Of Parents and Children

The joys of parents are secret; and so are their griefs and fears. They cannot utter the one; nor they will not utter the other. Children sweeten labors; but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase the cares of life; but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The perpetuity by generation is common to beasts; but memory; merit, and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men; which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those of their bodies have failed. So the care of posterity is most in them that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses are most indulgent towards their children; beholding them as the continuance not only of their kind but of their work; and so both children and creatures.

The difference in affection of parents towards their several children is many times unequal; and sometimes unworthy; especially in the mother; as Solomon saith, A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son shames the mother. A man shall see, where there is a house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest made wantons; but in the midst some that are as it were forgotten, who many times nevertheless prove the best.

The illiberality of parents in allowance towards their children is an harmful error; makes them base; acquaints them with shifts; makes them sort with mean company; and makes them surfeit more when they come to plenty. And therefore the proof is best, when men keep their authority towards their children, but not their purse. Men have a foolish manner (both parents and schoolmasters and servants) in creating and breeding an emulation between brothers during childhood, which many times sortethto discord when they are men, and disturbeth families.

The Italians make little difference between children and nephews or near kinsfolks; but so they be of the lump, they care not though they pass not through their own body. And, to say truth, in nature it is much a like matter; insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes resembleth an uncle or a kinsman more than his own parent; as the blood happens. 

Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean their children should take; for then they are most flexible; and let them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children, as thinking they will take best to that which they have most mind to. It is true, that if the affection or aptness of the children be extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it; but generally the precept is good, optimum elige, suave et facile illudfacietconsuetudo [choose the best-custom will make it pleasant and easy]. Younger brothers are commonly fortunate, but seldom or never where the elder are disinherited.

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The Snows Of Kilimanjaro Summary

