Friday, May 8, 2020

The Camel's Hump - Rydyard Kipling - Saumya Aloysius


In the poem 
How the Camel got his Hump, Rudyard Kipling compares man with a camel. Or precisely, he compares man’s posture with that of a camel’s. The poetic voice expresses here the notion of laziness, and what it eventually does to a man. The camel’s hump is absolutely not a pleasant sight to see is what the poet infers. And the sight of such a hump is visible to the spectators at a zoo. The poet here associates the hump with inaction. A camel stuck in a cage does not have anything fruitful to do apart from engaging in leisurely actions. The poet then goes on to say that the sight which is uglier is that of us having to carry a hump, for we have “too little to do”. Here, like a camel bound in zoo having nothing productive to do, we too like the animal might develop a hump when we engage ourselves in simply doing nothing. Hump is thus a symbol of lethargy.

Summary

The poet brings into his perspective men and women of all ages, starting from infanthood to old age. All people, irrespective of their age will eventually develop a hump when we participate in absolute inertness. The poet is decided in his remarks and his observations are general encompassing all individuals. The repetitive sounds of “to-oo-oo” and “do-oo-oo” have a dragging sense whereas if the poet tries to shake up his readers into necessary work and activity. We must run our daily errands. Again, such dragging repetition may be employed to show an effect of tiredness caused by doing nothing.
By using “we” the poet includes the readers into his perspective and it seems the poet himself is guilty of the same cause of which the poet is condemning his readers. The poet moves on to talk about the color of the hump which is “black and blue”. The poet here has employed color symbolism, where black is associated with shame and blue with pain. It will be a shame if we stop doing everything and our hump will be of the color black. Again, to make us work, we might be flogged like animals and our hump will take up the color blue. We remember the phrase “to beat black and blue”.
The poet in the third stanza talks about men, getting up from bed with their sleepy heads and ill-kempt hair. Kipling employs an invented word “snarly-yarly” meaning cross and inclined to snap to demonstrate the nature of sleepy voice. We are as if condemned to lethargy and cannot quite get rid of feeling sleepy. We are even slothful in getting ourselves ready for the day. We frown and retreat from thoughts of taking a bath or tying up shoe-laces or even we recoil at the thought of engaging ourselves in playing with toys. Such is the degree of our sloth-like nature. The poet here subtly comments that one who is work-shy in his personal level; he is unworthy to perform in a professional or public sphere. Kipling here humorously satirizes the inherent human condition and tendency. Rest has as if grown into our body to become flesh and blood.
Kipling in the fourth stanza talks about corners- corners with the sense of hiding-places. We have enough corners for our faces to be hidden, but our world is round. A sphere is without corners and though there are places to hide, we will eventually get found out. The poet himself guilty of being inactive and seeks a hiding place only after he has ensured that his readers have ample hiding places. The ugly hump that we will eventually have needs to be hidden for it is not a pretty sight. With the hump, we have to hide from the world. However, on a different note, corners can suggest seclusion which we often seek as places of rest. The poet is ironic in his tone and contemplates that the heaviness of having a hump will fatigue us so much that we will eventually require a corner to rest and eventually sleep. The phrase “black and blue” repeats like a refrain reminding us of the consequences of such an endeavor.
The fifth stanza provides a plausible remedy from such a labor of doing nothing. The poet here invokes action as opposed to inaction. The poet is commanding the readers to engage in laborious work which seems to be the only way to get rid of such embarrassment of having an ugly hump from our backs. Interestingly, the process is reversible and the poet hammers-home to his readers that every action follows up to its connected consequences. We should not sit still or engage in excess reading sitting comfortably by the fire, enjoying the coziness altogether. We are urged by Kipling to engage ourselves in outdoor activities, primarily in the act of farming. Unless we start to perspire from the work-load, no actual work seems to have been done.
Working will eventually lead to the bestowing of benevolent blessings upon us by Mother Nature and the Djinn of the garden. The blessing will come in the action of magical removal of the ugly hump and we henceforth will not have to fear to be “black and blue”. The horrible hump will be gone. But if we relapse into our previous inaction, the hump might again pop up.
In the last stanza, the poet summarizes his whole focal point, that work is the only form of redemption. We must realize that work is essential and succumbing to sins of lethargy will eventually lead to the curse of having a hump. The word which is important is “enough”. The poet as if asks us not to be satisfied with minimal work and our ability to perform should be more than enough. We must sweat and labor must be our ultimate predicament. Without work, we will remain ugly.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling 
30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work.


