Lesson
1: Ethics
"Ethics" appears in Linda Pastan's sixth
volume of poetry, Waiting for My Life (1981), a title that hints at the
tensions for which the New York-born poet is best known: the challenges of
living in that "waiting" place between the magic and the tedium of
the ordinary; between the artistic and the domestic life; between the rewards
and the losses of aging and death. A kind of "aesthetic ethic" itself
emerges from the body of her poems, one proclaiming that simple language and
images of the ordinary are especially capable of bearing mystery and of
resisting easy answers.
In Linda Pastan's
poem "Ethics," the speaker recounts a moral dilemma that her teacher
would ask every fall, which has been haunting her for a long time. The question was
"if
there were a fire in a museum / which would you save, a Rembrandt painting /
or
an old woman who hadn't many / years left anyhow?"
The
speaker tells us through the theme that ethics and moral values can be only learned
from the reflection which comes through experience and maturity. In this poem,
imagery, diction, and figures of speech contribute to the development of
the theme.
The speaker in the poem uses images to help to
support the theme. For example the statement
that "sometimes the woman borrowed
my grandmother's face" displays the inability of the children to
relate the dilemma to themselves, something that the speaker has learned later
on with time and experience.
In this poem, the
speaker is an old woman, and she places a high emphasis on the burden of years
from which she speaks by saying "old
woman, / or nearly so, myself." "I
know now that woman / and painting and season are almost one / and all beyond
saving by children" clearly
states that the poem is not written for the amusement of children but somebody
that has reached the speaker's age, thus supporting the idea of the theme that
children cannot help or understand her or anybody of her age. In addition, when the speakers describes the
kids in the classroom as "restless
on hard chairs" and "caring little for picture or old age"
we can picture them in our minds sitting, ready to leave the class as soon as
possible, unwilling and unable to understand the ethics dilemma or what the
speaker is feeling.
The choice of words of the author also
contributes to the development of the theme.
For example, the use of words like
"drafty,"
"half-heartedly," and "half-imagined" give the reader
the idea of how faintly the dilemma was perceived and understood by the
children, thus adding to the idea that the children cannot understand the
burden the speaker has upon herself. In
addition, referring to a Rembrandt as just a "picture" and to the
woman as "old age," we can
see that these two symbols, which are very important to the speaker and to the
poem, are considered trivial by the children, thus contributing to the
concept that the children cannot feel
what the speaker is feeling. To add to
the idea of old age of the woman, and to define the point of view more clearly,
the speaker uses "old woman" a number of times.
The speaker uses the metaphors "The colors / within this frame are darker than autumn, / darker
even than winter" and "the browns of earth, / though earth's most
radiant elements burn / through the canvas " to give us the impression
that the painting is not just a simple drawing, but it is something alive,
something connected to the earth which is worth saving, thus putting it at the
same level of the old woman, and thus making the dilemma more balanced. In addition, the idea of a color "burning through the canvas"
puts more emphasis on the painting being something supernatural, thus
increasing its status in the poem to be as high as (and maybe even higher than)
the old woman. Symbolism is also used at the end of the poem, when the speaker
describes the color of the painting as
"dark than autumn, / darker even than winter" which adds to the
idea that the painting is something that represents old age and death but that
is also something natural, like a season.
In addition, by saying that "I
now know that woman / and painting and season are almost one / and all beyond
saving by children" the speaker implies that both the painting and the
woman represent something old, wise, and decadent, and are something that
ethics say we cannot and should not easily give up, but children are not able
to understand that, therefore they cannot save them.
In conclusion, this poem is not just about a
lesson of ethics learned in school by a student. Instead, this poem is about the life of an
old woman, the view of life children have of old things and old people and of
life, and true beauty and importance of things of age have, either for being
wise and experienced or just for being there for so long.
