Friday, June 1, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
For Thee the Bell Tolls
Death and survival, are both very important issues in our life. And death is the eternal topic that we human beings can never avoid to talking about. Human are grumbling the momentary of life, the passage of time, and we are also actively thinking about what kind of attitude should be taken to face the death. In Hemingway's work, For Whom the Bell Tolls, the death is reflected extremely vividly. This article is going to try to analysis the existentialism death view and Hemingway's death philosophy, which takes Hemingway’s work as the basis.
Key word:
Death, Hemingway, value of life, war
Why did you choose this particular book?
1. The auther is very famous.
2. I haven’t read any novels in origin, this book will not be too difficult for me.
3. I have watched a movie which is an adaptation of the noval. And it is a property of matter to attract.
4. It was on a required reading list.
1. Brief Introduction of Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American author and journalist. His distinctive writing style, characterized by economy and understatement which made a great influence on the 20th-century fictions. Most of his works had been created between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s. And in 1954, he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature because of his masterpiece, The Old Man and the Sea. The explanation of Hemingway's fiction was successful is that the characters from his fictions he presented exhibited authenticity. And that’s also the reason that lots of his works are classics of American literature. Duiring his career, he had published 7 novels, 6 short story collections, and 2 non-fiction works. And there were further 3 novels, 4 collections of short stories, and 3 non-fiction works after he passed away.
After divorcing with Hadley in 1927, Hemingway married Pauline Pfeiffer. But they divorced after Hemingway's back from the Spanish Civil War, the time which he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940, but he left her for Mary Welsh after the WWII.
Shortly after Hemingway publicated The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, he went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in a plane crash that left him in pain for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he moved from Cuba to Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.
This novel is presented primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan, which was inspired by Hemingway's own experiences in the Spanish Civil War.
There is a easant named Anselmo guideert Jordan to the guerrilla camp, which is hidden in a cave. Along the way, they encounter Pablo, the leader of the camp, who greets Robert Jordan with hostility and opposes the bridge operation because he believes it’s dangerous. Robertsuspects that Pablo may betray or sabotage the mission.
In the camp, Robert Jordan meets Pilar, Pablo's "woman", who seems to be the real leader of the band guerrilleros. In the evening, Robert meets six other residents of the camp. The camp shelters a young woman named Maria, one of the fascist band raped not long age. Robert Jordan and Maria immediately attracted to each other.
The next morning, Jordan is led through the forest by Pilar for consultation with El Sordo, the guerrilleros and the leader of another band on the bridge operation. Together they take Maria. El Sordo agreed to help the mission.
In the next morning, Robert Jordan wakes to see a Fascist cavalryman, and shoots him immediately. After finishing the breakfast, the group hears the sounds of a fight in the distance, which Robert Jordan believes that the Fascists are attacking El Sordo’s camp right now. Otheres want to give a hand to El Sordo, but Robert Jordan and Pilar know that is helpless and reject them.
The scene shifts to El Sordo’s hill, which a group of Fascists is fighting with them. El Sordo’s men play dead and manage to shoot one of the Fascist captains.
Time moves on, at the second morning, Pilar wakes Robert Jordan and tells him that Pablo has fled the camp with some of the explosives which are important to the blowing the bridge. Being furious angry at first, Robert Jordan controls his anger and plans to carry out the operation anyway. To Jordan’s surprised, Pablo suddenly backs before dawn, claiming that he left because of a moment of weakness. He says that he threw the explosives into the river and felt great loneliness after doing so. He has brought back five men with their horses from neighboring guerrilla bands to help the misssion.
As long as the dawn breaks, Robert Jordan and Anselmo descend on the bridge, shoot the Fascist sentries, and plant the explosives. Then Pilar comes to tell that Eladio has been killed and Fernando was fatally wounded, and they must be left behind. Then Robert Jordan detonates the explosives, which makes the bridge falls. But the shrapnels from the blast strikes Anselmo and kills him. Pablo emerges from below, with the news that all his five men are dead.
When the group crosses the road when they are retreating, a Fascist bullet hits Robert Jordan’s horse, which tramples on Robert’s left leg and break it. Relizaing that he must be left behind, Robert says goodbye to Maria and he will always be with her even if she goes.
Robert has thought about suiciding, instead, he decides to stay alive to hold off the Fascists. He is grateful for having lived, in his final few days just like a full lifetime. For the first time, he feels “integrated,” and he is in harmony with the world. As the Fascist lieutenant approaches, Robert Jordan takes aim, feeling his heart beating against the floor of the forest.
3. Main characters
Robert Jordan The protagonist of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Initially, he believed in the Republican cause with a near-religious faith. As the conflict drags on, he realizes that he does not really believe in the Republican cause but joined their side simply because they fought against Fascism. Because he fights for a side whose causes he does not necessarily support, Robert Jordan experiences a great deal of internal conflict and begins to wonder whether there is really any difference between the Fascist and Republican sides.
Robert Jordan’s interior monologues and actions indicate these internal conflicts that plague him. Although he is disillusioned with the Republican cause, he continues to fight for that cause. In public he announces that he is anti-Fascist rather than a Communist, but in private he thinks that he has no politics at all. He knows that his job requires that he kill people but also knows that he should not believe in killing in the abstract. Despite his newfound love for Maria, he feels that there cannot be a place for her in his life while he also has his military work. He claims not to be superstitious but cannot stop thinking about the world as giving him signs of things to come. These conflicts weigh heavily on Robert Jordan throughout the bulk of the novel.Robert Jordan resolves these tensions at the end of For Whom the Bell Tolls, in his final moments as he faces death. He accepts himself as a man of action rather than thought, as a man who believes in practicality rather than abstract theories. He understands that the war requires him to do some things that he does not believe in. He also realizes that, though he cannot forget the unsavory deeds he has done in the past, he must avoid dwelling on them for the sake of getting things done in the present. Ultimately, Robert Jordan is able to make room in his mind for both his love for Maria and his military mission. By the end of the novel, just before he dies, his internal conflicts and tensions are resolved and he feels “integrated” into the world.
