Edebiyatkafe Editörü Fuat ÖZKUL…

Bir Nisan ayının altısında Malatya merkezde, resmen “Yeşiltepe” diye adlandırılan ama aslında “Boztepe” olarak bilinen semtte doğmuşum. Belki de bu yüzden ironi yakamı o zamandan beri hiç bırakmadı, kimbilir?! İlk öğrencilik yıllarımdan aklımda kalan en güzel şey, şu an bir melek gibi hafızamda hayal meyal canlandırdığım çok sevdiğim sınıf öğretmenim Nimet Gültek Hanım’ın güzel ve gülümseyen yüzü… Onun teşvikleriyle girmiş olduğum Anadolu Lisesi ve Devlet Parasız Yatılı Okulu sınavlarında başarılı olarak, beş parasız (!) Diyarbakır’a yatılı okula gittim. Ve oldukça uzun sürecek olan gurbet maceram da öyle başladı işte. Şairin hasretinden prangalar eskittiği ve yanlızca dağlarına bahar gelen şehirde mert insanların diyarı Diyarbakır’ da ortaokulu, gakkoşlar diyarı Elazığ’da da lise eğitimimi tamamladım. Aynı yıl girdiğim büyük umutlarla Ankara’ya  Eğitim Yöneticisi ve Planlamacısı olmak için Ankara Üniversitesi Eğitim Bilimleri Fakültesi’ne kayıt yaptırdım. Birkaç güzel anı ve dosttan  başka bana birşey kazandırmayan bu bölümde bir yıl okuduktan sonra, tüm hayatımı ve hayata bakış açımı değiştirecek yer olan Beytepe kampüsüne; Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı bölümüne kaydoldum. Dört yılda dört bin yıllık edebiyat tarihi ile ilgili bilgimi ve edebiyat sevgimi edindiğim bu bölümden mezun olduktan sonra atandığım Niğde’de hiç öğretmenlik yapmadan, sıla özlemimi dindirmek maksadıyla, becayiş yapıp Malatya’ya geri döndüm.  Burada görevlendirildiğim Arguvan ilçesinde belki de en kısa süre görev yapan öğretmen rekorunu elde ettikten sonra (2 yarım gün!)  Milli Eğitim’den istifa edip, hayatımın en güzel yıllarını geçirdiğim, en iyi dostlarımı edindiğim, unutulmaz anılarımı ve tecrübelerimi biriktirdiğim yer olan Özel Rahime Batu Lisesi’nde öğretmenlik yapmaya başladım. 1994 -2000 yılları arasında çok değerli öğretmen arkadaşlarım ve gerçekten anlayışlı ve hoşgörülü idareci abilerimizle şehrimizin bu güzide okulunda çalışmak nasip oldu. Öğretmen olmayı, öğretmenlik yapmayı burada öğrendim. Gerçek arkadaşlık ve dostluklar nasıl olurmuş burada anladım.  Kasım1998- Temmuz1999 tarihleri arasında yine gakkoşlar diyarında, Elazığ 8. Kolordu Muhabere Taburunda 265. kısa dönem er olarak askerlik hizmetimi tamamladım ve anladım ki askerliğin iyi olanı kısa olanı, en iyisiyse yapılmış ve bitmiş olanıymış! Rahime Batu Lisesi’nde bir yıl daha görev yaptıktan sonra, 2000 yılı Ekim ayında İnönü Üniversitesi Yabancı Diller Bölüm Başkanlığı’nda okutman olarak göreve başladım. Ve hanyanın konyanın ne demek olduğunu anladım! Gerçek hayat ne çirkinmiş, ne ikiyüzlüymüş burada farkettim. Maskeler ne gerekli aksesuarlarmış, insanlar ne kadar başarılı aktörlermiş burda gördüm.  Halen aynı görevimi (rolümü!)  geçici görevlendirmeyle atanmış olduğum Eğitim Fakültesi İngilizce Öğretmenliği Bölümünde sürdürmekteyim.

*”Güzel olan her şeyin paylaşılması gerekir” düşüncesiyle aşağıdaki güzel yazıları sizlerle paylaşmak istiyorum.

1) “Hayır” diyebilen çocuklar
Hayatta en çok “Hayır” demekte zorlandım. Evde,
okulda, kışlada itaati öğretmişlerdi.
İyi evlat, iyi öğrenci, iyi asker, iyi yurttaş
koşulsuz “Evet” derdi.
İtiraz ihanetti.
Lüzumsuz “Evet”lere bir ömür verdiğimden midir
nedir, Milli Eğitim Bakanlığı’nın yeni müfredat
tasarım kitaplarında en sevindiğim şey, ilkokul
çocuklarına “Hayır deme becerisi” kazandırma çabası oldu.
Bir Hayat Bilgisi dersi düşünün ki, 2. sınıftan
başlayarak “Evet/ Hayır” oyunuyla çocuğa
istemediğini yapmama özgürlüğünü öğretiyor.
İlk aşamada “suçluluk duymaksızın hayır diyebilme”yi…
“Hayır, çünkü…” diye itirazının nedenini dillendirebilmeyi…
“Hayır, ama…” diye reddettiğinin alternatifini sunabilmeyi…

* * *

Bitmedi.
Sonraki etkinliğin adı “Kızma birader”…
Farklı görüşe tahammül eğitimi…
Kitapta örnek bir aile var: “Hoşgör ailesi…”
3. sınıf Hayat Bilgisi, “Ortak ve farklı yanlarımız”ı öğreterek başlıyor.
“Benzemez kimse sana” şarkısını dillerde gezdiren
ülke, “Herkes birbirine benzeyecek” komutuyla yıllar
harcadıktan sonra şimdi çocuklarını “Kimse benzemez bana” ünitesiyle eğitiyor.
Bu altyapı, 4. sınıfta Sosyal Bilgiler’le destekleniyor.
İlk derste “Farklılıklarımız bizi eşsiz ve özel yapar” fikri işleniyor.
“Ben 73 milletle beraberim” diyen Mevlana’dan hoşgörü hikayeleri anlatılıyor.
6., 7. ve 8. sınıflarda Felsefe dersiyle bu birikim pekiştiriliyor.

***

Müfredatı hazırlayanlar öğrencilerde 7 becerinin
eksikliğini saptamış. “Eleştirel ve yaratıcı düşünme
ve sorgulama eksikliği” ön sıradaymış. O yüzden
kitaplarda birey olmayı, risk almayı, meydan
okumayı, sorgulamayı, kendine güveni, açık
fikirliliği, tartışma ve hoşgörüyü destekleyen dersler var.
Ayrıca bir arada yaşama kültürünü geliştirecek dersler de planlanmış.
“Kendimi kutluyorum” gibi üniteler çocukta özgüveni
artırmayı amaçlarken, “Birlikte başarabiliriz”
başlığı altında dayanışma hazzı da öğretiliyor.

***
Eski kitapta (askerlikteki gibi) “Atatürk’ün büyük
bir kahraman olduğunu söyleme – yazma ünitesi” vardı.
Çocuklar bunu ezbere söyleyip yazdı, ama görünen o
ki içselleştirip bu bilgiyi davranışa dönüştüremedi.
Her şeyi “Hep – hiç”, “ak – kara”, “evet – hayır”
karşıtlığında ezberleten yaklaşım, “kahrolsun -
yaşasın” zıtlaşmasında “ölürüm -öldürürüm” diyen
siyasi kutuplaşmaların tohumlarını attı ve bizi
derin uzlaşmazlıklara sürükledi.
Her sabah “Türküm, doğruyum, çalışkanım” diyerek
yetişenlerin çoğu ne doğru dürüst “Türk”, ne
“doğru”, ne “çalışkan” olabildi ve üniversite
sınavında “100 bin sıfır” çekti.
Şimdi anlıyoruz ki, bizim Hititlerinkinden önce
kendi ailemizin tarihini öğrenmeye, itaatten önce
sorgulamaya, ezberlemeden önce anlamaya,
farklılıkları kabullenmeye, bir arada yaşamayı
içselleştirmeye ihtiyacımız var.
Bilgi, ancak böyle kültüre dönüşebiliyor.
Talim Terbiye Kurulu Başkanı Ziya Selçuk ve
arkadaşlarının çabaları bu açıdan önemli…
Tek sorun şu:
Acaba Türkiye’de itiraz eden çocuğu hoş görecek
öğretmenler, müdürler, veliler, valiler, komutanlar,
bakanlar var mı?
Yoksa işe, onların eğitimiyle mi başlamalı?

Can DÜNDAR

2) Saate bakmaksızın kapısını çalabileceği
bir dostu olmalı insanın…
“nereden çıktın bu vakitte” dememeli,
bir gece yarısı telaşla yataktan fırladığında;
gözünün dilini bilmeli;
dinlemeli sormadan, söylemeden anlamalı…
arka bahçede varlığını sezdirmeden,
mütemadiyen dikilen vefalı bir ağaç gibi
köklenmeli hayatında;
sen, her daim onun orada durduğunu hissetmelisin.
ihtiyaç duyduğunda gidip
müşfik gövdesine yaslanabilmeli,
kovuklarına saklanabilmelisin.
kucaklamalı seni güvenli kolları,
dalları bitkin başına omuz,
yaprakları kanayan ruhuna merhem olmalı…
en mahrem sırlarını verebilmeli,
en derin yaralarını açıp gösterebilmelisin;
gölgesinde serinlemelisin sorgusuz sualsiz…
onca dalkavuk arasında bir tek o,
sözünü eğip bükmeden söylemeli,
yanlış anlaşılmayacağını bilmeli.
alkışlandığında değil sadece,
asıl yuhalandığında yanında durup koluna girebilmeli.
övmeli alem içinde, başbaşayken sövmeli
ve sen öyle güvenmelisin ki ona,
övdüğünde de sövdüğünde de bunun iyilikten olduğunu bilmelisin.
teklifsiz kefili olmalı hatalarının; günahlarının yegane şahidi…
seni senden iyi bilen, sana senden çok güvenen bir sırdaş..
gözbebekleri bulutlandığında,
yaklaşan fırtınayı sezebilmelisin.
ve sen ağladığında onun gözlerinden gelmeli yaş…
yıllarca aynı ip üstünde çalışmış,
cesaretle ihanet arasında gidip gelen
bir salıncağın sınavında birbiriyle kaynaşmış
iki trapezci gibi güvenle kenetlenmeli elleri…
“parkurun bütün zorluklarına rağmen dostluğumuzu koruyabildik,
acıları birlikte göğüsleyebildik ya;
yenildik sayılmayız” diyebilmeli…
ıssızlığın,yalnızlığın en koyulaştığı anda,
küçücük bir kağıda yazdığımız
kısa ama ümitvar bir yazıyı
yüreğe benzer bir taşa bağlayıp
birbirimizin camından içeri atabilmeliyiz:
“bunu da aşacağız!”

