TYBA-SEM-VI-PAPER-VIII-20th-Century-British-Literature-II-2-munotes

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CRITICAL STUDY OF BACKGROUND
TOPICS -I
Unit Structure:
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Feminism in Modern Literature
1.3 Psychological Novel
1.4 The Rise of Science Fiction
1.5 Post-World War II Novel
1.6 Conclusion
1.7 Check Your Progress
1.8 Bibliography
1.0 OBJECTIVES
1. To expose students to literary genres, trends, and literary movements
of Britain in the 20th century
2. To enable students to critically understand trends in literature
3. To train students to develop skills for a critical understand ing of
background topics
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Literature of every soil is a persistent upheaval in the approaches of its
writers to the life they experience. It is but natural that diverse views beget
various angles to look at the reflection of life. Hence, n umerous trends of
expressions are always witnessed in the literature of every piece and
province. Twentieth century British literature experienced the rise of
feminism, science fiction, psychological novel, and the novel after World
War II. Literature refl ects action & reaction to every minute happening in
life, its fidelity to its fundamental source is a substance for study. Hence,
the present chapter unveils the origin, history, and developments of the
background topics selected
1.2 FEMINISM IN MODERN LI TERATURE
The term ‘feminism’ is coined by Charles Fourier, a utopian socialist and
French philosopher in 1837. Feminism in literature always supports the munotes.in

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2 feminist objectives of defining, establishing, and defending equal political,
economic, and social rig hts for women. Betty Friedan, the founder of
modern feminism gave importance to career -oriented independence for
women. She opposed discrimination and violence against women through
legal, political, and social change. Modern Feministic literature reflects the
marginalized and denied voice of women in much of established literature.
It contradicts society's prevailing ideological assumptions predominant in
a patriarchal society. Its characters or ideas strive to change gender norms.
It examines the establis hed and archaic gender roles. It strives to alter
inequalities between genders across societal and political arenas. In short,
it allows women to speak up for their beliefs. It provides an alternative to
traditional society.
A Feminist novel always enlight ens the female condition, offers an
imperative for change, and makes a bold political statement in the best
interests of women. It deals with feminism, sex, identity crisis, alienation,
and loneliness. Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th -century British feminist
writer, and philosopher is known as the mother of modern feminism. Her
book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman argues for women's education.
She underscored the radical reform of national educational systems for the
benefit of all society. She advocated for the dignity, intelligence, and basic
human potential of the female sex.
Modern feminism impacts women to persistently fight against the
tyrannical patriarchy that has haunted them since the beginning of time. It
strives to reassess the global threats to women, rethinks their vision, and
rekindle their passion. Modern feminists work in solidarity with pro -
democracy forces around the world. They want to unshackle humanity
from all forms of command and compulsion. It combines both soft and
strong attribut es. The modern woman as a result of feministic literature is
soft and supportive on one side while demonstrating her strength on the
other. She knows her well and successfully expresses her inner sound as a
resistant persona. The belief in social, economic , and political equality of
the sexes has made life sustainable for females all over the world. It has
preserved women's rights and interests.
Feminist literature portrays characters or ideas that attempt to alter gender
norms. It tries to alter disparitie s between genders across social and
political grounds. Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf, Mary
Wollstonecraft, Audre Lorde, Simone de Beauvoir, Angela Carter, and
Betty Friedan are the leading feminist writers of the modern period.
Margaret Atwood with her novels The Handmaid's Tale , and The
Testaments holds up a mirror to the state of women's rights around the
world. Her literature underlines her strong belief in "human equality and
freedom of choice". Her female characters struggle within oppressive
social hierarchies. In The Handmaid's Tale Offred is forced to quit her job
allowing only her husband to work for both of them. It reveals gender
roles which is one of the basic themes of the novel. It describes Gilead as a
régime in which men have all the power while women are submissive in
every way. They have reduced handmaids like Offred to sexual slavery. munotes.in

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3 Virginia Woolf’s literature throws light on gender separation. As a
proponent of equality, her literature & lectures are about the basic need of
women. Her first essay on feminism entitled A Room of One's Own asserts
that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write.
To Woolf, centuries of bias and economic and educational disadvantages
have repressed women's creativity. It investigates t he social and material
conditions required for women to write literature.
Mary Wollstonecraft, a renowned women's rights activist authored a
radical text A Vindication of the Rights of Woman which is one of the
classics of rationalist feminism advocating f emale emancipation. She read
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand -Périgord's 1791 report to the French
National Assembly, which had stated that women should only receive
domestic education. It caused the creation of her radical literary
compositions. To her opini on, women are not naturally inferior to men,
but appear to be only because they lack education. Both men and women
should be treated as rational beings. She imagines a social order founded
on reason. She underlined the need of giving men and women equal
opportunities in education, work, and politics.
Audre Lorde is an African -American writer, and a radical feminist
devoted to the injustices of racism , sexism , and classism . Her poems and
prose largely deal with the exploration of black female identity. Her
writing deals with lesbian feminism and racial issues. Her essay The
Master's Tools Will Never Dismant le the Master's House challenges
extensive racism and homophobia that exists within feminism. Her short
story Fourth of July reveals how one should resist and retaliate when
afflicted with prejudice. The essay The Fourth of July describes how she
obtained her memory and meaning of independence during her summer
trip to Washington, D.C.
Simone de Beauvoir, a feminist activist is best known for her work The
Second Sex a classic of contemporary feminist literature. To her, women
need access to the same kinds of activities and projects as men placing her
to some extent in the tradition of liberal or second -wave feminism.
Women must be treated as equal to men and laws. The customs and
education must be altered to encourage this. As a socialist feminist, she
highlights the problems found in patriarchy and capitalism. In The Second
Sex a classic of contemporary feminist literature, she famously stated,
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." To her, women are
different from men because they have been taught so and socialized to do
so.
Angela Carter known for radical -libertarian feminism criticizes the
patriarchal roles placed on women throughout time. Her book The Bloody
Chamber is about manipulative power and the objectification of women.
Betty Friedan ig nited the second wave of feminism with her book, The
Feminine Mystique. It unveils the frustration of millions of American
women with their limited gender roles. It helped to spur extensive public
activism for gender equality. It criticized the postwar bel ief that a woman's munotes.in

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4 role was to marry and bear children. She devoted herself to the issues of
women like equal pay for equal work, an end to sexual harassment in the
workplace, and the legalization of abortion. Her phrase "feminine
mystique" describes the a ssumptions that women would be content with
their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. It goes against the
prevailing belief that truly feminine women should not want to work, get
an education, or have political opinions. She advocates women’s
reproductive rights. With her works, she proved to be one of the early
leaders of the women's rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Liberal, radical, Marxist, cultural, and eco -feminism are the basic waves
of feminism. The metaphor wave refers to the ge nder activism integrated
around one set of ideas which can be called feminism. The first wave of
feminism depicts suffrage; the second one reveals reproductive rights,
while the third one emerged in the mid -1990s delineates reproductive
rights for women. Fourth -wave feminism began around 2012 and deals
with the empowerment of women, the use of internet tools, and
intersectionality.
Elaine Showalter’s gyno criticism in 1979 is solely concerned with women
as writers. Feminist theory often analyzes gender i nequality in terms of
discrimination, sexual objectification, oppression, patriarchy, stereotyping,
etc. In short, feminism in modern literature has persistently advocated the
rights of women and has fought for giving justice to the neglected strata in
the patriarchal society.
1.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL NOVEL
The narrative of psychological fiction emphasizes interior
characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and
mental lives of the characters . It is unique for its stream of
consciousness and flashback narration which examines the reasons for the
conduct of the ch aracter, which ultimately boosts the plot and illustrates
the story . It deeply explores the mental states of the psyche of its
characters through its distinct mode of narration. The psychological novel,
like dreams, expresses the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the
author. Hence, it is a manifestation of the author's neuroses.
The psychological novel has a rich past found in the writings of
seventeenth - and eighteenth -century writers. The Fre nch writer
Stendhal's The Red and the Black and Madame de La Fayette 's The
Princess of Cleves are considered to be the first pioneers of psychological
novels. According to The Encyclopedia of the Novel , the modern
psychological novel originated in the works of Nobel laureate Knut
Hamsun , a Norwegian writer. His novels deal with stream -of-
consciousness and interior monologue. As the father of the modern school
of literature, his work reveals his subjectiveness, fragmentariness, and his
use of flashbacks that influenced the writers to come.
Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy
have overt psychological approaches. The story of Pamela is told from the munotes.in

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5 heroine’s point of view. Pamela comments on domestic violenc e and
questions the dynamic line between male aggression and a contemporary
view of love. It rejects traditional views of women and supports the new
and changing role of women in society. Tristram Shandy is regarded as a
forerunner of many narrative devices and styles used by modernist
and postmodernist authors later on. Its first -person narrative is quite
introspective and unique . However, the psychological novel reached its
full potential only in the 20th century. The growth of psychology and the
discoveries of Sigmund F reud caused though little bit for the emergence of
the psychological novel.
The penetrating perception into psychological complexities and
unconscious motivations of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy, the
external events’ impingement on individual consci ousness of Henry
James, the associative memories of Marcel Proust, the stream -of-
consciousness technique of James Joyce and William Faulkner , and the
continuous flow of experience of Virginia Woolf , Emile Bronte, Agatha
Christie were unique in their contribution to the growth of psychological
novel.
Heathcliff f rom Wuthering Heights by Emile Bronte represents the id of
Sigmund Freud's personality theory. It is the primitive and natural instinct
found in the subconscious part of the mind. It drives Heathcliff to seek the
immediate fulfillment of an instinct and is unaffected by logic or morals.
James Joyce's novel Ulysses is a landmark in which the episodes
of Homer 's Odyssey are paralleled in the manner of stream of
consciousness. He enters the minds of characters to reveal innermost
thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky is one of the influential novelists of the Golden Age
of Russian literature . His novels are masterpieces for those who are
interested in psychology. His deep faith and love of humanity unveil the
psyche of his characters. Hailed as a creative wri ter next to Shakespeare,
Sigmund Freud praised the novel The Brothers Karamazov as "the most
magnificent novel ever written".
The novels of Henry James describe the internal states of mind and social
dynamics of his characters. Contradictory motives and i mpressions are
compared in the discussion of a character's psyche. The characters in his
notable novels The Portrait of a Lady , The Turn of the Screw and The
Ambassadors lack self -awareness and still, they possess unfulfilled
yearnings. The novels of McGra th such as The Wardrobe Mistress and
Last Days in Cleaver Square reveal the effect of fascistic tendencies in
international politics on the psychology of his characters.
The plot in the psychological novel is always subordinate to the internal
upheavals in the mind of the characters. It ultimately harms the
chronological ordering of events. The events occur in the character’s
thought associations, memories, fantasies, daydreams, inspections, and
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6 Hence, the action of Joyce ’s Ulysses takes place in Dublin in 24 hours.
However, the events of the day evoke associations that take the reader
back and forth through the characters’ past and present lives. Franz Kafka
externalizes the subjective world and logic of dreams that governs the
events that appear to be happening in reality. The British novelist Agatha
Christie is known for her true crime thrillers written through the psyche of
her famous detective character Hercule Poirot. D. H. Lawrence’s novel
Sons and Lovers depicts the psychological development of a young man,
Paul Morel. He tries to understand and resolve the dominant contradiction
that he feels towards his mother and th e other women in his life. He
becomes an independent individual.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess is a biting satire containing
psychological horror. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, an Australian
novelist reveals the psychological interiority of ch aracters dealing with
domestic abuse. The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace by Margaret
Atwood, a contemporary Canadian psychological novelist deals with
gender roles, identity, society, and speculative historical fiction. To sum
up, through unveiling the in ner states of characters, psychological novel
opens the invisible world before its readers.
1.4 The Rise of Science Fiction
Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that typically deals
with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science
and technology, space exploration , time ravel, parallel universes,
extraterres trial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain
forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity . It
predicted several existing inventions, such as th e atomic bomb, robots,
and borazon , whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors.
Science fiction can trace its roots back to ancient mythology, is related
to fantasy , horror , and superhero fiction, and contains many subgenres. It
has been often called the " literature of ideas“, It often explores the
potential consequences of scientific, social, and technological innovations.
It is also often said to inspire a "sense of wonder". Besides providing
entertainment, it can also criticize present -day society and explore
alternatives too.
The technophilic mood of the times and 19th -century liberal capitalism
caused the rise of science fiction. It always appeals to the young reader’s
sense of wonder and adventure. It has inspired generations of scientists to
pursue in reality what they had d reamed about in their youth. According
to Isaac Asimov science fiction can be defined as that branch of literature
which deals with the reaction of human beings to changes in science
and technology.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley with her fiction Frankenstein: or, The
Modern Prometheus made her protagonist a practicing scientist and gave
him an interest in galvanic electricity and vivisection, two of the advanced
technologies of the early 1800s. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Balloon Hoax is a
meticulous technical description that misleads and impresses the gullible. munotes.in

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7 Jules Verne ’s Paris au XXième siècle predicts elevated trains, automobiles,
facsimile machines, and computer -like banking machines. His techno -
thrillers teach us balloons, submarines, trains, mechanical elephants, and
many other e ngineering marvels. With him, “scientific romance” became a
permanent feature of the Western test.
The fiction of Albert Robida, a French illustrator is akin to the 20th
century’s reality. Great Britain and France experienced a flowering of
creative imagin ation in the 1880s and ’90s. In his novel, The Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert, Louis Stevenson creates a hero in
Dr. Jekyll, who is aware of the evil in his being and is sick of the duplicity
in his life. By way of his experiments on himse lf, he succeeds in freeing
the pure evil part of his being as Mr. Hyde, so that each can indulge in a
life unfettered by the demands of the other.
H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine , The Invisible Man , and The War of the
Worlds are the landmarks in the realm of science fiction. Wells an
ardent and tireless socialist campaigner predicted a rationalized,
technocratic society. His novel Brave New World , reveals how moderns
are wonderfully chased down, persecuted, degraded, and commonly killed.
His science fiction novella The Time Machine is generally credited with
the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a device to travel
purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The story
The Invisible Man concerns the life and death of a scientist named Griffin.
He learns how to make himself invisible. His The War of the Worlds is an
inspiring masterpiece of an alien invasion. Its terrifying, tentacle race of
Martians devastate the Earth and feeds on their human victims while their
voracious vegetation, the red weed, spreads over the ruined planet.
George Orwell’s nov el Nineteen Eighty -four gives an image of the future
as “a boot stamping on a human face —forever.” Howells’s novel A
Traveler from Altruria depicts a utopian world with Christianity and the
U.S. “ethical socialism”.
A Princess of Mars , by Edgar Rice Burr oughs combined European
elements of fantasy and horror with the naive expansionist style of early
American westerns. With this, science fiction became a distinctly
American genre
Science fiction became popular after the advent of the atomic bomb and
the launch of Sputnik. With sophisticated, urbane, and satiric touch, it
became anthropological speculation about societies and cultures . The
fictions Aelita by the Aleksey Tolstoy and My by Yevgeny Zamyatin in
Russian literature influenced the great dystopian novels of the 20th
century viz. Aldous Huxley ’s Brave New World and George Orwell ’s
Nineteen Eighty -four.
Sir Thomas More ’s Utopia is a new thought experiment. It assisted the
writers to spot and nurture tomorrow’s dominant progressive trends. It
destroyed the feudal superst itions of false consciousness. Social perfection
was the intention behind it. Hence, a Bostonian in Edward Bellamy’s
Looking Backward awakes from a mystical sleep in the year 2000 to find munotes.in

