English Literature: 2016

Wednesday, 15 June 2016

Fosters Use of Symbolism in "A Passage to India"

Fosters Use of Symbolism in "A Passage to India


"A passage to the India" contains different types of symbols. The principal symbols are the mosque, the caves and the temple. The subsidiary symbols are the ceremonies connected with the birth anniversary of Sri Krishna the figure of Mrs Moore the Punkhawallah the image of the wasp and the collision of boats.

A passage to the India by E M Foster

Thursday, 26 May 2016

Emily Dickinson’s Treatment of the Theme of Immortality

Emily Dickinson’s Treatment of the Theme of Immortality

 
Dickinson was preoccupied with the questions of death and immortality. She was inquisitive about any mystery and her perplexity about it caused her poetic tension. The questions of belief and doubt centering round immortality wished that the soul never changed yet she denied the orthodox vision of paradise. However her confidence that love was an enduring entity supported her hope of immortality. She might have been in doubt sometimes that death was the gateway to immortality but she firmly believed that the soul’s identity could never be lost. She seems to have surveyed every domain of immortality and examined its relationship with death and life.

Emily Dickinson’s Treatment of the Theme of Immortality

Dickinson’s early poems depict the progress of her belief from life to death. In some of her poems Dickinson asserts her firm faith in the immortality of soul. ‘Two lengths has Everyday’ logically argues that the identity of soul cannot be lost because it is immortal. The soul not only perceives an object realistically but creates imaginatively its full image.

Friday, 8 April 2016

What Ideas Have You Formed About the Character of Goodman brown from the Story ‘Young Goodman Brown’

Character of Goodman brown from the Story ‘Young Goodman Brown’

 
As the name suggests Young Goodman Brown is a young mild mannered puritan who sets out of a devil mission in the forest and loses his faith in religion his innate innocence and becomes a grim man joyless, gloomy and sad. Goodman Brown is a good christian who has recently married Faith. He takes pride in his family’s history of piety and their reputation in the community as godly men. His curiosity however leads him to accept an invitation from a mysterious traveler to observe an evil ceremony in middle of the forest one that shocks and disillusions him.

What Ideas Have You Formed About the Character of Goodman brown from the Story ‘Young Goodman Brown’

Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Consider "Waiting for Godot" as a Play Belonging to the Theater of the Absurd

  "Waiting for Godot" as a Play Belonging to the Theater of the Absurd


The theater of the absurd is associated with the names of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet and Arthur Adamov. But Beckett’s contribution to this particular genre allows us to refer to him as the grand master or father of the genre. The absurd drama grew out of a sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the human condition in the universe. The absurd dramatists  take tings rationally and not romantically. It is a drama without a traditional plot, story or division into acts and senses. It has fewest possible characters. In this type of drama dialogues are very short and crisp. The playwright tries to communicate the meaninglessness of life through dialogues.

"Waiting for Godot" as a Play Belonging to the Theater of the Absurd

Comic Treatment of Love and Marriage in “The Importance of Being Earnest”

 Comic Treatment of Love and Marriage in “The Importance of Being Earnest”


There are three pairs of lovers in “The Importance of Being Earnest” the love affair of jack Worthing  and Gwendolen Fairfax, that of Alagernon and Cecily Cardew and on alesser level that of Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble. There is no major obstacle in the way of their love and marriage except that both Gwendolen and Cecily  have fallen in love with men called Ernest. This gives rise to numerous comic situations in the play with both the girls disputing at one time that it is the same Ernest who has proposed to them. As for Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble they are both celibates who are willing to enter into matrimony at a later stage of their lives.

the Comic Treatment of Love and Marriage in “The Importance of Being Earnest”

Saturday, 12 March 2016

What is Racism or Realism. Discuss Langston Hughes as an Anti Racialist

 Langston Hughes as an Anti Racialist


Racism or racialism is any action, practice or belief that reflects the racial worldview the ideology that humans are divided into separate and exclusive biological entities called ‘races’ that there is a causal link between inherited physical traits and traits of personality intellect morality and other cultural behavioral features and that some races are innately superior to others. Racism was at the heart of north American slavery and the overseas colonization and empire building activities of some western Europeans especially in the 18th century.

What is Racism or Realism. Discuss Langston Hughes as an Anti Racialist

What Do You Know of Dickinson Philosophy of Pain and Suffering and Growth

 Dickinson Philosophy of Pain and Suffering and Growth


Dickinson’s poetic world is permeated with pain and suffering and the struggle of evade, face, overcome and wrest meaning from it or growing from it. Suffering is central to her poetic faith and it is involved in the creative processes as well. It is part of her ambivalent response to the mysteries of time and nature.

