Sunday Reading: Bonfire (Holika Dahan)

Holi festival India | The best Holi festival in the world

What to Know

Bonfires are typically associated with celebrations, backyard burnings, and toasting marshmallows, and although these are all good things, the bon in bonfire isn't related to the French for "good." Instead, bonfire actually stems from the Middle English bonefire, literally referring to a fire of bones.

True Origin of 'Bonfire': Bonefire

The word is actually derived from Middle English bonefire, meaning literally "a fire of bones." (Way cooler etymology, right?) The earliest appearance of the word is glossed ignis ossium—Latin for "fire of bones." And a citation from the 15th century confirms that this is not just a learned folk-etymology.

What is Holi festival India

Holi is a festival of religious origin that is celebrated mainly in India. But also in some other countries, like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Africa or the United Kingdom, where large Hindu communities. The event is also known as the Spring Festival, as it celebrates the end of the winter season on the last full moon of the month. This usually coincides with the end of February or the beginning of March.

Ritual of Holi Festival: Legends about the Holi festival India 

The different celebrations of the Holi festival India come from several Hindu legends. But there are two that are relatively well known across the world and, of course, in India.

Holika

Holika is the evil sister of King Hiranyakashipu and Prince Prahlada’s aunt. It all began when Hiranyakashipu was granted extraordinary powers that led him to believe that he was a god. The only god that people should worship.

Prince Prahlada decided to continue worshiping Vishnu as this was the tradition. This infuriated his father to such an extent that the king decided to punish him.

Holika plotted the idea of inviting her nephew to sit with her in the center of a bonfire. Of course, it was a death trap. A magic cloak would protect her from the flames but her nephew would die. Fortunately, the whole plan went wrong for the cruel Holika.

The god Vishnu, the one the prince worshiped, appeared at that moment and killed the arrogant king. The moral of the story is that good always triumphs over evil. And the legend shows why the Holi festival India begins the morning after the bonfire.

Radha and Krishna, a true love story

Another of the legends of the Holi festival refers to the love of Radha and Krishna. Krishna asked his mother, Yashoda, why Radha had white skin whereas his skin was so dark. And Yashoda replied that in order not to be jealous of Radha’s skin shade, she would give him a solution. This was to paint her face with dark colors. Thus, the two lovers would be the same. Since then, all lovers paint their faces with the colors of the Holi.

This is what happens during the celebrations

The original celebration consists essentially of throwing bright colored powders and colored water to each other, as a symbol of happiness for the arrival of spring. This is an attempt to emulate the cheerful colors of the flowers that will be born during the coming season. It is a magical moment, of joy, fun, music, and dance. But above that all, it is a spiritual celebration. On the eve of the festival, bonfires are lit as a commemoration of the triumph of “good” over “evil”.

Other countries celebrate Holi:-

Holi is an ancient Hindu religious festival that has become popular among non-Hindus as well in many parts of South Asia, as well as people of other communities outside Asia.^[15] In addition to India and Nepal, the festival is celebrated by Indian subcontinent diaspora in countries such as Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Mauritius, Fiji, Malaysia,^[22] the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.^[7][23] In recent years, the festival has spread to parts of Europe and North America as a spring celebration of love, frolic, and colours.

Cultural significance:-

The Holi festival has a cultural significance among various Hindu traditions of the Indian subcontinent. It is the festive day to end and rid oneself of past errors, to end conflicts by meeting others, a day to forget and forgive. People pay or forgive debts, as well as deal anew with those in their lives. Holi also marks the start of spring, an occasion for people to enjoy the changing seasons and make new friends.

Myth of Holi celebration:- 

In ancient times, people considered fire one of the basic elements of the universe, along with water, air, and earth. Fire can be a friendly, comforting thing, a source of heat and light, as anyone who has ever sat by a campfire in the dark of night knows. Yet fire can also be dangerous and deadly, racing and leaping like a living thing to consume all in its path. In mythology, fire appears both as a creative, cleansing force and as a destructive, punishing one, although positive aspects of fire generally outweigh negative ones.

Symbols and Themes. People in all parts of the world tell myths and legends about fire. Numerous stories explain how people first acquired fire, either through their own daring or as a gift from an animal, god, or hero.

The ability to make and control fire—which is necessary for cooking, making pottery and glass, and metalworking—sets people apart from the animals. The Admiralty Islanders of the Pacific Ocean have a myth in which a snake asks his human children to cook some fish. The children simply heat the fish in the sun and eat it raw, so the snake gives them fire and teaches them to use it to cook their food.

In ancient times, people considered fire one of the basic elements of the universe, along with water, air, and earth. Fire can be a friendly, comforting thing, a source of heat and light, as anyone who has ever sat by a campfire in the dark of night knows. Yet fire can also be dangerous and deadly, racing and leaping like a living thing to consume all in its path. In mythology, fire appears both as a creative, cleansing force and as a destructive, punishing one, although positive aspects of fire generally outweigh negative ones.

Symbols and Themes. People in all parts of the world tell myths and legends about fire. Numerous stories explain how people first acquired fire, either through their own daring or as a gift from an animal, god, or hero.

The ability to make and control fire—which is necessary for cooking, making pottery and glass, and metalworking—sets people apart from the animals. The Admiralty Islanders of the Pacific Ocean have a myth in which a snake asks his human children to cook some fish. The children simply heat the fish in the sun and eat it raw, so the snake gives them fire and teaches them to use it to cook their food.

apocalypse prediction of a sudden and violent end of the world

Fire's energy is not always a good thing. Flames can bring punishment and suffering, as in the Christian image of hell as a place of fiery torment. Some myths of apocalypse predict that the world will end in fire—but it may be a purifying, cleansing fire that will allow the birth of a fresh new world.

Because fire can be treacherous and destructive, mythical figures associated with it may be tricksters, not always to be trusted. The Norse god Loki's shifty and malicious character may have been based on the characteristics of a forest fire. Another deity associated with fire is the Greek Hephaestus (Vulcan), god of metalworking, who is usually portrayed as deformed and sullen.

Rituals. In many cultures, people practice rituals related to fire. These rituals are often based on myths and legends about fire or fire gods. In ancient Rome, a sacred flame associated with the goddess Vesta represented national well-being. Women called the Vestal Virgins had the holy duty of keeping that flame alive. The Aztecs of ancient Mexico believed that the fire god Huehueteotl kept earth and heaven in place. At the end of each cycle of 52 years, they extinguished all fires, and Huehueteotl's priests lit a new flame for the people to use. In northern Europe, which has long, dark, cold winters, fire was especially honored. Pagan fire festivals such as lighting bonfires on May 1 have continued into modern times in European communities.

trickster mischievous figure appearing in various forms in the folktales and mythology of many different peoples

deity god or goddess

ritual ceremony that follows a set pattern

pagan term used by early Christians to describe non-Christians and non-Christian beliefs

Many cultures have practiced cremation, the burning of the dead. In cremation, fire represents purification, a clean and wholesome end to earthly life. The Pima people of the southwestern United States say that fire appeared in the world to solve the problem of how people should dispose of the dead.

* See Names and Places at the end of this volume for further information.

