Thought!!

Good Whole Day Hike - Champa Devi Hike

2015-04-16T05:39:00.001-07:00

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!

Champa Devi Hike- Good Whole Day Hike

2015-04-16T05:37:00.001-07:00

Champa Devi located to the south of Kathmandu city, is one of the best hill for hiking in Kathmandu valley rim. Leaving the village and monastery of Pharping, the trail makes way through the pine forest. Most of the walk is along the ridge that offers spectacular mountains views with a bird’s eye view of the Kathmandu Valley. The raptors can be seen soaring below the trails. The top of the hill is enshrined with a sacred site, where locals perform their rituals on auspicious days.

Leaving the summit the trail descends steeply down to the village of Champa Devi, though dense forest that is rich in bird’s and wildlife. From Champadevi, you will return drive to Kathmandu via the historic town of Kirtipur and university area.

Champa Devi usually can be reachable both from Pharping and Kirtipur passing through the village and walk trails.It will take about 2 hours to reach on top of ridge. Champadevi hill (2285m.) is also a pilgrimage site itself having Buddhist Stupa and Hindu Shrine on the top.

Walking through the lush pine forest on well develop trail is really wonderful experience. Superb view of Langtang, Gauri Shankar, Jugal, Dorge Lakpa Himalayas are the major attraction of the hiking. Apart from it, we can observe the bustling Kathmandu city and spectacular village settlements from the top. Several return routes are possible.

Bhoj in Newa Civilization, Thambhal, Kirtipur

2015-03-20T07:43:00.000-07:00

When talking about Nepali food specially Newari- its spicy, mouth watering and delicious.Food is the integral part of Newari culture. Different kind of foods are prepared for different occasions, considering the climate and nutritional needs for body. Newars are renowned for their sumptuous feasting.Dishes served during feasts and festivals have symbolic significance. Newari food tickles our taste bud.The rich Newari tradition and their eating culture have a proverbial standing in Nepal. “Pravatya bigryo Mojley, Newar bigryo Bhoj ley” meaning the non Newar communities ruin themselves by indulging themselves in recreation while Newars ruin by indulging in feast. Bhoj or the feast is an integral part of Newar community. Unlike in other communities where feast and gathering are more of personal choice and less of traditional deal, for Newari communities, it is a cultural need. Every ritual and festival of Newari people must be celebrated with “Bhoj”. So i headed to Newa Lahana which means Newari Civilization, a restaurant, typical Newari, I had my bhoj along with my friends on the occasion of Ghode Jatra. Eating bhoj on the special occasion with friends is something good which really gives sense of togetherness and friendship.Typical Newari Choila, spicy and hot The Newar Cuisine is a unique type of cuisine. Mustard oil and a host of spices, such as cumin, sesame seeds, turmeric, garlic, ginger, methi, bayleaves, cloves, cinnamon, pepper, chili, mustard seeds, vinegar, etc. are used in cooking. The cuisine served in the festivals is considered as the best diet cuisine. The grilled meat(preferrably water Buffalow meat) over the flames of dried wheat plants makes a delicious and spicy typical newari food called choila. In various occasions people from this tribe cook varieties of food depending on the climate and occasions. Newars use baji(beaten rice) in various occasions. A typical Newari serving consists of the beaten rice, choila, different beans, spiced potatoes, kachila (semi-cooked spiced minced meat) spinach, bara, bitter soups and typically two kinds of liquor. Thwon and aila are the common liquors that Newar make at home.To taste real newari cuisine with newari ambiance, you can go with your family, friends in this place. i love it. I can rate this place over all 7.5/10.

Happy Eating!!

Angles' Boarding School, Parent's Day 2071

2015-03-08T10:48:00.001-07:00

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!

Angles' Boarding School, Parent's Day 2071

2015-03-07T23:32:00.001-08:00

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!

Travelling brodens mind!!

2014-10-15T21:19:00.002-07:00

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!

Thought!!: Your True Self

2014-09-22T03:02:00.001-07:00

Thought!!: Your True Self: Dear valuable readers. I found the work of Mary Beth five powerful garden lessons for living with balance and joy very much helpful to you...

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!

Your True Self

2014-09-22T03:01:00.000-07:00

Dear valuable readers. I found the work of Mary Beth five powerful garden lessons for living with balance and joy very much helpful to you. It is very much pratical to follow and very much helpful for our daily busy life. Hope you will find in informative and impart in your life as well. Saroj Tamang @ Yangon, Myanmar. Your True Self - Find Your Role and Live With Purpose in the Earth Community In the process of becoming fully human, we wonder about the reason for our existence. We search to find our role and live with purpose on Earth. These life questions may be considered unimportant in our modern world, compared to matters of business and finance. But how we respond to them is essential for our well-being. A sense of larger purpose and human destiny allows us to move forward with hope.

You become more fully human through your sense of wonder. The stars are your ancestors. Their atoms fill your body. You are stardust. At a most basic level,you are vibrating particles of light. You are walking the earth as a radiant light being. You are a child of the stars. You belong to a huge interconnected family. On a clear night study the stars.Reflect on your relationship to them with a sense of wonder.You are here on Earth to grow and expand as a human being. You are called to enable all life and humanity to flourish. As you reconnect with Earth and your true Self, you renew your life meaning and purpose. You bring healing and peace to a troubled world. You play a profound role in the emerging Earth Community. You become more fully human through your sense of connection. We are but tiny specks living on a small blue planet in a vast universe. What is our role here? How do we live as individuals in a diverse and complex world? At our core we are more alike than different. We want to live meaningful lives. We want to be understood and appreciated by others. We yearn for community Everything in the universe is connected to everything else. We are not only linked to each other. We are also connected to Planet Earth. The Earth community is a sacred community shared by all living things. Its members belong to the whole universe. Each member has a unique role to play within the whole. You have the capacity to embrace the Earth community. A sense of oneness is at the heart of being fully human and spiritually aware. You become more fully human through your power to create. Now is a heroic time to be alive. It is a time of vast destruction and a time for profound creativity. Our home, Planet Earth, is in trouble. Humankind has lost its sense of belonging to the Earth community. We have lost a sense of intimacy with the inner Self. But opportunities abound. We can choose to live in ways that align with Earth's patterns. We can establish a new order of well-being. You live in a complex, interconnected world. You are part of a whole. Your words and actions have a ripple effect throughout this whole. You exert a subtle influence just by who you are. You are a powerful creator. What you say and do affects not only your own life, but also the world beyond. Life is an adventure full of danger and risk, but also immense creativity. You were born to create. You have a reason for being on Earth.

You play a profound role in an emerging Earth community. Do you have the courage to accept your role and purpose? Follow your heart's desires and honor your true Self. Believe in your power to create growth and harmony in yourself and in the world. Live each day with meaning and purpose. Mary Beth Ford, Ed. D., is the author of Wisdom from the Gardens-Life Lessons and creator of the CD Garden Wisdom-5 Ways to Grow in Life Balance and Joy. She specializes in the area of life balance, which she describes as balance between outer world and inner Self. In her work Mary Beth shares her five powerful garden lessons for living with balance and joy. Using nature images she gives us a new vision of ourselves and our world. Her desire is to help busy people live with Spirit in the world.So i am also trying help to those who are very busy from this words of capsules.Enjoy reading as well imparting it in life.

Thought!!: My love is in the air

2014-09-19T21:46:00.001-07:00

Thought!!: My love is in the air: My love is in the air this indicate how much "I Love You!" I cannot get the hold of you tonight so baby i am downhearted desert...

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!

Thought!!: Rainbow- colours of joy!!!

2014-09-19T06:52:00.001-07:00

Thought!!: Rainbow- colours of joy!!!: Human beings who cuddle and kiss the beauty of the nature are blessed with various knowledge and skill. We should be very much owe to Her a...

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!

Rainbow- colours of joy!!!

2014-09-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

Human beings who cuddle and kiss the beauty of the nature are blessed with various knowledge and skill. We should be very much owe to Her and be careful with the Mother nature . Tender care, love and respect should be given to the mother nature.Respect and you will get respect in returns.Once John Keats said a thing of beauty is joy forever. Nature is an amazing place to be and is very unpredictable too.

I am a nature lover. Peace in serenity and swimming with the nature’s lap gives me pleasure to the content.I admire beauty in beauty. Beauty contains purity, and purity exists in every beautiful living creatures. So my admiration goes to every beautiful existence. Rainbow to me is rain and bow which is two words that include life and respect. You might have question deep inside your mind. It is simple and easy that is rain- it is life for all and ,bow - it is to respect and to lower head in front mother nature. My sentiment and inner heart beat beats therefore beats the drum of joy- colour of , Rainbow.

Myanmar------- place to be once in life

2014-04-18T00:36:00.000-07:00

Burma- its old name. now it is Myanmar.

to be contd...

2011-11-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

Festival Greetings!!! 2011 / 2068

2011-10-29T05:31:00.003-07:00

Festival GREETINGS!!

We are approaching in the door step of feast and festivity.Dashain, Tihar and Chat Parva …So let’s make the celebration of this festival joyously, peacefully, and piousfully …..And please let’s not forget to impart the noble thoughts words and actions …. Making good and positive ambience.

Troubles are born from Avidya; Ignorance.Ignorance is the perception of the non-existent and the non perception of the Existent.

Avidya, ignorance having the two folds power of polarity, manifests as egoism, attachment, aversion, and (blind) tenacity.

The darkening power of Maya, Illusion produces egoism and tenacity, the polarity power of Maya produces attachment (attraction) and aversion (repulsion).

Egoism results from a lack of discrimination between the physical body and real self.

Tenacity is a result of natural conditionary (belief in nature and her laws as final, instead of belief is the all causative powers of the soul.)

Attachment means thirst for the objects of happiness.

Aversion means desire for the removal of the object of unhappiness.

Mind is the greatest force on this earth. He, who has controlled his mind, is full of power. He can bring all minds under his influence; one is struck with awe and wonder at the marvels and mysterious powers of the mind of a man….

If we want to overcome fear, we must mentally deny fear and concentrate on the opposite quality, courage. The positive always over comes the negative. Even distasteful tasks and duties can be changed by cultivating a desire and taste for them…

Lastly , wish you all a very Happy Halloween, Vijaya Dashain , Tihar and Chat Parva to all.

VIPASSANA MEDITATION FOR 10 DAYS!!

2011-06-25T04:03:00.000-07:00

VIPASSANA MEDITATION FOR 10 DAYS!!
I am really feeling some kind of elation and jubilation within my body, mind and soul. It is knowing about the self or self esteem.. Yes, I should say, the Art of living. The 10 days Vipassana Meditation Coarse that initiated from 14-25 June 25, 2011 in Dhamma Sanga.Let me infrom you about the center or you can visit http://www.np.dhamma.org/shringa/home.htm
The Nepal Vipassana Center - Dharmashringa, is located in the foothills of the Himalayas, overlooking the Kathmandu valley, about 12 kilometer north of Kathmandu City. The Center's land covers nearly four acres and is bordered by a beutiful wildlife reserve. An abundant water supply nourishes the gardens, where flowers bloom throughout the year.

Various buildings serve for residences, ranging from dormitories to single rooms, two separate dining halls for men & women, and a few meditation halls. The center can comfortably accommodate about 250 people. Nepali-style vegetarian meals are served during courses.

A half-ring shaped building containing 84 meditation cells, is available for the old students, as well as a separate complex for long and special courses, complete with accommodations and meditation facilities.

Information about the Vipassana courses is available at the Vipassana City Office in Kathmandu. Course participants register in the City Office. On the day the course starts, a chartered bus takes them to the center.

Dharmashringa is situated at an approximate altitude of 5200 ft. During the summer months of April to September, the maximum temperature remains between 23°C to 32°C and the minimum temperature between 10°C to 16°C. During the winter months of October to March, the maximum temperature remains between 10°C to 16°C and the minimum temperature between 2°C to 5°C.

Two ten-day courses are held at Dharmashringa from 1st to 12th and 14th to 25th every month. However this schedule may be changed during the festival months of October/November. Courses begin in the evening of the first day and end in the morning of the 12th day.

Satipatthana courses for old students are held from 4th to 12th in the months of February, May, August and November. Schedules for 20 day, 30 day and other old student courses are decided at the beginning of every year.
I was not really aware about the course and the methodology but when I got there , it was awesome and magnificient.I was experiencing it for very first time. But it was very hard and difficult at the first time ,it was my first time and you know knowing about Vipassana and practicing it with the mass of people I got that I am in the real gurukul but when the instruction given to us for the first time about Anapana- practicing about the breathing in and out around the triangular part above our upper lips and and the nose area. We practiced it for continously for three consequent days. Though the coarse I found it very hard and hectic after relizing the truth I got to know about it very slowly that knowing about the self is the best Dhamma. During these 10 days meditation coarse we are not allowed to talk so that we have to keep silence which is known as Arya maun- Noble Silence. We have to go through the time table of the schedule that we have for our 10 days coarse. For the very first to second days it was very much complicated to keep the track my mind in the right and directed path but after three to four days I was used to it. When I thought about the camp it would be very much interesting and many pele with diffreent ideas and emotions so that we have our sentiments shared but the sexes division…oh…them I came to realize that we are here to adopt our life as a monk that should practice pancha sheela- five nobe path i.e. not to speak a lie, ….Yes, I like it very much because it is for the noble cause for ourself and for others as well which is Bhavatu Sabba Mangalan ( Be Happy).
As as I got to penetrate the inner part of myself knowing from the top head to the foot the feeling that we have feel initially was really itching. No matters what it is but after the discussion I just got some relief. By participating 10 days coarse is not enough to know about the true Dharma. It takes time. There is a Chinese Proverb that wihout the aid of religion we can not move. Well I am not religion bearing or a religion person but after taking the coarse I come to realize about the true religion or Dharma. It is secular one and not as a part of any dogma.
Getting into meditation about 12 to 13 hours and early rise , early around at 4 it was really beyond my mind but as stated rules are rules but it is also always popular the rules are made to be broken. But here in the Vipassana we have to run according to the rules that we have provided. Everthing that I got to know about was noble silence, practicing panchha sheela and so for 10 days. Can you imagine how it feels when you can not talk and even can not gesture or give any sorts of signs. It was unbelieable. But we did that for 10 days. The plce where we did our Vipassana Meditation coarse is in very peaceful environmental area.
Even the environment that we have favours us. Yes we eager to talk or share our ideas but it was prohibited but few of of us dare to talk. Sorry for not practicing the noble silence but in the days to come when I will join again definitely I will follow it true heartedly. The best part was evening discoarse classes were superb and mind blowing. The discoarse given by Sri Satya Narayan Goenka was truly practical and requirement for every now and then. The last was was really great that I felt tht I am now free and free to talk and I feel like soaring like a bird, it feels really great but for others may be it is not of their taste or not of their type but it will take time to understand it thoroughly. So be happy . I got to made many friends there and I really had jolly time as well and few of our Vipassana friend thought about making Vipassana Group in the popular social networking site- Facebook. Lets get connected and keep in touch. Last but not the least As always BE HAPPY!!!

BHAWATU SABBA MANGALAM
BHAWATU SABBA MANGALAM
BHAWATU SABBA MANGALAM

SADHU!
SADHU!!
SADHU!!!

My love is in the air

2011-06-09T05:50:00.000-07:00

My love is in the air
this indicate how much "I Love You!"
I cannot get the hold of you tonight
so baby i am downhearted desert
When i can’t see you
tears falls as if it is downpour of pain
i want to touch you
moment i hover your side i feel solace
and good
Is this a love or just an affair?
the true love that is deeply sacred in my
heart,
the ups and downs that we face,
having pleasure of love
when used to be criticized by others
but we don't damn care about all
love here is full but when your absence
drives me crazy and seek you in every
nook and corner!
I love You ...
Love you much!!

Let me jot down some words

2011-06-09T05:45:00.001-07:00

Let me jot down some words for you

Life without you will be dark hell

so where on the earth should I bell

My days initiate with your blessings

Your love is simply the best

that energizes me in every springs

so no one can give that much warm test

Let me jot some words for you

Mantras that you taught me aware

so I can make people beware

Let me jot down some words for you

you are a saint with mission and zeal

your visionary thoughts, words and actions

Let me jot down some words for you

always make me more and more enlightened

you are the one whom I admire

if someone put on you satire

I can not afford tolerance

then I stand for their interference

Let me jot down some words for.

The status of women in Nepal

2011-02-11T15:51:00.001-08:00

The status of women in Nepal
The education of women is one of our greatest achievements in recent years. This has been one of the most powerful factors leading to the modernization of our national life. While quantitatively the education of women still lags behind that of men, a qualitative analysis revels a hopeful trend. The average girl is much better motivated for studies than the average boy, and is a more purposeful and serious pupil. Since the basic intelligence of boys and girls is equal, their greater effort and better motivation gives a distinct edge to the girls who are now occupying more top positions each year in examinations and in other field as well. Girls group are also better disciplined. In these days of student’s unrest and grave indiscipline, one hardy hears of girls in many incidents such as involvement in antisocial activities. With such sustained effort from the very beginning of their student- life, one can be sure the women of Nepal will play an increasingly significant role in the days to come too.
Our constitution has conferred adult-franchise upon men and women alike without any distinction. The fundamental rights enshrined in our constitution contain a number of provisions prohibiting any discrimination on the grounds of sex. Yet we have a long way to go. The majorities of Nepalese women are still backward and are steeped ignorance and superstition. Legally, there is no doubt that they have complete equality with men but unless the large man of women are educated and enabled to make their proper place in society, the equality granted to them will remain illusory. It is the duty of educated and affluent sections of the community to come forward to discharge their responsibility to those who have been deprived of many opportunities. Society has borne the cost of our education and it is our duty to repay that debt by working to uplift the less privileged members of the society.
Gandhiji was fond of saying a man’s education is the education of an individual but a women’s education is the education of a family. She is the pivot of the family and has to be its teacher and leader. Nature has fitted her for the crucial role of bringing up the future citizens of the country. Teachers also have to deal with children at an impressionable age. The mother and the teacher have to mould the character of the younger generation. Their roles are therefore supplementary and complementary to each other. If they discharge their duties well, the future of the nation will indeed be bright. It would be advisable for them to meet often and confer among themselves about how best to bring up the children.
Women have to play up the increasingly significant role in their families but also in nation and international affairs. Their comparison and affection can bring a healing touch to a world in turmoil. I firmly believe that a peaceful and prosperous world is possible only if women march on the path of duty and participate with men in the administration of their respective countries. We are at the threshold of an era of unprecedented economic progress. I believe the women of Nepal have a mighty role to play in this holy hand of action for aarthik swaraaj-economic independence. There is no doubt that the task ahead of us is immense but with dedication and courage there is very hope that it will be completed. It has been repeatedly emphasized that the greatest challenge Nepal will be facing is the provision of remunerative and productive employment to its masses. In these difficult days, the housewife can supplement the family income by engaging in handicraft during her spare hours. They constitute the best means of supplementing the family income. Handicraft practiced by housewives such that it need not dislocate the family life.

Nepal- Tourism and Mt. Everest

2010-09-13T10:45:00.001-07:00

Nepal- Tourism and Mt. Everest

Nepal is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of bio-diversity due to its unique geographical position and altitudinal variation. The elevation of the country ranges from 60 m above sea level to the highest point of the earth, Mt. Everest at 8,848m, all within a distance of 150km resulting into climatic conditions from sub-tropical to Artic, slightly larger than the state of Arkansas, Nepal contains eight of the world's ten highest mountain peaks making it a popular destination for adventurous tourists. Nepal is among the poorest and least developed countries in the world. With the growing number of tourists, however, the Nepalese Government is trying to exploit this resource as well. One Nepalese ecologist says "There are now three religions in Nepal -- Hinduism, Buddhism, and tourism." The influx of tourists has had dramatic effects on the environment and on the local communities who come into contact with the tourists. It is no longer uncommon to find discarded rubbish along the trekking trails. Just as common is the soil erosion during the monsoons as a result of severe deforestation, also caused by tourism. "Tourism is not only the goose that lays golden eggs...it also fouls its own nest," says a Nepalese scientist. Late Sir Edmund Hillary believed that explorers have an obligation to protect the very things which they come to marvel. Yes, it everyone’s duties to protect and conserve the nature. The Nepalese portion of the Himalayas was "long remote from the main pathways of international tourism." The Nepalese Government hopes to attract a million people within the next ten years. More than ninety percent of these tourists are trekkers, coming mostly from the United States and Western Europe, but also from Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. With the steady stream of visitors, at least $60 million in foreign currency has been generated each year. Late Sir Edmund Hillary was a driving force behind the creation of the Sagarmatha National Park and has established a trust which builds schools, hospitals, clinics, bridges and water systems for the Sherpas, whose culture is threatened the most. Most tourists come to Nepal to trek through the mountains. Trekking may be arranged by a service and done in a group or on one's own. Group treks are typically prearranged and paid for abroad or in the capital city of Kathmandu. The other alternative is to trek individually without the services of a trekking company. Galen Rowell wrote of the Himalayas, The solitary splendor is dazzling - until I glance down at my feet. There, frozen into the ice cap of Tharpu Chuli, lies a miniature garbage dump; discarded candy wrappers, film cartons, plastic bags, wads of tissue, and half-empty food cans, all of it left by foreign climbing groups. It is a familiar and sickening sight to old Himalaya hands - the growing pollution of a priceless heritage. Nature never asks you to pay in return; it’s our duty and responsibility to pay back by keeping it clean and green. The tourist destination in Nepal gives me some kind of vibes in me which am trying to articulate that here is charisma within the lap of Mt. Everest. I see many tourists come to Nepal to take the glimpse of Mother Nature’s aroma. I am very happy and proud that I am born and raised in the country of majestic Himalayas. A geographical aspect here is multi colored that is why we see many tourists are captivated by the vast diversity found here. That is why I am not hesitated to urge that MY COUNTRY IS MY PRIDE. It’s been truly said that a thing of beauty is joy forever. Human being and all the creatures in the earth enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature. Above and all nature nourishes and inspires all of us. The highest summits in the world Mt. Everest itself makes us honorable to stand and compete with others. Since Nepal ranks among the poorest countries in the world, tourism is a vital economic lifeline. Although the country has a rich culture and religious tradition, the best-paying and longest-staying tourists travel there for the rock star of the Himalayan Mountains -- Everest. Although only slightly larger than the state of Arkansas, the Himalayas that curve across the length of Nepal are home to eight of the 14 tallest mountains on the globe. The government takes advantage of this fact because when it comes to Everest -- or Sagarmatha in the native tongue -- people are willing to shell out serious dough. Therefore it is naturally Nepal, once is not enough!

I am Desirous of Peace

2010-09-09T16:49:00.001-07:00

I am desirous of peace
which is pure of all above
I am determined to seek for
peacekeeper
who is grey and saver
I detect you in my dream
soon gone away with scream
I am detestable when i am
dethroned
by detritus, so i am desktop
publishing my desire
I have gone dune by de-rigueur
and i am a derring- do regular
I am demanding your presence
not your absence
You are my demi-god and you
fill my atmosphere with elation
I do not want to strike you out
delightfully, i am yours, as
delimitation
I am desirous of peace
which is pure of all above.

Element of Essay

2010-09-09T16:42:00.001-07:00

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!
Element of Essay

Four Essays and Commentaries

1) The Essay as Argument: Persuasion

Cocksure Women and hen sure Men by D.H Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence was an inspired and controversial writer who, among other things, championed the regeneration of the individual through sexual love. He was the pioneer of modern psychological fiction, unsurpassed in powerful depiction of human passions and conflicts. E. M. Forster called him, “the greatest imaginative novelist of our time.”

Lawrence’s stormy and controversial affair with and subsequent marriage to Frieda von Richthoffen, the mother of three small children, became a prime source for his fiction. He also utilized the enduring battle between his doting mother and coal miner father.

Lawrence championed the “free,” modern woman and her right to an independent existence, and he criticized both men and women--the former for promulgating stereotypes of women and the latter for trying to live up to them. Lawrence maintained, “The problem of the day is the establishment of a new relation . . . between men and women.”

Since beauty is a question of experience, not of concrete form, no one can be as acutely ugly as a really pretty woman. When the sex-glow is missing, and she moves in ugly coldness, how hideous she seems, and all the worse for her externals of prettiness. -- New Sex Versus Loveliness

When a woman is thoroughly herself, she is being what her type of man wants her to be. When a woman is hysterical it’s because she doesn’t quite know what to be, which pattern to follow, which man’s picture of woman to live up to. -- New Give Her a Pattern

Just as there are many men in the world, there are many masculine theories of what women should be. . . . The Romans produced a theory or ideal of the matron, which fitted in very nicely with the Roman property lust. “Caesar’s wife should be above suspicion.”--So Caesar’s wife kindly proceeded to be above it, no matter how far below it the Caesar fell. Later gentlemen like Nero produced the “fast” theory of woman, and later ladies were fast enough for everybody. Dante arrived with a chaste and untouched Beatrice, and chaste and untouched Beatrices began to march self-importantly through the centuries. The Renaissances discovered the learned woman, and learned women buzzed mildly into verse and prose. Dickens invented the child-wife, so child-wives have swarmed ever since. George Eliot imitated this pattern, and it became confirmed. The noble woman, the pure spouse, the devoted mother took the

field, and was simply worked to death. . . .There are, of course, other types. Capable men produce the capable woman ideal. Doctors produce the capable nurse. Businessmen produce the capable secretary. And so you get all sorts. You can produce the masculine sense of honour . . . in women, if you want to.
-- Give Her a Pattern

Women don’t change. They only qo through a rather regular series of phases. They are first the slave; then the obedient helpmate; then the respected spouse; then the noble matron; then the splendid woman and citizen; then the independent female; then the modern girl . . . [and then] the slave once more, and the whole cycle starts afresh, on and on, till in the course of a thousand years or two we come once more to the really “modern” girl.
-- Do Women Change?

There are two aspects to women. There is the demure and the dauntless. Men have loved to dwell . . . on the demure maiden whose inevitable reply is: Oh, yes, if you please, kind sir! The demure maiden, the demure spouse, the demure mother ‑ this is still the ideal. A few maidens, mistresses and mothers are demure. A few pretend to be. But the vast majority are not. And they don’t pretend to be. We don’t expect a girl skillfully driving her car to be demure, we expect her to be dauntless. What good would demure and maidenly Members of Parliament be, inevitably responding: Oh, yes, if you please, kind sir! .... . The girl who has got to make her way in life has got to be dauntless, and if she has a pretty, demure manner with it, then lucky girl. She kills two birds with two stones.
-- New Cocksure Women and Hensure Men

There are the women who are cocksure, and the women who are hensure. A really up-to-date woman is a cocksure woman. She doesn’t have a doubt nor a qualm. She is the modern type. Whereas the old-fashioned demure woman was sure as a hen is sure, that is, without knowing anything about it. She went quietly and busily clucking around, laying the eggs and mothering the chickens in a kind of anxious dream that still was full of sureness. But not mental sureness. Her sureness was a physical condition, very soothing, but a condition out of which she could easily be startled or frightened.
-- Cocksure Women and Hensure Men

Cocksure Women and Hensure Men

Summary:

In D.H Lawrence’s essay “cocksure women and hensure men,” he tells us that women should stay home and take care of the family while the husband goes out and supports the family. He noticed in his time, (1920’s), women were starting to fall out of that specific lifestyle. Women were becoming independent, opinionated, and entering the work force. Lawrence gives us an idea of how a woman should be in his opinion when he says, “The demure maiden, the demure spouse, the demure mother-this is still the ideal.” We notice that Lawrence still believes that women should follow that old standard of a woman, a housewife. She should have kids, cook, clean, be beautiful, and submissive.

Lawrence has two ideas of how women are: hensure or cocksure. The hensure woman is the demure housewife. She is agreeable and loving. She has children and happily raises them and that is her career. Her family is her job and her fulfillment in life. The cocksure woman doesn’t have children. Instead she has a job and an opinion. Lawrence gives us his impression of a cocksure woman when he says, “A really up-to-date woman is a cocksure woman. She doesn’t have a doubt or a qualm. She is the modern type.” Lawrence tells us that a cocksure woman is very confident and is sure of herself. Lawrence believes that really a hensure woman is surer of herself than a cocksure woman is. “In her own dim surety, the hen is really much surer than the cock, in a different way. She marches off to lay her eggs, she secures obstinately the nest she wants, she lays her eggs at last, then steps forth again with prancing confidence, and gives the most assured of all sounds, the hens cackle of a bird who had laid her egg.” Lawrence seems to believe that the best thing a woman can do in her life is to have kids. When she does, she is more confident and fulfilled than anyone else, no matter what they are doing. I think every woman is different and some women may feel just as fulfilled in their jobs as other women feel about their children and family. Some women are not satisfied being a housewife. Some career women aren’t satisfied with their lifestyle either and might rather be a housewife. I disagree with Lawrence when he says “The cock, who is never so sure anything as the hen is about the egg she has laid.” Again Lawrence is telling us that a woman having kids and raising a family is more self-assured and fulfilled than a career woman. I think many people are just as fulfilled as the happiest housewife who are living much different lifestyles. Lawrence believes that this fulfillment of a mother as compared to a career woman becomes very apparent in the later stages of life. “So we have the tragedy of a cocksure woman. They find, so often, that instead of having laid .

2) The Essay as story: History

The Hurled Ashtray by Nora Ephron

Summary:

‘The Hurled Ashtray’ is a narrative essay written by Nora Ephron. The essayist tracks down and comments on the changing ideologies of female referring to some stories. Also, the reasons beyond, coldness between man-woman relationships is the essayist’s concern.
Her first story is about Gary Cooper, celebrate of her time. At a restaurant in London, when teddy boys mock at on a woman, Copper stands on his feet to make them leave the place. He seems to be a patron of the woman.
In second story, at a restaurant in London, Mrs Korda offends Mr. Korda who has hurled an ashtray at some drunks for one of them sent a sex proposal to the Kordas’ table. Mrs. Korda feels insecurity not from the drunks but from her possessive husband.
Thirdly, the essayist mentions the diverse responses of her friends to the Kordas’ incident. Therefore, she becomes skeptical towards marital relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Korda. She also raises critical questions, which she supposes to be inconvenient ones to have clear-cut answers.
The essay has been focused on the incident of Kordas. Mrs. Korda does not bother about the bread-pieces thrown upon her by the drunks. Even without enquiring clearly, she shouts at her husband’s aggressive reaction. She criticizes his patronizing behavior. She loathes being his mere asset; a doll who is caressed or ignored. But, her feeling of being a subordinate member of a male chauvinistic society is not the only cause of the conflict. She agitated due to unhappy and dissatisfied marital relation with her husband.
The stories of Cooper and Korda could have been reflecting the contrasting scenarios of female status, before and after the Feministic Movement respectively. The essay’s final lines are discernible for the essayist’s preference to improvised version of patriarchy. Both, the traditional patriarchal and so-called modern feministic approaches enhance chaotic and anarchical situations. In order to maintain intimacy between man and woman, tolerance, proactive attitudes, co-operation and understanding are required.

3) The Essay as Poem: Meditation

Spring (April 1941) by E.B White

As a meditative essay, the writer does not lead us to any specific direction but he writes whatever comes in his mind. He himself confesses that intoxicating moments of the spring has inspired him to meditate upon the things that go around him. The writer is on the doubt whether his hog will have the lambs or not. As she was coupling there was a chance of having lambs but it was not still sure about it. However she had seven lambs last year on Sunday looking at the past, it could be guessed that she would continue regeneration. Abruptly, the writer shifts his attention from hog to superman. He was told that the representative of the superman was visiting the library but no hints of being a superman were seen with him. He was an average sized man. Perhaps the writer is criticizing the so-called superiority of Hitler. He thinks him to be just an average man. Again the writer shifts his subject matter from superman to “LITTLE WOMAN”. The family next door has finished reading the book entitled, the little woman. it was a very tiring experience for the family. In fact, reading about a woman at the climax of the war was untimely but the writer gives the contrast between destructive superman and regenerative woman (mother).

Spring is the best season for animals not only for breeding but also for making themselves strong. Just as, the human beings are intoxicated by the spring so are the animals. Especially lambs enjoy the spring and they are enabling for regeneration. From lamb, the writer talks about snake and starling. Due to the long effect of writer, no snake has been seen outside yet whereas the starlings have finished their work of regeneration by laying the eggs and hatching them. After talking about the birds and animals, the writer talks about the fun, excitement and vitality that the spring brings after the captivity of the writer. The people readily welcome the spring and they tried to make their life worth of living. The human beings are want to want with the nature.

While flickering his thought the writer starts thinking about a broader, slope that helps to support the life of the chicks. The writer meditated that the broader stove is beneficial for a chicken farm year. But it was not as helpful as a hen. He argues that a hen has a larger vocabulary than a stove. Besides, the temperature in a stove is unstable whereas a hen can keep her temperature fixed and support the life of her chicks. Moreover a stove remains in one place and consequently the chicks have to huddle together to make their survival. Whereas a hen can move to different places and see, makes the maximum amount of life and survive. In addition to this the red colls come out of the stove and it might threaten the life of chicks. Out no treat is there for the chicks from the hen.

Speaking at the time of crisis, the writer feels that he is almost like a fool to talk about and insignificant things like brooding stove at chicken farm yard. He makes the minute observation of the chicken from yard and he makes sharp contrast with the trained people of his contemporary time. In fact, the people were walking with burning fire of the WWII in their mind and they were talking about blood and victory but the writer talk about blood, non-victory for his main concern which was the contents of the egg, “countries ram shacked vallies drenched with blood”. Though untimely I still publish my belief in egg…” This expression clarifies that being indifferent to the outer happenings; the writer strongly supports the concepts of regeneration. In other words, the writer focuses on life and regeneration. Even though the situation is hostile to his expectations.

As a meditative essay, this essay lacks the power of persuasion but it is a mistake to conclude that this essay does not persuade. The self assertions of the writer persuade the readers that they have to stand for life even in the critical moments. Moreover human beings have to learn something from the nature that after the death of the winter, there is inevitable regeneration of the spring. In this essay, we do not find any analogies but the symbolic tread of the spring those ties up all the ideas of the writer in a single tread or a line. Thus the writer is successful in persuading his ideas to his readers.

4) The Essay as Play: Dialogue

Primarily an essay is concern with ideas, emotions and feelings but these ideas are not always portray to the readers directly by the essayist himself for he might speak through his characters. In other wors an essay might take the form of a play and the ideas are presented in the form of a dialogue. In a dramatic essay, the characters are the spokemen of the writer, the dialogue serves as a form of debating ideas and the plot works as a form of testing ideas.

Dramatic essay is not a new concept for it which was largely used by the classical like…..

Our Graves in Gallipoli by E.M Froster

Scene: the summit of Achi Baba, an exposed spot, looking out across the Dardanelles towards Asia and the East. In a crevice between the rocks lie two graves covered by a single heap of stones. No monument marks them, for they escaped notice during the official survey, and the heap of stones has blended into the desolate and austere outline of the hill. The peninsula is turning towards the sun, and as the rays strike Achi Baba the graves begin to speak.

FIRST GRAVE: We are important again upon earth. Each morning men mention us.

SECOND GRAVE: Yes, after seven years' silence.

FIRST GRAVE: Every day some eminent public man now refers to the "sanctity of our graves in Gallipoli."

SECOND GRAVE: Why do the eminent men speak of "our" graves, as if they were themselves dead? It is we, not they, who lie on Achi Baba.

FIRST GRAVE: They say "our" out of geniality and in order to touch the great heart of our nation more quickly. Punch, the great-hearted jester, showed a picture lately in which the Prime Minister of England, Lloyd George, fertile in counsels, is urged to go to war to protect "the sanctity of our graves in Gallipoli." The elderly artist who designed that picture is not dead and does not mean to die. He hopes to illustrate this war as he did the last, for a sufficient salary. Nevertheless he writes "our" graves, as if he was inside one, and all persons of position now say the same.

SECOND GRAVE: If they go to war, there will be more graves.

FIRST GRAVE: That is what they desire. That is what Lloyd George, prudent in counsels, and lion-hearted Churchill, intend.

SECOND GRAVE: But where will they dig them?

FIRST GRAVE: There is still room over in Chanak. Also, it is well for a nation that would be great to scatter its graves all over the world. Graves in Ireland, graves in Irak, Russia, Persia, Inia, each with its inscription from the Bible or Rupert Brooke. When England thinks fit, she can launch an expedition to protect the sanctity of her graves, and can follow that by another expedition to protect the sanctity of the additional graves. That is what Lloyd George, prudent in counsels, and lion-hearted Churchill, have planned. Churchill planned this expedition to Gallipoli, where I was killed. He planned the expedition to Antwerp, where my brother was killed. Then he said that Labour is not fit to govern. Rolling his eyes for fresh worlds, he saw Egypt, and fearing that peace might be established there, he intervened and prevented it. Whatever he undertakes is a success. He is Churchill the Fortunate, ever in office, and clouds of dead heroes attend him. Nothing for schools, nothing for houses, nothing for the life of the body, nothing for the spirit. England cannot spare a penny for anything except her heroes' graves.

SECOND GRAVE: Is she really putting herself to so much expense on our account?

FIRST GRAVE: For us, and for the Freedom of the Straits. That water flowing below us now--it must be thoroughly free. What freedom is, great men are uncertain, but all agree that the water must be free for all nations; if in peace, then for all nations in peace; if in war, then for all nations in war.

SECOND GRAVE: So all nations now support England.

FIRST GRAVE: It is almost inexplicable. England stands alone. Of the dozens of nations into which the globe is divided, not a single one follows her banner, and even her own colonies hang back.

SECOND GRAVE: Yes... inexplicable. Perhaps she fights for some other reason.

FIRST GRAVE: Ah, the true reason of a war is never known until all who have fought in it are dead. In a hundred years' time we shall be told. Meanwhile seek not to inquire. There are rumours that rich men desire to be richer, but we cannot know.

SECOND GRAVE: If rich men desire more riches, let them fight. It is reasonable to fight for our desires.

FIRST GRAVE: But they cannot fight. They must not fight. There are too few of them. They would be killed. If a rich man went into the interior of Asia and tried to take more gold or more oil, he might be seriously injured at once. He must persuade poor men, who are numerous, to go there for him. And perhaps this is what Lloyd George, fertile in counsels, has decreed. He has tried to enter Asia by means of the Greeks. It was the Greeks who, seven years ago, failed to join England after they had promised to do so, and our graves in Gallipoli are the result of this. But Churchill the Fortunate, ever in office, ever magnanimous, bore the Greeks no grudge, and he and Lloyd George persuaded their young men to enter Asia. They have mostly been killed there, so English young men must be persuaded instead. A phrase must be thought of, and "the Gallipoli graves" is the handiest. The clergy must wave their Bibles, the old men their newspapers, the old women their knitting, the unmarried girls must wave white feathers, and all must shout, "Gallipoli graves, Gallipoli graves, Gallipoli, Gally Polly, Gally Polly," until the young men are ashamed and think, What sound can that be but my country's call? and Chanak receives them.

SECOND GRAVE: Chanak is to sanctify Gallipoli.

FIRST GRAVE: It will make our heap of stones for ever England, apparently.

SECOND GRAVE: It can scarcely do that to my portion of it. I was a Turk.

FIRST GRAVE: What! A Turk! You a Turk? And I have lain beside you for seven years and never known!

SECOND GRAVE: How should you have known? What is there to know except that I am your brother?

FIRST GRAVE: I am yours...

SECOND GRAVE: All is dead except that. All graves are one. It is their unity that sanctifies them, and some day even the living will learn this.

FIRST GRAVE: Ah, but why can they not learn it while they are still alive?

His comrade cannot answer this question. Achi Baba passes beneath the sun, and so long as there is light warlike preparations can be seen on the opposite coast. Presently all objects enter into their own shadows, and through the general veil thus formed the stars become apparent.

Robert Frost: The Figure a poem makes

Abstraction is an old story with the philosophers, but it has been like a new toy in the hands of the artists of our day. Why can't we have any one quality of poetry we choose by itself? We can have in thought. Then it will go hard if we can't in practice. Our lives for it.

Granted no one but a humanist much cares how sound a poem is if it is only a sound. The sound is the gold in the ore. Then we will have the sound out alone and dispense with the inessential. We do till we make the discovery that the object in writing poetry is to make all poems sound as different as possible from each other, and the resources for that of vowels, consonants, punctuation, syntax, words, sentences, meter are not enough. We need the help of context- meaning-subject matter. That is the greatest help towards variety. All that can be done with words is soon told. So also with meters-particularly in our language where there are virtually but two, strict iambic and loose iambic. The ancients with many were still poor if they depended on metres for all tune. It is painful to watch our sprung-rhythmists straining at the point of omitting one short from a foot for relief from monotony. The possibilities for tune from the dramatic tones of meaning struck across the rigidity of a limited metre are endless. And we are back in poetry as merely one more art of having something to say, sound or unsound. Probably better if sound, because deeper and from wider experience.

Then there is this wildness whereof it is spoken. Granted again that it has an equal claim with sound to being a poem's better half. If it is a wild tune, it is a Poem. Our problem then is, as modern abstractionists, to have the wildness pure; to be wild with nothing to be wild about. We bring up as aberrationists, giving way to undirected associations and kicking ourselves from one chance suggestion to another in all directions as of a hot afternoon in the life of a grasshopper. Theme alone can steady us down. just as the first mystery was how a poem could have a tune in such a straightness as metre, so the second mystery is how a poem can have wildness and at the same time a subject that shall be fulfilled.

It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life-not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. It has denouement. It has an outcome that though unforeseen was predestined from the first image of the original mood-and indeed from the very mood. It is but a trick poem and no poem at all if the best of it was thought of first and saved for the last. It finds its own name as it goes and discovers the best waiting for it in some final phrase at once wise and sad-the happy-sad blend of the drinking song.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didn't know I knew. I am in a place, in a situation, as if I had materialized from cloud or risen out of the ground. There is a glad recognition of the long lost and the rest follows. Step by step the wonder of unex pected supply keeps growing. The impressions most useful to my purpose seem always those I was unaware of and so made no note of at the time when taken, and the conclusion is come to that like giants we are always hurling experience ahead of us to pave the future with against the day when we may Want to strike a line of purpose across it for somewhere. The line will have the more charm for not being mechanically straight. We enjoy the straight crookedness of a good walking stick. Modern instruments of precision are being used to make things crooked as if by eye and hand in the old days.

I tell how there may be a better wildness of logic than of inconsequence. But the logic is backward, in retrospect, after the act. It must be more felt than seen ahead like prophecy. It must be a revelation, or a series of revelations, as much for the poet as for the reader. For it to be that there must have been the greatest freedom of the material to move about in it and to establish relations in it regardless of time and space, previous relation, and everything but affinity. We prate of freedom. We call our schools free because we are not free to stay away from them till we are sixteen years of age. I have given up my democratic prejudices and now willingly set the lower classes free to be completely taken care of by the upper classes. Political freedom is nothing to me. I bestow it right and left. All I would keep for myself is the freedom of my material-the condition of body and mind now and then to summons aptly from the vast chaos of all I have lived through.

Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspect t ey differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields. No acquirement is on assignment, or even self-assignment. Knowledge of the second kind is much more available in the wild free ways of wit and art. A schoolboy may be defined as one who can tell you what he knows in the order in which he learned it. The artist must value himself as he snatches a thing from some previous order in time and space into a new order with not so much as a ligature clinging to it of the old place where it was organic. More than once I should have lost my soul to radicalism if it had been the originality it was mistaken for by its young converts. Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country. For myself the originality need be no more than the freshness of a poem run in the way I have described: from delight to wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a petal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.

Summary:

To refer to a group of Frost’s poems as “early” is perhaps problematic: One is tempted to think of the term as relative given that Frost’s first book of poetry appeared when he was already 39. Moreover, Frost’s pattern of withholding poems from publication for long periods of time makes dating his work difficult. Many of the poems of the first book, A Boy’s Will, were, in fact, written long before—a few more than a decade earlier. Likewise, Frost’s later books contain poems almost certainly written in the period discussed in this note. The “Early Poems” considered here are a selection of well known verses published in the eleven years (1913-1923) spanned by Frost’s first four books: A Boy’s Will, North of Boston, Mountain Interval, and New Hampshire.

Frost famously likened the composition of free-verse poetry to playing tennis without a net: it might be fun, but it “ain’t tennis.” You will find only tennis in the poems that follow. And yet, even while Frost worked within form, he also worked the form itself, shaping it by his choice of language and his use of variation. He invented forms, too, when the poem required it. A theme in Frost’s work is the need for some, but not total, freedom—for boundaries, too, can be liberating for the poet, and Frost perhaps knew this better than anyone: No American poet has wrought such memorable, personally identifiable, idiosyncratic poetry from such self-imposed, often traditional formulae.

In these “early” years, Frost was concerned with perfecting what he termed “the sound of sense.” This was “the abstract vitality of our speech...pure sound— pure form”: a rendering, in words, of raw sensory perception. The words, the form of the words, and the sounds they encode are as much the subject of the poem as the subject is. Frost once wrote in a letter that to be a poet, one must “learn to get cadences by skillfully breaking the sounds of sense with all their irregularity of accent across the regular beat of the metre.” Thus, we read “Mowing” and simultaneously hear the swishing and whispering of the scythe; upon reading “Stopping by the Woods,” one clearly hears the sweep of easy wind and downy flake; to read “Birches” is to vividly sense the breezy stir that cracks and crazes the trees’ enamel.

Most of the lyrics treated in this note are relatively short, but Frost also pioneered the long dramatic lyric (represented here by “Home Burial”). These works depict spirited characters of a common, localized stripe: New England farm families, hired men, and backwoods curious characters. The shorter poems are often, understandably, more vague in their characterization, but their settings are no less vivid. Moreover, they integrate form and content to stunning effect.

Frost’s prose output was slight; however, he did manage, in essays such as “The Figure a Poem Makes,” to craft several enduring aphorisms about poetry. In regard to the figure of a poem, or that of a line itself, he wrote: “We enjoy the straight crookedness of a good walking stick.” A poem, he wrote, aims for “a momentary stay against confusion.” It “begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” “Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.” He claimed that the highest goal of the poet—and it was a goal he certainly achieved—is “to lodge a few poems where they will be hard to get rid of.”

Themes

Youth and the Loss of Innocence

Youth appears prominently in Frost’s poetry, particularly in connection with innocence and its loss. A Boy’s Will deals with this theme explicitly, tracing the development of a solitary youth as he explores and questions the world around him. Frost’s later work depicts youth as an idealized, edenic state full of possibility and opportunity. But as his poetic tone became increasingly jaded and didactic, he imagines youth as a time of unchecked freedom that is taken for granted and then lost. The theme of lost innocence becomes particularly poignant for Frost after the horrors of World War I and World War II, in which he witnessed the physical and psychic wounding of entire generations of young people. Later poems, including “Birches” (1916), “Acquainted with the Night” (1928), and “Desert Places” (1936), explore the realities of aging and loss, contrasting adult experiences with the carefree pleasures of youth.

