The Old Woman and The Cow by Mulk Raj Anand | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Mulk Raj Anand was one of the most important realists and humanist novelists of India who worked against the trends and took Indian literature from the stories of fantasy and fairytales to the real-life struggles of individuals against the ills of society. The Old Woman and The Cow was his first and only novel with a female protagonist that was published in the year 1960. The subtitle of the novel is Gauri. This novel raises a strong voice against the ill-treatment of women in India but also explores through the example of Gauri what a woman in India should do for her emancipation. The Old Woman and The Cow is a story of a meek, gentle, obedient girl turning into an independent and confident modern woman.

Characters:

Gauri is the protagonist of the novel. She is a poor uneducated young orphan girl who lives with her uncle Amru and aunt Lakshmi in the village Piplan Kalan situated at the foothills of the Himalayas. Her father and mother died when she was very young and her uncle Amru believes that she is inauspicious to her family. Amru is a greedy man with no human emotions toward Gauri. Panchi is an independent peasant living in Chota Piplan where he owns an acre and a half of agricultural land. He too is an inauspicious orphan whose mother and father died just after his birth. He lives with Mola Ram, his uncle, and his wife Kesari, the Old Woman. Kesari is childless and is very fond of Panchi and doles out her love for Panchi in absence of Mola Ram. Damodar is a close friend of Panchi. Rakhi is an old midwife who helps pregnant women in the village. She is uneducated and tries to convince pregnant women of the village that they do not need doctors who are predominantly male. Seth Jai Ram Das is a 60 years old money lender of Hoshiarpur, the town near Piplan Kalan. He is a lecherous widower seeking a mistress to exploit. Dr. Mahindra is a young gentle doctor who runs a hospital in Hoshiarpur. Dr. Batra is a corrupt lecherous man who is the assistant of Dr. Mahindra.

Summary of The Old Woman and The Cow

The story is set in the superstitious and orthodox area of backward villages Piplan Kalan, and Chotta Piplan in the small town of Hoshiarpur.

Gauri is a 17-year-old poor, calm, decent, gentle, meek, and obedient girl who lives with her uncle Amru and Aunt Lakshmi in Piplan Kalan. Lakshmi likes Gauri and wishes to get married soon but she doesn’t have enough money for her dowry.

Amru is a greedy person who doesn’t wish to spend even a single penny on Gauri. On Lakshmi’s insistence, Amru tries to find a proper match for Gauri. Soon her marriage is arranged with Panchi a young independent farmer living in the nearby village of Chota Piplan. He too is an orphan like Gauri who lives with his uncle Mola Ram and aunt Kesari. Marriage happens traditionally. Panchi is a strong young man with a patriarchal attitude. He didn’t demand any dowry but as a wife, he desired “a girl whom he could fold in his arms at night and kick during the day, who would adorn his house and help him with the work on the land...” He owns agricultural land and a pair of bulls.

Gauri is too excited by her marriage as she feels that it will change her life. But soon her dream shatters as Panchi savagely uses her for his sexual needs on the very first night. On the next morning, Gauri faces Kesari who is jealous of her. Kesari is her mother-in-law, the aunt of Panchi who has a secret affection for Panchi and considers Gauri as her competitor. Kesari regularly chastises Gauri for every minute thing or mistake and Gauri is expected to remain obedient to her. Kesari’s abusive behavior continues to aggravate and she openly calls Gauri the whore from Piplan. Despite remaining submissive, meek, and obedient, Gauri realizes that none of her efforts help her and thinks, “If I speak; my mother is blamed for something: if I remain silent, my father is called a donkey.” One day, she decides to confront Kesari. Kesari complains to Panchi about her and he beats Gauri in front of Kesari. Gauri feels too humiliated.

Later on, at night during their love-making, Gauri taking advantage of the situation pleads to Panchi not to beat her again at Kesari’s bidding. Even at that passionate moment, he does not hesitate to remind her of his conventional right to beat her: “But the husband has to chastise the wife if she goes wrong.” Things don’t go well on the farm too. The area suffers a famine and Panchi’s bulls fall prey to an illness. Kesari uses this ill fortune to her advantage and blames Gauri for being inauspicious. She attributes the illness of the bullocks and the failure of rain to Garui‟s bad luck. Panchi generally used to resist superstitions and often ridiculed Kesari for her superstitious talks but the toughness of time starts affecting him and he starts believing that the ill-fated Gauri is affecting his fortune. At the same time, Gauri gets pregnant. This further fills Kesari with jealousy as she is childless. The situations at home become so poisonous that Mola Ram decides to create a partition between the home and tells Panchi to live with his wife in his part of the house. Yet, Kesari continues abusing Gauri and poisoning Panchi’s mind against her.

As famine continues Panchi finds that he has no money to buy seeds for the farm and grains for home. In such a dire situation Gauri takes the golden earrings out and gives them to Panchi to sell them and buy seeds. Panchi’s friend Damodar is a superstitious man. He tells him to show the horoscope of Gauri to some expert. He says that they never faced such dire days before Panchi’s marriage to Gauri. Gradually, Panchi also starts believing that Gauri brought ill fate to him. He humiliates Gauri and abuses her and orders her to go away from his house.

