A Noiseless Patient Spider

Walt Whitman

A noiseless patient spider,

I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

This poem was written by Walt Whitman, a great American poet. A Noiseless Patient
Spider is famous for its themes of isolation and struggle. It was first published in
1891. The poem unfolds the story of a lonely spider, which the poet examines so
carefully. It illustrates how the spider tries to connect things while weaving its
web.

In this poem, the speaker observes a noiseless, patient spider on a promontory (a

rock outcropping over the ocean). It leaves a mark on its vast surroundings by
weaving its web. In the second stanza, the speaker compares the spider to his soul,
which is always trying to make connections in the world. He addresses his soul,
encouraging it to keep spinning because when "the gossamer thread [it] flings
[catches] somewhere...", it will build the necessary bridges.

This poem is made up of two stanzas of five lines each. As usual, there is no set meter
or rhyme scheme. The separation of stanzas in this poem represents a shift from
literal (the speaker watching the spider make its web on the rock) to figurative
(the speaker addressing his soul's attempts to make connections in the world). The
aim of the poem is to draw the comparison between the speaker's soul and the
spider, which is why the two stanzas mirror each other in size and structure.
In this poem, Whitman makes excellent use of imagery and metaphor. The speaker
starts by vividly describing the experience of watching the spider weave its web,
allowing the reader to share his fascination. In the second stanza, he elevates
these images into metaphors for his soul's figurative desires: "to the bridge you
will need be formed" and "till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere."
Even the title of the poem is a descriptive image; the phrase "A noiseless patient
spider" invokes the image of this tiny creature sitting perfectly still, waiting for
its moment.

In this poem, the spider and the speaker's soul both face a similar plight. They must
use their skills to build connections, searching for meaningful and effective bonds.

In this poem, the writer is comparing the life of a noiseless patient spider to his own
life and his lost, detached soul. The writer may be implying that if he were more
patient with his own life, he would not be so lost and would be able to enjoy things
the way he sees this spider enjoying what he does: launching filament and making
webs. In the first stanza, the writer describes how this spider can and does spin
these webs as a pathway to experience the world, and how he is "ever tirelessly
speeding them.” The spider never gives up and never loses hope because he knows
what he wants to do and what he has to do to survive and go on living. He is ever
dedicated to what he knows is what he is obligated to do, the only thing he has
ever known to do.

The second stanza is left to describe how the writer's soul is detached
in"measureless oceans of space," and meant to describe how Walt Whitman feels
about his hopeless future. It seems he is talking directly to his soul, stating that
he must "seek the spheres to connect his soul," and there is a need for a bridge to be
formed before his soul can become attached to himself. He needs to fling gossamer
thread to do this, just like the spider. The writer is comparing the life of a spider
to his own experiences of trying to find his soul that he sees as being surrounded by
this measureless ocean of space. Also the word measureless being used here, the
word unmeasurable seems to be the more proper way to state that. And maybe the
writer used measureless instead to draw attention from the reader to this
statement, meaning the writer saw it as an important line in the poem. His view of
his soul.

Questions
1. How do Emerson and Whitman conceptualize nature and individuality.
2. Elucidate the human-nature relationship expressed by Emerson and
Whitman.

Walt Whitman considered Ralph Waldo Emerson as his ‘master’. They were both
great writers of that period.
The spider symbolically represents an explorer. It is the quality of the explorer
not to get tired while exploring vast surrounding. The explorer, the scientist, or
the philosopher is like the spider who stands isolated, but patiently they try to
connect themselves with vacant surrounding. For some explorer, search of
invisible, unknown and unidentified becomes the subject of curiosity. Only those
people can be successful to connect themselves to the measureless world who
work tirelessly, holding patience with them. The poet is trying to idolize an insect
spider. Actually, the spider is a symbol for all them who works continuously and
are isolated from others.
In the poem the spider has been used as an analogy to refer to the restlessness of
the human soul. As the speaker noticed, a noiseless patient spider stood isolated on
a little cliff to explore the vacant and vast surrounding. It went on launching
filament out of itself tirelessly. It tried to connect those filaments to each other.
The spider had vigor, patient, and energetic in speeding his work. These things are
the support to the basic philosophy of Whitman as “human soul is immortal and it
is always in a state of progressive development”. This very idea of ever developing
and expanding human soul is compared with the extended metaphor of “a noiseless
patient spider” in the poem.
This whole poem is an extended metaphor that compares the spider and the soul of
Whitman. They are both lonely and searching for the way to go and something to
connect with. The purpose of this is to emphasize that the spider is lonely and
isolated. Whitman projects the quality of his soul onto the nature of the spider.
He explains through his poem how his soul searches like the spider that releases
filaments in search for stable grounding, and much like the spider his soul too
never rests or gives up hope of finding something. This creates a direct connect
that humans have with nature and Whitman uses it to better understand what is
inside by projecting it outside.

3. Comment on the concept of universal self and individual self as brought

out in Whitman’s prescribed poem.
4. How does ‘A Noiseless Patient Spider’ reveal the ephemeral connection
between the human soul and the world?
The spider symbolically represents an explorer. It is the quality of the explorer
not to get tired while exploring vast surroundings. The explorer, the scientist, or
the philosopher is like the spider who stands isolated, but patiently they try to
connect themselves with vacant surroundings. For some explorers, search of
invisible, unknown and unidentified becomes the subject of curiosity. Only those
people can be successful to connect themselves to the measureless world who
work tirelessly, holding patience with them. The poet is trying to idolize an insect
spider. Actually, the spider is a symbol for all those who work continuously and
are isolated from others.
In the poem the spider has been used as an analogy to refer to the restlessness of
the human soul. As the speaker noticed, a noiseless patient spider stood isolated on
a little cliff to explore the vacant and vast surrounding. It went on lunching
filament out of itself tirelessly. It tried to connect those filaments to each other.
The spider had vigor, patient, and energetic in speeding his work. These things are
the support to the basic philosophy of Whitman as “human soul is immortal and it
is always in a state of progressive development”. This very idea of ever developing
and expanding human soul is compared with the extended metaphor of “a noiseless
patient spider” in the poem.
This whole poem is an extended metaphor that compares the spider and the soul of
Whitman. They are both lonely and searching for the way to go and something to
connect with Whitman uses his description of the spider as, “a noiseless, patient
spider” , as personification of the spider. People are normally described as noiseless
and patient, not spiders, making the spider seem more like a person. He does this to
add to the effect of the metaphor that he uses in the poem. He also uses
alliteration in describing the spider when he says, “vacant, vast surrounding” . The
purpose of this is to emphasize that the spider is lonely and isolated. Using
alliteration again, Whitman then says, “it launch'd forth filament, filament,
filament, out of itself” . He uses this alliteration to add to the image of the spider
repeatedly launching its webs trying to find something to connect to. Next,
Whitman uses an apostrophe when he says, “O my Soul” . He addresses his soul in
order to introduce the other half of his metaphor and to introduce it as a living
thing by addressing it directly. He also makes his soul seem living by personifying it
when he says, “ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing”
As a poem of two halves, Whitman’s poem ‘A Noiseless Patient Spider’ initially
appears to be an observation of a solitary spider, diligently and committedly
constructing its web in empty space. However, through the themes of loneliness
and isolation, Whitman’s analogy of the spider allows for the transformation
from the abstract to the tangible and real when attempting to describe the
speaker’s soul. Through this, we gain a sense of an organic ‘opening up’ as the poem
progresses, where Whitman can begin with a small spider and by the end arrive at
and connect with the concept of the soul and its purpose. The effect of repetition
and paralleling is vital to Whitman’s poem. Immediately we find that the opening
line of the poem, “A noiseless patient spider” is repetition of the title. This indicates
that Whitman perhaps desired to pay particular emphasis to the importance of his
‘main character’ of the poem i.e. the spider. The result of this being that the image
of the spider is established from the outset, which is the first point of reference to
later themes. However, the secondary effect of this repetition is the appreciative
tone it conveys, as though almost adopting the form of an ode to the spider.
Whitman further uses repetition throughout his poem, such as ‘filament, filament,
filament’ in the first stanza act to imitate this idea of the spider repeatedly
spinning its web. Supported in the succeeding line through the use of ‘ever
unreeling’ and ‘ever tirelessly’, Whitman transmits ideas of loneliness and
repetitive work, which cause a reaction of sympathy towards the spider and in
turn help the relation to
the soul later in the poem. Paralleling arises in Whitman’s poem in the descriptions
of surroundings. Where in the first stanza the spider is placed on a ‘little
promontory […] isolated’ and in the ‘vacant vast surrounding’, this is paralleled
when the focus shifts to the speaker’s soul, which is similarly ‘detached, in
measureless oceans of space’. Whitman’s employment of similarly semantically
charged words to describe both of his ‘characters’ is particularly successful in
bringing about this middle point by which we can draw comparisons between the
tiny creature and a concept so immaterial as the soul.

In brief, he sees an example of himself in nature (the spider). Elaborate on how he

mirrors the two paragraphs to explain the connection and similarities of his soul
to that of a patient spider.

Points to note:
● Both the spider and the poet's souls are lonely and looking for a connection.
● They are lost in the midst of their vacant surroundings and speeding
filament after filament looking for some meaningful connections.
● Both the spider and the soul like explorers do not tire of exploring their
vast surroundings.
● Like the spider the soul too must be patient to connect itself with the
measureless surroundings.
● Like the spider the human soul too is in a state of progressive development
(even if the web breaks it starts over and does not stop).
● He uses the concept of tangible (the spider) to abstract (the soul) to make
his message more effectful.
● He uses repetition to further emphasis on important points, like when he
describes the relentlessness and tireless effort of the spider to build a web
by saying it launched “filament, filament, filament”
● The spider is on a little rock isolated from its vacant vast surroundings,
like the soul that is detached from the measureless oceans of space
surrounding it.

5. Comment on the connection between the spider and the human soul in
Whitman’s prescribed poem.
In this poem, the speaker observes a noiseless, patient spider on a promontory. It
leaves a mark on its vast surroundings by weaving its web. In the second stanza, the
speaker compares the spider to his soul, which is always trying to make
connections in the world. He addresses his soul, encouraging it to keep spinning
because when "the gossamer thread [it] flings [catches] somewhere...", it will build
the necessary bridges.

In “A Noiseless Patient Spider”, Walt Whitman compares the images of a spider

creating a web to catch its prey to his own soul. In the first stanza, he describes
the spider creating its web. In the second stanza, he begins to describe his own soul
searching for something it needs. Throughout the poem, Whitman is relating the
spider to the human soul by showing how both would pursue and capture what
they need to continue to exist in this life.

In line one, “A noiseless, patient spider” shows a spider that seems to be waiting for
what it is searching for. Perhaps it is waiting for a chance to strike at its prey if it
were detected in time. The soul seems to be doing nearly the same thing when
Whitman says the soul is “ceaselessly musing” (line 8). Musing is when someone is
pondering about something in silence. Both images are being described as moving in
careful silence. The spider seems to be planning to trick the prey into being caught.
Perhaps whatever the soul is looking for must be tricked into being caught. If both
were to let their presence be known, their elusive prey may disappear.
In order for either the spider or the soul to capture its prey, first they both must
create a way to trap what they need and trick it into being caught. “It launch'd
forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, ever unreeling them, ever
tirelessly speeding them” (lines 4-5). These lines are describing the spider while it
makes its web. The poet uses the word “tirelessly” to show that the spider must
complete its task of finding sustenance in order to survive.

The spider and the soul are alike in how they search for what will continue their
existence. For the spider, it is waiting patiently as he tries to find a way to trap his
prey in order to continue its life. As for the soul, it must be patient and hold on to
what it knows as religious truth as it waits to be nourished by the one that it
truly serves. Both the spider and the soul must hold onto their anchor in order
to wait for their prey. Once it is spotted, they must move quickly to it in order to
ensure that they catch it. Once it is within their grasp, their existence may
continue. But, if they are sidetracked by what goes on in their immediate
surroundings instead of concentrating on their prey, then they may lose their
opportunity for life. That is why the spider and the soul must be patient, noiseless,
and ever ready to obtain what they have hunted for so long.

This whole poem is an extended metaphor that compares the spider and the soul of
Whitman. They are both lonely and searching for the way to go and something to
connect with. The purpose of this is to emphasize that the spider is lonely and
isolated. Using alliteration, Whitman then says, “it launch'd forth filament,
filament, filament, out of itself” . He uses this alliteration to add to the image of
the spider repeatedly launching its webs trying to find something to connect to.
Next, Whitman uses an apostrophe when he says, “O my Soul” . He addresses his soul
in order to introduce the other half of his metaphor and to introduce it as a
living thing by addressing it directly. He also makes his soul seem living by
personifying it when he says, “ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing”. The
personification of both the spider and his soul together help connect the two in
the metaphor. The tone of this poem is lonely and helpless as the narrator is
searching for something his soul can connect with. The descriptions of the spider
and his soul both include words that show this tone like isolated and surrounded.
There is a big shift in the poem from line 5 to line 6. The first half of the poem is
describing the spider and its struggles to find something to attach its web to. In the
second half, Whitman never mentions the spider again but shifts to describing his
soul which is the other half of a metaphor comparing the spider and his soul. The
title of the poem, “A Noiseless, Patient Spider”, actually means that the poem is
about a spider searching for a start to its web and how this connects to the lonely
soul of Walt Whitman. The theme of this poem is that Whitman feels that his soul is
isolated from the real world. The purpose of the extended metaphor in the poem
was to bring to the attention of the reader this theme. The spider and the soul are
both isolated and can't find something to grasp onto.

The soul and the spider connections with quotations from the poem:
● Themes of loneliness, struggle and detachment from the world is used by
Whitman to compare the soul and the spider
● Usage of personification of the soul and spider help connect them in a
metaphor
● The spider “on a little promontory it stood isolated” like the soul that is
“Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space”- detached and
isolated.
● The spider is exploring the “vacant, vast surroundings” like the soul
surrounded by “measureless oceans of space”.
● The spider is launching “filament, filament, filament”, like the soul that is
“venturing, throwing, seeking”.
● The spider that is “unreeling them” (the filaments), endlessly spinning them,
“tirelessly speeding” without giving up, like the soul that is “ceaselessly
 musing”, endlessly pondering, thinking, constantly exploring and growing.
Progressively developing.
● The spider and the soul are both seeking to create a bridge that will attach
them to the world. They are spinning gossamer threads, flinging them to
create a web of connections hoping it will anchor somewhere and find
meaning.
A SUPERMARKET IN CALIFORNIA
By Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the side
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia
Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the
meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price
bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and
followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting
artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does
your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel
absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in
driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did
you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and
stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Summary:
Tonight I've been thinking about you, Walt Whitman. I walked down the tree-lined and moonlit street,
feeling self-conscious. In my strange state of longing and exhaustion, I went to the brightly-lit
supermarket as much for the visual stimuli as for the food. All the while, I was thinking about your
poetry, Walt Whitman. The aisles of the supermarket were full of fruit and shadows. Whole families
were shopping—husbands, wives, babies—all moving among the fruits and vegetables. I even saw
Federico García Lorca among the watermelons.
I spotted you in the meat section, Walt Whitman, looking like an old childless weirdo. You were looking
at the male members of staff and asking questions about the source of the meat, the cost of bananas,
and which one of them might have been your angel. I followed you around the store's garish displays
of goods, and imagined the suspicious security guard following us. We walked together without a care
in the world, trying any and every item we wanted without ever intending to pay.
It's time for us to leave, Walt Whitman, the store closes in an hour—so where are we going? I suddenly
feel embarrassed about this ridiculous daydreaming about our epic supermarket journey. Are we going
to walk together through the empty night? The trees make the night even darker and there are no
lights on in the houses, so we'll feel quite alone. Will we imagine a better America as we pass identical
cars and houses on our way to our silent little home? Oh wise poet, what was America like when you
died—when Charon the boatman delivered you to the land of the dead?
The Poet
The poem ‘A Supermarket in California’ was written by Allen Ginsberg, a leader of the Beat
Generation, while living in Berkeley, California in 1955.
Ginsberg's poetry, for example, deals with the tensions between rural ideals of the American
Romantic poets and the reality of poverty, industrialization, and urban blight that faced
maligned urban groups in the mid-twentieth century. Ginsberg, like his fellow Beat poets, felt
that he simply could not belong in modern America.

Analysis
Ginsberg enters the garish, brightly-lit supermarket and has a vision of Walt Whitman, a 19th-
century American poet, whose work he has been reading. Whitman, for his part, acts almost
like an alien placed on Earth from outer space; the supermarket environment doesn't make
sense to his 19th-century perspective. The speaker imagines playfully tasting the produce and
not paying for any of it, before asking more searching and philosophical questions of his poet
guide. He wonders whether America has grown too preoccupied with consumerism and a
money-orientated way, and in doing so if the country has lost its way and its capacity to love.
The poem ends with an image of Whitman in the underworld, suggesting that Whitman's
idealistic and romantic vision of America is probably already dead.

