Category: Literature 5177

Introduction

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad is based on the Greenwich Bomb Outrage of 1894 when a man named Martial Bourdi, had, like Stevie Verloc, the main protagonist of The Secret Agent, killed himself setting off a bomb in Greenwich Park near the Royal Observatory. Thus, the terrorists in The Secret Agent seem to be right out of the daily newspaper stories on psychotic racism, plane hijackers, gunmen, and political terrorists. One of the anarchists in The Secret Agent says No pity for anything on earth, including themselves, and death enlisted for good and ill in the service of humanity  thats what I would have liked to see. However, Conrad is not a cynic or a nihilist. He believes that despite the coldness, the terrorist is also a human with his own set of values. It is this philosophy that is well brought out in his novel the Secret Agent. Thesis: In The Secret Agent, Conrad creates a narrator who willfully separates himself from the world he despises only to gradually emerge later as a character with his own humanistic values.

Analysis

Conrads novel illustrates how his values are universal in nature. The secret Agent records the falling apart of the human community and the human soul. It evokes the dramatic range and depth of Conrads moral concerns. He explores the issue of rebels, anarchism and terrorism in a moral angle and forces his readers to see these issues from a fresh perspective. The Secret Agent has no single real hero. Conrad concentrates on a group of characters, mostly anarchists. He is not sympathetic to these people, but empathetic. He focuses on these men and women as shams  with no principles and no loyalty to first principles. Verloc is a man whose life is ruled by indolence and a perversely refined notion of respectability. Ossipon is described as a weakling who lives by exploiting the vulnerability of women. Thus Conrad shows them to be possessed by the same vices and illusions that permeate the society they reject. He even portrays them to be physically unattractive, indicating that they lacked discipline inner and outer that society requires of them. Michaelsi is the ticket-of-leave apostle, with an enormous stomach. Mr. Verloc has a fat-pig style and hes fat  the animal. The anarchists personify moral corruption and negation. In this novel, Conrad helps the readers to see through the anarchists in their repulsiveness and degeneracy (Panichas, p. 217).

Conrads foreign anarchists are shown to be ordinary people, lazy to work and living on dreams of power. Verloc works as a secret agent of the Russians, manipulated by Russian paymasters and pressurized by Chief Inspector Heat, the London policeman. The only really dangerous evil figure is that of the fanatical Professor who has an obsession for explosives and is suicidal in temperament. He hates others for having political goals and believing in a better way of life. He has the means to commit violent acts and for him only death has real meaning(Meyers, p. 10). He carries the mindset of what we can call the suicide bomber of modern times.

Verloc receives his orders for the destruction of the astronomical observatory at Greenwich from his new boss Vladimir. Vladimir intended to give the British a jolly-good scare and make them enact repressive laws in the interest of security. But he has no direct contact with the anarchists who will carry out his plan. He wonders if they are a perfectly disciplined army, where the word of chiefs was supreme or the loosest association of desperate brigands that ever camped in a mountain gorge. Verloc, unwilling to let any of his terrorists risk their lives, and unwilling to do it himself, tricks his backward stepson Stevie, into carrying the bomb. But Stevie ends up blowing himself and Verloc is in turn killed by his wife for having tricked Stevie to his death.

One of the main points made by Conrad in this novel, in the context of terrorism is that the destructive acts cannot be blamed on any one factor. They are caused by multiple factors working together. For example, Stevies death is caused by Verlocs sullen irritation, Vladimirs megalomania, the anarchists laziness, Heats paranoia, the Professors cunning, Winnies solicitude, Stevies compassion and clumsiness, and much more (Orr and Billy, p. 186). Such a chance combination of events can neither be predicted nor prevented.

Conrad sees no way to justify the violence of the revolutionaries. He found their violence vain, delusional and criminal. But he also did not believe that society was perfect and healthy. In Conrads radically Hobbesian view, social institutions are themselves tainted with criminality and they are grounds that nurture self interest and self deception. For example, Conrad portrays London as a wasteland, where the dust of humanity settles inert and hopeless out of the stream of life and his hopes are being snuffed out in his fight for survival. Adolf Verloc, during his walk across Hyde Park reflects that the people around need to be protected: All these people had to be protected. Protection is the first necessity of opulence and luxury. They had to be protected; and their horses, carriages, houses, servants had to be protected; &the whole social order favorable to their hygienic idleness had to be protected against the shallow enviousness of unhygienic labour. This shows that from the viewpoint of Verloc, it is not about oppressing people or taking away things from them, but rather about the noble cause of protecting them. Conrad describes the true anarchist as one who seeks to create a space outside all existing social structures (Orr and Billy, p. 186). The Professor is wholly dedicated to the destruction of what is and calls for a clean sweep and a clear start for a new conception of life. The Professor, through anarchy aims to remake a fallen world. He too, like Verloc, is under the illusion that he is going to do something noble.

In The Secret Agent anarchism is not analyzed politically but rather it is presented as the outcome of ignoble character traits in people and society (Orr and Billy, p. 177). The novels revolutionists are shams and their indulgence in anarchism is mainly due to their own self interest. As Conrad puts it, the way of even the most justifiable revolutions is prepared by personal impulses disguised into creeds (SA, p. 66). Michaelis finds in anarchism a way to express is sentimentality, Yundt, his impotent rage and Ossipon his lechery. Even the Professor, is driven by a frenzied puritanism of ambition (SA, p. 55). Unable to achieve professional success the Professor embraces terrorist anarchism in order to procure the appearances of power and prestige (67). These characters are also pretentious people who think they are conventional people desiring the betterment of the world.

Conclusion

By exploring the lives and psyches of the people involved in underground activities, and by presenting the novel in a first person narrative form, Conrad successfully shows that the individuals behind the destructive acts may or may not be aware of the sinister nature of their deeds and they may or may not be propelled towards such acts by purely political intentions of anarchy. They are also humans  caught up in myriad forces that make them as much victims of society as society is a victim of their anarchistic activities.

