APPRECIATING LITERATURE
ENG5 D03
(Open Course)
V SEMESTER
(For candidates with core course
other than B.A. English)
(2019 Admission)
UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT
School of Distance Education
Calicut University- P.O,
Malappuram - 673635, Kerala.
19017
School of Distance Education
University of Calicut
Study Material
(For candidates with core course other than
B.A. English)
V SEMESTER
Open Course
CBCSS UG (2019Admission Onwards)
ENG5D03: APPRECIATING LITERATURE
Prepared by:
Sabina K Musthafa,
Assistant Professor on Contract,
Department of English,
SDE, University of Calicut.
Scrutinized by:
K.J. Thomas,
Associate Professor & Head (Retd.)
Dept. of English,
MESKVM College, Valanchery
DISCLAIMER
“The author shall be solely responsible for the
content and views expressed in this book”
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CONTENT
MODULE I: POETRY
5 – 54
1. The Waking
:Theodore Roethke
2. The Enchanted Shirt
: John Hay
3. Peacock and Nightingale
: Robert Finch
4. Ozymandias
: P B Shelley
5. Night of the Scorpion
: Nissim Ezekiel
MODULE II PROSE
55 – 72
1. On Doors
:Christopher
Morley
2. On Running After One’s Hat
: G. K Chesterton
MODULE III: SHORT STORIES
73 – 126
1. The Gift of the Magi
: O Henry
2. Mark of Vishnu
: Khushwant Singh
3. Happy Prince
: Oscar Wilde
MODULE IV
1. The Monkey’s Paw
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: W. W Jacobs
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MODULE I
POETRY
THE WAKING
Theodore Roethke
ABOUT THE POET
THEODORE ROETHKE (1908- 1963)
Theodore Hurbner Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan.
He is the son of Otto Roethke and Hellen Hurbner. As a child, he
spent much time in the greenhouse observing the beauty of
nature. Roethke attended Arthur Hill High School, where he
gave a speech on the Junior Red Cross that was published in
twenty-six different languages.
From 1925 to 1929 Roethke attended the University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor. He quit law school after one semester
against the wishes of his family. From 1929 to 1931 he spent at
the University of Michigan in the process of graduating and later
the Harvard Graduate School. There he met and worked with
fellow poet Robert Hillyer. When the Great Depression hit
Roethke was forced to leave Harvard.
He began to teach at Lafayette College and stayed there from
1931 to 1935. it was here where Roethke began his first book,
Open House. By the end of 1935, Roethke was teaching at
Michigan State College at Lansing. His career, however, did not
last long. Later, Roethke was hospitalized due to bout of mental
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illness. However, the depression, as Roethke found, was useful
for writing because it allowed him to explore altogether a
different mindset.
By the time he was teaching at Michigan State Roethke’s
reputation as a poet had been established. In 1936, he shifted his
teaching career to Pennsylvania State University, where he
taught for seven years. During his time there, his works were
published in such prestigious journals as Poetry, the New
Republic, the Saturday Review and Sewanee Review.
His first volume of verse, Open House, was finally published
and released in 1941. The second volume, The Lost Son and
Other Poems was published in 1948 and included greenhouse
poems. He penned Open Letter in 1950 and explored criticism
and sexuality. He later wrote Praise to the End! in 1951 and an
essay, How to Write Like Somebody Else in 1959.
Roethke was awarded Guggenheim Fellowship in 1950, the
Poetry Magazine Levinson Prize in 1951 and major grants from
the Ford Foundation and the National Institute of Arts and letters
the year after. In 1953, Roethke married Beatrice O’ Connell. He
also published The Waking: Poems 1933-1953 in 1953 and won
the Pulitzer Prize for the same in 1954.
In 1957 he published a collection of works that included fortythree new poems entitled Words for the Wind, which won the
Bollingen Prize, the National Book Award, the Edna St. Vincent
Millay Prize, the Longview Foundation Award and the Pacific
Northwest Writer’s Award for it.
Roethke began a series of reading tours in New York and
Europe. In 1963, while visiting friends at Bainbridge Island,
Washington, Roethke suffered a fatal heart attack. During the
last years of his life he had composed the sixty-one new poems
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that were published posthumously in The Far Field in 1964
which received the National Book Award and in The Collected
Poems in 1966.
In short, he is widely regarded as the most accomplished and
influential poets of his generation. Roethke’s work is
characterized by its introspection, rhythm and natural imagery.
The comic and serious sides of his temperament and his
breakthroughs in the use of language are some of his qualities
that document the development of an extra-ordinary creative
source in American poetry.
THE WAKING
(Poem)
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
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Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Theodore Roethke’s ‘The Waking’ was written in 1953 and is
part of his Pulitzer Prize winning collection from the same year.
The poem was composed shortly after World War II ended and
as the world entered the Cold War, Roethke challenges people in
this poem to understand their place in the changing world and to
comprehend that they should appreciate each moment in life.
This focus on life appreciation could stem from a fear of the
world ending due to the nuclear weapons programmes building
up during the time.
“The Waking” is written in the form of a villanelle. A villanelle
is a form of poetry based on repeated lines (or refrain) that
connect each stanza as the poem progresses, a reflection of the
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original meaning of the word. For example, a peasant song from
Italy, taken up by the French. “The Waking” is a nineteen-line
villanelle composed of five tercets and a single quatrain. The
poem is mostly written in iambic pentameter and has five beats
per line.
It is a self-reflexive poem that describes waking up from sleep.
The poem comments on the unknowable with a contemplative
tone. Life is compared to waking and death to that of sleeping.
In this puzzling villanelle, he puts forward various ideas about
life and how to live it.
In stanza one, the speaker introduces to the reader a paradox.
Here is someone awake yet asleep. This confused state suggests
enlightenment. The statement can be interpreted in two ways:
either the speaker is awake and simply feels as if he is still
asleep, operating almost robotically, or he takes the entire day,
or his entire life, to fully awaken. The second line presents
readers with alliteration, which also occurs later in the 15th and
16th lines of the poem, “I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.” In
this line, the emphasis is on feeling, fate, and fear. The speaker
seems to ascertain that there is nothing to be afraid of, so he
sounds more awake and certain than he did in the first line. In
the last line of the stanza, the feeling of fear has been overcome
and the speaker is now taking things, or his life lessons, as they
come and doing what he has to do. The things the speaker has to
do can be interpreted as a job or education, or other items people
typically encounter in everyday life. In short, the speaker clearly
has strong feelings and is emotionally certain of what the future
holds. Learning will come naturally, if he goes with the flow’. It
could even be an educational learning. It could also be the
speaker learning about himself because he is following his heart.
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Much like stanza one, stanza two also opens with a paradox. The
speaker is stating that people’s logical thoughts come out of
their feelings—which most people view as a contradiction. Of
course, humans are emotional since they experience feelings.
But they can also be rational, or logical, at times. However,
asserting that feelings are a result of logic is a definite
contradiction.
In line 2 of stanza two, the speaker is hearing himself and
listening to himself, while smiling and internally dancing. Here,
the reader is being challenged to interpret this dance, which can
be seen parallel to the dance of life. How much do people really
know about this dance, and how deeply do they experience it?
These are things the speaker wants the reader to consider. The
opening line’s paradox repeats itself at the end of the stanza, as
the speaker is trying to make readers realize how important the
moments of our life actually are.
Stanza three starts off with the speaker asking a personal
question, to both himself and the reader. It is possible that the
speaker is either with somebody as he contemplates this line, or
taking a close look at the reader, since the speaker of the poem
cannot function without a reader. Or, it is possible that the
speaker is asking the reader to consider how well he or she
knows personal acquaintances.
Blessing the ground suggests the speaker is now on holy ground,
and capitalizing “G” implies that the ground, to the speaker, is
far more than dirt. To the speaker, the ground is part of the
Earth, and the speaker shows respect for the planet by walking
lightly. The line can be interpreted as a link to environmentalism
and taking care of the planet, or as the pantheistic belief that
God is in all of nature, so humans should respect all of it, even
the dirt they might find lowly or annoying.
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“And learn by going where I have to go.”
We now get a near repeat line to reinforce the concept that
people must do things in life whether they want to or not, but
can find education and learn in their every day required actions.
In Stanza four, we have moved from the association with the
ground now to a higher level, the light, and the trees, which
introduces nature into the poem besides the dirt. The capital “T”
of tree also suggests that this tree is something special, perhaps
the Tree of Life. The question “who can tell us how?” implies
the mysteries that God has in nature, and that to understand
nature better, people should look to God. Again, the pantheistic
connection of God and nature stand out in this line.
The speaker uses another reference to nature in line 2 of stanza
four with “lowly worm,” but suggests that even creatures that
seem low on the human totem pole can climb up in the world.
This can be a reference to evolution, spiritual or otherwise, or
the fact that even people who seem to have little can still
achieve much, like the worm. We know, in the last line of the
stanza, that the speaker is still alive and therefore still
experiencing learning. In this stanza, he took time to learn from
the worm, the light, the tree, and the ground. So the speaker is
still, in a sense, waking up slowly as he finds knowledge in
everyday aspects of life.
In Stanza five, we get the sense that through the process of
always learning through everyday requirements, the speaker is
always obtaining knowledge and thus waking up. He knows that
nature will eventually create his end, as well as the reader’s end,
with death, which is why he is again suggesting that people
cherish the moments of their lives. The repeat of the verb “take”
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implies the speaker is wanting others to also live and learn
through experience.
In Stanza six, with the “shaking” the speaker suggests that it
could refer to love, or the many difficulties of life, or even
Roethke’s own mental challenges (since Roethke suffered from
mental breakdowns). Either way, the comment “I should know”
means again that the speaker is speaking from his life
experience and the lessons he learned, which was already
covered in the poem.
Also, the suggestion that the things that fall away are gone for
good refers to time, people, things —anything we can lose
through the mere act of living. We might have these things close
by, but they can still vanish forever before we realize it.
Also, the references to shaking and falling away make readers
think of leaves on trees and link back to the earlier Tree of Life
referred in the poem. So, in essence, the speaker is saying that
from his experiences learning, the Tree of Life is never steady,
which most people would ultimately agree is a true assumption.
The last quatrain, which repeats earlier lines of the poem,
emphasizes again the speaker’s waking or learning, by going
where he has to go, or completing the things he must do every
day.
In short, death is certain for every living creature. Human beings
have to have a strong faith in their fate. Instead of being afraid
of death, human beings have to choose to live their lives and
look for experiences. In the end, life is a lesson that we learn by
living it.
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MUSICAL DEVICES OF THE POEM
“The Waking” is a villanelle as mentioned in the beginning. In
the poem there are six stanzas consisting of five tercets with AB-A rhyme scheme and a concluding quatrain with A-B-A-A
rhyme scheme. The first and the third lines of the first tercet, “I
wake to sleep and take my waking slow” and “I learn by going
where I have to go”, are repeated in the other four tercets and
become the final two lines of the quatrain. As the refrain, the
two sentences establish haunting echoes which manifest either a
self-reminder or a self-encouragement.
THE TONE OF THE POEM
In the poem, Roethke’s attitude or the tone of the poem is
suggested in every line of it. From its musical devices,
combined with some descriptions about nature. It can be said
that its tone is calm and peaceful, yet encouraging. Roethke
himself shows that he accepts his fate realizing that he cannot
fear it or run away from it. The keywords or the main thoughts
of the poem are the refrain:
“I wake to sleep and take my waking slow
I learn by going where I have to go”
The reason why Roethke keeps on repeating those sentences is
because both sentences, like what I said before, manifest either a
self-reminder or a self-encouragement which indicates that
Roethke is on his meditation or his muse about life, death, and
everything in between. We can say that Roethke wants us to
catch his feeling through those rhymes, to feel our own fate, and
to sense particular thing about living. The words takes, the, tree
and tell draw a melody for the poem together. If we talk about
the meaning of the stanza. It surely talks about cycle of life,
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which is showed by the Tree, the lowly worm, and I – human.
Roethke mentions about nature, and combines it with human’s
life, which gives enlightenment to his mind that every living
creature has, indeed, their own cycle of life.
CONCLUSION
After analysing “The Waking” regarding its musical devices and
tone followed by a short explanation of the poem’s meaning in
it, we can know that Theodore Roethke has a strong spiritual
life. His childhood, his father’s death, his uncle’s death, what he
knows about nature, and all experiences he had are all combined
in a deep thought about life and death throughout his poem. He
realizes that every living creature has its own fate and will die in
the end. By realizing that, Roethke has a higher spirit to live his
life well before facing his God. Using beautiful musical devices
with its repetition and many variations in it means that Roethke
wants to reinforce his state of mind beautifully and calmly too
because we know that life can be understood by learning it
slowly, not in a hurry. In the end, we can say that “The Waking”
is one of Theodore Roethke’s greatest poems because it has
beautiful aspects of music or rhyme and a deep meaning.
GLOSSARY
Alliteration
: alliteration is a technique that makes use of
repeated sounds at the beginning of
multiple
words grouped together. It is used in poetry and
prose.
Paradox
: A paradox is used in literature when a writer
brings together contrasting and contradictory
elements that reveal a deeper truth.
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Quatrain
: A verse form that is made up of four lines with
different possible rhyme schemes.
Repetition
: Repetition is an important poetic technique that
sees writers reuse words or phrases, images, or
structures multiple times within a poem.
Tercet
: A tercet is a three-line stanza. It is a common
stanza form, although not as common as the
couplet and quatrain.
Villanelle
: A villanelle is a nineteen-line poem that is
divided into five tercets or sets of three lines, and
one concluding quatrain; or a set of four lines.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is a villanelle?
2. What is the tone of the poem “The Waking”?
3. What does Roethke mean with “I wake to sleep” in the
poem?
4. What does the poet mean by “God bless the Ground! I
shall walk softly there”?
5. Write a short note on the use of paradox in the poem
“The Waking”.
6. Write an essay on “The Waking” as a villanelle.
REFERENCE
 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43333/thewaking-56d2220f25315
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 https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-PoemThe-Waking-by-Theodore-Roethke
 https://www.bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamerican
poetry/the-waking-summaryanalysis.html#.YQqtp70zbIU
 https://rukhaya.com/poetry-analysis-theodore-roethkesthe-waking/
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THE ENCHANTED SHIRT
John Hay
ABOUT THE POET
JOHN HAY (1838-1905)
John Milton Hay was an American diplomat, author, journalist
and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln. He was
an American statesman and official whose career in government
stretched over almost half a century. Beginning as a private
secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln, Hay's highest office
was United States Secretary of State under Presidents William
McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Apart from this, Hay was
also an author and biographer and wrote poetry and other
literature throughout much of his life. He composed simple
ballads and poems.
He became an editor and writer for The New York Tribune. His
exciting new poetry, Pike Country Ballads, were published in
1871 before he returned to government service. He is the first of
several gifted American authors whose realism and naturalism
derived from a uniquely American frontier experience. His witty
works revealed to an appreciative domestic and international
audience all the colourful turbulence of the Midwest, South, and
West.
Hay was selected in 1904 as one of the seven charter members
of the American Academy of Arts and letters. His literary stature
is well recognised. In his later years Hay served his country
well, negotiating major treatises and directing America's active
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foreign policy on the world stage. For many years his literary
contribution to the school of American Realism has received
virtually no attention. The unique dialect in the poetry of John
Hay's home country in Illinois brought a new emphasis on
authenticity through dialect and character. He introduced readers
to distant Midwestern and Southern rural locales.
Mark Twain was a longtime friend of Hay. Twain regarded Hay
as the earliest author of this specific style of colloquialism.
Besides, interplay of realistic language and events to form an
entertaining picture of rural life can be seen in his writings. He
filled his writings with picturesque slang, humour, and details of
daily life.
John Hay was also a literary influence on the developing
American Realism Movement. He is remembered for his
memorable literary influence in giving us "a new, earthy
vernacular". Interestingly, John Hay's ballads live on and its
significance as a ground-breaking new idiom and their impact
on developing American Realism should be acknowledged by
today's scholars of history and literature.
THE ENCHANTED SHIRT
(Poem)
Fytte the First: wherein it shall be shown how the Truth is too
mighty a Drug for such as be of feeble temper
THE King was sick. His cheek was red
And his eye was clear and bright;
He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
And peacefully snored at night.
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But he said he was sick, and a king should know,
And doctors came by the score.
They did not cure him. He cut off their heads
And sent to the schools for more.
At last two famous doctors came,
And one was as poor as a rat, —
He had passed his life in studious toil,
And never found time to grow fat.
The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble,
If they recovered they paid him well,
If they died their heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
"Hang him up," roared the King in a gale, —
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other leech grew a shade pale;
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But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran, —
The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a Happy Man.
Fytte the Second: tells of the search for the Shirt and how it was
nigh found but was not, for reasons which are said or sung
Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,
And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no Happy Man.
They found poor men who would fain be rich,
And rich who thought they were poor;
And men who twisted their waists in stays,
And women that shorthose wore.
They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;
For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.
At last as they came to a village gate,
A beggar lay whistling there;
He whistled and sang and laughed and rolled
On the grass in the soft June air.
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The weary couriers paused and looked
At the scamp so blithe and gay;
And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend!
You seem to be happy to-day."
"Oh, yes, fair sirs," the rascal laughed,
And his voice rang free and glad,
"An idle man has so much to do
That he never has time to be sad."
"This is our man," the courier said;
"Our luck has led us aright.
I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
For the loan of your shirt to-night."
The merry blackguard lay back on the grass,
And laughed till his face was black;
"I would do it, God wot," and he roared with the fun,
"But I haven't a shirt to my back."
Fytte the Third: shewing how His Majesty the King came at last
to sleep in a Happy Man his Shirt
Each day to the King the reports came in
Of his unsuccessful spies,
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And the sad panorama of human woes
Passed daily under his eyes.
And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
And his maladies hatched in gloom;
He opened his windows and let the air
Of the free heaven into his room.
And out he went in the world and toiled
In his own appointed way;
And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
And the King was well and gay.
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
INTRODUCTION
The poem tells us about the fate of a king who was irresponsible
to his subjects. It is the tale of a king who was sick, and the
strange cue was prescribed for treating him. The vast search
throughout the realm for an enchanted shirt needed to cure the
sick king ends with surprising results.
OUTLINE OF THE POEM
There was a king who was ill for long. He was diagnosed by
many physicians, but they could not trace the disease, which
resulted in the loss of their heads. At last, two famous doctors
were called, one used his knowledge to check on patients while
the other depended on the books. They too couldn't diagnose the
disease, so the king hanged them.
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Finally, a sage suggested that the king would be fine if he sleeps
a night in the shirt of a happy man. The next day the king orders
his soldiers to bring the shirt of the happiest man. The soldiers
went in search of the shirt, but they did not find one. At last,
they found a man who sounded happy but to their surprise he
had no shirt. Finally, the king realized that the happiness is an
inside job and nothing outside can make anyone happy.
The poem is a narrative ballad and tells us the story of a king
who lived a self-centred life and never bothered to think of
others. In this poem no person is the happiest.
NARRATIVE BALLAD
A ballad is a poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas.
Traditional ballads are typically of unknown authorship, having
been passed orally from one generation to the next. Eg.,
Vadakkan Pattukal (or Ballads of North Malabar) is a collection
of Malayalam Ballads of medieval origin.
The musical form of a ballad is a song that tells a story, and it is
often set to slow music. A ballad in the realm of poetry still tells
a story but is not set to music. A ballad is a narrative poem made
up of strong rhythm and rhyme and often includes repetition of
certain lines. The ballad evolved and grew from several
medieval roots, most notably Provencal folk music. The form
had been known orally for centuries prior, with storytellers using
the line breaks and rhythm to enrapture their audiences as they
passed along tales and histories – many of them important to
survival.
A ballad tells a story and has specific rhythm, rhyme, and
repetition. There are other key elements to look for. One is the
presence of dialogue within the poem. Just as stories generally
feature dialogue among characters, so do most ballads. Also, the
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four-line stanzas have a set pattern: the first and third lines will
have four beats, and the second and fourth lines will have three.
Usually, the rhyme scheme will be ABCB, though ABAB is also
acceptable.
IMPORTANT THEMES
1. Honesty Vs deception
2. Truth (reality) vs. dishonesty (illusion)
3. Highlights the necessity of social mingling
4. Conveys the message that one should find happiness
within oneself.
5. We should be satisfied with whatever we have and enjoy
the beautiful moments of life cheerfully.
FIGURES OF SPEECH
● Simile – first doctor is compared to “a poor rat” and the
sage compares the king as “a sound nut”
● Onomatopoeia – in the sentence “roared the king in gala”, roar is onomatopoeia
● Imagery – “Free heaven” can imagine a scene of free
heaven.
● Metaphor- “King is sick” – means king is not physically
sick. He is mentally sick because of his useless life and
he is compared to a sick man.
● Form: quatrain- four lined poem
● Rhyme – line 2 and line 4 rhymed
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● Anaphora – the poet used anaphora at the beginnings of
some neighbouring lines. The same words ‘if’, and ‘are’
repeated. This is a kind of anaphora.
The author used lexical repetitions to emphasize a significant image: and, he, they, has, to, of, his are repeated.
