Culture and Anarchy by Metthew Arnold critical study

M.K. Bhavnagar University

Department of English

Name:- Parmar Milankumar

Roll no.:- 14

Enrollment no.:- 14101026

Course:- Victorian literature

Topic:- Culture and Anarchy critical study

Introduction

Matthew Arnold was cultural critic and poet during Victorian age. “For him poetry is interpretative by having natural magic in it and moral profundity” he was born in 1822. He was the son of headmaster of Rugby.  Arnold was appointed as inspector of school. He worked for twenty five years at this position. Arnold’s literary work can be divided into three periods, which are poetical, the critic and the practical.

a.       In his poetical period he had written poetry since his school days. In 1853 to 1855 he published his last “poems” v. after that he abandoned poetry for critical work.

b.      In his critical period his lectures on translating “Homer” and the two “volume of essays in criticism”

c.       After critical period he turned to practical questions. His friendship and Garland 1871, was satire on and also wants to reform the great middle class of England.

d.      Culture and Anarchy appeared in 1869 and it was the most characteristic work of his practical period. The other four book published were based on religious subject.

Ø  Protestantism-1870

Ø  Literature and dogma-1873

Ø  God and Bible-1875

Ø  Essay in on Church and religion-1877

Arnold was the first critic who gave the definition of culture. He was the father of modern criticism. His fame as cultural critic always same as it was. Culture and anarchy was first published in 1869, the essay contains most of the terms. Many of these terms are given by him these terms are culture, sweetness and light, barbarian, philistines, Hebraism, Hellenism and many others. And all these are now associated with Arnold’s work and influence.

Culture and Anarchy:- it contains five essays. Arnold didn’t give name to these essays, but we can give it accordingly to the points which are discussed in each essay. They are as below

1.     Sweetness and Light

2.     Doing as one likes

3.     Three English class ( Barbarian, Philistines, populous)

4.     Hebraism and Hellenism

5.      One thing is necessary (the real need)

Definition of culture :- for him culture is the great help of our present difficulties,culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits”            

What is culture?

What good can it do to society?

Why do we need it?

1^st

Culture as study in total perfection :- Culture, harmonious perfection, developing all sides of humanity, developing all parts of our society; as a general perfection. Culture is a harmonious perfection It should help to development all the parts of society. If one member of it suffers the other must suffer. It means equality. If one is happy the other must be happy. One must see and learn culture. It is the religion The kingdom of God is within you. The church is in itself a lesson of religious moderation, and a help towards culture and harmonious perfection. Culture is manner, places human perfection in an internal condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality. It is the individual’s march towards perfection. Arnold talks about the great idea to know and the great energy to act. They should be in harmony by the light of reason. He insists on the balance of the both thought and action.

Perfection, as culture conceives it, is not possible while the individual remains isolated. The individual is required, under pain of being stunted and enfeebled in his own development if he disobeys, to carry others along with him in his march towards perfection.

Sweetness and light:- the notion of perfection, a perfection which consist of  beauty and sweetness both are present there. “which unites two noblest things as Sweeft happily calls them in his book ‘Battles of  the Books’ ‘the two noblest of things sweetness and light. To explain this term he takes two Greek words aphuia and euphuia.

Aphuia means without natural talent or dull

Euphuia means well grown, sharply, goodly, graceful, of good natural parts, clever, witty, also of good disposition and a finely tempered nature.

What Arnold suggests is that there should be combination of both the things in order to bring total perfection. Thus for him the pursuit of total perfection is the perfection of sweetness and light. He who works for sweetness and light, works to make reason and the will of the god prevail. Culture has one great passion, the passion for sweetness and light.

2^nd

Anarchy (doing as one likes)

 From where anarchy derives/ what is the reason behind anarchy in society ? Doing as one likes may become an anti social activity. Then liberty becomes license and in an organized society anarchy breaks out.  If this culture is blind to the existing evils of society or if the culture is in danger of being and enemy to become all moonshine. Arnold’s critics believe in action and not in aesthetic detachment.

“DOING AS ONE LIKES.”:- English were believe in freedom of doing as one likes., without regarding the ends for which freedom is to be desired. He agrees that it is most happy and important thing for a man merely be able to do as he likes. But the problem is on what he is to do, when he is thus free to do as one likes, we do not lay so much stress”

Mr. Bright say that “British constitution is system which stops and paralyses any power in interfering with the free action of individual, the central idea of English life and politics is the assertion of personal liberty ” and Arnold see it as drift which will sunk down the entire society.

What is the urgent need of society according to Arnold is that need of authority

Who should be given authority?

