The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe: summary part III

The other secular event, which they simply called anniversary, was the annual commemoration of the coming of the Gospel to Igbo land , on July 27 1857. It is reported that Bishop Adjai Crowther and his missionary team, who arrived in Onitsha on that day. The day was heavily beaten by rain, and as a result every anniversary celebration has been ruined by bad weather. The good news is that the school children were always fed new Yams and Stew at the anniversary celebration. For most of the students it was their first taste of juicy new yam for the year. 

White people were a rare sight in the British colonised Nigeria, whether in the administration, church or in commerce. But this rareness did not diminish their authority. Onitsha province of British resident was under the Captain O’Connor, Achebe saw him only twice from a distance. The Bishop on the Niger, Reverend Bertram Lasbrey came to their church perhaps once in two or three years. His sermon left him disappointed. Perhaps he thought that a Bishop must set congregation ablaze. Perchance it was the problem of having to preach through an interpreter.

 

Further Achebe explains the customary education system in Onitsha. “Elementary education began with two years in infant school and six years in primary school. For some children there was a preschool year in what was called religious school, where they spent a year chanting and dancing the catechism”. But he spared it as he gained the adequate amount of religious education at home from the daily portion of the Bible they read at prayer time in every morning and night.

 

Later, he recollects the incidents associated to the second world war. The Second World War began just as he was finishing his second year in primary school, that is, in Standard Two. The rest of his primary education happened against its distant background. But it got close one morning when two white people and their assistants came to their school and conscripted (compulsory enlistment to military service) our art teacher. They were loyal to Britain and did what they could to help. He remembers the campaign to increase the production of palm kernels for the war effort. Their headmaster told them that every kernel they collected in the bush would buy a nail for Hitler’s coffin. As the war continued, supplies for home and school became more and more scarce. Salt was severely rationed, and disappeared from the open market.

 

He sings a  war song entitled “Germany is falling”

“Germany is falling, falling, falling

Germany is falling to rise no more.

If you are going to Germany before me

Germany is falling to rise no more

Tell Hitler I’m not coming there

Germany is falling to rise no more.”

He talks about his secondary schools education that  he had two choices for secondary school, the very popular Dennis Memorial Grammar School, a C.M.S. institution in Onitsha, or Government College, Umuahia, much farther away and much less known to him. His elder brother John, a teacher who had taken Achebe to live with him in his last year of primary school, decided he should go to Umuahia. It was not the decision he would have made himself. But John turned out to be, as usual, absolutely right about the decision.

 

The British colonial administration had established two first class boarding schools for boys in Nigeria in the decade following the end of the first world war, one at Ibadan and the other  at Umuahia. Robert Fisher was the founding Principal of Government college of Umuahia and the college opened its door in 1929. The college reached at the peaks of excellence by the time Fisher retired 8 years later. After the advent of second world war the government college Umuahiya was closed down and its buildings turned over to a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian nationals. Then, the campus was returned to education and ready to accept my generation of students in 1944.

 

Their new principal William Simpson, a Cambridge man in the colonial education service did a great effort to rebuild the school. He was of the opinion that “excessive devotion to book work is a real danger”. Though Simpson was a mathematics teacher, he made a rule which prompted the reading of novels and prohibited the reading of any text books after classes on the weekend. He called it the Text book Act. Under the draconian (harsh) law, students could read fictions or biographies or magazines and so on.

 

The government college of Umuahia played a significant role in the development of modern African literature. The notable alumni of the college were Christopher Okigbo, Gabriel Okara, Elechi Amadi and Ken Saro Wiwa etc.

 

When Achebe was in first or second year at Umuahia, the labour government in Britain decided to establish a university in West Africa. Afterwards a commission was formed under Walter Elliot. They were sent to survey the situation on the ground. The commission spent a whole weekend at their school. Most of them came to chapel service on Sunday morning, but Julian Huxley, the biologist, roamed over extensive grounds watching birds with binoculars. The Elliot commission report led to the foundation of Nigeria’s first University institution: a university college at Ibadan in special relationship with London.  By that time he was ready for university education and no longer a British protected child but a British protected person.

 

One of the most remarkable teachers he encountered at Ibadan was James Welch, professor of religious studies. He played many roles as the as the head of religious broadcasting at the BBC in London, Chaplain (clerk) to the king and a principal of a theological college.

 

In his final year at Ibadan, he once had a chance to discuss with Professor Welch one of a growing number of disagreements the students were beginning to have with the college. He was then vice principal. In some exasperation he said to me, “We may not be able to teach you what you want or even what you need. We can only teach you what we know.”   

 

“Even in exasperation, James Welch stayed calm and wise. What else can an honest and conscientious teacher teach but what he knows? The real teachers I have had in my life have been people who did not necessarily know what my needs would ultimately be but went ahead anyhow in good faith and with passion to tell me what they knew, leaving it to me to sort out whatever I could use in the search for the things that belonged to my peace. Because colonialism was essentially a denial of human worth and dignity, its education program would not be a model of perfection…”

 

Through the essay he wants to suggest that human affairs are unpredictable. On the other hand he doesn’t want to make protest against the harsh humiliations of colonial rule.

