Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift Book 1 | A Voyage to Lilliput | Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. All four parts or books of Gulliver’s Travels were published in the year 1726. The title of the first book of Gulliver’s Travels was A Voyage to Lilliput. In the first part, Jonathan Swift introduces the protagonist Lemuel Gulliver resembling a common man. Being an everyman, Gulliver is a gullible, yet honest person who cannot tell lies and always stands for right. Swift then uses Gulliver’s account of events for his satire that included a mockery of the English government, the English court, the Royal Society, Science, Religion, and contemporary literary works too.

Characters of A Voyage to Lilliput:

Lemuel Gulliver is a British surgeon living with his wife Mary Burton Gulliver and his children. Gulliver has no emotional life and his wife plays little role in the whole story. Richard Sympson is a cousin of Gulliver who edits his travel book. The Lilliputians are the inhabitants of the strange island that Gulliver reaches after a shipwreck they are extremely small creatures just 6 inches tall. The Lilliputian Emperor is friendly and generous with Gulliver as he exploits Gulliver’s might to defeat his enemies but when Gulliver refuses to participate in the war against Belfuscians, the king grows petulant, cold, and vengeful. The Lilliputian Queen is an adamant lady who never forgives Gulliver for urinating on her chamber despite knowing that it saved her life. Filmnap is the treasurer of the Lilliputian king who dislikes Gulliver as he suspects that Gulliver is having a secret affair with his wife. Skyresh Bolgolam is the admiral of Lilliput and he also dislikes Gulliver. Redresal is the Principle secretary of Lilliput who is friendly towards Gulliver. He suggests putting out Gulliver’s eyes as a “gentler” alternative to death. However, there are many supporters of Gulliver. A man of the court warns him about the court’s plan to put out his eyes. Belfuscians are similar creatures of short heights who live on the neighboring island of Lilliput. The Belfuscian King takes Gulliver in after he escapes from the Lilliputians and helps him prepare for his voyage back to England.

Summary of A Voyage to Lilliput

The book begins as Richard Sympson introduces Lemuel Gulliver, his cousin as a truthful, honest, and trustworthy citizen of England. He vouches for the honesty of Gulliver and says that his fellow townsmen would often emphasize something’s truth by saying “it was as true as if Mr. Gulliver had spoken it.” He informs that he is editing the travel account of Gulliver for people’s entertainment. Gulliver isn’t too happy with the edited version of his sea travel account as he admonishes Richard Sympson for adding a passage praising the English Queen Gulliver says that though he respects the English Queen he would never have praised her in that manner. He further accuses the edited version of his sea travel as libelous and says that nobody trust’s its veracity. The edited work of Richard introduces Gulliver as a common man of England who is a surgeon. Though other surgeons are making good money, Gulliver is suffering penury because he is too honest and cannot tell lies and cheat patients to make money. Thus, he decides to change his profession and become a ship surgeon to earn money. He learned mathematics and navigation at an early age because he always wished to go on long sea travels. He joins the ship of Captain Robinson for a six-year trip to the sea. However, he faces a shipwreck on his very first sea travel and he is the only survivor who reaches the shore of an unknown island and passes out due to exhaustion.

When Gulliver awakens, he finds himself lying on his back. As he tries to stand up, he realizes that he has been tied with innumerable tiny threads and he is unable to move. He feels something moving on his chin and when he observes, he finds that he is surrounded by strange ‘human-like’ creatures who are just six inches long. Being a meticulous person, Gulliver has a habit of giving exact measurements. Gulliver is surprised and he roars out trying to free himself. He succeeds in freeing his left arm but then the tiny creatures start shooting arrows at him until he lies calmly. The tiny creatures then loosen some of the threads and offer him food and a beverage to drink. Gulliver wishes to grab some of them and crush them but he restrains himself while the tiny creatures dress his wounds. Being too exhausted, Gulliver falls asleep again and the tiny creatures load him on a large carriage and take him to a tall old temple which is the tallest building in their city. Gulliver is tied to the temple. The emperor along with the whole crowd of citizens comes to see him. Everyone is astonished by seeing this humongous giant who looks like them. While Gulliver becomes a piece of the exhibition, some onlookers try to shoot him down. They are captured by the soldiers and then the Emperor orders them to be handover to Gulliver. Gulliver threatens them and shows them his pocket knife and then releases them. Everyone gets impressed by Gulliver’s generosity. The emperor and his Principle secretary Redresal become friendly to Gulliver whom they call the ‘man mountain.’ Gulliver starts learning the lilliputian language. The emperor discusses the matter of state management with Gulliver and shows how his officials are chosen from the crowd. The contestants and courtiers perform rope dances and competitions of thread-jumping and the member who wins the competition gets a higher position. Thus, the Lilliputian state uses tests of physical power and agility (rather than tests of moral power and reason) to determine who will hold its governmental offices. Then the Emperor asks Gulliver to stand upright while he orders his army to march through Gulliver’s legs. He orders the soldiers to treat Gulliver decently “upon pain of death.” The emperor is not concerned that Gulliver is so big and powerful that he could easily stamp everyone to death. However, he is concerned about Gulliver’s discomfort because he treats him as his property now. Gulliver is still tied up and restrained and he begs for liberty. The emperor discusses this with his council and they decide that Gulliver can be freed if he signs the papers of allegiance. The papers of allegiance contain certain terms such as Gulliver will not leave the kingdom or enter the metropolis without permission, that he will not trample the fields or the Lilliputians, that he will carry Lilliputian messengers on urgent errands, that he will be an ally against the Blefuscians in warfare. Gulliver reads the paper and agrees to them. He is freed as soon as he signs them. As a freeman, Gulliver decides to see Mildendo the metropolis of Lilliput. He observes the Emperor’s palace and then Redresal visits him and informs him about the two great dangers the Lilliputians face. The first great evil is the inner struggle of the Lilliputian court between the Tramecksan (high-heeled shoe-wearers) and Slamecksan (low-heeled shoe-wears). The emperor favors the Slamecksan people but the Tramecksan people are greater in number and there are dangers of rebellion. The second great evil is the danger of an impending invasion from Belfuscu, “the other great empire of the universe.” Gulliver realizes that no Lilliputian believes him about the other world of normal human beings. The animosity with Belfuscu is rooted in a disagreement over whether to break eggs on the bigger or smaller end. Some Lilliputians too believed that the egg should be broken from the bigger end and these Big-Endians have joined Belfuscian forces while Lilliputians believe that the egg should be broken from the smaller end. This difference has caused many wars between the Belfuscu and Lilliput. It is an allegory to the religious wars of Europe. Gulliver conceives a plan to cross the channel between Lilliput and Belfusu and steal the warships of Belfuscu, making them weak. He manages to do so while Belfuscian soldiers attack him with arrows. The Emperor is too happy by this and offers the title of ‘Nardac’ to Gulliver which means the greatest warrior. Later on, the Lilliputian Emperor asks Gulliver to help him in enslaving the Belfuscians. Gulliver, however, rejects this and says that it will be immoral and this annoys the Lilliputian Emperor. Moreover, Lilliputian admiral, Skyresh Bolgolam is also jealous of Gulliver because of his title. Treasurer Filmnap also becomes Gulliver’s enemy because he thinks that his wife is too much interested in Gulliver. Meanwhile, the Belfuscu king is too impressed by Gulliver’s strength and he realizes that Belfuscu cannot confront Lilliput now. He sends messengers of peace who are very warm towards Gulliver and invites him to Belfuscu. The emperor reluctantly allows Gulliver to visit Belfuscu while Bolgolam and Filmnap start spreading rumors that Gulliver is siding with the Belfuscian king. One night, there is a fire in the palace and the Lilliputians request Gulliver to go help stop it. The fire was due to a careless maid who fell asleep reading a novel by candlelight. Gulliver, having no instrument to put out the fire, extinguishes it by urinating on it. Though he has saved the palace, Gulliver knows that he has also broken the law by urinating in the palace. Still, he feels better when he receives word that the emperor is ordering Gulliver to be pardoned. However, the Lilliputian Queen feels disgusted and she is not ready to pardon Gulliver.

