Volume 2 Chapter 3
Posted by: livreordie on: October 5, 2009
Some useful bits here and there, as promised.
Here It Comes Again
If Chapter 2 can be construed as an epilogue, Chapter 3 is in many ways set up as a transition chapter to the story of the second generation – Cathy, Hareton, Linton – once again told through Nelly. This shift is aptly suggested through Brontë’s use of setting – “the weather broke; the wind shifted from south to north-east, and brought rain first, and then sleet and snow.” (p. 150) In just one line, Brontë, quite slyly, suggests to the reader the winds of change that about to occur. In place of the “atmospheric tumult” in Volume 1, Volume 2 brings stormy weather of milder intensity than Volume 1. Volume 2 is seemingly painted as cold, “dreary” and “dismal” (p. 150).
Isabella
The lifelessness of Isabella, as described by Nelly at the top of page 151, is appropriately told soon after establishing the “drear[iness]” of Brontë’s characters. She is “a white face” that should be “bleeding profusely”, “scratched and bruised” – signs of Heathcliff’s unflinching cruelty and incessant violence and the “destruction” / “devastation” of Volume 1.
With page 152, Isabella is given the opportunity to express her hatred and reiterate the diabolism Brontë has attributed to Heathcliff through more than one character (i.e. Nelly, the Lintons). Indeed, Heathcliff has a “devilish nature” and is a “Monster” who “pinched [Isabella's] heart to death” (p. 152). If Isabella’s purpose is clearly out of indignation, Brontë’s purpose (of making Isabella repeat the same lines again) would be to:
(a) remind her reader of the impending destruction he is to cause to Hindley and Hareton later in the chapter and;
(b) tell us to question Heathcliff’s motivation / motives for revenge in establishing that he is not as savage or monstrous as perceived by Isabella.
Nelly would seem to be playing the role of the author’s “invisible hand”, strangely deeming Heathcliff a “human being” at heart capable of empathy and sympathy. It is important to note that Nelly also tells us of Heathcliff’s “preter-human self-denial” (his self-restraint and ultimately humane nature) on page 157.
Hindley and Heathcliff
Before we discuss Heathcliff’s empathy and/or act of violence on Hindley, we have to compare the two. After all, the obvious use of doubling in Volume 2 Chapter 3 allows Brontë to both bring the story of Volume 1 to a close (“killing” Hindley) and introducing Linton, Cathy and Hareton in greater detail. First, let’s look at the list of similarities between Hindley and Heathcliff, spelled out to us by Nelly.
Both Hindley and Heathcliff are oppressive tyrants
- Hindley recognises his own “treachery and violence” and that Heathcliff’s “treachery and violence are a just return” for his malevolent acts (p. 155)Hindley mirrors Heathcliff’s verbal ‘violence’
- uses “some elegant term” (elegant is ironic)
- “swore passionately”
- “calling me all sorts of names” (p. 156)
Heathcliff is of course portrayed as the more savage of the two, for in true animalistic fashion, is “whitened with snow” and has “sharp cannibal teeth” revealed by the “cold” and his “wrath” (p. 156). Heathcliff is literally cold and cruel with “brutal roughness” (middle of p. 157).
Cruelty as an expression of love
Yet, we the reader are urged by Brontë to understand Heathcliff differently. Heathcliff “abstain[s]” from “finishing [Hindley] completely”. Nelly also questions why Heathcliff does not “stretch [him]self over her grave and die like a faithful dog” (p. 156) if Catherine had been “the whole joy” of his life, possibly even suggesting that Heathcliff is hypocritical for forsaking mourning and choosing instead to enact his revenge. Yet, it is significant that Heathcliff, our archetypal brooding Byronic hero, only bails for Hindley’s blood after Catherine’s death; it is his love for Catherine that has prevented him from demolishing her brother and effectively, the Earnshaw household. Cruelty, revenge and violence are also arguably the only means he can express his passion; without Catherine, Heathcliff displaces his passion in terms of pure violence. Love in the guise of hatred and cruelty? In the world of Wuthering Heights, possibly…
As Isabella points out, the love between Catherine and Heathcliff appears “awfully perverted” (p. 152) and incomprehensible to outsiders – outsiders to Catherine and Heathcliff’s uncommon, violent world of passion.
Hindley and Edgar
Equally significant is Nelly’s comparison of Hindley and Edgar as “fond husbands.. attached to their children.. (who) shouldn’t both have taken the same road, for good or evil” (p. 163). Her intent here is obvious: she is “moralizing” (p. 163), judging for us who is “sadly the worse and the weaker man” (p. 163).
“One hoped, and the other despaired: they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them.” (p. 163)
If Hindley parallels Heathcliff in terms of savagery and unadulterated ferocity, his despair, in contrast to Linton’s “hope” and “true courage” in soldiering on without Catherine, sets him up as the weakling. The world of culture and the gentry, so commonly caricatured as feeble and weak, emerges stronger. No direct comparison to Heathcliff is made here, but are we to conclude that Heathcliff’s refusal to mourn, in conjunction with his path of revenge show him to be the true weakling?
