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GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin in 1856. His father was an unsuccessful middle-class businessman, his mother who left her husband and with her two daughters went to live in London where she worked as a music teacher. His schooling was very irregular; he was an idle student, only interested in literature, music and the graphic arts. He himself said: “At school I learned nothing. I thus escaped the danger of thinking I was educated merely because I had learned to mispronounce Greek and Latin”. He learned more outside school than inside it: he cultivated music, visited art galleries, attended theatres and spent most of his time reading good literature. When he was twenty (in 1876) he joined his mother in London where he thought of earning his livelihood by writing. At the same time he joined radical groups, discussion clubs whose members held long debates on economics, science and religion. He became a successful orator in public meetings. At one of these meetings he happened to listen to a debate by Henri George, a socialist who preached the importance of economics in society and the necessity of land nationalization. Shaw accepted his social theories, read Karl Marx’s “Das Capital” and in 1884 joined the Fabian Society, founded by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. Inspired by Marxist doctrine, it consisted of socialists who advocated gradual reforms instead of drastic, immediate revolutionary measures. Its name was derived from Quintus Fabius Maximus, nicknamed “cunctator” or “delayer” who had carried on a campaign against Hannibal by avoiding direct engagement. Shaw worked for the Fabian Society editing books, writing pamphlets, displaying his dialectical ability in many public discussions. He was also book reviewer and drama critic.
EMILY BRONTË
Achievement Emily Brontë was born in Yorkshire, but she spent most of her life in the Haworth Parish because of her father’s work. Her only novel, “Wuthering Heights”, was published in 1847; it shocked the reading public and also her sister Charlotte, a writer too. In this novel she stresses the world of passions and human feelings that according to the ideas could be contained in a perfect structure. In the final impression is a combination of feelings and formal control. A highly original novel “Wuthering Heights” is a love story between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. This novel hasn’t any moral message and it was felt to be too strong for that period, but also original even if an extreme way. Charlotte herself confessed that she found some aspects of this novel excessive, especially Heathcliff’s character. But in spite of that its success began to grow. In facts some readers were no longer offended by this story but recognize that the work is a romantic masterpiece, offering an exploration of the difficult relation between feelings and reason, between men’s nature and their social identity. Formal and technical qualities The novel is constructed with a great attention to the narrative technique. The description of events is told by two narrators: Mr. Lockwood (a gentleman from the south) and Nelly Dean, the housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange. Emily captures the differences between the urban English used by Lockwood and the regional one spoken by Nelly. These two narrators give impersonality to the novel that could be interpreted. The author uses a lot of dramatic dialogues as well. The real nature of love The main theme is the choice between conventional love and its less socially acceptable form. There’s a deep bond between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling she has grown up with. Now that Hindley, her brother, is the master of the house, Heathcliff is only a servant. C. Has also attracted the love of Edgar Linton, who wants to marry her. She now finds herself caught between her attachment to Heathcliff and the attractions of a socially desirable union with Linton; she feels it would be humiliating to acknowledge her love for H., but also that she could help him to raise from his low social class marrying Linton. She stands between her passions and her social ambitions; this struggle is intensified by the dream she describes to Nelly.
CHARLES DICKENS
Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth. After his father was imprisoned, he was sent out to work in a factory when he was 12. Then he became a parliamentary reporter for lots of newspapers: this experience as a journalist gave him materials for his first book, “Sketches by Boz”. After this work, he married and published “The Pickwick Papers”: this novel was not an immediate success until he introduced a new character, the servant Sam Weller. Then he wrote: “Oliver Twist”, “A Christmas Carol”, but also “David Copperfield” which marked a change in Dickens’ approach; in facts he began to pay more attention to the overall design of his novels. Other two of his works, “Bleak House” and “Hard Times”, were characterized by a note of seriousness. During his last period, Dickens founded his own magazine, he wrote his impressions of his journeys and published his last works: “Great Expectation”, “Our mutual friend” and “The mystery of Edwin Drood”, which is incomplete. Achievement In this period, readers were not used to read a complete novel, but to read it in serial form. So the novelists often ended an issue on a note of suspense using climaxes, superfluous characters and situations.
