George Bernard Shaw - An Introduction

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was a man whose impact on his generation, and the coming ones has been indelible. Born in Dublin to a civil servant father George Carr Shaw and Lucinda Elizabeth Gurly Shaw, he grew up in an environment of poverty.  He was the youngest child and the only son of his parents. He received an irregular education because of his own dislike for the same. His mother was a gifted singer and musician who learnt music from George John Vandeleur Lee who was a tenant with the Shaws since 1866.

There was a general lack of affection between his parents. Lucinda Shaw finally  left her husband and moved to London in 1872 whereas Bernard Shaw remained with his father for some time. He worked during this period at a land agency as a clerk. Determined to become an author, he joined his mother in London in 1876. For first three years there he allowed his mother to support him and he concentrated on self education. British Museum played a significant role in his education as an author and musician. He wrote five novels between 1879 to 1883 which failed miserably.  It became evident to him that he could not succeed as a novelist.

1879 was an important year in Shaw's life as it was at this time that he joined the Zetetical society which was a debating club that discussed matters related to economics, science and religion. He soon became a popular speaker at this club. And it is here only in 1882 that he first listened to Henry George for the first time. This lecture aroused his interest in economics and social theories. And this lecture only encouraged him to get familiar with Das Kapital of Karl Marx . These readings and socialist leanings of Shaw had to find a full fledged expression in his plays.

The year 1884 is also important in the development of Shaw's genius as he became a member of the Fabian Society and was soon elected to the  Executive Committe. Through this platform he preached his ideas of socialism. "Despite his failure as a novelist in the 1880s, Shaw found himself during this decade. He became a vegetarian, a socialist, a spellbinding orator, a polemicist, and tentatively a playwright."

He was a noted public figure by this time. As an author he first tasted success with Arms and the Man (1894) although he had published Widowers' Houses (1892) and Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893). He was highly influenced by Henrik Ibsen and  tried to propagate his political, economic and  social ideas through his plays. Shaw called the first two plays, Widowers' Houses

and Mrs. Warren's Profession, as 'Unpleasant Plays' because “their dramatic power is used to force the spectator to face unpleasant facts.” He followed these two plays with four 'pleasant plays' so that he could lure the audiences whom he had offended with his first earlier works. These 'pleasant plays' are - Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (performed in 1897),  The Man of Destiny (1897), You Never Can Tell (1897).

In 1901 came his collection Three Plays for Puritans which include The Devil's Disciple (1897), Caesar and Cleopatra (1901) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1901). Other major works by Shaw include Man and Superman (1905), John Bull’s Other Island (performed 1904), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Androcles and the Lion (1912).

Shaw's master piece Pygmalion came in in 1913. The play was also adapted for a film for which Shaw wrote the screen play. He received Academy Award for the same and remains the only person ever to have won a Nobel Prize in literature (1925) and also an Academy award (1938).

Shaw's post WWI works are an attempt to justify his views about the war. He condemned Britain and its allies and held them equally culpable for the outbreak of War. His ideas earned him the wrath of his countrymen. Heartbreak House (1920) is about "the spiritual bankruptcy of the generation responsible for the war’s bloodshed." Shaw wrote five plays under the collective title Back to Methuselah (1922). Saint Joan was performed in 1923 and The Apple Cart came after a long theatrical silence in 1929.

These are some of Shaw’s later, minor plays - Too True to Be Good (performed 1932), On the Rocks (performed 1933), The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (performed 1935), Geneva (performed 1938), and In Good King Charles’s Golden Days (1939),  Farfetched Fables (performed 1950), Shakes Versus Shav (performed 1949), and Why She Would Not (1956), which is a fantasy with only flashes of the earlier Shaw.

Shaw retires to his country house in Ayot St. lawrence, Hertfordshire, England after his wife's death in 1943. He continued to write actively even during his last years and breathed his last in 1950.

Shaw was the most popular comic playwright of not just his times but for generations to come. Despite his peculiar style and stagecraft, he is considered second only to Shakespeare in English literature. He wrote serious plays about significant issues of contemporary society. His plays encouraged intellectual debate and discussions on many troubling issues that were either accepted as a normalcy in society or were pushed under the carpet because of social tabboos.A zealous literary critic, music critic, pamphleteer, dramatist, essayist, lecturer on issues of economics, socialism and politics, and one of the most prolific letter writer in English literature, he influenced  many generations with his wit and intelligence

 

 

 

PERSONIFICATION AND ANTHROPOMORPHISM

PERSONIFICATION AND ANTHROPOMORPHISM

                                                       

Personification or presopopeia is a form of metaphor where an inanimate object or abstract concept is spoken of as if it has human qualities, or feelings, or attributes. For example, the way Time has been spoken of in Shakespeare’s sonnet Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds. Time has been spoken of as a reaper that reaps the crop of youth and beauty.

