Free Essays

Review of G. Orwell’s HOMAGE TO CATALONIA

2010-08-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia offers an insightful view into the people and politics of Spain during an extraordinary time: the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Through his graphic memoirs as a militiaman for the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unity (P.O.U.M.), Orwell gives a tragic and sometimes comic depiction of the Spanish Civil War. As he fights fascism, Orwell continually wrestles internally between his own ideals and the complex and idiosyncratic nature of the Spanish world. Orwell writes, “It was an extraordinary life that we were living-an extraordinary way to be at war, if you could call it war.” (1)

Orwell, a British citizen, originally went to Spain to report on the civil war as a journalist, but he “joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do.” (2) Orwell hated fascism and wanted to fight against it; however, he quickly found out that he was not going to do be involved in much combat. Without proper weapons and supplies, the war was not about fighting against the Fascists, but rather, the natural elements. Orwell writes, “The real preoccupation of both armies was trying to keep warm.” (3) Not only was there a shortage of working weapons, but also blankets, firewood, food, and other necessary items for survival. Instead of romanticizing the war, Orwell depicts the harsh truth when he writes, “Firewood was the one thing that really mattered.” (4)

The lighter side of Orwell’s memoirs capture some of the idiosyncrasies of the Spanish people. For example, Orwell comments on their generosity and lack of punctuality. Orwell writes, “A Spaniard’s generosity, in the ordinary sense of the word, is at times almost embarrassing. If you ask him for a cigarette he will force the whole packet upon you.” (5) Moreover, Orwell notes, “All foreigners alike are appalled by their [the Spaniards’] inefficiency, above all their maddening unpunctuality. Whenever it is conceivably possible, the business of today is put off until mañana.” (6)

One of the funniest parts of the memoirs is when Orwell writes about the opposing armies shouting at one another instead of shooting. He remembers, “At this period of the war the real weapon was not the rifle but the megaphone. Being unable to kill your enemy you shouted at him instead.” (7) Orwell’s militia would shout, “Fascistas-maricones! [Fascists fags!]” and the Fascists would respond, “Viva España! Viva Franco! [Long live Spain! Long live Franco!]” (8)

In parts of the book, Orwell takes time to explain Spanish politics and the development of the war. He notes that Franco was supported by the Catholic Church and the aristocracy. Therefore, Franco’s propaganda attempted to label anyone against Franco as an atheist. Moreover, there were many factions against Franco that were not exactly united under one cause. The many political parties, such as the Anarchists, the Communists, the Marxists, and the various labor unions, reflected the fragmented and diverse nature of Spanish culture. For example, Orwell writes, “As far as the journalistic part of it went, the war was a racket like all other wars. But there was this difference, that whereas the journalists usually reserve their most murderous invective for the enemy, in this case, as time went on, the Communists and the P.O.U.M. came to write more bitterly about one another than about the Fascists.” (9)

Another significant event in the book is Orwell’s near fatal wound to the throat. He writes, “As they lifted me up a lot of blood poured out of my mouth, and I heard a Spaniard behind me say that the bullet had gone clean through my neck.” (10) Orwell’s life was spared by a few millimeters in which a bullet missed his carotid artery. Orwell’s wound allowed him to be discharged from the militia. He writes, “With my discharge papers in my pocket I felt like a human being again.” (11) Even though he had been discharged, Orwell faced difficulty leaving the country. Because he had been involved with P.O.U.M., Orwell was subject to arrest. He writes about the police, “It was no use hanging on to the English notion that you are safe so long as you keep the law. Practically the law was what the police chose to make it.” (12)

Once back in England, Orwell is comforted by the England he once knew as a child, but he realizes that his country is subject to the atrocities he experienced in Spain. Orwell’s memoirs are captivating and beautifully written. He captures the complex nature of Spain and its people, and gives exceptional insight into the Spanish Civil War. More importantly, Orwell sends a wake-up call to those people who think they are exempt from war and its nightmares.

Book Review on Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision

2010-08-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Henry Kamen’s The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision attempts to diminish the severity of the Spanish Inquisition by portraying it not as a zealous and ferocious institution designed to eliminate heretics, but rather, as a highly complex tribunal of educated men of both converso and Old Christian backgrounds, which over the centuries developed a cruel reputation of mythical proportions. Kamen writes, “We can be certain of one thing. Spain was not, as often imagined, a society dominated exclusively by zealots.” (1) Kamen traces the development of the Inquisition from beginning as a force established by the crown in order to control the problems between Jews and conversos (that is, Jews or Muslims converted to Christianity) to a tribunal set to protect the state and religious establishments from heterodoxy. Ultimately, Kamen concludes that the Inquisition’s vicious reputation is a myth, built up over the years by a wide variety of propaganda.

At times, Kamen’s argument is sometimes difficult to digest because it seems contradictory, and, as a modern reader, I believe that the any evidence of burning people at the stake and forcing religious conversions is severe enough to label the Inquisition as vicious and cruel. However, the modern reader must place the tribunal in its historical context, and remember that the Inquisition was a product of its time.

Early in the book, Kamen asserts that convivencia (that is, coexistence) existed on the peninsula between the Christians, Jews, and Muslims, and, thereby, Spain was a relatively open society. Spain was a society in which tolerance was achieved between three very different peoples. On the other hand, Kamen writes, “So-called convivencia was always a relationship between unequals.” (2) In other words, a limited tolerance may have existed between the three religions, not a coexistence of complete understanding and respect. (3) This limited tolerance would partly explain the forced conversions of Jews to Christianity and the anti-Semitic legislation. In addition, Kamen states, “From the thirteenth century onwards, anti-Jewish legislation became common in Europe.” (4) Since anti-Semitic laws were becoming commonplace in Europe, Kamen shows that the Inquisition was a product of its time.

Interestingly, conversos continued to be persecuted because of their Jewish roots and possible religious insincerity, and many suffered due to the help of non-converted Jews. On the other hand, many conversos were some of the most ruthless prosecutors of the Jews. A gap between Jews and ex-Jews caused social and economic problems. In dealing with the “converso problem,” Kamen asserts, “The monarchs became firmly convinced that a separation of Jews from Christians was the most effective answer to the situation [mobs and rioting], and in 1480 they set in motion a body whose entire concern was with judaizers: the Inquisition.” (5) Therefore, the Inquisition was established as a means of social and economic relief. Since many Jewish merchants, doctors, and businessmen contributed greatly to the social and economic stability, the crown established the tribunal as a means to keep society running effectively.

As the Spanish Inquisition grew in power and influence, Kamen asserts that so did its legend. For example, when the proposal to expel the Jews from Spain came up, Kamen claims the majority of Jews “preferred conversion to expulsion.” (6) The image of a mass Jewish exodus is false and came from Jewish scholars and modern historians. (7) Most Jews stayed in Spain, regained any property taken away from them, and lived under the guise of Christianity. Other examples of exaggeration include the Spanish Inquisition’s banning of books. “The overwhelming bulk of books it [the Spanish Inquisition] prohibited was unknown to Spaniards, had never entered Spain, and was in languages that Spaniards could not read.” (8) In other words, the Inquisition had a system of censorship that was totally impractical and ineffective, and, thereby, the tribunal was not as feared as is led to believe. Instead, the Inquisition was probably ignored by most Spaniards in regard to books.

Another exaggeration was the number of people who were burned at the stake. According to Kamen, the actual numbers of people burned throughout the most of the Spanish Inquisition’s existence was relatively low. Kamen writes, “The proportionately small number of executions is an effective argument against the legend of a bloodthirsty tribunal.”9 Even though I find it hard to disregard the first twenty years of the Spanish Inquisition’s dreadful acts, such as in the “first auto de fe of the Spanish Inquisition” in which “six people were burnt at the stake,” (10) I must keep in mind the historical context of the tribunal’s executions. In the 16th century, many other European communities engaged in the same, if not more, bloody acts. Kamen admits that “Nothing, certainly, can efface the horror of the terrible first twenty or so years.” (11)

Overall, Kamen provides some convincing evidence of the great exaggerations of the Spanish Inquisition, and shows how the various forms of propaganda, such as from Jewish scholars and Protestants, created the Inquisition to be a more vicious monster than it truly was.

Gender Theory in Tom Sawyer and Little Women

2008-06-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

Why girls can read “boy’s” books, but boys cannot read “girl’s” books:

In an 1876 review of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, William Dean Howells wrote, “The story is a wonderful study of the boy-mind . . . and in this lies its great charm and its universality, for boy-nature, however human nature varies, is the same everywhere.” About a hundred years before Howells wrote his review, the idea that men and women naturally operate in separate spheres was starting to develop in the US. According to Karen A. Dandurand, this concept of separate spheres “held that each sex had its appropriate realm of activity and influence which was determined by gender and divinely ordained.” In other words, men and women’s roles in society are predestined: men work in commerce and politics, women work in the home.

Between the 1830s and 1850s, the idea of separate spheres was re-enforced in literature 1) by the characterization of women as homemakers, in which many books served as “advice books,” teaching women the duties of their sphere; and 2) by the belief that what constitutes true literature is literature written by men. Even though the latter view has been significantly challenged within the last thirty years, the legacy of separate spheres still haunts us today; e.g., the dominance of male writers in the canon of American literature.

Howells’ 1876 review is rooted in the concept of separate spheres because, according to Howells, there is an essential boy-nature, a direct and natural connection between sex and gender, i.e., essentialism. According to Amittai F. Aviram, about a hundred years after Howells’ review, feminists challenged this essentialist view by making a distinction between sex and gender. According to Aviram, “Gender is thought of as something that society constructs on top of the biological facts;” therefore, gender theory, or constructionism, claims there is no essential nature of a boy or a girl, no immediate connection between the physical and social aspects of sexual biology, but rather, society assigns certain conventions and roles for men and women. Gender theory elicits a closer examination of what makes Mark Twain’s
Tom Sawyer a “boy’s” book and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women a “girl’s” book.

An essentialist view considers that girls are inherently emotional, instinctive, and passive, and boys are innately unemotional, logical, and aggressive. Both of these stereotypes are exemplified in Little Women and Tom Sawyer. For example, Jo in chapter one of Little Women says, “I’ll try and be what he [her father] loves to call me, ‘a little woman,’ and not be rough and wild, but do my duty here [home] instead of wanting to be somewhere else.” In chapter one of Tom Sawyer, Tom outsmarts his Aunt Polly and gets into a fight with another boy; the narrator says, “He [Tom] was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though –and loathed him.” In other words, it is natural for Tom to be aggressive and mischievous, but unnatural for Jo to be that way. Tom’s rebellion is conventional, expected, and acceptable, whereas Jo’s rebellion is unconventional, surprising, and unacceptable.

From a constructionist perspective, Jo’s rebellion is an indication of her awareness of the distinction between gender and sex. Jo says, “I hate to think I’ve got to grow up, and be Mrs. March . . . It’s bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boys’ games and work and manners!” Jo realizes that she is being forced into becoming someone she is not, and her freedom to live as she sees fit is limited. Alcott was aware of the limitations put on women, especially women writers, and challenged the concept of separate spheres. In chapter 9, “Meg Goes to Vanity Fair,” Marmee advises her daughters that there are alternatives to marriage: “Better to be happy old maids than unhappy wives, or unmaidenly girls, running about to find husbands.” Marmee’s advice declares that the girls have the ability to be independent individuals, not conforming to what society expects of them. Mark Twain is less conscious of the bounds placed on gender.

According to Shelley Fisher Fishkin, at the “beginning of his career, Twain was appalled by the notion of women’s suffrage;” however, Fishkin also notes that Twain later changed his mind and began supporting the movement fervently. Nevertheless, in chapter 21, Twain ridicules women writers via the schoolmaster’s “examination day,” in which the narrator says, “There is no school in all our land where the young ladies do not feel obliged to close their compositions with a sermon.” Twain includes an excerpt from a girl’s story that is exactly the same plot as that in chapter 9 of Little Women, in which a girl realizes the vanity in external beauty, and abandons it in search of something more meaningful. Clearly, Twain holds an essentialist view of boys and girls, and presents his work to reenforce society’s gender stereotypes. Alcott, on the other hand, is aware of the essentialist perspective and challenges it with Jo’s atypical rebellion.

Generally, a “girl’s” book deals with a girl protagonist and her relationship with family and friends. Similarly, a “boy’s” book typically centers around a boy protagonist and his adventures with friends and family. This is evidenced in Little Women and Tom Sawyer, respectively. However, to define a “boy’s” book and a “girl’s” book solely by these terms would be an oversimplification, especially since both Alcott’s and Twain’s works are more complex and appeal to larger audiences. In December 1868, an anonymous reviewer in the Arthur’s Home Magazine wrote of Little Women, “Parents desiring a Christmas book for a girl from ten to sixteen years, cannot do better than to purchase this.” Since its release and up to this day, Little Women has been read and marketed as a “girl’s” book.

Alcott herself was aware of this because, like Twain, she knew her audience. In attempting to ban Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Alcott commented, “If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them.” Alcott, obviously recognizing that her audience consisted mainly of girls, used her stories to entertain and teach, and she thought Twain’s works should have been doing the same for boys and girls. Therefore, in order to sell books and support her family, Alcott wrote about activities with which young female readers in her era were familiar: domestic duties, marriage, relationships between sisters and their mother, etc.

It is important to note that Alcott’s works are in no way inferior because they are geared towards younger readers; rather, the genius of her work is due to its depth and the multiple levels of analysis and interpretations. In 1868, a reviewer wrote, “[Little Women] may also be read with pleasure by older people.” It is interesting to see that Alcott believed that both boys and girls (“lads and lasses”) would be reading Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, even though it was considered a “boy’s” book. In an 1876 review of Tom Sawyer, Charles Dudley Warner wrote, “The book is all about boys, and it is said to be written for boys. It is a masterly reproduction of boy’s life and feeling, but, at the same time, it is written above boys.” Like Little Women, Tom Sawyer appeals to a larger audience than that for which it was intended. Twain stated in the book’s introduction: “Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account.” Girls have been reading “boy’s” books for a long time, even when these books have not been written specifically for girls. However, boys have not been reading “girl’s” books. How many boys have read Little Women? Not many. On the other hand, many girls have probably read Tom Sawyer. So, why is it that girls can read “boy’s” books, but boys cannot read “girl’s” books?