Works Cited

1. Conrad, Joseph (1907). The Secret Agent. Classic Books Company. 1907
2. Gray, John (2002). A Target for Destructive Ferocity: Joseph Conrads World, Where Terrorists Plotted to Blow Up the Royal Observatory, Speaks to Our Own. Look No Further for a Great Contemporary Novelist. New Statesman, 2002, Volume 131, Issue 4585, p. 27+.
3. Meyers, Jeffrey (2005). The Prescience of Joseph Conrad. Contributors: Jeffrey Meyers  author. Commonweal. 2005, Volume 132, Issue 18, p. 10+.
4. Orr, Leonard and Billy, Ted (1999). A Joseph Conrad Companion. Greenwood Press. Westport, CT. 1999
5. Panichas, Andrew George (1998). Growing Wings to Overcome Gravity: Criticism as the Pursuit of Virtue. Mercer University Press, 1998

Introduction

Jonathan Swift was popularly known as a satirical writer during his era. Aside from being a poet, essayist, and a political pamphleteer, he became the dean of Saint Patricks in Dublin. Swift was born on the 30^th of November, 1667 and died on the year 1745. Most of his works were well-liked by the people most especially his works entitled Gullivers Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, The Battle of the Books and many more masterpieces that took place in the scene of literature. The writer was better known to be a prose satirist rather than being a poet. He actually used pseudonyms in some of his works and hid behind the names of Isaac Bickerstaff, Lemuel Gulliver, and M.B. Drapier or perhaps with an anonymous name.

His work A Modest Proposal was written during 1729 and appeared to be one of the most admired satirical essays in the English language. It tackled about the suggestion of practicing cannibalism by the Irish. When the essay was written in the era of about 1710 up to 1745, Ireland was largely composed of Catholics. Almost seventy percent of the whole population of Ireland was made up of Irish Catholics however; English protestant was the one who dominated the country because of the death of King William III had turn out to be down when King James II took the place of the previous ruler.

The power of the new King brought chaos to the country as it caused many corruptions and abnormalities when it comes to running the system. Religious issues also came in when the Catholics were discriminated by not allowing them to fight for themselves even for protection purposes only. Also, one author said that they have no freedom to vote and choose a protestant partner. A lot of beggars were scattered all over the place and mostly they were females (Gubar 381). This has been an issue ever since and the people had no control over it. So basically, the difficulties during the year the essay was written by Swift, has been in the side of poverty amongst the people of Ireland.

The issue then was raised by Jonathan Swift at 1729 who has been actively voicing out his own opinions about what he believed. He expressed his ideas through writing A Modest proposal which depicts the mockery of the Irish dilemma that suggests the idea of eating the poor children by the rich people. Apparently, it resulted to a lot of economic criticisms and opinions from his audiences.

Discussion

Primarily, A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, as what was said earlier, suggested that the economically challenged Irish people should sell their children to the rich people to be able to make them as their food. With that in mind, the idea of cannibalism comes out into the essay of Swift. According to Smith, it may sound absurd but that was the satirical way of the writer to convey his messages for the rulers and discrimination of the Irish people during that time (Smith 137).

Swift used an emblematic style in writing his essay however, Charles K. Smith disagreed. According to Smith, Swift used a style where in he greatly affected the reader to hate the speaker and pity the Irish. Swift used fascinating details of poverty and the cool approach of the narrator on creating two kinds of opinions that isolated the readers from the teller of the story whom can be viewed as disappointed. However, criticisms for the work of Swift came into the way most especially by the way Swift used lingoes which pertains only for animals. Just like for example commoditizing the children, which some kind of a foul thing to describe a man to an animal. The tone of his essay also added up to the major absurdity of the proposal he made as what an author stated (Landa 162-163).

It is said that Swifts A Modest Proposal was somehow patterned to Tertullians Apology which was also a satirical way of attacking the early Roman singling out of Christianity. Swift basically addressed and heed to the situation of Anglo- Irish in the year 1720s. Thus, Swift wrote his essay in relation with the bold style and similarities on structure of the Apology. The two works depicts the same theme where in both proposed the ides about cannibalizing and the sarcasms they had on the content of the essays (Baker 219). Both concluded that the wickedness of people is like creating a way to degrade the people below them and treat them like not of the specie.

Famous critics have been very hesitant to give comments blatantly on the work of Swift because of the fear that they might misinterpret the intentions of Swift. According to a critic, some people get the wrong idea that Swift targeted the condition of Ireland at that time, rather, the real target of the essay was the causes and factors why such condition of discrimination and deprivation of the people happened (Wittkowsky 78-80).

Also, it can be viewed that one of the reasons why Swift wrote A Modest proposal is to emphasize the unwise decisions and thinking of the people in order to cure the poor social and economic conditions of Ireland specifically launching projects about the how to fix the population and creating jobs for the daily survival of the people. In fact, one idea about involving the poor people to some joint- stock company was one of the questionable ideas that Swift highlighted in his essay. He even did a mockery on the proposal concerning the poor people. The proposal also targets the measurable way of people on how to respond in creating their projects.

The projects were like designed in a self- centered manner where in only the upper people will be benefited and the lower ones will be used as commodities. It was focused to their whims and not to the needs and wants for the welfare of the people and be able to survive the difficulties and challenges they were facing at that time.

Swifts usage of the mathematical sense in his essay were variously interpreted by the critics just like for example the interpretation of Edmund Wilson on the statistical logic of the proposal is somehow like the principle of Marx where in it says that a crime can be an answer to the excessive number of people while Wittkowsky defended that the satiric use of statistical analysis of Swift is a way to improve the spoof of the coil from the soul of a bitter travesty and not from the pleasure of measuring for the their own benefit (Wittkowsky 84-85).

