THE VICTORIAN COMPROMISE
The Victorian Compromise was a combination of the positive and negative aspects of the Victorian Age :

Expansion, great technology, communication and colonial Empire (MIDDLE CLASS)

Poverty, injustices, starvation “SLUMS” (WORKING CLASS)
The Victorian middle class and the Royal family were PURITAN and moralisers. They promoted a code of values
often hypocritical, based on personal duty, hard work, respectability and (sometimes false!)charity.
RESPECTABILITY, especially, was a combination of morality and hypocrisy, severity and conformity to social
standards : everybody had to possess good manners, a comfortable house with servants, regular attendance at
church and charitable activities. For example, “philantrophy” was a frequent attitude of Victorian middle class
families : they said the most important thing in life was to help “stray children, fallen women and drunken men”,
but it never happened !
The family life was based on patriarchal family, where the husband represented authority, and women only took
care of children and the house. Sexuality was generally repressed in its public and private forms, and “prudery“
(1) in its most extreme manifestations, led to the denunciation of nudity even in art , and in the rejection of
words with sexual connotations from the everyday vocabulary (2) :
of course, these extreme forms of prohibition often led to opposite tendences and extreme desires, strange
attitudes and behaviours as a consequence of repression.
What was the attitude of the MIDDLE CLASS to the WORKING CLASS social problems ?
Actually, Puritanism considered poverty as a sin, because Puritans believed in hard work and progress (theory of
predestination). Thus, poor people living in the slums were considered as miserable sinners who well deserved their
destiny. That’s why the middle class completely ignored the social problems of the slums.
Their attitude can be justified not only from a RELIGIOUS point of view, but also from a political and scientific
point of view :
from a POLITICAL pojnt of view, factory policy was not well controlled according to the policy of “laissèz
faire”, by the economist ADAM SMITH. He said that the state didn’t have to interfere with economic activities
inside, and the only duty of the state was to defend the country from external enemies, and protect colonies.
from a SCIENTIFIC point of view, the middle class was influence by CHARLES DARWIN’s theories on the
“natural selection”. Darwin said that man is the result of a process of evolution based on the fight for survival.
In this fight, “the best survive, the worst die”. The middle class applied this theory to the social context : “the
best” were the middle class, “the worst” were the poor working class, that didn’t have to survive (“social
DARWINISM”)
_______________________________________________________________
(1) Prudery : extreme regularity, attention, often hypocritical, in BEHAVIOUR and SPEECH,
especially in sexual matters
Prudery, of course, forbade prostitution and homosexuality : but brothels were very frequent
in London, and homosexuality, too : in Europe it was called “the English vice”!
(2) For example, the word “leg” was forbidden : both women’s and tables’ legs were covered with
long skirts or clothes. Another example : novels were often read aloud; so, novelists had to avoid
topics or words that could cause embarassement to the ladies present in the audience !
C.DICKENS AS A REAL PAINTER OF THE URBAN VICTORIAN “SLUMS”
From “HARD TIMES” :
Coketown
“It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had permitted it ; but it
was a town of unnatural red and black, like the painted face of a savage.
It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, interminable serpents of smoke (……) and where the piston of a
steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.
It contained several large streets, all very like one another, and many small streets, more like one another,
inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out, at the same hours, with the same sound, upon
the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow (……).
All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe characters of black and white. The jail might
have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail, for anything appeared to the contrary in the
graces of their constructions.
Fact, fact, fact everywhere in the material aspect of the town ;
Fact, fact, fact even in the immaterial.
The school was all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between
the lying-in hospital and the cemetery “
From “OLIVER TWIST” :
Jacob’s Island
“Near that part of Thames (………) where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest and the vessels on the river
blackest with the dust of colliers and the smoke of close-built low-roofed houses , there exists the filthiest, the
strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name,
to the great mass of inhabitants.
To reach this place, the visitor has to penetrate through a maze of close, narrow and muddy streets, thronged by
the roughest and poorest of waterside people.
(……)
Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged
children and the raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along, assailed by offensive sights
and smells from the narrow alleys.
(…...)
In such a neighbourhood (……) stands Jacob’s Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch (……), known in the days of this
story as Folly Ditch.
(……)
Walls and decaying foundations [of the houses] ; every repulsive lineament of poverty (……); all these ornament
the banks of Folly Ditch.
In Jacob’s Island, the warehouses are roofless and empty ; the walls are crumbling down ; the windows are
windows no more ; the doors are falling into the streets ; the chimneys are blackened, but they yield no smoke.
(……) ; now it is a desolate island, indeed.
The houses have no owners ; they are broken, and [inhabited] by those who have the courage ; and there they live,
and there they die.
Coketown
1)”Coketown” is the name of an imaginary town, where the novel is set. Why this name ? What are the dominant colours of this
town? Why are these colours “unnatural” ?
Coketown = town of coke, carbon, an industrial town. RED and BLACK. “Unnatural” because everything is dirty.
2)Then Dickens describes the people of Coketown. Describe their life in the slum.
They are poor people. Their life is always the same, they get up at the same hour, they go working at the same hour, in the same
factories,they do the same job, the same movements, in the same places, in the same moment of the day.
3)And the buildings ?What is their main characteristic ?
Buildings are all similar old, decaying, black and dirty, and you cannot distinguish them
4)What does “fact” mean ?
Everything is extremely concrete, functional, “workful”, for a material gain, utilitaristic
5)What does the last metaphor mean ? (“between the lying-in hospital and the cemetery “)
When they were born and when they die, from birth to death.
6)What about Dickens’s language and style ?

Descriptive, very detailed

Similes : a) the colour of the houses is compared to the painted face of a savage
b) smoke is compared to black interminable serpents
c) the piston of the machine is compared to the head of an elephant
These 3 similes are taken from the animal and savage world to show the terrible conditions of the working class
in the slums, exploited as animals in a savage life

Repetitions (one another, same, fact) = monotony of their life

Irony and humour (in the similes of animals, when he says that a hospital seems a prison and viceversa…) ; a bitter irony
7)What about the narrator ?
3rd person narrator, omniscient, an observer
Jacob’s Island
1)What is Jacob’s Island ?
It is a slum in London, on the Thames, surrounded by a muddy ditch called Folly Ditch (because it is a “folly” to live there!)
2)What is the dominant colour ?
Black, for dust and smoke
3)What







details of the slum are described?
Vessels (ships), especially coal boats
Low and dirty houses, with decaying foundations and crumbling walls
Muddy streets
Empty warehouses with no roof
Black chimneys
Raff (rubbish) and refuse of the river
Terrible sights and smells
4)What about the people ?
Waterside people,very poor,unemployed workers,heavers,prostitutes,dirtychildren.All those who live there have a great courage!
5)What





about the language and style ?
Descriptive, very detailed
Everything is exaggerated (see the use of superlatives at the beginning)
Repetitions
Irony and humour (the name “Folly Ditch”, “All these ORNAMENT the bank..”, people who have courage)
Great sense of expectation, of suspence : J’sIsland is “discovered” little by little, as the visitor gets into the slum
6)What about the narrator ?
3rd person narrator, omniscient, a visitor
“OLIVER TWIST” (Charles DICKENS)
Oliver Twist is a young boy that was born in a workhouse, from an unknown and unmarried mother, who dies giving birth. He spends his
early years in the workhouse.
He runs away to London, and he lives a lot of unpleasant adventures, in the terrible slums of this city : he meets thieves, gangs of
criminals, bad people, he is kidnapped, he is constantly in danger. Only after a terrible and adventurous life, Oliver is adopted and he
begins a new life.
The structure and the plot of this novel were influenced by its publication in serial form : the lives of a great number of characters,
each of them has his own story, and these stories are set together by coincidences.
The main theme of the novel is Dickens’ criticism of the social order from within, especially the sufferings and the terrible living
conditions in the workhouses, in the overcrowded London slums.
The main setting of the novel is London, with its contrast between the dirty, squalid slums, and the parks and rich houses of the upper
middle class, two separate worlds.
From “OLIVER TWIST” : “ I want some more”
(At the age of 9, Oliver is taken to a workhouse …………………..)
The room in which the boys were fed was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end, where the master,
assisted by one or two women, gave the gruel at meal-times ; of which composition, each boy had one
porringer and no more – except on festive occasions – and two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.
The bowls never wanted washing ; the boys polished them with their spoons, till they shone again. And when
they had performed this operation, they would sit staring at the copper with such eager eyes as if they
could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed ; and they were sucking their fingers, to look
for some splashes of gruel that might have cast thereon. (Boys have generally excellent appetites!).
Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for 3 months : at last they got
so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, one day, told his companions that unless he had another
basin of gruel “per diem”, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next to him.
A council was held because lots of children went to their master one evening, to ask for more gruel.
One evening the gruel was served, with very short commons, as usual. The gruel soon disappeared.
Oliver was desperate with hunger, and he rose from the table and, advancing to the master, basin and spoon
in his hand, said : “Please, sir, I want some more”.
The master was a fat, healthy man. He turned pale and gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel
for some seconds. His assistants were paralysed with wonder.
“What?”, said the master.
“Please,sir”, replied Oliver, “I want some more”
(……………….)
The masters sat in a solemn conclave. Horror was depicted in their face!
“For more!”, said one of the masters, “Do I understand that he asked for more after he had eaten the
supper allotted by the dietary?”
“He did! : that boy will be hung!”
Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman’s opinion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver was
ordered to instant confinement.
(……………….)
Oliver remained a close prisoner, in a dark and solitary room.
During the period of his solitary incarceration, Oliver was denied to the benefit of exercise, the pleasure
of society or the advantages of religious consolation. It was a very cold weather, and he had his ablution
every morning under the pump, in a stone yard, with repeated applications of a cane. Moreover, he was
carried every day into the hall, where the boys were having dinner, without eating, of course, and as an
example for them.
Comprehension
1)Describe the room where the boys were fed.
A large stone hall. There was a copper with the gruel.
2)What are the boys given to eat ?
A very short common of gruel in their dishes and a little bread.
3)What did the children ask their master ? Why ?
They asked more food because they were hungry.
4)Who asked “some more” ?
Oliver had the courage to ask for some more gruel.
5)What was the master and his assistants’ reaction ?
It was an exaggerated reaction : they were astonished, paralysed and very angry.
6)What happened to Oliver ?
He was confined.
7)What could Oliver NOT do after his isolation ?
He could do no movements, he could have no relations and no religious consolation.
8)Find examples of irony.
9)In what sense is this passage a social criticism ?
10)In what sense is this passage autobiographic ?
CHARLES
DARWIN (1809-1882)
About Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin was born in England in 1809: His father was a physician and his grandfather was a
philosopher and a naturalist : it is not a surprise that he grew with a great interest in scientific topics!
He was only 16 when he went to study medicine at Edinburgh University, but then he changed his mind and
went to Cambridge University to study theology, to become a clergyman.
His deep love for naturalistic studies remained, and, after finishing university, he accepted an invitation
to serve as an unpaid naturalist on a ship, called Beagle, which was leaving on a 5 year scientific expedition
to the Pacific coast of South America. During this expedition he especially studied fossils and other living
organisms, such as birds, tortoises, kangaroos, and he also collected a lot of specimens, that he frequently
sent to Cambridge.
The result of his study was his famous and controversial book “On the Origin of the Species by means of
Natural Selection”, published in 1859, where he introduced his theory on evolution.
Darwin lived with his wife and children in a village near London and published various works on biology . He
died in 1882 and was buries in Westminster Abbey.
Pre-Darwinian theories
Some ancient philosophers expressed the idea that Nature produces a great variety of creatures and species,
apparently randomly.
Some creatures survive, other die : in ancient times, they simply thought that the creatures that can survive are
those that can better provide for themselves and can reproduce successfully. So, some creatures are obviously
stronger.
Until the early 19th century, the main idea in Western societies was that of Jean Baptiste Lamarck (“Lamarckism”)
: differences between species may be caused by their adaptation to the environment. The earth’s environment, over
long periods of time, can have little, slow and weak changes, and individuals can get adaptive traits.
Of course, for a vague mechanism of evolution, the new acquired characters were inherited by the future generations,
eventually causing transmutation of species.
This was Lamarck’s theory.
Darwin’s
“natural selection”
Between 1842 and 1844, Charles Darwin introduced his theory of the “natural selection”, to explain the progressive
adaptation of the individuals to the environment.
He defined natural selection as
“the principle by which each slight variation
[of traits] is useful and preserved”
But he didn’t simply observed the changes of the individuals, he gave a scientific motivation to them.
Natural selection is the process by which favourable traits (=better condition of surviving in the environment), that
are heritable (=transmitted from parent to offspring), become more common in the next generations, and
unfavourable traits, that are heritable too, become less common and nearly disappear. Thus, there is an inevitable
selection of individuals.
Darwin said that natural selection acts on the “phenotype” (=the observable characteristic of an organism), and
individuals with favourable phenotypes better survive and reproduce, than individuals with unfavourable phenotypes.
When the phenotype has also a genetic basis, it is a “genotype” : the phenotype-genotype combination, when
inherited, will be positive for a significant evolution of the species.
Darwin began his study on natural selection by analogy to what he called “artificial selection”, a process by which
animals with traits considered better by human breeders are favoured for reproduction. If we extend this exemple,
NATURE can have the same function of human breeders for all species.
However, Darwin especially concentrated on the problem of natural selection.
The hereditary factor was only observed by Darwin, and better studied by other scientists. He only limited to speak
about “pangenesis”, that he defined as
“a simple hypotetical mechanism of heredity”
For exemple, he noticed that some parent’s phenotypes
explain the reason.
can
but also can’t appear in the offspring, and he couldn’t
Darwin and religion
We all know that religion and science are often in contrast, and Darwin studied both science and theology.
As regards his religious evolution, Darwin’s family was Nonconformist ( = a branch of Protestant religion that refused
common standards, conventions, rules, customs, traditions of the Church of England).
He studied theology, and he wanted to become a clergyman, but some events of his life changed his ideas.
During the Beagle voyage, he began studying some mysteries of nature, asking some difficult questions, as, for
exemple, why beautiful deep-ocean creatures had been created where nobody could see them! Or why some natural
events were so wonderful but so cruel at the same time! So, he began to think that religion was only a “tribal strategy”,
that is, a pretext for humble minds to justify something.
His daughter Anne’s death , after a long and terrible disease, marked the final religious crisis for him, refusing for
ever the idea of a benevolent God.
When people asked him if he were an atheist, he said that he didn’t refuse the existence of God, so he was not an
atheist, but more an “ agnostic”, as he said, (=a person that has no absolute or certain knowledge of the existence or
non-existence of God), that brought him to “religious scepticism”.
Darwin’s theories and his times
Darwin’s ideas were inspired by the observations that he had made in his voyage on the Beagle, but also by the theories
of two economists :
THOMAS MALTHUS. He said that population increases exponentially, but the food supply only arithmetically.
So, there are inevitable limitations of resources, with demographic implications, leading to a struggle for
existence, in which only the strongest survive
ADAM SMITH. He spoke about a regulating mechanism in free market, that is called “invisible hand”, that
suggests that prices are strictly connected to supplies and demands, that are not always proportional.
However, Darwin himself influenced his times :
Darwin’s idea of the natural selection encouraged the so called social DARWINISM , a term originated in the
1890s : “the best survive, the worst die” was a concept applied to the social context in an arbitrary way.
HERBERT SPENCER, a positivist philosopher of the time, first introduced the term “survival of the fittest”. He
wanted to summarize Darwin’s theories with the word “fitness”, a low that establishes the surviving of the
best organisms. Unfortunately, this phrase began to be often used by non-biologists, and they identified the
fittest with the superior species. When Darwin realized this misunderstanding, he wanted to change the
name natural selection into natural preservation.
Darwin’s implications in the future
In the future history, Darwin’s theory of the natural selection had a lot of contradictory and arbitrary implications.
Communism (Marx and Engels), for exemple, considered Darwin’s theory in a very positive way, as a very progressive
and modern form of action, because the fight for survival means progress and civilization in society.
Darwin’s theories were used, unfortunately, to justify colonialism, imperialism and even worse, extreme forms of
selection, as in the Nazi regime. Even eugenics was influenced by Darwin : it is a social philosophy that, in general,
advocated the improvement of some human hereditary traits
with different and various forms of intervention.
Eugenics has different targets : to save resources, to lessen human sufferings, selective breeding, some particular
prenatal tests, genetic screening, birth in vitro ; but, in some historical periods, it was to act on human faculties, to
create more intelligent, or healthier people (see the Nazi Regime, that used eugenics as a pretext for racial
discrimination).
More recently, Darwin’s theories were applied also in psychology, on the hypothesis that even the human brain can
make a natural selection of some stimula coming from outside. This theory was used for the study of language
learning, for exemple
GREGOR MENDEL
(1822-1884)
At Darwin’s time, nothing was known of modern genetics and
hereditary factor, that is, the transfer of
characteristics from parent to offspring.
Darwin only supposed a mechanism of heredity, accepting the ideas of Lamarck. Darwin couldn’t explain that some
traits could be inherited even if they are not clearly expressed in the parent at the time of reproduction ; maybe
some traits were sex-linked, others were not (“pangenesis”).
The greatest discoveries were made by the Austrian monk Gregor MENDEL, a contemporary of Darwin, who published
his work on pea-plants in 1865. Mendel is considered as the father of modern genetics, but his work remained in
obscurity and he was rediscovered in 1901.
For his studies on the inheritance of traits in pea-plants, he was inspired by his physics teacher at the university, and
by other monks at the monastery, who studied the variations of plants and made studies in the monastery garden.
Mendel showed that the inheritance of traits follows particular lows, after called Laws of Mendel.
After he completed his work with peas, he turned to experiment with honey-bees, to extend his work to animals.
Darwin only noticed that some traits, some parent’s phenotypes, can or can’t appear in the offspring. Mendel
noticed that they can also skip some generations, “lying dormant” in some individuals until they mate with someone who
has the same phenotype.
Mendel based his studies on hereditary factor on dominant phenotypes, that are genetically stronger and so more
likely to be inherited, and recessive phenotypes, that are genetically weaker; the laws of Mendel, explain the
different combinations
.