 

Again, he shares his memories of the Reverend Robert Fisher. Technically he was on the side of colonizers, he was such a spirit. Achebe appreciates the visions and passions of him to create a new school at Umuahia and he rejected the position of Bishop. Years later he explained this decision by saying that he can never be a good bishop. But, Achebe says this was not the real reason. The crest (emblem) he brought to Umuahia was a pair of torches, one black another white shining together. A generation later an Australian teacher added the logo “In unumluceant” (we can light together) under the emblem.

 

And there was William Simpson, teacher of mathematics, who would have been greatly surprised if anyone had said to him in the 1940s that he was preparing the ground for the beginnings of modern African literature. Or even that strange Englishman J. M. Stuart Young, who opted out of the colonial system in Onitsha and set himself up in competition against his own people in giant European trading companies. His ambition to open up commerce to African traders may have seemed quixotic at the time, but the people of Onitsha admired him and gave him a big traditional funeral when he died.

 

Eventually he concludes his words by saying that in 1976 U.S relation with Nigeria became unpleasant particularly because America mishandled the issues of Angola, Cuba and South Africa. The U.S secretary Henry Kissinger whose indifference to Africa spread a negative impact. Later, Kissinger and Joseph Garba, the Nigerian foreign minister decided to meet at United Nations. There, Kissinger asked Garba what he thought America was doing wrong in Africa. To which Garba replied stubbornly : “Everything”. But Kissinger didn’t admit this and said : “Statistically that is impossible. Even if it is unintentional, we must be doing something right.”  

 

This is how colonizers always justified their act of colonialism.

Part II

 

Part I 

The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe: summary part II

Further, Achebe begins to narrate his mother’s story.

His father was an evangelist (religious preacher), after their marriage she was sent to the newly founded St. Monica’s Girls’ school in his district, the first of its kind in Igbo land. As a special favour, she went to live with the principal, Miss. Edith Ashley Warner and other small band of English teachers. She performed some domestic jobs in return for her education. Achebe’s mother was a daughter of a village iron smith, naturally, she found her new life strange, exciting and sometimes frightening. Her most terrifying early experience was the one night’s discovery of her mistress’s dentures(artificial teeth)in a bowl of water.

 

When Achebe was growing up, 30 and more years later, the picture of Miss Warner still hung on their wall. She was actually quite good looking and her jaw seemed alright in the photograph.

 

Then, Achebe narrates an event; one evening Miss warner told his mother to eat the food and afterwards wash it carefully. She was apparently learning  the Igbo language, in fact what she told is “Don’t break the plate”. As the Igbo verbs are sometimes quite tricky. After realising this, his mother couldn’t control her laughter and she giggled. Which proved to be a great mistake. Miss Warner picked up a huge stick and walloped her. Later on, she called her and gave a stern lecture on good manners. “If I speak your language badly, you should tell me the right way. It is wrong to laugh at me,”

His mother told that story many times, each time we would all laugh all over again.

 

By the time it was his turn to go to primary school, in 1936, the missionary teachers like Miss.Warner were no longer around. Education at that level was completely in the hands of native teachers. As he began to learn his first English words at school, he would test his ability on various things hanging on the wall in his home. He remembers the difficulty that he had figured out from the motto of school “Right Wrong”. He kept wondered in the fact that what was the actual meaning, ‘Right’ or ‘Wrong’. He was quite certain that even the earnest Miss.Warner would have smiled at the problem he was having with English nouns and verbs.

 

His father had filled their walls with a variety of educational material. There were church missionary society yearly almanacs (an annual calendar containing important dates and information) with pictures of Bishops and other dignitaries. But the most interesting hangings were the large paste–ups which my father created himself. He had one of the village carpenters to make him large but light frames of soft white wood. On this he pasted and colored glossy pictures and illustrations of all kinds from old magazines. He remembers the most impressive picture of a king, George V in red and gold, holding a sword. There was also a funny looking little man with an enormous stride. He was called Johnnie Walker, many years later he realised that this extraordinary fellow was a fictional character only appears in advertisement for Scottish Whiskey.

There was also an advertisement from the Nigerian Railways in which the big ‘N’ and ‘R’ served also for ‘National Route’. That also gave him some trouble for recalling it.

Further, Achebe apologises the fact that earlier he compared himself with Moses. He thinks it was like the glow worm compares itself to the full moon.

 

The village of Ogidi was only part Christianised when he was growing up and still remained the traditional sights and sounds. Being a Christian Achebe was technically excluded from it. Like all other children he too looked forward to the Nwafor Festival, the major holiday of the traditional year. During this festival some wear the ancestral masquerades of all kinds. This lasts for 8 whole days. He keeps a reasonable distance from them. Because they carried whips with which they occasionally punished themselves to prove their toughness and they certainly would punish others if they are nearer. He would keep counting the masquerades every day and at the end of eighth day the grand total would be compared to the previous years.

