On the Road by Jack Kerouac | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Jack Kerouac was one of the most prominent proponent of the Beat Generation and Beat Literature whose second novel ‘On the Road’ not only attained -commercial success but is also considered as one of the best examples of countercultural Beat literature. It represents the anti-establishment cultural phenomenon and political movement that developed in the West during the mid-twentieth century.

The novel is a prime example of Spontaneous prose and it is a Roman a clef which means that while it primarily describes real people, their names are changed. The novel is set in the aftermath of the Second World War and it explores concepts of society, freedom, and—most of all—friendship. On the Road is considered an autobiographical account. The novel is divided into five parts in which the travels of Sal Paradise (based on Kerouac himself) and his friend Dean Moriarty (based on Kerouac’s real-life friend Neal Cassady) have been described as they crisscross the American landscape in search of freedom, adventure, and self-discovery.

Characters of On the Road:

Sal Paradise is the narrator and protagonist of the novel. The character is based on Jack Kerouac himself. Sal lives originally with his aunt in New York; he goes on four trips across the country with Dean Moriarty, his friend. Dean is based on Neil Cassady. He lives in San Francisco but travels constantly back and forth to New York; a wild, mad character whose energy and craziness affect others, especially Sal. He is an alcoholic and a drug addict and sleeps with many women. He is the father of four children with two different women. Carlo Marx is an eccentric poet in New York who becomes best friends with Dean and Sal. Carlo is based on Allen Ginsberg. Old Bull Lee is a writer and drug addict in New Orleans who has traveled the world. He is a mentor to Dean and Sal. Old Bull Lee represents William Lee from the Nova Series and is based on William S. Burroughs. Marylou is Dean's first wife and brief love interest of Sal. Ed Dunkle is a close friend of Sal and Dean; and lives mostly in Denver and San Francisco. He marries Galatea Dunkle so that she will pay for his cross-country trip with Dean, then leaves her in a Denver motel. Galatea confronts Dean and offers a piece of advice to him. Remi Boncoeur is a friend of Sal who helps him get a job as a security guard. Sal’s Aunt is a maternal figure who treats Sal and Dean well. Chad King is Sal's friend in Denver who is interested in native Indian culture and anthropology. Roland Major is a writer and friend of Sal's in Denver. Camille is Dean’s second wife and the mother of his two children. Lucille is a love interest of Sal. Sal wishes to marry her but decides to go on the road trip with Dean instead. Terry is a Chicano migrant worker Sal meets in California. Sal falls in love with her and spends many weeks with her, her child, and her people. Inez is a woman Dean finds and lives in New York; Dean has a child with Inez and leaves her to follow Sal to Mexico. He divorces Camille and marries Inez but then, he leaves her and goes back to Camille in San Francisco.

Summary of On the Road:

On the Road is about two young men, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, who traveled extensively across the United States for around three years. The actual events of the novel are secondary to their connection and the sometimes fraught nature of their relationship.

The novel begins as Sal remembers how he became friends with Dean Moriarty. Dean came to New York City from Colorado with his new wife Marylou and asked Sal to teach him how to write. Sal was a young writer with an intellectual group of friends, among them the poet Carlo Marx. Sal learned that Dean was recently released from prison and he breaks the rules of society in a way that Sal could never imagine doing. Sal was recently divorced and recovered from an illness, he was fascinated by Dean’s enthusiasm towards life. Whether stealing cars for fun, taking any drugs he can find, or committing bigamy by marrying two women, Dean's persistent criminality and refusal to adhere to social norms charm Sal.

Dean and Carlo traveled west to Denver, inspiring Sal to hitchhike and travel by himself. He saved some money for the bus and traveled to Chicago heading to San Francisco to meet his friend Remi Boncouer. During the journey, he ate apple pie and ice cream wherever he stopped. He met a co-traveler Ed Dunkle and befriended him by giving him a woolen shirt when it began to rain. Ed leaves Sal behind when he gets a farmer’s trailer with only room for one passenger. Sal then took a truck taking all sorts of vagrants from the road and shared whiskey with his fellow travellers.

He stayed with his friend Chad King in Denver and then he met his other friend Roland Major from whom he learned about Dean and Carlo who were now close friends. After reuniting with Dean and Carlo, Sal learns that they are taking drugs and Dean is sleeping with another woman Camille. Ed too reaches Denver and all the friends enjoy a boisterous party during which Dean declares that he has decided to divorce Marylou and marry Camille. Sal expresses his wish to visit San Francisco. Dean introduces Sal to Rita Bettencourt and Sal sleeps with her.

Sal eventually leaves Denver for San Francisco, reuniting with his old friend Remi Boncoeur. Sal and Remi work dead-end jobs and struggle to make ends meet— until Sal decides to hit the road again. During his travels, he meets a young Mexican woman named Terry and spends several months living with her and her young son in a tent. He struggles with difficult manual labor jobs (which are all he can find) and realizes that he must leave Terry and return east. He hitchhikes to Los Angeles where he meets an old hobo he called The Ghost of the Susquehanna who was wandering around, saying he was going to “Canady.” Sal returns to New York and goes to his aunt’s house. Upon his arrival, he discovers that he’s just missed Dean.

Sal runs into Dean. Dean is with his first ex-wife after running away from his second wife, Camille, and their newborn baby. He is joined by Ed, who is also running away from his wife. Dean is crazier than ever, but Sal continues adventuring with him. Sal leaves and heads to New Orleans with Dean and Marylou to see the drug addicts Old Bull Lee and Jane, his wife. They meet many hitchhikers and cause trouble along the way. During this period, Sal develops a romantic interest in Maylou. From New Orleans, they move to San Francisco where Dean leaves them and goes back to his second wife Camille. Marylou leaves Sal soon and takes up with a rich older man. Sal returns to New York but soon takes some money from his aunt and goes to San Francisco to meet Dean again. He tempts Dean to go on the road again. Dean fights with Camile and runs away with Sal. They visit Denver to search for Dean’s father.

Sal begins to feel that Dean is too selfish and he doesn’t care for anyone but himself. Yet, he likes Dean and his crazy adventures. Before leaving for Denver, Galatea confronted them and scolded Dean for leaving Camille and going off on the road so that Camille had to look after their children. In Denver, they stayed with Frankie, a woman Sal knew from when he lived in Denver alone. Frankie lived alone with her children, including a thirteen-year-old daughter named Janet, whom Dean was infatuated with. Dean and Sal had a good time in Denver, going out drinking, and Dean stole several cars. Dean fails to find his father and is disappointed to learn that the rest of the family wants nothing to do with him or his father. Sal and Dean then drive to Chicago in a borrowed Cadillac. Dean drives hard and fast, destroying the beautiful car and delivering it to the owner as a beaten-up wreck. They travel from Chicago to Detroit and then return to New York. Dean meets a woman named Inez at a party and impregnates her within months.

Sal notices a change in Dean who is somewhat settled now working in a parking lot to support Inez while sending child support to Camille. He decides to travel alone and goes to Denver where he meets his old friend Stan Shepherd and plans to go to Mexico. Dean also joins them as he spends all the money he saved to buy a car. They continue taking drugs and visiting brothels during the journey. They drive through the jungle until they reach Mexico City, where Sal contracts dysentery and slips into a fever. Dean stays there until Sal recovers and then returns to the US.

Sal feels bad about it and realizes that Dean is a bad friend. He returns to the U.S. where he meets Laura and falls in love with her. They plan to go to San Francisco and settle there. Sal learns that he divorced Camille to marry Inez but now he feels he must go back to Camille. Dean approaches again and promises to help in moving their furniture. However, he takes drugs and even fails to stand on his feet. When he gathers himself, Dean says that he must go back west. Sal leaves him at the train station. The book ends as Dean travels back to San Francisco. It is the last time that Sal ever sees Dean. As the novel closes, Sal sits by the bank of a river, thinking of the great American landscape that he has seen in his journeys, and thinking of Dean.