Self-Knowledge Through Nature

Nature figures prominently in Frost’s poetry, and his poems usually include a moment of interaction or encounter between a human speaker and a natural subject or phenomenon. These encounters culminate in profound realizations or revelations, which have significant consequences for the speakers. Actively engaging with nature—whether through manual labor or exploration—has a variety of results, including self-knowledge, deeper understanding of the human condition, and increased insight into the metaphysical world. Frost’s earlier work focuses on the act of discovery and demonstrates how being engaged with nature leads to growth and knowledge. For instance, a day of harvesting fruit leads to a new understanding of life’s final sleep, or death, in “After Apple-Picking” (1915). Mid-career, however, Frost used encounters in nature to comment on the human condition. In his later works, experiencing nature provided access to the universal, the supernatural, and the divine, even as the poems themselves became increasingly focused on aging and mortality.

Throughout Frost’s work, speakers learn about themselves by exploring nature, but nature always stays indifferent to the human world. In other words, people learn from nature because nature allows people to gain knowledge about themselves and because nature requires people to reach for new insights, but nature itself does not provide answers. Frost believed in the capacity of humans to achieve feats of understanding in natural settings, but he also believed that nature was unconcerned with either human achievement or human misery. Indeed, in Frost’s work, nature could be both generous and malicious. The speaker of “Design” (1936), for example, wonders about the “design of darkness” (13) that has led a spider to kill a moth over the course of a night. While humans might learn about themselves through nature, nature and its ways remain mysterious.

Community vs. Isolation

Frost marveled at the contrast between the human capacity to connect with one another and to experience feelings of profound isolation. In several Frost poems, solitary individuals wander through a natural setting and encounter another individual, an object, or an animal. These encounters stimulate moments of revelation in which the speaker realizes her or his connection to others or, conversely, the ways that she or he feels isolated from the community. Earlier poems feature speakers who actively choose solitude and isolation in order to learn more about themselves, but these speakers ultimately discover a firm connection to the world around them, as in “The Tufts of Flowers” (1915) and “Mending Wall” (1915). Longer dramatic poems explore how people isolate themselves even within social contexts. Later poems return the focus to solitude, exploring how encounters and community only heighten loneliness and isolation. This deeply pessimistic, almost misanthropic perspective sneaks into the most cheerful of late Frost poems, including “Acquainted with the Night” and “Desert Places.”

Motifs

Manual Labor

Labor functions as a tool for self-analysis and discovery in Frost’s poetry. Work allows his speakers to understand themselves and the world around them. Traditionally, pastoral and romantic poets emphasized a passive relationship with nature, wherein people would achieve understanding and knowledge by observing and meditating, not by directly interacting with the natural world. In contrast, Frost’s speakers work, labor, and act—mending fences, as in “Mending Wall”; harvesting fruit, as in “After Apple-Picking”; or cutting hay, as in “Mowing” (1915). Even children work, although the hard labor of the little boy in “Out, Out—” (1920) leads to his death. The boy’s death implies that while work was necessary for adults, children should be exempted from difficult labor until they have attained the required maturity with which to handle both the physical and the mental stress that goes along with rural life. Frost implies that a connection with the earth and with one’s self can only be achieved by actively communing with the natural world through work.

New England

Long considered the quintessential regional poet, Frost uses New England as a recurring setting throughout his work. Although he spent his early life in California, Frost moved to the East Coast in his early teens and spent the majority of his adult life in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The region’s landscape, history, culture, and attitudes fill his poetry, and he emphasizes local color and natural elements of the forests, orchards, fields, and small towns. His speakers wander through dense woods and snowstorms, pick apples, and climb mountains. North of Boston, the title of Frost’s second collection of poetry, firmly established him as the chronicler of small-town, rural life in New England. Frost found inspiration in his day-to-day experiences, basing “Mending Wall,” for instance, on a fence near his farm in Derry, New Hampshire, and “The Oven Bird” (1920) on birds indigenous to the nearby woods.

The Sound of Sense

Frost coined the phrase the sound of sense to emphasize the poetic diction, or word choice, used throughout his work. According to letters he wrote in 1913 and 1914, the sound of sense should be positive, as well as proactive, and should resemble everyday speech. To achieve the sound of sense, Frost chose words for tone and sound, in addition to considering each word’s meaning. Many poems replicate content through rhyme, meter, and alliteration. For instance, “Mowing” captures the back-and-forth sound of a scythe swinging, while “Out, Out—” imitates the jerky, noisy roar of a buzz saw. Believing that poetry should be recited, rather than read, Frost not only paid attention to the sound of his poems but also went on speaking tours throughout the United States, where he would read, comment, and discuss his work. Storytelling has a long history in the United States, particularly in New England, and Frost wanted to tap into this history to emphasize poetry as an oral art.

Symbols

Trees

Trees delineate borders in Frost’s poetry. They not only mark boundaries on earth, such as that between a pasture and a forest, but also boundaries between earth and heaven. In some poems, such as “After Apple-Picking” and “Birches,” trees are the link between earth, or humanity, and the sky, or the divine. Trees function as boundary spaces, where moments of connection or revelation become possible. Humans can observe and think critically about humanity and the divine under the shade of these trees or standing nearby, inside the trees’ boundary space. Forests and edges of forests function similarly as boundary spaces, as in “Into My Own” (1915) or “Desert Places.” Finally, trees acts as boundaries or borders between different areas or types of experiences. When Frost’s speakers and subjects are near the edge of a forest, wandering in a forest, or climbing a tree, they exist in liminal spaces, halfway between the earth and the sky, which allow the speakers to engage with nature and experience moments of revelation.

Birds and Birdsong

In Frost’s poetry, birds represent nature, and their songs represent nature’s attitudes toward humanity. Birds provide a voice for the natural world to communicate with humans. But their songs communicate only nature’s indifference toward the human world, as in “The Need of Being Versed in Country Things” (1923) and “Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same” (1942). Their beautiful melodies belie an absence of feeling for humanity and our situations. Nevertheless, as a part of nature, birds have a right to their song, even if it annoys or distresses human listeners. In “A Minor Bird” (1928), the speaker eventually realizes that all songs must continue to exist, whether those songs are found in nature, as with birds, or in culture, as with poems. Frost also uses birds and birdsong to symbolize poetry, and birds become a medium through which to comment on the efficacy of poetry as a tool of emotional expression, as in “The Oven Bird” (1920).

Solitary Travelers

Solitary travelers appear frequently in Frost’s poems, and their attitudes toward their journeys and their surroundings highlight poetic and historical themes, including the figure of the wanderer and the changing social landscape of New England in the twentieth century. As in romanticism, a literary movement active in England from roughly 1750 to 1830, Frost’s poetry demonstrates great respect for the social outcast, or wanderer, who exists on the fringes of a community. Like the romanticized notion of the solitary traveler, the poet was also separated from the community, which allowed him to view social interactions, as well as the natural world, with a sense of wonder, fear, and admiration. Able to engage with his surroundings using fresh eyes, the solitary traveler simultaneously exists as a part of the landscape and as an observer of the landscape. Found in “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” (1923), “Into My Own,” “Acquainted with the Night,” and “The Road Not Taken” (1920), among other poems, the solitary traveler demonstrates the historical and regional context of Frost’s poetry. In the early twentieth century, the development of transportation and industry created the social type of the wandering “tramp,” who lived a transient lifestyle, looking for work in a rapidly developing industrial society. Like Frost’s speakers and subjects, these people lived on the outskirts of the community, largely away from the warmth and complexity of human interaction.

Virginia Woolf: The death of moth
A detailed Summary of The death of the Moth

"The Death of the Moth," written by Virginia Woolf, explains the brief life of a moth corresponding with the true nature of life and death. In this essay, Woolf puts the moth in a role that represents life. Woolf makes comparisons of the life outside to the life of the moth. The theme is the mystery of death and the correspondence of the life of the moth with the true nature of life. The images created by Woolf are presented that appeal to the eye. For instance, the moth's body during the death is appealing to the eye. The image makes the reader more interested. The essence of true life is energy. As Woolf describes, "I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life" (Woolf 427). The thread of vital light represents the energy.

Woolf employs several stylistic devices that make the essay more interesting to the reader. The changing in tone, lengthy sentence structure, and personification are three devices that are significant in the essay.

When the moth is dying Woolf uses lengthier sentences to bring out the importance of the situation:

Throughout the essay the tone changes by Woolfs' attitude towards the moth. The actual change of tone is pity. At first her focus is not totally on the moth and she is not exactly impressed with the moth as well. Then, as the essay continues, Woolf begins to be more interested and starts to feel a sense of pity or sympathy for the moth. As described here, "Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin and pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body" (426-427). This sentence shows Woolfs' attitude starting to change towards the moth. In the beginning of the essay, Woolf does not show the interest like she does towards the end of the essay. When the moth starts to go through death the tone changes dramatically and Woolf is a state of wonder and awe for the moth.

The lengthier sentences also help to explain the wonder and awe that Woolf expresses towards the moth. The wonder and awe that she expressed was due to the power and inevitability

E.B White: Once More to the Lake

E.B White, the famous author of Stuart little and Charlottes Web, also wrote the person essay “Once More to the Lake” in which he explores the relationship between father and son. The essay starts off with a father talking about his experiences as a child camping with his father in 1904 on a lake in Maine. During this he gets the great feelings that he once had as a child camping and decides to relive them again. He is now a father who has a child himself which he decides to bring along with because his son has have never had any fresh water up his nose and thought this would be a great experience for the both of them. On his way to Maine he wonders how much different the “holy spot” may be and if he still will love this place like he used to. After settling into a camp near a farmhouse and getting that summer feeling, he thought things couldn’t be much different. He defiantly knew it the next morning lying in bed, smelling the bedroom, and hearing his young boy quietly sneaking out to go off along the shore in a boat. Lying in his bed he starts to imagine his son has him and that he was his own father. He would be in the middle of simp.

(The next morning he and son went fishing. He kept remembering his camping experiences as child and it wasn't much different now. When the kids went swimming his son had tagged along and he watched him, as his hard little body, skinny and bare pulled up into the water and he himself felt the chill of death. The arrival of the dragon fly convinced the father even more that everything was as it had always been. His son loved the rented outboard and he wanted to achieve single-handed mastery over it. He soon came to realize that he is a father now and that he is much older and it is time to let go of those great memories and make great memories with his son, like his father had done once done with him. He felt the same damp moss covering the worms in the bait can, and saw the dragonfly on the tip of the rods as it hovered over the water. During this, everywhere he would go he had trouble making out which he was, the one walking on his side, or the one walking in his pants. He would remember things such as the red squirrel that would be tapping on the roof in the mornings and the store that he used to go to after breakfast which was still the exact same. He is confused and feeling dizzy and doesn't know which rod he was at the end of. Later that night they went back up to the farmhouse for dinner. A week had passed by and the trip had been good so far. He later goes into explaining that now in 1941 they have different type of boats then they did in 1904. At the farmhouse the waitresses were the same country girls, the only difference was that they had washed their hair and they had been to the movies and seen the pretty girls with the clean hair.)

George Orwall: Shooting an Elephant

Shooting an Elephant | Introduction

George Orwell’s ‘‘Shooting an Elephant’’ first appeared in 1936. The British public already knew Orwell as the socially conscious author of Down and Out in London and Paris (1933), a nonfiction study of poverty, homelessness, unemployment, and subsistence living on poorly-paying menial jobs, and Burmese Days (1934), a novel of British colonialism. ‘‘Shooting an Elephant’’ functions as an addendum to Burmese Days. The story and novel share the same setting, and draw on Orwell’s experience as a colonial official in India and Burma, two regions of the British Empire, in the middle of the century between the two world wars. The story (which some critics consider an essay) concerns a colonial officer’s obligation to shoot a rogue elephant. The narrator does not want to shoot the elephant, but feels compelled to by a crowd of indigenous residents, before whom he does not wish to appear indecisive or cowardly. The situation and events that Orwell describes underscores the hostility between the administrators of the British Empire and their ‘‘native’’ subjects. Both sides feel hatred, distrust, and resentment. The situation is universally degrading. The shooting itself involves enormous pathos conveyed economically in a few words.

‘‘Shooting an Elephant’’ is a central text in modern British literature and has generated perhaps more criticism than any other comparable short piece. In the politicized atmosphere of contemporary criticism, commentators are especially drawn into debate about whether Orwell apologizes for or condemns imperialism. Left-wing critics see insuf- ficient condemnation; conservative critics point out that it is the narrator, an agent of empire, who explicitly denounces the British presence as pervasively corrupting to both sides. The story is one of the most widely anthologized and studied items of the modern English-language canon.

Shooting an Elephant Summary

‘‘Shooting an Elephant’’ begins with a meditative prelude to the action in which the narrator, who may be presumed to be Orwell, comments on being a colonial policeman in British Burma in the middle of the twentieth century. ‘‘I was hated by large numbers of people,’’ he says, and ‘‘anti-European feeling was very bitter.’’ A European woman crossing the market would likely be spat upon and a subdivisional police officer made an even more inviting target. Once, at a soccer match, a Burmese player deliberately fouled the narrator while the Burmese umpire conveniently looked the other direction and the largely Burmese crowd ‘‘yelled with hideous laughter.’’ The narrator understands such hatred and even thinks it justified, but he also confesses that his ‘‘greatest joy’’ at the time would have been to bayonet one of his tormenters.

The action of ‘‘Shooting an Elephant’’ begins when the narrator receives a telephone report of an elephant ‘‘ravaging the bazaar.’’ He takes his inadequate hunting rifle and rides on horseback to the area where the animal allegedly lurks. The narrator remarks on the squalor and poverty of the neighborhood, with its palm-leaf thatch on the huts and unplanned scattering of houses over a hillside. The narrator asks.. ‘‘Shooting an Elephant’’ begins with a meditative prelude to the action in which the narrator, who may be presumed to be Orwell, comments on being a colonial policeman in British Burma in the middle of the twentieth century. ‘‘I was hated by large numbers of people,’’ he says, and ‘‘anti-European feeling was very bitter.’’ A European woman crossing the market would likely be spat upon and a subdivisional police officer made an even more inviting target. Once, at a soccer match, a Burmese player deliberately fouled the narrator while the Burmese umpire conveniently..

James Baldwin: Autobiographical Notes

James Baldwin (Magill Book Reviews)

Though James Baldwin is a distinguished novelist and playwright, it can be argued that his most consistently brilliant work is in his essays, with their witty, impassioned, elegant observations on the life and art of his time. Many are autobiographical in whole or part; “One writes out of one thing only—one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give.” Perhaps the most famous of Baldwin’s autobiographical essays is NOTES OF A NATIVE SON (1955), in which he tries to come to terms with his father, the model for Gabriel in GO, TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN (1953), who was embittered by a heritage of racial oppression and took out his frustrations in indescribable cruelty to his family.

Extremely intelligent, James Baldwin continually battled the absurdity of racism that made life miserable for his people purely because of their color, but he was determined not to let hatred embitter his life as it had his father’s. Baldwin found some solace in the blues, in laughter, and in exiling himself to France. The vital factor about Baldwin’s perceptions is that he was triply an outsider, as an African American, a homosexual, and an expatriate. When asked whether he felt handicapped by being black and gay, he answered, “No, man, I thought I hit the jackpot.” Baldwin returned to the United States to become a leader in the civil rights movement, and his THE FIRE NEXT TIME (1963) is a powerful argument against racism and for full equality for blacks. In NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME: MORE NOTES OF A NATIVE SON (1961), he investigates questions of identity and democracy, “what it means to be an American.” THE DEVIL FINDS WORK (1976) analyzes movies that he saw as a boy and later ones of interest for their treatment of race and politics; many other essays deal with literature—the work of Shakespeare, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, Norman Mailer, and others. Baldwin followed Henry James’ advice to be the sort of person upon whom nothing is lost, and the abundance of his interests is reflected in the keen observations, wit, and vitality of his essays.

EXTRA READING>>>

Notes of a Native Son | Introduction

James Baldwin’s collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son, with the individual essays having been originally written during the 1940s and 1950s, gives readers a thoughtful commentary on the social environment in the United States in the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Through the eyes and mind of one of America’s most effective essayists, the conditions of being an African American living in a society that is grappling with the consequences of racial discrimination are witnessed firsthand. The subjects of his essays vary as Baldwin ponders his own reactions to the significance of the so-called protest novel to the circumstances that led many African-American writers of his time to become expatriates.

According to Baldwin’s biographer, David Leeming, the idea for Baldwin’s collection came from an old school friend, Sol Stein, who had become an editor at Beacon Press. Baldwin’s first response to the suggestion of publishing his essays, which were largely autobiographical, was that he was ‘‘too young’’ to publish his ‘‘memoirs.’’ Baldwin had, after all, only published one other book prior to Notes, and on top of this he was only thirty years old, which meant that he was in his twenties when he wrote the essays. Despite his lack of a long professional career, however, Baldwin would be surprised at the reaction he would receive upon publication. The collection significantly marked him as a writer that it became his signature work. It was through Notes that he would gain the massive audience he would enjoy throughout most of his writing career. Notes established Baldwin as one of the leading interpreters of the dramatic social changes that would soon erupt in the United States in the critical years ahead.

Leeming refers to the voice that Baldwin created in his essays as one that ‘‘seduces the reader.’’ Baldwin invites the reader inside his mind, Leeming contends, as he observes the problems that exist in the society, problems that were borne of racial discrimination. However, in his observations, Baldwin does not make any of his readers feel guilty about the social conditions. Unlike some of his contemporary authors, Baldwin believed that he did not write through anger. In Leeming’s evaluation of Baldwin’s essays, he contends, ‘‘Baldwin’s method is to reach consciences by way of minds.’’

Notes of a Native Son Summary

Autobiographical Notes
Baldwin begins his Notes of a Native Son with a brief description of his childhood and the beginning of his professional career as a writer. He also introduces some of the themes that will be expanded upon in the essays contained in this volume. Some of these themes include the role of the African- American writer, self-identity of African Americans, and an observation and analysis of American society.

Everybody’s Protest Novel
In this first essay, Baldwin launches into literary criticism, specifically focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Richard Wright’s Native Son. Baldwin finds both works too political and, to his mind, thinly disguised political propaganda as a novel is not a serious literary activity. He also believes that, as literary works, both Stowe’s and Wright’s work lack merit. They are ‘‘both badly written and wildly improbable.’’ As analyses of social problems, they lack strength. ‘‘Whatever unsettling questions are raised are evanescent . . . remote, for this has nothing to do with us.’’

Baldwin likens the protest novel to zealous missionaries who travel to Africa ‘‘to cover the nakedness of the natives’’ in an attempt to save them. He concludes his assessment of these two works by binding them together, writing that they resemble one another, with Bigger, the protagonist in Wright’s novel, becoming the descendant of Stowe’s Uncle Tom. ‘‘It seems that the contemporary Negro novelist [Wright] and the dead New England woman [Stowe] are locked together in a deadly, timeless battle; the one uttering merciless exhortations, the other shouting curses.’’

Many Thousands Gone
Baldwin begins this essay with the statement about the difficulty the ‘‘Negro in America’’ has in telling his/her story. ‘‘It is not a very pretty story,’’ Baldwin writes and has best been told through music. The African-American story is covered in shadow and darkness. The African American is not known personally but rather through ‘‘statistics, slums, rapes, injustices, remote violence.’’ The presence of African Americans in the predominantly white American society Baldwin likens to a ‘‘disease—cancer, perhaps, or tuberculosis—which must be checked, even though it cannot be cured.’’

The face of the African American has changed with time, Baldwin continues, but it has not changed enough. ‘‘The general desire seems to be to make it blank if one cannot make it white.’’ Baldwin then mentions the use of the stereotypical images of Aunt Jemima, a heavyset black woman, usually shown in the kitchen, cooking for white people. Her counterpart is Uncle Tom. There was, Baldwin writes, ‘‘no one stronger or more pious or more loyal or more wise’’ than Aunt Jemima, and Uncle Tom was ‘‘trustworthy and sexless.’’ However, Baldwin states that these descriptions of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Tom are only the surface realities of these two people. Underneath, Aunt Jemima is faithless, vicious, and immoral; Uncle Tom is ‘‘violent, crafty, and sullen, a menace to any white woman who passed by.’’ It is their surface identity that most white people want to believe, Baldwin states. Their pleasant demeanor is an artificial creation, something that white people wanted to believe in because white people wanted peace.

In the second half of this essay, Baldwin continues his criticism of Richard Wright’s Native Son. He refers to it as ‘‘the most powerful and celebrated statement . . . of what it means to be a Negro in America.’’ However, he also states that Wright’s novel does not work as Wright had intended it to.

Carmen Jones: The Dark Is Light Enough
In 1955, Otto Preminger produced the movie Carmen Jones, a modernization of George Bizet’s opera Carmen. Preminger put together an all-black cast for the film, and in this essay, Baldwin analyzes that production.

Baldwin was not impressed with the film. One of the first things he complains about is the dialogue, which he says sounds ‘‘ludicrously false and affected, like ante-bellum Negroes imitating their masters.’’ Baldwin then goes on to suggest that everything about this movie is improbable, a ‘‘total divorce from anything suggestive of the realities of Negro life.’’

Baldwin also sees a color consciousness in the casting that he does not fail to point out. For instance, there is Dorothy Dandridge, ‘‘aAutobiographical Notes
Baldwin begins his Notes of a Native Son with a brief description of his childhood and the beginning of his professional career as a writer. He also introduces some of the themes that will be expanded upon in the essays contained in this volume. Some of these themes include the role of the African- American writer, self-identity of African Americans, and an observation and analysis of American society.

Everybody’s Protest Novel
In this first essay, Baldwin launches into literary criticism, specifically focusing on Harriet...

Russel Baker: His tireless marriage mode

“Marriage á la Mode’’

Point of View and Narration

“Marriage á la Mode’’ is told primarily from William’s point of view, but the story does shift to Isabel’s point of view to make its final statement. The story opens with William’s thoughts as he boards the train in London. He is concerned with buying a gift for his children and wonders about his upcoming meeting with Isabel. Such an opening clearly demonstrates that family is most important to William. This long scene can be compared to his meeting with Isabel, whose conversation revolves more around her friends. In a sense, Isabel even negates the children by refusing to give them the fruit William purchased for them, instead keeping it to share with her friends. The brief weekend continues to be funneled through William’s point of view, which is effective because it allows Mansfield to depict William as he truly is amongst Isabel’s circle: alone and on the outside.

The end of the story, however, switches to Isabel’s point of view. There is no artistic way to avoid this shift, for in order to effect the proper ending, readers need to see Isabel’s (and her friends’) reaction to William’s letter and her subsequent actions. Isabel’s alliance with her friends against William marks the story’s culmination. Stylistically, however, Isabel’s and William’s points of view reflect Mansfield’s writing style and are fairly indistinguishable. Both sections, as well, never delve too deeply into the thoughts of the characters. Instead, Mansfield’s narration presents William’s and Isabel’s major concerns and reactions to situations and then depicts both of them embarking on a set course of action.

Satire

“Marriage á la Mode’’ satirizes — or uses humor, wit, or ridicule to criticize — the pretentious, phony bohemian art society in which Isabel has chosen to involve herself. While Mansfield’s story makes no grand pronouncements on this shallow segment of society, her disdain for Isabel and her immature friends is clear. The group speaks in childish exclamations and conducts pointless conversations; once the verb “childishly” is used to describe Bobby’s words. They indulge in no meaningful activities — it is alluded that Bill is a painter, but he refuses to paint the friends at the dinner table. They are self-obsessed and full of self-importance. Ironically, they are determined to keep William out of their inner circle, a circle of which he has no interest in being a part.

Physically and emotionally, Mansfield makes them appear foolish and ridiculous. Moira is first introduced wearing “a bonnet like a huge strawberry” and jumping up and down, giving a reader the image of a giant, jumping strawberry, not a woman at all. As a group, the friends reject traditional adult behavior. None of them apparently have anything better to do on a Monday than laze around Isabel’s house. All of them appear content to sponge off of Isabel (and thus William). Bobby is presented as the most childlike of them all with even his very moods dependent on others. When the candy shopman comes after him as Bobby neglected to pay for his purchases, Bobby looks “frightened,” but a moment later, after Isabel has taken care of the bill, he “was radiant again.”

Symbolism and Imagery

Mansfield’s primary symbols and images used in “Marriage á la Mode” revolve around food. William brings home a melon and a pineapple for the children; Moira’s hat looks like a strawberry; the day’s purchases include fish and candy; the friends are depicted around the dinner table, eating voraciously. Overall, these images, such as Bill “stuffing his mouth with bread,” imply both the selfishness of Isabel and her friends — for instance, dining on fruit at the expense of the children — as well as their spiritual emptiness. As Isabel says, “We’re all starving. William’s starving, too.” Indeed, they are all hungry for something that cannot be fixed by eating a large meal. Although they do not know it, Isabel and her friends lack a purpose or greater meaning in their lives. William, on the other hand, is hungry for the simple life he and Isabel once shared.

The Elements of Fiction

2010-09-09T16:41:00.001-07:00

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!

The Elements of Fiction

Fiction, fact and truth

Fiction is made up story. Even the most sacred books like Bible and the other holy books are fictions because they are made up story. It does not necessarily mean that these holy books lack the truth but it means that they are creations of the human beings.

Fiction and fact seem to be just opposite to each other but the fact is that they are inter related to each other. The word fact has been derived from the Latin word ‘facere’ which means to make or to do. And the word fiction has been derived from ‘fingere’ which means to make or to shape. Fact is connected with reality and truth whereas fiction is connected with unreality and falsehood. Despite the fact that they are connected with imagination and reality, both of them contain the truth with themselves. However its amount differs. The fact means the ‘thing one’ and surprisingly the ‘thing one’ has no existence when it is finished thus the fact must take the help of fiction in order to make its existence.

In order to know the strange relationship between fact and fiction we can take the example of history. Literally, history means what has happened but symbolically it also means what is supposed to have happened. Moreover the word “story” itself lurks in the word history. It clarifies that the most so called factual details called history itself is not factual because because it is written from one perspective.

Therefore fact and fiction are not opposite to each other but rather they are complementary to each other.

Fiction: Experiences and analysis

Although any book of fiction has its real existence the word created by the fictional work is unreal. The events and characters are imaginary they do not talk to us face to face. Thus the experience that we get out of fiction is unreal. While reading any work of fiction, we are involved in it just in passive form because we can affect neither the characters nor the events. However it is obvious that after reading any work of fiction we are moved mentally and intellectually. Just as an athletic do a lot of pre-game exercises or preparation to achieve his goal, it is necessary for us to read the fictional works in order to make a good analysis of our life and society.

Therefore the only significant act of fiction is to prepare us for understanding our life and society in a better way.

The spectrum of Fiction

The spectrum of fiction is an analogy which clarifies about the general modes of fiction. In the spectrum of the light there are seven colours which are distinctly visible but in the spectrum of fiction there are only four wings. As we have discussed earlier that the fact is connected with history and fiction is connected with fantasy. The surprising thing for the students of literature is that neither pure history nor pure fantasy is possible in human creation. All history recorded by men becomes fictional. A divine soul talking every note of human activity can be considered as pure history and deity creating the world in his own imagination can be considered as pure fantasy. The imaginary world created by human imagination has resemblance though far fetched with life. Therefore neither history is purely factual not fantasy is purely fictional.

IN between these two extremes, there are two other wings which connect them with each other. Some of the writers create the world on the basis of their perception and it is the mode which we called as ‘realism’. On the other hand some other writers create the world on the basis of their vision and this mode is known as Romance. A realist writer tries to depict the reality not in a specification but in a general way. Unlike a historian, a realistic writer creates the world on the basis of his perception but not on the basis of the fact. On the other hand the writer of romance creates the ideal world by distorting “what is” into “what ought to be”

On the first sight romance and realism seem just opposite to each other but the reality is that they are quite close to each other. Realism is far more romantic than history and romance is more realistic than fantasy. In fact romance and realism bridge gap between history and fantasy.

Fictional modes and pattern

In the spectrum of fiction, we have seen basically two modes of fiction: realism and romance. In the fictional modes and patterns, we have to keep realism off and see how a fiction can distort the reality. Basically, there are two fundamental ways through which reality is distorted; either creating more beautiful picture of the world that it actually is or showing the most devasted view than it actually is. The fictional mode that focuses on beautiful, orderly, ideal, etc. picture of the world is the mode that we called as romance. On the other hand, the fictional mode that focuses on chaotic, ugly, and disorderly mode of life is known as satire.

The fictional modes don’t only focus on human qualities but they rather focus also in human experiences. The protagonist who begins his quest in inhumanly but end in harmony is the mode that begins his quest with harmony but ends with inhumanly or separation or the death is known as tragedy. The victory of a hero in a comedy brings the comic rise whereas the defect of the protagonist in a tragedy brings the tragic fall. Similarly in a satire there is a satire rise and the pathetic fall of the devasted characters. There is a satire rise because his evilness or frailty is exposed to the audience and creates the irony between expectation and reality.

In a romance there is a heroic quest and the protagonist is able to get victory over his problems with the help of some super natural power. The adventure of the protagonist give him some knowledge on the other hand, the anti hero also goes on a voyage in a satire but the climax is not in his favour for it goes against his expectations. As a result his in vanity is exposed.

In this way there are 6 patterns, fictional modes- comic and satire rise, tragic and pathetic fall and the heroic and anti heroic quest.

Elements of Fiction

1) Note the beginnings and endings

2) Isolate the characters

3) Note the stages in all important changes

4) Note the thing working against the movement of the story

5) A long story or novel consider various lines of actions

6) Note the character and movements that does not contribute the plot or movements.

PLOT

Plot is a single movement that gives the certain definition which has beginning, middle and end. It is possible because of the characters i.e. such characters have chain of events. There are some forces which is protagonist and anti protagonist movements (in the perspective view of thematic significance)

Character

Meaning

Point of view: Perspective and Language

Design: Juxtaposition and repetition in the structure of fiction

Three stories and Commentaries.

Moonlight

Guy De Maupasant

Summary

One morning, one of he women told the lover but he could not believe his ears. Perhaps the anxieties of parental affection hunt him or he was disappointed by the fact that his niece went against his expectation. Although he showed doubt on that human, she clarified if he went himself from ten to midnight, he could find the evidence. The Abbe Marignan was quite impatient the whole day and in the evening, after his dinner he becomes ready to go outside and find the reality.

The Abbe Marignan was startled when he stepped outside for the moonlight night and its beauty was unimaginable. He immediately questioned if the night was meant for sleeping why did the lord make it even more beautiful than the day? Similarly, he wondered for whom the birds were singing so beautifully. The landscape looked holy and divine. The deeper the priest walked, he was enchanted even more. It was perfectly like a Biblical scene or him. But he still found it incomplete. His “WHY” remains unanswered until his niece came there hugging her lover. Their arrival answered his “WHY” and he realized that the beautiful moonlight night was meant for the lovers. Besides, the priest was scared to live there for a long time because he did not like to disturb the lovers and he himself felt that he was outcaste from the temple of love.

In this way, this story shows how the so-called ideal priest realizes the value of love as well as the value of women. His attitude towards women was changed radically by the moonlight night.

Critical Appreciation

This story is a realistic story in which Guy De Maupasant shows the transformation of the protagonanist. Even though Abbe Marignan was a priest, he was blind folded for the reality of the life. He stupidly thought that love and women were useless to live a life. In the name of so-called pure life, he discarded them without realizing the vanity his thought. His thought was that even the God did not like his own creation, i.e. woman. No doubt, he was attracted towards woman. And the evidence was that he felt new sensation when his niece kissed and hugged him. However, he deceived himself. Outwardly he always tried to react that the women were made just to tempt and taste the virtue of the man. In this opinion the so-called virtue came when a person kept himself away from love and woman.

Madame Julie Roubere was expecting her elder sister, Madame Henriette Letore, who had just returned from a trip to Switzerland.

The Letore household had left nearly five weeks before. Madame Henriette had allowed her husband to return alone to their estate in Calvados, where some business required his attention, and had come to spend a few days in Paris with her sister. Night came on. In the quiet parlor Madame Roubere was reading in the twilight in an absent-minded way, raising her, eyes whenever she heard a sound.

At last, she heard a ring at the door, and her sister appeared, wrapped in a travelling cloak. And without any formal greeting, they clasped each other in an affectionate embrace, only desisting for a moment to give each other another hug. Then they talked about their health, about their respective families, and a thousand other things, gossiping, jerking out hurried, broken sentences as they followed each other about, while Madame Henriette was removing her hat and veil.

It was now quite dark. Madame Roubere rang for a lamp, and as soon as it was brought in, she scanned her sister's face, and was on the point of embracing her once more. But she held back, scared and astonished at the other's appearance.

On her temples Madame Letore had two large locks of white hair. All the rest of her hair was of a glossy, raven-black hue; but there alone, at each side of her head, ran, as it were, two silvery streams which were immediately lost in the black mass surrounding them. She was, nevertheless, only twenty-four years old, and this change had come on suddenly since her departure for Switzerland.

Without moving, Madame Roubere gazed at her in amazement, tears rising to her eyes, as she thought that some mysterious and terrible calamity must have befallen her sister. She asked:

"What is the matter with you, Henriette?"

Smiling with a sad face, the smile of one who is heartsick, the other replied:

"Why, nothing, I assure you. Were you noticing my white hair?"

But Madame Roubere impetuously seized her by the shoulders, and with a searching glance at her, repeated:

"What is the matter with you? Tell me what is the matter with you. And if you tell me a falsehood, I'll soon find it out."

They remained face to face, and Madame Henriette, who looked as if she were about to faint, had two pearly tears in the corners of her drooping eyes.

Her sister continued:

"What has happened to you? What is the matter with you? Answer me!"

Then, in a subdued voice, the other murmured:

"I have--I have a lover."

And, hiding her forehead on the shoulder of her younger sister, she sobbed.

Then, when she had grown a little calmer, when the heaving of her breast had subsided, she commenced to unbosom herself, as if to cast forth this secret from herself, to empty this sorrow of hers into a sympathetic heart.

Thereupon, holding each other's hands tightly clasped, the two women went over to a sofa in a dark corner of the room, into which they sank, and the younger sister, passing her arm over the elder one's neck, and drawing her close to her heart, listened.

"Oh! I know that there was no excuse for me; I do not understand myself, and since that day I feel as if I were mad. Be careful, my child, about yourself--be careful! If you only knew how weak we are, how quickly we yield, and fall. It takes so little, so little, so little, a moment of tenderness, one of those sudden fits of melancholy which come over you, one of those longings to open, your arms, to love, to cherish something, which we all have at certain moments.

"You know my husband, and you know how fond I am of him; but he is mature and sensible, and cannot even comprehend the tender vibrations of a woman's heart. He is always the same, always good, always smiling, always kind, always perfect. Oh! how I sometimes have wished that he would clasp me roughly in his arms, that he would embrace me with those slow, sweet kisses which make two beings intermingle, which are like mute confidences! How I have wished that he were foolish, even weak, so that he should have need of me, of my caresses, of my tears!

"This all seems very silly; but we women are made like that. How can we help it?

"And yet the thought of deceiving him never entered my mind. Now it has happened, without love, without reason, without anything, simply because the moon shone one night on the Lake of Lucerne.

"During the month when we were travelling together, my husband, with his calm indifference, paralyzed my enthusiasm, extinguished my poetic ardor. When we were descending the mountain paths at sunrise, when as the four horses galloped along with the diligence, we saw, in the transparent morning haze, valleys, woods, streams, and villages, I clasped my hands with delight, and said to him: 'How beautiful it is, dear! Give me a kiss! Kiss me now!' He only answered, with a smile of chilling kindliness: 'There is no reason why we should kiss each other because you like the landscape.'

"And his words froze me to the heart. It seems to me that when people love each other, they ought to feel more moved by love than ever, in the presence of beautiful scenes.

"In fact, I was brimming over with poetry which he kept me from expressing. I was almost like a boiler filled with steam and hermetically sealed.

"One evening (we had for four days been staying in a hotel at Fluelen) Robert, having one of his sick headaches, went to bed immediately after dinner, and I went to take a walk all alone along the edge of the lake.

"It was a night such as one reads of in fairy tales. The full moon showed itself in the middle of the sky; the tall mountains, with their snowy crests, seemed to wear silver crowns; the waters of the lake glittered with tiny shining ripples. The air was mild, with that kind of penetrating warmth which enervates us till we are ready to faint, to be deeply affected without any apparent cause. But how sensitive, how vibrating the heart is at such moments! how quickly it beats, and how intense is its emotion!

"I sat down on the grass, and gazed at that vast, melancholy, and fascinating lake, and a strange feeling arose in me; I was seized with an insatiable need of love, a revolt against the gloomy dullness of my life. What! would it never be my fate to wander, arm in arm, with a man I loved, along a moon-kissed bank like this? Was I never to feel on my lips those kisses so deep, delicious, and intoxicating which lovers exchange on nights that seem to have been made by God for tenderness? Was I never to know ardent, feverish love in the moonlit shadows of a summer's night?

"And I burst out weeping like a crazy woman. I heard something stirring behind me. A man stood there, gazing at me. When I turned my head round, he recognized me, and, advancing, said:

"'You are weeping, madame?'

"It was a young barrister who was travelling with his mother, and whom we had often met. His eyes had frequently followed me.

"I was so confused that I did not know what answer to give or what to think of the situation. I told him I felt ill.

"He walked on by my side in a natural and respectful manner, and began talking to me about what we had seen during our trip. All that I had felt he translated into words; everything that made me thrill he understood perfectly, better than I did myself. And all of a sudden he repeated some verses of Alfred de Musset. I felt myself choking, seized with indescribable emotion. It seemed to me that the mountains themselves, the lake, the moonlight, were singing to me about things ineffably sweet.

"And it happened, I don't know how, I don't know why, in a sort of hallucination.

"As for him, I did not see him again till the morning of his departure.

"He gave me his card!"

And, sinking into her sister's arms, Madame Letore broke into groans-- almost into shrieks.

Then, Madame Roubere, with a self-contained and serious air, said very gently:

"You see, sister, very often it is not a man that we love, but love itself. And your real lover that night was the moonlight."

Summary and Analysis of Clay

Summary:

Maria works at the Dublin by Lamplight laundry, a charitable institution run by protestants. The laundry is for fallen women and alcoholics, and busies them with useful work; Maria is not one of its charity cases, but is a regular worker who helps keep things together. She is known as a peacemaker and a thoroughly competent woman. She boards there, and she enjoys her work; she has even come to like the Protestants who work there. She got the work through the help of her friends, Joe and Alphy, two brothers whom she helped to raise.

Tonight is All Hallow's Eve, or Hallowe'en. She is going over to Joe's to enjoy an evening of fun and singing with Joe and his family. When work is finished, she's happy to go and get ready for the celebration. In her little bedroom, she gets dressed. She also remembers that tomorrow is a holy day of obligation, so she sets her alarm for six instead of seven. She notes to herself that her body is still trim and in shape despite her age, and sets off.

She looks forward to the evening, and reflects on the simple joy of her independence. She also reflects sadly on Joe and Alphy: though they are brothers and were once the best of friends, they are no longer speaking to each other. For the children, she buys some penny cakes at Downe's. Then she goes to a shop in Henry Street, where she fusses over getting a perfect slice of plum cake as a special treat. It costs two shillings and four pence, a princely sum for Maria. On the tram, she fears she is going to have to stand; the young men simply stare at her. But finally an older gentleman lets her have his seat. They chat about Hallow Eve and the treats.

At Joe's house she is greeted warmly, and she gives the children their cakes. But in a panic she realizes she cannot find the plum cake. She asks the children if they have taken it and eaten it by mistake, and the children resentfully reply that they haven't. Finally, she accepts that she must have left it on the tram. When she thinks of the expense and the surprise she wanted to give them, she nearly cries.

Joe and Maria sit by the fire. He is exceedingly nice to her, playing host and pressing her to drink. She tries to bring up the matter of Alphy, but Joe becomes very angry. Mrs. Donnelly also tries to put in a word in favor of reconciliation, but this nearly starts a fight until Joe calms himself and insists on dropping the subject.

They start to play the traditional Irish divination games of Hallowe'en, where one is led blindfolded to a table and made to pick out an object. The girls from next-door put out the objects. The chosen object predicts the future. When Maria takes her turn, she feels something wet and slippery. She hears some muffled words, and Mrs. Donnely says crossly that the object is not appropriate. She insists that it be thrown out. Maria chooses again, and gets a prayer book.

After that, the children move on to another game. Joe presses Maria to drink, and Mrs. Donnelly says lightly that Maria will enter a convent because she chose the prayer book. Soon, Joe and Mrs. Donnelly pressure Maria to sing. Maria shyly sings I Dreamt that I Dwelt. She sings the first verse twice, but no one corrects her. The song moves Joe to tears.

Analysis:

Joyce's portrait of Maria is one of his most skilful accomplishments in the collection. Certainly, she is one of the book's most appealing characters.

She is a hard-working, good-hearted old woman. She is tolerant, not unwilling to work among Protestants or social outcasts. She works hard at the shelter, helping fallen women to begin a new life. Her Protestants are tolerant of her religion, but will not make allowances for her religious obligations: we see her setting the alarm for six in the morning, so that she can attend mass before work the next day.

Poverty, as before, is a theme. Maria's loss of the cake is especially painful because the price was such an exorbitant one, considering her modest means. Here we see a character trying to treat her loved ones despite her limited funds. Her loss of the cake is especially sad in this light.

Subtle hints about previously higher socio-economic status are dropped. For one thing, these two brothers she nursed seem well off enough, though not wealthy. And the song that she sings, repeating the first verse twice, comes from a work about a woman who moves from riches to rags. When Joe cries, he may be weeping because Maria's own situation is mirrored by the song.

But there are other reasons to weep. The tone of much of the story is poignant, sweet and sad at once, which is somewhat rare in this collection. Most of the stories have a much harder edge. This story is yet another tale dealing with relationships between generations, and Joe may be weeping because his beloved Maria is not long for this world. She is an old woman, whose life has not been easy. And the object she chooses during the divination game is clay: traditionally, this object was the omen of approaching death.

Theme of the Traitor and the Hero

By Jorge Luis Borges.

"Theme of the Traitor and the Hero"

Author

Jorge Luis Borges

Original title

"Tema del traidor y del héroe"

Country

Argentina

Language

Spanish

Genre(s)

Fantasy, short story

Published in

Artifices

Media type

Print

Publication date

1944

"Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" (original Spanish title: "Tema del traidor y del héroe") is a short story by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges originally published in 1944 in number 112 of the review Sur.

Theme Of The Traitor And The Hero "That history should have imitated history was already sufficiently astonishing; that history should imitate literature is inconceivable. . . ." Plot Summary & Historical Background: Settings - The Narrative is set in Ireland in 1824. However Borges is only using this as an example. He says " The action takes place in a oppressed and tenacious country: Poland, Ireland, The Venetian Republic, some South American or Balkan state". This universalises the story of Kilpatrick and the experience of Ryan showing it has happened everywhere. It ends with Ryan deciding to keep silent the discovery that his great-grandfather was a traitor to the same cause to which history had deemed him a hero. The wants to preserve his heroic image and people's passion for the rebellious cause. Ryan decides to keep quiet and be part of Kilpatrick's story. Borges observed that his readers would find parallel between the story and that of Julius Caesar. Consequently, he is trying to show that it is not a coincidence, and that every event in history has its parallel in Literature and vice-versa. History is a combination of repeating themes. Nothing like free will. We are all just characters acting based on what has been predetermined.

A Collection of Modern Fiction

Fabulation: Introduction

Fabulation is a term sometimes used interchangeably with metafiction and relates to pastiche and Magical Realism. It is a rejection of realism which embraces the notion that literature is a created work and not bound by notions of mimesis and verisimilitude. Thus, fabulation challenges some traditional notions of literature -- the traditional structure of a novel or role of the narrator, for example -- and integrates other traditional notions of storytelling, including fantastical elements, such as magic and myth, or elements from popular genres such as science fiction. By some accounts, the term was coined by Robert Scholes in his book The Fabulators. A good example of fabulation is Salman Rushdie´s Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

THE PURLOINED LETTER

by Edgar Allan Poe
(1845)

Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio. - Seneca.

At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18--, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library, or book-closet, au troisieme, No. 33, Rue Dunot, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Roget. I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G--, the Prefect of the Parisian police.

We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down again, without doing so, upon G.'s saying that he had called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble.

"If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as he forbore to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it to better purpose in the dark."

"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities."

"Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe, and rolled towards him a comfortable chair.

"And what is the difficulty now?" I asked. "Nothing more in the assassination way, I hope?"

"Oh no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd."

"Simple and odd," said Dupin.

"Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet baffles us altogether."

"Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at fault," said my friend.

"What nonsense you do talk!" replied the Prefect, laughing heartily.

"Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain," said Dupin.

"Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?"

"A little too self-evident."

"Ha! ha! ha! --ha! ha! ha! --ho! ho! ho!" --roared our visitor, profoundly amused, "oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!"

"And what, after all, is the matter on hand?" I asked.

"Why, I will tell you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long, steady, and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. "I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position I now hold, were it known that I confided it to any one.

"Proceed," said I.

"Or not," said Dupin.

"Well, then; I have received personal information, from a very high quarter, that a certain document of the last importance, has been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it is known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is known, also, that it still remains in his possession."

"How is this known?" asked Dupin.

"It is clearly inferred," replied the Prefect, "from the nature of the document, and from the nonappearance of certain results which would at once arise from its passing out of the robber's possession; --that is to say, from his employing it as he must design in the end to employ it."

"Be a little more explicit," I said.

"Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.

"Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin.

"No? Well; the disclosure of the document to a third person, who shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a personage of most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honor and peace are so jeopardized."

"But this ascendancy," I interposed, "would depend upon the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare--"

"The thief," said G., is the Minister D--, who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question --a letter, to be frank --had been received by the personage robbed while alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and, the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture enters the Minister D--. His lynx eye immediately perceives the paper, recognises the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner, he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to the other. Again he converses, for some fifteen minutes, upon the public affairs. At length, in taking leave, he takes also from the table the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw, but, of course, dared not call attention to the act, in the presence of the third personage who stood at her elbow. The minister decamped; leaving his own letter --one of no importance --upon the table."

"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what you demand to make the ascendancy complete --the robber's knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber."

"Yes," replied the Prefect; "and the power thus attained has, for some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced, every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has committed the matter to me."

"Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, "no more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even imagined."