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8 industry nationalized, equal distribution of wealth to all citizens , and class
divisions eradicated. It was Nationalism for Bellamy. William Morris’s
News from Nowhere is a British vision of a pastoral utopia .
William Gibson’s Neuromancer describes a post -national world order
ruled by feudal global corporations. Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for
Leibowitz depicts the post -nuclear holocaust efforts of a Catholic religious
order to preserve kn owledge. Invasion of the Body Snatchers has ordinary
people replaced by look -alikes who operate as a part of the collective
body. John Varley’s The Ophiuchi Hotline shatters old human pri nciples.
Hence, its characters die and are reborn as clones, change sex with ease
and eagerness, make backup tapes of their personalities, and undergo
drastic acts of surgery. Science fiction is the genre that brings all the
imaginary ideas into reality, g ives an acute experience of the unknown and
impossible in the real world.
1.5 POST -WORLD WAR II NOVEL
Twentieth century British literature is dominated by war with common
themes of alienation, isolation, and fragmentation. It unveils psychological
trauma found in every corner of life. It reveals social reformism and
political change, the shift in relationships found in generational, class - and
gender -conditioned terms. By 1955, the new generation started to question
old values which found its reflection in literature
Many novels are set in working -class areas of depressed cities in the
industrial north and contain sexually explicit scenes. Dialogue is often
carried out in regional dialects, giving a strong sense of the character’s
identity and social backgr ound. The protagonists of these novels are
'outsiders'. They do not identify with modern society. Like the authors
themselves, the protagonists are impatient, dissatisfied, and critical of
conventional morality and behaviour. They feel resentful and powerl ess,
and sometimes they are violent too.
William Golding & Muriel Spark began their career soon after World War
II. Their short novels make large statements. Golding’s first novel, Lord of
the Flies reveals humanity’s fall from grace. The schoolboys threw away
on a Pacific Island during a nuclear war degenerate from innocent
friendship to totalitarian butchery. Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean
Brodie explores the rise of fascism in Europe. Similarly, George Orwell’s
Animal Farm & Nineteen Eighty -four depict totalitarian nightmares.
Henry Green’s Concluding and Nothing are terse, compressed novels that
have realistic interpretations of characters.
The realistic approach to writing also flourish ed throughout the century
which is found in the mystery fiction of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers,
P.D. James, Barbara Pym, and Iris Murdoch. The Murder of Roger
Ackroyd is widely considered as Christie's best novel of all. It contains one
of her most sho cking endings. The novels of Irish Murdoch deal with the
themes of goodness, authenticity, selfishness, and altruism. Her novels A
Severed Head and The Bell reveal psychological & emotional complexity.
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9 Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor, and Barbara Pym also gave
expression to this complexity in their novels. Later the novelists John
Braine , John Wain Alan Sillitoe, Stan Barstow, and David Storey known
as Angry Young Men dealt with social mobility from the northern
working class to the southern middle class.
Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time is a chronicle of class and
cultural shifts in England from World War I to the 1960s. The novels of
Kingsley Amis satirize social change in the post -world war period. C. P.
Snow’s novel Strangers and Brothers are about man’s journey from the
provincial lower classes to London’s “corridors of power”. Angus
Wilson ’s No Laughing Matter is the most inspired fictional parade of
social and cultural life in 20th -century Britain . His works unite 19th -
centu ry breadth and delight with 20th -century formal flexibility and
experiment.
From the late 1960s onward, the outstanding trend in fiction was
enthrallment with empire. J G Farrell’s novels Troubles , The Siege of
Krishnapur , and The Singapore Grip are spotli ghted imperial
discomfiture. Then postcolonial voices found expression in Salman
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children which energetically mingles material from
Eastern fable, Hindu myth , Islamic lore, Bombay cinema, cartoon strips,
advertising billboards, and Latin American magic realism. Julian
Barnes ’s A History of the World in 101/2 Chapters mixes fact with fantasy .
Rushdie’s Shame , The Satanic Verses , The Moor’s Last Sigh , and The
Ground Beneath Her Feet exhibit the reviving effects of cultural cross -
fertilization. Vikram Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy is about India afte r
independence. It combines social breadth and emotional and psychological
depth.
The novels by Timothy Mo report on colonial predicaments in East Asia
with political acumen . His novel An Insula r Possession vividly harks back
to the founding of Hong Kong . Kazuo Ishiguro’s refined novel An Artist of
the Floating World reveals the imperialistic ethos of 1930s Japan.
In his most ambitious novel, A Bend in the River , V.S. Naipaul explores
the themes of personal exile and political and individual corruption. The
Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble reveals two nations’ panoramas of an
England cleft by regional gulfs and gross inequities between rich and poor.
Martin Amis’s novels Money and London Fields play over vistas of urban
corruption, greed, and degradation. The feminist novelists experimented
with Gothic, fairy tales, and fantasy. As the end of the century
approached, historical novels emerged with new strength. Barry
Unsworth’s novels The Rage of the Vulture, Stone Virgin , and Morality
Play reveal the settings such as Ottoman Empire , Venice & northern
England. Beryl Bainbridge, Patrick O’Brian,
1.6 CONCLUSION
Every background topic dealt with has unveiled the fundamental identity
of 20th-century British literature. Feminism relied on the basic principle of munotes.in

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10 equilibrium has made literature complete by adding half of the
population’s contribution to the experience of life. The sense of pure
subjectivity, psychological ups, and downs & inner urge of expression of
every sensual creator has got their identity in the psycholo gical novels
written in 20th century Britain. Similarly, scientific approaches to life are
found expression in science fiction, the novel & recent genres
encompassing minute experiments in the mind of creative men of letters.
As literature is an acute refl ection of the black and bright side of life, it has
always given justice to every major & minor happening. Post -World War
II British novels reveal life after the war.
1.7 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Discuss the movement of f eminism in Modern Literature .
2. Ex plain the features of Psychological Novel .
3. Trace the development and rise of Science Fiction .
4. Discuss the features of Post-World War II Novel .

1.8 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Abrams, M. H., A Glossary of literary Terms (7th edition). (New
York: Harcourt Brace), 19 99), p. 167.
2. Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air . (Harmsworth:
Penguin,1988), p. 23.
3. Frenz, Horst, ed. (1969), "Yeats bio", The Nobel Prize in Literature
1923, Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901 –1967, retrieved 23 May 2007 .
4. Encyclopædia Britanni ca. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic
Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 15 November
2012.
5. Beebe, Maurice (Fall 1972). "Ulysses and the Age of
Modernism". James Joyce Quarterly (University of Tulsa) 10 (1): p.
176.
6. The Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature , ed. Marion Wynne
Davies (New York: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 118.

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11 2
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TOPICS -II
Unit Structure:
2:0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Political Satire/Allegory as R ising Literary T rends
2.3 Imperialism and Postcolonialism in Modern British Fiction
2.4 Existentialism and Modern British Li terature
2.5 Conclusion
2.6 Check Your Progresss
2.7 Bibliography
2.0 OBJECTIVES
1. To expose students to literary genres, trends, and literary movements
of Britain in the 20th century
2. To enable students to critically understand trends in literature
3. To tra in students to develop skills for a critical understanding of
background topics
2.1 INTRODUCTION
The reflection of life termed as literature is a game of action and reaction.
With its diverse genres, it empowers life in finding its acute replication.
The mirror -like nature of literature always gives justice to every
happening in life. Naturally, we find diverse approaches termed as genres
or isms emerged on the canvas of creation giving rainbow colours to the
reproduction of life. Political allegory in t he guise of modification of life
has always improved the quality of the experience human being. Post -
colonial novels have persistently unveiled the materialistic approach of the
west to the spiritual east. Modern British literature relied on the principle
of existentialism focuses on the individual and his or her relationship with
the universe or God. Hence, the present chapter unveils the origin, history,
and developments of the background topics selected.
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12 2.2 POLITICAL SATIRE/ALLEGORY AS RISING
LITERARY TRENDS
Allegory is a literary device that is used to express large, complex ideas
amicably. The strong political and social realities compel the writers to
create some distance between themselves and the issues they are
discussing. In the political allegor y, imaginary characters and situations
are used to satirize real -life political events. George Orwell in his novel
Animal Farm allegorizes the events of Russia's Bolshevik revolution and
the betrayal of the cause by Joseph Stalin.
In Orwell's Animal Farm a group of farmyard overworked animals revolts
against their farmer to create a utopian community. They try to set up an
egalitarian society of their own. However, in the end, the idealism the
animals sought to promote failed just as their oppressive leade r did. The
novel is a political allegory about revolution and power. It explores themes
of despotism, the corruption of ideals, and the power of language. As one
of the most substantial socio -political works of all time, the novel truly
replicates the poli tical system across the world. It portrays human beings
at their best and at their worst too. It unveils the demons within them. It
reveals how noble objectives can be dethroned into despotism resulting in
the ultimate betrayal of the hopes of the masses. As a political satire, it
satirizes the man by calling him a pig, and the ways he adopts to beguile
others are also absurd. It reveals how utopia can be destroyed by myopia,
greed, a lack of care, and evil deeds.
Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis is a story of a salesman Gregor
Samsa, who wakes one morning and finds himself mysteriously
transformed into a huge insect and subsequently struggles to adjust to this
new condition. Gregor's unexpected and unexplained conversion is
compared with a lot of day -to-day details. The character of Samsa
symbolizes the misunderstood artist and his family is an allegorical figure
for society. The novel reveals that non -conformity can lead to social
isolation
In the political allegory The Lord of the Flies by William G olding, the
island illustrates the world while both Jack and Ralph symbolize
conflicting ideologies, totalitarianism, and democracy. It symbolizes the
darkness in man's heart, the struggle between good and evil, and the fight
between order and savagery. Th e conflict between the boys Ralph & Jack
on the island reflects the conflict between the powers of democracy and
communism. Jack symbolizes dictatorship while Ralph represents
democracy. The island has a democracy with an elected leader, Ralph who
holds me etings, sets rules, and establishes law and order. The weaker
members of society are generally protected from harm. The democracy,
however, quickly breaks down as fear and violence take hold. The novel
underlines that without government, society degenerate s and people lose
their capacity for moral behaviour. To Golding, people are in a society
where the rules of civilized society no longer exist. Man is naturally evil &
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13 In Brave New World , Huxley ridicules how government runs a society. It
predicts the demise of individuality, art, and culture in the face of
governmental control through technology and mass consumerism. The
government of Brave New World retains control by making its c itizens so
happy and superficially fulfilled that they do not care about their freedom.
State control results in a loss of humanity. As a political satire, the novel
satirizes a totalitarian society in which the trends of Huxley's day have
been taken to extremes. It underlines the fact that humans while trying to
better themselves and obtain knowledge, end up becoming their enemy.
The satire about contemporary social and moral issues is relevant to our
consumer -based society of today.
Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 is a warning against state -based censorship
in our culture. Its political message is that all books are burned by a
government organization whose personnel are known as firemen. They
make fir es instead of putting them out. The novel is relevant to modern
society which has censorship of individual ideas and beliefs. Modern
media has to censor things that they feel will upset people. Libraries are
getting closed down and books are treated with d isrespect and thrown
away. It reveals the importance of knowledge and identity in a society that
is easily corrupted by ignorance, censorship, and the tools designed to
distract from the realities of our world.
The totalitarian government in George Orwell 's Nineteen Eighty Four tries
to control everything about its people. It takes every precaution that lower
people remain loyal to them. The novel underlines the rising of
communism in Western countries that are nevertheless uncertain about
how to approach it. It is a satire of tyrannical administrations and what
might happen if the government was allowed to be in complete and total
control of the people. The malicious oppressive government in its pursuit
of power uses various methods to have ultimate contro l over the
population. The constant war results in the loss of highly valued
democratic ideals.
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels is a political allegory that reveals the
total political corruption beginning in the 16th century and ending in the
18th century. In it the seventeenth -century society is highlighted in many
aspects. It satirizes party politics, religious differences & western culture
as a whole which is relevant in today’s time too. Gulliver travels to four
different foreign countries, each r epresenting a corrupt part of England.
The novel criticized the corruption of such parts. It has critically focused
on the government, society, science, religion, and man. Lilliput is like
England and Blefuscu is like France. Swift satirizes the needless f ighting
between two nations. The two Lilliputian parties stand for English
political parties.
Political allegories in the guise criticism strive to improve the quality of
life. It reveals the need of modification in the attitude of every human
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14 2.3 IMPERIALISM & POSTCOLONIALISM IN
MODERN BRITISH FICTION
Imperialism explores an ideology where one group of people or a nation
assumes that it is inherently superior to other peoples or nations. Hence,
the imperialists have the right, or obligation, to bring their civilization
message to the so -called “inferior' or “primitive” It is a formal or informal
economic and political domination of one country over the other.
Postcolonial literature depicts the aspects or the consequenc es of
colonization and the issues related to the period after the independence of
the once -colonized countries. Modern British fiction has honestly depicted
the result of an imperialistic rule in the lives of colonized people.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad contains a bitter critique of
imperialism in the Congo, which the writer condemns as “rapacious and
pitiless folly”. In it, imperialism is an insidious and terrifying force. It is a
money -grubbing, power -hungry instrument of violence and oppression . It
transforms even the highest sentiments into lies, manipulations, and
justifications. It turns would -be benefactors into thieves, rapists,
murderers, and despots. Colonialism is found in the economical
exploitation of the land in the Congo. The colonis ts take the ivory and
make money off the trade but give back little or nothing of value to the
natives that live there. The novel demonstrates Africa's suffering and pain
caused by European colonization. It focuses on the moral conflicts of
European explor ation of Africa.
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster reveals the racial tensions and the
cultural misunderstandings that divided the Natives and the Anglo -
Indians. It explores the relationship between the colonized and the
colonizer, the subjugation of one person to another. It reveals the status
and position of the colonizers and the colonized. It underlines colonialism
and imperialism as an obstacle between the friendship of the English and
the Indians.
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene reveals the colonial structure
& the colonial British community in Sierra Leone where the British people
had imported their culture & civilizations. It describes Conrad's own
experience in Congo. He learned how Europeans exploited and traded the
natives for their ben efit during his journey. The novel attacks imperialism
and criticizes the immoral treatment of the European colonizers in Africa
in the 19th century.
In Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, both John and his mother are in
exile because both are separated from their true culture. The novel reveals
postcolonial conceptions such as subaltern and cultural diversity. It
satirizes the World State i.e. the majority of the population is unified under
a powerful government that controls the society using highly technol ogical
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15 Ulysses by James Joyce is about alienation and the quest for belonging.
The Irish were also the colonized people of their day. Joyce too
experienced the contempt of the colonizers. In A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man Ireland's subservience affects Stephen Dedalus who is
determined to escape the bonds that his Irish ancestors have accepted. He
strives to emerge from his Irish heritage. He wants to be free from the
shackles that have traditionally confined his country. H e decides to use his
art to reclaim autonomy for Ireland. Using the borrowed language of
English, he plans to write in a style that will be both autonomous from
England and true to the Irish people.
Rudyard Kipling believed that ideally the colonized shoul d recognize their
inferiority and accept their governed position. His novel Kim unveils the
postcolonial impact on the life of a young boy. It reveals the theme of
Loyalty and Racism. It chronicles the adventures of an Irish orphan in
India who becomes the disciple of a Tibetan monk while learning spying
from the British secret service. His novel The Jungle Book includes
subliminal messages of imperialism. It explores how a nation exercises
political or economic control over a smaller nation. Mowgli the “ma n-
cub” is portrayed as the larger nation for he is a human, though he has
been raised by animals in the wild.
D.H. Lawrence explores the dehumanizing effects of modernity and
industrialization. His novel Sons and Lovers reveals the theme of nature
and indu strialism. The totalitarian government in George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty -Four tries to control everything about its people. Big
brother puts an unfair control on the people of Oceania and controls them
socially and somewhat economically on what they can p urchase and how
they can live. The novel satirizes tyrannical administrations and what
might happen if the government was allowed to be in complete and total
control of the people. The malicious oppressive government in its pursuit
of power uses various me thods to have ultimate control over the
population. The constant war results in the loss of highly valued
democratic ideals.
In his novel The War of the Worlds , H.G. Wells uses a Martian invasion of
Earth as a vehicle to discuss the validity of late -ninet eenth -century British
colonialism. It draws parallels between England's fictional plight and the
real hardships of native populations throughout the empire. In short, it
reveals Wells' attitudes toward the idea of colonization.
In Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh satirically explores the British
class system which is dependent on the idea that power was hereditary and
the established gentry was superior to other social classes. Zadie Smith's
novel White Teeth examines the masculine experience (both migra nt and
English) by reflecting on the complex effects that cultural history can have
on identity. It traces the personal history of the protagonists interlaced
with the cultural history of post -Postcolonial Britain.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf reveals th e interconnectedness of
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16 an early exploration of postmodernity. The novel has illustrations of
characters highlighting illusional reality and disillusionment.
Modern British Fiction has always revealed the plight of the colonized at
the hands of the imperialistic colonizers.
2.4 EXISTENTIALISM AND MODERN BRITISH
LITERATURE
Existentialism is a movement of 20th -century literature that focuses on the
individual and his or her relations hip with the universe or God. Jean -Paul
Sartre explicitly adopted the term, and with his creation and that of
Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau -Ponty, and Albert Camus,
existentialism became a cultural movement. It underlines a philosophical
and literary perception that focuses on the experience of an individual and
the way that he or she understands the world. The world was an indifferent
place for existential philosophers and writers in the post -world war period.
It had no set of universal rules which c an be applied to everyone. Hence,
existentialism never deals with objective knowledge, language, or science.
It focuses on beliefs and religion. It reveals human states and feelings.
In existential literature, an individual exists in a chaotic and seemingl y
meaningless environment. The protagonist is forced to confront him/her
and determine his/her purpose in the world. The four recurring themes of
existentialism are the individual, God, being, and truth. Existentialism
emphasizes action, freedom, and deci sion as fundamental to human
existence. It fundamentally argues against definitions of human beings as
primarily rational. Søren Kierkegaard is generally considered as the
'father' of existentialism.
Since 1970, in both art & literature, existentialist ele ments have registered
their place & position. Jean -Paul Sartre‘s philosophical novel Nausea
expresses the cyclical feelings of disgust that overcome Antoine
Roquentin, a young historian, as he comes to realize the banality and
emptiness of existence. The p rotagonist becomes intensely conscious of
the fundamental absurdity of life. The novel explores the themes
of consciousness, loneliness, transformation, and freedom. Philip K.
Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a story of non-
empathetic android s clashing with empathetic humans. It reveals the
theme of a human's self -realization of his loss of humanity.
In the non -fiction work, The Ethics of Ambiguity Simone de Beauvoir
identifies herself as an existentialist. To her, existentialism is the
philos ophy of our times because it is the only philosophy that takes the
question of evil seriously. Her view of human freedom is revealed as “...
we are free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a
finiteness which is open on the infinite. "
Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club is about the process of enlightenment
caused by a huge amount of mental suffering. The suffering is a result of
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17 society of hypocrites. The novel ad vocates personal enlightenment.
Individually each person must hit bottom to truly rise or transcend their
old self.
The ideas of thinkers like Dostoevsky, Foucault , Kafka, Nietzsche,
Herbert Marcuse, Gille s Deleuze, and Eduard von Hartmann infuse the
works of artists like Chuck Palahniuk, David Lynch, Crispin Glover,
and Charles Bukowski. Existential works maintain a balance between
distastefulness and beauty. Jean -Paul Sartre’s play No Exit has the quote,
“Hell is other people.” The play begins with a Valet leading a man into a
room that the audience soon realizes is in hell. Eventually, he is joined by
two women. After their entry, the Valet leaves and the door is shut and
locked. All three expect to be to rtured, but no torturer arrives. Instead,
they realize that they are there to torture each other, which they do
effectively, by probing each other’s sins, desires, and unpleasant
memories.
The Theatre of the Absurd has totally relied on existentialist them es. In
Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot , two men pass the time
aimlessly, while waiting for someone who never comes. They claim Godot
to be an acquaintance but hardly know him, admitting that they would not
recognize him if they saw him. To occupy t hemselves, they do anything
“to hold the terrible silence at bay.” It illustrates an attitude toward man’s
experience on earth: the pathos, tyranny, friendship, hope, corruption, and
confusion of human experience that can only be reconciled in the mind
and art of the absurdist. It also examines the questions like death, the
meaning of human existence, and the place of God in human existence.
The works of Franz Kafka reveal the themes of alienation and persecution.
Their apparent hopelessness and absurdity represent existentialism. The
novella The Metamorphosis is a story of a salesman Gregor Samsa, who
wakes one morning and finds himself mysteriously transformed into a
huge insect and subsequently stru ggles to adjust to this new
condition. Gregor's unexpected and unexplained conversion is compared
with a lot of day -to-day details. The novel resounds the feelings of
alienation and revulsion.
Kafka’s next novel The Trial is the story of Josef K., a man a rrested and
prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his
crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader. The novel reveals
alienation, bureaucracy, the seemingly endless frustrations of man’s
attempts to stand against the system, and the futile and hopeless pursuit of
an unobtainable goal.
Albert Camus introduces his theory of the absurd in his philosophical
essay The Myth of Sisyphus . Sisyphus’s perpetual and pointless toil
metaphorically represents modern lives spent working at futile jobs in
factories and offices. Sisyphus, an absurd hero lives life to the fullest,
hates death, and is condemned to a meaningless task. According to Camus,
absurdity is the resu lt of our desire for clarity and meaning within a world
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18 philosophy of absurdism. The novel The Plague is an existentialist classic
which presents a picture of life in Oran as seen thr ough the author's
distinctive absurdist point of view It stresses the powerlessness of the
individual characters to affect their destinies. Both novels allegorically
reveal the phenomenal consciousness and the human condition. According
to Camus, we ultima tely have no control. The absurdity of life is certain.
Human reactions are absurd. He questions the meaning of moral ideas
justifying humanity and human suffering. The plague, which befalls Oran,
ultimately, enables people to understand that their sufferi ng is
meaningless. As the epidemic “evolves” within the seasons, so do the
citizens of Oran, who instead of willfully giving up to a disease they have
no control over, decide to fight against their impending death, thus
unwillingly creating optimism amid h opelessness.
Tom Stoppard‘s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist
tragicomedy. It elaborates on the exploits of two minor characters
from Shakespeare‘s Hamlet . Two central c haracters almost appear to be
two halves of a single character. The characters pass time by playing
questions, imitating other characters, and interrupting each other, or
remaining silent for long periods. The world for the two clowns is beyond
their under standing. They fail in realizing the implications of
philosophical arguments. So they muse on the irrationality and
randomness of the world.
Jean Anouilh ‘s arguments in his tragedy Antigone are based on
existentialist ideas. Produced under Nazi censorship, the play is
purposefully ambiguous about its rejection of authority and acceptance.
Antigone rejects life as desperately meaningless but without affirmatively
choosing a noble death. The play discusses the nature of power, fate, and
choice, the “promise of a humdrum of happiness” and ordinary existence.
To the critic Martin Esslin, the plays of Samuel Beckett, Eugene
Ionesco, Jean Gene t, and Arthur Adamov reveal existential beliefs. To
them, we are absurd beings lost in a universe empty of real meaning.
2.5 CONCLUSION
Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" is a pure piece of satire where he satirizes
party politics, religious differences, and w estern Culture as a whole in
ways still relevant to today's world.
To sum up, political allegory , loyal to the fundamental principle of
humanity has unveiled the bitter approach of those who rule the masses.
Similarly, the modern British fiction has pers istently revealed the hostile
approach attitude of imperialistic colonizers towards the simple and poor
colonized natives of the soil. The modern existential British literature has
explored the absurdity of life where the question of existence always
matte rs.
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19 2.6 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Write an essay on Political Satire.
2. Comment on the elements of i mperialism and postcolonialism in
Modern British Fiction
4. Discuss the features of Existentialism in Modern British Literature.
2.7 BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Appignanes i, Richard; Zarate, Oscar (2001). Introducing
Existentialism. Cambridge, UK: Icon.
 Appignanesi, Richard (2006). Introducing Existentialism (3rd ed.).
Thriplow, Cambridge: Icon Books (UK), Totem Books (USA).
 Barrett, William (1958). Irrational Man: A Study in Existential
Philosophy (1st ed.). Doubleday.
 Cattarini, L.S. (2018). Beyond Sartre and Sterility: Surviving
Existentialism. Montreal.
 Cooper, David E. (1999). Existentialism: A Reconstruction (2nd ed.).
Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
 Deurzen, Emmy van (2010). Everyday Mysteries: a Handbook of
Existential Psychotherapy (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
 Henderson, J. (1993) Comic Hero versus Political Elite pp.307 -19
in Sommerstein, A.H.; S. Halliwell; J. Henderson; B. Zimmerman, eds.
(1993). Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis. Bari: Levante Editori.
 Stinson, Emmett (2019 -08-28). "Satire". Oxford Research
Encyclopedia of Literature.
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20 3
NOVEL: 1984 BY GEORGE ORWELL - I
Unit Structure
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 George Orwell
3.3 1984: Critical Summary
3.4 Character Sketch of Winston Smith
3.5 1984 as a Political Allegory
3.6 Check Your Progress
3.7 Bibliography
3.0 OBJ ECTIVES
The objectives of this Unit are to make the learners familiar with:
 George Orwell as a writer
 1984, a novel by George Orwell
 1984 as a political satire
3.1 INTRODUCTION
“1984 ” is a dystopian novel by George Orwell, published in 19 49. The
novel is set in a future totalitarian society, in which the government, under
the control of a Party led by a figure known as Big Brother, has total
control over all aspects of citizens' lives. The story follows the protagonist,
Winston Smith, a lo w-ranking member of the Party who secretly rebels
against the Party's oppressive rule. Winston begins a forbidden love affair
with Julia, a fellow Party member, and together they seek to undermine
the Party's authority.
As the story progresses, Winston and Julia become embroiled in a
dangerous conspiracy against the Party, and are ultimately captured by the
Party's brutal Thought Police. Winston is subjected to a grueling process
of brainwashing and torture, until he ultimately betrays Julia and fully
embra ces the Party's doctrine.