Extra
notes :
"Ethics"
itself embodies this resistance. The poem takes shape first in a memory from
school days and is then bridged, through images of frames and fire, to an
understanding acquired in the poet's older years. The question the ethics
teacher poses "so many years ago" is unanswerable partly because it
is not "real"; the students answer it "halfheartedly," at
best. Having posed a hypothetical fire in a museum, the teacher wants the
students to make a clear choice, between saving "a Rembrandt painting / or
an old woman who hadn't many / years left anyhow." The surprising answer
for the poet arrives years later, in a "real museum," as the poet
stands "before a real Rembrandt."
Analysis
of Linda Pastan's Poem "Ethics"
In her poem
"Ethics," Pastan leads the reader through an uncomfortable struggle
with a value-testing philosophical question.
Pastan uses the
structure of her poem to bend the questions so that they are not as easy to
answer.
• By leaving "a Rembrandt
painting" on the end of line 4, and by enjambing "years left
anyhow" in line 6, Pastan
highlights the value of one option while devaluing the other. Since Pastan weighs the nonhuman option more
heavily than the human, even though it should seem obvious to value human life
over a painting, the reader may struggle with what could otherwise be a very
easy question.
• When the speaker's teacher explains that
the answerer of the question is solely responsible for the fate of both the
woman and the painting, she brings "the burdens of responsibility"
onto a separate line, making those burdens more present and more ominous (line 16). This line break makes the responsibility
starker, invoking the immense pressure felt by someone entrusted with the
decision to save or end someone's life.
Pastan uses different
academic levels of language throughout her poem to simulate growth. However, the question does not become any
easier to answer at the end of the poem.
Pastan portrays the difficulty of answering ethical questions such as
this one.
• Toward the beginning of the poem, Pastan
uses fairly simple sentence structure, as well as colloquial words such as
"anyhow" in order to portray a younger speaker (line 6).
• Later in the poem, Pastan's language
becomes more complex; for example, she uses more commas to separate fragments
of thought within the same sentence. The
question, however, remains as difficult despite the speaker's increased
maturity.
Throughout the poem,
Pastan provides detailed images of the two savable objects in question. By allowing the reader to get to know both
the painting and the woman, Pastan makes it hard for the reader to be forced to
choose to terminate one of them.
• Sometimes Pastan imagines the old woman to be
her own grandmother (line 10). As the reader pictures his own grandmother,
he would never think to end the life of a woman he loves so dearly in favor of
some expensive artwork.
• But at the end of the poem, Pastan
describes the Rembrandt: she describes its vivid colors, and how it seems to
jump out of the canvas and pull the speaker into the world of the
painting. As the reader depicts it, he
would rather not allow this beautiful work of art to burn into ashes.
• Pastan further enhances the reader's
love for the painting by separating her description of it from the image of her
grandmother by a whopping 9 lines. This
allows the image of the reader's grandmother to fade slightly, just as the
beautiful image of the painting comes into view.
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Lesson 2 NO
MORE HIROSHIMAS
Theme
of the poem :
The poem titled "No
More Hiroshimas" is composed by
James Kirkup, a prolific English poet, translator and travel writer. He wrote
over 30 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays. He became a Fellow
of the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. James Kirkup, who
hails from the Northeast, is probably the principle interpreter of Japan to the
West and is in this respect the Lafcadio Hearn of our age. His passionate
response to Hiroshima is, therefore, both informed and sympathetic as well as
widely ranging.
It is narrated from the point of view of the
poet, as a tourist visiting the first city to be hit by an atomic bomb and as the
style of the title suggests. It serves
as a warning to nuclear weapons ever being used again. We can gather by the
clear opinion of the poet that carries throughout the poem that he was traveling
there with a purpose to see how the city
has rebuilt itself since its destruction. We are introduced to the poet
arriving at the station platform. An image forms in the reader's head of the
poet stepping off the train bemused and confused by the busy station. "I had forgotten to remember where I
was" Hiroshima appearing so normal, and mundane is summed up when he
concludes: "I see it might be...”
