After Edward Said’s work, Orientalism, was published in 1978, it created a lot of buzz and admiration in the academic world, particularly in the budding field of post-colonialism studies, while it also attracted a lot of criticism from notable scholars. This text has shaped and refined the vision, opinion and perception of legions of post-colonialism scholars – essentially anybody who researched and explored this field in the past few decades.

This essay will present the theoretical context of Said’s text and discuss its influences, significance and criticism within the field of post-colonialism studies.

Michel Foucault’s Influence on Edward Said

It’s very important to note that Said was very influenced by the distinguished French philosopher Michel Foucault, whom he mentions explicitly in Orientalism. Michel Foucault is mainly regarded as a post-structuralist, even though he renounces this definition of himself. For those who didn’t stumble upon Foucault before, he analyzes in his theories the relationships between language and power, and claims that the discourse within a culture maintains and perpetuates the dominant powers in that society.

This claim is evident in the entirety of Said’s text, who himself analyzes the relationships between language and power within the specific framework of post-colonialism. Here’s one relevant quote from the text that highlights Foucault’s influence on Said (877):

“Most important, such texts [colonialist texts] can create not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe. In time such knowledge and reality produce a tradition, or what Michel Foucault calls a discourse, whose material presence or weight, not the originality of a given author, is really responsible for the texts produced out of it.”

As plainly illustrated by this quote, Said takes Foucault’s principles of knowledge and power within the discourse and adapts them into his post-colonialist theory.

Knowledge Is Used for Domination and Control

In chapter 1 of his book Orientalism, Edward Said discusses how the British referred to the acquisition of knowledge as a pretext to colonialize foreign lands. Knowledge of the Oriental is the alleged instrument enabling the British to impose the colonialist power system on their subjects. To illustrate his point, Said quotes prominent British political figures such as Arthur James Balfour and Lord Cromer, who have described their occupied “Orientals” in Egypt and India as inferior beings – directly and indirectly – in order to justify colonialism.

 Said states that “British knowledge of Egypt is Egypt for Balfour” (emphasis original, page 32), which means that the ability of the British to obtain and to study the knowledge of Egypt (the colonialized Oriental land) eventually proves their superiority and justified dominance. Following this logic, Balfour rationalizes that “Egypt requires, indeed insists upon, British occupation” (34). Cromer was less subtle than Balfour, and in an essay, he straightforwardly declares that “knowledge of subject races or Orientals is what makes their management easy and profitable” (36). It is clear that for Cromer, knowledge was a means for dominating and controlling the Oriental; and not less important, this knowledge holds economic merits. Furthermore, Said asserts that Cromer regarded Orientals merely as “the human material he governed in British colonies” (39), and therefore their knowledge would allow their subjection.

Said’s portrayal of British colonialism in Orientalism displays an organized structure in which the acquired knowledge of one culture is used as proof of the superiority of another culture; consequently, that supposedly justifies the colonization of the Oriental.

Said’s Impact on Post-Colonialism Studies

Said has a tremendous impact in the particular field of post-colonialism studies. For many eminent post-colonialist scholars and thinkers, Said’s Orientalism is the basis upon which they built their own theories, arguments and ideas. Said’s terminology and division of the West (the “Occident”) versus the East (the “Orient”), and his ideas of how the “rational, virtuous, mature” West wields language to dominate the “irrational, depraved, childlike” East (all Said’s words) became the foundation of post-colonialist studies. Let’s focus on two leading renowned and influential by their own merits academics who based their view on Said’s Orientalism.

The prominent Indian-English post-colonialist scholar Homi Bhabha, who uses Said’s notions and terminology as his bedrock for his own influential theories, stated in an interview:

“And Edward Said’s work was of course crucial in suggesting a whole transdisciplinary terrain—as I say in my book, Said’s perspective caused the flash of recognition in which I first apprehended my own project.”

And indeed, in his essays, Bhabha regards Said’s principles as his starting point from which he elaborates and explains his theories. Bhabha is considered one of the most important thinkers and scholars in the post-colonial field and his different works – which, again, are founded on Said’s ideas – are instrumental and authoritative to many high-profile academics all over the world.

Another distinguished scholar who Said influenced enormously is the celebrated Indian-American theorist Gayatri Spivak, with whom Said was on friendly terms. In her book Outside in the Teaching Machine, Spivak regards Said’s Orientalism as “the source book in our discipline.” After Said’s passing, Spivak referred to him as “my friend and ally, the founder of postcolonial studies, Edward W. Said.” If so, Said is not just another highly distinguished and respected scholar in a specific academic field but is widely regarded as the founder of post-colonialism studies, as acknowledged by one of the field’s most iconic theorists.

Criticism of Said’s Orientalism

There is one conspicuous recurring claim made against Said by critics. This claim was probably first made by Professor Bernard Lewis from Princeton, with whom Said had a few public back-and-forth correspondences after Lewis wrote a long essay called “The Question of Orientalism,” attempting to refute Said’s work. Lewis asserted that Said only focused on the British and French empires from the eighteenth century onwards while ignoring others, such as the Germans; Lewis thus implies that Said’s research is incomplete and flawed.

This claim was later also reiterated separately by the British historian Albert Hourani who stated, “Edward totally ignores the German tradition and philosophy of history which was the central tradition of the orientalists” (Gallagher, 1994). At one point, Lewis referred to his argument with Said with the frustration-fraught statement, “It is difficult to argue with a scream of rage.” Indeed, Said’s Orientalism has an uncompromising, relentless, combatant style that might remind the unapologetic style of third-wave feminism even though it precedes it by about ten years.

Another critical response to Said is by the British historian Robert Irwin, who claims in his book For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies that Said infused the term (or what was a profession) “orientalist” with derogatory connotations, whereas before Said’s work had been published, this was an acclaimed academic branch in which scholars had studied Eastern cultures and languages and actually helped in understanding these societies and cultures. According to Irwin, Said made them seem like oppressive colonialists, which ultimately only damaged East-West relations.

As demonstrated, the ideas and principles in Edward Said’s Orientalism reverberate continuously in the field of post-colonialism ever since the text’s initial publication in 1978. It is one of the most influential texts published in the 20th century, which attracted both ardent followers and avid detractors.

While Said essentially established the field of post-colonialism and unified its terminology, he also attracted a lot of criticism. He is broadly regarded as one of the most famous, significant and inspiring scholars of the 20th century – both by his admirers and critics.

Works Cited:

Gallagher, Nancy Elizabeth. Interview with Albert Hourani in Approaches to the History of the Middle East. London: Ithaca Press, 1994, pp. 40–41.
Irwin, Robert. For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies. Penguin UK, 2007.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon. 1978.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Outside in the Teaching Machine. Routledge, 2012.

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Human beings own the rare ability in nature to use voice as a highly complex communication means, which sets them apart from all other living creatures on the planet. But what exactly are the voice-related areas, language and speech, and to whom do they belong?

This essay will examine language and speech with the assistance of two of the most prominent linguists in history, Mikhail Bakhtin and Ferdinand de Saussure.

Mikhail Bakhtin on Language and Speech

In his essay, “Discourse in the Novel,” Mikhail Bakhtin discusses the function of the discourse in the novel, its essential role in language in general, and the interpretation of language accordingly. Bakhtin argues that language is necessarily created in a mutual social environment, and it never exists only within the sole individual; therefore, he rejects the study of language in texts in which there is only one voice, such as poems. The novel, however, can be used for this sort of study because, ordinarily, it contains several different social voices.

In his essay, Bakhtin claims that language only exists dialogically and does not belong solely to the individual; in fact, language is always an integral part of the dialogue (even when one speaks to himself/herself). Bakhtin proceeds to elaborate that in the novel, the different voices that consist of the dialogue (the “discourse”) are not self-sufficient and are actually subordinated to the speech unity of the author.

According to Bakhtin, “Language … is never unitary” but created by “[a]ctual social life and historical becoming” (page 675); it means that language is built upon a social community and cannot reside merely inside one person (or voice) alone. Therefore, it would be impossible to study language in texts such as poems, which usually contain only one voice. The novel, on the other hand, “can be defined as a diversity of social speech types” (674); for instance, the novel often consists of “a professional stratification of language” (675) – voices that are clearly distinguished by the profession of the speaking character. Although the novel is written by the novelist, due to the wide diversity in the types of social voices, “these languages live a real life, they struggle and evolve in an environment of social heteroglossia” (676). Thus, the novel enables the study of language through speech (parole).

It is interesting and perhaps brave that Bakhtin chooses to prove his point via a type of literary work, which is inherently textual; thus, he manages to score points outside of his own playing field. Even if his argument does not entirely convince one, one at least has to remain impressed by his bold attempt.