Digression
Linton Heathcliff, introduced to us on page 161, is an “ailing, peevish creature” that seems to combine the worst of both the Lintons and Heathcliff. However briefly we see him here, he is undoubtedly set up as a “double” of Edgar Linton (in his supposed physical weakness) as well as Heathcliff (in his supposed psychological / emotional weakness).
Or is the comparison simply between Hindley and Edgar? The purpose of Nelly’s setting up of this “doubling” is undoubtedly to highlight Hindley’s violence upon himself – his self-destruction. Hindley has “abandoned his post” in his post-Frances melancholia; Linton, with the guidance of God, has ’steered his vessel’ to safety. Here, we do see Wuthering Heights presented to us as a morality tale: what our lives become is, as Nelly seems to suggest, within our hands. The despair and anguish characters in the novel (Hindley and Catherine being prime examples) through self-destruction / self-betrayal is, Nelly says, deserved. But who has the right to pass judgement on others? Nelly would like Lockwood, and Brontë’s reader to “judge as well as [we] can” for ourselves.
Heathcliff and Hareton
Hindley’s ‘violence to the self’ finds a companion in Heathcliff’s imminent ‘violence’ onto Hareton. It is only with Hindley’s death at 27 years of age that Hareton acquires significance in the violent world of Wuthering Heights.
“Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!” (p. 165)
Evidently, Heathcliff is about to subject the “same wind” or torture he was made to suffer under Hindley upon Hindley’s son, Hareton. By Heathcliff’s own (implicit) admission, Hareton is his double – another tree that may or may not “grow as crooked” as Heathcliff. This doubling repeats the “wind” metaphor that started this chapter; “treachery and violence” in the world of Wuthering Heights is cyclical and like the winds, is suggested to be seasonal, natural, ‘normal’. As the three weeks of summer was extinguished into a picture of “sleet and snow”, Heathcliff attempts here to wreak havoc by taking revenge against Hindley’s son. Yet, is Heathcliff not committing violence upon his double – himself?
Cruelty as an expression of love (part deux)
Hindley grieves himself to death: he destroys himself. Edgar Linton, in mourning solemnly, rebuilds his life, growing increasingly attached to the “puny successor” to Catherine in Cathy (p. 162). Heathcliff, in mourning the death of Catherine, expresses his frustration and anxiety through violence – not just onto others but onto himself.
Can Heathcliff’s desire to “hurt” Hareton be equated with a desire to “hate himself” for his own sins? As Nelly would say, it is for us to judge…
Volume 2 Chapter 2
Posted by: livreordie on: October 1, 2009
epilogue |ˈepəˌlôg; -ˌläg| (also epilog)
noun
a section or speech at the end of a book or play that serves as a comment on or a conclusion to what has happened.
ORIGIN late Middle English : from French épilogue, via Latin from Greek epilogos, from epi ‘in addition’ + logos ‘speech.’
Epilogue
Despite its location at the start of Volume 2, Chapter 2 would serve – heterodox (to borrow one of Lockwood’s words, meaning unconventional) – as an epilogue to the histrionics, the “theatre of passion” (for one hardly needs to argue that hair-tearing is dramatic) of Volume 2 Chapter 1.
Just as she pronounces judgement on Heathcliff’s role in the saga (between V1 Ch 10 and V2 Ch 1) as a “luckless presence” (p. 144), she serves as a true narrator – the author’s voice – in Ch 2, suggesting that Catherine’s death brings her not to the “hell” of a life without Heathcliff, but a haven, a place where she can gain “repose” (p. 145) from her emotional struggle and the guilt from betraying herself and Heathcliff. Nelly concludes the action, delivering a final word on Catherine’s “wayward and impatient existence“. We, the reader, are once again made to recall Catherine’s responsibility, a la Desdemona for those cognisant of Othello, in her own tragedy. According to Nelly , she merits no such “blessed release” or “haven” in her violence and cruelty to herself, to Heathcliff and essentially, to the world of Wuthering Heights. In no uncertain terms, Catherine has brought destruction and (emotional) devastation.
Enrichment
Within Greek tragedy, you find a Greek Chorus – a group of actors who comment (by speaking or singing in unison) on the action – that served as a “moral educator”. Art, or more ancient art, was primarily valued not quite on aesthetic (i.e. for its beauty) qualities but rather, for its moral function.
Evidently, Nelly, like a Greek Chorus, is both narrator and participant in the action and “judges” characters FOR the reader. She explicitly draws our attention to Catherine’s failings (self-betrayal, bad faith, refusal to choose, selfish desires), therein making Bronte’s text in some way a morality tale, meant to “educate” the reader.