Some exemples of traits that can be inherited, studied by Mendel, are hair and eye colour, the most evident, but also
rarer characters, such as a albinism, blood type, cheek dimples, face freckles, form and shortness of fingers and toes,
and even the rare six finger hand.
Mendel lived in the same period of Darwin.
Surely Mendel read the German translation of Darwin’s Origin of the Species.
Darwin never had a copy of Mendel’s papers, but surely he heard about Mendel’s studioes.
THOMAS HARDY
(1840-1928)
Hardy said that the life of man was conditioned by a negative force that delights in tormenting mankind, called
the Immanent Will
or First Cause. Thus, man is only a puppet in the hands of this negative force, and he is
condemned to a life of sorrow and pain ; even suicide is useless (see Shopenhouer).
This negative destiny is not only limited to the present generation, but, according to Darwin’s theories on
heredity, it is transmitted in the future, it goes on to the generations to come, as a sort of obscure “nemesis” (=a
bad omen), thus there is no hope for the future. All Hardy’s novels have got a negative and tragic end, and the
omniscient narrator makes you understand that something terrible is always going to happen in the story.
Nature is the perfect instrument of the Immanent Will : at first, Nature is a friend for man, a sort of “mother”
that seems to protect and love mankind (Nature is the constant setting of Hardy’s novels); then, Nature changes
into a sort of “step-mother” (see Leopardi), an enemy always hostile to man and human actions.
The perfect example of this theory is Hardy’s poem “The convergence of the twain”, about the sinking of the
liner Titanic. The Titanic, the expression of human technological perfection, will be destroyed by the collision with
an iceberg, the symbol of the Immanent Will inside nature .
RUDYARD KIPLING
(1865-1936)
He was born in Bombay, India, but he got the English nationality, he studied in English schools, so his vision of
Anglo-Indian relationships was controversial.
He loved the mystery of India, its exuberant nature, cities and people. But he was also a strong supporter of
the British imperialism. He thought that the British had a natural superiority over the native Indians. His country
was India, but he loved England too, and its colonial power and duty. Thus, Kipling had a bad imperialist reputation
during the first decades of the XXth century.
His famous poem “The White Man’s Burden” was considered as the manifesto of the British Imperialism.
Kipling describes natives as childlike, thus the obligation (“burden”) of white people to rule over them, for their
benefit, till they adopt western national culture.
This position may be racist, but also philantrophic and patronising : the white man has got the moral duty and
obligation to help the other populations, to improve their condition, to better themselves, because Imperialism has
got the “beneficent role” to avoid “poverty and ignorance”.
Kipling thinks that this is a very hard work for Britain, thus he calls this duty “burden”.
Robert Louis STEVENSON
STEVENSON and his social context
Stevenson was born in Edimburgh, and the Scottish culture greatly influenced his life and thought.
In a strict Victorian England, Scotland was even stricter and more rigorous : influenced by Calvinism and
Presbyterianism, Scots lived a kind of double life :
on the surface, official and oppressive Calvinism and respectability, in opposition to a real personality underneath.
As London has the respectable West End and the terrible poverty of the East End, Edimburgh, too, was divided into the
“New Town”, with its big squares and geometrical order and the “Old Town”, with its dark quarters and criminal
underworld.
Stevenson lived this conflict with his social background : the respectable world of the middle class, and his real nature.
He grew his hair long, his manners were eccentric, he read Charles Darwin, he was an anticonformist and a dandy, with a
Bohemian life style, he felt compassion for the relics of society of the Old Town, in open contrast with the ideas of
Calvinism.
“The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1886)
P L O T
The story was born one night after a nightmare. Stevenson wrote for 3 days and produced a first draft of his novel (or
better, a long short story). Stevenson burnt it, considering it too sensational and exaggerated, and spent other 3 days
re-writing and 6 months polishing.
This novel became immediately very popular, it was dramatised on stage and turned into many films versions.
Dr Jekyll, a famous scientist who lives a quiet and sober life, is obsessed with the idea that his evil tendences (that are,
for him and for Stevenson, too, quite normal!)can be separated from his good side, by creating two different beings : one
totally good and one totally bad.
Discovering a drug that works this change, he takes it, and turns himself into a different person, physically deformed,
and with an evil nature. This ugly man, who commits all sorts of crimes, is called Mr Hyde. When Dr Jekyll wants to return
to his good self, he must take the drug again.
However, fearing that for some reasons he could remain trapped within the body of Hyde, Jekyll gives instructions for
his house and servants, to be at Hyde’s disposal, opens a bank account in Hyde’s name, and even makes Hyde as the only
heir in his will.
This particularly worries his friend and lawyer Mr Utterson, who tries to discover more about Hyde, and why Jekyll
protect him.
With time, Hyde’s evil nature grows, committing any kind of crimes. Jekyll is afraid, and he would like to get rid of Mr
Hyde, but he discovers he has lost control over him : Hyde takes over Jeckyll’s body without needing the drug anymore.
Jekyll cannot solve the situation,so he closes himself into his laboratory and commits suicide, leaving a long letter in which
he explains his case. His body is found by Mr Utterson.
Not a “realistic” novel, but a “romance”
By the end of the 19th century, the great period of “social” “realistic” novel (DICKENS) was declining.
Darwin’s theories on man and the universe brought a loss of spiritual certainty. The consequence was the insuffiency of
realism and the increasing popularity of the “romance”.
Stevenson must be seen in this context.
The REALISTIC novel describes real experiences (Dickens) ,and characters are totally good or totally bad, caricatures
more than characters ; the ROMANCE doesn’t start from reality, but from an “idea”, that the author is going to
illustrate, that can be also extraordinary and strange. (in Stevenson, the “idea” is his
study on the duality of man’s personality). Characters have got complex personalities, with a combination of good and evil
in the same person; “dualism” is an essential theme of romance, man against nature or man against himself.
As for the NARRATOR, in the REALIST tradition, the omniscient narrator gives information ; in the ROMANCE, there
are multiple narrators, and they often have a limited information and knowledge about facts.
Stevenson’s novel has got a complex structure as regards narrators, which is an anticipation of the XXth century prose.
There is a shift of the narrative point of view , with three narrators :
o
o
o
The third person narrator that tells most of the story, Mr Utterson. This narrator is NOT omniscient : his
knowledge is limited by strange and incomprehensible events
Dr Lanyon, a doctor and friend of Jekyll that, having seen Jekyll turn into Hyde, writes down his own version of
the story. But he, too, has got a limited knowledge of the story
Dr Jekyll himself, with his final confession, in the last chapter of the story ; ironically, not even Jekyll is an
omniscient narrator, because he ignores a lots of events about other characters of the story and also about
himself and his experiments
A “crime story”
Stevenson’s novel is a “crime story”, a thriller, because it has got the traditional elements of the crime story:
o Its title : “case” reminds us a “police case”, as well as a “medical”, “psychological” case
o The setting : a foggy, badly-lit London (which is really Stevenson’s Edimburgh) of deserted streets, with most
scenes taking place at night.
o Criminal actions : there are murders and corpses
o Scattered clues : , that may lead to a solution of the story. For example, the fact that Hyde was seen coming
out of a door,mysteriously , in a dark side street near Dr Jekyll’s house. Only after, the author will explain it is
the door of Jekyll’s lab.
A very modern story, with different levels of interpretation
o
the first level of interpretation is the opposition of GOOD and EVIL in man. (MORAL LEVEL)
Yes, the Calvinistic religion was particularly concerned about the existence of evil in the world, and thus in
man. But the meaning of this dualism id deeper, and brings to a second level of interpretation……….
o
Dr Jekyll is not only interested in “good” and “evil”, but his experiments starts from the Victorian hypocritical
morality. Dr Jekyll is a respectable public figure, but he feels oppressed by this morality, he is attracted by a
world of pleasure, dissolution and perversion.
So, Stevenson story is a perfect example of the Victorian
compromise, and the hypocritical dualism of this age of moral standards, it is a sharp criticism to public
Victorian virtue and false respectability. (SOCIAL LEVEL)
o
Besides the “moral” level of interpretation, there is the simple SCIENTIFIC LEVEL of interpretation, coming
from DARWIN’s theories. Darwin said that man comes from the “animal world”. As a consequence, man is made
up of 2 different components, the primitive, and the civilized. Hyde is the “primitive”, in fact he is always
described as a grotesque animal “ape-like”, “deformed”, “dwarfish”, “abnormal” ; Dr Jekyll is the “civilized”, the
perfect and respectable Victorian doctor.
o
Jekyll/Hyde is also an example of “overreacher”. We can make a parallel between Dr Jekyll and Faust : Jekyll is
a Victorian Faust, who sold his soul to the devil of his scientific pride : he is an overreacher, who, at the end,
must pay his crime, like all overreachers.
So, Dr Jekyll is as guilty as Mr Hyde (see Victor Frankenstein and
his monster!) and the depravity in Hyde exists because it exists inside Dr Jekyll!
“Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” :
implications on psychoanalysis
“Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” belongs to the tradition of “double” personalities : Victor Frankenstein and his monster,
Dorian Gray and his picture.
DORIAN GRAY and DR JEKYLL were written in the same period, and both of them are a mirror of their time.
However, Dorian is in love with his image, with his beauty ; Jekyll is faithful to his respectable image, so he is more
conditioned by his morality, and he wants “to hide” (see the name “Mr Hyde”) his real self.
But let’s go now beyond the Victorian Age :
There is something inside man that nan himself tries “to hide”, sometimes conditioned by culture, education, civilization,
religion, morality, society.
When these instincts are hidden too much, (in any period of history, for every person!!) they can jump out suddenly, with
no control. This idea is the basis of the future psychoanalytic conception of FREUD and JUNG
FREUD speaks about the “ID” (or “ES”) (”it”), the “EGO” (“I”) and the “SUPER-EGO” (“over-I”).
The “ID” is the dark, primitive part of the personality; it is vitality, but it is also destructive.
The “EGO” is the subject, the will, the consciousness.
The “SUPER-EGO” is morality, aspirations, discipline and social duty.
Together, the “EGO” and the “SUPER-EGO” are controlling forces of the violent “ID”, trying to bring it back to
civilization, rationality, creative activity.
JUNG speaks about the “SHADOW”, and the “EGO”.
The “SHADOW” is the correspondent to the Freudian “ID”. He particularly insists on the relation between “SHADOW”
and “EGO” : the “EGO” must “recognize” and “accept” the “SHADOW”, not fight it. If the “EGO” fights the
“SHADOW”, the consequence could be the complete division of the two forces and the complete autonomy of the
“SHADOW”, and this is very dangerous, because the “SHADOW” can overcome the “EGO”.
Studying Stevenson’s novel, Yung analyzed the different steps in Dr Jekyll’s personality :
o the first step is “psychological” : the consciousness of a “shadow”, and this is right, because he realizes to have
some moral negative aspects in his personality
o the second step is “chemical” : the separation of the “shadow” (Mr Hyde) from the “ego” (dr Jekyll), by the use
of the drug, and this is wrong.
o The third step is to let the “shadow” go away from the “ego”, when Dr Jekyll leaves Mr Hyde alone to make
crimes in the streets, making all those horrible things forbidden by the Victorian morality. This is the end of Dr
Jekyll.
Jung says that the “shadow” must be “linked” to the “ego” with a sort of dialogue and balance. This is, for Jung, the
secret of a good psychological balance in man’s personality and life.
From
“The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”
Jekyll turns into Hyde
(This is the famous scene where Jekyll turns into Hyde : terrible pains, a “deadly nausea”, and spiritual
horrors accompany the transformation. Then, Jekyll – or rather Hyde – feels lighter, happier, but more
wicked than before. On stretching out his hands for joy, he realises that he is shorter : the tall, erect and
virtuous Dr Jekyll has become the short, crooked and malignant Mr Hyde.
I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death.
(………) But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last overcome the suggestions of
alarm. I had long since prepared my tincture ; I purchased from a chemist a large quantity of a
particular salt, which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient required ; and late, one
accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and
when the ebullition had stopped, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.
The most racking pangs succeeded ; a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the
spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then, these agonies began swiftly to
subside, and I came to myself, as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my
sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet.
I felt younger, lighter, happier in body (……..), with an unknown - but not innocent - freedom of the
soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, and
the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.
I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations ; and in the act, I was
suddenly aware that I had lost in stature.
(………..)
It came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll.
As good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the
other. Evil had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet, when I looked upon that
ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome.
This, too, was myself! It seemed natural and human.
(……..) I have observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde , none could come near me at
first without a visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we
meet them, are commingled out of good and evil : and Edward Hyde , alone, in the ranks of mankind,
was pure evil.
I lingered but a moment at the mirror : the second and conclusive experiment had yet to be
attempted : it remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption!
(……….) I once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came
to myself once more with the character, the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.
Answer these questions :
2) Why does Jekyll hesitate before putting his discovery into
practice?
3) What makes Jekyll finally overcome his hesitations ?
4) Consider the last lines of the first paragraph, where the
preparation of the experiment is described. What elements in it are
typical of the tales of horror and mystery ?
5) The second paragraph is the most dramatic, because it describes
Jekyll’s physical transformation. It is a combination of pain and
sufferings and joy and lightess . Explain and say if this joy is good
or not.
6) What is the main physical difference between Jekyll and Hyde ?
7) Why does Jekyll look at his deformed shape in the mirror and
rejoice?
8) Why do people find Mr Hyde particularly repulsive ? Is it only for
his physical deformity ?
9) What happens in the last paragraph ?
10)
Why is “the second and conclusive experiment” so important ?
Answer these questions :
1) Why does Jekyll hesitate before putting his discovery into practice?
Because he realises that the powerful drug could be lethal
2) What makes Jekyll finally overcome his hesitations ?
His scientific ambition, he is tempted by the possibility of making a great discovery, like FAUST and DR
FRANKENSTEIN, that challenge nature and God in the name of science and human ambition.
3) Consider the last lines of the first paragraph, where the preparation of the experiment is
described. What elements in it are typical of the tales of horror and mystery ?
The night setting, the smoking chemicals, the solitude of the scientist before his experiment.
4) The second paragraph is the most dramatic, because it describes Jekyll’s physical
transformation. It is a combination of pain and sufferings and joy and lightess . Explain
and say if this joy is good or not.
Jekyll feels “racking pangs”, a “grinding in the bones” and “deadly nausea”.
But he also feels a sweet sensation, he feels younger, lighter, happier in body, with freedom of the soul.
But this joy is not good. Jekyll says that it was “not ….. innocent” : he well knows that this is the evil part of
himself.
5) What is the main physical difference between Jekyll and Hyde ?
Hyde is shorter than Jekyll.
6) Why does Jekyll look at his deformed shape in the mirror and rejoice?
Because the new evil image reflects his true personality better than his usual “good” face.
7) Why do people find Mr Hyde particularly repulsive ? Is it only for his physical deformity?
Because he is not, like everybody else, a combination of good and evil, but “pure evil”.
8) What happens in the last paragraph ?
Jekyll resumes his usual self by drinking the drug again.
9) Why is “the second and conclusive experiment” so important ?
It is important that Jekyll can CHOOSE when to be or not to be Hyde : it may be symbolic of man’s free will,
of his freedom to choose between evil and good.
Herbert George WELLS (1866-1946)
Biography
H.G.WELLS was born in 1866 in the suburbs of London.
When he was 13, his family broke up, and he was forced to earn his living . In the Victorian England, where
children were exploited and underpaid in any kind of job, young “Bertie” worked in a department store 13 hours a
day, and slept in a dormitory with his fellow apprentices; this was the unhappiest period of his life.
His real interests
He had a great interest in scientific subjects, and when he was 20, he entered the Normal School of Science and
he was an enthusiastic student. He had the great fortune to have a famous teacher, Darwin’s friend and
supporter, T.H.Huxley. Wells never forgot Huxley’s teaching.
However, besides his scientific interests, he began making his way as a writer and journalist : he wrote short
stories and humorous essays for newspapers and magazines.
Since his student days, Wells had worked a lot on a story about tiome travelling and the possible future of the
human race. This project finally took shape in “The Time Machine” (1896). The success was immediate. “The
Island of Doctor Moreau” (1897) and “The War of the Worlds” (1898) soon followed.
With these novels, he was celebrated as the inventor of the “scientific romance”.
The name of this genre seems contradictory: “science” means reality and concreteness, “romance” means
invention and fantasy, often used in opposition to the term “novel”. But Wells’s technique is original :
he
introduces ONLY ONE fantastic element in his stories, all the rest is very real and concrete. This is the secret
of his success.
The turn of the century
By the turn of the XXth century, Wells became a popular author in England and in America, and his scientific
interests became more and more connected to the future of our planet and future progress.
That’s why he began to be considered as a “prophetic” writer, with a social and political message, an influential
voice of the British left.
Most of his essays were about the possible effects of scientific and technologic progress in the XXth century.
One of his novels, indeed, “A Modern Utopia” (1905) refers back to the utopias of the past (Thomas More,
Plato’s “Republic”), but it looks forwards to the future history: his stories were written to speak about the
catastrophic effects of the first world war. Wells saw history and progress as “a race between EDUCATION
and CATASTROPHE” . His next novels, too, were terrible warnings about the inevitable outbreak and disastrous
consequences of the second world war.
By the 1920s, Wells was not only a famous author, but a public figure, whose name was often on newspapers. He
briefly worked for the Ministry of Propaganda in 1918, producing a memorandum on war aims that anticipated the
setting-up of the League of Nations. In 1922 and 1923, he stood for Parliament as a Labour candidate.
His meeting with Lenin in the Kremlin, and his interview in 1934 with Lenin’s successor, Stalin, were publicised all
over the world, and his voice was often heard on BBC radio. In the 30s, his books were publicly burnt by the Nazis
in Berlin, and he was banned from visiting Fascist Italy.
Global unity
Wells was strongly convinced that nothing but GLOBAL UNITY was necessary for mankind, to avoid destruction.
But as the second world war was approaching, he felt that his mission had been a failure, and his warnings for the
future hadn’t been heard.
