Assignment Paper-5

Topic- Willy Loman as a victim of capitalist society

Dabhi Ashvin P

M.A. Part – 1

Roll No -11

Year – 2010-11

Department of English

Submitted to Mr. Jay Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

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v Introduction: - Willy Loman is the protagonist of the play “Death of a salesman” by Arthur Miller. Through Willy’s character Miller has depicted the life of a common man. Willy Loman as his name suggest is the average lower middle class American. He is everyman his life is typical, dull, and innocent. He has two ambitions. He wants to be rich and he wants to be loved by his elder son Biff. The end of the play is partly ironical and partly positive. Willy becomes rich but only when he is dead he dies with the satisfaction that Biff really loves him.

The common theme of Miller’s play is the individual versus society. As a dramatist he concentrated on the single subject-“The struggle…of the individual attempting to gain his rightful position in his society” or in his family which is a part and unit of society. Like Ibsen, Shaw and Galsworthy, Miller also deals with social problems of the modern men but in a different manner.

In Death of a Salesman also the same theme of self-interest appears. Willy Loman, the hero is a salesman who is driven by two examples of success that have a strong hold or his imagination. These are, first that of a brother who ran away and became rich, and secondly of a very successful salesman to whom buyers come without his having to take the slightest trouble. Loman is propelled not by ambition for himself but for his two sons, for whom he wants every good thing. But contrary to his expectation the sons come eventually to despise him. In his conformation with his elder son Biff, Loman sees everything with brilliant clarity. Biff asserts his independence by rejecting all the dreams the father has spun for him and by asserting his right to be a failure. A possibility of making his son care for him opens out before him, and the salesman goes out crying out “That boy-that boy is going to be magnificent” The idea that has just dawned on his mind is that of committing suicide, making Biff come into the twenty thousand dollars of his life insurance. The deluded salesman contemplates Biffs’ reaction to this magnanimous deed of his father. Even Ben, his brother, he thinks will worship him for it. With a sense of triumph he asserts that Biff will thus be able to go on better than his neighbor’s son Bernard. He says, “When the mail comes he’ll be ahead of Bernard again.”

v Willy is a exhausted salesman:-

Willy is a travelling salesman in Wagner’s company. He is past sixty tears of age. He is exhausted. His wife Linda suggests that he should ask for a job in the firm’s office in New York so that he doesn’t have to travel. He tells her that the firm needs him not in New York but in the New England. He feels that he is largely responsible for the large sales of the products in the New England. He feels that he is vital in New England. He claims to know all the important people in his area. He says that he can park his car wherever he likes and the police would protect it. He thinks himself to be a very successful salesman but it is his self adaption. Dave Singleman is his ideal. He always follows his example. In reality he is an utter failure who is not earning properly and he is unable to meet his financial needs as well as he feels loneliness.

v A man of many illusions:-

Willy is a man of many illusions. He thinks that if a man wants to be successful in life, he should not only be liked but well liked. Willy loves material success. He feels that such success can be achieved by personal magnetism and the spirit of enterprise. He speaks highly of himself and of his son Biff. He has innocent faith in the goodness and rightness of other people. He thinks that if you make yourself likable, you can end up with diamonds. Realization comes to him when he is neglected by his boss and rejected by his own sons in the dinner scenes. His second illusion is greater than this first one. He gives importance to personal attractiveness rather than hard work. The results are contrary to this.

v He is a demonic figure in a shabby business suit:-

Willy Loman is a demonic figure in a shabby business suit, a man unable to compromise his dream, who like the tragic comic Spanish Don Quixote who hurled himself foolishly and wonderfully against the world’s wind mills must pursue his conception of himself wherever it will lead him with an intensity that most definitely passes he seeks a kind of ecstasy in life which by it’s very nature is impossible to maintain. Nevertheless, his inherent humanity and his capacity for love and self-sacrifice sympathetically and poignantly qualify this destruction.

v He is a dreamer:-

In his younger days of salesmanship he dreamed: “somebody I’ll have my own business and I’ll never have to leave home anymore.” At that time his son Happy had expressed his hope that time he would have as big a business as uncle charley’s but willy had confidently said: “Bigger than uncle charley, Because charley is not liked. He’s liked, but he is not well lied.”Illusions are real to Willy. He never comes out of the world of dreams, illusions and false beliefs. He boasts to his sons and wife. He tells them that people all round the places he visits know him, but when he dies there comes hardly any mourner to shed tears over his death. One reason of his failure is his misplaced with in the power of personal attractiveness. Second reason is his extra-ordinary concern for the well-being of his sons. He does not allow his children freedom to find out their own values. On the contrary, he wants to bring them up in his own world of illusions and false beliefs. He never let’s them face reality. Thirdly, he is a victim of his society which encourages and develops in its members false values. It is the world of competition that has caused his doom.