Helpless, Gauri decides to return to her uncle and aunt’s home. Lakshmi is worried about her but Amru is an inconsiderate, unprincipled exploiter. He abuses Gauri and says that she first became the cause of her parent’s death and now she ruined her husband’s home. He pushes the idea of the remarriage of Gauri to Lakshmi though her husband is alive and she isn’t even divorced. He mentions the loan they have to pay and says that Seth Jai Ram Das, the money lender will snatch their house if they fail to pay his loan with interest in time. Lakshmi realizes the trick of Amru but fails to stop him. Gauri strongly opposes any such talk of her remarriage. Amru then tells her to go to Seth Jai Ram Das’s house in Hoshiarpur and work as a housemaid to earn some money. However, Amru and Lakshmi sell her to Jai Ram Das without her knowledge. Jai Ram Das is a widower who is seeking a mistress to exploit. When Gauri reaches his home, he cajoles her to live with him as his wife but Gauri strongly rebuts his lecherous motives. Exasperated, he imprisons Gauri in a room of his house which is near a hospital run by Dr. Mahindra. Dr. Mahindra notices some ill going around his hospital and rescues Gauri while strongly rebuking Jai Ram Das who accepts his fault and let Gauri go with Dr. Mahindra.

Dr. Mahindra takes her to his hospital where she starts living and learning skills as a nurse to tender the patients at the hospital. Gauri is a young beautiful woman with a full-grown body. She is in the early stage of her pregnancy and looks attractively beautiful. One day, Dr. Batra an assistant doctor at the hospital finds her alone in a dormitory and fails to control his lust. He attempts to rape Gauri which Gauri resists with all her might. During her struggle, she suffers a miscarriage but is saved by the patients of the hospital who come to her rescue. Dr. Mahindra then arranges for her return to Chotta Piplan, back to her husband.

At Chotta Piplan, Panchi misses Gauri and feels that he loves her. Unaware of her ordeal, he is preparing to bring her back from her uncle’s home. When Panchi sees her back, he embraces her. He is sad about the miscarriage but doesn’t know about the rape attempt that Gauri faced. When Kesari sees Gauri, she decides to go to Panchi’s side of the home again to intervene but Panchi strictly stops her and tells her not to intervene in his family matter. Gauri is too happy seeing this change in Panchi. Kesari on the other hand feels humiliated and frustrated. She decides to spread rumors against Gauri in the village and tells people that the whore from Piplan has returned to ruin the village. She tells the neighboring women how Gauri lived with a Seth in Hoshiarpur and then spend some days at a hospital with doctors before returning to the village. Panchi listens to all these rumors but ignores them. However, he gets disturbed within his heart and feels the confusion. When he meets Damodar, he too mentions the rumors to him. He asks if Panchi is sure that Gauri is chaste and loyal to him. Panchi remains silent. Meanwhile, Kesari sends the old midwife Rakhi to Panchi’s house to check how Gauri suffered a miscarriage. Her only motive is to fan the rumors against Gauri more and instigate Panchi. When Rakhi visits Panchi’s house, Gauri doesn’t allow her to check in as she already had been checked and treated at the hospital by doctor Mahindra. Rakhi feels offended and he tells Panchi that his wife doesn’t want her to touch her body as her body has been touched by male doctors in the town. This fills Panchi with anger towards Gauri. He confronts Gauri and asks, “Tell me the truth, bitch…. What is the proof of your purity”? Gauri couldn’t offer any proof so she answers that she has always been true to him. Panchi isn’t willing to trust her anymore and says, “you have cut my nose, bitch from Piplan Kalan, what curse upon my fate prospered in my marriage with you, daughter of a whore!”

Gauri is not the meek, weak, silent, subservient cow anymore. She has seen so much in her life, she was sold by her own uncle and aunt, and then she faced a rape attempt at her during which she lost her child in the womb. And she has seen that if it is bad, there is good too in the world. She decides not to take anymore. When Panchi abuses her dead mother, she decides it's enough and says, “If I am a curse on you, I will go away. And if you strike me again, I will hit you back.” She then leaves Panchi’s house and goes back to Doctor Mahindra’s hospital to learn the skills of a nurse and earn her own living. Anand ends the story with the message that education and employment can only help a woman claim her individuality.

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!

Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope | Themes, Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Alexander pope’s father left London in 1700 and shifted to Binfield in Windsor Forest. Pope was 12 years old then and had to stop his formal education. Being a Catholic, his father faced repercussions of the Glorious Revolution after which, Catholics were banned from teaching, learning, attending universities, voting, and holding any public office. A statute was issued that debarred Catholics from living within 16 kilometers of London or Westminster. In London, Alexander Pope hardly had any friends as it was hard for him to get any formal education as all the Catholic schools were illegal while Catholic students weren’t allowed in Protestant schools. While Alexander Pope was facing all this alienation as a child, he realized the importance of solitude at Binfield in Windsor forest where he wrote his first poem titled Ode on Solitude in 1700. Instead of being depressed or having any negative effect, he was optimistic and happy about the then situations in his life.

An Ode is a poem specifically written to a particular individual, object, or feeling. Ode on Solitude is a poem dedicated to the solitude of a person that may occur as an effect of alienation too.

Themes of Ode On Solitude

The themes of the poem include self-sufficient life, natural beauty, happiness in simplicity, fame, and death. The poet suggests that happiness comes from within and as an individual, he is least bothered about what others think about it. He says that happiness is dependent on one’s self-sufficiency and good mental and physical health. An autonomous person with a healthy body and mind doesn’t need much to be happy but a bit of peace, a healthy amount of physical and mental work, and solitary play that he can find in the beauty of nature. Such a happy and satisfied person doesn’t seek fame and popularity in other people’s eyes as it is not a requirement for his happiness. The poet suggests that everyone is alone in his life and one should lead a simple life not bothering what others think about him. The poet suggests that he only desires a life of solitude and peace and would prefer to meet a quiet death, leaving no mourners behind.

Structure of Ode On Solitude

The poem is 20 verses long with five stanzas. Thus, Ode On Solitude is written in five quartets as each stanza is composed of four lines. The rhyming scheme is ABAB and the end-rhyming makes the poem melodious (“ease/please”, “die/lie” and “find/mind.”) However, end-rhyming is a bit less perfect in some instances (bread and shade). The first three lines of each stanza are written with eight syllables while the fourth line of 1^st three stanzas is written with four syllables. The last line of the 4^th and 5^th stanzas is written with five syllables.

