CRITICS

MODERNISM
The Modern Tradition- Backgrounds of Modern
Literature
Modernism refers to sth INTIMATE, ELUSIVE, NOT
OBJECTIVE and easily ANALYZED. The modern is NOT
like the reassuring landscape of the past, open and readable
everywhere. It is at once more IMMEDIATE and OBSCURE,
a MOOD IMPATIENCE with anachronisms, a DIFFUSE
FEELING of DIFFERENCE. One characteristic of works we
call modern is that they positively insist on a GENERAL
FRAME of REFERENCE WITHIN and BEYOND
themselves. Modernism supplies some sort of HISTORICAL
DISCONTINUITY, either liberation from INHERITED
PATTERNS or DEPRIVATION and DISINHERITANCE.
Trilling singles out a radically anti-cultural bias as the most
important attitude of the modern imagination. Modern
literature has elevated individual existence over social man,
UNCONSCIOUS FEELING over self-conscious perception,
passion and will over intellectual and systematic morals,
DYNAMIC VISION over the static image, DENSE
ACTUALITY over practical reality. It has been that H. James
called imagination of disaster.
The personal urgency of the modern masters is a sense of
LOSS, ALIENATION, DESPAIR. These are the two faces of
the modern: FREEDOM and DEPRIVATION, LIVING
PRESENT and DEAD PAST.
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Modernists have been searching for a never-finding starting

point- the end of Victorian literature, the beginning of
Romanticism, the mid 17th century or the end of the Middle
Ages. The paradoxical task of the modern imagination,
whether liberated or alienated, has been to stand both inside
and outside itself, to articulate its own formlessness, to
encompass its own extravagant possibilities. The modern is
the embodiment in current imagery of a situation always larger
than the present and as such it is also a (zadrzavanje- ?
outainment) of the resources of the present by rediscovery of a
relevant past. Modernism is synthetic in its very
indeterminacy. Unevenness is in the nature of the case.
Richard
Ellman and Charles Feidelson
THREE HONEST MEN
L. Trilling- On the Teaching of Modern Literature
Trilling is one of the three critics of whom Philip French
talked in Three Honest Man. French praises these critics
because their approach to literature was honest and personal.
The same division is found in American philosopher Rorty
who distinguishes between methodical criticism and
unmethodical. Methodical criticism has a very established
concept. It approaches literature as a kind of science and is
thus indifferent. Unmethodical is inspired: A critic approaches
a novel by saying in which way it influences him, whether the
work in question changes him. Its a personal approach. He is
inspired by a work of art, admits its influence and that what is
contained in work of art is a real world, human nature.
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The aim of these three critics (unmethodical): they didnt

strive to create a kind of science: to make literature a social
form. They didnt aim just to convey the meaning of literature
to professionals- but to all. Everyone can understand the
meaning. They try to democratize literature- sth. general.
Trilling was concerned with ethical, moral side of literature.
He thought that it is a great moral fight. Literature presents
what a whole human being should be. This concept is often at
conflict with the concept offered by the culture. Literature
provides the image of self more deeply understood.
Trilling was a teacher. He talked about his experience of
teaching- literature asks shockingly personal questions. He
points out that the hero of modern work is most usually
unhappy, depressed, angry, even criminal and suicidal. In the
previous periods the authors tried to help an individual
integrate into the culture. Modern literature creates a hero who
is in conflict with culture. What can be observed throughout
literature, says Trilling, is hostility towards culture. To explain
this hostility, he quotes Arnold Mathew and his ideas of what a
perfect culture should be. For him it is one guided by reason,
in which there is a material wealth, order, tolerance, peace. All
these ideals have been betrayed. Tolerance is capricious. The
whole world tolerated the ill invasion of Iraq. Well-being is
corrupted. People in certain country will accept some political
solutions if they provide wealth. Peace becomes exporting war
somewhere else. The ideology is different but the principle is
the same. What we witness today is seduction an
individual doesnt know that he is seduced into compliance.
In his course of teaching he introduces some theoretical basis
of modern literature. One of them was Nietzsches Birth of
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Tragedy- a dialectical relation between Dionysian (nonethical energy) and Apollonian standing for our urges,
sexuality, passion, desire and turbulent emotions. Apollonian
stands for our reason and it is predominant principle today.
Because this balance has been lost, there is a danger that a
suppressed portion of ourselves can burst in a destructive way.
If we put some elements on the right side and those not
acceptable for the society on the left there must be a balance,
but only if these two are equal. If we push much on this dark
part, there is a loss of balance and we flip to the other side. We
can talk about the outburst or revenge of the suppressed
energies.
Trilling- Freud: Within and Beyond Culture
Trilling maintains that modern culture gives us a very narrow
concept of the self. It gives us an inadequate concept of the
self. Although modern culture gives high importance to an
individual it does not have accurate knowledge of the self,
what his general needs are. The self is usually identified with
the intellect. The danger lies in the fact that the intellect is not
connected with the rest of the world. It is detached and
observes the rest of the world as an object. However, if we
approach the world by imagination, feelings, Eros, it will give
us a sense of belonging. So, it is important to restore this half
of our being that connects us to the world. If we are not
connected with the world, we can easily become destroyed,
because intellect is able of destroying anything which is not
the self. Culture forces an individual to accept this wrong,
narrow concept of the self. In the totalitarian society it is open
oppression, in the other type of society it is coercion- you are
seduced into accepting this narrow concept.
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Adrienne Rich- American poet, talks about this. Our true

desires are stolen from us, fabricated and sold back to us. We
have a desire to belong somewhere and to love. It is very deep
desire. The modern society makes us forget it, makes us
believe that what we really desire is a place in a high society.
It grants such desire. This is a process Trilling calls seduction.
He discusses the way in which such culture can be opposed:
1) Different traditions- in his essay, Freud: Within and
Beyond Culture, he says how Freud manages to survive. He
lived in horrible culture, tradition and he managed to survive.
He kept his diary in Greek, loved English culture, knew about
history. If you cant find significant truth, you should look in
some other cultures for them. Our culture is not the only one.
2) Freud was able to think about himself as a biological fact.
There is a residue of being, this biological aspect about being
which cant be reduced. This also can be a standpoint for
opposing culture. It is important to find a standpoint from
which culture can be judged, condemned and revised. Trilling
says that this idea of biological defense can even go as far as
death wish. Sometimes the hero of the modern literature
chooses, makes a drastic choice between staying alive and
death- he commits suicide. He doesnt want to be changed by
society.
Freud: Within and Beyond the Culture(2)
First part of the essay investigates the separation between
science and literature in relation to Freud. Above all, Freud is
a scientist, he has a scientific mind and he sees literature from
without, not from within. His great contribution to our
understanding of literature does not arise from what he says
about literature, but from what he says about the nature of
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human mind. He saw poetry as an inborn faculty because in

the very nature of human mind is to be poetic and to think in
images and metaphors. Though the minds of scientists and
literary men are very similar, they are also different in some
aspects. Literature, as in relation to Freud, is dedicated to the
conception of the self. Literature is able to conceive of the self
and the selfhood of others far more than the general culture
ever can.
L.Trilling, F.R.Leavis, E.Wilson
The 20th century is the period of criticism and theories. Two
basic theories are: 1. Humanist tradition based on the
commitment to creative self, the search for wholeness, healing
power of imagination and continuity with the past, and 2.
Anti-humanist theory based on the fact that man is crated,
constructed, a subject, not a self- complete denial of
originality and spontaneous creativity. Literature is just one of
the many ideology practices- rejection of judgments and
traditions.
1) Humanists-they are disappointed by the bourgeois society
utilitarianism, imperialism. Rationalism is in the 18 th century
marginalized emotion. For them what is good is what is useful.
They made a deep split in a human psyche. Romanticism- they
claim that a split-man can be different. Wholeness is achieved
by the supreme human faculty- imagination- which unites both
sides in a harmonious unity. Humanists preserved the
continuity of the past. They looked back in the past to find
smth. we cannot in the present, to revive the dead forms of the
past.
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2) Anti-humanists-they (Marxists) believe that man is created

by outside ideological forces. We are reduced to construct, we
are reduced to subjects- the products of media, history which
formed us and we fell into this social net. The moment we are
born, we are gripped by all these connections. The writer is
not original, no spontaneity. He reproduces meaning that
already exists. Literature is not a kind of enclave to examine
values, but just one of many ideological processes.
Trilling, Leavis and Wilson are the first group of
contemporary critics who continued with the romantic
tradition in some way. They never developed any special
method. Wilson and Leavis are the first teachers of modern
literature. Trillings books The Liberating Imagination, The
Opposing Self, Beyond Culture show the way literature
helps us. Wilson was a journalist who believes that by writing
essays in an ordinary language he is being the most
democratic. All of them confronted the whole literature
phenomena with the whole personality. They strive to pay
attention to everything and mobilize all their faculties. They
are people of high integrity. Thats why French called them the
three honest man- because their approach to literature is
moral. Trilling says that now it is fashionable to regard
literature as a structure of words. Literature is not merely it. It
is moral criticism- great moral fights over images of personal
being. Our culture doesnt have the adequate knowledge what
a person should be. They (the culture) produce stereotypes of
what identity should be by seduction or oppression. There are
two ways in which one can resist culture- the capacity to
familiarize with other tradition and the other is biology.
Biology is smth. culture cannot penetrate. This nature in us
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can resist culture- cannot discard some needs in us. Culture is

not omnipotent. There are people in touch with their biological
reason.
E.Wilson- he also speaks about options. His book
Symbolism also deals with a question of identity.
Symbolism, Romanticism and Modernism are all related to
that attempt to resist the reductive ideas about self.
Romanticism couldnt have been satisfied with the concept of
the self created by the classicists, because it was very
reductive. It excluded too much of life, so that Romanticists
turned against that and opposed it by visionary knowledge, or
like Byron who recovers his sexual energy. They opposed the
idea that man is strictly rational. Positivism didnt have
enough strength to oppose culture. The 19 th century Puritanism
and Positivism were such that Symbolism had to respond.
They refused to live a life made by culture. There are two
options- cultivate your private feelings or death. The two
options are exemplified inAxel and Rimbaud. Axel is
eternally rich, handsome. He meets Sara and wants to marry
her. He is leaving this world and wants to travel mentally. He
says:We have lived to the full. She accepts and they killed
themselves. Suicide is a metaphor here- a complete
withdrawal from slavery of life. Rimbaud ended in Africa.
Before that he wrote poetry. He did all to get to his deepest
self, to recover himself. He says: I hate Christianity, I want to
discover who I really am. I- it is something else. I want to get
to this another. For that he needs an epiphany. He deranged
all his senses. Then he finally sees his soul and exclaims: I
am a Nigger, I am a beast. There is in him that elemental
energy which is banned. He left Europe because there was no
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room for beasts there. Masters, teachers, you know nothing

about the soul. For them it is smth. abstract. He left poetry.
He says: I want to dance, no more words and he dies.
Axel and Rimbaud (2)- In comparison with Romantics who
participate with society we have symbolists who withdraw.
One goes to nature, and then turns to society to share his
experience and try to change it. Modern world is reduced to
material values. Romantics reacted against that world.
However, the bourgeois world prevails. The Romantics could
turn society into a spiritual community. It is not, but it can
become one. Symbolists just withdraw.
Page215-Here we have the declaration of Rimbaud who
chooses a life of pure action. He simply left poetry. He
explains in what ways he wants to see reality, his difference to
his own age and culture. He talks about the deranging of
senses. He doesnt want to see the reality. Its rational societyonly those things which we can prove empirically exist. He
wants to go beyond that empirical vision of the world. He
wants to feel hallucinations-the whole inner life. The poet is
like a criminal who opposes the society. The stealer of firePrometheus rebels against God and authority. He also wants a
new lg., deep human communication- against pragmatic,
rational communication. The lg. has to correspond to this
visionary experience.
2. Rimbaud addresses the whole culture in general. Every
body possesses that savage side but the others are not willing
to admit it and experience it. That part is suppressed. No
more words- he wants to reject lg. Theres also a feeling that
that rational lg. we use also participate in all. It deals in
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concepts: he cannot express his inner being by standard lg.

Dance is a body lg., expresses the whole being.
Rimboud- hero and pioneer who struggled with the world and
survived.
E. Wilson(2)
In his essay Symbolism, Wilson gives us continuity, linking
together Modernism, Symbolism and Romanticism which are
the manifestations of the single fight, an effort to resist
official, culturally promoted world view which is reductive.
Both Symbolism and Romanticism didnt want to be
determined by external forces, by culture; they gave a private
subjective view of the world. Wilson hopes that the oscillation
between reason and imagination would cease and that unity of
intellect and emotions, objective and subjective will be
reached. Examples of such unity are the Modernists such as
Joyce, Eliot.
Symbolism is an essay devoted to Symbolist writers. The
purpose of the book is to establish the continuity link between
Romanticism, Symbolism and Modernism. Both Romanticism
and Symbolism are concerned with the concept of self.
Symbolism is not degeneration or elaboration of Romanticism.
It is a counterpart to it, a second flood of the same tide. It is a
distinct movement which has arisen from different conditions
and must be dealt with in different terms. Romanticism is a
reaction against Classicism. It is a revolt of an individual. In
the domain of politics and morals, Classicism meant a
preoccupation with society as a whole, and in art it was an
ideal objectivity.
Classicism
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-the artist is out of the picture. It is artistic bad taste to identify

himself with his hero or to intrude himself between the reader
and the story and give vent to his personal emotions.
Scientific discoveries gave rise to scientific ideas, mechanistic
ideas especially. It was the period of the development of
mathematical and physical theories.
The poets like the astronomers and mathematicians regarded
the universe as a machine obeying logical laws and susceptible
of reasonable explanation; God was figured as the clockmaker.
People applied this conception to society which had the
character of a planetary system or well-regulated machine.
Man was sth apart from nature.
Romanticism
The writer is either a hero or more likeably identified with his
hero, and the personality and emotions are presented as the
principal subject of interest.
They vindicate the rights of the individual against the claims
of the society as a whole. The romantic is a rebel.
Mechanical order felt as a constrain. There were aspects of
their experience which were imposible to analyze on the
theory of the world as a clockwork mechanism.
The universe is more mysterious, less rational.
Poet saw his soul as sth not reducible to a set of principles. He
saw fantasy, conflict, confusion.
Blake, Wordsworth affirm the superior truth of vision over
mechanical universe.
Byron says that mechanical universe is indifferent to man.
Romantic poets are preoccupied with individual sensibility or
the individual will.
Literature concerned with the individual soul.
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The world is an organism, man involved in the same great

entity.
The Romantic poet is a prophet of a new insight into nature.
In the middle of the 19th century, science made new advances
and mechanistic ideas were brought back to fashion. But they
came this time from biology. It was the effect of the theory of
evolution to reduce man from the hero stature to which
Romantics had tried to exalt time, to the semblance of a
helpless animal at the mercy of forces around him.
Humanity was the accidental product of heredity and
environment. This doctrine in literature was called
Naturalism
Put into the practice by novelist Zola who believed that
composing a novel was like performing laboratory
experiment- you had only to supply your characters with a
specific environment and heredity and then watch their
autonomic reaction. (no free will)
A reaction against the sentimentality and looseness of
Romanticism, characterized by scientific observation which
closely corresponded to that of biological science.
The highest development of Naturalism took place in prosethe plays of Ibsen, which are non-personal and objective
insisting on precision of language and economy of form. Ibsen
began to study man in relation to his particular environment
and time while the 17th century writers sought to discover the
universal principles of human behaviour. The method of
approach in both cases is a scientific one leading in to
mechanistic conclusions. Ibsen was occupied all his life with
the conflict of the Romantic conception of ones duty to
oneself and with the conception of ones duty to the society.
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However, the objective point of Naturalism began to cramp

the poets imagination, to prove inadequate to convey what he
feels. Literature is rebounding again from the scientificClassical role to the poetic- Romantic one. And this second
reaction at the end of the century was known as Symbolism.
Symbolism
The prophet of Symbolism was E. A. Poe for he had
formulated a new literary program which corrected the
Romantic looseness and extravagance.
The principal aim of Symbolism was to approximate the
indefiniteness of music, which was produced by the confusion
between the imaginary world and the real by means of a
further confusion between the perceptions of the different
senses.
The tendency of Symbolism was to make poetry even more a
matter of sensations and emotions of the individual than it had
been the case with Romanticism. Symbolism had the result of
making poetry so much a private concern of the poets that it
turned out to be incommunicable to the reader. The familiar
kind of Symbolism is conventional and fixed, but the symbols
of the Symbolist school are usually
-arbitrarily chosen by the poet to stand for special ideas of his
own- they are a sort of disguise for these ideas,
-to intimate things rather than state them plainly was one of
the primary aims of Symbolism.
Each poet has his unique personality and it is the poets task to
find, invent the special language which will allow by capable
of expressing his personality and feelings. Such a language
must make use of symbols: what is so special, so fleeting and
so vague cannot be conveyed by direct statements or
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descriptions, but only by a succession of words, of images

which will serve to suggest it to the reader.
What the symbols of Symbolism really were, were metaphors
detached from their subjects. And Symbolism may be defined
as an attempt by carefully studied means- a complicated
association of ideas represented by a medley of metaphors- to
communicate unique personal feelings.
The works of Yeats, Joyce, T. S. Eliot are continuance or
extension of Symbolism (Modernism). Our literary history is
to a great extent that of the development of Symbolism and of
its fusion or conflict with Naturalism.
Axel and Rimbaud(2)
One great objection to the Symbolist school is its lack of
curiosity of life. Poetry had become for them a refuge, the
only escape from the hideous reality. The ideal of Symbolism
was the renunciation of the experience of the outside world for
the experience of the imagination alone. the withdrawal of
one individual from society. The individual is to himself the
measure of all things.
Axel- one possible response to the outer world (idealism). An
intellectual, a noble man who studies the hermetic philosophy
of the alchemist chooses the life of pure reflection and
imagination showing contempt for the conceptions of honor
and pleasure. He voluntarily exiles from a society which has
betrayed and murdered his father. He falls in love with the
French noblewoman, Sara. They are holding the whole world
in their hands- they have love, youth, social position, power
and treasure, yet Axel proposes they should kill each other.
Sara thinks: We have all the dreams to realize, and pleads:
Come and live. Axel renounces the world. All that future
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can offer is a pale reflection of the moments they have

experienced. Life is a servitude, culture turned life into a
servitude. He admits only inner reality to save what is most
human in oneself. Refusal to interact with the society.
The type of all the heroes of the Symbolists were
contemplative, inactive, sensitive young men. They isolate
themselves from the world And practice the cultivation of the
refined and bizarre sensations. The real world couldnt
possibly come to the one they had imagined.
Difference between Romanticism and Symbolism:
- The Romantics sought experience for its own sake- love,
travel, politics- to try the possibilities of life.
- The Symbolists carry on their experimentation in the field of
literature alone, exploring only the possibilities of thought and
imagination.
- The Romantic had usually revolted against of defied society.
- The Symbolist has detached himself from society and is
indifferent to it.
- The Symbolist does not assert his individual will but shifts
the whole field of literature from an objective to a subjective
world. They abandoned all efforts to put their dreams into
reality. That was a sacrilege against dreams themselves.
Reality can never equal the dream.
Yeats spoke of the inferiority of the life of action to the life of
solitary vision.
They have lost the touch with the world so completely that
they no longer know precisely what it is like. The poets
withdraw from the general life of their time which was
produced by the industrial revolution because they seemed to
have no place and it was hopeless to oppose. They didnt try to
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struggle with it but they did their best to ignore it, to keep their
imagination free of it. they were considered maladjusted
persons.
Rimbaud- 2nd response to the outer world- to struggle with the
world and survive but to survive as sth other than a poet.
The poet must be a visionary and he makes himself a visionary
through derangement of all the senses. He arrives to the
unknown because he has cultivated his soul. He has indulged
in all kinds of perverted activities in order to penetrate to that
layer of being. He discovered it and the result was One
reason in hell and Illuminations.
I am another- he didnt want to watch through culturally
colored glasses.
I am a nigger, a beast- return to his biological, irrational
soul.
No more wordsdance- he gives up language because it
was contaminated. Biological beings cannot be expressed in
words, but gestures.
He planned an escape from European reality by more effective
means than self-hallucination. He felt that in spite of his
poetry he couldnt assure the kind of life he wanted to live so
he left Europe. he rejected Europe altogether its society, ideas
and even the sensibility that literature supplied. He chose the
life of action and a more primitive civilization in contrast to
Axel who chose pure contemplation. You have to combine
these opposites: action and contemplation/imagination, a
public person and inner self in order to live in this society.
Ultimately, the oscillation between reason and imagination
must cease.
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F.R. Leavis- Poetry and the Modern World

He believes in the autonomy of perception and judgment. The
poet asks and answers the questions about the goal of life:
What is that man live for and live by?- keep touch with
cultural heritage. The poet is more alive and more conscious
and has a power of communication. He communicates his
sense of what to fully live is like. If the criterion by which we
judge the poet is life than we can see that in certain periods
poet succumbs to culture and its stereotypes and is banned
from communicating to his deepest self due to the split
between intellect and emotions which is reflected in the wrong
conception of the self, of poetry. According to these
misconceptions poetic is only what is simple, passionate and
sensuous. Late Victorian poetry is a failure- the poet was
prevented from communicating with the wholeness of his
being and expressing his whole being in poetry. It was poetry
of withdrawal, escape. The result of this was that the feelings
divorced from intellect which lead to sheer sentimentality and
the intellect divorced from feelings degenerated into vulgar
cleverness. The intellectuals lost touch with poetry which led
to the lack of finer awareness, lack of creative wholeness
and spiritual blindness.
The line that connects Leavis and Trilling is their reference to
Blake who fought the mental fight against the reductive
influence of industrialism, materialism. Blake created a
metaphysical system to see what a whole, resurrected man
could be like. This system consists of Urizen (reason) and
Loss (imagination) which are two conflicting aspects of man
and which should be reconciled. Leavis states that if we
diminish the importance of Loss, the vital game of life stops.
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Derrida- free game presupposes that we never know

ourselves; but Leavis states that Blake always belonged to
himself through his surrender to creativity.
NEW CRITICISM
In England- Richards, in America Ransom, Eliot. The new
criticism focused only on one element: the text. It is called
objective criticism. It discarded everything except the
structure of words. It excludes the reader. They were interested
in the words on the page. The poem is a verbal icon, a
beautiful urn, the well-Wrought Urn- autonomous structure of
words. They use specific poetic lg.: irony, paradox, symbols,
ambiguity. They believe that what justified this close-reading
is that we find values based on utilitarianism and those true
values that in such a world have been forgotten. By reading
closely we see differently, we change our perceptions. We
change our mode of perceiving the world. The images are
more specific, correct, accurate than knowing the world in any
other way.
NEW CRITICISM (2)
New Critics were explicitly and self-consciously antiromantic. But implicitly they continued Romantic values.
Wholeness, completeness is the major value they kept.
Divided self can become one in our culture; the dissociation of
sensibility can be overcome in literature.
New Critics provide us with the defense of poetry against the
monopoly of the scientific world view. The three of them
restate the basic ideas of Trilling, Leavis and Wilson.
NEW CRITICISM (3) approach focused on short literary
forms. Most usually they analyze lyrics with a smallest detail.
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They were also interested in the formal devices: metaphor,

paradox, symbols, irony it was also called immanent or
intrigue approach. They focus on the poem without
discussing the cultural context. They claim that the poem
should be viewed as a verbal icon- never be completely
paraphrased. You cant convey its full context. Although they
focus on aesthetic forms we still consider them humanistssince they are concerned with important human values. They
view a poem as a model of natural and inner harmony.
Ransom- Poetry; A Note on Ontology
We find similar ideas in Ransom. He also defends poetry from
science. He speaks in terms of ideas and images. Poetry
conveys its meaning through images. Science operates with
ideas. The word consists of the skeleton and the flesh. He says
those who can respond to the world by ideas refer to the
skeleton. It neglects all things in nature in their contingency,
richness.
There is a fear that man is subordinated to nature. We tend to
think that we can master the world by ideas but scientific man
is ----------- and arrogant. It is very dangerous attitude. We
impoverish our sensibility and get numb. The world is killed
and also we ourselves. Platonic impulse the idea is important
things have no concreteness. The western man is pround, but it
derives from his desire to master the world. Everything
becomes abstract and we became habitual killers.
Ransom says: A person can be cured. He says there are two
ways- love and poetry. A person who is a Platonist believes in
ideas meets another person and there is the enigma, the
mystery of life. He thinks that he knows his world and his
pride changes into humility. Another person cant be reduced
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to a formula. Poetry- images never reduces meaning. There is

multiplicity. Its never exhausted. Metaphor is important.
Why? It connects experiences. Science detaches us from
poetry to preserve sth. which constantly crumbles under the
touch of other languages. Therefore, he says the kind of poetry
that uses metaphor is true kind of poetry. We see that ideas are
explorative and lead to dangerous things. Donne- ideas, blood,
nervous system- all together create an image.
J.C.Ransom (2) Metaphor in poetry is important because it
helps us connect physical images with abstract images. The
basic distinction is between ideas and images. When we
encounter images they appeal to our whole being, so we react
to images, to some phenomena in nature with our intellect,
intuitions and instincts. We can also react with our senses. We
react with our whole sensibilia as Ransom calls it. The
tendency in our modern scientific world is to reduce this
complexity of experience. This is what we do with the whole
universe- reduce everything into simple manageable formula.
Ransom says that the basic reason for that is our fear. We are
afraid of complexity and unknown. If we reduce the world to
formula, categories, this gives us a sense of mastery. Then we
have the feeling that we are in control of things. If we master
the world in such a way, however, Ransom says that we reduce
the worlds body into its skeleton. In this way the world is
reduced to a skeleton. This tendency is called platonic
impulse. In such circumstances you just kill concepts and not
people. In this way platonic impulse can make us habitual
killers.
As opposed to platonic impulse, Ransom says that we can be
cured by poetry and art in general. The kind of poetry
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specially praised is metaphysical poetry. By this he doesnt

mean the 19th century poetry but any poetry which uses
metaphor. It is smth that should help us sum up our experience
into a meaningful whole. It helps us connect inner and outer
experiences: it should make use both - our intellect and
emotions. (Blakes symbols-Urizen he makes borderlines, he
creates those types- borderlines definitions. This attitude gives
us the feeling of mastery. Therefore, you must have this
opposite figure loss- as the symbol for his desire to be free,
creative, to be the servant of life). Ransom says that poetry
teaches us to approach the world with humility. He also says
poetry initiates the act of perception.
*In what way our dreams approach us? In dreams we return to
the images which have the multiple possible meanings. The
science is specific- literature is interested in the whole mansun- light, masculine principle, life. We start from one image
and derive very many ideas from it. If we reduce to one of the
ideas we use just one of it properly. This is what makes us
habitual killers.
*Platonic poetry makes us masters. Logos is god; we give all
our trust in the power of reasons. Platonic world and scientific
do not coincide- we are aware that the reality is more
complex.
* conceit- a sort of metaphor. Metaphor is all together
replacing one thing by another. What is the purpose of
conceit? To connect abstract ideas with physical world of
images and sensual impressions. This metaphor is also
important in religion.God wouldnt be so abstract platonic
idea. Metaphors help us connect the world of experiences with
that spiritual, divine world. What the poet does is necessary in
21

order to express our need to have the purpose of life, meaning

in life.
J.C. Ransom- Poetry; A Note on Ontology
According to Ransom the worlds body consists of two things:
- skeleton which is made of underlying laws, ideas, and
- flesh which is made of concrete, unpredictable, unrepeatable,
contradictory and infinitely rich phenomena.
When we are thinking in terms of general, abstract laws, we
are thinking about the worlds skeleton. Science, prose, logic
use ideas- the reduction of the flesh of the world to its
underlying laws. Ideas tend to reduce the world, simplify it.
Thats why Ransom criticizes the kind of poetry which relies
only on ideas. Art should be based on images. Images as we
encounter in the physical world consist of numerous qualities
and appeals to our whole being. In this way, if poetry deals
with images it will also appeal to our whole being. Metaphors
bind together two disparate phenomena which to the scientific
mind have nothing in common, and thus enable us to see the
world as a whole. Modern man tends to experience world
through ideas. This tendency to reduce a complex image or a
complex life experience to an idea is what Ransom calls the
platonic impulse. We do it out of fear because we are afraid of
the things we cannot understand. We tend to oversimplify.
This is the sort of the activity of human mind which Blake
personified in the figure of Urizen- a tendency to reduce the
complexities into a set of manageable formulas (the same as
Leavis). This is activity which is needed because it helps us
understand the world. On the other hand it can destroy the
feeling of novelty, our capacity to wonder, to experience sth
22

new and fresh- the counter figure of Loss. The Urizenic

attitude to life makes us feel as masters. The Losss creativity
makes us feel as joyous servants of life, as Leavis says. The
destruction of the Loss is a habitual murder in two senses: 1.
kills the variety, the richness of the world and ends the vital
game (Leavis), 2. impoverishes mans own sensibility. This
can be cured by love and poetry. Richards doesnt define the
goal properly, but at one point he says: Still human nature is
very resilient (obnavlja se). Love and poetry seem able to outplay psychoanalysis. This means that what psychology can
say about human soul is not as good as what love and poetry
can. In love you are cured if you are ready to surrender to
uncertainty, to sacrifice order and security to new experience.
What matters most in a poem is the tissue which is not
important from the logical, prosaic point of view (meter).
Poetry initiates the act of perception, it defamiliarizes the
object that we perceive in the habitual way and preserves sth
that is constantly crumbling under our touch. Ransom in this
essay says that the public was inclined to seek in poetry ideas,
but what the Imagists identified with the stuff of poetry were
images, things.
IDEA: a derivative, a product of sth else, second-hand
knowledge, abstract, conceptual knowledge (tamed).
IMAGE: the raw material of ideas, it is superior in relation to
ideas because it cannot be dispossessed of its freshness which
an idea cannot claim.
Science deals with images as well, but it reduces their rich
infinity to one special interest. It is not by refutation (denial)
but by abstractions that science destroys the image. With the
commitment to science we lose our power of imagination, we
23

are not able to perceive things in all their richness. However,

those images come to us in our dreams with original freshness.
We dream in images. Jezik racionalnog coveka je
konceptualan a jezik snova, mitova, religija je slikovit. Na
slike deluje citavo nase bice, emotivno I culno. He disclaims
the possibility of existence of pure, physical poetry- it cannot
consist only of objects, there is at least a grain of idea in it.
Platonic poetry- poetry of ideas. Platonic poetry tries hard
to look like physical poetry but at the same time platonic
poetry propagates ideas specific ideology. In this kind of
poetry images are sacrificed for ideas, they serve only as an
ornament for basic ideas. There is a hidden moral and platonic
poetry is an allegory, a discourse in things. Platonism is an
impulse that is present in all of us, tending to take complete
possession of our minds, to destroy all other impulses.
Platonism reduces the world because it explains the world in
terms of facts. Modern man is Platonist because this platonic
impulse rests upon the urge of mastery which he embraces. He
is led to believe that nature is rational and that by the force of
reasoning he shall possess it, which is the misconception of
mans superiority. Platonic view of the world is ultimately
predatory for it reduces the world to the scientific one.
Platonic world of ideas fails to coincide with the original
world of perception (Leavis- Loss). The only way to save
freshness of things is to approach the objects with humilitythat we cannot control them, that we are inferior. The world of
perception is inhabited by contingent (nasumican) objects. The
artists feel that platonic explanation are not enough, so they
return to the world of sensations.
Metaphysical poetry
24

Ransom expresses the same ideas as Richards: the best, the

most proper kind of poetry is the metaphysical poetry because
it manages to unite physical images with abstract metaphysical
ideas. In this way the poet not only represents the physical
reality to us but he also supplies meaning. Science gratifies a
rational or practical impulse and exhibits the minimum of
perception. Art gratifies a perceptional impulse and exhibits
the minimum of reason. For Ransom, an aesthetic movement
is a fusion of platonic impulse and an impulse towards
innocence- two conflicting impulses in man struggling to
prevail. Metaphysical poets used conceits- a metaphor in
which identification is complete. It blends all the meanings
together. A poet has come up with connecting things which
logically cannot be connected and makes a complete
identification (unlike in similes). Miraculism initiates an act
of cognition. Religion is full of powerful images. These
images address our whole being, they invoke all sorts of
responses. Every myth, religion is a metaphor for our need to
understand life and to give meaning (similar to Richards).
I.A.Richards- Pseudo-statements
Richard talks about pseudo-statements and scientific
statements. Science uses objective knowledge. Its neutralized
nature, which is relevant for our emotional life. We just
explore it. So he wants in his essay to define poetry showing
people what they should find there. Science gives us
knowledge that is objective, you can prove it. It is verifiable
knowledge. It contributes to our ability to control our
surroundings. However, this knowledge is limited. It cannot
offer the raison dete. It cant give us meaning because it is
25

neutral. Science gives the answer to the question How? But

the most important question human being can ask is Why?
Pseudo-statements are not to be judged by asking. It is a kind
of organization of our impulses. We tend to reduce our lives to
only one option.
I.A.Richards- He talks about two different kinds of
statements. There are scientific and pseudo-statements.
Scientific statements are true, valid, they answer to the
question How?. They explain the natural phenomena. They
are descriptive- describe factual reality. These statements are
important for us because they help us utilize nature, use
natural resources. We can say that they serve certain practical
goals. The problem is that those statements can contribute to
the neutralization of nature. If we base our view on scientific
statements we no longer feel any sympathy with the natural
world, that inner world remains a kind of orphan. Richards
says that because of this we also need pseudo-statements.
They are made by poetry, myth and religion. It is valid
because it helps us organize our inner life. It is true but in a
different way. It is true for our emotions and instincts.
Scientific statements cant give us sense of purpose in life.
Thats why we need pseudo-statements. As scientific can help
us in our practical goals, pseudo-statements help us in spiritual
goals. We no longer believe in those pseudo-statements such
as religion. Our world view is basically scientific and rational.
Although it is not scientifically true, its still true for our inner
being. We need imaginative pseudo-statements to organize our
inner life and help us perceive the world as a meaningful
whole in which man has his place.
26

*Scientific vs. poetic statements. The use of pseudostatements help us organize our urges. They give us a sort of
meaning- pseudo-statements which refer to religion, myths.
They also deal with goal in life, god, and soul. Richards- the
danger of this civilization is in Platonic impulse. We dont
believe in those states anymore. We cant organize our inner
life upon scientific statements.
*Neutralization of nature: both inner and outer nature. We
have lost that emotional contact with nature. We have lost the
basis of our life and became groundless- a thirst for a life
giving water. It should be sth spiritual- a need for spiritual
refreshment. How does he explain our state of being? There
are some exceptions. There is sth. missing between our
intellect and our inner being. Our urges nowadays have only
biological justification. There is no deep meaning. According
to Richards we cannot have a pure knowledge. We have
always the need to moralize our needs according to our hopes.
Love poetry gives more comprehensive nature than
psychoanalysis. This is how he justifies these pseudostatements.
I.A. Richards- Pseudo-statements
He makes a distinction between science and literature by
making a distinction between units by which they operate.
Science operates with proper statements- referential
statements which have their reference in the world, their truth
depends on the correspondence with the world outside. Those
statements are verifiable and they offer us objective
knowledge as science establishes facts and deals with factual
reality. It replies to the question How? These statements are
no doubt true, but they are not sufficient. On the other hand,
27

poetry operates with Pseudo-statements which are emotional

utterances that describe attitudes which may be acceptable.
The purpose of pseudo-statements is to release and organize
our instincts and emotions. In this way it gives us a sense of
direction and provides us with meaning. Notions such as God
and soul are also pseudo-statements. They cannot be
scientifically proved, but they are the metaphors for our inner
reality and for our need to give life meaning. They try to
discover the question Why?
Science cannot supply the meaning of life. Science is able to
describe, but our feelings cannot be explained. Without the
workings of religion, myth, creative imagination our inner
world cannot be expressed. We cannot express any feeling of
empathy with nature because science neutralizes nature- we
see nature as an object of investigation, there is no more
ethical, emotional view of nature- dissociation of man from
poetry. Nature is indifferent, amoral, devoid of all meanings.
It is pseudo-statements that can organize our contradictory
impulses. They direct our impulses towards spiritual goal.
They can help us in the search of the images of wholeness.
The scientific knowledge has displaced many accustomed
models of believing of the past, but we shouldnt renounce our
religious and other beliefs. What we should do is cut our
pseudo-statements free from that kind of belief which is
appropriate to verified statements. In this way pseudostatements would be changed but would be the main
instrument by which we order our attitudes to one another and
to the world. While we believe in poetry, the world seems to
be transfigured; we give new meaning to it. If we recognize
the neutrality of nature, we divorce from poetry.
28

Men are not only biological beings, but spiritual ones as well
and they need meaning spiritual goal. Verifiable scientific
knowledge cannot provide us with the purpose. So,
justification of any attitude lies not in the object (verifiable)
but in itself. The imaginative life is its own justification.
T.S.Eliot- Tradition and the Individual Talent
All these people preserved tradition. Looking back, they
identify the best poetry as metaphorical. Eliot is the most
conservative. He was very contradictive he is anti-romantic,
classicist and royalist. In religion he was a catholic and in art
he was a classicist. In all these choice he repudiated the
individual option.
He claims there is a self that is generic- possessive part. Ego is
motivated by the desire to acquire things (food, sex, shelter).
This generic part has an acquisitive relation to its community.
This is insignificant self. There is also significant self-spiritual
reality beyond the social. We are all in the prison of our ego
and cant get out. You become significant through
transhumanization. We must become impersonal by
developing historical sense. Tradition for him is the living one.
We cant live in the vacuum of the present. Turn back to the
past to see how valid it is. He bended himself to the dead
tradition. He was against the dissociation of sensibility. He
blames the Romantics for their insignificant emotions such as
self-pity. Metaphysical poetry most successfully achieves that
unified sensibility.
T.S.Eliot-Tradition and the Individual Talent- Eliot was
keen on tradition. His idea is transcending that egoistical self
and reaching the whole self. It is called transhumanization.
29

Historic sense can help in this process he is criticize this

modern tradition; in the tradition of the past we can find some
examples of those people who knew how to transcend that
selfish self, the people who knew and were looking for the
genuine self. History can give us knowledge about the genuine
self which modern tradition cannot offer.
*He is describing the process of poem-making. He compares it
with two gases combined. The mind of the poet is the catalyst;
it helps the poet combine various experiences and creates a
new whole. Eliot is trying to transcend this selfish self. The
poet shouldnt write from the point of egocentrism. He is just a
medium.
*Eliot criticizes one sentence by W. Wordsworth-emotions
recollected in tranquility. He says that the poet doesnt
recollect his emotions in tranquility. The poet uses all his
experiences not by merely remembering them but creating sth
new.
T.S. Eliot- Tradition and the Individual Talent
Like others, Eliot believes that the concept of the self offered
by the modern world is inadequate. He claims that there exist:
1. selfish/generic self which is egoistical, selfish. It demands
the satisfaction of physical, generic needs (food, sex, physical
comfort). If our life is based on the needs of this selfish self,
then it could be presented as birth-copulation-death. It is
aggressive and it always demands more. It is acquisitive
towards the society.
2. genuine self. When ego decides to surrender all its private
ambitions, generic needs to sth that is larger, to spiritual
values. It is called transhumanization.
30

As long as we are entrapped within that selfish self, we cannot

truly communicate with the world.
We think of the key,
Each in his prison,
Thinking of the key,
Each confirms a prison - T.S. Eliot
This culture gives absolute freedom to aggressive, egoistical
self, and the result is devastating: the community disintegrates
and we are doomed to loneliness and isolation within the
prison cell of the ego. There must be a realm beyond a
material realm and one surrenders to that spiritual realm, to
love (the kind of love presented by Christ, not possessive) then
one becomes truly real. Without this spirituality, Eliot claims
that life is meaningless. This idea of transcending personality
can be practiced in literature. Eliot demands in literature that
the writer should not express his personality but try to relate to
the mind of Europe which is much more important than his
own private mind. The poet has to decide where he belongs in
the tradition. Belonging to a tradition is not repeating the past.
In the mature poet, past is a part of his personality. The past is
part of present. The poet must develop the consciousness of
the past. The poet should acquire Historical Sense. He should
be aware of the values of the past which are still relevant for
the present. Historical sense involves a perception not only of
the pastness of the past but of its presence as well. As much
as present is directed by the past, the past should be altered by
the present. The spiritual values which Eliot emphasizes may
be found in the past. It is the role of the poet to explain how
and why they should be restored to the modern world. Another
way in which the poet surrenders his egoistical self is to the
31

creative process a selection among the emotions in order

to fit them in the network of words in which this emotion is
important. No importance is given to the relation between a
poem and a poets biography. This Impersonal Theory
suggests that a poem is a part of a living whole of all the
poetry that has ever been written and that there is no relation
between poets emotions and the poem. A poet is just a
catalyst, a shred of platinum, a medium that fuses emotions
(that neednt be his at all) into new and unique forms (man
who suffers and the mind which creates are kept aside). What
is praised in poetry is not the intensity of a personal emotion,
but the intensity of a fusion. The poet has not a personality to
express but is a medium whose impressions and experiences
combine in peculiar and unexpected way. What happens is a
continual surrender of the self, a continual self-sacrifice, a
continual extinction of personality, a continual process of
depersonalization by surrendering himself wholly to the work
to be done, and the poet must not live only in the present, but
in the present moment of the past- to be conscious of what is
living. In his poetry, he has fragments of most important
traditions of the past which rested on love (the only traditions
that he saw as living ones). His poetry is the expression of his
genuine self. He felt that he belonged to bed from Shakespeare
to the metaphysical poets. The metaphysics possessed a
unified sensibility. At the moment when metaphysical poets
were writing, it was still possible to connect the imaginary and
the scientific. They used a scientific notion, discovery in a
poem as a part of a metaphor. They didnt experience it as a
kind of a split. They were capable of using any experience for
poetry. They didnt experience the dissociation between reason
32

and emotion. For Eliot, poetry is an escape from emotion, an

escape from personality. And, the poem is an expression of
significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem
and not in the history of the poem.
T.S. Eliot- Tradition and the Individual Talent
For Eliot, the term tradition is imbued with a special and
complex character. It represents a simultaneous order, by
which Eliot means a historical timelessness a fusion of past
and present and, at the same time, a sense of present
temporality. A poet must embody the whole of the literature
of Europe from Homer, while, simultaneously, expressing his
contemporary environment. Eliot challenges our common
perception that a poets greatness and individuality lies in his
departure from his predecessors. Rather, Eliot argues that the
most individual parts of his (the poet) work may be those in
which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality
most vigorously. When Eliot writes that new works are
inevitably judged by the past, he means that successful works
must resemble preceding works in some way. Paradoxically, in
order to appear individual, a work of art must conform.
But, this fidelity to tradition does not require the great poet to
forfeit novelty in an act of surrender to repetition. Rather, Eliot
has a much more dynamic and progressive conception of the
poetic process. Novelty is possible, and only possible, through
tapping into tradition. When a poet engages in the creation of
new work, he confronts an aesthetic ideal order, as it has
been established by the literary tradition that has come before
him. As such, the act of artistic creation does not take place in
a vacuum. The introduction of a new work disrupts the
cohesion of this existing order, and causes a readjustment of
33

the old in order to accommodate the new. Thus, the poet

speaks to the past, but also, rewrites it. In Eliots own words:
What happens when a new work of art is created is
something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art
that preceded it. Eliot refers to this organic tradition, this
developing canon, as the mind of Europe. The private mind
is subsumed by this more massive one.
This leads to Eliots so-called "Impersonal Theory" of poetry.
Since the poet engages in a continual surrender of himself to
the vast order of tradition, artistic creation is a process of
depersonalization. The mature poet is viewed as a medium,
through which tradition is channeled and elaborated. He
compares the poet to a catalyst in a chemical reaction, in
which the reactants are feelings and emotions that are
synthesized to create an artistic image that captures and relays
these same feelings and emotions. While the mind of the poet
is necessary for the production, it emerges unaffected by the
process. The artist stores feelings and emotions and properly
unites them into a specific combination, which is the artistic
product. What lends greatness to a work of art is not the
feelings and emotions themselves, but the nature of the artistic
process by which they are synthesized. The artist is
responsible for creating the pressure, so to speak, under
which the fusion takes place. And, it is the intensity of fusion
that renders art great. In this view, Eliot rejects the theory that
art expresses metaphysical unity in the soul of the poet. The
poet is a depersonalized vessel, a mere medium.
Great works do not express the personal emotion of the poet.
The poet does not reveal his own unique and novel emotions,
but rather, by drawing on ordinary ones and channeling them
34

through the intensity of poetry, he expresses feelings that

surpass, altogether, experienced emotion. This is what Eliot
intends when he discusses poetry as an escape from
emotion. Since successful poetry is impersonal and,
therefore, exists independent of its poet, it outlives the poet
and can incorporate into the timeless ideal order of the
living literary tradition.
MARXIST CRITICISM
G.Lukacs
According to Lukacs, modern literature is hopeless. It doesnt
give us any hope. This view is similar to Leavis and Wilsons
views. Wilson criticizes poets because they escape into the
dream world. The symbolists withdraw and offer us no ethics.
They present perfectly the inner self, but they lose connection
with the outer world. With the modernists there is a feeling
that reintegration is no longer possible. In the world which is
largely scientific, utilitarian, the poet with his visions no
longer has a place. Lukacs is also similar with Ransom, who
says that we need a map of meaning- smth which will
provide him with the origin and goal of the existence. In the
past this map was provided by religion. Richards expect
poetry to provide us with such map of meaning nowadays.
According to Lukacs, modern literature fails to give us a map
of meaning. This is related to the answer which modern
literature gives to the question What is man? Literature in
the past saw man as a zoo politician- a social animal. It saw
man in interaction with society. Modernists see man as a
solitary being. This is presented by modernists as a general
condition.
35

This is reflected into the philosophy of Heidiger he has that

idea that man is thrown-into-being cannot establish the
origin and goal of his existence. Lukacs also thinks that
modern literature is static. There is no development of
characters. They dont change, they do not become more
aware, dont develop. The only thing which develops is the
understanding of this static isolated position. The character
remains unknown to himself and the others, e.g. Waiting for
Godot. There is a road leading from one place to another.
After going we become mature. Here, two characters and the
road leads nowhere.
Lukacs says that this is very dangerous concept. If we dont
think about the interaction between man and the other world,
then the personality will disintegrate. Why? He says that we
can see each man as a large number of potentials- myriad
potentials. These myriad potentials which exist in each of us
Lukacs calls abstract potentialities Only in a moment in
some critical moment, in some crisis in life when we have to
make a choice, we chose one of these potentials and this is
how our character is revealed. This is concrete potentialitymaking choices. If we never interact with the social reality we
have no way to establish personality.
Lukacs says modern literature is correct in its criticism of
capitalism. This would be terminus-quo- a starting point. But
he criticizes the modernists because they do not have terminus
quem. It turns to be for many of them psychopathology.
Modernists present characters that are neurotic, mad, and
Lukacs says that gives us no hope. What is good, since he is
Marxist, is some social change, progress. He criticizes writers,
36

because they dont have Marxist perspective. They are not

aware that the society has been changing through centuries.
G.Lukacs (2), The Ideology of Modernism
1) He is describing the view of modern man. Heidegger- man
is thrown-into-being. Man doesnt know the goal of his
existence. Man is a historical being. He doesnt have personal
history- we only see the subjective notion of reality. The
subjective view on reality from slavery to feudalism- the hope
for social progress.
2) There are numerous potentials- they together create
potentiality. If man remains within his subjective inner world.
In real, in the moment of crisis man makes a choice and his
character is revealed. Its concrete potentiality. He criticizes
the modernism because they present man detached from
reality, so we cannot determine his character because he is not
in interaction with the outer world.
3) Naturalist- psychopathology a kind of aesthetic need.
Modernism is a kind of moral protest. Terminus of quem- a
starting point for the criticizing society. The goal is to change
it. Writers dont give us a sense of direction.
Lukacs- The Ideology of Modernism
Hope is an essential human characteristic. Likewise, it is a
moral obligation of a writer to offer a kind of hope in his work
of art. Without hope we are reduced to beasts. Every human
action is based on a presupposition of its inherent
meaningfulness, at least to the subject. Absence of meaning
makes a mockery of action and reduces art to naturalistic
description.
It is possible to observe through history a gradual decrease of
hope in literature. For Romantics, hope was a moral
37

obligation. They were aware that society was not a spiritual

community but they hopped it might have become one. Their
withdrawal to nature was only temporary as they hoped to
acquire vision and then to return to society and show it how it
can reform. In Symbolism and Modernism there is less and
less belief in the possibility of integration. They no longer
believe that the poetic vision can be integrated into society.
For example Wilson (Axel and Rimboud- he goes to the
uncivilized parts of the world) and Leavis- poets at the turn of
the century who withdrew to the dream world.
Lukacs criticizes modern literature. Modern literature is
hopeless and it doesnt offer the new vision by which the
society can be reformed. Since he is a Marxist, a proper goal
for him would be a social reform. He sees Marxism as a new
map and way of reading history. Marxism offers social hope
because it shows how human society evolves and moves
forward. The development is not horizontal but vertical
(ascent and descent). In his essay he states that what matters is
not the concern with formal criteria- style and literary
technique, because it can lead to a serious misunderstanding of
the character of an artists work. What counts is the view of
the world, the ideology that underlines writers work and
determines the style. Content determines form. Again, the
basic question is What is Man?
Traditional literature defines an individual as Zoon Politikon,
a social animal. The individual existence cannot be
distinguished from their social and historical environment. An
individual cannot be separated from the context in which it
was created.
38

Modern literature: Man is by nature solitary, asocial, unable to

enter into relationships with other human beings. Man, as
such, may establish contact with other individuals but only in
superficial, accidental manner. Solitariness is presented as a
general human condition. This is similar to Heideggers
description of human existence as a throwness-into-beingman is constantly unable to establish relationships with things
or persons outside himself but also it is impossible for him to
determine the origin and goal of human existence. Man, thus
conceived, is a historical being. In Modern literature the
negation of history takes two different forms:
1. The hero is strictly confined within the limits of his own
existence. There is not any pre-existent reality beyond his own
self acting upon him or being acted upon him.
2. The hero himself is without personal history. He is throwninto- the world. He doesnt develop through contact with the
world. There is no way to change this condition. The only
development in the work of art is the gradual revelation of
the human condition- Waiting for Godot The examined
reality is static.
Lukacs wants to point out how important it is to act in the real
world. Within each human being there is a great number of
potentials for good and bad, for all sorts of actions and
behaviors. There are abstract and concrete potentialities. The
abstract character of potentiality cannot determine
development- subjective mental states cannot be decisive.
Rather the development of personality is determined by
inherited gifts and qualities, external or internal, which further
on inhibit their growth. Concrete- actual decision in a real-life
situation. Sometimes there comes a moment in life, in the real
39

world when we are forced to make a choice. In this moment

we choose one of these potentialities and this is the moment of
self-realization. In the act of choice, a mans character may
reveal itself in a light that surprises even himself. The actual
decision reveals the distinction between the concrete
potentiality an abstract, and it is a decision which will alter the
direction of his life. The subject, after taking his decision, may
be unconscious of his own motives. In Realism, abstract
potentiality belongs wholly to the realm of subjectivity,
whereas concrete potentiality is concerned with the dialectic
between the individuals subjectivity and objective reality. In
Modernist literature- if the human condition- man as a
solitary being- is identified with reality itself- the distinction
between abstract and concrete potentiality becomes null and
void. The categories tend to merge. If the distinction between
abstract and concrete potentialities vanishes, if mans
inwardness is identified with an abstract subjectivity, human
personality must necessary disintegrate. The negation of
outward reality leads to attenuation (decrees) of reality and
dissociation of personality. Objective reality is substituted by
angst-ridden vision of the world and dissociation of
personality- man cannot be a moral and thinking being at the
same time. His external deeds are no guide to his motives.
Modernist literature has a good starting point- terminus a
quo- discontent with the corrupted society, but it doesnt have
a good goal- terminus ad quem (destination)- escape into
psychopathology which is an escape into nothingness.
Because in any protest against social conditions, these
conditions must have the cultural place. This fight is an
ideological problem which derives from the ontological
40

dogma of the solitariness of man. Modernism must deprive

literature of a sense of perspective which determines the
course and content, it draws together the threads of the
narration, it enables the artist to choose between the important
and the superficial. Modernism drops this selective principle
and replaces it with its dogma of the condition humaine- an
escape into neurosis as a protest against the evils of society.
The obsession with psychopathology in modernist literature is
diagnosed as a desire to escape from the reality of capitalism.
This implies the absolute privacy of the terminus a quo, the
condition from which it is desired to escape. Any movement
towards a terminus ad quem is condemned to impotence. As
the ideology of most modernist writers asserts the
inalterability of outward reality, human activity is rendered
impotent and robbed of meaning.
Althuser- Ideology and Ideological State Aparatus
One of the main concerns of Althusers theory is Ideology
which he defines as an imaginary relation to the real
conditions of existence. Why is it needed? Causes are: 1. to
enslave other minds by dominating their imaginations; 2.
material alienation- the conditions of existence are dominated
by the essence of alienated society. An ideology always exists
in an apparatus and its practice, or practices, which Althuser
calls ISA (ideological state apparatus)- concrete form of
ideology. These are the structures within a society such as the
family, educational system, political system, language media,
health service. All these structures conspire to create a worldview which will make individuals believe and think in a
socially desirable way. They appear to be objective and natural
41

but they are really ideologically slanted to serve the interests

of some particular groups. Each of us is really a practitioner of
ideology. Individuals who live in ideology act according to
their ideas which are in the actions of their material practices.
These practices are governed by the rituals (certain modes of
behaviour) which, in turn, are governed to the material
ideological apparatus (Owners- ideology of owning).
Althuser says that we are no longer individuals produced by
nature, but Subjects produced by society. Subject is the
constitutive category of all ideology and man is an
ideological animal by nature. We are all concrete, individual,
distinguishable, irreplaceable subjects. The word subject can
have two possible meanings:
1. a free author of and responsible for its actions; and 2. a
subjected being who submits to a higher authority and is
therefore stripped of all freedom except that of freely
accepting his submission. Within a society we have an illusion
that we are free in our decisions, that we act according to our
own personal ideas and beliefs. The only freedom we display
is that we subject ourselves freely. The process by which an
individual becomes a subject is called interpellation or
hailing (prepoznajemo se u ulogama koje su nam
dodeljene). The hailed individual will turn around because he
has recognized that the hail was really addressed to him, and
that it was really him who was hailed. Subjects work all by
themselves. Bad subjects provoke the intervention of RSA
(repressive state apparatus).
A Letter on Art
There are two ways of becoming aware of ideology. One is by
means of art, the other by means of scientific knowledge. In
42

this essay Althuser says that the real art is not ranked among
the ideologies. Art doesnt replace knowledge but stands in a
specific relationship with knowledge. Art has the ability to
make us see, perceive, feel sth which allude reality. It makes
us see, perceive and feel the ideology from which it is born,
from which it detaches itself as art, and which it alludes.
Ideology slides into human existence, therefore the ideology in
great novels appears as the lived experience of individuals.
It helps us to distance ourselves from ideology and perceive it.
both art and science have the same objects of interest, but the
difference lies in the specific form in which they give us the
same object in quite different ways: art in the form of seeing,
perceiving and feeling; science in the form of knowledge.
Science makes us penetrate the mechanisms of ideology and
defines the means by which the effects nay be transformed.
Art makes us see conclusions without premises, whereas
knowledge makes us penetrate into the mechanism which
produces the conclusions out of the premises.
Althuser- All of these theorists (Wilson, Leavis, and Lukacs)
believed that the writers inside can convey knowledge, get
into the society. They have a kind of faith in the personal
vision of the author. Althuser does not have this faith. He
thinks that writer is not capable of transmitting knowledge. He
is just like other persons and we are all brain-washed by
ideology. We are all constructed, shaped by ideology. The
writer is limited by ideology. However, by reading literature,
we still manage to understand smth about society. But this is
not thanks to the conscious wisdom of the author. This is not
the merit of the author. Althuser calls it distantion- aesthetic
effect. Literature enables us, gives us some distance from
43

ideology. This happens because of aesthetic effect. According

to him, literature enables us to feel and see. It is, however,
only by the means of social science that we can understand
how a certain society functions. In other words, with the help
of literature we can feel and see, with the help of science we
get to know. Writer is one of us- the subject in ideology
whereas science tries to transcend ideology. He distinguishes
between an individual and a subject. Individual should be
natural, our given human nature. Whereas subject is our
identity constituted by ideology. We become subjects in
ideology through a process of hailing. In reality for the system
we are just functioning within it. We are a cog in a machine.
We do not perceive in this way. This is done by ISA- it can be
family, school, health service, education, law system, all the
institutions. And he says that they are also internalized,
operate within us. Most of us are good subjects. When a bad
subject appears, the society uses RSA- such as the army,
police, prison There are two meanings of the word subject:
1) free subjectivity-somebody who does not suffer an action,
he is the author of his action; 2) we can be subjected to
somebody. There is a master and we can be submitted.
Somebody who is submitted to a higher authority. The system
is called the subject. It becomes a sort of God. Ideology gives
us an inspiration that we are subjects in the 1st meaning but we
are subjects of the 2nd. The only thing we really do freely is
that we freely accept our subjectivity.
Althuser (2), Ideology and ISA (ideological state
apparatuses)
1) The process of hailing. A representative of institution is
calling a person in the street. We are trained to turn around.
44

The guilty person will recognize himself. We have the illusion

that we are unique, unchangeable individuals. Individual is
given by nature. Subject is an object without will,
subordinated to authority. The process happens without
succession. Its not temporal, it cant be observed in time.
According to him the only way out is scientific knowledge.
Only those who use it are capable of perceiving the
mechanism which makes us subjects.
2) We are subjected to the subject. ISA is constructed within
society. All these institutions make a system which makes an
individual function by the laws of society. There are bad and
good subjects. The good subjects freely accept their subjection
to the God authorities. All their practices are led by ISA. The
bad subjects refuse to believe according to normative rules.
RSI police, army. Ideology- interpolation the process which
gives you illusion of freedom, a wrong perception of yourself
in the society because of ideology. Two meanings of subject: a
doer, and author of his action and subjected being who
submits to higher authority. The only freedom is to accept
freely to subject. There is also the Subject- the system which
becomes a kind of deity- accepted without questions. Religion
can also be viewed as a kind of ideology. Amen so be it. I
have to use conscious will to make things appear like this.
A Letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre
Art vs. society. The difference is in form. Science can just give
a concept; tells us in the form of concepts what the ideology is
about. Solzhenitsyn- a Russian who talks about Stalinist era
and by reading his novel we get an impression what the cult of
personality of Stalin was like. However, he doesnt explain the
mechanism of this cult. Althuser says that we need a literary
45

criticism which would be scientific and would explain how it

is possible. Only science gives concepts of the mechanism
which creates ideology. It gives theoretical explanation of how
it is done to people. Science- the object in the form of
knowledge and art in the form of perceiving, seeing. Art
cannot give us a concrete suggestion how to change this
mechanism. It cannot give any remedy.
STRUCTURALISM
New Criticism started as a reaction against Positivism.
Positivism is a way of studying literature which Frye explains
as centrifugal. These critics pull you away from the work of
art. They will try to explain a work of art by referring to the
authors biography or historical conditions, philosophy, any
other social science. As opposed to this there is a
centripetal movement. They focus on the work of art. A
New Critic will perform a detailed analysis of a poem and he
will look for means and devices within the poem to discover
the poets worldview. The drawback of New Criticism is that it
completely rejects the context and concentrates only on the
words on the page. T. S. Eliot focuses on the inner structure of
the work but he also introduces a term of tradition. A poem is
partly explained by referring to other poems, but at the same
time the author has his meaning in relation to the mind of
Europe. The result of this was that critics tended to experience
works of art as many unrelated, isolated, discrete items which
have nothing in common- no feeling, no connectedness. For
Frye the work of art doesnt exist independently of other
works of art. Every work of art is unique, but they are all
conveying paths leading to a concealed centre. The works of
46

art form a kind of structure of interrelated elements, images,

symbols (the sea). Frye says that his aim is to contextualize
literature as a whole within the culture as a whole. He tries to
understand the phenomenon of literature within the culture.
N.Frye, R.Barthes, T.Hawkes
Structuralism is a vast concept. Basically, it is motivated by
the desire to discover the hidden, invisible, basic principle that
makes interrelativeness possible. Saussures idea is that reality
is created by language rather than reflected in language. False
polarization- exclusion of the context. Whatever surrounds the
poem is more important. They decontextualized poems.
According to Frye this is the false polarization. Literature has
the purpose very similar to a myth- the synchronization with
nature. The goal is to make us free from slavery. Desire for
freedom, to live in a created, not in a given world.
Structuralists idea is that man perceives the world in
opposites. The most important underlying rule is means of
ISO. These opposites for Frye desire and reality- are to be
resolved by the myth. Basic genres derive from myth. There
are two visions: comic and tragic. Comic vision is successful
transformation of reality into the creative world. One such
creative world was offered by Christianity. It was a
mythological universe- time obviously doesnt begin with the
fall of man, nor ends with the resurrection. It was closely
associated with love. The whole myth was a story which also
referred to a deeply psychological event. It was psychological;
a fiction about the fact of human psyche- then it got
institutionalized. It lost its initial power and turned into
dogma.
47

T. Hawkes- Introduction to Structuralism and Semiotics

Vico- New Science 1725- he is important because he was
the first proto-structural thinker. Man must start to understand
primitive myths before understanding civilization. Everybody
has Sapienza Poetica these are myths, not superstitious.
Every man originally is a maker, a poet. We live in a manmade world, not a given. Once we have structured the
universe through myth, this myth generizes the order, politics,
history, the world of human society. What happens is that
those institutions naturalize what man has made. Once having
structured the world, he believes that it is natural,
unchangeable. It makes man forget that it can be decreased.
The process of turning factum-made by man, verum- true,
genuine. They finally break this illusion but it is extremely
difficult. From the critical point there is an idea.
1) Primitive myths- smth childish. Primitive people possess
poetic wisdom. They look at world through metaphors to find
meaning. Hawkes tries to humanize nature, not to make it
natural, creates a meaningful whole- a projection of our
human experience upon the outer reality. It is the need to
humanize nature. It is not a decoration, but a way of coping
with reality. Man has a certain place within the universe.
2) Myths- modern man suffers from fragmentation of his
experience. Primitive man generalized experiences- their
attempt to show graspable shape. Vico- We perceive
structures of our own mind; we perceive culture as smth
natural, absolute reality. Things are only true if they are a part
of this system. We impose the shape of our own mind, and
then start perceiving it as natural. What the structures do to us
48

is a brain-washing process. Structures end up influencing us.