Fire Myths. Agni, the god of fire in Hindu mythology, represents the essential energy of life in the universe. He consumes things, but only so that other things can live. Fiery horses pull Agni's chariot, and he carries a flaming spear. Agni created the sun and the stars, and his powers are great. He can make worshipers immortal and purify the souls of the dead from sin. One ancient myth about Agni says that he consumed so many offerings from his worshipers that he was tired. To regain his strength, he had to burn an entire forest with all its inhabitants.

Chinese mythology includes stories of Hui Lu, a magician and fire god who kept 100 firebirds in a gourd. By setting them loose, he could start a fire across the whole country. There was also a hierarchy of gods in charge of fire. At its head was Lo Hsüan, whose cloak, hair, and beard were red. Flames spurted from his horse's nostrils. He was not unconquerable, however. Once when he attacked a city with swords of fire, a princess appeared in the sky and quenched his flames with her cloak of mist and dew.

The bringers of fire are legendary heroes in many traditions. Prometheus * of Greek mythology, one of the most famous fire bringers, stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. Similar figures appear in the tales of other cultures.

Native Americans believe that long ago some evil being hid fire so that people could not benefit from it. A hero had to recover it and make it available to human beings. In many versions of the story Coyote steals fire for people, but sometimes a wolf, woodpecker, or other animal does so. According to the Navajo, Coyote tricked two monsters that guarded the flames on Fire Mountain. Then he lit a bundle of sticks tied to his tail and ran down the mountain to deliver the fire to his people.

African traditions also say that animals gave fire to humans. The San of South Africa believe that Ostrich guarded fire under his wing until a praying mantis stole it. Mantis tricked Ostrich into spreading his wings and made off with the fire. The fire destroyed Mantis, but from the ashes came two new Mantises.

Indians of the Amazon River basin in Brazil say that a jaguar rescued a boy and took him to its cave. There the boy watched the jaguar cooking food over a fire. The boy stole a hot coal from the fire and took it to his people, who then learned to cook.

Legends in the Caroline Islands of the Pacific link fire to Olofat, a mythical trickster hero who was the son of the sky god and a mortal woman. As a youth, Olofat forced his way into heaven to see his father. Later Olofat gave fire to human beings by allowing a bird to fly down to earth with fire in its beak.

Fighting Sorcery with Fire

In Europe and America, individuals accused of being witches were once burned at the stake. Many cultures have held the belief that fire destroys sorcery, or black magic. The Assyrians of ancient Mesopotamia * called upon fire to undo the effects of evil witchcraft aimed at them. They used these words:

Boil, boil, burn, burn!... As this goat's skin is torn asunder and cast into the fire, and as the blaze devours it... may the curse, the spell, the pain, the torment, the sickness, the sin, the misdeed, the crime, the suffering, that oppress my body, be torn asunder like this goat's skin! May the blaze consume them today.

A myth from Assam, in northern India, says that after losing a battle with Water, Fire hid in a bamboo stalk. Grasshopper saw it and told Monkey, who figured out how to use Fire. But a man saw Monkey and decided that he should have Fire, so he stole it from Monkey Like many stories, this myth portrays ownership of fire as a human quality Even partial control over such a powerful force of nature is one of the things that gives human society its identity.

2,211 words 12,618 characters

Sahitya Akademy Awardee Poet Arundhati Subramaniam : Where God is a Traveller

Arundhati subramaniam : 

Arundhathi Subramaniam's volume of poetry, When God is a Traveller (2014) was the Season Choice of the Poetry Book Society, shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. She is the recipient of various awards and fellowships, including the inaugural Khushwant Singh Prize, the Raza Award for Poetry, the Zee Women's Award for Literature, the International Piero Bigongiari Prize in Italy, the Mystic Kalinga award, the Charles Wallace, Visiting Arts and Homi Bhabha Fellowships, among others. Arundhathi has won the Sahitya Akademi Award for When God is a Traveller.

As prose writer, her books include The Book of Buddha, a bestselling biography of a contemporary mystic, Sadhguru: More Than a Life and most recently, Adiyogi: The Source of Yoga (co-authored with Sadhguru). As editor, her most recent book is the Penguin anthology of sacred poetry, Eating God.

Her poetry has been published in various international journals and anthologies, including Reasons for Belonging: Fourteen Contemporary Poets (Penguin India); Sixty Indian Poets (Penguin India), Both Sides of the Sky (National Book Trust, India),We Speak in Changing Languages (Sahitya Akademi), Fulcrum No 4: An Annual of Poetry and Aesthetics (Fulcrum Poetry Press, US), The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (Bloodaxe, UK), Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry[7]( United States ), The Dance of the Peacock: An Anthology of English Poetry from India,[8] featuring 151 Indian English poets, edited by Vivekanand Jha and published by Hidden Brook Press,[9] Canada. and Atlas: New Writing (Crossword/ Aark Arts) She has worked as Head of Dance and Chauraha (an inter-arts forum) at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, and has been Editor of the India domain of the Poetry International Web.

About her Poetry collection : When God is a Traveller : 

 The poems in When God is a Traveller frequently dwell upon the minute details of everyday life, they also see in those details, hints of a Godhead, an uber-reality.

This is a theme not unrelated to Meera's: how to lose Earthly kingdoms, but gain the (divine) self. As Subramaniam puts it, "Bhakti (devotion) is very much the spirit of these poems — a passionate, far from anti-carnal or anti-intellectual bhakti. I think we've often turned devotion into an anaemic animal."

 A recurring theme that remains throughout is that of spiritual exploration, the repercussions of which can give rise to "a sense of terror and also of authorship".

When God is a Traveller is studded with gems of language. It is not necessary that all the gems will shine at once — or at all. Some may never shine for you (could they be blemished?) Others will reveal themselves in modesty, or in time.

In the realm of Arundhathi Subramaniam's poetry nothing is as it seems; everything is conjoined, paired, stippled; mask and face are one, and mask meets metaphor at the poem's end. Handloom and heart will be paired as she moves from 'secular pastels' to 'wear- and- tear polytheism' in the very first poem "Textile." The poem revels in 'the whoosh/ of textile, versatile, / block-printed by sun'. But then comes winter and she digs 'through the stretch and seam and protest of tattered muscle deeper into the world's oldest fabric.

In the poem which gives the book its title, “When God is a Traveller,” Subramaniam muses about “Kartikeya/Murga/Subramania, my namesake.” Kartikeya/Murga/Subramania is known by all those names, as well as Skanda, and is the son of Śiva, in some legends of him alone, as Gaṇeśa is born of Pārvatī alone, but also often considered the son of both Śiva and Pārvatī. Subramania is the god of war who is also known as Guhā (cave, secret) or Guruguhā (cave-teacher) as he renounces war in some legends and retreats to the mountains. (For stories of Subramania, see Kartikeya as well as the Skanda Purāṇa and for comparison of various legends, Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty’s Śiva: The Erotic Ascetic). Arundhathi Subramaniam writes in this poem:

               “Trust the god

               back from his travels

               …

               Trust him

               who has seen enough—

               revolutions, promises…

               …

               Trust him

               who recognizes you—

               auspicious, abundant, battle-scarred,

                              alive—

               and knows from where you come.

               Trust the god

               ready to circle the world all over again

               this time for no reason at all

               other than to see it

               through your eyes.” 