Sunday, May 3, 2020

A detailed analysis of Keats’s sonnet ‘To the Nile’ - Saumya Aloysius

The poem ‘To the Nile’ by John Keats is remarkable due to several reasons. For one thing, it is a poem about River Nile, situated far away from England where Keats was born. Secondly, it is both, about nature and the poet’s own imaginative power. Students find this poem somewhat difficult because of the elevated language used by the poet and the complexities of the Sonnet structure. I believe this analysis will help teachers as well as students to surmount these difficulties and appreciate the real beauty of this gem of a sonnet.
This poem is a sonnet written in the Petrarchan style which contains an octave (the first eight lines) rhyming abbaabba and a sestet(next six lines) rhyming cdcdcd. In the Italian or the Petrarchan sonnet, there is usually a ‘volta’ or a ‘turn’ of the line of thought from the Octave to the sestet. In this sonnet also, Line number 9 marks a change of thought. The poet seems to have awakened from his reverie or daydreaming of the charms of the Nile and begins to reflect on the natural beauty of the river. The poet addresses the Nile directly, in the style of his great Odes such as, ‘Ode to Autumn’ or the ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’. One should also understand the historical and geographical importance of the River Nile to understand this beautiful sonnet.
Historically, the Nile is said to be the cradle of one of the oldest civilizations in the world: the Nile valley civilization or the Egyptian civilization which developed alongside the River Nile. Geographically, it is the longest river in Africa as well as in the world. The Nile has two branches. One is the White Nile (the longest branch) which originates in Lake Victoria and the other, the Blue Nile originating in Lake Tana in Ethiopia. Although shorter than the White Nile, the Blue Nile contributes more than 85% of the total volume of the Nile waters. The two branches meet in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and finally, end in Cairo, Egypt, where it flows into the Mediterranean Sea by forming a large, rich delta.
The Nile can be called an international river as it flows through as many as nine countries in Africa, including Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Congo, etc. The annual flooding of the Nile had become a blessing in disguise for Egyptians, as it deposited the rich loam mud on the banks of the river which turned it into a fertile landscape, ideal for agriculture. The building of the Aswan Dam and several other dams across the Nile later helped to manage the flooding to a great extent. River Nile is also steeped in mythology, with Hapi being its chief God associated with flooding, thus, bringing fertility and fruitfulness. Osiris and his wife Isis are also worshipped by the Egyptians.
Keats, being a lover of Greek mythology may have heard of God Nilus, the Greek God of River Nile, and the travelogues of English Explorers, such as, John Speke who undertook an expedition to the interiors of the Dark Continent as it was then called.
Mountains
The poet begins the sonnet with the line “Son of the Old Moon-Mountains African!” In this line, he personifies the Nile as the “son” of the old African Moon-Mountains. In other words, The Nile originates from the Moon Mountains just like the River Mahaweli originates from Sri Pada or the Adams Peak. The two branches of the Nile, the White Nile and the Blue Nile are said to originate from the two lakes- Lake Victoria and Lake Tana in Ethiopia. However, these lakes are also, in turn, fed by streams flowing from the mountains. Therefore, it was difficult to ascertain the true source of the Nile although it was historically associated with the legendary “Moon-Mountains”, so-called may be due to their semi-circular shape or because they were snow-capped.
The exact origin of the Nile remains uncertain as the two lakes are fed by so many tributaries. One might also wonder what poetic techniques are used in this particular line. One technique is inversion where the word order is changed or inverted. Here, the position of the adjective “African” has been inverted as it normally comes before the head noun, in this case, Moon-Mountains. Another technique is personification. The River is personified as the ‘son’ of the Moon-Mountains which are like parents. The next line is, “Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile”. Why is the Nile called the Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile? The ancient Egyptians built pyramids as tombs for the Pharaohs (their kings) and queens. These tombs were made with huge blocks of stones, transported along the Nile in barges to the pyramid sites. It would have been impossible otherwise to transport these stone blocks through the rugged desert lands stretching into hundreds of miles. Thus, it is right to call the Nile the Chief of the pyramids.
River Nile is the home to the largest species of crocodiles in the world. Especially, the banks of the Nile are teeming with these huge crocodiles who are also associated with the God Osiris legends. As such, we cannot say that the poet has used exaggeration or hyperbole in this line. However, the poet has used the technique of contrast here, as the Pyramids are non-living things while the crocodiles are living things.
Life
In the third line, the poet says “we call thee fruitful and that very while”. The poet rightly calls the Nile fruitful since it is the river that sustains life in the Nile Valley not only by providing food from agriculture and fishing but also by providing them with a mode of transport and serving as a playground for water sports. The Nile itself was considered as a symbol of fertility, as according to Egyptian mythology, the manhood of the slain King Osiris was supposed to be eaten by a crocodile so that his wife who was searching for the scattered body parts of the King could not resurrect him into life as that part was missing. In this line, the poet uses the adjective “fruitful” as a noun. “Thee” means an old term for “you”.