We are structured by the institutions. We must be aware that
these structures are man-made and therefore can be changed
by man.
Vico
Frye states that our tendency is to mix between the objective
world and the man-made world, to start perceiving man-made
world as sth natural, unchanging.
In 1725, Vico wrote The New Science. He proposed that the
New Science was the basis of social science. He came up with
some ideas which were very similar to Fryes. The principle
we can observe in observing culture is the principle of Verum
Factum- istinita cinjenica. It means that within a certain
structure such as social institutions, for example, things get
their meaning and start being perceived as sth which is true,
natural, objective, eternal, unalterable. We can also call it the
transfer of culture into nature. Just as we know that we cannot
change the stars, the moon, we start perceiving social
structures as sth that cannot be changed, whereas we should be
aware that any human culture is a man-made shape which is
imposed upon the world. Vico came to this conclusion by
studying primitive (archaic) people/ society. Usually we
perceive these primitive societies as incapable of
understanding reality; we consider them inferior to us,
whereas Vico points out that this is wrong. He says that
primitive man possesses poetic wisdom- sapienza poetica.
; he has a metaphorical mind. Therefore, myth is not a
description of objective reality, it is a way of coping with
reality. By creating a myth, primitive man imposes a
humanizing shape upon reality. At the same time he provides
49

life with metaphysical truth. This same process, as Vico

claims, has also produced human cultures. Furthermore, Vico
claims that there is no direct knowledge of reality. This is what
man always does, he always imposes the shape of his mind
upon the world, and then gets to know the world only through
these categories. Vico also points out that this is a two-wayprocess. Not only do we create structures such as religious,
social institutions, the whole culture, but they in turn also
create us. Althuser: we only think we are acting on our own;
we are being structured as well. Structures of any society
condition us, they determine our understanding of reality. It
could be said they are acting as brainwashing mechanisms
because they present themselves as sth given and natural.
Social structures are man-made and therefore liable to change.
Frye- The Critical Path
Every myth begins as a myth of freedom, revolutionary.
Christianity focuses on the individual but later it turns into the
myth of social concern- produced into dogma by the
institutions. The power was projected only on God, then on the
priests and the rest of the people simply must accept.
Resurrection was turned into a historical event. The dogma
turned into revolutionary myth into repressive, reactionary.
Science emerges as a myth of freedom from the church which
forbids man to love and to think. Science makes man free to
explore and love. From this myth of freedom it turns into a
prison. This time, it is projected on ISA-which subjects us to a
new god. In this world neither the lover, nor the creative
person can feel at home. We can be only consumers. Realism
50

ends in irony. We see no more hero as a superior, we look

down on him.
Just as we need myth to give us a feeling that we have a whole
in this world, we need some place where we belong. There is
always central myth that governs the basic structure. That is
what Frye calls the Myth of concern. Christianity was a myth
of concern. It underlines the society as a whole. Then, there is
a development, this feeling that you begin to experience it as
confinement, smth does not allow you to develop your
potentials. All these man-made structures start acting as a sort
of prohibition, brain-washing mechanism. This is when the
myth of concern turns into prison. Then, there was need for a
new myth which Frye calls the myth of freedom. This is like a
process which is always going on. The origin of Christianitythe myth of freedom. Then, it turned into the myth of concern.
It limits mans freedom. The only way you can achieve it is
the way prescribed by the church. So, it is no longer freedom.
It becomes a prison. It confines personal freedom, prohibits
bodily love and free use of reason. Then, science appears as a
rebellion for the sake of reason.
N.Frye- Archetypes of Literature
1) Man notices regularities in nature and tries to explain
himself in connection to the phenomena in nature that is
cyclic. He tries to understand his life in the context of natural
phenomena. Ritual Is conscious- it is a sort of voluntarily
effort. Man tries to synchronize the rhythms of his life with the
rhythm of nature. Oracle-epiphanic moments. Although man
feels separated from nature there are moments of deep
51

intuitive insight in nature. Riddles, proverbs- close to original

epiphanic moments.
2) There is a pattern of meaning. The primitive people find it
in solar cycle human life and the cycle of the year. The central
narrative is constructed around figure- a man, the sun, god and
partly vegetative fertility- out of these elements a primitive
man constructs a story which gives meaning to his life and
nature, because everything is connected in a pattern of
meaning. The birth of Jesus- the ritual of Christianity. At the
same time this can be a phase of resurrection which is
connected to Easter. Spring- the rebirth of nature and Christ.
Zenith, summer, marriage- the marriage of Jesus to the
heavenly city Jerusalem.
3) The idea of the quest and art is as dream for awakened manrare moments of epiphany in life. The human being dreams
about triumph over nature, no longer to be subjected to
biological conditioning. What is opposed to this dream is outer
circumstances, the mingling of the sun and the hero. Art is the
means by which we should conquer this subjectivity. It gives
us the goal. Our heroic self awakens in dreams. In the day
light we realize we are weak and helpless. This is antithesis.
Art gives us the vision of what the world would be like if we
completed the dream. The comic vision- when our desires are
fulfilled. We are in that rotary cycles of nature. Here, there is a
vision of a way to liberate ourselves from the rotary cycles.
Tragic vision- we stay bound to natural cycles. The cycles are
ordained- the cycle itself becomes smth as saint. Myth of
eternal return.

52

p. 432 There is no way to pull yourself from tyrannical

society. Tragic vision- which is in Macbeth. Comic vision- the
animal world. Blake- unfallen world.
The Archetypes of Literature(2)
Art is the subject of scientific study, its not the scientific
study itself but there is no reason why literary criticism should
not be a science. Sentimental judgments, values- judgments
should be excluded from criticism because they are not based
on any literary experience. Criticism should help to build up a
systematic structure of knowledge. What counts in literary
criticism is not the impact of literature on the reader or the
structure analysis of a work of art, but a coordinating
principle, a central hypothesis which will see the phenomena it
deals with as a part of whole. He bases his criticism on the
assumption of total coherence. Therefore, the poets task is to
deliver the poem in as uninjured a state as possible and the
poem screams to be cut loose from the poets private
memories and associations (as Eliot, Jung). Every poet has his
own private mythology, his own specific way of formulating
of symbols, images, but many of the poets use so many of the
same images (these it is bound to expand over many poets into
an archetypal symbols of literature). The organizing principle
of literature is recurrence (archetype) which can be rhythm
(temporal) or pattern (special). The rhythm of literature may
be called narrative and the pattern the meaning or
significance. Rhythm or recurrent movement is deeply
founded on the natural cycles. The man tried to understand his
life in the context of natural phenomena. In human life a
ritual seems to be a voluntary effort to recapture a lost rapport
(veza) with the natural cycle, a will to synchronize human and
53

natural energies. In ritual may be found the origin of narrative.

Fragments of significance are oracles in origin and derive
from the epiphanic moment. Although man feels separated
from nature, there are moments of deep intuitive insights in
nature. Expressions close to the original epiphanic moments
are proverbs, riddles, commandments. The myth is the central
informing power that gives archetypal significance to the
ritual and the archetypal narrative to the oracle. There is the
pattern of meaning of human life in the solar cycle of the day,
the seasonal cycle of the year, and the organic cycle of human
life out of which myth constructs a central narrative around a
figure who is partly the sun, partly vegetative fertility and
partly a god or archetypal human being. The phases are: 1. the
dawn, spring and birth phase- myth of birth and the hero of
revival resurrection, of creation; 2. the zenith, summer and
marriage phase- myth of apotheosis, of the sacred marriage
and of entering into paradise;
3. the sunset, autumn and death phase- myth of fall, of the
dying god and of isolation of the hero; 4. the darkness, winter
and dissolution phase- myths of the triumph of these powers,
myths of floods and the return of chaos, of the defeat of the
hero.
The central myth of literature is the quest-myth which
originates in the dream. The human cycle of waking and
dreaming corresponds closely to the cycle of light and
darkness. The correspondence is an antithesis: it is in daylight
that man is really in the power of darkness, a pray to
frustration and weakness; it is in the darkness of nature that
the libido or conquering heroic self awakens. Hence, art,
which Plato called a dream of awakened minds, seems to have
54

as its primal cause the resolution of the antithesis, the realizing

of a world in which the inner desire and the outward
circumstances coincide.
The myth can have a happy or unhappy ending. Happy ending
for Frye is when you pull away from the rotary cycle of
nature. Christianity is a comic myth because it promises
eternal life and Jesus, the hero of the myth, has an apotheosis
(the highest or most perfect development of sth). The comic
mode of the myth- a triumph of desire. If the hero fails in his
quest, the myth is tragic and we have the triumph of realitythe pagan myths. Comic vision of human life- rotary cycle of
nature which bounds human life. There is a vision of a way to
liberate ourselves. Tragic vision of human life- we stay bound
by natural cycles; the quest is seen in the form of its ordained
cycle.
Expanding Eye
Unlike Lukacs, Frye believes that literature moves in cycles
which means that now we have arrived in this ironic period,
we outline a new myth. It wont be a return to God- on the
contrary we should transform Christian myth into creative
imagination. Blake did what creative man could do, recreate
the power of creativity. He simply reminds us that all God
resides in the human breast. The whole Christian myth was
created by man. For him, incarnation when Jesus appears in
the form of man is not a historical sequence. That is why
Blake is so tremendously important and the comic vision as
well. Blake with his prophesies reads as if literature was a
mandala- our responses are not interrelated. We are dispersed.
If you read meditatively there is a tremendous burst of energy.
55

1) Imaginative birthright. He speaks of two kinds of the

world- objective and mythological world. Even the classicalNorse and Celtic mythologies were suppressed. Man believes
in two worlds. We tend to see the desired, constructed world as
an objective. There is a problem of space and time. In the early
days of mythology there was tendency to mix up both worlds.
Blake realized that myths were going to disappear because of
the rise of the science. The mythological construction was not
longer valid as an explanation of a real, objective world. But,
he wants to preserve it through imagination. Blake tried to use
it for our myth of imagination. We simply follow the
institutions we have created. In order to create it again you
have to forget about God and use our imagination.
2) Blake created that mythological world: God the world of
innocence, the world of experience-demonic and chaotic
worlds. Descending moment from God to demonic world- the
fallen man, experienced man. In the fallen state, man is
subjected to the external authority, he is not free. He has fallen
into the state of subjection. He is repressed by external
authority. What characterizes the world is hierarchy, authority,
subordination. God is incarnated in Jesus, and then moves to
the 3rd level. Man can recover from his fallen state.
Christianity- we have power and authority. As opposed to this
we have Jesus. The point of his sacrifice is love. The principle
of love opposed to the principle of power. Blake used the
myth. He saw it as the center of everlasting gospel. State is
repressive. Community positive. We have to move from state
to community- the idea of using imagination.
3) Frye defines art as a means of meditation. It helps us
meditate and think. Art is not smth passively accepted. We
56

have to think about it and understand it. By doing that we

order our cosmos. Art is not an item- it is Mondale. We should
not admire it, but initiate a mental process. It is not a concept,
it is a symbol. It can mean different things and we are invited
to interpret it. Ransoms idea- we have one concept, one
impulse- human tendency to translate everything into
simplified abstract concepts. Art, instead of giving us
concepts, gives metaphor.
4) Poets consist of both unconscious and conscious parts. It
reveals smth more about ourselves. He sees the relationship
between himself and the outer world. Some unconscious parts
enrich our vision of reality. Then we have expanding eyes. We
have the inside in the conscious. The second paragraph- Frye
talks about an anecdote- a Nazi commander- a great lover of
music. Someone who loves music should be creative, and not
a murderer. Art- in modern world there is just a luxury; it
doesnt have any effect on us. It gives pleasure, delight but
cannot transform us. He tells us to reconsider the culture of
Eskimos who have poetry as a basis of life.
Expanding eye(2)
In this essay Frye talks about Christianity and a way Blake has
attempted to recover this myth for human imagination. Blake
is a biblical poet but his interest in the Bible was primarily
critical one. He realized that the Bible had provided a
mythological structure which had expanded into the
mythological universe. Man lives in two worlds: 1. the world
of nature which forms his external environment, and 2. the
constructed world of civilization and culture which he has
made himself. The mythological universe (the one given by
the Bible) is a model of the later world. It is the world built
57

into the image of human desires and anxiety. People forgot

that they invented the power structures. They started
perceiving the universe as objective and given. For Blake this
universe was an imaginative construct only and had no
scientific validity, and it was a conservative and an
authoritarian construct. He tried to reconstruct it and see it as
of human rather than as of divine origin (given, natural). He
wanted to recover the mythological universe for the human
imagination and stop projecting it on God or any other
external order. The main challenge to the older construct came
from the separating of scientific space from mythological
space. What was up in the sky as Blake called it, the ghost of
priest and king, what was underneath- the ghost of exploited
humanity. Mythological space, as Blake encountered it,
consisted of 4 main levels: 1. Gods model of a perfect world,
2. the original home for man that God intended is the
unfallen world (Blakes world of innocence), 3. the world of
experience (our world), 4. demonic and chaotic world. The
first two levels are pervaded by order, harmony, concord, love,
peace. On our third level these turn into authority, hierarchy,
subordination where God is the supreme ruler that continue to
operate through the structures of church and state. This is
descending movement, man is not free. The rise of Darwinism
brought about the crisis of mythological time. It tells us that
the world was not build in 7 days, there was a gradual
evolution of human beings and the old creation- the
apocalypse view was reduced to a construct. Its only the
universe of human imagination that can begin or end. People
became aware that there is a difference between this
mythological universe, man-made world and the objective
58

world. There is another crisis of mythological universe- there

is a difference between our ordinary, wakening consciousness,
awareness of external reality on the one hand and on the other
the creating and transforming aspects of the mind. These
creative aspects of the mind are important because they offer
us new perspectives. Blake was aware that the mythological
universe cannot be identified with objective reality but he used
the myth of resurrection to symbolize human, individual
freedom. So, the resurrection means no longer the resurrection
of Jesus, it is the resurrection of human imagination. The arts
which tell us how the human imagination operates are thus a
source of mental energy, means of achieving social and
individual freedom.
Frye observes two movements in history: 2. the descending
movement symbolized by Adonis, and 2. the ascending
movement symbolized by Prometheus and Eros. Prometheussocial freedom and Eros- individual freedom. Christianity and
Marxism are Promethean myths. In Christian myth, the rising
movement hinges upon the resurrection which is not renewal
or rebirth but a movement upward into a different world. The
great religions as they attained social power, they tended to the
opposite extreme of mistrusting any kind of liberation that
their institutions could not control. Anxiety about authority
finds it very hard to come to terms with Eros. Eros symbolizes
the forces of nature which cannot be controlled (sexual love,
even the physical body). The descending order is the order of
tragedy and tragic irony, the story of the fallen greatness and
the subordinating of human desire and ambition to the power
of gods. The ascending order is the order of comedy, its
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Blakes conception of the socially emancipating role of the

arts.
Frye mentions Jung as a cultural theorist. At the centre of his
vision of life is a progress from the ego, ordinary life with
its haphazard and involuntary perceptions of time and space,
to the individual who works with far more coordinated and
schematic modes of perception. Jung- the symbol of the
individual perception is mandala. The art manages to bring
to the forth some contents from the unconscious and they
enrich our understanding of reality. Arts are possible
techniques of meditation, ways of cultivating focusing and
ordering ones mental processes, on a basis on symbol rather
than concept. Blake saw works of art not as icons but as
mandalas- things to contemplate. Jung, as a psychologist,
was interested in the recurring characters and images that turn
up on the way to individuation. In the book he treats the
great work of the alchemists as an allegory of selftransformation, a process of bringing an immortal body (the
stone) to birth within the ordinary one (the materia prima).
Social function of art- the respond to the arts should be such
that we can no longer separate the response from our social
context and personal commitments.
R.Barthes-Myth Today- Myth is Depoliticized Speech
He appears as a great humanist who believes in the possibility
of the creative imagination and individuality. Myths in which
French bourgeois manifests itself in every day life. He focuses
his attention on the past when it becomes a revolutionary
myth- a kind of myth which depoliticized reality. It is a speech
which maintains that oblivion by celebrating things- the status
60

quo- to prevent any change by presenting things as they are

not made by man- but by historical processes. What you see in
those instances of bourgeois myths is a change of what was
historical into smth internal, what was created into smth given,
what is anti-physis into pseudo-physis. Whatever you see in
this historical world is for them natural.
Myths(2)
Myths are in the modern world used by certain societies which
do not want to be changed. We erase the history we do not
want to know and things become given and natural. That is the
history of colonization- smth completely natural. Here we
have a myth in the context of French bourgeois society. Things
lose the meaning of what they were once made. We are
deprived of history. Myths make us accept the rules of the
society as smth given unalterable. We feel insignificant
because we cannot do anything about it. We are helpless. We
know facts, but forget history. We dont know how it
happened. Such myths simply state the facts- no explanation
what was the policy behind the American occupation of Iraq.
Just stated facts, smth natural that goes without saying.
Toys
He wrote Toys which tells us how weapons are inevitable.
Less and less will you find simple modern dices which child
use to create this world. There are no more of them, but plastic
things which can be damaged, so you realize that things are to
be damaged and you can always buy new. These toys are
really like the small copies which reproduce the world of
grown-ups. Exoticism- they are too remote of Europe, on the
margin of human. They are exotic. It is not relevant, available
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possibility to learn smth. Exoticism prevents true

familiarization with other cultures (the lost continent).
The idea is the same. That social reality is fixed and we are
helpless about it. Toys represent detailed copies of realityrepeat structures of grown-ups. Smaller versions of the object
which grown-ups use. They prepare them thinking that
structures have always existed there. They were given by
nature. We accepted war as smth normal- there will always be
guns and wars.
Barthes (2)
Myth Today Barthes works focus on the phase when the
myth of concern becomes a prison. Again the same idea- the
structures of the French society which he describes act as
brainwashing mechanisms. They tend to present themselves as
sth that cannot be changed. Their purpose is to celebrate and
preserve status quo. He gives an example of a photograph
which appeared in a newspaper. There was a French soldier
saluting French flag. The point is that this soldier is black.
Barthes says that this photograph functions in our minds like a
myth. It changes anti-physis into pseudo physis. Physis- sth
natural, a part of nature. That picture is not natural because he
is black. Myth makes us perceive it as sth natural. By
accepting this photo we accept colonialism as sth normal. If
this photo is perceived as a sign, then this is a sign out of
which history and meaning have been emptied. This photo as a
certain historical background is a story of conquest, of sth
wrong, but you dont see it in that way- the history has been
erased from the photo. You are simply presented with the fact
of colonialism. Bourgeois presents whatever is created as
natural, condition humaine (Lukacs), no historical sense.
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Bourgeois myth serves to immobilize the world, to prevent

any change by the denial, evaporation of history- the denial
of difference done by depoliticized speech. (Political in its
deeper meaning is describing the whole of human relations in
their real, social structure, in their power of making the world;
de- here it represents an operational movement, it
permanently embodies a defaulting.) It prevents man from
inventing himself. So, if the reality is given, eternal, if it
cannot be changed, then an individual feels helpless and
insignificant. Barthes gives us some examples of this
restrictive sense of reality. He talks about Petit-bourgeois
which cannot imagine anything different- any different
identity from his own, because every different identity would
invite comparison and then it would see what is lacking. This
is why it explains all the other identities by translating them
into its own terms. Negro- some identities can be excluded or
changed, turned into a spectacle (Negro is either inhuman or a
clown). Madmen are sent away into asylums, they are
confined. All these identities would be a threat to the structure
in which the French petit-bourgeois lives. This can be
compared to verum factum- only what is inside the structure
is true, what is outside doesnt exist. Bourgeois myth is a
constant transformation of culture into nature. The
transformation involves the denial of the other (women,
other histories, races, nations). It is by that denial that
oppressive societies maintain their power. When the other
appears in the form of another nation, annihilation can be done
in two ways: 1. identification- a black man is reduced to any
other French man. He is robbed of both his language and
history, deprived of his authenticity, taken away from
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whatever makes his blackness and refilled with new concepts.

2. exotism- when sth is too remote to be assimilated in this
way (by identification), it may pose a threat. It is in the end
seen with the same essence as ours, so it cannot be used for
judging, condemning.
Toys In order to avoid comparison and fit the child into the
structure, the grown-ups perceive a child as a small man. This
becomes evident when we study the kind of toys which are
given to children. These toys are like small copies which
reproduce the world of grown-ups. A child plays with
miniature cars, planes, soldiersAll of the structures of the
grown-ups are imposed on him. In this way the child accepts
all the products of the world he lives in. he becomes a
consumer of such a reality. Also, the child gets an impression
that this reality cannot be changed and that it has always
existed. Such toys turn the child into small owner or a user- a
small car, a small computer. You are reproducing the ideology
of owning, the ideology of capitalist world.
POST-STRUCTURALISM
Structuralism and anthropology- not man as a historical being,
but related to nature. N. Frye was displeased with the study
which was I-centered. Expanding eye- there is an archetype
degraded in modern time. He did it in anthropology- itemcentered- no more than a collection separately existing without
bothering to discover the underline. He applies the linguistic
model according to which each utterance is the system of
binary opposition- minimal structure which makes meaning.
Not a single myth, but its relation to a very many other myths.
Barthes also studies the contemporary bourgeois myth- to
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bind all people in cohesive social structure. The thing that he

cannot forgive is that bourgeois man identifies ill humanity
with himself. Man for him is a middle-class, male, European.
Everything else is exotic, marginal.
C. Levi Strauss -Myth and Incest
Strauss started from basic binary opposites: culture vs. nature
(like Frye) and he used this opposition to investigate the way
in which the primitive mind structures its reality by using
binary oppositions. Modern logical mind also uses this
opposition but there is a crucial difference. The primitive man
perceives binary opposition within nature so he doesnt choose
one option over the other but establishes one analogy between
the pairs of opposites in human world and the pairs of
opposites in nature, thus reconciling them. He criticizes the
civilized mind (logical) and praises the savage mind
(analogical thinking). Civilized mind wants to destroy all who
havent severed their ties with nature. His myths are
meditation between these two oppositions (culture and nature)
by which primitive man is prevented from choosing one over
the other, to be destructive towards nature. He has more
completed world than the logical mind. For him literary
criticism is a humanistic discipline. Whatever is the
underlying structure, man can change it. He is extremely
scientific. He is an anthropologist and humanist. All his
science leads to the discovery of how this culture can be
judged, condemned, resisted and reversed (like Trilling).
He investigates the myth of North-American Indians. These
myths where incest happens are myths in which human society
is made to reflect natural world and in which the connection
with nature is preserved. Beside the motive of an incest, the
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motive of a riddle also appears. A riddle- a question which one

postulates that there is no answer is successfully solved. The
solution of the puzzle brings together things meant to be
separated: culture and nature. These two motives- incest and a
riddle- are accompanied by the motive of some natural
disaster- a plague and an eternal summer, which ends in
corruption- unleashing of natural forces. There are also myths
of reversed situation- Grail myth, an answer for which there is
no question, absence of speech which is associated with sexual
abstinence, chastity (draught and winter is the failure of the
crops, therefore it leads to the bareness of land, sterility).
According to Levi-Strauss, these two myths reflect the
capacity of the primitive man to learn from nature. The
primitive mind modeled in response according to what
happens in nature. There is in nature always a middle way (in
nature there is no eternal summer nor eternal winter). The
middle way is the exchange of women among the tribes and
the exchange of the words in a frank communication whose
purpose is understanding among people. So, primitive man
managed to establish his life to coincide with natures cycles.
They continued to live in the garden- didnt turn their backs on
nature. Nature and culture, though separated, should reflect
each other. But logical mind (modern man) responds to this
binary opposition by choosing one of its poles and expelling
the other. Our culture resolves all opposites by denial- never
able to think analogically. Yet, the purpose of the scientific
method is humanistic: the comparison between two kinds of
mind and a possibility of choice. Levi-Strauss represents the
trend in French criticism which has not forgotten Vicos man
is a maker- he can change his culture. For Levi-Strauss
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primitive societies were exemplary ones because they didnt

deny opposites but married them. They were creative. Frye,
Barthes and Levi-Strauss never lost sight of the way in which
culture could be criticized, reconstructed by means of
comparison; they compared, chose, made ethical judgments
(therefore, they are humanists).
C. Levi-Strauss deals with myth, the beginning of
anthropology- to see how myth functions. The savage mind,
etc.-all these books are algebraic- all his investigations of the
primitive myths are justified, attributed to the power of this
primitive mind- to resolve oppositions. The difference is that a
primitive myth resolves it without forcing any of the two items
that make up a binary opposition- how to resolve the
opposition? Strauss applies Saussures linguistics. He praises
primitive myth for being able to resolve it without suppressing
any item. Avery primitive example is analogy between night
and day, sleeping and waiting. Primitive mind perceives
oppositions and relates them to the natural world. TotemismStrauss relates a particular totem to another totem. There is a
similarity between differences. That is called analogical
thinking. Culture and nature are mirroring each other.
Myth and Incest- He wants to say that he cannot understand
any myth and motif in isolation. That connection is master
myth. The motif of incest- he perceives the pre-similarity in
the myth of Oedipus and north Indians is not taboo. The
violation of incest is related to the other myth- the solution of
the puzzle. In NA Indian myth there is no overt description of
that. These two elements, then the 3rd element refers to the
play- smth goes wrong- decay of the solution of the puzzle.
There are myths such as a Grail myth- there is an answer
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without a question- here a question should be asked. In this

myth, there is a failure of speech- the abstinence, the man will
not speak. It is related to sexual abstinence. This is related to
the sexual failure. The 3rd element- winter-the failure of grass/
crops. Incest is related to the question without an answer.
What happens here, he says, primitive mind- man master;
mind perceives two kinds of possibilities seductive to
imagination: excessive sexuality to the point of incest
(promiscuity), complete with arrogant use of words. The grail
myth- sexual abstinence, chastity, not having it at all. This
opposition, seductive to the imagination is then seen to relate
in the same way within nature: in summer- to the point of
decay, internal winter to the point of sterility. What does the
primitive man do? Primitive man, instead of choosing other,
lets himself be taught by nature- seasons succeed each other- a
midway solution- the exchange of women between tribes
which are not related, and the exchange of words without
cunning. This is the meaning of the incest taboo- only in
human order. By placing it on the man, primitive myth ensures
that man becomes a social being. NC (natural cycles) are made
to reflect each other- prevents man from estrangement.
Unfortunately Strauss says this analogical thinking
disappeared. One of the two items is marginalized- we
privilege culture, demonize the other item. The primitive
culture is a model- man teaches himself to turn back. His
investigation was permeated by the sense of nostalgia and a
sense of guilt. He still believes in the Garden of Eden. Straussnot impotent nostalgia.
J. Derrida
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Derrida- the kind of critic whose target is this kind of

banishing one of the items. He is a great critic of a Western
philosophy. This process- expelling- is called violent
hierarchization. It is the way in which western man provides
his secret meaning: sanity, mind He was so much against it,
so he deconstructed all those secret truths. He undoes all these
oppositions. These signs, sacred truths, god idea, spirit, man
are, he says, logos- a kind of principle of the foundation of
various systems. We desire this logos- a founding principle.
Why? Western man is insecure and his greatest desire is
certainty. He wants to believe that there are absolute logos
from which all lgs. proceeds and can be measured outside of
lg. The desire for the logos- something cannot be painted by
the play of lg.- present in the mind without the mediation of
lg. ( ne saznajemo kroz jezik). Metaphysics- logocentric.
These traditions are logocentric and it is also the metaphysic
of present- to establish logos as sth present, beyond lg.
Derrida- such unmediated presence is possible- to show that
nothing is fully present, but also absent. Oppositions are
invalid, not existent. The best way to understand is to see what
he does with Saussures sign, lg. how to deconstruct
structures. For Saussure the meaning of the sign is the
difference between one signifier and another. According to
Saussure, signifier is that and not some other. Derrida is back,
because there are not very many other possibilities. Anyone
who looks up in the dictionary looks for the signifier, but ht
explanation is also not familiar to you- not a stable meaning.
Presence/absence Derrida says nothing is fully present or
absent. We must be aware of all the absent possibilities. The
meaning of the world is the meaning of the presence of the
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abstract. This presence of the abstract is alternative- traitsspecial category- operates on a temporal level. The process is
endless. Another interpretation- lg.- a never ending
chain(znacenje i presijavanje)- creating the illusion of
meaning. The real meaning never arises. The meaning is never
present, nor completely absent. Deconstruction can be used
creatively. It can deconstruct people like Hitler. It is good to
doubt about absolute truth. For Derrida this is not the case. He
simply believes that all thinkers cannot say what they mean,
and cannot mean what they say. Lg. is totally unstable, no way
for us ever to know any kind of truth about the world, about
ourselves. This radicalism turns against his method. It turns
out that everything has been the same. Any lg. no need to
compare, judge and choose. This method turned against those
who were critics of western culture- unselectively
deconstructed people who criticized it. Nobody, Rousseau
included, can say anything with any certainty- to disqualify
any attempt to look back upon past traditions and to connect it
to our culture. Every lg. is like that- binary opposition
resolved by violent deconstruction is necessity. Everything has
always been the same. Derrida- phone-centric- speech is more
authentic, immediately present- not, so he says. Writing
proceeds speech- structuralizing the exclusion of certain thing
in order the meaning can be identified. In that sense, speech is
no longer primary. Illusion that speech connected those people
to nature. All lgs. equally estrange us. Derrida makes ethical
thinking impossible. Judgments cannot be made because
everything has been the same. Choice is out of place. He
deprives man of choice. The only ethics that he does
appreciate is free play- the multiplicity of interpretations none
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of which is better. The free play of words without origin,

beginning and end, truth, repenting.
Structure, sign and play in the discourse of human
sciences
Derrida begins with deconstructing structures (De Sausserian
sign). For Saussure lg. is separated from reality, but signs can
produce stable meanings. For Derrida, lg. is much less stable
and meaningful. Every signified can be transformed into
signifier and vise verse and the process goes on infinitely. He
undermines the idea that the meaning of the signifier is
determined by the minimal difference between it and other
signifier. What determines the other signifier is
absence/presence. It is not an absolute binary opposition. He
introduces a concept of trace: special and temporal level.
There is a network of difference excluded in order that
meaning of the world be constituted. We must keep in mind
other meaning so that the presence refers to the absence of
other alternatives. There is a trace in a word of all other
alternatives. Temporal level- on witch trace words that
preceded the word and that can come in future- that would
modify the meaning of the preceding words. The meaning is
never full, complete, never arrives, there is never a point at
which the dance of signifier stops. It is a flickering which
never comes, is never completed; the process is endless; there
is no beginning and end. Derrida says writing is primary,
speech secondary. Language cannot render any meaning,
language is incapable of speaking. The death of the authorBarthes- critics business is not to interpret meaning, the text I
the surface. We can show how the surface is made up and
indeterminate. Because of inability to choose interpretation,
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the reader is not an individual, but a site place in which

various discourses intersect. Derrida wants to reduce the
works of art to the surface without sense. The point of this
idea- play is to cut man off of his ethical consciousness, to
reduce man to one dimension, eliminate ethical dimension
which would transcend culture. The essay by Derrida- colossal
sameness- no way of going back to nature, no origin, no goal.
He wants to cut us off from the cultural inheritance. He claims
we cannot find the truth. Language tends to destroy the centre
we have in ourselves and this makes us unable to resist our
own culture.
Structure, sign and play in the discourse of human
sciences(2)
In this essay Derrida denies the existence of any fixed point of
reference, meaning, which can be looked upon as directing the
process of signification. The structure, although it has always
been at work expanding infinitely, has always been reduced or
neutralized by a process of giving it a centre. The function of
this centre was not only to organize the structure but to limit
what Derrida calls freeplay of structure, that is to fix the
meaning. According to Derrida, the centre is not the centre. It
has to occupy two places: 1. within the structure, governing it;
and 2. outside the structure, the centre of the totality (Derrida
denies it). It is not possible to conceive of a centre which is
not itself subjected to a process of signification. Derrida is
concerned with the concept of the centered structure. What
structuralists try to ignore about this concept is the fact that
structure implies structurality not the centre. This is the
reduction of the structurality of the structure. Desire- man
always desires some fixed ground which is source of certainty.
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Anxiety- has to do with the recognition that there is no fixed

meaning. For post-structuralists, sign is no longer a fixed,
stable entity because there are no fixed boundaries between
signified and signifier anymore- freeplay. Derrida is a critic
of the metaphysics of presence: there never was a time in
history when nature and reality were immediate, present to
man. He criticizes those critics who sought for a model of
culture that would not severe nature from culture (as is the
case with primitive tribes). This original innocence is a
delusion, mans destiny is forever to be separated from the
natural world; man totally belongs to culture. No immediate
response to nature as Levi-Strauss believed to be.
PSYCHOANALYSIS
S. Freud
Christianity and Science are a rebellion for the sake of reason.
They represent the mastery of logos- a head control. In
Christianity, nature was demonized, presented as dark and
dangerous. For the age of Enlightenment there wasnt
anything dark in man. The outer nature is sth you can observe,
control, utilize. The qualities praised in a human being were:
consciousness, rationality, analytical mind. The ideal of the
age of science is a fully functioning adult conscious male
mind. Freud was the first of modern scientists who questioned
and undermined the ideal. He says it is an illusion that we are
fully conscious and rational (1:6- the relation of conscious and
unconscious). That we consciously know about ourselves is
just a very small part, a tip of an iceberg. the way that Freud
explains the constitution of the human psyche is that there are
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3 main parts: super-ego which represent a set of social

demands. It is an ideal of how man should behave and what he
should be like. There is ego which is really a mediator
between the demands of super-ego and the demands of the
dark, unconscious part of our psyche, id- repressed; guilt,
desires.
Freud- Creative writers and day-dreaming He says that
we all have daydreams- we are prone to imagining things. The
fact that we like to daydream shows that we feel
dissatisfaction with the culture. In our daydreams we make
short escapes from reality. A healthy person is capable of
coming back from these excursions but the one who doesnt
manage to come back is neurotic. The works of art, literature,
are similar to daydreams in their function. The artists also
make these excursions into the world of fantasy, so we can
talk about the work of art as a confession of discontent with
the culture. Most of us would be ashamed of talking about
daydreams to others. Most will be embarrassed to tell others
about daydreams whereas the artists use their talents and
various esthetic devices (style, form, rhyme) to make their
daydreams plausible (prihvatljivim). In this way when we read
a work of art/literature we are also more capable of accepting
our own daydreams so we can enjoy daydream without a sense
of shame or embarrassment. And we come back to reality with
the sense of refreshment. The basic element of daydream is
one that relates us to the period of early childhood or prenatal
period. This is the principal cause for it. So we long for this
period of perfect and complete happiness and bliss. The infant
in the mothers womb feels complete unity with the mothers
body. At certain moment of childhood, the child becomes
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aware of the figure of the father. The figure of the father

makes the child aware that it has to abandon its incestual love
for the mothers body so it realizes it cant be its mothers
lover. This for Freud is the origin of the whole culture/ social
structure. The whole society is based on this demand to
repress incestual desire and to be separated from the mothers
body. Throughout the life man has to learn redirect erotic
desire towards sb. else. So we have to substitute the desire for
the mothers body with some socially acceptable desire.
However, according to Freud, this substitute never satisfies us
completely. Throughout the life we just shift from one object
of desire to another- never recover this original bliss. Derridawe move from one signifier to another and never feel the
completeness.
Its important to point out the difference between Freud and
Frye. They both make parallels between dreams and literature.
However, in Fryes theory desire is sth socially acceptable. It
shows us how society should evolve, move forward. Desire
shows a possible course of action. In works of art or in our
dreams we can become aware of some plans to change reality.
For Freud no change is possible. We live in the only possible
reality and the greatest desire is to go back to mother. The
reality is inescapable and unalterable. We can only make a
short excursion into fantasy or literature but then we have to
come back to reality and accept it as it is. This made Freud
reach the conclusion that the other main instincts/urges in life
are 1.Thanatos and 2.Eros. Our Eros moves from one object of
desire to another and we are never satisfied, never recover the
original bliss so we finally long for death- to return to the
inorganic. Trilling- Freud discovered the darkness but never
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indorsed him. Freuds motto was where id was there shall

ego be. He wanted to liberate man from these unconscious,
dark urges. Ego, although it is just a small part, a weak
mediator should become a master. Trilling criticized Freud
because he thought in those rigid polarities: dream- reality, idego, mother- father, unconscious- conscious. Freud thought
its necessary to choose one of those polarities so he opted for:
reality, ego, father, consciousness.
Jung-Psychology and literature According to Jung,
Freuds polarization: id/ego, desire/reality, mother/father
(these terms) form a totality and to choose between polarities
is wrong. The goal of human life is not to suppress or abolish
this dark side, the unconscious side, but to integrate it. the goal
of human life is individuation: a process of personal growth.
It is a matter of finding a link and reestablishing the link that
connects us to nature, world and biological impulses of our
body. Jung was Freuds follower but their teachings diverged.
What was for Freud the desire for mothers body, for Jung it
was symbolical desire for values that mother represents. This
desire for Jung is a symbolical desire to recover actually this
portion of reality (dream, id, mother, unconscious). For Jung
sex act in the dream is a psychological wedding. Jung also
talked about these functions within our psyche. (sensation,
thinking, intuition). Our culture is based on sensation and
rational thinking- intuition and feeling are neglected in our
culture. Intuition gives us a different kind of knowledge;
rational thinking also means that we are separated from the
object of our rational knowledge. Intuition is a kind of
knowledge when you try to become one with the object of
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knowledge. Its a kind of mystical knowledge. Collective

unconscious his understanding of literature. (What we know
about ourselves is just a small pick of a cone. Then it follows
personal unconscious, the one that we have suppressed during
our lives, the one that is unacceptable for the society or is
forgotten. The next is the collective unconscious- we can link
with each other. The greatest part is collective unconscious
which can never be conscious.). Schema XI- heredity
structure of psyche- heritage of ancestors. In biology there is
sth called the law of phylogeny- the traces of the bodily
characteristics of our ancestors. Jung claims that our psyche
observes (postuje) sth similar to the law of phylogeny. Just
there are remnants of our body, there are also in the deepest
layer in the psyche the traces, remnants of the psyche of our
ancestors. In our psyche in this realm of this collective
unconscious there are some very old images, psyche symbols.
These images of the collective unconscious are common, they
are the same for the whole mankind. If we get in touch with
this layer of our psyche, we get in touch with sth that is
common for the whole mankind. (P.53- on the deeper level all
people are connected- central force- life force). According to
Jung the goal in life is to be released from the separated,
isolated self, ego-self. We start from ego, a very small part of
our being and by getting in touch with the unconscious part of
our psyche, we reach the self- complete being. It is the goal
which cannot be fulfilled to the end. We should grasp
conscious attitude as much as we can. This is a journey which
he calls the process of individuation. Then we get in touch
with the collective unconscious and we become less egotistic.
We feel oneness with the whole mankind and we also feel
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more ready, incline to accept some trans-personal service.

The only real sin is the sin of separation. One of the ways to
get in touch with collective unconscious is through art/
literature. In dreams, in visions and works of art we can get in
touch with these ancient symbols from the collective
unconscious. They are called archetypes. According to Jung a
neurotic also get in touch with the archetypes of the collective
unconscious. Neurosis can be cured. The archetypes of the
collective unconscious which appear in art do not represent
personal needs but the needs of the whole epoch. Jung calls it
self-regulatory function of the psyche. If our conscious
outlook on reality is one-sided, too narrow, if it is biased
(pristrasan), the archetypes from the collective unconscious
will function as a warning or they will have a healing effect.
So they tell us about the part of reality which we have left out.
The kind of art in which these archetypes appear is visionary
art. In visionary arts there are symbols, images that cant be
interpreted rationally. Blake- Tyger, Dante- Inferno,
Faust- the archetypes which served as a warning to Germans
of what will happen in the 20th C. He (Jung) starts from egopersona- the way we present ourselves to others. The first
thing we meet when we start investigating our subconsciousness is the shadow we suppressed our unwanted
qualities/ traits. It is often projected on sb else- irrational
hatred. We recognize in sb else our suppressed qualities. If we
cant accept that part of ourselves we cant move on. Behind a
shadow there is an archetype called animus- the opposite sex
of our own, a man in a woman. Animus may be positive
(Lincon) and negative (Hitcliff) figure. It is someone who
guides us to our soul. The next is a figure of the wise old man/
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the great mother. They present the spiritual guide in us. And,
in the end there is self- the whole being- the road to the centre
of our soul. Self occurs in the dreams in the shape of Mondale.
(ego/personal- shadow- anima/animus- wise old man/ great
mother- self).
Jungs view on art/poet
He distinguishes two modes of artistic expression (writing):
1. Psychological art- self-explanatory, talks about what is
familiar everyday, un-shocking. It deals from the materials
drawn from the realm of human consciousness. The poet gives
an interpretation and illumination of the contents of
consciousness. The experience as well as its artistic expression
belong to the realm of understandable.
2. Visionary art- is a correction, revision of narrow, one-sided
concept of reality. It demands interpretation of the artists
vision which even the artist himself cannot understand in a
rational way. With the visionary modes of writing, the
experience is no longer familiar. It derives from the hinterland
(background) of mans mind and is primordial experience
which surpasses mans understanding. It demands
explanations and interpretations. It reminds us of nothing of
everyday human life but rather of dreams, nightmares, fears.
The primordial experience is the source of mans creativity. It
requires mythological imagery to give it form. That which
appears in vision is the collective unconscious (CU)- a
certain psychic disposition shaped by the forces of heredity.
Whenever the CU becomes a living experience and is brought
to being upon the conscious outlook of an age, this event is a
creative act which is of importance to anyone living in that
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age. Poet- creative man is a riddle. Art is a kind of innate drive

that seizes a human being and makes him an instrument. The
artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his
own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose
through him. As an artist he is a man in a higher sense- he is a
collective man, the one who carries and shapes the
unconscious, psychic life of mankind. In this way the work of
the poet comes to meet the spiritual need of the society in
which he lives. Poet is essentially the instrument for his work.
This is very similar notion to Eliots notion of the poet as a
catalyst who brings the vision and yet remains unchanged.
His personal experience is not responsible for his vision.
The creative process has feminine quality and creative work
arises from unconscious depths- from realm of the mother.
Whenever the creative force predominates, human life is ruled
and moulded by the unconscious. A great work of art is like a
dream- it doesnt explain itself and is never unequivocal. A
dream never says this is a truth. We must draw our own
conclusions. To grasp the meaning of the work of art, we must
allow it to shape us as it once shaped the artist. Artistic
creation is a return to the state of participation mystique- to
that level of experience at which it is man who lives and not
the individual. This is why every great work of art is objective
and impersonal, and why the personal life of the poet cannot
be held essential to his art. Jungs theory of the CU (accepted
by Eliot and Lawrence) evolved a link of literary criticism in
which the works of literature are explained in terms of the
recurrence of certain archetypal themes, images, patterns.
(myth- conscious re-experiencing of the unconscious
instinctual process of the psyche)
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Freud vs. Jung

Maturity: Freud- control the world, suppress instincts; Jungidentify with the universe, reconcile the opposites.
ID: Freud- to control it (it derives from sex); or reject it and
accept the reality principle; Jung- the source of creativity, not
only sexual; to accept it and adjust it to reality; here are
redeeming heeling, forces to be found as in literature.
Literature: Freud- work of art derived from the personal
experience of the artist. Artists are narcistic (his wishes are
fulfilled in his work). Art is a place where forbidden desires
are given the opportunity to be expressed; Jung- work of art
relates to collective experience of the whole race. Literature is
seen as a source of knowledge, a place where you can come to
terms with suppressed desires. Artists are objective and
impersonal, even inhuman, for an artist is his work not a
human being.
Neurosis; Freud- disturbance without sense of meaning; Junga place of achieving participation, mystique.
Both: concerned with the way how psychology can be used to
explain literal artistic materials.
STRUCTURALISM is associated with the movement based
on linguistics of de Saussure, Chomsky. They applied the
linguistic model to the understanding of literature. the variety
of phenomena can be reduced to the underlying laws. The
linguistic model was taken by literary criticism and applied to
cultural criticism where culture was seen as a system of
underlying laws and the critics had to penetrate through
variety of phenomena to this single underlying structure (deep
structure). What they arrived at was that the basic structuralist
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law producing all meanings was the structure of binary

opposites. The very structure of the human brain is binary
and man projects this structure, imposes it upon the world.
Marx was also a structuralist in the sense that he wanted to
find the deep structure. The hidden structure is ideologyalways a product of the ruling class in order to conceal the
injustices between the forces of production and the relations in
production. The laborer is alienated from the products of his
work.
Freud- our conduct is motivated by the hidden forces- the
unconscious, the tension between ID, EGO and SUPER-EGO.
In ID we find the Oedipus complex, desires. SUPEREGO
demands a repression of the forces of the ID. EGO is a
mediator between the two and is feeble. Freud also thought in
terms of binary opposites: reality principle and pleasure
principle. Literature in transcribing our daydreams leads us
away from reality. The writer, reader must return to
civilization and to reconcile with the discontent. He
disregarded the fact that the real world is man-made, creative,
created and as such can be changed. He is the most
pessimistic.
Jung- much more humanistic. Deep structure is fantasy/
vision of a neurotic (neurosis- the protest of a body, soul
against one-sided, too narrow concept of the real). The vision
offers us the corrected conception of the real, the deepest
knowledge of the real. This is not a spring of destructive
energy, on the contrary.
Frye was the first to use the term structure. He didnt rely on
linguistics for his criticism. Literature is a transfer of energy
which can help us change the reality. The main source of this
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imagination is found in literature. He uses binary opposites,

but he calls them antithesis: dream/reality. We are torn
between what is real and the dream. Literature is not a
collection of unrelated items but there is an underlying
structure- myth. The purpose of myth is to reconcile desire
and reality. The third realm in which culture and nature can
come together is literature, myth. Thus reconciled, they are a
model of what we can become (comedy/tragedy).
For all of them, the antithesis is used for a highly humanistic
purpose. They are all scientific humanists, like Levi-Strauss
and early Barthes.
T. Eagleton- Post-Structuralism
The difference with the earlier structuralism: 1. images, texts,
archetypes are emptied of any human content- intrinsic
meaning. All stories have the same underlying story: no
difference between high literature and the soap operas. 2. not
concerned with the cultural value of literature. Thats why the
question What purpose does literature serve? is dropped.
Everything is reduced to text, writing, signification. 3. laws
that govern production of meaning pre-exist individual, thus
individual can no longer be treated as the origin or the end of
meaning. Reading is not a creation of meaning, but
unconscious use of conventional, pre-existing laws, codes.
The individual is denied originality or creative power, he is
only a consumer of prescribed, fixed meanings within
language itself. The speaker, the author, the reader are denied
of their originality. That is why these structuralists are antihumanist.
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R. Barthes essay The Death of the Author is an example of

the post-structuralism. For him writing is the destruction of
every point of origin. An author enters his own death when
writing begins. The authors genius does not count, but the
mastery of the narrative code is admired. The responsibility
for a narrative is never assumed by a person but by a mediator,
human or relator whose performance, narrative code, is
valued. It is language which speaks, not the author as language
knows a subject of a person. Book and author stand
automatically on a single line because the author is thought to
nourish the book and is in the same relation to his work as a
father to his son. On the contrary, the modern scriptor is born
simultaneously with the text, is not the subject with the back
predicate, and every text is eternally written here and now. The
scriptor no longer bears within him passions, humors, feelings,
impressions but rather (?) dictionary from which he draws a
writing that can know no halt. Reader is without history,
biography, psychology, he is someone who holds together in a
single field all the traces by which the written text is
constituted.
Derrida- Deconstruction, a liberating theory. Its purpose is to
deconstruct all fixed, rigid meanings and signs of structuralism
on which society lies upon and depends on for its power. The
main aim of deconstruction was not to see how the structures
work but how they may be undone, deconstructed in order to
release energy they possess to create better culture.
Deconstruction is a criticism of logocentrism- western
tradition which always sought to define the absolute truth. It
tended to reduce the world to a static diagram of absolute,
unchanging truth. Deconstruction defined itself as a reaction
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against structuralism which suffered from platonic impulse as

it wanted to reduce the variety of literature to a few formulas.
Structuralism showed us how meaning is constructed by
imposing binary structure upon the world, without offering
new knowledge. Derrida shows how meaning can be
deconstructed by deconstructing basic binary opposition:
signifier vs. signified is not valid. He started from de
Saussuerian sign- the unity between the signifier and the
signified leads to the meaning of the word which is stable,
fixed, full, within language. Derrida showed that language is
much less meaningful, stable because there is no stable
relationship between the signifier and the signified. It is
because the signifier can become the signified and vice versa
endlessly. Binary opposition: Absence/ Presence. According to
de Saussure and structuralists, the meaning is exclusively
defined by the relation of one signifier to another. For
example- bat vs. pat- the difference between them is seen in
that one is voiced and the other is voiceless. In deconstruction
the opposition absent/present is not valid, absolute. Derrida
introduces a new concept- trace, which can operate on two
levels as a spatial and temporal category. On the spatial
level trace refers to the presence of all the absent alternatives.
We see that words, in order to mean sth, exclude other words,
but the exclusion of these words defines the word in question.
A word is defined by the presence of the absent words. Trace
also appears on the temporal level of language. It is identical
to postponements- our anticipation, memory of all the words
that preceded the trace and all that can come. So, meaning is
never static, never present, never full. There is never point at
which the dance of signifiers stops. The process is endless. We
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can never mean what we say nor say what we mean. Meaning
is never that and never there. Binary opposition:
Speech/Writing. He tended to favor speech believing that
writing is just a supplement. We believe that in speech the
meaning is present, immediate, closer to the speaker and
listener. Writing is open to various interpretations; its not as
original as speech. For Derrida, writing always precedes
speech, though not in its graphic form. In order to think sth, to
say sth we have to use signs arranged by certain rules and
norms which have to precede any thought, language in order
for it to have meaning. A Paradox- he creates binary
opposition although all the time he wants to deconstruct them.
His theory is not really liberating, not valid because he refuses
to conceive, as a kind of myth, language in which binary
opposition would be reconciled. Derrida criticizes LeviStrauss, who uses the opposition nature/culture, which for
Derrida doesnt exist. (incest prohibition, both natural and
cultural). Derrida has for his purpose to disqualify LeviStrausss humanism, ethics, nostalgia about the past, sense of
values. He reduces all ends of minds, all kinds of language, all
kinds of myths to one and the same pattern, so there is no
choice, no comparison, no presence, no ethics. There is no
need to feel guilty for the primitive tribes, no need to look
back into the past because language, structure is always the
same and binary oppositions are inescapable. We should learn
to understand the world as having no meaning, we should
enjoy in such a world without guilt, remorse, fault. The only
alternative he offers is freeplay, free from any truth and guilt
of sense of identity and thus of responsibility, of any sense of
guilt or what our culture has done to other cultures. Derrida is
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anti-scientific, anti-humanist. (the incest prohibition is

universal, thus it is natural, but at the same time prohibition
implies a system of norms and in this sense it is cultural).
T. Eagleton- Post-Structuralism(2)
De Saussure argues that meaning in language is just a matter
of difference. If every sign is what it is because it is not all the
other signs, every sign seems to be made up of a potentially
infinite number of differences. This brings Saussures idea that
language forms a closed, stable system into question.
Furthermore, meaning is always the result of articulation of
signs (the signifier boat divides itself from the signifier
moat). This questions Saussures view of a sign as a neat,
symmetrical unity between one signifier and one signified.
There is no fixed distinction between signifiers and signifieds.
If you want to know the meaning (or signified) of a signifier,
you can look it up in the dictionary, but all you will find will
be more signifiers, those signifieds you can in turn look up
and so on. This process is not only infinite but circular also:
signifiers keep transforming into signifieds and vice versa.
Post-structuralism divides the signifier from the signified.
Meaning is never fully present in one sign alone, but it is
rather a kind of constant flickering of presence and absence
together. Another sense in which meaning is never identical
with itself is that signs must be repeatable and reproducible.
Signs can be reproduced in a different context which changes
their meaning (metaphorical/literal). Because their context is
always different it is never absolutely the same, never quite
identical with itself. The signified will be altered by the
various chains of signifiers in which it is entangled. The
implication of all this is that language is much less stable than
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the classical structuralists had considered. Instead of being a

well-defined structure containing symmetrical units of
signifiers and signified, it is more like a limitless web where
there is a constant interchange and circulation of elements,
where none of the elements is absolutely definable and where
everything is caught up and traced through by everything else.
Thus, nothing is ever fully present in signs, it is an illusion for
us to believe that we can ever be fully present to each other in
what we say or write, because to use signs entails that our
meaning is somehow dispersed, divided, never quite one with
ourselves. If we are made of language, the whole idea that we
are stable, unified entities must be a fiction. The only way to
persuade ourselves that we can have a pure meaning and
experience is by listening to our voices when speaking. Our
spoken words seem immediately present to our consciousness,
spontaneous medium. In writing, meaning threatens to escape
from our control. Writing seems to rob us of our being, it is a
second-hand mode of communication, a mechanical transcript
of speech, and so removed from our consciousness. For this
reason, the Western philosophical tradition from Plato to LeviStrauss saw writing as a mere lifeless, alienated form of
expression and celebrated the living voice. Behind this
prejudice lies a particular view of man: man is able
spontaneously to create and express his own meanings, to be
in full possession of himself, and to dominate language as a
transparent medium of his inmost being. what this theory fails
to see is that the living voice is as material as print, and that
since spoken signs, as written ones, work only by a process of
difference and division, speaking could be just as much said to
be a form of writing as writing is said to be a second-hand
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form of speaking. Just as Western philosophy has been

phonocentric, centered on the living voice, so also it has
been logocentric, committed to a belief in some ultimate
word, presence, essence, truth or reality which act as a
foundation of all our thought, language and experience. It has
yearned for the sign which will give meaning to all othersthe transcendental signifier- and for the unquestionable
meaning to which all our signs can be seen to point- the
transcendental signified= God, the idea, the World Spirit, the
self, substance and so on. According to Eagletons theory such
transcendental meaning is a fiction. There is no concept which
is not embroiled in an open-ended play of signification. It is
just that out of this play of signifiers, certain meanings are
elevated by social ideologies to a privileged position, or made
the centers around which other meanings are forced to turn
(freedom, the family, democracy, authority). Sometimes such
meanings are seen as the origin of all the others, but for this
meaning to have been possible other signs must have already
existed. It is that web-like complexity of signs; the back and
forth, present and absent, forward and sideways movement of
language that post-structuralism designates by the word text.
These are the views of Jacques Derrida who labels any
thought system founded on first principle as metaphysical.
He suggests that such first principles can be deconstructedto be shown to be products of a particular system of meaning.
First principles of this kind are defined by what they exclude;
they are part of the sort of binary opposition. Thus, for male
dominated society, man is the founding principle and woman
the excluded opposition of this. Deconstruction is the name
given to the operation by which such oppositions can be partly
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undermined. Woman is the opposite of the other, of the man;

