The Hairy Ape - by Eugene O'Neill

The Hairy Ape

-      By Eugene O’Neill

      O'Neill was the first American playwright to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. The Hairy Ape is the published in 1922. It was considered as expressionist play. The story is about a laborer named Yank. He cannot consider as the protagonist of the play because he is having non-heroic qualities in him. He is mostly considered as the antagonist of the play.

       

       The play is all about the self search of Yank and how he faces the reality of the world. He is not a good thinker but still tries to think and feels the he has not such identity on which he can proud. He was happy with his life on the ship and daily schedule. He faced the truth of world when he met Mildred the rich daughter of an industrialist. She called him “filthy beast”. At that time, Yank realised himself as an animal. He came to know his value in this world.

      

       At the end of the play when Yank went to zoo, and talked to Gorilla, he was very much sympathized with Gorilla that both were caged and ignored. He was thinking that both are alike and they should not be caged at all. He freed the Gorilla from the cage and Gorilla killed him and thrown him into the cage.

     

“He slips on the floor and dies. The monkeys set up a chattering, whimpering wail. And, perhaps, the Hairy Ape at last belongs."

      The play has various themes like middle class and upper class, belonging, identity crises, industrialization and thinking and language. Yank’s gesture as Rodin’s ‘the thinker’ represents his desire to get the position of knowledgeable. “Ape” is the symbol of uncivilized people or as the play represents “labours”. Yank is one of those uncivilized people who have missed a point to become a human and that is why considered as an ape.The use of language is also important in the play. the language of high class differs from the middle and worker class.

Prayer before Birth - By Louise MacNeice

Prayer before Birth

-      By Louise MacNeice

  

        Louise MacNeice was an Irish poet. This poem was written on the height of Second World War. This Poem contain a deep meaning related the condition of world towards the War and how a little child is looking towards the world from the womb. 

Prayer before Birth

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

     The child is not yet born but it contains the understanding towards the world and its dark sides. There are bad habits and people which can control the innocent mind of the child but child wants to stay away from that all that miseries. A child wants to console itself from the people and bad habits but wants to get natural elements like water, grass, tree, sky, birds and white light which is a sign of supernatural power and morality.

    

       The child apologizes in advance for the crime he is going to commit which will be taught by society to him. He also apologizes for words he is going to speak and for thoughts which will overpower him. He can be a murderer because society will make him so. He apologizes for every sin he is going to commit.

     

       A child pray that rehearse him even at the time when he becomes the most unwanted person on the earth, when beggars deny taking his gift and his own children curse him.

   

     In the last stanza Child pray to fill his life with strength against those who tries to destroy his humanity and let them not make the child like them. The best line which child says is,

“Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.”

   

       Child wants to live with morals otherwise he wants to die. In this poem we can feel the presence of religion as the poem is about prayer. The prayer is not to the God only but it is for all humans on the earth. The child is aware with everything in the womb and it makes it different from the normal unborn children. We can say that the unborn child is Christ and he wants to take birth but the condition of world is so bad that he prays for death before birth.

Sense and sensibility - Jane Austen

Sense and sensibility

-        Jane Austen

       “Sense and Sensibility” is a novel by Jane Austen. It is divided into three volumes. First part contains 22 chapter and other two parts have 14 chapters. Jane Austen here mocked the over sensibility and praised sense. Austen has presented the value of reason and disasters of passion.

     In the novel there are two main characters Elinor Dashwood and Marianne Dashwood. Elinor presets sense and Marianne is the representation of sensibility. There is a love triangle in the life of both sisters. Elinor loves Edward Ferrars but he has secretly married with Lucy. On the other hand Marianne loves Willoughby but he has betrayed her and married a rich lady Mrs. Gray.

       The novel can be seen as anti romanticism. Lucy and Willoughby has betrayed their partners for money and property. Expectations were so different and reality is like a shock. Colonel Brandon was also in love with Marianne and at last she has accepted his love. Brandon can be considered as the suffering hero of the novel which represents classical hero and high idealism with maturity.

      After all the sufferings the confusion was solved at the end. Marianne and Colonel Brandon get married. The novel contains various themes like, Classicism and Romanticism, Money and inheritance, marriage, family and expectation vs. Reality.

  

Middlemarch - George Eliot

Middlemarch

-        George Eliot

        I have studied this text in MA part 1. Middlemarch is a novel by Mary Anne Evans. She was writing with a pen name of George Eliot. George Eliot was experst in presenting the psychological elements in character’s behaviour and its effect on their life. 

       ‘Middlemarch – a study of provincial life’ is a story of two sisters. The protagonist is Dorothea and Celia is her sister. Dorothea is highly moral and knowledgeable and Celia believes in materialistic life. Here Eliot has presented the two different classes of people in Victorian age. One was still in the influence of classicism and Romanticism and the other believed in the new trend of Victorian age which was about industrial revolution politics and upper class.

   

       The book was published in 1871 but the setting in the novel is 1830. ‘Middlemarch’ is the name of the town. It is the fictional town in the England. This novel has first started as a short novella ‘Miss Brooke’ but later it was published as a novel named ‘Middlemarch’. It was published in eight parts. The title “A Study of Provincial life” suggests that it is a life of ordinary people and how they struggle into their life.

     

     The main character Dorothea Brooke falls in love with an aged scholar Casaubon but soon she came to know about his disinterested behaviour towards life. He was not having value of woman in his life. she again falls in love with Casaubon’s cousin young brother Will Ladislaw. Here the psychological condition of Casaubon and Dorothea is quite noticeable. Casaubon was scholar and linking Dorothea  but was not able to give enough love and respect. Dorothea was in love of Casaubon’s intelligence but was not able to get respect and freedom and she fall in love with other man. Celia was in love with Lydgate and she married to him. But she was not able to adjust with him. She was not able to leave her high sophisticated lifestyle. She was frustrated with the marriage because of poverty.

    

       In this case if we imagine that Celia was a wife of Casaubon she would have been happy and if Dorothea was married with Lydgate both would have been lived perfect life. But perfect life is not for everyone. They have suffered because of their false assumptions towards persona and high expectations. The novel contains themes like Imperfection of marriage, the harshness of social expectations and self determination vs. Chance.