Major Themes in “The Waste Land”

Assignment Paper11-E-C-301

Topic- Major Themes in “The Waste Land”

Dabhi Ashvin P

M.A. Part – II

SEM- III

Roll No -06

Year – 2011-12

Department of English

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University

Introduction: -

                

          The waste land is one of the most popular poems of the 20^th century. It is written by T.S. Eliot. It has been saluted as Eliot’s masterpiece the supreme power of the poetic art in modern times. It is a poem written in the epic mold. It presents messages for our turbulent times. His use of complex symbols and imagery adds richness and variety to the texture of the poem. It is full with allusions to myth, ritual, religion, history-both past and present. These things make the poem itself a virtual “waste land”. We can see a wide range of socio-cultural, religious and secular experiences common to both an individual life and the collective life of western society. It is a truly remarkable poem that broke new ground in English poetry. There are so many themes in this poem so I would like to discuss them one by one. The themes are like death, rebirth, the seasons, love, lust, water, history etc.

Death: -

              There are four sections and the two, of them “The burial of the Dead” and “Death by Water” refer specifically to this theme ‘Death’. There is complicate matter like death can mean life as in other words by dying a human being can pave the way for new lives. The poet asks his friend: “and the same way Christ, redeemed humanity and there by gave new life. The doubtful part of the poem is between life and death allusions to Dante, and especially in the limbo-like vision of the men flowing across London Bridge and through the modern city.

Life-in-death: -

            

         The theme of the poem is the spiritual and emotional barrenness of the modern world. This theme is like the living death of the modern Waste Landers. Man has lost of vitality of spiritual and vitality of emotional. The life in modern waste land is a life-in-death, a living death. According to Eliot’s philosophy, Human being must act do either evil as good and it is better to do evil than do nothing. Modern man has lost his sense of good and evil, and this keeps him from being alive. In the modern land the people are dead. They merely exist like dead things. They work as machine. They are to be compared to such dead things as a stick, a gutter, a pipe. A life of complete inactivity is listlessness and apathy. That is way winter is welcome to them and April is the crudest of months.

Rebirth: -

             

           We can see some images of the Christ along with the many other religious metaphors, rebirth and resurrection as central themes. The waste land lays fallow and the fisher king is powerless. The new beginning is that they needed something. Here we can take help of water, for one water can bring about that rebirth but it can also destroy. The poet turns the waste land in heaven with the climatic exchange with the skies: “Datta, Dayadhvam, and Damyata.” The poet’s sight is essentially of a world that is neither dying nor living. Hence the strength of grail can restore life and wipe the slate clean Eliot refers frequently to baptisms and to rivers in either spiritual or physical ways.

The seasons: -

              

           The poem opens with an invocation of the month ‘April’, “April is the cruelest month.” The season spring is depicted as cruel is a curious choice on Eliot’s part. As a paradox it informs the rest of the poem to a great degree. The life brings also death. It brings the seasons fluctuate from one state to another. They maintain some sort of stat is not everything changes like history. In the end of Eliot’s world hangs in a perpetual limbo, waiting the dawn of a new season. We can see some aspects of seasons in the life-in-death, a life of complete inactivity, listlessness and apathy. That is why winter is welcome to them and April is the cruelest of months. It reminds them of the stirring of life and, they dislike to be roused from their death-in-life. In this poem Eliot’s “waste land” there seems little hope of renewed life as the early spring rains manage to stir only “a little life” in the “dull roofs” and “dried tubers” that await their renewal each spring. Ester Sunday commemorates Jesus’ resurrection, falls in April. The poet ironically comments here that April is the “cruelest month” and also he comments that April as the stirring of natural life and the spiritual resurrection symbolized in Easter fill humans. Today is not with hope but fear and apprehension. There are some phrases suggested the same things, like “dead land”, “dull roots”, “dried tubers and “forgetful snow”, these four phrases suggest the barrenness of earth and vacuity of life.

