Humor, Satire and Irony in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

 

Mark Twain brilliantly utilizes satire, irony and humor to convey his views on the follies, hypocrisies and evils of the society by making fun at religion, education, and slavery. This satirical viewpoint of Twain is clear throughout the novel to keep the reader pleasant and make the story more interesting.

The opening events of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are related to the novel that preceded it, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer are set on the Mississippi River. At the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck, a thirteen- year- old poor son of a drunken father, and his childhood friend Tom, who is from a middle class family, found gold, which a robber hid in a hidden cave, and Huck gained a huge amount of money, they invested in on the basis of monthly interest.

 At the outset of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck is staying with the Widow Douglas, a woman who adopts Huck in an attempt to civilize him. Widow Douglas lives with her sister, Miss Watson, both of whom try to teach Huck proper manners, but he doesn’t like staying at the Widow’s house. Tom Sawyer convinces him to stay with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson so he would be able to join Tom's gang daily at night.

 

Huck has been forced to go through many rituals, while living in the Widow Douglass’ home, like the meal time prayer, that seemed unimportant to him, which is one of the reasons he is unhappy in her home, and the Widow fails to make Huck civilized. Huck’s description of the widow as an overly-passionate Christian, ridicules the behavior of religious people, but in a light and humorous style to show the ridiculousness of their actions.

 The Widow attempts to civilize him by teaching him Christian values, but he is not interested in these lessons, for he found that they were completely far away to his life. Thus, Twain here satirizes the widow’s religious position.

 Then Twain shows through the novel that Huck is suspicious of religion and religious people for their double standards, as when the Widow prevents Huck from smoking, while she herself smokes. And she took snuff (smokeless tobacco, slightly intoxicating) too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself. This shows her double standard where she prevented Huck from a practice even though she already did it.

 

Irony is also used in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to show the hypocrisy of the widow, a symbol of religious whites, who is supposed to be an example for morality, yet ends up contradicting herself, saying something and doing another thing. Huck feels confused because while they try to improve his behavior, he sees that their own behavior is immoral, so when Miss Watson tells him about the “bad place”- hell - he says that he would like to go there.

 

In the initial part itself, it is clear the fact that Huck doesn’t approve of the widow’s thoughts. Twain utilizes Huck to show his idea that people put so much weight into the Bible that they reject other moral achievements of the present day. He shows that religious people don’t accept others, they are blind to the realities of modern civilization, and live their lives only according to the Bible. This is why Huck said that the widow does not see any good thing in his works, and she doesn’t care for what Huck feels. But her religious hypocrisy was shown by her owning of slaves and calling them niggers, even though she knows that the Bible says to treat others the way you want to be treated. Twain here wants to show that most Americans are religious hypocrites by owning slaves and pretending to be a devout Christian.

 

There is an obvious space for the satire in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Satire exists in the novel extensively such as the satire of slavery, satire upon the general attitudes of whites regarding religion and morality.  Twain shows the reader through Miss Watson, who is a racist, advocates slavery. Miss Watson as we noticed is a faithful Christian woman who ironically has a slave.

 

Twain uses the term Nigger, as he criticizes slavery and racism in that period. He says that the author intentionally uses the term Nigger as he is aware of the discourse of his time and he satirizes this discourse which prevailed in that period.

 

One night, Huck feels lonely and he hears movement outside. He scrambles to the window and sees Tom Sawyer waiting for him. As Huck and Tom toe out of the Widow’s garden, he slips on a root while passing by the kitchen and makes a noise. Jim,  Miss Watson’s slave, hears him from the kitchen, but he doesn’t see them, and Jim says he will stay until knowing the source of the sound, but then he falls asleep, and Tom tricks Jim by putting his hat on a tree branch over Jim. Though Huck objects to Tom’s actions most of the time to avoid getting caught. Twain employs humor to make the reader laugh and this is clear when Tom steals the candle, but puts money in its place as payment. “But Tom wanted to risk it; so we slid in there and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay.”

 

Jim tells the other slaves that witches flew around him and put his hat over his head, and tells everyone that the five-cent piece that Tom put for the candles is a charm that can cure sickness. Twain here pokes fun at and mocks superstition and superstitious people for their fascination with the supernatural by pointing out how a confused Jim is trying to explain what happened, he says “Afterwards Jim said the witches bewitched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it”.