One will look in vain for a pole star in many of her poems, drawing her north along some hidden longitudinal line. The temptresses who lead her to right and left are words like 'guile and gristle', 'stretch and seam,' and in another poem, 'Pali and pidgin'. You can almost hear her rolling the alliterations on her tongue.Arundhathi is a poet and a seeker. She divides her time between Bombay and an ashram in Coimbatore. She has written a fine book on her Guru Sadguru: More than a Life, has compiled an anthology Pilgrim's India detailing 'journeys impelled by the idea of the sacred.' 

And she has just come out with an anthology of Bhakti Poetry (Penguin) oddly entitled Eating God. (My advice: eat veggies, don't eat gods). She also has a wallet-sized book on the Buddha. One would have expected a larger dose of religious poetry. Yet her poems are secular enough to please the most diehard in that tattered party called the Congress. When she allows a semblance of spirituality to flicker, it is in homage to some minor, almost human god, a guy who looks like 'he could understand errors in translation, blizzards on the screen, gaps in memory, lapses in attention.'He can even tolerate 'the fury/the wheeze,/the Pali,/the pidgin/the gnashing of the mixer-grinder..' Tolerant divinity, not the Old Testament kind.

935 words 5,892 characters

character student of Jude and Sue Bridehead

Jude the Obscure 

Jude Fawley

Jude is the hero and the central character of the book, and his life is interconnected with that of all the other major and minor characters in the story. Hardy presents the protagonist as an ordinary, working-class man of humble origins struggling hard to realize his dreams but thwarted by a cruel fate and a pitiless, snobbish social system. Despite the resemblance to the hero of Greek tragedy (in his nobility of character), Jude, of all Hardy's characters can be said to come closest to a kind of Marxist literary hero. He is the outsider who is denied access to improvement and social advancement by a rigid, conservative class-system.

The reader first sees Jude as a child of eleven, hardworking, persevering, affectionate, gentle and extremely sensitive. Hardy develops certain traits in Jude's personality as he grows older: he displays a lifelong inability to hurt any living creature or to see it suffer, whether it be an earthworm, a pig, a horse, a rabbit or even his wife, Arabella. His vulnerability and essential gentleness lead him to be careless regarding his own survival.

Part of Jude's tragedy arises from his incurable idealism. As a child he is fascinated with Christminster. It is the focus of all his dreams, a shining ideal of intellectual life. But even though he realizes his ambitions may be futile, the university remains an obsession with him. Similarly, he idealizes Sue as the perfect intellectual woman, but here too he is disillusioned and frustrated. His obsession with Sue continues nevertheless. Both Christminster, the intellectual ideal, and Sue, the ideal of womanhood, promise fulfillment, and both frustrate him. All his hard work and earnest effort at mastering Greek and Latin come to nothing, and despite his great patience with Sue and devotion to her, he loses his job, his children and finally even his title as husband. His utter loneliness and desolation create a strong emotional impact on the reader. It is here that Jude, despite his humble working-class origins, rises to heroic stature. Very often in the book he is compared to heroic figures such as Job; he has, like Job, the ability to bear great suffering. He reconciles himself to the endless tragedies and disappointments of life. At the end of the novel, he matures as a man. With all the setbacks life deals him, he never loses his dignity. At two places in the novel, he is compared to Samson (Part I, Chapter 7 and Part VI, Chapter 7), defeated by his own innocence and a woman's cunning. Sue herself compares him to Joseph, to a "tragic Don Quixote" (Part IV, Chapter 1) and to St. Stephen "who while they were stoning him could see Heaven opened."

Jude's death at the young age of thirty (the approximate age of Jesus Christ at his death) indicates that he has been "crucified" by society. But even the flaws that contributed to his downfall are not really faults. If his sensitivity, kindness, sense of honor, naïveté and idealism are considered weaknesses, they are also his strengths. His only real weakness is a tendency to drink when in despair, although he is not a drunkard.

Remembrance Day and his loneliness and desolation has a strange poignancy. The reader is left with a feeling of bitterness and waste at the ruin of a promising life.

Sue Bridehead

Sue is one of Hardy's triumphs. What strikes the reader about Sue is her intellectual capacity. Both Jude and Phillotson are impressed by how well read she is: J.S. Mill and Gibbon are her heroes, she is familiar with Latin and Greek writers in translation, as well as Boccaccio, Sterne, Defoe, Smollett, Fielding, Shakespeare and the Bible. She belongs to the eighteenth century tradition of critical intelligence and rational skepticism. Jude himself calls her "quite Voltairean." Towards the end of the novel, Jude, when talking to Mrs. Edlin, describes Sue as: "a woman whose intellect was to mine like a star to a benzoline lamp" (Part V, Chapter 10). Phillotson too talks of her intellect which "sparkles like diamonds while mine smoulders like brown papers" (Part IV, Chapter 4). She is quick-witted and observant and a good teacher. She is able to draw accurately from memory the model of Jerusalem she saw at an exhibition (Part II, Chapter 5). She is also able to quote accurately when she wants to win an argument (Part IV, Chapter 3).

But though the reader can admire her daring and unconventional approach, one gets the impression that many of her opinions are borrowed from her undergraduate friend. She lacks the tolerance of the true, liberal intellectual. This is evident in her attempt to undermine Jude's beliefs with her sarcastic comments about his faith and ideals. In this sense she is very prejudiced: she cannot bear Jude to hold opinions opposed to her own. When her own opinions are attacked, she conveniently takes refuge in tears, displaying her emotional side.

At the same time one cannot resist Sue's charm. She is vivacious, friendly and yet refined. Hardy contrasts Sue with Arabella to represent the difference between the spirit and the flesh. Sue is often spoken of as "ethereal" and "aerial." Jude himself calls her, "you spirit, you disembodied creature, you dear, sweet, tantalizing phantom, hardly flesh at all..." (Part IV, Chapter 5). Even Phillotson remarks on the rather spiritual affinity between Sue and Jude as something "Shelleyan." Though in some ways Sue represents a free spirit struggling against an oppressive, conventional social order, in other ways Sue can be very conventionally Victorian, for instance, in her shrinking from the physical and in her aversion to sex. She refuses to live with Jude as his lover even after leaving Phillotson. She regards physical relations as repugnant. Furthermore, she sees marriage as a "sordid contract" and a "hopelessly vulgar" institution. It often seems that she is merely seeking excuses to postpone marriage. Her dislike of Arabella is revealed in her comment to Jude about her being a "fleshy and coarse" and a "low-passioned woman."

Yet with all her sensitivity and apparent fragility, there is in Sue a selfishness and a corresponding insensitivity to the feelings of others. There is the Christminster undergraduate whose heart she broke, kind and decent Phillotson whose career she wrecks, and Jude, to whom she does great injury by undermining the beliefs which are essential to his well being. She utterly fails to realize the pain she inflicts on Jude with her wavering attitude. Jude is provoked to remark, "Sue, sometimes when I am vexed with you, I think you incapable of real love" (Part IV, Chapter 5). Despite all the sacrifices Jude has made for her, despite being free to marry him after her divorce, she will not make a commitment.

