UNIT – VI AMERICAN LITERATURE
OUT OF THE CRADLE ENDLESSLY ROCKING
-Walt Whitman
Summary and Form
This poem was written in 1859 and incorporated into the 1860 edition ofLeaves of Grass. It describes a young boy’s awakening as a poet, mentored by nature and his own maturing consciousness. The poem is loose in its form, except for the sections that purport to be a transcript of the bird’s call, which are musical in their repetition of words and phrases. The opening of the poem is marked by an abundance of repeated prepositions describing movement—out, over, down, up, from—which appear regularly later in the poem and which convey the sense of a struggle, in this case the poet’s struggle to come to consciousness.
Unlike most of Whitman’s poems, “Out of the Cradle” has a fairly distinct plot line. A young boy watches a pair of birds nesting on the beach near his home, and marvels at their relationship to one another. One day the female bird fails to return. The male stays near the nest, calling for his lost mate. The male’s cries touch something in the boy, and he seems to be able to translate what the bird is saying. Brought to tears by the bird’s pathos, he asks nature to give him the one word “superior to all.” In the rustle of the ocean at his feet, he discerns the word “death,” which continues, along with the bird’s song, to have a presence in his poetry.
Commentary
This is another poem that links Whitman to the Romantics. The “birth of the poet” genre was of particular importance to Wordsworth, whose massivePrelude details his artistic coming-of-age in detail. Like Wordsworth, Whitman claims to take his inspiration from nature. Where Wordsworth is inspired by a wordless feeling of awe, though, Whitman finds an opportunity to anthropomorphize, and nature gives him very specific answers to his questions about overarching concepts. Nature is a tabula rasa onto which the poet can project himself. He conquers it, inscribes it. While it may become a part of him that is always present, the fact that it does so seems to be by his permission.
The epiphany surrounding the word “death” seems appropriate, for in other poems of Whitman’s we have seen death described as the ultimate tool for democracy and sympathy. Here death is shown to be the one lesson a child must learn, whether from nature or from an elder. Only the realization of death can lead to emotional and artistic maturity. Death, for one as interested as Whitman in the place of the individual in the universe, is a means for achieving perspective: while your thoughts may seem profound and unique in the moment, you are a mere speck in existence. Thus the contemplation of death allows for one to move beyond oneself, to consider the whole. Perhaps this is why the old crone disrupts the end of the poem: she symbolizes an alternative possibility, the means by which someone else may have come to the same realization as Whitman. In the end the bird, although functionally important in Whitman’s development, is insignificant in the face of the abstract sea: death, which is the concept he introduces, remains as the important factor.
Thus although “Out of the Cradle” can be described as a poem about the birth of the poet, it can also be read as a poem about the death of the self. In the end, on the larger scale, these two phenomena are one and the same.
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Because I could not stop for Death
-Emily Dickinson
In this poem, Dickinson’s speaker is communicating from beyond the grave, describing her journey with Death, personified, from life to afterlife. In the opening stanza, the speaker is too busy for Death (“Because I could not stop for Death—“), so Death—“kindly”—takes the time to do what she cannot, and stops for her.
This “civility” that Death exhibits in taking time out for her leads her to give up on those things that had made her so busy—“And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too”—so they can just enjoy this carriage ride (“We slowly drove – He knew no haste”).
In the third stanza we see reminders of the world that the speaker is passing from, with children playing and fields of grain. Her place in the world shifts between this stanza and the next; in the third stanza, “We passed the Setting Sun—,” but at the opening of the fourth stanza, she corrects this—“Or rather – He passed Us –“—because she has stopped being an active agent, and is only now a part of the landscape.
In this stanza, after the realization of her new place in the world, her death also becomes suddenly very physical, as “The Dews drew quivering and chill—,” and she explains that her dress is only gossamer, and her “Tippet,” a kind of cape usually made out of fur, is “only Tulle.”
After this moment of seeing the coldness of her death, the carriage pauses at her new “House.” The description of the house—“A Swelling of the Ground—“—makes it clear that this is no cottage, but instead a grave. Yet they only “pause” at this house, because although it is ostensibly her home, it is really only a resting place as she travels to eternity.
The final stanza shows a glimpse of this immortality, made most clear in the first two lines, where she says that although it has been centuries since she has died, it feels no longer than a day. It is not just any day that she compares it to, however—it is the very day of her death, when she saw “the Horses’ Heads” that were pulling her towards this eternity.
Analysis
Dickinson’s poems deal with death again and again, and it is never quite the same in any poem. In “Because I could not stop for Death—,” we see death personified. He is no frightening, or even intimidating, reaper, but rather a courteous and gentle guide, leading her to eternity. The speaker feels no fear when Death picks her up in his carriage, she just sees it as an act of kindness, as she was too busy to find time for him.
It is this kindness, this individual attention to her—it is emphasized in the first stanza that the carriage holds just the two of them, doubly so because of the internal rhyme in “held” and “ourselves”—that leads the speaker to so easily give up on her life and what it contained. This is explicitly stated, as it is “For His Civility” that she puts away her “labor” and her “leisure,” which is Dickinson using metonymy to represent another alliterative word—her life.
Indeed, the next stanza shows the life is not so great, as this quiet, slow carriage ride is contrasted with what she sees as they go. A school scene of children playing, which could be emotional, is instead only an example of the difficulty of life—although the children are playing “At Recess,” the verb she uses is “strove,” emphasizing the labors of existence. The use of anaphora with “We passed” also emphasizes the tiring repetitiveness of mundane routine.
The next stanza moves to present a more conventional vision of death—things become cold and more sinister, the speaker’s dress is not thick enough to warm or protect her. Yet it quickly becomes clear that though this part of death—the coldness, and the next stanza’s image of the grave as home—may not be ideal, it is worth it, for it leads to the final stanza, which ends with immortality. Additionally, the use of alliteration in this stanza that emphasizes the material trappings—“gossamer” “gown” and “tippet” “tulle”—makes the stanza as a whole less sinister.
That immorality is the goal is hinted at in the first stanza, where “Immortality” is the only other occupant of the carriage, yet it is only in the final stanza that we see that the speaker has obtained it. Time suddenly loses its meaning; hundreds of years feel no different than a day. Because time is gone, the speaker can still feel with relish that moment of realization, that death was not just death, but immortality, for she “surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity –.” By ending with “Eternity –,” the poem itself enacts this eternity, trailing out into the infinite.
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Mending Wall
-Robert Frost
Every year, two neighbors meet to repair the stone wall that divides their property. The narrator is skeptical of this tradition, unable to understand the need for a wall when there is no livestock to be contained on the property, only apples and pine trees. He does not believe that a wall should exist simply for the sake of existing. Moreover, he cannot help but notice that the natural world seems to dislike the wall as much as he does: mysterious gaps appear, boulders fall for no reason. The neighbor, on the other hand, asserts that the wall is crucial to maintaining their relationship, asserting, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Over the course of the mending, the narrator attempts to convince his neighbor otherwise and accuses him of being old-fashioned for maintaining the tradition so strictly. No matter what the narrator says, though, the neighbor stands his ground, repeating only: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Analysis
This poem is the first work in Frost’s second book of poetry, “North of Boston,” which was published upon his return from England in 1915. While living in England with his family, Frost was exceptionally homesick for the farm in New Hampshire where he had lived with his wife from 1900 to 1909. Despite the eventual failure of the farm, Frost associated his time in New Hampshire with a peaceful, rural sensibility that he instilled in the majority of his subsequent poems. “Mending Wall” is autobiographical on an even more specific level: a French-Canadian named Napoleon Guay had been Frost’s neighbor in New Hampshire, and the two had often walked along their property line and repaired the wall that separated their land. Ironically, the most famous line of the poem (“Good fences make good neighbors”) was not invented by Frost himself, but was rather a phrase that Guay frequently declared to Frost during their walks. This particular adage was a popular colonial proverb in the middle of the 17th century, but variations of it also appeared in Norway (“There must be a fence between good neighbors”), Germany (“Between neighbor’s gardens a fence is good”), Japan (“Build a fence even between intimate friends”), and even India (“Love your neighbor, but do not throw down the dividing wall”).
In terms of form, “Mending Wall” is not structured with stanzas; it is a simple forty-five lines of first-person narrative. Frost does maintain iambic stresses, but he is flexible with the form in order to maintain the conversational feel of the poem. He also shies away from any obvious rhyme patterns and instead relies upon the occasional internal rhyme and the use of assonance in certain ending terms (such as “wall,” “hill,” “balls,” “well”).
In the poem itself, Frost creates two distinct characters who have different ideas about what exactly makes a person a good neighbor. The narrator deplores his neighbor’s preoccupation with repairing the wall; he views it as old-fashioned and even archaic. After all, he quips, his apples are not going to invade the property of his neighbor’s pinecones. Moreover, within a land of such of such freedom and discovery, the narrator asks, are such borders necessary to maintain relationships between people? Despite the narrator’s skeptical view of the wall, the neighbor maintains his seemingly “old-fashioned” mentality, responding to each of the narrator’s disgruntled questions and rationalizations with nothing more than the adage: “Good fences make good neighbors.”
As the narrator points out, the very act of mending the wall seems to be in opposition to nature. Every year, stones are dislodged and gaps suddenly appear, all without explanation. Every year, the two neighbors fill the gaps and replace the fallen boulders, only to have parts of the wall fall over again in the coming months. It seems as if nature is attempting to destroy the barriers that man has created on the land, even as man continues to repair the barriers, simply out of habit and tradition.
Ironically, while the narrator seems to begrudge the annual repairing of the wall, Frost subtley points out that the narrator is actually more active than the neighbor. It is the narrator who selects the day for mending and informs his neighbor across the property. Moreover, the narrator himself walks along the wall at other points during the year in order to repair the damage that has been done by local hunters. Despite his skeptical attitude, it seems that the narrator is even more tied to the tradition of wall-mending than his neighbor. Perhaps his skeptical questions and quips can then be read as an attempt to justify his own behavior to himself. While he chooses to present himself as a modern man, far beyond old-fashioned traditions, the narrator is really no different from his neighbor: he too clings to the concept of property and division, of ownership and individuality.
Ultimately, the presence of the wall between the properties does ensure a quality relationship between the two neighbors. By maintaining the division between the properties, the narrator and his neighbor are able to maintain their individuality and personal identity as farmers: one of apple trees, and one of pine trees. Moreover, the annual act of mending the wall also provides an opportunity for the two men to interact and communicate with each other, an event that might not otherwise occur in an isolated rural environment. The act of meeting to repair the wall allows the two men to develop their relationship and the overall community far more than if each maintained their isolation on separate properties.
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BIRCHES
-Robert Frost
When the narrator looks at the birch trees in the forest, he imagines that the arching bends in their branches are the result of a boy “swinging” on them. He realizes that the bends are actually caused by ice storms - the weight of the ice on the branches forces them to bend toward the ground - but he prefers his idea of the boy swinging on the branches, climbing up the tree trunks and swinging from side to side, from earth up to heaven. The narrator remembers when he used to swing on birches and wishes that he could return to those carefree days.
Analysis
This poem is written in blank verse with a particular emphasis on the “sound of sense.” For example, when Frost describes the cracking of the ice on the branches, his selections of syllables create a visceral sense of the action taking place: “Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells / Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust — / Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away…”
Originally, this poem was called “Swinging Birches,” a title that perhaps provides a more accurate depiction of the subject. In writing this poem, Frost was inspired by his childhood experience with swinging on birches, which was a popular game for children in rural areas of New England during the time. Frost’s own children were avid “birch swingers,” as demonstrated by a selection from his daughter Lesley’s journal: “On the way home, i climbed up a hi birch and came down with it and i stopt in the air about three feet and pap cout me.”
In the poem, the act of swinging on birches is presented as a way to escape the hard rationality or “Truth” of the adult world, if only for a moment. As the boy climbs up the tree, he is climbing toward “heaven” and a place where his imagination can be free. The narrator explains that climbing a birch is an opportunity to “get away from earth awhile / And then come back to it and begin over.” A swinger is still grounded in the earth through the roots of the tree as he climbs, but he is able to reach beyond his normal life on the earth and reach for a higher plane of existence.
Frost highlights the narrator’s regret that he can ow longer find this peace of mind from swinging on birches. Because he is an adult, he is unable to leave his responsibilities behind and climb toward heaven until he can start fresh on the earth. In fact, the narrator is not even able to enjoy the imagined view of a boy swinging in the birches. In the fourth line of the poem, he is forced to acknowledge the “Truth” of the birches: the bends are caused by winter storms, not by a boy swinging on them.
Significantly, the narrator’s desire to escape from the rational world is inconclusive. He wants to escape as a boy climbing toward heaven, but he also wants to return to the earth: both “going and coming back.” The freedom of imagination is appealing and wondrous, but the narrator still cannot avoid returning to “Truth” and his responsibilities on the ground; the escape is only a temporary one.
Robert Frost is one of the greatest poets in the 20th century American literature. During his life, he kept writing and published fine poetry for decades, and many of his poems become popular and enjoy great prestige among people worldwide. Compared with other poets, Frost's way to success is a long one. He did not earn his reputation until he was 39, but the honors he enjoys throughout his career are unparalleled to any other American poets of his time. His poetry, as beautiful as pure lotus flowers above water, is good at capturing inspiration from routine work and daily life and probes into the life's philosophy from unique angle, transmitting endless wisdom of life. Robert Frost flies his own colors in the history of American poetry because in the society in which industrialization prevails he sticks to appreciating the natural and idyllic life. His poetry, with simple language, harmonious meter, vivid image and profound philosophy, making people be bent on reading, is deeply loved both by the American people and by any other peoples all over the world.In the study of Robert Frost, West-Running Brook is a set of poems which should never be ignored. Robert Frost made his 42 poems published in 1928 and gave the name of the book: West-Running Brook. The poet, who was 54 years old at that time, naturally already experienced many vicissitudes of life, thus his poetry during the period of course showed obvious profound color and turned to be more philosophic on the thought of life. Full of philosophic thinking is the striking characteristic of West-Running Brook, especially the poem West-Running Brook which has the same title of the book. And this gives an account of the study of the collection of poems of West-Running Brook from the perspectives of philosophical concepts such as ontology and phenomenon, and undoubtedly this kind of study, hence, has justifiably pioneering significance.This thesis consists of three parts in front of which there is an introduction. The introduction firstly gives a brief opinion about Robert Frost's standing in the history of American poetry. Then, it makes a summary of Robert Frost's poems from the perspectives of ontology and phenomenology. The first chapter makes comments through examples on the poems from the angle of ontology and the second chapter from the angle of phenomenology. The third chapter puts emphasis on two important poems: Acquainted with the Night and West-Running Brook and gives detailed analyses of the two poems, trying to give distinct, penetrating and reasonable explanations. The thesis focuses the attention on the most important poem: West-Running Brook with the same title of the book. The poem West-Running Brook is full of philosophy. It's made up of a conversation between a man and a woman, in which the woman talks about love, the man emphasizestime. The discussion of love and time is based on the brook's unusual reverse of running. This section makes an analysis of the poem from the perspectives of ontology and phenomenology. And it also points out that only the love and time coming back to the ontological and phenomenalistic level with natural instincts can have real value of life and gain the philosophical power to shake the readers' minds.In the thesis each Robert Frost's poem and other English poems commented have corresponding complete Chinese translations, which are all translated by the author of the thesis. The author, in translation, makes best efforts to approach and keep the original rhyme scheme and the simple and natural style of the source target as well as possible, with the aim to display the elegant demeanor of the English poems….
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DADDY
-Sylvia Plath
In the poem “Daddy”, by Sylvia Plath, there are many accusations against Nazi influence and her revolting persona against her father’s path, a political worship of an Absolute Monarchy under the fearful rule of a manipulative dictator, Adolf Hitler. The third stanza presenting the last line presents the language of Germany, “Ach, du”, which translates to Oh…you…, in German. This if broken down shows a sign of grief from “Ach”, and du meaning you, as in her father which she meant to kill. The fourth stanza giving the lines,
“In the German tongue, in the Polish town,
Scraped flat by the rollers,
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common…”.
This stanza gives a hard-line proof ofGerman occupation in Poland in the years of 1939-1945. Through this Sylvia gives reference to the environmental and emotional terror inflicted upon the Pollock’s through constant control by certain factors. These include the line, “…but the name of the town is common…”, giving reasoning behind Hitler’s justifications of bringing the original German tribes together again that reside within Poland, and the continued genocide of Jewish descent throughout.
The emotionally distraught poem began to take a more detailed approach as Sylvia began to explain her father’s physical features and occupational stance, the stanza as follows,
I have always been scared of you,
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You”.
The stanza as a whole defines her father’s obsessive nature toward his Deutschland, but there are a few things that must be pointed out. First is the line, “…With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo…” which gives her feelings towards the extreme dictatorship that was her country. The following line shows how Sylvia rejected her father’s ideas, “…your Aryan eye, bright blue, Panzer-man, panzer-man, O you…”, and demonstrates how he had blue eyes, a major characteristic in the Nazi constitution per say. The lines also state his occupation as a tank man, a soldier whose heart was diminished by the constant sights of war and it’s wearing on the family of the particular individual.