"You flatter me," replied the Prefect; "but it is possible that some such opinion may have been entertained."

"It is clear," said I, "as you observe, that the letter is still in possession of the minister; since it is this possession, and not any employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With the employment the power departs."

"True," said G. "and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first care was to make thorough search of the minister's hotel; and here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which would result from giving him reason to suspect our design."

"But," said I, "you are quite au fait in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing often before."

"Oh yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent from home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They sleep at a distance from their master's apartment, and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a night has not passed, during the greater part of which I have not been engaged, personally, in ransacking the D-- Hotel. My honor is interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a more astute man than myself. I fancy that I have investigated every nook and corner of the premises in which it is possible that the paper can be concealed."

"But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter may be in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?"

"This is barely possible," said Dupin. "The present peculiar condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in which D-- is known to be involved, would render the instant availability of the document --its susceptibility of being produced at a moment's notice --a point of nearly equal importance with its possession."

"Its susceptibility of being produced?" said I.

"That is to say, of being destroyed," said Dupin.

"True," I observed; "the paper is clearly then upon the premises. As for its being upon the person of the minister, we may consider that as out of the question."

"Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, as if by footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my own inspection.

"You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. "D--, I presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have anticipated these waylayings, as a matter of course."

"Not altogether a fool," said G., "but then he's a poet, which I take to be only one remove from a fool."

"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggerel myself."

"Suppose you detail," said I, "the particulars of your search."

"Why the fact is, we took our time, and we searched every where. I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire building, room by room; devoting the nights of a whole week to each. We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained police agent, such a thing as a secret drawer is impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk --of space --to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we removed the tops."

"Why so?"

"Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed in the same way."

"But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?" I asked.

"By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged to proceed without noise."

"But you could not have removed --you could not have taken to pieces all articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a large knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the chairs?"

"Certainly not; but we did better --we examined the rungs of every chair in the hotel, and, indeed, the jointings of every description of furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have been as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the glueing --any unusual gaping in the joints --would have sufficed to insure detection."

"I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well as the curtains and carpets."

"That of course; and when we had absolutely completed every particle of the furniture in this way, then we examined the house itself. We divided its entire surface into compartments, which we numbered, so that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each individual square inch throughout the premises, including the two houses immediately adjoining, with the microscope, as before."

"The two houses adjoining!" I exclaimed; "you must have had a great deal of trouble."

"We had; but the reward offered is prodigious.

"You include the grounds about the houses?"

"All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it undisturbed."

"You looked among D--'s papers, of course, and into the books of the library?"

"Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured the thickness of every book-cover, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally, with the needles."

"You explored the floors beneath the carpets?"

"Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with the microscope."

"And the paper on the walls?"

"Yes.

"You looked into the cellars?"

"We did."

"Then," I said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and the letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose.

"I fear you are right there," said the Prefect. "And now, Dupin, what would you advise me to do?"

"To make a thorough re-search of the premises."

"That is absolutely needless," replied G--. "I am not more sure that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the Hotel."

"I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. "You have, of course, an accurate description of the letter?"

"Oh yes!" --And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum-book, proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and especially of the external appearance of the missing document. Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known the good gentleman before.

In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit, and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair and entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I said,--

"Well, but G--, what of the purloined letter? I presume you have at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching the Minister?"

"Confound him, say I --yes; I made the reexamination, however, as Dupin suggested --but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be."

"How much was the reward offered, did you say?" asked Dupin.

"Why, a very great deal --a very liberal reward --I don't like to say how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I wouldn't mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one who could obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more and more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If it were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done."

"Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of his meerschaum, "I really --think, G--, you have not exerted yourself--to the utmost in this matter. You might --do a little more, I think, eh?"

"How? --In what way?"

"Why --puff, puff --you might --puff, puff --employ counsel in the matter, eh? --puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story they tell of Abernethy?"

"No; hang Abernethy!"

"To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain rich miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the physician, as that of an imaginary individual.

"'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are such and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take?'

"'Take!' said Abernethy, 'why, take advice, to be sure.'"

"But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, "I am perfectly willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give fifty thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter."

"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check for the amount mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter."

I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunderstricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, less, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then, apparently in some measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an escritoire, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously from the room and from the house, without having uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.

When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations.

"The Parisian police," he said, "are exceedingly able in their way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when G-- detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel D--, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory investigation --so far as his labors extended."

"So far as his labors extended?" said I.

"Yes," said Dupin. "The measures adopted were not only the best of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would, beyond a question, have found it."

I merely laughed --but he seemed quite serious in all that he said.

"The measures, then," he continued, "were good in their kind, and well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case, and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow, for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, 'are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy replies, 'odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself, the simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess odd'; --he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself upon the first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before. I will therefore guess even' guesses even, and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed "lucky," --what, in its last analysis, is it?"

"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent."

"It is," said Dupin;" and, upon inquiring of the boy by what means he effected the thorough identification in which his success consisted, I received answer as follows: 'When I wish to find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' This response of the schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucauld, to La Bougive, to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."

"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright upon the accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."

"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; and the Prefect and his cohort fall so frequently, first, by default of this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are engaged. They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they would have hidden it. They are right in this much --that their own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of the mass; but when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from their own, the felon foils them, of course. This always happens when it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by some unusual emergency --by some extraordinary reward --they extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching their principles. What, for example, in this case of D--, has been done to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the surface of the building into registered square inches --what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he has taken it for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter, --not exactly in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg --but, at least, in some hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg? And do you not see also, that such recherches nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the article concealed --a disposal of it in this recherche manner, --is, in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the seekers; and where the case is of importance --or, what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the reward is of magnitude, --the qualities in question have never been known to fall. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits of the Prefect's examination --in other words, had the principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles of the Prefect --its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified; and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are fools."

"But is this really the poet?" I asked. "There are two brothers, I know; and both have attained reputation in letters. The Minister I believe has written learnedly on the Differential Calculus. He is a mathematician, and no poet."

"You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet and mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician, he could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of the Prefect."

"You surprise me," I said, "by these opinions, which have been contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence.

"'Il y a a parier,'" replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, "'que toute idee publique, toute convention recue, est une sottise, car elle a convenu au plus grand nombre.' The mathematicians, I grant you, have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you allude, and which is none the less an error for its promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. The French are the originators of this particular deception; but if a term is of any importance --if words derive any value from applicability --then 'analysis' conveys 'algebra' about as much as, in Latin, 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,' 'religio' religion or 'homines honesti,' a set of honorable men."

"You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, "with some of the algebraists of Paris; but proceed."

"I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study. The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra, are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth. What is true of relation --of form and quantity --is often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter science it is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal to the whole. In chemistry also the axiom falls. In the consideration of motive it falls; for two motives, each of a given value, have not, necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of their values apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which are only truths within the limits of relation. But the mathematician argues, from his finite truths, through habit, as if they were of an absolutely general applicability --as the world indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, in his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions an analogous source of error, when he says that 'although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences from them as existing realities.' With the algebraists, however, who are Pagans themselves, the 'Pagan fables' are believed, and the inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his faith that x squared + px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that you believe occasions may occur where x squared + px is not altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down.

I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last observations, "that if the Minister had been no more than a mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of giving me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered, could not fall to be aware of the ordinary policial modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate --and events have proved that he did not fail to anticipate --the waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the conviction to which G--, in fact, did finally arrive --the conviction that the letter was not upon the premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought, which I was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the invariable principle of policial action in searches for articles concealed --I felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the Minister. It would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks of concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so very self-evident."

"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he would have fallen into convulsions."

"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the first few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of the street signs, over the shop doors, are the most attractive of attention?"

"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.

"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a map. One party playing requires another to find a given word --the name of town, river, state or empire --any word, in short, upon the motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These, like the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.

"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating ingenuity of D--; upon the fact that the document must always have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good purpose; and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was not hidden within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search --the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.

"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the Ministerial hotel. I found D-- at home, yawning, lounging, and dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now alive --but that is only when nobody sees him.

"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the apartment, while seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host.

"I paid special attention to a large writing-table near which he sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters and other papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to excite particular suspicion.

"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling by a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter. This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the middle --as if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been altered, or stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal, bearing the D-- cipher very conspicuously, and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D--, the minister, himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into one of the upper divisions of the rack.

"No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance, radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D-- cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S-- family. Here, the address, to the Minister, was diminutive and feminine; there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But, then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D--, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document; these things, together with the hyperobtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to suspect.

"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister, on a topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed, and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good morning, and took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.

"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of fearful screams, and the shoutings of a mob. D-- rushed to a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac-simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I had carefully prepared at my lodgings; imitating the D-- cipher, very readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.

"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When he had gone, D-came from the window, whither I had followed him immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay.

"But what purpose had you," I asked, in replacing the letter by a fac-simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to have seized it openly, and departed?"

"D--," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations. You know my political prepossessions. In this matter, I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has had her in his power. She has now him in hers; since, being unaware that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the facilis descensus Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the present instance I have no sympathy --at least no pity --for him who descends. He is the monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know the precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the Prefect terms 'a certain personage,' he is reduced to opening the letter which I left for him in the card-rack."

"How? did you put any thing particular in it?"

"Why --it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank --that would have been insulting. D--, at Vienna once, did me an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words--

--Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atree, est digne de Thyeste.

They are to be found in Crebillon's 'Atree.'"

Summary and Analysis of THE PURLOINED LETTER

"The Purloined Letter" is a short story by American author Edgar Allan Poe. It is the third of his three detective stories featuring the fictional C. Auguste Dupin, the other two being "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt". These stories are considered to be important early forerunners of the modern detective story. It first appeared in The Gift for 1845 (1844) and was soon reprinted in numeous journals and newspapers.

Plot summary

The letter stolen again

An unnamed narrator is discussing with the famous Parisian amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin some of his most celebrated cases when they are joined by the Prefect of the Police, a man known as G—. The Prefect has a case he would like to discuss with Dupin.

A letter has been stolen from the private sitting room of an unnamed female by the unscrupulous Minister D—. It is said to contain compromising information. D— was in the room, saw the letter, and switched it for a letter of no importance. He has been blackmailing his victim.

The Prefect makes two deductions with which Dupin does not disagree:

1.) The contents of the letter have not been revealed, as this would have led to certain circumstances that have not arisen. Therefore Minister D— still has the letter in his possession.

2.) The ability to produce the letter at a moment’s notice is almost as important as possession of the letter itself. Therefore he must have the letter close at hand.

The Prefect says that he and his police detectives have searched the Ministerial hotel where D— stays and have found nothing. They checked behind the wallpaper and under the carpets. His men have examined the tables and chairs with microscopes and then probed the cushions with needles but have found no sign of interference; the letter is not hidden in these places. Dupin asks the Prefect if he knows what he is looking for and the Prefect reads off a minute description of the letter, which Dupin memorizes. The Prefect then bids them good day.

A month later, the Prefect returns, still bewildered in his search for the missing letter. He is motivated to continue his fruitless search by the promise of a large reward, recently doubled, upon the letter's safe return, and he will pay 50,000 francs to anyone who can help him. Dupin asks him to write that check now and he will give him the letter. The Prefect is astonished but knows that Dupin is not joking. He writes the check and Dupin produces the letter. The Prefect determines that it is genuine and races off to deliver it to the victim.

Alone together, the narrator asks Dupin how he found the letter. Dupin explains the Paris police are competent within their limitations, but have underestimated who they are dealing with. The Prefect mistakes the Minister D— for a fool because he is a poet. For example, Dupin explains how an eight-year old boy made a small fortune from his friends at a game called "Odds and Evens." The boy was able to determine the intelligence of his opponents and play upon that to interpret their next move. He explains that D— knew the police detectives would have assumed that the blackmailer would have concealed the letter in an elaborate hiding place, and thus hid it in plain sight.

Dupin says he had visited the minister at his hotel. Complaining of weak eyes he wore a pair of green spectacles, the true purpose of which was to disguise his eyes as he searched for the letter. In a cheap card rack hanging from a dirty ribbon, he saw a half-torn letter and recognized it as the letter of the story's title. Striking up a conversation with D— about a subject in which the minister is interested, Dupin examined the letter more closely. It did not resemble the letter the Prefect described so minutely; the writing was different and it was sealed not with the "ducal arms" of the S— family, but with D—'s monogram. Dupin noticed that the paper was chafed as if the stiff paper was first rolled one way and then another. Dupin concluded that D— wrote a new address on the reverse of the stolen one, re-folded it the opposite way and sealed it with his own seal.

Dupin left a snuff box behind as an excuse to return the next day. Striking up the same conversation they had begun the previous day, D— was startled by a gunshot in the street. While he went to investigate, Dupin switched D—'s letter for a duplicate.

Dupin explains that he left a duplicate to ensure his ability to leave the hotel without D— suspecting his actions. As a political supporter of the Queen and old enemy of the Minister, Dupin also hopes that D— will try to use the power he no longer has, to his political downfall, and at the end be presented with an insulting note that implies Dupin was the thief: Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne de Thyeste (If such a sinister design isn't worthy of Atreus, it is worthy of Thyestes).

Analysis

The epigraph "Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio" (Nothing is more hateful to wisdom than excessive cleverness) given by Poe to Seneca was not found in his known work.

Dupin is not a professional detective. In "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Dupin takes up the case for amusement and refuses a financial reward. In "The Purloined Letter," however, Dupin undertakes the case for financial gain. He is not motivated by pursuing truth, emphasized by the lack of information about the contents of the purloined letter.[1] Dupin's innovative method to solve the mystery is by trying to identify with the criminal.[2] The Minister and Dupin have equally matched minds, combining skills of mathematician and poet,[3] and their battle of wits is threatened to end in stalemate. Dupin wins because of his moral strength: the Minister is "unprincipled," a blackmailer who obtains power by exploiting the weakness of others.[4]

Poe may have identified with both Dupin and D—. Like Poe, these two characters command both the power of analysis and a strong imagination.[3]

"The Purloined Letter" completes Dupin's tour of different settings. In "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" he travels through city streets; in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" he is in the wide outdoors; in "The Purloined Letter" he is in an enclosed private space.[5] French linguist Jean-Claude Milner offered in Détections fictives , Le Seuil, collection « Fictions & Cie », 1985, supporting evidence that Dupin and D— are brothers, based on the final reference to Atreus and his twin brother, Thyestes.

Literary significance and criticism

In May 1844 Poe wrote to James Russell Lowell that he considered it "perhaps the best of my tales of ratiocination" just before its first publication. Of Poe's three tales of ratiocination, "The Purloined Letter" is generally considered the best.[6][3] When it was republished in the 1845 edition of The Gift, the editor called it "one of the aptest illustrations which could well be conceived of that curious play of two minds in one person."[7]

The story was used by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the philosopher Jacques Derrida to present opposing interpretations: Lacan's at once structuralist, Derrida's mystical, depending on deconstructive chance.[8] The two exchanged a series of letters concerning the nature of desire.[citation needed]

Publication history

This story first appeared in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1844. Poe earned $12 for its first printing.[9] It was later included in the 1845 collection Tales By Edgar A. Poe.

The Magic Barrel

Bernard Malamud

Not long ago there lived in uptown New York, in a small, almost meager(meager adj. (Brit. meagre) 1 scant in amount or quality. 2 lean, thin. [Anglo-French megre from Latin macer] ) room, though crowded with books, Leo Finkle, a rabbinical student in the Yeshivah University. Finkle, after six years of study, was to be ordained in June and had been advised by an acquaintance that he might find it easier to win himself a congregation(congregation n. 1 gathering of people, esp. for religious worship. 2 body of persons regularly attending a particular church etc. [Latin: related to *congregate]) if he were married. Since he had no present prospects of marriage, after two tormented days of turning it over in his mind, he called in Pinye Salzman, a marriage broker whose two-line advertisement he had read in the Forward.

The matchmaker appeared one night out of the dark fourth-floor hallway of the graystone rooming house where Finkle lived, grasping a black, strapped portfolio that had been worn thin with use. Salzman, who had been long in the business, was of slight but dignified build, wearing an old hat, and an overcoat too short and tight for him. He smelled frankly of fish, which he loved to eat, and although he was missing a few teeth, his presence was not displeasing, because of an amiable manner curiously contrasted with mournful eyes. His voice, his lips, his wisp of beard, his bony fingers were animated, but give him a moment of repose and his mild blue eyes revealed a depth of sadness, a characteristic that put Leo a little at ease although the situation, for him, was inherently tense.

He at once informed Salzman why he had asked him to come, explaining that his home was in Cleveland, and that but for his parents, who had married comparatively late in life, he was alone in the world. He had for six years devoted himself almost entirely to his studies, as a result of which, understandably, he had found himself without time for a social life and the company of young women. Therefore he thought it the better part of trial and error--of embarrassing fumbling--to call in an experienced person to advise him on these matters. He remarked in passing that the function of the marriage broker was ancient and honorable, highly approved in the Jewish community, because it made practical the necessary without hindering joy. Moreover, his own parents had been brought together by a matchmaker. They had made, if not a financially profitable marriage--since neither had possessed any worldly goods to speak of--at least a successful one in the sense of their everlasting devotion to each other. Salzman listened in embarrassed surprise, sensing a sort of apology. Later, however, he experienced a glow of pride in his work, an emotion that had left him years ago, and he heartily approved of Finkle.

The two went to their business. Leo had led Salzman to the only clear place in the room, a table near a window that overlooked the lamp-lit city. He seated himself at the matchmaker's side but facing him, attempting by an act of will to suppress the unpleasant tickle in his throat. Salzman eagerly unstrapped his portfolio and removed a loose rubber band from a thin packet of much-handled cards. As he flipped through them, a gesture and sound that physically hurt Leo, the student pretended not to see and gazed steadfastly out the window. Although it was still February, winter was on its last legs, signs of which he had for the first time in years begun to notice. He now observed the round white moon, moving high in the sky through a cloud menagerie, and watched with half-open mouth as it penetrated a huge hen, and dropped out of her like an egg laying itself. Salzman, though pretending through eye-glasses he had just slipped on, to be engaged in scanning the writing on the cards, stole occasional glances at the young man's distinguished face, noting with pleasure the long, severe scholar's nose, brown eyes heavy with learning, sensitive yet ascetic lips, and a certain, almost hollow quality of the dark cheeks. He gazed around at shelves upon shelves of books and let out a soft, contented sigh.

When Leo's eyes fell upon the cards, he counted six spread out in Salzman's hand.

"So few?" he asked in disappointment.

"You wouldn't believe me how much cards I got in my office," Salzman replied. "The drawers are already filled to the top, so I keep them now in a barrel, but is every girl good for a new rabbi?"

Leo blushed at this, regretting all he had revealed of himself in a curriculum vitae he had sent to Salzman. He had thought it best to acquaint him with his strict standards and specifications, but in having done so, felt he had told the marriage broker more than was absolutely necessary.

He hesitantly inquired, "Do you keep photographs of your clients on file?"

"First comes family, amount of dowry, also what kind of promises," Salzman replied, unbuttoning his tight coat and settling himself in the chair. "After comes pictures, rabbi."

"Call me Mr. Finkle. I'm not yet a rabbi."

Salzman said he would, but instead called him doctor, which he changed to rabbi when Leo was not listening too attentively.

Salzman adjusted his horn-rimmed spectacles, gently cleared his throat and read in an eager voice the contents of the top card:

"Sophie P. Twenty-four years. Widow one year. No children. Educated high school and two years college. Father promises eight thousand dollars. Has wonderful wholesale business. Also real estate. On the mother's side comes teachers, also one actor. Well known on Second Avenue."

Leo gazed up in surprise. "Did you say a widow?"

"A widow don't mean spoiled, rabbi. She lived with her husband maybe four months. He was a sick boy she made a mistake to marry him."

"Marrying a widow has never entered my mind."

"This is because you have no experience. A widow, especially if she is young and healthy like this girl, is a wonderful person to marry. She will be thankful to you the rest of her life. Believe me, if I was looking now for a bride, I would marry a widow."

Leo reflected, then shook his head.

Salzman hunched his shoulders in an almost imperceptible gesture of disappointment. He placed the card down on the wooden table and began to read another:

"Lily H. High school teacher. Regular. Not a substitute. Has savings and new Dodge car. Lived in Paris one year. Father is successful dentist thirty-five years. Interested in professional man. Well Americanized family. Wonderful opportunity."

"I knew her personally," said Salzman. "I wish you could see this girl. She is a doll. Also very intelligent. All day you could talk to her about books and theyater and what not. She also knows current events."

"I don't believe you mentioned her age?"

"Her age?" Salzman said, raising his brows. "Her age is thirty-two years."

"Leo said after a while, "I'm afraid that seems a little too old.

Salzman let out a laugh. "So how old are you, rabbi?"

"Twenty-seven."

"So what is the difference, tell me, between twenty-seven and thirty-two? My own wife is seven years older than me. So what did I suffer?--Nothing. If Rothschild's daughter wants to marry you, would you say on account her age, no?"

"Yes," Leo said dryly.

Salzman shook off the no in the eyes. "Five years don't mean a thing. I give you my word that when you will live with her for one week you will forget her age. What does it mean five years--that she lived more and knows more than somebody who is younger? On this girl, God bless her, years are not wasted. Each one that it comes makes better the bargain."

"What subject does she teach in high school?"

"Languages. If you heard the way she speaks French, you will think it is music. I am in the business twenty-five years, and I recommend her with my whole heart. Believe me, I know what I'm talking, rabbi."

"What's on the next card?" Leo said abruptly.

Salzman reluctantly turned up the third card:

"Ruth K. Nineteen years. Honor student. Father offers thirteen thousand cash to the right bridegroom. He is a medical doctor. Stomach specialist with marvelous practice. Brother in law owns garment business. Particular people."

Salzman looked as if he had read his trump card.

"Did you say nineteen?" Leo asked with interest.

"On the dot."

"Is she attractive?" He blushed. "Pretty?"

Salzman kissed his finger tips. "A little doll. On this I give you my word. Let me call the father tonight and you will see what means pretty."

But Leo was troubled. "You're sure she's that young?"

"This I am positive. The father will show you the birth certificate."

"Are you positive there isn't something wrong with her?" Leo insisted.

"Who says there is wrong?"

"I don't understand why an American girl her age should go to a marriage broker."

A smile spread over Salzman's face.

"So for the same reason you went, she comes."

Leo flushed. "I am passed for time."

Salzman, realizing he had been tactless, quickly explained. "The father came, not her. He wants she should have the best, so he looks around himself. When we will locate the right boy he will introduce him and encourage. This makes a better marriage than if a young girl without experience takes for herself. I don't have to tell you this."

"But don't you think this young girl believes in love?" Leo spoke uneasily.

Salzman was about was about to guffaw but caught himself and said soberly, "Love comes with the right person, not before."

Leo parted dry lips but did not speak. Noticing that Salzman had snatched a glance at the next card, he cleverly asked, "How is her health?"

"Perfect," Salzman said, breathing with difficulty. "Of course, she is a little lame on her right foot from an auto accident that it happened to her when she was twelve years, but nobody notices on account she is so brilliant and also beautiful."

Leo got up heavily and went to the window. He felt curiously bitter and upbraided himself for having called in the marriage broker. Finally, he shook his head.

"Why not?" Salzman persisted, the pitch of his voice rising.

"Because I detest stomach specialists."

"So what do you care what is his business? After you marry her do you need him? Who says he must come every Friday night in your house?"

Ashamed of the way the talk was going, Leo dismissed Salzman, who went home with heavy, melancholy eyes.

Though he had felt only relief at the marriage broker's departure, Leo was in low spirits the next day. He explained it as rising from Salzman's failure to produce a suitable bride for him. He did not care for his type of clientele. But when Leo found himself hesitating whether to seek out another matchmaker, one more polished than Pinye, he wondered if it could be--protestations to the contrary, and although he honored his father and mother--that he did not, in essence, care for the matchmaking institution? This thought he quickly put out of mind yet found himself still upset. All day he ran around the woods--missed an important appointment, forgot to give out his laundry, walked out of a Broadway cafeteria without paying and had to run back with the ticket in his hand; had even not recognized his landlady in the street when she passed with a friend and courteously called out, "A good evening to you, Doctor Finkle." By nightfall, however, he had regained sufficient calm to sink his nose into a book and there found peace from his thoughts.

Almost at once there came a knock on the door. Before Leo could say enter, Salzman, commercial cupid, was standing in the room. His face was gray and meager, his expression hungry, and he looked as if he would expire on his feet. Yet the marriage broker managed, by some trick of the muscles to display a broad smile.

"So good evening. I am invited?"

Leo nodded, disturbed to see him again, yet unwilling to ask the man to leave.

Beaming still, Salzman laid his portfolio on the table. "Rabbi, I got for you tonight good news."

"I've asked you not to call me rabbi. I'm still a student."

"Your worries are finished. I have for you a first-class bride."

"Leave me in peace concerning this subject." Leo pretended lack of interest.

"The world will dance at your wedding."

"Please, Mr. Salzman, no more."

"But first must come back my strength," Salzman said weakly. He fumbled with the portfolio straps and took out of the leather case an oily paper bag, from which he extracted a hard, seeded roll and a small, smoked white fish. With a quick emotion of his hand he stripped the fish out of its skin and began ravenously to chew. "All day in a rush," he muttered.

Leo watched him eat.

"A sliced tomato you have maybe?" Salzman hesitantly inquired.

"No."

The marriage broker shut his eyes and ate. When he had finished he carefully cleaned up the crumbs and rolled up the remains of the fish, in the paper bag. His spectacled eyes roamed the room until he discovered, amid some piles of books, a one-burner gas stove. Lifting his hat he humbly asked, "A glass of tea you got, rabbi?"

Conscience-stricken, Leo rose and brewed the tea. He served it with a chunk of lemon and two cubes of lump sugar, delighting Salzman.

After he had drunk his tea, Salzman's strength and good spirits were restored.

"So tell me rabbi," he said amiably, "you considered some more the three clients I mentioned yesterday?"

"There was no need to consider."

"Why not?"

"None of them suits me."

"What then suits you?"

Leo let it pass because he could give only a confused answer.

Without waiting for a reply, Salzman asked, "You remember this girl I talked to you--the high school teacher?"

"Age thirty-two?"

But surprisingly, Salzman's face lit in a smile. "Age twenty-nine."

Leo shot him a look. "Reduced from thirty-two?"

"A mistake," Salzman avowed. "I talked today with the dentist. He took me to his safety deposit box and showed me the birth certificate. She was twenty-nine years last August. They made her a party in the mountains where she went for her vacation. When her father spoke to me the first time I forgot to write the age and I told you thirty-two, but now I remember this was a different client, a widow."

"The same one you told me about? I thought she was twenty-four?"

"A different. Am I responsible that the world is filled with widows?"

"No, but I'm not interested in them, nor for that matter, in school teachers."

Salzman pulled his clasped hand to his breast. Looking at the ceiling he devoutly exclaimed, "Yiddishe kinder, what can I say to somebody that he is not interested in high school teachers? So what then you are interested?"

Leo flushed but controlled himself.

"In what else will you be interested," Salzman went on, "if you not interested in this fine girl that she speaks four languages and has personally in the bank ten thousand dollars? Also her father guarantees further twelve thousand. Also she has a new car, wonderful clothes, talks on all subjects, and she will give you a first-class home and children. How near do we come in our life to paradise?"

If she's so wonderful, why wasn't she married ten years ago?"

"Why?" said Salzman with a heavy laugh. "--Why? Because she is partikiler. This is why. She wants the best."

Leo was silent, amused at how he had entangled himself. But Salzman had arouse his interest in Lily H., and he began seriously to consider calling on her. When the marriage broker observed how intently Leo's mind was at work on the facts he had supplied, he felt certain they would soon come to an agreement.

Late Saturday afternoon, conscious of Salzman, Leo Finkle walked with Lily Hirschorn along Riverside Drive. He walked briskly and erectly, wearing with distinction the black fedora he had that morning taken with trepidation out of the dusty hat box on his closet shelf, and the heavy black Saturday coat he had throughly whisked clean. Leo also owned a walking stick, a present from a distant relative, but quickly put temptation aside and did not use it. Lily, petite and not unpretty, had on something signifying the approach of spring. She was au courant, animatedly, with all sorts of subjects, and he weighed her words and found her surprisingly sound--score another for Salzman, whom he uneasily sensed to be somewhere around, hiding perhaps high in a tree along the street, flashing the lady signals with a pocket mirror; or perhaps a cloven-hoofed Pan, piping nuptial ditties as he danced his invisible way before them, strewing wild buds on the walk and purple grapes in their path, symbolizing fruit of a union, though there was of course still none.

Lily startled Leo by remarking, "I was thinking of Mr. Salzman, a curious figure, wouldn't you say?"

Not certain what to answer, he nodded.

She bravely went on, blushing, "I for one am grateful for his introducing us. Aren't you?"

He courteously replied, "I am."

"I mean," she said with a little laugh--and it was all in good taste, to at least gave the effect of being not in bad--"do you mind that we came together so?"

He was not displeased with her honesty, recognizing that she meant to set the relationship aright, and understanding that it took a certain amount of experience in life, and courage, to want to do it quite that way. One had to have some sort of past to make that kind of beginning.

He said that he did not mind. Salzman's function was traditional and honorable--valuable for what it might achieve, which, he pointed out, was frequently nothing.

Lily agreed with a sigh. They walked on for a while and she said after a long silence, again with a nervous laugh, "Would you mind if I asked you something a little bit personal? Frankly, I find the subject fascinating." Although Leo shrugged, she went on half embarrassedly, "How was it that you came to your calling? I mean was it a sudden passionate inspiration?"

Leo, after a time, slowly replied, "I was always interested in the Law."

"You saw revealed in it the presence of the Highest?"

He nodded and changed the subject. "I understand that you spent a little time in Paris, Miss Hirschorn?"

"Oh, did Mr. Salzman tell you, Rabbi Finkle?" Leo winced but she went on, "It was ages ago and almost forgotten. I remember I had to return for my sister's wedding."

And Lily would not be put off. "When," she asked in a trembly voice, "did you become enamored of God?"

He stared at her. Then it came to him that she was talking not about Leo Finkle, but of a total stranger, some mystical figure, perhaps even passionate prophet that Salzman had dreamed up for her--no relation to the living or dead. Leo trembled with rage and weakness. The trickster had obviously sold her a bill of goods, just as he had him, who'd expected to become acquainted with a young lady of twenty-nine, only to behold, the moment he laid eyes upon her strained and anxious face, a woman past thirty-five and aging rapidly. Only his self control had kept him this long in her presence.

"I am not," he said gravely, "a talented religious person." and in seeking words to go on, found himself possessed by shame and fear. "I think," he said in a strained manner, "that I came to God not because I love Him, but because I did not."

This confession he spoke harshly because its unexpectedness shook him.

Lily wilted. Leo saw a profusion of loaves of bread go flying like ducks high over his head, not unlike the winged loaves by which he had counted himself to sleep last night. Mercifully, then, it snowed, which he would not put past Salzman's machinations.

He was infuriated with the marriage broker and swore he would throw him out of the room the minute he reappeared. But Salzman did not come that night, and when Leo's anger had subsided, an unaccountable despair grew in its place. At first he thought this was caused by his disappointment in Lily, but before long it became evident that he had involved himself with Salzman without a true knowledge of his own intent. He gradually realized--with an emptiness that seized him with six hands--that he had called in the broker to find him a bride because he was incapable of doing it himself. This terrifying insight he had derived as a result of his meeting and conversation with Lily Hirschorn. Her probing questions had somehow irritated him into revealing --to himself more than her--the true nature of his relationship to God, and from that it had come upon him, with shocking force, that apart from his parents, he had never loved anyone. Or perhaps it went the other way, that he did not love God so well as he might, because he had not loved man. It seemed to Leo that his whole life stood starkly revealed and he saw himself for the first time as he truly was--unloved and loveless. This bitter but somehow not fully unexpected revelation brought him to a point to panic, controlled only by extraordinary effort. He covered his face with his hands and cried.

The week that followed was the worst of his life. He did not eat and lost weight. His beard darkened and grew ragged. He stopped attending seminars and almost never opened a book. He seriously considered leaving the Yeshiva, although he was deeply troubled at the thought of the loss of all his years of study--saw them like pages torn from a book, strewn over the city--and at the devastating effect of this decision upon his parents. But he had lived without knowledge of himself, and never in the Five Books and all the Commentaries--mea culpa--had the truth been revealed to him. He did not know where to turn, and in all this desolating loneliness there was no to whom, although he often thought of Lily but not once could bring himself to go downstairs and make the call. He became touchy and irritable, especially with his landlady, who asked him all manner of personal questions; on the other hand sensing his own disagreeableness, he waylaid her on the stairs and apologized abjectly, until mortified, she ran from him. Out of this, however, he drew the consolation that he was a Jew and that a Jew suffered. But generally, as the long and terrible week drew to a close, he regained his composure and some idea of purpose in life to go on as planned. Although he was imperfect, the ideal was not. As for his quest of a bride, the thought of continuing afflicted him with anxiety and heartburn, yet perhaps with this new knowledge of himself he would be more successful than in the past. Perhaps love would now come to him and a bride to that love. And for this sanctified seeking who needed a Salzman?

The marriage broker, a skeleton with haunted eyes, returned that very night. He looked, withal, the picture of frustrated expectancy--as if he had steadfastly waited the week at Miss Lily Hirschorn's side for a telephone call that never came.

Casually coughing, Salzman came immediately to the point: "So how did you like her?"

Leo's anger rose and he could not refrain from chiding the matchmaker: "Why did you lie to me, Salzman?"

Salzman's pale face went dead white, the world had snowed on him.

"Did you not state that she was twenty-nine?' Leo insisted.

"I give you my word--"

"She was thirty-five, if a day. At least thirty-five."

"Of this don't be too sure. Her father told me--"

"Never mind. The worst of it was that you lied to her."

"How did I lie to her, tell me?"

"You told her things abut me that weren't true. You made out to be more, consequently less than I am. She had in mind a totally different person, a sort of semi-mystical Wonder Rabbi."

"All I said, you was a religious man."

"I can imagine."

Salzman sighed. "This is my weakness that I have," he confessed. "My wife says to me I shouldn't be a salesman, but when I have two fine people that they would be wonderful to be married, I am so happy that I talk too much." He smiled wanly. "This is why Salzman is a poor man."

Leo's anger left him. "Well, Salzman, I'm afraid that's all."

The marriage broker fastened hungry eyes on him.

"You don't want any more a bride?"

"I do," said Leo, "but I have decided to seek her in a different way. I am no longer interested in an arranged marriage. To be frank, I now admit the necessity of premarital love. That is, I want to be in love with the one I marry."

"Love?" said Salzman, astounded. After a moment he remarked "For us, our love is our life, not for the ladies. In the ghetto they--"

"I know, I know," said Leo. "I've thought of it often. Love, I have said to myself, should be a by-product of living and worship rather than its own end. Yet for myself I find it necessary to establish the level of my need and fulfill it."

Salzman shrugged but answered, "Listen, rabbi, if you want love, this I can find for you also. I have such beautiful clients that you will love them the minute your eyes will see them."

Leo smiled unhappily. "I'm afraid you don't understand."

But Salzman hastily unstrapped his portfolio and withdrew a manila packet from it.

"Pictures," he said, quickly laying the envelope on the table.

Leo called after him to take the pictures away, but as if on the wings of the wind, Salzman had disappeared.

March came. Leo had returned to his regular routine. Although he felt not quite himself yet--lacked energy--he was making plans for a more active social life. Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no corners left he would make circles rounder. All the while Salzman's pictures had lain on the table, gathering dust. Occasionally as Leo sat studying, or enjoying a cup of tea, his eyes fell on the manila envelope, but he never opened it.

The days went by and no social life to speak of developed with a member of the opposite sex--it was difficult, given the circumstances of his situation. One morning Leo toiled up the stairs to his room and stared out the window at the city. Although the day was bright his view of it was dark. For some time he watched the people in the street below hurrying along and then turned with a heavy heart to his little room. On the table was the packet. With a sudden relentless gesture he tore it open. For a half-hour he stood by the table in a state of excitement, examining the photographs of the ladies Salzman had included. Finally, with a deep sigh he put them down. There were six, of varying degree of attractiveness, but look at them along enough and they all became Lily Hirschorn: all past their prime, all starved behind bright smiles, not a true personality in the lot. Life, despite their frantic yoohooings, had passed them by; they were pictures in a brief case that stank of fish. After a while, however, as Leo attempted to return the photographs into the envelope, he found in it another, a snapshot of the type taken by a machine for a quarter. He gazed at it a moment and let out a cry.

Her face deeply moved him. Why, he could at first not say. It gave him the impression of youth--spring flowers, yet age--a sense of having been used to the bone, wasted; this came from the eyes, which were hauntingly familiar, yet absolutely strange. He had a vivid impression that he had met her before, but try as he might he could not place her although he could almost recall her name, as he had read it in her own handwriting. No, this couldn't be; he would have remembered her. It was not, he affirmed, that she had an extraordinary beauty--no, though her face was attractive enough; it was that something about her moved him. Feature for feature, even some of the ladies of the photographs could do better; but she lapsed forth to this heart--had lived, or wanted to--more than just wanted, perhaps regretted how she had lived--had somehow deeply suffered: it could be seen in the depths of those reluctant eyes, and from the way the light enclosed and shone from her, and within her, opening realms of possibility: this was her own. Her he desired. His head ached and eyes narrowed with the intensity of his gazing, then as if an obscure fog had blown up in the mind, he experienced fear of her and was aware that he had received an impression, somehow, of evil. He shuddered, saying softly, it is thus with us all. Leo brewed some tea in a small pot and sat sipping it without sugar, to calm himself. But before he had finished drinking, again with excitement he examined the face and found it good: good for Leo Finkle. Only such a one could understand him and help him seek whatever he was seeking. She might, perhaps, love him. How she had happened to be among the discards in Salzman's barrel he could never guess, but he knew he must urgently go find her.

Leo rushed downstairs, grabbed up the Bronx telephone book, and searched for Salzman's home address. He was not listed, nor was his office. Neither was he in the Manhattan book. But Leo remembered having written down the address on a slip of paper after he had read Salzman's advertisement in the "personals" column of the Forward. He ran up to his room and tore through his papers, without luck. It was exasperating. Just when he needed the matchmaker he was nowhere to be found. Fortunately Leo remembered to look in his wallet. There on a card he found his name written and a Bronx address. No phone number was listed, the reason--Leo now recalled--he had originally communicated with Salzman by letter. He got on his coat, put a hat on over his skull cap and hurried to the subway station. All the way to the far end of the Bronx he sat on the edge of his seat. He was more than once tempted to take out the picture and see if the girl's face was as he remembered it, but he refrained, allowing the snapshot to remain in his inside coat pocket, content to have her so close. When the train pulled into the station he was waiting at the door and bolted out. He quickly located the street Salzman had advertised.

The building he sought was less than a block from the subway, but it was not an office building, nor even a loft, nor a store in which one could rent office space. It was a very old tenement house. Leo found Salzman's name in pencil on a soiled tag under the bell and climbed three dark flights to his apartment. When he knocked, the door was opened by a think, asthmatic, gray-haired woman in felt slippers.

"Yes?" she said, expecting nothing. She listened without listening. He could have sworn he had seen her, too, before but knew it was an illusion.

"Salzman--does he live here? Pinye Salzman," he said, "the matchmaker?"

She stared at him a long minute. "Of course."

He felt embarrassed. "Is he in?"

"No." Her mouth, thought left open, offered nothing more.

"The matter is urgent. Can you tell me where his office is?"

"In the air." She pointed upward.

"You mean he has no office?" Leo asked.

"In his socks."

He peered into the apartment. It was sunless and dingy, one large room divided by a half-open curtain, beyond which he could see a sagging metal bed. The near side of the room was crowded with rickety chairs, old bureaus, a three-legged table, racks of cooking utensils, and all the apparatus of a kitchen. But there was no sign of Salzman or his magic barrel, probably also a figment of the imagination. An odor of frying fish made weak to the knees.

"Where is he?" he insisted. "I've got to see your husband."

At length she answered, "So who knows where he is? Every time he thinks a new thought he runs to a different place. Go home, he will find you."

"Tell him Leo Finkle."

She gave no sign she had heard.

He walked downstairs, depressed.

But Salzman, breathless, stood waiting at his door.

Leo was astounded and overjoyed. "How did you get here before me?"

"I rushed."

"Come inside."

They entered. Leo fixed tea, and a sardine sandwich for Salzman. As they were drinking he reached behind him for the packet of pictures and handed them to the marriage broker.

Salzman put down his glass and said expectantly, "You found somebody you like?"

"Not among these."

The marriage broker turned away.

"Here is the one I want." Leo held forth the snapshot.

Salzman slipped on his glasses and took the picture into his trembling hand. He turned ghastly and let out a groan.

"What's the matter?" cried Leo.

"Excuse me. Was an accident this picture. She isn't for you?"

Salzman frantically shoved the manila packet into his portfolio. He thrust the snapshot into his pocket and fled down the stairs.

Leo, after momentary paralysis, gave chase and cornered the marriage broker in the vestibule. The landlady made hysterical out cries but neither of them listened.

"Give me back the picture, Salzman."

"No." The pain in his eyes was terrible.

"Tell me who she is then."

"This I can't tell you. Excuse me."

He made to depart, but Leo, forgetting himself, seized the matchmaker by his tight coat and shook him frenziedly.

"Please," sighed Salzman. "Please."

Leo ashamedly let him go. "Tell me who she is," he begged. "It's very important to me to know."

"She is not for you. She is a wild one--wild, without shame. This is not a bride for a rabbi."

"What do you mean wild?"

"Like an animal. Like a dog. For her to be poor was a sin. This is why to me she is dead now."

"In God's name, what do you mean?"

"Her I can't introduce to you," Salzman cried.

"Why are you so excited?"

"Why, he asks," Salzman said, bursting into tear. "This is my baby, my Stella, she should burn in hell."

Leo hurried up to bed and hid under the covers. Under the covers he thought his life through. Although he soon fell asleep he could not sleep her out of his mind. He woke, beating his breast. Though he prayed to be rid of her, his prayers went unanswered. Through days of torment he endlessly struggled not to love her; fearing success, he escaped it. He then concluded to convert her to goodness, himself to God. The idea alternately nauseated and exalted him.

He perhaps did not know that he had come to a final decision until he encountered Salzman in a Broadway cafeteria. He was sitting alone at a rear table, sucking the bony remains of a fish. The marriage broker appeared haggard, and transparent to the point of vanishing.

Salzman looked up at first without recognizing him. Leo had grown a pointed beard and his eyes were weighted with wisdom.

"Salzman," he said, "love has at last come to my heart."

"Who can love from a picture?" mocked the marriage broker.

"It is not impossible."

"If you can love her, then you can love anybody. Let me show you some new clients that they just sent me their photographs. One is a little doll."

"Just her I want," Leo murmured.

"Don't be a fool, doctor Don't bother with her."

"Put me in touch with her, Salzman," Leo said humbly. "Perhaps I can be of service."

Salzman had stopped eating and Leo understood with emotion that it was now arranged.

Leaving the cafeteria, he was, however, afflicted by a tormenting suspicion that Salzman had planned it all to happen this way.

Leo was informed by better that she would meet him on a certain corner, and she was there one spring night, waiting under a street lamp. He appeared carrying a small bouquet of violets and rosebuds. Stella stood by the lamp post, smoking. She wore white with red shoes, which fitted his expectations, although in a troubled moment he had imagined the dress red, and only the shoes white. She waited uneasily and shyly. From afar he saw that her eyes--clearly her father's--were filled with desperate innocence. He pictured, in her, his own redemption. Violins and lit candles revolved in the sky. Leo ran forward with flowers out-thrust.

Around the corner, Salzman, leaning against a wall, chanted prayers for the dead.

1958

Summary and Analysis of The Magic Barrel.

The Swimmer BY John Cheever

For the song "The Swimmer" by Sleater-Kinney, see All Hands on the Bad One

"The Swimmer" a short story by American author John Cheever, published in 1964 in the short story collection The Brigadier and the Golf Widow. Originally conceived as a novel and pared down from over 150 pages of notes, it is probably Cheever's most famous and frequently anthologized story. At one point Cheever wanted to parallel the tale of Narcissus, a character in Greek mythology who died while staring at his own reflection in a pool of water, which Cheever dismissed as too restrictive. As published, the story is highly praised for its blend of realism and surrealism, the thematic exploration of suburban America, especially the relationship between wealth and happiness, as well as his use of myth and symbolism.

Plot Summary

The story takes place in the affluent suburbs of Westchester County, New York, and focuses on Neddy Merrill, who despite being middle-aged, wants to retain his youth and believes that he is a vibrant individual. He marvels at his trail-blazing idea of "swimming the county". At the beginning of the story, Neddy is at a cocktail party at the Westerhazys' and realizes that by following an imaginary chain of private and public pools in his affluent community he can literally swim home. Next we have a succession of similar scenes, as Neddy enters the backyard of his neighbors, sometimes bursting into a party, sometimes engaging in conversation, and most of the time having a drink - but always swimming the length of their pool. Soon it becomes clear to the reader that something has gone awry.

At first Neddy is well-received in the backyards and pools, but after finding a dried pool and waiting for a storm to pass in a gazebo, he starts to feel tired and disillusioned with his idea. Although he is still determined to go on, he can hardly remember the excitement he first had at the Westerhazys'. Neddy is terribly upset to find out that the Welchers' pool is dry and their house for sale. He recognizes that his memory must be failing him or he is repressing unpleasant facts for not remembering what had happened to the Welchers. At the Halloran residence, Mrs. Halloran tells Neddy she is sorry to hear of his misfortunes which, again his memory seeming to fail him, cannot remember, although Mrs. Halloran mentions Neddy selling his house and something about his children. At the Biswangers’ he is received as a gate-crasher and even their barman treats him with disrespect. He overhears Mrs. Biswanger saying that someone, possibly Neddy himself, showed up one day asking for money since he went bankrupt. Further on, Neddy's former mistress Shirley Adams, whom he cannot even clearly remember having an affair with, tells him that she won't "give him another cent".

Several signs indicate that time is passing more rapidly than Neddy realizes. He slowly observes that each pool is significantly colder and much more difficult to swim. He notices that some of the tree leaves are already yellow. Since it's midsummer, he tells himself, "they must be blighted". At one point he smells wood smoke in the wind, wondering who could be building a fire at that time of the year. At the Sachses', Neddy asks for a drink, but Helen Sachs tells him they don't have any alcohol in the house since her husband Eric had undergone a massive surgery three years before--something that Neddy has no memory of. By the end of the story, Neddy is unable to recognize the constellations of the midsummer sky, instead finding the northern constellations Andromeda, Cepheus, and Cassiopeia, implying a change of season.

