
serve as a satire class consciousness and social formalities. In the end, the verdict on class
differences is moderate. As critic Samuel Kliger notes, It the conclusion of the novel makes it
clear that Elizabeth accepts class relationship as valid, it becomes equally clear that Darcy,
through Elizabeths genius for treating all people with respect for their natural dignity, is
reminded that institutions are not an end in themselves but are intended to serve the end of
human happiness.
Individual and Society: The novel portrays a world in which society takes an interest in the
private virtue of its members. When Lydia elopes with Wickham, therefore, it is scandal to the
whole society and an injury to entire Bennet family. Darcy considers his failure to expose the
wickedness of Wickhams character to be a breach of his social duty because if Wickhams true
character had been known others would not have been so easily deceived by him. While Austen
is critical of societys ability to judge properly, as demonstrated especially in their judgments of
Wickham and Darcy, she does believe that society has a crucial role in promoting virtue. Austen
has a profound sense that individuals are social beings and that their happiness is found through
relationships with others. According to critic Richard Simpson, Austen has a thorough
consciousness that man is a social being, and that apart from society there is not even the
individual.
Virtue: Austens novels unite Aristotelian and Christian conceptions of virtue. She sees human
life as purposeful and believes that human beings must guide their appetites and desires through
their use of reason. Elizabeths folly in her misjudgments of Darcy and Wickham is that her
vanity has prevented her from reasoning objectively. Lydia seems almost completely devoid of
virtue because she has never trained herself to discipline her passions or formed her judgment
such that she is capable of making sound moral decisions. Human happiness is found by living a
life in accordance with human dignity, which is a life in accordance with virtue. Self-knowledge
has a central place in the acquisition of virtue, as it is a prerequisite for moral improvement.
Darcy and Elizabeth are only freed of their pride and prejudice when their dealings with one
another help them to see their faults and spur them to improve.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE is set primarily in the country of Hertfordshire, about 50 miles
outside of London. The novel opens at with a conversation at Longbourn, the Bennets estate,
about the arrival of Mr. Bingley, a single man with large fortune, to Netherfield Park, a nearby
estate. Mrs. Bennet, whose obsession is to find husbands for her daughters, sees Mr. Bingley as a
potential suitor. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have five children: Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia.
The Bennets first acquaintance with Mr. Bingley and his companions is at the Meryton Ball. Mr.
Bingley takes a living to Jane and is judged by the townspeople to be perfectly amiable and
agreeable. Mr. Bingleys friend Mr. Darcy, however, snubs Elizabeth and is considered to be
proud and disagreeable because of his reserve and his refusal to dance. Bingleys sisters are
judged to be amiable by Jane but Elizabeth finds them to be arrogant.
After further interactions, it becomes evident that Jane and Bingley have a preference for one
another, although Bingleys partiality is more obvious than Janes because she is universally
cheerful and amiable. Charlotte Lucas, a close friend of Elizabeth with more pragmatic views on
marriage, recommends that Jane make her regard for Bingley more obvious. At the same time,
Mr. Darcy begins to admire Elizabeth, captivated by her fine eyes and lively wit.
When Jane is invited for dinner at Netherfield, Mrs. Bennet refuses to provide her with a
carriage, hopping that because it is supposed to rain Jane will be forced to spend the night.
However, because Jane gets caught in the rain, she falls ill and is forced to stay at Netherfield
until she recovers. Upon hearing that Jane is ill, Elizabeth walks to Netherfield in order to go
nurse her sister. Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst (Bingleys sister) are scandalized that Elizabeth
walked so far alone in the mud. Seeing that Jane would like Elizabeth to stay ith her, Bingleys
sisters invite Elizabeth to remain at Netherfield until Jane recovers.
During her stay at Netherfield, Elizabeth increasingly gains the admiration of Mr. Darcy. She is
blind to his partiality, however, and continues to think him a most proud and haughty man
because of the judgment she made of him when he snubbed her at the ball. Miss Bingley, who is
obviously trying to gain the admiration of Mr. Darcy, is extremely jealous of Elizabeth and tries
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to prevent Mr. Darcy from admiring her by making rude references to the poor manners of
Elizabeths mother and younger sisters and to her lower class relatives. When Mrs. Bennet and
her younger daughters come to visit Jane, Elizabeth is mortified by their foolishness and
complete lack of manners. Bingleys admiration for Jane continues unabated and is evident in his
genuine solicitude for her recovery. After Jane recovers, she returns home with Elizabeth.
A militia regiment is stationed at the nearby town of Meryton, where Mrs. Bennets sister Mrs.
Phillips lives. Mrs. Phillips is just as foolish as Mrs. Bennet. Lydia and Kitty love to go to
Meryton to visit their aunt and socialize with the militias officers.
Mr. Collins, a cousin of Mr. Bennet who is in line to inherit Longbourn because the estate has
been entailed away from the female line, writes a letter stating his intention to visit. When he
arrives, he makes it clear that he hopes to find a suitable wife among the Miss Bennet. Mr.
Collins is a clergyman, and his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh (who is also Darcys aunt),
has suggested that he find a wife, and he hops to lessen the hardship of the entailment by
marrying one of Mr. Bennets daughter. Mr. Collins is a silly man who speaks in long, pompous
speeches and always has an air of solemn formality.
When the Miss Bennet and Mr. Collins go for a walk to Meryton, they are introduced to an
officer in the regiment named Mr. Wickham. They also run into Mr. Darcy, and when Darcy and
Wickham meet both seem to be extremely uncomfortable. Mr. Wickham immediately shows a
partiality for Elizabeth and they speak at length. Wickham tells Elizabeth that the reason for the
mutual embarrassment when he and Darcy met is that Darcys father had promised that
Wickham, his godson, should be given a good living after his death, but that Darcy had failed to
fulfill his fathers dying wishes and had left Wickham to support himself. Elizabeth, already
predisposed to think badly of Darcy, does not question Wickhams account. When Elizabeth tells
Jane Wickhams story, Jane refuses think badly of either Wickham or Darcy and assumes there
must be some misunderstanding.
As promised, Bingley hosts a ball at Netherfield. He and Jane stay together the whole evening,
and their mutual attachment becomes increasingly obvious. Mrs. Bennet speaks of their marriage
as imminent over dinner, within earshot of Mr. Bingleys friend Mr. Darcy. Darcy asks Elizabeth
to dance with her and she inadvertently accepts. She does not enjoy it and cannot understand
why he asked her. Mr. Collins pays particularly close attention to Elizabeth at the ball, and even
reserves the first two dances with her.
The next day Mr. Collins proposes to Elizabeth. She refuses him, and after a while Mr. Collins
comes to understand that her refusal is sincere, not just a trick of female coquetry. Mrs. Bennet is
extremely angry at Elizabeth for not accepting, but Mr. Bennet is glad. Mr. Collins shifts his
attention to Elizabeths friend Charlotte Lucas. He proposes to Charlotte and she accepts.
Elizabeth is disappointed in her friend for agreeing to marry such a silly man simply to obtain
financial security.
Bingley goes to London for business and shortly after he leaves his sisters and Darcy go to
London as well. He had planned to return quickly to Netherfield, but Caroline Bingley writes to
Jane and tells her that Bingley will almost definitely not return for about six months. Caroline
also tells Jane that the family hopes Bingley will marry Darcys young sister Georgiana and unite
the fortunes of the two families. Jane is heartbroken, thinking that Bingley must not really be
attached to her. Elizabeth thinks that Darcy and Bingleys sisters somehow managed to convince
Bingley to stay in London rather than returning to Netherfield to propose to Jane.
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, Elizabeths aunt and uncle, come to Longbourn to visit. They invite Jane
to come and spend some time with them in London, hoping that the time away will help to cheer
her up. Elizabeth also hopes that Jane will run into Bingley while in London. Mrs. Gardiner, after
observing Elizabeth and Wickham together, warns Elizabeth against the imprudence of a
marriage to Wickham because of his poor financial situation, and advises Elizabeth not to
encourage his attentions so much.
While in London Jane is treated very rudely by Caroline Bingley and comes to realize that she is
not a sincere friend. She assumes that Mr. Bingley knows she is in London, and decides that he
must no longer be partial to her since she does not hear from him at all.
Wickham suddenly transfers his attention from Elizabeth to Miss King, who has recently
acquired 10.000 pounds from an inheritance.
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Along with Sir William Lucas and Maria Lucas (Charlottes father and younger sister) Elizabeth
goes to visit Charlotte (now Mrs. Collins) at her new home in Kent. On their way they stop to see
the Gardiners. Upon hearing of Wickhams change of affections, Mrs. Gardiner is critical, but
Elizabeth defends him.
While staying with the Collinses, Elizabeth and the others are often invited to dine at Rosings,
the large estate of Mr. Collins patroness Lady Catherine. Lady Catherine is completely arrogant
and domineering. After Elizabeth has been at the Parsonage for a fortnight, Mr. Darcy and his
cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam visit Rosings. Elizabeth and Colonel Fitzwilliam get along very well.
Darcy also seems to be paying a lot of attention to Elizabeth, and often visits her and Charlotte at
the Parsonage along with Colonel Fitzwilliam. He also purposely meets her very frequently on
her usual walking route through the park.
While walking one day with Elizabeth, Colonel Fitzwilliam tells Elizabeth how Darcy recently
saved a close friend from an imprudent marriage. Elizabeth concludes from this comment that it
must have been Darcys advice which convinced Bingley not to propose Jane. She becomes so
angry and upset that she gets a terrible headache and decides not to go to Rosings for dinner.
While she is alone at the Parsonage, Darcy pays a visit. He tells her that in spite of all his efforts
to avoid it because of her low family connections, he has fallen in love with her and wants to
marry her. Elizabeth is shocked. She rudely refuses and rebukes him for the ungentlemanlike
manner in which he proposed, as well as for preventing the marriage of Bingley and Jane and for
ill-treating Wickham. Darcy is shocked because he had assumed she would accept.
The next day Darcy finds Elizabeth and hands her a letter then quickly leaves. The letter contains
an explanation of his reasons for advising Bingley not to marry Jane and for his actions toward
Wickham. He had prevented Bingley from proposing to Jane because it did not seem to him that
Jane was truly attached to Bingley. Wickham was Darcys father god-son. Before his death,
Darcys father had asked Darcy to provide Wickham with a living if Wickham were to decide to
enter the clergy. Wickham, however, did not want to enter the clergy. He asked Darcy for 3.000
pounds, purportedly for law school, and agreed not to ask for any more. Darcy gave Wickham
the money and he squandered it all on dissolute living, then came back and told Darcy he would
like to enter the clergy if he could have the living promised to him. Darcy refused. Later, with the
help of her governess Miss Younge, Wickham got Darcys younger sister Georgiana to fall in
love with him and agree to an elopement, in order to revenge himself on Mr. Darcy and get Miss
Darcys fortune. Fortunately, Darcy found out and intervened at the last minute.
After reading these explanations in the letter Elizabeths first reaction is disbelief, but after
reflecting upon and slowly rereading the letter, she begins to see that Darcy is telling the truth
and that she was only inclined to believe Wickhams story because he had flattered her with his
attentions, while she was inclined to think ill of Darcy because he had wounded her pride on
their first meeting.
Soon afterwards, Elizabeth returns home from her stay with the Collinses and Jane returns from
her stay with the Gardiners. When they return their mother and sisters are upset because the
regiment stationed in Meryton will soon be leaving, depriving them of most of their amusement.
Lydia receives an offer from Mrs. Forster, Colonel Fortsters wife, to accompany her to Brighton,
where the regiment will be going. Elizabeth advises her father not to allow Lydia to go, thinking
that such a trip could lead to serious misconduct on Lydias part because of the flirtatiousness
and frivolity of her character and her complete lack of a sense of propriety. However, Mr. Bennet
does not heed Elizabeths advice.
Elizabeth goes on vacation with the Gardiners. Their first stop is in the area of Pemberley, Mr.
Darcys estate. The Gardiners want to take a tour, and having found out that Mr. Darcy is away,
Elizabeth agrees. During their tour of the estate the housekeeper tells them about how kind and
good-natured Darcy is. Elizabeth is impressed by this praise, and also thinks of how amazing it
would be to be the mistress of such an estate. During their tour of the gardens Elizabeth and the
Gardiners run into Mr. Darcy, who has returned early from his trip. Darcy is extremely cordial to
both Elizabeth and the Gardiners and tells Elizabeth that he wants her to meet his sister
Georgiana as soon as she arrives.
Darcy and Georgiana pay a visit to Elizabeth and the Gardiners at their inn on the very morning
of Georgianas arrival. Bingley comes to visit as well. It is clear that he still has a regard for Jane.
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Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth return their civilities by calling at Pemberley to visit Georgiana.
Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst are there as well, and they thinly conceal their displeasure at seeing
Elizabeth.
One morning Elizabeth receives a letter from Jane announcing that Lydia has eloped with
Wickham, and that they fear Wickham does not actually intend to marry her. Jane asks Elizabeth
to return home immediately. Darcy comes to the door just after Elizabeth has received the news.
She explains to him what has happened. He feels partially to blame for not having exposed
Wickhams character publicly.
Elizabeth and the Gardiners depart for Longbourn immediately. Mrs. Bennet is in hysterics and
the entire burden of keeping the household together in this moment of crisis has fallen on Janes
shoulders. They find out from Colonel Forster that Wickham has over 1.000 pounds of gambling
debts and nearly that much owed to merchants. The next day Mr. Gardiner goes to join Mr.
Bennet in London to help him search for Lydia. After many days of fruitless searches Mr. Bennet
returns home and leaves the search in Mr. Gardiners hands.
Soon a letter arrives from Mr. Gardiner explaining that Lydia and Wickham have been found and
that Wickham will marry Lydia if Mr. Bennet provides her with her equal share of his wealth. T
Knowing that, with his debts, Wickham would never have agreed to marry Lydia for so little
money, Mr. Bennet thinks that Mr. Gardiner must have paid off Wickhams debts for him.
After their marriage Lydia and Wickham come to visit Longbourn. Lydia is completely
shameless and not the least bit remorseful for her conduct. Mrs. Bennet is very happy to have
one of her daughters married.
Elizbeth hears from Lydia that Darcy was present at the wedding. She writes to her aunt to ask
her why he was there. She responds explaining that it was Darcy who had found Lydia and
Wickham and who had negotiated with Wickham to get him to marry her. Mrs. Gardiner thinks
that Darcy did this out of love for Elizabeth.
Bingley and Mr. Darcy return to Netherfield Park. They call at Longbourn frequently. After
several days Bingley proposes to Jane. She accepts and all are very happy. In the meantime
Darcy has gone on a short business trip to London. While he is gone Lady Catherine comes to
Longbourne and asks to speak with Elizabeth. Lady Catherine tells Elizabeth that she has heard
Darcy is going to propose to her and attempts to forbid Elizabeth to accept the proposal.
Elizabeth refuses to make any promises. Lady Catherine leaves in a huff.
Darcy returns from his business trip. While he and Elizabeth are walking he tells her that his
affection for her is the same as when he last proposed, and asks her if her disposition toward him
has changed. She says that it has, and that she would be happy to accept his proposal. They speak
about how they have been changed since the last proposal. Darcy realized he had been wrong to
act so proudly and place so much emphasis on class differences. Elizabeth realized that she had
been wrong to judge Darcy prematurely and to allow her judgment to be affected by her vanity.
Both couples marry. Elizabeth and Darcy go to live in Pemberley. Jane and Bingley, after living
in Netherfield for a year, decide to move to an estate near Pemberley. Kitty begins to spend most
of her time with her two sisters, and her education and character begin to improve. Mary remains
at home keeping her mother company. Mr. Bennet is very happy that his two oldest daughters
have married so happily. Mrs. Bennet is glad that her daughters have married so prosperously.
MELVILLE MOBY DICK
CONTEXT
Herman Melville was born on the first of August in 1819 in New York City, the third of eight
children of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill. His ancestors included several Scottish and
Dutch settlers of New York, as well as a number of prominent leaders in the American
Revolution. His paternal grandfather, Major Thomas Melvill, was a member of the Boston Tea
Party, and his maternal grandfather, General Peter Gansevoort, was renowned for leading he
defense of Ft. Stanwix against the British during the revolution.
Melvilles father was involved in the felt and fur important business, yet in 1830 his business
collapsed and the Melvill family moved from New York City to Albany, where Allan Melvill
died two years later. As a child, Herman suffered from extremely poor eyesight caused by a bout
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of scarlet fever, but he was able to attend Male High School despite his difficulties. Herman
Melville worked as a bank clerk before attending the Albany Classical School, and then worked
for a short time as a teacher in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Although he studied surveying al Landingsburgh Academy, in order to take part in the Erie Canal
Project, he did not gain a post with the project and instead shipped out of America as a cabin boy
on the St. Lawrence, bound for Liverpool. By this time, Melville had already started writing. In
January of 1841 Melville undertook a second voyage on the whaler Acushnet from New Bedford
to the South Seas. By June of the following year the Acushnet landed in the Polynesian Islands,
and Melvilles adventures in this area became the basis for his first novel, Typee (1846). This
novel is the reputed story of his life among the cannibalistic Typee people for several months in
1842, but is likely a highly fictionalized dramatization of the actual events. Melcilles second
novel, Omoo (1847) details the adventures of another whaling journey in which Melville took
part in a mutiny and landed in a Tahitian jail, from which he later easily escaped.
Melville took his final whaling voyage as a harpooner on the Charles & Henry, but left the
voyage while on the Hawaiian Islands and returned to America as a sailor on the United States,
reaching Boston in 1844. By the time Melville reached America once more, his familys fortunes
had dramatically improved: his brother Gansevoort had become the secretary for U.S. legation in
London under the Polk Administration. Melville could now support himself solely by writing,
and his first novels were notorious successes. In August 1847 Melville married Elizabeth Shaw,
daughter of the Chief Justice of Massachusetts, and began a new book, Mardi, which would be
published in 1849. The novel was another Polynesian adventure, but its fantastical elements and
jarring juxtaposition of styles made it a critical and commercial disappointment. The successes
Redburn (1849) and White-Jacket (1850) returned to the style that had made Melville famous,
but neither work expanded the authors reputation.
In the summer of 1850, under the influence of Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter,
Melville bought the Arrowhead farm near Pittsfield so that he could live near Hawthorne, and the
two men, who shared similar philosophies, became close. The relationship with Hawthorne
reawakened Melvilles creative energies, and in 1851 Melville published his most renowned
novel, Moby Dick. Although now heralded as a landmark work in American literature, the novel
received little acclaim upon its release. He followed this with Pierre (1852), a novel that drew
from Melvilles experiences as a youth, and the modest success Israel Potter (1855). Melvilles
most significant works outside of Moby Dick include the short stories that he wrote during the
time period, including Bartleby the Scrivener (1853) and Benito Cereno (1855).
In 1856 Melville journeyed to Europe, and he followed this sojourn with the publication of The
Confidence Man (1857), the final novel that Melville would publish during his lifetime. Melville
then devoted himself to lecture tours and a global voyage that he abandoned in San Francisco.
He published some poetry in his remaining years, but these works were of little note.
Melvilles final years were marked by personal tragedy. His son Malcolm shot himself in 1867,
and another son, Stanwix, died after a long and debilitating illness in 1886. During his final years
Melville did return to writing prose, and completed the novel Billy Budd, which was not
published until 1924, several decades after his death. Melville completed Billy Budd, the story of
a sailor who accidentally kills his master after being provoked by a false charge, in April 1891,
and five months later he died, on September 28 in New York City.
The novel Moby Dick was the sixth novel published by Herman Melville, a landmark of
American literature that mixed a number of literary styles including a fictional adventure story,
historical detail and even scientific discussion. The story of the voyage whaling ship Pequod, the
novel draws at least partially from the experiences of its author while a sailor and a harpooner on
whaling ships before settling in New England as a writer.
The title character of Moby Dick was inspired by an article in Knickerbocker magazine in May
1839 entitled Mocha Dick: or the White Whale of the Pacific. The author of this article,
Jeremiah Reynolds, detailed the capture of a giant sperm whale legendary among whalers for its
vicious attacks on ships. The whale was named as such after the Mocca Islands, the area where
the whale was commonly sighted (Dick was used simply because it was a common male
name). The origin of the Moby of the novels title has never been conclusively determined.
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The first publication of Moby Dick was in London in October of 1851. Entitled The Whale, the
novel was published in three volumes and was censored for some of its political and moral
content. The British publisher of the novel, Richard Bentley, inadvertently left out the Epilogue
to the novel, leading many critics to wonder how the tale could be told in the first person by
Ishmael, when the final chapter witnesses the sinking of the Pequod with presumably no
survivors.
The first American publication of the novel came the following month. The American version of
the novel, published by Harper & Brothers, although fixing the narrative error of the British
version through the inclusion of the epilogue, was poorly received by critics and readers who
expected a romantic high seas adventure akin to Melvilles first success. The reputation of the
novel floundered for many years, and it was only after Melvilles death that it became considered
one of the major novels in American literature.
Ahab as Blasphemous Figure:
A major assumption that runs through Moby Dick is that Ahabs quest against the great whale is
a blasphemous activity, even part from the consequences that it has upon its crew. This
blasphemy takes two major forms: the first type of blasphemy to prevail within Ahab is hubris,
the idea that Ahab thinks himself the equal of god. The second type of blasphemy is a rejection
of God altogether for an alliance with the devil. Melville makes this point explicit during various
episodes of the novel, such as the instance in which Gabriel warns Ahab to think of the
blasphemers end (Chapter 71: The Jeroboams Story) and the appraisal of Ahab from Peleg in
which he designates him as an ungodly man (Chapter 16: The Ship).
The idea that Ahabs quest for Moby Dick is an act of defiance toward God assuming that Ahab
is omnipotent first occurs before Ahab is even introduced during Father Mapples sermon. The
lesson of the sermon, which concerns the story of Jonah and the whale, is to warn against the
blasphemous idea that a ship can carry a man into regions where god does not reign. Ahab
parallels this idea when he compares himself to God as the lord over the Pequod (Chapter 109:
Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin). Melville furthers this idea through the prophetic dream that
Fedallah tells Ahab that causes Ahab to conclude that he is immortal.
Nevertheless, a more disturbing type of blasphemy also emerges during the course of the novel
in which Ahab himself does not merely believe omnipotent, but aligns himself with the devil
during his quest. Ahab remains in collaboration with Fedallah, a character rumored by Stubb to
be the devil himself, and when Ahab receives his harpoon he asks that it be baptized in the name
of the devil, not in the name of the father.
The Whale as a Symbol of Unparalleled Greatness:
When Melville, through Ishmael, describes the Sperm Whale during the many non-narrative
chapters of Moby Dick, the idea that the whale has no parallel in excellence recurs as a nearly
labored point. Melville approaches this theme from a variety of standpoints, whether biological
or historical, in order to prove the superiority of the whale over all other creatures. During a
number of occasions Melville relates whaling to royal activities, as when he notes the strong
devotion of Louis VXI to the whaling industry and considers the whale as a delicacy fit for only
the most civilized. In additional, Melville cites the Indian legends of Vishnoo, the god who
became incarnate in a whale. Even when discussing the whale in mere aesthetic terms Melville
lauds it for its features, devoting an entire chapter (42) to the whiteness of the whale, while
degrading those artists who falsely depict the whale.
The theme of excellence of the whale serves to place Ahabs quest against Moby Dick as, at best,
a virtually insurmountable task in which he is doomed to failure.
The Whale as an Undefinable Figure:
While Melville uses the whale as a symbol of excellence, he also resists any literal interpretation
of that excellence by refusing to equate the species with any concrete object for idea. For
Melville, the whale is an indefinite figure, as best shown in The Whiteness of the Whale
(Chapter 42). Melville defines the whiteness as absence of color and thus finds the whale as
having an absence of meaning. Melville bolsters this premise that the whale cannot be defined
through the various stories that Ishmael tells in which scholars, historians and artists misinterpret
the whale in their respective fields.
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The recurring failed attempts to find a concrete definition of the whale leave the Sperm Whale,
and Moby Dick more specifically, as abstract and devoid of any concrete meaning. By allowing
the whale to exist as a mysterious figure, Melville does not pin the whale down as an easy
metaphorical parallel, but instead leaves a multiplicity of various interpretations for Moby Dick.
Moby Dick as a Part of Ahab:
Throughout the novel, Melville creates a relationship between Ahab and Moby Dick despite the
latters absence until the final three chapters through the recurrence of elements creating a close
relationship between Ahab and the whale. The most significant of these is the actual physical
presence of the Sperm Whale as part of Ahabs body in the form of Ahabs ivory leg. The whale
is a physical part of Ahab in this instance; it is literally a part of Ahab. Melville also develops this
theme through the uncanny sense that Ahab has for the whale. Ahab has a nearly psychic sense of
Moby Dicks presence, and more tragically, the idea of Moby Dick perpetually haunts the
formidable captain. This theme serves in part to better explain the depth of emotion behind
Ahabs quest for the whale; as a living presence that haunts Ahabs life, he feels that he must
continue on his quest no matter the cost.
The Contrast between Civilized and Pagan Society:
The relationship between Queequeg and Ishmael throughout Moby Dick generally illustrates the
prevalent contrast between civilized, specifically Christian societies and uncivilized, pagan
societies. The continued comparison and contrasts between these two types of societies is often
favorable for Melville, particularly in the discussion of Queequeg, the most idealized character in
the novel, whose uncivilized and imposing appearance only obscures his actual honor and
civilized demeanor. In this respect, Melville is fit simply to deconstruct Queequeg and place him
in entirely sympathetic terms, finding the characters from civilized and from uncivilized to be
virtually identical. Nevertheless, Melville does not include these thematic elements simply for a
lesson on other cultures; a recurring theme equates non-Christian societies with diabolical
behavior, particularly when in reference to Ahab. Ahab specifically chooses the three pagan
characters blood when he wishes to temper his harpoon in the name of the devil, while the most
obviously corrupt character in Moby Dick is conspicuously the Persian Fedallah, whom the other
characters believe to be Satan in disguise. With the exception of Queequeg, equating the pagan
characters with Satan does align with the general religious overtones of the novel, one which
presumes Christianity as its basis and moral ground.
The Sea as a Place of Transition:
In Moby Dick, the sea represents a transitional place between two distinct states. Melville shows
this early on in the case of Queequeg and the other Isolatoes (Daggoo and Tashtego), who
represents the transition from uncivilized to civilized society unbound by any specific
nationality, but in an overwhelming amount of cases this transitional theme relates to the
precarious line between life and death. There are a number of characters who teeter at the brink
between life and death, whether literally or metaphorically, throughout Moby Dick. Queequeg
again proves to be an example: during his illness he prepares for death and in fact remains in his
own coffin waiting for illness to overtake him, but it never does (Chapter 110: Queequeg in his
coffin). The coffin itself becomes a transitional element several chapters later when the carpenter
converts it into a life-buoy and it thus comes to symbolize both the saving of a life and the end of
one (Chapter 126: The Life-Buoy).
Several of the minor characters in Moby Dick also exist in highly transitional states between life
and death. After Pippin jumps to his death from the whaling boat and is saved only by chance, he
loses his sanity and behaves as if a part of him, the infinite of his soul had already died.
Melville further elaborates this theme through the blacksmith, who works on the sea primarily as
a means to escape life.
Harbingers and Superstition:
A recurring theme throughout Moby Dick is the appearance of harbingers, superstitious and
prophecies that foreshadow a tragic end to the story. Even before Ishmael boards the Pequod, the
Nantucket strangers Elijah warns Ishmael and Queequeg against traveling with Captain Ahab.
The Parsee Fedallah also has a prophetic dream concerning Ahabs quest against Moby Dick,
dreaming of hearses. Indeed, the characters are bound by superstition and myth: the only reason
that the Pequod kills a Right Whale is the legend that a ship will have good luck if it has the head
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of a Right Whale and the head of a Sperm Whale on its opposing sides. An additional harbinger
of doom found in Moby Dick occurs when a hawk takes Ahabs hat, thus recalling the story of
Tarquin and how his wife Tanaquil predicted that it was a sign that he would become king of
Rome.
SHORT SUMMARY
The novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville is an epic tale of the voyage of the whaling ship the
Pequod and its captain, Ahab, who relentlessly pursues the great Sperm Whale (the title
character) during a journey around the world. The narrator of the novel is Ishmael, a sailor on the
Pequod who undertakes the journey out of his affection for the sea.
Moby Dick begins with Ishmaels arrival in New Bedford as he travels toward Nantucket. He
rests at the Spouter Inn in New Bedford, where he meets Queequeg, a harpooner from New
Zealand who will also sail on the Pequod. Although Queequeg appears dangerous, he and
Ishmael must share a bed together and the narrator quickly grows fond of somewhat uncivilized
harpooner. Queequeg is actually the son of a High Chief who left New Zeeland because of his
desire to learn among Christians. The next day, Ishmael attends a church service and listens to a
sermon by Father Mapple, a renowned preacher who delivers a sermon considering Jonah and
the whale that concludes that the tale is a lesson to preacher Truth in the face of Falsehood.
On a schooner to Nantucket, Ishmael and Queequeg come across a local bumpkin who mocks
Queequeg. However, when this bumpkin is swept overboard, Queequeg saves him. In Nantucket,
Queequeg and Ishmael choose between three ships for a year journey, and decide upon the
Pequod. The Captain of the Pequod, Peleg, is now retired, and merely owns the boat with another
Quaker, Bildad. Peleg tells them of the new captain, Ahab, and immediately describes him as a
grand und ungodly man. Before leaving for their voyage, Ishmael and Queequeg come across a
stranger named Elijah who predicts disaster on their journey. Before leaving on the Pequod,
Elijah again predicts disaster.
Ishmael and Queequeg board the Pequod, where Captain Ahab is still unseen, secluded in his
own cabin. Peleg and Bildad consult with Starbuck, the first mate. He is a Quaker and a
Nantucket native who is quite practical. The second mate is Stubb, a Cape Cod native with a
more jovial and carefree attitude. The third is Flask, a Marthas Vineyard native with a
pugnacious attitude. Melville introduces the rest of the crew, including the Indian harpooner
Tashtego, the African harpooner Daggoo.
Several days into the voyage, Ahab finally appears as a man seemingly made of bronze who
stands on an ivory leg fashioned from whalebone. He eventually gets into a violent argument
with Stubb when the second mate makes a joke at Ahabs expense, and kicks him. This leads
Stubb to dream of kicking Ahabs ivory leg off, but Flask claims that the kick from Ahab is a
sign of honor.
At last, Ahab tells the crew of the Pequod to look for a white-headed whale with a wrinkled
brow: Moby Dick, the legendary whale that took Ahabs leg. Starbuck tells Ahab that his
obsession with Moby Dick is madness, but Ahab claims that all things are masks and there is
some unknown reasoning behind that mask that man must strike through. For Ahab, Moby Dick
is that mask. Ahab himself seems to recognize his own madness. Starbuck begins to worry that
the ship is overmatched by the mad captain and knows that he will see an impious and to Ahab.
While Queequeg and Ishmael weave a sword-mat for lashing to their boat, the Pequod soon
comes a whale and Ahab orders his crew to their boats. Ahab orders his special crew, which
Ishmael compares to phantoms, to their boats. The crew attacks a whale and Queequeg does
strike it, but this is insufficient to kill it. Among the phantoms in the boat is Fedallah, a sinister
Parsee.
After passing the Cape of Good Hope, the Pequod comes across the Goney, another ship on its
voyage. Ahab asks whether they have seen Moby Dick, but Ahab cannot hear his answer. The
Pequod does have a gam with the next ship it encounters, the Town-Ho.
Ishmael interrupts his narration to tell a story that was told to him by the crew of the Town-Ho.
The story concerns the near mutiny on the Town-Ho and its eventual conflict with Moby Dick.
The Pequod does vanquish the next whale that it comes across, as Stubb strikes a whale with his
harpoon. However, as the crew of the Pequod attempts to bring the whale into the ship, sharks
attack the carcass and Queequeg nearly loses his hand while fending them off.
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The Pequod next comes upon the Jeroboam, a Nantucket ship afflicted with an epidemic. Stubb
later tells a story about the Jeroboam and a mutiny that occurred on this ship because of a Shaker
prophet, Gabriel, on board. The captain of the Jeroboam, Mayhew, warns Ahab about Moby
Dick.
After vanquishing a Sperm Whale, Stubb next also kills a Right Whale. Although this is not on
the ships agenda, the Pequod pursues a Right Whale because of the good omens associated with
having the head of a Sperm Whale and a head of a Right Whale on a ship. Stubb and Flask
discuss rumors that Ahab had sold his soul to Fedallah.
The next ship that the Pequod meets is the Jungfrau (Virgin), a German ship in desperate need of
oil. The Pequod competes with the Virgin for a large whale, and the Pequod is successful in
defeating it. However, the whale carcass begins to sink as the Pequod attempts to secure it and
thus the Pequod must abandon it. The Pequod next finds a large group of Sperm Whale and
injures several of them, but only captures a single one.
Stubb concocts a plan to swindle the next ship that the Pequod meets, the French ship Boutonde-Rose (Rosebud), of ambergris. Stubb tells them that the whales that they have vanquished are
useless and could damage their ship, and when the Rosebud leaves these behind the Pequod takes
them in order to gain the ambergris in one of them.
Several days after encountering the Rosebud, a young black man on the boat, Pippin, becomes
frightened whale and jumps from the boat, becoming entangled in the whale line. Stubb chastises
him for his cowardice and tells him that he will be left at sea if he jumps again. When Pippin
(Pip) does the same thing again, Stubb remains true to his word and Pip only survives because a
nearby boat saves him. Nevertheless, Pip loses his sanity from the event.
The next ship that the Pequod encounters, a British ship called the Samuel Enderby, bears news
of Moby Dick but its crewman Dr. Bunger warns Ahab to leave the whale alone. Later, Ahabs
leg breaks and the carpenter must fix it. Ahab behaves scornfully toward to Ahabs cabin to
report the news. Ahab disagrees with Starbucks advice on the matter, and becomes so enraged
that he pulls a musket on Starbuck. Although Ahab warns Starbuck that there is but one God on
Earth and one Captain on the Pequod, Starbuck tells him that he will be no danger to Ahab, for
Ahab is sufficient danger to himself. Ahab does relent to Starbucks advice.
Queequeg becomes ill from fever and seems to approach death, so he asks for a canoe to serve as
a coffin. The carpenter measures Queequeg for his coffin and builds it, but Queequeg returns to
health, claiming that he willed his own recovery. Queequeg keeps the coffin and uses it as a sea
chest.
Upon reaching the Pacific Ocean, Ahab asks Perth the blacksmith to forge a harpoon to use
against Moby Dick. Perth fashions a harpoon that Ahab demands be tempered with the blood of
his pagan harpooners, and he howls out that he baptizes the harpoon in the name of the devil.
The next ship that the Pequod meets is the Bachelor, a Nantucket ship whose captain denies the
existence of Moby Dick. The next day, the Pequod slays four whales, and that night Ahab dreams
of hearses. He and Fedallah pledge to slay Moby Dick and survive the conflict, and Ahab boasts
of his own immortality.
Ahab must soon decide between an easy route past the Cape of Good Hope back to Nantucket
and a difficult route in pursuit of Moby Dick. Ahab easily chooses to continue his quest. The
Pequod soon comes upon a typhoon on its journey in the Pacific, and while battling this storm
the Pequods compass moves out of alignment. When Starbuck learns this and goes to Ahabs
cabin to tell him, he finds the old man asleep. Starbuck considers shooting Ahab with his musket,
but he cannot move himself to shoot his captain after he hears Ahab cry in his sleep Moby Dick,
I clutch thy heart at last.
The next morning after the typhoon, Ahab corrects the problem with the compass despite the
skepticism of his crew and the ship continues on its journey. Ahab learns that Pip has gone insane
and offers his cabin to the poor boy. The Pequod comes upon yet another ship, the Rachel, whose
captain, Gardiner, knows Ahab. He requests the Pequods help in searching for Gardiners son,
who may be lost at sea, but Ahab flatly refuses when he learns that Moby Dick is nearby. The
final ship that the Pequod meets is the Delight, a ship that has recently come upon Moby Dick
and ahs nearly been destroyed by its encounter with the whale. Before finally finding Moby
Dick, Ahab reminisces about the day nearly forty years before in which he struck his first whale,
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and laments the solitude of his years out on the sea. He admits that he has chased his prey as
more of a demon than a man.
The struggle against Moby Dick lasts three days. On the first day, Ahab spies the whale himself,
and the whaling boats row after it. Moby Dick attacks Ahabs boat, causing it to sink, but Ahab
survives the ordeal when he reaches Stubbs boat. Despite this first failed attempt at defeating the
whale, Ahab pursues him for a second day. On the second day of the chase, roughly the same
defeat occurs. This time Moby Dick breaks Ahabs ivory leg, while Fedallah dies when he
becomes entangled in the harpoon line and is drowned. After this second attack, Starbuck
chastise Ahab, telling him that his pursuit is impious and blasphemous. Ahab declares that the
chase against Moby Dick is immutably decreed, and pursues it for a third day.
On the third day of the attack against Moby Dick, Starbuck panics for ceding to Ahabs demands,
while Ahab tells Starbuck that some ships sail from their ports and ever afterwards are missing,
seemingly admitting the futility of his mission. When Ahab and his crew reach Moby Dick, Ahab
finally stabs the whale with his harpoon but the whale again tips Ahabs boat. However, the
whale rams the Pequod and causes it to begin sinking. In a seemingly suicidal act, Ahab throws
his harpoon at Moby Dick but becomes entangled in the line and goes down with it. Only
Ishmael survives this attack, for he was fortunate to be on a whaling boat instead of on the
Pequod. Eventually he is rescued by the Rachel as its captain continues his search for his missing
son, only to find a different orphan.