Summary
of the poem:
The poem has nine stanzas and is written in free verse. It details a visit to
Hiroshima as it moves forward after the devastation of the atomic bomb.
The narrator firstly
sees a town ‘like any other in Japan’
and realizes that initially he sees nothing unique. It is a tatty, ‘flimsy’ colorful town: brash and vulgar.
By the second stanza,
the sadness begins to emerge. The personification of the river repeatedly ‘refusing rehabilitation’ shows that there is a depth to the
tragedy. The vulgarity of the present recording of the cataclysmic events is
repellent in its trashy commercialism. This is illustrated in the souvenir of
the ruins
“Tricked
out with glitter frost and artificial pearls”.
The narrator
describes the tacky nature of the hotel: ‘jaded’,
‘dingy’ and ‘doleful’ in its
attempts to entertain the visitors to this tragic place-
“Here
atomic peace is geared to meet the tourist trade”.
The narrator is
strangely content with this, as he sees the shame and awkwardness as part of
the monument –
“
…why should memorials of what was far
From
pleasant have the grace that helps us to forget?”
Repetition of ‘dying’ and ‘dead’ in the sixth stanza emphasizes that the town is still
permeated by death.
The narrator is
appalled by the housing for the true relics of the tragedy, and the impact of
each item is made clear as each is itemized to emphasize the possibility of a
personal story behind each one. It is here that the narrator is finally reduced
to tears, and he notes in the final couplet that the impact of these innocent
personal remnants is the true reminder of such horror and tragedy-
“Remember
only these.
They
are the memorials we need”.
Analysis
of the poem :
This poem is narrated
from the point of view of a tourist visiting Hiroshima. “No more Hiroshimas” introduces the poet
arriving at the station platform “At the
station exit, bundle in hand”. An image forms in the reader’s that the poet
is stepping off the train bemused and
confused by the busy station. The poet is expecting to see huge awe-inspiring
memorials. However, he’s disappointed, his hopes and expectations are
shattered. “I had forgotten to remember
where I was” Hiroshima appeared so normal, mundane that the poet thought
that he was “it might be anywhere” in
the world apart from Hiroshima. As he says,
“it might be anywhere”.
The poet feels that
people do not seem to care about Hiroshima even the locals “a kind of life goes on” seem busy in their own lives. This links
back to the station because the poet says “far
from the station’s lively squalor”. Both the station and city centre are
busy and bustling however the centre has a different rush to that of the
station. The station speed is of the people pushing to get on the trains to go
to work whilst the city centre speed of life is created by the flashing lights
and the market. His view is changed though, when he visits the peace tower. The
poet realises that people want to forget the horror “from pleasant have the grace to help us forget”. The writer
recognizes that he cannot comment on how the people of Hiroshima should
remember the action. The poet hasn’t lived through the event. He understands
that people have suffered enough without having continual daily reminders.
Kirkup first
describes the weather as “winters
afternoon’s wet snow”. This gives the image of a cold, wet dreary
afternoon. The magic that the snow had given had disappeared the crisp; clean
beautiful snow has turns into vile slurry of mudded brown in colour. Or the
poet could be describing the weather as wet. Levi Primo describes the sky and
sun as a dull winters day “crudded sun”. This sets the tone for who the poet
feels through most of the poem, the weather is miserable and so are the poet’s
thoughts and feelings about Hiroshima.
Hiroshima city is so
ordinary “it might be anywhere”. He
then begins to describe it “ramshackle,
muddy, noisy, drab, a cheerful shallow permanence: peeling concrete, litter” These
are the things which every city has.
The river is described as being “unchanged, sad, refusing rehabilitation”.
It seems that although the rest of the city has changed and forgotten, the
river still remembers the same as always, refusing to return to normal life.