Lust: -

           

           There is the most famous episode in the poem” the waste land”. It involves a female typist’s sexual relation with a “carbuncular” man. In this poem Eliot represents the scene as something similar to a rape. This chance sexual encounter carries with it mythological luggage the violated Philomela, the blind man Tiresias who lived for a time as a woman. There is sexuality goes throughout the poem “the waste land”. It takes the center stage as a cause of calamity in the part “the fire sermon”. Here in this poem the poet acts as a lawyer “a moment’s surrender” as a part of existence in “what the thunder said”. There are seven deadly sins in Christianity and lust may be a sin. Sex may be too easy and two flourishing in Eliot’s London. There is action is still is sex that produces life, that restores-sex. In needed is sex that is not sterile. Spiritual sterility is the central motif of all these myths of the past. Besides this there is an emphasis the sanctity of sex. There is decay and spiritual degeneracy whenever the sexual function is perverted. The purpose of the sexual function is procreation and it is sanctified only in marriage. When the sexual act is separated from procreation, there is spiritual degeneracy. In modern society there is perversion of sex and hence its degeneracy. Sex has been separated from love, marriage and procreation. The sex-act has become beastly or mere animal copulation and thus there is decay and spiritual degeneracy. Hence in Eliot’s poetry man is often linked to animals. Sexual sins, perversion of sex, have always led to degeneration and decay. The sexual sins of the king fisher and his soldiers laid waste his kingdom, and ancient Thebes was laid waste because its king was guilty of the sin of incest. Sexual violence has always been there. Philomela was raped and her tongue was severed so that she may not reveal the crime. Reference to Elizabeth and Leicester in the song of the daughters of the Thames shows that sex relationship in the past also has been equally futile and meaningless.

Love: -

              

          There are some references regarding the theme love in this poem. The first part of the poem “the burial of the dead”, in this part we can see some reference to Tristan und Isolde. The second part of the poem is “The Game of chess”. In this part there is a reference to Cleopatra and to the story of Tereus and Philomela suggest that love in the poem “the waste land”. It is often destructive. The characters Tristan and Cleopatra die while Tereus rapes Philomela and even the love for the hyacinth girl leads the poet to see and know “nothing”. The correlative love of life is found in this poem. When the poet writes regarding “hyacinth girl” and being so in love that he did not know if he was alive as dead. He was speechless. He was silence. This is an intense love that I interpret this to be more for the love of life than for love of the girl. The interest in the girl simply allows him to see the beauty of life. Joe even tries to commit suicide at one point, but he still seems to lack a real fear of death. However, Joe is the only one who begins to love his life. Joe finds his love for life through his lover, his freedom, and his that Joe comes to the realization that he has purposely ruined the life of one of his “brothers”. During the time of T.S. Eliot the people too young to come to terms with any real fear of death those people living during this time they did fear and thus their love for life was enriched. “Brothers three” never really found that fear of death they never found that true correlating love of life either.

The Changing nature of gender roles:-

             

           According to Eliot’s life’s course gender roles and sexuality became increasingly flexible. Eliot reflects those changes in his work. In the repressive Victorian era of the nineteenth centaury, women were confines to the domestic sphere, sexuality, was not discussed or publicly explored. People felt both increasingly alienated from one another and empowered to break social mores. English women began agitating in earnest for the right to vote in 1918. Women were allowed to attend school, and women who could afford it continued their education at those universities that began accepting women in the early twentieth century. Eliot simultaneously lauded the end of the Victorian era and expressed concern about the freedoms inherent in the modern age. The poem’s central character, Tiresias is a hermaphrodite. With him Eliot creates a character that embodies wholeness, represented by the two genders coming together in one body.

Conclusion:-

                  

           There are many themes. They are very helpful to understand the whole poem very easily. There are some important aspects remain in themes so themes can be important to study any other texts.    

