Isaque’s Blog

Ceciliy and Gwendolen in the garden at the Manor House

In the play The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde illustrates the way of life of the upper class in Victorian society. However, this description is surrounded by irony and criticism to the frivolous aspects that are considered important for this group of people. Their values and moral assumptions are based primarily on social rules and conventions which, occasionally, give them a mercenary or even ridiculous character. When someone is not considered worthy enough to live in society, this person is simply put apart. In the last act of this play Lady Bracknell summarizes this point by saying to his nephew Algernon the following statement: “Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon”.

As far as Society (in capital “s”) is concerned, ladies and gentleman are expected to represent specific rules that are considered respectful for the family itself and for the social group that the “family institution” is connected. In Victorian society, for example, young ladies are governed by the gender rules which involve not only being innocent, pure, elegant but mainly submissive to the values and decisions imposed by their family. In act 1, Gwendolen illustrate this idea to Jack by expressing the reasons why she is afraid of not marring him:

“Few parents now-a-days pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast fading out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I lost at the age of three.”

Act 1, page 17

Although it is implicit the idea of parents respecting their children’s will in Gwendolen’s discourse, the fact is parents never permitted the free decision of their children. When Gwendolen expresses this idea, she is also expressing part of her own rebelliousness by not taking into account her own rule in “Society”. She was supposed to respect the decision imposed by her mother.

Another character who breaks the rule of gender is Cecily. Not only Cecily but also Gwendolen are manipulative women. This type of behavior is not accepted in any lady’s character in Victorian age. Both ladies took control of their own destiny by dictating the steps for their own candidates for marriage. Cecily, for example, has a diary in which she used to write how she was ruling her own life. During great part of Act 2 she uses her own diary to control Algernon and impose her own willingess:

“Oh, don’t cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough.” Act 2, page 31

The break of rules and the lack of submission of Gwendolen and Cecily are important points for this play since it is a criticism of a society. Both characters represent the hypocrisy of a society that spread the ideal of respectability and moral that anyone really lives or follows. Although this play shows the comic side of the human being, Oscar Wilde has probably wrote this play to show that Society is not always as perfect as it is intended to be.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams is an interesting play, not only for the context in which the play is taken (the big Crash) but, mainly, due to its characters such as Amanda and Tom who share the same feeling: the willingness to escape. Amanda still lives in a world of fantasy and her son Tom is also a “refugee” who want to forget his frustrating life by living the excitement provided by the hollywoodian movies. Although, these two characters are well represented, there is another one who deserves a special attention: she is Laura.

Laura is Amanda’s daughter and Tom’s elder sister. She is a sweet, sad and, mainly, a fragile lady. Her crippling situation and also the pressure Amanda puts on her in order to make her a marriageable girl increase her fragile figure even more. Another aspect that contributes for the construction of Laura’s delicate and gloomy personality is the fact that her father abandoned her family. This whole scenario makes Laura to be a girl with a certain complex of inferiority.

            During the play, Laura is inevitably compared to Blue Roses. This first suggestion came up when she told her mother about a boy (Jim) whom she had a crush in her school days.

Laura: When I had that attack of pleurosis – he asked me what was the matter when I came back [school]. I said pleurosis – he thought that I said Blue Roses! So that’s what he always called me after that. Whenever he saw me, he’d holler, “Hello, Blue Roses!”

Scene 2

The illustration of Blue Roses in this play has some important implications. To start the list, we can compare Blue Roses and Laura under a semantic point of view. “Blue” has had different meanings throughout literature.

Depending on the author, region and social context, “the blue” can represent happiness and liveliness. However, in an American point of view this colour is the representation of sadness and sorrow. This image of sadness is the association that Jim makes to Laura and her delicate beauty. When I mean beauty, I’m referring to Roses. In many cultures, this type of flower is the symbol of beauty, womanhood and fragility.

Another aspect involving Blue Roses is their existence in nature. There are no natural blue roses. The idea of Blue Roses also inspires the idea of something or someone  exotic or remarkable as Laura is.

Laura is certainly a unique character. She is not fragile in herself. She is also the personification of the fragility of her family as well. Although her blue condition disguises her real beauty, she still has a great potential to “rise and shine” since she is a young and delicate lady who probably has a unique and hidden beauty like Blue Roses.

Establishing levels of guilty to Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is not an easy task. Actually, I dare to say it is an obscure exercise in which you need to dig the most immoral roots of your mind and face your own principles to understand this tragedy.

