LitSIG Bridges Issue #2_2017

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IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

Contents From the Editors ........................................................................................................................ 3 Wordsworth and the nature of childhood................................................................................... 4 Coral Mirasierra Torres The imagery and symbolism in Coleridge‘s ―Rime‖ ................................................................. 8 Rebecca Gautier Orwell‘s Homage to Catalonia: In Between the Factual and the Literary .............................. 11 Marta Ciprés Garcia Nature and technology in Tolkien‘s Middle-Earth .................................................................. 23 Diego Vera Repollés Parentification in Sons and Lovers .......................................................................................... 30 Johanna van Zwet Why should things be easy to understand? Reading The Crying of Lot 49 ............................. 34 Robert Versteegen The tragic-comic in The Merchant of Venice .......................................................................... 51 Anais Munoz Donaire Tyrannical power in Othello and The Winter’s Tale ............................................................... 55 Eduardo Lima

Cover: Zaragoza Bridge Pavillion by Zara Hadid.

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Cover photo: Wikipedia Creative Commons

IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

From the Editors

From Carel It is once more a great pleasure to provide readers with the work of students that would otherwise never have reached an audience greater than the teacher or teachers rating and marking it. There is diversity in the following pages, but also continuity in the sense that a number of essays on Shakespeare and his works have been included, following the thread of the first issue. I hope once more this initiative is received well and that we will be able to casts our nets even wider next time, bringing in essays from all over the world.

Carel Burghout, LitSIG

From Chris This second issue of Bridges is coming out after the British Prime Minister triggered Article 50 that will lead to the UK leaving the European Union. For me this issue is to a certain extent an act of defiance against separatism and the creation of mechanisms that set us asunder instead of bringing us together. This issue opens with articles from Spanish and French students who have come to the UK in the Erasmus programme to study literature and the English language. Towards the middle of the publication you will find articles by Dutch students who have been reading and writing about literature in English in their own country.

This is our way of saying that we embrace Europe and reject barriers that try to keep us apart.

This issue closes with two papers on Shakespeare, who continues to be a source of inspiration and critical thinking beyond the 2016 Anniversary galore. The first is by a former Erasmus student from Spain on The Merchant of Venice, a play that deals with prejudices against people from other races and religious beliefs. In the second article, the author invites us to think about the factors that lead to abuse of power and tyranny in Othello and The Winter’s Tale. Shakespeare once again proves to be more relevant than never. Happy reading!

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Chris Lima, LitSIG Coordinator

IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

Wordsworth and the nature of childhood Coral Mirasierra Torres

University of Extremadura, Spain / University of Leicester, UK

William Wordsworth defined poetry in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads as ―the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity‖ (Wordsworth and Coleridge, 2013, p. 95). Wordsworth together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Blake were the first generation of the Romantic poets (Forward, 2016, online). The term Romantic could create images of romantic love and deep feelings, but in fact the Romantic poets were also concerned with war, revolution, nature, the lives of ordinary people, and everyday life. They truly believed in the powers of the imagination and the power of the natural world, and encouraged people to explore new landscapes to forget their difficulties and circumstances (Pite, 2003). The Romantics were the first to redefine the natural world as a redemptive and spiritual force. The objective of this paper is to comment on two poems published in the Lyrical Ballads, and analyse Wordsworth‘s reactions to the natural world. The two selected poems are Anecdote for Fathers and We are Seven. Both poems depict children who are repeatedly questioned by an adult.

Anecdote for Fathers is concerned with a conversation between the narrator, an adult, and his child while they are walking. The narrator asks the child, called Edward, if he prefers their former home or their new one (lines 29-32). The child answers that he prefers their former one because the new one does not have a weather-cock (lines 35-36 and line 55). The poem is preceded by the sentence Retine vim istam, falsa enim dicam, si coges – Eusebius which means ―Restrain that vigour of yours, for if you compel me I will tell lies‖.

Wordsworth included this quote before the poem because he was worried about how to stop the son of a friend telling lies. Finally, he concluded that it was better not to ask them too many questions because after all they are just children.

Anecdotes for Fathers is composed of fifteen stanzas with four lines in each stanza.

The rhyme pattern is ABAB and the poem is written in iambic-tetrameter. There is alliteration in the first stanza ―face, fair and fresh‖ (line 2) and a kind of parallelism in the

written in a colloquial ―morn‖ (line 5) and simple language. Wordsworth and the Romantic IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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took him by the arm‖ and ―I said and held-him by the arm‖ (lines 26 and 30). The poem is

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sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth stanza ―Liswyn farm‖ (lines 24, 28, 32 and 36), ―I said and

poets in general wanted their poems to be read and comprehended by ordinary people so that poems serve as a refuge from their everyday difficulties and afflictions (Pite, 2003, p. 181).

Anecdotes for Fathers is mainly concerned with childhood. The Romantics usually perceived childhood in a positive light, and associated it with states of innocence, creativity and freedom (Macgavran, 1998). In the poem, the narrator asks the child five times why he prefers one place to another ―Why Edward, tell me why?‖ (line 48), and expects a rational and logical answer to this question . However, ―Edward‖ (line 37) is just a child and these questions are meaningless to him, he cannot critically compare the two places and give to this father a rational answer. The child is guided by an emotional point of view and produces an answer that it is what his father wants to hear ―There surely must some reason be‖ (line 42).

According to Macgavran (1998), the Romantics maintained that children are born innocent, but through the interaction with the society and the world they became depraved. In this poem there is a clear example of the child‘s innocence being corrupted. Edward‘s innocence can be seen when he says ―I cannot tell, I do not know‖ (line 39). The child seems to be forced to provide an answer to his father‘s question but he cannot think rationally because he is just five years old. The narrator could have encouraged his child to make up a lie ―At Kilve there was no weather-cock‖ (line 55) and this could mean that the father has already corrupted his child to some extent. It is in the final stanza that the lesson of this poem lays ―Of what from thee I learn‖ (line 60). The father realizes that his child told a lie because he did not want to hurt him (Gaul, 1979). The poem seems to emphasize that it is not possible to ignore the importance of natural feelings, in this case the child‘s nature and its innate innocence (Reynolds, 2016).

The second poem, We are Seven, constists of a dialogue between the narrator and a ―cottage girl‖ (line 5). The narrator asks the girl how many children are in her family, but even though two are dead, two are in Conway and two are at sea, the little girl insists on the fact that they are seven. The poem could be seen as a profound comment on the child‘s incomprehension of the concept of death. We are Seven seems to be the intended companion piece to Anecdote for Fathers since both are concerned with the childhood nature and its limits.

We are Seven is composed of sixteen four-line stanzas, and ends with a five-line

for instance ―Seven in all‖ (line 15) ―Seven are we:‖ (line 18) ―We are seven‖ (line 64) to IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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pattern is ABCCB. The poem is written in iambic-meter. There is repetition of some phrases,

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stanza. The rhyme pattern is ABAB except for the last five-line stanza where the rhyme

emphasize the fact that the girl‘s siblings are still with her. There is also the repetition of conjunctions ―And then she went away‖ (line 52) ―And, when the grass was dry‖ (line 54); this is called polysyndeton. As happens to the previous poem, this poem is written in simple and everyday language but it conveys a profound and complex idea: the confrontation of childhood and death (Blank, 1995).

It is interesting to mention that the poem could have been written in just a few lines since it involves a normal question ―How many may you be?‖ (line 15), and this question requires a simple answer. However, it is 69 lines long because the adult is exasperated with the child‘s answer. He cannot accept that the girl still believes that they are seven siblings if two of them are dead, and therefore he keeps asking her the question ―Sweet Maid, how this may be?‖(line 28). The child‘s innate innocence does not allow her to understand the concept of death the narrator wants her to comprehend (Blank, 1995). The Romantics connected the concept of childhood with a group of positive qualities such as creativity, imagination and innocence (Mcgavran, 1998). Therefore, the girl‘s creativity and imagination helps her come to the conclusion that they are seven siblings and she explains it to the narrator ―Two of us in the church-yard lie‖ (line 31) ―My stocking there I often knit, My kerchief there I hem‖ (lines 41-42). It is not just the fact that she does not admit that her siblings are dead, but the girl talks about ―Jane‖ (line 49) as if she and her brother John could play with her ―And, when the grass was dry, Together round her grave we played‖ (line 55). It is also significant that the girl does not use the word ―dead‖ when she is explaining where her siblings are. On the contrary, she uses the green colour ―Their graves are green, they may be seen‖ (line 37) which is associated with life, vitality and hope. The girl‘s innocent nature is incapable of admitting the idea of loss (Blank, 1995). In the last stanza, the narrator still persists in the idea of loss ―those two are dead!‖ (line 65) but the girl does not provide the answer he wants to hear ―Nay, we are seven!‖ (line 60). The child refuses to feel devastated by the grief of her siblings thus giving to her answer a religious and metaphysical dimension; she uses her childish imagination to overcome the standard notion of death ―And there upon the ground I sit, And sing a song to them‖ (lines 43-44).

To conclude, both poems discuss the Romantic perception of childhood and its limits.

In the first one the child is supposed to provide a logical and rational answer, and in the

are associated with children‘s nature are innocence, freedom, imagination, spontaneity and, to IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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and logical thinking and death are beyond the limits of childhood; the positive attributes that

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second one a little girl is confronted with the concept of death and the idea of loss. Rational

a certain extent, wisdom. In these two poems, the children utilise these attributes to prevent being corrupted by their experience of the world.

References Blank, G. K. (1995) Wordsworth and Feeling: The Poetry of an Adult Child. New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

Forward, S. (2016) Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians. [online] The British Library. Available at: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-romantics [Accessed 30 Nov 2016].

Macgavran, J. H. (1998) Literature and the Child: Romantic Continuations, Postmodern Contestations. Iowa: University of Iowa Press.

Pite, R., (2003) ‗Wordsworth and the natural world‘. In: S. Gill, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 180-195.

Reynolds, K. (2016) Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians [online] The British Library. Available at: < https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/perceptions-ofchildhood> [Accessed 30 Nov 2016] Wordsworth, W. and Coleridge, S. T., (2013) Lyrical Ballads 1798 and 1802. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  The Author

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Coral Mirasierra Torres is an English Language and Literature at the University of Extremadura, Spain. She was an Erasmus student at the University of Leicester in 2016.

