Thematic Study of The Novel The Scarlet Letter

Name                -            Foram Vyas y

Roll no:             -            21

M.A.Part-2       -            Sem-3

Paper                -            02, Ec-303

Paper name     -           American Literature             

      

Topic for assignment  -

Thematic study of the Novel ‘The Scarlet Letter’

Submitted To: Dr.Dilipsir Barad

  Department of English,

  Bhavnagar university,

  Bhavnagar.                  

Topic: - Thematic study of the Novel ‘The Scarlet Letter’

ð    Introduction:-

ü                Nathaniel Hawthorne’s major novels are powerful records of the contemporary puritan society, revealing the contemporary social and religious order that governed at the time.  His novels bring out the conflict between the individual moral values and virtues and social mutuality and ethical codes.  Referring to the element of social ethics in Hawthorne’s novels, Lawrence Sergeant Hall remarks:

            “The moral problem to be found wherever the individual’s maladjustment to society culminates in sin furnished Hawthorne with his major tragic themes.”

ð    Meaning of the Tongue – of Flame:-

ü                The expression ‘tongue of flame’ occurs in the chapter entitles “The Interior of a Heart”.  It refers to the fiery power in the tongue or speech of Dimes dale.  The sincerity and depth of feeling had given to his speech a peculiar force and fire that the public speakers in general conspicuously lack.  He castigated and also condemned the sinners and warned them against God’s fury, retribution and damnation.  He was himself sure to e punished by God and consigned to hell fire.  This bitter consciousness shot forth from his heart in the form of his pulpit speeches.  There was so much of fire, force and venom in his speech that he seemed to be speaking with a ‘tongue of Flame.’

ð    Dimmesdale as a preacher – Sinner:-

ü                Dimmesdale was a Sinner in the garb of a preacher.  The pick and anguish of his daily life of un-confessed sin had given Dimmesdale a tongue.  Flame as a preacher.  The Tongue – Flame, “Symbolized, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart’s native language.”  Dimmesdale’s awareness of his secret sin had made him a more eloquent speaker than he would otherwise be.  Therefore the tongue – of – flame is a paradox; it is a flame which burns and therefore painful; yet it licks the receiver as a mother cat licks its kitten.  It means that the speaker speaks the painful subject of man’s eternal sinfulness but his speech though it torments his listener, also makes the sinful listener aware of his sin, and therefore also makes it possible for him to seek salvation or redemption.

          In the meantime the flame of the fame often Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale was increasing rapidly.  This fame was partly caused by the intellectual gifted of the minister; partly it was because of his sorrows.  Common people also regarded him as a miracle of holiness.  They believed that he was the special messenger of God upon this earth.  In their eyes the very ground on which he walked was sacred.  The virgins of the church worshipped him.  The older members of the church believed that he was surely destined for heaven.  Although he had spoken the very truth, but his listeners had interpreted it in an altogether different light.

          The Central theme, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s major novels are powerful records f the contemporary puritan society, revealing the contemporary social and religious order that government at the time.  His novels bring out the conflict between the individual more values and virtues and social morality and ethical codes.  Lawrence Sergeant Hall says,

          “The moral problem to be found wherever the individual’s maladjustment to society culminates in sin furnished Hawthorne with his major tragic themes.”

ð    Redemption of Hester and Dimmesdale:-

ü                However, in the end, both Hester and Dimmesdale are redeemed through repentance, moral courage, resolution and human service.  During the seven years, when she has worn the letter ‘A’, she is instilled with an altruism and love for the sick and downtrodden.”  It is our Hester – the towns own Hester, who is so-kind to the poor, so helpful to sick, so comfortable to the afflicted.”

Sin, knowledge, and the Human Condition

ü              Sin and knowledge are linked in the Judeo – Christian tradition.  The Bible begins with the story of Adam and Eve, who were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  As a result of their knowledge.  Adam and Eve are made aware of their humanness, that which them from the divine and from other creatures.

ü              The experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recall the story of Adam and Eve because in both cases, sin result in expulsion and suffering.  But it also results in knowledge specifically, in knowledge of what it means to be human.

ü              For Hester, the scarlet letter functions as “her passport into regions where there women dared not tread,” leading her to “speculate” about her society and herself more “boldly” than anyone else in New England.  As for Dimmesdale, the “burden” of his sin gives him “Sympathy so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his heart vibrates in unison with theirs.”

ü              The puritan elders, on the other hand, insist on seeing earthly experience as merely an obstacle on the path on the path to haven.   Thus, they view sin as a threat to the community that should be punished and suppressed.  Their answer to Hester’s sin is to ostracize her yet; partition society is stagnant, while Hester and Dimmessale’s experience shows that a state of sinfulness can lead to personal growth, sympathy, and understanding of others paradoxically, these qualities are shows to be incompatible with a state of purity.