One of the strengths of A Modest Proposal is the dissenting voice of Jonathan Swift in the corruptions that happened in Ireland. He used a satire and imagery of the ugliness and defects throughout the whole country of Ireland. He also supported each argument by detailing the accumulated possible benefits of commoditizing the children and he even included a list where in it stated various ways and styles for the children.

Obviously, after dissecting the benefits of his proposals, a writer said that Swift disapproved other suggestions to minimize the population and improve the quality of living of the Ireland people and instead favored to his idea of cannibalizing the children by selling their bodies to serve as food for the rich people (Phiddian 603-619). Swift effectively held a variety and pattern on his essay by initially describing the poverty of the people and all of a sudden without having an idea of coming out such absurd solutions to be able to respond to the problems of Ireland. He described the scenarios about the population in a great manner and eventually enumerated the possible criteria fro the resolution and came out with the advantages it will bring for both parties.

Moreover, in spite of the sarcasms that Swift proposed in his work, many people did not recognize the subliminal messages that the writer tried to imply in his proposal. The readers focused on the literal content of the essay and forgot interpreting other factors which will result to such ideas. Considering cannibalism and infanticide in the essay can just give you the interpretation of unmanly manners and insanity for using human to substitute animals for food.

But the real thing is, Swift tried to make the causes a secondary point and not obviously told the readers that poverty in Ireland was cased by the Dominion of English and rich people. Offering the lives of children for the landlords was not just a way of minimizing the population but to accentuate that the landlords should give a just and fair treatment for the people under them (Bullitt 1). They should not discriminate and use lower classes for their own sake. Come to think of it, a concerned person will not talk bunk about the danger of his fellow people if he did not wanted changes from being discriminated.

Conclusion

A Modest Proposal was indeed an excellent essay made by Jonathan Swift. He wrote the essay with the inspiration and motivation of seeing the people in Ireland experiencing unfair treatment from the rulers and upper class people of the country. He composed the essay at the time he thought Ireland people were firmly down and acting like a dumb that did not care for what was happening during that time because of lack of self expression and identification of ones status.

It prevailed that the target audience of Swift in his proposal were the impoverished people to be able to wake up their minds and open up to the reality of being discriminated. Subliminally, the landlords were also one of the target audiences to be considered because they made up the part of being the primary antagonists for the peoples welfare and fair treatment. Swift being a writer had the strength of identifying the major issue dilemma of the Ireland people and was able to gave out solutions satirically by his rebellious voice and mode of writing. The reception of its audience actually got various criticisms as some audiences understood clearly what Swift was trying to convey in his satirical essay.

Some opposed and argued to the proposal or the message of the essay because according to them it was not a good thing to use a rhetorical style between humans and animals for the two do not have the same level. Also, Smith added that commoditizing children was an insane idea and detailing each process of converting children into a meat and even packaging them (Smith 148- 149). It may sound illogical for most of the critics though, however many people liked and agreed on the sarcasm of Swift. He was not only saying that selling the children for the benefit of both parties will decrease the burden and struggle of the condition of Ireland. Swift just stated the things that he observed in the country and put it into words as a means of expressing his opinions and ideas.

Generally, Swift used the essay to catch the attention of the people about this certain issue and by this; they will understand every angle of having such condition of their country. At the end, the writer sarcastically pleaded for the hearty application of the proposal. It appeared that he was begging for something negative to be put into action that eventually will benefit all of people in Ireland. Perhaps, the essay is also viewed to be a conforming message against the landlords and criticize the way they run the country in totality.

References

Baker, D. C. Tertullian and Swifts a Modest Proposal. The Classical Journal 52. (1957): 219-220.

Bullitt, J. M. Jonathan Swift and the Anatomy of Satire: A Study of Satiric Technique. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1953.

Gubar, S. The Female Monster in Augustan Satire Signs 3.2. (1977): 380394.

Landa, L. A., A Modest Proposal and Populousness. Modern Philology 40 (1942):161-170.

Phiddian, R. Have You Eaten Yet? The Reader in a Modest Proposal. Studies in English Literature. 1500-1900 36(3). (1996): 603-621.

Smith, C. K. Toward a Participatory Rhetoric: Teaching Swifts Modest Proposal. College English. 30(2). (1968): 135-149.

Wittkowsky, G. Swifts Modest Proposal: The Biography of an Early Georgian Pamphlet. Journal of the History of Ideas 4(1). (1943): 75-104.

Introduction

The journeys all over the world, which people retort to, are generally aimed to find the new, better life. People try to find other cultures, ways of life, wisdom that will never be met in the motherland. They may simply search for adventures if life is too calm. But anyway, traveling offers the widening of the outlook and gaining of life experience.

The aim of the paper is to analyze and compare the books of two outstanding travelers, who lifted up the curtain of the other lives, and other peoples, Gulliver and Rasselas.

Trip, as the way of searching the reality

Gullivers Travels unreservedly imposes the query of whether physical strength or moral virtue should be the leading factor in social being. Gulliver undergoes the benefits of physical power both as one who has it, as a giant in Lilliput where he can beat the Blefuscudian navy by the asset of his huge size and as one who does not have it, as a tiny visitor to Brobdingnag where he is annoyed by the immensity of everything from bugs to household pets. His first stumbling with another society is one of trap when he is bodily tied down by the Lilliputians; later, in Brobdingnag, he is enchained by a farmer.

In Johnsons story, Rasselas and his friends leave Abyssinia in order to complete some wishes different from the sense which must be pleased before they can be content. They wish to find true happiness, and trust a change in geographical position, may offer them greater happiness. As Nekayah states, this may be because of the state of life, where none are happy but by the expectation of change. They change positions several times, and in their trips, find lots of replies revealing the way to gain happiness. These replies are illustrated by the means of Johnsons arguments about happiness.

