Paper-5 Willy Loman as a victim of capitalist society

Vaghani Hitesh s

Roll no. - 38

SEM - I

Department of English

Paper no. – 5

Year – 2010-11

Topic:

Willy Loman as a victim of capitalist society

                                                                        

                       Submitted to Mr. Jay Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Willy Loman as a victim of capitalist society 

The common theme of Miller’s plays is the individual versus Society. As a dramatist he concentrated on the single subject

        

           “The struggle… of the individual attempting

            To again his rightful position in his society”, or

             His family which is a part and unit of society. Like Ibsen, Shaw and Galsworthy, Miller also deals with social problems of the modern men, but in a different manner.

               The worker of Arthur Miller like those of Galsworthy belongs to that school of social realism, which has dominated the theatre ever since, Ibsen produced his realistic plays like. A Doll’s House, Ghosts and pillars of society. Miller’s first successful play. All my sons show the influence of Ibsen. Its theme may be briefly described as the idea of guilt from the past permeating and destroying the present. The guilty protagonist is Joe Keller, an industrialist who, during the war supplied the government with a batch of faulty cylinder heads.

             When these brought about the death of twenty one pilots, Keller committed the second crime of putting all the blame on his innocent manager Deever. Deever goes to jail and Keller prospers. The irony is supported by other instance that Miller offords in the examples of those who suffer fighting for their country and those who, staying behind flourish. But the success of Keller’s is not lasting. The climax of the play is the suicide of his son in the army, on hearing the news of his father’s crime And Killer stripped of his sentimental defense, kills himself.

           In Death of a salesman also the same theme of self-interest appers. Willy Loman, the hero is a salesman who is driven by two examples of success that have have a strong hold on his imagination. Loman is propelled not by ambition for himself but for his two sons for whom he wants very good thing. But contrary to his expectation the sons come eventually to despise him. In his confrontation with his elder son Biff, Loman sees everything with a sense of triumph he asserts that Biff will thus be able to go on better than his neighbour’s son Bernard,

                        

                           “When the mail comes he’ll

                            Beahead to Bernard”, he says

        

              The crucible is a play that has as its background, the puritan Massachusetts. The scenes are laid at the time of the notorious Salem witch trials. The protagonist is a Salem farmer, John proctor who finds himself involved in the witch hunt. Abigail was subsequently sent out of the house by the farmer’s wife. Now the girl who is still in love with proctor, defends his wife, but in defying the court, he finds himself accused of witchcraft and is put in prison. His dilemma is solved by his wife who forgives him and advises him to make a false confession to a corrupt court. Proctor is tempted to do so, but when he learns that his confession will be nailed to the church-door, he is blacken the others and mare ever

          He does not want to blacken the others and moreover he realizes that death is preferable to losing his name. He chooses to die with the others.

             In these three plays of Miller, we find the common theme of the individual versus society. In All My sons we get the idea of a man in the powerful grip of ambition, betraying society. Society is not entirely absolved of blame either. Miller draws up an indictment of the society too for he suggests that it is the pressures of materialist society that guided Keller in making a choice that is anti-social. He could have admitted to the government the fact that the cylinders he supplied them were faulty. But to do so would be to lose the prestige of his business.

                 Again the inescapable relation between individual and society is made clear by Keller’s agency when his neighbors call him “Murderer” and of A Salesman is also influenced in everything by society and success in terms of social evaluation. His identification of success is with a cheering crowd round a foot-ball field. It is the central point of Miller’s social philosophy that society and the individual are inextricably linked. In All my sons. Keller’s betrayal of his parental responsibility also shows the individual facing the society. There is great moral in the irony that Keller who justified his conduct on the ground that he was preserving his small business for his sons, should be exposed as a malefactor by his own son. It is signifint that this man who harms society, his paternal love and devotion to his family’s warfare and exposed as manifestation of egotism. Miller the moralist exposes the faults and follies of Willy loman in Death of a salesman. The hollow success worship, false values and inability to face the truth are depicted, Miller’s later plays. A memory of two Mondays and A view from the Bridge also evince the dramatist’s socially directed attitude. The first of these is about an intelligent Youngman doing malarial labour with a group of people who have no prospect in life other. The dreariness to which these men are condemned and from which the Youngman can hope to rise is evoked effectively. The mutual loyalty and sympathetic affection of these men that make the dreariness endurable are nicely depicted by the dramatist. In A view from the bridge also Miller makes use of the familiar themes of loyalty, of betrayal and of the need for a name and for public recognition.

            The above survey of Miller’s plays makes clear the moral war that Miller has been waging through them and the social philosophy that they demonstrate. As for his realism, it is evident in the characters who he depicted and the environment that he pictured, “In a plays such as all my sons, there are elements beyond doth plot and idea that engage our interest. Characters are brought to life, an atmosphere or mood is evoked, an environment is presented; an insight into how people feel and think or rationalize is present.

                The texture and actual aliveness of All my sons consist of the realist of family life as observed by Miller; of the reality of Miller’s Joe Killer depicted as a shrewd “ Little man” with a feeling for family and a sense of cleverly concealed desperation of Keller’s wife presented as the  affectionate “little woman for whom issues of right and wrong or guilt and retribution are secondly to keeping life going with creature comforts and amiable personal relation ship; of the ambivalences of  killer’s surviving son, whose trivial loyalty is being severely tested when he must inform against his father Miller, in short, created his play rather than merely contrived it. He presented life as well as argument on the stage” 

        In Death of a salesman too Miller has combined the realistic teeth unique with the expressionistic intermixing of the present and past events and weaving a complex pattern of immediate tensions and recollected crises. Though his scenes are imaginative the background are real. They are definitely and recognizably middle class.  The Though Willy Loman’s “memories and hallucinations moved critically over time and space” they were tied tightly together by his immediate tensions and conflicts.