Pablo The leader of the guerrilla camp. Pablo is an individualist who feels responsible only to himself. Hemingway often compares him to a bull, a boar, and other burly, stubborn, and unpleasant animals. Pablo used to be a great fighter and a great man but has now started drinking and has “gone bad,” as many characters remark. Tired of the war and attached to his horses, Pablo is ready to betray the Republican cause at the start of the novel.
Pilar Pablo’s part-gypsy “woman.” Pilar means “pillar” in Spanish, and indeed, the fiercely patriotic, stocky, and steadfast Pilar is—if not the absolute leader—the support center of the guerrilla group. Pilar keeps the hearth, fights in battle, mothers Robert Jordan, and bullies Pablo and Rafael. She has an intuitive, mystical connection to deeper truths about the working of the world.
Maria A young woman with Pablo’s band who falls in love with Robert Jordan. The victim of rape at the hands of Fascists who took over her town, Maria is frequently described by means of earth imagery. Hemingway compares her movements to a colt’s, and Robert Jordan affectionately calls her “Rabbit.”
Anselmo An old, trustworthy guerrilla fighter. For Robert Jordan, Anselmo represents all that is good about Spaniards. He lives close to the land, is loyal, follows directions, and stays where he is told. He likes to hunt but has not developed a taste for the kill and hates killing people. Anselmo has stopped praying ever since the Communists banned organized religion but admits that he misses it.
Agustin A trustworthy and high-spirited guerrilla fighter. Agustin, who mans the machine gun, curses frequently and is secretly in love with Maria.
Fernando A guerrilla fighter in his mid-thirties. Short and with a lazy eye, Fernando is dignified and literal-minded, embraces bureaucracy, and is easily offended by vulgarities. These factors, combined with his lack of a sense of humor, make Fernando the frequent target of Pilar’s jokes.
Primitivo An elderly guerrilla fighter. Despite his gray hair and broken nose, Primitivo has not learned the cynicism needed for survival in the war. His name, which means “primitive,” evokes his idealism as well as the basic, earthy lifestyle of all the guerrilleros.
Rafael A gypsy member of the guerrilla band. Frequently described as well-meaning but “worthless,” Rafael proves his worthlessness by leaving his lookout post at a crucial moment. He is a foil for the trustworthy Anselmo, who does not leave his post on the previous night despite the cold and the snow. Rafael has few loyalties and does not believe in political causes.
Andres One of the guerrilla fighters, in his late twenties. Andres comes into conflict with the Republican leaders’ bureaucracy in his attempt to deliver Robert Jordan’s dispatch to the Republican command.
Eladio Andres’s older brother and another of the guerrilla fighters. The jumpy Eladio plays a relatively minor role in the novel. His most noticeable feature is that Robert Jordan repeatedly forgets his name. His death at the end of the novel attracts little notice.
El Sordo (Santiago) The leader of a guerrilla band that operates near Pablo’s. Like Robert Jordan, he is excited by a successful kill and is sad to die.
General Golz The Russian general, allied with the Republicans, who assigns Robert the bridge-blowing mission. Robert says that Golz is the best general he has served under, but the Republican military bureaucracy impedes all of Golz’s operations. Golz believes that thinking is useless because it breaks down resolve and impedes action.
Robert Jordan’s father A weak, religious man who could not stand up to his aggressive wife and eventually committed suicide. His father’s weakness is a constant source of embarrassment to Robert Jordan.
Robert Jordan’s grandfather A veteran of the American Civil War and a member of the Republican National Committee. Robert Jordan feels more closely related to his grandfather than to his father.
4. comment
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Motherland is the less.
As well as if a promontory was.
As well as if a manner of thins own
Or of thins friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
------------John Donne
The phrase “for whom the bell tolls” comes from a short essay by the seventeenth-century British poet and religious writer John Donne. Hemingway excerpts a portion of the essay in the epigraph to his novel. In Donne’s essay, “For whom does the bell toll?” is the imaginary question of a man who hears a funeral bell and asks about the person who has died. Donne’s answer to this question is that, because none of us stands alone in the world, each human death affects all of us. Every funeral bell, therefore, “tolls for thee.”
Death and survival, are both very important issues in our life. And death is the eternal topic that we human beings can never avoid to talking about. Human are grumbling the momentary of life, the passage of time, and we are also actively thinking about what kind of attitude should be taken to face the death. In Hemingway's work the death is reflected most vividly.
Many characters die during the course of the novel, and we see characters repeatedly question what can possibly justify killing another human being. Anselmo and Pablo represent two extremes with regard to this question. Anselmo hates killing people in all circumstances, although he will do so if he must. Pablo, on the other hand, accepts killing as a part of his life and ultimately demonstrates that he is willing to kill his own men just to take their horses. Robert Jordan’s position about killing falls somewhere between Anselmo’s and Pablo’s positions. Although Robert Jordan doesn’t like to think about killing, he has killed many people in the line of duty. His personal struggle with this question ends on a note of compromise. Although war can’t fully absolve him of guilt, and he has “no right to forget any of it,” Robert Jordan knows both that he must kill people as part of his duties in the war, and that dwelling on his guilt during wartime is not productive.
The question of when it is justifiable to kill a person becomes complicated when we read that several characters, including Andrés, Agustín, Rafael, and even Robert Jordan, admit to experiencing a rush of excitement while killing. Hemingway does not take a clear moral stance regarding when it is acceptable to take another person’s life. At times he even implies that killing can be exhilarating, which makes the morality of the war in For Whom the Bell Tolls even murkier.
The main topic of the novel is death. When Robert Jordan is given the mission to blow up the bridge, he knows that he will not survive it. Pablo, upon hearing of the mission, also knows immediately that it will lead to their deaths. Sordo sees that inevitability also. Almost all of the main characters in the book contemplate their own deaths, and it is their reaction to the prospect of death, and what meaning they attach to death, especially in relation to the cause of the Republic, that defines them.