As far as the fight between immoralities versus moralities is concerned, the assassination of the King Duncan was a deed that would make the so called “Worthy Macbeth” becomes the cursed new king. Macbeth himself recognizes that once he became the Thane of Cumberland, his thoughts had also entered in the world of darkness:

(…) that is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o’er-leap,

For in my way it lies.

                                     Act1, Scene 4, Lines 49-50.

He knows as well that he is intending to do something morally wrong and, for a moment, he even decides to give up doing it when speaking with his wife:

We will proceed no further in this business.

He hath honoured me of late, and I have bought

Golden opinions from all sorts of people (…)

                                               Act1, Scene 7, Lines 31-34.

            To my mind, Lady Macbeth is the evil energy who keeps Macbeth proceeding in that wicked plan even when he was almost giving up doing it. She also teased him by saying that killing the king would be the greatest proof of power and virility he could ever show to her:

When you durst do it, then you were a man;

And, to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man (…)

                                               Act1, Scene 7, Lines 49-51.

For the reasons listed above that is why I believe that Lady Macbeth is the guiltiest of the both since she was always inciting his husband to kill Duncan. Perhaps she did it by greedy reasons or just because she was a naïve woman but Macbeth did it partially due to her psychological torture towards him.

After reading Avison’s poem To Counter Malthus, I had the opportunity to find out how she worries about human relationships. Her words are used as ‘weapon’ against Malthus’ insensitive words. Most of what is written in her poem can be understood through the series of punctuation she uses.

In the first paragraph, you can have an idea of how her opinion will be stated throughout the whole poem. According to Margaret Avison, there is not any ‘handbook’ which is able to teach how to live and, mainly, how to live with each other, consequently, it is impossible people respect each other as well, I mean, people will not treat each other individually.

In the second paragraph there is a pray to the son of God – Jesus Christ – who is represented here by the word ‘Presence’. Placed just before a comma, it becomes a vocative. In fact, ‘Presence’ (Jesus) is personified. Each other’s companion (presence) may be the answer against the lack of care among human beings.

While there are many ‘lands’ and ‘seas’ along this world, it seems they are not enough to give food and shelter for everyone. Is all that true or is our lack of care in relation to somebody else’s suffering which prevent us from sharing our sympathy among the other ones? The period separates this astonishing contrast between abundance and lack (of care). These great amount of people probably comes from the poorest countries where noone worries about the increasing number of population. Another problem is solitude: in a place where there is an extensive land and huge amount of water,  it is impossible to be heard and understood. She finishes this paragraph by hoping that people start caring, worrying about other ones.

Distance is another issue which affects human relationships. Avison shows the distance from us in relation to the other (until the first period) and the distance from the others in relation to us. However, we are among many other people. The ‘dots’ which she finishes this paragraph gives us the idea of continuous and wordless preoccupation.

To conclude it she uses the key word ‘quantity’ to mean there are too many people and no ‘Presence’ among them, that’s it, in this case, she believes that are too many people but few ones has the presence of Jesus in their hearts. Until the first period she illustrates the miserable human condition and, after the period, she emphasizes the lack of care among people even though they are exposed to each other’s issues.

None us in this so

burdened earth has known

how to live, let alone

who is too many.

Presence, each day

afresh, you give a

purifying signal to

sting us alive.

Vast territories and seashores

still bear these thronging

strangers. May none die

without somebody caring.

To know even one other is

costly. And being known.

Alive, among so many

more now? a concern…

Hunger makes men desperate, threatens

to congeal the quandary. Yet

Presence abides untouched

in the churn of Quantity.

ANALYSIS ON THE POEM ‘A THUNDERSTORM’

Lampman’s work is famous due to the description of the sceneries with plenty of details like an impressionist picture. One can use the imagination to create an image of what is being “painted by words”. A Thunderstorm is one of his many masterpieces which involves a wide description of colours, sounds and vision.
For an easier understanding, I will divide this analysis into two parts. The first one is related to the scantion, that is a procedure which can help you say the stresses effectively and others structural pieces of information like rhyme scheme. After that, I will analyze this poem line by line showing the contrasts of colours sounds and vision.

Here is the scantion of the four initial verses:

ˇ      /    ˇ          /     ˇ         /    ˇ        /    ˇ      /
A moment the wild swallows like a flight

ˇ     /     ˇ           /         ˇ           /          ˇ    /       ˇ     /
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,

ˇ       /   ˇ          /   ˇ            /   ˇ       /      ˇ         /
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky

ˇ          /           ˇ        /       ˇ    /       ˇ        /       ˇ  /
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight

Rhyme scheme: abbaaccadeffde
As you can see, this poem has a regular pattern.

