Post- Colonial Reading of 'A tempest'

“When the work was done, I realized there was not much Shakespeare left.”

                                                                                                   –Aimé Césaire

Interpreted as white man’s burden, colonization was a means of conquering new lands and imposing the colonizer’s culture from on the native people. Prospero’s capture of Sycorax’s land and his treatment of the natives of the island have prompted many critics to interpret the play as working out the drama of colonization. Caliban’s protest against Prospero and his resistance to colonial power using the language taught by the colonizer helps us interpret the play as a postcolonial text.

The Tempest has often been interpreted as a play about colonialism primarily because Prospero comes to Sycorax’s island, subdues her, rules the land and imposes his own culture on the people of the land. Pushing the native to the side, he places himself at the helm of affairs. He displaces Caliban’s mother and treats her as a beast. He has full control over everything on the island. He makes Caliban work as his servant and calls him a thing of darkness. Caliban is being dehumanized or treated as subhuman. This shows the colonizer’s attitude of looking down on the colonized people. Caliban is seen as a despicable entity. The whites looked down on the people of other color. Some are born to dominate while others are born to be dominated. Caliban is treated as inferior. The colonizer used words like light, knowledge and wisdom to refer him while he used terms like darkness, ignorance and elemental to describe the colonized. This binary opposition shows how Prospero as a colonizer creates essences about the colonized people. Prospero sees himself as a ruler carrying out the project of civilization mission. Prospero as a colonizer educates and civilizes Caliban but without much success. The civilizing mission is always accompanied by the politics of domination over the colonized. These elements allow us to study the play in the light of colonialism.

A Tempest by Aime Cesaire is an attempt to confront and rewrite the idea of colonialism as presented in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  He is successful at this attempt by changing the point of view of the story.  Cesaire transforms the characters and transposes the scenes to reveal Shakespeare’s Prospero as the exploitative European power and Caliban and Ariel as the exploited natives.  Cesaire’s A Tempest is an effective response to Shakespeare’s The Tempest because he interprets it from the perspective of the colonized and raises a conflict with Shakespeare as an icon of the literary canon.

We can read the text with certain means and certain ideas presented in the text itself.

Prospero Complex

Fanon has coined the term ‘ Prospero Complex. Europeans in Madagascar exhibit the need to feel highly regarded by others. The dependence versus inferiority relationship has already been established prior to each individual European entering a colonial situation. An inferiority complex occurs specifically for those colonizers whose “grave lack of sociability combined with a pathological urge to dominate” urges them to seek out a situation with servile people. This complex falls into place especially for the colonizer with self-esteem that is not quenched, or more specifically raised, while in the presence of his own people, where he feels that he cannot compete.  They have sexual guilt in their minds. The guilt constantly challenges the masculinity of the white man. The inferior they feels, the more they dominates. They dominate the natives and tries to mould them as their convenience in power politics. Moreover they would rather like to dominate from

The Caliban Complex

There is the dependence complex. After being forced out of the stable routine of their tribal society by colonizers, they are able to do the thing. It is believed that the lack of stability caused a strong reliance on the colonizers. There are differences in how each group of people handle a difficult situation. When the Europeans entered a difficult situation they were more concerned in proving that they were not inferior.  Colonised were more interested in avoiding The drive to avoid a sense of abandonment results in dependence.

Language

Language is essential. Whether written or spoken, the need for human beings to communicate is intrinsic to our social development and so language is the first thing to be passed on from coloniser to colonise. This we see in The Tempest as Caliban has been taught English by Prospero and Miranda and seems to speak it with a certain amount of fluency. But this an entirely positive experience?

“CALIBAN: Call me X. That’s best. Like a man without a name. Or, more precisely, a man whose name was stolen. You speak of history. Well that’s history, known far and wide! Every time you’ll call me that will remind me of the fundamental truth, that you stole everything from me, even my identity! Uhuru !” (Act 1, Scene 2)

The language is the part of identity. Due to the language of Prospero Caliban felt that he has lost his own identity.  Then he uses the language of protest and rebale.

“Ay, that I will, and I’ll be wise hereafter

And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass

Was I to take this drunkard for a god

And worship this dull fool!”

Caliban is conscious for his identity and race. He is also well known about his colonisation. He is not sorry for hus rebel and wants freedom. These all the rebel he presented through his language.