A related theme is intense comradeship in the prospect of death, the giving up of the own self for the sake of the cause, for the sake of the People. Robert Jordan, Anselmo and the others are ready to do it "as all good men should", the often repeated gesture of embracing or patting on one another's shoulder reinforces the impression of close companionship. One of the best examples is Joaquín. After having been told about the execution of his family, the others are embracing him and comfort him by saying they were his family now. Surrounding this love for the comrades, there is the love for the Spanish soil, and surrounding this a love of place and the senses, of life itself, represented by the pine needle forest floor both at the beginning and the end of the novel. Most poignantly, at the book's end, Robert Jordan awaits his death feeling "his heart beating against the pine needle floor of the forest."
5. Conclusion:
From birth to death, death means the real foundation there is nothing. So ultimately the significance of the existence is kind of a tragedy which became very apparent. Ernest Hemingway clearly demonstrated this kind of tragic, and tragic hero is the main object of his creation.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The Scarlet Letter
The reason why I choose this particular book
1. It was on a required reading list.
2. My litertature teacher recommanded me about the book.
3. I want to know what is symbolism.
4. The author is famous around the world.
5. I like the cover of the book which is pink, the mixture of blood and white.
The Scarlet Letter
Abstract：
Hawthorne begins The Scarlet Letter with a long introductory essay that generally functions as a preface but, more specifically, accomplishes four significant goals: outlines autobiographical information about the author, describes the conflict between the artistic impulse and the commercial environment, defines the romance novel (which Hawthorne is credited with refining and mastering), and authenticates the basis of the novel by explaining that he had discovered in the Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets that contained the historical manuscript on which the novel is based.
Key word:
Sin; evil; “A”, adultery, ability, angel; avenge
The Scarlet Letter
1. Brief Introduction of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, a descendant of a long line of Puritan ancestors including John Hathorne, a presiding magistrate in the Salem witch trials. He was brought up by his widowed mother. Then he enter Bowdoin College in Maine.
After graduation from college, Hawthorne began trying to write and published several articles on historical aspects. His first novel, Fanshawe, was unsuccessful and Hawthorne himself disavowed it as amateurish. In 1846, he published essays Tales "The Moss of Old House ", many of them on the story of early American. In 1845, Hawthorne continued as a Customs inspector in Salem. At this time, he was like the narrator of "The Scarlet Letter". In 1850, he lost the job to stay later, issued a The Scarlet Letter and said the novel did not win universal emblazonment, however, at least it raises the reader's heart-warming cheer. Hawthorne had wrote a campaign biography for Franklin Pierce and help him become president .In 1853, Pierce appointed Hawthorne as the U.S. consul abroad. Hawthorne in Europe and spent the subsequent six years. In 1864, that is, in his return to the United States a few years later, he died. The other major works written by Hawthorne include The House of Seven Angular Pavilion (1851), Fogo Legend (1852), The Statue of Marble(1860.)
2. Plot
The Scarlet Letter was based on a true love story that happened in New England range from 1642 to 1649.
Hester Prynne was a kind and beautiful English woman. Unfortunately, she married a deformed old doctor, Roger Chillingworth so that she had ruined her youth. In the way of migrating to North America, Roger was caught by Indians so that Hester had to live a lonely life in the Boston. However, she fell into love with Arthur Dimmesdale , a pastor who was young and talented. After their unlawful daughter born, the feudal fact put Hester into prison, and even let her wear a red “A”(abbreviation for ADULTERY) before her chest. She was suffered form humiliation because of forcing to be pilloried in public with her little girl.
Roger also came there resulted in recognized the humiliated woman was his wife. He had the chance to enter the prison to treat them as he was a doctor, and threaten Herter not to tell anyone the relation between them. He would find out the person who seduced his wife so that he could revenge him.
Hester live in a small cottage out of the country as a sinner with her little girl after out of prison. Although that, her needlework was the best in the country. She tried her best to serve everybody, especially to the poor, even to support the poor’s life with her limited resources. Seven years had been pasted, she made the dirty symbol of red “A” turn into the represent of kind and beautiful because of her noble virtues. She had won people’s respect through her many years’ social practice.
During this time, Roger had found out that Arthur was the person who seduced his wife. After it, he made every methods to approach Arthur, pretended to treat Arthur to torture and hit him brutally in spiritual and physical. Arthur was so poisoned by religious ideology that had no courage to admit and strict the love between him and Hester. Thus, under the formidable pressure of self-critical, penance and many other evil forces, his spiritual and physical turn to death rapidly. Hester had ever tried to meet Arthur in the forest to make the plan of escaping together and came back to Europe so that they could live together. Unexpectedly, their perfect plan was broken by Roger. And Arthur was despaired completely. A day of festival march, Arthur went to the scaffold to admit his guilt and died in the scaffold.
3. Character list
Hester Prynne
A young woman sent to the colonies by her husband, who plans to join her later but is presumed lost at sea. She is a symbol of the acknowledged sinner; one whose transgression has been identified and who makes appropriate, socio-religious atonement.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale
Dimmesdale is the unmarried pastor of Hester's congregation; he is also the father of Hester's daughter, Pearl. He is a symbol of the secret sinner; one who recognizes his transgression but keeps it hidden and secret, even to his own downfall.
Pearl
Pearl is the illegitimate daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. She is the living manifestation of Hester's sin and a symbol of the product of the act of adultery and of an act of passion and love.
Roger Chillingworth
The pseudonym assumed by Hester Prynne's aged scholar-husband. He is a symbol of evil, of the "devil's handyman," of one consumed with revenge and devoid of compassion.
Governor Bellingham
This actual historical figure, Richard Bellingham, was elected governor in 1641, 1654, and 1665. In The Scarlet Letter, he witnesses Hester's punishment and is a symbol of civil authority and, combined with John Wilson, of the Puritan Theocracy.