He spent the war years in his house in Regent’s Park. His last book, “Mind at the end of tether” (1945) was a
despairing, pessimistic work, even more terrible that his ideas on mankind in his novels 50 years before! (to be at
the end of one’s tether = to have no more hopes, to be at the end of everything).
He died in 1946, restless and tired at the end, a prophet dissatisfied with himself and with mankind.
“The island of Doctor Moreau”
The plot
The protagonist is an upper class gentleman, Edward PRENDICK. He shipwrecks in the ocean and a
ship, called “Lady Vain”, takes him aboard. On the ship there is a doctor, MONTGOMERY, that tells
him they are going to an unnamed island where he works, and that the animals aboard the ship are
travelling with him. On the ship there is also a grotesque, bestial native, M’LING, who appears as
Montgomery’s servant.
When they arrive on the island, Montgomery introduces Prendick to Doctor MOREAU, a cold and
precise man who makes mysterious studies on the island. Prendick is very curious about these
mysterious studies and suddenly remembers that he had heard of Moreau before, he had been a
famous physiologist in London, before a journalist spoke about his monstruous experiments on
vivisection. Moreau has been on the island for 11 years and now he is working on a female puma :
Prendick can hear the painful cries of the puma in the night. But when Prendick can enter the room of
the puma’s experiment, the so called “House of Pain”, he finds a “humanoid form”, lying in bandages on
the table : so, he deduces that Moreau is making vivisection on humans! And he is afraid.
Exploring the jungle, Prendick meets a strange Ape-man, who takes him to a colony of half-human /
half-animal creatures. Their leader is a strange being, named The Sayer of the Law, who keeps on
telling a strange litany, called “The Law”, consisting of prohibitions against bestial behaviour and
praise for Moreau.
At last, Moreau tells Prendick the truth : the creatures on the island, the “Beast Folk”, are
animals he has vivisected to resemble humans : he would like to change animals into humans, by
cutting their limbs and combining them together, and by acting on their brain, too. His only
reason for the pain he inflicts on them is “scientific curiosity”.
If at the beginning the human-bestial creatures walks on two legs, can speak and respect the Law,
little by little, they begin to reverse to their original bestial condition : they begin eating flesh, tasting
blood (one of the strongest prohibitions), they stop speaking and they revolt to humans.
One day the female puma gets free and meets Moreau. They kill each other. Montgomery, too, is killed
by the Beast Folk.
Prendick remains the only human being on the island, but he doesn’t try to keep Moreau’s vacant
throne on the island : instead, he lives with the Beast Folk, ignoring them, and trying to escape from
the island by building a raft.
Fortunately, one day a ship inhabited by two corpses reaches the beach and Prendick leaves the
island after one year about. He is picked up by a ship, but when he tells his story, the crew thinks he is
mad| To prevent himself from being considered insane, he pretends to have no memory of the year he
spent on the island.
When he comes back to England, he feels bad with other humans : he is constantly afraid they are all
Beast Folk that are going to reverse into animalism sooner or later. And he is also afraid of the
changes he finds in London : on the island he learned that man often goes beyond his limits, so how
many inventions in London are hurting rather than helping mankind ?
Thus, he decides to live in solitude, finding peace only in his studies of chemistry and astronomy.
Main characters
EDWARD PRENDICK
He is the narrator and protagonist of the story. He is a member of the upper class, a refined and educated man,
(like Moreau he studied biology), but he feels quite out of place on the island. He is the typical member of the
middle class that can’t survive in difficult situations ; Wells wants to criticize this social class, that in the
difficult world they lived in, made of scientific, religious and social changes, is only a spectator of the events.
Prendick, too, is simply the narrator, but he is an observer!
An exemple is when he remains the only human being on the island, but he is unable to build a raft, because he
had never done such a job in his life| and when he makes his first boat, it is situated too far from the sea and it
breaks when he is carrying it to the beach (do you remember Robinson with his canoe!?)
DOCTOR MOREAU
He is mature, white-haired and resolute : his power comes also from his image. He seems a God and his description
gives him authority.
o Physically, he had the characteristics of a God : “white hair and beard”
o He often uses a solemn language
o Also after his death, he is described as still “alive”, “watching upon us”
But differently from God, he is not a “Prime Creator”, he only manipulates something already existing. Doctor
Moreau has been living on the island for 11 years and he has created the Beast Folk, about one hundred Beast
Men : he shipped animals to the island to vivisect them, working on their bodies and on their brain, with the goal of
turning them into men.
MONTGOMERY
As Moreau’s assistant, he is the intermediary between men and the Beast Folk. He is a doctor, he studied biology
in England, but alcohol undermines his reason : this vice seems to create an affinity between Montgomery and the
Beast Folk. It is a constant habit for him, a sort of rite that is frequently and periodically repeated during the
story, till his death. He often offers alcohol to Prendick, but he always refuses, not to lose his control in this
strange world.
M’LING
He is Montgomery’s servant. He was created by Moreau using a bear, a dog, and an ox. He is very faithful to
Montgomery and he is one of the Beast Men on Montgomery’s side when the rest begins to rebel against humans.
THE BEAST FOLK
They are the unfortunate results of Moreau’s experiments. They live in a constant struggle between their real
animal nature and bestial impulses, and the attempt to become rational creatures.
They are bound to “The Law”, a set of rules imposed by Moreau. It is a litany with various prohibitions :
“Not to go on all fours ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
Not to suck up drink ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
Not to eat flesh or fish ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
Not to taste blood ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
Not to chase other men ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ? (……)”
The Law is similar to the 10 Commandments of the Christian Bible, both are written in short statements to be
better remembered , and the Beast Folk must repeat the Law like a prayer.
It is significant that the second part of the Law is a praise and reverence for Moreau, considered as their God,
living in his “House of Pain”
THE PUMA
There are no female human beings on the island. The experiment on which Moreau is engaged for most of the
story is his attempt to turn a female puma into a woman.
“I have worked hard at her head and brain”, says Moreau of the puma, “I will make a rational creature”, but the
puma resists. At the end of his vivisection, she is almost a woman, she cries like a woman, but when Moreau
begins torturing her again, she gets free and it’s she who kills Moreau!
It is significant that the puma’s sex is female : Wells was an ardent supporters of feminism in his times, but he
was also afraid giving women full freedom and opportunities, as we can understand by the puma’s reaction and her
death in the story.
Main themes
The island
The theme of the shipwreck on an island has many literary antecedents (DEFOE’s Robinson Crusoe) and
descendants (GOLDING’s Lord of the Flies), but these stories are possible. On the contrary, The Island of
Doctor Moreau is more a combination of reality and fantasy.
A literary antecedent that is more similar is SWIFT’s Gulliver’s Travels , not not only for the combination, in the
story, of animalism and rationality, but also for the end of it : like Gulliver on his return from the speaking horses,
Prendick finds himself unable to live with his fellow humans, considered as “civilized beasts”.
Another fanmous antecedent is SHAKESPEARE’s The Tempest : a beautiful island belonging to a witch, then
taken by a magician, Prospero, who establishes a law, with an animal-like Caliban, a servant of this magician.
Doctor Moreau can be seen as a sinister version of Prospero, surrounded by a hundred of Calibans of his own
creation.
DARWIN, science and the relation between MEN and ANIMALS
Wells studied Darwin’s theories, and Victorian England was greatly interested in the possibilities and limits of
science : Dr Moreau is both the symbol of science intellectual curiosity, with his great faith in science, and the
symbol of science limits,which transforms him into a monster.
Everything starts from Darwin’s Origin of the Species, that broke the traditional distinction between men and
animals : Darwin said that humans are but evolved animals, they are not the result of a divine creation. Thus, men
are more similar to animals than to the perfect angels.
“Men and animals all have the same senses, intuition, sensations and passions,
affections and emotions, even the most complex ones, such as jelousy, suspicion,
emulation, gratitude and revenge ; they feel wonder and curiosity,
they possess the same faculty of imitation, attention, choice, memory,
imagination, association of ideas and reason……..”
(Charles Darwin : Descent of Man, 1889)
Since men and animals have got the same origin, Wells studies the pessimistic possibility that men can reverse
into animal,their original nature, as it happens in the novel.
This idea is strictly connected to the great Victorian debate on vivisection.
According to Darwin’s theories, Wells was strongly against vivisection, because men comes from animals, they
have the same ancestry, so the act of vivisection on animals couldn’t be justified.
Christian tradition ignored this important relation. Early scholars, especially St Thomas Aquinas, philosopher and
theologist of the church, in one of his work published in the 13th century, said that
“According to the divine ordinance, the life of animals and plants
is preserved not for themselves, but for man.
By a most just ordinance of the Creator,
both their life and their death are subject to our use “
Also The Book of Genesis said :
“Then God blessed men and said to them be fruitful and multiply;
fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion on the fish of the sea,
over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth”
Most of intellectuals and thinkers till the 19th century, considered these statements as an exemple of how
Christian tradition ignored the rights of animals and so justified the practice of vivisection.
Wells, of course, and all the supporters of Darwin’s theories, were against vivisection and especially against those
who used Christian religious faith to justify vivisection.
One of the most interesting parts of the novel about the absurdity of vivisection is when Montgomery explains
how Dr Moreau has brainwashed the Beast Folk. Montgomery tells Prendick that Moreau has convinced them that
certain things are not possible and others are not to be done: yet, these teachings cause confusion among the
Beast Folk, because of their basic insticts. It is significant that they are both confused and ashamed of their
trasgressions : this moral awareness, this distinction between good and bad actions, between right and wrong ,
don’t seem so natural among animals! so, probably they are more similar yo men than Moreau really said! They
seem able to judge, just like men!
In conclusion, the book is a terrible warning against the Victorian scientific obsessions, that often went
beyond the limits of morality, only for simple intellectual curiosity.
Class and Imperialism : a social criticism
The novel is also a social and class criticism.
Moreau created a race of subhumans, that represented the exploited working class of the Victorian age, with
Moreau and Montgomery as second-in-command : all the events of the story are an exemple of authoritarian rule.
Wells was a left-wing intellectual and supporter of Marxism, so, his novel was a criticism of social stratification
in general. At the end, the Beast Folk take a “Marxist” revenge against their dictator, that, as in some
revolutions happens, results in the expulsion of the authority figure, unfortunately with the price of the reversion
to animality.
But the novel is also a clear allusion to the British Imperialism.
Wells was writing at the time when the British Empire was the proud of the country. Moreau’s island is a little
“colonial property”. It is no accident that most of the Beast folk are described as “black”, or “brown”, and
Prendick, at first, thinks that they are “savages” or “natives”. They are employed as servants and slaves ; they
secretly hate the man they must love.
In all the story there is a constant contrast between the “whiteness” of Doctor Moreau and the “blackness” of
M’ling and the other Beast Men.
A sharp criticism to religion : the “Unholy Trinity”
The novel is a sharp satire against religion:
The first religious symbol is The LAW. It is similar to the 10 Commandments. The Beast Folk repeat this litany
with the fervor of many religious rituals, and as a sort of incantation. Wells clearly criticizes the frequent
sheep-like attitude of the crowd before religion. Prendick calls this litany an “idiotic formula and an insane
ceremony” :probably, this is Wells’s opinion of Christian religion..
But the worst satire on religion is the so called “Unholy Trinity”, the 3 M-creatures.
MOREAU represents GOD, with his stereotypical white hair and beard, with his authority, ability to make new
creatures, the lawgiver of the island. He is God of pain and pleasure. But he is not a real God, because he cannot
create, he can only imitate , and his imitations are monsters.
He is not driven by love, as God, but by pride, intellectual curiosity ; he wants to discover the secret of life, he is
a modern “overreacher”, like Faust and Frankenstein, but not a God.
MONTGOMERY represents CHRIST, with a sheep-like face, he is a link between the Beast Folk and Moreau.
But he is alwayus presented as an alcoholist, and so the comparison with Christ is very blasphemous ; he
constantly offers his alcoholic drinks , with a clear parallel to the Communion Service, and this is even more
blasphemous.
The third person of the trinity is THE HOLY SPIRIT, usually portrayed as a dove. The third M-creature on the
island is M’ling, the beast creature, Montygomery’s assistant. The Holy Spirit is thus represented by an animal,
but deformed and idiotic!
Herbert George WELLS (1866-1946)
(easier version)
Life
H.G.WELLS was born in London, in 1866.
After a difficult childhood, he developed great interests in scientific subjects,
especially in the theories of
Charles DARWIN
on “evolution” and “natural
selection”.
Since his days as a student, he began to write as a journalist and as a novelist. One
of his most famous novels was “The Time Machine” (1896), about “time travelling”
by a scientist. The success was immediate. “The Island of Doctor Moreau” (1897)
and “The War of the Worlds” (1898) soon followed.
His novels were defines as “scientific romances” . This name seems contradictory,
because “science” means “reality”, and “concrete facts”; “romance” means “invention”
and “fantasy”. But Well’s technique was original : he introduces only one fantastic
element in his stories, all the rest is very real and concrete. : this is probably the
secret of his success.
Wells had a very long life, until the second World War, and he was greatly interested
in the future of our planet, the new scientific discoveries, but he was also strongly
against any form of war.
Unfortunately, when he died in 1946, a terrible was brought destruction and
catastrophe on mankind, as he had always feared.
“The Island of Doctor Moreau” (1897)
The plot
The protagonist is a rich London gentleman, Edward Prendick.
He shipwrecks in the ocean, and a ship brings him to a mysterious island, where 3
strange persons live : Montgomery, a doctor, M’ling, his servant, and a mysterious
Doctor Moreau., a cold and strange man who makes mysterious studies on animals in
the island. Prendick is very curious, and remembers he heard about Moreau and his
experiments on “vivisection”
Moreau has been on the island for 11 years, and now he is working on a female puma.
But when Prendick enters the room of the puma’s experiment, the so called “House
of Pain”, he doesn’t find an animal, but a “humanoid form” , lying in bandages, on table.
So, he deduces that Moreau is making vivisection on HUMANS, and he is afraid!
Exploring the jungle, Prendick meets a strange Ape-man, who takes him to a colony
of half-human/half-animal creatures. Their leader is another strange creature that
always repeat a strange litany, called “The Law”, consisting of prohibitions against
bestial habits, but also praise for Moreau.
At last Moreau tells Prendick the truth : the creatures on the island, the “Beast
Folk”, are animals that he has vivisected to transform them into humans : he would
like to change animals into humans, by cutting their limbs and combining them
together, and by acting on their brain too.
If at the beginning, the human-bestial creatures walk on two legs, can speak, and
respect the Law, little by little, they begin to reverse to their original bestial
condition : they begin eating flesh, tasting blood, they stop speaking, they walk on
four legs again and they finally revolt to humans.
One day, the female puma gets free and meets Moreau : they kill each other.
Montgomery too, is killed by the Beast Folk. M’ling too, created by Moreau using a
bear, a dog and an ox, is another victim of the Beast Folk.
When Prendick remains the only human on the island, he doesn’t try to substitute to
Moreau : he is disgusted by the situation on the island, he lives with the Beast Folk,
ignoring them, and trying to escape from the island, by making a raft.
Fortunately, he can escape, after one year, and he is picked up by a ship. But when he
tells his story, the crew thinks he is mad! So, he stops speaking and he pretends to
have no memory of the year he spent on the island.
When he comes back to England, he feels bad with other humans : he is constantly
afraid that they are all Beast Folk that will change into animals again! And he is also
afraid of the progress he finds in London : the experience on the island taught him
that man can’t go beyond his limits, it can be dangerous!
He decides to live in solitude, finding peace only in his studies of chemistry and
astronomy.
Main themes of the novel
The island
The theme of the shipwreck on an island has many antecedents, since Defoe’s
“Robinson Crusoe”. But the story of Defoe is realistic and possible. On the contrary,
“The Island of Doctor Moreau” is a combination of reality and fantasy.
Wells was considered as the father of the modern science fiction.
Wells, Darwin and science
In the 19th century England, man was greatly interested in science, as an intellectual
curiosity.
Charles DARWIN was a scientist of this period and a doctor. He loved naturalistic
studies : after university, he worked as a naturalist on a ship, called “The Beagle”,
that was leaving on a 5 year scientific expedition to the Pacific coast of South
America, During this expedition, Darwin especially studied fossils, living organisms as
birds, tortoises, kangaroos and he also collected a lot of specimens. The result of his
study was his famous and controversial book “On the origin of the species by
means of natural selection”, published in 1859, where he introduced his theory on
evolution.
Before his travel on “The Beagle”, Darwin wanted to study theology, but his
naturalistic experiences changed him : Darwin said that humans are evolved animals,
they are NOT the result of a divine creation, so men are more similar to animals
than to the perfect angels described by religion. This theory caused a great division
in the 19th century society between “evolutionists” (the supporters of Darwin) and
“creationists” (those who believed in religion).
Since men and animals have got the same origin, Wells studied the pessimistic
possibility that men can reverse into animals, their original nature, as it happens in
his novel.
So, this novel is either an exemple of the great faith into science and intellectual
curiosity, or a terrible warning against the 19th century scientific obsessions : some
scientists considered science as the only remedy to solve everything, often going
against morality!
Wells and religion
The novel is also a strong satire against religion.
The first religious symbol is The Law :
Not to go on all fours ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
Not to suck up drinks ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
Not to eat flesh or fish ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
Not to taste blood ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
Not to chase other men ; that is the Law. Are we not Men ?
The Law is similar to the 10 Commandments of the Bible. The Beast Folk repeat this
litany with the fervor of many religious rituals. Wells criticises the frequent “sheeplike” attitude of people before religion. Prendick calls this litany “an idiotic formula
and an insane ceremony”, and this is probably Well’s opinion of Christian religion!
But the worst satire is the so called “Unholy Trinity”, the 3 M-creatures.
MOREAU represents GOD, he has got white hair and a white beard, with the ability
and authority to create new creatures. But he is not like God, because his creations
are monsters. God’s creation is based on love, Moreau’s creations are simple
“intellectual curiosity”, and his animals suffer a lot during his experiments.