Imagination
The third line is a run-on line meaning that it links with the fourth line which reads as “A desert fills our seeing’s inward span”. Here, the poet refers to his imagination which fills with a desert. Imagination is sometimes called the “third eye” but here the poet calls it “seeing’s inward span”. Literally, it means the inner dimension of our vision or imagination. Taken together, this line means, our imagination is filled with a desert while we wonder at the fruitfulness of the river. Thus, fruitfulness and barrenness exist side by side, another wonder of nature.
In the next line, the poet says, “Nurse of the swart nations since the world began.” It means River Nile has nourished the dark nations or the Africans since time immemorial. The Nile has given life not only to one nation but to the several countries through which it flows. The next line starts with a rhetorical question.
“Art thou so fruitful?” This is followed by another rhetorical question:
“or dost thou beguile/Such men to honor thee, who, worn with toil,/Rest for space ‘twixt Cairo and Decan?”
Here, Keats may be referring to temples dedicated to Osiris, scattered along the banks of the River. According to legend, Isis, wife of Osiris, built those temples to enshrine various parts of his slain body scattered along the Nile by his brother Seth who murdered him. The poet in these lines wonders whether the Nile has a certain magical charm that makes people consider it as a holy river like River Ganges in India, most sacred river to the Hindus.
The poet also sees the River having a rest between Cairo and Decan. Cairo is the place where the river ends and Decan must be the place where it begins. However, we get confused here since the word Decan in Egyptian lore refers to a group of constellations (36 to be exact) thus, meaning the river is having a rest between land and sky which does not make much sense. Was Keats referring to the Decan plateau in central India from whence begin rivers such as, Narmada and Tapti? So, can it be a geographical inaccuracy?
Questions
I invite you to consider these questions. Even the writers of the e-book issued by the NIE have made the mistake of identifying the Decan plateau as the source of River Nile – a glaring mistake indeed, since we live in a world far more advanced (in terms of technology and knowledge) than that of Keats’. So far (in the octave), Keats has treated the Nile reverently. However, from line number 9 which starts the sestet, we can see a ‘volta’ or a turn in the line of thought: The poet’s attitude to the Nile changes from one of reverence to a realistic one.
“O may dark fancies err! They surely do;” What does this line mean? Well, literally it means that fancy or imagination can mislead us. This line reminds us of a similar line in the Ode to a Nightingale by Keats: Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Here, also Keats is being critical of his own habit of day-dreaming or ‘negative capability’ as he calls it. According to Keats, negative capability is ‘when man is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.’ However, he also appreciated reality or ‘truth’ as he calls it.
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
Thus, the poet now begins to doubt his “dark fancies” or his romantic imagination which took him to the exotic lands of ancient Egypt of Pyramids, Pharaohs and the great Nile steeped in legends. He now becomes more ‘down-to-earth’ and begins to explore the River from an artistic or aesthetic point of view. Next, he says :
‘Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste Of all beyond itself…’
Here, he may be wondering at his own ignorance or the ignorance of the Europeans whose ‘dark fancies’ about Africa consisted mainly of vast deserts and giant pyramids.
The poet has even asked “Art thou so fruitful?” earlier.
This obsession with the desert, according to Keats, is due to ‘ignorance’ as the Nile valley is surely a fertile landscape, so fertile that it gave birth to the first human civilization.
In the last few lines, we can see the typical Keatsian language, sensuous and very much alive to the beauty, sounds and smells of nature.
Thou dost bedew
Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste
The pleasant sunrise.
Green isles hast thou too,
And to the sea as happily dost haste.
The poet begins to see the River in all its resplendent beauty in its majestic journey towards the sea. He compares the Nile to “our rivers” whose green rushes or the plants with long leaves are decorated with dew or drops of mist.
This is a beautiful visual image that appeals to our eyes. The river also tastes ‘pleasant sunrise’. This is a combination of visual and gustatory images. The river also contains “green isles”. The repetition of ‘green’ produces an effect of lush greenery which contrasts with the repetition of ‘desert’ in the octave.
The sonnet appropriately ends with the line: ‘And to the sea as happily dost haste’. I am tempted to believe that the word ‘happily’ contains a pun or wordplay since ‘Hapi’ was the God of the annual flooding in Egyptian mythology.
The poem is written in an elevated language and it is rich in meaning despite the fact that Keats wrote this poem in a friendly sonnet competition with Leigh Hunt and Shelly on 4 February 1818, at Hunt’s house in Lisson Grove with a 15-minute time limit.
As a nature poem “To the Nile” makes us appreciate the beauty of a river and its value as a life-giving source. We also learn how the people in ancient times worshipped the river as a God or a gift of nature. We also get some momentary pleasure by looking at the lush greenery and the beauty of the river in the morning.
The poem thus helps us appreciate the fertility and the beauty of rivers at a time when they are being increasingly polluted due to industrialization.