Critics in general argued that Jim in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn represents an American entertainment, which is a type of entertainment where humorous acts are performed by white persons with a black face. Jim is a funny, gullible slave and the author uses Jim to show the humor of superstitious people when hanging his hat.

Tom and Huck meet the other boys who all go to a large cave together to make a band of robbers, and Tom names it “Tom Sawyer’s Gang.” Tom told them that everyone in the band must sign an oath in blood and if anyone of their band reveals their secrets, they will kill him and their family. Since Huck doesn’t have a family, only a drunken non present father, he offers Miss Watson as a member of his family.

 

Meanwhile, a rumor passes around that Huck’s drunken father Pap, who has not been found in a year, was drowned in a river and died. At first, Huck is glad because his father had been a drunk who beat him, but then he discovers that the body is another person’s, so he worries that Pap will appear soon.

Over three or four months, Huck adjusts to his new life and improves in his school. One winter morning, Huck sees footprints in the snow near the house, and as a precaution he gives his wealth, the money that he and Tom had from the cave, to the Judge. That night, Huck goes to Jim and tells him he saw his father’s tracks in the snow and he wants to see what he wants. Jim tells him that he has a magical hairball from an ox’s stomach, and it needs money to talk, so he gives him the money then the hairball tells Jim that Huck is safe for now, but on the same night, Pap waits for Huck in his bedroom.

 

Through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain uses Jim to describe many superstitions that are a recurrent theme in these chapters. Jim talks about a lot of superstitions. At the beginning, Huck rejects Jim’s superstitions as silly, but at last he asked him for help when he sees his father’s footprints in the snow. The hairball tells Jim that his father may either stay or go.

“Jim had a hair ball as big as your fist, which had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it that knew everything. So i went to him that night.”

 

Huck introduces his father not as a loving father, but as someone who always intimidates him, when he says: “Then I turned around. And there he was. I used to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I was scared now, too." Here Twain uses satire because Pap comes back only for the wealth, for that Huck asks Judge Thatcher to take his six thousand dollars because he knows that his father has come for his money and if he gets rid of the money he will leave him. When Pap sees Huck’s “starchy”(clean and stiff) clothes he attacks Huck and promises to take him down,  he feels angry because his son can read and write, and he will be better than him. Here the author pokes fun at the uneducated people by presenting Pap, who is aggressive towards more intelligent people, as he uses irony when Huck’s father is angry because Huck is going to school.

 The next day, Pap is drunk and wants Huck’s money from Judge Thatcher. The Judge and Widow Douglas want to get custody of Huck from his father, but the new judge refuses to separate them as a father and son. At the end he decides to escape from both his drunken father and the Widow Douglas, but his father comes back while Huck is trying to run away.

One morning Huck thinks of running away and gets his chance when Huck sees a canoe in the river. Here Twain shows that when Huck's father took him to his own home people were not worried about him. He escapes from the clutches of his father by faking his death.

Huck feels peaceful on his first three days at Jackson Island, but on the fourth day Huck finds Jim on the Island. Here their friendship begins and Jim tells Huck that he has run away from Miss Watson because she wants to sell him to a slave trader. Huck and Jim try to emancipate themselves; Huck wants to be free from the constraints of society, while Jim attempts to escape from slavery.

 

They hide the canoe in order to prevent anyone from coming to the Island, but then they find a dead body and Jim warns him that talking about it means bad luck. Twain uses Jim to describe many superstitions, and satirize them. Jim’s character talks a lot about superstitions from the time Huck meets him on Jackson Island until the end of the novel.

 

Huck leaves the island with Jim and from this moment their adventures on the river begin. They see a wrecked steamboat, where two robbers want to kill the third and drown him with the steamboat. Huck tells Jim that they have to prevent the robbers and Jim accepts because their raft had floated away. Huck and Jim take the thieves’ boat and they find clothes, books, and a lot of things in the boat. Huck and Jim spend a lot of time reading and discussing a book about stories of kings and dukes. Huck tells Jim about King Louis, who had cut off his son’s head. Twain here not only satirizes royalty but also shows to the reader the innocence of Jim.

