The Uncovered English

Joseph Andrews Novel by Henry Fielding Character of Parson Adams in Joseph Andrews Although the novel is titled Joseph Andrews, it is Parson Adams who is the centre of interest. Fielding was quite quite aware of this and that is why he added to his title page name of Adams — "The History of Joseph Andrews amd His friend Mr. Abraham Adams." Of Adams Austen Dosson says, "If he is not the real hero of the book he is undoubtedly the character whose fortunes the reader follows with closest interest." Dudden too argues on this point and says, "It is the old foolish passion that is the centre of interest." Digeon describes him as "a comic hero" and goes on to qualify: "indeed a hero, pure and simple if occasion demands." Adams is one of the most original creations. Fielding himself claims that he "is not be found in any book now extent." It is true that while inventing him, Fielding and his eye on two models — the Don Quixote of cerv...

Joseph Andrews Novel by Henry Fielding Joseph Andrews as a comic epic in prose / Parson Adams Fielding claimed that he was writing a new type of literature — 'a comic epic in prose.' The preface of Joseph Andrews is significant in that it endeavours to expand the theory of the novel. He writes, "Now, a comic romance is a comic epic in prose; differing from comedy, as the serious epic from tragedy: its action being more extended and comprehensive; containing a much larger circle of incidents and introducing a greater variety lf characters; it differs in its characters by introducing personsof inferior rank whereas the grave romances sets the highest before us." In Joseph Andrews, Fielding sketched the outline of this theory and it was to be elaborated in Tom Jones. Byron called Fielding "The prose Homer of human nature" and of Joseph Andrews, Wyatt and Collins says, "This first novel straightway gives us a prose epic of the England of its day." A co...

She Stoops To Conquer  Play by Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops to Conquer is more a comedy of intrigue than a character. Do you agree ? -OR- Examine Goldsmith use of comic devices in She Stoops to Conquer -OR- "The incidents in She Stoops to Conquer are so designed as not to seem improbable." Do you agree ? Goldsmith used for his plot of "She Stoops to Conquer" a reputed experience of his own as a school boy when having lost his way he asked for an inn and was directed by a practical joker to the local squirer's house. So, the main events of the play tends to be a farce arising from rodiculous situation and incidents. No doubt some of them seem to be improbable and obscured at first sight. The dramatist has taken great pain to make them credible and convincing by employing a number of 'comic devices' in the form of 'intrigues.' So R.F. Patterson goes on to say it "a splendid comedy of intrigue." A comedy of introgue depends on an intricate ...

Social Message / Comedy of Manners She Stoops To Conquer She Stoops To Conquer Play by Oliver Goldsmith She Stoops To Conquer is a comedy with some serious social message / Comedy of Manners About "She Stoops to Conquer" A.N. Jeffares writes, "there are many reasons for play's enduring popukarity, Goldsmith sets out to make us laugh and does so successfully. Side by side he provides a serious social message." The play is a timeless comedy, farcial in plot, but often shrewd in characterisation, realistic in illustration of human nature and social picture. "She Stoops To Conquer" aims at to convey a social message through the presentation of the 'folies and foibles' of man and women and as such it has an element of social criticism. But in the later part of the play the dramatist has lost sight of social criticism and concentrates on the element of fun so much so that the play becomes an enterta...

Miss. Neville and Miss. Hardcastle in She Stoops To Conquer She Stoops To Conquer Play by Oliver Goldsmith Miss. Neville and Miss. Hardcastle Constance Neville and Kate Hardcastle are two contrasted pictures of young womanhood of the middle class society of the 18Th century. According to Collins, "the personality of Kate Hardeastle is emphasised by contrast with Constance Neville." As compared with Kate, Neville is a pale, colourless creation. Kate dominates the action from beginning to end. She leads the man of her heart as she wills. Neville plays an insignificant and passive role except towards the close of the play. She is led by the man of her heart. To speak the truth, Neville is a foil to Kate. Kate Hardcastle and Constance Neville are cousins. They live under the same roof. Miss Neville is an orphan and lives with her aunt Mrs. Hardcastle. Kate has both her parents alive and is the app...

Tony Lumpkin in She Stoops to Conquer She Stoops To Conquer Play by Oliver Goldsmith Who do you think is the central character in 'She Stoops To Conquer' ? Support your answer. --OR-- Comment on the dramatic function of Tony Lumpkin in 'She Stoops To Conquer.' Tony Lumpkin is the central figure in 'She Stoops To Conquer' — the very key-stone of arch on which whole comedy is built. It is he who sets the main plot in motion and introduces complications in it. As a life-force of the comic subplot, Tony develops it, introduces complications in it and rounds it off. Apparently he is a 'fool', a 'booby', a 'whelp and hound' as his step-father calls him. But his role in the play shows him not as a fool, but as a youngman with a highly fertile and inventive brain. Throughout the play he is the most interesting character. For this William Blake comme...