Model Question - Richard Cory - Saumya Aloysius

'The poem Richard Cory suggests that 'the rich are happy' is a myth. Comment with close reference to the text.
Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson is about an extremely rich man who wallows in luxury but finally commits suicide. The poem brings home the gritty reality that rich people are not always happy.
Richard Cory has every reason to be happy. The poet describes him as a perfect gentleman:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
The word "gentleman" also suggests that he belonged to the gentry or the upper class. He also possesses an aura of royalty around him which makes people look at him with a sense of awe and admiration.
Further, Richard Cory is described as a person with "common touch" or humanity:
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
Unlike some 'newly rich' people, Richard Cory does not wear flashy clothes. Instead, he is 'quietly arrayed'. He is also not arrogant like some of them as his talk is marked with a sense of humanity. However, when he says 'good morning', people seem to feel nervous with 'fluttering pulses'. This suggests that although Richard Cory moves with the common man, there still seems to be some distance between them, an unbridgeable gap that had made it difficult for him to develop any deeper kind of relationship with them - a factor which may have contributed to his unhappiness and to his ultimate suicide.
The workers, including the narrator, on the other hand, go without meat or bread and they work like slaves in Richard Cory's factory. They naturally envy Richard who is richer than a 'king' and wish that they were in his place. Thus they are shocked to hear about his death:
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Although Richard Cory lived like king and rode on popularity, the lack of any deeper human relationship in the form of a lover or close friend might have made him lonely and fed up with life which finally led to his suicide. Thus, the poem Richard Cory belies the myth that the rich are happy.