Gulliver describes the social life of Lilliputians and their legal system. If a person is found innocent by trial, the accuser is sentenced to death and the innocent person is paid generously for the inconveniences suffered. Fraud and ingratitude are likewise capital crimes punished by death. Citizens who follow the law throughout their lives have the title snilpall (which means ‘legal’) added to their name and are accorded privileges. He notices that while the Emperor appoints persons of agility at higher positions without considering their moral values, Lilliputians in general hire a person considering that person’s morals more than they do his abilities. He notices that all children including girls are raised by professors and servants in public nurseries and girls are raised to be equally brave and smart as boys are, there is no discrimination over gender. Gulliver is still unaware if he will be pardoned or punished for urinating in the palace. He plans his visit to Belfuscu but on the same night, a man from court visits him and informs him that the council had decided to punish him by death Redresal, being a friend of Gulliver stood in his defense but he could do nothing. The council first decided to execute him instantly but then they were worried about the flesh that will rot. Thus, the council has decided to put out his eyes and then subsequently slowly starve him to death. The man of the court tells him that the Lilliputian council will execute the punishment within three days and leaves Gulliver to decide for himself. Gulliver decides to save his life by running away to Belfuscu. He leaves a note that he’s left early for his trip to Blefuscu.

Gulliver is warmly welcomed in Belfuscu and Gulliver notices that the Belfuscian king and people, in general, are more moral than the Lilliputians. From the Belfuscian shore, Gulliver notices an abandoned canopy, a human boat, and retrieves it. The Belfuscian king helps him in mending the canopy. Meanwhile, the Lilliputian Emperor realizes that Gulliver has run away. He sends a messenger to the Belfuscian king to hand over Gulliver to them. The Belfuscian king politely rejects the notice and answers back that Gulliver has been friendly to the Belfuscian people and hence they won’t return him back. Then the Belfuscian king arranges for sufficient food and drinks to be stored in the canopy and hastens his departure for England. Gulliver continues to strive to return back to his world and eventually is picked by an English merchant ship. He returns to his home and tells the story of Lilliput to his wife and children but none of them actually believe him. Then he shows them a few tiny animals of Lilliput that he took with him. He stays with the family for two months and then decides to return to the sea again.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards.

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Gulliver’s travel is a satirical work written by Jonathan Swift that was first published in the year 1726. The subtitle of the book is “Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.” It is a Menippean satire that doesn’t satirize any individual or group in particular, rather, it satirizes the mental attitudes, behavior, or ideologies. A Minnepian satire includes 'extraordinary situations for the provoking, criticizing, and testing of a philosophical idea.' Jonathan Swift most probably started writing it after establishing the Marcus Scriblerus club along with John Gay, Alexander Pope, Dr. Arbuthnot, and other friends. Scriblerus club was established to criticize and satirize contemporary popular literary works and genres. Swift satirizes the traveler’s tales literary genre in this book which was published 7 years after Daniel Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’. Glliver’s Traves are ideologically opposite to Robinson Crusoe in which Defoe celebrated human capability and suggested the idea that the Individual comes first and then the society. Swift opposed this radical political philosophy in Gulliver’s Travels and unlike Robinson Crusoe, who reached a desolate island and made it a home, Gulliver continuously encounters established societies during his sea travels. Swift opposed the radical idea of individuals above society. The name of the ship captain that Gulliver chose to work with as a surgeon is Robinson.

The book is a satire against the Whigs party. Jonathan Swift satirizes various aspects of political philosophy, science, colonialism, religion, and humanity in general in four parts of Gulliver’s Travels that he wrote in form of a traveler’s guide while satirizing the genre. Swift satirizes the political view of the European government and petty differences over religion and questions if people are inherently corrupt or if they become corrupt. Swift also included an allegory to the issue of Drapier’s Letter and continued the debate of Ancients versus Moderns in Gulliver’s Travels and sided with the Ancients. In addition, in Part 3 of Gulliver’s Travels in which Gulliver encounters the ghosts of Julius Caesar, Brutus, Homer, Aristotle, René Descartes, and Pierre Gassendi. Overall, Gulliver’s Travels satirizes all humankind in general and that is why Jonathan Swift became infamous as a misanthrope and especially a misogynist after the publication of Gulliver's Travels. Part three satirizes science and the Royal Society too. While the book contains an ample amount of black humor, it got popular as a children’s story because of the popularity of the Lilliput section in Part 1 of Gulliver’s Travels. John Gay mentioned that Gulliver’s Travels “is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery."

Characters of Gulliver’s Travels:

Lemuel Gulliver is a common man of Britain with a basic education and training as a surgeon. He faces losses at his business and decides to join a ship to travel long distances while making money. He has a natural talent to learn foreign languages easily. He is a naive and gullible person with no emotional life. Mrs. Mary Burton Gulliver is the wife of Lemuel Gulliver. Robinson is the captain of the ship that Gulliver joins as a surgeon. Lilliputians are the inhabitants of Lilliput, an island that Gulliver reaches after a shipwreck. They are about five to six inches tall. They are the sworn enemies of the Blefuscudians of a neighboring island. Relderesal is a Lilliputian who becomes a friend of Gulliver and helps him settle in that strange land. The Emperor is the ruler of Lilliput who uses Gulliver against Blefuscu’s army. However, as Gulliver decides to stay away from the war and puts a fire off to save Lilliputians from a fire in the Empress’s chamber, the Emperor turns against him and sentences him to be blinded by arrows. Flimnap is the sour-tempered treasurer of Lilliput who becomes an enemy of Gulliver and accuses Gulliver of sleeping with his wife. The Blefuscan King helps Gulliver escape and return to his nation. The Brobdingnagian Farmer is a resident of Brobdingnag who keeps Gulliver as a pet and Gulliver calls him his Master. Eventually, the Farmer sells him to the Queen of Brobdingnagi. Glumdalclitch is the daughter of the Farmer. Her name means ‘little nurse’ and she takes good care of Gulliver. The King of Brobdingnag takes a special interest in Gulliver and spends dozens of hours discussing politics and comparing their two cultures. At last, he shows disgust towards humans, especially towards the governance of Britain. Laputans are the inhabitants of a floating island who wear mathematical and astronomical symbols and have trouble paying attention. Lagadans are the people who live in the land of Lagado, which stands beneath the floating island where the Laputians live. Munodi is an outcast of Lagado who makes a separate island with his followers. Houyhnhnms are a species of horses who are endowed with great kindness and virtue. Gulliver lives among them for several years and afterward is extremely reluctant to return to England. They call humans Yahoos.

