Take Pity- Punjab University B.A English Short Story

Take Pity- Punjab University B.A English Short Story
1.     Take Pity

Bernard Malamud
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Summary

Take Pity is a dismal account of a kind hearted man’s futile efforts to rescue a poor family from abject poverty and death.  The man, Rosen, is a coffee salesman. The poor family is a widow, Eva, and her two daughters. Eva fails to make a living from her husband’s shop. She and her two daughters are starving. Rosen tries to help them in many ways. But Eva refuses to live on charity. Rosen asks her to marry him. But she rejects the offer.
Then he sends her some money. He sends the money through a friend who says it was repayment of a loan given by her husband. Eva refuses to take the money.

She is determined to live an independent life. She is very willful. But Rosen knows that she will lose her foolish war against Fate. He becomes desperate. He tries to kill himself, leaving all his property to her. But he fails even in this last attempt. Eva is moved. She comes to him to accept his offer of marriage. But Rosen has had enough. He refuses to do anything for her, although it goes against his nature to reject a request.

The story reveals some surprising secrets of human nature. It gives us a better understanding of human psychology and emotions.

What does Rosen advises Eva; why does she not  act upon it?
Why does Eva refuse offers of help from Rosen?
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Rosen is an ex-coffee sales man and has a good deal of experience about business. From his experience, he knows that Eva’s business would not flourish there.
He advises Eva to take the money and her children and run away from there. However, Eva refuses to act upon his advice because she thinks that with the insurance money she can establish her business. She says that with the insurance money she will stock up and fix the store. She believes that she will be able to attract the customers by decorating the store. Therefore, she rejects this advice because of her optimistic approach.
Secondly, he advises to marry someone, but she again refuses. She believes that nobody will marry her because she is a widow with two daughters. She believes that she cannot have happiness because all her life she has been suffering. Here she refuses because of her pessimistic point of view. (153)

Why does Rosen want to help Eva?
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Rosen wants to help Eva out of pity. The title of the story also suggests that.
After her husband’s death, Eva gets insurance money. She decides to invest the money in her husband’s failing business. The business fails and things worsen. She and her daughters starve. Out of pity, Rosen bear their sufferings. That is why he tries to give something to eat to Eva’s daughters. He is even ready to marry her out of pity. He tells her that he wants to marry her because he wants to take care of her daughters. It is because of this pity that Eva rejects the offer. She wants love not pity.
When we read the story carefully, we find that he wants to help them because he cannot stand their misery. His heart bleeds for them. Moreover, he is sick and knows that he will not live long. That is why he wants to help Eva even with his whole money and with his life. (164 word)

Eva was responsible for her tragic failure. Elaborate
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Eva was a self-esteemed and optimist woman. She believed that after investing the insurance money her business will flourish. So, she was not ready to listen to any advice from Rosen. But she was unable to see the things from rational angle.
When her husband died, Rosen advised her to take the money and the children and run away from there. Eva said that she had no place to go. At this, he offered her to shift in his two-family house. She was too foolish to accept this handsome offer.
Eva also rejected Rose’s proposal for marriage. Rosen had promised her that after the marriage he would take care of her and her daughters. It was a good chance but she refuses it too. It was a great mistake.
Therefore, we can conclude that Eva was responsible for her suffering after the death of her husband. She should have realized that she could not live on her own with her two starving daughters. She was too optimistic and too obstinate. (170 words)

Write a character sketch of Eva.
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Eva is a self-esteemed and optimist woman. She believed that after investing the insurance money her business will flourish. So, she was not ready to listen to any advice from Rosen. But she was unable to see the things from rational angle.

It is due to her too much optimism that when Rosen advised her not to invest the insurance money, she does not listen to him. She thinks that her business would flourish some day. She keeps on believing that until the end of the story.
She has also been presented as a stubborn woman. Some offers mad by Rosen were quite reasonable, but she ignored every offer very stubbornly.

She was a woman of great self-respect. To accept anything in charity was disgrace to her. She rejected Rosen’s proposal of marriage because it was also based on pity. She wanted love not pity. At the end to the story, when Rosen tried to commit suicide, she misunderstood him. She through that Rosen had done that out of love of hers. That is why she went to Rosen at the end of the story with raised arms. (188 words)

Why does Eva come to Rosen with haunted, beseeching eyes, and raised arms at the end of the story?
Why does Rosen refuse to help Eva in the end of the story?
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Eva is a young widow with two daughters. She is determined to make her own living. So she rejects every offer of help from the kind-hearted coffee salesman, Rosen. She counts on her courage. Her courage is rather pride that nobody can admire. It breaks Rosen’s heart and changes his whole character.

In the end, she repents. She feels sorry for her stiffness towards the sincere and kind-hearted man. Her character too is entirely changed. Her resolution to live her own independent life breaks down. She is moved to pity for the brokenhearted man. She decides to accept his offer of marriage although it is against her nature. But she repents too late. It is too late to make amends for the harm she has done to Rosen.

She comes to him with hunted, beseeching eyes, and raised arms and expresses her feelings. But now he is sick of her. He has already gone too far in his sincere efforts to help her. He is frustrated. So he refuses to forgive her.

Give your comments on Rosen’s behavior
Why is Rosen angry with Eva at the end of the story and why does he abuse her?
Character Sketch of Rosen
Rosen is a kind hearted man. He has a human nature. He has been trying to help Eva out of pity. He does everything to help her. He advises her not to invest the money but she does not listen to him. He gives her loan out of his own pocket. He proposes her out of pity but she rejects this proposal. He tries to send money to Eva with a fake name. He tries everything, but Eva rejects his every offer.

He is a sick man and he knows that he will not live long. Therefore, as a last attempt, he tries to commit suicide leaving everything to Eva and to her daughters. Fortunately, he is saved. However, still he does not have any interest in life. It appears that he again wants to commit suicide.

When Eva comes to him, he misunderstands her. He thinks that she has come to reject his will. He gets angry. He has tried everything to help her and she is still the same stubborn woman. Therefore, he loses his temper, abuses her, and asks her to go back to her children. (189 words)

Describe Eva’s life before her husband’s death.
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Eva led a very hard life even before the death of her husband. Her native country was Poland and she belonged to Jewish family. However, she had to leave Poland because of Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Therefore, to save the lives of his family and for better career, her husband took her and their two daughters to America.
However, the condition of her life did not get better.

Her husband worked very hard and started a grocery store with his savings, but the store did not flourish and their condition became worse. Now they did not have anything to eat. After two months, he tried to sell the store but nobody bought. Now they were starving. They did not have anything to spend. They got poorer. Because of hunger and starvation, they became so weak that no one could look at their faces. He decided to go in auction but because of continuous worries, tension and failures he died of heart attack. (162)

Discuss Eva’s life after the death of her husband.
After the death of her husband, Eva took over the charge of everything. Although Rosen advised her not to invest the money in the store, yet she did that. She invested the insurance money in the store. She bought all kinds of goods on cash. It took her a week to arrange things in the store. She worked very hard. She packed things on the shelves. She mopped the floors. She mad decorations with tissue paper. In short, she arranged and decorated the store very well.

However no customer came. They used to come only when the main shops were close. They used to buy only minor things. Therefore, her store failed miserably. She did not make any profit. She had no money. She and her daughters at up the food present in the store. After that, they were starving again. Once more, they had become so weak that no one could look at their faces. (156 words)

ON LIBERTY BY MILL URDU/HINDI KARACHI , FEDERAL,PESHAWAR UNIVERSITY

LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS

Language is such a special topic that there is an entire field, linguistics, devoted to its study. Linguistics views language in an objective way, using the scientific method and rigorous research to form theories about how humans acquire, use, and sometimes abuse language. There are a few major branches of linguistics, which it is useful to understand in order to learn about language from a psychological perspective.

1- Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics is the study of individual speech sounds; phonology is the study of phonemes, which are the speech sounds of an individual language. These two heavily overlapping subfields cover all the sounds that humans can make, as well as which sounds make up different languages. A phonologist could answer the question, “Why do BAT and TAB have different meanings even though they are made of the
same three sounds, A, B and T?”
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2- Morphology
Morphology is the study of words and other meaningful units of language like suffixes and prefixes. A morphologist would be interested in the relationship between words like “dog” and “dogs” or “walk” and “walking,” and how people figure out the differences between those words.
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3- Syntax
Syntax is the study of sentences and phrases, or how people put words into the right order so that they can communicate meaningfully. All languages have underlying rules of syntax, which, along with morphological rules, make up every language’s grammar. An example of syntax coming into play in language is “Eugene walked the dog” versus “The dog walked Eugene.” The order of words is not arbitrary—in order for the sentence to convey the intended meaning, the words must be in a certain order.
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4- Semantics and Pragmatics
Semantics, most generally, is about the meaning of sentences. Someone who studies semantics is interested in words and what real-world object or concept those words denote, or point to. Pragmatics is an even broader field that studies how the context of a sentence contributes to meaning—for example, someone shouting “Fire!” has a very different meaning if they are in charge of a seven-gun salute than it does if they are sitting in a crowded movie theater.
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The Structure of Language
All languages have underlying structural rules that make meaningful communication possible.
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The five main components of language are phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, syntax, and context. Along with grammar, semantics, and pragmatics, these components work together to create meaningful communication among individuals.

1- A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that may cause a change of meaning within a language but that doesn’t have meaning by itself.

2- A morpheme is the smallest unit of a word that provides a specific meaning to a string of letters (which is called a phoneme). There are two main types of morpheme: free morphemes and bound morphemes.

3- A lexeme is the set of all the inflected forms of a single word.

4- Syntax is the set of rules by which a person constructs full sentences.