The poem begins with Assonance (“Happy the man, whose wish and care”, sound of /e). Consonance has also been used, (“Whose trees in summer yield him shade”, the sound of /s) and

(“Together mixed; sweet recreation”, the sound of t). Alliteration has been used (‘sound’, ‘sleep’, and ‘study’ in line 1 of the 4th stanza and ‘let’ and ‘live’ in line 1 of the 5^th stanza.

Pope made use of Caesura too by inserting pauses in the middle of lines with punctuations and/or meter ( “Together mixed; sweet recreation” and “Happy the man, whose wish and care.”) Another important figure of speech used in Ode to Solitude is Anaphora that appears in the first three lines of the second stanza (beginning with ‘Whose’) and first two lines of the fifth stanza (beginning with ‘Thus’). Enjambment, imagery, and metaphor have also been used.

Summary of Ode On Solitude

1^st Stanza

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.

The poem begins as the poet offers the analogy of an anonymous man who holds a few acres of his own land. This land is his paternal property and thus, solely his own. According to the poet, such a man is happy and the only wish he cares about is to add a few more acres to his parental land. He is satisfied with what he has. Rather than constantly wishing for more and losing his sleep over it, he is content in enjoying free and fresh breaths in his own land.

2^nd Stanza

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

This man mentioned in the first stanza is happy because he is self-sufficient. He has a flock of cattle that offer him enough milk and he cultivates enough grains from his land. The man owns enough sheep whose flocks offer him enough wool to have his own attire and other clothing. Many trees on his land offer him shade during the summer and he uses the wood of those trees to warm himself with fire during the winter.

3^rd Stanza

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

The poet says that such a man is blessed as he is free of any burden and tension. Even time fails to bother him as he remains healthy in his body and has peace of mind throughout the year. Being self-sufficient, he is so close to nature, that he becomes a part of it. Hours, days, and years continue to pass while his state of happiness, satisfaction, and serenity remains unchanged. The narrator says that in such a small world of his own which is full of peace of mind and resources to fulfill basic needs, there is absolutely nothing in the world that could disrupt the life of this autonomous man. The poet believes that it is a high blessing.

4^th Stanza

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
Together mixed; sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.

In these lines, the poet offers a peak into the secret of this man’s happiness and good physical and mental health. He enjoys quiet days free of any haphazard and troubles. He works enough to have sound sleep at night and since he has no such desires that could keep him worried and awake, he enjoys that sound sleeps. To maintain his physical strength, the man not only has enough work on his farm, but also he gets ample time to invent new interesting recreational works and plays. For peace of mind, this man meditates and continues to preserve his innocence, free of any greed and malice.

5^th Stanza

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

After describing the perfect life of solitude and peace of that anonymous man and mentioning the positive points of being self-sufficient, the poet expresses his desire to lead a similar life in solitude and quiet. He wishes to remain away from the rat race of the world to gain a name and fame. The poet wishes for a sound life in solitude and quiet unlamented death in such a manner that no one would bother to know how he lived and how he died.

Pope was just 12 years old then and he recently moved from the big busy city of London to Windsor forest where his father had enough land. Instead of being depressed about leaving city life and formal education and being alienated, he was impressed by the natural serenity of Windsor Forest. In the future, the village where he settled with his family was named Popeswood. While Alexander Pope found his ideals in solitude and quiet life, he didn’t stop gaining knowledge and opted for self-education. He not only mastered English but also learned Greek, Latin, Italian, and French. That obviously was his sweet recreation in solitude. And his efforts lead him to the heights of fame that he never desired in the first place.

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 Road Not Taken by Robert Frost | Themes, Structures, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Road Not Taken is a narrative poem written by Robert Frost that was published in 1915. It became the first poem of Robert Frost’s poetic collection titled Mountain Interval which was published in 1916. It is one of the most commonly read popular poems of Robert Frost though it is a difficult and complex poem and often the reader misinterprets it as an optimistic poem about success by opting for a path ‘less traveled by.’ However, the poem is satirical poem lightly mocking such people who remain undecided and confused at any juncture of choices, and suggests that no matter whichever path they may take, they will always feel that had they taken the other path, it might have worked wonders.

The poem suggests that life is full of ambiguities and there is no meaning in regretting the past decisions that we took. While one should be careful while making a decision in life, he should not remain indecisive, rather he should be swift and confident while making a choice and should not regret it later in the future.

Themes of The Road Not Taken

Some of the minor themes of the poem include life as a journey, desires, uncertainty, indecision, ambiguity, and overthinking. The main theme of the poem is carpe-diem. The poet suggests that a person should not worry too much about the past or the future. One should live in the present and seize the moment at every instance without overthinking. One should opt for what he feels is right at the moment and stick to it, without regretting the other choice he might have made. The journey of the poet is indicative of the journey of life of any person and the divergent road offering two different similar paths suggests all the major and minor choices that we usually make in our day-to-day life. The choices that we omitted often face us as desires that we couldn’t fulfill. However, one should understand that one cannot have their cake and eat it too. One shouldn’t regret such desires. Life is full of uncertainties and we must embrace them. Overthinking won’t ascertain a good future, it may snatch or waste opportunities though. Thus, one should avoid indecision and should take swift, confident, and careful decisions appropriately at the proper time. The poem is against the idea of “What if...” had you made the choice you did not make. This pondering about the different life one may have lived had they done something differently is central to 'The Road Not Taken."

Structure of The Road Not Taken

The poem consists of four stanzas of five lines each, thus each stanza is a quintain or quintet with a rhyming scheme of ABAAB. Robert Frost used iambic tetrameter mixed with anapest in place of an iamb in some lines. It is a short poem with only 20 lines offering a sound of sense in many instances. Sound of sense implies that the poet used such words in a poem whose sound forms imagery due to the form of words and sound of sense. The mood and tone of the poem are reflective and meditative.