ð    The Nature of Evil:

ü                The characters in the novel frequently debate the identify of the “Black Man” the embodiment of evil.  Over the course of the novel, the “Black Man” is associated with Dimmesedale, Chilling worth, Mistress Hibbing; and little pearl is thought by some to be the Devil’s child.

ð    The characters also try to root out the causes of evil

ü                 Chilling worth’s selfishness in marring Hester forces her to the “evil”.  She committed in Dimmesdale’s arms?

          Is Hester and Dimmesdale’s deed responsible for Chilling worth’s transformation into a malevolent being?

ð    Terry Dibble :-

ü                Hatred and love, Hawthorne says, are so close as to seem, philosophically, to be “essentially the same” Hawthorne suggests that in the spiritual world.  “The physician and the minister – mutual victims as they have been – May, unaware, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love.”

ü              This confusion over the nature and causes of evil reveals the problems with the puritan conception of sin.  The book argues that true evil arise from the close relationship between hate and love.  As the narrator points out in the novel’s Concluding chapter, both emotions depend upon.

ü              “A high degree of intimacy and heart – knowledge; each renders one individual dependent… upon another.”

          Evil is not found in Hester and Dimmesdale’s lovemaking, or even in the cruel ignorance of the puritan fathers.

          Evil, in its most poisonous form, is found in the carefully plotted and precisely aimed revenge of chilling worth, whose love has been perverted.  Perhaps pearl revenge is not entirely wrong when she thinks Dimmesdale is the “Black Man”, because her father, too, has perverted his love.  Dimmesdale, who should love pearl, will not even publicly acknowledge her.  His cruel denial of love to his own child may be seen as further proper rating evil.

          Thus, the nature of evil is symbolically reflected in different inter- pritations of superstitious and symbolical ‘Black Man’.

·       Dimmesdale is ‘Black Man’ for pearl.

·       Puritan society is Black Man for the love of Dimmesdale and Hester.

·       Chilling worth is black man for the woes and tortures of Dimmesdale and Hester.

ð    Identity and Society :-

ü                After Hester is publicly named and forced by the people of Boston to wear a badge of humanization, her unwillingness to leave the town may seem puzzling.  She is not physically imprisoned and leaving the Massachusetts Bay colony would allow her to remove the scarlet letter and resume a normal life.  Surprisingly, Hester reacts with dismay when chilling worth tells her that the town fathers are considering letting her remove the letter.

ü              Hester’s behavior is premised on her desire to determine her own identify rather than to allow others to determine it for her.  To her, running away or removing the letter would be an acknowledgment of society’s power over her: she would be an acknowledgment of society’s power over her: she would be admitting that the letter is a mark of shame and something prom which she desire to escape.  Instead, Hester stays, refiguring the scarlet as a symbol of her own experience and character.  Her past sin is a part of which she is; to pretend that it never happened would mean dyeing a part of her.  Thus, Hester very determinedly integrants her sin into her life.

ü                Dimmesdale also smuggles against a socially determined identity.  As the community’s minister, he is a more symbol than human being.  Expert for chilling worth, those around the minister willfully ignore his obvious anguish, misinterpreting it as holiness.  Unfortunately, Dimmesdale never fully recognizes the truth of what Hester has learned: that individuality and strength are gained by quite self assertion and by a reconfiguration, not a rejection, of one’s assigned identity.

ð    Conclusion :-

ü                The love which Hester Prynne bears towards this man also enhances our admiration of this great minister.  His hunted, emaciated figure cannot be forgotten by any sensitive reader.  By revealing the hidden workings of the mind of Author Dimmesdale, Hawthorne is able to retain our admiration for him.  Real heroism lies in inner torment greatly.  The Temptations which he has to suffer increase his stature as a priest and minister.

The Vocation of The Researcher

Name                -            Vyas Foram Y

Roll no:             -            21

M.A.Part-2       -               Sem-3

Paper                -               02, Ec-302

Paper name     -             Research Methodology 

      

Topic for Assignment – The Vocation of the Researcher

                     

Submitted To: Dr.Dilip Barad

  Department of English,

  Bhavnagar university,

  Bhavnagar.                  

·    The Vocation of the Researcher

Ø Introduction:-

Some professional students of literature prefer to regard themselves, primarily as critics.  Some as Scholars; but the dichotomy between the two is for more apparent than real and every good student of literature is constantly combining the two roles often without knowing it.  The critic’s business is primarily with the literary work itself – with its structure, style and content of ideas.  Scholars, on the other hand, are more concerned with the facts attending its genesis and subsequent history.  The inseparability of the two disciplines has been well started by the late scholar critic.