Mistress Hibbins
Another historical figure, Ann Hibbins, sister of Governor Bellingham, was executed for witchcraft in 1656. In the novel, she has insight into the sins of both Hester and Dimmesdale and is a symbol of super or preternatural knowledge and evil powers.
John Wilson
The historical figure on whom this character is based was an English-born minister who arrived in Boston in 1630. He is a symbol of religious authority and, combined with Governor Bellingham, of the Puritan Theocracy.
4. Character analysis
Hester is the public sinner who demonstrates the effect of punishment on sensitivity and human nature. She is seen as a fallen woman, a culprit who deserves the ignominy of her immoral choice. She struggles with her recognition of the letter's symbolism just as people struggle with their moral choices. The paradox is that the Puritans stigmatize her with the mark of sin and, in so doing, reduce her to a dull, lifeless woman whose characteristic color is gray and whose vitality and femininity are suppressed.
Over the seven years of her punishment, Hester's inner struggle changes from a victim of Puritan branding to a decisive woman in tune with human nature. When she meets Dimmesdale in the forest in Chapter 18, Hawthorne says, "The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread."
In time, even the Puritan community sees the letter as meaning "Able" or "Angel." Her sensitivity with society's victims turns her symbolic meaning from a person whose life was originally twisted and repressed to a strong and sensitive woman with respect for the humanity of others. In her final years, "the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence, too." Since her character is strongly tied to the scarlet letter, Hester represents the public sinner who changes and learns from her own sorrow to understand the humanity of others. Often human beings who suffer great loss and life-changing experiences become survivors with an increased understanding and sympathy for the human losses of others. Hester is such a symbol.
Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is the secret sinner whose public and private faces are opposites. Even as the beadle — an obvious symbol of the righteous Colony of Massachusetts — proclaims that the settlement is a place where "iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine," the colony, along with the Reverend Mr. Wilson, is in awe of Dimmesdale's goodness and sanctity. Inside the good minister, however, is a storm raging between holiness and self-torture. He is unable to reveal his sin.
At worst, Dimmesdale is a symbol of hypocrisy and self-centered intellectualism; he knows what is right but has not the courage to make himself do the public act. When Hester tells him that the ship for Europe leaves in four days, he is delighted with the timing. He will be able to give his Election Sermon and "fulfill his public duties" before escaping. At best, his public piety is a disdainful act when he worries that his congregation will see his features in Pearl's face.
Dimmesdale's inner struggle is intense, and he struggles to do the right thing. He realizes the scaffold is the place to confess and also his shelter from his tormenter, Chillingworth. Yet, the very thing that makes Dimmesdale a symbol of the secret sinner is also what redeems him. Sin and its acknowledgment humanize Dimmesdale. When he leaves the forest and realizes the extent of the devil's grip on his soul, he passionately writes his sermon and makes his decision to confess. As a symbol, he represents the secret sinner who fights the good fight in his soul and eventually wins.
Pearl is the strongest of these allegorical images because she is nearly all symbol, little reality. Dimmesdale sees Pearl as the "freedom of a broken law"; Hester sees her as "the living hieroglyphic" of their sin; and the community sees her as the result of the devil's work. She is the scarlet letter in the flesh, a reminder of Hester's sin. As Hester tells the pious community leaders in Chapter 8, ". . . she is my happiness! — she is my torture . . . See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin?"
Pearl is also the imagination of the artist, an idea so powerful that the Puritans could not even conceive of it, let alone understand it, except in terms of transgression. She is natural law unleashed, the freedom of the unrestrained wilderness, the result of repressed passion. When Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest, Pearl is reluctant to come across the brook to see them because they represent the Puritan society in which she has no happy role. Here in the forest, she is free and in harmony with nature. Her image in the brook is a common symbol of Hawthorne's. He often uses a mirror to symbolize the imagination of the artist; Pearl is a product of that imagination. When Dimmesdale confesses his sin in the light of the sun, Pearl is free to become a human being. All along, Hester felt there was this redeemable nature in her daughter, and here she sees her faith rewarded. Pearl can now feel human grief and sorrow, as Hester can, and she becomes a sin redeemed.
Chillingworth is consistently a symbol of cold reason and intellect unencumbered by human compassion. While Dimmesdale has intellect but lacks will, Chillingworth has both. He is fiendish, evil, and intent on revenge. In his first appearance in the novel, he is compared to a snake, an obvious allusion to the Garden of Eden. Chillingworth becomes the essence of evil when he sees the scarlet letter on Dimmesdale's breast in Chapter 10, where there is "no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom."
Eventually, his evil is so pervasive that Chillingworth awakens the distrust of the Puritan community and the recognition of Pearl. As time goes by and Dimmesdale becomes more frail under the constant torture of Chillingworth, the community worries that their minister is losing a battle with the devil himself. Even Pearl recognizes that Chillingworth is a creature of the Black Man and warns her mother to stay away from him. Chillingworth loses his reason to live when Dimmesdale eludes him at the scaffold in the final scenes of the novel. "All his strength and energy — all his vital and intellectual force — seemed at once to desert him; insomuch that he positively withered up, shrivelled away, and almost vanished from mortal sight." As a symbol, Chillingworth's job is done.
5. Comment:
The preface sets the atmosphere of the story and connects the present with the past. Hawthorne's description of the Salem port of the 1800s is directly related to the past history of the area. The Puritans who first settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s founded a colony that concentrated on God's teachings and their mission to live by His word. But this philosophy was eventually swallowed up by the commercialism and financial interests of the 1700s.
The clashing of the past and present is further explored in the character of the old General. The old General's heroic qualities include a distinguished name, perseverance, integrity, compassion, and moral inner strength. He is "the soul and spirit of New England hardihood." Now put out to pasture, he sometimes presides over the Custom House run by corrupt public servants, who skip work to sleep, allow or overlook smuggling, and are supervised by an inspector with "no power of thought, nor depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities," who is honest enough but without a spiritual compass.