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21 3.2 GEORGE ORWELL
George Orwell was a journalist, author, essayist, and critic best known for
his novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty -Four . He was a man of
strong opinions who addressed some of the major political movements of
his times, including imperialism, fascism, and communism. Eric Arthur
Blair known by his pseudonym George Orwell was born on 25th June
1903 in Motihari, Bengal, India, during the British colonial rule. His
father, Richard Walmesley Blair, was working as an Opium Agent in the
Indian Civil Service. As a son of a British Civil Servant, Orwell spent his
initial days after his birth in India, where his father was stationed. When
Orwell was only a year old his mother moved back to England while his
father stay ed in India until 1912. Orwell was educated in Henley and
Sussex at the school level.
In 1921 he joined the British police in Burma. However, Orwell ’s
dissatisfaction and dislike for British imperialism leads him to resign from
his job in 1927. He decided to become a writer, In 1928, he moved to Paris
and began a series of low -paying jobs. In 1929, he moved to London again
with less money. He described those experiences and real incidents in the
form of fiction in his first book, ‘Down and Out in Paris and London ’
published in 1933, which earned him some initial literary recognition. He
took the name George Orwell, shortly before its publication.
During 1932 -1933, Orwell worked as a teacher in a small private school in
Middlesex, he came down with his first outbreak of pneumonia because of
tuberculosis, a condition that would plague him throughout his life and
require multiple hospitalizations. Orwell gave up his teaching job and
spent nearly a year in Southwold writing his next book, Burmese
Days. Throughou t these days, he worked part -time in a bookshop, where
he met his future wife, Eileen. He married to Eileen in 1936, just before he
moved to Spain to write newspaper articles about the Spanish Civil War.
The war was between the left -wing Republicans and Th e Fascist
Nationalists.
While in Spain, Orwell had begun to consider himself a socialist and
found that he had been searching for true socialism. He joined the struggle
against the Fascist party, he was wounded in the throat. In meantime,
communists began to arrest dissenters, he had to flee from Spain as the
group with which he was associated was falsely accused of secretly
helping the fascists. After arriving in Britain, he wrote A Homage to
Catalonia. By 1939 George Orwell had returned to England. At t he
beginning of the Second World War, he was rejected for military service
but he joined British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as the person in
charge of broadcasting to India and Southeast Asia. Orwell didn ’t like this
job, as he was in charge of broadca sting propaganda to these British
colonies, this act was totally against Orwell ’s nature and his political
philosophy. In 1943, he took a job of his choice, as the literary editor
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22 Orwell and Eileen adopted a son, and s hortly after that, he became a war
correspondent for the Observer in Paris and Cologne, Germany.
Unfortunately, Eileen died, just before the publication of one of his most
important novels. Animal Farm. Regardless of the loss of his wife and his
own deteri orating health, he continued writing and completed 1984 in
1948. It was published early the next year and achieved great recognition
and success.
In 1949 Orwell remarried Sonia Brownell. However, he died at the age of
46 because of tuberculosis, but his i deas, opinions, and thoughts have
lived on through his work.
George Orwell spent almost seventeen years writing. Even after spending
this much time as a writer, Orwell didn ’t consider himself a novelist.
Although he has written two of the most important l iterary masterpieces of
the 20th century: Animal Farm and 1984 . While these are the most famous
books of his writing career, his memoirs, other novels, and important work
as an essayist: ‘Politics and the English Language ’, ‘Shooting an
Elephant ’, contribu te to the group of works that are considered to be the
most important twentieth -century literature.
Orwell ’s writing endeavored truth. His fiction has various elements of the
world he was living around him, like the wars and struggles that he
witnessed ve ry closely, the terrible description of politics, and how
totalitarianism takes on the human spirit. From the beginning of his
writing to the age of twenty -four, Orwell captured the real struggle of
people, who are not fortunate enough to tell their suffer ing and pain.
Orwell said that he writes because somewhere he feels that there are a
number of lies that he has to expose, and there are facts that need
attention. Orwell certainly does this in the novel 1984, which is fraught
with a political purpose, mea ning, and warning. Orwell gave readers a
glimpse into what would happen if the government control every single
detail of a person ’s life, even their own private thoughts. Animal Farm, a
political allegory based on Russian Revolution and its betrayal. In th e
novel, a group of barnyard animals overthrow and chase off their
exploitative human masters and set up an egalitarian society of their
own. The book had resonance in the post -war climate and its worldwide
success made Orwell a sought -after figure. It was one of Orwell ’s finest
works, full of wit and fantasy.
3.3 1984: CRITICAL SUMMARY
Published in 1949, the novel is set in a distinct future of 1984. It features
Winston Smith, who works in a records department in the Ministry of
truth, wherein they rewr ite history in order to establish their set of
ideologies, However, Winston despises the party and shows his resistance
towards the same by secretly keeping a diary. Which is considered an
offensive and punishable act under the regime. He is constantly und er the
watch of the government which is headed by a very powerful figure, ‘Big
Brother ’, who can see everything and is present everywhere. Posters with
a big face and the words “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU ” is munotes.in

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23 pasted everywhere. The government is on a miss ion to control their minds
and for which they impose a new language ‘Newspeak ’ which aims to stop
political uprisings by removing all words associated with it. It ’s against
the law to even have rebellious thoughts and such a crime is called
thoughtcrime an d is considered as the worst of all crimes. Winston notes
his every rebellious thought in his secret diary and joins O ’Brien, who is
supposed to be a member of the secret group that works to overthrow the
party.
The book starts with the 39 -year-old feeble man, Winston, entering the
building to reach his apartment. He takes the stairs despite having some
ailment in the right ankle of his leg because his elevator is always out of
service and on every floor, he is greeted by the poster of ‘Big Brother ’
returni ng home. In his apartment, there is a telescreen that is always on
and spews propaganda through which the party is able to monitor every
action of the citizens, they are constantly under surveillance. Winston
takes out the diary, which he secretly got from a secondhand store. He is
unable to write anything as he is not sure for whom he is writing the diary,
instead, he starts thinking about a dark -haired woman working in the same
office, whom he finds attractive but considers her a spy who keeps a watch
on him. He also recalls his meeting with an inner officer O ’Brien. Winston
feels that he also hates the authoritarian rule and they share the same
hatred towards them. He continues writing down his feelings about the big
brother on the paper. Winston looks at the page and realizes that he has
created a thoughtcrime and he will be caught soon. Just then somebody
knocks on the door and when he frightfully opens it, he finds his neighbor
Mrs. Parson who needs his help in unclogging the sink. When Winston
goes to help them, he is accused of committing thoughtcrime by her
children. They are junior spies who also work for the party and
continuously keep a watch on their elders and then report to the party.
Winston returns home to write his diary again but the thought s of O ’Brien
kept his mind occupied. He recalls a dream in which he heard a voice
telling him that “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness. ”
Winston dreams about his mother on a sinking ship with his younger sister
in her lap. He holds himse lf responsible for his mother ’s disappearance
when he was almost ten or eleven years old. He believes that they
sacrificed in order to keep him alive and the memory of which tears him
apart. Suddenly the scene shifts towards a different scenery, which he
names ‘The Golden Country ’ after waking up. He also sees the dark -
haired girl stripping off her clothes and running towards him in such a
gesture that it seemed to annihilate the whole system. He wakes up
uttering the word “Shakespeare ”. The telescreen blow s a high -pitched
whistle as a wake -up call for office workers. It ’s time for the exercise
known as the ‘Physical Jerks ’. During the exercise, he recollects his
childhood memories and gets engrossed in his thoughts which makes it
difficult for him to concen trate on the exercise, suddenly he hears a voice
shouting at him from the telescreen for not doing the exercise properly.
Winston goes to his job, where he works with a “speakwrite ” (a machine
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24 match the new ideology. Later, a friend of Winston, Syme informs him
about ‘Newspeak ’, a language that will have very few words so that it will
limit the thoughts of people and they will dare not to rebel against the
party. Winston is highly distressed but controls himself to not show his
inner feelings. He constantly feels that somebody is following him and
later finds out that the black -haired girl Julia is following her, whom he
thinks of as a spy.
When he goes back home, he takes out t he diary and records his last
sexual encounter with a prole woman because sex is considered a crime
and even the thought of it will lead any person to death. Winston thinks
that the only hope to crush the authority will come from the Proles only if
they re alize that they can make their condition better. Proles were regarded
as the lowest and most impoverished people living in abandoned areas and
were not considered a threat by the party.
Winston thinks of his diary entries as a form to letter for O ’Brien wh om he
feels is working against the party but he is not sure. He concludes his diary
by writing that Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make
four.
Winston goes to Prole where he meets Mr. Charrington in the shop who
sells him an antique paperwe ight and takes him to a room without a
telescreen where he shows him the drawing of a church. Upon leaving the
shop, he is dreaded with fear as he sees the dark -haired girl, Julia
following her. He thinks about meeting O ’Brien and recalls party slogans
“WAR IS PEACE, ” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, ” “IGNORANCE IS
STRENGTH. ”
Julia hands over a note to Winston in which she has confessed her love for
him. He tries a way to figure out to meet her and after several days, he
meets her at victory square. They hold each oth er’s hands and make a way
out to meet privately. They frequently meet in the hideout which results in
physical intimacy between the two. They both share the same hate for the
government and Winston fears of getting caught by the thought police,
However, Ju lia has a positive attitude towards the situation.
Winston rents a room from Mr. Charrington so that he can live with Julia.
They both eat bread, jam, drink coffee, Julia wears makeup, and have sex,
they do everything that is prohibited.
Winston and Julia continue to meet at Charrington ’s place wherein they
discuss about all the propaganda happening around them, and how history
is being changed to create a new thought process in order to control the
minds of people. They also think of marrying and rebelling against the
regime. In the office, O ’Brien speaks to Winston and tells him about Syme
who is now an unperson (the one who is secretly executed.) O ’Brien
promises to lend him a copy of ‘Newspeak ’ and invites him home.
Winston sees this as a sign that O ’Brien is on his side and feels that this is
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25 Winston wakes up terrified from the dream and tells Julia about the
memories of his mother and sister and blames himself for their death.
Later they went to O ’Brien ’s home and confess that they are the rebels
who hate the party. Julia and Winston are welcomed into the secret
Brotherhood by O ’Brien after he describes how it works as a loosely
organized group dedicated to overthrowing the Party. Winston is given a
copy o f “the book, ” a heretical work by Goldstein.
After a long tiring day at the office, Winston comes home and starts
reading ‘The Book ’, Julia also joins him in reading, the book accounts for
all the ideology and history of the party. ‘You are the dead ’, a voice says
abruptly from behind the wall -mounted image. The image has a telescreen
behind it. Winston and Julia are caught, and Mr. Charrington reveals
himself to be a Thought Police agent.
Winston finds himself in the Ministry of Love, where there is no da rkness,
sitting in a bright, empty cell and constantly observed by four telescreens.
Winston thinks of O’Brien and Julia. Winston ’s coworker, Ampleforth
(the poet), is then placed in the cell with him. As they talk about their
“crimes, ” Ampleforth is summ oned from his cell to Room 101. To
Winston ’s surprise, Parsons, his orthodox neighbor, is also placed in the
cell.
Winston is concerned about Julia. He makes the decision to endure twice
as much pain as she does because he feels she is suffering, possibly more
than he is. However, he soon realizes that this is just an intellectual
decision. O ’Brien enters the cell to retrieve Winston after a series of
unpleasant incidents involving the other convicts. At first, Winston thinks
O’Brien has also been discover ed, but he soon realizes that he has
deceived him. Winston is tortured continuously for days. He is betrayed
by Julia and O ’Brien, he is tortured and ruined, and every hope he had for
a future without the Party is destroyed. Winston learns that Goldstein ’s
book was written partially by O ’Brien and that Big Brother exists just as
the Party exists, eternal and omnipotent. Winston is starved and tortured
for several months in order to change his beliefs to those of the Party.
O’Brien says “Party seeks power en tirely for its own sake. Not wealth or
luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. ”
O’Brien brings Winston to Room 101 or the last phase of re -education,
which is very dreadful as the prisoners are being confronted with their
biggest fears an d in Winston ’s case it was the rats. Winston betrays Julia
when confronted with a cage holding furious rats, and Winston betrays
Julia by wishing the torture upon her instead. After returning back in
society, Winston encounters Julia, who was also tortured . Both admit they
have betrayed each other and are no longer in love with each other. Back
in the café, a news report praises Oceania ’s claimed resounding triumph
over Eurasian armies there. Winston finally acknowledges that he loves
Big Brother.
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26 3.4 CHEC K YOUR PROGRESS
1. Write a note on George Orwell as a writer.
2. Critically analyse George Orwell ’s novel, 1984 .
3.5 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Taylor, D.J. (2003). Orwell: The Life . Henry Holt and Company.
2. Crick, Bernard (2004). “Eric Arthur Blair [ pseud. George O rwell]
(1903 –1950) ”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford,
England, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
3. Seaton, Jean. “Why Orwell ’s 1984 could be about now ”. BBC.
Retrieved 3 December 2019.
4. Leetaru, Kalev. “As Orwell ’s 1984 Turns 70 It Pred icted Much of
Today ’s Surveillance Society ”. Forbes. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
5. “The savage satire of ‘1984 ’ still speaks to us today ”. The
Independent. 7 June 1999. Archived from the original on 7 January
2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023. Orwell said that h is book was a
satire - a warning certainly, but in the form of satire.
6. Grossman, Lev (8 January 2010). ”Is 1984 one of the All -TIME 100
Best Novels? ”. Time. Retrieved 29 December 2022.