Can DÜNDAR

WOMEN & WRITING

THE BLACK PRINCE BY IRIS MURDOCH

by Fuat ÖZKUL (05 April, 2006; METU – ANKARA)

BIOGRAPHY

Iris Murdoch was born on July 15, 1919 in Dublin, Ireland to Anglo-Irish parents. Her family moved to London when she was one year old. She was an only child, a status that she enjoyed. Her mother was an opera singer and her father was a civil servant. After winning a scholarship to Oxford College, she studied philosophy and classics, including Greek and Latin. She graduated in 1938, just before World War II, and was drafted into the civil service as a Treasury worker. After the war, she continued working for the government as an administrative officer with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in Belgium and Austria. While on the European continent, she came in contact with both Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist philosopher, and Raymond Queneau, the French novelist. This period of her life reawakened her love for philosophy. She applied for a visa to study in the United States, but was denied since she had recently registered as a communist. Soon after, she returned to Oxford for an advanced philosophy degree and studied with Ludwig Wittgenstein. After receiving her degree, she took a teaching post at Oxford, which she maintained until she was nearly sixty years old.

Murdoch was strongly influenced by Plato, Freud and Sartre. Her novels are by turns intense and bizarre, filled with dark humor and unpredictable plot twists, undercutting the civilized surface of the usually upper-class milieu in which her characters are observed. She often included atypical gay characters in her fiction, most notably in The Bell (1958) and A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970). She also frequently wrote about a powerful and almost demonic male “enchanter” who imposes his will on the other characters — a type of man Murdoch is said to have modeled on her lover, the Nobel laureate, Elias Canetti.

Although she wrote primarily in a realistic manner, on occasion Murdoch would introduce ambiguity into her work through a sometimes misleading use of symbolism, and by mixing elements of fantasy within her precisely described scenes. The Unicorn (1963) can be read and enjoyed as a sophisticated Gothic romance, or as a novel with Gothic trappings, or perhaps as a brilliant parody of the Gothic mode of writing. The Black Prince (1973) is a remarkable study of erotic obsession, and the text becomes more complicated, suggesting multiple interpretations, when subordinate characters contradict the narrator and the mysterious “editor” of the book in a series of afterwords.Murdoch was awarded the Booker Prize in 1978 for The Sea, the Sea, a finely detailed novel about the power of love and loss, featuring a retired actor who is overwhelmed by jealousy when he meets his erstwhile lover after several decades apart.

Several of her works have been adapted for the screen, including the British television series of her novels An Unofficial Rose and The Bell. J. B. Priestley dramatized her 1961 novel, A Severed Head, which was directed by Richard Attenborough in 1971, and starred Ian Holm. Richard Eyre’s film, Iris (2001), based on her husband’s memoir of his wife as she developed Alzheimer’s disease, starred Dame Judi Dench and Kate Winslet respectively as the older and younger versions of Dame Iris Murdoch.

Iris Murdoch was an amazingly prolific writer, producing in her lifetime twenty- six novels, eight books of philosophy, and eight plays. Her writing career began in 1952 with Sartre: Romantic Rationalist, a critical assessment of his writings. She published four novels in the 1950s, starting in 1954. Between 1961 and 1971, she published ten novels and one book of philosophy, more than one per year. When asked by an interviewer how much time she took off between novels, she responded “half an hour.” In another interview, she noted that she writes fiction in the morning and philosophy in the afternoon, while still maintaining her teaching post. Murdoch’s means of writing her novels also were noteworthy since she hated typewriters and usually just wrote two or three drafts of the novel in longhand before delivering it to the publisher in a brown paper bag. Once she finished her book, she would not let anyone edit so much as a word, another rare privilege for an author. Many of Murdoch’s novels met with mixed criticism, especially those published rapidly in the sixties. Critics cited the insubstantial nature of her characters, the occasionally pretentious presentation of philosophy, and poorly written narrative that needed editing. Frank Kermode stated in the early 1970s that each of her books contains “somewhere inside, the ghost of a major novel.” With the arrival of The Black Prince in 1973, many believed that that novel had come. The Black Prince is widely considered the best of Murdoch’s novels. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in its year of publication. It was, like almost all of her novels, a resounding popular success.

Iris Murdoch admired the great nineteenth-century English and Russian novels written by Tolstoy, Doestovesky, James, Dickens, and Eliot. With her books, she longed to replicate the complex characterization and detailed scenery of those authors. In comparison, she believed 20th century novels to be weak and uninteresting. In her effort to recreate a 19th century style of fiction, Murdoch combined a variety of techniques, so that her novels usually contained the intrigue of a thriller, the twists of an adventure story, the dynamics of a romance tale, and the comic patterns of Shakespearean and Greek literature. Some have compared her novels to soap operas because of their romantic intrigues and bizarrely coincidental plot twists that rely upon doorbells bringing trouble and phone calls bringing disaster.

Murdoch’s background as a philosopher is obvious in her fiction, as her texts are frequently interspersed with philosophical commentary. Such direct philosophical restatement is particularly prominent in The Black Prince. Its primary themes are the possibility of glimpsing eternal truth through the experience of erotic love, and possibility of presenting truth through the creation of art. As Murdoch was a Platonist, she believed, like Plato, that people go through life with only a limited sense of truth since our “everyday” world is a world of illusion. Behind this world however, Plato believed, is a world full of “ideal forms”. It is this world, which contains truth, that Bradley Pearson, the main character of The Black Prince, is able to touch upon as a result of his experience with erotic love. Structurally, Murdoch’s tendency to shift into philosophical discourse while telling her stories may be slightly disconcerting and difficult for some to follow. Her use of philosophy often gives her novels a fragmented style. Overall, her ability to merge philosophy and fiction, however, leads to a profound reading experience.

Iris Murdoch was made a Dame of the British Order in 1987 for her scholarly achievements. Her writing stopped in 1994, sometime after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. Murdoch died in 1999. Her personal struggle at the end of her life was chronicled in a book by her husband, John Bayley, entitled Elegies for Iris.

CRITICISM

Murdoch was criticized in 2003 by the British writer A.N. Wilson in his Iris Murdoch as I Knew Her, a book described by The Guardian as “mischievously revelatory” and “quite spectacularly rude,” and described by Wilson himself as an “anti-biography,” in which he wrote of her promiscuity and disloyalty, that she “thrived on acts of betrayal”, was cruel, and was “prepared to go to bed with almost anyone”, (Wilson 2003) .

PLOT OVERVIEW

The Black Prince tells the story of Bradley Pearson, a fifty-eight year old man who has previously published three books. In order to write a great novel, he quits his lifelong job as a tax inspector, but soon finds himself struck with writer’s block. He decides to spend the summer in a rented cottage on the coast for inspiration.

Before he can leave for the coast, however, a series of events keeps him home. When his detested ex-wife’s brother, Francis visits him he finds out that his ex wife, Christian, has returned to London. He is called to intervene in a marital dispute between his close friends, Arnold and Rachel Baffin. Arnold is a successful but unartistic writer. During the fight, Rachel Baffin hits her head on the fireplace poker, but is not dead, as Arnold initially fears. After leaving their house, Bradley runs into the Baffins’ twenty-year-old daughter, Julian, by the subway station. She wants Bradley to teach her how to write. The next morning, Bradley’s sister, Priscilla, unexpectedly arrives, because she has left her husband. She almost immediately tries to commit suicide with sleeping pills. During the confusion of her suicide attempt, for which all of the Baffins and Francis Marloe are present, Christian, Bradley’s ex-wife, appears, but is taken away by Arnold before Bradley sees her.

After Priscilla gets back from the hospital, Bradley visits Christian in order to tell her to leave him alone. Bradley then goes to Bristol to pick up his sister’s jewels. He is unable to do so, and finds that Priscilla’s husband has a younger, pregnant mistress. Priscilla starts staying at Christian’s house so Francis Marloe, a former doctor, can care for her. While all of this is happening, Arnold Baffin becomes interested in having an affair with Christian and Rachel Baffin becomes interested in sleeping with Bradley. During Rachel and Bradley’s attempted lovemaking, however, he cannot perform sexually. He and Rachel later determine to become platonic friends.

Julian has been pestering Bradley to teach her about Hamlet and arrives one day for a tutorial. During the tutorial, Bradley falls passionately in love with her. He initially tries to keep his love secret. After becoming physically ill while watching Der Rosenkavalier with Julian however, he confesses his emotions. He tells Julian that he is forty-six, instead of fifty-eight. Julian considers the issue of his love thoughtfully. By the next morning, she has determined that she loves him. Julian later confesses her love to her parents. They respond by locking her in her room and yelling at Bradley. Despite Rachel and Arnold’s anger, Bradley refuses to see that his love is inappropriate. When Julian sneaks away from her parents’ house, she and Bradley meet and leave for his rented cottage.

On their first day away, Julian entertains romantic fantasies about marrying Bradley. Their initial attempts at lovemaking are not successful. The next day, Bradley finds out that Priscilla has killed herself. He keeps the news from Julian to maintain their bliss. When he returns home, he finds Julian dressed up as Hamlet. He drags her to the bed and makes violent love to her in such a rough way that Julian later weeps. Arnold finds them later that night and begs Julian to leave. He tells her of Priscilla’s death and Bradley’s true age. Julian seems confused, but refuses go. After her father leaves, she isolates herself in a separate bedroom to think, but is gone by the time Bradley wakes in the morning.

Bradley goes back to London for Priscilla’s funeral. He believes that Arnold stole Julian away in the night. Bradley cannot find her anywhere. Christian wants to start a relationship with Bradley, but he declines. Rachel tells Bradley that Julian left him freely because she learned of Bradley’s recent sexual encounter with Rachel (Rachel had described the encounter in a letter that Arnold delivered). Bradley is so angry at Rachel’s interference that he spitefully shows her a letter that Arnold wrote describing Arnold’s love for Christian. Rachel is furious and vows never to forgive Bradley. A few days later, Bradley receives a letter from Julian. Despite her saying otherwise, he decides that she still loves him and that she is in Venice. He makes plans to go there. Before he can leave, however, Rachel calls and begs for his immediate assistance. After arriving at the Baffins’ house, Bradley finds Arnold dead, having been hit with the same fire poker that once hit Rachel. When Bradley tries to cover up Rachel’s crime, he is accused of it himself. He is later convicted because everyone believes that he killed Arnold out of envy. Bradley has written his novel from prison. In the final postscript of the book, the editor, P.Loxias, notes that soon after finishing the book, Bradley Pearson died of a fast growing cancer.