Although there is a major distinction between the poem and Nazi influence, there seems to be an even stronger bond of family morals, both productive and destructive in nature. This is seen in the last two stanzas of the poem,
“If I've killed one man, I've killed two ----The vampire who said he was youAnd drank my blood for a year,Seven years, if you want to know.Daddy, you can lie back now.There's a stake in your fat black heartAnd the villagers never liked you.They are dancing and stamping on you.They always knew it was you.Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.”These two stanzas make a very sincere point, as it gives basis to the husband of Sylvia as if he was a vampire, sucking the life and emotion from her as if it was her father’s promise after death. She goes on to explain just how long he had been pulling her emotional energies from her, all the while, Sylvia thinking and relating the dreadful seven year experience to her memories of the childhood Swastika. Toward the end of the lines, Sylvia goes on to explain daringly just how evil her father really was, telling of his “…fat black heart…” This point goes on to tell of the villagers that had proclaimed a self served victory after seeing that it truly was her father that had haunted her emotions and ultimately her soul, as Sylvia Plath lived no more than some thirty odd years.
In conclusion, this poem gives a sense of rebellious freedom from the tortures of political upheaval, her story proclaimed among the millions of others in that same time frame, possible thousands from the same city. All these people were so afraid to speak of their troubles in fear of public execution or humiliation/degradation, and above all else, added to the pool of Jewish blood that flowed with an opaque tone down the Rhine River.
Brief Summary:
The speaker creates a figurative image of her father, using many different metaphors to describe her relationship with him. He's like a black shoe that she's had to live in; like a statue that stretches across the United States; like God; like a Nazi; like a Swastika; and, finally, like a vampire. The speaker, faced with her father as a giant and evil Nazi, takes the part of a Jew and a victim.
Yet, with this poem, the speaker gets her revenge, claiming that she's killed both her father and the man she made as a model of her father – her husband. This poem shows her struggle to declare that, no matter how terrible her father was and how much he remains in her mind, she is now through with him.
Yet, with this poem, the speaker gets her revenge, claiming that she's killed both her father and the man she made as a model of her father – her husband. This poem shows her struggle to declare that, no matter how terrible her father was and how much he remains in her mind, she is now through with him.
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PASSAGE TO INDIA
-Walt Whitman
T wo englishwomen, the young Miss Adela Quested and the elderly Mrs. Moore, travel to India. Adela expects to become engaged to Mrs. Moore’s son, Ronny, a British magistrate in the Indian city of Chandrapore. Adela and Mrs. Moore each hope to see the real India during their visit, rather than cultural institutions imported by the British.
At the same time, Aziz, a young Muslim doctor in India, is increasingly frustrated by the poor treatment he receives at the hands of the English. Aziz is especially annoyed with Major Callendar, the civil surgeon, who has a tendency to summon Aziz for frivolous reasons in the middle of dinner. Aziz and two of his educated friends, Hamidullah and Mahmoud Ali, hold a lively conversation about whether or not an Indian can be friends with an Englishman in India. That night, Mrs. Moore and Aziz happen to run into each other while exploring a local mosque, and the two become friendly. Aziz is moved and surprised that an English person would treat him like a friend.
Mr. Turton, the collector who governs Chandrapore, hosts a party so that Adela and Mrs. Moore may have the opportunity to meet some of the more prominent and wealthy Indians in the city. At the event, which proves to be rather awkward, Adela meets Cyril Fielding, the principal of the government college in Chandrapore. Fielding, impressed with Adela’s open friendliness to the Indians, invites her and Mrs. Moore to tea with him and the Hindu professor Godbole. At Adela’s request, Fielding invites Aziz to tea as well.
At the tea, Aziz and Fielding immediately become friendly, and the afternoon is overwhelmingly pleasant until Ronny Heaslop arrives and rudely interrupts the party. Later that evening, Adela tells Ronny that she has decided not to marry him. But that night, the two are in a car accident together, and the excitement of the event causes Adela to change her mind about the marriage.
Not long afterward, Aziz organizes an expedition to the nearby Marabar Caves for those who attended Fielding’s tea. Fielding and Professor Godbole miss the train to Marabar, so Aziz continues on alone with the two ladies, Adela and Mrs. Moore. Inside one of the caves, Mrs. Moore is unnerved by the enclosed space, which is crowded with Aziz’s retinue, and by the uncanny echo that seems to translate every sound she makes into the noise “boum.”
Aziz, Adela, and a guide go on to the higher caves while Mrs. Moore waits below. Adela, suddenly realizing that she does not love Ronny, asks Aziz whether he has more than one wife—a question he considers offensive. Aziz storms off into a cave, and when he returns, Adela is gone. Aziz scolds the guide for losing Adela, and the guide runs away. Aziz finds Adela’s broken field‑glasses and heads down the hill. Back at the picnic site, Aziz finds Fielding waiting for him. Aziz is unconcerned to learn that Adela has hastily taken a car back to Chandrapore, as he is overjoyed to see Fielding. Back in Chandrapore, however, Aziz is unexpectedly arrested. He is charged with attempting to rape Adela Quested while she was in the caves, a charge based on a claim Adela herself has made.
Fielding, believing Aziz to be innocent, angers all of British India by joining the Indians in Aziz’s defense. In the weeks before the trial, the racial tensions between the Indians and the English flare up considerably. Mrs. Moore is distracted and miserable because of her memory of the echo in the cave and because of her impatience with the upcoming trial. Adela is emotional and ill; she too seems to suffer from an echo in her mind. Ronny is fed up with Mrs. Moore’s lack of support for Adela, and it is agreed that Mrs. Moore will return to England earlier than planned. Mrs. Moore dies on the voyage back to England, but not before she realizes that there is no “real India”—but rather a complex multitude of different Indias.
At Aziz’s trial, Adela, under oath, is questioned about what happened in the caves. Shockingly, she declares that she has made a mistake: Aziz is not the person or thing that attacked her in the cave. Aziz is set free, and Fielding escorts Adela to the Government College, where she spends the next several weeks. Fielding begins to respect Adela, recognizing her bravery in standing against her peers to pronounce Aziz innocent. Ronny breaks off his engagement to Adela, and she returns to England.
Aziz, however, is angry that Fielding would befriend Adela after she nearly ruined Aziz’s life, and the friendship between the two men suffers as a consequence. Then Fielding sails for a visit to England. Aziz declares that he is done with the English and that he intends to move to a place where he will not have to encounter them.
Two years later, Aziz has become the chief doctor to the Rajah of Mau, a Hindu region several hundred miles from Chandrapore. He has heard that Fielding married Adela shortly after returning to England. Aziz now virulently hates all English people. One day, walking through an old temple with his three children, he encounters Fielding and his brother‑in‑law. Aziz is surprised to learn that the brother-in-law’s name is Ralph Moore; it turns out that Fielding married not Adela Quested, but Stella Moore, Mrs. Moore’s daughter from her second marriage.
Aziz befriends Ralph. After he accidentally runs his rowboat into Fielding’s, Aziz renews his friendship with Fielding as well. The two men go for a final ride together before Fielding leaves, during which Aziz tells Fielding that once the English are out of India, the two will be able to be friends. Fielding asks why they cannot be friends now, when they both want to be, but the sky and the earth seem to say “No, not yet. . . . No, not there.”
Analysis of Major Characters
Dr. Aziz
Aziz seems to be a mess of extremes and contradictions, an embodiment of Forster’s notion of the “muddle” of India. Aziz is impetuous and flighty, changing opinions and preoccupations quickly and without warning, from one moment to the next. His moods swing back and forth between extremes, from childlike elation one minute to utter despair the next. Aziz even seems capable of shifting careers and talents, serving as both physician and poet during the course of A Passage to India. Aziz’s somewhat youthful qualities, as evidenced by a sense of humor that leans toward practical joking, are offset by his attitude of irony toward his English superiors.
Forster, though not blatantly stereotyping, encourages us to see many of Aziz’s characteristics as characteristics of Indians in general. Aziz, like many of his friends, dislikes blunt honesty and directness, preferring to communicate through confidences, feelings underlying words, and indirect speech. Aziz has a sense that much of morality is really social code. He therefore feels no moral compunction about visiting prostitutes or reading Fielding’s private mail—both because his intentions are good and because he knows he will not be caught. Instead of living by merely social codes, Aziz guides his action through a code that is nearly religious, such as we see in his extreme hospitality. Moreover, Aziz, like many of the other Indians, struggles with the problem of the English in India. On the one hand, he appreciates some of the modernizing influences that the West has brought to India; on the other, he feels that the presence of the English degrades and oppresses his people.
Despite his contradictions, Aziz is a genuinely affectionate character, and his affection is often based on intuited connections, as with Mrs. Moore and Fielding. Though Forster holds up Aziz’s capacity for imaginative sympathy as a good trait, we see that this imaginativeness can also betray Aziz. The deep offense Aziz feels toward Fielding in the aftermath of his trial stems from fiction and misinterpreted intuition. Aziz does not stop to evaluate facts, but rather follows his heart to the exclusion of all other methods—an approach that is sometimes wrong.
Many critics have contended that Forster portrays Aziz and many of the other Indian characters unflatteringly. Indeed, though the author is certainly sympathetic to the Indians, he does sometimes present them as incompetent, subservient, or childish. These somewhat valid critiques call into question the realism of Forster’s novel, but they do not, on the whole, corrupt his exploration of the possibility of friendly relations between Indians and Englishmen—arguably the central concern of the novel.
Cyril Fielding
Of all the characters in the novel, Fielding is clearly the most associated with Forster himself. Among the Englishmen in Chandrapore, Fielding is far and away most the successful at developing and sustaining relationships with native Indians. Though he is an educator, he is less comfortable in teacher-student interaction than he is in one-on-one conversation with another individual. This latter style serves as Forster’s model of liberal humanism—Forster and Fielding treat the world as a group of individuals who can connect through mutual respect, courtesy, and intelligence.
Fielding, in these viewpoints, presents the main threat to the mentality of the English in India. He educates Indians as individuals, engendering a movement of free thought that has the potential to destabilize English colonial power. Furthermore, Fielding has little patience for the racial categorization that is so central to the English grip on India. He honors his friendship with Aziz over any alliance with members of his own race—a reshuffling of allegiances that threatens the solidarity of the English. Finally, Fielding “travels light,” as he puts it: he does not believe in marriage, but favors friendship instead. As such, Fielding implicitly questions the domestic conventions upon which the Englishmen’s sense of “Englishness” is founded. Fielding refuses to sentimentalize domestic England or to venerate the role of the wife or mother—a far cry from the other Englishmen, who put Adela on a pedestal after the incident at the caves.
Fielding’s character changes in the aftermath of Aziz’s trial. He becomes jaded about the Indians as well as the English. His English sensibilities, such as his need for proportion and reason, become more prominent and begin to grate against Aziz’s Indian sensibilities. By the end of A Passage to India, Forster seems to identify with Fielding less. Whereas Aziz remains a likable, if flawed, character until the end of the novel, Fielding becomes less likable in his increasing identification and sameness with the English.
Adela Quested
Adela arrives in India with Mrs. Moore, and, fittingly, her character develops in parallel to Mrs. Moore’s. Adela, like the elder Englishwoman, is an individualist and an educated free thinker. These tendencies lead her, just as they lead Mrs. Moore, to question the standard behaviors of the English toward the Indians. Adela’s tendency to question standard practices with frankness makes her resistant to being labeled—and therefore resistant to marrying Ronny and being labeled a typical colonial English wife. Both Mrs. Moore and Adela hope to see the “real India” rather than an arranged tourist version. However, whereas Mrs. Moore’s desire is bolstered by a genuine interest in and affection for Indians, Adela appears to want to see the “real India” simply on intellectual grounds. She puts her mind to the task, but not her heart—and therefore never connects with Indians.
Adela’s experience at the Marabar Caves causes her to undergo a crisis of rationalism against spiritualism. While Adela’s character changes greatly in the several days after her alleged assault, her testimony at the trial represents a return of the old Adela, with the sole difference that she is plagued by doubt in a way she was not originally. Adela begins to sense that her assault, and the echo that haunts her afterward, are representative of something outside the scope of her normal rational comprehension. She is pained by her inability to articulate her experience. She finds she has no purpose in—nor love for—India, and suddenly fears that she is unable to love anyone. Adela is filled with the realization of the damage she has done to Aziz and others, yet she feels paralyzed, unable to remedy the wrongs she has done. Nonetheless, Adela selflessly endures her difficult fate after the trial—a course of action that wins her a friend in Fielding, who sees her as a brave woman rather than a traitor to her race.
Mrs. Moore
As a character, Mrs. Moore serves a double function in A Passage to India,operating on two different planes. She is initially a literal character, but as the novel progresses she becomes more a symbolic presence. On the literal level, Mrs. Moore is a good-hearted, religious, elderly woman with mystical leanings. The initial days of her visit to India are successful, as she connects with India and Indians on an intuitive level. Whereas Adela is overly cerebral, Mrs. Moore relies successfully on her heart to make connections during her visit. Furthermore, on the literal level, Mrs. Moore’s character has human limitations: her experience at Marabar renders her apathetic and even somewhat mean, to the degree that she simply leaves India without bothering to testify to Aziz’s innocence or to oversee Ronny and Adela’s wedding.
After her departure, however, Mrs. Moore exists largely on a symbolic level. Though she herself has human flaws, she comes to symbolize an ideally spiritual and race-blind openness that Forster sees as a solution to the problems in India. Mrs. Moore’s name becomes closely associated with Hinduism, especially the Hindu tenet of the oneness and unity of all living things. This symbolic side to Mrs. Moore might even make her the heroine of the novel, the only English person able to closely connect with the Hindu vision of unity. Nonetheless, Mrs. Moore’s literal actions—her sudden abandonment of India—make her less than heroic.
Ronny Heaslop
Ronny’s character does not change much over the course of the novel; instead, Forster’s emphasis is on the change that happened before the novel begins, when Ronny first arrived in India. Both Mrs. Moore and Adela note the difference between the Ronny they knew in England and the Ronny of British India. Forster uses Ronny’s character and the changes he has undergone as a sort of case study, an exploration of the restrictions that the English colonials’ herd mentality imposes on individual personalities. All of Ronny’s previously individual tastes are effectively dumbed down to meet group standards. He devalues his intelligence and learning from England in favor of the “wisdom” gained by years of experience in India. The open-minded attitude with which he has been brought up has been replaced by a suspicion of Indians. In short, Ronny’s tastes, opinions, and even his manner of speaking are no longer his own, but those of older, ostensibly wiser British Indian officials. This kind of group thinking is what ultimately causes Ronny to clash with both Adela and his mother, Mrs. Moore.
Nonetheless, Ronny is not the worst of the English in India, and Forster is somewhat sympathetic in his portrayal of him. Ronny’s ambition to rise in the ranks of British India has not completely destroyed his natural goodness, but merely perverted it. Ronny cares about his job and the Indians with whom he works, if only to the extent that they, in turn, reflect upon him. Forster presents Ronny’s failing as the fault of the colonial system, not his own.
========================
THE CAMBRIDGE LADIES
-E.E.Cummings
E.E. Cummings’ [the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls] is an enigmatic, ironic and sarcastic poem which reveals the unreal, fraudulent lives that the Cambridge ladies live. The poetic speaker’s tone is filled with sarcasm and irony to show the contradiction between the Cambridge ladies’ actions and beliefs. This discriminating voice is used when speaking of the Cambridge ladies’ Christianity, their communal identity, and when speaking of their frivolous concerns. Depth and empathy, both of which the ladies lack, are juxtaposed against the women’s emptiness and indifference. Collectively, the Cambridge ladies share the inability to connect to their religion and to the exterior world that surrounds them. In addition, Cummings contrasts nature imagery against the material and socially based Cambridge Ladies. Because these ladies are well endowed and isolated from the outside world, they are not able to fully comprehend the reality of issues.
Through this comparing and contrasting, E.E. Cummings is able to show the superficial and fabricated world that the Cambridge ladies have created. Although these women claim to be strict Protestants, their unsympathetic behavior proves to be less than holy. The Cambridge ladies are not able to fully understand the harsh reality of a world that lies beyond their trifle lives. Because they have already been given everything they need in life without working for it, the women are content with their set ways and have “comfortable minds” ([the Cambridge] ln. 2). These women have never known anything other than luxury and happiness. Thus, the ladies have no reason to challenge their church’s or society’s customs.