To conclude, “The Enchanted Shirt” is a very clever, sarcastic,
and inspirational poem.
WORD MEANING:
Fytte
:
a section of the poem
Enchanted
:
under a spell, magical
Thump
:
hit or strike heavily, especially
with the fist or a blunt implement
As poor as a rat
:
very poor, destitute
As sound as a nut
:
to be very healthy or in a very
good condition
QUESTIONS:
1. What was the king’s condition before the arrival of the
doctors?
2. Why was the beggar a happy man?
3. Define a narrative ballad
4. What is the message of the poem?
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5. Write a critical appreciation of the poem “The
Enchanted Shirt”
REFERENCE
 http://www.english-for-students.com/the-enchantedshirt.html
 https://www.pinterest.com/pin/382383824610402335/
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PEACOCK AND NIGHTINGALE
Robert Finch
ABOUT THE POET
ROBERT FINCH (1900-1995)
Robert Duer Claydon Finch was an American-born Canadian
poet and an academician whose gift for satire found an outlet in
lyrics characterized by irony, metaphysical wit, complex
imagery, and a strong sense of form. Finch was educated at the
University of Toronto, to which he returned as a professor of
French after three years in Paris. He worked there for four
decades from 1928 to 1968. He was an expert in French poetry.
He began writing poetry in the early 1920's. His first collection,
Poems (1946), won a Governor General's Award. His second
work Acis in Oxford (1961), a series of meditations inspired by a
performance of G. F Handel's dramatic oratorio Acis and
Galatea. Dover Beach Revisited (1961), treating the World War
II evacuation of Dunkirk and issues of faith, contains 11
variations on Matthew Arnold's poem. In another collection,
Variations and Themes (1980), Finch describes in 14 poem
variations the fate of a rare pink water lily. His later works
include Has and Is (1981), The Grand Duke of Moscow's
Favourite Solo (1983) and Sail-boat and Lake (1988).
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in
1963. The Society awarded him it's Lorne Pierce Medal in 1968.
Robert Finch's eye is fundamentally of artist, a painter who has
had many successful exhibitions to his credit between 1921 and
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1978. He was also a musician and in his academic persona he is
a critic of aesthetic theory.
A combination of visual experience, musical aptitude, and
understanding of the creative process in the work of others is
unusual in Canada. Finch brought a fresh perspective into the
Canadian poetry of the 1930s and 1940s. Importance of form is
a vision in his poetry. He has been an artist for as long as or
even longer than he has been a poet. We can find a fusion of two
modes of consciousness in his poetry. He uses pictorial terms to
conjure up the image. Finch has experimented with many styles
of painting but the element which ties them together and relates
the work to the poetry is a sense of structure as firm as it is
unobtrusive.
No human beings are given importance at all in his continuing
panorama of ideas. Finch always executed works arising out of
fantasy and dreams where figures of people do indeed play a
central role. A direct reference to the subconscious is rare in his
works. There are certainly dream worlds in his poetry. His
observant eye did closely weave a network of images, feelings,
sensations, and comments. Birds become part of the religious
doubt. He is completely aware of the complexity inherent in the
poetic process as well as the ultimate mystery of the origins of
the word.
PEACOCK AND NIGHTINGALE
(Poem)
Look at the eyes look from my tail!
What other eyes could look so well?
A peacock asks a nightingale.
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And how my feathers twist the sun!
Confess that no one, no, no one
Has ever seen such colour spun.
Who would not fall in ecstasy
Before the gemmed enamelry
Of ruby-topaz-sapphire me?
When my proud tail parades its fan,
You, little bird, are merely an
Anachronism in its van.
Let me advise that you be wise,
Avoid the vision of my eyes.
And then the nightingale replies.
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
As the poem begins, a boastful peacock is talking about its
beautiful tail to a nightingale. The peacock is so proud and
claims that no other thing in this world is as beautiful as its tail
with eyes. In the second stanza, the peacock continues to explain
about its feather which is woven so beautifully, and it is spun as
a colour spectrum that make the sun jealous. In the third stanza,
the peacock asserts that everyone would fall in ecstasy because
the peacock is so beautiful like the rare combination of precious
stones such as ruby, topaz, and sapphire. In the fourth stanza, the
peacock belittles the nightingale by saying that when the
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peacock spreads its feathers like a fan, the nightingale would be
nothing as it is small and is an anachronism. In other words, the
nightingale does not belong to there. In the last stanza, the
peacock advises the nightingale to be wise and to avoid the sight
of the peacock. But the poem ends ambiguously when the
nightingale begins to reply. We the readers are not able to hear
the nightingale’s reply.
The poem is allegorical and metaphoric in nature and it gives a
glimpse of the political system in our world. The size of the
birds also matters. The size of peacock is equivalent to the
strength and power it holds whereas, the size of the nightingale
shows that it is small and weak. Nightingale’s reply is not given
maybe because it is the voice of the marginalised or maybe
nightingale does not want to be boastful or to show off just like
the peacock. Inner beauty matters and it doesn’t need a
recognition from the peacock. Idea of colonial superiority can
also be seen in the poem. Peacock is the symbol of coloniser and
nightingale is the symbol of colonised. The language of the
nightingale is different from that of the peacock. So, either it is
not recorded or it is deliberately ignored. Unrecorded voice of
the nightingale symbolizes the unrecorded voice of the
marginalized. Recorded history is always that of the winners. As
Walter Benjamin said “History is written by winners”.
Throughout this poem we see and hear only the voice of the
peacock who is powerful. In addition to this, aaa bbb ccc ddd
eee is the rhyme scheme of the poem.
QUESTIONS
1. What does peacock and nightingale symbolize?
2. What is the rhyme scheme of the poem “Peacock and
Nightingale”?
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3. Short note on the theme of the poem
4. Write an essay on “Peacock and Nightingale” as a
postcolonial poem.
REFERENCE
 https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/peacock-andnightingale
 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Finch
 http://canadianpoetry.org/volumes/vol18/trehearne1.html
 https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/finch-robert1900-1995
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OZYMANDIAS
P B Shelley
ABOUT THE POET
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792 - 1822)
P B Shelley was born in Sussex, the heir to a baronetcy and a
great fortune. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. From a very
early age he showed great eccentricity of character. He
frequented graveyards, studied alchemy, and read books of
dreadful import. While he was at the University he wrote several
extraordinary pamphlets, one of which, The Necessity of
Atheism, caused him to be expelled from Oxford. His beliefs
concerning love, marriage, revolution and politics caused him to
be considered a dangerous immorality by some.
HIS MAJOR WORKS
HIS POETRY
 His earliest effort is Queen Mab (1813)
 Alastair or The Spirit of Solitude (1816) which is a kind
of spiritual autobiography.
 Loan and Cythna (1817)
 The Revolt of Islam (1818)
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 Then he left for Italy. The first fruits of his new life were
apparent in Prometheus Unbound (1818-19, published
1820). This is a combination of the lyric and the drama.
 The Cenci (1819)- formal drama
 The Masque of Anarchy (1819, published 1832)
 Adonais (1821)-laments for the death of Keats.
HIS PROSE
The Defence of Poetry (1821, published 1840) is equally skilful.
His prose style is somewhat heavy, but always clear and
readable.
FEATURES OF HIS POETRY
His lyrical power is equal to the highest to be found in any
language. Shelley's choice of subjects makes it convenient to
divide his work into two broad groups, the one consisting of his
visionary prophetic works such as Alastor, or the Spirit of
Solitude, The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Unbound and similar
poems, and the other of his shorter lyrics. Shelley lacks the
homely appeal of Burns. He loves to roam through space and
infinity. He rejoices in nature, but nature of a spiritual kind.
Frequently, he is concerned with the thought of death or his own
sense of despair or loneliness. His descriptive power at once
strikes the imagination. The effect is instantaneous. His style is
perfectly attuned to his purpose. It is simple, flexible, and
passionate. It has a direct clarity, an easy yet striking, lucidity
and a purity of language.
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Shelley's limitations are almost as plain as his great abilities.
During his lifetime Shelley's opinions obscured his power as a
poet. After his death his reputation rose rapidly and by the
middle of the 19th century his position was assured.
In short, Shelley is a revolutionary poet. He was a true-born
child of the French Revolution. The spirits of that revolution
found its expression in Shelley's poetry. He was a dreamer of
dreams and was always at war with the existing world of
complete chaos and confusion. He led a ceaseless war against
the existing political, social and economic institutions. Shelley
was the only passionate singer of the Revolution. The age of
romanticism is one of the great uproars in which Europe faced
the greatest and frightful uprising of the French Revolution.
Besides, he was a rebel and a reformer. He was also a poet of
love. His love for nature is remarkable. As a lyrical poet,
spontaneity is one of the remarkable features of his lyrical
poetry.
OZYMANDIAS
(Poem)
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said— “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . .. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
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And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
LITERARY CONTEXT
Shelley was a Romantic poet, and as such, was very interested in
the sublime power of nature and both individual’s and art's
connections to it. This poem addresses those concerns on a
grand scale. Shelley was also a political writer. Several years
after the publication of “Ozymandias”, he published a pamphlet
entitled "A Philosophical View of Reform" in which he called
for an end to tyranny and discussed the history of empires
crumbling over time. “Ozymandias” displays many of Shelley's
concerns, both in terms of its depiction of man versus nature and
its apparent politics.
“Ozymandias” has several literary predecessors and
contemporaries. Shelley and his friend and fellow writer Horace
Smith challenged each other to write about Ozymandias and his
destroyed statue after reading about the statue in a description
written by the ancient Greek writer Diodorus Siculus. Siculus
described the pedestal of the real-life statue as containing an
inscription that read "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If
anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him
surpass one of my works." Shelley's poem is a re-telling of an
already told story.
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HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The historical Ozymandias’ legacy was not actually entirely
dead when Shelley wrote this poem. In fact, Shelley may have
been inspired to write this poem by newspaper reports that the
British Museum had attained the large head of an Egyptian
statue. It was the statue that later turned out to be of Ramses II,
also known by his Greek name, Ozymandias. This fragment of a
sculpture of Ozymandias produced not despair at the futility of
human achievements, but rather excitement, enthusiasm, and
ultimately, preservation in a museum, where the artefact would
be protected from the elements and, as much as possible, from
time itself. Some critics believe that the poem is partly—though
certainly not entirely—a response to the rise and fall of the
Emperor Napoleon, in France. In this reading, the poem serves
as a warning to those who seek political and military power, that
they will fall be eventually be forgotten, just as Ozymandias
was.
EXPLANATION
Line 1
By introducing the narrative with this line, the speaker makes
the story that follows more or less reliable. Because the
following description comes from someone who went to Egypt
and actually saw the statue, the story seems more credible. At
the same time, however, the fact that the reader hears the story
from 'the friend of a friend' could make its validity seem
questionable. These two vastly different perspectives on how the
tale is told anticipate the many crossroads of interpretation in
"Ozymandias".
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Lines 2-3
As soon as the traveller begins describing the crumbling statue,
the rhyme and meter of the poem begin to fall apart. His
sentences, in their broken ruptures, help to distinguish his voice
from the speaker's, to show how excited he is about his
discovery, and to recreate vocally the fragmented statue.
Lines 4-7
The depiction of the statue's face introduces the poem's central
irony. The power that Ozymandias meant to capture for eternity
has, instead, become a testament to the flexibility of such power.
The lines also suggest that the sculptor was a keen observer than
the king himself. Probably the king might have objected to the
portrayal of himself had he understood the effects of his own
frown.
Line 8
This difficult line is composed in the traveller's typical,
fragmented style. Here, the reader should note that it is the
traveller, not the speaker or Shelley, who is struggling so with
language. Taking into account that the "hand" is the sculptor's,
the "heart" is the king's, and "them" refers to the "passions" of
Ozymandias in line 6, the statement becomes more clear. While
the sculptor "mocked" his subject's intensity of emotion,
Ozymandias continued to feed his pride though he was already
"full of himself."
Lines 9-11
The inscription was initially Ozymandias' own idea and later the
sculptor provided an artistic interpretation of the words, in the
pedestal as well as the face of the statue. The traveller observed
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the wreckage and passed along the information to the speaker.
Ozymandias' words have indeed survived through time, but
change and time have created a new context and thus a new
meaning for his words. His "Works" might now just be
represented by the crumbling image of himself, instead of the
vast creation that would have caused subsequent rulers to know
they could never match his power. The "Mighty" might be the
average visitor to the site, instead of those younger rulers, since
almost anyone has to look down to see Ozymandias' face now.
Perhaps viewers feel "despair" not because Ozymandias' fate is
impossible, but because it will be shared by all humankind.
Lines 12-14
In these lines, a sense of stillness, timelessness and infinite
distances accomplished through alliteration ("boundless" and
"bare", "lone" and "level") and long vowels sounds ("decay",
"bare") reflects the depiction of the vast desert where processes
of growth and decay are extremely slow in Egypt. It is a
civilization even older than ancient Greece or Italy.
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
One of the most well-known and oft-anthologised works of
Shelley, Ozymandias is a sonnet that defies the claims of the
emperors and their empires that they are going to inspire
generations to come and glorifies the timelessness of art. It was
first published in 1818 in the issue of The Examiner in London
under the penname Glirastes. It was later incorporated in
Shelley’s collection Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue;
with Other Poems in 1826. After his death, it was included in a
posthumous compilation of his poems published in 1826.
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TITLE OF THE POEM
‘Ozymandias’ is the name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II.
It also represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of
Ramesses’ throne name User-maat-re Setep-en-re. The word
‘Ozymandias’ also appears in the inscription on the base of the
statue, given by Didorus Siculus. Shelley chose the name
‘Ozymandias’ in place of ‘Ramesses II’ probably because it is
associated with the Greek civilization. This leads to the sharing
of cultures between the two greatest civilizations of the western
world, Greek and Egyptian. Aaron Biterman says, Ozy comes
from the Greek ‘ozium’ which means to breathe, or air. Mandias
comes from the Greek ‘mandate’, which means to rule.
(Biterman 2000). Connecting this to Shelley’s poem, Biterman
adds, Ozymandias is simply a ‘ruler of air’, or a ‘ruler of
nothing’. It is then obvious that the king of kings spoken of in
the poem is actually Nature itself. (Biterman 2000)
THE TIMELESSNESS OF ART
The masterful sonnet has an elusive, sidelong approach to its
subject. The poem begins with the word ‘I’ that hastens to fade
away in favour of a traveller who comes from an antique land.
The wayfarer then takes up the narration. “The two vast and
trunkless legs of stone” without the trunk in the strange, desolate
landscape described by the explorer introduce us to the ruins of
a vast empire. The visage is half-sunk in sand and shattered,
describing the time’s ruinous force.
Shelley then brings up the facial expression. There is the
“Frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command.” The
“cold command” is the symbol of the tyrannical empire building
ruler. The focus now shifts from the explorer to the sculptor. He
becomes the mediating figure as he communicates the tyrant’s
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passions hidden beneath the cold exterior. The ruler has this
insatiable urge to conquer the world and bring it under his
control and power. The sculptor “well those passions read” and
these intense emotions are reflected in his work, the statue. The
artist’s mockery lies in his depiction of Ozymandias in the
statue. “The heart that fed” refers to the sculptor’s own fervent
way of nourishing himself on his project.
The sestet shifts our attention from the shattered statue to its
pedestal with the inscription:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of kings. Look on my
works ye Mighty, and despair. (Ozymandias)”
The irony of the situation is that around the statue no works are
visible. It is just a vast desert wasteland. The kings that
Ozymandias challenges must be the rival rulers of the countries
that he has enslaved. The pedestal stands in the middle of an
infinite empty space, described by two phrases: “boundless and
bare”, and “lone and level”. His life work is as barren and empty
as the vast expanse. The once great king’s proud boast has been
reduced to dust. His works have crumbled and disappeared. The
all-powerful Time ruins everything with its impersonal,
indiscriminate and destructive power. Thus, the statue becomes
an epitome of the ephemeral political power and of pride and
hubris of all humanity. However, a glaring contrast to these ruins
of a great empire is provided by a work of art and a group of
words. Civilisations and empires are wiped out from the surface
of the earth and forgotten but there is something that outlasts
these things and that is art. Eternity can be achieved by the
poet’s words, not by the ruler’s will to dominate.
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FORM
‘Ozymandias’ is a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem written in
Iambic Pentameter. It is not strictly a Petrarchan sonnet.
However, it interlinks the Octave (the first eight lines) with the
Sestet (the last six lines) by gradually replacing the old rhymes
with the new ones. The Rhyme Scheme is ABABACDC
EDEFEF.
IMAGERY AND METAPHORS
The entire poem is devoted to a single metaphor: the shattered,
ruined statue in the desert wasteland, with its arrogant,
passionate face and inscription. It becomes a metaphor for the
fallen and destroyed dream of the powerful, cruel ruler and the
ironic and hollow words etched onto the statue’s base. Shelley’s
use of imagery reconstructs the figure of the “King of kings”. At
first, the two legs are described, then the “shattered visage”, and
then the face itself with its “frown / And wrinkled lip and sneer
of cold command.” The sculptor then comes alive in front of our
mind’s eye. We are able to imagine the living man sculpting a
live king, whose face bore the expression of patience. The image
of the desert, boundless and bare, with the lone and level sands
stretching far away, demolishes the picture of the mighty king
who boasted of his works.
NARRATION
Shelley uses the technique of Distanced Narration. The sonnet is
framed as a story told to the speaker by a traveller. This adds
obscurity to the position of Ozymandias. Neither the reader nor
the narrator has seen the statue. Even the narrator hears it from
someone else who has seen it. Thus, the ancient king is rendered
even less commanding. It absolutely undermines his power.
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CONCLUSION
Shelley’s poetic rendering of the legend of Ozymandias is even
more memorable than the original story itself. It is also an
emphatic political statement indicating the cruel and destructive
nature of the empires of man and their outcomes. This beautiful
sonnet outlasts the so-called mighty empires based on control
and terror. These empires get eroded and destroyed leading to
disintegration of civilization and culture. However, neither time
nor distance can obliterate the works of art making the artist
immortal.
GLOSSARY
Antique
long ago
:
belonging to or lasting from times
Vast
or extent or scope
:
unusually great in size or amount
Visage
facial features
:
face refers to someone’s face and
Sneer
scorn
:
facial expression of contempt or
Passion
:
a strong feeling or emotion
Pedestal
:
an architectural support or base
Colossal
as to elicit wonder
:
so great in size or force or extent
Level
:
having a surface without slope
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QUESTIONS
1. Who was Ozymandias?
2. What words appear on the pedestal of the sculpture?
3. What does the poet mean by “two vast and trunkless legs of
stone”?
4. Identify the setting of the poem
5. Critically appreciate the poem “Ozymandias”
REFERENCES
Biterman, A. (2000). Analysis of Ozymandias." Personal web
page. Analysis of Ozymandias. Dec. 2000. Web. 12 Mar. 2012.
http://chelm.freeyellow.com/ozymandias1.html.
Glirastes (Percy Bysshe Shelley), (1818). Original Poetry.
Ozymandias”. The Examiner, A Sunday Paper, on politics,
domestic economy and theatricals for the year 1818 (p. 24).
London: John Hunt.
Shelley, P. B. (1826). Ozymandias" in Miscellaneous and
Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (p.100). London: W.
Benbow.
Shelley, P. B. (1876). Ozymandias”. Reprinted in Rosalind and
Helen - Edited, with notes by H. Buxton Forman, and printed for
private distribution (p. 72). London: Hollinger.
Shelley,
P.
B.
(1820).
To
a
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174413.
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NIGHT OF THE SCORPION
Nissim Ezekiel
ABOUT THE POET
NISSIM EZEKIEL (1924 - 2004)
Nissim Ezekiel is one of the prominent poets who has enriched
the modern Indian English Poetry.
His poetry ranges from personal emotions and lyricism to
complex linguistic experiments and satire. He was also a
renowned playwright, art critic, lecturer and editor.
Nissim Ezekiel is considered to be the Father of PostIndependence Indian poetry in English. He is a prolific poet,
playwright, critic, broadcaster and social commentator. He was
born on December24, 1924 in a Jew family. His father was a
professor of botany and mother was the principal of her own
school. Ezekiel was inclined to the poets such as T.S. Eliot.
Yeats, Ezra Pound in his school days. The influence of all these
literary personalities was apparent in his early works. His formal
use of the English language was linked to colonialism and
resulted in controversy.
His first collection of poetry Time to Change was published by
Fortune Press (London) in 1952. His poetry has all the elements
of love, loneliness, lust, and creativity. He joined The Illustrated
Weekly of India as an assistant editor in 1953. Sixty Poems was
his next book followed by The Unfinished Man. He started
writing in formal English but with the passage of time his
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writing underwent a metamorphosis. As the time passed, he
acknowledged that 'the darkness has its own secrets which light
does not know. His poem “The Night of Scorpion” is one of the
best works in Indian English poetry and is used as a study
material in India and British schools.
He worked as an advertising copywriter and general manager of
a picture frame company. He was the art critic of ‘The Times of
India’ (1964-66) and editor of ‘The Poetry India’ (1966-67). He
was also the co-founder of the literary monthly ‘Imprint’.
