Banha University
Faculty of Arts
CULTURAL SUBJECT
Code (115)
MASTERPIECES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
For university students
(Open Education)
Compiled By
Dr Mohammad Al-Hussini AbuArab
Dr Nazik Mohammad AbdeLatif
Banha University
2011-2012
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Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………….i
PREFACE
What Is Literature?...........................................................................1
CHAPTER ONE: DRAMA
INTRODUCTION: How to Read Drama…….………………………9
SECTION ONE: Oedipus the King by Sophocles………...……….23
SECTION TWO: Antigone by Sophocles………………….………38
SECTION THREE: Hamlet by William Shakespeare……………..49
SECTION FOUR: The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen……………….66
SECTION FIVE: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.…80
SECTION SIX: The Cocktail Party by T. S. Eliot…..………….…..90
SECTION SEVEN: Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller………104
CHAPTER TWO: FICTION
INTRODUCTION: How to Read Fiction……………………..…..113
SECTION ONE: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen………..…117
SECTION TWO: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens…………..….134
SECTION THREE: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville………….…148
SECTION FOUR: Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy….168
SECTION FIVE: Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser……….……181
SECTION SIX: Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence……..……..202
SECTION SEVEN: Beloved by Toni Morrison…………..………220
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PREFACE
WHAT IS LITERATURE?
The nature of literature is a matter of controversy. However, it
is now widely accepted that certain definitions will not work. In the
first half of the twentieth century there was the hope that literature
could be defined as a special way of using language. Literature uses
defamiliarized language, drawing attention to its own literary
devices. But on the one hand, literary works can adopt the form of
any kind of writing, from the scientific report to the advertising
jingle. And on the other, all sorts of nonliterary uses of language can
be rife with literary devices such as figures of speech, rhetorical
techniques, implicit meanings, and so on.
Three proposals will be considered for defining literature. The
first defines literature in terms of a role it plays in society or a
community within society. Something is a work of literature, on this
view, if it is a piece of writing that fulfills this role. Different
theorists in this camp define the relevant role differently. For some,
the relevant community is the community of critics, and the relevant
role is that of being deemed worthy, or simply being the object, of
critical attention. For others, the relevant community is society at
large, and the relevant role is sustaining the structure of power in the
society. It is not clear, however, that this approach can succeed in
defining literature, whatever insights underlie it. Consider the first
version. Who are the critics in question and what does critical
attention consist in? They are the literary critics of course rather than
the interpreters of philosophical texts (unless they are literary
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interpreters of those texts from the right academic departments).
There are two dangers here and it is virtually impossible to avoid
both. One danger is circular definition. The critics are those whose
job it is to attend to a certain body of works—works of literature.
Alternatively, the critics are those who use certain techniques—but
those techniques can and sometimes are used on all sorts of things so
that we get the extension of literature quite wrong.
A second approach asserts literature is a practice. Writers,
readers, critics all enter into this practice by attempting to create,
enjoy, or facilitate the appreciation of literary aesthetic value. To
avoid circularity, literary aesthetic value is cashed out as the value to
be found in the experience of a subject or story that has a humanly
interesting content in virtue of embodying one or more perennial
themes and that is given a complex form suitable to developing such
a theme.
What seems right about this approach is the claim that the
creation of literature is imbedded in a social practice with distinctive
aims, institutions, and traditions. What is controversial about the
approach is its conception of the practice in terms of aiming at a
single kind of value in a way that has remained unchanged, at least
since ancient Greece. When one thinks of all the various items that
are relatively uncontroversial examples of literature, from ancient
classics to eighteenth century essays to contemporary poetry, one
must wonder whether the formula proposed by this definition really
encompasses all of literature.
An alternative is to think of literature as a practice defined by
an evolving set of values or functions and central art forms.
Currently, these forms are the novel, short story, drama, and poetry,
and in addition to their aesthetic value, we also characteristically
value them in other ways such as for fulfilling certain cognitive
functions, and for providing opportunities for open-ended
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interpretation. Anything that belongs to such an art form and is
seriously intended to provide one or another of these values is a work
of literature, but so are other pieces of writing that fulfill these
valuable functions to a significant degree whether or not they are in
one of the central literary forms. Finally, it should be recognized that
our current concept of literature has itself evolved from earlier
predecessor concepts, such as those of fine writing (belle lettres) and
the ancient Greek or Latin classic. Items that fall under these
predecessor concepts also belong to literature by a principle of
inclusion implicit in our current concept.
CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION
Criticism is the blanket term for writing about or commenting
on individual literary (or art) works. Being a blanket term, it covers
different kinds of projects. One of the oldest kinds exists to orient an
audience to new literary (artistic) productions as they appear. In
doing this, this kind of criticism fulfills a variety of distinct
functions. It will typically identify the sort of work under discussion
(e.g., an experimental novel in the manner of so and so), and acquaint
a potential reader with important features of the work such as its
style, plot, themes, and characters. Often implicit in these
descriptions is an appreciative response (positive or negative) by the
critic leading to an explicit evaluation of the work. The contemporary
review is an example of this sort of criticism.
A different activity—that of analyzing and interpreting literary
works—became a central critical activity in the twentieth century.
This had a variety of causes. One was the rise of English and, more
generally, literary studies, as an academic discipline. This generated
a series of debates about the nature, content, value, and proper
reception of such works, which associated a work with a great variety
of ways of taking or reading it—in essence, a great variety of
interpretations. Another factor was the growing prominence of
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difficult avant-garde works that are simply hard to understand. For
such works at least, it is natural to turn to analysis and interpretation
in order to understand and appreciate them. However, once we see
how such analysis generates unexpected meanings or significance in
these works, one suspects it might do so in any work, making any
literary work a candidate for interpretation.
There are a variety of parameters along which approaches to
interpreting literary works diverge. One that arose early on and has
remained prominent concerns the significance of authorial intention
in interpretation. Is the meaning of a work identical to such
intentions, do they resolve ambiguities and other uncertainties in the
work, or are they absolutely irrelevant to correctly interpreting it?
Those who originally disagreed on this matter nevertheless did agree
that the purpose of interpreting a work is to understand it better and
that there is one best understanding that can in principle be attained.
Notice there are two claims here: one about aim, one about number.
These provide two further parameters about which literary theorists
disagree.
Regarding the proper aim of interpretation, there are a variety
of views. We have already mentioned one: understanding. In some
works, it is just difficult to grasp what is going on, and this can
happen at all sorts of levels. A work can be hard to understand
because of its historical or cultural distance from its audience.
Alternatively, features of its style may make it difficult. There are
poems where it is hard to understand what the individual lines mean.
There are novels and stories where it is hard simply to follow the
plot. There are others where, while it is clear that a certain series of
events have transpired, there are different ways in which one could
understand their significance in the story. More commonly, one
knows what happens in a story or what the lines of a poem say, but
one does not grasp their point or the point of various bits. There are
many other ways in which one may feel one's understanding of a
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work is inadequate, but in all such cases one turns to interpretations
of a work for greater clarity.
An alternative to understanding as the aim of interpretation, is
appreciation. The point of interpretation on this view is to create
ways of taking works that enhance their aesthetic value, or that guide
the reader to an appreciative experience. Just whether, and precisely
how, these two aims really differ is debatable: How can one lead a
reader to an appreciative experience, without offering a way of
understanding a work by organizing certain features of it around a
theme, by describing a character as representing a type of person,
identifying the point of a series of images, and so on? The difference
may be in the way one evaluates interpretations. If one's aim is
understanding, perhaps one hopes to get things right, to give a correct
or true interpretation, whereas if one aims to enhance the value of the
work or an experience of it, the test of an interpretation is in the
aesthetic enjoyment it offers to readers.
Those who think the aim of interpretation is enhanced
appreciation, also tend to be pluralists about the number of
acceptable interpretations a work can bear. Interpretations that are
considered acceptable within this camp range from those strictly
constrained by conventions in place when the work was created to a
virtual free play with a text. Among those who claim that the aim of
interpretation is understanding, some, such as M. Beardsley and E.D.
Hirsch, are monists arguing there is a single ultimately correct
understanding of a work, whereas others are pluralists. A number of
writers argue that meaning is relative to the constantly changing
historical moment in which the work is received, to the responses of
readers in the face of textual indeterminacy, or to the assumptions of
critical communities.
All such relativist views imply pluralism regarding correct
understanding, although pluralism does not imply relativism. An
alternative to relativism about a work's meaning is a pluralism about
the acceptable aims of interpretation. Not all interpretation aims at
recovering the meaning of a work. Some legitimately aims at
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enhancing appreciation, making a work significant to a contemporary
audience, or to filling in indeterminacies in optional ways. These
projects can clearly be pursued in a plurality of ways. By contrast if
one's aim is to recover the intention with which the work was made,
that may be a more monistic project. Perhaps, among these
interpretive aims, there is one that attempts to identify a historically
correct understanding of a work. There are currently a variety of
proposals about what this might be.
THE VALUE OF FICTION AND LITERATURE
At the beginning of this entry, we noted that, though fiction
and literature are not the same thing, the paradigmatic literary forms
today are all types of fiction: poetry, the novel, the short story, and
the drama. The question we raised then and turn to now is what it is
about the value of literature that makes fictional work the most
typical to possess that value. Is it that the value of fiction and
literature tend to overlap?
The philosophical debate about the value of literature might be
aptly described as between those who answer this last question
affirmatively and those who answer it negatively. Fiction, clearly,
can serve all sorts of purposes, and we might value it for its function
in almost any of these. The chief vehicle by which it achieves these
valuable purposes is imaginative engagement (i.e., the make-believe
that is intimately involved in the reception of fiction). Whether or not
imaginative engagement is valuable in itself, it can quickly lead to
things we clearly value (e.g., the pleasure of following a story and
imaginatively participating in its world).
In addition to such pleasures, imaginative engagement can
also be valuable in other ways. It is plausible that it can enhance
valuable abilities: to make fine discriminations, to put ourselves in
the shoes of others (to empathize), and to refine the ability to identify
emotional and other psychological states. A fiction also might at least
contribute to acquiring propositional knowledge. What is true in a
fictional world is commonly at least possibly true in the actual world.
Thus we can acquire knowledge of possibilities or conceptions of
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how things may be. A fiction may strongly suggest that something is
not only possible, but that it actually is that way, and this may help us
to learn about the way things not only might be, but are.
Clearly, all of these valuable traits of fiction can be possessed
by literary works, fictional or not, but we can go further and say that
literary fictions are the most likely to possess, in the highest degree,
the cognitive values just mentioned. While not everyone would
accept this, the more controversial issue concerns whether such traits
add to the literary or artistic value of these works. A view that denies
this claims instead that literary value resides wholly in the aesthetic
experience a work offers, where this experience is fairly narrowly
conceived. For example, one view that has been vigorously defended
is that the aesthetic value of a work lies in its ability to create a
complex form that explores a theme of perennial human interest. The
appreciative experience, which determines the extent to which a
work possesses aesthetic value, consists in following the
development of the theme in the complex formal structure of the
work. What is no part of the literary value is any insight the work
might offer regarding the truth about the issues it explores.
This view has the virtue of serving as a corrective to the
rejection of the relevance of the aesthetic, even suspicion about its
place among the central human values, that has infected large swaths
of literary theory. However, even as an account of the aesthetic value
of literature, it is far too narrow. For one thing, the perennial
themes—fate, free will, nature versus nurture—just are not the
organizing features of all literature. Some works are more concerned
with characters, some with telling a riveting story, some with
exhibiting an emotion, some with precise description, and so on.
Perhaps we can say that every literary work offers a conception of
some aspect of human experience, and when it is good literature, it
does so in such a way that one can experience what it would be like if
that conception were true. However, having said this, it becomes
fairly obvious that it is perverse to deny that a further way that
literature can be valuable is in the cognitive value of the conceptions
offered. They can be valuable for getting it right, but also for
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suggesting new ways of thinking or experiencing, fruitful
conjectures, as it were, even if they turn out to be ultimately wrong.
After all we value philosophical works for just this reason, and there
are many literary works that have overtly philosophical aims.
Just as fiction can be valuable in many ways, pluralism about
literary value also seems to be the most sensible view. When literary
works are evaluated not only for the aesthetic experience they offer,
but the cognitive, ethical, art-historical value that they possess—to
mention only some additional parameters that are relevant—we are
still evaluating them as literary works. Those who argue that
interpretations of literary works should maximize the opportunities to
appreciate them should welcome this point of view because it opens
up so many new avenues from which such appreciation can develop.
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CHAPTER ONE
DRAMA
INTRODUCTION
HOW TO READ DRAMA
Taken in its literal sense as something done or performed on
the stage (from the Greek dran, a deed or action), drama is not
literature. There are many significant differences between the
printed script of a play and the production of that script by actors in
costume performing on a stage before a live audience. The
characters are not seen on the printed page as they are seen by an
audience in a live production. The stage directions (usually written
in italics) and the dramatis personae, or list of characters, sometimes
provide a brief description of a character before he or she makes an
entrance on the stage.
Consider Arthur Miller's stage directions for Death of a
Salesman. Written primarily for the actor, director, and producer of
the play, nonetheless they help the reader envision the appearance of
the characters. Miller describes Willie Loman as "past sixty years of
age, dressed quietly. Even as he crosses the stage to the doorway of
the house, his exhaustion is apparent." Not only has Miller described
Willie's general appearance, he has also provided one of Willie's
essential characteristics: after a lifetime of working to support his
family and having little to show for it, he is mentally and physically
exhausted. Later in the first act his neighbor Charley is described in
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more detail as "a large man, slow of speech, laconic, immovable. In
all he says, despite what he says, there is pity, and, now, trepidation.
He has a robe over pajamas, slippers on his feet." This is an even
fuller description than the one for Willie, and it also contains Miller's
intentions about how the actor should deliver Charley's lines. Still,
we have no idea, in the kind of defining particularities we expect in
life, how either Willie or Charlie looks. We might have trouble
identifying either of them in a crowd. Unlike the writer of fiction,
the playwright does not interrupt the action to tell us what the
characters look like. Does Willie have a prominent nose? Is his face
wrinkled? Is he stocky or of slight build? It is up to the director to
cast an actor in the role who will be consistent with the character
Miller has created.
Sometimes an actor's portrayal of a character becomes so
closely identified with the playwright's creation that he or she
becomes inseparable from the character. Such is the case with Yul
Brynner's portrayal of the King of Siam in The King and I, of
Laurette Taylor's Amanda Wingfield in Tennessee Williams's The
Glass Menagerie, and of Lee J. Cobb's Willie Loman in the initial
production of Death of a Salesman. Arthur Miller has said that for
him Cobb would always be Willie Loman. Yet a very different
Willie Loman was embodied by Dustin Hoffman in a 1984
Broadway production of the play (also filmed for television), for
which Miller had to approve a change in the dialogue. A physical
description of the stockily built Cobb was inappropriate for the
slightly built Hoffman. In the original production, Cobb says, "I'm
fat. I'm very—foolish to look at, Linda. I didn't tell you, but
Christmas time I happened to be calling on F. N. Stewarts, and a
salesman I know, as I was going in to see the buyer I heard him say
something about—Walrus. And I—I cracked him right across the
face." To accommodate Hoffman, "fat" was changed to "short," and
"walrus" was altered to "shrimp."
The only other clue a reader of a play has about the
appearance of a character is the dialogue, the words spoken by one
character to another. Through dialogue a playwright expects the
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audience to see with an inward eye the essential nature of the
characters. When in Death of a Salesman Willie tries to understand
why his neighbor Charley's son is successful while his own sons have
failed, he asks Charley, "And you never told him what to do, did
you? You never took any interest in him." And Charley replies, "My
salvation is that I never took any interest in anything." In that
exchange lies the essential nature of the two characters: Willie
wondering what he did wrong, Charley not really caring what he did
right. Yet, the reader of Death of a Salesman is no more enlightened
by dialogue than by stage directions about the external appearance of
these characters.
Another difference between watching a production of a play
and reading the script is the absence of tone in the printed dialogue
and other clarifying visual hints such as gestures and movement.
Often the playwright will provide clues to tone, as in the opening
lines of Death of a Salesman where the stage directions indicate that
Linda should call Willie's name "with some trepidation," and that
Willie should respond to her questions "with casual irritation." But
no stage directions can substitute for a skilled actor's complete
absorption in a role—what Truman Capote called the actor's
"salamander guile," which does for the live audience what the reader
must do for himself through imagination. Readers of drama must,
therefore, do the work of director and actor, imagining the character
in outline form at first, tentatively filling in the outline as the play
unfolds, perhaps imagining themselves as casting director and
envisioning which actor would ideally be cast in the role.
Neither the playwrights of the classical Greek theater of the
fifth century B.C., nor the playwrights of Shakespeare's theater in the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries provided stage
directions for their plays. Neither stage had painted scenery or many
props. The building that provided the background against which the
Greek plays were set was called the skene, from which we get the
modern word scene or scenery, but it would hardly qualify as scenery
by today's elaborate standards. And the Elizabethan stage's elaborate
architecture, while serving the basic need for scenery, depended on
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the actors' speeches to establish whether it and the stage apron were
meant to represent the interior of a castle or a battlefield. For radio
listeners of a generation ago, the spoken word carried the substance
out of which the audience's imagination constructed the details of the
setting. In the modern period, playwrights customarily provide
details in the stage directions from which the actual physical set will
be elaborated.
Miller's own stage directions for Death of a Salesman include
a detailed description of the single set for the entire play (in many
plays sets are changed between scenes or acts), and also Miller's
directions about how the set is to be used by the actors. (Turn to the
directions Miller gives at the beginning of Act One of Death of a
Salesman).
Even with these directions, a novice reader may become
confused and have trouble distinguishing between the times Willie is
hallucinating or retreating into the past and when Willie is actually in
present time talking with people who are now physically before him.
No such difficulty exists for the audience viewing the play. While
there is an aura of unreality about the play (and the set reflects this),
there are at the same time real chairs, a real kitchen table and
refrigerator, and real beds in the bedroom. In a purely realistic play,
stage props might be even more numerous, but the point is that even
in an imaginative set, such as Jo Mielziner's for the original
production of Death of a Salesman, there is a recreation of a physical
world that no amount of verbal description can equal.
Music is another feature of a performance not available to the
reader of a play. While for the most part music may seem an
ancillary element of drama, it can sometimes be essential. In ancient
Greek plays, the chorus, a group of actors who chanted their lines
and collectively represented a public voice commenting on the
action, originally sang and danced as part of the drama. Death of a
Salesman uses music as an essential commentary on the action. In
the opening stage directions, Miller describes an overture and
actually introduces an instrument which not only becomes a symbol
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in the play, but whose sound also serves as one of the clues that
Willie is slipping into the past and out of his present world: "A
melody is heard, played upon a flute. It is small and fine, telling of
grass and trees and the horizon." Thus the flute music symbolizes
the lost rural America that Biff is in search of and that runs counter to
the modern urban world. Significantly, Willie's father was a
traveling salesman, but unlike Willie he sold the product of his
labors, the handcarved flutes he made.
Finally, in addition to costumes, set, actors, tonally colored
dialogue, and music, the printed version of a play lacks the sense of
audience participation that comes with viewing a play. It was not by
accident that when drama emerged in the western world, first among
the Greeks and later in the medieval Christian world, it originated
from religious ceremonies. That ceremonial aspect is still present in
the theater when an audience assembles to witness actors on a stage
portraying familiar human traits and behavior. The electric quality of
a performance is an experience we achieve only as members of an
audience.
This sense of shared participation extends to the actors as
well, affecting them as they are caught up and encouraged by a
sympathetic audience, or discouraged into giving a lackluster
performance by an unresponsive audience. The same 1984 revival of
Miller's Death of a Salesman is an illustration. In the explosive
scene in Act Two, Biff whips out the rubber hose that Willie has
secretly fitted to the gas water heater thinking to kill himself, lays it
on the kitchen table, and says to his father, "All right, phony! Then
let's lay it on the line." The audience was stunned into silence and
later moved to tears when Biff shouts, "We never told the truth for
ten minutes in this house." The impact was a result not only of
Miller's lines, but of the complete connection between actors and
members of the audience. Not only did the audience weep at the end
of the performance; during the curtain calls the actors wept as well.
But reading a play has its advantages—and not many people
have the money or the opportunity to see as many plays as they can
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read. Since many of the elements of drama are similar to those of
fiction—characters, plot, conflict, dialogue, symbols, setting—drama
can be studied profitably as literature. As we will see, these
elements, although they may differ slightly when written for the
stage, retain a basic similarity to fiction. Furthermore, readers of a
play have an advantage over the viewer: they may reread a passage
that seems complex or rich with meaning, whereas in the theater, as
in life, when a line of dialogue is uttered, the audience cannot ask for
an instant replay. Like a reader of poetry, the reader of a play can
study the use of language, the patterns of images that convey the
theme, the nuances of speech that reveal character, and the shifts in
diction that heighten or reduce emotion. When, in the "Requiem"
section of Death of a Salesman, Charley delivers what amounts to
Willie's funeral oration, he takes on the function of the ancient Greek
chorus, explaining to the audience the significance of the actions they
have just witnessed. He does so in a mixture of colloquial, poetic,
and archaic diction.
Nobody dast blame this man. You don't understand: Willie was a
salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life.
He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you
medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile
and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back—that's an
earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your
hat, and you're finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A
salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory.
The speech repays careful study with its images of law,
insubstantiality, smiles, and territory, and with its mixture of
diction—"dast," "He don't," "A salesman is got"—but such a pause
for study is impossible for the theater-goer. Readers can make up
their own minds about a character while reading a play, and not be
swayed by an actor's or director's interpretation of a role. George C.
Scott gave such a powerfully sympathetic portrayal of the villain
Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, that Shylock's
vengeance seemed justified in view of the anti-Semitism to which he
had been subjected earlier in the play. An unusual interpretation by
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an actor may take you away from the playwright's intentions.
In addition to being aware of the relative merits of watching a
production and reading a play, the student of drama should have
some idea of its forms, and elements. The elements of drama most
often cited are those listed by Aristotle in his Poetics, a treatise based
on his observations of fifth century B.C. Greek tragedies. Aristotle
found six elements in drama: plot, character, thought, diction, song,
and spectacle. The list is in order of importance.
Plot, the first element, bears a resemblance to plot in fiction: it
is the story of what happens to the characters. However, drama
presents the action directly rather than narrating it from an observer’s
point of view. The point of view of drama is always objective; the
events are portrayed directly for the audience's benefit. Aristotle,
therefore, defined the essential nature of drama as "an imitation of an
action," imitation because the actors are portraying real people. The
space in which the action takes place is meant to represent a real
place, and the action is meant to reproduce what actually happened.
Like plots in fiction, dramatic plots are often divided into five parts.
Exposition. This is the background information necessary to
understand the drama. Usually this information is presented at the
beginning of the play. In the first act of Death of a Salesman, for
example, within the first few minutes we learn from the conversation
between Willie and Linda that Willie is a traveling salesman who
covers the New England territory, that he is physically and mentally
exhausted, and that his 34-year-old son Biff, in whom Willie is
disappointed, has just returned home after a long absence spent
working as a farmhand. Other information about Willie's older
brother, Ben, and their father is provided later in the play.
Rising action.
At the beginning of a play, the forces of
conflict that drive the action to its conclusion are latent, at rest. An
incident spurs the conflict on, bringing it into the open. Willie has
almost hit someone with his car; he can't keep his mind on his
driving and is disturbed by "strange thoughts." Willie's failure in
business and with his sons, especially Biff, who showed such
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promise in high school ("like a young god, Hercules"), is revealed in
the dialogue between the two brothers, and the extent of Willie's
"illness" is clear from his hallucinations in the first act, a train of
memories of happier times. The action continues to rise with the
promise of better times and dreams of success. Willie's unrealistic
expectations are raised to their highest point at the beginning of Act
Two when he exclaims to Linda, "I'm gonna knock Howard for a
loop, kid. I'll get an advance, and I'll come home with a New York
job. Goddammit, now I'm gonna do it!" Caught up in his enthusiasm,
Linda responds, "It's changing, Willie, I can feel it changing!"
Turning point. This is a reversal, a discovery that marks a
victory or a defeat for the main character. Often the turning point
will occur near the middle of the play. It does not mark the end of
the action, or the utter victory or defeat of the main character. Rather,
it is an indicator of the direction the action is taking and a predictor
of its final result. In Death of a Salesman the turning point occurs
when Willie is fired from his job by Howard, the son of the firm's
original owner. Willie's final defeat at the hands of the business
world is justified by Howard, who tells Willie, "business is business,"
and who rejects Willie's desperate plea: "I put thirty-four years into
this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance! You can't eat
the orange and throw the peel away—a man is not a piece of fruit!"
Falling action. This completes the defeat or reversal marked
by the turning point. In subsequent scenes, Willie must humble
himself by borrowing money from his neighbor Charlie, see what a
successful lawyer Charlie's son Bernard has become, and suffer a
denial of his paternity by his sons: "No that's not my father. He's just
a guy." The penultimate scene in Act II (Willie's planting seeds in
the garden at night) brings together the double defeat by the urbanbusiness world and his offspring. Willie's suicide is the only logical
outcome of the action.
Denouement. This explains the action. Miller's requiem
section explains the nature of Willie's life and death, while the two
sons represent the sides of Willie's character that were at war: urban-
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business success based on such intangibles as "being well-liked," and
the nostalgia for a rural America of tangible accomplishments.
Linda's final speech sums up the futility of the life lived by the "little
man."
The second most important element listed by Aristotle,
character can be viewed in much the same way as character in
fiction, with one important exception. A reader depends on dialogue
and actions to infer the personality of the characters. Except for stage
directions, there is no narrative voice interpreting the stage directions
and the action for us. Repeated phrases, like Willie's use of the
expression "being well-liked," and Ben's "When I walked into the
jungle, I was seventeen. When I walked out I was twenty-one. And,
by God, I was rich!" are a means of establishing character, as are
repeated actions or associations with objects, such as Willie's interest
in rebuilding things.
As in fiction, plays have fully developed individuated
characters as well as stock characters who serve their purpose as
stereotypes, but who fail to reflect the multi-dimensionality of real
people. Thus we don't find Ben, the stereotypic turn-of-the-century
robber baron, or Bernard, the quintessential unathletic intellectual
who succeeds in his profession, as interesting as either Willie or Biff.
Even the main characters may have some traits of a flat character
about them—that is, until the playwright fills in the outline
motivating the character to behavior not covered by the stereotype.
Thus Biff may seem like the dumb high school football star who
couldn't make it in life—until Miller explores the complex reasons
for his failure. He also gives Biff a sensitivity stemming from
another system of values alien to the ethos of the business world.
Linda may seem like the saintly housewife, oblivious to conflict, who
quietly assumes responsibility for the running of the home—until her
speech to her sons when she criticizes them for their treatment of
Willie: "He's a human being and a terrible thing is happening to him.
So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall into his
grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to
such a person." Linda emerges as one of the strong figures in the
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play who maintains her dignity and gains the audience's sympathy in
the end.
Aristotle's third most important element, thought, might be
taken up together with diction; it is through diction that thought, or
theme—the main idea, purpose, or significance of a play—is
revealed to the reader. A simple statement of the play's theme will
not adequately sum up all that the playwright has implied;
nevertheless, any attempt to articulate the theme may help clarify
some of the play's complex meaning. For example, to say that Death
of a Salesman is an indictment of America's emphasis on defining
success in materialistic terms, or that parents should not force their
dreams of success on their children, or that the American Dream is an
ill-defined amalgamation of rural simplicity and urban materialism, is
in each case to state part of what the play is about.
How are these partial statements of the thought of a play
arrived at? The meaning of a play is often to be found in objects
repeatedly associated with a character or an idea throughout the play.
Repeated relationships in Death of a Salesman—father to sons,
brother to brother, husband to wife, employer to employee, neighbor
to neighbor—define some of the strength and weaknesses of modern
America and American family life. As in fiction or poetry, the
language of drama can be studied to reveal the playwright's
intentions. The constant undercurrent of references to grass and trees
in both Willie's and Biffs speeches tells of a yearning for a pastoral
America obliterated by the menace of urbanization. Together father
and son express—vaguely and obliquely, never adequately enough to
communicate with one another—their unrealizable dreams. Thus the
frustration and anger felt by the characters in Death of a Salesman
are understood by the reader of the play, but not by the characters,
who remain prisoners of their half-articulated dreams.
The remaining elements—song (or music) and spectacle—
have already been dealt with earlier in this chapter. Spectacle,
Aristotle felt, was the least artistic of the elements and depended
more "on the stage machinist" for its effect than upon the playwright.
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Like music, spectacle—the use of scenery, costumes, and special
lightings effects—can enhance a performance, but anyone who has
watched an effective reader's theater can attest to the power of the
spoken word by itself. However, the stark power of a play like
Sophocles' Oedipus the King is made visible, and the performance
becomes a riveting experience, when set and costume design are
combined with music and with the movements of the actors on the
stage. This kind of effect may not occur when a play is read; still, the
study of drama as literature gives us access to a number of plays that
would otherwise be unavailable.
If we are to understand the plays we read, we must be familiar
with the conventions of drama. Like other forms of literature, plays
can be divided into types, or genres, each with its own conventions.
While every play might not fit neatly into any of the genres of drama,
an understanding of the general conventions of each type is useful; it
would be unfair to expect a play to fulfill requirements outside its
conventions. More detailed explanations of the characteristics and
origins of each type of play will follow in subsequent chapters. For
now it is enough to say that plays can be divided according to two
criteria: how the play ends and how realistic it is.
In the simplest sense, plays that end unhappily with the death
or suffering of the main character are tragedies, and plays which end
happily, usually with couples being reunited or married, are
comedies. Both tragedy and comedy have taken on a host of
associations which should be clarified. Since Aristotle, tragedy has
come to mean a play about a great man or woman who falls from
some high station, status, or condition. In earlier societies (Greek
and Elizabethan) this station was aristocratic, that of royalty: a king,
queen, prince, or princess. The issue of whether we can have
tragedies in egalitarian societies has been discussed by Arthur Miller
in connection with Death of a Salesman.
The tragic hero fails as a result of what the Greeks called
hamartia—a transgression, a mistake, but sometimes translated as
"tragic flaw," a character trait causing the hero's downfall. At some
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point in the action the fortunes of the hero are reversed. As we have
seen, Willie Loman's reversal begins with his visit to Howard's office
to request a job in New York, a visit that ends instead with Willie's
being fired. According to the Greeks, recognition must occur as an
outcome of the hero's suffering. The suffering must not remain
meaningless, but lead to insight for the tragic hero or for the
audience. In Death of a Salesman, the meaning of Willie's suffering
is not perceived by Willie himself, but by the audience through
Charlie.
Finally, Aristotle called attention to the effect on the audience
of watching the hero's suffering. The audience underwent a
katharsis, or a purging of pity and fear. Exactly what Aristotle meant
by katharsis has been argued by modern scholars, but all agree that
some element of empathy for the hero as a suffering fellow human
being is felt by the audience. The stirring of pity for his suffering is
accompanied by a concomitant fear that the same kind of tragic
outcome is possible for any member of the audience. The raising of
these emotions has a cathartic effect; that is, the audience's emotions
are raised and then, when the action is over and the routine of
everyday life resumed, there is relief in having escaped the fate of the
hero. This purgation is not a feeling of moral superiority, but a
sharing in the precariousness of human existence.
If tragedies make us weep, then comedies make us laugh, if
not out loud, then at least inwardly. The antics of human beings—
their pretensions, their weaknesses, their absurdities—are the stuff of
which comedies are made. Unlike the fear we feel over the outcome
of a tragedy, the threats to the well-being of the characters in the
world of comedy are temporary obstacles soon to be overcome. In
Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, we laugh at Bottom the
weaver with his ass's ears and braying talk, but we know that he will
soon return to human form. Romantic comedies present a world of
improbabilities: mistaken identities, disguises, lovers separated, and
treacherous villains; identities clarified, lovers united, and villains
defeated at the conclusion. Romantic comedies such as Shakespeare's
Much Ado About Nothing present a world of life-affirming forces
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where even the gods smile on human life. Social comedies, while
they end happily with the vindication of the virtuous characters,
expose various human flaws from slight foibles to serious vices. The
satiric aim of such comedies is the correction and improvement of
society. Because social fashions and humor change, social comedy
needs to be placed in its historical context if it is to be understood.
Reading the bitter, self-mocking humor of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's
Last Tape is far different from reading the amusing comedy of
Molière's Misanthrope. In short, it is important to adjust your
expectations of the genre to the play's historical and cultural milieu.
Since the middle of the nineteenth century, it has been
common to find plays which are a mixture of tragedy and comedy,
so-called tragicomedies. Even the comedies of Shakespeare's final
period, while they end happily, have a dark tonality about them. Thus
they are often called the "dark comedies." Tragedies may have
comic scenes in them, such as the gravedigger's scene in Hamlet, or
comedies may have dark, nihilistic implications.
Finally, plays may be more or less realistic. Realistic drama
strives to recreate an appearance of life on the stage through sets,
costume, props, dialogue, characters, and action. Henrik Ibsen's
earlier plays (A Doll's House and Ghosts) tried to create the
impression for the audience that they were looking on domestic
scenes of everyday life through the invisible fourth wall of a room.
American drama of the 1930s and 40s, in which the characters were
often working class people—plays like Clifford Odet's Waiting for
Lefty or Elmer Rice's Street Scene—tried to give the audience a slice
of life, that is, the impression that this was a segment taken from real
life.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, playwrights began to
experiment with subject matter and devices that were not objective
and realistic, but subjective and mental. Some playwrights extended
their subject matter to include fantasies, dreams, memories, and
psychological states.
Such plays fall under the heading of
expressionistic drama from the art movement of Expressionism
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which began in Germany after World War I. American plays such as
Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, Tennessee Williams's The
Glass Menagerie, and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, combine
both the modes of expressionistic and realistic drama; their characters
speak realistic dialogue, and deal with real social concerns in real
settings, but as the plays unfold, those worlds dissolve into memory
or nightmare. It is therefore important in reading a play to determine
in what mode it is written, for it would be inappropriate to apply
realistic standards to an expressionistic play.
With all that has been said about drama's ambiguous status as
both live performance and literary text, one final question should be
raised: Why read drama at all? First, reading enables the student of
drama to participate imaginatively in the recreation of a living
artwork. The script of a play, like an architect's blueprint, provides
the outline, but leaves open to the reader the actual imaginative
reconstruction of the drama. Perhaps the pleasure of reading a play is
more like that of a musician giving life to a score by playing it on an
instrument.
Second, in a world of increasing isolation and
fragmentation, of gated communities isolating people by economics
and age, drama offers an opportunity for sharing some of the most
important moments of what it means to be human. Through drama
we can directly touch the lives of people who, like Sophocles, lived
twenty-five centuries ago.
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SECTION ONE
OEDIPUS THE KING BY SOPHOCLES (429 B. C.)
Author: Sophocles (495?—406 B. C.)
Type of Plot: Classical Tragedy
The Mythological Background (Thebes: The House of Cadmus)
When Europa disappeared, having been abducted by Zeus, her
father, King Agenor, sent his sons to find and recover her, with
instructions not to return unless they did. One of them, Cadmus, went
to the oracle at Delphi to learn of Europa's whereabouts; but the
oracle advised Cadmus to give up the search and, instead, to follow a
cow till it fell from weariness and there build a city. Having followed
the cow, Cadmus established the site of Thebes. He sent his
companions to fetch water from a nearby spring that was guarded by
a dragon. When the dragon killed a number of his companions
Cadmus slew it. Athena appeared and told him to sow the dragon's
teeth. After doing so, armed men sprang up ready to fight, so Cadmus
threw a stone among them and they fell upon themselves until only
five warriors remained, each of whom offered to serve Cadmus in
building Thebes. However, Ares was angered at the killing of the
dragon and forced Cadmus to serve him for eight years. Cadmus was
then awarded the lovely Harmonia as his wife, and all the Olympians
attended the wedding, bringing splendid gifts for the bride.
Cadmus ruled well, making Thebes a prosperous city. He and
Harmonia lived to grow old peacefully, but their old age was
troubled by terrible events. Having abdicated the throne in favor of
his grandson, Pentheus, Cadmus emigrated from Thebes after
Pentheus was slain by his mother in Dionysian madness. Cadmus'
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other daughters had unhappy fates, for Semele was blasted by Zeus;
another leapt from a cliff holding her dead son; and a fourth had her
son Actaeon torn to bits. Although some of these catastrophes were
justifiable, unmerited suffering seemed to plague the House of
Cadmus. Its founder was no exception. Sent abroad in their old age,
Cadmus and Harmonia were changed into snakes before they died.
Yet their death was favorable, for they went to the Blessed Isles.
Eventually Cadmus' great-grandson Laius became king at
Thebes. Laius married Jocasta, but learned from the Delphic oracle
that he would die by the hands of his own child. However, he got
drunk one night and conceived a son. Laius and Jocasta exposed the
infant on a mountain, riveting its ankles together. The child was
found by a Corinthian peasant who took it to the childless King
Polybus. Polybus accepted the boy and raised it as his own, naming
it Oedipus.
As a young man Oedipus consulted the Delphic oracle, and it
told him he would murder his father and marry his mother. Horrified,
Oedipus did not return to Corinth, thinking that Polybus and his
queen, Merope, were his true parents. Instead he went to Thebes,
where a monster called the Sphinx was waylaying travelers and
killing everyone who could not answer her riddle. The Sphinx had
the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the head and chest of a
woman. When Oedipus confronted her she asked him what creature
walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs at
evening. Oedipus answered, "Man," realizing the riddle referred to
man's progress from infancy to old age. The Sphinx then killed
herself, and the Thebans welcomed Oedipus as their king for having
delivered them.
He married Queen Jocasta and fathered two sons and two
daughters on her. Thebes flourished under King Oedipus. But then a
plague struck the city, decimating the inhabitants. Pledged to aid the
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city, Oedipus sent his brother-in-law Creon to the Delphic oracle to
learn how the plague might be stopped. The oracle said that the
person who had killed King Laius years before must be caught and
punished. Oedipus vowed to find the culprit and summoned the seer
Teiresias to name the guilty one. At first Teiresias was silent, but
goaded by the king he revealed that Oedipus himself was Laius'
killer. Angered and dumbfounded, Oedipus inquired about the
whereabouts of Laius' death, which had occurred near Delphi where
three roads met. Oedipus recalled killing an arrogant old man and his
retinue who had assaulted him in that very place. Of course it was
Laius he had slain. Then a messenger arrived to tell Oedipus that
King Polybus had died and left Oedipus the kingdom of Corinth.
Presently the facts came out that Polybus was not Oedipus' real father
and that Oedipus had been found exposed on a mountain. Jocasta
grew distraught and pleaded with her husband to abandon his
investigation. And at last the truth dawned on Oedipus that he had
indeed murdered his father and married his mother. In despair
Jocasta hanged herself, while Oedipus blinded himself in an agony of
remorse. Wishing to be killed or exiled, he gave Thebes to Creon to
rule as regent, and Creon promised to care for Oedipus' daughters.
Oedipus himself remained in Thebes for a few years, a blind
and aging misfit cared for only by his daughters, Antigone and
Ismene. After cursing his sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, for showing
disrespect, Oedipus was exiled from Thebes by King Creon.
Homeless and almost friendless, Oedipus was accompanied by
Antigone, and at length the pair arrived at Colonus on the outskirts of
Athens. There they were welcomed and taken in by Theseus. Just
before he died Oedipus was told by the Delphic oracle that he would
achieve the status of a demi-god and be a blessing to the land where
he was buried.
Meanwhile, back in Thebes Oedipus' youngest son, Eteocles,
had taken over the throne. His brother Polyneices had gone to the
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Argive court of King Adrastus to recruit an army against Thebes that
would establish him as king. With the aid of Adrastus, Polyneices
got five other captains and their troops to assault Thebes in an
expedition known as "the Seven Against Thebes." One of these men,
Amphiaraus, was a seer and knew that of the Seven only Adrastus
would return alive. However, since Amphiaraus' wife settled family
quarrels, Polyneices bribed her to send Amphiaraus against Thebes
by giving her an ancestral necklace.
Having assembled his army, Polyneices marched on Thebes,
sending a captain to attack each of Thebes's seven gates. Inside the
city Teiresias told Creon that his son Menoeceus would have to die
before Thebes could be saved.
Creon, very disheartened,
recommended that Menoeceus flee, but his son refused to dishonor
himself, went into battle, and was killed. As the war dragged on
most of Polyneices' supporters were killed, so Polyneices offered to
settle the conflict in single combat with his brother Eteocles. The
result was that Polyneices and Eteocles slew each other, thus ending
the reason for the war. And as Amphiaraus had foreseen only King
Adrastus escaped with his life.
Antigone and Ismene were appalled at their brothers' suicidal
war. When it ended, Creon saw that Eteocles was given a hero's
funeral, but he left Polyneices and the others who had made war on
Thebes to rot on the ground without burial. This meant that their
spirits had to wander on earth never at peace, specters to haunt the
living. Furthermore, Creon ordered that anyone who should attempt
to bury Polyneices or his companions would be put to death.
Antigone, who had great family loyalty, was determined to bury her
brother and lay his soul to rest, for she put divine law above kingly
decrees. Ismene lacked the courage to aid Antigone. When Antigone
had buried Polyneices, Creon had her walled up alive in a tomb.
Teiresias the seer warned Creon that such an act would bring down
the punishment of the gods. Creon then went to undo his mischief
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only to find that Antigone had killed herself with a sword. Now
Creon's son Haemon was Antigone's fiancé, and when he saw his
beloved dead Haemon killed himself, leaving Creon without
progeny.
In the meantime Adrastus had gone to Athens to solicit the
help of Theseus in getting Creon to bury his dead fellow warriors.
Assisted by the mothers of the slain, Adrastus persuaded Theseus and
the Athenians to march on Thebes. Their army gained the victory
over the Thebans and reclaimed the corpses, which were given a
heroes' funeral. Adrastus gave the oration eulogizing the dead, and
the mothers of the slain were satisfied.
Ten years later the sons of the Seven, called the Epigoni, or
After-Born, gathered to revenge themselves on Thebes. Teiresias
foresaw disaster for the city, so the inhabitants fled during the night.
The following morning the Epigoni entered Thebes, sacked it, and
razed it to the ground. At the same time Teiresias died, the man who
had been its seer for so many years.
The Plot
Thebes having been stricken by a plague, the people asked
King Oedipus to deliver them from its horrors. Creon, brother of
Jocasta, Oedipus' queen, returned from the oracle of Apollo and
disclosed that the plague was punishment for the murder of King
Laius, Oedipus' immediate predecessor, to whom Jocasta had been
wife. Creon further disclosed that the citizens of Thebes would have
to discover and punish the murderer before the plague would be
lifted. The people, meanwhile, mourned their dead, and Oedipus
advised them, in their own interest, to search out and apprehend the
murderer.
Asked to help find the murderer, Teiresias, the ancient, blind
seer of Thebes, told Oedipus that it would be better for all if he did
not tell what he knew. He said that coming events would reveal
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themselves. Oedipus raged at the seer's reluctance to tell the secret
until the old man, angered, said that Oedipus was the one responsible
for the afflictions of Thebes, that Oedipus was the murderer, and that
the king was living in intimacy with his nearest kin. Oedipus
accused the old man of being in league with Creon, whom he
suspected of plotting against his throne. Teiresias answered that
Oedipus would be ashamed and horrified when he learned the truth
about his true parentage, a fact Oedipus did not know. Oedipus
defied the seer, saying that he would welcome the truth as long as it
freed his kingdom from the plague. Suspicious, Oedipus threatened
Creon with death, but Jocasta and the people advised him not to do
violence on the strength of rumor or momentary passion. Oedipus
yielded, and Creon was banished.
Jocasta, grieved by the enmity between her brother and
Oedipus, told her husband that an oracle had informed King Laius
that he would be killed by his own child, the offspring of Laius and
Jocasta. Jocasta declared Laius could not have been killed by his
own child because soon after the child was born it was abandoned on
a deserted mountainside. When Oedipus heard from Jocasta that
Laius had been killed by robbers at the meeting place of three roads,
he was deeply disturbed. Learning that the three roads met in Phocis,
he began to suspect that he was, after all, the murderer. Hesitating to
reveal his crime, he became more and more convinced of his own
guilt.
