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M.E.G.-3
British Novel
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Q. 1. Do you think Fielding attempts to correct distortions in human behaviour through the moral view
point of Tom Jones?
Ans. It is said that Dr. Johnson once admonished a lady, “I m shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book.
I am sorry to hear you have read it; a confession which no modest lady should ever make. I scarcely know a more
corrupt book. In the same vein, the same Dr. Johnson is said to have eulogised highly Richardon’s Pamela for its high
sense of morality and virtue.
We must remember that Fielding was neither a moralist, nor a preacher. He was simply an artistic who was
holding the mirror to the society of his time. It was none of his business to be a reformer, even though it is a fact that
he wanted to show hypocrisy, sexual abuse and other vices in their comic colours like Addison and Steele, even
though if he might have exaggerated them slightly like Dicken’s caricaturist portalyals more than a century after
him.
The fact is that Fielding did not believe in conventional morality which presupposed traditional moral standards.
Fielding believed in the sincerity of the motive and the purity of the heart rather than the occurrence of a deed. For
example, in spite of numerous sexual encounters of Jones, he can hardly be stamped with the blot of moral turpitude.
It is because he remains loyal to love for Sophia till the end of the novel and nowhere does he behave as a rake. These
were the wily, corrupt ladies of the society like Lady Bellaston, Molly, Mrs Waters, etc who ensnared him, taking
advantage of his simplicity, innocuousness and rawness.
It is sometimes said that Fielding was most unethical in making Tom accept money from Lady Belleston in
return for gratifying her carnal desires. But that was only because of Tom’s delicate financial position and even more
because of his lack of experience and rustic simplicity and innocuousness.
Morevover, as Walter Allen aptly says, “It is not that Fielding approved of Jones sexual conduct; but he did
believe, with many excellent theologians, that other sins were graver than sexual irregularity, among them, malice,
cruelty, meanness, hypocrisy.” (The English novel, repritned, 1957, p. 59). We know that Fielding himself expresses
this view (as a chorus as he acts) in the course of the novel.
According to Cross, W.L. Cross remarks, “Emotions and impulses cannot be relied upon as infallible guides in
conduct; at times it is necessary to listen to sterner and less pleasing voice and to that voice Tom Jones is deaf. But
we may surely mark Fielding’s protest against the letter of the law, and point to the fact that with Tom Jones the

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novel not only definitely assumes a new form, but a new ethics much more respectable than that founded upon.
Utilitarianism and formulated in beautiful and edifying maxims.” (The Development of the English Novel, 1952,
page 51).
To quote Cross again, Cross remarks, “In the moral teaching of Addison and Richardson the emphasis was
placed upon mere conduct and motives so far as they were appealed to were prudential. Do right, that you may
prosper in this world and hope for felicity in the next. That is the general impression gained from their writing.
Fielding appealed to higher motives for right conduct. Virtue, then, is its own reward in the peace that ensues, and
vice carries, with the consequential distrubed conscience, its own punishment.”
(Development of the English Novel, 1952, pp. 49-50).
As we know the whole of the novel Tom Jones is pervaded with the most ethical spirit of Sophia. She must be
considered a model of Fielding’s virtue. Nowhere does she prove to be a flirt. She strongly rejects the hypocritical
Bilfil and not only protests against, but resists with all her might the attempts at molestation of her by the flamboyant
and misguided Lord Fellamar who behaves as he does under the shield and with the connivance and goadings of as
corrupt a lady as Lady Bellaston.
Fielding says in his “Dedication to Lord Lyttleton”, “Besides displaying that beauty of virtue which may attract
the admiration of mankind, I have attempted to engage a stronger motive to human action in her favour, by convincing
men, that their true interest directs them to a pursuit of her. For this purpose I have shewn, that no acquisitions of
guilt can compensate the loss of that solid inward comfort of mind, which is the sure companion of innocence and
virtue; nor can in the least balance the evil of that horror and anxiety which, in their room, guilt introduces into our
bosoms. And again, that as these acquisitions are in themselves generally worthless, so are the means to attain them
not only base and infamous, but at best incertain, and always full of danger. Lastly, I have endeavoured strongly to
inculcate, the virtue and innocence can scarce ever be injured but by indiscretion; and that it is this alone which often
betrays them into the snares that deceit and villainy spread for them. A moral which I have the more industriously
laboured, as the teaching it is, of all others, the likeliest to the attended with success; since, I believed, it is much
easier to make good men wise, than to make bad men good.”