In the story's conclusion, Neddy reaches his own house. As he looks inside the locked and deserted home, he wonders why his family is not there anymore. They are gone.

Realism: Introduction

Magic realism

Literary work marked by the use of still, sharply defined, smoothly painted images of figures and objects depicted in a surrealistic manner. The themes and subjects are often imaginary, somewhat outlandish and fantastic and with a certain dream-like quality. Some of the characteristic features of this kind of fiction are the mingling and juxtaposition of the realistic and the fantastic or bizarre, skillful time shifts, convoluted and even labyrinthine narratives and plots, miscellaneous use of dreams, myths and fairy stories, expressionistic and even surrealistic description, arcane erudition, the element of surprise or abrupt shock, the horrific and the inexplicable. It has been applied, for instance, to the work of Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian who in 1935 published his Historia universal de la infamia, regarded by many as the first work of magic realism. Colombian novelist Gabriel García Marquez is also regarded as a notable exponent of this kind of fiction – especially his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. The Cuban Alejo Carpentier is another described as a "magic realist". Postmodernists such as Salman Rushdie, Italo Calvino, and Gunter Grass commonly use Magical Realism in their work.[2][22] A fusion of fabulism with magical realism is apparent in such early 21st century American short stories as Kevin Brockmeier's "The Ceiling," Dan Chaon's "Big Me," Jacob M. Appel's "Exposure," and Elizabeth Graver's "The Mourning Door".[23]

Summary and Analysis of Counterparts

Farrington, a scrivener in a legal office, is called to see his tyrannical boss, Mr. Alleyne. After a few solid minutes of abuse, he is allowed to return to work with a strict deadline for copying a contract. Farrington returns to work, but as soon as he sits down the tedium of his job gets to him. He goes out for a drink. He goes down the street into dark, comfy O'Neill's shop. He takes a glass of plain porter. The respite is short, however, because Farrington has to return to work. On his way in he notices the smell of the perfume of one of the clients, Miss Delacour. The chief clerk tells him sharply that Mr. Alleyne has been looking for him. The copy of the correspondence for the Delacour case is needed. Farrington gets the correspondence, hoping that Mr. Alleyne won't notice that the last two letters are missing. Miss Delacour is a wealthy middle-aged woman, and Mr. Alleyne is said to be sweet "on her or her money."

Farrington drops off the correspondence and returns to work. Glumly, he realizes that he will not be able to meet his deadline for the contract he's currently copying. He begins to think longingly of a night of drink. His pleasant dreams are interrupted by a furious Mr. Alleyne. With Miss Delacour standing by, Mr. Alleyne abuses Farrington about the missing letters. Farrington plays dumb. Mr. Alleyne asks rhetorically, "Do you think me an utter fool?", to which Farrington replies, " I don't think, sir . . . that that's a fair question to put to me" (87). Miss Delacour smiles. Mr. Alleyne goes bezerk, demanding an apology.

Later, Farrington waits around a corner hoping to get the cashier alone, so that he can ask to borrow some money. But when the cashier exits the office, he's with the chief clerk. Now, there's no hope in getting a bit of cash. The situation is grim: he had to apologize abjectly in private to Mr. Alleyne, and now the office will be a treacherous place for him.

It dawns on Farrington that he can pawn his watch. He gets six shillings and goes out drinking with his friends. He tells them the story of his triumph over Mr. Allyene, leaving out his abject apology. He repeats the story to various friends as they come in. First Nosey Flynn, sitting in his usual corner of Davy Byrne's, and then O' Halloran and Paddy Leonard come in. The men are buying each other drink after drink. Higgins,one of Farrington's colleagues at work, comes in, and does his own rendition of the tale, making Farrington's feat seem even greater. The men leave the bar to go to another establishment called the Scotch House. Leonard introduces them to a young fellow named Weathers, who's an acrobat and an artiste. More drinks are shared. When the Scotch House closes, they go to Mulligan's. One of the women catches Farrington's eye, but when she leaves she does not look back. He curses his poverty and all the drinks he's bought. He particularly thinks that Weathers has been drinking more than he's been buying.

The men are talking about strength; Weathers is showing off his biceps. Farrington shows off his, and then the two men arm wrestle. Weathers beats Farrington. Farrington is angry, and accuses Weathers of having put the weight of his body behind it. They decide to go two out of three, and Weathers, after a struggle of respectable duration, beats him again. The curate, who was watching, expresses his admiration and Farrington snaps out of him. O'Halloran notices the anger in Farrington's face and wisely intercedes. He changes the subject and calls for another drink.

Waiting for his tram home, Farrington is full of fury. He's not even drunk, and he's spent almost all of the money from his pawned watch. He's lost his reputation as a strong man, having been beaten in arm wrestling by young Weathers. As he goes home, his anger mounts.

He comes home to find the kitchen empty with the fire nearly out. His small son Tom, one of five children, comes to greet him. His wife is out at church. Farrington orders the boy around, telling him to cook up the dinner his wife left for him. The boy obediently gets to work. Then Farrington sees that the fire has gone out. He chases the boy with a walking stick and begins to beat him brutally, despite the child's pleas for mercy.

Analysis:

This story, like "The Dead," is difficult to summarize because of Joyce's amazingly concise group scenes. Among authors, Joyce is among the best for conveying the atmosphere of boisterous social gatherings with clarity and charm.

The themes of imprisonment, powerlessness, and resentment are all weaved together in this well-wrought story. Farrington spends a good part of the tale simply trying to scrape together enough money for a night of drink. It becomes clear rather quickly that he is an alcoholic, and that each day must be spent seeking out a way to get drunk.

His powerlessness comes through in his great confrontation with Mr. Alleyne. Farrington is allowed his moment of triumph, but it is followed by a forced abject apology. He endures humiliation in the end, with the assurance that if life at work was already hell, it is bound to become even worse.

Farrington is not allowed to triumph anywhere. At work, his boss forces him into submission. At the bar, the woman who catches his eye ignores him. He is bested by the young Weathers in a contest of strength. Emasculated at work, he is further emasculated by the woman and among his friends. He excels in no arena of masculinity.

He does not even succeed in his original aim, which was to get drunk. After the considerable quantity of alcohol he has consumed, we can only see his increased tolerance as another sign of his alcoholism. He refers to his desire for alcohol as "thirst" throughout the whole story.

As Little Chandler does in the previous story, Farrington takes out his anger on the nearest helpless target: his son. The beating scene is awful, especially as the boy has been touchingly attentive to his father's needs. We are left with the impression that this day is unfortunately typical in Farrington's life

I Stand Here Ironing | Introduction

Tillie Olsen's story "I Stand Here Ironing" recounts a poor working woman's ambivalence about her parenting skills and her eldest daughter's future. Published in Olsen's first collection of stories, Tell Me a Riddle, in 1961, this first-person story contains many autobiographical elements. Central to the plot is the metaphor of a mother ironing her daughter's dress as she mentally attempts to ''iron'' out her uneasy relationship with her daughter through a stream-of-consciousness monologue. The narrator, a middle-aged mother of five, as Olsen was when she wrote the story, is the type of woman whose story was seldom heard at that time: that of a working-class mother who must hold down a job and care for children at the same time. ''Her father left me before she was a year old," the mother says, a circumstance that mirrored Olsen's predicament as a young mother. The story was heralded by the emerging women's movement of the early 1960s as an example of the difficulty of some women's lives and as a portrayal of the self-doubt many mothers suffer when they know their children are not receiving all the attention they deserve. Love or longing is not enough, Olsen says; everything must be weighed against forces that are beyond one's control. Though the story is not overtly political, it presents the type of economic condition that inspired Olsen to become active in left-wing labor causes at a young age. ''I Stand Here Ironing,'' an unromantic portrait of motherhood, is perhaps the most frequently anthologized of Olsen's stories.

I Stand Here Ironing Summary

Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" is a monologue, a speech delivered by a narrator with whom the reader comes to identify. In the first few lines the narrator explains what she is doing—ironing—and what she is responding to—a request that she meet with a school official about her daughter, now nineteen-years-old. The occasion prompts her to recall her daughter's childhood and the effect she had on the girl as her mother. All the while she continues to iron, drawing parallels for herself and the reader between telling the story and ironing the wrinkles from a dress.

At the outset the mother confesses her powerlessness over her daughter, asking "You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key?" She is worried that if she is asked to recall those early days of parenting she "will become engulfed with all I did or did not do, with what should have been and what cannot be helped." Despite these fears, the mother begins at the beginning: "She was a beautiful baby."

Gradually the mother reveals the details of her daughter Emily's childhood, and a pattern of poverty and abandonment emerges. She was only nineteen herself when Emily was born. Her husband abandoned her, and she had no access to welfare or other services. Eventually she was forced to "bring her to [the father's] family and leave her." Emily was two-years-old before her mother could. Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" is a monologue, a speech delivered by a narrator with whom the reader comes to identify. In the first few lines the narrator explains what she is doing—ironing—and what she is responding to—a request that she meet with a school official about her daughter, now nineteen-years-old. The occasion prompts her to recall her daughter's childhood and the effect she had on the girl as her mother. All the while she continues to iron, drawing parallels for herself and the reader between telling the story and ironing the wrinkles from a dress.

At the..

Anthology

Battle Royal

Ralph Ellison

It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!

And yet I am no freak of nature, nor of history. I was in the cards, other things having been equal (or unequal) eighty-five years ago. I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time been ashamed. About eighty-five years ago they were told they were free, united with others of our country in everything pertaining to the common good, and, in everything social, separate like the fingers of the hand. And they believed it. They exulted in it. They stayed in their place, worked hard, and brought up my father to do the same. But my grandfather is the one. He was an odd old guy, my grandfather, and I am told I take after him. It was he who caused the trouble. On his deathbed he called my father to him and said, "Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open." They thought the old man had gone out of his mind. He had been the meekest of men. The younger children were rushed from the room, the shades drawn and the flame of the lamp turned so low that it sputtered on the wick like the old man's breathing. "Learn it to the younguns," he whispered fiercely; then he died.

But my folks were more alarmed over his last words than over his dying. It was as though he had not died at all, his words caused so much anxiety. I was warned emphatically to forget what he had said and, indeed, this is the first time it has been mentioned outside the family circle. It had a tremendous effect upon me, however. I could never be sure of what he meant. Grandfather had been a quiet old man who never made any trouble, yet on his deathbed he had called himself a traitor and a spy, and he had spoken of his meekness as a dangerous activity. It became a constant puzzle which lay unanswered in the back of my mind. And whenever things went well for me I remembered my grandfather and felt guilty and uncomfortable. It was as though I was carrying out his advice in spite of myself. And to make it worse, everyone loved me for it. I was praised by the most lily-white men in town. I was considered an example of desirable con- duct-just as my grandfather had been. And what puzzled me was that the old man had defined it as treachery. When I was praised for my conduct I felt a guilt that in some way I was doing something that was really against the wishes of the white folks, that if they had understood they would have desired me to act just the opposite, that I should have been sulky and mean, and that that really would have been what they wanted, even though they were fooled and thought they wanted me to act as I did. It made me afraid that some day they would look upon me as a traitor and I would be lost. Still I was more afraid to act any other way because they didn't like that at all. The old man's words were like a curse. On my graduation day I delivered an oration in which I showed that humility was the secret, indeed, the very essence of progress. (Not that I believed this-how could I, remembering my grandfather?—I only believed that it worked.) It was a great success. Everyone praised me and I was invited to give the speech at a gathering of the town's leading white citizens. It was a triumph for the whole community.

It was in the main ballroom of the leading hotel. When I got there I discovered that it was on the occasion of a smoker, and I was told that since I was to be there anyway I might as well take part in the battle royal to be fought by some of my schoolmates as part of the entertainment. The battle royal came first.

All of the town's big shots were there in their tuxedoes, wolfing down the buffet foods, drinking beer and whiskey and smoking black cigars. It was a large room with a high ceiling. Chairs were arranged in neat rows around three sides of a portable boxing ring. The fourth side was clear, revealing a gleaming space of polished floor. I had some misgivings over the battle royal, by the way. Not from a distaste for fighting but because I didn't care too much for the other fellows who were to take part. They were tough guys who seemed to have no grandfather's curse worrying their minds. No one could mistake their toughness. And besides, I suspected that fighting a battle royal might detract from the dignity of my speech. In those pre-invisible days I visualized myself as a potential Booker T. Washington. But the other fellows didn't care too much for me either, and there were nine of them. I felt superior to them in my way, and I didn't like the manner in which we were all crowded together in the servants' elevator. Nor did they like my being there. In fact, as the warmly lighted floors flashed past the elevator we had words over the fact that I, by taking part in the fight, had knocked one of their friends out of a night's work.

We were led out of the elevator through a rococo hall into an anteroom and told to get into our fighting togs. Each of us was issued a pair of boxing gloves and ushered out into the big mirrored hall, which we entered looking cautiously about us and whispering, lest we might accidentally be heard above the noise of the room. It was foggy with cigar smoke. And already the whiskey was taking effect. I was shocked to see some of the most important men of the town quite tipsy. They were all there-bankers, lawyers, judges, doctors, fire chiefs, teachers, merchants. Even one of the more fashionable pastors. Something we could not see was going on up front. A clarinet was vibrating sensuously and the men were standing up and moving eagerly forward. We were a small tight group, clustered together, our bare upper bodies touching and shining with anticipatory sweat: while up front the big shots were becoming increasingly excited over something we still could not see. Suddenly I heard the school superintendent, who had told me to come, yell, "Bring up the shines, gentlemen! Bring up the little shines!"

We were rushed up to the front of the ballroom, where it smelled even more strongly of tobacco and whiskey. Then we were pushed into place. I almost wet my pants. A sea of faces, some hostile, some amused, ringed around us, and in the center, facing us, stood a magnificent blonde—stark naked. There was dead silence. I felt a blast of cold air chill me. I tried to back away, but they were behind me and around me. Some of the boys stood with lowered heads, trembling. I felt a wave of irrational guilt and fear. My teeth chattered, my skin turned to goose flesh, my knees knocked. Yet I was strongly attracted and looked in spite of myself. Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked. The hair was yellow like that of a circus kewpie doll, the face heavily powdered and rouged, as though to form an abstract mask, the eyes hollow and smeared a cool blue, the color of a baboon's butt. I felt a desire to spit upon her as my eyes brushed slowly over her body. Her breasts were firm and round as the domes of East Indian temples, and I stood so close as to see the fine skin texture and beads of pearly perspiration glistening like dew around the pink and erected buds of her nipples. I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the floor, or go to her and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of the others with my body; to feel the soft thighs, to caress her and destroy her, to love her and to murder her, to hide from her, and yet to stroke where below the small American flag tattooed upon her belly her thighs formed a capital V. I had a notion that of all in the room she saw only me with her impersonal eyes.

And then she began to dance, a slow sensuous movement; the smoke of a hundred cigars clinging to her like the thinnest of veils. She seemed like a fair bird-girl girdled in veils calling to me from the angry surface of some gray and threatening sea. I was transported. Then I became aware of the clarinet playing and the big shots yelling at us. Some threatened us if we looked and others if we did not. On my right I saw one boy faint. And now a man grabbed a silver pitcher from a table and stepped close as he dashed ice water upon him and stood him up and forced two of us to support him as his head hung and moans issued from his thick bluish lips. Another boy began to plead to go home. He was the largest of the group, wearing dark red fighting trunks much too small to conceal the erection which projected from him as though in answer to the insinuating low-registered moaning of the clarinet. He tried to hide himself with his

boxing gloves.

And all the while the blonde continued dancing, smiling faintly at the big shots who watched her with fascination, and faintly smiling at our fear. I noticed a certain merchant who followed her hungrily, his lips loose and drooling. He was a large man who wore diamond studs in a shirtfront which swelled with the ample paunch underneath, and each time the blonde swayed her undulating hips he ran his hand through the thin hair of his bald head and, with his arms upheld, his posture clumsy like that of an intoxicated panda, wound his belly in a slow and obscene grind. This creature was completely hypnotized. The music had quickened. As the dancer flung herself about with a detached expression on her face, the men began reaching out to touch her. I could see their beefy fingers sink into her soft flesh. Some of the others tried to stop them and she began to move around the floor in graceful circles, as they gave chase, slipping and sliding over the polished floor. It was mad. Chairs went crashing, drinks were spilt, as they ran laughing and howling after her. They caught her just as she reached a door, raised her from the floor, and tossed her as college boys are tossed at a hazing, and above her red, fixed-smiling lips I saw the terror and disgust in her eyes, almost like my own terror and that which I saw in some of the other boys. As I watched, they tossed her twice and her soft breasts seemed to flatten against the air and her legs flung wildly as she spun. Some of the more sober ones helped her to escape. And I started off the floor, heading for the anteroom with the rest of the boys.

Some were still crying and in hysteria. But as we tried to leave we were stopped and ordered to get into the ring. There was nothing to do but what we were told. All ten of us climbed under the ropes and allowed ourselves to be blindfolded with broad bands of white cloth. One of the men seemed to feel a bit sympathetic and tried to cheer us up as we stood with our backs against the ropes. Some of us tried to grin. "See that boy over there?" one of the men said. "I want you to run across at the bell and give it to him right in the belly. If you don't get him, I'm going to get you. I don't like his looks." Each of us was told the same. The blindfolds were put on. Yet even then I had been going over my speech. In my mind each word was as bright as a flame. I felt the cloth pressed into place, and frowned so that it would be loosened when I relaxed.

But now I felt a sudden fit of blind terror. I was unused to darkness, it was as though I had suddenly found myself in a dark room filled with poisonous cottonmouths. I could hear the bleary voices yelling insistently for the battle royal to

begin.

"Get going in there!"

"Let me at that big nigger!"

I strained to pick up the school superintendent's voice, as though to squeeze some security out of that slightly more familiar sound.

"Let me at those black sonsabitches!" someone yelled.

"No, Jackson, no!" another voice yelled. "Here, somebody, help me hold Jack."

"I want to get at that ginger-colored nigger. Tear him limb from limb," the

first voice yelled.

I stood against the ropes trembling. For in those days I was what they called ginger-colored, and he sounded as though he might crunch me between his teeth like a crisp ginger cookie.

Quite a struggle was going on. Chairs were being kicked about and I could hear voices grunting as with terrific effort. I wanted to see, to see more desperately than ever before. But the blindfold was as tight as a thick skin, puckering scab and when I raised my gloved hands to push the layers of white aside a voice yelled, “Oh, no you don't, black bastard! Leave that alone!"

"Ring the bell before Jackson kills him a coon!" someone boomed in the sudden silence. And I heard the bell clang and the sound of the feet scuffling forward.

A glove smacked against my head. I pivoted, striking out stiffly as someone went past, and felt the jar ripple along the length of my arm to my shoulder. Then it seemed as though all nine of the boys had turned upon me at once. Blows pounded me from all sides while I struck out as best I could. So many blows landed upon me that I wondered if I were not the only blindfolded fighter in the ring, or if the man called Jackson hadn't succeeded in getting me after all.

Blindfolded, I could no longer control my motions. I had no dignity. I stumbled about like a baby or a drunken man. The smoke had become thicker and with each new blow it seemed to sear and further restrict my lungs. My saliva became like hot bitter glue. A glove connected with my head, filling my mouth with warm blood. It was everywhere. I could not tell if the moisture I felt upon my body was sweat or blood. A blow landed hard against the nape of my neck. I felt myself going over, my head hitting the floor. Streaks of blue light filled the black world behind the blindfold. I lay prone, pretending that I was knocked out, but felt myself seized by hands and yanked to my feet. "Get going, black boy! Mix it up!" My arms were like lead, my head smarting from blows. I managed to feel my way to the ropes and held on, trying to catch my breath. A glove landed in my midsection and I went over again, feeling as though the smoke had be- come a knife jabbed into my guts. Pushed this way and that by the legs milling around me, I finally pulled erect and discovered that I could see the black, sweat- washed forms weaving in the smoky, blue atmosphere like drunken dancers weaving to the rapid drum-like thuds of blows.

Everyone fought hysterically. It was complete anarchy. Everybody fought everybody else. No group fought together for long. Two, three, four, fought one, then turned to fight each other, were themselves attacked. Blows landed below the belt and in the kidney, with the gloves open as well as closed, and with my eye partly opened now there was not so much terror. I moved carefully, avoiding blows, although not too many to attract attention, fighting group to group. The boys groped about like blind, cautious crabs crouching to protect their midsections, their heads pulled in short against their shoulders, their arms stretched nervously before them, with their fists testing the smoke-filled air like the knobbed feelers of hypersensitive snails. In one comer I glimpsed a boy violently punching the air and heard him scream in pain as he smashed his hand against a ring post. For a second I saw him bent over holding his hand, then going down as a blow caught his unprotected head. I played one group against the other, slip- ping in and throwing a punch then stepping out of range while pushing the others into the melee to take the blows blindly aimed at me. The smoke was agonizing and there were no rounds, no bells at three minute intervals to relieve our exhaustion. The room spun round me, a swirl of lights, smoke, sweating bodies surrounded by tense white faces. I bled from both nose and mouth, the blood spattering upon my chest.

The men kept yelling, "Slug him, black boy! Knock his guts out!"

"Uppercut him! Kill him! Kill that big boy!"

Taking a fake fall, I saw a boy going down heavily beside me as though we were felled by a single blow, saw a sneaker-clad foot shoot into his groin as the two who had knocked him down stumbled upon him. I rolled out of range, feeling a twinge of nausea.

The harder we fought the more threatening the men became. And yet, I had begun to worry about my speech again. How would it go? Would they recognize my ability? What would they give me?

I was fighting automatically when suddenly I noticed that one after another of the boys was leaving the ring. I was surprised, filled with panic, as though I had been left alone with an unknown danger. Then I understood. The boys had arranged it among themselves. It was the custom for the two men left in the ring to slug it out for the winner's prize. I discovered this too late. When the bell sounded two men in tuxedoes leaped into the ring and removed the blindfold. I found myself facing Tatlock, the biggest of the gang. I felt sick at my stomach. Hardly had the bell stopped ringing in my ears than it clanged again and I saw him moving swiftly toward me. Thinking of nothing else to do I hit him smash on the nose. He kept coming, bringing the rank sharp violence of stale sweat. His face was a black blank of a face, only his eyes alive-with hate of me and aglow with a feverish terror from what had happened to us all. I became anxious. I wanted to deliver my speech and he came at me as though he meant to beat it out of me. I smashed him again and again, taking his blows as they came. Then on a sudden impulse I struck him lightly and we clinched. I whispered, "Fake like I knocked you out, you can have the prize."

"I'll break your behind," he whispered hoarsely.

"For them?"

"For me, sonafabitch!”

They were yelling for us to break it up and Tatlock spun me half around with a blow, and as a joggled camera sweeps in a reeling scene, I saw the howling red faces crouching tense beneath the cloud of blue-gray smoke. For a moment the world wavered, unraveled, flowed, then my head cleared and Tatlock bounced before me. That fluttering shadow before my eyes was his jabbing left hand. Then falling forward, my head against his damp shoulder, I whispered.

"I'll make it five dollars more."

"Go to hell!"

But his muscles relaxed a trifle beneath my pressure and I breathed, "Seven?"

"Give it to your ma," he said, ripping me beneath the heart.

And while I still held him I butted him and moved away. I felt myself bombarded with punches. I fought back with hopeless desperation. I wanted to de- liver my speech more than anything else in the world, because I felt that only these men could judge truly my ability, and now this stupid clown was ruining my chances. I began fighting carefully now, moving in to punch him and out again with my greater speed. A lucky blow to his chin and I had him going too—until I heard a loud voice yell, "I got my money on the big boy."

Hearing this, I almost dropped my guard. I was confused: Should I try to win against the voice out there? Would not this go against my speech, and was not this a moment for humility, for nonresistance? A blow to my head as I danced about sent my right eye popping like a jack-in-the-box and settled my dilemma. The room went red as I fell. It was a dream fall, my body languid and fastidious as to where to land, until the floor became impatient and smashed up to meet me. A moment later I came to. An hypnotic voice said FIVE emphatically. And I lay there, hazily watching a dark red spot of my own blood shaping itself into a butterfly, glistening and soaking into the soiled gray world of the canvas.

When the voice drawled TEN I was lifted up and dragged to a chair. I sat dazed. My eye pained and swelled with each throb of my pounding heart and I wondered if now I would be allowed to speak. I was wringing wet, my mouth still bleeding. We were grouped along the wall now. The other boys ignored me as they congratulated Tatlock and speculated as to how much they would be paid. One boy whimpered over his smashed hand. Looking up front, I saw attendants in white jackets rolling the Portable ring away and placing a small square rug in the vacant space surrounded by chain. Perhaps, I thought, I will stand on the mg to deliver my speech.

Then the M.C. called to us. "Come on up here boys and get your money."

We ran forward to where the men laughed and talked in their chairs,

waiting. Everyone seemed friendly now.

"There it is on the rug," the man said. I saw the mg covered with coins of all dimensions and a few crumpled bills. But what excited me, scattered here and there, were the gold pieces.

"Boys, it's all yours," the man said. "You get all you grab."

"That's right, Sambo," a blond man said, winking at me confidentially.

I trembled with excitement, forgetting my pain. I would get the gold and the bills. I thought. I would use both hands. I would throw my body against the boys nearest me to block them from the gold.

"Get down around the rug now," the man commanded, "and don't anyone touch it until I give the signal."

"This ought to be good," I heard.

As told, we got around the square rug on our knees. Slowly the man raised his freckled hand as we followed it upward with our eyes.

I heard, "These niggers look like they're about to pray!"

Then, "Ready", the man said. "Go!"

I lunged for a yellow coin lying on the blue design of the carpet, touching it and sending a surprised shriek to join those around me. I tried frantically to remove my hand but could not let go. A hot, violent force tore through my body, shaking me like a wet rat. The rug was electrified. The hair bristled up on my head as I shook myself free. My muscles jumped, my nerves jangled, writhed. But I saw that this was not stopping the other boys. Laughing in fear and embarrassment, some were holding back and scooping up the coins knocked off by the painful contortions of others. The men roared above us as we struggled.

"Pick it up, goddamnit, pick it up!" someone called like a bass-voiced parrot. "Go on, get it!"

I crawled rapidly around the floor, picking up the coins, trying to avoid the coppers and to get greenbacks and the gold. Ignoring the shock by laughing, as I brushed the coins off quickly, I discovered that I could contain the electricity—a contradiction but it works. Then the men began to push us onto the rug. Laughing embarrassedly, we struggled out of their hands and kept after the coins. We were all wet and slippery and hard to hold. Suddenly I saw a boy lifted into the air, glistening with sweat like a circus seat, and dropped, his wet back landing flush upon the charged rug, heard him yell and saw him literally dance upon his back, his elbows beating a frenzied tattoo upon the floor, his muscles twitching like the flesh of a horse stung by many flies. When be finally rolled off, his face was gray and no one stopped him when he ran from the floor amid booming laughter.

"Get the money," the M.C. called. "That's good hard American cash!"

And we snatched and grabbed, snatched and grabbed. I was careful not to come too close to the rug now, and when I felt the hot whiskey breath descend upon me like a cloud of foul air I reached out and grabbed the leg of a chair. It was occupied and I held on desperately.

"Leggo, nigger! Leggo!"

The huge face wavered down to mine as he tried to push me free. But my

body was slippery and he was too drunk. It was Mr. Colcord, who owned a chain of movie houses and "entertainment palaces." Each time he grabbed me I slipped out of his hands. It became a real struggle. I feared the rug more than I did the drunk, so I held on, surprising myself for a moment by trying to topple him upon the rug. It was such an enormous idea that I found myself actually carrying it out. I tried not to be obvious, yet when I grabbed his leg, trying to tumble him out of the chair, he raised up roaring with laughter, and, looking at me with soberness dead in the eye, kicked me viciously in the chest. The chair leg flew out of my hand and I felt myself going and rolled. It was as though I had rolled through a bed of hot coals. It seemed a whole century would pass before I would roll free, a century in which I was seared through the deepest levels of my body to the fearful breath within me and the breath seared and heated to the point of explosion. It'll all be over in a flash, I thought as I rolled clear. It'll all be over in a

flash.

But not yet, the men on the other side were waiting, red faces swollen as though from apoplexy as they bent forward in their chairs. Seeing their fingers coming toward me I rolled away as a fumbled football rolls off the receiver's finger, tips, back into the coals. That time I luckily sent the rug sliding out of place and heard the coins ringing against the floor and the boys scuffling to pick them up and the M.C. calling, "All right, boys, that's all. Go get dressed and get your money."

I was limp as a dish rag. My back felt as though it had been beaten with wires. When we had dressed the M.C. came in and gave us each five dollars, except Tatiock, who got ten for being the last in the ring. Then he told us to leave. I was not to get a chance to deliver my speech, I thought. I was going out into the dim alley in despair when I was stopped and told to go back. I returned to the ballroom, where the men were pushing back their chairs and gathering in small groups to talk.

The M.C. knocked on a table for quiet. "Gentlemen," he said, "we almost forgot an important part of the program. A most serious part, gentlemen. This boy was brought here to deliver a speech which he made at his graduation yesterday . . ."

"Bravo!"

"I'm told that he is the smartest boy we've got out there in Greenwood. I'm

told that he knows more big words than a pocket-sized dictionary."

Much applause and laughter.

"So now, gentlemen, I want you to give him your attention."

There was still laughter as I faced them, my mouth dry, my eyes throbbing. I began slowly, but evidently my throat was tense, because they began shouting.

"Louder! Louder!"

"We of the younger generation extol the wisdom of that great leader and educator," I shouted, "who first spoke these flaming words of wisdom: 'A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal: "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel came back: "Cast down your bucket where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River.' And like him I say, and in his words, 'To those of my race who depend upon bettering their condition in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is his next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are'!—cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded . . ."'

I spoke automatically and with such fervor that I did not realize that the men were still talking and laughing until my dry mouth, filling up with blood from the cut, almost strangled me. I coughed, wanting to stop and go to one of the tall brass, sand-filled spittoons to relieve myself, but a few of the men, especially the superintendent, were listening and I was afraid. So I gulped it down, blood, saliva and all, and continued. (What powers of endurance I had during those days! What enthusiasm! What a belief in the rightness of things!) I spoke even louder in spite of the pain. But still they talked and still they laughed, as though deaf with cotton in dirty ears. So I spoke with greater emotional emphasis. I closed my ears and swallowed blood until I was nauseated. The speech seemed a hundred times as long as before, but I could not leave out a single word. All had to be said, each memorized nuance considered, rendered. Nor was that all. Whenever I uttered a word of three or more syllables a group of voices would yell for me to repeat it. I used the phrase "social responsibility" and they yelled:

"What's the word you say, boy?"

"Social responsibility," I said.

"What?"

"Social . . ."

"Louder."

". . . responsibility."

"More!”

"Respon—"

“Repeat!"

"---sibility."

The room filled with the uproar of laughter until, no doubt, distracted by having to gulp down my blood, I made a mistake and yelled a phrase I had often seen denounced in newspaper editorials, heard debated in private.

"Social . . ."

"What?" they yelled.

". . . equality—.”

The laughter hung smokelike in the sudden stillness. I opened my eyes, puzzled. Sounds of displeasure filled the room. The M.C. rushed forward. They shouted hostile phrases at me. But I did not understand.

A small dry mustached man in the front row blared out, “Say that slowly, son!

"What, sir?"

"What you just said!"

"Social responsibility, sir,” I said.

"You weren't being smart, were you boy?" he said, not unkindly.

"No, Sir!"

"You sure that about 'equality' was a mistake?"

"Oh, yes, Sir," I said. "I was swallowing blood."

"Well, you had better speak more slowly so we can understand. We mean to do right by you, but you've got to know your place at all times. All right, now, go on with your speech."

I was afraid. I wanted to leave but I wanted also to speak and I was afraid they'd snatch me down.

"T'hank you, Sir," I said, beginning where I had left off, and having them ignore me as before.

Yet when I finished there was a thunderous applause. I was surprised to see the superintendent come forth with a package wrapped in white tissue paper, and, gesturing for quiet, address the men.

"Gentlemen, you see that I did not overpraise the boy. He makes a good speech and some day he'll lead his people in the proper paths. And I don't have to tell you that this is important in these days and times. This is a good, smart boy, and so to encourage him in the right direction, in the name of the Board of Education I wish to present him a prize in the form of this . . ."

He paused, removing the tissue paper and revealing a gleaming calfskin briefcase.

". . . in the form of this first-class article from Shad Whitmore's shop."

"Boy," he said, addressing me, "take this prize and keep it well. Consider it a

badge of office. Prize it. Keep developing as you are and some day it will be filled with important papers that will help shape the destiny of your people."

I was so moved that I could hardly express my thanks. A rope of bloody saliva forming a shape like an undiscovered continent drooled upon the leather and I wiped it quickly away. I felt an importance that I had never dreamed.

"Open it and see what's inside," I was told.

My fingers a-tremble, I complied, smelling fresh leather and finding an official-looking document inside. It was a scholarship to the state college for Negroes. My eyes filled with tears and I ran awkwardly off the floor.

I was overjoyed; I did not even mind when I discovered the gold pieces I had scrambled for were brass pocket tokens advertising a certain make of automobile.

When I reached home everyone was excited. Next day the neighbors came to congratulate me. I even felt safe from grandfather, whose deathbed curse usually spoiled my triumphs. I stood beneath his photograph with my briefcase in hand and smiled triumphantly into his stolid black peasant's face. It was a face that fascinated me. The eyes seemed to follow everywhere I went.

That night I dreamed I was at a circus with him and that he refused to laugh at the clowns no matter what they did. Then later he told me to open my briefcase and read what was inside and I did, finding an official envelope stamped with the state seal: and inside the envelope I found another and another, endlessly, and I thought I would fall of weariness. "Them's years," he said. "Now open that one." And I did and in it I found an engraved stamp containing a short message in letters of gold. "Read it," my grandfather said. "Out loud."

"To Whom It May Concern," I intoned. "Keep This Nigger-Boy Running."

I awoke with the old man's laughter ringing in my ears.

Summary of Ellison's Short Story "Battle Royal"

The Opening Chapter to the Classic American Novel Invisible Man

Jul 27, 2009 Ryan Werner

Building off the segregation of blacks and whites in the mid-19th century, Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal" explores what it means to be black and humble and still be. ..

In Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal,” (from the book Invisible Man, Random House, ISBN: 9780679601395, 1952) the narrator is thinking back to before he knew he was an “invisible man,” meaning the freed slaves of the past, his relatives who believed that they were separate but equal after the Civil War.

He recalls when his grandfather was on his deathbed; speaking with the narrator’s father about the guilt and shame he has from being a traitor to his race. He urged the narrator’s father to kill the white man with kindness, and the advice has followed the family all the way down to the meek narrator. This theme of identity and individuality in the black American runs deep throughout the entire Invisible Man novel, and is exemplified to perfection in “Battle Royal,” the opening chapter to the book.

The Fight

After his grandfather died, the narrator was invited to give his graduation speech at a meeting of his small Southern town’s upper-class white people. The speech was similar to his grandfather’s advice, urging his race to advance through humility and submission. Such a suggestion gained him popularity with the white community, leading to his invitation to their meeting.

When he arrived, he was “persuaded” (he really had no choice) to take place in a fight for the entertainment of the drunk crowd. Before the fight, a naked, blonde, white woman dances around them with an American flag painted on her stomach. Some of the boys are hesitant to look, which raises the ire of the crowd. He was then blindfolded and forced to fight nine of his blindfolded classmates—all of them black—until there were only two standing.

The narrator makes it to the final two, but after trying to bribe the other guy in the fight just so he can give his speech, he loses. As payment, all the contestants are led to a rug with bills and coins. They jump on the rug, which is electrified, while trying to get their payment. After everything is all over, the narrator asks to give his speech.

Sonny’s Blues By James Baldwin

This article is about the short story. For the album, see Sonny's Blues (album).

"Sonny’s Blues" (1957)[1] is a short story by James Baldwin. It later appeared in the 1965 short story collection, Going to Meet the Man.

Plot summary

The story opens with the narrator, who reads about his brother named Sonny who got caught in a heroin bust. The narrator then goes about his day; he is a teacher at a school in Harlem. However, he cannot get his mind off Sonny. He thinks about all the boys in his class, who don’t have bright futures and are most likely doing drugs, just like Sonny. After school, he meets a friend of Sonny’s, who tells him that they will lock him up and make him detox, but eventually he will be let out and be all alone.

Originally, the narrator doesn’t write to Sonny. After his daughter Gracie died of polio, he decided to write Sonny a letter. Then Sonny wrote back, so they got in contact again. At this point, we learn how Sonny is related to the narrator—they are brothers. They keep in contact, and after Sonny gets out of jail, he goes to live with the narrator and his family. They eat a family dinner, which then turns into a flashback about their parents.

The narrator describes his father, a drunken man, who died when Sonny was fifteen. Sonny and his father had the same privacy; however they did not get along. Sonny was withdrawn and quiet; while their father pretended to be big, tough, and loud-talking.

The narrator then thinks back to the last time he saw his mother alive, just before he went off to war (most likely fought in World War II). She told him the story of how his uncle died (was run over by some drunken white kids), how his father was never the same, and that the narrator has to watch over Sonny. The narrator was married to Isabel two days after this talk, and then he went off to war. The next time he came back to the states was for his mother’s funeral.

When he was back for the funeral, he had a talk with Sonny, trying to figure out who he is, because they are so distant from one another. He asks Sonny what he wants to do, and Sonny replies that he wants to be a jazz musician and play the piano. The narrator does not understand this dream and doesn’t think it is good enough for Sonny. They also try to figure out his living arrangement for the remainder of his high school career. Both of these subjects lead to an argument. Sonny calls his brother ignorant for not knowing who Charlie Parker is, and argues that he does not want to finish high school or live at Isabel’s parent’s house. Eventually, however, they find a compromise; Isabel’s parents have a piano, which Sonny can play whenever he wants, provided he goes to school. Sonny, begrudgingly (but somewhat excited about the piano) agrees.

Sonny stays at Isabel’s and supposedly is going to school. When he gets home, he constantly plays the piano. Sonny, however, is more like a ghost; he shows no emotion and doesn’t talk to anyone.

It is soon found out that Sonny is not going to school. Instead, he is going over to Greenwich Village, and hanging with his jazz friends (and most likely doing drugs). Once Isabel’s parents find this out, Sonny leaves their house, drops out of school, and joins the navy.

They both got back from the war and lived in New York for a while. They would see each other intermittently, and whenever they would they would fight. Because of these fights, they did not talk to each other for a very long time.

It then flashes forward, and he talks about Gracie and her polio affliction. It was then that the narrator decided to write to Sonny. It seems that the narrator could better understand his brother now. (“My trouble made his real.”)

It then flashes forward to what we would assume is the present. It’s a Sunday and Isabel is gone with the children to visit their grandparents. The narrator is contemplating searching Sonny’s room and begins to describe a revival meeting that both he and Sonny are watching. There is a woman singing, which seems to hypnotize them both.

Sonny comes into the house, and asks the narrator if he wants to come and watch him play in Greenwich Village, and the narrator, unsurely and somewhat begrudgingly, agrees to go.

Sonny then begins to talk about his heroin addiction in somewhat ambiguous terms. He says that when the lady was singing at the revival meeting, it reminded him what it feels like when heroin is coursing through your veins. Sonny says it makes you feel in control, and sometimes you just have to feel that way. The narrator asks if he has to feel like that to play. He answers that some people do. They talk about suffering. And the narrator asks Sonny if it’s worth killing yourself, just trying to escape suffering. Sonny says he is not going to die trying not to suffer faster than anyone else. Sonny divulges that the reason he wanted to leave Harlem was to escape the drugs.

They go to the jazz club in Greenwich Village. The narrator realizes how revered Sonny is there. He hears Sonny play. In the beginning, he falters, as he hasn’t played for seven months, but after a while, it becomes completely magical and enchants the narrator and everyone in the club. The narrator sends a cup of scotch and milk up to the piano for Sonny and the two share a brief connecting moment. This shows that the narrator decides to accept Sonny for who he is as his brother, even though he is a drug addict.

Characters

Sonny is the main character. The reader sees him through his brother’s eyes, as a quiet, introspective person who he could not reach. Sonny is also described by the narrator as wild and dreamy. He has a heroin addiction which led him to jail, but because of his passion for jazz he became a musician.

Sonny’s brother is the narrator; his name is never mentioned throughout the story. He is a high school algebra teacher and family man. Unlike Sonny who is constantly struggling with his feelings, he chooses to ignore his own pain.

Isabel is Sonny’s sister-in-law, she is open and talkative. After Sonny’s mother died he lived in her house with for a while, during the time his brother was in the army.

Creole is a bass player who leads the band that Sonny plays in at the end of the story. He functions as a kind of father figure for Sonny;

References to other works

Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker are mentioned during a conversation between Sonny and his brother.

In the final scene Creole, the band and Sonny play Am I Blue.

A reference to a passage in the Bible is made by the end of the story, when Baldwin compares the Scotch and milk placed in front of Sonny as the “cup of trembling.” This is an allusion to Isaiah 51:17.

Allusions to actual history

Throughout the short story there are several mentions to the war, although it is not stated which one. Considering the story occurs during the mid-20th century, critics argue it could be either Korean War or the Second World War. On that matter, Pancho Savery in an article about the short-story he concludes that it most likely takes place during the Korean War rather than during World War II.

Major themes

Suffering

One of the most important aspects of the short story is how Sonny and his brother endure suffering. This reveals how different they are and the reason why Sonny’s brother cannot understand him. While Sonny feels more intensely all the hardships in his life, his brother keeps his feelings locked in. Most importantly, the short story focuses on the sufferings of black people in America.

Artistic Expression

Baldwin believed in art as a powerful mean to ease or relieve one’s suffering. It is only through music, by playing jazz, that Sonny is able to externalize his pain and also help his brother to face his own issues.

Racism and Segregation

Racism is a recurrent theme is Baldwin’s work. In the sort story, much of Sonny’s blues result from the condition African Americans live in. Although Baldwin only presents one clear example of racism, the entire story reveals a separation made by society between blacks and whites. In spite of being an algebra teacher, Sonny’s brother has to continue living in Harlem and cope with the poverty and violence existent in the neighborhood. In this manner we can see that his efforts to have better lifestyle were not successful.

Snares By Louise Erdrich

Simulacra By Julio Cortazar

EXTRA READING FROM THE WRITER OF THE MAGIC BARREL

Bernard Malamud was born was born on April 28, 1913 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents Max and Bertha Fidelman Malamud had immigrated to Brooklyn from Russia and met in the States. They owned a grocery store in Brooklyn, which accounts for the primary role of a grocery store in The Assistant and other Malamud stories. Malamud graduated from Eramus Hall High School in 1932. He went on to graduate from City College of New York with a B.A. in 1936. Six years later he earned a Master's Degree in English literature from Columbia University. Malamud began writing stories after graduating from Columbia. He took a job with the Bureau of the Census in Washington, D.C. in 1940, but left to become an evening instructor in English at Eramus High School. In 1949, he joined the faculty of Oregon State University where he remained until 1961 when he began working at Bennington College. He married Ana de Chiara in 1945 and had two children, Paul and Janne.

Malamud's first novel, The Natural, was published in 1952 and many critics see it as a necessary reference text for Malamud's later work. In the novel, which was later popularized in a movie staring Robert Redford, Malamud uses a realistic, yet folkloristic technique to explore the idea of the American dream, as seen with through the career of a baseball player. By mixing allegory and realism, Malamud explores the motifs of character development, the American dream, and the transcendence of the self. Most of these motifs reappear in Malamud's second novel, The Assistant which was published in 1957.

Malamud uses the The Assistant to address some of the motifs from The Natural, but sets the novel in an immigrant setting with strong Jewish main characters. The novel manages to evoke the tradition of Yiddish folklore while maintaining Malamud's training in classic literature and philosophy. The main character of the novel, Morris Bober, for example can be interpreted from both traditions. Some critics have pointed to Morris Bober being a version of the schemiel, a traditional archetype from Yiddish folklore who acts as an ironic hero, using light humor and irony to soften an otherwise harsh world. At the same time other critics have suggested Morris Bober as the embodiment of the existential "I-THOU" philosophy described by Bober's close namesake, Martin Buber. Both of these interpretations seem fitting and they demonstrate that Malamud's novel reflects his ethnic familial background, while also maintaining the intellectual tradition in which he was trained. Malamud always objected to being called a "Jewish writer," because he has found the term too limiting. Malamud's main premise as a writer, as he explains, was "to keep civilization from destroying itself". As such, he worked for humanism—and against nihilism".

Malamud's other publications include The Magic Barrel, a collection of short stories, in 1952; A New Life in 1961; The Fixer in 1966; Pictures of Fidelman, a collection of short stories, in 1969; The Tenants in 1971, Dubin's Lives in 1979, and God's Grace in 1982. Malamud won the National Book Award twice for the The Magic Barrel and The Fixers in 1959 and 1967. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967 for The Fixers, as well. He died on March 18, 1986 in New York City. Plot Overview

The Assistant tells the story of an immigrant grocer, Morris Bober, who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Bober emigrated from Russia in his teenage years and met his wife Ida in New York. Their grocery recently has fallen on hard times because a new store has opened across the street and is taking their customers. To stay afloat, the Bobers also rely upon the wages of their daughter, Helen who works as a secretary.

On the opening day of the novel, two men rob Morris's grocery and knock him unconscious with a blow to the head. Following his injury, a man named Frank Alpine arrives in the neighborhood. Frank has come from a rough life in the West to start again. When Morris re-opens the store, Frank appears each morning to help him drag in the heavy milk crates. Eventually, Frank asks if Morris would let Frank work for free so that Frank could learn the trade. Morris says no and Frank disappears. Soon after Morris observes that a quart of milk and two rolls are stolen from his deliveries each morning. After a week, Morris alerts the police because he cannot find the culprit. On the next day, Morris finds Frank Alpine sleeping in his cellar. Frank admits to stealing the milk and bread out of hunger. Morris feeds Frank and lets him sleep in the grocery for the night. The next morning, Morris slips while dragging in the milk and passes out. Frank rescues him then puts on the grocer's apron and starts working in the store.

During the two weeks that Morris recovers, Frank manages to bring in much more money than Morris had done. When Morris returns, Frank moves upstairs to a small room off an apartment that an Italian couple, the Fusos, rent. Because business is so successful, Morris eventually wants to pay Frank. Frank feels guilty about being paid because unknown to the grocer, Frank has been stealing money. Furthermore, it was he and Ward Minogue, a boy whose father is a local detective, who had robbed the grocery.