Summary of Gulliver’s Travels:

Gulliver’s Travels is a deadpan first narrative fictional account of the adventures or misadventures of Lemuel Gulliver, a practicing surgeon. The story is divided into four parts.

The first part contains a general introduction to Gulliver and his past life. He is married to Mrs. Mary Burton Gulliver and he wishes to go on long sea travels. As his business fails, he joins the ship of Captain Robinson as a surgeon. In the first part, Swift describes the first sea travel of Gulliver that begins on 4 May 1699 and ends on 13 April 1702. His ship faces a storm and Gulliver ends up alone on a strange island after a shipwreck. As he gains consciousness, he finds himself tied with innumerable tiny threads, surrounded by a crowd of minuscule people who drags him to their ruler, the Emperor. Gulliver learns that these minuscule people are Lilliputians. All Lilliputians are astonished by the huge size of this Giant but gradually, they start treating him well, feeding him, while he is bound to an abandoned temple. The emperor decides to use this mighty Giant and asks Gulliver to surrender all his weapons and sign the papers of allegiance to Lilliput. Gulliver agrees and he is freed. Reldersal makes a friendship with Gulliver while a politically powerful treasurer named Flimnap becomes his enemy. At first, Gulliver helps Lilliputians against their enemy Blefuscan’s army and destroys their warships but soon he realizes that the fight is not worthy and the two nations of minuscule people are fighting just for the ego of the Emperor of Lilliput. He decides to stay away from the war. This angers the Emperor and  Flimapgets a chance to conspire against him. He accuses Gulliver of sleeping with his wife, who is also a minuscule lady and it is physically impossible for the two to have any physical relationship. Meanwhile, Gulliver learns that the Emperor’s palace has caught fire and the Empresse’s chamber is in danger. To save the lives of people and the Empress, Gulliver decides to put an end to the fire by urinating on the palace. The fire ends but this act is considered a huge disrespect against the Empress and the Emperor decides to punish him. The Lilliputian court plans to accuse him of treason and put out his eyes. When Gulliver learns this, he decides to run away and the Belfuscan King helps him by helping him in making a canopy that Gulliver uses to float back to England.

Part two mentions the recount of Gulliver from 20 June 1702 to 3 June 1706.

After his return, Gulliver stays with his wife and children for two months and then sets off on a new sea adventure, and this time, he ends up on a further strange island of Giants called Brobdingnag. As he ventures around a farm, a Farmer discovers him and keeps him as a pet while considering he is an interesting insect. Gulliver is horrified as now he finds himself as one of the Lilliputians who have been caught in the nation of Giants. However, his keeper, the Farmer, his wife, and his little daughter Glumdalclitch are very kind and take good care of him. One day, the Farmer decides to sell his pet to the Queen of Borbdingnag who is too interested in the little insect. Glumdalclitch accompanies Gulliver to the king’s palace. Gulliver is ridiculed for his physical mishaps. The King is unsure that Gulliver is a living being but soon he discovered that Gulliver is not only living but can have an intellectual discourse. The King takes a special interest in Gulliver and he introduces him to the rule and management of Borbdingnag. At the same time, Gulliver informs him about the culture of humans and the socio-political and legal practices of Europe and England. Gulliver realizes that even the king is naive and doesn’t know anything about politics while the king feels disgusted after knowing the ways of human society. Despite being treated well, Gulliver finds his life in Borbdingnag pretty difficult because even the insects of this land appear to be lethal to him. While the Queen and the court ladies are kind to him, they are so enormous that their little flaws appear to be disgusting to Gulliver. Oten some courtly girls would play with him by keeping him on their naked bodies to whom he is not at all attracted as their enormous skin pores and the sound of their torrential urination are frightening to him. One day, he sees a woman’s naked breasts as she feeds a giant kid but he finds it too disgusting.

The Queen keeps him in an enclosed box. One day, a bird snatches the box and drops it in the sea and this paves way for Gulliver’s return to England again.

Part 3 of Gulliver Travels tells the story from 5 August 1706 to 16 April 1710

Gulliver returns to the sea for the third time and while the sea remains silent this time, his ship is attacked by sea pirates. When he gains consciousness back, he finds himself on a floating island that is inhabited by people similar to him in the physical sense. However, Gulliver finds these people even stranger than Lilliputians or the giants of Barbdingnag. They call themselves Laputans. All of them keep their heads a little slanted to the left or right, and their clothes have pictures of either musical instruments or astronomical signs. All of them are theoreticians and academics. Gulliver observes that none of them live in a good house and all the houses are built very poorly and with no right angles. This is very odd as all Laputians are mathematicians, but soon Gulliver learns that they are unable to keep focus for long. Gulliver meets the Laputian king and realizes that all Laputians are obsessed with abstract mathematical, musical, and astronomical theory while they are utterly incompetent with practical matters. Since they cannot keep focus for long, they can hardly have any meaningful discussions. Gulliver finds that these Laputians oppress the land below, called Balnibarbi. During his days at Laputa, Gulliver undertakes a side trip to the island of Glubbdubdrib where he meets ancient ghosts of history including Julius Caesar, Aristotle, Homer, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Pierre Gassendi. From Glubdudrib, Gulliver travels to Luggnagg and meets the power-crazed despot of Luggnagg. From there, he reaches Japan and then back to England.

Part 4 discusses the story from 7 September 1710 to 5 December 1715.

As Gulliver sets off on his fourth voyage, he is the captain of the ship but his own crewmembers stage a mutiny and imprison him in a cabin. They discuss if they should kill Gulliver or let him be stranded on some strange island. At last, he is left alone on an island and soon Gulliver learns that it is the most strange of all his travels. It is the land of Houyhnhmns who are the noble and reasonable horses. When Gulliver tries to venture to the island, he is attacked by strange-looking species called Yahoos who are naked and appear like humans walking on their four limbs. As these strange human-like beings attack Gulliver, he is saved by the sound of the horse-like creatures that Gulliver learns are Houyhnhmns. Houyhnhmns take him to the master horse who teaches him the language and culture of Houyhnhmns. Gulliver tries his best not to look like humans or Yahoos and finds that Houhyhnhmns are a very likable and great society. One day, some Houyhnhmns observe him naked and realize that he is no different than the Yahoos. All the Houyhnhmns dislike Yahoos and thus Gulliver is forced away from there. As he tries to remain away from human society as now he dislikes Yahoos while he is in love with Houyhnhmns, he is forcibly picked up by Don Pedro, a Dutch sailor who eventually takes him back to England. This time, Gulliver is not happy after his return as he finds himself surrounded by Yahoos whom he has learned to dislike.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the History of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

Oread by Hilda Doolittle H.D. | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Hilda Doolittle was an American modernist poet who began as a part of the influential imagist modernist poets group initiated by Ezra Pound but later on, turned towards a wider variety of forms, including fiction, memoir, and verse drama.