Literary Devices used in The Road Not Taken

The title of the poem The Road Not Taken itself is a metaphor and indicates the choice we omitted for different opportunities. Frost used the phrase “yellow woods” as a metaphor to indicate the idea of change in a difficult situation as trees change their leaves. In the last stanza, the phrase “less traveled road” suggests the choices less preferred by individuals. Anaphora has been used in the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th lines of the first stanza (repetition of And). The third and fourth lines also contain enjambment. Alliteration has been used in the phrase “wanted wear.” The line “In leaves no step had trodden black.” contains Anastrophe and Hyperbaton. The last stanza contains irony and paradox. Robert Frost has made excellent use of imagery throughout the poem right from the start (“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.”) which clearly gives the idea of the autumn season and thus the reader can guess where the poet is facing the struggle to take a decision. The poem is full of tricky symbolism. "Road" symbolizes the journey of life Diversion splitting the road symbolizes the choice a person takes. "Yellow woods" symbolize change, and "Ages and ages" symbolize the assumption of the future. The most tricky symbol is at the beginning of the poem, “Two roads” which symbolizes two identical choices, both are equally endearing and thoroughly similar. None of the roads is less traveled. The two superficially identical roads symbolize the choices a person has to make.

Summary of The Road Not Taken

1^st Stanza

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

The first two lines show the dilemma of choice that we often face. The poet is strolling through a jungle when he meets a divergence, splitting the road in two. He feels sorry as he cannot opt for traveling on both as he is just one traveler and cannot live two divergent lives and still be one single person. The poet is mesmerized by the beauty of the road in the woods and he wishes to experience nature on both roads. However, he can’t “have his cake and eat it, too.” Thus, he stops and contemplates which path to take. The poet understands the importance of being careful while making such choices. He patiently takes time and stares down one path as far as he can, to where it trails off into the undergrowth. He does so to make an informed decision so that he could justify his choice when the regret of not opting for the other road starts haunting him.

2^nd Stanza

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

While the poet was contemplating which path to take, he noticed that one of the paths appears greener with fresh grass as if not many have traversed through that path and hence the grass on it hasn’t worn out. He pts the fresher path with less trodden grass.

Then the poet suggests the irony that “the grass is always greener on another side of the fence.” In the 9^th and 10^th lines, the poet says that as he chose the path and stepped forward on it, he realized that it was equally worn out a used as the other that he omitted. He realized that the path he has chosen is not as less traveled as he was telling himself.

3^rd Stanza

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

The poet further exclaims and accepts that both the paths were equally fresh and green and none could be said as better. After examining both paths properly, the poet realizes that both paths are equally shed by falling leaves and no one has yet stepped on the leaves fallen on both paths yet. But he has already chosen one of the paths. So he offers a justification to himself that he kept, or saved the other path for another day. That he has chosen this path for today, but the next time when he will visit the same juncture, he will opt for the other path as it appears equally good and beautiful. Line 13 suggests that the poet has taken a firm decision to step forward on the chosen path. However, he is doubtful that the other path may appear to be more beautiful and adventurous. He confesses that it is highly unlikely that he will ever reach the same juncture to opt for the other path that he rejected today. This is because as he is moving forward, he will continue to face such divergences again and again and will keep taking his decisions which will continue to further away him from the other path. There is no turning back.

4^th Stanza

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Now when the poet has made up his mind and stepped forward on the road he chose, he is regretting over his choice but tries to cover it up as he thinks of what he will say about his choice, sometime in the future. The poet says that whenever he will remember that juncture when he took the decision to opt for this path, he will take a deep sigh as he knows what he might have missed. However, he decides to lie and confirms that he will present his choice as a brave choice and tell the lie that he chose a path “less traveled” and that made all the difference. However, the truth is known to him that his path was no less traveled, it was exactly similar or equal to the path he omitted. In the last line, the poet suggests that he will strengthen his lie by making another equally farcical claim that his choice to take this less traveled road made all the difference, in where he will be at the time.

The poem is a light mocking of indecisive people and suggests that ambiguity is the way of life. We can never know where our choices will lead us. So preplanning and overthinking at a juncture of choice and decision-making is fruitless and silly. And similarly silly is the habit of justification and regrets over one’s choices.

Life is about the paths one chooses and walks through, not about “the road not taken.”

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.

The Bachelor of Arts by R. K. Narayan | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. R. K. Narayan was known for depicting common Indian characters in a realistic yet humorous manner. He judged the Indian life of his time dispassionately and depicted the different colors of life in his words sans any propaganda or socio-political motivation. His characters are closer to reality and often present perfect accuracy because of this, the reader can easily relate to the characters of Narayan’s novels. The Bachelor of Arts was the second novel of Narayan’s trilogy set in the fictional Malgudi which was published in 1937. While the novel is suffused with the colors of Indian traditions and attitudes, the characters are all human. Instead of harshly criticizing the ills of society, he presents them as a mix of gentle irony and sympathy, quiet realism and fantasy. He is not frustrated with the societal conditions and appears optimistic for the future of Indians. He shows goodness along with the ills of Indian society through his novels.

Characters of The Bachelor of Arts

Chandran is the protagonist of the novel. He is the elder son of H.C. Venkatachala Iyer, a retired District Judge of Malgudi. Chandran is a witty, intelligent, and laborious young man who is studying as a final year student of B.A. History in Albert Mission College, Malgudi. His education has made him unorthodox he believes that old customs and traditions should not stand in the way of the happiness of people. H.C. Venkatachala Iyer is a common Indian father, a patriarch who is responsible for the financial well-being and reputation of the family. Chandran’s mother is a homely traditional, noble lady. She isn’t a submissive lady but a strong-headed person devoted to her husband and children. She is very orthodox and conservative and knows and respects the traditions of society and wants her family to adhere to them strictly. Seenu is Chandran’s younger brother. He is very much attached to Chandran. Mr. Brown is the principal of the college and Professor Ragavachar is the teacher of History. Professor Gajapathy is a lecturer of English literature.  