The poem rejects American consumerism—a way of life that places great importance on buying
and owning things, on being a customer with money to spend and endless options to choose
from. Feeling that he doesn’t fit in with a world of shiny shopping aisles and identical houses
and cars, the speaker (generally treated as Ginsberg himself) finds kinship in the figure of Walt
Whitman—one of the founding figures in American poetry. Through his vision of Whitman, the
speaker senses an alternative America. And though the poem never defines this alternative
vision for the country outright, it mourns the “lost America of love”—what the nation once
was, or could have become.

Themes
Consumerism / Commodification
Ginsberg saw the economic commodification of society as one of the great ills of modern life. In
his poem, "A Supermarket in California," Ginsberg goes into a supermarket to try and find the
natural beauty of the fruits and vegetables there. Instead, his final conclusion is that
modern humanity is no longer able to see the history of a particular object, fruit being his
example. For instance, a peach is picked from somewhere across the country or around the
world and then shipped directly to that supermarket. The consumer is no longer able to
know where it came from, who it was that picked that particular fruit, and what social and
economic context that fruit represents.
Ginsberg posits Walt Whitman as one of his heroes and predecessors in his assessment of modern
life. Whitman explored the natural world and the natural self and all of the desires --
spiritual, sexual, physical -- that made humanity what it was. The commodification of society
means the loss of this natural meaning and, in Ginsberg's poem, Whitman's vision is lost amidst a
river of forgetfulness.
Hypocrisy of Modern Society
Ginsberg thinks of modern society as something that forgets its past and what is natural. As
Ginsberg enters the supermarket, he looks to history to help him answer the economic and
social questions that his modern world has posed. The term “neon,” a harsh false light,
foreshadows the inevitable disappointment that the reader knows Ginsberg will find. Ginsberg
hopes to find beauty in the natural products of the supermarket. His hope is that he can look
beyond the commodification of modern society. “What peaches and what penumbras!” he
exclaims. The penumbras, a word meaning “shroud” or “partial illumination,” are meant to
designate the secrets that such displays of nature and domesticity hide. The peach in the
supermarket has no relation for those that buy it to the natural world from which it came.
 Its past has been forgotten. This is the state of the world that capitalism and modernity has
brought. “Whole families shopping at / night!,” night being another allusion to the darkness of
industrialized society that demanded the illusion of the perfect nuclear family. Romantic
poetry often denounced the modern world's ability to create a more perfect society through
enlightened thought and technology, and Ginsberg's work extends this tradition, positing a
false sense of "progress" as indicative of society's hypocrisy.

Q1. What kind of vision does Ginsberg see of modern society in ‘A Supermarket in
California’?

Ans. In the poem ‘A Supermarket in California’, Ginsberg thinks of modern society as something that
forgets its past and what is natural. As Ginsberg enters the supermarket, he looks to history to help
him answer the economic and social questions that his modern world has posed. The term “neon,” a
harsh false light, foreshadows the inevitable disappointment that the reader knows Ginsberg will find.
Ginsberg hopes to find beauty in the natural products of the supermarket. His hope is that he can look
beyond the commodification of modern society. “What peaches and what penumbras!” he exclaims. The
penumbras, a word meaning “shroud” or “partial illumination,” are meant to designate the secrets that
such displays of nature and domesticity hide. The peach in the supermarket has no relation for those
that buy it to the natural world from which it came. Its past has been forgotten. This is the state of
the world that capitalism and modernity has brought. “Whole families shopping at / night!,” night being
another allusion to the darkness of industrialized society that demanded the illusion of the perfect
nuclear family. Romantic poetry often denounced the modern world's ability to create a more perfect
society through enlightened thought and technology, and Ginsberg's work extends this tradition,
positing a false sense of "progress" as indicative of society's hypocrisy.

The poem takes place in the heart of consumerist culture—in the belly of the beast. California is
closely associated with an idea of the American Dream that equates money and happiness: the home of
Hollywood and the rich and famous, a place where lives are ostensibly filled with sunshine and joy. The
supermarket brimming with food reflects this sense of carefree abundance.
And yet, the poem also implies that none of this is real, that the supposed freedom offered by this way of
life is as fake as the movies pumped out by Hollywood. The fruit is "neon," so bright as to seem garish, and
the speaker shops for "images" rather than actual nourishment to satiate his "hungry fatigue."

Nevertheless, the poem establishes the extent to which this way of life has a hold on people. “Whole
families” parade down the supermarket aisles as if in some kind of trance —“wives” are “in” the
“avocados,” and there are “babies in the tomatoes.” In other words, they are totally immersed in the
consumerist way of life that the supermarket represents. This way of life robs them of their individual
humanity, the poem implies, reducing people to the things they buy and instilling a sense of conformity
but making people think they all want the same things. This idea is later echoed by the image of "blue
automobiles in driveways," which implies a cookie-cutter vision of success. People think they'll be happy
if only they can buy this car or have that house, but the speaker doesn't buy in, and that’s why he
conjures up a vision of Walt Whitman.

For poets of Ginsberg’s generation, Whitman stood for a kind of celebration of the common man, the
nobility of labor, and people’s individuality. Whitman’s poetry reflects an idealistic romanticism, which
he viewed as inseparable from America itself. Whitman becomes something like the speaker’s guide, which
the speaker at one point explicitly asking Whitman which "way" to go.

Placing Whitman in this capitalist and commercial wonderland—the supermarket—deliberately

clashes these two different Americas together in order to highlight the country's failure to live up to
Whitman's ideal. Indeed, the speaker imagines this man from another era trying to make sense of the
abundant variety of products, interrogating them and his strange, overwhelming environment. In
initially presenting Whitman as lost and confused himself, the poem suggests how far removed modern
society has become from the way of life that Whitman imagined.

The speaker then imagines himself and Whitman strolling through the aisles, tasting "fancy" food at
their whim without paying for any of it. The speaker and Whitman—in the speaker’s minds—thus share
in common a rejection of the importance of money, rebelling against what society tells them to do.

In the end, though, the poem suggests that the optimism expressed in Whitman’s poetry has failed to
become reality and probably never will—indeed, it probably never existed in the first place. Now, time is
running out—the "doors close in an hour"—suggesting that it's too late to change what America has
become. That’s why both Whitman and the speaker ultimately cut such "lonely" figures. The poem then
concludes by intensifying its sense of futility and isolation: Whitman is pictured alone on the shores of
the underworld, the speaker walking home from the supermarket—and neither of them in the America
they desire.

● A society that has forgotten its past and history

● The people have become the things they buy, they are so engrossed in this consumerism.
● California is the heart of consumerism and Hollywood. It is a place that idolised the
American dream, but none of it is real because it is so different from the America that
Whitman had an idea of.
● Modern America is one where people feel they can buy happiness by owning cars and
houses.
● Nature has been commodified as it can be seen in the supermarket. So detached from its
origins and history.

Q2. How does Ginsberg treat discussion on the mythological Hades in his poem?

Ans. In ‘A Supermarket in California’, Ginsberg concludes the poem by comparing America to the
mythological Hades. He asks Walt Whitman what kind of America he saw “when Charon quit poling his
ferry and you got out... / and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of / Lethe?”.
Charon was the guardian of Hades who would ferry souls across the River Styx to their eternity. But
Ginsberg notes that Whitman never quite made it directly into Hades. Instead, he was stranded on a
bank of the River Lethe, another river that ran through Hades. The river Lethe, in Greek mythology,
would cause complete forgetfulness for those that drank from its waters. This, says Ginsberg, is the
meaning of modern society: it forgets its past and what is natural. The peach in the supermarket has no
relation for those that buy it to the natural world from which it came. Its past has been forgotten.
This is the state of the world that capitalism and modernity has brought. And Whitman, who once
railed against such advancement, is left stranded on the side of an unending river of forgetfulness. He
is now a forgotten hero.
Q.3 Why does Ginsberg refer to Walt Whitman and Federico Garcia Lorca in the
poem?

Ans. ‘A Supermarket in California’ is a poem bursting with a love of literature. Indeed, the poem is a
great example of what is known as meta poetry—poetry that is, in part, about poetry itself. It was
written as an ode to Ginsberg’s poetic hero and major influence, Walt Whitman. Whitman, a nineteenth
century poet, experimented with meter and rhythm and eschewed the structured line and stanza
which was the standard form for poetry of his time. He became known as an eccentric, both for his
style of writing as well as his lifestyle. He was greatly influenced by the Romantic poets and much of
his poetry deals with nature and the encroachment of industrialized society on all that is natural
and, in Whitman’s thought, good about America. Additionally, Whitman’s poems often glorified a
sexually expressive mode of being, using veiled references to promote both a spiritual and sexual
freedom.

Ginsberg sought to continue Whitman’s legacy stylistically and thematically. Ginsberg’s long line
was inspired by Whitman’s use of varying lengths of line and breath. Thematically, Ginsberg sought to
continue Whitman’s poetic assault upon industrialized society by writing about the consequences of
corporate and industrial growth that Whitman could only foresee in his own work. “A Supermarket
in California,” with its depictions of domesticated life symbolized by food placed out of its natural
context, deals with such themes. Additionally, “A Supermarket” also alludes to a hidden sexualized
world, veiled in the language of commonplace things.
Ginsberg also pays homage to another influence in “A Supermarket,” Garcia Lorca. Lorca was an
influential Spanish poet in the early 20th century. Lorca was killed at the beginning of the Spanish
Civil War by the right wing Spanish Nationalists for his own leftist political views. Lorca was an
influence on Ginsberg mainly for his own homage to Whitman in his own poetry. Like Ginsberg, Lorca
saw as an influence Whitman’s disregard for poetic rules and structure and for his controversial
subject matter that prized free thought and expression over cultural conformity.

In placing poetry front and center, the poem implicitly argues in favor of the value of poetry to
society—while also hinting that society has forgotten how to recognize that importance (having
been blinded by the supermarket’s neon lights). Arguably, literature’s place in the poem also stands-in
for creativity and the imagination more generally, similarly implying that these have become
overlooked in modern America.
The poem clearly marks out Whitman and the speaker as kindred spirits. In fact, they even briefly enjoy
what the supermarket has to offer, tasting its "delicac[ies]" without intending to pay for them and
thus positioning themselves as on the outside of social norms. In other words—in the speaker's mind at
least—artists challenge the accepted constructs and norms of the day.
Placing Whitman in this capitalist and commercial wonderland—the supermarket—deliberately
clashes these two different Americas together in order to highlight the country's failure to live up
to Whitman's ideal. Indeed, the speaker imagines this man from another era trying to make sense of the
abundant variety of products, interrogating them and his strange, overwhelming environment. In
initially presenting Whitman as lost and confused himself, the poem suggests how far removed modern
society has become from the way of life that Whitman imagined.

The reference to Lorca also supports this idea. Federico García Lorca was a Spanish playwright and
poet who was murdered by his government in 1936. This was in part because of his homosexuality, and in
part because, with his leftist sympathies, he presented an idealistic threat to the Fascist, Nationalist
forces ruling Spain at the time. He was thus another counter-culture artistic figure whose mere
existence challenged the societal status quo.
Though the poem doesn't delve deeply into the specifics of Whitman's poetry, it does show him
investigating the 20th-century America that he suddenly finds himself in. His pointed questions in the
second stanza subtly suggests how society has lost its way: through mass, thoughtless consumption
(the "pork chops" far removed from their butcher), intense globalization (the reference to bananas,
which would have to be imported), and the spiritual malnourishment ("Are you my Angel?").
Ultimately, these are similar to the questions the speaker asks in the poem's closing lines—is the
"America of love" already "lost," and where is society "going?"
In reflecting how poets observe and critique America, the poem elevates the cultural importance of
art. That is, poets and other artists are an invaluable part of society, the poem implies, because they
analyze, question, and imagine alternatives to the dominant way of life.
● An ode to Whitman and his ideal America.
● The contrast between Whitman’s America and modern America.
● Disapproval of the encroachment of industrialisation on humanity.
● The value of poetry in society- How it has been overlooked in modern society.
● Artists challenge society with their ideas- The behavior of Whitman and Ginsberg in
the supermarket, not conforming to social norms. Also uses Lorca to make his point
clear (an artist being ostracized for his idea or even sexuality)
Q4. What are the subtle hints that Ginsberg gives about Homosexuality in the poem?
The poem critiques not just the consumerism it sees as endemic to modern society, but also this
society's subsequent insistence on conformity. These two ideas are connected in the poem: society tells
people that buying things will bring them happiness, and then teaches people to want to buy all the
same things—the same "blue automobiles" and "fancy" artichokes.
The poem critiques the insistence on one uniform image of success and happiness, implying that, in such
an environment, people themselves become products—yet more things to buy and sell. That's why there
are "Aisles full of husbands," for instance; husbands, "Wives," and "babies" are more things to be desired
in order to project the image of a perfect American life.
The poem ultimately suggests that capitalist consumerist society pressures people to stick to one
image of success and happiness, and then persecutes those who refuse to conform. And one major
example of this in the poem can be seen with homosexuality.
Homosexuality is a subtle but important part in "A Supermarket in California." Allen Ginsberg was gay
and Whitman is believed to have been gay or bisexual as well. The Spanish poet Federico García Lorca,
depicted as "down by the watermelons" in the first stanza, was also gay—and this was part of the
reason he was murdered by Spanish military authorities.
These three men, then, are connected not just by the fact that they are poets, but also by their
experiences living during times when homosexuality was still a taboo, if not an outright crime. The
poem thus suggests that there exists not just a shared cultural and artistic legacy across these
generations of men, but also one of secrecy and pain.
As if to acknowledge the secrecy which homosexuality has often had to exist under, the poem doesn't
spell this link out too clearly. The closest it gets to a direct reference is in the innuendo in the
second stanza, when Whitman "pok[es] among the meats in the refrigerator" and eyes up the grocery
boys. The subsequent mention of meat (pork chops) could be in image of carnal desire.
Behind this playfulness, though, lurks a serious point about persecution and nonconformity. When
the speaker imagines the "store detective" following him and Whitman, it's not just because they are
trying food without paying for it—it's because they're outsiders, in large part due to their
sexuality.
The poets are contrasted with nuclear families presented in the first stanza, those "Whole families"
made up of husbands, wives, and babies. These represent what a family was supposed to look like at the
time—a man, a woman, and their offspring. Again, this moral conformity goes hand-in-hand with the
consumerist culture on display in the supermarket—at least that's how the poem presents it.
In other words, the speaker suggests that people have been fed images of what a family is supposed to
look like, just as they have been told what products to buy. The poem suggests that this supposedly
moral family dynamic is really just another aspect of the shallow consumerist, materialist culture
that has taken over America. If this poem, then, is about an alternative America—one less beholden to
materialism—then the poem implies that this depends upon the freedom for people to be who they
want to be and to love who they want to love.

Q5. How does Ginsberg show that modernity ends civilization in “A Supermarket in California”?

Ans. "A Supermarket in California" is an example of Ginsberg's economic vision of modern society. He
believes that modernity ends civilization, as something that forgets its past and what is natural. In
the poem, Ginsberg compares the commodification of the natural world with Walt Whitman's vision of
the beauty of nature and the individuality of mankind. Ginsberg uses a picture of the mythological
River Lethe to describe how modern society has detached the natural world from its history and
original environment. A peach, when bought in a supermarket, no longer means the same thing that it
did when it was picked from the tree by those that would eat it. Its past has been forgotten. This is
the state of the world that capitalism and modernity has brought. “Whole families shopping at /
night!,” night being another allusion to the darkness of industrialized society that demanded the
illusion of the perfect nuclear family. Whitman, whose ferocity for all things natural, is a
forgotten hero of a world that existed before the coming of industrialization.

DAYBREAK IN ALABAMA
By Langston Hughes

When I get to be a colored composer

I'm gonna write me some music about
 Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
Touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a colored composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

The Poet

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright,
and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary
art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual, social, and artistic explosion centered in Harlem,
Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement".
Hughes' contribution to this movement was through his short stories, poems, essays, plays and novels.
He was one of the major influencers of that time. There were no negative stereotypes or sentimental
idealization of his people. His work honestly portrayed the hardships of the working-class but he did
not refrain from describing the joy and enjoyment and his people.

Analysis
“Daybreak in Alabama’ was published in 1940. It was the age of the Great Depression and American
Dreams. So in this poem he does not speak about the literal day break but about a daybreak which
would bring peace and cooperation amongst all. The poet says when he becomes a composer he was going
to write music about a better life in Alabama. From the swamp would rise the mist and from the
heavens dew would fall. In this picture he would put some tall trees and add the scent of the pine
needles. The smell of red clay after rain would also emerge. Long red necks, poppy coloured faces, big
brown arms,the fields would be filled with the eyes of white and black people. He was going to put hands
in colours of white, black, brown and the yellow. There would be red clay earth hands and each
would touch each other with kindness. He concludes the poem stating in the daybreak in Alabama he
would write about it.

Theme- The main theme of the poem is to show the diversity in the society and the poet’s hope of the
society of equality.
 Form

‘Daybreak in Alabama has twenty three lines with no specific rhyme scheme. The lines vary in meter. The
language used is also native to his culture. Alliteration is the use of words starting with the same
letter in one line. It is seen in these lines.
I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And big brown arms

Imagery
The imagery created by Hughes is very deep and meaningful. The composer could mean a leader who
could make a difference, in this case for the blacks. The swamp is used to describe the situation of the
African Americans and from that he is hoping there is a break, daybreak, with mist rising from the
swamp and dew falling from the heavens. The tall trees could mean the white men who stood high
above the blacks, oppressing them indicated by the pine needles. Then it is a riot of colours describing
the necks, face, eyes and hands. Amongst this diversity, he sees kindness touching all the hands and it is
this break that he is hoping for his people. Hughes has used the subtlest and softest comparison to
depict the hardships of his people but ends with the hopes that the daybreak in Alabama would be more
colourful and peaceful.