Hardy captures Sue's quality of unpredictability and elusiveness. She buys nude statues of Greek divinities, then repents and conceals them from her landlady. She snaps irritably at Phillotson, then regrets it later. Sue is sometimes reckless and then diffident, stern and then kind, warm and then standoffish, candid and then evasive. In portraying these glimpses of Sue--her unceasing reversals, her changes of heart and mind, her conflicting behavior-- Hardy creates a complex, fascinating character. The reader sees her telling Jude, "You mustn't love me" (Part III, Chapter 5) and then writing to him, "you may." After her marriage she forbids Jude to come to see her (Part III, Chapter 9), and then she revokes the ban and invites him the next week. Later, she cancels the invitation (Part IV, Chapter 2). Hardy indicates that along with her changing moods, she has a tendency to shift ground under pressure.

Finally, when tragedy strikes in the violent deaths of the three children, Sue is seen breaking down under the strain and becoming a sick woman. She plunges into a state of tormenting guilt and remorse. The reader sees a personality distorted by the effort to bear terrible burdens and now blindly seeking a self-inflicted punishment. 

Industrialism in Hard Times

Hard Times

INTRODUCTION 

                  Novel as one of literary forms is an expression of the writer. Moreover it is used to deliver certain values or phenomena that happened in society. As Henry Guntur Tarigan says “Karya sastra merupakan pandangan seorang pengarang terhadap hidup ini atau ide-ide tertentu tentang kehidupan” (Prinsip-Prinsip Dasar Sastra,1984:120). Thus the readers catch one happening in author’s point of view. In other words, reading a literary work is one way to know the author’s thought, ideology or even the author’s criticism of certain social condition. 

              

                  One of the big phenomena that occurs in society, brings great changes for human life and invites a contradictory action is The Industrial Revolution. In one hand The Industrial Revolution brought a great development, especially in technology and socio-economic one. On the other hand, there is another consequence of the Industrial Revolution, it caused “a hard time” for human life. It caused chaos and social problems among society.

                   Charles Dickens as one of the greatest English novelists who concerned with social reformation often used The Industrial Revolution as the setting of his works. Moreover most of his works highlight The Industrial Revolution as the caused of suffering and misery. Hard Times as one of Dickens’ novels, uses The Industrial Revolution as the setting of the story. It describes a society with its problems of life during the machine era. The complexity of the social problems shows that Dickens concerned with the other consequences of The Industrial Revolution. 

METHODOLOGY 

                This study is viewed as a literary criticism. Literary criticism is an academic activity that express the reader’s sense to analyze, interpret and even evaluate the texts within a literary work. While the literary approach which is used in this study is genetic structuralism proposed by Lucien Goldmann. 

Review of Related Literature 

                  Genetic Structuralism is a study of human sciences. Moreover Goldmann states in The Sociology of Literature “the first general observation on which genetic structuralist thought is based that all reflection on human sciences is made not from without but from within”(Lucien Goldmann in Peter Davison,1978:169). Goldmann puts the writer, the works and the society as one unity. In genetic structuralism, it studies both, the internal factors and the external one. The internal factors means the literary work itself while the external factors concern on social background and the life of the author. As Goldmann says “All positive research in the human sciences must necessarily conducted on two different levels, that of the object studied and that of immediately surrounding structure”. 

To support his theory, Goldmann builds five categories that relevant to each other. They are human realities, collective subject, world view, structure of literary works and the last is dialectics of comprehension and explanation. 

Human Realities 

“The basic idea: human facts are the responses of an individual or collective subject, constituting an attempt to modify a given situation in a sense favorable to the aspiration of that subject. This implies that all behavior and consequently every human fact have a significant character”. (Sociology of Literature, 1978:170) 

It consists of all activities or action, whether verbal or physical. Collective Subject

Collective subject is a subject of social fact. Social revolution, political, economy are social facts. This subject becomes the subject of a great literary works. According to Lucien Goldmann “a great literary works speaks of the world, the universe, its laws and problems which occur and grow in it”. 

A work of art is not an individual activity but it is a collective one. Furthermore Goldmann puts a literary work as a voice of representative of the writer’s social group. Worldview 

Goldmann believes that there is a relation between the structure of the works and the structure of the society, because both of them come from the same structurization activities. However the relation cannot be seen directly. It needs a bridge, which is called world view. 

Worldview is a suitable term to reveal the whole ideas, aspiration and feelings, which connect certain social group and contrast it with the other groups. Structure of Literary Works 

Literary works is the result of structurization of collective subject; it has a structure which is coherent and holistic. 

Goldmann concerned with the internal factors which are combined to create a coherent structure. Moreover, a structure should reveal the theme that focuses on the relation between the characters and their surrounding and also among the characters itself. Dialectics of Comprehension and explanation 

Comprehension is the problem of the internal coherence of the text, which presupposes that the text, the whole of the text and nothing but the text is taken literary and that, within it, one seeks on overall significant structure. While explanation is a problem of seeking the individual or collective subject in relation to which the mental structure which govern the works has a functional character and for 

that very reason, a significant character (Sociology of Literature,1978:74)

            Basically, genetic structuralism is a theory of literature which views a literary work by referring back to the life of the author and the life outside or society as well, besides still gives attention to the structural elements of the works itself. That is to say, the genetic structural approach was born as a bridge of the extreme tendency between the two former approaches which stand oppositely; the structural approach and the sociological approach. 

               This kind of theory can be applied at Charles Dickens in creating literary works as follows. Start from the great event “the Industrial Revolution” which occurs in England 19thcentury with its effect on human life, it invites many reactions from people around the world. It caused a great development in human race. 

However, it also caused “a hard time” or suffering for the lower society, including the young Dickens. Dickens had a hard life since he was a boy. He becomes close to poverty, misery, pain and things that goes to the pauper society. With his bitter experience, Dickens 

becomes the subject collective of a social class; lower class. 

Moreover, his observation and his experience bring him to a consciousness about his society. Dickens has a big desire to change his society to be a better one. It leads him to create a literary work and put his worldview in it, as the result of his consciousness of his surrounding. It can be said that creating a literary work is his effort to speak the social justice for the lower class. Based on this understanding, genetic structuralism is the most suitable approach in analyzing the novel. 

ANALYSIS 

            To Find out Charles Dickens’ view on the Industrial Revolution, this study will compare the social phenomena in the story with the reality during the Industrial Revolution. There are three social phenomena in the Hard Times, they are: 

The application of Utilitarianism 

             During “the great event” there was a value, which controlled society, namely Utilitarianism. Basically utilitarianism or The Greatest Happiness principle holds that “action are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness and wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness”(The 19th Century Philosophers, 1956:146). Unfortunately “it held not only the good is happiness in general but also that each individual always pursues what he believes to be his own happiness”( A History of Western Philosophy,1945:775). 

                  Over time, there was a practically deviation in utilitarianism. The rhythm of industry life made a changing in the value. In industrial society, utilitarianism belonged to the bourgeois class or the capitalist. It means that everything had to support the productivity of industry. People had to throw away anything that had no use for human needs. That is why they only believed on fact or reality. They believed that only strict to the fact or reality can help them survive in their life. This value influences the education. The children were prepared to be a person who concerns only on materials. It is hoped that children grow up become great men, under ‘the fact only philosophy’. 