 

when Huck and Jim are separated on the river because of the fog, Jim worries about Huck and if he is alive or not, but when Huck comes back while Jim is sleeping, he decides to play a trick on Jim by telling him that nothing happened, and that it was a dream. After knowing the truth Jim’s feeling is hurt for being made a fool of and even though he is a simple man, yet he has feelings.

 

The next night their raft breaks down and they separate again. Huck swims to ashore where he meets the Grangerfords, a large family who has a dispute with another family. Huck introduces himself with a fake name and once they know he is not from the Shepherdson family, with whom they have the quarrel, they invite him to their house for a while. Huck forgot his fake name, then he tricks Buck into spelling out the name, but Buck didn’t understand him. He thought that he was being tested, even though he spelled it incorrectly. Twain here applies humor to make the reader laugh at how Huck uses his wit to get out of a difficult situation.

I had forgot what my name was. So I laid there about an
hour trying to think, and when Buck waked up I says:
"Can you spell, Buck?"
"Yes," he says.
"I bet you can't spell my name," says I.
"I bet you what you dare I can," says he.
"All right," says I, "go ahead."
"G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n--there now," he says.

 

Huck is happy with the Grangerfords, but because of the dispute, his friend Buck is killed. Twain here shows the senselessness of quarrel, for while both families go to the same Church, they take guns with them. Then, Twain applies satire in this text to show the religious hypocrisy that exists in the families by going to the church with guns, whereas the church is meant to be a sacred and peaceful place, but in reality their lives are very different.

Twain focuses on the idea of dispute at that time, through the quarrel between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. Even though both families did not have a clear reason to kill, yet they still did, because of the history between the families. Twain here points out that the dispute has gone on so long they don’t know why or how it started and even though it was long over, they still fought, which led to the tragic death of Huck’s friend, Buck. He also satirizes the role of religion, for though they visit the church to pray yet when they’re
finished, they start to kill each other.

After the death of his friend Buck in the dispute, Huck wants to go back to the raft where there is peace. Twain uses irony because the raft is small, but Huck finds comfort on it.

Huck and Jim take a look at nature on the raft so far from civilization, and they like to stay on the raft because they feel at home and free on it. As the studies show, Huck and Jim run away from society represented by Miss Watson, the Widow and Pap and their hypocrisy, to nature where they feel free there. The River, shore and raft have different concepts in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where raft means escape from society, while river means freedom and rebirth.

Mark Twain shows nature as a main factor in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for most of the events take place on the river and the raft. Huck and Jim feel comfortable on the river, for it represents the grace of nature in contrast to the hypocritical and evil society.

When they move further down the river, they take two men with them. They look tired and their cloths are shabby. One of them claims that he is the King and the other one says he is the Dauphin. When they ask about whether Jim is a runway salve, Huck produces a story about him and how he became orphaned. His stories are ironically important to protect a slave in a hypocritical society to protect Jim.

In the next town, the Duke and Dauphin, take advantage of the religious meeting to make money. Here the writer satirizes the stupidity of some people when the dauphin fools them in the church, telling them that he is a former pirate, and he wants to recreate his ship and crew so he wants money. He starts to cry and all believed him and give him more than eighty dollars. Twain here focuses on how people fall for such a trick. This shows that white characters represent not only the criminal and guilty persons because they have taken money from people by making scams, but they also show the innocence of most townsfolk for believing them. On the last day the Dauphin and the Duke escape back to the raft having taken four hundred and sixty-five hundred dollars from the people of the town.

Huck was searching for his friend, Jim, because the Duke sold him to Tom Sawyer’s aunt and uncle. Then Tom joins Huck in helping Jim.

Tom and Huck succeed in helping Jim, Tom discovers that before her death, Miss Watson has freed Jim. Tom gives Jim money that helps Jim to take his family and live in freedom. At the end Huck also goes west before anyone civilized him.

 

The writer focuses on three main elements in Huckleberry Finn: The first element is Huck and his development .The next elements are: the adventures of Huck and Jim toward freedom, for while Jim is escaping from true slavery, Huck is escaping from the harshness of his father. The other element is the social satire, where Twain has shown man's harshness to man, as it is in the novel how whites treat blacks.