Mrs Dalloway Novel by Virginia Woolf Imagery and Symbol Symbols and imagery are an essential part of the novel, Mrs Dalloway, as they are connotative as well as emotive and evocative. They convey not only Woolf's meaning, but also they carry a rich aura of emotion and associations. Mrs Dalloway has a greater degree of inwardness than most other novels in English language, and hence symbol and imagery run through the very design of the novel. The use of symbol and imagery enables the novelist to render the psyche of her characters as well as deliver her indictment of a spiritual hollow civilization. Virginia Woolf evolved her own theories of symbol and imagery and explained, "What interests me most in the last stage is the freedom and boldness with which my imagination picked up used and tossed aside all images and symbol." So far as the use of symbols and images in Mrs Dalloway is concerned, it has been po...

Mrs Dalloway Novel by Virginia Woolf Stream Of Consciousness in Mrs Dalloway Mrs. Woolf belongs to the school of stream of consciousness novelist. She is on e of those great modern English novelist of the 20th century who had the courage to break free from the tradition and then to give a new direction, a new form amd a new spiritual direction to the modern English novel. she was totally dissatisfied with the current form of the novel as represented by Edwardians like Bennett, Wells and Galsworthy. In this novels 'life escapes' because life is not what they present in their novels. She has very clearly expressed her own views in her great essays 'Modern Fiction.' To her "life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged" but it 'is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.' The task of the novelist is "to convey this varying, the unk...

Arms And The Man Play by George Bernard Shaw Compare and contrast Raina and Louka In Arms and the Man we find that Raina and Louka are two young women belonging to different social positions in life. Raina is the daughter of a Major, a high army officer. They have got a position there and they are well known throughout the whole of Bulgaria. Louka is the daughter of a poor farmer. She has no education or culture nor has she any romantic illusion. She works as the maid-servant of the Petkoffs. Shaw introduces a strong parallelism in their situation by presenting both as the objects of love to the romantic Sergius, and here the differences between the two are uppermost. One is the mistress and the other is the maid, but their lives come into conflict when Louka designs to marry Sergius who is betrothed to Raina. Both of them are almost same age and are equally beautiful. Raina has natural charm which has been enhanced by ...

Arms And The Man Play by George Bernard Shaw Compare and Contrast the characters of Sergius and Bluntschli. The central theme of the play 'Arms And The Man' is the different attitudes to war and love. While some of the characters are rallying for romantic sentimental notions, some are pragmatic and anti-romantic. In the true sense of the term Sergius and Bluntschli are studies in contrast and they constitute the central pair of the plot. They are both soldiers and lovers but their attitudes are poles apart. While Sergius is a self - comscious egoist and a dreamer of dreams, Bluntschli is a plain prident man of the world with a strong common sense. While Sergius regards himself as a hero of romance and bears a romantic attitude to love and war, Bluntschli is replete with practical intelligence and has contempt for romantic poses and idealistic views of things like war, heroism , love and marriage. Sergius is bas...

Arms And The Man Play by George Bernard Shaw Title of the play Arms And The Man The title of the play Arms And The Man as George Bernard Shaw himself aknowledges in the preface to 'play pleasant' has been taken from the first line of Dryden's translation of Virgil's Aeneid. The Aeneid begins with the Latin phrase 'Arma Virmque cano.' In his translation Dryden skillfully renders the phrase as "Arms and the Man I sing" in the following lines:- "Arms and the Man I sing, who forced by fate And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate" Virgil's phrase praises the soldier and the weapons of war. But Shaw's play is anti-romantic and anti-heroic and has a different purpose. To quote A Nicoll: In Arms and the Man, it is war and romantic soldering he would tilt against. Even then he would see that war was no longer a thing of banners and gl...

Mother of 1084 Novel by Mahasweta Devi Discuss the character of Nandini as a political rebel. E. Satya Narayan writes in The plays of Mahasweta Devi, "Life, as Mahasweta Devi has come to know through her lifelong close contact with poorest classes of village people is hard, cruel and merciless. It is to the expression of this life andmd to the exposure of a social system that makes this life a reality." This personal characteristics can be traced out in Nandini who continues to nurture hope for revolt against oppression and resolves never to "come back to the so-called tody" life from her path of revolutionary mission and social commitment . She is a sharp contrast tk another woman character of the olay Sujata who was in the beginning an apolitical mother without the knowledge of the other world of have-nots. But Nandini from her initial appearance is thoroughly political rebel in her outlook. Her spoken criticism to discover he...

Mother of 1084 Novel by Mahasweta Devi "I think a creative writer should have a social conscience. I have a duty towards society." Discuss the play in the light of the above quoted remarks made by the playwright. OR How does Mother of 1084 explore the relationship between the personal amd the political? OR How does Mother of 1084 is a critique of science and complacence? OR Trace the growth of sujata from an apolitical stereotype into a politically aware entity. OR Title of the play. Mahasweta Devi is one of those dedicated writers who have denied to accept the existing ideals and have tried to reveal the reality of the downtrodden people. A major part of her carrier has been spent in documenting the misery of the oppressed people. Being an inhabitant of this society, Mahasweta Devi feels: "A writer should have a social conscience. I have a duty towards the society." Buy this PDF note f...