A further connection to the past is his discussion of his ancestors. Hawthorne has ambivalent feelings about their role in his life. In his autobiographical sketch, Hawthorne describes his ancestors as "dim and dusky," "grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steel crowned," "bitter persecutors" whose "better deeds" will be diminished by their bad ones. There can be little doubt of Hawthorne's disdain for the stern morality and rigidity of the Puritans, and he imagines his predecessors' disdainful view of him: unsuccessful in their eyes, worthless and disgraceful. "A writer of story books!" But even as he disagrees with his ancestor's viewpoint, he also feels an instinctual connection to them and, more importantly, a "sense of place" in Salem. Their blood remains in his veins, but their intolerance and lack of humanity becomes the subject of his novel.
This ambivalence in his thoughts about his ancestors and his hometown is paralleled by his struggle with the need to exercise his artistic talent and the reality of supporting a family. Hawthorne wrote to his sister Elizabeth in 1820, "No man can be a Poet and a Bookkeeper at the same time." Hawthorne's references to Emerson, Thoreau, Channing, and other romantic authors describe an intellectual life he longs to regain. His job at the Custom House stifles his creativity and imagination. The scarlet letter touches his soul (he actually feels heat radiate from it), and while "the reader may smile," Hawthorne feels a tugging that haunts him like his ancestors.
In this preface, Hawthorne also shares his definition of the romance novel as he attempts to imagine Hester Prynne's story beyond Pue's manuscript account. A careful reading of this section explains the author's use of light (chiaroscuro) and setting as romance techniques in developing his themes. Hawthorne explains that, in a certain light and time and place, objects ". . . seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect." He asserts that, at the right time with the right scene before him, the romance writer can "dream strange things and make them look like truth."
Finally, the preface serves as means of authenticating the novel by explaining that Hawthorne had discovered in the Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets that contained the historical manuscript on which the novel is based. However, we know of no serious, scholarly work that suggests Hawthorne was ever actually in possession of the letter or the manuscript. This technique, typical of the narrative conventions of his time, serves as a way of giving his story an air of historic truth. Furthermore, Hawthorne, in his story, "Endicott and the Red Cross," published nine years before he took his Custom House position, described the incident of a woman who, like Hester Prynne, was forced to wear a letter A on her breast.
6. Conclusion:
Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most prolific symbolists in American literature, and a study of his symbols is necessary to understanding his novels. Generally speaking, a symbol is something used to stand for something else. In literature, a symbol is most often a concrete object used to represent an idea more abstract and broader in scope and meaning — often a moral, religious, or philosophical concept or value. Symbols can range from the most obvious substitution of one thing for another, to creations as massive, complex, and perplexing as Melville's white whale in Moby Dick.
An allegory in literature is a story where characters, objects, and events have a hidden meaning and are used to present some universal lesson. Hawthorne has a perfect atmosphere for the symbols in The Scarlet Letter because the Puritans saw the world through allegory. For them, simple patterns, like the meteor streaking through the sky, became religious or moral interpretations for human events. Objects, such as the scaffold, were ritualistic symbols for such concepts as sin and penitence.
Whereas the Puritans translated such rituals into moral and repressive exercises, Hawthorne turns their interpretations around in The Scarlet Letter. The Puritan community sees Hester as a fallen woman, Dimmesdale as a saint, and would have seen the disguised Chillingworth as a victim — a husband betrayed. Instead, Hawthorne ultimately presents Hester as a woman who represents a sensitive human being with a heart and emotions; Dimmesdale as a minister who is not very saint-like in private but, instead, morally weak and unable to confess his hidden sin; and Chillingworth as a husband who is the worst possible offender of humanity and single-mindedly pursuing an evil goal.
Hawthorne's embodiment of these characters is denied by the Puritan mentality: At the end of the novel, even watching and hearing Dimmesdale's confession, many members of the Puritan community still deny what they saw. Thus, using his characters as symbols, Hawthorne discloses the grim underside of Puritanism that lurks beneath the public piety.
Some of Hawthorne's symbols change their meaning, depending on the context, and some are static. Examples of static symbols are the Reverend Mr. Wilson, who represents the Church, or Governor Bellingham, who represents the State. But many of Hawthorne's symbols change — particularly his characters — depending on their treatment by the community and their reactions to their sins. His characters, the scarlet A, light and darkness, color imagery, and the settings of forest and village serve symbolic purposes.
Besides the characters, the most obvious symbol is the scarlet letter itself, which has various meanings depending on its context. It is a sign of adultery, penance, and penitence. It brings about Hester's suffering and loneliness and also provides her rejuvenation. In the book, it first appears as an actual material object in The Custom House preface. Then it becomes an elaborately gold-embroidered A over Hester's heart and is magnified in the armor breast-plate at Governor Bellingham's mansion. Here Hester is hidden by the gigantic, magnified symbol just as her life and feelings are hidden behind the sign of her sin.
Still later, the letter is an immense red A in the sky, a green A of eel-grass arranged by Pearl, the A on Hester's dress decorated by Pearl with prickly burrs, an A on Dimmesdale's chest seen by some spectators at the Election Day procession, and, finally, represented by the epitaph "On a field, sable, the letter A, gules" (gules being the heraldic term for "red") on the tombstone Hester and Dimmesdale share.
In all these examples, the meaning of the symbol depends on the context and sometimes the interpreter. For example, in the second scaffold scene, the community sees the scarlet A in the sky as a sign that the dying Governor Winthrop has become an angel; Dimmesdale, however, sees it as a sign of his own secret sin. The community initially sees the letter on Hester's bosom as a mark of just punishment and a symbol to deter others from sin. Hester is a Fallen Woman with a symbol of her guilt. Later, when she becomes a frequent visitor in homes of pain and sorrow, the A is seen to represent "Able" or "Angel." It has rejuvenated Hester and changed her meaning in the eyes of the community.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Greatness and Vulgarness
Why did you choose this particular book?