Frank becomes interested in Helen Bober. Helen recently lost her virginity to Nat Pearl a local Jewish boy whose parents own a candy store and who is attending Law School, but she shunned him after learning that he only wanted sex. The other local Jewish boy on the street, Louis Karp, suggests that Helen marry him, but she is not interested. Frank courts Helen by meeting her at the library, which she visits twice a week. Eventually, they start spending a lot of time together and even kiss. When Frank suggests that they touch more, Helen tells him that she cannot have sex with someone unless she is sure that she loves him. Frank tries to control his urges.

Morris Bober enjoys working with Frank and the two men tell stories to each other during the day. One day, Morris starts to suspect Frank of stealing because revenues do not equal what Morris thinks that they should be. He starts watching Frank closely. Frank, at the same time, is overcome by his guilty conscience and decides to repay all the money he has stolen. He places six dollars back in the register one day, but when he realizes that he will need some money for that night, he steals a dollar back. Morris catches him and is heartbroken. Still, he orders Frank to leave.

The same night, Helen goes to meet Frank late in the park. She has decided that she loves him and will have sex with him. When she gets to the park, a drunk Ward Minogue, whom she knows from primary school, tries to rape her. Frank appears and rescues her, but proceeds to rape her himself.

The following day, Morris Bober falls asleep in his apartment with the radiator unlit, flooding his rooms with gas and almost killing himself. Frank and Nick Fuso save him. Morris contracts pneumonia and has to go to the hospital. Frank keeps the store open for the weeks when Morris is sick. Business is terrible because two Norwegians have just reopened the competing grocery and all the customers have gone there. Frank gives all of his personal savings to the grocery and works all night long at a different job to keep it afloat. Still, when Morris returns to the shop he makes Frank leave. Morris himself then tries to save the business by finding another job, but he cannot. A mysterious man appears one night offering to burn the store down so that Morris can collect the insurance money, but Morris turns him down. Later Morris tries to light such a fire himself, but nearly burns himself to death before Frank appears and rescues him. Morris again orders Frank out.

One night, Ward Minogue, who has been diagnosed with diabetes and who is acting desperately, sneaks into the Karp's liquor store through a broken back window. After getting drunk, Ward accidentally sets the store on fire. Karp's store and building are ruined. The next day, Karp, who has insurance, offers to buy Morris's store and grocery so that he can reopen. Morris feels happy and goes out to shovel snow for the pedestrians, although he fails to wear his coat. Later that night, he falls sick and dies three days later from pneumonia.

After Morris's death, Frank Alpine starts running the store. He works all night at a different job and tries everything to make the store work, but times are tough. Still, he decides that he wants to pay for Helen to attend college. At the end of the book, Helen has become friendlier to Frank and seems ready to accept his offer of tuition. Frank himself has changed utterly becoming completely honest and very much like Morris Bober, whose store and philosophies he now embraces. In his final act, Frank Alpine Character List

Morris Bober - The protagonist of the novel. Morris Bober runs the grocery that is central to the novel and is the character who represents the heart of the novel. Morris is an honest, thoughtful compassionate man who serves other people even though the world constantly delivers bad luck to him. His character is held up as the model of morality and it is what Frank Alpine attempts to emulate. In a community characterized by social and economic troubles, Morris stands as a bedrock of moral support. His store provides the milk and bread that nourishes the community, just as his ethics help to treat all people in a humane manner.

Read an in-depth analysis of Morris Bober.

Ida Bober - The wife of Morris Bober and the mother of Helen Bober. Ida is a slightly worrisome older Jewish woman, but she is a good person who appears to have a good soul. Ida worries most about Frank Alpine, a gentile, becoming involved with her daughter. Her bias toward her ethnicity is such that she weeps upon finding out that Helen actually kissed Frank. Still, although Ida views Frank suspiciously throughout the novel, she is not unkind to him. Like Morris, she does not consider Frank a bad man for taking milk and bread because he was starving. Additionally, although she would like him to leave, she also pays him more money because she feels that it is only fair given their increased profits. While Helen worries, she has a gentle character that is without malice. Her constant Yiddish style of debating and arguing with her husband provides a light comic touch to the novel.

Helen Bober - The daughter of Ida and Morris Bober. Helen bears a classical name and in many ways appears to be a classical character. She lacks the Yiddish dialect of her parents and speaks in educated English. She longs to read and become a great scholar and learn the classics, but her limited access to college makes her very frustrated. For this reason, Helen becomes a dreamer who does not always perceive people and situations correctly. For example, she initially fails to perceive that Nat Pearl is not seriously interested in her, which later crushes her after she has sex with him. Next, she places her own perceptions of Frank upon him, thereby not entirely reading his character correctly. Helen undergoes a character development of her own that mirrors Frank's in some ways, making her a more realized creature at the end of the novel.

Read an in-depth analysis of Helen Bober.

Frank Alpine - The stranger who appears in the Bobers' neighborhood and eventually takes over their grocery. Frank Alpine's struggle to control his self and his character is the driving conflict of the novel. Frank is torn between his tendency to do bad and his desire to do good. He idolizes Saint Francis of Assisi as a model of good, yet even while he fantasizes of being like the Saint he continues to steal from the grocery. Frank initially appears to be the assistant to Morris's techniques of running the grocery, but in truth becomes an assistant to his way of life. By the end of the novel, Frank will have fully come to embrace Morris's ethical system.

Read an in-depth analysis of Frank Alpine.

Julius Karp - The liquor storeowner down the street from the Bobers. Julius Karp is a Yiddish- speaking immigrant to Brooklyn like Morris Bober, but Karp is a far less compassionate character. Financial considerations almost always influence Karp's actions. Karp leases the tailor shop to a grocer, even though he realizes that the move will possibly ruin Morris Bober's business. Karp wants his son to marry Helen Bober, but only does so because he wants to expand his economic empire to include Morris's store. Karp is the most prosperous merchant on the block, but he is too cheap to buy a telephone and always uses Morris. Karp likes to be around Morris and likes Morris to like him, but Karp has little moral conscience of his own. Karp is an immigrant who managed to have initial success in America, but who does nothing to support his fellow immigrants around him.

Louis Karp - The lazy son of Julius Karp. Louis never has achieved anything on his own and makes his living running his father's store. Louis has no ambition for anything greater in life. Even as an employee in his father's store, Louis steals from his father. When Julius Karp has a heart attack at the end of the novel, Louis decides that the liquor store will be closed because he is too lazy to take care of it while his father recovers. Louis's actions stand in sharp contrast to those of Frank Alpine, who effectively is the foster son of Morris Bober and who works diligently to keep the store running.

Ward Minogue - The son of Detective Minogue and the true bad person in the novel. In the pairing of sons and fathers, Ward Minogue represents the wicked son. Although his father is a detective, Ward Minogue has long violated the law. His father takes Ward's failings as a son and a human seriously, beating him, and ejecting him from his household. Although the seriousness of Ward's father might seem slightly harsh and although Ward is a character who suffers, mostly from Diabetes toward the end of the book, he is not a very sympathetic person. He is racist and cruel. He tries to violently rape Helen and he hits Morris Bober out of spite and complete malice. Ward Minogue is an evildoer, with no redeeming qualities.

Detective Minogue - The father of Ward Minogue and the detective who investigates the crimes on the Bobers' block. Detective Minogue is portrayed as a sympathetic character, who treats the Bobers kindly and genuinely tries to help them with no discrimination. Detective Minogue is a strict father, but his desire to maintain the law seems appropriate. Although Detective Minogue beats his son after his son robs Karp's liquor store, if he did not, his son would be put in jail. Detective Minogue's troubled relationship with his son testifies to the theme of father-son relationships that Malamud explores in the novel.

Nat Pearl - Represents the most socially and educationally successful son in the novel. Nat Pearl has managed to become a college graduate and a law student as a first generation American, something that none of the other immigrant children have done. Despite his achievements, Nat is not a kind and compassionate man. Although he will study the law, he treats Helen without true fairness by using her for sexual favors, although he will not marry her due to her poverty. Nat, like Julius Karp, is another person who acts out of self-interest with little care and attention to the needs of others.

Betsy Pearl - Nat's sister and Sam and Goldie Pearl's daughter. Betsy is a minor character who serves as Helen's one friend. Compared to Helen, Betsy is unintelligent and uninteresting, but there is no evidence that she is unkind.

Al Marcus - The seller of paper bags who frequently visits the Bobers' grocery store. Al Marcus represents life and the unwillingness to suffer and yield in the face of difficult circumstances. Although he has a terminal form of cancer, he keeps working diligently as a paper bag salesman, not willing to simply give up and die. Because of his attitude, he is able to live much longer than the doctors believe that he shall. Frank thinks that Marcus represents suffering, but actually Marcus represents the desire for life and living that people in difficult circumstances manages to embody.

Breitbart - The seller of light bulbs. Breitbart rarely speaks in the book, but he too is a man who persists in the face of difficult times. Although Breitbart's partner defrauded him and ran away with his wife, Breitbart goes on. He does not seem happy and he suffers, but his life continues. Through his struggle, he embodies the possibilities of life. His sale of light bulbs carries a metaphorical connotation in that he is giving people the instruments that will light up their lives, symbolically suggesting the possibility that he is giving them the tools that will allow them to illuminate themselves.

Sam and Goldie Pearl - Nat and Betsy's parents who own the candy store on the block. They are relatively successful and Sam manages to make money betting on the horses. Little is known about them, but they help demonstrate the ways that immigrants in America have struggled.

Nick and Tessie Fuso - They rent the upstairs apartment from Morris Bober. Little is known about them. Nick and Tessie are Italian and poor immigrants. Their presence helps to show the diversity of the neighborhood and the way that people of all different ethnic backgrounds struggle in the city after they first arrive.

Ephraim - Morris and Ida Bober's deceased son. Ephraim died of an ear infection at an age that is not specified. Little is known about Ephraim's personality, but his death has created a void in Morris Bober's life that creates much of his sadness. The fact that Morris Bober has been left without a son is important in the plot, however, because Frank Alpine is able to fill the space that Ephraim one held and become a foster child.

Schmitz - German owner of the grocery store across the street. Schmitz never acts in the novel, but is a subtle presence because the presence of his store negatively affects the Bobers' store. Schmitz's German ethnicity is noteworthy because of the persecuting role that German's played on the Jews during the Holocaust. On an allegorical level, the way that Schmitz pushes Morris out of business and into deeper poverty can be compared to the way that Germans made Jews suffer in Europe.

goes to the hospital, has himself circumcised and after Passover becomes a Jew. Analysis of Major Characters

Morris Bober

Morris Bober represents the moral center of the novel. Morris is a kind and generous figure who believes that people should treat each other compassionately and not cheat one another. Morris is an ironic hero because while he is the champion of the novel, he does not achieve anything significant or win any great battles. Morris's temperament is governed by quiet resignation to the hand that he has been dealt. It is a hand that is characterized by suffering, due to economic deprivation and the death of a loved son, but Morris accepts it without much complaint. For Morris, suffering is an unfortunate but necessary part of life. Through it, one is able to spiritually transcend the pain and see the meaningful beauty of life. Morris lives these values everyday. Although he is not happy being trapped in an unsuccessful grocery, he thanks God for the presence of Julius Karp because Karp's presence reminds Morris how much more valuable it is to be poor and realized, than rich and foolish.

Morris's behavior is also characterized by his kindness to other people. Morris wants to shovel the snow in front of the shop for the Christians going to church. Morris chases after a customer who leaves change in the store. Morris opens his shop at six am just to sell the Polish woman a three-cent roll. It is Morris's insistence that he always act well to others, in fact, that creates some of his suffering. While other merchants make money by cheating their customers, Morris remains poor but triumphs spiritually because he remains good. Morris may have died a modest man who felt like a failure, but his true success as a human being can be measured in the transformation of Frank Alpine. It is under Morris's influence that Frank turned from being a man of moral degeneration to a good man who has accepted another's burden of suffering out of a commitment to love, compassion, and responsibility. On the level of morals and ethics, Morris succeeds, even if others think that he failed in life.

Frank Alpine

Frank Alpine is perhaps the most important character in the novel since he is the assistant named in the novel's title. It is Frank's transformation from a dishonest character to one marked by goodness and grace that motivates the novel's movement. Having acted in a robbery against Morris Bober, Frank arrives at the Bober store in an effort to "make it up" to the grocer. At the same time, Frank's behavior has a slightly masochistic edge, where he is trying to punish himself for bad deeds done. Although Frank is trying to be good, his dishonesty cannot stop. His continual thievery from the store demonstrates the extraordinary difference between what he longs for and what he actually does. Although Frank occasionally feels guilty, his need to steal resembles a disease where he almost involuntarily keeps slipping change into his pocket while receiving a mild thrill from the theft. Frank's pursuit of Helen follows an equally ambiguous pattern. On the one hand, Frank wants to love someone purely, but on the other hand he simply lusts after Helen's body. Frank cloaks his desire for Helen under the guise of true love. To some extent, Frank believes that he is in love, but his eventual inability to control his lust slips out as he forces Helen to have sex despite her resistance. Frank initially tries to emulate Saint Francis of Assisi in his pursuit for goodness, but after working with Morris Bober begins to take up Morris's philosophy for his own. It is not until after Frank's exposure as the dishonest person that he is that he is able to truly patch his life together in the way that he wants it. He has become the assistant to Morris Bober and has learned from him a peaceful way of life that will not grant him riches, but will grant him the patience and goodness to survive. When his transformation is complete, Frank finally is able to fully love Helen.

Helen Bober

Helen Bober has a classical name that does not reflect her Yiddish background. Helen's name evokes the idea of ancient Greece. Like Helen of Troy, Helen Bober is a figure that many men become interested it. Furthermore, Helen's name suggests her desire to study the classics herself, a desire that has been thwarted by her family's poverty. Helen is the character who links the owners of the grocery to the other people in the neighborhood. Helen leaves the grocery everyday and heads out to work as a secretary somewhere in New York. Helen has had relationships with Nat Pearl and Louis Karp. It is through her interaction with those men that their true natures become known and it is also through her interaction with their families that Malamud is able to explore their family dynamics. Despite her ability to leave the grocery each day, Helen is perpetually unsatisfied. She spends her hours dreaming of a better life. She clings to novels and visits the library several times a week, in an effort to use literature as a means to flee the mediocrity of her life. Because Helen is a dreamer, she does not always accurately understand people when she meets them. Her strong longing to flee poverty initiated her love of Nat Pearl. As a future lawyer, Nat represented someone with a possibility. Regardless that his character was not all charming, Helen fell in love with him for what he represented to her. When Helen realized his true desires—sex—she shunned him. Helen also initially loves Frank Alpine even though she is not able to see him for who he is. She believes that he really will attend college because it is what she wants and fails to imagine that the presents he gives her were stolen because she does not want them to be. It is only after Frank's vicious treatment of her and Morris's death that Helen slowly comes to a new realization about Frank and Nat. With her realization, she is finally able to love more than she an image that she has created.

Themes, Motifs, and Symbols

Themes

Father and Son Relationships

Four father-son relationships exist in The Assistant, three biological and one created. The created relationship exists between Morris Bober and Frank Alpine. Morris's biological son, Ephraim, died at a young age, but Frank arrives to learn Morris's trade and philosophy. Frank will be the one to inherit the grocery when Morris dies, which a son would normally do. The other sons and fathers demonstrate the difficult nature of passing on one's ethics and values to one's child. Jeffrey Helterman proposes that Malamud's presentation of four-father son relationships evokes the tradition of evoking four kinds of sons during the Passover Seder: the wise son (Nat Pearl), the wicked son (Ward Minogue), the foolish son (Louis Karp), and the son who has wits not to ask (Frank Alpine). Frank eventually does learn to ask the right questions and in doing so becomes more of a son to Morris Bober than the other sons are to their fathers. The way that these various relationships are explored in the novel touches on the relative difficulty of passing a historical legacy from father to son, as well as one's philosophy of system of laws.

Transcendence of One's Self

Frank Alpine spends the novel learning to transcend the ignoble desires of his self and learn to be a good person. Frank's general tendencies, as exhibited in the beginning of the novel, lean toward dishonesty and lust for Helen. He desires to become like Saint Francis, a model of goodness, but it is only through a fierce struggle that he is able to do so. Morris Bober is a person who has learned how to transcend his self and proceed with grace. Morris Bober fully accepts the idea of suffering. He sees that it is necessary to his self and the world. Through his acceptance, Morris is able to transcend the imprisoning effect of his suffering and liberate his self. Frank Alpine's eventual transformation in the novel allows his to achieve similar spiritual freedom.

Struggle for the American Dream

All of the characters in the novel are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. In the belly of New York City, they all struggle for the American Dream. Malamud suggests that this struggle is difficult, but also acknowledges its possibilities. Some immigrants, like Julius Karp, have managed to become rich. Although Julius is not an honorable person, his economic success came in part from his own hard work and his willingness to take advantage of the opportunities before his eyes. Nat Pearl represents another success story in the community. Although his parents still speak Yiddish, he managed to attend Columbia and now attends Law School. While there are these successes, there are also many difficulties. The Bobers barely subsist even though they own their own business. Carl, the Swedish painter, has children who appear to be constantly hungry. Even the tendency for customers to leave the Bobers' store for better prices seems reasonable given their economic struggle. Malamud exposes the possibility of realizing the American Dream as a new immigrant, but also its harsh reality by exposing the lives in an immigrant community in Brooklyn.

Motifs

Saint Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis of Assisi reappears throughout the novel mostly when Frank Alpine discusses him. When Frank was an orphan, the priest used to read portions of Saint Francis's book Saint Francis's Little Flowers to the boys. Frank always longed to achieve the goodness that Saint Francis embodied. The constant reappearance of Saint Francis in the text, or through the images of flowers and birds, constantly reminds Frank of his desire to be good, even though he continues to always do wrong. Saint Francis also was an eclectic monk who preached that poverty was the way to reach God and was Christ's true message. The Catholic Church of his time considered Saint Francis's ideas incorrect and dangerous, since their ability to collect funds from their parishes kept them rich. Morris Bober, however, shares Saint Francis's perspective and accepts his impoverishment as a way that he has remained spiritually afresh. Eventually, Frank Alpine will come to accept impoverishment as well and despite living in it, will be able to spiritually transform.

Prison

The idea that the grocery where the Bobers' work is a prison occurs often throughout the novel. Helen Bober always thinks of her home as a prison and once even dreams of it as such. The merchants who find Frank Alpine working in the shop warn him to leave or he will get stuck there too, in a prison-like death tomb. The idea of prison relates to Malamud's discussion of suffering and redemption. When asked about the prison motif in his work, Malamud once stated, "I use it as a metaphor for the dilemma of all men: necessity, whose bare we look through and try not to see. Social injustice, apathy, ignorance. The personal prison of entrapment in past experience, guilt, obsession—the somewhat blind or blinded self. A man has to construct, invent his freedom." Within The Assistant, the only character who does not think of the grocery as a prison is Morris Bober. Although he is not happy there, he has come to accept the grocery store and he also does not see it as the sole factor imprisoning him in his life. As Frank Alpine changes, he will willingly come to live in the prison of the grocery despite everyone's warnings. His doing so is possible because his changed self as altered the nature of his imprisonment, as his soul has been freed.

Yiddish Language

Phrases and words from the Yiddish Language dominate the way that Morris and Ida Bober speak. Malamud emphasizes their native language by placing Yiddish words directly in the text such as: "landsleit" (countrymen), "parnusseh" (livelihood), and "gesheft" (business). The use of Anglicized Yiddish terms also demonstrates their native language, such as the Polish woman being a "Poilisheh," the Italian tenant being an "Italyener," and the possible robbers being "holdupnicks." Most importantly, Malamud directly translates from the Yiddish into the English, with the parts of speech not appearing in their normal American locations. For example, Ida's inquiry of Morris, "You said to him something not nice," might normally be expressed in American English as, "You said something not nice to him?" The Yiddish phrasing helps to ground the characters' ethnic backgrounds. It also plays an important textual role in indicating Frank Alpine's evolution. Toward the end of the novel, Frank too occasionally thinks in Yiddish phrasings, indicating his full embrace of Morris Bober's philosophy.

Symbols

Flowers

Flowers reappear throughout the text as a symbol related to the motif of Saint Francis of Assisi. Helen's naked behind is compared to a flower; Frank dreams of Helen throwing him a flower; Frank carves Helen a wooden flower; and Helen tosses a flower into her father's grave. Real flowers represent the realization of pure love that characterized Saint Francis. For most of the book, Helen and Frank are not able to love one another. The symbol of the wooden flower shows Frank's desire to love Helen, but also his inability to transcend a concrete image of what this love would equal and fully embrace it. At the end of the novel when Saint Francis transforms Frank's wooden flower into a real one, his love has become fully realized and pure.

The Novels Frank reads

After learning that Frank wants to go to college, Helen makes Frank read Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Crime and Punishment. Helen's desire that Frank read these books highlights her desire to transform him into something that she wants him to be. Helen is beginning to fall in love with him, but not with who he truly is, but with the man she believes she can make him into. On one level, these books suggest Helen's inability to properly love. On the level of text, the books all contain plots that mirror Frank Alpine's own struggle. In all of the novels, the main characters commit a "crime" that changes their entire life: both Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary have affairs; and Raskolnikov commits a murder. Given Frank's guilty conscience, these books all make him consider whether or not he will be able to redeem himself in the future. Ironically, although Helen gave Frank the books, she barely understands them herself and as the novel continues she is not able to forgive Frank even though he committed a crime just like her revered heroes and heroines.

Milk and bread

Morris Bober receives crates of milk each morning from the deliverymen, which sit outside his door until he drags them in. He also receives two bags of rolls that he sells throughout the day. This milk and this bread symbolize Morris's importance as a sustainer of the community. These two products provide physical nourishment for the neighborhood. When Frank Alpine is starving and sleeping in the basement, he survives alone on milk and rolls. Morris's tendency to sell products that support his customers is consistent with his status as a moral supporter for the community. While Julius Karp makes much more money by trading in alcohol, Morris Bober is content to sell people health and nourishment through his marketing of these more wholesome goods.

Chapter One

Summary

Morris Bober opens his store on a cold November morning at 6 a.m., after dragging in crates of milk and bag of rolls left by delivery men. An old Polish woman is at the door and he sells her a roll for three cents. After she is gone, he heats up the store. A young girl whose mother is a drunk comes in and asks for food on credit and although Morris initially wants to say no, he gives the girl the food. He notes the drunk woman's debt on a piece of paper, reducing it slightly so that Morris's wife, Ida, will not be too upset. Morris thinks to himself that business is rough, as he awaits the arrival of his upstairs tenant, Nick Fuso, who usually buys ham and bread each morning.

Morris has owned the grocery for twenty-one years and it has basically remained the same during those years. As the morning passes, Nick does not arrive and Morris sees him returning home with a bag from a different grocery store. Morris feels depressed. A few customers enter, but buy little. Breitbart, a light bulb peddler, comes in for a cup of tea. After Breitbart leaves, Morris's wife Ida comes downstairs. At age fifty-one, she is nine years younger than Morris. Despite her younger age, her aching feet keep her from working frequently. Morris tells her that business has been slow. Together, they discuss their desire that someone will buy the store. Ida reminds Morris that Julius Karp, a man who owns a liquor store on the street, telephoned a man who might be interested. She hopes the buyer will come today. Ida chastises her husband for smoking and tells him to go upstairs to eat and rest.

Upstairs, Morris eats and reflects that business is so bad lately because a new grocery store owned by a German, Schmitz, opened across the street. A tailor used to work there, but after he left, Karp, who owns the property, leased it to Schmitz. Morris asked Karp why he could be so unkind to him, but Karp told him not to worry. Morris had worried for about a month and then after Schmitz's store opened, he found that it was as bad as he thought.

The narrative cuts to Helen Bober, Ida and Morris's daughter. She is on the subway coming home from work when Nat Pearl approaches and asks if she is mad at him. Helen tells him no. She reflects that during the summer she had felt in love with Nat, so she agreed to sleep with him, thus losing her virginity. Later she realized that Nat only wanted to have sex and not to form a meaningful relationship. Since then, she had shunned him. Nat and Helen grew upon the same block since Nat's parents, Sam and Goldie Pearl, owned a nearby candy store, but Nat had managed to graduate from Columbia University and now attends law school. Helen gets off the subway and heads home. She passes the Pearls' candy store and also Karp's liquor store, the two stores owned by Jews on an otherwise gentile block. Karp used to have a poor shoe store, but his liquor business made him very successful.

Morris wakes and heads downstairs just before Helen walks in. The buyer has not come. Ida sends Helen upstairs to eat. Helen hates their small dark apartment and reflects that her father has never really left their block since her brother, Ephraim, died. Morris comes up and offers to let Helen keep more of her paycheck, but she refuses. Morris feels shame that he cannot send her to college, which is her dream.

In the evening, business picks up. Karp comes in and asks if the buyer came. Morris has felt mildly annoyed with Karp since Karp rented his space to another grocer. Karp tells Morris that he has seen a car pass by several times and thinks that they want to rob him. Karp, although richer, is too cheap to have a phone and asks Morris to call the cops in a few minutes, after Karp hollers to him. Morris agrees and Karp leaves. Nick Fuso's wife, Tessie, enters and buys some food to make amends for her husband shopping elsewhere in the morning. Morris hears Karp call to him and he starts moving toward the phone. As he does so, he sees two men with handkerchiefs on their faces enter the store. One has a pistol. They take the money from the register and ask where the rest is. Morris insists that he is poor and has no more money. The man with the gun calls Morris a lying Jew and strikes him across the face. The other perpetrator protests his partner's movements and immediately offers Morris some water in a cup. The men search the store, but find no more money. The man with the gun again questions Morris for money, but when Morris offers none he strikes him again. As Morris passes out, he thinks that it is a fitting end to his unlucky day.

Analysis

This opening chapter introduces the novel's characters, setting, as well as the plot event that sets the story moving. The book opens with Morris Bober unlocking his cold store at six am for a waiting Polish woman. This opening is significant. First, as Morris brings the Polish woman inside, so too does he bring the narrative gaze. The movement of the narration from outside to inside immediately locates the reader in the primary setting for the novel: the grocery. The view of the world that the reader shall become to learn will be that of the grocer, first Morris Bober and then Frank Alpine. The immediate movement into the grocery thus seems highly appropriate.

Morris Bober's opening act also is crucial to his personality because it shows his generous and self-sacrificing nature. Morris always opens the store at six am just to sell the polish woman a three-cent roll. Although Morris has economic need, he does not wake so early to help the polish woman simply because of it. He does so because he knows that someone needs to serve her, so it might as well be him. Morris's act suggests his moral order in which he compassionately supports the needs and desires of other people to the best of his ability. Morris's generous and kindly disposition can also be seen when he sells the drunk woman food that he knows she will never pay for. Morris's generous behavior in this chapter helps to depict his strong moral fiber and sincere character. In doing so, it helps to frame the plot and establish the themes of the book upon which Morris's character depends.

The idea that Morris suffers and has economic desperation also is established in this chapter and will be expanded upon throughout the book. The Bobers have owned the grocery for twenty-one years, a significant number that suggests the age of true maturing from child to adult, and their economic subservience to the success of the business places them in a difficult, almost imprisoned state. If the grocery does poorly, as it is doing now, the Bobers are stuck with no livelihood and can only pray for a buyer. The idea of the grocery being a prison reappears as a motif throughout the novel. It should also be noted that Malamud's own immigrant parents owned a grocery in which they were also trapped and the grocery setting and its subsequent signification is an on-going theme in his stories.

The Bober's suffering has not only been economic, as the chapter suggests with its reference to the death of their son, Ephraim. His name first is mentioned without context as Morris thinks about Ephraim in the store, which makes Morris's eyes grow wet. Later Helen's thoughts explain who Ephraim is as she remembers her childhood. How Ephraim died is not explained in this section, although it is an obviously poignant remembrance. The memory helps to suggest the pain that the Bobers have suffered and as the novel continues Ephraim will play an increasingly important symbolic role as a lost son while his father develops a new foster father relationship with Frank Alpine.

Helen's walk through the neighborhood after leaving the subway locates the grocery within its Brooklyn neighborhood. The neighborhood has only three Jewish families, but is an immigrant location where all of the characters are referred to their ethnicities. There is Carl the Swedish painter, Schmitz the German grocer, the Polish woman, and Nick Fuso the Italian mechanic. These ethnic references suggest that these people are true immigrants who left Europe to struggle in America for a better life. Everyone in this community lives in varying shades of poverty, which the exception it seems of Julius Karp, who has run a successful liquor business. All future events in the novel should be understood as taking place in this impoverished immigrant community. Nat Pearl's ability to attend Columbia and law school, for example, is truly noteworthy, given the fact that his parents recently arrived off a boat from somewhere in Yiddish speaking Europe.

The speech patterns of the character also highlight their ethnic backgrounds. Morris and Ida Bober along with the other older Jews, the Karps and the Pearls, all speak Yiddish. Malamud shows their language by placing Yiddish words directly in the text such as: "landsleit" (countrymen), "parnusseh" (livelihood), and "gesheft" (business). The use of Anglicized Yiddish terms also demonstrates their native language, such as the Polish woman being a "Poilisheh," the Italian tenant being an "Italyener," and the possible robbers being "holdupnicks." Finally, the way that Ida and Morris speak English uses Yiddish grammar translated, with the verbs and adjectives not in the normal American locations. For example, Ida's statement, "You should long ago sell the store" suggests her Yiddish speech patterns since it is not expressed in the normal American manner, which would be something like, "You should have sold the store long ago." The translated Yiddish style allows Malamud to preserve the mixture of comedy, irony, and tragedy in that language. The ironic language is important since Morris Bober will prove to be an ironic hero whose life is both comedic and tragic. His ironic style can be seen in the final sentence of the chapter, "The end fitted the day. It was his luck, others had better." The tone of the language will play an important part in character development and since the novel's plot concerns character, this use of language is crucial.

Chapter Two

Summary

After Morris's injury, he stays in bed for a week. For one day during that week, the store is shut completely, but during the other days Ida and Helen manage to keep it open. During the same week, a skinny, sad eyed stranger appears on the block. He frequently sits in Sam Pearl's candy shop drinking coffee and tells them that his name is Frank Alpine and he has just moved to New York from the west. One day, Frank shows Sam Pearl a picture of Saint Francis of Assisi that Frank just found in a magazine. Saint Francis is Frank's hero, of whom Frank frequently heard when he was a child in an orphanage.

A week after the robbery, Morris opens his store. The Polish woman returns the next morning to buy a roll and Morris sells her one as he has for years, even though he knows she is slightly anti-Semitic. As Morris goes to bring in the milk, he almost swoons from dizziness but a man catches him. It is Frank Alpine. Frank unloads the milk. He drinks coffee with Morris. Frank explains that he wants to find a job working in a grocery somewhere and Morris gives him some suggestions on where to go.

For the next two mornings, Frank Alpine appears again to help with the milk. On the second day, the two men talk over cups of coffee. Frank grew up in an orphanage after his mother died and his father abandoned him. After some rough foster homes, he left the West to start again on the East Coast. Frank asks about Morris's bandages and Morris describes the robbery. Frank suggests that they should kill the robbers and then asks if Morris is a Jew. Morris says yes. Upon Frank's questioning, Morris explains that he has a daughter and had a son who died of an ear infection. Frank leaves but reappears a few hours later to wash the windows. When Morris confronts him, Frank explains that he wants no money but that he just wanted to pay Morris back. He proposes that Morris let him assist in the grocery, for free, so that Frank can learn the trade. Ida comes down during the discussion and does not like the idea, so Morris says no and Frank leaves.

The narrative cuts to Helen Bober and Louis Karp who are walking on the Coney Island boardwalk. Louis pestered Helen numerous times for a date, so she went to Coney Island with him. Louis is a lazy, young man who rides on the money from his father's liquor store. Upon being questioned, Helen explains that her life has not yet turned out as she wants it to since she is twenty-three and has not gone to college. Louis tells Helen that he would like to marry her, but Helen is not interested, even though they kiss momentarily. He drives her back to the grocery.

The next morning, Morris finds a bottle of milk and two rolls missing from his delivery. He does not tell Ida, but the theft of a quart of milk and two rolls continues for two more days. Morris then starts waking early before six to see if he can observe the robber, but he does not although the food keeps disappearing. The grocer questions some people who might be involved, but finds out nothing. After five days, he tells Ida and they call the police. Detective Minogue, who is investigating the holdup, comes to question them. Detective Minogue lives in the area and his son, Ward, went to Helen's school, but later got in trouble for molesting girls there and stealing from his job. In response to Ward's crimes, Detective Minogue had beaten his son and made him leave him. Morris feels sorry for Detective Minogue. After the detective asks them about the thefts, he asks if they have seen his son, but they have not. Later that night, Morris closes the store early and impulsively visits his cellar. He finds a dirty and tired Frank Alpine there, sleeping on the floor. Frank confesses to stealing the milk and rolls due to hunger. Morris takes Frank upstairs and feeds him. Ida comes down and, upon seeing Frank, guesses that he stole the milk and bread. Although Ida wants Frank to leave and fears he will steal, Morris insists that Frank sleep at the back of the store for that night. The next morning, Morris rises to sell the Polish woman her roll. When he grabs the milk crates, he slips on ice, hits the ground, and passes out. Frank rises, carries Morris inside, gets Helen to notify Ida, and places Morris's apron around his own neck.

Analysis

This second chapter introduces one of the most important characters in the novel, Frank Alpine. Frank appears mysteriously just after Morris Bober's unfortunate robbery. He has come from the West and appears to be a poor man. The only things that are known about him are those that he shares: he has had a rough life and appears to be looking for a second chance. Frank is a sympathetic young man. He is skinny and rough shaven and these factors, along with his eventual theft of the milk and bread suggest that he is a man of need for whom one should have compassion. Both Morris and Ida Bober have compassion for Frank, even though Ida does not wish him to stay. Morris could turn Frank away or even have him arrested upon finding him, but in a typically humane move, Morris instead feeds him. As do Ida and Morris, the tendency is to sympathize with Frank at this point even though he has done something bad by being a thief. This tendency to feel for Frank will continue through the entire novel even as Frank's dishonest acts grow more egregious. Malamud maintains the sympathy by constantly demonstrating Frank's own belief in his culpability, just as he does here by having Frank immediately confess to his crime while begging forgiveness. Malamud also shows Frank's struggle for goodness by letting the reader see the contents of Frank's mind.

The image of Saint Francis of Assisi appears for the first time in this chapter and will reappear as one of the novel's main motifs. Frank Alpine admires Saint Francis because Saint Francis's innate goodness is so pure that it brings Frank to tears. Frank's own desire to attain such innate goodness in his self will drive the novel's plot. Furthermore, the image of Saint Francis provides an important commentary upon the possibilities of spiritual success amidst true impoverishment. Saint Francis, as Frank tells Sam Pearl, believed in poverty for spiritual purposes and maintained to bring freshness to impoverishment that most do not see. Saint Francis's ability to see through poverty and create a spiritual life within it will also be Frank's challenge in the novel. The neighborhood of the grocery, for example in Helen Bober's perspective, exists as a wasteland full of ruined dreams and difficult lives. Within such a difficult environment, Morris Bober manages to maintain a spiritual sense of goodness, and Frank Alpine's arrival will attempt to bring in an additional freshness in Saint Francis's style. The motif of Saint Francis will re-appear with references to birds and flowers, the creatures that the Saint once preached to, as well as by mentions of the Saint himself.

The interlude of Helen Bober and Louis Karp draws out their characters in more detail. Helen is one of the three most important characters, with her father and Frank Alpine. Helen bears a classical, non-Yiddish name that evokes images of Greek myth. Helen Bober, like Helen of Troy, is desired by many men and in the novel serves unifying role in her multiple relationships. This chapter shows Helen as a dreamer who yarns for something better that her financial situation cannot provide. While Helen is an intelligent dreamer, Louis Karp, is an uninteresting mope. With his father's money, Louis could do what Helen longs to do, attend college, but Louis has neither the interest nor the diligence. Louis is content simply to make do on his father's achievements. Speech patterns again are important in this chapter and demonstrate Louis and Helen's relative perspectives. Louis relies heavily on casual American slang—"Say, baby, let's drop this deep philosophy and go trap a hamburger. My stomach complains"—while Helen's articulate grammar exceeds that of the other characters. The exposition of both of these chapters is important, as Helen will play a crucial role in the text and Louis, although not a major character, fits into Malamud's important theme of father-son relations. Louis and his father, Julius, are one of the three biological father-son pairs that exist in the novel that will serve a comparative basis for the symbolic foster fathering that will take place between Morris Bober and Frank Alpine.

The ability for Morris to give people milk and bread symbolically suggests his position as a sustainer in the community. As the book continues, his ability to sustain others on a spiritual and moral level will become clear. The food that Morris gives others nourishes them and provides for them, as does his beneficent generosity. Ironically although he gives nourishment, he does not reap financial gain from his efforts while Karp, a seller of destructive alcohol, does. This irony testifies to another theme in Malamud's book, the struggle for the American dream.

Chapter Three

Summary

Morris has reopened the old injury on his head from falling. The doctor insists that he rest in bed for a few weeks. Ida cares for Morris all day, but later remembers Frank Alpine and goes downstairs to tell him to leave.

Frank looks clean and fresh when Ida enters and he shows her fifteen dollars in the register, saying that they had a busy morning. Ida does not like the idea, but tentatively suggests that Frank stay during Morris's illness and continue to sleep on the couch in the back. The next morning, he has done eight dollars of business and also cleaned the store and fixed a broken sink and light. Ida thinks that the store looks better. Even though she distrusts him, she shows him how to cut the meat. Ida then spends most of her time upstairs resting, looking forward to the time that Frank, a non-Jew, will be gone.

Frank finds life in the store relatively pleasant. He sells the Polish woman her roll at six and spends the day trying to improve the store while selling goods. He eats whatever he likes whenever he is hungry. The customers like him and so do the deliverers, even though they all warn him not to work for a Jew and that the grocery is a prison-like death tomb. Ida feeds Frank his meals and gives him fifty cents a day spending money, which he uses to see the movies. Frank meets Nick Fuso in the grocery and Nick invites Frank over for dinner after learning that he is Italian.

Ida always keeps Helen away from Frank, but he occasionally catches a glimpse of her and thinks of her. He finds her quite attractive. Because he is lonely and never sees her, one night he conjures a plan and calls her to the telephone even though no one is there. After she finds the line dead, she looks perplexed and he explains that he did not know what happened to the caller.

While Ida dislikes having a non-Jew running their store, she has to admit that his presence has driven up their revenues. Although they are still poor, Frank is bringing in five to seven more dollars per day than Morris had been. He also makes the customers laugh and even gets them to buy more. At the end of the next week, Ida insists on giving Frank five dollars in wages because of all he has done, despite Frank's protests. Frank then feels bad, because while the store had been making money, Frank had also secretly been pocketing some of it—about ten dollars over the two weeks. Frank reasons that he deserved some of the money, but also feels bad about taking it. He tries to get himself to stop, but it becomes a bizarre compulsion.

One night, Frank feels terrible about all the wrong he has done and decides to set things right. He remembers that it was he and Ward Minogue that robbed the grocery store. It had been Ward's idea to rob Karp's liquor store, but when Karp fled, Ward insisted that they rob Bober, since he was just a Jew as well. At the time Frank had thought that a Jew is a Jew, so they might as well rob him, but now he is not so sure. In his contemplation, Frank goes to a nearby bar and finds Ward Minogue. Minogue is feeling sick and laughs when Frank asks for his gun back. Minogue still wants to stick up the liquor store and laughs at Frank for working at Bober's. Frank explains that he did it to quiet his conscience and that he placed the money from the robbery in the register on his first day back. Minogue laughs and tells Frank to seduce the Jew's daughter.

Back at the store, Ida counts the money and leaves some in the till for the morning. Helen goes to take a shower. Frank goes into the basement and hides himself in the dumbwaiter and pulls himself up to the bathroom and looks at Helen's naked body. Helen has a delicate, attractive body. After Frank lowers himself to the basement, he feels a surge of moving joy.

Analysis

With this chapter, Malamud links the events of the previous two chapters while proposing the novel's conflict to come by shows that the sympathetic Frank Alpine is also a thief and one who even was involved in the robbery of Morris. Because of the way that Malamud has framed the exposition of Frank, her character appears to be a puzzle. This presentation is appropriate because Frank's character is a puzzle to Frank himself and it is Frank's attempt to unravel the puzzle and make sense of his character that drives the plot of the novel.

Frank appears to be a good soul at the beginning of this chapter as he did in the one before it. When Morris falls sick, Frank voluntarily runs the shop, with almost miraculous results. The first day he brings in fifteen dollars, much more than Morris had been earning. The rest of the week he does better as well. Frank's abilities astound Ida and she lets him stay, even though she does not approve of him because he is not Jewish. Frank's arrival from nowhere and his ability to improve the shop lends him an almost supernatural charm. For this reason, his figure evokes the tradition of Yiddish folklore. It is perhaps because Ida sees him as a good luck charm that arrived in their time of need, that Ida lets him stay.

While Frank starts the chapter as a miracle worker, he ends it by being exposed as a common criminal. First, we learn that he is stealing from the small revenues of a poor man, Morris Bober. Second, and perhaps worse, we learn that it was Frank who was involved in robbing Morris in the first place. Frank's deceitful deeds normally would make him appear as a purely evil character. However, because Malamud already exposed Frank as a sympathetic character who has had a rough life and who yearns to do good, his previous and current evil deeds simply seem curious. Frank explains his thefts from Morris's shop almost as a compulsion or a disease. Although he knows that it is wrong, he cannot stop slipping quarters into his pocket. Because Malamud exposes the war within Frank's conscience, it is difficult to think entirely poorly of him. Instead, one tends to want Frank to succeed in his quest to conquer his dark side. It is Frank's fluctuating struggle to be good and his tendency to do evil that is the driving force of the novel.

Toward the end of the chapter, the other weakness in Frank's character, his inability to control his fleshy desires, also becomes clear. Frank is physically and emotionally lonely, having no friends, and no girlfriend. Having seen the attractive, though hidden, Helen, he desires her. When he sneaks up the dumbwaiter to spy on her naked body, however, Frank exposes himself again as less than a sympathetic character. He wants to be good and love, like Saint Francis of Assisi, but actually his actions show that he does not really know how. Frank's quest to learn to love and to control his physical urges is a theme that will run concurrent to his desire to control his petty dishonesty. When Frank sees Helen's body, he admires its shape but also notices that her buttocks resemble a flower. Even the comparison of Helen's buttocks to a flower invokes the motif of Saint Francis of Assisi and the idea of freshness existing in the wasteland of the immigrant ghetto. The flower serves as an image to remind Frank of his true quest to learn to be a controlled individual. The flower also suggests the way that Frank will manage to bring light and joy to himself and the community. Through his dedication and love to Helen. At this point in the novel, however, Frank is unable to do so.

Chapter Five

Summary

Business at the grocery keeps improving. Morris lets Helen keep more of her check and wants to pay Frank more sometime soon. Helen feels jealous of Frank's past travels, which she has never managed, and feels excited that he will attend college in the fall. To help him prepare, she insists that he read Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and Madame Bovary. Frank reads them all, but feels confused as to why Helen enjoys reading about other people's misery. The books make Frank wonder if one error in a man's life can change his future forever, with no possibility of amending it.

One night, Helen is sneaking up to Frank Alpine's room to say something to him when Nat Pearl telephones. He asks her on a date, but she declines and will not even let him come over right then for a chat. He tries to find out why she is shunning him, but she says nothing. After she hangs up, her mother criticizes her treatment of Nat and warns her that she is not getting younger. Finally when Helen is able to leave, she goes to Frank's room. She has brought two presents that he gave her earlier in the day: a black scarf with gold in it and a red leather covered collected Shakespeare. She insists that she cannot accept them because they are too much for her. He reluctantly takes them back. Later, Helen reflects upon her need to give the presents back because men usually expect something for them.

The next day on her way to work, Helen sees the scarf and Shakespeare book in the garbage can on the street. Astonished by the waste, she takes them out and places them in the cellar. The next day, she asks Frank why he did not return the presents instead of throwing them out. He states that he lost the receipts and did not want them anymore, but she insists that she will return them on his behalf so that he shall not waste money, he will give her the receipts.

Helen visits Betty Pearl, Nat's sister, with whom she has been friends since high school. Betty asks why Helen never sees Nat anymore, but Helen declines to discuss it. Betty recently has got engaged to an accountant and they offer to take Helen out for a drive, but she refuses and heads home.

Helen is walking through the park and sees Frank Alpine feeding some birds. Helen approaches him and discusses the presents once more. Frank apologizes for giving her something that she did not want, but requests that she keep at least one of them and he will return the other. She decides to keep the Shakespeare. Frank then asks her to a movie and she accepts. As Frank and Helen's relationship continues, Ida senses something is happening, but can discover nothing. She complains to Morris, but Morris tells her not to worry.

The next day, Morris and Frank are peeling potatoes and Frank asks Morris what a Jew is anyhow. Morris says that a Jew is someone with a good heart who believes in the Torah, the Law. Morris thinks that things like eating kosher are not important, which is why he does not do it. What is important is for Jews to do what is right, honest and good. When Frank asks Morris why Jews suffer so much, Morris says that Jews suffer just as everyone does and if one does not suffer for the law, in order to be good to others when will one suffer. After the conversation, Morris feels worried that Frank's interest might have to do with Helen.

Morris notices the next day that his hair has grown long, so he goes to the barber. As he is getting his hair cut, he sees three customers go into the store and come out with heavy looking bags. Morris feels happy thinking that he has made some good sales. When he returns, he finds that only three dollars has been rung up. Morris feels stunned and upset. With the next customer, Morris sees that the register is working and decides that Frank has been stealing from him. Although Morris feels sick about it, he says nothing to anyone. He watches Frank carefully for the next few days, but sees no sign of dishonesty. Morris feels unsure about his suspicions and then decides that if Frank has been stealing it was because they were not giving Frank enough money. He decides to start paying Frank fifteen dollars a week, without telling Ida. Frank seems surprised and argues against the raise, but Morris insists. Frank leaves the store looking down.

Analysis

Frank's relationship with Helen, Morris, and himself continue in this chapter. Helen continues to remain blinded to Frank's true identity. As she starts to spend more time with him, she insists of making him into the person whom she wants him to be. She imagines that if they do ever get married, her goal would be to make him into a person who really is someone. She envisions him, with his nose straightened, his hair shorter, and being well versed in literature. Helen is structuring her love for Frank upon her own images and expectations that shall not measure up to who Frank truly is. She is falling in love with an image.