Literary Terms

Assignment Paper-E-C-203

Topic- Literary Terms

Dabhi Ashvin P

M.A. Part – 1

SEM- II

Roll No -06

Year – 2010-11

Department of English

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University

Ø Introduction:-

          There are many literary terms. We can easily some theory with the help of the literary terms. If we have some idea regarding literary terms, we can easily study literary theory. Here let’s discuss about three important terms (1) Archetype (2) Rasa Theory (3) Diaspora. First we will discuss about the term Archetype.

(1)  Archetype:-

Ø What is Archetype Criticism?

         In literary criticism the term Archetype denotes recurrent narratives designs, character types, themes, images and patterns of action. which are identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature as well as in myths, dreams and even social rituals. An important antecedent of the literary theory of the archetype was the treatment of myth by a group of comparative anthropologists at Cambridge University. A more important antecedent was the depth psychology of Carl G. Jung, who applied “primordial images”. At the last we can say that ‘Archetype’ means, typical specimen or original model. In other way something that serves the model or other things of the same type.

        Archetypal literary criticism was given driving force by Maud Bodkin’s Archetypal patterns in poetry and to go on well especially during the 1950s and 1960s. There were some other prominent practitioners of various modes of archetypal criticism. There were G. Wilson Knight, Robert Graves, Philip Wheelwright, Richard Chase and Joseph Campbell. These critics tended to emphasize the happen of mythical patterns in literature. They also emphasized on the assumption that myths are closest to the elemental archetype than the artful to work with hands of sophisticated writers.

        The death/rebirth theme was often said to be the archetype of archetypes and was held to be grounded in the cycle of the seasons and the organic cycle of human life. This type of archetype it was claimed that it happen in primitive rituals of the king who is annually sacrificed in widespread myths of gods who die to be reborn. The other archetypal traced in literature were the journey underground, the heavenly ascent, the search, the paradise/heads dichotomy, the promethean rebel hero the scapegoat, the earth goddess and the fatal woman.

        Northrop Frye’s work breaks from both Frazer and Jung in such a way. He has created different world of nature into archetypal forms that serves to satisfy enduring human desires and needs. In this literary universe four radical mythos that is correspondent to the four seasons in the cycle of the natural world, are incorporated in the four major genres of comedy (spring), romance (summer), tragedy (autumn), and satire (winter).

(1) Spring (comedy):-

        The dawn, spring and birth phase. Myths of the birth of the hero, of revival and resurrection, of creation and of the defeat of the powers of darkness, winter and death. Here we can take example of Jesus Christ.

(2)Summer (Romance):-

        Romance and summer are paired together because summer is the culmination of life in the seasonal calendar and the romance genre culminates with some sort of triumph, usually a marriage.

(3)Autumn (tragedy):-

     The sunset, autumn and death phase. Myths of fall, of the dying god, of violent death and sacrifice and of the isolation of the hero. It is the dying stage of the seasonal calendar which parallels the tragedy genre because it is known for the “fall. Here we can take example of the fall of man (hero) Adam and Eve.

(4)Winter (satire):-

The satire is the dark genre. It is a disillusioned and mocking from of the three other genres.

Ø The context of a genre determines how a symbol of image is to be interpreted. Frye outlines five different spheres in his schema:

(1) in the comic vision the human world is representative of wish-fulfillment and being community centered. In contrast, the tragic human world is of isolation, tyranny and the fallen hero.

(2) Animals in the comedic genres are docile and pastoral, while animals are predatory and hunters in the tragic. Here we can put example of sheep and wolves.in the old man there is shark is predatory animal.

(3) For the realm of vegetation, the comedic is pastoral but also represented by gardens, parks, roses and lotuses. As for the tragic, vegetation is of a wild forest or as being barren. Here we can put example of pastoral background (country life) v/s city life conflict in ‘As you like it’.

(4)  Cities temples or precious stones represent the comedic mineral realm is noted for being a desert.