So, the point to remember is that, in personification some human quality or attribute is ascribed to a thing or a concept.

Anthropomorphism, on the other hand, is that figurative device where the author attributes entire human behaviour to non-humans or inanimate things.  So personification talks about attributing human qualities to non-human or inanimate things, but anthropomorphism deals with these things as if they were humans. For example, all the fables of The Panchatantra are examples of anthropomorphism. Remember our text Animal Farm from first year. That is a very good example of anthropomorphism where pigs, horses, dogs, donkeys behave as if they were humans. So, not just one or two human qualities, but they are attributed with entire human behaviour. And that is anthropomorphism.

‘LONDON’ BY WILLIAM BLAKE

‘LONDON’ BY WILLIAM BLAKE

 

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William Blake’s (1757-1827) poem ‘London’ is a part of his most significant work - Songs of Innocence and Experience (1794). This small but important poem is a comment of the poet on the oppressed, painful, and poverty-ridden life of Londoners at a time when the Industrial Revolution was being hailed as a panacea for all the economic and societal challenges. The poem brings the readers face to face with the underside of all the pomp and polish that the city of London stood for. The poem brings to the fore all that was wrong with the city, in particular and with the society, in general – dirt, filth, child labor, prostitution, oppression, misery.

London was an important commercial center as well as metropolis at the time. Blake looks at the flip side of this prosperity. The speaker of the poem takes a tour of the city at night and lays bare the tyranny, oppression, desperation, dejection that the underdogs were faced with.

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

The speaker is wandering through the streets of London at night. The very streets seem to be controlled by state statutes. Not just the streets, but even the Thames also seems to have been controlled according to the will of the state. This is something extraordinary since it is almost impossible to control a river. But the idea conveyed here is that everything is under the tight control of the law of the state and freedom is only a meaningless word.

The last two lines of the quatrain have a pun on the word ‘mark’ where the speaker says that as he walks down, he observes many people and notice that their faces have ‘marks’ of ‘weakness and woe’. Their lives are miserable and that misery is evident on their faces.

This quatrain sets the mood and tone of the poem. It is not going to be about the glamour of this metropolis. There is a not-so-glorious but real and shocking side to the city that must be brought to light.

   In every cry of every Man,

   In every Infants cry of fear,

   In every voice: in every ban,

  The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

  The tone gets intense in this quatrain. The speaker is deeply aggrieved at human misery and predicament. He listens to the sounds of the city which are far from being pleasant and reassuring. There are cries all around. Even infants are crying and their cries are the cries of pain, suffering, and fear. The cries of pain bring to his mind ‘the mind forged manacles’. These manacles of handcuffs are the obstacles that have been created to hinder the habit of free thinking and critical analysis. These are mental blocks that have obstructed the growth of free thinking for so long that it has stopped coming by naturally to people. 

  How the Chimney-sweepers cry

  Every blackning Church appalls, 

  And the hapless Soldiers sigh

  Runs in blood down Palace walls 

   Continuing with the sounds of London, the speaker notices that the chimney sweepers’ cries are putting the Church to shame. The chimney sweepers were usually destitute children who were taken care of by the Church. The Church has failed its duty and has engaged the children in the dangerous and inhuman practice of cleaning chimneys. The Church is blackening because it is a party to the dark and ugly practice of chimney sweeping. And not just the Church, the whole society has failed these children.

   Society has failed the soldiers also whose sighs are flowing (figuratively) like blood from the palace walls. Soldiers are fighting ‘wasteful wars’, battles that end up taking their lives. All this for the palace, for the rulers. Their sighs go unheard. Their sighs reflect in the blood that they are sacrificing for the palace i.e. for the royal supremacy.

  But most thro' midnight streets I hear

  How the youthful Harlots curse

  Blasts the new-born Infants tear 

  And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse. 

   But the most agonizing and excruciating sound is the sound of young prostitute who curses the whole society for her agony and torment. The infant who cries seems to be the strumpet’s child. The very fact that there is prostitution is a reminder that the institution of marriage is diseased, and has lost its sanctity. The metaphor of hearse brings the image of the institution of marriage being dead, all plagued and diseased because of prostitution.