Locals can never forget the river’s symbol. The river is a symbol of death, a
symbol of Hiroshima’s feelings. The river is personified “refusing
rehabilitation” creating an understanding of how distressed the people were and still are. The river is “unchanged” every time a survivor of
the atomic bomb walks past the river they remember the thousands who drowned
trying to cool the burns on themselves. The people of Hiroshima do not need a
big memorial to help them remember the death; they have the river, which is a
big enough reminder in itself, it can never be removed of forgotten. To the
tourist there are no great memorials, if only they knew the truth the largest
most prominent memorial of them all is right in front of them.
The campaign for
peace has been turned into a tourist attraction “atomic peace is geared to meet the trade” I would expect the poet
to be mad at this point for the capitalisation on people’s death. However
Kirkup realises the way Hiroshima is presented is in fact appropriate. Why should the memorials, the city and the
people be lovely and noble on such a morbid subject? “Without the nobility or
loveliness” people should be allowed to live their own lives, remember in their
own way. It should not be for the benefit of others.
The atomic bomb
explosion centre is described as “a
hideous pile”. This is another example of a building, which has no
nobility. It is described as being “freezing
cold” this makes the building sound cold without a heart or soul. The
temperature “freezing cold describes the tone of the peace tower, raw emotion
which is distressing. The poet use inverted commas “a museum containing atomic melted slates and bricks” suggesting a
direct quote from a notice giving a detached impersonal tone of fact.
In the penultimate
stanza, Kirkup lists the objects describing them simply. They speak for
themselves and don’t need further explanation or elaboration, “The ones that made me weep; the bits of
burnt clothing”. Although the poet has tried to list the relics like a
brochure it has turned out to be very dramatic, powerful and moving. The final
two lines tell the reader to remember the relics; the relics help visitors to
truly remember that event and they bare some significance compared to the
monuments. The last two lines are separated from the verse to give more impact.
That impact also reminds the reader of what the relics were.
In the beginning of
the poem the poet had no empathy for the inhabitants of Hiroshima. In a way
that he had no understanding of what they had been through, and how they would
react. However at the end of the poem after a long journey with the poet, the
readers have gained a small insight into the feelings of the atomic bomb city,
Hiroshima.
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LESSON
3 THE SECOND COMING --- W.B.YEATS
SUMMARY
:
The poem begins with
the image of a falcon flying out of earshot from its human master. In medieval
times, people would use falcons or hawks to track down animals at ground level.
In this image, however, the falcon has gotten itself lost by flying too far
away, which we can read as a reference to the collapse of traditional social
arrangements in Europe at the time Yeats was writing.
In the fourth line,
the poem abruptly shifts into a description of "anarchy" and an orgy
of violence in which "the ceremony of innocence is drowned." The
speaker laments that only bad people seem to have any enthusiasm nowadays.
At line 9, the second
stanza of the poem begins by setting up a new vision. The speaker takes the
violence which has engulfed society as a sign that "the Second Coming is
at hand." He imagines a sphinx in the desert, and we are meant to think
that this mythical animal, rather than Christ, is what is coming to fulfill the
prophecy from the Biblical Book of Revelation. At line 18, the vision ends as
"darkness drops again," but the speaker remains troubled.
Finally, at the end
of the poem, the speaker asks a rhetorical question which really amounts to a
prophecy that the beast is on its way to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ,
to be born into the world.
ANALYSIS
OF THE POEM
Yeats
was a master of the visual symbol. In the poem, "The Second Coming",
by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats, the emotional element and the symbols
that drive this emotional element are critical to consider upon first reading
it.
The
first image with which we are presented in the poem is an image of disaster; a
falcon cannot hear the call of safety, and begins to spiral wider and wider,
more out of control. "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold".
What is the centre of the spiral? Yeats could be referring to a society out of
control. "Mere anarchy" could mean a couple of things; perhaps
nothing more than confusion, or a confusion that was once held back by
civilization, but is now free, and ironically, binding at the same time. When
some commit anarchy, others are bound by the consequences of the anarchist's
actions and are paradoxically not free to be anarchic themselves.
Other
images include seas full of blood and drowning. Those who are "the
best" of this society are apathetic, and those who are "the
worst" are in your face with "passionate intensity". Yeats is
picturing in this poem a society turned upside-down and headed toward
self-destruction and chaos.
