Assignment paper no.110

p 110 Assignment

P - 110(A) Assignment

Topic: Comedy of Menace  with example of 'The Birthday Party'

Name: Bhavna Sosa

Paper- History of English literature from 1900 to 2000.

Roll no- 02

Enrollment no- 4069206420210034

Email ID - bhavnasosa211@gmail.com

Batch-2021-23(MA Sem-2)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English. Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. 

 Introduction:-

Comedy of menace is the body of plays written by David Campton, Nigel Dennis, N. F. Simpson, and Harold Pinter. The term was coined by drama critic Irving Wardle, who borrowed it from the subtitle of Campton's play The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace, in reviewing Pinter's and Campton's plays in Encore in 1958. 

What is Comedy of Menace?

A comedy of menace is a play in which the laughter of the audience in some or all situations is immediately followed by a feeling of some impending disaster. The audience is made aware of some menace in the very midst of its laughter. The menace is produced throughout the play from potential or actual violence or from an underline sense of violence throughout the play. The actual cause of menace is difficult to define: it may be because, the audience feels an uncertainty and insecurity throughout the play.

Comedy of Menace in The Birthday Party :-

As a playwright, Harold Pinter is an innovator of a new kind of drama which becomes famous as the Comedy of Menace. Unlike Coleridge, the famous Romantic poet, Harold Pinter begins his plays in our known, familiar world but gradually makes us move into the trajectory and psychodynamics of a world which is beyond our comprehension. In Pinter's Comedy of Menace, the laughter and elation of the audience in the same or all situations are immediately followed by a feeling of some impending disaster. An audience is, therefore, made aware, in the very midst of his laughter of some menace. The feelings of insecurity and uncertainty throughout the play also enhance the menacing atmosphere of Pinter's The Birthday Party. The menace in Pinterian drama is also produced by potential or actual violence or from an underlined sense of violence throughout the play. Pinter makes the audience feel that the security of the principal character (Stanley) and even the audiences' own security are threatened by some sort of impending danger or disaster. Actually the term 'Comedy of Menace' was first coined by David Campton who used the phrase as a subtitle of his four short plays The Lunatic View, published in 1957. However, in Pinter's hand, the concept of menace becomes highly symbolic and vague.

            Pinter's The Birthday Party is a perfect example of Comedy of Menace. Throughout the play, we find that the hint of menace is inflected upon the individual freedom of a person and it juxtaposes the comic element drastically dilutes the comic appeal. Pinter shows his state in the existential view that danger prevails everywhere and life can't escape from it. Pinter thinks that Stanley, the protagonist, might have committed a serious crime and is on the run for escaping the consequence and legal implications of his life. This is precisely comprehended while he almost never leaves his room and becomes furiously apprehensive when Meg informs him that two gentlemen are coming to stay in this boarding house. Stanley soon tactfully tries to conceal his apprehension by mentioning his successful concert and about a favourable job proposal of a pianist. But we can realize his innate apprehension for imminent interrogation or arrest by the two new guests at the boarding house:

       " They won't come. 

    Someone's taking the Michael. 

        Forget all about it."

In his attempt to percolate his fear upon Meg, Stanley informs her ironically that some people would come to the boarding house in a van along with a wheelbarrow and take away Meg permanently along with them: 

      "They're looking for someone.

               A certain person."

            In a mood of topsy-turvy-dom, Pinter often shows an apparent fearful apprehension, but actually gives occasion to amusement. Lulu's arrival and knocking at their boarding's door fulfil the purpose. Similarly, Meg's funny answer to Goldberg's question about Stanley also sustains the suspense of Stanley's immediate arrest. Thus, the dramatist gives a comic relief to his audience.

          When Goldberg continuously refers to the "job" which he has to execute, makes an audience conscious about their unknown job, so as to say, by enhancing menace. Again the conversations between Goldberg and McCann are often comical but the possibility of danger and violence always pervade above the comedy: 

" Goldberg: But why is it that before you do a job you're all over the place, and when you're doing the job you're as cool as a whistle?"

OR

" Goldberg: You know what I said when this job came up. I mean naturally they approached me to take care of it. And you know who I asked for?

McCann: Who? 

Goldberg: You."

The interrogation of Stanley by the "two gentlemen" is sometimes funny or comical but have threatening impact both upon Stanley and the audience. Even the birthday party which begins in a light and jovial manner ends with Stanley's attempt to strangle Meg and rape Lulu. Similarly, the birthday party also becomes the excuse of Goldberg's seduction and deflowering Lulu. Again the arrangement of the birthday party acts as a plan to prove Stanley lunatic and takes him away from the boarding:

 "Goldberg: ...All is dependent on the attitude of our subject. At all events, McCann, I can assure you that the assignment will be carried out and the mission accomplished with no excessive aggravation to you or myself."

Conclusion :-

          At the end of the play, audiences are given an unsolved riddle about what has been of Stanley which is of paramount significance in Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party - a perfect example of Comedy of Menace. Some critics even believe that it is a superimposition of the European concept of absurd (Martin Esslin has been described the drama as an example of the Theatre of the Absurd) to the English native wit. Here what is true or what is false, is not matter but the ambience which Pinter clarifies as his concept of menace: '...menace and fear do not come from extraordinary sinister people but from you and me; it is all a matter of circumstances.' (Pinter, Harold).