Oedipus told Jocasta he had believed himself the son of
Polybus of Corinth and Merope, until at a feast a drunken man had
announced that the young Oedipus was not really Polybus' son.
Disturbed, he had gone to consult the oracle of Apollo, who had told
him he would sire children by his own mother and he would kill his
own father. Leaving Corinth, at a meeting place of three roads,
Oedipus had been offended by a man in a chariot. He killed the man
and all of his servants but one. Thereafter he had come to Thebes
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and had become the new king by answering the riddle of the Sphinx,
a riddle which asked what went on all fours before noon, on two1egs
at noon, and on three legs after noon. Oedipus had answered,
correctly, that Man walks on all fours as an infant, on two legs in his
prime, and with the aid of a stick in his old age. With the kingship,
he also won the hand of Jocasta, King Laius' queen.
The servant who had reported that King Laius had been killed
by robbers was summoned. Oedipus awaited his arrival fearfully.
Jocasta assured her husband that the entire matter was of no great
consequence, that surely the prophecies of the oracles would not
come true.
A messenger from Corinth announced that Polybus was dead
and that Oedipus was now king. Because Polybus had died of
sickness, not by the hand of his son, Oedipus and Jocasta were at
ease for the time being. Oedipus told the messenger he would not go
to Corinth for fear of siring children by his mother, Merope, thus
fulfilling the prophecy of the oracle.
The messenger then revealed that Oedipus was not really the
son of Polybus and Merope, but a foundling whom the messenger, at
that time a shepherd, had taken to Polybus. The messenger related
how he had received the baby from another shepherd, who was a
servant of the house of King Laius. Jocasta, realizing the dreadful
truth, did not wish any longer to see the old servant who had been
summoned, but Oedipus, desiring to have the matter out regardless of
the cost, called again for the servant. When the servant appeared, the
messenger recognized him as the herdsman from whom he had
received the child years before. The old servant then confessed he
had been ordered by King Laius to destroy the boy, but out of pity he
had given the infant to the Corinthian to raise as his foster son.
Oedipus, now all but mad from the realization of what he had
done, entered the palace to discover that Jocasta had hanged herself
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by her hair. He removed her golden brooches and with them pierced
his eyes. Blinded, he would not be able to see the results of the
horrible prophecy. Then he displayed himself, blind and bloody and
miserable, to the Thebans and announced himself as the murderer of
their king' and the defiler of his own mother's bed. He cursed the
herdsman who had saved him from death years before.
Creon, having returned, ordered the attendants to lead Oedipus
back into the palace. Oedipus asked Creon to have him conducted
out of Thebes where no man would ever see him again. Also, he
asked Creon to give Jocasta a proper burial and to see that the sons
and daughters of the unnatural marriage should be cared for and not
be allowed to live poor and unmarried because of any shame attached
to their parentage. Creon led the wretched Oedipus away to his exile
of blindness and torment.
Critical Evaluation
Oedipus the King is the most famous of the ancient Greek
tragedies. Aristotle considered it the supreme example of tragic
drama and largely modeled his theory of tragedy on it. He mentions
the play no less than eleven times in his Poetics.
Brilliantly conceived and written, Oedipus the King is a drama
of self-discovery. Sophocles achieves an amazing compression and
force by limiting the dramatic action to the day on which Oedipus
learns the true nature of his birth and destiny. The fact that we
already know these dark secrets, that Oedipus has unwittingly slain
his true father and married his actual mother, begetting children with
her, does nothing to destroy our suspense. We are drawn into
Oedipus' search for the truth with all the tautness of a mystery story,
and because we already know the truth we are aware of all the ironies
in which Oedipus is enmeshed. Our knowledge enables us to fear the
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final revelation, but also to pity this man as his past is gradually and
relentlessly uncovered to him.
The excellence of the plot is thoroughly integrated with the
characterization of Oedipus, for it is he who impels the action
forward in his concern for Thebes, his personal rashness, and his
ignorance until everything is brought to light and he must face the
consequences of all that he has done. He is flawed by a hot temper
and impulsiveness, but without those traits his heroic course of selfdiscovery would never have occurred.
Fate for Sophocles is not something essentially outside of man
but something inherent in his character and yet transcend ant as well.
Oracles and prophets in this play may show the will of the gods and
indicate future events, but it is the individual character of a man that
gives substance to them. Moreover, there is an element of freedom
in man, an ability to choose, where the compulsions of character and
the compulsions of the gods are powerless. It is in how a man meets
the necessities of his destiny that freedom lies. He can succumb to
fate's blows like a victim, and plead extenuating circumstances, or he
can shoulder the full responsibility for what he does. In the first case
he is merely pitiful, while in the second he is tragic, possessed of a
greatness of soul that nothing can conquer. We will see these issues
as they appear in Oedipus the King.
A crucial point is that Oedipus is entirely unaware that he has
killed his father and wedded his mother. He himself is the cause of
the plague on Thebes, and in vowing to find the murderer of Laius
and exile him he unconsciously pronounces judgment on himself. As
king and as the hero who saved Thebes from the Sphinx, Oedipus is
public-spirited. Believing in his own innocence, he is angry and
incredulous when the provoked Teiresias accuses him of the crime,
so he naturally jumps to the conclusion that Teiresias and Creon are
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conspirators against him. As plausible as that explanation may be,
Oedipus maintains it with irrational vehemence, not even bothering
to investigate it before he decides to have Creon put to death. Every
act of his is performed in rashness, from his hot-tempered killing of
Laius, to his investigation of the murder, to his violent blinding of
himself, to his insistence on being exiled. He is a man of great pride
and passion intent on serving Thebes, but until the evidence of his
guilt begins piling up, he does not have the least tragic stature. He is
merely a blind man sitting on the powderkeg of his past.
Ironically, his past is revealed to him by people who wish him
well and who want to reassure him. Each time a character tries to
comfort him with information, the information serves to damn him
more thoroughly. Jocasta, in proving how false oracles can be,
suggests to Oedipus unknowingly that he really did kill Laius, thus
corroborating the oracles. The messenger from Corinth in reassuring
Oedipus about his parentage brings his true parentage into question,
but he says enough to convince Jocasta that Oedipus is her son. It is
at this point that Oedipus' true heroism starts to emerge, for he
determines to complete the search for the truth, knowing that he
killed Laius and knowing that the result of his investigation may be
utterly damnatory. His rashness here is no longer a liability but part
of his absolute integrity.
Having learned the full truth of his dark destiny, his last act as
king is to blind himself furiously over the dead body of Jocasta, his
wife and mother. It is a terrible, agonizing moment, even in
description. But in his depths of pain Oedipus is magnificent. He
does not submit passively to his woe or plead that he committed his
foul acts in ignorance, although he could do so with justice. He
blinds himself in a rage of penitence, accepting total responsibility
for what he did and determined to take the punishment of exile as
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well. As piteous as he appears in the final scene with Creon, there is
more public spirit and more manhood in his fierce grief and his
resolution of exile than in any other tragic hero in the history of the
theater. He has unraveled his life to its utmost limits of agony and
found there an unsurpassed grandeur of soul.
Overview
Oedipus the King is regarded by most critics as Sophocles'
masterpiece and the greatest of all Greek tragedies. Sophocles'
dramatic skill is evident in the judicious balancing of action,
characters, and philosophical content into a smooth and flawless
tragedy that maintains throughout a uniform peak of excitement. The
plot is tightly constructed with no superfluous scenes or characters.
Each episode leads logically into the next one and everything that
happens in the story is clearly and intelligently motivated. There is
brilliant use of irony to highlight the weaknesses in Oedipus'
personality and to foreshadow the tragic conclusion of the play, and
the original legend is adapted selectively so that only its most
appropriate and reasonable elements are included in the plot.
All the secondary characters are sharply defined individuals.
Each has a function partly determined in advance by the legend, but
they are so broadly and realistically drawn that they contribute a
feeling of authentic humanity to the play and heighten its intense
emotional effect. Creon's honesty, rationality, and calmness serve as
a standard by which to judge the rashness of Oedipus. Jocasta is a
conventional loving wife but gains in dramatic interest because of the
occasional inadvertent glimpses we get of her maternal attitude
toward Oedipus. The two shepherds have subtly differentiated
personalities and demonstrate a natural concern for their own affairs
that is only partially lessened by the tragic events they witness.
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Overall the tragedy is dominated by the powerful figure of
Oedipus. He is impetuous and proud, but despite these faults is
basically a good man and to a modern reader does not seem to
deserve the terrible punishment that is meted out to him. In the
religious thought of Sophocles, however, man must accept the
responsibility for his acts and their consequences (as does Oedipus in
the final scene), regardless of his original motives and inability to
control or understand the forces which rule his life. In this humble
yet courageous moral acceptance lies the sole opportunity for man to
attain heroic stature and true nobility, and these are the things that
give value to his life.
Sophocles believed that there was a harmoniums purpose
guiding the universe, even though mortals cannot comprehend it. He
visualized a cosmic order that controls all things. It circumscribes
the areas of human endeavor and strikes down all who strive to pass
beyond the boundaries set for man. The dynamic acceptance of this
order that Sophocles preaches is far removed from passivity or
pessimism, for it postulates a higher meaning for life than man can
see and demands that the universe must finally react to man just as
surely as man must submit to the universe.
In the Sophoclean view man has free will, but exists within a
system of limitations on his activity that slowly weave a network of
circumstances that finally cannot be broken. These circumstances
often seem determined by fate (or, in different terminologies,
heredity and environment, infantile traumata, chance, or God's
inscrutable will), but man ultimately chooses his own deeds and
bears the final responsibility for them. Each choice predetermines
the one that follows, but the chain of circumstances can be broken at
many points and a man can strike out in a new direction. The events
in Oedipus the King are contrived to illustrate the underlying
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relationship of all things within the cosmic order and to emphasize
Sophocles' conviction that life, while often cruel, is not chaotic.
Thus, Oedipus' innocent motives are not enough to absolve
him—he could have pondered more fully the meaning of the oracle
and been cautious whenever in the presence of people old enough to
be his parents, he could have more thoroughly looked into the rumors
about his birth while still in Corinth or investigated the unexplained
death of his predecessor when he first became king of Thebes. Even
at the last moment he could have been less sanguine in his desire to
find the murderer or punish himself. In the final analysis Oedipus
was guilty, but his real sin was not killing his father or marrying his
mother, though these were serious crimes for which he had to
answer. It was his presumptuous attempt to raise himself to the level
of the gods by trying to circumvent the divine will as revealed by
Apollo's oracle.
Within this scheme of things, Sophocles taught, the way to
human happiness was through reverence and humility (the areas in
which Oedipus failed). The aim of man's existence was to achieve
the highest possible individual development within the limits set by
the gods, to attempt to understand and adhere to the divinely
ordained laws, to accept gracefully the restrictions of the human
condition, and bravely to take on the dignity and burden of complete
responsibility for all one's acts.
Principal Characters
Oedipus (EHD-ih-puhs), the king of Thebes. A foundling, he had
been reared by Polybus and Merope, king and queen of Corinth. In
that city, he had enjoyed a place of honor until a drunken
Corinthian at a banquet accused him of being a bastard. To settle
the matter, he went to the oracle at Pytho, who revealed that he
was destined to lie with his mother and murder his father. To
avoid this curse, he fled Corinth. During his travels, he was thrust
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out of the road by an old man in a carriage. Angered, Oedipus
returned the old man's blow and killed him. Later, he overcame the
Sphinx by answering a riddle that the monster put to all whom it
encountered, killing those who could not solve it. As a reward,
Oedipus was made king of Thebes and given the hand of Queen
Jocasta, whose former husband, King Laius, was believed killed in
an encounter with highway robbers. When the action of the play
begins, Oedipus has ruled well for many years, but a plague of
unknown origin has recently fallen on the city. His subjects appeal
to him as one especially favored by the gods to help them, but
Oedipus is powerless to do so. He is essentially a good man,
courageous, intelligent, and responsible, but he is also shorttempered, tragically weak in judgment, and proud of his position
and past achievements, for which he gives the gods little credit. As
the action progresses and the question of his responsibility for the
plague is raised, he becomes obsessed with finding out who he is,
regardless of repeated warnings that knowledge of his identity will
bring disaster on himself and on those whom he loves.
Jocasta (joh-KAS-tuh), the wife of Oedipus and mother of his sons,
Eteocles and Polynices, and his daughters, Antigone and Ismene.
She, too, has a sense of the responsibilities of her position and is
deeply concerned with the welfare of her husband. As bits of
information relating to his identity are revealed, her sense of
foreboding grows. When the truth finally becomes apparent to her,
she hangs herself, overwhelmed by the enormities she has
unwittingly committed.
Creon (KREE-on), Jocasta's brother and a powerful Theban noble.
Sent by Oedipus to ask the Delphic Oracle what can be done to
save the city from the plague, he returns with word that it will be
raised when the city no longer harbors the murderer of King Laius,
Jocasta's former husband. When it later appears that Oedipus may
be the murderer, the king violently accuses his brother-in-law of
treacherously seeking the throne, but Creon defends himself as
reasonably as he can until Jocasta calms her husband. Creon is
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presented as a calm, pious man, with a less tyrannical view of
kingship than that of Oedipus.
Tiresias (ti-REE-see-uhs), a blind prophet who alone knows what
Oedipus' fate has been and will be. Oedipus consults him in an
effort to find the murderer of King Laius and loses his patience
when the old man at first refuses to answer. Becoming angry in
turn, Tiresias reveals that Oedipus' seeming good fortune in
vanquishing the Sphinx has actually caused him unknowingly to
commit incest with his mother and to bring pollution upon Thebes.
Furious, Oedipus sends the blind seer away.
The first messenger, an old man who comes from Corinth with word
that Polybus and Merope are dead and that the people of that city
want Oedipus to return as their king. This information, under the
circumstances, is received joyfully by Oedipus, for if his parents
have died naturally, the oracle's prediction that he is doomed to
murder his father has been proved false. The messenger goes on to
say that Polybus and Merope were in reality Oedipus' foster
parents; he himself had received the infant Oedipus from a Theban
shepherd and given him to them.
A herdsman, an old Theban who has voluntarily exiled himself from
his native city. He is forced by Oedipus to confess that years
earlier he had been ordered to expose the infant son of King Laius
and Jocasta, but, pitying the child, he had given him to a
Corinthian. He also had been the one survivor when King Laius
was killed by a young man after a quarrel on the road. His
information thus makes the web of evidence complete; Oedipus
now knows that the old man whom he killed was Laius, his father,
and that his wife Jocasta is also his mother.
The second messenger, a Theban who reports the immediate results of
the shepherd's revelation: Jocasta has hanged herself and Oedipus
blinded himself with the brooches that fastened her robe.
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SECTION TWO
ANTIGONE BY SOPHOCLES (ca. 442-441 BCE)
Author: Sophocles (495?—406 B. C.)
Type of Plot: Classical Tragedy
Introduction
Antigone (ca. 442-441 BCE) is one of seven surviving dramas
composed by the famed Athenian playwright Sophocles (ca. 496-406
BCE). The play revolves around Antigone (daughter of King Oedipus
of Thebes), a pious and determined woman whose wish to bury one
of her slain brothers results in a tragic conflict with her uncle, the
Theban regent Creon. In terms of narrative chronology, Antigone is
the last of the Theban plays, a three-part cycle that also includes
Oedipus Tyrannus (ca. 425 BCE) and Oedipus Coloneus (ca. 401
BCE); however, scholars generally agree that Antigone was the first of
the three Theban plays to be composed.
By the time Sophocles wrote his play, the tragic dynasty of
Oedipus, King of Thebes, had already been the subject of many
poems and plays. The most famous of these were four plays by
Aeschylus, another playwright of the same era who was regarded as
the first great writer of Athenian tragedy. Athenian audiences thus
knew the tale of Oedipus intimately.
The story of Oedipus was used by Sophocles to set the scene
for the events depicted in Antigone. King Oedipus discovered that he
had by accident killed his father and married his mother. Horrified to
discover the manner of his father's death and the identity of his wife,
Oedipus blinded himself and went into exile. One source has Oedipus
commending his children into the care of his mother's brother Creon;
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another of Sophocles' plays has Antigone faithfully accompanying
Oedipus into exile, as his attendant. Oedipus later died, as did his
wife and mother Jocasta, who hanged herself. Creon, who had
subsequently assumed the throne of Thebes as regent until Oedipus's
two sons should grow up, is now king in his own right.
These two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, had been cursed by
their father because they had twice insulted him. The curse included
a prophecy that the boys would grow up to kill each other. Upon
reaching adulthood, Eteocles and Polynices fought over their
inheritance; they had agreed to alternate the kingship, but, once in
power, Eteocles refused to give up the throne. Polynices left Thebes
in anger and married into the royal family of Argos. In Argos he
assembled an army and attacked the city of his birth. The seven gates
of Thebes were assailed by seven heroes, one of whom was
Polynices himself. All seven heroes died during the siege. Polynices
died at the hands of his brother, who was mortally wounded during
the struggle as well. Oedipus's prophecy was thus fulfilled.
The multiplicity of critical approaches to Antigone has served
to highlight the complex nature of this play and has contributed to its
status as one of Sophocles' finest and most compelling dramatic
compositions. While critical esteem for Antigone has been sustained
over centuries, modern scholars have long debated the relative merits
of the work and have particularly argued over the aesthetic unity of
the play. Antigone has likewise been the subject of numerous
psychoanalytic, particularly Freudian, interpretations that generally
tend to evaluate the play in terms of its treatment of filial
relationships and its characters' sublimated psychological urges.
The Plot
In the prologue to the drama, Antigone, daughter of the now
dead King Oedipus, pleads with her sister, Ismene, for assistance in
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burying their brother Polyneices, recently slain in a fraternal duel
with Eteocles over the right to rule Thebes. In the aftermath of the
assault, which cost both brothers their lives, Creon, Antigone's uncle
and the new regent of Thebes, has proclaimed that the rebel
Polyneices should not be allowed burial under strict penalty of death
to anyone who would disobey his order. In the eyes of Creon,
Eteocles was the rightful ruler of the city, and thus deserving of a
hero's funeral, while the usurper Polyneices deserves no better than
to be eaten by birds and wild dogs.
Antigone and Ismene discussed this order, and with grief for
the unburied brother tearing at her heart, Antigone asked Ismene to
aid her in giving him burial. When Ismene refused to help in so
dangerous a task, Antigone went defiantly to bury Polynices.
Shortly afterward, Creon learned from a sentry that the body
had been buried. Angrily he ordered the sentry to find the perpetrator
of the deed. The sentry returned to the grave and uncovered the body.
During a dust storm Antigone came to look at the grave and, finding
it open, filled the air with lamentation. Her cries attracted the
attention of the guard, who captured her and took her to Creon.
Questioned by Creon, she said that to bury a man was to obey
the laws of the gods, even if it were against the laws of a man. Her
reply angered Creon. Antigone must die. Ismene tried to soften
Creon's heart toward her sister by reminding him that Antigone was
engaged to his son, Haemon. But Creon remained firm.
Haemon incurred his father's anger by arguments that Creon
should soften his cruel decree because of popular sympathy for
Antigone. Creon said that he cared nothing for the ideas of the town,
and Haemon called his answer foolish. As a punishment, Creon
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ordered that Antigone be killed before Haemon's eyes. Haemon fled
with threats of revenge. Creon ordered that Antigone be walled up in
a cave outside Thebes and left there to die for her crime against his
law.
When Antigone was led out of the city, the people of Thebes
followed her, lamenting her fate. She was thrust into the cave while
Polynices' body lay unburied outside the walls. The prophet Tiresias
warned Creon that the gods had not been pleased with his action, and
that the body should be buried. He foretold that before long Haemon
would die if his father did not bury Polynices and rescue Antigone
from the cave.
Creon, realizing that Tiresias' prophesies had never proved
false, hurried to avert the fate the prophet had foretold. Quickly
Creon ordered a tomb prepared for Polynices, and he set off to
release Antigone. But the will of the gods could not be changed so
easily. When he reached the cave, he heard his son's voice within,
crying out in grief. Creon entered and saw that Antigone had hanged
herself with a rope made from her own dress. Haemon, sword in
hand, rushed at his father as if to attack him. He then fell on his
sword and killed himself in sorrow over Antigone's death. The news
of these events quickly traveled back to the city, and Creon's wife,
hearing of so many misfortunes, died by her own hand.
On returning to Thebes with the body of his son, Creon
learned of his wife's death. Seeing that his life could no longer have
meaning, he had himself led out of the city into exile. He was,
himself, the final victim of his harsh tyranny.
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Major Themes
Most commentators agree that Antigone effectively dramatizes
a tragic clash between the two rigid, uncompromising figures,
Antigone and Creon. Each is thought to justifiably uphold the
legitimacy of her or his own moral viewpoint, thus creating a
situation of profound ethical ambiguity and a tragic conflict of
mutually exclusive obligations. A central theme explored in the work
is the necessity of protecting and serving the civic interests of the
polis (city-state) and the need to demonstrate respect and love for
one's kin. These dual commitments lead to a contradiction between
familial loyalty and civic responsibility in the case of Polyneices's
forbidden burial. Sometimes viewed as a tyrannical figure whose
single-minded determination clouds his better judgment, Creon
resolutely defends the ideal of civic duty and the rule of law in
making his decree. The regent's calculating self-interest, egotism, and
near complete failure to understand the workings of love, however,
contrast with the piety of his niece, whose sensitivity to the unwritten
laws of the gods and awareness of philia (love, kinship, and
affection) are two of her defining characteristics. For Antigone,
Creon's edict is an unforgivable act of sacrilege and an affront to the
gods. Her actions, therefore, are typically interpreted as expressions
of religious courage, faith, and filial love.
The irreconcilable conflict between the obligations of
Antigone and Creon not only defines these characters as polar
opposites—united only in their stubbornness—but also underscores a
number of other salient thematic contraries in the drama. Among
these, Creon and Antigone are thought to represent the tension
between masculine and feminine principles, and between the
sometimes incompatible dictates of worldly and divine justice. Other
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themes more specifically related to Creon include his lack of wisdom
in failing to listen to Tiresias, his inability to realize that the laws of
the gods must always take precedence over the will of men, and his
giving in to political expediency and wielding personal power as a
tyrannical ruler. Additionally, the thematic content of Antigone is
said to draw upon both the Aeschylean tradition of examining
generational guilt (in this case related to the house of Oedipus) and
the more typically Euripidean probing of a woman's role in society.
Nevertheless, such issues are generally considered secondary in the
play, which instead focuses primarily on dramatizing the tragic
potential of the individual. The willful destructiveness of Antigone
and Creon, who both suffer from obstinacy, recalcitrance, and an
inability to compromise, also relates to the drama's depiction of
predestination—a motif Sophocles illustrates through deft inclusion
of prophecy in the work, which at crucial moments complicates the
idea of free will.
Critical Evaluation
Antigone is one of the finest, most moving tragedies ever
written. It was very successful when it was first produced in 441 B.C.,
and tradition says that Sophocles was made an Athenian general in
the war against Samos because of it. Modern audiences, too, find this
play meaningful, particularly in the conflict between individual
conscience and the state policy. The fundamental issue of the play,
however, goes deeper than that conflict. It probes the nature of
suffering, and finds in it a universal condition, one that exists at the
very heart of the human experience.
Sophocles did not share Aeschylus' view that man learns by
pain, or the Christian idea that we are purified by agony. Both
opinions are ultimately optimistic because they are based on hope in
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some future vindication of our misery. In contrast, Sophocles faced
the problem of pain without hope, as an essential fact of life that no
one could escape. With this outlook he was keenly attuned to both
the sadness and the tragedy inherent in living.
Ironically, Sophocles himself enjoyed the most fortunate life
possible to a Greek. He was crowned with honors from early
manhood on to the age of ninety, when he died. He was a skilled
athlete, he achieved public position. Most important, he had an
extremely creative and successful dramatic career, writing more than
one hundred and twenty plays, ninety-six of which were awarded
first place in the Athenian drama competitions. He was the foremost
tragedian in an age of magnificent literary, artistic, and political
genius—Periclean Athens. Moreover, he won a lasting reputation as
one of the supreme playwrights of all time. Antigone, written when
Sophocles was in his fifties, affords a penetrating look at his dramatic
prowess.
The meaning of this play is to be found in the antithesis
between Antigone and her uncle Creon. The issue of burying
Polynices depends on a grasp of Greek ideas about death. An
unburied body meant a soul condemned to torment. It was the
profound obligation of the family, therefore, to see that a body was
properly inhumed. This was more than a matter of family loyalty, it
was an act of piety demanded by the gods. Antigone undertakes that
obligation even though it means treason to the State, the rejection of
her only sister Ismene, the renunciation of her fiancé, and her own
death. She is absolutely uncompromising about it, knowing all the
consequences beforehand. As it turns out, she is justified, but we do
not know this until Tiresias appears and then it is too late to matter,
for she has hanged herself.
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Creon also has a valid stand. The traitor Polynices should be
punished in death. A conscientious ruler, he is concerned about
loyalty to the state. But in his position as king he confuses his own
will with the good of Thebes. In pursuing his edict, which says that
anyone who buries Polynices will be put to death, he changes from a
good king into a tyrant. His vanity is involved: he will not be put in
the wrong by a young woman or his son in front of the chorus of
Theban elders. His flaw lies in his stubborn, self-righteous
inflexibility when the tide of evidence turns against him. He angrily
maintains his stand in the face of Antigone's martyrdom, his son's
pleading, the sympathy of the townspeople with Antigone, and
Tiresias' warnings. He only relents because of the fear he feels after
Tiresias has prophesied doom for his family and for the city. But,
again, his penitence comes too late to save himself.
It is wrong, however, to see Antigone as a perfect heroine or
Creon as a willing malefactor. The same passion that goes into
Antigone's heroic treason in burying her brother makes her unjustly
cruel to her gentle sister Ismene; and she has no thought whatever for
Haemon, her finance. She is right, but she is also unbearably selfrighteous. The only time we feel sympathy for her is when she
laments that she will never have a husband or a child, but she made
that choice freely and passionately. As far as character goes, there is
no difference whatever between Antigone's self-righteousness and
Creon's. Both are hard and unyielding.
The difference between the two lies in the principle by which
they live. Antigone chooses to serve the gods, or divine law, while
Creon makes the state his top priority. Both serve their principle with
all the force of their being. But because Creon has chosen the lesser
law, and because the state as he conceives it is indistinguishable from
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his own ego, he must bow in the end to the gods, and they crush him.
Ironically, he faces the same suffering he meted out to Antigone. Just
as he deprived her of the chance to have a husband and child, so he is
bereft of his wife and son.
Creon's fate is sad because he blundered into it unwittingly,
through stubbornly upholding a limited idea. The man lacked
wisdom. Yet Antigone's death is tragic because she voluntarily
accepted it as the consequence of her heroism. For all her hardness,
there is something truly grand and edifying in her fate. When
suffering is a part of every man's condition, there is a vast difference
in how one takes it. A man can fumble into it through ignorance and
flaws of character, as Creon does, which makes him merely pathetic.
This is the normal human lot. Or a person can freely choose suffering
with open eyes by taking on a divine obligation in spite of all
obstacles. This way is intense and tragic, but in the end it is the only
path that can enlarge our humanity. The greatness of Antigone lies in
the clarity, the poignance, and the integrity with which Sophocles
presented these two possibilities.
Principal Characters
Antigone (an-TIHG-eh-nee), the daughter of Oedipus, sister of
Eteocles, defender of Thebes, and Polynices, an exile from the city
and one of its attackers. After Eteocles and Polynices have killed
each other in battle, Creon, Antigone's uncle and now king of
Thebes, decrees that Eteocles' body shall be buried with honors
befitting a national hero but that Polynices' body shall be left
unburied, a prey to scavengers. Divine law, Greek custom, and
simple humanity demand, however, that Antigone see her brother
buried; she must choose, therefore, between obedience to the
temporal rule of Creon and the duty she owes to a brother she had
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loved. Although she knows that her fate will be death, she chooses
to bury the body of her brother. She is undoubtedly strong-willed
and defiant; having been apprehended by the guards posted to
prevent the burial, she replies to Creon's wrathful accusations of
treason with an equal ferocity. Yet she emerges as immensely
heroic, for she alone seems clearly to understand that the king's
law is inferior to divine law and that if sacrifice is required to
follow the right, such sacrifice must be made. She is always aware
of the glory of her deed and dies for love in the largest sense of the
word, but her concurrent awareness of her youth and her loss of
earthly love humanizes her and makes her a profoundly tragic
figure.
Creon (KREE-on), the king of Thebes. Although he gives lip service
to the necessity for order and for obedience to the law, he is a
tyrant who has identified the welfare of the state with his own selfinterest and self-will. He commits hubris through his violent
misuse of his temporal power; he too has a duty to bury the dead,
and his unjust condemnation of Antigone to death is murder of a
near relative, although he changes her sentence from stoning to
burial alive in order to avoid the formal pollution which would
accompany such a deed. He has a regard for the external forms of
religion but no understanding of its essential meaning. When
Tiresias brings the gods' curse on his actions, he relents, but too
late to save Antigone or his son.
Haemon (HEE-mon), Creon's son, engaged to wed Antigone. He
attempts to placate his father. Failing, he declares his fidelity to
Antigone. When Creon comes to release Antigone from the cave
in which she has been entombed, he finds that she has hanged
herself and that Haemon is embracing her suspended body.
Haemon attempts to kill his father, then falls on his own sword.
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Ismene (ihs-MEE-nee), Antigone's sister, as gentle and timid as
Antigone is high-minded and strong. She pleads a woman's
weakness when Antigone asks her to help with Polynices' burial,
yet her love for her sister makes her willing to share the blame
when Antigone is accused.
Eurydice (ew-RIHD-ih-see), Creon's wife. She kills herself when she
is informed of Haemon's death.
Tiresias (ti-REE-see-uhs), a prophet who brings to Creon a warning
and a curse that cause him belatedly to revoke his decision to
execute Antigone. He is the human in closest affinity with the
divine; his intercession is therefore equivalent to divine sanction
for Antigone's deeds.
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SECTION THREE
HAMLET BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1601)
Author: William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Type of Plot: Tragedy
Introduction
One of the most popular and highly respected plays ever
written, Hamlet owes its greatness to the character of the Prince, a
man of thought rather than action, a philosophical, introspective hero
who is swept along by events rather than exercising control of them.
Through the medium of some of the most profound and superb
poetry ever composed, Shakespeare transforms a conventional
revenge tragedy into a gripping exploration of the universal problems
of mankind. In Hamlet's struggle with duty, morality, and ethics are
mirrored the hopes, fears, and despair of all mankind.
The story involves the murder of Hamlet, king of Denmark,
by his brother Claudius, who not only assumes the throne but also
marries his brother’s widow, Queen Gertrude. Young Prince Hamlet
is visited by a Ghost who may be the spirit of his dead father—or
may be a devil tempting him to evil. The Ghost relates the story of
Claudius's treachery and commands Hamlet to avenge the murder.
Instead of accusing Claudius of the crime, however, Hamlet pretends
to be insane while he seeks to verify the Ghost's story. This delay
creates political discord in the Danish court and intensifies problems
among the characters, resulting in many deaths.
Hamlet's feigned insanity causes him to torment Ophelia, a
young noblewoman, and also worsens the difficult relationship with
his mother. His rashness leads to the killing of Ophelia's father,
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Polonius (whom Hamlet mistakes for Claudius), whereupon the
grief-stricken Ophelia apparently takes her own life. Claudius
encourages Laertes, Polonius's son, to blame Hamlet for his sister's
death and plots to have Hamlet's friends lure him away from the
court. Although Hamlet does leave, he returns—and in the
catastrophic climax of the play, agrees to a fencing match with
Laertes. Claudius has arranged for Laertes to use a poisoned sword
and also has a poisoned drink ready as a precaution. Queen Gertrude
drinks the potion by mistake and dies, and both Hamlet and Laertes
are wounded by the poisoned sword. Before he dies, Laertes reveals
the treachery of Claudius, who is killed by Hamlet in his last
moments. Only Hamlet’s friend Horatio is left to mourn, and the rule
of Denmark passes to the king of Norway.
Hamlet is perhaps the most extensively analyzed play in
English literature, with critical attention focused primarily on the
character of young Hamlet and the enigmatic nature of his hesitation
to avenge his father’s murder. In the early twentieth century, there
was an emphasis on psychoanalytic criticism (following Freud's
commentary on the play). In recent years, commentators have
speculated on the historical and cultural circumstances that might
have influenced Shakespeare's composition of Hamlet. A number of
scholars argue that the prince's extreme melancholy and lingering
inaction reflect Shakespeare's intellectual preoccupation with the
philosophical, cultural, and religious dimensions of Renaissance
thought. In particular, these commentaries focus on the playwright's
sophisticated examination of the Renaissance concept of skepticism
and on his ambiguous representation of the contentious religious
controversies that emerged after the English Reformation.
The Plot
A ghost in the shape of the recently deceased king appears on
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the castle ramparts at night. It seems about to speak but disappears.
The guards who have seen this apparition tell Horatio, a universityeducated friend of Prince Hamlet, the son of the dead king. The
guards and Horatio discuss the preparations being made for an
expected invasion by Fortinbras of Norway. They see the ghost
again and decide to tell Hamlet about the apparition.
Meanwhile, the new king, Claudius, announces his marriage
to his dead brother's wife. This proves to be a problem for Hamlet
because the woman is Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. Claudius, it turns
out, is the younger brother of the dead king. Hamlet is angered and
disturbed by what he sees as his mother's disloyalty to his father, and
he publicly appears morose and upset. He is thrilled to hear of the
ghost and tells Horatio that he will come to see it that night.
Also at this time, Laertes, son of Polonius, the lord
chamberlain to King Claudius, is leaving for France and says
goodbye to his sister, Ophelia, and his father. Both Polonius and
Laertes warn Ophelia to guard against Hamlet's romantic attentions.
Back on the ramparts of Elsinore Castle, the apparition again
appears. It identifies itself as Hamlet's father's ghost and claims that
he was killed by his brother, Claudius. The ghost demands that
Hamlet revenge this murder "most foul." Agitated, excited, and
confused, Hamlet swears that he will do what the ghost demands.
Some time afterward, Polonius, busily arranging with his
servant Reynaldo to spy on Laertes when he is abroad, is interrupted
by Ophelia. She tells Polonius that Hamlet came into her chamber,
acting like a madman. Claudius, having his own suspicions about
Hamlet, arranges to have Hamlet's former schoolmates, Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern, spy on Hamlet. Polonius believes that Hamlet has
gone mad due to love of Ophelia, and he tries to talk with Hamlet to
test his theory. In the conversation that follows, Hamlet thoroughly
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confuses Polonius, and in doing so, he manages to further convince
Polonius that he has gone mad.
Soon after this, a group of traveling actors arrives at court.
Hamlet persuades the lead actor to recite a tragic speech, and then, in
a famous speech of his own, Hamlet laments that an actor can show
emotion on demand, but that he, Hamlet, has not yet been able to
work up the necessary passion to carry out the ghost's requested
revenge.
Polonius later arranges for Ophelia to "accidentally" meet
Hamlet while Polonius and the king hide and watch. Hamlet enters,
giving his famous "to be or not to be" speech that bemoans the pains
of life and ponders the unknown terrors of the afterlife. He then sees
Ophelia, whom he savagely berates.
Hamlet next orders the actors to present a play depicting what
he suspects were the circumstances of his father's death. Hamlet is
working on Claudius's conscience and wants proof of his guilt.
Claudius reacts exactly as Hamlet had planned, and Hamlet again
vows to go through with the revenge demanded by the ghost.
Claudius is now in an agony of guilt and remorse. He tries to
pray for forgiveness, but finds he cannot utter the words. Hamlet sees
Claudius on his knees, vulnerable, and is about to kill him when he
hesitates. He reasons that the king is praying—or so Hamlet
thinks—and if Hamlet were to kill him then, Claudius's soul would
go straight to heaven. Hamlet goes instead to his mother's chamber,
and there he scolds and chastises her for her infidelity to the late
King Hamlet. Polonius is also there, listening behind a large hanging
tapestry along the wall of Gertrude's bedchamber. Hearing a sudden
noise, Hamlet cries, "A rat!" and thrusts his sword through the
tapestry, killing Polonius. Hamlet then sees the apparition of his
father again. The ghost tells Hamlet not to touch Gertrude and to
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remember his "almost blunted purpose"—to kill Claudius. Unlike
the earlier scenes in which Horatio and the soldiers could see the
ghost, Gertrude cannot see it.
When Claudius finds out about Polonius's murder, he feels
threatened. He gives orders for Hamlet's arrest and arranges to have
him shipped to England and executed. (Claudius writes a letter
ordering the king of England to execute Hamlet upon arrival.)
Hamlet leaves for England, and on the way, he runs into the army of
Prince Fortinbras, on its way to war in Poland.
Because Hamlet does not seem to love her and because he has
killed her father, Ophelia goes insane, and Laertes returns from
France, demanding vengeance and retribution for Polonius's death.
Claudius soon learns that Hamlet has foiled his plans and has
returned to Denmark, and he plots with Laertes to have Hamlet killed
with a poisoned sword during a fencing match. As the two men
conceive this strategy, word comes that Ophelia has drowned herself.
Hamlet reenters the scene, meeting Horatio in a graveyard. He
grieves over the plight of humanity, doomed to a short life and an
eternal death. As he ruminates, a funeral procession goes by, which
turns out to be for Ophelia. Laertes, grieving wildly, throws himself
into the grave. Hamlet emerges from his hiding place to berate
Laertes, declaring that he (Hamlet) loved Ophelia more than anyone
else ever had. Laertes and Hamlet fight briefly, but are soon
restrained.
Some days later, Hamlet is told about the fencing match
arranged for himself and Laertes. Hamlet seems fatalistic in this
final scene, revealing to Horatio that he has a premonition that he
will die. Horatio encourages Hamlet to refuse the match, but Hamlet
declares that he will go through with it.
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As planned, Laertes has a poisoned sword and Claudius a cup
of poisoned wine (in case the sword fails). Hamlet wins the first two
passes, and to celebrate his success, the queen offers a toast, drinking
unwittingly from the poisoned cup. After more passes, Hamlet
appears to be a better swordsman than either Laertes or Claudius had
anticipated, but Laertes manages to wound Hamlet with the poisoned
sword. The swords then get switched accidentally, and Hamlet
wounds Laertes. The queen, meanwhile, feels the effects of the
poison. She dies, and Laertes, also dying, tells Hamlet that the king
is the source of the treachery by which he too will die. Hamlet then
furiously attacks Claudius, stabbing him and forcing him to drink the
last of the poisoned wine. In this way, Hamlet finally avenges his
father's murder.
Horatio tells Hamlet, who succumbs to the poison, that his
own heart is breaking and that he will kill himself from grief. Hamlet
tells Horatio not to kill himself but to live and tell the story of what
happened to Hamlet and the Danish court. Hamlet dies, and Prince
Fortinbras and his troops enter the palace, where Fortinbras takes
over as king.
Themes and Motifs
The Supernatural and Shakespeare's Time: The presence of a ghost
character in Hamlet reflects a general acceptance of the supernatural
during the Elizabethan Age. The ghost gives Hamlet an insight into
life that cannot be seen or transmitted by others living on this
"distracted" globe. Shakespeare's drama suggests that there are a
great many things human beings do not understand and that such
things can affect human destiny.
The Renaissance revenge tragedy nearly always involves a
ghost crying for vengeance. The concept that unseen forces or
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Fortune have influence or control over human destiny was common
in Elizabethan tragedy. These plays have their roots in the dramas of
Seneca, a Roman playwright from the first century A.D. Seneca had
written of the Roman goddess Fortuna's ability to control destiny
with her wheel of fortune. Elizabethan playwrights adapted Seneca's
concepts, combining medieval and classical elements in their
tragedies.
From the Heroic Ideal to Humanism: Prince Hamlet reflects, in part,
the evolving humanistic attitude of the Renaissance era. In contrast to
the earlier medieval belief that death was the proper and necessary
punishment to revenge a murder, Hamlet conveys a growing pacifist
sentiment that denounces killing in general. In an era that saw
rampant human destruction from war and the bubonic plague, the
English were beginning to regard killing—even to avenge a lawless
murder—as a less heroic action than had the people of the Middle
Ages. This changing viewpoint contributes to Hamlet's delay in
avenging his father's death, which causes the prince much inner
turmoil.
Hamlet is torn between the conflicting concepts of vengeance
as honorable and murder as sin, a struggle that Renaissance society
was grappling with as well. A law called the Bond of Association of
1584, for example, legalized revenge against anyone who attempted
to overthrow or malign the queen. Yet when the Earl of Essex was
killed under that law for attempting to overthrow the government,
society in general condemned his execution, as did Shakespeare.
Hamlet's ongoing indecision reflects the society's debates about the
legitimacy of vengeance and humane treatment of wrongdoers and
seems to suggest that there are elements of merit and dishonor in
both.
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Madness: Is he or isn't he?
This is the perennial question about
Hamlet. Hamlet announces to Horatio that he will "put an antic
disposition on" (1.5.172); in other words, that he will act mad. In the
original legend, which Shakespeare adapted for this play, the Danish
prince Amlethus clearly pretends to be mad in order to buy himself
enough time and space to accomplish his desired revenge. Note that
Hamlet always appears mad before those characters from whom he
has something to fear—Claudius, Gertrude, Polonius, and even poor
Ophelia, after she has been reduced to the role of bait for Hamlet.
Appearance versus Reality: Appearance versus reality is a theme that
surfaces often. For example, Hamlet realizes early on that "one may
smile, and smile, and be a villain" (1.5.108). He also uses the
appearance of madness to hide the reality of his desire for revenge.
This theme ties in nicely with that of the supernatural since, with
each case, what is real must be separated from what merely appears
to be real.
Succession to the Throne: In this time period, the Danish throne is
elective. This does not mean, however, that it is similar to the
modern American elective system by which a president is chosen.
The king is a kind of primus inter pares, or "first among equals," and
he is chosen by the assembled nobles of the land. This is very similar
to the way in which the early English kings were chosen. In the past,
succession to the throne was not always determined by what is
known as primogeniture (primacy in birth—or succession by the
oldest child). Instead, the throne would pass, on the death of the
reigning monarch, to a qualified member of the royal family. If this
happened to be the eldest son, so be it. But if the eldest son of a
deceased monarch were still a child, an adult male of the family
would be chosen to succeed to the throne. The issue of succession
(who is to take power and on what principle) is critical in Hamlet. In
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the political world of Elsinore, there is not a recognizably
primogeniture-based principle of succession to the Danish throne,
and, consequently, succession is, in this play, a matter of some
uncertainty. Hamlet hints at this unclear situation when he says to
Horatio that Claudius has "popped between the election and my
hopes" (5.2.65). The anxiety about succession in this play can be
seen as reflecting a general anxiety, at the end of the sixteenth
century, regarding the failure of an aging Elizabeth I to produce an
heir. (She died three years after Hamlet was first performed.) What
would happen to England when she died? Given the violent political
shocks and aftershocks in England during the first half of the
sixteenth century, these were not baseless fears. It is worth pointing
out that, by the end of the play, it is Fortinbras (whose name means,
roughly, "strong-arm") of Norway who sits on the Danish throne.
This is a very literal hint about the kind of "strong-arm" politics that
inevitably steps—or attempts to step—into disorder, or collapsed or
failed order.
Critical Evaluation
Hamlet has remained the most perplexing, as well as the most
popular, of Shakespeare's major tragedies. Performed frequently, the
play has tantalized critics with what has become known as the
Hamlet mystery. The mystery resides in Hamlet's complex behavior,
most notably his indecision and his reluctance to act.
Freudian critics have located his motivation in the
psychodynamic triad of the father-mother-son relationship.