The Snows Of Kilimanjaro Summary
About:Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in suburban Oak Park, IL, to Dr. Clarence and Grace Hemingway. Ernest was the second of six children to be raised in the quiet suburban town. His father was a physician, and both parents were devout Christians. Hemingway's childhood pursuits fostered the interests that would blossom into literary achievements.
Although Grace hoped her musical interests would influence her son, young Hemingway preferred to accompany his father on hunting and fishing trips. This love of outdoor adventure would be reflected later in many of Hemingway's stories, particularly those featuring protagonist Nick Adams.
Hemingway also had an aptitude for physical challenge that engaged him throughout high school, where he both played football and boxed. Because of permanent eye damage contracted from numerous boxing matches, Hemingway was repeatedly rejected from service in World War I. Boxing provided more material for Hemingway's stories, as well as a habit of likening his literary feats to boxing victories.
Hemingway also edited his high school newspaper and reported for the Kansas City Star, adding a year to his age after graduating from high school in 1917.
After this short stint, Hemingway finally was able to participate in World War I as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross. He was wounded on July 8, 1918, on the Italian front near Fossalta di Piave. During his convalescence in Milan, he had an affair with a nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky. Hemingway received two decorations from the Italian government, and he joined the Italian infantry. Fighting on the Italian front inspired the plot of A Farewell to Arms in 1929. Indeed, war itself is a major theme in Hemingway's works. Hemingway would witness firsthand the cruelty and stoicism required of the soldiers he would portray in his writing when covering the Greco-Turkish War in 1920 for the Toronto Star. In 1937, he was a war correspondent in Spain, and the events of the Spanish Civil War inspired For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Summary:
The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a short story collection by Ernest Hemingway. Many of the stories deal with classic Hemingway themes, such as death versus life well lived. Hemingway uses the stories collected here to examine the ways that people misunderstand each other’s pain and loss.
In the title story, a man lies dying on a cot in his camp on an African Safari. He and his wife are unable to leave the camp because of trouble with their vehicle, and as Harry lies there, he remembers events in his past interspersed with his current troubles.
He begins to associate death with the circling of an unseen hyena. As he falls asleep, he dreams that he is rescued in a plane with only room for him and the pilot. This plane ascends to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro where Harry sees the legendary carcass of a frozen leopard, and he knows that this place is where he is going. His wife is later woken in the night by the sound of the hyena’s cry and finds Harry unresponsive in his cot.
From this story, Hemingway moves to a subtler examination of the human condition. In “A Clean, Well Lighted Place,” an old man sits alone at a restaurant at night. Two waiters, young and old, are talking together, and when the man orders another brandy, the young waiter expresses a desire for him to finish and leave. The older waiter is more understanding of the old man’s plight, but the second time the man orders brandy, the younger waiter tells him the cafe is closed.
The young waiter wants to get home to his wife, but the older waiter understands that sometimes all people need is a clean, well-lighted place to go. The emptiness of his own life makes him feel a kinship with the old man in that he finds himself wanting a place to stay, such as this cafe, in his older age now that youth has left him.
Hemingway continues the theme of misunderstandings with “A Day’s Wait,” in which a young boy develops a fever, and due to a misunderstanding believes that this fever is fatal. The father is unable to understand the source of his son’s fear and remains detached from his suffering. Just as the young waiter in the previous story was unable to understand the old man’s need for connection, so too, the father in this story is unable to understand that he could alleviate his son’s suffering.
In “The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio,” Cayetano lies recovering from a gunshot wound in a small hospital in Montana. The main characters, a nun, Cayetano, and another ill man, Frazer, deal with issues of loneliness and connection. Though Cayetano is physically suffering much more than Frazer, at heart, he’s an idealist and believes in man. Frazer is more critical of man’s philosophies and characters, but he listens to the radio to help him make sense of his own internal suffering. The three of them ponder the need to have a support system in order to make sense of existence.
The next story, “Fathers and Sons,” focuses on the themes of relationships and role models by following three generations of fathers and sons through the memories of the main character, Nick Adams. Nick and his son discuss hunting, which makes Nick think of his own father, and his relationship with him. This was the first time that Hemingway alluded to the suicide of his own father in any of his writings.
Nick makes another appearance in the next story, “In Another Country.” Here, an ambulance driver for WW1 is making a recovery in a hospital filled with cutting edge machines for rehabilitation. Although he is making a recovery, he wonders about the purpose of life. He starts a friendship with a major whose wife has unexpectedly died. Through these conversations, Hemingway explores the pain of loss and whether it is worth it to love at all.
“The Killers” finds Nick Adams crossing into adulthood from his teenaged years. He is caught in a cafe where two hit men are looking to kill a Swedish boxer. When the boxer doesn’t show and the two men leave, Nick decides to warn the boxer. However, the boxer simply says that nothing can be done and tells Nick to forget about things. In this story, Hemingway reaches the peak of his minimalist style, with little plot line and a passive protagonist.
Hemingway revisits Nick one more time in “The Way You’ll Never Be,” in which he recovers from his experiences in WW1. He is plagued by nightmares and trauma, and despite his valiant attempts to deal with his memories, the other characters of the story worry about his grasp of reality.
Hemingway’s love of boxing shows in “Fifty Grand,” the story of a boxer in a fixed match that doesn’t go the way it was intended. A boxer fixes a fight by allowing his brutal opponent to win on a foul after temporarily gaining the upper hand. The emphasis on the boxer’s silence suggests that he finds solace in
doing what is right for his family by allowing himself to lose the fight regardless of what the rest of the world might think.
In the last story, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” Hemingway returns to Africa, where two men and a woman are on a big game safari. Macomber had panicked the previous day when charged by a wounded lion, and his wife and the guide made fun of him. The next day, Macomber wounds a buffalo, and although he manages to stand his ground this time and kill it, his wife also fires a shot from the car killing him.
This collection represents Hemingway’s interest in loneliness and quiet dignity. The characters deal with difficult but wordless struggles of loss as they fight to understand connection, and what death and life really mean.
Short Summary: The story opens with a paragraph about Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, which is also called the “House of God.” There is, we are told, the frozen carcass of a leopard near the summit. No one knows why it is there.
Then we are introduced to Harry, a writer dying of gangrene, and his rich wife Helen, who are on safari in Africa. Harry’s situation makes him irritable, and he speaks about his own death in a matter-of-fact way that upsets his wife, predicting that a rescue plane will never come. He quarrels with her over everything, from whether he should drink a whiskey-and-soda to whether she should read to him. Helen is obviously concerned for his welfare, but self-pity and frustration make him unpleasant to her.
He then begins to ruminate on his life experiences, which have been many and varied, and on the fact that he feels he has never reached his potential as a writer because he has chosen to make his living by marrying a series of wealthy women. In italicized portions of the text that are scattered throughout the story, Hemingway narrates some of Harry’s experiences in a stream-of-consciousness style.
Harry’s first memories are of traveling around Europe following a battle, hiding a deserter in a cottage, hunting and skiing in the mountains, playing cards during a blizzard, and hearing about a bombing run on a train full of Austrian officers.
Harry then falls asleep and wakes in the evening to find Helen returning from a shooting expedition. He meditates on how she is really thoughtful and a good wife to him, but how his life has been spent marrying a series of women who keep him as “a proud possession” and neglecting his true talent, writing. Helen, he remembers, is a rich widow who was bored by the series of lovers she took before she met him and who married him because she admired his writing and they had similar interests.
Harry then recalls the process by which he developed gangrene two weeks before: he had been trying to get a picture of some water-buck and had scratched his knee on a thorn. He had not used iodine and it had become septic. As Helen returns to drink cocktails with Harry, they make up their quarrel.
Harry’s second memory sequence then begins, and he recalls how he once patronized a series of prostitutes in Constantinople while pining for a woman in New York. Specifically, he had a fight with a British soldier over an Armenian prostitute and then left Constantinople for Anatolia, where he ran from an army of Turkish soldiers. Later, he recalls that he returned to Paris and to his then-wife.
Helen and Harry eat dinner, and then Harry has another memory, this time of how his grandfather’s log house burned down. He then relates how he fished in the Black Forest and how he lived in a poor quarter of Paris and felt a kinship with his neighbors because they were poor. Next, he remembers a ranch and a boy he turned in to the authorities after the boy protected Harry’s horse feed by shooting a thief. Next, he remembers an officer named Williamson who was hit by a bomb and to whom Harry subsequently fed all his morphine tablets.
As Harry lies on his cot remembering, he feels the presence of death and associates it with a hyena that is running around the edge of the campsite. Presently, Helen has Harry’s cot moved into the tent for the night, and just as she does, he feels death lying on his chest and is unable to speak.
Harry dreams that it is the next morning and that a man called Compton has come with a plane to rescue him. He is lifted onto the plane and watches the landscape go by beneath him. Suddenly, he sees the snow-covered top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and knows that is where he is bound.
Helen wakes up in the middle of the night to a strange hyena cry and sees Harry dead on his cot.
This story focuses on the self-critical ruminations and memories of a writer dying of a preventable case of gangrene on safari. Its main themes are death and regret, and Harry’s morbid thoughts epitomize a classic case of taking things for granted. Harry takes his blessings, including his caring wife, his full life, and his writing talent, for granted, and on his deathbed muses on how he could have appreciated each more. His main regret, of course, is that he has not reached his full potential as a writer because he has chosen to make a living by marrying wealthy women rather than memorializing his many and varied life experiences in writing. The progression of his gangrene symbolizes his rotting sense of self-worth.
This last regret is made so bitter to Harry because, as he admits, it is his own fault he has not adequately exercised his great talent: “He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in.” In a strange parallel, it is also Harry’s fault that he developed gangrene; by not using iodine on his scratch, he allowed it to become septic and is therefore to blame for his impending death.
Viewed in this light, Harry’s predicament is self-inflicted, and is therefore a fitting punishment for his repeated acts of self-betrayal over the years. The lingering question of the story is how Harry’s situation is resolved by the dream sequence that ends the narration. Does his journey to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro symbolize Harry’s acceptance of
his punishment and acquiescent passage into the afterlife, or does it stand for Harry’s redemption as a character and continuing desire to rise above his past mistakes, even at the moment of his death? What does Kilimanjaro stand for?
There is abundant symbolism in this story, as many scholars have noted. The actual significance and meaning of these symbols has been hotly debated, but generally, the frozen leopard on the summit of Kilimanjaro is associated with death, immortality, and possibly redemption. The hyena and vultures are associated with illness, fear, and death, and Kilimanjaro itself, though its role has sparked the most controversy among scholars and critics, seems associated with a sort of redemptive heavenly afterlife. In addition, throughout the story, low-lying, hot plains areas are associated with difficult or painful episodes in Harry’s life, including the situation in which he begins the story, and snowy mountainous areas are associated with his happier, more uplifting experiences, including his final imagined ascent to the top of Kilimanjaro. In addition, gangrene, the rotting of the flesh, is symbolic of Harry’s rotting soul.
In terms of style, Hemingway narrates the sequences between Harry and Helen in a straightforward third person format and breaks into italicized stream-of-consciousness for Harry’s many memory sequences. These memories are often conveyed using run-on sentences and consist of bewildering pastiches of characters, places, and events which are consistent with Harry’s delirium. According to Hemingway scholars, these memories are mostly autobiographical. Using Harry as a vehicle, Hemingway writes of a log house he visited as a child in Michigan, of his experiences during World War I, of his life in Paris with his first wife and their fishing trip to the Black Forest, of his skiing trips in Austria, and of a location near the Yellowstone River in Wyoming.
Harry, as a character, produces similes and metaphors with regularity as he speaks to Helen (“Love is a dunghill…And I’m the cock that gets on it to crow”; “Your damned money was my armour”). This is also true during his memory sequences (“the snow as smooth to see as cake frosting and as light as powder and he remembered the noiseless rush the speed made as you dropped down like a bird”; “in some way he could work the fat off his soul the way a fighter went into the mountains to work and train in order to burn it out of his body”).