Assignment paper no.109

Assignment : paper no. 109

Topic: Comedy of Menace with example of 'The Birthday Party'

Name: Bhavna Sosa

Paper- Literary Theory &Indian Aesthetics

Roll no- 02

Enrollment no- 4069206420210034

Email ID - bhavnasosa211@gmail.com

Batch-2021-23(MA Sem-2)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English. Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. 

Introduction:

The theory of alankara seems to have influenced poetic com:positions in Sanskrit. Even the earliest Mahakavyas, as those of Asvaghosa seem to have followed some of the dicta incorporated in the teachings of the alankara theorists.1 What ever poetic theories came to be vogue, in actual practice poets seem I have had the alankara theory always in mind. Though the theory of alankaras was the oldest in literary speculation, and was superceeded by theories of rasa and dhvani. Yet alankara was a subject dealt with even by · 3 writers of comparatively recent times. For example, Mammata and Visvanatha, though they were followers of the rasa-dhavani theory, have devoted considerable space to alankaras. This would convey an idea of the extent of the influence that the alankara school exerted on poetry as well as on the theory of poetry. 

Alamkāra or figure of speech is a very important component of literature.WithoutAlamkāra it is difficult to imagine that a literary writer can create literary texts.As students of literature, we must have deeper insights into the nature and function of the figures of speech. We are sure that you have some knowledge about the figures of speech, at least about some of the important figures of speech like Simile, Metaphor, and Alliteration. Although Bharata , in his Natyashastra mentions four components of Alamakara (upamā rūpakaṃ caiva dīpakaṃ yamakaṃ) as related to Drama, he does not elaborate on it.

upamā rūpakaṃ caiva dīpakaṃ yamakaṃ tathā । alaṅkārāstu vijñeyā catvāro nāṭakāśrayāḥ ॥ NS.6. 41॥

The alaṁkāra siddhānta (theory of figures) of Bhamaha (6th century) defines kāvya togetherness of sound and meaning. According to Bhamah, alaṁakāra (poetic figure) is the essential element of poetry and it consists in the striking manner of putting a striking idea in an equally striking word. Anandavardhana view in Dhvanyāloka that “alaṁkārās (poetic figures) are those elements which, depending upon word and meaning, minister to the generation of poetic charm” also certifies the creative use of language in literature. Here we discuss Bhamah's Alankar theory.

What is Alamkar?

The Alamkara School , therefore, is said to take off effectively from the works of Bhamaha and Dandin. It appears , the two scholars were not separated much either in time or in location; and yet, it is hard to ascertain whether they were contemporaries. But, they seemed to have lived during a common period (6th or 7th century) or the time-interval between the two was not much. But, it is difficult to say with certainty who was the elder of the two, although it is assumed that Bhamaha was earlier . Generally, it is believed that Bhamaha lived around the late sixth century while Dandin lived in the early seventh century.

It could be said that the early history of Sanskrit poetics started with the theory of Alamkara that was developed into a system by Bhamaha and later by Dandin. It is however fair to recognize that their elaborations were based in the summary treatment of poetics in the 16th chapter of Natyashastra. The merit of the contributions of Bhamaha and Dandin rests in the fact that they began serious discussion on Poetics as an independent investigation into the virtues of the diction, the language and Alamkara (embellishments) of Kavya; and, in their attempt to separate Kavya from Drama and explore its virtues. The word Alamkāra is derived from the root √kr with the prefix alam, which means ‘to decorate’, ‘to adorn’: “alankaroti iti alankārah.”According to Achārya Dandin, “Kāvya.

It is also propounded that the figures of speech, especially those relating to the play of words like alliteration, provide certain pleasantness of sound i.e. euphony, and thus lead to poetic experience and pleasure. But we must remember that the appropriateness and significance of meaning should not be ignored altogether merely for the sake of embellishment. In this connection Bhāmaha, the great exponent of the Alamkāra theory believes that figures of speech provide pleasure of meaning inherent in ceratain alamkāras such as arthāntaranyāsa, vibhāvana and samāsokti.

Bhamaha, the author of Kavya/amkara was the first exponent of this school. After him came Udbhata and Rudrata. Dandin who is accepted to be an adherent of the gunariti school by consensus of opinion also devotes considerable space to the treatment of alankaras. So much so that his importance as an authority on alankara theory is of no mean magnitude.2 Many later th13orists, if they were attempting to cover the field of poetry comprehensively, always included a treatment of a/ankaras also. To mention a few, one may cite Bhoja's Shringraprakash, Hemcandra's Kavyanusasana and Kesavamisra's Alankara Sekhara alongwith Mammatta's Kavya Prakash and Visvanatha's Sahityadarpana already mentioned. Apart from these, many treatises have been complied dealing exlusively with alankaras, and one need mention only a few such as Alamkarasavasva of Ruyyaka and Alamkarakaustubh of Visvesvara, in addition to Kuvalayananda of Appayya Diksita already mentioned Bhatti (of Bhattikavya fame) can also be reckoned as an exponent of the a/ankara school though he was a poet. Bhattikavya the purpose of which was to narrate a story in verse and to supply examples for rules of grammar and poetics had devoted considerable attention to the entire set of alankaras in vogue at the time. 

The meaning of the term 'alankara' underwent several changes within the course of time. At first it was a generic term for ordinary figures of speech and of sound such as Upama rupaka, Yamaka etc. i.e. what we designate by the term 'alankara' today. By the time of Dandin, the term had acquireq a more extensive meaning and had come to designate any factor that produces poetic beauty (Kavyasobha} under this wide concept, everything that brought about poetic appeal (Kavyagunas) could be introduced. Then in next stage, Vamanause the term synonymous with entire beauty in poetry, i.e. Sundarya.4. Th1s gave the term a still wider connotation. Alongwith thischange of meaning the theory of a/ankara also developed. But the term lost all its wider significance and came to mean a generic term for the two types of figures,viz. arthalankaras and sahrlalankaras.