she is non-man, defective man, assigned a negation value in
relation to the male first principle. But equally, man is what he
is by virtue of ceasessly shutting out this other or opposite.
Woman is not just an other in the sense of sth beyond her ken,
but an other intimately related to him as the image of what he
is not, and therefore as an essential reminder of what he is.
Deconstruction has grasped the point that the binary
oppositions with which classical structuralism tends to work
represent a way of seeing typical of ideologies, which like
draw rigid boundaries between what is acceptable and what is
not. Structuralism was generally satisfied if it could carve up a
text into binary oppositions and expose the logic of their
working. Derridas own typical habit of reading is to seize on
one apparently peripheral fragment in the work- a footnote,
minor term- and work it through to the point where it threatens
to dismantle the oppositions which govern the text as a whole.
In writing itself, there is a continual flickering, spilling and
defusing of meaning, what Derrida calls disseminationwhich cannot be easily contained with the categories of the
texts structure. The concept of writing is a challenge to the
very idea of structure: for a structure always presumes a
centre, a fixed principle, a hierarchy of meanings, a solid
foundation. Deconstruction rejects the literary/non-literary
opposition of any absolute distinction. The work of Derrida
and others had cast doubt upon the classical notions of truth,
reality, meaning and knowledge. For Derrida, deconstruction
is an ultimately political practice, an attempt to dismantle the
logic by which a particular system of thought, and behind that
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a whole system of political structures and social institutions,

maintain its force.
Language is Barthes theme from beginning to end and the
Saussurean insight that the sign is almost a matter of historical
and cultural convention. The healthy sign for Barthes is one
which do not try to palm itself off as natural but which in the
very moment of conveying a meaning communicates sth of its
own relative artificial status. Signs which pass themselves as
natural, which offer themselves as the only conceivable way of
viewing the world, are by that token authoritarian and
ideological. It is one of the functions of ideology to
naturalize social reality, to make it seem as innocent and
unchangeable as nature itself. Ideology seeks to convert
culture into nature. Ideology, in this sense, is a kind of
contemporary mythology. In Barthes view, there is a literary
ideology which corresponds to this natural attitude- realism.
This natural language gives us reality as it is: it doesnt, as
Romanticism and Symbolism, distort it into subjective shapes
but represents the world to us as God (?) it. the sign is not seen
as a changeable entity- its only job is to represent sth else,
because the vehicle of a meaning conceived independently of
itself. The word becomes the only proper way of viewing this
object or expressing this thought. The realist, or
representational sign, then is for Barthes essentially unhealthy.
The sign as reflection, expression, or representation
denies the productive character of language. Barthes double
sign, the sign which gestures to its own material existence at
the same time as it conveys a meaning, is the grandchild of the
estranged language of Formalists, used for denaturalizing
and defamiliarizing political society showing just how
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deeply questionable what everyone took for granted as

obvious. The early Structuralist Barthes still trust to the
possibility of a science of literature, though this, as he
comments, could be only a science of forms rather than of
contents. For the Structuralist, criticism is a form of metalanguage- a language about another language. There can be
no ultimate meta-language: another critic can always come
along and take your criticism as his object of study. The most
intriguing texts for criticism are not those which can be read,
but those which are writable (scriptable)- texts which
encourage the critic to carve them up, transpose them into
different discourses. The reader of critic shifts from the role of
consumer to that of producer. All literary texts are woven out
of other literary texts; every word, phrase or segment is a
reworking of other writings which precede or surround the
individual work. All literature is intertextual- a specific
piece of writing thus has no clearly defined boundaries. The
movement from Structuralism to Post-Structuralism is in part,
as Barthes himself has phrased it, a movement from work to
text. It is the shift from seeing the poem or novel as a closed
entity, equipped with definite meanings which its ethics task
to decipher, to seeing it as irreducibly plural, an endless play
of signifiers which can never be finally nailed down to a single
centre, essence or meaning. The text- less a structure than an
open-ended process of structuration and it is criticism which
does this structurating. There is no clear division for poststructuralism between criticism and creation: both modes are
subsumed into writing as such. Not writing for particular
purpose in a specific topic, as in the age of classical literature,
but writing as an end and a passion in itself. All theory,
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ideology determinate meaning, social commitment has

become, it appears, inherently terroristic and writing is the
answer to them all. Post-structuralism was a product of that
blend of euphoria disillusionment, liberation and dissipation,
carnival and catastrophe, which was 1968. Unable to break the
structures of state power, post-structuralism found it possible
instead to subvert the structures of language. Reading is not a
matter of fusing two different but determinate meanings, as it
was for the New Critics; it is a matter of being caught in the
hop between two meanings which can be neither reconciled
nor refused. Whereas for earlier literary theories it was
experience which was elusive, evanescent, richly ambiguous,
now it is language.
Psychoanalysis
The motive of human society is an economic one- the need to
labor which means that we must suppress some of our
tendencies to pleasure and gratification. According to Freud,
every human being has to undergo this repression named the
pleasure principle by the reality principle, but for some of us
or for whole societies the repression may become excessive
and make us ill. This form of sickness is known as neurosis.
One way in which we can cope with desires we can not fulfill
is by sublimating them, by which Freud means directing
them towards a more socially valued end. It is by virtue of
such sublimation that civilization itself comes about by
switching over to higher goals, cultural history itself is
created. The contradiction on which Freuds work rests is that
we come what we are only by a massive repression of the
elements which have gone into our making. Indeed, we
couldnt be conscious of this since the place to which we
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relegate the desires we are unable to fulfill is known as

unconscious. Since we are born prematurely, we depend on
our parents for the satisfaction of our instincts- biologically
fixed needs we have for nourishment, warmth and so on.
However, for Freud, sucking at mothers breasts is not only a
biologically essential activity but it is also pleasurable- the
first dawning of sexuality. Sexuality has been born as a kind of
drive which was at first inseparable from biological instinct
but which has now separated itself and attained certain
autonomy. Sexuality, for Freud, is itself a perversionswerving away of a natural self- preservative instinct towards
another goal. The pre-Oedipal stages of sexual life: 1. oral
stage- associated with a drive to incorporate objects; 2. anal
stage- anus as an erotogenic zone. This stage is sadistic in that
the child derives erotic pleasure from exclusion and
destruction, but it is also connected with the desire for
retention and possessive control, as the child learns a new
form of mastery and manipulation of wishes of others through
the granting or withholding of faces; 3. phallic stage- begins
to focus the childs libido (sexual drive) on genitals (penis and
clitoris). At this point the child takes erotic delight in its own
body but without being able to view its body as a complete
object (auto-eroticism).
Oedipus complex:
The boys close involvement with his mothers body leads him
to an unconscious desire for sexual union with her, whereas
the girl, who has been similarly bound up with the mother and
whose first desire is always homosexual, begins to turn her
libido towards the father. For the child, the parents of the same
sex will come to figure as a rival in its affections for the parent
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of the opposite sex. Boy abandons his incestuous desire for the
mother because of the fathers threat of castration. He adjusts
himself to the reality principle, submits to the father,
detaches himself from the mother. The boy makes peace with
his father, identifies with him, and is thus introduced into the
symbolic role of manhood. Surmounting his Oedipus complex,
the boy has driven his forbidden desires underground into the
unconscious. This is not a place that was ready and waiting to
receive such desire, it is opened up by this act of primary
repression. If the boy is unable to overcome the Oedipus
complex successfully, he may privilege the image of his
mother above all other women, which for Freud may lead to
homosexuality. The girl, perceiving that he is inferior because
castrated turns from her similarly castrated mother to the
project of seducing her father. But since this project is
doomed, she must turn back to her mother, identify with her,
assume her feminine gender role and consciously substitute
for the penis she envies but can never possess a baby, which
she desires to receive from the father. Oedipus complex is a
structure of relations by which we come to be the men and
women that we are. It signals the tradition from the pleasure
principle to the reality principle, from the enclosure of the
family to society at large, from nature to culture. For Freud,
the Oedipus complex is the beginnings of morality,
conscience, law and all norms of social and religious authority.
By the prohibition of incest, the child begins to form what
Freud calls superego- the voice of conscience. The human
subject who emerges from the Oedipal process is a split
subject, torn between conscious- ego (or individual identity)
and unconscious- the place of guilty desires. The royal road to
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the unconscious is dream. They are for Freud symbolic

fulfillments of unconscious wishes and they are cast in the
symbolic forms. This constant condensation and displacement
of meaning is what R. Jakobson identified as the 2 primary
operations of human language- 1. metaphor (condensing
meanings together) and 2. metonymy (displacing one on to
another). Dreams provide our main but only access to the
unconscious. There are slips of the tongue, failure of memory,
misreading, even in jokes. We may have certain unconscious
desires which will not be denied and force its way in from the
unconscious, the ego blocks it off defensively and the result of
this internal conflict is neurosis (obssessional, hysterical or
phobic). Freud calls the Oedipus complex the nucleus of
neurosis. The aim of psychoanalysis is to uncover the hidden
causes of the neurosis. In psychosis, ego unable to repress the
unconscious desire comes under its way. The link between ego
and the external world is then ruptured, and the unconscious
begins to build up a delusional reality (paranoia and
schizophrenia). The cure for Freudian theory is what is known
as transference- the ascribing to others of feelings and
wishes which are actually our own. The work of
psychoanalysis may be summarized in Freuds slogan: where
id was, there shall ego be (id- unconscious desires, egoreason, self-mastery). In his later work, the final goal of life is
death, a return to that blissful inanimate state where the ego
cannot be injured. Freuds compassion for the ego is a
compassion for the human race, laboring under the intolerable
demands placed upon it by a civilization built upon the
repression of desire. Eros- sexual energy, Thanatos- death
drive. His theory has been greatly criticized by feminists
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because of his view of women as narcisstic, masochistic,

penis-envying. Psychoanalysis as a medical practice is a form
of oppressive social control, labeling individuals and forcing
them to confirm to definitions of normality. Then, that he
brings everything down to sex, his thinking is individualist.
Layers of human psyche: 1. id- the reservoir of guilty
desires, forcing us to do things which ego forbids; 2. egodesiring to satisfy demands of superego, trying to reconcile the
oppositions, drives of id and superego; 3. superegointernalized principle of reality which forbids the gratification
of guilty desires.

Freud
A man is an exile from the Garden of Eden. Like Strauss, he
believed that there was a time when man did enjoy blissful
identity with nature. Those periods refer to the first periods of
development when man was not conscious. The prenatal
period and the first few months of the childs life, the child
enjoys unity with the mothers body and is not aware of the
difference between his and mothers body. We are completely
merged in the world around us and there is an absolute reign
of pleasure principle- oceanic feeling. But in order to
become a social being, the child must renounce the pleasure
principle, separate from it and experience the world as the
other- accept the reality principle. And the agent for this is the
father who faces upon the child the incest taboo by the threat
of castration. What happens is that the desire for the mother
(natural reality) is repressed. Repression is a condition of
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individuality, but it also brings about the split in man. That is

why we are unhappy. Our unhappiness can be observed in our
fantasies.
Frye vs. Freud
Frye- art is a dream for waking minds. But this dream is not
shameful, guilty desire; it is reconstructive, a source of new
possibilities because it is an origin of a new kind of reality that
we are able to make in order to change the reality which is
man-made. Reality is not absolute. From desire, new societies
emerge.
Freud- reality principle is given, and cannot be changed. So,
desire is just an escape, illusion and is inferior and must be
overcome by going back to reality, which is a sign of an adult,
healthy mind. Art is a substitute gratification and man is
doomed to be unhappy, and finally man desires to die, to
become one with the mother. Freuds conception of the self is
based on binary opposites: reality/fantasy, ego/id,
conscious/unconscious, father/mother. We are supposed to
master our drives, not to use them for creation. His concept of
individuation is a matter of mans liberation from the natural
world and the biological impulses inherent in his organism.
Lacan
He is the French psychoanalyst who tried to apply the
linguistic model to the study of human soul. He rewrites
Freudian theory as to relate it to language. For Lacan, no
knowledge about oneself is possible. For him the start and the
end of the analysis is that we recognize that we are completely
ruled by the law of the father- the culture- and there is no
escape. We have no desires of our own, we want what others
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want and because they want it. The real identity starts with
death. The phase which Freud calls pre-Oedipal, Lacan calls
imaginary- a condition in which we lack any definite centre
of the self and the child feels the complete unity with the
mothers body. It doesnt experience itself as a separate
subject. The whole external reality is presented to him through
the mothers body and the child doesnt feel separate from her.
Next phase is according to Lacan the mirror-stage- there is a
blurring of subject and object. The childs first development of
an ego begins to happen, a process of constructing the centre
of the self. This self is essentially narcisstic: we arrive at the
sense of I by finding that I reflected back to ourselves by
some object or person in the world. This object is at once
somehow a part of us- we identify with it, and yet not
ourselves, somehow alien. This phase can be called
metaphorical because the child compares itself to all the
images. This is a world of plentitude. This harmonious state is
disrupted when the child becomes aware of the father. The
father signifies what Lacan calls the law- the childs first
awareness of the social laws- incest prohibition- the child
cannot have its mother for a lower. The child represses his
guilt desire- what is called unconscious. Lacan claims that
once the child realizes that its identity is separated from the
mothers, it will never again have the access to reality. The
child also becomes aware of the difference between his own
identity and the one of the mother. It becomes aware of the
absence, it can no longer desire the mothers body; it is pushed
into the unconscious. In this way the childs social and sexual
identity are defined by exclusion and absence. This
psychological process coincides with the acquisition of
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language. Because the child can no longer feel that it

possesses the whole world through mothers body, it now
accepts language as a substitute. Pre-Oedipal phase is a phase
of wordless possession. Lacan rewrites this process of the
childs socialization (Oedipus complex) in terms of language.
The child contemplating itself in the mirror- a signifier, and
the image the child sees in the mirror- a signified. The relation
between the signifier and the signified is a harmonious one as
in Sausserean sign, no gap between subject and world.
However, with the entry of the father the child is plunged into
post-structuralist anxiety. Identities come about only as a
result of differences- that one term or subject is what it is only
by excluding mother. So, in gaining access to language, the
small child unconsciously learns that a sign has meaning only
by its difference from other signs, and learns also that a sign
presupposes the absence of the object it signifies. In accepting
all this, the child moves from imaginary to the symbolic
order- the pre-given structure of social and sexual roles and
relations which make up the family and society (successful
passage through the Oedipus complex). This potentially
endless movement from one signifier to another is what Lacan
calls desire. Lacan regards the unconscious as structured
like a language. The unconscious is a continual movement and
activity of signifiers, whose signifieds are often inaccessible
because they are repressed. For Lacan, the unconscious is
rather outside than within us. Language always pre-exists in
us; it is always already in place, waiting to assign us our
places within it. We shall never wholly dominate it or subdue
it to our own ends. Language, the unconscious, the parents, the
symbolic order are the terms which are, in Lacan, allied- the
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other- that which are language is always anterior to us and

will always escape us, that which brought us into being as
subjects in the first place but which always outruns our grasp.
Just like Freud, who sees no alternative to our civilization,
Lacan also sees no alternative to the symbolic order. We have
to enter language and accept that we no longer have a direct
access to reality. We have to enter the symbolic order- The
Cool Web.
Kristeva
She is a French feminist. She criticizes Lacans symbolic order
and says that in reality it is the patriarchal, sexual and social
order and the law covering this order is the fathers law.
This is how the patriarchal society conceptualizes men and
women. As an alternative, she suggests semiotics. She means
by this a pattern or play of force which we can detect inside
language, and which represent a sort of the residue of the preOedipal phase. This phase is bound up with the childs contact
with the mothers body, the original sense of unity and
semiotic is thus closely connected with femininity. Semiotic
takes pleasure in destroying the signs with precise, stable,
fixed meanings on which male, patriarchal society relies for its
power. Literature becomes a kind of equivalent in the realm of
language to revolution in the sphere of politics. The semiotic
is a bisexual form of writing (no clear division between
masculine and feminine) and offers to deconstruct binary
oppositions. James Joyce as well as V. Woolf exemplify
Kristevas theory- fluid, diffuse, sensuous style offers a
resistance to the patriarchal world dominated by abstract
truths, sharp divisions and fixed essence. Semiotic is a process
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within our conventional sign-system which questions and

transgresses their limits. Women are represented within malegoverned society, fixed by sign, image meaning, yet because
they are also the negative of that social order there is always
in them sth which is left over, unrepresentable. The feminine
signifies a force within society which opposes it, and this has
its obvious political implication in the form of the womens
movement. The message of the womens movement is not just
that women should have equality of power and status with
men, it is a questioning of all such power and status. Kristeva
starts her theory with a presumption that the separation
between the child and the mother is not complete and that the
baby preserves in its body the instinctual, pre-linguistic
knowledge which manifests itself as a flow in the
consciousness of the child which precedes language. When
language appears, the flow is dropped. Kristeva claims that the
notion of the oceanic oneness still remains in some way. It can
still be discerned in some physical features of the languagetone, rhythm, physical qualities of certain sounds. The
semiotic doesnt exist separately from the symbolic language
but operates within it and manifests itself as silence,
ambiguity, absence, contradictions, metaphors, paradoxes.
This layer in language (body language- semiotic) has the
function to renew the language of the father law which is
otherwise separated from the natural world and would become
a sort of madness. The speech of the body is not exclusive to
women. It is possible to discern it in works of male authors as
well, especially because it is related to the pre-Oedipal stage in
which there is no distinction of gender. The point of Keistevas
criticism of Lacan can be explained by comparing it to the
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difference between Freud and Jung. For Freud, the desire for
the mothers body is wrong because it is incestuous. It has to
be suppressed in order to create civilization. For Jung, what
we desire is not the mother but what the mother symbolically
stands for- the sensual, irrational, emotions, imagination,
unconsciousness, intuition, instinct- one whole aspect of our
beings. Kristeva claims that through semiotic we have contact
with this. As for Jung, for Kristeva there are no gender
barriers. She presupposes that both men and women are
damaged by the patriarchal society and that they both think of
a vision of a better kind of life.
Lacan & Kristeva(2)
The most important point about Lacan is that he relates
Freuds theory to language. The Oedipal phase- the moment
child becomes aware of the father- pre-oedipal phase Lacan
calls imaginary. He also refers to it as the mirror stage. At this
stage the child feels unity with the mother body and doesnt
have a clear notion of its own ego, personality. There is no
clear distinction between the child and the mother in the
childs consciousness and between child and anything else in
external reality. There is this blurring of child and any other
object of external reality. Mirror stage- the child seems to see
the reflection of itself on everything else. Lacan also calls it
metaphorical world. The child sees the metaphor for himself
in everything around. The external reality is primarily defined
through the mothers body. For Freud the fathers law- the
incestual desire, for Lacan it is the entrance/ entry to the
symbolic order. Symbolic order means that the child has no
direct connection with the mothers body. Its no longer one
with the mother
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When the child leaves the mothers body it enters the symbolic
order. These sexual differences happen simultaneously- the
differences in gender, language, social identity. Language is
connected with the Oedipus stage in which we have a kind of
wordless possession. We feel that we possess the whole world.
2nd phase- language appears to fill the gap. We use language to
fill the gap. For Lacan it is the only possible way- you either
enter symbolic order or become a neurotic. There is no
alternative.
Kristeva- pre-oedipal- semiotic. When we felt oneness with
the reality in general (oceanic oneness) we dont speak, do
not use language. Kristeva explains our conscience in this
period as a sort of flow. She calls it semiotic flow. She is more
hopeful than Lacan. She says that throughout life something of
semiotic flow still remains. It is not completely lost to us.
Semiotic flow is present in the physical elements of speech
(rhythm, stress, the parts of body that you use when you talk).
Semiotic is in a way subversive. It tends to subvert the binary
opposition which the culture lives by.
FEMINISM
There are two kinds of feminisms:
1. Essentialism- Essentialists are perhaps more political. They
talk about oppression, social injustice, consciousness, position
in society. What they offer to us is prescription for action.
Gender as a set of essential qualities- Showalter, Rich.
2. Constructionism- Kristeva belongs to constructionism. She
is looking for a feminine as a quality which can be discerned
in the works of both male and female authors. Feminine is a
part of both male and female psyche. Constructionists are
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concerned with repression, that which is in the subconscious.

Instead of offering prescription for action, they talk about
inscription in culture. They are looking for the way in which
this feminine, subversive, semiotic has left a trace in writing,
culture. Gender as a cultural construct.
FEMINISM(2)
How does feminism relate to the central question- what is
literature? Is the ideology manifested in literature or is it the
ideological identity questioned and developed? Feminism is
not homogenous- various approaches reduced to 2 basic
movements. They are associated with America & England on
one hand and with France on the other. Literal criticism is
different from French criticism. In order to make a distinction
well have to ask what is feminine. The whole point is what is
feminine. There are different answers from these 2 schools.
Feminism is a movement which criticizes patriarchy. Women
for Anglo- American tradition- they are simply persons of
female sex. In their criticism they speak about this person who
has to fight for the freedom. The text is feminine; it is defined
by the sex of the author. Not so with French feminists, more
recent thinkers who rely on Derrida, psycho-analyst Lacan.
They dont speak about biological and social women but
womanhood of femaleness. They are concerned with the
sexuality of the text. It represents a certain type of speech,
uttered/ written whether by man or woman- a kind of story not
completely in control of itself. In any narrative there is sth
repressed in the text, sth unspoken. You might call it the nonknowledge of itself- the presence of sth which is absent in the
story. This according to them is automatically feminine. What
is this repressed element? What the text cannot control?
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According Kristeva this element is a residue of Lacans

imaginary. Lacan based his writing on Freud. Lacan is
reworking the whole French theory. The first period of life is
demic the child enjoys uninterrupting oneness with the
mother. There is no I and non-I. This is the pre-oedipal period
which Lacan calls imaginary. The father must appear breaking
the ideal; prohibit the desire for the mother. The child
identifies with the father and becomes social being. This
Oedipal crisis coincides with the acquisition of language. In
Lacan terms the child passes from the sphere of imaginary
(speechless) into social order which Lacan calls the symbolic
register marked by emptiness, lack. It is that moment that
language becomes a surrogate, substitute for what the child
has lost. Language- symbolic- the dance of signifier.
Language is motivated by the desire- can never be fulfilled.
We are left with the empty signifier. Lacan rewrites Decart- I
think where I am not; and I am where I dont think. Yet, says
Lacan, whoever doesnt enter the symbolic language is
doomed, he becomes a psychotic. We live beyond ambitionscant get to the real thing. For Freud the desire for mother is
there, deep in a man. Lacan destroyed it- that deep is usurped
by the speech of the other, by the name/ law of the fatherthere is no choice in culture. This is not for Kristeva, too.
French feminists- she stood up against the symbolic order.
Kristeva stood up against Lacan. She based her work on his
ideas but she says if you enter symbolic order and repress the
imaginary, the residue of the memory of the mother, you
become psychotic. Delirium- all memories of the mother, all
that is not logic. In order for the person or society not to lose
itself in the delirium this language must be renewed. What
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renews it is a semiotic flow, a phenomenon which derives

from the imaginary. Unlike Lacan who says that we should
repress it, she says it is not possible completely. If it is
completely repressed we become deliric. This incompleteness
of the repressiveness manifests itself in the kind of speech.
That is the speech of the body- it manifests in the physical
properties of the language. Not only those properties constitute
the semiotics but also ambiguity, silence, meaninglessness.
This is the meaninglessness from the point of logic discoursethe discourse of power. It undermines the (ISO- valjda) on
which particular society relies on. For Kristeva man and
woman are not contrasted- in the 1st phase the differences
between sexes dont appear. The remnant of the imaginary is
the birth right for both sexes. Id doesnt associate writing with
the sex of the author.
Anglo-American movement. Kristeva sums up what is the best
in the French criticism. It doesnt focus only on female or
male writing (Joyce). Anglo- American feminism associates
writing exclusively with the sex of the author.
E. Showalter- Toward a Feminist Poetic
She makes a difference between 2 kinds of feminist criticism:
1. Feminist critique which is concerned with a woman as a
reader, as the consumer of male-produced literature. Woman
as a reader reads the works of the important, canonized male
authors and she looks for the way in which woman is
represented in these writings. She points out misconceptions,
stereotypes, ideas that the man who wrote had about women
and the ways of exploitation and manipulation of the female
audience. The misconceptions of the whole society are
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reflected in these works. The problem of this criticism is that it

is male-oriented. We study the sexism of male critics, we are
not learning what women have felt and experienced. The
criticism has also a tendency to naturalize womens
victimization.
2. Gynocritique is concerned with woman as a writer, as the
producer of textual meanings with female creativity, language.
The question is whether there are certain themes, imagery,
some characteristics of language which can be seen especially
in the works of the female authors. This is often related to a
certain historical or cultural period. In the Victorian period, in
many works of female authors there appeared the image of a
bird, or a bird in the cage. This was probably the expression of
how women felt confined by the culture. This kind of criticism
is not fixed at male literature but wants to construct a female
framework for the analysis of womens literature to develop
new models based on the study of female experience, rather
than to adopt male models and themes.
As Showalter observes the development of female writing, she
distinguishes 3 historical phases:
1. The Feminine Phase (1840-1880)- Women wrote in an
effort to equal the intellectual achievements of the male
culture and internalize its assumption about female nature.
They imitated the system of thought. The distinguishing sign
of this phase is the male pseudonym. The content of feminine
art is oblique, displaced, ironic, subversive.
2. The Feminist Phase (1880-1920_- The winning of the vote.
Women are enabled to reject the accommodating postures of
femininity and to use literature to dramatize the ordeals of
wronged womanhood, about all the injustices which the
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women suffer in the patriarchal society. These two phases are

dependant ones. Either the women imitate the culture or
protest against it, they are dependant on it in the same way.
3. The Female Phase (biological), (1920 onwards) is marked
by the independence. The women turn to female experiences
as the source of an autonomous art. In this phase, authors such
as V. Woolf, look for a specifically feminine approach to
language and to the writing process in general.
Masculine and feminine trends in criticism:
Deconstruction- typically male, scientific, objective,
impersonal and it tries to use the tools similar to natural
sciences. We encounter very strict, scientific terminologyform, structure.
Female criticism should oppose this and it should focus on
experience. The task of feminist critics is to find a new
language, a new way of reading that can integrate our
experience and our intelligence, our reason and our suffering.
Gilbert & Gubar
The theory of author- Creativity is strived only to men. In the
patriarchal society only man can be creative. Art is a property
of a man. There is a close connection between the authority
(God, father) and the author. Each writer is like a masculine
God who has power. Women are not supposed to be creative.
Woman is a muse, a model. She just inspires male author to
create but she herself is not creative.
The Mad Woman in the Attic
Is a pen a metaphorical penis? Is there a connection between
the sexual energy and the energy which informs the work a
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masculine writer? Hopkins seems to have thought so.

According to him, a crucial feature of his theory of poetry is a
kind of male gift and especially marks off men from womenthe male quality is the creative gift. Male sexuality is not just
analogically but actually the essence of literary power. The
patriarchal notion that the writer fathers his text just as God
fathered the world is and has been all pervasive in Western
literary civilization, so much so that the metaphor is built into
the very word author with which writer, deity and father are
identified. The word author is also related to the word
authority- the master- the author holds sway over his work.
At the same time this is related to the authority of a father in a
family, and God the Father. Just like there is the notion in the
patriarchal religion that God the Father is the sole creator of
the universe, the writer is the kind of a lesser God. Underneath
all these is the imagery of succession of paternity and
hierarchy. Male authors through centuries have felt that
creativity is sth essentially masculine, seems to be an
exclusive right of men. Women in this system of ideas are
denied any creative power, even in creating a child. In
patriarchal Western society, the texts author is a father, a
procreator, an aesthetic patriarch whose pen is an instrument
of generative power, like his penis. More, his pens power, like
his peniss power is not just an ability to generate life but the
power to create a posterity which he lays claim. The
author/father is the owner of his text and his readers attention;
he is also owner/possessor of the subjects of his text, that is to
say of those figures, scenes, events. Thus, because he is an
author, a man of letters is, like his divine counterpart, a father,
a master, a ruler and an owner- the spiritual type of a patriarch.
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What if such a profoundly masculine cosmic Author is the sole

legitimate model for all earthly authors? Or, what if the male
generative power is not just the only legitimate power but the
only power there is? Writing, reading, thinking are by
definition male activities and as such are alien to female
characteristics. Female sexuality is associated with the
absence of literary power- woman has no share in ontological
reality- women exist only to be acted on by men, both as
literary and as sensual objects. Woman is seen as a vessel.
Her role is passive; an empty container in which mans child
actually grows. Anne Finch explores Weiningers assumptions
in her poem which criticizes the idea that women are passive,
that they have no creative powers and that they can only serve
as an inspiration for mans art. Finch says that all females are
Cyphers- nullities, vacancies- existing to increase male
Numbers (either poems or persons) by pleasuring either
mans bodies or their minds, their penises or their pens. In
both cases, women are given passive roles. The notion is that
women are here to be acted on by men.
This concept has also been criticized by Ibsen. He wrote a
play When we dead awaken- there is an artist who meets
Irene, falls in love but they dont proceed to make a full
meaningful relationship but they decide to make a work of art.
She is a model; he doesnt pay attention to her emotional
nature and uses her as a raw material. She is an accomplice,
part of ideology. They are supposed to make a sculpture
Resurrection. However, instead of this rebirth that should
appear in transformation, it seems that they wasted human
energy, used her as a model displaying a devouring ego. When
the sculpture was complete, they separated. This was
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disappointing for her. Throughout their lives they continued

living like ghosts; they wasted their potentials for meaningful
life. They go to the mountain and die. This is the wrong
concept of egoistic masculine writer and the women depraved
of creative powers.
G&G quote James Joyce. In his poem Ulysses he says that
paternity is a legal fiction, a story requiring imagination is
not faith. A man cannot verify his fatherhood by either sense
or reason. That this child is his is in a sense a tale he tells
himself to explain the infants existence. A woman doesnt
need this because the child grows within her. For the father,
there is always a sense of anxiety, a little bit of doubt. The
whole patriarchal society is based on this little fiction.
Adrienne Rich
When we dead awaken
(She loses touch with herself. She couldnt write anymore- the
problem of discontinuity in womens life. She says- a kind of
work undone by others- the need of little children. The 2 nd
reason is fatigue. She doesnt feel energy anymore.
Discontinuity is a problem. Why? Creative writing vs. fantasyimagination is active unlike day-dreaming. For a poem to be
created the author needs attention. The need to be sustained.
The other thing- living in a marriage is conservative. Why?
A writer should challenge, question everything. You have to be
free to play with all the terms. If you are conservative you are
not free to do that. A. Rich- women have to find a way to be
able to do both- the energy of creation and relation. We have
to unite these two energies.)
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Her essay is a lecture which we feel worldwide and not

personally. She is aware that there is just a very small portion
of women who achieved some kind of anticipation, and
patriarchal culture cherishes this small portion of them. She
starts thinking about her own life and development of the poet.
She says she read a lot of male poets as a student but she also
said its just form and style that she adopted. She says we can
express sth we dont consciously know that we express. She
wants to prove herself as a full female life. She got married
and by the age of 30 had 3 sons. In 1950 the family was
glorified. She published another book but there was a feeling
of discontent. She tries to be a good wife and a mother but she
says she no longer feels this unity of being. She feels a great
fatigue- the thinking process is interrupted by small chores.
The fatigue is the consequence of not being in touch with
herself. She tries to find the reason. All people have daydreams, fantasies. Fantasies are passive.
They are not sth we have to act upon. As opposed to this there
is the transformative process of imagination and this has to be
very active. Its important to be able to think in continuity, in
long stretches of time, to be able to focus on inner processes.
Another point she makes is the function of imagination. It is to
be subversive. The poet using the imagination has to be able to
turn everything upside-down. In the process of writing sth has
to be sacred. The poet must feel free to examine and question
every concept- so the day may be night and love might be
hate. This subversive way of thinking is contrasted, is very
incompatible with a conservative marriage. To live with a
husband and children in an old-fashioned way doesnt allow
you to have imagination subversively. Its confusing. This is
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why she says writing is renewing because the author should be

enabled to name everything differently. However, she says
marriage life and authors life must not be opposed. A. Rich is
looking for a way in which her love for her husband, children,
family and the energy which she invests in this relation can be
united with the energy of creation. She says she doesnt want
to be a devouring ego. This emotion for family, children can
be used as a source of writing. In the essay she quotes a poem
Orion- constellation representing a warrior with a sword.
She sees Orion as a symbol of her creative personality, the
principle of imagination. She also calls him a half-brother. In
this poem she examines this egotistic urge in her, the need to
be ambitious, to create, to make achievements. In a way, its
like the imaginative principle in her is masculine. She says
throughout the patriarchal culture there has always been this
division- women have always been supposed to be altruistic,
to sacrifice themselves for the family. Their goal, destiny in
life was this motherly altruistic love. On the other hand, the
desirable destiny for man throughout patriarchy has always
been to be ambitious and creative. In a word, they were
allowed and encouraged to be egotistic. A. Rich says this
division is very wrong. She says she will not accept this
concept of an egotistic artist who is unavailable to others,
because she says this is the concept of the patriarchal
structure. This is why she says that the very word love is in
need of revision

DRAMA
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Henrik Ibsen
Modern drama in England and everywhere in Europe begins
with Ibsen. An open quarrel with the culture- the defying
feature of the modern drama- for the spiritual salvation,
salvation which is a matter of freeing oneself from the
constraints of bourgeoisie respectability. For this purpose a
bourgeois artist opens a quarrel initiated by Ibsen. Joyce wrote
a letter to Ibsen expressing his admiration for spiritual
salvation. Ibsen starts this war with his naturalistic plays. His
first nature plays are his greatest. Setting is remote in place
and time. The themes, setting is placed in a space/place remote
and they are treated in a manner that is unnaturalistic. BrandIbsens works possess a unity. There are several themes. One
of them is the chain of vacation- mans duty to become what
he really is- the fulfillment of the self. In Brand- the
protagonist is summed to reform the society so that every
individual can be whole. How to achieve self-fulfillment in
context? Barrier which prevents it Ibsen calls inherity debta kind of sin but not an individual. A notion of the self is what
we inherit. In most of his plays the end is tragic or
contradictory. Why is it difficult to fulfill yourself? Why are
we all born to be exiled from the sun? A kind of illumination
comes at a tremendous crise(?) Peer Gynt. He is prevented
from self-fulfillment- examination of culture in terms of
patriarchal culture. In Gynt the plot is a kind of fairy-tale.
Characters are archetypal, non-realistic. A young man who
lives in a village is disliked by all the lads there. He possess
sth that attracts all the girls. But he becomes disliked by men.
During a festival a shy girl- he sees that she is her self115

fulfillment. Sth happens. At one point one of her gestures was

misinterpreted, he undergoes a demonic initiation. In order to
become one of them (like an animal), he spends a night with a
green woman, dances with them. He adopted their main
principle- to thyself be enough (troll principle). The
manifestation of this principle is shown immediately- he finds
out that he cannot. Using this freedom he becomes successfulrequires money, reputation- except the feeling that he is an
authentic human being. Patriarchal principle- self-sufficiency.
In the end he is a broken man. He met 2 persons: the devil and
a personage- button molder. Everybody accuses him of not
being truly himself. The self is not what he thinks he is. You
should be a button on the coat of the world (able to be attached
to other people), but the loop is wrong. He managed to
postpone this molding process. He approaches his native place
and comes across a hut(?). He cannot at first recognize her.
Then she says she is happy but he says I am broken man. I
have never been whole. She says he is a whole in her hope,
love and faith. He comes home finally. Only her love can
restore wholeness in him.
New Testament: if you gained the whole world, but lost
yourself
Lawrence: IT- one is truly free when one listens to the inner
voice.
Eliot: transhumanization from selfish self to genuine selfwe think of the ray.
Jung: individuation- journey from ego to self; self-mystical
center of being; unity with mankind; lifes higher calling.
Shadow: the dark, morally inferior side of ego.
Anima: mans guide to the self.
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Peer Gynt: fantasy- escape from unbearable reality, but also

from lifes higher calling.
ASE: fairy tales as defense.
Fantasy eventually leads to the reversal of reality (black/white,
ugly/fair): trolls: to thyself be enough, indulge in ones
lowest urges.
Boyg, brat and hag: shadow created by thoughts and desires.
Go round about- evade conscience.
soria-moria castle
Gynts kinsman in spirit: peasant Goy who runs away from
lifes higher calling.
Solveig: The path I have trodden leads back nevermore.
Gynt: choice-free foot.
The dangerous viper- a point beyond retreat.
The Gyntish self: ego lost of wishes, appetites, desires.
Lunatics and the self confinement of each egotistic self,
selfhoods taiser.
Marriage- also not the way to transcend ego- the ship.
Gynt peeling an onion: layers of persona.
The Button Moulder- you were designed for a shining
button of the vest of the world, but your god gave (?).
To be oneself is to slay oneself, it is to stand forth
everywhere with masters intention displayed like a sign
board.
Peer Gynt
In some part of the play Peer Gynt remembers the sentence
from New Testament. This is the crucial point of the playwhat is the path of
Lawrence: IT- whole man alive, complete human being
including all components of the human nature. He also says
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that this is the deepest self in man. Just when the flock of birds
flies in a certain direction. They are acting in accordance with
their inner nature. Man has to find what is his inner nature.
Real freedom is to make any choice you want. In fact we are
not the marvelous choosers and deciders that we think we are.
There is inner life flow (this IT) which chooses and decides.
We are really free only when we act in accordance with this
IT, with this core of our inner being.
T.S.Eliot: distinguishing between two forms:
1. selfish self, egoistic self- concerned with its own interests,
gains, fulfillment of his own egoistic desire. The higher
purpose of life according to Eliot is transhumanization- to
transcend the boundaries of ones isolated ego and reach the 2.
genuine self- which is related to the whole mankind.
The key word in Eliot is surrender- how to surrender your
selfish desires to sth higher; to become selfless. For Eliot, this
sth higher is divine love or the divine plan.
Fromm: self vs. self-interest (he is not religious). Society
often criticizes us if we pursue our self interest. However, it is
important to distinguish between self and self-interest. Self
means satisfying selfish desire. From says that thinking about
our own needs is not going to make us happy, it is not really in
our best self-interest. What is really in each persons best selfinterest is to develop the most important human faculties:
productivity, creativity, capacity to love and faculty for right
human relationship.
The whole play Peer Gynt can also be interpreted in terms of
Jungian notion of individuation. Jung talks about this journey
from Ego to Self (same as Eliot- selfish to genuine self).
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What is characteristic of Jung is that the purpose hidden in

deepest self cannot be rendered in theory, cannot be described
in words because it is sth specific for each individual. The self
is defined by Jung as the totality (conscious+ unconscious
portion of our being) and mystical center of this totality. The
experiences related with the center are timelessness,
spacelessness and also the feeling of unity with the entire
mankind. From the innermost-self, inner master comes a kind
of guidance in life.
When a man gets in touch with his deepest self he realizes
what is his highest calling.
Jung says that the first thing you meet on the journey of your
individuation is your shadow- dark, inferior, suppressed,
hidden portion of our ego. This is where most people stop.
Once they are faced with this dark part of themselves, they
give up. They cannot face this dark portion, shadow directly,
so they try to evade it, to go round about.
This is what happened to Peer Gynt. His whole life he is trying
to evade facing the shadow by going round about. He is also
trying to evade the voice of the deepest self. He doesnt want
to hear his lifes higher call. His grandfather was very rich, but
his grandfather and father spent their fortune. Peer Gynt faced
with death and the feeling of material insecurity. His mother
tries to protect him from this unbearable reality by telling him
fairy-tales. This was a sort of an escape into the fantasy world.
But when Peer grew up, he used this as a principle to escape
reality. He became the devils story teller. He invented
fantastic stories. The first idea Peer has is to evade reality. So,
we can admire his capacity for day dreaming. Peer carries
fantasy so far to such an extent that eventually it leads him to
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the reversal of reality. He meets this troll maiden dressed in

green. Fantasy was carried so far that you can see the opposite
of reality. The other trolls also stand for egotism. Trolls
message: to yourself be enough. This is the message that
trolls consider their most important message. The trolls also
stand for ones lowest, animal urges, indulging in ones bestial
instincts. But he wanted to keep his human sight, human
vision. But the next scene when he is middle-aged, he wears
eye-glasses- an indication that he didnt manage to keep,
preserve his human vision (ipak je postao troll). Peer has this
encounter with Boyg, a symbol of shadow: I will not fight
but I will conquer, without force I will conquer. Boyg is very
threatening. He keeps saying to Peer: go round about, you
cannot go through me. This is Peers dark side, the reality
that he cannot face. It is not just evading the rules of society,
social reality, it is also evading ones own consciousness,
evading to see ones self, evading the truth about oneself. The
scene when his mother is dying and is asking for a book and
he brings her to the world of fantasy. He has a need to escape
facing suffering, duty, consciousness. Anima- a kind of an
archetypal figure which can serve as a guide to the deepest self
and a guide to wholeness and completeness. It is anima for
men and Animus- male element in female psyche. Hierosgamos- the holly marriage- the joining of a woman and a
man should lead to psychic wholeness. A character Solveigh is
symbolically his anima. Solveigh is Peers guide to his deepest
self. In his encounter with Solveigh, Peer realizes what
complete self realization would be. Through his fulfilling, true
loving relation with Solveigh, he would be able to reach his
deepest self. She is at the entrance of the hut, but between
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them there was a hag and an ugly child (troll maiden), and she
says that that is his child, he made it. but he cannot face the
ugly part of himself and he goes round about.
Next act- Peer is traveling around the world and experiencing
some events. All these events serve to gratify his ego. He
becomes a merchant, scientist, slave-owner. All the time he is
very proud that he is always being himself. He calls it the
Gyntish self. We have this Lawrentian idea: he thinks he is
free, he is himself, free to do whatever he likes, but he really
escapes from his deepest self, from IT (according to
D.H.Lawrence). Throughout his life, Peer is always afraid that
he would reach the point of no return; he will do sth after
which the retreat is not possible. He calls it the dangerous
vapor, which makes you do sth irretrievable. Through his life,
we see Peer doing sth opposite that somehow neutralize his
acts of moral corruption. His idea of life is always to preserve
a choice free foot. He wants to remain at the point in which he
could fantasize about various things, but he would never do
anything. On one side this is good because it preserves him
from doing some bad things. But on the other hand, not going
beyond the point of no return prevents him from transcending
his selfish self. He doesnt want to change drastically, he
remains in this closed ideal. You can compare it with Solveigh
who goes beyond the point of no return because of her great
love for Peer. She says: The path I have trodden leads back
no more. This is sth that Peer cannot do. There is a parallel
between Peer and a young peasant (kralj sakuplja vojsku a
mladi seljak isece sebi prst da ne bi isao u vojsku). It was a
sort of demand, a call to do sth for others, for your country, a
demand to transcend your personal interest and serve sth
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higher (according to Ibsen). In this peasant we have a

character who runs away from the lifes higher calling. Peer
hears about him again at the end of the play. But this peasant
is dead and the preacher is giving a sermon (he was a good
father, he took them to school over the rock, he was sacrificed,
he took care of himself and his own). But the notion of his
own was quite narrowly defined, just his closest family. Ibsen
wants to point out that conventional marriage is not the way to
transcend ones own ego. You are not willing to sacrifice
yourself for a stranger. (na brodu svakog ceka neko a Gynt-a
niko. Zaboravio je na Solveigh. Niko od mornara na brodu ne
pomaze davljenicima/ strancima jer imaju zenu I decu- own
responsibility and love). At one point Peer is pronounced the
king of lunatics- the Selfhood Kaiser. The lunatics
symbolize people who have become egoistic to the extreme,
focused on themselves to the utmost point. They symbolize
total confinement of each egoistic self. Man is so confined in
his ego that he cannot longer encounter reality. (We think of
the key, each in this prison, thinking of the key, each confirms
a prison.- T.S.Eliot, Wasteland). In the final act we see Peer,
who has lost everything, is an old man. He is in a forest, he
looks for sth to eat and he finds an onion. now I am this
onion, which each layer of the onion he removes, his layers
of ego. He peels one persona after another, peels his masks,
roles he had. Persona- the mask that acts individually. He
strips all layers, all personas, but in the centre there is nothing.
Near the end of his life he encounters the Button Moulder. The
Button Moulder explains to him that a man who did sth very
bad goes to hell and destroying to heaven, but the rest of the
people should be moulded again and reshaped. Moulder says
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to Peer that he is going to be melted again because he has not

pursued his lifes highest calling. Peer didnt live his life in
accordance with his inner desire. He was never really himself.
The Moulder says to him:you were supposed to stay your
selfish self and to divine your masters intention- a notion
that we have some inner divinity, inner master. Peer wes never
himself, but lived like a troll. (peer pokusava da dokaze da on
ne treba da bude istopljen, ne pokusava da se nagodi sa
djavolom da ga primi u pakao). Finally, he finds Solveigh and
in her he finds his real, inner self. Solveigh was aware of his
most valuable notions, of his inner self, and was simply
waiting for these highest values to fall to the floor. He asks:
where was I as a whole man, a true man? Solveigh: in my
faith, in my hope and in my love.
(excerpts)
Ase (tossing about her arms): all things are against mein
his head
Ase is Peers mother. She is a good mother and she loves her
son. She is worried for him, she cannot bare to lose him. She
describes Peer as a lazy person who runs away from duties or
daily life. He doesnt want obligations. Whos sole strength
was the strength of his jaw. He has the great capacity to
fantasize, he likes to invent stories, to imagine. The reality in
his childhood was unbearable. His father died and it was a sad
reality. His mother tried to comfort him by telling him fairytales, a sort of defense from unbearable reality.
Ay, but stop, my ladat his rear
Peer finds himself in the realm of mountain trolls, and he
wants to court the troll kings daughter. But he must fulfill
some conditions (he must be in the realm of fantasy. The
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valley is the place where people dwell, and Peer goes beyond
that to the mountains and the fantasy realm. The realm of light
may be action and reason.) The troll king asks him whether he
perceives some difference between trolls and men. Peer says
that there is no difference. One man would roast another- he
points out there is a good deal of bestial in man. Man often
succumbs to his lowest, basic urges and instincts. But the troll
king says there is a difference. Men say be thyself, whereas
the saying in the troll world goes to thyself be enough. The
principle of the trolls is egoistical, they dont care about
others, and never indulge in empathy. Be thyself invites men
to find out what their true nature is, and to live in accordance
with it. Peer must also obtain a tail in order to court the troll
maiden. The trolls want Peer to succumb to his bestial
instincts, without humanizing them in any way. The trolls
symbolize bestiality, egoism, and unredeemed animal nature.
My kings daughterpathless wood
The troll maiden was turned into an ugly witch (and an ugly
brat with her). They represent his debt in life and they came to
remind him of his mistakes. They came as a sort of an image
of his shadows- woman/brat. These are his sins that he has to
face. She will become beautiful again if Peer forgets Solveig.
The love with her represents his higher potentials and also he
should forget these potentials and remain in his realm of
dreams and fantasy- irresponsible realm. Because of the
thoughts and desires, Peer deserves his curse. And the two
figures are his thoughts and desires. He lived in the realms
where he indulged in the lowest desires. There are two
possibilities for him: 1. to go straight, 2. to go round about. 1st
means that he should realize his mistakes, but he doesnt know
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how to do that. He had to face his transgression, confess to

Solveig and to himself his past life/deeds, his past love
advantage and to repent. If he ever knew and had his concept
of repentance, he has forgotten about it.
We, Northlandchildhoods home
Irretrievable- dangerous viper- when you cant go back. One
should always be able to go back. Peer praises this as a kind of
courage, whereas it is cowardice. Solveig crossed the point of
no return. He is afraid of commitment. He is afraid of some
actions that would transform him. The difference between
Peer and the peasant is that Peer never cut his finger because it
is action.
(2nd version Dangerous viper tells him to do sth irretrievable.
Peer says one should be always able to retreat, never go
beyond the point without return. He praises this as courage.
He is afraid of commitment, of doing sth that would determine
his life as either good or bad. Solveig did quite the oppositeshe left her family. The peasant who cuts off his finger- Ibsen
is ambiguous here- he does that for his family, but fails his
community).
Ay, but thatsthe very man
Lunatics proclaimed Peer for their Kaiser. He says that
lunatics are very inside themselves- the maximum of being
thyself. Lunacy is equalized with egotism. Those people dont
care for other peoples woes, ideas, opinions. They are closed
inside their own ego. They dont understand others and do not
sympathize with others. Peer, as the most selfish of all, is
proclaimed their king.
(2nd- peer says its true the point is he is always himself
(whereas the higher calling is to be outside oneself). The
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lunatics are inside themselves, hermetically sealed in

themselves. They represent the maximum of being oneself, but
in a negative sense. )
Now, when the soulunto the end
Positive and negative aspect of this character. This peasant
was committed to his family, but not to his country, race,
church. He believed that his call was to protect his family. He
rebuilt his house, helped his children go to school, he was a
good parent, he worked hard, he was diligent. But he was
short-sighted; he saw only his family. He couldnt perceive his
duty within some larger community. He cut his own finger in
order not to go to war. But he kept hiding his hand in a pocket
because he was ashamed. So it was sth ethically
problematic/ambiguous.
You are notas so much metal
So-so- neither good nor bad, a sort of material for making
buttons. Melting- he belongs to the mass. Peer never did
anything significant in his life, never reached the point of no
return. He has never become an individual, he hasnt managed
to acquire full shape, so he has to go back into his mass. He
has a potentials to become human being. He is a raw material
for a potentially good human being, sth can be made out of
him. He drifted for some higher purpose of his life. He didnt
answer the higher calling, he never recognized it. A button has
a place where it fits, just like Peer was designed to invest his
whole being into sth.
One question onlyhis best hook
To be oneself is to slave oneself. You must give up your
egoistic needs, you must kill your old self and transform into
your true self. One must be loyal to its calling. Peers master126

God, but it may be the Self, the Inner Master. The same motif
like in St. Joan, when she hears some voices- the deepest self.
We should allow to this nature to develop- the calling of the
self. One is supposed to hear the voice of the Master, to get in
touch with it. Master can be ones own deepest self. Jung- a
mystical center of being. It is like sth that has supremacy over
sth. Other people tell you it is superior to all the other voices.
The deepest self compelled him to undertake this journey.
When we try to hear our inner voices we can often make
mistakes.
When we dead awaken- Henrik Ibsen
(1st version ) Rubek doesnt feel guilty. Maia is full of life. He
treats her coldly, arrogantly. He has also destroyed a woman,
Irene, whose principle was tremendous love. She was reduced
to an object. The Nun is a projection of her dead soul. Woman
in this mysterious life is sth you love, but you kill it. He feels
that turning against a woman the flow of inspiration dried up.
He hopes that she can be used again, betrays the
reality(reality- an alibi for murder). Irene lost all the children.
She never enters a thought of being mother. What they finally
discover is a vision, the final vision, Rubeks vision of his
mistake to know they have never lived. The late awakening.
The top of the mountain is not just the top of the spiritual
intensity, but the top of icy snowy mountain- a symbol of
sterility. Maia and Ulfhelm- unsophisticated man. He mentions
blood, animals. The difference between Rubek and Ulfhelm is
not big. Both love height; predatory. He seduces Maia, takes
her to the path dangerous to come down. But she is not afraid
at all. She reveals him the story of her bondage, he pities her
and it turns out that he used to be in his life in love with a
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woman. He calls her for the first time a friend- a new

possibility- they are overcoming their stories. The proof is that
he calls her a friend and asks her to begin a life with him.
Rags- false identities imposed on women/men. Ulfhelm and
Maia go down, but Rubek and Irene go up because it is too
late for them.
(2nd version) a woman killed into art. Artist Rubek has
created a sculpture resurrection day by killing the soul of his
model, Irene. He actually betrayed Irene, he didnt perceive
her in her totality. She renounced her role as a mother. She is
incapable of having children because her soul is dead. Knife
under her pillow- symbolic- inner being totally destructive.
The Nun suggesting death; Irene is dead inside. She is full of
hatred. The play is an exploration of Ibsens own sense of guilt
for having abandoned poetry and having turned to naturalistic
plays. The play is about his guilt and an artist who abandoned,
killed his model and betrayed himself. When we meet Rubek,
his creativity has dried up. This is a bitter reproach of an artist
who uses a female being to show the betrayal of life. Irene
hates Rubek, carries knife in her blouse to kill him. She tells
him the truth in the mountains, but she says he is already dead.
He destroyed his own soul by abandoning love and her soul by
betraying her. He calls her to live in a marriage of three
people- his egotism. He realizes what a tremendous mistake it
was to give more attention to the dead clay than to the living
soul. When he realized that he said: Can we dead two beings
live a full life?. When he admits his fault she is transfigured.
She doesnt want to kill him but says: when we dead awake.
What they can see is the unlived life. They go to the peak of
the mountain and see what they have missed. They go on a
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plato of a mountain, storms are coming, whiteness- sterility.

The play ends with an avalanche. After this illumination they
can die. Maia feels betrayed and cheated by him. He married
her but was never inspired by her. She is treated in a
dismissive way. She meets a bear-hunter, Ulfhelm- raw,
illiterate, vital hunter seems to be the opposite of Rubek. Yet,
there are similarities. Ulfelm is a mountaineer; hunts whatever
is warm-blooded- bears, rabbits, birds, women. Desire over
nature and women. When they go mountaineering it turns out
that he has premeditated to force upon her. She begins to tell
him about her life as a confinement, prison to which she
doesnt want to return. He recognizes in her a fellow sufferer
and triggers his own story of an injured person- his first wife,
a prostitute, but ungrateful to him. Since then he became a
womanizer, a mere hunter. When they tell their stories, they
recognize in each other their own doubles. They were equally
disabled by the wrong roles imposed on them. Shall we patch
up our talters?- to make a decent human life. No, its too late,
they are torn out. But they have preserved their authentic
selves. let us be friends- which indicates that they are equaltwo beings preserving their authenticity and able to confront
themselves on equal terms. On the mountain they meet Rubek
and Irene going up; Maia and the hunter are coming down,
they are free. The polar opposition: HEIGHTS and DEPTHS
solved because Maia and the hunter are not just the physical
aspect but also the spiritual one.
( Rubek feels some sort of guilt, a sort of pity. He thinks he
can do away with his consciousness by portraying. He thinks
its enough to clear his consciousness of guilt. Irene doesnt
agree with it.)
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The play is connected to the text of feminist writers talking

about liberating women when the women awake from the dead
language, ideal words- the theme of Gilbert and Gubar, the
possibility of a woman writer to step out of male tradition and
write about herself. The women will deconstruct the
stereotypical role imposed on them by a patriarchal society.
Man defined himself as associated with nature and malter
Women are seen as a mirror in which man sees his reflection
(spirituality, pure essence). Women are denied the ability to
create themselves. In art, they are eternally models, inspiration
of male artists, who gazing upon them superimpose on them
their desires, sucking their blood, turning them into images
that would satisfy their desires. Generative power is males
prerogative as well as authorship-fathers of their books.
Adrienne Rich: opposition between male egotism/ womens
selfness, altruistic love of mother. Mothers have no creativity,
they were supposed to passively attend to the physical needs
of the child. Education of the child- the task of the father.
Selfless- not only unselfish, but destroy her own self- mother
without a soul to realize.
(excerpts)
ACT1- Irene talks about her former husband. There is some
hidden meaning. She doesnt have a knife metaphorically. He
destroys her soul instead of giving her pleasure. The bed is a
place where she keeps her dagger, it symbolizes her lost
femininity. She is stressing passionate nature of her which has
been destroyed.
2. Rubek meets Irena, asks her to be his model. She wants a
marriage. She experiences sth very profound- conventional
marriage, respecting the particular authority of God and
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husband; the authority we obey- father creates his children and

is authority. The male artist is also a kind of author and
authority of his work. She is supposed to serve his authority as
a male artist. Resurrection Day- all the people will transfer
for some higher sphere, eternal happiness. Rebirthconventionally it is positive, sort of entry into bliss. Here they
realized they wasted their time- the only awakening is here in
the forms of recognition that they are dead. They woke up and
realized that their inner being is destroyed. Rubek as a Puritanhe wants sb not touched by physical experience- a perfect
angelic woman. There is a motif which is called selfrealization- to enter new existence, to become a perfect
person. She wants to achieve the wholeness in life. Irene has a
potential to become a complete person. She decides willingly
to leave her parents but she fails.
3. Professor Rubek: Exactly of her. When I didnt need her
any longerblocks of stones
Art as sth opposing to love- empty and hollow, not life-like.
The artist is supposed to combine all sorts of human
experiences and make a story (to make it more significant). He
longs for life because there is no life in his art. He has killed
sth both in him and her. This sculpture doesnt recreate life.
with animal faces behind the masks- life-like. At a closer
look they recover animal trait of a person. Reveal a perverted
part of him. He betrays the idea of art, what it should really be.
He betrays the idea of completeness, wholeness.
4.Irena: resurrection day, you call it. I call it our childyou
poet
He has based their relationship on wrong base- there is no real
resurrection for him- it is ironic representation of it. She sees a
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contrast between the original idea and what happens in the

end. She is a little subdued. She blames herself. She should
have given birth to children. There is however a sense of guilt
in Rubek- he realizes what he has done.
5. Ulfhelm (mastering the anger): I once took a young girl
Maia:a human life out of them
The idea of self-realization- a young girl who wants to achieve
it, goes out into the world with sb who will provide it for her.
Hell take her to the highest mountain- some sort of growth.
Stone specters- his sculptures, they dont manage to capture,
recreate life. It appears to her as a group of ghosts, no life. The
2 of them have potentials to make a meaningful relationship.
Irene and Rubek- perfection vs. coldness. Rubek thinks only
about his ambition; a puritan. In the end they go beyond
human, in a place covered with snow, sterile. Ulfhem and
Maia have a chance for a complete human existence with
sensual characteristics.
G.B.Shaw- ST. JOAN
The Quintessence of Ibsenism (False Ideals Exposed)
Shaw was a great admirer of Ibsen. However, he didnt see the
poet in Ibsen. He wasnt so interested in what Ibsen
discovered in human psyche and subconscience. He mostly
praised Ibsen as a social reformer. Shaw calls both Shelly and
Ibsen realists. He says that living in society we live by certain
ideals- our behavior, life is governed by certain ideals. This set
of ideals is used in order to mask reality. To maintain itself,
society uses certain ideals of control. They are used to mask
certain facts which would threaten the stability of society.
Realists are special, rare individuals who have the courage to
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strip these masks and to expose the hypocrisy of these ideals.