According to this view, Hamlet is disturbed and eventually deranged
by his Oedipal jealousy of the uncle who has done what, we are to
believe, all sons long to do themselves. Other critics have taken the
more conventional tack of identifying Hamlet's tragic flaw as a lack
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of courage or moral resolution. In this view, Hamlet's indecision is a
sign of moral ambivalence which he overcomes too late.
The trouble with both of these views is that they presuppose a
precise discovery of Hamlet's motivation. However, Renaissance
drama is not generally a drama of motivation either by psychological
set or moral predetermination. Rather, the tendency is to present
characters, with well delineated moral and ethical dispositions, who
are faced with dilemmas. It is the outcome of these conflicts, the
consequences, which normally hold center stage. What we watch in
Hamlet is an agonizing confrontation between the will of a good and
intelligent man and the uncongenial role which circumstance calls
upon him to play.
The disagreeable role is a familiar one in Renaissance
drama—the revenger. The early description of Hamlet, bereft by the
death of his father and the hasty marriage of his mother, makes him a
prime candidate to assume such a role. One need not conclude that
his despondency is Oedipal in order to sympathize with the extremity
of his grief. His father, whom he deeply loved and admired, is
recently deceased and he himself seems to have been finessed out of
his birthright. Shakespeare, in his unfortunate ignorance of Freud,
emphasized Hamlet's shock at Gertrude's disrespect to the memory of
his father rather than love of mother as the prime source of his
distress. The very situation breeds suspicion, which is reinforced by
the ghastly visitation by the elder Hamlet's ghost and the ghost's
disquieting revelation. The ingredients are all there for bloody
revenge.
However, if Hamlet were simply to act out the role that has
been thrust upon him, the play would be just another sanguinary
potboiler without the moral and theological complexity which
provides its special fascination. Hamlet has, after all, been a student
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of theology at Wittenberg. Hamlet's knowledge complicates the
situation. First of all, he is aware of the fundamental immorality of
the liaison between Gertrude and Claudius. Hamlet's accusation of
incest is not an adolescent excess but an accurate theological
description of a marriage between a widow and her dead husband's
brother.
Hamlet's theological accomplishments do more than
exacerbate his feelings. For the ordinary revenger, the commission
from the ghost of the murdered father would be more than enough to
start the bloodletting. But Hamlet is aware of the unreliability of
otherworldly apparitions, and consequently he is reluctant to heed the
ghost's injunction to perform an action which is objectively evil. In
addition, the fear that his father was murdered in a state of sin and is
condemned to hell not only increases Hamlet's sense of injustice but
also, paradoxically, casts further doubt on the reliability of the ghost's
exhortation. Is the ghost, Hamlet wonders, merely an infernal spirit
goading him to sin?
Thus, Hamlet's indecision is not an indication of weakness,
but the result of his complex understanding of the moral dilemma
with which he is faced. He is unwilling to act unjustly, yet he is
afraid that he is failing to exact a deserved retribution. He debates the
murky issue and becomes unsure himself whether his behavior is
caused by moral scruple or cowardice. He is in sharp contrast with
the cynicism of Claudius and the verbose moral platitudes of
Polonius. The play is in sharp contrast with the moral simplicity of
the ordinary revenge tragedy. Hamlet's intelligence has transformed a
stock situation into a unique internal conflict.
He believes that he must have greater certitude of Claudius'
guilt if he is to take action. The device of the play within a play
provides greater assurance that Claudius is suffering from a guilty
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conscience, but it simultaneously sharpens Hamlet's anguish. Having
seen a re-creation of his father's death and Claudius' response,
Hamlet is able to summon the determination to act. However, he
once again hesitates when he sees Claudius in prayer because he
believes that the king is repenting and, if murdered at that moment,
will go directly to heaven. Here Hamlet's inaction is not the result of
cowardice nor even of a perception of moral ambiguity. Rather, after
all of his agonizing, Hamlet once decided on revenge is so
thoroughly committed that his passion cannot be satiated except by
destroying his uncle body and soul. It is ironic that Claudius has been
unable to repent and that Hamlet is thwarted this time by the
combination of his theological insight with the extreme ferocity of
his vengeful intention.
That Hamlet loses his mental stability is clear in his behavior
toward Ophelia and in his subsequent meanderings. Circumstance
had enforced a role whose enormity has overwhelmed the fine
emotional and intellectual balance of a sensitive, well-educated
young man. Gradually he regains control of himself and is armed
with a cold determination to do what he decides is the just thing. Yet,
even then, it is only in the carnage of the concluding scenes that
Hamlet finally carries out his intention. Having concluded that "the
readiness is all," he strikes his uncle only after he has discovered
Claudius' final scheme to kill him and Laertes, but by then he is
mortally wounded.
The arrival of Fortinbras, who has been lurking in the
background throughout the play, superficially seems to indicate that a
new, more direct and courageous order will prevail in the place of the
evil of Claudius and the weakness of Hamlet. But Fortinbras'
superiority is only apparent. He brings stasis and stability back to a
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disordered kingdom, but he does not have the self-consciousness and
moral sensitivity which destroy and redeem Hamlet.
Gerald Else has interpreted Aristotle's notion of katharsis to be
not a purging of the emotions but a purging of a role of the moral
horror, the pity and fear, ordinarily associated with it. If that is so,
then Hamlet, by the conflict of his ethical will with his role, has
purged the revenger of his horrific bloodthirstiness and turned the
stock figure into a self-conscious hero in moral conflict.
Principal Characters
Hamlet, prince of Denmark. Generally agreed to be Shakespeare's
most fascinating hero, Hamlet has been buried under volumes of
interpretation, much of it conflicting. No brief sketch can satisfy
his host of admirers nor take into account more than a minute
fraction of the commentary now in print. The character is a
mysterious combination of a series of literary sources and the
phenomenal genius of Shakespeare. Orestes in Greek tragedy is
probably his ultimate progenitor, not Oedipus, as some critics have
suggested. The Greek original has been altered and augmented by
medieval saga and Renaissance romance; perhaps an earlier
"Hamlet," written by Thomas Kyd, furnished important material;
however, the existence of such a play has been disputed. A
mixture of tenderness and violence, a scholar, lover, friend,
athlete, philosopher, satirist, and deadly enemy, Hamlet is larger
than life itself. Torn by grief for his dead father and
disappointment in the conduct of his beloved mother, Hamlet
desires a revenge so complete that it will reach the soul as well as
the body of his villainous uncle. His attempt to usurp God's
prerogative of judgment leads to all the deaths in the play. Before
his death he reaches a state of resignation and acceptance of God's
will. He gains his revenge but loses his life.
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Claudius, king of Denmark, husband of his brother's widow, Hamlet's
uncle. A shrewd and capable politician and administrator, he is
courageous and self-confident; but he is tainted by mortal sin. He
has murdered his brother and married his queen very soon
thereafter. Although his conscience torments him with remorse, he
is unable to repent or to give up the throne or the woman that his
murderous act brought him. He has unusual self-knowledge and
recognizes his unrepentant state. He is a worthy and mighty
antagonist for Hamlet, and they destroy each other.
Gertrude, queen of Denmark, Hamlet's mother. Warmhearted but
weak, she shows deep affection for Hamlet and tenderness for
Ophelia. There are strong indications that she and Claudius have
been engaged in an adulterous affair before the death of the older
Hamlet. She loves Claudius, but she respects Hamlet's confidence
and does not betray him to his uncle when he tells her of the
murder, of which she has been obviously innocent and ignorant.
Her death occurs after she drinks the poison prepared by Claudius
for Hamlet.
Polonius, Lord Chamberlain under Claudius, whom he has apparently
helped to the throne. An affectionate but meddlesome father to
Laertes and Ophelia, he tries to control their lives, He is garrulous
and self-important, always seeking the devious rather than the
direct method in politics or family relationships. Hamlet jestingly
baits him but he apparently has some affection for the officious
old man and shows real regret at killing him. Polonius'
deviousness and eavesdropping bring on his death; Hamlet stabs
him through the tapestry in the mistaken belief that Claudius is
concealed there.
Ophelia, Polonius' daughter and Hamlet's love. A sweet, docile girl,
she is easily dominated by her father. She loves Hamlet but never
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seems to realize that she is imperiling his life by helping her father
spy on him. Her gentle nature being unable to stand the shock of
her father's death at her lover's hands, she loses her mind and is
drowned.
Laertes, Polonius' son. He is in many ways a foil to Hamlet. He also
hungers for revenge for a slain father. Loving his dead father and
sister, he succumbs to Claudius' temptation to use fraud in gaining
his revenge. This plotting brings about his own death but also
destroys Hamlet.
Horatio, Hamlet's former schoolmate and loyal friend. Well
balanced, having a quiet sense of humor, he is thoroughly reliable.
Hamlet trusts him implicitly and confides in him freely. At
Hamlet's death, he wishes to play the antique Roman and die by
his own hand; but he yields to Hamlet's entreaty and consents to
remain alive to tell Hamlet's story and to clear his name.
Ghost of King Hamlet. Appearing first to the watch, he later appears
to Horatio and to Hamlet. He leads Hamlet away from the others
and tells him of Claudius' foul crime. His second appearance to
Hamlet occurs during the interview with the queen, to whom he
remains invisible, causing her to think that Hamlet is having
hallucinations. In spite of Gertrude's betrayal of him, the ghost of
murdered Hamlet shows great tenderness for her in both of his
appearances.
Fortinbras, prince of Norway, son of old Fortinbras, the former king
of Norway, nephew of the present regent. Another foil to Hamlet,
he is resentful of his father's death at old Hamlet's hands and the
consequent loss of territory. He plans an attack on Denmark,
which is averted by his uncle after diplomatic negotiations
between him and Claudius. He is much more the man of action
than the man of thought. Hamlet chooses him as the next king of
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Denmark and expresses the hope and belief that he will be chosen.
Fortinbras delivers a brief but emphatic eulogy over Hamlet's
body.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the schoolmates of Hamlet summoned
to Denmark by Claudius to act as spies on Hamlet. Though
hypocritical and treacherous, they are no match for him, and in
trying to betray him they go to their own deaths.
Old Norway, uncle of Fortinbras. Although he never appears on the
stage, he is important in that he diverts young Fortinbras from his
planned attack on Denmark.
Yorick, King Hamlet's jester. Dead some years before the action of
the play begins, he makes his brief appearance in the final act
when his skull is thrown up by a sexton digging Ophelia's grave.
Prince Hamlet reminisces and moralizes while holding the skull in
his hands. At the time he is ignorant of whose grave the sexton is
digging.
Reynaldo, Polonius' servant. Polonius sends him to Paris on business,
incidentally to spy on Laertes. He illustrates Polonius' deviousness
and unwillingness to make a direct approach to anything.
First Clown, a gravedigger. Having been sexton for many years, he
knows personally the skulls of those he has buried. He greets with
particular affection the skull of Yorick, which he identifies for
Hamlet. He is an earthy humorist, quick with a witty reply.
Second Clown, a stupid straight man for the wit of the First Clown.
Osric, a mincing courtier. Hamlet baits him in much the same manner
as he does Polonius, but without the concealed affection he has for
the old man. He brings Hamlet word of the fencing match
arranged between him and Laertes and serves as a referee of the
match.
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Marcellus and Bernardo, officers of the watch who first see the Ghost
of King Hamlet and report it to Horatio, who shares a watch with
them. After the appearance of the Ghost to them and Horatio, they
all agree to report the matter to Prince Hamlet, who then shares a
watch with the three.
Francisco, a soldier on watch at the play's opening. He sets the tone
of the play by imparting a feeling of suspense and heartsickness.
First Player, the leader of a troop of actors. He produces "The
Murder of Gonzago" with certain alterations furnished by Hamlet
to trap King Claudius into displaying his guilty conscience.
A Priest, who officiates at Ophelia's abbreviated funeral. He refuses
Laertes' request for more ceremony, since he believes Ophelia has
committed suicide.
Voltimand and Cornelius, ambassadors sent to Norway by Claudius.
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SECTION FOUR
THE WILD DUCH BY HENRICK IBSEN (1884)
Author: Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)
Type of Plot: Tragicomedy
Introduction
Vildanden (The Wild Duck), first produced in 1885, is
generally regarded by critics as an important early example of
modern symbolist drama. It is also one of the most frequently
performed plays by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, who is
often called the father of modern drama. Heralded as a masterpiece in
the genre of tragicomedy, The Wild Duck employs both realism and
symbolism to explore the hidden connections between two families,
while it examines the effects of truth and illusion in the life of the
individual. The play addresses other themes as well, including
sacrifice, redemption, the influence of the past on the present, and the
sometimes conflicted relationships among families. Written between
1883 and 1884, The Wild Duck is considered a transitional work in
Ibsen's oeuvre, situated between his social realist period and his final
phase as a playwright, in which he produced plays that treated
modern, realistic themes but relied increasingly on symbol and
metaphor. Commenting on the play's critical history, Louis Crompton
asserted that "Ibsen's The Wild Duck has been universally recognized
as a masterpiece of modern dramatic art. Two generations of critics,
starting with George Brandes and George Bernard Shaw, have
admired its powerful ironies and brilliant dramaturgy." Crompton
concluded that "all have seen it as a curious drama of mixed genre in
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which elements of satire, comedy, and tragedy exist together in a
state of high tension."
The Plot
The Wild Duck is concerned with the often hidden connections
between three generations of two families, the Werles and the
Ekdals. The play begins with a dinner party at Haakon Werle's house,
which is given in honor of the return of his son, Gregers, who has
been away for fifteen years. Hjalmar Ekdal, the son of Old Ekdal and
childhood friend of Gregers, arrives at the party but is shunned by the
guests as a person of lower station. Werle draws attention to the fact
that Hjalmar's arrival means that there will be thirteen people at the
dinner table, which is considered unlucky. Gradually, it is revealed
that Old Ekdal, Werle's former partner in a forestry business, has
suffered as a result of questionable business dealings, which has
subsequently ruined his reputation. Old Ekdal, once a hunter and
army officer, now lives a meager existence in Hjalmar's household.
We also learn that following Ekdal's personal tragedy, the elder
Werle began acting as a benefactor to Hjalmar, helping him establish
a photography studio and facilitating his marriage to Gina, Werle's
previous housekeeper. After Hjalmar leaves the party, Gregers
confronts his father about his previous interest in Gina, as well as his
role in the scandal that led to Ekdal's disgrace. Werle, who is nearly
blind, reprimands his son and states his intentions to marry Mrs.
Sorby, his present housekeeper. As he leaves the party, Gregers
announces enigmatically that he has discovered his mission in life. In
the second act of the play, which takes place in Hjalmar's studio,
Gina and her daughter, Hedvig, are introduced. When Hjalmar
returns home, it quickly becomes evident that both Gina and Hedvig
are devoted to him. Soon, Gregers also arrives at the studio. Upon
being introduced to Hedvig, he discovers that, like his own father,
she is also going blind. Gregers causes some discomfort when he
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asks several pointed questions and begins discussing the past with
Old Ekdal. He notices a bird lying in a basket in the back garret and
is told that it is a wild duck that belongs to Hedvig. Hjalmar, Old
Ekdal, and Hedvig are all noticeably drawn to the duck and to the
garret, which is depicted as a mysterious room, filled with irregular
nooks and curiosities. Gregers insists on staying with the Ekdals and
renting their spare room.
The following morning, while Hjalmar is retouching a
photograph, Old Ekdal invites his son into the garret to "hunt," and
Hedvig, despite her poor eyesight, takes over her father's work.
Hjalmar invites Gregers, along with Dr. Relling and Molvik, the
other tenants in the home, to lunch. Gregers arrives and begins a
conversation with Hedvig about the wild duck. When Gina and
Hedvig leave to prepare the meal, Gregers speaks with Hjalmar about
his business. Hjalmar tells him that he is working on an invention
that he hopes will redeem his family's reputation and restore his
father's dignity, but Gregers suggests that he is distracted and spends
too much time in the garret. Relling and Molvik arrive for lunch.
Molvik is described as a student of theology, who lives under the
illusion that he is possessed by a demon. Tension escalates during the
meal, culminating in the revelation that Dr. Relling and Gregers were
adversaries in the past. When Gregers complains that his health has
not benefited from the "marsh vapors" since his arrival, Relling asks
if he has brought a "taint" into the house with his "claim of the ideal,"
and threatens to throw him out. Gregers's father enters the scene for a
private conversation with his son. During their talk, Gregers states
that he intends to tell Hjalmar about the elder Werle's affair with
Gina, therefore calling Hedvig's paternity into question. Werle
advises his son that the truth will not necessarily benefit his friend.
He also announces his intent to remarry and offers Gregers his
inheritance, which his son refuses. In the next scene, Hjalmar returns
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from a walk with Gregers in a foul mood. He sends Hedvig away and
confronts Gina about her relationship with Werle. Gina admits that
they had been romantically involved after Mrs. Werle's death.
Gregers enters the room, erroneously expecting that the bond
between Gina and Hjalmar will be strengthened by the truth he has
revealed. Hedvig reappears with a letter that she believes will lighten
the mood. In the note, Werle promises to provide a monthly
allowance for Old Ekdal, which, after his death, will transfer to
Hedvig. Once again, Hjalmar sends Hedvig away and confronts
Gina, asking her this time whether he is Hedvig's father. She admits
that she does not know for sure. When Hedvig runs into the room,
Hjalmar rejects her and leaves the house. Left with Gregers, Hedvig
faces her confusion and despair. Gregers suggests that if she
sacrificed the wild duck, she could prove her love for her father.
Although convinced at first, Hedvig dismisses the idea the next
morning. When Hjalmar rejects her once again, she seeks advice
from her grandfather on how to shoot a duck. Hjalmar declares that
he will leave and take his father with him. In the closing scene of the
play, while Gina and Hjalmar argue, Hedvig removes the pistol from
a shelf and retreats into the garret. Convinced by Gina to stay for a
few more days, Hjalmar glues Werle's letter back together, so that his
father can decide how to deal with the offer. Meanwhile, Gregers
enter the room, and they all hear a gunshot. Gregers announces that
Hedvig has sacrificed the wild duck to prove her love for her father.
When they open the door to the garret, however, Hedvig is lying
dead on the floor. Relling confirms that she has killed herself. While
Gina and Hjalmar console each other, Gregers pronounces that
Hedvig's death has not been in vain, since her act will set free "what
is noble" in her father. Relling, however, denounces this idea,
predicting that her suicide will only reinforce Hjalmar's illusions, and
he tells Gregers that people are better left alone, ignorant of the truth.
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Gregers states that if Relling's view of the world is true then life is
not worth living.
Major Themes
Sacrifice is an important theme in The Wild Duck, which is
introduced early in the play. In their devotion to Hjalmar, both Gina
and Hedvig sacrifice their own comfort to satisfy his desires. While
Hjalmar is at the Werle's dinner party, for example, Gina and Hedvig
go without a warm meal. In a later scene, Hedvig offers to help her
father retouch his photographs so he can accompany Old Ekdal to the
garret, even though the work jeopardizes her already failing eyesight.
The idea of self-sacrifice is introduced in a discussion about the wild
duck. When Gregers suggests to Hedvig that she should sacrifice the
duck, he argues that the act will prove her love to her father. For
Gregers, however, the act of sacrifice is more specifically linked to
redemption. He believes that, once confronted with the scope of
Hedvig's love, Hjalmar will become a better person, the ideal version
of himself. Despite the fact that Hedvig translates this idea into selfsacrifice, or suicide, Gregers remains convinced that her act can still
redeem Hjalmar. From the beginning, critics have debated the
viability of Gregers's vision. For instance, Charles R. Lyons argued
that "it is important to recognize that in Ibsen's plays sacrifice is not
redemptive. Ibsen deliberately undercuts the positive qualities of the
act which would be contained in its archetypal associations with
Relling's description of Hjalmar's probable use of the event." In
1982, John S. Chamberlain countered Lyons assessment, claiming
that while "Hedvig's death does not confirm the view that sacrifice is
both possible and meaningful in modern life," it also "does not
confirm the opinion that all action is equally useless and
meaningless. The final argument of Gregers and Relling is
accordingly utterly inconclusive."
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Familial conflict is another primary concern of The Wild
Duck, particularly as it is expressed in the relationship between
parent and child. Both Gregers and Hjalmar have complicated
relationships with their fathers. An allusion to this conflict occurs
early in the play, when Hjalmar ignores his father's presence at
Werle's dinner party and later pretends that he did not see him.
Although in the privacy of their home, Hjalmar interacts with his
father, in public he is ashamed of Old Ekdal's situation. Hjalmar
admits to Gregers that when Old Ekdal first faced trial, both of them
considered suicide. Hjalmar is also motivated to redeem his father
and reverse their fates, however, through the success of his invention.
Gregers's relationship with his father is much less ambivalent. On her
deathbed, Mrs. Werle convinced Gregers that his father had betrayed
her with Gina. Many critics have thus suggested that Gregers's
actions throughout the play are motivated by his own sense of
disillusionment and his feelings of resentment toward his father.
According to this interpretation, his mission becomes to reveal the
truth of his father's iniquities at any cost. The most tragic enactment
of family conflict occurs between Hjalmar and Hedvig. Hjalmar's
discovery of Hedvig's questionable paternity not only strips him of
his role as a father but shakes his confidence in his daughter's love.
Hedvig cannot understand Hjalmar's reaction, because he is the only
father she has known. His rejection causes her to consider, not only
the sacrifice of her beloved pet, but ultimately herself. In 1983,
David Thomas asserted that "Ibsen's concern in analyzing the politics
of family life in The Wild Duck is to show the catastrophic effect of
emotional violence, and particularly emotional violence
masquerading as love. The confusion produced in Hedvig's case
leads to her suicide; the confusion experienced by Gregers as a child
has made him lethal as an adult in his dealings with others."
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The predominant theme of The Wild Duck, however, is the
tension between truth, or the "claim of the ideal," and the "life-lie,"
or illusion. This conflict is articulated in the ongoing debate between
Gregers, an advocate of truth at any cost, and Dr. Relling, who
believes that illusion is beneficial for some individuals. Several of the
main characters operate within a reality that is altered to suit their
individual needs. Old Ekdal, whose life has been ruined by scandal,
recreates his former existence by "hunting" and keeping wild animals
in the garret, which becomes a make-believe forest. Several scholars
have suggested that Hedvig's reality is also dominated by illusion.
Charles R. Lyons remarked that she, like her grandfather, has created
an illusory world in the garret, and her act of suicide demonstrates
her final and complete acceptance of that illusion. Lyons noted that
"in her imagination she becomes the wild duck which must be
sacrificed, and this action of identification with the fictive is a total
rejection of the real world to the point of death." Hjalmar's reality is
obscured because he is ignorant of his wife's past and daughter's
paternity. Some critics have suggested that Hjalmar's work as a
photographer is metaphorically linked to this theme. While a
photograph is an artifice already once removed from reality, Hjalmar
is occupied with "retouching" photographs in the play, thereby
creating another layer of illusion. Additionally, Hjalmar operates
under the illusion that his invention will save his family. In truth, Dr.
Relling is responsible for the idea behind the invention, and he
actively sustains Hjalmar's belief in its potential to redeem the
Ekdals' lost reputation. Dr. Relling also encourages Molvik's belief
that he is prone to demonic possession, because the illusion keeps
Molvik from succumbing to self-contempt. In contrast to Dr. Relling,
Gregers, the champion of the ideal, proclaims that accepting the
truth, no matter how difficult that truth may be, creates a more
authentic existence and enhances life. After revealing his father's
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transgressions to Hjalmar, Gregers fully expects that his friend's
marriage will not only survive but improve. Although his motives are
somewhat suspect, Werle, like Dr. Relling, warns of the harmful
effects of destroying an individual's illusions. Some critics have
suggested that despite his advocacy of truth, Gregers also operates
under an illusion. Lyons observed that "Gregers's own motive for
exposing the truth of Hjalmar's family is itself an attempt to escape
from reality. In a curious sense, Gregers is attempting to re-create a
Hjalmar who existed only in imagination, and his futile attempt is, in
this sense, an escape from a confrontation with the self." Indeed,
Ibsen's final position on the nature of truth and illusion has sparked
considerable debate among critics, particularly in light of the play's
ambiguous ending, which balances Dr. Relling's commonsense
acceptance of illusion with Gregers's ultimate claim that a life based
on lies "is not worth living." As Hans George Meyer remarked, "The
Wild Duck, which weaves into a dramatic play a vicious circle of
'painted corpses' and characters who misuse themselves for self-pity
or self-admiration, is one of the greatest of Ibsen's works because it
reveals the man who proclaims escape from all illusions to be yet
another illusionary."
As many critics have pointed out, any discussion of Ibsen's
themes in The Wild Duck must take into account his complex use of
symbolism in the play. Foremost of these symbols is the wild duck,
with which several of the characters identify. A handful of critics
have pointed out the connection between the wild duck and Old
Ekdal, who, like the bird, is injured by Werle and confined to the
"wilderness" of the garret. Gregers finds a connection between the
duck and Hjalmar, who he believes suffers from the restrictions of
his mundane life, assigning himself the role of his friend's rescuer.
Gregers also overtly draws a connection between himself and the
wild duck when he takes the spare room in the Ekdal house, which he
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characterizes as a "refuge" from his father's house. But the primary
significance of the wild duck, as many critics have discussed, relates
to the character of Hedvig, who also becomes a refugee when
Hjalmar questions her paternity. This symbolic connection is
strengthened at the end of the play, when Hedvig shoots herself
instead of the duck. In his 1962 study of the play, F. L. Lucas
observed that "in The Wild Duck, Ibsen has finally perfected that
symbolism which, without growing too unreal, yet helps to cast a
light of poetry and mystery across a harsh world of prose." Lucas
concluded that in this work, "the symbol, which actually gives its
title to the drama, plays from the first to last a far more vivid part. It
becomes one of the actors. The wild duck is a real wild duck; yet,
with the other creatures in that strange attic, it also symbolizes the
world of pathetic fantasy in which crippled characters can live; it
symbolizes too the crippled characters themselves. The symbol
becomes a kind of abbreviated fable, or parable."
Principal Characters
Hjalmar Ekdal has a fairly happy, contented life with his wife and
daughter. Ostensibly he runs a photographic business, but his wife
actually does all of the work while also diligently caring for the
family. Hjalmar spends his time "hunting" in the attic with his
father or working on the invention that he hopes will restore their
lost wealth. The vaguely conceived invention, however, is doomed
never to be completed and merely reflects Hjalmar's tendency to
delude himself. Although he considers himself superior to those
around him, he is lazy, self-indulgent, sentimental, vain, and
thoughtless—forgetting, for instance, to bring home favors from
the banquet for Hedvig and instead sharing with her only the menu
listing the delicacies he had eaten there. Nevertheless Hjalmar's
weaknesses are notably human, and some of his egotism and lack
of drive may be attributed to his upbringing by two indulgent
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aunts who convinced him that he was brilliant. He has
subsequently failed to realize himself as a person, but he
nevertheless enjoys a coddled, comfortable existence and, to his
credit, is generally gentle and trusting, particularly with his
adoring daughter. Critics have noted that the humor that gives the
play its tragicomic reputation is found partly in Ibsen's portrayal of
Hjalmar's pretentious, ridiculous posturing before his family. The
rather humorless Gregers Werle, for his part, accepts the premise
that Hjalmar is noble and gifted. He decides that his friend is like
the wild duck, wounded and trapped by deceit, and that knowing
the truth about his wife and child will free him. Hjalmar's actual
response is less ideal, of course: he melodramatically bemoans his
position and makes a theatrical repudiation of Hedvig that she
interprets literally; despite his vow to leave his home forever, he
makes no effort to do so. The revelation forced upon him by
Gregers not only does not help him to achieve personal wholeness
but wrecks the measure of happiness he has achieved—
temporarily, anyway. For, as Dr. Relling notes, Hjalmar's typically
dramatic reaction to Hedvig's death masks the shallowness that
will allow him to recover quickly, and soon enough his life will
continue much as it was before Greger's interference.
Gregers Werle is the disillusioned idealist whose meddling results in
the tragedy of Hedvig's death. His childhood was made unhappy
by the constant discord between his parents and their apparent lack
of concern for him; his rather morbid, joyless mother instilled in
him a strong disgust for his father that has not since abated.
Having always lived a lonely, emotionally deprived existence
himself, he does not perceive that Hjalmar is fairly contented.
Likening himself to the determined hunting dog that once pulled
the wounded wild duck from the muck at the bottom of a pond, he
decides to enlighten his friend to the truth so that Hjalmar may
begin a better, more fully realized existence. Yet his effort to
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eliminate Hjalmar's illusions has disastrous consequences. His
suggestion that Hedvig sacrifice the possession most important to
her, the wild duck, in order to win back her father's love forces the
girl to confront an impossible dilemma and to choose a tragic
solution. Some critics have seen in Gregers's idealistic fervor
evidence of a craving for melodrama that will relieve the dullness
of his own life and compensate for his own lack of depth; there is
also a certain amount of egotism in his readiness to play the role of
truth-revealer. Gregers has often been interpreted as a satirical
portrait of the role that Ibsen himself had assumed in writing such
illusion-destroying plays as Ghosts and An Enemy of the People.
In fact the favorably depicted idealist Dr. Stockmann in Enemy is
the reversal of Gregers, and some scholars contend that Ibsen
meant in The Wild Duck to repudiate the kind of extreme idealism
he had previously affirmed. Other appraisals of Gregers cast him
as well-meaning but misguided in attributing more depth to
Hjalmar than he possessess, or as an outright fanatic who
needlessly causes the death of a young girl.
Hjalmar's calm, hardworking wife, Gina Ekdal, is one of the play's
few admirable characters. A simple woman born into a lower
social class than her husband, she performs her role as wife and
mother with energy and efficiency while also competently running
her husband's photographic business. Honest and accepting of
life's realities herself, she endures Hjalmar's self-indulgence,
delusions, and unconcealed annoyance with her ungrammatical
speech and frequent malapropisms. As she explains when Hjalmar
demands to know why she never revealed to him her affair with
Werle, Gina sincerely loves her husband—a significant
achievement given his many faults. In her selfless devotion to
making his (and Hedvig's) life more comfortable, Gina has
become much more than the "fallen woman" she might have been
called when she, after being Werle's mistress and pregnant with
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his child, married Hjalmar. Although Gregers believes that
Hjalmar needs to be rescued from deceit, he has in one way
already been rescued by Gina, who has provided a comfortable
home life to replace his formerly dissolute, pointless existence.
Unlike her husband, Gina reacts to her daughter's death with quiet
dignity and determination to carry on.
Fourteen-year-old Hedvig Ekdal is a sensitive, somewhat dreamy,
shy girl with a winsome charm. Relling calls attention to her
distinction from the other characters in the play by commenting
that she is "outside of all this." While Hedvig's father and
grandfather use the attic to escape reality, she goes there to
broaden her experience, exploring the books and keepsakes left by
the sea captain who once inhabited the house. An affectionate girl
whose fading eyesight not only makes it likely that she is Werle's
daughter but adds pathos to her character, she loves her father
deeply and believes in his grandiose plans for his invention.
Hedvig compares herself to the wounded duck she so loves: like
him, she is wounded and lives a confined but contented existence.
Also implicit in her identification with the bird is the fact that the
origin of neither is clearly established. In the end it is Hedvig's
sensitivity that brings about her destruction, for she has identified
so strongly with the wild duck that she puts herself in his place
and takes her own life rather than his. Her death highlights the
narrowness and indifference of the adults around her, who were
unable to protect her from harm and even hastened her suicide
with their thoughtlessness.
Dr. Relling is the cynical physician who boards in the Ekdal's
household. Affecting a cold, dispassionate attitude that masks his
inner sense of wasted potential, Relling scorns Gregers's "claims
of the ideal." In asserting that human beings require illusions in
order to live happily, he voices a viewpoint that many critics
believe Ibsen means to affirm in The Wild Duck, and one which
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strongly contrasts with the idealistic revelation of truth promoted
by Gregers. Some commentators have even identified Relling as
representing Ibsen himself because, like a playwright who creates
dramas to entertain audiences, he fosters illusions that bring a
measure of comfort to otherwise bleak lives. For instance, Relling
rationalizes the tippling of the theology student Molvik by
claiming that he drinks not because he is an alcoholic but because
his "demonic" nature demands it. Relling serves as a general
commentator on the other characters' behavior, providing such
psychological insights as the observation that Hjalmar will soon
recover from the shock of Hedvig's death.
Hjalmar's father, Old Ekdal, was once Old Werle's business partner.
He was arrested and jailed for illegally cutting timber on stateowned land while Werle—presumably unjustly—escaped
prosecution. Having barely survived his debilitating prison term,
he is now prone to senile muttering and spends his time either
drinking in his room or shooting rabbits and pigeons in the
makeshift forest Hjalmar has created in the attic. A former bearhunter and military officer, Old Ekdal parodies his past through
his ludicrous hunting expeditions and his occasional appearances
before the family in his old uniform. Like the wild duck, he has
been mutilated by existence and is now in retreat from reality, yet
he seems content with his deluded life. Gregers compares the old
man to the duck in another way: neither was able to adapt to
adversity, for the old man became senile, and the duck,
immediately after it was shot, behaved self-destructively by trying
to attach itself to the bottom of the pond.
Haakon Werle, Gregers's father, is apparently the originator of much
of the unhappiness portrayed in The Wild Duck, though some
critics claim that the charges against him are never clearly
substantiated. Formerly Old Ekdal's business partner, he was not
prosecuted in the court case that resulted in his friend's
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imprisonment, and he has since tried to help the Ekdals. He
arranged for Hjalmar to establish a business and encouraged him
to marry Gina, who was actually his spurned, pregnant mistress at
the time, and has continously subsidized their income. Near the
end of the play, Werle offers to send money regularly to Hedvig; it
is Hjalmar's discovery of this intention, in addition to the fact that
both Hedvig and Old Werle have weak eyesight, that confirms for
him his daughter's true parentage. As a result of his mother's
influence, Gregers sees his father as a complete villain who is
responsible for the Ekdal's deluded--and therefore diminished—
existence, but in fact Old Werle's machinations have resulted in
their relative contentment. Thus, though he may have acquired his
current wealth and status by dishonest means, he is a more
complex character than his son believes him. Old Werle's
housekeeper, Mrs. Sörby, to whom he becomes engaged, is a
protective, efficent woman with a somewhat disreputable past. She
and Werle, however, have been completely honest with each other
and this, added to the mutual comfort they take in their
relationship, makes it likely that their marriage will be successful.
It has been noted that theirs is one of several unions in Ibsen's
work whose happiness may be attributed to honesty and
forthrightness between partners.
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SECTION FIVE
THE GLASS MENAGERIE BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS (1944)
Author: Tennessee Williams (1914-1983)
Type of Plot: Memory-Play
Introduction
Winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in
1945, The Glass Menagerie (1944) was Tennessee Williams's (19111983) first successful Broadway production. Drawn directly from
Williams's childhood experiences with his mother and ill sister, The
Glass Menagerie probes the fragile illusions that both sustain and
entrap his characters. Despite the simple plot, Williams blends
elements of expressionism and realism in poetic dialogue, pervasive
symbolism, and music and lighting effects that evoke the sensations
of memory. The play established his reputation as an innovative
dramatist whose style and complex themes revolutionized the
American theater.
Set in a dingy tenement in Depression-era Saint Louis, the
play revolves around Amanda Wingfield and her adult children, Tom
and Laura. Tom both narrates and participates in the action onstage.
He advises the audience in his opening soliloquy that "the play is
memory," and it features characters who are aspects of Tom's own
consciousness, tinged by sentimentality. A poet trapped in a tedious
job at a shoe warehouse, Tom dreams of becoming a writer and
escapes nightly to the movies. His sister, Laura, is debilitated by
shyness, forcing her to withdraw from reality and retreat into a
fragile world of old phonograph records and glass animals. Their
mother, Amanda, a fading Southern belle abandoned by her husband,
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clings to the past and memories of her genteel girlhood in Blue
Mountain, Mississippi. Yet she also exhibits a fierce determination to
overcome her grim circumstances, and often badgers her children
about family responsibilities and planning for the future.
Knowing that Laura cannot survive independently, Amanda
seeks to obtain a secure future for her daughter. After Laura's failed
attempt to attend business school, Amanda urges Tom to find a
suitable "gentleman caller" for Laura among his coworkers. Tom
eventually agrees to invite his friend Jim O'Connor to dinner. While
the prospective visit triggers in Amanda memories of her own
suitors, Laura is terrified and becomes physically ill when Jim
arrives. Left alone with Laura after dinner, Jim manages to set her at
ease with his personable manner and eventually persuades her to
dance. What began as Jim's attempt to build Laura's self-confidence
becomes an expression of genuine admiration, ending with a kiss.
Jim apologizes, explains that he is engaged, and abruptly leaves.
After Amanda berates Tom for having cruelly betrayed his family,
Tom storms out of the apartment. In the play's concluding soliloquy
Tom reveals that he never returned and that he chose, as his father
had, to wander the world. His final words are addressed to his sister
and reveal his lasting feelings of guilt for having abandoned her. By
confessing that he cannot forget her, Tom also admits that he cannot
permanently escape from the unreal world in which his family lives.
Commentators agree that the primary theme of The Glass
Menagerie is the conflict between illusion and reality. As Williams
exposed the falseness of the family's fantasies he also condemned
what he saw as the illusions of American society. Revered for its
union of transcendent lyricism and realistic family drama, The Glass
Menagerie is regarded as one of several works to have supplanted
European sensibilities in the American theater, communicating
universal themes through a distinctly American voice.
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The Plot
It presents a story simply told through only four characters.
Williams looked to his own family and experience in creating the
Wingfields—Amanda and her grown children Tom and Laura—who
live in a dingy Saint Louis apartment building during the Depression.
The autobiographical character Tom serves as narrator, setting the
scene at the beginning and periodically addressing the audience in
poetic monologues; he also participates in the action, thus giving the
audience a representational view of the events as he remembers them,
as well as his retrospective comments. A poet trapped in a mundane
existence, he works days in a shoe factory and spends his evenings
writing or going to the movies. His sister, Laura, whose crippled leg
is symbolic of her psychic deformity, is so painfully shy that she
avoids reality almost altogether, creating her world through playing
old phonograph records and tending a collection of glass animals.
Their mother, Amanda, combines obsession with her romanticized
Southern debutante past and a fierce determination to survive a grim
present. The husband/father of the family, referred to as "the
telephone man who fell in love with long distances," deserted them
years before. His prominent photograph is a constant reminder to
Amanda of dreams gone sour; to Tom, the father with whom he is
often bitterly compared represents escape.
The plot line is a simple one. Tom Wingfield reflects on his
early years growing up with his mother, Amanda, and crippled sister,
Laura, in a small tenement apartment in St. Louis in the years
preceding World War II. Setting aside his role as narrator, Tom
enters the family scene, joining his mother and sister at dinner.
Amanda hounds her son about his eating habits and insists that her
daughter Laura remain "fresh" in case a young man drops by. Laura
assures her none are expected.
Amanda learns that Laura has dropped out of her class at
Rubicam's Business College because the class made her so nervous
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she vomited on the floor. Since Laura is unfit to be a secretary,
Amanda focuses on finding her a husband, and she sells magazine
subscriptions in order to raise extra money to fix up the apartment for
potential suitors.
Amanda confronts Tom about where he spends his nights,
driving him further away from her with her constant criticism and
neediness. She asks Tom to bring a young man home from the
warehouse to meet Laura. Tom acquiesces and invites a friend, Jim
O'Connor. Amanda fixes up the apartment with great enthusiasm.
When Laura finds out that the gentleman caller is Jim O'Connor, a
boy she liked in high school, she is stricken with fear.
Laura's anxiety makes her physically ill. She rests on the
living room couch while the others have dinner. Afterward, Jim talks
to Laura in the living room. His outgoing manner slowly pulls Laura
out of her shell. They reminisce about his successful high school past
and Laura shows him her prized collection of glass animals. They
dance and Jim kisses her. Her new happiness is shattered when Jim
admits to being engaged. He will not be able to see her again. He
leaves and Amanda attacks Tom for bringing an engaged man to
dinner. Tom rushes out, never to return.
Returning to his role as narrator, Tom explains that he is
haunted by guilt because he abandoned his sister. In the background,
Amanda comforts Laura.
Major Theme
The play's major theme is illusion versus reality. Laura,
patterned after the playwright's sister, Rose, is the first of a long
series of Williams characters who exhibit a fragility that renders
them incapable of coping with the harshness, cruelty, and
insensitivity of reality. Williams maintains his sympathy for these
tortured people, no matter in what direction their escape takes them.
Unlike later sufferers who turn to drugs, alcohol, or sex, Laura
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creates her own fantasy world of romantic music and tiny, delicate
glass ornaments. Like the animals of her collection, she is beautifully
fragile—but easily broken. Amanda, faced with economic hardship, a
son who she fears is unambitious and irresponsible, a daughter both
physically and emotionally crippled, and rejection by the man who
swept her off her feet, seeks solace in the past. She is a survivor—she
has great depths of energy, pride, and even practicality—but scraping
and clawing for survival rub against her grain. She retreats into
numerous anecdotes of her days as the belle of the Delta, entertaining
gentleman callers by the droves, and even demonstrates her charming
technique (complete with a girlish frock resurrected from a trunk)
when Jim O'Connor comes to dinner. Tom as narrator is of course
able to recognize and comment on the variance between truth and
illusion, and he admits his own penchant for airbrushing his
memories of the past. The Tom who appears in the play's action is
facing the poet's conflict between the practical and the ideal. He feels
love and responsibility for his mother and sister, but he yearns for
romance, adventure, experience, and escape from his stifling "two by
four situation." Though narrator Tom calls Laura's gentleman caller
"an emissary from a world of reality that we were somehow set apart
from," Jim O'Connor also has created his own world of illusion. The
former high school hero relies on self-improvement courses and
cliché-ridden bravado to soften the jar of unfulfilled dreams and
unrealized potential.
More Themes and Motifs
Memory Play: Williams believed all his major plays were "memory
plays." Through the use of lighting, scenery, and music, Williams
created a heightened, unreal theatrical world where the present and
the past collided. Beyond the innovative scenic elements, the crux of
the memory play, as defined by Williams, was an "arrest of time."
This was a moment in the play where an event in time continues to
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occur, and a character's reliving of that event until he or she makes
sense of the experience. Tom explores just such an unresolved period
in his life.
Reality Versus Unreality: The Wingfields cling to illusion to escape
the reality of their everyday lives. To escape his miserable job, Tom
writes poetry, drinks, goes to the movies, and dreams of leaving St.
Louis. Amanda reminisces about her glorious past. Laura lives in her
world of glass ornaments.
Southern Gentility: In her youth, Amanda was a Southern belle, a
member of a class fading from prominence in the 1930s. Amanda
prefers the social charm and manners of her upbringing to the
unpleasant reality of her children's and her present life. Her
persistence in dwelling on the gentility of her early life is a constant
source of pain for her children, whose reality starkly contrasts with
their mother's memories and fancies.
Social Backdrop: The play's setting is the end of the Great
Depression in the 1930s. Poverty and economic insecurity are
widespread. Amanda must find Laura a husband or a job. The
economic stakes are very high. Also, the threat of war is imminent.
This is a world on the edge of chaos and sudden change.
The Glass Menagerie: The central image of the play represents
Laura's fragile nature. When the glass unicorn is broken, her hope for
the future is symbolically shattered.
Family Versus the Individual: Tom weighs personal obligation
against family responsibility. Throughout the play, he is constantly
torn between loyalty to himself, or protecting his sister, or remaining
loyal to his mother.
Expressionism: Williams reminds the reader at many points during
the play that the world depicted on stage is not life as it is really
lived, but rather the poet's view of reality. He believed it was the
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playwright's job to see the essential core of things and convey that
through literary or theatrical means.
Symbolism
Though the play is effectively simple in plot, it is rich in
symbolism as well as blending of production elements to create a
mood of strong yet controlled grief. Both music and lighting are
employed to produce the effect of memory—gentle and poetic. The
language is highly evocative, particularly in Tom's monologues;
some critics have found fault with what they see as strained,
overdone lyricism. Another element of the original script has also
been widely criticized. Williams conceived of the use of a screen
device which would bear legends or images underscoring the
particular point of each scene. Eddie Dowling omitted the screen
device from the original show, and except for rare experimental
productions, it has not been used since.