As it has already been mentioned above the alankaras was divided into two kinds; (1) Sabdalankara and(2) Arthalankaras. The function of tt~e former was to make the sound aspect of the composition agreeable to the ear and the later, to produce the appealing turn of speech. By the time the alamkaravadins invented new figures, and gave new names to the old ones. Gradually the number of alankaras was ever on the increase. Bharata starts with a small number of figures which he mentioned in his Natyashastra i.e. anuprasa and yamaka which are varities of alliteration; rupaka which is same as methaphor; dipaka as exemplification, similar to parabola, and upama or comparison. Bhamaha increased the number to thirtynine. Dandings Kavyadarsa came with few more additions. Although Vamana and some other tried to bring down the number, still the tendency was already to increase, and by the time of Appsyya Diksita's Kuvalayananda the number of arthetmakaras hadreached one hundred and twenty five.

The categories of alamkara have been classified by different poetician into different kind. Rudrata divides it into two types those based on phonetic form its called sabdalamkara and those who based on meaning its called Arthalamkara. Bhoja also divided it into seven parts,

1. Sadrasya 

2. Virodha 

3. Srnkhalabadha 

4. TarkaNyaya 

5. Lokanyaya 

6. Kavyanyaya and 

7. Gudharthapratiti. 

Mamata also divided alamkara into seven types:

1. Upama 

2. Rupaka 

3. AprastutaPrasnsa 

4. Dipaka 

5. Vyatireka 

6. Virodha and 

7. Samuccaya.

Conclusion :-

In this unit, some of the significant aspects of the Alamkāra Siddhānta were discussed. In the Introduction, some of the pertinent questions related to the figures of speech were raised. The main objective was to provide you a clear understanding of the tenets of this theory. In the section, “Meaning of Alamkāra”, there was an analysis of the word ‘Alamkāra’ so as to make you understand the literal meaning of the term. In this context, various definitions given by prominent Sanskrit scholars were discussed. Alamkāra school of thought is one of the earliest and most sustained schools in Indian aesthetics. In the present unit, an attempt was made to trace the historical development of this theory. In this context, the contribution of the significant Alamkāra theorists was discussed.

Assignment paper no.108

 Assignment : paper no. 108

Topic: The Transformation of"For Whom the Bell Toll"

Name: Bhavna Sosa

Paper- The American Literature 

Roll no- 02

Enrollment no- 4069206420210034

Email ID - bhavnasosa211@gmail.com

Batch-2021-23(MA Sem-2)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English. Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. 

Introduction :-

For Whom the Bell Tolls, novel by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1940. The novel is set near Segovia, Spain, in 1937 and tells the story of American teacher Robert Jordan, who has joined the antifascist Loyalist army. Jordan has been sent to make contact with a guerrilla band and blow up a bridge to advance a Loyalist offensive. The action takes place during Jordan’s 72 hours at the guerrilla camp. During this period he falls in love with María, who has been raped by fascist soldiers, and befriends the shrewd but cowardly guerrilla leader Pablo and his courageous wife, Pilar. Jordan manages to destroy the bridge; Pablo, Pilar, María, and two other guerrillas escape, but Jordan is injured. Proclaiming his love to María once more, he awaits the fascist troops and certain death.

        "The world is a fine place and 

         worth fighting for and I hate

         very much to leave it."

The Transformation of For Whom the Bell Tolls :-

It's not inaccurate to say that Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is “A Farewell to Arms” with the background, instead, the Spanish Civil War. The hero, Robert Jordan, a young American Loyalist sympathizer, recalls Frederic Henry. Like Henry, he is anti-heroically heroic, anti-romantically romantic, very male, passionate, an artist of action, Mercutio modernized. Though the heroine, Maria, reminds one rather less of Catherine Barkley, the two women have much in common. Also, in both books the mounting interplay of death and sex is a major theme, the body’s intense aliveness as it senses its own destruction.

But there, I think, the resemblance ends. For this book is not merely an advance on “A Farewell to Arms.” It touches a deeper level than any sounded in the author’s other books. It expresses and releases the adult Hemingway, whose voice was first heard in the groping “To Have and Have Not.” It is by a better man, a man in whom works the principle of growth, so rare among American writers.

The story opens and closes with Robert Jordan lying flat on the pine-needle floor of a Spanish forest. When we first meet him he is very much alive and planning the details of his job, which is to join forces with a band of Spanish guerrillas and with their aid blow up an important bridge at the precise instant that will most help the Loyalist advance on Segovia. When we last see him he has fulfilled his mission and is facing certain death. Between the opening and closing pass three days and three nights. Between the opening and closing pass a lifetime for Robert and Maria and something very much like a lifetime for the reader. “I suppose,” thinks Robert, “it is possible to live as full a life in seventy hours as in seventy years.” The full life lived by Robert and Maria spills over into your own mind as you read, so the three days and three nights are added to your life, and you are larger and more of a person on page 471 than you were on page 1. That is one test of a first-rate work of fiction.