   ANALYSIS

   The oppression of the underprivileged is the main theme, the main focus of the writer. The industrial Revolution had changed the basic fabric of society and was taking its toll on the lives of impoverished masses. Capitalist owners of the means of production emerged as the new feudal lords. Royalty was as indifferent as ever. The worst hit were women, children, and soldiers. The poem reveals their anguish. The use of the word ‘chartered’ in the first stanza indicates that all the laws were inconsiderate of the plight of the poor and helpless. Even geographical features like the Thames is brought under control. No one is happy here. All the faces that he meets have marks of misery and distress.

   The repetition of ‘every’ in the second stanza emphasizes the all-pervasiveness of this torment.

  The very minds of people are controlled and freedom is a sham. The society, religion, development – everything is to be held accountable for the anguish of the masses. For survival, young children have to sweep chimneys, a job that had serious repercussions on the health of the kids and they died untimely. Chimneys, again, hint towards the rapid urbanization and industrialization which is the root of this evil. Urban setting and misery are suggested to be inversely proportional. Technologically, we have progressed, but as humanity we have failed our duties.

   Similarly, strumpets are leaving their infants behind since they have to earn their living. Their curse is bighting the ‘marriage hearse’. This phrase ‘marriage hearse’ is paradoxical as marriages are for happiness and hearse is associated with death and gloom. By putting them together the poet is indicating towards the meaninglessness or death of the sacred institution of marriage.

   Underneath all the prosperity and charm of a metropolis like London, there lies a plethora of diseases of a moral nature. The royalty, the aristocracy, the Church, the lawmakers, the law enforcers – nobody seems to even acknowledge the existence of these unfortunate sections.

  The soldier, the harlot and the chimney sweeper – all want to survive. Ironically, all three have to put their bodies at stake in order to survive.

   Defilement of childhood and Death are other themes of importance that the poet talks about. Except the first stanza, there has been a mention of children, particularly infants, in the poem. Infants open their eyes in this world of mechanized humanity. Economic prosperity and greed have blinded the society towards the torment of even infants. Their cries are not the innocent cries that we associate with infancy. Their cries are a reminder to the State that things are not right.

   Young children sweep chimneys instead of going to school. It’s not just their health that is risked, it’s the future of humanity that is endangered. Young unmarried harlots are mothers and they curse their infants. A society that cannot take care of its children is doomed.

   The structure of the poem is very simple. The simplicity of structure complements the complexity of images and ideas discussed in the poem. This sixteen line poem has been divided into four quatrains of primarily iambic tetrameter. The third stanza uses trochaic tetrameter. The rhyme scheme is ABAB.

   The first stanza deals with how the city looks. The rest of the poem concerns itself with the sounds of the city at night. The selection of the time of night is significant because during daytime, these sounds must drown in the humdrum of activity. They are most clearly perceptible during night when chimney sweepers and soldiers are nursing their wounds, and when the prostitutes are cursing their babies since it is business time for them.

   The speaker of the poem is not the poet himself though the poem has been written in the first person. The speaker has not been specified but he seems to be someone with whom the poet shares a particular dislike for urbanization and industrialization. The speaker is taking a walk through the streets of London and this walk confirms his ideas about the condition of the less privileged city-dwellers. Interestingly, more than the sights it is the sounds of the city that catch his attention.

ONLINE RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH

USEFUL WEBSITES FOR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE

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FOR TEXTS

Project Gutenberg - Project Gutenberg is a digital library with more than 60,000 books. Most of the books are available in plain text format, but HTML, PDF and other formats are also available for some books. A great resource for students. 

Poetry Foundation – Poetry foundation has more than 40000 poems on its website. Students can read poems from classic as well as contemporary poets here.

Representative Poetry Online - Representative Poetry Online is also a repository of around 4800 poems.

Poets' Corner - Poets’ Corner “The collection covers roughly 7,000 works by about 800 poets - including some of the best known works in the English language - and many obscure and forgotten works that are well worth reading.”

The Complete Works of Shakespeare - This site offers the Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Poems as well as plays).

FOR REFERENCE

ePG - Pathshala- “e-PG Pathshala is an initiative of the MHRD under its National Mission on Education through ICT (NME-ICT) being executed by the UGC. The content and its quality being the key component of education system, high quality, curriculum-based, interactive e-content in 70 subjects across all disciplines of social sciences, arts, fine arts and humanities, natural & mathematical sciences."

Go to the ‘Students’ Corner’ on the home page and select your subject from a list. Then select from a dropdown menu the paper and module you want to access.

Literary History – “A selective bibliography of open access articles for more than 300 authors, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites…”

The Victorian Web – This website is the biggest repository of information on the Victorian period in English literature.