She was born on 10^th September 1886 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and died on September 27, 1961. As a poet, she chose to write under the name H.D. and became famous by that acronym. Hilda was a student of Greek mythology and literature at Bryan Mawr College, Pennsylvania and she continued to use elements of Greek mythology in her poems and other literary works throughout her life. In 1901, she came in contact with Ezra Pound and she was hugely impressed by him. They developed an on-and-off romantic relationship and remained close friends throughout their life. However, Hilda’s family wasn’t in favor of their marriage and hence, she married Richard Aldington in 1913.

Ezra Pound suggested the pseudonym H.D. to Hilda as she felt that "Hilda Doolittle" is an old-fashioned and "quaint" name.

H.D. joined Ezra Pound to work for the poetry magazine Blast and The Egoist in 1911 in London and like Ezra Pound, she too disliked the Victorian descriptive style of poetry. Thus, they began their modernist imagist group. Initially, Hilda and Pound agreed to follow certain principles in their poetic works which included direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subjective or objective, using absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation, and composing poetry in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.

Despite her agreement with using minimal words and more imagery in her poetic works, Hilda continued to use elements of Greek mythology in her works. One such imagist poem written by Hilda Doolittle or H.D. is titled Oread which was first published in the first issue of Blast in 1914.

The title Oread itself is an element of Grek mythology which means a mountain wood nymph.

Structure of Oread:

Oread is a first-person poem and Oread is the speaker addressing the sea. The poem is highly concise consisting of only 26 words composed in six lines written in free verse without using any superfluous word, any adjective, which does not reveal something. H.D. profoundly used imagery in this compact poem, so much so that two contrasting images have been superimposed on each other, depriving the reader of the possibility to determine, which is the "primary" one. There is no systematic rhyming pattern but H.D. used anaphora in the first two lines and apostrophes in the second and third lines which offer a deep connection. The poem is a fine example of imagist verse that uses imagism to the fullest. In addition, Hilda used alliteration and metaphor in Oread and compares wood to the sea, and refers to the waves as “pointed pines” and “great pines”.

To a mountain nymph, the sea is completely alien but in this poem, the nymph is addressing the sea and thus, she imagines the sea but as her, all experiences are confounded to the hill, woods, and trees, she expresses the sea in her own terms.

Summary of Oread:

“Whirl up, sea—

whirl your pointed pines,

splash your great pines

on our rocks,

hurl your green over us,

cover us with your pools of fir.”

Lines 1-3

Oread begins the poem with epistrophe and directs the sea to ‘Whirl up,’ that is, the mountain nymph beseeches the sea to move with all its might as in a large and powerful storm. In the second and third lines, Hilda used Juxtaposition as Oread further directs the sea on how to move. Being a mountain nymph, she has no idea of how the sea is, and thus Oread uses the imagery of the world she is familiar with to describe the waves as ‘pointed pines’ and ‘great pines.’ Oread imagines the sea waves as its pines (thin sharp leaves) and urges the sea to release its energy and consume everything around it and reach the mountains to splash and drown everything with sea waves that are pines.

 Lines 4-6

H.D. employed enjambment in between the third and fourth lines while mentioning what to splash. Oread uses ‘our’ to mention the ‘rocks' that she wishes to be splashed by the sea waves. This suggests that either there are other persons along with Oread who owns the rocks (maybe some other wood nymph). Or, it may suggest that Oread agrees that the rocks belong to both of them, the mountain and the sea. However, t becomes clear in the last line where Oread uses ‘us’ that she meant to include all living and non-living things of the mountain, including her.

 Oread wishes the sea to use its might to melt the rocks with its pines (sea waves) and cover everything (us) with green water as if caressingly covering the nymph with “pools of fir.”

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

Possession by Kamala Markandaya | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Possession was the third novel by Kalpana Markandaya that was published in 1963. One can say that the basic story of Possession could be the inspiration behind the recent successful movie RRR. The novel depicts the intermingling of Indian ethos and British culture and presents a contrast between materialism and spirituality. Unlike her first novel Nectar in a Sieve, Kamala didn’t write Possession in an autobiographical manner, rather she wrote this novel as a narrative narrated by a character of the novel. Possession is another example of Diasporic literature in which Kamala Markandara, despite being an expatriate British depicts the clash of British culture and Indian spirituality realistically and appears to side with her roots in India. The story is set in 1949, that is, Independent India.

Characters of Possession:

Valmiki is the protagonist of the novel. He is a simple young man from an Indian village belonging to the goatherd community. Though Valmiki is illiterate, he is a naturally gifted artist who loves to draw paintings on the walls of the rocky caves near his village. He is attached to a spiritual guru Swami who lives at the hilltop near the village. Swami is a well-known person who is a globetrotter with no fixed home. Valmiki has immense faith in Swami and he spends most of his time in or around the Ashram of Swami while remaining detached from his parents and other relatives. Caroline Bell is a British young woman belonging to a rich aristocratic family. She is a typical capitalist who believes in exploiting the poor physically as well as mentally. Caroline discovers the talent of Valmiki and tries to possess him as his talented pet artist to satisfy her ego and lust while pretending to provide a greater better platform and society to Valmiki whom she buys from his parents and rechristens as Val. Ellie is a young British woman battered in body and soul by the Germans during the Second world war. She is physically maimed and is emotionally so bruised that despite the daily raping that she had been subjected to as a war prisoner, she has lost her fertility. Val sympathizes with her and loves her. His warmth brings a lot of improvement in Ellie who becomes pregnant with his child. Annabel is another British teen girl who becomes her friend of Val. Anasuya is an Indian woman, a journalist, and a reporter. She is a friend of Caroline who tries to dissuade her from buying Valmiki but Caroline remains adamant. Anasuya is the narrator who tells the story from an Indian point of view.

Summary of Possession:

The story depicts a clash between the western materialistic society with capitalistic ego and the spiritual sensual ethos of India. Caroline Bell is the representative of typical capitalism who believes in exploiting the poor physically as well as mentally. Swami on the other hand represents the human bond in its most nascent form. Kamala Markandaya chose Valmiki as the protagonist’s name because traditionally, Valmiki is the saint-poet who composed the Ramayana. As per the folklore, Valmiki was a hunter who became an ascetic on divine inspiration, learning to chant the holy name of Rama; turned ascetic and one day discovered that he had become a poet.