MONTGOMERY represents CHRIST, with a sheep-like face, he is an alcoholist, so
the comparison with Christ is very blasphemous : he constantle offers Prendick
alcoholic drinks, with a clear parallel to the Communion service, and this is even more
blasphemous!
M’LING, Montgomery’s servant, represents the third person of the Trinity, the
HOLY SPIRIT, usually represented as a dove. The Holy Spirit is here representes as
an animal, but not as a noble and elegant dove, but as a deformed and stupid creature.
D E C A D E N T I S M
Decadentism was born in FRANCE in 1880 about, and it took its name from the review “Le decadent” ,
especially with CHARLES BAUDELAIRE and his French friends, but it spread rapidly all over Europe.
“Decadent” was at first a negative adjective, to define young rebels who were against the traditional life
and art. After, it was a synonym of consciousness of the decadence of the old values of the 19th century.
Decadentism was
Against the optimism of POSITIVISM
Positivism was based on materialism, science, reason.
Positivism optimistically explained all the mysteries of the universe, with the help of science,
mathematics, technology and new discoveries. Of course, rationality, that is, the ability to use
reason, was the basis of science and of the consequent sense of optimism.
Now, science is progressively losing its certainties, even mathematics (see Einstein’s theory on
relativity!), and reason was not considered as the greatest instrument of man : decadents
preferred exalting IRRATIONALITY, that helps man to dream and to step into his life’s
mysteries.
VERLAINE, a French decadent, said to feel himself as a Roman at the end of the empire, when
“barbarian invaders” came; these “barbarian invaders” were science, technology and materialim.
Against some social classes.
Decadents were both against the middle class, considered too materialistic and utilitaristic, whose
life was totally based on their materialistic welfare,
and against the popular masses, the only
fought with violence and class fight without changing their trivial and common way of life.
All these classes were called “barbarians”.
Decadents, on the contrary, exalted the figure of the INTELLECTUAL, that refused masses and
preferred isolation and meditation. This love for solitude was not a sad isolation, but a conscious
aristocratic detachment, happy to be far from common people and common habits, proud of their
intellectual superiority.
This superiority, as the German philosopher NIETZCHE said, changes MAN into a SUPERMAN, a
protagonist that distinguishes from the triviality of the masses, from the materialism of the middle
class, with a totally free life, based con any form of pleasure and satisfaction, “beyond GOOD and
EVIL”
Against Realism, based on scientific objectivity, and against Classicism, based on precise
rationalistic rules.
Thus, both poetry and prose were not considered as a social picture, and the author, poet or
novelist, was not a “guide” (“poeta vate”), but literature was a means to express invisible and
irrational mysteries (“poeta veggente”).
Decadent literature had two different tendencies :
a more intimate expression of the human crisis (PASCOLI, HARDY)
a more mundane and exterior tendency to live “day-by-day” (D’ANNUNZIO, WILDE)
Both of them were influenced by SYMBOLISM, that, differently from REALISM, gave a great importance
to “symbols”, mysteries and irrational interpretations of reality.
Decadentism finds a great expression also in
painting , with IMPRESSIONISM
(Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cèzanne). There is a sort of
“scomposition” of the colour, in a lot of different small points (“pointillisme”) and only the general
“impression” of the vision gives you an idea of the image.
Music, with the real protagonist of this age, WAGNER, a German musician, with his titanic music
influenced by Nietzche’s idea of the “superman”. Wagner strongly opposed to the music of the
Italian VERDI, whose music was more realistic and less irrational. However, at the end of his life,
Verdi accepted Wagner’s theories.
D’ANNUNZIO
WILDE
They were two AESTHETES, with a strong correspondence between life and art
Similar lives, with fashionable and extravagant habits, in luxurious places
“bisogna fare la propria vita come si fa un’opera
“the artist is the creator of beautiful things”
d’arte” (IL PIACERE)
(Preface of THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY)
They refused any form of morality
Man must be free from any restriction, especially Man must be free from any rule, he must be beyond
RELIGION and MORALITY, and he says :
GOOD and EVIL , because man “must possess his
“habere, non haberi”, to act, not to be submitted life, not to be possessed”
by someone or something
Both of them distinguished from the other Decadents, because they didn’t
isolate from the world, they did their best to be popular,
to emerge from the masses, even if in different ways……..
He was politically committed, he took an active role He was more egocentric, and he was NOT
in the age of Mussolini. He was an interventist
Politically committed.
in the first world war.
NIETZCHE’s idea of fight influenced Wilde less
NIETZCHE greatly influenced D’Annunzio, with
his idea of fight and intervention
Influence of the German philosopher NIETZCHE
In the last period of their lives, the Aesthete changed into the Decadent hero
because their fashionable and extravagant life changed into
failure and crisis,
as we can see from the protagonists of their works,
Andrea Sperelli and Dorian Gray
Andrea Sperelli wanted “habere” Elena, his lover, Dorian Gray wanted “habere” the eternal
but at the end, his irregular life without any
beauty and youth, but he “was possessed” by his
limitations and morality brought him
egocentrism.
“to be possessed” by events, and he was finally
Thus, he remained alone.
refused by that woman.
Thus, he remained alone.
The solitude of the last part of their lives ………….
In the plane raid of Fiume, D’annunzio had a serious When Wilde was imprisoned for homosexuality, he
accident and he got BLIND for a while.
wrote DE PROFUNDIS, a very long letter to his lover
In this period of isolation from the world and
Bosie. In the second part of it, he makes long
introspection, he wrote his Notturno, a series of introspective meditations on his life, sins and
short introspective reflections written in little
extravagant habits. In prison, he even read the
pieces of paper, even if he was blind.
bible.
It was a period of meditation and introspection
It was a period of meditation and introspection
about his life, a man that was very different from about his life, and he lost all that frivolous
the aesthete of the beginning!
attitude of the aesthete!
NIETZCHE
This German philosopher of the second half of the 19th century greatly influenced both D’Annunzio and
Wilde, and all European Decadentism.
The main target of his philosophy was his reaction against POSITIVISM, RATIONALISM and OVER
OPTIMISM coming from scientific discoveries, that wanted to solve all human mysteries.
On the contrary, he exalted IRRATIONALITY and INSTINCT.
He started from Shopenhauer’s pessimism, but he went beyond, giving a solution for the human sorrow.
These are his main ideas, that influenced Aestheticism and Decadentism.
An opposition between Apollonian spirit and Dionisyac spirit.
APOLLUS, in the Greek mythology, was the god of music, medicine, perfection and poetry ; he was
considered as the father of the Muses, and he had the same name also as a Roman divinity.
Apollus, for Nietzche, is the symbol of perfection, beauty and harmony.
DIONISIUS, in the Greek mythology, was the son of Zeus, the correspondent of Baccus in the
Roman culture, famous for his irrationality and madness.
Dionisius, for Nietzche, is the symbol of irrationality and enthusiasm
Apollus, for Nietzche, is represented by Socrates, that Nietzche accuses to have introduced
REASON into philosophy, suppressing the instinct.
Dionisius, is represented by the Greek Tragedy that, on the contrary, is the greatest expression
Of instinct and irrationality.
D’annunzio probably read Nietzche’s work “The Origin of Tragedy”, when he went to Greece
In 1895.
Nietzche refused history, because history is just an illusion of a linear and regular succession of
events, with no surprise and curiosity for the future.
He said that man must “cure” the so called “historical disease”, and he must exalt only his
personal capabilities, that distinguish the single man from any other exemple in the history
Nietzche refused religion, especially Christianity. He accepted Shpenhauer’s idea of “life as a
sorrow”, and he said that this terrible condition of man is partly caused by the so called “morals of
the slaves”, typical of Christian religion.
It is an attitude that forces man to accept sorrow,
sacrifice and even death. On the contrary, man must fight to overcome this eternal sorrow (in this
sense, Nietzche distinguishes from Shopenhauer) .
This fight changes MAN into a SUPERMAN. This theory of action and intervention greatly
influenced D’Annunzio more than Wilde, that was never politically committed.
His theory of the SUPERMAN. The Superman is not a man that imposes his power on other people,
but he is a man free from any form of morality, beyond GOOD and EVIL. The Superman bases his
actions on instinct, irrationality and amorality (“habere, non haberi”)
Nietzche said that the Superman expresses his power into 2 forms :
ARTISTIC FORM
: the true artist is not limited by any rule
POLITIC FORM
: every action is based on the momentary necessity, without any restriction
or conditioned by past history. That’s why he strongly criticized the rational principles of
the Italian Machiavelli.
T H E
W A R
P O E T S
The War Poets were all young boys, who died very young, leaving only a few poems about their experience in the first World
War. The war was then a pretext for psychological meditation that, eventually, brought to solitude , anguish and
indifference.
The First World War, with its inhumanity, stopped the myth of “meliorism” and faith into progress that had found so
many supporters in the 19th century England. The war lasted enough , and it was worse than expected : on both fronts,
young people lost their lives and on both fronts, initial enthusiasm and idealism were replaced by disillusion and
psychological breakdown.
Thus, d e a t h was their daily experience, and the final tragic conclusion of most of their disillusioned existence.
What about the reality they described and that daily shared ?
The war poets didn’t write from “without”, but from “within” the war. Their life in the trenches was hell :
they lived in mud and water, among decaying bodies and rats ; they took cover underground or in the holes during
repeated bombardments.
In the first years, the patriotic and romantic attitude to war died out as the soldiers began to realize that they were
little more than pawns in the politicians’and generals’ hands.
What about their relationship with civilians ?
This was a subject often considered by the War Poets. The true horror of trench warfare was deliberately concealed to the
civilian population.
At first, civilians considered war as a glorious occasion for heroism and patriotic effort, expecting their “heroes” to come
back home smiling. But soldiers on the front knew well the other side of the story.
In the messages of the War Poets there was this strong “gap” between their daily life in the trenches and the so-called
“reported war” of the civilians at home.
R U P E R T
B R O O K E : a romantic vision of war
Brooke was the symbol of the brave young British gentleman that, at the outbreak of the war, full of enthusiasm, enlisted
at once as an officer, and died at the age of 28.
He showed the heroic side of war, and he was full of patriotism and heroic ideals.
In his poem, “The Soldier”, England is seen as a sort of “mother” , that gives his children (his soldiers) love, breath,
birth and consciousness. Thus, wherever he goes, he feels to be in England, and wherever he dies, he dies in England and
for England.
W I L F R E D
O W E N
: the disillusionment of war
He was one of the most significant war poets. He was a well educated boy; indeed he was famous for his stylistic
experience: extensive use of half-rhymes, assonances, alliterations. He died in war when he was 34.
He rejected any form of enthusiasm for war : his poems are full of a sense of disillusion, visions of horror and
apocalyptic desolation, but they are also technically remarkable for their stylistic experiences.
His most famous poem is “Dulce et Decorum Est” ; this is a phrase from Horace (“dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”),
learned by generations of British schoolchildren, that is considered by the poet as the greatest lie ever said :
it’s a false idea that love for one’s country can justify war! (see how different Brooke was)
S I E G F R I E D
S A S S O O N
: the indictment of the Establishment
He was bitterly ironic, often to shock the reader. He attacked Government and Church, the real responsibles, in his opinion,
for the suffering and death of so many men.
“T h e y” is his most famous poem. The title itself is polemic : “they” are the soldiers, the young boys dying in the trenches,
from the point of view of the Establishment, that completely ignores their sufferings.
Sassoon, in this significant poem, attacks both Establisment, that knows but ignores the horrors of war, and also
non-committed people, that don’t know, and consequently ignore the sufferings in the trenches.
No pity or compassion for the soldiers (OWEN), no patriotism (BROOKE), only a loud voice, not intimate, directed to all those
that know and don’t know the facts, a concrete, factual, realistic statement of war, with a mixture of anger, satire and
hate for all those that call the soldiers simply “they” !!
S.Sassoon
“ T H E Y “
The Bishop tells us : “When the boys come back
They will not be the same ; for they’ll have fought
In a just cause : they lead the last attack
On Anti-Christ ; their comrades’ blood has bought
Newright to breed an honourable race,
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.”
“We’re none of us the same!” the boys reply,
“for George lost both his legs ; and Bill’s stone blind ;
Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die ;
And Bert’s gone syphilitic : you’ll not find
A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change.”
And the Bishop said : “The ways of God are strange!”
Sassoon was particularly critic against the hypocritical English Establishment, and in all his poems he constantly makes a
contrast between the romantic commonplace and the horrible reality of war.
The title itself is polemic : “THEY” are the soldiers, the young boys dying in the trenches, from the point of view
of the Establishment, that completely ignores their sufferings : they are described conventionally, coldly and with
detachment.
The poem is divided into two stanzas, with nearly the same structure, but with contrasting images and a different language :
the two stanzas represent two different points of view on war, and its different effects on soldiers.
The first stanza represents the Establishment’s point of view. The “Bishops” say that after the war, they will not be the
same, because they will be more glorious and proud to have fought for a right cause, because they have challenged their
enemy and death.
The second stanza represents the soldier’s point of view.. yes, it’s true, after the war they will not be the same,
but for different motivations : one has lost his leg, another is blind or siphilitic, another has loost his life, and he will not be
able to come back home any more.
But the reaction of the Bishops that is of the Establishment, is still the same, cold and detached : “The ways to God are
strange”. This sentence, conventional and nearly ridiculous thimking about the horrors of war, is a proof of Sassoon’s
angry reaction against the Establishment.
He attacks both Establishment , that knows but ignores the horrors of war, and also non-committed people,
that don’t know, and consequently ignore the sufferings in the trenches.
No pity or compassion for soldiers (Owen), no patriotism at all (Brooke), no intimate meditation on the soldiers’
solitude , only a loud voice, not intimate, directed to all those that knows and don’t know facts, a concrete, factual,
realistic statement of war, with a mixture of anger, satire and hate for all those that call the soldiers simply “They”.
R. BROOKE
:
T H E
S O L D I E R
If I should die, think only this of me :
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed ;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, all evils shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given ;
Her sights and sounds ; dreams happy as her days;
And laughter, learnt of friends ; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
This poem was written during the first phase of the war, and in a Petrarchan style (it’s a real sonnet, consisting of 2 quatrains
and two tercets) and with melodious conventional lines, it expresses what Englishmen generally felt in the autumn of 1914,
that is, a sense of patriotism against the enemy, in defence of their country, and the idealization of those who
die in battle.
The poem generally reflects an abstract vision of the war : brooke doesn’t describe anything precise, he doesn’t speak about
the horrors of the war, only a vague generalization of the war itself.
The poem starts with an image of death, the death of the poet himself, but he only “pretends” to die, by using the
conditional tense “should”, to make a romantic idealization of his death in war : if he should die in war, wherever his
“dust” (saying his “corpse” would be too realistic !!) would lie, even in a foreign land, he would be in England, because he
fights for “her”, for his land-mother. Notice that England is seen as a sort of “mother” for the soldier-poet, because
England gave him love, breath, birth, consciousness. Thus, wherever he goes, he feels to be in England, and wherever he dies,
he dies in England and for England. In the final sestet, the dead soldier’s heart beats with English sights and sounds,
recreating a world of quiet dreams, peace and gentleness.
It’s interesting to notice that the first words of the sonnet (“If I should die….”) could be linked to the very last ones
(“….under an English heaven.”), in a romantic and patriotic frame : the poets wants to say that God is on the English side,
an even if he died, he would have played his part in an inevitable glorious victory.
W. OWEN : “Dulce et decorum est”
(extract)
1. Bent double , like old beggars under sacks
2. Knock-kneed,coughing like hogs, we cursed through sludge
(……)
6. (……) all went lame, all blind ;
7. Drunk with fatigue, deaf even to the hoots
8. Of gas shells dropping softly behind. (…..)
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
(….) Watch the white eyes writhing in his face
His hanging face (…..)
If you could hear (…….) the blood
Come gargling, from the froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer. (…..)
25. My friend, you would not tell (….)
26. To children ardent for some desperate glory
27. The old lie : Dulce et decorum est
28. Pro patria mori.
Compared to “THEY”, this is not a formal accusation to the Establishment, but a simple bitter statement
of the war and the hypocrisy and ignorance of patriotism.
Owen describes this horror with a rich language (see his education)
Is there any heroism in these lines ?
No, soldiers are described with grotesque traits, (
of the horrors
) and they seem even tired.
What terrible new chemical weapon is mentioned ?
GAS, that was the new chemical weapon of the 1st World War (line 8)
Who does the poet address to, from line 19?
He is speaking to the stay-at-home reader, and he invites him to come to the trenches and see the ugly face ofdeath.
What realistic details are described ?
(
)
What is the tone of lines 25-28?
It ia a bitter ironic conclusion : “it it sweet and glorious to die for one’s country”, a phrase from Horace learned by generations
of British schoolchildren, here ironically defined “old lie”
Why a “Latin” title ?
Because the more this sentence is authoritative (in Latin!!), the more it is a lie!. This sentence seems solemn and true only
because it is in Latin ; this sentence has always been the symbol of a long tradition ofpatriotism, that Owen considered as
false,
The “Roaring Twenties”
(in USA and its effects in Europe)
“Roaring Twenties”
is a phrase used to describe the 1920s, especially in North America, ut
after in Europe (London, Paris, Berlin), after the end of World War I.
It was not only a period of great political (…….) and literary (…..) changes, but also of
ECONOMIC, CULTURAL and SOCIAL dynamism.
The spirit of the “Roaring Twenties” was marked by a general feeling of modernity, of break with
old traditions : new technologies, especially cars, moving picture and radio, communicated a sense of
“modernity” to a large part of population.
E C O N O M Y
The “Roaring Twenties” is seen as a period of great economic prosperity, with the introduction of new
consumer goods. The North American economy , particularly the economy of US, passed from a
wartime economy to a peacetime economy, and this changed US as the richest country in the world.
The US economy was more and more connected with the economy of Europe : Europe, too, spent the
year after World War I “rebuilding”. However, the European economy didn’t start to flourish until
1924.
In spite of the social, economic and technological advances, African Americans, recent immigrants and
working-class population still lived in conditions of extreme poverty.
Economy was connected to NEW INDUSTRIES AND TECHNOLOGIES .