N. HAWTHORNE SCARLET LETTER

CONTEXT
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, the descendent of a
long line of Puritan ancestors, including John Hawthorne, a presiding magistrate in the Salem
witch trials. After his father was lost at sea when he was only four, his mother became overly
protective and pushed him toward more isolated pursuit. Hawthornes childhood left him overly
shy and bookish, and molded his life as a writer.
Hawthorne turned to writing after his graduation from Bowdoin College. His first novel,
Fanshawe, was unsuccessful and Hawthorne himself disavowed it as amateurish. However, he
wrote several successful short stories, including My Kinsman, Major Molyneaux, Roger
Malvins Burial and Young Goodman Brown. However, insufficient earning as a writer
forced Hawthorne to enter a career as a Boston Custom House measurer in 1839. However, after
three years Hawthorne was dismissed from his job with the Salem Custom House. By 1842,
however, his writing amassed Hawthorne a sufficient income for him to marry Sophia Peabody
and move to the Manse in Concord, which was at that time the center of the Transcendental
movement. Hawthorne returned to Salem in 1845, where he was appointed surveyor of the
Boston Custom House by President James Polk, but was dismissed from this post when Zachary
Taylor became president. Hawthorne then devoted himself to his most famous novel, The Scarlet
Letter. He zealously worked on the novel with a determination he had not known before. His
intense suffering infused the novel with imaginative energy, leading him to describe it as the
hell-fired story. On February 3, 18250, Hawthorne read the final pages to his wife. He wrote,
It broke her heart and sent her to bed with a grievous headache, which I look upon as a
triumphant success.
The Scarlet Letter was an immediately success and allowed Hawthorne to devote himself to his
writing. He left Salem for a temporary residence in Lenox, a small town the Berkshires, where he
completed the romance The House of the Seven Gables in 1851. While in Lenox, Hawthorne
became acquainted with Herman Melville and became a major proponent of Melvilles work, but
their friendship became strained. Hawthornes subsequent novels, The Blithedale Romance,
based on his years of communal living at Brook Farm, and the romance The Marble Faun, were
both considered disappointments. Hawthorne supported himself through another political post,
the consulship in Liverpool, which he was given for writing a campaign biography for Franklin
Pierce.
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Hawthorne passed away on May 19, 1864 in Plymouth, New Hampshire after a long period of
illness in which he suffered severe bouts of dementa. Emerson described his life with the words
painful solitude. Hawthorne maintained a strong friendship with Franklin Pierce, but otherwise
had few intimates and little engagement with any sort of social life. His works remain for their
treatment of guilt and the complexities of moral choices.
The novel opens with Hester being led to the scaffold where she is to be publicly shamed for
having committed adultery. Hester is forced to wear the letter A on her gown all the times. She
has stitched a large scarlet A onto her dress with gold thread, giving the letter an air of
elegance.
Hester carries Pearl, her daughter, with her. On the scaffold she if asked to reveal the name of
Pearls father, but she refuses. In the crowd Hester recognizes her husband from Amsterdam,
Roger Chillingworth.
Chillingworth visits Hester after she is returned to the prison. He tells her that he will find out
who the man was, and that he will read the truth on the mans heart. He then forces her to
promise never to reveal his true identity.
Hester moves into a cottage bordering the woods. She and Pearl live there in relative solitude.
Hester earns her money by doing stitchwork for local dignitaries, but often spends her time
helping the poor and sick. Pearl grows up to be wild, in the sense that she refuses to obey her
mother.
Roger Chillingworth earns a reputation as being a good physician. He uses his reputation to get
transferred into the same home as Arthur Dimmesdale, an ailing minister. Chillingworth
eventually discovers that Dimmesdale is the true father of Pearl, at which point he spends his
every moment trying to torment the minister.
One night Dimmesdale is so overcome with shame about hiding his secret that he walks to the
scaffold where Hester was publicly humiliated. He stands on the scaffold and imagines the whole
town watching him with a letter emblazoned on his chest. While standing there, Hester and Pearl
arrive. He asks them to stand with him, which they do. Pearl then asks him to stand with her the
next day at noon.
When a meteor illuminates the three people standing on the scaffold, they see Roger
Chillingworth watching them. Dimmesdale tells Hester that he is terrified of Chillingworth, who
offers to take Dimmesdale home. Hester realizes that Chillingworth is slowly killing
Dimmesdale, and that she has to help him.
A few weeks later Hester sees Chillingworth picking herbs in the woods. She tells him that she is
going to reveal the fact that he is her husband to Dimmesdale. He tells her that Providence is
now in charge of their fates, and that she may do as she sees fit.
Hester takes Pearl into the woods where they wait for Dimmesdale to arrive. He is surprised to
see them, but confesses to Hester that he is desperate for a friend who knows his secret. She
comforts him and tells him Chillingworths true identity. He is furious, but allows her to
convince him that they should run away together. He finally agrees, and returns to town with
more energy than he has ever shown before.
Hester finds a ship which will carry all three of them, and it works out that the ship is due to sail
the day after Dimmesdale gives his Election Sermon. However, during the day of the sermon,
Chillingworth gets the ships captain to agree to take him on boards as well. Hester does not
know how to get out of this dilemma.
Dimmesdale gives his Election Sermon, and it receives the highest accolades of any preaching he
has ever performed. He then unexpectedly walks to the scaffold and stands on it, in full view of
the gathered masses. Dimmesdale calls Hester and Pearl to come to him. Chillingworth tries to
stop him, but Dimmesdale laughs and tells him that he cannot win.
Hester and Pearl join Dimmesdale on the scaffold. Dimmesdale then tells the people that he is
also a sinner like Hester, and that he should have assumed his rightful place by her side over
seven years earlier. He then rips open his shirt to reveal a scarlet letter on his flesh. Dimemsdale
falls to his knees and dies while on the scaffold.
Hester and Pearl leave the town for a while, and several years later Hester returns. No one hears
from Pearl again, but it is assumed that she gets married and has children in Europe. Hester never
removes her scarlet letter, and when she passes away she is buried in Kings Chapel.
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S. COLERIDGE THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

