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!

Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Naked Lunch was the second published novel by William S. Burroughs that was published in 1959. In his first novel Junkie (1953), Burroughs introduced the character William Lee. The character of William Lee was closely based on William S. Burroughs himself and may be called an alter-ego of Burroughs. He continued with the same character, expressing some more experiences of himself in his second novel Naked Lunch.

When first published, the novel faced bans as it was subject to various obscenity trials in the United States. The novel is disturbing, ambiguous, and controversial. The novel is narrated by one of the central characters, a drug addict named William Lee, based on Burroughs himself. While taking various drugs, Lee leaves the United States and travels to fictional cities where he becomes involved in their politics, homosexual scene, and drug culture. The novel is a non-linear narrative without a clear plot. William Burroughs experimented with the “cut-up, fold-in” technique of writing that he continued with the other three novels of the Nova series.

The Naked Lunch attained huge success and is termed as one of the best examples of Beat Literature of the Beat Generation. In Naked Lunch and the three sequel novels of the Nova Series ( The Soft Machine, Nova Express, and The Ticket That Exploded); Burroughs created an intricate and horrible allegory of human greed, corruption, and debasement that can be compared with the dystopian works like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949).

The title Naked Lunch:

The term “naked” refers to the ability to perceive reality in its natural form which can be obtained by eliminating confusion. That confusion is regarded as a result of artificial, social boundaries. Burroughs challenges contemporary repression by addressing the reader directly and, thereby, confronting him with the excessive use of drugs which the author embeds in a surrealistic narrative. By emphasizing the sharp contrast between individual concepts of freedom and social conventions, Burroughs shows the reader “what is on the end of every fork.” Allen Ginsberg, a friend of Burroughs said that the title “relates to the nakedness of seeing, to being able to see clearly without any confusing disguises, to see through the disguise”

Characters of Naked Lunch:

William Lee is the main character of the novel. Lee is a morphine and Heroin addict who experiments with various other drugs. He is married and a father of two kids but he hardly cares for his family that left him in the previous novel (Junkie). Dr. Benway is a discredited surgeon who continues to practice medicine in increasingly disreputable circumstances, which doesn't seem to bother Benway because of his highly flexible ethics. Benwey introduces Lee to a free ‘welfare state’ named Freeland. A.J. is an agent of Islam Inc who works under the guise of a funloving international playboy. He commits disruptive and dangerous acts under the guise of harmless pranking, sowing chaos wherever he goes. Hassan is another agent of Islam Inc., also known as Salvador Hassan O'Leary. He began as a hustler and rose to become a prominent international merchant in drugs and sex. Clem and Jody are operators of Islam Inc with leanings towards Russia and thus, they commit crimes around the world while trying to demean the United States. Andrew Keif is a novelist living in Interzone, while Aracknid is a chauffeur working in Interzone. Dr. Berger is a psychologist who runs a radio program in which he talks to sufferers of various mental illnesses. Clarence Cowie is the subject of Dr. Berger's experiment to produce a "deanxietized man." Jane is a prostitute in Mexico whose pimp forces his ideas on her.

Summary of Naked Lunch:

The novel begins in New York City where William Lee is still trying to evade police. The police are seeking for illegal use of marijuana, heroin, and other drugs. One day, after dodging the police, he hops on a subway train and begins discussing his experiences with a young man. He talks about his fellow junkies Rube and Vigilante. Lee describes how addicts use safety pins and medicine droppers to administer a fix. After leaving the train at another station, Lee witnesses the bodily decay of other junkies who hang out in an automat, a vending machine-type cafeteria. As the police pressure continues to grow, Lee decides to leave New York along with Rube and Vigilante. The narrator abandons Rube in Philadelphia while Lee goes on to Chicago, St. Louis, and Houston before buying a large quantity of heroin in New Orleans and proceeding to Mexico. In Mexico, the narrator obtains cocaine on someone else's prescription and meets a marijuana-smoking pimp who mistreats his prostitute named Jane. In Mexico, he comes in contact with Dr. Benway and is assigned to work under him in a new ‘welfare state’ named Freeland. Later on, Lee learns that Dr. Benway works for Islam Inc., a shadowy organization whose motives are unclear and primarily driven by individual agents. Benway runs a Reconditioning Center where he conducts unethical and tortuous experiments on drug addicts and homosexuals. Freeland is run by a totalitarian government that controls the public through generosity. While working on their subjects, Dr. Benway and Lee are forced to flee the facility when a computer malfunction sets the inmates free and unleashes total chaos.

Lee finds himself in Interzone where he sees a man named Carl who becomes divorced from reality when he goes to visit his friend Joselito in a sanitarium. Interzone is a city where drugs and sex of all kinds are freely available. The threat of revolution against colonial influences hovers around the margins of daily life. Interzone is run by four opposing political parties: the Liquefactionists, the Senders, the Divisionists, and the Factualists. These parties also influence the narrator's involvement in Islam Inc., an organization without a clear agenda aside from the preferences of its individual agents.

A dealer/addict identified as the Sailor goes to a plaza in the city to buy a substance called Black Meat from creatures called Mugwumps. Lee gets admitted to a hospital to detox himself of drug usage where he meets Dr. Benway again. After successful detoxification, Lee meets one of his old friends who has attempted to kick his heroin addiction with questionable results. Lee too decides to get rid of his addiction again. He spends around 10 years in Interzone during which he is forced to please the County Clerk regularly so that he may not get evicted. The County Clerk is a racist jerk.

During his stint with Islam Inc., Lee comes in contact with Hassan, and A.J. A.J. hosts an annual party where he shows a blue (pornographic) movie featuring a trio engaging in lurid sexual acts that culminate in hangings. Two other agents, Clem and Jody, disrupt a Muslim funeral in Interzone's marketplace. This act typifies their worldwide travels, sowing mayhem in ongoing attempts to make the United States look bad on the world stage.

Lee decides to leave the Interzone and reaches New York again where he is again pursued by police officers. Two narcotics officers, Hauser and O'Brien catch him and a struggle ensues during which Lee shoots the officers and goes into hiding at a bathhouse. The next day he can find no reports of the shooting in the papers, so he calls the city's narcotics bureau. He speaks to a lieutenant who has never heard of Hauser or O'Brien. The narrator takes this as a sign he can no longer access the intersections of different realities.

Symbols used in Naked Lunch:

Lee describes how addicts use safety pins and medicine droppers to administer a fix. The use of safety pins and droppers suggests that there is an acute scarcity of heroin or other drugs and it is hard to get them. The narrator uses Safety Pins and Droppers as a symbol to represent the sense of desperation addicts feel when they need a fix. When withdrawal symptoms set in, they are willing to use any instruments available to get the drugs into their bodies. The safety pin reveals little concern for sanitation or for personal pain. The only thing that matters is the fix.

The author used Nooses and execution by hanging while describing two explicitly sexual scenes, one during Hassan’s orgy, and the other in the blue film shown by A.J. Noose was used as a symbol to suggest the hypocrisy of social authorities that would be concerned with the obscenity of the sex acts, but not the obscenity of the executions their own government sanctions.

The narrator often describes garbage in Naked Lunch and each time, he depicts the used condoms thrown here and there. Used condoms signify the way sex is commodified among drug addicts. It is impersonal and disposable like condoms are. They are dirtier than the rest of the garbage, containing bodily fluids that may also be diseased. They decay in these discarded containers just as the addicts' bodies are decaying containers for the drugs they take. Black Meat serves as a symbol of all drugs because it is addictive, hard to get, and requires users to enter into arrangements with unsavory characters called Mugwumps.

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!