Aristocrats, Middle class or working class?

Arnold found inability in every class. What he found is that they have “sweetness” of culture but they lack the best “light” the intelligence. The idea of anarchy is dangerous because people can’t move towards right direction. At the end of this chapter Arnold suggest that the authority should be given to one’s self.

3^rd

Three English Classes

Arnold divides English society in three classes they are

The Barbarian

The philistines

The Populous 

The Barbarians:- they bring staunch individualism in life. Individualism is good thing but staunch made them selfish. And if there is staunch individualism there will be chaos in society. Their manly exercise, their strength and their good looks are definitely found in aristocratic class of his time. Their politeness resembles the chivalry. Barbarian and their external styles in manner accomplishments and powers are inherited from the barbarian. They found happiness in honor and consideration, field sport and pleasure.

The Philistines:- it is the German word which means uncultured people like most of the shopkeeper. They are wise men, captains of industry, busy in commerce and trade. Philistines deep in self love, they like fanaticism, business and money making and comfort and tea meeting. They brought all economic prosperity and progress in the country. They have built cities, they made rail road and in last they invented mercantile navy.    

The Working class:- working class people are who help to empire builders. Dirtiness and poverty is their trademark, they are raw and half developed. They are being exploited by the philistines and barbarians. “an Englishman’s have born privilege of doing as one likes, meeting where he likes, bawling what he likes, braking what he likes”. Populous class hated by both the class they like shouting, hustling and smashing and beer.     

4^th

Hellenism and Hebraism

Both the terms Arnold discusses in the fifth essay. He says Englishman usually prefers doing then thinking. This is outlook of their national characteristics. Arnold talks about the great idea to know and the great energy to act. Arnold would distinguish from the mental energy to know; and these energies are the first one is Hebraism and the second is Hellenism. The final aim of the both is human perfection.  Both are the most potent forces and both should be in harmony by the light of reason.

Bishop Wilson “first, never go against the best light you have; secondly, take care that your light be not darkness.”

Hellenism:- the supreme idea with the Hellenism or Greek spirit is to see things as they really are, he points out that Greek philosophy considers that the body and its desires are an impediment to right thinking. It desires for reason and the will of the god, and desire of love of god. It acquires spontaneity of consciousness with a clearness of mind, it emphasize on knowing or knowledge. Socrates as Hellenic, states that “ the best man is he who tries to make himself perfect, and the happiest man is he who feels that he is perfecting himself.”

Hebraism:- Hebraism is the spirit of the bible is conduct and obedience. It considers human body and its desires are obstacle in right act. Hebraism studies the universal order and observes the magnificence of god apparent the order. it achieves a strictness of conscience with its clarity of thought. It shows stress on doing rather than knowing. Its primary idea is absolute obedience to the will of god. It fastens its faith on doing.

The aim of the both is partaking of divine life with knowledge and action. Hebraism as Mr. Sidgwick points out is manful walking by the best light one has fire and strength as he calls it. This Hebraism must join hands with Hellenism the culture which endeavors to see things in their beauty and truth, the pursuit of sweetness and light.     

5^th

‘Porro Unum Est Necessarium’:- this title means one thing is necessary. One banal system of action, issuing out of the very concept of democratic existence is the liberal notion of doing freely as one likes. This idea issues from the sense of liberty democracy inculcates and when pushed to the extreme liberty is often turned in to anarchy.  

What Arnold calls “instead of our ‘one thing needful’ justifying in us vulgarity, hideousness, ignorance, violence are really so many touchstones which try our one thing needful, and which prove that in the state, at any rate, in which we ourselves have it, it is not all we want” In the above quotation Arnold wants to convey us that all these things which we never want, but we should know about those things that we can keep aw yourself from those things.

Conclusion :- Arnolds essay Culture and anarchy ifs the foundational work in the study of culture. His ideas can bring perfection in human society, but at the present time we can’t follow it completely, because of privatization, industrialization, and globalization. One can follow his ideas but he himself have to suffers in society.

American Multiculturalism

M.K. Bhavnagar University

Department of English

name :- Parmar Milankumar

Roll no. 14

Batch year:- 2014-15

Enrollment no.:- 14101026

Course:- Cultural studies

Topic :- American Multiculturalism

Preface:-

America is the country of immigrants, people from different countries and continents lived together with their own cultural, religious, national identity. In America people from different countries and cultures come not only with their economy but also brought their culture with them. In America today we find Indians, Mexicans, Africans, European, Japanese, Korean, and many more.