Nor does Fielding believe that there is absence of vice in the country side. As R.P.C. Mutter opines, Fielding
believed in the universality of vice. Indeed, Fielding himself says in Book IV, chapter (7) of Tom Jones:
“The great are deceived, if they imagine they have appropriated ambition and vanity to themselves. These
noble qualities flourish as notable in a country church and churchyard as in the drawing room, or in the closet.
Schemes have indeed been laid in the vestry, which would hardly disgrace the conclave. Here is a ministry, and here
is an opposition. Here are plots and circumventions, parties and factions, equal to those which are to be found in
courts.
Nor are the women here less practised in the highest feminine arts than their fair superiors in quality and
fortune. Here are prudes and coquettes. Here are dressing and ogling, falsehood, envy, malice, scandal; in short,
everything which is common to the most splendid assembly, or politest circle. Let those of high life, therefore, no
longer despise the ignorance of their inferiors; nor the vulgar any longer rail at the vices of their betters.”
Q. 2. Examine the various narrative techniques in Wuthering Heights critically.
Ans. It is common knowledge that there are three methods of telling a story which are employed by the novels:
1. The author himself tells the story in a straight forward intelligible manner.
2. The main character in the novel tells the story in the first person. This method is used by Dickens in David
Copperfield and Great Expectations.

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 3. The employment of a detached observer who narrates the story.
Emily Bronte employs the third method, but she takes the services of two narrators instead of one.
The two narrators: The two narrators employed for the purpose by Emily are:
(i) Mrs Ellen Dean (or Nelly)
(ii) Mr. Lockwood
The two narrators share of story-telling
(i) Lockwood tells the story.
(a) from Chapter 1 to Chapter 3
(b) from Chapter 31 to first half of Chapter 32
(c) concluding few paragraphs.
(ii) Nelly tells the story
(a) from Chapter 4 to 30
(b) from the second half of Chapter 32 to the end (except the concluding few para-graphs)
Thus, the major portions of the story is told by Nelly.
The Major Portion of the Story: The major portion of the story comprises
(i) the history of the two families:
(a) the Earnshaw family, and
(b) the Linton family
(ii) the story of an outsider, Mr. Heathcliff. Thus the main story of the novel is told by Nelly.
Peculiarities of Emily’s Narrative Art: One particular of Emily’s narrative art is that
(i) Nelly tells the main story since she has worked as a housekeeper with both the families, i.e. Earnshaw and
Linton families.
(ii) She relates the story to Lockwood who then reproduces the same to us.
(iii) Thus Lockwood is first a listener (like us) and then a narrator.
(iv) Nelly remembers every little bit of each incident which took place in the two houses.
(v) Lockwood remembers every bit of the story told by Nelly.
(vi) Both Lockwood and Nelly have and exceptionally remarkable memory.
Nelly as a narrator
(i) The great merit in Nelly’s narration is that she has known the characters at first hand. Even though she
takes an active part in furthering the plot, she is impartial and narrates the story in a dispassionate manner.
(ii) Both as the chorus and narrator: Nelly serves two purposes in the novel:
(a) that of a narrator
(b) that of being the chorus
Even Lockwood assures us of her being a fair narrator. In spite of he story being seemingly an incredible or
improbable one, because of Nelly’s position of being an eyewitness, we do not challenge the occurrence of events.
Lockwood as a narrator: Since Lockwood narrates the story after hearing it from Nelly
(i) his detachment becomes more marked.
(ii) he serves as corroborating the story told by Nelly and thus making it doubly credible.
Both Nelly and Lockwood behave as not being emotionally involved in various events in the novel and this
faculty becomes more conspicuous in the case of Lockwood for his being the second and more distant narrator than
Nelly.

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The beginning of the story
(i) The narration starts from near the end of the story. Lockwood starts the story when Heathcliff has already
had his revenge and has no more any desire for it.
(ii) The real start takes place with the beginning of the narration by Nelly in the fourth Chapter. Then the end
is told by Lockwood again near the close of the novel.
Canard’s Technique: Canard took up Emily’s technique and it became very popular thereafter. When Emily
presented the technique of the detached narrator, it was a new experiment in novel writing. Even at present her
technique seems confusing to many because of two narrators who take up narration in an irregular manner.
Demerits of the Technique: (i) The technique of narrator employed by Emily, creates confusion in the minds
of the readers mainly because of the two narrators:
(ii) Reader’s credibility is shaken instead of being enhanced while considering that
(a) Nelly is capable of remembering every bit of each incident and dialogue; and
(b) Lockwood is capable of remembering and recounting each word of information conveyed to him by
Nelly.
(iii) Emily’s narrative powers certainly decline considerably in the second half of the novel which lacks
(a) dramatic situations.