“For Whom the Bell Tolls” is about serious people engaged in serious actions. The word “serious" occurs again and again. The thoughts of Robert, even at his most sardonic, are serious thoughts. “There are necessary orders that are no fault of yours and there is a bridge and that bridge can be the point on which the future of the human race can turn. As it can turn on everything that happens in this war.” It is a stern and grave reflection, sterner, graver than anything in “A Farewell to Arms.” The title itself is part of a grave reflection, from the sermons of John Donne. That we may see on what a new and different level of emotion Hemingway now works, I quote the sentence from which the title is taken: “No man is an Iland, entire of it selfe; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lessee, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manner of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”

This utterance is about death and says yes to life. That men confer value on life by feeling deeply each other’s mortality is the underlying theme of the novel. Here is something other than Hemingway’s old romantic absorption in death, though growing out of it. Remember that “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is an anti-Fascist novel. “Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind.” All of what the dictator most profoundly and religiously disbelieves is in that sentence. Hemingway is no fool. He portrays many of the Loyalists as cowards, brutes, and politicians-as they undoubtedly were. He portrays some of the Fascists as men of twisted nobility-as they undoubtedly were. But he knows that the war, at its deepest level is a war between those who deny life and those who affirm it. And if it is not yet such a war, it must become so, or it will, no matter who wins, have been fought in vain. I take that to be the central feeling of “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and that is why the book is more than a thrilling novel about love and death and battle and a finer work than “A Farewell to Arms.”

It is interesting to watch in this new book a certain process of etherealization. Just as the Wagnerian death fascination of “Death in the Afternoon” changes here into something purer, so the small-boy Spartanism and the parade of masculinity which weakened the earlier books are transformed into something less gross, something-Hemingway would despise the word-spiritual. And yet this is by far the most sensual of all his books, the most truly passionate. This process of purification extends even to minor matters. In the other books, for example, drinking is described as a pleasure, as a springboard for wit, as a help to love, as fun, as madness. There is much drinking in “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and none of it is solemn, but it becomes at times a serious thing. Liquor, drunk by these Spanish guerrillas before a battle, is a noble and necessary pleasure. Drinking has dignity.

Dignity also is what each of the characters possesses, from Fernando, who wears it like another skin, down to Augustín, whose every third word is an obscenity. Each has his own dignity, which means worth, and that dignity is gradually lifted to the surface by the harsh touch of death, as the grain of a fine wood reveals itself with polishing. Anselmo, the Shakespearean old man who fears his own cowardice and comes through at the end to a good and sound death; Rafael, the gypsy, unreliable, gluttonous, wild; El Sordo, the deaf guerrilla leader; Andrés, the Bulldog of Villaconejos; Pablo, the sad-faced revolutionary with the spayed spirit, the treacherous heart, and the subtle, ingrown mind; Pilar, the greatest character in the book, with her ugliness, her rages, her terrible memories, her vast love for the Republic, her understanding and envy of the young Robert and Maria; Maria herself, knitting her spirit together after her rape by the Falangists, finding the purpose of her young life in the three days and nights with her American lover-each of these has a value, a personal weight that Hemingway makes us feel almost tangibly, so that their lives and deaths are not incidents in a story but matters of moment to us who are “involved in Mankinde.”

“For Whom the Bell Tolls” rises above “A Farewell to Arms” in still another way. The love story in “A Farewell to Arms” is the book. Chapters like that describing the retreat from Caporetto or that beautiful scene of the conversation with the old man at the billiard table are mere set pieces and might conceivably have been used in some other book. But the love of Robert and Maria is a structural part of “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” It is not “love interest,” nor is it the whole story, either; it is an integral portion of three days and three nights of life lived by two young people facing death. Furthermore, though this love does not rise above passion, it endows passion with an end and a meaning. In the great scene just before Robert goes out to blow up the bridge, knowing that he will almost surely die, when he makes love to Maria, describing, his heart breaking, the fine life he knows they will never lead, he arrives at an identification of which Hemingway’s other heroes were incapable: “I love thee as I love all that we have fought for. I love thee as I love liberty and dignity and the fights of all men to work and not be hungry.”

Fine as the Italians were in “A Farewell to Arms,” these Spaniards are finer. “There is no people,” thinks Robert, “like them when they are good and when they go bad there is no people that is worse.” And here they are, good and bad. They are in some ways like Russians, the pre-Soviet Russians, very philosophic and confessional and poetical. But they are not soft; indeed, the Spanish fury to kill, to kill as a pure act of faith, is one of the dominating emotions of the book. And their language is superb, translated literally out of its elegant and formal original, a trick which sounds as if it might be atrocious and turns out one hundred per cent effective. As a matter of fact, I would imagine “For Whom the Bell Tolls” to be as excellent a Spanish novel as it is an American one.

I have no idea whether this is a “great” book, for I have read it only once, and too quickly. But I know there are great things in it and that the man who wrote it is a bigger man than he was five years ago. There are some technical flaws. For example, I think the chapters describing the disorganization and political chicanery of the Loyalist command impede the story. But the faults are far outweighed by a dozen episodes that invade the memory and settle there: El Sordo’s last fight on the hilltop; any of the love scenes; the struggle at the bridge; Pilar’s dreadful story of Pablo’s killing of the Fascists; Maria’s recital of the noble death of her mother and father; Pilar’s memories of her life among the bullfighters; the astounding conversation-this is a set piece, but it’s forgivable-about “the smell of death;” and the final scene, in which Robert, his left leg smashed, alone and on the threshold of delirium, trains his machine gun on the advancing Fascists and prepares himself, knowing at last why he is doing so, to die.