Q&A
1. What's wrong with Harry in the snows of Kilimanjaro?
The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Harry, a writer, and his wife, Helen, are stranded while on safari in Africa. A bearing burned out on their truck, andHarry is talking about the gangrene that has infected his leg when he did not apply iodine after he scratched it.
2. Who is Compton in the snows of Kilimanjaro?
Compton is the pilot of the plane that is going to take Harry back to the city. He is very kind and reassuring, and also fictional-Harry only dreams him. Helen is Harry's wife. She comes from wealth, is an expert in shooting guns, and loves her husband, although he does not seem to return her love.
3. What is the main theme of the story The Snows of Kilimanjaro?
At the end of his life, he... The main theme of this story is facing death, but as with much of Hemingway, the story also explores isolation and alienation. Harry is attended by his wife Helen as he dies of gangrene poisoning in Africa, but he does not love her.
4. Where does the snows of Kilimanjaro take place?
Plot. The story opens with a paragraph about Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, whose western summit is called the “House of God.” There, we are told, lies the frozen carcass of a leopard near the summit. No one knows why it is there at such altitude.
5. What does the leopard symbolize in the snows of Kilimanjaro?
The leopard mentioned in the epigraph is primarily a symbol of immortality, although it also represents strength and courage. ... In his final moments, Harry believes that he is achieving the leopard's higher plane of existence, or redemption, as Compton flies him toward the square top of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
6.What is Harry's profession in the snows of Kilimanjaro?
The Snows of Kilimanjaro Summary. Stranded on safari in the African plains, Harry apologizes to his wife Helen for the stench of the gangrene eating its way up his leg. The two of them watch the carrion birds that have encircled the camp, waiting for his death.
7. What influenced Ernest Hemingway to write The Snows of Kilimanjaro? ...Hemingway is looking at one of his obsessions, death, again. Those things are reflected in his character, Harry, who is suffering from gangrene from an untreated scratch. It becomes clear that he will not survive.
8. How long does it take to climb Mount Kilimanjaro?
five to nine days
Mount Kilimanjaro routes and their variations take between five to nine days to complete. Although Mount Kilimanjaro is known as a "walk-up" mountain, you should not underestimate it and its risks. The overall statistics show that less than half of all climbers reach the summit.
9. Is it dangerous to climb Mount Kilimanjaro?
Climbing Kilimanjaro is probably one of the most dangerous things you will ever do. Every year, approximately 1,000 people are evacuated from the mountain, and approximately 10 deaths are reported. The actual number of deaths is believed to be two to three times higher. The main cause of death is altitude sickness.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce BACKGROUND Ambrose (author) was a guy who used to be in the army during the Civil War. After he was in the army, he was a newspaper writer. This story takes place during the Civil war. MAIN CHARACTERS Peyton Farquhar: He is the main dude of the story. He is a southern guy who gets hanged during the Civil war. PLOT The story starts out with some Northern soldiers (Yankees) at Owl Creek Bridge. They have Peyton standing on a platform, kinda hanging off the railroad bridge. He has a noose around his neck. They are preparing to kick the platform so Peyton hangs and dies. Then right before he is about to die, Peyton starts to think about his wife and kids. Then he thinks about why he is there. He has a flashback to some night where a southern soldier came to their door. The soldier stopped at their house to get water. He also told Peyton about the northern troops trying to rebuild the railroad for another attack. Then Peyton started asking him what would happen if he went and sabotaged the railroad. The soldier tells him that he would be hanged by the northern army. After the soldier leaves, we find out he rides back up north because he is a northern spy. He was just pretending to be a southern soldier, just to trick Peyton. Then the story cuts back to Peyton about to die. The northern troops kick out the platform and Peyton is about to die. But then he breaks the rope from the bridge and falls into the water below. He starts to swim away and escape. The troops shoot at him but they miss. Peyton swims and swims. Then he dives underwater and swims some more. All the while Peyton is talking to himself and telling himself what he should do to avoid getting shot. Then Peyton finally reaches land. He goes up on shore and walks to his family’s house. He goes home and sees his beautiful wife and his kids. But the last lines of the book are a big plot twist. It turns out this whole escape thing never happens. This was all his imagination while he was hanging from the noose. He just imagines this escape with his last moments of life. Peyton dies at the end, by hanging off the Owl Creek Bridge.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is divided into three sections. In section I, Peyton Farquhar is standing on a railroad bridge, twenty feet above the water. His wrists are bound behind his back, and around his neck is a noose that is tied to a beam overhead. He is positioned on loose planks that have been laid over the crossties of the train tracks to create a makeshift platform. Two soldiers from the Northern army, a sergeant, and a captain immediately surround him, awaiting the execution. Beyond them, armed
sentinels stand at attention. The bridge is bordered on one side by forest and, across the stream, open ground that gives way to a small hillock on which a small fort has been erected. A motionless company of infantrymen, led by their lieutenant, stands assembled before the fort. As the two soldiers finalize the preparations, they step back and remove the individual planks on which they had been standing. The sergeant salutes the captain then positions himself on the opposite end of the board supporting Farquhar, as the captain, like the soldiers, steps off and away from the crossties.
Awaiting the captain’s signal, the sergeant is about to likewise step away, sending Farquhar to dangle from the bridge’s edge. Farquhar stares into the swirling water below. He watches a piece of driftwood being carried downstream and notes how sluggish the stream seems to be. He shuts his eyes to push away the distractions of his present situation and focus more intently on thoughts of his wife and children. He suddenly hears a sharp, metallic ringing, which sounds both distant and close by. The sound turns out to be the ticking of his watch. Opening his eyes and peering again into the water, Farquhar imagines freeing his hands, removing the noose, and plunging into the stream, swimming to freedom and his home, safely located outside enemy lines. These thoughts have barely registered in Farquhar’s mind when the captain nods to the sergeant and the sergeant steps away from the board.
In section II, we learn that Farquhar was a successful planter, ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Unable to join the Confederate army, he yearned to help the South’s war effort in some significant way. One evening in the past, Farquhar and his wife were sitting on the edge of their property when a gray-clad soldier rode up, seeking a drink of water. The soldier appeared to be from the Confederate army. While his wife was fetching the water, Farquhar asked for news of the front and was informed that Northern forces had repaired the railroads in anticipation of launching another advance, having already reached the Owl Creek bridge. Any civilian caught interfering with the North’s efforts in the area, the soldier went on to reveal, would be hanged. Farquhar asked how a civilian could attempt some form of sabotage. The soldier told him that one could
easily set fire to the driftwood that had piled up near the bridge after the past winter’s flood. The man, who was actually a Northern scout in disguise, finished his drink and rode off, only to pass by an hour later heading in the opposite direction.
Section III brings us back to the present, at the hanging. Farquhar loses consciousness as he plummets down from the side of the bridge. He is awakened by currents of pain running through his body. A loud splash wakes him up even more abruptly, and he realizes that the noose has broken—sending him falling into the stream below. Farquhar sees a light flicker and fade before it strengthens and brightens as he rises, with some trepidation, to the surface. He is afraid he will be shot by Northern soldiers as soon as he is spotted in the water. Freeing his bound hands, then lifting the noose from his neck, he fights extreme pain to break through the surface and take a large gasp of air, which he exhales with a shriek. Farquhar looks back to see his executioners standing on the bridge, in silhouette against the sky. One of the sentinels fires his rifle at him twice. Farquhar can see the gray eye of the marksman through the gun’s sights.
Farquhar then hears the lieutenant instructing his men to fire, so he dives down to avoid the shots. He quickly removes a piece of metal that sticks in his neck. Farquhar comes back up for air as the soldiers reload, and the sentinels fire again from the bridge. Swimming with the current, Farquhar realizes that a barrage of gunfire is about to come his way. A cannonball lands two yards away, sending a sheet of spray crashing over him. The deflected shot goes smashing into the trees beyond. Farquhar believes they will next fire a spray of grapeshot from the cannon, instead of a single ball, and he will have to anticipate the firing. Suddenly he is spun into a disorienting whirl, then ejected from the river onto a gravelly bank out of sight and range of his would-be executioners and their gunfire.
He weeps with joy and marvels at the landscape, having no desire to put any more distance between him and his pursuers, when a volley of grapeshot overhead rouses him. He heads into the forest, setting his path by the sun and traveling the entire day. The thought of his family urges him on. Taking a remote road, he finds himself in the
early morning standing at the gate of his home. As he walks toward the house, his wife steps down from the verandah to meet him. He moves to embrace her but feels a sharp blow on the back of his neck and sees a blinding white light all about him. Then silence and darkness engulf him. Farquhar is dead, his broken body actually swinging from the side of the Owl Creek bridge. Short Summary Notes: Ambrose Bierce’s short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge takes place during the Civil War. Union soldiers are preparing to hang Peyton Farquhar, a civilian who tries to plan his escape with a noose around his neck. There is a stream below, and though there are other soldiers standing guard, he things he can make it home. A sergeant stands opposite him on the same loose board and he knows that as soon as the other man steps off of the board, he will fall and die. With his hands tied, it’s difficult to make his escape happen. Just as he is thinking of getting outside of the territory held by the Union Army, the sergeant steps off of the board. Bierce then flashes back in order to show readers how Peyton came to be on the bridge over Owl Creek, with his life about to end. Peyton had been a plantation owner who was unable to serve in the Confederate Army, though he wanted to. When a soldier stops by his plantation, he asks the man how the war is going. The soldier describes how the Union Army is taking more and more territory, and how it is constructing a railroad over Owl Creek. He tells Peyton it could be stopped if someone managed to burn the bridge at Owl Creek. However, he also tells Peyton that the commander of the Union Army plans to arrest and hang any civilian who tries to interfere with the construction of the railroad. The soldier passes by again, this time heading north to return to his army—the Union Army—after his scouting mission. Peyton’s thoughts return to his present tribulations as he falls from the bridge, the rope around his neck choking him. He is brought from his thoughts of how he got there by the blinding pain of being choked. When the rope around his neck breaks, Peyton plummets into the water below and manages to free his hands, and then his neck. The soldiers begin to shoot at him in the water, missing his face by mere inches. Despite being shot at multiple times with bullets and even a canon ball, Peyton manages to get out of the water and into the woods. From there, he finds a road that will take him closer to home. The road is wide but strangely empty. Despite his pain from being choked, he continues walking home. His throat is swollen, as are his eyes and tongue. When he
sees his home, he can see his wife waiting to greet him. Just before he is about to hold her, he sees a blinding light and then nothing. His neck is broken and Peyton Farquhar swings, dead, from Owl Creek Bridge. Everything that happens, from when the sergeant steps off the board until the end of the story, happens only in his imagination. The rope didn’t brake. The soldiers didn’t fire at him. He didn’t escape to make his way home. The commander kept his word and hanged the civilian who tried to disrupt the Union Army’s progress with the railroad. The ability to tell what’s real from what isn’t is a major theme present in this short story. From the beginning, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is about deception. The soldier who tells Peyton about the railroad is deceiving him. While he is honest about the Union Army’s efforts to build the railroad and the consequences of disrupting that work, he deceives Peyton about who he is. He is a Union soldier pretending to be a Confederate, and in so doing, removes one more plantation owner from the south. Similarly, Bierce’s reader is susceptible to deception. The details of Peyton’s escape are vivid enough to convince the reader that perhaps he truly found freedom. However, the end of the story proves that Peyton is, in fact, dead. Stylistically, Bierce’s treatment of time in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is worth noting. Bierce is able to use language to speed time up or slow it down, depending on the needs of the story. For example, the scenes of the execution seem to happen quickly, while Peyton’s escape seems to take longer, even though it happens in the split second that it takes for Peyton to fall and for his neck to break. A third, and equally important, theme is the idea that people will do anything to convince themselves that they can cheat death. Before his own, Peyton imagines a stroke of luck that lands him in the water below the bridge. The fall does not injure him. He doesn’t drown. The soldiers don’t manage to hit him, and he finds a road to travel that is void of any soldiers despite the armies being active in the area thanks to the war—not to mention there is no one else around. As unrealistic as this turn of events seems, Peyton believes it to be true because he does not want to die.