v Willy Loman is a low man:-

He is a salesman who sells not goods but his “self.” He gives his life, or sells it in order to justify the waste of it. He is so many things at a time- a father, a husband, a salesman, a member of a society, an item of human psyche, a tragic hero. To use miller’s words “Willy is a baby, Willy is a victim.”He represents the whole mass of American civilization a slogan out of the 1930s, ‘a banner to liberate people’, ‘a criticism of society’. He is an indictment against the machine civilization of America which has deprived man of his real content and peace of mind. He is indeed an average American. As Miller himself has said, “I didn’t write ‘Death of a salesman’ to announce some new American man, or an old American man. Willy Loman is, I think a person who embodies of himself some of the most terrible conflicts running through the streets of America today.” Thus Loman is everyman or any common man.

v Willy also suffer from a sense of inadequacy and inferiority:-

He tries to talks about something he does hot know anything about. In the play, several times he hints at his sense of insecurity, of haunting loneliness, of ravaging emptiness, of the lack of communication, of his inarticulate grouping into the meaning of a purposeful life. He feels that the structure of his life is built on a temporary edifice, and not on solid foundations.

v Misfit in the environment of capitalist society in which he lived:-

One way Willy is quite misfit in the environment in which he lives. He is very much depressed by the harshness of life and surrounding. He always wants to escape in his imagination world. He loves nature and it symbolizes his far off happiness that Willy wants to have. He is frustrated by the building around him. He says: “The grass don’t grow anymore, you can’t raise carrot in the backyard.”

His memories of elm trees, the beautiful melody of flute etc, they are suggestive of his love for nature. The symbolic planting of a garden before his death is also quite symbolic. He loves roadside scenery. He tells Linda that it is very beautiful. The trees are thick and the sun is warm. He is sorry for the jungle of bricks around him. He misses the fresh air of the past. He feels that increase in population is ruining the country. Thus he is depressed by materialistic world around him

v Contradicts himself and often absent minded:-

Willy is often confused. He contradicts himself and becomes absent minded. In the beginning of the play he returns from his journey without completing his work as he was unable to drive his car. He tells Linda about Biff that he is lazy and just after sometimes he describes him as a hard worker. He says that he is not lazy. Though all the windows are open, He absent mindedly asks India to open them.

v A pathetic person:-

Willy is a pathetic person. We feel sorry for him. He talks to Linda with a heart full of pain and Linda can understand him. We can understand his terrible situation when Linda says, “But he is a human being and a terrible thing is happening to him, so attention must be paid to him.”

She says Biff that ‘the man is exhausted’ Willy accepts his short comings to Linda but he is unable to overcome them. We feel sorry for him when he asks Howard to give him job in New York. He is able to reduce his salary from sixty thousand dollars to forty thousand dollars a week. But Howard doesn’t agree. He advices him to take rest. He has very high dreams for Biff. He is very happy when Biff is going to see Bill Oliver for asking for money, but when Biff returns and tells him the realities he is unable to bear it. His frustration always leads him toward the efforts of suicide. He has tried to smash the car many times. His frustration is seen throughout the play.

v A victim of the economic and commercial forces of society:-

Willy tries to achieve success but fails constantly. He is unable to bear his frustration. He feels that has done nothing in his life and it is his duty to do something for his family. He says,

         “I have got to get some seeds right away nothing

           Is planted. I do not have a thing in the ground.”

These sentences are quite symbolical. It is his realization that he couldn’t do anything. The other realization comes to him afterwards. It is Biff that makes him see realities and asks to abandon false dreams and cries. At that time Willy feels,

Willy: Isn’t that remarkable? Biff he likes me!

Linda: He loves you Willy.

Happy: Always did pop.

This is the happiest moment of Willy’s life. He wanted love of his son and he got it. Then he commits suicide to get insurance of twenty thousands dollars for his son’s better future. Thus Willy is an old man who has no security and cannot look forward to an easy and comfortable retired life. All his life, he struggled against back payments and debts. When he died, he had no debt but he was not there to enjoy it.

v Conclusion:-

So Death of a Salesman is not merely a drama of domestic quarrels between a father and his sons, a drama of conflict between capitalist and communism, between self and soul, between psyche and conscience, between religiosity and irreligiosity, between a salesman and a manufacturer, but of a conflict between the individual and society, a conflict between man’s values and his environment. The playwright was trying in “Salesman” to set forth what happens when a man does not have a grip on the forces of life and has no sense of values which will lead him to that kind of a grip. “Death of a Salesman is the most poignant statement of man as he must face himself”. Its basic theme is man’s loss of conscience. Loyalty to family also is its theme. It is an anatomy of failure.    

   

  

Assignment Paper-4

Topic-Tom Jones as a mock heroic epic

Ashvin p. Dabhi

Roll No – 11

SEM – I

Batch-2010-11

Submitted to Ruchira Dudhrejiya

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Ø Introduction :-

              Tom Jones is a mock heroic epic in prose and it is not. It is a comic epic in prose by virtue of its classical approach, its width and rambling narration, and it is not because it has a secret, as pointed out by a critic and epic has no secret. But let us examine Tom Jones as ‘comic epic in prose’.