Suffering and the name Catherine
As Nelly closes one door (on Catherine), another opens (in the form of Catherine’s daughter, Catherine Linton). Similarly named, Bronte is as good as shouting to her reader, “SHE’S A DOUBLE REPLACING HER MOTHER, DON’T YOU SEE DON’T YOU SEE!” Baby Cathy (henceforth referred to as Cathy) is seemingly set up to suffer the same way her mother did in the latter’s dying moments. Where birth and life is to celebrated, Cathy is instead treated with disdain. While Nelly regards her as a “great addition”, Edgar perceives her as “his being left without an heir” – a liability in the sense that Cathy too has indirectly caused the downfall, the disintegration of Thrushcross Grange: since the Lintons will lose the Grange “because of” Cathy, her birth too is seemingly “violent“. What a novel! Will she suffer the same cruelty? We, the enlightened reader, already knows she does, so there is a definite foreshadowing of her life as one of a victim, one of great misery…
Heathcliff and Catherine Redux
It is also in Ch 2 that we see the beginnings of Heathcliff’s absolute dedication to Catherine, prefiguring how Catherine consumes Heathcliff’s life for the next twenty years. At the bottom of page 147, we see Heathcliff wanting to know, “did she ever mention me?”, and “dread[ing] the answer to his question”; all of Bronte’s signs point to Heathcliff’s obsessive, insecure, selfish love. Selfishness here alludes more to the unqualified want of Catherine.
“May she wake in torment!” he cried, with frightful vehemence..
“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you – haunt me, then!”.. (p 147)
He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast…
It does seem like selfishness of the “I only want her to love me, me me” variety in his initial “curse” (first quote). Yet, Heathcliff’s second malediction / curse – calling for Catherine to “haunt” him – emphasises not the hurt or “torment” he wishes upon Catherine, but in fact his desire for them to be together forever, even after death. Love that transcends mortality? Uh huh.
Bronte almost seems to be in Laurentian (D H Lawrence?) overdrive here. The third quote aptly suggests that only Heathcliff, a savage beast, is capable such a transcendental love. Society and culture, represented by Edgar and Isabella, are feeble both physically and emotionally and so unable to love in the fashion Catherine and Heathcliff do. At the end, Bronte uses setting to comment on this:
“The place of Catherine’s interment to the surprise of the villagers was neither in the chapel, under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations outside. It was dug on a green slope, in a corner of the kirkyard, where the wall is so low that heath and bilberry plants have climbed over it from the moor…” (p. 149)
While this excerpt lacks the subtlety (c’mon, the symbolism is obvious!), it makes up for it with the sheer beauty of the images. Catherine is identified by Heathcliff as “Catherine Earnshaw” on p. 148, signalling to the reader how he sees and treasures only the “natural”, pre-gentile Catherine of old. Here, upon her death, Catherine belongs to neither the Earnshaw or the Lintons. She is not even buried “formally”; her grave is on a slope, away from the traditional burial sites of the church and her family tombs. This slope is obviously symbolic of nature and of the world Heathcliff belongs (with its shrubs and heaths).
Even if Edgar Linton “lies in the same spot” (this contradicts the “she belongs with Heathcliff” argument a little), Bronte quite deliberately tells us that Catherine has found her repose, her haven literally in nature.
Wuthering Heights Revision
Posted by: livreordie on: September 27, 2009
Practice makes perfect. Long, long, long gone are the days of ‘O’ level Lit, where printing and memorising Spark/Cliff/York Notes maketh one an A student. Sitting (hopefully with friends) to analyse parts of the text and trying to fit them into a larger picture (the writer’s style? themes within the novel?) is ultimately the best way of preparing for a Lit exam. To help you rev (the Singapore GP starts in a few more hours!) your minds up, do take a few practice sessions. Choreographing a crash now may mean that you win the race (or something to take effect).
Practice Extract for both H1 and H2 students
Write a detailed commentary on the following extract, paying particular attention to the ways in which Brontë presents her characters (through language, literary device, linguistic feature, structure, narration etc).Pg. 92-3
“Come in, that’s right!” exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair to the fire……which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises.”
To prepare for the essay question, you may want to compile (once again, this is A LOT easier if you cooperate with your classmates) multiple analyses of the text according to style (this is hard), theme (not that hard) and characterisation (easiest, but not that easy).
Style
- Use of dialogue (often interspersed, insufficient but the most ‘reliable’ depiction of character)
- Use of Nelly as a near-omniscient, “outsider” narrator (remember, she reports what she sees of Catherine, Heathcliff, Isabella and Edgar.. without us truly gaining an insight into their psyche)
- Use of doubles / doppelgangerTheme
- Prevalence of revenge and violence, focusing also on the literary features that depict these themes
- Social class / differences and how language and setting is used to comment on this theme
- Suffering / passion and how language, setting and literary features express these themes
- Memory and how literary features portray the complexity of the human psycheCharacter
- Pick out episodes from the text and analyse how Brontë presents the Lintons (examining language, behaviour / mannerisms, attitudes).