Miranda obviously believes it to be a great honour and reminds Caliban how she "took pains to make thee speak" and describes Caliban's previous way of speaking as "gabble". However Caliban himself obviously takes a very different view and in a quote that is often cited by anti-colonialist critics he tells them, "You taught me language; and my profit on't is I know how to curse" and he goes on further to wish "the red plague rid you for teaching me your language!" clearly not sharing Miranda's view that she has done him a great service.

Caliban however does recognise the importance of education, citing Prospero's books as the source of all of his magical power and when Stephano and Trinculo fail to see the importance of the books and are more interested in the fine clothes they find, Caliban is incredibly scathing of them.

Thus, we can conclude that ‘A Tempest’ is the Caliban represents the more Black Nationalist ideas. He wants his ideas, his culture and his identity back. The emergence of postcolonial rebel is given flame in the work. 

Feminism in the novel ‘To the Light House’

Introduction

One of the most prominent literary figures of the twentieth century, Woolf is widely admired for her technical innovations in the novel, most notably her development of stream-of-consciousness narrative. In To the Lighthouse (1927) Woolf sought to come to terms with her parents' stifling Victorian marriage and events of her own childhood, as well as to explore such feminist issues as the necessity, or even desirability, of marriage for women and the difficulties for women in pursuing a career in the arts. A striking mix of autobiographical elements, philosophical questions, and social concerns, To the Lighthouse is generally considered to be Woolf’s greatest fictional achievement.

Three phases of Feminism

In her book “A Literature of Their Own” Elaine Showalter writes on English women writers.  She says that we can see patterns and phases in the evolution of a female tradition.  Showalter has divided the period of evolution into three stages.  They are:

1.      The Feminine,

2.      The Feminist, and,

3.      The Female stages.

1)      The first phase, the feminine phase dates from about 1840-1880.  During that period women wrote in an effort to equal the intellectual achievements of the male culture.  The distinguishing sign of this period is the male pseudonym.  This trend was introduced in England in the 1840’s.  It became a national characteristic of English women writers. During this phase the feminist content of feminine art is typically oblique, because of the inferiority complex experienced by female writers.

2)      The feminist phase lasted about 38 years; from 1882 to 1920.  The New Women movement gained strength—women won the right to vote.  Women writers began to use literature to dramatize the ordeals of wrong womanhood.

3)      The latest phase or the third phase is called the female phase ongoing since 1920.  Here we find women rejecting both imitation and protest.  Showalter considers that both are signs of dependency. Women show more independent attitudes.  They realize the place of female experience in the process of art and literature.  She considers that there is what she calls autonomous art that can come from women because their experiences are typical and individualistic.  Women began to concentrate on the forms and techniques of art and literature.  The representatives of the female phase such as Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf even began to think of male and female sentences.  They wrote about masculine journalism and feminine fiction.  They redefined and sexualized external and internal experience.   

Female Characters

After reading Virginia Woolf’s, “To The Lighthouse”, readers are left with the disturbing reality of the role of a woman during this time period.  The characters of Mrs Ramsay and Lily Briscoe portray these demeaning roles. Both are giving different polar areas of the woman in the novel. They are portrayed with the stream of conscious technique. There are other minor female characters too. However, instead of completely giving in to the domination of men, they are starting the woman’s movement of resistance in the period of the beginning of World War I.

    Mrs Ramsay

Mrs Ramsay is the character who is constantly present not only as worldly presence but also in the mind of the other characters. Beautiful, charming, and nurturing, Mrs Ramsey holds the Ramsay family together as she holds together every social context she enters by her charisma and instinct for putting people at ease. Mrs. Ramsay also holds To the Lighthouse together, for the novel’s shape is structured around her: her perspective dominates Chapter 1 and, even after she dies in Chapter 2, Mrs Ramsay remains central in Chapter 3 as the surviving Ramsays’ manage their grief and Lily revisits her memories of Mrs Ramsay and makes peace with her ghost. For her own part, Mrs Ramsay exalts in the beauty of the world and, though she insists she is no thinker, frequently reflects on the nature of time and human experience. An eager matchmaker, Mrs Ramsay is also, as Lily sees an artist who can make out of the fleeting moment “something permanent”