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!

The Ambassadors by Henry James | Characters, Summary, Analysis

The Ambassadors by Henry James | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Ambassadors was a novel by Henry James that was published in 1903. The novel was first published in a serialized manner in the National American Review (NAR). The novel is about a middle-aged dude named Strether, who has been sent from New England to Paris to track down his fiancée's no-good son and drag him back home to run the family business. However, when he actually meets Chad (the son) in Paris, he finds him impressively changed with a cool and cultured behavior. In fact, Strether starts to wonder if Paris has actually made Chad into a way better person than he was back in America. Strether begins wondering if he has wasted his better years when he could have led a better more satisfying life. Later on, he learns that he has been trapped in the strategies of others and has much to lose.

The story of The Ambassadors is told through a third-person limited omniscient narrator with the viewpoint of Strether. The story is told in the past tense. The Ambassadors of the novel's title refers to various representatives dispatched to Paris by Mrs. Newsome, a wealthy Massachusetts socialite and businesswoman, to reclaim her son Chad, who she believes has lingered far too long in Europe, possibly in the grasp of a scheming, irresponsible woman.

Characters of The Ambassadors:

Lewis Lambert Strether is a middle-aged man from Woolett, Massachusetts. He works for a rich widow Mrs. Newsome and he has developed a relationship with her which he considers an opportunity for attaining better fortune. However, Mrs. Newsome insists that she will marry him only if he retrieves his wayward son from Paris. Chadwick Newsome or Chad is the son of Mrs. Newsome. In Paris, he befriends two American tourists Little Bilham and Miss Barrace. Chad has also become romantically involved with Madame de Vionnet - a Countess who is already married and significantly older than Chad. Chad doesn’t wish to return to Woolett and Strether begins to feel that Chad is leading a better and more fulfilling life in Paris but after having all his fun and adventure, Chad feels he is content to return home and enter the family business. Madame de Vionnet is obsessed with Chad and wishes to stop him from returning to America. When she feels Chad’s interest in her is waning, she offers to marry her daughter Jeanne to Chad which he declines. She manages to take the help of Strether making Chad stay in Paris for more time. Maria Gostrey is an American woman living in Europe who voluntarily helps Americans in Europe who appear "lost." She helps Strether understand his situation. Waymarsh is a lawyer with a rigid and sensitive moral sense. He is a friend and traveling companion of Strether who warns him not to subvert his mission but Strether ignores his warning. Sarah Pocock is the daughter of Mrs. Newsome and the wife of Jim Pocock. She is a strong-willed individual. When Mrs. Newsome realizes that Strether is failing in his mission, she sends Sarah as her second Ambassador to bring her son back. Sarah realizes that Strether has been distracted but she forgives him and offers a chance to redeem. Strether behaves rudely against her and ruins his chances. Jim Pocock and his sister Mamie Pocock accompany Sarah to Paris. Jim wishes Mamie to be married to Chad. Gloriani is a famous sculptor of Paris who hosts a well-attended garden party where Strether meets Madame de Vionnet.

Summary of The Ambassadors:

The novel is divided into 12 chapters with many chapters in each. In the Preface, Henry James introduces Lewis Lambert Strether as Strether advises his friend and confidante Little Bilham to live life to the fullest suggesting that this must be the theme of the novel but there is much more in the story. He also explains some other characters friendly to Strether, including Waymarsh and Maria Gostrey. In the Preface, Henry James singles out The Ambassadors as the best of his novels.

Lambert is a late middle-aged American living in Woolett, Massachusets, working as the editor of an American magazine owned by a rich socialite widow lady Mrs. Newsome. Lambert is a widower who is now extremely dependent on the imperious and domineering Mrs. Newsome. Since both are widowers and are close to each other, Strether hopes that Mrs. Newsome will marry her and that will ensure his financial stability. Mrs. Newsome’s wayward son Chad Newsome is on a long trip to Europe and is continuously refusing to return and manage his family business. Mrs. Newsome believes Chad has become romantically involved with an inappropriate woman and refuses to come home so that they remain together. Thus, she sends Lambert as her ambassador to bring back Chad and insists that if Lamberts succeeds, she will marry him.

Strether first arrives in Chester in northern England, where he meets a longtime friend, a lawyer named Waymarsh, and makes the acquaintance of Maria Gostrey, an American expatriate. All three proceed to London and then Waymarsh and Strether go to Paris where Chad is supposedly living. Maria promises that she will soon reach Paris to help Strether. Lambert is enamored of Maria’s comprehension of European culture and secular, critical, contemporary life. He finds himself more comfortable with Maria than his somewhat controlling fiancée.

In Paris, Strether visits Chad’s apartment but learns that he is out of town. Strether makes the acquaintance of Chad's friend, a young artist named John Little Bilham, who is staying in Chad's flat. When Maria Gostrey arrives in Paris, she too meets Little Bilham. While roaming the city, Strether meets Marie de Vionnet. Marie is one of Chad’s best friends despite being at least a decade older, causing Strether to wonder whether he is fond of older women. He hypothesizes, alternatively, that Chad is really courting Marie’s daughter, Jeanne.

Maria organizes a theater evening at the famous playhouse of the Comédie Française where Strether meets Chad Newsome. After the play, Strether and Chad hold a long discussion during which Strether learns that Chad has improved from when he last knew him in America. Chad exhibits restrained urbanity, elegance, and manners. This is not what Strether expected of someone in the grip of an inappropriate romantic entanglement. Strether wonders what has caused the transformation he sees in Chad.

When Chad offers to introduce him to some of his close friends, Madame de Vionnet and her grown daughter Jeanne, Strether asks straightforwardly if Chad has a romantic interest in Madame de Vionnet or her daughter, to which Chad denies any entanglement with a woman. Little Bilham declares to Strether that Chad maintains a "virtuous attachment" to an older woman, Madame de Vionnet. Chad arranges for Strether to attend a fashionable garden party hosted by a renowned sculptor, Gloriani where Strether meets Madame de Vionnet for the first time. He is impressed by both mother and daughter. He knows that back in Woolett, Chad’s sister, Sarah Pocock thinks of the marriage of Chad to her sister-in-law Mamie Pocock. Strether feels that Jeanne could be a better match for Chad.
After spending some days in Paris, Strether begins enjoying the freedom and adventurous lifestyle of Paris. He becomes too close to Chad’s friends Little Bilham and Miss Barrace who continue to praise Chad. With passionate enthusiasm, he exhorts the young man to live life to the fullest and not waste the best years of his life. Bilham, on the other hand, says that he would prefer to be like Strether at his age. Madame de Vionnet invites Strether for lunch at her residence and he learns that she is already married and her husband left her some years ago. She tells him that Chad has been a great help for her and he is helping her arrange a good marriage for her young daughter. She hopes Chad will remain in Paris until her daughter gets married to a suitable suitor. Strether is completely captivated by Madame de Vionnet and agrees to help her. He hopes to convince Mrs. Newsome that the Countess has positively influenced Chad and that Chad has changed for the better. Waymarsh gives Strether very sound advice: Strether should either follow his directions from Mrs. Newsome or give up altogether. Strether rejects this advice and tries to find a compromise between two conflicting positions.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Newsome sends an ultimatum from America. Her telegram orders Strether to return immediately, with or without Chad. She also intends to dispatch a new set of "ambassadors": her daughter Sarah Pocock, accompanied by Sarah's husband Jim and by Jim's younger sister Mamie. Strether negotiates a bargain with Chad to stay on for a bit in Paris. He is apprehensive about Sarah but is happy about Mamie visiting Paris. He talks with Bilham and informs him how beautiful and good-natured Mamie Pocock is and encourages him to try to marry her.

Chad arranges a welcoming party for Pococks. Strather observes that Waymarsh has grown close to Sarah Pocock and her husband while Sarah ignores him. Later on, Waymarsh informs him that Sarah wishes to hold a private meeting with Strether and he also reveals that he is going to Switzerland with Sarah and her family.

