Marxism and Literature * Edmund Wilson

1938: "Marxism and Literature" by Edmund Wilson

The Author:
Edmund Wilson
Born in New Jersey in 1895, Wilson attended Princeton University, where he established a lasting friendship with F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby (1925) After his graduation in 1916, Wilson served in a hospital unit and later in the intelligence corps in World War I. On his return to the States, he began a lifelong career as an editor (for Vanity Fair and The New Republic), book reviewer (for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books), novelist, poet, playwright, and independent scholar. Wilson died in 1972.

The “foremost American literary journalist of the twentieth century,” Wilson “turned to biography, psychology, economics, politics, and history at roughly the same moment when John Crowe Ransom, Cleanth Brooks, and the other New Critics were calling for an ‘intrinsic’ literary criticism based on close reading.” (Leitch et al, 1241)

The Text:
Marxism and Literature
Published in 1938, two years before he published To the Finland Station, his study of the origins of socialism, “Marxism and Literature” celebrates Marxism’s ability to “throw a great deal of light on the origins and social significance of works of art,” but attacks the belief then advocated by “that good literature can be made from ideological formulas.” (1248, 1242)

Excerpts:
“… Marxism by itself can tell us nothing whatever about the goodness or badness of a work of art. A man may be an excellent Marxist, but if he lacks imagination and taste he will be unable to make the choice between a good and an inferior book both of which are ideologically unacceptable.” (1248)

“… it is usually true in works of the highest order that the purport is not a simple message, but a complex vision of things, which itself is not explicit but implicit; and the reader who does not grasp them artistically, but is merely looking for simple social morals, is certain to be hopelessly confused. Especially will he be confused if the author does draw an explicit moral which is the opposite of or has nothing to do with his real purport.” (1248-1249)

“The Leftist critic with no literary competence is always trying measure works of literature by tests which have no validity in that field. And one of his favorite occupations is giving specific directions and working out diagrams for the construction of ideal Marxist books. Such formulas are of course perfectly futile. The rules observed in any given school of art become apparent not before, but after, the actual works of art have been produced.” (1250)

“The truth is that there is short-range and long-range literature. Long-range literature attempts to sum up wide areas and long periods of human experience, or to extract from them general laws; short-range literature preaches and pamphleteers with the view to an immediate effect. A good deal of the recent confusion of our writers in the Leftist camp has been due to their not understanding, or being unable to make up their minds, whether they are aiming at long-range or short-range writing.” (1252)

Marxism and literature

Marxism and Literature: Edmund Wilson

'He used to say that the poets were originals, who must be allowed to go their own way, and that one shouldn't apply to them the same standards as to ordinary people,' as Marx's daughter wrote of her father, a quotation which appears in 'Marxism and Literature,' an essay in The Triple Thinkers. While he wrote extensively on the relationship between political ideologies such as Marxism and Literature, he opposed any pre-formulated critical frameworks, or what he called "a process of lopping and distortion to make [the work] fit the Procrustes bed of a thesis."

Edmund Wilson’s Marxism and Literature is the ninth essay in his collection entitled The triple Thinkers comprising twelve essays in literary subjects. In this essay, the author studies the place of art and literature in the system if Didactical Materialism of Marx. The author explores the hitherto prevalent myth that art is a weapon of social, political and economic propaganda, and that it can be produced to order. As Wilson says in The New Republic: “A work of art is not technique, or set of ideas, or even a combination of both. But I am strongly disposed to believe that out literature would benefit by a genuine literary criticism which should deal expertly with art and ideas.”

He studies the influence of Marxism on literature and traces in this essay the history of Marxist literary theory as it was carried out by Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and a number of other critics. Wilson begins the essay with the observation of Marx and his devout follower and collaborator, Engels, on the relationship of art and literature with society. He tells us that Marx was well-versed in literary theories and had drunk deep at the fount of literature. He admired Aeschylus for his grandeur, and liked the Greek Mythological figures of Zeus and Prometheus for their defiance. Marx valued the contribution of Goethe whom Engels gave the status of a “colossal and universal genius.’” Though Marx freely quoted from the plays of Shakespeare, yet he never attempted to draw from them social or moral lesions. Marx hold the opinion that the “superstructure” of higher activities such as politics, law, religion,  philosophy; literature and art grows out of the methods of production, which prevail in a society at a particular time.

Marx and Angels do not have a tendency to specialize art as a weapon of change. They believed in the renaissance ideal of complete man, of his many sidedness, of the perfection which is achieved by the participation in varied activities. But Lenin who occupied a central role in the Russian Revolution of 1917, believed in such specialization. He was himself specified as an organizer and fighter. The essayist says that Lenin has tremendous administration for Tolstoy.

Trotsky, who was himself a writer, had to grapple with the problems which Marx and Marxists began to face the questions such as the “carry over value” of literature. Trotsky asserted that such terms as “proletarian culture” are “dangerous because they compress erroneously compress the culture of the future into the narrow limits of the present day.” He did not believe in the proletarian culture which would displease the bourgeois and communism. Trotsky said, had as yet communist culture, it had only a political culture. He regarded communism only a transitional phase which would ultimately lead to a universal culture. Trotsky’s view point is, thus, broad and liberal. He looked at proletarian dictatorship from the stand point of view.

We see that when Lenin died and Trotsky was exiled, and a number of voices speaking for liberalism in matters of art and culture were also silenced. Art degenerated into a mere instrument of state policy, a weapon of communist propaganda. Artistic and literary freedom died with the rise of Stalin. With the death of Gorky, the last group of liberalism in literature was gone. Wilson states that now Literature degenerated into mere journalism into mere tools of propaganda to be used nu the government for its own socio-economic purposes.

If Marxism means the use of the language of common man for the purpose of high literature, it has been seen in USA much before the communist revolution. The early American writers believed in the dignity of ordinary humanity and in the demoralization of literature. In this connection the essayist says “the country which has produced Leaves and Grass and Hucklebury Finn has certainly nothing to learn from Russia.” Wilson gives the example of American literature, produced recently, which deals with industrial and rural life from the point of view of the factory hand or poor farmer living in struggling conditions.

Towards the conclusion, the author says that the democratic values—sympathy for the poor—is not the monopolies of Marxist alone. This is a worldwide phenomenon in today’s world which is the age of common man but despite all this, Marxism still remains a force. It is not a philosophical or theoretical but also a potent force for social change. What impact Marxist vision will have on society and that in the time to come is anybody’s guess but it is an admitted fact that Marxism is a creative force.

Marxism and Literature : Edmund wilson

                                                     MARXISM AND LITERATURE

INTODUCTION

       Edmund Wilson is an American critic who has made extensive and brilliant use of Freudian and Marxist concepts in literary analysis. The essay Marxism and Literature is taken from The Triple Thinkers, which reflects his disillusionment with Marxist literature.

MARXISM AND LITERATURE

       Edmund Wilson begins the essay by examining the role assigned to art and literature in Marxism. According to him the structural organizations of society evolves from the methods of production in the society and from these structural forms evolve higher activities such as politics, law, religion, philosophy, literature and art. These higher activities are made possible by social arrangement and their nature may vary from society to society. The exponents of these higher activities constitute groups with their own standards and values which divide the society into different classes. During the periods of intense artistic activity art influences economic and social organization out of which it grows. Thus the relation between art and society is reciprocal.

      Then Edmund Wilson refers to some of the responses of Marx and Engels to literature. According to him they never believed that art and literature are conditioned and determined by social and economic standards. They considered art as an independent activity. Engels raised his voice against the dangers of literature written with a specific political inclination. Both Marx and Engels were susceptive to the emotional appeal of art and literature. They loved great writers like Shakespeare and Goethe.

      Marx and Engels never considered art as a weapon of social change. They believed in the Renaissance ideal of the complete man, the different aspects of man which accomplishes perfection through participation in varied activities. But Lenin was a Marxist who believed that art is a suitable weapon for social change.
     
       With the passing of time, the Marxists wanted to face many questions about the ''carry-over value'' of literature: whether the literature which was created during the old bourgeois society could be of any use in proletarian set up, or whether the new socio- economic organization would need a new art and literature of its own. Trotsky, who was a literary man, had to face many problems. He had to combat with problems which had not bothered Marx and Engels.

       Young proletarians wanted to monopolize art and literature and to use them to promote the socio-economic set-up. But Lenin opposed it very strongly and told that art could be produced only by natural evolution. Trotsky did not encourage the idea of proletarian culture and proletarian literature. He said that both proletarian culture and proletarian literature would be dangerous things because they would incorrectly compress the culture of future into the narrow limits of the present day.
When Stalin came to power the liberalism was choked out of existence and he destroyed the followers of liberalism. Art and literature were degenerated into mere weapons of communist propaganda. Trotsky was exiled and Lenin died during this period.

       In Marxist Russia cultural values were destroyed rapidly. Marxism can tell us nothing about the goodness or badness of art and literature. A Marxist cannot judge a work of art purely on the basis of its artistic value. Marxists believe that a work of art written on the Marxist perspective is considered a good work and all other works are bad. Its aesthetic appeal is subordinated to its pragmatic political value. Marxism can throw valuable light on the social origins and social significance of a work of art or literature. But the new Marxist followers did not understand literature from this perspective. So their attempt for the interpretation of works of art is wrong. There are various reasons for this. In great works of art is much more implied than what is explicitly stated. A work of art is not a simple expression of a social or moral message; it is a complex vision of life and this complexity has to be appreciated before one can arrive at its real meaning. The Marxists who fail to understand this complexity can not interpret the real meaning of the text. The real intention of a great writer may be different from the surface meaning of the work. Those who fail to realize this truth go wrong and are guilty of misinterpretation and misreading.

       Marxist critics without any knowledge in literature try to lay down rules and formulas according to which works of literature should be written. Their actual aim is to transform literature into an effective tool for protecting communist ideologies. They forget the fact that great works of art were written not on the basis of any order. Great works were first produced and the rules and principles were formulated later. Granville Hicks is a famous Marxist thinker who formulated some rules for an ideal Marxist work. According to Hicks, the primary function of such works must be to lead the proletarian reader to recognize his role in the class struggle; the author must be able to make the reader feel that he is participating in the struggle. Marxist critics try to make literature as an effective tool in the class struggle. A great writer will never create any work on the basis of certain ideologies, it may unconsciously happen.

       Marxist thinkers believe that revolutionary and pre-Revolutionary periods are the most suitable time for the literary work. Edmund Wilson opposes this view; he says that it is wrong because literature and art are peace time activities. So the periods of sudden and violent changes never help the writer for his literary creation.

       Edmund Wilson discusses whether proletarian literature grows along with social revolution. According to him, it is only an imagination because eighty percent of the people are illiterate and the writer has no means to communicate with them. Great classical literary works are not created as examples of bourgeois decay but as medium of great educational value. Marxist thinkers, with the help of Trotsky try to find Marxist elements in the great classical works of other countries. Wilson says that it is wrong because the country which has produced the Leaves of Grass and Huckleberry Finn has no influence of Marxism they were created during their pioneering periods. So the works created in different countries have no elements of Marxism. These Marxist elements are attributed to it by Marxist thinkers for the purpose of developing their ideas or ideology.

       Marxist thinkers argue that writers should use common language for the creation of literary work. According to Wilson, the democratization of literature was a process which started much earlier in the U.S than the period of the communist revolution. In other words, democratic values are not the monopolies of Marxism; they are a world-wide phenomenon in this age of the common man.
After telling everything about the Marxist literature, Edmund Wilson says that Marxism still remains as a great force in this world. It is not merely a philosophical and political theory, it is a great force of social change.

UENL 207 Part II English

UNIT - I

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Glossary

Antique - something really old, ancient         Shattered visage – broken face of the statue

Frown – bringing one’s eyebrows together to express displeasure

Wrinkled lip – movement of the lip expressing anger

Cold command – strict command                      Sculptor – a person who makes the statue

Passions – strong feelings

Ye mighty and despair  - let all the mighty people look at my work and feel unimportant

Trunk less – without the upper body                 Visage – face

Sneer – facial expression of scorn or hostility in which the upper lip may be raised

Read – interpreted          Stamped – sculpted        Mocked – tease or laugh at in scornful

Colossal wreck – huge ruin Beside - else

Summary

v  Ozymandias is a fourteen line sonnet written in 1817 by a British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Here we have a speaker learning from a traveler about a giant, ruined statue that lay broken and eroded in the desert. The title of the poem informs the reader that the subject is the 13th-century B.C. Egyptian King Ramses II, whom the Greeks called “Ozymandias.” The traveler describes the great work of the sculptor, who was able to capture the king’s “passions” and give meaningful expression to the stone, an otherwise “lifeless thing.” The “mocking hand” in line 8 is that of the sculptor, who had the artistic ability to “mock” (that is, both imitate and deride) the passions of the king. The “heart” is first of all the king’s, which “fed” the sculptor’s passions, and in turn the sculptor’s, sympathetically recapturing the king’s passions in the stone.

The final five lines mock the inscription hammered into the pedestal of the statue. The original inscription read “I am Ozymandias, King of Kings; if anyone wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass me in some of my exploits.” The idea was that he was too powerful for even the common king to relate to him; even a mighty king should despair at matching his power. That principle may well remain valid, but it is undercut by the plain fact that even an empire is a human creation that will one day pass away. The statue and surrounding desert constitute a metaphor for invented power in the face of natural power. By Shelley’s time, nothing remains but a shattered bust, eroded “visage,” and “trunkless legs” surrounded with “nothing” but “level sands” that “stretch far away.” Shelley thus points out human mortality and the fate of artificial things.

The lesson is important in Europe: France’s hegemony has ended, and England’s will end sooner or later. Everything about the king’s “exploits” is now gone, and all that remains of the dominating civilization are shattered “stones” alone in the desert. Note the use of alliteration to emphasize the point: “boundless and bare”; “lone and level.”

It is important to keep in mind the point of view of “Ozymandias.” The perspective on the statue is coming from an unknown traveler who is telling the speaker about the scene. This helps create a sense of the mystery of history and legend: we are getting the story from a poet who heard it from a traveler who might or might not have actually seen the statue. The statue itself is an expression of the sculptor, who might or might not have truly captured the passions of the king. Our best access to the king himself is not the statue, not anything physical, but the king’s own words.

Poetry might last in a way that other human creations cannot. Yet, communicating words presents a different set of problems. For one thing, there are problems of translation, for the king did not write in English. More seriously, there are problems of transcription, for apparently Shelley’s poem does not even accurately reproduce the words of the inscription.

Finally, we cannot miss the general comment on human vanity in the poem. It is not just the “mighty” who desire to withstand time; it is common for people to seek immortality and to resist death and decay. Furthermore, the sculptor himself gets attention and praise that used to be deserved by the king, for all that Ozymandias achieved has now “decayed” into almost nothing, while the sculpture has lasted long enough to make it into poetry. In a way, the artist has become more powerful than the king. The only things that “survive” are the artist’s records of the king’s passion, carved into the stone.

Perhaps Shelley chose the medium of poetry in order to create something more powerful and lasting than what politics could achieve, all the while understanding that words too will eventually pass away. Unlike many of his poems, “Ozymandias” does not end on a note of hope. There is no extra stanza or concluding couplet to honor the fleeting joys of knowledge or to hope in human progress. Instead, the traveler has nothing more to say, and the persona draws no conclusions of his own.

Summary 2

The speaker describes a meeting with someone who has traveled to a place where ancient civilizations once existed. We know from the title that he’s talking about Egypt. The traveler told the speaker a story about an old, fragmented statue in the middle of the desert. The statue is broken apart, but you can still make out the face of a person. The face looks stern and powerful, like a ruler. The sculptor did a good job at expressing the ruler’s personality. The ruler was a wicked guy, but he took care of his people.

On the pedestal near the face, the traveler reads an inscription in which the ruler Ozymandias tells anyone who might happen to pass by, basically, “Look around and see how awesome I am!” But there is no other evidence of his awesomeness in the vicinity of his giant, broken statue. There is just a lot of sand, as far as the eye can see. The traveler ends his story.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

(means, in French, the beautiful lady without mercy (pity)).

- John Keats

"O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

"I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever-dew.

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too."

"I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful – a faery's child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

"I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look'd at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

"I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A faery's song.

"She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild and manna-dew;

And sure in language strange she said,

'I love thee true.'

"She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sigh'd full sore;

And there I shut her wild, wild eyes

With kisses four.

"And there she lullèd me asleep,

And there I dream'd – ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dream'd

On the cold hill's side.

"I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all:

They cried, 'La belle Dame sans Merci

Hath thee in thrall!'

"I saw their starved lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here

On the cold hill's side.

"And this is why I sojourn here

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing."

La Belle Dame - French for "The Beautiful Girl"

Ail - To affect, or to trouble someone. Archaic verb.

Thee - You. Archaic and/or poetic usage.

Loitering - Waiting or wandering about vaguely without any definite purpose.

Sedge - A flowery plant with triangular stems that looks like grass, belongingto the genus Carex.

Withered - Dried.     Haggard­ - Exhausted, utterly fatigued.

Woe-begone - Dejected, Miserable, Gloomy.

Granary - A storehouse where grains (mostly thrashed) are stored.

Anguish - Agony, torment, severe psychic or physical pain causing misery.

Moist - A little wet.

Mead - Archaic, poetic form of "Meadow". A grassland, commonly used to procure hay.

Steed - Archaic word for 'horse'.

Manna-dew - Manna was the celestial food the Israelites were provided with by God, during their wanderings in the deserts. By associating the heavenly food with dew, the poet builds up the celestial, mystical quality of the lady.

Elfin - Connected to elves. Grot - Poetic form of 'Grotto'. A small cave.

Lull - Verb. Sending one to sleep.

Betide - Verb. To happen.Sedge- Grasslike or rushlike plants that grows in wet areas.