Like lots of narratives about trips to nonexistent lands, Gullivers Travels reveals the notion of utopia  an imaginary model of the perfect society. The notion of a utopia is an antique one, going back at least as far as the account in Platos Republic of a city-state governed by the shrewd and expressed most notably in English by Thomas Mores Utopia.

Swift dips to both works in his own narration, however, his approach toward utopia is much more cynical, and one of the key components he points out about famous historical utopias is the propensity to privilege the societal group over the personality. The children of Platos Republic are grown collectively, without knowing their biological parents, in the realization that this system improves social equality. Swift has the Lilliputians likewise raise their children cooperatively, but the outcomes are not precisely utopian, since Lilliput is torn by plots, resentments, and backstabbing.

Critics have mentioned the strange attention that Gulliver devotes to clothes all through his trips. Every time he gets a tear in his shirt or is obliged to adopt some local garment to replace one of his own, he narrates the clothing details with great accuracy. Readers are narrated how his pants are falling apart in Lilliput so that as the army walks between his legs they get quite an eyeful. Readers are informed on the mouse skin he wears in Brobdingnag, and how the luxury silks of the land are as thick as blankets on him. In one sense, these depictions are obviously an easy narrative tool with which Swift can chart his protagonists sequence from one culture to another: the more teased his clothes become and the stranger his new clothes, the farther he is from the consoles and conferences of England.

Gullivers Travels was a contentious work when it was first issued in 1726. Ever since, editors have undergone lots of the passageways, chiefly the more caustic ones dealing with corporeal purposes. Even without those passages, however, Gullivers Travels provides a sharp satire, and Swift guarantees that it is both humorous and dangerous, continually attacking the British and European community by the means of its accounts of imaginary states.

Happiness and Rasselas travels

Rasselas and his companions research the happiness level of various groups of people all through their journey. They examine whether or not various ways of living impact peoples happiness. One way of living, that Rasselas and his sister consider the pleasure of, is matrimony. They argue whether or not marriage makes people happier, and consider whether marriage is best for everybody. Both make some worthy points in their dispute.

One argument offers that when people encourage each other, they often find themselves anxious when they are separately, and consequently decide that they shall be happy together. Human origin finds relief in that which is recognizable and is often afraid that which is not. This calmness practiced in fluency often is mistaken for happiness. This may be the situation for Rasselas and his friends. Their return to Abyssinia may be because of their wish to feel comfort and firmness again, and in their conclusion to return, they suppose it will offer them more content.

It seems that people are never totally satisfied with their current life. They always expect something more, and in these expectations find happiness. One idea offered in the text supports humans to live according to nature, in compliance to that collective and permanent law with which every heart is initially impressed. It may seem as if the end of the story contraries to this submission in that the characters are constantly unhappy with what origin has offered them in the current. Nevertheless, it is debatable that by looking for happiness and searching out replies to their questions, they live in accordance to their own human origin, which inquires.

Moreover, this suggestion to live according to nature, Johnson also imposes the dispute that men do not sense their own contentment but when it may be contrasted with the sadness of others. This is related to the end of the story. Only after Rasselas and his friends have contrasted the state of living in the happy valley, to the state of those who live to another place, do they choose to get back to Abyssinia.

Conclusion

The examples of these two plots show, that by searching for happiness, people are ready to any surprise, offered by destiny, and to bear all the challenges in order to achieve the adjusted aim.

References

Greenblatt, S. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th. ed. Vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton, 2006.

Johnson, S. The History of Rasselas: Prince of Abissinia Oxford University Press, USA, 1999.

Swift, J. Gullivers Travels Signet Classics Publisher, 1999.

The poem the red wheelbarrow was written by William Carols Williams and is counted amongst the modern day literature. There can be numerous reasons for this but in order to understand them; it would require careful evaluation of the poem itself. The opening sentence itself begins with the use of particular images which sets a dominant note. The word count is the pattern according to which the poem is set. The word positions are set as parallels and this itself is the primary method according to which any modern poem is written.

The wordsFlowers by the Sea what comes across is the simple usage of modern methods of contrasting and setting the word count. The constant visualization results in dominant imagery and though it has been criticized for the realism, what cannot be overlooked is the comparisons of the actual image in contrast to the vision created by Braque. The formal qualities draw our attention and it allows us to examine the substantial content in detail.

The great dependency shown on the red wheelbarrow as that allows the reader to understand the value and meaning of the dual attributes while at the same time creating a manifestation of the visual imagery. The mind has to grasp the phenomena in order to real it to real life concepts. The poem is structured in a manner in which there are four equal seized compositional units with only verb which allows for complete grammatical and semantic functioning.

This effect itself allows the reader to have delayed understanding of the meanings and the words are given deeper meaning at the same time. The readers mind dwells on the etymological meanings of hangings from etc while pondering over the word quality since each word has a distinct force attached to it. The phraseso much has a number of emotional meanings attached to it and only after a complex evaluation is the reader able to detect the meaning behind it. After identifying the number of complex ways, the reader reverts to the actual meanings behind the complex words and visuals. The minds dependence is contrasted to the parallels that exist within the words and the sentences.

The three stanzas create a process of dependency as the reader constantly looks back at the opening which contains the dominant verb and elements within. The worddepend itself has a number of meanings which are attached to it. While one is closer to the physical meaning of the word, the other at the same time refers to the abstract meaning attached to the word.

While one can deduce the present yet there is an underlying tone of constant change as well which reinforce the idea of the composing-antagonist. There is a thread of interrelationships and one realizes that the present cannot be transcended and objects endure the change of time as does the mind.

The contrasts between the new age technology and the primitive machinery allows the reader to examine the difference between the new and old while being free from the usual verse as the radical verse usage of this poem creates the setting of modern poetry. Hence, the above reasons explain why this poem is considered a fine piece of modern poetry.