Later, he talks about the language all around them. Christianity had divided the villagers into two - The people of the church and the people of the world (traditional). But the boundary between them had many crossings (that often mixed up). The average Christians enjoyed the sights and sounds of traditional festivities. Non-Christians too observed Christians closely and expressed their interest to some of their practices. When it comes to the spoken language of the two groups, there was sometimes a difference in matter but the manner remained unchanged. There were great orators in both. The Christians of his father’s generation preached on Sundays at St. Philip’s church. The Anglican Church introduces a hybrid language, a blend of both Igbo and English. But that remained as a futile attempt. One preacher was well known for his admonition to the village Christians against accepting food from the non-Christian neighbours. He suggests Christians had their own festivals, of course the big one Christmas and the small one Easter.

 

There were also two secular festivals, Empire Day on May 24 and Anniversary on July 27.

“May 24, as every schoolchild knew, was the birthday of Queen Victoria. It was a major school event and schoolchildren from all over the district would march in contingents past the British resident, who stood on a dais wearing a white ceremonial uniform with white gloves, plumed helmet, and sword.”

 

The day’s event ended with sports competition among schools. His first Empire day was indeed memorable. His school team consist of some very big boys and was supposed to do well in the tug of war, but eventually collapsed to their opponents. The conspicuous rumour was the defeat happened as per the instruction of their own principal for the merit of Anglican school.

 

“Empire Day celebrations took place at the provincial headquarters at Onitsha, seven miles from my village. I think it was in 1940, when I was in Standard Three and ten years old, that I was judged old enough to walk to Onitsha and back. I did it all right but could hardly get up for one week afterwards.”

 

Further, Achebe describes the beauty of Onitsha “Onitsha was a magical place and did live up to its reputation. First of all, to look down from a high point on the road at dawn and see, four miles away, the River Niger glimmering in the sky took a child’s breath away.”

 

He was particularly fortunate in having parents who believed passionately in education. He gets the old school books of his elder siblings. He was good enough in school works to be nicknamed as Dictionary by his admirers. But he was not so good in games.

 

He shares his memory with pleasure that he saw an eccentric Englishman, Dr.JM Stuart Young, who had been living and trading in Onitsha since the beginning of twentieth century. There were many stories revolve around him.as he had been befriended by the mermaid of the river Niger. With whom he made an agreement to remain single in return for a great wealth.

 

Later, he explores more about J.M Stuart Young, as it contains some doubtful details.

 

“such as whether or not he did have a doctoral degree. But it was probably true that he had first come to Nigeria as a colonial civil servant and then turned against the colonial system and become a merchant intent on challenging, with African support, the monopoly of European commercial cartels. He also wrote and published poetry and fiction.”

Years later Achebe includes the memories of Stuart Young in his short story, ‘Uncle Ben’s Choice’.

 

 

Part I 

 

 

                                                        Part III 

The Education of a British-Protected Child by Chinua Achebe: summary part I

"The Education of a British Protected Child" is a lecture delivered by Chinua Achebe in the Cambridge University on 22^nd January 1993. The central concern of the lecture was human values. He discusses how he grew up to be a writer. 

 

Achebe begins the essay by telling about the title. "The  title  I  have  chosen  for  these  reflections  may  not  be  immediately  clear  to everybody". He proposes that every man may not like the title, as it is long and it demands little explanation from him. In fact, he wanted to deal with something else before get into the title. 

 

He points out in advance that the audience are not listening to the voices of a scholar. Then, he talks about the workings of poetic justice in his life. He happened to miss the opportunity to become a scholar.

 

Before 40 years, he had applied to the Trinity college of Cambridge, but unfortunately his application was rejected. So, he completed his graduation from the University College of Ibadan. Luckily, his teacher and sponsor James Welch was the graduate in Cambridge University. About whom, he would like to say a few more words later. Anyhow, he stayed in his homeland and later turned to a novelist. He asserts the fact that if he had been admitted to Cambridge University, he would never have become a writer but rather a scholar instead. He comments: “nothing has the capacity to sprout more readily or flourish more luxuriantly in the soil of colonial discourse than mutual recrimination”. So, he decided to become a writer instead of a scholar, as someone must strike against the colonial discourse.

 

Now, he stands in the same university which rejected him earlier to deliver a lecture, this is what he meant by the workings of poetic justice.

 

In 1951, three years after the rejection of his application in Cambridge University, he had his first opportunity to travel out of Nigeria to study briefly at the BBC staff school in London. For the first time he needed and obtained a passport, and saw himself defined therein as a “British Protected Child”, this made him unsettled. He had to wait three years more for Nigeria’s independence in 1960 to end that tyrannical protection.

He proposes that nobody wants to hear about the advantages and disadvantages of colonial rule over and over. Normally, he provides only the arguments against colonial rule. Nevertheless, he views the events from neither the foreground nor the background, but rather the middle ground through the essay.

 

Obviously, the middle ground is the least admired of the three. It lacks the luster; it is undramatic, unspectacular and un remarkable. His Igbo culture gives more prominence to the middle ground. He quotes a rhyme which celebrates the middle ground as the most fortunate.

Afterwards, Achebe asks some questions and explain it. “Why do the Igbo call the middle ground lucky? What does this place hold that makes it so desirable? Or, rather, what misfortune does it fence out? The answer is, I think, Fanaticism.”