(b) intensity and fervence of the first half.
(c) cripness of the dialogues as in the first half of the novel.
(iv) Neither Nelly nor Lockwood evince any tangible sense of humour to relieve the tension caused by highly
violent incidents, such that critics like G.D. Rossetti are compelled to declare that the events of the novel take place
in hell. Only the names are human.
Certain Good Points: (i) The mention of the souls of Cathy and Heathcliff roaming in the moors adds the
element of supernaturalism to the stark realism of the story and also makes the merger of the two passionate souls
quite logical as the natural sequence of earlier happenings and expressions in the novel.
(ii) A great amount of human psychology has passed into the presentation of the various incidents and it should
be deemed commendable on the part of an inexperienced girl as Bronte was.
(iii) G. Moore is Eight in commenting up the start of the novel and other elements in it:
“Take, for example, the opening. It is eminently sensible; this is no “gothic” beginning. Through the ordinary
pleasant outside, Mr. Lockwood, we are taken inside Wuthering Heights and introduced to a family as different from
Lockwood (and ourselves) as wolves from lapdogs. Like so many modern novels (and perhaps this is partly why we
can appreciate it so much better today) it simulates real life. In real life we have no omniscient–knowledge; we learn
by stages. And so we do in Wuthering Heights. When Lockwood, having made a second trip to the Heights has to
stay at the night in the rooms of the late Catherine Linton (Mr. Earnshaw), the book shifts almost impracticably into
a higher key. In any unforgettable scene we learn that Catherine’s ghost is still wandering on the moors. Convalescing
after his nightmare journey back to Thrushcross Grange, Lockwood’s natural curiosity about the events which led up
to Catherine’s death is fully satisfied by the housekeeper.
Considering Hindley Earnshaw’s treatment of Heathcliff, we understand why the little dark foundling brought
back from Liverpool by old Mr. Earnshaw should be so uncouth and bitter. When he returns as a man, to win
Hindley’s property from him, right is to a certain extent on his side. It is only when he marries Isabella for Edgar
Linton’s property and subsequently treats her so abominably that we recognize what Lockwood has earlier perceived

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as Heathcliff’s “genuine bad nature.” Yet he is no melodramatic villain. No man who loves as he loves can be
thoroughly evil. We stay with Heathcliff until the very end.”
It should gratify the readers to get a novel of the type it is from a girl like Emily who was more of a mystic in
her poetry and was no well-groomed for the job of the novelist. Only the compulsion of driving the wolf from the
door forced her into the profession and even if she did not quite succeed in her efforts, the posterity must be obliged
to her for presenting a unique novel of passion and love even if she is charged with paucity of human elements in its
incidents and narration.
Nelly’s Aberrations. The reader at places feels shocked when the learns about Nelly’s occasional lapses and
betrayals. For instance, she does not let Cathy know that Heathcliff was overhearing us when she said that it would
be degrading for her to marry him. It was she who virtually led Catherine the younger into Heathcliff’s trap and so
on. But without her lapses, the story would have not caught the reader’s interest. On the whole, the role of the
narrators and the narrative technique itself deserve our accolade.
Q. 3. What is your understanding of the Pip-Estella relationship in the Great Expectations? Illustrate with
examples.
Ans. Pip’s love for the cold-hearted beauty Estella is one of the main themes of Dickens’ Great Expectations.
From the first meeting of Pip with Estella, Pip falls victim to believing in appearances. The beautiful, haughty girl
whose name means “star” is elevated in Pip’s esteem simply because she lives with the rich Miss Havisham and is
dressed in lovely clothes and speaks in a deprecating way to him, calling him “common.” Immediately, because
this vision of superior loveliness who speaks properly has termed him “common,” Pip experiences a humiliation.
But, despite her cruel ways, Pip falls hopelessly in love with the beautiful Estella, perhaps even because she is
unattainable. He perpetuates his delusions by hoping that if he becomes a gentleman, Estella will accept him as
an equal and requite his love.
Although Pip refuses to believe Estella’s warnings that she has no heart, the reader finds it no great surprise that
she seems indeed void of such feelings as love and compassion. She never has the opportunity to “forge her own
identity”, she has “[…] no choice but to obey [her] instructions.” In this cruel scheme Pip is a mere guinea pig for
Estella to practice her heart-breaking skills on. Miss Havisham who “[…] wanted a little girl to love and save from
[her] fate” decided to call her Estella which is Spanish for “star”. In this sense, the beautiful girl is raised to be just
as cold and unattainable as the sparkling but ever distant star in the nocturnal sky: “From their first meeting […]
Pip’s attraction for Estella is bound to a sense of her inaccessibility.”