Haggard – wild looking  Begone – to happen, occur Meads – meadow

Summary

The poem starts with the speaker who encounters a wounded knight on the side of the road. The knight is in a pathetic physical and emotional state. He seems deeply troubled. His complexion affects a deadly pallor as if he was near death. He assumes a distressed, languid and crestfallen demeanor. His appearance is a far cry from the conventional heroic image of knights. The unknown speaker seems to be deeply concerned for the knight and inquires after the cause of his troubles. From that point on, the knight starts telling the speaker his story and what happened to him. The knight is the sole narrator of his experience. His version of events can therefore be biased or untruthful.

The knight tells the speaker that he encountered a beautiful fairy in the woods with whom he felt in love with. This mysterious fairy lady has long hair and light foot. There seems to be a supernatural aura about this lady because she speaks an unidentified language and assumes a wild expression in her eyes. He started courting her, making her garlands and letting her ride his horse. The knight forgets all about his duties as a knight and spends his entire day in the company of this fairy lady.

The fairy invited him to her cave where she offers him wild food consisting honey, roots and manna-dew. The knight was lulled into a sleep. In his sleep, he saw all the knights and men the fairy seduced and that they were all dead. The knight then woke up alone, finding himself abandoned by the fairy lady. The knight is totally devastated by the disappearance of the fairy. Heartbroken and emotionally depleted, the knight loiters alone, mourning the loss of the mysterious fairy.

          Hawk Roosting

- Edward James ‘Ted’ Hughes

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

About the poem

This is a dramatic monologue in the character of a hawk. Hughes dramatizes the hawk’s thoughts and attitudes to the majesty of creation, creating a character of self-focussed, god-like arrogance, of brutality and beauty.

Summary

“Hawk Roosting” is from Ted Hughes’s second book, Lupercal, published in 1960. It is one of the earliest poems in which Hughes used animals to imply the nature of man and to spark thought about just how much of man’s behavior is instinctual, as opposed to how much of man is ruled by his divine, or God-like, side. The hawk, who is the first-person speaker of this poem, speaks entirely of instinctual actions, giving examples of actions that are natural to hawks but repugnant to creatures of conscience
             Hawk Roosting is a dramatic monologue of a Hawk, a real bird of prey which feeds on preying smaller birds and animals. It is a poem based on the ‘hawk’s’ eye view of the world. The ‘hawk’ here is a symbol of arrogance and superiority. Seated on the treetop, the hawk looks down on the world like a king. The hawk is not impressed with neither the vastness of the world nor with itself for being above the world. This hawk has no ‘falsifying dream’ which mean the hawk doesn’t have any false dreams but only perfect dreams of killing.
The ‘wood’ in line 1 refers to a forest. The poem begins with the hawk resting on a tree with his eyes closed. In lines 3, the bird being ‘hooked’ emphasizes on the sharp parts of the bird that are used for attacking and killing its prey. In addition, Ted Hughes had used ‘feet’ instead of claws which creates an image in the reader’s mind about the connection between the hawk and humans. This connection is known as personification. The expression ‘perfect kill’ refers to the impression that the hawk has about himself being superior and arrogant.
In the second stanza, the hawk arrogantly tells us that the world is made for him; ‘the convenience of the high trees/ the air’s buoyancy and the sun’s rays/ are of advantage to me.” The words, ‘convenience’, ‘advantage’, ‘buoyancy’, ‘inspection’ are all examples of elevated and sophisticated diction. It also represents the hawk as an intelligent bird. The hawk, moreover, says in pride that the earth awaits for the hawk’s inspection.
In the third stanza, the word ‘Creation’ has been used with a capital C which is synonymous with God,
“it took the whole of Creation/ To produce any foot, my each feather”, the arrogance and sense of superiority is pushed to the highest level and that is vividly portrayed in the above lines. Finally, the hawk thinks himself to be the all powerful, to be God, ‘Now I hold creation in my foot.’
The end of the stanza and the beginning of the fourth are linked by enjambment, as the hawk is shown that it is free to ‘fly up’ and circle the world below at its leisure. The idea that he sees himself as God is again reinforced in the lines, ‘I will kill where I pleasure because it’s all mine.’ In lines 15 and 16, the hawk says his possesses no ‘sophistry’ which means that his doesn’t reason. Line 16 uses bitter language like ‘tearing off their heads’ signifying that the hawk enjoys much his actions.
‘The allotment of death’ in the fifth stanza provides the readers with an image of the hawk hunting. The hawk chooses its own prey brutally. The stanza closes with the lines ‘No arguments asserts my rights’ meaning that the hawk need not justify his ways of killings. They are unquestionable.
In the final stanza, the hawk says ‘the sun is behind’ which we can deduce as the sun is behind him for real or it could also mean that the sun is with him. In the second verse, the hawk says, ‘nothing has changed since I began’ which gives the impression of time. It makes the reader feel that the hawk has always been looking upon the earth. The final lines ‘My eye has permitted no change/ I am going to keep things like this’ show the idea of domination or control.

The poem is divided into six stanzas consisting of four equal lines. The lines are neat, fairly short and efficient. The form of the lines matches with the qualities of the hawk. One of the most distinct personalities of the hawk that is represented in the poem is that of arrogance. Attributing the hawk as the speaker gives immense effect on displaying the theme of the poem. Hawks are known to be powerful, dignified among birds. Man is entitled to have these features too. So it is easy to draw a connection between the two which can make the reader think that the speaker is man if not for the title of the poem. Therefore Ted Hughes uses the hawk as a symbol for power. It can be compared with a tyrant or an authoritarian despot who is self-centred and arrogant. He would allow himself or his ways to be questioned and would see the world as designed for his

Punishment in Kindergarten

-  Kamala Das

Today the world is a little more my own.
No need to remember the pain
A blue-frocked woman caused, throwing
Words at me like pots and pans, to drain
That honey-coloured day of peace.
‘Why don't you join the others, what
A peculiar child you are! '

On the lawn, in clusters, sat my
schoolmates sipping
Sugarcane, they turned and laughed; 
Children are funny things, they laugh
In mirth at others' tears, I buried
My face in the sun-warmed hedge
And smelt the flowers and the pain.

The words are muffled now, the laughing
Faces only a blur. The years have
Sped along, stopping briefly
At beloved halts and moving
Sadly on. My mind has found
An adult peace. No need to remember
That picnic day when I lay hidden
By a hedge, watching the steel-white sun
Standing lonely in the sky.

About the Poetess

Kamala Das was born in Kerala - India in 1934. She was educated mainly at home. Her short stories and poems are written in Malayalam and in English. She has published a number of books of poems and an autobiography. In many of her poems Kamala Das recalls experiences from her childhood.

Summary

"Punishment in Kindergarten" is a little autobiographical poem by the famous Indo-Anglian poet Kamala Das.  She recalls one of her childhood experiences.  When she was in the kindergarten, one day the children were taken for a picnic. All the children except her were playing and making merry.  But she alone kept away from the company of the children.  Their teacher, a blue-frocked woman, scolded her saying.

                        "Why don't you join the others, what

                        A peculiar child you are!"

            This heard, all the other children who were sipping sugar cane turned and laughed.  The child felt it very much.  She became sad at the words of the teacher.  But the laughter by the children made her sadder.  She thought that they should have consoled her rather than laughing and insulting her.  Filled with sorrow and shame she did her face in a hedge and wept.  This was indeed a painful experience to a little child in the nursery school.

            Now after many years she has grown into an adult.  She has only a faint memory of the blue-frocked woman and the laughing faces of the children.  Now she has learned to have an 'adult peace' and happiness in her present state as a grown-up person.  Now there is no need for her to be perturbed about that bitter kindergarten experience.  With her long experience in life she has learned that life is a mixture of joy and sorrow.  She remembers how she has experienced both the joy and sorrow of life.  The long passage of time has taught her many things.  She is no more a lonely individual as she used to feel when she was a child.  The poet comes to a conclusion that there is no need for her to remember that picnic day, when she hid her face in the hedge, watching the steel-white sun, that was standing lonely in the sky.

            The poem is written in three stanzas, each having different number of lines – the first with seven lines, the second with six and the third with nine.  The poem does not follow any regular rhyme scheme.  The subject matter of the poem has two parts, the first of which being the description of the painful experience of the kindergarten days and the second, the adult's attitude to the incident at present when she is no more a child.

            The poet seems to be nostalgic about her childhood days.  There are certain expressions in the poem that are worth remembering.  The poet says that the child buried its face in the hedge and "smelt the flowers and the pain".  "Smelt the flowers can be taken as an ordinary expression, but "smelt the pain" is something very evocative and expressive.  In the first stanza of the poem, the poet describes the pain caused to the child, "throwing words like pots and pans".  This again is beautiful.  The phrase used by the poet to describe the child's teacher, namely, "blue-frocked woman" can be justified from the child's point of view.  But to the poet who is an adult the use of the phrase looks a little too awkward.  On the whole, the poem can be taken as the poet's interest in remembering her childhood days.

                                    Beware: Do not Read this Poem

Ishmael Reed (1938-  )

tonight, thriller was
  about an old woman, so vain she
  surrounded her self w /
  many mirrors

  it got so bad that finally she                            5
  locked herself indoors & her
  whole life became the
    mirrors

  one day the villagers broke
  into her house , but she was too                         10
  swift for them . she disappeared
     into a mirror
  each tenant who bought the house
  after that, lost a loved one to
      the ol woman in the mirror :                         15
      first a little girl
      then a young woman
      then the young woman /s husband

  the hunger of this poem is legendary
  it has taken in many victims                             20
      back off from this poem
      it has drawn in yr feet
      back off from this poem
      it has drawn in yr legs
      back off from this poem                              25
      it is a greedy mirror
      you are into this poem . from
      the waist down
      nobody can hear you can they ?
      this poem has had you up to here                     30
          belch
      this poem aint got no manners
      you cant call out frm this poem
      relax now & go w/ this poem
      move & roll on to this poem                          35

      do not resist this poem
      this poem has yr eyes
      this poem has his head
      this poem has his arms
      this poem has his fingers                            40
      this poem has his fingertips

      this poem is the reader & the
      reader this poem

  statistic: the us bureau of missing persons reports
      that in 1968 over 100,000 people disappeared         45
      leaving no solid clues
      nor trace only
      a space in the lives of their friends

“Beware: Do Not Read This Poem”

“Beware: Do Not Read This Poem” was included in Ishmael Reed’s first volume of poetry, written by the end of 1968 but first published in 1970. The poem was then reprinted in Reed’s second volume of poetry, Conjure: Selected Poems, 1963-1970 (1972), which was nominated for a National Book Award for poetry in 1973, the same year his novel Mumbo Jumbo (1972) was nominated for the National Book Award for fiction.

Poem Summary

Lines 1-4

Thriller is the name of a television program that ran from 1960 to 1962; it was similar to the more well-known Twilight Zone series and usually focused on ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. These first lines summarize the plot of one particular program, which, in the second part of the poem, will become the basis of a comparison between looking into mirrors and reading poetry.

Lines 5-8

The woman gets more and more involved with looking at herself, never leaving her house of mirrors.

Lines 9-12

Reed does not say why the villagers broke into the house nor how the woman actually disappeared into a mirror—probably because such explanations do not impact the point he will be making. The reader must simply regard the fantasy as ground for what follows.

Lines 13-18

The recounting of the Thriller episode ends with new tenants losing loved ones to the old woman in the mirror. Again, we do not know why, but we might guess that the old woman is desirous of company. One thing is common to all of the people whom the old lady grabs: they are young.

Lines 19-28

The scene now shifts to the terrain of the poem itself—the actual words that the reader is contemplating. The poem is compared to a “greedy mirror,” as if the poem—like the mirror—had an old woman inside of it who desperately wanted company. In these lines, the reader is taken feet first and swallowed up to the waist. Interesting here is how Reed comments on the poem he is writing; he makes one poem into two by saying that the poem has existed long enough for its hunger to be “legendary.” The reason might be that as the mirrors stand for mirrors in general, this poem also stands for poems in general. In other words, this poem is meant as an example of the species, poetry, more than an individual piece of writing that just happens to be a poem. Poems absorb readers and, specifically, engross them bodily and viscerally. They have always done this, and that is why their power is “legendary.”

Lines 29-33

Though the reader reads, he or she makes no sound. It is the poem that “makes” the sound and unreels the words, or, in this case, belches as it takes the reader in, perhaps too quickly. The poem has no manners not just because it belches, but because it does not ask permission to swallow the reader and, in fact, attempts to steal him or her. The greedy individual inside of the poem will be even more gratified to snatch the reader if, at first, the reader is opposed to being overwhelmed.

Lines 34-41

At this point, the poem is attempting to hypnotize the reader to not resist any longer and, instead, “go with the flow.” Whereas before the reader was swallowed feet first, this time it is head first.

Lines 42-43

Now the swallowing is complete, and the reader merges with the poem. Such a sentiment harkens back to Wallace Steven’s “The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm” (1946), where “the reader became the book.” Notice that Reed does not say that the reader becomes the poet, but only the poem. This distinction was also made earlier, when the people absorbed into the mirror did not become the old woman, but just disappeared as themselves inside the mirror.

Lines 44-48

These lines, as if outside the poem, caution the reader not to become too involved in poetry because the engrossed reader is a person not engaging with society. The statistic regarding missing persons ends the poem on a serious aftertaste. While the statistic exaggerates the absorption of the reader by comparing him or her to a missing person, the poem seriously addresses the power of words and literature to so engage readers that they become bookworms and exhibit antisocial behavior. Reed seems to council: “Read, but don’t lose touch. Read, but resist becoming the poem or letting the poem possess you.” The lesson is similar when it comes to looking in mirrors; looking too much might encourage you to see only what you want or to desire yourself as did Narcissus. This highly unique, perhaps even paradoxical sentiment comes from a poem we are in the process of reading.

UNIT - II

A Conversation with a Cat (1931)

Hilaire BELLOC. (1870-1953)

The other day I went into the bar of a railway station and, taking a glass of beer, I sat down at a little table by myself to meditate upon the necessary but tragic isolation of the human soul. I began my meditation by consoling myself with the truth that something in common runs through all nature, but I went on to consider that this cut no ice, and that the heart needed something more. I might by long research have discovered some third term a little less hackneyed than these two, when fate, or some fostering star, sent me a tawny, silky, long-haired cat.

If it be true that nations have the cats they deserve, then the English people deserve well in cats, for there are none so prosperous or so friendly in the world. But even for an English cat this cat was exceptionally friendly and fine--especially friendly. It leapt at one graceful bound into my lap, nestled there, put out an engaging right front paw to touch my arm with a pretty timidity by way of introduction, rolled up at me an eye of bright but innocent affection, and then smiled a secret smile of approval.

No man could be so timid after such an approach as not to make some manner of response. So did I. I even took the liberty of stroking Amathea (for by that name did I receive this vision), and though I began this gesture in a respectful fashion, after the best models of polite deportment with strangers, I was soon lending it some warmth, for I was touched to find that I had a friend; yes, even here, at the ends of the tubes in S.W.99. I proceeded (as is right) from caress to speech, and said, "Amathea, most beautiful of cats, why have you deigned to single me out for so much favour? Did you recognize in me a friend to all that breathes, or were you yourself suffering from loneliness (though I take it you are near your own dear home), or is there pity in the hearts of animals as there is in the hearts of some humans?

What, then, was your motive? Or am l, indeed, foolish to ask, and not rather to take whatever good comes to me in whatever way from the gods?"

To these questions Amathea answered with a loud purring noise, expressing with closed eyes of ecstasy her delight in the encounter.

"I am more than flattered, Amathea," said I, by way of answer; "I am consoled. I did not know that there was in the world anything breathing and moving, let alone so tawny-perfect, who would give companionship for its own sake and seek out, through deep feeling, someone companion out of all living kind. If you do not address me in words I know the reason and I commend it; for in words lie the seeds of all dissension, and love at its most profound is silent. At least, I read that in a book, Amathea; yes, only the other day. But I confess that the book told me nothing of those gestures which are better than words, or of that caress which I continue to bestow upon you with all the gratitude of my poor heart."

To this Amathea made a slight gesture of acknowledgement--not disdainful--wagging her head a little, and then settling it down in deep content.

"Oh, beautiful-haired Amathea, many have praised you before you found me to praise you, and many will praise you, some in your own tongue, when I am no longer held in the bonds of your presence. But none will praise you more sincerely. For there is not a man living who knows better than I that the four charms of a cat lie in its closed eyes, its long and lovely hair, its silence, and even its affected love."

But at the word affected Amathea raised her head, looked up at me tenderly, once more put forth her paw to touch my arm, and then settled down again to a purring beatitude.

"You are secure," said I sadly; "mortality is not before you. There is in your complacency no foreknowledge of death nor even of separation. And for that reason, Cat, I welcome you the more. For if there has been given to your kind this repose in common living, why, then, we men also may find it by following your example and not considering too much what may be to come and not remembering too much what has been and will never return. Also, I thank you, for this, Amathea, my sweet Euplokamos" (for I was becoming a little familiar through an acquaintance of a full five minutes and from the absence of all recalcitrance), "that you have reminded me of my youth, and in a sort of shadowy way, a momentary way, have restored it to me. For there is an age, a blessed youthful age (O my Cat) even with the miserable race of men, when all things are consonant with the life of the body, when sleep is regular and long and deep, when enmities are either unknown or a subject for rejoicing and when the whole of being is lapped in hope as you are now lapped on my lap, Amathea. Yes, we also, we of the doomed race, know peace. But whereas you possess it from blind kittenhood to that last dark day so mercifully short with you, we grasp it only for a very little while. But I would not sadden you by the mortal plaint. That would be treason indeed, and a vile return for your goodness. What! When you have chosen me out of seven London millions upon whom to confer the tender solace of the heart, when you have proclaimed yourself so suddenly to be my dear, shall I introduce you to the sufferings of those of whom you know nothing save that they feed you, house you and pass you by? At least you do not take us for gods, as do the dogs, and the more am I humbly beholden to you for this little service of recognition--and something more."

Amathea slowly raised herself upon her four feet, arched her back, yawned, looked up at me with a smile sweeter than ever and then went round and round, preparing for herself a new couch upon my coat, whereon she settled and began once more to purr in settled ecstasy.