 

He affirms that the middle ground prevents fanaticism(extremism/fixation). As far as a fanatic is concerned he is single minded, and follows one way, one truth, one life menace and so on. He lives completely alone. Igbo people calls it “Bad thing and bare neck”. Thus, the preference of Igbo is not singularity but duality. Wherever something stands, something else will stand beside it.

 

The middle ground is neither the origin of things nor the last things; it is aware of a future to head into and a past to fall back on; it is the home of doubt and indecision, suspension of disbelief, playfulness, unpredictable and irony.

 

Later, he gives a short character sketch of the Igbo people. When Igbo people encounter human conflict, their first impulse is not to decide who is right but quickly to restore harmony. There was a saying in his hometown Ogidi that the judgement of Ogidi doesn’t go one side. They are the social managers rather than legal draftsmen.

The Igbo people are not starry –eyed (having lots of dreams) about the world. Their poetry doesn’t celebrate romantic love. They have a proverb which his wife dislikes, in which a woman is supposed to say that she does not insist , she be loved by her husband as long as he puts out Yams (food) for lunch every afternoon. When it comes to the men, an old villager once told him (not in a proverb but from real life): “My favourite soup is egusi. So I order my wife never to give me egusi soup in this house. And so she makes egusi every evening!” This is then the picture: The woman forgoes love for lunch; the man tells a lie for his supper!”

 

 Finally, he sums up the notion of marriage according to Igbo culture, it is tough and bigger than any man or woman. They recommend to find a way to cope.

According to him, colonial rule was stronger than any marriage. The Igbo fought against them and lost. The people who read his novel  as if novels were history books, asked him that- what made the conversion of Igbo people to Christianity in his novel Things Fall Apart so easy?

 

He says: it was not so easy, neither in history nor in fiction. But a novel cannot reproduce historical duration; it has to be brilliantly compressed. In fact, Christianity did not sweep through Igbo land like wild fire. “One illustration will suffice. The first missionaries came to the Niger River town of Onitsha in 1857. From that beachhead they finally reached my town, Ogidi, in 1892. Now, the distance from Onitsha to Ogidi is only seven miles. Seven miles in thirty-five years: that is, one mile every five years. That is no whirlwind.”

 

Achebe goes on with his argument that he must keep his promise not to give a discourse on colonialism. But, he states simply his fundamental objections to colonial rule.

 

In his opinion, it is an obvious crime for anyone to impose himself on another, to seize their land and their history then to exploit them pretended to be protectors. It reveals their cunning, hypocritic and untruthful nature.

 

Later he compares the hypocrisy of colonial rule and the nineteenth century Belgian king Leopold II. He let loosed many atrocities in Congo. The king too was of the opinion that his army men were the protectors of the natives. It can not possible to ignore the basic assumption of  all European powers that participated in the process of scrambling Africa. Just as all of Europe had contributed to the making of frightening character Mr.Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

 

He also puts forward the fact that colonizers were also wounded by the system they had created. They may not have lost land and freedom like the colonized victims, but they paid a number of seemingly small prices like loss of the sense of ridiculous, a sense of proportion and a sense of humour.

 

Afterward he talks about the case of victims. There is no scope of humour in dispossession(loss).

 

“Dispossession is, of course, no laughing matter, no occasion for humor. And yet the amazing thing is that the dispossessed will often turn his powerlessness to good account and laugh, and thereby lift himself out of desolation and despair. And save his humanity by the skin of his teeth(barely manage to do something), for humor is quintessentially human!”

 

 

                                                           Part II 

Dreams by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

shall I compare thee to a summer's day ? (Sonnet 18):summary and analysis

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wandr'est in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.

    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? is certainly the most celebrated in the sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets. At the outset of the poem the speaker asks a rhetorical question by addressing his beloved:"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?". Further poet states that his love is beyond comparison. As his beloved is milder and lovelier than summer, he can't compare his beloved to a summer's day. In summer, the stormy winds weaken the charming rosebuds. The vitality and vibrance do not last very long. The sun is occasionally very hot and it's golden rays often dim. Even the most beautiful things will eventually vanish its charm accidentally or due to the cosmic law. 

But, his beloved's eternal summer of beauty and splendour shall never diminish. Death can't enjoy it's victory over his beloved as the lines of the poet already immortalized the beauty of his beloved. even after the death the charm and elegance shall remain intact. As long as the human race remains alive and as long as men can read. This verse in fact  is eternal

New Historicism

This school of criticism aims at reuniting a work with the historical age in which it was produced. It tries to interpret a work by identifying it with the political and cultural movements of the age to which it belongs. The central concern of the New Historicist is that every work is a product of the historic moment in which it was created.

The approaches of New Historicism is quite different from the notion of traditional Historicism. Traditional Historicism is a method of representing the history in linear manner. The series of events are based on the principle of cause and effect. The New Historicism, on the other hand is more concerned with how a particular event in history has been interpreted, and examines how the interpretation reflects the socio-political leanings of the interpreter. According to the New historicists, history can never be objective, as it depends on the person who is recording an event. A New Historicist therefore studies a text against the background of the historical age. It is the method of interpretation based on the parallel reading of literary as well as non literary texts based on the same historical period.