So I do not much care whether or not this is a “great” book. I feel that it is what Hemingway wanted it to be: a true book. It is written with only one prejudice-a prejudice in favor of the common human being. But that is a prejudice not easy to arrive at and which only major writers can movingly express.

Robert’s mission is to blow up a bridge, and he does so. Oddly, it is by the blowing up of just such bridges that Robert Jordan and Ernest Hemingway and all of us may be able to cross over into the future.

M.Lincoln Schuster’s introductory comments and general editorial paraphernalia are, on the whole, more interesting and better written than the famous and infamous epistles he has collected in his “Treasury of the World’s Great Letters.” Without his careful notes, this would be merely a sound anthology; with it, the book becomes a sort of private letter file of the inner crises and vanities of mankind, from Alexander the Great to Thomas Mann. The book is full of odd things that less catholic letter-collectors have missed, but there are also many of the familiar classics, including the damnably dull and obviously phony Héloïse and Abélard correspondence, Sam Johnson’s immortal whiplash laid over the back of the Earl of Chesterfield, and Stevenson’s corrosive letter to the Reverend Dr. C. M. Hyde, defending Father Damien.

Conclusion :-

Most of the letters are from the pens of great men, and often the greater the man the sillier-and perhaps more revealing-the letter. The love letters of Napoleon and Beethoven, for example, are about as embarrassing in their abject immaturity as anything in literature. All of which makes Mr. Schuster’s fine collection no less interesting, and a perfect bedside book for that weekend guest.

References :-

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "For Whom the Bell Tolls". Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Oct. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/topic/For-Whom-the-Bell-Tolls-novel-by-Hemingway. Accessed 25 April 2022.

FAdiman, Clifton, editor. The Transformation of For Whom the Bell Tolls , no. Books October 26,1940 issue, 26 Oct. 1940. 

Assignment paper no.106

 Assignment : paper no. 106

Topic: Gender and Unity of  the Self  Wirginia Woolf's Orlando

Name: Bhavna Sosa

Paper- The Twentieth Century Literature: 1900 to World War ll 1922

Roll no- 02

Enrollment no- 4069206420210034

Email ID - bhavnasosa211@gmail.com

Batch-2021-23(MA Sem-2)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English. Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. 

Introduction :-

Orlando, novel by Virginia Woolf, published in 1928. The fanciful biographical novel pays homage to the family of Woolf’s friend Vita Sackville-West from the time of her ancestor Thomas Sackville (1536–1608) to the family’s country estate at Knole. The manuscript of the book, a present from Woolf to Sackville-West, is housed at Knole.

"A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen."

Overview of the Orlando :-

Orlando is the connection between fact and imagination. In Woolf's review of Harold Nicholson's Some People, she opened with this analogy: "if we think of truth as something of granite-like solidity and of personality as something of rainbow-like intangibility and reflect that the aim of biography is to weld these two into one seamless whole, we shall admit that the problem is a stiff one and that we need not wonder if biographers, for the most part failed to solve it." The metaphor of granite and rainbow emerges again in her own novel when she discusses Nature "who has played so many queer tricks upon us, making us so unequally of clay and diamonds, of rainbow and granite, and stuffed them into a case."

Woolf suggests that there is no realm of imagination separated from a realm of fact; "rainbow and granite" are stuffed into one case. Everything (internal and external, fact and imagination) are linked together by our memory, and we will grow to "understand" when we realize that neither memory nor history can be easily ordered and divided. Fact is a subjective quality, and the 'truth' emerges when we realize the interconnectedness and relativity of everything and everyone around us. It is such a unity of experience, not a triumph of "fact" that emerges victorious over time

Orlando's sexuality seems to play no role in her life at all. But when she travels on board the English ship, in women's clothes, she immediately begins to feel the difference. The skirts that she is wearing, and the way that people react to her make her feel and act different. What Woolf is suggesting here is that gender roles are not biological, but societal. Gender is a concept imposed on people who live in society. When Orlando goes out into the night, a woman dressed as a man, she finds herself taking on traditional male mannerisms. The point is that when society allows the freedom of gender neutrality, people will be more free as individuals to act according to their nature and personality.The determination of difference between the genders is a main theme in Orlando. Are men and women really different? If so, why? Orlando's sex change is a very important scene for determining the answers to these questions. As Orlando wakes up a woman, she looks at her body in a full-length mirror and composedly walks to her bath. She is not at all disconcerted by her change in gender because she feels no different than she did before. At first, she acts no differently, either. When she lives in the gypsy camp in the hills of Turkey, away from society and civilization.

But such conformity becomes oppressive to Orlando. She grows tired of changing herself to fit those around her. Ultimately, when she reaches maturity in the twentieth century, she resists conforming, choosing instead to exist in her own internal world. She realizes that though she has matured, as people do, she has always been the same person all along. This theme of 'conforming to society' plays an important role in the novel. As Orlando grows to be an independent mind, she rejects the idea of conformity, choosing to remain however she chooses to be.