One reason is that the canonization of American literature has been dominated by male authors. The concept of separate spheres has established the notion that women are incapable of writing true literature, and only men can write worthy literature. Women write sentimental works (that is, excessively emotional works containing marriage plots and ultra moral themes). As noted above, Twain touches on this subject in chapter 21, in which he writes, “The themes were the same that had been illuminated upon similar occasions by their mothers before them, their grandmothers, and doubtless all their ancestors in the female line clear back to the Crusades.”

Fishkin argues that Twain had a change of heart about women writers and actively supported and encouraged many young women writers later in his life. Regardless, girls have been forced to read works by men for years, but boys have not been coerced into reading works by women. So, a precedent is set for boys which declares that the only books worthy of reading are books written by men. After all, men are the ones who have had the power to establish the canon, which undoubtedly implies a male prejudice. In addition to the male dominance of the canon, there are some other possible reasons why girls read “boy’s” books. For example, in a “boy’s” book, the main characters are free to do as they wish, without much restraint from society. This freedom appeals to every reader, no matter what sex, race, or culture.

Generally, in “girl’s” books, the main characters ultimately have to conform to the rules of society, and they are not free to be themselves (Jo getting married in Part Two of Little Women). Thus, when girls and boys read “boy’s” books, the freedom obtained by the main characters appeals to them, since freedom is, essentially, what everyone wants. However, when boys read “girl’s” books, this lack of freedom is difficult for boys to accept, or to relate to. Girls have generally been acclimated to accept these conformities, whereas boys have not. Chapter 7 of Tom Sawyer says it best: “Tom’s heart ached to be free, or else to have something of interest to do to pass the dreary time.”

The Clothes of True Identity in The Taming of the Shrew

2008-02-03T13:19:00.000-08:00

In the highly stratified society of 16th and 17th century England, clothes played an important role in distinguishing a person’s social status, and thus the quality of one’s attire was often mistaken for the quality of one’s character. In Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, the motifs of disguise and domestication help establish the theme that one’s outer appearance does not necessarily reflect one’s true nature. Both the Lord’s trick on Christopher Sly and Petruccio’s taming of Katherine illustrate this theme.

In Induction 1, a Lord tricks Christopher Sly (a drunk beggar) into thinking that he is of the gentry class. The Lord asks his huntsman:

What think you: if he [Sly] were conveyed to bed,
Wrapped in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes–
Would not the beggar then forget himself? (Induction.i.33-37)

The Lord’s trick tests Sly’s capacity to distinguish between his clothes and true identity, and Sly ironically negates being a nobleman by warranting his clothes. For example, when a servingman asks Sly what raiment he will wear, Sly says, “Ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no more doublets than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet” (Induction.ii.7-9). In other words, Sly views his own identity in relation to his clothes; thus he is soon persuaded by his wealthy surroundings and deceived by his own reasoning.

However, Sly’s language and mannerisms prove that one’s true nature does not rest in attire, but rather, in the heart. For instance, Sly asks a servingman what he should call his noble wife, “Al’ce Madam or Joan Madam?” (Induction.ii.106). The footnote for line 106 in the Norton Shakespeare comments that Alice and Joan were not common names for noblewomen, and thus Sly’s language exposes his true nature (148). At the end of the Act 1, a servingman says to Sly, “My Lord, you nod. You do not mind the play” (1.1.242). Sly’s inability to pay attention to the play shows the tinker in him. Although Sly is dressed up as a Lord, he cannot escape his beggar identity because his language and mannerisms reveal his disguise.

At Petruccio and Katherine’s wedding, Petruccio arrives extremely late, and, according to cultural standards, he is dressed inappropriately for the occasion. Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) says to Petruccio, “See not your bride in these unreverent robes. / Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine” (3.2.105-106). Baptista also urges Petruccio not to marry in such disrespectful clothes, but Petruccio says, “To me she’s married, not unto my clothes” (3.2.110). Petruccio clearly distinguishes his true identity from his clothes because he does not equate the quality of one’s attire with the quality of one’s character. Later in the play, Petruccio tempts Katherine with a new cap and gown, and purposefully withholds it from her in order to tame her and perhaps gain control over her. In his domesticating of Katherine, Petruccio says:

Well, come, my Kate. We will unto your father’s
Even in these honest, mean habiliments.
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor,
For ‘tis the mind that makes the body rich,
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit. (4.3.163-169)

Petruccio illustrates that the inner person (that is, the mind and heart) is most significant because the facades of clothing are only provisional. One’s true identity cannot be defined by appearance for it is the quality of mind that determines the quality of character. Hence, Petruccio’s taming of Katherine establishes the theme that one’s appearance is not reflective of one’s true nature.

Much like society today, Shakespeare’s England had a tremendous concern for clothing and its role in defining various social ranks. However, via the motifs of disguise and domestication, the play shows that a person’s clothes is not to be equated with a person’s true essence. Sly’s transformation into a Lord is really no transformation at all, and Petruccio’s domestication of Katherine confirms that the quality of a person is based on the quality of one’s mind, not their appearance. In short, it is the person that makes the clothes.

James Joyce’s “The Dead"

2007-12-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

In James Joyce’s “The Dead,” the characterization of Gabriel Conroy is central to the theme of paralysis. Gabriel’s confrontations with Lily, Miss Ivors, and Gretta show him that his life may appear to be complete because of his wealth, education, and piety, but in reality, he has done nothing noteworthy; he has not fully loved, and he is dead to himself and his marriage. Gabriel’s epiphany at the end of the story helps him realize his condition, but nevertheless, he is still paralyzed, unable to resolve or correct his mistakes.

Gabriel first encounters “Lily, the caretaker’s daughter” when he arrives to the party, and patronizes the young lady with his smug, chauvinist attitude. Gabriel assumes Lily will be getting married soon now that she has completed her schooling, but Lily shocks Gabriel with her bitter reply: “The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you” (2242). By Lily saying all men mislead women and want nothing but sex, she directly challenges Gabriel’s macho male idea of women and thus, makes him uncomfortable. Gabriel dislikes this confrontation, and instead of talking to her about such issues as a person, he offers her some money as his subconscious way of “paying her off.” This suggests Gabriel is used to buying his way out of things, using money to “solve” problems. However, the deeper issues Gabriel confronts are internal and psychological.

Second, Gabriel’s security is threatened by Miss Ivors, the ideal Irish patriot and an intelligent, conservative woman. She dances with Gabriel at the party, and tells Gabriel she knows of his writing for a British newspaper “The Daily Express” (2247). Miss Ivors accuses Gabriel of being a “West Briton [A pejorative term for one who denies a separate Irish nationality and sees Ireland as simply a western extension of Great Britain.]” (2247). Gabriel is threaten by Miss Ivors because one, she is equally as educated as him, and two, she questions his identity. Thus, Gabriel cannot dazzle her with some intellectual nonsense as he does with his aunts, and if Gabriel thinks himself higher than Ireland, then what national identity does he really have? Gabriel has no true identity, not just politically, but spiritually.

Gabriel’s relationship with his wife Gretta displays most of all Gabriel’s identity crisis, and thus, his epiphany. When Miss Ivors invites Gabriel on a month-long vacation to the Aran Isles on the west coast of Ireland, he knows that his wife’s people are from that part of Ireland, but he smugly says that he already has plans to visit continental Europe. Gretta later tells Gabriel that she’d love to go, and he coldly says, “You can go if you like” (2249). Gabriel doesn’t care about his marriage, and doesn’t truly love. His egotism restrains him to his selfish wants and desires. As Gretta and Gabriel get ready to leave the party, Gabriel is only thinking of a night of passionate sex with his wife, but she tells him of Michael Furey, an admirer of Gretta during her youth who died at seventeen of pneumonia. Michael, who caught pneumonia by standing outside Gretta’s window in the cold rain, loved her more passionately than Gabriel ever could, and this story triggers Gabriel’s epiphany. He realizes he has never loved and that his life he has never fully lived. Even though Michael Furey is physically dead, Gabriel is worse off because he is spiritually dead. Thus, Gabriel finds himself paralyzed by his own faults, unable to resolve his life.

Isolation in Hamlet and King Lear

2007-10-05T00:51:00.000-07:00

In both Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear, the title characters become increasingly isolated from other characters. Both Hamlet and King Lear are physically separated from those who love them most. Struggling to avenge his father’s murder, Hamlet feigns madness, and, thereby, loses his beloved Ophelia. Similarly, King Lear banishes his favored daughter Cordelia and his loyal servant Kent, and, thus, is separated from those who love him most. However, isolation should be considered as not merely physical but also mental and emotional. Hamlet is the only character with knowledge of his father’s murder, and, therefore, psychologically alone. King Lear not only physically loses his daughter Cordelia when she is executed, but, emotionally, he loses his only love. Lear loses his will to live, and dies of a broken heart. Hence, although both characters become increasingly isolated, Hamlet’s isolation is mental whereas King Lear’s is emotional.

Isolation not only means to be alone physically, but alone mentally. Mental isolation is knowing something no one else knows. Within his mind, Hamlet is alone. He is a hermit, a loner. He knows something that the rest of the world does not: who his father’s murderer is. Hamlet wants to become so resolute in his assignment of avenging his father’s murder that he can think of nothing else. Hamlet says to his father’s ghost, “Remember thee? / Yea, from the table of my memory / I’ll wipe away all trivial fond [foolish] records . . . And thy commandment all alone shall live” (1.5.97-102). Hamlet desires to wipe away all other “foolish” knowledge in order to think only of how to vindicate his father’s murder. Hamlet is resolute in his determination to avenge his father’s murder, and swears to it: “Now to my word: / It is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember me’. / I have sworn’t” (1.5.111-113).

Concerned about possible unwanted disclosure, Hamlet asks his friends Horatio and Marcellus to swear that they never saw the ghost. He says, “Never make known what you have seen tonight . . . Never to speak of this that you have seen, / Swear by my sword” (1.5.148-155). Along with Hamlet, the ghost also demands they swear. Although Hamlet trusts his loyal friend Horatio, Hamlet never tells Horatio (or anyone else) the exact details of what his father’s ghost has revealed to him. However, in Act 3, Scene 2, Horatio is told something of Hamlet’s secret knowledge via the play within the play. Hamlet says, “One scene of it comes near the circumstance / Which I have told thee of my father’s death” (3.2.69-70). Therefore, Hamlet indirectly reveals the secret of his father’s murder, but only to Horatio.

Nevertheless, Hamlet’s seclusion rests within his mind. His mind is a prison to this secret knowledge. He says to Guildenstern, “Denmark’s a prison . . . I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams” (2.2.239-250). Feeling trapped in his duty to avenge his father, Hamlet’s battle becomes psychological. Hamlet is looking for a justification to murder his uncle, and finds it difficult to vindicate a death for a death. That is, because his father’s death will be the cause for his uncle’s death, Hamlet wrestles within his mind to see meaning in all this death. Fintan O’Toole writes, “What Hamlet is looking for throughout the play is a meaningful death, death that is properly done, at the right time and place, death that has significance in the order of things, death that is remembered and spoken about and felt for” (48). Arriving at the time when King Claudius is making a futile attempt to pray, Hamlet concludes that this would be an inappropriate time to kill his uncle, since his soul would, seemingly, go to heaven, thereby not accomplishing a meaningful death, properly done and at the right time. Hamlet says, “And am I then revenged / To take him in the purging of his soul, / When he is fit and seasoned for his passage? / No” (3.3.84-87).

As Hamlet searches for meaning in the murdering of his father and the inevitable murder of his uncle, he questions the meaning of his own life and death. He says:

To be, or not to be; that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them. (3.1.58-62)

Hamlet imagines his own death in order to escape both the sufferings of his secret knowledge and the duty that comes with it. He is not actually contemplating suicide, but rather reflecting on the significance of death in relation to life. O’Toole writes, “Hamlet cannot think of life without thinking of death, of death without thinking of life” (47). Hamlet is an educated thinker, philosophical and meditative, and, thus, he searches for the truth. On more than one occasion, Hamlet becomes impatient and frustrated with himself for his inaction and indecision, comparing himself to Fortinbras and others who seem to be strong and resolute.

Hamlet senses that the easy way out of his predicament would be to shun his responsibility and end his life; however, since death is an unknown territory from which no one has ever returned permanently, he states that this makes him a coward and that it is better to bear the burdens and responsibilities of his life than to leap to his death. Always battling within his mind, and, thus, further isolating himself, Hamlet searches for an increased resolution of purpose in his dictated assignment to avenge his father’s murder.

Hamlet demands confirmation that the ghost’s declaration is true, and, therefore, plans the play as a vehicle to catch the “conscience of the King” (2.2.582). The play within the play, which Hamlet calls the “Mousetrap,” is a device to determine the King’s guilt, but Hamlet must wait for the right timing. According to George L. Kitteredge, Hamlet “has formed his plan to make the King betray himself . . . and is eager to try the crucial experiment. Meanwhile there is a wearisome interval in which he [Hamlet] can do nothing but wait for nightfall. Inaction brings depression of spirits, and the thought recurs to him that death would be a relief” (175).

On the contrary, death never becomes a relief. After Polonious, Ophelia, Queen Gertrude, King Claudius, Laertes, Hamlet, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern die, nothing is accomplished. The multiplicity of death becomes meaningless as Hamlet orders Horatio to tell his story. Hamlet never reveals the truth of his father’s death to anyone except Horatio, and Hamlet’s mental isolation ends with his pointless death.

Unlike Hamlet’s isolation, King Lear’s isolation is emotional. By banishing both his beloved daughter Cordelia and his loyal servant Kent, King Lear separates himself not only physically but also emotionally from those who love him most. Lear becomes a soul floating around without any emotional support and direction. Lear’s desire is to live in peace with his daughters, and, consequently, he divides up his kingdom to prevent “future strife” (1.1.42).

However, in his blindness, Lear fails to discern the wickedness of his daughters Goneril and Regan, banishes Cordelia, and finds himself without anyone with whom he can live in peace. He finds himself alone, powerless, and emotionally unstable. Lear’s world becomes chaos, an emotional storm which drives him mad. When he finally discerns Goneril’s and Regan’s evil intentions, Lear fights off his tears, and predicts his own madness. He says, “I have full cause of weeping, but this heart / Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws / Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!” (2.4.278-281).