In Renaissance Self-fashioning: from more to Shakespeare (1980), Stephen Greenblatt introduces the term new historicism to refer to a reading practice, which takes the historical, cultural contexts of a text in connection with the production of its meaning. Such a reading strategy is evolved as a reaction against the close readings of New Criticism and Deconstruction, which completely rejected the historicity of the text.

Louis Montrose defines New Historicism as “a reciprocal concern with the historicity of the texts and the textuality of history”, emphasising the role of literature as a historically situated object and history as a linguistic construct. In fact, both are representation or discourses and neither one is closer to the ‘truth’.

Ecofeminism

Ecofeminism examines literary and cultural texts for the manner in which they represent feminized nature and naturalised femininity and thereby suggest that both nature and women have certain essential characteristics, which justifies the domination of both by men.

 As a branch of feminism it comprehends environmentalism and the relationship between women and the earth, as foundational to its analysis and practice. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyse the relationships between humans and the natural world.

The term was coined by the French writer  Francoise d’Eaubonne. Ecofeminist theory asserts a feminist perspective of Green Politics (a political ideology that aims at fostering an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, non-violence and social justice) that calls for an egalitarian, collaborative society in which there is no one dominant group.

Ecofeminism can be classified into two: Radical Ecofeminism and Cultural Ecofeminism. one of the assumptions of Radical Ecofeminism is that the dominant patriarchal society associates nature and women in order to degrade both. in fact, in its emergence, ecofeminism tends to be radical by revealing the practices of patriarchal domination against nature and women. The radical feminists target the historical and cultural backgrounds that connect with feminine and nature with negative and inferior attributes. while, men have been elevated as capable of establishing order. Such a socio-economic formation easily enable the exploitation of women and nature for cheap labour and resources.

Cultural Ecofeminism, on the other hand, promotes an associaation between women and the environment by focusing on the more intimate and organic relationship between them. As per the anthropologically assigned gender roles, women are nurturers of family and providers of food. By their biology, they are the part of the reproductive mechanism of nature, in the form of pregnancy. Cultural Ecofeminism also has roots in nature based religions, goddess and nature worship.

Some of the new branches of ecofeminism are Vegetarian Ecofeminism, Materialist Ecofeminism, and Spiritualist Ecofeminism. Observing that omitting animals from feminist and ecofeminist actually contradicts the real spirit of the movement. Vegetarian Ecofeminism juxtaposes sympathy, ethics and action in the analysis of culture and politics, and come with slogans like "animals are friends , not food", "I think therefore I am vegan" and so on. Materialist Ecofeminism connects institutions such as labor,power and property as the source of domination over women and nature. where as in the Spiritualist Ecofeminism the importance completely lies on women and nature. Vandana Shiva for example glorifies the vedic period of Indian history.

According to Francoise d’Eaubonne  in her book Le Féminisme ou la Mort (1974), ecofeminism relates the oppression and domination of all marginalized groups (women, people of color, children, the poor) to the oppression and domination of nature (animals, land, water, air, etc.). In the book, the author argues that oppression, domination, exploitation, and  colonization from the western patriarchal society  has directly caused absolute environmental damages.  Francoise d’Eaubonne  was an activist and organizer, and her writing encouraged the eradication of all social injustice, not just injustice against women and the environment.

This tradition includes a number of influential texts including: Women and Nature(1978)  by Sussan Griffin, The Death of Nature(1980) by Carolyn Merchant and Gyn/Ecology (1978) by Mary Daly. From these texts feminist activism of the 1980s linked ideas of ecology and the environment.

Church going by philip larkin: summary and analysis

 Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,

The poem begins with the speaker may be Larkin himself standing outside the church, waiting for a short while to ensure that nothing is going on inside the church as he doesn’t want to interrupt the ritual services. The speaker moves  inside and stops. keeps the door ‘thud shut’. It may reflect his attitude of disrespect towards religious institution. Once he is inside his boredom is quite discernible in the dismissive tone like “sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now”. The descriptions of the church moves from general to the more specific. We see the mattings, seats and stone like he captures all the visuals in the church. He can’t ignore the silence, he takes off his hat, may be an  indication of expressing the mark of respect. There is a gentle humorous and sarcastic expression is here, as Larkin says “musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows how long”. Everything constitute the indifferent attitude of the speaker.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new-
Cleaned or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
"Here endeth" much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Later Larkin explains the roof of the church suggests that some still take care of it. He moves to the lectern and reads a aloud then plays with his own mocking echo. Interestingly he signs the visitors book and donated a valueless ‘Irish sixpence’ for the church. It reflects his loss of faith and he says it was “not worth stopping for”. But often he stops at churches that ends in a loss each time. However he is still drawn to them and wonders, why this is like this?

 

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate, and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

He says the Cathedral and their parchment, plate and pyx are meant for exhibition. Just like the word of Nissim Ezekiel goes “a myth of light with darkness at the core”.  The casual language is intended to show the indifference rather than ignorance. A series of questions surround him like, what happens in the empty building?, that some may be preserved but some are fall into ruin. Again, there occurs a sarcastic tone that the church should be let ‘rent free to rain and sheep’.