In the field of the cultural studies, it uses cultural artefacts to study the contemporary state of any culture. By using literature as cultural artefacts we come to know about the other cultures as represented in the literature in literature there we find multiplicity of cultures. Thus we can say America is multicultural state, nation and country. There are five chief types of cultural studies

                             i.            British multiculturalism

                           ii.            New historicism

                        iii.            American multiculturalism

                         iv.            Postmodernism and popular culture

                            v.            Post-colonial studies

The state of multiculturalism in America came to known in world by some incident. These incidents drew worldwide attention these incidents are as below.

1)      Watts race riots 1965

2)      Civil rights act passed in 1964

3)      Voting rights act was signed by president Lyndon Johnson

4)      The foundation of The Black panther party

5)      James Meredith the first African American student to enroll at university of Mississippi, wounded by a white segregationist

The Problem of Race:- “race is the critical feature of American life full of contradictions and ambiguities, it is at once the greatest source of social conflict and the richest source of cultural development in America”. Today race are mixed in way that it become difficult to recognize one’s original racial identity.

The literature of Americas divided in four types, they are

a)     African American writer

b)     Latina/o. writer

c)      Indian American writer

d)     Asian American writer

African American literature:- they were the people who brought to America by the Europeans for slavery and work purpose, they were treated like animals. But in the late twentieth century they got education and they started writing about their painful past. Bernard Bell reviews some primary features of African American writing and compares value system.

“Traditional white American values emanate from a providential vision of history and of Euro-Americans as a chosen people, a vision that sanctions their individual and collective freedom in the pursuit of property, profit, and happiness. Radical Protestantism, constitutional democracy, and industrial capitalism are the white American trinity of values. In contrast black American values emanates from a cyclical, Judeo-Christen vision of history and of African Americans as a disinherited, colonized people, a vision that sanctions their reliance of spirit and pursuit of social justice”

“African American literature can be divided into several major periods, colonial, antebellum, reconstruction, pre- world war 1, Harlem renaissance, naturalism and modernism, and contemporary.”

Harriet E. Wilson’s our Nig: or sketches from the life of free black, in a two–story was the first novel published by African American.

The Harlem Renaissance 1918- 1937 it had tremendous upsurge in black culture, with special interest in primitive art.

Richards wright attacked on American white in his novels Native son 1938, and Black Boy 1945.

Ralph Elison was influenced by Naturalism but even more by African American traditions such as the trickster, jazz, blues signifying and political activism. His novel Invisible Man1949 is compared with Odyssey.

          

Latina/o. Mexican, Spanish :-

This literature is the result of the mixture of two countries America and Mexico. ”The new Mestiza” by Gloria Anzaladua. “This work demonstrates how Latins live between two nations, between two culture, between two language. These things she also described in her poem ‘To Live in borderlands means you.”

She also calls her own liminal or border space, a challenge to live “on borders and in margins, where keeping intact one’s shifting and multiple identity and integrity is like trying to swim in a new element, an alien element”

The Chicano movement of the 1960 and 21970s meant renewed Mexican American political awareness sand artistic production. The World war2 had greatly accelerated the process of Mexican American acculturation

Rudolf Anaya’s “bless me, ultima” best known Latino novel, focuses on the impact of world war2 on a a small community in new Mexico.

Oscar zeta Acosta’s “Revolt of the cockroach people” 1973

Josephina’s 1945 novel “Mexican village” was the first novel to reach at American audience.

In their work generally we found three archetypes they are…

1.       Milinche :- is name given to Aztec woman is the symbol of betrayed and her son was the first mestizo, thus she was the mother of new mestizo race.

2.       The virgin of Guandalupe:- she was the patron saint of the Mexico, appearing everywhere from church to taxicab mirror. She took role of brown mother, goddess, mother, protector, and nurturer. She is another mother of mestizo race. she symbolizes the essence of virtue, self-sacrifice and humility before god.

3.       La Llorona:- originates in Indian folklore she said to have murdered his son, and betrayed by her husband, she condemned to an eternal penance and sorrow. She stands for combination of the extremes of purity and guilt.

American Indian literature:-

The American Indian literature was predominantly oral cultures, storytelling passes on religious beliefs, moral values, political codes and practical lesson of everyday life. For American Indians stories are a source of strength in the face of centuries of silencing by euro-Americans. American Indians is the preferred by Indian over native American.

There are two types of literature we come across they are

Traditional Indian literature:- it includes tales, songs and oratory that that have existed on the north American continent for centuries, composed in tribal language and performed for tribal audience such as trickster cycles. Indians do not separate literature from everyday life. A tribes myth and stories are designed to perpetuate their heritage and instruct the young, cure illness, ensure victory in battle, or secure fertile fields, it is literature that is practical.   