Lear’s emotional instability reflects his inability to love. King Lear thinks of love in quantitative terms. For example, King Lear asks his daughters, “Which of you shall we say doth love us most?” (1.1.49). Although Lear evenly divides up his kingdom for his daughters, he still wants to measure their love in terms of numbers. Lear not only wants to be flattered but also wants to feel love in terms he can understand. O’Toole writes, “He [King Lear] is in love with numbers, until he comes to understand that there is only one absolute number: nothing. And that, as he learns, is the most terrifying number of all” (102). Later, Lear tells Goneril, “I’ll go with thee: / Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, / And thou art twice her love” (2.4.253-255). Again, Lear attempts to quantify love, and, in doing so, he further isolates himself from love.

Emotionally, Lear is tormented. After being abandoned by Goneril and Regan, he faces his greatest fear of losing everything and having nothing. Lear encounters the storm and says:

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, called you children.
You owe me no subscription. (3.2.13-17)

As he confronts the storm and tempest, Lear begins to confront his emotional turmoil, and, as Maynard Mack argues, “is made another man” (98). Lear begins to recognize his faults and sins, and says, “I am a man / More sinned against than sinning” (3.2.57-58). Lear sees his blindness, and its resulting solitude. This harsh reality breaks him, and makes him mad. It is not until he is reunited with Cordelia that he regains his sanity (at least partially), and learns how to love.

However, Lear gains love only to lose love. In order to begin his purging process, Lear uses Cordelia’s language: “I will be the pattern of patience; I will say nothing” (3.2.36). Just as Cordelia remains silent in order to show her sincere love for her father, Lear adopts Cordelia’s words in order to learn how to love. Cordelia says, “Love, and be silent” (1.1.60). O’Toole comments, “She [Cordelia] refuses Lear’s attempts to get her to define her love in quantative terms because those terms are completely outside her view of the world” (105). Later, Lear tells Cordelia, “You must bear with me: / Pray you now, forget and forgive. I am old and foolish” (4.7.84-85). Lear realizes his mistake in banishing Cordelia, and, temporally, he rekindles his relationship with Cordelia.

Cordelia’s death is Lear’s ultimate loss because it leaves him with nothing. Ultimately, this emptiness and solitude cause Lear to die of a broken heart. After regaining Cordelia’s love, Lear is willing to stay with Cordelia under any circumstances. Lear says, “Come, let’s away to prison. / We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage” (5.3.8-9). However, Lear’s dream of living in peace with his daughters is never met. Instead, his biggest fear of having absolutely nothing comes true. At the end of the play, Lear has no Cordelia, no love, no hope; he has nothing with which to measure and compare his own worth. Lear, attempting to redeem himself for past blindness, searches to see traces of life in Cordelia, “Look on her, look, her lips, / Look there, look there!” (5.3.308-309). Lear cannot withstand the pain of losing Cordelia a second time. He is emotionally drained, and dies a lonely, tormented soul.

In summary, both Hamlet and King Lear become increasingly isolated from other characters. However, Hamlet’s and King Lear’s isolation differs because Hamlet’s isolation is mental whereas King Lear’s is emotional. Only Hamlet hears his father’s ghost, and is the only one with knowledge of his assignment to avenge his father’s murder. Hamlet’s indecisiveness and inaction cause further isolation, and result in his tragic and meaningless death. King Lear becomes increasingly secluded emotionally because he has no one to love. By losing his beloved daughter Cordelia, his kingdom, and his power, Lear loses his mind as well. However, in his madness, Lear is finally reunited with Cordelia but only to lose her for a second time. Lear cannot bear this loss, and dies of a broken heart.

Works Cited
O’Toole, Fintan. Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life: A Radical Guide to Shakespearean Tragedy. New York: Granta Books, 2002.

Mack, Maynard. King Lear In Our Time. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1965.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition. Ed. Greenblatt et al. New York: Norton, 1997. 1659 - 1756.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Kittredge Shakespeares. Ed. George Lyman Kitteredge. Toronto: Blaisdell Publishing Company, 1967. 175.

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Norton Shakespeare: Based on the Oxford Edition. Ed. Greenblatt et al. New York: Norton, 1997. 2479 - 2553.

Book Review on Richard Fletcher’s The Quest for El Cid

2007-08-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

Richard Fletcher’s The Quest for El Cid demystifies the legend of Spanish national hero Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid. Instead of perpetuating the image of El Cid as a charismatic and fervent Christian warrior, Fletcher convincingly depicts Diaz as a common mercenary soldier, one of a type, fighting according to his earnings, not his religious beliefs. Whether defending Christian kingdoms or Muslim taifas, Diaz fought for his own personal gain; however, Diaz’s legend has developed into something mythical, a symbol for Christian superiority and Spanish nationalism. Using Arabic and Latin primary sources, Fletcher investigates how Diaz’s actions were recorded shortly after his lifetime, and how and why they have been skewed into legend. For example, Fletcher establishes that Ramón Menéndez Pidal’s famous text La España del Cid (1929) revitalized the legend of El Cid with the goal of promoting Spanish nationalism. Fletcher rejects Pidal’s view of El Cid, and, instead, depicts Diaz as one of a common type of adventurer-warrior.

In Chapter 1, Fletcher identifies the problem as “a disjunction here between 11th century reality and later mythology.”1 Fletcher is concerned with debunking the myth of El Cid as a unique, zealous Christian warrior whose life goal was to rid Spain of its Muslim rule. He writes, “In his [Diaz’s] day, he was not unique but one of a type . . . He was his own man and fought for his own profit. He was a mercenary soldier.”2 Fletcher asserts that Diaz was a common type of warrior. Therefore, Diaz was not a man on a religious crusade, but rather a man seeking to fulfill his own personal and economic needs. Fletcher notes that the name “El Cid” was never used “as an official title” for Diaz during his lifetime because “Cid” was a word typically used to mean “lord,” “boss,” or “commander.”3 However, it is never clear exactly how or why this title clings to Diaz’s legend. Perhaps, oral tradition regarded Diaz as a special kind of warrior.

Fletcher states that his book is (1) not a biography of El Cid; (2) not a “book intended for an academic readership;” and (3) not based on Spanish literature. Rather, he inspects four texts: (1) the anonymously-written Latin manuscript known as Carmen Campi Doctoris or “Song of the Campeador;” (2) the “most authoritative source for the interpretation of Rodrigo’s career” known as Historia Roderici (a Latin text likely written soon after Diaz’s death);4 (3) an Arabic text on the local history of Valencia, written by Cid’s contemporary, Ibn ’Alqama; and (4) a biographical dictionary of inhabitants of al-Andalus by Cid’s contemporary, Ibn Bassam. By incorporating both Arabic texts and texts that were written closely after the death of Diaz, Fletcher gives his argument more weight and credibility.

In Chapters 2 through 6, Fletcher describes the cultural and political progression of Spanish Muslim and Christian kingdoms, starting in the early 8th century up to the 11th century, in order to understand the society and culture in which Diaz lived. Fletcher wisely paints the political and social landscape of which Diaz was a product in order to establish El Cid as one of a type. Beginning with the Berber and Arabic settlement of Spain, Fletcher recounts that the Visigothic Kings of Spain were poorly organized and defended, and, thereby, what started as an Islamic “exploratory raid” became a full conquest of the Iberian peninsula.5 After the initial Islamic conquest in 720 and the relatively peaceful ruling of the Abd al-Rahman dynasty, a period of political instability was set in motion by Almanzor of the Amirid dynasty. Between the years 1008-1031, Arab leadership developed into a period of anarchy. Near the time of El Cid’s birth (circa 1043), individual Muslim rulers established taifa kingdoms (ta’ifa being Arabic for “faction” or “party”6), and, thereby, mid-eleventh century Spain consisted of “diverse principalities in a state of constant rivalry with one another.”7

By the early part of the tenth century, Christian rulers established their individual city-states in the north. Fletcher notes that drawing a strict line of demarcation between the Muslim and Christian kingdoms is misleading. Instead, Fletcher asserts, “The frontier was not a line but a zone or no-man’s-land with constantly fluctuating edges.”8 Like the physical borders, the religious borders between Christian and Muslim loyalties were not rigidly defined, .e.g., Abd al-Rahman III, Muslim amir of al-Andalus from 912-961, employed Christians in his armies.9 Fletcher’s depiction of the Spain of El Cid’s boyhood convinces us that Diaz grew up in a time that (1) the movement of peoples, especially the mercenaries, was common, and (2) the “borders” between Muslims and Christians were often overlapping, and not clearly delineated.

In Chapters 8 through 12, Fletcher examines El Cid’s life, death, and legend. Fletcher speculates that during the period of Sancho II (king of Castile from 1065 to 1072) that Diaz came to be known as the “campeador,” Spanish for “conqueror in battles.”10 This title is significant because it is consistent with Diaz’s legend, e.g., the primary source Carmen Campi Doctoris or “Song of the Campeador,” even though he never returns to such high a position under any other ruler. On October 7, 1072, the defeat and possibly treacherous death of Sancho II caused Diaz to transfer his loyalties to Sancho’s brother, Alfonso VI.11 This transfer of loyalty demonstrates that Diaz was not hesitant about serving under different rulers, since it was not unusual for mercenaries to do so. However, Fletcher speculates that El Cid desired to establish himself as an equal to King Alfonso.12 Ultimately, Diaz obtained his desire as sole ruler of Valencia from 1094 to 1099.

Although the legend of El Cid probably first started with the literary masterpiece Poema de Mio Cid, Fletcher credits the modern revitalization of the legend of El Cid to Pidal’s famous book La España del Cid. Fletcher describes Pidal as giving “the Spaniards the Cid they wanted.”13 During an era in which Spanish nationalism was searching for a symbol of unity, Pidal resurrected the legend of El Cid in a powerful and persuasive book. Unlike Pidal, Fletcher avoids using literature as a valid historical source, distinguishing between history and legend and striving to write according to the ethic of El Cid’s original biographer in Historia Roderici: “Always with the strictest regard for truth.”14

D H Lawrence’s “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter”

2007-08-15T01:46:00.000-07:00

In D H Lawrence’s “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” the characterization of Mabel Pervin and Jack Ferguson helps establish the theme that love is full of torment and pain. Both Mabel and Jack are round characters, isolated and naive to love. Mabel is motherless, fatherless, away from her sisters, and treated like an object by her brothers. Her only sense of pride once came from her family’s money, but that is now all gone. Jack is an assistant doctor, a lonely workaholic with his only emotional stimulant being to care for the “powerfully emotional” coal and iron workers. When Jack rescues Mabel from drowning herself, he does so as a doctor would a patient, with professional distance; however, once Mabel realizes that Jack has undressed her, she claims Jack loves her. Jack has no intention of loving Mabel, but eventually, says he does with a “painful effort.” After Jack says “yes,” Mabel says he couldn’t possibly love her. The dynamic between Jack and Mabel establishes the theme that love is painful and never perfect.

Starting with the title of the short story, “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” Mabel is characterized by her family’s money and status, but since the family fortune is now gone, she finds herself more isolated, defenseless, and suicidal. Despite that she lives with her brothers, the text says, “The girl was alone” (2330). After the death of her mother and once her sisters went away, Mabel has “no associates of her own sex” (2334). Mabel looks after the house for ten years, but with the loss of the house, she loses the last thing that had given her identity. The one thing that gives her happiness is attending her mother’s grave because “in performing this task she came into a subtle, intimate connection with her mother” (2335). Mabel’s association with the opposite sex is painful; she is angry at her father for remarrying and her brothers treat her like an object, a worthless servant. Her brothers describe her face as “bull-dog,” and one brother tells Jack that she is “The sulkiest bitch that ever trod!” (2334) Those most familiar to her, either treat her badly or are dead, and thus, Mabel equates love with pain.

Jack suppresses any feelings he might have towards Mabel, and attempts to maintain his “superficial ease” (2333). He is a “slave to the country-side,” a workaholic, constantly treating poor coal and iron workers. He says that he hates the work he does, but secretly, it excites him because it serves as his only emotional stimulant. Thus, Jack relies on others for emotional release because he suppresses his own emotions. Since Jack doesn’t know much about his own emotions, he knows nothing about love, and when Mabel claims that Jack must love her because he undressed her, he is clueless and scared. The text states, “He was amazed, bewildered, and afraid. He had never thought of loving her” (2339). Once Jack allows his heart to “yield towards her,” he painfully says “yes,” but hasn’t the slightest clue of what he’s doing (2339). Jack is as naive to love as Mabel is, but claims “from the pain of his breast, he knew how he loved her” (2341). Both characters equate pain with love, and thus, maybe will understand each other better.

Via the characterization of Mabel and Jack, D H Lawrence illustrates that love is pain and torment. Mabel is motherless, fatherless, away from her sisters, and treated badly by her brothers. The loss of her family’s fortune has caused her to lose her own identity. Jack is superficial workaholic, who has no grip on his emotions and thus, cannot decide whether he loves Mabel. Both characters equate pain with love, and have no clue on how to love one another. Their characterization helps establish the theme that love is full of torment and pain.

George Harrison Essay & Research

2007-08-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

Research Project: Part I - The Proposal

The Beatles were a famous rock group comprised of four musicians, each of whom contributed a different degree of importance to the group’s success and longevity. In determining who was the best member of the Beatles, I must define the gravest of these contributing factors and who of the four members most obtained those characteristics. The distinguishing features a member must have to be considered the best Beatle are: one, exceptional skills on his respective instrument(s) (whether playing live or in the studio); two, strong talents in musical composition and lyric writing; three, responsibility in expanding the sonic textures of the band via new instruments and equipment; four, sincere and humble interest to drive the band’s influence in social, cultural, and political causes.

In spite of his lesser popularity, I think George Harrison qualifies as the best Beatle. To evaluate if George Harrison fulfills these four criteria, I must take into consideration not only the historic material of the band’s recordings, pictures, concerts, films, etc., but also the impact these materials have had on me (the researcher) as musician and member of band. For example, in actually playing live and recording Beatles’ songs I have developed a sense of how difficult certain songs are to perform and the skills required to create such songs from scratch.

Research Project: Part II - Beatles

Throughout the Beatles’ recordings, live performances, films, transcriptions, and scores, the best member of the band must demonstrate an “above-average” talent for playing his principal instrument. One’s sheer virtuosity (or technical facility) is an important factor in defining an “above average” talent; however, one’s creative musicianship (that is dynamic communication skills within the musical environment) is more significant because genuine talent is not just playing a lot of notes fast and furiously, but rather, an artful, intelligent expression of an idea.