Paradise Lost Book - I John Milton "Awake, arise or be for ever fallen." Comment on line Satan says this to the fallen angels lying bewildered on the lack of fire. Satan calls out to them in a loud voice and tries to make them realise the "dire statement" that has overtaken them. He addresses them as princess, rulers, warriors, the first among the angels of Heaven. He asks them if such plight can overcome immortal spirits or they have chosen this place to resg their tired heroism. He also asks if they sworn to worship the conquerer in the humble and low posture. The conqueror God sees Cherub and Seraph roll in the fiery lake with their weapons and flags scattered. Soon His ministers of venegance seeing from the gates of Heaven their advantageous position, will come down and trample on them in their dejected or will pierce through with their thunderbolts ans fasten them to the bottom of this gulf. So, Satan asks them to...

Paradise Lost Book - I John Milton "... Cruel his eyes, but cast sings of remorse and passionbr Whose eyes are mentioned here? How do they reflect his present state of mind? The eyes of Satan surveying the number, status faces of his armies are mentioned here. They reflect Satan's sorrowful and remorseful state of mind. It pains him to see that countless angels are doomed to suffer everlasting pain in hell. These angels have been deprived of Heaven because of his fault, and stripped of celestial splendours due to his revolt against God. He is overwhelmed with intense emotion at the thought that though the angels have been driven away from the region of bight and joy for his fault, they still remain faithful to him. Thus when he tries to speak to his followers, tears burst forth and stop him from speaking thrice. At last he succeeds in speaking, but his speech is punctuated with sobs. Satan...

Paradise Lost Book - I John Milton Explain the Vallambrosa simile. In Vallombrosa simile which occurs in lines 301 - 304 of Paradise Lost Book 1, the fallen angels are compared to autumnal leaves: "... Who lay intranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombtosa, where the Etrurian shades High over - arched embower;" The word Vallombrosa is derived from Latin 'Valles Umbrosi" which means shady valley. It is a name of a beautiful valley about 18 miles east of Florence where Milton Passed. The fallen angels floated thickly in confusion on the surface of the lake. They looked like the autumnal leaves that fall and lie scattered on the streams in the shady valley of Vallombrosa where shady Tuscan trees from bowers with their high branches arching overhead. These leaves choke the brooks as the fallen angels cover the surface ...

Paradise Lost Book - I John Milton Why is Satan called Infernal Serpent ? Infernal means hellish or fiendish. The word has its rot in 'inferno' meaning hell, especially with reference to Dante's 'Divine Comedy.' Infernal Serpent thus implies the serpent of hell. Satan assumed the form of a Serpent when he came out of hell to attempt Eve to violate God's command not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve could not resist the temptation and ate the forbidden fruit. Pursuaded by her, Adam too did so. The son of God descends to Eden and pronounced doom to Adam, Eve and the Serpent. Satan returns to Hell with the news of his success, but suddenly he and his followers are changed into Serpents. The figurative connotation of the term Serpent is treachery..Milton calls Satan as an infernal serpent because Satan tempted Eve in the form of a serpent and was sent bac...

Paradise Lost Book - I John Milton How do ambition and prayer comingle in Milton's invocation in Paradise Lost Book - 1 ? In pursuance of epic convention laid down by Homer and Virgil, Milton begins his Paradise Lost Book - 1 with an invocation of 26 lines. Milton proposes to sing "Of Man's first disobedience" to God in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree in Paradise which brought death to the world and all his sufferings till Jesus Christ restore human being to Paradise. The theme proposed is a grand, mighty and universal one. It represents the origin of sin its consequences and the fight of Good and Evil. Milton insists upon the sublimity of his subject. He aims at soaring not to the middle air but to heaven. He will rise higher than Mount Helican which represents classical poetry and will treat: "Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." ...

Paradise Lost Book - I John Milton How does Beelzebub respond to Satan's first speech Satan's first speech in Paradise Lost Book - 1 is addressed to Beelzebub and meant to rouse him from stupor. In reply to this speech, Beelzebub addressed him as: "O Prince, O chief of many Throned Powers," under his leadership the seraphim fought a dreadful battle against God and emerged God's high suprimacy. Beelzebub visualised the calamitous events which resulted in their disgraceful defeat and their tragic overthrow from the reign of light. Beelzebub hopes that as the mind and the spirit of the fallen angels cannot be conquered, they will soon regain their glory and their happy Heavenly state. He thinks God to be omnipotent who has left them their spirit ajd strength intact, so that they might endure their sufferings to satisfy his wrath. He warns the fallen angels that their unimpaired strength will do them no good of they are destin...

Paradise Lost Book - I John Milton "All is not lost" - What is implied loss? How does the speaker catelogue all that is not lost? Because of his inordinate pride and ambition to rise above God, Satan waged an impious war in heaven. Satan with the rebellious angels suffered a defeat and was expelled from heaven to bottomless pit of hell. Thus the implied loss is Satan's defeat in the war against God and consequent expulsion from heaven. In his frist speech Satan Catalogues What is lost and what is not. He says: "All is not lost, the unquerable will And study of revenge, immortal hate And courage never to submit or yield;" Satann means to say here that it does not matter if he and his followers have lost the battle. Only a battle has been lost. The war has not been lost. They still hate their invincible determinatio...