(5) The water realms is represented by rivers in the comedic with the tragic the seas and especially floods.

E.g. the last scene from the film ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’.

Ø Some examples of archetypes in literature:-   

(A)Characters:-

 (1) Hero: - The courageous figure. A one who is running in and saving days.

       E.g. Hamlet, Macbeth, Tom Jones

(2) The Scapegoat: - The scapegoat figure is the one who gets blamed for everything.

       E.g. Tom Jones

(3) The outcast: - The outcast just that he/she has been cast out of society or has left it on a voluntary basis.

        E.g. Pandavas, Ram-Sita and Laxman, Sugreve

(4) The star-crossed lovers: - This is the young couple joined but unexpectedly parted by fate.

       E.g.  Romeo and Juliet from “Romeo and Juliet” Heath cliff and Catherine from “Wuthering Heights”.

(B)Symbol:-

(1) The quest: - Here the characters are searching for something.

     E.g. Search for Sita, Nal-Damyanti, and Savitri for Satyakam’s life.

(2) Water :- water is a symbol of life, cleaning and rebirth. It is strong life force.

(3) Rivers: - Death and rebirth, the flowing of time into eternity.

(4) Rising Sun: - birth, creation

(5) Setting sun: - Death

(6) Colors: - Red is for blood, sacrifice and passion. Green is for growth, hope, fertility. Blue is for highly positive, secure, purity. Black is for darkness, evil, melancholy, chaos. White is for light, purity, innocence. Yellow is for enlightenment, wisdom.

(2)RASA THEORY:-

        The rasa theory originates with Bharata in Natyasashtra. It claims that object or meaning that is sought to be conveyed in literary compositions is in the Nature of an emotional effect of diverse human experience on man’s mind and heart. It is possible, Bharata demonstrates, to enumerate the whole range of emotions, or states of being born of experience and to analyze the structure of those emotions in on man’s being. The theory thus becomes in effect a theory of literary experience which is strongly rooted in the empirical human reality.

There are eight rhetorical sentiments (Rasa) recognized in drama and dramatic representation is named as follows: - the Erotic, comic, pathetic, furious, Heroic, Terrible, Odious, and Marvelous. In these there are four main Rasa which are the sources of origin of these sentiments: these are as follows: the Erotic, the Furious, the Heroic and Odious. After these eight Rasa, three Rasas Bhakti, Shanti and Vatsalya are added in them.

Ø The colors:-

         The Erotic sentiment is light-green, the comic is described as white, pathetic is grey, the fearful is described as red, Heroic is to be known as Yellow red, the terrible as black, the odious on the contrary is blue and the Marvelous is Yellow.

Ø The Deities :-

        The Erotic has Vishnu as its presiding deity, the deity of the comic is pramatha, the deity of the furious is Rudra, and the pathetic has Yama as its deity. The deity of the odious is Mahakala, the terrible has Kala as the god, the heroic the god Mahendra and marvelous has Brahma as its deity.

(3)Diaspora:-

         The term Diaspora means home sickness. Most early discussions of Diaspora were firmly rooted in a conceptual ‘home land’. They were concerned with a paradigmatic case or a small number of care cases. The paradigmatic case was, of course, the Jewish Diaspora and some dictionary definitions of Diaspora until recently did not simply illustrate but defined the word with reverence to that case.

         The initial expansion of the use of the phrase extended it to other similar cases, such as the American and Greek Diasporas. More recently, it has been applied to emigrant groups that continue their involvement in their homeland from overseas, such as the category of long-distance nationalists identified by Benedict Anderson. Brubaker notes that Albanians, Hindu, Indian, Irish, Kashmiri, Kurds, Tamils, Palestinians have been conceptualized as Diasporas in this sense. Furthermore and social migrants who maintain emotional and socialites with a homeland” have also been described as Diasporas.