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27 4
NOVEL: 1984 BY GEORGE ORWELL - II
Unit Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Characters in 1984
4.2 Character Sketch of Winston Smith
4.3 Themes in 1984
4.4 1984 as a Political Allegory
4.5 Check Your Progress
4.5 Bibliography
4.0 OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this Unit are to make the learners familiar with:
 The characters in 1984
 Themes in 1984
 1984 as a political satire
4.1 CHRACTERS IN 1984
George Orwell's novel "1984" features a number of characters, each of
whom plays an important r ole in the story. Some of the key characters
include:
Winston Smith: The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith is a low -
ranking member of the ruling Party who secretly rebels against its
oppressive rule.
Julia: A young woman whom Winston falls in love wi th and begins a
forbidden relationship with. Julia shares Winston's anti -Party views and is
also involved in the resistance movement.
O'Brien: A high -ranking member of the Party who Winston initially
believes is part of the resistance movement. In reality, O'Brien is a
member of the Party's elite and ultimately betrays Winston.
Big Brother: The symbolic leader of the Party, Big Brother is an
omnipresent figure who represents the all -seeing eye of the Party. munotes.in

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28 Emmanuel Goldstein: A former member of the Party w ho has become the
figurehead of the resistance movement. Goldstein is portrayed by the Party
as the ultimate enemy of the state.
Syme: A colleague of Winston's who works in the Ministry of Truth.
Syme is highly intelligent and is developing a new version o f Newspeak,
the Party's official language.
Parsons: A neighbor of Winston's who is a devout Party member. Parsons
is ultimately betrayed by his own children and is arrested by the Party.
These characters each play important roles in the story, representing
different aspects of the Party's regime and the resistance movement that
seeks to overthrow it.
4.2 CHARACTER SKETCH OF WINSTON SMITH
Winston is the protagonist of the novel. It is only through him that the
reader sees the nightmarish world that Orwell imagines. Orwell ’s main
objective is to demonstrate the horrifying effects of totalitarianism. The
reader is able to see and comprehend the severe oppression that the Party,
Big Brother, and the thought police imposes on its citizens. Winston has a
propens ity to rebel against the authorities who are very powerful which
shows his stifling individuality and his intellectual capacity to reason
about that resistance. Winston meets a mysterious woman named Julia, a
fellow Outer Party member who also hates the pa rty’s practices; the two
fall in love and wishes to get married. Soon after, Winston contacts
O’Brien, an Inner Party member whom he thinks of a secret member of
The Brotherhood, a group of rebels committed to overthrowing the Party ’s
dictatorship. Winsto n and Julia join the Brotherhood. Winston is
incredibly contemplative and curious, eager to learn how and why the
Party holds such absolute power in Oceania, in contrast to Julia, who is
unconcerned and somewhat selfish and only interested in rebelling for the
pleasures to be gained. Winston ’s in-depth reflections give Orwell the
chance to delve into the novel ’s major themes, which include the power of
language over the mind, psychological and physical intimidation and
manipulation, and the value of histori cal knowledge.
Winston is certain that the Thought Police will arrest him for thoughtcrime
as soon as he writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER ” in his diary.
Winston, believing he is powerless to avoid his fate, yet he takes
unnecessary risks by trusting O ’Brien a nd renting the room above Mr.
Charrington ’s shop. Deep down, he knows that taking these risks increases
his chances of getting caught by the Party. He continues to rebel even
though he knows the repercussions of such actions. Winston lives in a
world where genuine optimism is impossible; in the absence of genuine
hope, he gives himself false hope, fully aware that he is doing so.
Winston hates the party and because of his intense hatred for the Party and
desire to test its authority, Winston engages in a nu mber of so -called
criminal activities throughout the book, including writing his diary, having
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29 the anti -Party Brotherhood. Winston ’s efforts to achieve freedom and
independence ul timately serve to highlight the Party ’s terrifying power.
By the end of the novel, it is clear that Winston ’s rebellion served
O’Brien ’s plan to subject him to physical and mental abuse. Winston has
been reduced to an obedient, unquestioning party member w ho genuinely
loves “Big Brother. ”
4.3 THEMES IN 1984
"1984" by George Orwell is a dystopian novel that explores a number of
complex themes. Some of the key themes in the novel include:
Totalitarianism: The novel explores the dangers of a totalitarian soci ety in
which the government controls every aspect of citizens' lives, including
their thoughts and beliefs.
Power and control: The Party's control over society is maintained through
manipulation of information, surveillance, and violence. The novel
highlig hts the dangers of unchecked power and the ways in which those in
power can manipulate and control individuals and society as a whole.
Language and communication: The Party's control over language and
communication is a key theme in the novel. The developm ent of
Newspeak, the Party's official language, represents the Party's attempt to
control and limit thought and communication.
Rebellion and resistance: The novel explores the theme of rebellion and
resistance against an oppressive government. Winston's re bellion against
the Party is driven by his desire for freedom and his belief in the
importance of individual thought and expression.
Memory and history: The novel highlights the importance of memory and
history in shaping our understanding of the world. Th e Party's
manipulation of history represents its attempt to control the past and shape
the present.
Overall, "1984" is a powerful critique of totalitarianism and the dangers of
government overreach. Its themes and ideas continue to be relevant today,
and t he novel remains a widely read and studied work of literature .
4.4 1984 AS A POLITICAL ALLEGORY
Nineteen Eighty - Four is a dystopian novel written by the English writer
George Orwell in 1948, set forth a f uture under the iron rule of
totalitarianism. Orwell throws light on the issue of the increase in
dictatorship and the decline of democracy by painting the imaginary
picture of a future where human rights, freedom, and democracy does not
exist. Orwell ’s dominant goal in this novel was to warn about the serious
danger of totalitarianism in society. He explains the terrifying degree of
power and control that a totalitarian regime can acquire and maintain.
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30 and become part of a totalitarian rule. Categorically, Orwell witnessed
such developments during the time he spent in Spain and Russia, where he
witnessed the rise of communism and the accompanying destruction of
civilian liberty, economic strength, and honest government.
There was a time when most of the Western world was inclined towards
communism considering it as a step towards human progress in the
development o f equality government, Orwell straight forwardly spoke out
against this practice. In the novel Nineteen Eighty - Four, Orwell presents
the idea of a perfect totalitarian state. Through his fiction, he wanted to
grasp the world ’s attention on accepting Commu nism, which might lead to
if allowed to proceed unchecked.
This novel is considered a political allegory, the term allegory refers to a
kind of story which has two layers; superficial and inner layer, it means
that it is a piece of literature in which ch aracters, events, and storylines, all
consist of deeper meaning. In an allegory there are two levels of meaning
the superficial meaning is the general story of the book, and the inner or
bigger meaning is a symbolic and representative meaning.
The novel i s a kind of prediction and warning because Orwell felt that
society was once again going back to barbarism. This novel can be seen as
a reaction to the totalitarian regimes that emerged in Europe after the first
world war. The main theme of the book is pol itics which reflects the
consequences of oppressing citizens, restricting freedom, use of atomic
power, war, and removing the constraints of history through different
techniques. It creates a world in which no one wants to live in.
The novel begins with a man named Winston Smith; he is in hurry to drag
himself home to his apartment building as the clocks are striking thirteen.
With this beginning, as a reader, one can easily be plunged into a gritty,
decaying world where the political order dominates the e veryday life of
people and an individual thought is considered a crime, love is forbidden,
and language seems to say the opposite of what one has normally
expected. As the story moves forward Winston ’s daily life unfolds that the
world has been divided int o three geographical areas: Oceania, Eurasia,
and East Asia. All three are occupied in perpetual warfare with one
another, not for territory or religious matters but for social control.
Winston is a member of the outer party, one day he brought a small, b ound
volume of blank paper, a kind of diary in which he can record his most
private thoughts without being observed by the omnipresent telescreen.
The first thought he recorded “Down with Big Brother! ” Winston became
curious about the dark -haired girl Juli a, a machine operator in the Fiction
Department, at his workplace. Although he feared that she was a member
of the Thought Police which arrests people for thoughtcrimes. But all his
delusion ends when she slips him a note of “I love you ” in the corridor on e
day. Both started a secret love affair, first, they met in the countryside, and
then in a rented room.
Eventually, Winston came in contact with O ’Brien, whom Winston thinks
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31 Police. H e gave Winston a book named The theory and practice of
Oligarchical Collectivism written by Emannuel Goldstein. After making
love with Julia, Winston started reading the book, and after a while, they
both fall asleep. They awake hours later and are capture d by the Thought
Police, who apparently knew of their hideaway. There, they get to know
that O ’Brien is in reality a member of ThoughtPolice; he tortures Winston
and tries to convince him that he must love Big Brother.
When torture fails, Winston is shifte d to Room 101, in which every person
who enters is faced with their greatest fear. For Winston, it ’s rats. Musing
on the impending rats -chewing on his face, Winston immediately calls out,
“Do it to Julia! ” And finally convinced that he loves Big Brother, that’s
what O ’Brien wanted. The novel ends as Winston, having exchanged
mutual conversations of betrayal with Julia, sits at the Chestnut Cafe,
drinking Victory Gin, completely and highly brainwashed and committed
to Big Brother.
Although the work is fict ional, but it ’s an indirect political documentary
featuring the historic conflict between democracy and dictatorship. They
are absolutely reflections of Orwell ’s political and social beliefs. His
dynamism with democratic socialism is unique and interestin g. Orwell
believed that socialism is the birthplace of dictatorship and that striving
for the ultimate power is irresistible.
4.5 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Draw the character sketch of Winston Smith.
2. Discuss George Orwell ’s novel, 1984 as a political sati re.
3. Comment on Orwell’s thematic concerns in his novel, 1984.
4.6 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Taylor, D.J. (2003). Orwell: The Life . Henry Holt and Company.
2. Crick, Bernard (2004). “Eric Arthur Blair [ pseud. George Orwell]
(1903 –1950) ”. Oxford Dictionary of National Bi ography . Oxford,
England, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
3. Seaton, Jean. “Why Orwell ’s 1984 could be about now ”. BBC.
Retrieved 3 December 2019.
4. Leetaru, Kalev. “As Orwell ’s 1984 Turns 70 It Predicted Much of
Today ’s Surveillance Society ”. Forbes. Retrieved 3 December 2019.
5. “The savage satire of ‘1984 ’ still speaks to us today ”. The
Independent. 7 June 1999. Archived from the original on 7 January
2023. Retrieved 7 January 2023. Orwell said that his book was a
satire - a warning certainly, but in th e form of satire.
6. Grossman, Lev (8 January 2010). ”Is 1984 one of the All -TIME 100
Best Novels? ”. Time. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
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32 5
THE BLACK PRINCE BY IRIS
MURDOCH - I
Unit Structure
5.0 Objectives
5.1 Introduction
5.2 George Orwell
5.3 The Black Prince : Critical Summary
5.4 The Black Prince : Narrative Technique
5.5 Usage of the Postscripts
5.6 Check Your Progress
5.7 Bibli ography
5.0 OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this Unit are to make the learners familiar with:
 Iris Murdich as a writer
 Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince
5.1 INTRODUCTION
Iris Murdoch wrote and published her novel, 'The Black P rince' in 1973.
This novel has been recognized as one of the great books of the 20th
century and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. This was
Murdoch’s fifteenth novel and alludes mainly to Hamlet, the character
created by William Shakespeare. The B lack Prince is generally
considered the best of Murdoch’s novels. Critic Richard Todd describes
it as her “closest approach to 1 the ‘post -modernist’ novel”1, which is
especially in the context of narrative unreliability highly interesting and
complex. T he genre is Metafiction.
Murdoch admired the great nineteenth -century English and Russian
novels written by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, James Joyce, Dickens, and Eliot.
Overall, she had the ability to merge philosophy and fiction and this is
apparent in the mai n character Bradley Pearson in the novel.
5.2 IRIS MURDOCH
Iris Murdoch was born in Dublin in 1919 and went to Oxford. She lived a
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33 and novelist. From 1974 to 1 992, she also married Warton Professor of
English at Oxford who she had met in 1954. The trio had an unusual
romantic partnership that lasted almost 40 years. Murdoch had "multiple
affairs" with both men and women which, on discomposing occasions
meanin g to disturb the calm, were witnessed by Bayley. She lived a life
of Self -indulgent love and it finds expression in her novels and books.
Dame Murdoch spent the last 5 years of her life with Alzheimer’s disease
and died in 1999. Her husband was at her bedside.
Dame Murdoch published more than 26 novels. Her novel The Sea, the
sea, won a Booker Prize in 1978. She published her last novel, The Green
Knight , in 1994. This was the year she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s
disease. The list of her publicat ions is given at the end of this article.
5.3 THE BLACK PRINCE : CRITICAL SUMMARY
The Black Prince is remarkable for the structure of its narrative,
consisting of a central story introduced by forewords and post -scripts by
characters withi n it. It largely consists of the description of a period in the
later life of the main character, ageing London author Bradley Pearson
(Authoritarian tone is noticed), during which time he falls in love with
the daughter of a friend and literary rival, Arnold Baffin. For years
Bradley has had a tense but strong relationship with Arnold, regarding
himself as having 'discovered' the younger writer. The tension is
ostensibly over Bradley's distaste for Arnold's lack of proper literary
credentials, thoug h later the other characters claim this to be a matter of
jealousy or the product of an Oedipus complex . Their closeness is made
apparent from the start of the book, however, as Arnold telephones
Bradley, worried that he has killed his wife, Rachel, in a domestic row.
Bradley attends with his former brother -in law, Francis Marloe, in tow.
Together they calm the injured Rachel and restore peace to the Baffins'
household.
Bradley begins to get trapped in a growing dynamics of family, friends,
and associ ates who collectively seem to thwart his attempts at achieving
the isolation he feels necessary to create his 'masterpiece'. His
intervention in the Baffins' marriage, for instance, prompts Rachel to fall
in love with him. His depressed sister, Priscill a, leaves her abusive
husband, demanding that her brother shelter her. The Baffins' young
daughter, Julian, declares her admiration for Bradley and begs him to
tutor her. Even Christian, Bradley's ex -wife, invades his life by seeking to
repair their long -defunct relationship.
Bradley attempts to navigate these complications with mixed success. His
inability to reciprocate Rachel's affections ultimately defuses their affair.
She agrees, much to Bradley's satisfaction, to be no more than his friend.
Chris tian meanwhile starts an affair with Arnold, drawing her attentions
away from Bradley. Indeed, Arnold informs Bradley that he intends to
leave Rachel for Christian. Yet Bradley fails to give proper attention to
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34 optimism. Only Francis remains a constant annoyance; the former
psychoanalyst is implicitly in love with Bradley.
During this time, however, Bradley cannot escape falling in love with
Julian. He privately vows never to confe ss or seek to realise this love, but
he cannot contain himself. He promptly blurts it out to Julian herself, and
the two embark on a brief, intense affair. He steals away Julian to a rented
sea-side cottage to evade Rachel and Arnold, who both condemn t he
relationship. But he also neglects pressing needs at home. Priscilla, left
without any companions, commits suicide; Bradley nonetheless postpones
returning. He feels that the news would destroy any romantic connection
between him and Julian. When Arn old arrives, enraged, to collect his
daughter, however, he turns this deception against Bradley. Julian is
visibly disturbed, and she promises to return home the next day. Yet
Julian vanishes in the night —in Bradley's mind, at least, Arnold has taken
her off and hidden her against her will.
Bradley returns to London in a lovesick fury. A jealous Rachel confronts
him, (incorrectly) telling him that Arnold has taken Julian to Europe. She
mocks Bradley's high -minded notions regarding love; Julian, she s ays,
already regrets their affair. Filled with anger, Bradley twists the tale and
tells Rachel about Arnold's plan to leave her. This revelation startles
Rachel and she departs. The final action of the main section takes place at
the Baffins' residence, where Bradley attends an incident parallel to the
opening one. Rachel appears to have struck Arnold with a poker, killing
him. Taking pity on her, Bradley helps her clean up the crime scene and
advises her to tell the police the truth. She instead blam es the murder on
Bradley; he is put under arrest.
Bradley's arrest, trial, and conviction for Arnold's murder are briefly
described. The police attribute the murder to Bradley's jealousy of
Arnold's writerly success. No one can corroborate Bradley's ver sion of
events; Francis's obviously biased account only harms his cause. Thus,
his affairs with both Rachel and Julian, as well as Arnold's affair with
Christian, remain secret. Rachel appears as a grieving widow, whereas
Bradley appears as a cruel, pos sibly homosexual sociopath. He is
convicted and sent to prison. Bradley then closes his account from his
prison cell, reaffirming his love for Julian.
5.4 THE BLACK PRINCE : NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
The narrative structure is complex, follows the trends of t he
psychological novels. Influences of the Freudian novels, Virginia Woolf,
D.H Lawrence and others are noticed. The main narrative section is
presented to us by a fictional editor, P. Loxias, who has prepared for
publication of the long manuscript of hi s dead friend, Bradley Pearson.
Bradley's narrative is a first place account of events that took place in the
spring of his 58th year, when he retired as inspector for the Inland
Revenue Service to devote full time to writing. Years before, Bradley had
published two unpopular novels and book of “Pansies”; now he is eager
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35 work of fiction that he hopes will be his masterpiece. Obsessed by this
ideal of perfection, he accepts the artis tic calling as “a doom,” a
condemnation to a severe penalty and the true Last Judg ment of his life.
5.5 USAGE OF THE POST -SCRIPTS
This section is told from the point of view of the other characters, each
being said to have had the luxury of reading the main section before
drafting their responses. Each interprets the action differently, focusing
on separate issues to a more or less selfish degree. They exist to cast
doubt not only on the reliability of the fiction that preceded it, but also on
themse lves. Christian, for example, dismisses any accusation of self -
interest, claiming that Bradley lied because he was still in love with her.
Francis assesses Bradley as a dysfunctional phobic to promote his new
book. Rachel claims that Bradley may have li ed due to unrequited love.
Julian herself has little to say: she states that she remembers little of that
time, and that she has no wish to remember anything more. The "editor"
of the entire volume concludes the novel by supporting Bradley's account
and praising his devotion to love as an all -empowering force.
The framed postscripts bring in new (critical) perspectives on what is until
this point the only truth for the reader; so Bradley’s account can be
doubted as “the postscripts set the reader up f or closure or consolation that
nevercomes.”11 Nevertheless, the discussion about narrative unreliability
should remain a subsidiary aspect of this paper. Instead it is relevant to
scrutinise, at first, one of the initial concerns, namely Murdoch’s
depict ion of Bradley Pearson as a writer.
Romberg calls the narrator’s situation when writing a narrative “the epic
situation,” and “in a novel of the first -person ... the epic situation ...
belongs to the fiction,” and “can, from the aspect of narrative tec hnique,
be an important key to the novel” (33). Further, the narrative technique,
whereby the main character himself surveys his eventful life, or
particularly exciting parts of it, or else lays bare his soul to his friend,
gives to author the opportuni ty to take advantage of the primitive but
remarkably persistent demand that the novel -reader in general makes of a
narrative: namely, that it shall give an illusion of reality and truth.
The authoritative “I” binds the reader more tightly to the fictio n; there is a
sort of two -man partnership between reader and narrator, and here we
glimpse the primitive epic situation, where someone who has had some
experience or other relates this experience to someone else. (58 -59)
On the other hand, Wallace Mar tin claims any first -person narrative ...
may prove unreliable because it questions from speaking or writing to
self-addressing someone. This is the condition of discourse, in which, as
we know, the possibility of speaking the truth creates the possibili ty of
misunderstanding, misperceiving, and lying, whereas “we cannot question
the reliability of third -person narrators” (142). These two statements are
not necessarily contradictory, but may refer to different levels of reader
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36 Romberg’s “ill usion of reality and truth” may be the primary, naïve
response of a reader – even an experienced reader – whereas the
“possibility of misunderstanding, misperceiving and lying” may be
inferred by readers on a second or more thoughtful reading, and is of ten
implied with more or less subtlety by the author behind the narrator’s
back. In fact, in recent fiction, it is difficult to think of any first -person
narrative in which the narrator is the main character, where the narrator
can be relied upon to the same extent as a third -person narrator, whether
omniscient or not. One interesting reversal of this tendency is Margaret
Drabbles The Waterfall, where the apparently omniscient and reliable
third person narrator is interrupted at intervals by her own fi rst-person
voice, commenting on and criticizing the narrative, exposing its
distortions of reality, and laying bare its bias. This technique was perhaps
suggested by the third -person novel within the first -person narrative in
Doris Lessing’s influential novel The Golden Notebook.
However, this reversal only works when the two voices are
counterpointed within the same novel, when the apparently objective
voice is shown to be in fact subjective, and this has resulted the
subjective voice becoming the objective, critical and reliable authority.
In a sense, this is the opposite of what Murdoch does in The Black
Prince. She appears to take full advantage of her readers’ demands for the
“illusion of reality and truth” in the novel, only to unsettle a nd undermine
them, not only in the postscripts at the end, but also in the narrator’s
addresses to his “dear friend,” P. Loxias which interrupt the narrative
from time to time. All first -person narratives contain more than one point
of view: the writing “I” is distinguished from the “I” written about. The
temporal distance between the narrating voice and the narrated events is
important here. In the diary novel or the epistolary
novel there is a close relationship between the epic situation and the
narrative, and this may entail an unwittingly ironic betrayal of the
narrator’s beliefs. However, sometime after the action, the narrator
Bradley Pearson is a transformed character, and is quite aware of the
ironies with which his former self was surrou nded. He lets the reader
know in his preface that a transformation has taken place, but explains
frankly that he will “inhabit my past self and, for the ordinary purposes of
storytelling, speak only with the apprehension of that time, a time in
many way s so different from the present” (xi).
The “ordinary purposes of story -telling” prohibit any but the most general
hints at the nature of the crisis which precipitated his transformation into
“a wiser and more charitable man” (xi). Iris Murdoch does not tend to
relinquish the writer’s privilege of maintaining suspense to keep the
reader interested. Narrative foreshadowing does appear, but serves rather
to heighten the reader’s curiosity, for example, after describing the day
before Arnold’s death and his arrest,
Bradley continues: “The morning brought the crisis of my life. But it was
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37 (317). Thus we have the situation whereby the narrating voice of what
Dipple calls “the flayed BP” (113) (referring to the deep mythological
basis of the novel in the legend of Apollo’s flaying of Maryssa) is
holding back his knowledge of events and his understanding of their
meanings, and letting the “unflayed BP” speak, nonetheless hoping “that
the light of wisdom falling upon a fool can reveal, together with folly, the
austere outline of truth” (xi).
Within the world of this fiction, we have little alternative but to trust our
narrator when he is describing the course of events, while suspec ting his
assessments of the significance of these events, and his knowledge of the
thoughts and motives of the other characters. This is indeed what he asks
of us in the Foreword, when he writes “I have endeavoured in what
follows to be wisely artful an d artfully wise, and to tell the truth as I
understand it” (xi).
That we should trust this truth – which is the domain only of P. Loxias,
the “editor,” and the “flayed” Bradley, is an assumption upon which the
novel is founded. Loxias’ postscript, fol lowing the postscripts of four of
the other characters commenting on the novel and denying its accuracy,
draws attention to their self -serving motives; their egotism in each
believing Bradley to be motivated by love of themselves, and their self -
promoti on. In the person of Bradley Pearson, we have both a protagonist
acting in a fantasy -ridden and prejudiced manner, and a narrator relating
these past events in prison, some years after they happened. He still has
perfect recall of letters he wrote and r eceived during this period
(including the one from Arnold which he destroys) and he can remember
events and conversations accurately, even when he was under severe
emotional stress and in some cases deluded when they occurred. The
reader’s acceptance o f such improbabilities would usually go unnoticed,
as they are so large a part of the conventions of first -person writing. The
readers question, did he love Rachel that he took the punishment for a
crime committed by Rachel, he wasn’t naïve neither stup id, did he self -
inflict the punishment for betraying the love of so many people!
5.6 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Write a note on Iris Murdoch as a writer.
2. Discuss the narrative technique used in The Black Prince.
3. Comment on the usage of the postscript in The Black Prince.
5.7 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Richard Todd, I r is Murdoch (London and New York: Methuen, 1984) f..
Cf. Todd 76.
Barbara Stevens Heusel, Patterned Aimlessness – Iris Murdoch’s Novels
of the 1970s and 1980s (Athen s and London: The University of Georgia
Press, 1999) 127. munotes.in