                In Hard Times, Dickens portrays this social phenomenon through the characters of Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, Louisa Gradgrind, Tom Gradgrind and Cecilia Jupe. Dickens portrays the value in a negative way. It caused a misery for the followers. It can be seen through the life of Mr. Thomas and his children. In the end of the story, Mr. Thomas described as a strict follower of Utilitarianism, finally has a great regret on what he had believed. Louisa as the daughter of Mr.Thomas cannot overcome her problems and has to loose her marriage. While Tom as the son of Mr.Thomas, has to pay on what he has done with his life. It seems that Dickens wants to emphasize the impact of it in life especially for the children. It makes the children suppressed and failed in facing the life’s problems. On the contrary, Cecilia Jupe who stands against the value has a happy life. 

               Facts are something definite. Reality is something that happens in our life. It is something real. It can be seen and felt. On the contrary, imagination is something abstract. It cannot be seen. Therefore the Utilitarianism followers do not allow their children to have imagination. It is something forbidden. “In idle imagination, a very bad thing for anybody”(Hard Times, p.5). Moreover, a community with imagination is described as “degraded position”(Hard Times, p.12). These two quite different values are coloring the life of the characters in Hard Times. By contradicting the life between them, Dickens criticizes the existing of Utilitarianism during Industrial Revolution. 

              By creating Hard Times, Dickens gives a consciousness dealing with the values. In human life there are two important things, which controlled human attitude; the head and the heart. The head represents the logic things. It is something realistic or in this case is the fact. The heart represents the human’s feeling. It is something abstract such as love, will, passion, even imagination. There must be a balance between them. Both of them are needful to reach human happiness in human life. 

The life of the working class 

             The life of the working class during Industrial Revolution was miserable. “For the poor who worked in factories, life was bitter and hard. Moreover they were faced with the wearisome and endless repetition of a simple process, haunted by the fear of unemployment and starvation. Diseases, poverty, fear, malnutrition, this was common loft of our ancestors, and all the restless energies of the ‘improvers’ could not save them from it”(England in the Eighteen Century,1950:89). 

           The exploitation of workers had become something usual in industrial life. The working hour was very long and their life protection was regarded as something unimportant. “Workers labored long hours for miserable wages and lived in ugly unsanitary tenements. The working day was 13 hours or longer. The workers seldom saw daylight, for gas illumination enabled them to work from before daybreak until after dark. Above all the workers were unsecured”(The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 1768:214) 

In Hard Times, the working class is called ‘The Hands’. Since the worth thing from the working class according to the bourgeois class is their hands, in other words, their power. The working society is described as ‘the subject of a nameless, horrible dread, a mortal fear of one particular shape with everything took. Whatsoever he looked at, grew into that form sooner or later. The object of his miserable existence was to prevent its recognition by any one among the various people he encountered. Hopeless labour”(Hard Times,p.81) 

In Hard Times, the working class is represented by Stephen Blackpool. He has to face the unfair treatment form the owner of the factory. He has been accused as a bank robber without any strong evidences. Furthermore, in his effort clearing his name, he dies. The Blackpool’s death symbolizes the hard life which has to be faced by the working class. 

The life of the working society during Industrial Revolution was very hard. If they wanted to survive during ‘the machine era’, they had to be a machine. Working and producing without any complaining is another word for machine. Even though they had to accept the misery, they did not have any choices. The life of the working class which is full of pain becomes the other social issues that Dickens wants to emphasize 

The way Dickens describes the working class, seems that he wants to portray the misery of the working society during The Industrial Revolution. The working society becomes the one who owned the ‘other sequences of the great event’. 

The physical appearance of the industrial city 

The other impact of Industrial Revolution which can be seen easily is the physical appearance of the industrial city and surrounding. According to Gustav “every great city has one or more slums, where the working class is crowded together. These slums are pretty equally arranged in all the great towns of England, the worst houses in the worst quarters of the towns, The streets are generally unpaved, rough and dirty filled with vegetables and animal refuse”(Gustav Dore in Jerome Blum, 1966:566). Smoke, ashes, dust and waste are everywhere. Hence, Pollution becomes something that cannot be avoided. 

This horrible condition can be found in Hard Times. Coketown as the industrial city in Hard Times, is described as a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye”(Hard Times, p.20) Dickens portrayed Coketown as painted savage. It means that Coketown is full with cruelty, primitive and not civilized society. 

Moreover, Coketown is portrayed as follows “a blur of soot and smoke, now confusedly tending this way, now that way, now aspiring to the vault of heaven, now murkily creeping along the earth, as the wind rose and fell, or changed its quarter: a dense formless jumble, with sheets of cross light in it, that showed nothing but masses of darkness”(Hard Times, p:105) Actually Dickens has already gave the first impression through the name of Coketown itself. Coke means coal. Coal is a thing that cannot be separated from the factory. 

Charles Dickens’ view of the Industrial Revolution as reflected in Hard Times

Hard Times, Which is written by Dickens in 1854, explores his understanding on The Industrial Revolution. In revealing Dickens’ understanding of ‘the great event’, it cannot be separated from his own life. His bitter life during his childhood, which closed to poverty and misery, created his sensitivity on social problems. As Edmund A. Brown said “Dickens suffered poverty and hardship in his childhood, later he was to describe many scenes and incidents from his own early life in such novel as David Coperfield, Dombey and Son, Bleak House, Hard Times and Little Dorit”.(The Cultural Library, 1959:261) 

Hard Times highlight three social issues as the impact of Industrial Revolution. They are the application of Utilitarianism, the life of the working class and the bad environment of the industry city. Dickens portrays those three social phenomena in negative way. It shows his disagreement on it. By presenting the pain of the working class, the horrible condition of the industry city and the failure of Utilitarianism, Dickens criticizes the Industrial Revolution which caused social chaos for England Society. In criticizing the social issues, Dickens did it in direct and forceful. 

 

Through his writing, Dickens not only rolls out the social chaos but also gives new consciousness to the readers. He proclaims to the society to maintain the social justic anywhere and to everyone without concerning to their race or their social status. It belongs to everyone. Justice has to be implemented. Moreover every human being is equal and none has right to press the others because of any reason. 

Based on three social problems in Hard Times, It can be concluded that the general issue in Charles Dickens’ literary works, Hard Times is the hard life which had to be faced by the society of the industrial city as the bad impact of The Industrial Revolution. The three social phenomena show the complexity of the social chaos during the machine era. 

CONCLUSION 

 Charles John Huffman Dickens is one of the great 19th century writers who subjugate his life to give his voice on social justice, especially for the pauper society. In Hard Times, Dickens with his total vision, his deep and whole experience, draws his idea and his view toward the life during Industrial Revolution. Hard Times is a social criticism novel. Through the symbol of Coketown and the society with its characterization inside, Dickens obviously criticizes the social injustice, which occurs in English at the 19th century. 

 Dickens, in Hard Times, draws his understanding of the Industrial Revolution. He feels very negative on ‘the great event’, since it caused many miseries for England society, especially the pauper society. By Hard Times, Dickens serves another way in seeing the machine era. The Industrial Revolution in 19th century which brought great development, especially in technology, also caused a hard time, a misery for the society. It is the other consequences of ‘the great event’ that had to be faced by society.