When Strether meets Sarah, he tries to convince her that Chad has improved and become a better person. He insists that Chad should be allowed to remain in Paris. Sarah denounces his behavior. Sarah Pocock is not amused by Parisian Society and its trappings, nor is she impressed with the Countess, nor is she inspired by the architecture and atmosphere of Paris. Sarah intends to do her job and she does it quickly. Sarah offers Chad a chance to get on the right track.

Sarah asks Chad to return back to Woolett and Chad agrees to leave Paris but he insists that he will agree to return home if Strether gives him the word.

Sarah hopefully looks at Strether, believing that he will certainly tell Chad to return back. However, Chad takes his time. Fearing that Chad will return home and live a miserable life in business, Strether looks at his own miserable life and is unable to condemn Chad to a similar fate. Strether knows that Chad will return home regardless of what he says. Still, Strether does not want the blot on his conscience. This move is costly for Strether: he will likely lose his job with the Newsome. The possibility of his marriage with Mrs. Newsome is nullified as well. Ultimately, he says that Chad must stay in Paris if he wishes to. This frustrates Sarah and the meeting turns into a bitter confrontation, with Sarah denouncing Chad's behavior. Strether decides to stay in Paris and calls off the wedding with Mrs. Newsome.

Strether is disturbed and decides to go out on a day trip to the countryside. He stays at a riverside inn. Glancing at the river, he glimpses a small boat with Chad and Madame de Vionnet. In a flash, he realizes that Chad is, after all, having an affair with an older, married woman and that Little Bilham, acting out of loyalty, has misled him by calling the attachment "virtuous."

After dinner, Strether returns to Paris on the same train with Chad and Madame de Vionnet. The following evening, he meets with Madame de Vionnet at her residence. She tries to persuade him to remain in Paris. However, Strether has now made up his mind to return home. Before leaving, he meets Chad, urging him not to forsake Madame de Vionnet. Chad tells him that he has a long life to live and needs to manage his family business and thus, he will return. Strether then meets Maria Gostrey to bid farewell. Maria proposes a continuing relationship with him which Strether politely declines. She begs him to stay with her, but he's through with Europe. Even though his future back in America is uncertain, he feels he must now depart from Paris.

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!

Bye Bye Blackbird by Anita Desai | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Bye Bye Blackbird is the third novel by Anita Desai that was published in 1971. It is a Diasporic novel based on the themes of alienation, identity crisis, loneliness, nostalgia, and racism faced by immigrants. The novel offers a psychological analysis of the immigrants who suffer mixed feelings of love and hate towards the country of their adoption. In 'Bye, Bye Blackbird' the author Anita Desai deals with the East-West encounters. 'Blackbird' used in the title is a metaphor used for the immigrant, to whom London says goodbye. Desai highlights the physical and psychological problems of Indian immigrants and explores the adjustment difficulties that they face in England. The author gives beautiful descriptions of busy London and the quiet retired life in the countryside, which is totally opposite to one another. The characters are not so real, but their inner conflicts and crises remain the same that every immigrant undergoes.

Characters of Bye Bye Blackbird:

Dev is a Bengali Indian immigrant who comes to England to earn a degree and go back home. He stays with his Bengali friend Adit and his wife Sarah but is highly critical of Adit’s life, which he views as a cowardly submission to his inferior status in post-imperial Britain. Dev himself shows little initiative in pursuing his degree and feels disoriented in a culture so different from his native Bengal. He also experiences several instances of racist behavior and attitudes, which harden his feelings of alienation. Adit is an educated Bengali man, with a UK degree, who found no favorable job prospects in India and returned to England to further his career. He takes a minor position with a travel company and marries Sarah, an English woman. The arrival of Dev, with his sensitivity to racism, and their visit to the countryside, where he encounters the silent prejudice of his in-laws, have a profound effect on him. Sarah is a young English woman with a good job. She fell in love with Adit and married him. Although she has an interest in Indian culture, and although she loves Adit, they have difficulties negotiating the cultural divide. Sammar is a Punjabi Indian immigrant and a friend of Adit. He is a doctor by profession and Bella is Sammar’s sweet loving wife. Jasbir-Mala is another Indian Punjabi immigrant couple in the same circle. Jasbir is an anesthetist and Mala is his good solid supportive wife. Miss Moffat is the landlady who owns the flat that Adit rents, and where Sarah comes to live with him. She has a well-developed interest in Indian culture, especially literature. Julia and Christine are friends and colleagues Sarah who ridicule her for marrying an Indian.

Summary of Bye Bye Blackbird:

The novel begins as Dev arrives in London. He is a young Bengali student trying to join the prestigious London School of Economics. He stays with Adit Sen and his English wife Sarah at Clapham, a beautiful town in southwest London. Adit Sen leads a settled life as an immigrant in England. He has a good job and with his considerably lucrative income, can live a decent and comfortable life. He is attracted to the rich economic status of England and its material prosperity. Adit tries to help Dev in adjusting to the British way of living. He introduces him to the little India settled within London and takes him to meet with his other Indian friends including Jasbir-Mala, and Sammar-Bella. Dev notices that Jasbir and his wife Mala, along with Samar and his wife Bela are relatively comfortable with their life in England. They migrated from India to Calpham and began living here. They enjoy their weekends and visit clubs and Coffee Houses. They do their chosen jobs and while they face the same racially discriminatory environment, their sensitivities and the local conditions create no distaste or trouble in their rehabilitation in England. On the other hand, Dev, Adit, and Sarah find it difficult to live in peace.

Adit completed his studies in England and then returned to India searching for a job. But in four months, he could find only "a ruddy clerking job" at the salary of two hundred and fifty rupees and a possible rise to five hundred after thirty years. This frustrated him and he returned back to England. After returning to England he worked in different capacities in a post office, in the sorting office. Then he joined a camping equipment business. He also worked as a teacher and finally, accepted a little job at Blue Skies. Meanwhile, he met a beautiful young English woman Sarah who is interested in Indian culture and people and fell in love and married her.

Dev finds it difficult to adjust in England as he feels alienated by both Indian immigrants and the Englishmen. Dev came to England to obtain a degree from the London School of Economics and work as a teacher in India after having obtained a foreign degree. But his dreams are shattered by seeing the immigrant's loss of self-respect in England. He is called "wog" by a schoolboy. He becomes a victim of insult and abuse at the hands of English people. Indian immigrants are even not allowed to use a lavatory of English. He can't bear the fact when he knows that the London docks have three kinds of lavatories i.e. Ladies, Gents, and Asiatic. He wants to return to India because he can never bear to be unwanted. Once a peddler refused to tell Dev the price of a Russian icon because he considered Dev too poor an Indian to purchase it. That peddler thinks that India is known for its poverty. Their typical and narrow-mindedness towards Indian immigrants is very sharp. Wherever he goes, he becomes a victim of racial discrimination and apartheid and is constantly regarded as a second-grade citizen, an intruder. He feels alienated in England. He longs for his home. He is fed up with the silence and emptiness of the houses and streets of London. Dev cannot adjust to the Western culture where everyone is a stranger and lives in hiding. He feels alienated and longs for his own home, India. One day, Sarah’s friend Christine visits their home. Dev feels insulted by the "blatant expression" on the face of Sarah's friend Christine when she sees him in Sarah's kitchen. Dev feels he is being racially discriminated against and wishes to return to India. He loses his temper when the immigrants are insulted by the white people and when white boys call him a ‘wog’. He sees that Punjabis, Bangladeshis, and Sikhs live separately in England. They try to adjust and stay in England. He comes to realize that he is not adopted and welcomed by the English community. He finds it difficult to bear the London climate. He comments that Adit and his wife Sarah should be masochists to live in such a climate.