- Catherine is introduced to the reader / Lockwood in the form of the supernatural (lending a gothic dimension to the text). Track how this portrayal flows through the rest of the novel, up until Volume 2 Chapter 1.
- We very rarely see Heathcliff and hear him even less at the start of the novel (when the reader is confined to Lockwood’s perspective) as well as in Nelly’s telling (as a child and as a returning ’savage gentlemen’). Track how he is presented as a ‘savage‘ (language, images, dressing, setting).
Wuthering Heights Assignment
Posted by: livreordie on: September 1, 2009
Holiday Assignment.
Attempt one of the following four questions. The deadline is the Wednesday of Term 4 Week 1. Submissions any later than Wednesday will not be entertained.
Your assignment should be typewritten. Your name should be written on the first page, together with the question in full. You may choose one of the following questions or formulate your own.
***
Essay Questions
1) Do you agree that the text is driven by revenge and violence?
2)”Wuthering Heights is a novel primarily about oppression and subversion.” Discuss how Catherine and Heathcliff can be understood in light of this quotation.
3) “The story of Hindley Earnshaw is one of malice and grieving.” How can Hindley be likened to Heathcliff?
4) Discuss the importance of language and how it depicts the characters in Wuthering Heights.
5) Comment on the sense of displacement in the novel.
6) Examine Brontë’s use of narration in the text.
Chapter 13
Posted by: livreordie on: August 23, 2009
In the name of strangeness: a recap on narration
In “The Strangeness of Wuthering Heights“, Arnold Krupat underscores the fact that “all experience of fiction is strange”. Yet, Wuthering Heights, to Krupat, proves an “uncomfortable book precisely because it is a book which suggests that no telling can properly convey this tale”.
There is according to Krupat, a refusal by Bronte to “create a single narrative voice comprehensive enough” to capture the material, the prima materia of the novel (22). Lockwood and Nelly are of course the “chief narrators of the book” and there is “no existence for the events” of the novel outside of what we read from Lockwood or Nelly.
This refusal has also made the faults of Bronte’s narration method fairly evident, adding to the “strangeness” not just of the novel but of Bronte’s stylistic decision. Despite being a “Country Servant” 0f little or no education, is able to re-present the fluidity, complexity and even the most lexcially challenging words of Edgar, Isabella and Catherine Linton’s dialogue. Even her speech is markedly abound with impressive vocabulary. She is almost too covert, too sneaky to be a real character; she eavesdrops and hears everything, narrating it for us / Lockwood in all its original richness. It’s inconceivable, really! Before we start exploring the intricacies of Chapter 13, we must consider that Isabella’s letter, no matter how veritable, truthful and accurate it is compared to Nelly and Lockwood’s filtering of the story, is still told to us through Nelly (see pg 119).
Putting the extract in context
When encountering Catherine’s diary, Isabella’s letter or any textual detail that lies beyond Nelly’s and Lockwood’s subjective viewpoints, you will need to point out the difference in objectivity from previous chapters; Chapter 13 is undoubtedly more “objective” and “factual” than Nelly’s narration of events but is not and cannot be fully objective and factual.
What does the chapter “do” in the context of the chapters before and after Ch 13? In Chapter 11, we are let in on Heathcliff’s intentions in marrying Isabella, the cunning of which is heightened by the love (however violent and spiteful) we see between Heathcliff and Catherine. In Chapter 12, we “see” (or rather, don’t see! This is important!) Isabella elope with Heathcliff. In Chapter 13, Nelly reveals that the two months had passed since the dual shock of Isabella’s departure and Catherine’s brain fever. Even though two months (in actual, story time) have passed, only two pages separate the events of Ch 12 from Isabella’s letter. Consequently, we can argue this acceleration in plot is wholly deliberate: it delivers the consequences of Isabella’s elopement very quickly to the reader. Bronte, through Nelly, even highlights this to the reader, reminding us that this letter is “odd coming from the pen of a bride just out of the honeymoon” (119).
Why is this important? We already learnt about Heathcliff’s malevolent plot in Chapter 11. Chapter 12 shows the speed with which he acts. Chapter 13 then marks for us the speed with which he has exacted his “revenge” on Catherine and/or the Linton household (subject to your interpretation) via his abuse / torment of Isabella. Bronte’s choice (to “deliver” Isabella’s letter quite so soon) removes suspense – which comes from anticipation and not knowing – as well as illustrates the potency and ferocity of Heathcliff’s will for revenge.
Heathcliff
On page 120, Isabella asks rhetorical question upon rhetorical question.
Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I shan’t tell my reasons for making this inquiry but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married – that is, when you call to see; and you must call, Ellen, very soon.