George Whaley: “No true Scholar can lack critical acumen; and the Scholar’s eye is rather like the Poet’s – not, to be sure in a fine frenzy rolling.”

·                           It is the Product of an individual human being’s imagination and intellect; therefore, we must know all we can about the author.  Moreover no one writes in a vacuum whatever private influences are involved, authors, whether conformists or rebels, are the products of time and so place, their mental set fatefully determined by the social and cultural environment to understand a book, we must also understand the manifold socially derived attitudes – the normality the myths, the assumptions, the biases that it reflects or embraces.  Most the especially is it necessary to book’s shape and content.  No poet, no artist of any Sault.” Wrote T.S. Eliot in his seminal essay on” Traditional and Individual Talent,” has his complete meaning alone.  His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.  You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.”  But at the same time, he must be set among the poets and artists who were to come.  His book has cast its shadow across later ages, perhaps inspiring new fashions and traditions, and in any event affecting other writers and suggesting the farm and manner of other works.  To read Gulliver’s Travels or Erewhon with ideal Perception, we have to know how they fit into the perennial quest for a happier society, either through satire or through the vision of utopia: and that means ranging from Plato’s Republic, Juvenal’s Satires, and medieval Celtic imprecation to candied, News from nowhere, and 1984.

·                    Literary research them is devoted, for one thing, to the enlightenment of criticism – which may or may not take advantage of the proffered information literary history constitutes one of the strands of which the history of civilization itself is woven.  Like its sister disciplines of musicology and art history, it finds its material in the vast array of records we have inherited of the representation in language of the experience.  Literature preserves for us, for example the poignancy of the medieval aspiration toward Haven through held down by moral chains; the excitement of the Renaissance awareness of the Splendors that environ western mankind in the here and now; the cool and candid re-estimate of the world and the human self that the eighteenth century made under the auspices of revolutionary science and skeptical philosophy; and the spiritual chiaroscuro of waste land and earthly paradise, to which modern society has been subjected in the past two centuries.

·                              Finally there are the un-measurable but intensely real personal satisfactions that literary research affords men and women of a certain temperament; the sheer joy of finding out things that have previously been unknown and thus of increasing; it but by a few grains, the aggregate of human knowledge.  Dramatic discoveries do not occur as often now as they did earlier in the century, when a steadily enlarging body of scholars first studied great hoards of ware books and manuscripts, in both institutional and private ownership which had hitherto been inaccessible to inquirers or were simply unknown.  Two notable discoveries in English Renaissance.

·                    A second hand bookstore in Lincoln, Nebraska, “Right next to Marie’s oasis bar and – on the other side – Dirty Dick’s Pawn Shop and too far from the adult Bookstore and cinema X,” is not the most likely or even the most suitable place for the long last sermons of a colonial poet and divine to resurface.  But, as mignon says.  Rising up out of this Scum I think would some now have pleased Taylor.”

·                              Williams flew at once to England and, welcomed by Lord Compton and his household staff, was given the rediscovered manuscript to inspect prior to tiling it away to be microfilmed. “After I had examined the manuscript for about thirty minutes.”  As a consequence of this recent dramatic expansion of the scope of literary interest, it is certain that given a fair degree of imagination, originality of approach, solidity of learning, and the wish and the will to see works of literary art and their creators from new perspectives, everyone called to the profession will discover amply rewarding projects.  It is to the “Publish or Perish.”

·                              As Dr. Johnson held, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money”, if so the history of literary scholarship at its best is populated with amiable block – heads.  Scholars may value the creature comforts as highly as do people in any other line or work, but it is their itch to know made, not primarily the prospect of enlarged salary checks, that draws them to the library after their classes are met, their papers graded, their committee meetings attended.”

·                    Among the readers of this book there probably are under graduates contemplating careers as students and teachers of literature, and graduate students, some of whom may be wondering, as well as do now and then.  A bit of self examination therefore is in order what are the chief questions and quality of mind and temperament that go to make up a successful and happy scholar?

·                              The practice of law requires a through command of the principle of evidence, knowledge of how to make one’s efficient way through the accumulated “literature” on a subject, and devotion both to accuracy and to detail.  It was perhaps no accident that James Boswell himself, who often would.

“Run half over London, in order to fix a date correctly.”