Summary of Henry James Fiction

For Henry James fiction is `a personal direct impression of life; value depending upon the intensity of impressions.’ When he began his literary career, fiction was comparatively new in comparison to other genres of literature. There was no operative consciousness and writers were `telling' with moral pills. The rhetoric of fiction was less sublime and the only rough was used in novels. Besides there were more canons and conventions, more ideologies, more emphasis on linguistic subtlety and it lacked authenticity due to deprived first-hand experience. Henry James detested looseness in fiction, felt the importance of amusement, championed the causes of the indirect approach, central intelligence, and international theme. He showed his concern for `form and order’, authenticity and a new vision in which imagination and fiction could be mixed. He wanted to` limit the facts’, create a `central consciousness’ which could lead to the unity of subject; introduce `dignity, nobility and goodness in his subjects’, put more emphasis on` psychological 'aspects rather than on external, social or outward world. He had a `philosophical’ bent of mind to see an ideal concept of man. He had a sense of `morality’, so he dubbed Zola as immoral. He also aspired for `hopefulness’ and condemned Maupassant by saying that life is not a series of despair. He believed in `human life’ and not only perfection and style as Flaubert strived for. He wanted `a fewer details’ in novels as opposed to Balzac’s concept so that there could more room for inner consciousness. Henry James felt that life may be chaotic or a splendid waste but art gives it beauty and meaning through form and expression .Henry James was a pioneer in theory and criticism of the novel though he did not pen down any systematic writing in a book form on the art of fiction. To find out his theory on the art of life, fiction, poetry, criticism; we have to analyze his essays, reviews, notebooks, prefaces, letters etc. But before retailing James’ theory; it would be interesting to dwell upon other’s opinion on the art of fiction. Crawford felt fiction as a ` pocket theater' whereas Henry Fielding had a notion that fiction is a ` comic epic in prose'. For Meredith, it was ` a summary of actual life including both the within and without of us' and for Nash, it was nothing more than `stories of action’. But for Henry James, Virginia Woolf and Charles Morgan, it was something deeper. They felt that the fiction must have the tendency `to subordinate action to psychology’ and the central theme should be in the mental and spiritual developments of the character rather than in their physical adventures. James also refutes the remark of George Moore about the novel as` a drawing room entertainment addressed chiefly to ladies’. For James a broad definition of novel can be ` a personal direct impression of life, value depending upon the intensity of impressions and it must have freedom to feel and say.’ In the beginning, English novel was not discutable. It had no theory, no conviction, and no consciousness. James was the first to codify a theory of fiction and he was the first to catch `the atmosphere of the mind’ in his novels. James was primarily an analytical writer, not content with the face value of human behavior and the result was his withdrawal from appearance and the superficial forms of life. For James, the novelist is a particular window open to the world simultaneously intensely consult and the same time intensely ignore life. His own inspiration derived from his own experiences which for him were impressions but he nourished the impressions or the germ by his `essence’. He keeps only the essential essence and the rest is estranged which resulted in decreasing number of events and of course no series of events. When he discussed relations between people and people and people and events, he discussed them in particular situations rather than in general. His subjects have plastic and moral contents. The development of his novels was primarily psychological and the value of his work lied in the framework and in the story. His subjects live more in inner thoughts and tensions rather than in the real world. Their motivations, feelings, impulses are better known than their acts. He felt that the only reason for the existence of a novel is to represent life and this is the reason why he admired the contemporary French writers even if he disliked them on account of immorality. He valued realism so
much that he could not exchange Madam Bovary of Flaubert for George Eliot’s novel whose morality he
admired. James was amazingly a prolific writer. He wrote everything except poetry. He failed as a
dramatist; however, he learnt from it the `mastery over fundamental statement. ’James was a journalist, a foreign correspondent, a serious critic and a playwright. He altogether wrote eighteen prefaces for his
novels which turn his critical mind upon himself- form, theory, art in general. His letters too are warm and fresh and contain vital views regarding the art of fiction. He believed novel as the most elastic of all the art form. He was the first intensely moralistic novel critic. He saw literature as a human and moral concern. James believed his prefaces as a manual of novel writing, though they are much disorganized. The central obsession of his preface is `form’ and he feels that without it, they are like fluid puddings as
the novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. James also believed in the superiority of art over life. He
complained that English novel had no air of having a theory even the French had it though it was a new idea relatively for them too. Since fiction is one of the forms of art, Henry James’ poetics on art helps us
to understand his art of fiction. His writings are interpersonal with various views, statements, definitions
of art and the art of fiction. James did not believe in `art for art sake’ nor did he believe in ` art for life
sake’. He had decided moral leanings towards morality but it was never at the cost of art. Flaubert has a
major default of intelligence in` Madame Bovary’ because here it is an addiction to art that is set over
against life. The sense of life is a serious matter in creative literature. Even Balzac in `La Comedie’ is
extremely populous though it misses the sense of life. Henry James says that `the only reason for the
existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.’ He also believes that ` a good novel is not at all a deliberate moralizing pill and with a happy ending, but it is the execution of good impulses in the
minds of readers and other human beings whereas bad novels sweep into unvisited limbo. A good novel always stimulates the desire for perfection. Mr. Besant says that a novelist must write from his own
experience, his characters must be real as met in actual life. However, reality has `a myriad forms’ –
literal, physical, external, psychological or emotional depending upon the imaginative power of a
novelist `to catch and present a particular kind of reality of life and the world and make it legitimate, cogent so as to hold and sustain our interest and attention. The aim of reality is the supreme virtue of a
novel. Henry James believes that `experience’ does not mean war, battle, upheaval, revolt, revolution, invasion or aggression. It is never ending and is all around. But it all depends on upon the imaginative
sensibility and the fertility of the novelist's minds. If experience consists of impressions, it may be said that impressions are experience. In the same way, `adventure’ or `incident’ does not necessarily mean
some hairraising incident but it may be apparently a little happening. He also feels that there cannot be
a conventional distinction between the novel of character and a novel of incident. In fact, the novel is an organic whole- it has almost all the elements in a proportional degree; impressions, experience, narration, description, and reflection, story, and dialogues which must cooperate, reinforce, advance, multiply and intensify one another. To James the classification of novel can be one which has life and that which has not. But even this is not the right classification because a novelist can make his novel ` have life’ in many ways. For example, for Dickens, social phenomenon, social evils, and exploitations
dominate the scene and infuse `life' whereas, for D.H. Lawrence, life is in physical desires and urges; whereas for Henry James, life is a bit deeper, more inner or psychological. James also opposes Besant’s
ideas that a fiction should have a conscious moral purpose. He says how novels being a picture can be moral or immoral. He says it has not a purpose but diffidence. He has a fascination for the rich subject but he also says that an artist has not to rule out or reject the unpleasant, ugly and the disagreeable
experiences. For novelists like Henry Fielding, Thackeray, Dickens and the like; the external, the social, the outward were exciting but it is psychological which is the most exciting for James. However, he does
not lag behind in fully appreciating the novel or novelists of another kind. In his essay, ` The Future of Novel ‘Henry James opines that the novel is all pictures, the most comprehensive and the most elastic. It will stretch anywhere and it could include anything, subject being the whole human consciousness. James believes in the fullest freedom of mankind and the liberty of mind and desires a novel not be
tethered to rules and restrictions. To deduce James’s fictional views and principles, we must analyze his
views on a few other novels and novelists. Henry James rejects the novel `Our Mutual Friend’ because
this is devoid of life and a central inspiration to unify the various events. He says there is no trace of ` nature’ in Wordsworth’s sense or reality. James wishes philosophical bent of mind in a novelist so that he may see an ideal concept of `man’. James rejects `The Belton Estate’ on the ground that its realism is
photographic and there is no central consciousness. For` Middle March' he opines that it has no systematic design and is an indifferent whole. However, the novel has some merits also like it has a
combination of instinct and thought, fact and fiction. James rejects ` Far from the Madding Crowd’ because of its diffuseness and padding. James is vexed with its defects and expects rules for all time for
neatness, tightness and lesser length to rule out padding. For `Nana’ he says it has naturalism but it is
devoid of morality. He also comments that never was any other writer as dirty as Zola. While discussing novelists like Maupassant, he feels that Maupassant's views towards life are dark and negative. James
says that there must be hopefulness as life is not a series of despair. By this alone human life is to be
sustained, maintained or consoled. James is disturbed by the themes of sex, nakedness, and prostitution in Maupassant's writings. However, he pacifies his feelings for him by saying it all feeling, all experience
and impression and Maupassant himself feels that any novelist sees the world from his own point of
view. Flaubert for him was novelist’s novelist, who bothered much for perfection and style but he was
also devoid of human life or vital human experience inadequate degree. In the same way, he does not appreciate Balzac because of his numerous details of numerous things, which gives no room to inner
consciousness. James feels that Balzac is obsessed of the material, the financial, the social and the technical which becomes antidotal to something divine, spiritual, idealistic and the sacramental. He
advises Emile Zola that a novel is like a big ship to give room to multifarious impressions and carry these to the desired destination without any jerk or upheaval. He has an assimilating and vivifying power. For
James, D’ Annunziolacked the moral sense. However, in him, there is an ideal fusion of all necessary qualities like exciting sensibility, splendid visual sense, ample and exquisite style. James believes that life
and literature should be mixed in such a way that it should be a very difficult to separate one from the
other. Although James theorized that for a novelist there is all life and all experience to be presented yet he shows his aversion or reaction to finding the sexual passion dealt with a novel of D ‘ Annunzio. For
Turgenev who is a storyteller, James feels that his tales are a magazine of small facts and he strikes at living details. This is the secret of novelist’s art. Before James, there was no full-fledged or satisfying theory of the novel. Drama and poetry were acceptable forms of literature. During the 18th century, the
branch could not come into its real form. Ian watt in 1852 was trying to give the novel a separate entity. Henry James used the concept of `the operative consciousness’ which was not in full measure. The
novelists were fond of `telling’ and author’s intrusion in the novel was quite visible sometimes even with moral comments as we find in Walter Scott’s ` The Secret of Midlothian’. Besides, there was no `advance
rhetoric of fiction’. Usually, the plainer, the rougher and the less sublime were used in prose. Novels in the 18th and the 19th century in England were tagged to fixed canons and conventions. To represent character and action, the emphasis was put on episodes, events, actions and the external matters. Novels were also largely ideological as in Robinson Crusoe’ of Defoe which had a providential pattern
and social criticism of life within accepted codes of conduct. The illusion of reality could often be marred
by the novelist’s moral pill or the author’s intrusion. Emily Bronte had the same habit. Surprisingly some
English novelists who were also artists did not exercise their mind on theory. Richardson used an epistolary form which proved a good solution to the problem of presenting a point of view indirectly. Organic construction of the stories achieved plot character relationship in his novels. Jane Austen had a
happy equilibrium in all general senses. She was the first writer of the pure novel. Her plots were on the
contrasting feature, romanticism, and practicality. She satirized fancies, achieved dramatic objectivity and gave lively pictures of elegant society. She created sparkling dialogues and style with a classical perfection. Thackeray emphasized on linguistic subtlety than on character and action. The distinguished trait of the English novel had been realism. It had a social, moral or ideological basis. But the idea of
devising a perfect medium to give the vision of reality and the maximum expression; seems alien to the
English novel. If some achieved it as Richardson did, it was all accidental or if Jane Austen and Thackeray, it was all due to their inherent artistic sense. But none of them formulated a theory deliberately. The
same thing was missing even in American novels. There was a concern for art in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ` The Scarlet Letters’. It missed economy of detail, punctuation, and observance of the principle of unity and novelists gaze on the human soul. In The Blithdale Romance, the action of the novel is viewed
through one of his characters. He is interested in the impact of sin on human conscience. Before William Dean Howells, there was the tradition of romance in American novels. Howells was the chief exponent of realism in American fiction. He believed that novelists should deal with human life in simple reality and not indulge in a romantic escape. In the later phase of his life, he was attracted to Tolstoy with his
image of God and his presence in human life. Before Henry James, there was a romantic strain in American novels. Thus it is obvious that the English, as well as the American novels, had no viable theory
on the art of the novel. They lacked form because there was apathy for the aesthetics of the novel. Henry James appeared timely on the literary scene. Authenticity was an important concern for the novelists of the period and it was believed in personal first-hand intercourse with the world. George
Eliot attacks women novelists of her day because they were trying to write like men without taking the
fundamental difference of sex. But the knowledge of life may be obtained in various ways besides direct personal experience. It could be taken from books, conversation, people etc. James uses and utilizes all kinds of information. However, the first-hand experience keeps the story fresh and interesting. It was
also believed that there should not be any gap or inconsistencies in a novel. It should be artistically told. Parts should be arranged with a due sense of balance and proportion. However, E. M. Forster does not appreciate this approach. He says that `The Ambassadors' is a reward due to the fine artist for hard work. He attains it at the cost of a short list of characters and they are constructed on very stingy lines. This is all in the interest of pattern. He believed in a single topic, situation, and gesture to occupy the
characters and provide a plot. To E. M. Foster a rigid pattern is to shut the doors on life. James as a
practitioner might have failed in some of his novels but `The Portrait of a Lady’ was both the beauty of
symmetry and fullness of life. For this reason, the absence of vitality of life in Flaubert, though he has a
beauty of symmetry, James does not give his full-fledged praise to him. James also feels that there
should be a new vision in which imagination and reality should be mixed in a proper way. He also says
that facts should be limited otherwise the novelists willbecome a recorder like Balzac who had an obsession with the actual. He also says that `form’ is important and any disregard for form leads to an abuse of dialogue. Henry James’ Prefaces are more eloquent about form. Besides `form’, it is only through large lucid reflector `the acute central consciousness’ that the values of a story can be fully expressed and the unity of the subject manifested. James has an innate leaning towards some `dignified’ subjects. A novelist like James can introduce dignity, nobility, and goodness even in an ignoble subject or
theme like that in` What Maisie knew’. In this novel, the chief characters are stupid and ignoble but only
Maisie’s `freshness’, her innocent fluttering's, acute intelligence and wonder make it the stuff of poetry,
tragedy, and art. For the first time, Henry James took seriously the writing of the novel as an art form.
He emphasized on designing of materials or patterning of subject matter or coherence. He discarded
redundancy. He had a lifelong passion for facts, for experience and impressions, human contacts and
knowledge. He felt that a novel must have life, an ideal vision, a moral leaning and a round finish. The
central consciousness in a novel as theorized by James is like the center, and other smaller characters
revolve around him. For James life may be chaotic, inexhaustible, a splendid waste but art gives it
beauty and meaning through form and expression. James has a fascination for a great morally dignified
character. Only great subjects with moral problems interest him. Recognition of error or acceptance of
one’s fault is the very nerve of Jamesian novels. He paid utmost attention to the moment of revelation.
He says a novel must be logical, convincing and natural or lifelike. He also says that reality does not
mean `literal actuality’. He has a passion for good and great subject matter. Henry James had large and
illuminating ideas about the theory of fiction in his prefaces. Statement of the anecdote and the
circumstances, in which it was told, from where James drew the germ of the story – a single phrase, a
single sentence, a short anecdote told or uttered by someone could lead to the creation of a novel.
Henry James brought to bear certain emphases on the art of fiction throughout the preface- a presiding
intelligence, the method of indirect approach, the necessity of being amusing, expressive relation
between art and life and an international theme which deals with the opposition of manners and the
use of innocent characters as the subjects of drama.
Q & A
1. What is the art of fiction by Henry James about?
James used the opportunity to present his ideas on the novel of fiction: “A novel is in its broadest
definition a personal, a direct impression of life”. It is very important for him to stress that life is
personally -and therefore subjectively- received by an author who than tries to represent life in his
work.
2.Who wrote The Art of Fiction?
Walter Besant