Helen tries to create this image by giving Frank several novels to read. These novels are significant because all of them involve characters, like Frank, who commit "crimes" that affect their lives. Both Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary have romantic affairs that ruin them. Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment may be the most like Frank as he commits a crime whose moral consequences he cannot outrun, a vicious murder. Raskolnikov ultimately will achieve redemption after a lengthy stay in a prison camp during which time he achieves a sense of peace. Frank is on a similar quest to find peace in himself, but even after reading the novels is not sure that redemption is possible. Ironically, Frank seems to understand the true essence of the novels better than Helen, who although book savvy, still is unlearned in the way of humanity.

The image of Frank in the park surrounded by birds again evokes Saint Francis of Assisi and his correlating goodness. In the scene that follows though, Frank's quest for goodness obviously falls short. After Helen refused his presents, Frank entertained less than charitable thoughts, wondering if Jewish girls were not just too much trouble— a thought revealing both callousness and racism. Next the exposition of his internal thoughts shows the insincere nature of his pursuit of her. While Helen longs for love, Frank longs for physical gratification, in part. After Helen keeps badgering Frank about the presents, Frank thinks that he may still "have a chance." This chance is for sex, not love, as his thoughts make clear. Thus, while Frank may be trying to change himself, his thoughts show coldness in his heart that is not characteristic of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Frank's relationship with Morris continues as well. When Frank asks Morris what a Jew is, Morris describes Judaism as a code of ethical behavior rather than a system of religious rules. Morris believes that a Jew is a Jew if he follows the true law, which requires compassion and honesty for all people. Strict dietary laws noted in the Torah as less important to him. Again, during this lecture Morris appears as an instructor of morals. Furthermore, although Morris is speaking about Judaism his philosophy also seems to follow in the footsteps of Christ. Like Christ, Morris suggests that he suffers for everyone in the world, including Frank. In Morris's world, people suffer for one another and in doing so provide the moral cushion that makes a harsh existence possible. Frank does not understand, but this lesson from Morris is one of the more valuable ones.

While Morris continues to teach Frank, his suspicions about Frank's honesty also arise in this chapter when Morris suspects that Frank might be stealing from him. Morris's reaction to the theft follows in his characteristically charitable vein—he blames himself for not paying Frank enough and he offers Frank more money. Morris's suspicions foreshadow his eventual exposure and confrontation of Frank's thievery in the chapter to come.

Chapter Six, Part One

Summary

Helen decides that she is falling in love with Frank. One night she dreams that her house has burned down and she and her parents have no place to go. This dream makes Helen doubt Frank, but she cannot help but think of him with affection.

The gift of the book has subtly changed their relationship. Whenever she reads Shakespeare, she hears Frank saying the lines. She also starts to see him everywhere. They meet in the library and they walk home together. One night, they stop and kiss in the park. The kiss gives Helen overwhelming happiness, but still a sense of doubt lingers. She worries about Frank not being Jewish and dreads her parents' reaction to the relationship. She decides that if she marries Frank she would help him become somebody and hopefully that they could leave New York and possibly even move to California. Helen also decides to be patient because she does not want to commit to someone who will not lead her to the place where she wants to be. Meanwhile, she and Frank secretly meet in the library, the movies, or a pizzeria.

Frank enjoys spending more time with Helen, but increasingly longs for significant physical contact with her. Frank hints at his physical desires in several ways, but Helen does not respond. Finally, she tells him that she is not going to make love to him until she is really sure that she loves him, possibly not even until they are married.

Several days later during a heavy rainstorm, Helen leaves a note under Frank's door saying that if Tessie and Nick go to the movies, she will come to his room. When Helen finally arrives, Frank thinks that Helen will let him make love to her tonight. They kiss for a while, but when Frank tries to move further Helen makes him stop. For a brief moment Frank pulls Helen back to the bed after she has said no, but then he releases her. Helen explains that although she is not a virgin, she only wants to make love to people that she believes she loves. Frank considers Helen's statement and his near loss of control and decides that he can wait for her.

The next day, Detective Minogue brings a suspect into the grocery. He gets Frank, who is nervous, to tie a bandana around the young man's face. He asks Morris to decide if he was one of the robbers. Morris decides that he was not, because the one who hit Morris was fat and the other had big hands. Detective Minogue then asks Morris if he has seen his son, Ward Minogue around, and asks Frank if he knows Ward. Frank says no. Detective Minogue takes the suspect away and Frank think that it could be him going to jail, even though he is now a changed man.

Later that night, Ward Minogue raps on the door, waking Frank. He asks Frank for money because he wants alcohol. Ward insists that Frank help him rob a liquor store or he will frame Frank or write a letter to Morris and Helen Bober about Frank's role in the crime. Frank gives Ward all his money, eight dollars, and threatens Ward that his father, Detective Minogue, is looking for him and will beat Ward when he finds him. Ward calls Frank a "kike" and falls down the stairs upon leaving.

Ida follows Helen one night and sees Helen and Frank kissing in the park. When Helen gets home, she finds her mother weeping and knows why instantly. Helen tries to defend Frank, but Ida keeps calling him a "goy," a slightly derisive term for a non-Jewish person. She makes her promise to call Nat Pearl. Helen agrees and does the next day. She agrees to go for a drive with him on Friday. The next day, Ida tells Morris that Helen and Frank were kissing. Morris is not happy, but tells Ida that a kiss is not so significant. She warns him that it portends bad things to come.

Analysis

This chapter is the longest of the novel and is the one in which the climax of the novel occurs. This first part of the chapter sets the stage for the second portion of the chapter primarily by establishing Frank's lust for Helen's body. While Helen feels like she is falling in love with Frank, Frank primarily remains interested in touching her. When Helen comes to visit Frank in his room, Frank almost loses control and attacks her even though she has asked him not to. Frank resolves then that he will be willing to wait until Helen is ready. This scene however foreshadows the one to follow at the end of the chapter when Frank will no longer be able to control his physical urges.

Both Detective Minogue and his son Ward appear in this chapter. They both are important characters for different reasons, but perhaps most importantly they make up one of the father-son pairings in the novel. Ward is the wicked son who does wrong. Detective Minogue's employment as an enforcer of the law emphasizes Ward's deviance. Detective Minogue's struggle to raise his son the way that he wants to testifies to the difficulties of father-son relations, one of the themes in the novel. Detective Minogue is a harsh father who responds with physical violence to his son's wrongs, but his desire for justice is honorable and the reader, like Morris Bober, tends to sympathize with him.

The scene in which Detective Minogue brings a robbery suspect to the grocery heightens the narrative tension by demonstrating Frank's nervousness. When Morris describes that one of the robbers had large hands, Frank finds himself looking at his own hands. After Detective Minogue takes the youth away, Frank considers how easily it could have been him in those handcuffs. As he did after reading Helen's novels, Frank considers whether one act in his life could change it so much that he would be placed in jail. Earlier Frank articulated his belief that a life of crime could bring him the glamour and money that he desired, but now seeing this life of crime embodied in a handcuffed youth, Frank wants no part of it. Detective Minogue's visit issues a wake up call to Frank, which he needs to change his behaviors. The later visit of the nasty Ward Minogue reminds Frank again. Ward leaves calling Frank a "kike," a derisive slur for Jewish people. Ward uses this label because Frank is staying in a Jewish home, but his use of it also foreshadows Frank's conversation to Judaism.

Ida's grief at Helen's kissing of a gentile provides a keen example of discrimination against gentiles by Jews. Bernard Malamud himself married an Italian who was not a Jew and his act caused much friction between himself and his family. Ida's sorrow for her daughter's act is treated with compassion, but it is based upon prejudices. Ironically, while Ida believes that the match between Helen and Frank will bring bad things, it is Frank's presence that shall ultimately help to save them all. Initially, Frank's deeds will cause pain and hardships for the Bober family, particularly Morris and Ida, but as his character changes, he will be their savior. It is only through Frank's true love for Helen that his character will completely evolve. Therefore, although Ida views their relationship as bad, the combination of their personalities will allow both of their characters to transform and will ultimately bring life and love to the grocery.

Chapter Six, Part two

Summary

Julius Karp and Morris Bober have spoken infrequently since the robbery, because Morris decided, in his recovery, that he liked Karp less than he thought. As Morris ignores Karp, Karp decides to approach him. Karp likes Morris to like him, but he finds that Morris is unfortunate and inept. Karp sees the robbery as Morris's own fault, especially as Karp had warned him. Furthermore, Morris is just unlucky. Hiring Frank Alpine was a bad idea, for example, since Karp knows that Frank is a thief from the money Frank spends in the neighborhood. While all clerks steal slightly, Karp did once and knows his son does from him, Karp condemns Frank for doing so from Morris. Furthermore, he has seen Frank hanging around Helen and thinks that having a "goy" around a Jewish girl is a bad idea. Karp decides that it is his duty to warn Morris.

Karp also has his own motivations for speaking to Morris. He wants his son, Louis, to marry Helen. This would help Helen, because she is poor, and after the marriage, Karp and his son could help fix up Morris's store. Once it was improved and Karp stopped the lease of the other grocer, Karp could effectively be a silent partner in Morris's business. Karp only worries that Helen will not agree to the marriage. He knows that she was interested in Nat Pearl but that Nat pushed her away because she was too poor and although he will be a lawyer, he needs to find a girl with more money.

When Karp knows that Frank has left the store, he drops in on Morris. Karp is surprised to find that Morris's business is going pretty well. Morris tells Karp that Frank has brought customers to him, probably because he is a gentile. Karp feels distressed at Morris's affection for Frank and wants to set the record right. He explains quickly that Morris's success is not due to Frank, but to the fact that the other grocer, Schmitz, has been sick and keeping his store shut for part of the day. In fact, Schmitz just sold his business to two Norwegians, who were going to reopen it as a gourmet deli. Morris seems devastated at this news. When Karp tries to mention Louis and Helen and Frank, Morris roars and Karp runs from the store.

After a painfully contemplative night, Morris decides that he must try and sell the store, but until he does Frank needs to stay with him to help him fight the Norwegians. Frank himself had a guilty night considering all the money that he has stolen from Morris. He has kept careful track of it, one hundred and forty dollars, and decides to pay it all back. The next day, Frank slips six dollars back into the register. Soon after, Helen telephones and tells Frank that although she is going to see Nat tonight, she wants to meet him later in the park. Frank agrees, but realizes that he has no money to take Helen out. When a customer comes in, Morris steals a dollar from the sale and Morris catches him. Frank confesses and tries to explain, but Morris, brokenhearted, says that Frank has to go. Morris hands him fifteen dollars for the week and orders him to leave his building.

Helen feels happy and excited that night fully aware of being in love with Frank. As she rides with Nat, she is distracted thinking about Frank and talks coolly to Nat. When Nat asks her if it is because of the "dago" that she is seeing, she becomes icy and unsociable.

When Helen gets to the park, she cannot find Frank. As she waits, a drunk man approaches her and introduces himself as Ward Minogue. Helen feels afraid of Ward, due to his old reputation, but lingers for a moment. He tells her that he knows Frank. As she tries to step away, he grabs her, muffles her scream, and tries to push her down. Helen kicks him in the groin and gets away, even though her dress is ripped and her face has been struck. She then hears a groan from Ward and sees Frank hitting him. Frank picks her up and she feels overjoyed to be saved, but then Frank proceeds to feverishly kiss her despite her insistence that they wait. After he has sexual intercourse with her, she curses him as an uncircumcised dog.

Analysis

The final section of this chapter brings up the major climax of the book because it demonstrates Frank Alpine's failure to control his actions both professionally and sexually. Frank has struggled, but to no avail. His struggle ends in failure. Frank, the ever-conscientious thief, has kept careful track of the amount that he has stolen and wants to repay it. No sooner does he add money to the register though, than his actions once again defy his desires and he steals it back. Morris catches him. Frank's failure to control himself seems sad, especially after he just made a new commitment to be honest. But his behavior is not surprising. He has made multiple commitments to fix himself, but to no avail. Even as he is putting the money back into the register, his failure to truly understand the nature of his self and what he needs do to reform is obvious. When he considers the theft with Ward, for example, Frank portrays himself as almost as much as a victim as Morris. Frank reasons that he only was present because of Ward's lead, therefore it basically was not his fault. This reasoning shows how far Frank is from his desire of being truly good. The fact that Frank is caught is unfortunate and because Malamud has showed us the contrasting dynamics of his mind, we sympathize with him, but it only through falling down and being tossed out by his mentor that Frank will be able to reform.

Morris's character receives a full analysis in this chapter as well, this time from Julius Karp. In Karp's mind, Morris is a character who is always unlucky. Karp knows that Morris is a good man and wants to have Morris like him for that reason, but still Morris constantly is making bad decisions that bring on bad luck. The coldness of Karp's character is revealed as Karp explains that he has his own plan for Morris, Morris's daughter, and Morris's shop. Not surprisingly, these plans will allow for the expansion of Karp's business into Morris's, without Karp actually having to purchase the property. Just as Morris is generous and good, so is Karp self-serving. Karp's discussion of his son brings another father-son relationship into light. Karp's son is a foolish son who is lazy and cares nothing for the business. Karp, for example, knows that his son steals from him, but he does not think the thievery to be so serious. Karp himself admits that he stole as a clerk when he was young. While Karp might find his own and his son's thievery acceptable, Morris Bober never would, again suggesting the strong difference in his ethics from those of Morris Bober.

Karp's discussion of Morris as an unlucky character brings up Morris's possible designation as a schemiel which is an archetype common to Yiddish folklore. Ruth Wisse has traced the schemiel character back to its East European origins and characterizes the schemiel as a folkloristic, anti-intellectual figure who uses ironic humor in order the soften the brutality of a harsh world. The schemiel uses faith instead of reason in order to survive. With his unique perspective, the schemiel evades the harsh real world, while emerging as an ironic figure characterized by tragedy and comedy. Morris Bober appears to be a schemiel because he does exist in his own moral world and refuses to believe in blind reason. Even when Karp logically explains the reason for Morris's recent success, for example, Morris prefers to still locate Frank Alpine as a good luck charm delivered to him from the universe to reverse his woes. In part, it is Morris's allegiance to a mystical vision that makes Frank's betrayal so painful. Not only is Morris's opinion of Frank wrong, but it challenges Morris's moral vision. Morris's blend of ironic humor in a bleak world make him a schemiel character in the tradition of Yiddish folklore.

The final rape of Helen by Frank is vicious and a symbol of his complete lack of control. Helen has finally come to the determination that she can love Frank and make love to him, but Frank's lack of control leads to his physical molestation of her body. With Frank's action, Helen's disillusionment as to his character is blown apart. At the same time, Frank's disillusionment about the success of his personal transformation is shattered. Frank has reached the low point in this chapter having amply demonstrated to himself and Helen and Morris that he is not the person he pretended to be. This expose is harsh, but necessary. It is only from arriving at this low point in the novel, that Frank will truly be able to transform.

Chapter Seven

Summary

Morris feels unhappy the morning after the incident with Frank. Frank left his fifteen dollars pay in the grocery. When Ida comes to relieve Morris at midday, he tells her that their good business was due to Schmitz's illness. He also explains that the Norwegians will be coming and that he asked Frank to leave. Ida feels elated that Frank is going. She sends Morris upstairs to nap. When he gets upstairs, Morris turns on the radiator, but cannot find a match to light it. He naps and dreams that the Norwegians, speaking German, take over his store and then he and Frank start wrestling with each other on the floor while Helen screams.

Frank Alpine wakes feeling pained about what he did the night before. He remembers that he had left the park briefly before Helen came in order to grab some pizza. When he returned, he saw Ward attacking her. Frank saved Helen, but then felt overcome by his love for her and his fear that he would not see her again given his recent fight with her father. He felt that he needed to make love to her so he had.

Helen wakes traumatized and takes her third shower since the night before. Her dress and coat are ripped and she decides to get the latter sewn while she is at work. She feels dirty and disgusting and leaves early for work.

When Nick Fuso gets home from work, he smells gas in the hallway. Nick gets Frank, and the two rush into Morris's apartment. The gas from the unlit radiator has flooded the apartment. Frank pulls Morris out of bed, while Nick opens all the windows. Helen and Ida appear and start screaming, Helen screaming partially because Frank is there. After the situation calms, everyone leaves the Bobers. Frank runs the store for the rest of the day until Ida makes him stop. That night an ambulance brings Morris to the hospital because of a high fever.

The next morning, Frank runs the store all day even though Helen and Ida do not know since they are at the hospital. The day after, the Norwegians open their market and Frank works at the store. Ida comes downstairs and is surprised, and slightly angry, to find Frank there. After Frank shows her forty-one dollars that he earned the day before, she feels less resentful. Ida does not know why Morris had asked Frank to leave, believing that it was about Helen as Frank suggests. Ida lets Frank stay, although tells him directly that Helen is not for him.

The store is slow all week after the Norwegians open their grocery. By Saturday, the store has earned roughly one hundred dollars less than usual. Frank takes twenty-five dollars out of his personal savings account and adds it to the store total so that the losses do not seem so poor.

Morris comes home ten days after being in the hospital. Frank thinks of visiting him upstairs to talk, but does not. Frank rarely sees Helen, but they pass one day in the hall and she yells at him. He dreams that she tosses a white flower out of her icy window and he catches it, but as soon as he does he sees that the flower was never there and the window never actually opened.

Business in the store is getting much worse. The Norwegians keep having specials and Frank cannot match their prices. He gives all his savings to the store, keeps it open all night, and repaints the whole place, but still it makes no money. Helen still feels terrible about everything and decides to skip Betty Pearl's wedding as a result, claiming grief over her father's illness. Ida weeps daily in the kitchen over Morris's illness and their poverty.

One day, Frank decides that he could get money by collecting an old debt from Carl, the Swedish painter. Upon reaching Carl's house however, he finds the painter asleep. Carl's wife is dishing out a small quantity of food to very hungry children. Frank says nothing about the debt, but instead goes home, collects his last three dollars, and prepares to give it to Carl's wife. On his walk to Carl's however, he runs into Ward Minogue who says that he is sick. Frank gives Ward the three bucks for Frank's old gun, which Frank then promptly drops into the gutter.

Frank takes a book out about Judaism and reads all about the long struggle of the Jewish people. One night he stops in a restaurant and asks for a night job. He gets a job as a counterman working from ten pm to six am. He starts working all day and all night with small naps in between. At the end of each week, he adds his thirty-five dollars from the counterman job to the cash register. This money along with Helen's paycheck keeps the Bobers from going under.

One day, Frank decides to reach out to Helen. He carves a wooden flower and leaves it at Helen's door. She takes it to her room, but the next day he sees it in the garbage can on the street.

Analysis

In this chapter, which follows the storm that exploded in the last, all of the characters recover. Morris feels overcome by sadness. Helen understands her previous affection for Frank as disillusionment and feels disgusted at his treatment of her body. Frank cannot leave his room because of his despair in having his evil tendencies so overcome his burning desire to be good. It is in the pit of their despair, however, that the characters begin to change.

Both Frank and Morris show signs of changed characters in this chapter. Frank's changes are for the better. Morris's changes are slightly for the worse. Up until this point, Morris has been the brave character who has always been willing to persist in the face of poverty. After his debacle with Frank, however, and with his failing business, Morris contemplates yielding to the pressures in the world by dying. With this possibility of death, Morris suggests that he is giving up the fight to live in the face of so much hardship. This giving up under tough circumstances is not consistent with the character he previously voiced.

It is impossible to know if Morris's near death due to the exposure to gas was a suicide attempt or an accident. He knows when he went to bed that he did not light the radiator, but no thoughts in his mind, that are shown to the reader, demonstrate his suicidal intentions. The dream that Morris has, however, suggests that Morris harbors a subconscious desire to give in to those trying to conquer him. The Norwegians that compete with his store have taken it over completely, clearly showing how threatening Morris finds their competition to be. Furthermore, these two Norwegians are speaking German. For a Jewish person in the post-Holocaust world, German is a threatening language that represents the past persecutions by the Germans against the Jews. The presence of German in the dream suggests the extent to which Morris sees the world conspiring against him. The Norwegians and Frank act against him, just as the Germans acted against his people. The use of gas in this scene again is symbolic because Morris has created his own gas chamber, which was the primary way that Germans killed the Jews in the Holocaust. Morris's creation of his own gas chamber coupled with his symbolic dream indicate that he has decided to give up fighting for life. Morris's willingness to yield is uncharacteristic of him and follows in his extreme dismay in find Frank was not the good luck charm that Morris believed him to be.

While Morris's personality may be cracking under the strain, Frank's is beginning to change for the better. In this chapter, Frank becomes able to give with a sense of goodness. Frank's first gift comes when he rushes into Morris's apartment and saves Morris's life. This act is notable because it is the first good act that Frank conducts with no consideration of its consequences. Previously Frank had done good deeds but always for some reward. He came to help at the grocery to relieve his guilt about the robbery; he helped Helen because he wanted sex. By saving Morris, Frank does something good on instinct. After saving Morris's life, Frank continues a trend of goodness by keeping the store open, putting his own money in the store, and even getting another job so that store will not fail. With these deeds, Frank is beginning to live up to what he has long wanted: to be good and giving like Saint Francis. Frank's new charity can most clearly be seen when he instinctively decides to give all of his money to Carl's impoverished family. Frank's action stems from his compassion for Carl's hungry children. It is an act worthy and characteristic of Morris Bober, who was a poor man always giving to those poorer than himself. With it, Frank shows the way in which he sincerely has started to change. He is becoming like his mentor, while his mentor, regrettably, is coming something like him.

Frank's relationship with Helen is in tatters primarily due to Frank's mistreatment of Helen's body. Now that Frank has committed a crime against her, however, he is able to start loving her afresh. The dream that Frank has about Helen throwing a flower to him demonstrates his realization that what existed between them before was not true love. Although Frank thinks that Helen has thrown him a flower, symbolizing her love, when he looks down he realizes that

she never did. Sincere love never existed between them. The flower motif continues when Frank carves a wooden flower for Helen. The wood that this flower is made of suggests that despite Frank's desire, his love for Helen still is not pure and real. He still is learning how to love, but until he can reach that pure emotion, the wooden flower belongs where Helen placed it—in the garbage. She will wait to receive a real flower of love when Frank finally is able to produce it.he never did. Sincere love never existed between them. The flower motif continues when Frank carves a wooden flow

Chapter Eight

Summary

After returning from the hospital, Morris wants to get up right away, but he fights the urge and remains in bed dreaming of his parents in Russia and his childhood. He listens to the quiet downstairs and knows that his store is like a graveyard. One day, Morris gets up quickly and decides to go down. Ida urges him to stay in bed, but Morris refuses. Ida tells Morris that Frank has been taking in seventy-five per week without pay, but Morris insists that Frank has to leave.

Frank hears Morris coming downstairs and feels worried. Frank greets Morris and offers to light the radiator, which he has been keeping off to save money. Morris tells Frank that Frank must leave. Frank explains that he has not stolen anything, but Morris says that is not the reason that Frank needs to go. Frank confesses his role in the robbery, but Morris says that he already figured it out. Despite Frank's arguments, Morris makes him leave. Frank packs his belongings and says good-bye to Tessie Fuso. He writes Helen a note describing his love and how great she is, which she weeps over but has no thought of replying to.

Morris likes the changes that Frank made to the store, but sees immediately that business is awful. Without Frank's extra money, it is worse than before. Ida, Helen and he discuss the situation as they crowd around the store's back radiator one night. Helen suggests that Morris find another job. Ida suggests that Helen marry Louis Karp. Ida visits Julius Karp in the liquor store and asks him if he can still find them a buyer. She also suggests that Helen is lonely and that Louis should not be bashful, Frank Alpine has gone away. Julius Karp becomes more interested and tells Louis later than night, although Louis greets the news coolly.

The next afternoon, Karp brings over Podolsky, the possible buyer. Podolsky eyes the store for most of the afternoon, even though business is slow. Morris basically tells Podolsky the truth about the store and Podolsky later slips out unnoticed.

Morris wakes up the next morning and puts on his suit. He decides to go get a job. He goes first to a supermarket run by his old business partner, Charlie. Charlie and Morris once bought a grocery together, but Charlie swindled Morris's four thousand dollars from the business and later used the money to open his own supermarket. Now he is very successful with a house in Florida. Morris still asks for a job and works at the supermarket as a cashier for a day, but comes up a dollar short in his till. When he leaves that afternoon, he leaves for good. The following day Morris looks all over Manhatttan for a job, but finds that he is old and too tired for the new places. On his way home, he stops to see Breitbart. Breitbart is not there, but Morris sits with Breitbart's slowwitted son, Hymie, and gives Hymie two quarters when he leaves. Next Morris goes to Al Marcus's house, but finds that Marcus has been taken to the hospital.

Later that night, Morris gets an urge for sweet hot cream and heats some up in the store. A bizarre skinny old man appears and offers to burn down Morris's building so that Morris can collect the insurance money. The man uses celluloid to start fires, which leaves no traces. Morris turns down the man, saying that he does not like to cheat people.

The next night, Ida and Helen go to a movie and Tessie and Nick Fuso go out. Morris finds an old celluloid collar and goes into the basement to light it on fire. The celluloid lights quickly and as it spreads, Morris tries to knock it out. Morris's sweater then catches on fire. Morris screams and begs for mercy and a large person—Frank Alpine—grabs him and throws him to the ground. After he is saved, Morris orders Frank out of the house.

Analysis

This chapter primarily concerns Morris Bober's character and his ambiguous struggle between life and death, feistiness, and surrender. His ambiguous feelings toward either living or dying can be seen right at the start of the chapter, in response to his illness. At the beginning of the novel, Morris felt unable to sit idly by in bed when he was supposed to recover from being struck in the head. Morris got up long before he was supposed to, to run the store. Times have changed and now Morris lies depressed in bed, dreaming of his childhood and his parents. He has little desire to get up and face the world. Morris even compares the quietness of his grocery downstairs to that of a cemetery, highlighting again his preoccupation with the possibility of death. Morris has survived the ordeal with gas and pneumonia, but he psychologically still seems unprepared to once again embrace the possibilities of life.

Finally though Morris does rise with persistence. He heads to the store and he orders Frank out. This effort shows Morris acting like himself once again. By asking Frank to leave, he is demonstrating his true character. Morris cannot allow Frank, who violated the sacred trust of their relationship, to stay and work in his store. Morris tells Frank to leave and in doing so indicates his own willingness to live.

Evidence of Morris's returned zest for life continues when he decides to go out to get a new job. Unfortunately, this quest is not a success, and Morris returns home cowed by the toughness of the world once again. When looking for a job, Morris finds himself outdated and too slow. First, he works at the supermarket of a business partner who once cheated him. At the end of the day, Morris's register is a dollar short from what it should be, suggesting Morris's inability to keep up with larger store's pace. The newer stores that Morris visits in Manhattan also rely on a speed and formality that Morris cannot master at his age. His return home is melancholy. He stops to see two of his oldest friends, Breitbart, and Al Marcus. His procession to these houses seems almost funereal, as if Morris is paying homage to other old men who have failed and will soon die, or as if Morris is saying good-bye to his friends before going home and dying himself. Al Marcus already is on his way to death, Morris finds, having been taken to the hospital after a long struggle with terminal cancer. Breitbart is not home. Morris, with characteristic goodness, leaves Breitbart's son two quarters. But still the melancholy tone of Morris's return home suggests his death to come.

The sequence of the old man who wants to burn Morris's house down is one of the more surprising sections of the novel and one that evokes the tradition of Yiddish folklore rather than realistic American fiction. This arsonist fits in the realm of Yiddish folklore because it does not seem possible that he is real. He appears out of nowhere in Morris's grocery in the middle of the night when the store is shut. He has red hands and hair and a long dark coat, with black hat. His clothes and his means of arrival suggest that he arrived like an evil demon from a folkloric hell, rather than from the streets of Brooklyn. His presence evokes the tradition of Yiddish folklore that underscores Morris and Ida Bober's ethnic background. At the same time, the character is a humorous one. He speaks in a ridiculous accent that provides a comic effect. The entire episode evokes a fantastic element that lightens the otherwise serious mood that exists as Morris and his grocery fail. Malamud's tendency to place a comic figure in one of the bleakest scenes again highlights his reliance upon the Yiddish style of irony that places both comedy and tragedy side by side.

Morris's attempt to actually burn down his house seems inconsistent with his previous morality. Still, while Morris may want to burn his house down, his good conscience with not let him. As soon as the fire starts, he tries to put it out. Morris's inability to follow through with an evil act demonstrates the way the goodness has permeated throughout his soul. Ironically, while Morris may be trying to do evil, Frank Alpine is increasingly successful in doing good. To some extent, Frank and Morris seem to have changed places. The strong, good Morris longs for deceitful action, but the deceitful Frank does moral deeds. Frank's willingness to finally confess his role in the robbery is a good deed, rewarded by Frank's hearing the singing of birds, a clear sign of Saint Francis of Assisi. Frank's character is becoming more like Morris as he embraces the grocer's teachings. Morris, unfortunately, seems to be resigning his firm grip on life.

Chapter Nine

Summary

Late on Saturday afternoon, Ward Minogue steals a bottle of liquor from Karp's liquor store after getting in a fight with Louis Karp. Ward's father, Detective Minogue, searches for him and finds him later in a local bar. Detective Minogue severely beats his son and tells him to get out of town. Ward tells his father to have pity on him because he is sick with diabetes.

After waking from the beating, Ward observes that he is lying behind Karp's liquor store. When he sees a broken window in the back of the store, he decides to sneak inside the closed market. Once inside, Ward starts drinking copious portions of whisky. Then, out of malice, he starts breaking bottles of it on the floor. Ward next tries to smoke a cigarette, but accidentally drops his matches on the floor, which sends the spilt liquor up in flames. Since Ward cannot escape the store, he burns to death. The tenants that live above the store all flee and gather along the street along with the Bobers and the Pearls. The flames destroy the Karp store and building. When Julius Karp arrives to look at what is happening, he collapses. Later that night in bed, Morris feels a wave of anguish since he had wished such ruin on Karp and now it had happened.

The next morning Morris realizes that although Karp's building is destroyed, Karp will get the insurance money for it. Morris decides that the fire again proves Morris's own bad luck, since Morris himself longed for a fire for insurance purposes but Karp got it. As Morris considers the irony, Karp himself enters the grocery and asks to buy Morris's building and store. Karp wants to use Morris's store to re-open his liquor store until he can rebuild his old one. Morris asks for twenty-five hundred dollars for the store and nine thousand for the house. Karp agrees. Morris and Ida cannot believe their good fortune.

Although it is almost April, it has been snowing and Morris decides to shovel the snow so that people can use the sidewalk. Because he thinks that it is warm and spring-like out, he shovels without wearing his coat. It is not as warm as he thinks, but he continues shoveling with out his coat, despite Ida yelling at him. His exercise and the good news make him feel happy. When Helen gets home, they all happily discuss their future move. Later that night, Morris starts to worry about the future as he lies in bed, however. After sleeping for a while, he awakes drenched in sweat and worries that he may have caught a cold from shoveling. He falls back asleep and dreams of his dead son, Ephraim. Ephraim looks hungry and poor in the dreams and Morris cannot understand why since he always fed his son. When Morris asks Ephraim, Ephraim laughs at him. When Morris wakes up, he feels that he has failed and fatherhood and that he has given his life away for nothing. He wants to wake his wife and apologize to her. He feels increasingly sick.

Morris has contracted pneumonia and dies three days later in the hospital. He is buried the day after in Queens. At the funeral service, which everyone from the block and Frank attends, a rabbi who did not know Morris eulogizes him. The rabbi says that Morris was a hard working honest man who was a Jew not because he ate kosher and followed such rules, but because he lived with a full Jewish heart. For example, he shoveled snow to help other people, and he ran after customers who left change in his store. After the rabbi stops, Helen thinks to herself that the rabbi overstated it, because although her father was honest he also let himself be trapped in a prison of the grocery. Ida prays, but also thinks to herself that Morris never managed to make much money, so Helen should try to marry a professional. After the prayers are done, Frank Alpine thinks that suffering is like a piece of goods that the Jews could make clothing out of.

At the cemetery, it is springtime. As they lower Morris into the ground, Helen tosses in a rose with it and as Frank looks at the flower, he accidentally falls into the grave. Ida and Helen start to cry as Frank climbs out. Frank grimly thinks that he ruined the funeral. Helen leaves with Nat Pearl.

Back at the Bober's house, Louis Karp greets them. He tells them that his father did not come to the funeral because he had a heart attack on the night of the fire, although they did not realize it at first. Because the doctor wants his father to retire, they no longer want to buy the Bober's store and house. As Ida and Helen head upstairs, they hear the cling of the register in the store.

Analysis

Morris Bober dies in this chapter bringing on the end to the majority of plot events in the store. His ending is both sad and happy. Initially Morris sees that destruction of the Karp business as another sign of Morris's own bad luck, since Morris really needs the insurance money not Karp. When Karp decides to buy the Bober's building, however, Morris is overjoyed. With the purchase of his business on fair financial terms, life seems to be looking up. He reclaims his happiness and desire to pursue life that characterized him in the beginning of the novel. His zest for life leads him to shovel the sidewalk. Ida protests, arguing that the snow will be gone by tomorrow when the store will open again, so it will not matter. Morris does not care. He wants to shovel the snow for the Christians going to church. His efforts are consistent with his usual charity. Morris's happiness leads him to shovel without wearing a winter coat, the act that will lead to his death. But in many ways, Morris is as happy as he could be during this fatal act. His business will not be a failure, his family will not starve, and he is doing good deeds for others as he is naturally inclined to do. To some extent, it appears that Morris dies happy because he will not live to find out that the Karps never will buy his business and that times will go on equally as tough as they have always been.

Still while Morris may die believing his store is being sold, he does not slip into his illness in a peaceful, blissful state. Morris feels overcome with anxiety and panic as he drifts into sleep the night before his illness. His dream about Ephraim suggests to him that he has failed his entire life, not even being able to give his children even food and clothing. Morris feels so bad about his failure that he wants to wake his wife and Helen to apologize to them. Given Morris's return to a sense of failure, it is not entirely surprising that he dies several days later. Still while Morris dies thinking that he gave his life away for nothing, the novel will show his belief to be wrong. Frank Alpine has absorbed Morris's devotion to an ethic of honesty, compassion, and responsibility that struggles precariously to survive in a modern competitive society. By passing down his ethics to Frank, his foster son, Morris's legacy has survived and his life has had an effect.

The rabbi's funeral service fairly eulogizes Morris and serves as a testimony to his humanity and person. Again it reinforces Malamud's broad view of Judaism that suggests that a person's behavior can make him be Jewish, even if he was not born into the faith. Malamud once said, "all men are Jews," a controversial statement, and his treatment of Morris Bober reinforces that idea. The thoughts of Helen, Ida, and Frank after the eulogy show own doubts with the quality of Morris's existence. Helen appears shallow and not understanding when she thinks that the rabbi overstated her father's goodness, because what he had really done is just trapped himself in a prison for his life. Ida thinks of her love for Morris but regrets his constant impoverishment. Frank just thinks that Jews love to suffer and that they could wear suffering like a piece of clothing. Each of these thoughts show the way that the Helen, Ida, and Frank do not entirely understand and achieve Morris's gentle living. Yes, the grocery was a prison, even in this prison like environment Morris Bober managed to live and maintain a certain spiritual grace. Likewise, Ida is right that Morris was poor, but she does not see that poverty can have its own blessings. Finally, Jews do suffer but so does everyone and in suffering there can be spiritual growth. Frank has not yet learned this truth, but he shall in the chapter to come.

The scene at the funeral brings back the flower motif. Helen holds a live flower in her hand, a symbol of true and fresh love that she has never given to Frank. When she throws it into the grave, Frank therefore wants to look at it. It is due to his effort to look at this rose, this symbol of love, that Frank falls into Morris's grave. The fall is both comic and tragic. Everyone wails and angrily order Frank out of the grave. Still, the image of Frank tumbling beside Morris's coffin is funny. Most importantly, the act is highly symbolic, signifying Frank's rebirth. When he crawls out of Morris's grave, Frank has been reborn and as the novel continues he will show the way he has changed and fully come to embrace Morris Bober's philosophy.

Chapter Ten

Summary

During the week of mourning following the funeral, Ida and Helen stay upstairs, while Frank keeps the business running. Business is bad and Frank uses his other salary to keep the store afloat.

After a week, Frank gives Ida twelve dollars of rent although she has not asked for it. Ida has gotten a job sewing military epaulettes from her house, which brings in some extra money. Frank sees Helen in the hallway and tries to talk to her, but she shuns him. He asks her if she understood the novels she lent him.

Helen dreams that she cannot leave her house because it has become like a prison. Outside under the front streetlight stands Frank, who says, "I love you." Helen promises to scream if he says those words. Upon waking, Helen remembers her father and decides that she must earn her college degree to be worthy of him. Frank leaves Helen alone but observes that she looks lonely when he sees her. One day, he decides that he will somehow manage to get the money to send her to college, although he is not sure how.

To make more money, Frank starts selling hot food at lunchtime. He then learns to make pizza and lasagna, which customers like. Fighting between the Norwegians also helps bring some old customers back. Frank stays open almost all hours to bring in business.

In July, Frank does well. Even the Norwegians start to copy him by making pizza, but their pizza is not so good. Frank starts paying Ida ninety-nine dollars for rent. One night, Frank sits down and tries to figure out how he can pay for Helen to go to college, although given the costs he knows that it is virtually impossible.

One August night, Frank tries to find Helen on one of her evening walks. When he goes outside of the library, she appears. When she sees him, she tries to turn away but he pursues her. He tells her that he wants to pay for her college. She refuses, but he insists that he owes it to her father. When she asks him why she owes her father anything, he explains that he helped Ward rob the store. Her face contorts angrily and she storms away.

The store does well until after Christmas when times get tough. Frank still gives Ida ninety bucks per month, because he knows Helen has started night school and needs the money. Frank is so poor his clothes have holes in them. Working all night and all day wearies him, as does his concerns about Nat Pearl and Helen. Sometimes when they get home from a date, he listens to them kissing in the hallway. Since he feels miserable, he starts cheating some customers and climbs up the dumbwaiter to spy on Helen. After an unknown amount of time, he stops his dishonest behavior completely and becomes totally honest again.

Coming home late one night, Helen passes by the restaurant where Frank works nights and sees him asleep on the counter. She suddenly realizes what he has been doing to support her mother and her, and that he has changed. Helen decides that since Frank's heart has changed, he owes her nothing even though he once did her wrong. Helen stops in the store the next day to thank him. He proposes that she attend day college next semester and that he pay for it. She agrees to think about it. That night when she comes in with Nat, he hears them scuffle slightly and then hears Helen slap Nat. Nat calls her a bitch and leaves.

One morning after hearing the Polish woman rap on the door, Frank wakes to sell her a roll. He sees Nick Fuso, a new father, coming back to the building with a shopping bag from a different grocery. Breitbart soon appears carrying his light bulb boxes and Frank makes him some tea. Frank only has six customers all morning. He takes out the Bible, which he has been reading, and starts thinking about Saint Francis. He pictures Saint Francis take the wooden rose he once had carved for Helen and turn it into a real rose before giving it back to her.

One day in the following April, Frank goes to the hospital and has himself circumcised. The pain enrages and inspires him. After Passover, he becomes a Jew.

Analysis

This chapter brings the conclusion of the plot and in doing so brings about Frank Alpine's final evolution of character. Frank's final realization of character evokes his two mentors: Saint Francis of Assisi and Morris Bober. Like both of them, Frank has become truly poor and honest. Frank works his fingers to the bone trying to innovate new ways to make the grocery profitable. Frank stops spending money on himself and his clothes become threadbare. At one point in this chapter, Frank grows distressed and falls back into a pattern of spying on Helen and cheating people. But just as this wave of dishonesty came, so too does it stop. Frank suddenly is honest again, with little or no effort. The innate goodness that he has managed to draw up in his soul has overcome his darkness. He no longer cheats or spies. He is honest and poor, but good and spiritually satisfied.

In addition to becoming honest, Frank's character blossoms because he finally learns how to truly love. Frank's labor at the grocery is all undertaken because of his love for Helen. While only his physical desire for her flesh drove his loving activities in the beginning of the novel, only his pure desire for her soul drives his activities in the end. His momentary lapse into lust, as seen by his spying on her, disappears like his dishonesty because his sense of true love now thrives and overpowers the less noble physical needs. Frank now can control his amorous emotions. In his final vision of the novel, his previously unrealized fake love, as represented in his wooden flower, becomes true love as Saint Francis himself transforms the wood into a living rose. Frank's love has grown fresh and pure and he is now ready to have a sincere relationship with Helen.

Helen changes in this chapter as well, also growing in her ability to accurately perceive and to love another. In the beginning of the chapter, her opinion of her father starts to change when she awakes from a dream and decides that she must finish college for him. But it is not until the end of the chapter, when she sees Frank Alpine sleep at his night job, that Helen finally understands. When she sees Frank, she understands the extent of his efforts to sustain them. By truly by seeing Frank's dedication, what she is finally able to understand is her father and his related morality. Morris's goodness has touched Helen through Frank's expression of it and it transforms her. Helen's awakening can be seen in her almost immediate shift of behavior. While she had shunned Frank, she now thanks him for his efforts. While she had entertained Nat Pearl despite his dishonorable intentions, she suddenly turns against his advances resulting in him calling her a "bitch." While there is not a strict indication that she and Frank will get back together when the novel closes, the text leaves a strong suggestion of the possibility.

Finally, it should be noted that Malamud indicates Frank's transformation on the level of text as well as on the level of plot. The final section of the novel is almost a mirror image of the novel's opening. The identity of the grocer has changed from Morris Bober to Frank Alpine but the events are the same: the Polish woman buys a roll; Nick Fuso shops at the other store and the grocer feels bad; Breitbart drinks a cup of tea. Frank now reacts to all of these circumstances just as Morris once did. He has become Morris almost completely. To further indicate Frank's transformation, Malamud makes it so that Frank even occasionally thinks with the Yiddish phrasing that characterized Morris's speech. Frank also is now adept at using Yiddishisms with the visiting merchants. Frank now lives in the prison of the grocery, but he has grown spiritually. Frank, like Morris, now can live and suffer in life with both pain and pleasure. To complete his transformation, he converts to Judaism just after Passover, the Jewish New Year, and he begins again. His conversion opens the door for his future unification with Helen Bober, while fully conferring on him the status of Morris Bober's student and foster son.

Compulsory English Note

2010-09-09T16:36:00.000-07:00

READING MAKES WRITING PERFECT!
Created by Saroj Tamang

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Taking Notes While You Read

As you read the selection, underline or highlight the passages that

values. Then, in the margin next to a marked passage, indicate how prominent the value is in your culture by writing "very strong," "strong," "not very strong," or "weak."

American Values and Assumptions

Ø Gary Althen

Gary Althen was a foreign student adviser at the University of Iowa for many years. He has written several books based on his experiences living in Peru and Malaysia and on his extensive work with students, immigrants, and other visitors to the United States. This reading is taken from a chapter in American Ways: A Guide for Foreigners in the United States, second edition (2003).

People who grow up in a particular culture share certain values and assumptions.

That does not mean they all share exactly the same values to the same extent. It does mean that most of them, most of the time, agree with each other's ideas about what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable, and so on. They also agree, mostly, with each other's assumptions about human nature, social relationships, and so on. Notice that the values and assumptions discussed below overlaps with and support to each other. In general, they agree with each other. They fit together. A culture can be viewed as a collection of values and assumptions that go together to shape the way a group of people perceives and relates to the world around them.

INDIVIDUALISM

The most important thing to understand about Americans is probably their devotion to individualism. They are trained from very early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies. They are not trained to see themselves as members of a close-knit interdependent family, religious group, tribe, nation, or any other collectively. You can see it in the way Americans treat their children. One day I was at a local shopping mall, waiting in line to buy an Orange Julius. (An Orange Julius is a cool drink made in a blender with orange juice, ice, and some other ingredients.) Behind me in the line was a woman with two children, a boy who was about three years old and a girl who was about five. The boy had his hand in the pocket of his blue jeans, and I could hear that he had some coins in there. The boy asked his mother, "Can I get an Orange Julius?" "No," she said to him. "You don't have enough money left for an Orange Julius. Remember you bought that cookie a while ago. You do have enough money for a hot dog. Therefore, you could get a hot dog now if you want to. Or, you could save your money, and sometime later when you have enough money, we could come back here and you could get an Orange Julius."

CORE READING 1 American Values and Assumptions

When I tell this story to people from other countries, they usually react with disbelief. The idea that a child so young would even have his own money to spend, let alone be expected to decide how to spend it, seems beyond their comprehension. Here is a young child whose own mother is forcing him to make a decision that affects not just his situation at the moment - whether or not to get a hot dog – but that will affect him at some unspecified time in the future, when he will have more money. But when Americans hear the story, they usually understand it perfectly well. This mother is helping her son learn to make his own decisions and to be accountable for his own money. Some American parents might not expect a three-year-old to make a decision about how to spend money, but they certainly understand what the mother is doing. She is getting her son ready for a world in which he will be responsible for his choices and their consequences. Even his own mother won't be helping him later in life, and he needs to be ready for that. This particular mother may or may not have owned a copy of Dr. Benjamin Spock’s famous book, Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, to which millions of American parents have long turned for information and advice on raising their children. The most recent version of the book makes this observation: In the United States . . . very few children are raised to believe that their personal destiny is to serve their family, their country, their God [as is the practice in some other countries]. Generally children [in the United States] are given the feeling that they can set their own aims and occupation

in life, according to their inclinations. We're raising them to be rugged individualists. . . . (1998; p. 7)

While it has become more acceptable in light of changing economic circumstances (especially higher housing costs) for young adults to live in their parents' house, the ideal of independence after high school graduation remains. If it is economically feasible for them to do so, young adult Americans are expected to live apart from their parents, either on their own or in college, or risk being viewed as immature,” tied to their mother's apron strings," or otherwise unable to lead a normal, independent life. . . .Americans are trained to conceive of themselves as separate individuals, and they assume everyone else in the world is too. When they encounter a person from abroad who seems to them excessively concerned with the opinions of parents, with following traditions, or with fulfilling obligations to others, they assume that the person feels trapped or is weak, indecisive, or "overly dependent." They assume all people must resent being in situations where they are not "free to make up their own minds." They assume, furthermore, that after living for a time in the United States, people will come to feel "liberated" from constraints arising outside themselves and will be grateful for the opportunity to "do their own thing" and "have it their own way." As indeed, many are. . . . The individual that Americans idealize prefers an atmosphere of freedom, where neither the government nor any other external force or agency dictates what the individual does. For Americans, the idea of individual freedom has strong, positive connotations.