5- Context is how everything within language works together to convey a particular meaning.

Compare and contrast the speakers of ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ and ‘Ode to a Nightingale’

Compare and contrast the speakers of ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ and ‘Ode to a Nightingale’

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In both the poems, ‘Ode On a Grecian Urn,’ and ‘Ode to a Nightingale,’ Keats presents the ideologies of eternal beauty through the use of music, concrete objects, and the images evoked through arts. Although he presents the speaker’s attitude and overall state of mind rather differently between the two texts, they both reflect the notion of a message and a vision being interlaced with an outer, static description (of an urn) or the images of a song within the images of poetry. These evoke imagination to both the speaker and the reader, which create a vivid vision of two differing mediums, yet allude to the same ideas, that beauty is repeated throughout history, regardless of its mortal, or immortal state.

Although the poems are both ‘odes’, they somewhat differ in atmosphere and the speaker’s state of mind at first, however both experience the willingness to escape the reality of human existence through the use of physical, figurative and imaginative beauty, and end in an eventual realisation and melancholy. As Gillian Beer states, they ‘share an emotional pattern’, whereby the reader experiences their active feelings, alongside the fluency of the poem, and there is a sequence of ‘the emergence from a state of passivity, which leads on to ecstasy until ‘the visions are all fled’ and ‘a sense of real things come doubly strong.’’ This is clearly illustrated in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ where the writer seems exalted with the idea that the work of lives of the depictions and images on the urn are eternally preserved in time, and gives a positive outlook as he is completely reassured of this by the urn’s unremitting antiquity through time. Yet, in the last stanza, Keats clearly emphasises the ‘doubly strong’ awareness that humans, being mortal, passing figures, do not last like the urn’s solidarity through time; ‘when old age shall this generation waste, thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe than ours’. The use of ‘waste’ indicates that we seem to fade away into the history of existence, unperturbed and unremembered, and that the ‘other woe’ of future generations becomes a cycle, that the ‘urn’ repeatedly experiences. He describes further the short-lived intensity of humanity as ‘all breathing human passion far above…a burning forehead, a parched tongue’ , which demonstrates the difference in attitude between his own existence and the urn’s; he is tormented by the strong sensations of human life, which leave us only with ‘a parched tongue’, that essentially ‘runs dry’ from the water of life, and the complete assurance of the urn, that experiences these things through the frozen, intense scenes of the humans upon the decorations. Therefore, he is in admiration, yet also becomes melancholic in his realisation that he must one day die. ‘Ode to a Nightingale,’ however, begins with the speaker’s intent to be numbed of all feeling of reality, and to be frozen in time itself; it is ‘to reach an experience unlimited by mortality’, as he is too fully aware of his own death, and how life and nature will carry on after he is gone. The references of ‘hemlock,’ ‘some dull opiate,’ ‘Lethe-wards had sunk’ and ‘a draught of vintage’ all emphasise the effects of depressants and means of escape, in order to numb the overpowering sense of humanity’s fleeting nature, with illness and death. Both poems highlight this consciousness, described with negative details of human life and transience that contrast the beauty of the urn and the birdsong. The phrase, ‘fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget what thou among the leaves has never known’ reflects upon nature’s ability to live without worry, with ‘thou’ addressing the unknowing ‘nightingale’ itself, yet also the whole entirety of nature’s continual regardless. The speaker highlights the bleakness of humanity with an image of the aging process, and the ravishing of illnesses: ‘where youth grows pale, and spectre thin, and dies.’ This conjures a scene of the rapid acceleration of a man through life, bearing the inevitability of death on their shoulders, which Keats is fully aware of, and the use of ‘spectre thin’ suggests a ghost like figure, that seems to fade away to a transparent, irrelevant waif in time. From Gilian Beer’s article, ‘Aesthetic Debate in Keats’ Odes’, it further highlights the poet’s yearning for an escape: ‘the poet seeks to escape from his ‘sole self’ and from the ultimately inward nature of poetry into a world of expressed sense objects. However, both poems reach an epiphany also; ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ concludes that this sorrow can be counter-acted by the beauty of poetry (‘not by Bacchus and his pards, but on the viewless wings of poesy.’) This depicts the poet defying the temptations and numbness of alcohol (from the god, Bacchus), to fully experience the human transience and pain through literature. The ‘viewless wings’ also allude to the speaker making the poems part of nature itself and the figure of the bird creating a melody, that is reflected in the poetry. ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, although it is not a metaphorical epiphany, allows the speaker to be motivated by its eternal beauty that some things are not always forgotten, and moments can be captured in time through the visual arts.

Through the eyes of the poet, the speaker experiences an ignition into a realm of the imagination, in which he lapses between reality and the dreamy, trance-like state of his mind in both texts. Thus, these imaginations are experienced due to a main catalyst, which become the eponymous titles to each poem: the ‘urn’ and the ‘nightingale.’ However, in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ the speaker is actively given images upon the urns decoration, which provokes him to reflect on their lives, frozen in time. This is seen by his constant rhetorical questions, such as ‘who are these coming to the sacrifice’ and ‘what little town by river or sea-shore’ in the fourth that display his deepened exploration into the lives of the people presented on the urn. The quote, ‘the urn is utterly external; it is approachable only through sight’ from Gillian Beer, rightfully highlights Keats’ ideas that these images spark the imagination of the speaker into realising his own mortality from the vision of the urn itself; from these, another vision is created, which encourages the imagination of the reader also. these references to the similar actions of past people’s lives (‘what mad pursuit?’ displays a timeless love-scene, that is frozen, in the height of its human ‘passion’ and intensity.) Nonetheless, unlike ‘Ode to a Nightingale, the urn brings forth the imaginative enquiries right from the first stanza (what leaf-fringed haunts about thy shape of deities or mortals, or of both’), which demonstrates the extent to which the speaker is effected by its unchanging nature: he can read further and further into the lives of the depictions, yet their image remains the same throughout. The phrase ‘heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter’ signifies that the speaker is unlimited to how far he can imagine them through the beauty of the urn; although the urn is a ‘plastic object’, it also remains to play an ‘unheard’ melody, that individuals can interpret differently. On the other hand, ‘Ode to a Nightingale, Keats portrays the speaker as being drawn from the depths of depression, and the Nightingale becomes an ‘action to imagination’, that induces him into a trance of sensorial pleasure. This is demonstrated in the fourth stanza, with the phrase ‘but there is no light, save what from heaven…through verduous glooms and winding mossy ays,’ and in the fifth stanza also: ‘I cannot see what soft flowers are at my feet’. These both illustrate the lack of ‘light’ or colour in the images that are described, which suggests that they are all like monochrome images in his head, yet the extent to their description leads the reader to believe that they do seem real to him, despite the fact that unlike the urn, there are no images given to the speaker; he is sparked to conjure these with the beauty of the birdsong, and there becomes a blurred line between reality and his ‘imagined world’ of the nightingale. In essence, while in this trance-like manner, the speaker feels like he has escaped from reality by indulging in the song and co-existence with the bird, which provides him with momentary joy: ‘now more than ever seems it rich to die…while thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad in such an ecstasy!’. He highlights this fleeting happiness with the word ‘ecstasy’, as although it accentuates the intensity of his emotions, it is usually used for something that is short-lived, and alludes that he will soon, like the birdsong’s ending, draw to a halt and come to a realisation. Thus, in both ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ and ‘Ode to a Nightingale,’ the speaker is ‘tolled back’ by the strong awareness of their own fate, which differs from that of the urn and the birdsong. He realises that the urn will always remain, unlike his ultimate mortality, with the choice of ‘sole-self’ reiterating that he had momentarily felt ‘in ecstasy’ with the co-existence of the immortal birdsong. The speaker uses the phrase, ‘the fancy cannot cheat so well’, to draw attention that he had been tricked, or ‘cheated’ into imagining that it is, in fact, an unattainable reality. This is seen also in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, with ‘thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought as doth eternity’, as it displays the speaker’s emergence from the depths of his questioning of the ‘urn’ and its ‘silent’ words, that have once again entranced into a state beyond the limitations of human reality; he becomes immersed in the lives of the decoration, and is only brought back to his ‘sole’ existence by the realisation that the urn will last forever, yet he will not.