Meanwhile, Sarah is also facing difficulties after her marriage. She married Adit because she loved him and she is romantically in love with India and Indian culture. She dislikes English people’s love for privacy and reserve. However, after marrying Adit, she is caught in a tragic situation. She is the only daughter of a middle-class English couple in Hampshire. She is highly sensitive and loves the innocence and freedom of the countryside. After marrying Adit, Sarah feels alienated in her own country. Adit notices Sarah suffering from loneliness. The only fault she has done is she has married an Indian. Unlike Adit and Dev who have willingly uprooted themselves from their native soil, Sarah gets herself alienated from her society through her marriage. She is ill-treated by her own colleagues in the school. She dislikes questions about her personal life and feels that discussing her Indian husband would have forced her to parade like an impostor, to make life claims, an identity that she did not feel to be her own. Sarah is even insulted by the schoolchildren. They take delight in calling her "Hurry, hurry, Mrs. Scurry!" Even her friends Julia and Christine didn’t approve of her marriage to an Indian and would often ridicule her. Thus, Sarah not only feels alienated, but she finds herself completely lonely as she finds none to share her insecurities and worries. She is alienated and walks on the loneliest path. She loses her identity and wonders if she is English or Indian. Adit and Sarah have a quite opposite attraction to their respective motherland. Sarah loves India. She shows interest in reading stories about India and Indian life. This is one of the reasons for her marriage to an Indian, Adit Sen. Adit finds Sarah to be quite manageable, yet he dislikes her attitude. She takes no care to prepare food for Adit. She does not prevent her cat from sniffing it in. She finds the Indian way of cooking difficult. Sarah is not able to relate to Adit and his friends in their conversation, jokes, and laughter. Remaining a foreigner in their world, she finds difficulty in wearing the Indian saris and jewelry. He compels Sarah to wear them because it has been sent by his mother. This is an instance of husband-wife alienation. Sarah feels as if she is sandwiched between the two races. Sarah continues to visit her old parents in the countryside.

Even Adit does not escape from the feeling of alienation and nostalgia. Adit’s nostalgia is caused by his visit from his in-laws. He feels awkward and discriminated in front of his in-laws. It is also intensified by the unexpected outbreak of the Indo-Pak war. Gradually his nostalgia takes a dreadful turn. It makes him ill and suffocating in English surroundings. He gets visions as one who is a psychic case. He is lost in the memory of India. He carves for the Indian twilight. Like a child, he wants to see an Indian sunset with rose, orange, pink, and lemon colors in the sky. He becomes so homesick that he visualizes the Indian rivers. He also desires to see the bullock carts, a monkey-wallah, and a marriage procession in India. Once upon a time, he had a great fascination for England but the same feeling is now suffocating him. At Christine Longford’s wedding, the symptoms of his nervous breakdown come forward. It can be seen… “Struck with fear for his health, for his mental balance, he stood frozen on the pavement”. A question torments him “Who is he and where is he?” He wants to no longer be seen under the label ‘Wog’, ‘Asiatic’, ‘Indian Immigrant’ etc. He carves for his identity. He feels alienation. He feels that he is losing his real identity.

In such a situation, Sarah informs that she is pregnant. When Sarah decides to visit Hampshire to meet her parents, Adit plans to travel to the countryside along with Sarah, Dev, Jasbir, Mala, and Samar. Samar fails to convince his wife Bella to travel with them. After a day of boisterous frolic, Jasbir, Mala, and Samar return back, leaving Adit, Sarah, and Dev amidst the placid surroundings where they are to spend the rest of the week. Nothing overtly dramatic takes place during the following six days though both Adit and Dev appear completely changed people by the time they return home, much to the bafflement of Sarah. Adit meets his in-laws in Hampshire and feels a bit awkward and outplaced. Dev, spending nearly a week amidst the serene and exquisite countryside, is struck by the simplicity of the local peasantry which makes him realize that there is more to England than its arrogance. He also slowly realizes that he can not live off his father's money and his friends' generosity for long and starts a job hunt the bitter experiences that come along help him mature, dilute his sardonicism, and infuse a bit of tenderness and compassion into his callous self.

Adit, who had planned the tour with much warmth, ends up feeling out of place at his rather cold in-laws'. He finds himself unable to come to terms with the incompatibility he felt with them even though not with his own wife. Back in London, a nasty quarrel between his Bengali friend Samar and his English wife Bella makes him ponder, after an unsuccessful attempt at laughing the episode off, - "Why does everything have to come to this -that we're Indians and you're English and we're living in your country and therefore we've all got to behave in a special way, different from normal people. He feels fed up with life in England. Ultimately he decides to return to India with his wife.

This creates a conundrum for Sarah. She doesn’t like her alienated life in London and loves her husband. When Adit declares his decision to go back to India, Sarah as a sincere and loving wife accepts his decision. But she has to face the problems before her, “There was the baby. There was the voyage. The uprooting.” She has visited India before, with her husband, she enjoys cooking and eating Indian food, but she is deeply English. Her identity crisis comes to a head when she, carrying her first baby, follows her husband’s decision to move back to India. As she is about to leave for India, a friend asks about the baby and Sarah says, ‘You mean boy or girl? I don’t mind either. Or do you mean who it will look like, Adit or me? I hope it will look like Adit, brown as brown, with black hair and black, black eyes.’ However, she is worried about what cultural identity her child will adopt. She thinks in favor of Adit and decides to bid her own soil and society for good. She is in search of her real self and real life.

Dev, on the other hand, gets a job in London and decides to stay there as he occupies the flat left by Adit and Sarah.

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!

Voices In The City by Anita Desai | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Anita Desai is one of the leading Indian women novelists writing in English most of the themes found in her novels are the problems of alienation, immigration, marital disharmony, and so on. In Voices in the City Anita Desai portrays how people, especially the poor, are forced to lose their moral values because of money which is indispensable to lead a life. Thus society makes a lot of sudden changes. Voices in the City was published in 1965. Desai’s protagonists are basically tragic and they fail indefatigably. They are psychologically disturbed, moody, self-absorbed, and confused in their manner and disjointed expressions. They are faced with an aggressive social environment and they fall into a state of passiveness. They share their experience and perceptions about life and try to search for the real meaning of life. The characters live a lonesome life and love privacy. The story of the novel is set in the city of Calcutta, India, and represents Calcutta as a place for bohemians. The story is about three siblings, Monisha, Nirod, and Amla.

Characters of Voices in the City:

Monisha is the eldest daughter of the family. She is a delicate person blessed with an extraordinary power of visualization. However, she fails to attain chances to develop and express her artistic streaks. She gets married at an early age and suffers disharmony in the mismatched married life. She fails to become a mother and this further stresses her life. Nirode is the only son of the family. He is a highly talented young artist and a struggling writer. He seeks a sense of individuality and commitment to some higher purpose in life and fails to find it. He rejects the help of his rich mother in attaining a stable career while trying to establish himself as a successful artist on his own. Nirode is unique in his feelings and thoughts and seeks absolute freedom. Amla is the younger sister of Nirode and like her two elder siblings, she is a talented artist, a beautiful model, and a writer. She arrives in Calcutta to find a career as a commercial artist but soon she derails and begins seeking love and joy sans struggles, pain, and suffering. The three kids spent their childhood at Kalipong, a hilly area of West Bengal in a feudal family dominated by their mother. Their father was a drunkard who died of alcoholism. Their mother led a lonely life and then developed an affair with Major Chaddha one of their neighbors. All of them, especially Nirod are too sensitive about this and don’t like Mr. Chaddha being close to their mother. David is one of the friends of Nirod who came to Calcutta after running away from his home in Ireland. Mr. Dharma is an aged artist, a painter who impresses Amla and befriends her. He develops a sexual affair with Amla and she falls in his trap while searching for absolute love. Later on, she learns that he is a philanderer who doesn’t even treat his own daughter well. Jiban is Monisha’s husband. He is a government servant and he is insensitive towards Monisha. He believes that women are expected to serve their husbands, and their families, rear their husbands’ kids, and take care of home. Hari is a childhood friend of Monisha. Ila is the wife of Nirode. Rita is Nirode’s aunt, his father’s younger sister, who is a scientist.