The story begins as Caroline Bell, a high-class English woman travels to India along with her friend Anasuya. When she visits a remote South Indian village she discovers the genius of an inspired artist who is a simpleton goatherd having no touch with modern society. Caroline is too impressed by him and his art but instead of feeling genuine love and appreciation, she emerges herself in feelings of egoistic possession and decides to somehow own the man as her pet artist and become his patron. Thus, she devises a plan to buy this artist so that she may possess him and his art. This artist is Valmiki who belongs to the goatherd community. His parents are very poor and he spends most of his time near the Ashram of a local Hindu saint Swami whom he considers his Guru. Swami inspires Valmiki who has a natural talent for painting. Valmiki often spends his time painting the walls of local caves near the hill of the village. When Caroline observes those paintings, she realizes that Valmiki has a rare talent, a born artist. But a born artist is not faultless and needs investment for improvement. She proposes good fortune for the parents of Valmiki if they let her take Valimiki to London, Britain where she will groom her to be a successful artist. To achieve her goal, she takes the help of her Indian friend Anasuya who is a young journalist and reporter. Anasuya realizes that under the veil of helping an artist, Caroline wants to possess Valmiki as property to satisfy her lust and greed. When Caroline persists, she argues that the Indian boy Valmiki may have a family whom he may not want to leave them. They may not want to leave him. She further argues that Valmiki is a human being, even if he is a goatherd and a simpleton. He is not a toy to be picked up and discarded when something else takes your fancy. However, Caroline remains adamant. Caroline manages to persuade Valmiki’s parents as she offers a huge amount and other facilities to them, but she finds strong resistance from Valmiki who is not willing to go away from his Guru Swami. Caroline is concerned Valimiki is a way to achieve success for her in society but she is worried about Swami whom she considers his main adversary who can stop her from achieving her goal. Anyhow, she succeeds in taking hold of Valmiki through her conceits.

Valmiki is still a young adolescent boy, away from the lustful life of adultery. Caroline takes him to Britain where she keeps him as a pet artist and being his patron, they live under the same roof. Caroline gradually introduces Valmiki to the Western culture and starts proselytizing him. He has so many charms to develop lust and he does start changing. Meanwhile, he is also getting modern education and training as an accomplished artist. She gives a new name to Valmiki and he becomes famous as Val.

In Britain, Val develops a friendship with Annabel who is a typical English girl of the 1950s. She is against her family's will and turns down their plans for getting her married. She gets too impressed by Val and develops an amicable relationship with him. At heart, she loves and desires Val. Caroline starts feeling jealous of Annabel and tries to create differences between them. Meanwhile, Val meets another British girl Ellie, a twenty-year-old Jewish girl who has suffered the cruelty of Nazis in the camp. She is raped there almost every night. She is an orphan, helpless, suppressed, and battered in body and soul by the Germans during the Second world war. She is physically maimed and is emotionally so bruised that despite the daily raping that she had been subjected to as a war prisoner, she has lost her fertility. Observing her sadness, Val sympathizes with her and soon he starts feeling true genuine love for her. Ellie too starts feeling secure with Val. Caroline cannot bear Ellie’s presence near Val but she cannot stop them as Ellie genuinely becomes an inspiration for Val in his art. Val indulges in Ellie so much that she becomes pregnant with his child. Caroline informs Annabel about Valmiki's illicit relationship with Ellie and thus, she succeeds in keeping Annabel away from Val.

Caroline again conspires to repossess Val only for herself. She exposes him in his next phase of training to her affluent society and gives him an education in its language and in its value, he learns all that avidly. Becoming a fashionable man, he gradually loses patience with Ellie’s incurable inelegance. Caroline manages things with consummate shrewdness and she makes the poor girl feel alien in the atmosphere, and she brings about the desertion of Ellie from society. Being marginalized and humiliated, Ellie decides to run away. Caroline does not reveal Ellie’s whereabouts to Val and by the time he comes to know of it, Caroline has sufficiently lulled him so thoroughly that she instinctively feels relieved that he is not burdened by the responsibility of Ellie and her child. However, Caroline fails to keep Val under her control again and again as he becomes more popular and meets many important people in society while making relationships with many women. Val is completely different from Valmiki, the young innocent spiritual goatherd boy of an Indian village, he is a shrewd modern British man.

Meanwhile, Swami gets a chance to visit London. When Val’s guru visits England and he reminds him in his unobtrusive way of the values that he stands for and the differences between Val’s new values and his original ones. Valmiki realizes how he has been duped. Caroline is very much disturbed by Swami’s presence in England because his spiritual effect on Val is a threat to her plan of physical and materialistic possession of human beings. She wants to control Val not only physically but mentally as well which is why she wants to send Swami back to India. From the very beginning, she is aware of the fact that Valmiki is deeply influenced by Swami. She is very eager to possess Val and to do so she seduces him into an almost incestuous carnal alignment despite the wide difference between their ages.

Meanwhile, Val discovers the forged letter and also Caroline’s selfish motives behind Ellie’s disappearance. He tries to relocate her but fails. At last, he decides to save his art and his inner integrity. Once that decision is taken, he behaves with a singularity of purpose, fights free of Caroline, and sails back home. Caroline still doesn’t accept defeat and follows Valmiki back to India

to regain him but Valmiki denies it as he does not want to be possessed by her again.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the History of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

Drapier’s Letters by Jonathan Swit | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. While Jonathan Swift’s both parents were British, he took birth in Dublin, Ireland, and for a long period, he worked in Dublin as the Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. No wonder he had strong feelings for the autonomy of Ireland while British colonialist colonial restrictions on Ireland’s economy were proving to be harmful to the common Irish people. During the same time, a British entrepreneur William Wood who owned copper and iron works throughout Britain, obtained a patent from the Crown in July 1722 to mint more than £100,000 of copper halfpence for Ireland over fourteen years. William Wood was considered to be close to Walpole who was known for venality and corruption. Irish people noticed that there were no safeguards to ensure the value of the coins and they believes that William Wood had his patent through government bribery and corruption. Jonathan Swift was the Dean of the Cathedral at that time and he became the voice of the Irish people.

Jonathan Swift took charge of raising Irish people’s concerns systematically and to do so, he chose to acquire the pseudonym of M.B Drapier by which he published a series of 7 Pamphlets opposing the patent of William Wood. These pamphlets were mostly successful and resulted in the culmination of William Wood’s patent on his halfpence for Ireland in 1727.

Swift chose the pseudonym M.B. Drapier because he wished to avoid any political repercussions. He was a known Tory sympathizer while Walpole’s Whigs party was in power. Swift chose Drapier especially because it meant a skilled 'daper' representing a retailer or wholesaler. Swift wished the pseudonym to resemble a common Irish man and thus chose M. B. Drapier, a middle-class tradesman and cloth dealer (whose initials perhaps stand for “Marcus Brutus”.

Jonathan Swift published 7 letters or pamphlets related to the matter from March 1724 to June 1725. The first four letters were published by Thomas Harding who was then arrested by British forces and a bounty was announced for the head of M. B Drapier who had been declared a secessionist and fugitive. Everybody knew that the actual Drapier is Jonathan Swift but the Walpole government didn’t have any legal proof against him. Furthermore, Swift was a prominent Torie supporter who had the backing of Queen Anne. Hardin published Drapier’s fifth letter in December 1724 and then he died of illness. After that George Faulkner published two more pamphlets by Drapier in 1735.