Style
Like his protagonist, Tom Wingfield, Tennessee Williams was
a great fan of the cinema. The structure of The Glass Menagerie
reflects this influence in its departure from a traditional play format.
Instead of the two-act structure of most modern American plays, or
the four-act format of Chekhov or O'Neill, Williams employs a series
of scenes that flow smoothly from one to another. This framework is
similar to the screenplay format favored in Hollywood. This is not
surprising considering that Williams conceived of The Glass
Menagerie first as a screenplay (called The Gentleman Caller) and
only later adapted his idea to the stage.
A major innovation in the play, also with origins in the
cinema, is the projection-screen device. Williams wanted each scene
to be accompanied by images or phrases projected above the action
on the stage. Though cut from the Broadway production, Williams
included the suggested slide projections in the published version. He
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felt that large projections of words or images would underscore the
central idea of the scene and add to the play's dreamlike quality.
The central stylistic concern in The Glass Menagerie is the
idea of a "memory play." Williams describes the memory-play
format in the introduction, and Tom reiterates the main points in his
opening soliloquy: "The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is
dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic. In memory,
everything seems to happen to music. That explains the fiddle in the
wings."
Williams believed in an expressionistic theatre, not a realistic
one. By expressionistic, Williams meant a theatre that did not render
life as it is lived, but rather the world through the eyes of a poet.
Williams believed that the poet's job was to transform life and
thereby touch its essential core. He asserted that an expressionistic
theatre was a "more penetrating and vivid expression of things as
they are."
The setting and lighting play an important part in the
construction of this poetic world. The lighting is not meant to be
realistic, and only sections of the stage are illuminated at any time.
Spotlights focus on Laura at times when she is not part of the
essential action of the scene, reminding the audience that her future is
what is at stake. The scenery is also suggestive instead of literal.
Walls that appear solid become transparent when lit from behind and,
as the play progresses, the walls literally dissolve.
The fiddle in the wings provides sentimental music that softly
plays under every scene to underscore emotional moments. The tune
is associated primarily with Laura: her leitmotif, or theme song. The
audience is conditioned, during the play, to think immediately of
Laura when the tune is played.
Williams is more concerned with character than plot. There
are few story events but a great deal occurs in terms of understanding
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character and relationships, which in the end yields a greater
understanding of ourselves and the world we inhabit.
Principal Characters
Amanda Wingfield: Amanda is the mother of Tom and Laura. She
has difficulty facing reality, though by the end of the play she does
acknowledge Tom's desire to leave and Laura's uncertain future.
She frequently fantacizes about the past, probably exaggerating
her own popularity then. Her relationship with Tom is conflicted,
most prominently when she criticizes his minor habits.
Laura Wingfield variant: Blue Roses: Laura is the daughter of
Amanda and sister of Tom. She is extremely shy, even
emotionally disturbed, and she wears a brace on her leg which
makes her feel conspicuous. Her collection of glass animals gives
the play its title. She does not work, and she has been unable to
complete a typing class because of her nervousness. Although she
says she had once liked a boy in high school, she has never had
and is unlikely to have any kind of romantic relationship.
Tom Wingfield: Amanda's son and Laura's brother, Tom is the
protagonist of the play. He dreams of abandoning the family, as
his father had done. He feels trapped in his job, where he often
neglects his duties in order to write poetry, and in his home, where
he is reprimanded for reading some modern literature which was
considered scandalous at the time. Although he claims to go to the
movies every night, he also probably goes to a bar, since he
sometimes comes home drunk. Eventually, he agrees to bring a
"gentleman caller" home to meet Laura, but he leaves the family
that night. Although Tom appears to genuinely care for Laura, his
greater desire is to relieve his frustration at his confining situation.
When he functions as narrator at a time several years after the
action of the play, readers understand that he has escaped
physically but not emotionally.
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Jim O'Connor: Jim is the gentleman caller Tom invites home for
dinner. Although he also works at the warehouse, he makes more
money than Tom and has greater aspirations—even if they are
somewhat conventional ones. Yet, his situation reveals that
dreams are often not achieved, for in high school Jim had been
predicted to become very successful. He treats Laura kindly, but
during their conversation he reveals that he too is not entirely
realistic, for he discounts the severity of Laura's problem and
assures her that all she needs is more confidence.
The Father: Amanda's husband and the father of Laura and Tom, Mr.
Wingfield appears only in a large photograph on the living room
wall
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SECTION SIX
THE COCKTAIL PARTY BY T. S. ELIOT (1949)
Author: T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
Type of Plot: Comedy of Manners
Introduction
Eliot's drawing-room comedy The Cocktail Party, which
centers on the troubled relationship between a married couple, was
the poet-playwright's greatest popular success. The satirical verse
drama skewers modern mores and scrutinizes human relations. It
opened at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival in 1949, with Alec
Guiness in the role of Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly, and the New York
production won the New York Drama Critics' Award for 1950. While
modern in its tone and themes, the play is based partly on the ancient
Greek play Alcestis, by Euripides. The plot involves Edward and
Lavinia Chamberlayne, who are separated after five years of
marriage. The first and last acts of the play feature cocktail parties
held at their home, where their marital problems are heightened
because the couple must keep up appearances for their friends. Like
many of Eliot's works, the play uses extreme situations and
characters to point to the isolation of the human condition. When the
play first appeared, it garnered mixed reviews, with some critics
praising its combination of realism and supernatural elements and
others faulting its use of free verse and mixing of comedy with
earnest philosophizing. Since the 1950s its popularity with directors
and theatergoers has declined, perhaps because the play's satire of the
polite British comedy has become dated, making it less accessible to
modern audiences. However, the philosophical implications of The
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Cocktail Party regarding the nature of human relations make it a
continuing favorite of critics, who have discussed its moral message,
its religious and supernatural dimensions, its treatment of language
and meaning, and its conservative view of gender roles.
The Plot
The first of the three acts of The Cocktail Party opens with a
cocktail party at the London flat of the Chamberlaynes. The
atmosphere is strained because Lavinia, the hostess, is not there.
Edward, her husband, fabricates an excuse about a sick aunt to
explain her absence. The partygoers banter and tell stories. They all
seem to know each other well, save one "Unidentified Guest."
Eventually most of the guests leave; only the stranger remains. He
drinks gin with Edward for a while, and Edward confides in him that
Lavinia is not really at her aunt's, but has left him. The stranger says
this might be a blessing, but Edward is uneasy, without clearly
knowing why he wants her back. The stranger promises that Lavinia
will return within twenty-four hours if Edward asks for no
explanations. But he warns him that they both might be greatly
changed. The stranger, drunk, breaks into song as he leaves the
apartment. Two guests, Julia Shuttlethwait and Peter Quilpe, return
to retrieve Julia's glasses, which turn out to have been in her purse all
along. Julia leaves and Peter remains. He confides to Edward that he
as fallen in love with their mutual friend Celia Coplestone, and asks
if Edward might intercede for him. Another guest, the outgoing
world traveler Alex MacColgie Gibbs, returns, and Edward is
irritated. He tells Peter and Alex to lock the door when they leave.
Edward settles down for the evening to play solitaire. The
doorbell rings and Celia enters. It becomes clear that the two are
lovers. Celia recognizes that Lavinia has left Edward and thinks it
would be a good time for Edward to seek a divorce and be free to
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marry her instead. Edward tells her that the stranger at the party has
promised to bring Lavinia back, and that he thinks he wants her back,
although he does not know why. While Celia is in the kitchen, Julia
shows up again, and asks Edward to dinner. When Julia is out of
earshot, Edward tells Celia the relationship is over, and she says she
realizes it is not what she wants either.
The following day the Unidentified Guest returns to Edward's
house and asks if he still wants his wife to return. He warns again
that if he does, he will set in motion forces beyond his control. When
Lavinia returns, he explains, they will be strangers to one another.
But since Edward has made his choice, he must abide by it. The
stranger leaves by the back stairs, and Celia, Peter, Alex, and Julia
arrive separately. Celia says she is there at Julia's request, apparently
in response to a telegram from Lavinia. Celia studies Edward
carefully and realizes he is a rather comic middle-aged man, and she
laughs at her previous infatuation. Peter arrives in response to an
invitation from Alex, who has also received a telegram from Lavinia.
He announces he is leaving for Hollywood. Lavinia then arrives. She
is surprised to find Peter and Celia and says she knows nothing of
any telegrams sent to Alex and Julia. The guests leave, and Edward
reproaches Lavinia for being overbearing. She criticizes him for
being indecisive. Edward regrets his decision to have his wife come
back and thinks he might be having a nervous breakdown.
Act II opens in the office of the psychiatrist Sir Henry
Harcourt-Reilly. He is the Unidentified Guest of the Chamberlaynes'
cocktail party. Alex enters and tells Harcourt-Reilly that he has
arranged for Edward's visit. Edward enters, and he is surprised to see
that Sir Henry is his mysterious stranger. Edward explains during the
session that he had wanted Lavinia back because she had dominated
him for so long that he felt incapable of living without her. Sir Henry
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then brings in Lavinia, who reveals that she has been Sir Henry's
patient and that she left because of Edward's affair with Celia.
Edward is taken aback that she knew of the affair, and feels relieved
when she confesses her own attraction to Peter. Sir Henry diagnoses
their problem as mutual fear: Edward is afraid he cannot love
anyone, and Lavinia is afraid she is unlovable. He tells them they
have all they need for a successful marriage: mutual fear, hatred of
each other, and an abiding mediocrity. They leave, feeling somewhat
reconciled. Julia then arrives and asks Sir Henry how successful her
scheme has been; she, with the help of Alex, had induced Sir Henry
to step in. Julia, Alex, and Sir Henry have all thus been the
"guardians" of Edward and Lavinia, conspiring to fix their marriage.
Celia then comes in for a consultation. She tells Sir Henry she
experiences solitude, guilt, and sin. Sir Henry declares her to be an
outstanding person, whom destiny is calling. He tells her that she can
either accept life as it is and ignore its extremes, or she can make her
life a journey into an unidentified place. She chooses the latter.
The final act of the play takes place two years later, as the
Chamberlaynes are preparing to throw another cocktail party. They
have settled into a mediocre existence and are shown concerning
themselves with domestic matters and worrying about the appearance
of the flat. Julia arrives early, followed by Alex, who has been in an
exotic island country called Kinkanja. Sir Henry enters, and then
Peter arrives from Hollywood, where he has a career as a
screenwriter. He is in London to ask Celia to do a screen test for his
next movie. Alex breaks the news that Celia is dead. She was
working as a nurse in Kinkanja when a plague broke out. She stayed
with the infected inhabitants during a rebellion against their
oppressors, only to be crucified and cannibalized by them. HarcourtReilly does not seem at all shocked at Celia's violent death, saying
that she was destined to be a martyr, and he recites a poem about life
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and death. Their friends leave one by one, and Edward and Lavinia
resume preparations for their cocktail party.
Major Themes
The Cocktail Party has been called a comedy of manners, a
morality play, and a drama of salvation. On the one hand it reads and
plays as a light satire, resembling the witty, urbane comedies of
Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward. On the other, the dialogue and action
explore questions of morality and psychology, of mundane existence
and life's "destiny," and contains numerous gestures to the
supernatural and to God. With this play Eliot was in fact parodying
the popular drawing-room comedies of writers such as Coward,
whose lighthearted plays centering on sex feature upper-class men
and women exchanging witticisms about frivolous matters. Eliot
added an undercurrent of social criticism and spiritual questioning to
the popular drawing-room comedy, offering a dark philosophical
commentary on human alienation and isolation.
The play opens and closes with cocktail parties, celebrations
among friends who, as it turns out, know less about each other than
they think. The cocktail party is an artificial gathering where people
banter about inconsequential matters, try to impress each other, and
concern themselves with superficialities and appearances. Edward
deceives his friends about the whereabouts of his wife, opening up
only to the mysterious stranger after they leave. He is closed off to
his friends and isolated psychologically. He is isolated as well from
his wife, to whom he has become accustomed but does not really
know. And, most importantly, he is isolated from himself. As he says
to Sir Henry when he visits the psychiatrist's office, "I have ceased to
believe in my own personality." He is told by the doctor that it is a
common malady. The other characters in The Cocktail Party are
similarly alone, although they do not recognize it. Alex seeks
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adventure, Peter seeks success, and Julia and Lavinia seek love, but
none understands that he or she is essentially alone. When Celia tells
Sir Henry that she recognizes her solitude, sin, and guilt, he finds her
to be remarkable for that self-awareness. She is not mediocre like the
others because she recognizes the terrible isolation of being human,
and instead of living a life of complacency chooses to journey into
the unknown. Celia's journey is her salvation, but the other characters
in the play seem not to be capable of saving themselves, because they
continue until the end to be unaware of what it means to be human
and to work out their salvation for themselves.
The Cocktail Party uses humor and farce to explore as well
questions about love. Love is satirized in the play, as connections
cannot be made and characters base their decisions on emotions they
later recognize to be not love but something else entirely. Peter loves
Celia but does not approach her, asking his friend to do it for him
instead, not knowing of course that his friend is her lover. Celia
believes she is in love with Edward, only to see him with new eyes
and find him to be an unimaginative and mediocre man with whom
she was only briefly infatuated. Edward thinks he loves Lavinia and
wants her back, but when she returns it becomes clear he finds her
intolerable. As Sir Henry tells Edward, he is in fact incapable of love,
but he adds that this is not a necessary ingredient for a "successful"
relationship.
Principal Characters
Barraway, Miss: At the beginning of act 2, Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly
gives his secretary precise orders about when to bring each of his
patients into his room, reviewing the code that he will buzz on the
intercom system to let her know when it is time for the next. Miss
Barraway appears briefly, bringing people onstage and ushering
them off.
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Caterer's Man: In act 3, when Edward and Lavinia are preparing for
their cocktail party, there is a man from the catering company
around, setting things up. His function is to show that, even in
their home, they are on their "social" behavior, and that they have
no private behavior any more.
Edward Chamberlayne: Much of the play centers on the problems
between Edward and his wife, Lavinia. Edward is a lawyer, a
boring and unimaginative man who feels that he is being stifled by
Lavinia. When the play begins he has been having an affair with
Celia Copplestone, a fact that does not come out until later. Left in
the awkward position of hosting a dinner party that Lavinia
arranged before she left him, he makes up a flimsy excuse about
her being away to visit a sick aunt—an excuse nobody believes.
Discussing his separation from Lavinia with Sir Henry
Harcourt-Reilly, Edward is so uncomfortable at the change in his
routine that he wishes for her back, and when Harcourt-Reilly says
that he can arrange it, he asks him to do so. He worries about
looking ridiculous, but Sir Henry assures him that a little
humiliation would be good for him. Edward is jaded about love
and tells Peter that Peter is lucky to have missed out on the affair
that he had hoped to start with Celia, because it would turn boring
after a few months.
Edward breaks off his relationship with his mistress, Celia,
while other characters are walking in and out of his living room.
The fact that he has to maintain such an awkward pretense during
such an important, intimate moment says much about how he is a
slave to his social image. He is aware of how ridiculous his
situation is, and it makes him feel old.
Edward feels so much regret when Lavinia returns to him
that he thinks he has had a mental breakdown. He moves out of
the house and wants to be admitted into a sanatorium, but his
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psychiatrist, Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly, pairs him up with Lavinia,
saying that they are perfectly matched. On the doctor's advice,
they stay together, and in the end they are seen as a couple
preparing to host a cocktail party. Edward is a little more
sympathetic toward Lavinia in the end, but their relationship is
still cold and rational. He feels guilty about the violent death that
befell Celia, but he is able to soon put it out of his mind.
Lavinia Chamberlayne: Lavinia is absent from the stage during the
first two scenes and much of the third, having left her husband,
Edward. It is not until later that the audience finds out that she has
seen the psychiatrist for two months, that she had an affair with
Peter, and that during the time she was gone, she checked herself
into what she thought was a sanatorium. Lavinia is such a
controlled and controlling person that her husband is entirely
surprised by both her mental distress and her secret love life.
Harcourt-Reilly explains that the end of her affair with Peter
caused Lavinia to realize the truth about herself:
It was a shock. You had wanted to be loved; you had come to
see that no one had ever loved you. Then you began to feel that
no one could ever love you.
With this realization, Lavinia comes to realize that Edward, a man
who is incapable of loving anyone, is the ideal mate for her,
because he will not stray from her and will act kindly toward her
to assure her continuing companionship. Whenever he tries to
paint Lavinia as being pushy and demanding, she points out that
he is indecisive and needs someone to tell him what to do. In the
last act, two years after the start of the play, they are together
again, functioning smoothly as a couple, but seeing herself without
illusion has left Lavinia worn out and tired. Like Edward, she feels
somewhat guilty about Celia's death, but unlike him she realizes
that it would be good for them all to try to understand Celia better.
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Lavinia begins the last act tired and wishing that she did not
have to host the coming cocktail party, but stirred up by her
curiosity about Celia, she finds new enthusiasm. Her last line—
"Oh, I'm glad. It's begun"—shows more optimism than she
previously had.
Celia Copplestone: At the beginning of the play, Celia does not
appear to be a significant character, just one of the crowd; by the
end, however, she turns out to have chosen to live in a free and
giving way, giving her life the sort of meaning that all of the other
characters have been hoping love would bring. She starts out as a
poet interested in the art of film. The first time attention is brought
to bear on Celia is when Peter asks Edward's advice about how to
express his love for her; the second time is when, after Peter
leaves, she comes to Edward, and it is apparent that she and
Edward are having an affair.
When Edward breaks off his affair with Celia, it brings her
to the realization that their relationship was based on ignoring the
future. The shock of their breakup wakes her, makes her look at
life in broader terms, thinking about her place in the world. She
then sees Edward as just a symbol of something vague that she
aspired to, not as something that she actually wanted. In act 2,
Julia persuades Celia to see the psychiatrist, Sir Henry.
Celia's dilemma is rooted deeply in the nature of human
existence. She has an acute awareness of her own solitude, the
sense of "alienation" that is prominent in intellectual works of the
mid-twentieth century. She feels alone in relationships and in
crowds. In addition, she has a sense that she has not been as moral
as a person should be; she suffers, as she puts it, "a sense of sin."
When Sir Henry gives her a choice between being complacent or
traveling out into the unknown, she chooses the latter.
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In the last act, when the characters gather together again,
Alex brings news that Celia was killed in the uncivilized, remote
island country of Kinkanja. By rational standards, her death was a
waste: she was defending diseased people who were going to die
anyway. But she died with the moral certainty that she lacked in
life. Ironically, her sense of aloneness is defeated by the fact that
her body is eaten by cannibals, dividing her physical existence up
among others. Sir Henry, who understands Celia's mind better than
the others, takes satisfaction in her death, secure in the fact that
she found meaning before she died.
Henry Harcourt-Reilly, Sir: Sir Henry is presented at first as a
mysterious, almost supernatural character, showing up at the
Chamberlayne cocktail party with no apparent connection to any
of the other guests. By the end of the play, his relationship to
several of the principal characters is revealed. It turns out that
Lavinia has been seeing him for two months; that Alex is the one
to arrange for Edward to consult with him as a psychiatrist; and
that Julia is the one who brings Celia to see him. As the
Unidentified Guest in the play's first act, Sir Henry listens to
Edward's situation as if it is all unfamiliar to him and dispenses
friendly, philosophical advice, even singing a foolish song as if
Edward's problems meant little to him. His first appearance as Sir
Henry Harcourt-Reilly, in act 2, shows him to actually be a
serious, well-organized man, explaining to his secretary the
precise arrangement he has planned for his morning's patients and
his complex signal system for when they are to be admitted.
Although he pretends to be analyzing Edward's case in act
2, the audience knows that Sir Henry has already decided what
would be best for the Chamberlaynes because of the arrangements
he made before their arrival. He refuses to send Edward to a
sanatorium and tells Lavinia that the place that he sent her to
previously was not a sanatorium. His refusal to isolate his patients,
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even when they ask to be sent somewhere to be alone, is consistent
with the advice he later gives Celia. To her, he explains that there
are two forms of treatment for dealing with life. The first one is to
become reconciled with the human condition, to avoid excess, and
to become tolerant; this is the one Edward and Lavinia follow. The
second, which Celia ends up following, is more mysterious and
involves taking a "blind" journey, with no knowledge of where
one will end up.
When news comes at the end of the play that Celia has
suffered a violent death in an exotic location, Lavinia notes that
Sir Henry's reaction seems to be not shock, but satisfaction. He
explains himself with a complex poem filled with classical
allusions, in contrast to the song he sang earlier. He then goes on
to discuss the intuition that he had when he met Celia at the
cocktail party in the first act, that she was destined to die a violent
death.
Alexander MacColgie Gibbs: Like Julia, Alex is a character who at
first seems to be a ridiculous stereotype, but who later is revealed
to be a manipulator, working behind the scenes to control the lives
of the main characters. At the original cocktail party, he holds a
key position as a world traveler with tales to tell of his adventures.
Later, after everyone has gone, he returns to Edward's home,
saying that he has been worried because Edward had nothing to
eat. This concern for Edward gives him a reason to stay while
Edward talks with Peter, interrupting every so often as he walks
between the kitchen and the drawing room where they are talking.
Alex brags about his adventures and about his ability to make a
great dinner out of anything that he finds in the refrigerator, and in
the context of the serious talks he is interrupting about matters of
love and infidelity, his bragging makes him seem particularly
superficial. "Ah, but that's my special gift—concocting a
toothsome meal out of nothing," he says, when Edward tries to get
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rid of him by saying that there is hardly anything in the kitchen. In
the next scene, however, Julia warns Edward, "Anything Alex
makes is absolutely deadly. I could tell such tales of his poisoning
people."
In act 2, Alex goes in to see the psychiatrist before Edward
goes in. From their conversation, it becomes clear that Alex,
instead of being a fool, is actually a clever man who manipulated
Edward to the psychiatrist's office, scheming with Sir Henry to
make Edward think that going there was his own free idea. At the
end of act 2, he and Julia and Sir Henry talk about the fates of
Edward, Lavinia, and Celia, speaking in poetic cadences, as if they
are mythical beings who control the fates of people. In the last act,
though, Alex is back in the social role of the world traveler,
talking about the strange practices of the people in the remote
country of Kinkanja; he is a somewhat foolish, befuddled, smallminded Englishman who does not understand people beyond his
own culture.
Nurse-Secretary: See Miss Barraway
Peter Quilpe: Peter is the play's romantic figure. When the play
begins, he has been to California, trying to break into the movie
business, with one script accepted by a studio but not used. By the
end of the play, however, he is a success, with a famous producer
counting on his suggestions for places to film and actors to cast.
Peter is in love with Celia, having spent much time with her after
they met at Lavinia's party. He explains his interest in her to
Edward and asks his advice, unaware that Edward has been
romantically involved with Celia for months. He mistakes Celia's
awareness of her own aloneness, which she later describes to the
psychiatrist as a symptom of her mental disorder, for a need for
someone like him, with similar artistic interests. For all of the time
that they have spent together, going to films and concerts and
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dinner, Peter thought that a romance was developing, while Celia
later explains to Edward that she never saw their relationship in
that way.
Later, in Harcourt-Reilly's office, it is revealed that Lavinia
has been having an affair with Peter and that his attraction to Celia
was the reason that Lavinia went to the psychiatrist in the first
place, starting the whole chain of events in motion.
At the end of the play, Peter returns from California a
success. He wants to make a film about the British aristocracy,
using "the most decayed noble mansion in England," but rather
than use the actual thing, he plans to build a synthetic version in
California, thus indicating his leanings toward artificiality. His
plan includes taking Celia back with him and getting her into the
movies, but he finds out that, while he has been working to
impress her and offer her a chance at glamour, she has died while
living a true, honest life.
Julia Shuttlethwaite: At first, Julia seems to be a stock character type,
a scatter-brained matron who meddles in other people's business
and who cannot follow the details of a story, even though she
loves hearing gossip and telling it. She is the most prominent
figure in the first act, which is meant to resemble the typical
British drawing-room comedy, with all of the characters talking
cheerfully and wittily about matters that they are too shallow to
understand. In this act, Julia is a catalyst, asking people to repeat
and clarify what they have said, seemingly too slow to catch the
fast pace of clever banter. She starts a story about Lady Klootz and
a wedding cake, but later, asked to finish the story, does not
recognize it, dismissing the request by saying, "Wedding cake? I
wasn't at her wedding."
Julia comes back to the Chamberlayne apartment when
Edward is talking with Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly, using the
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excuse that she forgot her glasses. At this time she seems to be just
a nosy old woman who has made up an excuse to find out what is
going on. She returns again when Edward is trying to have a
serious talk with Celia to end their relationship. The intelligence
behind her method becomes more apparent in this scene, which
ends with Celia speculating that Julia might be something of a
guardian to her, because having to take Julia's glasses to her gives
her a reason to end the conversation and leave.
In the second act, it becomes clear that Julia actually is
Celia's guardian, looking out for her without her knowledge. She
arranges for Celia to meet the psychiatrist, without revealing that
she and Sir Henry have a previous acquaintance. Sneaking into his
office without Celia knowing, it becomes apparent that Julia is the
unseen mastermind behind much of what has happened to Celia.
In the cocktail party of the last scene, which mirrors the first,
Julia's questions are more pointed and focused, pushing each
character to a greater understanding of him or herself.
Unidentified Guest: See Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly
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SECTION SEVEN
DEATH OF A SALESMAN BY ARTHUR MILLER (1949)
Author: Arthur Miller (1915-2005)
Type of Plot: Modern Tragedy
Introduction
Death of a Salesman (1949) is widely recognized as Arthur
Miller's masterpiece. Structured as a modern tragedy, the play depicts
the last twenty-four hours in the life of Willy Loman, a sixty-threeyear-old traveling salesman, who for thirty-six years has sold his
wares all over New England. Miller utilizes Loman's disillusionment
with his life and career as a means to measure the enormous gap
between the American Dream's promise of eventual success and the
devastating reality of one's concrete failure.
The Plot
Much of the play takes place in the mind of Willy Loman, a
salesman nearing retirement, with the events occurring in Willy's
thoughts and memories. The major setting is the Loman house in
New York City, a modest home surrounded by vague and slightly
ominous taller buildings.
As the play opens, Willy returns home the same day he left on
a selling trip that should have taken several days. Exhausted to the
point of illness, he had veered off the road several times before
giving up and coming home. His wife Linda, worried, tells him he
really must get the company to let him stay in New York—after all,
he's sixty now. Willy says he will talk to Howard, the son of his old
boss, who now runs the company. The couple's two grown-up sons,
Biff and Happy, are asleep upstairs, both home on a visit. Linda
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reproaches Willy for criticizing Biff that morning, after he arrived.
Willy objects—he simply asked if Biff was making any money. Biff
is thirty-four years old, Willy says. He shouldn't still be working as a
farmhand. He had such potential in high school. Vaguely irritable,
Willy complains about feeling boxed in.
As he chats with Linda about the past, Willy's irritability
merges into disorientation. Hearing the voices, Biff and Happy get
out of bed, worried that their father has had another car accident.
Happy, two years younger but more settled than his brother, tells Biff
that Willy has been mumbling to himself a lot lately—mostly about
Biff and his future. Biff confides that he has wasted his life; Happy
expresses his own frustration at having to take orders from people to
whom he feels superior. He vents his resentment by seducing the
wives of men who are above him at the store where he works, and by
taking bribes from manufacturers who want orders from the store.
Biff decides to make an appointment with Bill Oliver, a former
employer who liked him (but from whom he stole a carton of
basketballs), to see if he can get a loan to buy his own ranch.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Willy has drifted into a reverie
about the past. In his memories, his boys are young and active and he
himself is on the path to success. Biff is the star football player in
high school, captain of the team, a young hero—especially compared
to his friend Bernard, a good student who nevertheless lacks the
charisma necessary to get ahead in the business world. Slowly,
though, Willy's memories seem to spin out of control: He made $200
on one trip to Providence and Boston—no, it was more like $70.
Still, pretty good, at least until Linda began figuring in the debts: the
car, the refrigerator, the washing machine ... well, next week he'll
knock'em dead. But he's too fat, people don't take him seriously; he
talks too much, or maybe he's just not dressing right. He remembers a
woman he had an affair with while on the road, a woman whose
laughter blends with Linda's in his mind.
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His neighbor Charley, Bernard's father, comes over and the
two play cards in the kitchen. Charley says he can't sleep, but seems
in fact to have come over out of concern for Willy's state of mind. As
they play cards, Willy carries on an imaginary conversation with his
brother Ben (who appears on stage like the other remembered
characters, though remaining invisible to Charley). Ben reminds
Willy of how he, Ben, boldly went to Alaska and seized real estate
opportunities there. Conversing with Ben, Willy loses track of the
game, frightens Charley, and grows even more confused.
Charley exits, and Linda—a remembered Linda, carrying
laundry—enters. Ben tells Willy and Linda about his bold and
successful business ventures (which, in Willy's mind, take place in a
jungle in Africa, then switch back to Alaska). He also speaks of their
father, "a great and a very wild-hearted man," a renegade inventor
who made more money with one invention than someone like Willy
would make in a lifetime. A younger Biff then enters, and is told by
Ben: "Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of
the jungle that way." Biff doesn't seem to need the advice; he's out
stealing lumber from a building site to resell it, inspiring pride in
Willy at his nerve. Willy, however, seeks reassurance from Ben that
he's raising his boys properly.
Willy emerges from his reverie as Linda, Biff, and Happy,
who have heard him talking to himself, enter the kitchen. Willy exits,
rambling. Biff is alarmed; Linda tells him this has been going on for
some time. Linda presses Biff to show his father more respect when
he's home; Biff resists, saying Willy is a fake. Linda reveals that
Willy's car accidents have actually been suicide attempts, and that
she has found other evidence (a length of rubber tubing hidden
behind the gas water heater) that Willy plans to take his own life. By
the time Willy returns, however, the boys are knee-deep in grand
plans for the future. Willy will go to the boss, Howard, and ask to
stay in New York, and Biff will approach Bill Oliver for a loan.
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Everything is going to be all right. But Biff has found Willy's length
of rubber tubing behind the gas water heater. As he ponders it, Act I
closes.
Act II opens the next morning after the boys have gone out,
Happy to work and Biff to meet with Bill Oliver. Linda tells Willy
that the boys want him to meet them for dinner at a local restaurant.
The scene switches to Howard's office, and Willy enters. When
Howard refuses Willy's request, Willy persists, and Howard ends up
firing him. Willy again slips into a reverie, holding imaginary
conversations with Ben, Linda, Biff, and Happy. We see Biff as a
high-school football player, a star who wins the big game at Ebbetts
Field and receives offers from three colleges. When Willy comes out
of it, he is at his neighbor Charley's office. There we see Bernard—
who, moments earlier (in Willy's mind) was begging to carry Biff's
helmet—as a successful young attorney. Charley lends Willy money
and even offers him a job; Willy refuses.
At the restaurant, Biff tells Happy that Bill Oliver didn't even
recognize him—there will be no loan. Willy arrives and tells them he
was fired. As Biff begins to tell Willy about Bill Oliver, Willy goes
into another reverie; he recalls Biff's discovery that he was having an
affair—a discovery that ultimately led Biff to lose interest in going to
college. Biff has been aimless ever since. Biff and Happy leave Willy
alone at the restaurant. Later, back home again, Biff forces Willy to
acknowledge the truth about all of their lives, rather than continue the
charade that each is successful and content. The others go up to bed.
Alone downstairs, Willy again drifts off and sees Ben. He tells Ben
that he's got a life insurance plan for $20,000—just the amount Biff
needs to set himself up on a ranch. Willy goes out to the car and
drives off recklessly.
The scene shifts to his funeral, where the only mourners are
Linda, the boys, and Charley. Linda can't understand why Willy did
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it—the debts were almost paid; all he needed was a little salary. But
Charley says that a man always needs more, and that a salesman in
particular needs to have a dream.
Major Themes
Critics have maintained that much of the enduring universal
appeal of Death of a Salesman lies in its central theme of the failure
of the American Dream. Willy's commitment to false social values—
consumerism, ambition, social stature—keeps him from
acknowledging the value of human experience—the comforts of
personal relationships, family and friends, and love. When Willy
realizes that his true value lies in being a good father, he chooses to
sacrifice himself in order to give his sons the material wealth he has
always desired. In a broader sense, some commentators perceive the
play as an indictment of American capitalism and a rejection of
materialist values. Competition and responsibility are also prominent
themes in Death of a Salesman. For example, Willy's tendency to
evade responsibility for his behavior and his penchant for blaming
others has been passed onto his sons and, as a result, all three men
exhibit a poor work ethic and lack of integrity. Willy's inability to
discern between reality and fantasy is another recurring motif,
particularly as seen through the subjective reality of the play's
structure. Miller creates an environment in Death of a Salesman
where the real time of the play and the internal workings of Willy's
mind are brought together. This refusal to separate subjective and
objective truths is further reflected in Willy's inability to see his sons
for who they really are, which becomes major source of conflict in
the play.
Death of a Salesman deals with both the filial and social
realms of American life, exploring and exploding the concept of the
American dream. From its debut in New York in 1949 to its many
international stagings since, Death of a Salesman has spoken to the
concerns of middle-class workers worldwide and their struggle for
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existence in capitalist society. The play and its initial production set
the tone for American drama for the rest of the century through its
sociopolitical themes, its poetic realism, and its focus on the common
man. Brenda Murphy observes, "Since its premier, there has never
been a time when Death of a Salesman was not being performed
somewhere in the world."
The play's subtitle is "Certain Private Conversations in Two
Acts and a Requiem." Miller's first concept of the play was vastly
different from its current form. "The first image that occurred to me
which was to result in Death of a Salesman was of an enormous face
the height of the proscenium arch which would appear and then open
up, and we would see the inside of a man's head. In fact, The Inside
of His Head was the first title." Instead, Miller gives us a crosssection of the Loman household, simultaneously providing a realistic
setting and maintaining the expressionistic elements of the play.
Miller also employs the use of realism for scenes of the
present and a series of expressionistic flashbacks for scenes from the
past. In his essay "Death of a Salesman and the Poetics of Arthur
Miller," Matthew Roudané writes, "Miller wanted to formulate a
dramatic structure that would allow the play textually and theatrically
to capture the simultaneity of the human mind as that mind registers
outer experience through its own inner subjectivity." Hence, the play
flashes back to visits from Ben and scenes from Willy's affair.
Miller's juxtaposition of time and place give the play added
dimension; Miller never acknowledges from whose point of view the
story is told and whether the episodes are factual or recreations based
on Willy's imagination. Miller also uses flute, cello, and other music
to punctuate and underscore the action of the play.
Death of a Salesman originates from two genres: the
refutation of the "rags-to-riches" theory first set forth by Horatio
Alger, and the form of Miller's self-proclaimed "Tragedy and the
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Common Man." In stories such as Ragged Dick, Alger put forth the
theory that even the poorest, through hard work and determination,
could eventually work their way to the upper class. Willy Loman
seems the antithesis of this ideal, as the more he works toward
security the further he is away from it. Thomas E. Porter observes,
"Willy's whole life has been shaped by his commitment to the
success ideology, his dream based on the Alger myth; his present
plight is shown to be the inevitable consequence of this
commitment."
Miller attempted to define Willy Loman as an Aristotelian
tragic figure in his 1949 essay "Tragedy and the Common Man."
Miller stated that he believed "the common man is as apt a subject
for tragedy in its highest sense as kings were." He went on to parallel
Willy's fall with that of Oedipus and Orestes, claiming that tragedy
was "the consequence of a man's total compulsion to evaluate
himself justly." Despite Miller's claims, he has been attacked for his
views by literary critic Harold Bloom. "All that Loman shares with
Lear or Oedipus is agony; there is no other likeness whatsoever.
Miller has little understanding of Classical or Shakespearean
tragedy," Bloom wrote in Willy Loman. "He stems entirely from
Ibsen."
The play's placement in the history of American drama is
critical, as it bridged the gap between the melodramatic works of
Eugene O'Neill and the Theatre of the Absurd of the 1960s.
Themes and Motifs
Willy's Roles: Willy's various roles as husband, father, and "All-
American" businessman are difficult for him to navigate because
they call for contrasting moral structures. Obviously Willy cares very
much for his wife and sons, but he cannot reconcile his love for them
with his role as a salesman and his need to achieve a certain kind of
material success. Willy's inability to look at his life realistically
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seems to make it impossible for him to manage his various
relationships with any consistency.
"The American Dream": The year, Willy continues to flash back to
1928, was a year when American optimism ran high. The stock
market had not yet crashed, and life seemed full of possibilities. In
fact, many historians see this period of prosperity and invention as
the origin of the country's belief in an "American Dream." Willy's
continued obsession with social status, material wealth, and physical
attractiveness are symptomatic of his belief in and longing for this
version of the American Dream. His inability to achieve this kind of
material success forces him to create a fantasy world in order to cope.
And yet there is a contradiction here, because Willy mentions several
times that he would be more at home working with his hands and
tilling soil.
Time: Time figures in the play in several ways. Willy's flashbacks in
time often make it difficult to understand where the story falls
chronologically, mimicking for the reader/viewer Willy's skewed
perspective. In some ways time becomes irrelevant for Willy; Miller
suggests that for those who have bought into the American Dream
nothing really changes, because often, years later, they are left with
nothing more than futile dreams and an effort to rewrite the past.
The Boys: Willy's sons, Biff and Happy, are reflections of their
father. While Willy strives to do well by his sons, it is clear by their
actions that he and his wife have also taught their sons to value
material success above all; in fact, Biff and Happy will even resort to
lying and stealing to achieve the success they were taught to
prioritize. Though Biff is more aware of the truth of their lives, both
sons find it difficult to balance their goals with reality.
Principal Characters
Willy Loman: the main character; a traveling salesman
Linda Loman: Willy's loyal wife
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Biff Loman: Willy and Linda's oldest son
Happy Loman: Willy and Linda's younger son
Ben Loman: Willy's older brother
Charley: Willy's next-door neighbor
Bernard: Charley's son
Howard Wagner: Willy's boss
The Woman: Willy's mistress
Bill Oliver: One of Biff's old bosses
Miss Forsythe and Letta: Women whom Biff and Happy pick up
Stanley: A waiter at Frank's Chop House
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CHAPTER TWO
FICTION
INTRODUCTION
HOW TO READ FICTION
If a college student has just finished reading a short story she
enjoyed and someone asks her how she liked it, she will probably
respond—in much the same way she would respond to the question
"How are you today?"—by saying, "Fine." If asked to elaborate, she
will probably recount the plot. In most circumstances, this response
is appropriate, even though the student knows that it does not
adequately express what she feels about the story. After all, when
someone asks "How are you today?" we are not expected to give an
exhaustive analysis of our emotional profile or our medical status.
So we say "Fine," knowing that that vague, polite, all-purpose word
cannot capture all the feelings and thoughts that may be going
through our heads at the time.
Unfortunately, the extent to which people think about or
respond to what they read rarely goes beyond the level of a passing
conversation. Even if they have been affected by a story, been
engaged by its characters, or excited by its outcome, they usually do
not need to say much more than "It was good." Literature students in
college, however, need to respond at uncustomary length to what
they have read. To do this well, they must have the ability—the
necessary vocabulary and analytical skills—to express complex
opinions and ideas about difficult works of literature. In requiring
students to read, study, and write about literature more carefully,
instructors are merely indicating that in the serious study of literature,
such answers as "It was good" will not suffice. But what do we do
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when we study literature seriously?
Most literature textbooks designed to help students answer
these questions begin, as this one does, with the study of short
stories. Of all the major genres of literature—fiction, poetry, and
drama—students usually respond most readily to fiction. Good
stories have the power to touch us immediately and deeply. In them,
we recognize people like the people we know in conflict with their
worlds, with each other, or with themselves. We recognize the
places they inhabit—the rooms, houses, communities, regions,
countries. We recognize and respond to the situations they are
caught up in: a man loses his faith in humanity; a woman tries, with a
morbid kind of success, to stop the flow of time; a boy finds his
convictions while working in a grocery store. We can imagine
ourselves being in these situations. That we respond to them gives us
the first indication of why we read fiction—because fiction imitates
or reflects the world we all know and deepens our appreciation of
that world. Fiction can also introduce us to aspects of the world that
we don't know anything about by portraying situations that we have
neither encountered nor imagined. Franz Kafka's "A Hunger Artist,"
for example, gives us insights into the bizarre life of a man who fasts
for forty days at a time!
Because we identify with fictional characters, fiction also
affects us emotionally. We learn from it and take pleasure in it. We
become excited, dismayed, saddened, angered. We learn the effects
of a man's excessive pride. We wonder what will happen when a
bigoted woman becomes aware of her bigotry. We pity a small child
beaten by his angry father. Remember that the Latin word from
which vicarious is derived means substituted. We put ourselves in
the places of fictional characters and—by reading about their
successes and failures, their thoughts and deeds—we act out, for a
time, our own. Fiction confirms what we already know, or
contradicts it meaningfully, or calls it into question. Emotion and
knowledge begin to merge.
Finally, we read fiction because it represents one of the most
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ingenious uses of a medium we share with the author and with each
other: language. We respond to an author's skillful use of language
and to the techniques that authors have developed to render
experience in fictional form. The structure of a plot arouses our
curiosity; the realism of the dialogue engages us; the way the story is
told offers us an unusual perspective on human behavior; or we
admire the clarity and the power with which the author has described
a place or a character. We respond to the formal means an author has
employed. We begin to read more closely to see how one author's
technique differs from another's or how a story told in the first person
differs from one told in the third person. We begin to make—or to
want to make—judgments about the relative quality of different
stories. We indeed are far from the answer "It was good."
Or are we? In fact, we are in a better position to say why one
story is good, or better than another. We are ready to respond
intelligently and thoroughly when we are asked "How did you like
it?" We are ready to evaluate a story critically.
How we read is nearly as important as why. Mostly, we read
for pleasure, for whatever joys the stories may yield if we are
attentive on a first, relatively quick, reading. We may think about
what we read, talk about it with friends, carry it around with us in our
minds-but first we enjoy it.
As pleasant as this kind of reading is, we often feel a need to
go beyond it to link enjoyment with knowledge and careful
consideration of what we read. We want to know why we enjoy
what we read and how an author produces the effects we find
enjoyable. For this more thorough kind of reading, we need to equip
ourselves with pencil and paper and to allow sufficient time for
thought, rereading, and analysis. We might try to summarize the
story or ask ourselves questions about it. Here are some of the most
common questions, listed with the element that they help us to
explore:
1. Plot: What are the main events of the story, and what causes them?
2. Character: Who is the main character of the story? How is this
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character revealed to us? How does he or she change significantly
during the course of the story?
3. Setting: Where is the story set? Is there a significant connection
between the setting of the story and its outcome?
4. Point of View and Tone: Who tells the story? How does the way
the story is told affect our understanding? What is the narrator's
attitude toward what he or she is telling?
5. Symbolism and Allegory: Do any of the objects, people, or events
in the story seem to represent larger concepts?
6. Theme: What is the main idea the author is trying to convey?
To confirm our preliminary answers to these questions, we
might want to read the story again to see how these elements work
together to make a unified whole or how one element affects others.
For example, to what extent do the causes of the events in the story
correspond to changes in the characters? Or, how is the main idea of
the story supported by the author's description of the setting? We try
to see how the story arrives at a coherent effect. Once we have done
so, we can begin to ask how powerful or significant that effect is and
how it compares with the effects of other stories. Having integrated
the elements of the story, we can begin to evaluate it critically.
The process described here—one reading for summary, one
for analysis, and one for evaluation—may seem excessive. Of
course, we don't usually have the need, the desire, or the time to
devote this much energy to a single story. There is a time and a
proper context for each of three kinds of reading we have described.