Coral is particularly interested in the influence of Classical tradition on English literary works. In the future, she intends to do a PhD on the influence of Greek and Latin epic poetry in Beowulf. Email: cmirasie@alumnos.unex.es

IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

The imagery and symbolism in Coleridge’s “Rime” Rebecca Gautier Université d'Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse, France / University of Leicester, UK

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge was published in 1798 in the Lyrical Ballads (Coleridge, 1967, pp. 7-32), along with poems from William Wordsworth. This collection of poems appeared at the very end of the 18th century and is largely considered as one of the works that launched the Romantic Movement in English literature. As argued by Wordsworth in the Preface, the purpose of the authors was to break away with the expectations of their time, reconnect themselves to Nature, and promote the ideals of the French Revolution. Both authors shared a dislike for industrialization and took the side of Nature against machines. Coleridge is well-known for his use of symbols in his works throughout his career as poet, critic and man of letters (McKusick, 2002) and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” can be seen as the epitome of symbolism in his poetry. The “Rime” is arguably his most famous poem; it is full of strong imageries and symbols which are interesting to analyse. This ballad is about a Mariner who tells his story to a weddingguest. In this tale, the Mariner narrates how he and his crew were cursed after he shot an albatross during their journey on the sea. In this article, I focus on two major symbols: first, the Albatross as a religious symbol; and then the Sun and the Moon, which bring rhythm and duality into the poem.

It is interesting to know that, at first, Coleridge was to write this poem with Wordsworth, but the latter did not really understand the meaning behind the poem and saw it as “a crime that revolves around the killing of an albatross, and the consequent persecution of a wandering life in a ship of ghoulish horror” (Perry, 2016, online). It demonstrates that, even though the two authors were close, Coleridge’s attachment to symbolism was personal and not necessarily shared by his friend. The symbol of the Albatross is probably the most significant in the poem. The bird is mentioned as early as line 61 and Coleridge uses a capital “A” to emphasize its importance. The mariner also uses the lexical field of religion with “Christian Soul” and “God’s name”, connecting the bird with God. The same lexical field is

poem is the last line of the first part: “I shot the Albatross”. This complicating action is the IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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importance of religion in the poem. The line which changes everything in the tone of the

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used throughout the ballad with words such as “heaven”, “pray”, “Christ”, emphasizing the

crucial point of the tale, where everything goes worse for the Mariner and his crew. This action can be seen as a “symbolic reference to the Fall” (Warren, 1946, p. 398) where the Mariner stands for Adam and Eve and the Albatross for the fruit. His action is at the same time a “crime against Nature”, and a “crime against God” (Warren, 1946, p.398) and it is emphasized when the mariner tells that “Instead of the Cross the Albatross about my neck was hung” (lines 137-138). The Albatross takes hence the place of the crucified Christ around the Mariner’s neck.

The “Rime” is a narrative poem that tells “the story of someone who does something terrible for reasons unknown and pays for it” (Perry, 2016). As readers, we do not understand why the Mariner killed the bird but we see the consequences of his crime as a lesson: this lesson is for the “wedding-guest” and for every person who hears the story. Killing the bird was at the same time a murder and a betrayal because “the bird […] lov’d the man who shot him” (lines 409-410) and that is why the Mariner is severely punished. The Albatross is omnipresent in the poem, it is mentioned in almost every part either as “the Bird” or “the Albatross”: it is a recurrent element, thus emphasizing its importance and showing how the murder has led to a terrible curse for the Mariner and his crew. What started as a “good omen” when the crew fed the Bird finished in horror as “their souls did from their bodies fly” (line 212). It is important to note that Coleridge had a pantheistic vision of the world: a way of seeing God in every aspect of Nature. He thought that the “relevance” of the Bible to daily life was only to be interpreted “rigorously” (McKusick, 2002). Knowing his point of view, it is logical to see the Albatross as a symbol of a God present in all things.

However, the Albatross is not the only symbol in the poem. Indeed, the Sun and the Moon can also be considered as symbols that suggest a strong duality in the ballad. During a sojourn in Malta in 1805, Coleridge felt isolated and looked at the sky at night. “The image of the moon present[ed] itself as the answer to an unformulated question, the response to a calling-forth of his lonely soul to the beckoning universe” (McKusick, 2002, p. 221). Even though this event happened after Coleridge had written “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, it reaffirms his pantheistic vision of the world and highlights the moon as an important element for him. The moon is opposed to the sun in the poem, adding a certain duality: day against

reader by adding a temporal dimension. At the beginning of the tale, the Sun “shone bright” IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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capital letters, emphasizing their importance. They give rhythm to the ballad and help the

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night, light against dark, evil against good. The Sun and the Moon are also mentioned with

and is personified by being referred as “he” instead of “it” (Coleridge, 1967, l.31). This first positive image of a shining sun is followed by the “Storm” that comes and changes the weather and the atmosphere of the poem until eventually the moon appears in “white moonshine” (Coleridge, 1967, line 77). The same verb “shine” is used both for the sun and the moon in the first part of the poem, and they mark the beginning and the end marking a certain duality but also a strong connection between them.

In the second part of the poem, the sun is no longer used with the verb “shine”, as if the murder of the Albatross had stopped it from ever shining again. Instead, the adjective “bloody” is used to describe it, along with “hot” and “copper” (lines107-108) for the sky: the colour red and the word “blood” bring back the crime committed by the Mariner. The moon is mentioned two lines after as an opposition. In the third part of the poem, the Sun is associated with the word “burning”, a strong and significant verb that prepares us for the suffering and pain to come while the Moon is “horned” (Coleridge, 1967, p. 14), a weird association of words that perhaps refers to the horns of the devil. From then on, the Moon becomes the major element overcoming the Sun, as if there was only night and darkness for the Mariner until the end of part five when he is discovered. The Moon then changes and becomes “glittering”, the same image changing from darkness to comforting. The fact that the Sun and the Moon change throughout the poem helps the reader understand better the Mariner’s feelings, as if they were connected to the weather. For Warren (1946, p. 409), the sun is the “light of practical convenience” while “the moonlight equates with the modifying colours of the imagination” (p. 404). The sun is something known and familiar while the moon is the connexion and the result of imagination between Men and Nature. The sun and the moon are thus important symbols in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, bringing duality, temporal associations as well as a reflection of the poet’s beliefs. Although the Sun and the Moon they are not the only symbols in the poem, their omnipresence in the poem makes the reader particularly focus on them.

To conclude, the Albatross is first seen as a symbol of hope, but its deeper meaning is found in its connexion with God and religion. As for the Sun and the Moon, there are

well-known nowadays and arouses the interest of many artists thanks to its imagery and symbols. For instance, it has been put to music by Iron Maiden (Harris, 1984) in a song that IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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and rhythm to the poem. Although the “Rime” has been written a long time ago, it is still very

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multiple possible readings of their deeper meaning but they certainly give a sense of duality

summarises the poem and brings it to a whole new audience. The “Rime” has been read by the generations making it one of the most famous poems of the English literature.

References Harris, S., 1984. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Iron Maiden: Powerslave. EMI. McKusick, J. C., 2002. Symbol. In: L. Newlyn, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 217-230.

Perry, S., 2016. An introduction to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The British Library. [online] Available at: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-tothe-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner (Accessed: 10 December 2016).

Warren, R. P., 1946. “A Poem of Pure Imagination (Reconsiderations VI)”. The Kenyon Review, 8(3), pp. 391-427. Available at: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy3.lib.le.ac.uk/stable/4332773 (Accessed: 8 December 2016).

Wordsworth, W., Coleridge, S. T., Owen, W. J. B., 1967. Lyrical Ballads. London: Oxford University Press.  The Author

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Rebecca Gautier is an English Literature and Civilisation student at the University of Avignon, Pays de Vaucluse. She was an Erasmus student at the University of Leicester in 2016/2017. Rebecca is particularly interested in the impact of literature on both American and English modern societies. In the future she intends to teach English Literature and Civilisation. Email: gautier.rebecca@outlook.fr

IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia: In Between the Factual and the Literary Marta Ciprés García Universidad Zaragoza, Spain

Introduction George Orwell decided to visit Spain as a journalist during the Civil War. Once there, he joined the militia to experience war from the inside and soon he noticed a clear manipulation of the events, especially by the British press. He wrote Homage to Catalonia in order to throw light on some aspects of the Spanish Civil War. He narrates his experiences at the front at the same time as he provides factual details of the situation. This is a mainly autobiographical book, written with a didactic and informative aim. However, the book contains perceptible literary strategies to catch the reader‘s attention and to relate the story in an aesthetic and pleasant mood. Homage to Catalonia is then an autobiographical account in between the factual and the literary but, to what extent is it considered a piece of journalism or a work of literature?

Orwell, the Militant Homage to Catalonia is a semi-biographical story based on Orwell‘s own experiences, both as a militia-man at the front line and as a British war correspondent. As Woodcock (1996, p.

159) states, ―the impulse to render his own experiences into some meaningful form was in fact much stronger in him than the impulse to invent original situations and sequences of events‖. Orwell‘s original intention was to visit Spain and, especially, the front, as a war correspondent and record as much information about the events as it was possible for him to do. However, it is easy to believe that he went there with some desire to join in (Woodcock, 1996, p. 114). It must be said that George Orwell‘s political ideas changed over the years, according to the experiences he lived through. At the time of his death, it was known that he was not only a convinced socialist but also a strong opponent to Communism. He considered the Soviet Union to be ―a new form of class society, oligarchic or bureaucratic collectivism‖

Orwell saw in the Spanish Civil War a utopian context in which he could experience some of IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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being an active member of any party, he went to Spain at the outbreak of the Civil War.

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(Newsinger, 1999: ix). As a supporter of the Labour Government in Britain, and without

his revolutionary ideas. The Spanish Civil War, as he also explained in Homage to Catalonia (1938), was seen from the outside as an opportunity to fight against Fascism, a term that was associated by foreigners with Hitler and Totalitarian regimes.

Orwell considered the plan of joining the ―militia‖ the only reasonable thing to do to be faithful to his values and, as his references were from the ILP (Independent Labour Party) in England, he joined the POUM (Workers‘ Party of Marxist Unification) unit, since both parties were affiliated, becoming part of the militia in the Aragon-front (Orwell, 1938:4).

Subsequent to this experience, which undoubtedly marked his life and turned his prose more political, he wrote the book Homage to Catalonia, one year after he left Spain. As Orwell describes in the book, his diaries and camera were confiscated by the Communist police.

Thus, he wrote it almost without any records as his ―experiences in Spain had been so intense that he was able to live through them again in the light of the inner eye, and to transfer them to the page‖ (Woodcock, 1996:112).

The book is, then, an autobiographical narration of Orwell‘s participation in the Spanish War, motivated by his intention to fight against Franco and Fascism. The experience of Orwell the militant provides the raw material, the historical facts that make up Homage to Catalonia.

The emphasis on the factual is also characteristic of the second persona in the book.