Dickens was the only one who understood the vast panorama of social change in Victorian England. This is due to his ability to create caricatures, but he was also aware that men could change their nature because of ambition, despair, laziness and etc. From “Oliver Twist” and so on, he spoke about social criticism: he grappled with issues like education, child labor, legal system, crime, etc. to break through the barrier of indifference, he used pathos; so Dickens didn’t want only to entertain his readers, but to educate people as well. “Great Expectations” This is one of the most important Victorian novels of personal education and development and it was published as a serial novel. It deals with the formation and the changing social and personal influences acting on Pip, who tries to rise above his low social class and wins the love of a woman, Estella. In this novel Dickens uses comic features and mainly explores two themes: ambition and rejected love. The author studied how a rejected love can destroy an abandoned lover who in turn poisons other people’s lives in the pursuit of revenge. Great female character The protagonist is Miss Havisham, who lives in a large but derelict house; she was abandoned on her wedding day and we know that because she’s still wearing her wedding dress. Dickens described this figure through child Pip’s eyes, who notices lots of details in her dressing and in her house that intensify her strangeness, for example a single shoe on a table (which reminds us that unlike Cinderella’s prince, her lover abandoned her) and a pile of clothes. Miss Havisham is both a good and wicked fairy Godmother because she takes care of Estella but turning her into a woman that will break men’s hearts. “A BROKEN HEART” – TEXT ANALYSIS The story is told by Pip’s point of view. Miss Havisham’s dressing room is pretty, large, candle-lighted; no delight was to be seen in it, which means that if there were windows, they had been screened to block out sun and fresh air. The dressing room is furnished with a dressing table, a gilded looking-glass, an armchair and a clock. There are also some clothes and half-packed trunks. Miss H. is sitting in an armchair with an elbow on the table and her head leaning on a hand. She’s wearing a faded wedding dress which has yellowed (it must have been white) and is made of rich materials. She’s wearing just one white shoe, while the other one is on the table; she has also jewels, a veil half-arranged on her head, a watch, a chain not put on, an handkerchief and gloves. Some flowers and a prayer book are heaped about the looking-glass. Pip is introducing himself to Miss Havisham and while doing that he takes note that she watches the clock in the room that had stopped at 20 to 9. Miss Havisham says she has not seen the sun since Pip was born and that her heart is broken because she has been unhappy in love. What seems strange to Pip is the proud tone Miss H. uses and the fact that she accompanies her words with a strange smile. After being introduced to Estella, who shows great contempt towards him, Pip starts playing cards with her. Estella shows great disdain towards this laboring boy; while they’re playing Pip begins to understand something about the lady of the house.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Stevenson was born in Edinburgh. Since he was young, he suffered from ill health so he travelled a lot in search of a healthier climate. So his first works were about his travels; when he returned to England he became a professional writer and wrote lots of essays, short stories and poems. The most famous are “Treasure Island”, “The Black Arrow” and “The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. Then he sailed among the Pacific islands and Samoa, where his health bettered. “The Beach of Falesa” and “The Ebb Tide”. Achievement Stevenson dedicated his life to writing. So in a short but intense writing career, he created some of the most memorable characters in literature, characters like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stevenson’s works display a fresh vision of human nature which is a focus for influences like good and evil. He used sophisticated narrative techniques and his works are a symbol of internal symmetry, formal control and balance. He anticipated the modern novelist’s preoccupation with unity of form and content. A change of direction “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” was Stevenson’s second novel and the one which establishes his importance as a writer. This work was a departure from his novel “Treasure Island”, in which the dividing line between good and evil was very clear; in this second novel, however, there’s not a strong difference between good and evil because the two characters who represent them are both struggling for dominating within the same man. Moreover, it is the evil part which wins and destructs the good one. Gothic novel and popular fiction In this novel Stevenson tries to separate the good from the evil drawing aspects of the Gothic tradition. Mary Shelley in “Frankenstein” used this image of a scientist who works alone in his laboratory, but there’s a difference in the fact that Dr. Jekyll interferes with man’s psychological and moral nature. In both the novels the man of science is destroyed by his own creation, but Stevenson underlines this kind of relationship between scientist and experiment making them the
The style of the passage is characterized by many pairs of opposites (lines 22-23, 30-31, 33, 46, 57-58). His insisted use of oppositions stresses: the duality of man, the two natures that contended in the field of consciousness once again, the theme of the double identity which reflects the double face of the Victorian middle – class and the widespread hypocrisy of that age. Jekyll ‘s name means “I kill”; the name Hyde refers to Jekyll’s hidden evil part, the carnal and violent side, aspect that the Victorians felt they had to hide. These names reflect the split of personality of the characters.