CHAPTER ONE Intercultural Communication

By contrast, people from many other cultures regard some of the behaviour Americans legitimize by the label "individual freedom" to be self-cantered and lacking in consideration for others. . . . Foreign visitors who understand the degree to which Americans are imbued with the notion that the free, self-reliant individual is the ideal kind of human being will be able to understand many aspects of American behaviour and thinking that otherwise might not make sense. A very few of the many possible examples: Americans see as heroes those individuals who "stand out from the crowd" by doing something first, longest, most often, or otherwise "best." Examples are aviators Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart,2 golfer Tiger Woods, and basketball player Michael Jordan. Perhaps the best example from the world of fiction is the American cowboy as portrayed by such motion picture actors as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Americans admire people who have overcome adverse circumstances (for example, poverty or a physical handicap) and "succeeded" in life. Black educator Booker T washington3 is one example; the blind and deaf author and lecturer Helen ~ e l l eirs ~an other. Many Americans do not display the degree of respect for their parents that people in more traditional or family-oriented societies commonly do. From their point of view, being born to particular parents was a sort of historical or biological accident. The parents fulfilled their responsibilities to the children while the children were young, and now that the children have reached "the age of independence," the close child-parent tie is loosened, occasionally even broken. It is not unusual for Americans who are beyond the age of about twenty-two (and sometimes younger) and who are still living with their parents to pay their parents for room and board. Elderly parents living with their grown children may do likewise. Paying for room and board is a way of showing independence, self-reliance, and responsibility for oneself. Certain phrases one commonly hears among Americans capture their devotion to individualism: "You'll have to decide that for yourself." "If you don't look out for yourself, no one else will." "Look out for number one." "Be your own best friend."

COMPETITION

Individualistic Americans naturally see themselves as being in competition with others. Competitiveness pervades the society. It is obvious in the attention given to athletic events and star athletes, who are praised for being "real competitors." Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974): American pilot who, in 1927, made the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight. Amelia Earhart (1897-1937): First woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean (in 1928) and to fly across it alone (in 1932). Booker T Washrngton (1856-1915): Son of a slave who went from working in coal mines to founding a university for African-American students and becoming one of the leading educators of his day. Helen Keller (1880-1968): Graduate of Radcliffe College who went on to write and lecture extensively about social causes.

CORE RFADING American Values and Assumptions

It is also obvious in schools and extracurricular activities for children, where games and contests are assumed to be desirable and beneficial. Competitiveness is less obvious when it is in the minds of people who are consistently comparing themselves with others: who is faster, smarter, richer, better looking; whose children are the most successful; whose husband is the best provider or the best cook or the best lover; which salesperson sold the most during the past quarter; who earned his first million dollars at the earliest age; and so on. People who are competing with others are essentially alone, trying to maintain their superiority and, implicitly, their separateness from others.

PRIVACY

Also closely associated with the value they place on individualism is the importance Americans assign to privacy. Americans assume that people "need some time to them" or "some time alone" to think about things or recover their spent psychological energy. Americans have great difficulty understanding people who always want to be with another person, who dislike being alone. Americans tend to regard such people as weak or dependent. . . . Americans' attitudes about privacy can be difficult for foreigners to understand. Americans' houses, yards, and even their offices can seem open and inviting, yet, in the Americans' minds, there are boundaries that other people are simply not supposed to cross. When the boundaries are crossed, the Americans' bodies will visibly stiffen and their manner will become cool and aloof.

EQUALITY

Americans are also distinctive in the degree to which they believe in the ideal, as stated in their Declaration of Independence,5 that "all men are created equal." Although they sometimes violate the ideal in their daily lives, particularly in matters of interracial relationships and sometimes relationships among people from different social classes, Americans have a deep faith that in some fundamental way all people (at least all American people) are of equal value, that no one is born superior to anyone else. "One person, one vote," they say, conveying the idea that any person's opinion is as valid and worthy of attention as any other person's opinion. Americans are generally quite uncomfortable when someone treats them with obvious deference. They dislike being the subjects of open displays of respect - being

bowed to, being deferred to, being treated as though they could do no wrong or make no unreasonable requests. . . . Foreigners who are accustomed to more obvious displays of respect (such as 20 bowing, averting eyes from the face of the higher status person, or using honorific titles) often overlook the ways in which Americans show respect for people of higher status. They think, incorrectly, that Americans are generally unaware of status differences and disrespectful of other people. What is distinctive about the American outlook on the matter of equality are the underlying assumptions that (1) no matter what a person's initial station in life, he or she has the opportunity to Declaration of Independence: Document announcing the creation of the United States and its separation from Great Britain (1776). Honorific titles: Titles of honour or respect.

CHAPTER ONE Intercultural Communication achieve high standing and (2) everyone, no matter how unfortunate, deserves some basic level of respectful treatment.

INFORMALITY

Their notions of equality lead Americans to be quite informal in their general behavior and in their relationships with other people. Store clerks and table servers, for example, may introduce themselves by their first (given) names and treat customers in a casual, friendly manner. American clerks, like other Americans, have been trained to believe that they are as valuable as any other people, even if they happen to be engaged at a given time in an occupation that others might consider lowly. This informal behavior can outrage foreign visitors who hold high stations in countries where it is not assumed that "all men are created equal." . . . People from societies where general behavior is more formal than it is in America are struck by the informality of American speech, dress, and body language.Idiomatic speech and slang are liberally used on most occasions, with formal speech reserved for public events and fairly formal situations. People of almost any station in life can be seen in public wearing jeans, sandals, or other informal attire. People slouch down in chairs or lean on walls or furniture when they talk, rather than maintaining an erect bearing. A brochure advertising a highly-regarded liberal-arts college contains a photograph showing the college's president, dressed in shorts and an old T-shirt, jogging past one of the classroom buildings on his campus. Americans are likely to find the photograph appealing: "Here is a college president who's just like anyone else. He doesn't think he's too good for us." Likewise, U.S. President George W. Bush frequently allowed himself to be photographed in his jogging attire while out for one of his frequent runs. The superficial friendliness for which Americans are so well known is related to their informal, egalitarian approach to other people. "Hi!" they will say to just about anyone, or "Howya doin'?" (That is, "How are you doing?" or "How are you?"). This behavior reflects not so much a special interest in the person addressed as a concern (not conscious) for showing that one is a "regular guy," part of a group of normal, pleasant people - like the jogging college president and the jogging president of his superpower country. . . .

THE FUTURE, CHANGE, AND PROGRESS

Americans are generally less concerned about history and traditions than are people from older societies. "History doesn't matter," many of them will say. "It's the future that counts." They look ahead. They have the idea that what happens in the future is within their control, or at least subject to their influence. The mature, sensible person, they think, sets goals for the future and works systematically toward them. Americans believe that people, as individuals or working cooperatively together, can change most aspects of the physical and social environment if they decide to do so, then make appropriate plans and get to work. Changes will presumably produce improvements. New things are better than old things. Closely associated with their assumption that they can bring about desirable changes in the future is the Americans' assumption that their physical and social environments are subject to human domination or control. Early Americans cleared forests, drained swamps, and altered the course of rivers in order to "build the country. Contemporary Americans have gone to the moon in part just to prove they could do so! "If you want to be an American," says cross-cultural trainer L. Robert

Kohls, "you have to believe you can fix it." . . . This fundamental American belief in progress and a better future contrasts sharply with the fatalistic (Americans are likely to use that term with a negative or critical connotation) attitude that characterizes people from many other cultures, notably Latin American, Asian, and Arab, where there is a pronounced reverence for the past. In those cultures, the future is often considered to be in the hands of fate, God, or at least the few powerful people or families that dominate the society. The idea that they could somehow shape their own futures seems naive, arrogant, or even sacrilegious. Americans are generally impatient with people they see as passively accepting conditions that are less than desirable. "Why don't they do something about it?" Americans will ask. Americans don't realize that a large portion of the world's population sees the world around them not as something they can change, but rather as something to which they must submit, or at least something with which they must seek to live in harmony. . . .

TIME

For Americans, time is a resource that, like water or coal, can be used well or poorly. "Time is money," they say. "You only get so much time in this life; you'd best use it wisely." As Americans are trained to see things, the future will not be better than the past or the present unless people use their time for constructive, future-oriented activities. Thus, Americans admire a "well-organized" person, one who has a written list of things to do and a schedule for doing them. The ideal person is punctual (that is, arrives at the scheduled time for a meeting or event) and is considerate of other people's time (that is, does not "waste people's time" with conversation or other activity that has no visible, beneficial outcome). . . .

The American attitude toward time is not necessarily shared by others, especially non-Europeans. They are more likely to conceive of time as something that is simply there, around them, not something they can "use." One of the more difficult things many foreign businessmen and students must adjust to in the United States is the notion that time must be saved whenever possible and used wisely every day. In their efforts to use their time wisely, Americans are sometimes seen by foreign visitors as automatons, inhumane creatures that are so tied to their clocks, their schedules, and their daily planners that they cannot participate in or enjoy the human interactions that are the truly important things in life. "They are like little machines running around," one foreign visitor said. The premium Americans place on efficiency is closely related to their concepts of the future, change, and time. To do something efficiently is to do it in the way that is quickest and requires the smallest expenditure of resources. This may be why e-mail has become such a popular means of communication in American society. Students commonly correspond with their professors by e-mail rather than waiting to talk with them during their office hours. Likewise, businesspeople frequently check their e-mail before and after work, on the weekend, and even while on vacation.

CHA PTER ONE Intercultural Communication

American businesses sometimes hire "efficiency experts" to review their operations and to suggest ways in which they could accomplish more with the resources they are investing. Popular magazines offer suggestions for more efficient ways to shop, cook, clean house, do errands, raise children, tend the yard, and on and on. The Internet provides immediate access to all kinds of information and products.

Americans have come to expect instant responses to phone calls, e-mails, faxes, and other forms of communication. Many quickly become impatient if the responses aren't immediately forthcoming, even when there is no apparent urgency. . . .

ACHIEVEMENT, ACTION, WORK, AND MATERIALISM

"He's a hard worker," one American might say in praise of another. Or, "She gets the job done." These expressions convey the typical American's admiration for a person who approaches a task conscientiously and persistently, seeing it through to a successful conclusion. More than that, these expressions convey an admiration for achievers, people whose lives are centered on efforts to accomplish some physical, measurable task. . . .Visitors from abroad commonly remark, "Americans work harder than I expected them to." (Perhaps these visitors have been excessively influenced by American movies and television programs, which are less likely to show people working than to show them driving around in fast cars or pursuing members of the opposite sex.) While the so-called "Protestant work ethics may have lost some of its hold on Americans, there is still a strong belief that the ideal person is a "hard worker." A hard worker is one who "gets right to work" on a task, works efficiently, and completes the task in a way that meets reasonably high standards of quality. . . . More generally, Americans like action. They do indeed believe it is important to devote significant energy to their jobs or to other daily responsibilities. Beyond that, they tend to believe they should be doing something most of the time. They are usually not content, as people from many countries are, to sit for hours and talk with other people. They get restless and impatient. They believe they should be doing something, or at least making plans and arrangements for doing something later. People without the Americans' action orientation often see Americans as frenzied, always "on the go," never satisfied, compulsively active, and often impatient. They may, beyond that, evaluate Americans negatively for being unable to relax and enjoy life's pleasures. Even recreation, for Americans, is often a matter

of acquiring lavish equipment, making elaborate plans, then going somewhere to do something. . . . Americans tend to define and evaluate people by the jobs they have. ("Who is she?" "She's the vice president in charge of personal loans at the bank.") Family backgrounds, educational attainments, and other characteristics are considered less important in identifying people than the jobs they have. . . . Americans tend to spend money rather freely on material goods. Items that were once considered luxuries, such as personal computers, telephone answering machines, microwave ovens, and electric garage-door openers are now considered "necessities" by many Americans. Credit cards, which are widely available even to teenagers, encourage spending, and of course the scale and scope of the advertising Protestant work ethic: Belief that with hard work and self-discipline, a person will eventually succeed.

CORE: READING American Values and Assumptions

Industry is well known. Americans are often criticized for being so "materialistic," so concerned with acquiring possessions. For Americans, though, this materialism is natural and proper. They have been taught that it is a good thing to achieve, to work hard, acquire more material badges of their success, and in the process assure a better future for themselves and their immediate families. And, like people

elsewhere, they do what they are taught.

DIRECTNESS AND ASSERTIVENESS

Americans, as we've said before, generally consider themselves to be frank, open, 40 and direct in their dealings with other people. "Let's lay our cards on the table,"' they say. Or, "Let's stop playing games and get to the point." These and many other common expressions convey the Americans' idea that people should explicitly state what they think and what they want from other people. Americans usually assume that conflicts or disagreements are best settled by means of forthright discussions among the people involved. If I dislike something you are doing, I should tell you about it directly so you will know, clearly and from me personally, how I feel about it. Bringing in other people to mediate a dispute is considered somewhat cowardly, the act of a person without enough courage to speak directly to someone else. Mediation is, however, slowly gaining in popularity in recent years. The word assertive is the adjective Americans commonly use to describe the person who plainly and directly expresses feelings and requests. People who are inadequately assertive can take "assertiveness-training classes." What Americans consider assertive is, however, often judged as aggressive by some non-Americans and sometimes by Americans - if the person referred to is a woman. . . . Americans are not taught, as people in many Asian countries are, that they should mask their emotional responses. Their words, the tone of their voices, or their facial expressions will usually reveal when they are feeling angry, unhappy, confused, or happy and content. They do not think it improper to display these feelings, at least within limits. Many Asians feel embarrassed around Americans who are exhibiting a strong emotional response to something. On the other hand, Latin Americans and Arabs are generally inclined to display their emotions more openly than Americans do, and to view Americans as unemotional and "cold."

Americans, however, are often less direct and open than they realize. There are, in fact, many restrictions on their willingness to discuss things openly. It is difficult to categorize those restrictions, and the restrictions are often not "logical" in the sense of being consistent with each other. Generally, though, Americans are reluctant to speak openly when: the topic is in an area they consider excessively personal, such as unpleasant body or mouth odours, sexual functioning, or personal inadequacies; they want to say "no" to a request that has been made of them but do not want to offend or I hurt the feelings of" the person who made the request; they are not well enough acquainted with the other person to be confident to lay one's cards on the table: To state one's opinion honestly.

CHAPTER ONE Intercultural Communication that direct discussion will be accepted in the constructive way that is intended; and, paradoxically, they know the other person very well (it might be a spouse or close friend) and they do not wish to risk giving offence and creating negative feelings by talking about some delicate problem. . . . All of this is to say that Americans, even though they see themselves as properly assertive and even though they often behave in open and direct ways, have limits on their openness. It is not unusual for them to try to avoid direct confrontations with other people when they are not confident that the interaction can be carried out in a constructive way that will result in an acceptable compromise. . . . Despite these limitations, Americans are generally more direct and open than people from almost all other countries with the exception of Israel and Australia. They will not try to mask their emotions, as Scandinavians or Japanese tend to do. They are much less concerned with LaFalce ("t hat is, avoiding embarrassment to themselves or others) than most Asians are. To them, being honest is usually more important than preserving harmony in interpersonal relationships. Americans use the words pushy or aggressive to describe a person who is excessively assertive in expressing opinions or making requests. The line between acceptable assertiveness and unacceptable aggressiveness is difficult to draw. Iranians and people from other countries where forceful arguing and negotiating are common forms of interaction risk being seen as aggressive or pushy when they treat Americans in the way they treat people at home.

Reading Journal

In your journal, write about one of the following topics.

1) Explain what a visitor to your country should know in order to avoid intercultural misunderstandings.

2) Describe an experience you had in a foreign country or culture that helped you understand it better.

3) Choose a topic of your own related to the reading. One of the most important skills you can develop as a good reader is the ability to recognize the main idea in a piece of writing. Although writers often include many ideas, there is usually a central point, or message, they wish to convey.

When you read something, you should ask yourself the following questions? What main idea is the writer trying to communicate? * How does the main idea relate to other ideas in the reading? How does the writer develop his or her main point? What does the writer want me to remember about this subject?

Where Do We Stand?

Ø Lisa Davis

Lisa Davis in this article focuses on cross-cultural difference in the use of personal space and on conflicts and misunderstanding that often arises from these differences. She maintains that with enough training and preaching. People can learn non-verbal habitat of other culture and minimize intercultural problems.

She says the main cause of non-verbal conflict is the tendency for people to interrelate the non-verbal pattern of other culture in terms of the pattern within their own culture. These ethnocentric viewings of reality often result in misinterpretation negative value judgment and feeling of discomfort.

1) American use more direct eye contact than do Japanese (Para 6)

2) South American converse at a closet distant and establish more direct eye contact than do another European. (Para 7)

3) Men tend to converse at a greater distance than do women. (Para 8&9)

4) Women established more eyes contact than do men. (Para 9)

5) Russians are a higher contact, a people whereas establishes are a non-contact group. (para10)

6) Caucasians should view a student avoidance of eye contact as sign of deception whereas Asian teachers see such avoidance as sign of foreign. (Para 11)

7) An American who is used to standing on the corner of elevator and avoiding eyes contact with other people will feel that something is wearing if someone stand by a few inches away.(Para 17)

8) South Arabian men often hold hand while walking but American men don’t.

Time Talk’s with an Accent

Ø Robert Levine

Robert Levine, in the narrative essay describes cultural differences in concepts of time and in the intercultural and misunderstanding that often analyze from this temporal variations. In order to enhance inter cultural experience Levine stresses the importance of learning in a new culture.

Levin this essay means that rules of punctuality are strongly shaped by a cultural values and beliefs. He also clarifies the concepts of social time and says that social time is a cultural temporal orientation reflecting unconsciousness values, belief and rules. The component of social time is the concept of punctuality, pace of life and orientation to past, present and future. Adjusting to a foreign concept of time is difficult because it reflects values , beliefs and rules that are often varies different from those of the visitor’s culture and that are unwritten and hidden.

In this piece of writing, the writer maintains that there is cultural difference concept of time reflecting diverse values and beliefs, which often leads to intercultural conflicts and misunderstanding. By learning about a new cultural pace of life, rules of punctuality and orientation to past, present, and future a visitor can minimize problem and facitify culture adjustment.

As a child, he thought that a clock measured time but later in his maturity, he knew that it was measured by the culture. As a visiting Prof. He knew that Brazilians kept everything for tomorrow. Amanha was highly valued in their culture. He also noticed that the exactness of time was not possible in Brazil. The people had their own time and they moved accordingly. The Brazilians did not have the concept of early and late.

They seem almost indifferent to the value of time. Not only were the students, the Prof. also indifferent to the value of time. They were fond of making appointments that never turn up on time. The writer also noticed that rich people display their value by not being punctual. He waited for his property owner for more than two hours but the property owner did not wait for him even for ten minutes. In the conclusion, he realized that Brazilian concept of time was talking. They wasted their time just in talking.

Polite but Thirsty

Ø Yaping Tang

In this essay, Polite but thirsty, the writer has explained some of the cultural difference in between Chinese and American society. Especially, she has tired to make the Chinese students aware about the American culture so that they could be adopted very easily in American culture. Usually a new comer feels like baby or an idiot in a new culture because of cultural misunderstanding. There is a severe language problem but in addition to this, the cultural differences make the problem even worse. Thus, it is necessary to learn the cultural differences. The writer as a student found some fundamental differences between the Chinese and American cultures:

In Chinese classrooms, the students are in proper discipline. There are certain norms and values of the classroom that they are not allowed to eat anything but in American classroom, the student eat like in a canteen. As an Eastern student, it was really a strange experience and a great adventure to be adopted in the American classroom. The second fundamental difference that the writer noticed was the directness of the American people. They respondent just in two ways: YES or NO. They never show the so-called politeness which is highly esteemed in Eastern culture. The American people believe in informality.

They break the hierarchies and treat every individual equally. They address even their professors by their first name without adding the title SIR/ Madam. The American never hides their feelings. When someone praises the food, the house, the cloth etc. They never reject it but rather they accept it happily, which is very much rare in Eastern culture. The American open the gift in front of the guest when the gift is given to the host, he opens it and praises by heart. However, it is taken as uncivilized manner in the East. In Eastern culture, gifts are given usually at the end of the parties and they are opened often the departures of the guest.

In American society, tipping system is highly popular as well as, it is taken as necessary work in a restaurants. Nevertheless, in Eastern society especially in China leaving a tip is rarely found. The Chinese students are ashamed when they do not leave the tip to the workers. In this way, Yapping Tang has tired to ease the problems of Chinese students in America. Her main intension is to reduce the cultural misunderstandings and to enable the Chinese students to learn the American cultural before they come to America.

Friends and strangers

Ø Margaret K. Nydell

This essay studies the intercultural differences in the relation with the concept of ‘friends and strangers’ in American culture and in Arabian culture, there is a distinct gap between friends and strangers. There are certain rights and duties in a friendship where as a stranger is allowed for using neither rights nor is he offered any duties. In Arabian culture, refusing a friend is taken as breaking the friendship. Even if the word is impossible to perform, a friend never refuses it directly. His response is,”I will try my best”. This response from a friend keeps the friendship alive forever.

In Arabian culture, personal benefit is taken from the friendship we often here, ‘do it for my shake’ but in American culture no benefit is expected from friendship even if a person is helped by the others. He is not morally obliged to help him. The personal choice is so much valued that even the children are not obliged to take care of their parents.

In Arabian culture, personal details are much more important than a person himself is. The readily disclose their social and economic background. IN contrast to Arabian culture the American are unwilling to disclose their personal details and individual is much more important than his background.

In Arabian culture visiting the friend frequent without information, they visit their friends and stay there as long as they please. They do either not feel that they are informing their personal life being along is taken as being dissatisfied or being sad. However, in American culture privacy is highly valued. A person likes to have a movement of privacy so that they could feel one with themselves. Besides the American enjoy being with the friend but they never let them cross the boundary of personal life.

These are some of the differences between the Arabian and American concept of friendship. The Arabian has distinctly divided the line between friend and strangers but the American has blurred the line.

A Coward

Ø Prem Chand

In the story, A Coward, Prem Chand shows how cultural difference within a country creates problems among the people who live in the same society. The Hindu caste system has created problem among the people in case of marriage. Moreover, the gap between a traditional mind and the modern mind divides the people clearly into opposite poles. Most of the people still stick to their conservative beliefs due to which the gap has always remained unfulfilled.

In the story, Keshav, a Brahmin boy falls in love with Prema, a girl from Banya caste. In the beginning, Keshav seems to be very strong because he is ready to undergo any hardships that might come on his way. He convinces Prema to be bold and fight against the conservative mind. Prema, who is loyal to her parents, does not dare to go against them. However, she does not dream to live without Keshav.

As Prema goes home, she thinks about Keshav and collects her strength to tell her relationship with Keshav to her parents. In the beginning, her parents reject strongly but they argued when she put her life at stake. Prema’s father went to talk with Keshav’s father, who reacted very rudely to him. However, he tolerated being the father of a girl. Then, Prema wrote a letter to Keshav informing him that she was ready to undergo to any sorts of difficulties if he was ready to undergo to any sorts of difficulties if he was ready to accept her as his life partner. She also wrote that her parents were eager to meet him and he was called for dinner.

Prema waits for Keshav impatiently but neither he nor his letter comes. Only the next morning Prema gets the letter (itself) of Keshav in which she finds him unexpectedly coward and disloyal. Her parents asked her about his response but she tells them nothing. She hides her pain the whole day, the next morning she commits suicide. In this way, this story shows the cultural problem of the same society due to the conservative feelings of the people. The lover’s life Prema and Keshav are very much frequent in our society too and they are killing themselves due to the fear of social bars, which are almost impossible for them to cross.

EDUCATION

School Is Bad for Children

Ø John Holt

In this essay, the writer seems to be against the idea of formal education but he is not in favour of abolishing school education, however, he stands for the reformation of traditional teaching system.

According to him, schools are killing the curiosities of the students by imposing the final truth in their mind. When a child comes at school, he comes with many expectations but tragically return home with the feeling of pessimism. Besides, the writer argues that the schools change the student’s natural intelligence, curiosity, confidence, resourcefulness, independence, indifference, boredom and low self-esteem. Actually, the child has immense confidence about his potentialities but the teachers always discourage him. In addition to this, the child finds the classroom to be cold and ugly. Obviously there are other children but they are unable to communicate with each other.

Most of the schools separate the learning from the living. When they create the gap between life and learning, the children are confused. The classroom environment is artificial and the teachers act almost like robots.

Usually the students are taken, as a blank sheet of paper and the teacher are free to write as their mind. The teachers never trust the students and they never appreciate their natural knowledge. AS a result, the child feels that he is not worth of listening 100%.

The teachers neglect the needs for the respect if individual differences. Every individual has different perspective but the teachers always try to establish the final perspective.

The teachers teach the students that to be confused or to make a mistake is to commit a crime and as a result, the students start cheating the teachers.

The writer claims that the schools are teaching him to be indifferent. The class environment is just opposite to how a child lives his life in a natural form. There is no doubt that, there are other children in the classroom but all of them are in silence. They all seem as if they have nothing to do with each other. As a result, the child takes his teacher to be inhuman.

How the Web Destroys the Quality of Students’ Research Papers

Ø David Rothenberg

David Rothenberg is a Professor of philosophy at New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is the editor of the scholarly journal Terra Nova: Nature and Culture and has written a number of books on philosophy and ecology. The following essay, which deals with the educational hazards of the www, first appeared in 1997 in The Chronicle of Higher Education- a publication for college and University teachers and administrators. Following David Rothenberg’s essay is a letter to the editor disagreeing with aspects of his argument.

In this essay, Professor David Rothenberg has displayed the harmful effect of the use of internet especially for he students. The writer has claimed that plagiarism has lost the sense of originality. In fact, his experience with the last semester’s students clarified that the students were eager to download the materials without mentioning their sources. Likewise, all the references were taken from the internet and the students even do not know where they exactly occurred.

For the ever-growing use of the web, the students themselves are not fully responsible because the Universities themselves teach the students, “Don’t read, and just connect”. Instead of searching the materials in the libraries, it is easy for the students to copy and paste. The University teachers must be friendly with the students and they must encourage the students to read books from the libraries and consult the related journals. When the teachers give pressures to the students, they are likely to download the materials from the web that helps them to secure a good grade and avoid the pressure of the teachers.

It is also necessary that libraries must be made up to-date. It is better to invest on buying books than spending do much money for computers.

According to the writer, the final year’s students give him hundreds of research papers. He would like to read all of them and evaluate them but he knows that these papers are not the original creations of the students for they were downloaded from the web. (Ref. Para 1)

It was obvious that the downloaded materials lost their originality due to which the writing of the students lost coherence. (Ref. Para 2)

While looking at the papers, the writer noticed that all the works cited from the web and they were written during two months (Sept & Dec 1995). It clarify that the students were missing the general trend of the past and they failed to make their papers specific. Neither they were able to take any authentic writer for their citation nor were they able to give credit to the ownership to the materials. (Ref. Para 3)

In the research paper, the beautiful pictures had been quoted but the pictures where the result of copy cut and paste. Besides random quotations were found but the sources were not mentioned. (Ref. Para 4)

Prof. Rothenberg denies that he is a neoludditec (against the new things) but he is against the idea of misusing the technology. In other words, he believes that the student’s quality should not be damaged by so-called in the industrialization. (Ref. Para 6-7)

After finding out the errors with students, the writer talks about the causing factors for their plight. First, the universities themselves are responsible because they are trying to show themselves modernize and spend a huge amount for the computers. The slogan does not read “Just Connect” encourages the students to download the materials rather create their own ideas. Similarly, the teachers are unable to provide adequate information to the students of second language download the materials to secure a good grade in their exams.

Therefore, the students must be made aware about the harmful effects of downloading the materials and they must be encouraged using libraries frequently.

An Opposing View

Ø Richard Cummins

(David Rothenberg’s article provoked the following letter to the editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education.)

When the article of Rothenberg was published, many responses appeared in the newspapers. Among them, Richard Cummins also could not help publishing his ideas. He opposed the idea of Rothenberg and tries to establish the web as an inevitable part of modern students.

Richard Cummins appreciates the logics given by Rothenberg but he criticizes the narrow concept of Rothenberg. R. Cummins argues that the available materials should be provided to the students so that they can make their writing and thinking even better. Similarly, he rejects the idea of originality and clarifies that there is no much things as original. Besides, he is in favour of modern techniques that enable the students to increase their quality.

R. Cummins uses the metaphor of a spider and a fly. It helps up to the students whether to become a spider or a fly. In other word, good and evil come together- whether we take the good aspects of the bad ones depends on ourselves. Therefore, the web is so responsible for the destruction of student’s quality for and they are responsible for their plight.

Therefore, the teachers should not advocate for bringing the modern techniques but they should teach the students how to get benefit out of them.

Multiple Intelligences and Emotional Intelligence

Ø David Miller Sadker & Myra Pollack Sadker

In this essay, the writer has tried to show that intelligence test is not mental for it is cultural. The word intelligence does not have universal meaning. In one culture doing something is taken as intelligence task where as the same thing turns out to be valueless for the other. Therefore, instead of single intelligence there are multiple intelligences.

Traditionally, IQ test were taken as the measurement of person’s achievement. The higher the score, the greater the person was. Those people who could not score a good marks in IQ test, they considered as disqualified in the field of education.

However, those people failing in IQ’s could make a better future in resting their life in other fields. Thus, the concept of success connected with IQ test was contested (Challenges). Moreover, the people who scores good marks in IQs were found useless in other fields. As a result, what was the intelligence? Was upon questioned.

Addressing the difficult situation Howard Gardner propounded eight types of intelligence and named them as multiple intelligences. According to Gardner, “The capacity to solve valued in one or more cultural settings,” is known as multiple intelligences. According to him:

1. Logical- mathematical. It enables a person to make his career as a scientist or mathematicians.

2. Linguistic. It enables to be a poet, journalist or a writer.

3. Bodily-kinesthetic. It enables the person to be a dancer or a surgeon.

4. Musical. This enables to be a musician or a composer.

5. Spatial. Leading a person to be a painter or a engineer.

6. Interpersonal. This takes a person to be psychologist or teacher.

7. Intrapersonal. Leading a person to be self-aware and ability to use this knowledge to guide behaviour.

8. Naturalist. Securing a position to be a botanist or an environmentalist.

Following the theory of Gardener Daniel Goleman propounded the theory of emotional intelligence. Goleman also gives the example of marshmallow (a sweet meat) analogy supported that emotional intelligence could predict how a person was likely to shape his future.

According to his study the child was ready to eat marshmallow without waiting for the second, was found in his adulthood to be unsuccessful where as the child who showed patients was found to be more confident, successful and better adjusted in the society. Similarly, the child who showed patients scored higher marks in SAT. In fact, emotional test enhanced the people to predict about how a person could behave in his future and consequently reshape his life.

Goleman himself believes that emotional intelligence is a universal measurement of a person’s characters. Similarly, Kelly and Moon write,” emotional intelligence is a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s emotion, to discriminate among them and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and action.

In this way, the writers have supported the concept of multiple intelligence and emotional intelligences. The writers are in the opinion that traditional method and pencil and paper test should be left out and new methods which are applicable I every culture should be followed the acceptable examples of intelligence test are multiple intelligence and emotional intelligence.

The Teacher Who Changed My Life

Ø Nicholas Gage

In this essay, the writer is trying to depict his struggle as a refugee in America and he shows how his teacher Marjorie Hund inspired him. In fact, it was she who had opened the doors of potentiality in him. He had never thought that he would become a famous writer and a journalist in an alien world.

He was born in 1939 in Greece and he migrated to America at the age of nine with his two sisters. Until he was nine, he had not seen even the motors. No doubt, he had been to schools but they did not provide English education. Due to the Communist Guerrillas interference, they had to go to the refugee camp in order to liberate themselves. Unfortunately, his mother was shocked to death when she met the escape of her children.

In the beginning, the writer had hostile relationship with his father because he thought that his father had neglected his family. However, slowly he realizes that his father was helpless in that circumstance. As an immigrant, the American culture and the school environment was very strange for him. Initially, he was sent to a school that was meant for the mentally retarded children. After two years only, he was sent in the American school where he met Miss Hurd. Obviously, he was unwillingly to talk with his mates, perhaps because of his language problem or because of the trauma, he was keeping in the mind.

Miss Hurd enabled him to replay the trauma by acting it out in the paper. His first hand experience about the violence of the Communist Guerrillas the struggle ogfhis mother and her courage to fight against the difficulties where written by him. After writing his experiences, he did not only get sympathy from his friends and teachers but also made himself known to him. Besides Miss Hurd gave his essay or his story to be published in the school magazine.He was inspired by this incident and he was determined to write even more.

Till his maturity and popularity Miss Hurd constantly supported him. During her forty-one years of teaching, she tired her best to give the voice to the voiceless. She never told her students to read the heroic tales but she always made them right what they experienced. As a result, most of her students became creative and successful in their lives.

This essay is opposite to Rothenberg and Sadkar’s essay. Unlike them, he favours the school education and the role of a good teacher upon a student. He strongly advocated that a good teacher have power to change the life of a student. He himself would have become insignificant if he did not have the teacher like Miss Hurd. Therefore, the role of a teacher cannot be underestimated even in the present context. However, the teachers have many challenges in dealing with the students who come from various cultural backgrounds.

Let’s Tell the Story of All America’s Cultures

Ø Ji-Yeon Mary Yuhfill

In this essay, the writer is trying to deconstruct the American history whish was written from White’s perspective. She strongly advocates that all cultural groups have equal contributions for the development of American Civilization or American society. Therefore, the minority groups like Negros and Asians should not be ignored.

As a student of a history, she was taught that America and its success were connected with the Whites and the Whites were the best people of the world. Similarly, she was taught that the European Whites came to barbaric land and started the civilization. Obviously, the contributions of Negros as well as Asian immigrants were ignored. Only in her maturity, the writer knew that America was developed not by the single group or race but rather it was developed by the contribution of all cultural groups.

The White Americans took a tragedy the other people as “outsider”. Though the writer came to America at the age of five and she got her education there, she often asked when she was going back to Korea. Similarly, despite being an American, she was mocked as “chink”. However, later the writer realized that America should change the entire system of education as well as culture. There must be the “Declaration of Multicultural Independence.” Moreover, the American education system must be inclusive rather than exclusive. Perhaps it was because of the same argument the concept of “melting pot” has been change into “a salad bowl”.

In this way, the writer as a non- Native American focuses on multicultural perspective in American education system. Although, the American White have dominated over the others, the contribution of the other minority groups can never be underestimated.

Coyote and the Crying Song

Ø Harold Courlander

In this parable, the narrator is trying to focus on wrong process of teaching- learning system. Coyote represents the teachers and he alone obviously stands for the students. Without knowing the psychology of the students, the teachers always force them to believe, what they think even the crying sound of dove is forcefully turn into a song. The dove repeatedly rejected that he was singing. Coyote was forcing him that it was a song. Thus, incident mocks at the stupidity of the teacher.

This parable can also be interpreted in terms of moral lesson looking at Coyote’s behaviour we can say that over confidence is a great obstacle in a learning process. Similarly reciting something without knowing its roots is a great mistake. Moreover, Coyote is impatient, ill tempered and easily frustrated which the great enemies in learning process are. Besides, this parable also clarifies that practical knowledge is superior to the bookish knowledge. When Coyote himself was hurt, he knew that Hu-hu-huu! Hu- hu- huu! Was not a song but a moaning sound.

IN this way, this parable gives us some better tips in learning process. We must recited that teaching and learning must be in a natural environment and if possible, in a practical way.

First Grade- Standing in the Hall

Ø Cheryl Savageau

This poem depicts a real picture of a classroom in which the teacher punishes a poor student. By showing the ill- practice of punishment, the poet strongly speaks for the reformation of the education system. In fact, punishment has negative effect on the learner and teaching learning system is incomplete with punishment.

According to the poem, the boy could not read and the teacher threw him outside of the class. He stood there and remembered his grandmother who told him the stories. Now she was at hospital. He wondered when she would be back at home. The boy knew that the latter told the stories but unfortunately, he could not read them. Besides everyone pointed out him as stupid as a hopeless, and the principal punished. He always waited for the bell to ring or the teacher calling him back in the class. Despite the punishment, he still saw the signpost of hope looking at the spider weaving its net and the sun making the life possible. He felt a kind of communication with them and felt himself distinct from his teacher.

The poet may be trying to tell us that punishment never makes a student eager to learn. Besides a students still should not be measured in the narrow concept. A child can shape his future through obviously many skills. It does not necessarily mean that the child who cannot read is really hopeless and stupid. Even if he is poor in his studies, he can do the best in other fields. Therefore, the child must be left to learn in the natural environment and according to his will.

Mass Media and Technology

Computers and the Pursuit of Happiness

Ø David Gelernter

Bottom Lines..

a) Are Computers and the Internet responsible for the revolution of information technology?

b) Whether the computer and the internet have really helped the human beings over 50 years?

c) Will the computers and the internet play significant change in the result over 50 years?

In this essay, the writer is criticizing the public opinion that the computers have brought revolution in IT. According to the writer, it is not only the computer and the internet that has played a significant role in making the age as information is but the other means like radio and television are equally responsible.

The writer clearly says that neither we are nor in information age nor computers and the internet have brought revolutionary development in human history. The people claim that what counts in the 21st century is the materials that were important in the 20th century are equally important even in the present time. The writer say: “Virtual foods make you feel full but it does not prevent from starving…” It clarifies that the artificial world or the abstract ideas can never help the human beings to live a natural life.

It is generally claimed that we have sufficient machines to create store and deliver the information. However, this claim is not able to prove that the present generations are much happier than the previous ones. No doubt, the children of the present time enjoy themselves in playing with the computers but it does not necessarily mean that the past generations were not happy.

An Opposing View

Ø Winn.F. Martin

Bottom lines..

# Information technology has brought substantial changes in the western civilization.

# Printing press has helped to throw off the monarchial system.

# Internet has challenged the policy of China.

# The view of Gelenter are ‘luddite’ (anti-industrial)

# Internet has made possible for the direct voting system.

# Even a Camel driver in the desert is not excluded from the world as he listen to the radio.

In this, essay the writer, Winn. F. Martin challenges the views of Galenter and he strongly points out that the information technology has brought revolutionaries changes in the present time. The writer do not disagree the fact that the basic human needs are the same but he strongly argues that the way we get them is different. Especially in the western civilization, IT has played a significant role.

The printing press has helped to over throw the monarchial systems. Similarly, the internet has challenged the secret policy of China due to which it is becoming democratic. Likewise the writer calls the ideas of ‘ Galenter’ as being ‘luddite’ because he seems to be against the idea of industrialization. The writer gives an example of a camel driver in order to prove how information technology binds human beings irrespective of geography.

The most significant rule of internet is in education system. In the present time a person can have foreign degrees by staying in his own home. The education system has been globalizes due to the internet. In fact, the internet has become a public space for everyone to meet and share their opinions.

Therefore, computers and internet have become inevitable part of modern human lifestyle. It is conservative feelings to underestimate the value of the computer and the internet. If properly used it can be a boon but if it is misused, it can be a curse.

We’ve Got Mail- Always

Ø Andrew Leonard

Bottom lines…

# This essay talks about the pros and cons of the internet.

# Internet is a means to connect the people blurring the physical distance.

# Useless chats, pornography and the other useless mails are the insignificant part of the internet.

# Computers enable the people to write more but what is written is significant.

# The process of globalization has become possible because of the computer and especially due to the internet.

This essay talks about the advantages and the advantages of email. The writer is trying to tell in detail how a person is benefited out of email and how he finds it a curse for his life.

The writer got 1218 mails within a month and out of them only 7 mails were useful. Although he had to spend almost a week deleting, the useless messages however 7 messages were really rocking for him because they either connected him with his long detached friends or they offer him the job. Obviously, this reflected the pros and cons of the email.

There are many disadvantages of the email. So many mails are sent only to give trouble to others. Similarly, most of the teens spend their valuable time only one in pornography. Likewise, a person has lost his freedom because of the email. For example: when a person is in a holiday, even then he has to be in touch with his boss.

However, despite these disadvantages, there are many advantages of the email. First, it gets victory over the physical distance. Likewise, it is the fastest and easiest means of communication. If we use mail, we can keep in touch with the people who are far away from us and who are unfamiliar to us.

Moreover, mails enable the people who are disabled to communicate. The writer his own example that his mother’s brother was unable to communicate either to speaking or through writing however he could communicate through typing. In fact, the writer’s mother gave him a computer in order to communicate or keep in touch with that sick person.

In this way, the writer tells us that email has advantages as well as disadvantages. Undoubtedly, good and evil come together; it is up to us which one to take. If properly used email, can be a boom, but if it is misused, it can be curse.

Propaganda Techniques in Today’s Advertising

Ø Ann McClintock

A) Name Calling:

It is a technique to create negative attitude towards the opposite sides. By creating the negative names, they try to arouse the feelings of mistrust, fear and hate in the mind of the audience. Especially the politician uses this technique in order to evoke public hatred to his opposite sides. The politician addresses the other as ‘looser’, ‘French sitter’ and ‘war’ etc. As a result, the people develop negative attitude towards the other sides.

B) Glittering Generalities:

This is the opposite technique of name-calling. The advertisers connect with their products with an attractive but slippery worst and phrases. For example, they create the slogan like “He cares about people”, “ vote for the future,” The audiences don’t exactly know the meaning but they are attracting by such slogan easily. Consequently, the advertisers are highly benefited out of it.

C) Transfer:

In this technique, the advertiser connects his products either with national flag or with some historical contexts of nationalism. As a result, the people are eager to connect to connect themselves with that product. So that they could support either their national products or to brighten up that historical context.

D) Testimonial:

This is the most used and the most significant method of brainwashing the audiences. The advertisers hired some popular people in order to advertise their products and people easily believe that even their favorites are using them. The actor appears in the television looking as if they really liked the products. As the result, common people buy the products without questioning its significant.

E) Plain Folks:

This technique identifies between the product and the users. “We are all in the same boat.” is the popular slogan. They create in order to sell them products.

F) Stacking:

This is the method creating confusion to the audience by giving them information. The advertisers create such vague situation that the audiences are in dilemma. For example, the slogan come a live with Pepsi creates a lot of confusion to the audiences because they questioned whether the Pepsi brings the dead people back from grave or it simply makes them fresh.

G) Bandwagon:

In this method, the advertisers create the slogan, “everyone is doing it, why don’t you?” When advertisers obviously claim that these are creating the mainstream product and it is useful for the people of every class and race. Similarly, the people feel that if they do not use the product, they are really missing something. As a result, they buy the product.

These are some of the propaganda techniques in today’s advertising. Due to the development of information technologies, mass media is playing a vital role in brainwashing the people. Whether the product is the producers advertise it heavily on media and create a desire on the consumer.

Students Shall Not Download. Yeah, Sure.

Ø Kate Zernike

Don’t Touch That Dial

Ø Madeline Drexler

This essay denies the fact that TV hinders the cognitive power of the students. Basing on the research of the Daniel Anderson, the writer proves that TV enables the kids to understand the life and the society in a new way.

The positive and negative pros and cons of watching TV- less television more vision, social effect of TV.

This essay is based on the research made by Daniel Anderson who tried to prove that TV is not a hindrance for the learning process of the kids. Generally, the parents’ fear the TV because they feel that it rusts their thinking power, kills their imagination, makes them dull and blind; can not think but only see, etc. However, the writer tries to prove that TV does not hamper the learning process however; it has some social effects on the soft mind of the kids.

The conservative people claim that TV makes the child so dull that he cannot interpret the word around him. However, Daniel Anderson presents it and argues that TV never teaches the creative power of the people. While watching TV, the child asks curiously about the new things and as a result, his perception of the world is obviously widened.

Similarly, the conservatives blame that TV has replaced the fun of reading books. They argue that the children of the past used to entertain themselves by reading books whereas the children of the present time are eager to watch TV a lot. Besides the children seem less interested in reading books but Daniel Anderson denies this accusation and clarifies that TV is not responsible for the apathy of the children for reading books. He argues that the parents must start reading the books in order to lure their children for reading books. How much a child reads a book depends upon how many the parents read the books?

Likewise, the conservative blame that due to the TV IQ scores and the school performance of a child has been hindered but Daniel Anderson challenges the conservatives to prove this through the specific research. His argument that the child’s performance depends not on TV but on himself. If the child is smart, he keeps gives less priority to TV and focuses on reading books. Moreover, the conservatives blame that TV makes a child inactive. Nevertheless, Daniel Anderson clarifies that a child does not remain idle but he rather does many extra things like talking, dancing, singing, and even doing homework. As a result, the child’s creativity sharpens.

By rejecting the idea that TV is a hindrance in learning process for the small kids, the writer gives some recommendation for the parents. He points out that the parents should start reading themselves before blaming their child. Similarly, if the child watches TV a lot, they have to give other alternatives of TV. Similarly, the parents must realize that although TV does not have cognitive effect but it certainly has social effects and therefore the parents should not watched the channels, which might create pseudo culture. Besides the parents must not fear with the TV because there are some programmes which are beneficial for the small kids.

Conceptual Fruit

Ø Thaisa Frank

In this story, the writer shows the shallowness or the raucousness of the virtual reality. A handicapped daughter makes her father realize about it. This story also clarifies that some people who would like to escape from the real world. They are happy in the imaginative world of the websites or the virtual reality of the computer.

In this way, the writer is ironically telling us that websites are useful for these who want to escape from the reality. Moreover, the writer also tells us that if we are unable to fulfill our desire in reality, we might satisfy it in creating our own imaginative world of words.

According to the story, the father came home and informs his family that the person has developed such software that they even could make their own street, homes, and the gardens of their choices. His 11 yrs old son knew it already and showed no interest in it. Similarly, his wife, who was tired of playing in computer, showed no interest in him for she could like to do gardening. However, his 16 yrs old daughter Greta, who was handicapped, showed keen interest in him. She was eager to see how her father would make the houses, gardens, and fruits for her.

After a while, her father made the street, houses, gardens and fruits in her name but they were nothing more than words. The daughter was surprised and asked her father that why the people wasted their time in virtual reality. Undoubtedly, the father was speechless however; he replied that it was just to escape from the reality or to satisfy one. He knew that he was making the houses and the gardens for his daughter because he was sure that she would never be able to make one for her. However, he hoped that she would be living in beautiful houses with the children like herself.

In this way, this story tells us how the people satisfy their desire in virtual reality although they know it is shallowly.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Ø Richard Brautigan

The poet has created the concept of an ideal or platonic world where the nature, the human beings and the technology live harmony. At the end of the poem, the tone of the poet is elegiac for the laments on the loss of pre-industrial pristine wilderness in the poem. The poet talks about the harmony among the human beings, the nature and the technology, especially the computer. However, at the end of the poem, the poet shows his own lamentation on the loss of pre-industrial life. His appeal for returning to the nature clarifies that he is not happy with the so-called development of the technology.