What Do You Know of Dickinson Philosophy of Pain and Suffering and Growth

How Young Goodman Brown Was Taken Into The Communion of Evil?

Young Goodman Brown's Taken Into The  Communion of Evil


‘Young Goodman Brown’ one of the greatest short stories in American literature beautifully sketches how a young good man becomes evil and participates in an unholy communion. The story can be read as an allegory centering on the temptation everyone faces and on the human tendency to prejudge others on insufficient evidence. Hawthorne also points out the inherent fallacy in puritan faith and depicts Goodman Brown as an every man.

Give an account of how young goodman brown was taken into the  communion of evil.

Saturday, 5 March 2016

The Use of Symbolism in the Poetry of Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas Use of Symbolism in His Poetry


Dylan Thomas makes extensive use of natural conventional and prvate symbols to convey complex psychological states to his readers. He draws symbols from different branches of sciences, philosohies, myths, legends, literature, history, occult knowledge, bible etc.

Symbolism in the Poetry of Dylan Thomas

How the "Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" Represents the Conflict of a Modern Man.

"Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" Represents the Conflict of a Modern Man


"Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" is a dramatic monologue presenting a middle aged modern man who is unable to take a decision about making the proposal of marriage to the lady he loves. In a series of stanzas the lover analyses the reason for a resolution and re-decision and tries to justify his cowardice and lack of nerves which make him completely incapable of formulating  a proposal of love to his beloved. Behind this hesitating mental condition of Prufrock we find a disease of modern routine works the aimless life of the city dwellers and the monotonous round of social parties.

Discuss How the "Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" Represents the Conflict of a Modern Man.

Friday, 19 February 2016

Dickinson’s Attitude Towards Life and Love from Her Poems

Dickinson’s Attitude Towards Life and Love from  Her Poems

 
Attitude to life is a very comprehensive term which encompasses a great many aspects of life. Life consists of not a few elements but almost an infinite variety of things. However a poet usually does have some attitude towards life which in his/her case may mean he/she highlights some particular aspects of life not too many of course. In the case of Emily Dickinson  we find that she has highlighted some important aspects of life – friendship, society, pain and suffering and growth in life and the most potent factor of life that is love.

Dickinson’s Attitude Towards Life and Love from  Her Poems

Thursday, 28 January 2016

What is Dickens Attitude Towards The French Revolution as Depicted in "A Tale of Two Cities"

  Dickens Attitude Towards The French Revolution as Depicted in "A Tale of Two Cities"


The French Revolution was an influential period of social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799. During this period French citizens razed and redesigned their country’s political landscape uprooting centuries old institutions such as absolute monarchy and the feudal system. The famous slogan of the French Revolution was ‘liberty, equality, fraternity’.

What is Dickens Attitude Towards The French Revolution as Depicted in "A Tale of Two Cities"

“Jane Eyre" is an Anti-romantic Novel with a Romantic Ending.

"Jane Eyre" is an Anti-romantic Novel with a Romantic Ending

 
The romantic novel is a literary genre which places primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people and must have an ‘emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending’. ‘Jane Eyre’ can be termed a romantic novel because of Jane’s deep attachment to Mr. Rochester. But Mr. Rochester is not a handsome romantic hero and Jane Eyre is not a pretty girl. There is a great disparity of their age- while Jane is twenty years old Mr. Rochester is almost forty.

“Jane Eyre" is an Anti-romantic Novel with a Romantic Endin


Discuss the role of fate in Hardy’s Tees

Role of fate in Hardy’s Tees 


Hardy’s philosophy is marked with a strong note of fatalism. In his novels characters are helpless creatures and mere puppets in the hands of fate. They cannot enjoy free will. In the case of tees every incident in her life seems to take place as if determined by some unseen indifferent power which takes a malicious delight in her sorrows and sufferings.

The role of fate in Hardy’s Tees

Discuss "Jane Eyre" as a Gothic Novel

 "Jane Eyre" as a Gothic Novel


Gothic novel is a type of romance or fiction the setting of which was medieval and often a gloomy castle full of dungeons and underground passages. These kinds of novels replete with ghosts, mysterious disappearance and other sensational and supernatural occurrences and violent incidents. Jane Eyre uses may forms of the Gothic genre in order to create emotion and get an audience reaction. The most common Gothic form Bronte uses is Jane’s descriptions of the red room, Thornfield Hall the use of supernatural, mysteries, suspense, a ghostly atmosphere, a setting in a castle, the appearances of a fortune-teller etc.

Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel

Would You Call Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” a Historical Novel?

 Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” a Historical Novel


A historical novel deals with historical events. "A Tale of Two Cities" is a historical novel in the sense that it focuses on the period before and during the French Revolution. In the novel Dickens gives the picture of England and of France during the 1780s.

Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” a historical novel