The Cambridge ladies cannot comprehend hardships and therefore cannot internalize or empathize with the outside world’s problems. Illustrating this lack of knowledge, the Cambridge ladies cannot even recall who or what they are knitting for: “delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?/perhaps.” ([the Cambridge] lns. 8-9). Since the cause for which the women are knitting is possibly war or for some other seemingly desperate situation, the adjective “delighted” used to describe the ladies’ hands is quite ironic. If the Cambridge ladies were truly able to absorb the reason as to why they were knitting, they would be sorrowful and compassionate. Their hands would not be “delighted” and they would not have “comfortable minds.” They would be very disturbed and would probably end up questioning Christianity as well as their society’s practices. The consensus answer to the question of whether or not they’re knitting for the “Poles” ends up being “perhaps,” exposing the apathy the Cambridge ladies conjointly share about their volunteer work. Even though they have the “church’s protestant blessings” ([the Cambridge] ln. 3), E.E. Cummings states that “the Cambridge ladies do not care” ([the Cambridge] ln. 11) about anything other than themselves. The word “protestant” is not capitalized, infering that their Christianity is merely an undertone in their lives. If the ladies were to be good, genuine Christians, they wouldn’t care about the “scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D” ([the Cambridge] ln. 10) or about fitting into an idealized role. In effect, religion becomes a trend rather than a belief for the Cambridge ladies.
In response to the Cambridge ladies’ trends, E.E. Cummings alludes to both Christ and Longfellow. By doing so, the women look and become more erroneous in the reader’s eye. Christ, a martyr for his devout beliefs, and Longfellow, who was famous for not only his translation of Dante’s Inferno but for his simple poetic style, are “both dead” ([the Cambridge] ln. 5). “Both dead” is a spondee which makes their deaths seem just as immutable as the Cambridge ladies’ old-fashioned ways. Instead of believing in these men’s convictions, the women ascribe to Longfellow and Christ because they are accepted, popular and well-known idols. The Cambridge ladies only enjoy Longfellow’s poetry and Christ’s teachings because they are socially accepted names; reading and believing in both helps these ladies to gain status within their clique. Following the statement that they have faith in Longfellow and Christ, Cummings’ indicates their insincerity by mimicking the Cambridge ladies’ speech: “are invariably interested in so many things--/at the present writing” ([the Cambridge] ln. 6-7). These lines mirror the way that the Cambridge Ladies talk to each other as well as show their constantly changing interests; for the Cambridge ladies, Longfellow and Christ are mere pastimes just like “writing” and “knitting.” Longfellow’s poetry was thought to be simple, positive and easy to understand which may be another explanation as to why the ladies enjoyed his works. However, the effect of Christ’s enlightenment upon the fickle Cambridge ladies is very hard to understand because they appear to be incapable of introspectively and contemplative thought. Therefore, their beliefs in these two icons can only be attributed to their need to gain social acceptance.
The Cambridge ladies are confined by a close, strict and conforming social sphere which influences their selfhood as well as their children’s personas. Through this selective group, they are able to reaffirm themselves. Instead of confronting issues that arise when attempting to form a unique and independent identity, these women simply formulate themselves through others. To form their personalities, they look to other women, to the church, and to their society to give them definition. As a result, their lives and selfhood’s center exclusively around living for the other. Their faulty beliefs create a flawed collective persona and rob the ladies of their individuality. To display this deficiency, E.E. Cummings decides not to single out any of the women by using one binding name: “the Cambridge ladies” ([the Cambridge] ln. 1). While it is evident that the ladies have had little or no schooling, the adjective “Cambridge,” which is suggestive of higher education, is sarcastically used by Cummings. Even if they were to try to establish an identity separate from others, they probably would not have enough knowledge to do so. Because they are not autonomous, they are described as “unbeautiful” ([the Cambridge] ln. 2) and as having “furnished souls” ([the Cambridge] ln. 1). They are “unbeautiful” because they have no definition and no shape. The Cambridge ladies’ souls’ are “furnished” literally and metaphorically. Mirroring the way one decorates a room, their souls are described as “furnished” because society has basically ornamented them with expected beliefs and traits. As traditional Protestant women, they are also confined within their household because they must serve their children and husband. Dually, the Cambridge Ladies’ “daughters” ([the Cambridge] ln. 3) are slowly adopting these standards; they are depicted as being “...unscented shapeless spirited” ([the Cambridge] ln. 3), indicating that they too are conforming. The word “spirited” is juxtaposed against the adjectives “unscented” and “shapeless.” E.E. Cummings does this to question how they can be “spirited” and how their mothers’ hands can be “delighted” in doing work that has no relation to their own interests. Consequently, the women become apathetic as well as cold because they cannot follow their repressed dreams.
As a result of being restricted to certain roles in their society, the Cambridge ladies develop negative traits such as indifference and insensitivity. Imitating this lack of sentiment, the poem’s structure is one basic shape. Just like the Cambridge women, the poem is plain, unintrusive and doesn’t stray exceedingly from the norm. The Cambridge ladies detach themselves from the external world’s uncertainties and find an apathetic medium in their traditional ways. Their “permanent faces” ([the Cambridge] ln. 9) exhibit their fixed ways; they are close-minded and are not open to anything new or unknown. “Faces,” which is plural, insinuates the assimilation that the women have gone through in order to adapt to their society’s principles. Without any inhibitions and without taking into consideration who they could possibly hurt, they “coyly bandy” ([the Cambridge] ln. 9) the “scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D” ([the Cambridge] ln. 10). After they do so, E.E. Cummings indicates a pause in the poem with multiple periods to make the reader and the poetic speaker reflect on what was just said. The poetic speaker comes up with the mournful conclusion that the Cambridge ladies “do not care” ([the Cambridge] ln. 11) about anything. They don’t care about other people’s feelings and only care about what the church and what their society thinks. Robbing themselves of all hope and individuality, the Cambridge ladies cannot see the liberation that lies within an open-mind.
Nature is juxtaposed against the Cambridge ladies’ close-mindedness; nature is a freeing agent which is crying out to be seen by these blind women. The Cambridge women are enclosed in a “box of/sky lavender and cornerless” ([the Cambridge] lns. 12-13). The box is symbolic of the women’s minds; it’s like a perfectly assembled package that’s beautiful to look but when opened, is empty. A box is hollow, self-contained and closed. Inside the box is “sky lavender” which is insinuative of a vast, blank sky. The color lavender is a bland and dull form of purple, implicating that this sky doesn’t have much depth to it. Lavendar is also the hue of bruises which the women’s minds may have suffered through the limiting of their thoughts and closing of their minds. Instead of being clear blue, the sky is lavendar. This implies that mankind has even taken control of nature and manipulated it to fit their needs. The box is also “cornerless,” indicating that the Cambridge ladies have nowhere to store their own reflections because their community is so encompassing. Nature is frustrated by man’s disregard of natural beauty and wishes to be seen. The Cambridge ladies are not able to see past themselves and because of this, the “moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy” ([the Cambridge] ln. 14). With descriptive words such as “rattles” and “candy,” this simile seems childlike and innocent. Just like a child, the moon is crying out and waiting for someone to respond to it. When children want attention, they often shake a “rattle.” This produces a loud noise and forces their parents notice them. The word “candy” is similar to the phrase “eye-candy;” it is possible that the moon is frustrated by people looking at it for their own intentions. It is almost impossible for people to grasp the size and magnitude of the moon. This inability to wholly understand the moon mirrors the women’s incapacity to understand Longfellow, Christ and the external world. To emphasize this lack of understanding and how insignificant the moon is to others, it is only a “fragment” of candy rather. Candy is also a temptation to many people and the moon is an equal attraction. The “moon” is personified and seems more human than the Cambridge ladies. Unlike the moon who is demanding to be received, the ladies have no cares and no causes to fight for. Contrary to the Cambridge ladies, the moon is active (“rattles”) , can show emotion (“angry”), and is passionate. The moon is shaking with anger and passion, overwhelmed with the emotion that
This poem reveals the hypocrisy of people who confine themselves to a limited sphere of knowledge and a confined group of peers. Rather than looking towards the outside world and into the unknown, these women commit themselves to spreading rumors, being “loyal” Christians, and being socially adept. By sharing a communal identity, they give up all individual freedoms. The Cambridge ladies forget to see and understand the individual beauties in life such as the moon. Everything they believe is internalized by their social doctrines; they leave no room for change or for new ideals. Therefore, they are unable to associate with the serenity of nature or with a world separate from themselves. Because they are assigned to a societal doctrine in which they have no control or say over, they become apathetic to its causes. They no longer concern themselves over problems and “do not care” about anything at all.
Through this comparing and contrasting, E.E. Cummings is able to show the superficial and fabricated world that the Cambridge ladies have created. Although these women claim to be strict Protestants, their unsympathetic behavior proves to be less than holy. The Cambridge ladies are not able to fully understand the harsh reality of a world that lies beyond their trifle lives. Because they have already been given everything they need in life without working for it, the women are content with their set ways and have “comfortable minds” ([the Cambridge] ln. 2). These women have never known anything other than luxury and happiness. Thus, the ladies have no reason to challenge their church’s or society’s customs.
The Cambridge ladies cannot comprehend hardships and therefore cannot internalize or empathize with the outside world’s problems. Illustrating this lack of knowledge, the Cambridge ladies cannot even recall who or what they are knitting for: “delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?/perhaps.” ([the Cambridge] lns. 8-9). Since the cause for which the women are knitting is possibly war or for some other seemingly desperate situation, the adjective “delighted” used to describe the ladies’ hands is quite ironic. If the Cambridge ladies were truly able to absorb the reason as to why they were knitting, they would be sorrowful and compassionate. Their hands would not be “delighted” and they would not have “comfortable minds.” They would be very disturbed and would probably end up questioning Christianity as well as their society’s practices. The consensus answer to the question of whether or not they’re knitting for the “Poles” ends up being “perhaps,” exposing the apathy the Cambridge ladies conjointly share about their volunteer work. Even though they have the “church’s protestant blessings” ([the Cambridge] ln. 3), E.E. Cummings states that “the Cambridge ladies do not care” ([the Cambridge] ln. 11) about anything other than themselves. The word “protestant” is not capitalized, infering that their Christianity is merely an undertone in their lives. If the ladies were to be good, genuine Christians, they wouldn’t care about the “scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D” ([the Cambridge] ln. 10) or about fitting into an idealized role. In effect, religion becomes a trend rather than a belief for the Cambridge ladies.
In response to the Cambridge ladies’ trends, E.E. Cummings alludes to both Christ and Longfellow. By doing so, the women look and become more erroneous in the reader’s eye. Christ, a martyr for his devout beliefs, and Longfellow, who was famous for not only his translation of Dante’s Inferno but for his simple poetic style, are “both dead” ([the Cambridge] ln. 5). “Both dead” is a spondee which makes their deaths seem just as immutable as the Cambridge ladies’ old-fashioned ways. Instead of believing in these men’s convictions, the women ascribe to Longfellow and Christ because they are accepted, popular and well-known idols. The Cambridge ladies only enjoy Longfellow’s poetry and Christ’s teachings because they are socially accepted names; reading and believing in both helps these ladies to gain status within their clique. Following the statement that they have faith in Longfellow and Christ, Cummings’ indicates their insincerity by mimicking the Cambridge ladies’ speech: “are invariably interested in so many things--/at the present writing” ([the Cambridge] ln. 6-7). These lines mirror the way that the Cambridge Ladies talk to each other as well as show their constantly changing interests; for the Cambridge ladies, Longfellow and Christ are mere pastimes just like “writing” and “knitting.” Longfellow’s poetry was thought to be simple, positive and easy to understand which may be another explanation as to why the ladies enjoyed his works. However, the effect of Christ’s enlightenment upon the fickle Cambridge ladies is very hard to understand because they appear to be incapable of introspectively and contemplative thought. Therefore, their beliefs in these two icons can only be attributed to their need to gain social acceptance.
The Cambridge ladies are confined by a close, strict and conforming social sphere which influences their selfhood as well as their children’s personas. Through this selective group, they are able to reaffirm themselves. Instead of confronting issues that arise when attempting to form a unique and independent identity, these women simply formulate themselves through others. To form their personalities, they look to other women, to the church, and to their society to give them definition. As a result, their lives and selfhood’s center exclusively around living for the other. Their faulty beliefs create a flawed collective persona and rob the ladies of their individuality. To display this deficiency, E.E. Cummings decides not to single out any of the women by using one binding name: “the Cambridge ladies” ([the Cambridge] ln. 1). While it is evident that the ladies have had little or no schooling, the adjective “Cambridge,” which is suggestive of higher education, is sarcastically used by Cummings. Even if they were to try to establish an identity separate from others, they probably would not have enough knowledge to do so. Because they are not autonomous, they are described as “unbeautiful” ([the Cambridge] ln. 2) and as having “furnished souls” ([the Cambridge] ln. 1). They are “unbeautiful” because they have no definition and no shape. The Cambridge ladies’ souls’ are “furnished” literally and metaphorically. Mirroring the way one decorates a room, their souls are described as “furnished” because society has basically ornamented them with expected beliefs and traits. As traditional Protestant women, they are also confined within their household because they must serve their children and husband. Dually, the Cambridge Ladies’ “daughters” ([the Cambridge] ln. 3) are slowly adopting these standards; they are depicted as being “...unscented shapeless spirited” ([the Cambridge] ln. 3), indicating that they too are conforming. The word “spirited” is juxtaposed against the adjectives “unscented” and “shapeless.” E.E. Cummings does this to question how they can be “spirited” and how their mothers’ hands can be “delighted” in doing work that has no relation to their own interests. Consequently, the women become apathetic as well as cold because they cannot follow their repressed dreams.
As a result of being restricted to certain roles in their society, the Cambridge ladies develop negative traits such as indifference and insensitivity. Imitating this lack of sentiment, the poem’s structure is one basic shape. Just like the Cambridge women, the poem is plain, unintrusive and doesn’t stray exceedingly from the norm. The Cambridge ladies detach themselves from the external world’s uncertainties and find an apathetic medium in their traditional ways. Their “permanent faces” ([the Cambridge] ln. 9) exhibit their fixed ways; they are close-minded and are not open to anything new or unknown. “Faces,” which is plural, insinuates the assimilation that the women have gone through in order to adapt to their society’s principles. Without any inhibitions and without taking into consideration who they could possibly hurt, they “coyly bandy” ([the Cambridge] ln. 9) the “scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D” ([the Cambridge] ln. 10). After they do so, E.E. Cummings indicates a pause in the poem with multiple periods to make the reader and the poetic speaker reflect on what was just said. The poetic speaker comes up with the mournful conclusion that the Cambridge ladies “do not care” ([the Cambridge] ln. 11) about anything. They don’t care about other people’s feelings and only care about what the church and what their society thinks. Robbing themselves of all hope and individuality, the Cambridge ladies cannot see the liberation that lies within an open-mind.
Nature is juxtaposed against the Cambridge ladies’ close-mindedness; nature is a freeing agent which is crying out to be seen by these blind women. The Cambridge women are enclosed in a “box of/sky lavender and cornerless” ([the Cambridge] lns. 12-13). The box is symbolic of the women’s minds; it’s like a perfectly assembled package that’s beautiful to look but when opened, is empty. A box is hollow, self-contained and closed. Inside the box is “sky lavender” which is insinuative of a vast, blank sky. The color lavender is a bland and dull form of purple, implicating that this sky doesn’t have much depth to it. Lavendar is also the hue of bruises which the women’s minds may have suffered through the limiting of their thoughts and closing of their minds. Instead of being clear blue, the sky is lavendar. This implies that mankind has even taken control of nature and manipulated it to fit their needs. The box is also “cornerless,” indicating that the Cambridge ladies have nowhere to store their own reflections because their community is so encompassing. Nature is frustrated by man’s disregard of natural beauty and wishes to be seen. The Cambridge ladies are not able to see past themselves and because of this, the “moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy” ([the Cambridge] ln. 14). With descriptive words such as “rattles” and “candy,” this simile seems childlike and innocent. Just like a child, the moon is crying out and waiting for someone to respond to it. When children want attention, they often shake a “rattle.” This produces a loud noise and forces their parents notice them. The word “candy” is similar to the phrase “eye-candy;” it is possible that the moon is frustrated by people looking at it for their own intentions. It is almost impossible for people to grasp the size and magnitude of the moon. This inability to wholly understand the moon mirrors the women’s incapacity to understand Longfellow, Christ and the external world. To emphasize this lack of understanding and how insignificant the moon is to others, it is only a “fragment” of candy rather. Candy is also a temptation to many people and the moon is an equal attraction. The “moon” is personified and seems more human than the Cambridge ladies. Unlike the moon who is demanding to be received, the ladies have no cares and no causes to fight for. Contrary to the Cambridge ladies, the moon is active (“rattles”) , can show emotion (“angry”), and is passionate. The moon is shaking with anger and passion, overwhelmed with the emotion that
This poem reveals the hypocrisy of people who confine themselves to a limited sphere of knowledge and a confined group of peers. Rather than looking towards the outside world and into the unknown, these women commit themselves to spreading rumors, being “loyal” Christians, and being socially adept. By sharing a communal identity, they give up all individual freedoms. The Cambridge ladies forget to see and understand the individual beauties in life such as the moon. Everything they believe is internalized by their social doctrines; they leave no room for change or for new ideals. Therefore, they are unable to associate with the serenity of nature or with a world separate from themselves. Because they are assigned to a societal doctrine in which they have no control or say over, they become apathetic to its causes. They no longer concern themselves over problems and “do not care” about anything at all.