When I first come across the title of the book The Great Gatsby, I wondered why the man Gatsby is great and how. The word “great” is always on our lips: we say a man is great, a party is great, a situation is great. It seems that evrything can be great, it is somewhat like an interjection exhaled by us whenever we feel “great”. However, the original meaning of this word is meant to be awesome，majestic, magnificent and momentous. So it really kept me intrigued that why the author use so simple and so complicate a word “great” to discribe the hero in the title.
Title
Abstract：It is a kind of book review of The Great Gatsby , I firstly give a brief introduction to the auther F. Scott Fitzgerald, then concisely represent the plot and the analysis of the main characters in this novel. At last I talk about the greatness and vulgarness represented in this novel and make a study of the reason why Gatsby failed to realize his dream.
Key word: F. Scott Fitzgerald, plot, character analysis, greatness, vulgarness, Gatsby.
Title
1. Brief Introduction of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is born in September 24, 1896 Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper middle class Irish Catholic family and died of heart attack on December 21, 1940. though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. when he was at the college, he always have academic problems and never graduated. But in 1917, he was enlisted in the army as World War I neared its end.
Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with Zelda Sayre. He wanted to marry her but she hesitated for he is not so rich. Until his work This Side of Paradise was published in 1920 which owned Fitzgerald great fame in literature, and enough money that Zelda finally agreed to marry him.
Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with Zelda Sayre. He wanted to marry her but she hesitated for he is not so rich. Until his work This Side of Paradise was published in 1920 which owned Fitzgerald great fame in literature, and enough money that Zelda finally agreed to marry him.
After marriage, they lead a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence.
He amasses a great deal of wealth at throwing parties buy luxuries. As the giddiness of the Roaring Twenties dissolved into the bleakness of the Great Depression, however, Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald battled alcoholism, which hampered his writing. He published Tender Is the Night in 1934, and sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post to support his lavish lifestyle. In 1937, he left for Hollywood to write screenplays, and in 1940, while working on his novel The Love of the Last Tycoon, died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.
He is a famous American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself and is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
2. Plot
It is a sad story about the man Gatsby which is narrated in a third person’s view by Nick Carraway. Nick is a young bachelor from a patrician Midwestern family and Daisy is the second cousin of Nick. He rented a small bungalow between two mansions in West Egg, a wealthy community on Long Island Sound. Across the bay was East Egg, inhabited by the "old aristocracy," including Tom and Daisy Buchanan. One day he visited his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom, in their house he also met Jordan Baker, a well-known female golfer. It is she that firstly mentioned Gatsby and told Nick that Tom has a mistress in New York City. This mistress come to the stage in Nick and Tom’s later trip to New York. On the way, they stop at a shabby garage owned by George Wilson where Nick is introduced to the owner's wife, Myrtle. She is a fat woman and is the evry mistress of Tom.
Jay Gatsby is Nick’s next-door neighbor, who owns that splendid maison and throws big parties almost every night. The parties are really big and wild, a lot of people who even don’t know Gatsby appear in the parties and there are different kinds of rumors pervaded in the crowd. Nick is also curious ablout him. Attending himself at the party after an invitation one weekend, he acquaints Gatsby a little dramatically.
At first, Nick feels a bit sick about Gatsby, but later, he changes his mind through the things happens following.
The main line of the story firstly come to the scene at the lunch in New York City with Meyer Wolfsheim. When Nick sees Tom and tries to introduce Gatsby he finds that Gatsby has disappeared. His strange look and sudden disappearance buries a hint to the following story.
And later the story or Gatsby’s secret gradually come to the surface. Jordan Baker reveals to Nick that Gatsby had fallen in love with Daisy long ago as an Army Lieutenant stationed near Daisy's hometown, Louisville. After the war, Gatsby came here and bought his mansion near Daisy and Tom, where he hosts parties hoping she will visit. Jordan says Gatsby would like Nick to arrange a meeting with Daisy. Nick agrees and invites Daisy and Gatsby to his house. Thus they renew their relationship
Daisy invites Gatsby and Nick to her mansion, and Tom discovers that relationship between Daisy and Gatsby. When they are leaving, Tom insists changing the cars with Gatsby, as he stops by Wilson's garage for gas he shows off Gatsby's car. And at the hotel Tom put their affair to the air. Gatsby demands Daisy to say that she loves him and never loves Tom; while Daisy hesitated and she says she loves both of them. Tom scornfully tells Gatsby that he will never win. Gatsby retorts that the reason Daisy married Tom was because he (Gatsby) was too poor to marry Daisy. Tom visibly loses composure and reveals that Gatsby is a bootlegger. Gatsby tries to defend himself to Daisy. Tom knows Daisy's materialistic nature and by taking away Gatsby's air of financial security, Daisy is now beyond his reach. With the situation between Tom and Gatsby tense, Daisy runs out of the hotel with Gatsby following her to Gatsby's car, where she insists on driving home as it will calm her nerves. Tom believing he has beaten Gatsby, leaves with Nick and Jordan.
George Wilson, suspicious that his wife is having an affair argues with her. Myrtle runs outside as Gatsby's car coming near and she mistaken Gatsby as Tom, and finally strucked by the car and died. Daisy and Gatsby speed away. Later Tom, Jordan and Nick notice a commotion by Wilson's garage on their way to East Egg and stop. While George mourns, moaning over his wife's body, a bystander tells of having seen a yellow car strike Myrtle. As George takes in this information, Tom tells George the car wasn't his but George doesn't seem to listen and Tom, Jordan and Nick leave.
Later Nick gets the truth of the accident from Gatsby that it is Daisy who was driving when the car struck Myrtle. Next morning Nick finds Gatsby depressed, unsure wether Daisy still loves him and awaits a call from her. Regarding himself as Gatsby’s closest friend, Nick suggests Gastby to leave for some days. But it is obvious that Gatsby will never leave the place where Daisy is there.