However, the representation of both the ‘urn’ and the ‘nightingale’s song’ both existing and remaining eternal through time seems to be the foremost important factor of the texts. In ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’ Keats portrays the object, with its ‘plastic form’ as concrete and unconcerned, with its beauty eternally preserved. In the first stanza, he personifies it as every generation of humanity: from ‘a foster child’ of ‘slow-time’, to an ‘unravished bride of quietness’, and then ‘a Sylvan historian’, which emphasises its utter solidarity through time; while the generations of humans pass through this quick process, the urn’s preservation of humanity through art remains. Furthermore, the image of a lover in pursuit for another being frozen just before the amorous scene unfolds displays Keat’s ideas that beauty and love can be stopped in time, when the person is still in their youth, through the use of the urn’s art, yet also through the art of poetry also; ‘she cannot fade….forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!’. The poet reflects on the ideas that the youth of the women will be never be damaged or withered by old age or illness (as later linked to the current human reality in stanza five.) He further emphasises the contrast between the human transience and the boundless image of the lives in the third stanza, with the repetition of ‘forever’, and the illustration of nature too being immortalised (Ah happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed your leaves’) displays that even the surroundings to humans are passed through time by the urn, without ever changing or ending. This is also represented in ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, however the bird itself is not an ‘eternal’ figure; like Keat’s, or the speaker, it must one day die. However, the representation of the bird’s song in nature is echoed through time, and this perplexes him. The phrase, ‘thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!…the voice I hear passing night was heard by emperor and clown’, displays that although the bird itself is not ‘immortal’, the figure of a bird singing a profound melody, and the continual circle of the life of an animal in nature is recurring, throughout time. The references to ‘emperor’ and ‘clown’ emphasise his direct belief that everyone, of every kind, has experienced the song of the bird, which draws attention to the message given that we all are but a small snapshot in the vast expanse of human existence. With this representation, Keats also creates both poems themselves into an art form, of which he wishes will be immortalised in time. In ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ the poem ultimately becomes a song, and like the birdsong, with its fluid description, and the pitches and troughs of its emotions being much like that of music. The plenitude of sensory description in the fifth stanza, as seen in the lines ‘the grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild-white hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine’ seem like the lyrics given to the wordless birdsong, and the phrase ‘I will fly to thee’ presents the speaker as a ‘bird-like’ figure also. Even if the creator of the song (the nightingale) is fleeting in its existence, the song recurring through time becomes eternal, therefore the creator of another art (the poem) should also survive through time, with the own beauty of their written words (even if their physical body ‘wastes’ and ‘fades’ away to a ‘spectre’. Gillian Beer states that ‘the poem becomes the song as it never can become the urn’, however this seems flawed; although the urn itself is an inanimate, concrete object, Keats is able to illustrate the clear images and lives of the subjects painted on its materialistic form, and the words shape the urn. The ‘fair youth beneath the trees’, ‘green altar’ and ‘marble men and maidens overwrought with forest branches and the trodden weed’ all present images of human life within the cold, unchangeable image of the urn, which further accentuates the difference between the eternity of its existence, and human’s short, individual timespan.

In contrast, ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ and ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ each end in parallels to each other. The ‘Urn’ leaves the reader with a statement, that ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ whereas ‘Nightingale’ proposes the inquisition of whether the speaker ‘wakes’ or ‘sleeps’, and whether it truly was a ‘vision’ at all. It could be suggested that Keats’ choice to end these poems, of which share the ideology that human life is not eternal, yet can be kept alive by the beauty of the arts, in such different manners is due to their overall representation. The ‘urn’ itself reassures the speaker that the characters on the paintings have been ‘kept alive’ by time, therefore the phrase ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty’ reflects Keats’ beliefs of negative capability, and the fact that beauty is seen through the urn to be unrelenting and that ‘those unheard are sweeter’ proves to emphasise that anyone can see the beauty of the arts unto their eyes, yet also the certitude of past lives being able to be kept still in time; he is comforted by the ideas that his own life could be preserved through his own forms of art (through poetry). On the other hand, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ the bird song is a fluid art, unlike the substantial eternality of the urn; it is fleeting, and then ‘fades past the near meadows’, much like he desires to ‘fade far away’ and ‘dissolve’. Consequently, the speaker is left to question whether he ‘wakes’ or ‘sleeps’; it could be concluded that he is not in a sole state, and instead he co-existents with the birdsong, and so he is uncertain of whether his own poetry will re-occur through time, or if it will ‘fade away’ too with nature’s (and his own) mortality.

Therefore, although the speaker’s share the same ideologies of eternality, the ‘urn’ is a certain, concrete form that he is sure will last forever, yet the ‘nightingale’s’ mortality becomes his main concern, and the blurred line between the ‘beauty’ and the ‘truth’ of its song. Keats performs a great skill of portraying the words of his poetry in ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ to represent the co-existent form of lyric-less birdsong itself and his hopes that one day, his poetry will remain present, and ‘frozen’ in time, much like the urn which he too shapes with the questioned depictions of the lives of the ‘decoration’ humans. Thus, he exploits his own philosophies through the representation of other forms of the arts, and although he wishes to escape the brutality of human existence, he rejoices in the assurance that such things can be suspended in time, and their is hope in the ‘beauty’ and ‘truth’ of both life and literature. Ultimately, the speaker creates ideas that stretch far further than a simple description; the birdsong does not simply represent music, but the dream-like state of mind and its recurring state through time (like his poetry) and the urn is not seen as a sole terra-cotta ornament, but a symbol of perpetual existence, which inspires his certainty in the hope of eternal beauty (and the human life) forever more.

S. T. Coleridge: Criticism on Wordsworth's Theory of Poetic Diction

S. T. Coleridge: Criticism on Wordsworth's Theory of Poetic Diction
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Wordsworth and Coleridge came together early in life and mutually arose various theories which Wordsworth embodied in his “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” and tried to put into practice in his poems. Coleridge claimed credit for these theories and said they were “half the child of his brain”. But later on, his views underwent the change; he no longer agreed with Wordsworth’s theories and so criticized them.

In his Preface, Wordsworth made three important statements all of which have been objects of Coleridge's censure.

First of all Wordsworth writes that he chose low and rustic life, where the essential passions of the heart find a better soil to attain their maturity. They are less under restraint and speak a plainer and more emphatic language. In rustic life our basic feelings coexist in greater simplicity and more accurately contemplated and more forcibly communicated. The manners of rural life, sprang from those elementary feelings and from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily realized and are more durable. Lastly the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

Secondly, that the language of these men is adopted because they hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived. Being less under social vanity, they convey their feelings and ideas in simple and outright expressions because of their rank in society and the equality and narrow circle of their intercourse.

Thirdly, he made a number of statements regarding the language and diction of poetry. Of these, Coleridge refutes the following parts: “a selection or the real language of men”; “the language of the men in low and rustic life”: and, “Between the language of prose and that of metrical composition there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference”.

As regards the first statement, i.e. the choice of rustic characters and life, Coleridge points out, first, that not all Wordsworth characters are rustic. Characters in poems like Ruth, Michael, The Brothers, are not low and rustic. Secondly, their language and sentiments do not necessarily arise from their abode or occupation. They are attributable to causes of their similar sentiments and language, even if they have different abode or occupation. These causes are mainly two: (a) independence which raises a man above bondage, and a frugal and industrious domestic life and (b) a solid, religious education which makes a man well-versed in the Bible and other holy books excluding other books. The admirable qualities in the language and sentiments of Wordsworth’s characters result from these two causes. Even if they lived in the city away from Nature they would have similar sentiments and language. In the opinion of Coleridge, a man will not be benefited from a life in rural solitudes unless he has natural sensibility and suitable education. In the absence of these advantages, the mind hardens and a man grows, ‘selfish, sensual, gross and hard hearted’.

As regards the second statement of Wordsworth, Coleridge objects to the view that the best part of language is derived from the objects with which the rustic hourly communicates. First, communication with an object implies reflection on it and the richness of vocabulary arises from such reflection. Now the rural conditions of life do not require any reflection, hence the vocabulary of the rustics is poor. They can express only the barest facts of nature and not the ideas and thoughts which results from their reflection. Secondly, the best part of a man’s language does not result merely from communication with nature, but from education, from the mind of noble thoughts and ideals. Whatever rustics use, are derived not from nature, but from The Bible and from the sermons of noble and inspired preachers.

Coleridge takes up his statements, one by one, and demonstrates that his views are not justified. Wordsworth asserts that the language of poetry is:

“A selection of the real language of men or the very language of men; and that there was no essential difference between the language of prose and that of poetry”.

Coleridge retorts that,

“‘Every man’s language’ varies according to the extent of his knowledge, the activity of his faculties, and the depth or quickness of his feelings”.

Every man’s language has, first, its individual peculiarities; secondly, the properties common to his class; and thirdly, words and phrases of universal use.

“No two men of the same class or of different classes speak alike, although both use words and phrases common to them all, because in the one case their natures are different and on the other their classes are different”.

The language varies from person to person, class to class, place to place.

Coleridge objects to Wordsworth’s use of the words, ‘very’ or ‘real’ and suggests that ‘ordinary’ or ‘generally’ should have been used. Wordsworth’s addition of the words, “in a state of excitement”, is meaningless, for emotional excitement may result in a more intense expression, but it cannot create a noble and richer vocabulary.

To Wordsworth’s argument about having no essential difference between the language of poetry and prose, Coleridge replies that there is and there ought to be, an essential difference between both the languages and gives numerous reasons to support his view. First, language is both a matter and the arrangement of words. Words both in prose and poetry may be the same but their arrangement is different. This difference arises from the fact that the poetry uses metre and metre requires a different arrangement of words. Metre is not a mere superficial decoration, but an essential organic part of a poem. Even the metaphors and similes used by a poet are different in quality and frequency from prose. Hence there is bound to be an ‘essential’ difference between the arrangement of words of poetry and prose. There is this difference even in those poems of Wordsworth’s which are considered most Wordsworthian.

Further, it cannot be confirmed that the language of prose and poetry are identical and so convertible. There may be certain lines or even passages which can be used both in prose and poetry, but not all. There are passages which will suit the one and not the other.

Thus does Coleridge refute Wordsworth’s views on the themes and language of poetry.

The Tragic Effect of Oedipus Rex:N HAMLET

Drama
     The Tragic Effect of Oedipus Rex:

Oedipus Rex is a very significant play for the description of emotional impact of tragedy. In the words of Aristotle,
“The main purpose of tragedy is to evoke the feelings of pity and fear among audience.”

There is no doubt that the story of the fall of Oedipus Rex is full of pity and terror. The fate of Oedipus Rex who always wished for the welfare of the people inspires us with awe. We also wonder at mystery of human life in which one may suffer even with the best of intentions. We also get a feeling that fate is inexorable and no one can escape its decrees. The same idea is depicted by Sophocles in his Oedipus Rex through the characters of Jocaste and Oedipus, both of them try to evade the predictions of oracles. For a time, it seems to them that they have succeeded but in time they are sadly disillusioned. As Aristotle mentions:

“Oedipus is great not in the virtue of his worldly position for his worldly position is an illusion which will vanish like a dream but in the virtue of inner strength.”