His longing to marry Estella and join the upper classes stems from the same idealistic desire as his longing to
learn to read and his fear of being punished for bad behaviour: once he understands ideas like poverty, ignorance,
and immorality, Pip does not want to be poor, ignorant, or immoral. Pip the narrator judges his own past actions
extremely harshly, rarely giving himself credit for good deeds but angrily castigating himself for bad ones. As a
character, however, Pip’s idealism often leads him to perceive the world rather narrowly, and his tendency to
oversimplify situations based on superficial values leads him to behave badly toward the people who care about him.
When Pip becomes a gentleman, for example, he immediately begins to act as he thinks a gentleman is supposed to
act, which leads him to treat Joe and Biddy snobbishly and coldly.
Often cited as Dickens’s first convincing female character, Estella is a supremely ironic creation, one who
darkly undermines the notion of romantic love and serves as a bitter criticism against the class system in which she
is mired. Raised from the age of three by Miss Havisham to torment men and “break their hearts,” Estella wins Pip’s
deepest love by practicing deliberate cruelty. Unlike the warm, winsome, kind heroine of a traditional love story,

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Estella is cold, cynical, and manipulative. Though she represents Pip’s first longed-for ideal of life among the upper
classes, Estella is actually even lower-born than Pip; as Pip learns near the end of the novel, she is the daughter of
Magwitch, the coarse convict, and thus springs from the very lowest level of society.
Q. 4. How are the issues of race and imperialism woven into the narrative of the Heart of Darkness?
Ans. There are a number of themes in the Heart of Darkness. To name some of them are
1. The theme of all-prevalent evil;
2. The theme of imperialism versus primitivism;
3. The theme of probing of human heart,
4. The theme of self-restraint;
5. The theme of isolation, etc.
All these themes are so intermingled that it is almost impossible to segregate them or study them in isolation.
Still, the effort is worth-marking.
1. The theme of all-pervading evil :
(i) Roman conquest of Britian: In the very beginning of the novel, there is mention of the British conquest of
the Romans. The Romans conquered Britain for sheer “robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale
and men going at it blindly.”
Their aim was nothing but plunder of the subjugated savages and their country.
For that matter, conquest of any nation of another nation is an evil, as it is predominated by the idea of exploitation.
If the aim were humanizing of civilizing, it could be considered excusable at least partially.
(ii) Outside the interview room: When Marlow comes out of the interview room, he sees two women knitting
black wool. They strike ominous to him, being the Fates, spinning human destiny.
(iii) The “Whited Sepulchre”: Marlow refers to Brussels as the “whited sepulchre” which means a place pure
and simple in appearance, but full of evil and vices within.
(iv) Nature’s description:
(a) Even nature in the dark continent seems to be evil. It embosses dark clouds, dark fog, dark bushes and
foliage. There is intense heat which makes everybody (except the manager) sick.
(b) The atmosphere of stillness and surrounding wilderness were mysterious and apalling.
(iv) A strange journey: Marlow had felt from the very beginning and all along that he was:
(a) going to the centre of the earth;
(b) travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world;
(c) going into the heart of darkness farther and farther.
(v) Depressing right: There were many depressing rights:
(a) a warship firing guns aimlessly;
(b) lots of black people, naked, moving like ants;
(c) a boilder uselessly lying in grass;
(d) pieces of machinery scattered here and there.
(e) blasting of the rock without any purpose or necessity;
(f) men chained together for violating laws;
(g) people dying under the trees;
(h) the cannibals dying for want of food.

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 (vi) Description of white men :
The white men were almost all evil in nature. They were idlers who were busy in plotting against one- another,
indulging in ivory trade and waiting for their promotion. They had no sympathy with the natives :
(a) The manager had “nothing within this man.”
(b) The brick-maker was a “papier-mache Mephistopheles” which means a vertiable devil.
(c) Kurtz was a “hollow man”.
(d) The Europeans in general were “faithless pilgrms.”
(vii) Kurtz : The specific symbol
Thus Kurtz, in particular, symbolised all the evil which Conrad meant to depict.
(a) He had unspeakable rites, which meant human sacrifice, sexual orgies and the like although he talked of his
“immense plains.”
(b) He had enslaved the natives not only physically but also mentally : they worshipped him as a god.
(c) In his heart of hearts there was nothing but the greed for ivory which he could get by enslaving the natives.
(d) His greed for ivory and evil nature come specifically to focus when we learn how once he was ready to
shoot his best friend, the Russian.