                Enjoying the freedom of an artist he burst on the literary scene giving thousands of hours for writing the epic called Tom Jones. The bulk of the novel is a challenge to an epic. We cannot possibly call pride and prejudice an epic of movement, whereas Tom Jones moves on rambling to any distance. An epic is an honest narrative with a plain design wherein the characters asserts their personality with a moral ardor. The writer of an epic is not much of an artist in the sense that he neither hides facts nor knits surprising situations. He overawes a reader by virtue of certain classical heaviness and we are made to applaud the hero or the heroic for their sacrifice or some extraordinary performances. Fielding does not attempt Tom Jones in the pure style of an epic. He makes the novel a cross-bred of writing in which we find the width if an epic and the cunning of a novelist. It is not a pure epic thought it has the appearances and the design of its style.

                 Fielding in his book II chapter I of Tom Jones declare about the approach in writing the novel in the following words: “I am in reality the founder of a new province of writing, so I am at liberty to make laws I please therein.” The writer is certainly at liberty to enjoy a unique freedom, and this freedom has been employed profitability for giving us a novel with all semblance of an epic. The movement of the novel has the speed of an epic. The story goes on revealing new facts. The incidents many and varied come and go but Tom Jones is something even greater than an epic in the sense it knits plot on the basis of novel. As such the novel eludes any classification. Roughly we may call it an epic to classify it under one single heading. We cannot possibly be precise about its mother and approach from both the novel and the epic.

            An epic is not a history or biography though it may well contain the life event of a memorable person for all his heroism, but our Tom Jones is a history a kind of fictitious biography of the most ‘unheroic hero’. He writers about the conception of history of a person, the spinal chord of the novel in the following manner: such histories as these do, in reality, very much resemble a new paper, which consists of just the same number of words. They may like wise be compared to a stage, which performs constantly the same course, empty as well as full.

            Fielding’s accent on the ‘history of Tom Jones makes this work of art the epic proper, but luckily, at the same time, the atmosphere, a cosmos of social life, he builds about the novel is obviously analogues to that of an epic. The biography of a fictitious person is placed in the social orbit of a classical design wherein his movement and actions take place. But Tom Jones unlike the hero of an epic has not been idealized. He is of an ‘average’ type and thus he must share the limitations of an ordinary mortal. He does not appear on the scene with a fanfare of glory or in any impressive manner. He happens to be an illegitimately begotten brat, a foundling discovered in the bed of Mr. Allworthy. The conception of an epic is different. It is different story altogether if he comes before us as a tragic hero suffering in life, but he has all the dignity of a man. But the fielding reverses on the no doubt, appears with an ‘elevation of stile. Since it is a comic epic such a hero may be allowed to pass as such. 

               Tom Jones is a comic epic indeed by virtue of the humorous situations and humorous characters. In this epic he thought before hand to introduce a considerable character on the scene “Thus the hero is always introduced with a flourish or drums and trumpets. Our intention, in short is to introduce our heroine with the utmost solemnity in our power, with an elevation of stile.” but the hero passes through such situations which excite us and often set us rolling with laughter. This mock epic lifts characters bodily from life and though the narrative is in a lighter vein, unlike an epic of a serious nature the points of virtue are brought home.

                Tom Jones is an epic of human nature written in a comic style. “Man therefore is the highest subject which presents itself to the pen of our historian or of our poet.” fielding in this so-called epic comes to dwell upon human nature, what pertains to a man on this planet. He of course interprets life through the medium of humor. Tom Jones may not be an ideal from the point of view of the orthodox opinion because of the sexual aberrations but as an average being he represents all that is view of magnanimity. There is an unconventional accent upon human goodness in the novel which is different from the pure ideals of an epic. An epic is a tale of human virtue and so is Tom Jones but in it ‘virtue becomes, as it were an object of sight.’

                  The study of human nature is superb in this novel written after the style of an epic Fielding has a clear cut idea about it. He write in his book I chapter of Tom Jones in the following words: “the provision, then which we have here made is no other than human nature that in human, nature, though here collected under one general name, is such a prodigious variety.” In a novel there is comparatively smaller scope for dwelling on human nature than the epic. The latter happens to be a sizable work therefore it offers a more comprehensive scope for it.

                     But the account on human nature is not the primary consideration in an epic. It mostly deals with the glorification of a hero and shows a tendency of selection the part which elevates the character in our esteem. There is hardly any approach to the psychological depth in it. In Tom Jones the writer probes deep into a human character elaborately on the scale of an epic personage. He brings to dwell on the character in ‘dressing up’ with a consummate author’s skill.