 

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

Larkin wonders if churches will come to be viewed as ‘unlucky places’ and may be visited by people moved by superstition rather than religious belief. Some may consider them as haunted. It is indicated by the expression ‘dubious women’, reveals their superstitious nature. There is a fact in which Larkin is certain, that eventually all belief system whether it is based on religion or superstition will fade away, and the churches will fall into ruin. Finally what remains is “Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky”. These are the main hallmarks of the church according to Larkin.

 

A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

As the church degenerates, it comes to be less recognisable and its purpose gradually dwindle from the people’s mind. Larkin wonders who will be the last person to seek shelter in the church by keeping its significance intact. The possible visitors are portrayed here in the tone of mockery. One of the crews is interested in its architectural incredibility, another who fond of anything that is antique(ruin bibber). While the other one wants to be a part of the ceremonies, that once took place here. Perhaps it might be someone like Larkin’s version.

 

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation – marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these – for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

Larkin now acknowledge the fact that although churches are just an empty shell to him, they have played a significant  role. Churches give meaning to the key moments in life such as birth, marriage and death and link them through ceremonies, thereby giving a meaning and coherence to the peoples’ lives. Without the church, such events would not be linked and would exist only in separation from one another. Despite Larkin’s lack of interest in religion, he nonetheless acknowledges that it has given meaning and consistency to people’s lives and has treated all equally. Through the church, human ‘compulsions’ are acknowledged. The church takes people and their paths through life seriously. There is a part of most people that longs to be treated with such seriousness and respect: ‘that much can never be obsolete’. Without the church, people will be somewhat adrift in the world and may well ‘gravitate to this place where life was once given meaning.      

 

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

In the concluding stanza of the poem, the poet sums up that the process of going to church will never end and finds its resolution when he says that the bond between God and people can never be broken. The environment empowers us to find out the philosophy of life, if not from the church, then from the church graveyard and you find that your final destination lies here beneath the soil. This ambience promotes a serious thought in you. The church will perform its duties even in the future and give wisdom to the people to change their fate and destiny.

Ecocriticism: Literature goes green

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears” – William Wordsworth (Intimations of immortality)

The world of literary theory in the latter part of twentieth century has been marked by the appearance of numerous innovative approaches to reading and studying works, both old and new. One of the most recent critical perspectives to gain substantial interest is called ecocriticism. The term was first used by William Rueckert in his 1978 essay “Literature and Ecology: An Experiment in Ecocriticism” in reference to the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature.

Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment. Both terms ‘ecocriticism’ and ‘green studies’ are used to denote a critical approach which began in USA in the late 1980s and in UK in the early 1990s. This critical field was earlier known as ‘the study of nature writing’. But it was Cheryll Glotfelty, who initiated this critical approach as a lasting movement. In 1992, Glotfelty and Harold Fromm co-founded the association for the study of literature and environment. This organization has its own journal called ISLE (Inter disciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment).

The movement in America took its inspiration from three major nineteenth-century transcendentalists, namely Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller and Henry David Thoreau. They wrote about nature life force and the wilderness. Emerson’s long essay ‘Nature’ was first published in 1836. In this essay, he talks about the impact of the natural world on him. Fuller’s first book was ‘Summer on the Lakes (1843) is a powerful narrative of her encounter with the American Landscape. Thoreau’s ‘Walden’ is an account of his two year stay in a hut he had built on the shore of Walden pound. It is the classic account of his attempt to renew the self through ‘return to nature’. These three books can be treated as the foundational works of American ‘eco-centred’ writing.

The UK version of ecocriticism is better known as Green Studies, takes its inspiration from the romantic movement of late eighteenth century. However, its founding figure is the critic Jonathan Bate, the author of 'Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition (1991). Raymond Williams' book  'The Country and the City' (1973) is also taken by some as articulating ecological concerns, the term 'ecocriticism' had not come into existence by that time. 

Laurence Coupe's essay entitled "The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to ecocriticism" (2000) is considered as a seminal work in the study of ecocriticism. 

Some of the debates within ecocriticism concern the crucial relationship between Nature and Culture. Ecocriticism rejects the major poststructuralist notion that everything is socially or linguistically constructed. As far as an ecocritic is concerned, nature exists in reality whether or not it is textualised or part of the social discourse.

Hence, ecocriticism variously referred to as ecological, environmental or green criticism it can be summed up as follows.

• It does not accept the social or linguistic constructedness of the world. The natural world exists in its own right and beings other than human have a will of their own.
• It is a reading of a literary text which incorporates environmental concerns and issues. The ecocritics, in their attempt to bring environmental issues into focus, by re-reading major literary works and pay special attention to the representation of nature. In doing so, they go by concepts like growth, energy, balance and symbiosis (interaction between two different organisms).
• The ecocritics also wish to find out what role has the physical- geographical setting played in the structure of a poem or a novel.
• The ecocritics discuss factual details impacting environment like entropy or loss of energy on the one hand and sustainable sources of energy on the other.
• They have tried to create a separate canon highlighting authors who foreground nature in their subject matter. Some of these writers are the English Romantic poets and the American Transcendentalists.
• Finally, the ecocritics explore the link between academic and actual practices on the issues of nature.

Ecocriticism is a critical mode that looks at the representation of nature and landscape in cultural texts, paying particular attention to the attitudes towards ‘nature’ and the rhetoric employed when speaking about it. It aligns itself with ecological activism and social theory.