CONTEXT
In the context of literary history, Samuel Taylor Coleridge is often seen as the most intellectual
of the English Romantics due to his extensive forays into critical writing, especially his
Biographia Literaria (1817) and lectures on Shakespeare. This is not to say that Coleridges
creative side received short shrift; friends and colleagues knew him as an unrelentingly
passionate poet. In a letter to a friend, Dorothy Wordsworth gushed: His eye is large and full,
not dark but grey; such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression; but it
speaks every emotion of his animated mind; it has more of the poets eye in a fine frenzy
rolling than I ever witnessed. Like his famous character, the Ancient Mariner, Coleridges very
eyes spoke of his compulsion to tell stories. But Coleridge did not take himself too seriously; in
addition to publishing under his initials, STC (or Estisi), he was known to publish works
mocking his own style under the lighthearted pseudonyms Silas Tomkyn Comerbache and
Nehemiah Higginbottom.
Coleridge was born on October 21, 1772 in Devonshire, England. He was the youngest of 14
children. Coleridge proved to be a brilliant student from early on, and continued his excellence at
Jesus College. At the same time, however, he was experimenting with the pleasures of alcohol,
women, and most famously, opium. After school, Coleridge joined the Dragoons for a short time
and then hastily married Sara Southey, the younger sister of his friend, the future poet laureate
Robert Southey. He earned a living as a Unitarian preacher for a short time while remaining in an
incompatible marriage, and began to focus seriously on his love of writing. In the late 1790s,
Coleridge began his famous friendship with William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy. Their
intellectual and artistic exchanges culminated in Lyrical Ballads 1798, in which The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner was first published. The collection was a major landmark in the Romantic
Movement; in it, the two writers exemplified the examination of the mundane, natural, and
intensely subjective. Many of the poems were also written in everyday language, avoiding the
ornamented styles of speech and elaborate rhyme schemes favored by poets of earlier periods.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one exception to this trend, as in it Coleridge used both a
rhyme scheme and words derived from Middle English. Soon after the publication of Lyrical
Ballads, Coleridge fell in love with Sara Hutchinson, the sister of Wordsworths future wife.
Since he was already married, he was forced to channel his love for Sara Hutchinson into his
poetry, where he referred to her by an anagram of her name, Asra. Coleridge published the
second version of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in 1817 in the volume Sibylline Leaves. In it
he removed much of the original poems deliberate archaism and added marginal glosses.
After travel abroad in Sicily and Malta, Coleridge returned to England in a state that worried his
closest friends. His opium addiction had escalated to the point of straining his relationships with
his wife and friends. Most notably, in 1810 Coleridge and Wordsworth suffered a falling out, and
never entirely regained their former closeness. Eventually, on the verge of suicide, he moved in
with a doctor who managed his care for the last eighteen years of his life. While in the doctors
care, Coleridge published the unfinished poems Christabel and Kubla Khan, which became
icons of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge died on July 25, 1834 at the age of 61. Upon
his death, his good friend Charles Lamb claimed he could not grieve for Coleridge, saying: It
seemed to me that he long had been on the confines of the next world that he had a hunger for
eternity. According to Lamb, Coleridge spent his life striving for the eternal and sublime, so
that death was for him the fulfillment of his deepest desire, rather than a dreaded end.
Coleridge first published his famous ballad, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in Lyrical Ballads,
his 1798 joint effort with his close friend and colleague William Wordsworth. The collections
publication is often seen as the Romantic Movements true inception. It was published
anonymously a move that contradicted its intensely personal and subjective contents.
Purportedly, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was to be a joint effort on both poets parts;
Coleridge attributed the shooting of the albatross as well as several lines to Wordsworth.
Nineteen years later, in 1817, he published an edited version of the poem in his collection
entitled Sibylline Leaves.
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While The Rime of the Ancient Mariner departed from Romantic stylistic tendencies, it
exemplified many of the genres themes. The most central of these is the subjectivity of
experience and the importance of the individual. The poem is told largely from the Ancient
Mariners perspective, despite the minor involvement of a separate narrator, who describes the
Ancient Mariner and Wedding Guests actions. The Ancient Mariner tells his self-centered tale
for a self-centered purpose: to allay his agonizing storytelling compulsion. The Romantics were
some of the first poets to place a literary works focus on the protagonists empirical experience
of the world, rather than on a didactic message (compared to, say, Spensers The Fairie Queen).
Wordsworths The Rime of the Ancient Mariner also exemplified the Romantic fascination with
the holy in nature. Romantic poets as well as painters like Caspar David Friedrich emphasized
the natural worlds majesty by dwarfing humans in comparison to it. Coleridge places the
Ancient Mariner out in the open ocean for much of the poem, making him very small and
vulnerable in comparison to the forces of nature. The Romantics also went against the earlier
trend of championing religious institution and instead locating the spiritual and sublime in
nature. Despite the Ancient Mariners expression of love for communal prayer, his message
reveals his belief that the true path to God is through communing with and respecting nature.
The Natural World: The Physical:
While it can be beautiful and frightening (often simultaneously), the natural worlds power in
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is unquestionable. In a move typical of Romantic poets
both preceding and following Coleridge, and especially typical of his colleague, William
Wordsworth, Coleridge emphasizes the way in which the natural world dwarfs and asserts its
awesome power over man. Especially in the 1817 text, in which Coleridge includes marginal
glosses, it is clear that the spiritual world controls and utilizes the natural world. At times the
natural world seems to be a character itself, based on the way it interacts with the Ancient
Mariner. From the moment at the Ancient Mariner offends the spirit of the rime, retribution
comes in the form of natural phenomena. The wind dies, the sun intensifies, and it will not rain.
The ocean becomes revolting, rotting and thrashing with slimy creatures and sizzling with
strange fires. Only when the Ancient Mariner expresses love for the natural world the watersnakes does his punishment abate even slightly. It rains, but the storm is unusually awesome,
with a thick stream of fire pouring from one huge cloud. A spirit, whether God or a pagan one,
dominates the physical world in order to punish and inspire reverence in the Ancient Mariner. At
the poems end, the Ancient Mariner preaches respect for the natural world as a way to remain in
good standing with the spiritual world, because in order to respect God, one must respect all of
his creations. This is why he valorizes the Hermit, who sets the example of both prayer and
living in harmony with nature. The Ancient Mariner affirms that one can access the sublime, the
image of a greater and better world, only by seeing the value of the mundane, the petty things
of daily life.
The Spiritual World: The Metaphysical:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner occurs in the natural physical world the land and ocean.
However, the work has popularly been interpreted as an allegory of mans connections to the
spiritual, metaphysical world. In the epigraph, Burnet speaks of mans urge classify things
since Adam named the animals. The Ancient Mariner shoots the Albatross as if to prove that it is
not an airy spirit, but rather a mortal creature; in a symbolic way, he tries to classify the
Albatross. Like all natural things, the albatross is intimately tied to the spiritual world, and thus
begins the Ancient Mariners punishment by the spiritual world by means of the natural world.
The Ancient Mariner detects spirits in their pure form several times in the poem. Even then, they
talk only about him, and not to him. When the ghost ship carrying Death and Life-in-Death sails
by, the Ancient Mariner overhears them gambling. Then when he lies unconscious on the deck,
he hears the First Voice and Second Voice discussing his fate. When angels appear over the
sailors corpses near the shore, they do not talk to the Ancient Mariner, but only guide his ship. In
all these instances, it is unclear whether the spirits are real or figments of his imagination. The
Ancient Mariner and we the reader being mortal beings, require physical affirmation of the
spiritual. Coleridges spiritual world in the poem balances between the religious and the purely
fantastical. The ancient Mariners prayers do have an effect, as when he blesses the water-snakes
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and is relieved of his thirst. At the poems end, he valorizes the holy Hermit and the act of
praying with others.
Liminality:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner typifies the Romantic fascination with liminal spaces. A
luminal space is defined as a place on the edge of a realm or between two realms, whether a
forest and a field, or reason and imagination. A liminal space often signifies a liminal state of
mind, such as the threshold of the imaginations wonders. Romantics such as Coleridge,
Wordsworth, and Keats valorize the liminal space and state as place where one can experience
the sublime. For this reason they are often and especially in the case of Coleridges poems
associated with drug-induced euphoria. Following from this, liminal spaces and states are those
in which pain and pleasure are inextricable. Romantic poets frequently had their protagonists
enter liminal spaces and become irreversibly changed. Starting in the epigraph to The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge expresses a fascination with the liminal state between the
spiritual and natural, or the mundane and the divine. Recall that this is what Burnet calls the
certain [and] uncertain and day [and] night.
In the Ancient Mariners story, liminal spaces are bewildering and cause pain. The first liminal
space the sailors encounter is the equator, which is in a sense about as liminal a location as
exists; after all, it is the threshold between the Earths hemispheres. No sooner has the ship
crossed the equator than a terrible storm ensues and drives it into the poems ultimate symbolic
liminal space, the icy world of the rime. It is liminal by its very physical makeup; there, water
exists not in one a single, definitive state, but in all three forms: liquid (water), solid (ice), and
gas (mist). They are still most definitely in the ocean, but surrounding them are mountainous
icebergs reminiscent of the land. The rime fits the archetype of the Romantic liminal space in
that it is simultaneously terrifying and beautiful, and in that the sailors do not navigate there
purposely, but are rather transported there by some other force.
As punishment for his crime of killing the Albatross, the Ancient Mariner is sentenced to Life-inDeath, condemned to be trapped in a limbo-like state where his glittering eye tells of both
powerful genius and pain. The Ancient Mariner is caught in a liminal state that, as in much of
Romantic poetry, is comparable to addiction. He can relieve his suffering temporarily by sharing
his story, but must do so continually. The Wedding Guest, the Hermit, and all others to whom he
relates his tale enter into a momentary liminal state themselves where they have a distinct
sensation of being stunned or mesmerized.
Religion:
Although Christian and pagan themes are confounded at times in The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner, many readers and critics have insisted on a Christian interpretation. Coleridge claimed
that he did not intend for the poem to have a moral, but it s difficult not to fine one in Part 7. The
Ancient Mariner essentially preaches closeness to God through prayer and the willingness to
show respect to all of Gods creatures. He also says that he finds no greater joy than in joining
others in prayer: To walk together so the kirk, / And all together pray, / While each to his great
Father bends, / Old men, and babes, and loving friends, / And youths and maidens gay! The
Ancient Mariners shooting of the Albatross can be compared to several Judeo-Christian stories
of betrayal, including the original sin of Adam and Eve, and Cains betrayal of Abel. As a son of
Adam and Eve, the Ancient Mariner is already a sinner and cast out of the divine realm. Like
Cain, the Ancient Mariner angers God by killing another creature. Most obviously, the Ancient
Mariner can be seen as the archetypal Judas or the universal sinner who betrays Christ by
sinning. Like Judas, he murders the Christian soul who could lead to his salvation and greater
understanding of the divine. In the end, the Ancient Mariner is like a strange prophet, kept alive
to pass word of Gods greatness onto others.
Imprisonment:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is in many ways a portrait of imprisonment and its inherent
loneliness and torment. The first instance of imprisonment occurs when the sailors are swept by a
storm into the rime. The ice is mast-high, and the captain cannot steer the ship through it.
The sailors confinement in the disorienting rime foreshadows the Ancient Mariners later
imprisonment within a bewildered limbo-like existence. In the beginning of the poem, the ship is
a vehicle of adventure, and the sailors set out in one anothers happy company. However, once
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the Ancient Mariner shoots the Albatross, it quickly becomes a prison. Without wind to sail the
ship, the sailors lose all control over their fate. When the other sailors drop dead, the ship
becomes a private prison for the Ancient Mariner.
Even more dramatically, the ghost ship seems to imprison the sun: And straight the sun was
flecked with bars, / (Havens Mother send us grace!) / As if through a dungeon-grate he peered /
With broad and burning face.
The Ancient Mariner is subject to the indefinite imprisonment of his soul within his physical
body. He is imprisoned by the addiction to his own story, as though trapped in the rime forever.
In a sense, the Ancient Mariner imprisons others by compelling them to listen to his story.
Retribution:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a tale of retribution, since the Ancient Mariner spends most
of the poem paying for his one, impulsive error of killing the Albatross. The spiritual world
avenges the Albatrosss death by wreaking physical and psychological havoc on the Ancient
Mariner and his shipmates. Even before the sailors die, their punishment is extensive; they
become delirious from a debilitating state of thirst, they lips bake black in the sun, and they must
endure the torment of seeing water all around them while being unable to drink it for its
saltiness. Eventually the sailors all die, their souls flying either to heaven or hell. There are at
least two ways to interpret the fact that the sailors suffer with the Ancient Mariner although they
themselves have not erred. The first is that retribution is blind; inspired by anger and the desire to
punish others, even a spirit may hurt the wrong people. The second is that the sailors are
implicated in the Ancient Mariners crime. If the Ancient Mariner represents the universal sinner,
then each sailor, as a human, is guilty of having at some point disrespected one of Gods
creatures or if not, he would have in the future. Though he never dies and may never, in a
sense the Ancient Mariner speaks from beyond the grave to warn others about the harsh,
permanent consequences of momentary foolishness, selfishness, and disrespect of the natural
world.
The Act of Storytelling:
In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge draws our attention not only to the Ancient
Mariners story, but to the act of storytelling itself. The Ancient Mariners tale comprises so
much of the poem that moments that occur outside of it often seem like interruptions. We are not
only Coleridges audience, but the Ancient Mariners. Therefore, the messages that the
protagonist delivers to his audience apply to us, as well. Storytelling is a representative measure
in the poem, used to dissuade those who favor the pleasures of society (like the Wedding Guest
and, presumably, our selves) from disregarding the natural and spiritual worlds. The poem can
also be seen as an allegory for the writers task. Coleridge uses the word teach to describe the
Ancient Mariners storytelling, and says that he has strange power of speech. In this way, h
compares the protagonist to himself: both are gifted storytellers who impart their wisdom unto
others. By associating himself with the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge implies that he, and by
extension all writers, are not only inspired but compelled to write. Like a writer, the Ancient
Mariner is equally enthralled and pained by his imagination. Both are addicts, and storytelling is
their drug. In modern psychological terms, the Ancient Mariner as well as the writer relies on
the talking cure to relieve himself of his psychological burden. But for the Ancient Mariner,
the cure reliving the experience that started with the rime by repeating his rhyme is part
of the torture. Coleridge paints an equally powerful and pathetic image of the writer. The Ancient
Mariner is able to inspire the Wedding Gust so that he awakes the next day a new man, yet he is
also the constant victim of his own talent a curse that torments, but never destroys.
An Ancient Mariner, unnaturally old and skinny, stops a Wedding Guest who is on his way to a
wedding reception with two companions. He tries to resist the Ancient Mariner, who compels
him to sit and listen to his woeful tale. The Ancient Mariner tells his tale, largely interrupted save
for the sounds from the wedding reception and the Wedding Guests fearsome interjections. One
day, when he was younger, the Ancient Mariner set sail with two hundred other sailors from his
native land. The day was sunny and clear, and all were in good cheer until the ship reached the
equator. Suddenly, a terrible storm hit and drove the ship southwards into a rime a strange,
icy patch of ocean. The towering, echoing rime was bewildering and impenetrable, and also
desolate until an Albatross appeared out of the mist. No sooner than the sailors fed it did the ice
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break and they were able to steer through. As long as the Albatross flew alongside the ship and
the sailors treated it kindly, a good wind carried them and a mist followed. One day, however, the
Ancient Mariner shot and killed the Albatross on impulse.
Suddenly the wind and mist ceased, and the ship was stagnant on the ocean. The other sailors
alternately blamed the Ancient Mariner for making the wind die and praised him for making the
strange mist disappear. Then things began to go awry. The sun became blindingly hot, and there
was no drinkable water amidst the salty ocean, which tossed with terrifying creatures. The sailors
went dumb from their thirst and sunburned lips. They hung the Albatross around the Ancient
Mariners neck as a symbol of his sin. After a painful while, a ship appeared on the horizon, and
the Ancient Mariner bit his arm and sucked the blood so he could cry out to the other sailor. The
ship was strange: it sailed without wind, and when it crosses in front of the sun, its stark masts
seemed to imprison the sun. When the ship neared, the Ancient Mariner could see that it was a
ghost ship manned by Death, in the form of a man, and Life-in-death, in the form of a beautiful,
naked woman. They were gambling for the Ancient Mariners soul. Life-in-Death won the
Ancient Mariners soul, and the other sailors were left to Death. The sky went black immediately
as the ghost ship sped away. Suddenly all of the sailors cursed the Ancient Mariner with their
eyes and dropped dead on the deck.
The Ancient Mariner drifted on the ocean in this company, unable to pray. One night he noticed
some beautiful water-snakes frolicking at the ships prow in the icy moonlight. Watching the
creatures brought him unprecedented joy, and he blessed them without meaning to. When he was
finally able to pray, the Albatross fell from his neck and sank into the sea. He could finally sleep,
and dreamed of water. When he awoke, it was raining, and an awesome thunderstorm began. He
drank his fill, and the ship began to sail in lieu of wind. Then the dead sailors suddenly arose and
sailed the ship without speaking. They sang heavenly music, which the ships sails continued
when they had stopped. Once the ship reached the equator again, the ship jolted, causing the
Ancient Mariner to fall unconscious. In his swoon, he heard two voices discussing his fate. They
said he would continue to be punished for killing the Albatross, who was loved by a spirit. Then
they disappeared. When the Ancient Mariner awoke, the dead sailors were grouped together, all
cursing him with their eyes once again. Suddenly, however, they disappeared as well. The
Ancient Mariner was not relieved, because he realized that he was doomed to be haunted by
them forever.
The wind picked up, and the Ancient Mariner spotted his native countrys shore. Then bright
angels appeared standing over every corpse and waved silently to the shore, serving as beacons
to guide the ship home. The Ancient Mariner was overjoyed to see a Pilot, his boy, and a Hermit
rowing a small boat out to the ship. He planned to ask the Hermit to absolve him of his sin. Just
as the rescuers reached the ship, it sank suddenly and created a vortex in the water. The rescuers
were able to pull the Ancient Mariner for the water, but through he was dead. When he abruptly
came to and began to row the boat, the Pilot and Pilots boy lost their minds. The spooked
Hermit asked the Ancient Mariner what kind of man he was. It was then that the Ancient Mariner
learned of his curse; he would be destined to tell his tale to others from beginning to end when an
agonizing, physical urge struck him. After he related his tale to the Hermit, he felt normal again.
The Ancient Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that he wanders from country to country, and has a
special instinct that tells him to whom he must tell his story. After he tells it, he is temporarily
relieved of his agony. The Ancient Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that better than any
merriment is the company of others in prayer. He says that the best way to become close with
God is to respect all of his creatures, because He loves them all. Then he vanishes. Instead of
joining the wedding reception, the Wedding Guest walks home, stunned. We are told that he
awakes the next day sadder and wiser for having heard the Ancient Mariners tale.
W. GOLDING LORD OF THE FLIES
CONTEXT
Born in 1911 Saint Columb Minor in Cornwall, England, Sir William Gerald Golding was
educated at the Marlborough Grammar School, where his father taught, and later at Brasenose
College, Oxford. Although educated to be a scientist at the wishes of his father, he soon
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developed a great interest in literature, becoming first devoted to Anglo-Saxon and then writing
poetry. At Oxford he studied English literature and philosophy. Following a short period of time
in which he worked at a settlement house and in small theater companies as both an actor and a
writer. Golding became a schoolmaster at Bishop Wordsworths School in Salisbury. During the
Second World War he joined the Royal Navy and was involved in the sinking of the German
battleship Bismark, but following the war he returned to Bishop Wordsworths School, where he
taught until the early sixties.
In 1954, Golding published his first novel, Lord of the Flies, which details the adventures of
British schoolboys stranded on an island in the Pacific who descend into barbaric behavior.
Although at first rejected by twenty-one different publishing houses, Goldings first novel
becomes a surprise success. E. M. Forster declared Lord of the Flies the outstanding novel of its
year, while Time and Tide called it not only a first-rate adventure story but a parable of our
times. Golding continued to develop similar themes concerning the inherent violence in human
nature in his next novel, The Inheritors, published the following year. This novel deals with the
last days of Neanderthal man. The Inheritors posits that the Cro-Magnon fire-builders
triumphed over Neanderthal man as much by violence and deceit as by any natural superiority.
His subsequent works include Pincher Martin (1956), the story of a guilt-ridden naval officer
who faces an agonizing death, Free Fall (1959), and The Spire (1964), each of which deal with
the depravity of human nature. The Spire is an allegory concerning the protagonists obsessive
determination to build a cathedral spire regardless of the consequences.
As well as his novels and his early collection of poems, Golding also published a play entitled
The Brass Butterfly in 1958 and two collections of essays, The Hot Gates (1965) and A
Moving Target (1982).
Goldings final novels include Darkness Visible (1979), the story of a boy horribly injured during
the London blitz of World War II, and Rites of Passage (1980). This novel won the Booker
McConnel Prize, the most prestigious award for English literature, and inspired two sequels,
Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989). These three novels portray life aboard a
ship during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1983, Golding received The Nobel Prize for literature for
his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality
of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world today, and in 1988 he was knighted by
Queen Elizabeth II. Sir William died in 1993 in Perrananworthal, Cornwall. At the time of his
death he was working on an unfinished manuscript entitled The Double Tongue, which deals
with the fall of Hellenic culture and the rise of Roman civilization. This work was published
posthumously in 1995.
Lord of the Flies was the first novel published by Sir William Golding after a number of years as
a teacher and training as a scientist. Although Golding had published an anthology of poems
nearly two decades before writing Lord of the Flies, this novel was his first extensive narrative
work and is informed by his scientific training an academic background. In many ways Lord of
the Flies is a hypothetical treatment of particular scientific concerns. It places a group of young
English boys on a deserted island where they must develop their own society, in essence
constructing a sociological experiment in which these boys must develop without any societal
influences to shape them. In fact the beginning chapters of the novel parallel assumptions about
human evolution, as the characters discover fire and form levels of political authority.
However, what concerns Golding in Lord of the Flies is the nature of evil as demonstrated by the
boys on the island. He concludes that the evil actions that the boys commit are inherent in human
nature and can only be controlled by societal mores and rationality, as exemplified by the
character Piggy and Ralph.
Although the novel does not adhere to themes particular to one religious tradition, in Lord of the
Flies Golding draws upon a great deal of religious symbolism updated to conform to more
contemporary ideas of human psychology. The title character, the pigs head that Simon dubs
the lord of the flies is a translation of the Hebrew word Baalzevuv, or its Greek equivalent
Beelzebub. For Golding, this devil comes from within the human psyche rather than acting as an
external force, as implied by Judeo-Christian teaching. Golding employs this religious reference
in more Freudian terms. The devil that is the lord of the flies represents the Freudian
conception of the Id, the driving amoral force that works solely to ensure its own survival. The
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lord of the flies directly confronts the most spiritually motivated character of the novel, Simon,
who functions as a prophet-martyr for the other boys.
Lord of the Flies is firmly rooted in the sociopolitical concerns of its era. Published during the
first decade of the Cold War, the novel contains obvious parallels to the struggle between liberal
democracy and totalitarianism. Ralph represents the liberal tradition, while Jack, before he
succumbs to total anarchism, can be interpreted as representing military dictatorship. In its
structure as an adventure the novel further resembles the science-fiction genre that reemerged as
a popular form of literature during the fifties. Although taking place among ostensibly realistic
events, Lord of the Flies is an adventure story whose plot, which finds a small group of humans
isolated on an alien landscape, correlates to this popular genre. Goldings next novel was a
further step toward this genre. The Inheritors, heavily influenced by H.G. Wells Outline of
History, imagines life during the dawn of man.
Goldings novel remains significant for its depiction of the nature of human society and its
musings on the nature of evil. Influenced by scientific teaching, Freudian psychology, religion
and sociopolitical concerns, Lord of the Flies, like much of Goldings work, attempts to account
for the evil inherent in human nature.
SHORT SUMMARY
During an unnamed time of war, a plane carrying a group of British schoolboys is shot down
over the Pacific. The pilot of the plane is killed, but many of the boys survive the crash and find
themselves deserted on an uninhabited island, where they are alone without adult supervision.
The novel begins with the aftermath of the crash, once the boys have reached the island. The first
two boys introduced are the main protagonist of the story: Ralph is among the oldest of the boys,
handsome and confident, while Piggy, as he is derisively called, is a pudgy asthmatic boy with
glasses who nevertheless possesses a keen intelligence. Ralph finds a conch shell, and when he
blows it the other boys gather together. Among these boys is Jack Merridew, an aggressive boy
who marches at the head of his choir. Ralph, whom the other boys choose as chief, leads Jack
and another boy, Simon, on an expedition to explore the island. On their expedition they
determine that they are, in fact, on a deserted island and decide that they need to find food. The
three boys find a pig, which Jack prepares to kill but finally balks before he can actually stab it.
When the boys return from their expedition, Ralph calls a meeting and attempts to set rules of
order for the island. Jack agrees with Ralph, for the existence of rules means the existence of
punishment for those who break them, but Piggy reprimands Jack for his lack of concern over
long-term issues of survival. Ralph proposes that they build a fire on the mountain which could
signal their presence to any passing ships. The boys start building the fire, but the younger boys
lose interest when the task proves too difficult for them. Piggy proves essential to the process:
the boys use his glasses to start the fire. After the boys start the fire, Piggy loses his temper and
criticizes the other boys for not building shelters first. He worries that they still do not know how
many there are, and believes that one of them is already missing.
While Jack tries to hunt pigs, Ralph orchestrates the building of shelters for the boys. The littlest
boys have not helped at all, while the boys in Jacks choir, whose duty is to hunt for food, have
spent the day swimming. Jack tells Ralph that he feels as if he feels as if he is being hunted
himself when he hunts for pigs. When Simon, the only boy who has consistently helped Ralph,
leaves presumably to take a bath, Ralph and Jack go to find him at the bathing pool. However,
Simon instead walks around the jungle alone, where he finds a serene open space with aromatic
bushes and flowers.
The boys soon become accustomed to the progression of the day on the island. The youngest of
the boys, known generally as the littluns, spend most of the day searching for fruit to eat.
When the boys play they still obey some sense of decency toward one another, despite the lack
of parental authority. Jack continues to hunt, while Piggy, who is accepted as an outsider among
the boys, considers building a sundial. A ship passes by the island, but does not stop, perhaps
because the fire has burned out. Piggy blames Jack for letting the fire die, for he and his hunters
have been preoccupied with killing a pig at the expense of their duty, and Jack punches Piggy,
breaking one lens of his glasses. Jack and the hunters chant Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash
her in in celebration of the kill, while Maurice pretends to be a pig and the others pretend to
attack him.
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Ralph becomes concerned by the behavior of Jack and the hunters and begins to appreciate
Piggys maturity. He calls an assembly in which he criticizes the boys for not assisting with the
fire or the building of the shelters. He insists that the fire is the most important thing on the
island, for it is their one chance for rescue, and declares that the only place where they should
have a fire is on the mountaintop. Ralph admits the he is frightened but there is no legitimate
reason to be afraid. Jack then yells at the littluns for their fear and for not helping with hunting or
building shelters. He proclaims that there is no beast on the island, as some of the boys believe,
but then a littlun, Phil, tells how he had a nightmare and when he awoke saw something moving
among the trees. Simon admits that Phil probably saw him, for he was walking in the jungle that
night. The littluns begin to worry about the supposed beast, which they conceive to be perhaps a
ghost or a squid. Piggy and Ralph fight once more, and when Ralph attempts to assert the rules
of order, Jack asks rhetorically who cares about the rules. Ralph in turn insists that the rules are
all that they have. Jack then decides to lead an expedition to hunt the beast, leaving only Ralph,
Piggy and Simon. Piggy warns Ralph that if Jack becomes chief the boys will never be rescued.
That night, during an aerial battle, a pilot parachutes down the island. The pilot dies, possibly on
impact. The next morning, the twins Sam and Eric are adding kindly to the fire when they see the
pilot and believe him to be a beast. They scramble down the mountain and awake Ralph. Jack
calls for a hunt, but Piggy insists that they should stay together, for the beast may not come near
them. Jack claims that the conch is now irrelevant, and takes a swing at Ralph when he claims
that Jack does not want to be rescued. Ralph decides to join the hunters on their expedition to
find the beast, despite his wish to rekindle the fire on the mountain. When they reach the other
side of the island, Jack wishes to build a fort near the sea.
The hunters, while searching for the beast, find a boar that attacks Jack, but Jack stabs it and it
runs away. The hunters go into a frenzy, lapsing into their kill the pig chant once again. Ralph
realizes that Piggy remains with the littluns back on the other side of the island, and Simon offers
to go back and tell Piggy that the other boys will not be back that night. Ralph realizes that Jack
rates him and confronts him about that fact. Jack mocks Ralph for not wanting to hunt, claiming
that it stems from cowardice, but when the boys see what they believe to be the beast they run
away.
Ralph returns to the shelters to find Piggy and tells him that they saw the beast, but Piggy
remains skeptical. Ralph dismisses the hunters as boys with sticks, but Jack accuses him of
calling his hunters cowards. Jack attempts to assert control over the other boys, calling for
Ralphs removal as chief, but when Ralph retains the support of the other boys Jack runs away,
crying. Piggy suggests that, if the beast prevents them from getting to the mountain, they should
build a fire on the beach, and reassures them that they will survive if they behave with common
sense. Simon leaves to sit in the open space that he found earlier. Jack claims that he will be the
chief of the hunters and that they will go to the castle rock where they plan to build a fort and
have a feast. The hunters kill a pig, and Jack smears the blood over Maurices face. They then cut
off the head and leave it on a stake as an offering for the beast. Jack brings several hunters back
to the shelters, where he invites the other boys to join his tribe and offers them meat and the
opportunity to hunt and have fun. All the boys, except Ralph and Piggy, join Jack. Meanwhile,
Simon finds the pigs head that the hunters had left. He dubs it the Lord of the Flies because of
the insects that swarm around it. He believes that it speaks to him, telling him how foolish he is
and how the other boys think that he is insane. The pigs head claims that it is the beast, and
mocks the idea that the beast could be hunted and killed. Simon falls down and loses
consciousness.
Simon regains consciousness and wanders around. When he sees the dead pilot that the boys
perceived to be the beast and realizes what it actually is, Simon rushes down the mountain to
alert the other boys of what he has found. Ralph and Piggy play at the lagoon alone, and decide
to find the other boys to make sure that nothing unfortunate happens while they play as hunters.
When they find Jack, Ralph and Jack argue over who will be chief. When Piggy claims that he
gets to speak because he has the conch, Jack tells him that the conch does not count on his side
of the island. The boys panic when Ralph warns them that a storm is coming. As the storm
begins, Simon rushes from the forest, telling about the dead body on the mountain. The boys
descend on Simon, thinking that he is the beast, and kill him.
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Back on the other side of the island, Ralph and Piggy discuss Simons death. They both took part
in the murder, but attempt to justify their behavior as acting out of fear and instinct. The only
four boys who are not part of Jacks tribe are Ralph and Piggy and the twins, Sam and Eric, who
help tend to the fire. At the castle rock, Jack rules over the boys with the trappings of an idol. He
has kept one boy tied up, and instills fear in the other boys by warning them about the beast and
the intruders. When Bill asks Jack how they will start a fire, Jack claims that they will steal the
fire from the other boys. Meanwhile, Ralph, Piggy and the twins work on keeping the fire going,
but find that it is too difficult to do by themselves. That night, the hunters attack the four boys,
who fight them off but still suffer considerable injuries. Piggy learns the purpose of the attack:
they came to steal his glasses.
After the attack, the four boys decide to go to the castle rock to appeal Jack as civilized people.
They groom themselves to appear presentable and dress themselves in normal clothes. When
they reach castle rock, Ralph summons the other boys with the conch. Jack arrives from hunting
and tells Ralph and Piggy to leave them alone. When Jack refuses to listen to Ralphs appeals to
justice, Ralph calls the boys painted fools. Jack takes Sam and Eric as prisoners and orders them
to be tied up. Piggy asks Jack and his hunters whether it is better to be a pack of painted Indians
or sensible like Ralph, but Roger tips a rock over on Piggy, causing him to fall down the
mountain to the beach. The impact kills him. Jack declares himself chief and hurl his spear at
Ralph, who runs away.
Ralph hides near the castle rock, where he can see the other boys, whom he no longer recognizes
as civilized English boys but rather as savages. He crawls near the place where Sam and Eric are
kept, and they give him some meat and tell him to leave. While Ralph hides, he realizes that the
other boys are rolling rocks down the mountain. Ralph evades the other boys who are hunting for
them, then realizes that they are setting the forest on fire in order to smoke him out, and thus will
destroy whatever fruits is left on the island. Ralph finally reaches the beach, where a naval
officer has arrived with his ship. He thinks that the boys have only been playing games and
scolds them for not behaving in a more organized and responsible manner, as is the British
custom. As the boys prepare to leave the island for home, Ralph weeps for the death of Piggy
and the end of the boys innocence.
Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
CONTEXT
Walt Whitman was born in 1819 on Long Island (the Paumanok of many of his poems). During
his early years he trained as a printer, then became a teacher, and finally a journalist and editor.
He was less than successful; his stridently radical views made him unpopular with readers. After
an 1848 sojourn in the South, which introduced him to some of the variety of his country, he
returned to New York and began to write poetry.
In 1855 he self-published the first edition of Leaves of Grass,which at the time consisted of only
twelve poems. The volume was widely ignored, with one significant exception. Ralph Waldo
Emerson wrote him a congratulatory letter, in which he offered his greet[ings]... at the
beginning of a great career. Whitman promptly published another edition of Leaves of
Grass, expanding it by some twenty poems and appending the letter from Emerson, much to the
latters discomfort. 1860 saw another edition of a now much larger Leavescontaining some
156 poemswhich was issued by a trade publisher.
At the outset of the Civil War Whitman volunteered as a nurse in army hospitals; he also wrote
dispatches as a correspondent for the New York Times. The war inspired a great deal of poetry,
which was published in 1865 as Drum Taps. Drum Taps was then incorporated into an 1867
edition of Leaves of Grass, as was another volume of wartime poetry, Sequel, which included the
poems written on Lincolns assassination.
Whitmans wartime work led to a job with the Department of the Interior, but he was soon fired
when his supervisor learned that he had written the racy poems ofLeaves of Grass. The failure of
Reconstruction led him to write the best known of his prose works, Democratic Vistas, which, as
its title implies, argues for the maintenance of democratic ideals. This volume came out in 1871,
as did yet another edition of Leaves of Grass, expanded to include more poems. The 1871 edition
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was reprinted in 1876 for the centennial. Several other prose works followed, then a further
expanded version of Leaves of Grass, in 1881.
Whitmans health had been shaky since the mid-1870s, and by 1891 it was clear he was dying.
He therefore prepared his so-called Deathbed edition of Leaves of Grass, which contained two
appendices of old-age poems as well as a review essay in which he tries to justify his life and
work. The Deathbed Edition came out in 1892; Whitman died that year.
Whitmans lifetime saw both the Civil War and the rise of the United States as a commercial and
political power. He witnessed both the apex and the abolition of slavery. His poetry is thus
centered on ideas of democracy, equality, and brotherhood. In response to Americas new
position in the world, Whitman also tried to develop a poetry that was uniquely American, that
both surpassed and broke the mold of its predecessors. Leaves of Grass, with its multiple editions
and public controversies, set the pattern for the modern, public artist, and Whitman, with his
journalistic endeavors on the side, made the most of his role as celebrity and artist.
Whitmans poetry is democratic in both its subject matter and its language. As the great lists that
make up a large part of Whitmans poetry show, anythingand anyoneis fair game for a
poem. Whitman is concerned with cataloguing the new America he sees growing around him.
Just as America is far different politically and practically from its European counterparts, so too
must American poetry distinguish itself from previous models. Thus we see Whitman breaking
new ground in both subject matter and diction.
In a way, though, Whitman is not so unique. His preference for the quotidian links him with both
Dante, who was the first to write poetry in a vernacular language, and with Wordsworth, who
famously stated that poetry should aim to speak in the language of ordinary men.
Unlike Wordsworth, however, Whitman does not romanticize the proletariat or the peasant.
Instead he takes as his model himself. The stated mission of his poetry was, in his words, to
make [a]n attempt to put aPerson, a human being (myself, in the latter half of the 19th century,
in America) freely, fully, and truly on record. A truly democratic poetry, for Whitman, is one
that, using a common language, is able to cross the gap between the self and another individual,
to effect a sympathetic exchange of experiences.
This leads to a distinct blurring of the boundaries between the self and the world and between
public and private. Whitman prefers spaces and situationslike journeys, the out-of-doors, cities
that allow for ambiguity in these respects. Thus we see poems like Song of the Open Road
and Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, where the poet claims to be able to enter into the heads of
others. Exploration becomes not just a trope but a mode of existence.
For Whitman, spiritual communion depends on physical contact, or at least proximity. The body
is the vessel that enables the soul to experience the world. Therefore the body is something to be
worshipped and given a certain primacy. Eroticism, particularly homoeroticism, figures
significantly in Whitmans poetry. This is something that got him in no small amount of trouble
during his lifetime. The erotic interchange of his poetry, though, is meant to symbolize the
intense but always incomplete connection between individuals. Having sex is the closest two
people can come to being one merged individual, but the boundaries of the body always prevent
a complete union. The affection Whitman shows for the bodies of others, both men and women,
comes out of his appreciation for the linkage between the body and the soul and the communion
that can come through physical contact. He also has great respect for the reproductive and
generative powers of the body, which mirror the intellects generation of poetry.
The Civil War diminished Whitmans faith in democratic sympathy. While the cause of the war
nominally furthered brotherhood and equality, the war itself was a quagmire of killing.
Reconstruction, which began to fail almost immediately after it was begun, further disappointed
Whitman. His later poetry, which displays a marked insecurity about the place of poetry and the
place of emotion in general (see in particular When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd), is
darker and more isolated.
Whitmans style remains consistent throughout, however. The poetic structures he employs are
unconventional but reflect his democratic ideals. Lists are a way for him to bring together a wide
variety of items without imposing a hierarchy on them. Perception, rather than analysis, is the
basis for this kind of poetry, which uses few metaphors or other kinds of symbolic language.
Anecdotes are another favored device. By transmitting a story, often one he has gotten from
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another individual, Whitman hopes to give his readers a sympathetic experience, which will
allow them to incorporate the anecdote into their own history. The kind of language Whitman
uses sometimes supports and sometimes seems to contradict his philosophy. He often uses
obscure, foreign, or invented words. This, however, is not meant to be intellectually elitist but is
instead meant to signify Whitmans status as a unique individual. Democracy does not
necessarily mean sameness. The difficulty of some of his language also mirrors the necessary
imperfection of connections between individuals: no matter how hard we try, we can never
completely understand each other. Whitman largely avoids rhyme schemes and other traditional
poetic devices. He does, however, use meter in masterful and innovative ways, often to mimic
natural speech. In these ways, he is able to demonstrate that he has mastered traditional poetry
but is no longer subservient to it, just as democracy has ended the subservience of the individual.
Themes
Democracy As a Way of Life
Whitman envisioned democracy not just as a political system but as a way of experiencing the
world. In the early nineteenth century, people still harbored many doubts about whether the
United States could survive as a country and about whether democracy could thrive as a political
system. To allay those fears and to praise democracy, Whitman tried to be democratic in both life
and poetry. He imagined democracy as a way of interpersonal interaction and as a way for
individuals to integrate their beliefs into their everyday lives. Song of Myself notes that
democracy must include all individuals equally, or else it will fail.
In his poetry, Whitman widened the possibilities of poetic diction by including slang,
colloquialisms, and regional dialects, rather than employing the stiff, erudite language so often
found in nineteenth-century verse. Similarly, he broadened the possibilities of subject matter by
describing myriad people and places. Like William Wordsworth, Whitman believed that
everyday life and everyday people were fit subjects for poetry. Although much of Whitmans
work does not explicitly discuss politics, most of it implicitly deals with democracy: it describes
communities of people coming together, and it imagines many voices pouring into a unified
whole. For Whitman, democracy was an idea that could and should permeate the world beyond
politics, making itself felt in the ways we think, speak, work, fight, and even make art.
The Cycle of Growth and Death
Whitmans poetry reflects the vitality and growth of the early United States. During the
nineteenth century, America expanded at a tremendous rate, and its growth and potential seemed
limitless. But sectionalism and the violence of the Civil War threatened to break apart and
destroy the boundless possibilities of the United States. As a way of dealing with both the
population growth and the massive deaths during the Civil War, Whitman focused on the life
cycles of individuals: people are born, they age and reproduce, and they die. Such poems as
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd imagine death as an integral part of life.
The speaker of When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd realizes that flowers die in the
winter, but they rebloom in the springtime, and he vows to mourn his fallen friends every year
just as new buds are appearing. Describing the life cycle of nature helped Whitman contextualize
the severe injuries and trauma he witnessed during the Civil Warlinking death to life helped
give the deaths of so many soldiers meaning.
The Beauty of the Individual
Throughout his poetry, Whitman praised the individual. He imagined a democratic nation as a
unified whole composed of unique but equal individuals. Song of Myself opens in a
triumphant paean to the individual: I celebrate myself, and sing myself (1). Elsewhere the
speaker of that exuberant poem identifies himself as Walt Whitman and claims that, through him,
the voices of many will speak. In this way, many individuals make up the individual democracy,
a single entity composed of myriad parts. Every voice and every part will carry the same weight
within the single democracyand thus every voice and every individual is equally beautiful.
Despite this pluralist view, Whitman still singled out specific individuals for praise in his poetry,
particularly Abraham Lincoln. In 1865 , Lincoln was assassinated, and Whitman began
composing several elegies, including O Captain! My Captain! Although all individuals were
beautiful and worthy of praise, some individuals merited their own poems because of their
contributions to society and democracy.
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Motifs
Lists
Whitman filled his poetry with long lists. Often a sentence will be broken into many clauses,
separated by commas, and each clause will describe some scene, person, or object. These lists
create a sense of expansiveness in the poem, as they mirror the growth of the United States. Also,
these lists layer images atop one another to reflect the diversity of American landscapes and
people. In Song of Myself, for example, the speaker lists several adjectives to describe Walt
Whitman in section24 . The speaker uses multiple adjectives to demonstrate the complexity of
the individual: true individuals cannot be described using just one or two words. Later in this
section, the speaker also lists the different types of voices who speak through Whitman. Lists are
another way of demonstrating democracy in action: in lists, all items possess equal weight, and
no item is more important than another item in the list. In a democracy, all individuals possess
equal weight, and no individual is more important than another.
The Human Body
Whitmans poetry revels in its depictions of the human body and the bodys capacity for physical
contact. The speaker of Song of Myself claims that copulation is no more rank to me than
death is (521 ) to demonstrate the naturalness of taking pleasure in the bodys physical
possibilities. With physical contact comes spiritual communion: two touching bodies form one
individual unit of togetherness. Several poems praise the bodies of both women and men,
describing them at work, at play, and interacting. The speaker of I Sing the Body Electric
(1855 ) boldly praises the perfection of the human form and worships the body because the body
houses the soul. This free expression of sexuality horrified some of Whitmans early readers, and
Whitman was fired from his job at the Indian Bureau in 1865 because the secretary of the
interior found Leaves of Grassoffensive. Whitmans unabashed praise of the male form has led
many critics to argue that he was homosexual or bisexual, but the repressive culture of the
nineteenth century prevented him from truly expressing those feelings in his work.
Rhythm and Incantation
Many of Whitmans poems rely on rhythm and repetition to create a captivating, spellbinding
quality of incantation. Often, Whitman begins several lines in a row with the same word or
phrase, a literary device called anaphora. For example, the first four lines of When I Heard the
Learnd Astronomer (1865 ) each begin with the word when. The long lines of such poems as
Song of Myself and When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd force readers to inhale
several bits of text without pausing for breath, and this breathlessness contributes to the
incantatory quality of the poems. Generally, the anaphora and the rhythm transform the poems
into celebratory chants, and the joyous form and structure reflect the joyousness of the poetic
content. Elsewhere, however, the repetition and rhythm contribute to an elegiac tone, as in O
Captain! My Captain! This poem uses short lines and words, such as heart and father, to
mournfully incant an elegy for the assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
Symbols
Plants
Throughout Whitmans poetry, plant life symbolizes both growth and multiplicity. Rapid, regular
plant growth also stands in for the rapid, regular expansion of the population of the United
States. In When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd, Whitman uses flowers, bushes, wheat,
trees, and other plant life to signify the possibilities of regeneration and re-growth after death. As
the speaker mourns the loss of Lincoln, he drops a lilac spray onto the coffin; the act of laying a
flower on the coffin not only honors the person who has died but lends death a measure of
dignity and respect. The title Leaves of Grass highlights another of Whitmans themes: the
beauty of the individual. Each leaf or blade of grass possesses its own distinct beauty, and
together the blades form a beautiful unified whole, an idea Whitman explores in the sixth section
of Song of Myself. Multiple leaves of grass thus symbolize democracy, another instance of a
beautiful whole composed of individual parts. In 1860 , Whitman published an edition of Leaves
of Grass that included a number of poems celebrating love between men. He titled this section
The Calamus Poems, after the phallic calamus plant.
The Self
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Whitmans interest in the self ties into his praise of the individual. Whitman links the self to the
conception of poetry throughout his work, envisioning the self as the birthplace of poetry. Most
of his poems are spoken from the first person, using the pronoun I. The speaker of Whitmans
most famous poem, Song of Myself, even assumes the name Walt Whitman, but nevertheless
the speaker remains a fictional creation employed by the poet Whitman. Although Whitman
borrows from his own autobiography for some of the speakers experiences, he also borrows
many experiences from popular works of art, music, and literature. Repeatedly the speaker of
this poem exclaims that he contains everything and everyone, which is a way for Whitman to
reimagine the boundary between the self and the world. By imaging a person capable of carrying
the entire world within him, Whitman can create an elaborate analogy about the ideal democracy,
which would, like the self, be capable of containing the whole world.
James Joyce: Ulysses
James Joyce was born on February 2, 1882, in Dublin, Ireland, into a Catholic middle-class
family that would soon become poverty-stricken. Joyce went to Jesuit schools, followed by
University College, Dublin, where he began publishing essays. After graduating in 1902, Joyce
went to Paris with the intention of attending medical school. Soon afterward, however, he
abandoned medical studies and devoted all of his time to writing poetry, stories, and theories of
aesthetics. Joyce returned to Dublin the following year when his mother died. He stayed in
Dublin for another year, during which time he met his future wife, Nora Barnacle. At this time,
Joyce also began work on an autobiographical novel called Stephen Hero. Joyce eventually gave
up on Stephen Hero, but reworked much of the material into A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man, which features the same autobiographical protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, and tells the story
of Joyces youth up to his 1902 departure for Paris.
Nora and Joyce left Dublin again in 1904, this time for good. They spent most of the next eleven
years living in Rome and Trieste, Italy, where Joyce taught English and he and Nora had two
children, Giorgio and Lucia. In 1907 Joyces first book of poems,Chamber Music, was published
in London. He published his book of short stories, Dubliners, in 1914, the same year he
published A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in serial installments in the London
journal The Egoist.
Joyce began writing Ulysses in 1914, and when World War I broke out he moved his family to
Zurich, Switzerland, where he continued work on the novel. In Zurich, Joyces fortunes finally
improved as his talent attracted several wealthy patrons, including Harriet Shaw
Weaver. Portrait was published in book form in 1916, and Joyces play, Exiles, in 1918. Also in
1918, the first episodes of Ulysses were published in serial form in The Little Review. In 1919,
the Joyces moved to Paris, where Ulysses was published in book form in 1922. In 1923, with his
eyesight quickly diminishing, Joyce began working on what became Finnegans Wake, published
in 1939. Joyce died in 1941.
Joyce first conceived of Ulysses as a short story to be included in Dubliners, but decided instead
to publish it as a long novel, situated as a sort of sequel to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man. Ulysses picks up Stephen Dedaluss life more than a year after where Portrait leaves off.
The novel introduces two new main characters, Leopold and Molly Bloom, and takes place on a
single day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin.
Ulysses strives to achieve a kind of realism unlike that of any novel before it by rendering the
thoughts and actions of its main characters both trivial and significantin a scattered and
fragmented form similar to the way thoughts, perceptions, and memories actually appear in our
minds. In Dubliners, Joyce had tried to give his stories a heightened sense of realism by
incorporating real people and places into them, and he pursues the same strategy on a massive
scale inUlysses. At the same time that Ulysses presents itself as a realistic novel, it also works on
a mythic level, by way of a series of parallels with Homers Odyssey.Stephen, Bloom, and Molly
correspond respectively to Telemachus, Ulysses, and Penelope, and each of the eighteen episodes
of the novel corresponds to an adventure from the Odyssey.
Ulysses has become particularly famous for Joyces stylistic innovations. In Portrait,Joyce first
attempted the technique of interior monologue, or stream-of-consciousness. He also
experimented with shifting stylethe narrative voice ofPortrait changes stylistically as Stephen
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matures. In Ulysses, Joyce uses interior monologue extensively, and instead of employing one
narrative voice, Joyce radically shifts narrative style with each new episode of the novel.
Joyces early work reveals the stylistic influence of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. Joyce
began reading Ibsen as a young man; his first publication was an article about a play of Ibsens,
which earned him a letter of appreciation from Ibsen himself. Ibsens plays provided the young
Joyce with a model of the realistic depiction of individuals stifled by conventional moral values.
Joyce imitated Ibsens naturalistic brand of realism in Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man, and especially in his play Exiles. Ulysses maintains Joyces concern with realism but
also introduces stylistic innovations similar to those of his Modernist contemporaries. Ulyssess
multivoiced narration, textual self-consciousness, mythic framework, and thematic focus on life
in a modern metropolis situate it close to other main texts of the Modernist movement, such as T.
S. Eliots mythic poem The Waste Land (also published in 1922) or Virginia Woolfs stream-ofconsciousness novel, Mrs. Dalloway (1925).
Though never working in collaboration, Joyce maintained correspondences with other Modernist
writers, including Samuel Beckett, and Ezra Pound, who helped find him a patron and an
income. Joyces final work, Finnegans Wake, is often seen as bridging the gap between
Modernism and postmodernism. A novel only in the loosest sense, Finnegans Wake looks
forward to postmodern texts in its playful celebration (rather than lamentation) of the
fragmentation of experience and the decentered nature of identity, as well as its attention to the
nontransparent qualities of language.
Like Eliot and many other Modernist writers, Joyce wrote in self-imposed exile in cosmopolitan
Europe. In spite of this fact, all of his work is strongly tied to Irish political and cultural history,
and Ulysses must also be seen in an Irish context. Joyces novel was written during the years of
the Irish bid for independence from Britain. After a bloody civil war, the Irish Free State was
officially formedduring the same year that Ulysses was published. Even in 1904, Ireland had
experienced the failure of several home rule bills that would have granted the island a measure of
political independence within Great Britain. The failure of these bills is linked to the downfall of
the Irish member of Parliament, Charles Stewart Parnell, who was once referred to as Irelands
Uncrowned King, and was publicly persecuted by the Irish church and people in 1889 for
conducting a long-term affair with a married woman, Kitty OShea. Joyce saw this persecution
as an hypocritical betrayal by the Irish that ruined Irelands chances for a peaceful independence.
Accordingly, Ulysses depicts the Irish citizens of 1904, especially Stephen Dedalus, as involved
in tangled conceptions of their own Irishness, and complex relationships with various authorities
and institutions specific to their time and place: the British empire, Irish nationalism, the Roman
Catholic church, and the Irish Literary Revival.
The Quest for Paternity
At its most basic level, Ulysses is a book about Stephens search for a symbolic father and
Blooms search for a son. In this respect, the plot of Ulysses parallels Telemachuss search for
Odysseus, and vice versa, in The Odyssey. Blooms search for a son stems at least in part from
his need to reinforce his identity and heritage through progeny. Stephen already has a biological
father, Simon Dedalus, but considers him a father only in flesh. Stephen feels that his own
ability to mature and become a father himself (of art or children) is restricted by Simons
criticism and lack of understanding. Thus Stephens search involves finding a symbolic father
who will, in turn, allow Stephen himself to be a father. Both men, in truth, are searching for
paternity as a way to reinforce their own identities.
Stephen is more conscious of his quest for paternity than Bloom, and he mentally recurs to
several important motifs with which to understand paternity. Stephens thinking about the Holy
Trinity involves, on the one hand, Church doctrines that uphold the unity of the Father and the
Son and, on the other hand, the writings of heretics that challenge this doctrine by arguing that
God created the rest of the Trinity, concluding that each subsequent creation is inherently
different. Stephens second motif involves his Hamlet theory, which seeks to prove that
Shakespeare represented himself through the ghost-father in Hamlet, but alsothrough his
translation of his life into artbecame the father of his own father, of his life, and of all his
race. The Holy Trinity and Hamlet motifs reinforce our sense of Stephens and Blooms parallel
quests for paternity. These quests seem to end in Blooms kitchen, with Bloom recognizing the
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future in Stephen and Stephen recognizing the past in Bloom. Though united as father and
son in this moment, the men will soon part ways, and their paternity quests will undoubtedly
continue, for Ulyssesdemonstrates that the quest for paternity is a search for a lasting
manifestation of self.
The Remorse of Conscience
The phrase agenbite of inwit, a religious term meaning remorse of conscience, comes to
Stephens mind again and again in Ulysses. Stephen associates the phrase with his guilt over his
mothers deathhe suspects that he may have killed her by refusing to kneel and pray at her
sickbed when she asked. The theme of remorse runs through Ulysses to address the feelings
associated with modern breaks with family and tradition. Bloom, too, has guilty feelings about
his father because he no longer observes certain traditions his father observed, such as keeping
kosher. Episode Fifteen, Circe, dramatizes this remorse as Blooms Sins of the Past rise up
and confront him one by one. Ulysses juxtaposes characters who experience remorse with
characters who do not, such as Buck Mulligan, who shamelessly refers to Stephens mother as
beastly dead, and Simon Dedalus, who mourns his late wife but does not regret his treatment
of her. Though remorse of conscience can have a repressive, paralyzing effect, as in Stephens
case, it is also vaguely positive. A self-conscious awareness of the past, even the sins of the past,
helps constitute an individual as an ethical being in the present.
Compassion as Heroic
In nearly all senses, the notion of Leopold Bloom as an epic hero is laughablehis job, talents,
family relations, public relations, and private actions all suggest his utter ordinariness. It is only
Blooms extraordinary capacity for sympathy and compassion that allows him an unironic
heroism in the course of the novel. Blooms fluid ability to empathize with such a wide variety of
beingscats, birds, dogs, dead men, vicious men, blind men, old ladies, a woman in labor, the
poor, and so onis the modern-day equivalent to Odysseuss capacity to adapt to a wide variety
of challenges. Blooms compassion often dictates the course of his day and the novel, as when he
stops at the river Liffey to feed the gulls or at the hospital to check on Mrs. Purefoy. There is a
network of symbols in Ulysses that present Bloom as Irelands savior, and his message is, at a
basic level, to love. He is juxtaposed with Stephen, who would also be Irelands savior but is
lacking in compassion. Bloom returns home, faces evidence of his cuckold status, and slays his
competitionnot with arrows, but with a refocused perspective that is available only through his
fluid capacity for empathy.
Parallax, or the Need for Multiple Perspectives
Parallax is an astronomical term that Bloom encounters in his reading and that arises repeatedly
through the course of the novel. It refers to the difference of position of one object when seen
from two different vantage points. These differing viewpoints can be collated to better
approximate the position of the object. As a novel, Ulysses uses a similar tactic. Three main
charactersStephen, Bloom, and Mollyand a subset of narrative techniques that affect our
perception of events and characters combine to demonstrate the fallibility of one single
perspective. Our understanding of particular characters and events must be continually revised as
we consider further perspectives. The most obvious example is Mollys past love life. Though we
can construct a judgment of Molly as a loose woman from the testimonies of various characters
in the novelBloom, Lenehan, Dixon, and so onthis judgment must be revised with the
integration of Mollys own final testimony.
Motifs
Lightness and Darkness
The traditional associations of light with good and dark with bad are upended inUlysses, in
which the two protagonists are dressed in mourning black, and the more menacing characters are
associated with light and brightness. This reversal arises in part as a reaction to Mr. Deasys antiSemitic judgment that Jews have sinned against the light. Deasy himself is associated with the
brightness of coins, representing wealth without spirituality. Blazes Boylan, Blooms nemesis,
is associated with brightness through his name and his flashy behavior, again suggesting surface
without substance. Blooms and Stephens dark colors suggest a variety of associations:
Jewishness, anarchy, outsider/wanderer status. Furthermore, Throwaway, the dark horse, wins
the Gold Cup Horserace.
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The Home Usurped