                         The behavior of partridge and the behavior of Adams in Joseph Andrews both set us rolling with laughter. The very name of partridge represents the essence of his normal culture, a funny name indeed. He is funny in deeds also. We laugh at him because he comes before us a henpecked husband. He suffers at the hand of his termagant wife. He comes to be involved in the case of Tom’s parentage. There is a fine split, which is humorous in itself, in the character of partridge. At first he comes before us as a teacher and then as a barber meeting Jones in the way of his peregrinations. The man becomes all the more comic when he gives vent to the pedantic expressions in a classical style. This Sancho Panza of Tom Jones has been drawn in a full blooded comic vein. And such is the case of person Adams, the first rate comic character of Fielding. He is a funny scholar who lives on the bare subsistence of 23 pounds sterling per annum. He leaves for London and desires to self. Nevertheless he would undertake a journey on foot because he loves to do so; Digeon calls him a comic hero.

          One of the sources of humor in Fieldinig is hypocrisy, for instance that of Mrs. Partridge in Tom Jones than the softness of her sex prevailed over the rage and she presently dissolved in tears, which soon often concluded in an example of sentimental hypocrisy. Now let us see the example of blatant hypocrisy. The epitaph put up by Mrs. Bridget at the death of her husband is an act of hypocrisy on her part.

                Similarly vanity has been harshly lashed by Fielding in the character of square western. He is too authorities and rash and lacks the plain common sense. His typical remark about Sophia who falls in love with Tom Jones without asking his permission is humorous. It shows the stupidity of a man, or of the class to which he belongs. Even death both farcical and real becomes a subject of laugh in fielding. When captain Blifil dies Bridget goes into tantrums of mourning in putting up the hypocritical epitaph. The element of humor is not missing even in the farcical near death of Mr. Allworthy. His sudden survival dashes the hopes of the people to the ground.

              The affection of learning also becomes a cause of humor. Mr. Partridge allusions to the classics and classical writers provoke out mirth and so does that Adams in Joseph Andrew. The affection of Thwacked evokes satirical humor in Tom Jones. The personal foible of the man no doubt furnish example of pure humor, but at the back the anger of Fielding can be traced against such folks who are absurdly cruel with the helpless boys. Often the learning of the doctors in Tom Jones makes us laugh. At the death of captain Blifil the doctors agree with out being in a dilemma: “those doctors, whom, to avoid any malicious applications, we shall distinguish the names of Dr. y and Dr. z having felt his pure; to wit Dr. y his right arm and Dr. z his left; both agreed that he was absolutely dead, they different Dr. y holding that he died of an apoplexy and Dr. z of an epilepsy.” this type of humorous situation has been repeated in Tom Jones where Tom lies ill and the doctors come to see him and the reference is jocularly made to the eating fever by the land lady and which is taken seriously by the doctor.

                         The palling comments are something humorous in Fielding. For instance he describe the avogary of Mr.Honour in the following manner “Tom was a handsome young fellow and for that species of men Mrs. Honor has some regard. She might indeed be caller a lover of men, as Socrates was a lover of mankind.” the human foibles come within the purview of the novelist and he makes capital out of it. The humor of Fielding is brows and farcical.

Ø Conclusion:-

                       To sum up Tom Jones is partly an epic and a novel. It exhibits a cross-bred style in which we find the fusion of the two. It is no doubt a comic epic in prose by virtue of its humorous approach. The tone of the novel is suggestive of a light manner, but it carries a heavy message like that an epic. This is not an epic of a conventional type as Fielding veers, being the founder of a new province of writing to the writing of a novel.

                                                                

Assignment Paper-3

Topic-Tragic Hero

Ashvin p. Dabhi

Roll No – 11

SEM – I

Batch-2010-11

Submitted to Mr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Ø Introduction:-

                   Tragic hero is all conspicuous persons who “stand in a high degree. Thus Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are all conspicuous persons. They are either kings or princes, or great. So Hamlet is a prince, Lear is a king Macbeth belongs to the royal family and is a great warrior and brave general. Shakespeare’s conception of tragedy is medieval for he is not concerned with the fate of the common man, with his sorrows and suffering, which is concern of a modern tragedy. The hero is such an important personality that his fall reflects the welfare of a whole nation or empire, and when he falls suddenly from the height of earthly greatness to the dust, his fall produces a sense of the powerlessness of man and the omnipotence of fate. The tragic hero is not only a person of high degree; he also has an exceptional nature. He is built on a grand scale. He has some passion or obsession which attains in him a terrible force he has a marked one-sidedness, a strong tendency to act in a particular way. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are all driven in some one direction by some peculiar interest, object, passion or habit of mind. Bradley refers to this trait as the tragic flaw. Thus Macbeth has ‘valuating ambition’; Hamlet, ‘noble inaction’, Othello credulity and rashness in action, and Lear the folly and fondness of old age. He is passionate and lacks in self control owing to the fault or flaw of his character the tragic hero falls from greatness. He errs and his error, joining with other cause, brings ruin upon him. In other words, his character issues in action or action issues out of his character. It is in this sense that, character is Destiny, is true of a Shakespearean tragedy. The character of hero is responsible for his actions, and from this point of view they appear to be instruments shaping their own destiny.