========================
To Brooklin Bridge
-Hart Crane
A seagull takes flight from its perch on the water. It flies past the "chained" shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge and on into the distance past the Statue of Liberty. It flies out of sight like a boat sailing out of a harbor, or like a page of sales figures that an office clerk files away.
The sea gull's disappearing flight reminds the speaker of the ghostlike flickers of movies. Movies are like a prophecy or the promise of some truth that is never told. He's not too keen on them.
The speaker admires the bridge from across the harbor: the way the sun hits it, the way the bridge embodies potential energy, the way it hangs free in the air.
A insane person runs to the top of the bridge, stands for a moment, then jumps off, committing suicide. The person is anonymous and seen only from a distance.
On Wall Street, bright light passes down through the girders of high buildings on to the street below. Clouds are flying by and tall structures called derricks seem to be turning. The wind from the North Atlantic passes through the cables of the bridge.
The bridge offers the promise of a reward as mysterious as the heaven described in Jewish scriptures. It also seems to praise the anonymity of people. It makes them feel small and anonymous, even more than the passage of time. Like a king, it pardons people.
The bridge is described as a fusion of religious and artistic symbols. It's a refuge for extraordinary and marginal figures like prophets, pariahs, and lovers.
As night falls, the speaker watches the traffic lights go over the bridge. The lights remind him of eternity, and the bridge seems to hold the sky up on its towers.
The speaker stands by the piers in Manhattan, looking at the shadow of the bridge in the light of the city. The lights in the windows of office buildings and apartments have already gone out. It's winter and another year is passing.
But, like the river beneath it, the bridge never sleeps. Not only does it connect one side of the river with another, it seems to connect one side of America with another. It connects Americans.
In the final two lines, the speaker asks the bridge to descend to the level of mere mortals and to help fill the space that God has left empty.
======================
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
-Mark Twain
Summary
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is often considered Twain's 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. Huck's 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 ofTom 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 Douglasand 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 Tom's band, using a hidden cave for their 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 Pap's. Huck realizes Pap, who Huck hasn't 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 dollar, and threatens to beat Huck if he ever goes to school again.
Upon Pap's 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 Widow's 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 saws 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 Jackson's 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 Watson's slave, Jim, is living on the island. After overhearing the Widow's 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 share 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, Huck's 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 on Jackson's 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 water-line 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 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 Grangerford's. 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 Grangerford's and the Shepherdson's is rekindled. Within one day all the men in the Grangerford family are killed, including Huck's 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 money, and tell everyone else that the show was phenomenal, thus making the following night's 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 girls 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 men's scheme. Huck sneaks into the King's room and steals the large bag of gold from the inheritance. He hides the gold in Peter Wilks's (the girls' father) coffin. Meanwhile, the humbugs spend their time liquidating the Wilks family property. At one point, Huck finds Mary Jane Wilks, the eldest 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 the 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 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 Sawyer's Aunt 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 Jim's 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 to Tom and Jim's 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 Huck's 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 didn't 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.
Analysis of Major Characters:
Huck Finn
From the beginning of the novel, Twain makes it clear that Huck is a boy who comes from the lowest levels of white society. His father is a drunk and a ruffian who disappears for months on end. Huck himself is dirty and frequently homeless. Although the Widow Douglas attempts to “reform” Huck, he resists her attempts and maintains his independent ways. The community has failed to protect him from his father, and though the Widow finally gives Huck some of the schooling and religious training that he had missed, he has not been indoctrinated with social values in the same way a middle-class boy like Tom Sawyer has been. Huck’s distance from mainstream society makes him skeptical of the world around him and the ideas it passes on to him.
Huck’s instinctual distrust and his experiences as he travels down the river force him to question the things society has taught him. According to the law, Jim is Miss Watson’s property, but according to Huck’s sense of logic and fairness, it seems “right” to help Jim. Huck’s natural intelligence and his willingness to think through a situation on its own merits lead him to some conclusions that are correct in their context but that would shock white society. For example, Huck discovers, when he and Jim meet a group of slave-hunters, that telling a lie is sometimes the right course of action.
Because Huck is a child, the world seems new to him. Everything he encounters is an occasion for thought. Because of his background, however, he does more than just apply the rules that he has been taught—he creates his own rules. Yet Huck is not some kind of independent moral genius. He must still struggle with some of the preconceptions about blacks that society has ingrained in him, and at the end of the novel, he shows himself all too willing to follow Tom Sawyer’s lead. But even these failures are part of what makes Huck appealing and sympathetic. He is only a boy, after all, and therefore fallible. Imperfect as he is, Huck represents what anyone is capable of becoming: a thinking, feeling human being rather than a mere cog in the machine of society.
Jim
Jim, Huck’s companion as he travels down the river, is a man of remarkable intelligence and compassion. At first glance, Jim seems to be superstitious to the point of idiocy, but a careful reading of the time that Huck and Jim spend on Jackson’s Island reveals that Jim’s superstitions conceal a deep knowledge of the natural world and represent an alternate form of “truth” or intelligence. Moreover, Jim has one of the few healthy, functioning families in the novel. Although he has been separated from his wife and children, he misses them terribly, and it is only the thought of a permanent separation from them that motivates his criminal act of running away from Miss Watson. On the river, Jim becomes a surrogate father, as well as a friend, to Huck, taking care of him without being intrusive or smothering. He cooks for the boy and shelters him from some of the worst horrors that they encounter, including the sight of Pap’s corpse, and, for a time, the news of his father’s passing.
Some readers have criticized Jim as being too passive, but it is important to remember that he remains at the mercy of every other character in this novel, including even the poor, thirteen-year-old Huck, as the letter that Huck nearly sends to Miss Watson demonstrates. Like Huck, Jim is realistic about his situation and must find ways of accomplishing his goals without incurring the wrath of those who could turn him in. In this position, he is seldom able to act boldly or speak his mind. Nonetheless, despite these restrictions and constant fear, Jim consistently acts as a noble human being and a loyal friend. In fact, Jim could be described as the only real adult in the novel, and the only one who provides a positive, respectable example for Huck to follow.
Tom Sawyer
Tom is the same age as Huck and his best friend. Whereas Huck’s birth and upbringing have left him in poverty and on the margins of society, Tom has been raised in relative comfort. As a result, his beliefs are an unfortunate combination of what he has learned from the adults around him and the fanciful notions he has gleaned from reading romance and adventure novels. Tom believes in sticking strictly to “rules,” most of which have more to do with style than with morality or anyone’s welfare. Tom is thus the perfect foil for Huck: his rigid adherence to rules and precepts contrasts with Huck’s tendency to question authority and think for himself.
Although Tom’s escapades are often funny, they also show just how disturbingly and unthinkingly cruel society can be. Tom knows all along that Miss Watson has died and that Jim is now a free man, yet he is willing to allow Jim to remain a captive while he entertains himself with fantastic escape plans. Tom’s plotting tortures not only Jim, but Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas as well. In the end, although he is just a boy like Huck and is appealing in his zest for adventure and his unconscious wittiness, Tom embodies what a young, well-to-do white man is raised to become in the society of his time: self-centered with dominion over all.
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MOBY DICK
-Melvile
I shmael, the narrator, announces his intent to ship aboard a whaling vessel. He has made several voyages as a sailor but none as a whaler. He travels to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he stays in a whalers’ inn. Since the inn is rather full, he has to share a bed with a harpooner from the South Pacific named Queequeg. At first repulsed by Queequeg’s strange habits and shocking appearance (Queequeg is covered with tattoos), Ishmael eventually comes to appreciate the man’s generosity and kind spirit, and the two decide to seek work on a whaling vessel together. They take a ferry to Nantucket, the traditional capital of the whaling industry. There they secure berths on the Pequod, a savage-looking ship adorned with the bones and teeth of sperm whales. Peleg and Bildad, the Pequod’s Quaker owners, drive a hard bargain in terms of salary. They also mention the ship’s mysterious captain, Ahab, who is still recovering from losing his leg in an encounter with a sperm whale on his last voyage.
The Pequodleaves Nantucket on a cold Christmas Day with a crew made up of men from many different countries and races. Soon the ship is in warmer waters, and Ahab makes his first appearance on deck, balancing gingerly on his false leg, which is made from a sperm whale’s jaw. He announces his desire to pursue and kill Moby Dick, the legendary great white whale who took his leg, because he sees this whale as the embodiment of evil. Ahab nails a gold doubloon to the mast and declares that it will be the prize for the first man to sight the whale. As the Pequod sails toward the southern tip of Africa, whales are sighted and unsuccessfully hunted. During the hunt, a group of men, none of whom anyone on the ship’s crew has seen before on the voyage, emerges from the hold. The men’s leader is an exotic-looking man named Fedallah. These men constitute Ahab’s private harpoon crew, smuggled aboard in defiance of Bildad and Peleg. Ahab hopes that their skills and Fedallah’s prophetic abilities will help him in his hunt for Moby Dick.
The Pequod rounds Africa and enters the Indian Ocean. A few whales are successfully caught and processed for their oil. From time to time, the ship encounters other whaling vessels. Ahab always demands information about Moby Dick from their captains. One of the ships, the Jeroboam, carries Gabriel, a crazed prophet who predicts doom for anyone who threatens Moby Dick. His predictions seem to carry some weight, as those aboard his ship who have hunted the whale have met disaster. While trying to drain the oil from the head of a captured sperm whale, Tashtego, one of the Pequod’s harpooners, falls into the whale’s voluminous head, which then rips free of the ship and begins to sink. Queequeg saves Tashtego by diving into the ocean and cutting into the slowly sinking head.
During another whale hunt, Pip, the Pequod’s black cabin boy, jumps from a whaleboat and is left behind in the middle of the ocean. He goes insane as the result of the experience and becomes a crazy but prophetic jester for the ship. Soon after, the Pequod meets the Samuel Enderby, a whaling ship whose skipper, Captain Boomer, has lost an arm in an encounter with Moby Dick. The two captains discuss the whale; Boomer, happy simply to have survived his encounter, cannot understand Ahab’s lust for vengeance. Not long after, Queequeg falls ill and has the ship’s carpenter make him a coffin in anticipation of his death. He recovers, however, and the coffin eventually becomes the Pequod’s replacement life buoy.
Ahab orders a harpoon forged in the expectation that he will soon encounter Moby Dick. He baptizes the harpoon with the blood of the Pequod’s three harpooners. The Pequod kills several more whales. Issuing a prophecy about Ahab’s death, Fedallah declares that Ahab will first see two hearses, the second of which will be made only from American wood, and that he will be killed by hemp rope. Ahab interprets these words to mean that he will not die at sea, where there are no hearses and no hangings. A typhoon hits thePequod, illuminating it with electrical fire. Ahab takes this occurrence as a sign of imminent confrontation and success, but Starbuck, the ship’s first mate, takes it as a bad omen and considers killing Ahab to end the mad quest. After the storm ends, one of the sailors falls from the ship’s masthead and drowns—a grim foreshadowing of what lies ahead.
Ahab’s fervent desire to find and destroy Moby Dick continues to intensify, and the mad Pip is now his constant companion. The Pequod approaches the equator, where Ahab expects to find the great whale. The ship encounters two more whaling ships, the Rachel and the Delight, both of which have recently had fatal encounters with the whale. Ahab finally sights Moby Dick. The harpoon boats are launched, and Moby Dick attacks Ahab’s harpoon boat, destroying it. The next day, Moby Dick is sighted again, and the boats are lowered once more. The whale is harpooned, but Moby Dick again attacks Ahab’s boat. Fedallah, trapped in the harpoon line, is dragged overboard to his death. Starbuck must maneuver the Pequod between Ahab and the angry whale.
On the third day, the boats are once again sent after Moby Dick, who once again attacks them. The men can see Fedallah’s corpse lashed to the whale by the harpoon line. Moby Dick rams the Pequod and sinks it. Ahab is then caught in a harpoon line and hurled out of his harpoon boat to his death. All of the remaining whaleboats and men are caught in the vortex created by the sinking Pequod and pulled under to their deaths. Ishmael, who was thrown from a boat at the beginning of the chase, was far enough away to escape the whirlpool, and he alone survives. He floats atop Queequeg’s coffin, which popped back up from the wreck, until he is picked up by the Rachel, which is still searching for the crewmen lost in her earlier encounter with Moby Dick.
Character Analysis:
Ishmael
Despite his centrality to the story, Ishmael doesn’t reveal much about himself to the reader. We know that he has gone to sea out of some deep spiritual malaise and that shipping aboard a whaler is his version of committing suicide—he believes that men aboard a whaling ship are lost to the world. It is apparent from Ishmael’s frequent digressions on a wide range of subjects—from art, geology, and anatomy to legal codes and literature—that he is intelligent and well educated, yet he claims that a whaling ship has been “[his] Yale College and [his] Harvard.” He seems to be a self-taught Renaissance man, good at everything but committed to nothing. Given the mythic, romantic aspects of Moby-Dick, it is perhaps fitting that its narrator should be an enigma: not everything in a story so dependent on fate and the seemingly supernatural needs to make perfect sense.
Additionally, Ishmael represents the fundamental contradiction between the story of Moby-Dick and its setting. Melville has created a profound and philosophically complicated tale and set it in a world of largely uneducated working-class men; Ishmael, thus, seems less a real character than an instrument of the author. No one else aboard the Pequod possesses the proper combination of intellect and experience to tell this story. Indeed, at times even Ishmael fails Melville’s purposes, and he disappears from the story for long stretches, replaced by dramatic dialogues and soliloquies from Ahab and other characters.
Ahab
Ahab, the Pequod’s obsessed captain, represents both an ancient and a quintessentially modern type of hero. Like the heroes of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy, Ahab suffers from a single fatal flaw, one he shares with such legendary characters as Oedipus and Faust. His tremendous overconfidence, or hubris, leads him to defy common sense and believe that, like a god, he can enact his will and remain immune to the forces of nature. He considers Moby Dick the embodiment of evil in the world, and he pursues the White Whale monomaniacally because he believes it his inescapable fate to destroy this evil. According to the critic M. H. Abrams, such a tragic hero “moves us to pity because, since he is not an evil man, his misfortune is greater than he deserves; but he moves us also to fear, because we recognize similar possibilities of error in our own lesser and fallible selves.”
Unlike the heroes of older tragic works, however, Ahab suffers from a fatal flaw that is not necessarily inborn but instead stems from damage, in his case both psychological and physical, inflicted by life in a harsh world. He is as much a victim as he is an aggressor, and the symbolic opposition that he constructs between himself and Moby Dick propels him toward what he considers a destined end.
Moby Dick
In a sense, Moby Dick is not a character, as the reader has no access to the White Whale’s thoughts, feelings, or intentions. Instead, Moby Dick is an impersonal force, one that many critics have interpreted as an allegorical representation of God, an inscrutable and all-powerful being that humankind can neither understand nor defy. Moby Dick thwarts free will and cannot be defeated, only accommodated or avoided. Ishmael tries a plethora of approaches to describe whales in general, but none proves adequate. Indeed, as Ishmael points out, the majority of a whale is hidden from view at all times. In this way, a whale mirrors its environment. Like the whale, only the surface of the ocean is available for human observation and interpretation, while its depths conceal unknown and unknowable truths. Furthermore, even when Ishmael does get his hands on a “whole” whale, he is unable to determine which part—the skeleton, the head, the skin—offers the best understanding of the whole living, breathing creature; he cannot localize the essence of the whale. This conundrum can be read as a metaphor for the human relationship with the Christian God (or any other god, for that matter): God is unknowable and cannot be pinned down.
Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask
The Pequod’s three mates are used primarily to provide philosophical contrasts with Ahab. Starbuck, the first mate, is a religious man. Sober and conservative, he relies on his Christian faith to determine his actions and interpretations of events. Stubb, the second mate, is jolly and cool in moments of crisis. He has worked in the dangerous occupation of whaling for so long that the possibility of death has ceased to concern him. A fatalist, he believes that things happen as they are meant to and that there is little that he can do about it. Flask simply enjoys the thrill of the hunt and takes pride in killing whales. He doesn’t stop to consider consequences at all and is “utterly lost . . . to all sense of reverence” for the whale. All three of these perspectives are used to accentuate Ahab’s monomania. Ahab reads his experiences as the result of a conspiracy against him by some larger force. Unlike Flask, he thinks and interprets. Unlike Stubb, he believes that he can alter his world. Unlike Starbuck, he places himself rather than some external set of principles at the center of the cosmic order that he discerns.
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The Old Man and the Sea
-Earnest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea Summary
There is an old fisherman in Cuba, Santiago, who has gone eighty-four days without a catch. He is "thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck,...and his hands had deep-creased scars from handling heavy fish on the cords. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert" (10). Santiago's lack of success, though, does not destroy his spirit, as his "cheerful and undefeated" eyes show (10). He has a single friend, a boy named Manolin, who helped him during the first forty days of his dryspell. After forty days, though, Manolin's parents decided the old man was unlucky and ordered their son to join another boat. Despite this, the boy helps the old man to bring in his empty boat every day.