Ramu, Mohan, Natesan, and Veerasami are four college friends of Chandran. While Chandran is too fond of Ramu and spends most of his time with him, they gradually lose contact after college life. Mohan is a poet but he is not good at studies. He flunks college and decides to work as a correspondent for ‘The Daily Messenger.’ He is laborious and becomes successful through his hard work. Unlike Chandran’s other friends, Mohan remains a helping friend of Chandran throughout his life. Malathi is a 15-year-old beautiful girl whom Chandran sees on the banks of the river Sarayu and gets fascinated by her charm. This fascination soon turns into infatuation and becomes a cause of struggle as her parents reject Chandran’s proposal to marry Malathi because Chandran is Mangalik-- a superstition in which marriage to a non-Manglik, Malathi, would lead to her early death. Ganapati Sastrigal and Srouthigal are marriage makers who try to help Chandran get married to Malathi but fail. Kailas is a man who forces his friendship on Chandran during his days at Madras where he goes to visit his uncle, aunt, and cousin. Ragavan is a barber in Madras who helps Chandran turn into an ascetic. Murugesan is an influential General Manager of Engladia Limited at Madras who helps Chandran in acquiring the Malgudi agency of The Daily Messenger at the request of his uncle. Susila is the daughter of a lawyer from Tarapur, a neighboring town of Malgudi. She is beautiful and full of tender feelings and skills. She can play vena and sing well. She is educated and respects traditions. Her father sends a marriage proposal of Susila with Chandran. Chandran feels the same fascination towards Susila at their first meeting that he felt for Malathi and soon they get married to make a happy couple.

Summary of The Bachelor of Arts

The novel begins as Chandran is preparing for a debate in College. The College Union Secretary Natesan has asked him to be the prime mover of the debate against Professor Ragavachar on the topic that ‘Historians must be slaughtered first.’ Chandran is not comfortable about it because he is a history scholar and he respects professor Ragavachar too much. Natesan promises him that he will not invite Professor Ragavachar to debate but insists that they cannot find any better speaker than Chandran and hence, he has to take the lead. Chandran prepares well and offers a good debate. His prime opponent also presents a strong rebuttal. The audience finally votes in favor of annihilating the historians and Chandran wins. Principal Brown then congratulates Chandran and offers a five-minute debate on why Historians must be slaughtered and five minutes debate on why historians must be respected. 

Chandran then prepares hard for his final examination and becomes a Bachelor of Arts. He has plans to go to England for higher studies. After college, he starts feeling lonely as his friends gradually start losing contact. He realizes the immaturity of college friendship and comments, “People pretended that they are friends, but the fact is they are brought together by forces of circumstances. How true!!!” One day, while he goes for a stroll on the banks of the Sarayu river in Malgudi, he chances upon a young girl (Malathi) playing with her young companion on the sands of Sarayu. Chandan habitually used to watch young girls at the banks of the river and markets but he never felt such a strong attraction towards any girl ever. He tries to know more about Malathi but doesn’t dare to talk to her. He comes to know that Malathi lives in front of his friend Mohan’s house. His mother realizes that Chandran is facing some emotional turmoil and asks him. Chandran reveals that he wants to marry a girl named Malathi before leaving for England as he loves her. His mother insists that the proposal must come from the girl’s family and only then they will discuss the prospects of his marriage with Malathi. Chandran never talked to Malathi but he wishes to marry her. He takes the help of Ganapati Sastrigal and Srouthrigal to arrange his marriage with Malathi. Sastrigal takes the horoscope of Chandran and discusses him with Malathi’s family. Malathi’s father rejects the proposal because Chandran is Manglik and according to superstition if a non-Manlik girl marries Chandran, she will die soon after their marriage. Chandran decides to write a letter to Malathi in which he requests her to wait for him for two years, he will complete his higher studies and return from England with a stable career and then he will marry her. He gives that letter to Mohan to give to Malathi who lives in front of Mohan’s house. Mohan takes the letter but decides not to deliver it to Malathi as he feels Malathi is not a good match for Chandran. Srouthigal, being an expert in horoscopes tries to offer some solution to Malathi’s father but he fails to convince him. This breaks Chandran’s heart as Malathi is married off to another suitor soon and he feels helpless. Dazed by this emotional turmoil, he decides to leave home and show his rebellion against orthodoxy and superstitions. He goes to Madras and stays at a hotel where he meets Kailas, a very hospitable but reckless young man. He forces his friendship on Chandran and takes him to various places to visit. He openly spends a lot of money on Chandran as he believes that “A man must spend forty years in making money and forty years in spending it” and he acts on this principle. He is a drunkard and gives to excessive spending. He keeps two wives and yet comes to Madras for visiting prostitutes. Initially, Chandran is comfortable with Kailas but soon finds his lifestyle suffocating. He makes a distance with Kailas. Chandran is not at all interested in alcohol or prostitutes. He rather decides to turn an ascetic and lead a celibate life. A barber named Ragavan is very impressed by Chandran’s resolute and helps him in becoming an ascetic and cuts off his hair. For eight months, Chandran keeps moving from one place to another like a hermit, spending most of his time in meditation and introspection. Soon this life of solitude starts to wear off. Chandran starts feeling guilty about deserting his family and parents. The toil and aimlessness of life as a hermit dawn over Chandran and soon he decides to return to normal life as a householder but he has no money to go back. He contacts a postmaster and asks him to send a wire message to his father and demands Rs20 from his father. His father immediately sends Rs50 for his son’s help. Chandran immediately gives away the clothes of the hermit and decides to return to Malgudi. After reaching, he tells to his father that he doesn’t want to waste his father’s money by going to England, rather, he would try to find some work in India. He meets Mohan who suggests that if Chandran gets the Malgudi agency of The Daily Messenger, he will be able to make a stable career. Chandran’s father arranges a meeting of Chandran with Murugesan, an influential General Manager of a private company in Madras. Murugesan recommends Chandran’s name for the Malgudi agency holder of The Daily Express. Chandran returns to Malgudi and starts working as the publisher of the Malgudi newspaper. He still misses Malathi and is sad about her. One day, his father gets a marriage proposal for Chandran with Susila, the daughter of a lawyer from Tarapur, a nearby village. His father asks Chandran to go and meet Susila but Chandran is not interested as he doesn’t want to marry at all. Chandran’s mother insists that he should meet Susila once and she will go to Tarapur with him to see her. Chandran agrees reluctantly. During their journey to Tarapur, his mother says that a marriage has to observe certain well-set procedures and principles of social propriety. She offers the reason for her orthodoxy. She says that one should marry a girl of a family of similar status as his own family and she defends dowry by saying that the dowry is a girl’s right in her parental property and her father’s duty to ensure his daughter’s and her husband’s welfare. She believes that marriages are a matter of destiny, not of choice. She claims, "It is all settled already, the husband of every girl and wife of every man. It is in nobody's choice." She mentions her own experience and says that she was rejected by four persons before her marriage was fixed to Chandran’s father. She then says "You can marry only the person who you are destined to marry and at the appointed time. When the time comes, let her be the ugliest girl, she will look all right to the destined eye.”