Already had I made sure that a rooted and anchored affection had come to me from out the emptiness and nothingness of the world and was to feed my soul henceforward; already had I changed the mood of long years and felt a conversion towards the life of things, an appreciation, a cousinship with the created light--and all that through one new link of loving kindness--when whatever it is that dashes the cup of bliss from the tips of mortal man (Tupper) up and dashed it good and hard. It was the Ancient Enemy who put the fatal sentence into my heart, for we are the playthings of the greater powers, and surely some of them are evil.

"You will never leave me, Amathea," I said; "I will respect your sleep and we will sit here together through all uncounted time, I holding you in my arms and you dreaming of the fields of Paradise. Nor shall anything part us, Amathea; you are my cat and I am your human. Now and onwards into the fullness of peace."

Then it was that Amathea lifted herself once more, and with delicate, discreet, unweighted movement of perfect limbs leapt tightly to the floor as lovely as a wave. She walked slowly away from me without so much as looking back over her shoulder; she had another purpose in her mind; and as she so gracefully and so majestically neared the door which she was seeking, a short, unpleasant man standing at the bar said "Puss, Puss, Puss!" and stooped to scratch her gently behind the ear. With what a wealth of singular affection, pure and profound, did she not gaze up at him, and then rub herself against his leg in token and external expression of a sacramental friendship that should never die.

Summary of  A Conversation with a Cat

                                                       Hilaire Belloc

A Conversation with a Cat is a beautiful essay written by Hilaire Belloc who is a great English writer. It is a good example for his ability to write pleasingly and persuasively about life situations in a dreamy and visionary style.  It is an imaginary meeting with a cat, which speaks about delicate human relationship.

The author was sitting at a little table in a bar of a railway station and taking a glass of beer.   Hilaire Belloc was meditating upon the essential but tragic isolation of the human soul. He told himself that something in common runs through all nature. A  tawny,silky long-haired cat came to him. The cat leaped into his lap and nestled there. Then the cat with its front paw touched his arm by way of introduction. Its love was innocent. But human beings have selfish love. If we love a person, the person must be our own. He should not go to another person. All his love should be mine. Human beings especially English people cannot love a strange person.  This is the attitude of human beings. On the other hand, the cat has selfless love. The cat smiled a secret love of approval. Seeing the selfless love of the cat, Hilaire Belloc could not sit idle. He gave the cat the same love. He lovingly  named the cat Amathea, which is the name of a Greek goddess and began to stroke it. He knew that he got a friend. Then he spoke to the cat. He praised her as the most beautiful of cats and asked her why she selected him to love him. There are millions of people in London, but the cat has chosen the author for her love. Again he asked the cat whether she had come to him out of pity for him. The cat did not understand the human speech. It simply closed its eyes and made a sound. The author thought this gesture of the cat was an approval for his questions. He was happy.

The author said that the cat did not reply him in words because when human beings used language for speech, they fight each other. On the other hand animals don’t speak. So they don’t quarrel as human beings often do. Secondly love is most beautiful in silence. Again the cat wagged its tail and the author thought it was an approval from the cat. He was flattered. He told the cat that no other person in the world can love Amathea more sincerely than himself because he knows that there are four charms in a cat. Beauty lies in its closed eyes, its long and lovely hair, its silence and its affected love.

While he was talking to the cat, Amathea raised her head, looked up the author so lovingly and touched his arm with her paw and then nestled again into his lap. The author thought that the cat would live with him for ever and the cat was safe under his protection. He told the cat she reminded him of his youth because a female cat is in love with him and even lies in his lap. Youthful age is a blessed and golden age of human life. During this period every man and woman get sound, regular sleep and their lives are full of love and happiness. During this period every man and woman build hopes and dreams of happy life.

The author tells the cat that he is thankful to the cat because she has recognized the author as the best among the seven million London people. The cat came to him and lay in the lap of the author. The author requested the cat to live with him for ever. Amathea is his cat and no power on the earth can separate them. They live together for ever. While the author was talking to the cat, she rose up and walked to the door. She did not look back. When she reached the door of the bar, a short unpleasant man scratched the cat lovingly. The cat rubbed herself against his leg and made friends with him. All the hopes of the author are shattered to pieces when the cat walked away and began to make friends with another strange man. Human being is selfish. He cannot love strangers and his love is selfish. That is why man is suffering from terrible loneliness. On the other hand animals are selfless. So they enjoy peace and love.  The cat enjoys great peace. 

On Forgetting

- Robert Lynd

 A list of articles lost by railway travellers and now on sale at a great London station has been published, and many people who read it have been astonished at the absent-mindedness of their fellows. If statistical records were available on the subject, however, I doubt whether it would be found that absent-mindedness is common. It is the efficiency rather than the inefficiency of human memory that compels my wonder. Modern man remembers even telephone members. He remembers the addresses of his friends. He remember the dates of good vintages. He remembers appointments for lunch and dinner. His memory is crowded with the names of actors and actresses and cricketers and footballers and murderers. He can tell you what the weather was like in a long-past August and the name of the provincial hotel at which he had a vile meal during the summer. In his ordinary life, again, he remembers almost everything that he is expected to remember. How many men in all London forget a single item of their clothing when dressing in the morning? Not one in a hundred. Perhaps not one in ten thousand. How many of them forget to shut the front door when leaving the house? Scarcely more. And so it goes on through the day, almost everbody remembering to do the right things at the right moment till it is time to go to bed, and then the ordinary man seldom forgets to turn off the lights before going upstairs.

          There are, it must be admitted, some matters in regard to which the memory works with less than its usual perfection. It is only a very methodical man, I imagine, who can always remember to take the medicine his doctor has prescribed for him. This is the more surprising because medicine should be one of the easiest thing to remember. As a rule, it is supposed to be taken before during, or after meals and the meal itself should be a reminder of it. The fact remains, however, that few but the moral giants remember to take their medicine regularly. Modern psychologists tell us that we forget things because we wish to forget them, and it may be that it is because of their antipathy to pills and potions; that many people fail to remember them at the appointed hours. This does not explain, however, how it is that a life-long devotee of medicines like myself is as forgetful of them as those who take them most unwillingly. The very prospect of a new and widely advertised cure-all delights me. Yet, even if I have the stuff in my pockets, I forget about it as soon as the hour approaches at which I ought to swallow it. Chemists make, their fortunes out of the medicines people forget to take.

          The commonest form of forgetfulness, I suppose, occurs in the matter of posting letters. So common is it that I am always reluctant to trust a departing visitor to post an important letter, so little do I rely on his memory that I put him on his oath before handing the letter to him. As for myself, anyone who asks me to post a letter is a poor judge of character. Even if I carry the letter in my hand I am always past the first pillar-box before I remember that I ought to have posted it. Weary of holding it in my hand, I then put it for safety into one of my pockets and forget all about it. After that, it has an unadventurous life till a long chain of circumstances leads to a number of embarrassing questions being asked, and I am compelled to produce the evidence of my guilt from my pocket. This, it might be thought, must be due to a lack of interest in other people's letters; but that cannot be the explanation, for I forget to post some even of the few letters that I myself remember to write.

          As for leaving articles in trains and in taxies, I am no great delinquent in such matters. I can remember almost anything except books and walking-sticks and I can often remember even books. Walking-sticks I find it quite impossible to keep, I have an old-fashioned taste for them, and I buy them frequently but no-sooner do I pay a visit to a friend's house or go a journey in a train, than another stick is on its way into the world of the lost. I dare not carry an umbrella for fear of losing it. To go through life without ever having lost an umbrella- has even the grimmest-jawed umbrella-carrier ever achieved this?

          Few of us, however, have lost much property on our travels through forgetfulness. The ordinary man arrives at his destination with all his bags and trunks safe. The list of articles lost in trains during the year suggests that it is the young rather than the adult who forget things, and that sportsmen have worse memories than their ordinary serious-minded fellows. A considerable number of footballs and cricket-bats, for instance, were forgotten. This is easy to understand, for boys, returning from the games, have their imaginations still filled with a vision of the playing-field and their heads are among the stars- or their hearts in their boots as they recall their exploits or their errors. They are abstracted from the world outside them. Memories prevent them from remembering to do such small prosaic things as take the ball or the bat with them when they leave the train. For the rest of the day, they are citizens of dreamland. The same may be said, no doubt, of anglers who forget their fishing-rods. Anglers are generally said- I do not know with what justification- to be the most imaginative of men, and the man who is inventing magnificent lies in the journey home after a day's fishing is bound to be a little absent-minded in his behavior. The fishing-rod of reality is forgotten by him as he daydreams over the fears of the fishing-rod of Utopia. His loss of memory is really a tribute to the intensity of his enjoyment in thinking about his day's sport. He may forget his fishing-rod, as the poet may forget to post a letter, because his mind is filled with more glorious matter. Absent-mindedness of this kind seems to me all but a virtue. The absent-minded man is often a man who is making the best of life and therefore has no time to remember the mediocre. Who would have trusted Socrates or Coleridge to post a letter? They had souls above such things.

          The question whether the possession of a good memory is altogether desirable has often been discussed, and men with fallible memories have sometimes tried to make out a case for their superiority. A man they say, who is a perfect remembering machine is seldom a man of the first intelligence, and they quote various cases of children or men who had marvellous memories and who yet had no intellect to speak of. I imagine, however, that on the whole the great writers and the great composers of music have been men with exceptional powers of memory. The poets I have known have had better memories than the stock brokers I have known. Memory, indeed is half the substance of their art. On the other hand, statesmen seem to have extraordinarily bad memories. Let two statesmen attempt to recall the same event- what happened, for example, at some Cabinet meeting- and each of them will tell you that the other's story is so inaccurate that either he has a memory like a sieve or is an audacious perverter of the truth. The frequency with which the facts in the autobiographies and speeches of statesmen are challenged, suggests that the world has not yet begun to produce ideal statesmen-men who like great poets, have the genius of y and of intellect combined.

          At the same time, ordinarily good memory is so common that we regard a man who does not possess it as eccentric. I have heard of a father who, having offered to take the baby out in a perambulator, was tempted by the sunny morning to pause on his journey and slip into a public-house for a glass of beer. Leaving the perambulator outside, he disappeared through the door of the saloon bar. A little later, his wife had to do some shopping which took her past the public-house, where to her horror, she discovered her sleeping baby. Indignant at her husband's behavior, she decided to teach him a lesson. She wheeled away the perambulator, picturing to herself his terror when he would come out and find the baby gone. She arrived home, anticipating with angry relish the white face and quivering lips that would soon appear with the news that the baby had been stolen. What was her vexation, however, when just before lunch her husband came in smiling cheerfully and asking: "Well, my dear, what's for lunch today?" Having forgotten all about the baby and the fact that he had taken it out with him. How many men below the rank of a philosopher would be capable of such absent-mindedness as this? Most of us, I fear, are born with prosaically efficient memories. If it were not so, the institution of the family could not survive in any great modern city.

Summary

Forgetting                    Robert Lynd

Robert Lynd is a very humorous and delightful essayist. His essays are simple, playful humorous and satirical. His style of writing is elegant and charming. In his essay “Forgetting”, Robert Lynd writes about the root causes of forgetting and also explains what items are usually forgotten by people.

Robert Lynd says that he is amazed by the efficiency of human memory. Modern man remembers even telephone numbers and names of actors and actresses and cricketers and footballers and murderers. Thus he can remember almost everything in his life. For example man does not forget a single item of his clothing when dressing. Similarly no one forgets to shut the front door when leaving the house. Lynd says that the institution of family survives in modern cities because ordinary people have efficient memory power.

Robert Lynd says that in some matters human memory works less than its usual perfection. For example most people forget to take the medicine. But they don’t forget to take meals and medicines are usually taken before or after or during meals. Psychologists say that we forget things because we wish to forget them. So people don’t like medicines and that is why they forget them. In this context Robert Lynd humorously remarks that chemists make a lot of money because people forget to take medicines and their illness is not cured and they buy more and more medicines.

According to Robert Lynd, the commonest form of forgetfulness is in posting letters. Most people forget to post letters. So Robert Lynd humorously remarks that if any one asks him to post a letter is a poor judge of character because Robert Lynd never posts the letter even if he keeps it in his pocket for many days. Similarly the author leaves walking sticks and umbrellas during his journey.

Lynd says that a list of articles lost by railway travellers has been published and many people who read the list have been astonished at the absent mindedness of the people, because most of these travellers are young sportsmen. They have forgotten their cricket-bats and footballs. Lynd says that these boys returning from the games have their imaginations filled with the vision of the playing field. The defeated players are very sad and they thought about their lost opportunities and failures. The victorious boys have their heads among the stars, thinking about their achievements. But both group of boys were in a dream world and they forgot to take their cricket bats and footballs when leaving the train. They are citizens of dreamland.

Similarly the anglers are also the citizens of dream-land. They are day-dreamers. They forget to take the fishing rod when they go home in the evening. Their minds are filled with matter more glorious. Thus both the sportsmen and anglers are absentminded people. Lynd remarks that such absentmindedness is a blessing because these people forget their unhappiness and live in a dream world of Utopia.  Great thinkers, poets and philosophers were absent-minded people because their minds were full of high ideals and imaginations. Socrates, the great Greek Philosopher and S.T.Coleridge, the great English poet were absent-minded people.

According to Robert Lynd, the possession of a good memory is a great advantage for all people. Many great writers, poets and music composers have amazingly good memory. Memory is half the substance of their art. On the other hand statesmen have extraordinarily bad memories. Often the facts in the autobiographies and speeches of statesmen are challenged. It shows that they have very poor memory. In this context Robert Lynd remarks that the world has not yet produced an ideal statesman.

Ordinarily good memory is very common. So if a man does not have a good memory, we may call him an eccentric. Lynd narrates a very funny story of a father who takes his baby out in a perambulator in the morning. When he was going with his child in the perambulator, he walked into a public house for a glass of beer. The child was sitting in the perambulator outside in the street. After some time, his wife came that way for shopping. She was horrified to see her sleeping baby in the perambulator. She was so angry with her husband that she decided to teach him a lesson and wheeled away the perambulator. At lunch-time the husband came home smiling cheerfully. He has completely forgotten all about his child and the perambulator. Lynd remarks that very few men below the rank of a philosopher would be capable of such absentmindedness as this man in the story.

I Have a Dream

- Martin Luther King.Jr

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand’s of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquillity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvellous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.                                      

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.*We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites only."* We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³

I Have a Dream

SUMMARY

“I have A Dream’ is an unforgettable speech delivered (given) by Martin Luther King to millions of American blacks and whites on August 28, 1963. This speech represents the hopes and dreams of all American blacks who have been struggling for their rights and freedom. Though the American constitution and the Declaration of Independence have promised equal rights, justice and freedom to all the blacks and whites, this is not implemented in practice. In the American Societies, there is still strong racial discrimination, injustice, hatred and other inequalities between whites and blacks. The Blacks are hated, neglected and tortured in practice. In the American societies, there is still strong racial discrimination, injustice, hatred and other inequalities between whites and blacks. The Blacks are hated, neglected and tortured because of their black skin. They are deprived of their rights, freedom, equality and justice. They are treated to be slaves and are exiled in their own country. They live very poor and miserable life among the rich whites. Only the whites enjoy rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Luther king addresses the American Blacks and says that they should continue their struggle until they establish equality, peace and brotherhood in America. However, their struggle should be without violence. He says that they should fight for their rights without causing physical violence which may cause bitterness and hatred. They should follow the path and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. If they keep on struggling in a disciplined way, they will achieve their aims. Luther king hopes that one day; the chains of hatred, racial discrimination, injustice and Inequalities will be broken. The new sun will rise with the rays of liberty, equality, peace and brotherhood.

Luther King urges that there should be immediate change in the conception of whites. The racial and color discrimination will weaken the foundation of America. Luther King says that his dream is the dream of America. His dream is the dream of freedom, justice and equality. The color of the skin is not important. What is important in humanity? Therefore one day, all discrimination and inequality will disappear. All the blacks and whites will walk together joining hands as brother and sister. At last, not only blacks, all the American people will be free. There will be sweet music of liberty, justice and equality all over America.

To The Residents of A.D.2029.

- Bryan Woolley

I wish I could report to the future that our current status is hunky-dory, that we live in the Golden Age of something or other. Until recently it was possible for Americans to believe that. There’s no doubt that in the twentieth century, at least, the people of the United States have enjoyed the highest standard of living that the world has known up to this point in history. We’ve had so much of everything, in fact, that we’ve thought our supplies of the essentials of life—land, food, air, water, fuel—would last forever, and we’ve been wasteful. Sometimes we’ve even been wasteful of human life itself. Lately, though, a sense of decline has set in. We’ve begun to realize that we’re in trouble. We’ve poured so much filth into our water that much of it is undrinkable, and no life can live in it. Even the life of the ocean, the great mother of us all, is threatened. Scientists say the last wisp of pure, natural air in the continental United States was absorbed into our generally polluted atmosphere over Flagstaff, Arizona, several years ago. Parts of our land are overcrowded, parts neglected, parts abused, parts destroyed. We continue to depend on unrenewable resources—petroleum; natural gas, and coal—for most of the fuel that heats and cools our homes; runs our industry, agriculture, and business; and propels our transportation. We’ve suddenly discovered that those resources are disappearing forever. Without usable land, air, water, and fuel, food production would be impossible, of course. In addition, the United States and the Soviet Union are at this moment trying to make treaties that we hope will keep us from destroying all life and the possibility of life if we decide to destroy each other before the fuel runs out. So I would classify the current status as shaky, which makes the outlook for the future—even so near a future as A.D. 2029—uncertain. An uncertain future is no new thing, of course. The future has always existed only in the imagination, a realm of hope and dread with which we can do little more than play games. But the games sometimes become serious. The Europeans postulated another land across the ocean for centuries and then came and found it. Jules Verne travelled under the sea and to the moon in his mind many years before we could make the machines to catch up in this excerpt, Bryan Woolley has been asked to place something in a time capsule that will be opened in 2029. He chooses to put in the following essay about his hopes for the future. Read the essay and answer questions 45 through 48. To the Residents of A.D. 2029 by Bryan Woolley 15_559389 ch07.qxd 1/20/05 8:27 PM Page 149 150 Part III: Practice Tests with him. If, as we say, Necessity is the mother of Invention, then Desire is the father of Possibility. Because of man’s amazing record of making his dreams come true, I refuse to be pessimistic about the future, despite the frightening aspects of the present. As long as we—both as a race and as a crowd of individuals—retain our capacity for dreaming, we also keep the possibility of doing. And when doing becomes necessary, we invent a means to do so. Especially when we’re in danger, as we are now. Some of our present dangers surely will be around in 2029, for they’re part of being human. We’re too far from solving poverty, disease, and probably even war to be done with them in another half-century. Collin County probably will still need its courts and its jail—maybe more courts and a newer, stronger jail. But if my generation and my sons’ generation do what we must to prolong the possibility of survival and the likelihood of this being read, most of the problems about which I’m worrying may seem quaint. If so, they’ll be replaced by others that will seem as serious to those who gather to open the time capsule as mine do to me. Golden Ages exist only in retrospect, never for those who are trying to cope with them.

