Claudine’s Blog

The Victorian Era is well known as a period of Industrial and economic improvement. Another reason for its popularity is that the reign of Queen Victoria was the longest in British history.

Women in the Victorian Age were educated to be mothers and housekeepers. They were seen as dolls: pure, sacred, and clean. Especially women from upper classes were educated to be ladies: they learned subjects like drawing, playing the piano, languages (French, German), painting, singing, and dancing. They had a static role in Victorian society. They were not allowed to express their opinions and to make choices about their lives: their families or husbands did it for them.

However, Oscar Wilde with his irreverent and provocative writing, created to female characters that break some gender rules of Victorian Era. They did not respect their social role and all the gender rules of that time. They are Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew.

In the play The importance of being Earnest, Gwendolen and Cecily are completely different from each other. Cecily is the antithesis of Gwendolen. Gwendolen is a mature woman and Cecily is an ingenuous girl. But they share a peculiarity: they break the gender rules of the Victorian Era. Let`s see through the play how they do this.

Gwendolen is a typical lady of Victorian Era: she is well educated and elegant. But she is not submissive to the values that society used to impose at that time. She expresses her opinion and impressions freely and in a very direct way as we can see in this passage:

[act I, p.263]

Gwendolen: Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.

She was educated to get married by her mother, Lady Bracknell, who is a stereotypical woman of Victorian Age. Miss Fairfax is aware of her future but she did not wait for her parent’s decision about a marriage. She decides by herself to get married with Earnest (Jack). She did not ask her mother about this (by the way, she did it twice: in the first and third acts):

[act I, p.265]

Gwendolen: Yes, Mr. Worthing, what have you got to say to me?

Jack: You know what I have got to say to you.

Gwendolen: Yes, but you don’t say it.

Jack: Gwendolen, will you marry me?

Gwendolen: Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose.

Her mother did not accept this marriage. At that time marriage was business, there were lots of interests involved in it. But Gwendolen is interested in the name of her future husband, Earnest. According to her, Earnest is a name that “inspires absolute confidence”. It will become a problem to Jack in the second act…

In the other hand, Cecily is an ingenuous girl, who lives in a romantic world created in her diary with her ideal dreams.  But she is also an example of woman who breaks the gender rules of Victorian Era. She is not a doll as she is supposed to be. She does not like studying languages and reading “novels that end happily”:

[act II, p.274]

Cecily: But I don’t like German. It isn’t at all a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson.

[act II, p.276]

Cecily: Horrid Political Economy! Horrid Geography! Horrid, horrid German!

Cecily shows her ingenuity when she expresses her anxiety in meeting someone who is wicked, in this case, Mr. Earnest Worthing, her cousin:

[act II, p.277]

Cecily: I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else.

As Gwendolen, Cecily expresses freely her ideas and opinions:

[act II, p.279]

Cecily: Oh,I don’t think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.

She is also fascinated with the name Earnest, the reason why she decides to get married with her cousin. She decides to get married by herself, as Miss Fairfax. But her marriage has something peculiar: even the husband didn’t know that he was engaged with her wife. Cecily decided to get married with Earnest since her Uncle Jack talked about his “wicked and bad brother”.

As we can see, Gwendolen and Cecily break the gender rules of the Victorian Era because they do not behave as dolls as they were supposed to do. They decide to get married without the consent of their families. They manipulate Jack and Algernon and express their ideas and opinions.

When I read this sentence in the scene II of the play The Glass Menagerie, which was written by Tennessee Williams, I immediately though: “Jim was so sensitive, lovely, and sweet!”

But I was wrong! The nickname Blue Roses has nothing to do with my romantic ideas as we can notice in the following sayings:

Amanda: Why did he call you such a name as that?

Laura: When I had that attack of pleurosis – he asked me what was the matter when I came back. I said pleurosis – he thought that I said Blue Roses! So that’s what he always called me after that.”

It frustrated all my romantic expectations!

For Jim, Laura is Blue Roses only because of a misunderstanding. Deception!

But if we analyze it deeply we will realize that the meaning of Blue Roses has a lot to do with Laura’s characteristics.

First of all, Blue Roses are very rare, they do not exist in nature, but they are created by genetic modifications. They are considered special flowers by their beauty and uniqueness. On the play, Jim describes Laura as an “old-fashioned type of girl” because she is very shy. He considers “that’s a pretty good type to be”. By his reflection about Laura we can notice a similarity between Blue Roses and the shy girl: both are different from the others of their species and this aspect makes them rare and unique.