Mainstream Indian Literature:- it refers to works written by Indians in English in the traditional genre of fiction, poetry, and autobiography. The earlier mainstream writer is believed to be Samson Occom he published first in 1772. Later writers of nineteenth century dealt with native rights, the duplicity of US, and government and morality leaders, racial ambivalence, creation, myth, trickster humor and tribal constancy in the face of repeated assaults.

Gertrude Bonnin/ Dakata Sioux she compiled trickster tales

M. Scott Momday’s “house of dawn-1968 won Pulitzer prize.

Erdrich’s “Love medicine 1984,” “The Beet queen 1986,” “Tracks1988”

Asian American writers:- it is written by people of Asian descend in united states, addressing their experience of living in society that views them as alien. Asian immigrants were denied citizenship as late as 1950s. Asian American writer includes chines, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Polynesian, the subcontinents of India and the pacific. This culture presets bewildering arrays of languages, religions, social structures and skin colors, and, the category is broader than other.

Asian American literature begun in the twentieth century with autobiography like “Paperson” and “confession”, confession later took shape of picture bride.

Chinese women make up largest and most influential group of Asian American writers. Two women Edith and Winfred Eton, were first to become known in west. Edith published stories of realistic chines people in Mr. Spring Fragrance-1912. Winfred was Japanese author her novels are highly sentimentalized nature, full of moonlit, bamboo groves, cherry bosom and doll like heroines in delicate kimonos.

Second famous sisters become popular just before 2^nd world war were Adet, Anor and Meimei lin, whose best work was their reminiscence  of Chuckling Dawn 1942.

Jade snow – Fifth daughter

Amy Ton – Joy Luck Club 1989.

Conclusion:- by taking literature as artefacts we derives variety of results. we can study Americas culture in many other ways and result also will be varied. By above all these we can conclude that America is the place where it is very difficult to find ones ethnic identity, it becomes melting pot of cultures. It is the place open for everybody and it is the reason of its multiculturalism.

    

Four kinds of misunderstanding in reading poetry as discussed by I.A. Richards

Name:- Parmar Milankumar

Batch year:- 2014-15

Class:- M.A. semester2

Enrollment no.:- 14101026

Course name:- criticism2

Topic:- Four kinds of misunderstanding in reading poetry as discussed by I.A.Richards 

Department of English

M.K.Bhavnagar University  

Four kinds of misunderstanding in reading poetry by I A Richards

Introduction-

The essay "Figurative Language" was written by I A Richards. Ivor Armstrong Richards is one of the great critics of the modern age. He was the pioneer in the field of new criticism with the help of T S Eliot, though Eliot has more importance. "I A Richards was the first great critic since Coleridge who has formulated a systematic and complete theory of poetry and his views are highly original and illuminating" Like Coleridge he was a man of wide learning.

Life and works of I A Richards:-

He was born in 1893. He was educated at Cambridge, where in 1912, he was appointed as a professor of English literature. And thus he began a long and distinguished career both as a teacher and critic. His first published work was collaboration with   C K Ogden in 1922. His other works are-

1) The Meaning of Meaning- 1923

2) the Principles of Literary Criticism 1924 It is one of the major works and in which he has put the best of himself.

3) The Practical Criticism (1929) the work by which we can call him an advocate and practitioner of practical criticism. This work illuminates and explains the theories given by him.

His other works are-

1) Science and Poetry

2) Coleridge on Imagination

3) The Philosophy of Rhetoric etc.

His aims for writing practical criticism:-

While writing his book, he had set three aims before him. They are as below-

1)      To introduce a new kind of documentation to those who are interested in contemporary state of culture whether as a critic, philosopher, as a teacher, psychologist or merely as a curious person.

2)      To provide a new kind of technique for those who wish to discover for themselves what they want think and feel about poetry and why they should like or dislike it.

3)      To prepare the way for educational methods are more efficient than those we use now in developing discrimination and power to understand what we hear and read.

                He was a staunch advocate of a close textual and verbal study. His technique or the method is that of pragmatic and empirical. He did an experiment with students. He gave some poems to his students and asked for comments, students commented on the poems without title and author. And then he gave his own comments and suggestions and interpretations and these are incorporated in the third part of the book.

                His practical approach gave new path to literary criticism. Instead of intuitive and impressionistic criticism, it became more factual and scientific. His factual and scientific method of critical analysis, interpretation and evaluation has exercised considerable influence on the new critics.