In
the midst of such conditions, it is man's nature to look for change. Yeats is
living in anticipation of a great change in the poem, which he encapsulated in
the Christian concept of "the second coming". The phrase, "the
second coming", stands as a symbol of its own, gathered from the history
and consciousness of humankind back to the beginning of recorded time, referred
to in the poem as "Spiritus Mundi".
However,
Yeats' own feelings of such a change are ambivalent, to say the least. Even if
change is good, it is uncomfortable. Yeats himself points to an image of a
fearsome creature, part man and part animal, that moves inexorably slowly
towards its destination, and will not die for the "indignant desert
birds".
The
lion with the head of the man is an interesting image in his poem, almost
seeming to come straight out of the Book of Revelation in the Bible, where such
images abound. The lion has the predatory power, with royal strength and
authority, and the head (meaning the intellect) is that of a man, but a man
with "a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun". There is no love, no personification
that we can be drawn to or admire. We feel somehow repelled from this inhuman
thing that moves closer and closer, like death. There will be a death when it
arrives to its destination; the death of old ideas, and the destiny of man shot
in another direction, from which it may then spiral again in yet another
"widening gyre".
Nature
cannot stop this change. Time cannot stop it. Nothing can stop what's
"slouching towards Bethlehem to be born". Would Yeats prefer the
unconsciousness of "stony sleep" to the "nightmare" created
by the "rocking cradle", which perhaps represents a newness that will
cause the vexation of the old ways? At least he is familiar with "stony
sleep", or the way things have always been.
Yeats'
use of rich and vivid symbols in this poem creates a feeling of disaster,
turning to dread at the thought of facing a change, even when such change could
be an improvement.
(Refer
the text book PAGE NO. 16-21)
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Lesson
4 TWO TRAMPS IN MUD TIMES ---- ROBERT FROST
ABOUT
ROBERT FROST
Robert Frost was born
in San Francisco, the son of a schoolmaster. When Robert was 10 years old his
father died and the family moved to Massachusetts in New England. At 14 he is
said to have sold his first poem! In 1892 he left school and worked in a mill,
then taught at a school, became a reporter and editor of a weekly. Then he
joined Harvard and studied the classics for two years. Again he became a
reporter, a shoe maker, and a teacher of English and Psychology. In 1912 he
went to England and published A Boy's Will and North of Boston which made him
famous. After his return to the U.S.A. he continued to write poetry.Robert
Frost is perhaps the best loved of American poets. He was awarded the Pulitzer
prize for poetry four times in 1924, 1931, 1937 and 1943. His famous works
include Mountain Interval (1916), New Hampshire (1923), Collected Poems (1930),
A Witness Tree (1942), and In the Clearing (1962).
SUMMARY
OF THE POEM
It’s a simple poem. It
begins with a man chopping wood because he must relieve the stress that his
life has put upon him. Two tramps come out of the mud, and one yells at him to
throw him off. After this occurs, the narrator realizes that the tramps want
his job for pay. The tramps then come around and the narrator understands that
he loves chopping wood, and he enjoys the feel of using his muscles to
accomplish something. As the narrator is chopping wood, the tramps judge him
based on the way he chops. In turn, the narrator judges the tramps based on
their appearance. The narrator then comes to the decision that need is more
important than play and love of chopping wood. The last stanza is the narrator
contemplating this conclusion he's come to; he states that his love and his
need are united, and that his avocation (play) and his vocation (need) are one
in the same. He also says that
"work is play for mortal stakes," meaning work is play for a
necessary result and play is work for personal gain.
POEM
IN DETAIL
Stanza
1
One day in April,
between winter and spring, the author was chopping wood in his yard when two
strangers emerged out of the wood like sub-human creatures. One of them
distracted the poet, greeting him in a cheerful voice. He suggested that the
poet should split the wood with greater force. The poet knew why the tramp had
stayed behind allowing his companion to go ahead. He also knew that the tramp
wanted to do the poet's work for payment.