Q1. Comment on the sensuous images used by Hughes in ‘Daybreak in Alabama’.

Ans. The imagery created by Hughes is very deep and meaningful. The composer could mean a leader
who could make a difference, in this case for the blacks. The swamp is used to describe the situation of
the African Americans and from that he is hoping there is a break, daybreak, with mist rising from the
swamp and dew falling from the heavens. The tall trees could mean the white men who stood high
above the blacks, oppressing them indicated by the pine needles. Then it is a riot of colours describing
the necks, face, eyes and hands. Amongst this diversity, he sees kindness touching all the hands and it is
this break that he is hoping for his people. Hughes has used the subtlest and softest comparison to
depict the hardships of his people but ends with the hopes that the daybreak in Alabama would be
more colourful and peaceful.

● The imagery in the poem is so clear and vivid that it is as though he is describing a
painting he is going to paint rather than a song that he is planning on composing.
● The mist rising from the swamp is symbolic of how he hopes the dirty waters of his
community rise into the air like beautiful pure mist and settle down over everybody.
● The mist settles over people of all colour acting natural around each other. In his
words I think he means that diversity is natural and should be free of discrimination.
● Hands touching each other with kindness, hands of all colours is a description of how
there is equality among all men (of all colours) and this touching of hands is the
most natural thing as if it's just dew from the morning that forms at daybreak.
● The use of “daybreak” itself is very symbolic of a new beginning. Of a day when the sun
rises on a world that is beautiful and free of white oppression, but rather on a world
that is equally fair to people of all colour.
● The use of “black and white black white black” emphasises on exactly what he is
trying to say. It's like mixing paint on a pallet. It could mean that black and white
people are literally merging. Maybe a reference to a new set of Americans who are
born from a mixture of both black and white. A world where these relationships are
accepted more naturally than frowned upon.
● The scenery is so vivid that one can see it before their eyes. The mist rising, the smell of
rain on red soil. People of diverse cultures, different eyes and shapes of neck all
mingling their hands together and accepting each other’s touch with kindness.
● He indulges all the senses by description of scents and scenes as well as touch.
Q2. The Black poet Langston Hughes demonstrated the literary skills to craft a poem that meshed
both the humanitarianism and the artist with his own style, voice and tone. Hughes’ literary works
show that he could not only fill his poems and stories with racial tension of his own upbringing but
also add in some aspects of euphoric aspirations for both Alabama and America. Explain.

Ans. Langston Hughes’ ‘Daybreak in Alabama’ is written in a classic style of the late Langston Hughes.
He incorporated the realities of what is contained in both daybreaks and Alabama; dew, red clay,
dawn, and even "swamp mist" rising from the ground. Hughes used his own dialectic style to enhance
the flavor of his poem with a down home feel that also appears in Hughes' quintessential literary
character Jess B. Semple (Jess B. Simple). Hughes infused such a style with elements of social
commentary on racial harmony and collective existence. Hughes filled the poem with the very
confusion of the racial challenges of his own times. Published in 1940, the poem reveals the agonizing
age of Jim Crow, the Great Depression and American dreams. The Black poet within Langston Hughes
does not seem to speak out in "daybreak in Alabama'' as much as the humanitarian and artist within
Langston Hughes. Langston Hughes the humanitarian speaks of the possible day when even an Alabama
daybreak would be filled with a rainbow of collective cooperation. His humanitarian views pour out
in references to red clay hands, brown arms, colored faces and white black people. The artist within
Langston Hughes comes alive in the picture that Hughes painted for the reader. He penned a work of
art that appears to emerge like brushstrokes of genius on the blank slate of open minds to a new
generation of American readers. The Black poet Langston Hughes demonstrated the literary skills to
craft a poem that meshed both the humanitarian and the artist with his own style, voice and tone.
Hughes' literary works show that he could not only fill his poems and stories with the racial
tensions of his own upbringing, but also add in some aspects of euphoric aspirations for both Alabama
and America.

● Usage of song like poetry that is unique to him. His own dialect style.
● The vivid descriptions
● The painting like imagery
● The brilliance of bringing out faults in humanity in such beautiful tone of nature
descriptions.
● He does not use harsh startling images, but soft kind images that make the reader
relish his poem and see the world that he dreams of through the darkness of the
world that exists.
● His style brings together the humanitarian and the artist.

Q3. Highlight the nature elements as used by Hughes.

Ans. ‘Daybreak in Alabama’ written by poet Langston Hughes was published in 1940. It was the age of the
Great Depression and American Dreams. In this poem, Hughes does not speak about the literal day
break but about a daybreak which would bring peace and cooperation amongst all. The poet says when
he becomes a composer he was going to write music about a better life in Alabama. There are multiple
natural elements that he uses in the poem. He mentions that from the swamp would rise the mist and
from the heavens dew would fall. In this picture he would put some tall trees and add the scent of
the pine needles. The smell of red clay after rain would also emerge. Long red necks, poppy coloured
faces, big brown arms,the fields would be filled with the eyes of white and black people . He was going
to put hands in colours of white, black, brown and the yellow. There would be red clay earth hands
and each would touch each other with kindness. He concludes the poem stating in the daybreak in
Alabama he would write about it.

● Daybreak
● Mist rising from the swamp
● Tall trees
● The scent of pine needles
● The smell of rain on red clay
● Long red necks
● Poppy coloured faces
● Field daisy eyes
 ● Big brown arms
● Red clay hands
● Touching each other as natural as dew

EMPEROR JONES
Eugene O’ Neill
Setting: West Indian Island
Theme: Racial conflicts
Genre: Tragedy

Summary
At the palace of the Emperor of an unidentified island in the West Indies, Smithers, a
Cockney trader finds that all of the servants have left except for one old native
woman. He interrogates her to learn that the natives are plotting a revolution
against the Emperor, an American fugitive named Brutus Jones.

When Jones awakens, Smithers warns him of the plot and the danger of trying to
make an escape through the dark forest of the island. Jones scoffs at the idea that
his illiterate, uneducated, and superstitious subjects are capable of outsmarting
him. He confesses that he knew this day would arrive when he took the throne,
since he has been stealing from the island and hiding a fortune in a foreign bank
account.

As Jones sets off to escape from the revolutionaries, his mental state gradually
collapses in the darkness of the forest. Jones is overconfident due in part to the fact
that he has convinced the islanders that he possesses magical powers. After an
earlier attempted assassination, Jones successfully constructed the myth that he
can only be killed with silver bullets.

In the darkness, Jones sets off into the forest with a gun loaded with five lead
bullets and one silver bullet. He begins seeing hallucinations of his innermost fears,
in spite of being alone. As he encounters each hallucination, he fires a bullet from
his gun that has the rather counterintuitive effect of alerting his pursuers to his
whereabouts.
Through hallucinatory imagery and Jones' monologue we learn that Jones came to
the island as a stowaway on a boat after killing a man over a game of craps and then
killing a prison guard to escape from jail. He has visions of the man he killed as well
as the prison guard.

His next hallucinations are a slave auction, a slave ship, and a Witch-Doctor in the
Congo, who tries to kill him with the help of a hungry crocodile. He shoots at the
crocodile with the last remaining silver bullet.

Smithers returns to the play in the final scene, and meets up with the leader of the
insurrection, Lem, who previously tried to shoot Jones. The revolutionaries set out
into the forest to find Jones.

Shortly after, Lem returns to tell Smithers that they killed Jones. Lem tells him
that he and the other revolutionaries melted down silver coins to make silver
bullets that would kill Jones.
 About the author

● Eugene O’ Neill is the son of an Irish immigrant actor James O’neill. He was
born in New York City and raised Catholic. He traveled the seas for years
which led to his alcoholism.
● Eugene O'Neill, one of the greatest American playwrights of all time. His
writing is from an intense personal point of view. He has written multiple
plays for which he has won prizes including the Nobel prize in literature and
the Pulitzer Prize in Drama.
● Eugene O'Neill who lived between 1888 and 1953 established America's plays in
the
realm of literary drama by introducing dramatic realism and psychological
focus to theater.
● His plays, at least most the plays and most of the time, they follow the
unities of time,
place and action though there may be some exceptions.
● O'Neill often applied his painful life experiences to playwriting and
transformed his experiences inside and outside the theater into characters
of shattering psychological depth and realism.He was also one of the
pioneers of expressionism on American stage.

Emperor Jones is a play inspired by American military occupation of Haiti (“ an

island in the West Indies as yet not self-determined by White Marines”. The play
paints of a picture of brutalizing history that shaped men like Jones.

Expressionism
● Expressionism, artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective
reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and
events arouse within a person.
● The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration,
primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic
application of formal elements. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the
main currents of art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and its
qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are
typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements.
● Expressionism can also be seen as a permanent tendency in Germanic and Nordic
art from at least the European Middle Ages, particularly in times of social
change or spiritual crisis, and in this sense it forms the converse of the
rationalist and classicizing tendencies of Italy and later of France.
● In Emperor Jones, 1920 play and one of his most famous plays, he employed
expressionistic devices. The production of this play was notable for having an
African American lead. The actor Charles Sydney Kilpin was an Afro-
American and this was quite new in American theater. This was done at
O’Neill’s insistence and opened the way for African-American actors in
theater and musicals.
● The play draws on events of Haitian History and portrays the destructive
effects of industrialism on humanity. The story is focused on an African
American Porter who travels to the Caribbean Island and persuades the
inhabitants to crown him the Emperor.
● It was originally titled The Silver Bullet. The play was highly successful
and was produced in major world capitals including London and Paris.The
play brought forth negative effects of Racism in the US and other countries.
 ● So, sort of, put the spot line on the destructive effect of racism in various
countries, especially in America.
● Expressionism is a movement that was started in Germany. It was a modernist
movement which began in painting and poetry and precursors include people
like Strindberg and Edward Munch whose Scream is you know an iconic
painting and also several other playwrights who were writing at this point
of time.
● So it is considered with inner realities than outer realities, the movement
and in Expressionist Theater, actions and dialog portray the way one or more
characters perceive it, which may be radically different from the way life
really is.
● It developed as a reaction to rapid industrialization and materialism.
● The exponents of expressionism in American theater include Elmer Rice who
famously wrote The Adding Machine.Tennessee William in A Streetcar named
Desire and of course a O'Neill.

Emperor Jones tells the story of an African American convict who escapes to an
island in the Carribean, where he, with the assistance of a Cockney trader
Smithers, can the natives into recognizing him as their Emperor and taxes them,
only to keep the money for himself. The plot follows Jones' escape from the natives,
when his scheme is revealed, and his psychological confrontation with his past and
his identity.

The structure of the plot parallels that of O’Neill’s ‘The Hairy Ape’, told
episodically, in seven to eight episodes, scenes respectively. Both show the
destruction of a distinctly “American” tragic hero. The play uses each scene to
add insight into the nature of the character’s pride but to contribute to the
destruction of the man and the deterioration of his psyche. O’Neill was
particularly affected by the 20th century’s effect on the African- American
population and the industrial worked, both of whom he personified as tragic
heroes, who were overwhelmed by the scars of the past and by the rapid
proliferation of society around them, which made no effort to include them, It
was this form of oscillating episodes of realism and expressionism that served as
the formula to best tell their stories.

Imperialism:
O’Neill was troubled by the growing American tendencies of bringing ‘modernity’
and ‘stability’, as Jones promised to the natives, But like Jones, they often found
themselves robbed for the economic and political advantage of the liberator. It is
as vital to now to question the motive and validity of the invasion of foreign
nations, as it was for O’Neill

Themes:
1. Racism

The Emperor Jones tells the story of Brutus Jones, a porter on a train car who,
after killing a black man and then a white prison guard in the United States,
escapes to a Caribbean island. On the island, he quickly sets up an empire, with
himself as emperor. He amasses vast wealth by levying heavy taxes on the black
natives and by engaging in various forms of corruption. When he learns from a
white trader named Smithers that his black native subjects are planning to revolt
against him, he embarks on a journey through the forest to escape by sea. As Jones
wanders through the forest at night, with the sound of the natives' drums
constantly beating in the background, he is faced with various native-summoned
apparitions that force him to confront the fact that in making himself emperor
and exploiting the natives, he was "performing whiteness"—putting into practice
the lessons he learned by watching the white people who mistreated and exploited
him in the United States. Furthermore, he comes to realize that his race and all
that comes with it isn't something that he can escape or deny.

The play opens with Jones already having established himself as emperor. He is
extremely powerful—the natives believe that he is charmed and can only be killed
by silver bullets. He's rich from the taxes and other sorts of corrupt business
that his role allows him to engage in without consequences. In one sense, by
turning himself into a rich and powerful emperor, Jones overturns the racist
situation that defined his life of exploitation and impoverishment in the United
States. However, the play's take on racism isn't nearly that simple. Jones doesn't
just set himself up as an emperor; rather, he makes himself emperor over other
black people and uses his position to exploit and oppress those black people in order
to enrich himself. Jones seeks power and exploits the less powerful, just as he
himself was exploited by white people in the United States.

Furthermore, Jones explicitly states that he was able to successfully install

himself as emperor and tax the natives dry by using what he learned from white
people during his time working as a porter: that "big stealin'" brings fame and
fortune. With this, the play then connects whiteness and white people to
exploitation, corruption, and seeking power. It also makes the case that Jones, in
making himself emperor, is acting like a white person. To this point, Jones does hold
what can be described as "racist" views toward the natives he oppresses, whom he
views as dumb and gullible. More broadly, this dynamic suggests that white racism
and exploitation create a kind of cycle, in which white culture defines the terms
of success—power and wealth—and then anyone who tries to gain that success
will necessarily have to act like a white person in order to achieve it. White
racism and exploitation, the play suggests, create only more exploitation and
more racism.

After learning of the natives' imminent revolt against him, Jones flees into the
forest, and confronts apparitions summoned by the natives. His interactions with
these apparitions force him to relive his own personal history (which took place in
the early twentieth century) and the history of slavery in the United States. As
he wanders, he encounters apparitions of the black man and the white prison
guard he killed, and then experiences being sold at a slave auction, being a
passenger on a slave ship bound for the US, and finally, a sacrificial ceremony
performed by a witch doctor in the Congo. As Jones descends through time and
confronts these apparitions, the things that signify his façade of white power get
stripped away and his belief in his own power erodes until he's nothing more than a
scared, animalistic man with no power of any sort. Through these apparitions, the
natives force Jones to admit that he's black, thereby insisting that it's impossible to
escape this knowledge no matter how high he climbs. Within the logic of the play
and in the light of the rampant racism of the time period in which it was written
(around 1920), the play leaves the viewer with the assertion that black individuals
like Jones who seek to better themselves by performing whiteness are doing so
futilely: that they'll never escape the fact that they're black and will always be
seen as such, and that even in trying to escape they are only ever reenacting the
exploitation and racism that afflicted them in the first place.

The play's exploration of race is further complicated by the character of

Smithers, a cantankerous, racist white sailor who seems to be enriching himself
through Jones's own corrupt practices. Smithers appears in the first and last scenes
of the play, and in those scenes he functions as a kind of narrator. In the first scene
Smithers introduces Jones to the audience and in the last, he accompanies the black
natives to the edge of the forest where they then kill Jones. By having Smithers
open and close the play, he is established as an interpreter of events, and the
viewer is encouraged to identify with him and with his interpretation. Put
another way, the play literally sets up Jones to be viewed through a lens of
whiteness, as provided by Smithers. There are a few implications of this structural
dynamic. First, the fact that Smithers appears to respect Jones more than he does
the natives highlights even further the way that Jones's own ascent to power is
based on the racist and exploitative viewpoints he learned from white men. Second,
even though Smithers occupies a very small place in the action itself, his role as
interpreter affords him a great deal of power: his way of interpreting those events
is given precedence. So, in a play about a black emperor, it is still a white man who
holds the most power. Essentially, both thematically and structurally, the play
seems to suggest that there is no escape for black people, no matter how high they
ascend, from white racism and oppression.

Dual Consciousness and Identity

Knowledge is Power
Religious Critique

Brutus Jones
The titular emperor of an unidentified West Indies island spent ten years working as
a train porter in the United States before a game of dice spiraled wildly out of
control. He killed a man named Jeff over a dispute during a game of craps. After
getting thrown in jail, Brutus then killed a prison guard and escaped America as a
stowaway on a ship bound for the Indies. Once on the island, he recognized how
impressive he was to the natives and exploited their gullibility to become ruler. The
play picks up at the exact moment that Jones' subjects begin to grow tired of him and
start staging a revolt. Jones is depicted as greedy and prideful, without thinking of
the ethical implications of his misdeeds. His misdeeds begin to catch up with him,
however, when he enters the dark forest, and is attended by haunting
hallucinations about his sordid past. He ends up becoming his own worst enemy,
panicking in the face of his own conscience and making his way back to the very place
where he entered the forest, where the revolutionaries are waiting to kill him.