(Vico- structures powerful brain-washing mechanism). Ibsenmarriage- the ideal which Ibsen exposes as hypocritical. Some
people came to realize that the facts of their lives do not
confront to those ideals. The people who realized that think of
their lives in terms of failures; they realized the fallacy of
those ideals. Nevertheless, most of them are afraid to
recognize it because then theyd have to recognize the waste
failure in their own lives. They feel discontent but they hide it.
They are afraid of changing everything. Hypocritically, there
will be 700 of those who dont even think about structures,
299 feels it but are afraid of stripping the mask, and there is
just one realist who has courage to face reality as it is. When a
realist appears, his greatest enemies, the people who want to
do away with him, will be idealists (koji su i sami svesni kako
drustvo funkcionise ali su uplaseni da ista menjaju). Shaws
idea is that these realists always see the possibility. They see
the way in which man and his society should move forward.
They stand for progressive ideals which will move society
forward. Shaw himself was a socialist but he didnt believe in
revolution. He didnt propose violent change of society. He
was an evolutionist. However, his theory of evolution is
different from Darwins. It is based on La Marks thinking.
The idea of evolution according to La Mark is that there is
some sort of will, some kind of will is inherited within the
forces of evolution, towards creating more and more perfect
life and also towards creating self-consciousness. This will is
what Shaw calls life force. According to the conventional
standard theology, God was at the beginning and he created
the world. According to Shaws new theology God should be
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at the end. So, life is evolving all the time towards sth perfect,
towards more and more reason In terms of human beings,
Shaw also believed that man is evolving and the growth of
man should be the growth in spirit and courage. Man should
become increasingly more able to face reality, to unmask those
ideals, those hypocrisies. He says that throughout human
history there was fear and fight. Man has become accustomed
to fear and fight but in the future he should learn to love and
trust realist people who have courage to get rid of brainwashing structures- people who recognize life force. They
refuse to live for their own selfish personal goal, and instead
they turn their lives into instruments of life force. Realists try
to develop their minds eye in order to be able to perceive
what is the will of their life-force. So, the mans highest
purpose is to become aware of this will (volja koja tezi
napretku), then to serve it to this progress of evolution. For
this reason Shaw praised human brain, intelligence. Brain is
the instrument which we use to understand this will, the will
of the life force. All these ideas can be applied to St. Joan.
Nema nacionalne svesti i pojavljuje se Joan sa novom idejom
povezivanja ljudi na visem nivou- progresivna ideja- svest o
celini kojoj pripadaju. Povela ih je da oslobode Orlean. Posto
im je smetala, na kraju su je Engleski i Francuski plemici
proglasili za vesticu i spalili. She is one of those people who
worship to serve life force. She says: I dont want to mind my
own business but Gods business. This will of the life force
comes to Joan in terms of voices. She claims that she has
heard the voices of two saints- St. Margaret and Catharine.
She also says that these voices came from her imagination and
this is how God speaks to us. She is also realist in this other
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aspect because she threatens the existence of social structuresthese are the church and aristocracy. Why the church? Because
she has a personal contact with God, doesnt need any
mediator. She is a rebel in this sense. She always relies on her
individual conscience in all decisions. She claims that
everyone has the right to this individual contact with God.
Covek ima pravo da se oslobodi I osloni na odluke svoje svesti
a ne na strukture. She threatens the structure of feudalism.
Another progressive ideal which she brought is nationalism.
She in a way raises peoples consciousness for this ideal of
nationalism. England for the English, France for the French.
There is the idea that the land belongs to all people, not just to
feudal lords. The representatives of aristocracy and church of
both England and France start seeing her as a threat. In Shaws
terms they are the idealists. These are the people who know
how the structures function but are terrified of changing them.
There is also an idea that without those structures there will be
an anarchy. The people who are most afraid of change are
those threaten by Joan. There is also some motif of Joans
heart- when she is burnt at steak, her heart remains whole.
This suggests that Joans message cannot be completely
annihilated, erased. Rebels such as Joan are crucified, but they
still point the way towards progress. Eliot: Human mind
cannot stand too much reality.
(2nd version)
In St. Joan idealists prosecute Joan- the realist. It is a social
comedy- an occasion to turn his irony against English- the
idea of life is superior to the idea of English. Shaw wrote
about prostitution, slums, snobbery. For him, women didnt
have moral virtues. They are admired when they are like men.
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My business on Earth is Gods business- she doesnt want to

accept social roles but it is only through the metaphor of God
that Shaw could show the idea of life force, creative force.
Gods business is to save France and hers to do sth about it.
She sacrifices herself and is a rebel against the role of a
woman (wears mens clothes, refuses to have children). She
steps beyond the role assigned to women.
The play is rebellion against feudal aristocracy and the church.
Joan believes she is the most devoted prayer of the Catholic
Church but she wants to listen to her inner voice- the
connection with her deepest self- to discard what only
institutions interpreted. Therefore, she is the first protestant.
Protestantism is a demand that individual should interpret the
Bible according to his imagination. Where does the Gods
voice come from but from imagination. God- the imaginative
vision of what the purpose of her life is- to see the works of
life force. Her minor rebellions are just manifestations of her
chief rebellion against priests interference between man and
God- imagination, her vision, life force. I will dare and dare
in the name of God. She subordinates to life force even when
she is to die. She is the 1st naturalist. The land belonged to the
aristocracy and the king- a symbol without any substance, no
power. The aristocracy ruled through the king. In saying that
France is for French and England for the English she comes up
with the idea that land is identified with the people speaking
one language. The king rules the land in the name of God.
Aristocratic power immediately realizes that her nationalism is
a blow against the power of aristocracy. From the point of
view of the 17th century king-worship and nationalist state was
a step forward as well as Protestantism. She fought for what
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was to come identifying with the life force within her. She
breathes courage into common people, inspires soldiers,
achieves all political aims when she starts feeling coldness,
though she is an enormously creative person wholl never
stop. In fact, she becomes burden to them all. She becomes an
obstacle, a reminder of their mediocrity, thus they want to ruin
her, particularly Caushan and Warric. She is brought to a trial.
Double catastrophe: 1. at the trial accused by the inquisition,
she will lose her life unless she renounces her beliefs. She
signs eventually but realizes that she will lose connection with
inner self and tears the paper. She is, therefore, burnt. She
remains loyal to her vision. Her heart wont burn. The death of
a realist is never a waste. This is a story of a sainthood- the
way a cultural hero asserts the power of spirit on the fear of
death. Its also the comedy of making amends (saying youre
sorry)- an epilog taking place in Charles dream. Must a
Christ perish in every age for the sake of those who have no
imagination?. She became a saint. The irony of making
amends consists in the fact that when all the dead come around
kneel in front of her, they all admit they learned from her
courage. She suggests shell return again- Do you want me
back?-and then one by one they all step back. Oh, beautiful
Earth, when will you be able to accept your saints? Wed
rather have no saints because such realists would show other
people forthcomings. Those who killed her, proclaimed her a
saint just because of feeling of guilt.
Thematic similarities between St. Joan and The Cocktail Party.
Love not the same for Shaw/Eliot and Ibsen. For Ibsen, ego
becomes most real when it becomes attached to womans love.
For Eliot and Shaw- completeness without sensual love.
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(EXCERPTS)
Robert: What is your name?
Robert is a feudal lord (one of his peasants). Why does he ask
all these question? Hes trying to establish her identity. For
Joan these things are quite unimportant. She has a higher
consciousness than the others. They are divided by
themselves. She hears voices but doesnt want to talk about
them. Its like a part of intimacy of her soul. The voices come
from God. Robert thinks that they are not real. For her,
imagination is sth positive- thats how voices come to us. We
use the imagination to understand the life force, the idea of
evolution, creative self.
Joan: Thou poor child
The conversation with King Charles. Charles is a weak person.
Everybody mocks him. He is not strong enough to wear arms.
He is afraid of responsibility. He is selfish, hed like Joan to
live him alone. She says that her business is to help people.
She thinks egotism is not healthy, not good for your soul. They
are supposed to fight against occupation forces. He asks for
miracles that Joan does with people- they became
courageous, they got inspiration. She brings up the courage in
people. She activates their potentials. Its like when people
start seeing life force, they become courageous.
Cauchon- French priest and Warwick- an English Gentleman
two structures threatened by Joan. They explain why the
church is threatened by Joan. He is afraid for his institution.
She doesnt need the church to mediate with God. She doesnt
recognize the authority of the church. Simple people assume
that they can talk to God, they dont need the church to help
them. It undermines the authority of the church, the whole
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structure which keeps them subdued, in control, in inferior

position which exploits them. They dont need this structure.
He defines the structure- without a structure thered be total
anarchy. Other examples- people who fight against the
structure- Hamlet, ??. They show that these are some new
trends, tendencies coming. We use creative power to create
structures such as church- Blake- we projected all our creative
power on them. The idea is to regain our creativity. Thats
what Joan is doing with her voices.
Warwick: Oh, my Lord
He is talking about why Joan is a threat to feudal lords. Even
the King, according to Joan, has no power. The land belongs to
people. Warwick makes a connection between these two
threats- just like Joan doesnt need the church, she also doesnt
need feudal lords to mediate with the land. These are false
structures. She rebels against structures and what they think is
natural for a woman, then the church, England. Peasants- in
this historical period nationalism expends their consciousness,
progressive ideas, giving a sort of pride.
Joan: Where would you all have been know?
God be with me. She wants to say that she is the one who
hears voices. One realist is exceptional, first in his family. To
her family, their private selfish matters are important. How
does she feel at the court? As a piece of poverty. She expected
to find politicians there carrying for the countrys future.
However, there are again selfish people interested in power.
She expected that the priests would obey the life force, but
they are striving for power. They want to cast her out. She puts
all her life into the service of this life force. She remains
faithful to her vision and thats why shell be remembered.
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Additional material
J.B. Shaw- Don Juan in Hell
Modern theology conceives heaven and hell, not as places, but
as states of the soul; and by the soul it means the divine
element common to all life, which causes us to do the will of
God in addition to looking after our individual interests, and
to honor one another solely for our divine activities and not at
all for our selfish activities.
This world, or any other, may be made a hell by a society in a
state of damnation: that is, a society so lacking in the higher
orders of energy that it is given wholly to the pursuit of
immediate individual pleasure, and cannot even conceive the
passion of the divine will. Also that any world can be made a
heaven by a society of persons in whom that passion is the
master passion- a communion of saints in fact.
The devil is here true to himself: that is, he does not disguise
his damnation either from himself or others, but bodily
embraces it as the true law of life, and organizes his kingdom
frankly on a basis of idle pleasure seeking, and worships love,
beauty, sentiment, youth, romance, etc. Don Gonzalo, having,
as he says, always done what it was customary for a
gentleman to do until he died defending his daughters honor,
went to heaven. Don Juan, having slain him, and become
infamous by his failure to find any permanent satisfactions in
his love affairs, was cast into hell by the ghost of Don
Gonzalo, whose statue he has whimsically invited to supper.
Don Gonzalo was a simple-minded officer and gentleman who
cared for nothing but fashionable amusement, whilst Don Juan
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was consumed with a passion for divine contemplation and

creative activity, this being the secret of the failure of love to
interest him permanently. Consequently we find Don Gonzalo,
unable to share the divine ecstasy, bored to destruction in
heaven; and Don Juan suffering amid the pleasures of hell an
agony of tedium. Don Gonzalo determines to settle in hell
permanently. The devil, eager to as ever to reinforce his
kingdom by adding souls to it, is delighted at the accession of
Don Gonzalo, and desirous to retain Dona Ana. But, he is
equally ready to get rid of Don Juan, with whom he is on
terms of forced civility, the antipathy between them being
fundamental. Finally, Don Juan goes to heaven. As the mother
of many children, Ana has shared in the divine travail and with
care and labor and suffering renewed the harvest of eternal
life; but the honor and divinity of her work have been
jealously hidden from her by Man, who, dreading her
domination, has offered her for reward only the satisfaction of
her senses and affections. She cannot, like the male devil, use
love as mere sentiment and pleasure; nor can she, like the mail
saint, put love aside when it has once done its work as a
developing and enlightening experience. Love is neither her
pleasure nor her study: it is her business. So she, in the end,
neither goes with Don Juan to heaven nor with the devil and
her father to the place of pleasure, but declares that her work is
not yet finished. For though by her death she is done with the
bearing of men to mortal fathers, she may yet, as Woman
Immortal, bear the Superman to the Eternal Father.
T.S.Eliot- THE COCKTAIL PARTY
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Revealed in terms of atheistic bourgeois lifetranshumanization- achieving goal which is universal. In the
C.Party we are back in the bourgeois room in which the
cocktail party is going to be given. The first party is a failure,
the last is successful. Who is in charge; dramatization of the
various play of conscious/unconscious many. Edward and
Lavinia both have lovers. They are mutually accusing each
other. They live in illusions. With lovers they hope to escape
the boredom of their marriage. They didnt succeed. Lavinia is
convenient, Celia is demanding partner. With Celia he wants
to escape the conventional nature in which only his ego can
find satisfaction. Yet, when his wife abandoned him, he reacts,
he wants her back. He cant live up to the idea in the reality.
He says there are two selves- the superficial will to do sth, and
inner self- the spirit of mediocrity. It was only an illusion.
They are not yet made aware. Reilly helps them. Their
achievement is very limited. They pass the responsibility of
the failure to each other all the time. Reilly then suggests they
should reverse the proposition: accept Lavinia that you are
unlovable, and Edward that you are unloving, and then you
will suit each other. Accept your limitations. The only thing
the unconscious many cannot achieve is consciousness of their
own limitations. Celia is not like Edward and Lavinia. She
belongs to the conscious few. She comes as a person not selfimportant. From her conversation with Reilly we find out that
her desire is to realize the vision of reality, more significant
than common. She is an actress who wants to go beyond
everyday living to transcend her ego in heterosexual love- to
stop being 2 persons but the 3rd one =we. Theyll have beyond
desire without possessiveness the delight of loving in spirit in
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which Edward fails. She sees Edward as an insect. His words

are no more than noises. He cant become real, he appears to
her as an illusion. She ends up with an intense sense of sin and
solitude. Then in the end the thing is explained: the sin is
produced by knowing that Ive sought the realization of my
vision (treasure) in the wrong place, in the relationship with
unworthy person. Then she goes on and comes to the
conclusion that not only persons like Edward and Lavinia are
unloving and unlovable but that we are all unloving and
unlovable- nesposobni za ljubav I nedostojni ljubavi. We
produce a vision on our partner and then we recognize that he
is not capable to live up according to those visions. Since we
are all projections, she feels she is alone- the feeling of
solitude. Reilly says there is a cure, salvation. Celia ends up
being confronted with the choice. There are two possible ways
of curing her condition:
1. Reconciliation, and that is what Edward and Lavinia
managed to do- human condition, ordinary living. I can
return to it, but you must know you will live surrounded by
strangers. But who becomes conscious he accepts that theyll
be never anything more than strangers. This is a decent life yet
you have to forget about your visions. She says: This bears
me cold. My vision is more real than reality you are offering
to me.
2. The second way out is the journey to the unknown- he saysin which you will forget about human, will save you from
desires. You will achieve or find out what you fail to achieve
in the wrong place. She leaves it all and goes somewhere in
the exotic East, becomes a nurse, goes to a mission in an
African country. She was standing with the dying people, she
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didnt want to desert them but wanted to give them comfort

and there was an attack of a hostile tribe. The tribe killed her
in a hostile manner. She was eaten by ants. She actually
committed an act of willing sacrifice. She stayed faithful to
her vision of selfish love. Shed rather die than betray her
vision. Another important thing about the play is that we do
not see her death in a play. We have a messenger who tells that
she is dead. Celias death is sth that happens outside the
society. She doesnt want to die but merely accepts the
situation- radical dilemma. She remains faithful to her passion.
They are all shocked except Reilly- imperceptible smile of
perfection. She remains faithful. She is crucified over an
anthill. Reilly knows that we die sooner or later. But how? Her
dream has its final transformation into reality- the movement
she sticks to it that is the complete pattern. The spiritual reality
is revealed. We see Edward and Lavinia having a successful
party. They are pleased and this is the end. Shaw and Eliot
were philosophically and politically different but they had sth
in common- refusal to accept the self-egothe idea that
common life is not a container of the whole pattern.
Shaw & Eliot- simply transhumanization out of marriage.
Osborne- marriage shouldnt be disgented(?).
For Eliot, this movement to spiritual realm is sth that does not
happen in society, its not compatible with the norms of
society. What is specific about Eliot is that the kind of love he
values most is the selfless universal love. He doesnt believe
in the potential of a personal relationship. This further on also
makes him reject, not appreciate physical, erotic love as a
conservative Christian.
EXCERPTS
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Reilly: Now, I want to point out to both of youcondition

Reilly- a psychiatrist. They go to him and he tells them to
accept each other. They both have lovers- Celia and Peter.
When Edward sees his wife has left him she suggest a free
relationship. But he got afraid. He discovers sth about himself.
He is not loving. The fear of being unlovable Reilly connects
to the fear of impotence. Lavinia discovers that she is
unlovable- no one can love her. Reilly says that they can make
the best of a bad job- accept their own limitations. Saints are
those who transcend limitations- a general human conditionunloving and unlovable. We live in the isolated ego, the selfish
self. Then we cannot truly love. Only those who transcend that
become capable of real life. To transcend the prison- selfisolated ego. We think of the key each in his prison,
thinking of the key each confirms prison- the Waste
Land.
Celia: Well there are two things I cant understand
symptom
If shes normal then sth is wrong with the world she lives in.
Two symptoms she talks about- awareness of solitude- the end
of her illusion- everyone is isolated in that isolated ego- a
general human condition. Human relationship- people do not
communicate really, they just make noises, no deep
understanding of another human being. Delusion- to get rid of
it. Edward and Lavinia- to face the truth about themselves.
Celia realizes some truth about people and she has to start
from there, to accept that truth of isolation, the state of being
we have to accept and go on from. Solitude bothers her but its
not a simple kind of solitude. Its solitude with everybody. Its
no longer worthwhile to speak to anyone. One is always alone.
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She makes a kind of generalization. Its a general condition of

all the people. Its sth like universal human condition. She
doesnt refer only to herself but to all people.
Celia: Its not the feeling of anything Ive doneyoull cure
me
The sense of soleness and sin. We feel a sense of sin when we
do sth wrong. Its not a guilt of an action but of emptiness- a
kind of failure. She has failed in sth. The relationship with
Edward doesnt work. He is married and she is his lover. He
wants Lavinia back although their marriage doesnt work. He
betrays their relationship. He is afraid of change. She wanted
to outgrow the ego with Edward, to reach identity which is not
selfish. They were both investing in that 3rd person- us. She is
disappointed in love in general. We think that we love other
person but we actually love the projection. We fall in love with
the projection and thats why we are strangers. She couldnt
achieve transhumanization with Edward. The metaphor of the
forest- the symbol of experience. Its like two of them set out
to experience sth in love and life. Edward is not mature
enough. He feels compassion for her. She feels sorry for him.
He is like a child. He wants to go back from the forest, to go
back home. The idea of treasure- a sort of vision of
meaningful life- decode life to some transpersonal service. She
has a vision of meaningful life. She doesnt want to betray it.
She feels guilty about not having found this. The feeling of
guilt tells her that this vision is real, sth that exists. She was
trying to achieve sth real. This vision can be achieved.
Reilly: The condition is curableanything else
Celia wants to be cured. There are two ways. 1st is to reconcile
with the human conditions. People live a sort of tolerant life,
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simply accept common routine. There is a superficial contact.

Its a good life in a world of stupidity. However, she wants to
cherish her vision. 2nd way is a journey into the unknown. In
term of Eliots philosophy- the unconscious many and the
conscious few. 1st are the ones who reconcile with the human
conditions, the 2nd are those who love mankindtranshumanization. Za Eliota nema nade u istoriji. Izlazimo iz
istorije in the realm of saints. Each way means loneliness and
the communion. Its out of time that my decision is takenkada se Beket odlucuje da se bori za svoja ubedjenja,
prikljucuje se podrucju svetaca (Murder in the Cathedral).
(2nd version)
Lukacs, Shaw and Eliot believed that situation of modern
man is not hopeless- certain movement is possible. Lukacs- a
Marxist- this movement is through history and society
(development is horizontal/ time development). Shaw- an
evolutionist- a belief there is a life force and God at the end of
evolution, all living beings and man especially are moving
towards perfection. His perfection is the ecstasy of brain. The
potential of human improvement is in our intelligence (vertical
development/ ascent opened to any personality- spiritual
reality of descent (Eliot)- to the level of the biological,
repressed, instinctual energies (Osborne)). Eliot- hope doesnt
lie in history which for him has a shape of an inverted U- the
best period, the peak of history- Elizabethan age because
human faculty of imagination wasnt separated from intellect.
Then spirituality permeated the whole culture/ social life.
Further on, history leads to the dissociation of sensibilitythoughts and feelings no longer in harmony. Another thing
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brought about by the historical development is the modern

society which supports and favorises the selfish self. Eliot
criticizes modern democracies because although they assign
great importance on an individual, they really encourage the
selfish tendencies of an individual. Eliot claims that within
every man theres a potential to transcend the selfish self and
reach the genuine self by means of surrendering ones selfish
needs and interests to sth more important. This more important
sth for Eliot is either love, selfless Christian love or the Divine
Plan. For Eliot, hope doesnt lie in social progress but in the
spiritual realm.
The Cocktail Party
The central character of the play is Celia. She belongs to the
conscious few. She has a vision of a meaningful and fulfilled
life and she wants originally to fulfill this vision through her
love relationship with Edward. Edward is unhappily married
to Lavinia, so he has an affair with Celia. Celia has great
aspirations, ideals regarding this affair, hoping that through
loving Edward she will manage to transcend her ego and that
in their love they will grow into a third person- us. However, it
turns out that Edward is not worth of such love. When
Edwards conventional marriage is in crisis, all he wants is his
wife back. He is afraid and cannot leave conventional life. He
needs the security of his conventional marriage. Reilly is a
psychiatrist. He is really a spokesman of Eliots ideas, a true
guide, capable of making people know themselves truly. He
has an aura of the priest. He understands the human soul. Celia
goes to Reilly after her relationship with Edward has finished
and tell him that she is troubled by the sense of solitude and
by the sense of sin. Solitude- she feels that all the people
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around her and she herself are unloving and unlovable. We

feel alone because we live in this prison cell of the isolated
ego and unless we transcend it we never actually get to know
other people. Celia says that we only think weve fallen in
love with sb, but what we love is really just our projection,
and we are strangers to each other. Sin- she feels she had
vision of sth very important and that she has betrayed that
vision. She calls it the treasure. She feels like a child who
went to the forest to find the treasure and then failed to find it,
but there is still this urge to cherish this vision, not to betray it.
She says to Reilly she doesnt want to forget this vision- I can
put with anything; I can live without everything, if I might
cherish it. Her vision is a greater reality than one with which
she is faced everyday and she sticks to her decision never to
be unfaithful to her vision yet she promises never to try to find
it in an erotic, sexual attachment to a man. The other two
people who go to the psychiatrist are Edward and Lavinia.
Edwards problem is that at first he thought his wife didnt
love him and he couldnt love her. He felt he wasnt capable of
giving deep meaningful love and thought his wife was to
blame. So, he had a love affair with Celia and then realized he
couldnt love her deeply either. He realized he is unloving,
incapable of loving sb deeply. Reilly says that for some men
this is as disturbing as the fear of impotence. Lavinia has the
opposite problem. At first she thought it was because of him
that he couldnt love her, and then she found that another lover
couldnt love her either. She realizes then that she is unlovable
kind of person. Actually, what Eliot tries to tell us is that we
are all unloving and unlovable unless we manage to transcend
the selfish self. Still, even this situation is not seen as tragic
149

for Edward and Lavinia. Reilly teaches them to learn and

accept their own limitations and he actually reconciles them
with the human condition. Its important they no longer delude
themselves, so there will be certain improvement at the end of
the play. What they do is make best out of the bad job.
According to Eliot this is still a good life in a world which is
full of violence, stupidity, greed. Celia says this good life
leaves her cold- she cant accept it. So, she chooses the other
option- transhumanization. She also says it is a horrible
journey into the unknown as our selfish self dies for the
genuine self to be born. It is like a total deconstruction of our
ego consciousness. Celia changes her life and becomes a nurse
and goes to a mission in Africa. She was standing with dying
people (Lisa- The White Hotel). She didnt want to desert
them, but to give them comfort. There was an attack of a
hostile tribe and she was killed in a horrible manner. In fact,
she commits an act of willing sacrifice. She remained faithful
to her vision of selfless love. The important thing about the
structure of the play is that we dont see her death in a play.
From the beginning to the end, she stayed in the room of upper
class English society. We have a messenger who tells us she
died. Celias death is sth that happens outside the society.
Within the confinements of conventional life, Celia couldnt
have the kind of relationship that would enable her to
transcend her ego. This movement of the spiritual realm to
Eliot is something that is incompatible with the norms of
society. He doesnt believe in the potential of personal
relationship. He thinks that any kind of love which leads to the
attachments to another person will not lead to the spiritual
fulfillment. This further on makes her reject erotic love and
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praise the universal love. This is similar to Shaw because both

St. Joan and Celia have to renounce their physical being
(erotic love, flesh) in order to become saints. The idea of
sainthood as a trans-historical phenomenon achievable at all
times. Reilly offers 2 cures: 1. To exit from the room. 2. A
return to the human condition. She chooses the first. The erotic
love is always an illusion. For Shaw marriage is hell and to
seek pleasure is vulgar. For Eliot, marriage was a kind of hell
but it could be transformed. Edward and Lavinia remained
within the room accepting descent but partial life.
J.Osborne- LOOK BACK IN ANGER
The meaning of the room- trap or refuge? Protection for bears
and squirrels from the outside world. But there is cruelty,
hysteria, conflict- lack of happiness.
Osborne was uncertain about his attitude to women. Yet, he is
the most furious enemy of Eliot who says human love cannot
be achieved through physical love. He was not happy with his
two wives. What does Jimmy want? Some people push him as
a neurotic young man, but he is not. There is a political
criticism in a play. Here the action takes place in one room flat
in a provincial town in Midlands. The Room- the central stage
metaphor. Ibsen and Eliot defined the room as the social place
with people suffering rather than fulfilling. Jimmy is a very
poor man, living in one room flat with his wife Alison. The
room defined as the refuge. When Jimmy talks about topics
happening in the outside world- the world is a trap. In order to
cultivate our natural feelings we should withdraw- an
experiment that may be salvation. Marriage is a place where
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experiments must go on. Its not hell for him. Jimmy refuses to
get out of this hell. They are unhappy. There are three people:
Alison, Jimmy and Cliff. Its Sunday, its traditionally a day
when you stop working and devote yourself to spiritual
pursuits. Sunday is a crown of a weekly cycle when man is the
most himself. They do nothing but read newspapers. This
dreary routine scene develops in the scene of conflict, hysteria.
Jimmy shouts at his wife. It turns then into anger, hysteria.
Why is Jimmy angry? He is furious, angry with Alison. One of
the reasons- they are substitute for the invisible enemy. Whos
they? That is the social establishment specified historicallyafter WWII- labor government promised greater justice,
opportunity for all the classes in England after the war. Jimmy
was one of those who thanks to this aspiration were able to go
to university, newly-built, public red brick. On his leaving
university he realized for the upper-class the promise of
freedom was just empty words. They ended up feeling
unwanted. Jimmy is sensitive, energetic young man. Nobody
wants what he can offer. He is frustrated. He lives in a
hypocritical culture- result of the war not against German
fascism but for the justice at home. Revolution didnt lead
anywhere but to the false democracy which is another version
of fascism. Osborne left England, wrote A Letter to My
Fellow Countryman- a declaration of hatred against false
democracy constituted to fight red Lords(??). So, he wrote that
letter, compared England with the pile of junk covered with
mannerism and on the top there are those who pretend they
dont feel the terrible smell. Socialism- the moral failure. That
was the situation after the great fascism. He feels impotent
anger. This new system is represented best in the play by
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Alisons family. Her father belongs to the pillars of empire.

Now that the empire has collapsed, he is confused because he
is a loser. He is a man who belongs to culture, past, to the prewar years. The majority of people at that time believed in
beneficial and noble projects of imperialism. One of them was
Alisons father. Jimmy knows that he has ideals which are
phony. Her father didnt see the truth, he serves England. In
the modern world after WWII is no longer possible not to
know the truth that England has been plundering the world.
The rage directed at those like brother Nigel who cannot
appeal to any justification of his stupidity. Jimmy cannot
forgive Nigel who belongs to the generation of plunders. He is
vague about everything. He deliberately suppresses the truth
of plundering. Nigel- cynical people who brought to education
in American age which will force the ideology of plundering
without winking(??). Jimmy says American age- no cause to
fight for. Nigel knows and yet cultivates deliberate stupidity to
protect himself from the awareness of his immoral position.
Universal business to produce a sort of vaguery(?). He knows
nothing about real world; unaware of the social situation. They
hate people in their desire not to know. He is full of platitude,
vague. He hates Nigel in particular. He also hates Alisons
mother- moral criminal betray- their function- love, justice- in
particular. Alisons mother is the embodiment of upper-class
conventions. Her contribution is her complaining against
anything which divorce from upper-class convention. She is a
snob. Her obsession with her long hair. He hates also his own
mother. The only feeling she has is that his father was fighting
on the losing side. These people dont appear, we hear about
them. Their absence on the stage emphasize Alison and
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Jimmys isolation- only 3 characters, they are isolated. He is

tremendously angry- newspapers- hypocritical. He quotes sb
called the Bishop koji se svim silama zalaze da se napravi
atomska bomba. The Bishop of Bouly- church will give
support to the manufacturer of atomic bombs. Church is
highly hypocritical. Jimmy cant bear the sound of church
bells because of the perversity of the church. Its a political
force helping the waste of human potentials. These are no
causes he can fight for. The church bells sum up the corruption
of the church and on the other hand jazz is the music of those
who were enslaved. Church is charged with all the connotation
of injustice but he cant do anything, he is impotent. He plays
Jazz. Its all he can do to oppose church bells. The idea is that
the war against fascism was won and yet it survived. It
manifested itself in social injustice, racism, and what hurts
Jimmy is that this turning of revolutionary struggle into
opposite doesnt bother anybody. Nobody is prepared to be
angry. Hamlets dilemma- everything is perfectly adjusted,
nobody suffer, nobody opposes. Alison and Helena are not to
be suffering, they are less than human beings. Let us at least
suffer. She is different- sleeping beauty. He marries her
believing she is relaxed. He assumes wrongly. She has always
her hair in the place. Relaxation- she is pragmatic. Hes
attracting her by spiritual flame. She doesnt burn, no moral
intensity of small mind, soul courage. Hed do anything to
wake her up. She continues the correspondence with her
parents. She is another Ophelia- she is secretly betraying hima tool in the hand of establishment. He is angry to that extent
his anger is justifiable. Id like you to suffer, to have a baby
to grow into recognizable being and Id like you to lose the
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baby. That kind of loss must make you a complete human

being. Soon she is pregnant. She leaves him and Helena takes
over her place. She removes Alison and grasps Jimmy for
herself. We discover that she is an actress in her life; she does
everything from the book of rules. She reads from scenario.
She is a church-goer. The only light she can find is in the
middle dark ages. Alison is given an opportunity to perfect a
truly Christian. Jimmy wants Alison to accompany him to visit
his friends mother. Helena insists on Alison accompanying
her to the church. Alison is won over by Helena. She goes to
church instead of exercising real charity. She goes to church to
observe formal rituals which are meaningless. He feels terrible
and Alison leaves him. He accepts Helena at first but then
realizes that both wear his shirts. Then Alison appears crying.
She has lost her child. I am here because I love you. Helena
withdraws willingly because all the time she was breaking the
rules. Jimmy is revolutionary at first- refusal, desire to escape
from the pain of being alive. Love is not a soft job. It is an
admiration that shed be rather a saint than a complete human
being. Eliot- to be saint is to develop your human potentials.
Osborn of Eliot- you have to choose either this life or
sainthood. Sainthood is defined by refusal of human life, pain
relationship. He is very much against Christianity, Eliot and
the best point in his lyrics- his style, theatre dance, language of
the working class. He repudiates Eliot in his lyricscesspool, there is no dry-cleaners in Cambodia- a response
to Eliot and Celias death for abstract love. Life is a cesspool.
If you want to live you will never become a saint. There is no
exit from this hell. Celia is pure. For Osborne any such purity
is a failure in humanity. Life is complicated by the bodily,
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flesh and mind of human vain. You have to accept it, cant
clear your life from that. In Helena he sees less than a human
being. Alison comes then, relaxed, in the game of squirrels and
bears- a kind of development. They are less then human. Yet,
that is a new beginning, a new departure. Not a saint beyond
the bodily, nor a movement forward- in Shaw, it develops in
term of descend to the level of uncomplicated sensual
affection. They cant understand each other intellectually. Lets
resolve our conflict on the level of affection- quite different
from Shaw, an attempt to find salvation in a love relationship.
Yet it is not as simple as that. He is raging against Alison
because she is an enemy by the fact she is a woman- devours
him while making love. The main obstacle for the progresswomen, sex, married life.
(2nd version)
Room as a setting reappears but its function changes. In Eliot,
Ibsen room- the trap of society, shapes man, but here no one
goes out of the room. It defines less the conventional life, not
a social structure but an image of a private life, shelter in
which the consciousness of man is dramatized. An alternative
to the life outside (the world of corruption) and through the
windows the sound of this world come in- church bells. The
sound of the bells is unbearable because the church supported
atom bombing. Therefore, church is an institution based on
profit through the alliance with the secular powers. The
hypocrisy of this institution to which he cannot answer in any
other way but playing a trumpet- Jazz music. Jimmy is
disappointed, angry, frustrated. He is intelligent, talented but
the world outside has no use of him. Thats why he brutally
treats Alison as its representative. This hostile world is
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historically defined in 1957. Young men, working class, were

given the opportunity to acquire education at red brick
university, but top positions were reserved for those who
went to Oxford and Cambridge universities. People like
Jimmy were fitted to become misfitted. Osborne gave voice to
the whole generation of angry young men. They had
democracy but all remained the same as the values of the older
system. Opportunities were not given to ordinary men.
Osborne wrote A Letter to My Fellow Countryman- a letter
of hatred towards England. He compared England with a pile
of junk. He left Britain. The education he acquired gave him
self-consciousness but no opportunities. Just like Jimmyeducated but keeps a sweet store. All that Osborne/Jimmy
could do was to be angry because there is no change but for
the worse. His anger is mainly turned against mothers because
when his father was back from Spanish war, his mother was
embarrassed and said that he wasnt on the victorious side
even though he was on righteous one. His mother didnt even
consider that his father deserved any attention. All revolutions
turn in their opposites. Even Alisons father is more acceptable
than her mother (his anger is turned towards his and Alisons
mothers). Jimmy doesnt accept women who allow to be
instrumentalised by society. The change is towards
hopelessness because the world is taken by Nigels (Alisons
brother) with no ideas, shaped by colleges knowledge so has
no true knowledge. He is absolutely vague- should be given a
medal for vagueness. He was manufactured to be protected by
stupidity. He will never recognize that he and his pals are
robbing his country. Nigel is the embodiment of hypocrisy,
negligence, stupidity. Such practical, ruthless, greedy people
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without ideals and in pursuit of power run the country- the

American age. Perhaps all our children will be Americans
manufactured not to notice societys corruption. A pervasive,
disillusioned (?) that there are no brave causes left to fight for.
American age also presupposes that suffering is the sin of
maladjustment, abnormality, inferiority. Jimmy is very much
like Hamlet (to suffer or to oppose)- surrounded by people
who dont see theres sth rotten in England, so they dont
oppose and dont suffer. He turns all his anger towards Alison:
indifferent, poltroon, of small mind, soul, courage, not daring
to do anything- similar to Ophelia. She keeps correspondence
with her family not mentioning Jimmys name as a dirty word.
Alison abandons her class for Jimmy because she is drawn by
his vitality. Alison, however, (as Helen) doesnt want to step
out of the conventional way of thinking, therefore she cannot
stand out for Jimmy against her family, society, to change
view of life. Alisons mother is the representative of snobbish
empire. For her Jimmys long hair was a sign of sth demonic
(St. Mawr). Jimmy wants Alison to wake up from her beauty
sleep, so he wishes her to have a baby and then lose it and feel
the suffering. Alison and Helen are both cases of emotional
virgins- never lost anything. Helen is more initiative than
Alison- 1st instance of her hypocrisy. She is class/moral enemy
of Jimmys, but it appears to him as more intellectually
developed than Alison. 2nd instance of her hypocrisy- she is an
actress. 3rd instance- the way she goes to church is
meaningless- in Diors clothes goes to do conventional act
empty of any meaning instead of doing a real thing- to go to a
person who is dying to show that she cares. Both of them try
to become Jimmy (wear his shirts) but they cant. All this158

saints in Diors clothes- is a parody of Eliot. It is either

sainthood or humanity. A saint is sb who doesnt want to be
emerged into life, love; people who fail as human beings.
Helen wants to escape the pain of being alive. For Osborne the
sainthood of Celia (communication of love) is an escape from
pain- No dry cleaners in Cambodia.
EXCERPTS
Jimmy: Have you ever seen her brother
This play is based on certain historical context. The labor
party promised to abolish class distinction, to enable poor
people to educate. Jimmy comes from the working class. He
manages to study in the red-brick university (cheaper). Jimmy
is disappointed, he realized all top jobs are still reserved for
the rich. He wants to revenge. His country is still imperialistic.
Alisons brother symbolizes all these things Jimmy is against.
Nigel is not bright at all, he talks in phrases which are not
specific. Krije se iza uopstenih fraza. He doesnt know
anything about ordinary life. Nigel is one of those who
maintain status quo. He cannot talk about other way the
society can be organized- conservative politician. Education is
to blame- it is reserved for the upper class, it teach you to
serve this structure (character building). The purpose of this
education is to make you incapable to conceive any
alternative. You should accept the society as it is. He defends
himself from alternatives by stupidity, also from his
consciousness. He never examines his consciousness.
Education is to blame for producing people such as Nigel.
Jimmy: I told you pusillanimous
- wanting of firmness of mind, of small courage, having a little
mind, mean-spirited, cowardly. She doesnt want to participate
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in Jimmys suffering. Hamlets dilemma. In Jimmys, people

have the feeling of idealism. He is against all these struggles.
He cant find a cause of fight but still wants to rage against
injustice. He asserts all his humanity. Alison refuses to support
him in this attitude. Pusillanimous- its running away from
life, from passionate involvement in life. Predskazanje- when
Helena calls her to come to the church with her, she will
betray Jimmy when he most needs her.
Jimmy: Oh, my dear wife, youve got so much to learn
He wishes for her sth cruel- to lose her child. Shes never
suffered from any pain so she cant sympathize with others
who have. She does have a certain passion. The image of
Alison- someone who devours Jimmy, passive feminine, a
symbol of some sort of passivity, a python. It doesnt refer
only to sex, but their marriage as well. He is a visionary man
with progressive ideas. Alison doesnt support him but
becomes an obstacle of his ideas. She is comparable to
Ophelia- obedient daughter. Alison is obedient to her mother.
Her mother represents the upper class. Alison regularly sends
letters to her family. She is an informer, just like Ophelia. She
betrays Jimmy. She serves the system- her father. She has
sexual passion.
Alison: You see thatno brain
The game they play- love game. When they make love they
pretend they are bear and squirrel. It is very affectionate game,
a game to escape the reality. Jimmy is so angry and the life is
often like a hell. At this level their relationship still works- the
animal, passionate part of ones personality. They symbolize
uncomplicated emotions, strong emotions. They agree on a
love level, on the intellectual they dont.
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The man is in bad position. How do the critics see that?

Lukacs- the movement is through social progress (the way
forward).
Shaw: evolution (the ecstasy of brain).
Eliot: the realm of saint (transhumanization).
For both Shaw and Eliot there is the idea of spiritual grow up.
Osborne: you move down to uncomplicated affection- bears
and squirrels- in order to recover our basic humanity.
Jimmy: Reason and progress
Jimmys criticism of Helena. She is a friend of Alison. She is
an actress. She stays for a few more weeks. Jimmy doesnt
like her. She is a church-goer. He doesnt approve of it. She
goes there to perform rituals, however he criticizes her
religious attitude for other reasons. Just like Nigel escapes in
his own stupidity, Helena escapes into religion. She doesnt
want to face reality. She gives up reason and progress, the
tendency to social progress, free enquiry; no longer have
values. Vracaju se konvencijalnoj religioznosti. Symbolically
her escape is represented- she is a bit like Miss Solness- she
has a sense of guilt- she has to give up. Its wrong that she is
with a married man- in a way hypocritical. This passage tells
sth about Osborns attitude towards Eliot- Eliot rejects love.
He always returns to old beliefs. Osborne thinks we should be
involved in the current affairs, common human life. They
spent their time mostly looking at the past- an allusion to
Eliot.
Helena: Very well, Im going to
Helena and Jimmy have a certain sort of relationship. Helena
doesnt want to remain faithful to her love to Jimmy. She
betrays it. Hot-house- staklena basta- fragile feelings- they
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can only survive in a protective surroundings. Ako bi ostala,

morala bi da uprlja ruke- moralni konflikt. But she runs away.
To be a saint, for Osborne, is a failure. For Shaw and Eliot
its sth positive. Saint refuses to mess up his hands.
Cocktail Party, Look Back in Anger and St. JoanSAINTHOOD
Examination of theme of sainthood. No saints in Ibsen.
Salvation- difficult; no character whose triumph is not
accompanied by loss, failure- egotism. Shaw, Eliot- saintssubmission to vocation, force larger than themselves- true
reality.
One of the themes that connects Shaw, Eliot and Osborne is
the exploration of the phenomena of sainthood in which
salvation can be achieved. Salvation from bourgeois
respectability and conventional way of life. Shaw was the
beginner of the modern drama in England. Sainthood would
be a tread run through analysis- the stage metaphor- the roomsignificantly in St. Joan. The room doesnt appear here. Shaw
was an incurable optimist- there is no room. Modern drama
begins and remains in England in order to find the new natural
drama- like the early Ibsen. The best of Ibsen he found in his
plays dealing with social issues. Ibsen was the best in his
earliest and last plays- turns social issues into symbols- reveals
the difficulty in arriving at any simple truth- symbols reveal
how salvation is difficult because the price is in terms of other
peoples happiness. For Ibsen that was not an easy price to
pay. He realizes in his last plays spiritual intensity between
heights and depths. In him there is no saints. Eliot & Shaw
explore the possibility of sainthood in absolute truth. Saints
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are those who are subordinated to a kind of reality that

transcends their personal egoistic desires. They are only
capable of revealing that reality by death. Common place,
everyday life- for Shaw this reality- evolution- philosophically
he was an evolutionist- evolution by conscious will and in his
political theory he was a socialist. He believes in gradual
social change- the spokesman of justice and equality. What is
needed according to Shaw is order, that is, movement should
be ensured in it- exceptional individual- a cooperation on the
part of man in order that this life force should be made
possible. These are realists.
Most people refuse to see the reality. This is the great
majority- unthinking. They are not sensitive, imaginative
enough to need anything more than what the society offers to
them. They are contented. Idealists are sensitive enough to feel
that they are secretly suffering from social conventions but
have no courage to change reality. They invent romantic
illusions, ideals- deceptions- to facilitate their own life within
the trap of social conventions. Example: marriage- social
convention within which men/women secretly suffer. The idea
of everlasting love is romantic illusion. For that he says
idealists imagine reality to endure the society. Only one faces
the reality, free erotic love. Its the ideal that persecutes them.
Saints and realists have courage to face reality by their life
force manifested in evolution. Intelligence appears to orient us
psychologically and physically. Perfect society is for Shaw
synonym for God. God is the goal, moral intelligence. Realists
are important because they see the working of life force,
submit common interests in order to become instruments of
life force. For Shaw, to believe in passion is to live in an
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illusion. By living for erotic joy Im drifting. Those in heaven

stir the ship of human society. One should reject flesh and
body. Its too boring. St. Joan- How is this life force
manifested in Joan? About historical event. He uses it to
dramatize the sainthood. Joan is a saint. She has subordinated
whatever was her personal aim to do Gods business. She
identifies with God- another name for life force. She becomes
a rebel against the church and aristocracy. She first rebel and
protestant(?). Protesticism- rebellion of the individual soul
against social, or inferiority of the church in the private
communication with God. For Shaw and Eliot imagination is
that organ in man that enables him to see the true society.
God- her vision of that life force. Is her death a waste? Noshe didnt chose to die. She insists upon her life, rights. But
when they tell her that she will spend her life in prison, shed
rather die than be a slave. She refuses life under such terms- a
cultural hero. Her heart couldnt burn. She supplies us with
criteria of humanity. You become human when you accept to
die for your vision of freedom. She completes the pattern of
reality. It is revealed. People surrounding profit immensely
around her. Her greatest achievement was the support of her
death. They cant stand her wearing mens clothes. They later
see how terrible it is when you kill other person. Then a notemust Christ die for the sake of those who dont have
imagination to see the total reality. It seems it is a necessity.
Why do they kill her? As a realist, brave shed remind them of
their faults; criteria on which they will judge their failures. She
reminds them of what they could be, but dont have the
courage. The same is to be found in Eliots Becket- different
from Shaw. Eliot was a Christian, Shaw was an evolutionist164

he believes his story moves forward. Eliot- history is

descending. Although they are different, they have in common
that ordinary nature- doesnt contain a full pattern. Its echoed
in The Murder in the Cathedral- in the text concerning
Beckets death. People will remember his death but the story
will be changed because people cannot hear too much
reality. If Shaw insisted on one person to be a realist, Eliot
has similar division- the conscious few and the unconscious
majority. They represent (Celia) a modern secular version of
sainthood. They die to show the whole pattern. Henry II killed
Becket in the Counterbery Cathedral. Eliot- all his plays are
written in versus- when you see development away from
naturalism. It is to dramatize the complete pattern he resorted
to verse. Shaw- naturalism. The play he wrote consists his
mature works. He denoted the end of his life- ego characterthe majority. You subordinate it to more higher, larger self. He
returns to this same theme. There is no mind(?) historical
references in Becket- valid process- an instance of sth can
happen always. Becket escaped to France, returned and yet
already knowing that it is hostile to demonstrate that the
freedom of spirit is beyond necessity. To whom? There is a
chorus. It comprises the voices of the women of Canterberyunthinking majority. The unconscious men- they are faced
between Henry and Becket and the play is transformation
towards the acceptance of the whole pattern. First, they live on
the level on the cycles of seasons- pay taxes, award
misfortunes. Their greatest fear is to face the possibility of
freedom. Theyd rather go on partly living. There is a realm of
spiritual freedom. Becket stands for it. At first the chorus
pleads Becket to return to France. We dont witness the
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difficulty of moral choice. Then 4 tenors tempt him with

various things. He rejected sensual pleasure, political poweran offer to become a part of aristocracy. Then the crucial
temptation- the 4th tentor offered him to become a martyr for
the sake of glory, vanity, fame. Then Becket says this is the
worst temptation- to choose the right thing for the bad reason.
He wants to strip himself from any personal motif- only if it is
a desire of God. Its not out of my personal will but for the
sake of revealing the whole pattern. Im not in danger, Im
near to death. To be faithful to spiritual freedom. There is the
comment of the chorus showing that those unconscious many
dont see the whole pattern, accept own limitations, cant live
up to the criterion of the saint. Becket and Joan are the cultural
heroes, they point to the whole pattern- what it means to be
complete human.
Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot
Beckett is more hopeful than Pinter. That is found in Waiting
for Godot. Waiting for Godot defiantly renders itself to be
a kind of interpretation that allows for legitimate hope.
Waiting for Godot is about four people- optimistic. The two
of them are waiting for Godot- salvation, new hope. The hope
is legitimate because they made decisive steps to become
drop-outs (waiting for a better chance). They are contrasted to
two other characters. We see them as being alternative to those
shut within the culture. They are on the road. There is a tree of
life (hope for regeneration). A play about waiting- they fill the
emptiness of time by playing games. They remain together
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voluntarily- two tramps terribly incompetent, never get wiser,

sustain each other by remaining together( friendship- an
alternative against obedience- the game that ruins them both in
the end; reminds one perhaps of the games spoken about
Pinter- play, play again relationship within the culture that
V&E stepped beyond.
S. Becket- Waiting for Godot
The theme of Becketts play as well as of the Shaffers The
Royal Hunt is the loss of faith in all variety of cultural ideals,
beliefs and in the power of mind to give us definite
explanation of the world which is inaccessible to rational,
philosophical mind. The philosophical assumption: reality is
inaccessible; man cannot determine the origin and the goal of
human existence (Luckas). This impotence of mind is present
as sth unchanging. But that is not so. This unknowability of
the quality of a rationalist, Cartesian mind is due to the split
from other modes of knowing (intuition)
At the beginning of his carrier, Beckett thought that the artist
was a non-knower, non-comer. However, he didnt remain on
this nihilistic stage. He wanted to bring people to zero-position
so that we could go on. If a modern man was to make any step
beyond, he had to go beyond social norms, beyond convential
life. He was aware of the waste of life. Therefore, his
characters, Vladimir and Estragon go beyond culture
(Trilling). His play Waiting for Godot has two pairs of
characters (phases in Pizaros life) and it is a defense of all
techniques. This play is seemingly without movement,
change- no climax, no resolution, as if nothing happens. The
play is about the time and the frustration of waiting.
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In Beckett, characters cant explain themselves to each other,

cant orient themselves in space and time, spectators cant see
motives. The characters know nothing about the past except
that once they were presentable, respectable in the society but
now they are not significant for the society. They step out of it
and there is their salvation. In his plays, casual, logical
explanation is missing.
Waiting for Godot- the theme of death and time in a world that
is devoid of God, explanations, consolation of traditional
beliefs. The metaphor of the room disappears because the
problem is no longer being closed within a cultural space, it is
about the possibility once one finds oneself outside the
culture. That is why in Becket we have an open road- a search
for a better option, facing naked reality, leading nowhere
except perhaps to death. The same theme is explored in
Shaffers The Royal Hunt. Pizzaro (this cage)- the prison
cell of time- how can the problem of time be solved. In Pinter
we have depiction of the absurdity, senselessness of life in the
network of relationships offered by culture which reveals the
destructiveness of culture without moving to depiction of an
exit. In Beckett and Shaffer- we have not only the absurdity of
culture but also the step outside culture- they didnt describe
life outside culture as absurd, so they allow us to see that
human condition is not tragic, theres a shred of hope, there is
the conviction that once you step outside culture, you face
naked reality- death and time- but the play is about finding sth
that suffice. The very first sentence of Becketts play Nothing
to be done, shows a kind of absurdity of life. Estragon says it
and Vladimir repeats it on a higher level. The reasons for this
nothing to be done are supplied through allusions to the
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Bible which gave Western men a map for orientation, of Holy

land, where he will be given all explanations, meanings. In
Bible, there was an ideal of origin and goal, and this reference
to the Bible emphasize that this map of reading is no longer
valid. Hope deferred makes the heart sick but when desire
comes it is a tree of life- Vladimir remembers quotations
from the Bible when he has problems with the bladder,
waiting for the last moment. We connect this sentence with
the scenery on the stage- there is a tree but its no longer a tree
of life. Bible can no longer sustain us, it cannot take us to the
place where hope and desire are realized and it also points to
the loss of faith in all cultural ideals as well as the collapse of
the old traditional beliefs. Luckys speech seems to be
meaningless, but it is paradoxical, moves in circles and yet
you can extract meaning, message. Lucky, by parodying the
Bible, scientific discoveries, is saying that there is no
salvation. He begins by a reference to religion- God- at first
there is personal God (traditional conclusion in that we will be
saved) but turns it into opposite: apathia- inability to feel to
have moral; aphasia- inability to speak (theres God but this
God is suffering from muteness, indifference); anthemia- lack
of capacity for terror and amazement and perhaps moral
indifference. Then he goes on to philosophy, parody of science
of men. In spite of God, science, other various down-to-earth
activities are resort to give life appearance of meaning. The
passage concludes with repetition: the man, master and pines,
the skull, the skull, the skull- the world is meaningless. The
speech points that all traditional (philosophical, religious,
scientific) coherent explanations have lost power to supply us
with the sense of meaning and this should be discarded. The
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society destroys the creative potentials of the mind. Once