Orwell, the Journalist and Political Analyst George Orwell was always very much influenced by his job as a journalist. He was highly concerned with finding the best style of writing and with revealing the truth of the event as precisely as possible. Homage to Catalonia presents reality through a narration based on verifiable events, accurate descriptions and an apparent objectivity, as happens in A Hanging.

Both stories seem to be factual and it is impossible to know to what extend Orwell added some fictional elements (Lodge, 1977, p. 10).

In his essay ―Why I Write‖ (1946), Orwell states that there are four main reasons why authors decide to carry out their task. These reasons are denominated ―sheer egoism‖, ―aesthetic enthusiasm‖, ―historical impulse‖ and ―political purpose‖. They correspond, in equal order, to the desire to be remembered along the years, the perception of beauty in the external world

they should support (Orwell, 1946). Every author, according to the experiences lived, Orwell explained, will focus more on one or another. Orwell clarified that the first three reasons were IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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the desire to put the world into some direction and alter people‘s idea of the kind of society

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and its transmission to writing, finding out facts and storing them for the use of posterity and

more important for him, but he also explained that after he survived the Spanish Civil War (1936-37) every work he did was invariably against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism. As he stated, one could not avoid those subjects in the period he was living.

Nevertheless, what Orwell offered in his novel is ―decency‖ rather than a historical impulse, a concept very much in need in a world moved by individual interests and sympathies (Lucas, 2003, p. 134).

Orwell‘s political ideas were not consistent during his life but changed according to the circumstances experienced. Orwell was in his youth a well-educated man belonging to the conventional middle-class. His family tradition pushed him to join the Imperial Police service in Burma (Newsinger, 1999: x). It was in that place where he comprehended the whole meaning of colonialism and he developed a strong anti-Imperialist sentiment at his return to England. At the beginning of the year 1936, he was sent by his editor to immerse himself in the lives of the northern England miners‘ life. This fact is of vital importance for Orwell, who became aware of the working class condition. Nevertheless, although these experiences contribute to the development of Orwell‘s political values, they gave him a puzzling political orientation. It was his immersion in the Spanish militia that leads him to fully develop his political ideology, which coincides with his creative maturity (Orwell and Davison et al., 2003:13).

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was a conflict between the Republican Government and the so-called ―Nationalists‖, rebel conservative people fighting for the control of the country. The International aid was divided; the Soviet Union supported the republican side while Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supported the Nationalists. With the desire to make the trip to Spain in order to experience what was occurring, Orwell sought help from the British Communist Party but they denied it. The reason is not difficult to imagine since his political ideas were still vague and he had no intention of becoming a member of any political party. Orwell, a man in possession of many contacts, then came to the Independent Labour Party in England. There they provided him with a recommendation letter to join the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM - Spanish: Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista; Catalan: Partit Obrer d'Unificació Marxista), under the thought that it

vanquish the Nationalists, and with them their military leader, Francisco Franco (Orwell and Davison et al., 2003:16). Barcelona was for him a symbol and an example of the war. He was IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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struggle among two different ways of considering the revolution and the best strategy to

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was close to the Party‘s ideals. He arrived in Barcelona in the middle of an ideological

highly dazzled by the revolutionary atmosphere in the city. The admiration that he felt for the life in Barcelona at the moment of his arrival is noticeable. The dissolution of the class system seemed to be taking place as the Anarchist Party grabbed the power in Catalonia. As Orwell reported in the book: It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in a saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. (...) every shop and cafe has an inscription saying that it had been collectivized (...) waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. (Orwell, 1938, p. 4)

In his essay, ―Spilling the Spanish Beans‖ (1937) Orwell explained the real political situation of Spain at the time and claimed that the English people had no access to true information since the pieces of news that appeared in the British newspapers were manipulated. It is this manipulation of information that led Orwell to write Homage to Catalonia, and to have an interest in the political situation in Spain. He incorporated two chapters aimed to explain the political and historical context at the time he was in Spain.

At the beginning I had ignored the political side of the war, and it was only about this time that it began to force itself upon my attention. If you are not interested in the horrors of political parties, please skip; I am trying to keep the political parts of this narrative in separate chapters for precisely that purpose. (Orwell, 1938:26)

Orwell starts the essay talking of ―The richer crop of lies than any event since the Great War‖. (Orwell, 1937) Orwell was shocked to realise the fight between the Anarchists and the POUM. Papers from each side attacked each other instead of being united to defeat Franco.

In addition, people feared a larger struggle, which would have meant the loss of the war against the Nationalists (Orwell, 1938:75). This struggle will end with the outlawing of the POUM party; and an issue that he tried to relate as objectively as possible. However, yet again he states that, ―It will never be possible to get a completely accurate and unbiased account of the Barcelona fighting, because the necessary records do not exist. Future historians will have nothing to go upon except a mass of accusations and party propaganda‖

in the fact that the Spanish Government and the semi-autonomous Catalan Government

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newspapers such as News Chronicle and Daily Worker manipulated the information resided

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(Orwell, 1938:83). ―Spilling the Spanish Beans‖ states that the reason why left wing

feared the revolution rather than the Fascists (Orwell, 1937). In addition to it, George Orwell expresses in Homage to Catalonia some of his claims against the News Chronicle. According to him, the only paper that seems to be honest is the Manchester Guardian (Orwell, 1938, p.

37).

Notwithstanding his honest intention, Orwell‘s analysis of Spanish politics is limited by his scarce knowledge of it. The hostility of the Spanish Government and the Communist Party towards the POUM and the Anarchists can be considered the only thing which he describes accurately (Lucas, 2003, pp. 47-48). As Orwell himself admitted in the novel, ―When I came to Spain, and for some time afterwards, I was not only uninterested in the political situation but unaware of it‖ (Orwell, 1938, p. 26). The reader may also feel lost since there is no explanation for the outbreak of the Civil War, which, as Lucas remarks, is not only a question about the social classes and the power for the working classes, but also a question about the status of the Church in Spain, the sort of government that should rule the country, the role of the army and other divisions, such as the urban and the rural, the north versus the south and the national versus the regional (Lucas, 2003, pp. 47-48). Taking into account all these factors, it is possible to be aware that Orwell is essentially adopting a didactic political approach. Hence, as Woodcock asserts, it has always been problematic to establish the distinction between what is creative or non-creative in Orwell‘s writings (Woodcock, 1996, p. 129).

Orwell, the Novelist The historian Pierre Vilar has stated that ―the image of a country (even if it is not exact) that shadows a testimony with a great audience (even if its reasons are debatable) becomes a part of the history of this country‖ (Orwell and Davison et al., 2003, p. 21). Homage to Catalonia is one of the most important written foreign testimonies of the Spanish Civil War. As Orwell himself admitted ―A true history of this war never would or could be written‖. Nevertheless the text that constitutes Homage to Catalonia is believed to be one of the most widely read texts in Spain and also one of the most appreciated testimonies of the struggle (Orwell and Davison et al., 2003:21). Although Homage to Catalonia is considered a canonic text among war writings (Orwell and Davison et al., 2003:21), it can also be considered a work of

such as 1984 (1948) or Animal Farm (1945). Homage to Catalonia can be considered not IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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Orwell is not only known for his factual and journalistic essays but also for his novels,

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literature, and this has been decided ―by popular consensus‖ (Lodge, 1977, p. 7).

only a factual text but also a literary narration since it follows a series of noticeable conventions, typical of literature works. Writers of literature aim to present facts in an aesthetic form, catching the readers‘ attention through some narrative strategies. As Lucas stated, Homage to Catalonia contains the best elements of Orwell‘s style of writing. He perfectly evokes the atmosphere in every situation, even including sounds and smells and his mixture of formal and informal language (Lucas, 2003, p. 46). The reader witnesses Orwell‘s ability to create a narration from the history, a significant sequence that uses in a clever manner the mechanisms of the fictional narration to describe human experiences, that is, time and memory (Orwell and Davison et al., 2003, p. 22).

At the very beginning of Homage to Catalonia, there is no explanation of the breaking out of the Spanish Civil War as the book starts directly with the narration of his personal experiences, a strategy used with literary aims. The book starts directly with Orwell‘s encounter with an Italian militiaman the first time he arrived at the front, the day before he joined the militia. As he does in many of his novels, he here catches the reader‘s attention by a descriptive account of an event that stands for an overture (Woodcock, 1996, pp. 234-235): ―In the Lenin Barracks in Barcelona, the day before I joined the militia, I saw an Italian militiaman standing in front of the officers‘ table‖ (Orwell, 1938:1). The reader is also aware of the fact that some feelings are being expressed in his account. Orwell is no more offering a perspective in which he has no contact with human beings, as he did in the short text ―A Hanging‖ (1931) in which his narration of events is indifferent to individuals.

Among the pages of Homage to Catalonia some different feelings can be slightly glimpsed, as in ―I hardly know why, but I have seldom seen anyone – any man, I mean – to whom I have taken such as immediate liking. (...) Queer, the affection you can feel for a stranger!‖ (Orwell, 1938:1). Some critics have stated that the whole book is a sort of elegy for men, like the Italian he met on the eve of his incorporation to the militia in the Aragon front. These were men who he met only once but provided key inspirations for the whole narration. ―I mention this Italian militiaman because he has stuck vividly in my memory‖ (Orwell, 1936:1). Orwell wrote about him again and even composed a poem dedicated to the Italian militiaman in his essay ―Looking back on the Spanish Civil War‖ (1942).

the Spanish militiamen, the first time he felt fear at the front, etc. are clear examples of the account in first person of the feelings and thoughts he had during these situations. For a IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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thoughts at some points of his narration. His experiences at the trenches, his description of

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Orwell allows the reader to have access not only to his feelings but also to his

clever audience, this is a key clue about the fact that the narration is being biased by his perspective. One vital element to take into account is that the narrator uses the past tense to relate the events, typical of literary narrations, which means that there has been a process of reflection between the experiences and the writings, but this is a factor that will be explained in detail later on in this essay.

Another point that should be considered in Homage to Catalonia is the noticeable narcissism that appears in some descriptions throughout the narration. The irony and the comic descriptions are perceptible. The reason is that Orwell, as a British man with previous knowledge about war, cannot avoid comparing the British and the Spanish style. One of the first moments in which the reader is aware of this is when Orwell describes the instructions received by every man wishing to join the militias, I had been told that foreigners were not obligated to attend ―instruction‖ (the Spaniards, I noticed, had a pathetic belief that all foreigners knew more of military matters than themselves), but naturally I turned out with the others. (…) To my dismay I found that we were taught nothing about the use of weapons. The so-called instruction was simply parade-ground drill of the most antiquated, stupid kind; right turn, left turn, about turn, marching at attention in column of threes and all the rest of that useless nonsense which I had learned when I was fifteen years old. (Orwell, 1938:6)

He even describes one of the most typical stereotypes that foreign people applied to the Spanish. ―The answer was always a harassed smile and a promise that there should be machinegun instruction manana. Needless to say manana never came‖ (Orwell, 1938:7).