(e) There is some poetic justice in Kurtz’s final realization of his sin and evil when he utters the words: “The
horror ! The horror ! at the time of his death. Conrad’s exploration of evil is thus summed up by Walter Allen :
“Conrad’s furthest exploration of evil is his short story, Heart of Darkness (1902), which describes a voyage up
the Congo into the heart of Africa closely resembling a journey Conrad had made. The heart of darkness of the title
is at once the heart of Africa, the heart of evil–everything that is nihilistic, corrupt, and maglign– and perhaps the
heart of man. The story is told by Conrad’s famous narrator Marlow and, within its positively dense atmosphere of
death, decay, and the cruelties of imperialistic exploitation, it relates the effect on Marlow of the blackness of Africa,
its otherness – everthing that lies beyond the concept of fidelity–and of the presence, terrifying even when unseen,
of Mr. Kurtz, the figure of evil who is worshipped by the natives as a god. It is nearly a story of diabolical possession,
for Marlow is complelled to face the fact that in some mysterious way there is bond between himself and Kurtz.
Kurtz, who by comparison with the ordinary commercial exploiters of Africa, even has an evil grandeur, is the man
Marlow might become. ‘It is strange,’ Marlow says, ‘how I accepted this unforeseen partnership, this choice of
nightmares forces upon me in the teneborus land invaded by these mean and greedy phantoms. He is freed by Kurtz’s
death; but when he returns to Europe he finds it shrouded in the darkness symbolized by Africa and the mean and
greedy phantoms battening on it.”
Needless to say, it is a foregone conclusion that Conrad’s depiction in the novel is meant to warn the civilized
section of society not to fall a prey to the evils of savagery while coming into contact with it or while trying to exploit
the ignorant savage.
2. The theme of imperialism :
(i) Roman conquest. The theme of imperialism is closely knit with that of evil. It too starts with Marlow’s
narrations concerning the Roman conquest of Britian.
(ii) Idea of conquest. The very idea of conquest and subjugation of one nation by the other through any excuse
– the excuse of superiority or a master race or fairer complexion or pleasanter physical features and the like, is in
itself the child of evil inherent in man individual or racial capacity in the name of nationalism, humanisation or
otherwise.

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 (iii) British sway: When Conrad wrote his novels, British was holding its sway over major part of Asia or was
extending its arms to hold that sway and new regions in Africa were being explored. The black races were being
subjugated and exploited by the white men with the pretext of providing civilization to them. So, imperialism was
the order of the day in Europe and Conrad was one of the writers who exposed hypocritical concepts.
Belgian trading companies
(a) In the novel, we have the Belgian Trading Companies sending their agents to Congo to collect ivory which
had no value in Africa, but was being used for making ornamnetal objects in Europe and fetched rich value there.
(b) East India Company: East India Company which came to India could be considered a counterpart of the
Belgain Trading Companies as it was equally exploitative in nature.
(v) Ivory : The symbol of greed, evil and imperialism: In the novel, ivory is a symbol of greed, evil and
imperialism.
(a) New regions in Africa were being explored to agument the sources of ivory.
(b) The officer who could send large qualities of ivory to the company, got promotion.
(c) Mr. Kurtz who sent the largest quantity of ivory was held in high esteem by the company.
(d) Ivory became the mother of intrigues scheming and even crimes, including murder.
(e) Almost every character in the novel is talking about ivory in one way or the other.
(vi) Ill-treatment of the natives : The natives were reated brutally :
(a) The cannibal crew of the steamer were given no wages, but only some wires of copper such that they were
starving.
(b) To Marlow the native men looked like ants.
(c) Marlow saw criminals chained together with heavy loads on their heads.
(d) Some black men under the trees were just dying of starvation.
(e) The white men were totally indifferent to their lot.
(vii) Bootless activites of the white men: The white men posed to have come to civilize the black men. But
actually they were exploiting them. They were busy in useless activities–
(a) The white man with sticks in their hands were purposelessy wandering hither and thither.
(b) It was given out that a railway line was being laid in Congo and a rock was being blast with gun-powder
even when it did not stand in the way of the region for the track.
(c) A warship was firing aimlessly just to cause scarce among the natives.
(d) Many precious things like machines, rails, etc were rotting for disuse while just even a small rivet was not
available to Marlow to bring out repairs of the steamer.
(e) The brick-maker had not made a single brick, but was only spying for the manager.
(viii) Kurtz’s case : Mr. Kurtz was the embodiment of not only evil in general, but ugly imperalism in its full
shape :
(a) He had expounded the theory : “Exterminate all the brutes.”
(b) He had thrown all his noble motives to the winds and himself became a savage.
(c) He had lost all “self-restraint” and was now freely indulging in his “unspeakable rites.”