Ferdinand de Saussure about Language and Speech

In the book Course in General Linguistics, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure explains the different characteristics of language and speech, and analyzes their shared relations. In his text, de Saussure describes speech as “many-sided and heterogeneous” in which physical, physiological and psychological areas operate together; language, on the other hand, is the collection of the necessary social conventions that serve as the social component within speech (9). Yet, amongst the several areas of speech, language is classified first in the natural order because it is the only instrument for articulating words and giving unity to speech as a whole (11).

In practicality, de Saussure identifies that the execution of speech belongs only to the speaker himself, as it “is always individual, and the individual is always its master” (13). Contrarily, language cannot abide only within the sole individual because it “is not complete in any speaker; it exists perfectly only within a collectivity” (14). Furthermore, while speech is the obvious function of the speaker himself/herself, that is not the case with language, which is merely the “product that is passively assimilated by the individual” (14).

Due to their characteristics, the study of linguistics consists of language rather than speech. In speech, “it would be impossible to provide detailed photographs of acts of speaking”; however, in language, it is possible to use writing as its tangible form, and through dictionaries and grammar, “to represent it accurately” (p. 15).

If so, the two eminent linguists mostly agree: while speech belongs to the individual executing the action of speaking itself, language belongs to a collective that agrees on its uniting elements even if an individual utters it alone. In other words, when a person speaks, the action of speaking is his, while the syllables, words, sentences, etc., belong to a social group familiar with the various literary aspects in unison.

Works Cited:

Bakhtin, Mikhail. “Discourse in the Novel” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds. Julie Rivkind and Michael Ryan. MA.: Blackwell, 2004. 674-685.
De Saussure, Ferdinand. 1959. Course in general linguistics. Ed. Charles, Bally and Albert, Sechehaye. Trans. Wade, Baskin. New York: Fontana Collins.

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In his article, “Is There a Text in This Class?” from his book with the same title, Stanley Fish demonstrates through a simple occurrence of one of his university colleagues that words do not have one absolute determinate meaning. Rather, people interpret the meaning of words based on their own social, cultural, circumstantial and personal contextual situations.

Fish thus asserts in his essay that the interpretive meaning of a literary text does not derive from the author but from the readers based on their former knowledge, culture, community, etc. Fish further elaborates that literary texts are thus fickle and fully dependent on the context and setting of the readers who ascribe the actual meaning to the texts.

In the aforesaid event, a student at Johns Hopkins University asked her professor a supposedly simple and naïve question, “Is there a text in this class?” (page 305). The professor misunderstood the question, believing the student referred to the course’s materials, and the student had to explain what she meant exactly: “No, no… I mean in this class do we believe in poems and things, or is it just us?”

Fish takes this event and analyzes it in order to show that, indeed, there was not a “text” in the class per se; however, as Fish states near the end of the article, “the meaning of the utterance is either perfectly clear or capable, in the course of time, of being clarified” (page 318). This means that although a text is evidently unstable, we would still be able to understand it in a particular situation and circumstance. Sentences are inevitably uttered within a specific framework and context, consisting of social, cultural, personal, and other aspects, and therefore,” the normative meaning of an utterance will always be obvious or at least accessible” (page 307). Had it not been the case, any human communication would verge on the impossible.

Fish hence presents quite a compelling argument, which makes it really difficult to dispute. It would be strenuous to oppose the premise that essentially any text is unstable and cannot be definite without comprehending the larger context in which it is relayed. If this premise were false, linguistics would have been much more restricted and limited with literary/poetic devices such as metaphors, similes, puns, etc. In this kind of dystopian reality, essentially any sort of elaborate communication would be much more tedious, cold and dull – and almost no one would like to live in such a dry and somber reality.

Up until a decade or so ago, perhaps many might have disagreed with Fish’s arguments and believed that even if there are texts open to interpretation, some texts are just hermeneutically closed and sealed. Yet, in the post-Trump era in which truth itself is being challenged, it has become obvious that people would interpret anything in a way that fits their principles, ideas, ideology and opinion, even if it is entirely nonsensical, stupid and utterly refutable.

Perhaps, then, after “Is there a text in this class?” the student should have immediately asked – first and foremost, herself – the proper follow-up question, “And is there a truth in this text?”

Work Cited:

Fish, Stanley Eugene. Is There a Text in This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Page 303-321. Harvard University Press, 1980.

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Novels can be seen as an onion. At first, the readers encounter the transparent outer layer, in which they discover the most external levels of the book – the plot, characters, locales, etc. However, when one begins to “peel” more and more layers into the deeper meanings of the text, one may reveal profound insights about humanity.

Novels do not only offer an entertaining story but also attempt to reflect on who we are, what we are, how we were before and where we might be going in the future. This is one of the most fundamental values of literary texts – to shed insightful light on human nature and its unique features. Let us peel the first layer of this essay with a discussion of the famous novel Lord of the Flies.

When superficially reading the novel Lord of the Flies by William Golding, it may seem like a fascinating but yet merely a plain story – a group of kids is left deserted on a stranded island, and a gripping chain of events turns their situation from bad to catastrophic. Nevertheless, when beginning to contemplate what the novel’s literary elements and devices signify, we realize how fickle human nature is and how dystopian fiction does actually occur, to some extent at least, in reality as well.

People can turn into cruel savages very rapidly. Without even being aware of it, suddenly, the civilized becomes shockingly uncivil, digression looms as the norm and moral values disappear as if they never existed. What were once seemingly cultured human beings now transformed into a bloodthirsty barbarian tribe. Moral values were vanquished by a mixture of desperation and strong charismatic leadership that had brandished the illusion of hope, even if coupled with sadistic manners and a radical vision. They were willing to barter their own basic virtues as human beings for the promise of a better tomorrow. This is not the imaginative world of Golding, though, but Nazi Germany.

In Lord of the Flies, the kids on the island gradually flock to Jack’s tribe as he embodies for them the powerful, authoritative figure and a more alluring way of living in times of great ordeal. Jack creates and enhances the kids’ fear of the “beast,” an unreal grisly creature, in order to manipulatively induce them to partake in brutal attacks against their fellow kids. This situation resembles the state of many German citizens following the Great Depression in the early 1930s, which led to the rise of Hitler. The Nazi Party, in a similar manner to Jack, spread intimidating false propaganda to obtain more political power. In spite of the acute differences on the surface between the fictitious dystopian novel and the real historical calamity, those are actually the same faults of human nature underneath the first layer of the onion.

Lord of the Flies contains more examples of deeper layers and meanings in the text, which evoke sagacious insights about human nature. Sadly, those could not be discussed in this concise and brief essay. However, the figurative “peeler” is available and accessible in everybody’s mind. One has only to be curious enough to read, think critically and uncover the intrinsic layers of the human onion.

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It was a lovely night, and he loved the soft touch of his silk scarf around his throat. As he strolled home, smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him. He heard one of them whisper to the other, “That is Dorian Gray.” It reminded him how pleasing it was to be pointed out, stared at, talked about, being the centerpiece of everyone’s attention and desires. He was contented again, hearing his own name emitted from strangers’ gullet with a timbre of envy and awe. After his last conversation with Lord Henry, he had had to return for the girl; he couldn’t let such a satisfying opportunity slip. He could feel his undying youth in her laughter, his unfading beauty in her unsuspecting admiring gaze. There was a brief moment of weakness in which he considered relinquishing any further seduction; luckily, however, that moment of doubt quickly passed.

When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him. He sent him to bed, but not before he had served him his late gourmet dinner. On the wine glass, he observed the reflection of his face. Something suddenly startled him – a peculiar shape beneath his right eye. It was his greatest latent fear; he shuddered. It was a wrinkle.

He did not want to change. He did not want to part with his outer boyhood. How did it happen? How could it happen? Was it all irretrievable? Was there any hope for him? And then, a swift realization crept into his mind – he knew, without knowing how exactly, what prompted this hideous alteration in his physiognomy. When he had been with her earlier, he had allowed doubt to slink in, to permeate, invade and begin despoiling his unsullied splendor of eternal youth slowly. Even if just shortly and momentarily, he had doubted his manners and comportment; he had doubted his ways and habits; he had doubted his own self, and now he was being punished for it.

The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him so many years ago was standing on the table, and the white-limbed Cupids laughed around it as of old. He took it up, as he had done on that night of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal picture, and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes, looked into its polished shield. Yes, he could see it very clearly now – it was there, mocking him, ridiculing him, ruining him. His beauty and youth were everything to him, and he was losing them both.

He realized that he had to think of the past and confront his doubts before he would be desolated completely by the natural progress of age, to which he was now dismally susceptible. James Vane was in his due place in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard. Alan Campbell had shot himself one night in his laboratory, deservingly perishing with the secret he had no right knowing. Basil Hallward had given him the gift of perdurable bloom but had endeavored to take it away from him. He could not forgive him for that. The murder was simply the judicious eventuality of Hallward’s depreciation of youthful beauty.