Hunger – Jayanta Mahapatra

Hunger – Jayanta Mahapatra

The poem 'Hunger' by Jayanta Mahapatra, a well-known poet from Orissa,India, depicts two kinds of hunger. One is the hunger of food and another is the hunger for sexual gratification.

  It is usually seen that men who are not satisfied with their married life or are not married or are divorced, go to brothels and give money for their own pleasure. It has become a business now, especially in India. Saying India a poor country will be an understatement. India now is not just poor by money, but poor by morals. The basic moral of a human being to realize that women are responsible for the creation of a new generation is wiped off our minds. Instead we see women being housewives, or maid servants, or further low standard jobs I find shameful to discuss about. It is a shame that we have forgotten women are not toys meant for sexual gratification or satisfaction of men. They are the creator of the entire human race. Rapes, prostitution,  household tortures, are these the only aspects women are meant to go through now?

Jayanta Mahapatra's poetry not only explores the influence of local realities in creating the depth of one's feeling and sensitivity but also stretches the possibilities of language to represent them.

 Jayanta Mahapatra’s  poem “Hunger” depicts the miserable condition of a fisherman whose daily routine is to catch fish which he did not satisfy the basic needs for his family. The quest for the fulfillment of his family needs lead to selling of his daughter. Thus, he opted unpleasant way of pimping of his daughter to earn money.

                        Fisherman meets the speaker near the bench where he draws a man to sell his daughter as he trails a net to catch fish. He used all sorts of tricks on customers by telling them about the beauty and freshness of his daughter. It showed wickedness and carelessness of father and making his daughter as a commodity.

            As the girl turned just fifteen made her surrendered himself to her father wish and exhibits her obedience as she was immature mentally. Thus she was compared to rubber for her flexible nature.

            The speaker gratified his sexual hunger with fisherman’s daughter. This perception on girl as an object indicates that she was used numerously owing to malnutrition. At the end of the poem the speaker said that for the first time he understood the real meaning of hunger not owing to sexual gratification but which had driven by poverty. The feeling of the empty stomach is compared with the fish which slither when it comes out.

The first few lines of the poem tell us about a man and a fisherman. The fisherman is volunteering the man to his place for a deal. The man feels the flesh on his back is too heavy. It seems like he is holding a huge burden of something inexplicable and its better to drop off the load. The fisherman is talking about some girl. He asks the man to 'have' her. He says it very carelessly as if he has no concern for the girl. As if the girl is
some toy to play with. But his words very well explain his purpose. He is hungry and he needs money to buy food. He is dragging his nets behind him. He glares his white teeth but his eyes reflect his misery.