(d) He had become a god to the savages and an undisputed ruler over them, such that he could kill anybody.
(e) He hung the heads and skulls of those who disobeyed him on the poles outside his residence to ring a
warning to all and sundry.

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 (f) His sole aim was only the collection of ivory and promotion.
(g) In fact, every white officer hankered after ivory and promotion.
(h) Mr. Kurtz believed that everything there belonged to him and that he belonged to none or nothing.
3. The theme of probing the human heart subconscious mind or soul
The Heart of Darkness is not only a journey into Cango, but also into human heart, mind or soul. Marlow while
narrating the journey, also presents the probing of his heart.
According to R.A. Gekoski : “Heart of Darkness is one of Conrad’s most ambiguous and difficult stories, a
tale which has captivated critics with its profuse imagery and philosophical and psychological suggestiveness. It
seems almost deliberately constructed in order to provide employment to teachers, critics, and editors of literary
case-books. There are as many “readings” of the story as its Mr. Kurtz has tusks of ivory – many of them gained by
similarly “unsound method”. Its imagery has been described in detail, resonances from Dante, Milton, the Bible, the
Upanishads, invoked; its philosphical position is argued variously to be Schopenhauerian, Nietzschian, nihilist
existentialist, or Christian, its physchology, Freudian, Jungian, Adlerian, or Laingian. That the story has been so
comprehensively understood, would have surprised Conrad who was concerned that it might prove elusive even to
his most sympathetic readers; he wrote to Cunninghame Graham at the time the story was being serialized:
“There are two more instalments in which the idea is so wrapped up in secondary notions that you–even you!
may miss it.”
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad takes his deepest look into the human condition, and comes to perhaps his most
pessimistic conclusions on the various and incompatable pressures that can be imposed on the human spirit.
The readings that the story has given rise to are a testimonial not only to the power and range of its concerns,
but to their elusiveness.”
Thus in the novel, we find two kinds of reality:
(i) External reality;
(ii) Intrnal reality.
(i) External Reality: It concerns incidents, persons, natural scenes and phenomena.
(iii) Internal Reality: It pertains to Marlow’s inner thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, sentiments and probings
of mental processes.
Explanation
External Reality versus Internal Reality
(a) Marlow considered Brussels a “white sepulchre” which meant that outwardly the city looked beautiful,
charming and holy, but inwardly it was full of corruption, disgust and impurity.
(b) As he saw the two women putting black wool, he felt they were knitting the desting of human beings.
(c) The doctor who examined Marlow, told him that he measured explorers skills before and after their journey
to study the effect of changed atmosphere on their brains. He further asked him if there was any history of madness
in his family.
(d) Marlow could judge the manager, “there is nothing in this fellow.”
(e) The brick-maker was very talkative, but Marlow could judge that he was a “papier-mache Mephistopheles”.
(f) The Europeans who posed to be busy furthering development, were actually doing nothing. To Marlow, they
seemed “faithless pilgrims.”
(g) Marlow himself says, “We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness.”

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 (h) Kurtz had been mentioned as a humane, remarkable man, “a universal genius and the like, but finally, he
turned out to be nothing, but an embodiment of evil.”
(i) Marlow says at one place: “We live, as we dream – alone.”
Marlow’s Specific Reflections
(i) About the white men: He thought they were “faithless pilgrims,” just idlers.
(ii) About the helmsman: That he was a hard-working fellow.
(iii) About the cannibals: The cannibals were starving. Still, they did not eat the white men who were far
fewer in number. It was only because of their instinct of self-restrict.
(iv) About the scribblings on the book : That no man is free from troubles.
(v) About Kurtz : Although Marlow felt loyalty to Kurtz, yet he was not very late in realizing that he was only
an embodiment of evil.
(vi) About the Russian : That he was a nice man and he helped in making good his escape.
(vii) About Kurtz’s intended : That she was a good, innocent sincere girl and for the sake of her happiness, he
even told a lie which he otherwise might not have told.
In one of the most important passages in novel, Conrad says—The mind of man is capable of anything—
because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all ? Joy, fear sorrow, devotion,
valour, rage – who can tell ? – but truth – truth stripped of its cloak time. Let the fool gape and shudder—the man
knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet
that truth with his one-true stuff – with his own inborn strength. Principles won’t do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty
rags – rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No, you want a deliberate belief.
Thus says Eloise Knapp Hay,
“The work is not formally tragic, but I think this is for different reasons that those given, says, by Leavis.