A renewed life! That was what he wanted. He would never again be tempted to demurral and misgiving, not even for a short, transient instant. He would be loyal to what he was always destined to be. No hesitations, no regrets, no repentance – there would be no room in his life for those. But what about the portrait? What if it still remained as horrible as it had been? Perhaps if his true self prevailed, he would be able to expel every sign of deformed compunction from the face. He acknowledged the poor prospect of such an option, but he had to go and look.

He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the door, an abrupt twist of angst on his upper lip flitted across his normally and appallingly maturing face. Maybe his penalty was already irreversible, maybe it was already too late, maybe now it was his final and ultimate undoing. He felt as if a giant mass of horrid normality had fallen on his shoulders.

He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of elation and delight broke from him. The portrait had undergone an exhaustive alteration, and for an instant, he had been certain that he was gazing at a completely different picture. In the eyes, there was a look of truthfulness and sincerity, and a genuine natural smile adorned the bottom part of the face. The thing was spectacular – more spectacular, if possible, than Lord Henry’s most extolling praises – and the scarlet dew that had spotted the hand now seemed to blend in perfectly with the body complexion as if it were an organic part of the skin all along. Then he smiled.

Had it been merely a fictitious social construct such as conscience that had made him hesitate with the girl? Or a grotesque gentlemanly predisposition to propriety? Or that self-righteous ‘love thy neighbor’ Christian indoctrination that sometimes makes us do things more moralistic than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the red stain coalescing more integrally into the picture than it had been? It seemed to have spread all over the body and bestowed upon it an almost humane hue. The possibility of confession never appeared farther than it now was. There never was any true duty to confess, nor to suffer public shame, nor to make public atonement. There was no absurd omniscient deity who called upon men to tell their sins to earth as well as to heaven. There was no God, no sin, and thus no necessity for cleansing. There was just now, just the moment, just the present. His smile widened. He gazed into his soul, and for the first time, he truly accepted it and loved it. And as he beamed at the picture, he felt the wrinkle vanishing, dissipating, disappearing into his forever young and beautiful immortal soul, alongside all his doubts. Tears of joy poured on his smooth scarlet cheeks.

Dorian Gray was finally happy.

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In his poem, the House of Fame, Geoffrey Chaucer adopts several scenes from other poems of renowned poets and reworks them in his own text. One example of such adaptation occurs in Book III when the narrator encounters the first group of known poets; this scene resembles a similar one in canto IV of Dante’s Inferno. Yet, in spite of the noticeable semblances, Chaucer’s design and meaning in his own passage are completely different from Dante’s and even entirely antithetical in regard to the premise of fame and who earns it.

It is first important to identify the known poets whom the narrators meet in each work and mark their essential differences. In Dante’s Inferno, the narrator meets four highly acclaimed classical poets: Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan (lines 88-90). In the House of Fame, the narrator faces four poetical figures as well: Orpheus, Orion, Chiron and Bret Glascurion (lines 1203-1208). While Dante introduces four classical poets who actually lived in reality and obtained their honorable stature, Chaucer mentions three fanciful figures from Greek mythology and one, Bret Glascurion, whose reputation and prestige are significantly inferior to the poets in the Inferno.

This first selection of poets by Chaucer, whom the narrator discerns, conveys a jocularly disordered sense: initially, there is a fantastical element to the first three mythical poets he presents, but then the choice of Bret Glascurion reveals the anarchic collection of supposedly famed characters in the House of Fame. This becomes much more conspicuous in comparison with Dante’s stellar ensemble of glorified real-life poets.

Thus, Chaucer borrows Dante’s scene and ridicules it in order to demonstrate how he believes that fame is much more mythically haphazard rather than orderly and methodical.

Chaucer continues to humorously rework Dante’s Inferno after the aforementioned presentation of the poets. In the Inferno, the narrator has a discussion with the four poets and his companion (the venerable poet himself, Virgil) as their equal whilst being invited to join their distinguished group (lines 97-103). In the House of Fame, after the narrator presents the poets, he states that “smale harpers” sit below them and “countrefete hem as an ape / Or as craft counterfeteth kinde” (lines 1209-1213); Chaucer hints that even lesser artists, possibly referring to himself, can successfully mimic the work of great poets, possibly referring to Dante, just as those superior poets attempt to imitate nature in their art.

Again, Chaucer mocks the premise that fame is the result of simply great talent and ascribes much more significance to plain randomness.

From this passage, it seems that Chaucer has a complicated relationship with Dante. On the one hand, he obviously respects him and admires his work, if only for the mere fact that he chooses to rework the Inferno; on the other hand, Chaucer disputes Dante’s more organized notion of fame and tries to show that fame has a very chaotic aspect. Alternatively, perhaps Chaucer simply disagrees with the predominant social notion of fame and uses Dante, as an admired poet, to display his own belief. Whatever the case may be, the result is thought-provoking and profoundly entertaining.

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One of the most pleasurable aspects of the novel is the possibility of witnessing the development and growth of the main characters. Throughout the pages, the reader can observe how the life circumstances and events affect the maturation of a particular character and propel him/her to cultivate a unique personality and approach toward the outside world.

Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights portray two characters from early childhood to young adulthood – Philip Pirrip (Pip) and Cathy Linton. While the characters obviously differ in their traits, surrounding environment and cardinal events in their lives, they yet share a few fundamental parallels that relate to the most basic aspects of their upbringing. This essay will argue that there are meaningful symmetries in the development of Pip and Cathy in regard to their parentage, the lonely environment they grow up in, close connections and education.

Lack of Parents

 Both Pip and Cathy suffer from a significant parental dysfunction during their upbringing – they are not raised by both their parents and have other people function as their guardians and caretakers.

Pip is an orphan who does not recall his parents at all, and he states right at the beginning of the novel, “I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them” (chapter I). He is raised by his cruel sister, over twenty years older than him and by her kind husband, Joe. When Pip is still a young child, Orlick savagely attacks his sister and she remains unresponsive and disabled until her death years later; thus, Pip loses even his replacement of a mother figure and is raised solely by Joe until he leaves for London.

Pip’s lack of parental figures and warm upbringing seem to have a significant influence on him: he rapidly perceives Miss Havisham as a type of a new maternal figure for himself, whom he fantasizes to be his secret benefactor. In addition, it appears quite easy for him to emotionally and physically detach himself from his home in Kent as he has no strong familial roots there.

Compared to Pip, who does not know both his parents at all, Cathy’s mother dies just a few hours after giving birth to Cathy, and whilst Pip has Joe as his caring paternal figure in his childhood, Nelly Dean plays a similar role in Cathy’s early life as a devoted maternal figure. When Cathy is sixteen, she accidentally meets Heathcliff at the moors and shortly thereafter admits she almost instantly liked him when she realizes that he is her uncle (chapter XXI); this initial prompt liking of Heathcliff can be explained by Cathy’s deep desire for a family and perhaps even a parental figure she lacks.

Later on, she trusts Heathcliff on two separate occasions when he persuades her to visit Linton (chapters XXIII and XXVII) even though she already hears what he is capable of and what sort of malevolent person he is. Perhaps Cathy enters Wuthering Heights twice out of sheer concern for the sickly Linton; however, there is also a possibility that Cathy has some primeval wish that she could trust Heathcliff as a substitute for a parent, especially during a vulnerable period in which her father is dying.

Thus, Pip and Cathy share a similar model of a dysfunctional family, which clearly has a huge analogous influence on them, such as seeing other people as substitutes for the void they have in their own family tree, even if those people are cruel and untrustworthy.

Lonely Environment Growing Up

In addition to their intricate family situations, both Pip and Cathy grow up in a lonely environment with almost no age-appropriate friends during their childhood.

Pip does not seem to have any real friends at all until he is eight years old and meets Biddy, who remains his only real friend until he befriends Herbert in London seven or eight years later. The only other child with whom Pip appears to form a relationship is Estella; however, she mistreats and humiliates him and certainly cannot be regarded as a good friend. While Pip’s childhood is lonely, Cathy’s is even lonelier. Due to her father’s grave concern for her, Cathy remains within about a one-mile radius of the premises of her house until she is thirteen years old, during which she is “a perfect recluse” (chapter XVIII).

There seem to be similar social consequences in Pip’s and Cathy’s mature lives as a result of their childhood seclusion: they do not establish many strong relationships, but when they do, those are very impactful and lasting connections.

Pip builds a firm and durable friendship with Herbert in London and even funds his business endeavors without his knowledge; in addition, Pip also gradually befriends Jagger’s clerk, Wemmick, who intimately hosts him at his home on many occasions. As devoted friends, Herbert and Wemmick take a vital part in Pip’s risky attempt to smuggle Magwitch out of the country.