The most important industry was the car industry. Before the war, cars were a luxury ; in the 20s
mass production of vehicles became common, especially with Henry Ford.
Also finance and insurance industries doubled and tripled in size.
The new technologies led to a great need for new infrastructure : road construction, for example, was
crucial for car industry ; electrification gradually substituted coal power ; telephone lines were
installed across the continent.
S O C I E T Y
Urbanisation
reached its climax in the 20s. Americans lived more in overcrowded towns and cities
than in small towns or rural areas. In New York and Chicago a lot of skycrapers were built, and the
famous Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building.
Suffrage for women was a very important social conquest of the 20s. On August 18th 1920, Tennessee
was the last of 36 states to ratify the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote ; thus,
women got that political equality they had so long been fighting for!
There was a generation gap between the “new” women of the 20s and the old generation. Before the
19th Amendment, feminists thought that a woman could have either a career and a regular job, or have
a husband and a family! This mentality began to change in the 20s. Even black women, who had
historically closed out of factory jobs, began to find a place in industries, often accepting low wages
and replacing the immigrant labour and heavy work.
The 1920s saw also the birth of the “co-ed” (= college educated) women : women began attending
state colleges and universities.
Another important social event of the 20s were the immigration laws. The Us became more
xenophobic or, at least, anti-immigrant.
The American Immigration Act of 1924 limited immigration both from Europe and Asia.
The 20s is also the period of Prohibition. The manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was
prohibited by the 18th Amendment, to improve some social problems. America’s continuous desire for
alcohol under Prohibition led to the rise of organised crime (see Al Capone in Chicago).
C U L T U R E
Cultural changes appeared in communication : radio became the first mass broadcasting medium, with
a great variety of programmes. Cinema, too, became very popular : watching a film was cheaper,
compared to other forms of entertainment, and it was accessible both to factory workers and richer
people. At the beginning of the decade, films were silent and colourless. In 1926-7, the Warner Bros
introduced sound effects, music and colour.
But the 20s was also the period of a new music and dance. Radio stations spread the popularity of
jazz, soon associated with all things modern and sophisticated. People liked it also for its
improvisations and variations on a single melody (Louis Armstrong) , often with the use of saxophone ,
that became a very popular instrument for jazz music.
It was also the era of dance and dance halls ; the most popular dances were waltz, tango and especially
Charleston. Harlem played a key role in the development of dance styles (the so called “Harlem
Renaissance”), with a lot of musicals. The popular “Cotton Club” was a famous club attended by white
men, where black men performed.
Fashion , too, greatly changed. With the changed role of the woman, women’s fashion broke off from
the strict Victorian way of life. Women exposed their legs and arms, they used makeup, which until the
20s was connected with prostitution.
These young rebellious middle-class women were called “flappers” (=women with a very free and
immoral way of life “spregiudicate”, “maschiacci”) by the old generations!
Art “Deco” was the style of design and architecture that marked the era. Originating in Belgium, it
spread in Western Europe and North America in the 20s.
In the US, one of the most remarkable building with this style was the Chrysler Building , that was the
highest of the time. The forms of art “Deco” were pure and geometric, with rectilinear and straight
lines.
JOYCE and DUBLIN
The relation between Joyce and Ireland is complex.
At one level he seems to have refused everything that was Irish :
he went to voluntary exile at the age of 22. He felt always oppressed by the provincial life
of Dublin, that gave him a sense of “paralysis” (one of the main themes of this author).
“Paralysis” is for Joyce a sense of social, economic, cultural, religious and intellectual
limitation and oppression, that he always felt when he lived in Dublin.
He was against the Irish nationalism in politic, that he considered as a politic limitation
Differently from some contemporary artists, that were fighting for an Irish Renaissance in
literature, the so called “Celtic Revival”, he ignored this movement and for his travels
abroad and his interest in foreign literatures, he was called “citizen of the world”.
In religion, too, even if he was educated by the Jesuits (Catholic religion), he was polemic
against the provincial Church typical of the Irishpeople.
At the other level, Joyce never forgot his Dublin, all his novels are settled in DUBLIN, with its
people, streets, houses, language, everything reproduced with precise details. He could never
escape from Dublin and his realistic and ordinary life, with ordinary people and ordinary events.
Dublin was for him the “navel” of the world, the microcosm of all universe.
So, he felt love and hate for Dublin and Ireland.
His main THEMES
Two opposing themes
are a consequence of his conception of Dublin : “paralysis”
and
“escape”.
“Escape” is the opposite of “paralysis”, and his characters are oppressed by the Irish provincial
life and want to escape at any cost, but they are never able to escape really. (Joyce himself was
able to escape from Dublin only physically, travelling in Europe, but not emotionally, because
Dublin was the constant setting of his novels).
All his characters are oppressed by a sense of paralysis, coming from a provincial religion,
politics and culture, and they have not the courage to break these chains.
Joyce’s TECHNIQUE
Joyce was a modernist writer, and one of the best novelists that used the “stream of
consciousness technique”, with its “epiphanies” and “interior monologues” (see the book, p.
238-239-241).
The modernist technique is essentially “subjective”, especially based on the exploration of the
characters’ impressions and points of view. But Joyce’s technique was both SUBJECTIVE and
OBJECTIVE..
It is objective because he never forgets to give concrete descriptions of Dublin and Dublin’s
life, with a lot of details.
It is subjective because a concrete description of Dublin is the pretext for introspection,
symbolism and psychologic exploration.
Joyce’s LANGUAGE
Subjectivism has also important consequences in LANGUAGE. Joyce’s language is the result of
his characters’ “train of thoughts”, so language is often a succession of words without
punctuation or grammar connections, a sort of “flux”, a “stream”.
Moreover, Joyce is also a master of language register : the language used in his stories changes
according to the age, the social class and the role of the characters.
Another element of Joyce’s language is the importance of word sound. Joyce was almost blind.
This physical problem was compensated by his sense of hearing, and so, the sound of words was
very important for him. To appreciate Joyce more and to enjoy the particular sound of his
language, his works should be read aloud.
The NARRATOR
The narrator is omniscent non-intrusive, because Joyce believed in the “impersonality” of the
artist. The narrator must be detached and isolated from the story, and the characters, not
the narrator, must speak. That’s why Joyce used different points of view, according to the
different characters, and there is never the author’s point of view.
THE DEAD
(J. JOYCE)
1)Describe GRETTA through the eyes of Gabriel. How is she described physically ? (
What sensation did GABRIEL have for her ?
)
Gabriel is looking at his wife on the bed, she’s sleeping with untidy hair and half-open mouth, it’s not a very romantic
description. Gabriel feels a “strange friendly pity” for her neither attraction nor passion. He also says that his feeling
for his wife “must be love”.
2)What is GABRIEL’s attitude to the story of MICHAEL ?
(
)
Gabriel is conscious that their relation was not based on intimacy and confidence. Had they really lived as man and
wife? Or were they simply “shades” ? It is significant Gabriel’s sentence about his condition and that of Michael :
“better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion than fade and wither dismally with age”.
3)What typeof relationship do you think there is between the characters :
a)GABRIEL and GRETTA : what sentiments do you think they feel one another ?
what type of marriage was theirs ?
“strange friendly pity”, “such a feeling must be love” : detachment, progressive indifference,
death of relationships, PARALYSIS.
b)GRETTA and MICHAEL : how does their old story influence the present ?
The memory of this old story is probably much stronger and more passionate than Gretta’s present
Relation with her husband.
c)GABRIEL and MICHAEL : conflict,jelousy,indifference,resignation,envy…..
conflict and envy : Gabriel well knows that Gretta’s passion for Michael, even if a memory, is
stronger and more passionate than with himself.
Jelousy : jelousy means love, but Gabriel doesn’t feel a real love for her wife, but a
“strange friendly pity”
Indifference : Gabriel is not indifferent, probably he feels resignation , because he is conscious
To live in an emotional paralysis
4)The background of the story :
a)where is the story settled ? In Dublin
b)what’s the weather like ? It’s snowing
5)In the story there are two “epiphanies” :
a)the first is the Irish song Gretta heard at the party, that reminded her the memory of Michael
b)the second is the “snow”.
In what sense is the “snow” an epiphany with POSITIVE and NEGATIVE effects?
“Snow” is for Gabriel a pretext to meditate:
“snow” has a positive effect because it can hide, , preserve, and embrace everything, without pain,
because it falls everywhere , on “the living and the dead”
“snow” has a negative effect too, because it gives a sense of impotence and paralysis : the living persons
In the story are just the real “dead”
6)Is there Gabriel’s attempt to ESCAPE from this paralysis ?
Yes, when he says that “the time had come for him to set out on his journey westward”.
Western Ireland was the only part of Ireland with fewer English influences. But this reference may simply be a
metaphor of “travel” : Joyce was a “citizen of the world” that well knew that “escape” from Ireland was the only
solution for “paralysis”.
7)Consider the title of the story : who are the real “dead” of the story ?
Probably the real “dead” of the story are really the living persons, because they have lost the sparks of life, and they
never did a heroic significant action in their trivial life. Michael, on the contrary, was really alive in Gretta’s memories,
and he died for her when he was very young. It’s a death of relationships and sentiments.
E.M.FORSTER’s main theme through his novels :
RELATIONSHIPS
A modernist or a traditionalist writer ?
From a technical point of view, he has little in common with the experiments of Modernism : his
language and style are clear without streams of thoughts. Forster still believed in a well defined
“story”.
But as regards his themes, he totally belongs to the XXth century : he is especially interested in the
theme of “relationships”, and this was a typical theme of the disillusioned man of this new century.
 “A Room with a View” (1908) : RESPECTABILITY and PASSION
When he went to ITALY and GREECE, he was familiar with Greek mythology and Italian
Renaissance art, that influenced his vision of the world. In all his life, he was charmed by the
Mediterranean way of life and thought : the vitality and spontaneity of human relationships
(Italian influence) in contrast with the Edwardian English intolerance, narrow-mindedness and
imperialistic connections.
In “A Room with a View”, settled in Florence, he explores the theme of LOVE, and his English
characters even change their emotional attitudes if they live in England or in Italy! The novel
is all based on the contrast between the English respectability and the Italian passionality.
 “Howards End” (1910) : WHAT YOU FEEL and WHAT YOU REALLY DO
Human relationships are still the main theme in his first success.
It is a novel describing the conflicts between an English Edwardian family, that represents
activity in business, imperialism and respectability, and a half-German family, whose life is
based on sensibility, personal relationships and love for art. Thus, in this novel Forster studies
the difficult relation between what people really feel inside, and the way they really act, often
conditioned by paralysing factors.
The “only connection” (as he called it) between ”passion” (what you feel) and “prose” (what
you really do) are, for Forster, the secret of relationships.
 “A Passage to India” (1924) : ANGLO-INDIAN RELATIONSHIPS
Forster went to India in 1912 and he visited it again in 1921-22, after the war, working as a
personal secretary of the Maharajah. All the story is centred on the Indian doctor Aziz, who
wants to establish a warm personal contact with the British and the English world : the
English characters, especially Adela, a young English girl on holiday in India, are described as
outsiders in India, with the impossibility of a good balance between the two cultures.
Even in this novel, however, the racial contrast is a pretext for Forster to explore the
complexity of human relationships, here more difficult for the difference of cultures.
 “Maurice” (1914, published in 1971) : ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY
This novel is Forster’s homosexual autobiography. It circulated privately among friends, but it
was published in 1971, one year after his death, when this question was differently considered.
Forster lived his homosexuality as a sense of guilt, in a period in which it was still considered
as a criminal offence; another aspect of the theme of relationships.
FORSTER and the “BLOOMSBURY GROUP”
Forster was one of the leading members of the famous BLOOMSBURY GROUP.
It was a literary, artistic and philosophic group of writers that regularly met in the London quarter of
Bloomsbury, near the British Museum.
Its members were famous extravagant painters, writers, economists, philosophers, critics and
journalists of the time, like Virginia Woolf (a Modernist novelist), her sister Vanessa, Virginia’s
husband, that founded the famous Hogarth Press , a means of political and artistic communication of
these difficult years.
The “Bloomsbury Apostles”, as they called themselves, were strongly anti-Victorian, unconventional in
their ideas about life, society and art, sceptical about religion, strongly against war, and left-wing in
politics.
Forster shared with them this sense of rebellion against conventional rules.
Their ideas about sex, in particular, caused some scandal, sexual promiscuity was common among them,
with lots of bisexual relations.
FORSTER and KIPLING : two differents images of INDIA
RUDYARD KIPLING ()1865-1936) was the first English author to write seriously about the British
in India. He was born in Bombay, India, but he got the English nationality, he studied in English schools,
so his vision of Anglo-Indian relationships was controversial.
He loved the mystery of India, its exuberant nature, his cities and its people. But he was also a strong
supporter of the British imperialism. He thought that the British had a natural superiority over the
native Indians. His country was India, but he loved England too, and its colonial power and duty. Thus,
Kipling had a bad imperialist reputation during the first decades of the XXth century.
His famous poem “The White Man’s Burden” was considered as the manifesto of the British
Imperialism, even if its interpretations are controversial.
Kipling describes natives as childlike, thus the obligation (“burden”) of white people to rule over
them, for their benefit, till they adopt western national culture.
This position may be racist, but also philantrophic and patronising : the white man has got the
moral duty and obligation to help the other populations, to improve their condition, to better
themselves, because Imperialism has got the “beneficent role” to avoid “poverty and ignorance”.
Kipling thinks that it’s a hard work for Britain, thus he calls this duty “burden”.
THE
“UTOPIAN”
LITERATURE
The name “UTOPIA” is a play on 2 Greek words : “outopos” (=no place), and “eutopos”
(=good place).
“Utopian” literature dates from the 5th century BC. It was seen as a technique to promote ethical
teachings in a pleasant context, and it became quite popular with readers, especially in the form of the
fable or religious allegory.
The Greek ARISTOPHANES , in his play “The Birds”, described a utopian city in the air, against the
corruption of imperial Athens.
ARISTOTLES , too, spoke about ideal communities, but it was PLATO that gave a well precise
description of a scientifically organised co-operative community. In his “The Republic”, Plato imagined a
controlled superstate where each man had his specific role : there were natural rulers, a clear minority,
and natural subjects. In Plato’s ideal community, philosophers were the rulers (see Mustapha Mond in
“Brave New World”), because they were wise and honest. Below them, to keep order, there were the
warriors, and below these, the great mass of the workers. In Plato’s society, as in Huxley’s more rigid one,
children were controlled by the state, and there was no marriage, since women were in common.
In the Middle Ages, the influence of Plato was seen in the ideal state suggested by SIR THOMAS
MORE, in a volume that gave the name to this type of literature, “Utopia” (1516). More’s “Utopia” was
greatly influence by his times, the Elizabethan Age. For example, in an age of such a strong monarchy, he
spoke a lot about the idea of “property”, that should be enjoyed by everybody, independently from birth.
More’s hero visits a utopian land, with 54 well planned cities. Here, population is kept constant, agriculture
is regulated, and production is directly distributed in markets. The work-day was shortened so that
everyone may have time to relax, and for education, which was compulsory. There was absolute tolerance in
religion ; laws were kept to a minimum and were so simplified that everybody could understand them.
In the Renaissance, TOMMASO CAMPANELLA, with his “City of the Sun” (1623), advocated a type
of communism and biologically controlled society, ruled by a priest-king and 3 ministers of the state. This
state reflected Campanella’s dream of a united mankind converted to Catholicism, in a world-state under
the leadership of the Pope.
Still in the Renaissance, FRANCIS BACON, in his “New Atlantis” (1627) gave more importance to
science in the future. In “Brave New World”, too, science plays an extremely important role.
SWIFT ‘s “Gulliver’s Travels” (1726) was a masterpiece of utopian narrative, a book for children and
adults. On the surface, it is a book of travels in improbable lands, a story of adventure ; underneath, it is a
strong satire against the pettiness and grossness of mankind, with a bitter conclusion : a better utopian
world is ruled by horses, not by men !
In the Preromantic and Romantic Age, the French philosopher J.J.ROUSSEAU spoke about an ideal
society, a “state of nature”, where man could live in a pure condition, as pure as a child. Man was born
free and pure, and the “social contract”, the overabundance of culture and the complexity of civilization can
corrupt him. (see the savage in the Indian Reservation in “Brave New World”).
In the 16th-17th centuries, the idea of utopia became more and more practical, influencing politics and
society.
It was the case of the so called
“utopistic socialism”.
SAINT SIMON,
CHARLES
FOURIER and ROBERT OWEN were the most famous “utopistic” socialists. They were so defined
by Charles MARX, in contrast with his “Scientific” socialism, not based on utopistic imaginary ideal places,
but on revolution and concrete social action.
S. Simon, for example, would like to create a new society
based on science; Fourier based on human passions only. In these types of socialistic societies, private
property was discouraged, economy was controlled, and family relations were frequently subject to
experimentation.
The XXth century was rich in utopian literature, especially “technological” utopias.
H.G.WELLS (1866-1946) studied science and he is considered as a master of science fiction. In 1895, in
his “The Time Machine”, he divided the earth between a master race and servants, similar to the society
in “Brave New World”.
However, in the XXth century, the positive connotation of the idea of utopia began to
change into what was called the “reverse utopia”,
or “pseudo-utopian satire”, or
“dystopia” , a degeneration of society in the future. “Dystopian” novels don’t simply
show a future world that is different from our own, but a world that is a mirror of ours,
with the worst features, degenerations and bad exaggerations.
The most famous examples are “Brave New World”, by A. HUXLEY, and “1984” by G.ORWELL.
Orwell’s “Animal Farm” , too, was a first expression of a pessimistic evolution of the present, seen through
his satire of the Russian Revolution under a fable whose protagonists were the animal of a farm.
“Lord of the Flies”, by W.GOLDING
the “noble savage”.
is another interesting “reverse” version of Rousseau’s theory of
“A Clockwork Orange”, by A.BURGES is a nightmarish vision of the future, with a tragical final message
of the author (see also the famous film version by S. Kubrik).