But careful, thorough reading will not only preserve our enjoyment;
it will enhance our enjoyment. We may still say "It was good," but
this will be an informed answer, based solidly on the text we've read,
that reflects careful reading, precise thought, and considered
judgment. It is in such judgment that the richest pleasures of reading
lie.
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SECTION ONE
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE BY JANE AUSTEN (1813)
Author: British Novelist (1775-1817)
Type of Plot: Comedy of Manners
Introduction
Many scholars regard Pride and Prejudice as Jane Austen's
most important novel. Austen completed an early draft of the work in
1797 under the title First Impressions, but she put it aside after
failing to find a publisher. More than a decade later, Austen revised
the manuscript and renamed it Pride and Prejudice, publishing it
anonymously in 1813. The book revolves around the character of
Elizabeth Bennet, a strong-willed, intelligent young woman whose
willingness to speak her mind frequently runs counter to the societal
expectations of her era. As the novel progresses, Elizabeth gradually
falls in love with the aristocratic Fitzwilliam Darcy; although Darcy's
haughty attitude initially repels Elizabeth, his fundamental integrity
soon proves an equal match to her own strength of character, and the
novel ends with a celebration of their marriage. Austen tells her story
primarily through the dialogue of her characters; their distinctive
speaking styles reveal much about their individual personalities,
while the complicated network of their social interactions are
disclosed. Over the course of its history, the novel has emerged as
Austen's most popular work of fiction. By hailing Austen's novel as a
"masterpiece," W. Somerset Maugham declared in his 1954 study
The Art of Fiction, "What makes a classic is not that it is praised by
critics ... but that large numbers of readers, generation after
generation, have found pleasure and spiritual profit in reading it." In
the twentieth century the novel inspired numerous film adaptations
and television miniseries.
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The Story
Pride and Prejudice focuses on the Bennet family, middleclass landowners living in Longbourn, a village outside of London.
The story centers upon finding suitable marriages for the five Bennet
daughters, a mission that Mrs. Bennet, who is a bit flighty and
shallow, approaches with fierce single-mindedness. Mr. Bennet is a
kindhearted but remote figure, a calm man of action behind the
scenes, whose interactions with others are seemingly either sarcastic
or indifferent. Jane, the oldest and most beautiful of the Bennet
sisters, is a reserved, compassionate, and charming young woman
who interacts gracefully with others. By contrast, the second Bennet
daughter, Elizabeth, is outspoken and opinionated, frequently
sparking conflict with her sharp wit. Because of her intelligence and
independence, Elizabeth is her father's favorite daughter; she enjoys
an intimacy with Mr. Bennet unavailable to others, including Mrs.
Bennet. The younger Bennet daughters, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia, are
portrayed as immature and foolish, each in her own way. As the
narrative unfolds, Elizabeth quickly emerges as the work's most
compelling character.
The chief business of Mrs. Bennet's life was to find suitable
husbands for her five daughters. Consequently, she was elated when
she heard that Netherfield Park, one of the area's great houses, had
been let to Mr. Bingley, a gentleman from the north of England.
Gossip such as Mrs. Bennet loved reported him a rich and eligible
young bachelor. Mr. Bennet heard the news with his usual dry
calmness, suggesting in his mild way that perhaps Bingley was not
moving into the country for the single purpose of marrying one of the
Bennet daughters.
Mr. Bingley's first public appearance in the neighborhood was
at a ball. With him were his two sisters, the husband of the older, and
Mr. Darcy, Bingley's friend. Bingley was an immediate success in
local society, and he and Jane, the oldest Bennet daughter—a pretty
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girl of sweet and gentle disposition—were attracted to each other at
once. His friend, Darcy, however, seemed cold and extremely proud
and created a bad impression. In particular, he insulted Elizabeth
Bennet, a girl of spirit and intelligence and her father's favorite. He
refused to dance with her when she was sitting down for lack of a
partner; Elizabeth also overheard him say that he was in no mood to
prefer young ladies slighted by other men. On future occasions,
however, he began to admire Elizabeth in spite of himself. At a later
ball, she had the satisfaction of refusing him a dance.
Jane's romance with Bingley flourished quietly, aided by
family calls, dinners, and balls. His sisters pretended great fondness
for Jane, who believed them completely sincere. Elizabeth was more
critical and discerning; she suspected them of hypocrisy, and quite
rightly, for they made great fun of Jane's relations, especially her
vulgar, garrulous mother and her two ill-bred, officer-mad younger
sisters. Miss Caroline Bingley, who was eager to marry Darcy and
shrewdly aware of his growing admiration for Elizabeth, was
especially loud in her ridicule of the Bennet family. Elizabeth herself
became Caroline's particular target when she walked three muddy
miles to visit Jane, who was sick with a cold at Netherfield Park after
a ride through the rain to accept an invitation from the Bingley
sisters. Until Jane was able to be moved home, Elizabeth stayed to
nurse her. During her visit, Elizabeth received enough attention from
Darcy to make Caroline Bingley long sincerely for Jane's recovery.
Her fears were not illfounded. Darcy admitted to himself that he
would be in some danger from the charm of Elizabeth, if it were not
for her inferior family connections.
Elizabeth now acquired a new admirer in Mr. Collins, a
ridiculously pompous clergyman and a distant cousin of the Bennets,
who would someday inherit Mr. Bennet's property because that
gentleman had no male heir. Mr. Collins' patroness, Lady Catherine
de Bourgh, had urged him to marry, and he, always obsequiously
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obedient to her wishes, hastened to comply. Thinking to alleviate the
hardship caused the Bennet sisters by the entail which gave their
father's property to him, Mr. Collins first proposed to Elizabeth.
Much to her mother's displeasure and her father's joy, she firmly and
promptly rejected him. He almost immediately transferred his
affections to Elizabeth's best friend, Charlotte Lucas, who, twentyseven years old and somewhat homely, accepted at once his offer of
marriage.
During Mr. Collins' visit and on one of their many walks to
Meryton, the younger Bennet sisters, Kitty and Lydia, met a
fascinating new officer, Mr. Wickham, stationed with the regiment
there. Outwardly charming, he became a favorite among the ladies,
even with Elizabeth. She was willing to believe the story that he had
been cheated out of an inheritance left to him by his godfather,
Darcy's father. Her suspicions of Darcy's arrogant and grasping
nature deepened when Wickham did not come to a ball given by the
Bingleys, a dance at which Darcy was present.
Soon after the ball, the entire Bingley party suddenly left
Netherfield Park. They departed with no intention of returning, as
Caroline wrote Jane in a short farewell note which hinted that
Bingley might soon become engaged to Darcy's sister. Jane accepted
this news at face value and believed that her friend Caroline was
telling her gently that her brother loved someone else and that she
must cease to hope. Elizabeth, however, was sure of a plot by Darcy
and Bingley's sisters to separate him and Jane. She persuaded Jane
that Bingley did love her and that he would return to Hertfordshire
before the winter was over. Jane almost believed her until she
received a letter from Caroline assuring her that they were all settled
in London for the winter. Even after Jane told her this news,
Elizabeth remained convinced of Bingley's affection for her sister
and deplored the lack of resolution that made him putty in the hands
of his scheming friend.
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About that time, Mrs. Bennet's sister, Mrs. Gardiner, an
amiable and intelligent woman with a great deal of affection for her
two oldest nieces, arrived for a Christmas visit. She suggested to the
Bennets that Jane return to London with her for a rest and change of
scene and—so it was understood between Mrs. Gardiner and
Elizabeth—to renew her acquaintance with Bingley. Elizabeth was
not hopeful for the success of the plan and pointed out that proud
Darcy would never let his friend call on Jane in the unfashionable
London street on which the Gardiners lived. Jane accepted the
invitation, however, and she and Mrs. Gardiner set out for London.
The time drew near for the wedding of Elizabeth's friend,
Charlotte Lucas, to the obnoxious Mr. Collins. Charlotte asked
Elizabeth to visit her in Kent. In spite of her feeling that there could
be little pleasure in such a visit, Elizabeth promised to do so. She felt
that in taking such a husband Charlotte was marrying simply for the
sake of an establishment, as was indeed the case. Since she herself
could not sympathize with her friend's action, Elizabeth thought their
days of real intimacy were over. As March approached, however, she
found herself eager to see her friend, and she sent out with pleasure
on the journey with Charlotte's father and sister. On their way, the
party stopped in London to see the Gardiners and Jane. Elizabeth
found her sister well and outwardly happy, although she had not seen
Bingley and his sisters had paid only one call. Elizabeth was sure
Bingley had not been told of Jane's presence in London and blamed
Darcy for keeping it from him.
Soon after arriving at the Collins' home, the whole party was
honored, as Mr. Collins repeatedly assured them, by a dinner
invitation from Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Darcy's aunt and Mr.
Collins' patroness. Elizabeth found Lady Catherine a haughty, illmannered woman and her daughter thin, sickly, and shy. Lady
Catherine was extremely fond of inquiring into the affairs of others
and giving them unasked advice. Elizabeth circumvented the
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meddling old woman's questions with cool indirectness and saw from
the effect that she was probably the first who had dared to do so.
Soon after Elizabeth's arrival, Darcy came to visit his aunt and
cousin. He called frequently at the parsonage, and he and Elizabeth
resumed their conversational fencing matches. His rather stilted
attentions were suddenly climaxed by a proposal of marriage; the
proposal, however, was couched in such proud and condescending
terms that Elizabeth indignantly refused him. When he requested her
reason for such an emphatic rejection, she mentioned his part in
separating Bingley and Jane and also his mistreatment of Wickham.
He was angry and left abruptly; the next day, however, he brought a
letter answering her charges. He did not deny his part in separating
Jane and Bingley, but he gave as his reasons the improprieties of
Mrs. Bennet and her younger daughters and also his sincere belief
that Jane did not love Bingley. As for his alleged mistreatment of
Wickham, he proved that he had in reality acted most generously
toward the unprincipled Wickham, who had repaid his kindness by
attempting to elope with Darcy's young sister. At first incensed at the
proud tones in which he wrote, Elizabeth was at length forced to
acknowledge the justice of all he said, and her prejudice against him
began to weaken. Without seeing him again, she returned home.
She found her younger sisters clamoring to go to Brighton,
where the regiment formerly stationed at Meryton had been ordered.
When an invitation came to Lydia from a young officer's wife, Lydia
was allowed to accept it over Elizabeth's protests. Elizabeth was
asked by the Gardiners to go with them on a tour, which would take
them into Derbyshire, Darcy's home county. She accepted, reasoning
that she was not very likely to meet Darcy merely by going into the
same county with him. While they were there, however, Mrs.
Gardiner decided they should visit Pemberly, Darcy's home.
Elizabeth made several excuses, but her aunt was insistent. Then,
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learning that the Darcy family was not at home, Elizabeth consented
to go.
At Pemberly, an unexpected and embarrassing meeting took
place between Elizabeth and Darcy. He was more polite than
Elizabeth had ever known him to be, and he asked permission for his
sister to call upon her. The call was duly paid and returned, but the
pleasant intercourse between the Darcys and Elizabeth's party was
suddenly cut short when a letter came from Jane telling Elizabeth that
Lydia had run away with Wickham. Elizabeth told Darcy what had
happened, and she and the Gardiners left for home at once. After
several days, the runaway couple was located and a marriage
arranged between them. When Lydia came home as heedless as ever,
she told Elizabeth that Darcy had attended her wedding. Suspecting
the truth, Elizabeth learned from Mrs. Gardiner that it was indeed
Darcy who brought about the marriage by giving Wickham money.
Soon after Lydia and Wickham left, Bingley came back to
Netherfield Park. Darcy came with him. Elizabeth, now more
favorably inclined to him than ever before, hoped his coming meant
that he still loved her, but he gave no sign. Bingley and Jane, on the
other hand, were still obviously in love with each other, and they
became engaged, to the great satisfaction of Mrs. Bennet. Soon
afterward, Lady Catherine paid the Bennets an unexpected call. She
had heard it rumored that Darcy was engaged to Elizabeth. Hoping to
marry her own daughter to Darcy, she had charged down the stairs
with characteristic bad manners to order Elizabeth not to accept his
proposal. The spirited girl was not to be intimidated by the bullying
Lady Catherine and coolly refused to promise not to marry Darcy.
She was far from certain she would have another chance, but she had
not long to wonder. Lady Catherine, unluckily for her own purpose,
repeated to Darcy the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth,
and he knew Elizabeth well enough to surmise that her feelings
toward him had greatly changed. He returned to Netherfield Park,
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and he and Elizabeth became engaged. Pride had been humbled and
prejudice dissolved.
Major Themes
In a broad sense, Pride and Prejudice concerns the various
cultural pressures inherent in genteel British society in the lateeighteenth century. Austen explored a number of crucial dualities in
the work. In the abstract, these dualities are reflected in the tensions
that arise between intellect and action, solitude and community, and
appearance and reality. At the novel's core, however, the principal
dichotomy runs along gender lines; men have power and freedom
while women are inevitably dependent on men for security and
happiness. Symbolically, the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet offers
an extreme example of the potentially devastating imbalance caused
by this schism. Mr. Bennet's independence and complacency
ultimately render him emotionally vacant, unwilling or unable to
participate in the lives of his own daughters, while Mrs. Bennet's
single-minded obsession with her daughters' marriages and financial
security leaves her incapable of comprehending the deeper, more
fulfilling aspects of human happiness. Elizabeth and Darcy are also at
opposite poles, particularly in the beginning of the novel. One of the
divides that separates them is the discrepancy in their social and
financial circumstances; Darcy's wealth and prominence elevate him
a considerable distance above Elizabeth's more modest status. In the
realm of appearances, the difference between their class situations is
significant. As Austen reveals the true depth and complexity of their
characters, however, these distinctions gradually become irrelevant.
When Elizabeth and Darcy fall in love, the boundaries of their
incompatibility begin to blur; what emerges in its place is a sense of
the complementary nature of their personalities. In the end they are
able to overcome their differences through the union of marriage,
which enables them to bring together their respective strengths.
For modern feminist scholars, Pride and Prejudice highlights
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the limited roles and rights of women in eighteenth-century English
society. One of the novel's key plot points revolves around the
question of entailment, a legal statute that prioritized the inheritance
rights of men over those of women, even in cases in which there was
no immediate male heir. The inequities of this law are made evident
throughout Pride and Prejudice, particularly in the desperation with
which Mrs. Bennet and her younger daughters approach the prospect
of marriage. In this respect the fundamental injustice of the
entailment laws sheds new light on the relentless plotting of Mrs.
Bennet, whose sense of urgency concerning her daughters' futures is
arguably driven more by economic anxiety than class ambition.
More Themes
Pride and Prejudice: As its title suggests, this novel is structured
around the twin concepts of "pride" and "prejudice." However,
instead of remaining discrete, "pride" and "prejudice" go through
various mutations in the novel, and are shown to be the defining
aspects of almost all of the major characters at different times. The
concepts are even invoked when absent: for example, though Jane
Bennet may be said to be the one character without either pride or
prejudice, her almost ceaseless faith in the inherent goodness of
human nature is shown to be a kind of willful ignorance - a
prejudice of sorts.
Love and Marriage: As the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice
suggests, Austen's novel is above all concerned with marriage and
"marriageability." Beneath the humor is a serious social critique of
the condition of women during her time. As the feminist critic
Jane Miller has pointed out, women's "boredom is one of Jane
Austen's most potent themes." Miller warns us that, though the
narrative engines of the novels often present marriage as an
alternative to that boredom, to read Austen and her inevitable
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happy endings optimistically is to "willfully [ . . . ] skate over the
sense she gives of the constraints on women, the ignominies
involved in any decision they make."
Personal and Political Space: For a writer whose self-reference was
that of a "miniaturist," it is not surprising that images of limited
and gendered spaces, and of boundary and enclosure, proliferate in
her novels. The entering of rooms, the crossing of garden gates, or
the pastime of going on walks are always acts of ontology, not
merely sites of events that demarcate the novel's plot. Repeatedly
Pride and Prejudice demonstrates the spatially determined social
roles allowed its characters, as well as pointing out that any
transgressions of this spatial system imply both the rebuke of the
dominant culture and the potential for growth.
Style
Much has been written about Jane Austen's carefully
constructed sentences: how in a few swift strokes she could establish
character, theme, or context. Take, for example, the famous opening
of Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a
single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a
wife"; this sentence immediately establishes the central concerns of
the work. It also demonstrates Austen's use of irony: there is an
understated distance in the line that evokes the narrator's humanity
and a recognition of human fallibility.
Austen described her work as being akin to miniature
paintings done on small bits of ivory, an art form that was in vogue
during her lifetime. She prided herself on knowing to the smallest
detail the little corner of the world she chose to frame in her
narrative. But as critics Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar have pointed
out, this reference to the miniature is not necessarily the familiarly
self-deprecating move of a woman writer of the time but is in fact
unsettling in that it reminds "us of the risk and instability outside the
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fictional space." In other words, Austen's work is a metaphor for her
interest in the subdivision of social space and the gender and class
boundaries that such subdivision implies.
Critical Evaluation
In 1813, her thirty-eighth year, Jane Austen became a
published novelist for the second time with Pride and Prejudice. She
had begun this work in 1796, her twenty-first year, calling it First
Impressions. It had so delighted her family that her father had tried,
without success, to have it published. Eventually putting it aside, she
returned to it probably at about the time that her first published novel,
Sense and Sensibility, appeared in 1811. No longer extant, First
Impressions must have been radically altered; for Pride and
Prejudice is not an apprenticeship novel, but a mature work, and it
continues to be the author's most popular novel, perhaps because
readers share Darcy's admiration for the "liveliness" of Elizabeth
Bennet's mind.
The original title, First Impressions, focuses upon the initial
errors of judgment from which the story develops, whereas the title
Pride and Prejudice, besides suggesting the kind of antithetical topic
that delighted rationalistic eighteenth century readers, indicates the
central conflict involving the kinds of pride and prejudice that bar the
marriages of Elizabeth Bennet and Darcy and Jane Bennet and
Bingley but bring about the marriages of Charlotte Lucas and Collins
and Lydia Bennet and Wickham.
As in all of Austen's novels, individual conflicts are defined
and resolved within a rigidly delimiting social context, in which
human relationships are determined by wealth and rank. Therefore,
the much-admired opening sentence establishes the societal values
that underlie the main conflict: "It is a truth universally
acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune,
must be in want of a wife." Mr. and Mrs. Bennet's opening dialogue
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concerning the eligible Bingley explores this truth. Devoid of
individuality, Mrs. Bennet is nevertheless well attuned to society's
edicts and therefore regards Bingley only in the light of society's
"truth." Mr. Bennet, an individualist to the point of eccentricity,
represents neither personal conviction nor social conviction. He
views with equal indifference both Bingley's right to his own reason
for settling there and society's right to see him primarily as a
potential husband. Having repudiated society, Mr. Bennet cannot
take seriously either the claims of the individual or the social order.
As the central character, Elizabeth, her father's favorite child
and her mother's least favorite, must come to terms with the
conflicting values implicit in her parents' antithetical characters. She
is like her father in her scorn of society's conventional judgments, but
she champions the concept of individual merit independent of money
and rank. She is, indeed, prejudiced against the prejudices of society.
From this premise, she attacks Darcy's pride, assuming that it derives
from the causes that Charlotte Lucas identifies: "with family, fortune,
every thing in his favour . . . he has a right to be proud."
Flaunting her contempt for money, Elizabeth indignantly
spurns as mere strategy to get a rich husband or any husband
Charlotte's advice that Jane ought to make a calculated play for
Bingley's affections. She loftily argues, while under the spell of
Wickham's charm, that young people who are truly in love are
unconcerned about each other's financial standing.
As a champion of the individual, Elizabeth prides herself on
her discriminating judgment, boasting that she is a student of
character. Significantly, it is Darcy who warns her against prejudiced
conclusions, reminding her that her experience is quite limited. Darcy
is not simply the representative of a society that primarily values
wealth and consequence—as Elizabeth initially views him—but he is
also a citizen of a larger society than the village to which Elizabeth is
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confined by circumstance. Consequently, it is only when she begins
to move into Darcy's world that she can judge with true
discrimination both individual merit and the dictates of the society
that she has rejected. Fundamentally honest, she revises her
conclusions as new experiences warrant, in the case of Darcy and
Wickham radically altering her opinion.
More significant than the obviously ironic reversals, however,
is the growing revelation of Elizabeth's unconscious commitment to
society. For example, her original condemnation of Darcy's pride
coincides with the verdict of Meryton society. Moreover, she always
shares society's regard for wealth. Even while denying the
importance of Wickham's poverty, she countenances his pursuit of
the ugly Miss King's fortune, discerning her own inconsistency only
after she learns of his bad character. Most revealing, when Lydia
Bennet runs off with Wickham, Elizabeth instinctively pronounces
the judgment of society when she states that Wickham would never
marry a woman without money.
Almost unconsciously, Elizabeth acknowledges a connection
between wealth and human values at the crucial moment when she
first looks upon Pemberley, the Darcy estate:
She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or
where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an
awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their
admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of
Pemberley might be something!
She is not entirely joking when she tells Jane that her love for Darcy
began when she first saw his beautiful estate.
Elizabeth's experiences, especially her discoveries of the wellordered Pemberley and Darcy's tactful generosity to Lydia and
Wickham, lead her to differentiate between Charlotte's theory that
family and fortune bestow a "right to be proud" and Darcy's position
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that the intelligent person does not indulge in false pride. Darcy's
pride is real, but it is regulated by responsibility. Unlike his aunt,
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who relishes the distinction of rank, he
disapproves less of the Bennets' undistinguished family and fortune
than he does of the lack of propriety displayed by most of the family.
Therefore, Elizabeth scarcely overstates her case when, at the end,
she assures her father that Darcy has no improper pride.
Elizabeth begins by rejecting the values and restraints of
society as represented by such people as her mother, the Lucases,
Miss Bingley, and Lady Catherine, upholding instead the claims of
the individual, represented only by her whimsical father. By the end
of the novel, the heart of her conflict appears in the contrast between
her father and Darcy. She loves her father and has tried to overlook
his lack of decorum in conjugal matters, but she has been forced to
see that his freedom is really irresponsibility, the essential cause of
Jane's misery as well as Lydia's amorality. The implicit comparison
between Mr. Bennet's and Darcy's approach to matrimony illustrates
their different methods of dealing with society's restraints.
Unrestrained by society, having been captivated by the inferior Mrs.
Bennet's youth and beauty, Mr. Bennet consulted only his personal
desires and made a disastrous marriage. Darcy, in contrast, defies
society only when he has made certain that Elizabeth is a woman
worthy of his love and lifetime devotion.
When Elizabeth confronts Lady Catherine, her words are
declarative, not of absolute defiance of society but of the selective
freedom which is her compromise, and very similar to Darcy's: "I am
only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion,
constitute my happiness, without reverence to you, or to any person
so wholly unconnected with me." Austen does not falsify the
compromise. If Elizabeth dares with impunity to defy the society of
Rosings, Longbourne, and Meryton, she does so only because Darcy
is exactly the man for her and, further, because she can anticipate
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"with delight ... the time when they should be removed from society
so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance ... at
Pemberly." In a sense, her marriage to Darcy is a triumph of the
individual over society; but, paradoxically, Elizabeth achieves her
most genuine conquest of pride and prejudice only after she has
accepted the full social value of her judgment that "to be mistress of
Pemberley might be something!"
Granting the full force of the snobbery, the exploitation, the
inhumanity of all the evils which diminish the human spirit and
which are inherent in a materialistic society, the novel clearly
confirms the cynical "truth" of the opening sentence. Nevertheless, at
the same time, without evading the degree of Elizabeth's capitulation
to society, it affirms the vitality, the independent life that is possible
at least to an Elizabeth Bennet. Pride and Prejudice, like its title,
offers deceptively simple antitheses that yield up the complexity of
life itself.
Principal Characters
Elizabeth Bennet, a spirited and intelligent girl who represents
"prejudice" in her attitude toward Fitzwilliam Darcy, whom she
dislikes because of his pride. She is also prejudiced against him by
Mr. Wickham, whose false reports of Darcy she believes, and
hence rejects Darcy's haughty first proposal of marriage. But
Wickham's elopement with her sister Lydia brings Elizabeth and
Darcy together, for it is Darcy who facilitates the legal marriage of
the runaways. Acknowledging her mistake in her estimation of
Darcy, she gladly accepts his second proposal.
Fitzwilliam Darcy, the wealthy and aristocratic landowner who
represents "pride" in the story. Attracted to Elizabeth Bennet in
spite of her inferior social position, he proposes marriage but in so
high-handed a manner that she instantly refuses. The two meet
again while Elizabeth is viewing the grounds of his estate in
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Derbyshire; she finds him less haughty in his manner. When Lydia
Bennet and Mr. Wickham elope, Darcy feels partly responsible
and straightens out the unfortunate affair. Because Elizabeth now
realizes his true character, he is accepted when he proposes again.
Jane Bennet, the oldest and most beautiful of the five Bennet sisters.
She falls in love with Mr. Bingley, a wealthy bachelor. Their
romance is frustrated, however, by his sisters with the help of Mr.
Darcy, for the Bennets are considered socially undesirable. As a
result of the change in the feelings of Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet
toward each other, Jane and Bingley are finally married.
Mr. Bingley, a rich, good-natured bachelor from the north of
England. He falls in love with Jane Bennet but is easily turned
against her by his sisters and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who consider
the Bennets vulgar and socially beneath them. When Darcy
changes his attitude toward Elizabeth Bennet, Bingley follows suit
and resumes his courtship of Jane. They are married at the end of
the story.
Mr. Bennet, an eccentric and mildly sarcastic small landowner.
Rather indifferent to the rest of his family, he loves and admires
his daughter Elizabeth.
Mrs. Bennet, his wife, a silly, brainless woman interested only in
getting her daughters married.
Lydia Bennet, the youngest daughter, a flighty and uncontrolled girl.
At the age of fifteen she elopes with the worthless Mr. Wickham.
Their marriage is finally made possible by Mr. Darcy, who pays
Wickham's debts, but the two are never very happy.
Mary Bennet and Catherine (Kitty) Bennet, younger daughters of the
family.
Mr. Wickham, the villain of the story, an officer in the militia. He has
been brought up by the Darcy family and, having a certain charm,
attracts Elizabeth Bennet, whom he prejudices against Mr. Darcy
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by misrepresenting the latter's treatment of him. Quite
unexpectedly, he elopes with fifteen-year-old, flirtatious Lydia
Bennet. Darcy, who has tried to expose Wickham to Elizabeth,
feels responsible for the elopement and provides the money for the
marriage by paying Wickham's debts. Wickham and Lydia soon
tire of each other.
William Collins, a pompous, sycophantic clergyman, distantly related
to Mr. Bennet and the heir to his estate, since the Bennets have no
son. He proposed to Elizabeth. After her refusal he marries her
friend, Charlotte Lucas.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's aunt and the patron of Mr.
Collins. An insufferably haughty and domineering woman, she
wants Darcy to marry her only daughter and bitterly resents his
interest in Elizabeth Bennet. She tries to break up their love affair
but fails.
Anne de Bourgh, Lady Catherine's spiritless daughter. Her mother
has planned to marry her to Mr. Darcy in order to combine two
great family fortunes.
Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth Bennet's closest friend. Knowing that she
will have few chances of marriage, she accepts the pompous and
boring Mr. Collins shortly after Elizabeth has refused him.
Caroline Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, Mr. Bingley's cold and worldly
sisters. They succeed for a time in turning him against Jane
Bennet.
Mr. Gardiner, Mrs. Bennet's brother, a London merchant.
Mrs. Gardiner, his sensible and kind wife.
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SECTION TWO
OLIVER TWIST BY CHARLES DICKENS (1841)
Author: British Novelist (1812-1870)
Type of Plot: Sensation Novel
Introduction
Most scholars acknowledge that Oliver Twist (1838) is one of
Charles Dickens's most famous and widely read novels. Originally
serialized in Bentley's Miscellany between February 1837 and April
1839, the work revolves around the character of Oliver, an orphan
boy who survives poverty, homelessness, and the exploitations of an
abusive London criminal to finally find happiness with an adopted
family. In chronicling Oliver's struggles prior to securing a stable,
nurturing environment, Dickens created a grim portrait of urban
London during the 1830s, a period in history notorious for its
rampant poverty and crime. In this respect the novel is an important
social document and represents one of the most in-depth and honest
explorations of modern morality in Dickens's entire body of work.
Oliver Twist also reveals Dickens as a master storyteller capable of
devising the most ingenious plot twists in order to propel the novel
forward. As one of Dickens's first major works, Oliver Twist offers
an early glimpse into the author's unique gift for creating memorable
characters; even the novel's minor characters, among them the Artful
Dodger, Bill Sikes, Mr. Bumble, and Fagin, have assumed a
permanent place in English literature. In the opinions of many
modern critics, Oliver Twist is more sensational than serious, and the
various improbabilities in the novel's plot have led some to conclude
that the work represents an immature effort of a future great author.
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In spite of these criticisms, however, Oliver Twist remains one of
Dickens's most popular works. Indeed, over the years the novel has
been adapted into numerous plays, musicals, television programs,
and films, most famously the motion picture musical Oliver! (1968),
which won the Academy Award for best picture.
The Story
The novel opens in an English workhouse at the hour of
Oliver Twist's birth. His destitute mother dies shortly thereafter,
leaving the infant Oliver in the charge of Mrs. Mann, a cruel old
woman who manages a small orphanage. Although Mrs. Mann
receives money from the local parish, she spends very little of it on
the orphans, and from an early age Oliver suffers extreme hunger and
deprivation. Dickens describes these wretched circumstances within
the context of the New Poor Law, an 1834 edict that required poor
people to live in workhouses, where they could perform jobs in
exchange for public assistance. As the novel's early pages make
clear, however, the English workhouses were dismal, distressing
places: families were split apart, living conditions were unsanitary,
and food rations were barely sufficient for survival. Indeed, Dickens
wryly observes in Chapter Two of the novel that the workhouses
presented people living in poverty with the choice "of being starved
by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it."
When Oliver attains the age of nine, the parish beadle, Mr.
Bumble, forces him to move from the orphanage back to the
workhouse. Although Mr. Bumble continually proclaims his belief in
Christian values, he extends little sympathy to the children in the
workhouse, and Oliver's time there is miserable. One evening at
dinner, the older boys cajole Oliver into asking for more gruel. Mr.
Bumble is so offended by Oliver's request that he has the boy
whipped and thrown into a darkened room. Determined to get rid of
his unruly young ward, Mr. Bumble offers five pounds to any local
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tradesman who will take Oliver into his charge. A short time later
Oliver becomes an apprentice to the local undertaker, Mr.
Sowerberry. He moves into the Sowerberry home and begins
learning the trade. A quick student, Oliver soon begins to outperform
Sowerberry's long-time assistant Noah. In retaliation, the jealous
Noah insults Oliver's mother, provoking a furious attack from Oliver,
who is promptly beaten by Sowerberry and forced to spend the night
in the cellar. The next morning, Oliver sneaks out of the house and
runs away.
After his escape Oliver embarks on the seventy-mile journey
to London. On the outskirts of the city, he meets another young boy,
Jack Dawkins, who offers to introduce Oliver to a man who will give
him free shelter and food. Dawkins, whose nickname is the Artful
Dodger, leads Oliver to a ramshackle house in a blighted district of
London, where he meets a band of young thieves led by a man
named Fagin. Described by Dickens as an "old shriveled Jew," Fagin
embodies many of the anti-Semitic stereotypes commonly associated
with Jewish people in European culture; parsimonious, greedy, weak,
and dissembling, Fagin acts as the personification of evil in Oliver
Twist, a daunting figure who intimidates young boys into committing
crimes. The fearful and reticent Oliver soon finds himself pressed
into Fagin's service, trained to pick pockets and perform other petty
robberies.
It is only during his first pickpocketing mission, however, that
Oliver finally comprehends the nature of Fagin's business. After
witnessing the Artful Dodger steal a gentleman's handkerchief,
Oliver attempts to run away. Mistaking Oliver for the thief, the
gentleman cries out for help, and the police arrest the young orphan.
The gentleman, who is named Mr. Brownlow, believes he recognizes
something familiar in Oliver's face, although he cannot tell what it is;
feeling pity for the young boy, he asks that the police drop their
charges against him. After a witness testifies that two other boys
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committed the crime, Oliver is released into Brownlow's care. Oliver
succumbs to a high fever and spends the next several days in bed,
cared for by Brownlow's kind-hearted housekeeper, Mrs. Bedwin.
During his recovery, Oliver notices a portrait of a young woman
hanging on the wall; the painting moves him deeply, although he
does not understand why.
Oliver's reversal of fortune proves to be short-lived; after
discovering that Oliver has disappeared, Fagin dispatches one of his
most ruthless gang members, Bill Sikes, to find him. Accompanied
by his girlfriend, Nancy, Sikes tracks Oliver down and kidnaps him.
Fagin immediately locks Oliver in the house alone, refusing to allow
him to have any contact with the other criminals. Finally, after
several days, Fagin orders Oliver to join Sikes on a house burglary.
Oliver attempts to run up the stairs to warn the residents of the house
but in the process is shot and wounded by a servant. Sikes flees,
leaving Oliver to be discovered by the home's elderly owner, the
generous Mrs. Maylie. Mrs. Maylie and her niece, Rose, welcome
Oliver into their home; he soon becomes a member of their family
and spends the following summer at their country house.
Intent on finding Oliver, Fagin conspires with a sadistic young
man named Monks to recapture him. After the Maylies and Oliver
return to London, Rose receives a secret visit from Nancy, who
reveals Fagin's scheme to her. Upon discovering Nancy's betrayal,
Sikes murders her and flees the city. Sikes dies during his escape,
however, after accidentally hanging himself while eluding a vengeful
mob. Meanwhile, with the help of Mrs. Maylie, Oliver reunites with
Mr. Brownlow, who has become intent on discovering Oliver's
family origins. In the course of his investigations, Mr. Brownlow
discovers that Monks is actually Oliver's half-brother and is plotting
to rob Oliver of his inheritance. He also learns that Oliver's mother,
Agnes Fleming, had an affair with Oliver's father, a wealthy married
man named Mr. Leeford; however, Agnes's shame over the affair led
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her to leave home and seek shelter in a workhouse. Rose Maylie, in
the meantime, turns out to be Agnes's younger sister. Mr. Brownlow
also discovers that, at the time of his death, Leeford left his fortune to
Oliver and Monks, his son from his unhappy marriage. After
compelling Monks to sign over his own share of the inheritance, Mr.
Brownlow adopts Oliver, and they move to the countryside to live
with Mrs. Maylie and Rose. Fagin, meanwhile, is arrested for his
crimes and hanged in a London prison.
Major Themes
At its core, Oliver Twist is concerned with the dichotomy
between good and evil in modern society. As a way of illustrating
this fundamental struggle, the novel creates a series of striking
contrasts: between homelessness and home, hunger and satiety,
isolation and family, fear and security. In the course of his struggle to
find a home, Oliver travels back and forth continually between
extreme states of chaos and stability; every time he reaches a position
of safety, which he does with both Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. Maylie,
he suffers a corresponding descent into the realm of uncertainty and
deprivation. In each instance, outside agents have a direct impact on
Oliver's fortunes. If not for the generosity and benevolence of Mr.
Brownlow and Mrs. Maylie, Oliver would have inevitably suffered
corporal punishment, imprisonment, and possibly death; conversely,
Fagin's ruthless pursuit of Oliver throughout the novel continually
drags him back into a state of impoverishment and fear. While these
exterior forces are clearly powerful, Oliver's unique moral purity also
plays a crucial role in determining his fate. Oliver's steadfast refusal
to tolerate the insults of Sowerberry's assistant Noah precipitates his
escape to London, and his selfless and courageous effort to warn the
Maylies during the botched burglary of their house ultimately secures
him a temporary freedom. Many critics, however, regard these
qualities of innate innocence and goodness in Oliver's character as
unrealistic, at least from the standpoint of plot; in their view the
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ruinous effects of poverty, corruption, and greed are far too powerful
for the individual to overcome alone. Ultimately, Dickens seems to
argue, the responsibility for ensuring the welfare of individuals falls
on society as a whole and is ultimately only secured through the
passage of just laws, rather than through an uneasy faith in the
inherent charity and goodness of human beings.
More Themes
Family: Dickens does not concentrate on the traditional family
structure. His characters form family units based on love, support,
and circumstance rather than blood. With this notion of family comes
loyalty. Dickens's disillusionment with the traditional family
structure suggests his resentment of his own childhood and the time
he spent working in the blacking factory.
Hunger: The idea of hunger at both extremes, starvation and
overindulgence, appears frequently. The theme of hunger intertwines
with the idea of hypocrisy, which also permeates the book. Food
signifies more than physical food, as it represents wealth, status, and
a sense of well-being. That neither a lack nor an abundance of food
guarantees emotional fulfillment or moral superiority suggests a
deeper nourishment for which the characters hunger.
Flawed Social Conventions: Critical of the social attitude toward the
poor, especially with the development of the Poor Law, Dickens
often mentions hypocrisy, not only related to religion but also to
common attitudes and practices. He uses his characters and their
opinions to satirize social attitudes and conventions. Dickens uses his
position as an author to create a mirror of society and its injustices,
creating awareness if not a change in social convention.
Good and Evil: Most of the characters are easily identified as either
good or evil, which reinforces the parable-like qualities of the novel.
The elements of good and evil are always at odds, a pattern evident
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in the struggles between certain characters (Oliver versus Fagin) and
the internal struggles of the characters (Nancy). By assigning
redeeming qualities to characters who otherwise may seem "evil,"
Dickens suggests that circumstances play a role in developing a
person's attitude and personality. The truly "good" people in the
novel, Oliver and Rose, seem idealized and even unreal because
suffering, doubt, and abuse do not mar their character. The fate of the
various characters at the end suggests that Dickens believes goodness
can overcome evil.
Critical Evaluation
Oliver Twist is notable for its emphasis on the struggle to
survive, its presentation of the poor and criminals as real people with
their own stories and sufferings, and its emphasis on money and the
hypocrisy it frequently breeds.
Both Oliver and the thieves are victims of the Poor Laws and
other social institutions that prevent or discourage them from
productive work. They all battle hunger, cold, and lack of decent
living conditions, and society seems bent on rubbing them out—even
Oliver's harmless and sweet friend Dick is viewed as a nuisance and
a danger by the authorities. As Dickens wrote, children in the "infant
farm" are often killed when they are "overlooked in turning up a
bedstead, or inadvertently scalded to death" during clothes washing.
When the workhouse board decides to get rid of Oliver so they won't
have to pay for his food and lodging anymore, they consider sending
him to sea, "the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to
death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his
brains out with an iron bar." This they regard as his rightful due, as
if, being a pauper, he is therefore a criminal in need of punishment.
He is almost apprenticed to Gamfield, a cruel chimney sweep who
takes pleasure in torturing small boys, with the board's approval, until
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at the last minute he is saved from this horrible fate by a kind
magistrate.
In addition, one of the board members, "the gentleman in the
white waistcoat," repeatedly remarks, "I know that boy will be
hung," as if he is already a criminal and the death penalty is his due.
This comment is particularly chilling because Oliver is depicted as a
kind, loving child who has done nothing wrong during his short life.
However, because of social attitudes toward the poor, he is
considered doomed or inherently evil, a born criminal.
Like a prisoner, Oliver is given very little food, is frequently
beaten, and is often confined in a small, dark room. Throughout the
novel, this imprisonment is repeated whenever Oliver offends
someone who has more power than he does. He is variously
imprisoned in a "coal cellar," a "dark and solitary room," "a little
room by himself," a "cell," "a stone cell . . . the ante-room to the coal
cellar," and the claustrophobic coffin workshop, as well as the dark,
filthy, and labyrinthine rooms of Fagin's criminal gang.
The criminals themselves are shown as living in "dens" like
those of animals: dirty "holes," houses boarded up and entered
through tiny openings, with dark passages; at times Dickens uses the
word "kennel" to describe these places and writes of the criminals as
if they are predatory animals who must hunt to survive.
Before Dickens's novels, few writers had presented criminal
life as physically, morally, and psychologically repellent, preferring
instead to glorify criminal characters as fascinating, glamorous, or
romantic outlaws, similar to Robin Hood; this tendency continues in
modern fiction, with murder mysteries, gangster movies, Mafia miniseries, and prison escape tales in which the criminals are heroes. In
Oliver Twist, Dickens shows the filth and degradation the thieves live
in and their utter lack of faithfulness to each other; with rare
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exceptions, they are all ready to spy on each other and turn each
other in if they can save themselves, make money, or gain new
alliances by doing so. As Fagin says, they are all "looking out for
Number One." This nerve-wracking, unstable, and dangerous world
was new to readers and accounted for the negative remarks of some
critics as well as the fascination of many readers, who were able to
see into a world that they had no direct experience of.
Dickens also showed the unglamorous end of some of the
thieves' careers: Fagin is hanged; Monks dies in prison overseas,
unmourned after a life of crime; and the Artful Dodger is arrested
and jailed for life. None of the thieves, in fact, remains active in
crime, as if Dickens did not want to show any of them achieving
"success" as criminals.
Dickens's motive in portraying the criminals as ordinary and
even pathetic people was to establish a sympathy between the reader
and these degraded specimens of humanity. He links the poverty and
suffering created by the Poor Laws with the growth of crime, saying
through the story that the rich, wealthy, and complacent people who
don't care about the sufferings of the poor are in fact creating a huge
underclass of criminals, who in turn prey on both rich and poor. By
seeing the criminals as human, readers will be awakened to their
sufferings and to the sufferings of the poor, instead of simply
thinking (as many people did, and still do) that what happens to the
poor is not their problem.
For example, until Rose Maylie meets and talks to Nancy, she
has no idea that women like Nancy exist. Perhaps she knows of the
existence of "bad women," but Nancy makes her see that some "bad
women" may actually be "good," or, more realistically, a mix of the
two—simply human, like herself. Once she realizes this, she is eager
to help Nancy, although Nancy insists it's too late. This lesson of
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human kindness and compassion is not learned by the servants of the
hotel where Rose is staying; they are bitterly rude to Nancy, seeing
her only as an instrument of evil because she is not a respectable or
wealthy woman.
Dickens frequently attacks the smugness and complacency of
people whose place in society is secure and who have no sympathy
for those who suffer. He mocks the parish board, Mr. Fang the
magistrate, Mr. Bumble, Mrs. Corney, and others, and in the case of
Mr. Bumble and Mrs. Corney, some of the worst offenders, he makes
sure to put them in the very position of the people they previously
abused and despised, as they end up in the very workhouse where
they once tormented others.
Dickens vigorously attacks the Poor Laws of 1834, showing
the resulting brutal treatment of the poor. The workhouse system was
designed to save money; by making the workhouses repellent places
of starvation and hard labor, the authorities intended to make hard
work outside the workhouse seem like a better choice and thus
prevent able-bodied people from becoming what in modern times are
called "welfare abusers." By lessening the number of people who
took public assistance, the authorities could save a great deal of
money. However, they went too far in their emphasis on money over
humaneness, as Dickens shows. He also has venomous words for
those in the system who see it as a form of "Christian charity," for as
he shows, it is not spiritually or religiously based at all. Those who
claim it is real "charity," as opposed to torment, are exposed as the
most wicked of hypocrites. As Dickens ironically writes:
[The system of starving the poor] was rather expensive at first,
in consequence of the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the
necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which
fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week
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or two's gruel. But the number of workhouse inmates got thin
as well as the paupers; and the board were in ecstasies.
When Oliver is born in the workhouse, he is regarded as yet another
mouth to feed on a sort of assembly line of poor children. This
dehumanization is shown by the way Mr. Bumble makes up names
for the children, in alphabetical order, so that Oliver is randomly
named "Twist" because he comes after a child whom Bumble named
"Swubble" and before one whom Bumble will name "Unwin."
Bumble has devised a whole list of these alphabetic names, which he
will apply to orphans in logical order. The babies are never seen as
human but as a procession of burdens, and they are discussed as
economic factors—how much money Mrs. Mann will get for him or
other orphans and how much she can keep for herself by not feeding
them. In addition, Oliver is considered to be such a financial liability
on the parish that they are willing to pay five pounds to anyone who
will take him away and teach him a trade—a job skill that will
prevent him from returning to the parish as a pauper in adult life.