Summary of Voices in the City:

Nirode is working as a news reporter for a newspaper in Calcutta. He doesn’t like his job much and thinking of quitting because he has reached the limit where it has become “impossible, physically impossible to work under any man.” Furthermore, he finds no creativity in his job and considers it senseless. He remembers his childhood days at Kaligong where he was so happy with his two sisters. However, after the death of their father, he couldn’t accept the growing bonhomie between his mother and their neighbor Major Chaddha. He always found a feeling of antipathy against Mr. Chaddha. He left Calcutta for higher studies. His mother is still living in Kaligong and when she learns that he has left his job, she offers help in finding a better job but he rejects her help.

He seeks complete freedom so that he may experiment with his creative ideas and thus, he decides to launch his own magazine. Though he enjoys initial success with his new magazine, he fails to attain a track of readers in the absence of proper advertisement, and thus, his magazine begins to flounder and fold back. He tries his hand at writing a play. However, all his attempts fail as his magazine folds and his play is rejected by theater groups. He begins to equate the city of Calcutta with the goddess Kali, a deity of destruction that kills creativity and self-expression. Nirode is married to Ila. Though Ila loves Nirode, she is a complex character deeply affected by her own insecurities and marital dissatisfaction. Alienated from her husband's artistic world, she finds solace in an affair with a family friend, which only exacerbates her inner turmoil. Ila's internal struggle is a reflection of the changing dynamics within Indian society, where traditional gender roles are being reevaluated and challenged.

Nirode attempts to model his existence after a painter named Dharma who seems to be at peace with his life in Calcutta, though Dharma is a mysterious figure and Nirode is ultimately not able to understand his motivations.

During all these troubles, his elder sister Monisha, who is also living in Calcutta offers solace to him. Nirode always found Monisha cheerful and caring towards him. However, Monisha too has her own struggles. She is a delicate girl with a creative mind and ability to visualize. She could have been a fine artist but her widow mother decided to marry her too early. After her marriage, her husband Jiban, who is a government servant was posted in Calcutta. Thus, Monisha and her husband along with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law shifted to Calcutta. Monisha has been married to Jiban for the last three years. She comes to Calcutta as her husband has been given a transfer to his ancestral city. Monisha has been brought up in the hilly region of Kalimpong. She is a new woman with a heightened level of awareness and a strong sense of individuality. She is blessed with an extraordinary power of visualization. When she comes to live with her in-laws, she goes through the experience of having a ‘surreptitious push from Jiban’ to touch the ‘feet after feet’ of various people. She has to spend time in ‘the tiered balconies’, in the room with ‘the bars of windows’, a ‘black’ bed, and a ‘black’ wardrobe. The entire description makes it clear that the environment creates a cold response and threat in her and makes her feel like a prisoner. Monisha finds herself a misfit in this new house as she is a well-educated, peace-loving, self-absorbed woman with a philosophic bent of mind. She fervently wishes for her solitude and privacy. Monisha finds a cramped atmosphere at her husband’s place. Added to this is the indignity of being unable to bear a child because her fallopian tubes are blocked. She feels really embarrassed when her sisters-in-law discuss her ‘ovaries and theirs. This is the encroachment on someone’s private life and Monisha disapproves of this very attitude. Here Monisha feels like being objectified in the atmosphere of indifference. Through her acts and thoughts, Monisha seems to challenge the popular belief of the confinement of a woman in four walls of a house enjoying motherhood. She seeks individual freedom and ways to express herself. However, she finds none. She begins to feel as if marriage is a tomb for her. She remembers Rita, her aunt who is a scientist. Rita abandoned her family to pursue her career. However, Monisha doesn’t have a career, nor her brother or younger sister are yet stable enough to support her. She has no option.

Amla is the younger sister of Nirode who too came to Calcutta to establish herself as a successful commercial artist. She is young, naive, and very hopeful at the beginning. However, as she faces the stark realities and competition in the market, she begins to crumble. She meets Monisha and Nirode and finds that both have changed with time. Amla becomes anxious about the unpleasant change that has come over Monisha and Nirode after they arrive in Calcutta. She begins to suffer from a sense of loneliness.

She also encounters Dharma, and he has a greater effect on her. Dharma, considering Amla the ideal model for his paintings, draws her into his circle of literate, cosmopolitan friends. Amla begins to feel this is a chance for success and is excited about it. She begins seeking absolute love and protection with Dharma. She meets her elder sister and discusses her issues with her. Monisha tells her younger sister Amla that there must be someone in someone’s life who reciprocates and responds. And this response, this reciprocation should be silent, discreet, pure, untouched, untouchable. But she makes it clear that this reciprocation makes some demands, obligations, extortions, untruths, and bullying. Amla fails to understand that Monisha is talking about her own struggles. She decides to compromise in her relationship with Dharma. However, she soon learns Dharma is a philanderer who treats his daughter poorly. She soon gets tired of the coterie of cynical artists and begins maintaining a distance.

Monisha begins to completely lose herself when her sister-in-law deliberately takes control of her bedroom. The situation becomes alarmingly perplexing for Monisha when one of her sisters-in-law comes to her room and asks her to show saris in her wardrobe, and when she throws open the wardrobe, the lady gets amused and shocked to find “Kafka, Hopkins, and Dostoyevsky” etc. instead of saris there. Monisha does not relate to the shocking behavior of her sister-in-law. She finds herself a complete misfit.

One day, Monisha learns that Nirode is seriously ill and has been admitted to the hospital. Tough Nirode’s mother could have paid the bills easily, he didn’t wish to take her help. Monisha takes her husband’s money from the cupboard without his permission to pay the hospital bill for Nirode.

While she is ridiculed and castigated for not being able to become a mother, she suffers heartbreak when she is accused of theft in her own house. She finds that even her husband doesn’t support her and remains insensitive towards her. She continues to play the role of a dutiful and devoted wife. However, internally, she is in deep turmoil due to the ugliness of her surroundings. She is unable to bear a child, one of her primary duties as a wife, which she interprets as an unwillingness to bring another life into a world that seems to her ugly and meaningless. While she doesn’t express her melancholic and depressive thoughts to anyone, she registers them in her diary.

Monisha locks herself in the bathroom and immolates herself to death.

When Nirode and Amla come to know about the incident, they are shocked and in disbelief. Monisha used to be the source of solace, strength, and inspiration for them. However, when they get her diary to read, they learn how difficult her own situation was.

Monisha’s death gives a new perspective to Amla who begins to take more interest in her dull job in the advertising sector and tries to adjust to the boring life of Calcutta. She begins taking an interest in making illustrations for a translation of the Panchatantra. This piece of ancient Indian political philosophy appeals to her because she finds its message meaningful and its way of being conveyed – through fables about animals – to be interesting and creative.

Meanwhile, Nirode is still struggling against his existentialist crisis. He feels that Monisha is a martyr who has met a splendid death. Her death gives him a glimpse of the secret of life and death. He feels elevated to an unimaginably high vantage point where he can see the “whole fantastic design of life and death, of incarnation, followed by reincarnation, of unconsciousness, turning into consciousness of sleep followed by waking.” However, he is troubled by the prospect of meeting and facing his mother again who is expected to visit Calcutta to meet the family of Monisha, her dead daughter. He tells Amla that he has been sentenced to death. “I am prepared and waiting for it. I have heard her approach death, Kali… while she watches I grow more and more vividly alive by the minute, and also closer and closer to my death.” A visit from his mother finally resolves his conflict when Nirode has a dream of his mother as Kali and recalls that the goddess with destructive powers also has the power to preserve what is important.

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!