(Purpose) These questions are clearly rhetorical; Isabella is in fact suggesting that Heathcliff is at once, not a man, is mad, and is a devil. (Effect) That three rhetorical questions are asked is significant in illustrating not just Isabella’s uncertainty but also her helplessness in her self-prescribed circumstance. Suggestion is arguably more powerful than giving the reader her opinion literally; (Effect + Purpose) the reader is left to imagine the demented “madness” and rage within Heathcliff’s abuse as well as the unwavering “evil” contained within Heathcliff’s “devil[ish]” ways. Indeed, Bronte intentionally leaves out the details by having Isabella choose not to divulge her “reasons”. Having seemingly shattered the suspense, Bronte merely re-creates it, adding to the mystery of Heathcliff and his true “evil”, for he is a “what” and not a “who“, an animal, a “devil” and only maybe a “man”.
Hareton
Isabella is an important plot device here; as she (and not Nelly) is at Wuthering Heights, she communicates the events at Wuthering Heights, or in this instance, the state Hareton has dragged himself into. He is “slovenly” and “messy”, devoid of life (“ghostly”). Reduced to what we would associate more with a savage figure (Heathcliff?), Isabella again suggests, hints, implies Heathcliff’s maleficence and annihilation of all at a very desolate Wuthering Heights.
After a short suspense it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features were lost n masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders, and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine’s, with all their beauty annihilated (121)…
It’s well the hellish villain has kept his word!” growled my future host (122).
Isabella
Likewise, the old Isabella has been effaced by the destructive force of Heathcliff. Bronte emphasises this “loss”:
“My name was Isabella Linton,” I replied..
Nevertheless, Bronte’s construction of Isabella still holds. She still represents the Lintons, the gentry; her language, ever so crucial to our understanding of Heathcliff’s strangely elevated style in Chapter 14 (page 133), is still overly refined and aristocratic. Page 122 provides the reader an abundance of such language in Isabella’s narration. Sentence structure is complex and the vocabulary reminds us of Lockwood but isn’t nearly as pompous / circumlocutory.
the once brilliant pewter dishes which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust.
Mr Earnshaw vouchsafed no answer. He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets, apparently quite forgetting my presence; and his abstraction was evidently so deep, and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I shrank from disturbing him again.
You’ll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly cheerless, seated in worse than solitude on that inhospitable hearth, and remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home, containing the only people I loved on earth… (122)
The language befits no doubt Isabella’s social standing; you will not require any better examples of Isabella’s language than those above. It may also be useful to take note that in the last quote, Isabella expresses her desire for her “delightful home” as well as her absolute lack of love – if not hatred – for Heathcliff. As Isabella adjudges on page 128 (last page of Ch 13),
“the adjective our gave mortal offence. He swore it was not, nor ever should be mine… he is ingenious and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence! I sometimes wonder at him with an intensity that deadens my fear: yet, I assure you, a tiger or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens. He told me of Catherine’s illness and accused my brother of causing it; promising that I should be Edgar’s proxy in suffering, till he could get a hold of him.”
Here, the italicisation of “our” (a possessive adjective that highlights a “union” between Isabella and Heathcliff) together with the words “mortal offence” tell the reader of Catherine’s complete revulsion towards Heathcliff. Her choice of images are certainly carefully selected: Heathcliff’s savagery, cruelty is beyond that of even the fiercest of predators. The use of “serpent” may even be a Biblical allusion, suggestive of Heathcliff’s betrayal of Isabella’s trust (however naive) and vile treachery in the name of revenge (against Edgar). Isabella douses her hatred with mild praise of Heathcliff’s determination as “ingenious” and “unresting”; his passion is met with “intense” wonder from Isabella, remarkable perhaps for the love for Catherine hidden beneath the anger and violence (It may also be important to note that Isabella offers her account of Heathcliff’s action – he is veritably acting against Edgar and not Catherine).
The Feminine
In reiterating Isabella’s disdain, “wretched” state and having Isabella admit her own folly, Bronte reminds us that Isabella is the victim here. The swift succession of lines, each breaking the previous line, depicts Isabella’s frailty in the face of Heathcliff, the “evil beast” that has sprung and destroyed.
I do hate him – I am wretched – I have been a fool! (128)
The reader is perhaps left with no doubt who between Edgar and Heathcliff is to triumph. The gentry – the sphere of culture – is here represented by the voice of a woman (Isabella). The gentry is itself feminine (compounded by Edgar’s own feeble nature) and subject to the graces (or lackthereof!) / violence of the natural world, of Heathcliff’s world.
I shall expect you every day – don’t disappoint me!
After all, this world is so helpless that it must depend on a lowly country servant to rescue it / her.
Don’t Commit Textual Violence
Posted by: livreordie on: August 21, 2009
We have spent the last two weeks or so discussing, apostrophising and widening our understanding of violence.
Violence in Literature is certainly nowhere as alien as it may seem to some of you, especially those who frequently misread poems and go helter-skelter (confused, almost deranged) in your exploration of poems. What happens is you commit textual violence – you kill the text, you metaphorically violated and stripped of its meaning (to “rape” the text, as the juvenile, beng even, reference goes ). How do you exactly avoid this? How do you pass? Well, let’s examine three common faults. Avoid them NOW and you will be fine.