In spite of the patience he had and the disgusting experiences he lived at the beginning due to, according to Orwell, the Spanish incompetence to make war (Orwell, 1938:8), he ended the experience by being grateful to them. Lucas (2003:47) asserts that Orwell devotes most of the book to his personal experiences using black humor as a sort of defense against the cold, inactivity, and very slow military preparations at the line front of the war.

The best examples of the narrative strategies utilised by Orwell were analysed by Davison et al (2003) in his book Orwell en España. The first strategy is the fact that Orwell

after a period of reflection. Hence, the ―truths‖ that are stated in the first chapters of Homage

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in which he is writing. Thus, the smart reader can perceive that Orwell is narrating the story

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mixes the element of time, that is, the time between the moment of the incidents and the time

to Catalonia may not be correct afterwards. Hence, the reader is also being warned about the fact that the first impressions can be false. However, the last chapters of the books explain the central message of the book: ―This was late December 1936, less than seven months ago as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into enormous distance.‖ (Orwell 1938, p. 3).

Secondly, the fact that the narrator is constantly being situated inside and outside the narration should be highlighted. If the narrator shows a sort of feeling for anyone, for instance, as it has been mentioned above, for the Italian militiaman, it is followed immediately by some objective comments, typical of an external narrator‘s point of view.

As we went out he stepped across the room and gripped my hand very hard. Queer, the affection you can feel for a stranger! It was as though his spirit and mine had momentarily succeeded in bridging the gulf of a language and tradition and meeting in utter intimacy. I hoped he liked me as well as I liked him. But I also knew that to retain my first impression of him I must not see him again; and needless to say I never did see him again. One was always making contacts of that kind in Spain. (Orwell, 1938, p. 3)

In addition, the fact that the narrator interrupts the narration with some comments about the reasons for writing the book can be considered another strategy used by Orwell. This is a device that was commonly used in 18th century novels. This broken narration has the aim of letting the reader know the values of the POUM unit so they will not complain about the limitations that this political unit has.

The political epiphany that the writer suffered is narrated through a series of trips to different places (London/Barcelona/Aragón/Barcelona/Aragón/Barcelona/ London). In this transition, the narrator starts with an idealistic political idea that ends with a betrayed revolution. These repeated destinies are full of contrast from one time to the other. The first trip in which he is risking his life going to the front is clearly comparable with the end of the book in which going back to England appears as a synonym of personal safety and pleasure.

Orwell gives a detailed description about the situations, dressing etc. This can also be considered part of the aesthetic principles that Orwell explained in his essay ―Why I Write‖, mentioned at the beginning of this paper. He states that every single piece of writing should

perfectly in the following quotations:

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using images and even smells are recurrent in Homage to Catalonia. This can be exemplified

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have aesthetic elements to avoid being considered harsh in style. For this reason, descriptions

We were near the front line now, near enough to smell the characteristic smell of war—in my experience a smell of excrement and decaying food. (Orwell, 1938, p. 10) The days grew hotter and even the nights grew tolerably warm. On a bullet — chipped tree in front of our parapet thick clusters of cherries were forming. (Orwell, 1938, p. 57) These statements may lead the reader to think that the narrator is just a soldier, naive, pragmatic and with common sense, which does not partake of his superiors‘ grandiloquence.

The narrator tries to do the normal job. Orwell knew perfectly well that many of the 30s target readers of Homage to Catalonia were influenced by the echoes of the First World War and its fighters. His heroic side can be felt in the narration of his injury in a battle, the moment in which he cannot come back to the hotel and needs to sleep alfresco. Also, his relationship with his wife humanises him. Analysing all of these different examples of the strategies used in the novel, Davison asserts that Orwell is highly conscious about what he is doing. All these strategies used to make the story aesthetically pleasant led critics like Woodcock or Scott Lucas to consider Homage to Catalonia a novel.

The Spanish Civil War as portrayed in Homage to Catalonia influenced George Orwell in many posterior books, such as Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948). In this book Winston Smith, the protagonist of the story, writes his diary as a sort of protest and resistance against the manipulation of the official press. There exists also a ―Ministry of the Truth‖ which deals with the constant alteration of the past. These elements of the novel are clearly connected with Homage to Catalonia, since the principal reason why Orwell wrote it was the need to explain the truth of the struggle as British papers supported Stalinist ideas and the information was altered. Being aware of this, it is possible to state that Orwell continues his attempt to explain the truths of the Spanish Civil War till the end of his life. However it is necessary to take into account that, as has been explained in this paper, his truths are often biased (Orwell and Davison et al., 2003:18).

Conclusion As Lucas stated (2003, p. 49), ―George Orwell might not have the truth of the war but his integrity and decency would ensure the supremacy of his account and analysis‖. Indeed, what

period in which he lived, since, as he explained, it is impossible and unfair to avoid political issues (Woodcock, 1996, p. 208).

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conceive as valid in terms of both his conception of the nature of literature and the historical

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Orwell was trying to create in Homage to Catalonia was a sort of criticism which he can

In Homage to Catalonia Orwell achieved his aim to relate the issues happening at the Spanish Civil War avoiding being manipulated by the interests of the foreign press. Orwell, using an inevitably biased mood, explains how the life at the front and in the city of Barcelona was, focusing on the working class and militiamen situation. Orwell even tries to explain to the reader the political situation, providing the book with two chapters in which he interrupts the account of his personal experience, and encouraging the reader to avoid them if he or she is not interested. It is important to realise that the three aspects of George Orwell in which this dissertation has been divided, the militant, the journalist and the novelist, are mixed in this book. The lucid and plain style used in Homage to Catalonia as well as the apparent multiple factual data that he provides leads to a comparison with a journalistic style of writing, totally influenced by Orwell‘s job as a journalist and analyst, performing here the role of a war correspondent. Nevertheless, as an experienced writer of novels, he is aware of the fact that stories should be pleasant and attractive to the general audience if a great success is expected. Hence, Orwell includes some narrative techniques that allow the book to be considered not only a piece of factual writing but also a work of literature, an issue explained

by Lodge in his analysis of ―A Hanging‖. These strategies allow for a reading of the harsher moments of the war not only as a political or historical article but also as a story with a structure that engages the reader. In spite of the literary aspect, what is obvious is Orwell‘s intention of writing an account, as objective as possible, that allows the audience and especially the foreign audience to be aware of the issues that occurred at that period of the Spanish Civil War. Thus, the personas of Orwell the militant and Orwell the journalist predominate throughout the whole book.

Homage to Catalonia is important because of its quality as a novel but also for the political and literary merits that it contains (Lucas, 2003:46). This is the main reason why Orwell‘s Homage to Catalonia can be considered on the one hand a piece of factual writing and, on the other hand, a piece of literature. The story narrated, although based on historical facts, follows the conventions of literary narration to secure its success among both an

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audience interested in historical facts and an audience expecting to read literature.

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References Davison, P., Berga, M. and Prometeo Moya, A. 2003. rwell en Espa a. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores.

Lodge, D. 1977. The Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Metonomy and the Typology of Modern Literature. London: Edward Arnold.

Lucas, S. 2003. Orwell. London: Haus.

Newsinger, J. 1999. Orwell's politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Orwell, G. 1938. Homage to Catalonia. Norderstedt, Germany: Exciting Classics.

Orwell, G. 1946. ―Why I Write‖. [online] Available at: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/schools/whitmanhs/academics /english/Why%20I%20Write%20Orwell.pdf [Accessed: 20 May 2014].

Orwell, G. 2003. Fifty Orwell Essays. Politics and the English Language.1950 [online] Available at: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html [Accessed: 10 June 2014].

Wallhead, Celia M. 2011. Writers of the Spanish Civil War. Bern: Peter Lang.

Woodcock, G. 2005. The Crystal Spirit. Montreal: Black Rose Books.

 The Author

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Marta Ciprés García was an English Studies student at the University of Zaragoza, Spain.

She was an Erasmus student at the University of Leicester in 2014 and she did her masters in Translation, Interpretation and Intercultural mediation at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. Marta is really concerned about the importance of translation and cultural mediation in order to overcome the linguistic and cultural barriers and nowadays she works as a translator. Email: martacip7@gmail.com

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Nature and technology in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth Diego Vera Repollés Universidad Zaragoza, Spain

In 1896, Tolkien and his family moved to the Sarehole Mill, Birmingham. The place was a paradigm of a countryside landscape in the British Midlands: natural beauty, green trees and abundant vegetation, interspersed with ponds, lakes and canals, as well as solitary factories.

Hall Green, where Sarehole Mill is located, was then an area rich in water and vegetation, with small manifestations of human action, such as its mill. Tolkien grew up keeping in direct touch with nature and it is perhaps not surprising that these years and his contact with nature would be profoundly influential and this thus reflected in his main works. The purpose of this article is to analyze the contextual influences in Tolkien‘s view of nature and technology and which would have significant influence on the development of his secondary world, Middle Earth.

Literary speaking, Tolkien‘s fiction is highly indebted to the epic genre, but also to the fairy tale genre. Both of them imply a kind of ―escapism‖, which Tolkien explains in the essay ‗On Fairy Stories‘ (Tree and Leaf, 1964, pp. 7-59), arguing that the reading of fantastic genres supposes an evasion of the reader‘s mind to secondary worlds and claiming that ―escapism is one of the functions of fairy stories‖ (p. 20). Tolkien considers escapist literature as a vehicle which can provide a critical view on modernity: For it is after all possible for a rational man […] to arrive at the condemnation, implicit at least in the mere silence of ―escapist‖ literature, of progressive things like factories, or the machineguns and bombs that appear to be their most natural and inevitable […] products. The rawness and ugliness of modern European life […] is the sign of a biological inferiority, of an insufficient or false reaction to environment.