We also wonder at the fact that even kindness and compassion sometimes create a very cruel effect. The same kindness is shown by the Theban shepherd to the infant who was given to him to destroy. As Theban shepherd states:

“I pitted the baby, my king!
And I thought that this man would take him far away.
To a own country.
He saved him but for what a fate.
For it you are what this man says you are
No man living is more wretched that Oedipus”.

The play arouses a deep sense of pity for Oedipus and it also inspires a feeling of terror at his sufferings which seems to the reader to be largely underserved.
There are many things in the play that create a deep sense of strong pity. The Priest of Zeus gives us a vivid description of the sufferings of poor Thebans.
         
“You too have seen out city’s afflictions caught
In a tide of death from which there is no escaping:
Death is fruitful flowering of our soil.”
Chorus too describes the miserable condition of poor Thebans. He appeals to gods to take pity on them.

“O gods, Descend like three streams leap against
The fires of grief, the fires of darkness
Be swift to bring us rest”
The sufferings of Jocaste and Oedipus also create terror in our hearts. Oedipus has been searching for the truth about the identity of Laius’ murderer as well as his own true identity but knowledge brings nothing but dismay and sufferings. Oedipus then makes sorrowful proclamation which creates terror in our hearts.
 “Alas! All is out! All known, no more concealment!
O light may I never look on you again!
Revealed as I am sinful in my begetting
Sinful in marriage, sinful in shedding of blood.”
The tragedy of Oedipus Rex resembles that of King Lear for his misfortune, like Lear, seems largely undeserved. He has faults like rashness of temper and pride. He makes error of judgments but Sophocles does not present him as a guilty man. The slaying of his father was done in ambiguous circumstances and in ignorance of Laius’ identity. Nor does he know that Jocaste was his mother when he married her. The play presents mystery of undeserved suffering which is one of the chief attractions of the play Oedipus Rex.

We may sum up the above discussion in the words of Aristotle, who declares Oedipus Rex as one of the three best tragedies of his time,

“The plot of Oedipus Rex satisfies all the requirements of an ideal tragic plot in a very nice way.”

                Hamlet's Soliloquies:
A Soliloquy is a discourse uttered by a speaker that is alone on the stage and oblivious to the listeners present. The dramatist employs it with of divulging the character’s innermost thoughts and plan of action in advance to the audience. In fact the practice of soliloquies became so popular with the Elizabethan writers that they banished chorus from their tragedies.
Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet earns an impregnable name and fame by employing this field. Hamlet’s soliloquies unfold the internal dilemma and mental obsession of the chief speaker. They lend an insight into Hamlet’s contemplative nature and the problem of procrastination. Most of all, they mark the movement from his inability to overcome his scholarly nature to his final resolution to become an avenger. The audience comfortably gets sundry approach to the psyche and mindset of Hamlet.

Hamlet’s first soliloquy gives the first true insight into Hamlet’s inner turmoil. By beginning the soliloquy with, “O, that this too too flesh solid flesh would melt/Thaw and resolve into a dew”, Hamlet wishes that his physical self might cease to exit, expressing the gravity of his innermost grief. Hamlet’s words, “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable/Seem to me all the uses of this world!” indicate his intense disgust with the world. He refers this world as “an unweeded garden”, in which “rank and gross” things grow in abundance. Hamlet’s grief over his father sudden death is intensified by his mother’s hasty marriage to his uncle whom he considers inferior and venomous naturally. He denounces her disloyalty in the words, “frailty thy name is woman”, and juxtaposes Claudius’ inferiority to his father’s greatness in the image of “Hyperion to a satyr”. Furthermore his allusion to Niobe and the contrast between her mother’s “galled eyes” and her “dexterity to incestuous sheets”, serve only to accentuate his tormented emotions. He scornfully protests: “O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason/Would have mourned longer.” Nevertheless he conceals his great misery from the king and the queen: “But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”
Hamlet’s next soliloquy “What a rogue and peasant slave am I!” is delivered after the arrival of players and reveals the root of true conflict: his inability to act. By juxtaposing a player who “could force his soul to his own conceit”, to weep for Hecuba without any apparent reason, against him, who has “the motive and cue for passion” but cannot do anything for his godlike father “upon whose property and most dear life/A damned defeat was made.” Hamlet regards himself “a dull and muddy-mettled rascal” who has done nothing to avenge his father’s murder. He vents his anguish on his uncle by referring to him as “a bloody, bawdy villain!/Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!”. Finally, We find Hamlet resolving to devise a mouse-trap play for Claudius in which he will closely watch his reaction and “catch the conscience of the king”.

Unlike Hamlet’s first two major soliloquies, Hamlet’s next and the most celebrated “To be or not to be” soliloquy is governed by intellect and not frenzied emotion. Hamlet sparks an internal philosophical debate on the advantages and disadvantages of his existence. Here Hamlet is shown to be on the horns of dilemma “Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer /The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune/Or take arms against a sea of troubles.” He jumps to tentamount that death is no doubt a sleep but there are thousand dreadful visions that disturb and shock such sleep. Hamlet’s dilemma is that he cannot sure what death has in store; it may be a sleep but in “perchance to dream” he is speculating that it an experience perhaps worse than life. The death is called “undiscovered country” from where “no traveller returns”. Hamlet declines to the idea of suicide by saying “thus conscience doth make cowards of us/And thus native hue of resolution /Is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought.” 
                                         
Hamlet’s next soliloquy is delivered after the players’ scene when he goes the queen’s closet and on the way finds the king at prayer. It is golden opportunity for Hamlet to carryout the revenge but his scholarly nature intervenes and he starting contemplating:
“Now might I do it pat now he is praying/And now I’ll do it and so he goes to heaven/I so am I revenged!”
Wisdom stands mighty resistance between him and his revenge. He consoles himself for another opportunity in which he must be in rage, intoxicated, gambling or busy in his incestuous pleasures of bed or about some other act that has “no relish of salvation in it”, and then to trip him so that “his soul may be as damned and black/As hell, whereto it goes”.
Hamlet’s last soliloquy is prompted by the passage of Fortinbras’ army through Denmark. It is another protest against the dullness of his passion and slow methodical march of his contemplative nature. Hamlet scolds himself by saying, “How all occasions do inform against me/And spur my dull revenge”. He ponders “whether it be bestial oblivion or, some craven scruple/Of thinking too precisely on the event”, that has thwarted his purpose. Remembering a power motive as “a father killed, a mother stained”, Hamlet now forms an ultimate resolve:“O, from this time forth/My thoughts be bloody, or nothing worth”   
Besides Hamlet, Ophelia and Claudius also burst into soliloquies. Ophelia’s soliloquy is very significant as the audience is acquainted with the stately position of lord Hamlet:
Oh, what a noble mind is here overthrown/The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword/The expectancy and the rose of the fair state/The glass of fashion and the mould of form/The observed of all observers.”
In a nut-shell, the prince of Denmark without these soliloquies would be an elusive shadow, a character without personality.

Hamlet’s Delay:
Hamlet’s delay has been an issue of endless controversy. Hamlet’s soliloquies lend first true insight his contemplative nature and illustrate the problem of his procrastination. John Holloway says:
“Hamlet’s soliloquies are foremost in bringing the idea of his delay to our notice.”
Throughout reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there is an underlying question at hand that has plagued the minds of many scholars that what took Hamlet so long to carry out the orders of his noble father who contacted him beyond the grave.
Regarding this question a number of theories have been advanced. Of course there are the critics like T.S.Eliot which refuse to take any notice of it. According to them it is certainly an artistic flaw. If Hamlet would have killed Claudius the play would have ended somewhere in Act-II. So Shakespeare was forced to delay the revenge. Still there are some other critics that argue that there was no delay at all on Hamlet’s part and everything that he does is deliberate and calculated. These are of course the extreme views. Shakespeare makes it clear to us that Hamlet does delay and he is acutely aware of it.
The question of Hamlet’s delay has haunted the critics for about four centuries. Whereas the critics like Werder and Campbell have held Hamlet’s external circumstances responsible for his delay the majority of Shakespearean scholarship including Goethe, Schlegal, Coleridge and Bradley hold Hamlet himself responsible for his delay.
In Act-I the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears to him and reveals the secret of his vile murder. It further imposes upon him the duty of avenging his “foul and the most unnatural murder.” The ghost’s injunctions are very clear:
“Let not the royal bed of Denmark be/A couch for luxury and damned incest”.
Hamlet’s mind is assailed with doubt whether or not this apparition is a demon sent from hell, or if it is truly his father’s spirit which has come from purgatory, to divulge the horrors of his murder, in the hope of revenge: 
“The spirit that I have seen/ May be the devil and the devil hath power/To assume a pleasing shape.”