Jones uses what he learned from his time in the United States to exert power over
his black native subjects, and he elevates himself to the level of a god. To complete
the façade, Jones also tells the natives that he can only be killed by a silver bullet
and has one made in case he ever needs to commit suicide. When Jones first learns from
Smithers that the natives are revolting, Jones shows that he's a quick thinker and is
flexible in his plans, as he immediately moves up his escape plan and leaves that night.
However, Jones's cockiness and belief in his own success brings about his undoing. As he
wanders through the forest, the natives send apparitions that make Jones
progressively more terrified and more human. The apparitions force Jones to reckon
with his personal past by sending both Jeff and the prison guard to haunt him, as
well as apparitions of the history of slavery in the United States. Though Jones tries
to fight these apparitions by praying and insisting they're not real, he works his way
through his five lead bullets and finally uses his silver bullet to kill the crocodile
god summoned by the witch doctor. In doing so, he symbolically kills his own
charade of godliness. At this point, once Jones is truly a man, the natives are able to
kill him and remove him from power.

“Who dare whistle dat way in my palace? Who dare wake up de Emperor?
 I'll git de hide frayled off some o’ you niggers sho'!”

Jones

The very first lines spoken by the Emperor are revealing. Since installing himself as
Emperor—and one endowed with certain magical powers at that—Jones has
behaved like a Roman Emperor at the height of the empire’s corruption. Not only is
he imperious and short-tempered, but he has also adopted the racist language of his
own oppressors.

Smithers

Ostensibly a friend of Jones, but a profoundly racist white Cockney trader who
looks upon Jones with thinly veiled malice. Smithers is the one to warn Jones of the
revolution, and can hardly believe it when the natives manage to make silver
bullets with which to kill their emperor. Smithers is a crooked and evil character,
who seems to always side with whoever has power.

From his opening conversation with Jones, the viewer learns that Smithers gave
Jones his start on the island by employing him, which allowed Jones to eventually
become emperor. However, it also becomes clear that Smithers is exceptionally
racist: he can barely contain his rage that Jones is a powerful emperor, and he
speaks poorly of the black natives as well. Though at times Smithers seems to feel
some genuine affection and admiration for Jones, his racism colors everything he says
and does in relation to Jones and the natives. Jones points out that in ten years of
trading with the natives, Smithers hasn't learned a word of their language even
though doing so would certainly help him profit—an indication that Smithers
doesn't see anything the natives do as worth his time or consideration. Because
Smithers appears only in the first and last scenes and isn't a strictly necessary
character in terms of plot, the play situates Smithers as a narrator of sorts and
asks the reader and viewer to identify with him and with his interpretation of
events. This reinforces Smithers's racist point of view as "correct" per the logic of
the play.

Lem

Lem was the leader before Jones' arrival, and is the leader of the insurrection
which finally kills the ill-fated emperor. Lem already tried to assassinate Jones by
shooting him, but failed. In the wake of the accident, Jones convinces his subjects
that he possesses magical powers and can be brought down only by a silver bullet.
Following this logic, Lem stages a revolution and melts down a bunch of coins in
order to make the silver bullets that end up killing Jones.

He's an older man and very wise—he is spare with his words and says, simply and
confidently, that he and the other natives will catch Jones. Finally, he explains to
Smithers that he and the natives spent the night melting silver coins to cast silver
bullets to kill Jones, a canny plan that is ultimately successful.

Old Native Woman

The old woman is in and out of the story by the end of the first scene, but plays a
significant role in the narrative. The play opens with Smithers arriving at an empty
palace. When he finds the old woman, she tells him that a rebellion is underway and
Jones is in danger.

The Witch-Doctor

The witch-doctor is merely a figment of the emperor’s fevered imagination,

appearing in a weird hallucinatory sequence near the end of the story. He is an
image of Africa, a spiritual shaman who wants to make Jones into a human sacrifice
to a god-like crocodile lying in wait in a nearby river.

Q/A

Q1. Attempt a comparative analysis of the characters of Smithers and Jones in

O'Neill's Emperor Jones.

Eugene O’Neill’s groundbreaking play The Emperor Jones is the story of Brutus Jones,
a despot who ascends the throne using lies, intimidation and the politics of fear.
Following a prison break in the United States, Jones sets himself up as monarch of a
Caribbean island. When the Natives rebel after years of exploitation, Jones’s
mesmerizing journey into darkness becomes a terrifying psychological portrayal
of power, fear, and madness. With his demons in heavy pursuit, the Emperor is
forced to confront not just the mortal sins of his past but also the depravities
against his ancestors, — all in search of forgiveness and salvation.

The titular emperor of an unidentified West Indies island spent ten years working as
a train porter in the United States before a game of dice spiraled wildly out of
control. The play picks up at the exact moment that Jones' subjects begin to grow
tired of him and start staging a revolt. Jones is depicted as greedy and prideful,
without thinking of the ethical implications of his misdeeds. His misdeeds begin to
catch up with him, however, when he enters the dark forest, and is attended by
haunting hallucinations about his sordid past. He ends up becoming his own worst
enemy, panicking in the face of his own conscience and making his way back to the
very place where he entered the forest, where the revolutionaries are waiting to
kill him.

Ostensibly a friend of Jones, but a profoundly racist white Cockney trader who
looks upon Jones with thinly veiled malice. Smithers is the one to warn Jones of the
revolution, and can hardly believe it when the natives manage to make silver
bullets with which to kill their emperor. Smithers is a crooked and evil
character, who seems to always side with whoever has power.

Q2. Emperor Brutus Jones is an African American male who has risen, “from
stowaway to Emperor (of Haiti) in two years”. Jones looks down upon his subjects,
viewing them as nothing but animals, even though they are African just like
himself. Jones himself goes through a transformation which dehumanizes him and
gives him very primal, animal related characteristics.
Discuss how through the juxtaposition, O’Neill makes his play a critique of the
dehumanizing effects people in power have over the black race.

Eugene O’Neill’s groundbreaking play The Emperor Jones is the story of Brutus Jones,
a despot who ascends the throne using lies, intimidation and the politics of fear.
Following a prison break in the United States, Jones sets himself up as monarch of a
Caribbean island.

He's rich from the taxes and other sorts of corrupt business that his role allows
him to engage in without consequences. In one sense, by turning himself into a rich
and powerful emperor, Jones overturns the racist situation that defined his life of
exploitation and impoverishment in the United States. However, the play's take on
racism isn't nearly that simple. Jones doesn't just set himself up as an emperor;
rather, he makes himself emperor over other black people and uses his position to
exploit and oppress those black people in order to enrich himself. Jones seeks power
and exploits the less powerful, just as he himself was exploited by white people in
the United States. “You blacks are up to some devilment.”

Furthermore, Jones explicitly states that he was able to successfully install

himself as emperor and tax the natives dry by using what he learned from white
people during his time working as a porter: that "big stealin'" brings fame and
fortune. With this, the play then connects whiteness and white people to
exploitation, corruption, and seeking power. It also makes the case that Jones, in
making himself emperor, is acting like a white person.

The play's exploration of race is further complicated by the character of

Smithers, a cantankerous, racist white sailor who seems to be enriching himself
through Jones's own corrupt practices. Put another way, the play literally sets
up Jones to be viewed through a lens of whiteness, as provided by Smithers. There
are a few implications of this structural dynamic. First, the fact that Smithers
appears to respect Jones more than he does the natives highlights even further the
way that Jones's own ascent to power is based on the racist and exploitative
viewpoints he learned from white men. Second, even though Smithers occupies a
very small place in the action itself, his role as interpreter affords him a great
deal of power: his way of interpreting those events is given precedence. So, in a play
about a black emperor, it is still a white man who holds the most power.
Essentially, both thematically and structurally, the play seems to suggest that
there is no escape for black people, no matter how high they ascend, from white
racism and oppression.

I HAVE A DREAM
By Martin Luther King Jr

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest
demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today,
signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great
beacon of hope to millions of slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering
injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But
one hundred years later, the colored America is still not free. One hundred years
later, the life of the colored American is still sadly crippled by the manacle of
segregation and the chains of discrimination.

One hundred years later, the colored American lives on a lonely island of poverty
in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the
colored American is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds
himself an exile in his own land So we have come here today to dramatize a
shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our Nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution
and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which
every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be
guaranteed the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as
her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation,
America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back
marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe
that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the
riches of freedom and security of justice.

We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of
Now. This is not time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the
tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy.

Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the
sunlit path of racial justice.

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the
solid rock of brotherhood.

Now is the time to make justice a reality to all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to
underestimate the determination of it’s colored citizens. This sweltering summer
of the colored people’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an
invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end
but a beginning. Those who hope that the colored Americans needed to blow off
steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to
business as usual.

There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the colored citizen is
granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake
the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel,
cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

We cannot be satisfied as long as the colored person’s basic mobility is from a

smaller ghetto to a larger one.

We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and
robbed of their dignity by signs stating “for white only.”

We cannot be satisfied as long as a colored person in Mississippi cannot vote and a

colored person in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.

No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like
waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of your trials and
tribulations. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left
you battered by storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police
brutality.

You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith
that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina go back to

Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our modern
cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you, my friends, we have the
difficulties of today and tomorrow.

I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning
of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created
equal.

I have a dream that one day out in the red hills of Georgia the sons of former
slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the
table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with
the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its
governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and
nullification; that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls
will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and
brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be engulfed, every hill shall be
exalted and every mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made
plains and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord
shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this
faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation
into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle
together, to go to jail together, to climb up for freedom together, knowing that
we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new
meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where
my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom
ring!”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring
from the hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains
of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that, let freedom, ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi and every
mountainside.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every
hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when
all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual,
“Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Analysis
On August 28, 1963, 250,000 people gathered in Washington, DC, to take part in the
March on Washington. The protesters demanded an end to racial discrimination in
housing, employment, and other areas of American life. Martin Luther King, JR.,
who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, was an important political leader fighting
for political rights for black people in the USA.
The speech “I Have a Dream” was made on August 28, 1963 when King was leading the
“March on Washington” before the Lincoln Memorial.
By making this speech, King tried to persuade the blacks to carry on their struggle
by non-violent means for the justice and freedom promised to them by the
Emancipation Proclamation.
The march came almost a decade into the civil rights movement. Those protests
were organized by multiple civil rights organizations with Martin Luther King Jr.
as its president.
In his speech 'I have a dream' the king expressed his "dream" that American society
would one day judge individuals by their character, not their race.
The march, with King's speech as its defining moment, galvanized the movement.
Responding to growing public unrest, Congress passed several pieces of civil rights
legislation in the coming years, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Today, King's speech is viewed as a definitive expression of the ideals of the civil
rights movement. King's "dream" of racial equality is seen as the essence of what the
movement hoped to achieve and the means chosen to achieve it.

Metaphors used in the speech

In King's speech, one of the notable features is that metaphors abound. For instance,
having a great beacon light of hope, the blacks are said to have been “seared in the
flames of withering injustice”. They are “crippled by the manacles of segregation and
the chains of discrimination” and they live “on a lonely island of poverty in the
midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity”. King also compares the blacks ‟going
to the capital” for equal civil rights to cashing a check. All these metaphors bring
striking images to the audiences’ minds and leave a powerful impression on them.

Alliteration
Alliteration is extremely popular with both poets and writers. In this device the
same consonant sound is repeated at intervals in the initial position of words. (Feng,
1996) King also explores such device in his speech to impress the present situation on
the blacks’ memory. Take “the unalienable rights of life and liberty” and “the dark
and desolate valley” for example, King makes use of this aspect of alliteration quite
frequently making readers and listeners easy to remember, which can quickly
capture their attention. Besides, “dignity and discipline” can not only emphasize the
sacredness of “dignity”, but also makes clear the necessity of discipline.

Role of The Bible

The Bible also played a large role in the construction of King’s speech. King’s
inclusion of biblical rhetoric may have been due to not only his upbringing as a
pastor, but also his knowledge of the audience. “Many of those who heard “I Have a
Dream” had read the Bible repeatedly and carefully. While there were biblical
scholars among the audience, there were also African Americans who may have
recognized certain verses, but did not study them to the extent of these scholars.
By including these verses in his speech, King is able to create a bridge between
scholars and laymen of the audience.

Lilacs
Kate Chopin

About the Author

Kate Chopin(1850-1904) is an American writer, best known for her works about the
inner lives of sensitive and daring women. Themes typically present in her works
include women’s search for selfhood, for self-discovery or identity,
understanding of feminine sexuality, and revolt against conformity or social
norms.

Brief Summary
Set in a convent in France and in the residence of Adrienne Farival in Paris, ‘Lilacs’
follows the story of a Parisian performer who seeks respite from her city life by
retreating each spring to the convent where she lived as a girl, upon smelling the
scent of lilacs. Through the description of her visit, a stark contrast is drawn
between Adrienne’s demeanor in Paris and at the convent. When she returns once
again to the convent, in the following year, she discovers that she has been banned
from entering by the Mother Superior.

Questions
1. Why is Adrienne banned from the Convent in Lilacs?
Although never explicitly stated within the text, one of the possible, and
most plausible, reasons that Adrienne was banned from the convent is due to her
promiscuous life back in Paris, a life of “picturesque disorder,” as a singer and
dancer. The fact that Adrienne lives the wealthy life of a singer, makes her
different. Adrienne’s gifts may not be seen an a gesture of respect or gratitude by
the Mother Superior, but rather as a sign of ostentation that could tempt and
turn the nuns away from their pious and minimalist lifestyle and hence, explaining
why she “chided Adrienne for the extravagance”. By banishing Adrienne from the
convent the following year, the Mother Superior confirms that every one sees
Adrienne as a threat to the convent’s peace.
Another possible reason, one speculated by critics, is the Mother Superior’s
knowledge of the possibly homosexual relationship between Adrienne and Sister
Agathe. She found Adrienne’s free-spirited attitude to be damaging to the piety of
Agathe, and wished for them to have no further contact with each other.
Agathe’s affection, whether platonic or romantic, would serve to be a source of
negative influence to her. The Mother Superior represents this consciousness of
limits and boundaries. The Mother Superior is the guarantor of the good order of
the organization of the convent, and the spiritual life of nuns. Her reaction shows
her attachment on what tends to prevent her environment from being
compromised. So the space where she can perform her authority could not be
questioned.

2. Discuss the seeming relationships in Lilacs./ Discuss the nature of

relationships in ‘Lilacs’.

The first relationship in question is that of Adrienne’s and Monsieur Henri,

an ardent fan of hers. From Sophie’s description of his actions and enquiries
through Adrienne’s absence, he seems almost obsessively devoted. Sophie describes it
as sweet and flattering, but Adrienne is uninterested, as if she's only with him for
the attention and simply because she has nothing better to do. Her behaviour with
Sophie is cruel and unforgiving, and it is possible that she treats Henri the exact
same way.

The second seeming relationship in the story is that of Adrienne and Sister
Agathe. In a sharp contrast to her behaviour in Paris, Adrienne seems to be very
fond of Agathe. She greets the other with affection when they meet every year,
and she seems to look forward to spending time with her. She is very kind to her
and is eager to hear about what the latter has to say. Sister Agathe also seems to
adore Adrienne greatly. Even though she is ten years older, their shared past
bonds them closer than any other in the convent. They reminisce on the memories
and laugh together, enjoying each other’s company. There is a clear
incompatibility between Adrienne and Sister Agathe’s lifestyles. They nevertheless
succeed in maintaining a link that is strong enough to resist the differences and
structures that oppose it. Even though two seem to have nothing in common apart
from their past in the convent itself, their relationship is not built on outside
factors, but rather inner feeling and thought. Their individual environments
don't seem to succeed in discouraging the other from continuing their friendship.
Their friendship is of an ambiguous nature, as many critics of the work point
out. They “linked arms” and then walked “hand in hand” after having kissed each
other ardently at Adrienne’s arrival at the convent. There seems to be genuine
emotional tension between them, hence fueling critics’ suspicions of an unsaid
romantic relation. Their behavior proposes a new perspective on love.

3. Analyse the significance of the title of Kate Chopin’s ‘Lilacs’?

“Always shall I remember that morning as I walked along the boulevard with a heaviness
of heart—oh, a heaviness which I hate to recall. Suddenly there was wafted to me the sweet odor of
lilac blossoms. A young girl had passed me by, carrying a great bunch of them. . . . The scent of the
lilacs at once changed the whole current of my thoughts and my despondency. . . . I was standing
here with my feet sunk in the green sward as they are now. I could see the sunlight glancing from
that old white stone wall, could hear the notes of birds, just as we hear them now, and the
humming of insects in the air. And through all I could see and could smell the lilac blossoms,
nodding invitingly to me from their thick-leaved branches.” Adrienne says this to her friend
in the Convent.