While Odysseus is away from Ithaca in The Odyssey, his household is usurped by would-be
suitors of his wife, Penelope. This motif translates directly to Ulysses and provides a connection
between Stephen and Bloom. Stephen pays the rent for the Martello tower, where he, Buck, and
Haines are staying. Bucks demand of the house key is thus a usurpation of Stephens household
rights, and Stephen recognizes this and refuses to return to the tower. Stephen mentally
dramatizes this usurpation as a replay of Claudiuss usurpation of Gertrude and the throne
inHamlet. Meanwhile, Blooms home has been usurped by Blazes Boylan, who comes and goes
at will and has sex with Molly in Blooms absence. Stephens and Blooms lack of house keys
throughout Ulysses symbolizes these usurpations.
The East
The motif of the East appears mainly in Blooms thoughts. For Bloom, the East is a place of
exoticism, representing the promise of a paradisiacal existence. Blooms hazy conception of this
faraway land arises from a network of connections: the planters companies (such as Agendeth
Netaim), which suggest newly fertile and potentially profitable homes; Zionist movements for a
homeland; Molly and her childhood in Gibraltar; narcotics; and erotics. For Bloom and the
reader, the East becomes the imaginative space where hopes can be realized. The only place
where Molly, Stephen, and Bloom all meet is in their parallel dreams of each other the night
before, dreams that seem to be set in an Eastern locale.
Symbols.
Plumtrees Potted Meat
In Episode Five, Bloom reads an ad in his newspaper: What is home without / Plumtrees Potted
Meat? / Incomplete. / With it an abode of bliss. Blooms conscious reaction is his belief that the
ad is poorly placeddirectly below the obituaries, suggesting an infelicitous relation between
dead bodies and potted meat. On a subconscious level, however, the figure of Plumtrees
Potted Meat comes to stand for Blooms anxieties about Boylans usurpation of his wife and
home. The image of meat inside a pot crudely suggests the sexual relation between Boylan and
Molly. The wording of the ad further suggests, less concretely, Blooms masculine anxietieshe
worries that he is not the head of an abode of bliss but rather a servant in a home incomplete.
The connection between Plumtrees meat and Blooms anxieties about Mollys unhappiness and
infidelity is driven home when Bloom finds crumbs of the potted meat that Boylan and Molly
shared earlier in his own bed.
The Gold Cup Horserace
The afternoons Gold Cup Horserace and the bets placed on it provide much of the public drama
in Ulysses, though it happens offstage. In Episode Five, Bantam Lyons mistakenly thinks that
Bloom has tipped him off to the horse Throwaway, the dark horse with a long-shot chance.
Throwaway does end up winning the race, notably ousting Sceptre, the horse with the
phallic name, on which Lenehan and Boylan have bet. This underdog victory represents Blooms
eventual unshowy triumph over Boylan, to win the Gold Cup of Mollys heart.
Stephens Latin Quarter Hat
Stephen deliberately conceives of his Latin Quarter hat as a symbol. The Latin Quarter is a
student district in Paris, and Stephen hopes to suggest his exiled, anti-establishment status while
back in Ireland. He also refers to the hat as his Hamlet hat, tipping us off to the intentional
brooding and artistic connotations of the head gear. Yet Stephen cannot always control his own
hat as a symbol, especially in the eyes of others. Through the eyes of others, it comes to signify
Stephens mock priest-liness and provinciality.
Blooms Potato Talisman
In Episode Fifteen, Blooms potato functions like Odysseuss use of moly in Circes denit
serves to protect him from enchantment, enchantments to which Bloom succumbs when he
briefly gives it over to Zoe Higgins. The potato, old and shriveled now, is an heirloom from
Blooms mother, Ellen. As an organic product that is both fruit and root but is now shriveled, it
gestures toward Blooms anxieties about fertility and his family line. Most important, however, is
the potatos connection to IrelandBlooms potato talisman stands for his frequently overlooked
maternal Irish heritage.
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William Faulkner: Absalom! Absalom!