Finally, they reach Susila’s home. Susila is a very beautiful young voluptuous girl who is full of tender feelings and feminine strength. Like Chandran’s mother, she is confident and believes in her tradition. She expertly plays vena to welcome Chandran and his mother. Chandran feels the same strong fascination towards Susila at the first sight that he felt for Malathi and soon he finds himself engrossed with her charms. He feels sorry for having doted on Malathi whose very name is tongue-twisting and whose beauty cannot stand comparison with Susila who is ‘divine’. Soon Chandran marries Susila and describes her merits to Mohan in poetic terms. Mohan is satisfied seeing his friend happy with his married life.

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.

Alexander Pope | Biography and Literary Works

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Alexander Pope was one of the most distinguished poets, satirists, and translators of the Augustan Period of the Enlightenment Age. He was born on May 21, 1688, in London in a Catholic family and his father was a successful wholesale linen merchant. It was the year of the Glorious Revolution by which, Catholic monarch James II was replaced by his protestant daughter Mary II and her husband William III of Orange. His father suffered losses in business and in 1700, he was forced to leave London and shift to live at Binfield in Windsor Forest. There were many other Catholic families at Binfield. It was a safer option and Alexander Pope made some really close friends including John Caryll the younger who became the second Baron Caryll of Durford in the future. John Caryll persuaded and financed Alexander Pope to write a satirical poem based on a real incident involving his relatives. That poem was titled The Rape of The Lock. Another of Pope’s close friends was Martha Blount to whom he dedicated some of his most famous poems and bequeathed most of his property to her. However, there were some repercussions of leaving London. Pope was 12 years old and he failed to attain any formal education at Binfield. Though he was a precocious child who wrote his first poem Ode to Solitude in 1700. He got some academic help from Catholic priests at his home but mostly, he was a self-taught boy who enjoyed solitude and invested most of his time in books, learning Latin, Greek, French, and Italian. He then translated Greek and Roman classics and which influenced his own writing. One other reason for his remaining in solitude was his illness as he suffered from Pott disease, a kind of tuberculosis that attacks the spine. As a result, his spine became weak and he grew a hunchback and failed to attain proper height. As an adult, his height was 4 feet 6 inches with a hunchback.

Being a Catholic, he couldn’t get admission to any of England’s Universities. But he continued to visit London frequently and made friends with some students of John Dryden including William Wycherly, Henry Cromwell, and William Walsh. Alexander Pope admired John Dryden and considered Dryden his idol. By 1705, Alexander Pope had already written his Pastorals which were being circulated among the best critics and literary groups in London. In 1709, Jacob Tonson published Pastorals in the poetic collection titled Poetical Miscellanies and it became Pope’s first published work. Pastorals are a series of seasonally themed four short poems which shows Pope’s love for Classics. These poems were based on Virgil’s work Ecologues. The four shepherds of Alexander Pope’s Pastorals are named Alexis, Damon, Lycidas, and Thyrsis and they all appear in Virgil’s Ecologues too. The first poem is titled Spring in which he reflects art as natural beauty. The second poem is titled Summer in which he personifies the season. The third poem is Autumn, in which he uses metaphor in place of personification and the fourth poem is Winter in which the poet becomes the absolute force. Through these four poems, Pope explains that art does not reflect nature, but that nature is just a poetical device to depict man. The Pastorals were written in Heroic couplets and iambic pentameter.