Summary of Drapier’s Letters:

The First Pamphlet was titled To the Shop-keepers, Tradesmen, Farmers, and Common-People of Ireland and it was printed in March 1724. In April 1724, it was retitled and republished as "Fraud Detected: or, The Hibernian Patriot." In the pamphlet, Drapier deliberately tries to avoid voicing anything against the Monarch of Ireland or Britain but he does mention that "It is no treason to rebel against Mr. Wood.” In the pamphlet, Swift descriptively expressed how debased coins would cause silver and gold coinage to be hoarded or removed from Ireland which would further debase the currency. He further expresses his worries and says that tenant farmers would no longer be able to pay their landlords, and, after the tenants were removed, there would be fewer crops grown in Ireland; the increase in poverty and the decrease of food supply would completely ruin Ireland's economy. Drapier maintained that he is totally devoted to the British king as the leader and respects the Irish church, he asserted strong protest against William Wood.

The matter was such that could badly affect all the farmers, wholesalers, and petty grocers of Ireland and thus it touched the nerves of Irish people who gathered against Wood’s halfpence to protest.

The Second Pamphlet was titled A Letter to Mr. Harding the Printer, upon Occasion of a Paragraph in his News-Paper of Aug. 1st, Relating to Mr. Wood's Half-Pence and it was published on 4 April 1724. After the initial protests against Wood’s Half Pence, Prime Minister Walpole managed a Privy Council to check any corruption in the patenting and minting of copper coins. The Privy Council included Sir Issac Newton who was a respectful and trustworthy person. Drapier attacked the report of the Privy Council without maligning Sir Issac Newton and suggested how Issac Newton was misguided in believing that the halfpence include no fraud. Swift directly attacked the Whigs Party headed by Walpole in this second pamphlet because the Privy Council was headed by Walpole. In this pamphlet, Swift succeeded in establishing that the report of the Privy Council is nothing but propaganda to hide the corruption behind Wood’s coin patent. However, Swift chose to remain extra cautious to avoid inciting the ire of the king because the king himself issued the legal tender for minting the coins. He maintains that he is truly loyal to the monarch but cannot trust Wood’s tricks. He maintained that though it is the King’s Prerogative to issue the legal tender, but the king cannot force his people to accept any copper-based currency. To support his point, Drapier mentioned the Irish constitution which limits the Monarch’s power and forces the people of Ireland to use only gold or silver coins as official currency. This second pamphlet by M.B. Drapier further gathered support from all the bankers of Ireland who announced that they won't accept copper halfpence.

The Third Pamphlet was titled To the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom of Ireland: Some Observations Upon a Paper, Call'd, The Report of the Committee of the Most Honourable the Privy-Council in England relating to Wood's Half-pence, and it was printed on 25 August 1724. In this pamphlet too, Drapier continued to oppose the report of the Privy Council which was still making rounds in power galleries. In this pamphlet, Drapier directly accused Walpole of trying to defend his fraudulent practices at the expense of the poor people of Ireland by misusing the respectful Privy Council. Furthermore, Drapier didn’t attack the minting of Walpole’s coin in England but he limited his attack on Wood’s patent for half pence to be issued in Ireland.

The Fourth Pamphlet was titled To the Whole People of Ireland, A Word or Two to the People of Ireland, A Short Defense of the People of Ireland and it was published on 21 October 1724. This letter proved to be the most important pamphlet of the whole series which established Jonathan Swift as the "Hibernian patriot" of Ireland. He became the Darling of the Irish people who compared him to David fighting against Goliath. The Archbishop of Ireland nicknamed Jonathan Swift "Our Irish Copper-Farthen Dean." In this pamphlet, M.B. Drapier openly called for the independence of the Irish people. However, he maintained the Irish deserve to be granted independence from British control but not King George II. What Swift meant was that though the Irish people have a divine duty to be loyal to the monarch, they cannot be forced to accept the authority of the British Parliament. Jonathan Swift was a known Tori supporter and this fresh assault and accusation against the Whigs government incited Walpole’s ire who immediately ordered the arrest of the publisher of these pamphlets and a death sentence to the author. Everybody knew Jonathan Swift is the actual author but there was no legal proof to establish it.

The Fifth pamphlet was titled A Letter To the Honourable the Lord Viscount Molesworth, at his House at Brackdenstown, near Swords and it was published on 31 December 1724. The Walpole government had indicated its willingness to take back the patent of Wood’s halfpence after the publication of the fourth letter. Yet, Drapoer wanted to ascertain that Walpole would not back down from his promise of removing the patent. In this letter, he expressed the whole scenario as his defense against the Walpole Government’s charges of treason in front of the Irish people. He called for more support for the Irish cause; he sought more attention so that the greater liberty of Ireland would be respected. In the letter, Drapier expressed himself as a common Irish man who is and always will be on the correct side of the argument.

The Sixth Pamphlet was titled To the Lord Chancellor Middleton and was published on 26 October 1724. Swift wrote it and published it with the help of George Faulkner but he didn’t publish it by the pseudonym of M.B. Drapier. It was anonymously written in which the author asserted that Lord Chancellor Middleton will maintain his opposition to Wood’s coin patent. Middleton himself was an opponent of Wood’s halfpence and always maintained that it will harm the Irish people.

The Seventh Pamphlet was titled An Humble Address to Both Houses of Parliament and was written in June 1725 but was not published. Drapier wrote it before the culmination of Wood’s patent. But Jonathan Swift got the affirming news of the cancellation of the patent before he could publish this seventh pamphlet and thus, he didn’t publish the pamphlet then. However, it was published after 10 years. In this pamphlet, Drapier asked the British parliament to check how Wood’s patent was accepted in the first place while it was a known fact that he used bribery to attain that.

These letters by Drapier proved to be influential enough to force the Walpole government to take back their decision to grant the patent for William Wood’s halfpence.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!

Ezra Pound | In a Station of a Metro and other works

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Ezra Pound was an American expatriate poet and literary critic who was born in 1885 in Harley, Idaho and he died in 1972. While Modernism and Free verse were becoming vogue in the American literary scenario of his time, he was more interested in classical poetry and often criticized the early Modernist movement in America. In 1908, Ezra moved to Spain where he self-published his first poetry collection titled A Lume Spento (With Tapers Quenched) in Venice. He moved to London in the same year and he found that he couldn’t appreciate the verbose Victorian verses often used by Maurice Hewlett, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson, and others. Thus, Ezra Pound not only criticized early Modernist poetry but also criticized Victorian poetry too which he found stirring, pompous, and propagandistic. Ezra Pound believed that poetry is not a versified moral essay, rather, the purpose of poetry is to express the individual experience, the concrete rather than the abstract.

Ezra Pound famously commented

“Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, spheres, and the like, but equations for the human emotions. If one have a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.”
Ezra Pound rejected the modernist approach of cubism and abstracts in poetry but he endorsed another modernist approach of Vorticism that he named himself and defined as extending imagism to art. Pound established himself as a huge proponent of Imagism in poetry. While many of his poems were published in Poetry Magazine and Blast, he was actively involved in establishing The Egoist a London-based literary magazine published from 1914 to 1919.

During his time in London, Pound became a close friend of W.B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Olivia Shakespeare. In 1910, Ezra Pound published his first book of literary criticism which was titled The Spirit of Romance in London. In 1912, he became the foreign correspondent of Poetry Magazine and in the same year, his collection of 25 poems titled Ripostes of Ezra Pound was published in London which also included a translation of The Seafarer, an Old-English poem from the 8^th century.