William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, in September 1897; he died in
Mississippi in 1962. Faulkner achieved a reputation as one of the greatest American novelists of
the 20th century largely based on his series of novels about a fictional region of Mississippi
called Yoknapatawpha County, centered on the fictional town of Jefferson. The greatest of these
novelsamong them The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!rank
among the finest novels of world literature.
Faulkner was especially interested in moral themes relating to the ruins of the Deep South in the
post-Civil War era. His prose stylewhich combines long, uninterrupted sentences with long
strings of adjectives, frequent changes in narration, many recursive asides, and a frequent
reliance on a sort of objective stream-of- consciousness technique, whereby the inner experience
of a character in a scene is contrasted with the scene's outward appearanceranks among his
greatest achievements. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949.
Absalom, Absalom! is perhaps Faulkner's most focused attempt to expose the moral crises which
led to the destruction of the South. The story of a man hell-bent on establishing a dynasty and a
story of love and hatred between races and families, it is also an exploration of how people relate
to the past. Faulker tells a single story from a number of perspectives, capturing the conflict,
racism, violence, and sacrifice in each character's life, and also demonstrating how the human
mind reconstructs the past in the present imagination.
In 1833, a wild, imposing man named Thomas Sutpen comes to Jefferson, Mississippi, with a
group of slaves and a French architect in tow. He buys a hundred square miles of land from an
Indian tribe, raises a manor house, plants cotton, and marries the daughter of a local merchant,
and within a few years is entrenched among the local aristocracy. Sutpen has a son and a
daughter, Henry and Judith, who grow up in a life of uncultivated ease in the northern
Mississippi countryside. Henry goes to college at the University of Mississippi in 1859, and
meets a sophisticated fellow student named Charles Bon, whom he befriends and brings home
for Christmas. Charles meets Judith, and over time, an engagement between them is assumed.
But Sutpen realizes that Bon is actually his own sonHenry and Judith's half-brotherfrom a
previous marriage which he abandoned when he discovered that his wife had negro blood. He
tells Henry that the engagement cannot be, and that Bon is Henry's own brother; Henry reacts
with outrage, refusing to believe that Bon knew all along and willingly became engaged to his
own sister. Henry repudiates his birthright, and he and Bon flee to New Orleans. When war
breaks out, they enlist, and spend four hard years fighting for the Confederacy as the South
crumbles around them. At the end of the war, Sutpen (a colonel) finds his son and reveals to him
that not only is Bon his and Judith's half-brother, he is also, in part, a black man.
That knowledge makes Henry revolt against Bon in a way that even the idea of incest did not,
and on the day Bon arrives to marry Judith, Henry murders him in front of the gates of the
Sutpen plantation. Sutpen returns to a broken house, and becomes a brokenthough still
forcefulman; he slides slowly into alcoholism, begins an affair with a fifteen-year-old white
girl named Milly, and continues in that vein until, following the birth of his and Milly's daughter,
he is murdered by Milly's grandfather Wash Jones in 1869.
Decades later, in 1909, Quentin Compson is a twenty-year-old man, the grandson of Sutpen's
first friend in the country (General Compson), who is preparing to leave Jefferson to attend
Harvard. He is summoned by Miss Rosa Coldfield, the sister of Sutpen's wife Ellen (and briefly
Sutpen's fiancee herself), to hear the story of how Sutpen destroyed her family and his own. Over
the following weeks and months, Quentin is drawn deeper and deeper into the Sutpen story,
discussing it with his father, thinking about it, and later telling it in detail to his Harvard
roommate Shreve. The story is burned into his brain the night he goes with Miss Rosa to the
Sutpen plantation, where they find Henry Sutpen now an old manwaiting to die. Months
later, Rosa attempts to return for Henry with an ambulance, but Clytie, Thomas Sutpen's
daughter with a slave woman and now a withered old woman herself, sets fire to the manor
house, killing herself and Henry, and bringing the Sutpen dynasty to a fiery end.
T.S. Eliot: Waste Land
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CONTEXT
Thomas Stearns Eliot, or T.S. Eliot as he is better known, was born in 1888 in St. Louis. He was
the son of a prominent industrialist who came from a well- connected Boston family. Eliot
always felt the loss of his familys New England roots and seemed to be somewhat ashamed of
his fathers business success; throughout his life he continually sought to return to the epicenter
of Anglo- Saxon culture, first by attending Harvard and then by emigrating to England, where he
lived from 1914 until his death. Eliot began graduate study in philosophy at Harvard and
completed his dissertation, although the outbreak of World War I prevented him from taking his
examinations and receiving the degree. By that time, though, Eliot had already written The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and the War, which kept him in England, led him to decide to
pursue poetry full-time.
Eliot met Ezra Pound in 1914 , as well, and it was Pound who was his main mentor and editor
and who got his poems published and noticed. During a 1921 break from his job as a bank clerk
(to recover from a mental breakdown), Eliot finished the work that was to secure him fame, The
Waste Land. This poem, heavily edited by Pound and perhaps also by Eliots wife, Vivien,
addressed the fragmentation and alienation characteristic of modern culture, making use of these
fragments to create a new kind of poetry. It was also around this time that Eliot began to write
criticism, partly in an effort to explain his own methods. In 1925 , he went to work for the
publishing house Faber & Faber. Despite the distraction of his wifes increasingly serious bouts
of mental illness, Eliot was from this time until his death the preeminent literary figure in the
English-speaking world; indeed, he was so monumental that younger poets often went out of
their way to avoid his looming shadow, painstakingly avoiding all similarities of style.
Eliot became interested in religion in the later 1920 s and eventually converted to Anglicanism.
His poetry from this point onward shows a greater religious bent, although it never becomes
dogmatic the way his sometimes controversial cultural criticism does. Four Quartets, his last
major poetic work, combines a Christian sensibility with a profound uncertainty resulting from
the wars devastation of Europe. Eliot died in 1965 in London.
Eliot attributed a great deal of his early style to the French SymbolistsRimbaud, Baudelaire,
Mallarm, and Laforguewhom he first encountered in college, in a book by Arthur Symons
called The Symbolist Movement in Literature. It is easy to understand why a young aspiring poet
would want to imitate these glamorous bohemian figures, but their ultimate effect on his poetry
is perhaps less profound than he claimed. While he took from them their ability to infuse poetry
with high intellectualism while maintaining a sensuousness of language, Eliot also developed a
great deal that was new and original. His early works, like The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock and The Waste Land, draw on a wide range of cultural reference to depict a modern
world that is in ruins yet somehow beautiful and deeply meaningful. Eliot uses techniques like
pastiche and juxtaposition to make his points without having to argue them explicitly. As Ezra
Pound once famously said, Eliot truly did modernize himself. In addition to showcasing a
variety of poetic innovations, Eliots early poetry also develops a series of characters who fit the
type of the modern man as described by Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and others of Eliots
contemporaries. The title character of Prufrock is a perfect example: solitary, neurasthenic,
overly intellectual, and utterly incapable of expressing himself to the outside world.
As Eliot grew older, and particularly after he converted to Christianity, his poetry changed. The
later poems emphasize depth of analysis over breadth of allusion; they simultaneously become
more hopeful in tone: Thus, a work such as Four Quartets explores more philosophical territory
and offers propositions instead of nihilism. The experiences of living in England during World
War II inform the Quartets, which address issues of time, experience, mortality, and art. Rather
than lamenting the ruin of modern culture and seeking redemption in the cultural past, as The
Waste Land does, the quartets offer ways around human limits through art and spirituality. The
pastiche of the earlier works is replaced by philosophy and logic, and the formal experiments of
his early years are put aside in favor of a new language consciousness, which emphasizes the
sounds and other physical properties of words to create musical, dramatic, and other subtle
effects.
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However, while Eliots poetry underwent significance transformations over the course of his
career, his poems also bear many unifying aspects: all of Eliots poetry is marked by a conscious
desire to bring together the intellectual, the aesthetic, and the emotional in a way that both honors
the past and acknowledges the present. Eliot is always conscious of his own efforts, and he
frequently comments on his poetic endeavors in the poems themselves. This humility, which
often comes across as melancholy, makes Eliots some of the most personal, as well as the most
intellectually satisfying, poetry in the English language.
Not only is The Waste Land Eliots greatest work, but it may bealong with JoycesUlysses
the greatest work of all modernist literature. Most of the poem was written in 1921 , and it first
appeared in print in 1922 . As the poems dedication indicates, Eliot received a great deal of
guidance from Ezra Pound, who encouraged him to cut large sections of the planned work and to
break up the rhyme scheme. Recent scholarship suggests that Eliots wife, Vivien, also had a
significant role in the poems final form. A long work divided into five sections, The Waste
Land takes on the degraded mess that Eliot considered modern culture to constitute, particularly
after the first World War had ravaged Europe. A sign of the pessimism with which Eliot
approaches his subject is the poems epigraph, taken from the Satyricon, in which the Sibyl (a
woman with prophetic powers who ages but never dies) looks at the future and proclaims that
she only wants to die. The Sibyls predicament mirrors what Eliot sees as his own: He lives in a
culture that has decayed and withered but will not expire, and he is forced to live with reminders
of its former glory. Thus, the underlying plot of The Waste Land, inasmuch as it can be said to
have one, revolves around Eliots reading of two extraordinarily influential contemporary
cultural/anthropological texts, Jessie Westons From Ritual to Romance and Sir James
Fraziers The Golden Bough. Both of these works focus on the persistence of ancient fertility
rituals in modern thought and religion; of particular interest to both authors is the story of the
Fisher King, who has been wounded in the genitals and whose lack of potency is the cause of his
country becoming a desiccated waste land. Heal the Fisher King, the legend says, and the land
will regain its fertility. According to Weston and Frazier, healing the Fisher King has been the
subject of mythic tales from ancient Egypt to Arthurian England. Eliot picks up on the figure of
the Fisher King legends wasteland as an appropriate description of the state of modern society.
The important difference, of course, is that in Eliots world there is no way to heal the Fisher
King; perhaps there is no Fisher King at all. The legends imperfect integration into a modern
meditation highlights the lack of a unifying narrative (like religion or mythology) in the modern
world.
Eliots poem, like the anthropological texts that inspired it, draws on a vast range of sources.
Eliot provided copious footnotes with the publication of The Waste Land in book form; these are
an excellent source for tracking down the origins of a reference. Many of the references are from
the Bible: at the time of the poems writing Eliot was just beginning to develop an interest in
Christianity that would reach its apex in the Four Quartets. The overall range of allusions in The
Waste Land, though, suggests no overarching paradigm but rather a grab bag of broken
fragments that must somehow be pieced together to form a coherent whole. While Eliot employs
a deliberately difficult style and seems often to find the most obscure reference possible, he
means to do more than just frustrate his reader and display his own intelligence: He intends to
provide a mimetic account of life in the confusing world of the twentieth century.
The Waste Land opens with a reference to Chaucers Canterbury Tales. In this case, though,
April is not the happy month of pilgrimages and storytelling. It is instead the time when the land
should be regenerating after a long winter. Regeneration, though, is painful, for it brings back
reminders of a more fertile and happier past. In the modern world, winter, the time of
forgetfulness and numbness, is indeed preferable. Maries childhood recollections are also
painful: the simple world of cousins, sledding, and coffee in the park has been replaced by a
complex set of emotional and political consequences resulting from the war. The topic of
memory, particularly when it involves remembering the dead, is of critical importance in The
Waste Land. Memory creates a confrontation of the past with the present, a juxtaposition that
points out just how badly things have decayed. Marie reads for most of the night: ostracized by
politics, she is unable to do much else. To read is also to remember a better past, which could
produce a coherent literary culture.
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John Keats KEATSS ODES

Context
In his short life, John Keats wrote some of the most beautiful and enduring poems in the English
language. Among his greatest achievements is his sequence of six lyric odes, written between
March and September 1819astonishingly, when Keats was only twenty-four years old. Keatss
poetic achievement is made all the more miraculous by the age at which it ended: He died barely
a year after finishing the ode To Autumn, in February 1821.
Keats was born in 1795 to a lower-middle-class family in London. When he was still young, he
lost both his parents. His mother succumbed to tuberculosis, the disease that eventually killed
Keats himself. When he was fifteen, Keats entered into a medical apprenticeship, and eventually
he went to medical school. But by the time he turned twenty, he abandoned his medical training
to devote himself wholly to poetry. He published his first book of poems in 1817; they drew
savage critical attacks from an influential magazine, and his second book attracted comparatively
little notice when it appeared the next year. Keatss brother Tom died of tuberculosis in
December 1818, and Keats moved in with a friend in Hampstead.
In Hampstead, he fell in love with a young girl named Fanny Brawne. During this time, Keats
began to experience the extraordinary creative inspiration that enabled him to write, at a frantic
rate, all his best poems in the time before he died. His health and his finances declined sharply,
and he set off for Italy in the summer of1820, hoping the warmer climate might restore his
health. He never returned home. His death brought to an untimely end one of the most
extraordinary poetic careers of the nineteenth centuryindeed, one of the most extraordinary
poetic careers of all time. Keats never achieved widespread recognition for his work in his own
life (his bitter request for his tombstone: Here lies one whose name was writ on water), but he
was sustained by a deep inner confidence in his own ability. Shortly before his death, he
remarked that he believed he would be among the English poets when he had died.
Keats was one of the most important figures of early nineteenth-century Romanticism, a
movement that espoused the sanctity of emotion and imagination, and privileged the beauty of
the natural world. Many of the ideas and themes evident in Keatss great odes are
quintessentially Romantic concerns: the beauty of nature, the relation between imagination and
creativity, the response of the passions to beauty and suffering, and the transience of human life
in time. The sumptuous sensory language in which the odes are written, their idealistic concern
for beauty and truth, and their expressive agony in the face of death are all Romantic
preoccupationsthough at the same time, they are all uniquely Keatss.
Taken together, the odes do not exactly tell a storythere is no unifying plot and no recurring
charactersand there is little evidence that Keats intended them to stand together as a single
work of art. Nevertheless, the extraordinary number of suggestive interrelations between them is
impossible to ignore. The odes explore and develop the same themes, partake of many of the
same approaches and images, and, ordered in a certain way, exhibit an unmistakable
psychological development. This is not to say that the poems do not stand on their ownthey
do, magnificently; one of the greatest felicities of the sequence is that it can be entered at any
point, viewed wholly or partially from any perspective, and still prove moving and rewarding to
read. There has been a great deal of critical debate over how to treat the voices that speak the
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poemsare they meant to be read as though a single person speaks them all, or did Keats invent
a different persona for each ode?
There is no right answer to the question, but it is possible that the question itself is wrong: The
consciousness at work in each of the odes is unmistakably Keatss own. Of course, the poems are
not explicitly autobiographical (it is unlikely that all the events really happened to Keats), but
given their sincerity and their shared frame of thematic reference, there is no reason to think that
they do not come from the same part of Keatss mindthat is to say, that they are not all told by
the same part of Keatss reflected self. In that sense, there is no harm in treating the odes a
sequence of utterances told in the same voice. The psychological progress from Ode on
Indolence to To Autumn is intimately personal, and a great deal of that intimacy is lost if one
begins to imagine that the odes are spoken by a sequence of fictional characters. When you think
of the speaker of these poems, think of Keats as he would have imagined himself while writing
them. As you trace the speakers trajectory from the numb drowsiness of Indolence to the quiet
wisdom of Autumn, try to hear the voice develop and change under the guidance of Keatss
extraordinary language.
Themes
The Inevitability of Death
Even before his diagnosis of terminal tuberculosis, Keats focused on death and its inevitability in
his work. For Keats, small, slow acts of death occurred every day, and he chronicled these small
mortal occurrences. The end of a lovers embrace, the images on an ancient urn, the reaping of
grain in autumnall of these are not only symbols of death, but instances of it. Examples of
great beauty and art also caused Keats to ponder mortality, as in On Seeing the Elgin Marbles
(1817). As a writer, Keats hoped he would live long enough to achieve his poetic dream of
becoming as great as Shakespeare or John Milton: in Sleep and Poetry (1817), Keats outlined a
plan of poetic achievement that required him to read poetry for a decade in order to understand
and surpassthe work of his predecessors. Hovering near this dream, however, was a morbid
sense that death might intervene and terminate his projects; he expresses these concerns in the
mournful 1818 sonnet When I have fears that I may cease to be.
The Contemplation of Beauty
In his poetry, Keats proposed the contemplation of beauty as a way of delaying the inevitability
of death. Although we must die eventually, we can choose to spend our time alive in aesthetic
revelry, looking at beautiful objects and landscapes. Keatss speakers contemplate urns (Ode on
a Grecian Urn), books (On First Looking into Chapmans Homer [1816], On Sitting Down
to Read King Lear Once Again [1818]), birds (Ode to a Nightingale), and stars (Bright star,
would I were stedfast as thou art [1819]). Unlike mortal beings, beautiful things will never die
but will keep demonstrating their beauty for all time. Keats explores this idea in the first book
of Endymion (1818). The speaker in Ode on a Grecian Urn envies the immortality of the lute
players and trees inscribed on the ancient vessel because they shall never cease playing their
songs, nor will they ever shed their leaves. He reassures young lovers by telling them that even
though they shall never catch their mistresses, these women shall always stay beautiful. The
people on the urn, unlike the speaker, shall never stop having experiences. They shall remain
permanently depicted while the speaker changes, grows old, and eventually dies.
Motifs
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Departures and Reveries

In many of Keatss poems, the speaker leaves the real world to explore a transcendent, mythical,
or aesthetic realm. At the end of the poem, the speaker returns to his ordinary life transformed in
some way and armed with a new understanding. Often the appearance or contemplation of a
beautiful object makes the departure possible. The ability to get lost in a reverie, to depart
conscious life for imaginative life without wondering about plausibility or rationality, is part of
Keatss concept of negative capability. In Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art, the
speaker imagines a state of sweet unrest (12) in which he will remain half-conscious on his
lovers breast forever. As speakers depart this world for an imaginative world, they have
experiences and insights that they can then impart into poetry once theyve returned to conscious
life. Keats explored the relationship between visions and poetry in Ode to Psyche and Ode to
a Nightingale.
The Five Senses and Art
Keats imagined that the five senses loosely corresponded to and connected with various types of
art. The speaker in Ode on a Grecian Urn describes the pictures depicted on the urn, including
lovers chasing one another, musicians playing instruments, and a virginal maiden holding still.
All the figures remain motionless, held fast and permanent by their depiction on the sides of the
urn, and they cannot touch one another, even though we can touch them by holding the vessel.
Although the poem associates sight and sound, because we see the musicians playing, we cannot
hear the music. Similarly, the speaker in On First Looking into Chapmans Homer compares
hearing Homers words to pure serene (7) air so that reading, or seeing, becomes associating
with breathing, or smelling. In Ode to a Nightingale, the speaker longs for a drink of crystalclear water or wine so that he might adequately describe the sounds of the bird singing nearby.
Each of the five senses must be involved in worthwhile experiences, which, in turn, lead to the
production of worthwhile art.
The Disappearance of the Poet and the Speaker
In Keatss theory of negative capability, the poet disappears from the workthat is, the work
itself chronicles an experience in such a way that the reader recognizes and responds to the
experience without requiring the intervention or explanation of the poet. Keatss speakers
become so enraptured with an object that they erase themselves and their thoughts from their
depiction of that object. In essence, the speaker/poet becomes melded to and indistinguishable
from the object being described. For instance, the speaker of Ode on a Grecian Urn describes
the scenes on the urn for several stanzas until the famous conclusion about beauty and truth,
which is enclosed in quotation marks. Since the poems publication in 1820, critics have
theorized about who speaks these lines, whether the poet, the speaker, the urn, or one or all the
figures on the urn. The erasure of the speaker and the poet is so complete in this particular poem
that the quoted lines are jarring and troubling.
Symbols
Music and Musicians
Music and musicians appear throughout Keatss work as symbols of poetry and poets. In Ode
on a Grecian Urn, for instance, the speaker describes musicians playing their pipes. Although
we cannot literally hear their music, by using our imaginations, we can imagine and thus hear
music. The speaker of To Autumn reassures us that the season of fall, like spring, has songs to
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sing. Fall, the season of changing leaves and decay, is as worthy of poetry as spring, the season
of flowers and rejuvenation. Ode to a Nightingale uses the birds music to contrast the
mortality of humans with the immortality of art. Caught up in beautiful birdsong, the speaker
imagines himself capable of using poetry to join the bird in the forest. The beauty of the birds
music represents the ecstatic, imaginative possibilities of poetry. As mortal beings who will
eventually die, we can delay death through the timelessness of music, poetry, and other types of
art.
Nature
Like his fellow romantic poets, Keats found in nature endless sources of poetic inspiration, and
he described the natural world with precision and care. Observing elements of nature allowed
Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, among others, to create extended meditations and
thoughtful odes about aspects of the human condition. For example, in Ode to a Nightingale,
hearing the birds song causes the speaker to ruminate on the immortality of art and the mortality
of humans. The speaker of Ode on Melancholy compares a bout of depression to a weeping
cloud (12), then goes on to list specific flowers that are linked to sadness. He finds in nature apt
images for his psychological state. In Ode to Psyche, the speaker mines the night sky to find
ways to worship the Roman goddess Psyche as a muse: a star becomes an amorous glow-worm
(27), and the moon rests amid a background of dark blue. Keats not only uses nature as a
springboard from which to ponder, but he also discovers in nature similes, symbols,
and metaphors for the spiritual and emotional states he seeks to describe.
The Ancient World
Keats had an enduring interest in antiquity and the ancient world. His longer poems, such as The
Fall of Hyperion or Lamia, often take place in a mythical world not unlike that of classical
antiquity. He borrowed figures from ancient mythology to populate poems, such as Ode to
Psyche and To Homer (1818). For Keats, ancient myth and antique objects, such as the
Grecian urn, have a permanence and solidity that contrasts with the fleeting, temporary nature of
life. In ancient cultures, Keats saw the possibility of permanent artistic achievement: if an urn
still spoke to someone several centuries after its creation, there was hope that a poem or artistic
object from Keatss time might continue to speak to readers or observers after the death of Keats
or another writer or creator. This achievement was one of Keatss great hopes. In an 1818 letter
to his brother George, Keats quietly prophesied: I think I shall be among the English poets after
my death.