From her side, Cathy also acquires only a couple, yet meaningful, connections. She instantly develops an intense attachment to her sickly cousin, Linton, even before she actually meets him as she asserts that it will be “delightful … to have him for a playfellow” (chapter XIX); although the two have a very volatile relationship, they ultimately get married, and Cathy tends to him until he dies. She likewise immediately connects to Hareton when she coincidentally meets him after she escapes from her house while her father is away (chapter XVIII). The two also have an erratic relationship, but after Linton dies, they get closer until they eventually fall in love.

Thus, Pip and Cathy grow up in a similar reclusive manner, which has comparable effects on the ways they connect to other people later on in their lives.

Education

Another important element that has a prominent function in the lives of Pip and Cathy is education, by which they similarly judge others and are judged in accordance with society’s different classes’ conventions.

As a young child, Pip receives a very basic and very poor education at the evening school of Mr. Wopsle and his great-aunt (chapter VII). Compared to Joe, who can barely spell his own name, this deficient level of education does not seem problematic to Pip at first; however, later on, at Miss Havisham’s house, he is harshly derided by Estella for his brutish demeanor and education, which makes him feel “humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry” (chapter VIII). Pip decides to improve his level of education by taking private tutoring from Biddy (chapter X), further reading himself (chapter XV) and with the help of Herbert in London (chapter XXII), which perhaps makes him more learned and a gentleman who, in the end, even wins Estella, but it also makes him distant and deeply ashamed of Joe and his past.

Whereas Pip begins his educational journey from the bottom and steadily works his way up, Cathy receives an excellent education right from the start. Yet, regardless of their starting point, the two still share a strong desire to learn more and a tenacious will to enhance their knowledge. Cathy’s father homeschools her, and although he is soft to her due to her “curiosity and a quick intellect,” she grows to be “an apt scholar” whilst “learn[ing] rapidly and eagerly” (chapter XVIII). When Cathy meets Hareton for the first time, they get along splendidly; but when they meet again a few years later, discovering that he is uneducated and cannot read, she insults and ridicules him with Linton (chapter XXI). Cathy continues to mock Hareton for his attempts to learn to read, but finally, through education, they connect again – Cathy shares her books with him and teaches him herself how to read properly, and they fall in love.

For both Pip and Cathy, education is an intrinsic part of their development that can divide them and others, but it can also be used as a way to bridge between them and eventual closest partners.

Pip and Cathy grow up in very different places, belong to a different social class, and have different personalities. Nonetheless, in spite of the distinctions between them, some of their most elemental aspects in life do correlate, as illustrated, which thrusts the two characters to corresponding choices and decisions in their separate paths. For instance, both sacrifice themselves to help others: Pip tries to help Magwitch to escape and risks his own freedom, and Cathy marries Linton just to see her father for the last time as “[h]e die[s] blissfully” (chapter XXVIII).

At the end of their literary journey, after both of them endure many obstacles, ordeals and loss of loved ones, Pip and Cathy reach the same destination: they finally find real happiness and true love. That presents the concluding last symmetry between them and the last one of this essay.

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The short story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Ernest Hemingway is a tale of a dangerous hunt in an African wilderness. Behind the entertaining outer layer of this story, there are almost endless possibilities to interpret it with a deeper symbolic layer of cultural, social or even – as it will be demonstrated here – economic phenomenons.

This essay will illustrate how the short story might be construed as an allegory of the pursuit of financial investments and its ensuing risks in Western society.

The Setting

The story’s setting as a whole is a metaphor for the dangerous and unexpected environment of economics. Geographically, the plot is set on some African safari, probably in Kenya, due to Margot’s allusion to Nairobi during the hunt of the buffalo.

The narrator portrays a realistic setting of the safari’s topography, which is naturally very different from the familiar urban topography of the typical Westerner: “[T]hey went down the steep bank and across the stream, climbing over and around the boulders and up the other bank, pulling up by some projecting roots.” In that sense, these sorts of alien surroundings are allegorical to the financial realm – the amateur investor may first find it exotic and enticing on the one hand, but on the other, it is completely foreign and unpredictable.

The story’s setting conveys the sense that it is only familiar and relatively safe for the “professionals.” The suspense is especially noticeable during the event in which the “amateur” Macomber, alongside the experienced hunting group, go together after the injured lion into the perilous tall grass. It suggests that investing newcomers may try to pursue the excitement and monetary temptation of financial opportunities, but ultimately it is chiefly the territory of the experts, who are fully acquainted with its unique economic attributes and hazards. Thus, the setting has as well a functional role in representing the alluring yet risky environment of investments.

The Professional-Amateur Juxtaposition

The characteristic differences between economics specialists and untrained dilettantes are stressed in the story symbolically by the juxtaposition between the attire of Wilson and Macomber. While Wilson wears “old slacks” and “very dirty boots,” Macomber wears the same clothes only “that his [are] new.” In addition, Wilson holds “four big cartridges,” whereas Macomber does not. This shows that Wilson is the seasoned professional with the necessary “tools” for his role, while Wilson just feigns a semblance of professionalism.

This comparison is very prominent throughout an external analepsis – Macomber’s flashback of the hunt of the lion. Immediately after the frightened and anxious Macomber admits to his wife that the lion’s roar is “frightful,” Wilson arrives carrying his “505 Gibbs and grin[s].” The superiority of Wilson over Macomber culminates after the close encounter of the group with the lion: “Macomber, standing by himself in the clearing where he had run, holding a loaded rifle, while two black men and a white man looked back at him in contempt.” This event implies that in the face of a real acute financial crisis, those are mainly the experts who excel, whereas the amateurs fail.

The big characteristic development and ultimate demise of the story’s protagonist, Macomber, is a metaphor for the inept investor.

Macomber and his wife leave for the safari in order to add “more than a spice of adventure” to their lives, similar to how an investing novice seeks some extra capital gains. When Macomber hears the lion for the first time, he gets scared while “[t]here [is] no one to tell he [is] afraid” – feelings of fear and entrapment, which are equivalent to the emotions of a fledgling investor realizing in what sort of complex field he/she is involved in for the first time.

The confrontation of Macomber with the lion is his first serious challenge, in which he utterly fails; this represents the unskilled investor’s initial trial that he will likely lose. The following hunt proves to be successful for Macomber; however, the prey is just “three old bulls,” which shows that even the untrained investor can gain small wins sometimes. The hunt of the three old bulls is what exhilarates Macomber and makes him wholly complacent and overconfident in a way that even Wilson ponders, “Yesterday he’s scared sick and today he’s a ruddy fire eater,” an illustration of how a few small fruitful ventures could make the rookie overly arrogant and haughty.

Macomber’s presumptuous behavior drives him to persist in chasing the injured bull, which eventually leads to his death, a demonstration of how the cocky attitude of the inexperienced investor could cause his/her absolute demise.

The Focalization

A fascinating aspect of the story is the focalization of the omniscient narrator. Throughout the story, a few characters are focalized, which allows deep cognitive privilege into their mind.

In addition to Macomber, Wilson is focalized as well at times. Wilson’s focalization enables the reader to see how he acknowledges his professional superiority over the others: “He [Wilson] had his own standards about the killing and they could live up to them or get some one else to hunt them.” This focalization also illustrates how morally askew Wilson is and how sometimes he knowingly exploits his clients. Wilson admits that he also carries with him “a double size cot” when he goes hunting with clients because occasionally, “the women did not feel they were getting their money’s worth unless they had shared that cot with the white hunter.” This shows that Wilson’s sexual affair with Margot is not just a one-time event and suggests that financial professionals commonly abuse their positions solely for their own selfish gain.

Another fascinating focalization in the story is the lion, which has the functionality of depicting the hunt from the prey’s point of view and exhibits the perspective of investment fraud victims. At first, the lion fails to detect that he is actually the mark of the hunters, and even after he does and attempts to storm at his assailants, he practically has no chance against the armed professionals who chase him. Through the lion’s focalization, the story points out that there are also victims in the investment world who might even be leaders in their respective fields but face very few odds against skilled investment hunters.

By wielding multiple literary devices, as demonstrated here, Hemingway creates a story that could be interpreted on various, almost endless, levels. While this essay explains how the short story is allegorical to the financial investment world, different readers might perceive it otherwise. However, the basic literary notions of the story – the setting as foreign and unpredictable, the characteristic juxtaposition between Wilson and Macomber, the big characteristic development of Macomber, and the functionality of multiple focalizations to depict a variety of points of view – remain the same in each theory.

Just as in the elaborated world of financial investments, even though different people can derive from the story different returns, the fundamental foundations stay equal.

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Persuasion is an art. Over the ages, human beings have attempted to develop, refine and perfect their ability to articulate their message deftly in the best convincing way possible. Sophisticated poems, complex parables and entire novels were written plainly to convey an idea through all forms of literary and poetic devices. However, as the Beatles’ song “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” shows, sometimes a brief, straightforward message would suffice to generate a compelling message.