“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another ”

The overall atmosphere of the novel is humorous where Twain uses comedy to expose the shortcomings of society. And though he satirizes religion and religious people.Thus we can say that corruption, moral decay and religious hypocrisy are all satirized by Twain to show that religion was merely a theory of prayer, but it was not carried out in practice.

The Oak by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;

Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed
Soberer-hued
Gold again.

All his leaves
Fall’n at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough
Naked strength.

 

Tennyson strikingly presents the Oak tree as a metaphor for human life.
In spring season  the oak becomes golden when young rays of the sun touches it. Similarly, a young human is charming , energetic as well as tender with   lots of energy.  The seasonal changes reflect in the oak. In summer season the trees in general will be rich in fruits and flowers.

This stage of the oak symbolically signifies the middle age of human. When autumn comes the tree grows older and starts dropping its leaves . All the fairness of the flowers gradually disappear.  the oak looks like sober and dry. Similarly an old human starts losing their vitality and vibrance . But he is the strongest because of the experience, wisdom, and knowledge similar to the the strong tree time and experience made it firm and strong.

 

Postcolonialism a short introduction

 

The term Postcolonialism refers to a historical period after European colonialism and the sum total of all the social political cultural and economical changes brought about by the impact of colonial rule.

In the recent decades, postcolonialism has been increasingly described as a critical theory analysing the socio-political, cultural, economic and historical aspects of colonial rule and imperialism.  Postcolonialism is both a reaction or departure from and a survey of colonialism. It is important to remember that postcolonialism does not invalidate or reject the existence of colonialism. On the contrary it critiques colonialism and its myriad facets. Postcolonialism is a relatively new school of theory which made its appearance in the last decades of 20 century along with some other new disciplines like queer theory, cultural studies and gender studies. In a historical inquiry, postcolonialism addresses several types and phases of imperialism and the long process of decolonisation. In the cultural front, it explores the ways in which the colonisers created the colonialist discourses about the mission of regeneration of the colonized people. Colonisers justified the process of colonisation as a civilising mission rather than an attempt of exploitation.


Understanding the historical processes of colonialism and decolonization is the central aspect of postcolonialism. Elleke Boehmer defines colonialism as the settlement of territory, the exploitation or development of resources, and the attempt to govern the indigenuous inhabitants of occupied lands".

 

The twentieth century is called the century of decolonization since the second and third waves of decolonization occurred in this century. The first wave began when America declared independence. The second phase saw the birth of dominions ruled mostly by the white inhabitants of colonised lands. During the third wave, the colonised people of Asia and Africa declared their independence.

 

Eurocentrism & Orientalism

Postcolonial studies critically explores how imperialist discourses are created and distributed to perpetuate and legitimise colonialism. it encounters the claims of western cultural supremacy as illustrated by Joseph-Earnest Renan, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Rudyard Kipling and others.

"Oh East is East and west is west,

And never the twain shall meet"

- the ballad of east and west , Rudyard Kipling.

"A single shelf of  a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arebia" - Minutes upon Indian education T.B Macaulay.

Postcolonialism, as a critical theory, was developed by the scholars like Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Bill Ashcroft, Homi K Bhabha and Aijaz Ahmad. Their works expose the ideological positions of colonisers who convince the colonised that they are ruled by a superior race / people for their own good.

The colonisers are actually burdening themselves with the task of civilising the uncivilised and ruling the undisciplined. The publication of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth (1961, Eng. trans 1967) was a highly significant attempt in postcolonial studies. An activist and revolutionary himself, Fanon develops his observations of French racism to a study of French colonialism. He puts forward two important concepts in his essays: the manipulation of collective identity of the colonised by the coloniser and the need to form a national identity against colonialism. He posits that under colonialism the human subject is deprived of that position and treated as an object. This negative value constitutes the identity of the colonised. In fact the colonial subject's identity is shaped as a collective identity based not on the life and experience of the colonised subject, but on what the coloniser's depiction of it. He elaborates this and its consequences in his earlier book, Black Skin and White Masks (1952, Trans 1986). In the fourth chapter of The Wretched of the Earth, he discusses the formation of a national culture against the coloniser and the colonised intellect of the native intellectuals. 