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38 Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince (London: Vintage, 1999) 11. All page
references within the following text belong to this edition. Hilda D.
Spear, Iris Murdoch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995) 79.
Bellamy, Michael O. “An Interview with Iris Murdoch.” Contemporary
Literature 18 (1977): 129 -140.
Bigsby, Christopher. “Interview with Iris Murdoch.” The Radical
Imagination and the Christopher Bigsby. London: Junction Books, 1982.
209-230.
Biles, Jack I. “An Interview with Iris Murdoch.” Studies in the Literary
Imagination 11 (1978): 115 -125.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Iris Murdoch. New York: Chelsea House Publishers,
1986. ---. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1983. Bove, Cheryl K. “Iris Murdoch.” Dictionary of
Literary Biography Volume 194: Gale Group. 16 August 1999.
---. Understanding Iris Murdoch. Columbia: University of South Carolina
Pres




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39 6
THE BLACK PRINCE BY IRIS
MURDOCH -II
Unit Structure
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Characters
6.3 Themes in The Black Prince
6.4 Check Your Progress
6.5 Bibliography
6.0 OBJECTIVES
The objectives of this Unit are to make the learners familiar with:
 Characters in Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince
 Themes in Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince
6.1 CHARACTERS
6.1.1 Bradley Pearson : Bradley Pearson is the main character of the
novel and also the one who writes the majority of it. In the beginning of
the book, Bradley is a cold, occasionally cruel man. Although he acts
politely, his internal monologue usually reveals him to be much less polite
than he appears. Much of his external behavior is shockingly rude,
especially to Christian and Francis. Furthermore, his self -interested
nature leads him to neglect his sister, Priscilla. Even when he hears that
she has killed herself, it is his neglect, in part, that leads to her suicide, he
lacks the compassion and concern that one would normal ly feel for a
sibling. Despite his unfriendly nature, Bradley is a compelling character
because he changes throughout the book and also because he aspires, to
some extent, to do good, primarily by writing a novel. Bradley's love of
Julian changes him. B radley's lengthy description of his love, at the
beginning of Part Two, allows us to understand the nuances of his soul.
With his heart fully exposed, it is difficult to dislike him, even if some of
his behaviors are less than honorable. The way that Bra dley keeps
changing also makes him an intriguing figure. By the end of the book, he
is a kinder, gentler soul, having experienced true love and after having
seen the errors of his ways. Bradley is finally able to act selflessly, by not
accusing Rachel o f Arnold's murder. Bradley's ability to change and
eventually realize his faults makes him a likeable character, despite his
earlier bad deeds. Bradley is the novel's most fully developed character
and also the one who changes the most within it. In the beginning of the munotes.in