So for the beleaguered residents of 2029 I wish four things:

■ A deeper understanding of history, to better avoid repeating the errors of the past, for if each generation keeps on inventing its own mistakes, some of the old ones will have to be thrown out.

■ A healing of the schism between man and the rest of nature. Our present disrespect for the natural world is our most serious stupidity to date. We must realize that man can’t long outlive the other living creatures.

■ A wider and more profound appreciation of beauty. Music, poetry, pictures, and stories feed the soul as surely as wheat and meat and rice feed the body, and the soul of America is malnourished.

■ A sense of humour. If man ever stops laughing at himself, he can no longer endure life, nor will he have reason to.

 To The Residents Of A.D 2029 by Bryan Woolley

Author’s life 

Bryan Woolley’s life wasn’t always in Texas. After several unsatisfying jobs and graduating at Texas Christian University and Harvard, he served as an Associated Press corrospondent in Oklahoma. Then, he was city editor of The Anniston Star Press in Alabama.  In 1969, he joined the Courier-Journal in Louisville,Kentucky. He worked at there for seven years. In 1976, he joined the Dallas Times Herald.

1.      Until his retirement, he worked at Dallas Morning News. He has seventeen books. He got many awards including the Pen West Literary Journalism Award. He has two married sons and two granddaughters. He lives in Dallas with his wife.

2.      Summary of the story

The title of this story alone shows us that the story is about the future. There is this place called Collin County in Texas, USA. Building a new courthouse and a jail in McKinney, the Collin County Historical Commission decides to bury a time capsule that will be opened in A.D 2029. The author of this story is asked to write a letter as a literary contribution to the content of this time capsule. Having no limitations in the selection of a topic, he decides to write about how we have failed to preserve the nature and how we are still continuing to destroy it even more. With a more clever mind that understands how we repeat our mistakes with every generation, he decides to give advice to the Residents of A.D 2029, the people of the future, for them not to repeat the same mistakes. Listing four pieces of advice in the end of his letter, he finishes what he is asked of by the Historical Commission.

3.      He talks about the reasons as to why he is writing and the current status of the USA. ØHe lists some of the problems and the mistakes that mankind has done so far. ØHe talks about some problems that could remain unsolved even in the future. ØHe ends his letter with four wishes

4.      Character Analysis

The Writer – Bryan Woolley  is a optimistic about future. And he is pesimistic about life of today . He has hopes about future. He thinks in an objective way while trying to analyze today’s world.

5.      Mrs. Elisabeth Pink- She is the one who is responsible for contents of the time capsule. She is assumed to be a friend of the author. The Mankind - According to what the author says, the mankind has destroyed and defiled the nature.  The people may repeat the same mistakes over and over again, troubling their own future.

Summary of the story The title of this story alone shows us that the story is about the future. There is this place called Collin County in Texas, USA. Building a new courthouse and a jail in McKinney, the Collin County Historical Commission decides to bury a time capsule that will be opened in A.D 2029. The author of this story is asked to write a letter as a literary contribution to the content of this time capsule. Having no limitations in the selection of a topic, he decides to write about how we have failed to preserve the nature and how we are still continuing to destroy it even more. With a more clever mind that understands how we repeat our mistakes with every generation, he decides to give advice to the Residents of A.D 2029, the people of the future, for them not to repeat the same mistakes. Listing four pieces of advice in the end of his letter, he finishes what he is asked of by the Historical Commission.

To The Residents Of A.D 2029 by Bryan Woolley

1. To the Residents of A.D. 2029 by Bryan Woolley Alev Senem ÖZAKIN Çağatay ERGEN Lukash LABAJ Orhan SELEN

2.  In 1976, he joined the Dallas Times Herald.Ø In 1969, he joined the Courier-Journal in Louisville,Kentucky. He worked at there for seven years. Ø Then, he was city editor of The Anniston Star Press in Alabama. Ø Bryan Woolley’s life wasn’t always in Texas. After several unsatisfying jobs and graduating at Texas Christian University and Harvard, he served as an Associated Press corrospondent in Oklahoma. ØAuthor’s life

3.  He has two married sons and two granddaughters. He lives in Dallas with his wife.Ø He got many awards including the Pen West Literary Journalism Award. Ø He has seventeen books. Ø Until his retirement, he worked at Dallas Morning News. ØAuthor’s life

6. Summary of the story The title of this story alone shows us that the story is about the future. There is this place called Collin County in Texas, USA. Building a new courthouse and a jail in McKinney, the Collin County Historical Commission decides to bury a time capsule that will be opened in A.D 2029. The author of this story is asked to write a letter as a literary contribution to the content of this time capsule. Having no limitations in the selection of a topic, he decides to write about how we have failed to preserve the nature and how we are still continuing to destroy it even more. With a more clever mind that understands how we repeat our mistakes with every generation, he decides to give advice to the Residents of A.D 2029, the people of the future, for them not to repeat the same mistakes. Listing four pieces of advice in the end of his letter, he finishes what he is asked of by the Historical Commission.

7. He ends his letter with four wishesØHe talks about some problems that could remain unsolved even in the future. ØHe lists some of the problems and the mistakes that mankind has done so far. ØHe talks about the reasons as to why he is writing and the current status of the USA. ØOrganization of the Paragraphs

8. We hope we won’t scare any of you…

9. A bit of Discussion Wars! Fight! After reading the story, do you believe in the author’s claiming that he refuses to be pessimistic about the future? Tell your reasons.

10.  He thinks in an objective way while trying to analyze today’s world.Ø He has hopes about future. Ø He is pesimistic about today. Ø He is optimistic about future. ØCharacter Analysis The Writer – Bryan Woolley

11.  She is assumed to be a friend of the author.Ø She is the one who is responsible for contents of the time capsule. ØCharacter Analysis Mrs. Elisabeth Pink

12.  We repeat the same mistakes over and over again, troubling our own future.Ø According to what the author says, the mankind has destroyed and defiled the nature. ØCharacter Analysis The Mankind

13. Match the words with their meanings. … a) Vicinity … b) Hunky-dory … c) Postulated … d) Quaint … e) Retrospect … f) Beleaguered … g) Schism 1) Claimed 2) Division 3) Worried,tormented 4) An act of thinking about past 5) Attractive because of being unusual 6) Satisfactory and pleasant 7) The area immedieately surrounding something

14. Fill in the blanks with the suitable words below. schism, vicinity, hunky-dory, postulated, retrospect, beleaguered, quaint 1) There is no hospital in the immediate ________________ . 2) They ____________ a 500-year lifespan for a plastic container. 3) In the west part of the country, there are some _________ villages. They are very old, but pretty as well. 4) Perhaps, in ___________, I shouldn't have gone. 5) You can't lose your temper one minute, and then expect everything to be __________ again. 6) The arrival of the fresh medical supplies was a welcome sight for the ________ doctors working for the refugee camps. 7) There is a widening _________ between Church leaders and politicians.

15. Put the words below under their grammatical categories. Nouns Adjectives Verbs Vicinity, postulate, retrospect, fulfill, survival, capsule, nourish, usable, highest, responsible, undrinkable, transportation, continental, resources, realm, pessimistic, beleaguered, heal, profound, feed

16. Fill in the blanks with the suitable prepositions. 1) I wish I could report ____ the future that our current status is hunky-dory. 2) Until recently, it was possible ____ Americans ____ believe that. 3) The people ____ the United States have enjoyed the highest standart ___ living. 4) Sometimes, we've ever been wasteful ___ human life itself. 5) Lately, we've begun ___ realize that we're ___ trouble. 6) We've poured so much filth ____ our water that much ___ it is undrinkable, and no life can live ___ it. 7) Even the life ____ the ocean, the great mother ___ us all, is threatened. 8) We continue ___ depend ___ unrenewable resources.

17. Speak Up! 1) If you were the author of this short story, what else would you advise the people of future? Discuss with your partners. 2) In groups of five, discuss how the situation may be in A.D. 2100. List at least five things that you expect to happen.

18. Be the Author… 1) The author wrote this story to adress the citizens of America in A.D. 2029. write a letter to the citizens of your country in A.D. 2029 to give advice, and inform them about your country and the situation we are now going through. 2) Write an argumentative essay about the topics given below: *Technology and its effects *How humanity consumes the resources

THE ALGEBRA OF INFINITE JUSTICE

- Arundhati Roy

(The algebra of infinite justice As the US prepares to wage a new kind of war, Arundhati Roy challenges the instinct for vengeance Arundhati Roy Saturday September 29, 2001 The Guardian).

In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, an American newscaster said: "Good and evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People who we don’t know massacred people who we do. And they did so with contemptuous glee." Then he broke down and wept. Here’s the rub: America is at war against people it doesn’t know, because they don’t appear much on TV. Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an "international coalition against terror", mobilised its army, its air force, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle. The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can’t very well return without having fought one. If it doesn’t find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we’ll lose sight of why it’s being fought in the first place. What we’re witnessing here is the spectacle of the world’s most powerful country reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America’s streamlined warships, cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn’t show up in baggage checks. Who is America fighting? On September 20, the FBI said that it had doubts about the identities of some of the hijackers. On the same day President George Bush said, "We know exactly who these people are and which governments are supporting them." It sounds as though the president knows something that the FBI and the American public don’t. In his September 20 address to the US Congress, President Bush called the enemies of America "enemies of freedom". "Americans are asking, ’Why do they hate us?’" he said. "They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." People are being asked to make two leaps of faith here. First, to assume that The Enemy is who the US government says it is, even though it has no substantial evidence to support that claim. And second, to assume that The Enemy’s motives are what the US government says they are, and there’s nothing to support that either. For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade its public that their commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it’s an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it’s reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America’s economic and military dominance -- the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon -- were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government’s record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things -- to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)? It must be hard for ordinary Americans, so recently bereaved, to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn’t indifference. It’s just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them but their government’s policies that are so hated. They can’t possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office staff in the days since the attacks. America’s grief at what happened has been immense and immensely public. It would be grotesque to expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish. However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as an opportunity to try to understand why September 11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to usurp the whole world’s sorrow to mourn and avenge only their own. Because then it falls to the rest of us to ask the hard questions and say the harsh things. And for our pains, for our bad timing, we will be disliked, ignored and perhaps eventually silenced. The world will probably never know what motivated those particular hijackers who flew planes into those particular American buildings. They were not glory boys. They left no suicide notes, no political messages; no organisation has claimed credit for the attacks. All we know is that their belief in what they were doing outstripped the natural human instinct for survival, or any desire to be remembered. It’s almost as though they could not scale down the enormity of their rage to anything smaller than their deeds. And what they did has blown a hole in the world as we knew it. In the absence of information, politicians, political commentators and writers (like myself) will invest the act with their own politics, with their own interpretations. This speculation, this analysis of the political climate in which the attacks took place, can only be a good thing. But war is looming large. Whatever remains to be said must be said quickly. Before America places itself at the helm of the "international coalition against terror", before it invites (and coerces) countries to actively participate in its almost godlike mission -- called Operation Infinite Justice until it was pointed out that this could be seen as an insult to Muslims, who believe that only Allah can mete out infinite justice, and was renamed Operation Enduring Freedom -- it would help if some small clarifications are made. For example, Infinite Justice/Enduring Freedom for whom? Is this America’s war against terror in America or against terror in general? What exactly is being avenged here? Is it the tragic loss of almost 7,000 lives, the gutting of five million square feet of office space in Manhattan, the destruction of a section of the Pentagon, the loss of several hundreds of thousands of jobs, the bankruptcy of some airline companies and the dip in the New York Stock Exchange? Or is it more than that? In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then the US secretary of state, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was "a very hard choice", but that, all things considered, "we think the price is worth it". Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die. So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the "massacre of innocent people" or, if you like, "a clash of civilisations" and "collateral damage". The sophistry and fastidious algebra of infinite justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead women and children for every dead man? How many dead mojahedin for each dead investment banker? As we watch mesmerised, Operation Enduring Freedom unfolds on TV monitors across the world. A coalition of the world’s superpowers is closing in on Afghanistan, one of the poorest, most ravaged, war-torn countries in the world, whose ruling Taliban government is sheltering Osama bin Laden, the man being held responsible for the September 11 attacks. The only thing in Afghanistan that could possibly count as collateral value is its citizenry. (Among them, half a million maimed orphans. There are accounts of hobbling stampedes that occur when artificial limbs are airdropped into remote, inaccessible villages.) Afghanistan’s economy is in a shambles. In fact, the problem for an invading army is that Afghanistan has no conventional coordinates or signposts to plot on a military map -- no big cities, no highways, no industrial complexes, no water treatment plants. Farms have been turned into mass graves. The countryside is littered with land mines -- 10 million is the most recent estimate. The American army would first have to clear the mines and build roads in order to take its soldiers in. Fearing an attack from America, one million citizens have fled from their homes and arrived at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The UN estimates that there are eight million Afghan citizens who need emergency aid. As supplies run out -- food and aid agencies have been asked to leave -- the BBC reports that one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to unfold. Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death while they’re waiting to be killed. In America there has been rough talk of "bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it’s any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there’s a run on maps of the country), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends. In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the communist regime and eventually destabilise it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union’s Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, through the ISI, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mojahedin from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America’s proxy war. The rank and file of the mojahedin were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam. (The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself.) In 1989, after being bloodied by 10 years of relentless conflict, the Russians withdrew, leaving behind a civilisation reduced to rubble. Civil war in Afghanistan raged on. The jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The CIA continued to pour in money and military equipment, but the overheads had become immense, and more money was needed. The mojahedin ordered farmers to plant opium as a "revolutionary tax". The ISI set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA’s arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source of the heroin on American streets. The annual profits, said to be between $100bn and $200bn, were ploughed back into training and arming militants. In 1995, the Taliban -- then a marginal sect of dangerous, hard-line fundamentalists -- fought its way to power in Afghanistan. It was funded by the ISI, that old cohort of the CIA, and supported by many political parties in Pakistan. The Taliban unleashed a regime of terror. Its first victims were its own people, particularly women. It closed down girls’ schools, dismissed women from government jobs, and enforced sharia laws under which women deemed to be "immoral" are stoned to death, and widows guilty of being adulterous are buried alive. Given the Taliban government’s human rights track record, it seems unlikely that it will in any way be intimidated or swerved from its purpose by the prospect of war, or the threat to the lives of its civilians. After all that has happened, can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan? The question is, can you destroy destruction? Dropping more bombs on Afghanistan will only shuffle the rubble, scramble some old graves and disturb the dead. The desolate landscape of Afghanistan was the burial ground of Soviet communism and the springboard of a unipolar world dominated by America. It made the space for neo-capitalism and corporate globalisation, again dominated by America. And now Afghanistan is poised to become the graveyard for the unlikely soldiers who fought and won this war for America. And what of America’s trusted ally? Pakistan too has suffered enormously. The US government has not been shy of supporting military dictators who have blocked the idea of democracy from taking root in the country. Before the CIA arrived, there was a small rural market for opium in Pakistan. Between 1979 and 1985, the number of heroin addicts grew from zero to one-and-a-half million. Even before September 11, there were three million Afghan refugees living in tented camps along the border. Pakistan’s economy is crumbling. Sectarian violence, globalisation’s structural adjustment programmes and drug lords are tearing the country to pieces. Set up to fight the Soviets, the terrorist training centres and madrasahs, sown like dragon’s teeth across the country, produced fundamentalists with tremendous popular appeal within Pakistan itself. The Taliban, which the Pakistan government has supported, funded and propped up for years, has material and strategic alliances with Pakistan’s own political parties. Now the US government is asking (asking?) Pakistan to garotte the pet it has hand-reared in its backyard for so many years. President Musharraf, having pledged his support to the US, could well find he has something resembling civil war on his hands. India, thanks in part to its geography, and in part to the vision of its former leaders, has so far been fortunate enough to be left out of this Great Game. Had it been drawn in, it’s more than likely that our democracy, such as it is, would not have survived. Today, as some of us watch in horror, the Indian government is furiously gyrating its hips, begging the US to set up its base in India rather than Pakistan. Having had this ringside view of Pakistan’s sordid fate, it isn’t just odd, it’s unthinkable, and that India should want to do this. Any third world country with a fragile economy and a complex social base should know by now that to invite a superpower such as America in (whether it says it’s staying or just passing through) would be like inviting a brick to drop through your windscreen. Operation Enduring Freedom is ostensibly being fought to uphold the American Way of Life. It’ll probably end up undermining it completely. It will spawn more anger and more terror across the world. For ordinary people in America, it will mean lives lived in a climate of sickening uncertainty: will my child be safe in school? Will there be nerve gas in the subway? A bomb in the cinema hall? Will my love come home tonight? There have been warnings about the possibility of biological warfare -- smallpox, bubonic plague, anthrax -- the deadly payload of innocuous crop-duster aircraft. Being picked off a few at a time may end up being worse than being annihilated all at once by a nuclear bomb. The US government, and no doubt governments all over the world, will use the climate of war as an excuse to curtail civil liberties, deny free speech, lay off workers, harass ethnic and religious minorities, cut back on public spending and divert huge amounts of money to the defence industry. To what purpose? President Bush can no more "rid the world of evil-doers" than he can stock it with saints. It’s absurd for the US government to even toy with the notion that it can stamp out terrorism with more violence and oppression. Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease. Terrorism has no country. It’s transnational, as global an enterprise as Coke or Pepsi or Nike. At the first sign of trouble, terrorists can pull up stakes and move their "factories" from country to country in search of a better deal. Just like the multi-nationals. Terrorism as a phenomenon may never go away. But if it is to be contained, the first step is for America to at least acknowledge that it shares the planet with other nations, with other human beings who, even if they are not on TV, have loves and grief’s and stories and songs and sorrows and, for heaven’s sake, rights. Instead, when Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, was asked what he would call a victory in America’s new war, he said that if he could convince the world that Americans must be allowed to continue with their way of life, he would consider it a victory. The September 11 attacks were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by Bin Laden (who knows?) and delivered by his couriers, but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America’s old wars. The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel -- backed by the US -- invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list. For a country involved in so much warfare and conflict, the American people have been extremely fortunate. The strikes on September 11 were only the second on American soil in over a century. The first was Pearl Harbour. The reprisal for this took a long route, but ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This time the world waits with bated breath for the horrors to come. Someone recently said that if Osama bin Laden didn’t exist, America would have had to invent him. But, in a way, America did invent him. He was among the jihadis who moved to Afghanistan in 1979 when the CIA commenced its operations there. Bin Laden has the distinction of being created by the CIA and wanted by the FBI. In the course of a fortnight he has been promoted from suspect to prime suspect and then, despite the lack of any real evidence, straight up the charts to being "wanted dead or alive". From all accounts, it will be impossible to produce evidence (of the sort that would stand scrutiny in a court of law) to link Bin Laden to the September 11 attacks. So far, it appears that the most incriminating piece of evidence against him is the fact that he has not condemned them. From what is known about the location of Bin Laden and the living conditions in which he operates, it’s entirely possible that he did not personally plan and carry out the attacks -- that he is the inspirational figure, "the CEO of the holding company". The Taliban’s response to US demands for the extradition of Bin Laden has been uncharacteristically reasonable: produce the evidence, then we’ll hand him over. President Bush’s response is that the demand is "non-negotiable". (While talks are on for the extradition of CEOs -- can India put in a side request for the extradition of Warren Anderson of the US? He was the chairman of Union Carbide, responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000 people in 1984. We have collated the necessary evidence. It’s all in the files. Could we have him, please?) But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He’s America’s family secret. He is the American president’s dark doppelgänger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America’s foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of "full-spectrum dominance", its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts. Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we think. Now that the family secret has been spilled, the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable. Their guns, bombs, money and drugs have been going around in the loop for a while. (The Stinger missiles that will greet US helicopters were supplied by the CIA. The heroin used by America’s drug addicts comes from Afghanistan. The Bush administration recently gave Afghanistan a $43m subsidy for a "war on drugs"....) Now Bush and Bin Laden have even begun to borrow each other’s rhetoric. Each refers to the other as "the head of the snake". Both invoke God and use the loose millenarian currency of good and evil as their terms of reference. Both are engaged in unequivocal political crimes. Both are dangerously armed -- one with the nuclear arsenal of the obscenely powerful, the other with the incandescent, destructive power of the utterly hopeless. The fireball and the ice pick. The bludgeon and the axe. The important thing to keep in mind is that neither is an acceptable alternative to the other. President Bush’s ultimatum to the people of the world -- "If you’re not with us, you’re against us" -- is a piece of presumptuous arrogance. It’s not a choice that people want to, need to, or should have to make.