Lusky was able to express himself in beautiful dances. He now
calls the dance a net- the mind is entrapped.
Pozzo and Lucky believe in social hope- they live within
culture believing that there is social hope- meaningful change,
development, which is an old ideal of social progress. Pozzo
has a watch- believes in time; a schedule- his life is organized
according to timetable; a suitcase- traditional belief, his
cultural heritage (religious, philosophical) are there to
imbetter(?) his belief in cultural progress but this belief is a
sham because the relationship between Pozzo and Lucky
presupposes cruelty and exploitation. Pozzo is very selfcomplacent and he governs the society. The artist and
philosopher are slaves in the consumer society. Pozzo and
Lucky- master and servant relationship, presumption and
cruelty to Lucky is what reveals essential hypocrisy of all
meanings defined in culture. Therefore in act II we have Pozzo
blind, he has lost his schedule, his suitcase is full of sandChristian illusion of nothingness and vanity. He is being
pulled on the rope by Lucky who is now dumb. Pozzos
suitcase represents the burden of civilization. Pozzos
blindness, the lack of vision: he had the vision of progress,
meaningful life within society. Now he is desperate because he
ha cherished false hopes. Lucky is dumb- as an artist he has
nothing else to say. Master is mastered by the one he has
dominated: harmful to both Vladimir and Estragon, respond to
Pozzos philosophical speech: at least we know what to
expect. Once they shared the same illusion but made a timely
departure from culture; that is why they are in a better
position. They have only one illusion that is not dependent on
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cultural heritage- Godot. They believe that some meaning will

be revealed to them some day, may be God or any kind of
guidance that is supplied outside themselves. Godot may be
some external authority. A desire to go to a place where you
are safe because life is meaningful again. They are waiting
meaning. Godot may be whatever can provide to a particular
person a sense of fulfillment, human creativity. If Godot is an
external authority than waiting is illusory, if it is an internal
authority, then there is hope. They have found their Godot.
First they have freed from false ideals of relationships, as their
relationship is voluntary- they decided without forcing from
the outside to stay together. Those who are tied with a rope,
they dont have a hint of free choice. Consciously, Vladimir
and Estragon are waiting for external authority, but
unconsciously they have learned that no fixed, absolute,
reliable truth is ever to come, so in the meantime while
waiting, they are playing with words (Derrida- freeplay). The
most offensive word is critic (it fits into the general theme)
because Beckett is making fun of those who want life to
consist of fixed meanings. Beckett, therefore, gives us the
image of 2 tramps, tolerant, informal, forever playing and the
purpose of their being together is affection. They are saved by
affection because they refused to emphasize hierarchical,
exploitative, violent relationship in the society. Pozzo and
Lucky have an imperfect relationship of body and mind.
Lucky is Cartesian mind which cannot console the body and is
abused by it- Pozzo. Lucky as a mind is forced to perform
miracles for Pozzo- western mind supplied man with all
illusions in religious, scientific explanation which has
disintegrated. The mind unsuccessfully tries to recreate the
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traditional concepts but it fails. Thats why Lucky cant think,

cant give answers and Pozzo wants to sell him. The mind is a
scapegoat which will be sacrificed. Vladimir and Estragon are
also projections of the mind and body. Vladimir: playing with
a hat, mind connected to higher spheres (stinking breath) and
Estragon: playing with boots- body, unconscious (stinking
feet). They complement each other. They are materially
shabby but they stick to their dignity. They have found what
will suffice. The body and the mind dont humiliate each other
but base relationship on affection, love. Love is a redeeming
force. Body doesnt expect from the mind big explanations but
a sign, a lullaby. The ability to see others makes us dignified.
The revelation: although life is inaccessible to rational mind, it
is not absurd, it ultimately consists in our ability to love. This
is the cultivation of the mind which is not rational but is
capable to love. Vladimir is sitting next to sleeping Estragon,
singing him a lullaby and then Vladimir says: someone must
be watching me too- the desire to watch means that someone
loves him too, an archetypal need for a spiritual principle so
that man doesnt feel alone. Everything is perhaps, nothing
is final, sure. Logic and casualty are betrayed all the time.
Even the Bible contains uncertainties, a paradox that the Bible
ends with a book of Revelation. We dont arrive at any logic.
Endgame (2 acts) is one act play which stresses the end- in
this play we do not have a contrast and a possibility. They all
belong together- the room is like a cell, they are playing the
end of the game- they desire for it but ending seems to be
endless- the most resonant emotion is the emotion of desire to
be finished- Hamm and Clov -seem to be Pozarard & Lucky
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tired by the roles they have been forced to play. They want to
make the end of the game whatever it is. The hope you feel
when you see that desire- to end smth- anything else might
come up. There is a glimpse of sth new- a child in the end.
What we see is not that possibility. We see suffering, ending,
dying and nothingness. Clove looks out what he reports is zero
version- thats nothing. Nothing is so real as nothing- the
uncertainty about salvation. Here, there seems to be no
chance- absurd, nothing. Everything is reduced to the zero
condition. What is the origin of the sense of nothingness in
Beckets plays? Many factors- part of his nihilism, pessimism
is found in his personal life (an Irishman, well-to do family).
He had a happy childhood. There was too much misery around
him. He did love a woman who died after which he never
surrendered himself to any kind of relationship. This misery
convinces him that he cannot share his mothers religionProtestantism. For some time he shooed the belief
everything turns to the lost- he lost this belief, but this loss of
faith, death of God was the loss of eschatology refers to after
life when we pass out of this world. The philosophy of
Protestantism continued to affect his works- the idea of
predestination. Calvinism- every individual is either doomed
or saved. This vision affected him. The God who loves us but
with some exceptions- for reason are unknown but time will
tell. What we can say about Beckett is that the death of God
never was a sense of release (as for Show). Beckett- the death
of God inspired in him worse pessimism. Show- creative
revolution- ecstasy of brain- monumental comic epic
dedicated to one organ of the human body. Beckett- both
conscience and the body are the source of despair- a source of
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torment to each other. Never harmony, relaxed acceptance- the

body and the mind are tied in inadequate way. Beckett
suffered from depression very early. He began writing poems.
He was conscious of time and he wrote about it. He went to
Germany, retired and spent some time in London seeking
oblivion (avoiding women, too).He visited Joyce and his
daughter Lucia fell in love with him. She became
schizophrenic
Endgame-an allusion to the final moment in chess. That
final point remains for the few final moments the king, the
master. He is expecting the checkmate. Ending-The metaphor
which works on several levels- the end of God, nature- here in
the form of love-the human ending. The end of physical
strength. Nag, Nell, Clove and Hamm- the end of nature.
Hamm is blind. Clove has to see for him- reports a zero of
nature- nothing outside. A kind of ecological catastrophe,
philosophical, religious end. Everything is the endgame- the
end of everything which could keep the western man alive.
Nuclear catastrophe- vague fear of the imminent disaster.
Entropy- metaphor for the end of anything human.
Catastrophe is also spiritual- the entropy of love- the decisive
movement which made them to this position. Hamm & Cloveany relationship turns into deadly ending- the loss of any
emotion. But, love existed once. I am leaving but he does
not. Two people continue to live together after love death.
There is nobody else- nowhere to go. We are dependent on
each other. Hamm is an invalid. Clove, who cannot seat,
provides him with biscuits. The end of meaningful
relationship- people are lazy to change anything. They are all
members of the family- sexual, family love. Hamm curses his
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father (Negg) - failure of parental love. He is also a story

teller. A story about a father asking him to save his child. The
narrator says: If I give you bread, you can feed him only
today- he loves this story. He and Clove- Hamm tortures him.
The point is that love once did exist- no possibility but reality.
Love was possible once- Once you loved me and Clove said
once- resonant note in the play. Once, but not now. Even
though they have dreams about forests, nature, he wakes up
and says What forests. If I could sleep I could love again.
The end of human nature and love. We remember only in a
mixture, indifference. They together hesitate. Nell-she
remembers a moment similar to the moment with her husbandthey were engaged. Now, in the lake in Italy I remember the
boat, the water you and I, and I was so happy. She
remembers instantly. He says it was a joke- it is gone for him.
For her, it keeps reappearing. No, it was not your joke. Then
the rest will not agree that she is talking about happiness.
Clove misunderstands her- they refuse, too bearable for them.
The least adopted- the greater rememberer-The final end of a
dream of love in the play. The death of memory. Her mention
of the desert- Nell- a key piece in a chess game- the fisher
king. The whole myth about the archetype of western man
wounded by the sin of loss of love. Land surrounding his
castle is bare. In the Grail myth; in Eliots The waste
Land- the water suggesting the flow of emotions. The fisher
king- the others- collective archetype of western fisher kingno wounded. Clove carries Hamm- aspect of the sick mind.
The whole endgame is the end of the whole existence which
betrayed love. Not only they are aspects of the single
personality. Nell- consciousness of a man. The end of man is
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seen in the skull of man. Hamm- innovative mind lost any

aspect with his personality. The reason- practical ego exploited
by the mind. The father- superego. Nell- the anima, the
female. If this is the drama of the consciousness of a
collective man, what is the meaning of a boy in the end?
(Richard III)- the knight-to free the fisher king, to heal his
wound and when he dies to be replaced by a new king.
Another beginning is possible. Is he the innocence? Clove I
will be allowed to die- another man involved in a horrible
game? Or a new beginning? Clove exits, the boy enters.
Hamms death- the boy is a new servant. This death is
indistinguishable from the final liberation. There is a hintfinal end of the psyche (the worst possibility is that the game
may not come to an end).
Excerpts
Bare interior
Beckett used a lot of chess symbolism- Endgame- when the
king surrenders (the end of the chess game). Masters of chess,
they study endgame. They know all movements are
determined, fixed, cannot be changed. In the end you are
going to die- in the game of life- it is inevitable. The game is
already decided Grey light- the loss of everything. The game
is not finished. The characters are in a bare room. Hamm &
Clove- two small windows- the room is the skull- everything
happens in mans consciousness. The windows are eyes. The
play is taking place in the single human skull. He keeps his
parents in an ashbin. They are inevitably a part of who we are.
They are here, in our psyche. Chess symbolism- Hamm is the
king, he gives orders. He insists on being in the centre of the
things. He is egocentric. They have red faces. Negg- Nell176

white faces- red and white figures. Clove is a knight. Hamm is

an invalid- he is bleeding, he is suffering physically- he asks
for painkillers. The room- the skull; the shelter from the
outside world. There is a suggestion of general catastrophe,
devastation-to see this as a projection of their inner feeling
that there is nothing. This is the place where Hamm is
protected from the world. Clove starts his monologue:
Finished, near finished, it must be nearly finished. Jesusfinish- a kind of rebirth- salvation. Clove wants to leave
Hamm. They are in a sort of father-son relationship, trapped in
interdependency. He sees individual moments- if he gathers
them he can create a heap accumulation. I cannot be punished
anymore. Hamm makes him a sufferer. He is serving him all
the time. Master- servant, sadomasochistic unhealthy
relationship. Clove- nail; Hamm-hammer- someone pushing,
dominant. Hamm is also biblical name- the son of Noah( the
story of Noah- the story of regeneration). Life starts all over
again after a catastrophe. Here, it is ironic- there is no
regeneration.
Nagg: What does that mean?...
Nell- a joke about his tailor who is delaying to make trousersagain sth not finished- a sort of a lie- delaying. It seems that
the game wont finish. The first time he told this story was
long time ago when they were engaged- spring- everything
blooms- suggests a time of love- religious resurrection. Nell
was happy. They were in love. She recalls her happiness. The
color of the boat is white. She is the only one who can
remember. She points to the importance of love. She dies and
manages to finish the game. She says she sees the bottom of
the lake. If you look deep down- sth important in life, a deep
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inside of life- into the spiritual meaning of life. Her final word
is desert- no meaning. There is no the spiritual water of life,
spirituality. The life is now a desert. Clove looks outside and
everything is grey. She said what the world without love is
like. There is this impossibility of communication. They dont
understand each other.
Hamm: One
Hamms story. Is he emotional about his story? He assumes
this narration as giving a performance; he assumes the role of
a story teller. He uses some figure, then he gets detached from
his story. The story is about a man who asks for some food.
The world described in the story- there is no one around; some
great disaster would happen. The world is like a desert- just a
man and his child. He is in a desperate position- he is
exhausted, he is dying. Hamm is reserved; he is not touched
by that story. He is not disturbed by this mans suffering. He
enjoys in smoking. He is selfish, egocentric, preoccupied with
himself. Its Christmas Eve- symbolically the time of
generosity- the birth of Christ- the birth of this little boyresurrection of life- a new hope of humanity- sth hopeful,
some new life. There are other actions implying that he is
selfish. He is obsessed with material wealth. He is calculating,
not emotionally involved. Inevitably connected with naturewe feel hunger, thirst- our body requires sth which cant be
denied- we cannot escape- no cure for that- its a sort of curseyou cant escape from the desire of your body as well as of
your death. He is not capable of transcending it by the means
of love. Hamm- the sense of futility of life- incapable of
loving. His parents didnt give him proper love, therefore he
lost the ability to love. The same thing between Hamm and
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Clove proceeding from father to son, from one generation to

the next. Motive in drama- the characters lost their ability to
love.
I warn you- Clove
He sees zero projection. He sees a boy, a new salvation. This
entire desert is simply a projection- nothing outside. They
convince each other but here it is not so. Clove realizes that he
could survive without Hamm. There is a possibility that he
wants to kill that boy (gafl- ostra kuka). They want to kill the
flee and rat throughout the play. The boy can also start the
game again and perhaps he should be killed. Clove- they said
to me- they- the human society. He is taught friendship,
beauty, order- a kind of consolation, gives meaning to life.
Here these are just phrases. He imagines how he would leave
Hamm. He will be very happy then. There is some hope in the
end. If that boy is outside alive, maybe the life outside is
possible. Stalemate- no one has won. They are just standing
there. Hamm is now sensual and before he was focused on his
body, he was egocentric. Clove symbolizes intellect, spiritual
kind of life. He wants to leave, to be free. It is possible that the
whole play was happening in the head (skull) of only one
person.
H. Pinter- THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, THE DUMB
WAITER
Pinters characters are hopeless. Everything seems to be rather
dark. Pinters plays are comparable with Osborns. The room
is of the central importance- central stage metaphor. Naturalist
room- the room- by tracing the use of this metaphor- the
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stages it undergoes we understand the transformation of

naturalism to expressionalism. 2 differences: naturalist theatre
vs. the theatre of absurd. One room flat for Jimmy and Alison
is a refuge. Its a container of potential intimacy. Alison
waking up- she is a moral sufferer now. They lose the world
but find each other. She participates in suffering with her
husband. Some moral awakening is possible still. Another
thing characterizing Osborne is that the world that they have
renounced is very definitely, concretely, historically defined.
Its recognizable. We know who the enemy is- the middle and
the higher class which conspire with the church, education etc.
against anybody. Its the conspiracy of the wealth and the ISA.
We know who the enemy is- the system. This is not so with
Pinter. He offers little information about the forces that crash
his characters. In his plays what you find is the room into
which
characters
escape.
No
understanding,
no
communication will ever take place. We witness a spectacle,
horrible triviality- no affection or subdued aggression against
each other. The critics describe his plays: its not that his
characters fail to communicate, its too easy for them, they are
terrified at the possibility to have anybody enter their inner
emptiness, its avoidance of communication. The kind of
speech- obstructing communication. Whenever sth is said, you
have to have an ear for these unspoken emotions. You should
watch closely the kind of conversation in that room. This is the
only thing available in the private sphere in which they
escape- no salvation in his plays. The archetypal motif for any
drama- 2 people in the room enjoying a small talk. They feel
secure from some danger from outside. The emptiness of
psyche. Yet they enjoy within this boring life. The motif- 2
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people going through their rituals, pretending communicating

and then a knock on the door- the forces of the world of
outside, which is discrutive(?), mysterious, unrecognizable,
invisible- this is expressionalism. It is objectively there but
with Pinter they look out of the window- forces embodied in
the structure. The world is frightening and funny- its comedy
of menace (straha)- vague drag, anxiety in the heart of modern
life but not recognizable. Nightmare experience- subjective
experience, the vision of the world as the characters see it.
Instead of showing us the system, we are shown a person
transformed into an insect. Dehumanizing forces- to survive in
a room as an insect. A nightmare of the experience of the
living in the modern world. All those motifs- the horror of
communication- reading newspapers- one of the most
powerful barrier against real understanding between two
people. The play is more demanding- the motifs are similar.
The Dumb Waiter
The relationship of those who are in the system, whereas, in
The Birthday Party- the relationship between those who are
in the system and those who try to evade it. In The Dumb
Waiter the system produces paid killers who serve the system
without questioning it and are unaware of the consequences of
their acts. A kid of eight killed a cat- a child killed a cat and
they are appalled at it but unable to relate this to their own
actions. We indulge in violence, yet we are disgusted with
other violence. We realize that Ben and Gus have to kill
someone. One of them, Gus, is less perfectly adjusted to the
system. He is worried. Yet, Ben is perfectly adjusted- serves
someone dumbly- bureaucratic obedience to the system. He is
quite cool, his partner is restless. Gus cannot restrain from
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asking questions. This arises insecurity in Ben. They are the

lowest part of the system. They are in the room in a basement
which used to be a kitchen of a high-class hotel and at the
same time they are victims- exploited by the system. This is
dramatized by the dumb waiter. How? The dumb waiter comes
with a food order even though it was abandoned and these two
start desperately searching their pockets for sth to give to the
system. The orders became more demanding. They try to give
the last they have to provide the system. The system squeezes
them out of their whole identity, selfhood without questioning.
The system empties them of the last scrap of humanity. There
is no food left down here. Gus is angry. Ben tells him to do
the job without questioning. No food, no clean sheets, no gas
for making tea- Gus is angry. Gus wonders how and why the
system operates. He is the next victim- the last of those who
are asking questions to be destroyed. The system has to be
purged of all potential subversive elements. Ben- not burdent
with the past, memory of another kind of life is wiped out so
he is adjusted. Gus has a memory of a former identity,
humanity which forces him to ask questions. Who is going to
be this time?- suggests that he doesnt take job for granted,
but that he is concerned that the victim is a woman- the
destruction of the feminine.
(2nd version)
The tension between the privacy and the intruders that snatch
the victim- is replaced by another- inside look into the systemthe relationship between 2 servants instrumentalized. Nema
coveka koji je pobegao iz sistema i onih koji ga vracaju. They
are Ben and Gus. The play is important, it reopens the issue.
Any meaning in the bourgeois civilization- no origin and goal
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of their existence; they escape into psychopathology. Lukacsthis condition- distortion- is raised on the level of eternal
human condition, not on episode of the history. Pinter makes it
difficult to recognize the enemy. He wants you to reexperience the horror of the modern life. He wants to force
people to see how difficult it is to identify the enemy. His
plays stimulate us to see through words to go out and resist.
The 2 men came to a deserted place, to a basement room. They
came to kill sb. The important moment when they reproduce
the motif as in the Birthday Party. Mccane was a bit shaken by
the spectacle of Stanley, a bit nervous. Play up, and play
up, he- some remnants of humanity. Goldberg- sentimental,
hypocritical. This motif- difference between them is
emphasized. Gus- the younger is nervous, doesnt feel at ease.
He is complaining they were treated worse than a long time
ago. He, the employer, has left no matches, gas, tea. All the
time Ben, the weaker one, subordinated, predat sluzbi sistema,
is sitting and reading the newspapers. The other one is
insisting on knowing, thinking, on which Ben shield himself
by reading newspapers, instances of violence- a child of eight
kills a cat. I am disgusted- this is true to life. Dissociation
between professional (?) and private intimacy. Inability to
recognize the connection. Process of recognition is made
impossible. All the time Gus, who is nervous, keeps repeating:
Ive meaning to ask you. Whats there to ask? He is also
upset by the lost job- the killing of a woman. He is vaguely
disturbed that the next job may involve a woman- a character
who is thinking upon the destruction of a feminine. Ben no
remnant of humanity, then a symbolic thing- a dumb waiter
comes- a wooden box carrying orders. It turns out that it used
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to be a kitchen- cooks prepared the food for those who eat upthe invisible power is fed. The basement is usurped (the
structure of the system). It comes down with the order. Ben- to
give everything its left to the system. He makes his friend
produce whatever he has. He doesnt want to give everything
up. Gus- vaguely rebellious. The system squeezes everything
out of them. After that Gus proceeds with his dissatisfaction.
Finally, the moment approaches, the last instructions came.
They are respectable. The next scene- instead of through the
door of the lavatory, Gus appears through main door. They
find each other staring at. Gus is the next victim. The system
has to be purged from the one asking questions.
EXCERPTS
Ben slaps down the paperits enough to
Ben and Gas are paid killers. They are at the bottom of the
social structure. Ben is reading the newspapers, hiding
himself. He retells two stories about the lorry run over a man
and a little girl who killed a cat. They are disgusted, horrified
by violence. Its ironic. They are both shocked by violence.
Cleavage- pukotina- kao da covek ima 2 strane. (Kurtz- The
Heart of Darkness). 1 cini nedela I odvojen je od dela za
moralno rasudjivanje. Gas wants to question the meaning, he
doesnt obey everything without questioning. Another motifthe child of 8 kills a cat. Ben say it was a girl- he makes the
theory. I bet he did it. ne moze da veruje da je devojcica
pocinila zlocin. The sort of suppressed feelings of uneasiness
about feminine.
What time
Gas doesnt like the basement they have to be in. He is also
complaining about bed- he didnt have a healthy sleep. All
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these complaints tell us that he is not satisfied with the

position in the society. He feels injustice, he is not completely
adjusted, dont confront to the room and the situation. A
window here symbolizes the rest of the world which is
incomprehensible to them. They dont know anything about
the structure, the outside world. Everything seems to be
incomprehensible. This space is a sort of archetype in Pinters
plays. In Osborne- also a room. Jimmy was looking outside all
the time. He criticized the society all the time. Here, the world
outside is comprehensible. He can look out and rage. The
characters in Pinters plays cannot see. You cant have a
structure. They may shift from one basement to another but
they are a sort of prisoners in the structure. Ben is completely
adjusted. He does carving in his free time. His activities are
limited.
The box descends with
Gas complains about everything. Ben went through his
belongings. Gas is trying to preserve sth for himself. He
doesnt want to give everything to the system- some private
space, sense of separate personality. He is not completely
obedient. Bens accusing him for not being completely
obedient. Ben is superior here.
Whats he doing
The system only wants to control them, test their loyalty. Gas
reads the order. He is angry and nervous. He doesnt want to
participate. He feels angry. You took everything for us. Ben
is working here. He wants to go on to satisfy the system.
Awareness that he is at the bottom- a sort of class difference.
Ovde nema price; nije mu ni jednu pricu ispricao (novine)deo tog rituala- nema nikakvog smisla. This is just the part of
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the routine. What we have in Pinter is that the language has

the purpose of avoiding real communication- to feel the gap,
then you have the moment of silence that speaks more than
words. You become closer to that sth. The most important
thing is sth you cant talk about.
The Birthday Party
A failure to participate in life. A play where a relationship of
parents and children are destructive. The title suggests the
initiation of rebirth- the day you are born again. It is a horrible
and funny play in which funny turns into appalling. The horror
of the false birthday party where we see that he is not initiated
into a selfhood, maturity. The travesty of the initiation ritualthe day of his ultimate destruction, not initiated into selfhood.
The room in a shabby seaside boarding house. Stanley exploits
the good will of Meg, his surrogate mother who mothers him
all the time. She is well, meaning stupid and obsessed with
food. He has cut all the ties with the outside world. He has a
story to justify his failure to participate in life. The story is that
he was a famous pianist but they cut his career short. Meg
interprets his story completely differently. There is no
communication, frightening misunderstanding. So this life is
arrest- to be stopped in ones development. Stanleys life has
been arrested by his willful escape from life itself. Two
strangers appear- projection of his subconsciousness, guilt for
having given up all ambition in the world and thus having
reduced his life. Those two strangers submit him to a terrible
interrogation- seemingly senseless questions asked with
savagery. Whom do they represent? Those forces are
deliberately undefined. The moment the audience identifies
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them, they lose their power to frighten and enables Stanley to

distance from it. if the threat is indefinable, we project our
unconscious fears. What secretly frightens us is definable on
the stage. Yet, those figures, by questions, suggest several
things:
1. Why did you betray organization?- suggest political force,
purging authority. 2. Do you recognize external force which
suffers for you?- theological emissaries and metaphysical
authority. 3. Why do you pick your nose?- reminiscence of
parents, father figure, parental authority. They are figures of
authority (ultimately the male) and this authority organizes
him a birthday party whose purpose is to snatch him away
from the mother and claim him as the obedient citizen. In the
end he is for the first time conventionally dressed. Meg buys
him drums suggesting that he should never grow up. Two
strangers organize another questioning, this time he was in
darkness experiencing death to be born again. They break his
glasses to force him to see the way they want, to change the
way of seeing. In the morning, after being cross-examined, he
is reduced to a set of speechless, inarticulate voices- reduced
to a baby out of which they will manufacture a new person,
will give him new insight (new glasses). He will be built anew
and will be taken to Monty- a psychiatrist who will finish the
job the two strangers started.
Options: hopeless for an individual trying to be born into
maturity. It is either staying in private space and be dominated
by the mother who will stop your development, or to stay in a
father world, authority, turned into a machine. Only person
taking interest is Megs husband Petty, who rebels against
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them. Dont let them tell you what to do. But he withdrawsno alternative. They- the system.
(2nd version)
Stanley is a failure, lazy, takes a refuge in a seaside boarding
house- routine. It is run by an elderly woman Meg and her
husband Petey. She adopts Stanley- a surrogate mother. She is
tremendously stupid. Her speech is horrifying in its stupidity.
A kind of woman who is a surrogate mother- obsessed with
food- a substitute for a real affection. She wants to mother her
son then she flirts with Stanley. Those words- platitude, then
comes words with erotic meaning- succulent. She wants to
control him. Although he hates her secretly, he remains with
her. She is a better option than the world outside. When he
speaks, he lies, invent stories about himself. They adopt false
names. This is indicative of their desire to have different
identities. He has invented a story- he used to be a concert
pianist. They locked the door of the hall and it was an excuse
of his desire to withdraw into shabby boarding house. His
stupidity- when he tells the story- they gave him a tipmonstrous stupidity. Then he feels less security- then a girlsth between mother and a lover. Lulu- he wants to go
somewhere with her. The reason of her failure thus lies on
both sides. Withdrawal into the routine, nothing- yet an escape
into a kind of better possibility. The crisis open when 2
strangers knock on the door- Goldberg and Mccane. Goldberg
is a Jewish, extremely sentimental- his speech of power and
dominance by which one wants to exercize his power over the
victim. This begins by questions- absurd, grotesque
interrogation. No conclusion who or what they represent. They
see Stanley,
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then sit down- they force him. Then the cross examinationabsurd but they still point to some forces. Questions are funny
and grotesque. This suggest some political authority. Some
theological theory- questions asked by father reprimanding his
son. Then they also ask philosophical questions of origin and
goal. He is unable to answer any and he finally breaks down.
Forces of bourgeoisie respectability. After the party there is a
power cut. The light goes out. They break his glasses. After
this travesty(?) of the real meaning of the birthday- initiation.
Neither Meg nor they will allow him to be truly reborn. She
bought him a drum. She wants to mother him. These two men
break his glasses and we see him reduced to a child capable of
producing inarticulate sounds. They are going to make him a
new man. Theyll shape him again into a person that will fit
the system. He is inarticulate and then they offer him the
progress. Well buy you another glasses- theyll shape him,
project him to the system. He is for the first time clean-shaven,
wears a tie. These two men are the forces of conventional life.
The contrast between the privacy and the system is marked out
through the contrast between the patriarchal authority and the
maternity. Snatch him away from her and fit him into the
system.

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The Homecoming- H.Pinter

The Homecoming is a play by Harold Pinter, first published
in 1965. The play has six characters, five of them men. The
plot involves the eldest son in the family's wife coming
home with him for the first time from the United States and
experiencing the working class London background that he
grew up with. Much sexual tension is created throughout
the play as his wife taunts his brothers.
There is also a power struggle going on between the two more
dominant men; Lenny and Max. Max puts down the other
men by feminising them, while Lenny destroys Max's
memory of the past. At the end though Ruth appears to have
the power as she has the men meeting her demands.
A significant staging feature is the absence of the back wall.
This symbolises the absence of the female influence. When
Ruth (Teddy's wife) returns, she is asked to remain in London
as the family's mother figure and also their prostitute
(replacing the hole left when Max's wife Jessie died). Teddy
leaves without his wife to return to America and Ruth says
"Eddie. Don't become a stranger." The use of the name Eddie
connotates perhaps that he is already a stranger to her.
The real homecoming is that of the mother role (now Ruth) as
it had been alluded to during the play Jessie was in a fact a
prostitute working for her pimp MacGregor. Ruth is taking on
this mother's role that has been so craved by Lenny especially.
Lenny spends a lot of time thinking of his mother in a sexual
context, hence the questions about his conception, perhaps that
is why he has become a pimp himself in Soho.
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The cruel underbelly of society in the 60's really comes to the

surface, when sexually explicit themes and themes of violence
are explored, in what one can refer to as almost surreal.
Through the use of pauses, power is passed around the
somewhat disjointed family, and the struggle for domination
enhances what can be percieved as the harsh working class
reality of the time.

OSBORNE and PINTER-- ROOM

The metaphor of the room changed from Osborne to Pinter.
Osborne
Room- not embodiment of social relationships (external
world) but a private space (projection of the individual
consciousness) in which an individual withdraws in order to
be protected from the outside world. Is it possible here to
develop in any sense? Is the room a container of the authentic
life? People in the room resemble more to animals than human
but it is a kind of movement to more authentic life as Alison
accepts the vision when they resume a game of bears and
squirrels. This affection will lead them to greater
understanding, communication. Not a regression but a new
start because she is changed she is able to see the things for
what they are. There was a hint of better life. The outside
world is basically historically definable; recognizable although
horrible. We know why it is unbearable, we know the time,
reason, environment in which social injustice is maintained.
The enemies are defined: church, new politicians, snobbery.
Pinter
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No possibility in his room. In all his plays room as the

dramatization of the private space in which life that is there
possible is the life of frightening banalities of common
routine. No communication, understanding is possible. It is a
private place one redraws but no growth and identity are
possible, presented by means of various images, devices
(newspaper, confusion of names= identities). Private
relationships are drained of all meaning. Communication is all
too easy- character try to protect themselves from it. They
want to escape the truth which is all too frightening revelation
of one insignificance. Newspaper- the safest barrier of silence.
Constant confusion of names- people hiding their identities, no
true names- no true identities. Speech- a smoke screen thrown
against mutual recognition, invented stories to conceal
identity. Food- substitute for true nourishment. Inevitable
moment- a knock at the door- the introduction of the forces of
the outside world- the world the characters look out of the
window of the room is no longer definable, recognizableillogical, absurd, senseless, mysterious, menacing. No reason
why sth happens- forces just erupt and destroy protagonists.
The unbearable world seems to have lost all historical
identification. The truth has become increasingly difficult to
(?); the audience has to be active in perceiving the world.
Pinters and Beckets plays belong to the theatre of
expressionism. The world is presented with a subjective mind.
It is a dramatization of our objective nightmare vision of the
world as we ourselves experience it (the context of the mind is
dramatized on the stage). Mind is no longer capable of
explaining in logical terms of the world.
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And to the theatre of absurd- dramatization that the world is

no longer accessible to a logical mind. It records the fall of the
Cartesian mind- whether this is hopeless or not is an open
question. (Cartesian mind in Becket- Lucky). The fall of the
Cartesian mind doesnt necessarily mean that life is
meaningless and hopeless (Becket- the theatre of absurd is not
hopeless).
In Pinter it is pretty much hopeless. The protagonists have the
worst of both worlds (room- dramatization of their inner
world, and knock- the external world). Both realms are
destructive and in neither of these realms is possible to find
the growth of an individual- private world. How?
Peter Shaffer- THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN
Shaffer and Beckett are both interested in the existential
question: attitude towards time and death. Both of them point
out that time can become prison and that awareness of
mortality can be frightening. This attitude is produced by a
certain culture. It doesnt have to be a universal human
attitude towards immortality and time. Pizarro in The Royal
Hunt- a historical play in which general questions are
discussed. He leads Spaniards into the colonizing quest of
Peru. They committed a genocide- killed many Incas. Pizarro
is represented as a bastard, as someone who doesnt belong
anywhere. Because he is of lower origin hes not accepted,
regardless of his achievements. He never fully embraces the
values of this society. All the justifications for the quest are for
him a fake. He doesnt believe in the principles such as honor,
bringing Christianity to the savages. He sees all this as false.
He says that he lives between two hates. He hates those who
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uphold these principles and he hates himself for losing them.

I despise the keeping and loath the losing. He sees all the
values on which his culture is based and the noble words
simply as shelters. The world is like a big, dark place, like a
vast plain which has no landmarks and those values, structures
of society are like pebbles that mand(?) to tell them where
they are. All these values have become false and he yearns a
country after rain. He imagines some heavy rain will fall and
wash away all these marks and then search for a new meaning,
new positive faith. In his previous conquests he was looking
for gold, treasure, higher position but now he realizes that he
is searching for New God, sth that will give his life a goal, a
meaning. Through the play, Pizarros chief enemy is time.
He is an old man fearing death. He is afraid of the fact that he
is going to die. This view of time is conditioned by his culture
and Christianity. He realizes this when he encounters the
Incas. The Incas are not afraid of the passing of time because
their concept of the eternity and immortality is different.
While Christians believe in the afterlife, Incas have created a
kind of heaven on Earth. Their chief divinity is the Sun which
is born every day. They are closely connected to nature and the
Earth. Their concept of time is cyclical. They feel immortal in
so far as they feel a part of nature. Incas are not at all greedy.
They dont feel any need to posses. Pizarro was taught that
greediness is an inborn human quality. Now he sees that this is
sth produced by civilization. Incas are not greedy because they
are all awarded equal share of property. There is
synchronization between the human ages and the cycles of
nature. The Christian priests in Peru refuse to accept such
concept of life. Christians believe that it is necessary to make
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a choice either you enjoy this life or you devote yourself to the
next one. Either you live in nature or in some heavenly realm
beyond natural cycles. The whole Western civilization seems
to be based on these binary opposites. By making this strict
oppositions we cause great damage to our souls. The Incas
concept of divinity proposes a kind of union. Experience of
individual love: Pizarro captures Atahuallpa and he slowly
builds the first human relationship. The play is the criticism of
the hypocritical betrayal of Christianitys original concepts.
The original ideas have been betrayed. What used to be a
promise of universal love became a kind of gang love. It all
comes down to us against them. The play emphasizes the
importance and value of the individual love. The first deep,
meaningful relationship Pizarro has with Atahuallpa.
Atahuallpa teaches him how to dance and then Pizarro laughs
for the first time. When Atahuallpa is killed, Pizarro cries for
the first time. Pizarro hopes that Atahuallpa is really a God.
Atahuallpa said that he would die willingly to save Pizarro
from the fear of death. In a way Atahuallpa is God in his
fearlessness and faith. He is a God-like man. In some
objective sense he cannot find the truth. Both these religions
are just pebbles structures that people make. I lived
between two hates, I died between two darks. The dark skyno longer believes in Christian God. The dark eyes of
Atahuallpa who hasnt resurrected. Then he starts to cry for
the first time in his life. This is our ability to make water in a
sand world. This is some immortal business. The only
positive faith is found in our capacity to love (emotional and
imaginative). This is the only marvel we can create. Waiting
for Godot- they are waiting for sth transcendental to give
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them hope, whereas hope is in their friendship. Shaffers

vision of atheistic- we are the creators of the world. We create
the landmarks. We impose meaning upon the world.
Pizarro- an outsider, trying hard to win his place in the society;
while Vladimir and Estragon are born in the society but run
from it. Pizarro succeeds to get in society in order to find out
that culture is a moral defeat, so in the end he becomes
outsider again. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot,
Pizarro is going to hunt Godot. The meaning: the Sun- the
source of eternal life. Pizarro enters society by behaving by
the rules of society. Values he believed in were illusions,
shelters that protected one from the universal vastness (fame,
money, gold). By killing the Incas he becomes acceptable to
the society. The greatest disappointment is God. God is just a
name carved on a knife before burying into someone.
Christian love is gang love- you love only one group of people
and hate all the others. Christians treat Virgin Mary as a
business partner while Incas treat white men as gods and lay
their weapons only to be mercilessly killed. So, Christian myth
is fiction, words only, empty signs. These have been excuses
for bloodshed, conquests. They strayed hypocritically from
Christianity all the time. Pizarro comes to the conclusion that
no religion is true in a literal sense. You cant expect the
coming of any external meaning in a form of outside deity.
What is that will transcend life?- purity. In ability to love
another being Pizarro has found his God, he has found what
will suffice him- love. In the end Atahuallpa is killed and
Pizarro is sitting in the way Vladimir is sitting next to (??).
In all plays Shaffer presents his single theme: the desire to go
beyond the culture and a theme centers on a pair of characters
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who are doubles. One is the victim the other is the executioner.
The executioner is very powerful and backed up by the powers
of the structure. He in the end crushes and destroys the other.
The victim is seemingly powerless. However, as the play
develops, we discover that the victim has some insight attitude
to life which makes him morally superior. The executioner
slowly begins to doubt his position and the structures and the
system he represents. Pizarro has power over Atahuallpa and
wants to destroy him; however, he defends him in the end.
What destroys Atahuallpa is the process of destroying other
races, started by Pizarro. As long as Pizarro stays shut within
the system of his assumptions (the church, the army, the king
and behind them all the imperialism) shared by this culture, he
cannot possess what Atahuallpa stands for.
2nd version
Shaffer began to write family plays- this remains- although he
experimented with various techniques. This logical story,
will(?)- made plot remains as one of the characteristics of his
plays. The theme is the time- how to confront with the time,
how to escape the prison which is time. He did it by using a
traditional story and plot. Those plots centered around the
protagonist- illiterate- a kind of intellectual, he describes his
problem. You understand everything. The theme- refusing to
formulate in any form- the dialogue is disconnected,
meaningless, not logical, rational, life-like. The characters are
deprived of history (Waiting for Godot), they are undefined.
Here we have a story of the concrete historical event- the
conquest of Peru. Pizarro- a real character. He did exist, he is
famous for this conquest. We know his history, biography, 16 th
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century Spain. We understand his experience. 2 themes- not

really full-grounded.
1st-The theme is Western European Empire- excuses for
imperialism. The centre is genocide- very important theme.
Shaffer quarrels that culture is articulated in this theme.
Genocide over the primitive people. What is the kind of white
mans subconsciousness that makes him kill? What are the
excuses? Exploitation, enslavement, profit.
2nd- the development, the change, the transformation of the
protagonist Pizarro- it is the theme of salvation. Can man
escape this kind of false beliefs in order to save himself? Is the
salvation possible? The differences are local. The mayor thing
is to step beyond culture. These two themes in Waiting for
Godot and the Royal Hunt share some parallels. Waiting for
God- a new pattern, option, possibility to find a new
foundation for faith- he believes in sth. Here we have a person
who goes to hunt God- doesnt wait. He identifies the place
where the sun rises as the place of source of life. Sunmythical. Then he comes across this guy who is the son of the
Sun. One is hunting for God, the two are waiting for him.
They are not the same although they are both disappointed. V
& E used to belong to the society, then they stepped beyond
that. Pizarro never belonged to the society. He struggled to get
in, to find his place but he couldnt. He was born illegitimate.
He was found at the church door. Church- to preserve life. He
spent his life in a pig stale. He never gets a place in the
society. He struggled to get in. Then sth happens to Pizarro.
Actions enable him to achieve power. He becomes an
adventurer, goes all around the world serving Spain. Partially
he succeeds to be accepted. He goes on serving them and is
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confronted with constant no(?). He goes to a final expedition

on Peru for wealth, but it turns out that his expedition to Peru
is the quest for God and meaning. He begins to see that those
values are illusions, empty words. He doesnt desire it
anymore. It happens slowly. What he discovers is that army
honor, chivalry. (Old Martin is telling the story). Pizarro was
full of hope and then lost desire. He realizes that those values
are signifiers without substances, empty words. In order to
protect himself from vacuum(?) of universal, he builds
psychological shelters- these are lies, myths. He discovers the
principle we can describe as a FACTUM VERUM- Vico- the
world created by man. Ideals are perceived as natural- nothing
but illusions man-made. They are illusions protecting man
from his loneliness. But what makes Pizarro even more
desperate is the fact that when he discovers that the myth
(Frye- Christianity- myth of freedom- to be honorable) which
begins as a creative fiction ends up as a myth of social
concern. It turns into reactionary myth. Those myths are
misused for bloodshed. This is particularly true for
Christianity- pretext for those who kill those who dont
believe in Christianity. He describes his condition very
eloquently- I live between two hates. He hates those who
lose illusions. The movement of time towards death- he
confront time. He is imprisoned in that jail called time. He no
longer has the faith in Christian God. He has nothing in
himself to redeem. One way is to love sb- a love for a woman.
Because of his nature- no family, no children. He is a prisoner
of time. He goes to Peru for money and fame. Fame is long
but death is longer. All his life has been a preparation for the
meeting of this king God- to encounter another culture. But it
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comes gradually. Two attitudes co-exist at first. His cynicism

against Christ- he is a conqueror, he must kill him. These two
attitudes co-exist until the end of the play. He approaches A.the only way to survive is to believe that Indians are Gods. A.
is imprisoned by Pizarro. Hed be free if this man fills a room
with gold. The use of words- dishonest. Then he thinks about
the necessity to kill. How he changes his mind? In the 2
months A. spends as a prisoner, he makes comparison between
two modes of life. The Incas live in complete harmony.
Nobody is poor or rich. They love their king, their god. He is
the Sun, a source of life for them. The Spaniards celebrate the
society of inequality. They are defending capitalism. His
conception of freedom is to get rich. If the Incas refuse to be
converted, they should be killed by this right- he appoints to
the Bible. Serious comparison between 2 religions. Pizarro
chooses the Pagan. Their attitude is love. The Spaniards prays
for success and money. Profit is behind all these excuses. A. is
also personally superior to Pizarro. There is a motif that both
are bastards. A. was also illegitimate. They are each others
doublers. Pizarro is, however, emotionally cold, while A. is
capable of love. Pizarro is afraid of death, A. is not. Pizarro is
cynical. A. is serene, dignified, believes in what he says and
yet Pizarro wants to kill him. At one point he makes Pizarro
laugh- the first joy that he feels from companionship. Then A.
because he is dignified, decides to protect him- he wont kill
him. A. turns out to be more authentic Christian. He consents
to die- not to resurrect but to demonstrate to Pizarro that love
and affection are more important than death. He is killed. They
arranged a trial in which A. is accused of very many crimes
although he is not guilty. And there is his body- the audience
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believes that the miracle will happen. Pizarro comes to his

deepest despair when he says: I live between two hates- the
blind eye and the dark sky. There is no after-life. The blind
sky- inability to feel. He experiences the final recognition- no
transcendental signified- no principle to be the objective
source of life on the Earth. You believe for a moment that it is
the end of the play. Within the same speech there is a final
transformation- a word of acceptance. He begins to cry. He
grieves A. These tears remind him of what Nietzsche says: If
we are loyal to the illusions the most significant reality is
human reality. Our immortality- our capacity to create belief.
Therefore, love is an exit from the prison of the time and the
self. We pass water in the desert. Water- tears- by feeling we
transform the desert into a kind of garden. No transcendental
signified- it is the source of human dignity. To be good
without the help from the outside is the essence of life. To love
without a motif. The play ends in this final hopeful tone.
EXCERPTS
Pizarro: Look boyfor the books
Young Martin- inexperienced. Pizarro is old, disillusioned.
The conversation between the 2 of them. Vico- man makes
structures and imposes meaning. Christian Church, Army are
man-made structures. We start viewing the world in order to
feel secure in the world. They preach some values as noble but
these values are used for some wrong deeds. Platonic impulseeverything is reduced to some formula. End justifies means.
According to Pizarro it doesnt. if you kill sb the cause is
noble no more. For them the cause is conversion. Means are
ends- in the making.
Pizarro: I had a girlanyway
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Two paragraphs with Pizarro- when he meets a girl and in the

2nd he speaks about the time. He feels one with her and nature.
Everything is connected in some net. Epiphany- Fryetrenutak kad imate uvid u stvarnost. (Nell-Becket)- deep
insight into nature and everything emerges into meaningful
whole. According to Pizarro it cant be conveyed by language.
Everything is linked together. This is sth beyond language.
Our language is based on concepts, based on logic. This is
beyond logical, conceptual thinking. The time- he hasnt
managed to capture this moment. He didnt use this epiphany
throughout his life. At this moment the time wasnt important.
He just sees the meaningless passage of time which leads to
death. He understands that life is a process. There is nothing
for him to make this passage meaningful.
Leave it nowall
The conversation between Atahuallpa and Pizarro. Pizarro
fears death. He explains his fear about death. He cannot
connect with nature. He hates its cycles. Symbols related to
spring- women are biologically connected with nature- they
drew certain energy from it. there is a sense of immortalitythe nature renews itself year after year. There is a sense of
immortality related to nature. Pizarro ne moze da se pomiri sa
tim konceptom. He cannot connect himself with nature in the
creative way. He loses the faith. Seeing time as a prison could
be seen as a Christian notion but then comes this second life
and you are liberated from prison. He was a sort of outcast, he
didnt belong anywhere. Thats why he loses the faith. He is
aware that the structures are man-made and the principles are
betrayed so he no longer believes in them. He hates those who
believe in God an himself for not believing in anything.
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Pizarro: I am going to kill you Time becomes

meaningless for him. He has also lost his moral principle. No
ethics- any myth to live by. This leads to the loss of ethics
(Hamm).
Pizarro: Dungballs none for him
Pizarro quarrels with the priest. They oppose each other.
Pizarro stops to believe in Christianity. Myths are justification
for conquest. The Incas know how to live in time an Christians
see time as a prison. Christianity sells choices- they can
choose the way they want to live. Our civilization- binary
opposites. If Christwould he kill the Incas? the original
teaching of Christianity is brotherly love for the whole
mankind. Through institution Christianity becomes gang love.
it serves as a justification for killing anyone who is not us.
Two ways of life- Christians and Incas. Incas are equal. They
are neither poor nor rich. For De N. this is horrible. Everybody
should be able to advance, to have more power. He believes in
ambition. Here everybody is consent. The Christian
civilization is hungry. You are always hungry to have moregreed for a position and material things. There is no here
power structure, no need to distance yourself from nature.
Binary opposition- they have created a kind of eternity. The
Christians believe it is necessary to choose. Tomorrow- afterlife. The whole culture is of binary opposition and you have to
choose. Incas live in the culture you dont have to choose. The
priest is using the ideology of the church as the justification
for the destruction of other cultures. To replace the myth of
indigent people for the myth of conquerors because when you
break this link it is easy to govern those people. What follows
conquer is replacing one myth for another. Arrogance- no
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personal love beyond religion. Only that which belongs to the

institutional definition is acceptable.
Cheat!
Atahuallpa dies to show he is not afraid to die. The Sun will
resurrect him. However, it doesnt happen. Pizarro is crying. It
was his first meaningful relationship. Atahuallpa has steereded
an emotional response in Pizarro. 2 darks: blind eyes- no
absolute divinity, neither the God in the sky nor is Atahuallpa
the God on the Earth. We are the ones who have projected the
God. Still, there is hope. Atahuallpa dies to save Pizarro from
his fear of death. He has this great love- he is willing to dieself-sacrifice. He is capable of selfless, a kind of immortal,
god-like quality. We make our principles, ethics, structures. De
Soto- you mustnt break your promise- he really believes in
honor. Vico- we live in a chaotic world; meaning is man-made.
This life is like a desert but his love can make the world
meaningful. To create myths on structures and to be able to
feel. There is some hope in creating our own myths. We can
live by our own capacity for creativity.
Caryl Churchill- OWNERS; CLOUD NINE
Both Churchills plays have sth in common. Cloud Nine deals
with colonialism and Owners deals with the concept of having
and greed. In Cloud Nine we encounter the idea that one
aspect of colonialism is to replace one aspect for another. The
colonizers impose their own myth to conquer them. This is
exemplified in the character of Joshua. Joshua is a black
servant of the family in which Clive is a colonial
administrator. This is the time of Queen Victoria, colonial
period. He is the Black who completely rejected his original
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matriarchal tradition. There is an episode when he tells the

myth of his people to Edward, the myth of Great Goddess
which symbolizes harmony. There is the Goddess and a treethey produce life. Then he says it is a lie. The true story is
about Adam and Eve and the Christian tradition. Then he tells
the story of Adam and Eve but in such a way that he
emphasizes the supremacy of the white race and the
wickedness of women. All the evils come from women. Also
in the forward Churchill says, he wants to make a parallel
between colonial and sexual oppression. This patriarchal
colonial imperialist tradition is oppressive both towards other
races and cultures and towards women. Patriarchal culture
strictly defines, establishes male identity. The forces, the
energies which threaten to deconstruct or destabilize this
identity are perceived both in the dark continent and in the
dark feminine lust. Subconscience is projected on Blacks who
are associated with sth dark in us, and on the female passion
which cannot be controlled.
Cloud Nine
It is a comedy, quite funny. All these characters, however, are
suffering. They are extremely unhappy in these rigid
structures. They are forced to channel everything into duty.
There is no place for private loyalty. Love, sex and marriage
are perceived as act, duty- duty to the Empire. Everything is
done in service of Empire. Clive says You have to love me
always; through father we love our country. Love is directed
towards abstract principles. Because marriage is so perverted
in this way, because gender roles are so rigidly defined, the
characters in this play try to establish their true sexual
identities beyond the conventional heterosexual relationship.
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They are all damaged inside and perverted. In the act 1 they all
betray these private loyalties in the name of Empire. In the act
2 we move into the present time and now all these characters
are trying to confront their inner damage. In the present,
sexual identities are more fluid, not rigidly defined. Its useful
to explore this other side of our identity, to go through these
experiments. Betty was very conventional but in the end she
leaves Clive, then she lives alone, experiments her
independency. Its the reconciliation with oneself. An
interesting motif in act 2 is the invocation of the Great
Goddess. There are Victoria and Edward, her brother. She
talks about the Great Goddess. The tradition of matriarchy has
been rejected. If it hadnt been rejected, the whole history of
our culture would have been different. This is the idea give us
the history we haven had. They fail to draw the Great
Goddess from our sub-conscience. Ireland is the last colony of
the English. It is the end of colonialism. He is the last, the
most recent victim of the imperialist culture.
EXCERPTS
Come together
The setting is Africa, the historical period is Victorian
England. The song promotes patriotic feelings, loyalty to the
governing structures. Come gather sons of England. This is
a strictly patriarchal society- a white rational colonizer. The
song celebrates imperialism. It means the whole scope where
the Empire is spread. These are Englishmen who live in all
places. Clive- I am a father- he sees himself as a ruler. There
are two concepts- male domination over women, over the
whole family and also colonial domination. White man
domination over women and colonial territories. She is a
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mans creation, what he wants her to be. This is why Betty is

played by a man. Joshua is played by a white man. Just like
Betty wants to adjust, to comfort to the male definition of
what he is, he tries to adapt to the white civilization. They
have brain-washed him in a way. Blake Little black boy- my
skin is black but my soul is white- positive idea. We all have
the same soul but here its utterly ironic. He accepts the
concepts of the white civilization but betrays his original
identity. Edward- father wants to make a man of him. The
feminine part is active in him, cannot be suppressed. It is
there.
Clive: You can tame
Clive has just punished some rebels (natives). He found out
that his wife, Betty, has an affair. The Blacks, the whole
continent is his enemy. He has the need either to destroy them
or to make them as Joshua, servants. The part of his own
psyche which doesnt fit in the concept of what man should
be. This is projected on the Blacks. The color of their skin
symbolizes our shadow and sub-consciousness. He feels this
animosity. It is related to another fear, the fear of dark female
lust. He recognizes all those qualities in a woman. How is a
woman tamed? By being forced to enter the fixed patriarchal
structure called marriage. The structure of family protects us
from feminine lust. These concepts are connected. Betty feels
guilty. She says that she is bad and wicked. She has accepted
the patriarchal concept of what is supposed to be.
278. p.
How is Edwards mother treated by Joshua? He is not
rebellious towards Clive but here he is. He is in a subjective
position, still he feels superior towards women. Although he is
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a servant, he is still a man. Womens exploitation is worse than

the Blacks. On one hand, she forces Joshua to obey her
orders, then he doesnt want to exchange intimacy with her.
He moves away.
279. p.
Joshua is telling a story of his original tradition. This is the
myth of creation- the Great Goddess and the tree. The sky vs.
the earth- the balance, harmony between opposites. There is a
notion of equality between sexes. Then he says its a bad story.
He has accepted the white colonists and their myth. Women
are considered a door through which evil comes. They are
untrustworthy. The white people are supposed to be superior to
all the others.
283. p.
Clive- the idea of male friendship in the whole patriarchal
tradition- in a way to keep away from the female dark lust. It
is completely platonic, devoided(?) from the female dark lust.
It is a kind of purity of consciousness, not subverted by these
irrational urges. Harrys inclination towards homosexuality- it
ridicules the concept of platonic friendship. However, it may
be a cause. Africa influences people. It makes people get in
touch with their consciousness. Everything is different. The
nature is much more wild. The climate is confusing.
Act II: 300. p.
Victoria is a woman who reads a lot. She tries to find out
about different cultures and religions, about sexual
relationship. Martin is her husband. He is a different kind of
man from Clive. He has read various things about women. He
is a progressive kind of a man. They are disputing about their
relationship. They live in London with their son Tommy. He is
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trying to keep control. He says she doesnt know what she

wants. He offers her two options: either stay here in London or
go to Manchester and be a working woman. He doesnt love
her enough. There is a sort of detachment. Emotional warmth
is missing in their relationship. The idea of modern country is
independency. Dependency in a normal sense is suppressed.
306.p.
Gerry and Edward. Gerry feels sick with his wife. Edward
feels that his man lover doesnt allow him to display the
feminine side. Here, he has the same problem again. In the end
he says he is a lesbian. The feminine principle becomes
predominant- now he wants to experience women from the
feminine part.
Owners
The Owners has a link to The Royal Hunt of the Sun. The
Spaniards had that belief that we are all born greedy- greed
was an inborn human trait. When Pizarro encounters the
country of Incas, he sees that there is sth wrong. Erick
Fromm in his study To Have and to Be also claims that
greed is not inborn in us, we dont have to be greedy. There
are two forms of having: existentional having referring to
shelter, food, tools, and the other is characterological having.
This means that ones whole identity is defined in the sense of
having. It means a kind of obsessive need to possess; he
accumulates possessions. This kind of having is not normal. It
is pathological. It is not inborn, it comes as an impact of social
conditions. Fromms idea is that it is the society that teaches
us to think this way. Capitalism as a social system not only
relies on human greed but also generates this trait to sustain
itself. It produces a kind of ideology of having. Having is
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always encountered and encouraged by ideology. Marx says

that in this way capitalism produces an impoverished and
diminished human psyche. There are various ways of
appropriation- you can pick a flower and paint it. You are
blind for all these ways and think that utilitarian appropriation
is the only possible. In this way human psyche is
impoverished. We are not aware of other potentials of having.
This is what we encounter in The Owners- characters who are
suffering in these having structure. They are all obsessed with
having except one- Alec. One specific form of owning is
related to patriarchy. Even if a man is very poor, he can still
has the feeling that he owns his wife and children. He owns
living beings. The issue of feminine inequality. Women are
also considered property. This is the way Marion is treated by
her husband. In the kind of pre-history of the play, she is
considered property by her husband and she doesnt like it.
She is vital, of great energy and she naturally rebels against
this submissive role. She tries in various ways to change her
position, she attends an evening school, has an affair and ends
up in the mental institution. She buys her first house and starts
her business of buying and selling houses. We can interpret
this play by recalling Althussers theory- ISA- institutions.
They create a kind of an illusion so that you dont realize that
you serve the system. Family, marriage, education, health
service- all these ISA-s channeled Marions energy. They
translate the energy of Marions original protest into sth
socially acceptable. Bunt se transformise u nesto sto drustvo
moze da prihvati. She has creative potentials but the society
doesnt value it. She wasnt encouraged to explore herself
through creativity. She was taught to think about painting as a
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hobby nice for women. She was encouraged to become an

owner, a proprietor, because what society values most is profit,
making. Althusser: when you are hailed, you are not an
individual, you are just a subject. She remains a subject. She
hasnt managed to become an individual. She was before her
rebellion and she is still. She only shifts her position within
the structure. She was a sort of victim, now she is an executor
within the same structure. She is still ideologically
conditioned. She never questions the validity of this structure.
The only thing she cannot possess is Alec- her formal lover.
She tries to buy his house, blackmails him, takes his baby. She
cannot possess Alec- a very different attitude to having. She
tries to take his new-born baby. This is like a substitute for a
true affection. Shylock was rejected. He couldnt get true love
to pluck the heart. Marion is perceived as a kind of modern
Shylock. She cant perceive true love. Alec does offer true
love. He is willing to offer genuine love but she wants to take
symbolically this pound of flesh- a baby, as a substitute for
love. She orders Worsly to set a fine and kill Alec and a baby.
She kills the last portion of her humanity. Once you kill love,
you are capable of anything. The same thing is happening on
the larger scale- war stories. You can kill anybody in the army.
The same thing Marion did- the whole Western culture has
killed love and humanity in the pursuit of wealth. Alec is the
only character who manages to leave this structure. Alec didnt
find a different tradition but Churchill recognizes Buddhist
philosophy in Alecs behaviour. Marion also feels sth is wrong
with her possession. Alec keeps books under his bed but he
realizes it leads nowhere. Education is also one of these ISAs- supports the same ideology. He realizes that he wants to
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find out the solution, to go beyond language, institutions. He

has a kind of mystical experience. When he describes it to
Marion she says it is a break-down, but he says no, it is the
break through to see everything from different positions. He
manages to reach some stage of inner harmony, some kind of
quiet contempt. He no longer wants to possess things. He
simply wants to go beyond ambition and greed. Behind of this
faade of total possessiveness, there is true love. He doesnt
want to deny help, send police after a thief. When he sacrifices
his life to save the baby, it is a kind of concept of selfless love,
devoid of possessiveness. Button fell off a pail- a symbol
from the Buddhist religion. Otpalo dno sa kofa- to ne znaci da
je problem resen vec da se ne vidi kao problem. It is
interesting to compare Worsley and Alec. He tries to kill
himself, his life is meaningless, he is suffering in this
structure. Worsley symbolizes the failure of both life and death
in the modern world. On the other side, we have Alec whose
death is meaningful sacrifice, a different choice, mode of
being.
EXCERPTS
Clag: Ive been a butcher
Clag is talking about his family and childhood. His father was
a proprietor of his wife. He wants his son to continue the
tradition, to be butcher. He is very narrow-minded, wants to
continue the masculine line. The son is considered the value,
sth that gives life a meaning. Daughter is irrelevant here. He
cant put himself in an inferior position. He is completely
structured by the patriarchal structure/principle. He has to be
dominant. There is a notion of ambition, greed for material
values, to be successful. Greed and position are closely
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connected. He has respect for psychiatrists. He teaches Marion

to be a good wife. Mental institutions, structures (ISA) which
keep you a subject. The society doesnt value her creative
potentials- its just her hobby. Creativeness is not valid. She
only has to ask for what she needs and hell be glad to provide
it. He feels jeopardized by her energy to be independent.
My face will go like hers
Marion talking to Alec. The first observation is about Alecs
mother who is dying. We realize that they all are going to die.
When youre faced with death, greed doesnt make any sense.
Alec is trying to point out that accumulation of wealth doesnt
make sense when you are faced with death. Marion then talks
about the favorable song when she was young. The idea of
ambition, to reach the position in the society- you have to be
ambitious. They have this illusion of progress but the progress
doesnt satisfy our innermost being. This is also a religious
song. Its also ISA. Religion encourages you to be greedy and
ambitious- domination over all life on the earth. You have to
fight to be dominant. Guilt is essential to progress. She feels
guilty but doesnt act upon it- a part of the system. She
identifies herself with the masculine tradition.
Theres always been people- 49.p.
This is about her agony. She is never active; she suffers the
actions of others. Lisa is possessive, too- a typical woman in
the patriarchal society. She wants to own but she cant. She
has given up her baby. She says: I dont care whether I want
him. Its an extreme. Even the mother-child relationship is
discarded by ideology. She wants to take actions to get baby
which is unusual as she is passive. She suffers the
consequences of others actions.
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I should like him back

She wants to hurt him. The only part of Alec she cant possess
is love. Her idea of love is possessiveness. She intends on
keeping the baby when she sees Alec and Lisa may be living.
At the end of the passage we see that the baby is a substitute
for normal love. She rejects the feminine part- the milk of
human madness. She identifies herself with the conquerormasculine tradition. Marion is easy to understand. She wants
to own things. However, Alec is problematic. Lisa is ready to
do anything to return her baby. Alec is not. Buddhists
principle- nothing to be wished.- another extreme.
Alec: I took him to Lisa
Worsley feels guilt. He gives back the baby to Lisa. Then there
is a paradox. He has feelings; however, he is quite helpless.
Alec comes back to save the baby. He is ready to sacrifice his
life to help others. He is ready to risk his life for any baby. He
has universal love which inspires his sacrifice. Worsley tries to
kill himself, but it was too hot- a juxtaposition. Worsley tried
to kill himself and never succeeded and Alec sacrifices his life.
The play ends. Worsley represents the failure of the whole
Western civilization. Life is meaningless; he just obeys
Marions orders. Alecs life is meaningful. There is a purpose,
sth that makes life worth living. Marion is not sorry about his
death. She is now capable of everything. The last remnant of
humanity is lost. She killed her own capacity to love and feel,
and when you kill that, you are capable of anything.
XX CENTURY NOVEL
Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness
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Conrad: memories, dreams, reflection

This is the dream when he visited Africa. There is this
disturbing climate. His subconscious part seems to stir to
come to surface. It happens in a form of a dream- a young
prince who owns a castle and he is trying to draw him in the
water.
The Heart of Darkness Jung- one part of him emerges and
he calls it shadow- sth we suppress. We repress some part of
being and we are asked to adopt to the society. What we show
is a kind of persona. These suppressed parts appear in a
destructive way. Our suppressed energy is a shadow. Jung- a
remedy is to bring it to the conscious level and respect that
part. It is not to be rejected anymore. We have to make some
way of life in which we will appreciate this other part. Jung
says the whole aim of our life is to become more conscious.
Kurtz projects his hostile attitude either to convert these
people to Christianity or to kill them- an aggressive method
and attitude towards the nature.
Joseph Conrad
The main theme is imperialism. However, his approach is
different from Churchills. She takes for granted that we
know what the imperialism is. She treats it humorously. The
purpose is not to tell us what brings imperialism about, as the
desire to show the hidden consequences. In the Act1 the
damage is done to the characters. She discovers the
complexity of imperialism- longer ideology patriarchy.
Victorian England- all people are damaged by patriarchal
ontology. They are forced in the end by Clive to hush up the
whole thing by marriage. The truth must be hidden. In the 20 th
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century we are released from the necessity to hush the truth

up. She makes it clear that sexual liberation is not the cure to
the disease but an exposure of the hidden message. It is
demonstrated as a consequence of the repressive education in
the Victorian England- to mobilize oneself to see for better
reconciliation. The proper solution would be found once men
and women relate creativity to each other.
When Conrad undertone to write this, nobody knew what the
imperialism really was. He wanted to reveal the reality.
Imperialism was considered a noble undertaking enterprise
project. The shock was experienced by Marlow, the listener
and Conrad himself when he made a journey to Congo. He
revealed the truth in a tragic mode. Sth in his biography makes
it suited to be revealed. He was born Ukraine, a son to a Polish
father who was a leader of the Polish revolt against Russia. He
was an outsider and that enables him to see the truth better
because his memory of his father affiliated him, allowed him
to feel with oppressed. He calls Brisel the thumb. He hits at
the very heart of the imperialism. He says that London is the
devourer of the worlds light, tremendous gloom over the
monstrous city.
There are 2 narrators- the 1st surveys the glorious past of the
English Empire. He believes that history is the history of
glorious achievements. Then Marlow explores the idea of
colonization. A Polish, an outsider, attacks the Western
civilization. He was predestined to be a seaman. Very soon he
finds himself in France- he had psychological crises. He
attempted to commit suicide for moral reasons- he was a
deeply moral writer. He went to Congo, returned, decided to
give up and devoted himself to writing books.
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Preface to the Nigger of Narcissus (1599)