Now we come back to our real question what are the four types of misunderstandings?

1)      Careless, intuitive reading(rhyme or irregular syntax)

2)      Over-literal reading

3)      Defective scholarship

4)      Difference of in meaning of words in poetry and prose. Example- 'Solemn and Gray'

I A Richards begins this essay by pointing out the four kinds of possible sources of misunderstanding as far as poetry is concerned. All types of misunderstandings are internally connected with each other in various subtle ways. It becomes very difficult to find out, with particular mistakes or misunderstandings.

          The diagnosis of the source of misunderstanding in poetry is as difficult as the case of troublesome mind-set or a patient in psychological choirs; simple case do occur but they are rare.

           These kinds of warning are given initially by I A Richards. The learned critic proceed to macerate various sources of misunderstanding in poetry.

Careless, intuitive reading:-

The first possible source of misunderstanding in reading poetry might be misunderstanding may arise from inattention, or sheer carelessness. But carelessness or inattention results from distraction and the meter and verse form of poetry itself may be a powerful source of distraction. To some readers, the meter and verse form of poetry are as powerful as distraction as a barrel organ or a brass band is to one trying to solve difficult mathematical problems.

Meter and rhythm are essential parts of poetry and cannot be dispensed with. Therefore a poem must be read several times before it is fully understood. In each reading, attention may be paid to one particular factor. After several readings, the various factors would fit in together and the full sense would be grasped.

Over literal meaning:-

Another source of misunderstanding of the sense of poetry arises from the fact that often poet themselves live to play all manner of tricks with their sense. "Sometimes a poet may dissolve the coherence of his sense altogether, and may seem chaotic and incoherent".

                In this above statement what he said is that sometimes poet himself lost control over his language, and sometimes it happens that he forget the sense of coherence or togetherness means to put different things together appropriately. And that's why to understand or to read poetry becomes difficult.

              The ordinary laws of syntax and grammar may be thrown to the wind. Such looseness of syntax maybe most undesirable, but a poet is certainly at liberty to indulge in it, it furthers his purpose.

In the field of literature society has given the freedom to poet. So, he uses it very well for its own purpose to make poetry more clear and powerful, and thus it happens that he may not follow grammatical structure of language and this also creates a confusion and leads to misunderstanding and this gives rise to the misunderstanding or wrong notion that syntax is of less importance in poetry than in prose, and that the proper way of understanding poetry is through a kind of guess work, which may even be called intuition. In other way to understand poetry, there is no proper or crystal clear way one has to assume the meaning of the poetry.

           And such notions are dangerous and hard to deal with, more so because they are true to some extent. This element of truth in them makes them most deceptive and misleading. I A Richards warns his reader against this danger and writes

" In most poetry the sense is as important as anything else; it is quite as a subtle and as dependent on the syntax as in prose; it is the poets chief instrument to other aims when it is not itself his aim. His control of our thoughts is ordinary. His chief means to the control of our feelings and in the immense majority or instances, we miss nearly everything or value if we misread his sense".

In the above quotation, what I A Richards wants to tell the reader of poetry is that one has to have a sense of poetry and in poetry, sense is given much importance and by this sense, poet controls our thoughts and our feelings? And if we miss this sense, then we miss nearly everything.

However this does not mean that the sense or a poem can be fully understood apart from the context that a prose paraphrases. However accurate, can fully express is sense. The sense as expressed in prose paraphrase is never the full burden of the poem: it can never express its full significance. Besides, the literal meaning of a poem also conveys through a rendering of its sense. In other words over literal reading is a great source of misunderstanding in poetry as careless or intuitive reading.

Both are equally dangerous and both must be avoided with care and diligence. To quote Richards own words-

"These twin dangers- careless, intuitive reading and prosaic over literal reading- are the simple gaggles- the reading poem between which too many ventures into poetry are attached”

Defective Scholarship:-

It is the third source of misunderstanding in poetry. The reader may fail to understand the sense of poet, because he is ignorant of the sense of many words used by the poem. The words may be new, difficult, unfamiliar to him, or he may lack necessary intellectual context. Words used by poet, besides having a literal meaning, may also have acquired additional richness and value from their having been used by other poets and writers in different contexts and this associate clue and significance would be lost upon a reader unfamiliar with this literary text of words.

Thus we can say defective scholarship is on the part of the reader and reader should be familiar to the contextual use of words otherwise it leads to misunderstanding.

The fourth source:-  of misunderstanding is a far more serious cause of misunderstanding is the failure to realise that the poetic use of words is different from their use in prose. Literal sense of the word can be easily understood with the help of a dictionary "but an inability to seize the poetical sense of word is not so easily remedied".