© Arundhati Roy 2001 Guardian Unlimited, Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/ArundhatiRoy.html

Summary of The Algebra of Infinite Justice by Arundhati Roy

The Algebra of Infinite Justice is an anthology of essays by Arundhati Roy written over a period of years. It compiles most of her political writings. The pervading -air in the book is of radical activism as she argues all her positions staunchly and sweeps the reader with the power of her words, so much so that there is a danger of believing her implicitly. Though all of what she says makes sense, the dangers of absolutism lurk.

Written in 2001, “the Ladies have feelings so…” talks of the role of a writer in the society. It is self- reflecting as she talks of the dichotomy of being called a writer-activist. The essay meanders then to talk of Globalization and what it means in the context of India. She takes up a strong position against the phenomenon of globalization and speaks of dissent as the only force to oppose and check it. She takes a very pro people stance and manages to sway the reader with the powerful imagery.

The essay after which the book is named was written in the aftermath of September 11. This piece is a compelling critique of American policies and she has taken care to tread a fine line. The concept of a manufactured enemy is taken up, as after the attack it was America which decided both the enemy and the motive. She has attempted to deconstruct the attack by looking at it from the time when America trained and funded the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union in 1979. This went on till 1989 which was when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan. The tentacles of terror had been established and from the Jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and Kashmir. But post 9/11, nobody spoke of this aspect. For her these strikes were ghosts of America’s old wars coming back to haunt it. It is ironic that Bin Laden which the CIA had created is now the “most- wanted” man by the FBI. She mentions most other US backed wars and dictators to lend credence to her point.

“War is Peace” follows the previous essay as it is on the US invasion of Afghanistan post 9/11. The long list of wars US has been directly involved in since the World War II is unprecedented. She tears apart the notion of freedom in the context of America. The real religion of US is the free market. Operation Infinite justice (the invasion of Afghanistan) is actually infinite injustice for another. The Iraq War named Operation Enduring Freedom is actually enduring subjugation for so many. She talks of collapsible entities talking over an increasingly unipolar world. Hence, war is peace.

As like most of her essays “Democracy” is a caustic attack on the Gujarat riots as she paints a very graphic and poignant picture of the human pogrom. She goes almost ballistic about the kind of ideology propagated by the BJP and the then Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee too is reprimanded for his inaction. The complicity of the State angers her yet also in a warped sense makes her a part of it. The already flawed concept of nationalism is slowly degenerating into Hindu nationalism based on hatred for the other. She does not spare the politicians and calls the Congress and the BJP alter egos of each other who thrive off themselves.

War Talk is more like an epilogue to the book, condensing most of the things said in earlier pieces. The technique here is almost the stream of consciousness. It seems a fitting end to the book as it encapsulates the essence of all things said so far.

No matter whether one agrees with her politics or not, it is true that she has the capacity to influence the audience with the power of her pen. You can either love her or hate her but you cannot ignore her.

UNIT - III

The Invalid's Story

- Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens

I seem sixty and married, but these effects are due to my condition and sufferings, for I am a bachelor, and only forty-one. It will be hard for you to believe that I, who am now but a shadow, was a hale, hearty man two short years ago, a man of iron, a very athlete!--yet such is the simple truth. But stranger still than this fact is the way in which I lost my health. I lost it through helping to take care of a box of guns on a two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter's night. It is the actual truth, and I will tell you about it.

I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter's night, two years ago, I reached home just after dark, in a driving snow-storm, and the first thing I heard when I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood friend and schoolmate, John B. Hackett, had died the day before, and that his last utterance had been a desire that I would take his remains home to his poor old father and mother in Wisconsin. I was greatly shocked and grieved, but there was no time to waste in emotions; I must start at once. I took the card, marked "Deacon Levi Hackett, Bethlehem, Wisconsin," and hurried off through the whistling storm to the railway station. Arrived there I found the long white-pine box which had been described to me; I fastened the card to it with some tacks, saw it put safely aboard the express car, and then ran into the eating-room to provide myself with a sandwich and some cigars. When I returned, presently, there was my coffin-box back again, apparently, and a young fellow examining around it, with a card in his hands, and some tacks and a hammer! I was astonished and puzzled. He began to nail on his card, and I rushed out to the express car, in a good deal of a state of mind, to ask for an explanation. But no--there was my box, all right, in the express car; it hadn't been disturbed. [The fact is that without my suspecting it a prodigious mistake had been made. I was carrying off a box of guns which that young fellow had come to the station to ship to a rifle company in Peoria, Illinois, and he had got my corpse!] Just then the conductor sung out "All aboard," and I jumped into the express car and got a comfortable seat on a bale of buckets. The express man was there, hard at work,--a plain man of fifty, with a simple, honest, good- natured face, and a breezy, practical heartiness in his general style. As the train moved off a stranger skipped into the car and set a package of peculiarly mature and capable Limburger cheese on one end of my coffin-box--I mean my box of guns. That is to say, I know now that it was Limburger cheese, but at that time I never had heard of the article in my life, and of course was wholly ignorant of its character. Well, we sped through the wild night, the bitter storm raged on, a cheerless misery stole over me, my heart went down, down, down! The old express man made a brisk remark or two about the tempest and the arctic weather, slammed his sliding doors to, and bolted them, closed his window down tight, and then went bustling around, here and there and yonder, setting things to rights, and all the time contentedly humming "Sweet By and By," in a low tone, and flatting a good deal. Presently I began to detect a most evil and searching odor stealing about on the frozen air. This depressed my spirits still more, because of course I attributed it to my poor departed friend. There was something infinitely saddening about his calling himself to my remembrance in this dumb pathetic way, so it was hard to keep the tears back. Moreover, it distressed me on account of the old express man, who, I was afraid, might notice it. However, he went humming tranquilly on, and gave no sign; and for this I was grateful. Grateful, yes, but still uneasy; and soon I began to feel more and more uneasy every minute, for every minute that went by that odor thickened up the more, and got to be more and more gamey and hard to stand. Presently, having got things arranged to his satisfaction, the express man got some wood and made up a tremendous fire in his stove.

This distressed me more than I can tell, for I could not but feel that it was a mistake. I was sure that the effect would be deleterious upon my poor departed friend. Thompson--the express man's name was Thompson, as I found out in the course of the night--now went poking around his car, stopping up whatever stray cracks he could find, remarking that it didn't make any difference what kind of a night it was outside, he calculated to make us comfortable, anyway. I said nothing, but I believed he was not choosing the right way. Meantime he was humming to himself just as before; and meantime, too, the stove was getting hotter and hotter, and the place closer and closer. I felt myself growing pale and qualmish, but grieved in silence and said nothing.

Soon I noticed that the "Sweet By and By" was gradually fading out; next it ceased altogether, and there was an ominous stillness. After a few moments Thompson said,

"Pfew! I reckon it ain't no cinnamon 't I've loaded up thish-yer stove with!"

He gasped once or twice, then moved toward the cof--gun-box, stood over that Limburger cheese part of a moment, then came back and sat down near me, looking a good deal impressed. After a contemplative pause, he said, indicating the box with a gesture,

"Friend of yourn?"

"Yes," I said with a sigh.

"He's pretty ripe, ain't he!"

Nothing further was said for perhaps a couple of minutes, each being busy with his own thoughts; then Thompson said, in a low, awed voice,

"Sometimes it's uncertain whether they're really gone or not,--seem gone, you know--body warm, joints limber--and so, although you think they're gone, you don't really know. I've had cases in my car. It's perfectly awful, because you don't know what minute they'll rise up and look at you!" Then, after a pause, and slightly lifting his elbow toward the box,-- "But he ain't in no trance! No, sir, I go bail for him!"

We sat some time, in meditative silence, listening to the wind and the roar of the train; then Thompson said, with a good deal of feeling,

"Well-a-well, we've all got to go, they ain't no getting around it. Man that is born of woman is of few days and far between, as Scriptur' says. Yes, you look at it any way you want to, it's awful solemn and cur'us: they ain't nobody can get around it; all's got to go--just everybody, as you may say. One day you're hearty and strong"--here he scrambled to his feet and broke a pane and stretched his nose out at it a moment or two, then sat down again while I struggled up and thrust my nose out at the same place, and this we kept on doing every now and then--" and next day he's cut down like the grass, and the places which knowed him then knows him no more forever, as Scriptur' says. Yes'ndeedy, it's awful solemn and cur'us; but we've all got to go, one time or another; they ain't no getting around it."

There was another long pause; then,--

"What did he die of?"

I said I didn't know.

"How long has he been dead?"

It seemed judicious to enlarge the facts to fit the probabilities; so I said,

"Two or three days."

But it did no good; for Thompson received it with an injured look which plainly said, "Two or three years, you mean." Then he went right along, placidly ignoring my statement, and gave his views at considerable length upon the unwisdom of putting off burials too long. Then he lounged off toward the box, stood a moment, then came back on a sharp trot and visited the broken pane, observing,

"'Twould 'a' ben a dum sight better, all around, if they'd started him along last summer."

Thompson sat down and buried his face in his red silk handkerchief, and began to slowly sway and rock his body like one who is doing his best to endure the almost unendurable. By this time the fragrance--if you may call it fragrance--was just about suffocating, as near as you can come at it. Thompson's face was turning gray; I knew mine hadn't any color left in it. By and by Thompson rested his forehead in his left hand, with his elbow on his knee, and sort of waved his red handkerchief towards the box with his other hand, and said,--

"I've carried a many a one of 'em,--some of 'em considerable overdue, too,--but, lord, he just lays over 'em all!--and does it easy Cap., they was heliotrope to HIM!"

This recognition of my poor friend gratified me, in spite of the sad circumstances, because it had so much the sound of a compliment.

Pretty soon it was plain that something had got to be done. I suggested cigars. Thompson thought it was a good idea. He said,

"Likely it'll modify him some."

We puffed gingerly along for a while, and tried hard to imagine that things were improved. But it wasn't any use. Before very long, and without any consultation, both cigars were quietly dropped from our nerveless fingers at the same moment. Thompson said, with a sigh,

"No, Cap., it don't modify him worth a cent. Fact is, it makes him worse, because it appears to stir up his ambition. What do you reckon we better do, now?"

I was not able to suggest anything; indeed, I had to be swallowing and swallowing, all the time, and did not like to trust myself to speak. Thompson fell to maundering, in a desultory and low-spirited way, about the miserable experiences of this night; and he got to referring to my poor friend by various titles,--sometimes military ones, sometimes civil ones; and I noticed that as fast as my poor friend's effectiveness grew, Thompson promoted him accordingly,--gave him a bigger title. Finally he said,

"I've got an idea. Suppos' n we buckle down to it and give the Colonel a bit of a shove towards t'other end of the car? --about ten foot, say. He wouldn't have so much influence, then, don't you reckon?"

I said it was a good scheme. So we took in a good fresh breath at the broken pane, calculating to hold it till we got through; then we went there and bent over that deadly cheese and took a grip on the box. Thompson nodded "All ready," and then we threw ourselves forward with all our might; but Thompson slipped, and slumped down with his nose on the cheese, and his breath got loose. He gagged and gasped, and floundered up and made a break for the door, pawing the air and saying hoarsely, "Don't hinder me! --gimme the road! I'm a-dying; gimme the road!" Out on the cold platform I sat down and held his head a while, and he revived. Presently he said,

"Do you reckon we started the General any?"

I said no; we hadn't budged him.

"Well, then, that idea's up the flume. We got to think up something else. He's suited where' he is, I reckon; and if that's the way he feels about it, and has made up his mind that he don't wish to be disturbed, you bet he's a-going to have his own way in the business. Yes, better leave him right wher' he is, long as he wants it so; because he holds all the trumps, don't you know, and so it stands to reason that the man that lays out to alter his plans for him is going to get left."

But we couldn't stay out there in that mad storm; we should have frozen to death. So we went in again and shut the door, and began to suffer once more and take turns at the break in the window. By and by, as we were starting away from a station where we had stopped a moment Thompson. Pranced in cheerily, and exclaimed,

"We're all right, now! I reckon we've got the Commodore this time. I judge I've got the stuff here that'll take the tuck out of him."

It was carbolic acid. He had a carboy of it. He sprinkled it all around everywhere; in fact he drenched everything with it, rifle-box, cheese and all. Then we sat down, feeling pretty hopeful. But it wasn't for long. You see the two perfumes began to mix, and then--well, pretty soon we made a break for the door; and out there Thompson swabbed his face with his bandanna and said in a kind of disheartened way,

"It ain't no use. We can't buck again him. He just utilizes everything we put up to modify him with, and gives it his own flavor and plays it back on us. Why, Cap., don't you know, it's as much as a hundred times worse in there now than it was when he first got a-going. I never did see one of 'em warm up to his work so, and take such a domination interest in it. No, Sir, I never did, as long as I've been on the road; and I've carried a many a one of 'em, as I was telling you."

We went in again after we were frozen pretty stiff; but my, we couldn't stay in, now. So we just waltzed back and forth, freezing, and thawing, and stifling, by turns. In about an hour we stopped at another station; and as we left it Thompson came in with a bag, and said,--

"Cap., I'm a-going to chance him once more,--just this once; and if we don't fetch him this time, the thing for us to do, is to just throw up the sponge and withdraw from the canvass. That's the way I put it up." He had brought a lot of chicken feathers, and dried apples, and leaf tobacco, and rags, and old shoes, and sulphur, and asafoetida, and one thing or another; and he, piled them on a breadth of sheet iron in the middle of the floor, and set fire to them.

When they got well started, I couldn't see, myself, how even the corpse could stand it. All that went before was just simply poetry to that smell,--but mind you, the original smell stood up out of it just as sublime as ever,--fact is, these other smells just seemed to give it a better hold; and my, how rich it was! I didn't make these reflections there--there wasn't time--made them on the platform. And breaking for the platform, Thompson got suffocated and fell; and before I got him dragged out, which I did by the collar, I was mighty near gone myself. When we revived, Thompson said dejectedly,--

"We got to stay out here, Cap. We got to do it. They ain't no other way. The Governor wants to travel alone, and he's fixed so he can outvote us."

And presently he added,

"And don't you know, we're poisoned. It's our last trip, you can make up your mind to it. Typhoid fever is what's going to come of this. I feel it a coming right now. Yes, sir, we're elected, just as sure as you're born."