Ezekiel was awarded the Sahitya Academy award in 1983. In
1988, he received another honour, ‘Padma Shri’, for his
contribution to the Indian English writing. He died on January 9,
2004, in Mumbai after a prolonged illness.
MAJOR WORKS OF NISSIM EZEKIEL:
* Time to Change (1952)
* Sixty Poems (1953)
* The Third (1959)
* The Unfinished Man (1960)
* The Exact Name (1965)
* The Three Plays (1969)
* Snakeskin and Other Poems, translations of the Marathi poet
Indira Sant (1974)
* Hymns in Darkness (1976)
* Latter-Day Psalms (1982)
* Collected Poems 1952-88 (1989)
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NIGHT OF THE SCORPION
(Poem)
I remember the night my mother
Was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
Of steady rain had driven him
To crawl beneath a sack of rice.
Parting with his poison – flash
Of diabolic tail in the dark room –
He risked the rain again.
The peasants came like swarms of flies
And buzzed the Name of God a hundred
Time to paralyse the Evil one.
With candles and with lanterns
Throwing giant scorpion shadows
On the mud-baked walls
They searched for him; he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in Mother’s blood they said.
May he sit still, they said
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May the sins of your previous birth
be burned away tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of all evil
balanced in this unreal world
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
May the poison purify your flesh
Of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
They said, and they sat around
On the floor with my mother in the centre,
The peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
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I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
My mother only said
Thank god the scorpion picked on me
and spared my children.
ANALYSIS OF THE POEM
INTRODUCTION
“Night of the Scorpion” had been taken from Nissin Ezekiel's
volume of poems entitled The Exact Name which was published
in 1965. The poem is presented like a story. The speaker in the
poem narrates an incident of how his mother was stung by a
scorpion one night when it was raining heavily. The speaker
may be the poet himself or some other person, real or imaginary.
The incident itself may also be actual or imaginary. But it is
perfectly realistic and convincing incident.
OUTLINE OF THE POEM
The speaker's mother was stung by a scorpion one night. The
Scorpion had crawled into the house and hidden itself beneath a
bag full of rice. It had been forced to enter the house because of
the rain outside. It had then crept towards the speaker’s mother
and had stung her. After stinging her, the Scorpion had swiftly
moved away from her and gone out into the rain again, though it
was because of the rain that it had come into the house.
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The peasants in the neighbourhood, on learning about a woman
having been stung by a scorpion, had come to the woman to
express their sympathy and to relieve her of her pain if they
could. They chanted the name of God again and again in order
to nullify the effect of the scorpion's sting. The scorpion was a
devil whose sting could be rendered ineffective only by this
method, they thought. Then the peasants tried another device
also to relieve the woman's pain or, at least, to prevent the pain
from becoming more acute. They began to search for the
Scorpion in order to kill it because, according to a general belief,
with every movement which the scorpion made, the poison
injected by it into the woman's blood through its sting, would
also move and would increase her pain. Then they all wished
keenly that the scorpion should remain motionless wherever it
was. They also expressed the wish that the sins, which this
woman had committed in her previous life, should be burned
away that night by the pain of the sting. Furthermore, the pain
which she was suffering that night should lead to a decrease in
the misfortunes which she might have to undergo in her next
life.
The peasants gave utterance to some more wishes of the same
kind. They expressed the wish that the woman's pain should
diminish the sum total of evil in this world which is unreal (or a
kind of illusion). They expressed the wish that the poison should
rid the woman of her bodily or physical desires and should also
free her of all worldly ambition.
The peasants sat around the speaker's mother on the floor with
the mother in the centre. They had an expression of tranquillity
on their faces, indicative of their belief that they understood the
situation well. Then they brought more candles and more
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lanterns to look for the scorpion. The light of the candles and
lanterns threw huge shadows on the walls of the house. But they
did not find the scorpion. More neighbours came and joined the
ones who were already present there. The woman in the
meantime suffered all the agony of the sting; and she twisted
and turned her body this way and that way, groaning all the
time. The rain continued outside, and the woman continued to
suffer.
The speaker's father was a man with a scientific attitude to life.
He did not share the views of the peasants who were
superstitious. The speaker's father was a rationalist. He applied a
herb to his wife's flesh and, next a combination of the juice of
certain herbs. He even went to the length of pouring a little
paraffin over the affected flesh; and applying a burning
matchstick to it in order to burn away the sting from the
woman's bitten toe. The speaker watched the flame burning his
mother's flesh; and he also watched a religious-minded man
performing certain rites to subdue the poison of the sting with an
incantation. After a lapse of twenty hours, the effect of the
poison wore off and the woman ceased to experience the pain of
sting.
At the end of it all, the speaker's mother simply thanked God for
allowing the scorpion to choose only her for the sting and for
not allowing the scorpion to sting any of her children.
STRUCTURE AND LANGUAGE
The poem uses free verse narrative structure. The poem is
presented in a relaxed and open form with a new quality of
natural colloquialism in diction and tone. The use of capital
letters is abandoned at the start of each line.
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Structure: The poem is written in free verse narration with
varying line lengths and no rhyme. The first part is long and full
of activity - the scorpion's bite and the reaction of the villagers.
The second part reaction - is just three lines long.
LANGUAGE
The title is in some ways deceptive. It leads us to believe we are
in for a frightening and dramatic tale with a scorpion taking
centre stage. In fact, the poem is not about the scorpion at all,
but about the reactions of different people to its sting. The poem
starts off in the first person. Ezekiel describes an event that
really happened. However, he does not give his own feelings or
reactions: we realise he is merely the narrator. Most of the poem
is in the third person. Ezekiel does not portray the scorpion as a
villain. However, the villagers are more superstitious and link
the scorpion to 'the Evil One' (line 10). They claim that the
poison will help in many ways. For example, by burning away
the sins of the woman's former life - 'her previous birth' (line 19)
- and ease her life after this one - 'her next birth' (line 22). The
events of the night are described in rich detail such as the mud
hut and the candles and lanterns but, we know little about the
individual neighbours. Ezekiel clubs the neighbours together as
'they'. Ezekiel's father is usually a sceptic and a rationalist - in
other words, he does not believe in superstitions and is not
religious. The final three lines are poignant. We hear Ezekiel's
mother's exact words through her simple speech which is in
contrast to the blabbering neighbours. She doesn't show any
bitterness about her ordeal: she is just grateful that she was the
one who was hurt rather than her children and she thanks God.
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IMAGERY AND SOUND
Ezekiel uses a simile
Simile can be defined as an explicit comparison of one thing to
another, using the words 'like' or 'as'. He compares the villagers
to 'swarms of flies' (line 8). It is striking that he uses an insect
image to describe the people's reaction to an invertebrate's sting.
He develops the simile in the following line: 'they buzzed the
name of God' (line 9). The neighbours' candles and lanterns
throw 'giant scorpion shadows' on the walls (line 13). A scorpion
has eight legs, so the shadow of a small group of people
standing together could look like a scorpion. There is a contrast
between the neighbours' 'peace of understanding' (line 31) and
the mother who 'twisted... groaning on a mat' (line 35). It is
ironic that they are at peace despite her discomfort.
SOUND
Alliteration can be defined as words strung together with
repeated, often initial consonants. Alliteration can be seen
throughout the poem that helps to link or emphasize ideas: the
scorpion is seen 'Parting with his poison' (line 5), Ezekiel's
father tries 'herb and hybrid' (line 38), Ezekiel sees 'flame
feeding' (line 41) on his mother. Besides, there is a lot of
repetition, so that we hear the villagers' prayers and incantations.
Furthermore, Ezekiel uses direct speech, 'May...', to dramatize
the scene and the echoed 'they said' is like a chorus. Now a
chorus can be defined as a group of characters in classical
Greek drama who comment on the action but don't take part in
it. In a song, the chorus is a section that is regularly repeated.
In addition to this, much of the meaning of a poem is conveyed
by the attitude it expresses towards its subject matter. The ideas
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in this poem concern our difficult feelings towards aspects of the
natural world that seem to threaten us - the frightened insect
becomes the Evil One! - and the complex ways in which
individuals and communities respond when disaster strikes one
of their number. Moreover, Ezekiel shows his mother's
selflessness. He chooses her simple words to end the poem to
highlight his love and admiration for her. The syntax and
grammar of the lines in the poem are straightforward and the
voice we hear is obviously the poet’s own. The imagery is vivid
and sensitive with more than usual clarity.
The themes in this poem is given multiple treatment. There is a
conflict between the traditional world and the world of
rationalism. The poem has as its setting a tender family
situation. The theme of the poet’s mother, stung by a scorpion, is
treated in multiple ways such s the world of magic and
superstition, science and rationality, and maternal affection. To
conclude, the poem shows the characteristic qualities of Ezekiel.
He works consciously within the range of his experience and
thereby attains the poetic personality peculiar to him.
GLOSSARY
Diabolic
:
cruel and wicked – often related to
the devil – used in the poem to
describe the scorpion’s tail.
Rationalist
:
the poet’s father is this – meaning
he usually relies on reason rather
than religion
Rites
:
a religious act – performed by the
holy man in the poem
Swarms
:
a large group of insects or people
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Incantation
:
a spell or charm used by the holy
man
Sceptic
:
this refers to his poet’s father and
QUESTIONS
1. Why are the peasants compared to a swarm of flies?
2. What happened to the speaker’s mother in the poem?
3. What type of man was the father? How did he treat his wife?
4. Examine the theme of the poem “Night of the Scorpion”
5. What was the mother’s reaction after her recovery?
6. Critically appreciate the poem “Night of the Scorpion”.
REFERENCE
 http://dcac.du.ac.in/documents/EResource/2020/Metrial/17renusingh2.pdf
 https://poemanalysis.com/nissim-ezekiel/the-night-ofthe-scorpion/
 https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-PoemThe-Night-of-the-Scorpion-by-Nissim-Ezekiel
 https://ardhendude.blogspot.com/2011/01/analysis-ofnight-of-scorpion.html
 https://www.litgalaxy2019.com/2020/05/criticalappreciation-night-of-the-scorpion--nissim-ezekiel.html
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MODULE II
PROSE
ON DOORS
Christopher Morley
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY (1890 - 1957)
Christopher Morley (5 May 1890–28 March 1957) was an
American journalist, novelist, and poet. He was born in
Haverford, Pennsylvania. Morley studied at Haverford College,
where he obtained a BA in 1910. He was a Rhodes Scholar at
New College, Oxford from 1910 to 1913. Morley got his start as
a newspaper reporter and then columnist for various
publications in Philadelphia and later New York City.
He was one of the founders and long-time staff member of the
Saturday Review of Literature. A highly gregarious man, he was
the mainstay of what he dubbed the Three Hours for Lunch
Club. Out of enthusiasm for the Sherlock Holmes stories, he
became the founder of the Baker Street Irregulars and wrote the
introduction to the standard omnibus edition of The Complete
Sherlock Holmes. In 1936 he was appointed to revise and
enlarge Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1937, 1948). Author of
more than 50 books of poetry and novels, Morley is probably
best known as the author of Kitty Foyle (1939), which was made
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into an Academy Award-winning movie. Other well-known
works include Thunder on the Left (1925), and The Haunted
Bookshop (1919) and Parnassus on Wheels (1917), his two
semi-biographical novels of a fictional bookseller.
In later years he lived in Nassau County, Long Island,
commuting to the city on the Long Island Rail Road, about
which he wrote affectionately. In 1961, a 98-acre park was
named in his honour in Nassau County. This park preserves his
studio, the Knothole, as a point of interest, his furniture and
bookcases available to the historically interested public.
ON DOORS
(Text)
The opening and closing of doors are the most significant
actions of man’s life. What a mystery lies in doors!
No man knows what awaits him when he opens a door. Even the
most familiar room, where the clock ticks and the hearth glows
red at dusk, may harbor surprises. The plumber may actually
have called (while you were out) and fixed that leaking faucet.
The cook may have had a fit of the vapors and demanded her
passports. The wise man opens his front door with humility and
a spirit of acceptance.
Which one of us has not sat in some ante-room and watched the
inscrutable panels of a door that was full of meaning? Perhaps
you were waiting to apply for a job; perhaps you had some
“deal” you were ambitious to put over. You watched the
confidential stenographer flit in and out, carelessly turning that
mystic portal which, to you, revolved on hinges of fate. And
then the young woman said, “Mr. Cranberry will see you now.”
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As you grasped the knob the thought flashed, “When I open this
door again, what will have happened?”
There are many kinds of doors. Revolving doors for hotels,
shops and public buildings. These are typical of the brisk,
bustling ways of modern life. Can you imagine John Milton or
William Penn skipping through a revolving door? Then there are
the curious little slatted doors that still swing outside denatured
bar-rooms and extend only from shoulder to knee. There are
trapdoors, sliding doors, double doors, stage doors, prison doors,
glass doors. But the symbol and mystery of a door resides in its
quality of concealment. A glass door is not a door at all, but a
window. The meaning of a door is to hide what lies inside; to
keep the heart in suspense.
Also, there are many ways of opening doors. There is the cheery
push of elbow with which the waiter shoves open the kitchen
door when he bears in your tray of supper. There is the
suspicious and tentative withdrawal of a door before the
unhappy book agent or peddler. There is the genteel and
carefully modulated recession with which footmen swing wide
the oaken barriers of the great. There is the sympathetic and
awful silence of the dentist’s maid who opens the door into the
operating room and, without speaking, implies that the doctor is
ready for you. There is the brisk cataclysmic opening of a door
when the nurse comes in, very early in the morning – “It’s a
boy!”
Doors are the symbol of privacy, of retreat, of the mind’s escape
into blissful quietude or sad secret struggle. A room without
doors is not a room, but a hallway. No matter where he is, a man
can make himself at home behind a closed door. The mind
works best behind closed doors. Men are not horses to be herded
together. Dogs know the meaning and anguish of doors. Have
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you ever noticed a puppy yearning at a shut portal? It is a
symbol of human life.
The opening of doors is a mystic act: it has in it some flavour of
the unknown, some sense of moving into a new moment, a new
pattern of the human rigmarole. It includes the highest glimpses
of mortal gladness: reunions, reconciliations, the bliss of lovers
long parted. Even in sadness, the opening of a door may bring
relief: it changes and redistributes human forces. But the closing
of doors is far more terrible. It is a confession of finality. Every
door closed brings something to an end. And there are degrees
of sadness in the closing of doors. A door slammed is a
confession of weakness. A door gently shut is often the most
tragic gesture in life. Everyone knows the seizure of anguish that
comes just after the closing of a door, when the loved one is still
near, within sound of voice, and yet already far away.
The opening and closing of doors is a part of the stern fluency of
life. Life will not stay still and let us alone. We are continually
opening doors with hope, closing them with despair. Life lasts
not much longer than a pipe of tobacco, and destiny knocks us
out like the ashes.
The closing of a door is irrevocable. It snaps the packthread of
the heart. It is no avail to reopen, to go back. Pinero spoke
nonsense when he made Paula Tanqueray say, “The future is
only the past entered through another gate.” Alas, there is no
other gate. When the door is shut, it is shut forever. There is no
other entrance to that vanished pulse of time. “The moving
finger writes, and having writ”–
There is a certain kind of door-shutting that will come to us all.
The kind of door-shutting that is done very quietly, with the
sharp click of the latch to break the stillness. They will think
then, one hopes, of our unfulfilled decencies rather than of our
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pluperfected misdemeanors. Then they will go out and close the
door.
*******
ANALYSIS OF THE ESSAY
Christopher Morley's essay On Doors describes the most
significant action of man's life that is "the opening and closing
of doors". The meaning of a door is to hide what lies inside, to
keep the heart in suspense. No man knows what awaits him
when he opens a door. Even the most familiar room, where the
clock tickles and the hearth glows red at dusk may hide
surprises. The wise men is often seen to open his front door with
humility and a spirit of acceptance. Perhaps if you were waiting
to apply for a job you have a question "when I open this door,
what will have happened?"
There are many kinds of doors such as revolving doors for
hotels, shops, and public buildings. There are the curious little
slattered doors that still swing outside the damaged bar-rooms.
There are trap doors, sliding doors, double doors, prison doors,
glass doors and so on. The function of these doors differs
depending upon the situation. Besides, the symbol and mystery
of a door resides in its quality of concealment. A glass door
cannot be considered as a door at all. It can be considered only
as a window. There are many ways of opening doors:
1. The cherry push of the elbow - for instance, a waiter
pushing the door with his elbow when he is moving with
a tray of food in his hands.
2. Suspicious and uncertain withdrawal of a door before an
unhappy salesman.
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3. Gentle and carefully modulated recession.
4. Sympathetic and awful silence of the dentist's maid who
opens the door into the operation room.
5. Sudden and violent opening of a door when the nurse
comes in, very early in the morning and says, "it's a
boy!"
In addition to this, doors are symbols of privacy, of retreat of
mind's escape into blissful quietude or secret struggle. A room
without doors is not a room, but a Hallway. It's said that the
mind works best behind closed doors. Even in sadness, opening
the door may bring relief. It changes and redistributes human
forces. Similarly, closing of doors is more terrible and it is a
confession of finality.
A door gently shut is often the most tragic gesture in life.
Everyone knows the seizure of mental suffering that comes just
after the closing of a door. The loved ones might be near, yet far
away.
The opening and closing of doors is a part of the stern fluency of
life. Life will not stay still and let us alone. We are continually
opening doors with great hope and sometimes close them with
great despair. Furthermore, the opening of doors is a spiritual
act. It has in it some strangeness, some sense of new moments or
a new pattern of commotion. It includes the highest glimpse of
human gladness, reunion of friendly relationships and so on.
To conclude, there is a certain kind of door shutting that will
come to us all. This way of door shutting is done very quietly. At
that moment they will think of the unfulfilled moral behaviour,
rather than the minor mistakes done earlier. And finally, they
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will move out and close the door which is symbolic of death
from which no man can escape.
GLOSSARY
Pluperfect
:
utterly perfect or complete
Misdemeanour
:
a minor wrongdoing
Reconciliation
:
the process of making two people
or groups of people friendly again
after they have argued seriously or
fought and kept apart from each
other, or a situation in which this
happens
QUESTIONS
1. What are the various kinds of doors mentioned in the essay
“On Doors”?
2. Critically analyse “On Doors”
3. “The opening and closing of doors are the most significant
actions of man’s life”- explain.
REFERENCE
 https://readandripe.com/on-doors-by-christopher-morley/
 https://bloggingeinstein.wordpress.com/2016/07/18/chris
topher-morley-and-portals/
 https://www.jstor.org/stable/803748
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 https://www.ebookslibrary.com/author.cfm/AuthorID/964
 https://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/christopher_
morley_2012_3.pdf
ON RUNNING AFTER ONE’S HAT
G K Chesterton
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
G.K. CHESTERTON (1874- 1936)
G.K. Chesterton was the best writers of the twentieth century. He
was a critic, novelist and a poet but he was an essayist also. He
began his career as a journalist and to write weekly articles for
newspapers and magazines. He became a reputed figure in the
Daily News. He used to sit in Fleet Street cafe and write his
articles and essays with the help of his imaginative and
intellectual power.
Chesterton possessed some literary
implements in which mainly he used to use wit and paradoxical
arrows to win and with these weapons, he smartly dealt his duty.
His quizzical humour, stylish use of wit, delightful mental
creativity like a gymnastic which were in paradoxical and
epigrammatical way and his whole-heartedly defensive manner
for old, cheerful romantics are the things which regard his
writing style and spill different from any other contemporaries
of his time. Hence, he was called the “prince of paradox”.
G.K. Chesterton easily can handle with literary and
social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy and
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theology. There are so many essays and columns which are
cherished in the form of books and the collections, titles are like:
All Things considered, All is Grist. He spent a month of 1927 in
Poland and then two years later, he visited Rome and resulted in
The Resurrection of Rome (1930). His more successful books of
that period were The Thing (1929), a Catholic Essay and two
volumes of general essays, Come to Think of It (1930) and All is
Grist (1931). He disclosed the antithesis, identities, distinctions,
and absurdness. He argued with the help of examples and
Anecdotes. He wrote on the qualitative facts, knowing the habits
of people to be a reporter, he did not forget what his eyes had
seen at the first time. He shows his ideas in natural way without
any kind of artificial polish.
Some of his important works include The Defendant (1901),
Twelve Types (1902), Robert Browning (1903), Heretics (1905),
Charles Dickens (1906), George Bernard Shaw (1909) and
Robert Louis Stevenson (1927).
His essays have also possessed the touch of humour. In the
essay, A Piece of Chalk when the lady offered him with nose
paper, supposing that he would not like his notes on old brown
paper wrappers having the nation of economical aspect. In his
thought, the pocket-knife is also a kind of tool used by human
being for their purposes. He says that a knife is a baby of a
sword. There is a fine example of his humoristic style when he
says that to write on those things which he has possessed in his
pocket is not an easy task because it would be too long to write
and writing of those things would be turn into an epic and it
would be the great epic for the future. It would be a matter of
great fun for the readers whenever he will be introduced by him
about that things which he kept in his pocket. In fact, this
thought of writer is humorous and interesting and all of these
various shades and thoughts are reflected in his style.