The man is continuously faced with a weight upon him, symbolizing the weight of guilt and regret. Though he follows the fisherman across the shore, he feels a thrashing tension in his head. He could take this moment to refuse the offer and turn back. Maybe now if he turned back he could escape the trap and guilt he is caught in. But he remained silent. The fisherman's desperation seemed to increase.

When he reaches the fisherman's shack, he sees it is a lean-to(a building sharing one wall with a larger building, and having a roof that leans against that wall) and was dark inside except a lamp with a flickering flame and the walls are covered with soot, collected for a long time, which kept catching the poet's eyes.

The fisherman then reveals that his daughter has just turned fifteen and the readers realize that the girl he was talking about is his daughter. He asks the poet to 'feel' her. Here 'feel' refers to the fulfillment of his sexual desires. The poet is shocked with the truth and sees through the fisherman's wile. He is a father who is using his daughter's body to earn money for food. The poet looks at the young girl, who is 'long and lean', her age can be easily judged by her cold rubber-like skin and she looked malnourished. When she opened her 'wormy' thin legs wide, as if ready to serve as a sexual slave, the poet felt the hunger, the hunger for food which drove this father-daughter into this business.

 In this poem, poet brings out that images of slink, claw and unsteady light, flickering a poor men hurt which signify the exploitation of a poor girl for feeding themselves. This poem presents two kinds of hunger one is flesh related and other is poverty related.

                        Through this poem Mahaptra exemplify the brutality of our society towards poor people. When agony and suffering become intolerable, weak spirited poor people tend to surrendered to inhumanity. The ethical and moral values have no place in such utterly degraded human plight. These offences are spreading like wild fire in our society.

Summary:-

"It was hard to believe the flesh was heavy on my back.
The fisherman said: Will you have her, carelessly,
trailing his nets and his nerves, as though his words
sanctified the purpose with which he faced himself.
I saw his white bone thrash his eyes."

The first few lines of the poem tell us about a man and a fisherman. The fisherman is volunteering the man to his place for a deal. The man feels the flesh on his back is too heavy. It seems like he is holding a huge burden of something inexplicable and its better to drop off the load. The fisherman is talking about some girl. He asks the man to 'have' her. He says it very carelessly as if he has no concern for the girl. As if the girl is some toy to play with. But his words very well explain his purpose. He is hungry and he needs money to buy food. He is dragging his nets behind him. He glares his white teeth but his eyes reflect his misery. 

"I followed him across the sprawling sands,
my mind thumping in the flesh's sling.
Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in.
Silence gripped my sleeves; his body clawed at the froth
his old nets had only dragged up from the seas."

The man is continuously faced with a weight upon him, symbolizing the weight of guilt and regret. Though he follows the fisherman across the shore, he feels a thumping tension in his head. He could take this moment to refuse the offer and turn back. Maybe now if he turned back he could escape the trap and guilt he is caught in. But he remained silent. The fisherman's desperation seemed to increase.

"In the flickering dark his lean-to opened like a wound.
The wind was I, and the days and nights before.
Palm fronds scratched my skin. Inside the shack 
an oil lamp splayed the hours bunched to those walls.
Over and over the sticky soot crossed the space of my mind."

When he reaches the fisherman's shack, he sees it is a lean-to(a building sharing one wall with a larger building, and having a roof that leans against that wall) and was dark inside except a lamp with a flickering flame and the walls are covered with soot, collected for a long time, which kept catching the poet's eyes.


"I heard him say: My daughter, she's just turned fifteen...
Feel her. I'll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.
The sky fell on me, and a father's exhausted wile.
Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.
She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there,
the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside "

  The fisherman then reveals that his daughter has just turned fifteen and the readers realize that the girl he was talking about is his daughter. He asks the poet to 'feel' her. Here 'feel' refers to the fulfillment of his sexual desires. The poet is shocked with the truth and sees through the fisherman's wile. He is a father who is using his daughter's body to earn money for food. The poet looks at the young girl, who is 'long and lean', her age can be easily judged by her cold rubber-like skin and she looked malnourished. When she opened her 'wormy' thin legs wide, as if ready to serve as a sexual slave, the poet felt the hunger, the hunger for food which drove this father-daughter into this business.

Sri Aurobindo's "The Renaissance in India"

Sri Aurobindo's "The Renaissance in India"

Sir Aurobindo's life

Aurobond Studio for the Indian civil service at king's college, Cambridge England's. After returning to India he took up various civil services works under the maharaja of the princely state of Baroda and begun increasingly involved in nationalist politics and the nascent revolutionary movement at in Bengal.

His main literary works are the was life Divine, Which dew with theoretical aspects of integral yoga, synthesis of yoga, and Savitri, A legend and a symbol an epic poem. He was nomi for the Nobel Prize in literature in 1943.

Introduction to renaissance in India

In the essay written in 1918 and entitled the renaissance in India, Sri Aurobond presents us with a masterly view of India's culture through the age's essential spirit and his characteristic soul, her unique genius and powers which gave her remarkably long periods of greatness and an unusually prolific creativity.

Renaissance in India

"The renaissance in India" consists of four essay that were first Published in Arya from August to November 1918. In the first and the class longest essay. Sri Aurobond discusses the appreciate or lake therefor of then "renaissance" happened in India.

Sri Aurobond then identifies three "impulses" that arise from the "impact of European life culture ".

The western impact reacalkend "a free activity of the intellect ". " it know threw definitely in to ferment of modern ideas into the old culture" and " it made us turn our look upon all feel our past contains with new eyes". Such a renaissance would have thace tasks to accomplish in the light of India spirit, the endeavor to formulate agreaber synthesis of a spiritualist society is one of the most difficult.

The first step was the reception of the European culture, a medical re consideration of many of the prominent elements and some revolutionary denial of the very principles of the old culture. The second was a reaction of the Indian spirit upon the European influence sometimes with a total denial of what it offered and a stressing both of the essential and the strict letter of the national past, which yet masked movement of assimilation.

The third, only now beginning or recently begun, is rather a process of new creation in which the spiritual power of the Indian mind remain supreme, recovers its truth accept whatever it finds sound or true, useful or inevitable of the modern idea and form, but so transmutes and indinness it.

Sir Aurobindo predict that if the last were to happen, "the result will be no more Asiatic modification of western modernism, but some great new and original thing of the first importance if the future of human civilization".

In the third essay, sri Aurobindo offers an overview of some of the movements and figure of the renaissance, all the while pointing to what lies ahead finally, in the fourth essay, he once again stresses that the best course of action to India lies in being herself, recovering her native genius, which is a reassertion of its ancient spiritual ideal it only in "the knowledge" and conscious application of the ideal" that the future of both India and the world lies. Whatever she can rise up to this task or not is a question that he leaves open.

critical Analysis

If we were to aqua lute the recent cultural history of India in the light of this essay we will clearly see that the course of post-independence India has the regaining of material, even military might not necessarily the reaffirmation of India's spiritual ideal, so, to that extent, sri Aurobindo's has been proved both right and wrong. Right in that the spiritual is realized not in the denial of the material but actually in the Robert plenitude of the material subordinated to the spiritual ideal. We see in present day India a great effort to attain such material prosperity But whether the, spiritual idea of India remains intact is a question that is not easily answer to all appearances, India has gone the way of the rest of the world worshiping mammon our religion, too is consumerism. To say that spirituality is the master key to the Indian Psyche these days would seen more the expectation than the rule.

When we re examine Sri Aurobland's Ideas today, we can even conclude that the truth gift of the Renaissance was the modem Indian nation. Despite all its draw backs and peelings, this nation seems to be the best means that we have to preseave our culture and to express our own destiny. This nation has not only serviced the ravages of the ravages of the partition, but every conceivable threat both internal and external, its very existence. But having met and overcome these challenge, it seems to be poised to take our civilization to new heights. This is not an inconsiderable achievement can India embody the best its unique cultural heritage and also become a modern nation? This is the question there we must wait for the future to answer.

The most important contribution of Sri Aurobindo to the discussion on the Indian renaissance is as is after the case with his work, in what is yet to be realized .Sri Aurobido says that the rise of India in necessary for puncture of humanity itself. The third and most difficult task for the Indian renaissance has been the new creation that will come from a unique fusion of ancient Indian spirituality and morality, modernity. This fusion will be instruction in spirituality the world and in bringing about what many have called a global translation. In our present times of the clash of civilizations such an idea may seem utopian, but the very survival of the planet dependence on a hope and belief  that something of this sort is not only possible but inevitable.

The Renaissance in India by Sri Aurobindo

The thirty-two essays that make up this book were first published in the monthly journal Arya between August 1918 and January 1921. They constitute a defence of Indian civilisation and culture, with essays on Indian spirituality, religion, art, literature, and polity.