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40 novel, Bradley acts only with self -interest, but after his experience of
love he changes into a content, more generous creature, who is finally
able to write a master novel.
6.1.2 Julian Baffin : Julian is the twenty -year old daughter of Arnold and
Rachel Baffin, with whom Bradley falls in love. Julian is characterized
by youth and naïveté. She has never been a successful student, but
suddenly decides that she wants to be a writer. Her lack of knowledge that
Homer and Dante were poet s, however, shows her sudden career goals to
be romanticized dreams. The way that she falls in love with Bradley is
equally so. In one of the opening scenes, she performs an exorcism to rid
her recent boyfriend from her life, but after just one week she believes
that she pictures marrying Bradley and living happily ever after. Such
ideas are naïve and romantic. Were she involved with a man her own age
and not Bradley, such naïveté would likely not be a problem.
Her failure to understand the dynamics b ehind her relationship with
Bradley is problematic. First, her cluelessness leads her to confess the
affair to her parents. Furthermore, she cannot understand why they
appear so angry about it. Later, she throws herself from a moving car to
prove her lo ve. While she is not seriously hurt, her youthful impetuous
actions suggest trouble. Her illusions finally will be shattered when
Bradley makes violent love to her, leaving her weeping. The lustfulness
of his passion finally reveals to her the nature of Bradley's self and after
she realizes it, she flees. Julian is a sympathetic character, but also a
slightly foolish one. Furthermore, because Bradley is telling the story,
Julian often comes across as sexually aggressive. As Bradley describes it,
Julian almost initiated their affair by insisting that he become her teacher,
inviting him to the opera, and coming over for a Hamlet tutorial. Despite
Bradley's perceptions, Julian remains a naïve, not extraordinary girl who
is unversed in the ways of love. Julian's youth, however, generally
forgives her character faults.
6.1.3 Francis Marloe : Francis Marloe's primary role in the novel is
comic. Francis is a classic buffoon style character, characteristic of Greek
comedy of Shakespeare. Francis is comic bec ause he is pitiful and easy to
be laughed at. The other characters laugh at him consistently and cruelly.
Bradley Pearson's cruel treatment of Francis, in particular makes us want
to sympathize with him. But even as we long to respect Francis, his
const ant fumbling makes it difficult to take him seriously. Francis
basically is a kind man who wants to treat other people kindly , he longs
to doctor Priscilla, for example, but he leaves her alone to get drunk with
Bradley's homosexual neighbour, during which time Priscilla kills
herself. Furthermore, in his explanation of the incident, Francis insists
that the neighbour, Rigby, drugged the wine so Francis could not return,
whereas it is more likely that Rigby and Francis were having sex.
Francis's final postscript makes him look entirely silly. Francis's identity
as a comic figure also comes from his pitiful background, being a doctor
whose license was taken away for misuse of pharmaceuticals. Finally, his
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41 many ways Francis is a sad character, often talking about the pain of his
life.
6.1.4 Arnold Baffin : The very successful popular writer whom Bradley is
accused of killing at the end of the novel. Arnold and Bradley's
friendsh ip is one of the primary relationships within the novel. Although
Bradley frequently dislikes Arnold, Arnold is portrayed very favorably.
He is a polite, interesting man who always wants to know more about
people's characters and who always longs to tal k to them. He takes great
pleasure in hearing about Francis Marloe's life, for example, while
Bradley at the same time is trying to get Francis out the door. Arnold's
compassionate interest contrasts Bradley's coldness. He tries to reason his
daughter, b ut fails. Arnold was a docile character in front of his Rachel.
6.1.5 Rachel Baffin : The wife of Arnold Baffin. Rachel is a forceful
woman whom both Arnold and Bradley underestimate. Arnold seems to
think that all is well between him and his wife; Brad ley regards Rachel as
a benign, older woman. Rachel's firm speech and unforgiving tone,
however, suggests the power within her personality, even if the other
characters cannot see it. Rachel herself predicts her fierceness when she
tells Bradley that sh e still has "real fire" in her. Despite Rachel's
fierceness, she is also a sympathetic character who also helps to articulate
the difficulties of being a middle -aged housewife. She feels neglected
when both the men ignore her, thus instigating her to ta ke the drastic
step. She plans the murder in such a way that she could take revenge on
both the men. . Traces of Macbeth could be found in her.
6.1.6 Priscilla Saxe : The sister of Bradley Pearson. Priscilla is a
sympathetic, but pitiful woman who spends the majority of the book
moaning about the ruined state of her life. Priscilla's life, it appears, is
somewhat ruined, since she spent most of it in a loveless marriage. Her
painful experience testifies to the difficulties of life as well as the specifi c
difficulties of being a woman. Priscilla's great regret is the abortion that
left her unable to have children. Priscilla's sadness helps to establish
Bradley's coldness as a character, because, despite her needs, he basically
ignores her. He never fulf illed his duty as a brother.
6.1.7 Christian Evansdale : Bradley Pearson's ex -wife. Christian is a
confident, strong woman who has aged but still remains sexually
attractive. She has lived in America for the past few years and appears
slightly brassy and American. Christian's character is seen entirely
through her interaction with Bradley, which is not entirely credible given
his previous hatred of her. She, like Rachel, is a woman of power, even
though she has aged. Christian is a sympathetic and even admirable
character, given the strength of her personality, but at the same time her
brassy quality gives her a slightly comic edge
6.1.8 Roger Saxe : Priscilla's husband and Bradley Pearson's brother -in-
law. Bradley always has disliked Roger's chummy, non-intellectual style.
Roger has done bad things in the past, namely having Priscilla undergo an
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42 with Marigold in some ways also seems cruel since he is abandoning his
wife, who cannot have children due to the abortion that Roger insisted
upon. Still, while Roger has flaws, he is not all bad. Although Priscilla
tricks him into marrying her, he stayed with her for twenty years, despite
their unhappiness. Furthermore, although he did have an affair, he kept it a
secret until after she left him; then he asked for a divorce. Generally, the
tendency to have an affair during marriage does not appear honourable,
but since Roger and Priscilla's marriage was so terrible, his actions
actually seem understandable.
6.1.9 Marigold : Roger Saxe's mistress who is pregnant with his child.
Little is known about Marigold except that she is a dentist. Her name
suggests her freshness and youth. Her presence in Roger's life testifies to
the terri ble state of his marriage. She and Roger also are a couple that
mirror Bradley and Julian, since Roger is significantly older that
Marigold.
6.1.10 P. Loxias: The editor of the novel. "Loxias" is a pseudonym for
Apollo, the Greek god of the Arts. The prophetess Cassandra refers to
Apollo as "Loxias" in Aeschylus's The Oresteia. Loxias is not truly a
developed character in the novel, as he only serves to provide a foreword
and postscript. His primary role is to alert the readers to the primary
theme of the book: the importance of art in articulating truth. Since
Apollo is the God of Arts, it seems appropriate that he is the one to
supervise a novel that debates its relative merits. He appears as a friend
and a biographer of Bradley.
6.1.11 Hartbourne : A friend of Bradley's from work. Little is known
about Hartbourne except that Bradley frequently has lunch with him and
Christian later marries him.
6.1.12 Oscar Belling: Julian's ex -boyfriend. He never appears in the
novel. At the end of the novel however, Julian's name has changed to
"Julian Belling" signifying that she has married him. His presence merely
serves to suggest Julian's youthful approach the art of loving, since it is
just after breaking up with him that she decides that is passionate ly in
love with Bradley.
6.2 THE MES IN THE BLACK PRINCE
"The Black Prince" by Iris Murdoch is a novel that explores a variety of
complex themes. Some of the key themes in the novel include:
Love and desire: The novel explores the complex and often destruc tive
nature of human desire and love. The main character, Bradley Pearson,
becomes obsessed with a young woman named Julian, and his desire for
her leads to a series of tragic events.
Identity and self -discovery: The novel examines the idea of identity and
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43 relationships. Bradley, for example, struggles with his identity as a writer
and his desire to be recognized as a great artist.
Art and creativity: The novel explores the role of art in so ciety and how
creativity can both inspire and corrupt individuals. Bradley's obsession
with Julian, for example, is partially driven by his desire to use her as
inspiration for his writing.
Betrayal and loyalty: The novel explores the theme of betrayal and the
ways in which people can be both loyal and disloyal to each other.
Bradley's relationships with various characters in the novel are
characterized by a sense of betrayal and mistrust.
Morality and ethics: The novel raises questions about morality and e thics,
particularly in relation to the pursuit of personal desires and the potential
harm that can result from selfish actions.
Overall, "The Black Prince" is a rich and complex novel that explores a
wide range of themes and ideas, and it continues to be w idely studied and
discussed by literary scholars and readers alike .
6.3 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Comment on the art of characterization of Iris Murdoch with reference
to the novel, The Black Prince.
2. Discuss the themes in The Black Prince.
6.4 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Richard Todd, I r is Murdoch (London and New York: Methuen, 1984) f .
Cf. Todd 76.
Barbara Stevens Heusel, Patterned Aimlessness – Iris Murdoch’s Novels
of the 1970s and 1980s (Athens and London: The University of Georg ia
Press, 1999) 127.
Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince (London: Vintage, 1999) 11. All page
references within the following text belong to this edition. Hilda D.
Spear, Iris Murdoch (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995) 79.
Bellamy, Michael O. “An Intervie w with Iris Murdoch.” Contemporary
Literature 18 (1977): 129 -140.
Bigsby, Christopher. “Interview with Iris Murdoch.” The Radical
Imagination and the Christopher Bigsby. London: Junction Books, 1982.
209-230.

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44 Biles, Jack I. “An Interview with Iris Mu rdoch.” Studies in the Literary
Imagination 11 (1978): 115 -125.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Iris Murdoch. New York: Chelsea House Publishers,
1986. ---. The Rhetoric of Fiction. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1983. Bove, Cheryl K. “Iris Murdoch. ” Dictionary of
Literary Biography Volume 194: Gale Group. 16 August 1999.
---. Understanding Iris Murdoch. Columbia: University of South Carolina
Pres

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45 7
SHORT STORIES - I
Unit Structure:
7.0 Objectives
7.1 Introduction
7.2 James Joyce and his ‘Eveline’
7.3 Roald Dahl and his ‘ Lamb to the Slaughter’’
7.4 Check Your Progress
7.5 Bibliography
7.0 OBJECTIVES
This Unit aims at making the learners familiar with:
 James Joyce and his story, Eveline
 Roald Dahl and his ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’
7.1 INTRODUCTION
In this unit we are going to study the short story as a minor form of
literature with reference to the select short stories. A short story is a short
narrative fiction alwork that is usually written in prose. According to
Encyclopaedia Britannica ‘A short story is a brief fictional prose narrative
that is shorter than a novel and usually deals with a few characters ’. The
short story is usually concerned with a single unified effect. It is complete
in itself. The short story consists of all the elements of a novel. For
example, plot, characterization, setting, point of view, narration etc.
elements one can find in bo th novels as well as short stories. Generally, it
is believed that one can finish the reading of a story in a single sitting.
Stories were narrated orally from one generation to another. Therefore
‘narration’ is an inseparable part of any story. Narration may be ‘First
Person’ or ‘Third Person’. The short story writer achieves the effect within
limited span. Different aspects of human life and psyche have been
portrayed in the short stories. Stories are written for different purposes. It
is the reflection o f contemporary soci o-economic and cultural issues in the
short stories.
7.2 JAMES JOYCE AND HIS ‘EVELINE’
7.2.1 Introduction to Writer : James Joyce (1882 -1941) is one of the
most important modernist Irish writers of the early twentieth century. He
was born on February 2, 1882 in Dublin, Ireland. He was famous for his
experimental use of language and exploration of new literary methods in munotes.in

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46 fictional work. His reputation largely rests on just four works: a short story
collection Dubliners (1914), and three novels: A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). His
mastery of language and frank portra yal of human nature one can find in
his masterpiece Ulysses . Joyce’s other notable work includes collection of
poems, Chamber Music (1907), PomesPenyeach (1927) and a play Exiles
(1918). He passed away on January 13, 1941 in Zurich, Switzerland.
7.2.2 Critical Analysis of the Story : ‘Eveline’ is one of the shortest
stories of James Joyce from his collection Dubliners (1914) . It was first
published in 1904 by the journal Irish Homestead and later featured in his
1914 collection of short stories Dubliners . It tells the story of Eveline, a
teenager who plans to leave Dublin for Argentina with her lover. There is
third -person narration in the story. It is viewed as a classic work of
modernist fiction . The story focuses on a young Irish woman of nineteen
years of age, who plans to leave her abusive father and poverty -stricken
existence in Ireland, and seek out a new, better life for herself and her
lover Frank in Buenos Aires.
Eveline was living in Dublin with her father. Her mother is dead.
Dreaming of a better life beyond the shores of Ireland, Eveline plans to
elope with Frank, a sailor who is her secret lover (Eveline’s father having
forbade Eveline to see Frank after the two men fell out), and start a new
life in Argentina. With her mother gone, Eveline is responsible for the
day-to-day running of th e household: her father is drunk and only
reluctantly tips up his share of the weekly housekeeping money, and her
brother Harry is busy working and is away a lot on business (another
brother, Ernest, has died).
Eveline herself keeps down a job working in a shop. On Saturday nights,
when she asks her father for some money, he tends to unleash a tirade of
verbal abuse, and is often drunk. When he eventually hands over his
housekeeping money, Eveline has to go to the shops and buy the food for
the Sunday dinn er at the last minute. Eveline is tired of this life, and so she
and Frank book onto a ship leaving for Argentina. But as she is just about
to board the ship, Eveline suffers a failure of resolve, and cannot go
through with it. She wordlessly turns round an d goes home, leaving Frank
to board the ship alone.
Like many stories in Dubliners , ‘Eveline’ explores the relationship
between the past and the future by examining a single person’s attitude to
their life in Dublin. Joyce was interested in this relations hip, and believed
that Ireland – which often had a habit of nostalgically looking backwards
and holding onto the past – needed to progress and strive to bring itself up
to date.In contrast to those writers and artists such as W. B. Yeats who
embraced the ‘ Celtic Twilight’ – a mythical, traditional view of Ireland as
a land of fai ry and history – Joyce wanted to see Ireland bring itself into
the modern world.
In many ways, Eveline typifies the difficulties faced by many Dubliners at
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47 oppressive, with her abusive father highlighting the idea that the older
generation needs to be cast off if young Ireland is to forge itself into a new
nation. Even the good aspects of the old Ireland, such as Eveline’s mother
and her older brother Ernest, are dead and gone.
7.2.3 Introduction to Characters
7.2.3.1 Eveline : Eveline is the central character in the story. The story is
named after Eveline, the protagonist of the story. Eveline is about nineteen
years of age. Her mother as well as elder brother Ernest has been died.
Another brother, Harrywas engaged in the church decorating business .
Eveline has to shoulder all the responsibilities of the household. Her father
is a drunk and only reluctantly tips up his share of the weekly
housekeeping money . She works in a shop. She has to work hard both in
the house and at workplace. She wants to get rid of abusive father and
poverty -stricken existence in Ireland . She made a plan to elope with
Frank, a sailor who is her secret lover and start a new life in Argentina.
Even though, she was experiencing some sort of dilemma, whether to
continue the same dreary , mundane life or go along with Frank and start a
new life in Argentina. Eveline has given a promise to her mother before
her death. She had promised her mother to keep the home together as long
as she could .
7.2.3.2 Frank : Frank is Eveline ’s secret lover . Frank is very kind, manly
and open -hearted. Eveline made a plan to goaway with Frank by the night
boat to be his wife and to live with him in Buenos Aires where he had a
home waiting forher. Frank is fond of music and singing. He is a sailor. He
had tales of distant countries. Eveline and Frank were meeting every
evening outside the Stores. Hetook her to see the movie The Bohemian
Girl. He used to call her Poppens out of fun. Eveline’s father had strong
disapproval to their affair. So, they were meeting secretly. Frank is
Eveline’s lover and supporter. He encourages Eveline to go with him and
start a better life with him. Eveline followed him, but at the last moment
she changed her mind and decided not to go with him.
7.2.3.3 Eveline’s Father : Eveline’s father is a drunk. He often uses
abusive language while talking with Eveline. He strongly disapproves
Eveline’s attraction towards Frank. He is irresponsible father, who does
not care about familial responsibilities. Eveline is completely fed up with
her father’s behaviour and her present situation.
7.2.4 Theme s
7.2.4.1 Promise vs. Escape : Thefemale protagonist of the story, Eveline
undergoes a sort of dilemma. She was experiencing a sort of conflict
between ‘promise’ and ‘escape’. Eveline plays her role like a mother in
the story. Her mother died. Before the death of her mother , she promised
her mother that she will keep the home together . Her drunken father is the
major challenge to Eveline. Her father was not supporting her to run their
household. She was working hard in the home as well as at her workplace.
Her father used to abuse her and insult her on many occasions. She wants
to free herself from this situation. Fortunately, she got her lover, Frank. munotes.in

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48 She made a plan to elope with Frank and start a new life in Argentina . She
wishes to escape from her daily miseries. However, at the last moment,
she changed her plan and decided not to go with Frank.
7.2.4.2 ‘Paralysis ’ and Powerlessness : The protagonist of the story,
Eveline represents sense powerlessness as a woman; she is mentally and
emotionally paralyzed. She is hard working and caring woman. She is
dominated by her drunken father. She wants to get rid of her miserable
life. She made a plan to start a new life with Frank as his wife in
Argentina. But unfortunately at the last moment she changed her plan and
she did not go with Frank. The ‘paralysis’ of Ireland is highlighted in the
story.
7.2.4.3 Gender Roles and Lack of Individual A utonomy : The female
protagonist of the story, Eveline is the victim of patriarchal set up. She is
giving her contribution in running their household. She represents a
working class woman. However, she used to receive subsidiary treatment
from her father. Her father wa s talking abusively with her; he steals her
wages and exploits her . Eveline’s role in the family is a caretaker only.
She cannot take her decisions. She was told by her father not to meet her
lover Frank.
7.2.5 Critical Aspects :
7.2.5.1 Narration: The story is narrated from third person point of view.
Sometimes it flashes back in past . The typical Irish mentality is presented
by the unknown narrator. The powerlessness and subsidiary position of
women are shown through the narration. Eveline used to rec ollect her
childhood memories associated with her siblings and mother. She reminds
the promise given to her dying mother. Her indecisiveness is presented in
the concluding part of the story.
7.2.5.2 Setting : Ireland in general and Dublin in particular is the setting of
the story ‘Eveline’. The protagonist of the story, Eveline was living with
her father and siblings in Dublin. Her past memories in Dublin are
narrated in the story. The typical ‘Dubliner’ mentality is presented in the
story. Eveline recollects her childhood memries with her siblings and her
mother, who is no more now.
7.3 ROALD DAHL AND HIS ‘LAMB TO THE
SLAUGHTER’
7.3.1 Introduction to Writer : Roald Dahl was born in Wales in 1916. His
father and older sister died of illness at an early age , leaving his mother to
raise him and his two other sisters. During his formative years in Wales
and later England, he experienced the violent cruelty of other students and
adults at school, a theme that emerges in works such as Matilda
and Witches . He was famous for children’s books. Dahl has written 19
novels, 13 short story collections, and seve ral autobiographies and scripts.
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49 Dahl is well -known for unexpected endings in his short stories. His
children's books have portrayed unsentimental, macabre , often darkly
comic mood, featurin g villainous adult enemies of the child characters.
His children's books champion the kind -hearted and feature an underlying
warm sentiment. His works for children include James and the Giant
Peach , Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , Matilda , The Witches ,
Fantastic Mr Fox , The BFG , The Twits , George's Marvellous Medicine
and Danny, the Champion of the World . His works for older audiences
include the short story collections Tales of the Unexpected and The
Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More .
7.3.2 Critical Analysis of the Story : ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ was written
in 1954 by Roald Dahl . It was initially rejected, along with four other
stories, by The New Yorker , but was published in Harper's Magazine in
September 1953. It was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock
Presents (AHP) that starred Barbara Bel Geddes and Harold J. Stone .
Originally broadcast on April 13, 1958, this was one of only
17 AHP episodes directed by Hitchcock .
‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ presents Dahl’ s fascination with horror (with
elements of black comedy ), which is seen in both his adult fiction and his
stories for children. The story was suggested to Dahl by his friend Ian
Fleming : “Why don't you have someone murder their husband with a
frozen leg of mutton which she then serves to the detectives who c ome to
investigate the murder?”
The story begins with Mary Maloney faithfully waiting for her
husband Patrick to come home from his job as a detective. Six months
pregnant and happy in her marriage, she eagerly watches the clock while
she sews. When Patrick arrives, she is ready to hang up his coat, prepare a
drink for him, and sit in silence with him as he rests. For Mary, who is
alone in the house during the day, this after -work ritual is one she looks
forward to. However, as Mary attempts to care for her husband, Patrick
brushes off her effo rts, drinks more than usual, and declares that he has
something to tell her. While a nervous Mary scrutinizes him, Patrick tells
her that he is leaving her. Though the narrator leaves out the details, it
becomes clear that Patrick still plans to take care of her financially but that
their marriage is over. Mary, who is in disbelief, decides to act as if
nothing has happened and fetches a frozen leg of lamb from the ce llar to
prepare their supper. When Patrick tells her not to bother and begins to
leave, Mary suddenly swings the frozen meat at the back of Patrick’s head
and kills him .
Once Mary realizes that her husband is dead, she thinks rapidly of how to
protect he rself and thus her unborn child from the penalty of murder. She
puts the meat into the oven, and while it begins to cook, she practices her
expression and voice, and then goes out to a nearby grocery store and
chats amiably with Sam, the grocer, about what she needs to buy for her
husband’s dinner. On her way home, she purposefully acts as if everything
is normal, and then is shocked to “discover” Patrick’s body on the floor
and begins to cry. Distraught, she calls the police, and two policemen, munotes.in