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ON RUNNING AFTER ONE’S HAT
(Text)
I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been
flooded in my absence, while I am in the mere country. My own
Battersea has been, I understand, particularly favoured as a
meeting of the waters. Battersea was already, as I need hardly
say, the most beautiful of human localities. Now that it has the
additional splendour of great sheets of water, there must be
something quite incomparable in the landscape (or waterscape)
of my own romantic town. Battersea must be a vision of Venice.
The boat that brought the meat from the butcher’s must have
shot along those lanes of rippling silver with the strange
smoothness of the gondola. The greengrocer who brought
cabbages to the corner of the Latchmere Road must have leant
upon the oar with the unearthly grace of the gondolier. There is
nothing so perfectly poetical as an island; and when a district is
flooded it becomes an archipelago.
Some consider such romantic views of flood or fire slightly
lacking in reality. But really this romantic view of such
inconveniences is quite as practical as the other. The true
optimist who sees in such things an opportunity for enjoyment is
quite as logical and much more sensible than the ordinary
“Indignant Ratepayer” who sees in them an opportunity for
grumbling. Real pain, as in the case of being burnt at Smithfield
or having a toothache, is a positive thing; it can be supported,
but scarcely enjoyed. But, after all, our toothaches are the
exception, and as for being burnt at Smithfield, it only happens
to us at the very longest intervals. And most of the
inconveniences that make men swear or women cry are really
sentimental or imaginative inconveniences—things altogether of
the mind. For instance, we often hear grown-up people
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complaining of having to hang about a railway station and wait
for a train. Did you ever hear a small boy complain of having to
hang about a railway station and wait for a train? No; for to him
to be inside a railway station is to be inside a cavern of wonder
and a palace of poetical pleasures. Because to him the red light
and the green light on the signal are like a new sun and a new
moon. Because to him when the wooden arm of the signal falls
down suddenly, it is as if a great king had thrown down his staff
as a signal and started a shrieking tournament of trains. I myself
am of little boys’ habit in this matter. They also serve who only
stand and wait for the two fifteen. Their meditations may be full
of rich and fruitful things. Many of the most purple hours of my
life have been passed at Clapham Junction, which is now, I
suppose, under water. I have been there in many moods so fixed
and mystical that the water might well have come up to my
waist before I noticed it particularly. But in the case of all such
annoyances, as I have said, everything depends upon the
emotional point of view. You can safely apply the test to almost
every one of the things that are currently talked of as the typical
nuisance of daily life.
For instance, there is a current impression that it is unpleasant to
have to run after one’s hat. Why should it be unpleasant to the
well-ordered and pious mind? Not merely because it is running,
and running exhausts one. The same people run much faster in
games and sports. The same people run much more eagerly after
an uninteresting little leather ball than they will after a nice silk
hat. There is an idea that it is humiliating to run after one’s hat;
and when people say it is humiliating they mean that it is comic.
It certainly is comic; but man is a very comic creature, and most
of the things he does are comic—eating, for instance. And the
most comic things of all are exactly the things that are most
worth doing—such as making love. A man running after a hat is
not half so ridiculous as a man running after a wife.
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Now a man could, if he felt rightly in the matter, run after his hat
with the manliest ardour and the most sacred joy. He might
regard himself as a jolly huntsman pursuing a wild animal, for
certainly no animal could be wilder. In fact, I am inclined to
believe that hat-hunting on windy days will be the sport of the
upper classes in the future. There will be a meet of ladies and
gentlemen on some high ground on a gusty morning. They will
be told that the professional attendants have started a hat in
such-and-such a thicket, or whatever be the technical term.
Notice that this employment will in the fullest degree combine
sport with humanitarianism. The hunters would feel that they
were not inflicting pain. Nay, they would feel that they were
inflicting pleasure, rich, almost riotous pleasure, upon the people
who were looking on. When last I saw an old gentleman running
after his hat in Hyde Park, I told him that a heart so benevolent
as his ought to be filled with peace and thanks at the thought of
how much unaffected pleasure his every gesture and bodily
attitude were at that moment giving to the crowd.
The same principle can be applied to every other typical
domestic worry. A gentleman trying to get a fly out of the milk
or a piece of cork out of his glass of wine often imagines himself
to be irritated. Let him think for a moment of the patience of
anglers sitting by dark pools, and let his soul be immediately
irradiated with gratification and repose. Again, I have known
some people of very modern views driven by their distress to the
use of theological terms to which they attached no doctrinal
significance, merely because a drawer was jammed tight and
they could not pull it out. A friend of mine was particularly
afflicted in this way. Every day his drawer was jammed, and
every day in consequence it was something else that rhymes to
it. But I pointed out to him that this sense of wrong was really
subjective and relative; it rested entirely upon the assumption
that the drawer could, should, and would come out easily. “But
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if,” I said, “you picture to yourself that you are pulling against
some powerful and oppressive enemy, the struggle will become
merely exciting and not exasperating. Imagine that you are
tugging up a lifeboat out of the sea. Imagine that you are roping
up a fellow-creature out of an Alpine crevass. Imagine even that
you are a boy again and engaged in a tug-of-war between French
and English.” Shortly after saying this I left him; but I have no
doubt at all that my words bore the best possible fruit. I have no
doubt that every day of his life he hangs on to the handle of that
drawer with a flushed face and eyes bright with battle, uttering
encouraging shouts to himself, and seeming to hear all round
him the roar of an applauding ring.
So I do not think that it is altogether fanciful or incredible to
suppose that even the floods in London may be accepted and
enjoyed poetically. Nothing beyond inconvenience seems really
to have been caused by them; and inconvenience, as I have said,
is only one aspect, and that the most unimaginative and
accidental aspect of a really romantic situation. An adventure is
only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is
only an adventure wrongly considered. The water that girdled
the houses and shops of London must, if anything, have only
increased their previous witchery and wonder. For as the Roman
Catholic priest in the story said: “Wine is good with everything
except water,” and on a similar principle, water is good with
everything except wine.
****
ANALYSIS OF THE ESSAY
The essay On Running After One’s Hat talks about the
inconveniences of the life and the attitude we have to inculcate
towards them. In the beginning of the essay Chesterton
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expressed his sorrow as London was flooded when he was away
in the countryside. His town Battersea, when flooded, would
have resembled Venice. The butcher and the greengrocer must
have brought things riding in boats. The inconvenience of flood
could be an opportunity of enjoyment for a true optimist,
whereas the ordinary people always complain about such
situations. Similarly, there are people who complain for waiting
for a long time in railway stations but we never see children
doing so. Maybe because it’s a place of wonder for children. For
them the red light and the greenlight are like the sun and the
moon. Here, the narrator was like a boy. He had spent his most
joyful hours in such places, especially Clapham junction. He had
been there in his various moods being immersed in deep thought
several times and not even noticed when water level raised till
his waist. It is the attitude towards the inconveniences that
matters. There are many people who feel that it is unpleasant to
run after one’s hat. He wonders why people should feel so when
people run much faster in games and sports. When people say its
humiliating to run after one’s hat., in other words, they mean it
is comic. According to Chesterton, man is a comic creature.
Most of the things that he does are comic. For example, making
love. A man running after a hat is not half ridiculous as a man
running after a wife.
To avoid the shame, one feels when running after a hat, he can
think of himself as a huntsman pursuing a wild animal.
Chesterton assumes that the hat-hunting may become sport for
the upper classes in the future. The event will be held in front of
a huge crowd. The hunters of the hat do not inflict any pain on
others instead they give pleasure to the onlookers.
When the narrator saw a man running after his hat in Hyde Park,
he told him that he should be happy because he is giving a lot of
pleasure to the crowd watching him. The same principle can be
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applied to every other domestic worry such as removing a fly
from the milk or getting a cork out of the glass of wine etc. In
such circumstances people should think about the patience of the
anglers.
Chesterton knew people who were distressed over silly things. A
friend of him was so distressed that way because his drawer was
so tight, and he couldn’t pull it out. In situations like this one has
to imagine that he is fighting against some powerful enemy, or
pulling a lifeboat out of the sea, or pulling out a man from a
crack in the Alps.
According to Chesterton, one can enjoy the floods if she or he
has a right attitude despite the fact that they cause some
inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered. A Roman
Catholic priest in a story said, “Wine is good with everything
except water” but it can be reversed and say that water is good
with everything except wine.
In short, On Running after One’s Hat is a skilful effort. The
essay shows psychological situation and status of human being.
Everything has its own faces, but it depends on us and how we
take them because everyone has his own view point and attitude
driven by the different circumstances. In this essay, the writer
tries to express his view through examples. The small things as
running, driving to open any jammed drawer, to wait for a train
are common but irritating events amongst people. However, it
can be made simpler and enjoyable to keep ourselves cheerful
and delighted. To chase a ball or to chase a hat is not a different
sport we regard to chase a ball as a good sport, while we think to
chase a hat is funniest game. The plot of the story is tightly
woven and the arrangements of the events according to the
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movement of story is remarkable. Our reaction towards the
things made them positive and negative. However, London was
girdled by the water, yet writer was trying to enjoy that moment
to keep himself calm and by this method he wants to say that
peace of mind made our decision more effective rather than
aggressive mind. The writer has not raised any single character
in this essay. He has shown the full picture of the society.
His language is very simple and leaves an impression on our
mind and compel to think about the problems of the society. He
raises a question and answers himself. He says that our thoughts
made the events adventurous and inconvenient, but it depends
on us how we take it. The theme of this essay deals with the
social problem; connecting personal life of people. As the story
begin, we come to know that London is struggling with the
problem of flood, but writer visualizes the whole scene in a
poetical method and then throw light on the small problem with
this example.
After every paragraph, he presents a new incident and connects
it with main story after a short while by using simple and
familiar examples of every common man. He has used figures of
speeches too, to clarify his statements as: “red light and green
light on the signal are like a new sun and a new moon.” “As if a
great king had thrown down his staff as a signal and started a
shrieking tournament of trains.” His humoristic style to dictate
the event is appraisable; “Their meditations may be full of Rich
and fruitful things. Many of the most purple hours of my life
have been passed at Clapham Junction.” He not only leaves to
think the people what he wants to say; but he also clarifies his
concept in these words; As I have said, everything depends upon
the emotional point of view.” He gives a psychological and
moral support to deal with our problems. Every example
glimpses a solution to face bravely our problems without losing
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our temper. The title of the essay is also appropriate and justify
the story line. As we run after our problems and think that it is
Right to do so. We chase for that thing in our life which is quite
necessary. But our psychological satisfaction in it and we again
and again follow this sequence as a runner runs, as a bowler runs
without thinking another idea in our mind.
GLOSSARY
Grumble
:
to complain about someone or
something in an annoyed way
Trivial
:
having little value or importance
Battersea
:
a place in London
Gondola
:
a long and narrow boat
Archipelago
:
a group of islands, or an area of
sea where there are many islands
QUESTIONS
1. What makes G. K Chesterton to romanticize flood?
2. What according to Chesterton can turn everyday nuisances
and irritations into a joyful act?
3. Is running after one’s hat a moment of embarrassment?
4. Discuss G. K Chesterton’s prose style with reference to “On
Running after One’s Hat”
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5. Chesterton’s essay “On Running After One’s Hat” is enriched
with humour. Substantiate.
6. “An inconvenience
considered”. Discuss
is
only
an
adventure
wrongly
REFERENCE
 https://www.britannica.com/biography/G-K-Chesterton
 http://essays.quotidiana.org/chesterton/running_after_on
es_hat/
 http://sittingbee.com/on-running-after-ones-hat-g-kchesterton/
 http://www.jiwaji.edu/pdf/ecourse/language/G.K.%20Ch
esterton.pdf
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MODULE III
SHORT STORIES
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
O Henry
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
O HENRY (1862- 1910)
William Sydney Porter is better known by his pen name O
Henry. He was an American short story writer. He changed the
spelling of his middle name to Sydney in 1898. He was born in
North Carolina and later moved to Texas in 1882. It was there he
met his wife, Athol Ester and he had two children. In 1902, after
the death of his wife, Porter moved to New York, where he soon
remarried.
As a child Porter was always reading everything from classics to
dime novels. His favourite works were Kane's translation of One
Thousand and One Nights and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.
Porter's most intensive writing period occurred while he was in
New York and he wrote about 381 short stories. He also wrote
poetry and nonfiction. Some of his major works are The
Furnished Room, The Last Leaf, The Gift of the Magi, The Cop
and The Anthem, The Green Door, After Twenty Year, A
Retrieved Reformation, The Third Ingredient, The Princess and
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The Puma, Buried Treasure, An Unfinished Story, Babes in the
Jungle, and The Call of the Tame. These selected stories do not
only give the reader a chance to read some of the best known of
his works but also bear ample evidence of the wide range of his
writings. Humorous and energetic, O. Henry's stories are marked
by coincidence, witty narration and surprise endings. They offer
an insight into human nature and the ways it is affected by love,
hate, wealth, poverty, gentility, disguise, and crime.
As a tribute to Porter's contributions to American literature, the
Society of Arts and Letters, in 1918, founded the O. Henry
Memorial Award to be awarded annually to the author of the
best American short story.
Porter was a heavy drinker, and by 1908, his markedly
deteriorating health affected his writing. In 1909, Sarah left him,
and he died on June 5, 1910, of cirrhosis of the liver,
complications of diabetes, and an enlarged heart. After funeral
services in New York City, he was buried in the Riverside
Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter Margaret
Worth Porter had a short writing career from 1913 to 1916. She
married cartoonist Oscar Cesare of New York in 1916; they were
divorced four years later. She died of tuberculosis in 1927 and
was buried next to her father.
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
(Text)
ONE DOLLAR AND EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS. That
was all. She had put it aside, one cent and then another and then
another, in her careful buying of meat and other food. Della
counted it three times. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And
the next day would be Christmas.
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There was nothing to do but fall on the bed and cry. So
Della did it.
While the lady of the home is slowly growing quieter, we
can look at the home. Furnished rooms at a cost of $8 a week.
There is little more to say about it.
In the hall below was a letter-box too small to hold a
letter. There was an electric bell, but it could not make a sound.
Also, there was a name beside the door: “Mr. James Dillingham
Young.”
When the name was placed there, Mr. James Dillingham
Young was being paid $30 a week. Now, when he was being
paid only $20 a week, the name seemed too long and important.
It should perhaps have been “Mr. James D. Young.” But when
Mr. James Dillingham Young entered the furnished rooms, his
name became very short indeed. Mrs. James Dillingham Young
put her arms warmly about him and called him “Jim.” You have
already met her. She is Della.
Della finished her crying and cleaned the marks of it
from her face. She stood by the window and looked out with no
interest. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only
$1.87 with which to buy Jim a gift. She had put aside as much as
she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week is
not much. Everything had cost more than she had expected. It
always happened like that.
Only $ 1.87 to buy a gift for Jim. Her Jim. She had had
many happy hours planning something nice for him. Something
nearly good enough. Something almost worth the honor of
belonging to Jim.
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There was a looking-glass between the windows of the
room. Perhaps you have seen the kind of looking-glass that is
placed in $8 furnished rooms. It was very narrow. A person
could see only a little of himself at a time. However, if he was
very thin and moved very quickly, he might be able to get a
good view of himself. Della, being quite thin, had mastered this
art.
Suddenly she turned from the window and stood before
the glass. Her eyes were shining brightly, but her face had lost
its color. Quickly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its
complete length.
The James Dillingham Youngs were very proud of two
things which they owned. One thing was Jim’s gold watch. It
had once belonged to his father. And, long ago, it had belonged
to his father’s father. The other thing was Della’s hair.
If a queen had lived in the rooms near theirs, Della
would have washed and dried her hair where the queen could
see it. Della knew her hair was more beautiful than any queen’s
jewels and gifts.
If a king had lived in the same house, with all his riches,
Jim would have looked at his watch every time they met. Jim
knew that no king had anything so valuable.
So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her, shining like
a falling stream of brown water. It reached below her knee. It
almost made itself into a dress for her.
And then she put it up on her head again, nervously and
quickly. Once she stopped for a moment and stood still while a
tear or two ran down her face.
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She put on her old brown coat. She put on her old brown
hat. With the bright light still in her eyes, she moved quickly out
the door and down to the street.
Where she stopped, the sign said: “Mrs. Sofronie. Hair
Articles of all Kinds.”
Up to the second floor Della ran, and stopped to get her
breath.
Mrs. Sofronie, large, too white, cold-eyed, looked at her.
“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.
“I buy hair,” said Mrs. Sofronie. “Take your hat off and
let me look at it.”
Down fell the brown waterfall.
“Twenty dollars,” said Mrs. Sofronie, lifting the hair to
feel its weight.
“Give it to me quick,” said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours seemed to fly. She was going
from one shop to another, to find a gift for Jim.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and
no one else. There was no other like it in any of the shops, and
she had looked in every shop in the city.
It was a gold watch chain, very simply made. Its value
was in its rich and pure material. Because it was so plain and
simple, you knew that it was very valuable. All good things are
like this.
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It was good enough for The Watch.
As soon as she saw it, she knew that Jim must have it. It
was like him. Quietness and value—Jim and the chain both had
quietness and value. She paid twenty-one dollars for it. And she
hurried home with the chain and eighty-seven cents.
With that chain on his watch, Jim could look at his watch
and learn the time anywhere he might be. Though the watch was
so fine, it had never had a fine chain. He sometimes took it out
and looked at it only when no one could see him do it.
When Della arrived home, her mind quieted a little. She
began to think more reasonably. She started to try to cover the
sad marks of what she had done. Love and large-hearted giving,
when added together, can leave deep marks. It is never easy to
cover these marks, dear friends—never easy.
Within forty minutes her head looked a little better. With
her short hair, she looked wonderfully like a schoolboy. She
stood at the looking-glass for a long time.
“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he
looks at me a second time, he’ll say I look like a girl who sings
and dances for money. But what could I do—oh! What could I
do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”
At seven, Jim’s dinner was ready for him.
Jim was never late. Della held the watch chain in her
hand and sat near the door where he always entered. Then she
heard his step in the hall and her face lost color for a moment.
She often said little prayers quietly, about simple everyday
things. And now she said: “Please God, make him think I’m still
pretty. “The door opened and Jim stepped in. He looked very
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thin and he was not smiling. Poor fellow, he was only twentytwo—and with a family to take care of! He needed a new coat
and he had nothing to cover his cold hands.
Jim stopped inside the door. He was as quiet as a hunting
dog when it is near a bird. His eyes looked strangely at Della,
and there was an expression in them that she could not
understand. It filled her with fear. It was not anger, nor surprise,
nor anything she had been ready for. He simply looked at her
with that strange expression on his face.
Della went to him.
“Jim, dear,” she cried, “don’t look at me like that. I had
my hair cut off and sold it. I couldn’t live through Christmas
without giving you a gift. My hair will grow again. You won’t
care, will you? My hair grows very fast. It’s Christmas, Jim.
Let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a beautiful
nice gift I got for you.”
“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim slowly. He seemed
to labor to understand what had happened. He seemed not to feel
sure he knew.
“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me
now? I’m me, Jim. I’m the same without my hair.”
Jim looked around the room.
“You say your hair is gone?” he said.
“You don’t have to look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I
tell you—sold and gone, too. It’s the night before Christmas,
boy. Be good to me, because I sold it for you. Maybe the hairs of
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my head could be counted,” she said, “but no one could ever
count my love for you. Shall we eat dinner, Jim?”
Jim put his arms around his Della. For ten seconds let us
look in another direction. Eight dollars a week or a million
dollars a year— how different are they? Someone may give you
an answer, but it will be wrong. The magi brought valuable gifts,
but that was not among them. My meaning will be explained
soon.
From inside the coat, Jim took something tied in paper.
He threw it upon the table.
“I want you to understand me, Dell,” he said. “Nothing
like a haircut could make me love you any less. But if you’ll
open that, you may know what I felt when I came in.”
White fingers pulled off the paper. And then a cry of joy;
and then a change to tears.
For there lay The Combs—the combs that Della had seen
in a shop window and loved for a long time. Beautiful combs,
with jewels, perfect for her beautiful hair. She had known they
cost too much for her to buy them. She had looked at them
without the least hope of owning them. And now they were hers,
but her hair was gone.
But she held them to her heart, and at last was able to
look up and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”
And then she jumped up and cried, “Oh, oh!”
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful gift. She held it out to
him in her open hand. The gold seemed to shine softly as if with
her own warm and loving spirit.
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“Isn’t it perfect, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it.
You’ll have to look at your watch a hundred times a day now.
Give me your watch. I want to see how they look together.”
Jim sat down and smiled.
“Della,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas gifts away and
keep them a while. They’re too nice to use now. I sold the watch
to get the money to buy the combs. And now I think we should
have our dinner.”
The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully
wise men— who brought gifts to the new born Christ-child.
They were the first to give Christmas gifts. Being wise, their
gifts were doubtless wise ones. And here I have told you the
story of two children who were not wise. Each sold the most
valuable thing he owned in order to buy a gift for the other. But
let me speak a last word to the wise of these days: Of all who
give gifts, these two were the wisest. Of all who give and
receive gifts, such as they are the wisest. Everywhere they are
the wise ones. They are the magi.
****
ANALYSIS OF THE STORY
STORYLINE
The Gift of the Magi penned by American short story writer O.