Friday, May 1, 2020

Important Key Quotations - The Vendor of Sweets - Saumya Aloysius

The book uses humor and drama to elaborate on the need for striking the right balance in life with respect to relationships and between materialism and contentment. The conflicts between Jagan and his son Mali arise because of a clash between tradition and modernity.
The following quotes give the reader a sense of what's going on in the minds of the characters in the novel.
I've taken to eating beef, and I don't think I'm any the worse for it. Steak is something quite tasty and juicy. Now I want to suggest why don't you people start eating beef? It'll solve the problem of useless cattle in our country and we won't have to beg food from America. I sometimes feel ashamed when India asks for American aid. Instead of that, why not slaughter useless cows which wander in the streets and block the traffic?
This quote is from a letter that Mali wrote to Jagan after he had been in the U.S for around three years. It caused great anguish to Jagan. While he enthusiastically shared the contents of other letters with anyone who cared to listen, Jagan could not bring himself to tell his relatives and fellow villagers that his son had started to consume beef—anathema to Hindus.
Conquer taste, and you will have conquered the self.
This is a maxim that Jagan tries to live by. He is a follower of Gandhi and tries his best to abide by the principles of simple living espoused by Gandhi. This quote also highlights the clear dichotomy between Jagan's personal lifestyle and his means of earning a living. He is, after all, a vendor of sweets. While he tries to present himself as morally superior by having given up salt and sugar, he actually sustains himself and his family by selling confectionery.
This is Grace. We are married. Grace, my dad.

With this quote, Mali introduces his live-in partner to his father. It serves to further bewilder and ultimately alienate father from son. Jagan is already finding it difficult to accept his son's changed physical appearance and...

“At fifty-five his appearance was slight and elfish, his brown skin was translucent, his brow receded gently into a walnut shade of baldness, and beyond the fringe his hair fell in a couple of speckled waves on his nape. His chin was covered with whitening bristles...He wore a loose jibba over his dhoti, both made of material spun with his own hand; every day he spun for an hour, retained enough yarn for his sartorial requirements (he never possessed more than two sets of clothes at a time) ...He wore a narrow almond-shaped pair of glasses set in a yellowish frame, and peeped at the world over their pale rims. He draped his shoulders in a khaddar shawl with gaudy yellow patterns on it and shod his feet with thick sandals made out of the leather of an animal which had died of old age” (Narayan 8-9).
Analysis
This quotation shows the behaviors and lifestyle choices Jagan chooses to value and implement in his everyday life. The author is very descriptive when explaining Jagan's routine, mentioning minor details such as the type of glasses he uses, to more significant details such as his ideals and beliefs that make him a noble follower of Gandhi. This allows the reader to have a clear interpretation of the character, enabling profound connections betweenthe reader and the character. With the author's clear writing, readers can easily see that Jagan leads a very modest and simplistic life due to his commitment to Gandhi and his Indian culture, through the laborious work he puts into his clothes and the kindness he shows towards animals.
“When his son was six years old he was a happy supporter of Jagan's tanning activities in the back veranda of the house, but as he grew older he began to complain of the stench whenever his father brought home leather” (Narayan 9).
Analysis
This quote shows how Jagan's son Mali, had no problem with his father's activities such as making shoes out of fresh leather and other various cultural exercises. However, as he grew older, Mali began to grow distant from his father and his practices, even more so after his mother's death. This is because as a child, Mali was still under his father's cultural influence and was more impressionable, but once he grew older and wiser, he was able to form his own opinions beliefs.

The Vendor of Sweets - Summary & Study Guide - Saumya Aloysius


SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides for challenging works of literature. This 25-page guide for “The Vendor of Sweets” by R. K. Narayan includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis covering 13 chapters, as well as several more in-depth sections of expert-written literary analysis. Featured content includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay topics, and key themes like Tradition vs Modernity and Money as an Evil.