Emily Dickinson

Context
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Emily Dickinson read about the world around her, but for most of her adult life, she did not live
in it. She spent much of her life behind locked doors, refusing visitors and producing poem after
poem in her room. However, politics engaged Dickinson's attention for some time. Her father,
Edward Dickinson, was a United States Congressman. Dickinson's ancestry traced back to the
beginnings of New England history. The Dickinsons had come to America with John Winthrop in
1630 and had settled all over the Connecticut River Valley by the time Emily Dickinson was
born two hundred years later.
During Dickinson's life, a number of important events and movements took place. A social and
religious movement called the Great Revival renewed religious fervor among the people of New
England. It resulted in the closing of saloons all over Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Dickinson's father joined the Great Revival movement in supporting the temperance pledge, but
Dickinson looked on the movement with skepticism.
During the 1840s and 1850s, the abolitionist movementa social movement organized in the
North to abolish the institution of slaverygained support. On May 30, 1854, Congress passed
the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This bill made the Kansas and Nebraska territories full-fledged states.
As a result of granting Kansas and Nebraska statehood, the slave debate in America intensified,
for the new bill permitted slavery, enraging some United States citizens. The Kansas-Nebraska
Act stated that the new states would decide to adopt slavery or not based on "popular
sovereignty," or the will of the inhabitants of the territory. Leaving the adoption of slavery up to
the individual states directly contradicted the Missouri Compromise, which barred the extension
of slavery into new states. Edward Dickinson fought vehemently against the Kansas-Nebraska
Act. The bill passed, and as a result, Edward Dickinson and about forty other U.S. Congressmen
began planning an entirely new political party, which would come to be called the Republican
party.
The Civil War also touched Emily Dickinson's life. Her brother Austin paid a conscript to take
his place in the war, avoiding it, but Emily's great friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson led the
first black regiment in the Union army, and one of her dearest friend's husbands was killed by an
explosion in the conflict.
The American literary world was not closed to female writers, but it did not welcome them,
either. Harriet Beecher Stowe was the notable exception to the unspoken rules barring women
from the literary club. In 1852, Stowe published the immensely popular, controversial
novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Despite the gains made in fiction by women like Stowe, poetry was
still considered a man's arena, especially in New England, where heavyweights like Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Walt Whitman practiced their art.
Dickinson's father was liberal in some respects and conservative in others. He would have
disapproved if he knew Dickinson spent her time writing in her room, so she kept her massive
collection of writings locked in a secret drawer in her room. Dickinson's only publicly
disseminated poems were those she sent to friends and family as notes, birthday greetings, and
Valentines. In her lifetime, Dickinson published only seven poem out of the nearly 2,000 that
would eventually be published after her death. During Dickinson's life, nearly all of the seven
published poems were published anonymously in the Springfield Republican newspaper.
Dickinson, socially brilliant as a young woman, became increasingly reclusive as her life
progressed. In her mid-twenties, she began wearing only clothing that was white. Eventually, she
stopped receiving most visitors, even refusing to see dear friends that came to her house.
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Dickinson's great poetic achievement was not fully realized until years after her death, even
though Dickinson understood her own genius when she lived. Many scholars now identify
Dickinson's style as the forerunner, by more than fifty years, of modern poetry. At the time in
which Dickinson wrote, the conventions of poetry demanded strict form. Dickinson's broken
meter, unusual rhythmic patterns, and assonance struck even respected critics of the time as
sloppy and inept. In time, her style was echoed by many of our most revered poets, including
Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. However, while she lived, the few publishers could not appreciate the
innovation of Dickinson's form. Her unique technique discomfited them, and they could not see
beyond it to appreciate her jewels of imagery and her unexpected and fresh metaphors.
Dickinson's niece Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Dickinson's sister Lavinia collected and
published some of Dickinson's poetry after her death, but the world was still slow to recognize
Dickinson. In 1945, the collection of poems titled Bolts of Melody was published. In 1955
Dickinson's letters and selected commentaries on her life and work were published, and in 1960,
her complete poems, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, were published. At last the world began to
recognize Dickinson's innovation and brilliance. Today, Dickinson is ensconced in the canon and
almost universally considered one of the greatest poets in history.
In recent years, many scholars have rejected the popular view of Emily Dickinson as a heartsick
recluse who spent her entire life pining for an unnamed lover, foregoing sex and companionship
in order to concentrate more fully on her writing. Some scholars have argued that research on
Emily Dickinson has focused too heavily on her personal life and on the importance of men to
her poetry. There can be no doubt, however, that her poetry was a forerunner to modern poetry
and that her poems contained some of the most unusual and daring innovations in the history of
American poetry.
Short summary
Emily Dickinson, the "Belle of Amherst", is one of the most highly-regarded poets ever to write.
In America, perhaps only Walt Whitman is her equal in legend and in degree of influence.
Dickinson, the famous recluse dressed in white, secretly produced an enormous canon of poetry
while locked in her room and refusing visitor after visitor. Her personal life and its mysteries
have sometimes overshadowed her achievements in poetry and her extraordinary innovations in
poetic form, to the dismay of some scholars.
Dickinson was born in December of 1830 to a well-known family, long established in New
England. Her family lived in the then-small farming town of Amherst, Massachusetts. The
middle child, Dickinson was adored by both her older brother Austin and her younger Dickinson
Lavinia. Her relationship with her mother was distant, and though she was likely her father's
favorite, her relationship with him was sometimes frosty.
Dickinson regularly attended her family's church, and New England Calvinism surrounded her.
Dickinson stood out as an eccentric when, as a young girl, she refused to join the church
officially or even to call herself a Christian. At school she proved a good student, but spent only
one year at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before leaving the school due to health problems.
In the years prior to her cloistered existence at the house in Amherst, Dickinson was quite social,
attending parties, impressing her father's Washington political comrades during a trip there, and
amusing everyone with her witticisms. Emily Dickinson was a fun, fiercely intelligent, young
woman.
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Something changed in her life, and that change is one of the greatest mysteries surrounding
Dickinson's legend. Some time around 1850 she began writing poetry. Her first poems were
traditional and followed established form, but as time passed and she began producing huge
amounts of poetry, Dickinson began experimenting. In 1855, Dickinson, already a homebody,
took a trip to Washington D.C. after much prodding from her family. She also went to
Philadelphia, spending three weeks there. While in Philadelphia, she made the acquaintance of a
brilliant, serious man named Dr. Charles Wadsworth, a married reverend at one of the
Presbyterian churches in the city. He was an arresting figure and Dickinson deeply admired him.
Most scholars agree that Wadsworth was the man Dickinson fell in love with, and the man who
inspired much of her love poetry. Just before he left his Philadelphia church in 1861 to move to
San Francisco, Wadsworth visited Dickinson to tell her of his plans to leave. No one in the
family witnessed their meeting, but when he left, Dickinson suffered a nervous breakdown that
incapacitated her for a week and nearly ruined her eyesight.
Dickinson was experimenting with the form and structure of the poem. Many of her innovations
form the basis of modern poetry. She sent her poems as birthday greetings and as valentines, but
her love poetry was private. She tied it in tight little bundles and hid it away. She did, however,
seek out a mentor in Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a prominent literary critic in Boston. They
began a correspondence that would last for the rest of her life. Though she doggedly sought out
his advice, she never took the advice he gave, much to Higginson's annoyance.
During the 1860s and 1870s, Dickinson grew even more reclusive. She stopped wearing clothes
that had any hint of color and dressed only in white, she turned away almost every visitor who
came to see her, and she locked herself in her room for days at a time. In the late 1870s and early
1880s, a number of people close to Dickinson died in quick succession, including her mother, her
friend Judge Otis Lord, her young nephew, her good friend Helen Fiske Hunt and Dr. Charles
Wadsworth.
In 1886, Dickinson's health began deteriorating and she found herself slowly becoming an
invalid. Dickinson was only fifty-six, but she was suffering from a severe case of Bright's
disease. She died on May 15, 1886, and was buried in a white coffin in Amherst.

G B Shaw Caesar and Cleopatra

Context
George Bernard Shaw was born Protestant in a predominantly Catholic Dublin in 1856. When
Shaw was sixteen, his mother, an accomplished singer, left Ireland to escape her husband's
alcoholism and follow her singing teacher to London. Shaw remained to complete his education
but, finding his schooling largely inadequate, soon began to pursue his studies independently.
During this time, his father's alcoholism came to affect him deeply, making him a dedicated
teetotaler for most of his adult life. At age twenty he followed his mother to London to pursue his
writing and political career. A staunch progressive, Shaw joined in 1884 the Fabian Society, an
organization of middle-class socialists dedicated to mass education and the legislative reform of
England. The Fabians would later become instrumental in the founding of the London School of
Economics and Labour Party. As a member of their executive committee, Shaw established
himself as an orator, social critic, and public intellectual. Throughout his career as a playwright,
he would thus remain active with the Fabians and work on behalf of a number of causes,
including the abolishment of the public censors and the establishment of a National Theater.
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With the outbreak of World War I, which for him tolled the death knell of the capitalist system,
Shaw would publish a series of anti-war newspaper articles entitled "Common Sense about the
War." The series would temporarily ruin his public reputation and lead him to abandon the
limelight, until 1923, when his Saint Joan would bring him back to the spotlight. Other notable
political writings from his long career include "How to Settle the Irish Question" (1917) and
"The Intellectual Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism". Shaw lived until the age of 94,
dying in 1950 after falling from a ladder while gardening. He famously left a portion of his estate
to his last reform campaign, an ill-fated project to simplify the English language alphabet.
Shaw's writing career began almost simultaneously with his political one. His first literary
endeavors consisted a series of rather unsuccessful novels crafted in the 1870s and 1880s. During
this time, Shaw also worked as an art, music, and theater critic for the Saturday Review and
published a number of pamphlets on the arts, most famously "The Perfect Wagnerite," a
commentary on Wagner's Ring Cycle, and "The Quintessance of Ibsenism," an homage to one of
his primary muses. Shaw produced his first play, Widower's Houses, a strident attack on
London's slumlords, in 1892 with a private progressive theater company. He did so as the play
could have never hoped to pass public censors at the time. A collection of further anti-capitalist
works appeared in the 1898 anthology, Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant. Indeed, Shaw found
himself forced to publish a number of his more famous works in reading editions before they
ever saw the theater. Though critics generally received them well, they almost unanimously
agreed that they were better suited to novels than to the stage. Lengthy stage directions and
character descriptions, dizzying intellectual discussions, and the absence of conventional
dramatic action made their production seem unlikely at best.
Shavian drama ultimately came to the stage, however, introducing what has come to be known as
the "discussion play"that is, works primarily driven by ideas, argument, and debateto
modern Anglophone theater. Shaw wrote these plays in a variety of genres, ranging from the
comedy to the chronicle. Examples includeCaesar and Cleopatra (1901); the philosophically
imposing Man and Superman(1903); Major Barbara, a tale of a broken family some biographers
relate to Shaw's own; The Doctor's Dilemma (1906); the beloved Pygmalion, a tale on gender,
class, and phonetics later adapted as the musical My Fair Lady; and Androcles and the
Lion (1912), the only text to appear in Shaw's reformed alphabet. After the interruption of his
dramatic output caused by World War I, Shaw returned to the stage with last major works,
including his ambitious Back to Methuselah (1921), a meta-biologist five-play cycle on what he
called "creative evolution", and Saint Joan(1923), the play that would win him back his popular
appeal.
Caesar and Cleopatra, four-act play by George Bernard Shaw, written in 1898, published in
1901, and first produced in 1906. It is considered Shaws first great play. Caesar and
Cleopatra opens as Caesars armies arrive in Egypt to conquer the ancient divided land for
Rome. Caesar meets the young Cleopatra crouching at night between the paws of a sphinx,
wherehaving been driven from Alexandriashe is hiding. He returns her to the palace, reveals
his identity, and compels her to abandon her girlishness and accept her position as coruler of
Egypt (with Ptolemy Dionysus, her brother). Caesar and Cleopatra was extraordinarily
successful, largely because of Shaws talent for characterization.
About the book
The play has a prologue and an "Alternative to the Prologue". The prologue consists of the
Egyptian god Ra addressing the audience directly, as if he could see them in the theater (i.e.,
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breaking the fourth wall). He says that Pompey represents the old Rome and Caesar represents
the new Rome. The gods favored Caesar, according to Ra, because he "lived the life they had
given him boldly". Ra recounts the conflict between Caesar and Pompey, their battle at Pharsalia,
and Pompey's eventual assassination in Egypt at the hands of Lucius Septimius.
In "An Alternative to the Prologue", the captain of Cleopatra's guard is warned that Caesar has
landed and is invading Egypt. Cleopatra has been driven into Syria by her brother, Ptolemy, with
whom she is vying for the Egyptian throne. The messenger warns that Caesar's conquest is
inevitable and irresistible. A Nubian watchman flees to Cleopatra's palace and warns those inside
that Caesar and his armies are less than an hour away. The guards, knowing of Caesar's weakness
for women, plan to persuade him to proclaim Cleopatrawho may be controllableEgypt's
ruler instead of Ptolemy. They try to locate her, but are told by Cleopatra's nurse, Ftatateeta, that
she has run away.
(The film version of the play, made in 1945, used the Alternative Prologue rather than the
original one.)
Act I opens with Cleopatra sleeping between the paws of a Sphinx. Caesar, wandering lonely in
the desert night, comes upon the sphinx and speaks to it profoundly. Cleopatra wakes and, still
unseen, replies. At first Caesar imagines the sphinx is speaking in a girlish voice, then, when
Cleopatra appears, that he is experiencing a dream or, if he is awake, a touch of madness. She,
not recognizing Caesar, thinks him a nice old man and tells him of her childish fear of Caesar
and the Romans. Caesar urges bravery when she must face the conquerors, then escorts her to her
palace. Cleopatra reluctantly agrees to maintain a queenly presence, but greatly fears that Caesar
will eat her anyway. When the Roman guards arrive and hail Caesar, Cleopatra suddenly realizes
he has been with her all along. She sobs in relief, and falls into his arms.
Act II. In a hall on the first floor of the royal palace in Alexandria, Caesar meets King Ptolemy
(aged ten), his tutor Theodotus (very aged), Achillas (general of Ptolemy's troops),
and Pothinus (his guardian). Caesar greets all with courtesy and kindness, but inflexibly demands
a tribute whose amount disconcerts the Egyptians. As an inducement, Caesar says he will settle
the dispute between the claimants for the Egyptian throne by letting Cleopatra and Ptolemy reign
jointly. However, the rivalry exists because, even though the two are siblings and already married
in accordance with the royal law, they detest each other with a mutual antipathy no less
murderous for being childish. Each claims sole rulership. Caesar's solution is acceptable to none
and his concern for Ptolemy makes Cleopatra fiercely jealous.
The conference deteriorates into a dispute, with the Egyptians threatening military action.
Caesar, with two legions (three thousand soldiers and a thousand horsemen), has no fear of the
Egyptian army but learns Achillas also commands a Roman army of occupation, left after a
previous Roman incursion, which could overwhelm his relatively small contingent.
As a defensive measure, Caesar orders Rufio, his military aide, to take over the palace, a theatre
adjacent to it, and Pharos, an island in the harbor accessible from the palace via a causeway that
divides the harbor into eastern and western sections. From Pharos, which has a defensible
lighthouse at its eastmost tip, those of Caesar's ships anchored on the east side of the harbor can
return to Rome. His ships on the west side are to be burnt at once. Britannus, Caesar's secretary,
proclaims the king and courtiers prisoners of war, but Caesar, to the dismay of Rufio, allows the
captives to depart. Only Cleopatra (with her retinue), fearing Ptolemy's associates, and Pothinus
(for reasons of his own), choose to remain with Caesar. The others all depart.
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Caesar, intent on developing his strategy, tries to dismiss all other matters but is interrupted by
Cleopatra's nagging for attention. He indulges her briefly while she speaks amorously of Mark
Antony, who restored her father to his throne when she was twelve years old. Her gushing about
the youth and beauty of Mark Antony are unflattering to Caesar, who is middle-aged and balding.
Caesar nevertheless, impervious to jealousy, makes Cleopatra happy by promising to send Mark
Antony back to Egypt. As she leaves, a wounded soldier comes to report that Achillas, with his
Roman army, is at hand and that the citizenry is attacking Caesar's soldiers. A siege is imminent.
Watching from a balcony, Rufio discovers the ships he was ordered to destroy have been torched
by Achillas' forces and are already burning. Meanwhile, Theodotus, the savant, arrives
distraught, anguished because fire from the blazing ships has spread to the Alexandrian library.
Caesar does not sympathize, saying it is better that the Egyptians should live their lives than
dream them away with the help of books. As a practicality, he notes the Egyptian firefighters will
be diverted from attacking Caesar's soldiers. At scene's end, Cleopatra and Britannus help Caesar
don his armor and he goes forth to battle.
Act III. A Roman sentinel stationed on the quay in front of the palace looks intently, across the
eastern harbor, to the west, for activity at the Pharos lighthouse, now captured and occupied by
Caesar. He is watching for signs of an impending counter-attack by Egyptian forces arriving via
ship and by way of the Heptastadion (a stone causeway spanning the five miles of open water
between the mainland and Pharos Island). The sentinel's vigil is interrupted by Ftatateeta
(Cleopatra's nurse) and Apollodorus the Sicilian (a patrician amateur of the arts), accompanied
by a retinue of porters carrying a bale of carpets, from which Cleopatra is to select a gift
appropriate for Caesar.
Cleopatra emerges from the palace, shows little interest in the carpets, and expresses a desire to
visit Caesar at the lighthouse. The sentinel tells her she is a prisoner and orders her back inside
the palace. Cleopatra is enraged, and Apollodorus, as her champion, engages in swordplay with
the sentinel. A centurion intervenes and avers Cleopatra will not be allowed outside the palace
until Caesar gives the order. She is sent back to the palace, where she may select a carpet for
delivery to Caesar. Apollodorus, who is not a prisoner, will deliver it since he is free to travel in
areas behind the Roman lines. He hires a small boat, with a single boatmen, for the purpose.
The porters leave the palace bearing a rolled carpet. They complain about its weight, but only
Ftatateeta, suffering paroxysms of anxiety, knows that Cleopatra is hidden in the bundle. The
sentinel, however, alerted by Ftatateeta's distress, becomes suspicious and attempts,
unsuccessfully, to recall the boat after it departs.
Meanwhile, Rufio, eating dates and resting after the day's battle, hears Caesar speaking somberly
of his personal misgivings and predicting they will lose the battle because age has rendered him
inept. Rufio diagnoses Caesar's woes as signs of hunger and gives him dates to eat. Caesar's
outlook brightens as he eats them. He is himself again when Britannus exultantly approaches
bearing a heavy bag containing incriminating letters that have passed between Pompey's
associates and their army, now occupying Egypt. Caesar scorns to read them, deeming it better to
convert his enemies to friends than to waste his time with prosecutions; he casts the bag into the
sea.
As Cleopatra's boat arrives, the falling bag breaks its prow and it quickly sinks, barely allowing
time for Apollodorus to drag the carpet and its queenly contents safe ashore. Caesar unrolls the
carpet and discovers Cleopatra, who is distressed because of the rigors of her journey and even
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more so when she finds Caesar too preoccupied with military matters to accord her much
attention. Matters worsen when Britannus, who has been observing the movements of the
Egyptian army, reports that the enemy now controls the causeway and is also approaching
rapidly across the island. Swimming to a Roman ship in the eastern harbor becomes the sole
possibility for escape. Apollodorus dives in readily and Caesar follows, after privately instructing
Rufio and Britannus to toss Cleopatra into the water so she can hang on while he swims to safety.
They do so with great relish, she screaming mightily, then Rufio takes the plunge. Britannus
cannot swim, so he is instructed to defend himself as well as possible until a rescue can be
arranged. A friendly craft soon rescues all the swimmers.
Act IV. Six months elapse with Romans and Cleopatra besieged in the palace in Alexandria.
Cleopatra and Pothinus, who is a prisoner of war, discuss what will happen when Caesar
eventually leaves and disagree over whether Cleopatra or Ptolemy should rule. They part;
Cleopatra to be hostess at a feast prepared for Caesar and his lieutenants, and Pothinus to tell
Caesar that Cleopatra is a traitress who is only using Caesar to help her gain the Egyptian throne.
Caesar considers that a natural motive and is not offended. But Cleopatra is enraged at Pothinus'
allegation and secretly orders her nurse, Ftatateeta, to kill him.
At the feast the mood is considerably restrained by Caesar's ascetic preference for simple fare
and barley water versus exotic foods and wines. However, conversation grows lively when
world-weary Caesar suggests to Cleopatra they both leave political life, search out the Nile's
source and a city there. Cleopatra enthusiastically agrees and, to name the city, seeks help from
the God of the Nile, who is her favorite god.
The festivities are interrupted by a scream, followed by a thud: Pothinus has been murdered and
his body thrown from the roof down to the beach. The besieging Egyptians, both army and
civilian, are enraged by the killing of Pothinus, who was a popular hero, and they begin to storm
the palace. Cleopatra claims responsibility for the slaying and Caesar reproaches her for taking
shortsighted vengeance, pointing out that his clemency towards Pothinus and the other prisoners
has kept the enemy at bay. Doom seems inevitable, but then they learn that reinforcements,
commanded by Mithridates of Pergamos have engaged the Egyptian army. With the threat
diminished, Caesar draws up a battle plan and leaves to speak to the troops. Meanwhile, Rufio
realizes Ftatateeta was Pothinus' killer, so he kills her in turn. Cleopatra, left alone and utterly
forlorn discovers the bloodied body concealed behind a curtain.
Act V is an epilogue. Amidst great pomp and ceremony, Caesar prepares to leave for Rome. His
forces have swept Ptolemy's armies into the Nile, and Ptolemy himself was drowned when his
barge sank. Caesar appoints Rufio governor of the province and considers freedom for Britannus,
who declines the offer in favor of remaining Caesar's servant. A conversation ensues that
foreshadows Caesar's eventual assassination. As the gangplank is being extended from the quay
to Caesar's ship, Cleopatra, dressed in mourning for her nurse, arrives. She accuses Rufio of
murdering Ftatateeta. Rufio admits the slaying, but says it was not for the sake of punishment,
revenge or justice: he killed her without malice because she was a potential menace. Caesar
approves the execution because it was not influenced by spurious moralism. Cleopatra remains
unforgiving until Caesar renews his promise to send Mark Antony to Egypt. That renders her
ecstatic as the ship starts moving out to sea.
Shaw wants to prove that it was not love but politics that drew Cleopatra to Julius Caesar. He
sees the Roman occupation of ancient Egypt as similar to the British occupation that was
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occurring during his time. Caesar understands the importance of good government, and values
these things above art and love.
Themes
Shaw's philosophy has often been compared to that of Nietzsche, Their shared admiration for
men of action shows itself in Shaw's description of Caesar's struggle with Pompey,In the
prologue, the god Ra says, "the blood and iron ye pin your faith on fell before the spirit of man;
for the spirit of man is the will of the gods."
A second theme, apparent both from the text of the play itself and from Shaw's lengthy notes
after the play, is Shaw's belief that people have not been morally improved
bycivilization and technology.A line from the prologue clearly illustrates this point. The
god Ra addresses the audience and says, "ye shall marvel, after your ignorant manner, that men
twenty centuries ago were already just such as you, and spoke and lived as ye speak and live, no
worse and no better, no wiser and no sillier."
Another theme is the value of clemency. Caesar remarks that he will not stoop to vengeance
when confronted with Septimius, the murderer of Pompey. Caesar throws away letters that
would have identified his enemies in Rome, instead choosing to try to win them to his side.
Pothinus remarks that Caesar doesn't torture his captives. At several points in the play, Caesar
lets his enemies go instead of killing them. The wisdom of this approach is revealed when
Cleopatra orders her nurse to kill Pothinus because of his "treachery and disloyalty" (but really
because of his insults to her). This probably contrasts with historical fact. The murder enrages
the Egyptian crowd, and but for Mithridates' reinforcements would have meant the death of all
the protagonists. Caesar only endorses the retaliatory murder of Cleopatra's nurse because it was
necessary and humane.