Thus, determining who has the greater talent based purely on technical facility is an oversimplification. In addition, one’s proficiency for playing a variety of other instruments demonstrates one’s elevated degree of musical talent because often if one plays a wide array of musical instruments, one has a greater understanding of the mechanics of music. Similarly, a bilingual person often can learn many other languages more efficiently than a mono linguist because of his better understanding of the mechanics of language.

The second criterion requires the best band member to display strengths in song writing, which may be determined via the quality and quantity of songs. In other words, if the band member is a prolific writer, contributing original and quality material for the band’s recordings, then he qualifies. In addition, quality should be rated by a high level of:, one, artistry, i.e. creativity and originality; and two, listener satisfaction and enjoyment, namely emotional stimulation via the music. Quality and quantity will not be determined by popularity or record sales because fame and commerce are irrelevant to the art of composing music and lyrics. Plus, if the songs are a product of a writing team, then the songs do not qualify. Thus, the best member should be the sole writer of his compositions found in Beatles’ recordings.

Within the Beatles’ compositions, an expression of expanding the sonic textures via new instruments and equipment must be provided by the best member, who like an inventor, is responsible for spearheading the group’s sound into unexplored territories. For example, Les Paul’s idea to amplify his acoustic guitar led him to inventing the electric guitar (Voices 1).

Similarly, Cuban percussionist Frank Malabe developed a method of playing the various latin percussion instruments and their rhythms used in Afro-Cuban music, such as the clave, palito, timbales, et cetera, on a single drum set; thus, instead of five guys playing, one person could provide all the rhythmic foundation for the music (Malabe & Weiner 11).

The last criterion ensures that the best member obtained a sincere and humble interest in social, cultural, and political causes. By using his fame and influence as a Beatle, the best member must have initiated and endorsed causes which aim to improve society, such as the Farm Aid, Live Aid and Band Aid concerts; furthermore, the best member will have participated in such events strictly by one, his sincere interest, i.e. he should not have received any sum of money for participating, and two, by not having brought any special attention upon himself, e.g. the promotion of a newly released album. Unfortunately, there are many artists who promote charitable causes for purely selfish reasons. For example, during the preparation for the Free Tibet Concert in San Francisco, many artists when asked to perform at the event first responded by inquiring who would be on the bill, i.e. they had a “bandwagon mentality” (Palm Pictures). The best member of the Beatles cannot have this “bandwagon” approach to sponsor such social and political causes, but rather, he must play an active, involved role.

Works Cited
Author Unknown. “Les Paul: Musician and Inventor.” Voices from the Smithsonian Associates. http://smithsonianassociates.org/programs/paul/paul.htm

Bernard, E., and Jonze, S. Free Tibet-The Tibetan Freedom Concert San Fransico. Palm Pictures., 1998 (2000).

Harrison, G., Lennon, J., and McCartney, P. The Beatles - Complete Scores. Shinko Music Publishing Co. Ltd., 1989. For the US and Canada: Hal Leonard., 1993.

Harrison, G. I, Me, Mine. Chronicle Books, Simon & Schuster, 2002.

Malabe, F., and Weiner, B. Afro-Cuban Rhythms for the Drumset. New York: Manhattan Music / Warner Brothers Publications, 1997.

McCartney, P. Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co.,
1997.

Turner, S. A Hard Day's Write,"The Stories behind every Beatles' Song." HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.

George Harrison: “The Quiet Raga” - Part III

I’m stumped. I stare at my guitar. Then, I glance back at the spinning vinyl on my parents’ old Panasonic record player. I’m entranced by the mystical sounds pouring forth from the stereo’s two eight inch speakers. I pick at my guitar again, attempting to figure out all the amazing notes racing by. As a nine-year-old, I can’t help but wonder how this music was created. After all, my dad taught me to play other Beatles’ tunes without virtually any problem; however, this song is different. Sitars intertwined with Western voices, singing: “Try to realize it’s all within yourself / No one else can make you change . . . Life flows on within you and without you”; what? Who created this? And why is this on a Beatles’ album?

Having grown up in a musical family, I heard the Beatles’ music so much it almost seems innate to me. I cannot remember a time when I did not know about the “Fab Four” lads from Liverpool, England. I’ve spent countless hours listening, studying, practicing, and jamming to my father’s Beatles records and music books. As a professional musician, I find myself performing and recording Beatles’ material frequently. Recently, I was working a jazz gig when someone came up from the bar. He said, “Hey, can you guys play ‘Something’ by the Beatles?” I thought, wow! out of the 220 plus songs recorded by the Beatles, this stranger picks one written by George Harrison, the “Quiet Beatle.”

Not too many people know about this “Quiet Beatle,” and in spite of his lesser popularity, I think George Harrison’s important contributions to the Beatles must not be overlooked. A “consummate musician,” an extraordinarily prolific writer, and a “consciousness-raiser,” Harrison impacted the world in a profound way (Randall 35). Demonstrating an “above-average” talent for playing a variety of musical instruments, composing numerous quality songs, expanding the sonic textures of the Beatles via new instruments and equipment, and humbly, initiating causes that aimed to improve society, Harrison clearly fulfills the criteria for who the best member of Beatles must be.

I. THE CONSUMMATE MUSICIAN
“Over the past four decades, George Harrison’s playing, both on acoustic and electric guitar, has led an inestimable number of people (including this writer) [both Randall and Mitchell] to pick up the instrument [guitar],” writes Mac Randall (35). With an “above average” talent, Harrison has challenged me musically, from back when I was a young kid just learning to strum the guitar to even now as a professional musician. Harrison’s virtuosity caused me to replay my father’s Beatles’ recordings over and over in order to properly learn what notes came singing out of his guitar.

Not only did Harrison demonstrate an amazing technical facility on his principal instrument of guitar, but also, on an array of other instruments, such as the sitar (that is, a classical Indian instrument with nineteen strings - see figures 1 & 2), tamboura (another classical Indian instrument), bass, piano, electronic keyboards/synthesizers and vocals (Miles 398). As a multi-instrumentalist, George would frequently overdub various guitar, sitar, keyboard, and vocal parts in the recording of just one song (e.g. “Here Comes The Sun”).

Harrison’s creative musicianship and artful, intelligent expressions of musical concepts reaffirmed his greater understanding of the mechanics of music over the rest of his band mates. According to Randall, “The two principal reasons John Lennon and Paul McCartney allowed Harrison to join their band were that he could play solos off records note-for-note, and that he knew more chords than they did” (36). Overall, George Harrison’s “above average” talent for playing a variety of musical instruments demonstrates one of his important contributions to the Beatles.

II. “SOMETHING” ABOUT THE SONGS
An infamous myth about the Beatles is that John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote all the songs. Even though his material was often overlooked, George Harrison was a prolific writer and contributed many quality songs to the Beatles’ records. In total, Harrison composed and recorded twenty-two songs for the Beatles. Some earlier examples are found on the sixth Beatles album Rubber Soul: “Think for Yourself” and “If I Needed Someone.” Because Harrison did not develop as a songwriter until later than John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Harrison’s material is seen more often in the Beatles’ later career. In a 1977 interview, Harrison stated that Lennon and McCartney “did write great songs, which made it more difficult to break in or get some action on the song writing thing” (Harrison 1). However, by having three of his compositions on the seventh record Revolver, “George was becoming a third significant songwriter in the group” (Miles 290).

Because Lennon and McCartney were a song writing team, the two composers had to divide their royalty earnings equally, which caused them to push a lot harder for their songs to be selected for the recordings. George Harrison wrote his heartfelt music free from this pressure. An example of this heartfelt music is the famous ballad “Something,” which was Harrison’s first Beatles’ single and one of “the most covered Beatles songs” (Miles 553). “[D]escribed by Frank Sinatra as ‘the greatest love song of the past fifty years,’ it was the only Beatles song that Sinatra ever sang live, albeit introduced as a ‘Lennon and McCartney composition’” (Miles 553). Lyrically, “Something” yields an immense amount of listener satisfaction and enjoyment: “Something in the way she moves / Attracts me like no other lover . . . Somewhere in her smile she knows/That I don't need no other lover/I don't want to leave her now/You know I believe and how” (Fujita 905).

I am amazed that such a gifted songwriter can be overlooked so frequently. I can only conclude that Harrison’s compositions were unfortunately overshadowed by the notoriety of Lennon and McCartney. Nonetheless, George Harrison’s genius of song writing underscores his weightiness as a Beatle. (For additional examples of Harrison’s lyrics, see below.)

III. HERE COMES THE SOUND
Because of George Harrison’s musical experimentation, the recorded expressions of the Beatles’ compositions, especially Harrison’s works, exhibit a productional vanguard of sonic textures. A lover of new sounds and musical equipment, George Harrison was a pioneer of “experimentation and musical risk taking” (“The Quiet Beatle” 56). The first clear example of this musical innovation can be heard on the recording of “Norwegian Wood” on the Rubber Soul album, in which Harrison incorporates the sitar as the prime melodic instrument (Fujita 712).

Interestingly, Ravi Shankar (the famous Indian sitar player) began teaching George sitar in 1966, at which point the two musicians established a life-long friendship. When asked in an interview with Rolling Stone about what the master sitar player thought of the sitar playing in “Norwegian Wood,” Ravi Shankar responded, “To tell you the truth, I had to keep my mouth shut. It was introduced to me by my nieces and nephews, who were just gaga over it. I couldn’t believe it, because to me, it sounded so terrible” (Shankar 31). Nevertheless, Harrison’s exploration of the sonic textures via new instruments and musical equipment, such guitar effects and amplifiers, pushed the envelope of the Beatles’ soundscapes.

“His [George Harrison] trademark was texture, atmospherics and dynamic counterpoint” (“The Quiet Beatle” 56). Harrison’s creative innovation for using ordinary instruments in extraordinary ways set a trend not only with the Beatles’ sound, but with the entire scope of pop music as well. Many modern rock groups (e.g. Radiohead, KulaShaker, Oasis, etc.) employ the same types of sounds (e.g. sitars, distortion, echo, delay, wah-wah, etc.) in their music. Hence, Harrison’s spearheading of the Beatles’ sound into unexplored territories is a highly significant contribution to the Beatles.

IV. THE SILENT RAGA
“For all his influence on the musical landscape, however, Harrison’s greatest and most lasting impact is rooted in his use of his platform as a Beatle to draw our attention to a larger world” (“The Quiet Beatle” 56). Long before it was trendy for rock stars to endorse and perform at benefit concerts, George Harrison set the standard. Unlike his band mates, Harrison’s approach to initiating and endorsing social and political causes was subtle and silent. John Lennon preached to people “about the world’s failings,” but “Harrison got involved” (“The Quiet Beatle” 56). By humbly and quietly organizing social and political events, Harrison raised public consciousness. For example, Harrison, with the help of Ravi Shankar, organized a concert for Bangla Desh on August 1, 1971 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. “In March, 1971, a deliberate reign of terror was unleashed on Bangla Desh”; a genocide of the large population of East Bengalis was attempted by the West Pakistani leadership. “An estimated one million East Bengalis were murdered,” and another approximate ten million faced “starvation, lack of sanitation and housing, and most notably - cholera” (Lipski 1).

Brought to his attention by Ravi Shankar, George Harrison began to study about the crisis in Bangla Desh and was deeply moved with compassion. (Lipski 2) Harrison sought to help organize and participate in a concert to raise money and awareness for the crisis; as a result, he compiled the right musicians for the job, such as Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton, and released an album to generate funds and even wrote a song called “Bangla Desh.” According to Ravi Shankar, “In a period of only four to five weeks all of this was done” (Lipski 1). By raising awareness on issues that concerned him, Harrison humbly utilized his influence as a Beatle to improve society. In summary, George Harrison’s quiet approach to endorsing social and political causes reflects his true motives as a sincere humanitarian.

V. “YOU LIKE ME TOO MUCH”
In examining George Harrison’s many roles as a Beatle, I must conclude that his “above average” talents, musical innovations, and humanitarian efforts have been unjustly overlooked and, at times, poorly credited. Harrison’s contributions to the Beatles have been extremely important in defining exactly who the Beatles are. But I wonder if it is possible to determine who the best member of the Beatles really is?

Given the four criteria I proposed, Harrison’s contributions to the Beatles leaves no choice but to conclude that George Harrison is the best member of the Beatles. I argue Harrison’s sublime musical and superb song writing talents, sonic innovations, and humanitarian efforts all point to him as the one and only candidate of best Beatle. However, I also think that in the spirit of George Harrison the terms “best” and “worst” cannot apply. Harrison simply lived according to his talents, innovations, ambitions and concerns.

The definition of the “best Beatle” would probably have insulted George Harrison, especially if it was applied to him. But is that what makes Harrison so great? His disregard for wanting to be the best? I think so.

To this day, I frequently pick up my guitar and play along with the Beatles’ recordings. Even sometimes I still find myself stumped, staring at my guitar, listening to the genius of the music. Especially when I hear a Harrison tune, I always feel challenged. I have to sit still and be silent in order to truly listen to what is happening. Harrison’s spirit is exactly that stillness: a quiet raga, hardly noticed but silently powerful. As a Beatle, George Harrison shared his spirit with the world, gently reminding us,“Here comes the sun / And I say it’s alright.”

Examples of Additional Lyrics by George Harrison

1. “ I Me Mine” 3. “Taxman”
All through the day Let me tell you how it will be
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine There's one for you, nineteen for me
All through the night 'Cause I'm the taxman
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine Yeah, I’m the taxman

Now they're frightened of leaving it Should five percent appear too small
Ev'ryone's weaving it Be thankful I don't take it all
Coming on strong all the time ‘Cause I’m the taxman
All through the day Yeah, I’m the taxman
I me mine
(If you drive a car car) I’ll tax the street
I me me mine, I me me mine, (If you try to sit sit) I’ll tax your seat I me me mine, I me me mine (If you get too cold cold) I’ll tax the heat
(If you take a walk walk) I’ll tax your feet
All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine Taxman!
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine 4. “Here Comes the Sun”
Here comes the sun (Du du du du)
No one's frightened of playing it Here comes the sun
Everyone's saying it And I say
Flowing more freely than wine It’s alright
All through the day
I me mine Little darling
It’s been a long cold lonely winter
2. “Think For Yourself” Little darling
I've got a word or two It feels like years since it’s been here
To say about the things that you do
You're telling all those lies Here comes the sun
About the good things that
we can have if we close our eyes

Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'Cause I won't be there with you

Works Cited

Bernard, E., and Jonze, S. Free Tibet-The Tibetan Freedom Concert San Francisco. Palm Pictures., 1998 (2000).