She is the character who used to take all the responsibility of their family. Carefree, calm graceful lady she is! She is the perfect homemaker. Always she is buffering the situation between the Mr.Ramsay and the children. Mrs Ramsay is a good wife & creater of the comfort for everyone. Mr Ramsay failed to treat her with chivalry.  She is the means to satisfy his male ego, physical needs as well as needs of the family. And sometimes when he realizes he cannot help her and that, astoundingly, her remoteness irritates him. So consistently does he get things wrong. On the other hand family is everything for Mrs Ramsay. Her constant concern about small and basic needs of family keeps her alive after her death too.  For in Mrs. Ramsay’s impulse to call to her husband is the essence of her life, the sensitive  and idiosyncratic alchemy of feminine intuition, along with the terrifying notion that the very act of being a woman, a wife, a mother, enervates, and far worse, may even kill. But here a question rises that is it necessary to be so concerned for needs to be in someone’s memory and heart? If she is an independent woman just like Lily Briscoe would she not be missed by family?

Ultimately, as is evident from her meeting with Mr. Ramsay at the close of “The Window,” Mrs. Ramsay never compromises herself. Here, she is able—masterfully—to satisfy her husband’s desire for her to tell him she loves him without saying the words she finds so difficult to say. This scene displays Mrs. Ramsay’s ability to bring together disparate things into a whole. In a world marked by the ravages of time and war, in which everything must and will fall apart, there is perhaps no greater gift than a sense of unity, even if it is only temporary.

But beauty was not everything. Beauty had this penalty — it came too readily, came too completely. It stilled life — froze it. One forgot the little agitations; the flush, the pallor, some queer distortion, some light or shadow, which made the face unrecognisable for a moment and yet added a quality one saw for ever after. It was simpler to smooth that all out under the cover of beauty.

 According to Lily Briscoe she was great at pulling together her family. But by doing so, she smoothed over all of the complexities and individual interests of her children and her friends in favour of a greater whole. Mr. Ramsay is an overt bully, but Mrs Ramsay quietly influences people to take the shape that she wants them to take, in the name of a greater idea.

    Lily Briscoe

In Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, the struggle to obtain and assert female autonomy is constantly threatened or undermined by a society built upon the foundations of patriarchy. The clash of gender ideologies permeates much of the novel and Woolf emphasizes a subversion of traditional female gender roles through the character of Lily Briscoe. She represents an idealized feminist woman who challenges male hegemony to achieve a sense of individuality. Her finished painting and epiphany at the end of the novel serves to establish her role as a truly liberated female artist.

The desire to break away from conventional female cultural norms and stereotypes in order to achieve autonomy can only be fully realized when she experiences the “vision” after the completion of her painting at the end of the novel. Woolf is keen to stress Lily’s role as an outsider attempting to analyze and comprehend her precarious social predicament. Her status as a middle-aged woman, who values artistic achievement over the prospects of marriage becomes increasingly difficult to maintain against the circumscribed expectations of society. The pressure to conform to specific female gender roles weighs heavily upon her conscious:

“Even while she looked at the mass, at the line, at the color, at Mrs. Ramsay sitting in the window with James, she kept a feeler on her surroundings lest someone should creep up, and suddenly she would find her picture looked at”.

 Lily suffers from a moral crisis over her desire to pursue art as a vocation because of gender inequality and male prejudices imposed upon women. She is challenging the status quo by picking up a paintbrush and experiences a pervasive sense of guilt as if committing a heinous crime. Lily is fully aware of the gender stereotypes and impediments of circumstance that society places upon women, which explains her shrewd disposition to remain inconspicuous. Considering that she is adamant to conceal her painting from prying eyes suggests that her art is essentially metaphorical: a radical political statement of feminist ideals. Yet, she is not confident enough in her abilities to showcase this controversial work to a judgmental public. Her personal independence from the negative influences of male hegemony is directly linked to the aesthetic development as an artist; thus, it is only after reaching a satisfactory level of creative expression that the submerged metaphor becomes most vivid.