We can take example of the poem “Leaving India” by Rachana Joshi, in this poem we can see Diasporic feelings.

  

  

 

 

An Introduction – A Confessional poem

Assignment Paper-7-E-C-202

Topic- An Introduction – A Confessional poem

Dabhi Ashvin P

M.A. Part – 1

SEM- II

Roll No -06

Year – 2010-11

Department of English

Submitted to Mr. Devarshi Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University

Ø Introduction

               Kamala Das is one of the members of the poetic trinity of Indo-Anglican poets. The other two beings are Nissim Ezekiel and Ramanujan. She has been called a poet in the confessional mode. The confessional poets deal in their poetry with personal emotional experiences which are generally taboo. There is ruthless self-analysis and a tone of utter sincerity. The facts are not always true but there is no dedication at all from emotional truth. Confessional poetry is a struggle to relate the private experience with the outer world as it is. Such a struggle is in evidence in the poems of Kamala Das from a very early stage.

               ‘An Introduction’ is included in her first collection of poems ‘summer in Calcutta’. In the poem, she speaks in the voice of a girl, rebelling against the norms and dictates of a patriarchal society which ask her to fit in and belong against her own wishes. ‘Malabar’ is a south Indian location, covering a large part of Kerala. It is also extends to part of Karnataka. Her rebellion against patriarchy is to secure an identity for herself in a male-dominated world. The poem is beginnings with the assertion, ‘I don’t know politics, but I know the names of those in power. It shows her dictates for politics is considered a domain for men. Next come her defiant language she likes. Her reply to her critics is a reiteration of the appropriation of a colonial language to serve native needs. ‘Categorizers’ is an allusion to those who see and group other people in different structures or brackets. This term suggests the tendency to stereotype people. From the issue of the politics of language, the poem moves on the subject of several politics. The poet is in utter bewilderment during her pubescent years. Her sudden marriage and her first sexual encounter all level her traumatized. On an impulse, she defies the gender code and dresses up as a man by wearing a shirt and a trouser and ‘sits on the wall’. The guardians of morality force a respectable woman’s afire on with instructions that she should fit into the socially accepted role of a woman as a ‘wife’ and a ‘mother’. “Madhavikutti” the pseudonym kamala Das used while writing in Malayalam. A disorder that results in the misinterpretation of reality. The perception change is now seen as being a heath condition as well as the case of social in sufficiency. Following thinkers understood to be a reflection of a society’s inflexibility as much as it is associated with an individual’s mental state. Identifying her with other suffering women of the world. Kamala Das universalizes the suffering and seeks freedom and love. The poem becomes a statement on gender differences and a move to transcend the restrictions imposed on a woman by seeking individual freedom, love that allows the body to come to terms with its own needs and a self that is allowed to celebrate love’s true glory. This is the most famous poem in the confessional mode: her poem’s first line is

         “I don’t know politics but I know

          The names of those in power.

         And can repeat them like

         Days of week, or names of

       Months, Beginning with Nehru.”

                             These lines show her frank distaste for politics, especially in politically free India ruled by chosen elite. The poet asserts her right to speak three languages. She asserts her right to speak defense her right to speak defense her choice to write in two her mother tongue ‘Malayalam’ and English. She doesn’t like to be advised in this matter by any guardian or relations. Her choice are her own authentic and born of passion. The poet looks upon her decision to write in English as natural and humane. From the issue of the politics of language the poem them passes on to the subject of sexual politics in a particularly dominated figure. As the girl seeks full filament of her to traumatize and course the female-body since the same is the site for patriarchy to display its power and authority when therefore, she opts for male clothing to hide her feminist, the gardening enforce typical female attire, with warnings to fit into the socially determined attributes of a woman to become a wife and a mother and get confined to the domestic routine. She is threatened to remain within the four walls of her female space lest she should make herself a psychic or a maniac. The poet is an individual woman trying to voice a universal womanhood and trying to share her experiences, good or bad with all other women. Love and sexuality are a strong component in her search for female identity and the identity consists of polarities. The poem ends with repetition of the 1^st person singular ‘I’ to suggest vindication of the body and the self.