(Tolkien, 1964, p. 20)

In these lines, Tolkien rejects the atrocity of unlimited industrial and technological development, forces of progress which profoundly marked the development of the English Midlands, where Birmingham is situated – which is also referred to as the ―Black Country‖-

and industrialized‖ place (Chance, 2005, p. 94). Tolkien‘s rejection of unlimited IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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Tolkien grew up and where he attended school would then be seen as ―shabby, materialist

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during the 18th and 19th centuries. Birmingham, the city near the idyllic place in which

technological progress goes along with by a great sensibility towards Nature, as an antagonistic view and a repudiation of the industrial world. Therefore, this sensibility can also be seen in relationship with the Romantic ideal of Nature. The Romantic poets had a special devotion to Nature‘s insightful power as a source of knowledge. For the 19th century poets, such as Wordsworth, Coleridge or Keats, it was in nature that beauty should be found, far away from the crowded and corrupted cities of the English Industrial Revolution. Nature is the setting where also Mystery is found, where the unknown lies, where the Sublime1 is best represented (Ferguson, 1992). Their love for nature and belief in nature as a source of knowledge is summarized in the following line in Wordsworth‘s The Tables Turned (1798): ―let Nature be your teacher‖. As a consequence of this devotional respect to Nature, the Romantic poets criticized the society in which they lived, because the contrast between natural spaces and cities during the Industrial Revolution was huge. The French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau asserted in his Discourse of Inequality that ―man is naturally good‖ but it is in society where he is corrupted: ―human society […] seems, at first, to show us only the violence of the powerful and the oppression of the weak‖ (Rousseau, 1754, p. 8).

In ‗Concerning Hobbits‘, which opens The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien describes the most relevant peculiarities of such an interesting (and very relevant indeed) folk of the Middle Earth. Here is the first general description of the Hobbits: Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people […]. They love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favorite haunt. They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill, or a hand-loom (p. 9)

In this first approach to the Hobbits, Tolkien highlights the importance of their attitude towards peace, and the simplicity of their machinery, preferring simple tools to more developed ones. This reminds us of his rejection of machinery and the consequent industrialization of rural Britain, as well as of the Romantic-like devotion to nature, which is reinforced onwards in: ―Hobbits have a close friendship with the earth‖ (9). The detailed exposition of the Hobbit‘s cultural values arrives at a point in which even their dressing style is described: ―They were a merry folk. They dressed in bright colors, being notably fond of

The idea of the Sublime comes from Kantian philosophy, and implies the existence of a superior term, also known as the Absolute Spirit, which enacts itself in everything, and at the same time everything is enacted in the Sublime (Ferguson, 1992).

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yellow and green; but they seldom wore shoes‖ (p. 10). Here we find an insightful habit by

the hobbits: in their clothes they wear the colours of nature: the green of vegetation and the yellow of the sun or the wheat fields in summer time; furthermore, they wear no shoes, which is a clear symbol of their profound ―contact‖ with nature. Whereas the contact between Men, Elves, Dwarves and Orcs with nature is not direct, the Hobbits‘ bare feet are always in direct contact with the earth. Another important aspect is that ―their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes […] and in such dwellings they still felt most at home‖ (12). A Hobbit home is not a human construction that stands out in the landscape but an integral and organic part of it.

The daily activities of the Hobbits also have to do with nature, as they ―for the most part managed their own affairs. Growing food and eating it occupied most of their time‖ (p.

16). The Shire is then a rural society centered on agriculture, not only of vegetables, but also of smoking herbs, made up of people ―generous and not greedy‖ (p. 16), leading a tranquil and idyllic life. The Shire is described by Tolkien as a ―pleasant corner of the world‖ (p. 16) where The Hobbits plied their ―well-ordered business of living‖ and ―heeded less and less the world outside where dark things moved.‖ (p. 16). Ignorant and ignored, and far from wars and adventures (which were for the Hobbits issues for the Big Folk), Hobbits rejected any kind of warfare, for this reason the only weapons they had were used for hunting or exhibited as trophies: ―At no time had Hobbits of any kind been warlike, and they had never fought among themselves […] there was still some store of weapons in the Shire, these were used mostly as trophies, hanging above hearths or on walls‖ (1954:18). In spite of this, Hobbits were brave enough to fight if it was required, as it does happen when Saruman invades the Shire at the end of The Lord of the Rings.

Having in mind the description of the Shire, it is not strange then that some scholars have put it in relation with the classical Arcadian motif 2. The following statements by Scottville (in Chance, 2005: 96-97), reinforce this analysis of ‗Concerning Hobbits‘:

Arcadia: mountainous region of ancient Greece, traditionally known for the contented pastoral innocence of its people (Oxford Dictionary, 2014). It was used by Renaissance and Romantic writers as a motif for a bucolic paradise where happiness, simplicity and peace reign, with a deep love and respect towards Nature.

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Tolkien‘s portrait of the Shire reveals the use that he made of quasi-medieval Arcadian imagery and traditions. […] I am attempting not to demonstrate direct influence but to show that an Arcadian pastoral tradition was strong in Tolkien, and it was a direct reaction against industrial modernism.

In addition, Scottville sees in the hobbits a rejection of all kinds of war, ―another flaw in the Shire and its pastoral system of life‖, as hobbits are ―unable to defend themselves without being railed by Merry and his magical Rohirrim horn‖ (pp. 96-97).3 If there is one character in The Lord of the Rings that embodies the hobbit values to the highest point, this is Samwise Gamgee. He is a modest hobbit who works as a gardener for the Baggins, Bilbo and Frodo; in his simplicity Sam has a clear understanding of his duties and tasks within Middle Earth. Although Sam carries the Ring after Frodo is thought dead in Cirith Ungol, he is never corrupted by it. Sam decidedly knows what he loves and what he despises: when he previews the destruction of the Shire by Saruman‘s ruffians in the Mirror of Galadriel, he is not indifferent to what he sees: He saw the trees again. But this time they were not waving in the wind, they were falling, crashing to the ground. `Hi!' cried Sam in an outraged voice. 'There's that Ted Sandyman a-cutting down trees as he shouldn't. […] 'There's some devilry at work in the Shire,' then suddenly Sam gave a cry and sprang away. 'I can't stay here,' he said wildly `I must go home (p. 382).

Sam knows at every moment in the novel which his place is, and how he should act.

Defending the Shire is a big concern for Sam, since he saw its destruction in his vision in the mirror, and so he feels sad and impotent for not being able to do anything while he is carrying out the mission of the One Ring; still, he gets angry when he hears the terrible news of the destruction or devastation of his idyllic home.

As happens in The Hobbit, in ‗Concerning Hobbits‘ Tolkien employs a friendly mood and kind tone in his descriptions of the Shire and its folk, perhaps as an attempt to open the affective filter of the readers and promote their identification the kind of love towards nature that the Hobbits partake. On the other hand, Tolkien adds a sad and nostalgic note to the description of places which are devastated or where the vegetation no longer grows.

In the chapters ‗Farewell to Lórien‘ (The Fellowship of the Ring, pp. 387-399) and ‗The Great River‘ (pp. 400-414), we see how deeply the characteristics of the natural landscape affect the members of the Fellowship. First of all, the characters are leaving the magic forest of Lórien, which is the home of Lady Galadriel and the elves. The Fellowship

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Scottville here refers to the facts that occurred in The Return of The King (1035-1058), where the Hobbits return to the Shire and find that the place has been invaded by ruffians under the commands of Saruman.

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After leaving this fantastic country, they all feel nostalgia and sadness because Lórien was a

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finds rest within the safety of the forest, after their bad experience in the mines of Moria.

place where they were comfortable and safe. An extract of a conversation between Legolas and Gimli reveals the melancholy of the fellows, especially in the dwarf‘s case: Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting (p. 399).

Just after leaving Lórien, Gimli laments their departure, and longs to return, because, as they go down the river Anduin, the landscape changes and the beauty of the trees and vegetation disappears: They had come to the Brown Lands that lay, vast and desolate […] What pestilence or war or evil deed of the Enemy had so blasted that entire region even Aragorn could not tell (p. 400).

Tolkien seems to be attributing the devastation of these wastelands to the action of negative entities such as war, pestilence, or evil. This reveals also the consequences that war may bring, particularly the devastation of natural spaces. The following insightful comment by Frodo, as well as his thoughts about this place might also help create in the reader aversion to war: How wide and empty and mournful all this country looks! ‗said Frodo. `I always imagined that as one journeyed south it got warmer and merrier, until winter was left behind forever.' […] the trees had seemed hostile before, as if they harboured secret eyes and lurking dangers; now he wished that the trees were still there`[…] He felt naked in the middle of these shelterless lands (p. 401).

Forests and natural spaces give cover to the Fellowship, because as they are moving south down the Brown Lands, ―this feeling of insecurity grew on all the Company. […] There was little speech and no laughter in any of the boats‖ (p. 513). Again, we see how the existence or the absence- of a fertile nature can affect the mood of the characters, and by extension, of the readers.

The Lord of the Rings is a novel in which characters - especially hobbits - experiment a significant growth in personality, wisdom and courage. When the War of the Ring is over,

(The Return of the King, 1035-1058), the hobbits find their home occupied and ruled by some ruffians under the command of Sharkey - which eventually results to be the corrupt wizard IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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something that they had not expected: as is told in the chapter ‗The Scouring of the Shire‘

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the four hobbits, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin, return to the Shire, but what they found is

Saruman. His action and influence, as had happened before in Isengard, provokes in the Shire the devastation and destruction of the natural order that governed there. ―Ruffians were felling trees and digging and building […] all the ruffians mostly hack, burn, and ruin; and now it has come to killing.‖ (p. 1046). These are two of the melancholy testimonies the hobbits hear just after their arrival: ―It was one of the saddest hours in their lives.‖ (p. 1054) However, this time, having in mind the personal development the hobbits have experimented in their heroic deeds, they are brave and mature enough not to be sad but to fight the ruffians and ‗heal‘ the Shire, restoring the peace and harmony which characterize that corner of the Middle Earth. Not by chance, Tolkien first refers to the growth of the hobbits while they find themselves in a natural space: when Merry and Pippin drink the Ent-draught at the forest of Fangorn during their stay with Treebeard (The Two Towers, pp. 482-508), they are within a context in which nature predominates and therefore - and by no means accidentally- they experiment growth in size, but metaphorically, personal growth as well: The effect of the draught began at the toes, and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refreshment and vigor as it coursed upwards, right to the tips of the hair.

Indeed the hobbits felt that the hair on their heads was actually standing up, waving and curling and growing (1955, p. 492).

The wandering of the hobbits through the forest of Fangorn is another revealing part of the novel, as it is in these chapters that ―the last march of the Ents‖ (The Two Towers, p. 508) takes place as a response to the cutting down of the trees whose wood the corrupt Saruman uses for the development of his warfare industry. The Ents – ―trees with spirit and their own will, which are able to speak. (Nebreda & Berrocal, 2001, p. 98) - go down in their last battle for the Middle Earth, and destroy the fortress of Isengard. This is perhaps the greatest example of Tolkien‘s respect and love for nature, as it is Nature itself that rises against the

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excesses of industrial warfare, since the Ents embody the very spirit of Nature itself.

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References Chance, J. and Siewers, A. 2005. Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave.

Ferguson, F.1992. Solitude and the Sublime. New York: Routledge.