Santiago tells Manolin that tomorrow he will go out far in the Gulf to fish. The two gather Santiago's things from his boat and go to the old man's house. His house is very simple with a bed, table, and chair on a dirt floor. The two friends speak for a while, then Manolin leaves briefly to get food. Santiago falls asleep.
When Manolin returns, he wakes Santiago. The two eat the food the boy has brought. During the course of the meal, the boy realizes the squalor in which the old man lives and reminds himself to bring the old man a shirt, shoes, a jacket, and a blanket for the coming winter. Manolin and Santiago talk baseball for a while, and the boy then leaves to be woken in the morning by the old man. Santiago sleeps.
Santiago dreams of Africa, where he traveled as a shipmate in his youth. "He lived along that coast now every night and in his dreams he heard the surf roar and saw the native boats come riding through it....He dreamed of places now and lions on the beach" (24). The old man wakes and retrieves the boy from his house. The two take the old man's supplies from his shack to his boat and enjoy coffee at an early morning place that serves fisherman. The boy leaves to fetch the sardines for the old man. When he returns, he wishes the old man luck, and Santiago goes out to sea.
Santiago leaves shore early in the morning, before sunrise. "He knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning smell of the ocean" (28). Soon, Santiago rows over the "great well," a sudden drop of seven hundred fathoms where shrimp, bait fish, and squid congregate. Moving along, Santiago spots flying fish and birds, expressing great sympathy for the latter. As he queries, "Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel? She is kind and very beautiful. But she can be so cruel...." (29).
Santiago keeps pressing out, past the great well where he has been recently unsuccessful. Santiago sees a man-of-war bird overhead and notices that the bird has spied something in the water. The old man follows near the bird, and drops his own lines into the area, hoping to capture the fish the bird has seen. There is a large school of dolphin traveling fast, too fast for either the bird or Santiago to capture. Santiago moves on, hoping to catch a stray or perhaps even discover a marlin tracking the school. He catches a small tuna after not too long and then feels a bite on one of his deeper lines.
The first bite is hard, and the stick to which the line is connected drops sharply. The next tug is more tentative, but Santiago knows exactly what it is. "One hundred fathoms down a marlin was eating the sardines that covered the point and the shank of the hook where the hand-forged hook projected from the head of the small tuna" (41). Encouraged by a bite at so deep a depth so far out in the Gulf, Santiago reasons that the fish much be very large.
The marlin nibbles around the hook for some time, refusing to take the bait fully. Santiago speaks aloud, as if to cajole the fish into accepting the bait. He says, "Come on....Make another turn. Just smell them. Aren't they lovely? Eat them good now and then there is the tuna. Hard and cold and lovely. Don't be shy fish. Eat them" (42). After many false bites, the marlin finally takes the tuna and pulls out a great length of line.
Santiago waits a bit for the marlin to swallow the hook and then pulls hard on the line to bring the marlin up to the surface. The fish is strong, though, and does not come up. Instead, he swims away, dragging the old man and his skiff along behind. Santiago wishes he had Manolin with him to help.
As the sun goes down, the marlin continues on in the same direction, and Santiago loses sight of land altogether. Expressing his resolve, Santiago says, "Fish,...I'll stay with you until I am dead" (52). He expresses ambivalence over whether he wants the fish to jump, wanting to end the struggle as quickly as possible but worrying that the hook might slip out of the fish's mouth. Echoing his former resolve though with less certainty, Santiago says, "Fish,...I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends" (54).
A small bird land on the boat, and while Santiago is speaking to the bird, the marlin lurches forward and pulls the old man down, cutting his hand. Lowering his hand to water to clean it, Santiago notices that the marlin has slowed down. He decides to eat a tuna he has caught in order to give him strength for his ordeal. As he is cutting the fish, though, his left hand cramps. "What kind of hand is that," Santiago says, "Cramp then if you want. Make yourself into a claw. It will do you no good" (58). The old man eats the tuna, hoping it will renew his strength and help release his hand.
Just then, the marlin comes out of the water quickly and descends into the water again. Santiago is amazed by its size, two feet longer than the skiff. He realizes that the marlin could destroy the boat if he wanted to and says, "...[T]hank God, they are not as intelligent as we who kill them; although they are more noble and more able" (63). Santiago says prayers to assuage his worried heart, and settles into the chase once again.
As the sun sets, Santiago thinks back to triumphs of his past in order to give himself more confidence in the present. He remembers a great arm-wrestling match he had at a tavern in Casablanca. It had lasted a full day and a night, but Santiago, El Campeon (The Champion) as he was known then, eventually won. "He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and he decided that it was bad for his right hand for fishing" (70). He tried to wrestle with his left hand but it was a traitor then as it had been now.
Recalling his exhaustion, Santiago decides that he must sleep some if he is to kill the marlin. He cuts up the dolphin he has caught to prevent spoiling, and eats some of it before contriving a way to sleep. Santiago wraps the line around himself and leans against the bow to anchor himself, leaving his left hand on the rope to wake him if the marlin lurches. Soon, the old man is asleep, dreaming of a school of porpoises, his village house, and finally of the lions of his youth on the African beach.
Santiago is awoken by the line rushing furiously through his right hand. The marlin leaps out of the water and it is all the old man can do to hold onto the line, now cutting his hand badly and dragging him down to the bottom of the skiff. Santiago finds his balance, though, and realizes that the marlin has filled the air sacks on his back and cannot go deep to die. The marlin will circle and then the endgame will begin.
At sunrise, the marlin begins a large circle. Santiago holds the line strongly, pulling it in slowly as the marlin goes round. At the third turn, Santiago sees the fish and is amazed by its size. He readies the harpoon and pulls the line in more. The marlin tries desperately to pull away. Santiago, no longer able to speak for lack of water, thinks, "You are killing me, fish....But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother. Come on and kill me. I do not care who kills you" (92). This marlin continues to circle, coming closer and pulling out. At last it is next to the skiff, and Santiago drove his harpoon into the marlin's chest.
"Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty" (94). It crashed into the sea, blinding Santiago with a shower of sea spray. With the glimpse of vision he had, Santiago saw the slain beast laying on its back, crimson blood disseminating into the azure water. Seeing his prize, Santiago says, "I am a tired old man. But I have killed this fish which is my brother and now I must do the slave work" (95).
Having killed the Marlin, Santiago lashes its body alongside his skiff. He pulls a line through the marlin's gills and out its mouth, keeping its head near the bow. "I want to see him, he thought, and to touch and to feel him. He is my fortune, he thought" (95). Having secured the marlin to the skiff, Santiago draws the sail and lets the trade wind push him toward the southwest.
An hour after Santiago killed the marlin, a mako shark appears. It had followed the trail of blood the slain marlin left in its wake. As the shark approaches the boat, Santiago prepares his harpoon, hoping to kill the shark before it tears apart the marlin. "The shark's head was out of water and his back was coming out and the old man could hear the noise of skin and flesh ripping on the big fish when he rammed the harpoon down onto the shark's head" (102). The dead shark slowly sinks into the deep ocean water.
Two hours later, two shovel-nosed sharks arrive at the skiff. After losing his harpoon to the mako, Santiago fastens his knife to the end of the oar and now wields this against the sharks. He kills the first shark easily, but while he does this, the other shark is ripping at the marlin underneath the boat. Santiago lets go of the sheet to swing broadside and reveal the shark underneath. After some struggle, he kills this shark as well.
Santiago apologizes to the fish for the mutilation he has suffered. He admits, "I shouldn't have gone out so far, fish....Neither for you nor for me. I am sorry, fish" (110). Tired and losing hope, Santiago sits and waits for the next attacker, a single shovel-nosed shark. The old man succeeds in killing the fish but breaks his knife blade in the process.
More sharks appear at sunset and Santiago only has a club with which to beat them away. He does not kill the sharks, but damages them enough to prevent their return. Santiago then looks forward to nightfall as he will be able to see the lights of Havana, guiding him back to land. He regrets not having cleaved off the marlin's sword to use as a weapon when he had the knife and apologizes again to the fish. At around ten o'clock, he sees the light of Havana and steers toward it.
In the night, the sharks return. "[B]y midnight he fought and this time he knew the fight was useless. They came in a pack and he could only see the lines in the water their fins made and their phosphorescence as they threw themselves on the fish" (118). He clubs desperately at the fish, but the club was soon taken away by a shark. Santiago grabs the tiller and attacks the sharks until the tiller breaks. "That was the last shark of the pack that came. There was nothing more for them to eat" (119).
Santiago "sailed lightly now and he had no thoughts nor any feelings of any kind" (119). He concentrates purely on steering homewards and ignores the sharks that came to gnaw on the marlin's bones. When he arrives at the harbor, everyone is asleep. Santiago steps out of the boat, carrying the mast back to his shack. "He started to climb again and at the top he fell and lay for some time with the mast across his shoulder. He tried to get up. But it was too difficult and he sat there with the mast on his shoulder and looked at the road" (121). When he finally arose, he had to sit five times before reaching home. Arriving at his shack, Santiago collapsed on his bed and fell asleep.
Manolin arrives at the shack while Santiago is still asleep. The boy leaves quickly to get some coffee for Santiago, crying on his way to the Terrace. Manolin sees fisherman gathered around the skiff, measuring the marlin at eighteen feet long. When Manolin returns to the shack, Santiago is awake. The two speak for a while, and Manolin says, "Now we will fish together again," To which Santiago replies, "No. I am not lucky. I am not lucky anymore" (125). Manolin objects, "The hell with luck....I'll bring the luck with me" (125). Santiago acquiesces and Manolin leaves to fetch food and a shirt.
That afternoon there are tourists on the Terrace. A female tourist sees the skeleton of the marlin moving in the tide. Not recognizing the skeleton, she asks the waiter what it is. He responds in broken English "eshark," thinking she wants to know what happened. She comments to her partner that she didn't know sharks had such beautiful tails. Meanwhile, back in Santiago's shack, the old man "was still sleeping on his face and the boy was sitting by him watching him. The old man was dreaming about lions"
CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Santiago
Santiago suffers terribly throughout The Old Man and the Sea. In the opening pages of the book, he has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish and has become the laughingstock of his small village. He then endures a long and grueling struggle with the marlin only to see his trophy catch destroyed by sharks. Yet, the destruction enables the old man to undergo a remarkable transformation, and he wrests triumph and renewed life from his seeming defeat. After all, Santiago is an old man whose physical existence is almost over, but the reader is assured that Santiago will persist through Manolin, who, like a disciple, awaits the old man’s teachings and will make use of those lessons long after his teacher has died. Thus, Santiago manages, perhaps, the most miraculous feat of all: he finds a way to prolong his life after death.
Santiago’s commitment to sailing out farther than any fisherman has before, to where the big fish promise to be, testifies to the depth of his pride. Yet, it also shows his determination to change his luck. Later, after the sharks have destroyed his prize marlin, Santiago chastises himself for his hubris (exaggerated pride), claiming that it has ruined both the marlin and himself. True as this might be, it is only half the picture, for Santiago’s pride also enables him to achieve his most true and complete self. Furthermore, it helps him earn the deeper respect of the village fishermen and secures him the prized companionship of the boy—he knows that he will never have to endure such an epic struggle again.
Santiago’s pride is what enables him to endure, and it is perhaps endurance that matters most in Hemingway’s conception of the world—a world in which death and destruction, as part of the natural order of things, are unavoidable. Hemingway seems to believe that there are only two options: defeat or endurance until destruction; Santiago clearly chooses the latter. His stoic determination is mythic, nearly Christ-like in proportion. For three days, he holds fast to the line that links him to the fish, even though it cuts deeply into his palms, causes a crippling cramp in his left hand, and ruins his back. This physical pain allows Santiago to forge a connection with the marlin that goes beyond the literal link of the line: his bodily aches attest to the fact that he is well matched, that the fish is a worthy opponent, and that he himself, because he is able to fight so hard, is a worthy fisherman. This connectedness to the world around him eventually elevates Santiago beyond what would otherwise be his defeat. Like Christ, to whom Santiago is unashamedly compared at the end of the novella, the old man’s physical suffering leads to a more significant spiritual triumph.
Manolin
Manolin is present only in the beginning and at the end of The Old Man and the Sea, but his presence is important because Manolin’s devotion to Santiago highlights Santiago’s value as a person and as a fisherman. Manolin demonstrates his love for Santiago openly. He makes sure that the old man has food, blankets, and can rest without being bothered. Despite Hemingway’s insistence that his characters were a real old man and a real boy, Manolin’s purity and singleness of purpose elevate him to the level of a symbolic character. Manolin’s actions are not tainted by the confusion, ambivalence, or willfulness that typify adolescence. Instead, he is a companion who feels nothing but love and devotion.
Hemingway does hint at the boy’s resentment for his father, whose wishes Manolin obeys by abandoning the old man after forty days without catching a fish. This fact helps to establish the boy as a real human being—a person with conflicted loyalties who faces difficult decisions. By the end of the book, however, the boy abandons his duty to his father, swearing that he will sail with the old man regardless of the consequences. He stands, in the novella’s final pages, as a symbol of uncompromised love and fidelity. As the old man’s apprentice, he also represents the life that will follow from death. His dedication to learning from the old man ensures that Santiago will live on.
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THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR
-Emerson
The American Scholar was a speech given by Ralph Waldo Emerson on August 31, 1837, to the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge. He was invited to speak in recognition of his groundbreaking work Nature, published a year earlier, in which he established a new way for America's fledgling society to regard the world. Sixty years after declaring independence, American culture was still heavily influenced by Europe, and Emerson, for possibly the first time in the country's history, provided a visionary philosophical framework for escaping "from under its iron lids" and building a new, distinctly American cultural identity.
Summary:
Emerson uses Transcendentalist and Romantic views to get his points across by explaining a true American scholar's relationship to nature. There are a few key points he makes that flesh out this vision:
§ We are all fragments, "as the hand is divided into fingers", of a greater creature, which is mankind itself, "a doctrine ever new and sublime".
§ An individual may live in either of two states. In one, the busy, "divided" or "degenerate" state, he does not "possess himself" but identifies with his occupation or a monotonous action; in the other, "right" state, he is elevated to "Man", at one with all mankind.
§ To achieve this higher state of mind, the modern American scholar must reject old ideas and think for him or herself, to become "Man Thinking" rather than "a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking", "the victim of society", "the sluggard intellect of this continent".
§ "The American Scholar" has an obligation, as "Man Thinking", within this "One Man" concept, to see the world clearly, not severely influenced by traditional/historical views, and to broaden his understanding of the world from fresh eyes, to "defer never to the popular cry."
§ The scholar's education consists of three influences:
§ I. Nature
§ II. The Past; Books
§ III. Action
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NOBLE PRIZE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
-William Faulkner.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.
I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
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WALDEN
- Henry David Thoreau
Walden (first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is an American book written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self reliance.[2] Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, nearConcord, Massachusetts.
By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiencywere Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, about two miles (3 km) from his family home.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
Economy: In this first and longest chapter, Thoreau outlines his project: a two-year, two-month, and two-day stay at a cozy, "tightly shingled and plastered," English-style 10' × 15' cottage in the woods near Walden Pond.[4] He does this, he says, to illustrate the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle. He easily supplies the four necessities of life (food, shelter, water, and warmth) with the help of family and friends, particularly his mother, his best friend, and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter provided Thoreau with a work exchange – he could build a small house and plant a garden if he cleared some land on the woodlot and did other chores while there.[4] Thoreau meticulously records his expenditures and earnings, demonstrating his understanding of "economy," as he builds his house and buys and grows food. For a home and freedom, he spent a mere $28.12½, in 1845. At the end of this chapter, Thoreau inserts a poem, "The Pretensions of Poverty," by seventeenth-century English poet Thomas Carew. The poem criticizes those who think that their poverty gives them unearned moral and intellectual superiority.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For: After playing with the idea of buying a farm, Thoreau describes his house's location. Then he explains that he took up his abode at Walden Woods so as to "live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Although he criticizes the dedication of his neighbors to working, he himself is quite busy at Walden – building and maintaining his house, raising thousands of bean plants and other vegetables, making bread, clearing land, chopping wood, making repairs for the Emersons, going into town, and writing every day. His time at Walden was his most productive as a writer.[4]
Reading: Thoreau discusses the benefits of classical literature (preferably in the original Greek or Latin), and bemoans the lack of sophistication in Concord, evident in the popularity of unsophisticated literature. He also loved to read books by world travelers.[5] He yearns for a utopian time when each New England village supports "wise men" to educate and thereby ennoble the population.
Sounds: Thoreau opens this chapter by warning against relying too much on literature as a means of transcendence. Instead, one should experience life for oneself. Thus, after describing his house's beautiful natural surroundings and his casual housekeeping habits, Thoreau goes on to criticize the train whistle that interrupts his reverie. To him, the railroad symbolizes the destruction of the pastoral way of life. Following is a description of the sounds audible from his cabin: the church bells ringing, carriages rattling and rumbling, cows lowing, whip-poor-wills singing, owls hooting, frogs croaking, and cockerels crowing.