Pygmalion
Context
Born in Dublin in 1856 to a middle-class Protestant family bearing pretensions to nobility
(Shaw's embarrassing alcoholic father claimed to be descended from Macduff, the slayer of
Macbeth), George Bernard Shaw grew to become what some consider the second greatest
English playwright, behind only Shakespeare. Others most certainly disagree with such an
assessment, but few question Shaw's immense talent or the play's that talent produced. Shaw died
at the age of 94, a hypochondriac, socialist, anti-vaccinationist, semi-feminist vegetarian who
believed in the Life Force and only wore wool. He left behind him a truly massive corpus of
work including about 60 plays, 5 novels, 3 volumes of music criticism, 4 volumes of dance
and theatrical criticism, and heaps of social commentary, political theory, and voluminous
correspondence. And this list does not include the opinions that Shaw could always be counted
on to hold about any topic, and which this flamboyant public figure was always most willing to
share. Shaw's most lasting contribution is no doubt his plays, and it has been said that "aday
never passes without a performance of some Shaw play being given somewhere in the
world." One of Shaw's greatest contributions as a modern dramatist is in establishing drama as
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serious literature, negotiating publication deals for his highly popular plays so as to convince the
public that the play was no less important than the novel. In that way, he created the conditions
for later playwrights to write seriously for the theater. Of all of Shaw's plays, Pygmalion is
without the doubt the most beloved and popularly received, if not the most significant in literary
terms. Several film versions have been made of the play, and it has even been adapted into a
musical. In fact, writing the screenplay for the film version of 1938 helped Shaw to become the
first and only man ever to win the much coveted Double: the Nobel Prize for literature and an
Academy Award. Shaw wrote the part of Eliza in Pygmalion
for the famous actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell, with whom Shaw was having aprominent affair at
the time that had set all of London abuzz. The aborted romance between Professor Higginsand
Eliza Doolittle reflects Shaw's own love life, which was always peppered with enamored
and beautifulwomen, with whom he flirted outrageously but with whom he almost never had any
further relations. For example,he had a long marriage to Charlotte Payne-Townsend in which it is
well known that he never touched her once.The fact that Shaw was quietly a member of the
British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, an organization whose core members were
young men agitating for homosexual liberation, might or might not inform the way thatHiggins
would rather focus his passions on literature or science than on women. That Higgins was
arepresentation of Pygmalion, the character from the famous story of Ovid's Metamorphoses
who is the veryembodiment of male love for the female form, makes Higgins sexual disinterest
all the more compelling. Shaw istoo consummate a performer and too smooth in his selfpresentation for us to neatly dissect his sexualbackground; these lean biographical facts,
however, do support the belief that Shaw would have an interest inexploding the typical
structures of standard fairy tales.
Summary
Two old gentlemen meet in the rain one night at Covent Garden. Professor Higgins is a scientist
of phonetics,and Colonel Pickering is a linguist of Indian dialects. The first bets the other that he
can, with his knowledge of phonetics, convince high London society that, in a matter of months,
he will be able to transform the cockneyspeaking Covent Garden flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, into
a woman as poised and well-spoken as a duchess. Thenext morning, the girl appears at his
laboratory on Wimpole Street to ask for speech lessons, offering to pay ashilling, so that she may
speak properly enough to work in a flower shop. Higgins makes merciless fun of her, butis
seduced by the idea of working his magic on her. Pickering goads him on by agreeing to cover
the costs of theexperiment if Higgins can pass Eliza off as a duchess at an ambassador's garden
party. The challenge is taken,and Higgins starts by having his housekeeper bathe Eliza and give
her new clothes. Then Eliza's father Alfred Doolittle comes to demand the return of his daughter,
though his real intention is to hit Higgins up for somemoney. The professor, amused by
Doolittle's unusual rhetoric, gives him five pounds. On his way out, the dustman fails to
recognize the now clean, pretty flower girl as his daughter.
For a number of months, Higgins trains Eliza to speak properly. Two trials for Eliza follow. The
first occurs at Higgins' mother's home, where Eliza is introduced to the Eynsford Hills, a trio of
mother, daughter, and son. The son Freddy is very attracted to her, and further taken with what he
thinks is her affected "small talk" when she slips into cockney. Mrs. Higgins worries that the
experiment will lead to problems once it is ended, but Higgins and Pickering are too absorbed in
their game to take heed. A second trial, which takes place some months later at an ambassador's
party (and which is not actually staged), is a resounding success. The wager is definitely won,
but Higgins and Pickering are now bored with the project, which causes Eliza to be hurt. She
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throws Higgins' slippers at him in a rage because she does not know what is to become of her,
thereby bewildering him. He suggests she marry somebody. She returns him the hired jewelry,
and he accuses her of ingratitude.
The following morning, Higgins rushes to his mother, in a panic because Eliza has run away. On
his tail is Eliza's father, now unhappily rich from the trust of a deceased millionaire who took to
heart Higgins' recommendation that Doolittle was England's "most original moralist." Mrs.
Higgins, who has been hiding Eliza upstairs all along, chides the two of them for playing with
the girl's affections. When she enters, Eliza thanks Pickering for always treating her like a lady,
but threatens Higgins that she will go work with his rival phonetician, Nepommuck. The
outraged Higgins cannot help but start to admire her. As Eliza leaves for her father's wedding,
Higgins shouts out a few errands for her to run, assuming that she will return to him at Wimpole
Street. Eliza, who has a lovelorn sweetheart in Freddy, and the wherewithal to pass as a duchess,
never makes it clear whether she will or not.
About the characters
Professor Henry Higgins - Henry Higgins is a professor of phonetics who plays Pygmalion to
Eliza Doolittle's Galatea. He is the author of Higgins' Universal Alphabet, believes in concepts
like visible speech, and uses all manner of recording and photographic material to document his
phonetic subjects, reducing people and their dialects into what he sees as readily understandable
units. He is an unconventional man, who goes in the opposite direction from the rest of society in
most matters. Indeed, he is impatient with high society, forgetful in his public graces, and poorly
considerate of normal social niceties--the only reason the world has not turned against him is
because he is at heart a good and harmless man. His biggest fault is that he can be a bully.
Eliza Doolittle - "She is not at all a romantic figure." So is she introduced in Act I. Everything
about Eliza Doolittle seems to defy any conventional notions we might have about the romantic
heroine. When she is transformed from a sassy, smart-mouthed kerbstone flower girl with
deplorable English, to a (still sassy) regal figure fit to consort with nobility, it has less to do with
her innate qualities as a heroine than with the fairy-tale aspect of the transformation myth itself.
In other words, the character of Eliza Doolittle comes across as being much more instrumental
than fundamental. The real (re-)making of Eliza Doolittle happens after the ambassador's party,
when she decides to make a statement for her own dignity against Higgins' insensitive treatment.
This is when she becomes, not a duchess, but an independent woman; and this explains why
Higgins begins to see Eliza not as a mill around his neck but as a creature worthy of his
admiration.
Colonel Pickering - Colonel Pickering, the author of Spoken Sanskrit, is a match for Higgins
(although somewhat less obsessive) in his passion for phonetics. But where Higgins is a boorish,
careless bully, Pickering is always considerate and a genuinely gentleman. He says little of note
in the play, and appears most of all to be a civilized foil to Higgins' barefoot, absentminded crazy
professor. He helps in the Eliza Doolittle experiment by making a wager of it, saying he will
cover the costs of the experiment if Higgins does indeed make a convincing duchess of her.
However, while Higgins only manages to teach Eliza pronunciations, it is Pickering's thoughtful
treatment towards Eliza that teaches her to respect herself.
Alfred Doolittle - Alfred Doolittle is Eliza's father, an elderly but vigorous dustman who has had
at least six wives and who "seems equally free from fear and conscience." When he learns that
his daughter has entered the home of Henry Higgins, he immediately pursues to see if he can get
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some money out of the circumstance. His unique brand of rhetoric, an unembarrassed,
unhypocritical advocation of drink and pleasure (at other people's expense), is amusing to
Higgins. Through Higgins' joking recommendation, Doolittle becomes a richly endowed lecturer
to a moral reform society, transforming him from lowly dustman to a picture of middle class
morality--he becomes miserable. Throughout, Alfred is a scoundrel who is willing to sell his
daughter to make a few pounds, but he is one of the few unaffected characters in the play,
unmasked by appearance or language. Though scandalous, his speeches are honest. At points, it
even seems that he might be Shaw's voice piece of social criticism (Alfred's proletariat status,
given Shaw's socialist leanings, makes the prospect all the more likely).
Mrs. Higgins - Professor Higgins' mother, Mrs. Higgins is a stately lady in her sixties who sees
the Eliza Doolittle experiment as idiocy, and Higgins and Pickering as senseless children. She is
the first and only character to have any qualms about the whole affair. When her worries prove
true, it is to her that all the characters turn. Because no woman can match up to his mother,
Higgins claims, he has no interest in dallying with them. To observe the mother of Pygmalion
(Higgins), who completely understands all of his failings and inadequacies, is a good contrast to
the mythic proportions to which Higgins builds himself in his self-estimations as a scientist of
phonetics and a creator of duchesses.
Freddy Eynsford Hill - Higgins' surmise that Freddy is a fool is probably accurate. In the
opening scene he is a spineless and resourceless lackey to his mother and sister. Later, he is
comically bowled over by Eliza, the half-baked duchess who still speaks cockney. He becomes
lovesick for Eliza, and courts her with letters. At the play's close, Freddy serves as a young,
viable marriage option for Eliza, making the possible path she will follow unclear to the reader.
Conclusions

Pygmalion derives its name from the famous story in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which
Pygmalion, disgusted by the loose and shameful lives of the women of his era, decides to live
alone and unmarried. With wondrous art, he creates a beautiful statue more perfect than any
living woman. The more he looks upon her, the more deeply he falls in love with her, until he
wishes that she were more than a statue. This statue is Galatea. Lovesick, Pygmalion goes to the
temple of the goddess Venus and prays that she give him a lover like his statue; Venus is touched
by his love and brings Galatea to life. When Pygmalion returns from Venus' temple and kisses
his statue, he is delighted to find that she is warm and soft to the touch--"The maiden felt the
kisses, blushed and, lifting her timid eyes up to the light, saw the sky and her lover at the same
time" (Frank Justus Miller, trans.).
Myths such as this are fine enough when studied through the lens of centuries and the buffer of
translations and editions, but what happens when one tries to translate such an allegory into
Victorian England? That is just what George Bernard Shaw does in his version of the Pygmalion
myth. In doing so, he exposes the inadequacy of myth and of romance in several ways. For one,
he deliberately twists the myth so that the play does not conclude as euphorically or
conveniently, hanging instead in unconventional ambiguity. Next, he mires the story in the sordid
and mundane whenever he gets a chance. Wherever he can, the characters are seen to be
belabored by the trivial details of life like napkins and neckties, and of how one is going to find a
taxi on a rainy night. These noisome details keep the story grounded and decidedly less romantic.
Finally, and most significantly, Shaw challenges the possibly insidious assumptions that come
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with the Pygmalion myth, forcing us to ask the following: Is the male artist the absolute and
perfect being who has the power to create woman in the image of his desires? Is the woman
necessarily the inferior subject who sees her lover as her sky? Can there only ever be
sexual/romantic relations between a man and a woman? Does beauty reflect virtue? Does the
artist love his creation, or merely the art that brought that creation into being?
Famous for writing "talky" plays in which barely anything other than witty repartee takes center
stage (plays that the most prominent critics of his day called non-plays), Shaw finds
in Pygmalion a way to turn the talk into action, by hinging the fairy tale outcome of the flower
girl on precisely how she talks. In this way, he draws our attention to his own art, and to his
ability to create, through the medium of speech, not only Pygmalion's Galatea, but Pygmalion
himself. More powerful than Pygmalion, on top of building up his creations, Shaw can take them
down as well by showing their faults and foibles. In this way, it is the playwright alone, and not
some divine will, who breathes life into his characters. While Ovid's Pygmalion may be said to
have idolized his Galatea, Shaw's relentless and humorous honesty humanizes these archetypes,
and in the process brings drama and art itself to a more contemporarily relevant and human level.

Ernest Hemingway: Short Stories

Context
Ernest Hemingway was born in a suburb of Chicago in 1899. He began his working life as a
writer for The Kansas City Star. During World War I, he was an ambulance driver in Italy, but he
had to be sent home after suffering serious injuries. In 1921, Hemingway moved to Paris and
spent time among other artistic American expatriates such as Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
and Ezra Pound. He published a book of stories and poems in Paris in 1923, but In Our Time was
his first American book.
The times during which Hemingway lived were extraordinarily important to his writing. World
War I changed the way that the world viewed itself. No longer could Americans and Europeans
claim to be innocent and simply happy. They had seen, heard, and been ravaged by a horrible,
destructive war. Further, an entire generation of young men had experienced the horrors of
warfare. Hemingway seemed to pick up on the attitudes and troubles of these men and translated
them successfully into fiction. In a historic sense, Hemingway expressed the feelings of his
generation.
Hemingway was also one of the leaders of the modernist literary movement, which took place
after World War I. Modernist writers, including Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, Marianne
Moore, John Dos Passos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, e.e. cummings, Virginia Woolf, and William Carlos
Williams, often experimented with language. Hemingway did so by trimming the often excessive
language of the nineteenth century into a spare, hard-edged prose. Modernist writers also
emphasized being brutally honest about their subjects; Hemingway never sugarcoated his
material, cutting instead to the quick of his subject. Finally, the modernist period is often argued
to have a distinctly masculine bent, which Hemingway certainly did. In 1954, Hemingway won
the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In Our Time is a collection of short stories and vignettes about the years before, during, and after
World War I. The stories, which are titled, are separated by vignettes, each of which is a chapter.
The first story, "On the Quai at Smyrna," introduces the war through a description of an
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evacuation. Then, "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "The End of Something,"
"The Three-Day Blow," "The Battler" and perhaps "A Very Short Story" all describe an
encounter in the life of Nick Adams. Through these stories, Nick seems to be growing up. The
vignettes are scenes from war, in which few characters are named. Chapter VI, after "The
Battler," is about Nick in the war. After that, the vignettes turn away from stories of the war and
the short stories take up a different subject.
"A Soldier's Home" is about a soldier named Krebs returning to his hometown. "Mr. And Mrs.
Elliot," "Cat in the Rain," and "Out of Season" are all about American couples living or
vacationing in Europe. "Cross-Country Snow" is about two men (one of whom is named Nick)
skiing together. "My Old Man" is about a jockey and his son. Then, "Big Two-Hearted River,"
parts I and II, are about the return of Nick Adams to his fishing ground, the forest around which
and town of which have been burnt down. The vignettes that separate these stories vary in
content but mostly deal with bullfighting. The final vignette, "L'Envoi," is a surreal story about a
visit to a Greek king.
A very short story
Summary
The narrator recollects his romance with an Italian nurse while he was wounded and in the
hospital. On a hot evening in Padua, Italy, some people carried him up to the roof to look at the
town. The others went down again when it got dark and the searchlights came on. Luz and he
went to bed together. She took night duty for three months so that she could be with him. She
prepared the table for his operation. Then, when he was on crutches, he went around taking
nighttime temperatures so that she did not have to get out of bed. Everyone knew about them.
Before he went back to the war, they prayed. They wanted to get married, but they did not have
the right paperwork or enough time. Luz wrote to him often, but they were delivered all together.
They decided that after the war, he would go to New York to get a job, and she would come
afterward. They left each other while still quarreling about her not coming with him. He left for
America. She stayed behind to open a hospital. There, the major of an Italian battalion made love
to her. She wrote to the American that their romance had only been boy-girl love. Now she had
found adult love. This major did not marry her, though. Her American love never wrote back.
Soon thereafter, he contracted gonorrhea from a department store employee while riding in a cab
through a residential area of Chicago.
This story is probably about Nick because the main character is from Chicago. Regardless, the
tale reveals how the war let young men change and develop sexually, emotionally, and
intellectually. Of course, development might not be for the better. If this character is Nick, then
he has had a love before, in Marjorie. Yet, Luz calls his love childish. Further, when he gets back
home, he has even less intimate relationships with women.
This man's relationship with Luz also serves to reveal the youth of the American nation. America
was just coming into power on a global scale. The first World War went a long way to proving its
viability as a major player in world affairs. But, America remains much younger and more
immature than the European nations. Therefore, when the Italian general proves to be more of a
man than the American soldier, Hemingway is indicating that America remains a young and
immature nation.
Conclusions
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In Our Time is the piece of writing that made Ernest Hemingway famous. He published this
collection of short stories for the first time in 1925, to much praise. The collection revealed
Hemingway's writing style, which was completely different from the florid, extravagant style of
writing than preceded him. In Our Time, like all of Hemingway's writing, uses simple,
declarative sentences with little or no description of emotion. Yet, through this spare style,
Hemingway was able to weave powerful and moving stories. This new use of language counted
as one of the major developments in modernist literature. The modern period of literature began
just after World War I and continued, many would argue, up to and even through the second
World War (1941-45 for America). Modernism incorporated many different things, one of which
was exploration and innovation in language. Hemingway's change of language was simple, but
powerful. Many critics have even called his writing more masculine than nineteenth-century
prose, like that of Henry James. In fact, one critic, Ann Douglas, argues that writers such as
Hemingway helped create a more masculine literary scene and society after World War I.
While In Our Time introduced Hemingway's revolutionary writing style, its content also made it
famous. Many authors attempted to write about World War I, but until In Our Time, few had
succeeded. Critics hailed this book as the first true analysis and depiction of the war.
Hemingway's language helped the stories ring true, as did his powerful scenes and his often
confusing narrative flow. The themes that Hemingway highlighted finally captured the spirit of
the Great War. In the collection, he writes about masculinity (often in connection with battling
and sport), relationships between men and women, bonding between members of the same sex,
love, development and adaptation, maturity, and responsibility. The way that he weaves the
themes together creates a portrait of Americans before, during, and after the war with which
people seemed to identify. The stories about Nick Adams send him through a rite of passage. He
learns as a young child about birth and death (in "Indian Camp"). Then his interactions with
friends such as Bill and girlfriends such as Marjorie teach him about relationships. In "The
Battler," Nick is on the road for the first time and encounters more information from an old
fighter and his companion. Nothing prepares Nick for the war, though. That experience brings
him back home in "Big Two-Hearted River" a more mature, grateful, and masculine man.

Eugene ONeill: Mourning Becomes Electra

Context
Eugene O'Neill (18881953) was the son of an actor whose work meant that the family led a
difficult life on the road. O'Neill would later deeply resent his insecure childhood, pinning the
family's many problems, including his mother's drug addiction, on his father. Educated at
boarding schools, O'Neill gained admission to Princeton University but left after only one year to
go to sea. He spent his early twenties living on the docks of Buenos Aires, Liverpool, and New
York, sinking into an alcoholism that brought him to the point of suicide. Slowly O'Neill
recovered from his addiction and took a job writing for a newspaper. A bout of tuberculosis left
him incapacitated and he was consigned to a sanitarium for six months. While in recovery,
O'Neill decided to become a playwright.