We were taken from the platform an hour later, frozen and insensible, at the next station, and I went straight off into a virulent fever, and never knew anything again for three weeks. I found out, then, that I had spent that awful night with a harmless box of rifles and a lot of innocent cheese; but the news was too late to save me; imagination had done its work, and my health was permanently shattered; neither Bermuda nor any other land can ever bring it back to me. This is my last trip; I am on my way home to die.

“The Invalid’s Story,” Mark Twain’s raucous story about a case of mistaken identities that eventually kills a man, is considered by many critics to have no literary value. Still, even though some critics have panned the story, it is often reproduced in collections of Twain’s stories and others have noted that it is a good example of the frontier-style humor for which Twain was known. The story details the unfortunate misadventures of two men on a train who mistake a gunbox and a piece of rotting cheese for a smelly corpse in a coffin. The two men try many tactics in an attempt to fight the smell of the “corpse,” but in the end, all of their efforts are fruitless. The themes range from mortality and the proper behavior towards the dead, to the power of imagination to overcome reason.

It is believed that Twain wrote the story in the 1870s, about a decade after he began what would be an illustrious career. During this time, America’s railroads were experiencing their Golden Age, as people relied mainly on trains for both travel and the transportation of everything from coffins to food products. First published in The Stolen White Elephant, Etc. in London in 1882, the story can be found in The Signet Classic Book Of Mark Twain’s Short Stories, published in 1985.

Author Biography

Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835, in the village of Florida, Missouri. Although his early life was spent in Missouri, Clemens left home as a young man and traveled around the United States, often picking up temporary printing jobs or other odd jobs to fund his adventures.

Travel remained a big part of Clemens’s life and he experienced many of the different types of travel available to people in the nineteenth century. From working as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi, Clemens moved out west, traveling by stagecoach. It was in the west that he began to publish his own writing, including his first book, a collection of humorous tales, in 1867. In fact, Clemens’s frontier-style humor became a trademark in many of his future publications. “The Invalid’s Story”—which is believed to have been written in 1877, and which was first published as part of “Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion” in the story collection, The Stolen White Elephant, Etc.... (1882)—is a good example. Even though the story takes place in the Midwest, it exhibits the same raucous humor that Clemens first introduced in his western stories.

“The Invalid’s Story” also featured another form of travel that Clemens had experienced. Train travel was the dominant form of travel in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Throughout his life, Clemens and his family were plagued by sickness. His firstborn son was exposed to the elements and died of diphtheria, much like the narrator in Clemens’s story, who eventually dies from typhoid fever—as a result of being out in the elements.

Clemens (as the more commonly known Twain) wrote hundreds of works during his lifetime. Some of his most famous writings include the novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. His autobiographical and travel books include The Innocents Abroad; or, the New Pilgrims’ Progress, Roughing It, Old Times on the Mississippi, and Following the Equator. His stories include “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches,” “1601,” and “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories and Essays.” In 2001, one of Clemens’s manuscripts, entitled A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage, was published by the Atlantic Monthly.

Clemens died in his home near Redding, Connecticut, on April 21,1910, leaving behind a legacy as one of America’s most important writers, a distinction that has only increased with time.

Plot Summary

At the beginning of Twain’s “The Invalid’s Story,” the narrator explains that he looks and feels older than he is and that he used to be much healthier than he is now. He attributes his decline in health to the strange events of one winter night, in which he traveled with a box of guns for two hundred miles.

The narrator recalls how, two years before, he had arrived at his home in Cleveland, Ohio and learned of the recent death of his friend, John B. Hackett. Following Hackett’s last wishes, the narrator leaves for the train station to take Hackett’s body back to his parents in Bethlehem, Wisconsin.

The narrator finds a white-pine box at the train station that matches the description of the coffin. He attaches the address card from Hackett’s father, Deacon Levi Hackett, to the white-pine box, and has it loaded into the train on the express car—a method for transporting packages by train that was safer and faster, but more expensive, than normal freight cars.

The narrator leaves to get food and cigars, and when he comes back to the area where he had first found the white-pine box, a young man is tacking an address card onto an identical box.

The narrator checks to make sure his white-pine box is still in the express car, which it is. At this point, the narrator lets the reader know that the boxes are labeled wrong. The first box, the one in the express car, which the narrator assumes is the corpse of his friend, is actually a box of guns that is meant to go to Peoria, Illinois. Conversely, the second box, which the young man assumes contains the guns, actually contains John Hackett’s corpse.

However, the narrator is not aware of this fact at the time that he is taking the train trip. He settles into the express car, where he and the expressman—the man hired by the express company to look after the express packages—settle in for the long, two-hundred-mile journey. Right before the train takes off, a stranger comes into the express car for a moment and places a package of ripe Limburger cheese on top of the white-pine box. Just as neither the narrator nor expressman, a man named Thompson, are aware that the coffin box contains guns, they also don’t realize that the package on top of the box contains ripe cheese. Once again, the narrator tells the reader this fact, but he does not know it at the time of the train trip.

As Thompson starts to seal the car against the winter storm that rages outside so that he and the narrator can keep warm, the ripe cheese also starts to get warm, and begins to smell. The narrator notices it first, and mistakes it for Hackett’s corpse, which he believes is starting to rot. Thompson starts a fire to help the two keep warm, which only makes the cheese stink even more. Although he is cheerful at the beginning of the trip, singing happy songs, Thompson eventually becomes aware of the cheese stench, and he stops his singing.

Thompson also assumes that the stench is from a rotting corpse, and he and the narrator begin to talk about it. Thompson notes the smell of the corpse and says that he has transported people who were not really dead, only in a trance, but that he can tell by the stench that the narrator’s friend is not one of these.

In an effort to get away from the smell, Thompson breaks one of the express car’s window panes and sticks his nose outside to get some fresh air. He and the narrator take turns sniffing at the window, and Thompson asks how long the narrator’s friend has been dead. Thompson does not believe the narrator’s assertion that Hackett died recently, because a corpse could not rot and produce such a pronounced smell in a few days. Thompson admonishes the narrator, saying that Hackett’s body should have been laid to rest long ago. Meanwhile, the smell of the cheese has gotten so bad that the narrator suggests smoking cigars to try to mask the odor.

The cigars are the first of many failed attempts to try to tame the smell of the cheese. After the cigars fail, Thompson suggests that they move the box to the other end of the express car. This does not work and the two run outside onto the express car’s platform to get some fresh air, where they discuss their predicament. They can not stay outside or they will freeze to death in the stormy winter weather, but they can not handle the smell either. They end up going back inside the car, once again taking turns getting air at the window.

When the train pulls away from the next train station, Thompson comes back into the express car with carbolic acid, a caustic, poisonous chemical commonly used as a disinfectant. He douses the box

and cheese with the acid, but it is no use; the acid only adds a new odor, while magnifying the first one. After they leave the next train station, Thompson tries again, this time by starting a bonfire of chicken feathers, dried apples, sulphur, and other items.

The resulting smell is so bad that Thompson and the narrator resolve to spend the rest of the trip out on the platform, even though it will probably mean their death from typhoid fever. An hour later at the next train station, the frozen expressman and narrator are removed, and the narrator is violently ill for three weeks. It is at this point that he finds out about the box of guns and the ripe cheese. At the end of the story, the narrator, once again in the present, explains that the fateful trip sapped his health, and that he is going home to die.

Characters

Cap

See Narrator

The Colonel

See John B. Hackett

The Commodore

See John B. Hackett

The Expressman

See Thompson

The Gen’rul

See John B. Hackett

The Governor

See John B. Hackett

John B. Hackett

John B. Hackett is the narrator’s deceased friend, whose body the narrator attempts to transport from Cleveland, Ohio, to Hackett’s parents in the fictional town of Bethlehem, Wisconsin as part of Hackett’s last wishes. Although the narrator and his train’s expressman think that Hackett’s body is in a box in their car, through a case of mistaken identities, Hackett’s body ends up in transit to Peoria, Illinois while the narrator and the expressman are actually transporting a box of guns. The lack of this knowledge eventually leads to the ill-fated death of the narrator and, one assumes, the expressman. The expressman refers to Hackett’s body by several military and civil titles: Colonel, Gen’rul (an abbreviated form of “General”), Commodore, and Governor.

Deacon Levi Hackett

Deacon Levi Hackett is the father of the narrator’s deceased friend—John B. Hackett—who sends a message to the narrator, informing him of his son’s last wishes. Deacon Hackett also sends a card with his address, which the narrator tacks to a box of guns, thinking it is John Hackett’s coffin.

Narrator

The narrator of the story, called Cap’n by the expressman, is one of two ill-fated victims of a case of mistaken identities, which involves a coffin containing his dead friend—John B. Hackett—and a box of guns with Limburger cheese on top. The narrator is only forty-one years old when he begins his tale, but he says that he has aged prematurely as the result of his misadventures two years ago.

The Gift of the Magi

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pierglass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its colour within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Young in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window someday to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"

Jim looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Plot Summary

The Gift of the Magi is a well-known short story by American short story writer O. Henry, the pen name of William Sydney Porter. The story first appeared in The New York Sunday World on December 10, 1905 and was later published in O. Henry's collection The Four Million on April 10, 1906.

The story tells of a young married couple, James, known as Jim, and Della Dillingham. The couple has very little money and lives in a modest apartment. Between them, they have only two possessions that they consider their treasures: Jim's gold pocket watch that belonged to his father and his grandfather, and Della's lustrous, long hair that falls almost to her knees.

It's Christmas Eve, and Della finds herself running out of time to buy Jim a Christmas present. After paying all of the bills, all Della has left is $1.87 to put toward Jim's Christmas present. Desperate to find him the perfect gift, out she goes into the cold December day, looking in shop windows for something she can afford.

She wants to buy Jim a chain for his pocket watch, but they're all out of her price range. Rushing home, Della pulls down her beautiful hair and stands in front of the mirror, admiring it and thinking. After a sudden inspiration, she rushes out again and has her hair cut to sell. Della receives $20.00 for selling her hair, just enough to buy the platinum chain she saw in a shop window for $21.00.

When Jim comes home from work, he stares at Della, trying to figure out what's different about her. She admits that she sold her hair to buy his present. Before she can give it to him, however, Jim casually pulls a package out of his overcoat pocket and hands it to her. Inside, Della finds a pair of costly decorative hair combs that she'd long admired, but are now completely useless since she's cut off her hair. Hiding her tears, she jumps up and holds out her gift for Jim: the watch chain. Jim shrugs, flops down onto the old sofa, puts his hands behind his head and tells Della flatly that he sold his watch to buy her combs.

The story ends with a comparison of Jim and Della's gifts to the gifts that the Magi, or three wise men, gave to Baby Jesus in the manger in the biblical story of Christmas. The narrator concludes that Jim and Della are far wiser than the Magi because their gifts are gifts of love, and those who give out of love and self-sacrifice are truly wise because they know the value of self-giving love.

Summary

The story begins on Christmas Eve, with Della lamenting the fact that she’s only saved $1.87, despite months of pinching pennies at the grocer, butcher, and vegetable man. She flops down on their shabby couch and cries, while the narrator goes on to introduce the young couple, Della and Jim Dillingham Young. The narrator then describes their apartment, remarking upon its cheapness—8 dollars a week—and lack of a working doorbell.

Della stops crying but is still at a loss for how she might buy a Christmas present worthy of Jim. She suddenly remembers the pier-glass—a sort of thin mirror between the windows of the apartment—and stands before the glass, releasing her hair to fall to its full length. Here, the narrator describes the couple’s most prized possessions: Della’s long, brown hair that falls below her knees and Jim’s gold watch that was passed down from his grandfather. He compares these items to King Solomon’s treasures and the queen of Sheba’s jewels.

Della runs downstairs onto the street, where she finds a hair shop run by a Madame Sofronie. After a brief exchange during which Madame Sofronie evaluates Della’s hair, Della sells her long locks for twenty dollars.Della spends the next two hours looking for a perfect present for Jim. She decides finally on a simple platinum chain for Jim’s watch, comparing the watch’s lack of ornamentation and value to Jim’s personality, which is equally quiet and valuable.

Della returns home to fix her hair into curls and prepare dinner before waiting for Jim at the door. She says a little prayer hoping that Jim will still find her pretty without her long hair.

When Jim enters the door, he freezes, staring at Della’s hair without expression. Della runs to Jim and tells him that she had her hair cut and sold in order to buy him a Christmas present. Jim continues to stare, and Della repeats that her hair is gone—but that her love for him is immeasurable. Jim finally moves, giving Della a hug and throwing a package on the table. He reassures her that no haircut could make him like her any less, but that he was shocked because of the present he bought for her.

Della opens the package to find the beautiful tortoiseshell combs that she had coveted for her hair. She shrieks in joy before crying, and Jim comforts her before she remembers her own present to Jim. She pulls out the watch chain and asks to see Jim’s watch so that she might try the chain on it.

Jim flops down on the couch and smiles, saying that they should put their presents away for now and that they’re too nice to use just yet—before admitting that he sold the watch to buy the combs for Della. They decide to have dinner, and the narrator sums up the story with a little paragraph on the magi. He describes them as wise men who invented the art of giving Christmas presents, and he compares Jim and Della to the magi—saying that of all who give gifts, these two are the wisest.

Old Man of the Temple

- R.K. Narayan

Old Man of the Temple By R.K. Narayan The Talkative Man said: It was some years ago that this happened. I don’t know if you can make anything of it. If you do, I shall be glad to hear what you have to say: but personally I don’t understand it at all. It has always mystified me. Perhaps the driver was drunk: perhaps he wasn’t. I had engaged a taxi for going to Kumbum, which, as you may already know, is fifty miles from Malgudi. I went there one morning and it was past nine in the evening when I finished my business and started back for town. Doss, the driver, was a young fellow of about twenty-five. He had often brought his car for me and I liked him. He was a well behaved, obedient fellow, with a capacity to sit and wait at the wheel, which is really a rare quality in a taxi driver. He drove the car smoothly, seldom swore at passers-by, and exhibited perfect judgment, good sense, and sobriety: and so I preferred him to any other driver whenever I had to go out on business. It was about eleven when we passed the village Koopal, which is on the way down. It was the dark half of the month and the surrounding country was swallowed up in the night. The village street was deserted. Everyone had gone to sleep; hardly any light was to be seen. The starts overhead sparkled brightly. Sitting in the back seat and listening to the continuous noise of the running wheels, I was half lulled into a drowse. All of a sudden Doss swerved the car and shouted: “You old fool! Do you want to kill yourself?” I was shaken out of my drowse and asked: “What is the matter?” Doss stopped the car and said, “You see that old fellow, sir. He is trying to kill himself. I can’t understand what he is up to.” I looked in the direction he pointed and asked, “Which old man?” “There, there. He is coming toward us again. As soon as I saw him open that temple door and come out I had a feeling, somehow, that I must keep an eye on him.” I took out my torch, got down, and walked about, but could see no one. There was an old temple on the roadside. It was utterly in ruins; most portions of it were mere mounds of old brick; the walls were awry; the doors were shut to the main doorway, and brambles and thickets grew over and covered them. It was difficult to guess with the aid of the torch alone what temple it was and to what period it belonged. “The doors are shut and sealed and don’t look as if they had been opened for centuries now,” I cried. “No, sir,” Doss said coming nearer. “I saw the old man open the doors and come out. He is standing there: shall we ask him to open them again if you want to go in and see?” I said to Doss, “Let us be going. We are wasting our time here.” We went back to the car. Doss sat in his seat, pressed the self-starter, and asked without turning his head, “Are you permitting this fellow to come with us, sir? He says he will get down at the next milestone.” “Which fellow?” I asked. Doss indicated the space next to him. “What is the matter with you, Doss? Have you had a drop of drink or something?” “I have never tasted drink in my life, sir,” he said, and added, “Get down, old boy. Master says he can’t take you.” “Are you talking to yourself?” “After all, I think we needn’t care for these unknown fellows on the road,” he said. “Doss,” I pleaded. “Do you feel confident you can drive? If you feel dizzy don’t drive.” “Thank you, sir,” said Doss. “I would rather not start the car now. I am feeling a little out of sorts.” I looked at him anxiously. He closed his eyes, his breathing became heavy and noisy, and gradually his head sank. “Doss, Doss,” I cried desperately. I got down, walked to the front seat, opened the door, and shook him vigorously. He opened his eyes, assumed a hunched-up position, and rubbed his eyes with his hands, which trembled like an old man’s. “Do you feel better?” I asked. “Better! Better! Hi! Hi!” he said in a thin, piping voice. “What has happened to your voice? You sound like someone else,” I said. “Nothing. My voice is as good as it was. When a man is eighty he is bound to feel a few changes coming on.” “You aren’t eighty, surely,” I said. “Not a day less,” he said. “Is nobody going to move this vehicle? If not, there is no sense in sitting here all day. I will get down and go back to my temple.” “I don’t know how to drive,” I said. “And unless you do it, I don’t see how it can move.” “Me!” exclaimed Doss. “These new chariots! God knows what they are drawn by, I never understand, though I could handle a pair of bullocks in my time. May I ask a question?” “Go on,” I said. “Where is everybody?” “Who?” “Lots of people I knew are not to be seen at all. All sorts of new fellows everywhere, and nobody seems to care. Not a soul comes near the temple. All sorts of people go about but not one who cares to stop and talk. Why doesn’t the king ever come this way? He used to go by this way at least once a year before.” “Which king?” I asked. “Let me go, you idiot,” said Doss, edging towards the door on which I was leaning. “You don’t seem to know anything.” He pushed me aside, and got down from the car. He stooped as if he had a big hump on his back, and hobbled along towards the temple. I followed him, hardly knowing what to do. He turned and snarled at me: “Go away, leave me alone, I have had enough of you.” “What has come over you, Doss?” I asked. “Who is Doss, anyway? Doss, Doss, Doss. What an absurd name! Call me by my name or leave me alone. Don’t follow me calling ‘Doss, Doss.’” “What is your name?” I asked. “Krishna Battar, and if you mention my name people will know for a hundred miles around. I built a temple where there was only a cactus field before, I dug the earth, burnt every brick, and put them one upon another, all single-handed. And on the day the temple held up its tower over the surrounding country, what a crowd gathered! The king sent his chief minister…” “Who was the king?” “Where do you come from?” he asked. “I belong to these parts, certainly, but as far as I know there has been only a collector at the head of the district. I have never heard of any king.” “Hi! Hi! Hi!” he cackled, and his voice rang through the gloomy silent village. “Fancy never knowing the king!” He will behead you if he hears it.” “What is his name?” I asked. That tickled him so much that he sat down on the ground, literally unable to stand the joke any more. He laughed and coughed uncontrollably. “I am sorry to admit,” I said, “that my parents have brought me up in such utter ignorance of worldly affairs that I don’t know even my king. But won’t you enlighten me? What is his name?” “Vishnu Barma, the emperor of emperors…” I cast my mind up and down the range of my historical knowledge but there was no one by that name. Perhaps a local chief of pre-British days, I thought. “What a king! He often visited my temple or sent his minister for the Annual Festival of the temple. But now nobody cares.” “People are becoming less godly nowadays,” I said. There was silence for a moment. An idea occurred to me, I can’t say why. “Listen to me,” I said. “You ought not to be here anymore.” “What do you mean?” he asked, drawing himself up, proudly. “Don’t feel hurt: I say you shouldn’t be here anymore because you are dead.” “Dead! Dead!” he said. “Don’t talk nonsense. How can I be dead when you see me before you now? If I am dead how can I be saying this and that?” “I don’t know all that, “ I said. I argued and pointed out that according to his own story he was more than five hundred years old, and didn’t he know that man’s longevity was only a hundred? He constantly interrupted me, but considered deeply what I said. He said: “It is like this … I was coming through the jungle one night after visiting my sister in the next village. I had on me some money and gold ornaments. A gang of robbers set upon me. I gave them as good a fight as any man could, but they were too many for me. They beat me down and knifed me: they took away all that I had on me and left thinking they had killed me. But soon I got up and tried to follow them. They were gone. And I returned to the temple and have been here since…” I told him, “Krishna Battar, you are dead, absolutely dead. You must try and go away from here.” “What is to happen to the temple?” he asked. “Others will look after it.” “Where am I to go? Where am I to go?” “Have you no one who cares for you?” I asked. “None except my wife. I loved her very much.” “You can go to her.” “Oh, no. She died four years ago…” Four years! It was very puzzling. “Do you say four years back from now?” I asked. “Yes, four years ago from now.” He was clearly without any sense of time. So I asked, “Was she alive when you were attacked by thieves?” “Certainly not. If she had been alive she would never have allowed me to go through the jungle after nightfall. She took very good care of me.” “See here,” I said. “It is imperative you should go away from here. If she comes and calls you, will you go?” “How can she when I tell you that she is dead?” I thought for a moment. Presently I found myself saying, “Think of her, and only of her, for a while and see what happens. What was her name?” “Seetha, a wonderful girl…” “Come on, think of her.” He remained in deep thought for a while. He suddenly screamed, “Seetha is coming! Am I dreaming or what? I will go with her…” He stood up, very erect: he appeared to have lost all the humps and twists he had on his body. He drew himself up, made a dash forward, and fell down in a heap. Doss lay on the rough ground. The only sign of life in him was his faint breathing. I shook him and called him. He would not open his eyes. I walked across and knocked on the door of the first cottage. I banged on the door violently. Someone moaned inside, “Ah, it is come!” Someone else whispered, “You just cover your ears and sleep. It will knock for a while and go away.” I banged on the door and should who I was and where I came from. I walked back to the car and sounded the horn. Then the door opened, and a whole family crowded out with lamps. “We thought it was the usual knocking and we wouldn’t have opened if you hadn’t spoken.” “When was this knocking first heard?” I asked. “We can’t say,” said one. “The first time I heard it was when my grandfather was living; he used to say he had even seen it once or twice. It doesn’t harm anyone, as far as I know. The only thing it does is bother the bullock carts passing the temple and knock on the doors at night…” I said as a venture, “It is unlikely you will be troubled anymore.” It proved correct. When I passed that way again months later I was told that the bullocks passing the temple after dusk never shied now and no knocking on the doors was heard at nights. So I felt that the old fellow had really gone away with his good wife.