The Poplar Field by William Cowper | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Poplar Field is often termed as William Cowper’s best-known poem. It was published in January 1785 in The Gentleman’s Magazine. William Cowper also published his famous work The Task a Poem in Six Books and he again published the poem with some changes along with The Task. The poem is considered an autobiographical account by William Cowper. In 1784, William Cower was escorting his friend Lady Austen to the poplar grove site of which he was fond, to find the trees cut down. He was very sad about this. Lady Austen insisted that he must express his anguish in a poem and thus he wrote The Poplar Field. This is how it can be said as a part of The Task. The poem is based on the themes of Humanity vs Nature, suggesting the destructive effects of humanity on the serene beautiful nature. It also encapsulates the idea of time, change, and mortality while expressing thoughts on aging, loss, and grief.

Structure of The Poplar Field:

The Poplar Field is a short twenty-line poem composed in five quatrains (stanzas with four lines each). Each of the five quatrains contains two rhymed couplets. The rhyming scheme of the poem is simple AABB CCAA DDEE FFGG HHII. The poem is narrated by an unidentified speaker who can assumed to be William Cowper himself. He wrote the poem in anapestic tetrameter, that is, each line contains four anapests or four feet with an unstressed-unstressed-stressed syllable pattern. In some lines, anapests are replaced by iambs (feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern).

The Poplar Field is a fine example of Transitionary poetry. William Cowper lived and wrote in a time of intense literary transition. He was influenced by the Augustan age and wrote in the pattern of Neoclassicist poets such as Alexander Pope but his poems also suggested a forward move towards Romanticism. Unlike Pope, who often wrote in iambs William Cowler wrote The Poplar Field in Anapestic Feet. Cowper's poems about the natural world, especially the English countryside, marked a distinct shift in 18th-century poetry. His eccentric blend of religion, politics, struggles with mental illness, and delight in nature strongly influenced the Romantic poets who followed him, especially Wordsworth and Coleridge. Cowper’s anapaestic meter contributes much to the poem’s lyrical quality, so making its rhythm expressive of the joyful song that matches the attractive natural scenes.

Cowper used Alliteration, Metaphor, Personification, Symbolism, Caesura, Consonance, Asonance, and Enjambment in the poem.

Summary of The Poplar Field:

Stanza 1 Lines 1-4

“The poplars are felled, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade:
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.”

The poet begins the poem by explaining the setting of the place where he is without mentioning the location or time of his presence. This suggests that the setting is more important for the poem. The poem is about a thing, a place of great emotional value for him.

The narrator says that his favorite poplar trees have been cut down. And bids goodbye to the shade that they offered, and to the quiet music the row of trees used to provide. He says that the sound of wind blowing through their leaves is gone, and their image is no longer reflected by the surface of the Ouse River.

The poet used the past participle “are felled” which shows that the poplar trees have been cut down by human beings and they did not fall naturally. Those poplar trees had vital roles to play in Nature and the life of the poet. Cowper used Alliteration in the first couple ( felled, farewell; cool colonnade). The repeated /f/ sound between "fell'd" and "farewell" heightens the tragedy of the line and links the trees' destruction to the speaker's mournful goodbye. In addition, the sound of ‘w’ in ‘whispering’ and ‘wind’, the sound of ‘l’ in felled and farewell (Consonance), and the sound of ‘o’ in Ouse and bosom (Assonance) offers a sense of sonic echo. The poet personified Ouse who doesn’t reflect the image of Poplar trees on his breast anymore. The diction offers a sense of struggle or war. We speak of soldiers “felled” in battle, like the titular poplar trees. Caesura has been used in the very first line while the poet used enjambment in the first couplet.

Stanza 2 Lines 5-8

“Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view
Of my favorite field, and the bank where they grew,
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.”

The narrator says that it has been twelve years since he last saw his favorite field of trees and the riverbank where they used to stand. Now he laments how they've all been laid down on the grass, and how he’s sitting on a ‘felled’ tree that once offered him shade. His favorite tree is now his “seat.” This is a reference to the fact that the trees are horizontal on the ground, they have been cut down and, at this point anyway, abandoned. The way the narrator uses a fallen tree as a seat suggests a rather utilitarian attitude toward the field. This poses a question on humanity's relationship with the natural world in the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution in England in the 18th century.

Alliteration has been used in ‘favourite field’ and the poet used enjambment in the first couplet of the second quatrain.

Stanza 3 Lines 9-12

“The blackbird has fled to another retreat
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
And the scene where his melody charmed me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.”

The narrator continues to lament at the felling of the trees and says that the blackbird has gone off to some other place where different trees shelter him from the hot sun, and this field, where the narrator used to love listening to the blackbird's beautiful music, is no longer filled with the sweet sounds of his songs.

The blackbird Symbolizes the large, less obvious effects the destruction of the poplar field has had on the natural world. The poplars weren't just trees; the field's beauty didn't come from them alone. Rather, they formed the foundation of a rich, thriving ecosystem filled with other living things, like the blackbird. Those creatures, in turn, contributed to the overall beauty of the poplar field the speaker misses so dearly. It is not only a single blackbird. This one blackbird represents all the animals who had to find new "retreat[s]" as a result of humanity's destruction of the poplar field. The blackbird calls to mind all creatures, in the poplar field of the poem and far beyond, who are displaced by humankind's destruction of nature. There is no forest to protect the animals from the sun, or from greater dangers. Everyone, including the speaker, is newly exposed. The blackbird is seeking out a new sanctuary where he can sing his “ditty.” It no longer echoes around the “scene” that the narrator remembers.

Stanza 4 Lines 13-16

“My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.”

The narrator further laments his loss and says that his youthful days are quickly passing him and soon he will be like the trees, dead and buried in the ground, with a patch of grass and a gravestone to mark his resting place. He says that he will die before another group of poplars grows to replace the one that's been cut down.

The narrator directly references the passage of time and how it has brought so much change to his own life, and to the life of his environment. He knows that becoming part of the past is his own fate as well. “Ere long,” or before long, he too will be lost. When this happens, and he is dead, he will be covered in “turf” or earth, and have a “stone” at his head. He is describing his own grave, where he will rest in the future. The speaker knows that before this field of poplars can ever grow back, he will be long dead. He will not live to see it rejuvenated.

Stanza 5 Lines 17-20

“Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Short-lived as we are, our enjoyments, I see,
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.”

The narrator says that as he sees this field of cut-down trees, it makes him think about how the joys of life come to an end. Though life is wonderful, its pleasures, he now understands, have an even shorter lifespan than human beings themselves.

In this stanza, the narrator takes a larger, overarching view of what has happened to his world. The shock of seeing the field in this state has triggered him to think more deeply about life. It has “engage[d] him” more than anything else. It has also inspired him to think about the way that the “pleasures of man” so easily “perish.”

In the whole poem, the narrator uses personification of loss and represents loss through the degradation of his much-loved landscape. In the second line of the stanza, the poet uses Alliteration again with repetition of the sound of ‘m’ in ‘muse’ and ‘man’ and the sound ‘p’ in ‘perishing pleasures’. It offers a sense of chiastic alliteration (m/p; p/m).

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!

William Cowper | Biography and Literary Works

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. William Cowper was a popular English evangelist and poet of the eighteenth century. He was born in 1731 in Hertfordshire and was the first surviving child of his parents. His death occurred in 1800. At the age of six years, he lost his mother. After her death, her brother and his wife came close to him and gave him some of his first books including John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and John Gay’s Fables. Both these books deeply influenced him and turned him towards Evangelical streams.

At the age of 58, one of his cousins gave a picture of his mother. William Cowper wrote a letter to his cousin thanking him in which he stated that the picture of his mother is more precious "than the richest jewel in the British crown". Later, he wrote a poem titled "On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture" that was published in 1798. Cowper belonged to the Augustan age transitioning from NeoClassical trends towards Romanticism and his works appear to be a precursor of the Romantic era. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet."

As he grew old, he fell in love with one of his cousins Theodora but her father was not willing to marry her to someone so close in relationship. This broke his heart and he suffered depression. In 1763, he tried to commit suicide and was sent to a mental asylum.