CHARACTER LIST

Bradley Pearson

Bradley Pearson is the main character of the novel and also the one who writes the majority of it. In the beginning of the book, Bradley is a cold, occasionally cruel man. Although he acts politely, his internal monologue usually reveals him to be much less polite than he appears. Much of his external behavior is shockingly rude, especially to Christian and Francis. Furthermore, his self-interested nature leads him to neglect his sister, Priscilla. Even when he hears that she has killed herself, he lacks the compassion and concern that one would normally feel for a sibling. Despite his unfriendly nature, Bradley is a compelling character because he changes throughout the book and also because he aspires, to some extent, to do good, primarily by writing a novel. Bradley’s love of Julian changes him. Bradley’s lengthy description of his love, at the beginning of Part Two, allows us to understand the nuances of his soul. With his heart fully exposed, it is difficult to dislike him, even if some of his behaviors are less than honorable. The way that Bradley keeps changing also makes him an intriguing figure. By the end of the book, he is a kinder, gentler soul, having experienced true love and after having seen the errors of his ways. Bradley is finally able to act selflessly, by not accusing Rachel of Arnold’s murder. Bradley’s ability to change and eventually realize his faults makes him a likeable character, despite his earlier bad deeds

Arnold Baffin  -  The very successful popular writer whom Bradley is accused of killing at the end of the novel. Arnold and Bradley’s friendship is one of the primary relationships within the novel. Although Bradley frequently dislikes Arnold, Arnold is portrayed very favorably. He is a polite, interesting man who always wants to know more about people’s characters and who always longs to talk to them. He takes great pleasure in hearing about Francis Marloe’s life, for example, while Bradley at the same time is trying to get Francis out the door. Arnold’s compassionate interest contrasts Bradley’s coldness.

Rachel Baffin  -  The wife of Arnold Baffin. Rachel is a forceful woman whom both Arnold and Bradley underestimate. Arnold seems to think that all is well between him and his wife; Bradley regards Rachel as a benign, older woman. Rachel’s firm speech and unforgiving tone, however, suggests the power within her personality, even if the other characters cannot see it. Rachel herself predicts her fierceness when she tells Bradley that she still has “real fire” in her. Despite Rachel’s fierceness, she is also a sympathetic character who also helps to articulate the difficulties of being a middle-aged housewife.

Julian Baffin

Julian is the twenty-year old daughter of Arnold and Rachel Baffin, with whom Bradley falls in love. Julian is characterized by youth and naïveté. She has never been a successful student, but suddenly decides that she wants to be a writer. Her lack of knowledge that Homer and Dante were poets, however, shows her sudden career goals to be romanticized dreams. The way that she falls in love with Bradley is equally so. In one of the opening scenes, she performs an exorcism to rid her recent boyfriend from her life, but after just one week she believes that she pictures marrying Bradley and living happily ever after. Such ideas are naïve and romantic. Were she involved with a man her own age and not Bradley, such naïveté would likely not be a proble

Her failure to understand the dynamics behind her relationship with Bradley is problematic. First, her cluelessness leads her to confess the affair to her parents. Furthermore, she cannot understand why they appear so angry about it. Later, she throws herself from a moving car to prove her love. While she is not seriously hurt, her youthful impetuous actions suggest trouble. Her illusions finally will be shattered when Bradley makes violent love to her, leaving her weeping. The lustfulness of his passion finally reveals to her the nature of Bradley’s self and after she realizes it, she flees. Julian is a sympathetic character, but also a slightly foolish one. Furthermore, because Bradley is telling the story, Julian often comes across as sexually aggressive. As Bradley describes it, Julian almost initiated their affair by insisting that he become her teacher, inviting him to the opera, and coming over for a Hamlet tutorial. Despite Bradley’s perceptions, Julian remains a naïve, not extraordinary girl who is unversed in the ways of love. Julian’s youth, however, generally forgives her character faults.

Francis Marloe

Francis Marloe’s primary role in the novel is comic. Francis is a classic buffoon style character, characteristic of Greek comedy or Shakespeare. Francis is comic because he is pitiful and easy to be laughed at. The other characters laugh at him consistently and cruelly. Bradley Pearson’s cruel treatment of Francis, in particular makes us want to sympathize with him. But even as we long to respect Francis, his constant fumbling makes it difficult to take him seriously. He longs to doctor Priscilla, for example, but he leaves her alone to get drunk with Bradley’s homosexual neighbor, during which time Priscilla kills herself. Furthermore, in his explanation of the incident, Francis insists that the neighbor, Rigby, drugged the wine so Francis could not return, whereas it is more likely that Rigby and Francis were having sex. Francis’s final postscript makes him look entirely silly. Francis’s identity as a comic figure also comes from his pitiful background, being a doctor whose license was taken away for misuse of pharmaceuticals. Finally, his tendency to ingratiate himself to everyone makes him easy to laugh at. In many ways Francis is a sad character, often talking about the pain of his life, but still his loose emotions serve for comic effect.

Priscilla Saxe  -  The sister of Bradley Pearson. Priscilla is a sympathetic, but pitiful woman who spends the majority of the book moaning about the ruined state of her life. Priscilla’s life, it appears, is somewhat ruined, since she spent most of it in an unloving marriage. Her painful experience testifies to the difficulties of life as well as the specific difficulties of being a woman. Priscilla’s great regret is the abortion that left her unable to have children. Priscilla’s sadness helps to establish Bradley’s coldness as a character, because, despite her needs, he basically ignores her.

Christian Evansdale  -  Bradley Pearson’s ex-wife. Christian is a confident, strong woman who has aged but still remains sexually attractive. She has lived in America for the past few years and appears slightly brassy and American. Christian’s character is seen entirely through her interaction with Bradley, which is not entirely credible given his previous hatred of her. She, like Rachel, is a woman of power, even though she has aged. Christian is a sympathetic and even admirable character, given the strength of her personality, but at the same time her brassy quality gives her a slightly comic edge.

Roger Saxe  -  Priscilla’s husband and Bradley Pearson’s brother-in-law. Bradley always has disliked Roger’s chummy, non-intellectual style. Roger has done bad things in the past, namely having Priscilla have an abortion and then making her father pay for half of it. Her current affair with Marigold in some ways also seems cruel since he is abandoning his wife, who cannot have children due to the abortion that Roger insisted upon. Still, while Roger has flaws, he is not all bad. Although Priscilla trick him into marrying her, he stayed with her for twenty years, despite their unhappiness. Furthermore, although he did have an affair, he kept it a secret until after she left him; then he asked for a divorce. Generally, the tendency to have an affair during marriage does not appear honorable, but since Roger and Priscilla’s marriage was so terrible, his actions actually seem understandable.

Marigold -  Roger Saxe’s mistress who is pregnant with his child. Little is known about Marigold except that she is a dentist. Her name suggests her freshness and youth. Her presence in Roger’s life testifies to the terrible state of his marriage. She and Roger also are a couple that mirror Bradley and Julian, since Roger is significantly older that Marigold.

P. Loxias  -  The editor of the novel. “Loxias” is a pseudonym for Apollo, the Greek god of the Arts. The prophetess Cassandra refers to Apollo as “Loxias” in Aeschylus’s The Oresteia. Loxias is not truly a developed character in the novel, as he only serves to provide a foreword and postscript. His primary role is to alert the readers to the primary theme of the book: the importance of art in articulating truth. Since Apollo is the God of Arts, it seems appropriate that he is the one to supervise a novel that debates its relative merits.

Hartbourne -  A friend of Bradley’s from work. Little is known about Hartbourneexcept that Bradley frequently has lunch with him and Christian later marries him.

Oscar Belling -  Julian’s ex-boyfriend. He never appears in the novel. At the end of the novel however, Julian’s name has changed to “Julian Belling” signifying that she has married him. His presence merely serves to suggest Julian’s youthful approach the art of loving, since it is just after breaking up with him that she decides that is passionately in love with Bradley.

THEMES

Art as a Vehicle for Truth

As Loxias and Bradley Pearson explain in their forewords and postscripts, art is one of the rare venues that allows for the articulation of truth. As Loxias says in the conclusion of the novel, “art tells the only truth that ultimately matters.” As a follower of the ideas of Plato, Iris Murdoch believes that the world of everyday life is a world of illusions, behind which exists a world of truth, containing “ideal forms”. When one is finally able to see the world of ideal forms, one is glimpsing truth. In a realm with both illusory and “true” worlds, art holds a special place, because through it an artist is able to bring viewers out of the illusory plane and into the true one. Art serves as a fundamental philosophical tool that can alert the world to higher meanings in life. Bradley Pearson’s struggle to write a deeply meaningful novel in The Black Prince captures one artist’s attempt to preserve a glimmer of truth for others. Although Pearson is struck by writer’s block for most of the novel, his experience of Eros allows him to create the ultimate master work. In doing so, as P.Loxias (the God Apollo) suggests, he is able to bring truth to us, the readers.

Eros’s Facilitation of Expression

Bradley Pearson’s experience of Eros gives him the ability to write. “Eros” refers both to erotic love and to a deeper lust for power, love, and desire. Bradley’s experience of Eros originally starts as pure love for Julian Baffin: he becomes happy and pleasant after feeling it. As his love turns towards lust, however, he begins to refer to his Eros as “black Eros,” referencing the negative qualities that overtake him during his obsession with Julian. Despite the potentially destructive power of Eros that Bradley experiences, it still is the avenue that allows him to glimpse truth. After such a sudden and intense voyage with Eros, Bradley emerges changed and is finally able to express truth through the creation of art.

The Randomness of Life

Iris Murdoch was not an existentialist, but she shares the existentialist idea that life has no greater purpose than what individual humans designate. For Murdoch and existentialists, there is no God who has preordained one’s life path before one is born. Instead, one is born with freedom to create whatever type of life that one chooses. Despite the ability to be free, most people generally prefer to cling to a preordained meaning by believing in God, or by assigning meaning to everything that happens to them. In an effort to counter this tendency, Murdoch attempts to argue for the random nature of life in her novel. For example, Bradley and Julian randomly meet twice, but there is no sense that their coincidental meetings were meant to be. Likewise, a series of random arrivals and meetings drive the entire plot of her novel. These events are what make up people’s lives, but they were not each individually plotted by the Fates. As Murdoch demonstrates, life is just a series of random accidents connected together.