 

Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) presents the idea of Orientalism. Said defines Orientalism as the west's representation of the orient or the colonised countries of Asian and Africa. According to him Orientalism is best defined by its oppositeness to the west. Orientalism is the 'inferior other' of the West/Occident. The west is cultured, educated and progressive. It is the seat of all knowledge, as Macaulay declared. Orient is then seen as mysterious, barbarous and the abode of poverty and ignorance. Said states that orientalism is a construction of the west to legitimise colonial rule. Orientalism comprises the west's view of the orient and not reality at all. Said also categorises Orientalism into two: latent and manifest. Latent orientalism resides in the imagination of the west. This collective imagination is rather constant. Manifest Orientalism on the other hand is the depiction of the orient in western texts and colonial discourses. The manner and method of the representation may change according to different periods in history. But the underlying patterns and motives may be the same. Both the varieties of Orientalism create stereotypes to perpetuate and to legitimise the western racial and gender supremacy.

As we have seen above, Orientalism is defined by the western world view. This perspective can be summarily termed Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism puts Europe and its ways of life at the centre of all discourse. it divides history, culture and all known areas of human thought and activity into European and non-European. Europe or specifically western Europe sees the rest of the world in terms of a series of binary. These binaries go like this: west is progressive, active, democratic, masculine and dynamic whereas the orient is stagnant, passive, despotic, feminine and lazy . But eurocentrism is not just a series of binaries or a geographical concept. It is also an ideological perspective that specifies that Europe is the seat of all learning and civilization. It is where all branches of knowledge originated. As a system of knowledge it exemplifies how Europe is portrayed as the originator of all developments (democracy, sovereignty, human rights).

This binary is one of the fundamental analytical concepts of postcolonial studies. Europeans held themselves a superior race. They thought it was their duty to rule, subjugate, control and regulate the barbarians who have no culture, civilization or desire for refinement. They believed that colonial rule was for the betterment of the colonised and justified the economic exploitation as remuneration for their toil in the process of colonisation and extension of civilization to the remote areas.

 

Alterity (State of being the 'Other')

The colonial discourse is keen to create the narrative of the supremacy of the west neglecting the non-west other as what the west is not. This cultural and material otherness is designated as alterity in postcolonial studies.

 
In postcolonial studies, alterity was used in the sense that the colonised is perceived as different from the coloniser. In the postcolonial context, alterity can be defined as the outcome of the west's (the the dominant self) formulation of an imagined other by projecting a constructed difference between themselves and the non Europeans. Otherness is based on prejudices, fears and imagination of the dominant self. Frantz Fanon in his psychological studies of the colonial subjects, introduced the idea of alterity in colonial context. The other lacks identity and representation. Like other critical theorists, postcolonial thinkers also oppose the notion of the 'other' as they see it as a logic of marginalisation. The process of making others is termed 'othering. Othering is made possible by devaluing and marginalising the binary opposition. Identity is the chief criterion of alterity.

Homi Bhaha posits that the colonial discourse is neither powerful nor supreme as it is generally estimated as. The colonial discourse originally aimed to legitimise and validate the colonial rule. Orientalism's stereotyping is also cast with the same aim. But Bhabha departs from Said's contention that orientalism and other colonial discourses perpetuated colonial rule and supremacy.

Diaspora and Hybridity

 
Diaspora is a significant concept associated with postcolonialism. Diasporas can be tentatively described as "a group of people who scattered from their native country to other countries"

Differences of generations, gender, race and class make diaspora communities always dynamic and also problematic. These internal conflicts as well as the problems of assimilation and acceptance in the present country and alienation  have been the constant and often defining themes of the diasporic literature in continuation of his observations on mimicry and ambivalence, Bhabha considers the issues of migration and diaspora which led to his ideation of hybridity. By this Bhabha means the interdependence and intertwining of the identities of the coloniser and the colonised. The dominant culture and its discourses are contaminated by the entry of the colonised subjects into the fabric of colonial discourse. This generates hybridity. Bhabha describes  hybridity as " neither the One nor the Other but something else besides "