Fujita, Tetsuya, Yuji Hagino, & Goro Sato, transcribers. The Beatles - Complete Scores. Shinko Music Publishing Co. Ltd., 1989.

Harrison, George & Mitchell Glazer, interviewer. “George Harrison Interview.” Crawdaddy
Magazine. February 1997. The Beatles Ultimate Experience Website. Accessed 10/16/02. .
“Les Paul: Musician and Inventor.” Voices from the Smithsonian Associates. Accessed 10/7/02.

Lipski, Dr. Alexander and Suzenna Martin. “The Concert for Bangla Desh.” Double CD. 20 December, 1971.

Malabe, Frank, and Bob Weiner. Afro-Cuban Rhythms for the Drumset. New York: Manhattan
Music / Warner Brothers Publications, 1997.

Miles, Barry. Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt and Co.,
1997.
“The Quiet Beatle.” Maclean’s. 10 December 2001, Vol. 114 Issue 50: 55-58.

Randall, Mac. “In A Silent Way.” Guitar World: Acoustic. Special Collector’s Issue, No. 49, 2002: 34 - 38, 84 - 85.

Shankar, Ravi. “Ravi Shankar.” Rolling Stone. 15 May 1997, Issue 760: 30-31.

Turner, Steve. A Hard Day's Write,"The Stories behind every Beatles' Song." New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.

George Harrison Recorded Songs with Beatles:
1. “Blue Jay Way”
2. “Don’t Bother Me”
3. “For You Blue”
4. “Here Comes The Sun” *
5. “If I Needed Someone”
6. “I Me Mine” *
7. “I Need You”
8. “The Inner Light”
9. “It’s All Too Much”
10. “I Want To Tell You”
11. “Long Long Long” sounds a lot like radiohead
12. “Love You To”
13. “Old Brown Shoe”
14. “Only A Northern Song”
15. “Piggies”
16. “Savoy Truffle” sounds like rocky horror picture show
17. “Something” *
18. “Taxman” *
19. “Think For Yourself”
20. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” *
21. “Within You Without You” *
22. “You Like Me Too Much”

C:Here comes the sun do do do do
Here comes the sun, and I say it’s all right
V1:Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
C:
V2:Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been here
C:
V3:Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear
C:
Song: Here Comes The Sun
Duration: 3.05
Track No.: 7
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1969
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Here comes the sun (Du du du du)
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright

Little darling
It's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling
It feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun (Du du du du)
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright

Little darling
The smiles returning to the faces
Little darling
It seems like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes (five times)

Little darling
I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling
It seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright

Here comes the sun (Du du du du)
Here comes the sun
It's alright
It's alright

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, backing vocal, acoustic guitar, harmonium,
Moog synthesiser, handclaps
McCartney: backing vocal, bass, handclaps
Starr: drums, handclaps
Uncredited: 4 violas, 4 cellos, 1 double-bass, 2 piccolos,
2 flutes, 2 alto flutes, 2 clarinets

Rec.: 7th/8th/16th July, 6th/15th/19th August 1969
Rel. UK: 26th September 1969 (LP Abbey Road)
Rel. US: 1st October 1969 (LP Abbey Road)

Song: I Me Mine
Duration: 2.25
Track No.: 4
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1970
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

All through the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

Now they're frightened of leaving it
Ev'ryone's weaving it
Coming on strong all the time
All through the day
I me mine

I me me mine, I me me mine,
I me me mine, I me me mine

All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

No one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through the day
I me mine

I me me mine, I me me mine,
I me me mine, I me me mine

All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

No one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through the day
I me mine

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, harmony vocal, acoustic guitars, lead guitars
McCartney: harmony vocal, bass, organ, electric piano
Starr: drums
Uncredited: 18 violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos, 1 harp, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones

Rec.: 3rd January, 1st/2nd April 1970
Rel. UK: 8th May 1970 (LP Let It Be)
Rel. US: 18th May 1970 (LP Let It Be)

Song: Love You To
Duration: 2.58
Track No.: 4
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1966
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Each day just goes so fast
I turn around, it's past
You don't get time to hang a sign on me

Love me while you can
Before I'm a dead old man

A lifetime is so short
A new one can't be bought
But what you've got means such a lot to me

Make love all day long
Make love singing songs
Make love all day long
Make love singing songs

There's people standing 'round
Who'll screw you in the ground
They'll fill you in with all their sins, you'll see

I'll make love to you
If you want me to

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: multi-tracked vocal, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, sitar (?)
McCartney: harmony vocal (?)
Starr: tambourine
Anil Bhagwat: tabla
other unnamed Indian musicians: sitar, tambura

Rec.: 11th/13th April 1966
Rel. UK: 5th August 1966 (LP Revolver)
Rel. US: 8th August 1966 (LP Revolver)

Song: Blue Jay Way
Duration: 3.54
Track No.: 4
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1967
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

There's a fog upon L.A.
And my friends have lost their way
They'll be over soon they said
Now they've lost themselves instead.
Please don't be long please don't you
be very long
Please don't be long for I may be asleep
Well it only goes to show
And I told them where to go
Ask a policeman on the street
There's so many there to meet
Please don't be long please don't you
be very long
Please don't be long for I may be asleep
Now It's past my bed I know
And I'd really like to go
Soon will be the breath of day
Sitting here in Blue Jay Way
Please don't be long please don't you
be very long
Please don't be long for I may be asleep.
Please don't be long please don't you
be very long
Please don't be long
Please don't be long please don't you
be very long
Please don't be long
Please don't be long please don't you
be very long
Please don't be long
Don't be long - don't be long - don't be long
Don't be long - don't be long - don't be long
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, backing vocal, Hammond organ
McCartney: backing vocal, bass
Lennon: backing vocal
Starr: drums, tambourine
Uncredited: cello

Rec.: 6th/7th September, 6th October 1967
Rel. UK: 8th December 1967 (2-EP Magical Mystery Tour)
Rel. US: 27th December 1967 (LP Magical Mystery Tour)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Don't Bother Me
Duration:
Track No.:
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Since she's been gone I want no one to talk to me
It's not the same but I'm to blame, it's plain to see
So go away, leave me alone
Don't bother me

I can't believe that she would leave me on my own
It's just not right when ev'ry night I'm all alone
I've got no time for you right now
Don't bother me

I know I'll never be the same
If I don't get her back again
Because I know she'll always be
The only girl for me

But till she's here please don't come near, just stay away
I'll let you know when she's come home, till that the day
Don't come around, leave me alone
Don't bother me
I've got no time for you right now
Don't bother me

I know I'll never be the same
If I don't get her back again
Because I know she'll always be
The only girl for me

But till she's here please don't come near, just stay away
I'll let you know when she's come home, till that the day
Don't come around, leave me alone
Don't bother me
Don't bother me (repeat and fade)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, lead guitar
Lennon: rhythm guitar, tambourine
McCartney: bass, claves
Starr: drums, bongos

Rec.: 11th/12th September 1963
Rel. UK: 22nd November 1963 (LP With The Beatles)
Rel. US: 20th January 1964 (LP Meet The Beatles!)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: For You Blue
Duration: 2.30
Track No.: 11
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1970
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Because you're sweet and lovely, girl, I love you
Because you're sweet and lovely, girl, it's true
I love you more than ever, girl, I do
I want you in the morning, girl, I love you
I want you at the moment I feel blue
I'm living every moment, girl, for you

(Walk, walk cat, walk)
(Go, Johnny, go)
(Same old tale of blues)
(Elmo James got nothin' on this, baby)

I've loved you from the moment, I saw you
You looked at me that's all you had to do
I feel it now, I hope you feel it too
Because you're sweet and lovely, girl, I love you
Because you're sweet and lovely, girl, it's true
I love you more than ever, girl, I do

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:
[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, acoustic guitar
McCartney: piano
Lennon: slide guitar
Starr: drums

Rec.: 25th January 1969
Rel. UK: 8th May 1970 (LP Let It Be)
Rel. US: 18th May 1970 (LP Let It Be)

Other versions on
Anthology 3
The Best of George Harrison
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Here Comes The Sun
Duration: 3.05
Track No.: 7
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1969
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Here comes the sun (Du du du du)
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright

Little darling
It's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling
It feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun (Du du du du)
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright

Little darling
The smiles returning to the faces
Little darling
It seems like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes (five times)

Little darling
I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling
It seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun
And I say
It's alright

Here comes the sun (Du du du du)
Here comes the sun
It's alright
It's alright

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, backing vocal, acoustic guitar, harmonium,
Moog synthesiser, handclaps
McCartney: backing vocal, bass, handclaps
Starr: drums, handclaps
Uncredited: 4 violas, 4 cellos, 1 double-bass, 2 piccolos,
2 flutes, 2 alto flutes, 2 clarinets

Rec.: 7th/8th/16th July, 6th/15th/19th August 1969
Rel. UK: 26th September 1969 (LP Abbey Road)
Rel. US: 1st October 1969 (LP Abbey Road)

Other versions on
The Concert for Bangla Desh
The Best of George Harrison
Live In Japan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: I Me Mine
Duration: 2.25
Track No.: 4
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1970
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

All through the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

Now they're frightened of leaving it
Ev'ryone's weaving it
Coming on strong all the time
All through the day
I me mine

I me me mine, I me me mine,
I me me mine, I me me mine

All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

No one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through the day
I me mine

I me me mine, I me me mine,
I me me mine, I me me mine

All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine

No one's frightened of playing it
Everyone's saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through the day
I me mine

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, harmony vocal, acoustic guitars, lead guitars
McCartney: harmony vocal, bass, organ, electric piano
Starr: drums
Uncredited: 18 violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos, 1 harp, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones

Rec.: 3rd January, 1st/2nd April 1970
Rel. UK: 8th May 1970 (LP Let It Be)
Rel. US: 18th May 1970 (LP Let It Be)

Other versions on
Anthology 3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: I Need You
Duration: 2.28
Track No.: 4
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1965
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

You don't realise how much I need you
Love you all the time and never leave you
Please come on back to me
I'm lonely as can be

I need you

Said you had a thing or two to tell me
How was I to know you would upset me
I didn't realise
As I looked in your eyes

You told me
Oh yes, you told me
You don't want my lovin' any more
That's when it hurt me
And feeling like this
I just can't go on any more

Please remember how I feel about you
I could never really live without you
So come on back and see
Just what you mean to me

I need you

But when you told me
You don't want my lovin' any more
That's when it hurt me
And feeling like this
I just can't go on any more

Please remember how I feel about you
I could never really live without you
So come on back and see
Just what you mean to me

I need you
I need you
I need you

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, lead guitar
Lennon: harmony vocal, acoustic rhythm guitar
McCartney: harmony vocal, bass
Starr: drums, cowbell

Rec.: 15th/16th February 1965
Rel. UK: 6th August 1965 (LP Help!)
Rel. US: 13th August 1965 (LP Help!)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: I Want To Tell You
Duration: 2.26
Track No.: 12
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1966
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

I want to tell you
My head is filled with things to say
When you're here
All those words, they seem to slip away

When I get near you
The games begin to drag me down
It's all right
I'll make you maybe next time around

But if I seem to act unkind
It's only me, it's not my mind
That is confusing things

I want to tell you
I feel hung up and I don't know why
I don't mind
I could wait forever, I've got time

Sometimes I wish I knew you well
Then I could speak my mind and tell you
Maybe you'd understand

I want to tell you
I feel hung up and I don't know why
I don't mind
I could wait forever, I've got time

I've got time
I've got time

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, lead guitar, handclaps
McCartney: harmony vocal, bass, piano, handclaps
Lennon: harmony vocal, tambourine, handclaps
Starr: drums, maracas, handclaps

Rec.: 2nd/3rd June 1966
Rel. UK: 5th August 1966 (LP Revolver)
Rel. US: 8th August 1966 (LP Revolver)

Other versions on
Live In Japan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: If I Needed Someone
Duration: 2.21
Track No.: 13
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1965
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

If I needed someone to love
You're the one that I'd be thinking of
If I needed someone

If I had some more time to spend
Then I guess I'd be with you my friend
If I needed someone

Had you come some other day then
It might not have been like this
But you see now I'm too much in love

Carve your number on my wall and
Maybe you will get a call from me
If I needed someone

Aah, aah, aah, aah

If I had some more time to spend
Then I guess I'd be with you my friend
If I needed someone

Had you come some other day then
It might not have been like this
But you see now I'm too much in love

Carve your number on my wall and
Maybe you will get a call from me
If I needed someone

Aah, aah

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double tracked vocal, lead guitar
Lennon: harmony vocal, rhythm guitar
McCartney: harmony vocal, bass
Starr: drums, tambourine
George Martin: harmonium

Rec.: 16th/18th October 1965
Rel. UK: 3rd December 1965 (LP Rubber Soul)
Rel. US: 20th June 1966 (LP 'Yesterday' ... and Today)

Other versions on
The Best of George Harrison
Live In Japan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: It's All Too Much
Duration: 6.24
Track No.: 5
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1969
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

It's all too much
It's all too much

When I look into your eyes
Your love is there for me
And the more I go inside
The more there is to see

It's all too much for me to take
A love that's shining all around you
Ev'rywhere it's what you make
For us to take, it's all too much

Floating down the stream of time
From life to life with me
Makes no difference where you are
Or where you'd like to be

It's all too much for me to take
A love that's shining all around you
All the world is birthday cake
So take a piece, but not too much

Sail me on a silver sun
Where I know that I'm free
Show me that I'm ev'rywhere
And get me home for tea

It's all too much for me to see
A love that's shining all around here
The more I learn, the less I know
And what I do is all too much

It's all too much for me to take
A love that's shining all around you
Ev'rywhere it's what you make
For us to take, it's all too much

It's too much
It's too much

With your long, blonde hair
And your eyes of blue
With your long, blonde hair
And your eyes of blue
You're too much, [...]