In the first stanza, the poet presents ideal view of the cybernetic world in which the nature, the human beings and the technology are in perfect harmony. The poet imagines a world in which the true wilderness is not disturbed by the impact of technology. The line “pure water touching clear sky” clarifies that the nature is not pulled by the touch of technology. In fact, they believe that the growth of technology does not hamper the ecological system.

In the second stanza, the poet supports his main claim that technology does not hamper the ecosystem but it rather helps to keep balance in ecosystem. His cybernetic forest is filled with flower and animals that live independently to each other. The deer past the computers but they are not frightened because they take the computer as beautiful flowers where they can be happy.

In the final stanza, the poet however pines for pre-industrial ecosystem in which the human beings lived in the lap of nature. Indirectly the poet appeals for going back to nature. We obviously realize that the poet even laments for the loss of true wilderness. Although he imagines for cybernetic world which given the picture of an ideal world, the ecosystem (appeal) for returning back to nature creates the irony gap between what he says what he desires. The people see an ideal view in the technology world but true happiness lies in going back to the nature.

In this way, the poet appeals every human being to conserve the nature which supports our life and preserve our happiness.

Humour

GENDER ROLES

Sex Roles

Ø Hamilton McCubbin & Barbara Blum Dahl

Think about it…

· Are the female the second sex?

· Does our society put equal value on both the sexes?

· Are the sex roles determined biologically culturally? By nature or Nurture?

MEN (♀): - Field, sword, head (reason), commands, strong, ambitious, self controlled, independent.

WOMEN (♂): - Health, needle, heart, obeys (rules), weak, passive, controlled, dependent.

a) Sex role and under identity: According to the scripts written by the writer and similarly every human being is a social actor who is as according to the script writing by the society. There are some social norms in every society and an individual act is determined by the same social norms. Traditionally, it believes that the men should be brave, strong, independent, rigid, ambitious, and aggressive and self controlled etc where as women should be passive, coward, soft, dependent, emotional etc. When any man shows the feature of woman, he is criticizing where as a female is laughed at her, she shows the features of the man. The writer of this essay tries to prove that the behaviour differences between the sexes are not only determined by biological factor but it is influenced by the culture norms and values as well. If it was biological why does the sex role differ from place to place and if it only cultural? Why do the people share same unique features? Thus it is self evidence that sex roles are determined by both.

b) The cause of sex roles: biological or culture... It is interesting to know that most of nurses are women and most of the trucks drivers are men. In general the men are more intelligent than the woman but the question is why it is so? Obviously, there are two factors: biological and cultural or nature or the nurture.

c) Genetics, the biological evidence:

Male ♀ Androgen, visual skill, xy chromosomes

Female ♂ Estrogens, verbal skills, xx chromosomes.

No one contracts the fact there are biological differences between male and female. But there is a question put to the researchers whether biological differences determine the behaviour of male or female or not. By structure male and female are made up of different chromosomes: xy chromosomes make the male where as xx chromosomes make the female. Due to the differences in chromosomes, the average male is fatter, heavier and more muscular than the average female. Similarly, it is found out that the behaviour differences are due to the female hormones. Both male and female hormones that are produced named androgen and estrogens make the difference with male and female. Likewise estrogens make female fertility, breast, butt, and other changes in the body.

Undoubtedly, the physical structure of the male and female is determined by the hormones but the question is what if has to do with emotional aspects? The answer is obvious that makes hormones empower them with verbal skills. Consequently, they act differently however; it should be noted that the sex roles are biological. Even it’s a girl has boyish features; she can not act like a boy until her society permits to do her so.

d) Culture: The anthropological evidence: The study of three tribes..

i) Arapesh: both the sexes acted the role of a female cooperate, nurturing etc.

ii) Mundugumor: Masculine roles were played by both the sexes; aggressive and competitive.

iii) Tehanbuli: Just the reverse roles; women played like masculine roles and the men played feminine roles.

According to Anthropologists, the sex roles are determined by the culture from the early civilization, the males achieved power and prestige because of their strength and courage because they went for hunting where as the female stayed at home nurturing their children. Obviously, both of them symbolized the source of food, make earned more power because they distributed the food and make the female dependent on them. Consequently, the sex roles were determined the males were more powerful and confident that the female. In a sense they were like rulers and ruled.

According to the study of the Anthropologist, the sex roles differ from one society to the other. In some of the societies, both the sexes play the feminine roles and in some others they play the masculine roles. It is also surprised that some others they play the masculine roles. It is also surprised that some societies make the female more powerful that the males. Basically, the female are powerful only when they make themselves independent. In the societies where the female grew crops and sold them enhanced them powerful. Therefore, it is self-evident that sex roles are the products of income resources allowed by the society to the both the sexes.

d) Society: Learning evidence: It is already stated that sex roles are determined by the biological as well as cultural factors. If culture determines the sex roles, how does it begin? Obviously the culture starts from process of socialization. Most differences between male and female are learned through family interaction school teaching and the mass media. The grown ups desire the boy as bouncing and sturdy where as the girl are determine as sweet and soft. As a result the feminine features are developed in the girls and masculine features are developed in boys. Moreover, if any boy likes playing with dolls, the parents do not allow him to do so. They try to teach him that he is a boy and must play the rough games. As a result, the socialization begins.

e) Feminist critique: Sex roles and social control: After the minute study of the sex roles, the feminist critiques have reached the conclusion that there is a strong social control, the males have achieved prestige and power, where as the female are still lagging behind the males. If equal opportunities are provided to the females, they would never be different from the males even though there are fundamental differences in their biological structure.

Conclusion: IN this chapter entitled “SEX ROLES” the writers have justified that sex roles have biological as well as cultural roots. In this process of development of culture, societies play a key roles and the child learns the distinction of the sex roles from his elders. However, the feminists are with the hope that if the opportunities are provided to the female equally, the gap between the sex roles will be bridged.

Boys Will Be Boys

Ø Barbara Kantrowitz & Claudia Kalb

· In this essay, the writers have tried to focus on the fact that boys should not be ignored and criticized for their fruits. Their aggression and violence is increased by indifference of the parents. Thus special is needed to the boys.

Point wise summary:

1. Due to the feminist movement, the physical traits of the boys are often criticized. Whatever the boys did or do, it often becomes a matter of criticism for the feminist. It is the reality that boys and girls do have different physical traits and it is a great mistake and a severe injustice for the boys to look from the same perspective.

2. It is not surprising to know that the crisis point (period of changes) in the boys and girls occur at different ages in comparison with the girls and the boys face the crisis point earlier as a result the boys show the discipline problem, attention deficit, disorder and other problems relating with morality. They even commit violent crime due to the same problem.

3. The boys and girls do have different nature from their infancy. The boys are expressive but the girls are reflective i.e. when a male baby is hungry, he starts weeping but when a female baby is hungry, she sucks her thumbs. Besides, as the male are unable to commit suicide, become alcoholic and also show the symptoms of ADD.

4. According to the researchers, as the male child faces the crisis point earlier, he develops to self together. In other words, the child pines for love and affection from his parents but on the other hand he would like to show himself as independent. The example of 5 years old boy getting angry with his mother when she kissed him publicly. The mother knew that her son liked to be loved but he despised when his mother treated him childishly.

5. The writers are in the opinion that the paradoxical relationship between the boys and the parents must be bridge by the clear dealing of the parents especially the mother. the writer have also given the example how the gap between the child and the parents create the problems. For example: 17 years old boy committed suicide when his girlfriend deceived him. In fact boy never understood the female traits because his mother also kept distance with him.

6. It is a tragedy that divorce causes are frequent in the western society and most of the child is reared by a single parent. As a result, the child develops the factors like anger, aggressiveness, frustration and ultimately violence. Instead of blaming the boys for their rude behaviour, we have to see his social and emotional background responsible for his plight.

7. The social and gender spare of girl has been widened due to the feminist movement. The so-called radical feminist criticised the behaviour of the men even though they are the essential male qualities. Besides, it is so-called male chauvinism that has hindered the male’s to be delicate and emotional. However, it is a great injustice for the male to value them from female perspective. As it is often remarked that male and female are foreign lands. There are fundamental differences between the male and female traits and behaviour. Therefore, we should not measure the male and female with the same scale.

In this way, this essay has been returned against the idea of radical feminist who are eager to criticize the male behaviour even though they are quite natural. as the boys are always boys, their aggression and violence should be taken naturally. However, we should try to find out the root causes for these traits.

Sex, Sighs, and Conservation

Ø Deborah Tannen

* This essay is concerned with the use of language and the gender roles. The females use language to negotiate intimacy that enables them to keep harmonious relationship on the other hand males use the language to preserve their independences, authority and their states. The females are eager to speak at home but the males speak publicly.

In this essay, their primarily concerns with the lack if communication between male and female. In order to make her readers well known about the lack of communication, the writer begins with the differences in the use of language between male and female. The females use language to negotiate intimacy which helps the women share feelings, make connections and it also enables them to create a sense closeness and harmony. But, on the other hand, the males use language to preserve their independence and negotiate their status. Besides, the male are eager to remain in the central of attraction through the use of the language. Moreover, the language helps them to challenge and compete with the others and to demonstrate knowledge and verbal skills. Though the males and females live in the same world, their behaviour and the use of language shows as if they have been brought from different worlds.

The writer begins her essay from the example of a husband and wife who are searching for something but without asking someone else. Though the wife suggests her husband to ask with someone out there but the husband is a reluctant. This example clarifies that the females use language to negotiate intimacy and achieve harmony whereas the male use language to preserve their authority and status.

For the females talking makes them feel that they are not lonely. They shared their feeling with someone else so that they could feel light. But on the other hand, the males rarely share share their feelings with their wives. As soon as a wife comes back from her office, she is eager to tell everything to her husband but despite her inquisition the husband is not really to envois himself. Similarly, the wife is startled when her husband reveals in front of his friends about the happening of his office affairs. It is a really a shocking matter for the wife that her husband does not trust her.

According to the writer, both husband and wife have misunderstanding about each other. This misunderstanding is due to the lack of conversation resulting from the differences in sex roles. Instead of accusing each other, it is better to understand the difference in the use of language in relation with sex roles. The males should understand that the females are eager to unvssom themselves readily where as the male’s nature not to disclose readily. In order to clarifies about her in the poem. The writer gives the example of her own parents who are married for 57 years but they still have problems in understanding each other. Basically, the female seeks for harmonious relationship where as the male always brings out contradiction. The female support each other where as males are always ready with alternatives. Consequently the conflict is never resolved.

Conclusion:

In this way, the writer shows how the lack of conversation or communication between male and female creates problem in society as well as home. It is self evident that males and females are different biologically and culturally with each other. So obviously use of language also deferrers radically, or fundamentally. The cause behind the lack of communication is nothing more than the sex role. Therefore it is necessary to minimize the gap between the gender roles in order to minimize that lack of communication.

Women Have What It Takes

Ø Carol Barkalow

* In this essay, the writer strongly advocate for the involvement of women in combat unit of the army. The writer argues that emotional or mental strength is more powerful that the physical one. The wars experiences have evidenced that female are more determined than the male combatants.

The writer herself was an army officer who had the first hand experiences of the Gulf war. According to her experiences, it was notices that the female soldiers were sometimes more determined that the male soldiers. Besides, it is self- evident that strength lies not in physical structure but it lies in mentality. There were so many evidences that male soldiers ran away from that battle field whereas the female soldiers encountered their enemies. IN case of discipline, the female kept several steps ahead of the males.

Therefore the writer believes that the female should be given same opportunities like that of the male. Undoubtedly, pregnancy creates a problem for the female, however, we can say the female can serve the nation and fight for it in the same manner as the males do.

An Opposing View

Ø Bill Norton

Why women should not be sent on the front line?

Because they:

i) Destroy cohesion (harmony)

ii) Have got different sex roles

iii) Have got physical inferiority

In this article, Bill Norton criticizes the idea of sending the female in the battle field. He strongly denies that the female are fit for fighting. His main argument is that male and female do have different sex roles and consequently they can not be fit an every field.

According to him, there are three reasons due to which the woman should not be sent in the battle field.

a) The standard of the army and its cohesion will be destroyed.

b) Love, interest will be increased due to which a lot problem could arise;

c) The physical inferiority of the female.

In fact, when the females are sent in the battle field, the attraction to opposite sex will obviously increase and as a result the mission of the army will be diverted. Moreover, the males do have got fitted physical strength whereas the female are comparatively weak. Undoubtedly, they might have mental strength but it does very less in the battle field.

Therefore, its self-evident that the male and female are made for different functions. Male for the external world whereas the female has to look after a home and family.

The Androgynous Male

Ø Noel Perrin

-having no specific gender role.

Masculine

rigid, strong

necessarily be good

husband no choice left

Feminine

soft, emotional

can act freely

choices are open

In this essay, Noel Perrin shows some striking advantages of being an androgynous male. When a person pretends to have (he-man) qualities, have must sacrifice a lot of choices. For example, he must be rigid even if he is emotional. But the androgynous males are quite free and they can act according to the situation.

Due to the feminist movement, gender roles are distinctly divided: males should be rigid and female should be emotional. Due to this distinction, both male and female are in problem and especially the male have lost their happiness. In order to show the masculine power, the male should show their cocksureness in every field. And it has let them to infinite unhappiness, so the writer suggests the male to be androgynous so that they could enjoy the masculine power as well as realize the feminine bliss.

Usually, power and machine is connected with male qualities and nature and nurturing is connected with feminine qualities. The androgynous male are enable to feel the both. In case of the writer, he has fought against his enemies in the battle field which is purely a masculine quality and he has also looked after his children and it is the feminine qualities. Shedding the tears in emotional scenes, kissing the cat and feeling the motherly affection towards his children are the freedom provided by androgynous qualities.

Therefore, the main argument of the writer is that all males are not completely masculine. Along with their masculine qualities, they do have feminine qualities as well. So it is not a good idea to divide the world or the society into he and she distinction. The real life comes in between him and her.

The Princess and the Admiral

Ø Charlotte Pomerantz

* This fable clarifies that even the women can be a better ruler than males. The princes easily get victory over the powerful Admiral and his troops. She also justified that the women are more humane than the men. She bestowed the Admiral his life due to which he felt indebted to her through out his life.

This story is based on the 13th century invasion of Vietnam over the other countries and the skilful defence of the minor countries. The tiny kingdom ruled by the Princess, Mat Mat was safe until the Admiral hold vulture eye on it. However, the princess was able to get victory over the power Admiral and she was also able to continue the peace celebration.

According to the story, there was a dry village known as a tiny kingdom. The village was without wars for years because the village did not have the minerals to attract the invaders. The people were excited to celebrate 100 years of peace however, the news of the invading armies in the command of the Admiral did not only shock the villagers but it also startled the princess, Mat Mat. The three advisors of the princess inform that the Admiral had been coming in 20 large boats with sufficient weapons to capture the village. Immediately, the Princess call for the Astrologer and consulted about the relationship between the sun and the moon. The Astrologer informed that the attraction was greater in the full moon night and the following night was the same. The princess was glad and she quickly ordered the people to cut the trees, make them pointed edge and take the trees in the sea bank. As ordered by the Princess, the tree stood like the fence in the sea port and it was obviously a trap for their enemies.

The fisher folk brought 253 poles in order to fort their village. Besides, as planned by the Princess, the fisher boats were sent to tease the war boats of their enemies. According to their desire, the fisher folk were able to bring the war boats in their traps. On the other hand, the Admiral felt happy being unknown to the fact that he was already at the trap. He mocked at the Princess and her people because they fought with fruits, vegetables and eels. He was almost sure that when the tribe would be low, he would capture the village including the Princess.

Unexpectedly, the war boats of the Admiral were destroyed by the poles of the fisher folk because they made holes at the bottom of the boats. The troops of the Admiral were nearly capsized. The Admiral realized that he was defeated by the simple fisher folk and the Princess. Ultimately, he surrendered to the Princess. Though he expected of being beheaded, the Princess bestowed him his life and he felt indebted to her throughout his life. Moreover, his perception to the women was changed and realized that women were much more intelligent, determined and powerful than the males.

In this way, this tale clarifies that women are equally capable, strong and determined like males. It is completely a bias view to take the female as weak, powerless and coward.

The Greater God

Ø Rakesh Ratti

* In this poem, the poet presents the positive as well as negative aspects connected with the image of a woman. The woman is the images of love, care, divinity, creation, self-sacrifice, gentleness, tolerance, kindness, etc. Similarly, they are criticized for their unreliability, slavery, powerlessness, credulousness, etc. However, the poet bows in front of her and regards her as the greater god.

* Image of women: a greater god, a shadow of greater powerless, fearful, subservience, a slave, bitter tongue, tongue tied, words are left unsaid, insanely yielding, and timid.

The greater god is a poem talking about positive and negative aspects of women. Despite some negative aspects and weakness, the poet regards the women as the greater god. According to him, she is nothing but everything for him. In other words, the role of the female is insignificant in a home or in a society but she is the one who gives continuity to the life process.

The female are considered as lesser god, the shadow of the so-called powerful or the greater god, i.e. male. Similarly a female is powerless, coward, a slave of the male, temptress etc. however, a female is extremely kind, gentle, affectionate, tolerant, self-sacrificing, nourishing, divine, etc. She is the one who takes all the pain and sorrows. She is ready to go under any hardships for the sake of her family. So for the poet, she is everything.

In fact, the poet is talking about his own impression of his mother. As a child, he had seen the female in the form of a slave or a doll who had been passed from hands of the father to the hands of the husband. Neither the female is consulted nor she is given chance to express her feelings. As a result the words are left unsaid.

In this poem, Rakesh Ratti has shows the significance of a female in the society. A female is not only a daughter, a wife but she is also a mother who makes the possibility of the continuity of the life process. In other words, female is the symbol of creation and without her life does not exist. Socially and culturally, the role of the female has been minimized. However, the poet realizes the significance of the mother. The person who makes the life possible can never be the lesser god. Despite being considered, as a slave or a shadow of the male, a female is greater than the male. It is the biasness of the society that gives less privilege to women and consequently they have to lag behind the males. The authority is given to the male whereas the female are always taken as coward and weak. Positive aspects like love, care, sensitiveness, tolerance, inspiring etc are always ignored. As a result, the society always looks at the female nearly a shadow of the male. Unlike other people, the poet glorifies the role of the female and establishes her as the greater god.

Humour

WORK

The New American Dreamers

Ø Ruth Sidel

· What is American Dream? - Freedom or material prosperity.

In this essay the writer explained how in American society had been changing especially- the role of female. The unwed mothers do not face the social stigma and the female can uplift their status irrespective of their previous class or race.

The title of this essay has been taken from the concept of the American Dream which means hope for better future through material prosperity. Similarly, it is also connected with the success and achievement. The word “NEW “refers to the American women who are fighting for their better future through their hard work. These women believe that their destiny can be controlled by their hard work.

Unlike the traditional women, the female of the present time believe that they can change their future. They work with optimism in order to secure their better future. Besides, they strongly advocate for the freedom of choices. Similarly, they also believe that they are the captain of their ship and they are responsible for its successful voyage as well as its wreck. Consequently, they always struggle against obstacles untiring.

American Dream promise for equality, justice and freedom. When the people are given equal opportunity to shape their career, they feel responsible with themselves. Especially, the women, who were considered as the second sex or the shadow of male, are encouraged for the material prosperity. Irrespective of ethical background or social status, these female always pine for a complete life: a loving husband, a house, a car, gentle children, a promising profession etc. Though some of them are unwilling to marry they are eager to go to dating and become unwed mother. Moreover, these female expect for a perfect life style not only for themselves but also for their kids.

It does not necessarily mean that the dream of this female would be fulfilled very easily. Especially for the poor and lower middle class, it is very difficult to uplift their social status. However, it is not impossible for these female to achieve their dream if they are determined and devoted to their profession. The dream of the ‘god life’ has been made possible by the promise of the American Dream.

Someone Is stealing Your Life

Ø Michael Ventura

· In this essay, the writer describes the exploitation and the lack of authority that the most workers of US experience. The writer strongly advocates for the situation in which the writer are free to express their ideas, contribute in the decision making and get the friendly atmosphere.

In this essay , the writer strongly advocates for the rights of working class people specially of the U.S The writer does not mean that the workers should get equal profit and authority, however he believed that the employers do not have the rights to exploit or rob the life of their worker. At least there must be the value of the workers contribution and his voice should be heard and included in decision making process.

Out of 52 weeks, a worker gets only 2 weeks paid holiday. In that sense, out of his 26 years of service, a worker gets only a year of his own. Similarly it is the worker who stands for the company. In other words, workers are life line of any company. But tragically, the workers do not have any decision making power. In sense, they are just the puppet of their employers. They are almost treated as slaves.

According to the writer the owners have taken the greatest risk of investing their money in the business. So obviously they must get a greater amount of profit. But, the fact is that they must not exclude the workers from the authority. Truly speaking, the workers have every right to know about their company, their product and the decision which are being taken. Moreover, it is the workers who are victimised mostly when the company is bankrupt by the wrong decision.

The writer of this essay seems to be making a radical statement that the workers should get some share in the company in which he works. His ideas are not beyond criticism. However, his main argument is that the workers should get the friendly atmosphere for their work and their contributions or the price sweat most be paid duly. Besides he also encourages the workers to speak against the injustice and work for their betterment. he also challenges the employers that if they expected their works to be passive and dance according to their tune, it would be their greatest errors.

Our Scheduled, Our Selves

Ø Jay Wall jasper

In this essay, the writer shows his angst against the hectic lifestyle of the modern people. He suggested the people to cross the boundary of the schedule and realized the bliss of unestimated or unplanned time. He accused the three factors of making the life style of people: the rapid globalization, modern technology and the human desire. He also recommends working less and making the life worth of living.

In this essay, Jay Wall Jasper advocates for free use of time. He loathes the idea of scheduled life and recommends for the magical spontaneous moments that provide the real bliss of life. As soon as a person breaks off his scheduled he gets freedom and he is able to achieve the unimaginable happiness.

Due to so-called modernization the life of the people has been burden with hectic factors like work and routine. As a result modern man has become the slave of time. Obviously, the time is limited but the person has to do unlimited works. From morning to evening, the person is busy in following his schedule and tired of his work. It is very rare that a person gets his own time. As a result, a person is deprived of the real pleasure that his life offers to him.

“We are bigger than our schedules”., said Paulo Frieire and he was absolutely right. IN fact, we are not born for being the slave of time. In the name of following the pace of time, we are trying to flow it and consequently, we have been enslaved. Besides, the concept of part time jobs, single parents, two workers at home, the increase in the so-called standard of life etc. are responsible for making us the slave of our schedule.

The writer suggests the people not to work over time as well as not to have over desire. The so- called options always drags a person to slavery. Therefore a person should put sometime for the unprepared schedules so that he could feel the real bliss of life.

The writer does not mean that we should not do our routine work but his anger is always towards the over hectic life due to the so-called material prosperity. Moreover, he intends to make the people aware that unplanned schedules empower a person or revitalized him immediately so it is necessary to break up the schedules time and again.

The Rage to Know

Ø Horance Freeland Judson

In this essay, the writer explains the various reasons for which the scientists are involved in their professions, including challenges, exhilaration, discoveries and pleasures. They believe that they can put themselves apart through their scientific endeavour.

In this essay, the writer tries to dig- out the causes behind the involvement of the scientist in their profession. In fact, it is the,” moment of truth that motivates them to remain in their profession.” The scientific discovery is not only clear but it is also beautiful. As a result, the scientists are eager to remain in their profession and give the society something new. Besides, the scientists also know that there is a unity in diversity. They always try to find out a binding element among the diverse thing.

Obviously, there are a number of hurdles, difficulties, dissatisfaction as well as frustration, however the pride in kill, keeping himself apart from the peers as well as the sense of competition always motivate the scientist for their hard work. Moreover, curiosity and passion for work are inevitable part of the scientist. Once they start their work, they do not leave it until they get a satisfactory conclusion.

Along with other motivations, there is an impulse of the rage to know. Every scientist has strong thirst for knowledge which is not quenched until he gets something for which he can feel pride for. Similarly, there is a pleasure motive in the discovery of the scientist. Whenever they see a new thing, an unending curiosity gets born in them and consequently, they get pleasure out of it.

Though this essay is concerned with the scientist and their devotion and determination to work, on the whole, this essay tries to inspire the people that despite the frustration and difficulties, one has to do his work feeling tremendous pleasure out of it. Only through the devoted work or labour one can draw a good result.

Los Pobres

Ø Richard Rodriguez

In this autobiographical story the writer express his own experience as a construction worker. In order to experience the pain and pleasure of the ‘real work’, he joins the summer work but he realizes that being an educated person, he is unable to feel the real experience of ‘Los Probres’ i.e. poor and powerless. Only after seeing the pathetic condition of the Mexican migrant workers, he realizes the real conditions as well as exploitation of Los Porbres. Although this story is related with the writer himself, there is a great empathy with the working class people for the writer himself tried to fell the real experience of the hardwork. Besides, the writer, in the beginning thought that the workers were different from what his mother told him about but later he realized that the real workers were truly poor and powerless.

During his graduation, the writer was in search of the summer job and one of his friends suggested him that he should get a job as a worker. In fact, the writer would like to experience the suffering of ‘the real work’ because he would like to show his father that he even had experience of it. During his interview with the contractor, the writer said that he had experience of physical labour though he had never worked physically in his life. Undoubtedly, the people had told him that the physical labour was beyond his capacity but he enjoyed the work very much. Moreover, unlike his expectations, he found the workers not being Los Porbres but being middle class as well as educated like himself. He was even surprised that the workers were not of similar interest and skills. Even though they were daily wage labours, they had the diverse interest and skills. For example: some of them were abstract painless whereas some others were poet and the writers.

The writer, in the beginning, felt that he had got experience of ,’ The Real Work’ but later he realizes that an educated person could never feel the real experience of working class people. The plight of the Mexican migrant workers made him realized that they lack public identity, remain completely alien and they were the person’s falling apart. Due to the lack of proper communication or the language problem, they were acting like the puppet in the command of their contractor. Moreover, they were unaware of the minimum human right and consequently, they were victimized rudely. The quietness was the indication of helpless; they were in the foreign land. Their sweating face and the hard harsh body really invited the sympathy from the writer. He obviously got the answer which he was searching from his childhood. He clearly knows that he could never be ‘Los Porbres’.

This story depicted the life of the poor and the powerless but also in advocating for their rights. Indirectly, the writer speaks for the poor and the powerless people and against their exploitation by the employers. Despite being autobiographical story, the story is able to generate the common experience of the working class people. Similarly the story changes the prospective of the people towards the working class people in sead of hatred and mockery, the desire for love and respect.

Action Will Be Taken

Ø Heinrich Boll

Heinrich Boll - Action will be Taken (An Action-Packed Story)

Probably one of the strangest interludes in my life was the time I spent as an employee in Alfred Wunsiedel's factory. By nature I am inclined more to pensiveness and inactivity than to work, but now and again prolonged financial difficulties compel me –for pensiveness is no more profitable than inactivity- to take on a so-called job. Finding myself once again at a low ebb of this kind, I put myself in the hands of the employment office and was sent with seven other fellow-sufferers to Wunsiedel's factory, where we were to undergo an aptitude test.

The exterior of the factory was enough to arouse my suspicions: the factory was built entirely of glass brick and my aversion to well-lit buildings and well-lit rooms is as strong as my aversion to work. I became even more suspicious when we were immediately served breakfast in the well-lit, cheerful coffee shop: pretty waitresses brought us eggs, coffee and toast, orange juice was served in tastefully designed jugs, goldfish pressed their bored faces against the sides of pale-green aquariums. The waitresses were so cheerful that they appeared to be bursting with good cheer. Only a strong effort of will –so it seemed to me- restrained them from singing away all day long. They were as crammed with unsung songs as chickens with unlaid eggs.

Right away I realized something my fellow-sufferers evidently failed to realize: that this breakfast was already part of the test; so I chewed away reverently, with the full appreciation of a person who knows he is supplying his body with valuable elements. I did something which normally no power on earth can make me do: I drank orange juice on an empty stomach, left the coffee and egg untouched, as well as most of the toast, got up, and paced up and down in the coffee shop, pregnant with action.

As a result I was the first to be ushered into the room where the questionnaires were spread out on attractive tables. The walls were done in a shade of green that would have summoned the word "delightful" to the lips of interior decoration enthusiasts. The room appeared to be empty, and yet I was so sure of being observed that I behaved as someone pregnant with action behaves when he believes himself unobserved: I ripped my pen impatiently from my pocket, unscrewed the top, sat down at the nearest table and pulled the questionnaire toward me, the was irritable customers snatch at the bill in a restaurant.

Question No. 1: Do you consider it right for a human being to possess only two arms, two legs, eyes and ears?

Here for the first time I reaped the harvest of my pensive nature and wrote without hesitation: "Even four arms, legs and ears would not be adequate for my driving energy. Human beings are very poorly equiped."

Question No. 2: How many telephones can you handle at one time?

Here again the answer was as easy as simple arithmetic: "When there are only seven telephones," I wrote, "I get impatient; there have to be nine before I feel I am working to capacity."

Question No. 3: How do you spend your free time?

My answer: "I no longer acknowledge the term free time -on my fifteenth birthday I eliminated it from my vocabulary, for in the beginning was the act."

I got the job. Even with nine telephones I really didn't feel I was working to capacity. I shouted into the mouthpieces: "Take immediate action!" or: "Do something!-We must have some action -Action will be taken -Action has been taken -Action should be taken." But as a rule -for I felt this was in keeping with the tone of the place- I used the imperative.

Of considerable interest were the noon-hour breaks, when we consumed nutritious foods in an atmosphere of silent good cheer. Wunsiedel's factory was swarming with people who were obsessed with telling you the story of their lives, as indeed vigorous personalities are fond of doing. The story of their lives is more important than their lives, you have only to press a button, and immediately it is covered with spweded-out exploits.

Wunsiedel had a right arm man called Broschek, who had in turn made a name for himself by supporting seven children and a paralyzed wife by working night-shifts in his student days, and successfully carrying on four business agencies, besides which he had passed two examinations with honors in two years. When asked by reporters: "When do you sleep, Mr. Broschek?" he had replied: "It is a crime to sleep!"

Wunsiedel's secretary had supported a paralyzed husband and four children by knitting, at the same time graduating in psychology and German history as well as breeding dogs, and she had become famous as a night-club singer when she was known as Vamp Number Seven.

Wunsiedel himself was one of those people who every morning, as they open their eyes, make up their minds to act. "I must act," they think as they briskly tie their bathrobe belts around them. "I must act," they think as they shave, triumphantly watching their beard hairs being washed away with lather: these hirsute vestiges are the first daily sacrifices to their driving energy. The more intimate functions also give these people a sense of satisfaction: water swishes, paper is used. Action had been taken. Bread gets eaten, eggs are decapitated.

With Wunsiedel, the most trivial activity looked like action: the way he put on his hat, the way -quivering with energy- he buttoned up his overcoat, the kiss he gave his wife, everything was action.

When he arrived at his office he greeted his secretary with a cry of "Let's have some action!" And in ringing tones she woudl call back "Action will be taken!" Wunsiedel then went from department to department, calling out his cheerful: "Let's have some action!" Everyone would answer: "Action will be taken!" And I would call back to him too, with a radiant smile, when he looked into my office: "Action will be taken!"

Within a week I had increased the number of telephones on my desk to eleven, within two weeks to thirteen, and every morning on the street car I enjoyed thinking up new imperitives, or chasing the words take action throught various tenses and modulation: for two whole days I kept saying the same sentence over and over again because I thought it sounded so marvelous: "Such action ought not to have been taken."

So I was really beginning to feel I was working to capacity when there actually was some action. One Tuesday morning -I had hardly settled down at my desk- Wunsiedel rushed into my office crying his "Let's have some action!" But an inexplicable something in his face made me hesitate to reply, in a cheerful gay voice as the rules dictated: "Action will be taken!" I must have paused too long, for Wunsiedel, who seldom raised his voice, shouted at me: "Answer! Answer, you know the rules!" And I answered, under my breath, reluctantly, like a child who is forced to say: I am a naughty child. It was only by a great effort that I managed to bring out the sentence: "Action will be taken." and hardly had I uttered it when there really was some action: Wunsiedel dropped to the floor. As he fell he rolled over onto his side and lay right across the open doorway. I knew at once, and confirmed it when I went slowely around my desk and approached the body on the floor: he was dead.

Shaking my head I stepped over Wunsiedel, walking slowly along the corridor to Broschek's office, and entered without knocking. Broschek was sitting at his desk, a telephone receiver in each hand, between his teeth a ballpoint pen with which he was making notes on a writing pad, while with his bare feet he was operating a knitting machine under the desk. In this way he helps to clothes his family. "We've had some action," I said in a low voice.

Broschek spat out the ballpoint pen, put down the two receivers, reluctantly detached his toes from the knitting machine.

"What action?" he asked.

"Wunsiedel is dead," I said.

"No," said Borschek.

"Yes," I said, "come and have a look!"

"No," said Borschek, "that's impossible," but he put on his slippers and followed me along the corridor.

"No," he said, when we stood beside Wunsiedel's corpse, "no, no!" I did not contradict him. I carefully turned Wunsiedel over onto his back, closed his eyes, and looked at him pensively.

I felt something like tenderness for him, and realized for the first time that I had never hated him. On his face was that expression which one sees on children who obstinately refuse to give up their faith in Santa Claus, even though the arguments of their playmates sound so convincing.

"No," said Broschek, "no."

"We must take action," I said quietly to Broschek.

"Yes," said Borschek, "we must take action."

Action was taken: Wunsiedel was buried, and I was delegated to carry a wreath of artificial roses behind his coffin, for I am equiped with not only a penchant for pensiveness and inactivity but also a face and figure that go extremely well with dark suits. Apparently as I walked along behind Wunsiedel's coffin carrying the wreath of artificial roses I looked superb. I received an offer from a fashionable firm of funeral directors to join their staff as a professional mourner. "You are a born mourner," said the manager, "your outfit would be provided by the firm. Your face -simply superb!"

I handed in my notice to Broschek, explaining that I had never really felt I was working to capacity there; that, in spite of the thirteen telephones, some of my talents were going to waste. As soon as my first professional appearance as a mourner was over I knew: This is where I belong, this is what I am cut out for.

Pensively I stand behing the coffin in the funeral chapel, holding a simple bouquet, while the organ plays Handel's Largo, a oiece that does not receive nearly the respect it deserves. The cemetery cafe is my regular haunt; there I spend the intervals between my professional engagements, although sometimes I walk behind coffins which I have not been payed to follow, I pay for the flowers out of my own pocket and join the welfare worker who walks behind the coffin of some homeless person. From time to time I also visit Wunsiedel's grave, for after all I owe it to him that I discovered my true vocation, a vocation in which pensiveness is essential and inactivity my duty.

It was not till much later that I realized I had never bothered to find out what was being produced in Wunsiedel's factory. I expect it was soap

Ø Marge Piercy

To be of use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Humour

7

Gai Jatra 067

2010-08-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Do you know about Gai Jatra (Procession of Cows)? I guess it is a unique festival in the world only held in Nepal. It is a very interesting festival in the sense it has both happy and sad aspects. On the one hand, it is a happy side as people celebrate in the streets with dancing and signing with cows. On the other hand, it is a ceremony in which the dead relatives who have passed away in the last one year are remembered.
The festival of Gai Jatra is a time when families, who have lost a loved one during the past year, gather as a community and engage in a feverish procession as an attempt to exorcise the grief of their loss. Each family’s procession was led by a cow which represented Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, believed to guide the souls of those who have departed, into the netherworld.

The Gaijatra festival or the 'festival of cows' is being observed across the country on Thursday.

Today, families who have lost a member during the year parade around the city with a decorated cow. Many kids disguise themselves as cows or ascetics and walk publicly in a procession along the festival route in a merry.

According to religious scriptures, 'gai' or 'cow' helps departed souls to cross the cosmic ocean in their journey into the after-world. Cows are sacred animals in Hinduism.

There is also a comical aspect to the festival. Humorous and satirical street shows of the people in power are performed in major towns of the country. Many newspapers also publish special editions with humorous and satirical articles marking the Gaijatra festival. In this festival, irregularities of the society are exposed through satirical means.

The people, especially of the Newar community have been observing Gaijatra festival since the Malla period to commemorate the loss of their family members by going around the town with masked faces and idols of cows. From neplanews.com

People from Newar community participating in Gaijatra festival at Basantapur, Kathmandu,
It is one of interesting festival in Nepal

Blast from The Past: Nepal then

2010-08-25T07:50:00.003-07:00

Blast from The Past: Nepal then

Just to let you know that

Nepal

was never a Hindu nation. Just like how USA was never a Christian nation, Nepal was never a Hindu nation. Read below and you know.

Nepal

was never a Hindu nation

————————————————-

Nepal

is a cultural mosaic state comprising different caste and ethnic groups belonging to mainly the Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan linguistic families, which is indicative of the waves of migrations that have occurred for over 2000 years from the north and south, respectively. The Tibeto-Burman or Mongoloid group having arrived from the north and east and by Indo-Aryan(Caucasoid) group that migrated from the south and west. It has been said that Nepal is a nation forged in migration (Gellner, 2007).

Nepal

History Timeline

———————————-

2000 BCE: Kiratas, Mongoloid race was living at Indus-Saraswoti region. (Prof. Sudarshan Raj Tiwari, 2002)

To be more exact, Kirat ancestral homeland was in Sapta Sindhu (present day Jammu Kashmir and Himachal in northwest India), which was called Indus-Saraswoti Region over 5000 years ago.

The Battle of the Ten Kings (dasarajna) for territory and ideology took place. It is mentioned in the Rigveda. The 7th Mandala of the Rigveda contains references to the Battle of the Ten Kings (notably hymns 18 and 83), where king Suda defeated a confederation of hostile Aryan and Dasyu tribes. In other word the battle of the Ten Kings was between Aryan(conform with vedic teachings) and those who did not. Kiratas joined the “Dasyu” or simply the group who had different ideology from vedic culture.

The famous war between Kirat emperor Sambara and king Divo-das of Sindhu-Saraswoti Region is described even in Rigveda. Lord Indra is highly praised in the Rig-Veda for helping King Divo-dasa in this famous war. Sage Bharadwaja was Divo-dasa’s royal priest. He had ordered the King, to eliminate Kiratas and keep fighting till the time not a single Kirata is in existence in the northern frontier of Sapta Sindhu (Jammu Kashmir and Himanchal of present day). This is how the Aryans of Early Rig-Vedic times kept on moving towards the east,fighting both with Kiratas as well as Nishadhas(Indo-austroloids).

Source:

The Vedic-Aryan Entry into Contemporary

Nepal

[A Pre-Historical Analysis Based on the

Study Of Puranas] - Shiva Raj Shrestha “Malla”

After the first Great war,

—> Kiratas Long painful march to the east of Himalayas and arrived in present day Northeast India(Assam & Sikkim) around 1100BCE–1000BCE.

700 BCE: Kirat arrived at Kathmandu valley (present day

Nepal

) and started a Kirat dynasty.(Baburam Acharya)

First Kirati King Yalambar. Fought in the second Great war, (the battle of Kurukshetra) of Mahabharata. Yalambar was killed by Krishna but stop the conquest of vedic Aryan expansion into Himalayas region for awhile.

563 BCE: Prince Siddhartha Gautama (Lord Buddha) was born in Lumbini, south Nepal. He was born into King Suddhodana Gautama and his queen Mayadevi, rulers of the Shakya tribe of Kapilavastu region near Lumbini. He came to Kathmandu valley with his several disciples during the rule of the 7th Kirati ruler, King Jitedasti.

239 BCE: During the 14th Kirati King Sthunko, the Indian Emperor Ashoka visited Kathmandu Valley with his daughter, princess Charumati. During his stay in the valley, he had four stupas built in four directions and one in the centre of Patan. The stupa still stand in the Patan outside Lagankhel market.

6th BCE: During the rule of 15th Kirat King Jinghri, another religious doctrine Jainism was being preached by Mahavira in India. In this regard, Acharya Bhadrabahu, a disciple of Mahavira came to Nepal. But comparatively, Jainism could not gain popularity like Buddhism in Nepal.

4th BCE: The term “Nepal” first start to appear in ‘Atharva Parishista’.

All along before 4th BCE, the Himalayas region from Himachal Pradesh(northwest India) Nepal(central) to Tripura( northeast India ) and all the way to Chittagong(Bangladesh) in the south was referred as “Kiratdesh” upon translation is land of Mongoloid race.

300AD: Invasion of Aryan Licchavis from northern India started.

The 28th Kirati King Paruka was at the throne when the Sombanshi ruler attacked his regime many times from the west. Although he successfully repelled their attacks, he was forced to move to Shankhamul from Gokarna. He had built a royal palace called “Patuka” when he shifted to Shankhamul. Today this royal palace “Patuka” is no more to be seen now except its ruins in the form of mound. But Patuka had changed Shankhamul into a beautiful town.

330AD: The last King of the Kirat dynasty was Gasti.

He was a weak ruler and was overthrown by the Sombanshi ruler Nimisha. It brought to the end of the powerful Kirat dynasty that had lasted for about 1225 years.

After the defeat,

—> Kirat again painful march in search for new settlements. Others stayed back behind to form contemporary valley races which is known today as Newars.

Many Kirats moved to the Eastern hills of Nepal and settled down divided into small principalities. Their settlements were divided into their regions, i.e. ‘Wallokirat’ that lied to the East of the Kathmandu, ‘Majkirat’ or Central Kirat region and ‘Pallokirat’ that border with Sikkim. These regions are still heavily populated by Kirats today.

The two long painful march in search of new land shows that Kirat people are resilient and independent. Kiratis did not like living under the invaders and instead move on.

1774 AD: ‘Pallokirat’(strong hold of Limbus, Lepchas, Dhimal) was the last of 3 Kirat Kingdoms to sign treaty with Gorkha King P.N Shah to form modern Nepal. The other 2 Wallokirat(stronghold of Sunuwar, Thami, Chepang, Hayu) & Majkirat(stronghold of Rais & Yakkha ) had signed the treaty by 1769 AD.

The only reason why Gorkhali King Prithvi Narayan Shah was able to unify the 3 Kirat Kingdoms to form modern Nepal was due to a dissent among the 3 Kirat Kingdoms.

Had the 3 Kirat Kingdoms united against the invasion of P.N Shah, Nepal would have been a different story today. Therefore by taking advantage of the situation, P.N Shah captured Wallokirat first. This act of terror surprised Rais & Yakkhas of Majkirat that P.N Shah was capable of doing such heinous act. Rais & Yakkha declare war on P.N Shah and his army. After series of battle P.N Shah troops was depleted and was on the verge of loosing. But P.N Shah brought more reinforcement from the Kathmandu and the west Nepal. He made use of Magars and Gurung men whom he had captured in Gorkha and surrounding areas in west Nepal to fight the Rais & Yakkhas for Majkirat. Finally peace was negotiated and treaty signed with P.N Shah by the ruler of Majkirat. Finally P.N Shah headed to land of Limbus, Lepchas and Dhimal in Pallokirat.

There he had more bitter confrontation especially with Limbus(”an archer, or bearer of bow and arrows” in their Kirati name) are famed for their archery. All this awhile, P.N Shah had used guns and muskets he had acquired after the conquest of Kathmandu valley. The British Government was trading with the Newars of Kathmandu valley and hence there was supplies of guns and muskets in the hands of P.N Shah troops when the Newars were defeated.

But still this was not a problem for Kirat-Limbus. The Limbus made Shah armies fled in terror with their skills and accuracy.

Every Nepali history student knows the circumstances under which the Kirat Kingdoms were brought under the over lordship of P.N Shah if the truth was told.The truth was that it was through the treaty and not by the conquest that P.N Shah was able to capture 3 Kirat’s Kingdom and formed a modern Nepal in 1774.

To mark the occasion, King Prithvi Narayan Shah had issued under his Lal Mohur (Red Seal) the following decree:

“We have conquered your country although you had fought valiantly in its defense. We hereby pardon all your war crimes. Protection of you and your kinsmen will henceforth be our responsibility. You will continue to enjoy whatever customs and traditions, rights and privileges you have hitherto enjoyed as long as this world remains in existence. If ever, me or any of my descendants were to deprive you of these rights and privileges that we are now confirming upon you, may the curse of my own ancestors and gods befall upon me and my pro-genies and destroy us.”

With this the Gorkha King gave full autonomy and land ownership(Kipat) to Kiratis as issued under the Lal Mohor. However, he made a simple demand on the Kiratis that they accept new identity to mark the occasion; thus Khambu Rai were given a new title of Jimdar, Yakthumba Limbu became Subba, Yakkha Rai became Dewan, Sunuwar Rai became Mukiya, Rong Pa became Lepcha and so on.

But true enough the descendants of Prithvi Narayan Shah went back against their promises.

The Singha Durbar (literally, Lion Palace) in Kathmandu is the official seat of government of Nepal. A substantial portion of the Singha Durbar was destroyed by fire in 1973 but the fact was that it was deliberately set on fire to destroy all Treaty, Legal document between Kirat & King Prithvi Narayan Shah.

According to the work “Nepali Rajniti ma Adhekhai Sachai”(Hidden facts in Nepalese Politics) by Gopal Gurung, many of the original Kirat religion and culture was banned during the Rana government and all sort of Kiranti documents were burned and destroy which the office used to call Jatiya nasta bivag.

And for over 200+ years, though Kirat history so rich, colorful and contributed in nation building was hidden from the Nepalese and to the world. This was partly because the previous Shah and Rana rulers who are Hindus did not respected the Kirat’s culture while they were deeply rooted in championing their history which was only of 200+ years old. Kirat’s history was never taught in Nepal school fully. Though the Nepali history class mentioned about Kirat, the book always stop it by saying “Not much is known about them” and goes on to Licchavis era, Thakuri era, Malla era and finally Shah and Rana era. Licchavis, Thakuri, Malla, Shah and Rana history are mentioned the most in Nepal’s history class because these are all Hindus.

But mostly the Shah and Rana gets all the credits for nations building and even a museum is built to honor Shah and Rana rulers when the fact was that it was during the 240 years of Shah and Rana period, Nepal as a nation went downhill. Caste system flourished as Nepal was declared a Hindu Nation by the Shah rulers. As for the indigenous communities of Nepal who are not even Hindus, they were discriminated in every field especially in running of Nepal. Nepal became one of the poorest nation and the state it is right now is largely accredited to the Hindu Shah and Rana government who discriminated the indigenous communities. The Shah and Rana rulers made Nepal as a tool for making money for them but not for the nation. But this is another side of the story.