Assignment Paper-E-C-201

Topic- Thematic Concerns in Wuthering Heights

Dabhi Ashvin P

M.A. Part – 1

SEM- II

Roll No -06

Year – 2010-11

Department of English

Submitted to Mr. Jay Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

___________________________________________

Introduction:-The novel “Wuthering Heights” is the most popular and highly regarded novels in English literature. It is written by Emily Bronte. The concept that almost every reader of “Wuthering Heights” focuses on is the passion, love of Catherine and Heathcliff, often to the exclusion of every other kinds of love of are presented and that Catherine dies half way through the novel. The loves of the second generations, the love of Frances and Hindley and the “susceptible heart” of Lockwood receive scant attention from such readers. Is love the force perhaps economic?

            The desire for wealth does motivate Catherin’s marriage, which results in Heathcliff’s fight and causes him to acquire Wuthering Heights, to appropriate Thrushcross Grange and to dispossess Hareton. It is possible that one of the other themes constitutes the center of the to the theme of love?

            Consider the following themes:-

Ø  Clash of elemental forces:-

            The universe is made up of two opposite forces, storm and calm. Wuthering      Heights and the Earnshaws express the storm, Thrushcross Grange and the Lintons the calm. Catherine and Heathcliff are elemental creatures of the storm. This theme is discussed more fully in later critical response to Wuthering Heights.

Ø  The clash of economic interests and social classes:-

The novel is set at a time when capitalism and industrialization are changing not only the economy but also the traditional social structure and the relationship of the classes. The respectable farming class was being destroyed by the economic alliance of the newly-wealthy capitalist (Heathcliff) and the traditional power holding gentry (the Lintons). This theme is discussed more fully in “Wuthering Heights” as socio-economic Novel.

Ø  The striving for transcendence:-

It is not just love that Catherine and Heathcliff seek but a higher, spiritual existence which is permanent and unchanging, as Catherine makes clear when she compares her love for Linton to the seasons and her love for Heathcliff to the rocks. The dying Catherine looks forward to achieving this state through death. This theme is discussed more fully in Religion, Metaphysics and Mysticism.

Ø  The abusive patriarch and patriarchal family:-

The male heads of household abuse females and males who are weak or powerless. This can be seen in their use of various kinds of imprisonment or confinement, which takes social, emotional, financial, legal and physical forms. Mr. Earnshaw expects Catherine to behave properly and hurtfully rejects her “bad girl” behavior. Edger’s ultimatum that Catherine must make a final choice between him and Heathcliff restricts Catherine’s identity by forcing her to reject an essential part of her nature, with loving selfishness Edger confines his daughter Cathy to the boundaries of Thrushcross Grange. A vindictive Hindley strips Heathcliff of his position in the family, thereby trapping him in a degraded laboring position. Heathcliff literally incarcerates Isabella and later he imprisons both Cathy and Nelly also, Cathy is isolated from the rest of the household after her marriage to Linton.

Ø  Study of childhood and the family:-

The hostility toward and the abuse of children and family members at Wthering Heights cut across the generations. The savagery of children finds full expression in Hindley’s animosity toward Heathcliff and in Heathcliff’s plans of vengeance. Wrapped in the self-centeredness of childhood, Heathcliff claims Hindley’s horse and uses Mr. Earnshaw’s children, she becomes renellious. Despite abuse, Catherine and Heathcliff show the strength of children to survive and abuse at least party forms the adult characters and behavior of Catherine and Heathcliff.

Ø  The effect of intense suffering:-

In the passion-driven characters Catherine, Heathcliff and Hindley pain leads them to turn on and to torment others. Inflicting pain provides them some relief, this behavior raises questions about whether they are cruel by nature or are formed by childhood abuse and to what extent they should be held responsible for or blamed for their cruelties. All their suffering inflicted by others or by outside forces, like the death of Hindley’s wife, or at least some of their torment self inflicted, like Heathcliff’s holding Catherine responsible for his suffering after her death. Suffering also sears the weak, Isabella and her son Linton became vindictive and Edger turns into self indulgent, melancholy recluse. The children of love, the degraded Hareton and the imprisoned Cathy are able to overcome Heathcliff’s abuse and to find love and a future with each other. Is John Hasan right that “Wuthering Heights” is such a remarkable work partly because it persuades us forcibly to pity victims and victimizers alike?