Here I A Richards present one poem to support and to explain his point.

" Solemn and gray, the immense cloud of even,

pass on their towering unperturbed way,

through the vast whiteness of the rain-swept heaven.

The moving pageant of the waning day;

Heavy with dreams, desire, prognostications,

Broading with sullen and Titanic crests,

They surge, whose mantles wise imaginations,

Trail where Earth's mute and languorous body rests

While below the hawthorns smiles like

milk splashed down

From Noon's blue pitcher over mead and hill

The arressed distance is so dim with flowers

It seems itself same coloured cloud made still

O, how the clouds this dying daylight crown,

with the tremendous triumph of tall towers".

Some critics call it the rubbish and write or give their comments on this.

Ø    A cloud cannot have desires.

Ø    A mantle cannot have imaginations.

Ø    Imagination cannot trail, it has no physical-literal existence.

Ø    Milk does not smile.

Ø    Dim with flower is rather weak, for flowers are bright things.

Ø    Tall towers do not triumph so far as I know anyhow I never saw one doing it! Might be an interesting sight !

These complaints rest upon an assumption about language that would be fatal to poetry. All these things may happen in poem if there is any good reason for their happening or any advantage is gained from their happening.

Not only many metaphors or for the matter of that, much poetry will survive such deadly demands for scientific precision. Poetic use of words is different from their use in prose, and such literalism is the most serious obstacle in the way of a right understanding of such poetic use of words. "How are we to explain" asks Richards "to those who are nothing in poetical language but a tissue of ridiculous exaggerations, childish 'fancies' ignorant conceit and absurd symbols- in what way its sense is to be read? Poetry is different from prose and needs a different attitude for right understanding.

Conclusion:-

Apart from this source of misunderstanding in reading poetry, there are others like figurative language, the poetic figures of speech possess number of difficult and interesting problems. There are metaphors and mixed metaphors, personifications and elaborated personifications create or sometimes itself became the source of misunderstanding in reading poetry.

                                                                                                                                                             

Feminism in Frankenstein

Name:- Parmar Milankumar.L

Batch year:- 2014-15

Class:- M.A. Semester 2

Enrollment no.:- 14101026

Course name:- Romantic Literature

Assignment topic:- Feminism in Frankenstein 

submitted:-    Department of English

                        M K Bhavnagar uni

Index

I.                   Introduction of feminism

II.                 Introduction of the author

III.              Feminism in Frankenstein

IV.              Social condition of 19thcentury

V.                 Gender and sex

VI.              Females in Frankenstein

VII.            Psychological reading

VIII.         Feminist critic’s comments

IX.               Conclusion

 Introduction to feminism:- 

Before we discuss the feminist approach in Merry Shelly’s Frankenstein, first I would like to provide some information about Feminism.

What is Feminism?

Feminism can be defined as political, cultural, pedagogic and theoretical response to the patriarchal structure of power that seeks to subordinate women’s lives, interest, bodies and sexualities. It argues that these structures create and enforce all relationship between men and women.  The feminist took various issues for the gender debate science, politics, economics, culture, and epistemology. In the literary arts the feminist critics exposed the patriarchal ideology that informed the construction of the ‘English Literary’ in the first place, and which made male–centered writing possible. During the 1970s feminist theory emerged with works such as

·        Kate Millet’s ‘Sexual Politics’

·        Shulamith Firestone’s ‘The Dialectic of sex’

·        Simon de Beauvoir’s ‘second sex’  “women are not born but  made” "

              

              Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist generally self-defines as advocating for or supporting the rights and equality of women (Wikipedia)

           All women or men writer who wrote about the problems of the women in the society can be termed as feminist writer in. In broader sense feminism not only applies to women but also to the other males and other marginalized group of society. Feminists have worked to protect women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment, and sexual assault. Feminists have also advocated for workplace rights, including receiving the right to paid work, paid maternity leave, and eradicating all forms of discrimination against women.

Gynocriticism:-   is the historical study of women writers as a distinct literary tradition. Elaine Showalter coined this term in her essay "Toward a Feminist Poetics."  It refers to a criticism that constructs

"a female framework for the analysis of women's literature, to develop new models based on the study of female experience, rather than to adapt male models and theories".

 The work of gynocriticism has been criticized by recent feminists for being essentialist, following too closely along the lines of Sigmund Freud and New Criticism, and leaving out lesbians and women of color.