                 This poem is regarding the confessional mode. Writing to her5 always served as a sort of spiritual therapy: if I had been a loved person, I wouldn’t have become a writer. I am what I am. The poetess claims that she is not interested in politics, but claims to know thee names of all in power beginning from Nehru. She seems to state these are involuntarily ingrained in her. By challenging us that she can repeat these as easily as days of the week, or the names of months. She echoes that these politicians were caught in a repetitive cycle of time, irrespective of any individuality. They did not define time; rather time defined them.

                   Subsequently, she comes down to her roots. She declares that by default she is an Indian. Other considerations follow this factor. She says that she is ‘born in’ Malabar. She does not say that she belongs to Malabar. She is far from regional prejudice. She first defines herself in terms of her nationality, and second by her color. And she is very proud to exclaim that she is ‘very brown.’ She goes on to articulate that she speaks in three languages, writes in two and dreams in one. In this poem there is a good line,

           “I speak three languages.

          Write in two, dream in one.”  

              Through dreams require a medium Kamala Das echoes that the medium is not as significant as is the comfort level that one requires. The essence of one’s thinking is the prerequisite to writing. Hence, she implores with all- “critics, friends, visiting cousins” to leave her alone. She reflects the main theme “Broken images”, the conflict between writing in one’s regional language and utilizing a foreign language. The language that she speaks is essentially hers. The primary ideas are not a reflections that reader it human. It is the distortions and queerness that makes it individual. It is imperfections that render it human. It is the language of her expression and emotion as it voices her joys, sorrows and hopes. It comes to her as cawing comes to the crows and roaring to the lions, and is therefore impulsive and instinctive. It is not the deaf, blind speech. Through it has its own defect it cannot be seen as her handicap. It is not unpredictable like the trees on storm or the clouds of rain. It possesses a coherence of its own: an emotional coherence.

             Kamala Das is concerned with herself as victim. What a confessional poet gives us is the psychological equality for his or her mental state, and it is such ‘psychological equivalents’ that we always get in the poetry of Kamala Das and in this respect she is to be compared to such confessional poets. Struggle is in evidence in the poems of Kamala Das from a very early stage. In this poem she struggles to keep her to “fit in”. Having refused to choose a name and a role she feels it necessary to define her identity.

           “I am saint. I am the beloved and the

            Betrayed. I have no joys which are not

          Your, No Aches which are not yours.

                    I too call myself I…

                      The painful assertion, “I too call myself I”, comes from the predicament of the confessional poet. Her experiences are common and ordinary, infect too common to give her any special identity. The “I” which experiences them. She insists that is separate and unique. She sees the outer world as hostile to the world of the self.

                         She explains her encounter with a man. She attributes him with not a proper noun, but a common noun “every man” to the “I” the supreme male ego. He is tightly compartmentalized as “the sword in its sheath.”

                            Confessional poetry is all autobiographical; it is rooted in the personal experiences of the poetess. One poet stressed the impersonality of poetry, but confessional poetry is intensely personal and the particular, she rises to the general and the universal. Her own predicament and her own suffering become symbolic of human predicament and human suffering. Here, in this poem Kamala’s greatness lie as an artist she is both intensely personal and universal.

  

Multiplicity of Themes in Middlemarch

Assignment Paper9-E-C-204

Topic- Multiplicity of themes in Middlemarch

Dabhi Ashvin P

M.A. Part – 1

SEM- II

Roll No -06

Year – 2010-11

Department of English

Submitted to Miss Ruchira Dudhrejiya

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University

Ø Introduction:-

        “Middlemarch” is written by George Eliot who was born on November 22, 1819. Eliot chose to write her novels under a male pseudonym Mary Anne Evans. This is a highly unusual novel. Though It is primarily a Victorian novel it has many characteristics typical to modern novels. The subtitle of this novel is “A study of provincial life.” This means the Middlemarch represents the lives of ordinary people, not the grand adventures of princes and kings. Middlemarch represents the spirit of nineteenth century England through the unknown, historically unremarkable common people. England is the process of rapid industrialization. We can find many themes in this novel.