Henry is one of the most beautifully written short stories in the
world. It has been adapted into several films and has become a
part of many short story anthologies. ‘The Gift of the Magi’ is a
very unusual and surprising story central to a Christmas theme.
O. Henry, also known as William Sydney Porter, published this
short story in 1905.
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Jim and Della are a husband and wife living in a rented room in
New York. They are quite poor and recently Jim has had his
salary cut back to only $20 a week from the $30 a week he used
to make. After rent and groceries, the couple hardly have any
money left. Christmas is only a day away and, for a Christmas
present, Della wants to buy Jim a gold watch chain for his gold
watch. They do not have much to be proud or happy about, but
Jim is very proud of that watch. And Della? Della is most proud
of her beautiful long hair. But she really wants to buy that gold
chain for Jim's watch. Too bad she only has $1.87. So, she
decides to sell her hair to a woman who makes wigs and other
hair articles. The woman pays Della $20 for her hair. The chain
costs $21, so she now has enough money. She buys the chain to
give to Jim. She goes home and prepares Jim's dinner and waits
for him to come home, a little bit worried that Jim will be
shocked when he sees her with all her beautiful hair cut off.
When Jim comes home, he does look shocked when he sees
Della with short hair. He stares at her in a strange way and it
scares her. She explains to Jim how she sold her hair to buy him
a nice Christmas present. Jim tells her not to worry and that
nothing can change his love for her. The reason he is shocked to
see her without her long hair is that he also wanted to get a nice
Christmas present for Della. He gives her the present wrapped in
paper and Della unwraps it to see that Jim had bought her a set
of beautiful combs for her hair. She had seen them in a shop
before, but they were so expensive. How was Jim able to afford
them? Suddenly, she remembers Jim's present. She gives him the
gold chain. The chain is beautiful, but when Della asks Jim to
put it on his watch, Jim surprises her. He sold the watch to buy
her those nice combs. Were they both foolish to sell their
favourite possessions? O. Henry tells us that, no, they were
wise. They were wise because they had each sacrificed their
most valuable possessions for the person they loved. They were
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like the three wise men — the Magi—who brought presents for
Jesus Christ after he was born. Keep in mind, that this is why
Christians still give presents on Christmas Day: to remember the
gifts the Magi brought Christ on that very first Christmas.
PLOT
In The Gift of the Magi, the exposition happens when the main
character is introduced. There was a woman named Della. She
was counting her money and realized that it was not enough to
buy a present for Jim, her husband. She felt really sad that the
next day would be Christmas and she still did not know what to
do. She really wanted to buy Jim a present.
After exposition, the story goes on to rising action. It happens
when Della was totally in deep confusion about what she could
do. She only got $1.87 as the result after she had saved every
penny for months. She knew that $1.87 would never be enough
for such a great present. She cried for a while but then she found
out that she had to take a risk. It is told that Della had an
extremely long brown hair. She immediately went out of her
house and searched for any store that would buy her hair. While
she was walking through the street, she suddenly stopped since
she read a sign said “Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.”
She rushed into the store, met a woman named Madame
Sofronie, and asked her if she wanted to buy her hair. Madame
Sofronie then examined her hair and quickly told Della that her
hair was worth $20. After Della got the money, she went to a
store where she finally found the right present for Jim. It was a
simple platinum fob chain, and she thought it would be perfect
for Jim’s watch. The chain reflects the simplicity and quietness
of Jim. Della bought it for $21 and got back home with her 87
cents.
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The rising action always lead the story to the climax. The climax
in this story happens when Jim finally went home from work.
Seeing his wife’s hair cut off, he suddenly just stands still at his
place without being angry, surprised, or disapproval. He asked
his wife to make sure that her hair had been really gone. Della
cried and told him that she cut it off and sold it.
The climax goes down to the falling action. The falling action in
this story is when Jim took out a package from his coat and
spoke to Della. He seemed to feel alright. He did not mind about
Della’s short hair. He asked Della to unwrap the package to
make Della understand why Jim was like that at the first time he
saw Della. She opened the package and cried hysterically. It was
a set of comb made of pure tortoise shell with jewelled rims. It
was all that she had dreamed for long time. After that, Della
gave Jim the chain that she bought, and asked him to try it on his
watch. However, Jim did not obey that. He threw himself on a
couch and smiled.
The ending of the story can be considered as resolution since
Jim and Della were happy in the end. Jim finally told his wife to
put the presents away for a while and stated that they were too
nice to be just a present. While sitting on the couch, he told
Della that he had sold his watch to buy the comb set for Della.
Now, Jim asked his wife to prepare the dinner for them both.
CHARACTERS
Character is personality or attitude for a person in story. The
types of character are divided into two categories there are role
and personality from role are divided into two major and minor
characters. Meanwhile from personality, there are flat, round,
static, dynamic, stock, hero, anti-hero, and allusion.
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There are major and minor characters in the story based on their
roles. Della and Jim is the major characters. Della is considered
to be the major character since she is the one who appears from
the beginning until the end of the story. It seems that the
beginning of the story is telling about Della’s confusion to buy
present for Jim, her husband until she finally did a sacrifice in
order to be able to buy a nice present. Meanwhile, Jim can be
also said that he is major character as he is another person who
has a relationship with Della, the first major character. Jim also
has interactions with Della that create a good flow of the story.
Besides, there is actually one minor character. She is Madame
Sofronie who was the woman buying Della’s hair for $20. The
reason why she is the minor character is that she only appeared
in the middle of the story for a moment.
The next explanation is based the characters’ personality. There
are only three kinds of characters, which are flat, dynamic,
static, and stock characters. Della is dynamic character in the
story since her physical appearance changed in the end of the
story. In the beginning, it is described that she has a beautiful
long brown hair. It looked like a brown waterfall. However, she
cut off her hair in order to buy a present for her husband, so her
hair became very short. Besides, Della is a flat character since
her way to interact with other characters throughout the story
tends to be the same from the beginning until the end.
Next, Jim can be considered as a flat and static character. Jim’s
way of talking remains the same since he only appeared almost
in the end of the story. He is static character because his physical
appearance did not change at all. The last kind is stock character,
which is Madame Sofronie. She is considered as stock character
since she tends to be the only complement character.
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SETTING
The definition of a setting in a story is where the story takes
place and when the story happens. Every story has a setting.
Moreover, setting it is not only about place.
In The Gift of the Magi, the story takes place at Della and Jim’s
house, Madame Sofronie’s store, and the store where Della got
the chain for the present. It took place at Della and Jim’s house
when Della was counting her money to buy a perfect present for
Jim, and when Della and Jim were finally meeting and talking
about their presents in the end of the story. Next, it took place at
Madame Sofronie’s store when Della finally decided to cut her
hair off and sold it to Madame Sofronie for $20. Lastly, there
was one store when Della finally found the platinum fob chain
to be the right present for Jim.
The time setting of the story is considered to be in a Christmas
Eve since it was explained that Della was confused about what
she was going to buy Jim’s Christmas present on the following
day. Specifically, it was in the afternoon when Della was
counting money, going to Madame Sofronie’s store, and buying
the fob chain for Jim’s watch. In the end, it seemed to be in the
evening when Della and Jim finally met and talked about their
presents.
POINT OF VIEW
Definition of point of view is the position of the narrator, which
is relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator’s outlook
from which the events are depicted and from the attitude
towards the character. There are two types of narrator, which are
participant and non-participant narrator. Participant narrator
takes a role in the story. It tells the story from the first-person
point of view and uses the pronoun “I” while non-participant
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narrator does not take any role in the story. It only tells the story
from the third person point of view and uses the pronoun “she”,
“he”, “it”, and names as well. Non-participant narrator is also
divided into three branches, which are omniscient or allknowing, limited omniscience, and objective.
The narrator of The Gift of the Magi is non-participant. It uses
the limited omniscience third person point of view. The narrator
tells the story by using the pronoun “she”, “he”, “it”, and names
to mention all the characters and other things. It is considered to
be limited omniscience as the narrator only knows all about the
major characters, which are Della and Jim. The narrator explains
the physical appearance and all the feelings of Della and Jim.
THEME
Beauty Della is worried that Jim won't think she is beautiful
with short hair, but Jim loves her for more than just her beautiful
hair and how she looks. If you really love somebody, they are
beautiful no matter how they look.
Family Jim and Della are husband and wife and they love each
other. Jim's watch was given to him by his father and has been in
his family for many years. Still, he sacrifices it out of love for
Della.
Giving Della and Jim both feel that it is important to give nice
gifts to each other to express their love.
Identity Della learns that Jim loves her for just for being
herself, not because of her hair or the Christmas present she
buys him.
Love Because Jim and Della love each other, there is really no
need to prove their love by buying gifts for each other.
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Love is the greatest gift. Money Della and Jim sell valuable
things to get money to buy gifts for each other, because they are
poor.
Sacrifice Both Della and Jim give up valuable possessions so
they can buy Christmas gifts for each other.
Wisdom Della and Jim were wise because they were willing to
make sacrifices to show their love for each other.
To conclude, The Gift of the Magi is considered part of the
Realism and Naturalism literary period of American History.
The story has a beautiful and clever twist in the end, which
brings out O. Henry’s genius and narrative skills. He compares
the gifts that the Magi or the three wise men of the East brought
to the Baby Jesus in the manger to the gifts Della and Jim give
each other on a rather dismal winter Christmas Eve. Although
the Magi chose their gifts wisely, they gave their gifts out of
their plenty without sacrificing much. In comparison, there was
a deep sense of sacrifice and most important love in the gifts
bought on Christmas Eve by Della and Jim. The sixth of January
is celebrated in most Christian countries as the Epiphany of the
Lord Jesus, the day when the three Magi or Wise men from the
East travelled a great distance to ratify Lord Jesus’ love for
humankind by offering their symbolic spiritual gifts. However,
if we have people like Della and Jim in our midst, they are better
Magi than the three wise men because of the love they share in
their gifts.
Because of selfless loves like Della and Jim’s, the Lord Jesus is
manifested every day in our midst. Also, note that Della and Jim
bought gifts for each other by sacrificing articles that were very
much dear to them. Della sacrificed her long brown hair to buy a
gold watch chain for Jim’s watch, while Jim sacrificed his watch
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to buy a set of tortoise-shell jewel-rimmed combs for Della’s
hair.
Coming to the gifts; they were symbolic gifts given to represent
the three different aspects of Lord Jesus’ as an entity here on
Earth: gold as a symbol of kingship on Earth, frankincense an
incense as a symbol of deity, and myrrh an embalming oil as a
symbol of death. Other than the gold, the other two gifts were of
no use to Lord Jesus or his little family. The Magi gifted them to
the Lord Jesus out of respect and honour. However, Della and
Jim’s gifts were given out of love for one another, which is the
love manifest in the basic teachings of Lord Jesus Christ.
Della’s and Jim’s gifts were gifts of sacrifice and true love for
each other. The Magi may have revered the Baby Jesus but may
not have loved him so much. But that is what O. Henry is
drawing to our minds, for it is not wisdom that prompted Della
to cut off her hair and Jim to sell his watch. Wisdom is good to a
certain extent, but love is even greater. And most of the time,
love knows no wisdom. The wise men from the East invented
the art of gifting presents on Christmas. Della and Jim gave not
what they could spare, but they gave their best possessions to
the one they loved most. Therefore, O. Henry, the master writer,
claims that Della and Jim were wiser than even the Magi
because of this element. Note that both Biblical names are
synonymous with wisdom in the Bible – the Queen of Sheba
used to come to Israel to hear the wisdom of King Solomon.
There is a hint given by the author O. Henry that love would
triumph over wisdom in this short story titled ‘The Gift of the
Magi’.
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GLOSSARY
Parsimonious
:
not willing to give or spend money
Mendicant
:
someone who belongs to a
religious group that lives by asking
the public for food, money etc.
Falter
:
to stop being effective or making
progress
Flutter
:
to move up and down or from side
to side with short, quick, light
movements, or to make something
move in this way.
Trip
:
to move with quick light steps
Wriggle
:
to move or make something move
by twisting or turning quickly
QUESTIONS
1. Why did Della cut hair and sell it?
2. What was Jim’s gift for Della?
3. What are the important themes discussed in the story The
Gift of the Magi?
4. Significance of the title The Gift of the Magi
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REFERENCE
 https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-The-Giftof-the-Magi-by-O-Henry
 https://english.binus.ac.id/2014/11/07/a-critical-analysisof-o-henrys-the-gift-of-the-magi/
 https://americanliterature.com/the-gift-of-the-magistudy-guide
 https://www.enotes.com/topics/gift-magi/in-depth
 https://www.academia.edu/34677353/The_Gift_of_the_
Magi_Analysis
 https://magadhuniversity.ac.in/download/econtent/pdf/th
e%20gift%20of%20Magi,Summary,charector%20analys
is.pdf
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THE MARK OF VISHNU
Khushwant Singh
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KUSHWANT SINGH (1915-2014)
Khushwant Singh is an Indian author, lawyer, politician, and
journalist. He was born in a Sikh family in Hadali, Khushab
District, Punjab (which now lies in Pakistan). He was the
youngest son of Sir Sobha Singh and Veeran Bai. Khushwant
Singh’s grandmother named him Khushal Singh that means
‘Prosperous Lion’. He was called by nickname, Shalee. He had
named himself Khushwant, in order to rhyme with his brother’s
name Bhagwant. Khushwant Singh studied at Delhi Modern
School and went on to pursue higher education at the
Government College, Lahore followed by St. Stephen’s College,
Delhi and then at King’s College London.
Later, he married Kawal Malik and blessed with a son Rahul
Singh and a daughter Mala. He began his career as a practicing
lawyer at High Court in 1939. And then he joined All India
Radio as a journalist in 1951 till 1956 he worked at the
Department of Communication of UNESCO at Paris. Soon he
began to edit various Indian Newspapers and journals that
includes Yojana, a journal of Indian Government, The Hindustan
Times, The Illustrated Weekly of India and many such more
magazines and journals. He went on to edit, various magazines
of literary and journalistic repute through 1970s and 1980s. his
career in Mass Communication and Journalism spurred the
writer in him and very soon he embarked on this literary journey
which resulted in much fame and fortune to him. Khushwant
Singh also participated in the political milieu of the country
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from 1980-1986. He was the member of Rajya Sabha, the Upper
House of Indian Parliament.
HONOURS AND AWARDS
He has won a number of national and international awards. He
was honoured with
 Padma Bhushan (1974)
 Padma Vibhushan (2007)
 The Honest Man of the Year (2000)
 Punjab Rattan Award (2006)
 Sahitya Academy Fellowship (2010)
 Lifetime Achievement Award by Tata Literature Live!
The Mumbai Lit fest (2013)
The international awards such as
 Rockefeller Grant in 1966
 Fellowship at King’s College, London (2014)
He was a prolific and versatile writer who has written a large
number of short stories, novels, essays, columns in leading
newspapers and journals etc.
HIS MAJOR WORKS
 The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories (1950)
 The History of Sikhs (1953)
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 Train to Pakistan (1956), a novel
 The Voice of God and Other Stories (1957)
 I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale (1959)
 Delhi (1990), a novel
 Women and Men in My Life (1995)
 The Portrait of a Lady, a short story and so on.
THE MARK OF VISHNU
(Text)
"This is for Kala Nag," said Gunga Ram, pouring the milk into
the saucer. "Every night I leave it outside the hole near the wall
and it’s gone by the morning." "Perhaps it is the cat,” we
youngsters suggested.
"Cat!" said Gunga Ram with contempt. "No cat goes near that
hole. Kala Nag lives there. As long as I give him milk, he will
not bite anyone in this house. You can all go about with bare feet
and play where you like."
We were not having any patronage from Gunga Ram.
"You’re a stupid old Brahmin," I said. "Don’t you know snakes
don’t drink milk? At least one couldn’t drink a saucerful every
day. The teacher told us that a snake eats only once in several
days. We saw a grass snake which had just swallowed a frog. It
stuck like a blob in its throat and took several days to dissolve
and go down its tail. We’ve got dozens of them in the lab, in
methylated spirit. Why, last month the teacher bought one from
a snake charmer which could run both ways. It had another head
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with a pair of eyes at the tail. You should have seen the fun
when it was put in the jar. There wasn’t an empty one in the lab.
So the teacher put it in one which had a Russel's viper. He
caught its two ends with a pair of forceps, dropped it in the jar,
and quickly put the lid on. There was an absolute storm as it
went round and round in the glass, tearing the decayed viper into
shreds."
Gunga Ram shut his eyes in pious horror.
"You will pay for it one day. Yes, you will."
It was no use arguing with Gunga Ram. He, like all good
Hindus, believed in the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva,
the creator, preserver, and destroyer. Of these he was most
devoted to Vishnu. Every morning he smeared his forehead with
a V mark in sandalwood paste to honour the deity. Although a
Brahmin, he was illiterate and full of superstition. To him, all
life was sacred, even if it was of a serpent or scorpion or
centipede. Whenever he saw one he quickly shoved it away lest
we kill it. He picked up wasps we battered with our badminton
rackets and tended their damaged wings. Sometimes he got
stung. It never seemed to shake his faith. More dangerous the
animal, the more devoted Gunga Ram was to its existence.
Hence the regard for snakes; and above all, for the cobra, who
was the Kala Nag.
"We will kill your Kala Nag if we see him."
"I won’t let you. It’s laid a hundred eggs and if you kill it all the
eggs will become cobras and the house will be full of them.
Then what will you do?"
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"We’ll catch them alive and send them to Bombay. They milk
them there for anti-snakebite serum. They pay two rupees for a
live cobra. That makes two hundred rupees straightway."
"Your doctors must have udders. I never saw a snake have any.
But don’t you dare touch this one. It is a phannyar - it is hooded.
I’ve seen it. It’s three hands long. As for its hood!’ Gunga Ram
opened the palms of his hands and his head swayed from side to
side. ‘You should see it basking on the lawn in the sunlight."
"That just proves what a liar you are. The phannyar is the male,
so it couldn’t have laid the hundred eggs. You must have laid the
eggs yourself."
The party burst into peals of laughter.
"Must be Gunga Ram’s eggs. We’ll soon have a hundred Gunga
Rams."
Gunga Ram was squashed. It was the lot of a servant to be
constantly squashed. But having the children of the household
make fun of him was too much even for Gunga Ram. They were
constantly belittling him with their new-fangled ideas. They
never read their scriptures.
Not even what the Mahatma said about non-violence. It was just
shotguns to kill birds and the jars of methylated spirit to drown
snakes. Gunga Ram would stick to his faith in the sanctity of
life, he would feed and protect snakes because snakes were the
most vile of God’s creatures on earth. If you could love them,
instead of killing them, you proved your point.
What the point was which Gunga Ram wanted to prove was not
clear. He just proved it by leaving the saucerful of milk by the
snake hole every night and finding it gone in the mornings.
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One day we saw Kala Nag. The monsoons had burst with all
their fury and it had rained in the night. The earth which had lain
parched and dry under the withering heat of the summer sun was
teeming with life. In little pools frogs croaked. The muddy
ground was littered with crawling worms, centipedes and
velvety ladybirds.
Grass had begun to show and the banana leaves glistened bright
and glossy green. The rain had flooded Kala Nag’s hole. He sat
in an open patch on the lawn. His shiny black hood glistened in
the sunlight. He was big—almost six feet in length, and rounded
and fleshy, like my wrist.
"Looks like a King Cobra. Let’s get him."
Kala Nag did not have much of a chance. The ground was
slippery and all the holes and gutters were full of water. Gunga
Ram was not at home to help.
Armed with long bamboo sticks, we surrounded Kala Nag
before he even scented danger. When he saw us his eyes turned
a fiery red and he hissed and spat on all sides. Then, like
lightning Kala Nag made for the banana grove. The ground was
too muddy and he slithered. He had hardly gone five yards when
a stick caught him in the middle and broke his back. A volley of
blows reduced him to a squishy-squashy pulp of black-andwhite jelly, spattered with blood and mud. His head was still
undamaged.
"Don’t damage the hood," yelled one of us. "We’ll take Kala
Nag to school."
So we slid a bamboo stick under the cobra’s belly and lifted him
on the end of the pole. We put him in a large biscuit tin and tied
it up with string. We hid the tin under a bed.
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At night I hung around Gunga Ram waiting for him to get his
saucer of milk. ‘Aren’t you going to take any milk for Kala Nag
tonight?’
"Yes," answered Gunga Ram irritably. "You go to bed."
He did not want any more argument on the subject.
"He won’t need the milk anymore."
Gunga Ram paused.
"Oh, nothing. There are so many frogs about. They must taste
better than your milk. You never put any sugar in it anyway."
The next morning Gunga Ram brought back the saucer with the
milk still in it. He looked sullen and suspicious.
"I told you snakes like frogs better than milk."
Whilst we changed and had breakfast Gunga Ram hung around
us. The school bus came and we clambered into it with the tin.
As the bus started we held out the tin to Gunga Ram.
"Here’s your Kala Nag. Safe in this box. We are going to put
him in spirit."
We left him standing speechless, staring at the departing bus.
There was great excitement in the school. We were a set of four
brothers known for our toughness. We had proved it again.
"A King Cobra."