Too much, too much (repeat plenty and fade)

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, lead guitar, organ
McCartney: harmony vocal, bass
Lennon: harmony vocal, lead guitar
Starr: drums, tambourine

Rec.: 25th/26th May, 2nd June 1967
Rel. UK: 17th January 1969 (LP: Yellow Submarine)
Rel. US: 13th January 1969 (LP: Yellow Submarine)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Long, Long, Long
Duration: 3.03
Track No.: 2-7
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1968
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

It's been a long long long time,
How could I ever have lost you
When I loved you.

It took a long long long time
Now I'm so happy I found you
How I love you

So many tears I was searching,
So many tears I was wasting, oh. Oh -

Now I can see you, be you
How can I ever misplace you
How I want you
Oh I love you
You know that I need you.
Ooh I love you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, acoustic guitars
McCartney: backing vocal, organ, bass
Starr: drums
Chris Thomas: piano

Rec.: 7th/8th/9th October 1968
Rel. UK: 22nd November 1968 (LP The Beatles)
Rel. US: 25th November 1968 (LP The Beatles)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Love You To
Duration: 2.58
Track No.: 4
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1966
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Each day just goes so fast
I turn around, it's past
You don't get time to hang a sign on me

Love me while you can
Before I'm a dead old man

A lifetime is so short
A new one can't be bought
But what you've got means such a lot to me

Make love all day long
Make love singing songs
Make love all day long
Make love singing songs

There's people standing 'round
Who'll screw you in the ground
They'll fill you in with all their sins, you'll see

I'll make love to you
If you want me to

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: multi-tracked vocal, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, sitar (?)
McCartney: harmony vocal (?)
Starr: tambourine
Anil Bhagwat: tabla
other unnamed Indian musicians: sitar, tambura

Rec.: 11th/13th April 1966
Rel. UK: 5th August 1966 (LP Revolver)
Rel. US: 8th August 1966 (LP Revolver)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Old Brown Shoe
Duration: 3.17
Track No.: 12
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1969
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

I want a love that's right
Right is only half of what's wrong
I want a short-haired girl
Who sometimes wears it twice as long

Now I'm steppin' out this old brown shoe
Baby I'm in love with you
I'm so glad you came here, it won't be the same
Now I'm telling you

Though you pick me up
From where some try to drag me down
And when I see your smile
Replacing ev'ry thoughtless frown

So escaping from a zoo
Baby I'm in love with you
I'm so glad you came here, it won't be the same
When I'm with you

If I'll grow up I'll be a singer
Wearing rings on ev'ry finger
Not worrying about what they or you'll say
I'll live and love and maybe someday, who knows baby
You may comfort me (hey!)

I may appear to be imperfect
My love is something you can't reject
I'm changing faster than the weather
If you and me should get together who knows baby
You may comfort me

I know my love is yours
To miss that love is something I'd hate
I'll make an early start
I'm making sure that I'm not late

For your sweet lip I'm in the queue
Baby I'm in love with you
I'm so glad you came here, it won't be the same
When I'm with you

I'm so glad you came here
It won't be the same now when I'm with you

(Yeah yeah yeah)
(Tu-la, tu-la-tu) (repeat and fade)

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

Another George Harrison B-side composition, backing 'The Ballad of John and
Yoko'. Recorded in four takes at Abbey Road which began on 16 April 1969
and were completed two days later.
[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, guitars, organ
McCartney: backing vocal, piano, bass
Lennon: backing vocal
Starr: drums

Rec.: 16th/18th April 1969
Rel. UK: 30th May 1969 (B single / The Ballad Of John And Yoko)
Rel. US: 4th June 1969 (B single / The Ballad Of John And Yoko)

Other versions on
Anthology 3
Live In Japan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Only A Northern Song
Duration: 3.23
Track No.: 2
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1969
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

If you're listening to this song
You may think the chords are going wrong
But they're not
He just wrote it like that

When you're listening late at night
You may feel the bands are not quite right
But they are
They just play it like that

It doesn't really matter what chords I play
What words I say
Or time of day it is
As it's only a Northern Song

It doesn't really matter what clothes I wear
Or how I fare
Or if my hair is brown
When it's only a Northern Song

If you think the harmony
Is a little dark and out of key
You're correct
There's nobody there

And I told you there's no one there

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, organ, tape-effects, noises
McCartney: bass, trumpet (?), tape-effects, noises
Lennon: piano, glockenspiel (?), tape-effects, noises
Starr: drums

Rec.: 13th/14th February 1967
Rel. UK: 17th January 1969 (LP: Yellow Submarine)
Rel. US: 13th January 1969 (LP: Yellow Submarine)

Other versions on
Anthology 2

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Piggies
Duration: 2.04
Track No.: 1-12
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1968
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all those little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.

In their styes with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.

Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, guitar
Lennon: tape loops
McCartney: bass
Starr: tambourine
Chris Thomas: harpsichord
Henry Daytner, Eric Bowie, Norman Lederman, Ronald Thomas: violins
John Underwood, Keith Cummings: violas
Eldon Fox, Reginald Kilbey: cellos

Rec.: 19th/20th September, 10th October 1968
Rel. UK: 22nd November 1968 (LP The Beatles)
Rel. US: 25th November 1968 (LP The Beatles)

Other versions on
Anthology 3
Live In Japan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Savoy Truffle
Duration: 2.54
Track No.: 2-10
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1968
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Creme tangerine and montelimat
A ginger sling with a pineapple heart
A coffee desert - yes you know its good news
But you'll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle.

Cool cherry cream and a nice apple tart
I feel your taste all the time we're apart
Coconut fudge - really blows down those blues
But you'll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle.

You might not feel it now
But when the pain cuts through
You're going to know and how
The sweat is going to fill your head
When it becomes too much
You're going to shout aloud
- Creme tangerine.

You know that what you eat you are,
But what is sweet now, turns so sour -
We all know Obla-Di-Bla-Da
But can you show me, where you are ? . . .

Creme tangerine and montelimat
A ginger sling with a pineapple heart
A coffee desert - yes you know its good news
But you'll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, lead guitar
McCartney: bass
Starr: drums, tambourine
Chris Thomas: organ, electric piano
Art Ellefson, Danny Moss, Derek Collins: tenor saxes
Ronnie Ross, Harry Klein, Bernard George: baritone saxes

Rec.: 3rd/5th/11th/14th October 1968
Rel. UK: 22nd November 1968 (LP The Beatles)
Rel. US: 25th November 1968 (LP The Beatles)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Something
Duration: 3.00
Track No.: 2
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1969
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me

I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how

Somewhere in her smile she knows
That I don't need no other lover
Something in her style that shows me

I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how

You're asking me will my love grow
I don't know, I don't know
You stick around and it may show
I don't know, I don't know

Something in the way she knows
And all I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me

I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, lead guitar, handclaps
McCartney: backing vocals, bass, handclaps
Lennon: guitar
Starr: drums, handclaps
Billy Preston: organ
Uncredited: 12 violins, 4 violas, 4 cellos, 1 double-bass

Rec.: 16th April, 2nd/5th May, 11th/16th July, 15th August 1969
Rel. UK: 26th September 1969 (LP Abbey Road)
Rel. US: 1st October 1969 (LP Abbey Road)

Other versions on
Anthology 3
The Concert for Bangla Desh
The Best of George Harrison
Live In Japan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Taxman
Duration: 2.37
Track No.: 1
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1966
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

(One, two, three, four, one two)

Let me tell you how it will be
There's one for you, nineteen for me
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman

Should five percent appear too small
Be thankful I don't take it all
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman

(If you drive a car car) I'll tax the street
(If you try to sit sit) I'll tax your seat
(If you get too cold cold) I'll tax the heat
(If you take a walk walk) I'll tax your feet

Taxman!

'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman

Don't ask me what I want it for
(Ah, ah, Mr. Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more
(Ah, ah, Mr. Heath)
'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman

Now my advise for those who die
(Taxman!)
Declare the pennies on your eyes
(Taxman!)

'Cause I'm the taxman
Yeah, I'm the taxman

And you're working for no one, but me
(Taxman!)

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, lead guitar
Lennon: backing vocal
McCartney: backing vocal, bass, lead guitar
Starr: drums, tambourine, cowbell

Rec.: 20th/21st/22nd April, 16th May 1966
Rel. UK: 5th August 1966 (LP Revolver)
Rel. US: 8th August 1966 (LP Revolver)

Other versions on
Anthology 3
The Concert for Bangla Desh
The Best of George Harrison
Live In Japan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: The Inner Light
Duration: 2.35
Track No.: 6
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1968
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Without going out of my door
I can know all things on earth
Without looking out of my window
I could know the ways of heaven

The farther one travels
The less one knows
The less one really knows

Without going out of your door
You can know all things on earth
Without looking out of your window
You can know the ways of heaven

The farther one travels
The less one knows
The less one really knows

Arrive without travelling
See all without looking
Do all without doing

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

The B-side of 'Lady Madonna', and the first George Harrison composition to
appear on a Beatles single. The instrumental track was recorded in five takes
by Indian musicians, under George's direction, at the EMI studio in Bombay on
12 January 1968. George's lead vocal and John and Paul's brief backing vocals
were overdubbed at Abbey Road on 6 and 8 February.

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal
Lennon: backing vocal
McCartney: backing vocal
Sharad Gosh or Hanuman Jadex: shehnai
Hariprasad Chaurasia or S. R. Kenkare: flute
Ashish Khan: sarod
Mahapurush Misra: tabla, pakavaj
Rij Ram Desad: harmonium

Rec.: 12th January, 6th/8th February 1968
Rel. UK: 15th March 1968 (B single / Lady Madonna)
Rel. US: 18th March 1968 (B single / Lady Madonna)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Think For Yourself
Duration: 2.18
Track No.: 5
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

I've got a word or two
To say about the things that you do
You're telling all those lies
About the good things that
we can have if we close our eyes

Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'Cause I won't be there with you

I left you far behind
The ruins of the life that you have in mind
And though you still can't see
I know you're mind's made up
you're gonna cause more misery

Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'Cause I won't be there with you

Although you're mind's opaque
Try thinking more if just for your own sake
The future still looks good
And you've got time to rectify
all the things that you should

Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'Cause I won't be there with you

Do what you want to do
And go where you're going to
Think for yourself
'Cause I won't be there with you

Think for yourself
'Cause I won't be there with you

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, lead guitar
Lennon: harmony vocal, electric piano (?)
McCartney: harmony vocal, bass
Starr: drums, maracas, tambourine

Rec.: 8th November 1965
Rel. UK: 3rd December 1965 (LP Rubber Soul)
Rel. US: 6th December 1965 (LP Rubber Soul)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Duration: 4.45
Track No.: 1-7
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1968
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
I don't know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.

I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps
I don't know how you were diverted
You were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
No one alerted you.

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
Look at you all . . .
Still my guitar gently weeps.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, backing vocal, acoustic guitar, Hammond organ
McCartney: backing vocal, piano, organ, bass
Lennon: lead guitar
Starr: drums, tambourine
Eric Clapton: lead guitar

Rec.: 25th July, 16th August, 3rd/5th/6th September 1968
Rel. UK: 22nd November 1968 (LP The Beatles)
Rel. US: 25th November 1968 (LP The Beatles)

Other versions on
Anthology 3
The Concert for Bangla Desh
The Best of George Harrison
Live In Japan

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: Within You Without You
Duration:
Track No.: 8
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1967
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

We were talking - about the space between us all
And the people - who hide themselves behind a
wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth - then it's far too late -
when they pass away.

We were talking - about the love we all could
share - when we find it
To try our best to hold it there - with our love
With our love - we could save the world - if
they only knew.

Try to realise it's all within yourself no-one else
can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
and life flows on within you and without you.

We were talking - about the love that's gone so
cold and the people,
Who gain the world and lose their soul -
they don't know - they can't see - are you one
of them?

When you've seen beyond yourself - then you
may find, peace of mind is waiting there -
And the time will come when you see
we're all one, and life flows on within you and
without you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

Recording commenced in studio two at Abbey Road on March 22 1967.
Album version mixed from take two. Writer: George. Lead vocal:
George. Producer: George Martin. Recording engineer: Geoff Emerick.
Second engineer: Richard Lush.

[*1:]

Harrison: vocal, sitar, acoustic guitar, tambura
Uncredited Indian musicians: dilrubas, svarmandal, tabla, tambura
Erich Gruenberg, Alan Loveday, Julien Gaillard, Paul Scherman,
Ralph Elman, David Wolfsthal, Jack Rothstein, Jack Greene: violins
Reginald Kilbey, Allen Ford, Peter Beavan: cellos
Neil Aspinall: tambura

Rec.: 15th/22nd March, 3rd/4th April 1967
Rel. UK: 1st June 1967 (LP Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Rel. US: 2nd June 1967 (LP Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)

Other versions on
Anthology 2

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Song: You Like Me Too Much
Duration: 2.35
Track No.: 10
Composer: Harrison
Vocals: George Harrison
Year: 1965
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lyrics:

Though you're gone away this morning
You'll be back again tonight
Telling me there'll be no next time
If I just don't treat you right

You'll never leave me
And you know it's true
'Cause you like me too much
And I like you

You've tried before to leave me
But you haven't got the nerve
To walk out and make me lonely
Which is all that I deserve

You'll never leave me
And you know it's true
'Cause you like me too much
And I like you

I really do
And it's nice when you believe me
If you leave me

I will follow you and
Bring you back where you belong
'Cause I couldn't really stand it
I'd admit that I was wrong

I wouldn't let you leave me
'Cause it's true
'Cause you like me too much
And I like you

'Cause you like me too much
And I like you

I really do
And it's nice when you believe me
If you leave me

I will follow you and
Bring you back where you belong
'Cause I couldn't really stand it
I'd admit that I was wrong

I wouldn't let you leave me
'Cause it's true
'Cause you like me too much
And I like you
'Cause you like me too much
And I like you

[*]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instruments & additional info.:

[*1:]

Harrison: double-tracked vocal, lead guitar
McCartney: bass, piano (with George Martin)
Lennon: acoustic rhythm guitar, electric piano
Starr: drums, tambourine

Rec.: 17th February 1965
Rel. UK: 6th August 1965 (LP Help!)
Rel. US: 14th June 1965 (LP Beatles VI)
---------------------------------------------------------------
GEORGE 1968
(on being a musician)

GEORGE: "I'm a musician and I don't know why. Many people feel that life is pre-destined. I think it is vaguely, but it's still up to the person which way your life is going to go. All I've ever done is keep being me, and it's all worked out... like magic. I never planned anything, so it's obvious that that's what I am destined to be. I'm a musician. It's my gig."