It is also important to notice the relation between physical characteristics of Laura and Roses. Both are fragile and need special care. Laura is lame, what is considered by her mother a “little defect”, but for Laura it represents an impossibility to be a normal girl. She is insecure and fragile because of this problem. Flowers are by nature fragile too. They need to be protected. Amanda protects Laura as a Rose. Her mother wants to marry Laura because she is thinking on her fragility and in her need of protection.

Roses also represent love, witch is a paradox: it is a good feeling but it can also hurt. Roses are beautiful flowers and represent the perfection of nature, but they protect themselves with their thorns. Laura is as sweet and beautiful as Roses but she protects herself from the other. Shyness is her thorn.

Blue is also a meaningful detail on the play. Culturally, blue is a color that connotes sadness and depression. Laura is not a happy girl. Her behavior is melancholic. She devotes a solitary love to her glass menagerie, which is as fragile as she is. She also likes playing the vittrola, what is an unusual behavior for a girl in that time.

Beyond Laura’s characteristics, the color blue also reflects the situation of American people during the Great Depression in the 30′s. It was a time without hope. They only had movies to make then better for a while.

Macbeth shows us that he is an ambitious man when he asks for more information about the Weird Sisters’ prediction. He was not satisfied with those enigmatic words:

• Act I, Scene 3, l.68

(Macbeth) “Stay, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more.”

• Act I, Scene 3, l.76

(Macbeth) “… Speak, I charge you.”

Involved with these words and in doubts about their meaning, he starts to think on how they could become true. But he is betrayed by his thoughts once they are dark thoughts:

• Act I, Scene 3, l.126-141

(Macbeth) “If good, why do I yield to that suggestion,

Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair

And make my seated heart knock at my ribs

Against the use of nature? Present fears

Are less horrible imaginings.”

Even with this kind of thoughts he is not able to go ahead and realize them. He gives them up because he thinks on the consequences of his acts. He is aware about them:

• Act I, Scene 4, l. 50-54

(Macbeth) “Stars, hide your fires,

Let not light see my black and deep desires,

The eye wink at the hand. Yet let that be,

Which the eye fears when it is done to see.”

But for Duncan’s despair, Macbeth is not alone. He has his “dearest partner of greatness”, Lady Macbeth. She is as guilty as Macbeth in the murder of the king. He had the first evil thoughts but she used all sort of arguments to convince her husband to kill Duncan. She manipulates Macbeth because she knows his “human kindness”:

• Act I, Scene 5, l.13-16

(Lady Macbeth) “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be

What thou art promised; yet do I fear thy nature,

It is too full o’th’milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way.”

When she receives Macbeth’s letter she starts to think about a “nearest way” to become queen. Macbeth is ambitious, but she is more than that, she is greedy. She recognizes that Macbeth is ambitious, but without the illness, the obsession that is necessary for her plans. However she is naïve as well. She does not worry about the consequences as if they were not important if she and Macbeth achieve the crown. She is involved by the Evil. Evil is already in her thoughts:

• Act I, Scene 5, l 23-28

(Lady Macbeth) “Hie thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear

And chastise with the valour of my tongue

All that impedes thee from the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crowned withal.”

• Act I, Scene 5, l. 38-45

(Lady Macbeth) “Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here

And fill me from the crown to the toe topfull

Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,

Stop up th’access and passage to remorse

That no compunctious visitings of nature

Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between

Th’effect and it.”

She does not hear Macbeth’s reasons to be afraid of killing Duncan. She is cold and objective. She asks him about his masculinity and her arguments concern about Macbeth’s virility:

• Act I, Scene 7, l. 31-34

(Macbeth) “We will proceed no further in this business.

He hath honoured me of late, and I have bought

Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,

Not cast aside so soon.”

• Act I, Scene 7, l. 58

(Macbeth) “If we should fail?”

(Lady Macbeth) “ We fail?”

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,

And we’ll not fail.”

There are lots of other aspects we can discuss to prove Lady Macbeth’s guiltiness in the murder of Duncan. By these we exposed in this post we can see how Lady Macbeth is as guilty as Macbeth in the murder of the king.