Unlike other textually longer songs by the Beatles, the song “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” consists of solely two reiterating lines during less than two minutes in length: the line “Why don’t we do it in the road” is repeated fifteen times, and “No one will be watching us” is repeated three times. This is certainly an uncommon lyrical structure of a song, whose sheer unusual simplicity is what makes it so intriguing and, of course, entertaining. Whereas the listeners might have initially expected a comprehensive explanation or reasoning to answer the query of the song’s title, the repetitive two lines create a strong sense of irony that leaves the quandary of the song’s speaker unanswered.

Shallow or Deep?

On the surface, the song may seem like a presumable shallow pleading of a man to engage in some sort of sexual intercourse with a woman while they are on the road. After all, he does inquire multiple times why they should not do it and even justify it by stating that nobody will watch them doing it. Nevertheless, there is a deeper way to interpret the song. The speaker may address the hypocrisy of conservative values – if both people involved want to enjoy each other’s physical act of love no matter where they are and while they do not bother anyone, why should old orthodox principles prevent them from doing so? Hence, the song is not only about a desirous beseeching of a man from a woman, but it is also an indirect act of defiance against obsolete hypocritical conventions of society.

An important element of the song is the changing tone of the singer, Paul McCartney. Throughout the song, McCartney sounds increasingly more astonished and even desperate when he repeats the same lines. His growing bewilderment in the song can be divided into three verses; each one includes four lines of “Why don’t we do it in the road,” one line of “No one will be watching us,” immediately followed by another line of “Why don’t we do it in the road.” The emotionality in the singer’s voice rises between verse to verse and, in addition, inside each verse itself. Ultimately, the singer’s tone culminates in the last couple of lines, and thereafter the song ends abruptly. The vocalized aspect of the song illustrates the gradually amplifying frustration and despair of the speaker, and the sudden ending enhances even furthermore those sentiments as his confounded question remains open.

An interesting point to explore is the gender-based issues that the song raises. The song’s speaker is a man who presumably addresses his spouse. It is unclear if the song intends to represent a personal approach toward a particular woman or if it generally appeals to women to be more open about sexual relations. It is possible that the song hints that women avoid participating in sexual activities due to fear of society’s reproachful response, which the speaker tries to bypass by elucidating that nobody will know.

Alternatively, the song could simply depict the hopeless behavior of men when they desire to have sex with women. In this case, men’s demeanor could be seen as obsessive and demeaning. Since the woman’s point of view is not presented at all and the man’s perspective is only presented in two short lines, the gender-based effects of the song are wide open to individual interpretation of the listeners.

 The song “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” by the Beatles proves that it is possible to convey a notion or an idea through a couple of concise lines. The insistent forthright appeals to the addressee, apparently the speaker’s spouse, produce an ironical sentiment that is intensified progressively with the singer’s despondent tone.

Additionally, the song evokes the listeners’ personal views and commentary on gender-related topics. Lastly, the song inescapably leaves the listeners with their own personal contemplation on the possible merits and drawbacks of doing it on the road, if no one will watch them, of course.

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One of the main theatrical devices in almost any play is the clothing of the characters. The different types of clothes and adornments of the characters enable the writer to portray important aspects of the play without words – social class, economic status, official position and even gender during the past times in which only male actors were allowed to perform in the theatres.

In William Shakespeare’s play, The Taming of the Shrew, clothing is not only a central motif used to help build up various characterizations in the play, but it is also the primary device to convey the themes of disguise, social class and marriage. This essay will discuss The Taming of the Shrew’s clothing motif, its relations to the play’s central themes, and how it operates as another measure of characterization.

The Lord’s Characterization through Clothing

Almost immediately at the Induction’s beginning, the different functions of the clothing motif are divulged to the readers/viewers of the play. When the Lord enters the tavern and sees the drunkard Sly wholly passed out, he reflects if Sly will “forget himself” when he wakes up in a foreign bed “Wrapp’d in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers” (Induction.1.38).

This scene highlights two critical distinguishments about the Lord. First, it characterizes the Lord’s dubious morality because he unhesitatingly decides to deceive other people by changing their attires in vulnerable moments. Second, it presents the themes of disguise and social class through different clothing. However, while throughout the rest of the play, the other characters disguise their own selves to lower their social class for pragmatic reasons, here the Lord actually veils another person to raise his social status for nothing but a practical joke.

In addition, the Lord orders that his servant Bartholomew will be “dress’d in all suits like a lady” (Induction.1.106) in order to trick Sly into believing that he has a wife from a high social class. This is the only gender transformation by disguise in the play, which furthermore characterizes the superiority of the Lord in the play, perhaps only second to Shakespeare himself.

“Changing” Social Class by Changing Clothes

The Taming of the Shrew is, in fact, a play within a play, in which a couple of characters disguise themselves as lower-class schoolmasters to obtain a high-class marriage.

After Lucentio sees Bianca for the first time and utterly falls for her, he devises a plan to wed her – he exchanges clothes with his servant Tranio and disguises as a schoolmaster to get near Bianca while Tranio will role-play him (1.1.198-209). This ruse characterizes Lucentio as an assertive and daring individual on the one hand, but on the other, also as unstable and impulsive because just a few moments earlier, he proclaims his utter dedication solely to his academic studies and nothing else.

Another suitor of Bianca, Hortensio, also decides to disguise himself as a schoolmaster to pursue her; however, that characterizes him quite differently than Lucentio. Hortensio asks Petruchio if he could “offer (him) disguis’d in sober robes” (1.2.132), so he will woo Bianca under the pretense of a music instructor. Unlike young Lucentio, Hortensio is an older man, and therefore, this ploy portrays him quite pitifully rather than in a playfully youthful manner as it might in Lucentio’s case. When Lucentio disguises as a schoolmaster, this act could be ascribed to his mischievous juvenility, but for Hortensio, it reeks of old-age desperation. Even though both Lucentio and Hortensio play the same game of disguise by changing their clothes, they are not characterized similarly due to their age differences.

These acts of disguise also stress the themes of social class and proper marriage, which the characters are really determined to win.

Taming via Clothing

In one of the most dramatic events of the play, the clothing motif takes the most prominent role in the scene. When everybody awaits the late Petruchio to show up at his own wedding, the servant Biondello announces his belated arrival by meticulously describing his shaggy appearance (3.2.43-63). Baptista is shocked to recognize that Biondello’s description is accurate and demands that Petruchio change into more suitable clothes for the wedding with his daughter; thereupon, Petruchio refuses and retorts that “To me she’s married, not unto my clothes” (3.2.117).

Petruchio’s ragged garments and rude responses elucidate how far he intends to go with his “taming” and indicate that he holds very little regard for social conventions when they conflict with his goals, even in an important social event such as his own marriage ceremony. The choice of disheveled apparel and late arrival, which completely humiliates Katharina, symbolizes Petruchio’s view of their marriage – the shrew wife must be vehemently tamed, even at the expense of socially accepted norms. Petruchio is not entirely crazy to don such unseemly clothes to the wedding ceremony, and even Tranio validates, “He hath some meaning in his mad attire” (3.2.124).

The fact that Baptista eventually accedes to giving away his daughter to such an erratic person, who intentionally dresses for his own wedding sloppily, emphasizes Baptista’s eagerness to marry Katharina already.

The clothing motif has another notable part throughout another scene in which Petruchio abuses Katharina. A while after the newlywed arrives at Petruchio’s house, Petruchio orders a new gown from a tailor for Katharina. When the tailor displays the gown to the couple, Petruchio pretends it is not what he requested, while Katharina exclaims in surprise that she “never saw a better fashion’d gown” (4.3.101). This exhibits how Petruchio slyly acts on two levels: first, he allegedly does something nice for Katharina; second, he does this presumably generous gesture only as a means to ultimately torment her. To add more to Katharina’s maltreatment, thereafter, Petruchio and his servant Grumio begin a long back and forth bantering with the tailor, in which they feign an inquiry of why the gown was marred, whereas they only actually wish to exhaust Katharina. Eventually, Petruchio sends the tailor away with the gown and declares that he and Katharina will leave for Baptista’s house with their “garments poor” (4.3.171).

This scene affirms again how resolute Petruchio is to tame Katharina and that he does not really care if he humiliates other people along the way, such as the tailor, as long as it serves his taming interests. In fact, by visiting respectable members of society in poor clothes later, Petruchio shows that he is even willing to risk his own social stature and humiliate himself as well for the purposes of taming Katharina and his twisted version of the ideal marriage.

In the final scene of the play, there is a utilization of the clothing motif to demonstrate that the full cycle of Katharina’s taming is completed. Petruchio wins the bet amongst the three competing husbands for having the most obedient wife; on top of that, Katharina afterward also brings with her the other two “shrewish” wives, Bianca and the widow. However, Petruchio is not satisfied yet, so he orders Katharina to throw away her hat in front of everybody for no real logical reason: “Katharina, that cap of yours becomes you not: / Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot” (5.2.121-122). Katharina dutifully complies and thus confirms that she is indeed now tamed, to the amazement of the widow and Bianca.