On another hand, Wilson finally finds Gatsby’s home. He kills him and then commits suicide.
In Gatsby’s funeral, few people would like to come though Nick has made great efforts. In the end, only Nick, Gatsby's father and the "owl-eyed" man who admired the books in Gatsby's library, appear in Gatsby’s funeral.
Later Nick accidentally come across with Tom, who admits that he revealed to George Wilson that Gastby is the owner of the car, leading the deranged man finally finds Gatsby and kills him.
Digusted with Tom, Daisy and Jordan, Nick returns permenently to the Mid weast, reflecting on Gatsby’s dreams and the sad and cyclical nature of the past.
3. Character Analysis
Nick Carraway: Nick Carraway is a young bachelor from a patrician Midwestern family After World War I, he returns to the Midwest before settling in New York City to "learn the bond business." As the neighbour of Gatsby, he naturally acquaintes Gatsby and become a close friend of him. He is somewhat a hinge in the relationship of all the characters in the novel as well as the narrator. It is him who promoted the development of the story. He witnesses the affair of Tom and his mistress Myrtle, arranges the meeting of Daisy and Gatsby, partakes their arguments and finally settles Gatsby’s funeral. He is a part of the story as well as a outlooker of the story of Gatsby. From the novel we can see that he is absolutely a moral man. Firstly, he is a common young man who are tolerant, reserve and good-tempered, but gives me an impression of nonchalance. He cares little, when he sees the mistress of Tom, he shows no anger or criticize. But later, as with the develpoment of his relationship with Gastby, I see his change, his gradually being a full character who has a clearcut of what is wright and what is wrong. Through Gatsby’s tragedy, he learns the hypocracy, indifference, decadence, shelfishness of the so-called upper class. Above all, he is a man of great moral. He disgust Tom and Daisy for their selfishness and cowardness, he detest those so-called friends of Gatsby who even dare not attend his funeral. Beliving himself the close friend of Gatsby, he suggests him to leave after the accident, arrange the funeral himself after Gatsby’s death. Without doubt, he is a loyal friend. And through the development of the story, he himself gets matured in his moral sense and deepens his congnition of the world.
Jay Gatsby: Hero of the novel, Gatsby is firstly a poor young man from village and has a hard time in his youth. And we can see that he is abosolutely a intelligent and disciplined man of the disposition of a romantic poet. At the end of the novel, we see a schedule and general resolvesof Gatsby. Busy engaged in self-improving, he really would be a great man, if he left his dream of Daisy behind and looked forward. As his father says he would help build the country. Come back to the point, as a poor young guy, he serendipitously meets the Captain and later owns a position in the army, while after the captain’s death, he would lose his position whenver possible, while then he fall in love with Daisy, a decent beauty in his mind. While they don’t get married for he is so poor a guy then. He asks her to wait for him and then go to the war. Not resolute enough, Daisy gives up to the reality and marry Tom. Gatsby come back withgreat fortune but only to find his beloved one has alreay been other’s wife. By all manners of means, he meets Daisy again, but died as a price. His life is a tragedy as all his life he lives in his lonely and illusory dream. He unscrupulously gains his wealth trying to win back Daisy’s heart with his material wealth. Inherently he is romantic, when he is poor, his courtship to Daisy is romantic but that does not win him her final chose, later, ironically, he uses the vulgar means( his great wealth and lavish parties) to win Daisy’s love which he thinks is romantic. However, in front of that accident, Daisy gives him up again and chose to run away with Tom to protect herself. and our poor Gatsby is killed innocently. I don’t know what he thinks the moment of his death. But I know at that moment, his dreamsall vanish into the air, his dream of love, his dream of wealth, all those dissolve into ashes and finally evaporates in that money-eyed and hypocritic world. “He didn’t know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.”
Daisy Buchanan: As Gatsby’s love, Nick’s cousin, and Tom’s wife, she however is a shallow flabby and coward woman though attractive and beautiful. But in my mind, she was not so shallow and vulgar as she is later in the novel. Five years ago, with her attractive figure and charming voice, she wins Gastby’s love, I believe there must be also something beautiful in her inward world. And she really does love Gatsby that time, but she falls into the main stream of the hypocitical world and goes after for material wealth. She finally gives up to the reality and choses to marry Tom, a wealthy but flabby man. she has no reason to reject the courtship in the value of that world. In such a decadent world, she is not resolute enough to stick to her innocent love, she is designed to degenerate, leaving only a beautiful but vacuous body. Five years later, with her illusory image still in Gatsby’s mind, Daisy herself has already become a shallow and selfish woman worships money and status. Under Gatsby’s persue with great fortune, she decides to leave her husband and go away with him, however, when Tom reveals that Gatsby is a bootlegger, she feels Gastby’s wealth and status is not secure, she again sways, what’s more, after the accident, she relentlessly abandon Gastby and run away with Tom and indirectly killed Gastby. But she is even indifferent to his death and not attend his funeral. She is completely degraded, as Gastby once said to Nick: her voice is full of money.
Tom Buchanan: Tom is the husband of Daisy. He is a typcal representative of the upper class of that time: wealthy, arrogant, selfish, flabby and hypocritical. He thinks he loves Daisy, but he has an affair with Myrtle, a fat and frippery woman who is also the wife of George B. Wilson. He wasonce a famous football player but now outdated. When he finds Gastby loves Daisy, his words become acrimonious and his behaviour become stupid. This is not blameful but compared with Gatsby, his flabby origin comes to the scene and then his wealth and high status become a irony for him. After he finds that Gatsby loves Daisy, he insidiously makes an investigtion to Gatsby, and tries to win back Daisy by disclosing his dark business. Later it is he insists swiching the car with Gatsby, which later contributes Myrtle’s mistaking Gatsby with him and finally leads to that accident. It can be said that it is he that directly caused the accident and the tragedy. While in front of deranged George Wilson, he conceals the truth. His selfishness,and cowardness in fully embodied in the development of the story.