MOTIFS

Marriage

The Black Prince begins and ends with a domestic quarrel between a married couple. During the novel, Murdoch analyzes the institution of marriage by looking at it through three different couples. For each of these couples, marriage fails. Furthermore, in two of the marriages, Priscilla’s and Roger’s, and Rachel’s and Arnold’s, the marriage proves fatal; one of the partners is dead by the end of the book. Given the failure of marriages in her novel, Murdoch suggests that it is a consistently painful institution, which might be better avoided. Bradley Pearson himself articulates a similar perspective when he suggests that the state of being married is inconsistent with a human’s natural desire and that marriage generally leads one towards a state of perpetual loneliness.

Hamlet

Hamlet is major motif in the novel. Hamlet’s characters, text, and themes recur several times. The play primarily appears because Julian Baffin wants to study Hamlet, so she keeps asking Bradley to teach it to her. By explaining it to Julian, Bradley is able to articulate his interpretation of what Hamlet actually means. The theme in Hamlet that is most important to The Black Prince is that of identity and the ability to create one’s identity through the use of words. As Bradley Pearson writes his narrative, he struggles with this issue, which may be the reason for which the novel is called The Black Prince—a title usually given to Hamlet. Hamlet’s appearance in the novel also plays an important role in the growing rapport between Julian and Bradley, since their initial tutorial is a symbolic sex scene, and when Julian eventually dresses up as Hamlet, Bradley proceeds to make violent love to her. Murdoch’s frequent references to Hamlet also indicate her textual allegiance to Shakespearian techniques, which she greatly admired.

Feet and Boots

Attention to Julian’s feet is a motif that chronicles the sexual awakening of Bradley. The motif begins when Bradley sees Julian walking barefoot by the subway station. He proceeds to buy her a pair of purple boots, but not before his socks tumble out of his pocket and she puts them on. It is when she finally puts on the boots in the store, that Bradley feels his first swell of lust. Later during their Hamlet tutorial, Julian arrives wearing the same purple boots. As the room grows hot, she asks if she can take them off. She asks Bradley if her feet smell and he says that they do, but that he finds it “charming”. As lust and unrealized love overwhelm him, Bradley comments that he could smell “her sweat, her feet, her breasts.” Julian’s exposure of her feet galvanizes Bradley’s sexuality and serves as one of the symbolic steps towards the awakening of his love.

SYMBOLS

Kites

When Bradley leaves Rachel’s house after kissing her, Julian releases her kite and Bradley follows it faithfully as he walks to the subway station. The kite symbolizes the glimpse of the eternal that he is soon to get, but has not yet received. Bradley already has philosophized about the importance of kites when he was drunk in Bristol noting that kites are distant high things that are “an image of our condition.” As he follows Julian’s kite to the train station, he feels that it is the “bearer of some potent as yet unfathomed destiny.” The kite’s ability to fly and to see the world from a higher perspective is something that all humans aspire to and is something that Bradley shall be able to do by the end of the novel. The kite symbolizes the ability to see beyond the world of illusionary forms that dominates the everyday world.

Priscilla’s jewels

Priscilla is obsessed with her jewels and believes that if she receives them, all of her troubles shall be over. This belief is false and represents the sad state of her life. Priscilla’s jewels represent the one thing that she was able to gather during her married years. To some extent, they represent her sole legacy, since she has lived a childless existence. But it is a sad legacy, as jewels are cold, meaningless items whose primary significance is their monetary value. Priscilla’s inability to see the illusionary and meaningless nature of these items is consistent with her inability to have seen, or looked for, a deeper layer of truth during her entire life. When Priscilla finally receives her longed after jewels, she not surprisingly does not feel happier. Her jewels are meaningless items that suggest the way in which she, and most people, waste their lives by not trying to aspire for more meaningful truths.

Der Rosenkavalier

Der Rosenkavalier is Strauss’s opera that Bradley and Julian attend. The opera has a special symbolic role because it contains sexual partners of grossly different ages, similar to the one in The Black Prince. Bradley’s realization of the similarity between the opera and his own sexuality causes him to vomit after only several minutes of watching it. The color red that plays such a large role in the opera’s setting also is significant in bringing out Bradley’s silenced sexual desires. Although Bradley may not know this at the beginning of the novel, the plot of Der Rosenkavalier also foreshadows that of The Black Prince. While Bradley and Julian will have a love affair, as the Princess and Octavian did, both Julian and Octavian will eventually leave their older lovers and find partners their own age.

WORKS CITED

Murdoch, Iris. The Black Prince. New York: Penguin books, 1982.
Wilson, A.N. Iris Murdoch as I Knew Her. London: Hutchinson, 2003.

INTERNET SOURCES

http://www.aesthetics-online.org/memorials/bonzon.html

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/imurdoch.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/20/specials/murdoch-prince.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Murdoch

Shakespearean Drama

By Fuat ÖZKUL, (April 13, 2006; METU – Ankara)

MAN IN LEAR

Lear: The Blind, Sinful and Insane Old Man

Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear is a detailed description of the consequences of one man’s decisions.  This man is Lear, King of England, whose decisions greatly alter his life and the lives of those around him.  As Lear bears the status of King he is, as one expects, a man of great power but sinfully he surrenders all of this power to his daughters as a reward for their demonstration of love towards him.  This untimely abdication of his throne results in a chain reaction of events that send him through a journey of hell.  King Lear is a metaphorical description of one man’s journey through hell in order to expiate his sin. Through the description of this metaphorical journey, the audience is given a chance to witness several different kinds of man such as  kind, cruel, wise, foolish, disloyal, political, loyal, natural, selfish, faithful man  three of which will be discussed in this paper:blind, sinful and insane.

The first kind of man seen in King Lear is the blind man. The issue ofsight and its relevance to clear vision is a recurring theme. Shakespeare’s principal means of portraying this theme is through the characters of Lear and Gloucester. Although Lear can physically see, he is blind in the sense that he lacks insight, understanding, and direction. In contrast, Gloucester becomes physically blind but gains the type of vision that Lear lacks. It is evident from these two characters that clear vision is not derived solely from physical sight. Lear’s failure to understand this is the principal cause of his demise, while Gloucester learns to achieve clear vision, and consequently avoids a fate similar to Lear’s.

Throughout most of King Lear, Lear’s vision is clouded by his lack of insight. Since he cannot see into other people’s characters, he can never identify them for who they truly are. When Lear is angered by Cordelia, Kent tries to reason with Lear, who is toostubborn to remainopen-minded. Lear responds to Kent’s opposition with, “Out of my sight!,” to which Kent responds, “See better, Lear, and let me still remain” (1.1.160). Here, Lear is saying he never wants to see Kent again, but he could never truly see him for who he was. Kent was only trying to do what was best for Lear, but Lear couldnot see that. Kent’s vision is not clouded, as is Lear’s, and he knows that he can remain near Lear as long as he is in disguise. Later, Lear’s vision is so superficial that he is easily duped by the physical garments and simple disguise that Kent wears. Lear cannot seewho Kent really. He only learns of Kent’s noble and honest character just prior to his death, when his vision is cleared. By this time,

however, it is too late for an honest relationship to be salvaged.

Lear’s vision is also marred by his lack of direction in life, and his poor foresight, his inability to predict the consequences of his actions. He cannot look far enough into the future to see the consequences of his actions. This, in addition to his lack of insight into other people, condemns his relationship with his most beloved daughter, Cordelia. When Lear asks his daughters who loves him most, he already thinks that Cordelia has the most love for him. However, when Cordelia says, “I love your Majesty/According to my bond, no more nor less” (1.1.94-95), Lear cannot see what these words really mean.Goneril and Regan are only putting on an act. They do not truly love Lear as much as they should. When Cordelia says these words, she has seen her sisters’ facade, and she does not want to associate her true love with their false love.

Lear, however, is fooled by Goneril and Regan into thinking that they love him, while Cordelia does not. Kent,who has sufficient insight, is able to see through the dialogue and knows that Cordelia is the only daughter who actually loves Lear. He tries to convince Lear of this, saying, “Answer my life my judgment,/Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least” (1.1.153-154). Lear, however, lacks the insight that Kent has. He only sees what is on the surface, and cannot understand the deeper intentions of the daughters’ speeches. As his anger grows from the argument, his foresight diminishes as he becomes increasingly rash and narrow minded . When Lear disowns Cordelia, he says, “we/Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see/That face of hers again” (1.1.264-266). He cannot see far enough into the future to understand the consequences of this action. Ironically, he later discovers that Cordelia is the only daughter he wants to see, asking her to “forget and forgive” (4.7.85). By this time, he has finally started to gain some direction, and his vision is cleared, but it is too late for his life to be saved. His lack of precognition had condemned him from the beginning.

Lear depicts Shakespeare’s theme of clear vision by demonstrating that physical sight does not guarantee clear sight.Gloucester depicts this theme by demonstrating clear vision, despite the total lack of physical sight. Prior to the loss of his eyes,Gloucester’s vision was much like Lear’s. He could not see what was truly going on around him. Instead, he only saw what was presented to him on the surface. When Edmund shows him the letter that is supposedly from Edgar, it takes very little convincing for Gloucester to believe it. As soon as Edmund mentions that Edgar could be plotting against him, Gloucester calls him an “Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested, brutish villain” (1.2.81-82). He does not even stop toconsider whether Edgar would do such a thing because he cannot see into Edgar’s character. At this point, Gloucester’s life is headedb down a path of damnation similar to Lear’s because of a similar lack of sight.When Gloucester loses his physical sight, his vision actually clears, in that he can see what is going on around him. When Gloucester is captured by Cornwall, Gloucester provokes him to pluckout his eyes:

But I shall see

The wingèd vengeance overtake such children.

Cornwall. See’t shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.

Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot. (3.7.66-69)

When Gloucester is saying this, he still lacks clear vision, and wouldnever have seen vengeance taken upon Cornwall. When Cornwall puts out his eyes, Gloucester’s vision becomes clear from this point on, and he later discovers that Cornwall was killed. Ironically, Gloucester does not see vengeance until after he is blinded. In this sense, Cornwallalso suffers from clouded vision because his death is a direct result of his blinding of Gloucester, when a servant kills him. As a result, Gloucester is spared and his vision is cleared, while Cornwall is left a victim of his own faulty vision. From this point onwards, Gloucester learns to see clearly byusing his heart to see instead of his eyes. It is evident that he realizes this when he says:    I have no way and therefore want no eyes;

I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen,

Our means secure us, and our mere defects

Prove our commodities. (4.1.18-21)

In this, he is saying that he has no need for eyes because when he had them, he could not see clearly. He realizes that when he had eyes, he was confident that he could see, while in reality, he could not see until his eyes were removed. Afterwards, he sees with his mind instead of his eyes. Gloucester’s vision can be contrasted with that of Lear. While Lear has the physical sight that Gloucester lost, Gloucester has the clearer vision that Lear will never gain. When Lear and Gloucester meet near the cliffs of Dover, Lear questions Gloucester’s state:

No eyes in your

head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are

in a heavy case, your purse in a light, yet you

see how this world goes.