         The play is a story of Willy Loman an Amrican salesman who has worked for the Wagner firm for thirty four years, and when he is old, he is fired and rendered jobless. His two sons Bill Loman and Happy loman are lost ones. He is lost in the world of Maya. He suffers from a sense of incidequaoy and insecurity, inferiority and loneliness. He is a dreamer. In order to make his family well of the commits suicide so that his sons may get money from the life. In, urance company which has insured his life. 

         An overriding theme of the play says Gerald weales, is that it is a play about the last terrible day of a man and about the flood of facts and lies, of reality and fantasy, of the actual and the potation that made him and killed him. Dillingham says that the theme of Death of a salesman is “loss of conscience”. Some other critics regard the play as a propaganda play which reveals some evils of the contemporary. American society. Among such critics the names of Harold clubman and john Gassner are notable. Raymond Williams sees the play as a treatment of alienation, in the classical Marxist rather than the existential sense, and sees in Miller the beginnings of a new social drama. On the other hand, Fuller sees the play as one man’s failure and not as an indictment of the system. There are some others who have interpreted to it other abstruse psychological theories. Froma catholic point of view the play has been regarded as a warning against the meaninglessness of life where there no religious faith.

   

            “Salesman”, according to Miller. “Is a tragedy of man alone was not meeting the qualifications laid down for mankind by those clean-shaven frontiersmen who inhabit the speaks of broadcasting and advertising offices. From those forests of canned goods nigh up near the sky, he heard the thundering command to succeed as it ricocheted down the newspaper lined canyons of his city, heard not a human voice, but a wind of a voice to which no human can reply in kind, except to stare into the mirror at a failure.”

        

             So Death of a salesman is not merely a drama of domestic quarrels between a father and his sons, a drama of conflict between capitalism and communism, between self and soul, between psyche and conscience, between religiosity and religiosity, between a sales man and a manufacturer, but of a conflict between the individual and society, a conflict between man’s value and his environment. The play Wright was trying in “Salesman” to set forth what happens web a man does not have a grip on the forces of life and has no sense of values which will lead him to that kind of a grip

            “Death of a salesman is the most poignant statement of man as the most poignant statement of man as the must face himself”. It’s basic these is man’s loss of conscience. Loyalty to family also is its theme. It is an annatto my of failure.

        

           Eleanor Clark 1949. The play is a crude Mardaist attack on the brutal capitalist “System” in America.  

         

           Some have regarded the play as communist propaganda denouncing the evils of capitalism, while others have seen it as a sympathetic study of the problems of big business. Some have interpreseted it in Freudian terms and attributed to its author abstruse psychological theories, while drama catholic point of view the play has been regarded as a warning of the meaninglessness of life where there is no religious faith.

Paper-3 Plato’s objection to poetry

Vaghani Hitesh s

Roll no. - 38

SEM - I

Department of English

Paper no. – 3

Year – 2010-11

Topic:

Plato’s objection to poetry                                                                         

                           Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Plato’s objection to poetry

        

                He was the first systemic critic who inquired into the nature of imaginative literature and put forward theories which are both illuminating and provocative. He was himself a great poet and his dialogues are full of his gifted dramatic quality. His Dialogues are the classic works of the world literature having dramatic, lyrical and fictional elements.
               According to him all arts are imitative or mimetic in nature. He wrote in The Republic that ‘ideas are the ultimate reality’. Things are conceived as ideas before they take practical shapes. So, idea is original and the thing is copy of that idea. Carpenter’s chair is the result of the idea of chair in his mind.

             

              Ploto’s three main objections to poetry

            

               1} Ethical

             

               2} Philosophical

           

                3} Pragmatic

                        In other words, he objected to poetry from the point of view of Education, from philosophical point of view and from moral point of view.

         It is not ethical because it promotes undesirable passions, it is not philosophical because it does not provide true knowledge and it is not pragmatic because it is inferior to the practical arts and therefore has no educational value. 

                    

* Plato’s objection to poetry from the point of view of Education: -               In ‘The Republic’ Book II – He condemns poetry as fostering evil habits and vices in children. Homer’s epics were part of studies. Heroes of epics were not examples of sound or ideal morality. They were lusty, cunning, and cruel – war mongers. Even Gods were no better. Troy-Achilles beheding Apollo’s statue, oracles molested… insults of Gods, Gods fight among themselves, they punish instead of forgiveness…Ahaliya-Indra, Kunti’s children, Narad’s obsession to marry, Hercules son of Zeus and Alcmene, Here’s jealousy-snakes-fenzy to kill children...

            

                 Plato writes writes:-

                                                 “If we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarreling among themselves as of all things the basest, no word should be said to them of the wars in the heaven, or of the plots and fighting of the gods against one another, for they are not true…. If they would only believe as we would tell them that quarreling is unholy, and that never up to this time has there been any quarreling between citizens…… these tales (of epics) must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have allegorical meaning or not.”        

                            Thus he objected on the ground that poetry does not cultivate good habits among children.