Ø Major themes of Middlemarch :-

 Responsibility:-

        This is a major theme of Fred’s story, and he must become responsible for his finance and his choices. Will do too, to a certain extent. Bothe men must learn how to rely on themselves, not infringe upon others. He also must learn how to become independent in many ways. Bestrode tries to give him money to repent for hiding his existence from his grand mother. He refuses the money because he knows it come through thievery. He worships Dorothea. He doesn’t care for money and loves everything that is beautiful.

 The imperfection of Marriage:-

      Most character in ‘Middlemarch’ marry for love rather than obligation, yet marriage still appears negative and unromantic. Marriage and the pursuit of it are central concerns in Middlemarch. In many novels of the time, Marriage is not considered the ultimate source of happiness. Two examples are the failed marriage of Dorothea and Lydgate. Dorothea wants to reform the society. She wants a kind of social reform which removes all the vices from the society so she wants to marry because of helping. She chooses wrong person we can say that passionate nature makes unconscious while taking decision. Marriage becomes her very unconscious. She doesn’t know regarding the society and for that she jumps into the society. We are reformer or creator. We are the cause or reason and we are suffering. Individual thinking can not be work. She has to make a journey. She can journey from individual to society. Her journey is not easy. She has to reconcile with so many mind, so many psyches. She is the failure in herself. She is getting failure herself. Her actions are not clear or far from clear. What is she doing she doesn’t know. The reason is her passionate nature. The reason is her thoughtless nature. Her marriage fails because of her youth and of her illusions about marrying a much older man, while Lydgate’s marriage fails because of irreconcilable personalities. Mr. and Mrs. Bulstrode also face a marital crisis due to his inability to tell her about the past and Fred Vincy and Mary Garth also face a great deal of hardship in making their union. As none of the marriage reach a perfect fairy tale ending. ‘Middlemarch’ offers a clear critique of the usual portrayal of marriage as romantic and unproblematic.

Stubbornness:-

         A big issue of character Rosamond is extremely stubborn. The meaning of this sentence is that if things aren’t done her way, she will go behind other people’s backs to do things the way she thinks they should be done. Societal stubbornness is responsible for Lydgate’s failure with his medical practice. People want what they want, for whatever reasons, which means that they are blind to things that might be best for them.

Prejudice:-

       This theme that Lydgate and Ladislaw can’t seem to beat. People in Middlemarch dislike anyone who is not from Middlemarch or anyone whose reputation seems questionable. Ladislaw and Lydgate are both good people, but it is initial prejudice. Sometimes based on invalid or circumstantial reasons, those mean that they are never liked or accepted in Middlemarch.

Conformity:-

         An issue that is related to societal expectation but it is somewhat different. People are supposed to conform to certain social ideas and norms. Dorothea is supposed to be a proper wife and then a proper widow, and follow society’s set guidelines about how to fill each position. Ladislaw fits no position that society to group him into, so he is dislike he refuses to be conventional or proper or to fit into that society and its ideas of how someone like Ladislaw should act.

Self Determination v/s chance:-

       In the present novel, self determination and chance are not opposing forces but rather a complicated balancing act, when characters strictly adhere to a belief in either chance or self determination, bad things happen. When Rosamond goes against the wishes of her husband and write a letter asking for money from his relative. Her act of self determination putts Lydgate in unsavory and tense situations coupled with a refusal to help. On the flip side when Fred Vincy gambles away his money, relying solely on chance, he falls into debt and drags with him; the people who trust him. Only when he steps away from gambling and decides not to go into the clergy do good things begin to happen for him. In particular, the character between fate and self determination. This balance is exemplified in his educated gamble in myth blame of whist.