Gloucester. I see it feelingly.(4.6.147-151)

Here, Lear cannot relate to Gloucester because his vision is not clear, and he wonders how Gloucester can see without eyes. Although Lear has seen his mistakes, he still believes that sight comes only from the eyes. Gloucester tells him that sight comes from within. Vision is the result of the mind, heart, and emotions put together,not just physical sight. This is a concept that Lear will never understand. In King Lear, clear vision is an attribute portrayed by themain characters of the two plots. While Lear portrays a lack ofvision, Gloucester learns that clear vision does not emanate from theeye. Throughout this play, Shakespeare is saying that the world cannot truly be seen with the eye, but with the heart. The physical world that the eye can detect can accordingly hide its evils with physical attributes, and thus clear vision cannot result from the eye alone.Lear’s downfall was a result of his failure to understand that appearance does not always represent reality. Gloucester avoided a similar demise by learning the relationship between appearance and reality. If Lear had learned to look with more than just his eyes, he might have avoided this tragedy.

The sinful man is the second type of man depicted in the play.As the play opens one can almost immediately see that Lear begins to make mistakes that will eventually result in his downfall.  The very first words that he speaks in the play are :

Give me the map there. Know that we have divided

In three our kingdom, and ’tis our fast intent

To shake all cares and business from our age,

Conferring them on younger strengths while we

rawl to death.(1.1.38-41)

This gives the reader the first indication of Lear’s intent to abdicate his throne. He goes on further to offer pieces of his kingdom to his daughters as a form of reward to his test of love:   Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,

Long in our court have made their amoroussojourn,

And here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters

(Since now we will divest us both of rule,

Interest of territory, cares of state),

Which of you shall we say doth love us most?

That we our largest bounty may extend

where nature doth with merit challenge.(1.1.47-53)

This is the first and most significant of the many sins that he makes in this play. By abdicating his throne to fuel his ego he is disrupts the great chain of being which states that the King must not challenge the position that God has given him.This undermining of God’s authority results in chaos that tears apart Lear’s world. Leaving him, in the end, with nothing.Following this Lear begins to banish those around him thatgenuinely care for him as at this stage he cannot see beyond the mask that the evilwear.He banishes Kent, a loyal servant to Lear, and his youngest and previously most loved daughter Cordelia.This results in Lear surrounding himself with people who only wish to use him which leaves him very vulnerable attack.This is precisely what happens and it is through this that he discovers his wrongs and amends them.

Following the committing of his sins, Lear becomes abandoned and estranged from his kingdom which causes him to loose insanity. While lost in his grief and self-pity the fool is introduced to guide Lear back to the sane world and to help find the lear that was ounce lost behind a hundred knights but now is out in the open and scared like a little child. The fact that Lear has now been pushed out from behind his Knights is dramatically represented by him actually being out on the lawns of his castle.The terrified little child that is now unsheltered is dramatically portrayed by Lear’s sudden insanity and his rage and anger is seen through the thunderous weather that is being experienced.All of this contributes to the suffering of Lear due to the gross sins that he has committed.

The pinnacle of this hell that is experienced be Lear in order to repay his sins is at the end of the play when Cordelia is killed.  Lear says this before he himself dies as he cannot live without his daughter.

Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones.

Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so

That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gonefor ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives.

he’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass.

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.(5.3.306-312)

All of this pain that Lear suffered is traced back to the single most important error that he made.  The choice to give up his throne.  This one sin has proven to have massive repercussions upon Lear and the lives of those around him eventually killing almost all of those who were involved. And one is left to ask one’s self if a single wrong turn can do this to Lear then what difficult corner lies ahead that may cause similar  alterations in one’s life.

The last (but not the least) type of man described in the play is the insane man. Lear’s descent toward madness is foretold further, and more explicitly, when he cries, “O fool, I shall go mad!” (2.4.281). During Act II, the symbolic components in addition to the cruelty of Goneril and Regan surpass Lear’s threshold for sanity and he is thrown out into the elements and left to find himself. Lear after this point will move toward what essential man,stripping himself of the pretense and artifice and assumed importance he has drawn around himself as King and ruler and father.

The theme of madness is explored deeply in Act III, in which  three different forms of madness in three different characters can be seen. King Lear most notably goes, or is driven, to a madness he had predicted in this Act, but he is accompanied by two others whom are meant to be playing fools or madmen but to whom he grants the greatest sincerity. These two men, the two Lear places on the bench of his fictitious jury, are Edgar as poor Tom and Lear’s Fool. Edgar feigns a madness as poor Tom that provides a great contrast to Lear’s actual madness by bringing into question what madness is. Edgar’s character was believable on the level of a mad trickster, a common character in the day who was known to trick others into believing him out of his wits. The reasons which justify his serious plunge into insanity are many as the audience is caused by the actions of his daughters and the indignity he has been shown since giving up his title which could easily drop an old proud former king into madness.

The horrific action of all but two children in the play, Cordelia and Edgar, is summed up in a neat sentence by Gloucester as he enters the hovel to speak to Lear. He cries, “Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile/ That it doth hate what gets it” (3.4.136-137). The vileness, the evil, of Lear’s two daughters and of Edmund is such a betrayal that it has made wish to reject the beings it helped to create. They have forsworn any human tie to their parents in such a vile way that hatred is the only word which can describe the relation. Not only have they stripped him of all dignity, condescendingly and hypothetically turned many of his own knights against him, and thrown him unsheltered out into a raging dangerous storm, but they have finally cut the corner of pretense in which they said they would accept their father if he came without train and resolved to kill their own father who gave them all of his kingdom.

Lear’s fault in facing them was a quick temper and a love quantified into value and material weight. This love could not have always existed in this form because of Lear’s reaction in Act I that Cordelia had been his favorite daughter and that she had never rejected him or his wish previously. Thus, the self-centered plea for love seems to be a fault of old age as well as ego. As Gloucester mentions flesh and blood, Lear’s daughters have turned out for blood and power to which they have no need to battle for but of which they can seemingly not get enough. Their undoing, their evil, is thus based on an arrogant ambition and a horrific filial ingratitude.

This evil leads Lear to his belief that madness on a large scale can only result from the betrayal of daughters. He has sincerely been led astray in his trust and loyalty and thus plunges into a darkness and a madness which the storm, the hovel, and the night quite literally and symbolically portray. Vividly Shakespeare portrays the transformation of man into storm and storm into man as Lear goes mad. Personifying the storm with himself and the children he has begotten, Lear wails, “Rumble thy bellyful. Spit, fire. Spout, rain./ Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters” (3.2.14-15). The storm is given a belly and the elements are compared to daughters. Lear’s conclusion that his madness must be the result of the betrayal of his daughters (3.4.59-61).

In this state of rugged, stripped, essential man, Lear is able to focus on some important human issues that he has overlooked as king. Left to battle the elements of nature and the storms that are its products like the poor, Lear is forced to think on the daily lives of the homeless and his ignorance of the poor’s situation. He comments:

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you

From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en

Too little care of this!(3.4.28-33).

This is a climactic moment for Lear, as he stands on the threshold of madness. He will descend, as soon as he comes face to face with Edgar the reflection of madness he holds as philosophy and wisdom. And perhaps Lear comes much closer to a wisdom of humankind as a result. Madly, he attempts to strip himself naked only moments later before being stopped by the Fool, whose madness when compared with Lear’s becomes simple and superficial as he tries to look out for his master’s safekeeping. In this, it is again easily seen how sane the Fool has been all along and how real Lear’s madness is to make the Fool’s speech become so practical.Lear is trying to physically strip himself of the artifice he has noticed within himself and most of mankind. He wishes to be put on par with poor Tom, a man who has lived much closer, he thinks, to the truth of nature.

Edgar’s character of poor Tom of Bedlam was based on the surreptitious “foul fiend” which plagues Tom constantly, biting at his back and instigating other evils upon him. With a feigned demonic madness, Tom’s character is questioned less by the other characters allowing Edgar to provide commentary through his asides and the irony he often provides, especially in the contrast established between the disguised and acted madness he chooses and the uncontrollable, anguished madness which overtakes Lear. Tom also provides the physical character to represent the man Lear realizes he has ignored during his rule as King of Britain. Immediately after Lear cries out in recognition of his ignorance, he meets poor Tom. This allows Shakespeare to give more distinct meaning to Lear’s, and later Gloucester’s, wish for greater equality among the population in terms of money and favors. Lear exclaims:

Take physic, pomp;

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou mayst shake the superflux to them

And show the heavens more just(3.4.33-36).

Shakespeare here promotes a system where the rich would share their excess, their artifice, with the poor in order to even out the ranks a bit. Lear, in this manner, places himself at an equitable level with Tom and refuses to leave the stormy outdoors for shelter unless he can bring Tom with him. Lear has made his greatest leaps in humane awareness since his descent toward madness and his acquaintance with Tom. He states this for the audience when he remarks,

Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow’st the

worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfumes

Thou art the thing itself; unaccomodated man is no

more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.(2.4.97-102).

Clothing, excesses such as Lear referred to when speaking to Regan and Goneril about the need of his train, is superfluous and a great symbol of the artifice Lear has finally stripped from his body. Lear sees in the naked lunatic someone who has taken nothing wrongfully from anyone, and is the essential human being. Saying that “unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art,” the king rips off his clothes.Later when Cordelia assesses Lear’s condition, she says, he is:

As mad as the vexed sea; singing aloud;
Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With hordocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow. (4.4.2-5)

Lear’s madness, which is indicated here by both his singing and his self-adornment with flowers, is marked by an embrace of the natural world; rather than perceiving himself as a heroic figure who transcends nature, he understands that he is a small, meaningless component of it.

King Lear is not about wrongs being righted.The good survivors see the passing of a man who was larger than life. It is a parable, encrusted with symbolic figures and actions toward a predicted and fabled end. Not surprisingly, spectators can find various kinds of man suffering because of mental blindness, sinful deeds committed against nature and madness described in the play and different ideas about the relationship between human beings and the natural world.

On the figurative and more appropriate level, Lear is a allegorical figure in a parable and must move blindly toward this character demise in order to be resurrected to honesty and the goodness his fallen daughter represents in the end. He committed a fatal and selfish human error which cannot be mended without the journey and transformation he must undergo. He learned the truth only in the storm in Act III when he says that “when we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.” King Lear deals with how children and parents treat each other, whether human society is the product of nature or something they create so as to live better than animals do, and whether human nature is fundamentally selfish or generous.