The above picture quite clearly is a nose. The nose being evidently a human feature can be aligned to a poetic feature. Like a poetic feature, the nose tells us something about the person and how he is like. However, it is only one feature.
Guesswork
The one thing that you should never, ever do is speculate. What you think things really are does not matter. A student in this scenario would say something to the effect of, “I think this nose belongs to Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong was a great leader blah blah blah.” As ridiculous as this example is, it certainly does not add to an understanding of the poem. In fact, by trying to piece the puzzle, you are trying to add facts to the poem that are not there. If you do not see more than a nose that looks like Mao’s (eg. his famous forehead), then it probably doesn’t matter whose nose it is. We don’t care.
Misreading
Some of you jump on one feature and build your essay around it as if it’s the only thing you see. An example of what you do is something like this. “This person has a nose. This nose is big and white. Therefore, this person is big and white. This person is likely to be Bill Clinton (former US president, to prevent me from fainting).” Yes, features are important but they must inform your understanding of both poems. You cannot just extract one word or two words and go completely off-tangent. Solution: Try to gain at least a vague understanding of what the poet is saying in the poem first, before using a discussion of feature and effect to support it.
Explanation and Narration
A lot of you try to explain the feature without looking at effect and purpose. What we are really looking for is “how a poet means what he means”. Notice that “how” refers to what he uses (features) and “what” refers to not only the thematic meaning. Together, this is “effect” – how the what is delivered. To return to the context of the nose, this is what you do. This picture is of a nose. It is a nose of a human. It is the nose of a Caucasian male. Solution: examine “why” the poet has decided to use this feature instead of a plain, simple or ordinary alternative. In this case, why is the nose highlighted by the writer (in this case, me)? Why has it been deliberately enlarged? Why is it so large in the first place? Why why why why why? What does it represent about the subject (i.e. the owner of this mysterious nose).
For the curious, this nose belongs to none other than…
1T23-29 Look at Just One Poem
Posted by: livreordie on: August 10, 2009
- In: Group Work| Poetry
- 7 Comments
In today’s lesson, we are doing a re-boot and aiming to, more simply, analyse one poem and give Mr. Lim a response that will enrich his life and impress our parents. Really.
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
Mary Elizabeth FryeDo not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep,
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn rainWhen you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there, I did not die
It may be easier said than done but the “goal” of literature and to an extent, Literature (the subject) is to examine life – living, marriage, death, pain, sadness, losing a loved one, grappling with material needs and wants, romance, desire, perverse desires and what have you.
It is then crucial, as you pick out literary / poetic features in the poems set for you, that you respond to them and tell your reader what you see, think and feel (from the poem) in the most academic, profound and sophisticated way possible.
In this lesson, we will look at just one poem. The class will discuss, with my guiding questions, their thoughts on the poem. Subsequently, you will be split into pairs, where you will examine only ONE feature – any feature – in the poem and evaluate its effect and “purpose”, the message it conveys about death.
Type your response in MS Word before posting it as a comment in this thread.
List of Features: form (structure), form (rhyme), sound, repetition of particular lines / phrases, imagery (figurative language), language
Extract Analysis Guide
Posted by: livreordie on: August 9, 2009
It’s more or less complete and finally uploaded onto the Resources pages. For your convenience, you can download it here in PDF format. I provided you the “framework for analysis” (E-L-E-P) that is the first page of this guide.
Subsequent pages provide you a list of literary / linguistics features to look out for and their relevant range of effects. You will also find Isabelle and Kai Zhen’s essays. Skate away.
Wuthering Heights Lecture (Ch 12-13)
Posted by: livreordie on: August 5, 2009
Download the slides for Wuthering Heights Lecture ch 12 &13. No doubt, a less exciting dream (CH 12) and a less exciting Isabella (CH 13) than those you might find below, but important chapters to consider!
poesis* ESSAY SPECIAL
Posted by: livreordie on: July 24, 2009
- In: Poetry| poesis*
- Leave a Comment
poesis* will be publishing a series of essays and guides for you, cherished student of Literature, to pick up “what to write” and “how to write” a comparative essay on two poems. As your chief writer-editor is caught in a web of administrative and non-teaching duties, publication will be sporadic and the guides will be slowly – painstakingly slow – updated to the point of completion. Nevertheless, enjoy! Words are bolded to underscore the analytical or comparative language used by the respective author. Pay attention to how both students compare the two poems closely!
***
Cheryl Yeong
Comparison of Rupert Brooke’s “The Dead” and Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
Poems A and B are similar in that they are about war and the soldiers who die fighting in them. However, the personas have contrasting opinions towards death in war. In poem A, the tone is celebratory while describing death. The diction is particularly telling when Brooke describes those who die in war as “rich” while in contrast, those who die naturally of old age die a “poor” and “lonely” death. To describe the death of soldiers in such a way is ironic as these men find satisfaction only in death. Thus this implies that the people who find their deaths on the battlefield actually retain more meaning and significance as it is suggested that they die protecting their moral principles of “Honour” amongst comrades whereas the people who die of old age are “poor” because while their death is “serene”, their “work and joy” are almost equivalent to a meaningless wasting away of time.