In his famous preface Conrad crystallized his often quoted
goal as a writer: My task which I am trying to achieve is, by
the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you
feel- it is, above all, to make you see. That- and no more, and
it is everything.
Compare it with Woolfs On Modern Fiction and
Huxleys The Integrated Education. Then he wrote very
great books: Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent Under
Western Eyes and Victory in 1914. All of these works are
based on his real life experiences but externally they are
sailors stories about human nature and its failures. The
Pacific, the life of mariner, not stories of exotic scenes but
serious meditation upon the meaning of human life. (Trillings
quarrel with culture). Metaphors through which he carries out
his meditation are very important. He was a seaman, a sailor
which made him invulnerable, no homeland on land, no
particular country was his homeland. Therefore, he didnt feel
constraints, he developed a metaphor for successful human
community in the well-managed ship. He was deeply ethical
man who cherished not the loyalty to political parties but sth
comparable to the sea- mans honor loyalty to work- to
prevent the civilization from disintegrating. Solidarity in work.
(In his very beautiful story Typhoon he uses this metaphora well man on a ship- to express the idea of fidelity to the
great business absence of rational prejudice. What happens in
Typhoon is following the man sticks to the steering wheel and
saves the ship without thinking of anything- an instinctual
moral decision.
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In Lord Jim- a romantic white man jumps off the ship. He

quits it without his conscious attention. He couldnt do his
duty. Then there is a test- the ship partner carrying Pilgrims. It
struck against sth and the ship sailed on the ocean.
Our civilization sticks to its dream- that this is an illusiondream. The water is rushing in, he stands on the phantom ship.
In the rest of the novel Marlow, the narrator, is trying to
mediate between the reader and Lord Jim. He helps the reader
to imagine, penetrate Jims soul and Jim is one of us- honest
seaman, not just a captain who falls. What is it that made him
betray his dream? There is sth submerged, invisible in his
soul- a dark partner, a secret double- that takes over, faces us
and conquers us. Jim possesses a soft spot, vulnerable spot,
which prevents him to be faithful to the loyalty. Jim is one of
us. It may happen to us all. It is significant that one of the
captains commits suicide. Why? Probably he recognizes the
same secret double. Jim never acquires self-knowledge.
Whenever a person appears who seems to know him, he
disappears. We avoid facing the double secret part. He is
concerning Lord Jim, my task is to make you see Jim.)
Preface
That is the manifestation of the general task, the purpose of
Conrads writing- not see rationally but see in the soul by
means of the inner, mental psyche. He says truth is the
concern of a scientist, philosopher and a novelist. Both plunge
into facts or ideas which appeal to us, to certain capacity of
man. The 2nd appeals to his intellect but it is not so with the
novelist. He was to discover what he has to appeal to. MarlowKurtz (I didnt know in the name of what to appeal to him)he is egotistic and mad in his narcisstic mania. He says the
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novelist plunges into himself and there he finds what is the

capacity to which he should appeal to the reader- pity, sense of
kinship with the rest of creation. Blood relation with
everything on earth. The sense of kinship, of connection with
the rest of the world is what makes us human beings. Kurtz
disconnected that link and he loses that essential human
nature. He wants to make the reader see, to find the technique
hell address the reader, to express his vision, to stimulate the
reader to see properly. It makes him a modern writer. Conrad,
unlike Becket who approaches the world from the outside, is
obsessed with the soul. He is close to the Russian writer
Turgenjev. The English write novels without concern of the
moral soul, the plunge into the soul to see what is inside. Even
if you find perversions, you should turn inside.
Lukacs condemns it. Woolf- that urge to record the working
of the inner mind, even to find perversion. It is not antirealistic. Disconcern helps to dispel what the reality is.
Subjective exploration is true to our reality. He wants various
techniques not just established to plunge into the soul. It may
help you. The stammer of the moral conscience. We must
define what morality is. Dedalus says: I am going to
encounter the reality of experience, the meaning. Rimbaud- to
penetrate the reality of my soul. This is what makes him a
modernist. The task for himself is to make the reader see the
truth, very shocking and unpleasant. In order to awaken in the
reader the moral response he must find a new way to go over,
beyond the common place (words- to make these words
suggest what they cant say; strange words- to create a whole
of meaning that envelopes the story). What truths? The factual
truth was hidden about the reality, hidden by the excuses that
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are used to justify the colonial project. Is colonization taking

the land? Marlow is a young man fascinated by the big river,
eager to go there- that is one of his illusions. Sth you are ready
to pray to the whole project is saved if the white man believes
that they bring the civilization to the black men. The Dark
continent- scene after scene the whole truth. The whole white
civilization is the planting of power, disorder on his way to
inner station. All culminates in the final scene. When he finds
people who belong to this chain gang- the only idea, no
progress. They are brutally exploited. 10 million people were
killed. Marlow witnesses the crime- the only effect was
annihilation. The only thing that the white men pray to is
ivory, profit, wealth. These people come to make money.
Pilgrims- the only motif is greed, the hypocrisy, the
penetration into the white mans soul to find the answer why
they distract. For the exploration he uses Kurtz. He is
interested in Kurtz. His penetration in the final encounter with
Kurtz- he went there to civilize the savages. Kurtz is the
product, the final most brilliant gift. He goes there with all
noble ideas but a discrepancy occurs. He is intellectual, high
forehead, no hair. He has a fiance. There he marries a
gorgeous black woman. He ends his pamphlet with the words:
Exterminate all the truths. Soon he begins to take part in
more horrified reasons. Why does Kurtz fall so enormously.
One answer is that he goes in wilderness, nothing binds him,
there he becomes a savage.
Fromm- The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.
E. Fromm offers an essential conclusion: "This type of
destructiveness is a consequence (derivative) of not having
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had ones life". When the environment, that is social

conditions fail to satisfy the existential needs of man (love,
recognition, relations with other people), his behavior
becomes destructive.
The general view presented by Fromm is that malignant
aggression is the consequence of existential needs interacting
with the modern, industrial age.
Destructiveness is a part of human nature living in culture. It
is included, induced, not given. Man has an option. Every
organism expresses aggression in self-defense. Man reaches
the stage where he is defined by the minimum institutional
program and he has separated himself from the natural world.
Freedom to choose max self-awareness. Yet this freedom is
burden. Partly he still lives within nature, partly he is free.
Nature is the other in relation to him who is I- subject vs.
object. Man annihilates the relationship by destroying the
other which threats him- to annihilate, eradicate the other. The
second way is masochistic. You can use drug, belong to the
party, destroy your consciousness. More self-awareness, work
and more consciousness. There is another thinker, Baudrill,
who says the same thing. There is a difference between the
archaic community and the modern society which focuses on
the impulse to kill and possess. This is what Kurtz represents.
He is a devourer. He wants to devour everything, he has
tremendous possessiveness. My station, my jungle I will
ring your heart by my weapons. I will master you. Conrad
says this is the madness of the soul. In his exploration Marlow
meets Kurtz and he sees this madness. It is not that he is an
archetype of madman but a western man. That madness is not
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the inherent madness of the human soul but induced by the

culture. Our culture defines our soul in a narrow sense. It has
begun with ?oenates. He has identified it with the reason. The
soul is not reason, it is much more primitive. White men
always consider the blacks inferior because of that. A series of
critics say that the soul is much more older. That is as Trilling
says a biological reason. Our biology is a moral judger.
Rimbaud says- I cultivate my soul. He identifies with the
Blacks. My soul comprises the soul of the black man and
animal. For Conrad the soul is the sense of the solidarity,
inseparable link with what constitutes the soul. Kurtzs soul is
mad under the pressure of Christian education which reduces
the soul to reason, repress, marginalizes the soul. Once you
severe the soul, your soul goes mad. He was hollow within.
Creative force turned into sth else- desire for those
unspeakable rights. He is tragic because he believes he has
mastered these things. There is an outburst of destructive
energy. Then there is a quick change in his face- a moral fall in
Africa- horror. He sees in the end. This makes him a tragic
hero, he sees his error. What is it that saves Marlow? This
madness was caused by the culture. His inner restraints and
that is soul which is healthy. He says this is monstrous.
Marlow serves as a mediator. He shares prejudices with the
reader only at the beginning. He sees the monstrosity of the
white man. The Blacks have more inborn strength. They have
that which is given and cant be spoiled by the culture.
Marlow is saved by the feeling that they are human beings. He
has to take care of the ship alone and that work saved him.
Kurtzs soul is mad because it is separated from the moral
intelligence. He thinks that his intelligence is perfectly fluid
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and lucid but the soul should have intervened because it is

against moral law. It is perverted. His intelligence is lucid but
his soul is mad. The point is that his soul has been mad all
along. His stay in the jungle provides the circumstances in
which his madness invisible in Europe becomes visible.
Marlow sees, however, sth heroic in Kurtz. He is a memory to
which hell remain faithful. How come? After Marlow
compelled him to go back to the ship, he has to compel him to
see the enormity(?) of his fall. Kurtz belongs to nothing. If
Kurtz sees his soul, there is a possibility for Europe to see the
same thing. What saves Marlow are dedication to work and
the capacity to see the savages as common humanity and
kinship. He doesnt consider them inferior. The idea of
savages being human comes gradually. At first he is appalled
and calls them monsters. Then the truth is shocking. This is
the revelation of that order that 10 million people are killed
every day. Heads were ornaments at first. If he had written a
story in a direct way nobody would have believed, so he had
to invent a character like Marlow in order to gain his readers
trust. The journey to the heart of Africa turns out to be the
journey to the heart of darkness of our morality.
Narration: it is an inconclusive story based on questions. Here
all our attitudes towards the Western civilization are
problematic.
The other narrator is even more prejudicial, more prone(?)
than Marlow at the beginning of the story. There is a river
which takes place, people with the torch who bring progress to
Africa. Then comes Marlow introducing the theme. When we
finally finish the book we see that the purpose Marlow
ascribes to himself is to transport the experience to the
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readers- who are the pillars of civilization. Now that the truth
is problematic it requires to be examined by 2 or more
narrators. If the narrators can tell and accept the story, so can
the readers.
Heart of Darkness (excerpts)
There are two narrators and sb listening to Marlow. The
importance of this lies in that the people listening to Marlow
are the people of our civilization. At the end, this listener looks
around, there is darkness, he sees a cigarette lit and we see that
at least one person is awaken. The novel begins with Marlow
telling to the other people that this is also one more dark place
of the earth. The darkness is also there (in Britain) as in Africa.
But Marlow was not typicalhate
He is talking about Britain which is also dark. The meaning is
outside. The moon shine illuminates the darkness. It
symbolizes rational mind. The moon doesnt make such strict
divisions. This is not the usual perception. The idea of
illuminating the darkness- the dark portion of the psyche.
Marlow is talking about Britain. Before it started its colonial
project it also was the victim of colonization. He is talking
about this continual process- taking lands, robbing, stealingthe pattern always present. Work- the colonizers came to do
the work, bring progress, science, laws, Christianity. This
concept is being ridiculed by Marlow- taking away the land
from those different from us. (The Royal Hunt- they must be
killed since they are not believers; Cloud Nine- a mythical
justification; Jung- ego, shadow, the self. If we dont realize,
dont recover, the shadow can burst out in a destructive way.
The shadow in us is projected on sb and we want to destroy
that person as we see it as evil.) Marlow tells us about the
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continuity of conquest. When we perceive a group of people

different from us, they become an object of our
destructiveness as we do not have any link with them. We
dont see, perceive them as the part of the self.
I left in a French steamer
Marlow is sailing down the ocean. He feels isolated. He feels
unreality- the feeling of disillusion. He mentions 2 thingsblack people rowing in some boats and the surf seems real to
him. The reality is natural phenomena. They are naturally
there. He sees a French ship firing at the continent. There is
sth insane in that picture; unreal, irrational as if he was
moving in a nightmare. To some degree he perceives them as
the other but positive. They were a great comfort to look at.
They were a part of a picture- perceived a great energy and
power. They seem to belong to land. Marlow himself has a
sort of illusion. The whole enterprise of colonizing Africa was
like an illusion- the image that seems unreal. We see how
irrational this hatred is and that the motives for the conquest
were materialistic. The idea is to destroy a part of us that we
rejected so that Africa reminds us of the other part of the self
that we rejected, that is irrational, creative.
A horn
They are building a railway- a sort of parody of this work.
They are doing the work which is meaningless. Savages are
not free workers. They are doing this work as a kind of
punishment. The white man comes, imposes that these people
are criminals. Then there is an appearance of another black, a
reviser. He is one of the reclaimed blacks from the darkness.
He has been rejected, then integrated into the white
civilization as Joshua. They gave him some power, the
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uniform and the gun and he is proud of this role. How does he
behave towards Marlow? He is one of the whites, he should be
trusted. The last sentence is ironic. We see 6 black men in
chain, starving. Marlow juxtaposes the reality to ideological
phrases used to cover those phrases.
I went to work
Marlow is repairing his ship. There is a number of people
waiting to go with him. Work is an important aspect of
civilization. Marlow doesnt condemn the whole culture. It
helps him preserve his integrity. Two images in the novel
symbolize the positive aspect of civilization- one is the ship
and the other is a book. When he talks about culture, Conrad
compares human efforts to dream. Its a human aspiration. It
could be seen there are two dreams that Kurt dreams. One is
arrogant, a dream of mastery typical for the WC. Marlows
dream is symbolized by the ship. He tries to wake up Kurtz.
His dream is not one of conquest. He has a positive aspiration
to work. He has an inquisitive mind but doesnt want to be a
master. Work generally keeps his integrity. People are waiting
for Marlow to repair the ship and they have long sticks in their
hands. They look like pilgrims but they are not. They are
going there for ivory. It looks like a pilgrimage but what they
worship is ivory. At the end of the passage he feels that the
whole wilderness, jungle is waiting patiently for the passing
away of this fantastic invasion. What they are doing is
irrational and meaningless and cant harm this wilderness. It is
a vague attempt to change it. Whatever he did is pointless. It
will always be there- it is some ancient entity. The wilderness
waits them to finish. It is fantastic invasion- you cant conquer
this pare of your being.
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The Earth seem unworthily

We are accustomed to look free. The White can perceive the
others only on their own terms. You can see the outburst of
these instincts. They could display them freely. There are no
restraints. Marlow doesnt consider them human. We are
accustomed to shackled form but here in Africa the Blacks
didnt suppress their instincts. They were not inhuman, they
were not savages. They are human as he is. They belong to
this environment and they are considered the others. Most
white people would observe them dancing but Marlow would
feel the kinship between them. That is the idea of the common
humanity that prevents you from killing the others. It connects
you with different cultures. This saves Marlow. He is aware of
that kinship but he doesnt want to mingle with them. He says
they have a voice but I have my own voice. Lawrence- to
surrender to that flow. Conrad- to control it by conscious effort
and also to recognize it. The only way to be saved from this
destructive impact of the shadow is to recognize it. Marlow
doesnt project his shadow on the other but finds the kinship,
he recognizes the same traits- the need to dance, exotic
instincts. Therefore, he will not be destroyed from the shadow.
Shadow will not be rejected and he will not feel destructive
towards the natives. The only sin is the sin of separation.
Only if we perceive some group of people as separate from
ourselves well find the reason to destroy them, to annihilate
them. Its important to admit there is a friendlily part in him.
He is honest enough to recognize the kinship. Why didnt
decide to join them? He said he had work to do. Marlow
controls his instincts by means of work. Jung- when the
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European gets in touch with other culture, he cant control his

urges.
There remained unmistakable real
Marlow finds a book. He admires the honest work. He has a
very honest and humble concern about the book. It is about
how to go, about sailing. He sees in it a kind of humble
approach. Work is supposed to be done by people who
conquered Africa (vs. humble work). Black-breaking
business- it will save your integrity. The book struck him as
sth unmistakably real. What Whites do is real. The positive
aspect of civilization is in contrast with the honest work. What
is real is the jungle but the human work as well.
I would no doubt
Marlow has lured some black people to help him with the
ship. They happen to be cannibals. They are hurrying. There is
a dead body on board and they want to throw it. Cannibals say
dont throw it, give it to us. They are supposed to be
exchanged for food. They have a heap of meat, it gets rotten
and the whites throw it over the ship. The group of cannibals
are hungry, they are starving. Why didnt they eat them? They
may look unappetizing to them. It is a superstition. It seems
there is some sort of restrain. It is not an external restrain such
as law, police. No white men but the inner restraints do not
allow them to eat them- sth in human psyche. They manage to
control their instincts unlike Kurtz. Negroes are capable of
controlling the instincts of their hunger. Man is ready to do
anything when they are starving, but they signed a contractthey had some inner integrity that makes them able to resist.
Inborn strength. Its natural goodness, the tendency to be kind.
To be good is inborn. Kurtz has no inner restraints. When the
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strong instinct demanded sth from Kurtz, he did it, whereas,

they have much more restraints, they do not do anything
dishonorable. Its not the matter of abstract principle but
human inner code which prevents him from doing sth
dishonorable.
You should have
This is Kurtz speech. A kind of possessiveness characterizes it.
He is aggressive, arrogant, possessive. He wants to believe
everything belongs to him. He is not really a master. He is
mastered by these facts (subconscious forces). Kurtz looks at
this darkness but he cant control it because he doesnt have
inner restraints. Marlow says the listeners cant understand
this. Marlow hopes to hear the laughter coming from the
jungle. Its just an illusion of mastery. Everything belonged to
him but it was a trifle for their own. He wants to know what
he possesses, but not where he belongs to. He was claimed by
those powers which he wanted to claim. He wanted to claim
the wilderness, but wilderness claimed him. Wildlife of Africa
somehow invoked his instincts. He tried to control the dark
part but it bursts out. The Shadow becomes a master. The wild,
destructive instincts ruled him. So, instincts can burst out.
Kurtz had a very improper attitude toward wilderness and it
turned against him.
There is the fear of scandal, punish, lunatic exile. Public
opinion controls our instincts. The asylum is a place where
you end up if you do sth wrong. We dont control our instincts
by our inner restraints but external. When Kurtz comes there,
there were no external restraints, just silence and solitude.
There are various people in jungle. It may be too much of a
fool to go wrong. They are never tempted by devil. The 2 nd are
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exiled people- saints. They have only heavenly sounds. People

seem to be detached from the experience, then you have to
experience temptation to know. Most of us are neither of them.
We feel temptations. Work can, however, save us. Kurtzs
attitude toward work is not honest.
All Europe
All Europe contributes to making Kurtz. He symbolizes the
mid-set of Europe of his time. He is the perfect representative
of the values both on the surface and deeply inside. When
Marlow makes him see the horror he has committed, he makes
the whole Europe see it. if there is hope for Kurtz, there is
hope for whole Europe. He was to make the report for the
International society for the suppression of savage customs.
The whites were trying to suppress savages. They wanted to
damage them.
Kurtzs report is written for the society. This is the idea of the
white conquerors. They came to suppress savages customs.
This is very eloquent, arrogant report. It embodies the whole
white society based on this moral superiority. Kurtz is such a
wonderful narrator but behind this eloquence- the sort of
attitude conveyed in this report. He begins with we the whites
look like deity to them. Kurtz, before his fall had this
arrogant, hostile attitude towards the Blacks. He writes 17
pages in small letters and Marlow says it is difficult to
understand. Why? Because there is no concreteness, just
abstract attitude. He speaks in abstract terms which do not
mean anything. The exposition of the method; Exterminate
all the truths. He was filled with hatred for these black, dark
element of the psyche. He was supposed to bring
enlightenment but this impulse bursts out.
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Lukacs- the idea of potentiality. The choice defines us. At

some moment of crisis we choose one of the abstract
potentials. His report is a kind of abstract potentiality but he
chooses the potential for killing and destructiveness.
I had immense plans (p.279)
the eveningthe horror, the horror (p.283)
Marlow says that watching Kurtz death was like a veil of
death. He admires Kurtz. The veil suggests sth hidden from
us. Eliot- Human kind cannot stand too much reality.
Throughout the novel Marlow is haunted by the feeling of
unreality. Everything seems to be on the verge of madness.
Here the ultimate reality- the man able to pronounce the
judgment, to recognize the death of the downfall, and the
crime he had committed. Up to that moment there was a split
between what he said and what he did. He had courage to look
at himself and recognize what he had done. That is the
moment of complete reality. Marlow calls this moment the
moment of supreme knowledge. The moment when Kurtz
gains this supreme, total, self knowledge. Black boy- the way
he reported of Kurtzs death.
Marlows life- the mysterious arrangement, futile purpose.
Everything is useless. Merciless logic- he talks about life in
general. He thinks that life is rather chaotic. This knowledge
of the self is sth that we only can get from life. Self-awareness
is the only thing we can achieve in life, but even it comes to
late. Kurtz is called a remarkable man. He was able to say the
horror! the horror! Marlow was also on the verge of that but he
didnt have anything important to say, whereas Kurtz glimpsed
the truth.
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D.H.Lawrence
St. Mawr
Lawrence belongs to those writers whose work can be
understood without earlier influences. He was born Eeastwood
and he saw the heavy contradiction. He enjoyed the beautiful
countryside but he was also angry because it was butted by
ugly works of industrialization (the small suffocated people).
The betrayal of life originated in his childhood observations.
He saw the consequences on the lives of the people. His father
was a miner. People were spontaneously and rapidly ruined
because they were just instruments of the other people. They
were subjected to too much hours of work, lost their
spontaneity and became very ugly. That was the case with his
father. His mother was a higher class. They quarreled a lot. He
had an ambitious mother and uneducated father depending on
alcohol. His gift was to do all things by hands. All that appears
in all his works. The theme is the opposition between the life
of the body and mind. He was his mothers favorite. She was
an ambitious woman who taught him to despise his father- the
body, sensuality, the values of his father. His early life was a
struggle to free himself of the possessive mothers life and
excessive, puritanical spirituality. She wanted to possess her
poor Lawrence, but he resisted her, then he broke the
engagement and cherished fathers qualities. In his book Sons
and Lovers we see the beginning of this process- his
dependence on his mother, then the engagement with Jacky
and his helping his mother to die. She was ill but she hadnt
given up to control her son. He gave her an overdose of
morphine. He sped up the whole process. Why? He did it to
get rid of this kind of possessive motherly love, to become a
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complete man and lover, not merely a son. From this book you
have this theme: symbolic opposition which is enormous. The
life of the body and conscience conditioned his mother. The
women were responsible for this split (sensuality- the men).
The life of the mind is related to women. Here there is this
archetypal reversal- he was against women who allow
themselves to be seduced by the tradition. They allowed
themselves to assimilate this system of values. They are
responsible for the betrayal of life. He was not against the
feminine principle itself. The feminine principle- a quality of
being completely alive. This was represented by his father.
Later he asserted that his mother was a male and father
female. Although in Sons and Lovers he described one
phase of getting rid of his mother love; he remained
ambivalent towards his mother. When he found a woman to
marry, Frida, she represented another figure different from his
mother, yet the archetype of the mother- enormous, huge
woman, exceptional personality. The moment they met they
recognize the exceptional personality. Important theme is the
marriage is a proper place where hetero-sexual relationship
can be managed. She was powerful and creative and so was
he. They succeeded; she abandoned her husband and three
children. They lived in Germany and Italy where he wrote
beautiful poems. This was his 1st departure from London, the
break-out of the WWI. He called it an evil which was not a
mistake accidental that was invisible. It was there all the time.
Everybody was polite, but behind that there was the desire not
to spoil the game- to undermine their fellow creatures. What is
it that these people want? He saw a secret betrayal of life on
all levels- the principle of Judah. He was disgusted and wanted
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to leave Europe in 1918 and never come back. For very short
time visits voluntarily exile to escape culture, to join other
traditions. He lived in Italy, Australia, then went to a ranch in
New Mexico and that is where St. Mawr originated. Finally
he died of tuberculoses. He burnt by the flame of vitality, was
tremendously active. His unconventional marriage, his exile,
his writing- a passionate desire to escape deadly western
tradition which cuts sb off from the authentic life, from
himself. He wonders, explores what is wrong with this. He
found the answer in unnatural hierarchy. Our tradition is
based on a hierarchy- the opposite between the intuitive mind
and conscious will. They are turned into the intuitive mind.
Conrad called it the soul madness. Lawrence calls it in his
essays unnatural hierarchy- the beginning of catastrophe. In
this very book, The Spirit of the Place, we find statements
about personality. He calls it IT. This IT is the subconscious
mind, is the creative author of our lives. You see the difference
between Freuds ID. Lawrences psychology is different.
Freud discovered the subconscience but never endorsed it. it is
a place of all sorts of shameful aggressive impulses, the place
of horror. Indeed Freud wants to make this anti-social desires
conscious that ego can control them better. Quite different is
with Lawrence. The IT is not an obstacle to mans functioning
but the author of our creative life. We should move in
accordance with this deepest self, soul. We should obey the
dictates coming from the outside. If we oppose to it than the
disaster is bound to happen, which was he says what happens
to America. They were free, they had the dream of freedom.
The immigrants fled to America to get rid of external
restraints, political authority- to develop property but in
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knowing what the freedom was for. They never defined what
the freedom was for. The only way to use it is paradoxically to
use it to make one see, to be the master within IT. The
Americans fail to do so. The trend of people who fled from
Europe but also themselves. From now on we shall be
masterless. This is why Low who goes to live on ranch when
she meets the cowboys says 2 things: they were much better
than the upper class of Englishmen yet she was disappointed.
They were hollow. There is sth missing in them. They are twodimensional. They miss the deepest self. Unnatural hierarchy
in the book is described in the fact that they struck the reader
as having their all lives being in their heads- clean-shaven,
well-comb. They didnt need body to represent themselves.
The consequence in modern context England- this mobility
manifests itself in the kind of life which proceeds from the
head. since it comes through head those people are dangerous,
they want to undermine the other with the kiss. The origin of
this split in modern life he finds in Christianity. He goes on to
illustrate this idea. Compared to pagan tradition it is inferior.
What we witness in the icon is the body which is distorted. It
remains down and the soul goes up to live forever. The
misused of the pagan symbol- the intersection of the body and
soul.
Just as the cross is used to mean sth opposite in the same way
the apocalypse is the corruption of the pagan symbol. The
final promise. He says that the Christian apocalypse expresses
that this whole world will be annihilated; the second coming
of the Christ. As opposed to this destruction the pagan
apocalypse envisages the destruction but it happens
periodically- a moment when life becomes rigid. The world
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would disappear in disillusion not in order to appear another

life but they should be reappeared, they should come again in
a better way. Totality was the pagan ideal. Thats why
Lawrence wrote The Death of Pan, the God of all. In this
essay he speaks about this mythological event and the
fragmentation of life. He dies because Christianity was a way
to introduce an abstract idea between and nature. He lost his
totality and wholeness. All novels written by Lawrence have
the motif the desire to restore Pan in the modern world. This
essay describes the religious problem of modern America and
Europe as being the feeling that Pan is dead; Lawrence
advocates a return to Pantheism.
WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS- D.H.LAWRENCE
In "Why the Novel Matters," for example, Lawrence
explores in his own way the Romantic concept of the relativity
of parts and wholes to construct a doctrinal statement
celebrating the novel over other fields of thought. Unlike
philosophy, science, and religion, which only address "part" of
us, he says, the novel reaches us "whole hog." Incorporated
into this argument is a diatribe against moral "absolutes," the
target of both the passage and the entire essay cited above. In
"Why the Novel Matters," however, Lawrence's hatred of
absolutes is made supplemental to a larger theory on the
relativity of parts and wholes. In this essay, he contends that
"man alive" is as much or more the physical body than it is the
mind or spirit, and he supports his thesis by first disassembling
the old cliche that the body is merely a vessel for the soul.
Why the Novel Matters is a bright book of life. In the
novel we see that man can be recreated, rendered in his
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wholeness. This is me- the whole man of life. The essay

reminds of The Preface to the Nigger of Narcissus- there is
sth deeper in man. Lawrence wrote novels, that his prose can
recreate the experience of the wholeness.
Marriage- he believes that the disease of modern life can be
cured. He begins with the most important relationship,
marriage- a space where heterosexual life can be released. Sort
out our relationship to another person. He demanded that sex
should be marriage sex. Why? Marriage is the place where
two people can find fulfillment- his answer to sexual
emancipation. He hated the puritan morality (pornography)dirty little secret. He was disgusted by it all. This stands from
the idea that we are close to each other. There are two flowsnew life and disposition- the fashionable promiscuity. For him
sexual unity was physical and it is pure and healthy. It is not
anymore secret. We use it for the battle of wills- to try to
master our power (Lou and Rico). He pleaded for a marriage
as a complete union and his novels The Rainbow, Woman
in Love, Lady C Lover 1927 are about marriage as a
complete union and his attempt to define marriage and defend
heterosexual love. in the Rainbow there are three
generations whose life is marked by stadual(?) drifting away
from close relationships, the soul (also feel the difficulty in
marriage). Lady C Lover is about a woman upper class,
married. She experiences an affair and she is pregnant, and we
expect a couple union of the two.
St. MawrA late-Romantic assault of industrialism and materialism of
modern world. This novel presents a conflict between the raw
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vitality of wild nature and the sterility and sickness of modern

industrial society. Pan is a favorable symbol of vitality which
represents harmonious inter-relatedness with ones world.
When all is said and done, life itself consists in a live
relatedness between man and nature- the sun, moon stars,
earth, trees, flowers, birds, animals, man, everything We can
still choose between the living universe of Pan, and the
mechanical conquered universe of modern humanity. In
essence, this is the main theme of St. Mawr, the choice
between these two universes.
There is a divorce because Lou says precisely sex should be
such a complex mystery. Its not easy. Ultimately, chastity is
preferable to compromising oneself. Will the woman choose
Pan figure marginalized in our society or a man who is dead,
often an artist. Rico is an artist who pretends. Women are
expected to choose. The future of the civilization depends on
the right choice of a woman, if she knows how to choose. It is
preferable to be on a ranch. She decides to be chaste. When
she wants to make a choice she realizes that she is sb else. She
begins to question herself creatively. She tries to see what is to
blame for Ricos incident. The riches beneath the horse(?)- the
metaphor of the unnatural in us. Once you suppress it, you
become vicious. She choose to go to Arizona, to go to nature.
It is not the renunciation of the mind but a particular kind of
knowledge- man with the intuitive mind and the knowledge
without thinking. There is head and blood knowledge. She
wants a man with a blood knowledge. She asks herself what is
real. For Conrad it is jungle and the book. The life in Europe
is not real.
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Techniques: his stories do not have experiments. There is no

narrator technically which mediates. There is no multiple
choice. But what is new is that his story is highly poetic. He
doesnt narrate the story really. It is a description of an event.
He recreates modes of feelings- represents what is blood
knowledge which is not logic.
In St. Mawr there are two servants. One is Welsh and the other
is American- Phoenix (Indeon) and Lewis. They are the
representatives of these traditions. There is a poetic passage in
which Lewis talks about stars and how we are connected with
them. This is some other mystical tradition. Important episode:
Mrs. Witts cuts Lewis hair and she feels the flow of energy.
Hair symbolizes this flow of natural energy. Lou and Rico
belong to the upper class, they are socially successful, they are
both handsome, young rich and popular. However, very soon
after their marriage it comes down to a friction of two wills. It
seems that bodily passion is not present in their marriage.
When Lou buys a house and looks at the horses(?) eyes for the
first time sth happens. It is an instant when we acquire a
different insight on reality, a different vision. She suddenly
starts to cry when she sees his eyes. We are told she has never
cried before in her life. St. Mawr acts as an agent of change in
the world. When she encounters the horse, that encounter
opens a crack in her being, in her perception of the self. She
gets in touch with her inner being. Here we have a parallel
with Conrad. When she starts wondering what is real- the
positive human effort, the natives and the jungle. So, here Lou
realizes that she has been living in a phony world and this
world of parties shows much pretence. Everything is unreal.
Now she gets in touch with this deep, hidden reality. Her
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social role, the role of being Ricos wife now seems unreal.
She says this is not really we. It seems to her that the young
men she meets on those social occasions are wholly contained
in their heads. They all have these handsome, clean-shaven
faces and they keep on talking. They keep on exercising their
minds. They take pride in their minds and wit and they seem
to her completely bodiless. It is like they are all losing touch
with their bodies, with their natural instinctive portion of the
being. St. Mawr reminds her of this lost totality of being. He
symbolizes Pan, the God of all. He is a creature in whom Pan
is still alive. Here Lou fails to find a man in whom Pan is still
alive unlike Lady Chatterley. She leaves Rico and hopes to
find a mystical man, the kind of man who would have the
blood knowledge. Lawrence believes when we use our
intellect we are separated from the object of knowledge. When
we use our intuition we try to become one with the object of
knowledge. So, Lou leaves Rico, gets to America and buys a
ranch somewhere in wilderness. She says that living on that
ranch, working, struggling with that nature, she wants to get in
touch with the wild spirit. Again she says that living on the
ranch would not be a romantic unity with nature. It will be just
like in Conrad. Mrs. Witt- Lous mother is an interesting
character because she appreciates good mind in man, she
admires witty and intelligent men but at the same time she
beats men in the games. She seems to overpower them all the
time. She is ironical and cynical. Lawrence compares her to a
pillar of salt. He got to this image- the sea- feminine, sunmasculine element. In our civilization the masculine principle
becomes dominant so that the sea is dried up and what is left is
salt. The woman is now destructive, corrosive element and
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not creative. This is her destructive element over men, but she
is not in touch with vital source- she is also dried.
St. Mawr (excerpts)
She never did..
This is the first time she cries. There is another side of psyche
which is suppressed. She identifies the horse with God. He is
the real embodiment of that world. Lawrence mentions Pan,
the God of everything. In this horse Pan is still alive.
Throughout the novel he mentions the eyes- some sort of
vision. The horse stares at her and he offers her a different
vision of reality. The question the horse asks is one of the
notion of the self. She has taken for granted this social
conception of what she is. Trilling also talks about the concept
of the self the society offers to us which is inadequate.
According to the social role she is Mrs. Carrington- the wife
of Rico. Rico is compared to horse. He is like a tamed horse.
The horse symbolizes the wild energy. In Rico it is suppressed.
He is self-controlled. She has the idea that everything around
her is false and unreal. People pretend, they are not their real
selves. The horse is real (Conrad- book and jungle). There is
the deepest self that she now begins to grasp. Rico is always
quick and sensitive to understand changes in here. He is
intelligent and perceptive. His eyes are blue. Dark eyes of the
horse are juxtaposed to his blue eyes. Blue eyes symbolize
intelligence. She compares him to the horse. He will be cold
and distant. There is something dangerous in him, like this
animal which is in him perverted. It is suppress animal. Rico is
not in touch with nature, so he is powerless. The only real
thing for Lou is the look in the horses eyes. There is sth
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lacking in her husband and the society she lives in. Everything
seems to be a bluff. Social life is not real.
Often
For her this is like a performance, sth not real. People enjoy
without questioning. Eating symbolizes physical aspect. This
life doesnt satisfy anybody. People take food because they
feel empty inside.
Isnt that
Mrs. Witt feels the primal power in Lewis while she is cutting
his hair. She is not in touch with the source. Like a human
cat. She doesnt see him as a human being. She thinks in
mythological terms. She has a strange sort of intelligence.
Lewis has an intuitive mind. She is fascinated by him but
doesnt respect him. He is like an animal. For her, intelligence
defines man- conceptual thinking. Lou opposes her conceptual
thinking- to unite the meaning by becoming one with the
object. The dark part of the psyche has to be recognized and
controlled for Conrad. For Lawrence we should be mastered
by this life force, IT. The hierarchy is not observed. People
like Lewis and Phoenix are alive and the strong ones in the
hierarchy of the society, they are at the bottom. Those weak
are at the top. The natural hierarchy has been destroyed. Their
intelligence is like a knitting pattern- the same phrases used
all the time; like brother Nigel in Look Back in Anger. A
good mind is an intuitive mind, creative. Mrs. Witt regards
Lewis only as a servant. She is under natural hierarchy.
I dont want
People are not in touch with creativity of nature. Still man has
that animal part. The animal in man is perverted. We have
moved away from the source of life and thats why we have
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deadness, the comparison to the camel. We dont take life

straight from the source, natural energy we find in animals.
There is still animal in us but in civilized people it is
perverted. It did not use to be like that. It is a sort of dullness.
It is domesticated like dogs. They cant live without masters.
We are tamed. Rico is a typical representative of such mind.
He is tame and humble. He is like a woman. She appreciates
men like Phoenix and Lewis but they are servants. Shed like
the society where people like Lewis are mastered, sb who is in
touch with deepest layer of psyche. He wouldnt repeat
phrases but he would be an explorer. Hed also had this
shifting character. He will be complex, sth you have to
discover. She is looking for a mystical man. She compares him
with lots of animals. They suggest beauty, the body she can
admire. He would be part of unseen. We will have an
inquisitive mind trying to find more about the self but in an
intuitive way, to be capable of experiencing life as a mystery, a
place meaningful to explore, to search for meaning.
And she had
She has a vision of evil. She uses the metaphor of tick-like, a
natural disaster. People are not aware of the evil. They
conceive evil as a mere negation of good. People have a very
vague notion of evil. They have an ideal in life. They want to
be good and live enjoyable life without questioning. They
fallow the same pattern of belief. They want to stay on the
surface, to have good time. They are not interested in depths,
in hidden reality. We are not in touch with the source and we
project the shadows- suppressed energy must burst. People
produce great shadows. Even if they do not want to contribute
to war, by participating in creating the shadows they do
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subconsciously participate. All that shadow energy has to burst

out unless we are in touch with nature. There is an image that
makes her think about evil. She sees it. Mawr falling on his
back and the rider is under the back. The horse is on the top of
the rider. The situation is reversed. The image of the evil
existing in us nowadays. Sth evil in us comes to surface and
we fall, but we still hid the reins believing we are still masters.
The rider is to blame. He represses his ego. It tries to control
the whole self. Ego is just a part of the ice hill. This is the way
our psyche is constructed. We know just one part of us. Ego
cannot be the master of the whole psyche. Underminingwhen sb tries to give an expression to it, he is undermined by
all the others- the society which does not allow us to become
authentic. It is a sort of hidden ego. What is undermined is a
true nature of man. Lou is undermined by Rico whenever she
tries to be authentic. It is a sort of hidden ego. What is
undermined is a true nature of man. Rico is undermined by
Marbys. Whenever sb shows he is in touch with source there is
undermining hatred towards any strength of spirit. All those
who are naturally strong are made weaker because people who
are socially strong are afraid of the conception of life different
from their own.
The evilthe most potent
She mentions Fascism, Bolshevism, Stalinism- they made a
mess of the outside life. By those movements we have the
outbreaks of evil. This is when evil becomes visible, the open
manifestation but we can not confine evil to those instances.
Jung- shadow projection of the self. (Surfacing). The culture
is based on an inadequate concept of the self. Thats why evil
exists. It continues to exist. It will appear in different forms.
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The game of betrayal- Judah- of our true self. They appear

good on surface but they suppress that natural energy. They
are not loyal to the flow of natural energy. When we suppress
it, it becomes perverted and evil. The betrayal of life is
betrayal of this energy. When we do not respect it, the game of
undermining is the betrayal. We betray our nature.
Apocalypse- there is a notion of spiritual aristocracy- the
rule of those who are not in touch with the source. They are
spiritual actors. Christ was one of them. Judah is a symbol of
those weak in spirit and undermines those who are strong. In
our civilization we have the weak undermining the strong and
the life itself. It is a normal process in nature to die. We cannot
come to terms with natural process. We should change the
civilization we have created. Mankind manipulates the city
upon the city, millions upon the millions. He is trying to say
that this civilization has become death in life which in spite of
the deadness we want to save life. You have to reconsider our
concept of civilization and perhaps rebuild it again. That
which is created must be destroyed. There is sth more horrible
than death- and that is the paralysis of life. Civilization loses
all vitality yet refuses to change, to destroy inadequate
structures.
Mothertoo late
Mrs. Witt watches a funeral and Lou says- so, you really like
watching, mother. In order to live fully in accordance to your
inner, deepest being. If you dont live in such a way, you dont
live it at all. You live death in life. Since the whole life is
unreal, superficial death is going to be the same. Those who
believe are not afraid of death. If you are capable of
renouncing your own life for the sake of everlasting heaven245

death has no sting for them because theyll ascend to heaven.

Mrs. Witt has never lived fully and thats why death has no
sting for her. She is already dead so she cannot die. She has a
desire for death. Real and painful for her is at least this final
experience. The life is reduced to social conventions described
in newspaper articles; reduced to what your social role is. She
didnt live in accordance with natural feelings in her. This is
the moment when she realizes she has lived wrong. She feels
detached from her own existence, no time experience, just the
superficial one. the terror of too late- the revelation has come
too late for her, but Lou realizes that she has changed. It is not
too late for her. Its a sort of paralysis in life. So, all we do, all
our lives can be reduced to the newspapers, announces. He
refers to the upper class. He is forgetting them. What we do in
life seems repetitive, conventional. She is detached from her
own experience. She is not emotionally involved. She is witty,
intelligent, so she is reduced to that part of her being that is
conscious.
The scene with cowboys: they are two dimensional. There is
an idea of freedom from and freedom for. Freedom from is
negative. You have to be free from sth oppressive. People run
away to America where there was no class constraints. Lou
says you are not really free unless you find sth, some goal to
serve; free to find some aim in your life. You have to be free to
invest your energy into sth. Cowboys are masterless. They
should be mastered by life-force. When you serve this central
power you have positive freedom.
So, its mother
Lou has bought a ranch in America. She doesnt want to
meddle with men. She wants to find mysterious man and have
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sex with him. That will be spiritual experience. Unless she

finds him, shed rather have no man at all. She wants to find
that deepest self and live for sth bigger. Mrs. Witt is cynical.
When she was young women went to convent to live for sth
bigger. Lou doesnt agree with that kind of religious view. It
seems as running away from men. She doesnt run from men.
She hates them but because they are not full of energy. She
longs for a mystical man. Shell either find that man or shell
keep to herself. The sexual encounter with that man has to
have deep meaning, deep mystical unity with the man in touch
with the source. It want be a cheap sex. For her men are just
handsome. Jung- to become whole is to unite feminine and
masculine principles in ourselves. When man falls in love with
woman, the archetype presenting their relationship is
hieros(?) games, wholly marriage. What they are looking for
is the completeness. There is a potential promise for spiritual
growth by meeting a person of opposite sex. You should get in
touch with other principle of your living.
James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Joyce left Ireland in 1882 never to return again. Unlike
Lawrence, he voluntary exiles in order to become an artist and
a lover. He finds a girl, a chambermaid, uneducated woman
whom he trusted all his life. He married Nora. He insisted that
love must be free. They both decided that they must make a
break through from their homeland in order to save their souls.
Both recorded these separations in books whose protagonists
also decided to leave the place where they were born.
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In this book we have the recreation of his own experience. It is

autobiographical. Stephen decided to leave Ireland to find a
more congenial place. Conrad has a different attitude to the
soul from Lawrence and Joyce. They conceive mans
subconsciousness as creative, while Conrad as monstrous.
Kurtz doesnt start questioning the ideas he is asked to live for.
Leavis says we must ask, reexamine the values we are
required to live by. He goes to the jungle and there he makes a
delicate discovery that his soul is mad. His only victory is this
victory and passing the jungle- horror, horror! In Lawrence,
Lou, and in Joyce, Stephen start questioning their own lives,
ideas to make timely escape to some other environment and
preserves their souls in time. They continued to develop into
complete human beings. That is the question that is important
and that can be misused against naturalism. Lawrence decided
to leave Europe defined by money, and choose the promising
land- America. Joyce decided to leave the provincial Ireland.
Their lack of education and tolerance is sth he cant cope with.
He decided to go to Europe. He turns his back on the political
struggle of Ireland, left Europe (socialist)- he was against
money. He said he was not a nationalist but you have to be
careful and know a lot about Joyce to understand this
cosmopolitan freedom from any political pressure, to reimagine Ireland and write about it. He left Ireland to find
space in which hell distinguish what in Ireland was wrong
and narrow-minded. Once he found himself in Europe he
Irelanded himself against European policy. He also said that
Ireland is the least bureaucratic from most countries. His idea
to be civilized doesnt have to do anything with law and
bureaucracy but tolerance, pacifism (WWII). The Irish fought
248

for liberation. Parnel was betrayed in the end by the priest- he

fell in love with a married woman. He should be obedient- to
cherish dogma. Then Joyce turns his back from the struggle
for independence which is betrayal from the inside. He took
Nora with him. Her uneducated wisdom came from the most
primitive part. He saw in her the true Ireland. He mythologizes
her. She is a goddess and he worships the female principle.
Although Lawrence and Joyce are different they are searching
for the same thing- to escape from the universal tradition that
was Christian tradition, to go beyond it and to say a great
yes to life. Nietzsche associated it to the pagan tradition.
The weak in the soul seek protection- Lawrence. Christian
apocalypse is the revenge of those cold-blooded against those
who are afraid of life. Christianity introduces the desire for
permanence, absence of the flow of life. It must be a
permanent flow. The permanent life, unchanging life of the
bodily flow. As opposed to it is the pagan tradition. Both find
alternative in love. Pan is a complete man. Joyce- we have
many figures. Lucifer is the angel who says no services.
Dedalus- the pagan artist. Ulysses- they all perceive how
within those static, stable structures life decays.
On Modern Fiction- V. Woolf
The business of the artist is to liberate the reader from the
ideal corselet. there is no stable ego. The least stable ego is the
imagination. There are 2 aspects: the libido and the
imagination. The aim is to liberate them from the ideal
corselet. They do that through the assault of the linguistic
forms against literary traditions. Traditional realists say that
life is orderly, what is significant is what is common- a series
of events logically connected describing people, rooms from
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the outside. W.Wordsworth says life is illuminated hollow- the

stream of techniques to describe the life as sth inside, in the
mind. Impressions in the mind are shaped into the life of
Monday, Tuesday, etc. What is important neednt coincide
with the conventional idea. What is important is the metaphor
of the costume- all the buttons are sewn exactly at the same
place. Wordsworth, Lawrence and Joyce tried to subvert
culture by subverting literature- no common, no subject,
predicates to create the simultaneous flow. Within those static
structures life is decaying.
(The "vast external world" is not the most conventional
"outside" of subjective consciousness, the world of human
communities, but instead a vital, fundamentally other realm,
the object of scientific and also artistic apprehension. This
world, "which recks so little of the happiness, of the marriages
or deaths of individuals" has affinities with the experience of
that far from ordinary faculty "an ordinary mind on an
ordinary day," which Woolf invokes in her modernist
manifesto "Modern Fiction," published the same year as Night
and Day. Although the mention of a mind most often connotes
disembodiment, the Democritean language of this essay,
equating "a myriad impressions--trivial, fantastic, evanescent,
or engraved with the sharpness of steel" with "an
incessant shower of innumerable atoms," on the contrary
insists on the material nature of sensation, the inescapable
organicism of this "mind"--especially in its visionary contacts
with the "real" or "being." [9] The difference between a
"modern fiction" representing this kind of palpable experience
and the "materialist" novels of the Edwardians that Woolf
denounced in "Modern Fiction" has less to do with mind-body
250

dualism than with the emphasis and values of Edwardian

naturalism. The body represented in the "materialist" novels is
embedded in social life. All its experiences have social
consequences. By contrast, that sensitive organism the
"ordinary mind on an ordinary day" is alone, absorbing and
contemplating its "myriad impressions" without thereby either
contracting to be married or being "ruined"--the two eminently
social conclusions for the female body as the subject of
nineteenth-century realist representation.8 The visionary body
is the body that experiences without social implications.)
Within Brisel he discovered death. Lawrence also wrote a
story dealing with Christian tradition and paganism as an
alternative The man who died. It was Jesus who dies, rises
back to life because he wants to marry. The proper
resurrection is getting married. His alternative to Christian
ascetism(?). In Joyce too the centre of this emotional paralysis
is Ireland because of the unquestioned rule of the Catholic
religion. The country in which young people are trapped into
the nets preventing them to mature properly. To my church
the greatest hierarchy is a human being. He distanced himself
to discover what was wrong and it was Christian concept of
life. He wrote the most unpredictable prose. His poetry was
very conventional. Then he wrote The Dubliners- 15 stories.
The theme is not obvious, naturalistic subdued. In each story
on epiphany- a revelation of meaning. Epiphany- not
preordered by God but by exercising ones own mind. Each of
the stories centers on a scene in which there is an epiphanysome kind of a failure, a full (im)passionate life. The book
ends with The Dead. They are all in various senses dead.
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The living and dead are united. They are more dead than the
dead. The book is about the gestation of the soul. Such
gestation is not interrupted by the wrong concept of life.
Stephen Dedalus in his effort to escape the various nets finds
the question in contrast to his name. Stephen and Dedalus- 2
alternatives. He finally realizes that he is going to be Dedalusa pagan craftsman who escapes culture. He also escapes the
Irish, the nets of his family by means of art. Each chapter ends
in epiphany- deconstructing false relationships based on
obedience. Dubliners- he changes his style. He began it by
using traditional conventions. In Ulysses there are interior
monologues. He started with the Dubliners with naturalistic
style which he calls the style of scrupulous meanace(?)- by
describing characters he pointed towards the end of the story
which seems to be a minor epiphany- revelation of the failure
and impassionate living. The boy heard the news and was
struck by the word paralysis- the freezing of life by the Church
and respectable piety which middle- class people choose to
live by- the denouncement of passionate life. When the soul is
born nets are flown over it to prevent it from flight. The word
paralysis becomes an opt description of the life of Dubliners.
The last story is called The Dead. The story is about
Gabriel Conray and Greta. They came to the house of three
spinsters. Its Christmas- the renewal of life should be
celebrated but it is under the influence of the Catholic Church.
So the evening is usual, nothing happens but they are talking
about the music. We find the significance when they are all
preparing to leave and there is an epiphany. Its important that
Gabriel finds his wife is missing and sees her standing on the
staircases, listening to an old-fashioned melody. In his heart
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there is a pang of jealousy because he realizes that there is sth

which separates her from him. He is insecure, asks her
questions. She tells him about an impression- a story from her
youth when she was in love with a boy of 16. Michael Fury
was in love with her and spent all his life in the rain under her
window, got pneumonia and died. Greta realizes the epiphanywhen he was capable of rising his life; but now the feelings
she showed to him are never showed in the married life. There
is no such passion. He sees her life wasted. The snow is falling
upon the living and the dead. Michael Fury is more alive in his
death than Gabriel is alive in his real life.
A Portrait of the Artist
Liberation, resisting the church whose main purpose is to
implant in one shame and weakness and Stephen wants to
reject this feeling of fear, shame and guilt. Its a book of series
of events culminating in an epiphany- slowly to liberate
himself from pseudo-identity, to deconstruct that false
constructions imposed on him. In the 1st chapter there is a song
Red Rose. The child has myriads impressions bombarding
us- stopped by a 6-year-old using his sensory faculties, not
intellectual data. He builds meaning. His life is a wild red
rose- an image of creative potential. His song will be
transformed into Stephen- apologize, apologize. He is
manipulated and made a construct, the song about the shame,
guilt vaguely associated with women. He does sth that doesnt
please the adults- the function of the poetic mind- he brings
the 2 into 1 song. His imagination was directed into wrong
direction- to create a life, denying poem based on fear and
shame. He has ability to make a whole and hell use it for sth
constructing what they want to make of him. He goes under
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the table and Dante asks him to apologize or eagles will pull
his eyes- the sense of guilt. It demonstrates how the female, or
ISA, were to turn him into a subject and how he already
manipulates poetic ability- to combine impressions into sth
that has the meaning. It refigures his successful operation of
imagination. As a boy he writes I am SD on the leaf of
geography book. He tells us he wants to find his true position
in even larger concentric circle of the society. It will culminate
when he is carried by his class-mates. He is a hero. He will
have to do in even larger context until he achieves his major
epiphany- he will not serve what he doesnt believe in. his
biological father is not the same as his spiritual father. The
priest offers to join the Jesuits. He experiences an encounter
with a prostitute. He rejects his father who wants his son to be
a gentleman, to return to respectability, to family. He says no
to all false concepts of faith. He is then torn between 2
concepts that woman is either a prostitute or a virgin.
Throughout the novel he oscillates between passion and fear.
The House of Ivory- he doesnt understand that but later he
would realize that it is a feeling of womens hair, the house of
gold. He is put on the test- he goes to a prostitute in order to
find a dream-like girl and he finds himself in a labyrinth.
Stephen goes to meet his physical and erotic power. (His
experience is different from the experience of Lou when she
sees St. Mawar.). Dedalus- this is like a pagan ritual bringing
him to life. Once he kisses her he is strong in body and soul.
They mingle. With every epiphany the sense of power
strengthens. He sees sth real- the likeness of pagan institution.
He feels temporary reunion. In the next chapter, he is listening
about the hell- he feels the pressure of the bread (za pricest)254

the vision of how he is going to subject his body to his

soul/spirit. In the next part he really entertains this idea of
becoming a priest- beyond sin- until he goes to an interview
with the priest- he is subdued. The priest is leaning behind the
window; his head is like a skull. He is offering Stephen a trap
of the soul- to test how successfully Stephen subjected his
body. The sound of ejoupe(?) implies womanhood so he is
tempting him. Stephen realizes this so he replies to him and
feels the epiphany on the beach. That is the final epiphany.
There is the flow, the life, the girl wadding in the water. He
identifies himself with Dedalus- true spiritual father. In Ibsen,
he recognizes the necessity to find a woman as the inspiration,
the transcendence of ordinary, the body. In Joyce- he sees his
father as Dedalus, and thinks that the soul/spirit is capable of
flying. Yet, once you recognized him as his spiritual father. He
meets a girl and in her looks, image she is an angel; in her
glance neither a shy nor a whore. She hears the invitation for
life. The call to life demands him to fall; and he says to fall
into sin, creation, glory. One goes up the other goes down. The
2 directions must be balanced. You fall into life; you plunge
into experience not purged by bodily pleasures. You fly from
or beyond cultural restraints. Art combines both without
bowing to either. In the final chapter he is completely free. He
separated from Irene and reconciled body and soul. He started
sparkling with creativity. The book ends by entries he makes
into his diary- he lets us know his final welcome to life.
A portrait of the artist (excerpts)
Once upon. The memory from an early childhood. It is
him in a fairy tale. He is like a baby- tickoo- a nursery story.
For him imagination and real life exist at the same level. We
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learn about his family relations. They were fighting for

independence. There is high awareness of political problems.
The idea of patriotism. There is an experience with Eileen. He
hides under the table. He is shy. He oscillates in his attitude
towards women. It starts at this early age- there is a threat
connected with this experience. Dante says the Devil (eagle)
will come and pull his eyes. Stephen makes a song. It suggests
that he will deconstruct structures- this suppressive structure
we have to obey. He defines himself by his creative
imagination.
He had wondered... His adolescence. He is about to meet a
prostitute- his first sexual experience. This is not a physical
experience but a kind of initiation. Jew- a kind of ritual. Jews
have different tradition. He gets in touch with different
traditions. He is in a realm of different tradition (Trilling).
Frye- Eros, personal freedom, erotic experience. Eros is a kind
of energy we cannot control. Alter- a pagan ritual in which
sexual experience is a kind of initiation, spiritual. The woman
is like a priestess- the moment of enlightenment. The
slumber(?) of centuries(?)- refers to Christian tradition.
Senses, urges, our sexuality, bodily energy, erotic energy all
that is suppressed in Christianity. She embraces him gaily and
gravely, her face lifts in serious calm. It is sth sacred for them.
It is sth serious. He feels joy, he feels relief. She releases the
flow of natural energy. This encounter gives him a sense of
strength and creativity. Joyce calls this kind of moment an
epiphany- you receive certain deep meaning. It is not here
connected with the official religion but his own.
I sent for youStephen
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Stephen talks with a priest. He is persuading him to become a

priest. He tells him that he is exceptional. He alludes to his
pride. Religion is one of the ISA. He is healing him. He is
telling him he is unique, but actually if Stephen follows it he
will become the subject. There is a kind of betrayal of the
original religion.
As he descended the steps
mirthless(?) mask- the face of the priest tempting him.
Stephen compares it to a skull- no life, no joy; like death in
life. He attends the Jesuit school. He has to share his
accommodation, no intimacy, no privacy. He has to share with
others. He loses his identity- the fear of losing identity. The
face was eyeless- hollow man. Sour-favored (?)- this man is
not satisfied. With pink tinges of suffocated anger. He
realizes that what he saw in their faces is not contempt.
Jesuits building- all the buildings, i.e. windows are the sameno individuality. He realizes that in this way he will lose his
freedom. He was tempted by the priest appealing to the
psyche, but it doesnt touch his soul. It appeals to his ego. He
doesnt want to join any social order. He would rather fall and
fully live.
Their burden was not
Stephen Dedalus. Stephen is the 1st saint, Dedalus- an artificer.
He builds a famous labyrinth. Icarus flies too high, Dedalus
doesnt. He is a creator and he can also fly by the wings of
imagination. It can also symbolize freedom. This name
becomes symbolical to Stephen. His name is patriarchal,
Christian whereas the tradition implied by his surname is
pagan. His name is like a prophecy- the end can also mean the
aim. He is also an artist so this is artistic freedom. He is
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creating a new being for himself. He creates himself with his

own art- to create some structure of meaning which is your
own. He listens to this boy. They are on the beach. They are
jumping into the water- the call of life to his soul. He rejects
the voice of the priests, this is the call on which his soul
depends. This is the call of art. This is what he wants to do
with his life. What characterizes his boyhood is the feeling of
uncertainty and fear. The grave of boyhood refers to all
structures imposed on him. This is like a project- a kind of art
he wants to create.
A girl stood before him
He sees this girl who symbolizes sensual life. Symbolically,
she can be his muse- the goddess of art and music. The muse
inspires artists to write- the feminine part of his psyche called
anima (for woman it is rimus (?)). The creativity is
connected with this feminine principle within the male psyche
(Rich-Orion). This girl could represent his awaken sensuality.
Out of this image Stephen realizes what sort of art he wants to
create. She resembles a sea bird. It symbolizes freedom just
like Dedalus who has wings- the symbol of transcendence.
You can translate the dogma and look for your own reading.
Symbol which appears in dreams is a bird. Seaweed- a sign of
nature. She represents the natural part of the psyche. She is
later compared to a dark dove. This girl is not supposed to be a
symbol of purity. She is from this Earth. There is natural
beauty on her face. She looks at him without shame.
According to the church doctrine the woman is either a virgin
or a whore. This girl is neither of them. She doesnt get into
these structures imposed by the church. She is a natural girl,
spontaneous. Madonna/whore. Stephen encounters a natural
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girl who doesnt behave according to society patterns. He talks

about her foot. There is a lot of vocabulary connected with
water as the flow of life.
Look here
Lucifer- non-servicum(?)- a fallen angelhis refusal to
obey. He wants to obey no more his father hand, patriarchal
society, the Church. He talks about freedom- to express his
personality. Silence- exile, cunning. A self-imposed exile;
silence- listen to your own voice; cunning- to fight against the
society.
D.Dutchess, vol.4: Dorothy W.
Ulysses- a book in which there is a streak of consciousness.
There are 3 characters: Stephen is still there, Leopond Bloom
is an ordinary sensual middle-aged man, a Jew and an outsider
married to Molly. These 3 people are according to Joyce
aspects of complete personality. The hero of the book is
Leopond. Stephen is an intellectual, so he is interested in
Leopond who is sympathetic and has an extreme capacity for
epiphany. Christ is not a father, husband and lover so he
doesnt want to choose him as a figure but Ulysses, the father,
the lover and the husband. Ulysses is the version of a complete
man. A book whose chapters are an excellent biography of
Joyce. Each character is related to each body organ (mind).
Stephen is a digestive tract. The flow experience in the book is
created by the stream of consciousness. The first chapter starts
in a naturalistic style but the next chapters become more
strange using various styles, dramatic passages, comic
magazines- stream of consciousness, no punctuation, commas,
full stops. It is a monumental comic epic. The last word is
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given to Molly identified with the flow of life. Thats why

women menstruate- there is that flow of blood. There is the
influence of the moon which changes constantly. It is
associated by women but never controllable by men. Women,
like life, are not to be controlled. Life is to be represented like
flow.
There are 3 ideas: decreation of the real, made patterns of life;
to encounter the fullness of life; to make new patterns of
meaning. Ulysses- the technique is complex but his ideas are
simple. 3 men and Ulysses in the background. Is there a
connection? Can out of this chaos some meaning be
established? The novel says yes. Mollys monologues begin
with yes and end with yes. Yes is the most positive word in a
language. It is in itself creative. She will surround(?) to life.
Leopond is a Jewish in Dublin, a scientific man. He
understands women. They are going beyond the middle-class
values. Ulysses- a celebration of life. The stream of
consciousness- signals from the memory, from our body
sexuality or hunger. History is a nightmare from which
Stephen Dedalus wants to wake up. The unity of opposites.
There are 2 principles in Nietzsches term: Aponision and
Dyonision.
Dedalus, Stephen "Kinch": Joyce's autobiographical young
hero who first appears in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
Man. Stephen is one of Joyce's two major characters in
Ulysses, and her plays the role of "Telemachus" to Leopold
Bloom's "Ulysses." Stephen is a schoolteacher who has
returned to Dublin after spending time in Paris. Throughout
the hours of June 16, Simon is obsessed alternately by the
recent death of his mother, his spiritual departure from Ireland
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and the Roman Catholic Church, Shakespeare and Hamlet, as

well as his own literary bard-like ambitions. Stephen's selfesteem suffers at the hands of his friends, particularly his
roommate Malachi "Buck" Mulligan. Mulligan has nicknamed
Stephen, Kinch, which means knife-presumably a patronizing
reference to Stephen's wit.
Decreation of the pattern- and recreation from the inside it
conditions the interior monologue- to transcribe the stream of
consciousness, renders the flow of experience. The whole life
is placed in one day only- a new conception of time and
personality. As you enter the consciousness of the character
you enter your subjective time. In the modern psychological
novel subjective time allows for the action of the book to last
only a day. Subjective time is infinitely stretched. He manages
to write down in a day what is in the mind of the main
character. That means that all life is in mind. Plunge inward
to describe what the criteria of the subjective time is. But if
you reject the objective patterns you are again faced with the
confusion. Time becomes a mere flow; it doesnt seem to carry
any meaning. It doesnt offer a shape of life. What is this new
pattern? Lawrence and Joyce find a pattern in the pagan way
of life, the traditions which are life giving. They both turned
against Christianity. They turned to the pagan idea of a
complete man, the natural rhythm. The connection between
seemingly disconnections in life (Bloom). Stephen chooses a
Jew. He has sth feminine in him. Stephen and Bloom are ready
to accept these 2 principles. He has found that connection
inspired by pagan way of life. Ulysses- 2 principles are united.
Freedom from stereotypes, compassion, empathy- the theses
of the inner monologue. If all life and time is within it means
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that we are prisoners of our subjective lives. Modernist novel

deals with the theme of communication. Joyce finds a wayloneliness or life. Bloom is lonely. He shows tremendous
empathy.
He manages to guess the desire of the girl and feels
compassion and pity for her. His monologue is full of
empathy. He merges his mind with anything surrounding him.
Finally he falls asleep. He cries- his connection with Stephen.
He goes home to his wife together with him. Everything is
very subdued. The last part is her monologue. Things do not
only vanish, they appear again. The circular repetition of
history, connection of the opposites. The life is the constant
cycle of inexhaustible energy. (Finegan woke up). Finegan
dies, then all those who came got so drunk, so he simply was
resurrected. His own idea of immortal Finegan. Lawrence- the
ship of death; when a body dies a soul continues to live. V.
Woolf didnt succeed. Mrs. Dalloway- after rejecting all, she
encounters confusion. For her time was a passage of moments
and after death she found nothing. Personal problem- whether
life is worth living. She witness several deaths in her family.
Sexually she was very insecure person. She couldnt find a
solution in that pagan wholeness. (A room of ones own- an
essay). She was sth of a snob. She who first welcomed Ulysses
concludes that the book is unbred(?) and vulgar. There is a
touch of snobbery. The book is about whether she has chosen
right and she fails.
V.Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
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There are some similarities between Clarissa and Stephen in

terms of their names. The choice that each of the characters
represent is the choice between name and surname. Stephen is
a name of Christian martyr and the surname of the pagan
character. He chooses to live in accordance with the
symbolism of his surname and the pagan attitude to life which
he considers more comprehensive. Clarissas choice is
somewhat different. She really tries to make a choice
throughout the novel between her private and social self.
Socially her identity is Mrs. Dalloway. She is the wife of the
upper-class parliament member, distinguished representative
of the upper-class in the English society (just like in St. Mawrlady Carrington). Her private self is Clarissa. Her problem is
basically with emotions. She is afraid of deep emotional
involvement. In the novel this symbolically represented as
plunging. She always has the feeling she is on the surface of
the sea. She never plunges into the deep. Once upon a time,
she threw a shilling in a fountain. This is a sort of symbolical
sacrifice. You throw a coin and make a wish. Symbolically,
this is the only plunge she made in life. One protagonist of the
book is Clarissa who in her life runs away from the disturbing
emotions and lives on the surface. The only major character in
the novel is Septimus. He belongs to the lower class and due
to a shock he experiences in the war he loses his ability to feel.
For Septimus this is horrible for the life without emotions is
impossible. On one hand, we have a person who runs from
emotions, and on the other we have the person with emotions.
The 2 of them never meet in the novel, but their motives,
emotions, stream of consciousness are common. The moment
when they really meet in the novel is when 2 stories come
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together. It is when Clarissa is giving a party and Dr.