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50 Jack Noonan and O’Ma lley, friends and colleagues of Patrick, arrive.
Mary, maintaining her façade, claims that she went out to the store and
came back to find Patrick dead. As other detectives arrive and ask her
questions, her premeditated chat with Sam is revealed to be her alibi and
she is able to elude suspicion.
The policemen sympathize with Mary and attempt to comfort her. Despite
Sergeant Noonan’s offer to bring her elsewhere, Mary decides to stay in
the house while the police search for the murder weapon. Jack Noonan
reveals to Mary that the culprit probably used a blunt metal object and that
finding the weapon will lead to the murderer. After nearly three fruitless
hours of searching in and around the house for the weapon, the policemen
are no closer to finding the mur der weapon and never suspect that it could
be the frozen meat cooking in the oven. Mary is able to persuade the tired,
hungry, and frustrated policemen to drink some whiskey and eat the leg of
lamb that by now has finished cooking. As the men eat the evide nce in the
kitchen, Mary eavesdrops from another room, giggling when one of the
men theorizes that the murder weapon is “under our noses”.
7.3.3 Introduction to Characters :
7.3.3.1 Mary Maloney : The story’s protagonist, Mary Maloney is the
wife of Patrick Maloney, a detective. A happy and devoted housewife who
is six months pregnant with her first child, Mary spends much of her time
caring for and thinking about her husband while attending to domestic
tasks such as cooking and sewing. After Patrick reveals that he is leaving
her, however, Mary suddenly kills him with a frozen leg of lamb. She then
cunningly covers up the murder, using her role as an “innocent,”
supposedly -foolish housewife to trick the investigators.
7.3.3.2 Patrick Maloney (the hu sband) : The husband of Mary Maloney ,
Patrick Maloney is a police detective who cares more about his work than
his marriage. Despite Mary’s best attempts to make him comfortable and
care for him, he does not reciprocate her efforts or feeling. He callously
tells Mary that he has decided to abandon his marriage, and is then killed
by Mary herself with a frozen leg of lamb . Though the narrator explicitly
discusses Mary’s idolization of Patrick and his masculinity, Patrick’s
name is not revealed until halfway through the story, after he has already
died.
7.3.3.3 Jack Noonan : Jack Noonan is a sergeant and friend of the
Maloneys. Jack is one of the first officers to arrive at the scene of the
murder. Like the other officers on the case, he is sympathetic and
condescending towards Mary and does not suspect her of Patrick ’s murder
at all. Inste ad, he tries to comfort her and, along with his colleagues, is
persuaded by Mary to eat the leg of lamb , unaware that it is actually the
murder weapon.
7.3.3.4 Sam : Sam is the grocer who unwittingly becomes Mary ’s alibi.
After the murder, Mary chats casually and briefly with Sam, giving the
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51 store. Later, the police confirm her story with the grocer, who, like the
detectives, has been deceived by Mary.
7.3.4 Theme s
7.3.4.1 Gender and Marriage : Throughout the short story, Mary
Maloney is firmly situated in a patriarchal society —that is, a system in
which men hold more power than women politically, socially, and
economically. Historically, women have been often consigned to the
private sphere of domestic life, as they were deemed by men to be
intellectually and emotionally unfit for the public sphere outside of family
and home life. Men, on the other hand, were able to move through both
spheres, enjoying the comforts of domestic life provided by wives and
mothers while interacting with t he political and economic institutions of
the public arena.
Mary’s marriage is a perfect example of gendered hierarchy, as her entire
life revolves around that of her husband. While Patrick works in the public
sphere as a detective, Mary stays at home in the private domestic sphere,
working on her sewing and eagerly awaiting his return “after the long
hours alone in the house.” Once her husband arrives , all of her energy is
devoted to anticipating his needs. Fulfilling the duties of a stereotypical
housewife, Mary, demonstrates her affectionate submission by performing
various domestic tasks for her husband — for example, hanging up his
coat, making him drinks, offering to fetch his slippers and make supper —
despite the fact that she is six months pregnant and Patrick barely
acknowledges her efforts.
Like the society in which the story is set, Mary’s marriage is heavily
influenced by male or masculine dominance. The narrator explicitly
describes Mary’s love for her husband as an idolization of or subservience
to masculinity. Patrick’s return home is “blissful” for Mary not only
because she has been isolated in the house all day but also because she
“loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel —almost as a
sunbather feels the sun —that warm male glow that came out of him to her
when they were alone together.” Mary’s comparison of masculinity to the
sun, to a powerful celestial force indiffe rent to yet shining upon mere
humans, reinforces a gender hierarchy in which men are associated with
strength and perfection, and women with weakness and inferiority.
This male dominance also manifests in the lack of reciprocity in the
Maloneys’ marriage . Despite Mary’s repeated endearments of “Darling”
and attempts to make her husband more comfortable, Patrick responds
brusquely, without reciprocating her affection or acknowledging the effort
it must take her, as a heavily pregnant woman, to care for him and the
house. Furthermore, when Mary attempts to engage him in conversation or
requests that he eat s something, Patrick ignores her, but when he wishes to
speak to her, he orders her to “Sit down,” expecting her to submit as a dog
would to its master. Wh ereas Mary attends to both his physical and
emotional needs (preparing him drinks, offering him food, sympathizing
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52 creature to be “looked after” financially when he leaves her. Af ter
breaking the news of his imminent departure, he dismisses his wife’s
potential reactions and emotions as “fuss,” coldly asserting that it would
be bad for his job. Patrick’s privileging of his work over Mary stands in
stark contrast to the life she has built around him.
After Mary murders her husband, then, she is able to escape suspicion
partly because of her cleverness and partly because the policemen hold
traditional, patriarchal views of women as caregivers incapable of violence
or deceit. When Jack Noonan , a detective and friend of Patri ck, asks Mary
if she would prefer the company of her sister or of his own wife, he
reinforces the stereotype of women, and thu s of Mary, as caregivers.
When he explains to Mary what happened to Patrick, he implicitly
assumes the culprit is male, using masculine pronouns such as “him” and
“he” to describe the murderer. The detectives consider “impossible” the
idea that Mary has de ceived them all as well as Sam, the grocer who
unwittingly becomes her alibi.
7.3.4.2 Role Reversals: Dahl subjects his characters to various reversals
in their traditional roles. Most prominent of these role reversals is that
of Mary Maloney , whose act of murder defies the policemen’s
assumptions about her and about the culprit. By phys ically attacking her
husband, with a club -like weapon no less, Mary subverts gender
stereotypes and takes on the traditionally male role of violent attacker and
murderer. Her quick thinking and ability to deceive others causes the
policemen to sympathize w ith (and to some extent infantilize) her as if she
were a victim, despite the fact that she is actually the murderer.
Mary’s weapon of choice, a leg of lamb , is als o subject to role reversal in
the story and symbolizes her transformation. The lamb, often portrayed as
a gentle, sacrificial creature, is literally sacrificed as food, with its leg
frozen in the Maloneys’ cellar, waiting to be eaten. However, once Patrick
Maloney decides to leave his marriage, the lamb then becomes a tool for
violence, rather than a recipient of violence. This can also be seen in the
ironic wordplay of the story’s title, “Lamb to the Slaughter”: Mary’s
sudden violence renders Patrick the f igurative “lamb” to be slaughtered,
while the frozen leg of lamb is literally the instrument of slaughter.
Patrick Maloney’s role reversals are two -fold. First, in contrast to the
story’s early account of Mary’s infatuation with his masculinity and
power, Patrick is now “feminized” as the power in his marriage shifts to
his wife when she attacks and kills him. Second, his death then
undermines his role as a detective. Whereas previously his duties as a
detective would have entailed preventing the crime in the first place or
bringing the culprit to justice, now he unable to do so as he must fulfil the
role of murder victim.
Like Patrick, the other detectives in the story also switch roles, not by
becoming Mary’s victims but by serving as her unwitting acc omplices.
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53 policemen are persuaded by Mary to eat the leg of lamb, unaware that they
are assisting a murderer by destroying the evidence.
7.3.4.3 Food/Consumption : Much of ‘Lamb to the Slau ghter’ is occupied
with eating and food. At the beginning of the story, food is closely linked
to domesticity and marriage. Mary ’s repeated attempts to feed Patrick
demonstrate not only her affection for her husband but also the role she
plays as homemaker and housewife. Similarly, Patrick’s refusal to eat
Mary’s food is a rejection of that affection and foreshadows his rejection
of the domestic life Mary has built around him. Even after Patrick’s death,
food still is (or appears to be) associated with marriage, as Mary attempts
to maintain the façade of domes tic bliss by establishing her alibi of buying
Patrick’s food from Sam, the local grocer.
After Patrick tells Mary he is leaving her, food becomes a literal and
figurative wea pon. In the literal sense, food is weaponized when Mary
kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb , which is said by the narrator
to be as effective as a “steel clu b.” Metaphorically, food also works
against the other policemen, as they never suspect that Mary’s frozen meat
could be used as a weapon, and they begin to eat the evidence for which
they have been searching all night.
Just as the weaponization of food is both literal and metaphorical, so too is
the motif of consumption. Mary, a happy housewife, is consumed with her
marriage and her husband’s masculinity, and thus her role within a male -
dominated culture. Obsessed with domestic bliss, her entire life revol ves
around her husband. Patrick, on the other hand, is consumed with his
work. Though he is always tired because of his work as a detective, he
values his job more than he does his wife. After Patrick’s death, this
consumption becomes literal and possibly cannibalistic for the detectives,
who eat the murder weapon. As the detectives’ “thick and sloppy” mouths
wolf down the leg of lamb, the men fail to realize that it had been bashed
into Patrick’s skull and may even contain his blood. Whereas Patrick
Malone y was once consumed with his work, now he is consumed by his
work, or rather by his former friends and colleagues on the police force.
Like the men’s suspicion that the weapon is “right under our very noses,”
this is another example of the story’s ironic b lack humour .
7.3.4.4 Betrayal : Patrick ’s betrayal of his marriage drives the rest of the
story’s plot, leading to both his wife’s betrayal and that of his colleagues.
When he leaves his wife, Patrick betrays not only the love Mary has for
him but also the unborn child she is carrying and their private domestic
life together. At the sudden breakdown of her marriage and the world she
built around Patrick, Mary commits her own betrayal by killing her
husband. Covering up the murder primarily for the sake of her child, Mary
calls the police, maintaining a façade of inno cence and manipulating the
policemen to inadvertently commit a betrayal of their own. As they
investigate the murder, the policemen unknowingly betray both their
former colleague and their profession by drinking whiskey on the job and
by eating the evidenc e, ironically speculating in another example of
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54 noses.” Through this succession of betrayals, Dahl seems to be suggesting
that betrayal begets betrayal, that disloyalty and deception will only lead
to more treachery.
7.3.5 Critical Aspects :
7.3.5.1 Symbols - Lamb/Leg of lamb: Traditionally the lamb is portrayed
as a gentle submissive creature, associated with ritual or religious sacrifice
(especially in Judeo -Christian tradition). In this story, the figure of the
lamb takes on two roles: as both a victim and a source of violence or
sacrifice. Both Mary and her husban d Patrick take on the roles of
figurative lambs as they sacrifice each other. However, while Patrick
sacrifices Mary’s role as his wife by leaving the marriage, Mary sacrifices
Patrick’s life, killing him with a frozen leg of lamb. The transformation of
the lamb from an object of sacrifice to a tool of violence signals Mary’s
transformation from submissive housewife to violent killer, and resonates
in th e double meaning and black humour of the story’s title: whereas the
Maloneys are both lambs to be slaughtered figuratively or literally, the
lamb, or rather the frozen leg of lamb, is also used as an instrument of
slaughter. Once the policemen are called to investigate Patrick’s murder,
then, the lamb comes to represent both a sacrifice for the detectives (as
food) and a weapon against them (as that sacrifice as food entails the
destruction of evidence).
7.4 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Where was Eveline plannin g to go?
2. Who was Frank?
3. Describe the conflict of emotions experienced by Eveline on the day she
had decided to elope with Frank.
4. Describe father -daughter relation with reference to the ‘Eveline’.
5. Write a note on end of the story ‘Eveline’.
6. Write a note on indecisiveness on the part of Eveline.
7. Write a note on significance of the title ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’
8. Describe husband -wife relation with reference to ‘Lamb to the
Slaughter’
9. What does leg of lamb symbolize?
10. Character s ketch of Mary Maloney
11. Describe ‘Role Reversals’ in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’
12. Write a note on ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ as a detective story.
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55 7.2 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Joyce, James . “Eveline”. Dubliners .1914. Penguin Books, 1992.
Lee, Sophia. "Lamb to the Slaughter Plot Summary." LitCharts. LitCharts
LLC, 8 Dec 2016. Web. 17 Apr 2023.
Webliography
https://interestingliterature.com
https://ncert.nic.in/textbook/pdf/lekl102.pdf
https://www.britannica.com/biography/James -Joyce
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eveline
https://www.classicshorts.com/stories/lamb.html
https://www.litcharts.com/lit/lamb -to-the-slaughter


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56 8
SHORT STORIES - II
Unit Structure:
8.0 Objectives
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Graham Green and his ‘The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen ’
8.3 Angela Carter and her ‘The Courtship of Mr. Lyon ’
8.4 Check Your Progress
8.5 Bibliography
8.0 OBJECTIVES
This Unit aims at making the learners familiar with:
 Graham Greene and his ‘The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen’
 Angela Carter and her ‘ The Courtship of Mr. Lyon ’
8.1 INTRODUCTION
Graham Greene and Angela Carter are important writers of the 20th
century. They are known for their novels and short stories that primarily
deal with common human experiences. Both of them delve deep into the
psyche of their characters and try to reveal the inner workings of their
minds.
8.2 GRAHAM GREEN AND HIS ‘THE INVISIBLE
JAPANESE GENTLEMEN ’
8.2.1 Introduction of Author: Henry Graham Greene, i.e.,
Graham Greene, was born on October 2, 1904, in Berkhamsted,
Hertfordshire, England. He was an English novelist, short -story
writer, playwright, and journalist whose nove ls dealt with life's
moral ambiguities in the context of contemporary political
settings. He moved to London and worked for The Times as a
copy editor from 1926 to 1930. Greene was a "cinematic"
writer of the twentieth century; most of his novels, as well as
many of his plays and short stories, have been adapted for film
or television. His writings can be divided into two genres:
suspense thrillers and literary philosophical writing. He died on
April 3, 1991, in Vevey, Switzerland. Following are his
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57 ● The Man Within (1929)
● Stamboul Train (1932)
● England Made Me (1935)
● A Gun for Sale (1936)
● The Confidential Agent (1939)
● The Power and the Glory (1940)
● The Heart of the Matter (1948)
● The Third Man (1949)
● Twenty -One Stories (1954)
● Loser Takes All (1955)
● Our Man in Havana (1958)
● In Search of a Character: Two African Journals (1961)
● The Comedians (1966)
● A Sort of Life (1971)
● The Honorary Consul (1973)
● Ways of Escape (1980)
● Monsignor Quixote (1982)
● Getting to know the General: The Story of an Involvement
(1984)
● The Tenth Man (1985)
● The Last Word (1990) (Short Stories)
● Twenty -one Stories (1954)
In 2007 , a selection of his letters was published as Graham
Greene: A Life in Letters . The unfinished manuscript The
Empty Chair , a murder mystery that G reene began writing
in 1926, was discovered in 2008.
8.2.2 Critical Analysis of the story:
The Saturday Evening Post published The Invisible Japanese
Gentlemen in November 1965. In March 1967, the story was munotes.in