           

        As Bardly puts it,

                 “The calamities and catastrophe follow inevitably from the deeds of men, and the main source of these deeds is character.”

                    Let’s discuss about the features of tragic hero with special reference of Hamlet’s tragic hero.

Ø The mental suffering of the hero and his death:-

                    A Shakespearean tragedy has been defined as a story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man occupying a high position or status. A tragedy by Shakespeare is concerned chiefly with one man, and is a tale of suffering and misfortunes leading to that man’s death and of the deaths of a few others also. The hero must be a man holding a lofty position and commanding respect and the suffering or misfortunes must be of an extraordinary kind so as to produce string tragic feelings, especially the feeling of pity, awe and terror. Hamlet is primarily and chiefly the tragedy of Hamlet, the prince of Denmark. Hamlet was a well-know, honored and well-beloved figure in the political life of Denmark of the time at which the incidents of the play are supposed to have taken place. The play depicts the mental suffering and torture which Hamlet endures as a result of what he rightly considers to be the shameless conduct of his mother in getting married two months of the death of her first husband, and in having married this time a man who is in every respect inferior to her first husband. Hamlet’s distress over the conduct of his mother is clearly reflected in his very first soliloquy in which he says that the whole routine of life has now begun to seem to him to be “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. It is the conduct of his mother which leads him to the following generalization: “frailty, the name is woman.” hamlet’s mental suffering is makes to him and by the task which the ghost imposes on him. Hamlet subsequently undergoes even greater mental suffering because he finds himself unable to avenge the murder of his father promptly on account of a temperamental draw-back, and ultimately he dies as a result of the wound which is inflicted on him by Laertes with a poisoned dagger, but before dying he stabs the murderer of his father and thus at last takes his revenge. Besides Hamlet and the king, others who die in this play are Polonius, ophella, the queen and Laertes.

Ø A defect in the tragic hero’s character:-

                        The suffering and calamities which lead to the final disaster in a Shakespearean tragedy are not merely sent from above; nor do they happen by pure accident. These calamities and suffering result chiefly from the actions and characters of those concerned. Not character alone, but character chiefly, is responsible for the suffering and the tragedy. The tragedy of Hamlet is due mainly to a defect in his own character. This defect is his incapacity for quick decisions and for action. He is certainly capable of impulsive action but he is not of planned or premeditated action. The result is that he goes on delaying his revenge till ultimately the initiative is taken by his enemy against him. Hamlet is by nature given to reflection and meditation. He thinks too much. Although, after the disclosure by the ghost, Hamlet resolves to avenge the murder of his father, he goes on waiting till it occurs to him that he should verify the truth of what the ghost has told him. And so he arranges a play which he calls “Mouse- trap.” But even after he has made sure that the king is guilty. Hamlet does not proceed to take his revenge the contrary, even when he gets an excellent opportunity to kill Claudius, he spares him on the strange ground that the king is at prayer and that, if killed now, and he would go straight to heaven. This postponement of his revenge, this irresolution, this shrinking from what he has already called his duty, constitutes a serious flaw in his character.

Ø Conflict in the mind of the tragic hero:-

                        Conflict is essential to every drama, and it is to be found in abundant measure in a Shakespearean tragedy. This conflict is of two kinds: there is the outward conflict between the characters; and there is the inner conflict which tales place in the mind of the hero. In Hamlet the outward conflict takes place between Hamlet and Claudius. While Claudius seeks to get rid of Hamlet in order to ensure his own security and stability. Towards the end of the play an outward conflict also takes place between Hamlet and Laertes, because Laertes is seeking revenge for the murder of his own father who has been killed by Hamlet. The inner conflict is revealed to us in Hamlet’s successive soliloquies. Almost every soliloquy by Hamlet contains a mental debate. The most famous of these soliloquies is the one which begin thus: “to be or not to be, that is the question. The debate here is perhaps the most agonizing which Hamlet goes through. An inner conflict appears also very poignantly in the soliloquy which begins thus: “How all occasions do inform again me!” in this failure to avenge the murder so his father is due to an element of cowardice in his nature. He feels greatly distressed by the thought that he has not lived up to his own notion of honor which demanded that he should put an end to the life of his father’s murdered.

Ø The greatness of the tragic hero:-

                 A tragic hero is built by Shakespeare on a ground scale. A Shakespearean of character is intellectual genius, or strength of character or intellectual genius, or an immense force which excites our admiration and our sympathy for him in spite of the defect or the flaw which he suffers from. Hamlet is a man of intellectual genius; he has a high sense of honor; his heart is full of devotion to his dead father; and he has a noble mind. These qualities win him our admiration and sympathy in spite of his lack of a capacity for quick action and his tendency to procrastination. Now, the greatness of a tragic hero in Shakespeare has two results. Since the tragic hero is represented as noble and morally great, the effect of a Shakespearean tragedy is never depressing. A Shakespearean tragedy gives us the feeling that man is not mean or wretched, though he may be a victim of suffering and misfortune. A Shakespearean tragedy does not therefore leave us in a cynical or desperate mood. Secondly, greatness perishing or getting destroyed fills us with a sense of waste. Both these result are to be seen in the case of Hamlet. Here the noble character of Hamlet creates in us an awareness of the essential dignity and, a feeling of waste is aroused in us when we witness that the nobility and greatness of Hamlet come to nothing and when we realize what immense good he could have done to his country under different circumstances.