The scent of the lilacs on the streets of Paris brings back childhood memories for
the adult Adrienne—memories of springtime during her youth when she lived in
the convent. So the flowers need to be ones that blossom in the spring and that send
out an unmistakable odor.
It’s almost manic, the way she compulsively returns to the convent whenever she
smells the lilacs. At least, that’s what her companions in Paris believe."You know,
Rosalie, I begin to believe it is an attack of lunacy which seizes her once a year. I wouldn't say it to
everyone, but with you I know it will go no further. She ought to be treated for it; a physician
should be consulted; it is not well to neglect such things and let them run on.” Sophie clearly
thinks that the behaviour is ‘lunatic’ as it is so uncharacteristic of Adrienne to
just leave and not inform anyone about where she is going. It’s pure dedication,
love and focus on something, a behaviour so unusual to Sophie, who is a constant
witness to the cold, dismissive attitude of the performer.

Navajo Creation Myth

Creation Myth
A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people
first came to inhabit it. They develop in oral traditions and therefore typically
have multiple versions; and they are the most common form of myth, found
throughout human culture.

Creation myths often share a number of features :

1. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly
all known religious traditions.
2. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either
deities, human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and
transform easily.
3. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past, what historian of
religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore ("at that time").
4. Also, all creation myths speak to deeply meaningful questions held by
the society that shares them, revealing their central worldview
and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and
individual in a universal context.

All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain
how the world was formed and where humanity came from. While in popular usage
the term "myth" is often thought to refer to false or fanciful stories, creation
myths are by definition those stories which a culture accepts as both a true and
foundational account of their human identity.
The Navajo Creation Myth
Navajo origin stories begin with a First World of darkness (Nihodilhil). From this
Dark World the Dine began a journey of emergence into the world of the present.
It had four corners, and over these appeared four clouds. These four clouds
contained within themselves the elements of the First World. They were in color,
black, white, blue, and yellow.

The Black Cloud represented the Female Being or Substance. For as a child sleeps
when being nursed, so life slept in the darkness of the Female Being. The White
Cloud represented the Male Being or Substance. He was the Dawn, the Light Witch
Awakens, of the First World.

In the East, at the place where the Black Cloud and the White Cloud met, First
Man, was formed ; and with him was formed the white corn, perfect in shape, with
kernels covering the whole ear. Dohonotini is the name of this first seed corn, and
it is also the name of the place where the Black Cloud and the White Cloud met.
The First World was small in size, a floating island in mist or water. On it there
grew one tree, a pine tree, which was later brought to the present world for
firewood.
Man was not, however, in his present form. The conception was of a male and a
female being who were to become man and woman.

The creatures of the First World are thought of as the Mist People; they had no
definite form, but were to change to men, beasts, birds, and reptiles of this world.
Now on the western side of the First World, in a place that later was to become
the Land of Sunset, there appeared the Blue Cloud, and opposite it there appeared
the Yellow Cloud. Where they came together First Woman was formed, and with
her the yellow corn.
This ear of corn was also perfect. With First Woman there came the white shell
and the turquoise and the yucca.

First Man stood on the eastern side of the First World. He represented the Dawn
and was the Life Giver. First Woman stood opposite in the West. She represented
Darkness and Death.
First Man burned a crystal for a fire. The crystal belonged to the male and was
the symbol of the mind and of clear seeing. When First Man burned it, it was the
mind’s awakening. First Woman burned her turquoise for a fire. They saw each
other’s lights in the distance.
When the Black Cloud and the White Cloud rose higher in the sky First Man set
out to find the turquoise light. He went twice without success, and again a third
time ; then he broke a forked branch from his tree, and, looking through the fork,
he marked the place where the light burned. And the fourth time he walked to it
and found smoke coming from a home.
“Here is the home I could not find,” First Man said.
First Woman answered : “Oh, it is you. I saw you walking around and I wondered
why you did not come. ” Again the same thing happened when the Blue Cloud and
the Yellow Cloud rose higher in the sky. First Woman saw a light and she went out
to find it. Three times she was unsuccessful, but the fourth time she saw the smoke
and she found the home of First Man.
“I wondered what this thing could be,” she said.
“I saw you walking and I wondered why you did not come to me,” First Man
answered.
First Woman saw that First Man had a crystal for a fire, and she saw that it was
stronger than her turquoise fire. And as she was thinking, First Man spoke to her.
“Why do you not come with your fire and we will live together. ” The woman
agreed to this. So instead of the man going to the woman, as is the custom now, the
woman went to the man.
About this time there came another person, the Great-Coyote-Who-Was-Formed-
in-the-Water, and he was in the form of a male being. He told the two that he had
been hatched from an egg. He knew all that was under the water and all that was
in the skies. First Man placed this person ahead of himself in all things.

The three began to plan what was to come to pass; and while they were thus
occupied another being came to them. He also had the form of a man, but he wore a
hairy coat, lined with white fur, that fell to his knees and was belted in at the
waist. His name was , First Angry or Coyote. He said to the three: “You believe that
you were the first persons. You are mistaken. I was living when you were formed. ”
Then four beings came together. They were yellow in color and were called the
wasp people. They knew the secret of shooting evil and could harm others. They
were very powerful. This made eight people. Four more beings came. They were
small in size and wore red shirts and had little black eyes. They were the spider
ants. They knew how to sting, and were a great people.
After these came a whole crowd of beings. Dark colored they were, with thick lips
and dark, protruding eyes. They were the , the black ants. They also knew the
secret of shooting evil and were powerful ; but they killed each other steadily. By
this time there were many people. Then came a multitude of little creatures. They
were peaceful and harmless, but the odor from them was unpleasant. They were
called the wolazhini nlchu nigi, meaning that which emits an odor. And after the
wasps and the different ant people there came the beetles, dragonflies, bat people,
the Spider Man and Woman, and the Salt Man and Woman, and others that
rightfully had no definite form but were among those people who peopled the
First World. And this world, being small in size, became crowded, and and the
people quarreled and fought among themselves, and in all ways made living very
unhappy.

Questions

1. Comment on the features of Native American culture and lifestyle as

brought out through the First World story.
A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people
first came to inhabit it. They develop in oral traditions and therefore typically
have multiple versions; and they are the most common form of myth, found
throughout human culture.
Each Native American culture had its own creation story that explained who
they were, where they came from, what the borders of their world were, and how
they should live as humans. The natural, physical world around them—its plants
and creatures, its land and waters, the celestial bodies, and the forces of nature
—had the greatest influence on satisfying their basic needs for food, shelter, and
clothing; on their society; on their art forms; and on their spiritual life. By
adapting to and using the natural surroundings, the first people created
hundreds of unique cultures throughout what is now the United States.
In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying
profound truths, metaphorically, symbolically and sometimes even in a historical
or literal sense. They are commonly, although not always, considered
cosmogonical myths - that is they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state
of chaos or amorphousness.

The Navajo myth of Creation emphasizes on the cultural values that the Navajo
people live by day to day. These cultural values pertain to the life event of
marriages, the roles of humankind, the beliefs in religion, and the value of the
world itself. The creation myth also sheds light on the geography of the earth
and the structure of the world down to the core of the earth itself. The
structure of the world (or parts of the world) is the underlying story of the
four worlds.

2. According to the Navajo Creation Myth, what are the first forms of life
that inhabited the First World? What could be the reason for such a
conception by the Navajo People
The Story of the emergence is based on the Navajo creation myths of how the first
people made it through the different worlds to the modern world today. The
First World was nothing but darkness (also known as the dark earth). It had in it
only six beings. They were First Man, the Son of Night and the Blue Sky over Sunset;
First Woman, the Daughter of Day Break and the Yellow Sky of Sunset; Salt Woman;
Fire God; Coyote and Begochiddy. Begochiddy created the four mountains first on
in the east (white mountains), south (blue mountains), the west (yellow mountains),
and in the north (black mountains).
Insects – Ch’osh
Black Ants – Wo’ia’zhini Dine’è
Bee People – Tsi’s’na’ Dine’è
Wasp People – Na’azozii Dine’è
Divine Spirit
First Talking God
Second Talking God
Coyote
Primordial Dawn
Primordial Blue Sky
Primordial Twilight
Primordial Darkness
Everlasting life and happiness
Coyote: The coyote is one of several North American animals whose name has
Native American origins. Coyote is a major mythological figure for most Native
American tribes, especially those west of the Mississippi. Like real coyotes,
mythological coyotes are usually notable for their crafty intelligence, stealth,
and voracious appetite. However, American Indian coyote characters vary widely
from tribe to tribe. In some Native American coyote myths, Coyote is a revered
culture hero who creates, teaches, and helps humans; in others, he is a sort of
antihero who demonstrates the dangers of negative behaviors like greed,
recklessness, and arrogance.
Crystal: Some Native American Nations have relied very heavily upon crystals
since the beginning of their history. Every family had several in their home, placed
where the sun's rays in the morning, noon and evening would catch the crystals.
Before they got up in the morning, they would consult the morning crystal to see
what their duties for the day were. Every person wore crystals on their body,
concealed from view.
Turquoise: Turquoise is considered one of the four sacred stones of the Navajo. For
centuries they have regarded it as a valuable talisman and take pride in its
possession. Sheepherders have carried a turquoise fetish to insure fertility of the
sheep, hunters to insure success in the hunt, and warriors to insure victory and a
safe return. Traditionally a bead of turquoise was fastened to a lock of hair to
protect the Navajo from being struck by lightning and believed to be a safeguard
against snake bite. Every household would have a buckskin pouch of herbs,
turquoise and shell to add protection against any unexpected event or
catastrophe. The four sacred stones of the Navajo are: turquoise, white shell,
abalone and jet.
Corn: The reference to corn in Navajo Creation Myth highlights the ubiquity of
corn / corn pollen in ceremonies, rituals and daily life; It also is an omnipresent
part of their culture, and an important element in their cultural identity. It is a
symbol of fertility, happiness and life.

3. Analyse the use of geographical or natural elements in the Navajo origin

story.

The First or Dark World, Niʼ Hodiłhił, was small and centered on an island floating in
the middle of four seas. The inhabitants of the first world were the four Diyin
Dineʼé, the two Coyotes, the four rulers of the four seas, mist beings and various
insect and bat people, the latter being the Air-Spirit People. The supernatural
beings First Woman and First Man came into existence here and met for the first
time after seeing each other's fire. The various beings on The First World started
fighting with one another and departed by flying out an opening in the east.

According to the Navajo creation story, the first world was small and pitch
black. There were four seas and in the middle, an island with a single pine tree
existed. Ants, dragonflies, locusts and beetles lived there and made up the Air-
Spirit People of the first world.
Above the sea there was a black cloud, a white cloud, a blue cloud and a yellow
cloud. The female spirit of life lived in the black cloud while the male spirit of
dawn lived in the white.
When the blue and yellow clouds came together, the First Woman, while the black
and white came together to form the First Man.

The First Man saw the light of the First Woman’s fire and tried to reach her three
times before he finally found her home. Then the First Woman saw the light of the
First Man’s fire and tried to reach him three times before she finally found his
home. He asked her to live with him and the First Woman agreed.

The Great Coyote was formed in water and came to the First Man and First Woman,
telling them he was hatched from an egg and knew all the secrets of the water
and the skies. Shortly after, the second coyote appeared named First Angry, who
brought witchcraft into the world.

The First World “Nihodilhil” (Black World)

Nihodootlizh – Second World (Blue World)
Nihaltsoh -The third World (Yellow World)
Nihalgai – The Fourth, Glittering or White World

Stanzas of Freedom
James Russell Lowell

Men! whose boast it is that ye

Come of fathers brave and free,
If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed?

Women! who shall one day bear

Sons to breathe New England air,
If ye hear, without a blush,
Deeds to make the roused blood rush
Like red lava through your veins,
For your sisters now in chains,--
Answer! are ye fit to be
Mothers of the brave and free?

Is true Freedom but to break

Fetters for our own dear sake,
And, with leathern hearts, forget
That we owe mankind a debt?
No! true freedom is to share
All the chains our brothers wear
And, with heart and hand, to be
Earnest to make others free!

They are slaves who fear to speak

For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.

About the Author:

James Russell Lowell was an American poet, critic, essayist and editor. He
graduated Harvard in 1838. In 1845 he published a series of critical articles asking
for the abolishment of slavery. In 5 years he wrote 50 anti slavery articles. He
wrote Stanzas on Freedom to express how slavery ought to be viewed by one and all,
as a malignancy in society that needed immediate treatment in the form of protest.

Analysis:
James addresses the people regarding freedom. He questions the men in the first
paragraph asking them if it is okay to call themselves free and brave when there
are still people in the clutches of slavery? In the next paragraph he questions the
women and asks them if it is fine to call their children free if there are children
growing up as slaves? In the next stanza he answers the questions he had asked in the
previous paragraphs, the main point being freedom = sharing the chains of others. In
the last paragraph he says people who do not speak for the things that are right
are slaves, those who choose to remain silent are slaves and so on. People like these
according to him are disastrous for a nation and even harmful for humanity.

Themes:
Freedom, Slavery and relatioship among people.

Form:
There are altogether 4 stanzas (8 lines in each), consisting of 4 rhyming couplets.
The first stanza is directed to the men of New England while the second stanza is
directed at the women. The third and fourth stanzas are meant for citizens in
general. The first two stanzas are considered to be the questioning and reflection
stanzas while the latter two stanzas are more like answers to the questions
previously put forth.
Questions

Q1 Who does Lowell address in his poem ‘Stanzas on freedom’? How does the poem
engage with its audience?
Ans:
James Russell Lowell was an American poet, critic and editor who was
passionate about abolishment of slavery and had written about 50 articles
regarding the same for various newspapers. The poem speaks about the spirit of New
England (America) and questions whether it is actually the land of the brave and
free.
In the poem, Lowell addresses the people of America (New England) in
general regarding their opinions and thoughts about slavery and freedom. The
poem has 4 stanzas, in the first stanza Lowell addresses the men of the country and
asks them if they are truly brave and free? He asks them the reason of their pride
when slavery still prevails. He tells them that if they don’t speak up for slaves or
speak against slaverly they cannot boast about ‘brotherhood’ and bravery.
In the second stanza Lowell addresses the women of the country who still
haven’t got their rights or freedom and are limited to the roles of mothers or
care-givers. Women consider their children to be free which is questioned by
lowell. He tells them to feel bad about their ‘sisters in chains’ as women in that
era were the oppressed gender anyways and could relate to the pain of the slaves.
The poem engages with its audience in a very thought provoking way. Lowell
targets different people in different stanzas so that the readers can get a different
perspective of the topic and feel the pain of the slaves in the country.

Q2 Respond to Lowell’s exhortation to American women.

Ans:
James Russell Lowell was an American poet, critic and editor who was
passionate about abolishment of slavery and had written about 50 articles
regarding the same for various newspapers. The poem speaks about the spirit of New
England (America) and questions whether it is actually the land of the brave and
free.
Lowell addresses the women of New England (America) in the second
paragraph of the poem. He addresses them as the mothers who will one day give
birth to children who will breathe the ‘free’ American air and asks them if the
land is actually free. Women in that era did not even have the right to vote and
hence were primarily considered as mothers and homemakers. Lowell addressing
them as mothers highlights their position in the society.
He has a rather aggressive tone with the women because according to him
they have the potential to influence their husbands on the topic of abolishment of
slavery even though they don’t have any actual power in society. He asks them to
think about their sisters in chains because they can relate to them due to the
oppression their gender faces in different areas of life.
Lowell questions their choice to become mothers of children who call
themselves brave and free when slavery is still prevealent. Women are considered
more motherly and caring in nature and Lowell asks them to use that very
instinct to stand up for what is right. He asks them to push out their outrage
against slavery like a volcano spewing out red hot lava similar to the boiling
blood under their viens which is due to the injustice they have been facing over
the years.

Women are also equally responsible in abolishing the vicious circle of slavery.
They enable the circle of procreation, give birth to sons who breathe the air of
New England. They possess the capacity to ‘hear’ deeds without (blushing)emotions
overcoming them. They should have the capacity to be inspired by deeds into
actions.’red’ is the colour of fiery passion and the symbol of lava evokes images of
revolutionary eruptions. The command “Answer” acts not only as an imperative; it
is a reminder to women to be answerable to their sisters. This is the prerequisite to
be deemed fit to be termed “Mother of the brave and free”.

Q3 Through the select choice of words Lowell makes a strong impression about
indifference to slavery. Explain.

James addresses the people regarding freedom. He questions the men in the first
paragraph asking them if it is okay to call themselves free and brave when there
are still people in the clutches of slavery? In the next para he questions the
women and asks them if it is fine to call their children free if there are children
growing up as slaves? In the next stanza he answers the questions he had asked in
the previous paragraphs, the main point being freedom equals sharing the chains of
others. In the last paragraph he says people who do not speak for the things that
are right are slaves, those who choose to remain silent are slaves and so on. People
like these according to him are disastrous for a nation and even harmful for
humanity.

In the first stanza, the point being extenuated is that humankind is only as good as
the lowliest of them. By using derogatory terms like ‘base’ and ‘unworthy’ he
impresses upon the so-called free men that they are not free at all so long as they
stand by injustice and oppression as if they were mute witnesses in a catastrophe. If
you cannot feel the pain of the chain, then you are a successful brick in the
foundation of slavery.

In the second stanza a simile is used that conveys the untapped power held by
women. “Deeds to make the roused blood rush/Like red lava through your veins”
compares the latent frustration and indignation boiling under their calm surface
to the blood flowing in their veins. The way the heart pumps blood in the body,
women ought to push out their outrage against slavery like a volcano spewing
out red hot lava.