In contrast to the tone in Poem A, Poem B has a more bitter and caustic tone, reflecting the poet’s opinion towards death in war. In Poem B, unlike Poem A that regards death in war as something to be coveted, there is nothing good about death in war, it is evening demeaning because the soldiers are dehumanized and likened to “cattle” going to a slaughterhouse – the battlefield. The title adds to the effect as the youths fighting in the war are already “Doomed”, thus from the start, they had no hope for their survival and were already viewed as necessary casualties that happen in war. Just like the lives of “cattle”, their deaths are insignificant and anticipated for the sake of a greater goal.
The imagery used in both poems to illustrate the war is also very different in their representation. In Poem A, there is no mention of the battlefield and any of its horrors and that alone is notable because the focus of the poem is on the deaths and not the fighting itself. This avoidance of the violence that is inevitable in war can be contrasted with Poem B that illustrates very vividly the scenes of the battlefield through many images of violence. The “monstrous anger of the guns” is a very a strong image as it brings across the idea of a battle so terrible, so enraged that it becomes inhuman, uncontrollable and even immoral. It also makes the gunfire sound more relentless, as does the alliteration in “rifles’ rapid rattle”, with the repetition of the hard “r” consonant and the choice of the word “stuttering” to describe the short, sharp chains of ammunition. The word highlights the relentless continuity that implies a constant repetition of not only the same sounds over and over, but also the meaningless, even futile deaths of soldiers over and over again.
The imagery of the funeral rites are highly contrasting as well because in Poem A, the dead are “immortal[ized]” while in Poem B, the dead are not recognized as there are no “voice[s] of mourning save” the “shrill demented choirs of wailing shells”. The imagery used shows that for the dead in Poem B, the only church service they will receive is the fatal sound of gunfire on the battlefield. In Poem A, the deaths of the soldiers are described as something noble and even beautiful as they “[give] up the years to be / of work and joy”. These people who gave up their futures willingly are made into “rarer gifts than gold” and are immortalized, implying that they will be forever honoured and remembered in the hearts of those they live behind. The use of the metaphor, “sweet wine of youth”, to depict the blood shed on the battleground emphatically reminds the reader that death here is something to revere and savour, rather than mourn sorrowfully as in Poem B. There is also a biblical allusion referring to the return of “Honour” as “a king to earth”. The return is likened to the coming of Jesus Christ, illustrating the salvation for those soldiers being honoured in their funerals. Thus, only by dying for the “noble” purpose of war, can the soldiers be welcomed into paradise and receive salvation and eternal life.
In contrast to this holy and almost festive images of death in A, Poem B is much more solemn and appropriate to a funeral setting. The “drawing down of blinds” marks a sign of respect for the dead but simultaneously represents a coming of night and darkness. Where death is celebrated in A, the natural accompaniment to death in B is a sense of hopelessness: every “dusk” inevitably ambles “slow[ly]” in the anticipation of the death and despair. Death here is treated with a sense of finality that is dissimilar to the return of “Nobleness” and “Honour” in Poem A. Furthermore, the words “pallor”, “pall” and “flowers” correspond more to a mournful and solemn image of a funeral for the lives. Even more telling is Owen’s use of metaphor here: the soldiers are in fact denied even these burial rites, where the only “pallor”, “pall” and “flowers” are figurative and presented in the form of thoughts, of “girls’ brows” and “tenderness of patient minds”.
Despite conveying the futile, senseless cycle of death, it is perhaps only fitting that the poet attempts to pay tribute to the “Doomed Youth” with the poem itself, an “Anthem” that seeks to repay the dead to a lesser degree, the “royal wage” of bugles blowing.
+ Proficient analysis of poetic features
+ Close attention to language
+ Personal response to how both poems present war / violence
Remember: poetry is about life and you will need to express the fervour with which poetry expresses its message to its readers
***
Isabelle Leong
Comparison of Brooke’s “The Dead” and Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
Both “The Dead” by Rupert Brooke and “Anthem for Doomed Youth” by Wilfred Owen tackle the fundamental ideas of death in war and the hardship faced by the people involved; however, while Brooke seems to bear a certain inclination for exaltation and glorification, Owen’s idea of commemoration tends towards the less showy and more personal, and could perhaps be considered more of a lamentation of death in war. There are noticeable differences in tone and attitude between both poems, and these differences are highlighted through imagery, diction and various other literary techniques.