The first series of four essays appeared in 1918 under the title "The Renaissance in India" and was formulated as an appreciation of James H. Cousins' book of the same title. Sri Aurobindo explains that a renaissance in India means first the recovery of the past spiritual knowledge and experience in all its fullness, then the outpouring of this spirituality into new forms in all aspects of the country's life, and lastly, an original grasp of modern problems from an Indian temperament and intellect.

Sri Aurobindo

More than a writer, Sri Aurobindo is known as a mystic philosopher. He tried his hand at almost all literary genres and that too with finesse. So his reputation as one of the great Indian writers in English can’t be denied. His prose work “The Renaissance in India” is crown among his works. He attempts to remove the misconception widespread in West about India’s nature of civilization.

There is four essay in “The renaissance in India” and in that he talk about many different things but here we are only focused on his views upon spirituality and religion. Under given topics are discussed by aurobindo in his all four essays.

• Spirituality
• Energy and joy of life and creation
• Intellectuality
• Spirituality and religion
• Past ages of India like
•               Dharma
•               Vedanta
•               Upnishada
•               Puranik
•               Tantrik
•               Bhakti Etc…
• Philosophy and art
• Indian philosophy of spirituality
• Western philosophy and Indian spirituality
• Spiritualty in art, poetry, politics

Brief summary of The Renaissance in India

In the first and the longest essay, Sri Aurobindo discusses the appropriateness or lack thereof of the term “renaissance” for what happened in India .  He refutes some common European misconceptions on the nature of Indian civilization, misconceptions that have been echoed by Westernized Indians too.  In order to do so he outlines three characteristics of ancient Indian society.  He says that “spirituality is indeed the master-key of the Indian mind” that ancient India is marked by “her stupendous vitality, her inexhaustible power of life and joy of life, her almost unimaginably prolific creativeness” and, finally, that the “third power of the ancient Indian spirit was a strong intellectuality”.  He then outlines “three movements of retrogression”  first, a “shrinking of that superabundant vital energy and a fading of the joy of life and the joy of creation”; secondly, “a rapid cessation of the old free intellectual activity” and, finally, the diminution of the power of Indian spirituality. Sri Aurobindo then identifies three “impulses” that arise from the “impact of European life and culture”.  In the second essay, he rephrases them.  The Western impact reawakened “a free activity of the intellect”; “it threw definitely into ferment of modern ideas into the old culture”; and “it made us turn our look upon all that our past contains with new eyes”.  These are a revival of “the dormant intellectual and critical impulse”; the rehabilitation of life and an awakened “desire for new creation”; and a revival of the Indian spirit by the turning of the national mind to its past.  It is this “awakening vision and impulse” that SriAurobindo feels is the Indian renaissance.  Such a renaissance would have three tasks to accomplish:
The recovery of the old spiritual knowledge and experience in all its splendour, depth and fullness is the first, most essential work; the flowing of this spirituality into new forms of philosophy, literature, art, science and critical knowledge is the second; an original dealing with modern problems in the light of Indian spirit and the endeavour to formulate a greater synthesis of a spiritualised society is the third and most difficult.
   
 In the second essay, Sri Aurobindo goes on to outline the three phases of the renaissance:
The first step was the reception of the European contact, a radical reconsideration of many of the prominent elements and some revolutionary denial of the very principles of the old culture.  The second was a reaction of the Indian spirit upon the European influence, sometimes with a total denial of what it offered and a stressing both of the essential and the strict letter of the national past, which yet masked a movement of assimilation.  The third, only now beginning or recently begun, is rather a process of new creation in which the spiritual power of the Indian mind remains supreme, recovers its truths, accepts whatever it finds sound or true, useful or inevitable of the modern idea and form, but so transmutes and indianises it, so absorbs and transforms it entirely into itself that its foreign character disappears and it becomes another harmonious element in the characteristic working of the ancient goddess, the Shakti of India mastering and taking possession of the modern influence, no longer possessed or overcome by it.
                                             
Sri Aurobindo predicts that if the last were to happen, “the result will be no mere Asiatic modification of Western modernism, but some great, new and original thing of the first importance to the future of human civilization”.
   
 In the third essay, Sri Aurobindo offers an overview of some of the movements and figures of the renaissance, all the while pointing to what lies ahead.  Finally, in the fourth essay, he once again stresses that the best course of action to India lies in being herself, recovering her native genius, which is a reassertion of its ancient spiritual ideal.  It only in “the knowledge and conscious application of the ideal” that the future of both India and the world lies.  Whether she can rise up to this task or not is a question that he leaves open.
   
 If we were to evaluate the recent cultural history of India in the light of this essay, we will clearly see that the course of post-independence India has stressed the regaining of material, even military might, not necessarily the reaffirmation of India’s spiritual ideal.  So, to that extent, Sri Aurobindo has been proved both right and wrong.  Right in that the spiritual is realized not in the denial of the material but actually in the robust plenitude of the material subordinated to the spiritual ideal.  We see in present day India a great effort to attain such material prosperity.  But whether the spiritual idea of India remains intact is a question that is not easily answered.  To all appearances, India has gone the way of the rest of the world, worshipping mammon.  Our religion, too, is consumerism.  To say that spirituality is the master key to the Indian psyche these days would seem more the exception than the rule.
   
 When we re-examine Sri Aurobindo’s ideas today, we can even conclude that the true gift of the renaissance was the modern Indian nation.  Despite all its drawbacks and failings, this nation seems to be the best means that we have to preserve our culture and to express our own destiny.  This nation has not only survived the ravages of the partition, but every conceivable threat, both internal and external, its very existence.  But having met and overcome these challenges, it seems to be poised to take our civilization to new heights.  This is not an inconsiderable achievement.
   
The most important contribution of Sri Aurobindo to the discussion on the Indian renaissance is, as is often the case with his work, in what is yet to be realized.  Sri Aurobindo says that the rise of India is necessary for future of humanity itself.  The third and most difficult task for the Indian renaissance has been the new creation that will come from a unique fusion of ancient Indian spirituality and modernity.  This fusion will be instrumental in spiritualizing the world and in brining about what many have called a global transformation.  In our present times of the clash of civilizations, such an idea may seem utopian, but the very survival of the planet depends on a hope and belief that something of this sort is not only possible but inevitable.

His views on spirituality and religion

Aurobindo complained that the spiritual side of India was over-stressed. Western scholars were all gung ho about it and Indians simply imitated them and shouted the same. Indians simply accepted that and expressed the same voice. However, they forgot that in other fields like philosophy, science, technology, logic we also made immense progress. However, we failed to show that side of India. It was not the case that west dominated singlehandedly in such subjects; and India in religion and spirituality. The greatness of India was such that we made multi faceted progress that included subjects other than spirituality.
But due to misconception of Westerners and our ignorance about our own hidden treasure, the error continued. More than that, India imitated and followed the Westerners blindly in all but religion. As a result, there was no significant contribution by them. Then they came to know about their rich past. Sri Aurobindo here cites an example of Germany. The country was considered made up of dreamers, idealists, sentimentalists, docile, intelligent, but politically inept people. Later it was discovered that it was a brutal mistake to think like that about Germany. The same misconception was also true about India but the realization of India’s real strength won’t be the result of destruction. The India will captain the world in terms of knowledge of science and literature.

Indian spirituality saw the power of human being’s capacity much before the western mind could think of. She knew that visible was always surrounded by invisible, finite by infinite. Human can have power that one can ever believe, that is to transcend the human limitation. The spiritual power of India wasn’t grown out of void but her psychic tendency, her creativeness, her vitality, her yoga, her religion and so on. We see the mountaintops. They aren’t created without base, in the dream under the cloud. The same way there is infinite strength of India builds up the powerful spirituality that enchants the world since the time unknown. In Aurobindo’s own words, to describe the worldwide influence of Indian spirituality over the earth,
“The fine superfluity of her wealth brimmed over to Judea and Egypt and Rome; her colonies spread her arts and epics and creeds in the Archipelago; her traces are found in the sands of Mesopotamia; her religion conquered China and Japan and spread westward as far as Palestine and Alexandria, and the figures of Upanishads and the sayings of the Buddhists are re-echoed on the lips of Christ.”

India is the land of Dharma and Shashtra. She worked laboriously to find the inner truth of human and created Shashtra. It wasn’t enough. She made Shashtra that was applicable to human life and helped us to live better. She witnessed three luminous periods in Indian history. First was of the exploration of Spirit, second was of Dharma and third, of Shashtra. From the age of Ashoka down to the Mohammaden epoch, she continued to produce intellectual property; it was as if the volcano of knowledge were bursting forth. We know there was no printing press or techniques to preserve such knowledge except easily perishable palm leaf and memory.