Solitude: Thoreau rhapsodizes about the beneficial effects of living solitary and close to nature. He claims to love being alone, saying "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."
Visitors: Thoreau writes about the visitors to his house. Among the 25 or 30 visitors is a young French-Canadian woodchopper, Alec Therien, whom Thoreau idealizes as approaching the ideal man, and a runaway slave, whom Thoreau helps on his journey to freedom in Canada.
The Bean-Field: Thoreau relates his efforts to cultivate 2.5 acres (10,000 m2) of beans. He plants in June and spends his summer mornings weeding the field with a hoe. He sells most of the crop, and his small profit of $8.71 covers his needs that were not provided by friends and family.
The Village: Thoreau visits Concord every day or two to hear the news, which he finds "as refreshing in its way as the rustle of the leaves." Nevertheless, he fondly but rather contemptuously compares Concord to a gopher colony. In late summer, he is arrested for refusing to pay federal taxes, but is released the next day. He explains that he refuses to pay taxes to a government that supports slavery.
The Ponds: In autumn, Thoreau discusses the countryside and writes down his observations about the geography of Walden Pond and its neighbors: Flint's Pond (or Sandy Pond), White Pond, and Goose Pond. Although Flint's is the largest, Thoreau's favorites are Walden and White ponds, which he describes as lovelier than diamonds.
Baker Farm: While on an afternoon ramble in the woods, Thoreau gets caught in a rainstorm and takes shelter in the dirty, dismal hut of John Field, a penniless but hard-working Irish farmhand, and his wife and children. Thoreau urges Field to live a simple but independent and fulfilling life in the woods, thereby freeing himself of employers and creditors. But the Irishman won't give up his aspirations of luxury and the quest for the American dream.
Higher Laws: Thoreau discusses whether hunting wild animals and eating meat is necessary. He concludes that the primitive, carnal sensuality of humans drives them to kill and eat animals, and that a person who transcends this propensity is superior to those who cannot. (Thoreau eats fish and occasionally salt pork and woodchuck.)[4] In addition to vegetarianism, he lauds chastity, work, and teetotalism. He also recognizes that Indians need to hunt and kill moose for survival in "The Maine Woods," and ate moose on a trip to Maine while he was living at Walden.[4] Here is a list of the laws that he mentions:
§ One must love that of the wild just as much as one loves that of the good.
§ What men already know instinctively is true humanity.
§ The hunter is the greatest friend of the animal which is hunted.
§ No human older than an adolescent would wantonly murder any creature which reveres its own life as much as the killer.
§ If the day and the night make one joyful, one is successful.
§ The highest form of self-restraint is when one can subsist not on other animals, but of plants and crops cultivated from the earth.
Brute Neighbors: Thoreau briefly discusses the many wild animals that are his neighbors at Walden. A description of the nesting habits of partridges is followed by a fascinating account of a massive battle between red and black ants. Three of the combatants he takes into his cabin and examines under a microscope as the black ant kills the two smaller red ones. Later, Thoreau takes his boat and tries to follow a teasing loon about the pond. He also collects animal specimens and ships them to Harvard College for study.[4]
House-Warming: After picking November berries in the woods, Thoreau adds a chimney, and finally plasters the walls of his sturdy house to stave off the cold of the oncoming winter. He also lays in a good supply of firewood, and expresses affection for wood and fire.
Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors: Thoreau relates the stories of people who formerly lived in the vicinity of Walden Pond. Then he talks about a few of the visitors he receives during the winter: a farmer, a woodchopper, and his best friend, the poet Ellery Channing.
Winter Animals: Thoreau amuses himself by watching wildlife during the winter. He relates his observations of owls, hares, red squirrels, mice, and various birds as they hunt, sing, and eat the scraps and corn he put out for them. He also describes a fox hunt that passes by.
The Pond in Winter: Thoreau describes Walden Pond as it appears during the winter. He claims to have sounded its depths and located an underground outlet. Then he recounts how 100 laborers came to cut great blocks of ice from the pond, the ice to be shipped to the Carolinas.
Spring: As spring arrives, Walden and the other ponds melt with stentorian thundering and rumbling. Thoreau enjoys watching the thaw, and grows ecstatic as he witnesses the green rebirth of nature. He watches the geese winging their way north, and a hawk playing by itself in the sky. As nature is reborn, the narrator implies, so is he. He departs Walden on September 6, 1847.
Conclusion: This final chapter is more passionate and urgent than its predecessors. In it, he criticizes conformity: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." By doing so, men may find happiness and self-fulfillment.
"I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."
Background:
Thoreau's intention during his time at Walden Pond was "to conduct an experiment: Could he survive, possibly even thrive, by stripping away all superfluous luxuries, living a plain, simple life in radically reduced conditions?"[6] He thought of it as an experiment in "home economics". Although Thoreau went to Walden to escape what he considered, "over-civilization", and in search of the "raw" and "savage delight" of the wilderness, he also spent considerable amounts of his time reading and writing.
Thoreau spent nearly four times as long on the Walden manuscript as he actually spent at the cabin. He went through eight different drafts over the course of almost ten years.[6] Walden was a moderate success when it was first published in 1854. It sold well and was received favourably among reviewers.
After Walden's publication, Thoreau saw his time at Walden as nothing more than an experiment. He never took seriously "the idea that he could truly isolate himself from others."[7] Without resolution, Thoreau used "his retreat to the woods as a way of framing a reflection on both what ails men and women in their contemporary condition and what might provide relief."[8]
Themes:
"Walden is a difficult book to read for three reasons: First, it was written by a gifted writer who uses surgically precise language, extended, allegoricalmetaphors, long and complex paragraphs and sentences, and vivid, detailed, and insightful descriptions. Thoreau does not hesitate to use metaphors,allusions, understatement, hyperbole, personification, irony, satire, metonymy, synecdoche, and oxymorons, and he can shift from a scientific to a transcendental point of view in mid-sentence. Second, its logic is based on a different understanding of life, quite contrary to what most people would call common sense. Ironically, this logic is based on what most people say they believe. Thoreau, recognizing this, fills Walden with sarcasm, paradoxes, anddouble entendres. He likes to tease, challenge, and even fool his readers. And third, quite often any words would be inadequate at expressing many of Thoreau's non-verbal insights into truth. Thoreau must use non-literal language to express these notions, and the reader must reach out to understand."— Ken Kifer
Walden emphasizes the importance of solitude, contemplation, and closeness to nature in transcending the "desperate" existence that, he argues, is the lot of most people. The book is not a traditional autobiography, but combines autobiography with a social critique of contemporary Western culture's consumerist and materialist attitudes and its distance from and destruction of nature. That the book is not simply a criticism of society, but also an attempt to engage creatively with the better aspects of contemporary culture, is suggested both by Thoreau's proximity to Concord society and by his admiration for classical literature. There are signs of ambiguity, or an attempt to see an alternative side of something common.
Critical Response:
American poet Robert Frost wrote of Thoreau, "In one book ... he surpasses everything we have had in America."[10] Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson judged Thoreau’s endorsement of living alone in natural simplicity, apart from modern society, to be a mark of effeminacy, calling it "womanish solicitude; for there is something unmanly, something almost dastardly" about the lifestyle.[11] Poet John Greenleaf Whittier criticized what he perceived as the message in Walden that man should lower himself to the level of a woodchuck and walk on four legs. He said: "Thoreau's Walden is a capital reading, but very wicked and heathenish... After all, for me, I prefer walking on two legs".[12] John Updike wrote in 2004, "A century and a half after its publication, "Walden has become such a totem of the back-to-nature, preservationist, anti-business, civil-disobedience mindset, and Thoreau so vivid a protester, so perfect a crank and hermit saint, that the book risks being as revered and unread as the Bible."
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THE OWL IN THE ATTIC
-James Thurcer.
James Thurber was perhaps the most popular humorist of the first part of the 20th century in the USA. The 1931 collection, THE OWL IN THE ATTIC, that I picked up at a library sale, shows him at his peak as a writer who draws (as opposed to an artist who writes). The book is divided into three sections of essays. There’s “Mr and Mrs Monroe”, a series of vignettes about a young married couple in New York City. This is Thurber at his most familiar, dealing frankly with the battle of the sexes, depicted here more as a series of friendly skirmishes than as the more misanthropic wars he’d depict later in his career. Oddly, none of the accompanying illustrations depicted the couple themselves. There’s “Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Guide To Modern English Usage”, a series of fractured essays where Thurber twists the rules of grammar in highly inappropriate ways. This is Thurber torturing the English language to hilarious ends, but the accompanying illustrations don’t have all that much to do with the actual essays.
The section I’ll be focusing in on in this column is “The Pet Department”, a parody of pet advice columns that features Thurber at his best. The drawings are funny, the text is (comparably) spare, and the two are intertwined in a way that I have only rarely seen from Thurber. Thurber is merciless and on the absurd side when answering these “inquries”. For example, the sketch above (supposedly enclosed by a “Mrs Eugenia Black”) represents a dog who has only two postures but a mysterious pedigree. Thurber replies that this is most likely a cast-iron lawn dog, and suggests that all doubt could be removed with the aid of a hammer or acetylene torch. Interestingly, the dog’s head is not unlike that of one of Jason’s anthropomorphic dogs.
This drawing was sent by “Mrs Oliphant Beatty”, who complains that her husband paid someone for a moose but that his antlers kept falling off. Thurber chastises her, noting that this is a horse with antlers tied on. He suggests disposing of the horse if they really want a moose or disposing of the antlers if they want a horse. This is Thurber at his most absurd, presupposing the utter stupidity of a couple to set up his own punchline. What’s amazing about it is how it works, especially given the way Thurber sets himself up as the voice of authority.
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THE HAIRY APE
-Eugene O’ Neil
Eugene O'Neill was born in New York City on October 16, 1888 to James and Ella O'Neill. James was a successful touring actor and O'Neill's mother, Ella, accompanied her husband touring around the country. Eugene was born in a hotel room and spent most of his childhood on the road with his family. Summers were spent in the family's only permanent home in New London, Connecticut. O'Neill was educated at boarding schools in his early years and then attended Princeton University for a year, from 1906 to 1907. After Eugene left school he began an education in, what he later called, "life experience." Over the next six years he shipped to sea, lived destitute on the waterfronts of New York, Buenos Aires and Liverpool, became alcoholic and attempted suicide. At age twenty-four, O'Neill finally began to recover from this state and held a job as a reporter for the New London Daily Telegraph. Eugene was forced to quit his reporting job when he became extremely ill with tuberculosis and was subsequently hospitalized in Gaylord Farm Sanitarium in Wallington, Connecticut for six months. While in the hospital, Eugene began to reevaluate his life in what he later termed his "rebirth." After his hospitalization, O'Neill studied the techniques of playwriting at Harvard University from 1914 to 1915 under the famous theater scholar George Pierce Baker.
In the summer of 1916, O'Neill made his first appearance as a playwright in a tiny playhouse on the wharf of Provincetown, MA. The playhouse was started as a new experimental theater by a group of young writers and painters. The playhouse produced Bound East for Cardiff, O'Neill's first play. This same group of writers formed the Playwrights' Theater in New York's Greenwich Village, eventually Provincetown Players, where O'Neill made his New York debut. For ten years O'Neill worked as a dramatist and playwright for this company. O'Neill's first full-length endeavor was produced on Broadway on February 2, 1920 at the Morosco Theater. Beyond the Horizon won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, the first of four awarded to O'Neill in his lifetime. O'Neill was later awarded Pulitzers for Anna Christie, Strange Interlude, and Long Day's Journey into Night. O'Neill was also the first American playwright to receive the Nobel Prize for literature.
Between 1920 and 1943, O'Neill completed twenty long plays and many shorter ones. All of O'Neill's plays are written from a personal point of view and reflect on the tragedy of the human condition. There is no doubt that O'Neill's early history contributed to his writing. Like O'Neill as a boy, many of his characters are caught in destructive situations and paths that they cannot escape. Before O'Neill, most American Drama was farce or melodrama. O'Neill embraced the theater as a venue to work out serious social issues and ideas. He transformed the American Theater into a serious and important cultural institution.
O'Neill has been compared to virtually every literary figure in the Western world and is considered the first great American playwright. His plays deal specifically with the American tragedy, rooted in American history and social movements. O'Neill had broad vision and was sometimes criticized when this vision seemed to exceed his skill. Some critics even believed O'Neill aimed too consciously at greatness. His dramas are marked by expressionistic theatrical techniques and symbolic devices that function to express religious and philosophical ideas. O'Neill even used the Ancient Greek Chorus as a device to comment on the action of many of his plays. By bringing psychological depth, poetic symbolism and expressionistic technique to the American theatre, O'Neill raised the standards of American theatre.
The last twenty years of his life, O'Neill battled a crippling nervous disorder similar to Parkinson's disease. He died in 1953.
Character Analysis:
Yank
The struggle of Yank, a fireman who works aboard a Transatlantic Liner, is the subject of The Hairy Ape. Yank, real name is Bob Smith, was born in New York City. Yank does not reveal many details of his family history, but, from what he does say, it is clear that it was painful. His mother died of the "tremens" and his father, a shore-worker, was abusive. Yank tells Long that on Saturday nights his parent's fighting was so intense that his parents would break the furniture. Ironically, his parents made him attend church every Sunday morning. After his mother died, Yank ran away from home, tired of lickings and punishment.
In the beginning ofThe Hairy Ape,Yank seems fairly content as, if not proud to be a fireman. He defends the ship as his home and insists that the work he does is vital—it is the force that makes the ship go twenty-five knots an hour. Mildred Douglas's reaction to Yank is the catalyst which makes Yank come to class awareness. His attempt to get revenge on Mildred Douglas widens to revenge on the steel industry and finally the entire Bourgeois. Throughout this struggle Yank defines "belonging" as power. When he thinks he "belongs" to something he gains strength, when Yank is rejected by a group, he is terribly weak. However, Yank is rejected by all facets of society: his fellow firemen, Mildred, the street goers of 5th Ave., The I.W.W., and finally the ape in the zoo. Yank symbolizes the struggle of modern man within industrial society—he cannot break class or ideological barriers, nor create new ones. Yank is the outsider, and eventually just the freak at the zoo for people to cage and point at.
Mildred Douglas
Mildred Douglas, the picture of piety and service, is anything but. Mildred is the pale and feeble daughter of the owner of Nazareth Steel. She has been lavishly spoiled and enjoyed every possible privilege money can buy. In college, Mildred studied sociology and is on a crusade to help the poor. Mildred has previously worked with the disadvantaged people in New York's Lower East Side. Mildred's Aunt is accompanying her to Europe where she will embark on more service projects. While on the Ocean Liner Mildred asks permission to visit the lower portions ship to view how the "other half" (Yank and the firemen) live. As if on a trip to the zoo, she wears a bright white dress down into the stokehole, ignoring the Engineer's warning that is will get dirty from the coal dust.
Although Mildred should be considered the antagonist of The Hairy Ape, she is equally victimized by class as Yank. Though Mildred has more education and cultural experience than Yank, she still cannot escape her cultural identity. Mildred describes herself as the waste of her father's steel company, as she has felt the benefits, but not the hard work that brought them. She shares with Yank the need to find a sense of usefulness or belonging—the fate of both characters were decided before they were born. Thus, Yank and Mildred desperately search to find an identity that is their own.
The failure of both these characters lies in their conscious and unconscious refusal to shed their values and knowledge while searching for a new identity. For example, Mildred will not change out of her white dress and Yank's coal dust is saturated into his skin.
Paddy
Although Paddy only appears in The Hairy Ape in two scenes, he is an essential element of the play. Paddy is an old Irishman who likes to drink heavily, and he is known for his rendition of "Whiskey Johnny" and spouting philosophy and stories of the past when intoxicated. Although Paddy is quite a thinker, O'Neill describes Paddy's facial features as "extremely monkey—with the sad, patient pathos of that animal in his small eyes." Of the men on the ship Paddy could be considered the "extreme-monkey" because he has been doing labor jobs longer than most of the firemen—labor jobs fit for monkeys.
Paddy brings historical perspective to The Hairy Ape. His extensive monologue in Scene One details how shipping used to be aboard Clipper Ships. Without Paddy's presence the audience would not have as much perspective about the revolution brought about by machines. Paddy has experienced life on the sea that was free, where he was empowered and valued. Paddy, unlike many of the men, knows what it is like to not do slave labor.
Yank's continual references to Paddy as "dead" and "old" and not "belonging" with the other men aboard the Ocean Liner reveals Yank's own rejection of freedom. The acceptance and attachment to the modern-ship machine enslaves men like Yank. The need for belonging, without the knowledge of what else to belong to, is dangerous as exemplified by Yank's encounter with Mildred.
Paddy's characterization of Mildred in Scene Four demonstrates that he has real knowledge of the Bourgeois lifestyle. Paddy's description of Mildred's look and fainting spell in the stokehole defines Yank's own opinion of Mildred. Paddy's experiences let him have real opinions. While the development of one's opinion is definitely a process of age, it is also a benefit of freedom.