Gender and Unity of the Self:-

The confluence of biography and fiction in Virginia Woolf's Orlando raises the question, of which the book is highly aware, of which genre facilitates the proper perception of the truth. As Woolf writes, “Life, it has been agreed by everyone whose opinion is worth consulting, is the only fit subject for novelist or biographer” (267).1 In this book (there’s no point in defining it as novel or biography) Woolf has attempted to find truth through an examination of her friend Vita Sackville West, and has decided upon synchronicity as a more meaningful apparatus of illumination than chronology and causality. The difficulty of such an undertaking lies in the necessary relation of the seemingly fantastical events, as implied by Jungian synchronicity, into a unified Truth—in this case, the self. Woolf believed, as she indicated numerous times, in a “granite and rainbow” approach to biography—that the reality of the self lay in understanding both of “solid facts and intangible personality,”2 and in Orlando, the first of her works to bear the subtitle “A Biography,” we see her first and perhaps most liberated opportunity to test her belief: the change of sex and confusion of gender forces us to question the degree of federation between the duplicitous and often paradoxical manifestations of the self, and more importantly, to ask how the relation of such fantastical events facilitates our understanding of the subject.

Woolf’s ultimate confrontation of the différance of identity3 appears on pages 308-314, an epic passage through Orlando’s thoughts with lengthy interjections of free indirect discourse by the biographer.4 In the course of this passage, each of the multifarious episodes of Orlando’s life is called upon as an individual manifestation of the self. The context of this call proclaims a great deal of independence for each manifestation: “It is the most usual thing in the world for a person to say, directly they are alone, Orlando? (if that is one’s name) meaning by that, Come, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another” (308). Orlando calls for numerous versions of herself, detailed on page 309 and again in the book’s index: numerous people who participated to different degrees in society, added stylistic variance to “The Oak Tree,” and called their lovers by different names. We find the character longing for another self, and able to transition relatively easily and quickly between various different identities, and we wonder to what extent these different people are governed by the name ‘Orlando’ and their shared heritage and physicality.

A simplification of the first sentence on page 310 shows that indeed Orlando is governed by a hierarchy of selves: “what appeared certain…was that the one she needed most kept aloof,…as happens when…the conscious self…wishes to be nothing but one self.”5 She continues that this conscious self is in turn governed by “the Key self, which amalgamates and controls them all,” but this thought is weakened by the phrase “they say,” and so Orlando’s search for her true self continues in ambiguity. Like the reader, Orlando has been fooled by literature into believing in the one true identity, but hearsay evidence won’t facilitate actualization, and the biographer goes on to chide the reader for reading too far into her “rambling talk” (310). At the end of the page we still have no idea who the unified Orlando might be—if such a person exists—and whether or not the speech of the conscious self—the one self to acknowledge and engage with the multiplicity of its brethren—is leading us any closer to such an actualization.

Conclusion :-

In this way finally, “the Orlando whom she had called came of its own accord…she was now darkened, stilled, and become, with the addition of this Orlando, what is called, rightly or wrongly, a single self, a real self” (313-314). This would seem to solidify at least the biographer’s notion of an essential self (though the shape and context of the passage would indicate Woolf as well, as will be shown), except that this passage does not affirm any hierarchy of identities. The key lies in the following sentence, with the slightly anachronistic application of différance: “it is probable when people talk aloud, the selves…are conscious of disseverment, and are trying to communicate but when communication is established there is nothing more to be said.” Woolf was clearly thinking along the same lines as Georg Hegel in this deconstruction; her understanding of the alienating effects of difference is paralleled only by her facility in self-definition through the very same phenomena.

Reference :-

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Orlando". Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Mar. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Orlando-by-Woolf. Accessed 7 May 2022.

Assignment paper no. 107

 Assignment : paper no. 107

Topic: Gender and Unity of the Self Wirginia Woolf's Orlando

Name: Bhavna Sosa

Paper-  The Twentieth Century Literature: From World War ll to end of the Century

Roll no- 02

Enrollment no- 4069206420210034

Email ID - bhavnasosa211@gmail.com

Batch-2021-23(MA Sem-2)

Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English. Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. 

Introduction : -

Absurdity means meaninglessness, purposelessness, silly, strange, incongruence, ridiculousness, bizarre, nonsense. An absurdity is a thing that is awfully unreasonable, so as to be foolish or not taken seriously, or the state of being so. According to Oxford English Dictionary, Absurdity means “the quality or state of being ridiculous or widely unreasonable”. The word absurd was coined by “Martin Esslin to delineatethe anti-realistic post-war drama of playwrights as Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Jean Genet” (Nelson, 1993, p. 67). Absurd play is the complete denial of old values. It has no plot, no characterization, no logical sequence, no rising, and falling action, on story, no clear theme, no proper beginning, middle, and end, no pointed dialogues and finally its language is not poetic.

Absurdity is in fact a condition where man is compelled to exist without his individualism in society and hence does not posses any degree of effective communication (Robert, 1995). Martin Esslin at first used this term in his writing. The term actually used to delineate the nonsensical, irrational, meaningless, purposeless, foolish, and silly aspects of human life. The French philosopher Albert Camus also believed, ““Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful” There are many dramas in literature world based upon the philosophy of absurdism. Absurdism is applied to the plays written in the 1950, and 1960, by the writers including Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, and Holder Pinter. Among those writers Samuel Beckett is more important because he has written many plays. “Waiting for Godot” was his first play which proved to be the most successful absurd play.

 Themes of the Waiting for Godot :-

Theme is an idea that pervades a novel, play or poem. “Waiting for Godot” contains much complex and interesting themes. Samuel Becket wrote this play with a new style but his thematic concept was not different form other writers. However, there is a kind of diversity in themes of “Waiting for Godot”.

Lots of subjects are covered in this play. Its single theme “nothing to be done” gets good attention. Samuel Becket shows a purposeless life. It does not have any story or plot, therefore, success of “Waiting for Godot” is dependent only on its remarkable themes. Following are some major themes that Samuel Beckett presents in “Waiting for Godot”:

Nothing to be done.