Conrad makes the story centre in Marlow, who neither acts decisively nor suffers conclusively. Because the story’s
important revelation is Kurtz, and Kurtz does drink the whole cup of agony for his crimes, there is a tragic scene
within the narrative. But Conrad is more concerned with a member of the audience whom he brings upon the stage
in Marlow. Sophocles might have done the same with a member of his chorus of citizens. All modern tragedy, from
at least as early as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, has learnings in this direction, transferring our care from the men who
perform the acts of villainy to an innocent bystander who is compromised and then expected to react in a manner
appropriate to the evil discovered.
Marlow’s response is superb, once we agree that he is compromised by Kurtz and that he does act appropriately.
His guilt grows with his gradual submission to Kurtz, which is gradual submission to Europe’s atrocious presumptions
in “dark” lands. No less than Oedipus, he gouges his eyes out, inflicting the lie upon himself and then crawling back
for shelter to the “beautiful world” that must, when the story ends, continue in blissful ignorance of waiting nemesis.
It won’t strike in Marlow’s lifetime or in Conrad’s. There is no single figure – like the “eminent and prosperous”
Greek hero—to bear the whole burden of his society’s crime and to expiate it with his own ruin. The ancient gods
were sometimes satisfied with the sacrifie of a single hero, but modern politics is a hungrier despot and more
inclined to take its revenges slowly.”
Wayne E. Haskin points out very appty : “Heart of Darkness is one of literature’s most sombre fictions. It
explores the fundamental questions about man’s nature : his capacity for evil ; the necessity for restraint ; the effect
of physical darkness and isolation on a civilized soul; and the necessity for relinquishing pride for one’s own spiritual

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salvation. E.M. Forster’s censure of Conrad may be correct in many ways, but it refuses to admit that through such
philosophical ruminations Conrad has allowed generations of readers to ponder humanity’s own heart of darkness.”
4.Theme of Self-restraint :
(i) Self-restraint is observed by the ignorant cannibals who even while starving, do not eat the white men.
(ii) It is not observed by the white men who inflict untold cruelties on the black men.
5. Theme of isolation : It has been dealt with elsewhere at some length.
Q. 5. How does Muriel Spark handle time in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?
Ans. Spark’s characters are interiorized. This means that they are involved in a search for the self that accom-
modates both personal fulfilment and political or social claims. Personal obsessions guide those characters. They
turn their lives into channels of self-righteous imagination and bring about their destruction.
Miss Brodie is one of the characters who is an accentric spinster and school teacher. She has fine judgement of
character and specializes in organising the lives of the Brodie set. She dislikes team spirit which contravens individual
freedom. She thinks herself that she can seek the beginning and end of ther proteges. She resists all questions which
question her unorthodox methods. Her pupils also carry this impression. They are unquestioning and uncritical
absorbing all that she says. These characters take a hostile stand against those who intrude in the classroom and
appear to change the ways of Miss Brodie.
Miss Brodie emanates from those parents who could be trusted “not to lodge complaints about the more
advanced and seditious aspects of her educational policy.” She shares also personal equation with Brodie set. She
was ready to go where even her parents feared to treat. Brodie took them to the world of art by explaining them the
feats of Italian Renaissance painters. They developed appreciation for operas and also understood the temprament of
devoted artist like Anna Pavlova and Sybil Thorndike. Miss Brodie invited them to meals and in this way developed
in the girls a sense of indebtness. She used that sense for her personal advantage.
Miss Brodie had a great hold over the girls. It is observed in her machinations and manipulations regarding the
future of Rose and Sandy. Miss Brodie oversteps the limits when she is found manipulating situations in order to
make Rose Mr. Lloyd’s lover. She says that Rose’s instinct would particularly appeal to the art master. Miss Brodie
than convinces Sand that she would be ideal informant on the Lloyd-Rose liasm. But Sandy does not agree and
rejects the teacher’s plan.
The relationship between Miss Brodie and Mr. Lowther does not last long. This is due to the fact that the very
base of the relationship was deceipt and fraud. Miss Brodie convinces her student that her aim was that falling health
of Mr. Lowther did not deteriorate further, but improve. Mr. Lowther suffered from bad health due to the departure
of old housekeeper and non-availability of her replacement for a long time. The Kerr sisters keep Mr. Lowther on
tenterhooks and after that started neglecting him thinking that she could marry him at any time. But she feels a great
shock. Mr. Lowther is engaged to Miss Lockheart, a science teacher.