Finally, ecocriticism can be concluded as the study of literature and environment from interdisciplinary point of view. At the same time, it may be pointed out that there is no single figure in the area of ecocriticism who can be considered as a dominant authority like freud in psychological criticism. Here, the disciplines join together to analyse the environment and find out solutions for the contemporary environmental situation such as global warming, etc. In comparison with other ‘political’ forms of criticism, there has relatively been little dispute about the moral and philosophical aims of ecocriticism and its scope has broadened rapidly. As such, ‘nature writing’ or writing with consciousness nature is emerging as a distinct and substantial genre and ecocriticism has already made its place as a literary theory.    

One Flesh (1966) by Elizabeth Jennings : A critical analysis

In  the poem “One Flesh” Jennings explores the withering nature of relationship between an ageing couple. It includes in her poetic Anthology ‘The Mind Has Mountains’. Jennings prospects the nature of marriage relationship in old age and we come to know towards the end of the poem that she is talking about the personal relationship of her parents.

The title of the poem has a Biblical reference. When a couple is combined in marriage they become one flesh. The word ‘one’ suggests their physical unity and Jennings‘ relationship to her parents as she thinks about them. She contemplates over how traditional marriage of her parents has ended up in physical separation and silence as she says: “Silence between them”.

In the first stanza we find them lying in separate beds; he is looking at a book without reading it and she is staring at the ceiling. All the excitement in their lives now has worn out. Everything seems to be routine. The words “lying apart”, “elsewhere” and “separate” suggests the rift that is created between the couple. “She like a girl dreaming of childhood” suggests that she is not happy and wants to be in the past. “Keeping the light on late” and “shadows overheard” shows the contrast between the couple now and before. Neither of them is talking to each other. The book does not interest him and the mother stares at the shadows overheard. Sleeping in separate beds depicts physical distance and a sign of being apart and a lack of communication between them. 

We can feel the desolation and speechlessness which exists in their relationship. But there is still hope left;  they can still able to dream. At the beginning of the second stanza their relationship is described as “flotsam from a former passion”. There is no passion left between them, it is broken into pieces and floating on the surface. Flotsam means wreckage floating in the sea. Here it refers that is all what is left after their passion as a younger couple. Chastity refers to the loss of passion of youth which has now faded from their lives. The stage in their relationship when they touched has passed. The words “confession” and “chastity” are religious and reflect that they keep to their promises even if they are unhappy. They have taken a further step and have reached chastity again. One might suppose that this is a step backwards, but still Jennings describes it as the reaching of “a destination for which their whole lives were a preparation”. 

It is the contrast in their relationship by which we are most interested. The only thing that is shared between them seems to be silence, but mysteriously there is much more left which ties them together. It is the time they have shared, all the common experiences, the difficulties and the beauties of life which lie behind them, it is the familiarity which links them. Their lives are not really separated; because they need each other. The only thing that has happened to them is the fact that they have grown old.

The lines in the third stanza “Strangely part, yet strangely close together, / Silence between them like a thread to hold”. The repetition of the words strangely suggests that the relation is now not as it should be. Their relation is compared to a thread is a simile which suggests weaker connection in old age not strong as youth. The last four lines of the poem are very effective as it says “And not wind in. / And time itself’s a feather/Touching them gently. Do they know they‘re old,/ These two who are my father and mother/ Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?”. This metaphor “And time itself’s a feather” is highly effective  because feather suggests it’s soft, fragile and delicate like their marriage. “Whose fire from which I came” is a metaphor which suggests that they once had a really strong passionate marriage in which their child was born. She ends her poem by asking herself whether they are aware of getting old .The last stanza is full of tenderness and a beautiful image is used when time is compared with a feather, which touches them so gently that they might not even realize it.

The poem shows the growth, fall and change in relationship with age and time. In reality parents or couple ideally cannot be separate. It suggests togetherness and bond but here the body language is contradictory than what it actually should be. The poem sounds heart breaking and depressing. The couple are unhappy.

The poem is written in traditional form. It consists of three stanzas of six lines each. The rhythm is mainly regular and consists, to a large extent, of iambic pentameters, the most common verse form in English poetry. The rhyme scheme is of interest, consisting of two stanzas both rhyming ababba, and the third one rhyming ababab. This underlines the contrast which exists between the first two stanzas and the third one. In the first two stanzas we feel sorry because their relationship does not seem to be as it should be. In the last stanza, however, we are told that their relationship has become like this through time, but this does not necessarily mean a loss of quality. It has simply become different through time. With this poem Jennings successfully creates an image of this couple in the reader‘s mind, and also so provides an interesting exploration of the way relationships develop through time . 

Nobel Prize acceptance speech by Albert Camus: A Summary

Albert Camus’ speech at the Nobel Banquet at the city hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1957.

At the outset of the speech he expresses his immense gratitude towards the academy as they generously honoured him. Obviously, this reward of excellence overcomes all his personal merits and achievements that he gained so far.  He says: “Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I”. He was of the opinion that artists are needed to be recognized, because they have significant role in order to modify and reform the society. They can influence the human community by creating a movement in their minds.