Indeed, since Lily is unable to obtain an empowering sense of female liberation until she has finished the painting at the end of the novel, the first section emphasizes the juxtaposition between her destabilized sense of self as an artist and as a woman living in a world ruled by patriarchy. The tenuous relationship between the subjective and the objective self is a cause of great psychological distress because of her shifting attitudes towards female gender roles. Lily’s first appearance in the novel provides a suitable qualification of her social status as an outsider. She is introduced through the perspective of Mrs. Ramsay sitting in the openly transparent window of the cottage with James, her youngest son. They are both having their portrait painted by Lily who is looking at them through the window from a position outside on the lawn.

Mythical References

In this novel Dr. Joseph M Blotner reads mythical connections with female characters. According to him three mythic female figures are traced in the designing of the characters. Thay are : Zeus(Rhea) ,Demeter & Persephone. 

Mrs.Ramsay is the symbol of female principal in the life. She is not merely goddess but more than this. We can say that she is the meaning of the novel. Rhea is the daity who bore the God children of God Zeus. Rhea has six children. Mrs. Ramsay resembles Rhea. She has eight children.Many a times she is relates with nature.

Female Gender Roles

Many women in To the Lighthouse either overtly or silently subvert conventional female gender roles. Lily Briscoe, for example has no desire to marry but rather wants only to dedicate herself to her work. She is independent and self-sufficient, and she is able to disregard Mr. Tansley’s prejudiced comments about women being unable to paint. Despite Mrs. Ramsay’ persuasion, she holds her ground throughout the novel, refusing to become any man’s wife. These choices and ideas were very unconventional in the early 20^th century.

Three of Mrs. Ramsay’s daughters also silently reject the life that their mother chose for herself, in all of its domesticity. They know that they want their lives to be different and more complex then what they perceive as limited realm of wife-mother and they are stubborn and adventurous.

Moreover, the novel promises only misfortune for the woman who accept the roles carved out for them. Mrs. Ramsay dies unexpectedly at a relatively young age. Prue, shortly after getting married, dies as a result of childbirth. Even Minta, who had been a somewhat unconventional lady, suffers in her marriage, for Paul leaves her for another woman. The novel seems to punish the women who accept positions as wife and mother, while it abounds with young women who are sure that want a different existence.

 Thus, the characters themselves stand for feminism. During that period woman are considered as of substantial or derogatory. For Mrs Ramsay we can connect the Indian Shloka of Manusmriti-

Karyeshu mantri Karneshu dasi, Shayneshu Rambha bhojaneshu mata,

This shlok shows the very role played by Mrs Ramsay in the novel. Her character is juxtaposed with Lily Briscoe’s character who is an independent individual and creative artist as well as sensible lady.  The feministic view has only one question that Why cannot the woman be allowed to be herself, why she is not at the ease and have to carefree for every person’s minor needs, why can’t she get comfort or feeling of emotional support from the man in her life, doesn’t she need that?

My Fresh Poem...

Please Suggest the title...

લો હવે સૌ સહુ નું અસત્ય લઈને બેઠા,
દહીં વલોવીને માતાકીમાં માખણ વેચવે બેઠા,

'તોફાની  કાનુડો'જાય રસ્તા પર દોડતો,
રાધા ના નામે સહુ પોતાની ભક્તિ વેચવા બેઠા

ભકછુક ભક્છુક કરતી જાય સંબંધો ની ગાડી ,
અહી સહુ માણસો બીજા ના સપના વેચવે બેઠા,


છે વેબસાઈટ વળી લાઈક્સ ની લાગણી
અને બોલો સેલ્ફી ની સુંદરતા વેચવે બેઠા ,

જીવનના રંગમંચ પર રોબોટ ભજવે માનવવેશ,
ને માનવો! ચહેરા પર ચહેરા પહેરી લાગણીઓ વેચવે બેઠા,

પ્રસિદ્ધિ, કીર્તિ,અને બુદ્ધિમત્તા નું આગવું છે રાજકારણ,
પૈસા માટે હવે મોત ને પણ વેચવા બેઠા !!!!

Written on  21st may 2014
By me....

Sense & Sensibility

And

Pride & Prejudice:

A Comparative Study

Introduction:

Jane Austen was belonged to the age of transition, from 1775 to 1817 i.e. of Sense & Sensibility. The period of 1747-98 in the history of English Literature, belongs to the precursors of the Romantic Movement. Jane Austen had, completed ‘Sense and Sensibility’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Northanger Abby’ in 1798. She is more akin to the eighteenth century neo-classicist in her approach. In the novels, her moral outlook and prose style favoured traditionalism. The comparison between these two works, Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, confront us with social and political background, her style, theme as well as the place of spinsters in the society.