His other important work was The Cantos which is a long incomplete poem in 120 sections that he wrote during 1915-1962 which is often termed as the finest example of modern imagist poetry of the twentieth century. In The Cantos, Pound mentioned T. S. Eliot as Possum. He also mentioned his other friends including W. B Yeats, Wyndham Lewis, and A. R. Orage who was the editor of the socialist journal titled The New Age. T. S. Eliot also mentioned Ezra Pound and dedicated his famous work The Wasteland to Ezra Pound which was published in 1922. The Wasteland is considered the central force of the movement of modernist poetry in the twentieth century. Ezra Pound strenuously helped in editing and revisioning The Wasteland and T. S. Eliot mentioned him in The Wasteland as Il Migliore fabbro which means “the better craftsman,” a reference to Canto 26 of the Purgatorio of Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

Ezra Pound was influenced by Eastern poetic styles like Japanese haiku and he also translated 25 classical Chinese poems and published them under the title Cathay in 1915. His poem In a Station of the Metro which was published in 1913 in the literary magazine Poetry is considered to be the very first haiku published in English. Though this poem is not written in the traditional 3-line, 17-syllable structure of haiku, it does include strong imagery.

Structure of In a Station of the Metro:

The poem is just two lines long with only fourteen words. None of the words used by Ezra Pound is a verb and thus, it is an excellent example of verbless poetry form. Ezra Pound experimented in this poem to avoid the usual Pentameter and infuse the poem with strong visual spacing as a poetry device. The poem is written in free verse with no complete rhyme but an end slant rhyme. Ezra Pound used Assonance, Juxtaposition, Imagery, Parataxis, and Metaphor in these two lines.

Traditionally, a haiku focuses on a specific element of the natural world, using extremely concise and specific images to do so in a concise manner. Ezra Pound was a modernist poet who got inspiration from the Haiku style but didn’t copy it slavishly rather introduced his own originality. Thus while Pound linked images to express his emotions, he used only two lines with no verbs. He wrote the poem by combining two sentence fragments, each with a subject, but without an action, for that subject to perform. While the poem captures a moment, nothing happens during it and the poem appears as an observation. It appears as if the poet has taken two still photographs and positioned them side by side.

Summary of In a Station of the Metro:

“The apparition of these faces in a crowd;

Petals on a wet, black bough.”

The poem is an excellent example of imagism in which Pound rejected long, flowing poetic descriptions in favor of concise, precise images. An imagist poet considers the image itself as the best description of his emotions and thus, Pound expressed the images that he could envisage while observing the crowd in a metro station in Paris, France. The poet doesn’t reveal if he is a passenger traveling in the metro train standing at the metro station, or if he is standing at the station while waiting for his train to catch. The poet describes the faces of people that he observed at the station as a ‘crowd’ which suggests that the station was rather busy. He compares these faces to "petals on a wet, black bough," suggesting that on the dark subway platform, the people look like flower petals stuck on a tree branch after a rainy night.

As one can see, the two fragments of the poem do not make any meaning when read alone. However, when we read it as a poem, we realize that metaphor has been used to compare the crowd surrounding a train standing on a station on both platforms with petals or leaves on a strong black, wet tree trunk.

The poem is astoundingly concise and short which necessitates the most proper words to be used. It contains only 14 words that exactly express the emotions and feelings of the poet when he observed the moment at the metro station, and that is the purpose of imagist poetry, In the first line, the poet used the word ‘apparition’ which suggests that the people in the crowd are in so much hurry that they are oblivious of each other as if all of them are dead or ghosts. Furthermore, while these faces in the crowd are visible to the observer right now at the station, once the train moves, all these faces will be gone and will likely never be visible again, just like ghosts. While the first line expresses a daily routine of the modern world, the second line introduces a completely natural and primal scene of a wet tree trunk, covered with leaves during rainfall. The second line suggests that despite being modern and completely artificial, the metro station does have a natural element that offers it natural beauty.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards

Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Kamala Markandaya is a pseudonym of Kamala Purnaiya, an Indian-British novelist and journalist who took birth on June 23, 1924, and died on 16^th May 2004. She belonged to an upper-caste Brahmin family in Mysore, Karnataka, and completed her graduation from Madras University. After independence, she moved to Britain and married there. She wrote many short stories and a good number of novels in English. Some of her finest works include Nectar in a Sieve, Possession, Some Inner Fury, A Handful of Rice, The Nowhere Man, and others. She was an Indian Expatriate novelist who extensively wrote Diasporic literature.

Diasporic Literature or Expatriate Literature is a wide concept and an umbrella term which associates with all those literary works written by authors who are away from their native country whereas these works are connected with native culture and background. Being an Indian Diasporic author, Kamala Markandaya kept her relationship strongly with the ancestral land. There is

a search for connectivity and ‘ancestral impulse’ in her stories and novels, it is an effort to look for her roots. Her writings are ever symbolized boldness, identity, individuality, freedom, and against marginality.

Nectar in a Sieve was published in the year 1954 in which Kamala Markandaya depicted the fictional story of Rukmani, the youngest daughter of a village headman, and Nathan, a tenant farmer. The title of the novel was taken from the 1825 poem "Work Without Hope", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Kamala Markanday also added a couplet from the poem as the epigraph of the novel.

“Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And hope without an object cannot live.”

Characters of Nectar in a Sieve:

 Rukmani is the protagonist of the novel. She got married to Nathan, a poor tenant farmer at an age of 12. Nathan is her husband who is a kind, gentle and hardworking farmer.  Nathan is a surprisingly patient and caring husband who takes care of his newlywed wife who is still a child at the time of their marriage. He continues to respect and love Rukmani throughout his life though he commits infidelity with one of their neighbors. Irawwadi or Ira eldest child and only daughter of Nathan and Rukmani. When Irrawaddy is born, Rukmani is disappointed because Nathan needs sons who can help him work the land. Rukamni struggles to become a mother again but she gets help from a British doctor Kenny who lives and works in the village. Rukmani first meets Kenny at her dying mother’s bedside, and she seeks treatment from him for infertility. Kenny is a good and kind doctor who helps Kenny without letting her husband know. He further helps Rukmani when her daughter Ira also fails to conceive after many years of her marriage and is thrown out of her home by her husband for being barren. Kunthi is one of the neighbors of Rukmani she is arrogant because she belongs to a rich family and she is strikingly beautiful. However, she is jealous of Rukmani mainly because she has an illicit relationship with Nathan. Kunthi is always rude and insolent to Rukmani. Arjun is Rukmani’s eldest son and Thambi is her second son. Nathan hopes that his wons will help him in farming but they reject the idea and start working for the new tannery established in the village.  Arjun decides to leave home to work on a tea plantation in Ceylon. Murugan is Rukmani’s third son. Murugan moves to a large city to work as a servant and eventually marries a woman named Ammu who also works there. Selvam is Rukmani’s fourth son, his fifth child. He starts helping Doctor Kenny at his hospital which trains him in medical practice. Kuti is Rukmani’s youngest son who dies at an early age. Puli is a street child whom Rukmani and Nathan meet in the city. Puli is homeless and his fingers have rotten away because of leprosy. Rukami adopts him and takes care of him. Janaki and Kali are two other neighbors of Rukmani who have a cordial relationship with her.