Gynocriticism is the study of feminist literature written by female writers inclusive of the interrogation of female authorship, images, the feminine experience and ideology, and the history and development of the female literary tradition During the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds respectively, Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir began to review and evaluate the female image and sexism in the works of male writers. During the nineteen sixties the feminist movement saw a reaction and opposition to the male oriented discourse of previous years. Most thoroughly developed during the late seventies and early eighties, gynocriticism was a result of the interrogative critiques utilized in post-structuralism and psychoanalysis.

Introduction of the author of the novel :-

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on 30 August 1797, was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist. She was best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet P.B. Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was also the philosopher. She was died on 1 February 1851.

In her 1831 introduction to the novel Shelley writes of her husband’s anxiety that she should prove herself worthy of parentage- her parents being of literary fame. Whilst holiday with her future husband and poet Lord Byron in Geneva in 1816, Byron decided they should write a ghost story. Motivated by this conversation between Byron and Shelley, and also by the scientific works of scientists such as Galvani, Erasmus, Darwinan  Humphrey, marry begun Frankenstein. All ideas Shelley had for the novel came from her acquaintances or from her studies, either way, her influence were predominantly male and greatly affected the outcome of the novel. One would perhaps assume a female author would write to try to advance the position of women in era where they virtually unheard of in a field such as science –the subject of the novel

Works of Marry Shelley

Ø  History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817)

Ø  Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)

Ø  Mathilda (1819)

Ø  Valperga; or, The Life and Adventures of Castruccio, Prince of Lucca (1823)

Ø  Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824)

Ø  The Last Man (1826)

Ø  The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (1830)

Ø  Lodore (1835)

Ø  Falkner (1837)

Ø  The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1839)

Feminism in Frankenstein:-   In Marry Shelley’s Frankenstein she had given more important to male characters but they just suffer from their power and knowledge, whereas to the women character she portrayed them as passive, disposable and serving, and women are useful function. This may have been caused by the time period in which she wrote: one in which females considered inferior to males. Female characters like Savile, Elizabeth, Margaret, Agatha and even Lady Monster providing nothing but a channel of action to the male characters in the novel. Events and actions happened to them, usually for the sake of teaching a male character a lesion or igniting an emotion within him. Each of the women has serves some specific role in the novel.

    

Condition of women in Nineteenth century:-

While reading Frankenstein one can understand the patriarchal nineteenth century. It was social norm where men are part of public sector and women for domestic. Deformity of Monster expresses obstacles in a culture, in which feminine self-expression is very much difficult. Shelley, writing in the first half of the 19^th century, was in a period in which a women “was conditioned to think she needed a man’s help”(one critic). Men such as Victor Frankenstein and Walton endeavor on quest in search of knowledge, happiness, personal fulfillment and experience. Men take on the role of scientist, explorer and merchant whereas women were confined to the house and kept outside of the male public sector, where the intellectual activities was abundant, in that time women were considered weak, sexless, and treated as material things.

“I looked upon Elizabeth as mine - mine to protect, love and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own” (21) -Victor Frankenstein

 Even in our country like India, at the present time women’s condition is no better than this.  

Gender and Sex:-  

 Gender and sex are different things from each other. Gender is what is based on the biological difference, and it is created by nature we have no control over it. Whereas the sex is men made thing and we created the difference among male and female, among girl and boy. And in this term women has been suffering from long time.

           Shelley has presented fragmented psyche of men and their external action is the subject of behavioral psychology. She has presented intangible character especially male characters, and it is what she thought about/ or has the image of male in her mind, she has presented in the novel.

“I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.”

           The creation of the Monster by Victor Frankenstein is very badly reflected the ugliness his mind, we can say that it is the ugliness of victors mind that comes to physical existence through the creation of Monster, what it called in scientific language the anima personality. But both either Victor or the Monster in reality created by Marry Shelley, and it is her thinking, her perspective, her point of view, how she looks at the men, as ugly, wicked, hostile, vicious. It may be said that it is the reflection of her society that she has presented in her novel. As R.J. Rees says ”literature is the mirror of the society”.