The thieves, of course, are obsessed with getting money,
although bad at saving it. Later in the book, Oliver's entry into a
loving surrogate family is made even more idyllic by the fact that he
inherits a great deal of money. Dickens does not take the story far
enough to tell us what becomes of Oliver as an adult and if he spends
any of his considerable fortune to help the poor, but given his
character as presented in the novel, it would be safe to assume that he
would.
Principal Characters
Oliver Twist, the novel's title character occupies a well-established
position in the popular imagination as the quintessential innocent
waif: good-hearted, inherently moral, and victimized by a
heartless social system that ignores even his most basic needs.
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Many critics have noted that Oliver is a rather one-sided character
in his embodiment of good to the exclusion of any other qualities;
indeed, he is often cited as an example of Dickens's excessive
sentimentality. Nevertheless, he is widely acknowledged as a
genuinely appealing and moving figure. Oliver's orphaned status
reflects Dickens's habitual preoccupation with parentless children,
a concern that has been attributed to the psychologically scarring
circumstances of his own childhood: his father, John Dickens,
spent some time in debtor's prison and Dickens seems to have felt
during this period a sense of desolation and abandonment that
never left him. While Dickens's portrayal of Oliver's lonely,
frightful early years is almost universally praised, some scholars
have faulted his later development into a more conventional
Victorian hero who turns out to be not an authentic member of
London's underclass after all but a relatively wealthy young man
cheated of his inheritance. In any case, it is through the
unforgettable image of Oliver Twist—and particularly his
pathetic, terrified request for more gruel—that Dickens
condemned the inhumanity of a society whose Poor Laws,
legislation intended to alleviate the suffering of the poor, had
proved woefully inadequate.
Mr. Bumble is one of the most dominant and malignant figures in
Oliver's early childhood, who runs the work house that is the only
home the orphaned boy knows. Always appearing in a cocked hat
and carrying a cane, he is a vain bully who habitually mistreats
Oliver and his fellow unfortunates. His habit of naming orphans
according to a strict alphabetical system exemplifies his inability
to conceive of or treat them as human beings; thus he constitutes a
particularly impersonal and uncaring embodiment of authority. He
has come to symbolize the simultaneous officiousness and
inefficiency of the petty bureaucrat as well. That he and his wife,
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the sly and domineering woman who was formerly the work house
matron known as Mrs. Corney, end as paupers in the same work
house over which Bumble formerly tyrannized is satisfyingly
ironic.
Mr. Sowerberry: Undertaker who apprentices Oliver
Noah Claypole/Mr. Morris Bolter: "Charity boy" assistant to Mr.
Sowerberry; later becomes a member of Fagin's gang
John (Jack) Dawkins/the Artful Dodger: Member of Fagin's gang;
Fagin's protégé
Fagin: "The Jew;" leader of a gang of thieves
Nancy: Member of Fagin's gang; Sikes's mistress
Mr. Brownlow: Gentleman who takes Oliver in and eventually adopts
him
Bill Sikes: Violent drunk; associate of Fagin
Monks/Edward Leeford: One of Fagin's gang; Oliver's half-brother
Rose Maylie [Fleming]: Agnes Fleming's sister; Oliver's aunt; Mrs.
Maylie's surrogate niece (later daughter-in-law)
Sally Thingummy: Old pauper woman who witnesses Oliver's birth
Agnes Fleming: Oliver's mother
Mrs. Mann: Matron of the branch workhouse where Oliver spent the
first nine years of his life
Gentleman in the white waistcoat: Member of the board that
determined Oliver's fate; convinced that Oliver was unredeemable
Mr. Gamfield: Abusive chimney sweep who wants Oliver for an
apprentice
Mrs. Sowerberry: Mr. Sowerberry's wife; resents Oliver
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Charlotte/Mrs. Bolter: Sowerberrys' servant; Noah's girlfriend
Dick: Oliver's friend from the workhouse
Charley Bates, Bet, Tom Chitling: Members of Fagin's gang
Mr. Fang: Magistrate when Oliver is accused of stealing Mr.
Brownlow's wallet
Mrs. Bedwin: Mr. Brownlow's servant
Bull's-eye: Sikes's dog
Mr. Grimwig: Mr. Brownlow's friend
Barney: Waiter at the Three Cripples; associate of Fagin and Sikes
Toby Crackit: Thief associated with Sikes
Mr. Giles: Mrs. Maylie's butler
Brittles: Mrs. Maylie's servant
Mrs. Maylie: Rose's surrogate aunt; mother of Harry Maylie
Mr. Blathers: Officer investigating the attempted break-in at Mrs.
Maylie's house; Mr. Duff's partner
Mr. Duff: Officer investigating the attempted break-in at Mrs.
Maylie's house; Mr. Blathers's partner
Mr. Losberne: Physician who cared for Oliver while he was living
with Mrs. Maylie
Harry Maylie: Mrs. Maylie's son; later marries Rose
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SECTION THREE
MOBY-DICK BY HERMAN MELVILLE (1851)
Author: Herman Melville (1819-1891)
Type of Plot: Symbolic allegory
Introduction
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851) maintains an unrivalled
position in the history of the American novel. Scholars have debated
the work's meaning since its publication; indeed, no other work of
American fiction has elicited such a spectrum of diverse, ambivalent,
and contradictory interpretations as Melville's magnum opus. The
novel is remarkable for its multifaceted approach to its subject. At
once a traditional adventure novel, an essay on the whaling industry,
and a somber meditation on the nature of existence, Moby-Dick
demands to be considered from more than one perspective. In
addition, Melville's use of multiple literary styles, among them firstperson narration, satire, expository analysis, and blank verse, was
unprecedented in nineteenth-century American literature and lends
the novel its distinctly modern quality. Melville originally conceived
of the work as a straightforward whaling novel set in the South
Pacific and based on legends surrounding a white whale named
Mocha Dick. His approach to the novel's composition changed
dramatically in the summer of 1850, however, after he read Nathaniel
Hawthorne's story collection Mosses from an Old Manse. The dark
poetry and metaphysical complexity of Hawthorne's writing exerted a
profound effect on Melville, compelling him to undertake an
exhaustive overhaul of his novel, a process that lasted more than a
year and nearly left him bankrupt.
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In developing the metaphysical underpinnings of his novel,
Melville drew from a range of religious traditions, both mainstream
and esoteric, including Hinduism, Gnostic Christianity, and
Zoroastrianism. He also derived inspiration from a wealth of literary
influences, and the novel bears the imprint of Homer, Emerson, Mary
Shelley, Thomas De Quincy, and especially Shakespeare. The book
was finally published in England in October 1851 under the title The
Whale; the first American edition, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale,
appeared a month later. Although the work elicited some positive
reactions among contemporary critics, most early reviews expressed
scorn, bewilderment, or indifference, and the book was largely
neglected for decades after its publication. By the early twentieth
century, however, scholars had rediscovered Moby-Dick, and the
novel has held a central role in American literary studies ever since.
By almost all modern accounts, Moby-Dick is the great inscrutable
masterpiece of American literature, a tour-de-force unmatched in its
scope, profundity, and ambition.
The Story
Moby-Dick is a sprawling, digressive work, comprised of one
hundred thirty-five chapters, two prologues, and an epilogue. While
primarily a work of prose fiction, the novel employs a range of other
literary genres, including poetry, songs, dramatic monologues, a brief
play, quotations, and expository discussions of scientific and
historical aspects of whaling. The novel also utilizes multiple points
of view, ranging from the up-close first-person perspective of the
main narrator, Ishmael, to a third-person omniscient viewpoint to the
voice of the author himself, whose philosophical musings sound
regularly throughout the work. In spite of its expansive, seemingly
unruly quality, however, the book's numerous tangents are unified
around a relatively simple plot line, and the main story, concerning
Captain Ahab's pursuit of the white whale, Moby-Dick, unfolds in a
straightforward chronological manner.
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With the novel's first line, "Call me Ishmael," Melville
introduces one of the most enigmatic and protean narrators in
American literature. Ishmael is a representative nineteenth-century
American man, a restless, ungrounded individual who, with "nothing
particular" to compel him to remain on the mainland, decides to go to
sea.
Ishmael was a schoolmaster who often felt that he must leave
his quiet existence and go to sea. Much of his life had been spent as a
sailor, and his voyages were a means for ridding himself of the
restlessness which frequently seized him. One day, he decided that he
would sign on a whaling ship, and packing his carpetbag, he left
Manhattan and set out, bound for Cape Horn and the Pacific.
On his arrival in New Bedford, he went to the Spouter Inn
near the waterfront to spend the night. There he found he could have
a bed only if he consented to share it with a harpooner. His strange
bedfellow frightened him when he entered the room, for Ishmael was
certain that the stranger was a savage cannibal. After a few moments,
however, it became evident that the native, whose name was
Queequeg, was a friendly person, for he presented Ishmael with an
embalmed head and offered to share his fortune of thirty dollars. The
two men quickly became friends and decided to sign on the same
ship.
Eventually they signed on the Pequod, a whaler out of
Nantucket, Ishmael as a seaman, Queequeg as a harpooner. Although
several people seemed dubious about the success of a voyage on a
vessel such as the Pequod, which was reported to be under so strange
a man as Captain Ahab, neither Ishmael nor Queequeg had any
intention of giving up their plans. They were, however, curious to see
Captain Ahab.
For several days after the vessel had sailed, there was no sign
of the captain, as he remained hidden in his cabin. The running of the
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ship was left to Starbuck and Stubb, two of the mates, and though
Ishmael became friendly with them, he learned very little about
Ahab. One day, as the ship was sailing southward, the captain strode
out on deck. Ishmael was struck by his stern, relentless expression. In
particular, he noticed that the captain had lost a leg and that instead
of a wooden leg, he now wore one cut from the bone of the jaw of a
whale. A livid white scar ran down one side of his face and was lost
beneath his collar, so that it seemed as though he were scarred from
head to foot.
For several days, the ship continued south looking for the
whaling schools. The sailors began to take turns on masthead
watches to give the sign when a whale was sighted. Ahab appeared
on deck and summoned all his men around him. He pulled out an
ounce gold piece, nailed it to the mast, and declared that the first man
to sight the great white whale, known to the sailors as Moby Dick,
would have the gold. Everyone expressed enthusiasm for the quest
except Starbuck and Stubb, Starbuck especially deploring the
madness with which Ahab had directed all his energies to this one
end. He told the captain that he was like a man possessed, for the
white whale was a menace to those who would attempt to kill him.
Ahab had lost his leg in his last encounter with Moby Dick; he might
lose his life in the next meeting; but the captain would not listen to
the mate's warning. Liquor was brought out, and at the captain's
orders, the crew drank to the destruction of Moby Dick.
Ahab, from what he knew of the last reported sighting of the
whale, plotted a course for the ship that would bring it into the area
where Moby Dick was most likely to be. Near the Cape of Good
Hope, the ship came across a school of sperm whales, and the men
busied themselves harpooning, stripping, melting, and storing as
many as they were able to catch.
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When they encountered another whaling vessel at sea, Captain
Ahab asked for news about the white whale. The captain of the ship
warned him not to attempt to chase Moby Dick, but it was clear by
now that nothing could deflect Ahab from the course he had chosen.
Another vessel stopped them, and the captain of the ship
boarded the Pequod to buy some oil for his vessel. Captain Ahab
again demanded news of the whale, but the captain knew nothing of
the monster. As the captain was returning to his ship, he and his men
spotted a school of six whales and started after them in their
rowboats. While Starbuck and Stubb rallied their men into the
Pequod's boats, their rivals were already far ahead of them. The two
mates, however, urged their crew until they outstripped their rivals in
the race, and Queequeg harpooned the largest whale.
Killing the whale was only the beginning of a long and
arduous job. After the carcass was dragged to the side of the boat and
lashed to it by ropes, the men descended the side and slashed off the
blubber. Much of the body was usually eaten by sharks, who swarm
around it snapping at the flesh of the whale and at each other. The
head of the whale was removed and suspended several feet in the air,
above the deck of the ship. After the blubber was cleaned, it was
melted in tremendous try-pots and then stored in vats below deck.
The men were kept busy, but their excitement increased as
their ship neared the Indian Ocean and the probable sporting grounds
of the white whale. Before long, they crossed the path of an English
whaling vessel, and Captain Ahab again demanded news of Moby
Dick. In answer, the captain of the English ship held out his arm,
which from the elbow down consisted of sperm whalebone. Ahab
demanded that his boat be lowered at once, and he quickly boarded
the deck of the other ship. The captain told him of his encounter and
warned Captain Ahab that it was foolhardy to try to pursue Moby
Dick. When he told Ahab where he had seen the white whale last, the
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captain of the Pequod waited for no civilities but returned to his own
ship to order the course changed to carry him to Moby Dick's new
feeding ground.
Starbuck tried to reason with the mad captain, to persuade him
to give up this insane pursuit, but Ahab seized a rifle and in his fury
ordered the mate out of his cabin.
Meanwhile, Queequeg had fallen ill with a fever. When it
seemed almost certain he would die, he requested that the carpenter
make him a coffin in the shape of a canoe, according to the custom of
his tribe. The coffin was then placed in the cabin with the sick man,
but as yet there was no real need for it. Not long afterward Queequeg
recovered from his illness and rejoined his shipmates. He used his
coffin as a sea chest and carved many strange designs upon it.
The sailors had been puzzled by the appearance early in the
voyage of the Parsee, Fedallah. His relationship to the captain could
not be determined, but that he was highly regarded was evident.
Fedallah had prophesied that the captain would die only after he had
seen two strange hearses for carrying the dead upon the sea, one not
constructed by mortal hands and the other made of wood grown in
America. He also said that the captain himself would have neither
hearse nor coffin for his burial.
A terrible storm arose one night. Lightning struck the masts so
that all three flamed against the blackness of the night, and the men
were frightened by this omen. It seemed to them that the hand of God
was motioning them to turn from the course to which they had set
themselves and return to their homes. Only Captain Ahab was
undaunted by the sight. He planted himself at the foot of the mast and
challenged the god of evil which the fire symbolized for him. He
vowed once again his determination to find and kill the white whale.
A few days later, a cry rang through the ship. Moby Dick had
been spotted. The voice was Captain Ahab's, for none of the sailors,
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alert as they had been, had been able to sight him before their
captain. Then boats were lowered and the chase began, with Captain
Ahab's boat in the lead. As he was about to dash his harpoon into the
mountain of white, the whale suddenly turned on the boat, dived
under it, and split it into pieces. The men were thrown into the sea,
and for some time the churning of the whale prevented rescue. At
length, Ahab ordered the rescuers to ride into the whale and frighten
him away, so he and his men might be picked up. The rest of that day
was spent chasing the whale, but to no avail.
The second day, the men started out again. They caught up
with the whale and buried three harpoons in his white flanks, but he
so turned and churned that the lines became twisted, and the boats
were pulled every which way, with no control over their direction.
Two of them were splintered, and the men had to be hauled out of the
sea, but Ahab's boat had not as yet been touched. Suddenly, Ahab's
boat was lifted from the water and thrown high into the air. The
captain and the men were quickly picked up, but Fedallah was
nowhere to be found.
When the third day of the chase began, Moby Dick seemed
tired, and the Pequod's boats soon overtook him. bound to the whale's
back by the coils of rope from the harpoon poles, they saw the body
of Fedallah. The first part of his prophecy had been fulfilled. Moby
Dick, enraged by his pain, turned on the boats and splintered them.
On the Pequod, Starbuck watched and turned the ship toward the
whale in the hope of saving the captain and some of the crew. The
infuriated monster swam directly into the Pequod, shattering the
ship's timbers. Ahab, seeing the ship founder, cried out that the
Pequod—made of wood grown in America—was the second hearse
of Fedallah's prophecy. The third prophecy, Ahab's death by hemp,
was fulfilled when rope from Ahab's harpoon coiled around his neck
and snatched him from his boat. All except Ishmael perished. He was
rescued by a passing ship after clinging for hours to Queequeg's
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canoe coffin, which had bobbed to the surface as the Pequod sank.
The novel concludes with a brief epilogue in which Ishmael
describes his rescue by another whaling vessel.
Interwoven into the narrative of the Pequod's journey are
several chapters devoted to various technical aspects of whaling,
including an overview of the various species of whales, analyses of
whale physiology, descriptions of the commercial processes involved
with the whaling industry, and discussions of geography. Although
the style and content of these sections are not fictional, many
scholars regard them as an essential counterpoint—"ballast," in the
words of more than one commentator—to the poetry and symbolism
of the central narrative.
Major Themes
In the broadest sense, Moby-Dick explores questions of
humanity's relationship to nature, God, and the universe. At the core
of the novel's thematic layers is the Pequod's captain, Ahab. Some
scholars have seen Ahab's pursuit of the whale as an allegory for
humanity's pursuit of truth, whether religious, philosophical, or
psychological. A war takes place within the character of Ahab that
pits the reasoning power of the intellect against the irrational,
emotion-driven force of the will. Even while Ahab comprehends that
his quest is futile, he remains driven by his lust for revenge, that
"cruel, remorseless emperor" that rules his passions. The power of
his dark will insinuates itself into the entire crew; even Starbuck,
whose reasonable objections to the hunt for Moby-Dick go unheeded,
confesses that Ahab "drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason
out of me!" Indeed, the figure of Ahab, teeming with violent
contradictions, is emblematic of the novel's numerous ambiguities.
In contrast to the Pequod's violent, monomaniacal captain
stands the narrator, Ishmael, whose meditative, detached persona
provides a perspective well-suited to the novel's multilayered
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storytelling technique. Ishmael, no less than Ahab, fulfills a vital
symbolic role in the novel. Like his biblical antecedent, the outcast
son of Abraham, Ishmael has no home and therefore makes no claim
to a single interpretative model for the world around him. Through
Ishmael's relentless investigations into the purpose of the voyage, as
well as into the meaning of his own life, Melville gives voice to his
far-reaching ruminations on the nature of humanity's place in the
universe.
Ahab's antagonist, the whale, embodies an entirely separate
system of symbols with many levels of meaning. In one sense,
Moby-Dick represents nature, at the same time a provider of valuable
resources such as food, oil, and whalebone and a source of harsher
realities in the form of unpredictable, destructive behaviors. In a
more profound manner, the white whale embodies the mystical,
transcendent power of the universe itself. The whale exists below the
surface of the ocean, invisible to human eyes; in this way he remains
unknowable, "unaccountable to his pursuers." Ishmael describes him
as "not only ubiquitous, but immortal."
Paradoxically, with every new avenue of inquiry into MobyDick, coherence and underlying meaning become more elusive. A
number of scholars have contended that indefiniteness is, in fact, the
novel's central meaning. Ishmael reflects on this condition of
uncertainty late in the novel when he posits that "a careful
disorderliness is the true method." Although Ishmael is referring
specifically to the whaling industry, his sentiment can be interpreted
to represent the structure and movement of the novel, as well as
Melville's broader ideas concerning the nature of existence.
More Themes
Spiritual Isolation and the Modern World: This novel was written
when the Industrial Age was changing the face of the world and
opening man to existential anxiety. The novel begins with Ishmael's
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realization that all is not well with the contemporary world in which
he finds himself. Throughout the book there is an undercurrent of
criticism of the conventional world and of rigid Christianity, which
becomes evident throughout the relationship between Ishmael and
the cannibal, Queequeg. The Biblical names and connotations that
resound throughout the work also reinforce a sense of spiritual
isolation and the loss of a nearness to God and reality. This also
forms the central trajectory of the work and the symbolism of the
hunt for the white whale, Moby Dick. Ahab's search for the whale is
symbolic of a passion "that starts from the deepest loneliness that
man can know. It is the great cry of man who feels himself exiled
from his 'birthright, the merry May-day gods of old'." Ishmael,
narrator and central character, is also an exile. The Biblical meaning
of Ishmael refers to isolation from both mother and father. Ishmael
can be seen as modern man cut off from his relationship with the
world around him, both physical and spiritual sense. "What Melville
did through Ishmael, was to put man's distinctly modern feeling of
'exile,' of abandonment, directly at the center of the stage."
The Search for Meaning: The dominant theme in the novel is the
search for personal and spiritual meaning in the face of the enormity
and seeming vacuity of nature as it is represented in the symbols of
the ocean and the whale. Both Ahab and Ishmael are involved in a
quest for understanding and inner knowledge. The complexity of this
search is epitomized in Captain Ahab and his relentless, almost
demonic need to slay the white whale, Moby Dick. For Ahab, the
sea—and Moby Dick—represents eternity and the forces of fate that
control and determine men's lives. He rebels and defies these forces
and, in a heroic stance, demands an answer to why human life is so
brutal and meaningless. Ishmael, the narrator, also searches for the
wonder and mystery of life in his sea voyage. "He seeks the
marvelous and the fabulous aspects that life wears in secret." Behind
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the search of the Pequod lies the search for meaning and the need to
face the possibility that life may in fact be devoid of significance.
Symbolism—Nature, the Sea, and the Whale: These are three central
symbols that provide the background to the central thematic structure
of the book. Particularly important is the image of the void, or
emptiness, that the sea conjures, which is antithetical to human life.
The sea is a multidimensional symbol suggesting wonder and
mystery as well as terror and death. The whale provides the
mysterious center to the novel, and nature is depicted as both cruel
and alien, and harmonious and beautiful. The complex interweaving
of symbols also draws the novel together as a composite and
integrated whole.
The Limits of Rational Thought: Rational or logical thought is a
product of civilized society and has parameters or limits within
which it functions. Categories are essentially limited areas within
which thinking has isolated various aspects and qualities of the world
in order for rational thought to function adequately. However, when
events or objects, like the white whale and the sea, confound these
categories through experience, then we are faced with a philosophical
and existential dilemma in that many things do not "fit" into
prescribed categories. Much of this novel deals with events that are
outside rational thought and which pose a challenge to the logical
order of things. These include supernatural events and the very
mystery and ineffable quality of nature itself. Throughout the novel
the author reminds us of the limitations of human knowledge and the
expansiveness of the universe.
Cultural Relativity: With the demise of colonialism throughout the
world during the early-nineteenth century, the realization of the
legitimacy of different cultural views became a dominant theme in
various disciplines. The realization that the previously marginalized
cultural views of Africa or South America were just as valid and
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"true" as those of the dominant Euro-centric cultures became the
central thematic focus in postcolonial thought. In this novel the
dominant cultural norms are challenged by a critique of rigid
Western views and by the association of Ishmael with the cannibal,
Queequeg. Various other and different cultural views are explored
throughout the work.
Death and Regeneration: The theme of death and regeneration is
perennial to all literatures and forms the mythic and religious
foundation of most societies. Death is often seen as a precursor to
understanding or enlightenment and often implies a radical
psychological or metaphysical change from the past and regeneration
into a new way of life. The Biblical story of Jonah and the whale,
which is pertinent to this novel, is an example of the symbolic death
of Jonah in the bowels of the whale and his regeneration through
acceptance of God's will. This theme also implies a process of
learning and discovery, which can be seen in the character of
Ishmael.
Style
Moby Dick, or The White Whale, is a book that can be read on
a number of levels. It is both an adventure story and a chronicle
about whaling and the whaling industry. However, the novel also
explores the depths of the human psyche and cardinal philosophical
questions relating to the meaning of life, religion, and good and evil
as well as the tension between enlightened thought and the tenets of
eighteenth-century Calvinism.
Some critics claim that the work is "more of a poem than it is
a novel," and, indeed, the novel has many qualities usually found in
an epic poem. Chase claims that Melville draws "[. . .] many of the
traditional characteristics of an epic in order to realize the utterly
original kind of novel he needed to write at the time." The epic
elements included are a spaciousness of theme and subject, the
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martial atmosphere, associations of homely and mundane materials
with universal myths, and the symbolic wanderings of the hero.
Melville himself characterized the style of Moby Dick as
having the "'[b]old and nervous lofty language' that Nantucket
whaling captains learn straight from nature." Throughout the novel,
several narrative styles are present, and they seem to distinguish the
varied thematic content of the story. For example, in the sections
dealing with the details of whaling, the style is terse and descriptive,
while in other sections the style is flamboyant and dramatic, a quality
that accounts for the critics' reference to the work's poetic quality.
The structure of the novel is complex, with 135 chapters,
many of which overlap and are continuations of one another. For
purposes of analysis and convenience of study, the book has been
divided into five main sections. These sections all have distinct styles
relating to their content and should be seen as movements in the
overall harmonic structure of the work.
Critical Evaluation
Although his early adventure novels—Typee (1846), Omoo
(1847), Redburn (1849), and White Jacket (1850)—brought Herman
Melville a notable amount of popularity and financial success during
his lifetime, it was not until nearly fifty years after his death—in the
1920s and 1930s—that he received universal critical recognition as
one of the greatest nineteenth century American authors. Melville
took part in the first great period of American literature—the period
that included Poe, Emerson, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Thoreau. For
complexity, originality, psychological penetration, breadth, and
symbolic richness, Melville achieved his greatest artistic expression
with the book he wrote when he was thirty, Moby Dick: Or, The
Whale. Between the time of his birth in New York City and his
return there to research and write his masterpiece, Melville had
circled the globe of experience—working as a bank messenger,
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salesman, farmhand, schoolteacher (like his narrator, Ishmael),
engineer and surveyor, bowling alley attendant, cabin boy, and
whaleman in the Pacific on the Acushnet. His involvement in a
mutinous Pacific voyage, combined with J. N. Reynolds' accounts of
a notorious whale called "Mocha Dick" (in the Knickerbocker
Magazine, 1839), certainly influenced the creation of Moby Dick.
The intertangled themes of this mighty novel express the
artistic genius of a mind that, according to Hawthorne, "could neither
believe nor be comfortable in unbelief." Many of those themes are
characteristic of American Romanticism: the "isolated self" and the
pain of self-discovery, the insufficiency of conventional practical
knowledge in the face of the "power of blackness," the demonic
center of the world, the confrontation of evil and innocence, the
fundamental imperfection of man coupled with his Faustian heroism,
the search for the ultimate truth, and the inadequacy of human
perception. The conflict between faith and doubt was one of the
major issues of the century, and Moby Dick, as Eric Mottram points
out, is part of "a huge exploration of the historical and psychological
origins and development of self, society and the desire to create and
destroy gods and heroes." Moby Dick is, moreover, a work that
eludes classification, combining elements of the psychological and
picaresque novel; sea story and allegory; the epic of "literal and
metaphorical quest"; the satire of social and religious events; the
emotional intensity of the lyric genre, both in direction and metaphor;
Cervantian romance; Dantesque mysticism; Rabelaisian humor;
Shakespearean drama (both tragedy and comedy), complete with
stage directions; journalistic travel book; and scientific treatise on
cetology. Melville was inspired by Hawthorne's example to give his
story the unifying quality of a moral parable, although his own
particular genius refused to allow that parable an unequivocal, single
rendering. Both in style and theme, Melville was also influenced by
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Spenser, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Robert Burton, Sir Thomas
Browne, Thomas Carlyle, and vastly miscellaneous reading in the
New York Public Library (as witnessed by the two "Etymologies"
and the marvelous "Extracts" that precede the text itself, items from
the writer's notes and files that he could not bear to discard). It was
because they did not know how to respond to its complexities of
form and style that the book was "broiled in hell fire" by
contemporary readers and critics. Even today, the rich mixture of its
verbal texture—an almost euphuistic flamboyance balanced by dry,
analytical expository prose—requires a correspondingly receptive
range on the part of the reader.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the plot of the novel
is that Moby Dick does not appear physically until after five hundred
pages and is not even mentioned by name until nearly two hundred
pages into the novel. Yet whether it be the knowledge of reality, an
embodiment of the primitive forces of nature, the deep subconscious
energies of mankind, fate or destiny inevitably victorious over
illusory free will, or simply the unknown in experience, it is the
question of what Moby Dick stands for that tantalizes the reader
through the greater part of the novel. In many ways, the great white
whale may be compared to Spenser's "blatant beast" (who, in The
Faerie Queene, also represents the indeterminable elusive quarry, and
also escapes at the end to continue haunting the world).
It is not surprising that Moby Dick is often considered to be
"the American epic." The novel is replete with the elements
characteristic of that genre: the piling up of classical, biblical,
historical allusions to provide innumerable parallels and tangents that
have the effect of universalizing the scope of action; the narrator's
strong sense of the fatefulness of the events he recounts, and his
corresponding awareness of his own singular importance as the
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narrator of momentous, otherwise unrecorded, events; Queequeg as
Ishmael's "heroic companion"; the "folk" flavor provided by
countless proverbial statements; the leisurely pace of the narrative,
with its frequent digressions and parentheses; the epic confrontation
of life and death on a suitably grand stage (the sea), with its
consequences for the human city (the Pequod); the employment of
microcosms to explicate the whole (for example, the painting in the
Spouter Inn, the Nantucket pulpit, the crow's nest); epithetical
characterization; a cyclic notion of time and events; an epic race of
heroes, the Nantucket whalers with their biblical and exotic names;
the mystical power of objects like Ahab's chair, the doubloon, or the
Pequod itself; the alienated, sulking hero (Ahab); the use of lists to
enhance the impression of an all-inclusive compass. Finally, Moby
Dick shares the usually didactic purpose of the epic: on one level, its
purpose is to teach the reader about whales; on another level, it is to
inspire the reader to become, himself, a heroic whaleman.
All this richness of purpose and presentation is somehow
made enticing by Melville's masterly invention of his narrator.
Ishmael immediately establishes a comfortable rapport with the
reader in the unforgettable opening lines of the novel. He is both an
objective observer of and a participant in the events recounted, both
spectator and narrator. Yet he is much more than the conventional
wanderer/witness. As a schoolmaster and sometime voyager, he
combines book learning with firsthand experience, making him an
informed observer and a convincing, moving reporter. Simply by
surviving, he transcends the Byronic heroism of Ahab, as the
wholesome overcomes the sinister.
Principal Characters
Ishmael, a philosophical young schoolmaster and sometime sailor
who seeks the sea when he becomes restless, gloomy, and soured
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on the world. With a new found friend Queequeg, a harpooner
from the South Seas, he signs aboard the whaler Pequod as a
seaman. Queequeg is the only person on the ship to whom he is
emotionally and spiritually close, and this closeness is, after the
initial establishment of their friendship, implied rather than
described. Otherwise Ishmael does a seaman's work, observes and
listens to his shipmates, and keeps his own counsel. Having been
reared a Presbyterian (as was Melville), he reflects in much of his
thinking the Calvinism out of which Presbyterianism grew; but his
thought is also influenced by his knowledge of literature and
philosophy. He is a student of cetology. Regarding Ahab's pursuit
of Moby Dick, the legendary white whale, and the parts played by
himself and others involved, Ishmael dwells on such subjects as
free will, predestination, necessity, and damnation. After the
destruction of the Pequod by Moby Dick, Ishmael, the lone
survivor, clings to Queequeg's floating coffin for almost a day and
a night before being rescued by the crew of another whaling
vessel, the Rachel.
Queequeg, Starbuck's veteran harpooner, a tattooed cannibal from
Kokovoko, an uncharted South Seas island. Formerly a zealous
student of Christianity, he has become disillusioned after living
among so-called Christians and, having reverted to paganism, he
worships a little black idol, Yojo, that he keeps with him.
Although he appears at ease among his Christian shipmates, he
keeps himself at the same time apart from them, his only close
friend being Ishmael. In pursuit of whales he is skilled and
fearless. When he nearly dies of a fever he has the ship's carpenter
build him a canoe-shaped coffin which he tries out for size and
comfort; then, recovering, he saves it for future use. Ironically it is
this coffin on which Ishmael floats after the sinking of the Pequod
and the drowning of Queequeg.
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Captain Ahab, the proud, defiant, megalomaniacal captain of the
"Pequod." He is a grim, bitter, brooding, vengeful madman who
has only one goal in life: the killing of the white whale that had
deprived him of a leg in an earlier encounter. His most prominent
physical peculiarity is a livid scar that begins under the hair of his
head and, according to one crewman, extends the entire length of
his body. The scar symbolizes the spiritual flaw in the man
himself. His missing leg has been replaced by one of whalebone
for which a small hole has been bored in the deck. When he stands
erect looking out to sea, his face shows the indomitable willfulness
of his spirit, and to Ishmael he seems a crucifixion of a "regal
overbearing dignity of some mighty owe." Ahab is in complete,
strict command of his ship, though he permits Starbuck
occasionally to disagree with him. Ahab dies caught, like Fedallah
the Parsee in a fouled harpoon line that loops about his neck and
pulls him from a whaleboat.
Starbuck, the first mate, tall, thin, weathered, staid, steadfast,
conscientious, and superstitious, a symbol of "mere unaided virtue
or right-mindedness." He dares to criticize Ahab's desire for
vengeance, but he is as ineffectual as a seaman trying to halt a
storm. Ahab once takes his advice about repairing some leaking
oil casks; but when Starbuck, during a typhoon off Japan, suggests
turning home, Ahab scorns him. Starbuck even thinks of killing or
imprisoning Ahab while the captain is asleep, but he cannot.
Having failed to dissuade Ahab from the pursuing of Moby Dick,
Starbuck submits on the third day to Ahab's will, though feeling
that in obeying Ahab he is disobeying God. When he makes one
final effort to stop the doomed Ahab, the captain shouts to his
boatmen, "Lower away!"
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Stubb, the second mate, happy-go-lucky, indifferent to danger, good-
humored, easy; he is a constant pipe-smoker and a fatalist.
Flask (King-Post), the young third mate, short, stout, ruddy. He
relishes whaling and kills the monsters for the fun of it or as one
might get rid of giant rats. In his shipboard actions, Flask is
sometimes playful out of Ahab's sight but always abjectly
respectful in his presence.
Fedallah, Ahab's tall, diabolical, white-turbaned Parsee servant. He is
like the shadow of Ahab or the two are like opposite sides of a
single character and Ahab seems finally to become Fedallah,
though retaining his own appearance. The Parsee prophesies that
Ahab will have neither hearse nor coffin when he dies. Fedallah
dies caught in a fouled harpoon line which is wrapped around
Moby Dick.
Moby Dick, a giant albino sperm whale that has become a legend
among whalers. He has often been attacked and he has crippled or
destroyed many men and boats. He is both a real whale and a
symbol with many possible meanings. He may represent the
universal spirit of evil, God the indestructible, or indifferent
Nature; or perhaps he may encompass an ambiguity of meaning
adaptable to the individual reader. Whatever his meaning, he is
one of the most memorable nonhuman characters in all fiction.
Pip, the bright, jolly, genial little Negro cabin boy who, after falling
from a boat during a whale chase, is abandoned in midocean by
Stubb, who supposes that a following boat will pick him up. When
finally taken aboard the Pequod, he has become demented from
fright.
Tashtego, an American Indian, Stubb's harpooner. As the Pequod
sinks, he nails the flag still higher on the mast and drags a giant
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seabird, caught between the hammer and the mast, to a watery
grave.
Daggoo, a giant African, Flask's harpooner.
Father Mapple, a former whaler, now the minister at the Whaleman's
Chapel in New Bedford. He preaches a Calvinistic sermon on Job
filled with seafaring terms.
Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad, fighting, materialistic Quakers,
who are the principal owners of the Pequod.
Elijah, a madman who warns Ishmael and Queequeg against shipping
with Captain Ahab.
Dough-Boy, the pale, bread-faced, dull-witted steward who deathly
afraid of Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo does his best to satisfy
their enormous appetites.
Fleece, the ship's cook. At Stubb's request he preaches a sermon to
the voracious sharks and ends with a hope that their greed will kill
them. He is disgusted also by Stubb's craving for whale meat.
Bulkington, the powerfully built, deeply tanned, sober-minded
helmsman of the Pequod.
Perth, the ship's elderly blacksmith, who took up whaling after losing
his home and family. He makes for Ahab the harpoon intended to
be Moby Dick's death dart, which the captain baptizes in devil's
name.
Captain Gardiner, the skipper of Rachel for whose lost son Captain
Ahab refuses to search.
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SECTION FOUR
TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES BY THOMAS HARDY (1891)
Author: British Writer (1840-1928)
Type of Plot: Philosophical Realism
Introduction
Tess of the d'Urbervilles is viewed as one of Hardy's most
significant works and a compelling meditation on Victorian-era
hypocrisy regarding matters of love and sexuality as well the
destruction of English agrarian culture by industrial progress.
Initially planned as a serial for the Graphic magazine in the autumn
of 1890, publication was postponed for six months when the editors
of the magazine demanded that Hardy revise and delete several
passages containing racy sexual material. Upon the novel's
publication in 1891, critics had a mixed reaction to the book:
Although some reviewers praised the beautiful lyrical prose and the
well-drawn, complex characters in the novel, others were scandalized
by Tess's sexuality and victimization, as well as Hardy's controversial
portrayal of her as pure and innocent. The debate surrounding Tess's
virtue was intense and generated much critical debate. In spite of the
mixed critical opinions on the novel, Tess was a commercial success,
and the novel remains one of Hardy's most popular works of fiction.
The Story
It was a proud day when Jack Durbeyfield learned that he was
descended from the famous D'Urberville family. Durbeyfield had
never done more work than was necessary to keep his family
supplied with meager food and himself with beer, but from that day
on, he ceased doing even that small amount of work. His wife joined
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him in thinking that such a high family should live better with less
effort, and she persuaded their oldest daughter, Tess, to visit the
Stoke-D'Urbervilles, a wealthy family that had assumed the
D'Urberville name because no one else claimed it. It was her mother's
hope that Tess would make a good impression on the rich
D'Urbervilles and perhaps a good marriage with one of the sons.
When Tess met her supposed relatives, however, she found
only a blind mother and a dapper son who made Tess uncomfortably
by his improper remarks to her. The son, Alec, tricked the innocent
young Tess into working as a poultry maid; he did not let her know
that his mother was unaware of Tess's identity. After a short time,
Tess decided to look for work elsewhere to support her parents and
her brothers and sisters. She knew that Alec meant her no good. Alec,
however, was more clever than she and managed at last to get her
alone and then possessed her.
When Tess returned to her home and told her mother of her
terrible experience, her mother's only worry was that Alec was not
going to marry Tess. The poor girl worked in the fields, facing the
slander of her associates bravely. Her trouble was made worse by the
fact that Alec followed her from place to place, trying to possess her
again. By traveling to different farms during the harvest season, Tess
managed to elude Alec long enough to give birth to her baby without
his knowledge. The baby did not live long, however, and a few
months after its death, Tess went to a dairy farm far to the south to be
a dairymaid.
At the dairy farm, Tess was liked and well treated. Angel
Clare, a pastor's son who had rejected the ministry to study farming,
was also at the farm. It was his wish to own a farm someday, and he
was working on different kinds of farms so that he could learn
something of the many kinds of work required of a general farmer.
Although all the dairymaids were attracted to Angel, Tess interested
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him the most. He thought her a beautiful and innocent young maiden,
as she was, for it was her innocence that had caused her trouble with
Alec.
Tess felt that she was wicked, however, and rejected the
attentions Angel paid to her. She urged him to turn to one of the other
girls for companionship. It was unthinkable that the son of a minister
would marry a dairymaid, but Angel did not care much about family
tradition. Despite her pleas, he continued to pay court to Tess. At
last, against the wishes of his parents, Angel asked Tess to be his
wife. Not only did he love her, but he also realized that a farm girl
would be a help to him on his own land. Although Tess was in love
with Angel by this time, the memory of her night with Alec caused
her to refuse Angel again and again. At last, his insistence, coupled
with the written pleas of her parents to marry someone who could
help the family financially, won her over, and she agreed to marry
him.
On the night before the wedding, which Tess had postponed
many times because she felt unworthy, she wrote Angel a letter,
revealing everything about herself and Alec. She slipped the letter
under his door; she was sure that when he read it, he would renounce
her forever. In the morning, however, Angel acted as tenderly as
before, and Tess loved him more than ever for his forgiving nature.
When she realized that Angel had not found the letter, she attempted
to tell him about her past. Angel only teased her about wanting to
confess, thinking that such a pure girl could have no black sins in her
history. They were married without Angel's learning about Alec and
her dead baby.
On their wedding night, Angel told Tess about an evening of
debauchery in his own past. Tess forgave him and then told about her
affair with Alec, thinking that he would forgive her as she had him;
but such was not the case. Angel was at first stunned and then so hurt
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that he could not even speak to Tess. Finally, he told her that she was
not the woman he loved, the one he had married, but a stranger with
whom he could not live, at least for the present. He took her to her
home and left her there. Then he went to his home and on to Brazil,
where he planned to buy a farm. At first, Tess and Angel did not tell
their parents the reason for their separation. When Tess finally told
her mother, the ignorant woman blamed Tess for losing her husband
by confessing something he need never have known.
Angel had left Tess some money and some jewels that had
been given to him by his godmother. Tess put the jewels in the bank;
she spent the money on her parents. When it was gone, her family
went hungry once more, for her father still thought himself too
highborn to work for a living. Again, Tess went from farm to farm,
performing hard labor in the fields to get enough food to keep herself
and her family alive.
While she was working in the fields, she met Alec again. He
had met Angel's minister father and, repenting his evil ways, had
become an itinerant preacher. The sight of Tess, for whom he had
always lusted, caused a lapse in his new religious fervor, and he
began to pursue her once again. Frightened, Tess wrote to Angel,
sending the letter to his parents to forward to him. She told Angel
that she loved him and needed him and that an enemy was pursuing
her. She begged him to forgive her and to return to her.
The letter took several months to reach Angel. Meanwhile,
Alec was so kind to Tess and so generous to her family that she
began to relent in her feelings toward him. At last, when she did not
receive an answer from Angel, she wrote him a note saying that he
was cruel not to forgive her and that now she would not forgive his
treatment of her. Then she went to Alec again and lived with him as
his wife.
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It was thus that Angel found her. He had come to tell her that
he had forgiven her and that he still loved her. When he found her
with Alec, however, he turned away, more hurt than before.
Tess, too, was bitterly unhappy. She now hated Alec because
once again he had been the cause of her husband's repudiation of her.
Feeling that she could find happiness only if Alec were dead, she
stabbed him as he slept. Then she ran out of the house and followed
Angel, who was aimlessly walking down a road leading out of the
town. When they met and Tess told him what she had done, Angel
forgave her everything, even the murder of Alec, and they were on
together. They were happy with each other for a few days, although
Angel knew that the authorities would soon find Tess.
When the officers finally found them, Tess was asleep. Angel
asked the officers to wait until she awoke. As soon as she opened her
eyes, Tess saw the strangers and knew that they had come for her and
that she would be hanged, but she was not unhappy. She had had a
few days with the husband she truly loved, and now she was ready
for her punishment. She stood up bravely and faced her captors. She
was not afraid.
Major Themes
Many of Hardy's novels reflect the author's belief that a
person's life is determined by forces beyond the individual's control,
in particular societal pressures and inherent character traits. Hardy's
deterministic vision is a defining characteristic in much of his fiction,
including Tess of the d'Urbervilles. One of these determining factors
is the oppression of women, which is a recurring theme in the novel.
Alec's predation and eventual rape of Tess is a life-changing act that
dooms Tess and sabotages her attempts at happiness. Angel's
rejection of Tess further decimates her sense of self-worth, social
position, and financial situation. Beaten down by circumstance and
the acts of men, she in effect prostitutes herself to her rapist in order
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to survive. At the end of the novel Tess finally frees herself from
male domination and kills her oppressor, although she is sentenced to
death for the act. The theme of injustice is a related major concern in
Tess. Although Tess is raped she is the one punished by society. Alec
is relatively unscathed by his horrific act of violation, other than a
fleeting twinge of conscience. When Angel finally finds it in his
heart to forgive his wife for being raped, he returns to discover that
she has given up hope and has been taken in by her rapist. Tess's
desperate act to extricate herself from Alec results in his death--and
hers.