Coleridge, S.T. Biographia Literaria. Project Gutenberg, 1817; 2004. [online] Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6081/6081-h/6081-h.htm [Accessed 23 Jun. 2014].

Rousseau, J. 1754; 2009. A Discourse on Inequality, Auckland: Floating Press.

Tolkien, J.R.R., 1937;1966. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Boston: Houghton Miffin.

Tolkien, J.R.R. 1954; 1986. The Lord of the Rings. 3rd edition. London: Unwin.

Tolkien, J.R.R., 1977. The Silmarillion. Boston: Houghton Miffin.

Tolkien, J.R.R. 1964.Tree and Leaf. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

ď&#x201A;&#x2013; The Author

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Diego Vera was an English Studies student at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. He was an Erasmus student at the University of Leicester in 2014. Diego is particularly interested in the relationship between the Romantic period of English Literature and its influence, along with the English Classics, on JRR Tolkien's wide literary creation and on later developments in the writing of fantastic literature. Email: dvera_92@hotmail.com

IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

Parentification in Sons and Lovers Johanna van Zwet Fontys University, College of Education, the Netherlands

A pair of star-crossed lovers take theirlife; Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents‘ strife.

Prologue to “Romeo and Juliet” In 1912, a year before D.H. Lawrence‘s novel Sons and Lovers was published, the author, in a letter to his editor Edward Garnett, comments on the plot of the book. He explains that the mother in the story selects her sons as her lovers. He continues: But when they come to manhood, they can't love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them. (…) As soon as the young men come into contact with women, there's a split. (Baron, xlv) From this quote one may conclude that Lawrence must have had more than a basic understanding of the psychology of family relationships. What, one may wonder, was the extent of Lawrence‘s grasp on psychology? Literary critics are still debating the extent to which the relationship between Paul Morel and his mother illustrates Sigmund Freud‘s Oedipus Complex theory (Dalal, 34)4. In this essay I will start by briefly touching upon the Oedipus Complex theory in relation to the book. Next, I will move on to a more contemporary perspective on family relationships in order to determine if Lawrence‘s understanding of psychology holds up in the light of current insights into the dynamics of family relationships.

Even if Paul‘s relationship with his mother does not qualify as a classic case of the Oedipus Complex, one can clearly distinguish in it some of the theory‘s defining features 5.

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Author D.S. Dalal has strong opinions on the matter. He devotes an entire chapter of his book to vehemently repudiating the claim made by many literary critics that the Oedipus Complex is a central theme in Sons and Lovers. He writes: ―As Lawrence completed his novel in 1913, Freud had published his article on the Oedipus Complex and Psychoanalysis in 1912, and it is on record that Lawrence has disapproved of the very basic approach of Freud. All the same, whatever, the value and validity of Freud‘s much publicised insight into human behaviour and relations, Lawrence was not favourably disposed to Freud‘s views.‖ (Dalal, 34). Whether or not Lawrence himself prescribed to Freud‘s ideas, he would hardly have been able to deliberately incorporate in his novel a controversial idea that had only be introduced to the world a year earlier.

5 Briefly put, the Oedipus Complex theory describes how young boys desire to possess their mother sexually and kill their father. The successful resolution happens when the child is able to identify with the father. In those

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Paul Morel‘s emotional attachment to his mother is distressingly oppressive throughout the story. Paul‘s abhorrence of his father, deftly goaded by his mother, impedes any identification with him. Case in point is the moment in the story when Mrs Morel has just expressed her displeasure about Paul seeing Miriam. He wants to assuage her distress and comes close to her: ―Well, I don‘t love her, mother,‖ he murmered, bowing his head and hiding his eyes on her shoulder in misery. His mother kissed him a long, fervent kiss. ―My boy!‖ she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love.

Without knowing, he gently stroked her face. (…)

His mother looked so strange, Paul kissed her, trembling. ―Ha – mother!‖ he said softly. (Lawrence, 213) At that very moment Mr Morel comes in from the pub, gets into a fight with his wife about a pork-pie he wants to have for supper and with a violent movement flings it into the fire. Paul starts to his feet and stands up for his mother. Father and son are about to get into a fist fight when Mrs Morel becomes unwell. Paul rushes over to her aid while Mr Morel stumbles off to bed. Lawrence then comments on Paul: The deepest of his love belonged to his mother. When he felt he had hurt her, or wounded his love for her, he could not bear it (Lawrence, 215).

Since the introduction of the Oedipus Complex theory, the field of psychology has seen many other theories, such as in the area of psychotherapy and family relationships. For the purpose of this essay I would like to determine if parentification, a key concept in the contextual approach to family therapy, is present in D.H. Lawrence‘s portrayal of the Morel family.

In the second half of the 20th century, Ivan Nagy, an American psychiatrist of Hungarian descent, developed a comprehensive system of thought and therapeutic intervention called Contextual Therapy. It addresses an individual within the context of that individual‘s most important relations. The interests of those that are not present are taken into account as are those of future generations. Nagy‘s multigenerational perspective and focus on relational ethics made him a pioneer in the new field of family therapy, which developed

instances where no resolution occurs the Oedipus Complex can lead to various types of displaced or abnormal behavior.

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family-theory the term parentification is defined as

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during the last quarter of the 20th Century (Eerenbeemt, 20; Olson, 162). In the contextual-

… an imbalance of relating, wherein one of the relating parties, in many instances a child or children, are subjected to age-inappropriate responsibilities and thereby are placed in relational circumstances in which their reserves of trust are continuously depleted. (Olson, 164) The child takes too much responsibility regarding its failing parents and thus becomes a parent to its parents. (Eerenbeemt, 125) Not knowing differently, the child accepts the situation as normal. Contextual-family-theory argues that parentification unduly burdens a child and retards its development, keeping it from growing towards independence.

In the novel, Mrs. Morel, after the death of her eldest son William, directs her love and affection towards her second son, Paul. ―The two knitted together in perfect intimacy.

Mrs. Morel‘s life now rooted itself in Paul.‖ (Lawrence, 141) As she has become estranged and emotionally detached from her husband, Mrs. Morel prefers Paul‘s company over her husband‘s, distorting the mother-son relationship to meet her own emotional needs. Out of loyalty, Paul, as would any other child in his position, reciprocates and attaches himself to her. From then on Paul is unable to develop independently as a boy and young man due to his continuous sense of responsibility towards his mother‘s well-being. His trust in his mother‘s ability to guide him towards adulthood is continuously betrayed as she refuses to let go of her hold on him. Just prior to the scene quoted above Mrs. Morel confesses to Paul: ―And I‘ve never – you know, Paul – I‘ve never had a husband – not really –― He stroked his mother‘s hair, and his mouth was on her throat. (Lawrence, 213) One literary critic writes about their relationship: Out of a romantic aspect Paul constantly refers to his mother as ‗my little one.‘ He seems to treat his mother as his ‗girl‘ when he takes her out in Nottingham, Lincoln, or on holiday in Mablethorpe. (Dalal, 36)6 Both nicknames are indicative of Paul‘s parentified position.7 At the end of the story it has become overly clear that Paul‘s growth towards independence is thwarted. He feels utterly

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Interestingly, this statement is part of his case against the critics who see the Oedipus Complex played out in the relationship.

7 ―A very subtle way to create damage in your child is to turn that child into your parent. This process is called parentification, not to be confused with parenting. Parentification can be defined as a role reversal between parent and child. A child‘s personal needs are sacrificed in order to take care of the needs of the parent(s). A child will often give up his/her own need for comfort, attention, and guidance in order to accommodate to the needs and care of logistical and emotional needs of the parent(s) (Chase, 1999). In parentification the parent gives up what they are supposed to do as a parent and transfers that responsibility to one or more of their

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alone after the death of his mother. Summoning the strength of quiet desperation Paul manages to withstand the temptation to commit suicide, for now. (Lawrence, 420) As the above exploration shows, Lawrence adeptly describes a mother-son relationship which is characterized by a poisonous dynamic. Lawrence‘s portrayal of Paul Morel‘s relationship with his mother not only seems to offer a striking illustration of Freud‘s Oedipus Complex theory, it also appears to poignantly illustrate the principle of parentification, a key concept in present-day contextual-family-theory. It appears that the psychological framework of Sons and Lovers, written more than 60 years prior to the introduction of the term, holds firm in the light of it.

The limited scope of this essay unfortunately does not allow further examination of Sons and Lovers through the lens of Nagy‘s theory. It does, however, suggest that Lawrence‘s insights into human psychology are indeed profound by today‘s standards and can stand the test of time.

References Baron, H. and C. Baron (Eds.) 1993. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of D.H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers Part 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dalal, D.S .2005. A Critique. D.H. Lawrence. Sons and Lovers. Delhi: Ivy Publishing House.

Eerenbeemt, E-M. van den, A. van Heusden. 1987. Balance in motion. Ivan BoszormenyiNagy and his vision of individual and family therapy. New York: Brunner & Mazel.

Lawrence, D.H. 1995. Sons and Lovers. London: Penguin Books.

Nelson, T.S. 2003. Transgenerational Family Therapies. In L.L. Hecker and Joseph L. Wetchler (Eds.), Introduction to Marriage and Family Therapy. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.

Olson, M. and B. Lackie. 2002. Contextual Family Therapy. In Robert D. DiTomasso and Elizabeth A. Gosch (Eds.), Anxiety Disorders. A Practitioner’s guide to Comparative Treatments. New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company.  The Author

children. Hence the child becomes parentified.‖ http://psychcentral.com/blog/ archives/2008/08/15/harmingyour-child-by-making-him-your-parent/ May 2011

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Johanna van Zwet holds an M Ed in English and studied at Tilburg University of Applied Science. She is particularly interested in literature as it bears on the psychology of personal transformation. She is the author of "A Parent's Toolbox for Spiritual Growth" (2000).

Virginia Beach: A.R.E. Press. Email: johannavanzwet@gmail.com

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IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

Why should things be easy to understand?

Reading The Crying of Lot 49

Robert Versteegen Fontys University, College of Education, the Netherlands

Introduction Consider the sentence, “What does this sentence mean?” How can a sentence ask the question of what it means as a sentence, when its very subject is the question of what it means as a sentence? Its meaning would have to be the question of its meaning. The answer would have to be the question.8 North American writer Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. (1937) is arguably as enigmatic as his novels due to the fact that he has carefully protected his privacy and has been virtually invisible from the mid-sixties onward. The last known picture dates from 1955 when he was serving in the US Navy. As Pynchon avoided practically all publicity, a certain mystique has evolved around the author, which has kept many fans busy trying to find out more about this mysterious author. In the last few years he seems to have become a bit less guarded and more relaxed; he appeared as a cartoon character and lent his voice for a few episodes of The Simpsons, sent in comments and tips to The John LaRoquette Show regarding his (Pynchon‘s) portrayal in the show and even did a voice-over for a publicity video clip endorsing his 2009 novel‚ Inherent Vice.