JOSEPH CONRAD
Joseph Conrad in his works combines exotic setting with reflections about man’s ambiguous nature, the difficulty of communication between individuals and the ambivalence of man’s moral codes. He often explores themes like duty, discipline and the individual’s responsibility to himself, the group and the community. Despite codes and command defends from anarchy and confusion, they also represent hypocrisy : men who have the power can be corrupted because of it, while men who transgress can attain greater moral stature than those who follow empty ideals and false values. With the use of multiple narrators and narratives within narratives, Conrad gives a sense of moral uncertainty and subjectivity. Heart of Darkness “ Heart of Darkness ” is a novel written by Joseph Conrad. In writing it, Conrad drew inspiration from his own experience in the Belgian Congo: he worked as river pilot on the Congo River for the Belgian Trading Company. He took part in an expedition to bring back the agent Antoine Kleine, who was ill and died on the return journey to Kinshasa. Conrad used Kleine as a model for Kurtz, a man who goes to Africa convinced to do something good but discovers that his “civilized” society is more savage than the people he wants to help. Conrad’s journey to the colonies was a widespread habit between the Europeans, who looked for fortune and hoped to make a living. British adventurers and explorers wanted to conquer new territories and enslave and to spread the word of God: Conrad represents these two aims through the metonymies of the “sword” and the “torch”. The novel is described as a psychological journey; Marlow’s journey to Congo is a sort of encounter between the rational man represented by Marlow and the violent irrational and impulsive man represented by Kurtz. Despite his irrational behavior, Marlow is fascinated by Kurtz and he seems to be his alter ego. These two characters represent the sense of human dualism and the co-existence of anarchic and primitive drives with rational and moral behavior. “ Heart of Darkness” may be another way of saying the centre of darkness (equatorial Africa, known as “darkest Africa”), which is the setting of the novel, or it could be a metaphor of human nature.
TEXT ANALYSIS - “Mistah Kurtz – he dead” It is the description of Kurtz’s last days, which conveys the sense of darkness, mystery and incommunicability. Kurtz is now different from the man he was before leaving Europe: he first wanted to bring his ideals to the “uncivilized” people of Africa, but then he realized that he couldn’t do anything to help them because he was the one to be “uncivilized”, so he is disappointed (“ live rightly, die, die”). Kurtz thought that it was his duty to spread the ideas of civilization and progress (typical Victorian ideals of colonialism). Initially Marlowe doesn’t understand, but then he realizes the situation and compares him to “ a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never shines”. Kurtz’s condition contrast with the busy life of Marlowe: his work is heavy and repulsive and he, like Kurtz when young, is an idealist and aims at a job which is not material (he thinks that he’s wasting his time with this job). When Marlow looks at dying Kurtz’s ivory face, he sees an important change and it is a sort of epiphany ( “it was as though a veil had been rent” ): this change, which represents the stages of the man’s stay in Africa (“ sombre pride, ruthless power, craven terror, intense and hopeless despair ” and then “ desire, temptation, surrender”). It occurs when Kurtz says “ I’m lying here in the dark waiting for death ” and “ the horror, the horror ”. These sentences may be interpreted as his disgust for his past, the horrible inner nature of all mankind or a moment of truth in which Kurtz discovers his true nature. Marlowe’s pensive attitude when he comes back from Kurtz’s room contrasts with the attitude of the manager; everything stands still and nobody speaks. The black boy breaks the silence and announces Kurtz’s death: he seems detached and cold and his insolence reveals that Kurtz was a feared and hated figure. Everybody is going out, while Marlowe can’t move: he doesn’t want to go out where it is dark, because it reminds him of Kurtz’s last words about darkness. The following day Kurtz is buried in a muddy hole, which represents the ideals that turned him in an oppressor; despite all this Marlowe is fascinated by his figure and admires him, because he represents the man with great ideals which may lead to moral integrity, solidarity and generosity if fulfilled, but also to hollowness and sham if betrayed. Marlow Kuntz and the theme of the double
Charles Marlow is superficially a man of action, a sailor very interested in “doing his job well”. He also understands that “sticking to track” means more than giving the appearance of fidelity. This story can be read as a tale of the implications of going off the track and of Marlow’s discovery of his own capabilities for “losing the way”. Mr. Kurtz, the superlative product of the western idea of civilization, enters the wildness with the progressive idea of uplifting the savages. He hasn’t prepared himself for the primitive assault the jungle can encourage, so he responds to it with an unsuspected primitivism of his own. Although he is “hollow at the core” he is unable to estimate truly the emptiness of his existence. “The horror” is his dying summation of what he has become and of what he has might be. His self-divided agony and his moral collapse are thematic which occupy a great deal of modern literature. Of all Conrad’s methods of portraying the inner life of his characters one stands out as the most original and the most successful. In Conrad’s words double is a person who stands for a characteristic or emotion in another person: sometimes the identification may be complete, sometimes it’s only partial. In “Heart of Darkness” Kurtz may be regarded as representing the evil suppressed within Marlowe. The confrontation between them in the jungle is then seen as an intrapsychic struggle taking place within Marlowe rather than a contest between two distinctly separate personalities.