           Though the novel is written by women author she could not give enough justice to female characters in her novel because of the patriarchal structure of the society and even of language. Even she herself could not keep aloof from this structure. That’s why she had to encoded women’s voice within the structure of it. Though written by woman novelist but there is no change in the language and even in the presentation

Female characters in the novel:-

There are three main female characters in the novel they are Elizabeth, Savile and Justine. The female characters are very weak in this novel, especially Elizabeth, Victor’s cousin/fiancé. She is portrayed as the perfect women especially after the death of Victor’s mother. She takes the place of the mother figure in the household. But just like all female characters in the story, her character has little substance. Victor’s character is described in detail, as is that of the Monster, and Henry Clerval. When Henry get kill, sympathy is really felt towards Victor, because he has just lost his lifetime friend. When Elizabeth is murdered, the reader finds it hard to connect with what Frankenstein is feeling. Elizabeth the main female character and Justine and Caroline are there to reflect the male characters. Professor Smith states in her essay that “women function not in their own right but rather as signals of and channels for men’s relations with other men.” This is especially clear when the Monster kills Elizabeth on their wedding night. The Monster is upset with Victor, so instead of hurting him, he kills his wife. Elizabeth is used as sort of ruler to measure the relationship between Victor and Monster.

Psychological level:- The structure of the novel is very extra ordinary, that present the mind of the Marry Shelley or rather woman, and that makes a novel psychological. Within the novel we can read/ study the mind of the characters like Victor, Monster and Walton and in other way we also can read the psychology of woman author, what kind of mental condition she has that enforced her to write such work/ descriptions. In other way she had taken revenge against the male dominant society by portraying them physically defect and mentally wicked. Dreams allow something to speak which is not normally present in the patriarchal course of things. Such a bringing to the surface of a troubling otherness, sometimes explicitly connected to the unconscious, has been described as an effect of women's writing.

The novel is directed towards Savile (Walton’s sister) a woman, who is both inside and outside of the narrative structure to whom victor is telling the story of his experience. The structure of the novel allows us to read the mind of three male characters. As the story starts with Robert Walton, there after forward by Victor Frankenstein who tells half of the story, and his narrative disrupted by Monster. So reader can get chance and even the role of the female in their life. We get three stories by three different narrator and that help us to study three male characters and importance of women in their life. And through the whole structure of the novel we read the mind of Marry Shelley. In adopting a male voice, the woman writer is given the opportunity to intervene from within, to become an alien presence that undermines the stability of the male voice. Three narrators of the novel, Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein, and the monster, each of these men is an image of the others all are wandering creatures who are in some way deviant. Walton’s narrative was interrupted by an accidental entry of Victor whose story is insufficient since it is broken by faints, fevers, dreams, inexplicable silences that dislocate narrative sequence. Monster displaces Victor’s narrative in the middle of the novel. The three narratives are incomplete without each other. None of them is the centre of the novel. Doubling and dislocation of the identity of man, that changing the shape of man can only result in the creation of monstrosity.

Some feminist critics view on Frankenstein:

Ellen Moers:-  

“Frankenstein’s most important source is not Faustus but rather Mary Shelley’s experience as a mother and a very particular kind of mother. Out of Shelley’s experience as a mother, Moers argues, comes a “a myth of genuine originality” and one that focuses less upon “birth” than upon the “after-birth”, specifically Frankenstein’s abandonment of the Creature.

As Moers reads it, it is “a horror story of maternity” (220).

Ø  Victor > lab > Creature

     parallels

Ø  Shelley > journals (books and babies) > Frankenstein

As Moers reads the novel, Shelley’s biography provides all of the material that makes up the Gothic power of the novel; she details the way in which life forces (love-making, pregnancies, births, and marriages) and death forces ( stillborn, miscarriages, suicides, and sexual betrayal) are entwined in Mary Shelley’s lived experience as a woman).

Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar:-

In the madwomen in the attic, they argue that nineteenth century women writers, socialized to act like good domestic women, manifest rage and anger when they do pick up pen to write. This they argue, results in women writing where we find counter-figures to the ideal feminine figure: Marry Shelley’s figure.   In The Madwoman in the Attic, they argue that nineteenth-century women writers, socialized to act like good “domestic” women, manifest rage and anger when they do pick up the pen to write. This, they argue, results in women’s writing where we find counter-figures to the ideal feminine figure: Mary Shelley’s Creature.

“For her developing sense of herself as a literary creature and/or creator seems to have been inseparable from her emerging self-definition as daughter, mistress, wife, and mother. Thus she cast her birth myth – her myth of origins – in precisely those cosmogenic terms to which her parents, her husband, and indeed her whole literary culture continually alluded: the terms of Paradise Lost (228).

Conclusion:-

Let me quote from Gayatri Spivaks’ “Three women’s text and critic of Imperialism” to conclude my point

“The task of the post-colonial writer, the descendant of the colonial female subject that history did in fact produce, cannot be restrained within the specular master-slave enclosure so powerfully staged in Frankenstein but must represent “the post-colonial performance of the construction of the constitutional subject of the new nation” (269).