  * Objection from Philosophical point of view: -                                                                                                                       In ‘The Republic’ Book X: poetry does not lead to, but drives us away form the realization of the ultimate reality – the Truth.
                  Philosophy is better than poetry because Philosophy deals with idea and poetry is twice removed from original idea.
Plato says: “The imitator or maker of the image knows nothing of true existence; he knows appearance only …. The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior and has inferior offspring.”

           Dorothea’s ideal in Middlemarch shattered, Kshtriya dharma – not to hit enemy without weapon, Tess’s providence, evil wins & God is silent, unrewarded virtue….

      *Objection form the Moral point of view: -                                                                                                             In the same book in ‘The Republic’: Soul of man has higher principles of reason as well as lower constituted of baser impulses and emotions. Whatever encourages and strengthens the rational principle is good, and emotional is bad.
               Poetry waters and nourishes the baser impulses of men - emotional, sentimental and sorrowful.

Plato says:-

                  “Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily limited …. And therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered state, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthen the feelings and impairs the reason …Poetry feeds and waters the passion instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue.”

     *These are Plato’s principal charges on poetry and objection to it. Let us reply them one by one in defense of poetry:-

               Plato says that art being the imitatation of the actual is removed from truth. It only gives the likeness of a thing in concrete and the likeness is always less than real. But Plato fail to understand that art also give something more which is absent in the actual. It is the representation of selected events and character necessary in a coherent action for the realization of artist’s purpose. Namesake Jhumpa Lahiri and Mira Nair. The artist does not simply reflect the real in the manner of a mirror. Art is a not slavish imitation of reality? Literature is not the photographic reproduction of life in all its totality. It is the representation of selected events and characters necessary in a coherent action for the realization of artist’s purpose. He even exalts, idealizes and imaginatively recreates a world which has its own meaning and beauty. These elements, present in art, are absent in the raw and though real.

           R.A. Scott – James rightly observes: “But though he creates something less than that reality, he also creates something more. He puts an idea into it. He put his perception into it. He gives us his intuition of certain distinctive and essential qualities.

            This ‘more’, this intuition and perception is the aim of the artist. Artistic creation cannot be fairly critized. On the ground that it is not the creation in concrete terms of things and beings. Thus considered it does not take us away form the Truth, but leads us to the essential reality of life.

          Plato again says that art is bad because it does not inspire virtue, does not teach morality. But is teaching the function of the art? Is it the aim of the artist? The function of art is to provide aesthetic delight, communicate experience, express emotions and represent life. It should never be confused with the Function of ethics which is simply to teach morality.

          If an artist succeeds in pleasing us in aesthetic sense, he is a good artist. It he fails in doing so, he is a dad artist. There is no other criterion to judge his worth. R.A. Scott-James Observes:

               

                          “Morality teaches.  Art does not attempt to teach. It merely asserts it is thus or thus that life is perceived to be. That is my bit of reality, says the artist. Take it or leave it-draw any lessons you like from it that is my account of things as they are if it has any value to you as evidence or teaching, use it, but that is not my business: “I have given you my rendering, my account, my vision, my dream, my illusion call it what you will. If there is any lesson in it, it is yours to draw, not mine to preach”.

        

                Similarly, Plato’s charge that needless lamentation and ecstasies at the imaginary events of sorrow and happiness encourages weaker part of soul. And numbs faculty of reason. This charge is defended by Aristotle in his. Theory of katharsis. David Daiches summarizes Aristotle’s views in reply to Plato’s charges in brief: “Tragedy gives new knowledge, yields aesthetic satisfaction and produces a better state of mind.” 

           Plato judges poetry nowthe educational standpoint, now from the philosophical one and then from the philosophical one and then from the ethical one. But he does not care to consider it from its own unique standpoint. He does not define its aims. He forgets that enery thing should be judged in terms of ite own aims and objective its own criteria of merit and demerit. We cannot fairly maintain that music is bad because if does not paint, or that painting is bad because it does not sing. Similarly, we cannot say that poetry is bad because it does not teach philosophy of ethics. If poetry, philosophy and ethics had identical function, how could they be different subjects?, To denounce poetry because it is not philosophy or ideal is clearly absurd. 

Paper-1 Faustus as a tragic hero

Vaghani Hitesh s

Roll no. - 38

SEM - I

Department of English

Paper no. – 1

Year – 2010-11

Topic:

Faustus as a tragic hero

                                                                        

                             Submitted to Mr. Jay Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Faustus as a tragic hero:-

                                                                                  We first see Faustus at the peak of his worldly career. He is already master of all the existing knowledge and skills. He is a famous physician, honored by whole cities and held in reverence by his student. Why, then did he become restless? Why was he unwilling   to remain “but Faustus, and a man”? Why did he feel an urge to command “all things that move between the quiet poles”? It is because a tragic hero feels the compulsion to realize himself fully in the face of all the odds, and that the test of his heroism is the degree of the risk he is willing to take. In this sense, the tragedy of Faustus is the tragedy of Adam. To Adam, paradise was not enough. He sought knowledge, and this was a forward step in the direction of self-realization. To the orthodox people, Adam’s action is surely sinful, just as Faustus’s action is wholly devilish in the eyes of the Chorus who opens and closes the play. Faustus’s opening soliloquy also represents his action as sinful because, after he has dismissed all studies but necromancy, the Good Angel tells him to put aside the dambed the book of magic, while the Evil Angel urges him to go forward in that famous art. 