Bradshow, a psychiatrist, apologizes for being late because
one of his patients committed suicide. Hearing the news about
the young man committing a suicide, Clarissa thinks about her
own life. We can see that she can sympathize with him. In a
way, they seem to be two halves of the same person. They are
closely connected. Clarissa wasnt always like this. When she
was young she had experiences of deep emotional
involvement of passionate life. The 2 persons with whom she
can communicate deeply, whom she loves are Sally Seton and
Peter Walsh. They are unconventional people. Clarissa was
very much in love with Peter. She was also afraid of him in a
way. He always demanded of her deep emotional involvement
and complete intimacy. She was afraid of his demands, of
passion and wanted to stay reserved and detached. Peter
always plays with a pocket knife- it symbolizes his tendency
to see what is behind the surface. He wants to go beyond the
surface of life. Even later in life we see that Peter has retained
his passion for life, he hasnt lost his vitality. At the moment
when he comes to attend Clarissas party, he has a romance
with a married woman. He is passionate; he is not dull and
dreaded. Sally also inspired Clarissa in her youth. The 1 st thing
she learns about her is that she comes from the family which
had a lot of quarrels. They do not get along with each other
very well. At first Clarissa is shocked at the fact that the
parents dont agree. Sally represents for Clarissa a
revolutionary unconventional element in Sallys life. She has
the idea of social equality; wants to change the world. She
inspires Clarissa to read books by revolutionarists- Shelly and
W. Morris. There was one of the greatest intensities in her life
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when she was the happiest- it was when Sally kissed her in the
garden. Clarissa was perfectly happy at that moment. This
moment is like the treasure in which Clarissa had a sort of
epiphany realizing what means to be fully in love, to have
passionate love. However, she lost this treasure. She runs
away deliberately from the intensity of her relationships with
Sally and Peter. She was afraid because they invited her to live
an unconventional life. Instead, she married Richard Dalloway
with whom she had a very conventional life and marriage and
not too much emotional involvement. The moment the book
starts we learn they dont even share the same room. There is a
vague notion of female illness. Women suffer from some
disease usually with reproductive organs and symbolically this
indicates certain sterility and dull emotional life. When the
novel starts we learn that Clarissa is ill for a while, her hair
turns white. She loses her vitality she is getting from inside.
Doctors advised to live in a separated rooms. Rich and
Clarissa do not have much of their sexual life. The marriage is
sterile; the husband and wife are kind, they never quarrel but
there is a feeling of separation and detachment. One of the
motives in the novel is the deepest meaning of communication
between two people in love. Love is the most profound
communication. Septimus tries to compensate for his ability to
feel by marring an Italian girl Lukrezia. He is attracted by the
communication when he enters the house and by marring
Lukrezia he hopes to find the lost ability to communicate.
Septimuss profession- he is a clerk but he wants to become a
poet. He has wonderful ideas about becoming a poet. We have
the motive that poets are capable of communicating. Septimus
believes in certain ideas of English culture and when he goes
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to WWI he believes he is going to war to defend the English

of Shakespeare, of all those people such as Byron, Milton, etc.
He also tries to comply with this notion of a rigid masculine
identity, he tries to confront to this identity. He tries to fit in so
that when his best friend, Evans, dies in war, he tries to
believe in this rigid masculine manner, he tries not to feel too
much. He congratulates himself on feeling very little and very
reasonable. Because he has suppressed this shock, deep
suffering, deep pain, he stopped feeling and eventually he
suffers a great emotional disturbance. Two doctors healed him
and tried to cure him. One of them is Holmes, but he is a
bluffer, doesnt know too much. He is a middle-class doctor
and he simply tries to make Septimus fit again in this
masculine structure. He tells him to take on some sport and be
a proper Englishman. The other, Bradshow, is much more
dangerous. Bradshow is the same kind of character as Dysarthas the same social role but Dysart is much more because he
feels uneasiness. With Bradshow we have certainty; he doesnt
question what he is doing. Bradshow symbolizes a very
dangerous tendency in modern society- to force every
individual to feel secure average notion of what is normal. In
his work he is guided by two goddesses. Their names are
Proportion and Conversion. Proportion refers to his sense of
rational ability and order. There are some norms of behavior in
society that you have to fit in in order to be considered normal.
There is always strict division between a lunatic and a normal
mind. Its the case of so-called over structuring everything
has to fit certain rational structures. The other goddess is much
more cruel and it refers to the ability, capacity of society to
exert power on those who are misfits, on those who do not
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confront to the norms. In a way, either you are mentally

convinced to fit or some sort of pressure is exerted on you, so
you are forced to fit. There are two sorts of apparatus- ISA
and RSA which society use to make you fit either by using
ideology or force. Clarissa has a vague notion that Bradshow
is in a way evil and she hears Septimus committed suicide, she
understands what happens to him. He somehow had to be mad
but he thought victims managed to cure him. At one moment
she has visions, but vaguely she is able to feel again. It can be
seen in a scene with a hat, when she talks. Those visions are of
the collective, unconscious character and are necessary for her
to feel. Septimus is afraid that he will be forced to fit in the
society and that is the moment when Holmes arrives at his
door. Not wanting to lose the notion of love and real
communication, he commits suicide.
In a way, Clarissa is capable to sympathize with Septimus and
understands his action. She says he plunges holding his
pressure. Clarissa lost her visio of meaningful life, lost her
treasure on the one hand and on the other we have Septimus
died rather than to lose his treasure. His death is also in a way
an attempt to communicate. Clarissas substitute for in-depth
communication is parties- this surrogate, this pretence of
communication. Thats why Peter always calls Clarissa a
perfect hostess. There is an interesting reference to
Shakespeare throughout the novel. There is a quote from
Othello very often repeated: If it were how to die, it were
now to be most happy. Desdemona comes to Othello after the
rain and they hug. It is the moment of perfect happiness. That
moment is so beautiful that nothing matters in life anymore.
Septimus tries to preserve this moment of perfect vision and
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he kills himself in order to preserve perfect vision. For

Clarissa this moment is when Sally kisses her and then she
wants to die. Fear no more the heat of the Sun- Cymreline.
The time when the novel takes place is June- early summer.
The nature is fully awakened. Everything is ripe, everything is
in bloom. The natural life is at its peak and Clarissa says: I
shall fear no more the heat of the sun. Symbolically it means
passion, erotic intensity, emotional intensity. All these things
are now behind her and she is practically dying. She feels out
of danger now, she decides that shell feel no more the heat of
the sun.
Mrs. Dalloway (excerpts)
Fear no more the heat of the sun p.32
Shakespeares quote- not to be afraid of passion and emotion.
She has lost it forever. Its a kind of emotional death. The
problem is not jealousy but sth else. The face of Br. seems to
be like a clock. She is afraid of getting old. She cant see the
meaning in life. This is the moment she realizes how
superficial her life has been. She can now see inside herself.
Then she recalls her youth. She compares herself with the
diver before plunging. She looks things only on the surface,
never looks deep. The pearl is at the bottom but she can just
catch a glimpse of it. It is the treasure of life. All this is
happening in June when everything is blooming, everything is
rape. It makes a contrast with her life. She suddenly feels
breastless sterility, feminine sexuality. Her life becomes
sterile. She compares herself with a nun who withdraws from
life, escapes from intensity of life. When she puts off her
clothes she can see the damage. Her bed is narrow like a
coffin. She fears death. She will be closer and closer to death.
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The candle will burst. She reads memoirs- her present life is
dull so she goes back to the past. Napoleon occupying
Moscow- she is like Moscow, too cold, men cannot approach
her. She gets ill and the doctor advises her to have her own
room. She withdraws to this little room and suffers from
insomnia. She is not a virgin physically but emotionally she is.
She has never allowed herself to love intensely. (HelenLook back in anger). When she enters the room she feels
emptiness. She undresses taking off the social mask.
Lovely in girlhood how she laughed
Her relationship with Richard. She remains an emotional
virgin. She is not very much with him. He is conventional,
wants much less than Peter. She even fails him who has less
expectation in terms of emotions. She can feel it from time to
time- she couldnt really love him. Sth warm that breaks
surface- people getting beyond the surface. Clarissa has never
loved a man, but she felt some moment of emotional relation
with a woman. She had this chance for emotional
involvement. She describes that feeling. She has seen a kind of
illumination. It was brief. Most of the time she spent without
emotional involvement. When she feels sth it is usually
towards women.
But this question Papa said
She met Sally. She was sitting and smoking. She is not
conventional. Her parents were quarreling all the time.
Clarissa is shocked. It is unusual for her. It makes her feel that
her life is protected. She lives in the structure which functions
perfectly. She talks about her physical appearance and
ancestors. She is more passionate, open and spontaneous.
There is sth romantic in her. Sally is the first one to introduce
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certain issues such as social problems, class problems. She

gave her to read Morris- a socialist, Shelly- social
revolutionary, interested in social changes. She makes Clarissa
become sexually and socially aware. She was engaged in life
at all levels. She is open-minded and careless about
conventions. She has new liberal ideas about society and sex.
Sally enlarges her mind, makes her more conscious of social
system and womanhood.
To his patientsproportion
Septimus had idealist image of England. He went to WWII to
fight for it. He lost his friend and was shocked by the inability
to feel. He is driven to madness because of his inability to feel.
His wife Lukrecia takes him to a doctor. He told him to live
normal English life and engage in sports. Bradshow is a more
dangerous one. He doesnt care for these people. He has a
schedule, he works by the clock. His notion of proportion- it
refers to death, rest in peace, passivity, a spiritual death. To
fit into the society- to commit a kind of spiritual death, just to
eat, get fat and dull. His project is the project of the whole
society. secluded her lunatics- they are bringing instability,
they make you ask questions, they make you certain about the
ideology they live by. He didnt allow them to have children- a
kind of fascist project. Lady Bradshow is not a loving mother.
She spends 4 days a week with her son. She lives by the rules
of rational structure. Everything is submitted to that sense of
proportion. Bradshow is a typical tough-minded, and Septimus
is tender-minded. He has to slip into madness in order to find
some definition of reality that would satisfy him.
But proportion has a sister
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Conversion- Bradshow is not an individual doctor; he serves

the society- the sense in the whole England. These people who
live in different climate have different cultural patterns. This
conversion of the British Europe is imposed on them. Trillingcoercion and seduction. The great tendency of the WS is to
create a uniformed society, to abolish individuality. The great
project of the modern society- dangerous aspect. Althuser:
RSA and ISA police and ideology- propaganda, brainwashing, TV, slogans. Bradshow uses proportion as a kind of
ideological medianism for people who are not orthodox. But
when it fails British Empire uses conversion. Conversion is
more forceful; it is applied in India and Africa and in the
suburbs in London where poor people live. This forceful
method uses certain disguises: brotherly love, pretence that
you have good intentions. This is an attempt to break the
human will (his wifes will, particularly). She went fishing,
caught a salmon- the symbol of freedom. The life is squeezed
out of her. When the guests come, they can see to what degree
he destroys her. Dysort- they both are aware but Dysort feels
uncomfortable whereas he enjoys what he is doing and he
believes completely in what he is doing.
There in the grey roomhis victims
Bradshows room in which he accepts his patients. It is wellfurnished. He is a very rich man. He belongs to the upperclass. For him life is good. He doesnt give a damn that other
people are poor. His patients question is; is there God?.
There is no absolute authority to tell me in which way we
should live by. They simply accept this doctrine. Sir William
says: certain values are imposed on us and they are
internalized in us; if they fail the society has to use the openly
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oppressive apparatus. The lack of good blood- the poor lack

of good blood and they do not belong to the upper-class, than
other races, people of other religion, uneducated. His patients
ask question and rebel against his ideas. Why is life good for
him? He has large income, has social status, has a beautiful
life. Patients lacked the sense of proportion. If they had it, they
will be able to accept the position in the class system and they
wouldnt protest. Ideals to encourage the sense of proportionfamily affections. These are the goals that the tough-minded
live by. If you cant comfort to these goals there is sth else to
force you- the support of police. If you cant be convinced by
ideology, you are convinced by police. Unsocial impulses- the
origin- is the lack of good blood, lower class, foreign nations,
uneducated- make problems. At the end of the paragraph we
have 2 verbs- swooped and devoured. It suggests some
animals, a predator- like a bird of prey (Bradshow).
Sinking her voice
Woolf- explores her character through some kind of tunneling.
She is digging deeper and deeper in the psyche. Septimus and
Clarissa share some experiences but they never meet. She
sympathizes with him when she finds out that he is dead. She
organizes parties to make up the emptiness of her life. Those
parties present a kind of world of pretence. When she finds out
about his death sth changes. She can no longer deceive herself;
she can no longer escape reality. She withdraws to a little
room- the private intimate self. At the party she shows her
social self. Now she enters this small room and there is
nobody. She cant hide anymore this burden. Her body
experiences everything Septimus experiences. She tries to feel
the way he feels. Once she sacrificed a coin to make a wish. It
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is connected with love. She always remains on the surface.

The only thing she sacrificed was a coin. She was not able to
plunge, to surrender herself to life. This small shilling
symbolizes just a small sacrifice. There is sth she has lost and
Septimus preserved- that is capacity to feel. Septimus got mad
and managed to cure himself; he could love again. Society
creates a tendency for people not to feel too much. This is the
treasure Septimus wants to preserve. In corruption lies chattermeaningless communication. The idea of treasure (Othellothey hug and it is the happiest moment). Sally kisses her and it
is the moment of perfect life; life has meaning- the vision of
meaningful life. Bradshow is to blame for his death. He tries
to fit him to the society, to make him an average citizen. He
imposes the idea of proportion. Then she continues to think
about her own life, and the life in general. The parents give us
life, we feel a certain responsibility to use it creatively. The
horror of an empty life. There are some rare moments when
she forgets- while reading newspaper. She always tries to
escape the urge of death.
A.Huxley
Brave New World
Civilization has abolished the nature of reproduction- no
motherhood, no family, no coming to world by reproduction.
Like a factory they x-ray an egg by several processes
(Bekanorski process), they produce twins. Do all the people in
Brave New World go through this? No, just the lower
classes- those who are going to be linked to machine, the
process of mass production. There is strong division among
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classes. Any symbolism intended here? What does the society

do? Arrest intellectual development, psyche, an individual- it
resides in all, doing the same job and looking the same. They
insert alcohol in their bottles to get lower intelligence people.
Arrest of development in the stage of embryo. Trillinggeneral tendency of modern society towards the uniformity
which would produce social stability.
Brave New World warns of the dangers of giving the state
control over new and powerful technologies. One illustration
of this theme is the rigid control of reproduction through
technological and medical intervention, including the surgical
removal of ovaries, the Bokanovsky Process, and hypnopaedic
conditioning. Another is the creation of complicated
entertainment machines that generate both harmless leisure
and the high levels of consumption and production that are the
basis of the World States stability. Soma is a third example of
the kind of medical, biological, and psychological
technologies that Brave New World criticizes most sharply.
It is important to recognize the distinction between science
and technology. Whereas the State talks about progress and
science, what it really means is the bettering of technology,
not increased scientific exploration and experimentation. The
state uses science as a means to build technology that can
create a seamless, happy, superficial world through things
such as the feelies. The state censors and limits science,
however, since it sees the fundamental basis behind science,
the search for truth, as threatening to the States control. The
States focus on happiness and stability means that it uses the
results of scientific research, inasmuch as they contribute to
technologies of control, but does not support science itself.
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The motif of alienation provides a counterpoint to the motif of

total conformity that pervades the World State. Bernard Marx,
Helmholtz Watson, and John are alienated from the World
State, each for his own reasons. Bernard is alienated because
he is a misfit, too small and powerless for the position he has
been conditioned to enjoy. Helmholtz is alienated for the
opposite reason: he is too intelligent even to play the role of an
Alpha Plus. John is alienated on multiple levels and at
multiple sites: not only does the Indian community reject him,
but he is both unwilling and unable to become part of the
World State. The motif of alienation is one of the driving
forces of the narrative: it provides the main characters with
their primary motivations.
Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers, introduces
himself to the boys and begins to explain the history of the
World State, focusing on the States successful efforts to
remove strong emotions, desires, and human relationships
from society.
John and Mond debate the value of the World States policies,
John arguing that they dehumanize the residents of the World
State and Mond arguing that stability and happiness are more
important than humanity. Mond explains that social stability
has required the sacrifice of art, science, and religion. John
protests that, without these things, human life is not worth
living.
John overcome with anger and sadness at his submission to
World State society, hangs himself.
John becomes the central character of the novel because,
rejected both by the savage Indian culture and the
civilized World State culture, he is the ultimate outsider.
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Johns extensive knowledge of Shakespeares works serves

him in several important ways: it enables him to verbalize his
own complex emotions and reactions, it provides him with a
framework from which to criticize World State values, and it
provides him with language that allows him to hold his own
against the formidable rhetorical skill of Mustapha Mond
during their confrontation.
Shakespeare embodies all of the human and humanitarian
values that have been abandoned in the World State. Johns
rejection of the shallow happiness of the World State, his
inability to reconcile his love and lust for Lenina, and even his
eventual suicide all reflect themes from Shakespeare. He is
himself a Shakespearean character in a world where any
poetry that does not sell a product is prohibited.
Johns nave optimism about the World State, expressed in the
words from The Tempest that constitute the novels title, is
crushed when he comes into direct contact with the State. The
phrase brave new world takes on an increasingly bitter,
ironic, and pessimistic tone as he becomes more
knowledgeable about the State. Johns participation in the final
orgy and his suicide at the end of the novel can be seen as the
result of an insanity created by the fundamental conflict
between his values and the reality of the world around him.
(p.71, the end of the chapter 4) Speaking very slowly. Did
you ever feel? he askedtry and try
A conversation between Helmholtz and Bernard. Helmholtz is
a writer, he writes some articles about daily life of that
community and he teaches how to produce propaganda and
great slogans how to preserve social stability. Bernard- the
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highest class, unhappy because he feels sth is missing for

some mistaken production. He is shorter than the others from
his class. He is frustrated, he cannot express himself, he has
more intelligence than the rest of the society but doesnt know
how to put it in use. He would like to express sth meaningful,
sth that has more significance. The effect of your writing
should be to help people inwardly. He doesnt know how to
use his writing serving good. Bernard is able to change people
as well as x-rays. X-rays can help you come to deep meaning,
go under the surface of reality, change world. This is what
Harnolds wants to do, but he want.
(p.144- chapter 11, 6th page from the beginning ) it was a
small factory
Cefalus- glava.
Electrical parts for the helicopters are produced by the lower
class people- artificially produced twins. Identical people
doing identical jobs. The human element manager. Huxley
wants to stress that human element has been left out- human
manager- that has nothing to do with humanity. By those
people we can see the real characters of this society. Mental
mechanism which prevents compassion is created in class
society. The savages reaction- he quotes Shakespeare and the
sight makes him disgusted.
(chapter 17- near the end) Do you remember that bit in King
Lear
Mustafa and savage are talking about God. Mustafa- chief of
society. He was once a great scientist. Art and science are
suppressed in Brave New World. Science is looking for truth.
A real scientist is looking for ideal- ultimate truth. Science and
wisdom should not be separated (Renaissance). Therefore
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science is dangerous. Savage says that Gods are just and they
will punish everyone who does injustice- here they are even
more just; you can do what ever you want. There is no
punishment for this way of life in this society. They live
prescribed life and are designed as human beings. Their
human capacities are reduced to narrow range of things.
The savage nodded
Savage-John
A quote from Hamlet- whether to suffer or oppose. Here
people neither suffer nor enjoy. (line in Look Back in Anger).
Instead of getting some insights of experience, they just
abolish and get a trip.
Savage was in love with Lenina. He always idealized her,
compared her with heroines from Shakespeare, wanted to
perform some act of sacrifice, worship in order to show how
much he loves and adores her. They inject adrenaline to feet.
Sort of passion Othello has for Desdemona. It is just bodily,
physical reaction, biological need (divorce between biological
urgence(?) and their psychological justification, component).
Richards in Pseudo Statements- we cannot live in the
world of biological urgence(?)- bioloske potrebe. How to live
in the world that is demythologized? Blake- we should express
our sexuality; but he didnt have Brave New World in mind.
We cannot organize our life, world based on biological
urgence, but also some psychological needs. Thats why we
need Pseudo-statements. Savage says he doesnt want to
comfort civilization. He wants to feel the fullness of life even
if sadness is a part of it. Physical pains are abolished in Brave
New World.
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G.Orwell- 1984
1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning
readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government.
Orwell was deeply disturbed by the widespread cruelties and
oppressions he observed in communist countries, and seems to
have been particularly concerned by the role of technology in
enabling oppressive governments to monitor and control their
citizens.
Orwell portrays a state in which government monitors and
controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even
having a disloyal thought is against the law. As the novel
progresses, the timidly rebellious Winston Smith sets out to
challenge the limits of the Partys power, only to discover that
its ability to control and enslave its subjects dwarfs even his
most paranoid conceptions of its reach. As the reader comes to
understand through Winstons eyes, The Party uses a number
of techniques to control its citizens, each of which is an
important theme of its own in the novel.
The Party barrages its subjects with psychological stimuli
designed to overwhelm the minds capacity for independent
thought. The giant telescreen in every citizens room blasts a
constant stream of propaganda designed to make the failures
and shortcomings of the Party appear to be triumphant
successes. The telescreens also monitor behavioreverywhere
they go, citizens are continuously reminded, especially by
means of the omnipresent signs reading BIG BROTHER IS
WATCHING YOU, that the authorities are scrutinizing them.
The Party undermines family structure by inducting children
into an organization called the Junior Spies, which
brainwashes and encourages them to spy on their parents and
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report any instance of disloyalty to the Party. The Party also

forces individuals to suppress their sexual desires, treating sex
as merely a procreative duty whose end is the creation of new
Party members. The Party then channels peoples pent-up
frustration and emotion into intense, ferocious displays of
hatred against the Partys political enemies. Many of these
enemies have been invented by the Party expressly for this
purpose.
Physical Control
In addition to manipulating their minds, the Party also controls
the bodies of its subjects. The Party constantly watches for any
sign of disloyalty, to the point that, as Winston observes, even
a tiny facial twitch could lead to an arrest. A persons own
nervous system becomes his greatest enemy. The Party forces
its members to undergo mass morning-exercises called the
Physical Jerks, and then to work long, grueling days at
government agencies, keeping people in a general state of
exhaustion. Anyone who does manage to defy the Party is
punished and reeducated through systematic and brutal
torture. After being subjected to weeks of this intense
treatment, Winston himself comes to the conclusion that
nothing is more powerful than physical painno emotional
loyalty or moral conviction can overcome it. By conditioning
the minds of their victims with physical torture, the Party is
able to control reality, convincing its subjects that 2 + 2 = 5.
Control of Information and History
The Party controls every source of information, managing and
rewriting the content of all newspapers and histories for its
own ends. The Party does not allow individuals to keep
records of their past, such as photographs or documents. As a
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result, memories become fuzzy and unreliable, and citizens

become perfectly willing to believe whatever the Party tells
them. By controlling the present, the Party is able to
manipulate the past. And in controlling the past, the Party can
justify all of its actions in the present. The Party controls
everything in Oceania, even the peoples history and language.
As the novel opens, Winston feels frustrated by the oppression
and rigid control of the Party, which prohibits free thought,
sex, and any expression of individuality. Winston dislikes the
party and has illegally purchased a diary in which to write his
criminal thoughts. He has also become fixated on a powerful
Party member named OBrien, whom Winston believes is a
secret member of the Brotherhoodthe mysterious, legendary
group that works to overthrow the Party.
In the end Winston, after being arrested and tortured, accepts
the party entirely and learns to love Big Brother.
(excerpts)
Part I- the very beginning
Chapter III
Winston was dreaming of his mother. Winston woke up with
the word Shakespeare on his lips. Dream is sth personal (his
privacy), not sth imposed by the party. Dreams are sth human.
He tries to preserve his humanity through his memories,
dreams, by writing his diary and later on by falling in love
with Julia. (Purges- Stalinism- the totalitarian system modeled
by Stalinist system.). The dream focuses on his mother and
sister on a sinking ship- they are sinking deeper and deeper
into subconsciousness and it is harder to have contact with
them. They sacrificed for him but we know the way they did
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it. at that time people were loyal to one another, had to

sacrifice to each other. His mother has died loving him. In his
time people were thought to be loyal to party, abstract things.
It is juxtaposition. Garden- where we come from; city- a place
of civilization. He meets a girl here. She takes off her cloths.
(the layers of society which are not essential). The image
implies erotic encounter, but it is political connection- Eros= a
symbol of personal liberation. Winstons love is called Julia.
Shakespeare is important for his dreams (as for Savage in
Brave New World). Art is a place where we preserve our
meanings, values. Love- counting point to civilization. It
refers to old notions. Shakespeare is also representative of this
old world. For Jung dreams are important if our conscious
outlook of reality is too narrow.
Part II, (p.145), chapter VII (two pages before the end)
The dream is still vivid in his mind. He ate his part of
chocolate and wanted more; ate his sisters. Mother didnt give
her a chocolate but a hug (love). A film he watched produced a
moment- a gesture of love (refugees). An embrace, a tear, a
person staying with a dying person (as Celia). A psychology
of people able of acting this way. Nowadays those people are
powerless if the party gets them doing sth against the law.
People simply vanished from the course of history. People do
not only have existence in the course of history but also in this
emotional sphere, in the sphere of loyalty to each other. The
proals(?) remained human- those lower parts of society. His
observation- party members had been hardened inside. What
demonstrates him he has lost the human element was when
after the accident he saw several hands giving, touchingsymbol of communication, love. He just kicked them aside.
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Chapter VIII- the conversation between OBrien and Winstonno it is realyou will understand byno! (Julia and
Winstons secret brotherhood to fight against party)
Machiavellian motto: the end justifies the means
Means are ends-in-the-making- if you want justifiable aim
you must have justified means. Winston is determined to go to
the end- to destroy the party. Party destroys humanity. But it
seems that he has lost his own humanity. His love for Julia is
his last part of humanity.
Part III, chapter III, p.227- Now I will tell you the answer to
any questionreality is inside the skull
Party in 1984 is similar to Nazism, but they openly admit what
they want- they are only interested in power. OBriens face
looks tired, pale, like he is going to die in a few years, alone.
Power is, according to him, collective- to submit oneself to
collective body. Any person, as long as he is individual, cannot
feel power. To overcome this feeling is to join some party.
What party control? In Brave New World there are technical
achievements, here they control what is in the mind.
The Age of Iron- J.M. Coetze
Violence in all his works is his greatest theme. Both The
Age and The White Hotel deal with archetypal source
for that violence. We live in a close space which some of us
try to escape. How to go beyond the culture (Joyce,
Lawrence)? Is the exit possible? There are 3 categories of
characters: 1. masters- the defenders of this history of
violence; 2. outsiders- Vietnamese, Hottentots, Blacks,
animals (barbarians vs. empire, garden vs. camp, cyclical vs.
linear time, silence vs. language); 3. want to reconcile the
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border between the masters and the barbarians, inhabiting the

zone between the camp and the garden. Mrs. Curren rebels
against men who created The Iron Age spoiling the lives of
good people. Vietnam- imperialism is just a manifestation of
patriarchy. Reason for war is not to be found in economic or
other reasons- the cause are archetypal; the terror of history.
Empedocles- disillusioned by politics, exiled and became a
prophet. There was a time when people only worshiped
Aristotle- Golden Age- but there was this corruption of being
and all love went outside and hatred went inside and that will
be the Age of Iron. Mrs. Curren- I hate those men who created
the Age of Iron because not only have they killed their victims
but they also spoiled my life; I feel crippled and dead. Desire,
love- to return to the garden as opposite to the camp (the
picture of her family).
(2nd version)
Mrs. Curren, a retired classics professor in Cape Town, South
Africa, is dying of cancer. The novel is in the form of an
extended letter to her only daughter who has fled apartheid
(political system in South Africa where only whites can be in
charge) and lives in the United States. During her final days,
Mrs. Curren takes in a homeless alcoholic man who appears
on her doorstep. Her housekeeper's son Bheki is involved in
an uprising. While helping his mother search for him, Mrs.
Curren witnesses the burning of a black township and
discovers the boy's bullet-ridden body.
Later, Bheki's friend, who seeks refuge at her house, is killed
there by government security forces. In anger and despair,
Mrs. Curren is forced to confront the "age of iron" apartheid
284

has wrought. Her only companion in all this is the alcoholic

drifter, who agrees (or does he?) to send this last letter to her
daughter.
In coming to grips with her own cancer, the dying woman in
this novel encounters the social and cultural "cancer" of South
Africa. Just as her daughter has separated herself physically
from the abomination of apartheid, Mrs. Curren, and most of
the white population have separated themselves emotionally,
unaware of injustice and the rage it generates.
Set in apartheid-era South Africa, Age of Iron explores the
insidious nature of complicity and reflects on the failure of
language to maintain its authority in a complex postcolonial
world. Like many of her white compatriots, Elizabeth Curren,
a professor of classics who is dying of cancer, has remained
willfully blind to the violence and degradation around her. The
novel takes the form of a letter she writes to her daughter
during the death throes of the apartheid system itself, in which
she attempts to see clearly both the present and those pieces of
the past that she has chosen not to examine. Coetzee does not
indicate, however, whether this letter absolves Mrs. Curren of
her past blindness, and we are left with the question of how
much responsibility each individual must bear in a corrupt or
diseased society. By casting the novel as a personal letter
addressed to a particular recipient, Coetzee links reader and
narrator in a way that a third-person narrative or even a more
conventional first-person narrative would not. The reader
becomes another addressee of Mrs. Curren's letter and
therefore, perhaps, implicated in this tale of collective
blindness and guilt.
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If Mrs. Curren's crime is one of complicity, then this novel in

many ways reads like a confession. But it is a very
problematic confession. Her crime is not easily articulated, not
only because she has trouble seeing it, but also because she
has trouble finding the language to describe it. She writes to
her daughter, "As far as I can confess, to you I confess. What
is my error, you ask?...it is like a fog, everywhere and
nowhere. I cannot touch it, trap it, put a name to it" (p. 136).
Confession demands the naming of a crime, as well as some
sort of public acknowledgment of it. But what if neither is
possible? Mrs. Curren's complicity is intangible both legally
and morallynot only is there no legal context for her
confession, but there is also no moral framework for it within
her society. Yet, like a fog, her complicity permeates
everything.
Although Mrs. Curren writes this confession to her daughter
and speaks at least part of it to the homeless Mr. Vercueil, it is
not clear whether either of them hears it. Mrs. Curren implies
that the letter she composes may never be mailed, and Mr.
Vercueil turns out to be asleep during much of her confession.
Is a confession still valid if it is not heard? The novel does not
provide a definitive answer to this question. The role of the
listener or witness is also unclear. The witness may be meant
to pass judgment or merely to allow Mrs. Curren to express
her shame. And while Mrs. Curren seeks some sort of
salvation through her words, she may or may not be ultimately
redeemed by them. Mr. Vercueil's final embrace seems to be a
gesture of deliverance, but Mrs. Curren also acknowledges to
her daughter that she is "having a death without illumination"
(p. 195). Thus Coetzee raises doubts about the possibility of
286

redemption and renewal in a society where true confession and

acknowledgment of guilt may be impossible.
Language fails Mrs. Curren in more ways than one. Beyond
her difficulty of finding the proper words for confession, Age
of Iron devotes much attention to the way in which the
meaning of words has been lost or distorted. As a professor of
classics, Mrs. Curren is proficient in the dead language of
Latin. At one point, she gives Mr. Vercueil a false etymology
for the word charity, saying, "But what does it matter if my
sermons rest on false etymologies?" (p. 22). The word charity
has become unmoored, unanchored from its root, care. "Care:
the true root of charity. I look for him to care, and he does not.
Because he is beyond caring. Beyond caring and beyond care"
(p. 22). Perhaps language fails because words have lost their
connection to experience. Because people rarely care for one
another in this society, the word becomes meaningless, and the
false etymology no more misleading than the true one. But the
novel also suggests that assigning false etymologies to words
may not be harmless. What are the potential consequences of
words losing their connection to experience or meaning? Mrs.
Curren speaks of the way that her words fell off Bheki's friend
"like dead leaves the moment they were uttered" (p. 79). The
way that characters in this novel communicate, or fail to
communicate, may be due in part to the misuse or distortion of
language.
Also central to the novel is the relationship between Mrs.
Curren and the vagrant Mr. Vercueil. She remarks earlier that
he is "beyond caring and beyond care" (p. 22). But their
connection to one another suggests that this may not be true.
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The information that we are given about Mr. Vercueil is scant,

and his role remains ambiguous. His name may provide some
clue: Verskuil, one of the variations of his name that she
mentions, comes from Afrikaans and translates into English as
alter ego or masked self. Mr. Vercueil, who belongs to the
older social order, seems to represent some aspect of Mrs.
Curren. She says, "He is and is not I. Because in the look he
gives me I see myself in a way that can be written" (p. 9). Like
her disease and her child in America, Mr. Vercueil is both part
of her and alien to her. In him, she may see reflections of her
own ties to the past, as well as her spiritual homelessness.
Why is she more apt to recognize in him what she would
rather not see in herself? Perhaps Mrs. Curren is practiced at
blinding herself to things she would rather not see. Or perhaps
seeing oneself fullyand taking responsibility for one's
actionsis a more complicated and difficult act than seeing
another. While Mr. Vercueil is linked to the past, there is also
some indication that he makes it possible for her to prepare for
the immediate future. He is the appointed messenger for her
letter, and it is in his otherworldly embrace that she passes out
of the world of the living.
In Age of Iron, as in many of Coetzee's novels, neither the
past nor the future escapes close scrutiny. If the novel raises
questions about the diseased culture that is passing away, it
also raises questions about the unbending "iron" culture,
perhaps engendered by the old one, that is replacing it.
Excerpts

288

Invisible humanity- one cannot degrade or brutalize the other

without degrading or brutalizing oneself. A system of
oppression has no winners, only losers.
Like an old tom
She thinks he is the reincarnation of Vergil, the Roman poet.
Vergil appears as a character in Dantes Inferno, or he guides
him to heaven, hell and to Beatrice. He is like Vergil, a
symbolical guide to Elizabeths soul. Two black boys beating
him- cruelty, test for our own humanity, banished human soul
coming home. He is an outcast, a tramp. Florence- Elizabeth
criticizes her for giving up authority over her children;
children need moral guidance. Florence blames everything on
the White men- they were made for cruelty. Rebels- to fight
the oppression; they are full of wrath; they have suppressed
everything gentle and innocent in them in order to fight and,
thus, they lost all of their humanity. One must never severe the
connection with the inner good. Calvin is one of the people to
blame for the Age of Iron.
p. 58
blood- more precious than gold or diamonds. Blood: life force
energy. Then he juxtaposes the white blood- the white South
Africans who are detached from their flow of life. Daughter
(childbirth)- gave birth to a new life. Cancer- will give birth to
death (similar to Surfacing- death was planted in me like a
seed).
p. 73
History may be servitude, history may be freedom- T. S.
Eliot
The talk of Thucydides: what happens to our humanity in
times of war. Classifying; depersonalize the enemy.
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p. 100
Doll life- post-structuralist (Derrida)- divided, never fully
present. Cant you see I am burning- Freuds case.
Father/child relationship in the patriarchal world: father is not
aware of how much wrong he had inflicted. Sth. is burning in
the soul of the child and the father cannot help him.
M. Atwood- Surfacing
Margaret Atwood's novel 'Surfacing' demonstrates the
complex question of identity for an English-speaking
Canadian female. Identity, for the protagonist has become
problematic because of her role as a victim of colonial forces.
She has been colonized by men in the patriarchal society in
which she grew up, by Americans and their cultural
imperialism. What is presented by Atwood's 'Surfacing' is the
analogous nature of patriarchy, cultural imperialism and
geographical colonisation and how this combined colonial
experience has left the victim with feelings of displacement
and disconnectedness from their language, history and culture,
which in turn has led to a fractured sense of self and a
desperate need to regain and reclaim identity. Throughout the
novel there is a definite condemnation of this Americanisation
of people and places but it is most poignantly and
symbolically demonstrated with the narrator's final rejection of
her 'friends', her clothes and any food that is not natural. She
rejects neo-colonialism in every form and travels to a
precolonial space that she must visit in order to return with an
understanding of herself and her identity as a Canadian and as
a woman. Through the struggle to reclaim her identity and
roots, the Surfacer begins a psychological journey that leads
290

her directly into the natural world. Like the journey itself, the
language, events, and characters in Atwood's novel reflect a
world that oppresses and dominates both femininity and
nature. Strong and unmistakable in Surfacing, the ecofeminist
theory establishes itself in three specific ways: through the
references to patriarchal reasoned dualities between the
masculine and feminine world; through the domination and
oppression of the feminine and natural world, and through the
Surfacer's own internal struggle and re-embracement of
nature.
In Surfacing- a female narrators stream of consciousness.
Both women are (?)(un)damaged. The disturbances are
similar. In Surfacing the heroine complains on numbness. We
live in civilization we separate body and soul. We posses neck,
a barrier (fish dont)- shallowness, abuse of language (as in
Pinter) causes refusal to speak. The other woman- a patient, a
Freudist. She tries to cover what she can remember. The
narration and the technique changes. A quarrel between Freud
and Jung.
(there is a connection between this book, The White Hotel
and The Iron Age). (Freuds report of the dream- he was
burning while his father was sleeping- Coetzee).
These women live in that age, the age of iron. The first cannot
feel, the second is anorexic (Lisa). A flood, avalanchehallucination that prevented her from marring and having
career as a singer. Her ovary and left breast hurt. Why are they
suffering? Neurosis comes from suppression. They are
searching for the truths to recover. They are both weak to
realize what it is about. They both invent lies to cover the
truth. They both renounced the maternal function. One of them
291

had an abortion and invented the lie about damaged body and
throughout the book she says her story of divorced marriage.
She actually had a lover who was a married man and proposed
abortion. Death is implanted in me like a tumor from then.
(Like Lisa in The White Hotel. She got pregnant with
Russian officer and had miscarriage because she fell from the
stairs. She refused to have child because it would be halfJewish (not because of her opera singer career, as Freud says).
She has a fantasy about the hotel and that helps her.)
Shes going back to the farm of her childhood (Canada). She
is traveling north together with her friends David and Ana who
are a couple. Ecology- trees are dying (traveling north). The
disease threats from the south (moral disaster is spreading
from the south). A dead heron- a beautiful bird was killed and
she thought that Americans done that. Why? Its not edible.
Then she finds out that two Canadians and not Americans
killed the bird. They look like Americans- friendly, shallow,
ignorant, expressing what Americans look like- friendly
American killers. Affected by American virus. Dirty capital
pigs. He speaks as American (phrases from cartoons). His
pretensions- along the way he has a plan to make a film.
Random samples- you take a shot of this and that. Never mind,
he says, the main idea is flow. Hes a post modernist. Not
anything deep. His superficiality is seen on all levels. His
marriage with Ana is a mental friction- Ana losing the battle of
the power because she is not attempted enough. He keeps her
down by threatening with adultery. The only thing that can
save the relationship is suspense. She must live up to his
standards. She is obsessed with her make-up. He is interested
in surface only. The only transformation of Ana is her make292

up to make her skin to look young. Unlike Ana and David, the
heroine is going to search for her identity. She reaches the
farm. Her mother died, her father wasnt there (probably died
too). She figured they were her guides- rural, not urban one.
They must have left her sth. her father made some drawings,
and there were maps leading her to old drawings of Indians.
She goes and finds those drawings of saint things. The last
drawing she thought is the last man. She died into the lakesymbolic. She died in self-consciousness and experienced
hallucination. There was no drawing on the bottom of the lake,
but this is a place for hallucination. A fetus of her aborted
child- she is facing the truth. It is the amputated part of her
personality. When she comes down she realizes she had
reconnected herself with her real past and regained the lost
part. She gets the real knowledge and at the same moment
experiences the real sensation- she begins to feel again and her
numbness has gone out. My father taught me how to see but I
must know how to act. Her father was rationalist, Pacifist,
botanizer, yet logic. He experienced vision, hallucination,
came to the end of logic and gained visionary knowledge as
Indians had. It was not just rational knowledge, but also
knowledge gained through hallucinations. She learned how to
see not just through logic but also visionary optic. Mother- the
daughter= a designer, creating fairy-tales. Pre-arranged,
sweetened illustrations. Children should encounter the thing
they are afraid of and realize that it is not that scary. Indian
God with a tail (The Death of Pan- Lawrence), and
opposite to him a pregnant woman. Secret bond: motherfather-the urban child. The next thing she does is conceive. I
dont seek pleasure anymore. Conceives her child with Joe and
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knows immediately she is pregnant. And the moment aptness

dies she knows that new potential life started in her. I am like
ferry (boat). She believed that power can be hurtful, and now
she realizes she must have power. One must not be a victim.
She as a victim also hurt someone- her unborn child. She goes
to forest. Purifying in order to be whole again. She purges
herself. She immerses herself in water, having all the time her
dead parents, who are gods now, instructing her. The silence
will preserve her and open her to some other kind of
communication. If you must see, you must not see yourself.
She survived on roots. She didnt eat anything cooked. She is
there alone and she grows stronger. Joe, her lover, comes and
calls her name. it is necessary to refresh oneself. You have to
live some time like an animal, and be one with them. When
she leans on the tree and watches fish which do not have
mouth (they are not necessary to them), she becomes a place,
she becomes a more powerful person. Now, accepting Joe, she
would no longer be a victim but responsible woman, living
with Americans but not imitating them. She is a man-hater- I
dont hate men, but all human beings who turned their backs
to gods. Joe is there, calling for her, and she has to decide. He
is a good choice- silent, unable to lie. He may turn out to be a
good partner and its a promising project. She has strengthen
her vitality.
Surfacing (excerpts)
Literally, Surfacing is the novel when a heroine sinks in the
lake. Actaeon- shore-dweller- the one who stays on the
shore. Myth- Goddess Diane was hunting, Actaeon bowed and
stared at her instead to turn his face. Shore-dweller used to
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refer to character that cannot go deeply into their being (such

as Mrs. Dalloway- she is always on surface and never
surrenders herself to love).
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
The question about life which he doesnt dare to ask.
Sb who did plunge and resurfacing is what this novel is about.
Chapter 15, p. 598, But theyd kill the heron anyway
p.600, time he felt he was ready
those people were Canadians whom she found Americans
because of their looking. The characteristic of these people she
calls American- those are people who converted everything
into phrases. They reduced their own lives to phrases. Shallow
attitude to life. She uses the term American to characterize
certain life-style, way of living. (She also calls them creatures
from out of space, aliens from out of space who came to earth
and enter humans body.) Eyes are symbolizing soul. Those
people have lost their soul. When she was young, she thought
Hitler was the only source of evil. You cannot destroy evil in
the vision of one person or ideology. Friendly metal killersthey appear to be friendly but metal indicates that they are not
human. Then the heroine recalls her childhood- aggressive act
she did. She destroyed the doll with her brother. On the one
hand, doll is not alive, but on the other, children think all
things are alive. They still killed the doll. Their parents did not
go deep into that thing- enemies and (???) can be killed. They
sort of qualified the statement that killing is wrong, but did not
go deeper. The whole symbolism of heroines abortion is
somewhere between the enemy and the human. Her parents
werent ruthless. They were basically good. Her parents did
not help her understand some things. She, in the end killed
295

herself seeing the sacredness of human and animal lives. She

described how the heron was hanged. Someones death can be
redeemed if killed or gave life for certain reasons, but the life
of the heron is unredeemed. If animals could speak, they
would accuse us. Its wrong to prescribe all evil to one nation.
The death of the heron was causeless, undiluted
(nerazblazena). Her brother catches animals and keeps them in
jars- laboratory. He is a proto-scientist. He enjoys logical
thinking and fits well in main stream civilization. She freed
some animals but feared to free all and they died because of
her. She was accomplice in murder. He was adjusted to reality.
Chapter 17, p.608, I lay on the bottom of the canoe
p.610, purple trees and redand green
Her father was interested in Indians. Another picture on the
bottom of the lake. When she dives, she doesnt see the picture
but thinks of fetus and sees (imagines) it in a jar. Another
vision- she is lying at the hospital and looking at it. An evil
grail- she calls it like that because of the grail legend. The
blood of Christ is supposed to be symbol of life. It here
symbolizes death- reversed symbol. Glass- mental blockade
placed between this picture and conscious awareness. Where
was it that she had an abortion? Not in the legal hospital but in
some house, private clinic. Her lover is a married man. He
gives her the ring not to feel so awkward about the abortion.
Life-denying attitude. Abortion- taking away the seed of life.
She felt a seed of death was implanted in her. He said it
wasnt a person, only an animal- the way her lover justifies a
murder. Then she thinks about gods, pagan gods. In official
religion she couldnt find this meaning. Sacred places of
Indians are in nature. They didnt preach, just marked places
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where you can go and have a vision. Visionary tradition will

help his daughter.
Chapter 19, p.620, I went into the other room and took
p.620, How to act
Her father left her the message by drawings. This refer to sth
her mother left her. She closes the eyes, touches the coxers.
Our senses are divided into the: higher- seeing, hearing
(more cerebral), and lower- touch, smell, taste. The part of
the being the heroine wants to reconnect with is animal part
connected to lower senses. Horns and tail are the animal
features. God is not just humanlike, but has animal, too.
Playing cards- here are also pictures on the cards- they are
looking on numbers and titles instead and they are saving
monosyllables. Joe is not like that.
p.637 I am a place
Her vision- she leans on the tree and experiences herself as a
tree. Dissolution of ego when she emerges with nature. This
experience and moment are healing but of course cannot last
forever.
Chapter 27, p.644, Those above all
p.645, asking and giving nothing
Victim= someone who is not guilty. She projects power on
other people. I allow that lover to convince me. If denies that
power, she cannot be active. She thinks that nothing she does
can hurt others- victim position. Withdrawing is no longer
possible. She lived in nature for couple of days, but she must
return to civilization. If I die, it dies- this time she will
preserve her child. My love is useless- she loves him but she
knows their relationship is going to fail.
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The White Hotel (excerpts)

In The White Hotel the narration is more complicated- several
chapters are written in different techniques and point of view.
The chapter with Freuds interpretation is questioned. There
are light motives- cat, milk, oranges, corslet, rose, maple
leaves, swan, blood. Misinterpretation of Lisas symptoms:
she feels pain in her left breast and ovary and eats only
oranges. She is treated by Freud. One of her fantasies is about
the white hotel- meeting Freuds son- staying at the white
hotel beside the lake and the mountains. Pornographic- she
describes all acts. At the white hotel there is love without sin.
They have love triangles there but the scenes of love-making
interspersed with scenes of other peoples experiences. Freud
interprets whatever is connected with the mother as related to
death. Oceanic oneness- when we suckle our mothers breast.
All the rest is our wish to recover our first love for the mother.
Although it is the desire for love, for him it is also the desire
for death, to bury that period in cultural revolution of
matriarchal period. Love is masochistic desire for death. We
obey Thanatos in the orgasm- the desire not to exist, to feel
nirvana- all instances of visions in which ego dissolves. There
is no healing after the orgasm. Thats where he is wrong. Her
pains are hysterical for him. All that stems from sexual trauma
from her childhood. The scene she witnesses in summerhouse, the love triangle. She could not resolve her Oedipal
complex because she saw her mother as a sinner, a medusa.
She saw her mothers genitals. You petrify when you see it.
Lisa meets a half-Jewish man and marries him. What petrified
her has nothing to do with her mother but with men. She was
abused by soldiers. They burnt her breast, forced to Felacio.
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As a Jew she deserves nothing better. She had a precognition

that she would die in some disaster. She had adopted Victors
son Kolja. She died when they collected and shot Jews. The
only way to help Kolja is to persuade the soldiers that she is a
Jew and that he is her son. She is not a passive victim. They
strip off her corset. The corset for womans body is like church
dogma for human soul. She utters the only sentence she knows
in Hebrew: no waters can quench love nor floods drown it- the
only way to persuade the soldiers that she is a Jew. Love
triumphs. Love is the only hope for us. The best chapter: she
has survived. We meet them all in the environment which can
be Palestine- a term suggesting life after death. She is showing
id- gives not the surname of her father but mothers maiden
name. She is back into the matriarchal tradition- necessity to
combine the Christian tradition with the pagan worship of the
mother. Freud is being connected here. Freuds theory cant
explain Lisas psyche. We have to refer to Jungs theory. Lisa
is Freuds patient. She suffers for several reasons. She has
visions. She has strange pains. She has an erotic fantasies abou
the white hotel. Lisas protest against patriarchal civilizationshe longs for motherly love, not pleasure.
Excerpts
Freuds explanation of Lisas fantasy. There is a joking
Freud- Lisa has a vision. The White Hotel is her mothers
womb- a place of selfless love- there is no limit. We all in our
dreams express the yearning to return to the paradise. Love
object- breast. The nipples are oranges. She receives the food
of love. Oceanic oneness- a flow of sperm, blood. Life is
merged with erotic love, when people are in puberty they look
for a substitute. We just move from one object to another and
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never experience that bliss again. Libido- escape from death.

The other impulse is destructiveness- Eros and Thanatos.
Unlike Freud Jung returns to the mother principle. Jung is
different in that he sees it as a positive impulse, archetypes
appear in our dreams. It means a positive impulse towards
healing. The mother principle, the feminine part of our being
is not represented in our culture. For Freud it has to be
abandoned. For Jung it is possible to recover this part of our
psyche- a portion of Lisas fantasy Freud doesnt understand.
Lisa attempts to become an embodiment of the wholeness of
earth. Her love in the hotel is not just erotic, but maternal also.
The 2 aspects are not separated. The only time the person is
truly happy is either while being in a womb or while sucking.
She wants to return to place of original bliss. The white hotelthe place without sin and social norms.
I began to seemore
She has given him this pseudonym Anna G- Gea- the goddess
of earth(birth). Freud tries to explain the death instinct- we
yearn not to exist, to return to inorganic state. These are 2
points: this perfect bliss of the beginning of life and death.
Children build castles and destroy them. On orgasm people
experience a little death- ego ceases to exist. The moment of
black out of the consciousness. It is possible to offer different
interpretations of those two principles: Eros- the yearning to
return to mothers body and Thanatos- to return to inorganic
state. However there is a positive approach- the wish to
transcend ego- to look upon both principles as a desire to
transcend ego. In this sense Eros would be an act of merging
with the rest of creation. Christian- 3 conditions in the sexual
act: physical pleasure, the feeling of tenderness, of selfless
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motherly love and the mystical feeling. Through loving one

person you transcend your ego and reach the state in which
you are capable of loving the whole world. The sexual
encounter in Church was a mystical experience. The mystery
of the goddess includes these 3 principles. They are all
connected. What we have in Christianity the principal notion
is no longer ascribed to motherly love but male divinity.
Sexual pleasure is unimportant. Mystical experience is no
longer ascribed to Eros. It is possible to observe Eros- to
return to the experience when you transcend your ego and
become connected with the whole mankind. There is a positive
tendency in Tanathos- a yearning to sacrifice your ego to sth
larger. (Eliot- genuine self, meaningful sacrifice). Lisa turns
her death to sacrifice. Instead of being a passive victim she
becomes a willing victim. Lisa longs for love in which these 3
elements will be united. This is a pagan attitude to love, what
the Great Goddess represent. These are the elements separated
in our patriarchal culture.
An event from long way away
Kurten- a mass murderer who kills women and children and
rape them. There is a total reversal of the natural impulse. We
have here Eros in the service of Thanatos. He has need to suck
blood (Lisa to suck milk). There is a service of death. We have
also the fascination for death. However, the writer tells us that
everybody feels horrified. Lisa tells that it is not her fault. She
has sympathy for him. She is capable of having sympathy for
people who are extremely evil. Many of the people who feel
he is a monster, later become soldiers in WWII. Shadow
projection- this part which is negative, we recognize it in sb.
else. You are not capable of recognizing it in yourself. You can
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find no base for sympathy. Kurten is for them the only evil.
Lisa is capable for feeling sympathy even for him. Lisa has
this motherly love which is not excusive. She identifies herself
with Kurtens victim, Maria. She thinks that it was by chance.
She sympathizes deeply with this case because it could happen
to her. She feels deeply connected with other people- the sense
of humanity. Suffering of other people is also mine. Now
Kurten was executed. But Lisa is worried- the fact that he is
executed doesnt solve the problem. Destructiveness remains.
There are massive appearances of people like Kurten with the
same destructive impulse. He is just the symptom. Hitler was
just a symptom of evil, not a case. When a soldier rapes Lisa
with a bayonet, everybody talks whether Kurten should be
killed. Its a projection of Thanatos. Kurten was a molested
child, his sister abused him, his father was a drunkard. He had
a horrible childhood. Lisa feels compassion for him. She feels
related to all human beings in the world. The killing of the
heroine and the swan. If you kill a part of nature you kill a part
of yourself.
She had the feeling that (p190)
Tree as the symbol of wholeness; pine tree as the symbol of
eternity. It comes to the level of collective unconscious.
Mystical experience related to the scene of a pine tree. Tree
symbolizes life, immortality. Lisa is with Kolja. He is her
adopted son, a son of her husband. Lisas attitude to childrenshe marries Victor and becomes a mother to Kolja. The first
time she accepts responsibility of being a mother to a child.
The world is still destructive but she becomes a mother and
decides to protect her son. She becomes a victim willingly.
Her experience- returning to blissful one, joins Anima Mundi,
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joins the soul of the world. She is totally separated from the
time. She was disconnected from past but the concept changes
and she remembers herself as a child. She doesnt feel death as
the end. She gets the sense of immortality by joining the spirit
of the world.
What was really amazing
Pagan heaven (paradise)- after she sacrificed herself for Kolja,
she went to heaven which is connected with natural cycles.
The vintage of grapes. The cat survived everything- the
symbol of Eros, of sth that lasts forever- positive life energy.
Paradise- different from the Christian concept of paradise. It is
a transitory period. When she comes she participates in
vintage in the cycles of nature. The place is not removed from
cycles of nature. In Christianity- paradise beyond change and
nature. It is a sort of pagan paradise. Kurten also appears herea hope of improvement, change. He is now good. We are born
to become lovers. There is a potential for good even in Kurten.
Thats why Lisa feels compassion for him.
They satto (p.235)
Lisa and her mother- sucking each other. Returning to the
oceanic state- recovery of the mother principle- the whole part
of the psyche. She blames her of an incestual incident. For
Lisa it is sinful. Lisa fell in love and she loves the young
English lieutenant. She wants to give him both erotic and
motherly love. Structures in patriarchal tradition- corselet.
Here there is the return to the mother. Drinking each others
milk is a symbol of love, mixing of maternal and sexual loveboth unified the fact that she and her mother drink each others
milk- points to the fact they have reconciled. Lisa at first
thought that
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POETRY
W.B.YEATS
Sailing to Byzantium
A quest to find some way to transcend the necessity of dying
(comic and tragic). Here, we deal with a comic mode. It is not
Christian way- it has to do with creative imagination. He
writes this poem from the position of an old man. He was in
love with Byzantium which is a model of artistic beauty. The
first thing he says- he no longer feels at home with natural
cycles. There are images of sensual love. All those people and
animals are born and would die. They enjoy sensual pleasure,
but there is something more important-works of creativity in
general. Trees, seas, falls- the symbol of youth. They are very
young but he calls them dying generations, because here just
observes this sensual biological life. We know they are all
going to grow and die. It is a part of biological cycle. Works
of art transcend aging and mortality. An old man reminds him
of scare crow- old and funny. But he can be redeemed if he
can become creative artist. Then he talks about himself. There
is one way to make this shell alive. This is through art. This is
how life can be given to this spirit. This is the singing schoolyou have to study your own art. He wants to sail to
Byzantium to study the works of art created there.
Then he addresses sages and the images painted on the wall
of the church. He asks the old artists of Byzantium to teach
him how to create, how to be an artist. Even emotions for
Yeats are smth that has to be transcended. There is sensual
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desire-man is just a biological creature who is going to die.