Her novels are specially based o love and marriage. Lets now have a brief on the comparison of the novels. 

Theme of Love & Marriage:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”

           This opening statements strike the keynote of Jane Austen’s theme in the novel-marriage in a society governed by economic considerations; as indicated by the word ‘fortune’. Jane Austen’s usual theme is love and marriage. In all her novels, there are beautiful girls waiting for really eligible bachelors to get married to them.

 In Sense and Sensibility there are love stories of:

A)   Elinor- Edward                     D) Marianne- Willoughby

B)    Edward- Lucy                       E) Willoughby- Eliza

C)    Lucy – Robert                         F) Marianne- Colonel Brandon

While in Pride and Prejudice;

a.      Elizabeth – Darcy

b.      Jane- Bingley

c.      Lydia- Wickham

d.      Charlotte Lucas – Mr. Collins

The love stories are related to the chief characters of the novel. Other stories are co-related to them. These love stories provide interest to the readers. They reveal the characters’ mind-set, their understanding, faithfulness and spirit. realism and psychological aspects are woven with them. Lovers are tested and rewarded. They fail and succeed but they become instrument to give us a second background of the time.

In Sense and Sensibility there is a little misunderstanding and delay in Elinor and Edward’s marriage. The same happens with Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Edward was believed in the love with Lucy when Lucy declared that she is going to marry with Mr.Ferrars. Elinor was shocked by believing that she(Lucy) is going to marry Edward Ferrars. But actually she married to Robert Ferrars as she gradually falls in love with him after knowing that Edward doesn't love her. Edward truly loves Elinor and the same thing he has confessed to Lucy when she proposed him.

Elizabeth has once refused the proposal of Darcy as his attitude is that he is offering a prize which no woman can refuse this show his pride. Al, other characters of Pride and Prejudice believed that Elizabeth is lucky as having him as a partner. Thus, Elizabeth and Darcy begin with prejudice and gradually move toward understanding. Elizabeth helps him to shed his pride and be the gentleman. These develops love and feelings between them and then they got married.

Marriane, younger sister of Elinor falls in love with Willoughby. Willoughby was a showy and flirty kinds of a person. He flirts with Marianne. Both wondered everywhere as a couple. But Willoughby married to Sophia for her wealth. On the other hand Colonel Branden loves Marianne. For her, marriage of Willoughby proved a great shock and medium to realize reality. Finally, she marries to Colonel.

Lydia also elop with Wickham. Their marriage is a very complex affair. Compatibility and understandings are absent. She is affected towards Wickham’s personality nad chivalary. She misunderstood her affection as love. Wickham has no mfeeling for her. He was gambler with heavy debt. He thinks to marry other lady withwealth to make his fortune. But as they elop, he has to marry with Lydia. She is serious about their marriage. He married Ludia for unavoidable temptation of instant financial help.

John and Bingly are the most understanding and compatible couple among all the other love marriage of the characters of both the novels. Both loves each other sincerely. Both of them are sweet and gentle, easy going, unsuspecting, understanding and willing to forgive reality. It seem through them Austen define the best marriage, she imagine for others too. But their understanding their marriage are fragile but they are happy because Bigly is too good to offend conciously and Jane is to good to  not to forgive even some offence is caused.

Character Maps:

1. Of Pride & Prejudice:

2. Of   Sense & Sensibility:

However, Jane Austen’s characters are unaware of the contemporary events. The motto of Austen is to provide handsome husband to girls. They do not have any deep spiritual, insight or religious attitude. Marriage & love is the central theme of these both the novels.

Style of Austen:

        It seems that Jane Austen is aware about her potential and on the depiction on what come to her range, creatively.

“I would no more write a serious romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life... …I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. NO, I must keep to my own style and go on my own way.”

-Jane Austen

(About her Writing)

She adhered to her range devotedly. Her range is extremely narrow. She worked on very small canvas. The political changes and upheavals are absent from her writings. Subject of science and philosophy also absent in the work.