              Marlowe sees the whole case not only as Good or Evil would see it would be seen by a man of flesh and blood, the man who takes the man who takes the risk and is prepared to face the consequences. The meaning of the play is not only that Faustus’s act was sinful and foolish. The meaning is in all that Faustus says, does, and becomes. The meaning is the total yield of the situation into which Faustus walks of his own free will, in accordance with the mysteries, tragic urge of his times. Faustus’s first move after deciding upon necromancy as the field of his research is one of arrogant and impatient lust for power. Marlowe sets his hero’s mind completely free to range forbidden realms. Faustus’s words here give a marvelous expression to the external elements of the Renaissance. “How am I glutted with conceit of this!” cries Faustus, as he gloats over the power which he expects to acquire though magic. It is true that he speaks in a random manner here, and his desires grow fantastic and vainglorious. But his absurd egotism is mixed with intellectual and humanitarian impulses. He would resolve or ambiguities read strange philosophy, read his country of the foreign domination and fortify it with a wall of brass, clothe the schoolboys in silk. When Valdes warns him that he must be resolute, Faustus’ courage is tested and he responds like a hero: “Valdes, as resolute am I in this / As thou to live.”He is prepared, at the end of Act-1, scene-1, to take the ultimate risk: “This night I’ll conjure, though I die therefore”. Later, in Act-1 Scene-3, he rebukes the Devil’s own messenger, Mephistophilis, whose heart faints as he anticipates Faustus’s awful fate. Faustus here speaks of his own “manly fortitude”, he scorns Mephistophilis’s warning: he rejects all hope of his heart’s desires. With this decision come new energy, new command. In Act-2, scene 1, Faustus ridicules such notions as hell and damnation. He is elated with the success of his first conjuring.

By the time of his second conjuring Act-1, scene-1, even before the signing of the bond, he confesses doubts. “Something sounds in mine ears: Abjure this magic, turn to God again!” he says. And he asks himself why he is wavering. He feels like turning to God again, but thinks that God does not love him. In this dialogue with the Good and Evil Angels, immediately following, the tone in which he speak of

                            “Contrition, prayer, repentance”

Hesitant and uncertain, ‘Sweet Faustus…..’’ pleads the Good Angels, and Faustus seems for a moment to yield, only to revert to his ungodly ways by the Evil Angels reminder of the “ honour ” and the “wealth”, which now lie within his power. But the doubts will not vanish, and Faustus lives out his power. But the boubls will not vanish, and Faustus lives out his twenty-four years as the first modern tragic man, part believer, part unbeliever, wavering between independence, and dependence upon God, now arrogant and confident, now anxious and worried, justified yet horribly unjustified.

            Faustus is forced constantly to renew his choice between two alternatives. In contrasted moods, he sees greater heights, and he experiences greater terror. Soon the gentle voice that sounds in his ears, urging him to give up his magic and return to God, takes the shape of “Fearful echoes” thundering in his ears: “Faustus, thou art damned” {Act-2, scene-2}. What he is learning is the truth of his own nature, that he is a creature as well as a creature, a man and not a God, a dependent and a responsible part of a greater whole. He learns that his soul is not a mere trifle which he can use as a commodity, and that contrition, prayer, repentance, hell and damnation are not just “illusions”. As the Evil Angel told him.

                         Between the high-soaring scholar of the first scene and the agonized figure of the final scene, there is a notable’s difference. In the final scene. Faustus enters with the scholars, and for the first time in the play he has normal compassionate discourse with his fellows. His role of Demi - God is over; he is human once more, a friend and befriended.

                      “An, gentleman, hear me with patience”

Says he who had been only recently acting as if he were the lord of all creation. His friends now seem more “sweet” he uses this word thrice for them then any “princely delicate” or the “Signiory of Emden”. Although the thrill of his exploits still lingers in his recollection of

                             “The wonders he has done”  

He is humbly and repentant. He logs to weep and pray but finds, himself prevented by the devils from doing so. He confesses to the scholars the cause of all his misery. Knowing his doom is near, he refuses their help and asks them not to talk to him but save themselves and depart. They terrier, leaving him to meet his fate alone.  

                In a long soliloquy Faustus reflects on the most rewarding type of scholarship. He first considers logic, quoting the Greek philosopher. Aristotle, but notes that disputing well seem to be the only goal of logic, and since Faustus’s debating skills are already good, logic is not scholarly enough for him, He considers medicine, with its possibility of achieving miraculous cures, is the most fruitful pursuit yet he notes that he has achieved great renown as a doctor already and that this fame has not brought him satisfaction. He considers law, quating, the Byzantion emperor Justinian, but dismisses law as too petty, dealing with trivial matters rather than larger ones.

                 Doctor Faustus is not only the first major Elizabethan tragedy, but the first to explore, the tragic possibilities of the direct clash between the Renaissance compulsion and the Hebraic-Christian. Tamburlaine symbolizes the outward thrust of the Renaissance, and Marlowe Furned the focus inward. Here he depicted the human soul as the tragic battlefield and wrote the first “Christion tragedy”

                      Faustus reaches levels of perception never gained by less venturesome individuals. He must see things with his own eyes. He does not want so mush what power can bring; he never takes the signatory of Emden, never builds a brass wall around Germany, never clothes the school boys in silk. He wants what all man, good and bad, have wanted. He wants to conquer time, space, and ignorance. Above all, he wants to know everything about

                                    “The plants, the herbs, the trees

                                          That grows upon the earth”

         “He explores this world and also the regions above this word; he tries to understand the secrete of the heavens. He digs into the past, making blind Homer sing to him, and Amphion play the harp for him. What Marlowe dramatises is not only the terror of the blank art as the old legend told about it, but the wonder of it, the wonder of the man who dared to use the black art and the wonder of the mysteries it reveals. But the play also points to the peculiar dilemma of modern times. On the one hand is human limitation; on the other is the compulsion of the modern man to deny his limitation, and to press ever further into the mysteries of a universe which appears steadily to yield more and more of its secrets to his enquiring mind. To rest content with his limitations would mean that he refuses to make the fullest use of his own God-given powers; yet to is somehow evil and may bring not only the present suffering but the horrors of eternity.”