Claudine Faleiro Gill

In the poem “To Counter Malthus”, written by Margaret Avison, we can notice a poetic voice, which argues against Malthus’ hypothesis. His hypothesis is famous because it concerns with the idea that population growth always exceeds growth of means of subsistence. The ‘solution’ proposed by Malthus to solve this ‘problem’ was that poor people were not allowed to have any kind of medical care or healthy assistance. For him, the ‘Nature’ was responsible to solve the problem, because the poor people got sick and died naturally.

Margaret Avison is against the discrimination that there is in this hypothesis. So, she wrote the poem “To Counter Malthus”, which we will analyze stanza by stanza now.

To Counter Malthus

 

None us in this so

burdened earth has known

how to live, let alone

who is too many.

 

Presence, each day

afresh, you give a

purifying signal to

sting us alive.

 

Vast territories and seashores

still bear these thronging

strangers. May none die

without somebody caring.

 

To know even one other is

costly. And being known.

Alive, among so many

more now? a concern…

 

Hunger makes men desperate, threatens

to congeal the quandary. Yet

Presence abides untouched

in the churn of Quantity.

We will start analyzing the title: “To Counter Malthus”

In the title we already have a tip about what we will see on the whole poem: a reply to Malthus trying to prove that what he said and thought was not true.

Stanza 1

“None us in this so

burdened earth has known

how to live, let alone

who is too many.”

The poetic voice in the first stanza criticizes Malthus’ idea, which considered possible to separate the rich people from the poor people. At first, the poetic voice includes himself in the population who do not know how to live, as if this clamour was in name of everybody. We can notice it by the use of the pronoun ‘us’. It also causes an effect that makes the poem seems like a direct dialogue. This dialogue in this first stanza is with Malthus, who is included in the population when the poet uses the pronoun ‘us’.

So, the poetic voice order to Malthus: “…let alone / who is too many”. The imperative form causes the ordering effect and confirms the direct dialogue.

We will also analyze the punctuation, which is very important in Margaret Avison’s poetry. The comma, for example, in this stanza introduces the imperative voice and shows us a critical tune in this poor people defense.

The description of the earth as a burdened earth shows us the negative situation of this miserable people: there is suffering and pain in their lives and we do not know what to do to help them to have better life conditions.

Stanza 2

“Presence, each day

afresh, you give a

purifying signal to

sting us alive.”

 

In the second stanza, we have a change in the dialogue. The poetic voice now talks with God, who is called in the poem as Presence. This name is very much significant in the poem because it shows the grandiosity of God, which we can not see but that we can feel near and protecting us. The poetic voice thanks Presence for the ‘purifying signals’ that He gives us to relieve this ‘burdened earth’ and for His touch of hope to help people go on even with these problems.

In this stanza the poetic voice again uses the pronoun ‘us’ to show that everybody is part of the same, there is not differentiation among people for God. Nobody is alone or separated from the others for God.

The punctuation in this stanza is just to separate the vocative Presence.

Stanza 3

“Vast territories and seashores

still bear these thronging

strangers. May none die

without somebody caring.”

 

The poetic voice says that the world still bear these strangers. These ‘strangers’ are the marginalized and excluded people, who are too many. Post modernity thoughts are moved by Globalization, which concerns with the Capitalism ideals. So, they do not produce anything important to Capitalist society (money, profit); they just consume food. Because of this they are considered a problem in Malthus’ hypothesis. The last two lines are clearly a prayer, the poetic voice asks God to do not let these people die alone without any care or protection:

“May none die

without somebody caring.”

 

Stanza 4

“To know even one other is

costly. And being known.

Alive, among so many

more now? a concern…”

 

The poetic voice continues talking about the human being nature that is so selfish. To know someone means lost time and as we know, “time is money” in our Capitalist society. The second sentence reinforces this idea:  being known is costly too, because it means that we have to pay attention to the others, and to have responsibilities with them. It represents the way we live: we are the entire time surround by a lot of people, and we sometimes talk with them, but they are nothing for us, we do not consider them important for our life.

         The ending of this stanza concludes the problem: it is difficulty to be part of the dominated group as well to be part of the dominator group. Nowadays, to be alive is much more difficult among so much people. The poetic voice’s reflection is that it is a concern, which we have to be worried about.

Stanza 5

“Hunger makes men desperate, threatens

to congeal the quandary. Yet

Presence abides untouched

in the churn of Quantity.”