Stanza
2
The poet was
splitting large blocks of wood of a beech tree—the blocks were big and shapely
like the chopping block. Each time the poet struck the wood forcefully, wood
fell in neat splinterless shapely pieces like rock split into small pieces. The
poet believed that the life of self-control had given him greater strength. He
realised that the extra energy that a life of self-control gave a person,
should be used for doing some work for others' benefit. However, on that day he
wished to pamper himself by using that extra energy on splitting wood.
Stanza
3
This stanza shows how
the weather changes quickly during the time of transition from winter to
spring. It was the month of April—the sun was warm but there was chill in the
air. April is the month of unpredictable weather. When the sun is shining and
the wind is not blowing, it looks as if you are in May—in the spring season. On
the other hand, if you speak of the weather as if it is spring in May as
referred to above, then you are in for a surprise. A cloud suddenly covers the
sky and wind flows from a cold mountain. Then it seems that you are not in May,
but two months backward in winter in the middle of March.
Stanza
4
A bluebird gently
lands facing the wind only to keep its feathers unruffled. The controlled
shrill notes of the bluebird's song shows that it is aware that it is not yet
spring time. It sings in such a way so as not to excite blossoms to bloom in
its spring glory. The winter was only pretending to be dormant, while it was
still snowing. The bluebird is not gloomy but he is blue in colour only. The bird
would not advise blossoms to bloom because he knows that anytime winter may
return and the blossoms will be destroyed by frost.
Stanza
5
Water is very scarce
when we need it the most in the hot summer months. Then we have to hunt for it
by digging the ground with the magic stick; but now water is found everywhere.
At present there are rivulets in the ruts of the road made by the wheel of
carts and every hoof-print of a horse is filled with water. While one may be
glad about the apparent abundance1 of water one should remember that under the
surface of the mud, frost is hidden, just waiting to emerge after the sunset.
Then the frost will reappear on the surface of the water as a fine layer of
crystal. In this stanza note the contrast between reality and appearance. There
is plenty of water yet it is hidden. There is plenty of work for the busy poet
yet the tramps who wish to work do not get a chance to work.
Stanza
6
The poet had always
loved the work he was engaged in. His enthusiasm increased when the two tramps
came and wanted to take away his work from him. This made him realise how much
he enjoyed chopping the wood. One might think that the poet had never felt the
weight of an axe as he lifted it above his head or the firm grip of his
outspread feet on the ground. While splitting wood the muscles in the poet's
body throbbed and he sweated profusely in the heat of the springtime.
Stanza
7
Now the poet
remembers about the tramps who had emerged out of the woods. The poet wonders
where the two hulking tramps had slept the previous night. The poet thinks that
the tramps had spent the winter in a lumber camp but were now unemployed. That
is why they had slept in some unknown place. The tramps assumed that it was
their right to chop wood. Here the irresponsible life of the tramps is compared
to the self-controlled life of the poet. The poet is amused at the thought that
the tramps judged him by their own standards and thought him to be a fool from
the way he handled the axe.
Stanza
8
Neither the poet nor
the tramps said anything. The tramps decided to stay over and to look at him.
They wanted the poet to understand that he had no right to do that work for
pleasure. They needed that work to earn their living. By taking up their work
for pleasure the poet was depriving them of their livelihood. Therefore, they
had a better right to the job of splitting the wood. The poet understood that
he worked for the love of splitting wood but the tramps wanted to work out of
necessity. The poet agrees that where there is a choice between work for
pleasure and work to earn a living the latter takes precedence.
Stanza
9
The poet wonders that
some may accept the division of work for love and work for need. The poet is of
the view that pleasure and need must be combined in work. It is only then that
a man can reach the highest degree of achievement. In other words like the two
eyes give one sight in man so also the two aspects as indicated above gives
unique achievement. A man has to unite his need for work as well as his love for
work. He needs to undertake his task with joy for the benefit of human beings.