                        Having gone upwasrd from medicine and law to theology, he envisions magic and necromancy as the crowning discipline, even though by most standards it would be the least noble, Faustus is not a villain, through; he is a tragic hero, a protagonist whose character flaws lead to his downfall. Marlowe imbues him with tragic grandeur in these early scenes. The logic he uses to reject religion may be flawed, but there is something impassive in the breath of his ambition, even if he pursues it through diabolical means. In Faustus’s long speech after the two angels have whispered in his ears, his rhetoric outlines the modern quest for control over nature.

                In his last despairing moments, Faustus asks why he was not born a creature lacking in a soul, or why his soul had to be immortal. Medieval theology held that man is because he believes. To this the answer of the Renaissance was that man is because he thinks and acts and discovers. Neither views as Marlowe presents Faustus’s dilemma, is wholly right or wholly wrong. In the world of tragedy, the hero can only take the road of experiment. He must follow his bent, take action, and live it through.

                       

Paper-2 The Story of My Experiments with Truth

Vaghani Hitesh s

Roll no. - 38

SEM - I

Department of English

Paper no. – 2

Year – 2010-11

Topic:

The Story of My Experiments with Truth

                                                                        

                  Submitted to Mr. Devarshi Mehta

                                                      

                                                      

                             Department of English,

                              Bhavnagar University.

The Story My Experiments with Truth

              M.K. Gandhi was primarily a man of God. Truth alone was his pole star and the words he spoke, the ideas he expressed are always studied in relation to his religion of truth. His greatness was an unusual greatness. He belonged to that race of great men who race great men who are great at many things and whose greatness beholds large areas of human experience.

His Autobiographical Record:-

                                                                                 In his autobiographical record, “The Story My Experiments with Truth”, Gandhiji had unfolded the various stages of the development of his personality. in it he had described in candid detail the events and circumstances of his life from birth to the launching of the events and circumstances of his life from birth to the launching of the non-co-operation movement in India in 1920. He did not continue the story beyond 1920 because it was already known to the public, his life having been lived in the limelight, in the continual blaze of controversy and political action. The latter part of Gandhi’s life till he was assassinated   on 30^th January on his way to prayer, was the life of the nation as well. As he grew in stature, the nation grew in strength and ultimately he was celebrated as the father of the nation.

Gandhiji: The Humanist:-

                                                                    Gandhi was primarily a humanist and a man of religion more than nationalist and patriot. He always identified himself with the lowest of the low and was a friend of the poor and the underdog. Although he worked for the freedom of India from the British rule, there was no hatred in his heart for the British. The Proverb, “Hate the sin, but love the sinner” was applicacable on him. 

The degrading and inhuman condition of woman and untouchables, whom he called Harijans, appalled him. He spent all of his energy for the emancipation of the untouchables and the downtrodden. He believed in the fundamental equality of all human beings. None are high and none are low for one who would devote his life to service. The distinction between high and low is a blot on Hinduism, which we must obliterate”.

Gandhiji labored all though his life fore the welfare of Harijans. He advocated that harijans should be granted religion, economic, social and educational equality. For him independence had no meaning if the Harijans were deprived of their essential rights.

The protection of cow was a subject as dear to Gandhi’s heart as Ramanama. In his opinion cow protection included cattle-breeding, improvement of the stock, humane treatment of bullocks and formation of model dairies etc. He condemned those so-called Hindus who made their bullocks work beyond their capacity and who cruelly belabors the poor animal, thus disgracing his religion. He defended cow-slaughter and wrote.

                   “The cow is the purest of sub-human life. She pleads before us on behalf of the whole of the sub-human species for justice to it at the hands of man, the first among all that lives. She seem to speak to us through her eyes; you are not appointed over us kill us and eat our flesh or otherwise ill treat us, but to be our friend and guardian.

It is for me a poem of pity. I worship it and shall defend its worship against the whole world.”

Satyagrahi Gandhi:-

                                                       Gandhiji was a profound reader. His reading was selective, not voracious and his mind absorbed all the creative, though that aimed at the regeneration of man. A chance reading of ‘Unto This Last’ by Ruskin made a deep impression on him. Consequently, he organized the Phoenix settlement near Durban and eater the Tolstoy Farm near Johannesburg.  An acquaintance with Tolstoy’s and Thoreau’s seminal writings made him develop his technique of passive resistance or Satyagraha. According to him, “Satyagraha is a method of securing rights by personal suffering: it is the reverse of resistance by arms. When I refuse to do a thing that is repugnant to my conscience, use soul force, if I do not obey the law, and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul force.”