He then settled in Huntington where he met a retired clergyman named Morley Urwin and his wife Mary to whom he became too close. He began living with them and when the couple decided to shift to Olney, William decided to shift with them. In Olney, he met curate John Newton who inspired him to write hymns which later became popular by the collection named Olney Hymns published in 1779. Both John Newton and William Cowper wrote the Olney Hymns but the major share was by William. John Newton’s hymn became too popular while William Cowper’s hymns such as "Praise for the Fountain Opened" (beginning "There is a fountain fill'd with blood") and "Light Shining out of Darkness" (beginning "God Moves in a Mysterious Way"), became some of the most famous verses of Cowper. Cowper wrote 67 of the Olney Hymns.

Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq

Cowper was living with Robin Urwin and his wife Mary Urwin in Olney when Robin met an accident and died. Cowper continued to live in the house of widow Mary Urwin. During the same time, he again suffered mental disorders and insanity and began thinking that he was eternally damned to hell. He again began thinking of committing suicide but Mary Urwin took better care of him and inspired him to write again. In 1774, he wrote “Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion” in which Cowper conceives himself as one “Damn’d below Judas.” The poem is also known as ‘Sapphics.’ Cowper regained himself by 1779 and began writing again. Mary Urwin suggested the idea of writing a satire titled The Progress of Error. He wrote seven more poems of a similar satirical nature which were published under the title Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq in 1782. One of these poems was The Nightingale and The Glow Worm.

In 1783, Cowper met a widow named Lady Austen who encouraged him to write more poetry. She playfully challenged him to write a poem on SOFA in blank verse and he took it as a serious task and wrote the famous work The Task: a Poem In Six Books. The six books of The Task are called "The Sofa", "The Timepiece", "The Garden", "The Winter Evening", "The Winter Morning Walk" and "The Winter Walk at Noon". All these poems were written in blank verse and all six books were published in 1785. In the same volume, along with the six books, Cowper published his famous comic verse The Diverting History of John Gilpin.

In 1785, Cowper also published The Poplar Field, discussing the theme of Humanity vs. nature.

John Newton was an active supporter of the Abolition of the Slave Trade and he was a member of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, formed in 1787. Through him, William Cowper learned about the difficulties and inhuman conditions of slaves from Africa and America. In 1788, William Cowper wrote the poem The Negro’s Complaint which talks about slavery from the perspective of the slave. The Negro’s Complaint rapidly became very famous and was often quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. during the 20th-century civil rights movement in America.

Some other popular poems by William Cowper include The Snail, The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk, The Castaway, and God Made the Country.

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!

The Wanderer an Anglo-Saxon Elegiac or Wisdom Poetry of Old English | Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Wanderer is one of the few surviving Anglo-Saxon poems written in Old English that was written by an anonymous author about whom, nothing substantial is known. The poem is an elegy in which a soldier mourns the loss of his chief the lord, and his nation. The poem offers details on the Norman Conquest and how the Normans had ravaged the land of the Anglo-Saxons and captured it. The poem was entered in the Exter Book, also known as Codex Exoniensis. While the Exter Book was written in the 10th century, it is believed that the poem The Wanderer itself is much older than the book. It is believed that "The Wanderer" first appeared as a piece of oral poetry during the 5th or 6th century, a time when the Germanic Pagan culture of Anglo-Saxon England was undergoing a conversion to Christianity. Being an elegiac, the poem's theme is loss and sorrow with spiritual seeking of solace. The narrator (the Wanderer) vividly describes his loneliness and yearning for the bright days past, and concludes with an admonition to put faith in God, "in whom all stability dwells". It is believed that this admonition at the end of the poem is a later addition as an effort to convert this otherwise, secular, irreligious, or Heathen poem into a Christian poem.

Structure of The Wanderer:

The original poem is written in Old English. It is a long poem with 153 alliterative lines. However, the translated poem The Wanderer is reduced to 116 lines. Some other translations have 115 or 117 lines. Like all other Anglo-Saxon poems, all lines of The Wanderer are alliterative which means that the rhythm of the poem is based on the repetition of the consonant sound at the beginning of words. The meter of the poem is of four stress lines, divided between the second and third stresses by a caesura. Each caesura is indicated in the manuscript by a subtle increase in character spacing and with full stops, but modern print editions render them in a more obvious fashion. The poem fluctuates between personal experience and general advice hence, there could be more than one narrator. The first seven lines are narrated by the Wanderer who introduces himself. Then begins a monologue by a wiseman from line 9 which continues till line 91. From Line 92, a new monologue begins which is narrated by the Wanderer himself who has now become the Wiseman.

The anonymous poet of The Wanderer used alliteration, enjambment, and caesura in the poem.

Summary of The Wanderer:

Lines 1-9

“Often the solitary one experiences mercy for himself,

the mercy of the Measurer, although he, troubled in spirit,

over the ocean must long

stir with his hands the rime-cold sea,

travel the paths of exile – Fate is inexorable.”

So said the wanderer, mindful of hardships,

of cruel deadly combats, the fall of dear kinsmen –“

Often alone each morning I must

Bewail my sorrow; there is now none living”

In the first five lines, the speaker talks about how ‘the ‘lone-dweller’, referring to the ‘wanderer’, was solitarily alone, receiving limited love and God’s grace. He suffers for a long time in exile, fate never showing kindness to him. The speaker uses ‘Measurer’ to refer to God, suggesting the power that will ultimately judge the acts or deeds of the Wanderer and the narrator who too is a lonely dweller like the wanderer, and of everybody else. The other four lines are spoken by the Wanderer himself. The wanderer tells his tale of woe, how his clan and his chieftain had been killed. There was no one left for him to share his sorrows with. The Measurer could also be the lord of the ‘lone-dweller’ for whom he works and submits his allegiance.

Lines 10-23

“to whom I dare tell clearly my inmost thoughts.

I know indeed

that it is a noble custom in a man

to bind fast his thoughts with restraint,

hold his treasure-chest, think what he will.

The man weary in spirit cannot withstand fate,

nor may the troubled mind offer help.

Therefore those eager for praise often bind a sad mind

in their breast-coffer with restraint.

So I, miserably sad, separated from homeland,

far from my noble kin, had to bind my thoughts with fetters,

since that long ago the darkness of the earth

covered my gold-friend, and I, abject,

proceeded thence, winter-sad, over the binding of the waves.”

The ‘lone-dweller’ states how a man who is courageous locks his sorrow in his heart and does not allow sorrowful thoughts to enter his mind. The wanderer however was a weak man and hence, he could neither control fate nor could he not harbour bitter feelings for his loss. The wanderer offers this speech while thinking about hardships, specifically, the "slaughter" of his relatives. All his relatives have been killed in battle, and he is on the run from your enemies and thus there is nobody to talk to. The wanderer says that a man should control his sad thoughts and keep them in his ‘treasure-chest’. These thoughts are priceless and precious, to be guarded carefully and only revealed to those you trust. However, the wanderer is lonely, there is no one to whom he may share his sorrow. Even his ‘gold-friend’ or the Chieftan or the Lord is dead and thus the Anglo-Saxon warrior had no source of protection or income.

Lines 24-33

“Sad, I sought the hall of a giver of treasure,

Where I might find, far or near,

one who in the meadhall might know about my people,

or might wish to comfort me, friendless,

entertain with delights. He knows who experiences it

how cruel care is as a companion,

to him who has few beloved protectors.

The path of exile awaits him, not twisted gold,

frozen feelings, not earth’s glory.

he remembers retainers and the receiving of treasure,”

Since the ‘gold-friend’ of the wanderer is no more, he seeks a new lord to get a job and protection. He describes how he sought out “a giver of treasure,” or a new lord, everywhere he went. He thought there might be someone who “might wish” to comfort him and remedy his friendlessness. The wanderer is looking for a new lord who knows ‘about my people’, that is, he is looking for a lord from his own kinship group. He knows that if he can’t find a new situation for himself he’s going to end up on a “path of exile” where there’s no “twisted gold” but “frozen feelings” and no glory.