Alternatively, this could characterize Katharina’s comprehension of her husband in spite of all and that she finally agrees to fully partake in his chauvinistic displays for the sake of herself and her marriage. Lastly, this event might reflect the social setting of those times when men desired that their wives would merely be docile and meek, as echoed by Lucentio’s response to Bianca: “I would your duty were as foolish too” (5.2.126).

Conclusion

In The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare uses the clothing motif far beyond its mere apparent function of just apparel. As demonstrated, under the surface, clothing is an important motif of the play that conveys, often as the primary device, the play’s main themes of disguise, social class and marriage. In addition, this motif assists the readers/viewers to better understand on a deeper level the unique characterization of characters such as Lucentio, Hortensio, Petruchio and Katharina in a very visual manner.

Shakespeare’s concoction of material elements such as clothes combined with intangible features like the thickening plot and the witty dialogues results in a fantastic spectacle of comedy, which raises the meaningful thematic issues of social class and marriage in a highly entertaining way.

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Throughout history, religion has always taken a prominent role in people’s lives in Western culture to various degrees. However, even if the general belief in higher powers remained prevalent, it evolved and changed greatly. Religions that were once in the mainstream have completely vanished, and other religions have taken their place with their own entirely new spectrum of doctrines and customs. One fascinating field reflecting the prevailing religious practices in a certain era is literature.

This essay will show and discuss how the common Western religious faith has changed in two historical periods through two literary masterpieces, Oedipus the King by Sophocles and The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

It is first important to understand the time in which each masterpiece was written. Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King around 420 B.C., in a culture that was deeply infused with polytheism and faith in the ancient Greek gods. The ancient Greek religion already manifests itself in the first scene of the play, where the priest of Zeus, god of all Greek gods, complains to King Oedipus (16) about a disease that inflicts the citizens of Thebes. Everybody perceives the priest as a highly authoritative and respected figure, and all, including King Oedipus, undisputedly accept his sayings.

On the other hand, Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales between 1387 and 1400 A.D., after the faith in the Greek gods was essentially eradicated in Western society. During that time, near the end of the Medieval period, monotheism and especially Christianity was already the predominant religious faith. The effect of Christianity on the story is conspicuous right from the start – the entire plot of The Canterbury Tales revolves around an old Christian custom, a pilgrimage (General Prologue, 12).

Sacred Locales

The different cultural and political roles religion had in the two periods can be illustrated by the representation of sacred locales in each masterpiece.

In Oedipus the King, Oedipus sends Creon to Apollo’s temple at Delphi to find the cause and the solution to the pestilence in Thebes, which shows the grave significance people had ascribed to this holy shrine. Additionally, the chorus, which represents the masses, attributes authority to the blind prophet Teiresias by stating that he was “[s]peaking from the Delphic rock” (562). Another example is when Oedipus reveals to Jocasta (945) how he heard the dire prophecy at Delphi when he was young, which terrified him so much that he fled Corinth to Thebes. That illustrates the utter solemnity and awe those types of temples evoked.

In The Canterbury Tales, however, not only that the sacred destination is less meaningful, but also it never actually reached. Even though the alleged objective of the pilgrims’ journey is to visit the shrine of the “hooly blisful martir” Saint Thomas (General Prologue, 17) in Canterbury, the pilgrims eventually do not get there. The general atmosphere in the story is that the pilgrims do not really seek a religiously cleansing journey, which defines a true pilgrimage, but really just wish to revel and feast. To begin with, the pilgrims meet at an inn, a place notorious for debauchery and certainly not for holiness. One of the characters in the story, the Wife of Bath, appears as an extremely vulgar and promiscuous woman who had no less than five husbands in her lifetime; nonetheless, she went on three different pilgrimages to Jerusalem (465). This implies that supposedly spiritual voyages to holy locations were perceived merely as a pretext for licentious trips.

Therefore, based on the different attitudes to holy religious locales, it appears that religion had a much more integrally gripping control on believers within the culture in Sophocles’ time rather than in Chaucer’s.

Profanities

An intriguing topic of comparison between the two masterpieces is the godly repercussions of profaning what was perceived as religiously sacred.

In Oedipus the King, the gods actually punish Oedipus for the sin of his father, Laius, who raped a young boy and was never judged for this crime by the respective justice system of the period. Nevertheless, Oedipus is not completely religiously righteous himself. He unjustifiably mistreats several different people throughout the play: Creon, who only attempts to help; Teiresias, the blind prophet and a holy man of the gods; and the messenger, an old shepherd who had even saved Oedipus’ life when he was sent to his death as a baby. Jocasta, Oedipus’ mother/wife, debases a few times the gods and their oracles (871-873, 1120-1132) before she takes her own life. Thus, there is a distinct connection between violating the laws of the gods and punishment.

In contrast, in The Canterbury Tales, the men of the Christian church themselves sin, to no apparent divine punitive response. The Monk is supposed to study in his cloister or work for his monastery, but instead, all he loves to do is to ride, hunt (General Prologue, 189-192) and eat (206). The Friar is described as a wanton (208) and a gossipy (211) person implied to take bribes for absolving people’s sins a few times in the text (225, 232, 249, 254 and 257). The worst of them all is the Pardoner. The Pardoner himself admits that he defrauds people by selling them fake relics and cures (The Pardoner’s Prologue, 103), and he even says that he will cheat a poor widow whose children starve (164-165). There is not any hint in the text that those characters will ultimately be punished for their sins.

From the religious side of consequences for sins, there is a huge gap between Oedipus the King and The Canterbury Tales.

Higher Divine Powers

Another fundamental aspect that exists only in Oedipus the King is the direct involvement of higher religious powers in the main plot.

When Jocasta and Laius hear the prophecy that their son would kill Laius, they give the baby to their servants and order them to leave Oedipus to die in a forest (854-865). Thus, the religious prophecy itself commences the basic chain reaction of the plot. When Oedipus grows a little older, he hears the prophecy that he will kill his father and bed his mother (951-954), and that makes him run away from Corinth to Thebes (955) without knowing that he actually returns to the city where he was born. Again, it is the religious prophecy that initiates the domino effect in which Oedipus kills his father, Laius, on his way to Thebes and marries his mother, Jocasta, after his arrival.

In The Canterbury Tales, it does not seem to be any evident divine control over the plot or the characters in the main storyline. Whether the characters interact with each other or recount events from their own personal history, there is no indication of an active godly intervention that has any significant impact. However, in the tales that the characters tell one another, there are a few incidents where higher religious deities take an active part in these hypodiegetic levels. For instance, the ancient Greek gods greatly influence the tale of the Knight. Mercury appears in Arcita’s dream (The Knight’s Tale, 527) and persuades him to travel to Athens. The gods, Venus and Mars, bicker over the winner of the contest of the humans (1580-1584) until Saturn decrees that Palamon would win (1612-1614). Saturn makes the earth tremble beneath the feet of Arcita and his horse (1826-1829), which leads to Arcita’s demise.

Therefore, in The Canterbury Tales, the interference of higher religious forces solely emerges in the characters’ inner tales, whereas in Oedipus the King, it directly impacts the primary storyline.

In conclusion, the respective widespread religious faith in Western society was altered immensely throughout the ages, as demonstrated in this essay by comparing two literary masterpieces from two various periods. Whereas in more ancient times, there was a common strong polytheistic religious belief, about two thousand years later, religion had become chiefly monotheistic. In addition, even though religion remained very culturally dominant, it does seem to weaken a little bit in its palpable perception among believers.

The conceptualization of the gods in Sophocles’ era was more tangible than in Chaucer’s, which had transformed into a more abstract notion. It appears that religion somewhat loosened its ties to the cultural and political areas of life when comparing the two periods, although it kept on being intertwined in society meaningfully.

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The following excerpt is from one of the most constitutive texts of the 20th century, The Madwoman in the Attic, by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar:

Obviously the conscious or semi-conscious allegorical intention of this narrative poem is sexual/religious … Beyond such didacticism, however, ‘Goblin Market’ seems to have a tantalizing number of other levels of meaning – meanings about and for women in particular – so that it has recently begun to be something of a textual crux for feminist critics.

(Gilbert and Gubar, p. 566)

The main claim of the excerpt is that nineteenth-century women artists like Christina Rossetti actually helped to maintain the patriarchal values of the Victorian period. To demonstrate and support their argument, Gilbert and Gubar mainly focus on the interpretation of the poem “Goblin Market” by Rossetti.

The first example they use is the mere portrayal of Laura as a disobedient girl, for which she is punished throughout the text until she returns to the accepted feminine state of obedience with the assistance of her always-dutiful sister, Lizzie. Gilbert and Gubar also offer a sexual/religious allegorical interpretation: Laura’s insubordinate behavior and the eating of the forbidden fruit represent, in addition to the obvious comparison to Eve, the loss of her virginity and thereafter her consequent steep fall; then, the devoted and well-behaved Lizzie, like Jesus, ultimately redeems Laura from her sin.