·                              Both professions, moreover, require organizational skill, the ability to put facts together in a pattern that is clear mind, if controversy is involved, persuasive.  Ideal researchers must love literature for its own sake, that is to say, as an art.  They must be insatiable readers, and the earlier they have acquired that passion, the better.  Unlike the natural sciences, however, literary research tolerates to a degree the subjective impression, as it is inevitable in a discipline that deals with the human consciousness and the art it produces.

·                              To wind up, uniting all these qualities, and imparting conference and meaning to the facts collected must be a creative imagination without it the scholar is “lost as words worth put it “In a gloom of uninspired research.”  Human limitation being what they are, the profession has always had its share of members resembling Scott’s Dr. Dryasdust and George Eliot’s Mr. Casaubon.

·                              These are more or less random examples of the data and procedures that characterize literary research and of the results that make it something more.  It is pithily embodied in a proverb that H.L. Mencken attributes to the Japanese:

“Learning without wisdom is a load of books on an ass’s back”

·                              They have both the wisdom and the knowledge that enable them to put facts in their place, in two senses.  They are never either engulfed or overawed by mere data.

The Mythical Tecnique in The waste Land

Name                -            Vyas Foram

Roll no:             -            21

M.A.Part-2       -            Sem-3

Paper                -            02, Ec-301

Paper name     -            Modernist Literature 

      

Topic for assignment  -

The Mythical Technique in the waste land

Submitted To: Dr.Dilipsir Barad

  Department of English,

  Bhavnagar university,

  Bhavnagar.                  

 Topic: - The Mythical Technique in the waste land

                      Introduction  :-

            T.S. Eliot’s ‘The waste Land’ is an important landmark in the history of English poetry and one of the most talked about poems of the 20^th century.  It is a long poem of about four hundred forty lines in five parts entitled (1) The Burial of the Dead. (2) A game of chess (3) The Fire sermon. (4) Death by water and (5) What the Thunder said.  The poem was first published in serial from in the criterion in October and November, 1922.  The First publication of the poem raised a storm of adverse criticism.  It was considered, at best, a series of slightly related Separate poems.  The new statement called it, “Several separate poems entitled ‘The waste land.”  Alec Brown in The scrutinizes called it,” a set of shorter poems talked together,” and Even as important a critic as E.V. Lucas, reviewing the Poem in 1923 commented that the poet found his inspiration in literature rather than in life, and Untermeyer, writing in the same vein, said the poem appeals only to our acquired knowledge.

                      “The waste Land”:

Ø The Mythical Background

          On the eve of the composition of the waste land, T.S. Eliot had been reading Jessie Weston’s book from Ritual to Romance, and James Frazer’s famous book the Golden tough.  The poet himself has acknowledged that he was deeply influenced by these works or anthropology, and the ancient and primitive myths and legends which from the mythical background to poem are derived from these books Miss Weston’s book supplied him with the legend of the Grail and the Eisner King, and from the Golden Bough he derived his knowledge of a number of vegetation and fertility myths and rituals, especially those connected with Attics, Adonis and Osiris.

Ø The Grail Legend:-

          The Holy Grail legend is a medieval legend associated with the adventure of King Author and his Knights of the Round Table.  The Grail was the cup or plate used by Christ for his last supper, in which the blood of the savior was collected when he was crucified.  It was not long before this holy vessel was discovered to have acquired medicinal and also miraculous properties so that it became an object of devotion and warship, and chapels for it became to be built in several countries and its warship was organized.  The lance used to pierce the sides of Christ was also kept with it.  But a time came when the original Grail disappeared mysteriously from the chapel where it was kept many a bold knight staked his life and lost in the arduous task of searching for it.

Ø The Fisher king: His Desolate Land:-

          It is said that in the course of their hazardous quest Parsifal, the quested, and his fellow – adventurers happened to arrive in a country ruled over by a prince named the fisher king.  It was one of the regions where Grail work ship had been anciently in vogue, and a temple, known as chapel perilous, still stood there, broken and dilapidated as a mournful memorial of what once was, but later had ceased to be.  It was said that the lost grail was hidden in this chapel.

        At that time the king himself had become a physical work, maimed and important, as a result, it was whispered, of a sin committed by his soldiery in outraging the chastity of a group of nuns attached to the Grail chapel.  The impotency of the fisher king was reflected sympathetically in the Land of which he was the head and the ruler.  It had become dry and barren the haunt and home of want and famine the king, however, was waiting with hope, despite his illness, that one day the night of the pure soul would visit his star – crossed kingdom, march to the chapel perilous, answer questions and solve riddles.  This would be followed by a ritual washing of his, king fisher’s sinful body, which would purge it and renew its health and energy.  It was also hoped that this rebirth of the king would be followed by the life-giving rains to the parched land and the thirsty kingdom, which would once more enjoy its earlier fertility.  The poem was considered as a sort of scholarly nonsense, and the hope was expressed that it would be left gradually, “to sink itself.”