To verify the truth of the ghost’s statement, Hamlet first feigns madness, and then gets enacted mousetrap play to “catch the conscience of the king”. After the Players’ scene Claudius’ guilt is confirmed but Hamlet finds him at prayer, confessing his sins:
“O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven/It hath primal eldest curse upon it/A brother’s murder.”
It is golden opportunity for Hamlet to accomplish the revenge. He pulls out his rapier but his scholarly nature intervenes and he starts contemplating:
“Now might I do it pat now he is praying/And now I’ll do it and so he goes to heaven/I so am I revenged!”
Many critics including Goethe have criticized Hamlet for delaying the revenge at this point. Goethe argued that the ghost’s injunctions comprised an unquestionable imperative to action.
“A voice from another world commissioned it would appear, by heaven demands vengeance for monstrous enormity.”
Goethe further proposed what is called the sentimental view of Hamlet that Shakespeare meant in Hamlet to “represent the effects of a great action laid upon a soul unfit for performance of it.” In other words, “A lovely, pure and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms hero, sinks beneath a burden which he cannot bear and must not cast away.”
Goethe suggests that “Hamlet is called upon to do what is impossible, not impossible in itself but impossible to him. And as he turns and winds and torments himself still advancing and retreating, ever reminded and remembering his purpose; he almost loses sight of it completely without recovering his happiness.”
Goethe’s Hamlet is weighed down to inaction due to the sensitive soul of a poet as he reveals his disgust in the rhymed couplet: “The time is out of joint, O cursed spite/That I was born to set it right.”
According to Goethe the key to the entire Hamlet’s problem could be found in these lines. Hamlet the soldier son of a warlike father scoffs himself for his delay in wreaking vengeance: “I, the son of a dear father murdered/Prompted to my revenge heaven and hell/Must like a whore unpack my heart with words.”
Goethe’s sentimental picture of Hamlet as “a graceful youth, sweet and sensitive, full of delicate sympathies and yearning aspirations, shrinking from the touch of anything gross and earthly”, is outdated and certainly not fit for a hero of Hamlet’s stature.
In 19th century Schlegal and Coleridge proposed that Hamlet is rendered incapable of action because of his tendency to philosophize too much. Taking the cue from his own words, they proposed that Hamlet’s “native hue of resolution /Is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought.” According to Coleridge Hamlet had “great enormous intellectual activity and a consequent proportionate aversion to real action.” Hamlet’s excessive reflectiveness inhibits his action and he “loses himself in labyrinth of thought.”
The conscience theory of Ulrici suggests that Hamlet is incapable of wreaking vengeance because of his scrupulous nature as supported by Hamlet’s own statement, “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” But the conscience theory was effectively refuted by Bradely.
In the start of 20th century A.C.Bradley in his famous “Shakespearean Tragedy” suggested that Hamlet was unable to accomplish the revenge because of his melancholic state of mind, which was sparked by the exceptional strain that faced him with the sudden death of his father and hasty remarriage of his mother. When the ghost gives him charge to set the disjointed times he is already deep in his melancholy and therefore cannot respond with normal vigour. For Bradley this “disgust at life which varies in intensity, rising at times into a longing for death, sinking often into weary apathy” explains the problem of Hamlet’s delay.
Summing up, the issue of Hamlet’s delay has provided critics with the food of conjecture and everyone has given his own interpretation of this problem.

Hamlet’s Madness:
The problem of madness is perhaps the most maddening problem in Hamlet. Critics are divided on this issue. Some critics are of the view that Hamlet is sane throughout but feigns insanity. Others hold the opinion that Hamlet’s madness is less than madness and more than feigned.

Before the play begins Hamlet is clearly a sensitive and idealistic young man. He is a scholar, a philosopher, and a poet too, who conceives the finest thoughts and exhibits great intellectual quality. We get a vivid picture of Hamlet as he was in the words of Ophelia:
“The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword/Th’ expectancy and rose of the fair state/The glass of fashion, and the mould of form/Th’ observed of all observes”
This shows that Hamlet was once a master of his own self and had full command over his mind and sense. But as the play proceeds we can find the traces of madness in him. After his mother’s hasty marriage and the Ghost’s revelation, Hamlet’s “noble and most sovereign reason” is all “out of tune and harsh”.

Some critics are of the opinion that under the pressure of these two circumstances – his mother’s hasty marriage ,and the Ghost’s revelation – Hamlet lost his reason. We tend to agree with “Deighton” when he says:

“In every single instance in which Hamlet’s madness is manifested , he has good
reason for assuming that madness: while, on the other hand , whenever there was no need to hoodwink anyone, his thought, language and action, bear no resemblance to unsoundness of intellect”

He talks rationally and shows great intellectual power in his conversations with Horatio. He receives the players with kind courtesy and his refinement of behaviour towards them shows that he is not mad.
In the first act we are told by Hamlet himself that he is going to feign madness to carry out his entrusted task of avenging his father’s murder.
“I perchance hereafter shall think meet/To put an antic disposition on.”
In his talk with Polonius, where he calls him a “ fishmonger” and insults him further with the satirical remark, “O Japhtha, Judge of Israel” , Polonius observes:
“Though this be madness/Yet there is method in it.
When Polonius wants to pluck out some information from him, Hamlet distracts him by his witty remarks as, “Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in the shape of a camel?”
However, as he is a fool by nature he is easily deceived by Hamlet’s feigned madness and comments:
“How pregnant sometimes his replies are!”
Then there is Claudius, the shrewd man, who suspects the authenticity of Hamlet’s madness. When Polonius reveals the ‘very ecstasy of love’ as the cause of his madness, Claudius after observing Hamlet closely comments:
“Love? His affections do not that way tend/Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little/Was not like madness.”
So Claudius strongly suspects, as we all do, that Hamlet’s madness is feigned and not real. Nevertheless he remarks:
“Madness in great one’s must not unwatched go.”
Gertrude, the Queen mother of Hamlet though not believes in Polonius’ version of Hamlet’s madness, she too suspects that Hamlet is insane. After the ghost’s second appearance in the closet scene she is truly amazed at Hamlet’s actions. She exclaims with wonder:
“How is it with you/That you bend your eye on vacancy/And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?”
Hamlet upon her amazement reveals truth to her:
“I essentially am not in madness/But mad in craft.”

The next to suspect the real nature of his madness is his own school fellows Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. Guildenstern finds crafty madness in him and Hamlet himself reveals the truth to them:
“I am but mad north-north west/When the wind is southerly/I know a hawk from a handsaw”
He tells Guildenstern that he cannot make him a “wholesome answer”, as his “wits are diseased”, and it is of no use if he expected to “ pluck out the heart of his mystery/ And sound him from the lowest note to the top of his compass.” When Rosencrantz is unable to comprehend his witty remarks, Hamlet simply states:
“A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.”
Hamlet enacts the ‘Mousetrap’ play to confirm Claudius’ guilt. This does not sound like a mad man’s action. Only a man of wisdom could plan everything systematically and arrive at the expected conclusion. Harley Granville Barker points out:

“When he is alone, we have the truth of him , but it is his madness which
is on public exhibition”

When Hamlet confronts Ophelia in Act-III, his rational thoughts slip away and he curses and bashes her: “If thou dost marry I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry/Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny/Get thee to a nunnery.”
He lashes out at her calling her two-faced: God has given you one face and you make yourselves another”. The poor Ophelia is no judge of Hamlet’s crafty madness and regretfully comments: “O, What a noble mind is here overthrown.” He curses herself who has “sucked the honey of his music vows.”

One can trace the glimpses of true insanity in Hamlet’s actions. For example his action of rushing headlong towards a beckoning ghost, rashly running his rapier through Polonius without seeing him, speaking to Yorick’s skull, and leaping into Ophelia’s grave to grapple with Laertes hardly fits the description of one within the control of his senses.
We can sum up above discussion in the words of Bradley:

"Hamlet is not mad, he is fully responsible for his actions. But he suffers from melancholia a pathological state which may develop into lunacy. His melancholy accounts for his nervous excitability, his longing for death, his irresolution and delay.”

ARISTOTLE POETICS IN URDU / HINDI

AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY PAST PAPERS DISCUSSION 2012 TO #2018 URDU/HINDI

AN APOLOGY FOR POETRY PAST PAPERS 2012 TO 2018

Who is actually on trial in The Crucible?

Who is actually on trial in The Crucible?

In The Crucible, Miller puts the Puritan church and theocracy on trial for hypocrisy and abuse of power. While our Constitution maintains separation of church and state, the America of the seventeenth century was a theocracy, where the church dictated both moral and civil codes of conduct. Religion was a powerful ethical force both in and out of the courtroom, and characters in the play invoke it for personal gain. Elizabeth portrays Abigail as Moses in court because “where she walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel,” indicating both Abigail’s power as well as the presence of religion in the courtroom. Hale cites God to encourage confession when he tells Tituba that she is “God’s instrument put in our hands to discover the Devil’s agents among us.” By exalting Tituba as a chosen vessel, Hale also imagines himself as the minister God chose to receive her confession and purify Salem. When God can be invoked as the ultimate judiciary, there can be no system of checks and balances, and corruption in the name of religion can run free.

During the witch trials, the Salemites choose easy targets, and the accusations begin with The Crucible’s most vulnerable characters, underscoring the classism and racism of the times. Tituba, who, as a slave, has no power, is the first character to confess to witchcraft. She, in turn, accuses Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn, who are interchangeably described as homeless drunks, after Putnam offers their names. Parris explains that the town more easily accepts accusations against unseemly characters like “Isaac Ward that drank his family to ruin,” so the accusations overwhelmingly target the indefensible and are easily manipulated to punish the immoral. Initially, the poor and powerless characters are on trial essentially for their life circumstances, rather than any particular crime. As the witch hunt escalates, even the play’s protagonists are assumed guilty despite their high moral and social standing. The play suggests that when we make baseless accusations against our most vulnerable citizens, we are in danger of extrapolating the injustice to all members of society. In this way, a society based on class and race differences is on trial in the play.

In early American settlements such as Salem, churches bound communities in both practical and symbolic ways, with negative and positive implications. As the narrator writes in the beginning, it was initially easy for the settlers to obey their strict, repressive creed, because “hard work kept the morals of the place from spoiling.” However, that same self-sufficiency that enabled the Salemites to leave their homes and endure the harsh conditions of the new world also caused them to imagine threats from within their community once the immediate danger of surviving the wilderness and hostile American Indians had abated. The narrator suggests that the dedication to constant religious devotion became a veiled excuse for “minding other people’s business” that contributed to the hysteria. The church also relies on frequent and vivid threats of damnation to keep parishioners in line, making the devil an active part of the community’s imagination. In critiquing the church’s insecurity about maintaining its congregation, Miller suggests the constant invocation of the devil contributed the community’s collective fears.