Class issues are also prevalent in Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Although the Durbeyfields are descended from noble blood, they are
not part of the privileged class. They are poor laborers, representing a
shifting concept of social class in nineteenth-century England. In that
era class distinctions were becoming more fluid. The upper class was
no longer determined solely on the basis of birth, and people could
move up and down the social scale based on their fortune and overall
accomplishments. The d'Urbervilles are an example of this type of
social mobility: They do not descend from nobility, but they have
made money and bought themselves a title.
In addition to notions relating to class distinctions, views of
women were also changing in nineteenth-century England. Critics
often discuss Tess within the context of the New Woman movement
in Victorian England, in which a type of more independent and
assertive woman was emerging. The novel links women's issues
related to ways in which agrarian traditions distinctive to rural British
life were also changing—disappearing in light of technological
progress and the Industrial Revolution. A key theme is the close
relationship between women and the natural world. For Hardy it is
women who understand the rhythms of the natural world and are in
touch with the seasons and earth—a relationship that men cannot
share.
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The unrealistic perception of women is a recurrent element of
Tess of the d'Urbervilles. For example, Angel does not see Tess as an
individual, but rather idolizes her as an "Everywoman,"
romanticizing her femininity and relationship to the natural world. It
is this refusal to see his wife as a real person, and not an archetype,
that dooms their marriage. When Angel learns of Tess's relationship
with Alec, he blames her and is unable to forgive her for being raped.
He leaves her emotionally devastated, ultimately vulnerable to the
predatory Alec.
Sexuality is a pervasive theme in the novel. Hardy frequently
describes Tess's red lips, her beauty, and the shape of her body. In
addition, Alec's rape of Tess and Tess's passion for Angel are key
points in the story. Publishers perceived there to be so much sex in
the novel that many of them turned it down for publication, fearing a
social and critical backlash.
Critical Evaluation
English fiction assumed a new dimension in the hands of
Thomas Hardy. From its beginnings, it had been a middle-class
genre; it was written for and about the bourgeois, with the working
class and the aristocracy assuming only minor roles. The British
novelist explored the workings of society in the space between the
upper reaches of the gentry and the new urban shopkeepers. In the
eighteenth century, Daniel Defoe treated the rogue on his or her way
to wealth; Henry Fielding was concerned with the manners of the
gentry; and Samuel Richardson dramatized romantic, middle-class
sentimentality. In the nineteenth century, Jane Austen's subject
matter was the comedy of manners among a very closely knit
segment of the rural gentry; the farm laboring classes were
conspicuous by their absence. After Walter Scott and his historical
romances, the great Victorian novelists—the Brontes, Thackeray,
Dickens, Trollope, and George Eliot—were all concerned with the
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nuances of middle-class feelings and morality, treating their themes
either romantically or comically.
Although he certainly drew on the work and experience of his
predecessors, Hardy opened and explored fresh areas: indeed, he was
constantly hounded by critics and censors for his realistic treatment
of sexuality and the problems of faith. After his last novel, Jude the
Obscure, was attacked for its immorality, he was driven from the
field. The final thirty years or so of his life were devoted entirely to
poetry. Even more important than this new honesty and openness
toward sex and religion, however, was Hardy's development of the
tragic possibilities of the novel and his opening of it to the experience
of the rural laborer and artisan. Moreover, his rendering of nature,
influenced by Greek thought and Darwin's On the Origin of the
Species, radically departed from the nineteenth century view of
nature as benevolent and purposeful. Hardy's novels, written between
1868 and 1895, have a unity of thought and feeling challenging all
the accepted truths of his time. He was part of and perhaps the most
formidable spokesman for that group of artists—including the
Rossettis, Swinburne, Wilde, Yeats, and Housman—which reacted
against the materialism, pieties, and unexamined faith of the
Victorian Age. As he said of the age in his poem "The Darkling
Thrush": "The land's sharp features seemed to be/ The Century's
corpse outleant...." Finally, he can be viewed not only as the last
Victorian but also as the first modern writer, defining the themes that
were to occupy such great successors as Joseph Conrad and D. H.
Lawrence.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles ranks as one of Hardy's finest
achievements, along with Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return
of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Jude the Obscure.
Together with the last novel mentioned, it forms his most powerful
indictment of Victorian notions of virtue and social justice. Its
subtitle, A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, is itself a mockery of a
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moral sense that works in rigid categories. Mesmerized and seduced
by Alec D'Urberville, the mother of a bastard child, the married
mistress of Alec, and a murderess who is eventually hanged, Tess is
yet revealed as an innocent victim of nature, chance, and a social and
religious system that denies human feeling. Her purity is not only a
matter of ethics—for Hardy finds her without sin—but also one of
soul. Tess maintains a kind of gentle attitude toward everyone, and
even when she is treated with the grossest injustice, she responds
with forgiveness. It is not until the conclusion of the novel when she
has been deprived once again of her beloved, Angel Clare (a love that
the reader has great difficulty in accepting, since he lacks any
recognizable human passion), that she is ultimately overcome by
forces beyond her control and murders Alec. Like her sister in
tragedy, Sophocles' Antigone, she is driven by a higher justice to
assert herself. That she must make reparation according to a law that
she cannot accept does not disturb her, and like Antigone's, her death
is a triumph rather than a defeat.
It is precisely at this point that Hardy most effectively
challenges Victorian metaphysics. In Tess, readers witness a woman
disposed of by irrational and accidental forces. The Victorians tried
to deny such forces—not always easily, to be sure—through a
devotion to reason in matters of law, science, and religion; these
impulses were anomalies that could not be admitted if their worldview were to stand. To insist, moreover, as Tess does, that she is not
to be judged by human law is a radical attack on a culture that rested
uncertainly on a fragile social contract. To compound the enigma,
Tess acquiesces in the judgment and gives her life—for society does
not really take it—with a sense of peace and fulfillment.
Thus Hardy exposed the primitive passions and laws of nature
to his readers. He called into question not only their idea of law but
also their notion of human nature. Indeed, Hardy seems to suggest
that no matter the success of politics in removing social abuses, there
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remains an element in man that cannot be legislated: his instinctual
nature that drives him to demand justice for his being, despite the
consequences. For Victorian civilization to accept Tess, therefore,
would be to admit its own myopia—which it was not yet prepared to
do.
Principal Characters
Tess Durbeyfield, a naive country girl. When her father learns that his
family his descended from an ancient landed house, the mother,
hoping to better her struggling family financially, sends Tess to
work for the Stoke-d'Urbervilles, who have recently moved to the
locality. In this household the innocent girl, attractive and mature
beyond her years, meets Alec D'Urberville, a dissolute young man.
From this time on she is the rather stoical victim of personal
disasters. Seduced by Alec, she gives birth to his child. Later she
works on a dairy farm, where she meets Angel Clare and
reluctantly agrees to marry him, even though she is afraid of his
reaction if he learns about her past. As she fears, he is
disillusioned by learning of her lack of innocence and virtue.
Although deserted by her husband, she never loses her unselfish
love for him. Eventually, pursued by the relentless Alec, she
capitulates to his blandishments and goes to live with him at a
prosperous resort. When Angel Clare returns to her, she stabs Alec
and spends a few happy days with Clare before she is captured and
hanged for her crime.
Angel Clare, Tess's husband. Professing a dislike for effete, worn-out
families and outdated traditions, he is determined not to follow
family tradition and become a clergyman or a scholar. Instead, he
wishes to learn what he can about farming, in hopes of having a
farm of his own. When he meets Tess at a dairy farm, he teaches
her various philosophical theories which he has gleaned from his
reading. He learns that she is descended from the D'Urbervilles
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and is pleased by the information. After urging reluctant Tess to
marry him, at the same time refusing to let her tell him about her
past life, he persuades her to accept him; later he learns to his
great mortification about her relations with Alec. Although he
himself has confessed to an episode with a woman in London, he
is not so forgiving as Tess. After several days he deserts her and
goes to Brazil. Finally, no longer so provincial in his moral views,
he remorsefully comes back to Tess, but he returns too late to
make amends for his selfish actions toward her.
Alec D'Urberville, Tess's seducer. Lusting after the beautiful girl and
making brazen propositions, he boldly pursues her. At first she
resists his advancements, but she is unable to stop him from
having his way in a lonely wood where he has taken her. For a
time he reforms and assumes the unlikely role of an evangelist.
Meeting Tess again, he lusts after her more than ever and hounds
her at every turn until she accepts him as her protector. Desperate
when Angel Clare returns, she kills her hated lover.
Jack Durbeyfield, a carter of Marlott, Tess's indolent father. After
learning of his distinguished forebears, he gives up work almost
entirely and spends much time drinking beer in the Rolliver
Tavern. He thinks that a man who has grand and noble
"skillentons" in a family vault at Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill should
not have to work.
Joan Durbeyfield, Tess's mother. After her hard labor at her modest
home, she likes to sit at Rolliver's Tavern while her husband
drinks a few pints and brags about his ancestors. A practical
woman in a harsh world, she is probably right when she tells Tess
not to reveal her past to Angel Clare.
Sorrow, Tess's child by Alec D'Urberville. The infant lives only a
few days. Tess herself performs the rite of baptism before the baby
dies.
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Eliza-Louisa, called Liza-Lu, Tess's younger sister. It is Tess's hope,
before her death, that Angel Clare will marry her sister. Liza-Lu
waits with Angel during the hour of Tess's execution for the
murder of Alec D'Urberville.
Abraham, Hope, and Modesty, the son and young daughters of the
Durbeyfields.
The Reverend James Clare, Angel Clare's father, a devout man of
simple faith but limited vision.
Mrs. Clare, a woman of good works and restricted interests. She
shows little understanding of her son Angel.
Felix and Cuthbert Clare, Angel Clare's conventional, rather
snobbish brothers. They are patronizing in their attitude toward
him and disapprove of his marriage to Tess Durbeyfield.
Mercy Chant, a young woman interested in church work and charity,
whom Angel Clare's parents thought a proper wife for him. Later
she marries his brother Cuthbert.
Mrs. Stoke-D'Urberville, the blind widow of a man who grew rich in
trade and added the name of the extinct D'Urberville barony to his
own. Her chief interests in life are her wayward son Alec and her
poultry.
Car Darch, also called Dark Car, a vulgar village woman. Because of
her previous relations with Alec D'Urberville she is jealous of
Tess Durbeyfield. Her nickname is Queen of Spades.
Nancy, her sister, nicknamed Queen of Diamonds.
Mr. Tringham, the elderly parson and antiquarian who half-jokingly
tells Jack Durbeyfield that he is descended from the noble
D'Urberville family.
Richard Crick, the owner of Talbothays Farm, where Angel Clare is
learning dairy farming. Farmer Crick also hires Tess Durbeyfield
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as a dairymaid after the death of her child. Tess and Angel are
married at Talbothays.
Christiana Crick, Farmer Crick's kind, hearty wife.
Marian, a stout, red-faced dairymaid at Talbothays Farm. Later she
takes to drink and becomes a field worker at Flintcomb-Ash Farm.
She and Izz Huett write Angel Clare an anonymous letter in which
they tell him that his wife is being pursued by Alec D'Urberville.
Izz Huett, a dairymaid at Talbothays Farm. In love with Angel Clare,
she openly declares her feelings after he has deserted Tess. He is
tempted to take Izz with him to Brazil, but he soon changes his
mind. She and Marian write Angel a letter warning him to look
after his wife.
Retty Priddle, the youngest of the dairymaids at Talbothays Farm.
Also in love with Angel Clare, she tries to drown herself after his
marriage.
Farmer Groby, the tight-fisted, harsh owner of Flintcomb-Ash Farm,
where Tess works in the fields after Angel Clare has deserted her.
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SECTION FIVE
SISTER CARRIE BY THEODORE DREISER (1900)
Author: Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)
Introduction
Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) published Sister Carrie in
1900, at the meeting point of two centuries. The novel is, in the
words of Dreiser biographer Richard Lingeman, "a mixture of the old
and the new—a bridge between the nineteenth-century novel and the
twentieth." Appearing at a time of profound social and economic
transformation in the United States, Sister Carrie looks forward to an
urban, industrial future and backward to a rural, sentimental past. It
stands as an American classic, a work utterly representative of its
fraught and dynamic time.
Sister Carrie spotlights two characters and holds them up as
exemplars of their age. Carrie Meeber resembles a fallen woman of
the sort who sparked much prurient interest among social
commentators of Dreiser's time. Her tale is at least partly archetypal:
small-town girl comes to the big city and is targeted by predatory
men who take advantage of her innocence. But the standard morality
tale of this time called for the fallen woman to be severely punished
for her sexual transgression. Carrie is not. Instead, she prospers,
moving from one lover to another, discarding the second when he
weighs her down. By the novel's end, she has become a star of the
New York stage and a sex symbol.
Sister Carrie also focuses on George Hurstwood, Carrie's
second lover. When first introduced, Hurstwood is a successful
manager of a tony bar in downtown Chicago. His home life is
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lackluster, but his position in the thriving urban economy is both
secure and prestigious. When Hurstwood meets Carrie—who is at
that point the mistress of the salesman Charles Drouet—he becomes
smitten with her. His attraction starts him on a fatal downward slide
that parallels Carrie's rise. Hurstwood's decline, which Dreiser
chronicles in detail that is both excruciating and poignant, lands him
literally in the gutter and culminates in his suicide.
The Story
Caroline Meeber, called Sister Carrie by her family, leaves her
home in rural Wisconsin by train to seek her fortune in Chicago.
Carrie is immediately impressed by a fellow passenger on the train,
Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman who speaks with her for the
duration of the trip. Once in Chicago, the two separate, but not before
Drouet takes Carrie's address and promises to visit her. Carrie goes to
live with her sister Minnie and her husband, Sven Hanson, who live
in a working-class neighborhood. Sven, who cleans refrigerator cars
at the stockyard, makes it clear to Carrie that she must work and pay
her share of the bills.
After a difficult job search, Carrie finds a position in a shoe
factory and feels that she has made a great start in Chicago. But she
catches a bad cold and loses her job when she misses work. While
looking for a new position, she meets Drouet by chance. He treats her
to lunch at an expensive restaurant. When he hears of her
unemployment and meager living conditions, he insists on helping
her. He gives Carrie money to buy warm clothes, and when they
meet again, she accepts additional gifts of expensive clothing from
him. Eventually Carrie allows Drouet to rent a room for her and
realizes that she is straying from the values of her traditional
upbringing, but she feels powerless to resist the chance to improve
her lifestyle.
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Carrie leaves the Hansons and becomes Drouet's mistress,
moving with him to a comfortable apartment. Drouet frequents a
popular saloon managed by George Hurstwood, a well-to-do friend.
During a visit to the saloon, Drouet invites Hurstwood to call on him
at home. He accepts the offer and when he meets Carrie at Drouet's
apartment, he is immediately attracted to her. Carrie is also
impressed with the impeccably dressed saloonkeeper. When
Hurstwood realizes that Drouet and Carrie are not married, he begins
to think of how he might obtain her for himself.
While Drouet is out of town, Carrie begins to spend time with
Hurstwood. Drouet's Elks Lodge (a charitable men's club) sponsors
an amateur theatrical production and he encourages Carrie to audition
for a role. She agrees and gets the part. During the performance, she
shows a natural aptitude for the stage, captivating the audience and
especially Hurstwood.
Hurstwood's marriage begins to deteriorate as his wife slowly
realizes that he is spending time with another woman. Mrs.
Hurstwood threatens to create a public scandal by divorcing her
husband. Instead of facing this blow to his reputation, Hurstwood
separates from his wife. That night as he closes up the saloon,
Hurstwood finds that the safe—to which he does not have the
combination—has been left unlocked and $10,000 from the bank has
not been put away. After accidentally closing the door to the safe
before putting in the money, Hurstwood decides to take the $10,000
rather than explain the embarrassing circumstances of how it arrived
in his possession.
Hurstwood goes to Carrie and tells her that Drouet is
hospitalized across town and that they must go by train to see him.
Carrie goes with him, not suspecting that they are actually boarding a
train that will eventually land them in Montreal. When detectives
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pursue them, Hurstwood returns the bulk of the money and takes
Carrie with him to New York.
Hurstwood uses the money he has kept to buy a part interest in
a saloon, and for two years he and Carrie live in a comfortable
apartment building. When profits from the saloon plummet, Carrie
and Hurstwood are forced to move into a shabbier apartment in a less
refined part of New York. Hurstwood loses his stake in the business,
and being a middle-aged man with no capital, has difficulties finding
work.
Carrie, realizing that she must fend for herself, pursues a
career on the stage, encouraged by her former success. She finally
gets a small part as a chorus girl and begins working her way up
while Hurstwood's fortunes continue to fall. As Carrie makes further
progress, she becomes unwilling to support Hurstwood and leaves
him. Carrie gradually becomes a celebrity as Hurstwood declines
further and finally commits suicide.
Major Themes
Social Darwinism and Sentimentalism: Both Carrie's rise and
Hurstwood's fall exemplify the diminishing power of family ties in
the United States at the turn of the century. The postbellum era was
one of seismic change in economic and social organization in the
United States. During this time, urbanization and industrialization
changed the way that Americans lived—and the way that they looked
at the world. Before this transformation began in the years following
the Civil War, the United States had been a predominantly rural,
agriculturally based society. American life before industrialization
was predominantly family-based, with the family serving as a basic
social unit. It was understood that families took responsibility for the
care of their aged, for example, and if someone fell upon hard times,
his extended family took care of him—and his children as well, if
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necessary. Simply put, the family served as American society's safety
net before the Civil War.
The relation between individual and community changed as
the United States began to modernize, and the family proved an
insufficient social support. Extended families fractured as people
migrated to the cities. Unattached singles made their own way, and
when city dwellers married and had children, these nuclear families
were on their own. For millions of immigrants who entered the
United States between 1890 and 1920, extended families lay an
ocean away, never to be seen again.
Neither Carrie nor Hurstwood rely on their families for
anything. In fact, they see their families as antagonistic. Carrie moves
in with her married sister Minnie when she comes to Chicago, but
Minnie shows scarce concern for Carrie's happiness (and her husband
is indifferent to everything but Carrie's rent money and the effect of
her behavior on his reputation). When Carrie abruptly leaves her
relatives for an apartment bankrolled by Drouet, they disappear from
her life entirely. Carrie recalls the family she left behind in Columbia
City only once in the novel, when a memory intrudes upon her of her
father "in his flour-dusted miller's suit." The recollection stands as a
symbol of all that she seeks to suppress and surpass. Hurstwood
similarly seeks to escape his family, especially his controlling wife.
He ultimately abandons his wife and children for Carrie, moving to
New York with her and leaving his past life behind. The Hurstwoods
prosper in his absence, and Dreiser juxtaposes the scene of
Hurstwood's death with a scene of his now-married daughter and
former wife on a European vacation.
Dreiser thus stages the breakdown of sentimental ties in Sister
Carrie. Sentimentalism had deep ideological roots in nineteenthcentury American culture, and it flowered in literature and elsewhere.
American women novelists created the genre of sentimentalism in
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scores of popular novels during the nineteenth century. The
sentimental novel looks at society as a family of people joined by
emotional solidarity, sharing a faith in others and in
nondenominational Christian salvation. This formulation arises not
only on plot and story elements but more crucially on the worldview
of the genre, which is centered, as Joanne Dobson puts it, on "an
emotional and philosophical ethos that celebrates human connection,
both personal and communal." Sentimentalism, says Dobson,
"envisions the self in-relation." Throughout his career, Dreiser tested
this vision of family and community connection in the crucible of the
profit-driven, urbanizing, industrial United States.
Dreiser viewed America's haves and have-nots through the
lenses of Spencerian competition and sentimental sympathy at the
same time. Herbert Spencer, the author of the phrase "survival of the
fittest," was the most prominent exemplar of what would later be
called "Social Darwinism." He cobbled together an entire
philosophical system around the idea of brutal and deterministic
evolution that discarded the unfit. God was replaced in Spencer's
world by a "great unknowable" that was indifferent to human
suffering.
Dreiser later said that his encounter with Spencer's ideas
"almost killed me." This discomfort goes to the heart of his artistic
vision in Sister Carrie and throughout his career. Accepting
Spencer's fatalism pained Dreiser because of his own sympathy for
the losers in the struggle for existence. This is nowhere clearer than
in his rendering of Hurstwood's slow descent to suicide in Sister
Carrie. Hurstwood's last words, "What's the use?," cap Dreiser's
deeply felt portrayal of harsh social forces at work. Here and
elsewhere, Dreiser combined an unflinching account of a cruel world
with a strong identification with those whom it destroyed.
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Desire and Consumerism: Dreiser recognized that industrialization
was shaping new human desires. Dreiser's authority on the subject of
consumerism comes not only from waves of careful description of
physical objects—a signature aspect of his style—but also from his
deep insight into people's desire for these things. In chapter 7, aptly
titled "The Lure of the Material," Dreiser shows how Carrie, recently
arrived in Chicago and holding money advanced by Drouet, becomes
suffused with longing for the things she sees in the Fair department
store:
How would she look in this, how charming that would make her!
She came upon the corset counter and paused in rich reverie as
she noted the dainty concoctions of colour and lace there
displayed. If she would only make up her mind, she could have
one of those now. She lingered in the jewelry department. She saw
the earrings, the bracelets, the pins, the chains. What would she
not have given if she could have had them all! She would look
fine too, if only she had some of these things.
Throughout Sister Carrie, Carrie is drawn by the finery of things. At
one point, she even imagines clothing speaking to her. When Carrie
meets Drouet for the first time, she notes his "highly polished" patent
leather shoes. When she later meets Hurstwood, she notices that his
shoes are less shiny, but they look better to her. After a while,
Hurstwood looks better to her too. For Dreiser's characters, the
material world plays a formative role in the life of the mind and the
heart. Here, it is worth noting that Dreiser came of age as a novelist
in an industrializing country that was growing and producing
material goods in quantities and speeds never before seen.
Dreiser ties the new consumerism to changing views of
sexuality. Carrie Meeber represents a character type that became
known in Dreiser's time as the "New Woman." The New Woman
stood opposed to traditional roles and expectations and thus
symbolized the new freedoms that women enjoyed in urban
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industrialized society. These freedoms were economic (women could
now earn their own living and spend their own money) and social
(they no longer had to remain under the watchful eyes of their
families), but most controversially, they were sexual. The debate
over the New Woman at the turn of the century was rooted in the
widely held anxiety accompanying women's increased sexual
freedom. The many cautionary tales of "fallen women" that
circulated during Dreiser's time may be read as the traditionalists'
response to these new developments.
Dreiser's Carrie embodies many aspects of the New Woman,
and Dreiser's unconventionally sympathetic portrayal of her gives
Sister Carrie a subversive edge. Carrie comes across in Sister Carrie
as a social climber who, like her male counterparts, will get ahead in
the world in such ways as she can. Her sexuality is tied to her desire
for things, and for gain. Carrie's willingness to take lovers—and
leave them—is a cause (rather than a result) of her very American
desire for upward mobility.
For Hurstwood, sexual libertinism leads to crime. His
deepening desire for Carrie leads him to steal $10,000 in cash from
an open safe at his job and trick Carrie into running away with him to
New York. The scene of the theft, where Dreiser renders
Hurstwood's conflicted indecision in meticulous psychological detail,
is a masterpiece of equivocation that anticipates the arrival of
Sigmund Freud's ideas on American shores some years later (when
Dreiser was among those who received them warmly).
The changing expressions and values governing sexual desire
created an American mass culture of celebrity. Carrie succeeds on the
stage because she has that certain something, a charisma that retails
her sexuality on a wide scale to paying audiences. Her pay rises
meteorically, and posh hotels compete to offer her free living
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quarters. Carrie starts out filled with sexualized desire for things in
store windows. By the end of Sister Carrie, she has become a
sexualized commodity herself.
Dreiser approves of many of the changes that allow for
Carrie's rise, but his approbation is by no means total. Not only does
Hurstwood's decline provide ongoing counterpoint to Carrie's
increasing economic freedom; Dreiser also introduces commentary
on what has been lost through the character of Robert Ames. Ames,
whose name evokes the French word for "soul," is an electrical
engineer with a philosophical bent and an innocent idealism. Though
Carrie only meets Ames for a short time, he greatly attracts her.
Ames's morally based aesthetics lead him to disapprove of the riches
being flaunted in the New York streets, and his idealism renders him
immune to the lure of material gain. He is also immune to Carrie's
charms: "there was nothing responsive between them."
Ames's indifference to Carrie suggests Dreiser's ambivalence
about the myriad changes taking place in the United States. If the
new economic freedom enables Carrie's advance in the world, her
failure to connect with Ames suggests that the proliferation of things
also gets in the way of emotional connection among people in the
world. Consumerism stands then, as one aspect of the wider field of
desire, and Carrie's melancholia at the end of Sister Carrie, along
with Hurstwood's death, point to an enduring conclusion that Dreiser
returned to again and again: human beings are eternally wanting
creatures who can only temporarily be satisfied.
The Individual vs. Society: Hester lives in a repressive Puritan society
that is structured around strict moral and religious laws, and by
rebelling against those laws she sets herself up as an individual apart
from the community. This theme of the bold individual resisting
control within an overbearing and dogmatic society is prevalent in
American literature, but as Nina Baym points out, "Hawthorne's
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version is unique because he has created a mother as the defiant
outcast." Not the typical rugged individualist seen in American
literature, who, like Huck Finn, "lights out for the territory," leaving
behind responsibility and the past, Hester remains connected to her
child, her town, and her past. Yet she lives apart from her
community, and by doing so she is able to imagine and represent
another way of living in the world. She has already been cast out, so
she is less restrained by her society's laws than other women in the
town; however, her loneliness serves as a reminder that the individual
who is not embraced by the community is restricted in other ways.
Human Nature: Dreiser has spoken of the influence of Herbert
Spencer's philosophy on his thinking, and Lehan notes, "like
Spencer's, Dreiser's world is one of physical limits—a world in
which the self constantly tests such limits, held in a process of
expansion and contraction, and thus establishes the physical realm
beyond which the individual, the crowd, the city, and even the earth
itself cannot go." For Dreiser, force and counterforce—that an action
or impulse is balanced by its opposite—is a fact of human existence,
which in turn is a specific example of more general natural
principles. The literary naturalist view of these tendencies accounts
for the narration's seeming lack of moral judgment.
Symbols and Meaning: At the heart of the novel is the scarlet letter, a
symbol that embodies multiple meanings, which change depending
upon who is interpreting the letter. In the world of the Puritans, the
visible world is symbolic and open to interpretation, and in
Hawthorne's novel the individual's interpretation often reflects his or
her spiritual or emotional state. Millicent Bell sees in The Scarlet
Letter "a primary preoccupation with the rendering of reality into a
system of signs." The reader, she adds, "has the impression of a
constant encouragement to symbolic interpretation." The Puritans,
says Bell, "read reality textually"; that is, they read the visible world
as if it were a book or scripture.
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Guilt: Guilt is what kills Dimmesdale. Although Hester is guilty of
the same act as Dimmesdale, she cannot hide her actions as he can
because she bears a child as a result of their encounter, and the rest of
her life is defined by that act. But Dimmesdale builds the rest of his
life around his fear of being found out and his feelings of guilt for
having sinned. He fears that his secret will become revealed because
his position in the church and the town would be destroyed were
anyone to learn of his adultery. Unlike Hester, he is able to remain
fully a part of society, continuing to preach sermons and maintain his
congregants' respect. But at what cost? His guilt eats him alive.
Although Hester faces loneliness, her life is more honest and
authentic than Dimmesdale's. Thus guilt is portrayed as a destructive
force, resulting from the subjugation of the individual's own desires
to society's rules.
Nature vs. Civilization: The earliest settlers in the New World saw the
natural world as a great unknown. It threatened their fledgling
civilization and was something to be tamed. Settlers, particularly
those with strong religious beliefs, equated the physical wilderness
with a moral wilderness, and many viewed the Native Americans—
or Indians, as they called them—as savages, part and parcel of that
moral wilderness. In The Scarlet Letter, the forest beyond the
boundaries of Boston represents a place apart from Puritan
restrictions and is associated with moral darkness and the devil,
referred to in the novel as "The Black Man." Mistress Hibbins, who
is thought to be a witch, speaks of mysterious nocturnal meetings in
the forest. When Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest, they are
freed from social constraints and become able to imagine a world
beyond their confined social lives.
The City: Sister Carrie is a variation of what critic Richard Lehan
calls, "the young man from the provinces subgenre" where "the city
itself is so much larger than the individual that the human scale is
lost—as well as the values that go with the human scale—and the
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hero spends much of the novel simply trying to reinvest energy in a
system that proves to be both a compelling lure and a trap." The two
main cities in the novel, Chicago and New York, have very distinct
personalities which fascinate Carrie and define her aspirations.
Violation of the Human Heart: The figure of Roger Chillingworth
introduces an important theme of Hawthorne's work into The Scarlet
Letter. Hawthorne's fiction contains several characters—such as
Chillingworth—who are so intellectual or analytical that they fail to
engage empathetically with other human beings. These figures—
often portrayed as scientists or writers—remain coldly detached
observers, treating others as their subjects of study. Hawthorne saw
this type of behavior as an obstacle to sympathetic human
connections and thus as an impediment to civilization. Hawthorne's
interest in violations of the human heart surfaces in his short story
"Ethan Brand," a tale in which the eponymous protagonist discovers
that intellectualizing about others' lives is "the unpardonable sin."
Sexual Control: Bourne wrote, "[Dreiser] seemed strange and rowdy
only because he made sex human, and American tradition had never
made it human." Dreiser's characters use the sexual dynamic—
whether a desire for romantic relations, conformity to social norms of
marriage, or traditional exchanges of feminine care for masculine
security—as leverage to control one another. David Weimer points
out that "sexual relations become diluted in Dreiser's fiction from
pure ends into means as well, largely meaningless for the women and
sometimes compulsive for the men." Sexual control is often
manipulative, playing on fears and insecurities as well as desires and
aspirations.
Escape: The novel's plot follows the changes Carrie experiences as
she abandons one part of her life to move on to the next. Gerber
writes in this sense that "Carrie always anticipates, discarding and
leaving behind her like a locust husk whatever has served its purpose
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and is no longer of use." The further Carrie is removed from her
origins—geographically, physically, socially—the more her material
situation improves. Thus, it is not just an escape away, it is an escape
up, as well. Of course, the end of the novel suggests that this escape
is not without its consequences.
Affluence and Materialism: Claire Eby observes, "Dreiser understood
that while desire—for specific consumer goods or for a superior class
position—seems to emanate from the individual, it is in fact socially
produced." Gaining affluence is a comparative matter throughout
Sister Carrie: those who wish to climb up the social ladder do so by
observing and emulating the behavior of the social class to which
they aspire.
Performance: Carrie's means of social mobility is acting, which is
"Dreiser's attempt to find a satisfactory fictional vehicle for the
expression of both her emotional power and her will to succeed." Her
theatrical success is tied into an increasingly refined ability to
emulate the behavior of various social classes, a skill exhibited by
other people she encounters—most notably, Hurstwood. The ability
to play a role well, to fit the expectations of one's gender and class—
not just on-stage, but also in the social circles to which Carrie
aspires—is the key to success.
Realism, Commerce, and Capitalism: One of the most compelling
elements of Dreiser's Sister Carrie is the realism used in describing
the topics of commerce. Employment, money, and industry are
presented in thorough detail. During Carrie's initial search for
employment, every aspect of the job hunting process is covered.
Setting the mood even before Carrie begins her job search, Dreiser's
novel presents a complete background on the commercial history of
Chicago. Instead of discussing the scenery of the city, the novel
describes it in terms of commercial resources, giving its population,
key industries, and municipal improvements. Likewise the novel
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presents its characters strictly in commercial terms. For example, it
tells the reader what Carrie's brother-in-law, Sven, does for a living
and what time he must get up for work in the morning, not what type
of person he is. The only thoughts of Sven's divulged to the reader
are his ambitions for making enough money to invest in real estate.
Similarly, Carrie's feelings about her relationships, her home, or her
life never surface; instead her dreams of future wealth and
purchasing power propel her through the story.
The novel goes into detailed quantitative descriptions of
money itself. When Carrie finally gets a job offer at a clothing
factory, Dreiser gives precise information about the salary she would
be earning, $3.50 per week. When she later locates her job at the
shoe factory, she is excited to learn that the salary here is higher,
$4.50 per week. This technique of providing the exact dollar figures
continues throughout the novel. When Hurstwood spirals into the
depths of poverty, the novel counts out every penny.
There are several reasons for Dreiser's intense focus on
commerce and financial matters. The first is that Dreiser himself,
much like Carrie, was preoccupied with fantasies and thoughts about
money throughout most of his life. Having grown up in extreme
poverty, Dreiser was very interested in the security and comfort that
money could provide. The era in which Dreiser wrote also prompted
him to focus on money. During Dreiser's young adulthood, financial
giants pursuing the rewards of American capitalism were building the
nation and helping to foster the myth of the Gilded Age—that riches
were within anyone's grasp in this land of opportunity known as the
United States. Yet in reality, the era featured deprivation and poverty
for most American laborers. Dreiser's novel emphasizes both the
difficulties and possibilities presented by the rapid expansion of
American commerce at the end of the nineteenth century.
Principal Characters
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Bob Ames: Carrie meets Bob Ames at Mrs. Vance's. Ames has a high
forehead and a rather large nose, but Carrie finds him handsome.
She likes even more his boyish nature and nice smile. Mr. and
Mrs. Vance and Carrie and Ames have dinner together, and Carrie
enjoys Ames's scholarly manner. He discusses topics that seem of
great importance to Carrie, and admits to her that money possesses
little value to him. Carrie is intrigued by this unusual person and
views her own life as insignificant in comparison.
Carrie Madenda: See Caroline Meeber
Caroline Meeber: Carrie, the main character of the story, allows
others to guide her actions. This is particularly true of her
relationships with men. At the opening of the novel, eighteenyear-old Carrie sits on a train bound for Chicago from the rural
Midwest. A Wisconsin farm girl, Carrie dresses true to her
ordinary circumstances. She wears a plain blue dress and old
shoes, and demonstrates a reserved, lady-like nature. She feels
slightly regretful at telling her parents good-bye and leaving the
only home and safety she has known, but she looks forward with
curiosity and anticipation to her new life in the city.
When a salesman named Charles Drouet starts a conversation with
her on the train, Carrie does not know how to be coy and is,
instead, simply direct in her responses to him. It is this first bold
encounter with Drouet that establishes Carrie's fate in the world
that exists beyond her farm home. Her exchange with Drouet sets
the precedent for her relationship with him and other men she
meets.
Carrie lives with her sister and brother-in-law until they are no
longer willing to support her. Having run into Drouet on the street
and renewed her acquaintance with him, Carrie accepts his
invitation to take care of her. While her upbringing rings a
cautionary bell in her subconscious, Carrie can see only the
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advantages to having Drouet provide her with room and board.
Drouet offers all that Carrie desires—nights at the theatre,
beautiful clothes, and delicious restaurant dinners. Carrie ignores
her misgivings and enjoys Drouet's attentions.
These same enticements guide Carrie's actions after she meets
George Hurstwood. His expensive dress and money impress her.
At about the same time, she has her first acting experience under
the stage name Drouet has given her, "Carrie Madenda." Carrie
gains confidence in herself through Hurstwood's attentions and the
response she gets from her first audience. She eventually leaves
Drouet behind.
Carrie and Hurstwood settle in New York. From this point on in
the story, Carrie lives for the good things in life that money and
fame can bring her. When Hurstwood fails to provide her with
these, she leaves him. As Carrie Madenda, the actress, she lives
for herself.
Sister Carrie: See Caroline Meeber
Vance, Mrs.: Mrs. Vance is Carrie's New York friend. She lives with
her husband across the hall from Carrie and Hurstwood, and
Carrie delights in Mrs. Vance's piano playing. She and Mrs. Vance
visit one another and often walk along Broadway to see and be
seen. Mrs. Vance introduces Carrie to Bob Ames.
Carrie Wheeler: See Caroline Meeber
Charles Drouet: Charles Drouet travels around the country as a
salesman, or drummer, for a dry goods firm. He meets Carrie on
the train on her first venture from the farm to the city. Drouet
perceives himself as quite a lady's man. Dressed in a vested suit
with shiny gold buttons on his sleeves, he fits the 1880 slang term
of a "masher," or a person who dresses to attract young women.
He starts a conversation with Carrie, and she cannot help but
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notice his pink cheeks, mustache, and fancy hat. In addition to his
fine dress and good looks, he possesses an easygoing nature that
puts people, especially women, at ease. Drouet manages to learn
where Carrie is going and to arrange to meet her on the following
Monday.
Although the two do not meet on that Monday, Drouet thinks of
Carrie often while he enjoys his clubs, the theatre, and having
drinks with friends, such as George Hurstwood. He brags to
Hurstwood one night about meeting Carrie, "I struck a little peach
coming in on the train Friday." Drouet vows to Hurstwood that he
will see Carrie again before he goes out of town.
Drouet runs into Carrie on the street and takes her out to dinner.
He impresses her with his lavish spending and worldliness. He
gives Carrie money to buy clothes. Carrie sees him as a kind
person; Drouet simply enjoys women. He finally convinces Carrie
to move in with him. He is thrilled with his "delicious . . .
conquest."
Unable to keep his conquest to himself, Drouet introduces
Hurstwood to Carrie. When Hurstwood and Carrie become too
involved with one another, though, Drouet shows his jealousy. He
cannot understand why Carrie would be interested in Hurstwood
when he, himself, has done so much for her. Carrie resents this
and threatens to leave. Drouet leaves instead, angry that Carrie has
used him.
Drouet and Carrie do not meet again until he arrives at her
dressing room in New York. He tries to act as if nothing has
happened, expecting to be able to win back Carrie's fond regard.
Carrie, however, ignores his advances and leaves town without
telling him. He tries to tell himself that he does not care, but he
feels a new sense of rejection.
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Hale, Mrs.: Mrs. Hale lives with her husband in the apartment above
the one Carrie and Drouet occupy. Mrs. Hale is an attractive,
thirty-five-year-old woman who is Carrie's Chicago friend. Carrie
often accompanies Mrs. Hale on buggy rides to view the mansions
neither of them can afford. Mrs. Hale gossips frequently, and
Carrie becomes an object of her gossip when Mrs. Hale sees her
with Hurstwood while Drouet is out of town.
Minnie Hanson: Minnie, Carrie's sister, meets Carrie at the train
station when Carrie arrives in Chicago. Minnie dresses plainly and
shows the wear and tear of a woman who has to work hard. Her
face is lean and unsmiling. Only twenty-seven years old, Minnie
appears older. She views her lot in life as duty to her family and
sees no room for the pleasures that people around her enjoy. She
disapproves of Carrie's desire to experience the many distractions
that Chicago offers. When Carrie leaves Chicago, Minnie is angry
at first and then concerned for her sister's welfare.
Sven Hanson: An American son of a Swedish father, Sven Hanson is
Minnie's husband and Carrie's brother-in-law. He works hard
cleaning refrigerator cars at the stockyards and intends to provide
a better life for his family in the future. The money he makes goes
toward payments on a piece of property where he will someday
build their home. Sven expects Carrie to not only do her share of
work, but also to contribute to the family's well-being. While he
generally demonstrates a serious nature, he handles his baby
gently and patiently. He is a caring and ambitious person who sees
no room for nonsense in his life.
George Hurstwood, Jr.: George Hurstwood Jr., the twenty-year-old
son of George Sr. and Julia, works for a real-estate firm but still
lives at home. He does not contribute to household expenses and
communicates infrequently with his parents. He comes and goes
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as he pleases, doing little as a family member but reaping the
benefits of free room and board.
George Hurstwood, Sr.: At the beginning of the novel, Hurstwood
imagines himself a man of distinction. While not yet forty years
old, he has managed to achieve a certain level of success as the
manager of Fitzgerald and Moy's, an elaborately appointed saloon
where the best clientele come to socialize. Given his position in
the establishment, Hurstwood knows all the right people and can
greet most of them in an informal manner. He dresses the part of
an important person, too. His tailored suits sport the stiff lapels of
imported goods, and his vests advertise the latest patterned fabrics.
He complements his suits with mother-of-pearl buttons and soft,
calfskin shoes; he wears an engraved watch attached to a solid
gold chain. Hurstwood exudes a sense of self-confidence and
notoriety.
Hurstwood impresses Carrie the first time they meet. Not only
does Hurstwood's appearance hint at class, but he also charms
Carrie with his gentlemanly deference and refined manners. Carrie
feels an immediate attraction to Hurstwood.
While Hurstwood associates with Drouet and Carrie as freely as if
he were single, he does have a wife and children. At home,
Hurstwood displays little of his public geniality although he is
always the gentleman. The family revolves about him, generally
intent on their own matters but enjoying the status Hurstwood
provides for them.
Hurstwood's downfall begins when Carrie discovers that he is
married. Shortly after that, upset that Carrie wants nothing to do
with him, he has a brief lapse of integrity and takes money from
his employer's safe. He tricks Carrie into leaving Chicago with
him, and the two eventually settle in New York.
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New York life brings Hurstwood the realization that he will not
enjoy the same preference he had known in Chicago. The status to
which he was accustomed in Chicago would cost him more in
New York. When he looks for jobs, Hurstwood finds nothing
comparable to his position in Chicago. He goes into business with
a man whom he later finds to be less than desirable. The business
begins failing. With it, Hurstwood's confidence begins to flag, and
his conscience nags him about his crime.
Hurstwood's business fails, and he squanders the money he stole.
The stress begins to wear on him, and he shows signs of
depression. As money becomes tighter and Hurstwood acts more
strangely, Carrie feels more dissatisfied. After meeting Bob Ames,
a man who represents an entirely different ideal than the men she
has always known, Carrie begins to imagine a different life than
the one she has with Hurstwood. At the same time, Hurstwood's
psychological state further deteriorates. Eventually, he finds no
reason to get dressed. When a friend offers to share an apartment
with Carrie, Carrie moves out. After Carrie leaves him, Hurstwood
wanders aimlessly through life, one of New York's homeless, until
he can no longer will himself to live.
Jessica Hurstwood: Seventeen-year-old Jessica, daughter of George
and Julia, displays too much independence to suit her parents.
Accustomed to having the latest fashions, she insists on
replenishing her wardrobe with the change of the seasons. She has
high aspirations for herself, picturing a future wherein she will be
loved and further pampered by a rich husband.
Julia Hurstwood, Mrs.: A vain person, Mrs. Hurstwood dresses in the
latest fashions and enjoys all the luxuries her husband's success
allows her. She is not an overly affectionate woman and finds
pleasure in her relationship with her children rather than with her
husband. She oversees the housework done by a succession of
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maids with whom she always finds fault. Mrs. Hurstwood has
little faith in mankind and does not hesitate to point out people's
faults. She knows, however, that finding fault with her husband
will do nothing to serve her position in life, even though much of
the family's property is in her name.
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SECTION SIX
SONS AND LOVERS BY D. H. LAWRENCE (1913)
Author: D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
Type of Plot: Psychological Realism
Introduction
Sons and Lovers (1913), by D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930), was
the first major novel of the author's career; it is now considered one
of the most important and innovative novels of the twentieth century.
Unlike other experimental novelists of the early twentieth century,
such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, Lawrence was not
concerned with radical prose techniques. Instead, the innovative
nature of his novel lies in the way it traces the psychological
development of the young protagonist, Paul Morel, as he attempts to
understand and resolve the powerful ambivalence he feels toward his
mother and the other women in his life and to become an
independent individual. Because he introduced many themes in the
novel that he developed in later works, Sons and Lovers is essential
reading for anyone who desires a full appreciation of Lawrence's art.
Lawrence closely modeled Paul Morel's life after his own
youth. Like Lawrence, Paul is the son of a Nottingham coal miner.
Paul's mother, Gertrude Morel, is a woman who has fallen below her
middle-class background and who attempts to overcome her
frustrations through the aspirations she has for her son.
Unfortunately, this well-intended maternal praise and encouragement
evolve into a harmful symbiotic bond that severely affects Paul's
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perception of women, particularly his first love, Miriam, a local farm
girl whom he eventually leaves for Clara Dawes.