Lines 34-43

“how in youth his gold-friend

accustomed him to the feast. But all pleasure has failed.

Indeed he knows who must for a long time do without

the counsels of his beloved lord

when sorrow and sleep together

often bind the wretched solitary man–

he thinks in his heart that he

embraces and kisses his lord, and lays

hands and head on his knee, just as he once at times

in former days, enjoyed the gift-giving.”

In these lines, the wanderer remembers how he enjoyed the favors of his previous lord in the past, and how happy and content he was with him. But with his death, there is no pleasure for him left anymore. He now bemoans and wishes to bow his head again for his old lord but he is no more. The wanderer contrasts the life he used to live with what he’s experiencing now. He once woke to happiness and contentment, but now he’s a “wretched solitary man.” He’d like to return to the life he had and dreams of what it would be like.

Lines 44-53

“Then the friendless man awakes again,

sees before him the dusky waves,

the seabirds bathing, spreading their wings,

frost and snow fall, mingled with hail.

Then are his heart’s wounds the heavier because of that,

sore with longing for a loved one. Sorrow is renewed

when the memory of kinsmen passes through his mind;

he greets with signs of joy, eagerly surveys

his companions, warriors. They swim away again.

The spirit of the floating ones never brings there many”

In these lines, the narrator describes the ‘friendless man’ as he wakes up from his dreams in which he is enjoying the cozy feeling of being close to his old lord. Unfortunately, he is all alone in the real world. He’s still on the sea with the “dusky waves” in front of him. The poet offered deeper imagery of the nature and surroundings of the ‘lone-dweller’ in these lines. The seabirds have the freedom to fly away that the wanderer does not. The wanderer is constantly reminded of his situation as soon as he starts to take comfort in what’s around him. The poet brings the Heathen idea of the ‘external soul.’ The seabirds are interchangeable with the Wanderer's fallen comrades.

Lines 54-68

“familiar utterances. Care is renewed

for the one who must very often send

his weary spirit over the binding of the waves,

Therefore I cannot think why throughout the world

my mind should not grow dark

when I contemplate all the life of men,

how they suddenly left the hall floor,

brave young retainers. So this middle-earth

fails and falls each day;

therefore a man may not become wise before he owns

a share of winters in the kingdom of this world. A wise man must be patient,

nor must he ever be too hot tempered, nor too hasty of speech

nor too weak in battles, nor too heedless,

nor too fearful, nor too cheerful, nor too greedy for wealth

nor ever too eager for boasting before he knows for certain.”

The narrator says that though the Wanderer feels as if he witnessed his lost kinsmen visiting him in the form of seabirds and other creatures, did not bring him the joy that he would’ve liked. They bring no relief to his exile. Memories and dreams of better times bring no relief for the exile. Instead, they make things worse. The narrator says that no one on the earth has suffered the same loss and sorrow of losing close ones as the wanderer does, but this sorrow and loss doesn’t make anyone wise. The speaker further says that it is also true that no one can become wise before he suffers ‘a share of winters or loss, death, and sorrow, in ‘the kingdom of this world.’ However, only such a man becomes wise and is patient and not too hot-tempered. He should not be too "quick-tongued," meaning that he thinks before he speaks. The important traits of a warrior overlap somewhat with those of a wise man. A warrior needs to be strong, of course, but he must also avoid foolhardiness, a similar trait to hot-heartedness. The wise man must not be fearful, nor too cheerful. He must not be greedy for wealth or praise. He must not be too quick-tongued: he must not speak a boast too eagerly.

Lines 69-88

“A man must wait, when he speaks a boast,

until, stout-hearted, he knows for certain

whither the thought of the heart may wish to turn.

The prudent man must realize how ghastly it will be

when all the wealth of this world stands waste,

as now variously throughout this middle-earth

walls stand beaten by the wind,

covered with rime, snow-covered the dwellings.

The wine-halls go to ruin, the rulers lie

deprived of joy, the host has all perished

proud by the wall. Some war took,

carried on the way forth; one a bird carried off

over the high sea; one the gray wolf shared

with Death; one a sad-faced nobleman 

buried in an earth-pit.

So the Creator of men laid waste this region,

until the ancient world of giants, lacking the noises

of the citizens, stood idle.

He who deeply contemplates this wall-stead,

and this dark life with wise thought,”

In these lines, the narrator continues to explain how a wise man should be. The speaker expresses the wisdom that the wanderers and elderly wisemen often possess. He says that men have to be patient and thoughtful, not too quick to speak, or too eager to boast over one’s accomplishments. The wanderer also learns that existence is not permanent. Life, human creation, and memories collapse. The narator explains that this is how the Creator has made the world. The old buildings that the wanderer loved so much and bemoans now were meant to fall. They were the work of “old giants.” Even great, gigantic creations still eventually fail. The narrator says that a wise man contemplated this dark life with a deeper consciousness.

Lines 89-93

“old in spirit, often remembers long ago,

a multitude of battles, and speaks these words:

“Where is the horse? Where is the young warrior? Where is the giver of treasure?

Where are the seats of the banquets? Where are the joys in the hall?

Alas the bright cup! Alas the mailed warrior!”

These lines suggest a transition in the wanderer. He is no longer a sad man but is gradually becoming a Wiseman. He describes what he’s learned from his various contemplations. His words are emotional and repetitive as he wonders over the loss of things that have disappeared over time. The speaker is concentrated on the things one might see in a great hall, such as that of his deceased lord.

Lines 94-108

“Alas, the glory of the prince! How the time has gone,

vanished under night’s helm, as if it never were!

Now in place of a beloved host stands

a wall wondrously high, decorated with the likenesses of serpents.

The powers of spears took the noblemen,

weapons greedy for slaughter; fate the renowned,

and storms beat against these rocky slopes,

falling snowstorm binds the earth,

the noise of winter, then the dark comes.

The shadow of night grows dark, sends from the north

a rough shower of hail in enmity to the warriors.

All the kingdom of earth is full of trouble,

the operation of the fates changes the world under the heavens.

Here wealth is transitory, here friend is transitory,

here man is transitory, here woman is transitory,”

Unlike the previous time, the wanderer does not express his sadness for his exile or loneliness. He remembers the past again and draws attention to the things that were surrounding a great hall with a lord at its center have all passed away. There are no bright cups or feast seats, the prince is no more, nor his lord. The wall against which soldiers have fallen is “wondrously high” and is covered in depictions of serpents. The area has been destroyed and plundered, as have the warriors from their lives. The attackers were hungry for slaughter, and their fate was solidified.

The wanderer describes the wall as a ‘rocky-slope’ and suggests that the wall, in fact, is a part of nature, a part of humankind’s creation. He expresses the effect of harsh winds on this wall.

Darkness falls, and the “kingdom of earth is full of trouble.” The wanderer says that what happens is fated and no man or woman is ever important here, they are all transitory, momentary, all fated to vanish. People struggle for wealth, fame, and friends, but all is transitory.

Lines 109-116

“this whole foundation of the earth becomes empty.

So spoke the wise in spirit, sat by himself in private meditation.

He who is good keeps his pledge, nor shall the man ever manifest

the anger of his breast too quickly, unless he, the man,

should know beforehand how to accomplish the remedy with courage.

It will be well for him who seeks grace,

comfort from the Father in the heavens, where a fastnessstands for us all.”

In these closing lines, the wanderer expresses is wisdom that he gained through all his turmoils and suffering during his exile. The wise man sits apart from others. Even in company, he is as isolated as he was in exile. Perhaps, his separateness derives from his experience of exile, which gives him knowledge that only other exiles share. This knowledge might be the "secret contemplation." He says that life is complicated, hard, and ultimately depressing and lonely. Fate, he decides, governs everything and everyone. The wanderer then says that the only solution for the sadness, sorrow, and desolation, the only balm against the pain of the inevitability of death is the memory of God.

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!