"Six feet long."
"Phannyar."
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The tin was presented to the science teacher.
It was on the teacher’s table, and we waited for him to open it
and admire our kill. The teacher pretended to be indifferent and
set us some problems to work on. With studied matter-offactness he fetched his forceps and a jar with a banded Krait
lying curled in muddy methylated spirit. He began to hum and
untie the cord around the box.
As soon as the cord was loosened the lid flew into the air, just
missing the teacher’s nose. There was Kala Nag. His eyes burnt
like embers and his hood was taut and undamaged. With a loud
hiss he went for the teacher’s face. The teacher pushed himself
back on the chair and toppled over. He fell on the floor and
stared at the cobra, petrified with fear. The boys stood up on
their desks and yelled hysterically.
Kala Nag surveyed the scene with his bloodshot eyes.
His forked tongue darted in and out excitedly. He spat furiously
and then made a bid for freedom. He fell out of the tin on to the
floor with a loud plop. His back was broken in several places
and he dragged himself painfully to the door. When he got to the
threshold he drew himself up once again with his hood
outspread to face another danger.
Outside the classroom stood Gunga Ram with a saucer and a jug
of milk. As soon as he saw Kala Nag come up he went down on
his knees. He poured the milk into the saucer and placed it near
the threshold. With hands folded in prayer he bowed his head to
the ground craving forgiveness. In desperate fury, the cobra
hissed and spat and bit Gunga Ram all over the head—then with
great effort dragged himself into a gutter and wriggled out of
view.
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Gunga Ram collapsed with his hands covering his face. He
groaned in agony. The poison blinded him instantly. Within a
few minutes he turned pale and blue and froth appeared in his
mouth. On his forehead were little drops of blood. These the
teacher wiped with his handkerchief. Underneath was the V
mark where Kala Nag had dug his fangs.
****
ANALYSIS OF THE STORY
OUTLINE
The story opens with the old Brahmin Gunga Ram pouring milk
into a saucer and placing it near the hole in which Kala Nag
lived. Gunga Ram is convinced that the milk is drunk every
night, a belief that is mocked by young boys of Gunga Ram’s
village. The boys ridicule Gunga Ram’s superstitious belief
saying that it is a scientific fact that the snake does not drink
milk. But Gunga Ram nearly shuts his eyes in pious horror and
warns the boys of inviting God’s wrath making fun of the sacred
creatures like snakes. The story is about this Gunga Ram and his
ardent devotion towards Vishnu, a deity of Hindus. Gunga Ram
had faith in the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who are
the creator, preserver and destroyer respectively in Hindu
religion. He was particularly devoted towards God Vishnu and
thus every morning smeared his head with the V mark with
sandalwood paste as a sign of reverence for the deity. Besides,
he was highly superstitious and believed that all life on earth is
sacred, even that of a serpent, scorpion or centipede. Thus, he
would never allow the young boys to beat such creatures. Many
a time these creatures sting Gunga Ram but his faith remained
unwavering. This accounts for Gunga Ram’s deep regard for the
snake, particularly the Cobra or the Kala Nag.
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On one occasion when the boys threatened Gunga Ram to kill
his Kala Nag, he resisted and reasoned that if they kill the Kala
Nag it will not serve any purpose as the Nag had already laid a
hundred of eggs that would soon become cobras. To tease
Gunga Ram, the boys in return said that they would catch all the
cobras alive and send to Bombay where they would be milked
for anti-snake bite serum. In this manner Gunga Ram was often
ridiculed by the boys for his blind and unflinching devotion
towards snakes. Despite all these, he continued to feed and
protect snakes because according to him snakes were the vilest
of God’s creatures on earth and if one could love them, one
proves one’s point.
It was monsoon time, when finally, the boys got to see the Kala
Nag. Heavy rains had flooded Kala Nag’s hole forcing it to
come out of it and sit in an open part of the lawn. The moment
boys saw the Nag, they surrounded it with bamboo sticks in
their hands, though the Nag tried its best to evade danger, the
boys managed to damage its back, leaving the head touched. The
boys then lifted it with the stick and put it in a large biscuit tin
securing it with string. All this while, Gunga Ram was away
from home and had no clue as to what had happened to Kala
Nag.
The next morning as the boys climbed their school bus, they
held out the tin to Gunga Ram shouting that the tin contained his
Kala Nag which they would now put in spirit at school. Gunga
Ram stood speechless and helpless. The boys presented the tin
and their teacher with immense sense of pride and achievement.
As soon as the teacher untied the string around the tin, the lid
flew into air and Kala Nag jumped at him. The teacher was
petrified while the boys in the class enjoyed the scene laughing
and yelling. The Nag’s back had been broken by the boys, but it
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somehow dragged itself to the door of the classroom and sat at
the threshold with its hood outspread. Gunga Ram was already
standing there with the saucer and jug of milk. The moment he
saw the Nag, Gunga Ram keeled to pour the milk into the saucer
and placing it near the Nag folded his hands and bowed his
heading seeking the Nag’s forgiveness, but Kala Nag hissed and
spat and bit Gunga Ram all over his head. Dragging itself to the
gutter where it finally disappeared. Gunga Ram groaned in
agony, turned pale and blue and froth appeared on his mouth.
There were little drops of blood on his forehead which were
wiped away by the teacher. Underneath was the V mark where
the Kala Nag had dug its fangs.
STRUCTURE OF THE STORY
The plot of the story is quite simple. The old Brahmin is a firm
devotee of God Vishnu but at the same time he is superstitious
enough to believe that even venomous creatures like serpents
and scorpions can harm nobody and must be revered by all. The
story follows the traditional pattern of storytelling that is
exposition, rising action, falling action and climax.
The story begins in the middle of the conversation between the
Brahmin, Gunga Ram and the young boys. The boys are seen
scientifically proving that the Kala Nag or Cobra can never
drink milk as against the belief of Gunga Ram. This
conversation aptly exposes the theme of the story on which is
the action is based. The conflict between the science and
religion. The rising action reveals the identity and beliefs of the
main character, Gunga Ram.
The falling action, however, is missing in the story. The climax
that is quite extended includes Gunga Ram’s efforts to seek
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forgiveness from Kala Nag for having been troubled by the boys
that finally results in his death.
MAIN THEMES
Conflict between science and religion, the old and the new
generation, and the traditional and the modern are themes.
Throughout the story we see that Gunga Ram who represents the
old generation and religion enters into verbal arguments with
young boys who represent the new generation and science. The
main cause of disagreement between the two is the former’s
belief based on religion or rather superstition such as snakes
drink milk or that they are sacred. While the latter are based on
scientific reason and facts that snakes eat only once in several
days.
Another important theme of the story is concerned with
blindfolded belief in anything or anybody that is likely to incur a
lot of consequences. Gunga Ram meets his end for his foolish
belief that venomous serpents would never harm anyone. He
fails to draw a line between religious beliefs and superstition.
CHARACTERS
The main character of the story is Gunga Ram, an old and
illiterate Brahmin. Gunga Ram is an ardent devotee of lord
Vishnu who would smear his forehead with a V mark with
sandalwood paste everyday as a sign of his reverence for the
Lord Vishnu. He knows nothing about scientific facts and we
trace his ignorance time and again in the story. For instance, he
is unable to relate to the fact that snakes are milked for antisnake bite serum. He is also confused whether the cobra is a
male snake or a female snake. But what is the distinguishing
trait of Gunga Ram is his blindfolded reverence for all creatures
even the serpents and the scorpions. It is this trait that prevents
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him from making a distinction between the dangerous and the
innocent, religion and superstition, and eventually leads to his
death.
Another character of the story is the group of young boys
including the narrator of the story who are most of the ties seen
ridiculing and belittling Gunga Ram and his superstitions. The
boys are depicted as mischievous lot who are in the habit of
having fun at the expense of others. They are extremely amused
when Gunga Ram says that cobra has laid hundred eggs that
would soon turn into hundred cobras. They refute Gunga Ram’s
assertion by saying that it is not possible since the cobra being a
male cannot lay eggs. They burst into piece of laughter as they
say they would have hundreds of Gunga Rams. Similarly, the
boys laugh and yell in the classroom when the teacher topples
over his chair as Kala Nag flies out of the tin in which it has
been captured by the boys and makes for the teacher’s face. The
boys also represent the new generation whose beliefs and ideas
are based on scientific reason. Thus, the refusal to accept Gunga
Ram’s conviction that Kala Nag drinks milk or that lays eggs.
But what is quite unbecoming of the boys is the disrespectful
way in which they behave towards Gunga Ram who is
undoubtedly an elderly man. Often they mock at him and make
him a laughing stock. That shows their insensitivity towards the
elderly.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TITLE OF THE STORY
The title of the story is interesting and pricks the curiosity of the
readers. It raises certain questions in the minds of the readers.
What is the mark of Vishnu all about and who applies this mark,
why where, how, and when?
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On the surface, the title refers to the V mark where ‘V’ stands
for Lord Vishnu that Gunga Ram makes on his forehead
everyday with sandalwood paste as a sign of deep reverence for
the Hindu deity Vishnu.
On a deeper and more significant level, the V mark conveys the
very essence of the story. Towards the end of the story we find
that the Kala Nag had bite Gunga Ram at the very place on his
forehead where the V mark was. This conveys the message of
the story that Gunga Ram’s superstitious belief that is
symbolized by Kala Nag had the potential to harm him. Despite
his undying faith in God Vishnu represented by ‘V’ mark on his
forehead.
STYLISTIC DEVICES
Humour- the story is characterised by humour that evokes such
fun and laughter. There are various such instances in the story.
There goes a conversational between Gunga Ram and young
boys, when Gunga Ram says that Kala Nag had laid hundred
eggs that would soon become a hundred cobras. To this the
boy’s reply that since the Kala Nag is a male it couldn’t have
laid eggs. They make fun of Gunga Ram by saying that those
eggs must have been laid by Gunga Ram and thus soon there
would be a hundred eggs.
Another instance of pure humour is the situation when the
teacher in school unties the tin in which the boys had brought
Kala Nag than the lid of the tin flies off and just misses the
teacher’s nose. The entire scene that describes Kala nag flying
causes the teacher to topple over his chair with the boys
laughing and yelling is a source of much amusement to the
readers.
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SATIRE
Another stylistic device used by Khushwant Singh in the story.
Khushwant Singh has satirised rigid beliefs of the people
belonging to old generations represented by Gunga Ram and the
heartlessness of the new generation represented by the young
boys. Throughout the character of Gunga Ram, he has exposed
the folly of religious faith that robes a person of his ability to
discern what is harmful and what is innocuous. On the other
hand, the story through the boy’s characters lay bare the
weaknesses of the new generation. The boy’s arguments
regarding snakes may be scientifically sound but their behaviour
towards Gunga Ram were just on disrespect and insensitivity.
DICTION
Diction is also employed. As a postcolonial writer in Indian
English, a remarkable feature of Khushwant Singh’s style is the
use of Hindu words in the story such as Kala Nag, and Phanyaar.
Such usage imparts an Indian flavour to the story and helps the
reader, specially, an Indian reader to relate to a particular object
more closely. Besides, Khushwant Singh chooses to write in a
simple language that despite being easy to comprehend is highly
effective. The intelligibility of the language also shows that
Khushwant Singh’s works like the story Mark of Vishnu are read
widely not just by the intelligentsia even the common man.
QUESTIONS
1. Major themes discussed in the story The Mark of Vishnu
2. How could you justify the title The Mark of Vishnu?
3. Describe Kala Nag
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4. What happened to Ganga Ram in the end?
5. Khushwant Singh shows the danger of falling into the pit of
blind faith and superstition through the portrayal of Ganga
Ram. Explain
REFERENCE
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328094732_Th
e_Mark_of_Vishnu_A_Critical_Study
 http://sittingbee.com/the-mark-of-vishnu-khushwantsingh/
 https://primestudyguides.com/the-mark-ofvishnu/analysis/characters/gunga-ram
 https://entranciology.com/mark-of-vishnu-khushwantsingh-summary-english-language/
 http://englishdepartmentnewcollege.blogspot.com/2016/
09/summary-mark-of-vishnu-325-words.html
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THE HAPPY PRINCE
Oscar Wilde
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900)
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland on October 16, 1854.
He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen
College, Oxford. He was considered a brilliant student. In 1878,
his poem Ravenna won the Newdigate Prize. Shortly after
leaving university his first volume of poetry was published. He
moved to London in 1879. Wilde married Constance Lloyd, the
daughter of a wealthy Dublin barrister, in 1884 and the couple
had two sons.
Wilde wrote fairy stories for his boys. These were later
published as The Happy Prince and Other Tales. After being
married for 11 years, Wilde had left his wife and began having a
homosexual affair with Alfred Douglas. In May 1895, Wilde
was prosecuted and imprisoned for homosexuality under the
terms of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. He served two
years in Old Bailey in London. Regrettable, his mother died
while he was still in jail. In 1897, after being released from
Reading Prison, Wilde moved to France. A year later he wrote
The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem inspired by his prison
experience. Wilde’s time in prison badly damaged his health and
he died on November 30, 1900, in Paris, France, three years
after leaving prison. He is buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in
Paris, in a tomb designed by Epstein.
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Wilde’s work is full of self-reference. As Wilde wrote, ‘I took
the drama, the most objective form known to art, and made it
personal a mode of expression as the lyric or the sonnet”
(Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, 1994)
He has been the subject of increasing critical attention over the
last decade. He has been identified as a key figure with gay
criticism. He is now recognised as a highly professional writer,
acutely aware of his readership at a variety of levels, and also
one who deliberately and systematically explored the oral
dimension. His position as an Irish writer gives him status in the
context of postcolonial criticism.
Major Works:
 Vera or the Nihilists (1880)
 The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)
 The Portrait of Mr. W.H (1889)
 The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
 The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
 The Sphinx (1894), poem
 The Importance of Being Ernest (1899)
 A Woman of No Importance (1894)
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In short, the duality of Wilde in all aspects fascinates, confuses:
The Anglo- Irishman with Nationalist sympathies, the Protestant
with lifelong Catholic learnings, the married homosexual, the
musician of words and painter of language. He is the artist
across not two but three cultures, an Anglo-Francophile and a
Celt at heart. In addition to this, there is a Faustian element
about this classical scholar who thirsted for sensation and
experience. Wilde is most often compared with the philosopher,
Nietzsche. On the whole, we can say Wilde is a figure of
paradox and contradiction, participated in both modern value
critique and postmodern perspectives.
THE HAPPY PRINCE
(Text)
High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the
Happy Prince.
He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold; for eyes he
had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his
sword-hilt.
He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a
weathercock,” remarked one of the Town Councillors who
wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; “only not
quite so useful,” he added, fearing lest people should think him
unpractical, which he really was not.
“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible
mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. “The
Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.” “I am glad
there is someone in the world who is quite happy,” muttered a
disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.
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“He looks just like an angel,” said the Charity Children as they
came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks, and their
clean white pinafores.
“How do you know?” said the Mathematical Master, “you have
never seen one.”
“Ah! but we have, in our dreams,” answered the children; and
the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he
did not approve of children dreaming.
One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends
had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed
behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had
met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after
a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender
waist that he had stopped to talk to her.
“Shall I love you?” said the Swallow, who liked to come to the
point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew
round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and
making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all
through the summer.
“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other Swallows,
“she has no money, and far too many relations”; and indeed the
river was quite full of Reeds.
Then, when the autumn came, they all flew away.
After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his ladylove. “She has no conversation,” he said, “and I am afraid that
she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.” And
certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most
graceful curtsies. “I admit that she is domestic,” he continued,
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“but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love
travelling also.”
“Will you come away with me?” he said finally to her; but the
Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.
“You have been trifling with me,” he cried. “I am off to the
Pyramids. Goodbye!” and he flew away.
All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city.
“Where shall I put up?” he said; “I hope the town has made
preparations.” Then he saw the statue on the tall column. “I will
put up there,” he cried; “it is a fine position with plenty of fresh
air.” So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.
“I have a golden bedroom he said softly to himself as he looked
round, and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting
his head under his wing a large drop of water fell on him. “What
a curious thing!” he cried. “there is not a single cloud in the sky,
the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The
climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed used
to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness.” Then
another drop fell.
“What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?” he
said; “I must look for a good chimney-pot,” and he determined
to fly away.
But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he
looked up, and saw- Ah! what did he see?
The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears
were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful
in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.
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“Who are you?” he said.
“I am the Happy Prince.” “Why are you weeping then?” asked
the Swallow; “you have quite drenched me.” “When I was alive
and had a human heart,” answered the statue, “I did not know
what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans Souci, where
sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the day time I played with my
companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in
the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I
never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was
so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and
happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I
died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high
that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and
though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.”
“What, is he not solid gold?” said the Swallow to himself. He
was too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.
“Far away,” continued the statue in a low musical voice, “far
away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows
is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her
face is thin and worn, and she has coarse red hands, all pricked
by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering
passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen’s
maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the
corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and
is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but
river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,
will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet
are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.” “I am waited
for in Egypt,” said the Swallow. “My friends are flying up and
down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus-flowers. Soon they
will be going to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is
there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow
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linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of
pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.”
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you
not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy
is so thirsty, and the mother so sad.” “I don’t think I like boys,”
answered the Swallow. “Last summer, when I was staying on the
river, there were two rude boys, the miller’s sons, who were
always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we
swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a
family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of
disrespect.”
But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was
sorry. “It is very cold here,” he said; “but I will stay with you for
one night, and be your messenger.” “Thank you, little Swallow,”
said the Prince.
So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s
sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the
town.
He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels
were sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of
dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover.
“How wonderful the stars are,” he said to her, “and how
wonderful is the power of love!” “I hope my dress will be ready
in time for the State-ball,” she answered; “I have ordered
passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses
are so lazy. “He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns
hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto,
and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing
out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house
and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and
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the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and
laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman’s thimble.
Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy’s forehead
with his wings. “How cool I feel,” said the boy, “I must be
getting better”; and he sank into a delicious slumber.
Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him
what he had done. “It is curious,” he remarked, “but I feel quite
warm now, although it is so cold.” “That is because you have
done a good action,” said the Prince. And the little Swallow
began to think, and then he fell asleep. Thinking always made
him sleepy. When day broke he flew down to the river and had a
bath. “What are markable phenomenon,” said the Professor of
Ornithology as he was passing over the bridge. “A swallow in
winter!” And he wrote a long letter about it to the local
newspaper. Every one quoted it, it was full of so many words
that they could not understand.
“To-night I go to Egypt,” said the Swallow, and he was in high
spirits at the prospect. He visited all the public monuments, and
sat a long time on top of the church steeple. Wherever he went
the Sparrows chirruped, and said to each other, “What a
distinguished stranger!” so he enjoyed himself very much.
When the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince. “Have
you any commissions for Egypt?” he cried. “I am just starting.”
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you
not stay with me one night longer?” “I am waited for in Egypt,”
answered the Swallow. “To-morrow my friends will fly up to the
Second Cataract. The river-horse couches there among the
bulrushes, and on a great granite throne sits the God Memnon.
All night long he watches the stars, and when the morning star
shine she utters one cry of joy, and then he is silent. At noon the
yellow lions come down to the water’s edge to drink. They have
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eyes like green beryls, and their roar is louder than the roar of
the cataract.” “Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the
Prince, “far away across the city I see a young man in a garret.
He is leaning over a desk covered with papers, and in a tumbler
by his side there is a bunch of withered violets. His hair is
brown and crisp, and his lips are red as a pomegranate, and he
has large and dreamy eyes. He is trying to finish a play for the
Director of the Theatre, but he is too cold to write any more.
There is no fire in the grate, and hunger has made him faint.” “I
will wait with you one night longer,” said the Swallow, who
really had a good heart. “Shall I take him another ruby?” “Alas!
I have no ruby now,” said the Prince; “my eyes are all that I
have left.
They are made of rare sapphires, which were brought out of
India a thousand years ago. Pluck out one of them and take it to
him. He will sell it to the jeweller, and buy food and firewood,
and finish his play.” “Dear Prince,” said the Swallow, “I cannot
do that”; and he began to weep.
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “do as I
command you.” So the Swallow plucked out the Prince’s eye,
and flew away to the student’s garret. It was easy enough to get
in, as there was a hole in the roof. Through this he darted, and
came into the room. The young man had his head buried in his
hands, so he did not hear the flutter of the bird’s wings, and
when he looked up he found the beautiful sapphire lying on the
withered violets.
“I am beginning to be appreciated,” he cried; “this is from some
great admirer. Now I can finish my play,” and he looked quite
happy.
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The next day the Swallow flew down to the harbour. He sat on
the mast of a large vessel and watched the sailors hauling big
chests out of the hold with ropes.
“Heave a-hoy!” they shouted as each chest came up. “I am
going to Egypt!” cried the Swallow, but nobody minded, and
when the moon rose he flew back to the Happy Prince.
“I am come to bid you good-bye,” he cried.
“Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “will you
not stay with me one night longer?” “It is winter,” answered the
Swallow, “and the chill snow will soon be here. In Egypt the sun
is warm on the green palm-trees, and the crocodiles lie in the
mud and look lazily about them. My companions are building a
nest in the Temple of Baalbec, and the pink and white doves are
watching them, and cooing to each other. Dear Prince, I must
leave you, but I will never forget you, and next spring I will
bring you back beautiful jewels in place of those you have given
away. The ruby shall be redder than a red rose, and the sapphire
shall be as blue as the great sea.”
“In the square below,” said the Happy Prince, “there stands a
little match-girl.
She has let her matches fall in the gutter, and they are all
spoiled. Her father will beat her if she does not bring home some
money, and she is crying. She has no shoes or stockings, and her
little head is bare. Pluck out my other eye, and give it to her, and
her father will not beat her.” “I will stay with you one night
longer,” said the Swallow, “but I cannot pluck out your eye. You
would be quite blind then.” “Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,”
said the Prince, “do as I command you.” So he plucked out the
Prince’s other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the
match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand.
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“What a lovely bit of glass,” cried the little girl; and she ran
home, laughing.
Then the Swallow came back to the Prince. “You are blind
now,” he said, “so I will stay with you always.” “No, little
Swallow,” said the poor Prince, “you must go away to Egypt.”
“I will stay with you always,” said the Swallow, and he slept at
the Prince’s feet.
All the next day he sat on the Prince’s shoulder, and told him
stories of what he had seen in strange lands. He told him of the
red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and
catch gold fish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the
world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the
merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels, and
carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains
of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large
crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and
has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the
pygmies who sail over a big lake on large flat leaves, and are
always at war with the butterflies.
“Dear little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you tell me of
marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the
suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as
Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you
see there.” So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the
rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars
were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the
white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the
black streets. Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were
lying in one another’s arms to try and keep themselves warm.
“How hungry we are!” they said. “You must not lie here,”
shouted the Watchman, and they wandered out into the rain.
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Then he flew back and told the Prince what he had seen.
“I am covered with fine gold,” said the Prince, “you must take it
off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor; the living always think
that gold can make them happy.”
Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the Swallow picked off, till the
Happy Prince looked quite dull and grey. Leaf after leaf of the
fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children’s faces grew
rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. “We
have bread now!” they cried.
Then the snow came, and after the snow came the frost. The
streets looked as if they were made of silver, they were so bright
and glistening; long icicles like crystal daggers hung down from
the eaves of the houses, everybody went about in furs, and the
little boys wore scarlet caps and skated on the ice.
The poor little Swallow grew colder and colder, but he would
not leave the Prince, he loved him too well. He picked up
crumbs outside the baker’s door when the baker was not
looking, and tried to keep himself warm by flapping his wings.
But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength
to fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more. “Good-bye, dear
Prince!” he murmured, “will you let me kiss your hand?” “I am
glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,” said the
Prince, “you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on
the lips, for I love you.” “It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said
the Swallow. “I am going to the House of Death. Death is the
brother of Sleep, is he not?” And he kissed the Happy Prince on
the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.
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At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if
something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had
snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.
Early the next morning the Mayor was walking in the square
below in company with the Town Councillors. As they passed
the column he looked up at the statue: “Dear me! how shabby
the Happy Prince looks!” he said.
“How shabby indeed!” cried the Town Councillors, who always
agreed with the Mayor, and they went up to look at it.
“The ruby has fallen out of his sword, his eyes are gone, and he
is golden no longer,” said the Mayor. “in fact, he is little better
than a beggar!” “Little better than a beggar,” said the Town
Councillors.
“And here is actually a dead bird at his feet!” continued the
Mayor. “We must really issue a proclamation that birds are not
to be allowed to die here.” And the town Clerk made a note of
the suggestion.
So they pulled down the statue of the Happy Prince. “As he is
no longer beautiful he is no longer useful,” said the Art
Professor at the University.
Then they melted the statue in a furnace, and the Mayor held a
meeting of the Corporation to decide what was to be done with
the metal. “We must have another statue, of course,” he said,
“and it shall be a statue of myself.” “Of myself,” said each of the
Town Councillors, and they quarrelled. When I last heard of
them they were quarrelling still.
“What a strange thing,” said the overseer of the workmen at the
foundry.
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“This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace. We must
throw it away.” So they threw it on a dust heap where the dead
Swallow was also lying.
“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” said God to
one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart
and the dead bird.
“You have rightly chosen,” said God, “for in my garden of
Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of
gold the Happy Prince shall praise me.”
*****
ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION
The Happy Prince is the story about a beautifully decorated
statue of a prince who lived a very happy life. He learnt about
sorrow after his death, when his statue was placed at a high
point from where the misery of the entire city could be seen.
Moved by the plight of the poor, the Happy Prince gave away all
his possessions to the needy with the help of a kind swallow.
This compassionate bird sacrificed his life for the noble cause of
the Prince.
STORYLINE
Once in a town there lived a prince. He was called the Happy
Prince because he had been happy all his life. After his death,
his statue covered with gold, two precious sapphire stones
embedded in the eyes and a ruby stone fitted into the handle of
his sword was erected on a tall pedestal in the middle of the
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town. From there, he could see all around the place and realized
that the people lived in a lot of poverty and misery. This sight
saddened the prince and being helpless, he would weep to see
the plight of his people. One day a swallow was flying through
the city, on its way to Egypt to meet its friends. On the way, it
took shelter for the night at the feet of the statue of the happy
prince. The bird realized that the statue was weeping and upon
inquiry, realized the plight of the prince. The helpless prince
requested the bird to help it by becoming its messenger. After
initial refusal, the bird agreed and took the ruby stone out of the
sword hilt and delivered it to a poor seamstress. The next
morning, as he went to bid goodbye, the statue convinced him to
stay back for one more day. That day, the bird was asked to
remove the sapphire stone from one of the statue’s eyes and
deliver it to a young playwright. Also, on the third day the bird
had to pull out the second sapphire stone for a poor match girl.
By this time, the weather had become cold and the bird had
developed an attachment with the statue. The bird did not want
to leave the statue which had now become blind. The happy
prince asked the bird to go around the city and inform him the
condition of the people living there. The bird told him that the
rich were making merry while the poor lived in misery. As the
happy prince did not have any more precious stones, he ordered
the bird to remove the gold foils from his body and distribute
among the living who needed money for survival. Gradually, the
statue of the prince lost its covering of gold and became dull and
grey. On the other hand, the poor became joyous as they got
bread to eat. The bird was now unable to withstand the cold
weather and realized that death was approaching. It informed the
statue that it had to leave and the statue, who loved the bird
asked it to kiss him. As the bird died and fell at the statue’s feet,
a strange sound came out of the statue and it was the sound of
the breaking of its heart. Although the statue’s heart was made
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of lead, it broke as it was overwhelmed with affection towards
the bird. When the statue was melted in the furnace, the heart
did not melt and was thrown in the garbage. It landed near the
swallow’s body. God’s angels took both the dead swallow and
the broken heart to him as they were the most precious things on
land.
THEME
 The story is an allegory and is based on the theme that
love and sacrifice are important values in human life.
Happiness comes to those who make others happy.
Those who have compassion and concern get as much
joy as those who receive their kindness and charity.
Hence, one must try to live a life guided by the virtues of
love, sacrifice, benevolence, and joy.
 The spiritual beauty or inner beauty is more important
than outward beauty. The real beauty is love, compassionate heart and sacrifice. The prince and the swallow
lost their outward beauty to attain inner beauty by helping the poor and needy.
 There is a huge gap between the rich and the poor. We
should help the poor and needy people in society so that
they are able to lead a happy life.
MESSAGE
1. The first message is that we must spread happiness
around us if we wish to be happy. It is useless to mount
statues with gold and jewels when the people are hungry.
The Prince could be happy only as long as sorrow was
not allowed to enter his palace. Once he saw pain, suffering and injustice, even his lead heart cried.
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2. The next message is that disparity and sorrow in society
can be overcome by compassion, generosity and sharing.
The generous prince and the gentle swallow sacrificed
themselves to bring happiness to the poor and the needy.
However, their deaths did not end their lives. The redemptive power of love made them live forever as the
precious and chosen ones of God.
3. The most powerful message or moral lesson given by
this story is that it is very essential to help the poor and
the downtrodden in society. The second message is, we
must be sensitive to the people who are suffering, especially the poor, and help them out. This will reduce their
suffering and help them to stand up.
JUSTIFICATION OF THE TITLE
The title of the story, The Happy Prince, presents its elements in
a symbolic manner. The story is about a prince who used to be
happy when he was alive. However, he is very sad after he is
placed atop a column as a statue. The prince appeared to be
happy only because he knew nothing of life outside of his
palace. Only after he died and became a statue did he learn of
the people’s suffering and the disparity between the rich and the
poor. He now sought happiness by sacrificing himself for the
happiness of others. The title thus aptly suggests that the
outward happiness of the prince is symbolic of the superficial
joys in life. Real happiness lies in having a compassionate heart.
The statue of the Happy Prince is adorned with gold and
precious stones. The Happy Prince gets happiness by
distributing the jewellery to the poor of the city. The swallow
helps him to carry out his task. The Prince who was crying when
the swallow met him, now feels happy that he has been able to
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make a number of poor people happy around the city. So, the
title “Happy Prince” is apt. It is about the inner or real happiness
of the prince at the cost of his outer happiness.
SYMBOL
THE LEAD HEART
The Happy Prince has a heart made of lead, which breaks when
his beloved Swallow dies of the cold. At first, this lead heart
appears to emphasize the superficiality of the Prince’s beauty,
though it later comes to symbolize the steadfast nature of love.
In the beginning of the story, the lead heart reveals that the gold
decorating the Prince’s outside does not carry through his
insides. This advises one to avoid judging by appearances, as
they can be deceitful. Although town officials try to melt the
heart down and repurpose it with the rest of the statue, it refuses
to melt. And when at the end of the story God asks for the two
most precious things in the city to be brought to him, the lead
heart, although broken, ends up being one of them. The lead
heart thus ultimately represents both the steadfastness of true
love and the value of compassion. By refusing to melt, the heart
also indicates that some things persist beyond one’s own life—
that is, that there exist values greater than the sum of a life.
GLOSSARY
Seamstress
sewing
:
a woman who makes a living by
Thimble
:
a metal or plastic cap with a closed
end worn to protect the finger and
push the needle in sewing
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Garret
:
small dark room at the top of the
house
QUESTIONS
1. Why do the courtiers call the prince “the Happy Prince”?
2. What does the swallow see when it flies over the city?
3. Why did the swallow not leave the prince and go to Egypt?
4. What are the precious things mentioned in the story? Why are
they precious?
5. Justify the title Happy Prince
6. What are the major themes discussed in the story The Happy
Prince?
REFERENCES
 https://interestingliterature.com/2021/03/oscar-wilde-thehappy-prince-summary-analysis/
 https://www.learncram.com/english-summary/the-happyprince-summary/
 https://fictionistic.com/the-happy-prince-by-oscar-wildebrief/
 https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-happy-princethemes-analysis.html
 https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-happy-prince/characters
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Module IV
THE MONKEY’S PAW
W.W Jacobs
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
W.W JACOBS (1863-1943)
William Wymark Jacobs was born on September 8, 1863 in
London, England. An author, humourist and dramatist, Jacobs is
best remembered for the enduring classic tale of horror called
“The Monkey’s Paw”.
As a youth, Jacobs grew up near the Wapping docks in London,
where his father was a wharf manager. Although he grew up
surrounded by poverty, Jacobs himself received a formal
education in London, first at a private prep school and later at
the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institute (now part of the
University of London and known as Birkbeck College).
Jacobs’ adult working life began with a clerical position at the
Post Office Savings Bank. The job was not a stimulating one
and Jacobs started writing short stories, sketches and articles,
many of which appeared in the Post Office house publication
“Blackfriars Magazine.” Although Jacobs did receive his fair
share of rejection slips at the beginning of his career, many
works written during this period of clerical employment
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appeared in the “Idler” and “Today” magazines, both edited by
noted humorist Jerome K. Jerome, who had taken a liking to
Jacobs’ stories. From 1898, Jacobs also published stories in
“The Strand”, a monthly fiction and general interest magazine.
The arrangement stayed in place for most of his life and many of
the works in Jacobs’ subsequent collections – including the
nautical serialization A Master of Craft (1899-1900) -- appeared
here first.
Jacobs’ first volume of collected works was published in 1896.
Many Cargoes, a selection of sea-faring yarns, established
Jacobs as a popular writer and humorist with a penchant for
authentic dialogue and trick endings (critics of the day referred
to him as the “O. Henry of the Waterfront”). He then published a
novelette, The Skipper’s Wooing, in 1897 and another collection
of short stories titled Sea Urchins in 1898. These works painted
vivid, if farcical, pictures of dockland and seafaring London
with colourful characters that now seem archetypal.
By 1899, Jacobs was able to quit the post office and finally
begin making a living as a full-time writer. He married noted
suffragist Agnes Eleanor Williams (who had been jailed for her
protest activities) the next year, 1900. They set up a household
in Loughton, Essex as well as living part of the year in central
London. The couple went on to have five children together
though their marriage was considered an unhappy one.
The publication of two short novels: At Sunwich Port (a
romantic tale of rival sea captains in the fictional seaside
community of Sunwich standing in for the actual East England
community of Sandwich, Kent) and Dialstone Lane (another
small town romance involving intrigue and buried treasure), in
1902 and 1904 respectively, cemented Jacobs’ reputation as one
of the leading British authors of the new century. These were
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followed by a string of successful publications, including
Captain’s All (1905), Night Watches (1914), The Castaways
(1916), and Sea Whispers (1926). Jacobs published eighteen
books in all during his lifetime, thirteen collections and five
novels.
As a storyteller, Jacobs is perhaps better remembered for a
handful of brief tales of the supernatural than for his popular
nautical-themed works. The most famous of these, The Monkey’s
Paw, originally appeared as part of the 1902 short story
collection The Lady of the Barge. It is an economically written
story about a shrivelled talisman, a monkey’s paw that brings
grief and horror in the wake of all too literal wish granting. The
story has been adapted for other media repeatedly, starting with
a one-act play performed at London’s Haymarket Theatre in
1903. There have been multiple film adaptations of the story in
the modern era; some of us are familiar with its appearance in an
episode of the popular animated series, The Simpsons.
Another macabre gem, The Toll-House, was published as part of
the collection Sailor’s Knots in 1909. It economically tells the
story of a group of men who spend the night in a famously
haunted house on a dare (a noticeably similar narrative concept
was put to use in the much earlier play The Ghost of Jerry
Bundler, which had launched Jacobs’ parallel career as a
dramatist back in 1899 when it was produced at the St. James
Theatre in London). Innovative at the time of writing, these
spare ghost stories are now familiar classics of the supernatural
genre.
Though prolific in his younger years, Jacobs’ productivity
dropped dramatically after the start of World War I. Yet even in
self-imposed semi-retirement Jacobs was still recognized as a
leading humourist, ranked alongside such writers as P. G.
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Wodehouse and George Birmingham. He enjoyed continuing
influence and elevated status among his fellow writers as
evidenced by these comments attributed to his colleague Henry
James:
“Mr. Jacobs, I envy you. You are popular! Your admirable work
is appreciated by a wide circle of readers; it has achieved
popularity. Mine never goes into a second edition.”
Though Jacobs would create little in the way of new work after
1911, he was still writing. In these later years, Jacobs
concentrated more on writing dramatizations and adaptations of
his existing stories, including Beauty and the Barge, a film
version starring Margaret Rutherford was also released in 1937
and In the Dark, a one act play that is often bundled with The
Monkey’s Paw adaptation.
Jacobs is universally considered to be a fine and imaginative
literary craftsman. Nonetheless, Jacobs’ legacy remains solid: he
continued Dickens’ (a writer with whom he is also often
compared) tradition for sharing working class stories in
authentic vernacular. And polished narratives such as The
Monkey’s Paw set a standard for the clever use of horror in
fiction and popular culture that endures to this day.
Jacobs died in a North London nursing home on September 1,
1943 a week prior to his 80th birthday.
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THE MONKEY’S PAW
(Text)
“Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it.” –
Anonymous
PART ONE
Outside, the night was cold and wet, but in the small living room
the curtains were closed and the fire burned brightly. Father and
son were playing chess; the father, whose ideas about the game
involved some very unusual moves, putting his king into such
sharp and unnecessary danger that it even brought comment
from the white-haired old lady knitting quietly by the fire.
“Listen to the wind,” said Mr. White who, having seen a mistake
that could cost him the game after it was too late, was trying to
stop his son from seeing it.
“I’m listening,” said the son, seriously studying the board as he
stretched out his hand. “Check.”
“I should hardly think that he’ll come tonight,” said his father,
with his hand held in the air over the board.
“Mate,” replied the son.
“That’s the worst of living so far out,” cried Mr. White with
sudden and unexpected violence; “Of all the awful out of the
way places to live in, this is the worst. Can’t walk on the
footpath without getting stuck in the mud, and the road’s a river.
I don’t know what the people are thinking about. I suppose they
think it doesn’t matter because only two houses in the road have
people in them.”
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“Never mind, dear,” said his wife calmly; “perhaps you’ll win
the next one.
” Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to see a knowing
look between mother and son. The words died away on his lips,
and he hid a guilty smile in his thin grey beard.
“There he is,” said Herbert White as the gate banged shut loudly
and heavy footsteps came toward the door.
The old man rose quickly and opening the door, was heard
telling the new arrival how sorry he was for his recent loss. The
new arrival talked about his sadness, so that Mrs. White said,
“Tut, tut!” and coughed gently as her husband entered the room
followed by a tall, heavy built, strong-looking man, whose skin
had the healthy reddish colour associated with outdoor life and
whose eyes showed that he could be a dangerous enemy.
“Sergeant-Major Morris,” he said, introducing him to his wife
and his son, Herbert.
The Sergeant-Major shook hands and, taking the offered seat by
the fire, watched with satisfaction as Mr. White got out whiskey
and glasses.
After the third glass his eyes got brighter and he began to talk.
The little family circle listened with growing interest to this
visitor from distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in
the chair and spoke of wild scenes and brave acts; of wars and
strange peoples.
“Twenty-one years of it,” said Mr. White, looking at his wife
and son. “When he went away he was a thin young man. Now
look at him.”
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“He doesn’t look to have taken much harm.” said Mrs. White
politely.
“I’d like to go to India myself,” said the old man, just to look
around a bit, you know.”
“Better where you are,” said the Sergeant-Major, shaking his
head. He put down the empty glass and sighing softly, shook it
again.
“I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and the street
entertainers,” said the old man. “What was that that you started
telling me the other day about a monkey’s paw or something,
Morris?”
“Nothing.” said the soldier quickly. “At least, nothing worth
hearing.”
“Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White curiously.
“Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said
the Sergeant-Major, without first stopping to think.
His three listeners leaned forward excitedly. Deep in thought,
the visitor put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down
again. Mr. White filled it for him again.
“To look at it,” said the Sergeant-Major, feeling about in his
pocket, “it’s just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy.”
He took something out of his pocket and held it out for them.
Mrs. White drew back with a look of disgust, but her son, taking
it, examined it curiously.
“And what is there special about it?” asked Mr. White as he took
it from his son, and having examined it, placed it upon the table.
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“It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the Sergeant-Major,
“a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s
lives, and that those who tried to change it would be sorry. He
put a spell on it so that three different men could each have three
wishes from it.”
The way he told the story showed that he truly believed it and
his listeners became aware that their light laughter was out of
place and had hurt him a little.
“Well, why don’t you have three, sir?” said Herbert, cleverly.
The soldier looked at him the way that the middle aged usually
look at disrespectful youth. “I have,” he said quietly, and his
face whitened.
“And did you really have the three wishes granted?” asked Mrs.
White.
“I did,” said the Sergeant-Major, and his glass tapped against his
strong teeth.
“And has anybody else wished?” continued the old lady.
“The first man had his three wishes. Yes,” was the reply, “I don’t
know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s
how I got the paw.”
His voice was so serious that the group fell quiet.
“If you’ve had your three wishes it’s no good to you now then
Morris,” said the old man at last. “What do you keep it for?”
The soldier shook his head. “Fancy I suppose,” he said slowly.
“I did have some idea of selling it, but I don’t think I will. It has
caused me enough trouble already. Besides, people won’t buy.
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They think it’s just a story, some of them; and those who do
think anything of it want to try it first and pay me afterward.”
“If you could have another three wishes,” said the old man,
watching him carefully, “would you have them?”
“I don’t know,” said the other. “I don’t know.”
He took the paw, and holding it between his front finger and
thumb, suddenly threw it upon the fire. Mr. White, with a slight
cry, quickly bent down and took it off.
“Better let it burn,” said the soldier sadly, but in a way that let
them know he believed it to be true.
“If you don’t want it Morris,” said the other, “give it to me.”
“I won’t.” said his friend with stubborn determination. “I threw
it on the fire. If you keep it, don’t hold me responsible for what
happens. Throw it on the fire like a sensible man.”
The other shook his head and examined his possession closely.
“How do you do it?” he asked.
“Hold it up in your right hand, and state your wish out loud so
that you can be heard,” said the Sergeant-Major, “But I warn
you of what might happen.”