The Crucible posits that the only cure for mass hysteria is for a few brave individuals to refuse to buy into corrupt religious and legal institutions. At the same time, the play acknowledges the necessity of organized social structures to build and police communities. Without their shared belief in a religious creed, the Puritans might have floundered like the immigrants seeking gold, rather than religious freedom, in Jamestown. The Puritans shared religious ideology inspired them to build a successful new society and create a national identity. As the narrator writes, “They believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and it has helped and hurt us.” Ultimately, Miller is interested in the power of religion to cover and excuse all crimes, especially when backed by the court of law. “Old scores could be settled on a plane of heavenly combat between Lucifer and the Lord.” The final words of the afterward to the play are, “to all intents and purposes, the power of theocracy in Massachusetts was broken,” suggesting that theocracy itself is on trial in the play, and found guilty.

Feminism in 'A Doll's House'

Feminism in 'A Doll's House'

In the 19th century , the society was patriarchal, dominated by men, and women were deprived of all rights. The society was constructed and conducted in a way that women were completely dependent on men in all cultural domains- familial, religious , political, economic ,social , legal and artistic. This is the background ,in which Henrick Ibsen's play "A DOLL'S HOUSE", is written. Ibsen was inspired to write this play by a real incident that happened to his friend, Laura Petersen Kieler , a Norwegian journalist of whom he was very fond of. Ibsen created a female protagonist,Nora,who ,not only forsakes her husband and children, but also come out of traditional and conventional picture of women , breaks all the rules and restrictions of traditional and rigid society,which don't allow for the women's freedom and self-realization. This type of play was completly new at that time and female protagonist,Nora becomes the symbol and harbinger of the concept of ,"New Women" or " Modern Women". This term paper will show the situation of women in the society. It will also illustrate how "A DOLL'S HOUSE" is a feminist play, Ibsen's engagement with Feminism and the emergence of "New Women" or "Modern Women".

Although, Feminism as a literary genre came in 1960s but we can trace its origin with the publication of Mary Wallstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rigths of Women" in 1792 AD. At that time ,it was in early phase and known as the "Women's Rights Movement". This movement was for women's social equality rights in that oppressive patriarchal society. The bourgeois society was repressive and oppressive against anything which threatened its position of power. The political and spiritual liberty were kept at the background and economic freedom became the motivational forcefor an individual because in that bourgeois society, it provided a position status and once it was achieved , the imperative was to defend it. Thus a bourgeois individual becomes a defender of his status and betrayer of his own human values. Torvard Helmer , the male protagonist of the play, has accepted the premises of this type of society, unaware of the cost , he pays in human terms.

Ibsen criticizes the bourgeois society by creating the characters, who sustain in the society and revolt against it. The bourgeois family, the micro-society in perspective of bourgeois individual was dethroned by these characters from the center of the society. The status of an individual in a family reflects the position and order in the hierarchial system of society. This is why Torvard wants his supremacy in the family and his security depends on feeling superior. Ibsen saw that the bourgeois society needed some content which is a revolution of human spirit and claimed that the slogan of the French Revolution (1789) " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity"needed a reformulation. Every one has his own part in the construction or destruction of the society. He writes-"One never stands totally without share of responsibility or guilt in bourgeois society to which one belongs"(12,402).

Ibsen always believed, the truth as individual and subjective. That's why , he lets Nora go out in the world and realize the self reassess the concepts and values of society. One can't assess the society by living in the centre of the societyrather one must delve deep into liminal and marginalized domains of society. When one is in power , one can't often evaluate it correctly. People at the margins at times better positioned to view the reality. Like in the Howthorne's novel , "The Scarlet Letter", when Hester Prynne is displaced to margin, she is able to assess the Puritan Society in a better way. Norasays in the play-" I must try to discover who is right, me or society"(283). As the play moves to its close, Nora becomes freer and truer than before and this validates her path. Ibsen's plays reveal the vices and lies of the bourgeois society. Although his plays's setting is Norwegian but the perspectives and ideas on the Vivtorian morality are so universal that they mirror the problems and pains of the whole world. This bourgeois society has problems with the phenomena like industrialisation, positivism,liberalism,secularization and political polarization and the like. The people were becoming aware of their rights and claim for them. In the play, Ibsen has depicted two kinds of women. On the one hand, Nora , who is determind to stand up as proud and independent individual, on the other hand self-secrificing Mrs Christine Linde , who finds life's meaning in the service of others. These characters evaluate the inner-self and personal lives and this evaluation of inner lives becomes the revaluation of the society ,which has kept them under oppressive rules and restrictions. And thus, Ibsen chooses the women characters to lead the fight of the revolution of human spirits under the banner of truth and freedom.

There are many scenes in the play , which are anticipated by the other Feminist writers. Nora accuses on her father and her husband of treating her like a doll. A playmate. She could not get the real experience of life and so she can't do anything in her life. It is similar to Wollstonecraft's charges against men in her book called, "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" (1792) that women are brought up to be "pleasing

At the expense of every solid virtue " as if they were "gentlel domestic brutes '. Her description of herself that she has been treated like a doll -wife ,doing tricks is an appropriate example of Margret Fuller's charge that man " wants no wife but a girl to play ball with". She realizes that she can not do anything in her life while living with Torvard and declares that she will go out alone because " I must educate myself……. It's something I must do by myself ", she is showing that there is a need for women's emancipation from the 19th century restrictive society. Telling Torvard that she doesn't know how to be a wife is reminiscent of Harriet Martineau in " On Female Education" ,where Harriet Martineau argues the need for considering women as " companion to men instead of playing things or servants". When Nora realizes that the duties to self is higher than that of a wife and mother, she is restating the basic concept of Feminism stated in Wallstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" that women are no less than men possess a moral and intellectual nature have not only a right but duty to develop it :" the grand end of their exertion should be to unfold their own faculties". The theme of "A Doll's House" is the subjection of women by men. Nora is deprieved of all things which she should get. She couldn't get much exposure at the father's home. At Torvard's home, she is manipulated by Torvard. She has to do what was told to do. She suppresses her own desires in fulfilling the wishes of first , her father, and then her husband. Nora says " I could never act against your wishes".

The relationship the husband and wife is not based on companionship. Torvard sees himself as the epitome of the traditional 19th century husband who has complete right over his wife. In the forgery incident , Nora neither sees forgery as shame nor to defame Torvard but she does it for love. Torvard ,who has the pride of being man, considers owing anything to anybody as humiliating and painful even to his own wife he doesn't consider her as his equal. She has illusions that her marital life is happy but she has to face the reality. For this ,she decides to break the illusions and go to the world of truth and reality, and to realize herself and her values.Ibsen in his letter dated 3 January 1880, comments on the situation"The moment , she leaves her home , is the momenther life to begin…… In the play , there is big grown up child, Nora,who has to go out into the life to discover herself " . Nora's development can be seen as she is forced to give up the hope of 'miracle' that her husband will take the resposibility for her every action but Torvard is the slave of society, incapable of breaking the conventions. When Nora finds that,there is no way for 'miracle' to happen now, she decides to be true to herself. She stands against the traditional and conventional picture of women and becomes one of the Ibsen"s most liberated characters. Nora's becoming of a liberated is not objective but subjective. She becomes her own , able to take her decesions independently . the other female character, Mrs Linde opposes by not being the representative of early moments of Feminism, but through a wise and loving heart. Mrs linde experiences the 'miracle' which Nora dreamed. When she becomes ready to give up the troublesome life and marry Krogstag, she experiences the 'miracle' , the sense of fulfillment. She says-"How different to work for,to live for , for a home to build'. On the other hand , Nora sees her sense of fulfillment when she leaves her husband, children and home and being self-dependent.

Ibsen's engagement with Feminism can be viewed from the speech for the workingmen in Trondheimin1885, he was very much concerned with "future state of workers and women" in the changing social condition of Europe. He said that he is very mainly concerned with human being in general. In his speech , he made at a bonquet given in his honour by the NorwegianWomen's Rights League on 26 May 1898, he said-

"I am not a member of Women's Rights League I have been more a poet and less a social philosopher. I am not even clear as to just what this women's rights movement really is. To me it has seemed a problem of humanity in general."

He was right in saying that he is concerned with whole humanity because women are also first and foremost human beings. In "A Doll's House" , Nora says-"I am first and foremost a human being." He also advocated for the recruitment of women as librarian, the right to vote and supported the petition of separate property right for married women. He was also in contact with three powerful female personalities- Suzannah Thoresen,his wife, Magdaline thoresen,his wife's stepmother and Comilla Collect, the first significant feminist personalty.