A Devoted Son

                       - Anita Desai

When the results appeared in the morning papers, Rakesh scanned them barefoot and in his pajamas, at the garden gate, then went up the steps to the verandah where his father sat sipping his morning tea and bowed down to touch his feet.

“A first division, son?” his father asked, beaming, reaching for the papers.

“At the top of the list, papa,” Rakesh murmured, as if awed. “First in the country.”

Bedlam broke loose then. The family whooped and danced. The whole day long visitors streamed into the small yellow house at the end of the road to congratulate the parents of this Wunderkind, to slap Rakesh on the back and fill the house and garden with the sounds and colors of a festival. There were garlands and halwa, party clothes and gifts (enough fountain pens to last years, even a watch or two), nerves and temper and joy, all in a multi-coloured whirl of pride and great shining vistas newly opened: Rakesh was the first son in the family to receive an education, so much had been sacrificed in order to send him to school and then medical college, and at last the fruits of their sacrifice had arrived, golden and glorious.

To everyone who came to him to say “Mubarak, Varmaji, your son has brought you glory,” the father said, “Yes, and do you know what is the first thing he did when he saw the results this morning? He came and touched my feet. He bowed down and touched my feet.” This moved many of the women in the crowd so much that they were seen to raise the ends of their saris and dab at their tears while the men reached out for the betel-leaves and sweetmeats that were offered around on trays and shook their heads in wonder and approval of such exemplary filial behavior. “One does not often see such behavior in sons anymore,” they all agreed, a little enviously perhaps. Leaving the house, some of the women said, sniffing, “At least on such an occasion they might have served pure ghee sweets,” and some of the men said, “Don’t you think old Varma was giving himself airs? He needn’t think we don’t remember that he comes from the vegetable market himself, his father used to sell vegetables, and he has never seen the inside of a school.” But there was more envy than rancor in their voices and it was, of course, inevitable—not every son in that shabby little colony at the edge of the city was destined to shine as Rakesh shone, and who knew that better than the parents themselves?

And that was only the beginning, the first step in a great, sweeping ascent to the radiant heights of fame and fortune. The thesis he wrote for his M.D. brought Rakesh still greater glory, if only in select medical circles. He won a scholarship. He went to the USA (that was what his father learnt to call it and taught the whole family to say—not America, which was what the ignorant neighbours called it, but, with a grand familiarity, “the USA”) where he pursued his career in the most prestigious of all hospitals and won encomiums from his American colleagues which were relayed to his admiring and glowing family. What was more, he came back, he actually returned to that small yellow house in the once-new but increasingly shabby colony, right at the end of the road where the rubbish vans tipped out their stinking contents for pigs to nose in and rag-pickers to build their shacks on, all steaming and smoking just outside the neat wire fences and well tended gardens. To this Rakesh returned and the first thing he did on entering the house was to slip out of the embraces of his sisters and brothers and bow down and touch his father’s feet.

As for his mother, she gloated chiefly over the strange fact that he had not married in America, had not brought home a foreign wife as all her neighbours had warned her he would, for wasn’t that what all Indian boys went abroad for? Instead he agreed, almost without argument, to marry a girl she had picked out for him in her own village, the daughter of a childhood friend, a plump and uneducated girl, it was true, but so old-fashioned, so placid, so complaisant that she slipped into the household and settled in like a charm, seemingly too lazy and too good-natured to even try and make Rakesh leave home and set up independently, as any other girl might have done. What was more, she was pretty—really pretty, in a plump, pudding way that only gave way to fat—soft, spreading fat, like warm wax—after the birth of their first baby, a son, and then what did it matter?

For some years Rakesh worked in the city hospital, quickly rising to the top of the administrative organization, and was made a director before he left to set up his own clinic. He took his parents in his car—a new, sky-blue Ambassador with a rear window full of stickers and charms revolving on strings—to see the clinic when it was built, and the large sign-board over the door on which his name was printed in letters of red, with a row of degrees and qualifications to follow it like so many little black slaves of the regent. Thereafter his fame seemed to grow just a little dimmer—or maybe it was only that everyone in town had grown accustomed to it at last—but it was also the beginning of his fortune for he now became known not only as the best but also the richest doctor in town.

However, all this was not accomplished in the wink of an eye. Naturally not. It was the achievement of a lifetime and it took up Rakesh’s whole life. At the time he set up his clinic his father had grown into an old man and retired from his post at the kerosene dealer’s depot at which he had worked for forty years, and his mother died soon after, giving up the ghost with a sigh that sounded positively happy, for it was her own son who ministered to her in her last illness and who sat pressing her feet at the last moment—such a son as few women had borne.

For it had to be admitted—and the most unsuccessful and most rancorous of neighbours eventually did so—that Rakesh was not only a devoted son and a miraculously good-natured man who contrived somehow to obey his parents and humour his wife and show concern equally for his children and his patients, but there was actually a brain inside this beautifully polished and formed body of good manners and kind nature and, in between ministering to his family and playing host to many friends and coaxing them all into feeling happy and grateful and content, he had actually trained his hands as well and emerged an excellent doctor, a really fine surgeon. How one man—and a man born to illiterate parents, his father having worked for a kerosene dealer and his mother having spent her life in a kitchen—had achieved, combined and conducted such a medley of virtues, no one could fathom , but all acknowledged his talent and skill.

It was a strange fact, however, that talent and skill, if displayed for too long, cease to dazzle. It came to pass that the most admiring of all eyes eventually faded and no longer blinked at his glory. Having retired from work and having lost his wife, the old father very quickly went to pieces, as they say. He developed so many complaints and fell ill so frequently and with such mysterious diseases that even his son could no longer make out when it was something of significance and when it was merely a peevish whim. He sat huddled on his string bed most of the day and developed an exasperating habit of stretching out suddenly and lying absolutely still, allowing the whole family to fly around him in a flap, wailing and weeping, and then suddenly sitting up, stiff and gaunt, and spitting out a big gob of betel-juice as if to mock their behavior.

He did this once too often: there had been a big party in the house, a birthday party for the youngest son, and the celebrations had to be suddenly hushed, covered up and hustled out of the way when the daughter-in-law discovered, or thought she discovered, that the old man, stretched out from end to end of his string bed, had lost his pulse; the party broke up, dissolved, even turned into a band of mourners, when the old man sat up and the distraught daughter-in-law received a gob of red spittle right on the hem of her organza sari. After that no one much cared if he sat up cross-legged on his bed, hawking and spitting, or lay down flat and turned grey as a corpse. Except, of course, for that pearl amongst pearls, his son Rakesh.

It was Rakesh who brought him his morning tea, not in one of the china cups from which the rest of the family drank, but in the old man’s favorite brass tumbler, and sat at the edge of his bed, comfortable and relaxed with the string of his pajamas dangling out from under his fine lawn night-shirt, and discussed or, rather, read out the morning news to his father. It made no difference to him that his father made no response apart from spitting. It was Rakesh, too, who, on returning from the clinic in the evening, persuaded the old man to come out of his room, as bare and desolate as a cell, and take the evening air out in the garden, beautifully arranging the pillows and bolsters on the divan in the corner of the open verandah. On summer nights he saw to it that the servants carried out the old man’s bed onto the lawn and himself helped his father down the steps and onto the bed, soothing him and settling him down for a night under the stars.

All this was very gratifying for the old man. What was not so gratifying was that he even undertook to supervise his father’s diet. One day when the father was really sick, having ordered his daughter-in-law to make him a dish of soojie halwa and eaten it with a saucerful of cream, Rakesh marched into the room, not with his usual respectful step but with the confident and rather contemptuous stride of the famous doctor, and declared, “No more halwa for you, papa. We must be sensible, at your age. If you must have something sweet, Veena will cook you a little cheer, that’s light, just a little rice and milk. But nothing fried, nothing rich. We can’t have this happening again.”

The old man who had been lying stretched out on his bed, weak and feeble after a day’s illness, gave a start at the very sound, the tone of these words. He opened his eyes—rather, they fell open with shock—and he stared at his son with disbelief that darkened quickly to reproach. A son who actually refused his father the food he craved? No, it was unheard of, it was incredible. But Rakesh had turned his back to him and was cleaning up the litter of bottles and packets on the medicine shelf and did not notice while Veena slipped silently out of the room with a little smirk that only the old man saw, and hated.

Halwa was only the first item to be crossed off the old man’s diet. One delicacy after the other went—everything fried to begin with, then everything sweet, and eventually everything, everything that the old man enjoyed.

The meals that arrived for him on the shining stainless steel tray twice a day were frugal to say the least—dry bread, boiled lentils, boiled vegetables and, if there were a bit of chicken or fish, that was boiled too. If he called for another helping—in a cracked voice that quavered theatrically—Rakesh himself would come to the door, gaze at him sadly and shake his head, saying, “Now, papa, we must be careful, we can’t risk another illness, you know,” and although the daughter-in-law kept tactfully out of the way, the old man could just see her smirk sliding merrily through the air. He tried to bribe his grandchildren into buying him sweets (and how he missed his wife now, that generous, indulgent and illiterate cook), whispering, “Here’s fifty paise,” as he stuffed the coins into a tight, hot fist. “Run down to the shop at the crossroads and buy me thirty paise worth of jalebis, and you can spend the remaining twenty paise on yourself. Eh? Understand? Will you do that?” He got away with it once or twice but then was found out, the conspirator was scolded by his father and smacked by his mother and Rakesh came storming into the room, almost tearing his hair as he shouted through compressed lips, “Now papa, are you trying to turn my little son into a liar? Quite apart from spoiling your own stomach, you are spoiling him as well—you are encouraging him to lie to his own parents. You should have heard the lies he told his mother when she saw him bringing back those jalebis wrapped up in filthy newspaper. I don’t allow anyone in my house to buy sweets in the bazaar, papa, surely you know that. There’s cholera in the city, typhoid, gastroenteritis—I see these cases daily in the hospital, how can I allow my own family to run such risks?” The old man sighed and lay down in the corpse position. But that worried no one any longer.

There was only one pleasure left in the old man now (his son’s early morning visits and readings from the newspaper could no longer be called that) and those were visits from elderly neighbours. These were not frequent as his contemporaries were mostly as decrepit and helpless as he and few could walk the length of the road to visit him anymore. Old Bhatia, next door, however, who was still spry enough to refuse, adamantly, to bathe in the tiled bathroom indoors and to insist on carrying out his brass mug and towel, in all seasons and usually at impossible hours, into the yard and bathe noisily under the garden tap, would look over the hedge to see if Varma were out on his verandah and would call to him and talk while he wrapped his dhoti about him and dried the sparse hair on his head, shivering with enjoyable exaggeration. Of course these conversations, bawled across the hedge by two rather deaf old men conscious of having their entire households overhearing them, were not very satisfactory but Bhatia occasionally came out of his yard, walked down the bit of road and came in at Varma’s gate to collapse onto the stone plinth built under the temple tree. If Rakesh was at home he would help his father down the steps into the garden and arrange him on his night bed under the tree and leave the two old men to chew betel-leaves and discuss the ills of their individual bodies with combined passion.

“At least you have a doctor in the house to look after you,” sighed Bhatia, having vividly described his martyrdom to piles.

“Look after me?” cried Varma, his voice cracking like an ancient clay jar. “He—he does not even give me enough to eat.”

“What?” said Bhatia, the white hairs in his ears twitching. “Doesn’t give you enough to eat? Your own son?”

“My own son. If I ask him for one more piece of bread, he says no, papa, I weighed out the eat myself and I can’t allow you to have more than two hundred grams of cereal a day. He weighs the food he gives me, Bhatia—he has scales to weigh it on. That is what it has come to.”

“Never,” murmured Bhatia in disbelief. “Is it possible, even in this evil age, for a son to refuse his father food?”

“Let me tell you,” Varma whispered eagerly. “Today the family was having fried fish—I could smell it. I called to my daughter-in-law to bring me a piece. She came to the door and said no. . . .”

“Said no?” It was Bhatia’s voice that cracked. A drongo shot out of the tree and sped away. “No?”

“No, she said no, Rakesh has ordered her to give me nothing fried. No butter, he says, no oil. . . .”

“No butter? No oil? How does he expect his father to live?”

Old Varma nodded with melancholy triumph. “That is how he treats me—after I have brought him up, given him an education, made him a great doctor. Great doctor! This is the way great doctors treat their fathers, Bhatia,” for the son’s sterling personality and character now underwent a curious sea change. Outwardly all might be the same but the interpretation had altered: his masterly efficiency was nothing but cold heartlessness, his authority was only tyranny in disguise.

There was cold comfort in complaining to neighbours and, on such a miserable diet, Varma found himself slipping, weakening and soon becoming a genuinely sick man. Powders and pills and mixtures were not only brought in when dealing with a crisis like an upset stomach but became a regular part of his diet—became his diet, complained Varma, supplanting the natural foods he craved. There were pills to regulate his bowel movements, pills to bring down his blood pressure, pills to deal with his arthritis and, eventually, pills to keep his heart beating. In between there were panicky rushes to the hospital, some humiliating experience with the stomach pump and enema, which left him frightened and helpless. He cried easily, shrivelling up on his bed, but if he complained of a pain or even a vague, grey fear in the night, Rakesh would simply open another bottle of pills and force him to take one. “I have my duty to you papa,” he said when his father begged to be let off.

“Let me be,” Varma begged, turning his face away from the pills on the outstretched hand. “Let me die. It would be better. I do not want to live only to eat your medicines.”

“Papa, be reasonable.”

“I leave that to you,” the father cried with sudden spirit. “Leave me alone, let me die now, I cannot live like this.”

“Lying all day on his pillows, fed every few hours by his daughter-in-law’s own hand, visited by every member of his family daily—and then he says he does not want to live ‘like this,’” Rakesh was heard to say, laughing, to someone outside the door.