 

         In this last stanza we have the main representation of the Poverty: Hunger. It is a concern to the human being. But even with all these problems, we can not forget that God (Presence) is bigger than them and He abides everybody who trusts in his grandiosity. He is taking care of this ‘churn of Quantity’. This last expression is ironic in relation to the Malthus’ hypothesis. ‘Churn’ is generally referred to low quality materials, as Malthus considered poor people, such an inferior race, objects or animals. And the word ‘Quantity’ written with the capital letter has an important reason: it personifies this quantity, which represents here, the poor people who were excluded since Malthus’ time until today.

         The word ‘yet’ shows that God is above all these problems and these threats. So, for God it is not important how much money you have or how important you are: He is taking care of everybody who trusts in his caring.

A Thunderstorm

By Archibald Lampman

A moment the wild swallows like a flight
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
The hurrying centres of the storm unite
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
Tower darkening on. And now from heaven’s height,

With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
Column on column comes the drenching rain.

In the poem “A Thunderstorm”, by Archibald Lampman we can see a detailed description of a thunderstorm since its beginning with all its movements in the sky and its final consequences in the Canadian landscape.

Let’s see how the poet does this analysing the sonnet:

The first verses present the sky being prepared to receive a storm:

“A moment the wild swallows like a flight
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.”

In this point, we are also prepared to imagine and to feel the storm. We are led to see the sky in our imagination, to fell the wind in our face, and to hear the mutterings made by the wind and the birds in the sky. This is a characteristic of the Lampman’s poems: he describes a moment of the nature with all its details that it seems a photography made with words. Because of this, he is considered an Impressionist poet. He uses a lot of images and the five senses to lead us in his poetry. The wind is showed by the movement of the birds, which are called in a metaphorical way as “withered leaves”. This image implies some sounds, which at this moment are mutterings of the sky. They are not loud sounds yet. The word “serenely” implies that the situation of the sky is until calm in spite of the “gust-caught leaves”. Sight, hearing and touch are used to make us fell the situation at that moment in the sky.

These next three verses continue showing the growth of the storm. Now, we have a stronger scene with the “hurrying centres” of the storm in the sky:

“The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
The hurrying centres of the storm unite
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,”

The storm has already begun and the sky is suffering the turbulence of the clouds getting together.

The colours that appear in this part of the poem are referred to the twilight, which is “weird” according to the poet. We can imagine an unusual twilight, a darker one because of the storm. There is a little bit of light yet, but the clouds are blocking almost totally this light. So, the sunset becomes dark.

P.s.: I became anxious in this part of the poem; I realized that I was waiting the storm! And it seemed to be so strong that I became nervous and anguished…So readers, let’s take our umbrellas and watch the rest of the thunderstorm:

“Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
Tower darkening on.”

The words “rolling” (in the previous verse), “wheeled” and “hinge” help us to create the format of the storm in the sky. I imagined a lot of clouds in format of wheels and all of them making many spirals connected to the sky. (If I draw it would be easier to explain to you…)

“Tower darkening on” is a verse that represents the sky, which is now a dark tower of storm. There is a great movement in this part of the poem, which is the storm taking all the sky and becoming stronger and stronger.

“…And now from heaven’s height,

With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed”

Now, we discover the point of view of the poetic voice. It is a view from up to down. He sees from heaven’s height all the damages caused by the storm in the landscape. These verses show that the storm is very strong in the sky as well its damages in the landscape. We can see it when the poetic voice says that the “elm-trees swept and swayed”. Again, the poet leads our sight to imagine his view of the landscape.

“And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
Plunges the blast.”

Here we have a perfect description of the thunder. The poet used words with the occlusive consonants p and b (pelted, plain, plunges, blast), which causes in an aloud reading the same explosion we have in the thunder. This is called alliteration.

We are able to see and to hear the thunder at this moment:

“Behind the wild white flash
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,”

After the explosion, the poet describes the lights of the “thunder-crash” as a “wild white flash”. It shows that the lights were so strong than the noise of the thunder.

“Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
Column on column comes the drenching rain.”

These last two verses describe the consequences of the thunderstorm in the landscape and they show the damage caused by the violence of the thunderstorm. The thunderstorm left messy gardens and everything wet.