The Winter’s Tale

The Winter’s Tale                                              When Leontes’ old friend Polixenes wishes to leave after a court visit, Leontes asks his wife, Hermione, to try persuading him to stay longer. Hermione succeeds, but Leontes then suspects her of having an affair with Polixenes. His jealousy getting the better of him, Leontes plots to poison Polixenes. Camillo, however, warns Polixenes of Leontes’ wrath, and the two escape to Bohemia. Meanwhile, Hermione is thrown in jail and brought to trial for adultery despite the words of the Delphic oracle (who has proclaimed Hermione innocent). While imprisoned, Hermione gives birth to a daughter, which Leontes promptly disowns. He also commands Antigonus, the husband of Paulina, to abandon the baby in the desert. Antigonus does so, but is devoured soon after by a bear.
Tragedy soon besets Leontes as the trial progresses. His only son, Mamilius, dies from grief over his mother’s predicament. Hermione too is reported dead by her waiting woman, Paulina. This is enough to make even Leontes realize what his jealousy has cost him; in mourning, he goes into seclusion. In Bohemia, a shepherd discovers the abandoned baby, Perdita, and raises her as his own daughter. Sixteen years later, the son of Polixenes, Florizel, has fallen in love with Perdita; Polixenes, however, is less than pleased that his son, a prince, is in love with a shepherdess. Florizel and Perdita make plans to escape to Sicilia, aided by old Camillo.
In Sicilia, Florizel and Perdita are welcomed at the court of Leontes. Polixenes soon follows (accompanied by the old shepherd), and he and Leontes eventually reconcile. Perdita’s identity as the king’s daughter is revealed, and Leontes and Polixenes are delighted that their children will be wed. Leontes’ new joy, however, is tempered by the bitter memory of Hermione’s death. Paulina then takes Leontes and the rest to see a statue of the queen that is actually Hermione herself—the queen has lived in hiding for the past sixteen years. Thus Leontes is reunited with his wife and daughter, his best friend, and his close advisor, Camillo. Even Paulina regains a husband when Leontes promises her hand to Camillo in gratitude for helping Hermione. Hence, everything is set back aright in Sicilia by the end of the play.
Dramatis Personae
Leontes, King of Sicilia
Mamilius, Prince of Sicilia
Camillo, a lord of Sicilia
Antigonus, a lord of Sicilia
Cleomenes, a lord of Sicilia
Dion, a lord of Sicilia
Polixenes, King of Bohemia
Florizel, Prince of Bohemia
Archidamus, a lord of Bohemia
An Old Shepherd; reputed father of Perdita
Clown, his son
Autolycus, a rogue
A Mariner
A Jailer
Hermione, Queen to Leontes
Perdita, daughter of Leontes and Hermione
Paulina, wife of Antigonus
Emilia, a lady to Hermione
Mopsa, a shepherdess
Dorcas, a shepherdess
Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen
Officers and Servants
Shepherds and Shepherdesses
Guards
Time, as Chorus
The Winter’s Tale

The Tempest

The Tempest
💐🌷☘️☘️👇🌿🌿🌿🌿
The Tempest , drama in five acts(act 1–scene i, Scene ii, act 2–scene i, scene ii, act 3–scene i, scene ii, scene iii, act 4–scene i, act 5–scene i) by William Shakespeare, thought to be one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In act four, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-the play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language. Like The Comedy of Errors, The Tempest roughly adheres to the unities of time, place, and action.

The Tempest was first written between 1610-1611 and performed about 1611. The Tempest first appeared in print in 1623 in the collection of thirty-six of Shakespeare’s plays titled Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies; Published according to the True and Original Copies, which is known as the First Folio.

#Characters
•Prospero – The rightful Duke of Milan, though his kingdom and title were usurped by his brother Antonio.
•Miranda – daughter to Prospero.
•Ariel – A spirit of the island, over whom Prospero becomes master after ousting Sycorax.
•Caliban – a savage and deformed slave.
•Alonso – Alonso is the King of Naples. An enemy of Prospero’s, he accepted Antonio’s proposition to help the latter usurp Prospero’s throne in return for Antonio’s swearing Milan’s fealty to Naples.
•Sebastian – Alonso's brother.
•Antonio – Antonio is Prospero’s brother. He usurped the throne of Milan from his brother with Alonso’s help, willingly abandoning the sovereignty of the Dukedom to Naples.
•Ferdinand – Alonso's son, and heir to the kingdom of Naples.
•Gonzalo – an honest old councillor.
•Adrian – a lord serving under Alonso.
•Francisco – a lord serving under Alonso.
•Trinculo – the King's jester.
•Stephano – the King's drunken butler.
•Juno – the chief Roman goddess.
•Ceres – Roman goddess of agriculture.
•Iris – Greek goddess of the sea and sky.
•Master – master of the ship.
•Mariners
•Boatswain – servant of the master.
•Nymphs, Reapers

#Themes
=>Usurpation
=>Imprisonment and Freedom
=>Forgiveness and Reconciliation
=>The Charm of Colonialism
=>Illusion and magic
=>The difficulty of distinguishing Man from Monster
=>Good and humanity
=>Master/servant relationships

#Summary
Prospero uses magic to conjure a storm and torment the survivors of a shipwreck, including the King of Naples and Prospero’s treacherous brother, Antonio. Prospero’s slave, Caliban, plots to rid himself of his master, but is thwarted by Prospero’s spirit-servant Ariel. The King’s young son Ferdinand, thought to be dead, falls in love with Prospero’s daughter Miranda. Their celebrations are cut short when Prospero confronts his brother and reveals his identity as the usurped Duke of Milan. The families are reunited and all conflict is resolved. Prospero grants Ariel his freedom and prepares to leave the island.

In act 1, close to a Mediterranean island, a storm overcomes a ship that carries King Alonso of Naples, his son Ferdinand, and his brother Sebastian. They were on their way home home from Tunis to Italy when the storm hit and demolished their ship. Shipwrecked with them are the courtier, Gonzalo, and the Duke of Milan, Antonio.
From the island, Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, and his fifteen year-old daughter, Miranda, watch the storm and shipwreck. Miranda fears for the ship's crew, but Prospero assures her that everything is fine. He decides to open up about his past, telling her how twelve years previously, his brother Antonio had deposed him in a coup. With the aid of Gonzalo, Prospero had escaped in a boat with the infant Miranda and his books of magic. They travelled to the island, made it their home, and enslaved the only native islander, Caliban. The only other inhabitants of the island are the spirits including Ariel, whom Prospero had rescued from imprisonment in a tree. Since Antonio was on the boat that is now shipwrecked, Prospero hopes finally to rectify his past. As Miranda sleeps, Prospero discusses his role in the shipwreck with Ariel. They plot about what to do with the men now that they are on the shore.
The courtiers from the ship are cast ashore unharmed. But the King is near despair, believing that Ferdinand, his son, drowned. Ferdinand has actually arrived safely on a different part of the island where he meets Miranda and they instantly fall in love. Prospero, fearing for his daughter, captures Ferdinand and forces him to carry wood. In the meantime, Ariel seeks his freedom. Prospero promises that he will liberate Ariel from servitude following the completion of just a few more tasks.
In act 2, Ariel uses music to lead the courtiers astray, while Sebastian and Antonio plot to kill the King while he is asleep. Their attempt is foiled by Ariel. All the people from the ship become ever more confused as they wander around. In another part of the island, the timid court fool, Trinculo, has come ashore and discovered Caliban. Trinculo hides beside Caliban from an approaching storm, and the ship's butler, Stephano finds them.
In act 3-4, Stephano, Caliban, and Trinculo, at Caliban's suggestion, intend to kill Prospero and make Stephano lord of the island. They get very drunk before setting off to the cell to kill Prospero. Ariel, who saw the whole thing in his invisible state, reports this wicked plot to his master. Meanwhile, Prospero has relented and gives his blessing for Ferdinand and Miranda's marriage. Then he entertains them with a masque of goddesses and dancing reapers before he remembers Caliban's plots.
Prospero and Ariel then set a trap for the three plotters. Stephano and Trinculo fall for the plot and become distracted by gaudy clothes hung out for them. After they touch the clothing, they are chased away by spirits disguised as dogs.
In act 5, Ariel brings all the courtiers to the cell where Prospero, renouncing his magic, reveals himself. Instead of enacting his revenge, he forgives them and accepts the return of his dukedom. Ferdinand and Miranda are betrothed. Sailors come to announce that the ship is safe. Prospero fulfils his promise and frees Ariel while Caliban and the drunken servants are rebuked. The play ends as all go to celebrate their reunions, and Prospero asks the audience to release him from the play.

#Quotes
¶Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.—(Act II, Scene II)
¶We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded with a sleep.—(Act IV, Scene I)
¶Where the bee sucks, there suck I - In a cowslip's bell I lie.—(Act V, Scene I)
¶O, brave new world that has such people in't!—(Act V, Scene I)
¶Let your indulgence set me free.—(Act 5, Epilogue)