The society that depicts in Austen’s novels is middle class. Her work reveals the society of upper middle class and middle class. Since this class was not required to work, they are passing their time in dinner parties and dance parties. The girls of these classes were not educated but they learnt music, playing instrument like piano or violin, singing, needlework and knitting. During those days girls could not get the part of her inheritance so the only way for them to marry with financial sound guy. These qualities we can find in the leading characters of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility’.

Jane Austen makes use of irony at different levels. She uses irony in characterization to expose her characters’ misunderstanding of others as well as their own self- depiction. But that irony is not with any bitterness, not reflected any cynicism in it. But it makes us thinking over the significant issues of life. So, the irony is neither indifferent nor irresponsible.

 In Sense and Sensibility it is ironical for the Marianne who is so feelingly, sensitive and romantic marries to Colonel Brandon who is quite and sensible. Elinor who is practical in her approach could not express her love when Edward proposed her. For Mrs John Dashwood it is quite ironical that her sister- in –law marries to her brother Edward Ferrars.

In Pride and Prejudice the Bingly in Pride and Prejudice the Bingly sisters mocks at the Bannets for their vulgarity but they themselves are vulgar. Darcy proposes Elizabeth when she is hating her; Ludia has to marry Wickham who just marries her for money just because she loves him! Elizabeth   believes that she is not among the girl who refuses the first proposal and accepts it on second proposal. 

The two virtues of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice’ are constantly juxtaposed each other. Isn’t it ironical?

Jane Austen’s novels are hero less novels. Austen has given us very fine woman characters. Elinor, Marianne, Elizabeth, Lydia, Jane, Mrs Collins, Mrs Bannets, Mrs Dashwood, Mrs John Dashwood, and Lucy etc. her women characters are quite different though she limits herself to certain matters in the novels. Every character has its own individual nature. Austen fully draw them in very wide fledge as the individual. Marianne & Lucy both are sensible and expressive but having their own way. Similarly if we compare Elinor and Elizabeth; both have their own way to think in a sensible way. Jane also sharing some characteristics of Elinor but both are different individuals and their individuality is clearly seen, very minute details are mentioned.

These characters are not aware of any other social issues or the political issues. They are concentrated on their own problems and life events.

Her characters are revealed from compare and contrast. Edward’s relation and honesty are revealed through Willoughby’s cheating for Marianne. Lady Catherine and Mrs Bennet balance each other to their vulgarity as well as their match-making manoeuvres. Elizabeth is compared with Jane likewise their very nature.

Plot Construction:

There is no moral or philosophical distractions, no obstersive characters, no loose end or dangling ends. There is complete and knit woven plots and subplots. It holds perfect organic unity.

The main plot of  ‘ Sense and Sensibility is the love story of Elinor and Edward while in ‘Pride and Prejudice’ it is of Elizabeth and Darcy.

Elinor is the main character of the novel. Her attitude life-style, thinking, manners and behaviour relate the purpose of the novelist. Elinor love to the Edward is restrained. At Barton Park Edward’s long absence doesn’t disturbed her much. Lucy’s episode is disastrous for her. But at the end the secret revealed thet Lucy was married to Rbert the brother of Edward.

In ‘Pride and Prejudice’ main plot is Elizabeth- Darcy affair. Both met at Mr Bingley’s renting of Notherfield Park, which Darcy first time proposed to Elizabeth;  she refused it. But afterwards Elizabeth’s visit to Pemberly brings them still closer. Later their relation is getting closer in such a way that they got married.

In plot construction the linking of sub-plot, dramatic elements are very useful. Sense and Sensibility has another chief character of Marianne. The love triangle of the Colonel Brandon- Marianne-Willoughby is the subplot when Marianne is helped by Willoughby; she informed by him. He was flirt but she could not recognize him. These event are linked with Elinor’s love story in such a way that it confirms the style of contrast in the novel. Sometimes it indicates what would be happen to Elinor.

In Pride and Prejudice the growing Jane-Bingly affair brings Elizabeth also there, that Darcy gradually falls in love with her. The subplot contributes in the development of main plot. Charlotte-Collins plot brings them together at Rosings. Then the main plot leads to the climax of first half of the novel.

The characters have dramatic moves as per the plot. They are stated below.

C Marianne who is sensitive, intuitive converts into understanding and calm girl.