Ø The development in the character of the tragic hero:-

         In a tragedy the tragic hero generally comes to the realization of a truth of which he had previously been unaware. There is as Aristotle says a change from ignorance to knowledge. But in ancient Greek tragedy this change was little more than the clearly up of a mistaken identify. Not so with the tragedy of Shakespeare. In Hamlet and King Lear, for instance, there is a transformation in character of the hero. Towards the close of the play, Lear is the opposite of what he had been at the beginning. He has been purged of his arrogance and pride. When we first meet Hamlet, he is in a state of deep depression. The world seems to him an “unwanted garden” from which he would willingly depart. He has found corruption not only in Denmark but in existence itself. We soon learn that he had not always been so, Ophelia tells us that he had been the ideal Renaissance prince- a combination of the soldier, the scholar, the courtier etc; and though we catch glimpses of his former personality though his conversations with Horatio, his state of depression continues and is in fact, aggravated. However by the final scene, his composure has returned. He no longer appears in slovenly dress, he apologizes to Laertes, and he treats Claudius with courtesy up to the point at which Gertrude’s death reveals the king’s treachery and compels him to the act of vegenace.

Ø The transformation in the tragic hero:-

             In each of Shakespeare’s four great tragedies Hamlet, the hero is transformed into something which he had not been at the beginning of the play. At the end of Hamlet, the hero is very different from the man who had earlier longed for death and contemplated suicide. There is no more fighting in his soul. The movement toward Hamlet’s regeneration began with his reflections on the actor’s speech about Hecuba. This movement advanced further in the scene between Hamlet and his mother, and this movement reaches its climax in the grave-diggers’ scene is essentially a meditation on the inevitability of death. This scene begins lightheartedly but it becomes steadily more serious and more general. Hamlet’s reflections on the skulls thrown up by the grave-digger in the course of his digging contain very interesting and very philosophical ideas. Hamlet recalls the sparkling wit and excellent fancy of the court jester, Yorick. He asks where yorick’s gibes, gambols and songs are now and he would like the young lady in her chamber to be informed that she would meet the same sad fate no matter how thickly she paints her cheeks. Earlier, Hamlet has commented on a skull which could be the skull of a politician or of a courtier or of a lawyer, and he has further speculated that the dust of Alexander and Caesar might be serving to stop a hole in a barrel or on the skulls and the bones are his last comment on the difference between appearance and reality. He has come to accept reality for what it is. It is after the graveyard scene that the man who had continually brooded on death is able to face it.

Ø Tragic hero- The victim of circumstances:-

                  Tragic hero is essentially the victim of circumstances, and these very circumstances bring to failure one from whom much could have been accepted. For, sworn to the duty of wreaking vengeance of his father’s murderer, the young prince is confronted with a task essentially foreign to his nature and destined to bring out in him all of the weaker, and but few of the stronger, traits in his character. Grief at his father’s passing has brought melancholy to one who is normally of cheerful, although quiet, disposition. Realization of the wretched scheming which brought about the death of the king and the new responsibility which the charge of the ghost laid upon him, complete the transformation in Hamlet. As his melancholy deepens, so do we see marked charges in the character of the prince? His deep thinking mind reflects on the futility of life, and he contemplates suicide, his former sparkling wit gives place to bitterness and sarcam, he becomes cunning and cruel, determined to outwit rogues by beating them at their own game. He consistently peppers what he says with double meanings which if they strike home will hurt as they are designed to do.

Ø Tragic flaw in the hero:-

                         It is chiefly character that is responsible for the tragic fate of the hero, but a Shakespearean tragedy also arouses a feeling that there is a mysterious power in this universe that we may call fate or destiny or providence that operates in the universe and is responsible for the manner in which things take shape. In the case of the play of Hamlet, there is no doubt that the tragedy of the prince is due to chiefly to a fault in his own character. There is in him what may be called a tragic flaw. Hamlet is by nature a reflective type of man very much given to philosophic speculations. He is not by nature a man of action, though he certain performs, certain actions on the spur of the moment whenever he acts, he acts on impulse only. He incapable of formulating a bold plan of action and executing it. In other words, he is capable of planned of premeditated action. This is the reason why he is not able to accomplish the task that has been imposed upon him by the ghost. He very much wants to avenge the murder of his father but he goes on delaying his revenge of a man whom he should have killed long before. This tendency to procrastination, constitute a serious defect of character which eventually leads to the tragedy of Hamlet.