Summary of Nectar in Sieve:

 The novel is presented in first person narrative style from the point of view of Rukmani who is the protagonist. The novel begins as Rukami is sitting beside her adopted son Puli as they see the hospital building where her son Selan works as a medical assistant. Rukamni then remembers her past. She still misses her dead husband whom she loved dearly. Rukmani was the youngest daughter of a village headman who was the strongest man in her village. However, as the British colonialists controlled all the systems, his father lost all the power and money and by the time of her marriage, he was a poor man. She was married at the early age of 12 to a hard-working farmer named Nathan. Nathan was a kind and compassionate man who respected Rukmani and treated her well. Soon she settled into her married life and gave birth to a daughter whom they named Irawwdy or Ira. Ira was a beautiful child and her birth also heralds a bumper crop of rice. Thus, she becomes dear to Nathan. However, Rukmani wished to have a son who could help Nathan in the field. Thus, she tried to conceive again but failed for many years. After six years of the birth of Ira, Rukmani visits her village to see her bedridden ill mother where he meets Doctor Kenny. She asks for his help in getting rid of her infertility and without informing her husband Nathan about it, she starts Doctor Kenny’s medication. Soon she becomes pregnant and delivers five sons in a short period. However, more mouths require more food and resources. Nathan used to work as a tenant farmer who hoped to have his own land one day in the future. But the increasing spending and burden of six children don’t allow him to save enough money to buy his own land. Soon the family finds it difficult to earn enough to make ends meet. Shortly after the birth of their third and fourth son, a tannery is established in the village that further deteriorates the farming lands and fills the atmosphere with a noxious odor. Nathan fails to earn enough through farming and soon his two eldest sons Arjun and Thambi decide to start working in the tannery to earn enough. Nathan is very sad about their decision because he hoped his sons to help him in farming so that they could buy their own land. However, he realizes that the earnings of Arjun and Thambi from the tannery are improving the financial conditions of their home.

Arjun and Thambi observe very difficult working conditions at the tannery and they organize a strike of workers for which they get terminated from their jobs which further pushes Rukmani’s family into financial trouble. Rukmani’s eldest daughter Ira is now a young beautiful girl of marrying age but Nathan and Rukmani don’t have enough money for her marriage. Somehow, they arrange her marriage to a farmer in a nearby village. Nathan continues to work as a farmer while Arjun decides to leave home to work on a tea plantation in Ceylon. Rukmani’s fourth son Selvan was still a kid when the monsoon season came early and brought heavy floods that destroyed the crops of Nathan. The family’s troubles further increased when Ira’s husband returned Ira to her parent's home and blamed her for being barren and infertile. Rukami again reaches Doctor Kenny to help her daughter out and Kenny starts treating Ira but before she could be treated, her husband decides to remarry another woman. To increase the troubles more, Rukmani herself becomes pregnant again and soon gives birth to Kuti, her sixth child, and fifth son. The birth of Kuti helps Ira as she engages herself as a surrogate mother. She loves Kuti as her own child and starts feeling hope and joy toward life again.

Famine strikes their village once again and it becomes very difficult for Rukmani’s family to survive.To make things worse, the owner of their farmland asks for the rent urgency or to leave his farm. Nathan and Rukmani decide to sell all their belonging to pay the loans and rent of the landowner but they fail to pay all the loans back. However, this turns them totally destitute, relegated to scavenging for herbs and edible plants slowly starving to death. Rukmani once again goes to Doctor Kenny to ask for help who arranges for a job for Rukmani’s fourth son Murugan in the city. Murugan goes away and starts working in the city as a servant and soon he marries a girl named Ammu there without taking permission from his parents. Meanwhile, Rukmani and Nathan continue to face financial troubles. Kuti gets ill as he is malnourished. Ira gets too worried about Kuti and she decides to turn into a prostitute to get enough money to save Kuti’s life. However, despite her turning towards the ill profession of prostitution, Ira and Rukmani fail to save Kuti who dies. Thambi is still jobless and frustrated. One day, he decides to steal some catskin from the tannery and start his own work but he gets caught and is killed by the guards. Nathan succeeds in getting a bumper rice crop that year but it is too late as Rukmani has already lost two of her sons. While Rukmani is still mourning the loss of her sons, Doctor Kenny reappears in her village with a good amount of funds to establish a new hospital in Rukmani’s village. He again proves to be a vital help as he engages Selvan, Rukmani’s youngest son as a medical assistant in his hospital and starts training him. Meanwhile, Kunthi is jealous of Rukmani. Kunthi is a beautiful woman who lives in the neighborhood. Nathan had an illicit relationship with her even before his marriage and since Rukmani was still a child when he married her, he continued to sleep with Kunthi. Kunthi, being jealous of Rukmani starts spreading rumors about the illicit relationship between Rukmani and Doctor Kenny. Her other neighbors Janaki and Kali also help her with this. However, Nathan rejects these rumors, rather he confesses to Rukmani and Ira that he used to have an illicit relationship with Kunthi and he fathered two of her sons. Rukmani chooses to forgive Nathan rather than hold a grudge. Nathan is fifty years old now but he still has to work hard in fields that are not even his own. One day, he is informed that he has to leave his farm and home because the landowner has sold the farm to the tannery owner. The situation gets worse as they come to know that Ira is pregnant as a result of her working as a prostitute. Ira soon gives birth to an albino child. Nathan and Rukmani decide to go to the city to take the help of Murugan while Ira, her child stays in the village with Selvan who is working in Doctor Kenny’s hospital.

In the city, Rukmani and Nathan fail to find the home where Murugan is working as a servant. At last, they take refuge at a temple but soon find that all their belongings and money have been stolen by miscreants. While Nathan is very desperate, a child named Puli helps Rukmani and Nathan to locate the address of Murugan. Rukmani pitties Puli because he is a homeless child suffering from Leprosy. She decides to take Puli with her and help him in getting proper treatment. When Nathan and Rukmani visit the house where Murugan is supposedly working as a servant, they find Ammu, the girl whom Murugan married. Ammu is with a newly born child. She informs Rukmani that Murugan left the job and her too many months ago. Rukmani realizes that if Murugan has left Ammu so many months ago, then her child could not be Murugan’s child. They decide to return to the temple. Nathan starts working as a laborer in a nearby stone quarry to gather enough money to return to the village. However, Nathan gets ill and one day, he suffers heartache while working in the stone quarry. He is soon taken to the temple where he dies in the arms of Rukmani. After performing his last rites, Rukmani decides to return to the village but she wishes to take Puli with her. She promises a better life and treatment of Puli as she believes that Doctor Kenny and Selvam will treat Puli well. Puli agrees to come with Rukmani. When they reach the village, Selvan and Ira greet them well. The siblings openly accept Puli and Ira hurries away to prepare dinner for their mother and a new brother.  Selvam reassures his mother that they will survive. Puli is happy as he observes Ira’s albino child. He is hopeful and optimistic as he finds nectar in a sieve.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!