Importance of hope

Sufferings

Absurdity

Difference in human race

Relationship

Existentialism

Themes of “Meaninglessness” and “Nothing to be Done” in Waiting for Godot: -

“Nothing to be done” is one of the most criticized themes of “Waiting for Godot”. Vivian Mercier once said: It is a play in which nothing happens twice”.

                                  -Viviana Mercie

We can’t deny that nothing happens in this play. Estragon and Vladimir enter on stage talk, perform useless actions and exit. Second act is a copy of first act with minute difference of dialogues. In whole play one asks a question to the other “what to do?” Other replies “nothing to be done”. It also starts with the same dialogue. Play goes on depicting this theme and finally ends with nothingness.

Symbolically, this theme has much importance. It defines the journey of life; a journey from nothingness to nothingness. We come in the world but what is our purpose here? What is our identity? Samuel Becket does not answer these questions instead he asks from the audience. He himself does not know their answers. Every person in this world is like Estragon and Vladimir, who is waiting for something but most of the time he cannot get what he wants and life ends just like the play ends. Both acts of the play end with despair. Nothing happens in them. “Nothing to be done” illustrates a meaningless life.

Meaninglessness of Life: -

How is life meaningless? Newton came in the world and presented laws of motion. Was his life meaningless? Most of us would probably answer negatively. His laws are helpful for the whole world then how his life was meaningless? Well, Newton’s laws are meaningless for him now. Not for us but for him. He died and took nothing with him. His laws are no more helpful for him. In this way, life is meaningless for him. As mentioned earlier, life is a journey from nothingness to nothingness. It is much difficult to understand meaninglessness. Let’s try to understand situation of Estragon and Vladimir with an example.

A person has been waiting for train for five minutes on railway station. After five minutes train arrives and he leaves. His five minutes were meaningless because in that time “he had nothing to be done”.

It should be remembered that there is a difference between “nothing done” and “nothing to be done”. “Nothing done” strengthens theory of existentialism.

Importance of hope: -

Without hope, there is nothing in life. Optimism comes to an end without it. Thus, hope is necessary if one wants to live. This play also depicts this important theme. It forces us to think twice on the importance of hope. Estragon and Vladimir has nothing to be done yet they are hopeful. It is only hope due to which they are alive and waiting for Godot. “Godot” may be a help or maybe God but one thing is clear that both of them are hopeful about their future. They think that Godot will come and change their lives. The play ends with nothingness but “wait and hope” never ends. Estragon and Vladimir will come again tomorrow at the same place and will wait for Godot until his arrival. In this way, hope is one of the major themes of “Waiting for Godot”. .

Sufferings of Life: -

Suffering also falls in category of major themes of “Waiting for Godot”. We witness sufferings of Vladimir and Estragon in this play. They are living a miserable life. Estragon has been beaten by strangers every night but he is helpless. God has created this world and has forgotten it after its creation. It seems that Samuel Becket has given this message to the audience. Apart from Estragon and Vladimir, Lucky is also suffering. His life is more miserable than them. Sufferings of slavery class are evident in this play. We can say that Estragon and Vladimir are responsible for their miserable condition but Lucky is a slave and he cannot help himself. He can just wait for good times i.e. only death. Perhaps, he would find something good in afterlife. But in this life, he can’t get peace. Vladimir’s speech in this context is helpful. He says:-

“Was I sleeping while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today?….can’t go on. What have I said?”

Waiting for Godot – Existentialism

Themes of Absurdity and Ridiculousness in “Waiting for Godot”: -

Becket shows the world a way of escaping from sufferings of life. Life can be spent like Estragon and Vladimir: doing nothing, having irrational behavior, passing the ball and act ridiculously. Perhaps, absurdity is the only way to get through life. This is also a method to avoid criticism as it has been said that the best way to avoid criticism is to do nothing. Personally, I think that it is the most difficult way to get through life. While doing nothing and repeating silly actions, one can pass seconds but not whole life. It seems that Becket has preferred absurdity over existentialism. Anyhow, he has shown a way to go through life i.e. absurdity.

Difference in Human Races: -

Difference in human races is also evident in this play. This theme has importance of its own. Lucky is a symbol of slavery class, whereas Pozzo refers feudalism. These characters present two types of human races. One is miserable, whereas second is happy. Samuel Becket has shown the inferiority of lower class and superiority of upper class.

Theme of Relationship: -

It is another important theme of “Waiting for Godot”. Samuel Becket portrays different types of human relationships. There are four kinds of individuals in the play. Every character is a separate entity. Individually, they refer something but in a relationship they indicate something else. Vladimir’s problems are mental; Estragon’s physical. Pozzo and Lucky are presented to show the two races of men. But when these individuals are put into relations, they perform an important role. Nevertheless, three types of relationships are there in the play:

Relationship between Estragon and Vladimir

Association of Pozzo and Lucky

Relationship of Estragon and Vladimir with Godot.