Ø Conclusion:-

                  Aristotle says that the ideal tragic hero must be an intermediate kind of person a man not virtuous and just yet whose misfortune is brought upon him not by vice or depravity but some error of Judgment.

  

          

Ashvin P. Dabhi

M.A. Part – 1

Roll No -11

Paper-2

Year – 2010-11

Department of English

Topic: The Story of My Experiment of Truth

Submitted to Mr. Devarshi Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

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              Autobiography is also a form of literature. It is an art. The narrator knows what to put and what not. He tales care of reader’s interest. Merely fact is not important but its impression on his self and its motive to tell become chief objects. The writer should keep in mind his openness and boldness to reveal the self. Glorifying one’s own personality shouldn’t be the purpose but shaping of the personality certainly would make a good work. In this light Gandhiji autobiography should be seen.

Ø Gandhiji’s Life – Reflection: - “The Story of My Experiments with Truth” is the story of Gandhiji’s life-reflection. It describes his birth, parents, childhood, his growth, Education, marriage, settlement, going abroad, coming back to India and involvement into various political movements. But the book does not stress on these aspects only. Gandhiji reflects well. From his father and forefather the strong begins. We get small picture of the family members including parents, wife, children, relatives and some of his friend. We are told his liking and disliking love, faults and struggles, pains etc which put him into certain given situations. It is a remarkable thing that likes a common human being his life begins and plenty of experiences show him feeling and behaving like us.

Ø Mohan to Mahatma: - The work is nothing but showing a process of transformation of a common man ‘Mahatma’. He-Mohandas was born to a common Kathiawar bania family. He passed his childhood in porbandar in Gujarat. He was a dull student and remained shy boy but some of the values were there, which were truth and openness. The home made some influences of being obedient, religious. As it was custom he was married early and passed s.s.c known at that time matriculation. To study law he went to England. He had neither zeal nor interest in it. The net result of it was that when he passed the degree he had no knowledge. He had no courage or ability to adopt the profession for livelihood. During the settlement in life, often his soul remained in physical pleasures, eating good clothes attracted too. Influence of western world if clearly seen. Like a common husband he many times treated the wife and children. In short a man named Mohan wad no different than others in action and reaction and in feelings and thinking.

But the story begins then. This Mohan began to realize the world. He thought of his practice as a lawyer and responsibility to maintain home. This was the beginning. He began to read intensively and extensively. He began to have experiences, inspirations and guidelines and acquainting with known personalities. This slowly increased confidence. He realized his capacity. Knowledge increased as well. Efforts of self-realization changed him. The truth of life began to dawn on him. He made the religion of service his own as he felt that God could be realized only through service. He understood the importance of Brahmacharya. The carnal desire was going slowly. He showed faith in God. He found it not as a process of hard penance, but a matter of consolation and joy. Service to humanity was another mean which he found out. Work is worship was now blended with love to humanity. This is known as “Satyagraha”. The whole African life shows the practice of it. Unto this last” a book of English writer Ruskin became the foundation. In India, this practice was carried on till the last. Leadership was now established with his weapon of “Ahimsa”. Service, love, satyagraha, brahmacharya mingled into ‘Ahimsa’. Through it he began to win unknown territories. Whether India or Africa his beliefs worked and brought success. Hindu-Muslim unity, spirituality, food and dieting practices, medical beliefs, economic opinions, village and poor reformation became his passions. Success in all this brought him glory. Through ups and downs, pain and pleasure, in private and public his continuous efforts changed not his self completely but the people, societies and countries. This is change in Mohan that made him ‘mahatma’. A colossal work is difficult to measure through common manly tools. A man like us becomes an angel.

Ø Mohandas: The Hero? Or The Truth?

Mohandas Gandhi is the hero of the book “The Story of My Experiments with Truth”. The book narrates his self. As we have noticed ‘Mohan’ becomes ‘Mahatma’. This isn’t a small task. The process is lifelong and hard, achieved through labour, patience, Truth and Knowledge and so many other qualities. We come to know him as a simple man. But at the end there’s no Mohan. If there is Mohan, he is that Mohan-who is Lord Krishna himself. The autobiography shows his many attitudes as the hero but it is not important. If anything is there, it is Truth. So rather than considering him as the hero we should consider Truth as the hero.

Gandhi gave priority to Truth. In the preface he wrote: “But for me , truth is the sovereign principle, which includes numerous other principles. This truth is not only Truthfulness in word, but Truthfulness in thought also. the Absolute Truth, the Eternal principle, that is God”.

He also wrote, “Let hundreds like me perish, but let truth prevail. Let us not reduce the standard of Truth even by a hair’s breath for judging erring mortals like myself”.

Thus it is clear he is not the hero but Truth is. The story is related to Truth. In pain too he sticks to these principles. Socrates said ‘knows thyself ’Gandhi did the same.