Morality and Gandhi:-

                                              In his boyhood bays Gandhiji acquired faith in morality. He was convinced that morality is the basis of things and that truth is the substance of all morality. Thus Gandhiji once remarked that while God has given us some limited control over the means, we have none over the ends. In his philosophy of life, he said that ends means were convertible, which means that the far vision and the near vision are complementary and one must not be up against other. The distant goal is a necessity but present cannot be ignored and responsibility should not be cast aside.

Lawyer Gandhi:-

                                             After matriculation in 1887, Gandhiji sailed for England in 1888 to study law. He returned to India in 1891 after being called to the bar. He started practicing at Rajkot and Bombay but did not prove to be successful. Two years later he sailed for South Africa as counsel for n Indian firm and this was the turning point in his life.

As a practicing lawyer he put great premium on truth and honesty. He had no intention of earning either position or money by lying. He warned every new client at the beginning that he would not accept any false case. Consequently he built up such a reputation that no false case to come to him. Gradually most of his legal work was done in the interest of public

GANDHI THE PHILOSHOPHIST:-

                                                                                                  Gandhiji gave the practical message of spiritually, love truth and non -violence, but he did not enunciate any system of philosophy academic sense of term. He led a life of action and sacrificed him self for the welfare of humanity. Indeed there is a concord the between his philosophy and his daily conduct. He bulk of writing contain imperishable value which for the sake of convenience may be called ‘Ghandhism’ or’Ghandhianphilosophy’ but he did not consciously formulate any   system of philosophy either or speculation or empirical evidence. His ideas on god, truth non-violence, satyagarh, politics religion education and social problem have permanent validity and are relevant in the fast changing world of science and technology. Summing up Mahatma Gandhi as a practical  idealist, V.S.Mohan Rao writes:”…while Gandhi was idealistic in his approach, he was eminently pragmatic in the translation of his ideals into practice, that while his belief  in fundamental principles like Truth and non-violence was unshakable, his application of these principles was governed by a continuous process of experimentation “. Gandhi an ideology or Gandhism is not a compendium of dogmas and doctrines, rules and regulation, inhibitions and injunctions; but it is a way of life. Gandhiji did not say any new thing but he allied the old ideals of love, Truth and non-violence to modern problems.

Gandhi, the writer:-

                                                    Gandhiji was in fact no writer, nor was he particularly interested in the art of writing, but he had to write or talk a great deal in English. Though he had neither the time nor the inclination to become a writer, he had left behind him an imagination large volumes of writing, the whole of which is yet not fully collected, edited and published. Writing becomes for him merely a medium to convey, to explain, to clarify his thoughts and message. And these writings established him as a writer of distinction among Indian Masters of English.

Gandhiji used language as a necessary tool for achieving communication, for conveying information, for converting people to his point of view. In South Africa, Indian opinion served a similar purpose in India. Gandhiji merely wrote straight on, as a result there is no straining effect after emphasis.  His words often appear insipid or anemic, yet they are Gandhi’s words, and their very bareness depicts their strength. His mastery over language, however, bare and simple, was always adequate to the place, mood and occasion. Its greatest strength lies in its utter sincerity and transparent honesty. Simplicity, economy, frankness and unpretentiousness were the virtues that Gadhiji practiced all these virtues strengthened his writing.

By deliberate choice and conscious practice Gandhi was the master of his medium. The bulk of Gandhi’s writings is full of statements memorable for their clarity and pointed ness as for example:

                 “Swaraj can never be a free gift by one nation to another. It is a treasure to be purchased with a nation’s best blood. Swarwj will be the fruit of incessant labor, suffering beyond measure.”

             Another such statement of Gandhi is also one of the imperishable classic. The following words could be carved for ever in our racial memoirs:

                 “I have no desire whatsoever to conceal from this court the fact that to preach disaffection towards the existing system of government has become almost a passion with him…..I knew that I was playing with fire. I ran the risk, and if I was set free, I would still do the same….I wanted to avoid violence, I want to avoid violence. Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of creed. But I had to take my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I considered had done irreparable harm to my country, or incur the risk of the mad fury of my people bursting fourth when they understood the truth from my lips.”

National Problem and their Reform:-

                                                                           For Gandhiji, fight on the political front was only a small part total flight that he felt bound to sustain throughout his life. To him, national realization also meant the ending of political subjection and economic degradation, the removal of social inequalities like unsociability, cast arrogance, occupational prejudices etc., the reform of education and giving new life to literature and language. These were all inter-related problems, but they had to be treated individually also. He felt that through Satyagraha, political freedom could be achieved and with it the freedoms will come, but only if the necessary effort was to be put forth. Gandhiji saw that apart from the evil of foreign tulle, there were two formidable evils. There evils were idleness and poverty. The cure for idleness was work and cure for poverty was, firstly, the mobilization of all resources, secondly equitable distribution and thirdly, limiting population growth thought through brahamcharya.

Gandhi’s Educational Views:-

                                                             His education insights also had a fundamental sanity, especially in the context of the rural characters of India. The British system wanted to create an ‘educational middle class’, far from the hard actualities of life. This type of education brought forth the aversion to all forms of manual labor. Gandhiji said,”do and learn”. He believed that education meant to make the child participate in the creative life and acquire an intimate understanding of his environment. Through such participation and understanding the child was expected to develop a sense of responsibility for the well-being of the community.