It is only then that the task pleases God and is done for the betterment of
humanity in future.
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Lesson
5 Caliban’s Resistance from Shakespeare’s The
Tempest
Act 1 scene II.
319-374
Prospero awakens
Miranda and tells her they must go and speak to their slave, Caliban. We can tell what Prospero thinks of Caliban
by looking at what he calls him: "a
freckled whelp, hagborn," [line 283]; "slave," [line 313 and lots of other places]; "thou earth," [line 314]; "tortoise," [lie 316]; "got by the devil himself/ upon thy
wicked dam," (your father was the devil and your mother was a wicked
animal) [line 319-320]; "filth as thou art," [line 346]; "hagseed," [line 365]; "malice," [line 367)
we can conclude that there is tension in the
relationship. Notice how many of these
insults are based on animal images, such as "whelp" for a mongrel
dog. Also we get that association of
Caliban with the element of earth.
Miranda is uncomfortable in the presence of Caliban, and with good
reason: Caliban was treated as a member of the family and was taught language,
until he tried to rape Miranda. Unlike
Ariel, there is absolutely no doubt about Caliban's gender or the hatred father
and daughter have for him. However, as
Prospero points out, they need him to do the menial work, so they keep him
imprisoned under a rock out back of the cell where they live.
Given his ancestry
and the way Miranda and Prospero speak of him, you might expect some kind of
monosyllabic monster. But this is
Shakespeare, who delights in doing the unexpected, so we get in Caliban the
character who is the most eloquent in the play.
Look at his first curse at lines 321 -- 324. It's verbally violent but also rather
poetic. Shakespeare makes Caliban speak
English in a rather unusual way, as someone might for whom English is not his
first language. Look at his version of
what happened on the island: "When
thou camest first, / Thou strokest me and made much of me; wouldst give me/
Water with berries in't; and teach me how/ To name the bigger light and how the
lesser that burn by day and night," [lines 333--336]. Notice the rhythmic pattern of repetition of
words and sounds and the graceful way he refers to sun and moon, the words for
which he's forgotten. Caliban speaks in
beautiful verse throughout most of the play.
Caliban has a
legitimate grievance against Prospero.
As he points out at line 331, "This
island's mine by Sycorax my mother,/ Which thou tak'st from me." Although
he is powerless to resist Prospero's magic, and although he is physically
tormented by Prospero's cruelty ( at line 317: "thou shalt be pinched/ As
thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging/ Than the bees that made
'em"), Caliban still resists. He
curses Prospero and Miranda: "all the charms/ Of Sycorax -- toads,
beetles, bats light on you," [line 339--340]. Rather than denying the charge of attempted
rape, he revels in it: "Would it
had been done [the rape]./ Thou didst prevent me./ I had people else/ This isle
with Calibans," [lines 349 -- 351].
The speech which most
condemns Caliban is at lines 351 -- 362, and it is a bit of a mystery because
it is attributed to Miranda, who has appeared up to this point a very delicate
and compassionate young girl. Directors in production often give the speech to
Prospero, who after all is very cranky here as elsewhere in the play. (In the
recording that accompanies the taped lecture on this play, the speech is
delivered by Prospero.) Other directors choose to have Miranda keep the speech
and suggest that this otherwise shy and kind-hearted young woman is rabid in
her hatred of the slave, thereby confirming that Caliban is thoroughly bad because
even nice people hate him. There is in
the speech a classic example of cultural arrogance of the kind that Europeans
used to justify their forcible colonization of Third World peoples. Miranda claims, "I pitied thee,/ Took
pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour/ One thing or other. When thou
didst not, savage,/ Know thy own meaning, but wouldst gabble like/ A thing most
brutish, I endowed thy purposes/ With words that made them known," [lines
353 -- 358]. The assumption here is of
course that natives can't even communicate without their European masters. Caliban has a great comeback: "You
taught me language, and my profit on't/ Is, I know how to curse!" [lines
363--364]
Suddenly Ariel
appears, singing and playing an instrument, followed by King Alonso's son,
Prince Ferdinand. The invisible Ariel
has lured the prince into following him with music. The first song we hear
appears to be a kind of nonsense song with the sounds of dogs and a crowing
rooster; however, it contains that image of harmony symbolized by music and
dancing that we saw in A Midsummer Night's Dream when Oberon and Titania
reconciled. In this case the harmony is
imposed upon the "wild waves," [line 378]. Ferdinand is intrigued by the music and
believes it must be played for some god.
