Discuss The Hairy Ape as a Social Satire.

The Hairy Ape as a Social Satire

 
Literature of all types during the last sixty years has dealt with social problems. Social protest has been the moving spirit in literature since the days of Zola. In The Hairy Ape O'Neill reveals himself in sympathy with this tradition, with the one difference that he is not dealing with the condemnation of a particular political order. His problem is the deeper one of the psychological implications of the machine age. His predecessors might have shown how Yank lost his job and finally through starvation was led to crime to support himself and family, or some similar theme. But it should be remembered that Yank's problem was not loss of work. He could have had all the work he wanted. Furthermore, O'Neill does not appeal to the emotions by having Yank lose a sweetheart, mother, or children. Yank is alone as far as any family connections are concerned. It is not work that Yank is seeking. What Yank wants is to know that he "belongs." He wants to find out what it is that has happened to the world which separates him from the realization that what he is doing is a necessary and a fitting part of the life of the world.

 

What is the Significance of the Title of The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway?

Significance of the Title of The Sun Also Rises

 
The title of Ernest Hemingway's first book is The Sun Also Rises, which comes from a verse in the Bible. The title is an apt depiction both of the despair of the Lost Generation of which Hemingway was a part as well as the potential for optimism in the perpetual rising of the sun. 

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. Vanity of vanities, faith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abidethfor ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.

 

Toni Morrison’s Beloved Portrays an Institutionalized Dehumanization of the Slaves. Elucidate.

Beloved Portrays an Institutionalized Dehumanization of the Slaves

 
Toni Morrison’s Beloved explores the physical, emotional, and spiritual devastation wrought by slavery, a devastation that continue to haunt those characters who are former slaves even in freedom. The most dangerous of slavery’s effect is its negative impact on the former slave’s sense of self, and the novel contains multiple examples of self-alienation. Paul D, for instance, is so alienated from himself that at one point he cannot tell whether the screaming he hears is his own or someone else’s. Slaves were told they were subhuman and were traded as commodities whose worth could be expressed in dollars. Consequently, Paul D is very insecure about whether or not he could possibly be a real “man,” and he frequently wonders about hos value as a person.

 

Discuss in the Light of Your Reading of Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Is Sethe’s Murder of Her Own Child

It is a universal truth that every mother loves her child more than herself. It is shocking to hear that a mother has killed her own child. The question which arises in our mind—is how is this possible? If we go through the story of the novel Toni Morrison's Beloved, then it becomes clear to us why and under what situation Sethe murdered her daughter. Although it is not justified to take anyone’s life, we cannot hold Sethe guilty in this regard. The physical abuse which she got from her owner was responsible for her mental trauma. Slavery took joy from her life and gave only unbearable pain. She tried to escape from her horrible life with her children. When she was caught, she killed her daughter for saving her from being a slave and thus leading a miserable life. She thought that dying was better than being a slave. If we go through her tragic life at Sweet Home, we can say that she was justified to kill her own child.

 

To What Extent is The Sun Also Rises a Fictional Chronicle of a “Lost Generation”?

The Sun Also Rises a Fictional Chronicle of a “Lost Generation”

 
Basically, the phrase describes the generation that came to maturity during World War I and describes the cumulative effect of the new kind of warfare on that generation. The technology involved in modern warfare also created carnage on a scale that had never been seen before. The sheer amount of death and destruction from WWI led people to question the meaning of life.

Sketch the Character of Goodman Brown?

What idea have you formed about the character of Goodman Brown

Character of Goodman Brown

Young Goodman Brown is a character that undergoes many changes throughout the story. He is very much influenced by the events that unfold in the woods that night. He is also changed by the characters around him, or rather his knowledge of their hidden sins.

In the beginning of the tale, Goodman Brown seems to be happy with his life. He has a lovely young wife and claims, “I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven.” “We have been a race of honest men and good Christians,” he says of his father’s before him. He respects his elders and is devoted to his religion, like most Puritans during this time period. When he first ventured into the woods he kept insisting it was time to return home.

 

Discuss ‘Young Goodman Brown’ as an Allegorical Story.

"Young Goodman Brown" as an Allegorical Story

 
An allegory is a work of fiction in which the symbols, characters, and events come to represent some aspect of its culture. In American literature, allegories have often been used for instructive purposes around Christian themes.  The story has a figurative meaning beneath the literal one: a story with two meanings.  In American literature, the best example of an allegory is “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story centers on the loss of innocence.

 

How has Saul Bellow Depicted American Life and Society in Seize the Day?

American Life and Society in Seize the Day

 
Saul Bellow has depicted the American life and society as rootless, fraudulence and relation less among the population and financial gambler.

At first we get footlessness’ in American society in which Tommy Wilhem is a man in his mid- forties, temporarily living in the Hotel Gloriana on the Upper West Side of New York City, the same hotel in which his father has taken residence for a number of years. He is out of place from the beginning, living in a hotel filled with elderly retirees and continuing throughout the novel to be a figure of isolation amidst crowds. The novella traverses one very important day in the life of this self- same Tommy Wilhelm: his “day of reckoning” so to speak.

 

Analyse the Theme of Identity and Isolation the ‘The Hairy Ape’.

Theme of Identity and Isolation the ‘The Hairy Ape’

 
Eugene O’Neill, the Nobel winner dramatist and the Shakespeare of America, has exposed in ‘The Hairy Ape’ man’s eternal quest for identity. O'Neill moves his hero Yank, through a series of rapidly changing scenes in his quest to belong, to find his place in the universe. Alienation and search for identity is the basic theme in The Hairy Ape.

In the beginning of the drama Yank feels that he is satisfied with his condition of life as a stoker in a large ship. Yank says that ship is everything to him and he belongs to ship. He is satisfied with the present, and is proud of his ability and strength. He asserts that it is his energy on which the ship and the passengers ultimately depend.