George ORWELL
(1903-1950)
Against the middle class
He was born in India, in a snobbish middle class family, and he always felt a deep hate for his social
class and a great interest in lower classes (left-wing intellectual)
Against totalitarism
The more his social democratic interest increases, the more he refuses any form of oppressive and
totalitarian regime, and any social injustice.
The Spanish experience : disillusion for revolution
His great interest in social causes brought him to Spain, when the Civil War broke out in 1936 : his
experience in Spain is described in “Homage to Catalonia”, where he described his experience as a
journalist.
He strongly opposed any form of totalitarism, substaining a democratic socialism. After the first
enthusiasm, he began to find faults especially with the Communists : he was disillusioned by Communism
because it had become a totalitarian regime, that completely ignored freedom and the rights of men,
that is, another form of totalitarism. (“Animal Farm”)
From disillusion to pessimism
This sense of disillusion was followed by a dark pessimism, because the Republic had completely lost
the war : his descriptions of Barcelona oppressed by fear and suspicion seem to anticipate some
nightmarish pages of “1984”.
The experience in Spain greatly influenced his ideas about the second World War. Orwell was deeply
pessimist, and inclined to pacifism, because the imminent conflict was for him between two forms of
oppression and totalitarism, The Nazi and the Imperialistic Western oppression. On his opinion, the
result was a disaster in any case.
This is what he thought about totalitarian regimes :
“A totalitarian regime is one when everything is not prohibited is ….. compulsory!”
“1984”
Orwell’s story is set in 1984, not too distant from the time the novel was written, 1948 (the last two
numbers of that year were reversed, to give the title of the novel).
The story
In 1984, the world is divided into three great powers : Oceania, Eastasia, Eurasia. They are
continually at war. Britain, a part of Oceania, is ruled by a totalitarian Fascism, whose leader is “Big
Brother”. Though he is never seen, he watches every street and building by microphones and
videocameras. There is no privacy. The “Thought Police” may punish voluntary and involuntary
infringements of the totalitarian system.
Society is divided between members of the “Party” (a minority with absolute control on everybody)
and the “proles” (proletarians), who live in separate districts and lead a brutish instinctual life.
The Party constantly rewrites history and newspapers, adapting them to the political needs of the
moment, so historical memory and consciousness are cancelled. Then, it constantly reduces vocabulary
to the point when there will be very few words, with prefixes and suffixes (the so called “Newspeak”),
because language can be dangerous for propaganda, and it can encourage independent thought.
The protagonist of the novel is Winston Smith, an intellectual whose job is to manipulate the “facts”,
by rewritig old books and nespapers. But he feels different from the other members of the Party, and
he can’t share their fanaticism. One day he starts to keep a diary, a decision that changes his life, and
he wants to discover and understand what is going on, what is really happening and happened in the
world.
He meets Julia, a young girl, and they become lovers, which is illegal ; they make love - sex is forbidden
between members of the Party - and love to collect old objects - this shows an appreciation of the
past and that, too, is forbidden.
When their relationship is found out, both Winston and Julia are subjected to “reabilitation
treatment”, a sort of brain-wash, a program of mental and physical torture. At the end of the
treatment, they are “cured”, but destroyed in body and soul.
Winston has lost his will and emotions ; he can only stare dumbly at Big Brother and adore him.
Meaning of the story
The great importance of this novel is Orwell’s nightmarish vision of a town in the future, and of the
future of mankind in general.
Orwell had always expressed his hate for any form of totalitarism (2) : “Animal Farm” , too, was an
allegory of the Russian Revolution and of any form of exploitment and manipulation of the masses (3).
In “1984”
Orwell describes the methods of totalitarism by which thought is controlled, privacy
invaded, personal resistance broken down.
In this society of the future, one can only stay alone in darkness and ilence ( out of the telescreens),
or in one’s mind, like Winston, when he tries to remember a time when London was not the ugly
agglomerate of decayed buildings and places it is now. But even if he tries, he cannot recall the time
when London was not like this : there is no escape from the nightmare of 1984.
“1984” became the symbol of modern degeneration of society. Some of the novel’s key terms entered
the common language, for exemple, Big Brother is the symbol of a distant, mysterious yet
omnipresent oppressor; Newspeak is an imposed language, the symbol of lack of speaking,writing and so
thinking freedom
Orwell’s “1984” is more serious than Huxley’s “Brave New World”.
Orwell is “tragically” pessimist ; Huxley is “ironically” pessimist. Orwell concentrates mainly on
the effects of totalitarism and dictatorship, as a committed left-wing intellectual ; Huxley
concentrates mainly on the scientific evolution of modern society, with a constant interest in science
and its effects on men, as a scientist-writer with a familiar scientific background.
Huxley is more interested in the genetic control of population, o how science can manipulate and
control the birth of children and so the composition of families in laboratories ; Orwell is more
worried about the control of people’s behaviour, about the manipulation on language (“Newspeak”) ,
because Orwell was a journalist, a linguist, not a scuentist.
Thus, Orwell’s man of the future is a brain-washed creature, mentally manipulated, that lives in a
destroyed town ; Huxley’s man of the future is a genetically changed creature,
physically
manipulated, that lives in an ultra-civilized world.
(2) Orwell was among the first who, even before the war, began to use the word “totalitarism” to define any form of
oppressive ideology, Nazism or Socialism. He used to say : “A totalitarian regime is one when everything that is
not prohibited is compulsory”
(3) Remember, in ANIMAL FARM, the slogan “4 legs good, 2 legs bad” changed into “4 legs good, 2 legs better”,
or “all animals are equal” changed into “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”
WILLIAM GOLDING
(1911-1993)
Life
William Golding was born in Cornwall, England, in 1911.
Even if his main interests were in literature, his parents urged him to study natural sciences. After his
first years in Oxford university, he soon changed his studies for English literature.
After graduating from Oxford, he worked briefly as a theatre actor, wrote poetry and then became a
schoolteacher.
He joined World War II, in the Royal Navy, and took part to the landing in Normandy. Golding’s experience
in war had a deep effect on his view of the world, and the terrible consequences of it.
After the war he started writing novels : his first and greatest success came with “Lord of the flies”
(1954), that became a bestseller in both Britain and the USA, after a lot of publishers rejected it.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983, and died for heart attack in 1993.
“Lord of the flies”
It is the story of a group of English young boys, from 6 to 12, wrecked on a tropical south Pacific desert
island : they were evacuated from a war, probably with the atomic bomb, and their plane is shot down. Even
if the novel is fictional, it is strongly based on Golding’s experience with the real life violence and
brutality of world war II.
The first two characters introduced are Ralph , an athletic and charismatic boy with blond hair, and
Piggy, a fat boy with glasses also suffering from asthma. Piggy is not very popular among the boys, but he is
intelligent and becomes Ralph’s “lieutenant”.
The two boys find a conch shell, and use it to summon the boys on the island.
Ralph is chosen as the boys’ leader. Another boy, Jack, that once was a choir leader, is elected by Ralph as
the leader of the hunters.
At first, the boys are full of optimism, and their life on the island is sometimes amusing : the weather is
sunny, and nature is fantastic! But life on the island gradually begins to deteriorate, and change into
savagery, especially because the boys divide into two factions :
some behave peacefully and work together to maintain order (Ralph is their leader);
others rebel , creating anarchy and violence (Jack is the leader).
As the novel takes place during the war, one day a plane pilot is parachuted on the island, but he dies
before landing. The boys on the island discover this corpse in progressive decomposition entrapped in the
parachute, and they are very afraid, and call him “the Beast”. “The Beast” becomes the main trouble for
the boys, so, one day they decide to kill a pig, to put its decapitated head on a stick and to offer it to “the
Beast”. Flies swarm around the head of the decomposed pig’s head (see the title of the novel).
Only one boy, Simon, considered as insane, understands that “the Beast” is only the corpse of a soldier,
but nobody believes in him, and he is also killed by the boys that, at last, mistake Simon for “the Beast”.
Order and civilization have completely disappeared. The boys are fighting one another ; Piggy and other
boys are killed, the conch shell is broken and they also set the forest in fire.
This fire is seen by a passing ship, and one of the officers rescues Ralph and the boys. Ralph declares to
the captain of the ship to be the leader of the children, and for the first time on the island Ralph cries.
The officer seems indifferent to the children and only looks at the horizon of the sea to come back home.
MAIN CHARACTERS
RALPH
Ralph is the athletic, charismatic protagonist of the novel. He is the symbol of order, civilization and
productive leadership.
Ralph understands that the most important thing to survive is to set the fire alive, as a sign of their
presence on the island for a passing ship. In fact, his main wish is to be rescued and return to society.
However, his role gradually decreases, for the savage instincts of Jack and the other boys.
Even if he is rescued at the end and he returns to civilization, when he sees the officer he cries, because
he is conscious that bad instincts and savagery are naturally inside the boys, so he cries for the
consciousness of the human innate tendency to EVIL.
JACK
Jack is the symbol of instinct of savagery, violence and desire of power, the antithesis of Ralph.
The first time he sees a pig, at the beginning of the novel, he is unable to kill it, but he soon becomes
obsessed with hunting and painting his face as a barbarian, to express his savagery : the more savage Jack
becomes, the more he is able to control the rest of the group.
PIGGY
He is the most intelligent, rational boy in the group. His glasses are used to focus the sunlight and start the
fire, so he represents the power of science and reason, the intellectual power of civilization.
SIMON
If Ralph and Jack are two opposite leaders (civilization against savagery), Simon is the symbol of innate
spiritual human goodness, spontaneity, he is a “good savage”. He is the only one that understands that “the
Beast” on the island is not a real physical beast, but the real “beast” is inside the boys, their fears,
their bad instincts.
Simon speaks a lot with “Lord of the flies” (or he imagines to speak!), the head of the pig on the stick, that
is the real symbol of that evil inside the boys.
When, at the end, he is killed by the savage instinct of the boys, he shows how evil wins on good in the
world.
THEMES
Civilization and savagery
Civilization and savagery are represented by Ralph and Jack. This conflict can be expressed in different
ways : order against chaos, reason against instinct, law against anarchy and, more generally, GOOD
against EVIL.
As the novel progresses, Golding shows how the instinct of savagery, that is, EVIL, is stronger in man than
the instinct of civilization. Thus, the boys naturally revert to cruelty and barbarism.
This idea of innate human evil is central in “Lord of the flies”, and finds expression in some important
symbols, especially “the Beast” and the pig’s head on the stick.
Some critics approached this novel with Freud’s theories : the “ID” (the instinctive impulse), the “EGO”
(the rational mind) and the “SUPER-EGO” (the background influence).
Loss of innocence
Children progressively lose that sense of innocence they had at the beginning of the novel : the painted
savages in the last chapters are totally different from the innocent children swimming and playing in the
lagoon in the first chapters.
This idea is totally opposite to ROUSSEAU’s theory of the “noble savage”.
On Golding’s opinion, man is essentially bad (he said that “man can produce evil as bees can produce honey”).
Differently from Rousseau’s ideas, Golding thinks that civilization can only “mitigate” , but never destroy
the innate evil and savagery that exists in man.
To express his pessimism on the human nature, Golding is even ironical with Rousseau : his boys, his
negative heroes, are NOT men, corrupted by civilization, but children, that are able to change a tropical
Eden into a Hell, progressively degenerating into a group of barbarians!!
The character more similar to Rousseau’s “good savage” is Simon, but he is a victim of the other boys’
violence and savagery.
Biblical parallels
Many critics have noticed a lot of biblical parallels in the story.
The island is the garden of Eden, then corrupted by the introduction of evil. Ralph and Jack are just
like Abel and Cain in the biblical Garden of Eden.
The “lord of the flies” recalls the devil : in fact the name itself , “lord of the flies”, is a literal
translation of the biblical name of Beelzebub, a powerful demon in Hell, sometimes thought to be Satan
himself.
Simon recalls Jesus : he is the one that understands the truth in the novel, and the other boys kill him
sacrificially as a victim, like Jesus Christ on the cross.
Simon’s conversation with the “lord of the flies” is similar to the confrontation between Jesus and the
devil during Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, as told in the Christian Gospels.
But Golding’s pessimism is even stronger, because Jesus died and saved mankind ; on the contrary, Simon’s
death does not bring salvation on the island, but, rather, his death brings the island into worse savagery.
SYMBOLS in the novel
The novel is full of symbols.
THE ISLAND,
often used in the English literature as an ideal situation, as a shipwreck, as a
microcosm of the civilized world, here is the symbol of an ideal Eden, with a fine hot weather, wonderful
lagoons and a green forest, everything before the arrival of the children, a Hell at the end.
The island becomes the symbol of the corrupted world and corrupted mankind.
Jack’s courage to kill the first pig, at the beginning of the novel, probably represents the original sin in
this Eden garden. In fact, from this moment on, the boys always paint their face when they become
hunters, as to hide their crime and acts of violence.
THE CONCH SHELL
Ralph and Piggy find a conch shell on the beach at the beginning of the novel and use it to summon the boys
together. The conch shell becomes the symbol of civilization and order, and the boy who holds the
conch, holds the right to speak, so it also becomes a symbol of democracy.
The conch gradually loses its power, and a lot of boys begin to ignore Ralph when he holds the conch in his
hands. When, at last, the conch is broken, anarchy follows.
THE FIRE
The signal fire burns on the mountains and later on the beach to attract passing ships. The fire is the
connection of the boys to civilization. When the fire burns low or estinguishes, we can understand that
the boys have lost their desire to be rescued, accepting their savage life on the island.
Ironically, at the end of the novel, the fire really attracts a ship, but it is just the fire that completely
destroys the forest, it’s the fire of savagery.
THE “BEAST”
is the corpse of a soldier entrapped in his parachute, but only Simon understands
what the “beast” really is.
It is the symbol of fear, superstitions, false beliefs, something that is INSIDE the boys, not outside :
it is significant that as the boys become more savage, their belief in the “beast” becomes stronger!
THE “LORD OF THE FLIES”
is the bloody pig’s decapitated head that Jack impales on a
stick in the forest, as an offering to the “beast”. When the head begins to decompose, it attracts many
flies.
It is a complex symbol, connected to the image of the “beast”. It is the head itself, in the imaginary
dialogue with Simon, that tells him what it represents : the head says that evil lies within every human
heart, so this decomposed head is the symbol of Devil (or evil), a sort of Satan figure that evokes the
“beast” within each human being.
While the “beast” represents only the general concept of fear and superstition, the “lord of the flies” is
the physical embodiment of evil.
THE BRITISH OFFICER,
at the end of the story comes to rescue the boys, and he is the
symbol of civilization. However, the adult society he represents is a mirror, on a large scale, of the boys’
world on their corrupted island. That’s why Ralph is crying : he knows to be rescued, but he knows he is
coming back to a world that is very similar to the world of the island.
“BRAVE NEW WORLD” : analysis of the main characters
JOHN
Even if John appears after in the story, he is the real protagonist of the novel.
He is rejected both by the “savage” Indian culture in the Reservation, and by the civilized World State
culture, he is a real outsider.
As an outsider, John takes his values from an author of the past, William Shakespeare. Shakespeare
teaches John
 to understand and describe his emotions and human reactions
 to criticise the World State values in favour of deeper interior values
 to give him a good language to speak
Thus, he represents all the human and humanitarian values lost in the World State.
Shakespeare’s words are used by John also at the beginning, when he is a “good savage” yet, optimist about
the World State (“O brave new world, that has such a stuff in it!”) ; at the end, these words are ironical,
of course, especially when John commits suicide just because he can’t live in the World State.
BERNARD MARX
Bernard’s first appearance is highly ironic : the World State has eliminated anger, jealousy, love pains, but
Bernard suffers for love, jealousy and he is angry with his sexual rivals! Thus, he is interesting for the
reader, because he is “human” and “imperfect” in a world of perfection, he wants things that he can’t
have!
His popularity is connected to the discovery of John in the Reservation ; before, Bernard was a lonely,
insecure and isolated character, he is simply a misfit, generated by a lab mistake. When he returns to the
World State from the Reservation with John, he becomes very popular and he shares all those aspects of
the World State that he criticised before!
When John refuses to become a tool in Bernard’s attempt to remain popular, Bernard’s success soon
collapses, and he becomes unpleasant, hypocritical and contradictory for the reader. Bernard Marx,
compared to John, is the typical “anti-hero”.
HELMHOLTZ WATSON
Even if Watson is not so well described as the other characters, he is important in the story, because he is
everything Bernard wishes to be : strong, intelligent and attractive. Unlike Bernard, he is loved and
respected.
Watson is very similar to John in spirit : both love poetry, both are intelligent and critical of the World
State. But there is a great cultural gap between them : John is emotionally moved by Shakespeare’s
emotions and sentiments, that Watson can’t understand, because neither emotions nor sentiments are
admitted in the World State. When John quotes “Romeo and Juliet”, for example, Watson cannot but laugh
at the mention of “mother”, “father” and “marriage”, concepts that are vulgar and ridiculous in the World
State.
MUSTAPHA MOND
He is the living symbol of the World State. Early in the novel it is his voice that explains the history of
the World State and the philosophy on which it is based. Later in the novel, it is his dialogue with John
that lays the fundamental differences in values between the World State and the kind of society
represented in Shakespeare’s plays.
Mustapha Mond is a paradoxical figure : he read Shakespeare and the Bible, and he is an independent
minded scientist, but he also controls a totalitarian state. For Mond, the ultimate goals of mankind are
stability and happiness, and this can be obtained only without emotions, without “human relations” and
without “individual expression”., everything considered as weaknesses in the World State, that can create
instability.
MAIN THEMES in “BRAVE NEW WORLD”
We can find the main themes of the novel especially in Chapter 16, when Mustapha Mond is speaking to
John , and two different ways of thinking are compared.
A criticism of present “consumer society”
“Brave New World” is not only a warning about what could happen in society in the future, it is also a deep
criticism of the society of the present, that is the “consumer society”, that Huxley highly opposed. In the
“consumer society”, everything in life is based of individual happiness, as ability to satisfy practical needs
and concrete appetites, everything surrounded, of course, by economic growth and prosperity.
The use of technology to control society
“Brave New World” is a warning against the dangers of an over-power of technologies in the future.