Relationship between Estragon and Vladimir: -

First relationship is between Estragon and Vladimir. They both are dependent on each other. Vladimir is eloquent, intellectual, cultured than Estragon. He knows Latin. He is politer than Estragon. On the other hand, Estragon is volatile. He likes telling funny stories. He is less intellectctual as compared to Vladimir. Difference between both of them can be seen in a beautiful dialogue of Estragon. “He has stinking breath and I have stinking feet” Although their personalities are in contrast to each other but they both make a strong relationship. Samuel Becket depicts relationship between two contrasting personalities. They fight each other but still they are friends. Exact period of their friendship is unknown but we know that their past is more promising than their future. Of course, there is a strange friendship between them. They are companions of a long journey. They fight but cannot live separate. There is a difference in their thinking, in their style of living, in their speaking and finally in their philosophy. Both don’t know their future and waiting for hope i.e. Godot. Their life is miserable but strong relationship between both of them gives them hope. They can’t survive if separated. Their bond is strong. Neither Estragon can leave Vladimir nor can Vladimir leave Estragon. Their relationship lays “somewhere between fatigue and ennui”. Vladimir’s dialogue in this regard is helpful. While recalling his memory he says:-

“In the nineties, hand in hand, from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. We were presentable in those days. Now its too late. They wouldn’t even let us up.”

                             -Waiting for Godot

Thus, they are friends. Since when? We don’t know. But they need each other. It is evident from famous dialogue between the two;

“Don’t touch me! Don’t question me! Don’t speak to me! Stay with me!”

                              -Waiting for Godot

When one gives up waiting for Godot, the second gives hope. When second gives up , first motivates him. Whole play goes on in this way. When Estragon is beaten by strangers, Vladimir shows kindness and pretends like he is protecting him. They need to fight and abuse each other in order to pass their time. Strong relationship between both these two is evident that Samuel Becket willfully portrayed theme of relationship in “Waiting for Godot”.

Association of Pozzo and Lucky: -

In theme of relationship of “Waiting for Godot”, Lucky and Pozzo are at second. In first act of the play, lucky is presented as a slave, whereas Pozzo as the master. Lucky presents the modern slavery system, which is worst then actual slavery. He is the representative of dog-like human race; a race which has no value at all. Lucky’s character presents a miserable miserable condition of humanity. Samuel Becket symbolizes Pozzo as a cruel master. More cruelty has been shown in the scene when Lucky eats bones.

Second relationship between both of them is of gods and human. Gods are masters of the universe. They can do anything with humans. Pozzo is symbol of god and Lucky as a puppet in his hands. He can be cruel to him or merciful. Lucky has to accept his orders in any case. There is also one thing common between both of them; Lucky and Pozzo are interdependent. Pozzo cannot go anywhere without his slave. It also reveals that feudal class through is superior yet cannot do anything without slaves. Pozzo and Lucky are symbolic characters. Estragon and Vladimir though are dependent yet they are separate individuals but in case of Pozzo and Lucky, they are not two but one. Thus, their bond is stronger than Estragon and Vladimir. Relation between Lucky and Pozzo proves that “Waiting for Godot” is a clear depiction of theme of relationship.

Relationship of Estragon and Vladimir with Godot: -

Last relationship is between Godot and Estragon-Vladimir. Both are waiting for him. They do not go anywhere because they don’t want to miss him. What is Godot? it has never been answered in the play. Samuel Becket has also not answered this question. Godot then perhaps is God. Both the characters are waiting for Him, who will come and guide them. Perhaps he will come and given them a task. They cannot even move from that place without Godot. They cannot go anywhere without Him. Thus, they have no other choice except waiting for Him. Thus, there is a relationship between God and human. They are Christians by religious, therefore, they strongly believe on the existence of God. Perhaps, they are waiting for Almighty’s help.

Godot may also be called a symbol of hope. Even then there is a relationship between them and hope. They have become hopeless, therefore, want drift in their lives. It is a relationship, which can always be found in every person. It does not matter whether a person believes on a religion or not, he has hope in his life. Otherwise, without hope, no one is ready to stay in this world. Hence, a connection between hope and humans has very beautifully been presented by Samuel Becket.

These three relationships are related to humans and other entities. Some relations are humans to humans, whereas remaining are humans to other objects. Becket has closely observed life and found that these are main relationships, which every person observes his whole life. Thus, these are witnessed by every person, if he has a prudent mind. To conclude, following relationships completes the theme of relationship in “Waiting for Godot”.

Existentialism” is among Major Themes of “Waiting for Godot”: -

It is a wider topic and needs explanation. “Existentialism” is the most important theme of “Waiting for Godot”. In order to understand this theme we must have knowledge about the theory of Existentialism. However, in simple words it means that every person is responsible for his actions and no second person is pulling his strings or controlling his fate. In other words (from oxford), existentialism emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free.

Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo and Lucky: are they all free? Are they themselves responsible for their actions. Can’t say “Yes” nor can say “No”. Lucky is not free. A person who is slave from childhood can’t do anything to change his life. People beat Estragon every night and he is helpless.

Samuel Becket has not answered the above said questions. We see every character has freewill yet some limitations are imposed on them. In the case of Lucky, someone is pulling his strings whereas in the case of Pozzo, Estragon and Vladimir they are free.

 Conclusion :-

Themes of “Waiting for Godot” directly strike the minds of the audience and give this play a good success. It seems that Samuel Becket, very minutely and after experiments, has rendered various themes in “Waiting for Godot”. Hence, there is no denying the fact that themes give this play a striking success.

References :-

 Journal of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS)Volume 25, Issue 12, Series 2 (December. 2020) 34-37e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845.www.iosrjournals.org 

DOI: 10.9790/0837-2512023437 www.iosrjournals.org 34 |Page

-Themes of Waiting for Godot / Thematic Concept of Semuel Beckett https://askliterature.com