GEORGE 1969
(on songwriting for Beatle albums)

GEORGE: "The most difficult thing for me is following Paul's and John's songs. Their earlier songs weren't as good as they are now, and they obviously got better and better, and that's what I have to do. I've got about 40 tunes which I haven't recorded, and some of them I think are quite good. I wrote one called 'The Art Of Dying' three years ago, and at that time I thought it was too far out, but I'm still going to record it. I used to have a hang-up about telling John and Paul and Ringo I had a song for the albums, because I felt at that time as if I was trying to compete. I don't want the Beatles to be recording rubbish for my sake just because I wrote it-- and on the other hand, I don't want to record rubbish just because they wrote it. The group comes first."

GEORGE 1969
(on being a Beatle)

GEORGE: "Being a Beatle is the same as any job. It's up and down, you know. And maybe for us it goes up higher... but it comes down lower. Relativity. So if we have a bad time, it's really bad, and if we have a good time maybe it's really good. People see showbiz, and all they think of is, 'Oh, all that money you've got,' but the problems that come along with that are incredible. And, I tell ya, for every hundred pounds we've earned, we've gotten a hundred pounds worth of problems to balance it. It's ironic really. We've all got a big house and an office, but to actually get the money you've earned is virtually impossible. It's like it's illegal to keep the money you earn."

GEORGE 1969
(following the release of 'Abbey Road')

GEORGE: "The song 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' is one of Paul's which we've been trying to record for ages. It's one of those instant, whistle-along tunes which some people hate, and other people really like. It's a fun song, but it's kinda sick because Maxwell keeps on killing everyone. But I think my favorite one on the album is 'Because.' The lyrics are uncomplicated... but the harmony was actually pretty difficult to sing. I think it's one of those tunes that will definitely impress most people."

GEORGE 1967
(regarding the counter culture)

GEORGE: "The hippies are a good idea. I love all these people... the ones who are honest and trying to find a bit of truth, and to straighten out the untruths. I'm with them one hundred percent. But when I see the bad side of it I'm not so happy. The thing is, everybody is potentially divine. It's just a matter of self-realization before it will all happen. The whole point of life is to harmonize with everything and every aspect of creation."

GEORGE 1964
(on The Beatles' sound)
Q: "Are The Beatles responsible for what's called the 'Mersey Beat'?"
GEORGE: "Well, at the time that we started to make records, the current trend in Britain was Cliff Richard, and the Shadows, and sort of ballads. But we've been playing for years-- ever since the first Rock and Roll started, when we didn't like the ballad stuff. So we just carried on playing it, and eventually we wrote our own songs. And when we managed to record, then they caught on and all the groups changed over again."
Q: "How do you feel about all these other groups following your style now?"
GEORGE: "It's great. I mean, they say it's the biggest form of flattery, isn't it."
Q: "Do you, yourselves, really think that you've got talent?"
GEORGE: "Yeah. The thing is, none of us profess to be individually great musicians, or very talented. But the thing is, as a group, I think we're good. I think we're much better as a group than we are individually."

GEORGE 1964
(regarding his love of music and guitars)
Q: "Are you the most musical of The Beatles?"
GEORGE: "Depends what you mean. People have said I am, just because I admit to liking Segovia's guitar playing and they think that's all very highbrow and musical. I believe I love my guitar more than the others love theirs. For John and Paul, songwriting is pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they're making up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar for a whole evening. I'm fascinated by new sounds I can get from different instruments I try out. I'm not sure that makes me particularly musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I'll be satisfied."

GEORGE 1963
(on what happens if The Beatles' fame ends)
Q: "What happens to you after this is over?"
GEORGE: "Well, umm, I suppose we'll stay doing this sort of stuff for a couple of years. Whether we're... I mean, naturally we wont be able to stay at this level. But, umm, we should have another two years at least, I think."
Q: "What happens to George Harrison then?"
GEORGE: "I don't know. I'll know by the time that comes along. Probably I'll have a little business or something like that."
Q: "You don't want to go on in the profession?"
GEORGE: "Probably, yeah. I'd like to make records, you know, with other artists. I don't mean perform... I mean as a producer."
Q: "The technical side."
GEORGE: "Mmmm. But I don't know. You can't really tell at this stage."

Q: "How was it decided how many songs you would have on a Beatles album? Is it, like, just whoever pushed and shoved the hardest?"
GEORGE: "Yeah. It's always... it was whoever would be the heaviest would get the most songs done. So consequently, I couldn't be bothered pushing, like, that much. You know, even on 'Abbey Road' for instance, we'd record about eight tracks before I got 'round to doing one of mine. Because uhh, you know, you say 'Well, I've got a song,' and then with Paul-- 'Well I've got a song as well and mine goes like this-- diddle-diddle-diddle-duh,' and away you go! You know, it was just difficult to get in there, and I wasn't gonna push and shout. But it was just over the last year or so we worked something out, which is still a joke really-- Three songs for me, three songs for Paul, three songs for John, and two for Ringo."

The Beatles Ultimate Experience
Database:
George Harrison Interview
New York City
April 1970

ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW:
George Harrison was interviewed by a New York City radio station during a brief visit to America in late-April 1970. At the time of this interview, the Beatles breakup was already fresh news to a stunned public, and McCartney's solo album had just been released. George would begin the recording sessions for his solo album "All Things Must Pass" upon returning home to England from this US visit.
http://www.geocities.com/~beatleboy1/dbgh470.int.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: "I always thought your contributions guided the band's direction. Beatles '65-- the country influence. Or the Indian influence."

GEORGE: "Well, Ringo as well, you know. We all gave as much as we could. The thing was, Paul and John wrote all the songs in the beginning. And they did write great songs, which made it more difficult to break in or get some action on the songwriting thing. But you know, we all did contribute such alot to the Beatles. There was a period of time when people thought, 'Ringo doesn't play the drums.' I don't know what they thought of me, but they tended to think it was John and Paul for a period of time."
"I helped out such alot in all the arrangements. There were alot of tracks though where I played bass. Paul played lead guitar on 'Taxman,' and he played guitar-- a good part-- on 'Drive My Car."

Q: "Was the rest of the band difficult when you started getting into Indian music?"

GEORGE: "Not really. They weren't really as interested. When I'd first met Ravi (Shankar) he played a private concert just at my house, and he came with Alla Rakha, and John and Ringo came to that. I know Ringo didn't want to know about tabla because it just seemed so far our to him."

Q: "He couldn't relate to it?"

GEORGE: "Well, he could relate to it as a percussion instrument, as drums. But how Rakha actually played it, he couldn't figure that out at all. But they liked it. They knew there was something great about it. But they weren't into it as I was. Then they all went to India and had those experiences in India, too... which, for anybody who goes to India, I think straight away you can relate much more to Indian music because it makes so much more sense having been there."

Q: "Was it intimidating to start out at age 17 or 18, and be younger than the others?"

GEORGE: "No. There are around nine months between me and Paul... Nine months between Paul and John. In the early days when I was still at school, I was really small. I sort of grew in height when we were away in Hamburg. A few years before that we did a few parties at night-- just silly things-- John, Paul, and I. And there were a couple of other people who kept coming and going. John was in school, the College of Art, which was adjoining our school. Paul and I would sneak out of our school and go into his place, which was a bit more free, you know. Ours was still in school uniforms, and we could smoke in his place and do all that. I think he did feel a bit embarrassed about that because I was so tiny. I only looked about ten years old."
"But in Hamburg, we were living right in the middle of St Paulie, which is right in the middle of the Reeperbahn district in Hamburg. All the club owners were like gangsters, and all the waiters had tear-gas guns, truncheons, knuckle-dusters. They were a heavy crew. Everybody around that district were homosexuals, pimps, hookers. You know, being in the middle of that when I was 17. (laughs) It was good fun. But when we moved into our second club we were becoming so popular with the crowd of regulars that we never got in any problems with all these gangster sort of people. They never tried to beat us up because they knew the Beatles. And you know, they'd say 'Pedels' (pronounced, Peedles), that's German for prick."

Q: The whole image of the Beatles got cleaned up and smoothed over, which is always attributed to Brian Epstein."

GEORGE: "In the Hamburg days we had to play so long and really rock it up and leap about and foam at the mouth and do whatever. We missed the whole period in England-- Cliff Richards and the Shadows became the big thing. They all had matching ties and handkerchiefs and gray suits, but we were still doing Gene Vincent, Bo Didley, you know, Ray Charles things. So when we got back to England that was the big thing. They didn't know us in Liverpool, and there was a big gig at the townhall or something, at a dance. There was an advertisement in the newspaper saying, 'Direct from Hamburg,' and so many people really dug the band, and they were coming up to us and saying, 'Oh, you speak good English!'"
"But a year or so after that, When Brian Epstein came on the scene, he said, 'You should smarten up because nobody wants to know you,' --TV producers or record producers or whatever. We just looked too scruffy. In Germany they had alot of leather stuff, like black leather trousers and jackets and boots."

Q: "Do you miss that Hamburg in your music?"

GEORGE: "I just had a good time just playing, you know. That's what I miss. Even when we sold records and started doing alot of tours, it was a bit of a drag because we'd go on the road and we'd play the same tunes to different people, and then we'd drop a few and add the new ones all the time. It got stale. I felt stale, you know, because you play the same riffs... da-da-ding-ding-dow, you know. 'Twist And Shout' and things. By the time you came off the road, touring the world, I'd just want to not particularly..."

Q: "...look at an instrument?"

GEORGE: "Yeah... for a while. And so we did get very stale, and that's a period when-- I was saying about after being into the sitar-- I got really friendly with Eric, and all the kids were playing guitars. I'd felt as though I'd missed so many years out."

Q: "You mean like Hendrix and Cream, and that whole era?"

GEORGE: "Yeah, and all the young kids coming up were all playing so good, and I hadn't been involved with it for so long, both being in the Beatles just playing the same old tunes, and playing Indian music. So I felt a long way behind. That was one reason why I had all the instruments. I suddenly realized, 'I don't like these guitars,' and Eric gave me this Les Paul which really got me back into it because it sounded so funky. That was one of the reasons I started playing slide, you know, because I felt so far behind in playing hot licks. With slide I didn't have any instruction, I just got one and started playing."

Q: "Do you feel self-conscious about your guitar playing?"

GEORGE: "I just had to force myself back. Alot of it was just confidence."

Q: "John said the best Beatle music happened before the group ever cut a record."

GEORGE: "Mmm, well yes. I think some of the best stuff we did was when we stopped touring and spent alot of time in the studio. You know, we lived in a studio, really. Alot of things which were innovations as far as recording went-- I think THAT was some of the best music. But as far as playing live, I agree with what John says about the old days. We were really rocking. We had fun, you know. We really had fun."

Q: "Since you've gone solo, your signiture musically is different from that now. Like when you did 'Wah-Wah.'"

GEORGE: "That was the song, when I left from the 'Let It Be' movie, there's a scene where Paul and I are having an argument, and we're trying to cover it up. Then the next scene I'm not there and Yoko's just screaming, doing her screeching number. Well, that's where I'd left, and I went home to write 'Wah-Wah.' It had given me a wah-wah, like I had such a headache with that whole argument. It was such a headache."

Q: "Let's move ahead. On the new album I've never been able to figure out whether you're talking about Krishna or a woman."

GEORGE: "That's good-- I like that. I think individual love is just a little of universal love. The ultimate love, the universal love or love of God, is a basic goal. Each one of us must manifest our individual love, manfest the divinity which is in us. All individual love between one person loving another, or loving this that or the other, is all small parts or small examples of that one universal love. It's all God, I mean if you can handle the word 'God.'"
"Ultimately the love can become so big that we can love the whole of creation instead of 'I love this but I don't like that.' Singing to the Lord or an individual is, in way, the same. I've done that consciously in some songs."
"I've had alot of interest in different ways and one of the things I never liked was the whole bit in the late '60s when everybody started getting into it. One thing I really disliked was this, 'My guru's better than your guru.' It's like little kids on the street-- 'My dad's bigger than your dad.' The point is that there is only one God, he's got millions of names, but there's only, but there's only one God. All Maharishi ever gave me was good advice and he gave me the technique of meditation which is really wonderful."

Q: "They say he was a..."

GEORGE: "Well you know, John went through a negative thing moreso than I did with the Maharishi. I can see now much clearer what happened, and there was still just alot of ignorance that went down. Maharishi was fantastic and I admire him, like Prabhupada, for being able in spite of all the ridicule to just keep going. And there's more people now-- especially in the United States-- who are all doing it. And in the '60s they were laughing at us saying it was stupid. All of these people have influenced me and I've tried to the best out of all of them without getting spitiual indegestion."

Q: "What about your albums like, 'Living In The Material World,' the whole concept of maya. It's so ironic that you got caught up in it."

GEORGE: "Oh yeah. I'm living in it. But people interpret it to mean money, cars, that sort of thing-- although those are part of the material world. The material world is like the physical world, as opposed to the spiritual. For me, living in the material world just meant being in this physical body with all the things that go along with it."

Q: "The litigation involved in the Concert For Bangladesh, didn't that depress you?"

GEORGE: "Yeah, that is sure enough to make you go crazy and commit suicide. The whole thing of being Beatles-- it was very heavy on us four. It was like some people wrote saying, 'Well, the problem with the Beatles is that when we were all growing up they were just tooling 'round the world in limosines.' Actually it was the reverse. We were forced to grow up much faster. And what they call growing up was actually being stuck in a rut while we were transcending layer upon layer. So the heaviness of just the things we've been through, we either use it or rise above it or it pulls you down. For me, it's like it makes me have to call upon the inner me for the strength in order to rise above it, because that part is the maya. Whereas, if you just cop out, it doesn't do anybody any good."
"Is it a prioity to go 'round the world being a rock & roll star? That's what I'm saying. There's no time to lose, really, and there's gonna have to be a point where I've got to drag myself away and try and fulfill whatever I can."
"There are alot of people in the business that I love, friends, you know, who are really great but who don't have any desire for knowledge or realization. It's good to boogie once and a while, but when you boogie all your life away it's just a waste of life and of what we've been given. I can get high like the rest of them, but it's actually low. The more dope you take, the lower you get, really. Having done that, I can say that from experience. Whatever it is-- you just need more, and the more you take the worse you get."
"I used to have an experience when I was a kid, which used to frighten me. I realized (years later) in meditation that I had the same experience... I'd feel really tiny, and at the same time I'd feel I was a whole thing as well. It was feeling like two different things at the same time. And this little thing with this feeling would vibrate right through me... and it would start getting bigger and bigger and faster and faster until it was going so far and getting so fast that it was mind-boggling, and I'd come out of it really scared."
"I used to get that experience alot when we were doing 'Abbey Road' recording. I'd go into this big empty studio and get into a soundbox inside of it and do my meditation inside of there, and I had a couple of indications of that same experience, which I realized was what I had when I was a kid."