In the third stanza he says, is it true freedom when all you do is look out for
yourself? Is it truly the land of the free and home of the brave if America was
built on the toil and sweat of slaves, living their lives in chains? In this case then
those who are free owe mankind a debt because everyone is a slave whose service
will be called for at one point in life, be it in the present or the near future. These
are some points made in the third stanza. Lowell claims that true freedom is
sharing the chains of others. The individual and mankind should be considered as
one rather than separate entities. He says that the meaning of true freedom lies in
breaking shackles for one’s own dear(‘s) sake. These shackles are emblematic of the
restraint and constraints imposed by the oppressor. The cowardly heart is
described as ‘leathern heart’ comprised of animal hide that does not possess human
concern. Freedom in the real sense of the word is not only meant for only the
individual or a specific group of people, but is meant for everyone of mankind . The
poet makes an earnest appeal to his fellow-beings to make others free “with heart
and hand”, that is in feeling and practice.

The fourth stanza builds on the concept that those who do not speak out against
slavery are in the same boat as slaves if not worse for they are in a position to do
something but choose not to. Slaves are those who are afraid to speak up on behalf
of those who are fallen and weak. Slaves are those who will not face the hatred,
scoffing and abuse that accompany sticking up for what one believes in, instead
shrinking into the silence of continued and permitted oppression. Those who would
rather be in the majority despite being wrong instead of being in the minority who
is right, are slaves. Lowell brings to light the various levels of slavery that exist
in this stanza. He elucidates that those who are not physically enslaved are
mentally enslaved especially by society’s norms and ways. So, if you cannot stand
hand in hand with those who are suffering unjustly, you cannot be considered
brave and free. For these people, fear of failure, rejection and becoming a social
outcast are the figurative chains that weigh down on them. This can be equally
disastrous for the progress of a nation and more importantly, for humanity and
all of mankindIn the right with two or three.

● People are slaves if they are scared to speak for others that are too weak
to do it themselves.
● People are deemed slaves if they are reluctant to speak for others who are
in a weaker position to do it themselves.
● People are also slaves if they deter from speaking because of rejection,
ridicule or abuse. Such people reconsider the truth and prefer to seek
refuge in silence.
● And more significantly, people are slaves if they are scared to be in the
minority by uttering the truth.

Stanzas to a Husband recently united

Sarah Wentworth Morton

In vain upon that hand reclined,

(trusted you in vain)
I call each plighted worth my own,
(plighted worth - oxymoron; must face consequences alone)
Or rising to thy sovereign mind
(rising to YOUR expectations, but I cannot have any because women do not have a
sovereign mind)
Say that it reigns for me alone.
(her fault she trusted him, his mind supposedly reigns over her alone)

Since, subject to its ardent sway,

(ardent sway - oxymoron since devoutly passionate but unfaithful, unstable)
How many hearts were left to weep,
(how many wives and lovers have been left at home, weak and alone, so you may go
love another; speaking of cheating husbands in general)
To find the granted wish decay,
(granted wish - wedding vow)
And the triumphant passion sleep!
(momentary beauty, affection, devotion, excitement - "love")

Such were of love the transient flame,

Which by the kindling senses led,
(if any sensual pleasures kindle this "love")
To every new attraction came,
And from known allurement fled.
(Like in Someone New (Hozier) - Some like to imagine/ The dark caress of someone else/
I guess any thrill will do)

Unlike the generous care that flows,

With all the rich affections give,
(rich affections - transferred epithet; also, money can't buy love)
Unlike the mutual hope that knows
(mutual hope is lost though)
But for a dearer self to live.
(dearer self - Fanny.
Will be with Perez but is sad. Lost hope, faith and trust)
Was theirs the tender glance to speak
Timid, through many a sparkling tear
The ever changing hue of cheek,
Its flush of joy, its chill of fear?
(Fear of getting caught, of her sister seeing how she's betrayed her)
(Perez and Fanny's conversation as imagined by Sarah - Perez explaining, Fanny
flushing, paling, her eyes brimming with tears at her guilt and remorse but also
the joy of being with Perez)

Of theirs the full expanded thought,

By taste and moral sense refined,
Each moment with instruction fraught,
The tutor'd elegance of mind?
(Tutor'd elegance - to pretend, to not express love, to lay low, to hush)
(Has Fanny been groomed, has she learned to expand in thought and mind, to suit
Perez's tastes and needs?)

Be mine the sacred truth that dwells

(sacred truth - fidelity in marriage)
On One bye kindred virtues known
(One - isolation, she holds onto her vows while he drifts away)
(kindred virtues - family upbringing, would not do what the other did)
And mine the chastened glance which tells
That sacred truth to Him alone.
(Him - God. Vows at altar said before god; can cry to Him alone now) ( </3 )

No sordid hope's insidious guise,

(False hope; cunning guise)
No venal pleasure's serpent twine
(Can't bribe me with the trappings of little affections. Don't mollify me now with
that - you broke your promise)
Invites those soul-illumined eyes,
(soul-illumined - awakened to the reality of the situation - Fanny is pregnant,
everyone knows of your infidelity)
And blends this feeling heart with thine.
(Feeling heart - still in pain, unlike yours, you heartless scum)
(I will live with you as your wife but you can't have me back with your meaningless
broken promises. My eyes do not seek yours. My heart wants nothing to do with
yours)
Author:
Sarah Wentworth Morton was a poet of the American Revolution. She spoke
through her long narrative poems about new nations, interracial relationships and
heroism. She was also known for writing about freedom in her time. She married
Preze Morton and had 5 children with him. Her family scandal* affected her
literary career, emotional pain is a recurrent theme in her poetry and seems to
have motivated her creativity. Morton also wrote hymns and sonnets. Her subject
matter was both personal and public and often patriotic, celebrating the new
nation, its ideals and its leaders. During her lifetime, Sarah Wentworth Morton’s
fame rested on her advocacy of freedom.

Family Scandal:
Sarah’s sister ‘Fanny’ had come to live with the Mortons in Boston. She had an affair
with Preze which came to light when she gave birth to an illegitimate child. Fanny
told Preze to take care of the child as he was the father of the child through the
letters she left back. Later Fanny committed suicide after the affair had come
under the limelight. The affair apparently had no ill effect on Perez Morton's
career. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Themes & Rhyme scheme:

Themes - Sarcasm, fake reverence, grandiose tone, bravery and poem of reunion.
Rhyme scheme - abab.

Questions
Q1 Comment on the following lines from the poem by Wentworth- (repeated
question)
“Or rising to thy sovereign mind
Say that it reigns for me alone.”
Ans
Sarah Wentworth Morton was a poet of the American Revolution. She spoke
through her long narrative poems about new nations, interracial relationships
and heroism. Her family scandal affected her literary career. In this poem she
addresses her husband on how he cheated on her and handles the matter with
dignity instead of being overly emotional.
In these lines Sarah Wentworth speaks about the condition of married
women through her own life story. In the first line she talks about how she as a
woman is supposed to rise to the expectations of her husband but she can not have
expectations of her own because she is a woman.
In the second line she says that it was her fault that she trusted him and
thought that his mind reigned over her only. She indirectly addresses the plight
of married women of that era where extra-marital affairs were very common.

Q2 How is Sarah Wentworth’s poem different from any classical poem on love and
reunion? How does she problematise the conventional understanding of marital
love?
Ans
Sarah Wentworth Morton was a poet of the American Revolution. She spoke
through her long narrative poems about new nations, interracial relationships
and heroism. Her family scandal affected her literary career. In this poem she
addresses her husband on how he cheated on her and handles the matter with
dignity instead of being overly emotional.
Sarah Wentwoth’s poem is different from any classical poem on love and
reunion in various ways. One of the major characteristics of classical poetry is
concentration i.e. focusing on one topic but in Sarah’s poem she doesn’t focus only
on one topic of love but she also talks about relations, trust, cheating and
condition of women or broken lovers. Another major characteristic of classical
poetry is passion balanced out with reasoning but in Sarah’s poem even though
emotions are not given priority a passion for the wronged is seen. She doesn’t lay
down reasons for how she feels, which happens in classical poems.
Classical poetry is also said to use colloquial language whereas the
language in Sarah's poem seems more formal and dignified as she doesn’t let her
emotions get the better of her. Most of the classical love poems are dedicated to
someone and usually talks about the person but Sarah’s poem even though made
for her husband talks about her feelings and about him with another woman,
which is not expected in a poem about love & reunion.
She problematizes the conventional understanding of marital love through
her poem ‘stanzas to a husband recently united’. The poem is based on her life and
how she was reconciled with her husband who had cheated on her. Conventional
understanding of marital love suggests that both the partners uphold the vows
but in her poem she mentions that it was only her who took the vows seriously and
held them high whereas he (Perze) just drifted away.
She also talks about how after marriage women are supposed to rise to the
expectations of men but women aren’t allowed to have any expectations of their
own. In the first paragraph she says that it was her fault that she trusted him to
only think about her (“say that it reigns for me alone”) which is what is supposed to
happen after marriage.
Through various phrases she talks about how here ‘granted wish’ was
reduced to a transient flame and how ‘love’ is disrupted by momentary beauty and
affection.
The poem is especially different from any classical poem because it has been
written from a perspective of a woman who has been broken by the actions of her
husband. The walls and distance between them gave birth to this unconventional
poem that lacks emotion. Her poetry sounds more like a formal letter in which she
very delicately lays out the plight of women in society. Their statues and what
they are expected to do for their husbands. Despite Sarah’s broken heart the poem
is full of stability and emotional distance that makes it clear how strong she is.

Characteristics of Classical poetry that this poem does not follow:

● Concentration- Focus on the topic. This poem has more than one topic (love,
trust, plight of women in society, extra-marital affairs)
● Passion balances out with reasoning- No emotion, but passion is evident for
the wronged. Does not state reasons.
● Colloquial language- This poem is written in a formal tone. Like an official
letter.
● Dedicated to someone- Not dedicated to her husband, but about her
feelings and her husband being with another woman.

Q3 Comment on the following lines from the poem by Wentworth-

“Unlike the generous care that flows,
With all the rich affections give,
Unlike the mutual hope that knows
But for a dearer self to live.”
Ans
Sarah Wentworth Morton was a poet of the American Revolution. She spoke
through her long narrative poems about new nations, interracial relationships
and heroism. Her family scandal affected her literary career. In this poem she
addresses her husband on how he cheated on her and handles the matter with
dignity instead of being overly emotional.
In this stanza she talks about how love is like a river of care that flows
generously which even money can’t buy. Rich affection is a transferred epithet,
affection can’t be rich or poor, it's the people who show affection who are rich and
poor, in the second line Sarah is trying to say that money (affection of the rich)
cannot equate to love (generous river of care). With respect to the poem she is
telling her husband that even though you are rich you did not match my love and
that led to loss of mutual hope.
She says that he gave up all this (love, faith & trust) so that he could live
with her sister fanny. She tells him that mutual hope, faith and trust is lost, she
no longer expects him to come back to her. She is sad that he cheated on her with
her sister but has no expectations from now on.
Sarah speaks about what marriage is made of. Which is trust, understanding,
affection and generosity. She gave him all of this and in one fleeting moment of lust
and desire he lost everything that they had between them by cheating on her with
her own sister.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Ernest Hemingway

Brief Summary

The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is a short story about a writer lying on his deathbed,
staring out at Mount Kilimanjaro. It is set in Africa, with Harry and his lover,
Helen, waiting for a rescue plane to treat his recently contracted gangrene.
Harry drifts in and out of consciousness, remembering his past, and hallucinating
his rescue, only to pass away in his daze.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro was first published in Esquire magazine in 1936 and later
collected in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories (1938). The stream-of-
consciousness narrative relates the feelings of Harry, a novelist dying of gangrene
poisoning while on an African safari. Hemingway considered The Snows of Kilimanjaro
his finest story.

Questions

1. What is the function of the flashback narrative used by Hemmingway?

‘Snows of Kilimanjaro’ is divided into six sections, within each appears
a flashback that serves to continually juxtapose the hopeless, harrowing
present with the past, which often seemed full of promise.
The whole experience of switching between past and past emphasizes
thought, perhaps because the protagonist can no longer avoid thinking.
Through the retrospective perspective, Harry, while coming to
terms with his eventual death, thinks of older, happier times and
contemplates his actions. His flashbacks are reflections on what he
considered a fulfilling life; utilising his flair for writing relentlessly and
enjoying the process. However, it was when he met and engaged with Helen,
who’s riches were more than enough to sustain them both, that he fell out
of his practice. He regrets his inaction and spiral into laziness when
confronted by the possibility of an endlessly comfortable life.

2. Comment on the writing style and usage of the epigraph used by

Hemmingway.
 Hemingway’s writing follows the principle of the iceberg theory. It is simple,
direct, and unadorned, however it holds a lot more implied and underlying
meaning and emotion under the surface, that is to be interpreted and understood
by the reader. Like an iceberg, not even one-fourth of the content of the story is
displayed in the open. He describes s scenes in perfect clarity, never going overboard
and writing just enough for the reader to understand the surface events. His
unflinchingly blunt style is extremely powerful in his descriptions of war and
heartbreak.
In striving to be as objective and honest as possible, Hemingway hit upon the
device of describing a series of actions by using short, simple sentences from which
all comment or emotional rhetoric has been eliminated. These sentences are
composed largely of nouns and verbs, have few adjectives and adverbs, and rely on
repetition and rhythm for much of their effect. The resulting terse, concentrated
prose is concrete and unemotional yet is often resonant and capable of conveying
great irony through understatement. Hemingway’s use of dialogue was similarly
fresh, simple, and natural-sounding. The influence of this style was felt worldwide
wherever novels were written, particularly from the 1930s through the ’50s.
He utilises visual imagery in abundance, describing scenery exactly as it is,
without exaggeration. (For eg. “Behind the house were fields and behind the fields
was the timber. A line of lombardy poplars ran from the house to the dock. Other
poplars ran along the point. A road went up to the hills along the edge of the
timber and along that road he picked blackberries.”)
He also utilises nature symbolism, especially with animals(the hyenas,
vultures and leopard). They are used to represent the protagonist’s impending
sense of death and loss.

An Epigraph is used at the beginning of the story describing the snow-capped

mountain, mentioning that the name for its western summit is translated from the
local Masai language as the House of God. The epigraph may serve as a preface to
the work; as a summary; as a counter-example; or as a link from the work to a
wider literary canon, with the purpose of either inviting comparison or enlisting a
conventional context.

The New Land

John Smith
Q1. How does John Smith foreground the American Quality of practicality?

John Smith is an English explorer who travelled to America in 1607 and was
instrumental in setting up the first colony in Jamestown, Virginia. Captain
John Smith’s character is especially marked by self-confidence and
practicality. He keenly explains the reasons why man must do everything in
his power to be "well employed" and not "idle." He always focused on the
practical means of survival in the wilderness rather than on personal
privileges and status. His publications offered practical advice on seamanship
and colonization.

New Land by John Smith is a piece of practical advice with rhetorical

landscape descriptions that emphasized the riches and pleasures of the land.
America is displayed as the epitome of postcolonial thought. It was the age
of reformation and restoration in 1600-1660 in Britain. The pioneering spirit
of John Smith was admirable. While John Smith seems very idealistic while
saying that everyone here will live content lives (which is propaganda),
what enhances the effect is the practical undertones. He doesn't just say
everyone has to come, but smartly pays greater attention to those that
have small wealth and are young so that they can learn trades when they
come to America. He thinks of a practical system that will let the existing
population take up apprentices and lead to a win-win situation, and to make
sure that those immigrating to America have settlements and provisions to
start their life in the land. He also discusses different job opportunities
suitable for a varied range of people, and while he preaches about a
luxurious life, he also mentions that it is only possible if they're not
excessive. So, all that he discusses aren't just from the point of view of ideas
or theories but are practical and enforceable through laws or
regulations.

John Smith had the spirit of a pioneer who believed in commodifying all that
he had. The new land he discovered was more than just land to him, it was
an opportunity that could turn many lives around. His advertisement of
the land through territorial aggrandisement mirrors the spirit of
American marketing. Unlike many others, John smith chose to do something
to change the situation which he was placed in. Not being allowed to
practice religion wishfully, being deprived of money and morality, instead
of dwelling in his “bad faith”, he went in search of possibilities. He wanted to
be self reliant. No job was demeaned - carpenters, gardeners, tailors all
were appreciated. His call was mostly directed towards the young working
class. He only wanted those people to come who could work for themselves
and not be dependent on anybody. “That he that will not work, shall not
eat.”