Ever since his first novel V was published in 1963 Pynchon has been regarded by many as a writer of difficult and complex novels. When Pynchon was asked about the complexity of V he replied, 'Why should things be easy to understand?'"9 In order to establish whether Pynchon consistently makes things difficult for his readers, for whatever reason, one may turn to what has been regarded as a much more accessible novel, The Crying of Lot 49 his second novel, first published in 1966. A survey of themes and plot in that novel and what

9

Anon. ―The Straight Dope.‖ 1995. Ed. San Narciso Community College 3 Jan 2014. <http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/bio/facts.html>.

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Sorondo, Alex. ―What is Postmodern Literature?‖ 21-12-13. Examiner.com. 29 Dec. 2014. <http://www.examiner.com/article/what-is-postmodern-literature>.

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could be seen as its companion piece, the 2009 novel Inherent Vice may shed light on the issue and show whether Pynchon‘s (relatively) greater accessibility in the public arena can be coupled to a greater accessibility of his novels.

Certainly when it comes to the number of pages his second novel is much thinner (127 pages) than its 1963 predecessor, V (490 pages) and its successor‚ Gravity’s Rainbow (900 pages) published in 1973. His other novels are Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006), the aforementioned Inherent Vice (2009) and his latest novel Bleeding Edge (2013). A collection of his early short stories titled Slow Learner was published in 1984.

The difficulty with Pynchon This paper will describe some of the difficulties which a reader might encounter and shed some light on how to deal with those difficulties. One of the things that makes Pynchon, ―difficult‖ to read is that the novel narratives are labyrinthine, with countless characters, and pages crammed with irredeemably diverging plots and sub-plots, many of which go off on tangents or simply dribble away.‖

10

Secondly, Pynchon is a postmodernist and

postmodernism, a label generously used by critics and encountered by readers, is not as clear to everybody as might be assumed.11 Although postmodernism will not be discussed in depth here, a few techniques and characteristics will be mentioned there where it may aid the understanding of The Crying of Lot 49.

Finally, Pynchon "injects an incredible amount of often extremely arcane cultural knowledge into his novels."12 Besides having knowledge of pop culture, Pynchon seems to be equally comfortable in historiography13, information theory, semiotics14 and mathematics and 10

Berressem, Hanjo. ―How to Read Pynchon.‖ The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon. Eds. Inger H. Dalsgaard, Luc Herman, and Brian McHale. Cambridge University Press, 2012. p. 168 11

„…postmodernism

12

Berressem, Hanjo. ―How to Read Pynchon.‖ The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon. Eds. Inger H. Dalsgaard, Luc Herman, and Brian McHale. Cambridge University Press, 2012. p. 168 13

The study of the writing of history and of written histories.

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{Sorondo, 21-12-13, What is Postmodern Literature?}

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has been around for so long now that they seem to just take it for granted that everybody knows what it means. Few critics feel compelled to explain it, or at least list some of its techniques, when – as they so often do – passively referring to something as ―postmodern.‖ The problem is, critics seem to‘ve been making this assumption for the past two generations of readers, so at a time now when they have most reason to suspect – given its age – that everybody knows what it means to be postmodern, it‘s also fair to assume that close to very few actually have a firm idea.

addresses these subjects in his novels as well. In doing this Pynchon can give readers a feeling of being overwhelmed by information that they cannot understand when lacking certain knowledge.

These difficulties shall be discussed in more detail: first a brief outline of the story and a look at several sub-plots in Through the Labyrinth. Then a discussion on a few of the novels‘ characters and their names in What's in a name? and a foray into the historical setting of The Crying of Lot 49 in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Lastly some final thoughts will be put forward in the conclusion.

Through the Labyrinth As was mentioned in the introduction, Pynchon's narratives can be labyrinthine. The Oxford English dictionary defines labyrinthine as "(of a system) intricate and confusing: labyrinthine plots and counterplots." It is interesting to note that maze and labyrinth are often used interchangeably. However, there is a distinction to be made: "maze refers to a complex branching (multicursal) puzzle with choices of path and direction; while a single-path (unicursal) labyrinth has only a single, non-branching path, which leads to the center."15 Either way, it is a path that one must follow (or a journey one must make) much like destiny and overcome any problems on the way.

The Crying of Lot 49 is not overly labyrinthine but there are a few sub-plots which complicate the story for the reader and for the novel‘s main character Oedipa Maas for that matter. The difficulty lies in how the reader should interpret these plots and figure out how the plots connect to each other or to the narrative or whether they connect at all. The superficial story, however, is not very difficult to follow, but the readers‘ interpretation is a different matter altogether as the subject matter is rather esoteric in nature, dealing with such subjects as religious experience, entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Information Theory among others.

Although the novel initially reads much as a detective or mystery novel might, it can definitely be read as Oedipa‘s quest for self-understanding, truth and making sense of her

The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation

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Wikipedia.org „Labyrinth‖ IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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feeling of being trapped in her life. "Postmodern novels are often preoccupied with the quest

for understanding the self, finding a grasp of one‘s place in the world."16 Oedipa Maas, the heroine, is a middle-class housewife with a seemingly comfortable life. However, she is very unhappy. She feels like a "captive maiden" [13] in a tower and "the tower is everywhere".

[13] This, too is a postmodern characteristic where well to do people are portrayed as being caught in "a confused sadness. Here were people more privileged than their parents or grandparents had ever been, and yet they were miserable."17 Oedipa receives a letter in which she is informed that she has been appointed executor of the will of the millionaire Pierce Inverarity, her former lover. When Oedipa heads for San Narciso to take care of Inverarity‘s estate she unknowingly starts her hero's journey and on her path she discovers strange situations and affairs which she will have to face and overcome.

On her way Oedipa meets a number of peculiar people whom she gradually grows to distrust and stumbles upon a mysterious ancient conspiracy involving an underground postal service, the Tristero (also spelled as Trystero) which is in competition with the US mail service, and the more Oedipa learns, the more nervous and paranoid she becomes. ―Pynchon‘s novel uses mechanisms borrowed from the detective story to produce results precisely the opposite of those in the model.‖18 Instead of starting with a complex situation where information needs to be reduced until the solution presents itself, Oedipa starts with the relatively simple task of executing a will. The information is not reduced but increased and the simple becomes complex making choices ever more difficult for Oedipa. In fact, Oedipa and the reader are overwhelmed by information and hardly come any closer to the truth or "revelation" as Oedipa calls it. This is another postmodern technique employed by Pynchon. "The process of solving the answer-less question, however, is the game postmodernism plays. It strives to demonstrate the evasiveness of truth by presenting an ambiguous situation and then demonstrating the infinitude of possible meanings."19 By the end of the novel, the reader expects the mystery, as in any good detective story, to be cleared up and the mysterious Trystero to be explained. Not so in The Crying of 16

Sorondo, Alex. ―What is Postmodern Literature?‖ 21-12-13. Examiner.com. 29 Dec. 2014. <http://www.examiner.com/article/what-is-postmodern-literature>.

17

Sorondo, Alex. ―What is Postmodern Literature?‖ 21-12-13. Examiner.com. 29 Dec. 2014. <http://www.examiner.com/article/what-is-postmodern-literature>.

19

Sorondo, Alex. ―What is Postmodern Literature?‖ 21-12-13. Examiner.com. 29 Dec. 2014. <http://www.examiner.com/article/what-is-postmodern-literature>.

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Mendelson, Edward. ―The Sacred, the Profane, and the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖ Thomas Pynchon. Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea House Publishers, 2001. p.21

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Lot 49. At the end although much information has been gathered, Oedipa and the reader have not come closer to solving the mystery or to understanding the Trystero. Readers expecting a tidy ending and an explanatory climax will be disappointed because the novel ends at the very moment that all might have been revealed: at the crying of Lot 49, what is in that lot at an auction is a crucial bit of information, which is not given. This should not surprise the (informed postmodernist) reader for "endless deferral is one of its [postmodernism] characteristics, the question can never be answered."20 Oedipa has lost her husband to LSD, her shrink has gone mad, Driblette the director of a Jacobean play involving the Trystero commits suicide and the lawyer Metzger, who is supposed to help Oedipa execute a will, has run off with a young girl; she is left alone, disconnected from her middle-class life and she is still disconnected from the truth she so desperately wants to find.

There are several sub-plots within the story. The first one is presented as she starts her journey or quest in Chapter Two. On her way to the town of San Narciso she checks into the Echo Courts Motel. The first signs of paranoia become apparent as she meets Miles, a member of the American band The Paranoids'[17] who sing with a British accent. "That night the lawyer Metzger shows up. He turned out to be so good-looking that Oedipa thought at first „They, somebody up there, were putting her on."[17] Later they watch the movie 'Cashiered' which has a strange plot involving Baby Igor, his father and a St Bernard during World War I at Gallipoli.

In Chapter Three the next sub-plot is introduced. A bizarre corporate conspiracy, involving charcoal cigarette filters made of the bones of American World War II GI‘s is presented by Manny Di Presso [40]. On a toilet wall Oedipa happens to come across a message and an intriguing symbol, which she jots down. Shortly after, a sub-plot is described extensively when she hears about and goes to see „The Courier‘s Tragedy‖, a parody of a Jacobean revenge drama by Richard Wharfinger.[42] From then on Oedipa (and the reader) tries to make sense of and to connect the clues revealed to her in these plots.

What’s in a name?

In chapter one, comprising ten pages, more than fifteen characters are mentioned whose importance to the plot are not yet clear. (Oedipa Maas, Wendell ("Mucho") Maas, Pierce

Sorondo, Alex. ―What is Postmodern Literature?‖ 21-12-13. Examiner.com. 29 Dec. 2014. <http://www.examiner.com/article/what-is-postmodern-literature>.

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Inverarity, Jay Gould, Roseman, Funch, the law firm of Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and

McMingus, Metzger, Lamont Cranston/The Shadow, Commissioner Weston, Professor Quackenbush, Dr. Hilarius, Perry Mason, Remedios Varo) The names of the characters are often evocative, cleverly chosen and funny, reminiscent of Charles Dickens‘s character names albeit perhaps more surrealist and silly. The argument that ―Pynchon is almost certainly using the names not as another clue in a long, puzzling novel, but rather as a type of red herring to make a commentary about the role of language in defining who we are‖

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only partially true. Indeed, one of the novel‘s themes is language or communication, but, as becomes clear upon reading, there is hardly a name in Pynchon‘s novel which does not invite an alternate connection or harbours an indirect meaning or connotation. The same, for that matter, can be said about the names of places, events, hotels, bands, etc. in the novel. They all have some significance often outside the novel‘s boundaries. "Pynchon's use of names resides within the cultural plane. The use of proper names has always been a semantic and eventually semiotic issue. In the case of Pynchon's novel, the names seemed all-too-laden with significations that it should be subject to major interpretation."22 Many of the characters are only mentioned once and often serve the sole purpose of signalling to the reader that there is a clue to be found, for instance, a link to the past, evoking a certain feeling, hinting at the future while other times it is merely Pynchon's oddball humor.