Ø  Self-imposed or self-generated confinement and escape:-

Both Catherine and Heathcliff find their bodies prisons which trap their spirits and prevent the fulfillment of their desires. Catherine yearns to be united with Heathcliff, with a lost childhood freedom with Nature and with a spiritual realm. Heathcliff wants possession of and union with Catherine also defines the course of Catherine’s life. In childhood she alternates between the constraint of Wuthering Heights and the freedom of the moors. In puberty she is restricted by her injury to a couch at Thrushcross Grange finally womanhood and her choice of husband confine her to the gentility of Thrushcross Grange from which she escapes into the freedom of death.

Ø  Displacement and exile:-

Heathcliff enters the novel possesses of nothing. He is not even given a last or family name and loses his privileged status after Mr.Earnshaw’s death. Heathcliff displaces Hindley in the family structure. Catherine is thrown out of heaven, where she feels displaced. She sees herself an exile at Thrushcross Grange at the end and wanders the moors for twenty years as a ghost. Hareton is dispossessed of property, education and social status. Isabella cannot return to her beloved Thrushcross Grange and brother. Linton is displaced twice after his mother’s death, being removed first to Thrushcross Grange and then to Wuthering Heights. Cathy is displaced from her home, Thrushcross Grange.

Ø  Communication and understanding:-

The narrative structure of the novel revolves around communication and under standing. Lockwood is unable to communicative with or understands the relationships at Wuthering Heights and Nelly enlightens him by communicating the history of the Earnshow and the Lintons. Trying to return to the Grange in a snowstorm, Lockwood cannot see the stone markers. A superstitions Nelly refuses to let Catherine tell her dreams. Repeatedly is talking about or refuses to accept what Catherine is saying after that she locks herself in her room. Isabella refuses to heed Catherine’s warning and Nellie’s advice about Heathcliff. And probably the most serious mis-communication of all is Heathcliff’s Hearing only that it would degrade Catherine to marry him.

Ø  The Fall:-

Recently a number of critics have seen the story of a fall in this novel, Does Catherine fall, in yielding to the comforts and security of Thrushcross Grange? Does Heathcliff fall in his “moral teething” of revenge and pursuit of property? The theme of a fall relies heavily on  he references to heaven and hell that run through the novel beginning with Lockwood’s explicit reference to Wuthering Heights as a “misanthrope’s heaven” and ending with the implied heaven of the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine roaming the moors together. Catherine dreams o of being expelled from heaven and sees herself an exile cast out from the heaven” of Wuthering Heights- a literal as well as a symbolic fall. Heathcliff likes Satan. He is relentless in his destructive pursuit of revenge. The ideas of expulsion from heaven, exile and desire for revenge have been connected to Milton’s epic “paradise lost” and parallels drawn between Milton’s epic and Bronte’s novel. Catherine’s pain at her change from free child to imprisoned adult is compared to Satan’s to Beelzebub, how changed from an angel of light to exile in a fiery lake”.

Ø  The Destructiveness of a love that never changes:-

In this novel Catherine and Heathcliff’s passion for one another seems to be the centre of “Wuthering Heights. It is stronger and more lasting than any other emotion displayed in the major conflicts that structure the novel’s plot. As she tells Catherine and Heathcliff’s story, Nelly criticizes both of them harshly condemning their passion as immoral but this passion is obviously one of the most compelling and memorable aspects of the book. It is not easy to decide whether Bronte intends the reader to condemn these lovers as romantic heroes whose love transcends social norm and conventional morality. The book is actually structured around two parallel love stories, the first half of the novel centering on the love between Catherine and Heathcliff, while the less dramatic second half features the developing love between young Catherine and Hareton. In contrast to the first, the latter tale ends happily restoring peace and order to Wuthering heights and Thrushcross Grange. The differences between the two love stories contempt to the reader understands. The most important features of young Catherine or Harleton’s love story are that it involves growth and chance. Early in the novel Hareton seems brutal, savage and illiterate over time he becomes a loyal friend to young Catherine and learns to read.

Moreover, Catherine and Heathcliff love is based on their shared perception that they are identical. Catherine declare famously, “I am Heathcliff”, while Heathcliff upon Catherine’s death, wails that he can live without his “soul” that means Catherine. Their love denies difference and is strong unsexual. 

  

   

  

    

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.

__________________________________________

                                                             

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.