OSCAR WILDE
Oscar Wilde in “The picture of Dorian Gray” criticized the upper class of his period as hypocrite, selfish and unfeeling. Moreover he challenged the conventional classification of human identity, morality and love suggesting that what is taboo is nevertheless a part of us. This novel supports his ideal of beauty and opposes morality. This work is a pastiche, a mixture of different genres and styles. “The picture of Dorian Gray” The story is told by an unobtrusive third person narrator and the prospective adopted is internal from the point of view of Dorian who appears in the second chapter and this allows a process of identification between the reader and the character. The settings are vividly described with words appealing to the senses, the characters reveal themselves through what they say or what other people say of them. According to a technique which is typical to drama, Dorian is the protagonist, the typical dandy who thinks man should live his life realising his wishes and dreams. Dorian believes youth is synonymous with beauty and happiness. The story is allegorical: it’s a 19 th^ century version of the myth Faust, a man who sells his soul to the devil to satisfy all his desires. This soul becomes the picture which reports the signs of experience, the corruption, the horror and the sins concealed under the mask of Dorian’s timeless beauty. The picture is not an autonomous self; it stands for the dark side of Dorian’s personality, his double, which tries to forget by locking the picture in a room. The moral of this novel: every excess must be punished and reality can’t be escaped. When Dorian destroys the picture he can’t avoid the punishment for all his sins, that’s death. The horrible corrupting picture could be seen as a symbol of the immorality and bad conscience of the Victorian middle-class, while Dorian and his pure, innocent appearance are symbols of the bourgeois hypocrisy. Finally, the picture is restored to its original beauty. Oscar Wilde’s theory about art is that art survives and is eternal; he totally adopted the aesthetic ideal. He himself said in one of his conversations that his life was like a work of art and he lived the double role of the rebel and dandy. The dandy must be distinguished from the “bohemian” in the sense that the bohemian turns to the masses, to the urban proletariat while the dandy is as a matter of fact a “bourgeois artist” and, despite a certain feeling of uneasiness, he remains a member of his class. The wildean dandy is an aristocrat whose elegance is a symbol of the superiority of his spirit, he uses his wit to shock, and he is an individualist who demands absolute freedom. Life was meant for pleasure and pleasure was an indulgence in beauty; so Wilde’s interests were beautiful clothes, good conversations, delicious food and handsome boys. He affirmed: “there’s no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written and that’s all.” The concept of art for art’s sake was to him a moral imperative not merely an aesthetic one; he believed that only art as the cult of beauty could prevent the soul from dying. Wilde perceives the artist as an “alien in a materialistic world”. He wrote only to please himself; he was not concerned in communicating his theories to his fellow beings. His pursuit of beauty was as a matter of fact the tragic act of a superior being inevitably turned into an outcast. TEXT ANALYSIS Lord Henry’s philosophy is that a man should be brave enough to live fully and completely, giving form to all his sensations. His theory is that the only way to get rid of a temptation is to stop struggling to avoid it and yield it. According to Lord Henry, beauty is the true mystery of the world. He invites Dorian to devote his life to total pleasure. The ideal world which should result from the courage to live one’s life fully and completely is expressed by the return to the Hellenic ideal which is finer and richer, defects that growing old has on people’s faces, the practise of living one’s life purely for physical pleasure. Lord Henry Wotton’s intentions to influence Dorian’s mind and soul with his theory is evident from the opening lines of the passage when Wilde describes Lord Henry’s attitude with such words as “low, musical voice, graceful wave of the
Fate is important in this story and this aspect refers to the cosmic determinism: she revenges on Alec and escapes from the law with Angel. The tradition of ballad was based on some simple and dramatic subjects: for example, Tess is struggling to survive in difficult situations but she has also the dignity and the beauty typical of the tragic figure from the traditional ballad. TEXT ANALYSIS The scene is set in Stonehenge, an ancient temple of solid stones, and it is night. Tess and Angel are running away from the police who arrived after Tess has fallen asleep. When she finally awakes, the policemen are ready to set her punishment. Throughout the passage Tess seems resigned and melancholic (for example lines 74-75/ 83-84/ 86-87). The language is realistic but at the same time lyrical: in particular we can find lyrical features prevailing in the descriptive lines (lines 1-3/12-13). Hardy chooses Stonehenge as the setting for the last scene in which Tess appears because it was a pagan temple where human sacrifices probably took place. This is the set where Tess’s symbolic sacrifice is celebrated and in this sacrifice she is the victim. The priests are the men of law and the divinity is represented by the sun. Tess’s tragic love story is not so much induced by human choice but it’s determined by fate. Tess is victim of the events over which she has little control. There are several references to this inevitable destiny in the text (for example she is described as a “lesser creature” almost like a sacrificial animal on the altar of fate); there are also several phrases anticipating Tess’s death connected with Stonehenge (lines 10/47), darkness (lines 3-4/6/17-18) and sleep (lines 50-51/72-73). Hardy’s technique can be defined as architectural and cinematic at the same time. As an architect by profession, he knows how to give unity to his novels thought the plots often have excessively melodramatic episodes and coincidences. On the other hand, he’s extremely cinematic with his descriptions of objects and scenes: he usually starts panic to secure a panoramic effect and little by little he focuses on the noticeable elements of nature until he gives us a close up of a single detail (from general to detail).