Later on in the text, Gilbert and Gubar raise the parallelisms between “Goblin Market” and Milton’s Paradise Lost as another corroboration for interpreting the text as a religious allegory – which validates the proper and improper values of women in the Victorian period as demonstrated in “Goblin Market.” According to Gilbert and Gubar, the fatal backstory of the unruly Jeanie also contributes to the commemoration of proper traditional Victorian values by which women should abide, such as modesty, domestication and docility.

The final point of the critics is that “Goblin Market” and another poem of Rossetti, “From House to Home,” allegorize the Victorian perception of gender relationships in art: ultimately, solely self-deprecation and renunciation of their muse are appropriate for women poets, and therefore they should not roam free and wild within the metaphorical glen of imagination.

For me, the analysis and interpretation of Gilbert and Gubar were certainly helpful but not necessary. From an informed and educated contemporary perspective, most of the arguments of the excerpt were already established and could be independently inferred when reading “Goblin Market” even without previously reading Gilbert and Gubar’s text.

In the modern academic eye, Lizze’s successful endeavor toward status-quo meekness, Laura and Jeanie’s feminine defiance and their ensuing punishment are rapidly understood as anti-feminist and do not necessitate further elaboration. These current viewpoints and understanding are perhaps somewhat paradoxically due to culturally influential feminist works, such as Gilbert and Gubar’s, which are already embedded into at least some circles of Western society.

That is not to say that Gilbert and Gubar’s work is even slightly redundant, but on the contrary – that education that strives to encompass modern values of equality does slowly permeate and therefore should not be discarded but just further studied and emphasized. Who knows, with enough adequate education, one day, a woman might even become the leader of the free world.

Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, pp. 564-75. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.

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In both the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale from The Canterbury Tales, there are depictions of relationships in which the male character alludes to textual authority to bolster his position. However, in spite of the similarities between the two passages, there are acute differences in the way and intention that each character wields; these differences can shed light on the entire relationship of the characters and reflect on their spousal connection.

The Wife of Bath recounts how her fifth husband, Jankyn, used to read to her “nyght and day” from a book called “Valerie and Theofraste,” which is about famous “wikked wyves” from authoritative texts such as Eve, Deianira, Pasiphae and more; she then explains that Jankyn read this antagonizing book to her “[f]or his desport” (lines 675-770). Thus, it seems that Jankyn’s purposes of citing from his book to his wife were to upset, irritate and even abuse her, and probably also to demonstrate his sexist beliefs.

As opposed to the dysfunctional relationship of the Wife of Bath in which the husband cruelly employs textual authority to offend her and establish a misogynistic ideology, in the tale of the Nun’s Priest, Chauntcleer respectfully alludes to textual authority to rationally convince Pertelote of his opinion’s veracity. Chauntcleer addresses Pertelote with deep respect even after she reproaches him harshly for letting a dream affect him. He calls her “Madame,” then thanks her by stating “graunt mercy of youre loore” (line 204) and later on courteously refers to her as “Dame Pertelote” (line 356). Thereafter, Chauntcleer offers examples and cites from authoritative texts of Greek mythology and the Bible in order to exhibit how bad dreams can actually forebode real events, such as the stories of Daniel, Joseph, Cresus and Adromacha (lines 356-382).

While both Jankyn and Chauntcleer cite authoritative texts to support their position, their basic intentions and general approach are evidently at great variance.

The contrast in the relationships between that of the Wife of Bath and Jankyn, and that of Chauntcleer and Pertelote is perhaps most conspicuous in the aftermath of the aforementioned citations of textual authority. Since Jankyn “wolde nevere fyne” reading to the Wife of Bath from his book, she tears “thre leves” from the book and hits him “on the cheke”; in his turn, Jankyn strikes her “on the heed” and then she again hits “hym on the cheke” (lines 794-814). In contrast with this violent scene, after Chauntcleer finishes reciting to Pertelote, he compliments “the beautee of [her] face,” insinuates that she is his “joye and al his blis” and eventually “[h]e fethere[s] Pertelote twenty tyme” (lines 394-411).

The disparity in the final outcome is thus obvious and telling: Whereas the Wife of Bath and Jankyn brutally hit one another, Chauntcleer and Pertelote make love.

In the two segments from the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, a male character uses textual authority to support his position. However, as illustrated, their purposes and manners portray a completely different picture of their relationship with the female characters: Jankyn divulges the disturbed relationship when he mistreats the Wife of Bath with the texts, while Chauntcleer reveals a loving connection with Pertelote when he kindly rationalizes his argument with the texts.

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The tragic love affair of Troilus and Cressida has been recounted and portrayed in the works of two of the most renowned writers in the history of literature, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (1385) and William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (1602). Both Chaucer and Shakespeare endeavored to depict the ill-fated narrative of the affair of Troilus and Cressida that occurs within the much larger in scale and scope narrative of the Trojan War and how the development of the grander narrative ultimately severs the burgeoning romance.

This essay will demonstrate how Troilus undergoes the same expedited poignant sequence of emotions in both works – very similar to what we know today as the Kübler-Ross model – when he fully realizes that Cressida left him for good after the separation was forced on them unwillingly as part of the epochal events of the Trojan War.

The Kübler-Ross model – or as it is more commonly known, the five stages of grief – was first presented in the book On Death and Dying by the psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969. The model describes a succession of emotions that people endure when they face a significant personal loss in the following order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Of course, neither Chaucer nor Shakespeare were familiar with this modern psychological model; yet, fascinatingly, both their portrayals of Troilus’s emotional struggle consist of a very similar array of emotions even if they do not perfectly correlate with the Kübler-Ross model, as it will be now illustrated.

Denial

The two different characters of Troilus by Shakespeare and Chaucer experience severe emotional plight and thereupon similar first reaction – denial – after they face the loss of their subject of love. Shakespeare’s Troilus agonizingly witnesses with his own eyes Cressida and Diomedes’s budding affair in which she hands Diomedes the same sleeve that Troilus gave her; Chaucer’s Troilus receives a short and very unpromising letter from Criseyde and then sees the brooch that he gave her on another man.

The denial of Shakespeare’s Troilus is extremely overt: he first completely denies that Cressida was actually there (V.ii.127-9) and then he ravingly claims that “this is Diomed’s Cressida” (V.ii.140) and not the one whom he knows. It is important to mention that Cressida may indeed act and behave differently with Diomedes than she is with Troilus, but this would be an understandable and justifiable disposition with regard to the complex situation she is in; as other commentators have noted, Troilus and Diomedes project different images to which Cressida must adjust accordingly – after all, she is indeed in a hostile environment (Asp, 1997).

Compared to Shakespeare’s Troilus, the denial of Chaucer’s Troilus is less apparent and is expressed indirectly by the narrator, who states that Troilus could not believe that Criseyde “ne wolde him holden that she highte” (Coghill, stanza 234 / original, line 1636), which makes sense since his ordeal is far less manifestly harrowing than it is in Shakespeare’s play.

Even though in both texts there is a clear indication of Troilus’s initial denial, Shakespeare strongly emphasizes his dire mental state and portrays him as almost losing his mind due to the traumatic experience of observing Cressida with Diomedes, while Chaucer’s characterization is more empathetic and less deranged.

Anger

In the two texts, Troilus exhibits obvious signs of anger and intention to act violently; yet, neither Shakespeare nor Chaucer direct this rage toward Cressida but toward her new lover, Diomedes.

Shakespeare’s Troilus explicitly describes toward whom his fury is aimed when he declares that “as much as [he does] Cressid love / So much by weight hate[s] [he] her Diomed” (V.ii.170-1); and then, in no less than eight consecutive lines, he heatedly details how he wishes and intends to kill Diomedes (V.ii.172-9).

Even though Chaucer’s Troilus is not as descriptive with his ire, his anger is nonetheless evident and similarly addressed toward Diomedes and not Criseyde. He irately demands from God that he “may meten with this Diomede” so he could make “his sydes blede,” and then he again turns to God and almost desperately asks him why he will deny him “vengeaunce of this vyce” (244 / 1702-8). It is important to stress that violence, or the threat of violence, is not an unusual measure in such a brutal setting as the Trojan War; however, interestingly, Shakespeare and Chaucer do not point Troilus’s vehement anger toward Cressida, who actually commits the betrayal at least partially, but toward Diomedes who might not even be aware of Troilus’s grievances.

Bargaining and Depression

The Kübler-Ross model’s stage of bargaining appears to be missing from the alternating turbulence of emotions of Troilus in the two texts, and in each one, Troilus promptly jumps from violent anger to expressing his depression in two different forms.