Conclusion:-

                                    If Gandhiji was the ‘Mahatma’, he was also ‘Bapu’, everybody’s friend and mentor. He is not of India only, but belongs to the whole world, even as a Jesus or a Buddha belongs to all humanity. His greatness was not sudden but his greatness was of an ordinary man who though a long process of trial and error achieved a unique greatness of his own. He is no more with us but his soul still beacons us to the path of peace, non-violence, virtue and righteousness. The light he showed is still shining and will shine for ever.

                     Gandhiji won the political freedom with the weapon of Satyagraha. It is absolutely a non-violent weapon. The aim of Satyagraha movement is not to capture power but to control and guide power effectively. A Satyagrahi’s object is to convert and not to coerce the wrong doer. He never ignores the distinction between evil and the evil doer. He was both the propounded of the technique of Satyagraha as also its practitioner. The greatest achievement and lasting contribution of Mahatma Gandhi consists in giving the shape of action to the ideal of Satyagraha.

                       Such was Gandhi the prophet whom espoused truth and defied violence, banished fear and unfurled the flag of Sarvodaya. He tried to build the edifice of humanity’s future, not on the quicksand’s of advance technological and global industrial strife, but on the durable foundation of love, truth, chastity, honest labor, equitable sharing, simple living and the uncompetitive ordering of national and international affairs. We can never reject his ethics and we can do it only if we are sure that there is a better and surer way to human salvation. 

Paper-4 Goldsmith Sheridan & Antisentimental comedy

Vaghani Hitesh s

Roll no. - 38

SEM - I

Department of English

Paper no. – 4

Year – 2010-11

Topic:

Goldsmith Sheridan & Antisentimental comedy

                                                                        

                                                                           Submitted to Ruchira Dudharejiya

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Goldsmith Sheridan & Antisentimental comedy

Different forms of comedy:-

                                                        “Artificial comedy” is another name for the comedy of manners which reached the height of its achievement during the Restoration in England. In the history of British drama, the comic genius of the British nation has expressed it self in several distinct forms. Its most striking manidestation are: Romantic comedy; comedy of humours; comedy of manners etc.

Romantic comedy:-

                                         Romantic comedy achieved its greatest successes in the hands of Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s comedies are essentially romantic. They are romantic because there is in them a mingling of the romantic love-interest with mirth and fun; because they are also a mixture of serious or tragic elements and comic elements; and because they do not observe any of the classical unities of time, place and action. In addition to all this, these comedies are rich in characterization both as regards range or variety and depth. The Merchant of Venice, as you like it, and Twelfth Night are among the masterpieces of romantic comedy.

Comedy of Humours:-

                                              The comedy of humours reached the height of its success in the hands of Ben Jonson. Jonson tried to recall comedy from its romantic entanglements and to restore it to the position which it held in ancient Roman times. The characters in the comedies of Jonson represent certain well-marked traits which are known as humors. The boastful soldier, the clever servant, the greedy and jealous husband, the gay young man, the dupe-such are the characters in Jonson’s play, Every Man in His Humour.  Likewise, a vainglorious knight, a public jester, an affected courtier, a doting husband, and certain others exhibit their respective oddities or traits in the play, Every Man out of His Humour. Even in his masterpiece, Volpone, Jonson represents the characters of a miser-cum-sensualist, a clever servant, a shameless lawyer, a wiling cuckold who offers his wife in return for an inheritance, a foolish English traveler, and so on. This play is chiefly a satire on vice and has an obvious moral purpose. In fact, a moral purpose is the dominant motive behind Jonson’s comedy of humours.

Comedy of Manners or Artificial comedy;-

                                                                                     The comedy of manners, which is often described as artificial comedy, arose during the Restoration. The comic dramatists of this period wrote plays picturing the external details of life, the fashions of the time, its manners, its modes of speech, its interests. Their characters were chiefly men and women of fashion, and their plots and love-intrigues are developed with clever and witty dialogue. The scenes are laid in the drawing-rooms, the coffee-houses, the streets, and the parks and gardens of London. The Puritans had suppressed drama which was revived with the Restoration of monarchy in England. The comic plays of this period represent the reaction of the public and the authors against Puritanism. These plays represent social institutions especially marriage, in a ridiculous light. Social conventions are attacked and mocked at chiefly for the sake of witty raillery or to give point to an intrigue. The first of this school of comic dramatists was Sir George Etherege, who established the comedy of manners. He was followed by William Wycherley, William Congreve, Sir John Vanbugh, and George Farquhar. Congreve is easily the greatest writer of the comedy of manners. His masterpiece, the way of the world, carries the interest of dialogue, the verbal exchanges between character and character, to its extreme development. As a painter of the contemporary life of fashion and the manners of fashionable society, Congreve has no equal his use of irony and paradox in exposing the foibles of society masterly and his wit is unsurpassed.

The Revival of the comedy of Manners or the Artificial Comedy by Goldsmith and Sheridan:-

                                                                             Goldsmith and Sheridan wrote comedies free from the sentimentality and the moralizing which had overwhelmed the comic plays of their time. They did so by reviving the comedy of manners or artificial comedy of the Restoration. In this context, Sheridan occupies a commanding position with his plays, The Rivals and The School for sandal, the letter being his masterpiece. The school for scandal indeed represents almost the perfection of artificial comedy. This play reveals the selfishness, envy, and hypocrisy of the society of the time with a remarkable skill and a sure knowledge of theatrical effect. Here Sheridan captured the current forms of fashionable speech and heightened them with fine phrases and sustained wit. He built up a comedy of manners or an artificial comedy with more striking situations in it than any other play in English. It is without dispute the most brilliant artificial comedy written in the eighteenth century, and one of the most successful ever produced on the stage. It gives us a satirical picture of the contemporary scene-the love of fashion, the extravagant habits of young men, the love-intrigues, the exorbitant rates of interest charged by money-lenders, and the hypocrisy of fashionable men and woman. The author also pokes fun at contemporary journalism, with sarcastic references to “The Town and country Magazine” and to Mr. Snake.”