WORK CITED

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988

Shakespearean Drama

By Fuat ÖZKUL, (May 23, 2006; METU – Ankara)

3. The Winter’s Tale

Leontes’ state of mind is supported with imagery. Discuss.

A Beautiful  Mind!

Leontes’ delusional conviction that his wife and best friend have become lovers causes all of the problems of the play. He abuses his authority as king, bringing ruin and eventual death on his blameless wife and son, as well as the loss of his infant daughter. Although the complication in the play depends basicly on his irrational jealousy, Leontes does not have any convincing reasons. However, his state of mind is supported (poisoned) with imagery. He does not have concrete evidence or clues but his suspicions help or lead him to find satisfactory reasons of his own in his creative mind. He says:

            Too hot, too hot

            To mingle friendship far, is mingling bloods

            I have tremor cordis on me, my heart dances;

            But not for joy, not joy. (1.2. 108-111)

In asides to the audience, Leontes reveals that he is insanely jealous of Polixenes and Hermione. He is convinced that they are secretly committing adultery, although he has no hard evidence on which to base his suspicions. In full view of the others, he asks his young son Mamillius questions loaded with double meanings about whether or not the child is his boy: “ My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius, /Art thou my boy?” (1.2.119- 120). Just a courtly gesture of his wife, giving her hand to Polixenes, causes him to produce evidence in his imagination. Although people at court speak often of how much Mamillius resembles him, he persists in the delusion that the child’s paternity is questionable.

Later when his most trusted advisor Camillo insists that Hermione is innocent, his rage shows unequivocally that he will not have his delusions questioned:

            Is whispering nothing?

            Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?

            Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career

            Of laughter with a sigh? a note infallible

            Of breaking honesty; horsing foot on foot?

            Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? (1.2.284-289)

He dwells obsessively on the idea of being a known cuckold, a man whose wife is an adulterer, although Camillo’s responses indicate that no one at court views the king that way. The images run so fast that he cannot follow them: “My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings/ if this be nothing.” (1.2. 296-297) . Leontes’ grows increasingly furious, and Camillo, seeing the king’s conviction, seems to give in. At Leontes’ expressed desire to see Polixenes dead of poison, he offers to carry out the task.

The spider imagery used by Leontes is especially important to understand how his state of mind is supported with imagery: He states:

How blest am I

In my just censure, in my true opinion!

Alack, for lesser knowledge! how accurst

In being so blest! There may be in the cup

A spider sleept, an done may drink, depart,

And yet partake no venom; for his knowledge

Is not infected: but if one present

Th’abhorred ingredient to his eye, make known

How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides

With violent hefts: I have drunk and seen the spider. (2.1.41-50)

With his diseased mind he produces poisonous and dirty images.If you do not know that the spider is there, as your knowledge is not infected, you can drink it. But if you see the creature after you drink it, you will feel sick and hold your sides to vomit. He interprets Camillo’s flight with Polixenes as conclusive proof of his suspicions, ignoring the fact that if Camillo, Hermione, and Polixenes were innocent Camillo would do exactly the same thing. He now believes that Camillo was a double agent working for Polixenes. Leontes’ delusions isolate him from his family and his court. He removes his wife and son from his company, and he continues to believe in Hermione’s infidelity even though everyone at court thinks the idea is ludicrous. He is completely alone in his suspicions, however the less proof he has, the more crazed he becomes. 

By indulging in his groundless paranoia, Leontes transforms himself from good king to bad king, and a large part of this change comes because of his diseased state of mind supported with imagery. Namely his beautiful mind has played games on him that caused him to fail as a man and ruler.

WORKS CITED

Shakespeare, W.The Winter’s Tale. London: Longmans, Green & Co Ltd., 1959.

Shakespearean Drama

By Fuat ÖZKUL, (May 23, 2006; METU – Ankara)

2. Much Ado About Nothing

Discuss how far Beatrice is an unconventional and how far a conventional girl.

As She Likes It

Beatrice is an unconventional girl because she is the witty, strong-willed, cynical, and courageous. She carries on an insulting witty tournament of words with Benedick, with whom she later falls in love. At the beginning of the play, Leonato declares that there is a “merry war” between Beatrice and Benedick: “They never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them” (1.1.50–51). Beatrice carries on this martial imagery, describing how, when she won the last duel with Benedick, “four of his five wits went halting off” (1.1.53). When Benedick arrives, their witty exchange resembles the blows and parries of a well-executed fencing match.

The “merry war” (1.1.62) between Beatrice and Benedick constitutes the verbal and intellectual comedic elements in the play. They display a carefully matched intelligence, humor, and humanity that is unmatched among the couples who people Shakespeare’s comedies.

Beatrice is an unconventional strong female character who marries only after asserting her disapproval for the traditionally voiceless role of women in marriage of the time..She refuses to marry because she has not discovered  the perfect, equal partner and because she is unwilling to eschew her liberty and submit to the will of a controlling husband.

In her frustration and rage about Hero’s mistreatment, Beatrice rebels against the unequal status of women in Renaissance society. “O that I were a man for his sake! Or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake!” she passionately exclaims. “I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving” (4.1.312–318). She addresses the inequalities of 16th c. marriage and  attacks the patriarchal nature of marriage in society.Marriage is for Beatrice, a logical choice to make the best out of a possibly undesirable social situation for women.

Beatrice is certainly a very unconventional as she is the play’s witty and cynical heroine.She speaks:

What should I do with him—dress him in my

apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman?

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he

that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that

is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is

less than a man, I am not for him. (2.1.28–32)

These lines constitute Beatrice’s witty explanation for why she must remain an unmarried woman and eventually an old maid: there is no man who would be a perfect match for her. Those who possess no facial hair are not manly enough to satisfy her desires, whereas those who do possess beards are not youthful enough for her. Beatrice’s desire for a man who is caught between youth and maturity was in fact the sexual ideal at the time.

One of the most significant lines is when Beatrice tells Benedick to “Kill Claudio” (4.1.287). She asks this as a way for Benedick to prove his love for her. Her demand essentially forces Benedick to choose between the brotherly love of men and the loyalty of a man to his wife. Beatrice knows that she must destroy Benedick’s former male bonding. Her order is therefore a command for Benedick to support her against Claudio, and represents the only way for them to have a mature relationship. Therfore she is really an unconventional girl who wants everything as she likes it.

Yet Beatrice is a conventional girl. Although she appears hardened and sharp, she is really vulnerable. Once she overhears Hero describing that Benedick is in love with her, she opens herself to the sensitivities and weaknesses of love. In addition like most women do she likes eavesdropping. When the women manipulate Beatrice into believing that Benedick adores her, they conceal themselves in the orchard so that Beatrice can better note their conversation. Since they know that Beatrice loves to eavesdrop, they are sure that their plot will succeed: “look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs / Close by the ground to hear our conference,” notes Hero (3.1.24–25. Each line the women speak is a carefully placed note for Beatrice to take up and ponder.

Beatrice’s vow to submit to Benedick’s love by “taming my wild heart to thy loving hand” (3.1.113), suggesting that Benedick is to become Beatrice’s master. Although she is also a confirmed bachelor, she plans to marry Benedick by the end of the play.

WORKS CITED

Shakespeare, W. Much Ado About Nothing. New York: Washington Square Press,1992.

Shakespearean Drama

By Fuat ÖZKUL, (May 23, 2006; METU – Ankara)

1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Discuss how far Helena is a conventional and how far an unconventional girl.

Not With the Eye, But With the Mind

Helena is a conventional girl. She is a prominent, constant and decisive female character. She goes straight for her purpose. However, as she is the lovesick young woman desperately in love with Demetrius, she acts as a fool through the play. She states:

For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne,

He hailed down oaths that he was only mine;

And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,

So he dissolved, and show’rs of oaths did melt.

I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.

Then to the wood will he to-morrow night

Pursue her; and for this intelligence

If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.

But herein mean I to enrich my pain,

To have his sight thither and back again.(1.1.199-206)

Utterly faithful to Demetrius despite her recognition of his shortcomings, Helena sets out to win his love by telling him about the plan of Lysander and Hermia to elope into the forest. Although she is depicted as a tall, beautiful, fair haired girl with long legs, compared to the other lovers, she is extremely unsure of herself, worrying about her appearance and believing that Lysander is mocking her when he declares his love for her. Inadvertently she wakes up Demetrius, on whose eyes Oberon has applied his pansy juice. Demetrius sees her and also falls in love with Helena, saying, “O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!” (3.2.138). In the midst of the quarrel over which man loves Helena more, Hermia arrives.Helena assumes that Hermia is part of the mockery, and chastises her for violating the close friendship which they have enjoyed since childhood.

Helena acts foolishly because of her love for Demetrius.Although he does not love her, she still persists in chasing him as she is too dependent on him. Demetrius says, “I’ll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes, And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts” (2.1. 227-228). “Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair? Or rather do I not in plainest truth Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?” (2.1.199-201) Demetrius clearly illustrates to Helena that he has no interest, but Helena persists. Helena says, “And even for that do I love you the more. I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.” (2.1. 202-204)  “Your virtue is my privilege. For that It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night;” (2.1. 220-222)  This proves that Helena is a  reactive and manipulated,and dependent woman who is not  in charge of her own destiny, but tricked by the schemes of men and scorned or humiliated as a result of male machinations.In sum, her being a dependent and decisive husband hunter makes her a typical Renaissance girl.

However, she is also an unconventional girl.Among the quartet of Athenian lovers, Helena is the one who thinks most about the nature of love, which makes sense, given that at the beginning of the play she is left out of the love triangle involving Lysander, Hermia, and Demetrius. She says,

Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.( 1.1.183-191)
Helena utters these lines as she comments on the irrational nature of love. They are extremely important to the play’s overall presentation of love as erratic, inexplicable, and exceptionally powerful. Distressed by the fact that her beloved Demetrius loves Hermia and not her, Helena says that though she is as beautiful as Hermia, Demetrius cannot see her beauty. Helena adds that she dotes on Demetrius (though not all of his qualities are admirable) in the same way that he dotes on Hermia. She believes that love has the power to transform “base and vile” qualities into “form and dignity”.That is, even ugliness and bad behavior can seem attractive to someone in love. This is the case, she argues, because “love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind” (1.1.190) Love depends not on an objective assessment of appearance but rather on an individual perception of the beloved. Therefore, she is an unconventional girl who philosophizes on the irrational nature of love.

WORKS CITED

Shakespeare, W.A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969.