Ø Various Experiments:-

Gandhi continued to find out truth. He tried all the means possible. Experiment with water, earth and food are notable. Treating his son, in the fear of losing him, he insisted on water treatment. Finally it serves the purpose. Faith of god was put to test but it was restored. His earth treatments too are remarkable. While living in England for a food, his experiments are many and do everything. He also explains others to follow. He goes up to that extent of donating a handsome account to open vegetabarian restaurant. Regarding milk he was doubtful. First of all the doesn’t favor it but his experiments later on changes. He confesses his mistakes and favors it.  He feels one time for having taken goat’s milk during the vow.

To understand the life much more he begins to the matter of furniture, household things and other needs are reduced. Living in a small village and getting only that amount of living show his firm belief in his deeds.

Regular carnal desires, he tries to control himself. He believes that for one’s desire the wife shouldn’t be counted a toy. The desire must perish from within after much trails he is able to win it.

Experiments in non-violence, brahmacharya, meager living, yoga and spirituality are various and they become natural too him. He is so much absorbed that he even forgets himself. His forwarding clearly says “my purpose being to give an account of various practical applications of these principles. I propose to write the title of “The Story of my Experiments with Truth”.

Ø Multiple personality:-

Gandhi was known as ‘Naked Fakir’. Fakir is the word which suggests his humble personality. His physique was not attractive or handsome but his mental, Spiritual strength and deeds made him a ‘Mahatma’. He was a friend of the downtrodden and remained bold, simple, frank, and sincere and a follower of Non-violence and Truth. Morality was his base-stone, which he acquired during his childhood years. The great Indian epics and other books changed him. This gave him ‘Ahimsa’ and ‘truth’. Honesty and simplicity remained guiding principles.

Various facets of his personality could be seen in different fields of education, economics, philosophy and in reforming the public life. As a writer, his contribution is notable. All combined together make him a man of high morals and integrated character. In all this his humanity, politeness, love. He is found a noble, humble man.

Ø Struggle & Success:-

The autobiography shows us Gandhi’s internal and external struggle with the lift and in finding truth. Since his childhood he was tasted now and then. Often we saw him plunges in despair but it wouldn’t last long. His caste opposed him while he decided to go to abroad. His wife resisted learning. The family is unable to adopt his ways lust pervaded him. European influence changed him. His experiments of water, earth and dietics really tested him much. When he starts living meager life, problems are in the family. These are family problems but in public life too he suffered. The most painful is about train journey in Africa which gave him power to resist the rule. Africans, natives, English people caused him plenty of troubles. In India too, including Indians many pained him. Yet this was strong, ironed man bore everything, defined the results, resisted with dignity and came out victoriously. A common might have forsaken everything and might have led peaceful happy life but this man never thought of them except peace and happiness of others.

Ø Truth:- The Sole Aim

Gandhi gave priority to truth. Gandhi’s life and ideas were concerned with truth only. It didn’t come quickly. From his childhood he adopted it and put into his life. There was a tremendous courage to follow it and whenever it was necessary he boldly accepted his mistakes. The autobiography shows his various experiments with truth. He compares it with a tree. Tree gives more and more fruits as one nourishes continuously. Truth is like buries gems and on the find they bring highest value. Gandhiji put Truth as the God. Power of it is more than the sun. In practical life any one can practice it love all. People believed for lawyer it is difficult to follow truth. But Gandhi did it remarkably. Without telling lie he practiced law. His reputation grew. Clients too understood and brought no doubtful causes. Tests may come but a real follower sticks to it.

Ø Spirituality:-

Ganhiji’s early days show his bent towards spirituality. The holy books the Ramayana and the Mahabharata influenced him. His influences were intensified by good religious men and other books. He read holy books of the Muslims, Christians and the parses and others as well. He realized the spirit of all the religions. He found out primary and basic ideals. He was a devout Hindu and had deep faith in it. For him religion meant “self-realization and knowledge of self”. It is not custom finding the soul of religion. Our acts must bring peace purity of hearts would bring humanity.

He practiced spirituality in daily life. Moral values in private public and social life became important. There was no place of immortality even in politics. His practice of non-violence and righteousness were the highest things. Ahimsa governed his all fields.

Ø The humanist:-

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

The degrading and inhuman condition of woman and untouchables, whom he called Harijans, appalled him. He spent all of his energy for the emancipation of the untouchables and the downtrodden. He believed in the fundamental equally of all human beings. He condemned Hinduism for the induction of untouchability. He wrote, “It is sin to believe that any one else is inferior or superior to ourselves. We are all equal. It is the touch of sin that pollutes us and never that of a human being. None are high and none are low for one who would devote his life to service. The distinction between high and low is a blot on Hinduism, which we must obliterate.

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

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

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

Ø Conclusion:- Thus the strong is about experiments, they are related truth. Personal and public life is involved in it. He is changed and he is the cause of change. The work is a true reflection of the same.