There was no parallel of such high intellectual activity in the world history, which can be compared to that of Indians. It is only recently that the dormant knowledge was found and put forward to the entire world to be benefited by them. What we see is only fraction of what is actually still there untouched, untapped! These works were not confined to theology, yoga, medicine only but all types of practical information from dance forms to how to breed horse. It encompassed all the subjects that were ever thought. Thus, it was fault to over stressed Indian spiritual progress and ignored its intellectual contribution. India has done well-balanced research in all areas.

The westerner and their Indian followers stressed the spiritual growth but it is only possible in ‘opulent vitality’. That, they forgot. Now that Western world has progressed in leaps and bounds in science, they are turning to spirituality. The same was the case with the ancient India. Sri Aurobindo says that India had the tendency to reach to the extreme, whether it’s spirituality or creativity. India’s spiritual progress was due to its excess in exuberance and energy. The west is passing through the same phase, there is excess of science and technology. So the people are concentrating their energy on the real cure of malady that is not physical but mental. Whether it is spirituality or intellectual creativity, India has tried to achieve its summit, where the knowledge ends and she stands on the peak to observe the whole truth or the spirit.



India should cast-off clothes of European thoughts and life and Admit Western science, reason, progressiveness, the essential modern ideas, but on the basis of our own way of life and assimilated to our spiritual aim and ideal.
India can best develop herself and serve humanity by being herself and following the law of her own nature but Religion ruined India as we made ‘the whole of life religion or religion the whole of life’. It Should edit excessive externalism of ceremony, rule, routine, mechanical worship

“India has the key to the knowledge and conscious application of the ideal; what was dark to her before in its application, she can now, with a new light, illumine; what was wrong and wry in her old methods she can now rectify; the fences which she created to protect the outer growth of the spiritual ideal and which afterwards became barriers to its expansion and farther application, she can now break down and give her spirit a freer field and an ampler flight: she can, if she will, give a new and decisive turn to the problems over which all mankind is laboring and stumbling, for the clue to their solutions is there in her ancient knowledge.”

An Introduction by Kamala Das

An Introduction by Kamala Das

Kamala Suraiyya, sometimes named as Kamala Madhavikutty (31 March 1934 – 31 May 2009) was a majorIndian English poet and littérateur and at the same time a leading Malayalam author from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the fiery poems and explicit autobiography.

Her open and honest treatment of female sexuality, free from any sense of guilt, infused her writing with power, but also marked her as an iconoclast in her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at a hospital in Pune, but has earned considerable respect in recent years.

THE POEM

I don't know politics but I know the names

Of those in power, and can repeat them like

Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.

I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,

I speak three languages, write in

Two, dream in one.

Don't write in English, they said, English is

Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave

Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,

Every one of you? Why not let me speak in

Any language I like? The language I speak,

Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses

All mine, mine alone.

It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,

It is as human as I am human, don't

You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my

Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing

Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it

Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is

Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and

Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech

Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the

Incoherent mutterings of the blazing

Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they

Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs

Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.

When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask

For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the

Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me

But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.

The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.

I shrank Pitifully.

Then … I wore a shirt and my

Brother's trousers, cut my hair short and ignored

My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl

Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,

Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,

Belong, cried the categorizers. Don't sit

On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.

Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better

Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to

Choose a name, a role. Don't play pretending games.

Don't play at schizophrenia or be a

Nympho. Don't cry embarrassingly loud when

Jilted in love … I met a man, loved him. Call

Him not by any name, he is every man

Who wants. a woman, just as I am every

Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste

Of rivers, in me . . . the oceans' tireless

Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,

The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,

Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I

In this world, he is tightly packed like the

Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely

Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,

It is I who laugh, it is I who make love

And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying

With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,

I am saint. I am the beloved and the

Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no

Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I. 

SUMMARY 

Kamala Das’s poem ‘An Introduction’ is included in her first collection of poems, ‘Summer in Calcutta’. In the poem, she speaks in the voice of a girl, rebelling against the norms and dictates of a patriarchal society which ask her to ‘fit in’ and ‘belong’ against her own wishes. ‘Malabar’; a south Indian location, covering a large part of Kerala which also extends to parts of Karnataka. 

Her rebellion against patriarchy is to secure an identity for herself in a male-dominated world. The poem begins with the assertion, ‘I don’t know politics, but I know the names of those in power’ which shows her distaste for politics in a country where politics is considered a domain for men. Next comes her defiant assertion of her right to write in any language she likes, in response to suggestions that she should not ‘write in English’. Her reply to her critics is a reiteration of the (language of) appropriation of a colonial language to serve native needs. ‘Categorizers’; an allusion to those who see and group other people in different structures or brackets: the term suggests the tendency to stereo-type people. 

From the issue of the politics of language, the poem moves on the subject of sexual politics. The poet is in utter bewilderment during her pubescent years, her sudden marriage and her first sexual encounter all leave her traumatized. On an impulse, she defies the gender code and dresses up as a man by wearing a shirt and a trouser and ‘sits on the wall’. The guardians of morality force a respectable woman’s attire on with instructions that she should fit into the socially accepted role of a woman as a ‘wife’ and a ‘mother’. “Madhavikutti’; the pseudonym Kamala Das used while writing in Malayalam. 

‘Schizophrenia’; a disorder that results in the misinterpretation of reality: the perception change is now seen as being a health condition as well as the case of social insufficiency: following thinkers like Michel Foucault, now schizophrenia is understood to be a reflection of a society’s inflexibility as much as it is associated with an individual’s mental state. Identifying herself with other suffering women of the world, Kamala Das universalizes suffering and seeks freedom and love. The poem becomes a statement on gender differences and a move to transcend the restrictions imposed on a woman by seeking individual freedom, love that allows the body to come to terms with its own needs and a self that is allowed to celebrate love’s true glory.

EXPLANATION

“An Introduction" is Kamala Das's most famous poem in the confessional mode. Writing to her, always served as a sort of spiritual therapy:" If I had been a loved person, I wouldn't have become a writer. I would have been a happy human being." 

Kamala Das begins by self-assertion: I am what I am. The poetess claims that she is not interested in politics, but claims to know the names of all in power beginning from Nehru. She seems to state that these are involuntarily ingrained in her. By challenging us that she can repeat these as easily as days of the week, or the names of months she echoes that 

these politicians were caught in a repetitive cycle of time, irrespective of any individuality. They did not define time; rather time defined them. 

Subsequently, she comes down to her roots. She declares that by default she is an Indian. Other considerations follow this factor. She says that she is 'born in' Malabar; she does not say that she belongs to Malabar. She is far from regional prejudices. She first defines herself in terms of her nationality, and second by her colour. 

I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar, 

And she is very proud to exclaim that she is 'very brown'. She goes on to articulate that she speaks in three languages, writes in two and dreams in one; as though dreams require a medium. Kamala Das echoes that the medium is not as significant as is the comfort level that one requires. The essence of one's thinking is the prerequisite to writing. Hence she implores with all-"critics, friends, visiting cousins" to leave her alone. Kamal aDas reflects the main theme of Girish Karnad's "Broken Images"-the conflict between writing in one's regional language and utilizing a foreign language. The language that she speaks is essentially hers; the primary ideas are not a reflection but an individual impression. It is the distortions and queerness that makes it individual. And it is these imperfections that render it human. It is the language of her expression and emotion as it voices her joys, sorrows and hopes. It comes to her as cawing comes to the crows and roaring to the lions, and is therefore impulsive and instinctive. It is not the deaf, blind speech: though it has its own defects, it cannot be seen as her handicap. It is not unpredictable like the trees on storm or the clouds of rain. Neither does it echo the "incoherent mutterings of the blazing fire." It possesses a coherence of its own: an emotional coherence. 

She was child-like or innocent; and she knew she grew up only because according to others her size had grown. The emotional frame of mind was essentially the same. Married at the early age of sixteen, her husband confined her to a single room. She was ashamed of her feminity that came before time, and brought her to this predicament. This explains her claim that she was crushed by the weight of her breast and womb. She tries to overcome it by seeming tomboyish. So she cuts her hair short and adorns boyish clothes. People criticize her and tell her to 'conform' to the various womanly roles. They accuse her of being schizophrenic; and 'a nympho'. They confuse her want of love and attention for insatiable sexual craving. 

She explains her encounter with a man. She attributes him with not a proper noun, but a common noun-"every man" to reflect his universality. He defined himself by the "I", the supreme male ego. He is tightly compartmentalized as "the sword in its sheath'. It portrays the power politics of the patriarchal society that we thrive in that is all about control.It is this "I" that stays long away without any restrictions, is free to laugh at his own will, succumbs to a woman only out of lust and later feels ashamed of his own weakness that lets himself lose to a woman. Towards the end of the poem, a role-reversal occurs as this "I" gradually transitions to the poetess herself. She pronounces how this "I" is also sinner and saint", beloved and betrayed. As the role-reversal occurs, the woman too becomes the "I" reaching the pinnacle of self-assertion.