Introduction

George Simenon is French born novelist. He is the deft handler of the detective fiction. He has been acclaimed as its literate writer as well. His name reverberates with the creation of Paris police detective inspector named Maigret. He has brought about dozens of the mysteries of this inspector and authored more than hundred novels. However, he has been criticized for not penning the big novel. He is one of the most published and translated author. He was born in 1903 and was the eldest son of his parents. His father was accountant by profession. He had to say goodbye to his studies because of his fathers illness. He initiated his career as a writer in a newspaper. He was very young when he got published his first novel. He joined a group that was fond of drug intake, drinking philosophy and art. He married an artist at the age of 20. Unfortunately, the marriage could not successfully evolve and ended in divorce. He went to Paris and went on writing short stories and famous novels. He exploited different pen names in this regard. He also assisted an aristocrat. He transformed himself as an industry of novels during his long stay at that country. The social life of the capital supplied too many plots and contents for his writings. His journeys to other part of Europe also fascinated him and provided too many inputs for his works. His travels to Eastern Europe led him to the portrayal of the communist atmosphere which was appreciated by many. He was also fortunate to make an around the world journey. I have never been able to write a novel about a country which I have known only as a tourist, and I have never traveled around the world with a notebook in hand, jotting down impressions. (Preface in Simenon: An American Omnibus).

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His techniques of probe do not heavily draw on vast quantity of police work. He falls back on his intuitive powers. Hermeneutics is peculiar to his writings. It is the way of interpretation of comprehending the importance of human deeds, statements, outcomes and institutions.

Maigret Goes to School is one of my favorite stories. On an astounding spring day, Maigret obliges to a request to assist a schoolmaster who was alleged of committing a murder in a meager coastal society of Saint-Andre-sur-Mer. He acclaims that his determination was probably less impacted by the schoolmasters request and more by his own conception of white wine and new oysters features of the Charentes area. The community welcomes Maigret with cold shoulder. Leonie Birard was despised everywhere who was assassinated with the help of a 22-rifle. She was an old former postmistress. She could have been the target of any body, but this highly threaded village community was of the view that a local school teacher foreigner to their village bore the onus of this murder. They also believed that there was no requirement of a meddler inspector. Maigret from the very beginning knew that he was not welcomed with open arms yet he tries to juxtapose himself with the ambience benefiting from his childhood experience when he remained in a village.

The mysteries of Maigret spread over too many years and can easily be forgotten. The given work is particularly attention grabbing for the reason that it facilitates the life and times of Maigrets childhood and some of the glimpses of his character. The mystery is also captivating. He does not absolutely oust the schoolmaster from his calculations but he in his view is improbable and inappropriate to be fitted against such a vacancy. If there is certain semblance of being suspected that is due to the accusatory statement uttered by his student. As is common to his character, Maigret relies on patience and does not act prematurely by drawing hasty conclusion. It is his very approach and methodology of composure and consistency which is instrumental in bringing about the solution to the riddle.

Léonie Birard had been murdered from some space as she peeped from the window of her house. Gastin, taken as an alien in the village is certain that he is being taken as prime suspect in the village. The inspector asks his colleague to bring the suspect back in the village so that essential procedural matters be initiated and fulfilled. However, he also reveals the new evidence that one of the boys in the class had witnessed the teacher coming out of the tool shed exactly at the time of the murder. However, he refuses to accept that he had gone to the shed. He is sent to the jail. He encounters the son of the local policemen who still persists with his story. There seems to be no way out but there is one the day of Léonies funeral. M at last gets the opportunity to have private conversation with Jean who reveals that Marcel has lied and he was not at the place where he could see the one coming out of the tool shed.

Conclusion

Furthermore, he witnessed his father going to the coffee house and return. M now understands that Marcel is now safeguarding some body under the heap of his lies.

Introduction

The complexity involved in the working of the human mind is beyond explanations. The flow of thoughts in an individual is Brownian at a superficial level but looking at it from the perspective of a philosopher one realizes the implicit presence of The Stream of Consciousness. Throughout the history of arts and literature authors, writers, poets, painters, photographers, musicians and other literary scholars have demonstrated its effect. When observed at the internal layer of a creation, a window to the mind of the creator opens up. It presents an opportunity for the viewer to understand the on going thought process of the artist at the time of the conception of the art. Then cometh the realization that he/she is not so different from the artist and how ones own thoughts lead into another, which eventually leads into another and so on.

Main text

Each one of us has our flow of thoughts, which we do not seem to realize. However, once pondered over it leads to a feeling of wonder, marvel, astonishment and awe. The study of the human psyche reveals the fact that a consciousness of some sort goes on at all times in each individual. Everyone would agree that all states of mind succeed each other. Thoughts cannot be explained with the ease we define rains or winds. Thus, we are forced to merely say that thoughts come naturally.

There are crowds of thoughts, ones own and those of the others, some of which go together mutually, and some do not. Paradoxically, none of ones thoughts can be separated from the other, but each belongs with certain others and with none beside. Thoughts keep on changing constantly. One moment we are seeing, in another hearing or maybe reckoning, willing, remembering, expecting, caring, hating and in a numerous another manner we tend to keep our minds constantly engaged. We assume that our feeling is altering every moment, so much so that an object fails to deliver same sensation each time it comes across. We perceive things according to state of mind in which one is: drowsy, awake, hungry, full, fresh or when exhausted. We sense objects in a different way at night and in the morning, another way in summer and in winter; and most evidently in a dissimilar manner in childhood, manhood, and old age. Nevertheless, we by no means doubt that our thoughts divulge the same world, with the equivalent sensible traits and the same sensible objects occupying it.

..It was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge... (Woolf, p. 37). Throughout ones lifetime, one develops several relationships and this influences the flow of thoughts largely. One often mulls over the bondage shared with other people in the surroundings. The constant hovering around conversations, gestures and various forms of interactions with them forms a major part of humane life. Thus it leads to a want, a feeling to be related and plays a key role in the human minds venture into the world of thoughts and consciousness.