Despite his weak health and a hunchback, Pope had an attractive personality though he continued to suffer migraines throughout his life. He learned to ride a horse and enjoyed traveling but was restricted by his medical helpers from doing most of the physical activities. As a result, he had all the time and mental strength to invest in reading and writing. In 1711, Pope published An Essay on Criticism which was a verse essay (an essay in poetic form). The structure of this poem was influenced by Horace’s Ars Poetica and Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura. Pope used the Horatian style of satire and Heroic couplets (pairs of adjacent rhyming lines in iambic pentameter) again in An Essay on Criticism. The poem contains some brilliantly polished epigrams that were later used as proverbs such as “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” “To err is human, to forgive, divine,” and “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” The main theme of this poem was to introduce and demonstrate the ideals of poetry and teach critics how to avoid doing harm to poetry. The poem got strong reactions from critics including Thomas Rymer, John Dennis, and Jonathan Swift. While Thomas Rymer and John Dennis strongly criticized Pope for this poem (John Dennis attacked Pope in his criticism by mentioning him as a hunch-back’d toad), Jonathan Swift supported Alexander Pope and that developed a friendship between the two. In 1713, Alexander Pope joined the Scriblerus Club, an informal group of writers who were Tori supporters. The group included John Gay, Jonathan Swift, John Arbuthnot, Henry St, John, and Thomas Parnell who became close friends with Alexander Pope. Pope became so close to this group that he addressed one of his epistles, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot who was a physician, and it as a memorial to their friendship.

However, the success of An Essay on Criticism brought Alexander Pope close to some authors related to the Whigs group too, including William Congreeve, Nicholas Rowe, Richard Steele, and Joseph Addison. Steele and Addison were working on the publication of The Spectator, a socio-political periodical journal. Alexander Pope contributed to The Spectator and his most successful and original pastoral poem The Messiah was published in The Spectator in 1712. Pope was influenced by Steele and Addison and their idea of reforming public morals and attitudes through satire and admonishment. He exercised the same technique in writing The Rape of The Lock to satirize a real argument between two Catholic families. The first two cantons were published in 1712 and the remaining 3 were published in 1714. This mock-heroic was also written in Heroic couplets.

In 1714, Queen Anne died, and that caused a dispute of succession. During the Jacobite rising of 1715, Pope, being a Catholic was suspected of helping the rebels. This created a distance between Pope and Richard Steele and Joseph Addison. Steele and Addison were staunch Whigs supporters. While Pope maintained friendly relations with some Whigs supporters including Congreeve and Rowe, he grew strong closeness with Tories involved in the Scriblerus Club (Gay, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Parnell).

In 1717, Pope wrote another poem titled Eloisa to Abelard in which he experimented with Ovid’s ‘heroic epistle’ to tell the story of Eloisa who opts for nunnery but struggles to quench her sexual passion while maintaining her dedication to a life of celibacy. The symbols of religious ecstasy further fan the sexual fire in her while she is determined to resist any temptation.

Pope translated Homer’s Iliad in 1720. he translated Odyssey in collaboration with William Broom and Elijah Fenton in 1725. The Tory writers of the Sriblerus Club supported Pope’s translation of Homer. But John Addison and Richard Steele introduced Thomas Tickell, a rival translator of Homer. Undoubtedly, Tickell’s translation was way too inferior to Pope’s work but Addison praised Tickell while ridiculing Pope. Pope wrote the mock epic The Dunicad in 1728 in which he satirized Lewis Theobald as the Goddess of Dullness’s favorite son.

Pope wrote Peri Bathous; or, The Art of Sinking in Poetry in 1728 which was an essay in which he ridiculed contemporary poets. In 1741, a part of "Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus" was published in which all those works that Pope wrote by the shared pseudonym Martinus Scriblerus, were included. The other writers who used the same pseudonym in collaboration included John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Dr. Arbuthnot, and Thomas Parnell.

In 1716, Pope and his parents left Windsor Forest and shifted to Chiswick. After his father died in 1717, Pope rented a villa on the Thames at Twickenham and started living there. He engaged in gardening and often gave advice to his friends including Jonathan Swift and henry Saint John on maintaining their landscapes. In 1731, Pope wrote Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington in which he offered some advice regarding architecture and gardening to Henry Saint John in a poetical manner of Horace. Pope wrote An Essay on Man in 1734 which examined the relationship between man, nature, and society. While Pope continued ignoring Addison’s attacks and criticism for a long, he wrote An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot in 1735 in which he satirized Addison as the character of Atticus, the insincere arbiter of literary taste.

Pope published Epilogues to Satire in 1738 in which he imitated Horatian themes adapted to contemporary societal and political situations. In 1742, he published The New Dunicad in which he replaced Theobald with Colley Ciber who was newly appointed as Poet Laureate of England. He was writing Brutus, an epic poem in heroic couplet when he died in 1744 and it remained incomplete.

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.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost | Themes, Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Mending Wall was the opening poem of the second poetry collection of Robert Frost titled North of Boston which was published in the year 1914. It is one of the most anthologized and analyzed poems in modern literature. Most of Frost’s poetry is principally about the rural life and landscape of New England. Mending Walls is a poem describing the discussion between two neighbors. The poet is a New England farmer who contacts his neighbor during the spring season to repair the stone wall between their farms. As they start mending the wall the poet and his neighbor engage in a discussion. The poet wonders if they need any such wall and asks "where it is we do not need the wall"? The poet mentions that nature doesn’t like the wall. The poet is of the view that they don’t need a wall but the neighbor is adamant and suggests "Good fences make good neighbors".

Themes of Mending Wall

The poem can be seen in many ways. Through the wall, the poet suggests how individuals create barriers to isolate themselves from others. It also gives impetus to the debate of nationalism and globalization as the wall can be the boundary between two nations. Thus, the poet stresses the idea of the free market.

The neighbor doesn’t agree with the poet and this dispute shows the frequent clash of modernity and traditionalism. In this sense, the poem becomes an argument of a generation where the youth is trying to throw away the age-old traditions while the older generation is trying to do anything to maintain the sanctity of traditions. The neighbor says twice "Good fences make good neighbors" (Lines 27, and 46). This is a strong message. The wall appears to separate the two neighbors but in reality, it brings them close. The wall is not only a physical reality, but it is an ideal sphere of one’s identity. The wall suggests that every individual has got right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and those rights must be respected and maintained. In a relationship, if there are limits to be respected, the relationship goes strong as the limits avoid oppression and humiliation of one by the other.