Plot Summary
The Vendor of Sweets is a 1967 novel by R. K. Narayan that analyzes the clash between modern and traditional Indian culture. The book centers on the relationship between Jagan, a sweets vendor and strict follower of Gandhi’s asceticism, and his son, Mali, who rejects his father’s values in favor of more liberal Western ideas.
Jagan is 55 years old at the beginning of the novel and lives a life of strict asceticism, eating only wheat, greens, and honey, even cutting salt and sugar from his diet. He closely follows the Bhagavad Gita (or simply, the Gita), a core Hindu scripture that Gandhi referred to as his “spiritual dictionary.” Formerly politically active, and in fact jailed for demonstrating during India’s revolution, he now lives a quiet life as a widower and successful businessman. He believes strongly in naturopathy, and has in fact written a book on the subject, the publication of which is long-delayed by the printer. Jagan’s wife, Ambika, died many years ago due to his insistence on treating her with natural remedies. Though he practices personal asceticism, he makes his living indulging others’ desire for sweets, and showcases greed by squirreling away a portion of his profits before taxation.
Jagan’s son, Mali, is his only child, born after ten years of marriage and a pilgrimage to the temple of Santana Krishna at Badri Hill to seek help conceiving. Mali watched his father attempt to cure his mother’s brain tumor with natural remedies instead of modern medicine, and blamed his father for her death. Now a young man, Mali is intent on becoming a writer. Without consulting his father, Mali drops out of college and steals some of his father’s money to move to America to attend a writing program. Though hurt by his son’s rejection of his way of life, Jagan soon begins bragging about his son in America. He receives letters, mostly impersonal, over the next few years as Mali further distances himself from his father’s culture. In one letter, Mali even admits: “I’ve taken to eating beef; and I don’t think I am any the worse for it” (a clear rejection of his father’s Hinduism).
After three years in America, Mali writes that he is arriving home with another person. He appears with Grace, a half-American, half-Korean woman that Jagan assumes is Mali’s wife. Though shocked, Jagan takes a liking to her, as she is warm and kind to Jagan in ways that Mali is not. She tries to take up the duties of a traditional Indian daughter-in-law: cooking, cleaning, and even decorating the house. She transforms Jagan’s house, westernizing it to such an extent that he feels uncomfortable.
Mali expresses his desire to start a factory producing novel-writing machines. It will automate the writing process, making India’s literary output challenge the West. Mali asks for a loan from his father to start the factory. Jagan is horrified at the idea, as he believes that great writing comes from a connection to God. Jagan sees Mali’s machine as an attempt to sever that link. In addition, Jagan comes to suspect that “Grace’s interest, friendliness and attentiveness” are “a calculated effort to win his dollars.” Though he tries to simply ignore the issue, or resist through Gandhian “non-violent non-cooperation,” Mali and Grace force him to give a concrete answer. Jagan instead offers to let Mali take over his sweets shop, but Mali sneeringly responds that “ better plans than to be a vendor of sweetmeats.”
As he is processing Mali’s strange business venture and rejection of his traditional lifestyle, Chinaa Dorai, a sculptor seeking patronage to complete a sculpture of goddess Gayatri, visits Jagan. The sculptor brings him to the isolated grove where he lives and works. As Jagan visits and views the work in progress, he feels that “sweetmeat vending, money and his son’s problems to blur.” When Chinaa Dorai asks if Jagan will buy the grove to support his work, he resists at first but eventually agrees, saying: “Yes, yes, God knows I need a retreat. You know, my friend, at some stage in one’s life one must uproot oneself from the accustomed surroundings and disappear so that others may continue in peace.”
In a discussion with Grace, Jagan soon discovers that she and Mali are not married after all. He is shocked and hurt, feeling that they have tainted his ancestral home. He feels so disconnected from his home and tarnished by his son’s moral laxness that he decides to retire and abandon his home and business and escape to the grove, thus fulfilling the Hindu tradition of Vanaprastha—withdrawal from the material world and passing on of responsibilities to the next generation.
As Jagan prepares to leave, his cousin tells him that Mali has been arrested for drunkenness, violating prohibition laws. Jagan’s resolve to retreat remains unchanged, and he in fact asks that the cousin to do what he can to ensure that Mali stays in prison long enough to learn his lesson. He hands over the keys to the business and sets aside some money for Grace to buy a plane ticket home as he retreats to the grove.

Analysis on 'War is Kind' by Stephen Crane

War is Kind by Stephen Crane In this five stanza excerpt from  ‘War is Kind’  by Stephen Crane, the poet does not use any pattern of rhyme o...