THE DEATH OF A SALES MAN
-Arthur Miller.
A s a flute melody plays, Willy Loman returns to his home in Brooklyn one night, exhausted from a failed sales trip. His wife, Linda, tries to persuade him to ask his boss, Howard Wagner, to let him work in New York so that he won’t have to travel. Willy says that he will talk to Howard the next day. Willy complains that Biff, his older son who has come back home to visit, has yet to make something of himself. Linda scolds Willy for being so critical, and Willy goes to the kitchen for a snack.
As Willy talks to himself in the kitchen, Biff and his younger brother, Happy, who is also visiting, reminisce about their adolescence and discuss their father’s babbling, which often includes criticism of Biff’s failure to live up to Willy’s expectations. As Biff and Happy, dissatisfied with their lives, fantasize about buying a ranch out West, Willy becomes immersed in a daydream. He praises his sons, now younger, who are washing his car. The young Biff, a high school football star, and the young Happy appear. They interact affectionately with their father, who has just returned from a business trip. Willy confides in Biff and Happy that he is going to open his own business one day, bigger than that owned by his neighbor, Charley. Charley’s son, Bernard, enters looking for Biff, who must study for math class in order to avoid failing. Willy points out to his sons that although Bernard is smart, he is not “well liked,” which will hurt him in the long run.
A younger Linda enters, and the boys leave to do some chores. Willy boasts of a phenomenally successful sales trip, but Linda coaxes him into revealing that his trip was actually only meagerly successful. Willy complains that he soon won’t be able to make all of the payments on their appliances and car. He complains that people don’t like him and that he’s not good at his job. As Linda consoles him, he hears the laughter of his mistress. He approaches The Woman, who is still laughing, and engages in another reminiscent daydream. Willy and The Woman flirt, and she thanks him for giving her stockings.
The Woman disappears, and Willy fades back into his prior daydream, in the kitchen. Linda, now mending stockings, reassures him. He scolds her mending and orders her to throw the stockings out. Bernard bursts in, again looking for Biff. Linda reminds Willy that Biff has to return a football that he stole, and she adds that Biff is too rough with the neighborhood girls. Willy hears The Woman laugh and explodes at Bernard and Linda. Both leave, and though the daydream ends, Willy continues to mutter to himself. The older Happy comes downstairs and tries to quiet Willy. Agitated, Willy shouts his regret about not going to Alaska with his brother, Ben, who eventually found a diamond mine in Africa and became rich. Charley, having heard the commotion, enters. Happy goes off to bed, and Willy and Charley begin to play cards. Charley offers Willy a job, but Willy, insulted, refuses it. As they argue, Willy imagines that Ben enters. Willy accidentally calls Charley Ben. Ben inspects Willy’s house and tells him that he has to catch a train soon to look at properties in Alaska. As Willy talks to Ben about the prospect of going to Alaska, Charley, seeing no one there, gets confused and questions Willy. Willy yells at Charley, who leaves. The younger Linda enters and Ben meets her. Willy asks Ben impatiently about his life. Ben recounts his travels and talks about their father. As Ben is about to leave, Willy daydreams further, and Charley and Bernard rush in to tell him that Biff and Happy are stealing lumber. Although Ben eventually leaves, Willy continues to talk to him.
Back in the present, the older Linda enters to find Willy outside. Biff and Happy come downstairs and discuss Willy’s condition with their mother. Linda scolds Biff for judging Willy harshly. Biff tells her that he knows Willy is a fake, but he refuses to elaborate. Linda mentions that Willy has tried to commit suicide. Happy grows angry and rebukes Biff for his failure in the business world. Willy enters and yells at Biff. Happy intervenes and eventually proposes that he and Biff go into the sporting goods business together. Willy immediately brightens and gives Biff a host of tips about asking for a loan from one of Biff’s old employers, Bill Oliver. After more arguing and reconciliation, everyone finally goes to bed.
Act II opens with Willy enjoying the breakfast that Linda has made for him. Willy ponders the bright-seeming future before getting angry again about his expensive appliances. Linda informs Willy that Biff and Happy are taking him out to dinner that night. Excited, Willy announces that he is going to make Howard Wagner give him a New York job. The phone rings, and Linda chats with Biff, reminding him to be nice to his father at the restaurant that night.
As the lights fade on Linda, they come up on Howard playing with a wire recorder in his office. Willy tries to broach the subject of working in New York, but Howard interrupts him and makes him listen to his kids and wife on the wire recorder. When Willy finally gets a word in, Howard rejects his plea. Willy launches into a lengthy recalling of how a legendary salesman named Dave Singleman inspired him to go into sales. Howard leaves and Willy gets angry. Howard soon re-enters and tells Willy to take some time off. Howard leaves and Ben enters, inviting Willy to join him in Alaska. The younger Linda enters and reminds Willy of his sons and job. The young Biff enters, and Willy praises Biff’s prospects and the fact that he is well liked.
Ben leaves and Bernard rushes in, eagerly awaiting Biff’s big football game. Willy speaks optimistically to Biff about the game. Charley enters and teases Willy about the game. As Willy chases Charley off, the lights rise on a different part of the stage. Willy continues yelling from offstage, and Jenny, Charley’s secretary, asks a grown-up Bernard to quiet him down. Willy enters and prattles on about a “very big deal” that Biff is working on. Daunted by Bernard’s success (he mentions to Willy that he is going to Washington to fight a case), Willy asks Bernard why Biff turned out to be such a failure. Bernard asks Willy what happened in Boston that made Biff decide not to go to summer school. Willy defensively tells Bernard not to blame him.
Charley enters and sees Bernard off. When Willy asks for more money than Charley usually loans him, Charley again offers Willy a job. Willy again refuses and eventually tells Charley that he was fired. Charley scolds Willy for always needing to be liked and angrily gives him the money. Calling Charley his only friend, Willy exits on the verge of tears.
At Frank’s Chop House, Happy helps Stanley, a waiter, prepare a table. They ogle and chat up a girl, Miss Forsythe, who enters the restaurant. Biff enters, and Happy introduces him to Miss Forsythe, continuing to flirt with her. Miss Forsythe, a call girl, leaves to telephone another call girl (at Happy’s request), and Biff spills out that he waited six hours for Bill Oliver and Oliver didn’t even recognize him. Upset at his father’s unrelenting misconception that he, Biff, was a salesman for Oliver, Biff plans to relieve Willy of his illusions. Willy enters, and Biff tries gently, at first, to tell him what happened at Oliver’s office. Willy blurts out that he was fired. Stunned, Biff again tries to let Willy down easily. Happy cuts in with remarks suggesting Biff’s success, and Willy eagerly awaits the good news.
Biff finally explodes at Willy for being unwilling to listen. The young Bernard runs in shouting for Linda, and Biff, Happy, and Willy start to argue. As Biff explains what happened, their conversation recedes into the background. The young Bernard tells Linda that Biff failed math. The restaurant conversation comes back into focus and Willy criticizes Biff for failing math. Willy then hears the voice of the hotel operator in Boston and shouts that he is not in his room. Biff scrambles to quiet Willy and claims that Oliver is talking to his partner about giving Biff the money. Willy’s renewed interest and probing questions irk Biff more, and he screams at Willy. Willy hears The Woman laugh and he shouts back at Biff, hitting him and staggering. Miss Forsythe enters with another call girl, Letta. Biff helps Willy to the washroom and, finding Happy flirting with the girls, argues with him about Willy. Biff storms out, and Happy follows with the girls.
Willy and The Woman enter, dressing themselves and flirting. The door knocks and Willy hurries The Woman into the bathroom. Willy answers the door; the young Biff enters and tells Willy that he failed math. Willy tries to usher him out of the room, but Biff imitates his math teacher’s lisp, which elicits laughter from Willy and The Woman. Willy tries to cover up his indiscretion, but Biff refuses to believe his stories and storms out, dejected, calling Willy a “phony little fake.” Back in the restaurant, Stanley helps Willy up. Willy asks him where he can find a seed store. Stanley gives him directions to one, and Willy hurries off.
The light comes up on the Loman kitchen, where Happy enters looking for Willy. He moves into the living room and sees Linda. Biff comes inside and Linda scolds the boys and slaps away the flowers in Happy’s hand. She yells at them for abandoning Willy. Happy attempts to appease her, but Biff goes in search of Willy. He finds Willy planting seeds in the garden with a flashlight. Willy is consulting Ben about a $20,000 proposition. Biff approaches him to say goodbye and tries to bring him inside. Willy moves into the house, followed by Biff, and becomes angry again about Biff’s failure. Happy tries to calm Biff, but Biff and Willy erupt in fury at each other. Biff starts to sob, which touches Willy. Everyone goes to bed except Willy, who renews his conversation with Ben, elated at how great Biff will be with $20,000 of insurance money. Linda soon calls out for Willy but gets no response. Biff and Happy listen as well. They hear Willy’s car speed away.
In the requiem, Linda and Happy stand in shock after Willy’s poorly attended funeral. Biff states that Willy had the wrong dreams. Charley defends Willy as a victim of his profession. Ready to leave, Biff invites Happy to go back out West with him. Happy declares that he will stick it out in New York to validate Willy’s death. Linda asks Willy for forgiveness for being unable to cry. She begins to sob, repeating “We’re free. . . .” All exit, and the flute melody is heard as the curtain falls.
Character Analysis:
Willy Loman
Despite his desperate searching through his past, Willy does not achieve the self-realization or self-knowledge typical of the tragic hero. The quasi-resolution that his suicide offers him represents only a partial discovery of the truth. While he achieves a professional understanding of himself and the fundamental nature of the sales profession, Willy fails to realize his personal failure and betrayal of his soul and family through the meticulously constructed artifice of his life. He cannot grasp the true personal, emotional, spiritual understanding of himself as a literal “loman” or “low man.” Willy is too driven by his own “willy”-ness or perverse “willfulness” to recognize the slanted reality that his desperate mind has forged. Still, many critics, focusing on Willy’s entrenchment in a quagmire of lies, delusions, and self-deceptions, ignore the significant accomplishment of his partial self-realization. Willy’s failure to recognize the anguished love offered to him by his family is crucial to the climax of his torturous day, and the play presents this incapacity as the real tragedy. Despite this failure, Willy makes the most extreme sacrifice in his attempt to leave an inheritance that will allow Biff to fulfill the American Dream.
Ben’s final mantra—“The jungle is dark, but full of diamonds”—turns Willy’s suicide into a metaphorical moral struggle, a final skewed ambition to realize his full commercial and material capacity. His final act, according to Ben, is “not like an appointment at all” but like a “diamond . . . rough and hard to the touch.” In the absence of any real degree of self-knowledge or truth, Willy is able to achieve a tangible result. In some respect, Willy does experience a sort of revelation, as he finally comes to understand that the product he sells is himself. Through the imaginary advice of Ben, Willy ends up fully believing his earlier assertion to Charley that “after all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.”
Biff Loman
Unlike Willy and Happy, Biff feels compelled to seek the truth about himself. While his father and brother are unable to accept the miserable reality of their respective lives, Biff acknowledges his failure and eventually manages to confront it. Even the difference between his name and theirs reflects this polarity: whereas Willy and Happy willfully and happily delude themselves, Biff bristles stiffly at self-deception. Biff’s discovery that Willy has a mistress strips him of his faith in Willy and Willy’s ambitions for him. Consequently, Willy sees Biff as an underachiever, while Biff sees himself as trapped in Willy’s grandiose fantasies. After his epiphany in Bill Oliver’s office, Biff determines to break through the lies surrounding the Loman family in order to come to realistic terms with his own life. Intent on revealing the simple and humble truth behind Willy’s fantasy, Biff longs for the territory (the symbolically free West) obscured by his father’s blind faith in a skewed, materialist version of the American Dream. Biff’s identity crisis is a function of his and his father’s disillusionment, which, in order to reclaim his identity, he must expose.
Happy Loman
Happy shares none of the poetry that erupts from Biff and that is buried in Willy—he is the stunted incarnation of Willy’s worst traits and the embodiment of the lie of the happy American Dream. As such, Happy is a difficult character with whom to empathize. He is one-dimensional and static throughout the play. His empty vow to avenge Willy’s death by finally “beat[ing] this racket” provides evidence of his critical condition: for Happy, who has lived in the shadow of the inflated expectations of his brother, there is no escape from the Dream’s indoctrinated lies. Happy’s diseased condition is irreparable—he lacks even the tiniest spark of self-knowledge or capacity for self-analysis. He does share Willy’s capacity for self-delusion, trumpeting himself as the assistant buyer at his store, when, in reality, he is only an assistant to the assistant buyer. He does not possess a hint of the latent thirst for knowledge that proves Biff’s salvation. Happy is a doomed, utterly duped figure, destined to be swallowed up by the force of blind ambition that fuels his insatiable sex drive.
Linda Loman and Charley
Linda and Charley serve as forces of reason throughout the play. Linda is probably the most enigmatic and complex character in Death of a Salesman, or even in all of Miller’s work. Linda views freedom as an escape from debt, the reward of total ownership of the material goods that symbolize success and stability. Willy’s prolonged obsession with the American Dream seems, over the long years of his marriage, to have left Linda internally conflicted. Nevertheless, Linda, by far the toughest, most realistic, and most levelheaded character in the play, appears to have kept her emotional life intact. As such, she represents the emotional core of the drama.
If Linda is a sort of emotional prophet, overcome by the inevitable end that she foresees with startling clarity, then Charley functions as a sort of poetic prophet or sage. Miller portrays Charley as ambiguously gendered or effeminate, much like Tiresias, the mythological seer in Sophocles’ Oedipusplays. Whereas Linda’s lucid diagnosis of Willy’s rapid decline is made possible by her emotional sanity, Charley’s prognosis of the situation is logical, grounded firmly in practical reasoned analysis. He recognizes Willy’s financial failure, and the job offer that he extends to Willy constitutes a commonsense solution. Though he is not terribly fond of Willy, Charley understands his plight and shields him from blame.
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A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE
-Tennesse Williams
B lanche DuBois, a schoolteacher from Laurel, Mississippi, arrives at the New Orleans apartment of her sister, Stella Kowalski. Despite the fact that Blanche seems to have fallen out of close contact with Stella, she intends to stay at Stella’s apartment for an unspecified but likely lengthy period of time, given the large trunk she has with her. Blanche tells Stella that she lost Belle Reve, their ancestral home, following the death of all their remaining relatives. She also mentions that she has been given a leave of absence from her teaching position because of her bad nerves.
Though Blanche does not seem to have enough money to afford a hotel, she is disdainful of the cramped quarters of the Kowalskis’ two-room apartment and of the apartment’s location in a noisy, diverse, working-class neighborhood. Blanche’s social condescension wins her the instant dislike of Stella’s husband, an auto-parts supply man of Polish descent named Stanley Kowalski. It is clear that Stella was happy to leave behind her the social pretensions of her background in exchange for the sexual gratification she gets from her husband; she even is pregnant with his baby. Stanley immediately distrusts Blanche to the extent that he suspects her of having cheated Stella out of her share of the family inheritance. In the process of defending herself to Stanley, Blanche reveals that Belle Reve was lost due to a foreclosed mortgage, a disclosure that signifies the dire nature of Blanche’s financial circumstances. Blanche’s heavy drinking, which she attempts to conceal from her sister and brother-in-law, is another sign that all is not well with Blanche.
The unhappiness that accompanies the animal magnetism of Stella and Stanley’s marriage reveals itself when Stanley hosts a drunken poker game with his male friends at the apartment. Blanche gets under Stanley’s skin, especially when she starts to win the affections of his close friend Mitch. After Mitch has been absent for a while, speaking with Blanche in the bedroom, Stanley erupts, storms into the bedroom, and throws the radio out of the window. When Stella yells at Stanley and defends Blanche, Stanley beats her. The men pull him off, the poker game breaks up, and Blanche and Stella escape to their upstairs neighbor Eunice’s apartment. A short while later, Stanley is remorseful and cries up to Stella to forgive him. To Blanche’s alarm, Stella returns to Stanley and embraces him passionately. Mitch meets Blanche outside of the Kowalski flat and comforts her in her distress.
The next day, Blanche tries to convince Stella to leave Stanley for a better man whose social status equals Stella’s. Blanche suggests that she and Stella contact a millionaire named Shep Huntleigh for help escaping from New Orleans; when Stella laughs at her, Blanche reveals that she is completely broke. Stanley walks in as Blanche is making fun of him and secretly overhears Blanche and Stella’s conversation. Later, he threatens Blanche with hints that he has heard rumors of her disreputable past. She is visibly dismayed.
While Blanche is alone in the apartment one evening, waiting for Mitch to pick her up for a date, a teenage boy comes by to collect money for the newspaper. Blanche doesn’t have any money for him, but she hits on him and gives him a lustful kiss. Soon after the boy departs, Mitch arrives, and they go on their date. When Blanche returns, she is exhausted and clearly has been uneasy for the entire night about the rumors Stanley mentioned earlier. In a surprisingly sincere heart-to-heart discussion with Mitch, Blanche reveals the greatest tragedy of her past. Years ago, her young husband committed suicide after she discovered and chastised him for his homosexuality. Mitch describes his own loss of a former love, and he tells Blanche that they need each other.