By Fuat ÖZKUL, (March 16, 2006; METU – Ankara)

 Hamlet is almost synonymous with Shakespeare and English literature in general. Many consider Hamlet to be the crown jewel of Shakespeare’s literary works. It is also  perhaps the best representation of tragedy to be portrayed through theatre. The story of Hamlet forces whoever views it to see how terrible and tragic life can be. It does this by showing all of man’s true failings: a lust for power, a taste for corruption, betrayal and perhaps worst of all, man’s absolute need for vengeance over those who have wronged him. Although Hamlet is a play of revenge, its greatness lies in the unique and thoughtful nature of the prince Hamlet, whose temper is philosophical rather than active. The only flaw that may be attributed to Hamlet is his evasion of the task of revenging his father’s death.

 

The most fundamental issue in Hamlet, one which opens the door to countless readings of the play, can be stated in one simple question: Why does Hamlet delay taking revenge on Claudius? Various answers can be offered to this question, bu this paper will focus on the inner workings of Hamlet’s mind as the primary cause of his procrastination of the task. His evasion of the task and his realization for the evasion is covered by various psychological defensive mechanisms: deep depression, hopelessness to the value of life, dread of death, self accusations, and desperate attempts to excuse procrastination.

 

Hamlet’s depressed. In the very beginning, the guards’ dialogue reflects that “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (1.4. 90). He has to try to find meaning, direction and a stable identity in the midst of this confusion and corruption. Thus, the imagery of decay is used to help comprehend the depression Hamlet feels in his first soliloquy about suicide. “O that this too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,” (1.2. 129-130) Hamlet is basically communicating that he wishes not to exist in this world anymore. His deep depression resulted from his mother’s wrong deeds and his pain and his yearn for death can be felt by the audience. Hamlet continues to say:

 

            Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d

 

His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!

 

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,

 

Seem to me all the uses of this world! (1.2. 132-135).

 

 

Hamlet is so angry to his mother that he even sees her worse than a beast: “O, God! A beast, that wants discourse of reason,/Would have mourn’d longer—married with my uncle,/ My father’s brother, but no more like my father (1.2. 150-152). This is because of her forgetting the  King hamlet so quickly and making a hasty marriage with “a most wicked speed and with such dexterity to incestious sheets” . 1.2. 157-158).

 

The first soliloquy reveals the fact that Hamlet’s mother is at the center of the confusion and corruption that disturbs him. Hamlet is quite upset and his anger and depression stem from his mother’s hasty remarriage to his uncle and her incestuous acts. It’s this emotion that drives out Hamlet’s deep suppressed feelings of anger. His confusion and depression can be noticed when he indicates the time that had passed since his father’s death; “two months: death, nay not so much, not two” (1.2.138), and a few lines later he says “A little month, or ere those shoes were old” (1.2.147). Here his confused mind is playing games on him. In addition, he is expressing his depression while comparing his father’s attitudes towards his mother while he was alive and what his mother did after he had passed away and  could not justify and accept his mother’s bahaviours. Therefore he accused her of forgetting his Hyperion like father so easily and so quickly and committing incestuous deeds. His heart is broken and he is disappointed by his mother’s deeds, so he tries to avoid thinking about it by stating that “Let me not think on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman!” (1.2.146) Hamlet’s growing awareness of the betrayal of his mother and evil of Claudius leads to a deepening depression and perhaps a real  madness.

 

The colours of Hamlet’s clothing may be seen as a sign of his deep depression as well.When Gertrude tells him “Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, /And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.” (1.2.68-69) His reply is important for understanding his depression: “Seems, madam! Nay it is; I know not “seems.”/Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,/Nor customary suits of solemn black,/Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, (1.2.76-80). Hamlet tries to tell how he suffers the devastating loss of his father and he seems to change, alter, and ultimately fall into a deep depression.

 

Here Hamlet states that his outer appeareance reflects his inner situation by saying that “Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, / That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,” (1.2.82-83). Hamlet, also in the revenge soliloquy, reflects his depression after learning the truth about his father’s death:

 

Hold, hold, my heart;

 

And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,

 

But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!

 

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat

 

In this distracted globe (1.5.93-97).

 

 

Here, not only the world but also Hamlet’ heart is distracted as well and a few lines later again calls his mother as “O most pernicious woman! /O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!”(1.5.105-106) showing his anger and disappointment he felt because of her unaccaptable and unjustifiable behaviour.

 

Hamlet does not value life. In his first soliloquy when he contemplates suicide,he states: “O God! God! / How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, / Seem to me all the uses of this world!” (1.2.132-134). Hamlet has suicidal tendencies here and basically communicating that he wishes not to exist in this world anymore. He wants to die and be apart of the ground when he says: “O that this too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,” (1.2.129-130) His pain and his yearn for death can easily be noticed here. Life is no longer meaningful for him and he cannot survive in this sort of corrupted world.

 

Hamlet’s hopelessness to the value of life is clearly viewed while he is talking to Rosencrantz and Guildernstern while they are tyring to understand the real reason of his melancholy:

 

I have of late—but

 

wherefore I know not—lost all my mirth, forgone all

 

custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily

 

with my disposition that this goodly frame, the

 

earth, seems to me a sterile promontory (2.2.291-295).

 

 

Hamlet here states clearly that he has lost all his joy for life and, the earth seems to him a sterile promontory and has become meaningless for him. “And yet, to me,/what is this quintessence of dust?/ Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither”(2.2.306-308). With these lines, he also expresses his dread of death as well.

 

Hamlet has a dread of death. In the well-known ‘to be or not to be soliloquy’, he expresses how fear of death prevents people from doing the things they intend to do, by stating that “conscience does make cowards of us all” (3.1.83) and makes them “lose the name of action” (3.1.87). He alsomentions suicide, and how life is a burden for everyone. Therefore he wants to kill himself by saying that “When he himself might his quietus make/With a bare bodkin?  ” (3.1.75-76). Because he does not want to continue living in a world that is controlled by “The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,/ The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay” (3.1.70-72). However, as Hamlet is too conscious, he cannot kill himself. The “dread of something after death”-purgatory, hell, perhaps is what keeps him alive to avenge his father and perhaps what prevents him  from committing suicide as well.

 

Hamlet’s dread of death is also noticed in the graveyard scene when he is talking to the clowns about the owner of the skulls and philosophizing about their previous and present states. He is deeply influenced when he takes the skull that belongs to Yorick whom he used to knew well and tells Horatio: “Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.”(5.1.182-185) Hamlet later reveals his dread of death directly to Horatio by these lines: “To what base uses we may return, Horatio! /Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of / Alexander, till he find it stopping a bung-hole?” (5. 1.192-194).

 

Hamlet goes on talking about the great historical figures who have turned into dust like The Great Alexander and Imperious Caesar. His speeches about these important names are significant because they reveal the real reason of Hamlet’s dread of death which is not only the fear of becoming the food for the worms but infact fear of being so easily forgotten by the people. His anger to his mother is also caused by her forgetting the old king so easily and quickly, and getting married to her husband’s brother in two months time.He expresses this idea in the play in the play scene, stating that: “how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.” (3.2.121-122) when Ophelia corrects him by saying: “Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.”(3.2.123). “Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year” (3.2.125-127).

 

Hamlet accuses himself for not being able to take his father’s revenge.In the Hecuba soliloquy that begins with; “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!…”(2.2.539) He feels himself guilty because of his inactivity as he even cannot act as well as an actor who acts for Hecuba, so asks What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,/ That he should weep for her? (2.2.548-549) so accuses himself of ‘being dull and muddy-mettled rascal unpregnant of his cause’, even could not act for his king father who was so dear to him:

 

Yet I,

 

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,

 

Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,

 

And can say nothing; no, not for a king,

 

Upon whose property and most dear life

 

A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?(2.2.556-561)

 

 

Hamlet struggles with his conscience about actually killing his uncle. At the same time, He

 

feels guilty that he is not avenging his father’s death and calls himself a coward and “pigeon-liver’d” then goes on insulting his own self with the following sentences:

 

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,

 

That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,

 

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

 

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,

 

And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

 

A scullion! (2.2.573-578)

 

 

Hamlet is being plagued by his low self-image, thus taking no action and contributing even more to his existing problems. He is dissatisfied and angry because of his lack of action as he is in a constant struggle with his conscience and cannot act bravely as the son of a king.However, he chooses the easiest way as usual and goes on talking, as he says unpacking his heart with words.That is, his words speak louder than his actions and this causes frustration and self accusations as he cannot find enough courage to act and take his revenge.

 

Hamlet keeps finding excuses for his procrastination. After the ghost reveals him the truth about the murder, he reacts immediately as if he would really kill Claudius: “So uncle, there you are. Now to my word/ It is adieu, adieu! Remember me. / I have sworn’t” (1.5.111-113). Hamlet’s decision to avenge his father’s death illustrates his impulsiveness. Later, he is unsure of what the ghost represents “May be devil, and the devil hath power” (3.1.554). Thus he feel depressed and cannot decide what to do, so he wants further evidence of Claudius’ guilt before actually killing him, so he arranges a performance that resembles his father’s murder to check on Claudius’ reaction, “The play’s the thing/ Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King” (3.1.559-560). After the play, he talks to Horatio to get his idea and states: “I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?” (3.2.276) Hamlet feels sure about Claudius guilt and when Claudius is praying, he has the opportunity to kill him;

 

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;

 

And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;

 

And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:

 

A villain kills my father; and for that,

 

I, his sole son, do this same villain send

 

To heaven. (3.3.73-78)

 

 Here Hamlet thinks his way out of situations, blaming religion, bad timing, etc., rather than himself and he procrastinate his revenge once again so as not to send him to heaven as he is praying.

 

Hamlet chooses the path of modern man, rather than acting quickly with the passionate fury of anger, deeply analyzing the matter yet to the point of disregarding the action at whole. Despite the fact that all the occasions and events provoke his revenge he still goes on speaking and philosophizing about the nature of man and the meaninglessness of war.“How all occasions do inform against me,/And spur my dull revenge!”(4.4.32-33) However, the time delay caused by Hamlet’s indecision allows Claudius to take precautions that eventually result in more deaths than are necessary to avenge the murder of King Hamlet.

 

Hamlet is a play that has captured the hearts and minds of its readersthrough its timeless themes and brilliant character portrayal. All the psychological defensive mechanisms Hamlet used in the play; such as his depression, devaluation of life, fear of death, accusing himself, and trying to find excuses desperately  for the evasion of his task  are still valid and used by the modern people in their procrastinations of the important decisions for their own lives. Because of this reason, Hamlet endures as the object of universal identification because his central moral dilemma transcends the Elizabethan period, making him a man for all ages.

 

WORK CITED

 

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York: Washington Square Press, 1998.

An Analysis and Discussion of the 17th Century Conceit on John Donne’s
“A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.”