It also longs for peace and love and wishes they lasted for an eternity. . there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures. (Woolf, p. 76). Nobody can deny this want. Thoughts about achieving mental satisfaction and how to attain harmony have a permanent place in the subliminal.

Conclusion

Above all thoughts relating to the perception of Life itself have engrossed numerous philosophers, scholars and the learned over a long period. Depths and the meaning of life have been a central theme of thought for probably every individual who makes an effort to justify his existence. One often contemplates about the duties he needs to perform, his approach towards life and goals to achieve. He reflects on how he would be remembered after his days are over. He finally thinks if it is worth doing what he does. Will it be his fault if he goes by his natural instincts and does what he wants rather than reaching the ultimate? Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his amour off, and halts by the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first, gradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head are clearly before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and finally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head before herwho will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world? (Woolf, p. 26).

Works Cited

Woolf, Virginia; To the Lighthouse; Wellington: Polity Press (2001)

Introduction

The narrative that has been taken into consideration goes by the name of Old Angel Midnight and was written perhaps in the year 1959 and was written by the well-known author Jack Kerouac. This narrative can be considered as a consequence of Kerouacs involuntary experiments of writing that he took up so as to spill out his chemically encouraged feelings on top of paper in order to see what can be made out of them.

Even though it is known by all that Kerouac was in the beginning pointed the finger at by fictional critics as a nonconformist, but everyone has come to realize that his spur-of-the-moment falsifications and turnings of verbal communication pace well as compared to those of Joyce and Stein, and with the passage of time it has been rightly prove that he definitely was a significant and undyingly well-liked American writer.

Analysis

The narrative under consideration, Old Angel Midnight, in which Kerouac, predisposed by James Joyces experimentations in Finnegans Wake (1939), hard-pressed spur-of-the-moment writing style to its definitive appearance and expression. Kerouac in his letter to his friend informed John Clellon Holmes that the work that he was working upon in the current time was a bit distressful. He started off by complaining that he had no sense as to what he should or should not write anymore and that the work under progress is an endless automatic writing piece which raves on and on with no direction and no story. (Kerouac, p. 1). This piece of work came to be known as Old Angel Midnight in which he conducted a test with free connection in order to make an effort to be able to write down the sounds of the entire world& now swimming thru the window. (Kerouac, p.2).

As is known, Old Angel Midnight is a long poem that presents a narration to us which was written by American writer Jack Kerouac. This narrative poem is basically a gathering from five diferent notebooks gathered between the years 1956-1959 at the same time as when Kerouac was totally engrossed in Buddhist studies and theory. In the words of the author himself, this piece of work can be taken as simply the commencement of a life time of work in the sound of a vast number of languages, putting forward the haddalada-babra of babbling world tongues that came in through to him by his window at midnight without consideration of where he was or what activity he was engaged in whether he was in Mexico, Morocco, New York, India or Pakistan, in Spanish, French, Aztec, Gaelic, Keltic, Kurd or Dravidian, the sounds of people yakking and of myself yakking among, ending finally in great intuitions of the sounds of tongues throughout the entire universe in all directions in and out forever (Kerouac, back cover).

What is more is that the author says that this book is the only one in which he has purely said what he always wanted to and written what he liked which can be anything and everything on his mind whether it be positive or negative, considering that this is what he heard coming in through the window and God in his Infinity wouldnt have had a world otherwise  Amen. (Kerouac, back cover).

Amongst the vast number of prefaces that are available in the book, the well known poet McClure has written that on no account before has insignificance been hoisted to such a climax that it came out to turn into a breakthrough.

Amassed from five notebooks, the piece of writing that has been presented by the name of Old Angel Midnight, which is an uninterrupted prose poem spans around the years 1956-59, which as said was a period of time when Kerouac had wrapped up himself in Buddhist conjecture. Out of the ordinary, every now and then ridiculous indications to religion are basically found all the way through the book. As is written by the author of the book, this holy and all universe is a wonderful white wild power, why, hell, should, heaven, interfere, words, waiting, flesh, sure, I know& (Kerouac, p. 32). At the same time as it seems superfluous to call whatever thing by Kerouac spontaneous, the well known detractor and dramatist Charters points out that Kerouac though up this piece of his work as a drawing of his subconscious, without the end or narrative direction for which his novels are usually fumbled about for.

Consequently all the more unrestrained, he goes on playing around with words, puns, pleasures in put together sounds, discovers new-fangled words and puts in far-off ones more or less at random. This makes the book somehow even more likeable. Similar to Kerouacs other documents; this piece of work was kept away from being published till the time that his widow has died. For this reason we can say that maybe at the time that it was written it would have been considered a real tentative breakthrough, but for now it is a bit worn off, but still likeable (Kerouac, p.1-89).

Conclusion

In the light of the above discussion we can hereby culminate that the narrative written by Jack Kerouac known as Old Angel Midnight was written as an experiment by the author and somehow he has succeeded in it by writing down everything that he had on his mind.

Works Cited

Kerouac, Jack. Old Angel Midnight. Grey Fox Press. United States of America. ISBN-10: 0912516976.

Dai Sijie and his novel Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress provide a scope of huge intentions of two young men in China to provide their skills in learning foreign literature in a time when such perspective was banned by the government. The thing is that the events in the book appear when the process of the Cultural Revolution had the main purpose to redirect the society in their literature views and preferences. This approach considered the whole population of China, from urbanized regions to villages. In fact, the novel tells a reader a story of how two young students, the unknown narrator and his friend Luo, are exiled to a remote mountain village in order to provide a new policy of the Communist party (Dai and Rilke 11). This policy concerned the spread of ideological motives throughout peasants.