C Elizabeth who has the pride for her understanding of other, gradually melt down and fall in love with Darcy.

C Willoughby who seems so romantic and carefree; dumps Marianna exploit Eliza and marries to Sophia for wealth.

C Lydia who is stubborn and short tempered behaves maturely when she is serious about her relationship with Wickham.

These characters are changed through dramatic situations. Sometimes it seems natural and essential for the plot and theme. It keeps the interest into the novels.

          Thus, Jane Austen is a novelist nurture the novel very well. Although wide range of character, each character has its own individuality without covered by other characters individuality. Both the novels are worth reading.

Culture & Anarchy by Mathew Arnold with special reference to Cultural Studies

What is Culture?

The ‘culture’ derives from ‘cultura’ and ‘colere’, meaning ‘to cultivate’.it also means ‘to honour’ and ‘to protect’. It is a social phenomenon tends to regularize the mind-set and beheviour of people which is set on ancient rules and regulations and experiences. It is the ways of living and represents lives of people. It is not having any origin. Nobody can own but within the culture there is origin of perfection.

Culture and Anarchy was original in contesting precisely this elitist view of culture as connoisseurship, or an appreciation of the fine arts. This was the current sense of the word when Arnold began writing. The word culture originated in the world of farming, as a term for tending crops or animals, which is where we get the word agriculture (Williams 87-93). From this, it developed a metaphorical meaning in the eighteenth century for culturing the mind, rather than crops. And in this latter sense it became associated by the early nineteenth century with knowledge of Greek, Latin, and the fine arts. Because these were standard elements of a gentleman’s education, the acquisition of culture was a sign of one’s elite status.

Culture is the study of perfection in society and morality. It is the development of human beings. “It is an experience of human race in general”. The culture is an inward operation. Culture is the study of perfection leads our perfection as a harmonious perfection, developing all parts of our humanity and as a general perfection, developing all parts of our society. It is something which is not natural but it is something which is ‘learned’. It’s the habit or the way of being social in the society. As a synonym of civilization, culture belonged to the general spirit of enchantment with its cult of secular, progressive self-development. Civilization largely a French notion-then as now , the French were thought to have a monopoly on being civilized-and named both the gradual process of social refinement and utopian telos towards which it was unfolding. Mathew Arnold may have believed in culture as a social improvement but he also refuse to take sides over the slavery question in the American civil war.

It is being pursuit of total perfection by means of getting to know, on the all matters which most concern us,” the best which has been though and said in the world” ; and through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. In this essay culture is showen as great help out of our present difficulties. For Arnold if one member suffers, the other members must suffer with it; and the fewer there is that follow the true way of salvation, the harder that way is to find.

Culture is considered not merely as the endeavour to see and learn this but as the endeavour, also, to make it prevail, the moral, social, and beneficent character of culture becomes manifest. Culture places human perfection in an internal condition, I the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our aminality.

“The notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive it: a harmonious perfection, a perfection in which the characters of beauty and intelligence are both present, which unites ‘the two noblest of things’ as Swift most happily calls it in his Battle of the books-‘ the two noblest of things, sweetness and light.”

Culture is connected with the idea of sweetness and light. He uses the Greek word aphuia & euphuia’. The immense spiritual significance of the Greeks is due to their having been inspired with this central and happy idea of the essential character of human perfection. Culture shows the single minded love of to perfection, its desire simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom from fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even while it insists that it is machinery.

Both personal and social factors contributed to Arnold’s redefinition. He was the son of a famous educator, Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), who insisted that, whatever goals one pursued in life, they had to be socially useful. It was not enough, in other words, to pursue one’s interests for selfish reasons alone. As a dedicated poet in his early adulthood, Arnold grappled with the problem of reconciling his love of fine art with the need for social utility, a topic that formed the mainstay of his written correspondence with his closest friend, the poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-61). In this regard, Arnold was representative of an era in which many artists questioned the relevance of art to society, even as Victorian Britain underwent a radical social transformation, leaving behind its agricultural past in the wake of the new industrial economy.