The Meaning of the Comedy of Manners:-

                                                                                    The comedy of manners is a phrase often used in literary history and criticism. It is particularly applied to the Restoration dramatists in England, and especially to Congreve and Wycherly; but it is a type of comedy which can flourish in any civilized urban society, and we see it again in Sheridan and in Oscar Wilde. This kind of comedy makes fun not so much of individual human beings and their humours as of social groups and their fashionable manners. It is generally satirical, though in a good-natured way. The comedy of manners is a highly articial form of drama and is generally full of verbal wit.  

The Themes and the Characters in the comedy of Manners:-

                      The comic dramatists of the Restoration in England devoted themselves to picturing the external details of life, the fashion of the time, its manners, its interests, and its mode of speaking. They depicted the fashionable drawing rooms, the coffee house, the streets gardens and parks of London. Their characters were chiefly people of fashion; and their plots were, for the most part, love-intrigues developed with cleaver dialogue.

What is Sentimental comedy:-

                                                            The period of the Restoration in England had witnessed the emergence and vogue of what came to be known as the comedy of manners. By the year 1700, this comedy ceased to flourish. The eighteenth century saw the rise and popularity of another kind of comedy known as the sentimental comedy. The sentimental strain in English comedy became in this century more marked than it had ever been before. The audiences in the middle years of this century wished to be moved not to laughter but to tears. They also expected some kind of moral enlistment by witnessing a comedy on the stage. In short, they loved something moral and pathetic, something edifying and genteel; they wanted an agreeable dramatic sermon with a happy ending. One of the principal writers of this kind of comedy was Richard Steele whose best play in this line was The Conscious LOVERS. Two dramatists of the eighteenth century, however, reacted against the sentimental comedies of the time. In the face of the sentimental comedy, Goldsmith and Sheridan attempted a revival of the Restoration comedy of manners without its coarseness and immorality; and they both succeeded because of their theatrical talents. However, even they were ultimately powerless against the tide of tears which flowed in response to scenes of touching distress and moving repentance in most comedies of the time.

What “The School for Scandal” Would Have Become in the Hands of a Sentimental Dramatist:-

                                                                                The School for Scandal is an excellent example of the anti-sentimental kind of comedy attempted by Sheridan. In this play there is no excess of feeling or emotion or sentiment in any scene. Sheridan shows a commendable restraint in his treatment of the subject. He moves us to laughter and never to tears; and the laughter is more or less intellectual. In the hands of another dramatist of that period, the theme of this play might have developed into sentimental drama. ‘The Teazles’ domestic life would have provided comic relief; Maria, a defenceless ward in Sir Peter’s household would have become the pathetic heroine slandered by the scandal-club and pestered by Joseph’s insidious attention. Sir Oliver, probably her father in disguise, would have appeared in the final Act to rescue her from persecution and to restore her to her faithful lover Charles who had plunged into dissipation because she was too modest to reciprocate his love. That Sheridan was quite capable of so tearful a treatment is proved by his Ode to Scandal   but here he confined himself, with admirable skill and judgment, to making vice ridiculous. Most of the character here exemplify some vice or weakness with that consistent exaggeration which provokes laughter because, on the stage, it seems true to life.

Joseph, the Hypocritical Man of Feeling:-

                                                                                   In this play Sheridan introduces no such sentimental scenes as are to be found between Julia and Faulkland in The Rivals. He presents Charles, the true man of feeling who gaily avoids fine sentiments, and Joseph, the hypocritical man of feeling who conceals malice under false moral or noble sentiments. The word “sentiment” or “sentimental” is repeatedly used in the play in relation to Joseph: thus Lady Sneer well refers to him as “a sentimental knave”, while Sir Peter, on more than one occasion, refers to him as “a man of sentiment”. The word “ sentiment “ or “ sentimental ”    here is intended to convey certain moral attitudes, but we know very well from the very outset that Joseph merely pretends to be a moral individual. Charles has a laugh at Joseph’s brand of morality when he says that, if a beautiful woman were to offer herself to him, he would borrow some of Joseph’s morality. Joseph’s intrigue with Lady Sneer well, his joining her in spreading slanderous stories about Charles in order to hinder Charles’s marriage with Maria, his making amorous advances to Lady Teazle when he is actually trying to win Maria as a wife, his presenting to be a well-wisher of  Sir Peter’s when he is at the same time trying to seduce Sir Peter’s wife, his ingratitude towards Sir Oliver who had sent him a large sum of money from India, his complete lack of feeling for a needy relative in distress, his complete want of any brotherly affection or regard for Charles-all these show him to be a complete hypocrite-cum-knave. Thus the question of any genuine sentiment in this man’s heart does not arise at all; nor does he have any moral scruple. Joseph himself is perfectly aware of his own hypocrisy and the mask which he wears in order to deceive people. After Sir Oliver, in the disguise of Mr. Stanley has left him, he shows this awareness in a soliloquy by clearly stating that his aim is “to gain the reputation of benevolence without incurring the expense”.