While Poem A adopts a generally celebratory tone towards the notion of people dying in war, B is almost deprecating of the celebration of it – and the contrasting attitudes are clearly conveyed through diction and imagery. The persona believes that “dying” has “made us rarer gifts than gold”, and gold being a lustrous metal of great worth, he is implying that those who die in war thus prove their worth through their self-sacrificial acts, and should be accordingly commemorated. On the other hand, the persona in B criticizes not the idea of death in war, but the very idea of celebrating it. He begins the poem with the rhetorical question, “What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?”, suggesting that he bears much contempt for the idea of celebrating death in war and believes it to be quite ludicrous. Cattle are domesticated animals raised as livestock and Owen’s use of the word highlights his belief that these people not unlike the cattle are condemned to an inescapable fate, that is, death – and that this condemnation merits, unlike A, no celebration. This ties in with the word “doomed” (found in the title of the poem) – the people subjected to this agony seem to have no control over their fate in the slightest, hence the critical tone of the poem towards the celebration of death in war. With this rhetorical question, there is seemingly no answer and no reprieve for those who soldier on, not even “passing-bells” that would at least acknowledge in mourning, their passing on. Death in war, far from being celebrated as in A, is presented by Owen as futile, pointless.
This difference in attitude is also largely conveyed through aural imagery. The sound of “bugles”, loud brass instruments played at military funerals, is conspicuously present in Poem A; the line “Blow, bugles, blow!” is punctuated with an exclamation mark for added emphasis on the ersatz nature of the observance. Death in war is commemorated gaudily here, interspersed with loud, perhaps somewhat ostentatious proclamations of how these deaths have “brought us” “holiness”. Conspicuous by absence within is the sense of loss and mourning one would typically associate with death rites. In contrast, Poem A presents typical noises of war characterized by “shrill[ness]” and “demented[ness]”, indicating an unearthly, ghostly quality to them, and thus convey Owen’s clearly deploring attitude towards death in war. The “shrill and demented” gunfire, ironically referred to as the “choirs” that will greet the soldiers’ death, is symbolic of not only the senselessness of these deaths, but the piercing manner in which the bodies of young men and indeed, the human spirit, itself is shattered. Instead of receiving the formal tribute of bugles blowing, the “Doomed Youth” can only ‘enjoy’ the once-again ironic “crying” of “wailing shells”.
While the persona in B is clearly of the opinion that death in war should not be glorified, the persona in A believes that death in war represents, on a deeper level, the very redemption of mankind and it should thus be suitably celebrated,. Brooke states that “honour has come back” “to earth”; that is, honour in the form of the sacrifices that these men have made. The fact that “honour” seems to have been absent from the “earth” for so long illustrates his opinion that by self-sacrificing, humanity has redeemed itself, compensated for the sins it has committed; the people who die in war have given the survivors a new lease of life, so to speak. Brooke precedes all this with “Blow, bugles, blow!” – a sign that he believes this should be appropriately celebrated. The persona in Poem B, on the other hand, claims that the “holy glimmers of goodbyes” “shine” not in “candles” but in the “eyes” of the survivors. Unlike in Poem A, commemoration of the dead in B is clearly more personal, intimate and modest, something not manifested in lofty proclamations (“Nobleness walks in our ways again) or the manufactured sounds of tangible, physical objects like “bugles” and “candles” but expressed through the very eyes of the survivors, a lamentation from the very depths of one’s soul. Compared to Poem A, the absence of ritual and the piteous act of self-commemoration in B underscores the pathetic state of life, and death in war. The commemoration of death in war is certainly present in both poems; however, it is the marked difference in their respective styles of commemoration that sets these two poems apart.
Despite these disparities, both poems do not discount the horrors of war in the slightest, and appropriately acknowledge the hardship encountered by the people involved. Poem A underlines the sacrifices these people have to make: they “[lay] the world away” and “pour out / The sweet wine of youth”, almost as if the actions were as voluntary as Brooke’s active verbs suggest they are. The Eucharistic connotations of “sweet wine” underscore their death as Christ-like, where they lose possibly even the simplest “pleasure” of growing old in dying as an “aged” youth. In Poem B, this loss is less tinged with regret and more engulfed in trepidation. Poem B foregrounds a myriad of sounds that are abrupt and spasmodic, and this bestows the very image of war with a jarring convulsiveness. The alliteration in the phrase “rifles’ rapid rattle” (repetition of the consonant sound “r”) combined with the various hard consonants, provide the line with a type of stone-cold harshness that serves to emphasise the suffering of the people in their beleaguered, helpless states. This elaboration on their hardship is not compromised in the slightest in either poem; one could almost say it is, in fact, the main focus of both the poems.
It is thus clear while both poems commemorate the loss of people to war, they have markedly different attitudes towards how death in war should be commemorated, and how tribute should be paid to those who have passed away. “The Dead” and the more lofty, elevated manner of commemoration it propounds is clearly the antithesis to the more muted and perhaps more deploring “Anthem for Doomed Youth”; however, it is the greatly contrasting subduedness of “Anthem for Doomed Youth” that foregrounds the persona’s – and by extension, the poet’s – voice.