Smith contends that this new country is for everyone and requires only
hard work on the land or through fishing in the well-stocked seas where
long hours and daily graft will be a thing of the past and where people,
with previously nothing to aspire to will live "exceeding well." He uses this
angle to persuade English people of "small means" that they will have no
problems with land ownership in America. Smith reflects on the desire of
most men to benefit from their own land, especially when it comes at "the
hazard of his life" and confirms that only good things can come from this
new land and all in honor of England, "Our native Mother Country."
● John Smith- British explorer who travelled to America in 1607. Set up
the first colony of Jamestown in Virginia. A man of practical
character and self-confidence.
● Practical means of survival- Practical advice on seamanship and
colonisation.
● Describes the land of America and the riches it can provide.
Advertises it as a land of opportunity.
● Targets the young and poor (small wealth) section of society in
England in his propaganda.
● Discusses a number of job opportunities suitable for a range of people.
● Luxurious life- but not if excessive.
● Everyone has to work, for only those who work can eat (he is
practical)
● Commodification for the purpose of profit. He believed in
commodification of all that he had.
● The new land is for everyone who works.
 Yankee Doodle
The Unofficial National Anthem of America

Summary
No one is sure where the song “Yankee Doodle” came from. Some claim the
melody is English, Irish, Dutch, or Hungarian, or even from New England,
but the American verses are credited to a British military doctor, Richard
Schackburg. “Yankee Doodle” seems to have been written by a Dr. Richard
Schuckberg, during the French and Indian War. According to the story, Dr.
Schackburg wrote the first verses during the French and Indian War in 1755 when
King George III sent British soldiers to protect the American colonists.
The song grew in popularity and was sung by British soldiers poking fun at
the American colonists they had been sent to protect. It was a satiric look
at New England’s Yankees. The song continued for many verses, several of them
scatological. With different verses, it soon became popular throughout the
colonies. A broadside of the 1770s has a version which became more or less standard.
It is a country bumpkin’s reaction to his first visit to an army camp. In 1775 a
minuteman named Edward Bangs published another version that might have been
sung by a boy visiting the army besieging the British in Boston, after George
Washington took command of it. By this time it was obvious that anyone could
write verses for “Yankee Doodle.” On the march to Lexington and Concord,
according to one story, the British troops sang this stanza. The verse that the
American soldiers liked best summed up Yankee Doodle’s popularity. At Yorktown,
when the British marched out to surrender, they marched with their heads
turned toward the French troops. They were trying to pretend the Americans did
not exist.The Marquis de Lafayette, the commander of the Light Infantry brigade,
was outraged. He ordered his band to play Yankee Doodle. With a blast of drums
and a swirl of fifes, the musicians hurled themselves into their favorite song.
Every British head was jerked around, and they stared into the faces of their
former subjects.

Questions:

1. Highlight the context in which Yankee Doodle has to be discussed.

During the Revolutionary War era in America, settlers commonly walked around
town singing songs that celebrated the American colonies and poked fun at their
British homeland. The song Yankee Doodle is believed to have originated with British
troops during the American Revolution as a way to make fun of the colonists. This
song has taken on many different versions over the years to include an estimated
120 verses. However, according to the Library of Congress, Yankee Doodle quickly
became a form of prideful boasting after the colonists witnessed Great Britain's
surrender at Yorktown in 1781.
During the 18th century, a Yankee was a term used by the British to refer to the
colonists who served alongside their troops during the French and Indian War.
According to the A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, by Mitford M.
Mathews, the colonists were perceived as disorganized and thus labeled a Yankee. A
Doodle was also a way to refer to a 'fool,' or someone extremely gullible.

Many of the British serving in the colonies believed the colonists were trying to be
as cultured as Europeans but were failing miserably. This can be seen in the first
verse of the song. For example, in the last line—“stuck a feather in his hat and
called it macaroni” — “macaroni” was a term describing men who went to extremes
to appear sophisticated and stylish. The song was well known in the colonies by
April 19, 1775, when the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred. After the
patriot colonists soundly defeated the British soldiers, it was often reported
that they had sung “Yankee Doodle” to mock the retreating redcoats.
By 1777 “Yankee Doodle” had become the unofficial national anthem of America. Its
tune was easy for soldiers to march to and during the American Revolution
dozens of different verses were written. It has been documented that the second
verse of the song was written at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Other verses praised
General George Washington, described life in the army, or poked fun at King
George III. “Yankee Doodle” was played after the Americans defeated the
British at the Battle of Saratoga and again when General Cornwallis
surrendered to General George Washington after the Battle of Yorktown, the
last major battle of the American Revolution

2. Comment on the function of humour in Yankee Doodle.

In hopes of mockery and intimidation, British soldiers marched through Boston
singing ‘Yankee Doodle’, with their own twist on the lyrics in opposition to the
American troops. Many of the British serving in the colonies believed the colonists
were trying to be as cultured as Europeans but were failing miserably. This can be
seen in the first verse of the song. For example, in the last line—“stuck a feather in
his hat and called it macaroni” — “macaroni” was a term describing men who went
to extremes to appear sophisticated and stylish. It also refers to a popular
hairstyle at the time called ''a macaroni'', or men's wig. For example, the curly
white hair style found in pictures of Benjamin Franklin or George Washington were
actually wigs men wore to signify their high social status or power.

As the song continues, the lyrics in the original version talk about Yankee Doodle
seeing the colonist troops ''as thick as hasty pudding,'' meaning they were fat and
out of shape, surely no match for the British troops. There's also talk of Yankee
Doodle essentially hiding behind his fathers coat tails as a sign of weakness and
fear.

"Yankee Doodle, came to town riding on a pony. He stuck a feather in his cap and
called it macaroni." Now the British were essentially using this to taunt the
Americans for not being very wealthy, not being very well dressed and, generally,
criticizing their deportment. The key to this is the last word, `macaroni.' Now we
all know macaroni as an Italian dish, as a very tasty Italian dish, in fact. But in
this rhyme what the macaroni is referring to is an English youth cult from the
1760s and '70s. [They wore] huge wigs, tight jackets, [and] winklepicker shoes. They
stopped the streets of London when they were walking around and they had a
very strong influence on fashion. So what this most popular version of "Yankee
Doodle" is, in fact, doing--it is saying that you can't just stick a feather in your
hat and pass yourself off as a macaroni.

One of the many versions ran like this. It goes: "Yankee Doodle, keep it up. Yankee
Doodle, dandy. Mind the music and the step and with the girls be handy." And this
particular version was sung by predominantly the British as a reminder to our
American friends that dance steps in Europe and in America, the colonies as it was,
were different. And it's a reminder to check you doing the steps right and that
you're holding the girl in the correct way. The last two lines of the stanza –
'There we seen the men and boys/As thick as hasty pudding' – referred to a quick-
recipe British dessert, 'hasty pudding', which was popular around 1742. Seeing as the
British were intent on insulting the colonists, 'thick as hasty pudding' could also
have very well implied that the New Englanders weren't too bright.

3. What role do songs like Yankee Doodle have in invoking nationalism amongst
the people of a nation?
4. Why did the American soldiers sing the song ‘Yankee Doodle’ which was
intended to insult them ?
In hopes of mockery and intimidation, British soldiers marched through Boston
singing ‘Yankee Doodle’, with their own twist on the lyrics in opposition to the
American troops. They threatened to “tar and feather” John Hancock, as well as
the rest of the American troops. However, this intimidation technique was not so
frightening to the colonies, and instead motivated them to make themselves the
real Americans that the British had mocked them about. The term “American” was
not something to be ashamed of, but instead it was regarded as a disconnect from
their British counterparts, the freedom they saw prospectively.

Instead of completely changing the lyrics to degrade the British instead of

themselves in the song, they humored it and laughed at themselves in amusement
of the simplicity that the British were poking at. During the Revolution, a certain
verse became popular, which told a story of the camp of the Continental Army
through the eyes of a farmer and his son (Visit to the Camp Version).

“And there was Captain Washington, With gentle folks about him, They say he’s
gown so ‘tarnal proud, He will not ride without them.” This mockery, instead of
breaking the colonies apart as originally intended, united the soldiers fighting for
their land, perhaps even motivated them. In preservation of the pride that
America earned from such a win, Yankee Doodle carries much more than just a
tune.

By 1777 “Yankee Doodle” had become the unofficial national anthem of America. Its
tune was easy for soldiers to march to and during the American Revolution
dozens of different verses were written. It has been documented that the second
verse of the song was written at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Other verses praised
General George Washington, described life in the army, or poked fun at King
George III. “Yankee Doodle” was played after the Americans defeated the
British at the Battle of Saratoga and again when General Cornwallis
surrendered to General George Washington after the Battle of Yorktown, the
last major battle of the American Revolution

5. Comment on the significance of Yankee Doodle as a proud part of American

Revolutionary history.
6. Yankee Doodle is a quintessential American song. Analyse the statement.
During the Revolutionary War era in America, settlers commonly walked around
town singing songs that celebrated the American colonies and poked fun at their
British homeland. The song Yankee Doodle is believed to have originated with British
troops during the American Revolution as a way to make fun of the colonists. This
song has taken on many different versions over the years to include an estimated
120 verses. However, according to the Library of Congress, Yankee Doodle quickly
became a form of prideful boasting after the colonists witnessed Great Britain's
surrender at Yorktown in 1781.

By the 1770s a “Yankee” was another name for an American colonist while a “doodle”
was Dutch for a fool or simpleton. Many of the British serving in the colonies
believed the colonists were trying to be as cultured as Europeans but were failing
miserably. This can be seen in the first verse of the song. For example, in the last line
—“stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni” — “macaroni” was a term
describing men who went to extremes to appear sophisticated and stylish. The song
was well known in the colonies by April 19, 1775, when the Battles of Lexington and
Concord occurred. After the patriot colonists soundly defeated the British
soldiers, it was often reported that they had sung “Yankee Doodle” to mock the
retreating redcoats. By 1777 “Yankee Doodle” had become the unofficial national
anthem of America.
Its tune was easy for soldiers to march to and during the American Revolution
dozens of different verses were written. It has been documented that the second
verse of the song was written at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Other verses praised
General George Washington, described life in the army, or poked fun at King George
III. “Yankee Doodle” was played after the Americans defeated the British at the
Battle of Saratoga and again when General Cornwallis surrendered to General
George Washington after the Battle of Yorktown, the last major battle of the
American Revolution

Instead of completely changing the lyrics to degrade the British instead of

themselves in the song, they humored it and laughed at themselves in amusement of
the simplicity that the British were poking at. During the Revolution, a certain
verse became popular, which told a story of the camp of the Continental Army
through the eyes of a farmer and his son (Visit to the Camp Version). “And there was
Captain Washington, With gentle folks about him, They say he’s gown so ‘tarnal
proud, He will not ride without them.” This mockery, instead of breaking the
colonies apart as originally intended, united the soldiers fighting for their land,
perhaps even motivated them. In preservation of the pride that America earned from
such a win, Yankee Doodle carries much more than just a tune.

By 1777 “Yankee Doodle” had become the unofficial national anthem of America. Its
tune was easy for soldiers to march to and during the American Revolution dozens
of different verses were written. It has been documented that the second verse of the
song was written at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Other verses praised General George
Washington, described life in the army, or poked fun at King George III. “Yankee
Doodle” was played after the Americans defeated the British at the Battle of
Saratoga and again when General Cornwallis surrendered to General George
Washington after the Battle of Yorktown, the last major battle of the American
Revolution

Quick Notes:

● Yankee- Name for colonists who fought beside the british soldiers in the
French and Indian Wars
● Doodle- Dutch for fool or a gullible person
● The song was used by the British to make fun of the american soldiers who
lacked discipline and form.
● The term “macaroni” was used to poke fun at the American who the British
believed were trying to imitate the Europeans and appear cultured. The
macaroni refers to the wig seen in portraits of Benjamin Franklin and
George Washington that were worn to show their high status in society.
● “Thick as hasty pudding” was another way in which the Britich made fun of
the disorganised American troops by calling them fat (unfit) and thick in the
head, or stupid.
● “Yankee Doodle keep it up. Yankee doodle, dandy. Mind the music and the step
and with the girls be handy” - mocking them for copying the European steps,
saying mind your steps and make sure you are holding the girl right.
● Americans used it to laugh at themselves and take pride in who they were.
The song motivated them more than break them apart. It united them and
made them feel more patriotic.
● It was sung after the battles of Lexington and Concord when the Americans
defeated the British troops.
● Became increasingly popular and was sung like an unofficial national anthem
by 1777.
 ● It was also sung in the final battle of the American Revolution in Yorktown
when general Cornwallis surrendered to general George Washington.

YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Summary:
This short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne features Goodman (which is an old-
fashioned way of saying mister) Brown who lives with his wife of three months,
Faith in Salem village during the time of the Puritans. He tells her that he must
go on a journey, and he heads into the woods. Once there, he meets a man who tries
to persuade Goodman Brown to go with him, but Brown is reluctant. The man says
that he knew Brown's father and grandfather and helped them in wicked ways. It
soon becomes clear that the man Brown is talking to is the devil. Goodman wants
to stay true to his faith, referring to both his religious beliefs and his wife, which
the devil finds amusing. He tells Brown that many "good" people have come to his
side. Then they notice a woman nearby, and the devil goes to speak to her. Brown
recognizes her as Goody Cloyse, an older woman who taught him religious
education. He is surprised that this woman appears to be friends with the devil and
seems to be implying that she is a witch. As Brown continues to protest going along
with the devil, the devil encourages him to sit and rest awhile. Brown sits and
hides himself amongst the foliage. Then two men come by on horseback. One was a
deacon of the church, and they were discussing a meeting that would take place
that evening at which a young woman would be taken into their group. Despite
seeing religious men from town seemingly on the devil's side, Brown vows not to be
taken in.

Brown then wandered toward noises he heard deeper in the woods. He heard a
woman's screams, saw his wife, and found her pink hair ribbon fall onto a branch in
front of him. He declared that he had lost his faith, referring to both his wife and
his convictions, so he decides to cross over to the devil's side after all. He raced
toward blazing trees where many villagers along with Indians and others
congregated in a sort of powwow. Goodman Brown came forward when called by
the devil and saw Faith standing before the altar as well. They looked at one
another as the devil was asking them to join his brood, and at the last moment,
Goodman Brown looked up and told Faith to resist the devil's invitation. He did
not know what she did, but he found himself back at home the next morning.

As he walked through town, he shrank away from the people he saw. When Faith
ran up joyfully to kiss him, he looked at her sadly and walked away without
saying anything. He wondered if that which he had witnessed in the forest had all
been a dream. Whether a dream or not, that night changed Goodman Brown into a
depressed, distrustful man who lived out the rest of his life jaded by what he saw,
whether real or imagined.

Themes:
● Weakness of public morality
Young Goodman Brown decided to go into the forest and meet the devil, but still
hides when he sees Goody Cloyse and hears minister Deacon Gookin.
He is more afraid of what people will think if his faith is compromised rather than
his own decision of going to meet the devil.Young Goodman Brown’s beliefs are
rooted in the belief that others are also religious.
Such a faith, which depends more on other people than the self, is weak. When he
discovers that his father, grandfather, Goody Cloyse, minister, Deacon Gookin and
Faith are all with the devil, he figures he might as well do the same.Concludes
everyone is evil, and the word “sin” has lost its meaning.
 ● Inevitable loss of Innocence
Young Goodman Brown lost innocence because of inherent corruption- it was
inevitable, irregardless of whether the events in the forest were real, or a dream.
There was no outside force that corrupted Young Goodman Brown - he made a
personal choice to see the Devil.
Young Goodman Brown learns that even the purest outward appearance can hide
underlying sin.
● Fear of Wilderness
Young Goodman Brown is afraid from the moment he steps into the forest. He sees it
as a place where no good is possible. Associates forest with wild Indians, sees one
hiding behind every tree. Forest is characterized as devilish, frightening and dark,
Young Goodman Brown gets comfortable there only after he has fully given into
evil.
● Female Purity
Young Goodman Brown as he wonders whether to renounce religion and join the
Devil, he swears that he will hold on to Faith’s skirts after one night of evildoing.
Represents the idea that a man’s mother or wife will do religious activities and
redeem the men.
Young Goodman Brown also says that as long as Faith remains holy, he can resist the
Devil.
When he sees Faith at the ceremony, his idea of good and bad is challenged.
Back during those days, men relied on female purity to keep their own morality
intact.

Q. Analyse the elements of romanticism or dark romanticism as brought out

through young Goodman Brown?

Ans: Romanticism values beliefs and emotions as more important than any logic or
fact. The individual comes first, and often involves the worship of nature and
believes in human goodness. Dark romanticism on the other hand emphasises on
human fallibility and sin. It is a literary subgenre of Romanticism, reflecting
popular fascination with the irrational and the demonic. Dark romantics believe
that, even good men and women drift towards sin and self-destruction, and there
can be unintended consequences that arise from well-intended social reforms.
Hawthorne in 'Young Goodman Brown' never explicitly states what the group in
the woods is doing or for what reason, and he also never specifies if Goodman
Brown’s nightmarish experience is reality or just a dream. Goodman Brown himself
does not know if his experiences are real, but “it [is] a dream of evil omen” for him,
and by the end of the story he is also unsure of his belief in God.
Hawthorne’s writing primarily demonstrates characteristics of Dark
Romanticism through its denial of human perfectibility. Dark Romantics present
individuals as prone to sin and self-destruction.
Criticised on institutional religion, Goodman Brown recognizes the people in his
community as hypocritical. Goody Cloyse, someone who he thought “was going to
Heaven”, is the first person he discovers is familiar with the traveler, and she is
followed soon after by the town’s minister and deacon. In the forest, Goodman
Brown finds a crowd of people “all of excellent repute” amidst the sinful.
Goodman Brown sees the “good” and evil people peacefully co-mingling and realizes
there is no difference between them. Those who have claimed to be good are only
disguising their sins and pretending to be devoted to the Christian religion, while
the sinners make no attempts to hide their faults.
Goodman Brown’s overnight journey leads him primarily through the woods on a
path described as “dreary,” “lonely,” and containing “all the gloomiest trees”.
Here Goodman Brown imagines the “devilish Indians” who could be lurking in every
shadow and behind every tree, creating a feeling of suspense and making the elder
man’s appearance all the more startling. Goodman Brown later refers to the
forest as “heathen wilderness”, where no good Christian should go. His presence in
these unholy woods causes him to further doubt what he has believed as truth,
and it seems as if “Nature [is] laughing” at him. Here, Nature becomes an evil
character, far from the virtuous and nurturing character the Romantics
believe it plays and joins with the townspeople to antagonize Goodman Brown. He
finds that “Evil is the nature of mankind” and everyone is sinful underneath the
surface.