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58 published in a collection of short stories. May We Borrow Your
Husband? The collection of stories is subtitled "And Other
Comedies of the Sexual Life," and it is noticeably lighter in
tone than much of Graham Greene's work. The Invisible
Japanese Gentlemen is a three -page short story with irony and
striking contrasts throughout. This is a very short narrative
about writing and observation skills. Throughout the story, the
narrator, who appears to be a writer, makes sarcastic or cynical
remarks about the young woman's ambition and youthful zeal.
He seems aged, despite being in his forties or fifties and far past
his prime.
8.2.3 Setting: It is set in a fashionable London restaurant and is
primarily a study of observation rather than action. The setting
is given from the very first line of the story, "There were eight
Japanese gentlemen having a fish dinner at Bentley's." Bentley's
is a Lon don restaurant where all the characters in the story are
dining. The group of eight Japanese people has no significant
impact on the character or the plot. They are still important in
the story because they help to contrast the narrator with the
young woma n and the couple with the Japanese themselves.
First, the Japanese emphasize the narrator's skill of observation,
which the young woman exaggerates but does not possess. It
has a strong link with the title The Invisible Japanese
Gentlemen in this regard, a nd the Japanese are employed for
sarcastic effect. On the other hand, while the Japanese may
represent interpersonal harmony, the couple signifies
interpersonal conflict.
This story is also not an exception to Greene's investigation of
the processes of rec ognition and alienation. The way people
interact, watch, and coexist raises a number of fundamental
questions about the individual's relationship to the world as a
whole.
The plot is easy, taking place in a matter of minutes and
confined to three tables in the restaurant's corner. The
characters remain settled and unmoving throughout the
narrative. The only movement is the narrator’s stare as he
examines the room. Conversation is almost non -existent since,
despite the fact that the girl and her fiancé conve rse a lot, they
rarely connect. Their interaction is fragmented, with unfinished
inquiries and remarks, unformulated responses, and irrelevant
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59 on men, especially financially, while the girl in th is story wants
to be financially independent. Her words repeatedly interact
with his as she tries to be heard, crying, "Darling, you don't
listen, do you?" They are always conversing at cross -purposes,
as if two separate discussions are taking place. Their attempt to
interact devolves into a battle of words in which both speak but
neither listens, and the link is forever severed.
The Japanese gentlemen of the title are indeed invisible to their
fellow diners. Their converse interrupts the other dialogues,
briefly distracting the narrator from his observations. Their
language, their "incomprehensible tongue," which is physically
located squarely between the couple and the narrator, physically
forces a distance between the major characters. Despite their
aggre ssive intrusion into the conversation, they go unnoticed,
"invisible" to the girl. She is so engrossed in her own attempts
to dominate the speech that she fails to notice the presence of
others.
Greene's story is a razor -sharp critique of how words may
isolate rather than connect, exposing the shaky bonds that bind
human to human and person to individual. Graham Greene's
The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen explores themes of hope,
failure, conflict, independence, innocence, and terror. The
narrative, taken fro m his Complete Short Stories collection, is
told in the first person by an unidentified narrator, and the
reader learns after reading it that Greene may be examining the
concept of hope. Bentley's girl believes that her novel, The
Chelsea Set, will perform well. She believes the hype that Mr
Dwight has given the book and has decided to spend six months
in St. Tropez writing another book. Her fiancé, on the other
hand, has real concerns, according to some detractors. He isn't
as sure as the girl that the boo k will be a success. If anything,
he is open -minded enough to accept the book's failure. As a
result, he tries to persuade the girl to take a job with his uncle.
This could be significant because the fiancé looks to want to
assist the girl. However, she is so enthralled by Mr. Dwight's
words that she feels she should be supporting her fiancé. This
could be significant since it adds conflict to the plot. The pair is
about to marry, but they haven't decided how they would
finance themselves in the future.
Greene could possibly be investigating the concept of
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60 on the advance and royalties from the book. Her intellect may
be influenced by the idea that the book must be a great success.
She believe s it will be purely dependent on Mr. Dwight's
opinion. If anything, the step allows the girl to assert her
individuality and become less dependent on her fiancé. This is
significant since, at the time the narrative was written, very few
women were independ ent of their husbands. The girl appears to
be empowered, yet this strength appears to be based purely on
the advance that Mr. Dwight has promised her. She is not
concerned about the book's success, although the narrator and
her fiancé are. The girl's fianc é desires greater stability in his
life. As a result, he is considering the job that his uncle has
offered him. The talk between the girl and her fiancé is
extremely interesting because the reader can sense the fiancé's
apprehension. He wants his forthcomi ng marriage to the girl to
be founded on something real, not on revenues for the girl's
book, which may or may not be paid. He does not doubt that the
book will be a success, but he is unwilling to take the risk. This
may imply a degree of innocence. The g irl can't think of
anything wrong with her book, which is rare for a writer. At
times, most writers have doubts about their abilities to compose
something worthy of publication. This is not the situation with
the young lady. She exudes confidence, mainly b ecause Mr.
Dwight believes in her writing ability.
The eight Japanese gentlemen who are also seated in the
restaurant could be significant. The narrator, as a writer, is
continuously studying them. Nonetheless, she fails to notice the
group of Japanese gen tlemen. If anything, the reader is left with
the impression that the girl's book will be a disaster, and any
goals or dreams she may have for a career as a writer will be
dashed. She was tested without her knowledge and failed the
test. The narrator, on th e other hand, has watched everyone in
the restaurant and communicated the knowledge to the reader.
As any writer does. The fact that her fiancé is so level -headed is
the one saving grace for the girl. He is thinking about the
future, while the female is fo cusing on the present. Mr.
Dwight's move on her stunned her. The reader is left with the
impression that the girl's feeling of empowerment in the
restaurant may be transitory.

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61 8.2.4 Characters:
8.2.4.1 The Young Woman: She had a thin blonde hair and
how she spoke showed that she studied in one of the best
schools of London.
8.2.4 .2 Her Fiancé: He was doomed and easy to control by
others.
8.2.4. 3 The Japanese Gentlemen: They spoke in their mother
tongue. They were having smiling faces and doing a lot of
bows.
8.2.4. 4 Narrator (author): He was a reflective person who
analysed different situations from what people spoke and
expressed physically.
8.2.4. 5 Mr. Dwight: A publishe r of the book written by the
young woman.
8.2.5 Critical Aspects:
8.2.5.1 Theme s:
8.2.5.1.1 Innocence and Overconfident: The short story The
Invisible Japanese Gentleman analyses the matter of innocence
in the sense that the young woman writer sincerely believed all
of Mr. Dwight's words. She is extremely confident in her
writing abilities. She mindlessly accepts all of the publisher's
instructions. This is evident when s he discusses modifying the
title of her first book according to Mr. Dwight's wishes.
Furthermore, she truly believed the entire flat compliments the
publisher had given her, so she was overconfident in her ability
as a writer.
8.2.5.1.2 Independency: As p reviously said, the woman writer
was flattered by the publisher's compliment on her skills. She
was convinced that she could earn enough money to be self -
sufficient. She is certain that her book will be a success. So she
could be financially independent.
8.2.5.2 Symbol ization : The eight Japanese Gentlemen
symbolize a girl's lack of self -consciousness in the story. The
girl was quite confident in her ability to observe and write. The
presence of Japanese gentlemen helped show her inability to
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62 gentleman in the story can be taken to symbolize the girl's lack
of self -consciousness.
8.3 ANGELA CARTER AND HER THE COURTSHIP OF
MR. LYON
8.3.1 Introduction of Author:
Angela Olive Stalker, author, writer, and professor, was born on
May 7, 1940, in Sussex, England. She lived with her
grandmother in Yorkshire during World War II. At the age of
20, she got married to Paul Carter in 1960. She received a
degree in English wi th a specialization in mediaeval literature at
the University of Bristol. Carter wrote regularly for the British
political weekly magazine, New Society . She divorced Paul
Carter in 1972. She worked as a reporter in Japan for three
years. Carter taught at B rown University in Providence, Rhode
Island. During this time, she settled down with Mark Pearce,
with whom she had a child, Alexander, in 1983. She died at the
age of 52 due to lung cancer in 1992. Following are her
important works:
Novels:
1. The Shadow Dance (1966)
2. The Magic Toyshop (1967) - won the John Llewellyn
Rhys prize
3. Several Perceptions (1968)
4. Hero and Villains (1969)
5. Love (1972)
6. The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972)
7. Wise Children (1991)
Short Story Collections:
1. Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974)
2. The Bloody Chamber (1979)
3. Black Venus (1985)
4. American Ghosts and Old World Wonders (1993)
5. Burning Your Boats (1995)

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63 8.3.2 Critical Analysis of story The Courtship of Mr. Lyon
The Courtship of Mr. Lyon is based on a classical story, Beauty
and the Beast , and told in the ‘once upon a time’ third person
common to traditional fairy tales. Carter's classic backdrop of
basic story and narration emphasizes her tale's
unconventionality with its feminist themes and plot reversal.
Like many of Carter's stories, far from being 'classic,’ The
Courtship of Mr. Lyon is a tale of self -discovery and rejection
of female objectification. We need to see Beauty and the Beast
as diametrically opposing forces, with Beauty being feminine,
beautiful, innocent , and gentle while the Beast being masculine,
ugly, experienced, and wild. As per the original tale, the two
sides of this duality are irreconcilable. The author’s characters
are more 'ambiguous.' The story begins in this manner, but she
swiftly reverses i t. Beauty begins as an impoverished, helpless
girl who is forced to live in the Beast's mansion by the affluent,
powerful, and world -weary Beast.
She, on the other hand, quickly becomes an even more active,
experienced, and daring character. While the Beas t remains
hidden from the rest of society, she is confident enough to live a
high-profile life in the city. While she is initially afraid of him,
she soon realizes that he is actually afraid of her. Carter uses
symbolism in The Courtship of Mr. Lyon to emp hasize her main
feminist agenda. She employs a paradigm commonly found in
literature, distinguishing the city as a masculine place of
experience and corruption and the country as a feminine one of
inexperience and purity. However, she uses this literary
convention to undermine a gender convention. The Beast is
trapped in isolation in the country, while Beauty has free range
in the city. They are both unhappy when they are limited to
being in one place. These characters need to access both their
masculine and feminine attributes in order to be happy. The
country is so innocent or devoid of activity that it weakens the
Beast almost to the point of death. The city is so worldly and
full of superficial interactions that it hardens Beauty and begins
to replace he r inner beauty with a spoiled, false air. The author
uses the city and country as symbols to strengthen her
contention that a person needs to be both masculine and
feminine to have an authentic and fulfilled existence. Carter
utilizes food as an equalizer since it represents both animal and
human nature. They need nourishment to survive. Initially, food
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64 food out fo r Beauty's father, he demonstrates humanity by
being considerate to his guest. It's the same with Beauty; he
may be a lion that eats raw meat, but he gives her the best
human food. At the end of the story, food governs animal
nature.
The Beast is dying bec ause he isn't eating, just as humans can
die of malnutrition because we are animals as well. Beauty
reveals herself to be more than a standard fairy tale heroine, yet
she belongs to the paradigm at first. She, like many of Carter's
heroines, must begin wit hin and eventually break free from
patriarchal society's constraints and expectations. While living
with the Beast, Beauty finds enjoyment in reading fairy tales.
Beauty, while living in a modern world with telephones and
automobiles, seemed to believe in the traditional ‘happily ever
after.' Her request for a single white rose expresses her desire
for conventionality; the rose represents her chastity and
delicateness.
The author describes Beauty as the pristine snow on which she
gazes to emphasize her femininity, innocence, and virginity. By
referring to the snowy road as ‘white and unmarked as a spilled
bolt of bridal satin,’ Carter appears to imply that Beauty's
distinctiveness comes from her soft femininity and that her
destiny is marriage. Beauty may be attached to a demeaning
society, but her innocence empowers her. She is pure of mind
enough to see past its conventional dichotomies and claim her
own destiny, as she does at the end of the story. In fact, Carter
clearly tells us early on that Beauty has "a will of her own'. She
empowers herself by agreeing to live with the Beast because
she is choosing to move out of her duty as a kid and act as a
protector for her fa ther. He is the embodiment of masculine
authority as a lion, the "king of beasts,' strong, confident, and
gruff. This appears to be true of the Beast when we first meet
him. His rage fills the house with ‘furious light,’ and he roars
with the strength of ‘ a pride of lions.' He has the strength to
"shake" Beauty's father like an angry child shakes a doll... until
his teeth rattle. However, it soon becomes clear that the Beast's
strength is a barrier to human interaction. When he speaks,
Beauty wonders ‘how [ she can] converse with the possessor of
a voice that seemed an instrument created to inspire...Terror.’
Beauty is afraid of his hard tongue the first time he kisses her
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65 The Beast is so self -conscious about his appearance that his
spaniel is his only company before Beauty. By the end of the
story, we see how the Beast's loneliness causes him to become
weak and inactive. Beauty's absence weakens him to the point
where he can't even eat himself, and he ne arly dies of misery.
Beauty is still a lovely woman at the end of the story, but she is
energetic and brave; she is a hybrid of Beauty and the Beast. So
is the Beast, who retains traces of his leonine appearance even
after transforming into a gentle human. He also keeps the name
Lyon, which represents his old identity. When Beauty marries
him, she assumes his name. Taking one's husband's name can
be interpreted as a sign of submission, but in this case it is an
acknowledgement of Beauty's own masculinity. S he is
demanding her proper title because she, too, is a powerful
Lyon.
8.3.3 Characters:
8.3.3. 1 Beauty: Beauty is the heroine of "The Courtship of Mr.
Lyon." She is beautiful and kind, and her love, freely given,
transforms Mr. Lyon back into a human. Be auty in 'The
Courtship of Mr. Lyon' is a worrier, an obedient daughter who
becomes a spoiled child. In the end, however, she is redeemed
as a prodigal daughter. She transfers her love for her father to
the Beast so she can come home. She is clearly manipul ated,
first by her father and then by Mr. Lyon; though she
demonstrates little independent will, she surrenders it to him.
Her most defining characteristic is her desolating emptiness.
8.3.3. 2 Mr. Lyon/ Beast: He is a massive lion -like beast who
fiercely shakes Beauty's father and throws him to the ground
while yelling that he is "the Beast" and the father is a thief. He
is quick -tempered and easily enraged. He is angry at himself for
what he has done, but he ta kes it out on others. Regardless, he
has inner beauty. Mr. Lyon in The Courtship of Mr. Lyon is a
wealthy recluse beast who has no staff. Beauty's love restores
him to his human form.
8.3.3. 3 Beauty’s father: Beauty's father is a ruined gentleman
who takes temporary shelter in a grand, and apparently empty,
mansion, from whose garden he plucks a white rose to take to
his daughter as a present. Beauty's father is trapped in car
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66 Courtship of Mr. Lyon . Mr. Lyon assists him in regaining his
riches, while Beauty stays at Mr. Lyon's residence.
8.3.4 Critical Aspects:
8.3.4. 1 Narrative style: This is a pastiche of the fairy tale
'Beauty and the Beast'. It uses third -person narrative style: 'He
drew his head back and peered at her'. However, there are
excerpts in first -person: "All he is doing is kissing my hands'.
This provides the idea that this is not a subjective story.
However, fragments of first -person narration show that it is
partly subjective in some areas, making the reader feel sorry for
the Beast.
8.3.4. 2 Transformation : Many of Angela Carter's characters
undergo literal transformations —from animal to human or
human to animal. Others go through a metaphorical
transformation. A transition represents the duality of human
nature and the resulting inner turmoil. In The Courtship of Mr.
Lyon , Beauty's love, offered freely rather than out of
responsibility to the patriarchy, transforms Mr. Lyon back into
a human.
8.4 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
1. Write a note on Graham Green as a writer.
2. Write a bio -literary sketch of Angela Carter.
3. Discuss the themes of the short story, ‘The Invisible Japanese
Gentlemen ’
4. Comment on the thematic concerns of Angela Carter in her short story,
‘The Courtship of Mr. Lyon ’.
8.5 BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Bergonzi, Bernard, 2006. A Study in Greene: Graham Greene and the
Art of the Novel . Oxford University Press.
 Cloetta, Yvonne, 2004. In Search of a Beginning: My Life with
Graham Greene , translated by Euan Cameron. Bloomsbury.
 Fallowell, Duncan, 20th Century Characters , Loaded: Graham Greene
at home in Antibes (London, Vintage Books, 1994)
 Greene, Richard, editor, 2007. Graham Greene: A Life in Letters .
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67  Hill, Rosemary (22 October 2016). "The Invention of Angela Carter: A
Biog raphy by Edmund Gordon – review". The Guardian.
 Gordon, Edmund (1 October 2016). "Angela Carter: Far from the
fairytale". The Guardian .
 Michael Dirda, "The Unconventional Life of Angela Carter - prolific
author, reluctant feminist, The Washington Post , 8 March 2017.

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