The poet also suggests that nature doesn’t like the wall between his and his neighbor’s farm and hence it continues to fall again and again. He attacks the neighbor using the word “savage” as he wants to shy away from others around him. However, it is just the opposite. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. (Ayn Rand). Our clothes and dresses are also a form of the wall separating us from others. Giving us a sense of privacy against nakedness. Animals feel no shyness. The civilized, and intelligent people seek privacy, not the savages.

Structure of Mending Wall

The poem is a dramatic narrative written in blank verse. Iambic pentameter appears great as it offers a sense of speech and debate within the poem. The poem contains a single stanza of 46 lines without any end rhymes or rhyming patterns. However, the poet used assonance at end-words (wall, hill, balls, wall, and well sun, thing, stone, mean, line, and again or game, them, and him twice). Consonance has also been used “And set the wall between us once again”, (sound of /t and /n). Symbolism has been used as, “fence” to symbolize the ‘gap’ that one should maintain to establish long-lasting relationships and maintain privacy. “Nature” symbolizes the reunion of the two as the speaker meets his neighbor every year in spring to fix the fence. Frost also used metaphor and imagery in this poem. “And some are loaves and some so nearly balls”, “He is all pine and I am apple orchard” and “Not of woods only and the shade of trees.”

Summary of Mending Wall by Robert Frost

Lines 1 – 4:
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The poet begins by mentioning that there is ‘something’ mysterious that doesn’t like the wall between the two farms. The poet uses ‘something’ to clarify that it is not a work of humans, indicating nature. He speculates that the water beneath the ground freezes during the winter and swells. This forces an upward thrust that creates cracks in the wall. As the spring comes, the sun heats up and the cracks widen so much that two people can pass through it side by side and walk in the same direction.

Lines 5 – 11:
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.

In these lines, the poet says that the hunters are another challenge to the wall as the wall restricts the otherwise wider spread of the hunting ground. During the hunting season, the hunters come and damage the wall during their sports and never bother to repair it again. The poet says that he has been witness to the hunters' acts when they make holes in the wall for their dogs to catch rabbits. The hunters believe that no one is watching them over and hence, they do not sense the responsibility of repairing the wall before leaving. But the poet caught them doing so as he followed them and then repaired the wall. The poet suggests that it could be the hunters’ act as there are gaps in the wall again.

Lines 12 – 15:
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.

In these lines, the poet informs that his neighboring farmer lives on the other side of the hill and every year he informs his neighbor about the damage to the wall. The neighbor and the poet then decide on a day on which they both meet and walk along the wall, each on his side surveying the damage.

Lines 16 – 19:
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

In these lines, the poet expresses the act of mending the wall and how difficult the process is. The poet and the neighbor meet on a fixed day on their side of the farm and start putting back every single boulder that has fallen on each of the sides of the wall. The poet picks up the boulder fallen on his side and restores it, while the neighbor does the same on his side. However, it is a difficult and cumbersome task as there are many fallen boulders and they are not of the same size. Some are big, some small, some are very heavy, and some are light. They are not of the same shape too. Some are round and some are oblong and it is very difficult to balance them together in the wall as it is no less than magic to keep them at their places.

Lines 20 – 24:
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on aside. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

The poet tells how difficult the task is as his and his neighbor’s hands become rough and tired while handling the boulders. And it is unnecessary work, like a play, as the poet believes that they do not need the wall because they grow different kinds of plants. The poet grows apples, and his neighbor grows pine trees.

Lines 25 – 29:
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:

The poet has argued with his neighbor that since they grow different kinds of trees, the poet’s apples will never encroach on the land of his neighbor’s pines and thus they do not need the fencing wall. However, the neighbor is not convinced and he always answers ‘Good fences make good neighbors’ However, this time in spring, the poet is adamant to try another trick to make his neighbor realize and agree that they do not need the wall and hence, no need to mend it.

Lines 30 – 35:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.’

The poet explains his trick, his new line of argument. He asks his neighbor why good fences make good neighbors? He explains to the neighbor that the grass on another side often attracts cows and to stop the cows from going to other person’s farms, they build fences. However, neither the poet nor his neighbor has got any cow, so why do they need the wall? The poet says that this time he will mend the wall only after knowing what his neighbor is keeping safe by building the wall and what is he keeping out of his reach. The poet stresses that this time, he might not agree to mend the wall without knowing the proper reason.

Lines 36 – 41:
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

In these lines, the poet says that despite his initial adamancy, the act of mending the wall is going on as he failed to convince the neighbor. He again speculates that the wall could have been pulled down by some mysterious force, maybe the Elves. However, the poet decides not to say that to his neighbor as it may offend him which the poet doesn’t want. The poet rather wishes that his neighbor may himself realize it and give up the strenuous task of mending and keeping the wall.

The poet then observes his neighbor picking up a fallen boulder from the wall and feels that he resembles an uncouth and uncivilized inhabitant of the stone age, whose weapons are the very rocks that make up the wall.

Lines 42 – 46:
He moves in darkness as it seems to me –
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

In these lines, the poet says that he feels that his neighbor has some kinship with the darkness or ignorance and he is not ready to learn new things, light. This darkness is not of dense woods and shades of tall trees. But this darkness is of rudimentary archaic ideas, thoughts, traditions, and rituals. The neighbor cannot disagree with his father in saying that good fences account for peace among neighbors.

Robert Frost an excellent use of Paradox in this poem by juxtaposing two opposing instances and opinions by repeating the contrasting lines ‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall’ and ‘Good fences make good neighbors’. The poem ends with ‘Good fences make good neighbors’ as the poet suggests that this old saying may appear archaic and useless but it holds more weight and sense. Even if the neighbor is a savage, the wall will keep the poet safe against his neighbor, and mending the wall keeps these two neighbors peaceful and stable.

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!