When the next scene begins, about one month has passed. It is the afternoon of Blanche’s birthday. Stella is preparing a dinner for Blanche, Mitch, Stanley, and herself, when Stanley comes in to tell her that he has learned news of Blanche’s sordid past. He says that after losing the DuBois mansion, Blanche moved into a fleabag motel from which she was eventually evicted because of her numerous sexual liaisons. Also, she was fired from her job as a schoolteacher because the principal discovered that she was having an affair with a teenage student. Stella is horrified to learn that Stanley has told Mitch these stories about Blanche.
The birthday dinner comes and goes, but Mitch never arrives. Stanley indicates to Blanche that he is aware of her past. For a birthday present, he gives her a one-way bus ticket back to Laurel. Stanley’s cruelty so disturbs Stella that it appears the Kowalski household is about to break up, but the onset of Stella’s labor prevents the imminent fight.
Several hours later, Blanche, drunk, sits alone in the apartment. Mitch, also drunk, arrives and repeats all he’s learned from Stanley. Eventually Blanche confesses that the stories are true, but she also reveals the need for human affection she felt after her husband’s death. Mitch tells Blanche that he can never marry her, saying she isn’t fit to live in the same house as his mother. Having learned that Blanche is not the chaste lady she pretended to be, Mitch tries to have sex with Blanche, but she forces him to leave by yelling “Fire!” to attract the attention of passersby outside.
Later, Stanley returns from the hospital to find Blanche even more drunk. She tells him that she will soon be leaving New Orleans with her former suitor Shep Huntleigh, who is now a millionaire. Stanley knows that Blanche’s story is entirely in her imagination, but he is so happy about his baby that he proposes they each celebrate their good fortune. Blanche spurns Stanley, and things grow contentious. When she tries to step past him, he refuses to move out of her way. Blanche becomes terrified to the point that she smashes a bottle on the table and threatens to smash Stanley in the face. Stanley grabs her arm and says that it’s time for the “date” they’ve had set up since Blanche’s arrival. Blanche resists, but Stanley uses his physical strength to overcome her, and he carries her to bed. The pulsing music indicates that Stanley rapes Blanche.
The next scene takes place weeks later, as Stella and her neighbor Eunice pack Blanche’s bags. Blanche is in the bath, and Stanley plays poker with his buddies in the front room. A doctor will arrive soon to take Blanche to an insane asylum, but Blanche believes she is leaving to join her millionaire. Stella confesses to Eunice that she simply cannot allow herself to believe Blanche’s assertion that Stanley raped her. When Blanche emerges from the bathroom, her deluded talk makes it clear that she has lost her grip on reality.
The doctor arrives with a nurse, and Blanche initially panics and struggles against them when they try to take her away. Stanley and his friends fight to subdue Blanche, while Eunice holds Stella back to keep her from interfering. Mitch begins to cry. Finally, the doctor approaches Blanche in a gentle manner and convinces her to leave with him. She allows him to lead her away and does not look back or say goodbye as she goes. Stella sobs with her child in her arms, and Stanley comforts her with loving words and caresses.
Character Analysis:
Blanche DuBois
When the play begins, Blanche is already a fallen woman in society’s eyes. Her family fortune and estate are gone, she lost her young husband to suicide years earlier, and she is a social pariah due to her indiscrete sexual behavior. She also has a bad drinking problem, which she covers up poorly. Behind her veneer of social snobbery and sexual propriety, Blanche is an insecure, dislocated individual. She is an aging Southern belle who lives in a state of perpetual panic about her fading beauty. Her manner is dainty and frail, and she sports a wardrobe of showy but cheap evening clothes. Stanley quickly sees through Blanche’s act and seeks out information about her past.
In the Kowalski household, Blanche pretends to be a woman who has never known indignity. Her false propriety is not simply snobbery, however; it constitutes a calculated attempt to make herself appear attractive to new male suitors. Blanche depends on male sexual admiration for her sense of self-esteem, which means that she has often succumbed to passion. By marrying, Blanche hopes to escape poverty and the bad reputation that haunts her. But because the chivalric Southern gentleman savior and caretaker (represented by Shep Huntleigh) she hopes will rescue her is extinct, Blanche is left with no realistic possibility of future happiness. As Blanche sees it, Mitch is her only chance for contentment, even though he is far from her ideal.
Stanley’s relentless persecution of Blanche foils her pursuit of Mitch as well as her attempts to shield herself from the harsh truth of her situation. The play chronicles the subsequent crumbling of Blanche’s self-image and sanity. Stanley himself takes the final stabs at Blanche, destroying the remainder of her sexual and mental esteem by raping her and then committing her to an insane asylum. In the end, Blanche blindly allows herself to be led away by a kind doctor, ignoring her sister’s cries. This final image is the sad culmination of Blanche’s vanity and total dependence upon men for happiness.
Stanley Kowalski
Audience members may well see Stanley as an egalitarian hero at the play’s start. He is loyal to his friends and passionate to his wife. Stanley possesses an animalistic physical vigor that is evident in his love of work, of fighting, and of sex. His family is from Poland, and several times he expresses his outrage at being called “Polack” and other derogatory names. When Blanche calls him a “Polack,” he makes her look old-fashioned and ignorant by asserting that he was born in America, is an American, and can only be called “Polish.” Stanley represents the new, heterogeneous America to which Blanche doesn’t belong, because she is a relic from a defunct social hierarchy. He sees himself as a social leveler, as he tells Stella in Scene Eight.
Stanley’s intense hatred of Blanche is motivated in part by the aristocratic past Blanche represents. He also (rightly) sees her as untrustworthy and does not appreciate the way she attempts to fool him and his friends into thinking she is better than they are. Stanley’s animosity toward Blanche manifests itself in all of his actions toward her—his investigations of her past, his birthday gift to her, his sabotage of her relationship with Mitch.
In the end, Stanley’s down-to-earth character proves harmfully crude and brutish. His chief amusements are gambling, bowling, sex, and drinking, and he lacks ideals and imagination. His disturbing, degenerate nature, first hinted at when he beats his wife, is fully evident after he rapes his sister-in-law. Stanley shows no remorse for his brutal actions. The play ends with an image of Stanley as the ideal family man, comforting his wife as she holds their newborn child. The wrongfulness of this representation, given what we have learned about him in the play, ironically calls into question society’s decision to ostracize Blanche.
Harold “Mitch” Mitchell
Perhaps because he lives with his dying mother, Mitch is noticeably more sensitive than Stanley’s other poker friends. The other men pick on him for being a mama’s boy. Even in his first, brief line in Scene One, Mitch’s gentlemanly behavior stands out. Mitch appears to be a kind, decent human being who, we learn in Scene Six, hopes to marry so that he will have a woman to bring home to his dying mother.
Mitch doesn’t fit the bill of the chivalric hero of whom Blanche dreams. He is clumsy, sweaty, and has unrefined interests like muscle building. Though sensitive, he lacks Blanche’s romantic perspective and spirituality, as well as her understanding of poetry and literature. She toys with his lack of intelligence—for example, when she teases him in French because she knows he won’t understand—duping him into playing along with her self-flattering charades.
Though they come from completely different worlds, Mitch and Blanche are drawn together by their mutual need of companionship and support, and they therefore believe themselves right for one another. They also discover that they have both experienced the death of a loved one. The snare in their relationship is sexual. As part of her prim-and-proper act, Blanche repeatedly rejects Mitch’s physical affections, refusing to sleep with him. Once he discovers the truth about Blanche’s sordid sexual past, Mitch is both angry and embarrassed about the way Blanche has treated him. When he arrives to chastise her, he states that he feels he deserves to have sex with her, even though he no longer respects her enough to think her fit to be his wife.
The difference in Stanley’s and Mitch’s treatment of Blanche at the play’s end underscores Mitch’s fundamental gentlemanliness. Though he desires and makes clear that he wants to sleep with Blanche, Mitch does not rape her and leaves when she cries out. Also, the tears Mitch sheds after Blanche struggles to escape the fate Stanley has arranged for her show that he genuinely cares for her. In fact, Mitch is the only person other than Stella who seems to understand the tragedy of Blanche’s madness.
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WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF
-Tennesse Williams
Act One, "Fun and Games," opens at two o'clock on a Sunday morning as middle-aged couple George and Martha return home from a faculty party at a small college in the New England town of New Carthage. Over the course of the scene, as Martha bickers with George, we learn that George is a going-nowhere history professor, while Martha is the daughter of the college president. She soon informs him that she has invited a new member of the Math Department over for drinks. Martha also loudly sings, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" a joke of a song they heard at the faculty party and is angry that George doesn't laugh. Before their guests arrive, George warns her not to do "the bit about the kid."
Their guests are Nick, a blond 30-year-old professor in the Biology Department, and his wife Honey. Nick and Honey are somewhat shocked at being thrown into the war zone that is Martha and George's marriage. While Honey copes by drinking brandy after Brandy, Nick attempts to insinuate himself into his hosts' good graces. Drunken Martha is shamelessly flirting with him immediately. Martha goes off to show Honey to the bathroom. While the women are gone, George bitterly suggests that Nick will take over the Biology Department and the college. When Honey returns, she mentions that she didn't know George and Martha had a son. George is furious at Martha, who has told Honey that their son, whose 21st birthday is tomorrow, will be returning home the next day.
Martha, who has changed into a seductive outfit, continues shamelessly flirting with Nick and insulting George, telling a story about how she punched George when he refused to join in a boxing match with her father. George grows fed up and leaves the room. He comes back with a rifle and shocks everyone by firing it at Martha. A parasol, not a bullet, erupts from the barrel. The tension dissipates a bit and George, much to Martha's chagrin, insists on talking about their son. The two argue which has been the worse influence on the boy, and Martha proceeds with her tact of humiliation by telling Nick and Honey how George is flop who failed to take over the History Department, as she'd anticipated when they got married. Their shouting match ends when George grabs Honey and dances around with her while singing "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Honey rushes off to the bathroom to be sick.
Act Two, "Walpurgisnacht," opens as Martha is making coffee in the kitchen. George learns from Nick that he married Honey because she was pregnant with what ended up being a hysterical pregnancy. The added bonus is that she is rich, left money by her evangelist father. He half-jokingly confides his plan to rise to power at the college by sleeping with wives of important faculty members. George shares an anecdote of a boy, whom he says he knew in prep school, who ordered "bergin" at a gin joint with his friends. This boy had accidentally killed his mother with a shotgun, and a year later, with his learners permit in his pocket, he crashed into a tree and killed his father.
Martha and Honey return. Martha is even more blatant in her flirtation with Nick. When Honey declares that she wants to do Interpretive Dance, Martha takes the opportunity to dance with Nick in a blatant lascivious manner. George gets fed up when Martha continues to insult him, suggesting that the boy who ordered "bergin" and killed his parents was George and mocking his failed attempt at publishing a novel. He tries to strangle her, but Nick pulls him off.
George announces it's time for a new game. They've just finished playing Humiliate the Host, and there will be time for Hump the Hostess later. Now, it's time for Get the Guests. George toys with a confused Honey by telling her a story of a girl named Mousie who puffed up and whose puff went "poof." Honey again runs off to be sick again.
While Honey is lying on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, George turns his back to Martha and Nick, who begin to kiss and grope on the couch. Martha is annoyed that George is not paying attention and getting angry. She and Nick eventually move off to the kitchen, bumping into the doorbell chimes on the way. Honey stumbles out to the living room, still half in her dream, telling George that she heard bells. Honey's half-coherent mumblings reveal that she's terrified of having children and has actually been secretly preventing getting pregnant. Honey's continued talk of bells gives George an idea of how to get even with Martha he'll tell her he received a telegram that said that their son is dead.
Act Three, "The Exorcism," opens as Martha wanders onstage alone. Drunk and exhausted, she launches into a confused monologue which reveals her desperation and loneliness. She says that she and George cry all the time, then freeze their tears into ice cubes for their drinks. Nick comes back onstage, wondering what has happened. George is gone, and Honey is back in the bathroom. Martha calls him a flop and reveals his impotence, surprising him when she tells him that George is the only one who can satisfy her. She tells Nick not to believe appearances and praises George's ability to learn the games as quickly as she can change the rules.
Nick is furious and grows more so when Martha continually refers to him as a houseboy and a gigolo. When the doorbell starts ringing, she tells the houseboy to get it. It's George, hiding behind a bouquet of flowers, quoting a line from Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire: "Flores para los muertos." George pretends to be a Western Union man and acts as if he's mistaken Nick for his and Martha's son. Nick gets fed up and calls them vicious, and George and Martha join together in deriding them.
Soon, George and Martha launch into another series of arguments over seemingly meaningless topics whether or not there is a moon that night, whether or not George has taken a trip to Majorca that continually reference truth and illusion. George starts throwing his bouquet of snapdragons at Martha, telling her their marriage has gone snap.
George drags Honey back into the room and announces one last game, Bringing Up Baby, to be played to the death. Honey, very drunk and holding a bottle, wants to play Peel the Label instead. George assures her they have. George begins to tell a rehearsed story about their son, scared away by Martha's overbearing presence. Martha counters with a story of her own describing an idealized childhood. During her story, George begins to chant the Requiem. In the midst of this, Honey suddenly cries out that she wants a child. Martha begins to blame George for dragging the boy down with him, and their argument intensifies. Honey pleads for them to stop.
Slowly and deliberately, George tells Martha that their son is dead. He was driving on a country road, swerved to avoid a porcupine, and crashed into a tree, the exact details of the "bergin" boy's story. Martha is furious and yells that George has no right to do this. George insists that those were always the rules of the game, and that once she broke the rules by mentioning their son, he had no other choice. Nick finally realizes that the son is imaginary, and George confirms his suspicions. They couldn't have any children. He suggests Nick and Honey go home.
The last few minutes of the play are quiet and tender. George assures Martha that things will be better and says a quiet no to her suggestion that they create another child. He begins to sing her "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" as a sort of lullaby, and Martha answers, "I am."
Character List
Martha
The fifty-two-year-old wife of a college history professor. Martha defines herself through her "Daddy," the president of the college in the New England town of New Carthage. In her past, after her mother died when Martha was a child, she attended a convent school and young ladies' junior college, where she fell in love with a blue collar gardener and married him on a whim. Her shocked, upstanding father quickly annulled the marriage though it was consummated and brought her home, where she reveled in the power of playing hostess for her widowed father. She chose George, believing he had potential to become the head of the history department and eventually to replace her father as president of the university. George's failure to rise to this position is her biggest disappointment, and she refuses to let her husband see just how much of a disappointment he is to her. Now 52, Martha is a braying, heavy-drinking embarrassment, who seduces new faculty member Nick just to anger George and has no qualms about airing her dirty laundry in front of guests. Martha's decision to share the story of their imaginary son with the guests breaks the unspoken rules of the emotionally cruel games she plays with George and leads to chaos.
George
Forty-six years old and an acknowledged failure. George is in the history department, though much to Martha's chagrin, he is not the head of the history department. As a teenage boy he may have accidentally shot his mother and accidentally killed his father in a car crash. Or this may be just a fiction he has created. George's professional high-point came during the war when he was left in charge of the department while the other faculty members were serving in the military. Since then, he has written an autobiographical novel, the publication of which was forbidden by Martha's father. Always in the shadow of his father-in-law, whom he calls a great white mouse with red eyes, George plays along with Martha's games. When alone with her, he ignores her as much as possible. But when she launches into a game of Humiliate the Host, exposing his most painful secrets to Nick and Honey, George decides to strike back. Unable to control his wife, George usually retreats into his history books. He makes the biggest power play of his life here, "killing" the imaginary son he shares with Martha, thus punishing her for bringing their illusion into the harsh light of reality.
Nick
Nick is thirty years old and blond, a young genius who received his Master's degree at twenty. He grew up in the Midwest with his wife Honey, whom he knew since childhood. Though he initially appears to love his wife, it becomes evident that he married her for her money and because she was pregnant with what turned out to be a hysterical pregnancy. An ambitious new member of the college's biology department, Nick is the golden-haired boy who just might succeed where George failed taking every opportunity offered to him to get ahead, including sex with faculty wives. At first, he acts horrified by George and Martha's antics but soon becomes drawn in. He attempts to sleep with Martha and is proved impotent.
Honey
Nick's twenty-six-year-old wife. She's frail and "slim-hipped." Honey is rich, left money by her late evangelist father. She drowns her sorrows in brandy, getting silly and childlike. She suffered a hysterical pregnancy, which led Nick to marry her. While drunk, she confesses to George her fear of the pain of childbirth and of getting pregnant which she is, unbeknownst to Nick, preventing secretly. Drunk and throwing up in the bathroom for most of the play, Honey is the most innocent of all the characters. Her immediate reactions to the chaos around her function as a sort of Greek chorus on George and Martha's marriage.
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