A Thunderstorm is a poem which has similar patterns related to the distribution of lines (14 lines) as well as great part of others iambic-pentametered poems. In lines 1 and 2 there is a clear description about the initial traces of the storm. However the adverb ‘serenely’ indicates the swallows are being lifted by the soft wind like leaves. This movement indicates a thunderstorm is coming soon although the leaves stand still. In this context you can even create an image of a storm with shades of dark covering the whole sky that is about to throw its energy around the earth. In line 3 exists a mix between vision and sound. Here, you can see the circular movement of the wind and hear its nostalgic sound howling along like an omen. In relation to the ‘weird twilight’ which represents the light of the sun being blinded by the heavy clouds. The thunderstorm goes on stronger and stronger in lines 4 and 5 where there is a image of a ‘post-sunset’ – here you can imagine the red horizon becoming darker little by little – contrasting with the sound of the storm getting intensively dark and dangerous.
In lines 6 and 7 the focus is on the movement of the clouds (here, represented by the expressions trunk and rolling fringe) that comes in helter-skelter like a huge curtain shaking everything around just before the rain comes. From line 8 to 10 a picture of a ferocious thunderstorm is painted by the use of key-words like ‘swept’ and ‘swayed’ which describe the great mess in the elm-trees and also provide us the strength of wind and water. The deafening sound coming from the thunder and its blinding lights may be the only one (into this tremendous rage of nature) able to shine the place every now and then.
Still describing colours and sounds in lines 11 and 12, the author gives us the image of the groups of lightening that spread along the sky like spider webs on the wall. In the end (lines 13 and 14), the only scenery you can see is the twisted and wet trees since the stuffy atmosphere does not allow you to observe in a clear way the whole nature being punished by the violent waters.

A Thunderstorm

A moment the wild swallows like a flight
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
The hurrying centres of the storm unite
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
Tower darkening on. And now from heaven’s height,
With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
Column on column comes the drenching rain.

Although some adjectives like “lean and “mud” make you think that people from Wales are considered inferior and are under control of repressive kings, R.S. Thomas shows his contradictory perception of Welsh culture by glorifying their bravery. To illustrate his point of view, he remembers the battles they have fought and the loss they have had in wars they have not wanted. The verse which represents it the best is: “Warming our hands at the red past.”

This people still have this warrior’s characteristic. Nowadays they are under somebody else’s “power”, but they still resist. Resistance is one of these warriors’ virtuousness that, in my opinion, the poet wants us to notice in Welsh people.

In relation to perspective of the future, they know they will overcome any difficulty they have and all their hurting will be healed. Then, after this recovery process, every Welsh person will be ready for a new battle whether is necessary.

“The great were ashamed of our loose rags
Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree
Of blood and birth, our lean bellies
And mud houses were a proof
Of our ineptitude for life.”

This part of the poem really shows how Welsh people were subdued and how miserable their lives were so. They even confess it by saying they have “ineptitude for life”. They have become remains of a merciless war and they have been forgotten. Now, if Wales wants to conquer its dignity again its children have to unite for a new battle, but this time, a battle which they will impose themselves (with no weapons) as a people from a nation which wants to recover from wastes of the past. Wales’s future will depend on whether this battle will be successful or not.

The following part of the poem – “when we have finished quarreling for crumbs” exposes the shameful situation of the people from Wales who still accepts and, maybe, even enjoys the domination of English culture over their own (they are quarreling for crumbs of another culture). But there are the ones who want to change this fate by arousing in their fellows the willingness to fight against this foreigner culture and, this way, keeping the Welsh identity alive.

Welsh History

We were a people taut for war; the hills
Were no harder, the thin grass
Clothed them more warmly than the coarse
Shirts our small bones.
We fought, and were always in retreat,
Like snow thawing upon the slopes
Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger
Never found our ultimate stand
In the thick woods, declaiming verse
To the sharp prompting of the harp.
Our kings died, or they were slain
By the old treachery at the ford.
Our bards perished, driven from the halls
Of nobles by the thorn and bramble.
We were a people bred on legends,
Warming our hands at the red past.
The great were ashamed of our loose rags
Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree
Of blood and birth, our lean bellies
And mud houses were a proof
Of our ineptitude for life.
We were a people wasting ourselves
In fruitless battles for our masters,
In lands to which we had no claim,
With men for whom we felt no hatred.
We were a people, and are so yet.
When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs
Under the table, or gnawing the bones
Of a dead culture, we will arise
And greet each other in a new dawn
Armed, but not in the old way.

R. S. Thomas (1913 – 2000)