When war clouds were howering over Europe, the idealogy of Miss Brodie proved to be a failure. She believed
in fascim and praised Mussolini and Hitler. For these beliefs, Sandy betrays her. She thinks that the Girl Guides are
her rivals who will disband Brodie set. She is unable to understand that she is coming in between the idependence of
others. She has a false notion that whoever so comes in her way will surrender to her. In this way, she believes in
abusing power. But she fails in her motive and loses her control on others. The pathos of the downfall and the
importance of her defeat is conveyed through a desciption of her sitting “Shrivelled and betrayed in her long preserved
dark musquash coat and her blind groping for the real identity of her betrayer.”
Sandy also exhibits propensities of psychological and moral growth. She is in search for self. It leads her
through many diverse experiences and ultimately she becomes a nun. Spark has created Sandy to offset Brodie. She
goes on a mission that in the very beginning questions, after that defies, and in the end betrays Miss Brodie for what
she is. From the very beginning, Sandy starts investigating Miss Brodie’s weakness. She relies on her experience,

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images and conscience to help her in this quest. In the beginning, she only tentatively assents to Miss Brodie’s
ideology and thinking. First of all, she distrubs her class by asking Marry to give an incorrect answer. Then she walks
with her head bent back gazing at the ceiling and telling Miss Brodie that she is imitating the big actress Sybil
Thorndike and purposely keeps away from Miss Brodie’s tea party after going through the Edinburgh slums. She
does all that to watch Miss Brodie’s reactions to subtle forms of defiance. Sandy is often told of that one day she
“will to too far” by surpassing the limits given by the teacher to her girls. As the time passes, Sandy’s experience of
Miss Brodie’s domination over the girls is supplemented by images that reinforce her opinion. When Mr. Lloyds
kisses Miss Brodie in the art room after school hours, Sandy starts thinking about the sexual aspect of Miss Brodie’s
love. Jenny reports about the incident. She is the only one in the Brodie’s set who is able to identify the image of the
teacher in any figure that Mr. Lloyd claims to paint Sandy, in this way, concludes that Miss Brodie had a passion and
sexual yearning for the married art teacher could not be fulfilled.
Emily Joyce’s goes to fight in Spanish civil war for General Franco where she meets a tragic end. Sandy revolts
against Miss Brodies doctrine. She tells Miss Mackay that Miss Brodies has fascist views that her actions constitute
authorial agreement. Spark agrees with Sandy in some aspects, enters a convent, and publishes pychological treatise
which is known as “The Transfiguration of the Commonplace.” Sandy is not much different than Miss Brodies. She
is on many ways identical with Miss Brodie. Her sense of personal guilt and revenge hound her, which reflect in her
picture as sister Helena.
Both Miss Brodie and Sandy feel isolated at the later years of their lives. Miss Brodie is shaken by the knowledge
that she has been betrayed. She meets her never knowing what the real cause was of her tragic end. Sandy, who later
becomes a nun and known as sister Helena, lives, and achieves fame but she is always aware of cruelly betraying a
woman to whom she could never recount the past. Both Miss Brodie and Sandy arouse the compassing and outrage
of the readers. They openly stand against the conventions both in public and personal life. But they cannot perceive
and counter their destructive capabilities.
The other characters in the novel are peripherial. They only highlight the interaction between Miss Brodie and
Sandy. Monica Douglas, Rose Stanley, Eunice Gardiner, Jenny Gray and Mary Macgregor were the six girls in the
Brodie Set. They symbolically emphasise the strength of the personality. These figures stand for flexibility and
conformity to Miss Brodie’s visions of them in the time to come. They have the spirit to challenge her and at the
same time remain her docile admire even after schooling. Like Miss Brodie, they can simply speculate about the
identity of the person who betrayed Miss Brodie and brought about her embarassing displacement from the school.
The readers came accross with only two male characters in the play. They are Mr. Lloyd the art master and Mr.
Lowther, the singing teacher. They have been depicted as satellites of Miss Brodie who satisfy her physical and
emotional needs. She interacts with these two persons as man to man. But they do not take her attitude in the same
spirit. They treat her woman first and any thing else afterwards. It causes rivalary between them. Miss Brodie is
inclined to Mr. Lloyd. Mr. Lloyd is a married gentleman. He can afford only to indulge in Clandestine meetings.
Sandy and Jenny happen to see one such meeting between them. Miss Brodie and Lloyds nurture their affections, but
they are never open about it. Mr. Lowther serves to camouflage Miss Brodie’s true affection and by and by goes out
of her life. In her private life also, she is thwarted by social concerns. She is unable to express her soft corner. Her
nearness to Mr. Lowther, is known but since there is no evidence to it, Miss Brodies escapes with social censure.
Other personalities in the novel appear to the insipid and uninspiring. They have been knowingly presented in
this manner to highlight the strength. The technique also highlights the clash of perception.

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