“Deprived of food,” screamed the old man on the bed, “his wishes ignored, taunted by his daughter-in-law, laughed at by his grandchildren—that is how I live.” But he was very old and weak and all anyone heard was an incoherent croak, some expressive grunts and cries of genuine pain. Only once, when old Bhatia had come to see him and they sat together under the temple tree, they heard him cry, “God is calling me—and they won’t let me go.”

The quantities of vitamins and tonics he was made to take were not altogether useless. They kept him alive and even gave him a kind of strength that made him hang on long after he ceased to wish to hang on. It was as though he were straining at a rope, trying to break it, and it would not break, it was still strong. He only hurt himself, trying.

In the evening, that summer, the servants would come into his cell, grip his bed, one at each end, and carry it out to the verandah, there sitting it down with a thump that jarred every tooth in his head. In answer to his agonized complaints they said the doctor sahib had told them he must take the evening air and the evening air they would make him take—thump. Then Veena, that smiling, hypocritical pudding in a rustling sari, would appear and pile up the pillows under his head till he was propped up stiffly into a sitting position that made his head swim and his back ache.

“Let me lie down,” he begged. “I can’t sit up any more.”

“Try, papa, Rakesh said you can if you try,” she said, and drifted away to the other end of the verandah where her transistor radio vibrated to the lovesick tunes from the cinema that she listened to all day.

So there he sat, like some stiff corpse, terrified, gazing out on the lawn where his grandsons played cricket, in danger of getting one of their hard-spun balls in his eye, and at the gate that opened onto the dusty and rubbish-heaped lane but still bore, proudly, a newly touched-up signboard that bore his son’s name and qualifications, his own name having vanished from the gate long ago.

At last the sky-blue Ambassador arrived, the cricket game broke up in haste, the car drove in smartly and the doctor, the great doctor, all in white, stepped out. Someone ran up to take his bag from him, others to escort him up the steps. “Will you have tea?” his wife called, turning down the transistor set. “Or a Coca-Cola? Shall I fry you some samosas?” But he did not reply or even glance in her direction. Ever a devoted son, he went first to the corner where his father sat gazing, stricken, at some undefined spot in the dusty yellow air that swam before him. He did not turn his head to look at his son. But he stopped gobbling air with his uncontrolled lips and set his jaw as hard as a sick and very old man could set it.

“Papa,” his son said, tenderly, sitting down on the edge of the bed and reaching out to press his feet.

Old Varma tucked his feet under him, out of the way, and continued to gaze stubbornly into the yellow air of the summer evening.

“Papa, I’m home.”

Varma’s hand jerked suddenly, in a sharp, derisive movement, but he did not speak.

“How are you feeling, papa?”

Then Varma turned and looked at his son. His face was so out of control and all in pieces that the multitude of expressions that crossed it could not make up a whole and convey to the famous man exactly what his father thought of him, his skill, and his art.

“I’m dying,” he croaked. “Let me die, I tell you.”

“Papa, you’re joking,” his son smiled at him, lovingly. “I’ve brought you a new tonic to make you feel better. You must take it, it will make you feel stronger again. Here it is. Promise me you will take it regularly, papa.”

Varma’s mouth worked as hard as though he still had a gob of betel in it (his supply of betel had been cut off years ago). Then he spat out some words, as sharp and bitter as poison, into his son’s face. “Keep your tonic—I want none—I want none—I won’t take any more of—of your medicines. None. Never,” and he swept the bottle out of his son’s hand with a wave of his own, suddenly grand, suddenly effective.

His son jumped, for the bottle was smashed and thick brown syrup had splashed up, staining his white trousers. His wife let out a cry and came running. All around the old man was hubbub once again, noise, attention.

He gave one push to the pillows at his back and dislodged them so he could sink down on his back, quite flat again. He closed his eyes and pointed his chin at the ceiling, like some dire prophet, groaning, “God is calling me—now let me go.”

Summary

Introduction

            Anita Desai is a famous Indian writer.  She has written many novels in English.  Almost all her stories talks about ordinary Indian life and characters.  A Devoted Son is a short story about the relationship between a father and a son.

Rakesh’s Achievements

            Rakesh is the protagonist of the story.  His father’s name is Varma.  The story opens announcing Rakesh’s achievement as the first rank holder in medical studies at national level.  His father feels proud of his son.  He shares with others the fact that Rakesh touched his feet as soon as he saw the results in the paper.  The neighbours celebrate this occasion.  Rakesh moves to U.S. and does his higher education there.  He gets back to India to the same old house, situated in a dirty locality.  He comes to India and falls in his father’s feet.  This surprises the father and the neighbours.  Rakesh’s mother feels happy because Rakesh does not come with a white girl.  Rakesh then worked in a city hospital, grew well in the administrative organization and he left the hospital as a director and built his own hospital.  He took his parents to his clinic in a blue ambassador.  His name spread all over the place and he became famous and rich.

Rakesh’s Old Father

            Rakesh’s mother dies peacefully when her son does her an operation.  After her death, Varma becomes lonely and sick.  He acts strangely.  Sometimes he sits erect, sometimes he lays flat without any movements, and suddenly he rises up and spits beetle juice.  In spite of all indifferent activities, Rakesh read newspaper to his father in all mornings took him to the garden in the evenings and made him sleep in the lawn during summer nights.

Treatment Given by Dr. Rakesh

            Varma becomes old and Dr. Rakesh prescribes him more medicines.  He asks his father not to eat halwa and other sweets.  He orders his wife to give him tasteless food.  He wishes his father to live a long life with him.  He takes care of his father.  He is devoted to his father and his health.  He behaves strict to his father in diet.  He cuts almost all food items.  The father becomes much older and then medicines become his only food.  Rakesh takes care of his father to the best possible.

The Reactions of the Old Man

            Varma hates to see his devoted son as a doctor.  He does not like Rakesh ordering and restricting his diet.  He wishes to eat lots or at least eat the food that he loves most.  He persuades his daughter-in-law and his grand children to get him some sweet but Rakesh objects that.  This heightens his anger.  He complains about his son’s behavior of not providing food to his father to his neighbour friends.  Varma feels totally upset with his son’s attitudes towards his diet.  By the end of the story, he dies with a sad soul.  He does not part Rakesh happily as his mother does.

The Happy Prince Summary

The story “The Happy Prince” has at least three themes. The first theme of the story is that outward beauty is nothing. It is just a show. The real beauties are love and sacrifices. The second theme is that love and sacrifice are two saving forces. The third theme is that there is great gap between the rich and the poor, the rulers and the masses.

When the happy prince is alive, he lives in a palace where sorrow is not allowed to enter. He lives a life of happiness. However, when he dies his courtiers set u his statute on a tall column.

The statue of the happy prince sees all the misery of the city. He weeps when he sees people in trouble. He wants to help them.

A swallow stays at the feet of the statue of the happy prince for the night. On happy prince’s request, he prolongs his stay and helps the poor with the ruby and the sapphires. When the happy prince cannot see any more, the swallow decides to stay with the happy prince forever. The he helps the people with the gold covering of the happy prince. At the end, he dies frost. The heart of the happy prince also breaks.

Once, the mayor and the town councilors pass by the stature of the happy prince. They are shocked to see it without ruby, sapphires, and gold covering. It looks ugly without them. They pull it down and decide to make another statue. The heart of the happy prince not melt in the furnace and the workers throw it on the dust heap where the dead swallow is already lying. An angel comes and takes both the heart and the dead Swallow to God as two precious things. (296)

1.      “The Happy Prince” is a fairly tale. Discuss.

No doubt, the story “The Happy Prince” is a fairy tale. In a fairly tale we find unreal characters like fairies, giants, witches and talking animals. It is a story, which is hard to believe. The events of a fairy tale do not happen in real life. The most important quality of a fairy tale is that it always has a happy conclusion.

When we read the story, we find that it is a perfect fairy tale. It fulfils all the requirements of a fairy tale. Firstly, we find two imaginary characters – a talking Swallow and a talking statue. In our daily life, we do not find such characters. Secondly, we see the statue of the Happy Prince shedding tears on the sufferings of the poor. He has sapphire eyes and a lead heart. However, he can see through these sapphire eyes and has love and sympathies for the poor in his lead heart. This is highly unbelievable and it does not happen in real life. A statue has no eyes and no heart.

Thirdly, we see that the Swallow first picks off ruby, sapphires, and then gold covering without any tools. This is also unbelievable. Fourthly, the end of the story is also fairy tale like. No doubt, the Swallow and the statue of the Happy Prince are dead and on the dust heap. However, this is not the real ending. The real ending is that the Swallow will always sing in the garden of Paradise and the Happy Prince will always praise God in the city of gold. This is quite a happy ending and fulfils the most important requirement of a fairy tale. Therefore, we can conclude that the story “The Happy Prince” is a perfect fairy tale. (291)

2.      How has the writer brought out poverty in the story “The Happy Prince”?

The writer has brought out poverty in a very beautiful manner. The son of the tailor is suffering from fever. He is thirsty and asking for oranges. However, she is a poor tailor. She cannot buy oranges for her son. She is embroidering passionflowers for the Queen’s maids-of-honour. Her poverty is very touching. The poverty of the writers of the Victorian age has also been reflected very beautifully. The young writer is cold and hungry. Hunger has made him faint.

The little weeping match girl also depicts the poverty of the Victorian age. She has no shoes or stockings, and her little head is bare. The beggars are sitting at the gates of the houses of the rich people. In dark lanes, there are children who have white starving faces. They are looking out listlessly at the black streets. People do not have their own houses go two little boys are lying under the archway of a bridge. It is cold so they are lying in one another’s arm to keep themselves warm. They are very hungry.

Therefore, all these suggest the poverty of the Victorian age. (187)

3.      How has the writer brought out exploitation in the story “The Happy Prince”?

The writer has brought out exploitation very beautifully. The people at court, the Jews, and the rich are exploiting the poor. The Mayor and the Town Councilors represent the exploitation of the power. The son of the seamstress is suffering from fever, but she cannot attend to him. She is embroidering passionflowers for the Queen’s made-of-honour to wear at the next court-ball. The poor are working hard, but they cannot buy even oranges. This is the worst kind of exploitation.

On one side, some people are so poor that they are starving and on the other hand the rich are making merry and the Jews are weighing out money on copper scales. The writers of that time are also being exploited. They are cold and cold with hunger. The Mayor and the Town Councilors are exploiting their powers. Each one of them himself wants to have built statue. The Mayor even issues a proclamation that birds are not to be allowed to die there. This is purely an exploitation of power. (171)

4.      How has the writer brought out hypocrisy in the story “The Happy Prince”?

The writer has brought out hypocrisy in the story “The Happy Prince” in a very beautiful manner. One of the town councilors does not have artistic taste, but he wants to show that he has that artistic taste. He praises the beauty of the Happy Prince in the most inartistic way. He says that the statue is as beautiful as a weathercock. His simile shows how ignorant he is. He is so hypocrite that he adds that he is not quite useful for the fear of the people. Because in those days people believed that art must have had some usefulness, otherwise it was bad art.

The town councilors are the worst example of hypocrisy. They always agree with the Mayor just to get his favour. They are so hypocrites that they even repeat the words spoken by the Mayor. When the professor sees the Swallow, he writes a long letter to the local newspaper. It is full of so many words that people cannot understand it. However, they still quote it to each other just to show off.

Therefore, this is how the writer shows the hypocrisy of the people. (191)

5.      What is the theme of the story “The Happy Prince”?

The story “The Happy Prince” has at least three themes. The first theme of the story is that outward beauty is nothing it is just a show. The real beauty is the love and sacrifice. The end of the story gives this idea.

The Happy Prince has a lead heart, but this heart is full of sympathies for the poor and the needy. He sacrifices his eyes and beauty just to help them. He gives away his gold covering bit by bit to the poor. Now without his eyes and gold covering, he looks so ugly that he is sent to furnace to melt. He has lost outward beauty, but with sacrifice and love, he has achieved spiritual beauty. God is pleased with him. After his death, he is taken to the city of gold where he will praise God forever.

The same happens with the Swallow. He sacrifices his life for the love of the Happy Prince. Nevertheless, he also achieves spiritual beauty. He will sing for evermore in God’s garden of Paradise.

The second theme is that love and sacrifice are two saving forces. This world is full of poverty, hypocrisy, and exploitation. If there were no love and sacrifice, the world could not go on its axis. It is because of love and sacrifice that this life is going on. Therefore, it is true that love and sacrifice are two saving forces.

The third theme of the story is that there is great gap between the rich and the poor, the rulers and the masses. The Happy Prince did not know about the poor and their problems when he was alive. Therefore, it means that the rulers at that time did not know about the problems and the difficulties of the masses. (295)

6.      Why does the Happy Prince weep?

The Happy Prince weeps because he cannot bear the sufferings and the miseries of the poor and the needy. He weeps because he has a very soft heart, although it is made of lead. This heart had nothing but the sympathies for the poor and the needy. The writer values this lead heard so much that he tells the reader that this heart does not melt in the furnace.

The Happy Prince used to live in the Palace of Sans-Souci. Sorrow was not allowed to enter the Palace. At that time, the Happy Prince did not know what tears were. In the daytime, he used to play with his companions in the garden. In the evening, he led the dance in the Great Hall. There was a very lofty wall around the garden. The Happy Prince did not know that what was beyond that wall. Inside this wall, everything was beautiful and he was very happy. His courtiers called him Happy Prince. After his death, his courtiers made his statue and set it up on a very tall column. Now from that height he can see all the ugliness and all the misery of the city. Therefore, he weeps because he has very soft heart and he cannot stand the miseries of the people. It is because of this soft heart that he sacrifices his beauty and sapphire eyes. (229)

7.      What did the Swallow tell the Happy Prince about the city and the people?

What did the Swallow report to the Happy Prince about human misery or suffering?

When the Happy Prince gave away his sapphire eyes, he could not see any more. Therefore, he asked the Swallow to fly over his city and told him what he saw there. The Swallow flew over the great city and reported to the Happy Prince what he saw.

He told the Happy Prince about the condition of the rich and the poor. The rich were making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. In the dark lanes, he saw the white faces of starving children. These children were so hungry that they were looking out listlessly at the black streets.

He told the Happy Prince a very miserable thing. He told him about the two boys who were hungry and homeless. These boys were lying under the archway of a bridge. They were cold so they were lying in one another’s arms to keep themselves warm, but the watchman did not let those boys lie under the bridge either. He drove them out into the rain.

Therefore, the Swallow told the Happy Prince about the condition of the rich and the poor. The rich were hungry and homeless.

When the Happy Prince listened to this, he asked the Swallow to give his gold covering to the poor and the needy. (216)

8.      Discuss the end of the story “The Happy Prince”.

The story “The Happy Prince” is a fairy tale and the end of a fairly tale is always happy. In a fairly tale characters face difficulties and they endanger their lives to get their desired goals. They face so many hardships that it appears that they cannot succeed. However, at the end they always succeed and live happily ever after.

In the story, “The Happy Prince” the end appears tragic. The Swallow and the Happy Prince both die and are thrown on a dust heap. However, this is not the real end of the story. The Swallow and the Happy Prince has sacrificed their lives to help the poor and the needy. God is happy with their sacrifices. Therefore, God rewards them and orders that the Swallow will sing in the garden of paradise and the Happy Prince will praise him.

Therefore, we see that this is quite a happy ending. It fulfills the most important requirement of a fairy tale. This end cannot be called a tragic end. 

Summary

The Happy prince was a statue. He was placed on a high column in the square of    the city. But after his death sapphires for his eyes. His body was covered with leaves of fine gold. A large and rare ruby was set on the hilt of his sword.Swallows had flown away to the warm and pleasant land of Egypt. But one small swallow was left behind. He was late but he had made up his mind up his mind to fly and join his friends who were waiting for him.All day long he flew and arrived at the city. He decided to spend his night between the feet of the Happy Prince.Drops of water fell on him. He looked up. The sky was clear. But the Prince was weeping. The bird asked him why he was weeping.The Prince said he was a seamstress in her poor house. Face was thin and her fingers were picked was needle. She was embroidering flowers on a rich woman’s gown. Her son lay on a bed. He was sick and thirsty. He asked to the bird to pluck the ruby off his sword and carry it to the poor woman.The bird agreed. He picked the ruby and flew to the poor woman. When he return he was happy because he had done a good deep.The next day the swallow visited  the monuments in the city. The happy prince had seen a young playwright trying to finish writing a play. The young man was cold and hungry, he had no firewood to keep himself warm.He asked him to pluck one of the sapphires and carry it  to the young man. So that he could buy firewood and food. The bird agreed and carry out his order. A little match girl in the crying in square below. She had accidentally let her matches fall in the gutter. She was crying because she feared her father would beat her unless she went back home with some money.The prince asked the bird to pluck his other eye too and give the sapphires to the little poor girl. The bird refused to obey the Prince because he did not want to make the Prince blind in both the eyes.The bird did what he was told to do. The girl was had to get a surprise.The Prince was blind. The swallow did not to leave this kind-hearted Prince. Prince decided never to leave him through it was getting colder and colder.The Prince asked the bird to fly over the great city and to tell him what he has seen.Reports of the sufferings of the poor and starving children. The prince orders the swallow to peel off leaves of gold that covered his body and take them to the poor.Now snow had began to fall and the bird was left with no strength. He knew his end was near. He flew to the prince and told him that it was time for him to bid final good-bye.He kissed the Prince and fell down dead at his feet. The leaden heart of the Prince broke into two.Next morning the mayor of the city came to the square. He said it looked no better than a beggar.He also saw a dead bird lying at its feet. He ordered to pull down the statue.So the statue of the happy prince was pulled down. They melted it in a furnace. It was a curios that the broken heart of the happy prince did not melt.God asked one of his angles to bring him two of the most precious things in the city. The angel brought him the broken heart and the dead bird.God said that he had chosen the right things. He said that the swallow and the prince would ever live happily in paradise.