Q. How does Hawthorne comment on Puritant hypocrisy?

The Puritan religion dictated that everyone on earth was either an evil sinner
doomed to burn in hell or a pure earthly saint destined for heaven. To avoid being
perceived as anything but wholly good, Goodman Brown (who, like his wife, Faith,
is also “aptly named”) is obsessed with the idea of veiling his own sinfulness.
Goodman Brown’s paranoia as he navigates the forest, dodging behind trees in
terror of being outed as a sinner, is a reflection of the police state-like
environment of Puritan New England, in which merely being perceived as a sinner
could mean banishment or death.
Hawthorne sets “Young Goodman Brown” in the New England town of Salem, where
the Puritans tried to create a religious society with strict morals and pious
norms, but also where the infamous Witch Trials took place. The Puritans believed
that some people are predestined by God to go to heaven, and that those people are
identifiable by their morality and piousness; people cannot earn their way to
heaven by performing good works, but if they are part of the elect, they will
instinctively and naturally do good. As a result, Puritan communities were
profoundly focused on the value and necessity of the appearance of goodness,
believing that it was a reflection of inner goodness and therefore a sign of one’s
chance of heavenly redemption, and engaged in social policing to determine what
counts as “good.” Hawthorne uses the setting to explore the dark side to the
Puritan emphasis on the appearance of good.
At the beginning of the story, Goodman Brown believes wholeheartedly in these
Puritan tenets, despite the fact that he himself is at that moment lying to his wife,
Faith, saying that he is on an overnight business trip when in fact he is heading off
into the forest out of curiosity to attend a witch’s meeting. He believes in the
perfect goodness of his wife who seems to radiate pureness, and generally believes
in the goodness of everyone else, too. In fact, he believes that after his dalliance in
the woods with the devil, he will be able to return home and live as a good man
with his perfect wife and go along with her to heaven. However, when he gets to
the forest, in what may or may not be a dream, he discovers that essentially the
entire town, including Faith, whom he had thought to be incapable of sin, are at
this convocation, are “friends of the devil.” In horror, Goodman Brown concludes
that “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name.” He concludes that everyone
is evil, that the word “sin” means nothing because everyone is sinful. When Goodman
Brown returns to the town, he is no longer the happy young newlywed he was
when he left. He is bitter, stern, and gloomy and mistrusts the “good” appearances
of everyone around him, instead seeing sin everywhere, hiding below that surface.
When looked at from a modern perspective, Goodman Brown’s revelation that
everyone is sinful in some way seems obvious: of course no one is perfectly good, as
Brown imagined Faith and many others to be. That’s just human nature. But it is
here that Hawthorne levels his most profound criticism of Puritanism. Goodman
Brown believes that his experience or dream has forced him to see through the lies
of perfect goodness told by his religion. And so he abandons it. Yet the story
presents his actions not as a triumph but a tragedy, and Brown lives a life of
suspicion, sadness, anxiety, and gloom. The story, then, suggests that the true issue
is Puritanism and its internal logic, the way that it demands all goodness or none,
perfect purity or eternally damned sin. Such a world, the story suggests, is one at
odds with the realities of being human, one in which no one who takes it seriously
can live a good life because it is impossible to live a perfect one.

Q. How does Goodman Brown lose his faith in religion?

“Young Goodman Brown” is the story of how a young “good” man named Goodman
Brown loses his innocent belief in religious faith. Goodman Brown’s loss of
innocence happens during a vivid nightmare in which he ventures into a dark forest
and sees all of the people he had considered faithful in his life gathered around a
fire at a witches’ conversion ceremony with the devil presiding from on high. By
the end of his journey into the woods, Goodman Brown learns that even the purest
outward display of faith can mask underlying sin.
Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith, is the embodiment of faith and purity, even in her
actual name. Goodman Brown’s internal conflict is based on whether to “keep the
faith.” At first the struggle is literal: his wife begs him to remain at home and not
head off into the woods; Goodman Brown’s decision to leave behind Faith becomes a
metaphor for his epiphany about religion, which he similarly abandons at the end
of the story. When Faith begs him not to leave her for the night, Goodman Brown
wonders if Faith has lost faith in him; he asks, wondering if she’s questioning his
fidelity, “dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?” Faith
remains a symbol of Goodman Brown’s religious faith throughout the story: when
Goodman Brown first meets up with the devil, the devil accuses him of being late,
which Goodman Brown explains by saying “Faith kept me back a while,” a play on
words meant to refer literally to his wife Faith begging him not to leave, and
figuratively to his religious faith, which could have stopped him from meeting up
with the devil, but didn’t.
The pink ribbons that flow from Faith’s cap represent faith and purity; Hawthorne
refers to them five times throughout the story, each time at a pivotal moment
when Goodman Brown is feeling lost or troubled; the ribbons remind him of the
purity of faith, but also of its shallowness. When Goodman Brown sees Faith at the
witches’ meeting, he realizes that the ribbons were merely a superficial outward
symbol, not proof of actual piety. When he screams out for Faith after hearing her
voice among the throng of heathens at the witches’ ceremony, a pink ribbon falls
from the sky. When Goodman Brown sees his wife participating in the witches’
meeting in the woods, he simultaneously loses his Faith (his wife) and his faith (his
religion). Whereas Faith once represented perfection and the path to salvation,
now Goodman Brown looks toward her, with the witches’ fire reflecting in her
eyes, and sees only a “polluted wretch.” He looks up into the black sky and cries,
"My Faith is gone!" The blissful newlywed bounding out from his happy home in the
first scene has become an “unhappy husband,” tragically stripped of Faith and his
faith.

Q. Comment on the use of nature to bring out the supernatural eeriness in the
story.
Hawthorne uses the forest to represent the wild fearful world of nature, which
contrasts starkly with the pious orderly town of Salem. The threshold Goodman
Brown finds himself perched upon in the opening lines of the story is not just
between himself and his wife, Faith, but between the safety of the town and the
haunted realm of the forest into which he ventures. Home is a safe harbor of
faith, but the forest represents the home of evil and the devil himself, a place
where “no church had ever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed.”
When the devil tries to lure Goodman Brown deeper into the forest, Goodman
Brown equates the forest with a break from his faithful legacy. Going into the
woods means descending into the arms of the devil. He cries out “Too far! Too
far!...My father never went into the woods on such an errand.” Trees are symbols
of sin, hiding spots for the devil and Indian “savages”: “[t]here may be a devilish
Indian behind every tree,” he worries aloud. The devil might leap out “from behind
a tree” at any moment, he fears. When Goodman Brown meets the man, who we
later learn is the devil, the devil himself is seated on an “old tree.”
Once he relents and journeys far in the “deep dusk” of the forest, Goodman Brown
finds that nature and the supernatural begin to blend. The woods take on a life of
their own: when he first sees the devil’s snake-shaped staff, it’s not just a piece of
carved wood, but a terrifying serpent that “might almost be seen to twist and
wriggle itself.” A bit later, when the devil explodes in laughter mocking Goodman
Brown, the “snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy.”
In the encounter with Goody Cloyse, a catechism teacher turned witch, Goodman
Brown watches in horror as the devil throws her his serpent-shaped staff, causing
it to “assume life” and vanish with her instantly into the darkness of the forest.
When Goodman Brown cries out in desperation for Faith after hearing her voice in
the witches’ congregation, her pink ribbon magically falls from the sky. At this
point, the woods are no longer just a gathering of scary trees, but a haunted
sanctuary of sin. When Goodman Brown sees his church leaders in the forest en
route to the witches’ meeting, he asks in horror, “Whither, then, could these holy
men be journeying so deep into the heathen wilderness?” Like the sinners within it,
the wilderness itself has become a heathen.
After the witches’ ceremony, as Goodman Brown reels in terror at his loss of
faith, the personification of the forest and nature deepens. Now entirety of nature
mocks Goodman Brown: “The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds--the
creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians...as if all
Nature were laughing him to scorn.” Natural phenomena also bookend the story:
it starts with the sun setting, and ends with the sun rising. Goodman Brown’s
experience is one of darkness literally--nearly the entire story takes place at
night--and darkness figuratively, with Goodman Brown moving from the angelic
light of his blissful newlywed life with Faith and her pink ribbons, to the dark
hell of the forest and a rendezvous with the “prince of darkness” himself.

Q. Discuss Young Goodman Brown' as everyman. How do you understand the innate
nature of man?

Ans: In "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne tells the story of one man’s loss of
faith in the human race. As Goodman Brown travels into the woods one night, he
sees the innermost secrets and desires of the people he once placed upon a pedestal.
He sees that humans are evil by nature, and this causes him to lose faith in his
fellow man. By viewing the story as an allegory, the journey into the woods is
associated with the Puritan concept of justification. The Puritans viewed
justification, or the means by which one receives the salvation of Christ, as a
psychological journey into the "hell (or evil) of the self" (Soler). Goodman Brown
fails to complete his process of individuation because he cannot come to terms with
the dual Apollonian and Dionysian nature of his being.
The Puritans believed that to be justified, one must let go of his worldly
dependence and strive to live a life free of sin, making the story an allegory “in its
treatment of the nature and consequences of the Puritan belief in the total
depravity of man”
 I Become A Transparent Eyeball
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky,

without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I
have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.
I am glad to the brink of fear.
In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough,
and at what period soever of life is always a child.
In the woods is perpetual youth.
Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign,
a perennial festival is dressed,
and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.
In the wood, we return to reason and faith.
There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -
no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair.
Standing on the bare ground,-
my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,-
all mean egotism vanishes.

I become a transparent eyeball;

I am nothing;
I see all;
the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;
I am part or parcel of God.

The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental:
to be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant,
is then a trifle and a disturbance.
I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.
In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or
villages.
In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon,
man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.
1 – soever: whatsoever 2 – decorum: dignity 3 – blithe: a happy, light-hearted feeling 4 – connate:
congenial; agreeing in nature

Q. Explain the subtlety of transcendentalism as brought out in the title used by

Emerson.
OR
Q. Discuss the significance of the title used by Emerson.

'I Become A Transparent Eyeball' first appeared in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay
Nature. Emerson has painted a picture and metaphorically explained how people
should perceive the wilderness not as a place for monetary gain, but as a place for
emotional gain; that is, solely being in nature for the sake of being there. The
transparent eyeball is conventionally viewed as a spectacular metaphor
representing this message.
Transcendentalism is an American literary, philosophical, religious, and political
movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo
Emerson. He viewed transcendence to be more dynamic, to move not just from the
material to the spiritual, but back and forth between the two by using an eye as a
metaphor. Metaphorically, he’s saying that he’s an eye: meaning he can see and
observe all the things around him, but he’s transparent in the sense that he’s just
visiting the wilderness. He’s not a permanent residence of the wilderness, but he’s
something that can be seen right through because he’ll only be there for a short
time.
Emerson is trying to remove the sense of duality by portraying his vision of nature,
that is, the eye one sees with, the eye as a representative part of the body and mind
that does the seeing, the eye that mediates the relation between natural and
spiritual particles, so as to bring forth transcendentalism to life. He uses the
‘transparent eyeball’ as not just a free-floating entity, but as a necessary link
between the observer and the landscape surrounding him or her.
The transparent eyeball is a representation of an eye that is absorbent rather
than reflective, and therefore takes in all that nature has to offer. Emerson
intends that the individual become one with nature, and the transparent eyeball
is a tool to do that. In the process of transcending, we all become the transparent
eyeball when everything goes through us but we are detached, we remain
untouched.

● Transcendentalism- An idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the

essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of humanity, and the
supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the
deepest truths.
● Transcendence- Existing or experiencing beyond the physical.
● “I become a transparent eyeball, I am nothing” In the process of experiencing
nature he has been reduced to a mere observer through which he
transcends his physical self to experience the universe outside, before which
he becomes nothing.
● “I see all”, to see everything he had to become nothing. By becoming a
transparent eyeball he experiences everything beyond what his senses can
perceive.
● “The currents of the Universal being circulate through me, I am a part or
parcel of God”, he has become the universal being himself by surrendering
his physical self to nature. By allowing himself to become a transparent
eyeball he has begun to not only see all (like the universal being) but become
a part of it as well.
● In these lines particularly Emmerson brings out the concept of
transcendentalism and how nature facilities it.

Q. Elucidate the human - nature relationship expressed by Emerson.

OR
Q. How does Emerson conceptualize nature and individuality?

'I Became A Transparent Eyeball' first appeared in Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay
Nature. Emerson has painted a picture and metaphorically explained how people
should perceive the wilderness not as a place for monetary gain, but as a place for
emotional gain; that is, solely being in nature for the sake of being there. The
transparent eyeball is conventionally viewed as a spectacular metaphor
representing this message.
To Emerson, the natural world is better than his own, offering mankind all the
life and inspiration that is absent from society. Emerson paints a vivid picture of
nature and man’s important connection to it. Emerson convinces his readers that
the relationship between man and nature is sacred, comforting, and vital for
survival. Nature is thereby a metaphor of the mind, as an eyeball is to
transcendentalism.
Emotionally, Emerson relates to his readers through the feelings that nature
can inspire. Nature expresses Emerson's belief that each individual must develop a
personal understanding of the universe
become a transparent eyeball. "I am nothing. I see all.” - this quote means that he
himself does not take nature for granted. He sees all the beauty, importance, and
significance in nature. Nature is so important to him he feels as if he is nothing but
an eyeball that looks upon the beauty of nature. Emerson intends that the
individual become one with nature, and the transparent eyeball is a tool to do
that.

In order to experience awe in the presence of nature, we need to approach it with a

balance between our inner and our outer senses. Nature so approached is a part of
man, and even when bleak and stormy is capable of elevating his mood. All aspects
of nature correspond to some state of mind. Nature offers perpetual youth and
joy, and counteracts whatever misfortune befalls an individual. The visionary man
may lose himself in it, may become a receptive "transparent eyeball" through
which the "Universal Being" transmits itself into his consciousness and makes him
sense his oneness with God. In nature, which is also a part of God, man finds
qualities parallel to his own. There is a special relationship, a sympathy, between
man and nature. But by itself, nature does not provide the pleasure that comes of
perceiving this relationship. Such satisfaction is a product of a particular
harmony between man's inner processes and the outer world. The way we react to
nature depends upon our state of mind in approaching it.

● “In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or
villages.” society can not provide him with what nature does. It is something
deeper and something more meaningful that he experiences when he is in
nature. No street or village can give him this kind of comfort and sacred
experience.
● “In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon,
man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.” man is a part of
nature, we find ourself in nature and through nature we experience God
for it turns us into a transparent eyeball that helps us experience the
“currents of the universal being”.

Even A Pencil Has Fear To

E. E. Cummings
even a pencil has fear to
do the posed body luckily made
a pen is dreadfully afraid
of her of this of the smile's two
eyes….too, since the world's but
a piece of eminent fragility.
Well and when-Does susceptibility
imply perspicuity,or?
shut
up.
Seeing
seeing her is not
to something or to nothing as much as
being by her seen, which has got
nothing on something as i think

,did you ever hear a jazz

Band?

or unnoise men don't make soup who drink.

E. E. Cummings

Q. Comment on the theme of Fragility as brought out by Cummings in 'Even A Pencil

Has Fear To'.
The poetry of E.E. Cummings is immediately and obviously more unconventional
than that of most poetry. 'Even A Pencil Has Fear To' is one such piece of poetry that
lacks punctuation, rebels against the rules of capitalization, even experiments
with spacing between words - all of which serve to lend E. E. Cummings's poetry to
be of experimental and destructive quality.
In this poem, a bold comparison is made between a pencil and a pen, thereby, bringing
forth a juxtaposition between fragility (the state of being broken or damaged) and
permanence (the state or quality of lasting or remaining unchanged indefinitely).
Normally a pen is thought of being bolder than a pencil, because an impression of a
pencil can be erased, but an impression of a pen cannot be erased, making it appear as
if it will last forever ; but in actuality it isn't, once you write something down
using a pen or a pencil it is dead and is meaningless. Cummings brings forth the
essence of fragility by disrupting the idea of permanence - he writes on how a pencil
has a fear to be permanent while a pen fears the same but alas, the world is
eminently fragile, a pencil can break, so can a pen, nothing lasts forever,
permanence doesn't exist, only fragility makes up the world we live in.