The Beatles Ultimate Experience
Database:
George Harrison Interview
Crawdaddy Magazine
February 1977
Interviewed by Mitchell Glazer

ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW:
While promoting his recently released album entitled, "33 1/3" George Harrison gave an especially nostalgic and enlightening interview to Crawdaddy magazine. Topics of discussion include Beatle albums, the Hamburg days, the Ed Sullivan appearance, the Maharishi, Beatle reunion offers, songwriting with Bob Dylan, and even Eric Clapton's involvement with Patti Harrison.
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Name: The Concert For Bangla Desh
Duration: 102.40
Band: George Harrison
US Release: 20th December 1971
CD-Number: CDP 7 93265 2
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- Double CD -
- Live -
- Disc One: 54.34 -
- Disc Two: 48.06 - BANGLA DESH
By Dr. Alexander Lipski and Suzenna Martin
Almost a quarter of a century ago, in August of 1947, the state of Pakistan was born following the departure of the British from the Indian subcontinent. It was a most unusual nation, carved out of Muslim dominated areas of India. It consisted of two wings, West Pakistan and East Pakistan (Bangla Desh), separated by over 1,000 miles of Indian territory.
Racially, linguistically and culturally the two Pakistans were poles apart. Tensions between the two wings developed almost immediately. Political, military, and economic power was concentrated in Urdu-speaking West Pakistan, while Bengali-speaking Bangla Desh was relegated to a subordinate position in spite if the fact that it contained more than half of Pakistan's total population. Dictatorial rule by West Pakistan army officers generated discontent in both wings of Pakistan. Bangla Desh demands for a more equal treatment were consistently disregarded.

In March of 1969, General Yahya Khan assumed power in Pakistan with the professed aim of ending the dictatorship and introducing Democracy. In the first free election ever held in the history of Pakistan, in December 1970, the Awami (People's) League of Bangla Desh won an overwhelming victory. It emerged as the largest party in all of Pakistan, entitling it to from Pakistan's first Democratic government. Yahya Khan and the West Pakistani leadership, however, were unwilling to permit a power shift to Bangla Desh, or even a more equitable distribution of power.

The results of the election were consequently disregarded and in March, 1971, a deliberate reign of terror was unleashed on Bangla Desh to eliminate opposition to West Pakistani domination and to drastically reduce the size of the population of Bangla Desh. An estimated one million East Bengalis were murdered and up to the present time approximately ten million terror stricken East Bengalis have sought refuge in neighboring India. This is undoubtedly the greatest atrocity since Hitler's extermination of the Jews.

Even when they escaped to India, the refugees are threatened by many perils; starvation, lack of sanitation, housing and most notably - cholera. When the first crowds crossed the border, doctors innoculated them against cholera, but now the East Bengalis are swarming into India in such great numbers that they cannot all be immunized. It takes so long to use syringes and there just isn't enough money for innocluation guns. The government has put the cost of caring for the refugees at a minimum of one million dollars a day and it could go much higher. Although chartered planes arrive daily bringing shipments of food, hospital equipment and medicines, India still has only received barely one-tenth of the amount of foreign aid that it needs to care for the millions suffering.

For all the disheartening statistics, however, the medical service is performing impressively. Although thousands of escapees, mostly children, have already died of cholera, those afflicted can usually be saved by replenishing the body fluids through intravenous injections or drinking large doses of solution of salts, baking soda and glucose. But the flood of escapees is just too great, and the monies just too little, for all to be saved. Even in a world jaded by war and atrocity, suffering on that scale still comes as a sickening shock. Despite the squalor of their existence the East Bengalis endure with a minimum of complaint.

Unfortunately, it is expected that with the cessation of the monsoon rains a new wave of refugees, numbering at least five million, will enter India. This will immeasurably aggravate the refugee problem. It must be clearly understood that India itself is an impoverished nation hardly able to feed its own growing population and will be unable to cope with the influx of refugees unless she receives all-out support of the rest of civilized mankind.

RAVI SHANKAR
"To me the whole feeling of Bangla Desh has been quite a personal one, because I happen to be a Bengali. This whole issue since last March is something of such a different nature and my feelings as it happened, apart from the sympathy I have because I am a Bengali, apart from being directly involved because such huge numbers of people were migrating into India . . . they were running for their lives and so many were killed, including my distant relatives, many friends, including Muslim friends, and even people from the family of my Guru; their homes burned, completely destroyed.

"So for me there was great anguish and suffering for a number of months since March and it came to such an emotional pitch. This was a period near the end of June when George came to California to help in making an album from the soundtrack of the film RAGA. I was very disturbed and wanted to do something for the people of Bangla Desh. I talked with people from many different organizations in the United States and in Europe who wanted me to give a benefit performance. But I thought of doing something on a very large scale that might bring in a lot of money and also, you know, awareness. So I though I would ask George, even if he could not take part himself, if he could advise me, ask other artists about it, write or talk about it - something. Then maybe we could do a big function where we could raise 25 or 50 thousand dollars. So, when I talked with him, he was impressed bymy sincerity, and I gave him lots to read and explained the situation. And it was not only what I said, as an Indian, a Bengali. When he read so many things from so many countries; France, Germany, England, Norway, and the American press, which was giving such good coverage of what was happening to millions of people, suffering so much - he was very deeply moved and said he would be glad to help in the planning - even to participate.

"Things started moving very fast. George called Ringo in Spain where he was working in a film, and he talked to Leon Russell and all of these wonderful musicians from the west coast and east coast who came to play. And he contacted Mr. Klein, who has taken care of the business and administration. Everyone has shown such deep concern. And, of course, Bob Dylan, as luck would have it, was so wonderful to take part in this cause. In a period of only four or five weeks all of this was done. To conceive, plan and execute in such short time must be setting a record in the history of world entertainment - thanks to all of these participants.

"And now I heel a great joy. With George's single, "Bangla Desh," my single, the film that has been made of the concert, the album coming out and whatever the gate monies from this concert . . . it will all add up to a substantial amount. Though, when you think of the amount being spent on almost eight million refugees, and so many of them children, of course it is like a drop in the ocean. Maybe it will take care of them for only two or three days. But that is not the point. The main issue - beyond the sum of money we can raise - is that we feel that all the young people who came to the concerts (maybe 40 or 50 thousand of them) they were made aware of something very few of them felt or knew clearly -about Bangla Desh and what has happened to cause such distress.

"It is like trying to ignite - to pass on the responsibilities as much as possible to everyone else. I think this aim has been achieved."*
*Ravi Shankar (Edited by Michael Vosse from the transcript of an informal interview held two days after the August 1st concerts)
The Concert for Bangla Desh was held on August 1, 1971 at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The following people contributed their talents and time to help in the production of this event for which we express our sincere thanks.
- George Harrison & Ravi Shankar

Painful Love in Twelfth Night

2007-08-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare’s comedies often involve a marriage plot, ending with the main characters happily in love. Even though Twelfth Night follows this common marriage plot, the play’s theme is that love is sometimes painful. Olivia’s mourning for her dead brother, Orsino’s agonizing over Olivia, and Antonio’s passionate but fruitless love for Sebastian reveal that love frequently causes pain. Let’s look at some of these different types of love in detail to see how they help us understand the theme of Twelfth Night.

At the beginning of the play, love is immediately equated with pain when Valentine explains to Orsino that Olivia refuses any suitors because she is mourning the loss of her dead brother. Valentine says, “With eye-offending brine –all this to season / A brother’s dead love, which she [Olivia] would keep fresh / And lasting in her sad remembrance” (1.1.29-31). In other words, Olivia’s love for her dead brother has caused her so much pain that she has become nun-like, chaste, and preoccupied with her brother’s demise. Later, Olivia again equates love with anguish when she says, “O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful / In the contempt and anger of his [Cesario’s] lip!” (3.1.136-137). Olivia recognizes love’s gloom and misery in Cesario’s refusal of her advances; she struggles with this during most of the play. Similarly, Orsino’s love for Olivia causes him much sorrow.

Throughout most of the play, Duke Orsino agonizes over his love for Olivia. In Act 1, Scene 1, the joyful mood of the holiday festivities ceases as Orsino begins to lament over his love at first sight:

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first
Methought she purged the air of pestilence;
That instant was I turned into a hart,
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E’er since pursue me. (1.1.18-22)

His love for Olivia haunts and torments him as a deer is pursued by dogs. Love is thus equated with pain. Later in the play, Orsino orders Viola (disguised as Cesario) to woo Olivia for him. When Olivia inquires as to the magnitude of Orsino’s love, Viola declares, “With adorations, fertile tears, / With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire” (1.5.224-225). Viola seems to understand Orsino’s aching love because she experiences her own love pains for Orsino. Viola says, “As I am man, / My state is desperate for my master’s love” (2.2.34-35). Viola’s disguise as Cesario prevents her from revealing her love for Orsino, and thus, she endures the pain that her love brings.

In the love triangle between Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, the sorrows that the characters experience are somewhat resolved in that they eventually end up with a loved one, whereas the sea-captain Antonio does not. Therefore, Antonio’s love for Sebastian proves to be the most painful of all because Antonio ends up alone. Antonio says, “But come what may, I do adore thee [Sebastian] so / That danger shall seem sport, and I will go” (2.1.41-42). Because Antonio saves Sebastian’s life, gives him money, and risks his own life by entering Orsino’s territory, Antonio’s love is probably the most selfless of that of all the characters. When Antonio mistakes Cesario for Sebastian, he reveals his pure love:

His [Sebastian] life I gave him, and did thereto add
My love without retention or restraint,
All his in dedication. For his sake
Did I expose myself, pure of his love,
Into the dander of this adverse town. (5.1.74-78)

Antonio undoubtedly feels sad when he sees Viola (disguised as Cesario) and Sebastian side by side, i.e., two representations of the person he loves, but realizes that he cannot have either. Thus, Antonio’s love for Sebastian is unrequited, causing him only pain.

In summary, Olivia’s mourning, the love triangle between Viola, Orsino, and Olivia, and Antonio’s love for Sebastian all help establish the theme that love is sometimes painful. Although Twelfth Night is a comedy, the play’s characters consistently express the pangs of love, and attempt to relieve themselves of their love sorrows.

"Gender Roles and Violence in Macbeth" (733 words)

2007-08-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

According to gender theory, society assigns certain conventions and roles for men and women. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, these gender roles play an important part in ensuing violence. Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth appeal to the role of “manhood” as violent and aggressive in order to accomplish the murders of King Duncan and Banquo. Women are portrayed as initiators of evildoings and, thus, inherently wicked. Hence, throughout the play, gender roles provide a means for murders and viciousness.

At the beginning of the play, King Duncan awards Macbeth with the title of Thanes of Cawdor because on his heroic fighting against the rebels (1.2.65), and, thus, Macbeth has no clear motive for wanting to assassinate the king. Macbeth says, “He [King Duncan] hath honoured me of late” (1.7.32). However, Macbeth still wrestles with his evil ambitions for the crown, which the play suggests have stemmed from the witches’ prophecies. Macbeth says, “Stars, hide your fires, / Let not light see my black and deep desires” (1.4.50-51). Once Macbeth decides not to murder the king, Lady Macbeth questions his manhood and calls him a “coward” (1.7.43). Lady Macbeth asks, “Art thou afeard / To be the same in thine own act and valour / As thou art in desire?” (1.7.39-41). She assumes that the essential man is one who is aggressive, violent, and ambitious, and, therefore, she manipulates Macbeth by accusing him of not being a man. Macbeth says, “I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none” (1.7.46-47). Macbeth succumbs to her threat of his manhood, and commits the murder in order to prove he is a “real” man. This same rationale is used again later in the play in the murder of Banquo.

In attempting to retain his kingship, Macbeth hires professional murderers to kill Banquo. Macbeth says to the murderers, “Do you find / Your patience so predominant in your nature / That you can let this go?” (3.1.87-89). Accordingly, as Lady Macbeth had questioned Macbeth’s manhood, Macbeth also questions the manhood of the murderers in order to incite their violent nature. The First Murderer says, “We are men, my liege” (3.1.93). Like Macbeth, the murderers adhere to this vehement image of men, but it must be noted that they are professional murderers. That is, these men are negotiating a contract for monetary gain, and they certainly want to convey the most vicious image of themselves. Nevertheless, the portrayal of males as having a violent nature serves to accomplish the murders of Banquo and King Duncan.

The portrayal of a man’s nature as being violent is trivial as compared to the dark representation of women as inherently wicked and the instigators of evildoings. For example, the witches and Hecate (Queen of the Witches) are casting spells and conjuring up spirits around the cauldron, thereby provoking the violent ambitions of men. Macbeth calls them “Secret, black, and midnight hags” (4.1.63). Because Macbeth has no clear motive to murder King Duncan, Macbeth is portrayed as a puppet of women. For instance, Lady Macbeth not only is the mastermind of King Duncan’s murder, but also carries out the deed when her husband no longer has the fortitude to finish the plan. Lady Macbeth says, “Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead / Are but as pictures. ‘Tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil” (2.2.50-53). In covering up the murder, Lady Macbeth stains her hands in blood, and proves to be just as cold-hearted as her husband. Moreover, her confidence, assertiveness, and ruthlessness are greater than Macbeth’s. She says, “We’ll not fail [in the murder]” (1.7.61). Lady Macbeth’s behavior refutes any stereotype of women as being meek and gentle creatures, and, thus, like Eve causing Adam to sin, the play portrays women as the initiators of evildoings and inherently wicked.

Gender roles play a significant part in ensuing violence and evildoings in Macbeth. First, Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth to murder the king by questioning his manhood; second, Macbeth questions the murderers’ manhood in order to kill Banquo; and, finally, women are portrayed as the initiators and instigators of all these evildoings. The play is a clear example of how some of the roles society assigns to men and women can lead to violence, especially when people attempt to attain society’s expectations.