The novel is full of significant examples of this kind :



The first one is the Bokanovsky Process (a sort of cloning!), that is the rigid control of
reproduction with technological and medical intervention, including the surgical removal of ovaries.
Embryos are altered to use their best potential for excellence. As a consequence, there is a
different and controlled distribution of labour in society, in contradiction with the ideals of
“equality” by Karl Marx (see the choice of the name Bernard Marx).
Another example is the hypnopaedic conditioning, a conditioning during sleep, with some slogans
about love and faith for one’s social class, one’s colour, and one’s job.
“Soma” is the third example of medical, biological and technological conditioning on society : “soma”
is a legal drug that gives an instant gratification for everything.
But there is a great contradiction in this society : the World State is based on technology, but the people,
that are a product of science, didn’t have to know what science is (only a few of them), because search for
knowledge , of “truth”, is in conflict with “happiness”. Thus, everybody is a product of science, but they
must NOT know it, people must be happy for what they are, without any mental curiosity.
This is a difference between Huxley’s “Brave New World” and Orwell’s “1984”, where the control of an allpowerful State is more political than technological. The Government of “1984” maintains power with
force and intimidation ; the Government of “Brave New World” makes his citizens happy and
superficially satisfied.
The incompatibility of “happiness” and “truth”
Mustapha Mond explains what “happiness” and “truth” mean respectively in the World State.
“Happiness” is the immediate gratification of everybody’s desire for food, sex, drug, nice clothes and
other consumer items.
“Truth”, as Mond explains to John, can be divided into 2 types :
 scientific truth (objective truth) ; people didn’t have to know what their origin was, what scientific
methods are used in their life
 human truth (subjective truth), such as love, friendship, personal relations, commitment. People
have no fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children, because these relations produce emotional
instability and so unhappiness. Thus, a lot of these words are even forbidden! Even “art” is a form
of subjective truth, it is not a consumer product, and it is too connected with feelings and
passions. (That’s why Shakespeare’s works were forbidden tests in the World State)
The loss of religion
In the World State, in this consumer society, the citizens substitute the name of Henry Ford (the early
xxth century industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company) to the name of Lord, Christ, God.
The novel often shows such phrases as “my Ford!” (instead of “My God!”) or “Year of our Ford” (instead
of “our Lord”) , and so on.
This is an example of how, even at the level of a casual and simple conversation, religion has been replaced
by reverence for technology, specifically the efficient mechanised factory production of goods by Henry
Ford.
Alienation
There is another theme of the novel, unfortunately a frequent attitude of our modern society, too,
alienation. Different characters are alienated for different reasons : Bernard is alienated because he is a
misfit, too small and weak for the position he has in society. Watson is alienated for the opposite reason :
he is too intelligent, even to play the role of Alpha Plus. John is alienated on multiple levels : both the
Indian community and the World State reject him. The most tragic episode is the final sufferance of
John, surrounded by reporters and curious people, coming to see him, and his final death, a death coming
from “alienation”.
Love and sex
“Brave New World” is full of references to sex. People are strictly controlled over sexual habits and
reproduction. Two thirds of women are sterilized, and the others must use contraceptives, that arte
compulsory.
The theme of sexuality , in the World State, has been degraded to a level of “commodity”, and simple
pleasure. An example is the use of the adjective “pneumatic” : this adjective is used to describe two
things, Lenina’s body and chairs. “Pneumatic” means that something has air inside or works by means of
compressed air. In the case of the chairs, it probably means that the chair-cushions are inflated with air.
In Lenina’s case, the word is used to say she is well-rounded, curvy, attractive, particularly her bosom and
breasts. The use of this strange adjective to describe both a woman and an object suggests a degradation
of sex!
Of course, John still distinguishes sex from love. He is tortured by his desire for Lenina, especially when
she offers him sex only!. The conflict between John’s desire for LOVE and Lenina’s desire for SEX shows
the great difference in values between the World State and John’s Shakesperean world.
“BEHAVIOURISM” AND CRIMINALITY
After the second world war, press often spoke about the probem of criminality among young people : young boys at the
end of the 50s were restless and bad, violent and disillusioned of the after-war world.
What about them ? Prison or reformatories even got them worse : a proposal was to make an easy conditioning system,
a sort of disgust-therapy, based on the association between violence and pain, nausea, even death. This proposal was
based on the theories of the American psychologist Frederic Skinner, known as “behaviourism” : Skinner stated that
human actions were the response to a stimulus, and this process could be adapted to most human activities, from
learning a language to education in general (see a similar method in HUXLEY’s Brave New World) : thus Alex is made
to associate the sight of violence with his own physical pain.
THE “LUDWIG SYSTEM”
Burgess himself said that “A CLOCKWORK ORANGE” had to be a sort of manifesto about the importance of the possibility of
choice between GOOD and EVIL.
Alex is forced to be or completely good or completely bad, thus his free will and mental stability are destroyed.
The association of violent and terrible images to physical pain would have been enough; the further sadic punishment for Alex is
the forced association of these bad images and sensations to his favourite music, too, that of Ludwig Van Behethoven. Thus, he
will never be able to listen to his music without feeling nausea and distress, and this is simply gratuitous, useless, because, as
Burgess said, it is as “stealing a man – stupid and irrational action – from his right to please of a divine vision!”
The conclusion of the author and of S.Kubrick’s picture, too, is that it is better to think about a world of a conscious and
voluntary violence than a world where goodness is compulsory.
The monstruous violence of the protagonist is also conditioned by an event of his life: in London, in 1942, during the war, Burgess’
wife was raped and beated woth violence by three American deserters.
Extract from an interview of Michael Ciment to STANLEY KUBRICK, the film director
What about the character of ALEX ?
It’s really extraordinary. Aaron Stern, the President of the Motion Picture Association, that is also a psychiatrist, gave an interesting
interpretation of this character. On his opinion, Alex, at the beginning of the film, represents man in his “natural state” (see
Rousseau). The so-called “Ludwig system” represents, in psychological terms, a process of “civilization”. Alex’s consequent
disease is a neurosis imposed by society to man. The final sense of freedom, even if it corresponds to a step back in Alex’s
behaviour, represents man’s break with civilization.
Alex is a really bad character and I prefer bad characters in all my pictures : “better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” , Milton
said : bad characters are always more interesting than good ones !
Moreover, if I had chosen a so bad character, the bad effect of the Establishment conditioning on him wouldn’t have been so
strong : such an Establishment is so terrible and monstruous that it can change even a character like Alex into a zombie!
In the novel, Alex is 15, but not in the picture
I couldn’t find a 15 year old actor as talented as Malcom McDowell!
What do you think about the Establisment ? And about science ?
I think science is much more dangerous than the Establishment, because its effects are more lastng. Of course, I don’t think
science is totally negative, but it must be controlled. For exemple, in the first Los Alamos experiments on the atomic bomb, some
scientists knew that the first explosion would cause a destroying reaction for the world, thus any experiment would be dangerous.
But some more influent scientists stated that there would be no destructive reaction at all, and decided to do the experiment : they
were right, but the only doubt of danger would be enough to avoid the experiment. But the experiment followed all the same. I
have always considered this episode as the most disquieting exemple of science danger.
Why is the end of the book different from the end of the film ?
There were two editions of the book. The American edition ended like the film, with no hope for a future redemption of the
character. The second English edition added a chapter where Alex felt the need of a moral change, even thinking about marriage
and normal life. I chose the first edition, because I considered the other totally contraddictory with the rest of the story and with the
monstruosity of Alex’s character.
H I S T O R I C A L
B A C K G R O U N D
THE POST-WAR PERIOD AND THE 50s
Even if Britain was one of the winners of the 2nd World War, after German
bombardments and war troubles, it was in great difficulty.
As in France, Italy and Germany, the Marshall Plan (=an aid program sponsored by the
US) helped the country to increase productivity and introduce some welfare measures.
It was he period of the so called Welfare State : the government would spend more
to improve the economy (its motto was “from the cradle to the grave”).
This program was supported by the Labour Party, that won the elections after the war:
the government tried to raise the level of employment and improve working conditions
(more production of coal, iron, steel, gas, electricity, and British railways).
An immediate result of the Marshall Plan was that the standard of living of the lower
classes was raised : higher wages, better working conditions and a high rate of inflation
encouraged people “to spend” money more than “to save” it. The immediate consequence
was the so called “consumer society” : lots of people began to invest in “durable
consumer goods” , such as cars, televisions, furniture, and in Britain there was a real
economic boom.
The promises of the Labour Party, however, were not respected, and little by little the
Labour Government became very unpopular, and it was defeated in the elections of 1951.
In 1952 Elizabeth II became Queen of England.
Moreover, some events during the 40s and 50s seriously damaged the nation’s image :
After a long struggle, in 1947, INDIA finally got complete independence;
In 1948, British troops were unable to keep order in Palestine, that was then
under the British control ;
Britain had lost the supremacy of her colonies. The great British Empire began to
collapse in the 50s and this process went on till the 60s ;
The relation between the countries that had been allied during the 2nd World War
had become problematic since 1946, and in the 50, after the union of the
Communist countries (Warsaw Pact), it was clear that the world was now
divided into two opposed factions : a Western block, on which the USA had a
considerable control, and the Eastern block, dominated by the USSR. The result
was a continuous tension between the two blocks (Cold War)
THE 60s : THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT
The economic boom of the “consumer society” created a new youth culture, that was
both a product and a reaction to the Welfare State. Rock’n’roll bands such as the
Beatles and the Rolling Stones flourished ; fashion was changing rapidly and Mary Quant
invented the mini-skirt.
THE
70s : THE RETURN OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY
At the end of the 60s, a need of change was felt by lots of young people. Traditional
values were considered as inadequate : hippies, pacifists and left-wing groups were
beginning to challenge the Establishment. These movements were not limited to Britain,
but they were active in all Europe, and in USA in particular they gradually brought to the
Vietnam War (1964-1973).
Society was changing rapidly ; individual freedom was now considered as a right ; capital
punishment was abolished in 1965, and homosexual relationships and abortion were made
legal in 1967.
THE 80s : THE END OF THE “WELFARE STATE”
In 1979 Mrs Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, at the head of the
Conservative Government. It officially marked the end of the Welfare State.
Mrs Thatcher had to solve lots of problems at home , such as industries, inflation,
unemployment, but also violence, coming both from Northern Ireland and from social
tensions : as a result of unemployment, criminality and hooliganism began to grow.
But she had to solve lots of problems abroad, too, such as the war against Argentina in
the Falkland Islands, and the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein.
The Conservative Government with Mrs Thatcher (till 1990)and John Major (till 1997)
stayed in office for 18 years, and in the 1997 elections it was defeated by the Labourist
Tony Blair.
CONCLUSION
After the 2nd World War, the political and social problems, the world tensions and the
sense of anxiety pervading contemporary life, were all elements that deeply influenced
literature and culture.
DRAMA especially reflected the xxth century trouble, more than fiction and poetry
CONTEMPORARY DRAMA
INTRODUCTION
It has become a common place to say that a real “revolution” in drama exploded on
8th May 1956, at the first performance of JOHN OSBORNE’s
“Look Back In
Anger” , but in spite of the obvious exaggerations and journalistic excitements that
followed Osborne’s play, this event can still be considered as a watershed between the
old and the new in the British theatre.
What was the situation of drama before 1956?
Drama went through a very long crisis : after the “golden age” of drama that coincided
with Shakespeare, the beginning of the real crisis was the closing of the theatres
during the Puritan Revolution by Cromwell (1642-1660). Drama had to wait long
centuries before having its past splendour (19th –20th century!).
However, new causes of decline emerged in the 40s and 50s :
The indifference of the Government authorities, that completely ignored the
importance of the theatre from a social and cultural point of view ;
The competition of the other media, such as radio , film industry and television ;
The increasing production costs
The concrete consequences of the two World Wars : destruction of several
playhouses, closing of many theatres, shortage of good actors
In this situation of theatrical crisis, 4 types of plays were popular in Britain, even if none
of them was really artistically original :
Classical drama, based on the old Shakesperean tradition, sometimes revisited
Poetic dramas, drama in verse, that was essentially elitist, because it was very
difficult to combine poetry and drama
[ these two genres were obviously for the most sophisticated theatre-goers]
Musicals, that had an American origin (“Guys and Dolls”, “My Fair Lady”, “West Side
story”) and they were a light form of entertainment
“Drawing-room” comedies (or “well-made plays”), usually set in a middle class
drawing-room, with their useless life. A characteristic of these comedies was the
presence of a sort of “hero”, someone better that the average, even if his life was
often trivial, and the audience could identify with him
[these last two genres were easier, and so they were less elitist and more popular
than the first two ones]
Drama in the 50s : “APATHY” and “ENTHUSIASM”, two opposites
With such a situation in drama, there was a sort of “paradox” : a sense of “apathy” and
consciousness of anxiety, but also a strong desire of something new, a new feeling that
was called “desire of the new NEW”, a strong “enthusiasm” in drama more than in
fiction or poetry.
Let’s consider these two contrasting feelings, “apathy” and “enthusiasm” :
“APATHY”
was caused by
disillusionment
and
disillusion of the Welfare State, that after promises of
reforms,
turned
to
be
another
kind
of
fatalistic
utopia.
Disillusionment is the sense of loss of values. Old generations realized that the
old values were lost. Disillusion is the sense of lack of values. New generations
realized that there were no values to believe in, to substitute the old ones.
A sense of frustration, emerging the loss of the Empire, and the feeling of nostalgia
for the past, especially in the old generations.
A sense of anguish, despair, rootlessness after the war, worsened by the Cold
War and the fear of a nuclear destruction.
“ENTHUSIASM” (better expressed in drama) was caused by
The Welfare State had contributed to enlarge the audiences, because of a new
interest of the Government in the arts. Those who were children in the 30s, had
got some culture and political consciousness, and they were ready to identify with
the characters and the plots of the new dramas. At first these plays were
performed on TV, a very important phenomenon in the “consumer age”. It is
significant to remember that “Look Back In Anger” owed much of its immediate
success to the fact that part of the play’s first production was shown on television.
By the early 50s, some aggressive and enterprising Companies established in the
working class East End in London.
The talented stage directors of these
companies wanted to bring theatre to the people, also with innovative plays. New
directors, actors and new structures were built : it was the English Stage
Company, the most famous company of the time, that performed on the 8th of May
1956 the revolutionary play “Look Back in Anger” by a young player and actor,
John OSBORNE.
The great influence of foreign dramatists :
a) American dramatists, such as Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams
b) the German dramatist
Bertold Brecht. He encouraged dramatists and
directors to turn their attention to politics and social problems, and so he was
appreciated by the working class, tired of old musicals and drawing-room comedies.
Moreover, Brecht refused the importance of sceneries, and created a new simple
and bare setting, giving more importance to characters
c) the French dramatist Jean Génet, that introduced the idea of the “absurd”
on the stage
d) the Rumanian novelist
Eugène Ionesco, generally considered as the real
spokesman of the Theatre of the “Absurd”, with his strange and de-humanized
characters
All these cultural influences gave rise to that movement called “NEW DRAMA”, whose
official date of birth is 8th May 1956, the première of John Osborne’s “Look Back in
Anger”.
JOHN OSBORNE (1929-1994)
“Look Back in Anger”
John Osborne is associated with a group of dramatists and novelists who emerged in the
1950s, and were called The Angry Young Men ; this nickname was given them by a
group of Fleet Street journalists.
The Angry Young Men shared a sense of hate for the Establishment and disillusion
with contemporary political life, that they expressed with their works.
The first performance of “Look Back in Anger” took place at the Royal Court Theatre
on the 8th of May 1956, and it was a real revolution in drama.
THE PLOT
The drama consists of 3 Acts, all built in the same structure, and each Act represents 3
phases of the story :
Exposition
Climax
Resolution
(Act I) : setting and 3 characters are introduced, JIMMY, his wife
ALISON and their friend CLIFF
(Act II) : the arrival of HELENA, Alison’s friend, develops and
complicates the situation
(Act III): Helena and Cliff leave, and Jimmy and Alison remain alone
The action takes place in a squalid attic flat in a Midlands town, where JIMMY PORTER
(a left-wing intellectual) and ALISON (an upper class woman), his wife, live a
monotonous life. CLIFF LEWIS, a friend of Jimmy, is always with them, even if he lives
in the opposite attic.
It’s Sunday afternoon, and nothing happens there, only a long series of invectives of
Jimmy : against Alison’s upper class family, literature, music, the Church of England, the
Establishment, radio programmes, even the London weather!! Alison is ironing, and she
keeps silence, refusing to have any reaction to Jimmy’s attacks. Cliff is with them, and
he seems to be indifferent to Jimmy’s anger, but if Alison soon appears as a sad woman,
Cliff is always happy and ironic.
The tension is so big that Alison is even unable to tell Jimmy she is pregnant.
One day HELENA, a friend of Alison, and consequently an enemy of Jimmy, comes there.
Alison describes to Helena her life with Jimmy and their lack of communication. She also
tells Helena they have a strange childish love game that unites them : she pretends to
be a squirrel and Jimmy a bear, two piece-animals that they really have in the attic.
When Jimmy’s anger becomes unbearable, Alison decides to come back to her parents’,
after three years of marriage. But nothing seems to change in the attic : Helena takes
the place of Alison, becoming Jimmy’s lover, in a strange “ménage à trois”, with Cliff, as
usual, while Jimmy is angrier and angrier, even if Helena seems to be stronger and more
reactive than Alison.
But Jimmy’s love for Helena is only based on an empty sexual attraction.
When Alison comes back home, she is sad, because she has lost her baby and also the
possibility of generating. Helena leaves the scene, and Cliff, too, and Alison and Jimmy
start their squirrel-bear game again.
So, nothing has changed, and when the story ends, we have the same condition we had at
the beginning.
THEMES
STUDY OF MARRIAGE
In the 50s, when Osborne wrote “Look Back in Anger” , there was a gradual decline of
the patriarchal family. This social change is reflected in the ambiguous triangular relation
between Jimmy, Alison and Cliff.