Love:-

        Love keeps people together, or the drift apart. Those who are truly in love like Ladislaw and Dorothea, Mary and Fred are bound together by it. They are very alike in temperament and outlook. Those who lake it like Lydgate and Rosamond, Casaubon and Dorothea are ill-suited to each other in marriage and they are very disappointed by their unions. Will is the grandson of Casaubon’s disinherited aunt Bultrode tries to give him money to repent for hiding his existence from his grandmother. He refuses the money because he knows it came through thievery. He worships Dorothea. He doesn’t care for money and loves everything that is beautiful.

Unity of Middlemarch:-

        The decisions made by every person in Middlemarch seem to have a direct effect on at least one other person. Mary’s decision to marry Fred Vincy means that fare brother is without a wife. Dorothea’s decision to choose Casaubon leads Sir James Chettam to choose Celia. Bulstrode’s dirty dealings with regard to Raffles mean disgrace to both Lydgate and Will Laidslaw. Everyone in Middlemarch is intimately connected and it seems that no one can move around without disturbing someone else.

Vanity:-

          Especially relevant to Rosamond and her suitors.  Rosamond s is exceptionally vain about her charm and her appearances. So much her so that it is a shock to her when her friend Ladislaw says he doesn’t love her. Her unsuccessful suitors are all equally vain, and blame Lydgate rather than Rosamond’s lack of interest, when she will not return their favor.

Social Expectations:-

         Closely linked to society’s hierarchy. They are ideas about how everyone should act in certain situations. Lydgate proposes to Rosamond because society expects that he should do it. Dorothea is pushed to live with someone else or marry again after she is widowed, because society expects that it is right. People don’t necessarily follow these expectations, nor should they but they do exist and play a part in people’s lives.

Self-discovery:-

        There are certain truths which every character learns about him in the course of trials. Lydgate and Rosamond find out more about their characters through their money troubles, though they do not always adjust accordingly. Dorothea Brooke makes the most dramatic journey of self discovery and changes a great deal within the course of the novel.

Reality v/s Expectations:-

      Many character’s preconceived ideas, especially of marriage, are proves tragically wrong in the course of the book. Casaubon and Dorothea Brooke both have unrealistic ideas about marriage and are disappointed. Lydgate and Rosamond have the same idea and are let down. Life often defies what one expects, or could predict of it and the people who are happiest are ones who have few expectations, or are most flexible.

Gender roles and expectations:-

        Especially relevant to Dorothea, Middlemarch society has very defined ideas of what the people of each gender should do within the society, and people, especially women who deviate from this norm, are looked down upon. Dorothea is tolerated because she is of good family and does not disrupt the society she is in. however, she faces a great deal or pressure to change herself, conform to other’s ideas, and submit herself to male leadership at all times.

Progress:-

        Much is changing in the world of Middlemarch. English society is evolving in social economic, technologic areas. Socially, ideas of gender and class are in flux, as women are proving more and more competent and the industrial revolution is causing a greater amount of social mobility. The economy of England is changing, from an aristocratic, inheritance-based system of holding wealth and land, to one based on commerce, business, and manufacturing. Technology is also changing, in medical science and in areas like transportation and these are changes that area beginning to sweep through Middlemarch.

Money:-

      Money is the root of many evils but much good, in the novel. Lydgate get desperate for want of it, Fred despairs when he has little, Dorothea becomes generous when she carefully since their money is limited. Money has a profound effect on character within the novel, and though many people are judged by now much money they have, many of the best people in this novel very little.

Conclusion:-

      In this novel we can see many themes. In this novel everything is political in Middlemarch, with most people strongly backing the conservative party. People within the novel have varying ideas of family obligation in the novel, though it is a strong force in Middlemarch society.