The story attracts also with the moment when two men were interested in the works of forbidden Western classics. Onore de Balzac and his novels appear to be the most significant. Then the adventures of the two led to their meeting with a tailors daughter from the nearest village. She is a peasant seamstress whom both students liked. The triangular love begins to circulate from this point. Their highest intention was to make this girl behave as a representative of high society. Their motives were driven by the sentimental works of Western classics. The flow of realistic literature is felt definitely. The suppositions that literature is one of the main cultural tools to be apparent with literacy are apparent among both protagonists. After a discovery of story-telling abilities in both men a headman of the village promotes their visits to other villages so that to entertain people orally while watching movies.

The author of the book describes the details of the story making emphasis on the idea of cultural wrong directions provided by the Chinese leaders. The title of the story provides real values of any cultural reformation. In a brief description, it may be understood as a flow of current experience in the field provided from up to down layers of the society, so that to reduce illiteracy and different trends of thought within masses. The author gives a demonstration of rational approach to the cultural issue by finding out the real sources of inspiration and progress implemented in classical works.

On the other hand, the book and its plot obviously remind about the novel of another classical writer, Bernard Show. In his novel Pygmalion he discovers the peculiarities of various accents of people living in Great Britain. There the author makes an attempt by means of protagonists to change the appearance of an illiterate woman teaching her how to speak and behave. All in all, the motives are the same  to prove that a person from lower strata can be sophisticated and well-bred due to cultural approach and the role of education.

Cultural values are presented in inspiration of protagonists for using genuine methods in order to reform society culturally. This trend is underlined with an idea that there is no need to find new ways to make people culturally mature. The experience of mankind can represent already made assumptions of better development for human beings. In other words, the author unintentionally promotes spontaneous awareness of characters in the value of world literature for people.

In the book, one of the main characters, Luo, is displayed as an incorporation of the authors intentions to be read or heard by a listener. In this respect the story provides his image as an interesting, courageous, and spirited young man. His motives to follow the way of cultural reformation go to counterbalance the Chinese program of that time. It depicts the act of finding new ways for effective changes in the lower classes of society. The character charms, outwits, and entertains the villagers (Gelman and Krupp 37). The universal value to be patient with people and loving homeland is outlined in Luo. The author sees in his personal reflections how to make cultural reform easier and productive for society. There is no idea of intentional social split in order to oppose the Cultural Revolution. On the contrary, the author intends the protagonist to find humane ways, so that to make the process of reeducation light and proved. Of course, the implementation of such intentions is made on the example of little seamstress. All in all, Luo is not lack pure feelings of love and passion which are described toward the tailors daughter. Along with his friend he is successful in making word power increased among the peasants. The arguments of their statements and thoughts are strong and versatile. This character also expresses the key role of young peoples participation in every process for changes. Young people in the majority of cases have no old-fashioned ways for making life better and determined with something new and progressive. Thus, Luo is an apparent demonstration of how young passion insignificant for the country program can go another, most progressive, way; even if it is banned in the society.

Works cited

Dai, Sijie and Rilke, Ina. Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress. New York: Knopf, 2001.

Gelman, Judy and Krupp, Vicki Levy. The book club cookbook: recipes and food from your book clubs favorite books and authors. Los Angeles, CA: Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2004.

In the 1940s, the Nazi regime started an international program aimed at purifying the racial profile of the European population and establishing the rule of the so-called Aryan race. The powerful instruments of such correction were concentration camps, which combined the functions of labor utilization, development of science and technology, and extermination of the prisoners. The book Fighting Auschwitz, written by the former member of Armija Krajova, the Polish Underground, who also became a victim of the Nazi regime and spent several years as an inmate of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The present paper is aimed at analyzing the book from a sociological perspective.

Firstly, it needs to be noted that in his work Religion in Sociological Perspective Keith Roberts employs the so-called open systems theory, which is also applicable informing the approach to the structure of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In particular, this paradigm implies that as opposed to the thermodynamic systems, which strive for greater chaos, human institutions and organizations tend to become more differentiated and elaborated over time. In this sense, the internal environment of Auschwitz was extremely diverse. The initial division was based upon the racial background of prisoners and the rank and occupation of SS staff. For instance, in the beginning, Jewish, Polish, and Russian inmates voluntarily segregated from each other, probably because of the language barrier and the historically determined hostility between the three groups.

The two main groups of personnel included military guards and scientists who performed unethical medical experiments with the inmates. As the system was developing, there appeared two subsystems in the group of prisoners, which included the Underground (resistance group), composed predominantly of Poles and the Sonderkommandos (Garlinski, p.245), a predominantly Jewish subdivision, formed by the guard, whose function was assistance in gassing. Interestingly, due to the fact that the Sonderkommandos assumed the responsibilities of the guard, they received additional privileges and their living conditions were similar to those of the low-ranking SS soldiers. For instance, they received much more nutritive food, had an opportunity to skip the exhausting work given to all inmates, and often slept in cleaner beds. However, the term of their service was not longer than six months, afterwards, they were exterminated by the prison guard.

The open systems approach states that the internal structures belonging to the system have a tendency to becoming more complex and elaborate. This principle is particularly workable in the case of AK, the Underground, whose members managed to struggle using the limited resources they had. For instance, they created a small bacteriological warfare laboratory and cultured the species of typhus-bearing lice, which they used to infect the SS guards. (Garlinski, p.54). In addition, the Auschwitz AK was responsible for the flight of two Slovak Jews, who were further safely transported to Slovakia and successfully gave their testimonies to the Jewish officials of Slovakia which seemed to have a critical attitude towards the possibility of mass murders of Jews in the camps (Garlinski, p.233).