However, when he first heard it, as he sat mourning for his father's
death, it eased the ocean's storm and his own inner turmoil.
Summary
of Act 1 Scene II
Prospero and Miranda
stand on the shore of the island, having just witnessed the shipwreck. Miranda
entreats her father to see that no one on-board comes to any harm. Prospero
assures her that no one was harmed and tells her that it’s time she learned who
she is and where she comes from. Miranda seems curious, noting that Prospero has
often started to tell her about herself but always stopped. However, once
Prospero begins telling his tale, he asks her three times if she is listening
to him. He tells her that he was once Duke of Milan and famous for his great
intelligence.
Prospero explains
that he gradually grew uninterested in politics, however, and turned his
attention more and more to his studies, neglecting his duties as duke. This
gave his brother Antonio an opportunity to act on his ambition. Working in
concert with the King of Naples, Antonio usurped Prospero of his dukedom.
Antonio arranged for the King of Naples to pay him an annual tribute and do him
homage as duke. Later, the King of Naples helped Antonio raise an army to march
on Milan, driving Prospero out. Prospero tells how he and Miranda escaped from
death at the hands of the army in a barely-seaworthy boat prepared for them by
his loyal subjects. Gonzalo, an honest Neapolitan, provided them with food and
clothing, as well as books from Prospero’s library.
Having brought
Miranda up to date on how she arrived at their current home, Prospero explains
that sheer good luck has brought his former enemies to the island. Miranda
suddenly grows very sleepy, perhaps because Prospero charms her with his magic.
When she is asleep, Prospero calls forth his spirit, Ariel. In his conversation
with Ariel, we learn that Prospero and the spirit were responsible for the
storm of Act I, scene i. Flying about the ship, Ariel acted as the wind, the
thunder, and the lightning. When everyone except the crew had abandoned the
ship, Ariel made sure, as Prospero had requested, that all were brought safely
to shore but dispersed around the island. Ariel reports that the king’s son is
alone. He also tells Prospero that the mariners and Boatswain have been charmed
to sleep in the ship, which has been brought safely to harbor. The rest of the
fleet that was with the ship, believing it to have been destroyed by the storm,
has headed safely back to Naples.
Prospero thanks Ariel
for his service, and Ariel takes this moment to remind Prospero of his promise
to take one year off of his agreed time of servitude if Ariel performs his
services without complaint. Prospero does not take well to being reminded of
his promises, and he chastises Ariel for his impudence. He reminds Ariel of
where he came from and how Prospero rescued him. Ariel had been a servant of
Sycorax, a witch banished from Algiers (Algeria) and sent to the island long
ago. Ariel was too delicate a spirit to perform her horrible commands, so she
imprisoned him in a “cloven pine” (I.ii.279). She did not free him before she
died, and he might have remained imprisoned forever had not Prospero arrived
and rescued him. Reminding Ariel of this, Prospero threatens to imprison him
for twelve years if he does not stop complaining. Ariel promises to be more
polite. Prospero then gives him a new command: he must go make himself like a
nymph of the sea and be invisible to all but Prospero. Ariel goes to do so, and
Prospero, turning to Miranda’s sleeping form, calls upon his daughter to
awaken. She opens her eyes and, not realizing that she has been enchanted, says
that the “strangeness” of Prospero’s story caused her to fall asleep.
(Refer the text book
PAGE NO. 34-35)
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