"Dying animal"- his biological body. He believes sages are
above here- higher level of spirit. He wants them to come
down from the spirit of life and teach him to sing.
Symbolically, he will change his appearance and be reborn as
a work of art. He wants to be transformed into a golden bird
that resembles Byzantium. Gold is a symbol of eternity that
lasts forever. He will transcend himself, but he will continue
to address it through his art. This song is about past, present
and future- as image of the poet who has transcended time but
he doesn't want to forget it. He wants to include it in his
poetry. He doesn't want to be detached from it.
The Second Coming
He believes in secret knowledge. He uses the idea of gyre.
The movement in one direction, then the other. We are getting
further from the centre and at one moment the spiral turns
into different direction. If our civilization is based on brainunconsciousness is no longer controlled. He foresees the
coming of WWII. The poem is about archaic energies
bursting out so that we cannot control them. Falcon
symbolizes our instincts which we no longer control. The
blood-dimmed tide refers to destructiveness. Second coming
of Christ is a positive revelation. For Yeats it will be the
coming of the beast.Spiritus Mundi is a warning of the danger
that comes, it is an archetypal image. A beast is a split
between natural instincts and reason. Man doesn't know how
to communicate with his nature. Desert is a symbol of
disaster. There is no bloom. It can be the desert of our soul
which has gone dry. Bird symbolizes the soul. It says smth
bad about our soul. They are all negative, dark. 20th century
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cradle"- our instincts, the bodily base of our instincts,

biological fundamental- now they are going to burst out in a
destructive way. Lion, head, man- remind us of a sphyny.
There is an attempt of a man to solve the riddle of nature. The
rational man takes the role of the master of the nature.
However, there is no possibility of the reconciliation between
the instinct and the intellect. Then the kind of reversalinstead of Christ a monster is coming.
Lapis Lazuli
- A blue stones used for statues-Chinese art. Three Chinamen
climbing up to the hill. He starts talking about the war.
Hysterical woman-they are criticizing artists of the war-they
are always happy. Those women are angry because the poets
don't take any responsibility. This makes Yeats think about the
tragic deaths of Shakespeares heroes. Although they are
tragic, they preserve some sort of stoical attitudes to tragedy.
They feel that smth new will begin. They have stoical attitude
to life and death. They know the old order has to be
destroyed- to create the new one. Curtain-symbol of death. In
the 3rd stanza he moves onto discuss the images of the
civilizations. There are many civilizations but all of them will
come to some sort of end. Barbarians came and built the new
one. We should accept our civilization as it is. Callimachus
was a sculptor and his works haven't survived. Even the
works of art are not saved. His long lamp- chimney- the
beautiful, delicate works of art but the poet doesn't mourn for
we have to accept the destructiveness as natural. Even the art
cannot survive the cyclical movement of civilization. After
the end comes new beginning- this should make us happy.
Three Chinamen climb up the hill. Their servant carries a
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musical instrument- the passage through life. This symbolizes

art which transcend these cycles. Other elements show us that
in nature there is a perpetual renewal. The winter, death,
everything sleeps in nature. The winter has just past- the end
of one cycle and the beginning of the new one(cherry branch
symbolizes spring). Chinamen are happy, not sad at all,
because although they are old they accept this cycle called
death. They know a new cycle will come. They look at this
tragic sight and accept it stoically. Then they ask for music smth immortal- a symbol of creativity and even though they
are old their eyes are happy-the stoic acceptance of death.
The Magi
The title refers to three wise men who witnessed the Christ's
birth. Yeats does not believe that it happens only once. Such
miracles happen over and over again. We all start from bestial
floor, but there is hope for spiritual growth for each of us.
They are not satisfied with the mystery. They want more and
more. All of us to look for meaning in life. Yeats talks about
spiritual birth which should come over and over again.
Spiritual people bring a kind of renewal. We all start from this
biological and in our lives we fuse together, the animal and
the divine. Yeats was a mystic, atheist, gnostic- it is possible
to reach knowledge, you should simply search for truth.
Among School Children
We have a father figure and an island after the revolution. He
is a public figure, a poet, a founder of national theatre and a
politician. He is literally among school children, he visits
them and talks about different subjects they study and sees
himself through their eyes. There is a biographical reference.
He wants also to say that in spite of all things they learn the
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true knowledge come from experience. In the 3rd stanza he

looks at the faces of the children, than he thinks about what
Mand G. looks like now. Her face is worn out by age, also her
political activity. Then in the 5th stanza he talks about the/a
mother - he is ironic. He cannot imagine that a baby would
become a sixteen-year old man. He feels than that life is
making tired. The question about our biological life. Now he
becomes
more
generalhe
mentions
some
philosophers(Plato). He doesn't like him-this world seems
unreal for him. Aristotle-lost his time. Pythagoras-nothing
essential. Neither of them found the answer. Then he talks
about a woman as a notion of immortality. They give birth to
babies-worship of life. Yet, they too break heart. In religious
worship, in the act of giving birth he didn't find a sufficient
meaning. Image of a tree - the image of wholenesssomething that connects material and spiritual; it is all things
connected.
Leda and the Swan
The speaker retells the story from Greek mythology, the rape
of the girl Leda by the god Zeus who had assumed the form
of a swan. Leda felt a sudden blow with the great wings of the
swan still beating above her. Her thighs caressed by "the dark
webs. He held her helpless breast upon his breast. Now, the
speaker asks could Leda's terrified fingers push the feathered
glory of the swan from between her thighs. This poem
represents something like the beginning of the modern
history.
Like The Second Coming, Leda and the Swan describes a
moment that represents a change of era in Yeats historical
model of gyres. But where The Second Coming represents
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the end of modern history, Leda and the Swan represents

sth like its beginning.
T.S.ELIOT
The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock
Motto-Dante is seeing a person in hell. Prufrock, a middleaged man indecisive, intellectual invites the reader with him
through the modern city. He describes the street scene and
notes a social gathering of women discussing Renaissance
artist Michelangelo. Eliot set "Prufrock" in the poetic form of
a dramatic monologue. The speaker addresses another person
and the reader plays the part of the silent listener. The
Epigraph is a quotation from Dante's "Inferno. Guido is
imprisoned in a flame in Hell, he relates his shameful evil life
to Dante only because he things Dante will never go back to
earth and repeat it. Prufrock is also confined to Hell. Prufrock
is on earth, in a lonely, alienating city. The images of the city
are sterile, deathly. We go from a general look at the skyline
to the streets to a hotel room. Prufrock is a thinker, not a
feeler and his indecisive thoughts contribute to his paralyses.
He cannot make a decision and act on it. He is imprisoned in
the present. His anxiety is rooted in the social world.
Michelangelo is a sculptor of the heroic individuals; Prufrock
has nothing in himself of the heroic individual. The problem
of time. He is trying to console- there will be time when he
will come there, but there will not be time for him. He is
agonizing himself over his social actions, worrying over how
others will see him. He thinks about women's arms, perfumes
but does not how bad. The day passes at the social
engagement, but he cannot master the strength to act and he
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admits he is afraid. Eliot flashes out Prufrocks character and

makes his worries trivial. He twice refers to his balding head,
describes his plain middle aged clothing and draws us into his
point of view of the social world.(9. strofa) This is an allusion
to Dantes poem "The Relie". Prufrock continues to show his
inability to advance in time. His refrain "And indeed there
will be time" is an allusion to Mabels "To His Coy Mistress".
Rather than hurrying his lady he makes excuses for himself.
Not only is Prufrock paralyzed in the present, but he seems to
have a disordered sense of time.(13. strofa)The image of
passiveness: he refuses love because he is not a prophet and
he is afraid(15. strofa) Prufrock wonders, after various social
questures, it would have been worthwhile to act decisively if
it resulted in a woman's rejection of him. He thinks he is not a
prince Hamlet figure, but a secondary character in life.
Worrying over growing old, he adopts the fashion of youth.
By the beach, he sees images of mermaids singing and
swimming. He knows he is going to die soon but he still
cannot even dare to eat a peach". It is the Chinese symbol of
marriage and immortality. Two things Prufrock desires. He
immediately switches his attention to the mermaids- the
society of women who ignore him.
Prufrock 2: J. Alfred Prufrock appears to be an unhappy man
aware of his weaknesses and riddled with self doubts.
Prufrock is portrayed as someone who is in despair and
helpless. He feels as if he has never accomplished anything in
his life and is painfully aware of his failures: for I have
known them all already, known them all/have known the
evenings, mornings, afternoons/ I have measured out my life
with coffee spoons/ I know the voices dying with a dying fall/
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beneath the music from a father room/ so, how should I

presume? This awareness of his failures is what puts
Prufrock in despair: but though no great matter. He
mocks himself for being too weak and too helpless to turn his
life around. This very helplessness fills him with panic and
despair: when I am pinned: I presume? Prufrock is clueless
on how to start over and to pick up the pieces. He perceives
himself as doomed to his fate: Till human voices sing to
me. Eliot uses the situation of a man, trapped within routine
of everyday life within the conventions of society as a means
of discussing the aridity of modern civilization and the lack of
faith and conviction in anything modern man does.
(It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical
modern man- overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and
emotionally stilted).
Journey of the Magi
YEATS-The reference is to Christian story- three wise men
who witnessed the Christ's birth. Yeats does not believe that it
happens only once. Such miracles happen over and over
again. He talks about spiritual birth which should come to us
over and over again. Spiritual people bring a kind of renewal.
Another element- the Magi- dissatisfied. It happens only
once. It seems to be petrified as a process. He wants to point
out that we all start from this biological, fundamental, and
that in our lives we fuse together the animal, the human and
the divine. Yeats was a mystic, atheist, gnostic- it is possible
to reach knowledge, you should simply search for truth.
ELIOT-he is a traditionalist-for him the story of the birth of
the Christ happens only once-it's a historical event. Eliot uses
the figures of the Magi to convey a very different message.
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They are representatives of modern man. They feel that their

lives are deprived of spirituality and they go to witness the
birth of Christ hoping they would provide their lives with new
meaning. Notice that the lg. of the Magi is very realistic, it is
modern. It is not archaic. There are many realistic detailed
about the weather, journey, conditions. This is basically the
lg. of the modern demythalised world. We know that the Magi
occupy the world in which there is no valid myth to provide
meaning. As they describe their journey we feel they are
filled with doubt- they wonder if it was all folly. There is also
a feeling of regret- they regret living their ways of life. We
see the images of what they left behind. The summer
palace..." all sorts of sensual pleasure. These are all physical
pleasures-a kind of shallow life- they are looking for a
spiritual vision and truth. As they come to the place when
Christ is born there are certain symbols- such as vegetation- a
symbol of vitality, rebirth, of the beginning of a new life.
There are allusions of several episodes of Christ's life and
there are also three trees- where he was crucified- on the top
of the hill- elements from different episodes from the life of
Jesus- a kind of predestined story. The change comes in the
3rd stanza- where we see the failure of the Magi. Eliot has
the idea that people witness some events which point to smth
that invites you to spiritual growth. Most people feel afraid
and are not capable of following this vision. The birth of
Christ is such an intensive event- spiritual awakening. The
whole story about the life and death of Jesus is the story of
transhumanisation- sacrifying yourself for the vision of love.
But the Magi are terrified when they witness this story. It is
painful for them and they are not capable of transforming
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their own lives. That experience means they can't return to

their old ways of life. They no longer feel at ease. They are
disturbed by this new vision, too frightened to act upon this
vision. They only wish to die. First the death of the old self
now they urge for physical birth.
La Figlia
It is about parting, the end of love affair. This guy deserted a
girl. It haunts him, but it happened long tome ago. It is a longterm memory. He is exploring the whole experience,
transforming the experience in his memory trying to preserve
it- the experience of desertion of a girl. They are in a garden
in which he deserts her. She is with a flower=futility. A
moment he will tell her he will abandon her- a moment of
surprise. The whole scene would be full of beauty to suit the
laws, the demands of aesthetic criteria. Who is he and who is
I? Dissociation with a man. Observer or i- they are parts of
the same personality. He is external person, I is reflective
consciousness which now remembers- dissociation between
the inner, observing, reflecting self I and the external active
person. It is not the man who suffers, but the girl. The cold
detachments of the subject. He killed her soul as subject
matter of his sculpture, a material for his art. Turning his
experience into artistic shaping- excluding moral. His
experience to suit his demands. This is how he wanted all to
look like. Romantic exaggeration- the whole scene is
exaggerated like some drama or opera and there is some kind
of sadism in it. And he now mentions- this is very Christianthe moment when the soul leaves the body, it is a triumph.
But then the adjectives bruised and used body (tiranija tela
nad dusom). (Eliot was disgusted with his body313

transhumanization=to detach from human. The deep desire to

detach from female, from wholeness- egotistic, sadistic
attitude of a man). I should find- now, no more past tense. I
should find some less cruel way to desert her. (LawrenceSt.Mawr- like Judas betraying you by kiss- preserve the
surface of social politeness and beneath it is destruction of
you own potentials; but these are only versions of
destructions) she was very calm, the weather wasnt sunny
but autumn and he describes his self which is deeper and it is
troubled. Many days and hours he spent contemplating that
image. And I wonder how they should have been togetherambivalent, ambiguous either with disbelief or preferability
of this choice (what it would be like if they were together).
She artistic, he acting that would be artistically pleasing.
If they had stayed together he would have lost the role he was
playing in one or the other way. He wanted to make sth out of
that raw experience by the power of his aesthetic mind.
Marina
The lost female- sth. he has lost and refinds it. The image of a
lost daughter. Periclus: Hercules Fureus who in the fit of
madness killed his wife and children- contrast to Marina.
Recovery and reconciliation with a female, rediscovery of full
life. ( The cocktail party- Celia is looking for fulfillment in
human relation- it is not that but the relationship towards
principle). Imagery of the rest of the senses. Now he finds
what he has lost by touch. Marina is born at sea. The
beginning- not a question but a sense of wonder. These
images dont have to be decoded by looking for details in
Shakespeare. Those are the images of Eliots childhood.
Childhood experiences are good. In childhood we feel
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wholeness. Those childhood memories, images return to him.

The images of water splashing the prow- the water is
important. He lists various sins against life (sin of cynicism=
the denial of all values). Grace the only religious word
the phrase of recognized female daughter. This grace is the
work of a landscape perceived by the senses of a child. These
phases of a human being are female in general. The real
salvation is through relationship, through love, humanity. One
must construct a new stage. Everything he made up to now is
no longer trustworthy. Complete renewal everything I did I
will give for something new, new life, acceptance of love.
What matters is the discovery of something human.
WALLACE STEVENS
Of Modern Poetry
The poem is about the aims of the modern poetry. The idea is
basically the same as in Eliot and S. Plath that we live in a
demythologized world. The great myths of the past, the
Christian myth is no longer valid for most of us. We no
longer live in accordance to those myths. Modern poets often
feel that we need some kind of substitute. What are the
reasons? We need myths which would humanize our psychic
energy. Another feeling the modern poets share is that
modern experience of life is fragmentary. Nothing makes
sense. Nothing is connected into the whole- I can connect
nothing with nothing. Eliot Waste Land. The idea is that
myth would be that integrating principle which would
connect all these fragments into a meaningful whole. Myth
gives us a way to orient ourselves in our life- that we have an
origin and a goal that we are moving in a certain direction.
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He is saying that the task of a poet is to find what will

suffice- the modern poet is looking for something which will
replace this old myth. First stanza- he refers to the Bible and
Christianity. Once upon a time the poet used the images
from the Bible and everybody understood it. Then the
theatre changed- Newtonian crisis- Darwinian crisis of
mythological kind. The poetry has to be alive today, we
cannot think of it as a dead thing. It has to speak in the
contemporary language. Women were not equally treatednow some new women. The new poet has to think about wara new map. The poet is compared to an actor. He is in the
dark, no light from the outside which can direct him. The
dark of science- it does not give us a human vision, only
facts. It doesnt explain to us how to move through life.
The Idea of Order in Key West
There is a girl along the beach and she is inspired by the sound
of waves, by the landscape- and she creates a song. The whole
poem is a song and a girl as a creator. This is very much
structural idea- we need to create a meaningful whole. Here
we have a sea as a natural phenomenon and a song- a
structure, a pattern imposed on the sea like an act of
interpretation. She interprets reality with her song. She
imposes meaning upon nature. Her song is beyond this genius
of the sea- we no longer feel that we are part of nature- we
transcend it by our articulation. The water cannot be
articulated. Nature does not have a mind and cannot
communicate- it is a body, it is smth biological. Empty
sleeves in Yeats-crow- to teach the soul to sing. It suggests
that the sea doesnt have a soul. The girl is the one who has it
and gives it to the sea by her song. These are not our sounds,
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the ocean is very real, it is a part of our world. We understand

it- we come from the sea, nature. We still have our link with
nature. He doesnt believe in transcendental reality and the
world of spirits. Natural phenomena are really there-they have
indisputable reality. Difference between the sound of nature
and what the girl is singing- those are not the same sounds.
Her song is articulated. It uses language- the elementary
human structure. We know that the song is the human creation.
We are the makers. We create our reality and meaning in the
world. Outer voice of sky- as opposed to the inner. This is
not like the world of objective reality, but subjective
interpretation. Without human interpretation the voices of
nature remain unarticulated. The voices of nature have no
meaning of their own. The song of this girl imposes meaning
on the natural phenomena, but also imposes human emotions.
The natural phenomena are humanized; with human emotions.
She projects the feeling of solitude. We are now able to
connect with nature because we project human emotions upon
nature- we humanize it. Now the sea is not the objective
phenomenon, it is the part of this myth. It gets the meaning in
a human story. -again the idea that she is a maker. She creates
her own myth to find her own place in the world. She makes a
map of meaning. The structuralists point of view. The whole
idea that we impose the meaning, create myths is that we have
urge for order, the feeling that we cannot live in the
fragmentary world. We need to order what we see and feel, our
experiences. One image of this order is the girls song. There
is also the image of order in the lights of fishing boats- human
need for order. Human structures are there to give us a sense of
reality, a map, that reality has the meaning and it is always
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upon the natural phenomena. It gives us a deeper sense of

sympathy with an outer world- a sense of magic or mystery.
This is a blessed rage for order. Finally, we see this is a
tendency which man uses to explain himself and his origin
(uses myths).
SYLVIA PLATH
The Moon and the Jew Tree
It is about modern life which is demythologized. In the past
there were myths of integration. Now we live in a scientific
world. There is no sense of integrity. Sylvia is looking for
integrating principle. She is trying to find it in Christian and
pagan myths but she fails to find meaning in both. She feels
this cold, rational world. The light is blue. Blue symbolizes
sadness and cold. She mentions headstones which refer to
death. We are all going to die. The Moon is the symbol of the
Goddess in the pagan myth- a feminine symbol- does not have
a mythological meaning- it is simply a phenomenon. She says
it is a quest. She can find no hope. There is the feeling of
emptiness. Christian myth-she talks about the church bells.
They give no hope. The Jew tree- is a pagan symbol of inner
totality. It is evergreen. It should be a symbol of spirituality. It
has a Gothic shape- as cathedral. It used to be pre-historic
pagan church. We recognize nature in the figure of mother.
She is not capable of humanizing the image. But it becomes
the figure of speech. No deep meaning. Again Christian mythbut she cannot find meaning there. Hands and facessymbols of communication. No communication between the
poet and the natural world.
Black Rook in Rainy Weather
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This is a poem about imagination. Our daily existence is trivial

and fragmentary. The only way to connect fragments into a
meaningful whole is by imagination. This is also a poem about
waiting. Our reality is a bundle of incoherent facts and we
need epiphany. So the poet is waiting for the angel to come
and realize this deeper meaning. She looks at the black rook as
a natural sight but she is not capable of deriving any meaning.
She has given up. She is simply not capable of finding
meaning. She would like to be able to communicate with
natural phenomena by means of imagination. However, the
poet is skeptical that this flicker of light will come. Only that
can save her from natural neutrality. She wants to put some
meaning upon it. She says if it comes she will manage to patch
a picture. Unless imagination transform this natural sight it
will remain meaningless. The poet is afraid that the world of
nature will remain neutral, indifferent, that she will not be able
to relate to it. She doesnt expect anything extraordinary to
happen. There is an idea of order. The poet just wants to
communicate with nature but feels that without imagination it
is not possible. Minor light-she waits for it, for smth that
would give her inside into reality. Even simple kitchen objects
could be related to some deep meaning by imagination. S.
Plath depicts the feeling of meaninglessness that haunts the
modern man. There are no myths; she just states this tragic
inner tradition of a modern man. No mythologies, but a
modern man with a feeling of uprootedness. The only thing
she can rely on is her imagination. Spasmodic tricks- just like
minor moments of radiance. She waits for inspiration. It
happens at random- the poet doesnt control the imagination.
She has a feeble hope that imagination will come. There are no
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big, large stories of the past. No myths that helped man impose
meaning upon the world, and without this myth of integration
human beings feel lost. The major fear is the fear of
meaninglessness and death.
D.THOMAS
Fern Hill
This can be compare to Larkin. The great difference is that
Thomas has every significant memories from his childhood.
The idea is that the boy feels forever separated from the bliss
of childhood. He can not recover what he had then. The only
part of life which is blissful is childhood. When they grow up
that cannot be recovered. Poem is mostly concerned with the
experience of time. He talks about the differences. We have
different concepts of time. We can not escape from the trap of
time. As opposed to linear time there are some other cultures
which have cyclical concept of time-the notion of natural
cycles. Those individuals who reconcile the cycles of nature
do not consider time a trap but they creatively connect
themselves with nature and its renewal. This feeling of eternity
was only possible in his childhood. The boy in the poem feels
eternal, forever young because he experiences complete
harmony with nature. Time is not experienced oppressive that
threatens. The recurrent images are apples, referring to
Paradise. It is a state of Eden. You feel complete bliss; the
colors mentioned throughout the poem are green as grass and
golden. Green is the color of youth, childhood, juvenile
period- golden is the symbol of eternity, smth that stays the
same, never changes. The Green can also be the symbol of his
innocence and naivety. You have also images which suggest
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that the boy has the feeling that he is the master of the natural
world. Various images when he imagines the animals obeying
him. Again, in the 30th line he is in Paradise. Then, in the next
stanza he suggests that this is going to change. When he grows
up, this ego, the consciousness will interfere between the boy
and the environment and he will no longer be able to feel
eternal. There will be just a few morning songs. Eventually,
you fall out of grace, out of time. The end of the poem is the
moment which resembles waking up- the farm is forever fled.
(the place of unity) this link with a childhood experiences is
severed. Now you have a change. He no longer says green and
golden, but green and dying. He is now aware of this. At this
time, he was not aware that he is in chains he did not
consider time a person.

P.LARKIN
Church Going
A modern motorcyclist who stops near the church and enters
the church. This one regrets the loss of the tradition. Here we
have a youngster who knows nothing about the church. He just
looks around and then he enters. Complete silence. Nobody
around. Then he describes the interior. Although he is not a
believer he says- I take of my cycle-clips. It is an act of
respect. Although he does not believe in this institution, he
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enters this building with a sense of respect. Apparently, there

are some people who still believe. Somebody still takes care of
this place, but the character does not know anything about
this. In the second stanza he reads a book of prayers, puts an
Irish coin. He has not really given anything to church. He
admits he often stops there, enters churches, wondering what
he is looking for. Then, because he realizes that the tradition of
church-going is fading away, he can imagine the future in
which no one will attend church services anymore. Then he
imagines what will happen with the churches in the futurethey will be just archeological sites or they will stay for useful
purposes or be places of superstition. He can depict a total
collapse in the future. It is coming, it is inevitable. 4-Its
original purpose will be further and further away from us. He
wonders who will be the last who will come for the real
purpose. And he makes certain guesses another biker in the
future bored uniformed. The church is constructed in such a
way that the outline of the ground is in the shape of the cross.
He will find the inner urge to go there. Then he explains why
that nostalgia still exists. He says the crucial elements of our
lives-birth, marriage, death were held unsplit by the Christian
tradition. There is a church ritual attached to birth (baptism),
to marriage and the service to death. The things that are
basically biological. But all these things are given spiritual
dimension. Meaning and religion simply integrates them into a
meaningful whole, so that the whole life makes sense. This is
what this motorcyclist misses now. Now, these crucial
moments of our lives are found only in separation. They are no
longer parts of meaningful whole connected by the myth. He
also mentions that religion (Christianity) held unsplit our
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mental processes and the actual events. Everything was

integrated through myth and religion and so the modern cyclist
concludes that this is the reason. He respects this capacity of
the Christian myth to give our life the sense of meaning,
purpose and integration. A serious house- this impulse to
integrate is smth very serious, a serious enterprise in human
life. Basically, if we not have the myth anything to give us
meaning, we simply live by compulsion, biological and sexual
urges, self interest, fragmentary. This is the place where our
compulsions are met-destiny-meaning that we are going
somewhere. And that much- we always have that need to
live purposeful life. Always there will be somebody to feel
hunger for a map of meaning. The old custom was to burry the
dead in the back of the churchyard. It is the human story. It is
not excluded. Even the death id integrated into this story- is
given meaning.
I remember, I remember
Larkin talks about our feeling of uprootedness. If churchgoing was about roots in the Ch. tradition, this is about the
notion of our childhood as our roots. The traditional notion is
that we derive certain amount of our sense of identity, a
certain feeling of stability from some idyllic memories from
our childhood. -memories of ones native village, the first
love, or some teachers who discovered your talent. Among the
romantic Wordsworth talks about childhood- one with the
nature. Anything is shining. There is splendor in the grass. In
traditional literature childhood is a kind of sacred periodwhen you feel one with nature. Larkin now deconstructs this
myth. Actually he tells that modern man doesnt have such
roots. He remembers this little town where he was born and
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feels totally uprooted. There is no emotional involvement. He

just notices that this is the place he was born. He does not feel
any emotional link with it. Then his friend asks him about his
roots-no significant memories. The childhood is supposed to
be the period also according to some psychologists such as
Jung throughout our life we know just a small part of
ourselves- ego- but we want to know the whole self and Jung
claims that this self-wholeness was there in our childhood.
This is why we believe that childhood is a period of life where
we should look back for certain revelation, important
discoveries. If we can remember certain important experiences
from our childhood, we integrate them, they will enrich our
lives and make a small complete. However, when Larkin tries
to remember the events he cant find anything because in the
industrial modern world even childhood seems the be deprived
of such insights, even the childhood is impoverished. Where
my childhood was unspent. It was spent there but nothing
happened. Then he remembers his garden. He did not have any
revelation connected with nature. Throughout the poem he
enumerates things which did not happened. He is totally
uprooted. There is nothing to bind him to any particular part of
his country. The feeling that modern man does not belong
anywhere.
THOM GUNN
On the Move
It is useful to compare it to the Sailing to Byzantium. Both
are about moving, but the difference is that in Yeats we have a
final destination. The idea in Yeats is the poet is moving in
order to complete his purpose. On the other hand, in Gunns
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poem the feeling is incompleteness. You can never complete

your purpose. Human beings are always between their
instinctive nature, spiritual nature and that is why they are
always restless. First, we have the image from the natural
world- the blue jay (sojka ptica)- behaves in accordance to its
spiritual program. The next line we move to the world of manthe first image is that we are uncertain and violent. The poet
almost celebrates this violent movement. The physical image
young people riding motorcycles- they convey the image of
constant movement. They do not reach final destination. We
are confused, no clear sense. If we try to explain the meaning
of life, the words are approximated never explain thing
completely. They resemble flies- they are insignificant.
Human beings do not matter much. Then, again, idea of doubt
and uncertainty they conceal their doubt. In that noise they
make by motorcycles they find some meaning. The meaning is
in the very movement. Violent attitude towards natural
phenomena, natural things. We are never completely certain
about those structures. They are never reliable-imperfect
products of culture. Within them we move towards the future,
but there is that sense of imperfection. To live this way is a
part solution, positive attitude towards human uncertainty.
The world is valueless. There are no fix values. We simply
move and choose our direction. We both direct ourselves-both
hurler and the hurled. Those boys have just come there for one
minute. They are never static, they always move. They define
themselves, refuse external definition. We create ourselves,
refuse to be static, confined in the conservative structures.
They create a new sense of meaning. This is a new generation
which creates their own sense of purpose, protest against fix
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rules. We are neither completely animal, nor bodiless. We have

to balance and for this reason we never complete our purpose.
It is a rebellion against being static. The least you can do is to
move- refuse static definition. There is a hope we will reach
some meaning if we do not keep still.
-Gunn-a hint of violence towards nature- a kind of positive
attitude towards constant moving; rebellion against being
static.
-Larkin-the less deceived nevertheless nostalgic.
Tamer and Hawk
This poem seems to be written from the point of view of a
hawk (a bird of prey), speaking to its trainer. The poet uses
this image of the hawk and its tamer in a wider sense to write
about obsessive love and what can happen when lovers try to
control
each
other.
The main themes in this poem are power, control and love.
The wild hawk has been successfully tamed ('gentled at your
hands') and now flies off only when its trainer tells it to fly
('when I go, I go/At your commands'). Even when in
flight, the bird is not free it has been hooded and is 'blind to
other birds'. The only thing that the hawk sees now is its
trainer. In stanza two, the phrases 'seeled me with your love'
and 'the habit of your words' suggest that the poet is really
talking about a relationship between two people. The extended
metaphor of the hawk continues, however, throughout the
poem.
A sense of danger is introduced in stanza three when the hawk
says describes its 'possessive' thought the only thing it
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wants is to be 'caught/Upon your wrist'. Such obsession can

also be dangerous and perhaps the poet is hinting here that
obsessive love, where two people can think only of each other,
to the exclusion of all else, will inevitably bring danger. The
final stanza reinforces the sense of danger as the hawk tells its
tamer: 'You but half-civilize, Taming me in this way. 'The
hawks meaning becomes clear in the last four lines it has
become so obsessed that it fears losing its tamer and, in order
to avoid this, chooses the tamer as its prey. The poets use of
the first person here gives the poem a sense of immediacy. The
reader is cast in the role of tamer as the hawk addresses us
directly. The regular meter and rhyme scheme emphasizes the
feeling of control in the poem. The use of simple vocabulary
makes the chilling and disturbing final message of the poem
accessible.
TED HUGHES
A Childish Prank
He has very pessimistic poems- crow- appears as a demonic
figure. He presents a kind of demythologized world which is
rather hopeless and in which we are guided by our
compulsions, biological necessities and urges. Myth and
Education- the deepest layers in our psyche. Our job in life is
to use our life in connection to those ancient energies- not to
burst in a destructive way. The important thing is to humanize
these energies, get in touch with them and give them meaning.
There are various ways for humanizing our instincts. In
Heaney, it is done by means of love. You explore it
thoroughly. Myth is a way to render meaning to these
compulsions. In the absence of myth the poets use creative
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imagination. .This is emphasized in Wallace Stevens. Because

the myths of the past are no longer affective, we use the poet
of the mind- create our own myths. Here, an example would
be some of Yeats poems. He uses myths to humanize instincts
and his own experiences. Ted Hughes presents us with the
image that instincts are not humanized. There is only the
image of crow that does this prank. We then see a man and
woman driven by biological urges, blind instincts. We dont
know ourselves. There is this urge to connect the two halves of
the worm. The two houses symbolize the two basic instincts in
life-Eros and Thanatos. This worm drags him towards the
woman. He is dragged by his compulsions. They dont
understand their urges, they just follow them. This is a simple
poem connected to Yeats idea- biological instincts dont
provide justification for living by themselves. There have been
moments glorifying sex, our sexual life, but the poet points out
these urges dont provide a meaningful life. The two urges are
Eros and Thanatos. This is like the parody of the biblical story,
an image of Eden appears. Here, the god is trying to provide
man and woman with a deeper meaning, but falls asleep, for
he is not sure how dull, foolish-connected with eyes. Eyes
should be the mirror of the soul, but here there isnt anything
to make their urges noble and humanized. Man and woman are
longing to reunite. Worm should be a symbol of life, but we
have a split between Eros and Thanatos. The only basis they
reunite are the instincts, there is nothing beyond that. Man is
governed by libido, biological urges. Inertia of spiritual life.
Song
On the surface this is just another love poem. However, the
lady is compared to some natural phenomena. What would
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happen if the poet lost her? The moon- symbol of goddesses,

feminine symbol in most mythologies. She is compared with
this feminine goddess. Love towards a woman, the internal
muse and love towards goddess are connected. This belief
you should adore, respect processes in life and nature and even
humble yourself before it.
I A myth of Venus (Venus rises from the sea) dumb. Not
stupid but mute, probably alluding to the fact that language is
based on logic, and the goddess is a pre-linguistic context,
notion. You cannot break her hope, she cannot tamed. You
should adore her and never try to arrest her.
II She does not speak but she makes music. Music is the
speech of the goddess. She is fatal. She has numerous lovers.
It seems to be a competition among lovers. The last stanza
tells what could happen if the poet lost her. If you dont
humanize nature by imposing feminine upon her, you become
neutral. Human life becomes meaningless without such love.
(Another poem about devotion to the goddess is written by
Robert Graves.)
ROBERT GRAVES
The Cool Web
It is a poem about language. Language is like a web that we
are trapped in. Web-there is a network of meaning, the idea of
structures we impose on reality. The adjective cool which the
poet imposes, claims that if we use language, especially this
rational, platonic lg. of civilization, if this is our predominant
way of coping with reality, we will become detached from
reality. The idea is that if we use lg. as a kind of shield, detect
experience of the world is to intense for us. We protect
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ourselves from intensity by translating reality into terms,

concepts, phrases. This is similar to Ransoms idea of platonic
impulse. We tend to translate the complexity of immediate
experience into simplified phrases and feel as masters. Graves
says its not so with children. They havent still mastered the
lg. completely and have very strong immediate experiences.
The first stanza opens with children dumb-stupid or
speechless. Children experience all aspects of reality intensely
and thus still havent learnt to use lg. to protect themselves
from these experiences. They havent mastered lg. and they
are stupid not to experience reality indirectly. Grown-ups use
lg. (speech) to lessen the impact of these experiences. Speech
is used as a shield. Spell away- like using some magic to
makes things disappear + the meaning of spelling. By
translating experience into lg. we get rid of our fear and
strong emotions. 3rd stanza- when we are using lg. in such a
moment we deprive ourselves of intense feeling; the whole
range of feelings are diminished. If you are immersed in
language, you feel neither too much joy nor fear. At the end
the language makes us feel as if we were living in ajar. It is
like we are immersed in this medium of language, it protects
us from feeling reality and its some kind of death. We are cold
and there is no spontaneity. The poem is very pessimistic. It
doesnt see other options. Its like Lacan. If we dont enter
symbolical order hes going to be unerotic, instable. No other
option- we can not get rid of our language. Last stanzawatery gloss- sth that cools your senses, passions, like we
are immersed in water. The other option is madness. If you
want to live in immediate reality, like children, it will drive
you to madness. Kristeva says we can also stay in contact with
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language for we are still connected to our mothers body.

There is sth irrational and physical in language.
To Juan at Winter Solstice
In this poem Graves says there is one story and one story
only. Whenever he was writing poetry he wrote about the
Goddess- the loss and the recovery of it. Eliot groped towards
the White Goddess which he consciously failed to recognize.
In the great pre-patriarchal myths the winter is significant.
Solistice refers to the death of the Sun. it is a critical point in a
cycle- the death of the God of the old year slained by the rival
(or river?) in which he reincarnates. This is a symbol of
psychological transformation through every poet has to pass to
be a real poet. Father is giving instructions to the son who has
to die, his old self has to die, to embrace fearless self, to
become a great poet. The poet is reawakening the meaning of
the Great Goddess. Birds sing under the command of the Great
Goddess. Everything is a part of the Great Goddess- through
which you obey her triple will. Zodiac- he still talks about
the scenario of a myth of the Goddess prison- through which
we can walk freely. It is not a real prison. Those who turn
against Goddess are lost. Water to water- In the Bible, but
also in the all myths of Isthar, it is the moment of flood. The
Goddess is looking for the fragmented basis to gather it. The
basis of all poems- from woman to woman to find the goddess
again. Circuit of his faith Each victim follows the cycle of
ones faith. 12 apostles- this is just the latest version in
which people attended and witnessed and obeyed nature and
they had 15 witnesses. Virgin is identified as the fish. Virgin is
the supreme symbol of Christianity. It is in fact a mermaid
departure turning back to nature. The undying snake refers
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to the myth of creation in which goddess (Euriname) created

the world by creating the snake. Later it was demonized.
Remember many heroes who in the claims of the snake
entered with swords to kill it. They were misguided. After the
fight they were spewed on the shore. This is a warning- you
cant fight against the beings which are the emanation of the
Goddess. Boar (Persephone) tramples a flower before
killing Adonis out of whom hell be born as a new person.
Adonis turned into a flower representing a resurrection.
Nothing promised that is not performed- she will never
betray a lover if he doesnt betray her. This is the end of the
period to reactivate the past and tradition.
S. HEANEY
Hercules and Antaeus
Antaeus-Hercules has five tasks- to pick up the golden applehe encounters the giant. Hercules outwits him. He separates
Antaeus from his mother. Antaeus is now weak, helpless and
Hercules kills him. Antaeus represents the tradition, faithful to
the mother earth. The poem is basically about colonialism.
What happens in colonialism- you have people loyal to their
soil. They humanize nature in the form of the beloved mother.
This emotional link gives them strength. This motional is
always cherished in the form of some indigent myth which
humanizes nature. The idea of the conquerors- to replace the
original myth with the new one- then they are easy to govern
and control. Colonial process- to replace one myth for anotheronce he is separated from the mother he is easy to be broken.
It is also the same in Greek mythology when the patriarchy
becomes victorious over matriarchy. This shift introduces a
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total change in the inner nature. Herculess attitude to reality

his origin is related to the sky- masculine part. Snake
symbolizes the old pagan gods; they symbolize the monster,
personification of natural power. He wants to be a conqueror;
he wants to defeat the world of nature. Hercules is not trying
to find some balanced, harmonious way to live with nature. He
represents the western man who wants to be victorious over
nature. He does not want to be a part of nature. This is how the
heroes are remembered- a victory over the forces of nature.
The element emphasized here is his mind, intelligence, his
rationality. Antaeus was faithful to archaic energies. He
belonged to the tradition that was capable of transforming
them in the form of beloved father. He is called the mouldhugger- thats his element. Hercules is weakened here-being
separated from the mother. A fall was a renewal- the only
thing that remains to Hercules is the dream of loss. He only
remembers the loss. All those memories the whole nature is
in the figure of mother. All those images are bequeathed to the
poet- the one who can remind us of this lost tradition. Elegiststhey lament loss the poetry of smth. that is gone.
Digging
He has grotesque use of metaphors. He presents us with vivid
image, a striking detail which is completely realistic. Towards
the end of the poem you suddenly realize that the whole
physical story has a symbolical dimension. We have those
physical images which have to do with his background- he
uses the imagery of the country life. Those are the memories
from his childhood. He got an important knowledge from his
ancestors- land tillers. They knew how to have this
harmonious, creative contact with nature. Heaney is trying to
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preserve the rural tradition in his poetry, also to see whether he

can convey the wisdom of this tradition to modern man.
People who live in the country instinctively keep pace with
nature and respect it. The poet wants to articulate nature
through his poetry and to transcend it to the modern man.
Eliot-There are truths in the past which are no longer actively
used to restore some knowledge, to bring new meaning,
spiritually to the modern age. Heaneys tradition in this sense
from which he tries to extract wisdom is this rural life in
Ireland. Digging is basically about tradition. We can start by
looking at it symbolically you dip and look for this wisdom.
There are several levels of meaning here. There are those solid
vivid images- you see the poets father digging potatoes. But
all the time there is another level of digging. First he looks at
the past, at his ancestors, because they live in harmonious live
with nature, and the other idea is digging through the layers of
ones psyche. Here the poet is exploring his inner nature
because there is always wisdom at the collective
unconsciousness. You can see his father digging potatoes,
grandfather digging turf. It is a family tradition. Heaney asks
himself : What about me, how will I perpetuate, sustain this
tradition. He says he does not have a spade, but a pen. The
poet is digging his memory and the layer of the
unconsciousness with his pen. Between my finger he tries
to say that what we dig out of out psyche there is
destructiveness that can explode. There is also this element of
danger. Still, the most important meaning comes at the end, he
says the roots in his head are still leaving- the tradition is still
alive.
The Diviner
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Another poem referring to country life. This looks like a

complete physical image. The diviner has a stick and he is
looking for water. Then you realize that the diviner is at the
same time a metaphor for a poet. Again Heaney is looking into
the life of land-tillers in order to gain deeper insides into the
purpose of his art. The diviner is looking for the water hidden
under the ground. The poet is searching for refreshment,
creativity. Likewise he is revealing some hidden sources of
physic energy without which our life would be sterile.
Everything that is in a way hidden in us, life energy,
unconscious psyche, emotions, creativity. Again we have a
physical meaning- there are five different levels of meaning. If
this fork is a tool of diviner the poet uses lg. to bring to us the
awareness of this unconscious energy. The idea of stirring- of
awakening the energy. You use words to stir this energy. There
is also the idea that this energy is closely connected with erotic
energy. The hazel stick gets in touch with the stirring of the
water- the image is almost like a sexual metaphor. The hazel
stick is like a kind of antenna. It is used to accept the secret
stations of the underground water. The poet is doing the same
thing he is broadcasting from the underground layers of the
psyche. There is also a mention of other people- they suggest
the community-what the diviner is doing is important for the
whole community- the village cant live without water- of use
of the whole community. Poets- archetypes convey messages
important for the whole community. They either serve to
balance reality and have a healing effect - to reconcile the two
worlds. The poet is bringing those images from the
unconsciousness psyche for the whole society. The last stanzathe motif of guidance. The poet is willing to teach others.
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Everyone of us should be able to get in touch with these layers

of the unconscious psyche and to enrich our lives, to start
personal introspection, inner growth. This is smth possible for
everyone, not only the poet. The poet is about to teach us how
to do this to feel the pluck of water, he positive desire of
people to learn.
Undine
This is a poem read on many levels. Undine is a water spirit, a
mermaid. The Irish legend tells the only way for her to
become human is to marry a man and give birth to his
children. He uses an image from the rural life and connects it
to this legend at the same time. He gives us a meaning
important for the modern mans life. The physical image is of
a man, land tiller, who removes certain obstacles so that water
can run down the ditches in his garden and water his seeds in
the earth which he has planted. However, the story is told from
the point of view of water itself. The water in the poem is
feminine. This is Undine talking. And the moment when this
water symbolizes a wild, natural force gets in touch with these
seeds, with these ditches, which symbolize human effort. This
moment is like a sexual union, a kind of marriage. The poem
can be read as a marriage between human and natural, also
between man and woman, between ego and the conscious
psyche and the unconscious psychic energy; the marriage with
the anima in the male psyche; and a __________ between
culture and nature, water and earth. It works on so many
levels. It is fantastic. The main protagonist unblocks the way
to release this inner psychic energy. In many details, these are
sexual images- a girl takes off her clothes. An encounter
between a land tiller and water feminine. It is important that
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this sexual encounter takes place with love. Love is what

humanizes this natural (sexual) energy. Without love it can be
destructive. The union is not possible without love. If you
explore your inner subconsciousness you can grow spiritually.
It is a poem about introspection and the poem ends with
human married to him with love and understanding we can
humanize them.
ADRIENNE RICH
Diving into the Wreck
These are the old myths of patriarchy, the myths that split
male and female irreconcilably into two warring factions, the
myths that perpetuate the battle between the sexes. Implicit in
Richs image of the androgyny is the idea that we must write
new myths, create new definitions of humanity. The wreck she
is diving into is the wreck of obsolete myths, patriarchy myths
about men and women. She is journeying to sth that is already
in the past, in order to discover to herself the reality behind the
myth. What she finds is part treasure and part corpse and she
also finds that she herself is a part of it. A half destroyed
instrument. As explorer she is detached; she carries a knife
to cut her way in , cut structures apart; a camera to record and
the book of myths itself ,the book which has hitherto had no
place for explorer like herself. This quest is a quest for smth
beyond myths, for truths about men and women, about the I
and the You, the He and the She, or more generally,
about the powerless and the powerful. Complex use of an
image of rebirth. Her tools are carefully chosen. She has read
the book of Bible. It is necessary to know the old stories
before embarking on a journey to change them. This journey is
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to record the sources of our origin, hands, the camera. The

knife is less obvious. As the narrator descends, the water turns
from blue to green, to black. There is the effect of blacking out
becoming unconscious, while still remaining in control. As she
begins to move in this new element, the swimmer learns that
the sea is not a question of power. The wreck is a layered
image. It is the source of successes and failures, the life of one
woman. It is the history of all women, submerged in a
patriarchal culture. She explores the wreck and records for us
her experiences of the cargo the half-destroyed instruments.
But, no questions are answered here for those who have not
found their way to this place. We are given no explanation for
why the wreck occurred. She said in 1974. , two years after
this poem: I absolutely\y cannot imagine what it would be
like to be a woman in a non-patriarchal society. At a moment I
have this little glimmer of it. When I am in a group of women,
where I have a sense of real energy flowing and of power in
the best sense- not power of domination, but just access to
sources- I have sense of what that could be like . But it is very
rare that I can imagine even that.
Splittings
The inner journey into the self. Our civilization tore onement
and she wants to get rid of the false identity. She is searching
for her own identity and rejects to live according to the
splitting myths.
POREDJENJA
TED HUGHES, Myth and Education
He talks about our archaic energies in our psyche-instincts and
feelings. The important element we miss in our education is
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myth. It helps us humanize these energies. This is a very

important task for us. The fact we dont know how to
communicate with them can result in sterility or they can burst
out destructively. How can we humanize them? Various poets
offer various solutions. Here, the answer would be love.
Another idea would be creative imagination. We can approach
these energies in a creative way; through poetry, creativity and
myth. Myth was used very much by Yeats. He was dealing
with all sorts of pain; anguish of personal love-with all sorts of
disturbing emotions- he resorts to myths. He believed if he
could connect stories to his personal life with mythical stories,
through this connection he would transcend personal pain. The
idea was really to channel the energy of personal relation into
the energy of creation. If I connect my personal stories with
some larger mythical stories my life would have deeper
meaning .Yeats was horrified with her doings- how she was
so passionate in her political struggle but then he found a
way to forgive her. Countess Cathleen -who lives in
Ireland during famine. People were selling their souls for gold:
she wanted to save them and she sold her own soul. When
Yeats read this, he forgives her- she was fighting for the
people in Ireland-in the same way, for the same reason he
wrote Leda and the Swan- Helen was born out of this
coupling. Zeus had assumed the form of a swan. It was the
beginning of the ten-day war to justify Man Gond-she was
born from such circumstances- myth of war and rape.
T.S.ELIOT
Many ways to enter Eliots poetry- (Leavis)- The Modernist
Lyrics- tradition, historical sense, transhumanization, unified
sensibility. Leavis defines the major poet-surplus of vitality.
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He has an excess of vitality. He is more alive and aware of

morality than an ordinary man. He knows what he feels and he
makes differences. Surplus of vitality- more vital, alive, aware,
morally conscious. he finds that the late Victorian poetry is
unsatisfactory, it fails because it was not alive. It is more dead
than bad. Their poetic habit- the urban landscape. They refuse
to inhabit the city- they cant comfort it. It is not conquinial to
their sensibility. They withdraw within the dream world- of
roses, streams. The rhythm is used to create a melodious burst
which dragged the readers into the idyllic places. There was
another reason the creation of the dream world- to create and
express what is sensuous and simple, not what is intelligent,
what relates to erudition and thinking. A split is perpetuated by
simple emotions and cerebral muscle-intelligence. For the
poetry they reserve their emotions. The sentiment, the feeling
become cheap, lacking the intelligence attitude. Intelligence
becomes vulgar. The split is fatal. The poet can break through
that habit to crate a dream world. Late Victorian poetry
doesnt possess the sensibility which enables the poet to offer
the valid criticism of life- to judge and revise the culture. The
only protest they made is withdrawal. Eliot says he is
unmistakably a modern poet. You inhabit firmly with
bitterness the urban landscape. The inhabited big cities and his
response to the tremendous impoverishment of the city life
find place in his poetry. Not only images changed. Eliot
introduced that exercise of the cerebral muscle- intelligence,
tremendous erudition explain different allusions to obscure
creatures, various traditional myths- to fragment literary
tradition. Very often it was not common knowledge. He
supplied footnotes to explain allusion to the literary of the past
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he finds relevant. It is often a trick. There were people angry

with those endnotes. Middle-class people his poetry is
corrupt, he is a bookworm. We dont agree with that. He
fused together into a new whole . You will put into poetry
whatever you feel. He studied philosophy back in America,
went to Paris. Bergon a new concept of time. He opposes the
clock time- in the objective time all times are present and the
past is implicated. Eliot went further. He wanted ultimately to
redeem this clock, mechanical time by experiences of
timelessness. The intersection between time and timelessness.
He comes to paradoxical conclusion- the only way to conquer
time is through time not by stepping out of time but by
surrendering to everything time demands from you. History
may be servitude, history may be freedom. This timeless
moment redeems us. We inhabit a timeless dimension. Eliots
preoccupation in his essays, plays and poetry bear the traces of
his reading of Bergson. He did his doctoral thesis on Bradlyall our perceptions are mental thing and are private to
ourselves, no real communication. We are all responding as
any other human being. Yet, as with Bergson Eliot made a step
forward- beyond this pessimistic doctrine. How can we escape
from ourselves? The two preoccupations are related. There is a
key to the prison of ourselves- we can unlock it only by
epitomize pagan patterns which centers on voluntary selfsacrifice (of the generic self to achieve genuine self). After this
failure of the quest in the last section in the poets The West
Land the whole jungle was waiting for the rain- the renewal
of life. Instead of the rain, there was only sterile thunder. It is
the poetry of the city- the scenes of the morbid life- but also
complex, difficult. Eliot, like Yeats, insists on economy. They
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should omit any surpluses words-adjectives. We want clear,

hard, dry images that should comment themselves. They are
organized not by using any connections, transitions. You are
supposed to provide the link so that it is being economic. It is
an attack upon the reader, the middle class. It is an attack on
the high-class reader. This poetry demands intelligence,
tremendous effort for them to read it. The poet or the narrator
refuses to adopt any of the social roles. ------------------- So in
fact what Eliot (and Bodler) is doing is to appeal to the reader
to those elements that his social self repudiated- to tell him
that he is with him in the worst aspect of his life. Instead of
these connectives, narrative logic, he organizes his poets by
juxtaposing images of the city squalors, envy, corruption in
religion, sex. The two images comment upon each other- the
image of modern life and juxtaposition of images from
mythology, Christian tradition, past tradition. Steavens the
Bible, the script is a souvenir- to forget about it, he demanded
that our idea of order comes from the mind. Yet, Eliot and
Yeats were also obsessed with the past. The past for them was
not merely past, but part of the present. What is most valuable
of the past is still present. He says the past still has in itself the
values by which the time can be judged, measured, revised.
For Yeats, otherwise, we are naked. Eliot returns to Christian
myth- a valid paradigm. They both have their protagonists go
in a quest (The Magi). The protagonists are all modern Magi
who see birth of Jesus and find it to be measures for their own
lives. They cant follow the vision. Their own lives are death
in life. That is how all of the three poems end. There is a
reason why they cannot undergo this transformation- the need
to ask some very significant, overwhelming question. And
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here it is not asked. The question of which the protagonist is

aware is not asked finally- avoiding of creative question.
Larkin, Gunn, Thomas
Yeats and Eliot rely on tradition. Yeats is almost romantic in
his ideal life. In Eliot you have modern subversion of the old
tradition. All the while he dreams on the tradition. The purpose
is the idea of comparison. In tradition we find some values
that miss nowadays.
In Yeats- outgrowing personal
experience to include mythical pattern to translate personal
pain into the work of beauty. The idea of myth is that it has
integrating principle. Contemporary poets are no longer
interested in tradition. What they express is a great
disillusionment. Philip Larkin published a collection of poems
called The Less Deceived. People no longer believe in the
great traditions of the past, for instance Christianity or the
belief that they are fighting the just war. They no longer have
the feeling that they have some roots. P.Larkin in this
collection says ironically well- at least we are less deceived.
There is, however, in Larkin a kind of nostalgia. He recognizes
that the modern life is uprooted and demythologized. But he
looks back with the kind of nostalgia and recognizes the value
of the tradition. When you compare him with Thom Gunn,
Thom Gunn takes pleasure; he celebrates this total uncertainty
of modern life. He likes the idea that there are no absolutes,
which man can move in any conceivable direction. And create
himself in this process. The Basic difference- Larkin feels
badly about uncertainty, Gunn celebrates it.
************

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Majority of Eliots poems are centered on people immersed in

futility of everyday life routine. However, they desire to
convert into significant self are won by snobbery.

The Waste Land- T.S. Eliot

This controversial poem details the journey of the human soul
searching for redemption.Meditation on the state of Western
civilization, especially regarding the sense of depression,
waste, and futility of the post-World War I era; the poem
mixes descriptions of contemporary life with literary allusions
and quotations, religious symbolism, and references to ancient
and medieval cultures and mythologies, vegetation and
fertility rites, as well as Eastern religions and philosophies; the
poem emphasizes themes of barrenness and desolation and
portrays a dying society, but the ending suggests hope of
redemption through concepts and images grounded on the
synthesis of Christian and Eastern (Hindu/Buddhist)
spirituality.
Experience of fragmentation and disconnection which Eliot
saw as the essence of 20th century urban life.Commentary on
problem of modern society as lacking a sense of community
and spiritual axis.
The" waste land" in the poem as modern culture having drifted
away from its spiritual roots; trope of destructive repetition
controlling human history; loss of touch with cycles of life and
nature.
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Images of desolation, sterility, dryness, waste (as a byproduct

of utilitarian attitudes and capitalistic and mercantile forms of
production and exchange); image of a society that feeds upon
itself and also lies mired in its own waste.
Ancient and medieval legends (e.g.Holy Grail, classical
mythology); symbolic representation of cycles of life and
death; theme of sick "Fisher King" and loss of fertility which
produces a corresponding drought; replenishment of land and
healing of Fisher King by re-discovery of truth encoded in the
images of ancient myths and rituals.
Hint at possibility of production of new life and redemption of
humanity from the by-products of decay; construction of truth
from the nearly lost fragments of ancient thought and the
wisdom of various cultures.
Truth encoded in both the imagery of Christianity and the
sacred words of ancient Eastern religions and philosophies;
religious syncretism implicit in the poem.
The Waste Land summarizes the Grail legend, not precisely in
the usual order, but retaining the principal incidents and
adapting them to a modern setting.
Parallels with yet other myths and with literary treatments of
the "quest" theme reinforce Eliot's pattern of death and rebirth.
Eliot's waste land suffers from a dearth of love and faith.
The Waste Land does not merely reflect the breakdown of an
historical, social, and cultural order battered by violent forces
operating under the name of modernity. For Eliot the disaster
that characterized modernity was not an overturning, but the
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unavoidable, and ironic, culmination of that very order so

lovingly celebrated in Victoria's last decade on the throne.
Dealing with the decline of civilization and the impossibility
of recovering meaning in life.

THREE HONEST MEN

L. Trilling- On the Teaching of Modern Literature
Trilling- Freud: Within and Beyond Culture
L.Trilling, F.R.Leavis, E.Wilson
E.Wilson
E. Wilson(2)- Symbolism,
Axel and Rimbaud(2)
F.R. Leavis- Poetry and the Modern World
NEW CRITICISM
Ransom- Poetry; A Note on Ontology
I.A.Richards- Pseudo-statements
T.S.Eliot- Tradition and the Individual Talent
MARXIST CRITICISM
G.Lukacs -The Ideology of Modernism
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Althuser- Ideology and Ideological State

Aparatus
A Letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre
STRUCTURALISM
T. Hawkes- Introduction to Structuralism and
Semiotics
N.Frye- Archetypes of Literature
Expanding Eye
R.Barthes-Myth Today- Myth is Depoliticized
Speech
Toys
POST-STRUCTURALISM
C. Levi Strauss -Myth and Incest
J. Derrida
Structure, sign and play in the discourse of
human sciences
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Freud- Creative writers and day-dreaming
Jung-Psychology and literature
Freud vs. Jung
STRUCTURALISM
T. Eagleton- Post-Structuralism
Psychoanalysis
Frye vs. Freud
Lacan
Kristeva
Lacan & Kristeva(2)
FEMINISM
E. Showalter- Toward a Feminist Poetic
Gilbert & Gubar
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The Mad Woman in the Attic

Adrienne Rich
When we dead awaken
DRAMA
Henrik Ibsen
Peer Gynt
When we dead awaken- Henrik Ibsen
G.B.Shaw- ST. JOAN
The Quintessence of Ibsenism (False Ideals
Exposed)
J.B. Shaw- Don Juan in Hell
T.S.Eliot- THE COCKTAIL PARTY
Lukacs, Shaw and Eliot
J.Osborne- LOOK BACK IN ANGER
Cocktail Party, Look Back in Anger and St. JoanSAINTHOOD
Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot
Endgame
H. Pinter- THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, THE DUMB
WAITER
The Dumb Waiter
The Birthday Party
The Homecoming- H.Pinter
OSBORNE and PINTER-- ROOM
Peter Shaffer- THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN
Caryl Churchill- OWNERS; CLOUD NINE
POETRY
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W.B.YEATS
Sailing to Byzantium
The Second Coming
Lapis Lazuli
The Magi
Among School Children
Leda and the Swan
T.S.ELIOT
The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock
Journey of the Magi
La Figlia
Marina
WALLACE STEVENS
On modern poetry
The Idea of Order in Key West
SYLVIA PLATH
The Moon and the Jew Tree
Black Rook in Rainy Weather
D.THOMAS
Fern Hill
P.LARKIN
Church Going
I remember, I remember
THOM GUNN
On the Move
Tamer and Hawk
TED HUGHES
A Childish Prank
Song
ROBERT GRAVES
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The Cool Web

To Juan at Winter Solstice
S. HEANEY
Hercules and Antaeus
Digging
The Diviner
Undine
ADRIENNE RICH
Diving into the Wreck
Splittings
POREDJENJA
TED HUGHES, Myth and Education
T.S.ELIOT
Larkin, Gunn, Thomas
The Waste Land-T.S. Eliot
XX CENTURY NOVEL
Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness
Preface to the Nigger of Narcissus (1599)
Fromm- The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness
D.H.Lawrence
St. Mawr
WHY THE NOVEL MATTERSD.H.LAWRENCE
James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
On Modern Fiction- V. Woolf
Ulysses
V.Woolf
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Mrs. Dalloway
A.Huxley
Brave New World
G.Orwell- 1984
The Age of Iron- J.M. Coetze
M. Atwood- Surfacing
The White Hotel (excerpts)

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