By Fuat ÖZKUL, (December 8, 2005, METU)

A Brief Background Information About Metaphysical Poetry

The term “metaphysical poetry” is used to describe a certain type of 17th century poetry. It was Dr Samuel Johnson who used the term “metaphysical poetry” to describe the specific poetic method used by poets like Donne. Samuel Johnson in The Lives of the Poets (1744), though John Dryden had already pointed out the “Metaphysics” of Donne’s poetry in a critique some fifty years earlier. Both Dryden and Johnson were highly disapproving of the metaphysical poets, regarding their style as too abstracted and far-fetched in its witty comparisons which will be the point of discussion in this paper. Johnson said:

The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

Metaphysical poets are generally in rebellion against the highly conventional imagery of the Elizabethan lyric.  The poets tend to be intellectually complex, and  express their sense of the complexities and contradictions of life in an honest and unconventional manner.  The verse often sounds rough in comparison to the smooth conventions of other poets. Ben Jonson once said that John Donne “deserved hanging” for the way he ran so roughly over the conventional rhythms.  The result is that these poems often lack lyric smoothness, but they instead use a rugged irregular movement that seems to suit the content of the poems.

In addition to challenging the conventions of rhythm, the metaphysical poets also challenged conventional imagery.  Their tool for doing this was the metaphysical conceit which is a poetic idea, usually a metaphor.  Therefore, this paper will try to provide some useful  information about the definition of metaphor so as to clarify the meaning of conceit and then will discuss how it is used by the metaphysical poets of the 17th century by focusing on John Donne’s A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, as he was the acknowledged leader of the metaphysical poets.

Two definitions of metaphor:

1. Metaphor (From Greek, “to carry across”): A comparison that likens two different things by identifying one as the other.

In mathematical symbols, a metaphor would require an equal sign, asserting that A=B, as in “That strange flower, the sun,” a line from Wallace Stevens’ “Gubbinal” that equates the sun with a “strange flower.” Unlike a simile, metaphor does not use linking words (“like,” “as,” “such as”) to indicate similarity between two otherwise different things.

Metaphor, however, is also the general term for any comparison, including simile, metaphor, conceit, and analogy. In his column in Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould writes:

One day, as I sat at an alfresco lunch spot enjoying a view of the Acropolis, a small truck pulled up to the curb and blocked the Parthenon. I was annoyed at first, but later wonderfully amused as I watched the moving men deliver some furniture to the neighboring house. Their van said Metaphora. Of course, I realized. Phor is the verb for “carrying.” And Meta is a prefix meaning “change of place, order, condition, or nature.” A moving truck helps you change the order of something by carrying it from one spot to another—and is surely a metaphor. . . . A metaphor carries you from one object (which may be difficult to understand) to another (which may be more accessible and therefore helpful, by analogy, in grasping the original concern).

Metaphors, as Gould asserts, are “carriers” which help readers make “imaginative leaps.” But it is the poet who must be the moving man, covering that distance, transporting the goods.

I.A. Richards invented the terms tenor and vehicle to denote the two parts of a metaphor. The tenor is the literal subject; the vehicle is the figurative connection, the likeness, the thing that is compared to the subject or the carrier—like the moving van Steven Jay Gould saw in Greece. For example, the first stanza of Robert Lowell’s “For the Union Dead,” contains a metaphor “a Sahara of snow”; the tenor is snow, while the vehicle is the Sahara desert. The terms can apply to similes as well. In Robert Burns’ line, “O my luve’s like a red red rose,” the tenor is “my love” and the vehicle is “a red red rose.”

When a metaphor is extended and elaborated (like the image of “twin compasses” John Donne presents through twelve lines of “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”), it is a conceit. (Drury, 158-159)

2. Metaphor (Greek “transference”): . . . is a trope, or figurative expression, in which a word or phrase is shifted from its normal uses to a context where it evokes new meanings. When the ordinary meaning of a word is at odds with the context, we tend to seek relevant features of the word and the situation that will reveal the intended meaning. If there is a conceptual or material connection between the word and what it denotes—e.g. using cause for effect (“I read Shakespeare,” meaning his works) or part for whole (“give me a hand,” meaning physical help)—the figure usually has another name (in these examples, metonymy and synedoche respectively). To understand manuscripts, one must find meanings nor predetermined by language, logic, or experience. In the terminology of traditional rhetoric, these figures are “tropes of a word,” appearing in a literal context; in “tropes of a sentence,” the entire context is figurative, as in allegory, fable, and (according to some) irony. (Preminger, 760)

Donne and Metaphor in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

In his poem A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (Valediction), John Donne relates, in verse, his insights on the human condition of love and its relationship to the soul through the conceit of drawing compasses.

Donne brings the reader a separation of body and soul in his first stanza:

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No;

This seems to say that the soul is not a part of the body, and it is only combined with the body until death, when it “goes”. The use of the word “whisper” suggests that the soul and body can communicate with one another as separate entities. Furthermore, the word “virtuous” implies that “un-virtuous” men may not be able to whisper to their souls. Fortunately for the speaker, he seems to be a virtuous man, so this certainly applies. The separation of body and soul is an essential concept to the poem as it progresses, and it must be accepted for his entire argument to work. Donne explicates this in later stanzas. The fact that the “friends” disagree on this separation of body and soul requires more explanation, but perhaps Donne is acknowledging that people do not generally agree with his assumptions.

Donne describes the two souls of the lovers being intermixed, and the bodies as separate. Starting at line 21, this becomes a motif that continues throughout the poem: “Our two souls therefore, which are one, / Though I must go, endure not yet / A breach, but an expansion . . .” Even death cannot separate Donne’s lovers because the soul, separate from the body (as alluded to in the opening stanza) is the receptacle of love, and it does not die. Instead of complete separation, the speaker describes what happens as he “goes” as an “expansion”. The expansion is explained by his analogy of compasses, but the mixing is made by his comparisons to liquid beginning at line 5. Donne makes use of the metaphor here to simplify his vision of “the soul” as something that can be melted, melted from what, he does not say, nevertheless, the reader can visualize a liquid, and he makes use of this. His use of the word silent suggests that unlike liquids, which make sound when moved, the soul makes no noise, and is something more like direct sublimation into vapor. The liquid metaphor yields images of flow and mixing; one might perceive a solution of two different substances, oil and water for instance; although they have not become one at the most elemental levels, they can be held in the same container and would be very difficult to separate completely. Furthermore, the silence indicates that the souls do not use speech, like “sigh-tempests”, line 6, to make their love known. This apparently conflicts with the opening stanza where the soul can communicate with speech, but Donne infers that while the body may speak to the soul, two souls do not need speech to demonstrate magnificent love.

The metaphors of earthquakes, line 9, and celestial spheres, line 11, add to the reader’s understanding of the lovers’ relationship by adding specific details about the magnitude of the love. The “moving of th’ Earth” and “trepidation of the spheres” show great dimension and force of an extraordinary nature, almost beyond the human understanding. Donne uses these to explain how two different and gigantic events can either bring “harms and fears”, or “innocence”, which add to the theme of silent mixing. If celestial spheres (the largest structures imaginable) can shake with “innocence”, then the souls may likewise share their love in silence, without the tumultuous rumblings of earthquakes, which “men” try to interpret. The contrast between the magnitude of earthquakes and celestial trepidation is likened to the love between two bodies and two souls. The souls, of course, are “greater far” in their capacity to love silently than the bodies.

While the early language of the poem relates lover’s souls as one, the possibility of separated bodies, yet a single mixed soul, is described:

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed root, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

The conclusion of the poem is that the soul, or “fixed root” can never be separated like the bodies. Furthermore, while the lover’s bodies are separated by great distance, they will be like the compass in that the points are wide, but the handle joins them. By using the bodies as the tenor, and a compass as the vehicle for his conceit, Donne argues that the lovers’ bodies are physically separated, but the two are joined by the soul, or “fixed root”. The distance, therefore, is insignificant since they are only spread out and not broken off—there is still a firm connection between them.

Donne uses the entire length of Valediction to make his point, which is carefully constructed like a geometric proof. He first asserts that when men pass away, the soul separates. Once the assumption is made that the soul is separate from the body, he tells us that the soul is mixed like a silent liquid, but that the silence does not make it any less magnificent. Finally, having made these assertions, the compass is used to illustrate the concept. The summation of the argument is that, having accepted the previous statements, his love should not worry about his impending journey:

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness make my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

The speaker states that he is like the “other foot” and must go away, but his strong love will only cause the soul, or fixed root, to lean a bit, like the handle of a compass when drawing large circles. It is precisely the strength, or “firmness” of her love that makes the comparison perfect, so that he comes full circle to return like the other leg of a stiff compass.

In conclusion, the metaphysical conceit uses some sort of shocking or unusual comparison as the basis for the metaphor. Typical metaphysical conceits come from a wide variety of areas of knowledge: coins (mintage); alchemy; medieval philosophy and angelology; (see e.g. Donne’s Air and Angels, meteorology (“sighs are blasts, tears are floods”); mythology (the Phoenix’s riddle, the river Styx); government (“she is the state, he is the Prince” from Donne’s The Sun Rising); travelling (Donne’s Go and Catch a Falling Star); astronomy; metallurgy (“gold to airy thinness beat”); geometry (the twin compasses); law; geography; zoology (Donne’s The Flea). Therefore, when it works, a metaphysical conceit has a startling appropriateness that makes the readers look at something in an entirely new way. The classic metaphysical conceit is, as discussed in this paper above, Donne’s comparison of the union between two lovers to the two legs of a compass in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Donne’s comparison of his union with his lover to the draftsman’s compass in Valediction is very successful because it gives us not only a perception of a real but also a previously unsuspected similarity, that is therefore enlightening.

Conceits often were so farfetched as to become absurd, degenerating in the hands of lesser poets into strained ornamentation. With the advent of Romanticism they fell into disfavour along with other poetic artifices. In the late 19th century they were revived by the French Symbolists and are commonly found, although in brief and condensed form, in the works of such modern poets as Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound.

Metaphysical Poetry was to have a significant influence on 20th-century poetry, especially through T. S. Eliot whose essay The Metaphysical Poets (1921) helped bring it back into favour.

Works Cited

Donne, John. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 6th ed. Vol. 1. M. H. Abrams Gen. ed. New York, London: Norton. 2 vols. 1993.

Drury, John. The Poetry Dictionary. Cincinnati: Story Press, 1995.

The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan. New York: MJF Books-Princeton UP, 1993.

Internet Sources

http://www.bartleby.com/65/fi/figuresp.html

http://spider.georgetowncollege.edu/english/allen/donne2.htm

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/metaphysical.htm