Shakespeare Birthplace Trust - Offered by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, this website is storehouse of information on Shakespeare. Apart from being a visual treat with photographs of Shakespeare’s birthplace, this website has a good repository of learning material for students as well.

Encyclopaedia Britannica - This website has good reference material for on all the ages and all the major writers of English.

THE BACHELOR OF ARTS - PLOT AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS

THE BACHELOR OF ARTS – PLOT AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS

PLOT CONSTRUCTION

The plot of the novel can easily be divided into four parts, with each part marking a distinct stage in the growth of Chandran as a character. When the novel begins, Chandran is a cheerful, confident, and ambitious college student who has his own set of prejudices, choices, middle class snobbery, and dreams. He is smart, intelligent, and a laborious student. His college life and its adventures, which ru up to first five chapters, form the first part of the novel.

The second part, which consists of five chapters, is all about Chandran’s first brush with love and its trauma. He falls madly for a girl called Malathi and waits for her every evening at the banks of Sarayu. His intensions of marrying the girl cause tension and conflict with his parents, particularly his mother who believes in following all the customs and traditions as well as in the idea of supremacy of the groom and his family before the bride’s. Chandran’s father tries hard to get the alliance materialize for the sake of his son, but for the rigid attitude of Malathi’s father who is not willing to risk his daughter’s life for a good alliance. Chandran’s frustration and contempt for rigid societal norms and customs knows no bounds. He is not able to take the blow of celebration of Malathi’s wedding announcement, and falls ill. His father advises him for a change of place and arranges to send him to Madras. Chandran leaves for Madras.

The third part of the novel is the most important part from the point of view of plot construction. This part can be said to be the structural center of the novel. Though there are only two chapters in this part, this is a significant landmark in Chandran’s growth as an individual. Kailas is an embodiment of all the temptations that the world has to offer. But Chandran is able to resist the temptation of women and wine because of his fine upbringing. Chandran renounces everything and becomes a sanyasi, begging for alms and avenging himself upon the world for its cruelty and heartlessness. For eight months he sleeps on footpaths, loiters about from one village to another surviving on charity. Finally he realizes the futility of this rebellion and he understands that the nature of his renunciation is altogether different from the renunciation of sanyasis who give up the world to attain salvation whereas he has adopted it as an alternative to suicide. He realizes that he has cheated people who helped him because of his garb of a sanyasi. He comes to terms with his life and decides to return to the place where he would be always loved – his home.

The fourth part is about Chandran’s homecoming, and it consists of six chapters. He realizes his mistakes, and feels sorry for causing immense worry to his parents. He feels grateful for their love, care and concern. He also feels that now he should become financially independent instead of living off his father’s wealth. He acquires the Malgudi agency of Daily Messenger and uses very innovative ideas to increase its circulation. He marries the girl his parents suggest for him.

Though the plot looks loose and incoherent initially, but there is thematic unity in all the parts and Chandran is the unifying factor of all the parts.

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS

All the three novels in this trilogy, Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, and The English Teacher have autobiographical elements in them. For this novel, Narayan borrows heavily from his own college experience. He was a student of Mysore’s prestigious Maharaja’s College that had many British professors and a great English teacher and scholar J. C. Rollo as its principal. The character of Professor Brown bears a close resemblance to Prof Rollo. Narayan has created Albert Mission College out of his experiences as a student of BA in Maharaja’s College , Mysore.

Though Unlike Chandran, Narayan was not a bright and hardworking student, his favorite pastime was to sit on the college stairs and discuss everyday matters with his close friend Ramachandra Rao aka Ramu. Chandran’s friend Ramu is actually Narayan’s friend Ramu in his fictionalized avatar. Narayan’s younger brother was also named Seenu and he would accompany Narayan on many of his adventurous outings with Ramu.

Narayan, at the age of twenty eight, fell in love with an eighteen year old girl Rajam the moment he beheld her. He approached the girl’s parents with a proposal for marriage who were outraged at the unconventionality of the proposal. Narayan’s and Rajam’s horoscopes did not match and her family was not ready for the alliance. It took Narayan a lot of effort and time in convincing them. Finally, the marriage took place and Narayan spent some happiest years of his life with Rajam. But this happiness was short lived as Rajam died soon after giving birth to their daughter Hema. The character of Susila bears a resemblance to Rajam.

Chandran’s falling in love with Malathi at the first sight, and the ensuing conflict and tension is fictionalized version of Narayan’s own experiences.

Also, Narayan worked for a newspaper called The Justice for some time. Chandran’s choice of career for himself is based on Narayan’s own experience as a city reporter for this newspaper.