Ø It’s Symbolic Significance:-

     The mythical land of the fisher king symbolizes contemporary decay and spiritual sterility.  The Sick king symbolizes the sick humanity and this sickness results, as in the case of the fisher king from its Sexual sins.  It has been degraded to mere ‘animal copulation’, and this Sexual perversion has led to Spiritual death.  Spiritual health can be regained only through penance, suffering and self-discipline.

Ø The Mythical Technique: Its Advantage:-

          Eliot has used the mythical method in Germanton, in Sweeney among the Nightingales and in most other poems of the volume entitled the Poems 1920.  However, the waste Land is the most extended example of Eliot’s use of the mythical technique.  For the modern waste land, Eliot Finds Several close parallels in the waste land of the past, what is happening today is not peculiar to the present age; it also happened in the death.  This has been represented symbolically be the picture of a kingdom laid waste by the sexual sin or Sickness of its ruler or by war.  The land becomes waste, but it is invariably restored to health either by the hero, or by the penance of the ruler himself.  Salvation has always come, and so it is bound to come to the modern waste land as well, only if its denizens are prepared to pay the price – sacrifice and suffering by the use of this technique, the poem is able to bring together several planes of experience, suggest the likeness between them, and increase the richness and allusiveness of his Poem.

Ø “Resembling Contrasts:-

          It has been said that Eliot uses the mythical method as a criticism of the present.  The past is glorified and the sordidness and squalor of the present is accentuated by contrast.  Even such a penetrating critic as Elizabeth Drew commits this mistake nothing can be Further from the truth.  As a matter of fact, Eliot merely suggests “The sameness as the heart of contrast,” “resembling contrasts” – that human life has basically been the same despite superficial differences for example, though in a famous passage in “The fire sermon”, the mention of, “Elizabeth and Leicester brings an illusion of glamour, close thought reveals that the stale pretence of their relationship left it essentially as empty as that between the typist and Cleark.” But the poet does not say so explicitly; he juxtaposes the past and the present and leaves the readers to draw out their own conclusions.  The Contrast Ps obvious, but the sameness is implicit.

Ø Allusions and Quotations: Their Function:-

          The passage also illustrates that not only does Eliot use Pagan myths and legends for ordering and controlling his material, he also uses European literature, the literature of his own country, as well as Biblical myths for the same purpose.  His use of allusions and quotations is not pedantic; it is functional.  It is part of his technique of juxtaposing the past and the present.  In the famous passage at the close of the Burial of the dead, ‘the unreal city’ is London or any other city in the modern waste land.  But it is also the city of Baudelaire as well as the Limbo of Dante the boredom and depression of the crowds moving over London Bridge reminds one of Similar personages in Dante and the implication is that the reminds one of similar methods of salvation are also the same.  The opening of what the thunder said is a fine example of the way in which Eliot portrays the Sameness of different experience by linking together different myths drawn from various source, the final scenes from the life of Christ, from the perilous quest of Galanad, and the pagan vegetation myths.

Ø Extreme Condensation:-

          The mythical method can be used in either of the two ways (1) Expansion and (2) Compression.  Joyce’s Ulysses is the finest example of the first method, while Eliot’s the waste Land provides the perfect illustration of the second alternative.  Eliot has concentrated on interpretation f a whole condition of society into slightly over four hundred lines, and has thus created, what T.S. Pearce calls, the Epic of contemporary Society.  He has telescoped within a short span the past and the present, or, in the words of Matthiessen,

        “Has compressed in to a single moment the memory and the sameness of other moments.”

        He has enclosed ‘vast immensities’ within little space.  Eliot eliminates all connectives, everything that was not entirely essential, and in this way increased the energy and lyric intensity f the poem.  He thus created a work of art, a triumph of intellectual organization and conscious effort.

        To wind up, myths as “Objective co-relatives” one aspects of Eliot’s use of the mythical technique is his use of ancient myths as “objective correlatives.’ Eliot defined objective correlative as a, “set of objects, a situation, and a chain of events” which shall be formula for some particular emotion of the Poet, so that when the external facts are given, the emotion is immediately evoked’.  The waste Land contains, according to A.G. George.

        “A series of emotions and impressions of the poet which are expressed through the objective correlative of the mythical waste lands, a series of emotions and also impressions which originate in the Poet’s mind as he surveys human life in the present as well as in the past.”

        The ancient myths act as objective co-relatives for the poet’s emotions, in ancient customs and rituals he finds symbols for his emotions and ideas.