At the same time, it needs to be admitted that with respect to the functions of the concentration camps in contemporary Nazi society, the Auschwitz administration sought to prevent the further elaboration of its subsystems in order to avoid diversions and disobediences. For instance, a number of previously loyal Poles and Jews were tortured and subsequently persuaded to become the Gestapo informers. Such practice can be explained by the fact that in such highly hierarchical structures as Auschwitz, inmates were not viewed as individuals human beings or workers, but rather as livestock, or the resource which can be disposed of without any ethical principles and norms. Therefore, the administrators were interested in maintaining the homeostasis of the specified group and prevent its progress. One can also suppose that the formation of the Sonderkommandos subdivision was aimed at excluding the most able-bodied inmates from resistance and isolate this large group of prisoners. Therefore, when the Sonderkommandos started a revolt, they were not supported by the Underground and peer inmates (Garlinski, p.248). The Sonderkommandos were perceived by the prison livestock as supporters of the SS guard, as it has been noted above, they performed the regular duties of the lower-ranking soldiers (gassing and cremation).

Furthermore, according to the open systems approach, each system demarks its boundaries and filters the input and output of information and resources. In this sense, the Auschwitz policy was simple and consisted in blocking the penetration of any information which might support its inmates; again, it was useful to keep the livestock in the state of homeostasis; one of the elements of this static state was information vacuum. However, news from the world war leaked into the prison cells; for instance, the Sonderkommandos organized the revolt, encouraged by the forthcoming invasion of the red Army in 1943.

Despite the status of the secret organization, Auschwitz remained an open system, expected to use the information from the external environment for its good. For instance, when it became clear that German troops were driven away from Russia and additional resources were needed for a successful counterattack, the Auschwitz administration ordered that the labor of each unit was utilized at maximum and stopped the reckless murders inside the camp (Garlinski, p.101). In addition, due to the need for technological advancement, Mengele expanded the scope of his genetic studies, trying to artificially culture the highest race. In the year 1943, when the threat of the Red Army was becoming a reality, as the USSR was approaching, the camp administration responded to this piece of news by resuming the systematic slaughters of the inmates. Therefore, the system to great extent depended upon the specific features and aspects of the external environment, one of which was the success of Hitlers military effort.

In his book, Roberts also addresses the concept of racism, which is actually close-knit to the establishment of Nazi rule and the creation of concentration camps. In fact, the idea of the contemporary German officials was the spread of the Aryan rule, as Aryans were viewed as supreme humans. The distinctive features of Aryans included athletic building, good physical and mental health, short and direct nose, fair hair, white skin, and blue eyes. These external attributes were associated with intellectual and moral perfectness as well as with outstanding managerial and leadership abilities. At the same time, the appearance of Slavs and Jews did not comply with this norm, as the former had darker hair and eyes and were generally shorter by height, whereas the latter had such Semitic features as long nose, black hair, and dark eyes, which were not tolerated by the Nazi ideology and considered to be associated with mercantile and petty nature. Jews were also accused of the global conspiracy against Europeans and Americans and charged with the economic recession of the early 1930s. Therefore, the divergence from the Nazi norms of beauty and fitness were viewed as a deviation; again, certain physical characteristics were equated by Nazis to the potential undesired personality traits and behaviors. As Garlinski writes, Some nations, such as the Jews, and later the Poles and other Slavs, were to be completely, or almost completely, eliminated&( Garlinski, p.137). Finally, the purpose of concentration camps can be logically derived from their name, i.e. these structures were responsible for gathering the deviants, i.e. they served as penitentiary institutions under Nazi social control.

References

Garlinski, J. Fighting Auschwitz. Fawcett, 1975.

Roberts, K. Religion in Sociological Perspective. Cengage Learning, 2003.

Introduction

The poem by Robert Frost The Rod Not Taken tells about a man who had a situation when in front of him two roads diverged. He tried to rally his thoughts and make up his mind what way to choose. First, he made an attempt to look narrowly into the distance realizing some possible features of every road and the outcome which could fall into the goal of his travel. The narrator decided to follow one of those roads and then got to a point that it was wrong and possibly another one could help him follow the right way. After ages this very man makes a conclusion that it was his fault and he really regrets about his choice.

The poem is written in the first person singular and the narration is direct applying to the quite distinctive details. From the first sight, it is quite clear in the way of description and manner in which the poem is written. One can say that it is a simple depiction of nature and a man coming across the wood. Actually, it is, but when realizing the poetical talent of Robert Frost and his desire to prescribe some additional information hidden inside the text of the poem, the analysis and evaluation of it becomes rather interesting.

Main Text

A person who narrates in the poem seems to be the author with a great number of his personal feelings due to the life experience. As it is seen, the images of the roads can be compared with the ways of life. Every human being decides at the very beginning of his conscientious life what way of thinking, living, acting, profession to choose. It is very significant to move in the right direction in the very beginning, so that not to go back and make a fresh start.

Life is short, as it seems. It is quite plain that youth is given to a man in order to take care of chair days. Every single minute is at stake when a man gathers his thoughts in terms of further actions. Right decision-making process is a core element which the character of the poem did not follow.

Also the narrator was adored with a road he had chosen because it was grassy and promised great perspectives about the endpoint of it. The author by this episode claims a reader not to indulge a vain hope when one is proposed to have good future and even more. Every bean has its black  as British people say. The narrator provides readers with a fact that he was one to follow that road.

It can be interpreted also as it is hard enough to make first steps in a new and unknown field of activity in length of the whole life. One of the most outstanding critics Lawrence Thompson once illustrated the idea of the poem by saying that it is a slightly mocking satire on a perennially hesitant walking partner of Frosts who always wondered what would have happened if he had chosen their path differently. (Frost 1998) That is why the poem can also show a case of reciprocal loving which a person in the poem experienced in his life.

Conclusion

Thus, the theme of the poem The Rod Not Taken by Robert Frost is picturesque and easy to make out. The idea of it, as I see, falls into the way of life which a man chooses and the case when two persons feel different emotional attitudes of love and passion towards each other.

Works cited

DiYanni, Robert. Literature:Reading, Fiction, Poetry and Drama. 6th ed. 2007.

Brians, Paul. Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken (1915). Washington State University. 1998.