Heart of Darkness : Main Ideas Explained

Heart of Darkness : Main Ideas Explained
Alienation and Loneliness: - Throughout Heart of Darkness, which tells of a journey into the heart of the Belgian Congo and out again, the themes of alienation, loneliness, silence and solitude predominate. The book begins and ends in silence, with men first waiting for a tale to begin and then left to their own thoughts after it has concluded. The question of what the alienation and loneliness of extended periods of time in a remote and hostile environment can do to men's minds is a central theme of the book. The doctor who measures Marlow's head prior to his departure for Africa warns him of changes to his personality that may be produced by a long stay in-country. Prolonged silence and solitude are seen to have damaging effects on many characters in the book. Among these are the late Captain Fresleven, Marlow's predecessor, who was transformed from a gentle soul into a man of violence, and the Russian, who has been alone on the River for two years and dresses bizarrely and chatters constantly. But loneliness and alienation have taken their greatest toll on Kurtz, who, cut off from all humanizing influence, has forfeited the restraints of reason and conscience and given free rein to his most base and brutal instincts.
Deception: - Deception, or hypocrisy, is a central theme of the novel and is explored on many levels. In the disguise of a ‘‘noble cause,’’ the Belgians have exploited the Congo. Actions taken in the name of philanthropy are merely covers for greed. Claiming to educate the natives, to bring them religion and a better way of life, European colonizers remained to starve, mutilate, and murder the indigenous population for profit. Marlow has even obtained his captaincy through deception, for his aunt misrepresented him as ‘‘an exceptional and gifted creature.’’ She also presented him as ‘‘one of the Workers, with a capital [W] … something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle,’’ and Conrad notes the deception in elevating working people to some mystical status they cannot realistically obtain. At the end of the book, Marlow engages in his own deception when he tells Kurtz's fiancée the lie that Kurtz died with her name on his lips.
Order and Disorder: - Conrad sounds the themes of order and disorder in showing, primarily through the example of the Company's chief clerk, how people can carry on with the most mundane details of their lives while all around them chaos reigns. In the larger context, the Company attends to the details of sending agents into the interior to trade with the natives and collect ivory while remaining oblivious to the devastation such acts have caused. Yet on a closer look, the Company's Manager has no talent for order or organization. His station is in a deplorable state, and Marlow can see no reason for the Manager to have his position other than the fact that he is never ill. On the other hand, the chief clerk is so impeccably dressed that when Marlow first meets him he thinks he is a vision. This man, who has been in-country three years and witnessed all its attendant horrors, manages to keep his clothes and books in excellent order. He even speaks with confidence of a Council of Europe which intended Kurtz to go far in ‘‘the administration,’’ as if there is some overall rational principle guiding their lives.
Sanity and Insanity: - Closely linked to the themes of order and disorder are those of sanity and insanity. Madness, given prolonged exposure to the isolation of the wilderness, seems an inevitable extension of chaos. The atmospheric influences at the heart of the African continent—the stifling heat, the incessant drums, the whispering bush, the mysterious light—play havoc with the unadapted European mind and reduce it either to the insanity of thinking anything is allowable in such an atmosphere or, as in Kurtz's case, to literal madness. Kurtz, after many years in the jungle, is presented as a man who has gone mad with power and greed. No restraints were placed on him—either from above, from a rule of law, or from within, from his own conscience. In the wilderness, he came to believe he was free to do whatever he liked, and the freedom drove him mad. Small acts of madness line Marlow's path to Kurtz: the Man-of-War that fires into the bush for no apparent reason, the urgently needed rivets that never arrive, the bricks that will never be built, the jig that is suddenly danced, the immense hole dug for no discernible purpose. All these events ultimately lead to a row of impaled severed human heads and Kurtz, a man who, in his insanity, has conferred a godlike status on himself and has ritual human sacrifices performed for him. The previously mentioned themes of solitude and silence have here achieved their most powerful effect: they have driven Kurtz mad. He is presented as a voice, a disembodied head, a mouth that opens as if to devour everything before him. Kurtz speaks of ‘‘my ivory … my intended … my river … my station,’’ as if everything in the Congo belonged to him. This is the final arrogant insanity of the white man who comes supposedly to improve a land, but stays to exploit, ravage, and destroy it.
Duty and Responsibility: - As is true of all other themes in the book, those of duty and responsibility are glimpsed on many levels. On a national level, we are told of the British devotion to duty and efficiency that led to systematic colonization of large parts of the globe and has its counterpart in Belgian colonization of the Congo, the book's focus. On an individual level, Conrad weaves the themes of duty and responsibility through Marlow's job as captain, a position that makes him responsible for his crew and bound to his duties as the boat's commander. There are also the jobs of those with whom Marlow comes into contact on his journey. In Heart of Darkness, duty and responsibility revolve most often about how one does one's work. A job well done is respected; simply doing the work one is responsible for is an honourable act. Yet Conrad does not believe in romanticizing the worker. Workers can often be engaged in meaningless tasks, as illustrated in the scene where the Africans blast away at the rock face in order to build a railway, but the rock is not altered by the blasts and the cliff is not at all in the way. The Company's Manager would seem to have a duty to run his business efficiently, but he cannot keep order, and although he is obeyed, he is not respected. The Foreman, however, earns Marlow's respect for being a good worker. Marlow admires the way the Foreman ties up his waist-length beard when he has to crawl in the mud beneath the steamboat to do his job. (Having a waist-length beard in a jungle environment can be seen as another act of madness, even from an efficient worker.) Section I of the novel ends with Marlow speculating on how Kurtz would do his work. But there is a larger sense in which the themes of work and responsibility figure. Marlow says, ‘‘I don't like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself.’’ It is through the work (or what passes for it) that Kurtz does in Africa that his moral bankruptcy is revealed. For himself, Marlow emerges with a self-imposed duty to remain loyal to Kurtz, and it is this responsibility that finally forces him to lie to Kurtz's fiancée.
Doubt and Ambiguity: - As reason loses hold, doubt and ambiguity take over. As Marlow travels deeper inland, the reality of everything he encounters becomes suspect. The perceptions, motivations, and reliability of those he meets, as well as his own, are all open to doubt. Conrad repeatedly tells us that the heat and light of the wilderness cast a spell and put those who would dare venture further into a kind of trancelike state. Nothing is to be taken at face value. After the Russian leaves, Marlow wonders if he ever actually saw him.
The central ambiguity of Heart of Darkness is Kurtz himself. Who is he? What does he do? What does he actually say? Those who know him speak again and again of his superb powers of rhetoric, but the reader hears little of it. The Russian says he is devoted to Kurtz, and yet we are left to wonder why. Kurtz has written a report that supposedly shows his interest in educating the African natives, but it ends with his advice, ‘‘Exterminate all the brutes!’’ Marlow has heard that Kurtz is a great man, yet he suspects he is ‘‘hollow to the core.’’ In Marlow's estimation, if Kurtz was remarkable it was because he had something to say at the end of his life. But what he found to say was ‘‘the horror!’’ After Kurtz's death, when various people come to Marlow representing themselves as having known Kurtz, it seems none of them really knew him. Was he a painter, a writer, a great musician, a politician, as he is variously described? Marlow settles for the ambiguous term ‘‘universal genius," which would imply Kurtz was whatever one wanted to make of him.
Race and Racism: - The subject of racism is not really treated by Conrad as a theme in Heart of Darkness as much as it is simply shown to be the prevailing attitude of the day. The African natives are referred to as ‘‘niggers,’’ ‘‘cannibals,’’ ‘‘criminals,’’ and ‘‘savages.’’ European colonizers see them as a subordinate species and chain, starve, rob, mutilate, and murder them without fear of punishment. The book presents a damning account of imperialism as it illustrates the white man's belief in his innate right to come into a country inhabited by people of a different race and pillage to his heart's content.
Kurtz is writing a treatise for something called the ‘‘International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs.’’ This implies the existence of a worldwide movement to subjugate all non-white races. Kurtz bestows a kind of childlike quality upon the Africans by saying that white people appear to them as supernatural beings. The natives do, indeed, seem to have worshipped Kurtz as a god and to have offered up human sacrifices to him. This innocence proceeds, in Kurtz's view, from an inferior intelligence and does not prevent him from concluding that the way to deal with the natives is to exterminate them all.
Early in his journey, Marlow sees a group of black men paddling boats. He admires their naturalness, strength, and vitality, and senses that they want nothing from the land but to coexist with it. This notion prompts him to believe that he still belongs to a world of reason. The feeling is short-lived, however, for it is not long before Marlow, too, comes to see the Africans as some subhuman form of life and to use the language of his day in referring to them as ‘‘creatures,’’ ‘‘niggers,’’ ‘‘cannibals,’’ and ‘‘savages.’’ He does not protest or try to interfere when he sees six Africans forced to work with chains about their necks. He calls what he sees in their eyes the ‘‘deathlike indifference of unhappy savages.’’ Marlow exhibits some humanity in offering a dying young African one of the ship's biscuits, and although he regrets the death of his helmsman, he says he was ‘‘a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara.’’ It is not the man he misses so much as his function as steersman. Marlow refers to the ‘‘savage who was fireman’’ as ‘‘an improved specimen.’’ He compares him, standing before his vertical boiler, to ‘‘a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs.’’
Violence and Cruelty: - The violence and cruelty depicted in Heart of Darkness escalate from acts of inhumanity committed against the natives of the Belgian Congo to ‘‘unspeakable’’ and undescribed horrors. Kurtz (representing European imperialists) has systematically engaged in human plunder. The natives are seen chained by iron collars about their necks, starved, and beaten, subsisting on rotten hippo meat, forced into soul-crushing and meaningless labour, and finally ruthlessly murdered. Beyond this, it is implied that Kurtz has had human sacrifices performed for him, and the reader is presented with the sight of a row of severed human heads impaled on posts leading to Kurtz's cabin. Conrad suggests that violence and cruelty result when law is absent and man allows himself to be ruled by whatever brutal passions lie within him. Consumed by greed, conferring upon himself the status of a god, Kurtz runs amok in a land without law.  Under such circumstances, anything is possible, and what Conrad sees emerging from the situation is the profound cruelty and limitless violence that lies at the heart of the human soul.
Moral Corruption: - The book's theme of moral corruption is the one to which, like streams to a river, all others lead. Racism, madness, loneliness, deception and disorder, doubt and ambiguity, violence and cruelty—culminate in the moral corruption revealed by Kurtz's acts in the Congo. Kurtz has cast off reason and allowed his most base and brutal instincts to rule unrestrained. He has permitted the evil within him to gain the upper hand. Kurtz's appalling moral corruption is the result not only of external forces, such as the isolation and loneliness imposed by the jungle, but also, Conrad suggests, of forces that lie within all men and await the chance to emerge. Kurtz perhaps realizes the depth of his own moral corruption when, as he lays dying, he utters, ‘‘The horror! The horror!’’ Marlow feels this realization transferred to himself and understands that he too, living in a lawless state, is capable of sinking into the depths of moral corruption The savage nature of man is thus reached at the end of the journey, not upriver, but into his own soul.