ROBERT BROWNING AND ALFRED LORD TENNYSON

Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson :-

Abstract :-

Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson belong to the Victorian era occupying a prominent place as pre-eminent poets of their time. Browning had a remarkable sense of the historical past. Robert Browning was a cosmopolitan who was more interested in the universal, rather than in the national. It was an era of great changes in science and theology and the age also witnessed the rise of democracy. As a poets of human nature both of them stand wide apart. Tennyson is the poet of human nature in its noble, common and loving forms, as Browning is the closest to what is complex, subtle and uncommon in human nature. Browning often renders the simple and the loving in human nature - and such poem are among his masterpieces. Nevertheless, Tennyson does so more frequently and characteristically. Browning has been gifted with his own original style of composing poetry. He appears to be an original artist and in this respect he is more interesting than Tennyson. Even in the respect of melody and versification, Browning is negligent. He frequently sacrifices melody to his thought. This paper attempts to explore the similarities and differences between two great poets. It also throws light on Victorian era, their historical sense, patriotic sense, the clarity, versification, art, music and melody in their writings. Keywords:- Robert Browning, Tennyson, Victorian, domestic atmosphere, immoral characters. 

INTRODUCTION

Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson belong to the Victorian era occupying a prominent place as a pre-eminent poets of their time. Both of them apply new techniques and style in writing a poetry, however, both these poets adopt their own style in their writing. “Browning focuses on the psyche of his frantic characters and tries to look into deep inside of such characters in his writings. Browning tries to understand human nature, religion and society properly. He studies the innermost psychology of characters. On the other hand, Tennyson draws material from external, specific realities, ideas, and objects and tries to express it through ornate language.”1 Another significant difference is in their nature of expression. Browning’s writing is always energetic but Tennyson’s tone is generally melancholic where he gives touch of nostalgia. Both of them started creating their works simultaneously and towered above their contemporaries from 1830 to 1890, the entire period of the reign of Queen Victoria. Browning remained much more aloof from his era than did Tennyson. The new movements of science bothered Tennyson like Arnold and clough. Tennyson’s age is reflected in his work, but Browning’s poetry does not reflect the contemporary social changes and trends which shocked both theology and religion.

As a matter of fact, Tennyson was immediately popular with the publication of him Collected Poems in 1842, and his popularity continued to grow, till with the publication of In Memorium, in 1850, he came to be regarded as the greatest poet of his time. His poetry was read all over the English speaking world. Browning’s popularity and fame, on the contrary, was delayed and his fame was limited only to a limited cultured readers. He had small group of follower and imitators. Even such a great collection of poems, ‘Bells and Pomegranates,’ a rare combination of music, poetic pleasure, and serious thoughts failed to win public recognition. ‘In Memorium’ and ‘Bells and Pomegranates’ were published together, but their respective fates were entirely different. Browning continued to create, however, at the end his poetry could not receive any appreciation. He was neglected; nevertheless, he did not care the public. “He loved his mistress art, and his love made him always joyful in creating. He was a true artist who creates only because he loves his art, and not for any other reasons.”2 Robert Browning’s is recognition and popularity emerged as late as 1870 twenty years after the publication of his collected poems in 1850. This means that Tennyson received fifty years of recognition and Browning only ten. Browning’s delayed popularity is even more surprising because he was interested in Catholic and Cosmopolitan and he wrote in his poetry all kinds and phases of human nature among different countries. The range of his subjects is greater than that of Tennyson.

The fact is that Browning was not a man of his age, but a man of all time. It appears that he was more interested in soul-dissection, in the analysis of the human mind and art. He was interested in the study of man’s motives and mental processes. The intellectual analysis of human nature was a part of the scientific movement of the age. Browning expected his age in this respect by thirty years. “So his poetry was not read at first; but, afterwards, the world having reached him, he became a favoured poet.”3 Browning was not exclusively interested in the internal history of a soul, however, he was interested in external action. Like the modern impressionists, he is concerned with sudden moments of human passion, with sudden impressions on the senses. Browning anticipated impressionism by about forty years. In this respect, he rises alone among his contemporaries. We could not find impressionism in Tennyson or Arnold or Rossetti. When impressionism arrived in literary movement, Browning’s popularity was intensive and immediate. While Browning represents in his poetry the extraordinary complexity of human life, thought and emotion, Tennyson’s smooth, melodious, simple development of his themes does not represent clashing complexity of human life and nature. In the poetry of Browning alone, the discords and complexities are resolved into a full harmony of thought and emotion. Browning represented this complexity of life from the very beginning, and when the society came to know about this complexity, it was surprised to find that there was a poet who had been expressing it for the last forty years. They also found that there was a poet who held out hopes of peace and harmony for the human soul, both for the individual and for the race. So this hope is the deepest element in Browning’s religion. Tennyson also has this hope but he is uncertain and he often bewails this uncertainty. Browning was certain of this hope, and he does not break his faith. Even when he fails to resolve some kind of complexity, he is sure and certain that they can be solved. In this respect, he stands alone among his contemporaries. He stands firm and unmoved even in the midst of the doubts, the uncertainties, the scepticism, the conflicts and the contradictions of his age. This firmness of his faith shows the strength of his character. This popularity emerged at the end of the 19th century, and it has increased ever since.

Robert Browning had clear cut ideas of Man, Nature and God and held firmly to them throughout his long poetic career. On the contrary, Alfred Tennyson had no clear theory of Man, Nature and God. Tennyson had always spiritual doubts and conflicts. The result was that Tennyson could entirely represent his age in all its doubts and scepticism, and so could impart greater variety in his work, Browning could not do so. But while Tennyson could not give to his age faith in God and humanity, we get such faith and the consequent hope in Browning’s poetry. The unique feature of Browning’s poetry is a rare combination of unity with diversity. The unity arises from his philosophy, from his religious theories, which are always the same. However, there is no monotony in his poetry because there is also the immense variety of the subjects. He would always repeat his theory, but he never repeats his examples. The transient scenes and sights of the day touched him to write poetry. This also differentiates him from Tennyson, who often wanted freshness; who very rarely wrote on a sudden impulse, but only after long and careful thoughts. “Tennyson as a source for his poetry, used many subjects from domestic conditions to observation of atmosphere. Whereas, Browning takes an immoral character and challenges us to find out the moral excellence.”4 Browning had a remarkable sense of the historical past. He could combine accurary of knowledge with imaginative treatment. His ‘Sordello’ is the history of a soul, with all its scenery and history vividly medieval; his ‘Grammarian’s funeral’ paints a historical period. He is equally successful in rendering the period and phases of religious history. In this respect, Tennyson was far his inferior. His Greek and medieval poems are modernized, and his imagination is always uncritical, as a result, he fails to capture the spirit of his time. Tennyson started his career with imitation as he wrote in the strain of the sentimental poets in the beginning. He achieved originality gradually and slowly. Browning, on the contrary, sprang into originality with his very first poem ‘Pauline.’ While Tennyson is conventional and conservative; Browning does not care for any traditions or social codes of conduct. Tennyson belonged to a particular class of English society and he rarely got out of it in his poetry. Browning as an artist is quite free from such restrains. His poetry does not belong to any particular or special class of society or morality. In this way, he set free the human soul from the restraints of convention, and lifted it to a higher level. Browning is a great emancipator of the human soul, while Tennyson is not. Tennyson pride in England made him narrowly nationalistic, and he looked down with contempt upon other countries. He shared the English prejudices towards France, Ireland, Scotland and other European countries. His natural sights is of his own land, particularly of the place where he resided. Browning, on the other Land, never displays any special patriotism. Rather, he is more Italian than English. Itwas not that he did not love and honor his own nation, but that as an artist, he loved more the foreign lands; and that in his deepest life he belonged less to England than to the world of men.