Shakespeare’s Troilus seems to almost completely break down when he dejectedly cries, “O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!” after which even Ulysses tells him that he needs to “contain” himself (V.ii.181-4) – an attestation to the profound despondent state of Troilus.

The depression of Chaucer’s Troilus is also quite distinct, yet it is evinced differently: not by some sort of breakdown as in Shakespeare’s play, but by suicidal contemplations. He professes to Pandarus that his “owene deeth in armes wol [he] seche,” and then he also adds in despair that he does “recche not how sone be the day” (246 / 1718-9) – caustic admissions that he lost his will to live.

Troilus, in both texts, thus reaches and displays deep levels of depression in distinct forms: in Shakespeare’s play, it feels as if he is on the verge of a mental collapse, whereas in Chaucer’s text, he begins to reveal suicidal thoughts.

Acceptance

The final stage of the Kübler-Ross model is acceptance, at which Troilus ultimately arrives in the two works, and in each one, he expresses it concisely to a non-present figure of Cressida.

In Shakespeare’s text, after Aeneas informs Troilus that he needs to return back to Troy, Troilus finally acknowledges that he will not see Cressida anymore, and he bids her imaginary image, “Farewell, revolted fair,” as his last valediction (V.ii.189).

Chaucer’s Troilus also demonstrates his eventual acknowledgment of the parting by telling the absent Criseyde that what she “thus doon” to him, he has “it nought deserved” (246 / 1722). Therefore, Shakespeare and Chaucer allow Troilus to reach some sort of sad pithy acceptance before the end and finalize a parallel series of emotions in the same manner.

The Trojan War Context

Shakespeare and Chaucer meticulously portray Troilus’s personal experience and glum emotional reaction to his crisis with Cressida, and subsequently, they raise again the general historical context that leads to it.

In Shakespeare’s play, this is the Trojan hero Aeneas who enters the scene and brings to mind again the consequential setting of the Trojan War to which the affair of Troilus and Cressida is evidently subjected; Aeneas does not need to say much, but he merely relays that Hector prepares for the battle back in Troy and that Troilus hence needs to return as well (V.ii.185-7).

In Chaucer’s text, it is the narrator who coldly reminds the audience that Troilus’s personal struggle is utterly insignificant compared to the grander events that transpire; the narrator proclaims that despite the great sorrow of Troilus, he “mot wepe in cares colde,” and then sharply adding that “[s]wich is this world” (250 / 1746-7).

Ultimately, Shakespeare and Chaucer elucidate that personal affairs and emotions are completely subordinated to the supreme historical narrative of the Trojan War, by which all events are inescapably dictated.

Chaucer and Shakespeare have adapted the story of Troilus and Cressida uniquely to their respective works, and in spite of the acute differences between the texts, Troilus’s emotional reaction to the understanding that his love affair with Cressida is over is portrayed similarly as a series of parallel feelings and emotions. While the Kübler-Ross model was conceived in the 20th century, somehow, the two authors have both infused Troilus with most of the model’s emotional alterations compressedly – perhaps another proof of their sharp perception and ingenious ability to imitate the human condition.

Chaucer and Shakespeare realized that the events of the Trojan War are inevitable, and the fate of anybody caught in between is foredoomed. Yet, although the affair of Troilus and Cressida is utterly insignificant with respect to the epic narrative of the Trojan War, they still attempt to convey this story in the most genuine and meaningful manner, including the deepest emotions of an abandoned lover.

Works Cited:

Asp, Carolyn. 1977. “In Defense of Cressida.” Studies in Philology 74.4: 416-417.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. 1971. Troilus and Criseyde, tr. Nevill Coghill. Penguin Classics.
Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth. 1969. On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families.

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The poem “The Sonnet-Ballad” by Gwendolyn Brooks is a modern sonnet that incorporates some ballad elements. It presents the tragedy that war evokes not just on the actual battlefront but among those who remain at home. Through multiple poetic devices, which will be discussed in this essay, Brooks manages to convey an exceptionally piercing depiction of the devastating effects of war on those in the rear who had to separate from their loved ones in the front.

The poem is structured as an English/Shakespearean sonnet, consisting of 14 lines divided into three quatrains and one couplet. The meter pattern of the poem is iambic pentameter, which also fits the style of the sonnet. The rhyme scheme of the poem fairly resembles the classic rhyme pattern of the English sonnet, with several differences: ABAB-BCBC-DEDE-AA (instead of ABAB-CDCD-EFEF-GG).

The “B” rhyme in the first quatrain (ABAB) reiterates as well in the second quatrain (BCBC) rather than two different new rhymes (CDCD) that are supposed to appear in the traditional pattern of the English sonnet. That suggests a continuation of a similar sentiment in the second quatrain that resumes from the first. The “A” rhyme in the first quatrain (ABAB) also reiterates in the couplet (AA) in place of two entire new rhymes. That also conveys the sense of a related feeling all throughout the poem, instead of the rhythmic “turn” or “conclusion” that the classical couplet typically offers.

The level of diction in the poem is mainly medium and simple, with a few deviations of high diction words such as “lamenting,” “grandly” and “coquettish.” The speaker’s level of diction hints that she probably belongs to the middle class. It is also an indication that this particular social class carries most of the weight, and eventual loss, in wars.

The poem presents a narration of a story by a woman who tells how her lover left for war. That is what especially makes it also a ballad, as the title of the poem points out. In addition, there is a refrain in line 1 and in line 14, which is not conventional in sonnets; however, it is highly prevalent in ballads.

The three quatrains and the couplet of the sonnet lay out gradually and slowly the same story and notions, which characterize more the form of a ballad rather than a sonnet. In the first quatrain of the sonnet, the speaker essentially recounts the outline of her story: she bemoans that he left for war after she and her lover parted ways. In the second quatrain, the speaker acknowledges that her lover will not return to her ever again and that she perceives it as a sort of betrayal. In the third quatrain, the speaker elaborates that her lover’s betrayal materializes due to the allure of death in battle. In the couplet, the speaker despondently accepts that her lover will embrace death. Hence, there is no material “turn” in the sonnet, as there traditionally is, but a continuous portrayal of the speaker’s state of mind.

The poem’s speaker is a woman, which also shows that it is a modern sonnet, since in older times, mostly only men were the speakers in sonnets. In the refrain in lines 1 and 14, the speaker directly addresses her mother through an apostrophe: “Oh mother, mother.” The repetition of the word “mother” twice in each of the lines emphasizes the intense emotional state of the speaker. Even though lines 1 and 14 are exactly the same, it seems that the speaker’s tone is different in each one: Line 1 expresses wonderment and puzzlement, whereas line 14 carries the heaviness of despair and anguish. It is possible that the speaker does not even call out to her actual mother, but the apostrophe in the refrain is a symbolic call for safety and shelter that her mother represents in her mind. In this case, the speaker portrays her inner emotional suffering throughout the entire poem.

There are a few uses of imagery in the poem. In line 2, the speaker refers to her lover departing to war with a synecdoche – by his “tallness,” which describes his physical strength. In line 4, the speaker describes her sadness by a metaphor of her heart as an empty cup, an image that poignantly paints the feeling of emotional emptiness when parting from a loved one. In line 7, the speaker begins to depict the central metaphor of the poem that continues until line 13 – she portrays her lover’s departure for the army as an act of unfaithfulness, whereas death is personified as the “mistress.” This metaphor employs the topos of a romantic betrayal of a man with another woman. In lines 7-8, the speaker claims that she already realized her lover would be “untrue” when he walked out of the door “grandly,” which suggests that she perceives his proud departure as disloyalty to her.

In the third quatrain, the speaker fully develops the metaphor of death as a personification of a seductive woman whom her lover “courts.” In line 11, the word “arms” is a pun- possessive body parts or weapons of war. In line 13, the speaker depicts how her lover will not resist the temptation of battle and, consequently, will accept death.

There are six enjambments in the poem: In lines 3, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11. This profusion of enjambments assists in characterizing the speaker. These frequent rhetorical gaps between lines create an effect of instability and even somewhat derangement, which connects with the poem’s overall ambiance of manic grief. The recurrence of the enjambments steadily increases from quatrain to quatrain: in the first quatrain, there is one enjambment; in the second quatrain, there are two enjambments; in the third quatrain, there are three enjambments. That builds the impression that the speaker gets more and more desperate and perhaps unbalanced as well.

To conclude, with “The Sonnet-Ballad,” Gwendolyn Brooks successfully intertwines the familiar form of the English sonnet with elements of the ballad. This modern poetic amalgamation generates a sharp, caustic impact on the readers, who can sympathize with the poem’s speaker, even if they have not shared the same dire experience themselves. The poem piercingly expresses the atrocities of war on those in the rear who lose their loved ones. Although the poem is pretty forthright and not very intricate compared to other sonnets or ballads, the poetic devices that Brooks utilizes to pass on its meaning produce a powerfully stinging impact on the reader.

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