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O'Neill wrote his first play,Bound East for Cardiff, in 1916, premiering it with a company in
Provincetown, MA that took it to New York that same year. In 1920, O'Neill's breakthrough
came with his play Beyond the Horizon. Historians of drama identify its premiere as a pivotal
event on the Broadway stage, one that brought a new form of tragic realism to an industry almost
entirely overrun with stock melodramas and shallow farces. O'Neill went on to write over twenty
innovative plays in the next twenty years, to steadily growing acclaim. The more famous works
from his early period include The Great God Brown (1926), a study in the conflicts between
idealism and materialism, and Strange Interlude (1928), an ambitious 36-hour saga on the plight
of the Everywoman. His late career brought such works as his masterpiece, The Iceman
Cometh (1946), an Ibsenian portrait of man's hold on his pipe dreams, and A Long Day's Journey
into Night (1956), the posthumously published and painfully autobiographical tragedy of a
family haunted by a mother's drug addiction.
O'Neill wrote morality plays and experimented with the tragic form. O'Neill's interest in tragedy
began as early as 1924 with his Desire Under the Elms, a tale of incest, infanticide, and fateful
retribution, but would come to maturity with his monumental revision of
Aeschylus's Oresteia, Mourning Becomes Electra (1931). O'Neill chose Electra because he felt
that her tale had been left incomplete. More generally, as his diary notes indicate, O'Neill
understood his exercises in tragedy as an attempt to find a modern analogue to an ancient mode
of experience. Thus Mourning aims to provide a "modern psychological approximation of the
Greek sense of fate" in a time in which the notion of an inescapable and fundamentally nonredemptive determinism is incomprehensible. Accordingly, the setting of the trilogy, the
American Civil War, springs from O'Neill's attempt to negotiate the chasm between ancient and
modern. For O'Neill, the Civil War provided a setting that would allow audiences to locate the
tragic in their national history and mythology while retaining enough distance in time to lend the
tale its required epic proportions.Mourning also provided O'Neill with an occasion to abandon
the complex set design of the Art Theater, which he had long bemoaned as a constraint on the
playwright's creative freedom.
The Homecoming
It is late spring afternoon in front of the Mannon house. The master of the house, BrigadierGeneral Ezra Mannon, is soon to return from war.
Lavinia, Ezra's severe daughter, has just come, like her mother Christine, from a trip to New
York. Seth, the gardener, takes the anguished girl aside. He needs to warn her against her wouldbe beau, Captain Brant. Before Seth can continue, however, Lavinia's suitor Peter and his sister
Hazel, arrive. Lavinia stiffens. If Peter is proposing to her again, he must realize that she cannot
marry anyone because Father needs her.
Lavinia asks Seth to resume his story. Seth asks if she has not noticed that Brant looks just like
her all the other male Mannons. He believes that Brant is the child of David Mannon and Marie
Brantme, a Canuck nurse, a couple expelled from the house for fear of public disgrace.
Suddenly Brant himself enters from the drive. Calculatingly Lavinia derides the memory of
Brant's mother. Brant explodes and reveals his heritage. Lavinia's grandfather loved his mother
and jealously cast his brother out of the family. Brant has sworn vengeance.
A moment later, Lavinia appears inside her father's study. Christine enters indignantly,
wondering why Lavinia has summoned her. Lavinia reveals that she followed her to New York
and saw her kissing Brant. Christine defiantly tells Lavinia that she has long hated Ezra and that
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Lavinia was born of her disgust. She loves her brother Orin because he always seemed hers
alone.
Lavinia coldly explains that she intends to keep her mother's secret for Ezra's sake. Christine
must only promise to never see Brant again. Laughingly Christine accuses her daughter of
wanting Brant herself. Lavinia has always schemed to steal her place. Christine agrees to
Lavinia's terms. Later she proposes to Brant that they poison Ezra and attribute his death to his
heart trouble.
One week later, Lavinia stands stiffly at the top of the front stairs with Christine. Suddenly Ezra
enters and stops stiffly before his house. Lavinia rushes forward and embraces him.
Once she and Ezra alone, Christine assures her that he has nothing to suspect with regards to
Brant. Ezra impulsively kisses her hand. The war has made him realize that they must overcome
the wall between them. Calculatingly Christine assures him that all is well. They kiss.
Toward daybreak in Ezra's bedroom, Christine slips out from the bed. Mannon's bitterly rebukes
her. He knows the house is not his and that Christine awaits his death to be free. Christine
deliberately taunts that she has indeed become Brant's mistress. Mannon rises in fury, threatening
her murder, and then falls back in agony, begging for his medicine. Christine retrieves a box
from her room and gives him the poison.
Mannon realizes her treachery and calls Lavinia for help. Lavinia rushes to her father. With his
dying effort, Ezra indicts his wife: "She's guiltynot medicine!" he gasps and then dies. Her
strength gone, Christine collapses in a faint.
The Hunted
Peter, Lavinia, and Orin arrive at the house. Orin disappointedly complains of Christine's
absence. He jealously asks Lavinia about what she wrote him regarding Brant. Lavinia warns
him against believing Christine's lies.
Suddenly Christine hurries out, reproaching Peter for leaving Orin alone. Mother and son
embrace jubilantly. Suspiciously Orin asks Christine about Brant. Christine explains that Lavinia
has gone mad and begun to accuse her of the impossible. Orin sits at Christine's feet and recounts
his wonderful dreams about her and the South Sea Islands. The Islands represented all the war
was not: peace, warmth, and security, or Christina herself. Lavinia reappears and coldly calls
Orin to see their father's body.
In the study, Orin tells Lavinia that Christine has already warned him of her madness.
Calculatingly Lavinia insists that Orin certainly cannot let their mother's paramour escape. She
proposes that they watch Christine until she goes to meet Brant herself. Orin agrees.
The night after Ezra's funeral, Brant's clipper ship appears at a wharf in East Boston. Christine
meets Brant on the deck, and they retire to the cabin to speak in private. Lavinia and an enraged
Orin listen from the deck. The lovers decide to flee east and seek out their Blessed Islands.
Fearing the hour, they painffully bid each other farewell. When Brant returns, Orin shoots him
and ransacks the room to make it seem that Brant has been robbed.
The following night Christine paces the drive before the Mannon house. Orin and Lavinia
appear, revealing that they killed Brant. Christine collapses. Orin knees beside her pleadingly,
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promising that he will make her happy, that they can leave Lavinia at home and go abroad
together. Lavinia orders Orin into the house. He obeys.
Christine glares at her daughter with savage hatred and marches into the house. Lavinia
determinedly turns her back on the house, standing like a sentinel. A shot is heard from Ezra's
study. Lavinia stammers: "It is justice!"
The Haunted
A year later, Lavinia and Orin return from their trip East. Lavinia's body has lost its military
stiffness and she resembles her mother perfectly. Orin has grown dreadfully thin and bears the
statue-like attitude of his father.
In the sitting room, Orin grimly remarks that Lavinia's has stolen Christine's soul. Death has set
her free to become her. Peter enters from the rear and gasps, thinking he has seen Christine's
ghost. Lavinia approaches him eagerly. Orin jealously mocks his sister, accusing her of
becoming a true romantic during their time in the Islands.
A month later, Orin works intently at a manuscript in the Mannon study. Lavinia knocks sharply
at the locked door. With forced casualness, she asks Peter what he is doing. Orin insists that they
must atone for Mother's death. As the last male Mannon, he has written a history of the family
crimes, from Abe's onward. Lavinia is the most interesting criminal of all. She only became
pretty like Mother on Brant's Islands, with the natives staring at her with desire.
When Orin accuses her of sleeping with one of them, she assumes Christine's taunting voice.
Reacting like Ezra, Orin grasps his sister's throat, threatening her murder. He has taken Father's
place and she Mother's.
A moment later, Hazel and Peter appear in the sitting room. Orin enters, insisting that he see
Hazel alone. He gives her a sealed envelope, enjoining her to keep it safe from his sister. She
should only open it if something happens to him or if Lavinia tries to marry Peter. Lavinia enters
from the hall. Hazel moves to leave, trying to keep Orin's envelope hidden behind her back.
Rushing to Orin, Lavinia beseeches him to make her surrender it. Orin complies.
Orin tells his sister she can never see Peter again. A "distorted look of desire" comes into his
face. Lavinia stares at him in horror, saying, "For God's sake! No! You're insane! You can't
mean!" Lavinia wishes his death. Startled, Orin realizes that his death would be another act of
justice. Mother is speaking through Lavinia.
Peter appears in the doorway. Unnaturally casual, Orin remarks that he was about to go clean his
pistol and exits. Lavinia throws herself into Peter's arms. A muffled shot is heard.
Three days later, Lavinia appears dressed in deep mourning. A resolute Hazel arrives and insists
that Lavinia not marry Peter. The Mannon secrets will prevent their happiness. She already has
told Peter of Orin's envelope.
Peter arrives, and the pair pledges their love anew. Started by the bitterness in his voice, Lavinia
desperately flings herself into his arms crying, "Take me, Adam!" Horrified, Lavinia orders Peter
home.
Lavinia cackles that she is bound to the Mannon dead. Since there is no one left to punish her,
she must punish herselfshe must entomb herself in the house with the ancestors.
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Themes
Oedipus
Although O'Neill supposedly derived Mourning Becomes Electra from the Oresteia,the myth that
actually structures the play's action is overwhelming that of Oedipus. Oedipus was the Theban
king who unwittingly killed his father and murdered his mother, bringing ruin to the land.
Famously Freud elaborated this myth into his Oedipus complex, the structure through which
children are conventionally introduced into the social order and normative sexual relations.
At the center of this complex in what Freud defined as its positive form is the child's incestuous
desire for the parent of the opposite sex, a desire possibly surmounted in the course of the child's
development or else subject to repression. Its development is starkly differentiated for boys and
girls. Both begin with a primary love object, the mother. The boy child only moves from the
mother upon the threat of castration posed by his rival, the father. In other words, the boy fears
that the father would cut his penis off if he continues to cling to the mother who rightfully
belongs to her husband. By prohibiting incest and instituting the proper relations of desire within
the household, the Father becomes a figure of the law. In surmounting his Oedipal desires, the
boy would then abandon his mother as a love object and identify himself with his father.
In contrast, the girl abandons the mother upon realizing both the mother's castration and her own.
To her dismay, neither she nor her mother have a penis. She then turns to the father in hopes of
bearing a child by him that would substitute for her missing penis; the girl would become a
mother in her mother's place. Thus, whereas castration ends the Oedipus complex for the boy, it
begins it for the girl.
The Oedipal drama in its many permutations determines the course of the trilogy. Lavinia, for
example, yearns to replace Christine as wife to her father and mother to her brother. Christine
clings to Orin as that the "flesh and blood," entirely her own, that would make good on her
castration. Brant, in turn, is but a substitute for her precious son. Orin yearns to re- establish his
incestuous bond with his mother. But the war, where he would finally assume the Mannon name,
forces him from their pre-Oedipal embrace in the first place.
Though titled after Electra, the predominant pair of lovers in Mourning is the Mother-Son. Put
bluntly, the male Mannons in some way or another take their female love objects as Mother
substitutes, and the women pose them as their sons. The Fathers of the play, Ezra and otherwise,
figure as the rival who would break this bond of love. As we will see, what is primarily being
mourned here is the loss of this love relation, this "lost island" where Mother and Son can be
together.
Fate, Repetition, and Substitution
As Travis Bogard notes, O'Neill wrote Mourning to convince modern audiences of the
persistence of Fate. Accordingly, throughout the trilogy, the players will remark upon a strange
agency driving them into their illicit love affairs, murders, and betrayals. What O'Neill terms fate
is the repetition of a mythic structure of desire across the generations, the Oedipal drama.
As Orin will remark to Lavinia in "The Haunted," the Mannons have no choice but to assume the
roles of Mother-Son that organize their family history. The players continually become
substitutes for these two figures, a substitution made most explicit in Lavinia and Orin's
reincarnation as Christine and Ezra. In this particular case, Lavinia traces the classical Oedipal
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trajectory, in which the daughter, horrified by her castration, yearns to become the mother and
bear a child by her father that would redeem her lack. Orin at once figures as this child as well as
the husband she would leave to be with her son.
The Double/the Rival
The various substitutions among the players as structured by the Oedipal drama make the players
each other's doubles. The double is also the rival, the player who believes himself dispossessed
convinced that his double stands in his proper place. Thus, for example, Lavinia considers
Christine the wife and mother she should be.
To take another example, Mourning's male players universally vie for the desire of Mother. The
Civil War, generally remembered as a war between brothers, comes to symbolize this struggle.
The men's rivalries are murderously infantile, operating according to a jealous logic of "either
you go or I go." Because in these rivalries the other appears as that which stands in the self's
rightful place within the Oedipal triangle, the rivals appear as doubles of each other as well.
Orin's nightmare of his murders in the fog allegorizes this struggle, Orin repeatedly killing the
same man, himself, and his father. This compulsive series of murders demonstrates the
impossibility of the lover ever acceding to his "rightful place" within the Oedipal triangle
Mother will always want another, producing yet another rival.
The Law of the Father
In the Oedipal myth, what tears the son away from his incestuous embrace with the mother is the
imposition of the father's law. Mourning's principal father, Ezra, serves as figure for this paternal
law, though more in his symbolic form than in his own person. Ezra's symbolic form includes his
name, the portrait in which he wears his judge's robes, and his ventriloquist voice. Indeed, his
symbolic form almost usurps his person. Note how Ezra, in fearing that he has become numb to
himself, muses that he has become the statue of a great man, a monument in the town square.
Ezra's death makes the importance of his symbolic function even more apparent. With the death
of his person, he exercises the law with all the more force, haunting the living in his various
symbolic forms. Thus, for example, Christine will cringe before his portrait, Lavinia will invoke
his voice and name to command Orin to attention.
Motifs
The Blessed Islands
The fantasy of the Blessed Island recurs among the major players as the lost Mother-Son dyad
disrupted by the Oedipal drama. It, rather than any of their deaths, is the trilogy's principal object
of mourning.
Orin offers the most extensive vision of the Blessed Island to Christine in Act II of "The
Hunted." A sanctuary from the war, the Island is a warm, peaceful, and secure paradise
composed of the mother's body. Thus Orin can imagine himself with Christine without her being
there. In terms of the trilogy's sexual drama, the Blessed Island is the realm of the pre-Oedipal,
the time of plentitude and wholeness shared by mother and child. However, Orin goes to war to
do his duty as a Mannon.
The Natives
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The Blessed Islands are also populated, in the players' imaginations, by natives, which entwine
their fantasies of sex with those of race. Generally the native appears through two divergent
images: the sexual innocent and the sexually depraved. Thus, for example, Lavinia will recall the
islands as the home of timeless children, dancing naked on the beach and loving without sin.
This island is the perfect home for a prelapsarian love affair. For Orin, however, the natives
display an almost bestial sexual prowess, stripping his sister with their lascivious gazes. The
native assumes these proportions when imagined as rivals, the prowess and pleasure they would
ostensibly provide the lover becoming objects of envy.
Symbols
Though Mourning is rife with symbolism, the symbol that dominates the playing space is
certainly the Mannon house. The house is built in the style of a Greek temple, with white
columned portico covering its gray walls. As Christine complaints in Act I of "Homecoming,"
the house is the Mannons' "whited sepulcher." It functions not only as crypt to the family's dead
but also to its secrets. Its founder, Abe Mannon, designs it as a monument of repression, building
it to cover over the disgrace that sets this revenge cycle in motion. What symbolizes this
repression in turn is the house's distinguishing feature, the "incongruous white mask" of a portico
hiding its ugliness. This mask doubles those of its residents, evoking the "life-like masks" the
Mannons wear as their faces.

Charles Dickens: David Copperfield

Context
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and spent the first ten years of his life in Kent, a
marshy region by the sea in the east of England. Dickens was the second of eight children. His
father, John Dickens, was a kind and likable man, but his financial irresponsibility placed him in
enormous debt and caused tremendous strain on his family. When Charles was ten, his family
moved to London. Two years later, his father was arrested and thrown in debtors prison.
Dickenss mother moved into the prison with seven of her children. Only Charles lived outside
the prison in order to earn money for the struggling family. He worked with other children for
three months pasting labels on bottles in a blacking warehouse, where the substance people used
to make boots black was manufactured. His experiences at this warehouse inspired passages
in David Copperfield.
After an inheritance gave John Dickens enough money to free himself from his debt and from
prison, Charles attended school for two years at Wellington House Academy. He became a law
clerk, then a newspaper reporter, and finally a novelist. His first novel, The Pickwick
Papers (1837), met with huge popular success. Dickens was a literary celebrity throughout
England for the rest of his life.
In 1849, Dickens began to write David Copperfield, a novel based on his early life experiences.
Like Dickens, David works as a child, pasting labels onto bottles. David also becomes first a law
clerk, then a reporter, and finally a successful novelist. Mr. Micawber is a satirical version of
Dickenss father, a likable man who can never scrape together the money he needs. Many of the

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secondary characters spring from Dickenss experiences as a young man in financial distress in
London.
In later years, Dickens called David Copperfield his favourite child, and many critics consider
the novel to be one of his best depictions of childhood. Dickenss other works include Oliver
Twist (18371839), Nicholas Nickelby (18381839), and A Christmas Carol (1843). Perhaps his
best known novel, Great Expectations (18601861) shares many thematic similarities with David
Copperfield. Dickens died in Kent on June 9, 1870, at the age of fifty-eight.
David Copperfield is set in early Victorian England against a backdrop of great social change.
The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries had transformed
the social landscape and enabled capitalists and manufacturers to amass huge fortunes. Although
the Industrial Revolution increased social mobility, the gap between rich and poor remained
wide. London, a teeming mass of humanity lit by gas lamps at night and darkened by sooty
clouds from smokestacks during the day, rose in dark contrast to Britains sparsely populated
rural areas. More and more people moved from the country to the city in search of the
opportunities that technological innovation promised. But this migration overpopulated the
already crowded cities, and poverty, disease, hazardous factory conditions, and ramshackle
housing became widespread. Dickens acutely observed these phenomena of the Industrial
Revolution and used them as the canvas on which he painted David Copperfield and his other
urban novels.
About the book
Now a grown man, David Copperfield tells the story of his youth. As a young boy, he lives
happily with his mother and his nurse, Peggotty. His father died before he was born. During
Davids early childhood, his mother marries the violent Mr. Murdstone, who brings his strict
sister, Miss Murdstone, into the house. The Murdstones treat David cruelly, and David bites Mr.
Murdstones hand during one beating. The Murdstones send David away to school.
Peggotty takes David to visit her family in Yarmouth, where David meets Peggottys brother, Mr.
Peggotty, and his two adopted children, Ham and Little Emly. Mr. Peggottys family lives in a
boat turned upside downa space they share with Mrs. Gummidge, the widowed wife of Mr.
Peggottys brother. After this visit, David attends school at Salem House, which is run by a man
named Mr. Creakle. David befriends and idolizes an egotistical young man named James
Steerforth. David also befriends Tommy Traddles, an unfortunate, fat young boy who is beaten
more than the others.
Davids mother dies, and David returns home, where the Murdstones neglect him. He works at
Mr. Murdstones wine-bottling business and moves in with Mr. Micawber, who mismanages his
finances. When Mr. Micawber leaves London to escape his creditors, David decides to search for
his fathers sister, Miss Betsey Trotwoodhis only living relative. He walks a long distance to
Miss Betseys home, and she takes him in on the advice of her mentally unstable friend, Mr.
Dick.
Miss Betsey sends David to a school run by a man named Doctor Strong. David moves in with
Mr. Wickfield and his daughter, Agnes, while he attends school. Agnes and David become best
friends. Among Wickfields boarders is Uriah Heep, a snakelike young man who often involves
himself in matters that are none of his business. David graduates and goes to Yarmouth to visit
Peggotty, who is now married to Mr. Barkis, the carrier. David reflects on what profession he
should pursue.
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On his way to Yarmouth, David encounters James Steerforth, and they take a detour to visit
Steerforths mother. They arrive in Yarmouth, where Steerforth and the Peggottys become fond
of one another. When they return from Yarmouth, Miss Betsey persuades David to pursue a
career as a proctor, a kind of lawyer. David apprentices himself at the London firm of Spenlow
and Jorkins and takes up lodgings with a woman named Mrs. Crupp. Mr. Spenlow invites David
to his house for a weekend. There, David meets Spenlows daughter, Dora, and quickly falls in
love with her.
In London, David is reunited with Tommy Traddles and Mr. Micawber. Word reaches David,
through Steerforth, that Mr. Barkis is terminally ill. David journeys to Yarmouth to visit Peggotty
in her hour of need. Little Emly and Ham, now engaged, are to be married upon Mr. Barkiss
death. David, however, finds Little Emly upset over her impending marriage. When Mr. Barkis
dies, Little Emly runs off with Steerforth, who she believes will make her a lady. Mr. Peggotty
is devastated but vows to find Little Emly and bring her home.
Miss Betsey visits London to inform David that her financial security has been ruined because
Mr. Wickfield has joined into a partnership with Uriah Heep. David, who has become
increasingly infatuated with Dora, vows to work as hard as he can to make their life together
possible. Mr. Spenlow, however, forbids Dora from marrying David. Mr. Spenlow dies in a
carriage accident that night, and Dora goes to live with her two aunts. Meanwhile, Uriah Heep
informs Doctor Strong that he suspects Doctor Strongs wife, Annie, of having an affair with her
young cousin, Jack Maldon.
Dora and David marry, and Dora proves a terrible housewife, incompetent in her chores. David
loves her anyway and is generally happy. Mr. Dick facilitates a reconciliation between Doctor
Strong and Annie, who was not, in fact, cheating on her husband. Miss Dartle, Mrs. Steerforths
ward, summons David and informs him that Steerforth has left Little Emly. Miss Dartle adds
that Steerforths servant, Littimer, has proposed to her and that Little Emly has run away. David
and Mr. Peggotty enlist the help of Little Emlys childhood friend Martha, who locates Little
Emly and brings Mr. Peggotty to her. Little Emly and Mr. Peggotty decide to move to
Australia, as do the Micawbers, who first save the day for Agnes and Miss Betsey by exposing
Uriah Heeps fraud against Mr. Wickfield.
A powerful storm hits Yarmouth and kills Ham while he attempts to rescue a shipwrecked sailor.
The sailor turns out to be Steerforth. Meanwhile, Dora falls ill and dies. David leaves the country
to travel abroad. His love for Agnes grows. When David returns, he and Agnes, who has long
harbored a secret love for him, get married and have several children. David pursues his writing
career with increasing commercial success.
About the characters
David Copperfield
Although David narrates his story as an adult, he relays the impressions he had from a youthful
point of view. We see how Davids perception of the world deepens as he comes of age. We see
Davids initial innocence in the contrast between his interpretation of events and our own
understanding of them. Although David is ignorant of Steerforths treachery, we are aware from
the moment we meet Steerforth that he doesnt deserve the adulation David feels toward him.
David doesnt understand why he hates Uriah or why he trusts a boy with a donkey cart who
steals his money and leaves him in the road, but we can sense Uriahs devious nature and the
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boys treacherous intentions. In Davids first-person narration, Dickens conveys the wisdom of
the older man implicitly, through the eyes of a child.
Davids complex character allows for contradiction and development over the course of the
novel. Though David is trusting and kind, he also has moments of cruelty, like the scene in which
he intentionally distresses Mr. Dick by explaining Miss Betseys dire situation to him. David also
displays great tenderness, as in the moment when he realizes his love for Agnes for the first time.
David, especially as a young man in love, can be foolish and romantic. As he grows up, however,
he develops a more mature point of view and searches for a lover who will challenge him and
help him grow. David fully matures as an adult when he expresses the sentiment that he values
Agness calm tranquility over all else in his life.
Uriah Heep
Uriah serves a foil to David and contrasts Davids qualities of innocence and compassion with
his own corruption. Though Uriah is raised in a cruel environment similar to Davids, Uriahs
upbringing causes him to become bitter and vengeful rather than honest and hopeful. Dickenss
physical description of Uriah marks Uriah as a demonic character. He refers to Uriahs
movements as snakelike and gives Uriah red hair and red eyes. Uriah and David not only have
opposing characteristics but also operate at cross-purposes. For example, whereas Uriah wishes
to marry Agnes only in order to hurt David, Davids marriages are both motivated by love. The
frequent contrast between Uriahs and Davids sentiments emphasizes Davids kindness and
moral integrity.
While Davids character development is a process of increased self-understanding, Uriah grows
in his desire to exercise control over himself and other characters. As Uriah gains more power
over Mr. Wickfield, his sense of entitlement grows and he becomes more and more powerhungry. The final scenes of the novel, in which Uriah praises his jail cell because it helps him
know what he should do, show Uriahs need to exert control even when he is a helpless prisoner.
But imprisonment does not redeem his evilif anything, it compounds his flaws. To the end,
Uriah plots strategies to increase his control. Because he deploys his strategies to selfish
purposes that bring harm to others, he stands out as the novels greatest villain.
James Steerforth
Steerforth is a slick, egotistical, wealthy young man whose sense of self-importance overwhelms
all his opinions. Steerforth underscores the difference between what we understand as readers
and what David seesand fails to seein his youthful navet. David takes Steerforths
kindness for granted without analyzing his motives or detecting his duplicity. When Steerforth
befriends David at Salem House, David doesnt suspect that Steerforth is simply trying to use
David to make friends and gain status. Though Steerforth belittles David from the moment they
meet, David is incapable of conceiving that his new friend might be taking advantage of him.
Because Steerforths duplicity is so clear to us, Davids lack of insight into Steerforths true
intentions emphasizes his youthful innocence. Steerforth likes David only because David
worships him, and his final betrayal comes as a surprise to David but not to us.
Conclusions
Like many of Dickenss other works, David Copperfield was originally published in serial
installments, small sections that appeared in magazines over the course of many months. Dickens
employs several methods to make the novel flow smoothly and to sustain his readers interest
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over the novels publication period. First, he uses strong imagery to make each characters
physical appearance and qualities easy to remember. Uriah Heeps red hair, for example, reminds
us of his fiery personality, while Doras silly dog, Jip, reminds us of Doras impetuous
mannerisms. Also, the names Dickens gives his characters serve as keys to their personalities.
Agnes, for example, whose name is rooted in the Latin word for lamb, is gentle and softspoken. Similarly, Miss Murdstone, whose name has a hard, metallic feel to it, is mean and petty.
Dickens also holds his readers interest by making the novel suspenseful, particularly through the
use of foreshadowing. Because he was writing in installments and wanted to keep his readership
hooked, Dickens ended each section with a strong hint of what was to come in the next section.
By creating a number of intriguing plot strands involving various characters, he generated a
devoted readership that waited expectantly to see how these multiple subplots would resolve
themselves and how these familiar characters would end up. To contribute to the intrigue of each
section, Dickens focuses chiefly on plot elements rather than character development or setting.
As a result, David Copperfield is almost always lively and energeticthe kind of story a reader
would want to continue to reading over an extended period of time.
Many of the characters in David Copperfield have foilssimilarly situated characters whose
characteristics contrast with, and thereby accentuate, those of other characters. One such pair of
foils is Agnes and Steerforth, who are both well situated in society. Whereas Agnes shows
complete devotion to her family and remains constant in her affections, Steerforth is evershifting in his allegiances. In the end, Agness wholesome steadfastness gains her Davids love,
while Steerforths restless, misdirected energy brings him an untimely death. By placing Agnes
and Steerforth in close proximity in several places throughout the novelas, for example, at the
theater on the night of Davids dinner partyDickens implicitly contrasts the two, creating an
opposing pair that illuminates his view of good and evil. Similarly, Miss Betsey and Miss
Murdstone, both old ladies in a position of authority over David, represent good and evil,
respectively. Whereas Miss Betsey, for all her tough exterior, is caring and loving toward David,
Miss Murdstone treats him cruelly. In these and other pairs of characters within the novel, the
contrast between figures illustrates the contrast between good and evil characteristics.
For Dickens, constancy of heart is a sign of single-mindedness, which is one of the most positive
characteristics a person can possess. The happiest characters in the novel are those whose
affection is unwavering. Chief among them is Agnes, whose quiet faith and calm love sustain her
through Uriahs attempts to seduce her and ruin her father. Agness devotion to her father, which
she exhibits throughout the novel, is evidence of her stability, as is her persistent love for David.
Her constant good eventually leads her to happiness, as she restores her father to his previous
glory and marries her true love.
Dora, by contrast, represents the flighty heart, whimsical and impulsive. She comes across as
childish because of her fickle desires, and her unhappiness in her marriage to David is the direct
result of this inconstancy. Although Dora loves David, her inability to control her emotions
prevents her from enjoying married life. The failure of David and Doras union, contrasted with
the success of David and Agness, conveys Dickenss belief that constancy and fidelity of
emotion are among the most important moral qualities.
The most significant element of Davids process of maturity is his learning to control his
emotions and keep a steady heart. Early in the novel, Davids emotions get the better of him. As
a boy, David bites Mr. Murdstones hand out of hatred. As a young man, he falls into excesses of
alcohol and infatuation, as we see in his dinner party with Steerforth and his obsession over
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Dora. Before David can obtain true love, he must learn to curb these excesses and master his
own emotions. As he brings his heart under the control of his intellect, David finally realizes his
love for Agnes. By strongly believing in this love even though he does not believe that she loves
him, he ultimately wins her.

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