Robert Browning was a cosmopolitan who was more interested in the universal, rather than in the national. It was an era of great changes in science and theology and the age also witnessed the rise of democracy. But these events are not reflected in his poetry as they are reflected in the poetry of Tennyson and this fact may also account for his delayed popularity. Browning was a complex character whose personality was made up of different racial elements. Tennyson was not complex. He did not have the catholicity of Browning. He was English and only English. No English poet has been so distinctively English as Tennyson, and none of them so outside of England as Browning. This is another reason why Browning was not read in his age but received recognition only with the closing years of the century. It is increasingly recognized that the key of human development and well-being lies in internationalism rather than in nationalism. Faith in the unity of mankind has increased and this faith is expressed in all its intensity in Browning’s poetry. Tennyson, on the contrary, has nothing of this faith in mankind. As far as the social and political problems of the day are concerned, Tennyson frankly makes us know his views. Browning writes of the social and political problems but he simply renders them in his poetry. He does not express his own views about them. He writes of ideas and ideals which should govern men in their relations with each other rather than of particular social problems of the day. On the whole, he avoids the topical and concentrates on the universal and general.

 As a poets of human nature both of them stand wide apart. Tennyson is the poet of human nature in its noble, common and loving forms, as Browning is the closest to what is complex, subtle and uncommon in human nature. He renders the complex, the abnormal, the unusual and the unnatural and so his appeal is a limited one. He does not deal with what is noble, simple and loving in man He deals with the treatment of the remote, the uncommon, the subtle which is more characteristic of him. He attempted to paint human nature in the whole, and it is for this reason that his picture of human life is more varied and more extensive than that of Tennyson. Tennyson was poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria’s reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as, “Break, Break, Break,” and “The Charge of The Light Brigade,” “Tears, Idle Tears” and “Crossing The Bar.” His many verses were based on classical mythology such as Ulysses. All his poems are most probably based on imagery of nature and other natural elements. Browning, an English poet and play wright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. “Browning was famous for his dramatic monologues and commentary on social institutions. Browning aspires to redefine the aesthetic.”5 Browning often renders the simple and the loving in human nature - and such poem are among his masterpieces. Nevertheless, Tennyson does so more frequently and characteristically. Then, it may be concluded, as a whole, that Browning is a lesser artist than Tennyson. A good poetry should have a lovely form, it should have a noble style, harmonious composition, varied but at unity, and a sweet 

melody and versification. Browning’s composition is rarely careful. “There is lack of artistic selection and ordering of material, everything that comes to the poet’s mind is haphazardly introduced and so the main impression is weakened.”6 His writing, on the whole, is the result of intellect rather than of passion. Tennyson’s composition is always excellent and careful. 

Even in the respect of melody and versification, Browning is negligent. He frequently 

sacrifices melody to his thought. He is happy in the quaint oddities of sound, in fantastic and difficult arrangements of rhyme, in the systematic use of double rhymes and frequently sacrifices melody and sweetness of versification. His work is intellectual, he is concerned with the torture of the soul, but these are qualities of prose, and not of poetry. Tennyson has much more noble qualities in composition; his work is uniformly poetic, and so he must be ranked as a greater artist, though not such a original one as Browning.

CONCLUSION: –

At the end it is to be concluded that both Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson were two 

main Victorian poets famous in dramatic monologue. Browning logically reveals the essence of a person whereas, Tennyson induce and plays a particular mood. Browning in his poetry attempts to realize human nature, society and religion, whereas Tennyson recalls the conscious mind and environment through ornate language. As a source of his poetry, Tennyson applied many subjects from domestic conditions to observation of atmosphere. Browning, on the contrary, takes immoral characters and challenges us to find out the moral excellence.

2,494 words 15,110 characters

characters of Important of being Earnest

Characters of Important of being Earnest :

• John (Jack/Ernest) Worthing, J.P.

  The play’s protagonist. Jack Worthing is a seemingly responsible and respectable young man who leads a double life. In Hertfordshire, where he has a country estate, Jack is known as Jack. In London he is known as Ernest. As a baby, Jack was discovered in a handbag in the cloakroom of Victoria Station by an old man who adopted him and subsequently made Jack guardian to his granddaughter, Cecily Cardew. Jack is in love with his friend Algernon’s cousin, Gwendolen Fairfax. The initials after his name indicate that he is a Justice of the Peace.

• Algernon Moncrieff

  The play’s secondary hero. Algernon is a charming, idle, decorative bachelor, nephew of Lady Bracknell, cousin of Gwendolen Fairfax, and best friend of Jack Worthing, whom he has known for years as Ernest. Algernon is brilliant, witty, selfish, amoral, and given to making delightful paradoxical and epigrammatic pronouncements. He has invented a fictional friend, “Bunbury,” an invalid whose frequent sudden relapses allow Algernon to wriggle out of unpleasant or dull social obligations.

  Read an in-depth analysis of Algernon Moncrieff.

• Gwendolen Fairfax

  Algernon’s cousin and Lady Bracknell’s daughter. Gwendolen is in love with Jack, whom she knows as Ernest. A model and arbiter of high fashion and society, Gwendolen speaks with unassailable authority on matters of taste and morality. She is sophisticated, intellectual, cosmopolitan, and utterly pretentious. Gwendolen is fixated on the name Ernest and says she will not marry a man without that name.

  Read an in-depth analysis of Gwendolen Fairfax.

• Cecily Cardew

  Jack’s ward, the granddaughter of the old gentlemen who found and adopted Jack when Jack was a baby. Cecily is probably the most realistically drawn character in the play. Like Gwendolen, she is obsessed with the name Ernest, but she is even more intrigued by the idea of wickedness. This idea, rather than the virtuous-sounding name, has prompted her to fall in love with Jack’s brother Ernest in her imagination and to invent an elaborate romance and courtship between them.

  Read an in-depth analysis of Cecily Cardew.

• Lady Bracknell

  Algernon’s snobbish, mercenary, and domineering aunt and Gwendolen’s mother. Lady Bracknell married well, and her primary goal in life is to see her daughter do the same. She has a list of “eligible young men” and a prepared interview she gives to potential suitors. Like her nephew, Lady Bracknell is given to making hilarious pronouncements, but where Algernon means to be witty, the humor in Lady Bracknell’s speeches is unintentional. Through the figure of Lady Bracknell, Wilde manages to satirize the hypocrisy and stupidity of the British aristocracy. Lady Bracknell values ignorance, which she sees as “a delicate exotic fruit.” When she gives a dinner party, she prefers her husband to eat downstairs with the servants. She is cunning, narrow-minded, authoritarian, and possibly the most quotable character in the play.