Subaltern Studies

Subaltern studies is a distinct and autonomous school of postcolonial critical theory led by scholars like Ranajit Guha, Gayatry Chakravorty Spivak, Homi K.Bhabha and Partha Chatterjee. Influenced by Marx, Gramsci and Foucault among others, their preoccupations include the treatment of the subaltern by the colonised elite in the anticolonial movements and their representation in colonial texts of India. Subaltern is an important theoretical formulation of Gramsci. Ranajit Guha exemplifies that the 'unhistorical' historiography of the Indian elite deliberately left out the politics of the people from its narrative on the formation of Indian nationalism. He posits that parallel to the elite national movement, there existed" another domain of Indian politics in which the dominant actors were the subaltern classes[...] mass of the labouring population[...] . The subaltern, according to Guha, includes workers, peasants, non-industrial urban poor and lower sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Spivak developed the scope of subaltern studies to include the engaging issues of the representation of human subjectivity. Spivak rejects the position of Foucault and Gilles Delueze that the subaltern is an autonomous subjects .  In her famous essay, "Can the Subaltern Speak?," she postulates the idea that women as subaltern is not an autonomous subject.

 

To Posterity Question & Answers (Litmosphere)

 

1  1.Comment on the opening line of the poem “To Posterity”?

The opening line of the poem To posterity predicts the future existence of books and expresses anxieties and apprehensions of the poet. He visualizes a situation in which books have stopped working and it can no longer influence the readers. Books turned to be the lifeless objects and rests in the graveyard.

 

2    2.What are the apprehensions of the poet about the future?

Due to the rapid digital revolution happened in 1950s, the books turned to be insignificant but the reading and writing have been replaced by easily accessible new media. So, the poet is very much concerned about this situation and expresses his apprehensions and anxieties regarding the future existence of the books.

 

3    3.What does the poet mean by “framed in words”?

Words can certainly reflect the real beauty of the nature. Speaker talks about the fading away of the books due to the advent of new media and states that the fragrance and color of flowers and the delicious taste of fruits embedded in words, which are contained in books have disappeared.

 

4    4.What does the poet mean by “wingless birds”?

According to Louis MacNeice Books can remarkably ignite and enhance human imagination. Poet compares the situation of life without books to wingless birds. A wingless bird can’t fly similarly one can’t create visual senses without books.

Books can lift human soul to any places.

 

II. Answer the following questions in a paragraph

1 1.Comment on the language of the poem? 

  The modern British poet Louis MacNeice exhibits his craftsmanship through the short and concise poem “To Posterity”. It reminds the famous Shakespearean epigram ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’, as the shot lines convey big and serious reflections regarding the future of books. The poet selects comparatively normal and easily accessibly language because the central aim of the poet is shed light on the serious aspect. He talks about the new age in which the rapid digital revolution causes to the disappearance of books. Emerging new media badly affected the uses of books.

According to the poet books can only convey the real beauty of the nature it can also enhance imaginative sensibility.For the poet the serious truth value is more important than the rhetorical aspects. Thus, he expresses his verses in simple language.

      2.Comment on the use of images in the poem?

The poem is highly thought provoking as it seriously discusses the negative impact of the digital age. The emerging new media completely replaced the use of books hence, the poet expresses his worries. To convey his poetic thought effectively MacNeice uses images like graveyard, some scenes of nature and wingless birds.

 First of all he places the books in the graveyard because of the outbreak of new media books lacked its significance and turned to be completely out of use. Reading and even speaking are replaced by easily accessible and advanced modern media. So he brings the imagery of the graveyard primarily because books happened to be inactive and abandoned. Later, he beautifully brings some natural imageries of flowers, fruits, green grasses and skies then argues that the real natural beauty is conveyed only through words.  

            Finally there comes the most interesting image of wingless birds. He affirms the fact that wingless birds can never fly similarly books are highly essential for human kind. They can’t even think about a world without books.

 

3     3.Comment on the tone and the effect of the poem?

The Poet is very much concerned about the future of books at the same time he is well aware of the emerging new media. It rapidly damaged the intimacy between human beings and books. Thus, the tone of anxiety and apprehension are well expressed by the poet right from the beginning itself. The new media such as Television and Radio got immense popularity and accessibility and it leads to the gradual disappearance of books. Poet also marks his tone of lamentation.

Poet proposes that the true natural beauty can never be well exhibited through new media. The real sense of feeling always lies in the pages of books. Every words can easily draw pictures in the minds of the readers.

So the ultimate aim of the speaker is to create an awareness among the general public regarding their ignorant attitude due to the outbreak of the digital age.