King Lear is
not only a simple tragedy; it is also a touching tale of a haughty man's journey from darkness
to light or enlightenment through suffering, when darkness stands for ignorance
and inhumanity, and light stands for self-knowledge and humanity. And this
spiritual journey commences as he faces the external tempest pointing to the
inward restlessness. His spiritual regeneration begins not until his suffering
have reached a climax in the storm, when he is driven insane,
Othello as a tragedy of intrigues
Othello is most painfully exciting
and the most terrible of all Shakespearean tragedies. It begins with external
conflict, but the conflicts soon internalized and get a peep into the suffering
soul of the tragic hero. His intense suffering grows more and more intense
right from the temptation scene up to the very end where
Measure for Measure as a Dark Comedy
“Measure
for Measure” is considered as a dark comedy of Shakespeare. It is full of
corruption, bitterness and cynicism. A dark comedy is pervaded by a gloom. It
is still a play with a happy ending; and it contains also several comic scenes
and interludes; but the comic elements in such a play are pushed into the
background by
Chaucer’s art of characterization
In the universe of English poetry,
Chaucer flourishes the fantastic colors of his words and paints different characters
of his age with minute observation. Indeed, he is a great painter who paints
not with colors but with words. Undoubtedly, he has: The Seeing Eye, the retentive memory, the judgment
to select and the ability to expound. His keen analysis of the minutest detail of his
characters, their dresses,
Chaucer’s humour and irony
Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the first English
short story-teller and the greatest humorists in English literature. In “The
Prologue toe the Canterbury Tales”, humour is all-pervasive. Humour
in the Prologue appears chiefly in
the shape of irony and satire, though we do have some examples of pure humour
which means
Theory of Life Force as embodied in Man and Superman
Man
and Superman
is perhaps the most notable play of George Bernard Shaw. Here he represents is
philosophy of creative evolution. In
metaphysical speculation Shaw may be
neither original nor great but he has abundant skill in presenting difficult
ideas of love, marriage sex and romance etc dramatically. Among the variety of
Symbolic significance of Pozzo-Lucky in Waiting for Godot
The
Puzzo-Lucky pair
plays a very significant role in portraying Beckett's world-view in Waiting for Godot. The dominant theme of
this play is waiting, boredom, ignorance, and impotence. The Pozzo-Lucky relationship
does not seem to have any basic or integral connection with this dominant
theme. In fact, the connection between the two pairs of characters is not very
close or intimate. Even if the Pozzo-Lucky episodes were removed from the play,
Picture of American family in Death of a Salesman
Death
of a Salesman puts
a light on American family life. It focuses on the dream, hope, failure and
frustration of the American family. The play mainly depicts two families- the Loman family and the Charley family. Arthur Miller presents an everyday case of a man destroying himself
for learning and for family. For this, the society is liable. Willy Loman is
undoubtedly a victim of the romantic
Dramatic technique or art in Death of a Salesman
Arthur
Miller
was a great American dramatist of his times obviously a political minded and
socially conscious dramatist. Dream technique, the technique of blending, the
matter of past and present are nicely found in Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
Miller’s drama provides us with a beautiful social picture of contemporary
America. Conflict between individual and
Look Back in Anger as a revolt against all that is conventional
Look Back in Anger is
basically a problem play of considerable psychological insight. It represents
the mood and temperament of the post-war generation, their disillusionment,
frustration and rebelliousness. Jimmy
Porter becomes the mouth piece of the entire generation of post-war youth
in condemning the society,
Philosophic ideas expressed in the Hell-scene in Man and Superman
George
Bernard Shaw's
Man and Superman is the first masterpiece of the 20th century
English Literature. It established a noticeable break with the Victorian
traditions of thinking and literary practice. The Hell Scene
is the most significant part of the drama where Shaw has expressed his philosophical outlook with utmost sincerity.
Man and
Superman is often presented on the stage without the Hell Scene,
but it reduces the mark of the play into an ordinary comedy. The whole act is
Worship in Brave New World
Aldous
Huxley's Brave New World is an epoch-making novel in the people of the World
State worship 'Ford' instead of 'God'. The World State society has
replaced "God" with "Ford". The worshipping of
"Ford" instead of "God" in the society is very significant
in this novel. There are many reasons behind the worshiping of
"Ford" instead of "God" in the society in Brave New World.
Why the people worship
Scaffold or Pillory scene in The Scarlet Letter
The
scaffold scenes
in “The Scarlet Letter” are very
dramatic and significant from the point of view of the plot development. There
are three such scenes, and they come at the beginning, middle and end of the
story. These scenes highlight the tension between the principal characters of
the novel. These scenes also force of the story. The scarlet letter “A” dominates
Neo-classicism and Marxism in Literature and Society
Neo-classicism was the dominant
literary movement in English during the 17th
and 18th century. This
movement sought to revive the artistic ideals of classical Greece and Rome. The
notable characteristics of Neo-classical literature are emotional restraint, order, logic,
technical precision, balance, elegance of diction, clarity, dignity and decorum.
Marixist literature is
Nausea combines phenomenology and existentialism
Nausea is a novel by the
existentialist philosopher Jean Paul
Sartre. This novel fictionalizes Sartrean
brand of existentialism. It represents a world without god or meaning. It
discovers the meaninglessness of existence through an enquiry into the
perceptual understanding of the universe. In Nausea, we see Antoine Roquentin confronting his
existence in its pre-categorized,
F.R. Leavis as a literary critic
Frank
Raymond Leavis
was an influential British literary critic of the 20th century
English Literature. He was influenced by T.S.
Eliot to a great extent. Leavis
possessed a very clear idea of literary criticism and he was well known for his
predecessors and
Character of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne's
art of characterization in “The
Scarlet Letter” has a touch of finish and liveliness. In this book, his
characters are living people and they impress upon us very convincingly as
human beings. Hawthorne's art of
characterization is surprisingly markedly realism. Hester Prynne is the heroine of the novel “The Scarlet Letter”.
Hester is presented to us ambiguously. When the story begins,
Character of Antoine Roquentin in Nausea
Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophical novel Nausea is an influential text of the
existential movement that emerged in France. In this novel, the main character
is Antoine Roquentin, a historian
who has retired to a small village called Bouville. Roquentin keeps himself engaged in a phenomenological study of his
existence and
Brave New World as a Science Fiction
Aldous
Huxley is one of the greatest literary figures of the modern age in
English literature. He is also considered to be one of the pioneers of the
derivational novel known as science fiction. William Wilson used the term 'Science
fiction' for the very first time in literature in 1851. According to
William Wilson,
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