 

“But I have not been able to learn of your decision without comparing its repercussions to what I really am. A man almost young, rich only in his doubts and with his work still in progress, accustomed to living in the solitude of work or in the retreats of friendship: how would he not feel a kind of panic at hearing the decree that transports him all of a sudden, alone and reduced to himself, to the center of a glaring light? And with what feelings could he accept this honour at a time when other writers in Europe, among them the very greatest, are condemned to silence, and even at a time when the country of his birth is going through unending misery?”

 

He expresses a sense of wonder along with the mixed feelings such as excitement on the one hand and disappointment on the other. As he thinks he was not a deserving person for this award of eminence. Since, he comparatively young and always surrounded by doubts like an average man and still wanders in the path of progression. Moreover, his country was going through unending miseries and hardships.

 

He doesn’t know how to receive this award and how to express his feelings. He feels shock and inner turmoil at hearing this decision of the academy. He reduces to himself and becomes the center of  glaring light. Later, he regains piece from his internal turmoil. Camus wants to say that he exists in the world only because of art. Afterwards, he expresses his notion regarding the nature of art and the role of the writer.

 

“For myself, I cannot live without my art. But I have never placed it above everything. If, on the other hand, I need it, it is because it cannot be separated from my fellow men, and it allows me to live, such as I am, on one level with them.” He says that he can’t think about a world without art. But, he has never placed an artist above everything. As far as he is concerned an artist is as equal to all other human beings. Even though he became a privileged person from others, he has to admit the fact that he is one among those multitudes, and then only he can maintain his artistic faculties. “And often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others.”

 

In fact the writer slightly keeps himself different from the common human community, but he can never articulate the real beauty of art. So, he remains in the midway. Further, he mentions that a true artist shall not judge but understand others. “That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge. And if they have to take sides in this world, they can perhaps side only with that society in which, according to Nietzsche’s great words, not the judge but the creator will rule, whether he be a worker or an intellectual.”

 

Afterwards, he expresses his opinion regarding the role of the writer as he is not free from the difficult duties. “By the same token, the writer’s role is not free from difficult duties. By definition he cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it. Otherwise, he will be alone and deprived of his art.” Writers are not only meant for glorifying those who create history, instead they should write about the abandoned or those who exposed to humiliations. He should transmit his thoughts into words, after all, literature is a means of resounding the silences of the writer. An artist can win the hearts of the people by admitting the fact that ‘the greatness of art lies on Truth and Liberty’. “The two tasks that constitute the greatness of his craft: the service of truth and the service of liberty. Because his task is to unite the greatest possible number of people, his art must not compromise with lies and servitude which, wherever they rule, breed solitude. Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression.”

 

Further, he explains the battalion of horrors and sorrows that the generation including Camus witnessed during the periods of wars. But, he has been supported by the commitment to write with truthfully and freely.

 

“These men, who were born at the beginning of the First World War, who were twenty when Hitler came to power and the first revolutionary trials were beginning, who were then confronted as a completion of their education with the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the world of concentration camps, a Europe of torture and prisons – these men must today rear their sons and create their works in a world threatened by nuclear destruction. Nobody, I think, can ask them to be optimists.” These are the snapshot of convulsions of the time. People were exposed to catastrophe. As a result they turned to be  Nihilists (one who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all the religion and moral values as well as principles). But, Europeans in general and Camus in particular refused this notion of Nihilism. As far as an artist is concerned he has to inject optimism to the people through their work of art.

 

Each generation undoubtedly feels a kind of wake up call regarding the reformation of the world. But according to Albert Camus the task was ever greater. It consists of saving the world from destroying itself. The world witnesses extremely catastrophic situation where every good things turned into evil. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold anymore. Technology goes mad, God becomes blind and deaf, and ideologies come to be worn out.  

 

After all, the intelligence debases itself to become the servant of hatred and oppression. Here lies the relevance of the writer, he can resurrect and re-establish which constitute the dignity of life and death. He says that certainly, it is an immense task and gradually it is rising everywhere in the world. Some are even ready to sacrifice their own life for accomplishing the double challenge of truth and liberty. for that generation he should like to pass on his honour. At the same time after having received this honour for his excellence, he puts himself in the right position as he is one among the others.    

 

“He has no other claims but those which he shares with his comrades in arms: vulnerable but obstinate, unjust but impassioned for justice, doing his work without shame or pride in view of everybody, not ceasing to be divided between sorrow and beauty...” He remarks that as a representative of his own comrades, he shares certain qualities significantly, having double existence like at once vulnerable and obstinate and unjust but impassioned for justice etc.

 

After, he expresses his view on truth by saying that it is mysterious and elusive always to be conquered. When it comes to the notion of liberty he says that too much of liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march towards these two commitments resolutely. Once again he emphasizes the idea that to achieve these commitments are double challenging.one has to require strong will power and determination.A writer supposed to have a good conscience and be a preacher of virtue but he pronounces that he was not of that sort. But, he unquestionably supported all those silent men who faced endless dangers and sufferings. He believes that he could provide a ray of hope for them out of his writing.

 

He winds up his word by expressing his immense gratitude again to the gathering. Meanwhile, he shared all his ideologies regarding art and the role of the writer.