Analysing the formal aspects of the poem, we have a sonnet, which is a poetic form that comprises 14 rhyming lines of equal length. “A Thunderstorm” was build with iambic pentameters. The iambic pentameter consists of verses with five feet. Each iambic foot has an unstressed and a stressed syllable. The iambic pentameter establishes the rhythm in each line. Here we have the scansion of the iambic pentameter in the Archibald Lampman’s poem:

-     /    -     /     -       /       -   /    -   /

A moment the wild swallows like a flight

–    /        -    /       -         /        -    /  -    /

Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high

-     /   –       /     -     /   -       /      -   /

Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky

And the rhymes in this sonnet follow the scheme:

A moment the wild swallows like a flight A
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high, B
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky. B
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight, A
The hurrying centres of the storm unite A
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe, C
Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge, C
Tower darkening on. And now from heaven’s height, A

With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed, D
And pelted waters, on the vanished plain E
Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash F
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash, F
Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed, D
Column on column comes the drenching rain. E

The poet R.S. Thomas in “Welsh History” shows his view of the past, present, and future of the Welsh people.

R. S. Thomas presents the past of the Welsh people, unfortunately, a “red past” because of the colonization wars. They suffered a lot fighting for their land; they died in honor of their masters, and they live in bad conditions until today in consequence of this warrior past. Even so, we can notice in the poem some traits which show their proudness of their suffered past.

“We fought, and were always in retreat,
Like snow thawing upon the slopes
Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger
Never found our ultimate stand
In the thick woods, declaiming verse
To the sharp prompting of the harp.”

The Welsh people were in disadvantage in the fights, they were “always in retreat”, but even so, they were not totally defeated by the “stranger”. Somehow, they got to keep their tradition, their culture, their History, and they are proud of this. The poet shows it in a metaphorical way in this part of the poem:

“…(the colonizers) Never found our ultimate stand
In the thick woods, declaiming verse
To the sharp prompting of the harp.”

The colonizers won the war against the Welsh people, but not against their culture (music, poetry, and the language) and their tradition (Celtic past and heroes), which they got to maintain. They continued “declaiming verse / To the sharp prompting of the harp.”

The present of the Welsh people, according to R. S. Thomas, has been based on the consequences of their warrior past. Their poverty and painful life as a dominated people are described by the poet in the verses:

“The great were ashamed of our loose rags
Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree
Of blood and birth, our lean bellies
And mud houses were a proof
Of our ineptitude for life.”

They keep until today their Welsh traditions and they were living on the legends. The poet says:

“We were a people bred on legends,
Warming our hands at the red past.”

These verses represent the present life of the Welsh people. They do not developed; they continue living as colonized people. They continue fighting for their culture, obstinate in honor of their masters and their past. In consequence of this, they do not advance, they stopped in time. These battles, according to the poet, do not matter anymore:

“We were a people wasting ourselves
In fruitless battles for our masters,
In lands to which we had no claim,
With men for whom we felt no hatred.”

The poet’s view about the Welsh people future shows an optimistic perspective. In the verses:

“When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs
Under the table, or gnawing the bones
Of a dead culture, we will arise
And greet each other in a new dawn
Armed, but not in the old way.”

the poet beliefs they have to continue fighting, but now, they have to recover their dignity, their honor in a not weaponed war. They have to change their behavior to do this. They have to realize that they have to fight for better conditions of life instead of fighting for their dead past. It will just happen when they had finished the time of mourning for their “dead culture”.

Welsh History

by R.S. Thomas

We were a people taut for war; the hills
Were no harder, the thin grass
Clothed them more warmly than the coarse
Shirts our small bones.
We fought, and were always in retreat,
Like snow thawing upon the slopes
Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger
Never found our ultimate stand
In the thick woods, declaiming verse
To the sharp prompting of the harp.
Our kings died, or they were slain
By the old treachery at the ford.
Our bards perished, driven from the halls
Of nobles by the thorn and bramble.
We were a people bred on legends,
Warming our hands at the red past.
The great were ashamed of our loose rags
Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree
Of blood and birth, our lean bellies
And mud houses were a proof
Of our ineptitude for life.
We were a people wasting ourselves
In fruitless battles for our masters,
In lands to which we had no claim,
With men for whom we felt no hatred.
We were a people, and are so yet.
When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs
Under the table, or gnawing the bones
Of a dead culture, we will arise
And greet each other in a new dawn
Armed, but not in the old way.

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