Because Sons and Lovers is such a detailed psychological
portrait of Paul Morel and his family, it is not surprising that the most
prominent critical method used to examine the novel is a
psychoanalytic approach. In an early and influential Freudian
interpretation of the novel, Alfred Knutter discussed the destructive
nature of Gertrude Morel's maternal love and the way in which she
restricts Paul's ability to become emotionally involved with other
women. Many critics consider this to be the central issue of the
novel. One popular reading contends that Paul suffers from an
emotional and physical "split" that renders him incapable of having
both an emotional and a physical bond with the same woman. With
his mother and Miriam, Paul has an emotional and intellectual
affinity, while with Clara Dawes he has a purely physical
relationship.
Despite the popularity of Freudian analyses of Sons and
Lovers, the novel has also attracted criticism focused on larger social
issues that emerge from the story, as well as criticism based on the
structure of the novel. That Sons and Lovers has inspired such a wide
range of critical interpretation testifies to its enduring status as a
masterpiece of twentieth-century literature.
The Story
Walter Morel, a collier, had been a handsome, dashing young
man when Gertrude had married him. After a few years of marriage,
however, he proved to be an irresponsible breadwinner and a
drunkard, and his wife hated him for what he had once meant to her
and for what he was now. Her only solace lay in her children—
William, Annie, Paul, and Arthur—for she leaned heavily upon them
for companionship and lived in their happiness. She was a good
parent, and her children loved her. The oldest son, William, was
successful in his work, but he longed to go to London, where he had
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promise of a better job. After he had gone, Mrs. Morel turned to Paul
for the companionship and love she had found in William.
Paul liked to paint. More sensitive than his brothers and sister,
he was closer to Mrs. Morel than any of the others. William brought
a girl named Lily home to visit, but it was apparent that she was not
the right kind of girl for him; she was too shallow and self-centered.
Before long, William became aware of that fact, but he resigned
himself to keeping the promise he had made to his fiancée.
When William became ill, Mrs. Morel went to London to
nurse her son and was with him there when he died. Home once more
after she had buried her first son, Mrs. Morel could not bring herself
out of her sorrow. Not until Paul became sick did she realize that her
duty lay with the living rather than with the dead. After this
realization, she centered all of her attention upon Paul. The two other
children were capable of carrying on their affairs without the
constant attention that Paul demanded.
At age sixteen, Paul went to visit some friends of Mrs. Morel.
The Leivers were a warmhearted family, and Paul easily gained the
friendship of the Leivers children. Fifteen-year-old Miriam Leivers
was a strange girl, but her inner charm attracted Paul. Mrs. Morel,
like many others, did not care for Miriam. Paul went to work at a
stocking mill, where he was successful in his social relationships and
in his work. He continued to draw. Miriam watched over his work
and with quiet understanding offered judgment concerning his
success or failure. Mrs. Morel sensed that someday her son would
become famous for his art.
By the time Miriam and Paul had grown into their twenties,
Paul realized that Miriam loved him deeply and that he loved her; but
for some reason, he could not bring himself to touch her. Then
through Miriam he met Clara Dawes. For a long while, Mrs. Morel
had been urging him to give up Miriam, and now Paul tried to tell
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Miriam that it was all over between them. He did not want to marry
her, but he felt that he did belong to her. He could not make up his
own mind.
Clara Dawes was separated from her husband, Baxter Dawes.
Although she was five years Paul's senior, Clara was a beautiful
woman whose loveliness charmed him. Although she became his
mistress, she refused to divorce her husband and marry Paul.
Sometimes Paul wondered whether he could bring himself to marry
Clara if she were free. She was not what he wanted. His mother was
the only woman to whom he could turn for complete understanding
and love, for Miriam had tried to possess him and Clara maintained a
barrier against him. Paul continued to devote much of his time and
attention to making his mother happy. Annie had married and gone to
live with her husband near the Morel home, and Arthur had married a
childhood friend who bore him a son six months after the wedding.
Baxter Dawes resented Paul's relationship with his wife. Once
he accosted Paul in a tavern and threatened him. Paul knew that he
could not fight with Baxter, but he continued to see Clara.
Paul had entered pictures in local exhibits and had won four
prizes. With encouragement from Mrs. Morel, he continued to paint.
He wanted to go abroad, but he could not leave his mother. He began
to see Miriam again. When she yielded herself to him, his passion
was ruthless and savage. Their relationship, however, was still
unsatisfactory, and he turned again to Clara.
Miriam knew about his love affair with Clara, but the girl felt
that Paul would tire of his mistress and come back to her. Paul stayed
with Clara, however, because he found in her an outlet for his
unknown desires. His life was a great conflict. Meanwhile, Paul was
earning enough money to give his mother the material possessions
her husband had failed to provide. Mr. Morel stayed on with his wife
and son, but he was no longer accepted as a father or a husband.
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One day, it was revealed that Mrs. Morel had cancer and was
beyond any help except that of morphine and then death. During the
following months, Mrs. Morel declined rapidly. Paul was tortured by
his mother's pain. Annie and Paul marveled at her resistance to death
and wished that it would come to end her suffering. Paul dreaded
such a catastrophe in his life, although he knew it must come
eventually. He turned to Clara for comfort, but she failed to make
him forget his misery. Then, visiting his mother at the hospital, Paul
found Baxter Dawes recovering from an attack of typhoid fever. For
a long time, Paul had sensed that Clara wanted to return to Dawes,
and now, out of pity for Dawes, he brought about a reconciliation
between the husband and wife.
When Mrs. Morel's suffering had mounted to a torturing
degree, Annie and Paul decided that anything would be better than to
let her live in agony. One night, Paul gave her an overdose of
morphine, and Mrs. Morel died the next day.
Left alone, Paul was lost. He felt that his own life had ended
with the death of his mother. Clara, to whom he had turned before,
was now back with Dawes. Because they could not bear to stay in the
house without Mrs. Morel, Paul and his father parted and each took
different lodgings.
For a while, Paul wandered helplessly trying to find some
purpose in his life. Then he thought of Miriam, to whom he had once
belonged. He returned to her, but with the renewed association, he
realized more than ever that she was not what he wanted. Once he
had thought of going abroad. Now he wanted to join his mother in
death. Leaving Miriam for the last time, he felt trapped and lost in his
own indecision; but he also felt that he was free from Miriam after
many years of passion and regret.
His mother's death was too great a sorrow for Paul to cast off
immediately. Finally, after a lengthy inner struggle, he was able to
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see that she would always be with him and that he did not need to die
to join her. With his newfound courage, he set out to make his own
life anew.
Themes and Motifs
Wonder and Mystery: When Paul and Clara consummate their love
they enter a state of consciousness that is mysterious and beyond
their ordinary perception. The act of sexual union is transcended and
they knew "[. . .] their own nothingness [. . .] and [. . .] the
tremendous living flood." As a modernist writer, Lawrence
condemned the times in which he lived for being without an
essential, vital contact with life, which he blamed on science and on
an overly materialistic and mechanized society. The dominant
rationalism resulted in a loss of wonder and mystery, and it is the
search for an understanding and eventual reinstatement of this
wonder that Lawrence explores throughout his novels, poetry, and
plays. In Hymns in a Man's Life Lawrence states, "When all comes
to all, the most precious element in life is wonder. Love is the great
emotion, and power is power. But both love and power are based on
wonder." Lawrence called this sense of wonder the "natural religious
sense" and explored its loss in the contemporary world by examining
relationships between men and women.
Sexuality and Identity: Identity for Lawrence is not the autonomous,
Cartesian identity associated with thought and sensory perception,
which prevailed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The
search for identity here means the search for a more inclusive and
broader understanding of the meaning of human life in relation to the
vastness of the natural universe. In Lawrentian terms, the search for
identity means the striving for the deeper core of meaning where the
old conventions of identity disappear and contact is made with the
vast universe of true human feeling. Sons and Lovers is essentially
about discovering the true self that lies buried beneath social and
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psychological overlays. Sexuality and differences between the sexes
play a crucial role in the discovery of identity.
Life, Death, and Rebirth: The search for meaning in the novel is
expressed through the search for fulfillment in love and relationships.
The novel expresses different interpretations of the term "life" and
"death" and often ironically suggests that those who are living in a
conventional sense are dead to the wonder and beauty of life. Death
is also another ambiguous term. The novel slowly progresses toward
the death of Mrs. Morel, yet once it arrives it allows for the rebirth of
Paul in the world. Lawrence had an affinity for the image and myth
of the Phoenix and used the symbol, especially in his later works, to
suggest rebirth. The Phoenix, from ancient Greek and Egyptian
mythology, variously been called the bird of the sun, of second birth,
of Assyria, as well as the long-lived bird and the Egyptian bird. It
symbolizes the sun, life after death, and renewal. The rebirth of
modern civilization from the ashes of its present decadent state was
one of the most important aspects of Lawrence's philosophy.
The Mother and Psychology of the Unconscious: The relationship and
conflict between Mrs. Morel and her sons is the central axis of the
novel. When Lawrence was writing Sons and Lovers Sigmund
Freud's work had become popular among intellectuals. The novel
quickly became an obvious target for Freudian analysis. One of the
earliest psychoanalytic interpretations of this novel was proposed in
1916 by Alfred Kuttner, who saw the novel as supporting Freud's
theory of the Oedipal complex. This theory asserts that an
abnormally close relationship between the son and mother and a
simultaneous hatred of the father figure results in the son's
incomplete formation of his identity and his subsequent inability to
create healthy relationships with the opposite sex. Other critics,
however, have warned against an overemphasis on psychoanalytic
theory, as this approach tends to stifle the idea of the novel as art,
making it little more than a medium for theory. This interpretive
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approach can also be seen as "reductive" and not allowing for a
distinction between life and art.
Symbolism and the Inexpressible: The use of symbols and images to
convey deeper meanings is very important in this novel. Lawrence
writes about states of emotion and subtle feelings that, at the edge of
rational articulation, rely on imagery and symbols to be fully
understood. The symbol of the moon is used by Lawrence to suggest
and develop an atmosphere or mood in which emotions and
perceptions that are normally outside the range of ordinary language
can be expressed. A good example of this can be seen in the symbol
or image of a horse in this novel, which suggests inner sensual
vitality in a way that mere description could not. Throughout his
works Lawrence pushes the limitations of language to express an
inexpressible reality that lies hidden in the ordinary.
Style
The style of Sons and Lovers is drawn from a sense of
discovery and exploration. Lawrence wanted to create an experience
of emotional, not objective, truth and used several techniques to
achieve this effect: an unreliable narrator often contradicts the action,
forcing the reader to draw his own conclusions; parallel experiences
point out similarities and differences between characters that the
reader becomes aware of but the main character must deny; and
metaphor is used to describe the psychological state of the characters,
to bypass intellect and directly engage the emotional and instinctual
nature. Lawrence often uses metaphors from nature: for example,
sun, moon, horse, etc. (This may also indicate the difference between
experience and re-interpretation of these experiences. This reflexive
and self-conscious awareness was to form the foundation of postmodern criticism and writing styles.)
This approach connects Lawrence's work to the naturalist and
possibly realist literary genres. Naturalists tend to seek truth in the
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mundane and ordinary experiences of life, which fits in well with the
setting of Sons and Lovers. Naturalism is characterized by a refusal
to idealize experience and by the persuasion that human life is related
to natural laws. The naturalists are linked to the realists in their belief
that the everyday lives of the middle and lower classes were a
suitable literary subject. Lawrence inherits elements from both
literary movements, but tends towards pantheism in his works where
nature and humanity are seen as part of an essential, vital reality.
Critical Evaluation
Although Freud was the first to provide a systematic analysis
of the Oedipal relationship and its function in man's fate, this instinct
has been a part of man's unconscious from his earliest beginnings as
a social animal. The establishment of the taboo against a son's
murdering his father and having a sexual relationship with his mother
was man's initial step in the creation of civilization, because,
according to Freud, this psychic drive lies deep in every man's
subconscious or id as a reservoir of anarchistic energy. If man fails to
acknowledge this biological compulsion and to incorporate its
prohibition into his own ego, he invites annihilation, specifically in
the form of castration by the father and generally in the loss of
freedom and power.
One of the earliest and best-known dramatizations of this
drive is Sophocles' play, Oedipus Rex. Without foreknowledge and
culpable guilt, Oedipus murders his father and marries his mother.
Since he has transgressed, however, he must be punished; he blinds
himself, a form of castration. Shakespeare's Hamlet has also been
explored and explicated, most notably by Ernest Jones, as a
reenactment of the Oedipal myth. Sons and Lovers, based directly on
D. H. Lawrence's own childhood experiences, is the most significant
post-Freudian novel dealing with a young man's murderous feelings
toward his father and his erotic attraction to his mother.
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Although it would be overly simplistic to explain Sons and
Lovers as a mere gloss on a psychological concept, Freud's
"complex" does offer a convenient way to begin understanding the
character and cultural situation of Lawrence's hero, Paul Morel. He is
the youngest and adored son of a mother who has married beneath
herself. Of the failed middle class, she is educated to a degree,
refined with pretensions toward the higher matters of life. As a girl,
she is attracted to Walter Morel, a miner who possesses a passionate
exuberance she missed on the frayed edges of the middle class. Their
marriage, however, soon disintegrates under the pressures of poverty
and unfulfilled expectations. As the father and mother grow apart and
the older children leave home, Mrs. Morel turns toward her youngest
child, mapping out his life and intending to free him from the
ignominy of the working class. Her ambitions for Paul are not
untainted by her own frustrations, and it becomes clear that she
wishes to live out her life through him.
Sensitive and frail, Paul finds his father's drunkenness and
rough-edged masculinity repellent. Reared by his mother as if he
were a fragile hot-house plant, he is further alienated by his father's
vulgar habits and degrading job. Without any sympathy or
understanding of his father's suffering or his hard and abrupt love for
him, Paul withdraws and joins his mother in the domestic battle.
Morel becomes enraged and disappointed by the loss of his son and
wife and withdraws into self-pity and alcohol.
Bereft of his father's influence, Paul's life becomes dominated
by his mother. Smothered by her warm maternity, cut off from the
real world, he returns her ardent affection, and they form a
relationship designed to hold off the horrors of reality. As he grows
up, however, he discovers that he has traded his own "self" for
security. His mother's protectiveness has cost him the power and
freedom to relate to others. Every relationship he tries to create is
inhibited by her jealousy and demands for his entire attention.
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Indeed, he comes to feel that every relationship he attempts to pursue
is in some way a denial of her.
Paul's attraction to Miriam Leivers, which gradually develops
into a love affair, is ironically both a rejection and a reaffirmation of
his mother. Their immature love, which Mrs. Morel rightfully sees as
a threat, is in some ways an acting out of the sexual implications of
the mother son relationship. In her passive dominance, Miriam
unconsciously assumes for Paul the figure of his mother. Thus, if
their love manages to remove him temporarily from his mother's
sway, it also reinforces it. Both relationships are symbiotic; Paul
draws sustenance from the women but loses the power of selfpropulsion. It is evident that Paul does not completely acquiesce in
the symbiosis in both his brutal sexual treatment of Miriam and his
sexual ambivalence toward his mother.
Paul's connection with Clara and Baxter Dawes is much more
interesting and complex. Clara provides him with an adult sexual
experience unlike that which he had with Miriam. She is neither
dominating nor submissive but demands that he meet her as an equal.
He therefore must remain emotionally on his own; he is expected to
give affection as well as receive it. Unfortunately, Paul cannot
maintain such an independence, and this fact undermines their love.
He cannot exist as a self-sufficient entity, and Clara will not tolerate
an invasion of herself. Paul, however, does not understand this about
their relationship until after Mrs. Morel's death. His subsequently
successful attempt to reunite her with Baxter thus becomes his first
sign of health; it is not only an admission that their romance is
impossible but is also a reparation for having alienated her from
Baxter.
Paul's act of reparation is also symbolic. Released from his
mother's dominance by her death, a death that he hastened, he must
continue his growth toward freedom and power by making peace
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with his father. Unable to confront him directly, Paul admits by
bringing together Clara and Baxter the higher moral demands of
marital love, a love he has helped to destroy—although innocently—
between his father and mother. In this act, moreover, he negates the
child in himself and salutes the reality of the father and husband.
Overview
Sons and Lovers, Lawrence's third novel, marks the turning
point in his writing career. It shows him definitively turning away
from the external formal conventions of the Edwardian novel and
groping his way to a modernist understanding of the genre. Between
1910 and 1913, Lawrence transformed what started out as a
melodramatically told imaginary family saga into a powerful
fictionalized rendition of his own growth to manhood in a Midlands
working-class family split by differences of gender and class. In the
course of those three years, the interventions of his boyhood
sweetheart, Jessie Chambers, and his new wife, Frieda, induced
Lawrence to excavate his own inner feelings and to shape the novel
to reflect them. That looser shape met with the disapproval of
Edward Garnett, the publisher's literary adviser, who pruned about a
tenth of the finished manuscript without further consultation. The
published novel of 1913, which was further bowdlerized by the
publisher because of its sexually explicit material, remained the
standard text even after Mark Schorer published Sons and Lovers: A
Facsimile of the Manuscript in 1977. In 1992 Cambridge University
Press finally published Sons and Lovers in its original manuscript
form. But Garnett was not the only reader to take offense. The
manifestly autobiographical basis of the book bedeviled its reception
from the start. Although the reviews were generally favorable, a
number of them blamed Lawrence for his acquiescence in the
protagonist's selfish treatment of the women in his life.
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Lawrence chose to work within the genre of the
Bildungsroman because it offered him a looser, more internalized
form than that associated with the traditional novel of his time. The
Bildungsroman concerns itself with the growth and development
from childhood to manhood of its often autobiographically based
protagonist. It made its first appearance in 1795-96 with the
publication of Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm
Meister's Apprenticeship). By 1913 Lawrence had at his disposal a
form that had been used and modified by Dickens, Flaubert, Thomas
Mann, and Samuel Butler, among others. Sons and Lovers actually
belongs to a subgenre known as the Künstlerroman, that is, a novel
concerned with the growth to maturity of the artist. Another famous
instance of the Künstlerroman is Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man, which Ezra Pound started publishing serially in 1914.
Lawrence used the major conventions of the genre to give fictional
objectivity to his subjective material. His change of title from "Paul
Morel" (the protagonist) to Sons and Lovers is indicative of his larger
ambition to write "a great tragedy," "the tragedy of thousands of
young men in England." Lawrence welcomed the freedom to depart
from the remembered facts of his own life that the Bildungsroman
offered, although his choice of this mixed genre did expose him to
inevitable charges of not perceiving the failings of his protagonist.
Sons and Lovers constitutes a significant moment in the
arrival of literary modernism. While insisting that his novel had
form, Lawrence was equally insistent that "we need an apparent
formlessness, definite form is mechanical." Lawrence was not
interested in the premodernist conception of form as a reflection of
social or moral patterns of conduct. He was searching for a new way
of rendering the workings of the human psyche, the development of
which "is slow like growth." The novel alternates between brief
scenes of actions and behavior typifying a phase in the development
of the protagonist and longer, highly particularized scenes heavily
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reliant on dialogue to dramatize that phase. Lawrence described his
technique as "accumulating objects in the powerful light of emotion
and making a scene of them." Although the novel is largely
chronological, this mode of organization transforms temporal
succession into causal connection—the connections forming a
composite of the young artist's internal psychological growth into
manhood.
Lawrence's modernist approach to the narrative is responsible
for an ambivalence that runs through every aspect of the novel. Thus
the depiction of an oedipal conflict within Paul, who is torn between
his powerful mother and his childhood sweetheart, is complicated by
the fact that Lawrence was still undergoing a similar conflict while
writing the book. The text itself shows the workings of unconscious
desire and refuses to conform to the textbook case history of the
Oedipus complex (which Lawrence offered Garnett in an attempt to
justify its radically different concept of form). In addition,
Lawrence's concern with the workings of the unconscious is matched
by a competing desire to show how all his characters are shaped by
the disruptive effects of industrialization at the turn of the century. If
Paul's motivation turns on unconscious fantasies of murdering his
father, the narrator goes beyond that frame of reference to show how
all the major characters are alienated from one another and
themselves by the pernicious class war that capitalism fostered for its
own purposes. Lawrence's earlier references to his "collier novel"
emphasize the fact that this conception of his characters as exemplary
of the predicament his generation faced at that stage of British
industrial capitalism was as important a factor as the psychological.
The novel's political allegiance is illustrated by the fact that Paul
does not rise out of the working class to join the middle class; rather,
he leaves class-ridden English society to become an alienated and
déclassé artist.
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In more recent times, Sons and Lovers has become a pivotal
text in the ongoing debate about the representation of women in
fiction written by men. First Simone de Beauvoir, then Kate Millett
argued that all the women in the book are defined by men (whether
Paul or the narrator) and are used by them. Later feminist critics have
pointed to Lawrence's support for the suffragette movement, while
noting that he felt the real revolution that needed to take place was a
sexual and spiritual revolution in individual women. While Lawrence
was tainted by certain male prejudices common among his
contemporaries, he championed women's as much as men's right to
sexual freedom in the face of the Victorian mores that still
characterized his time.
Principal Characters
Walter Morel, an English collier in many ways typical of the literary
image of the lower-class workingman. He is not interested in the
arts, in matters of the intellect, or even greatly in his work, which
for him is merely a source of income. He is a creature who lives
for whatever pleasures he can find in eating, drinking and his bed.
At first a warmly vital man, he later becomes rough and brutal to
his family and fights with them verbally and physically. His wife,
after the first glow of marriage fades, means little to him because
of her puritanical attitudes and regard for culture, and he becomes
alienated from his children. His one creative joy is mending odd
bits of household equipment and his work clothing. A coal miner
he has been since boyhood, and a coal miner he is content to be.
Gertrude Morel, Walter Morel's wife, a woman who has married
beneath her class and who soon regrets her action. She is quickly
disillusioned by her husband, and the glamour of their courtship
soon fades. She discovers her husband has debts he tells her he has
paid and that he constantly lies about the little money he brings
home. He always saves out some money for his drinking,
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regardless of how little he earns at the mine. In her disillusionment
Mrs. Morel turns to her children for understanding and affection,
as well to protect them from their father's brutality when drunk. As
the sons and daughter appear on the scene each becomes a focal
point for the mother's love. She tries to help them escape the little
mining community, and she succeeds. On her second son, Paul,
she places a blight by centering her affections upon him and
loving him too well, making him the recipient of love that should
have been given to her husband. Her affection and attentions cause
him to be stunted emotionally. She never realizes what she is
doing to the talented young man but always believes that she is
working in his best interest by keeping him at home and governing
his affections. Her life, however, is cut short by cancer; Paul ends
her terrible pain by giving her an overdose of opiates. Even after
her death her influence lingers in his life, so that he shows little
evidence of developing into an individual, fulfilled personality.
Paul Morel, the second child of Walter and Gertrude Morel. After his
older brother goes off to London to take a job, Paul is the object of
his mother's affection; she helps him find work as a clerk close to
home so that he can continue to live with his family. He receives
encouragement to study art and becomes a successful part-time
painter and designer. But Paul's mother and her influence keep
him from growing up. Though he fights against her ruling his life,
he is trapped. He readily understands how she forces him to give
up his love for Miriam Leivers, whom he courts for many years,
but he fails to see that his ability to love any woman as an adult
man has been crippled by his emotional attachment to his mother.
William Morel, Paul's older brother. When he leaves his family to go
to London, his mother transfers her obsessive affections to Paul.
William falls in love with a shallow, pseudo-sophisticated girl
who takes his money readily, even for her personal clothing, and
treats his family as her servants. Though he sees through the girl,
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William feels trapped into marrying her. A tragic marriage for him
is averted only through his sudden and untimely death.
Miriam Leivers, a young farm girl with a highly spiritual yet
possessive nature. She and Paul Morel are companions until their
late teens, when Miriam falls in love with the young man. She
spends a great deal of time with him, for he undertakes to educate
her in French, algebra, and other subjects, but his mother objects
strenuously to the girl, especially when Paul seems to return the
girl's love. Of a highly romantic nature, Miriam is repelled by the
physical aspects of love until she is slowly persuaded to give
herself to her lover, who later breaks off his engagement to her,
saying that in her need for a committed love she wants too much
from him.
Clara Dawes, a handsome, married, but physically emancipated
woman living apart from her husband. She becomes Paul Morel's
mistress and comes as close as anyone can to helping him achieve
the ability to love as an adult. At last even she despairs of him and,
with his help, is reconciled to her husband, from whom she has
been separated many years.
Mrs. Radford, Clara Dawes' mother.
Baxter Dawes, Clara Dawes' husband. Though he and Paul Morel are
bitter enemies for a time and have a fight in which Paul is badly
beaten, Paul's mother's final illness drives the young man to feel
sympathy for his rival, the wronged husband. Dawes, who is
recuperating from typhoid fever, is helped financially and morally
by Paul, who eventually brings the man and his wife together.
Anne Morel, Paul Morel's sister. She escapes her home by becoming
a schoolteacher. She achieves a happy, successful marriage and
goes to live in Sheffield.
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Arthur Morel, the youngest of Mrs. Morel's children, much like his
father. He enlists in the army but later Mrs. Morel buys him out of
the service. He is trapped into marriage with a young woman he
does not love.
Louisa Lily Denys Western (Gipsy), William Morel's shallow fiancée.
Mr. Leivers, a silent, withdrawn man, the owner of Willey Farm and
Miriam's father.
Mrs. Leivers, his good, patient, meek wife. Her philosophy is that the
smitten should always turn the other cheek.
Agatha, a schoolteacher, Edgar, Geoffrey, Maurice, and Hubert
Leivers, Miriam's sister and brothers. Edgar is Paul Morel's good
friend. The Leivers boys display a brooding, almost brutal nature
in contrast to Miriam's romantic spirituality.
a manufacturer of surgical appliances in
Nottingham. Paul becomes a clerk in his factory.
Thomas
Jordan,
Miss Jordan, Paul Morel's patroness. She encourages his interest in
art.
Mr. Pappelworth, a senior clerk, in charge of the spiral department,
in Mr. Jordan's factory. When he leaves to set up a business of his
own, Paul Morel becomes the spiral overseer.
Fanny, a hunchback, a "finisher" in the spiral department at the
Jordan factory. She sympathizes with Paul Morel in his adolescent
moodiness and unhappiness.
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SECTION SEVEN
BELOVED BY TONI MORRISON (1987)
Author: Toni Morrison (1931- )
Introduction
Beloved is a novel primarily set in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1873,
but also set from 1855 to 1873 and in Kentucky prior to 1855;
published in 1987. In Beloved, Morrison embraces the supernatural
as perhaps the ideal vehicle for the investigation of slavery, an
institution so incomprehensible that Morrison suggests that most
Americans would like to bury it, since it is the historical reminder of
a national disgrace. Morrison delayed the writing of this novel
because she anticipated the pain of recovery and confrontation. She
told Elizabeth Kastor, "I had forgotten that when I started the book, I
was very frightened. … It was an unwillingness and a terror of going
into an area for which you have no preparation. It's a commitment of
three or four years to living inside—because you do try to enter that
life." In spite of "this terrible reluctance about dwelling on that era,"
Morrison informed Angelo that she went ahead with the writing of
the book because "I was trying to make it a personal experience."
Beloved is based on the true story of the slave Margaret
Garner, who murdered her own child rather than return her to
slavery. In the novel the slave woman, Sethe, escapes to freedom in
the North, where she lives with her remaining children. Morrison
altered the true story, she told Marsha Darling in a 1988 interview, as
Garner was not tried for murder:
She was tried for a real crime, which was running away—
although the abolitionists were trying very hard to get her tried for
murder because they wanted the Fugitive Slave Law to be
unconstitutional. They did not want her tried on those grounds, so
they tried to switch it to murder as a kind of success story. They
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thought that they could make it impossible for Ohio, as a free
state, to acknowledge the right of a slave-owner to come get those
people. In fact, the sanctuary movement now is exactly the same.
But they all went back to Boone County and apparently the man
who took them back—the man she was going to kill herself and
her children to get away from—he sold her down river, which was
as bad as being separated from each other. But apparently the boat
hit a sandbar or something, and she fell or jumped with her
daughter, her baby, into the water. It is not clear whether she fell
or jumped, but they rescued her and I guess she went on down to
New Orleans and I don't know.
Morrison informed Darling that she did not do much research on
Garner because "I wanted to invent her life, which is a way of saying
I wanted to be accessible to anything the characters had to say about
it. Recording her life as lived would not interest me, and would not
make me available to anything that might be pertinent." The
metaphor for Morrison's reluctance for mimesis is the configuration
of Beloved—part ghost, zombie, devil, and memory. Morrison
reveals Beloved in tantalizing degrees until she is manifested as a
full-blooded person. Like a childhood trauma Beloved comes back in
snatches until finally her history is retold, a discovery process shared
by Morrison, her characters, and the readers as the primary step to
collective spiritual recovery.
Beloved is a purging of the guilt of the American psyche.
Sethe's slave status involves total loss of freedom and humanity. In
1988 her novel Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, testimony
to the groundbreaking nature of her achievements. This victory was
followed by Morrison's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1993.
The Story
Morrison wrote Beloved in an imagistic mode, slipping from
present to past on almost every page. Beloved presents several
characters' experiences and memories: the story emerges as we
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encounter everyone's pasts through memory and piece together their
different accounts of their experiences in slavery and Reconstruction.
Though much of the story prior to the novel's time is told in
flashback, the central action of the plot develops out of a single
dramatic event. Sethe, the novel's protagonist, is an escaped slave
and mother of four in post-Civil War Ohio. She experiences a single
month of freedom in the outskirts of Cincinnati with her four children
and their grandmother, Baby Suggs. Her hopeful new life comes to a
violent end when Schoolteacher, the slave owner from whom Sethe
has run away, arrives in Cincinnati to retrieve "what is rightfully his."
The thought of returning her children to a lifetime of slavery is so
abhorrent to Sethe that she decides to kill them instead. She only
manages to kill one, her little girl Beloved. Before she can kill the
other three children, they are snatched away by Stamp Paid, a friend
of Baby Suggs.
The novel is set in 1873, eighteen years after the murder.
Sethe lives with her youngest daughter, Denver, in the same house
where she murdered Beloved, 124 Bluestone Road. The house is
haunted by the ghost of the dead baby. Sethe's sons, Howard and
Buglar, ran away years ago because they could not tolerate the baby
ghost's tantrums. Sethe's mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, died the same
year they fled.
In 1873 Paul D, formerly enslaved with Sethe at Sweet Home,
arrives at 124. He hasn't seen Sethe since she ran away from the
plantation. While Paul D brings back terrible memories of slavery for
Sethe, he also brings her a sense of family, and reawakens her desire:
for all these reasons she encourages him to move in with her and
Denver. Paul D fights the baby ghost into submission, and the three
begin to show signs of becoming a normal family, until a young
woman shows up in their yard. She moves in and becomes Denver's
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best and only friend. When Paul D asks her name, she says it is
Beloved.
Beloved spends as much time as possible with Sethe; she also
secretly seduces Paul D. After a few weeks of living at 124, Paul D
discovers why everyone in town ignores Sethe and Denver, and why
their house is haunted. Shocked and disgusted, Paul D moves out.
Meanwhile, Beloved consumes more and more of Sethe's time
and energy. Sethe realizes this woman is her reincarnated child and
becomes obsessed with appeasing and mothering her. Beloved starts
demanding more than Sethe can sanely offer, and Sethe loses her job.
Denver, realizing they are starving, tries to find work in town.
Word travels fast that Sethe is being punished and tortured by the
reincarnation of her baby girl. The townswomen pity Sethe and begin
to leave baskets of food outside of the house. Denver starts working
for a white family (the Bodwins) in Cincinnati, and one day, as she
waits on the porch to be picked up for her new job by Mr. Bodwin,
thirty of the townswomen march to 124 to exorcise Beloved.
Mr. Bodwin arrives, and Sethe, in an hysterical fit of
confusion and rage, tries to stab him with an ice pick. Denver stops
her mother, and Beloved disappears.
Denver continues to adjust to her new life beyond 124, while
Sethe languishes in bed, sick. Paul D comes back to 124 and insists
on taking care of her.
Themes and Meanings
Collective Consciousness and Black Experience: The central themes in
Beloved are based on Morrison's theory that slavery in the United
States was a collective experience involving "sixty million and more"
(see dedication), and that it has to be represented as an experience
shared by white and black people, slaves and owners, children and
parents, husbands and wives, the living and the dead. Slavery haunts
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everyone in the story, yet an accurate representation of each
character's individual experience is impossible. Together, however,
their perspectives form a collective consciousness that begins to
articulate an unspeakable experience.
Redefining the Past, Reclaiming What's Lost: Morrison sets out what
might be seen as the work's key theme with her epigraph: "I will call
them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which
was not beloved." This highly suggestive quotation places the novel
in the context of redefinition, speaking both to Sethe's complicated
relationship with her murdered child and to the often-fragmented
history of African Americans, of which Sethe's story is but one
expression. This idea of redefinition can further be said to resonate
beyond the above interpretation and to address multiracial America,
which continues to struggle with racism.
Mothers, Daughters, and Nurturing: The story of Beloved is
inextricably linked with the relationships between mothers and
daughters. The four primary characters in the novel are Sethe,
Beloved, Denver, and Baby Suggs, all of whom struggle with their
respective roles as black women. They strive to express their love
and compassion for each other in a racist and sexist society. There
are limits to how much emotion a mother or daughter can allow
herself; the risk of losing one's loved ones is too great. Morrison
raises a pivotal question surrounding this theme: How can a mother
protect her children from the horrors of slavery?
The Haunting and The Haunted: Ghosts and spirits are common
characters in Beloved; indeed, none of the living characters are ever
surprised or in disbelief when they are visited by the supernatural.
Every person in the black community is haunted in one manner or
another: Sethe is haunted by the baby girl she killed eighteen years
ago; Denver is haunted by her mother's murder; Paul D is haunted by
his eighteen plus years trying to escape slavery; Baby Suggs is
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haunted by all of her (dead?) children. Morrison emphasizes that
each and every one of them is haunted by slavery in one way or
another; what is most interesting, perhaps, is that these characters
expect communication with this "other" world, and often they find
answers in the supernatural world around them. Such interactions
suggest that revisiting the past, and welcoming its ghosts, is
necessary for healing.
Freedom and its Sacrifices: Morrison's vivid images of slavery are
interspersed with equally vivid images of freedom. As Morrison
describes it, freedom is a privilege that demands sacrifice. In postCivil War America, freedom was not a natural born right of all
citizens. Men were not created equal in the eyes of America's
forefathers, and for slaves to win their freedom, they had to make a
profound sacrifice. Sethe wanted her own freedom, so she risked her
life by fleeing her plantation on foot while nine months pregnant.
One month later, after Sethe had tasted the sweetness of freedom, and
Schoolteacher came to retrieve what "was rightfully his," Sethe could
not bear the thought of returning her children to slavery. She wanted
her daughter's freedom so passionately that she was willing to
sacrifice the baby's life.
Dehumanization and Human Survival: Morrison documents both
Sethe and Paul D's respective flights from slavery. Their stories are
equally horrifying. Neither one is surprised to hear that the other
underwent various forms of dehumanization and bestialization in
order to escape slavery. For example, Paul D reminds Sethe that once
when he was caught, he was forced to wear a horse's bit in his mouth.
This experience emasculated Paul D, but he did manage to survive
and ultimately escape.
Overview
When Beloved received the Pulitzer Prize, the event
simultaneously marked Toni Morrison's prominence within
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contemporary American letters and a turning point in her fiction. In
an interview shortly after the publication of the novel, Morrison
remarked,
We live in a land where the past is always erased and America is
the innocent future in which immigrants can come and start over,
where the slate is clean. The past is absent or it's romanticized.
This culture doesn't encourage dwelling on, let alone coming to
terms with, the truth about the past. That memory is much more in
danger now than it was 30 years ago.
In Beloved, Morrison sets out to discover the truth about the racial
past of the United States. She bases the novel on a historical incident:
the story of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who kills her children
rather than have them return with her to slavery. In Morrison's novel,
the heroine, Sethe, is haunted by the ghost of her murdered baby girl.
The arrival of Paul D, who had been enslaved with Sethe before
emancipation, drives away the specter, but she returns in corporeal
form as "Beloved"—the only name on her tombstone—to continue
her vengeance.
Beyond the importance of the subject matter, the significance
of the novel lies in its fusion of oral folk tradition with modern
techniques of magic realism and postmodern ontological ambiguity.
Morrison's formal innovation lies in the role of the narrator, who
gives an oral-aural dimension to the fiction. In a 1988 interview,
Morrison comments on this quality of her work:
Even though I don't speak it when I'm writing it, I have this
interior piece, I guess, in my head that reads, so that the way I
hear it is the way I write it and I guess that's the way I would read
it aloud. The point is not to need the adverbs to say how it sounds
but to have the sound of it in the sentence, and if it needs a lot of
footnotes or editorial remarks or description in order to say how it
sounded, then there's something wrong with it.
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In Beloved, Morrison creates an oral-aural narrative tone to explore
the meaning of American slavery. The past that is so unspeakably
horrific and painful is recalled through the characters' "rememory" as
fragments are brought with difficulty to consciousness, where they
can be exorcised. Only by confronting the demons of the past can the
characters find peace and healing. The narrator determines the pace
of the release of memories by Sethe and Paul D, interposing the
stories of Grandmother "Baby" Suggs, Sixo, the Cherokee people,
Ella, and Stamp Paid. Suffering, deprivation, loneliness, despair, and
injustice form recurring motifs in the stories of black people's lives,
countering that other thematic motif, the power of white ideology,
which takes shape in the stories of the Kentucky plantation Sweet
Home and the owners, the Garners; the story of Amy, the servant girl
who has escaped her indenture and is heading for Boston; and the
story of the abolitionist brother and sister, the Bodwins.
All the characters are destroyed by their confrontation with
white power. Sethe sees Beloved's return as an opportunity to explain
why she had killed her rather than allow her to be taken back into
slavery: worse than death was "what Baby Suggs died of, what Ella
knew, what Stamp saw, and what made Paul D tremble. That
anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to
mind." After her redemption by her son Halle, Baby Suggs starts
preaching to raise black consciousness, urging people to claim their
freedom by claiming pride in their bodies and themselves, to counter
the poison of institutionalized racism. But she is defeated, first by the
Fugitive Slave Law and then by the spectacle of her daughter-in-law
killing her own children. Though Baby Suggs is legally free, the
slave-catchers still enter her house to claim Sethe and the children.
Morrison suggests that in this world, all blacks are forced to see
themselves from a racist perspective, which Baby Suggs names "the
Misery." "The Misery" is the reason Sethe kills.
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At first, Sethe is amused by her owner, "Schoolteacher," who
measures the slaves, counts their teeth, and asks questions, until she
understands that this behavior is an expression of his inability to
recognize the slaves as human beings. Sethe refuses to submit to
Schoolteacher's racial vision and escapes. But this assertion of self
alienates the black community and compromises the success of her
escape. Without the support of the community, which has been
corrupted by the perverted values of white racism, Sethe is isolated
and the slave-catchers discover her. Her subsequent attempt to
murder her children rather than return them to slavery is also an act
of self-definition, of agency, in the only way available to her.
A significant condition of white supremacy is that blacks can
direct their anger, rage, and aggression only inwardly, in acts of selfdestruction. Of all the members of the outraged black community,
only Stamp Paid realizes, finally, the significance of Sethe's action
and how it demonstrates the extent of white power over black lives.
This realization makes him understand that the ghost haunting 124
Bluestone Road is not singular but plural, that the voices are not
personal but political, and that the people who speak are all those
who have been tortured, lynched, and murdered.
Realization, when it comes in this narrative, is the result of a
reluctant and painful piecing together of the torn fragments of
history. The narrative is characterized by twin movements of
fragmentation and repetition. This duality may be seen in Morrison's
handling of time: the narrative opens in medias res. Only gradually
do readers learn that 1873 is the present; that 1855 is the year of
Sethe's escape; and that she enjoys only 28 days of freedom. Time
before the escape is generalized and imaged by the slave plantation,
Sweet Home; time since her escape is measured against the loss of
her baby and the onset of the haunting. Slave time is fractured,
repetitious, and obsessive. The impulse to fragmentation reaches a
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pitch in the section that begins, "I am Beloved and she is mine." In
this section, an accumulation of nightmarish images presents the full
horrors of slavery: conditions on board the slave ship, the
suffocation, the stench of rotting flesh, the rats, the deafening noise
of human suffering; and then the soul-destroying indignities of
manacles and neck halters, loss, and pain. The near incoherence of
the narrative in places is counterbalanced by the obsessive repetition
of narrative units, words, phrases, and images. Elements that keep
returning include Schoolteacher's view of blacks as animals, Paul D's
accusation that Sethe has behaved like an animal, and Stamp's
unanswered questioning of the humanity of the lynchers. Biblical
references permeate the text as does imagery associated with food,
particularly the theft of Sethe's baby milk and the blackberry feast
that is interrupted by the arrival of the slave-catchers. Snippets of
story are repeated, gathering significance and clarity with each
repetition, until gradually the fragments come together in a ritual of
accelerating repetition and assume the stature of myth. So, too, is
Sethe's trauma repeated in her mind until, at the end of the novel, she
attacks Mr. Bodwin, mistaking him for School-teacher. In this way—
by directing her fury at a legitimate target (a white man)—Sethe is
able to exorcise the ghost of her past, and Beloved disappears.
The fragmented narrative mirrors the fragmented subjectivity
of the slave. Paul D, for instance, advises against loving things that
are too big or loving too much. The suggestion is that slaves deal in
pieces, not wholes; that they do not see the grand picture because
they are pawns rather than agents in the history that affects them. In
Beloved, Morrison creates that grand picture as a corrective to the
history of slavery and Reconstruction seen through the eyes of
whites. First, she focuses upon the experience of slavery for women,
emphasizing the ways in which the experience of marriage,
childbirth, and motherhood is unique for enslaved black women. In a
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sense she is writing against a masculine view of slavery. Second, she
presents this history as a legacy to the 20th century, particularly in
the failure of the black family. For instance, Baby Suggs has no way
to trace her husband or children who have been sold; Sethe has no
effective model of motherhood to follow, as Baby Suggs lost all her
children except Halle, and Sethe's mother (whose offspring were
almost exclusively the result of rape) remains a shadowy figure in her
recollection. Thus, racial, personal, and national history coincide—
reluctantly but necessarily—as the future that must be claimed by
blacks who take possession of their own selves in order to become
truly free.
Principal Characters
Sethe: a free black woman who has escaped slavery, haunted by the
daughter she sacrificed to save her from slavery
Howard and Buglar: Sethe's sons, both of whom desert the family
when the ghost of their baby sister becomes too difficult for them
to withstand
Denver: Sethe's quiet and withdrawn daughter, raised in complete
solitude and joyous when a new woman moves in with the family
Beloved: Sethe's oldest daughter whom she killed as an infant
Baby Suggs: Sethe's mother-in-law, the voice of wisdom and
kindness in the novel
Halle: Sethe's departed husband, once a slave on the Sweet Home
Plantation
Paul D: another slave on the Sweet Home Plantation, who arrives on
Sethe's doorstep 18 years later
Other Sweet Home Men (slaves): Sixo, Paul A, Paul F
Mr. and Mrs. Garner: white owners of the Sweet Home men
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Schoolteacher: brutal owner of the Sweet Home men after Mr.
Garner dies
Amy Denver: poor white girl who helps Sethe deliver her child while
she's escaping Sweet Home
Stamp Paid: black man who ferries runaways across the Ohio River
Ella and John: black couple that helps Stamp Paid
Lady Jones: Denver's former school teacher
Mr. and Miss Bodwin: white friends of the Garners', living in
Cincinnati, Ohio
Janey Wagon: the Bodwins' black servant
Mr. Sawyer: Sethe's boss at the restaurant
Thirty-Mile Woman: one of Sixo's lovers
Brandywine: Paul D's owner after Schoolteacher sells him
Hi Man: leader of Paul D's chain gang in Alfred, Georgia
Nelson Lord: old classmate of Denver's in Lady Jones's class
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