Jordan Baker: She is the friend of Daisy, and have an intrest of Nick. In the novel, she also plays a role who reveals the story in anoter person’s view. While she lies a lot and is also every selfish.
George B. Wilson: He is a mechanic and owner of a garage and also the husband of Myrtle. From the story we can see that he is ship before his wife who never say a word aloud to her. But tragically he could not win his wife’s heart. When he finally gets suspicous of his wife and desides to beat her, his wife died in the accident. To unleash his sorrowness to his wife or his anger towards his poor experience, he kills Gastby and commits suicide.
Myrtle Wilson: George Wilson's unstable wife and Tom Buchanan's mistress.she is also a woman worships Tom’s wealth and status.
Klipspringer: a sponger who virtually lives at Gatsby's mansion.
Henry C. Gatz: Gatsby's somewhat estranged father.
4. comment:
Greatness and Vulgarness
“He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.”
In the end of this novel, we can see these paragraph narrated by Nick, making us wrenching deep in the heart for Gatsby’s innocent death and for the ruin of his dream. The maximal tragedy is to smash the best things before one’s eyes. Through all the novel, Gatsby’s qualities win the Nick’s friendship and respect as well as our readers’. I’m deeply moved by his selfless sacrifice for Daisy and his obsession with his dream, his green light across the river.
The Great Gatsby, the line to divide great and vulgar is blurred in Gatsby. He has many great qualities which win our hearts but also intrigued in the darkside of the society, his gaining of wealth, his business, all these can not and should not be negleacted.
He is great for his consistence in love. Never does he once abandons his deep love for Daisy. We can learn from the novel that he throws splendid parties with great music and dizzy lights and champagne. Hundreds of people both invited and uninvited come to the party making lots of whisperings. While in such a flashy and noisy background, Gatsby himself “never drinks and stand alone on the marble steps with his tanned skin drawn attractively light on his face anf his short hair looked as though it were trimmed everyday”. The stricking comparison between the decadence and friuppery of the party and the neatness and dignity of Gatsby making his loneliness more impressing. The various people and splendid parties and music and the bouquet of champagne in his own house never reach to his soul. It seems that he is isolated like a lonely islet surrounded by the roaring sea. However, all these loneliness are all for one girl: Daisy, his dream. Never has he once swings and left the dream behind even to his death though he himself realizes that her voice is full of money. And all his strange behavour can be explained once we relate them to Daisy. He strechs his arms to the darkness facing the river. Since, Daisy lives across the river. He is hugging his Daisy instead of the darkness in his own mind. All his decorations in his house are designed to win Daisy’s favour, when Daisy firstly visits his house, we see how neverous he is. He dismisses his servents to avoid their talking of Daisy which will harm her fame. He would rather to take the accusation after the accident, what he cares is only that whether she is safe and fine. He refuse to leave the house for he is waiting for Daisy’s acception to leave with him, and finally pays his life as the price. All his short life is streched only for his Daisy.
He is great in his manners and his discipline. “He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with quality of eternal assurance in it...it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.” “ He looks from one group to another with approving eyes.” In the novel it is easy for us to find these kinds of discription of his manner. And at the end of the novel we see a schedule and general resolvesof Gatsby. All these assure us that he is a gentle man. This quality is also represented in the comparison with Tom and with Daisy. They are careless people and always go away after making a mass and this time they indirectly killed Gatsby.
However, Gatsby’s greatness is set off by the vulgarness of other characters and environment in the novel. In that dark world, the cloud of hypocricy and selfishness and decadence embraces that time, and Gatsby’s appearance likes a dim light, and this is the few light’s extinguishing piles up the desparate atmosphere. In the novel, Daisy, the goddess in Gatsby’s mind, however is such shallow, selfish and money-worshipping woman. Inside her beautiful and charming appearance is her vulgar inner soul. The author arranged this stricking gulf between Gatsby’s dream and the reality, highlighting the sorrowness in readers’ heart. And Tom’s vulgarness also serves as a contrast image to highlight Gatsby’s greatness. Though he is the so-called upper class, we can see his decadent inner qualities: arrogant, selfish, flabby and hypocritical. And Klipspringer, a sponger who virtually lives at Gatsby's mansion, calls back after Gatsby’s death only for his shoes for a picnic. At last, only three person arttend Gatsby’s funeral. Compared with those thronged and noisy parties, his funeral is obviously an irony of the people and of the time.
However, Gatsby is also vulgar. In those five years, how he gained his wealth and what is his business that own him so large a fortune? Though it is not detailed in the novel, but we still can get a hint from the discriptions of others, from Tom, Meyer Wolfsheim and still some others. It is obvious that his business is not legitimate. And that later become Tom’s stake to win Daisy. He discloses he is a bootlegger and makes Daisy sways. To own the credentials to win Daisy’s love, he devotes himself in gaining posessions insidiously. We readers aways neglect this point for his deep love of Daisy and automatically forgive him.
In the time of vugarness, Gatsby seems doomed to fail. And we can say that in some extent, it is he himself who caused his faliure. Busy engaged in self-improving, he really would be a great man, if he left his dream of Daisy behind and looked forward. As his father says he would help build the country. His stubbornness and unwilling to come to the reality lead him to his final death. He does have a great inner soul, however, misguied by the time and people, he mistakenly believes that money and status will win him his dream and finally falls into vulgarness.
Conclusion: Gatsby is great, however, he lives in a time of vulgarness and among the vulgar people, he is doomed to fail. His death is a condenm of the world of that time and a condemn of the so-called upper class. A lot of themes like the decadence of the upper class and darkside of people are reflected in this book, and the way of plotting the story and the beautiful languange, to dig them out, I should read morecarefully.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)