• Miss Prism

  Cecily’s governess. Miss Prism is an endless source of pedantic bromides and clichés. She highly approves of Jack’s presumed respectability and harshly criticizes his “unfortunate” brother. Puritan though she is, Miss Prism’s severe pronouncements have a way of going so far over the top that they inspire laughter. Despite her rigidity, Miss Prism seems to have a softer side. She speaks of having once written a novel whose manuscript was “lost” or “abandoned.” Also, she entertains romantic feelings for Dr. Chasuble.

• Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D.

  The rector on Jack’s estate. Both Jack and Algernon approach Dr. Chasuble to request that they be christened “Ernest.” Dr. Chasuble entertains secret romantic feelings for Miss Prism. The initials after his name stand for “Doctor of Divinity.”

• Lane

  Algernon’s manservant. When the play opens, Lane is the only person who knows about Algernon’s practice of “Bunburying.” Lane appears only in Act I.

• Merriman

  The butler at the Manor House, Jack’s estate in the country. Merriman appears only in Acts II and III.

• Jack Worthing

  Jack Worthing, the play’s protagonist, was discovered as an infant by the late Mr. Thomas Cardew in a handbag in the cloakroom of a railway station in London. Jack has grown up to be a seemingly responsible and respectable young man, a major landowner and Justice of the Peace in Hertfordshire, where he has a country estate. In Hertfordshire, where he is known by what he imagines to be his real name, Jack, he is a pillar of the community. He is guardian to Mr. Cardew’s granddaughter, Cecily, and has other duties and people who depend on him, including servants, tenants, farmers, and the local clergyman. For years, he has also pretended to have an irresponsible younger brother named Ernest, whom he is always having to bail out of some mischief. In fact, he himself is the reprobate brother Ernest. Ernest is the name Jack goes by in London, where he really goes on these occasions. The fictional brother is Jack’s alibi, his excuse for disappearing from Hertfordshire and going off to London to escape his responsibilities and indulge in exactly the sort of behavior he pretends to disapprove of in his brother.

  More than any other character in the play, Jack Worthing represents conventional Victorian values: he wants others to think he adheres to such notions as duty, honor, and respectability, but he hypocritically flouts those very notions. Indeed, what Wilde was actually satirizing through Jack was the general tolerance for hypocrisy in conventional Victorian morality. Jack uses his alter-ego Ernest to keep his honorable image intact. Ernest enables Jack to escape the boundaries of his real life and act as he wouldn’t dare to under his real identity. Ernest provides a convenient excuse and disguise for Jack, and Jack feels no qualms about invoking Ernest whenever necessary. Jack wants to be seen as upright and moral, but he doesn’t care what lies he has to tell his loved ones in order to be able to misbehave. Though Ernest has always been Jack’s unsavory alter ego, as the play progressesJack must aspire to become Ernest, in name if not behavior. Until he seeks to marry Gwendolen, Jack has used Ernest as an escape from real life, but Gwendolen’s fixation on the name Ernest obligates Jack to embrace his deception in order to pursue the real life he desires. Jack has always managed to get what he wants by using Ernest as his fallback, and his lie eventually threatens to undo him. Though Jack never really gets his comeuppance, he must scramble to reconcile his two worlds in order to get what he ultimately desires and to fully understand who he is.  

• Algernon Moncrieff

• Algernon, the play’s secondary hero, is closer to the figure of the dandy than any other character in the play. A charming, idle, decorative bachelor, Algernon is brilliant, witty, selfish, amoral, and given to making delightful paradoxical and epigrammatic pronouncements that either make no sense at all or touch on something profound. Like Jack, Algernon has invented a fictional character, a chronic invalid named Bunbury, to give him a reprieve from his real life. Algernon is constantly being summoned to Bunbury’s deathbed, which conveniently draws him away from tiresome or distasteful social obligations. Like Jack’s fictional brother Ernest, Bunbury provides Algernon with a way of indulging himself while also suggesting great seriousness and sense of duty. However, a salient difference exists between Jack and Algernon. Jack does not admit to being a “Bunburyist,” even after he’s been called on it, while Algernon not only acknowledges his wrongdoing but also revels in it. Algernon’s delight in his own cleverness and ingenuity has little to do with a contempt for others. Rather, his personal philosophy puts a higher value on artistry and genius than on almost anything else, and he regards living as a kind of art form and life as a work of art—something one creates oneself.

• Algernon is a proponent of aestheticism and a stand-in for Wilde himself, as are all Wilde’s dandified characters, including Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband, Lord Darlington in Lady Windermere’s Fan, Lord Illingworth in A Woman of No Importance, and Lord Henry Wootton in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Unlike these other characters, however, Algernon is completely amoral. Where Lord Illingworth and Lord Henry are downright evil, and Lord Goring and Lord Darlington are deeply good, Algernon has no moral convictions at all, recognizing no duty other than the responsibility to live beautifully.

• Gwendolen Fairfax

  More than any other female character in the play, Gwendolen suggests the qualities of conventional Victorian womanhood. She has ideas and ideals, attends lectures, and is bent on self-improvement. She is also artificial and pretentious. Gwendolen is in love with Jack, whom she knows as Ernest, and she is fixated on this name. This preoccupation serves as a metaphor for the preoccupation of the Victorian middle- and upper-middle classes with the appearance of virtue and honor. Gwendolen is so caught up in finding a husband named Ernest, whose name, she says, “inspires absolute confidence,” that she can’t even see that the man calling himself Ernest is fooling her with an extensive deception. In this way, her own image consciousness blurs her judgment.

  Though more self-consciously intellectual than Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen is cut from very much the same cloth as her mother. She is similarly strong-minded and speaks with unassailable authority on matters of taste and morality, just as Lady Bracknell does. She is both a model and an arbiter of elegant fashion and sophistication, and nearly everything she says and does is calculated for effect. As Jack fears, Gwendolen does indeed show signs of becoming her mother “in about a hundred and fifty years,” but she is likeable, as is Lady Bracknell, because her pronouncements are so outrageous.

• Cecily Cardew

  If Gwendolen is a product of London high society, Cecily is its antithesis. She is a child of nature, as ingenuous and unspoiled as a pink rose, to which Algernon compares her in Act II. However, her ingenuity is belied by her fascination with wickedness. She is obsessed with the name Ernest just as Gwendolen is, but wickedness is primarily what leads her to fall in love with “Uncle Jack’s brother,” whose reputation is wayward enough to intrigue her. Like Algernon and Jack, she is a fantasist. She has invented her romance with Ernest and elaborated it with as much artistry and enthusiasm as the men have their spurious obligations and secret identities. Though she does not have an alter-ego as vivid or developed as Bunbury or Ernest, her claim that she and Algernon/Ernest are already engaged is rooted in the fantasy world she’s created around Ernest. Cecily is probably the most realistically drawn character in the play, and she is the only character who does not speak in epigrams. Her charm lies in her idiosyncratic cast of mind and her imaginative capacity, qualities that derive from Wilde’s notion of life as a work of art. These elements of her personality make her a perfect mate for Algernon.

1,825 words 11,176 characters