The love-hate relation between Jimmy and Alison is shown by the contrast between
Jimmy’s long monologues and invectives, and Alison’s long silences, a clear exemple of
lack of communication. She is even unable to tell him to be pregnant, she is able to speak
with spontaneity only with Cliff.
The marriage works well only on the level of their sexual fantasies : the bear-and-squirrel
game is a way to compensate their crisis. Only when they stop being Jimmy and Alison,
and they pretend to be two little animals, they are spontaneous and passionate.
CLASS WAR
Alison and Jimmy clearly represent a class war, and most of their problems come also
from their different social origins.
Jimmy belongs to a new “socialist” generation, very typical after the second World War ;
he is a well educated middle class men, with left-wing tendencies. He loves the working
class and hates the lack of sensibility of the upper class. Jimmy always insults Alison
because of her upper class origin, especially her father, Colonel Redfern, who is the
symbol of the old Imperialism, and also Helena, another member of the upper class.
THE LANGUAGE
One of the novelties of this drama is the very particular use of language, and how it is
different according to the different speaking characters.
Jimmy ‘s language is extremely eclectic, reflecting both his working class origin and his
university education : from vulgar slang (he calls Alison’s mother “female rhino”, “old
beach”, and Helena “cow”) to a well educated and sometimes erudite language, with
cultural quotations, often rethorical (he defines Alison’s brother
“sycophantic,
phlegmatic and pusillanimous”, that is, “servile”, “apathic” and “lacking of courage”, and he
even explains to Cliff the origin of “pusillanimous”, from the Latin “pusillus”, that is
“little”, and “animus”, that is “soul”).
Cliff’s language has not the range and the register of Jimmy’s it’s simple, spontaneous,
and sometimes full of humour.
Alison, Helena and Colonel Redfern use an upper-class register. The conversation
between Alison and her father, a very important part of the play (Act II) is a refined
upper class dialogue, not only for the balanced use of words (neither bad nor too erudite
words), but also for the quiet tone, without any anger or invectives.
This great variety of languages is a great novelty in the British drama.
C H A R A C T E R S
JIMMY
Jimmy is a tall, thin young man about
twenty-five, wearing a very worn
tweed jacket and flannels (1). Clouds of smoke
fill the room from the pipe he is smoking.
He is a disconcerting mixture of sincerity
and cheerful malice (2), of tenderness and
freebooting (3) cruelty; restless, importunate,
full of pride, a combination which alienates
the sensitive and insensitive alike.
Blistering (4) honesty, or apparent honesty,
like his, makes few friends. To many, he
may seem sensitive to the point of
vulgarity. To others, he is simply a
loudmouth (5).
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
trousers
merry cruelty
gratuitous
a kind of honesty that can hurt the people’s feelings
a person that speaks vulgarly and coarsely
But Jimmy is especially angry, against everything and everyone. His invectives are against
Alison’s father, the English Sundays, the journals, the Sunday afternoon tea, against
women, religion, society; what he really hates is the Establishment and the Welfare
State, considered by Jimmy as a sort of bureaucratic machine, the main cause of that
sense of tedium which is typical of the young Englishpeople.
Thus, his anger means protest, lack of ideals, refusal to submit to the Establishment, and
a great hate against the old values of the Victorian Age, especially the ideals of the old
middle class.
But his anger is totally empty, it’s a tendence to feel pity for himself, showing himself
as a victim of his own sensibility. He doesn’t sometimes know who to quarrel against :
“Damn you, damn both of you, damn them all!!” , he often says.
Thus Jimmy lives a kind of intellectual inertia, a social alienation, that was common to
many young people of the time, but he does nothing concrete to change or improve
society, he just feels “angry”.
Jimmy’s anger is well described by Alison in the middle of ACT II, while she is speaking
with her father:
You are hurt because everything is changed :
Jimmy is hurt because everything is the same…….
It is an exemple of Jimmy’s disillusion in contrast to Colonel Redfern’s disillusionment.
ALISON
She is a woman of the upper class, but she has accepted the traditional role of a working
class housewife. She often appears imperturbable, she often refuses to act or to speak
and she prefers suffering, accepting her destiny masochistically.
She is beautiful, tall, slim, and reserved. She has given herself to Jimmy physically, but
she has not fully accepted his ideals. She fell in love with him because he seemed to be
“a knight in shining armour”, but at the same time, she knows he is frail inside. Yet, the
differences in their background and education have proved to be too great, and Alison
remained attached, as Jimmy accuses her, to her familiar security. However, she often
seems to be a
“hostage” in the hands of Jimmy, who has taken her away from her
family.
Maybe, Alison is the only character in the play that has got an evolution, and certainly is
stronger than Jimmy : she is unable to speak to him, but is able to leave him and come
back to her family, but especially she has got the courage to come back to Jimmy, after
the terrible experience of her pregnancy.
That’s the way Alison comes back to Jimmy, telling him that their baby died ; and that’s
the way Jimmy replies……….. (the end of the play)
ALISON : Don’t you understand ? It’s gone, it’s gone – that helpless human being
inside my body. I thought it was safe and secure in there. Nothing could
take it from me. It was mine, my responsibility. But it’s lost. All I wanted
was to die (………..)
I’m in the fire (1) , and I’m burning and all I want is to die! (……….)
But what does it matter – this is what he wanted from me! Don’t you see!
I’m in the mud at last, I’m grovelling (2) , I’m crawling! Oh, God! (…………..)
JIMMY : Don’t, please, don’t …….. I can’t ……… you’re right. You’re right now.
Please, I, I ……… not any more.
We’ll be together in our bear’s cave, and our squirrel’s drey (3), and we’ll live
on honey and nuts, lots and lots of nuts. And we’ll sing songs about ourselves,
about warm trees, and lying in the sun (………….) Right? Poor squirrel!
ALISON : Poor bear!
[she laughs a little. Then looks at him very tenderly, and adds very very softly]
Oh, poor, poor bear!!
[Slides her arms around him : CURTAIN]
(1)
(2)
(3)
There are often images of Hell (fire, lakes in the ice, and so on)
To crawl at the floor (humiliated)
Nest
CLIFF
Cliff is the same age, short, dark, big boned, wearing a
pullover and grey, new, but very creased (1)
trousers. He is easy and relaxed, almost to
lethargy, with the rather sad, natural
intelligence of the self-taught (2) . If Jimmy
alienates love, Cliff seems to exalt
It – demonstrations of it, at least, even from
the cautions. He is a soothing (3), natural
counterpart of Jimmy.
(1) untidy
(2) a person who has educated himself without the help of schools or teschers
(3) quiet
Cliff, a working class Welsh man, is a pleasant person, who establishes an easy relation
both with Alison and with Helena. He represents goodness itself, reflected in Alison’s
description of her feelings for him :
“It’s just a relaxed, cheerful sort of thing,
like being warm in bed”
He is sensitive, and a good listener : Alison can often discuss things rationally with Cliff.
In Act II, speaking with Helena, Cliff himself says that he is
“….. a no-man’s land
between them”, because he lives in a “buffer state” between Alison and Jimmy, and
he often helps them to live that boring and terrible life.
Maybe Cliff has got two contrasting sentiments for his friends : love and pity, and so
he is able to speak and to keep silence too, at the right moment.
HELENA
She is the same age as Alison,
medium height, carefully and
expensively dressed. Now and again, when
she allows her rather judicial expression of
alertness to soften, she is very attractive.
her sense of matriarchal authority makes
most men who meet her anxious, not only
to please but impress, as if she were the
gracious representative of visiting royalty.
(……….)
In Jimmy, as one would expect, she arouses
all the rabble-rousing instincts of his spirit.
Like Alison, Helena is from the upper class. She is an actress, well sure of her identity
and ready to defend when Jimmy attacks her values.
Since she represents for Jimmy what he hates most (not only the upper class, but the
frivolous side of the upper class), her relation with her is only based on physical
attraction, not on love, and it is a sort of masochistic self-punishment for his anger
against that social class.
ALISON’s
PARENTS
They seem to be marginal in the story, but they are the perfect counterpart of Jimmy’s
world, Alison’s father especially.
Colonel Redfern, a man of 60, served the British Imperial Army in India until 1947, when
he was forced to come back to Britain. He knows that everything is over now. Thus, he is
the perfect enbodyment of the sense of “disillusionment” in contrast with Jimmy’s
“disillusion”.
This is one of the most significant parts of the play, where Alison and her father are
speaking…………
THE MEANING OF THE STORY
After studying characters and historical motivations of the play, a clear expression of
“disillusion” and “disillusionment” , other details of the story are important to better
understand its meaning.
The setting
of the story, for exemple, is significant : the attic gives you the
Impression of an irritant domestic claustrophobia, with the same actions, the same
objects, the same invectives.
For exemple, the continuous ritual of tea-making has a particular function : it is an
element of pleasant break from a stressful situation, but it is an empty repetitive action,
an exemple of the tedium felt by Jimmy and Cliff during their absurd conversations.
Also newspapers reading has a precise function in the play : they give the necessary
social background to the story (religion, economy, the nuclear disarmament), but they are,
at the same time, a pretext for Jimmy’s invectives.
But the most original element of the story is the play-within-the-play, the love game of
the teddy-bear and the squirrel between the two lovers. This game has got two
meanings :
a metaphor of the two characters’ REAL personality. The bear is the symbol of
virility and force, the squirrel, of weakness and shyness. But the situation in life is
reversed, because Alison is actually stronger than Jimmy. Thus, this game is a way
to express hoe the two characters want to appear to find satisfaction in life, not
as they really are: Jimmy is weak, but he needs to be a judge, a revenger, an
“angry” man to feel alive ; Alison is stronger than Jimmy, but (as she says at the
end of the play, when she comes back to her husband) she wants to suffer for love,
she needs to be a victim, maybe she wants to espiate the errors of her upper
class.
a sort of remedy for a sense of dissatisfaction. Modern man can’t survive in this
century of anxiety without inventing a sort of escape from it, even if it is not a
comfortable shelter, but only a momentary escape from anger (Jimmy) or silence
(Alison).
DRAMA AFTER OSBORNE
from “anger” to “absurd”
After Osborne’s revolution in 1956, the empty anger of Jimmy Porter gradually dissolved.
Anger was against the Establishment, against concrete targets. Of course, young men as
Jimmy Porter lived a sense of deeper insatisfaction, too, they had no values to believe in,
but they were still “angry”.
No passionate explosion, now, man prefers to keep silence, without exploding in an open
anger. Moreover, the targets were not concrete and social any more, but more
existential.
However, both Osborne and the authors after him had something in common : we have
noticed that one of the themes of “Look Back in Anger” is lack of communication
(between Jimmy and Alison). Now, this theme is brought to its extreme : silence is better
than useless words. That’s why the new theatre after Osborne considered language and
dialogue as unimportant, as an exemple of lack of communication between men. As a
consequence, if language gets less, the characters of this new drama are more and more
isolated, alone, strange beings in an empty and desolate universe.
Thus, the so called Theatre of the absurd was born.
This name was first given by an English critic, Martin Esslin, with his work
“The
Theatre of the Absurd”, where “absurd” , for him, literally meant desolation, solitude,
anguish, a sort of “metaphysical” anguish, not necessarily coming from a precise reason,so
even worse.
What is “the absurd” ?
Starting from Esslin’s definition, the “absurd” is a sense of contraddiction between
MAN and UNIVERSE : man doesn’t live in harmony with his universe, and so his existence
is so useless that can be defined as “absurd”.
It is natural that in such an absurd world man is waiting for something or someone he
doesn’t know, most probably he is looking for the sense of his own life.
SAMUEL BECKETT was the Irish dramatist that better represents this idea, with his
play “Waiting for Godot”, where the two characters are constantly waiting for someone
called Godot, from the beginning to the end of the play, and Godot doesn’t come.
SAMUEL BECKETT (1906-1989)
“Waiting for Godot”
Beckett was Irish, but he lived for a long while in France, where he settled and met
Joyce, too.
“Waiting for Godot” was originally written in French (“En attendant Godot”), and
translated into English by Beckett himself only later. This was not only due to his French
culture, but to a deliberate choice, connected to the problem of lack of communication
typical of modern man : by writing in a foreign language, he forced himself to use great
economy of expression, just a few but significant words, and that was his main task, in all
his production.
Beckett’s works may be summed up by 3 key-words :
POVERTY, STATICITY, LACK OF MEANING
POVERTY
In Beckett’s world, everything is reduced to the bare essentials, from the characters’
clothes to their material possessions, from their social status to the setting itself.
In “Waiting for Godot” , for exemple, “a room and a simple tree” are the only setting,
and the tree is never considered by the two protagonists as an image of life, but as a
possible means of suicide!
STATICITY
In Beckett’s world, man lives in a static world, where, to use the words of the two
protagonists of “Waiting for Godot”
“Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful!”
This sense of staticity is expressed by :
the characters’ physical conditions : they are handicapped, or moribund creatures,
confined to their wheel-chairs or death-beds
the absence of plot, with a circular structure of the stories, that end almost exactly
as they begin
the characters are imprisoned in a single place (often a room), that they never leave :
“Waiting for Godot” is not an exception, and even if it is set in the open air, the
characters never move.
There is no time , no chronological development of the events, in his plays there is no
past, or future, just a repetitive present. A paradoxical effect is that, while
Beckett’s plays are timeless, his characters are obsessed with the problem of
time, as if they were “trapped “ in time and forced to fill it with futile dialogues,
gestures, gags or puns, while they are waiting for something or someone to save
them.
LACK OF MEANING
This is the idea of the absurd. There is no meaning in life. To increase this sense of
absurdity, Beckett often use a strong irony against any philosophy, ideology, scientific
theories, systems of thought, that presume to explain reality and history in rational
terms, or to give a theory on pain, suffering and death.
As a consequence, in Beckett, there is a total disintegration of language. Language is
always fragmented and broken, in grammar and meaning, often substituted by a paraverbal language : mime, silences, circus-like gags. These performances ironically remind
us the absurd and ridiculous nature of many human activities of the everyday life.
THE PLOT
The protagonists are two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon (Didi & Gogo in the original
play in French), who spend their life waiting for a mysterious Mr Godot, who is expected
to come and save them from their miserable condition. In the meantime, they
desperately try to spend their time by talking about absurdities. The two tramps are
clearly the symbol of all mankind, one more intellectual, the other more emotional.
One day the two tramps meet another couple of characters : Pozzo, a cruel master
(maybe the symbol of capitalism), and Lucky, his servant (the oppressed working class),
carried by his master with a rope. At Pozzo’s command, Lucky dances as a puppet. Pozzo
is rich and has success in life, and one of his main obsessions is “time”, and he continually
looks at his watch, we don’t know why.
In Act II, Pozzo and Lucky reappear, but they are very different from before : Pozzo
has become blind, and Lucky is now dumb. Pozzo’s arrogange changed into cynical despair,
and Lucky’s servitude changed into the complete unability to answer Pozzo. And Vladimir
and Estragon keep on waiting…..
At the end of each day, Vladimir and Estragon receive the visit of a messenger, different
every day, sent by Mr Godot, who always tells them that
“Mr Godot won’t come today, but surely tomorrow”
Vladimir and Estragon often talk about suicide as a solution, and try to commit suicide,
but they always fail.
And so, there is nothing to do for them but “to wait”.
Who is
GODOT?
Someone asked Beckett about the identity of the mysterious Godot, and Beckett replied:
“If I had known, I would have said so in the play!”
There are different interpretations, all of them perfectly acceptable, that probably go
beyond the real intentions of the author.
Some critic tried to give a Catholic interpretation (Beckett was Irish). Godot could be
GOD (name assonance), newer showing himself, but able to save from death and
damnation those who patiently and faithfully can wait for his help. Maybe it is the
least probable interpretation. Indeed, if Godot is God, he would be a cruel God not
a Christian God, because he wants to keep his creature in a never ending wait.
He could be HAPPINESS , that men are always waiting for in their life
Godot may be OLD LIES , all those false hopes, idealisms, false beliefs, false
secular religious principles that prevent man from facing the absurdity of life
More generally, Godot is simply
THE SENSE OF LIFE, someone or something
that can finally explain that contraddiction between man and universe that is the
real essence of the “absurd”. Some critics compared Godot to MELVILLE’s “Moby
Dick”, the white whale that Captain Ahab is always looking for in all his life. But
Ahab finally finds his white whale ; on the contrary, Godot never comes, and it
means that there is no solution in the existential anguish of man.
“Waiting for Godot” in San Quentin Penitentiary
It may be strange, but one of the first American performances of this play was staged at the San Quentin
Penitentiary (USA) on November 1957. The play was chosen especially because there were no women in it.
However, the actors and the directors thought this play was too sophisticated , intellectual and difficult
for an audience of 1400 convicts. This was the curious reaction of the convicts :
(from the Prison newspaper “The SAN QUENTIN NEWS”) :
They were waiting for the girls and funny stuff (1).
When this didn’t appear, they fumed (2), and
decided to wait until the house light dimmed (3)
before escaping. They made one error : they listened
and looked two minutes too long - and stayed.
Left at the end. All shock (4)…………………
1)subject
2)were irritated
3)became dark
4)shocked
One prisoner told a San Francisco reporter that “Godot is SOCIETY”, another said “He’s THE OTSIDE”.
The article of the Prison newspaper showed how deeply the convicts had been struck by the play’s situation.
Compare it to the passage given above :
We’re still waiting for Godot, and shall continue to wait.
When the scenery gets too drab (5), and the action too slow,
we’ll call each other names (6), and swear to part (7) forever –
but then, there ‘s no place to go!
5)monotonous
6)insult each other
7) promise to leave, escape
Differences
OSBORNE
Anger
social targets
detailed setting
chronological time
BECKETT
Silence
existential targets
abstract landscape
no time,only a repetitive present
Elements in common
Osborne and Beckett are two sides of the same coin . This is what they had in common :
Unsatisfaction and pain to live
Isolation and lack of communication
Sense of claustrophobia. Alison and Jim fight in a small room from the beginning to the end
of the play ; Vladimir and Estragon are trapped in a nightmare they can’t escape
Circularity of the situation : the end of the two plays is similar to the beginning.