In the middle decades of the century, Britain was particularly turbulent, famously unsettled by the inhumanity of early industrialism and the demands of a vocal working-class for political representation. In one of the most well-known incidents, on 23 July 1866, a large crowd gathered at Hyde Park in London to hear speakers on voting rights. They were confronted by police when the government declared the meeting an illegal assembly. Soldiers were called out when 200,000 people entered the park anyway, knocking down fences meant to keep them out. The incident precipitated Arnold’s thinking, and its violence represents the “Anarchy” in Culture and Anarchy. While staunchly opposing violence, he nevertheless understood the need for social change. As one of his biographers notes, Arnold’s job as a School’s Inspector exposed him “to more working-class children than any other poet who has ever lived” (Honan 218-19). The injection of social change into his new theory was the formula he sought to combine his own love of fine art with social utility.

For Arnold, the opposite of culture was “doing as one likes,” his term for individuals who act out of self-interest, without regard for the greater good. He did not see this as a choice so much as the consequence of an inability to imagine a world beyond one’s limited, subjective perspective. He agrees with the prevalent notion that ‘it is a most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as he likes. But the problem is, “ on what he is to do when he as thus free to do as he likes, we do not lay so much stress.” Even though the liberal practitioners like Mr. Bright say that “the central idea of English life and politics is the assertion of liberty”, yet Arnold fears this very right and happiness of an individual of as Englishman to do what he likes may drift the entire society towards Anarchy.

The word anarchy comes from the Greek word ‘anarchia’ which means contrary to authority or without ruler. The anarchies tradition has been linked to the four major thinkers.  The first was willium Godwin, who in the late 18th century wrote a treatise called a Enquiry Concerning Political Justice which argued against government, the law, property and institutions of the state.

The next was the French thinker Pierre Joseph Proudhon says ‘Property is theft’. He was also the first person to describe himself as an anarchist and once declared:’ My conscience is mine, and my freedom is a sovereign freedom’.

“ Anarchism is the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived  without government- harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups” these are the words of the later anarchist Kropotkin. He had wrote this definition for Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition.

   The culture of Arnolds time is blind to the evils of the society. The culture is being danger to the reformers then the culture is bound to be changed. In England people become slave of machinery due to rapid industrialization.  Arnold agrees with the prevalent notion that ‘it is most happy and important thing for a man merely to be able to do as he likes,. On what he is to do when he is thus free to do as he likes, we do not lay so much stress’.

According to Arnold language is also a culture. So whatever texts are there; are the representative of the culture they belongs to. He was the first person who started to study the culture. Then the faculties of Cultural Studies come into existence.

1.    Cultural studies bring to everyday life the same tools in literary study. For example the advertisement of the things of daily usages; the advertisement of salt. It directly emphasis the moral of ‘honesty towards the master’, it depicts the mindset of slave.

2.        As in literature, so in culture, meaning is borne by signs. They embody codes that are shared by cultural communities. White Tiger is the example of the literature having the footprints of culture. In the novel Tiger is the sigh of the protagonist who wants the freedom. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is another one in which the protagonist had fought for freedom from enslavement.

3.      Culture consists of texts, institutions and practices. Culture means the way of living India has great heritage of historical texts in form of carvings of cave, ancient sculptures of Buddha and other God & Goddesses, Ashoka’s Stoop with Pali language and of course the Vedas, Upanishads, and Epics like Ramayana & Mahabharata. A time is preserved n it. Whatever we do and live constantly reflected in our educational institutes. The different faculties of studies suggested economic, social and political life of the country.

4.     Cultural studies began with the study of popular literary forms. There are two types of culture :popular culture and mass culture. Here I want to quote by the use of word Culture Arnold, “‘does not mean a precise body of knowledge or art but rather a psychological attitude of mental freedom, driven by the motive of intellectual curiosity”. The Popular literary forms appeal to the lowest class of the society and popular amongst them which is naturally larger in number then upper and Elite class.  It represent the society very well, from the downside view.

5.    Culture is a realm of power. Those with economic power are able to make cultural products. Culture is decided by the ruling class. Whatever they do is considered as Culture. Here we can see the conflict that if the working class, the lowest class do according to their will and which is not harmful to the society, considered as Anarchy. Because it snatches away the right of ruling class to establish the Culture and Tradition whatever suitable to them.

In his essay Culture & Anarchy, Mathew Arnold Depicted the problem of working class people and guide them to do ‘doing as one likes’.