“Sounds like the ‘Arabian Nights’”, said Mrs. White, as she rose
and began to set the dinner. “Don’t you think you might wish for
four pairs of hands for me.”
Her husband drew the talisman from his pocket, and all three
laughed loudly as the Sergeant-Major, with a look of alarm on
his face, caught him by the arm.
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“If you must wish,” he demanded, “Wish for something
sensible.”
Mr. White dropped it back in his pocket, and placing chairs,
motioned his friend to the table. In the business of dinner, the
talisman was partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat
fascinated as the listened to more of the soldier’s adventures in
India.
“If the tale about the monkey’s paw is not more truthful than
those he has been telling us,” said Herbert, as the door closed
behind their guest, just in time to catch the last train, “we shan’t
make much out of it.”
“Did you give anything for it, father?” asked Mrs. White,
watching her husband closely.
“A little,” said he, colouring slightly, “He didn’t want it, but I
made him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.”
“Not likely!” said Herbert, with pretended horror. “Why, we’re
going to be rich, and famous, and happy.” Smiling, he said,
“Wish to be a king, father, to begin with; then mother can’t
complain all the time.”
He ran quickly around the table, chased by the laughing Mrs
White armed with a piece of cloth.
Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it doubtfully.
“I don’t know what to wish for, and that’s a fact,” he said
slowly. “It seems to me I’ve got all I want.”
“If you only paid off the house, you’d be quite happy, wouldn’t
you!” said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. “Well, wish
for two hundred pounds, then; that’ll just do it.”
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His father, smiling and with an embarrassed look for his
foolishness in believing the soldier’s story, held up the talisman.
Herbert, with a serious face, spoiled only by a quick smile to his
mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few grand chords.
“I wish for two hundred pounds,” said the old man clearly.
A fine crash from the piano greeted his words, broken by a
frightened cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward
him. “It moved,” he cried, with a look of horror at the object as
it lay on the floor. “As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a
snake.”
“Well, I don’t see the money,” said his son, as he picked it up
and placed it on the table, “and I bet I never shall.”
“It must have been your imagination, father,” said his wife,
regarding him worriedly.
He shook his head. “Never mind, though; there’s no harm done,
but it gave me a shock all the same.”
They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their
pipes. Outside, the wind was higher than ever, and the old man
jumped nervously at the sound of a door banging upstairs. An
unusual and depressing silence settled on all three, which lasted
until the old couple got up to go to bed.
“I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle
of your bed,” said Herbert, as he wished them goodnight, “and
something horrible sitting on top of your wardrobe watching you
as you pocket your ill-gotten money.
Herbert, who normally had a playful nature and didn’t like to
take things too seriously, sat alone in the darkness looking into
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the dying fire. He saw faces in it; the last so horrible and so
monkey-like that he stared at it in amazement. It became so
clear that, with a nervous laugh, he felt on the table for a glass
containing some water to throw over it. His hand found the
monkey’s paw, and with a little shake of his body he wiped his
hand on his coat and went up to bed.
PART TWO
In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed
over the breakfast table he laughed at his fears. The room felt as
it always had and there was an air of health and happiness which
was not there the previous night. The dirty, dried-up little paw
was thrown on the cabinet with a carelessness which indicated
no great belief in what good it could do.
“I suppose all old soldiers are the same,” said Mrs. White. “The
idea of our listening to such nonsense! How could wishes be
granted in these days? And if they could, how could two
hundred pounds hurt you, father?”
“Might drop on his head from the sky,” said Herbert.
“Morris said the things happened so naturally,” said his father,
“that you might if you so wished not see the relationship.”
“Well don’t break into the money before I come back,” said
Herbert as he rose from the table to go to work. “I’m afraid it’ll
turn you into a mean, greedy old man, and we shall have to tell
everyone that we don’t know you.”
His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him
go down the road, and returning to the breakfast table, she felt
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very happy at the expense of her husband’s readiness to believe
such stories. All of which did not prevent her from hurrying to
the door at the postman’s knock nor, when she found that the
post brought only a bill, talking about how Sergeant-Majors can
develop bad drinking habits after they leave the army.
“Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect,
when he comes home,” she said as they sat at dinner.
“I know,” said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; “but
for all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I’ll swear to.”
“You thought it did,” said the old lady, trying to calm him.
“I say it did,” replied the other. “There was no thought about it; I
had just – What’s the matter?”
His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious
movements of a man outside, who, looking in an undecided
fashion at the house, appeared to be trying to make up his mind
to enter. In mental connection with the two hundred pounds, she
noticed that the stranger was well dressed, and wore a silk hat of
shiny newness. Three times he stopped briefly at the gate, and
then walked on again. The fourth time he stood with his hand
upon it, and then with sudden firmness of mind pushed it open
and walked up the path. Mrs White at the same moment placed
her hands behind her, hurriedly untied the strings of her apron,
and put it under the cushion of her chair.
She brought the stranger, who seemed a little uncomfortable,
into the room. He looked at her in a way that said there was
something about his purpose that he wanted to keep secret, and
seemed to be thinking of something else as the old lady said she
was sorry for the appearance of the room and her husband’s
coat, which he usually wore in the garden. She then waited as
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patiently as her sex would permit for him to state his business,
but he was at first strangely silent.
“I – was asked to call,” he said at last, and bent down and picked
a piece of cotton from his trousers. “I come from ‘Maw and
Meggins.’
“The old lady jumped suddenly, as in alarm. “Is anything the
matter?” she asked breathlessly. “Has anything happened to
Herbert? What is it? What is it?”
Her husband spoke before he could answer. “There there
mother,” he said hurriedly. “Sit down, and don’t jump to a
conclusion. You’ve not brought bad news, I’m sure sir,” and
eyed the other, expecting that it was bad news but hoping he was
wrong.
“I’m sorry –” began the visitor.
“Is he hurt?” demanded the mother wildly.
The visitor lowered and raised his head once in agreement.”
Badly hurt,” he said quietly, “but he is not in any pain.”
“Oh thank God!” said the old woman, pressing her hands
together tightly. “Thank God for that! Thank – ”
She broke off as the tragic meaning of the part about him not
being in pain came to her. The man had turned his head slightly
so as not to look directly at her, but she saw the awful truth in
his face. She caught her breath, and turning to her husband, who
did not yet understand the man’s meaning, laid her shaking hand
on his. There was a long silence.
“He was caught in the machinery,” said the visitor at length in a
low voice.
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“Caught in the machinery,” repeated Mr. White, too shocked to
think clearly, “yes.”
He sat staring out the window, and taking his wife’s hand
between his own, pressed it as he used to do when he was trying
to win her love in the time before they were married, nearly
forty years before.
“He was the only one left to us,” he said, turning gently to the
visitor. “It is hard.”
The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window.
“The firm wishes me to pass on their great sadness about your
loss,” he said, without looking round. “I ask that you to please
understand that I am only their servant and simply doing what
they told me to do.”
There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes
staring, and her breath unheard; on the husband’s face was a
look such as his friend the Sergeant-Major might have carried
into his first battle.
“I was to say that Maw and Meggins accept no responsibility,”
continued the other. “But, although they don’t believe that they
have a legal requirement to make a payment to you for your
loss, in view of your son’s services they wish to present you
with a certain sum.”
Mr. White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, stared
with a look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the
words, “How much?”
“Two hundred pounds,” was the answer.
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Without hearing his wife’s scream, the old man smiled weakly,
put out his hands like a blind man, and fell, a senseless mass, to
the floor.
PART THREE
In the huge new cemetery, some two miles away, the old people
buried their dead, and came back to the house which was now
full of shadows and silence. It was all over so quickly that at
first they could hardly realize it, and remained in a state of
waiting for something else to happen – something else which
was to lighten this load, too heavy for old hearts to bear.
But the days passed, and they realized that they had to accept the
situation – the hopeless acceptance of the old. Sometimes they
hardly said a word to each other, for now they had nothing to
talk about, and their days were long to tiredness.
It was about a week after that the old man, waking suddenly in
the night, stretched out his hand and found himself alone. The
room was in darkness, and he could hear the sound of his wife
crying quietly at the window. He raised himself in bed and
listened.
“Come back,” he said tenderly. “You will be cold.”
“It is colder for my son,” said the old woman, who began crying
again.
The sounds of crying died away on his ears. The bed was warm,
and his eyes heavy with sleep. He slept lightly at first, and then
was fully asleep until a sudden wild cry from his wife woke him
with a start.
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“THE PAW!” she cried wildly. “THE MONKEY’S PAW!”
He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the
matter?”
She almost fell as she came hurried across the room toward him.
“I want it,” she said quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?”
“It’s in the living room, on the shelf above the fireplace,” he
replied. “Why?”
She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his
cheek.
“I only just thought of it,” she said. “Why didn’t I think of it
before? Why didn’t you think of it?”
“Think of what?” he questioned.
“The other two wishes,” she replied quickly. “We’ve only had
one.”
“Was not that enough?” he demanded angrily.
“No,” she cried excitedly; “We’ll have one more. Go down and
get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”
The man sat up in bed and threw the blankets from his shaking
legs. “Good God, you are mad!” he cried, struck with horror.
“Get it,” she said, breathing quickly; “get it quickly, and wish –
Oh my boy, my boy!”
Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. “Get back to bed
he said,” his voice shaking. “You don’t know what you are
saying.”
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“We had the first wish granted,” said the old woman,
desperately; “why not the second?”
“A c-c-coincidence,” said the old man.
“Go get it and wish,” cried his wife, shaking with excitement.
The old man turned and looked at her, and his voice shook. “He
has been dead ten days, and besides he – I would not tell you
before, but – I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he
was too terrible for you to see then, how now?”
“Bring him back,” cried the old woman, and pulled him towards
the door. “Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?”
He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the living
room, and then to the fireplace. The talisman was in its place on
the shelf, and then a horrible fear came over him that the
unspoken wish might bring the broken body of his son before
him before he could escape from the room. He caught his breath
as he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His
forehead cold with sweat, he felt his way round the table and
along the walls until he found himself at the bottom of the stairs
with the evil thing in his hand.
Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It
was white and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an
unnatural look upon it. He was afraid of her.
“WISH!” she cried in a strong voice.
“It is foolish and wicked,” he said weakly.
“WISH!” repeated his wife.
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He raised his hand. “I wish my son alive again.”
The talisman fell to the floor, and he looked at it fearfully. Then
he sank into a chair and the old woman, with burning eyes,
walked to the window and opened the curtains.
He sat until he could no longer bear the cold, looking up from
time to time at the figure of his wife staring through the window.
The candle, which had almost burned to the bottom, was
throwing moving shadows around the room. When the candle
finally went out, the old man, with an unspeakable sense of
relief at the failure of the talisman, went slowly back to his bed,
and a minute afterward the old woman came silently and lay
without movement beside him.
Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the
clock. They heard nothing else other than the normal night
sounds. The darkness was depressing, and after lying for some
time building up his courage, the husband took the box of
matches, and lighting one, went downstairs for another candle.
At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he stopped to
light another; and at the same moment a knock sounded on the
front door. It was so quiet that it could only be heard downstairs,
as if the one knocking wanted to keep their coming a secret.
The matches fell from his hand. He stood motionless, not even
breathing, until the knock was repeated. Then he turned and ran
quickly back to his room, and closed the door behind him. A
third knock sounded through the house.
“WHAT’S THAT?” cried the old woman, sitting up quickly.
“A rat,” said the old man shakily – “a rat. It passed me on the
stairs.”
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His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock echoed through
the house.
“It’s Herbert!” she screamed. “It’s Herbert!”
She ran to the door, but her husband was there before her, and
catching her by the arm, held her tightly. “What are you going to
do?” he asked in a low, scared voice.
“It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling automatically.
“I forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for?
Let go. I must open the door.”
“For God’s sake don’t let it in,” cried the old man, shaking with
fear.
“You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried struggling. “Let me
go. I’m coming, Herbert; I’m coming.”
There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a
sudden pull broke free and ran from the room. Her husband
followed to the top of the stairs, and called after her as she
hurried down. He heard the chain pulled back and the bottom
lock open. Then the old woman’s voice, desperate and breathing
heavily.
“The top lock,” she cried loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.”
But her husband was on his hands and knees feeling around
wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If only he could find it
before the thing outside got in. The knocks came very quickly
now echoing through the house, and he heard the noise of his
wife moving a chair and putting it down against the door. He
heard the movement of the lock as she began to open it, and at
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the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and frantically
breathed his third and last wish.
The knocking stopped suddenly, although the echoes of it were
still in the house. He heard the chair pulled back, and the door
opened. A cold wind blew up the staircase, and a long loud cry
of disappointment and pain from his wife gave him the courage
to run down to her side, and then to the gate. The streetlight
opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.
******
ANALYSIS OF THE STORY
The Monkey's Paw is a classic "three wishes" story that doubles
as a horror story and a cautionary tale; reminding us that
unintended consequences often accompany the best intentions.
This widely read story is a favorite in classrooms around the
world. The story was first published in 1902 and then featured in
The Lady of the Barge, published in 1911. The mystery of the
Monkey’s Paw is a cleverly thought-out short story. This story
had three main parts. These parts were the first wish, the second
wish, and the third wish.
The first wish was the only tragic wish that was granted. Mr.
White, his son Herbert, and an old man were sitting around
playing chess. There was a knock at the door and Mr. White
answered it to let the man in. His name was Sergeant-Major
Morris. He sat down in the seat nearest the fire, and after several
glasses of whiskey, he began to talk. He talked about some of
his war experiences, and then of India. His last story was about a
magical mummified monkey’s paw. The sergeant-major tells the
family that the old dried-out monkey’s paw has a spell put on it
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by an old fakir. The story continues and then Mr. White and the
sergeant-major trade.
Later, Mr. White wishes for 200 pounds. A man comes and visits
the Whites telling them that their son Herbert had been killed,
and then he gives them 200 pounds. The consequence of Mr.
White’s first wish is the main reason he uses a second and third
wish. Mr. White did not want to use a second wish but his wife
insisted that they wish their son back to life. Mr. White wishes
his son back to life, but nothing happens so they go to sleep.
They are sleeping when they hear a knocking sound at their
front door. Mrs. White goes downstairs to answer the door even
though Mr. White told her not to answer the door. Mrs. White
approached the door while Mr. White looked for the monkey’s
paw. At the very moment Mr. White unlocked the door Mr.
White found the monkey’s paw and made his third and final
wish. Just as he made his wish the knocking stopped, and his
wife opened the door. What was the last wish? The author never
really says, but one can assume that he wished he had never
made his second wish. The end of the story is open and leaves
you to come up with an end of your own.
To conclude, the storyline was well written and cleverly thought
out. With the three wishes as to the main parts of the story; the
author was able to lead you one way and then suddenly change
direction. It has been adapted many times in other media,
including plays, films, TV series, operas, stories and comics, as
early as 1903 and as recently as 2019. It was first adapted to
film in 1915 as a British silent film directed by Sidney
Northcote. The film (now lost) starred John Lawson, who also
played the main character in Louis N. Parker's 1907 stage play.
Jacobs provides suspense, a building sense of menace, and real
drama, as well as bringing in such themes as family tragedy and
the problems with imperialism.
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THEMES
1. The concept of fate and explores the disastrous consequences
of attempting to challenge one's destiny.
2. Another theme could be greed. The Whites are greedy for
money and pay for that greed with their son's life. Then, they are
greedy to have their son back from the dead without thinking
what a horrible experience this will be.
3. The danger of wishing beyond one’s need
4. The clash between domesticity and the outside world
Jacobs depicts the Whites’ home and domestic sphere in general
as a safe, cosy place separate from the dangerous world outside.
The Whites’ house is full of symbols of happy domesticity: a
piano, knitting, a copper kettle, a chessboard, a fireplace, and a
breakfast table. But the Whites repeatedly invite trouble into this
cosy world. Sergeant-Major Morris—a family friend, seasoned
veteran, and world traveller—disrupts the tranquillity in the
Whites’ home with his stories of India and magic and warnings
of evil. He gives Mr. White the monkey’s paw, the ultimate
token of the dangerous outside world. Mr. and Mrs. White mar
the healthy atmosphere of their home again when they invite the
Maw and Meggins representative inside, a man who shatters
their happiness with news of Herbert’s death. The final would-be
invader of the domestic world is Herbert himself. Mr. White’s
terrified reaction to his dead son’s desire for entrance suggests
not just his horror at the prospect of an animated corpse, but his
understanding, won from experience, that any person coming
from the outside should be treated as a dangerous threat to the
sanctity of the home.
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SYMBOLS
THE MONKEY’S PAW
The monkey’s paw is a symbol of desire and greed—everything
that its owner could possibly wish for and the unrestricted
ability to make it happen. This power makes the paw alluring,
even to unselfish people who desire nothing and have everything
they need. Mr. White, for example, hastily retrieves the paw
from the fire, even though he himself admits that he wouldn’t
know what to wish for if he owned the paw. Its potential also
prompts Herbert to half-jokingly suggest wishing for money the
Whites don’t really need, ostensibly just to see what happens.
The paw grants Mr. White’s wishes by killing Herbert and
raising his corpse from the grave in an unexpected and highly
sinister twist. At the same time, however, the paw’s omnipotent
power may be misperceived, because Herbert’s death may have
been entirely coincidental and the knocks on the door may be
from someone other than his living corpse
CHESS
Chess symbolizes life in The Monkey’s Paw. Those who play a
daring, risky game of chess, for example, will lose, just as those
who take unnecessary risks in life will die. When the story
opens, Mr. White and Herbert play chess by the fire, and the
game’s outcome mirrors the story’s outcome. Mr. White, the
narrator explains, has a theory of “radical changes” concerning
chess. He takes terrible, unnecessary risks with his king, risks
that make his wife nervous as she watches the game unfold. As
he plays, he notices that he has made a mistake that will prove
deadly. The risks and mistakes Mr. White makes playing chess
parallel the risks and mistakes he makes wishing on the
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monkey’s paw. These mistakes ultimately lead to Herbert’s
death, the most “radical change” of all.
MOTIFS
GROUPS OF THREE
Jacobs’s story is structured around a pattern of threes. The
central force of the story is the monkey’s paw, which will grant
three separate owners three wishes each. The White family is
made up of three people. Mr. White is the third owner of the
paw. (The second owner is Sergeant-Major Morris; the first
owner used his third wish for death.) Sergeant-Major Morris
begins talking about his adventures in India after three glasses of
whisky and urges Mr. White three times not to wish on the paw.
The representative from Maw and Meggins approaches the
Whites’ gate three times before he musters up the courage to
walk up the path to their door. Mrs. White orders her husband
three times to wish Herbert alive again before he retrieves the
paw. And the reanimated corpse of Herbert knocks three times
before his mother hears him. In addition to permeating the plot,
the number three gives “The Monkey’s Paw” its structure. The
story is broken up into three parts, which take place at three
times of day, during three types of weather. Part I occurs in the
evening during a rainstorm. Part II takes place during the
morning of a bright winter day. Part III is set in the middle of a
chilly, windy night.
By stressing threes, Jacobs taps into a number of associations
that are common in Western culture. Most relevant to the story is
the saying “bad luck comes in threes.” One well-known trinity,
or three, is from Christian theology, in which God is composed
of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Disregard for threes has
been superstitiously equated with disregard for the trinity. In the
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case of Jacobs’s characters, faith in a non-Christian totem (the
paw) may be interpreted as disrespect for Christianity. Finally,
because twos commonly occur in nature (we have two legs, two
eyes, two hands, and so on), threes are often used in literature to
produce a perverse or unnatural effect.
GLOSSARY
Placidly
:
in a quiet and tranquil manner
Rubicund
:
having a healthy reddish colour
Proffer
:
present for acceptance or rejection
Fakir
:
a Muslim or Hindu mendicant
monk regarded as a holy man
Presumptuous
:
going beyond what is appropriate,
permitted, or courteous
Doggedly
:
with obstinate determination
Talisman
:
a trinket thought to be a magical
protection against evil
Antimacassar
:
a piece of ornamented cloth that
protects the back of a chair from
hair oils
Avaricious
:
immediately desirous of acquiring
something
Scurrying
:
moving with great haste
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Bibulous
:
given to or marked
consumption of alcohol
by
the
Fusillade
:
rapid simultaneous discharge of
firearms
QUESTIONS
1. Who is Mr. White?
2. What happened to their son, Mr. Herbert?
3. What was the power of the Monkey’s Paw?
4. How did the Whites get the Monkey’s Paw?
5. What were the three wishes made by Mr. White in the story?
6. What was the final wish?
7. Comment on the ending of the story The Monkey’s Paw?
8. Describe the weather and its influence on the theme of the
story
9. Does fate rule our lives or do we have some control over
what happens to us? Explain your viewpoint based on the
story The Monkey’s Paw
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REFERENCES:
 https://www.kyrene.org/cms/lib/AZ01001083/Centricity/
Domain/2259/The%20Monkeys%20Paw%20%20text.pdf
 http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/10/illustrat
ed_edition_of_the_monkey_s_paw_by_w_w_jacobs.htm
l
 https://englishsummary.com/the-monkeys-pawsummary-by-w-w-jacobs/
 https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-MonkeysPaw/character-analysis/
 https://www.owleyes.org/text/monkeyspaw/analysis/character-analysis
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