An example is Boyd Beaver, soloist in the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto. The alliteration of the names and the contrast of boy-beaver and the fictitious kazoo concerto is funny. Some others in this category would be Sick Dick and the Volkswagens, Manny Di Presso (manic depressive?), radio station FCUK. Another example is Lamont Cranston aka the Shadow, an actual character of pulp fiction, radio shows and comics from the 1930s onward. The radio show was always introduced with the words "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" It is Pierce Inverarity who uses the Shadow‘s voice in his call to Oedipa and Pynchon seems to be telling us that Inverarity knows. Knows what? Perhaps the meaning of the Trystero, a subversive counter culture which will come later on in the novel when Oedipa is confronted with it. Or is Lamont Cranston a reference to "Thomas W. Lamont, a senior

22

Castro, Benilda A. ―An Analysis of the Signs in Thomas Pychon›s ‹the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'›.‖ (1997) IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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SparkNotes Editors. ―SparkNote on The Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖ SparkNotes.com.

SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 30 Dec. 2013.

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partner at J. P. Morgan and one of the major banking figures of his time."23 as Hollander suggests.

Further demonstration of Inverarity‘s character is the mention of Jay Gould‘s bust over Inverarity‘s bed [5]. Gould was an ―Infamous American‖ financier (known as the "Mephistopheles of Wall Street"), who became a leading American railroad builder and speculator in the mid-19th century.‖24 Inverarity has indeed amassed a vast fortune and as is implied perhaps dishonestly or even by selling his soul to the devil. Gould was also "a rival of J. P. Morgan" and by "naming Gould, Pynchon summons the multi–generational conflict between Gould and Morgan interests"25 As for Pierce Inverarity's name it could be another half name signifier where "Pierce also recalls Henry Clay Pierce (of The Pierce–Waters Oil Company), another self–made mogul — similar to Jay Gould — with questionable scruples."26 Boyd Beaver, Lamont Cranston and Jay Gould are mentioned once and do not reappear. They have given the reader opportunities for interpretation and connections to the world outside the novel, this seems to have been their function in the novel.

The main characters can have names that are sometimes silly, absurd and over the top but may also invoke meaning and emotion nonetheless. The protagonist of The Crying of Lot 49 is Oedipa Maas. It is hardly possible to not think of Oedipus, the tragic Sophoclean king of ancient Thebes. Thus it stands to reason that there must be some connection between them.

There is no mention of Oedipa‘s relation to her parents or incest regarding Oedipa in The Crying of Lot 49. Instead the name refers back to the Sophoclean Oedipus who begins his search for a solution of a problem (a problem, like Oedipa‘s, involving a dead man) as an almost detached observer, only to discover how deeply implicated he is in what he finds.‖27 Oedipa starts out as quite an ordinary Californian housewife who is named "executor, or she 23

Hollander, Charles. Pynchon, Jfk and the Cia: Magic Eye Views of the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'., 1997. p. 7 24

Pynchon Wiki Editors. ―Pynchon Wiki.‖ 2013. <http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1>.

25

Hollander, Charles. Pynchon, Jfk and the Cia: Magic Eye Views of the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'., 1997. p. 7

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Mendelson, 2001, Thomas Pynchon, The Sacred, The Profane, and The Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49' p.16 IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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Hollander, Charles. Pynchon, Jfk and the Cia: Magic Eye Views of the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'., 1997. p. 7

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supposed executrix" [5] of a will and gradually becomes a detective trying to solve the mystery of the Trystero. Eventually she realizes that she is an important part of the plot that she herself helped create.28 The use of the name Oedipa is no coincidence and indicates that Pynchon is knowledgeable regarding classical myth and is sending Oedipa on a quest, a so called hero's journey. Campbell defines the hero as: "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."29

Oedipa leaves the comfort of her home and when she checks in to the Echo Motel enters a world of wonder and encounters The Paranoids, a strange American band singing with a British accent, Metzger the lawyer, Ghengis Cohen the philatelist, the Peter Pinguid Society, Driblette the director of a Jacobean play involving the Tristero, the Immorati, etc. However, as was pointed out in the previous section, Oedipa does not achieve victory and we do not see her return to the ordinary world nor does she reap any benefits from her adventure. Pynchon leads us through the labyrinth but withholds the victory, our readers‘ reward.

The destination "San Narciso" points to Narcissus and the motel Oedipa checks in on her way there introduces the nymph Echo. Both further allude to classical myth. Narcissus rejected Echo in favour of his own reflection comparable to Inverarity's rejection of Oedipa in favour of his stamps.

As for Oedipa's last name, Maas, there are several explanations. It could be the "Afrikaans word for 'web' or 'net"30 , the river Meuse or Maas as Dutch for loophole.

Duyfhuzen suggests 'maas' implies "'mass', which in turn implies the mass communication networks."31 Hollander explains Maas as "the overside and the underside of the tapestry

28

„Nearly from the outset, the people of Pynchon's novels are the instruments of the "plots" they help create.‖ Poirier, Richard. ―Embattled Underground.‖ The New York Times 1966. p. 5 29

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Fontana Press, 1993. p. 30

31

Duyfhuizen, Bernard. ―»Hushing Sick Transmissions»: Disrupting Story in the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖ New Essays on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1991. Ed. Patrick O›Donnell.

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Castro, Benilda A. ―An Analysis of the Signs in Thomas Pychon›s ‹the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'›.‖ (1997); (Davidson, 1977, p. 43) p. 2

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(Dutch maaswerk)"32. The text or narrative is the "overside of the tapestry" and the subtext or allusions are the "underside of the tapestry". The tapestry view suggests that we can make sense of 'The Crying of Lot 49' by looking for the subtext and allusions. This is a plausible explanation for indeed there is a superficial story and an underlying meaning hidden in names, sub-plots and perhaps most of all Pynchon's language, his words. I would like to put forth another somewhat similar meaning. Maas is also the Dutch base verb of 'mazen' meaning to embroider an adornment on knitting by following the knitting pattern. 33 Is it not Oedipa who is knitting together a story from oblique symbols, clues and signs she coincidentally picks up perhaps in fact fabricating the plot herself? Moreover, Pynchon refers to 'Bornando el Manto Terrestre' a painting by Remedios Vara with a very apt illustration:

In Mexico City they somehow wandered into an exhibition of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo: in the central paintings of a triptych, titled ‗Bordando el Manto Terrestre‘, were a number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world.[13]

This woman is a Young Republican housewife, married to a man who neglects her in favour of teenagers and who is a "captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, [and] soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: and what really keeps her where she is, is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited upon her from outside and for no reason at all."[13] Oedipa is desperately in search of escape and meaning.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds The Crying of Lot 49 was published in 1965 and its historical setting is California during the early sixties. In "Vineland" and "Inherent Vice" Pynchon would later revisit both California and that era. These three novels are therefore often referred to as the California novels. Thus, three of the seven novels that he has written have this setting and implies that it is quite

Hollander, 1997, Pynchon, JFK and the CIA: Magic Eye Views of The…p.3

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My translation. Prisma dictionary: 2 een versiering op breiwerk borduren door de breilussen te volgen: een figuur op het rugpand ~ IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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important to Pynchon. What sets The Crying of Lot 49 apart from the other two is that

Pynchon wrote The Crying of Lot 49 in California during the sixties which means that as an author he was right in the middle of the historical context of the novel so there is hardly any authorial distance. He was 27 at the time of the publication of The Crying of Lot 49.

The sixties conjure up many associations: the explosion of creativity, hippies, exciting new music, LSD, peace, free love and freedom. Of course this is a very romantic view for there were other matters far less pleasant occurring in "the 1960s, one of the most politically and socially turbulent decades in U.S. history."34 Pynchon came to adulthood in the 50s when Eisenhower was the Republican President. During that time, Pynchon studied engineering for two years but quit to serve in the US Navy in 1956-57 after which he returned to Cornell to study English.

By then 60% of the American population belonged to the "middle-class" "(defined as having an income of $3,000 to $10,000 in constant dollars), compared with only 31% in the last year of prosperity before the onset of the Great Depression."35 It is not surprising that Pynchon chose a member of the middle class as his protagonist. In fact, many postmodernists of the '60s and 70s portray the middle class. It was a time with what Betty Friedan coined ―the problem that has no name‖36 which signified "a plague of aimlessness and spiritual emptiness that came about from gratuitous comfort and routine."

Richard Nixon was launched to the Senate and vice-presidency in 1952 owing to his work for the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). By 1950 the fear for communism led to McCarthyism. Outrageous allegations and dirty tactics were used to investigate politicians as well as writers and actors regarding possible communist alliances and spying. This witch hunt must have scared the creative community greatly and will not have gone undetected by Pynchon. These government methods might have sparked Pynchon's later withdrawal from public life. So who might the real ‗Sick Dick‘ be?

Between 1960 and 1966 Thomas Pynchon wrote a number of short stories ("The Small Rain" Cornell Writer 6, March 1959, "Low-lands" New World Writing 16, 1960, "Entropy" Kenyon Review 2 Spring 1960 among others). Pynchon was employed as a technical writer at Boeing in Seattle from 1960-62 during which time he wrote his first novel

35

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_(1945–1964)#Eisenhower:_1953-61

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Betty Friedan, author of ‚The Feminine Mystique‘ IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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Editors, SparkNotes. ――Sparknote on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖.‖ 2013. Ed. SparkNotes LLC 28 Dec. 2014. <SparkNotes.com.>.

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V published in 1963. His experiences at Boeing inspired the Yoyodyne corporation in V and The Crying of Lot 49.

As Pynchon spent two years in the US Navy and two years working at Boeing during the development of the Minuteman Missile which ‗was first test-fired on 1 February 1961‘37, one could say that Pynchon at that time was part of the problem he would shortly afterwards deal with in his fiction. Why he seemingly made a radical turn away from „the system‖ remains a matter of speculation. He wrote 'V' during his employment at Boeing.

At the time lysergic acid or LSD was quite readily attainable and was still being tested on often unwitting human test subjects by the CIA in programs such as MKUltra which had been around since the early 50s.

MKUltra used numerous methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture.38

This did not go unnoticed by Pynchon and LSD plays a role in 'The Crying of Lot 49'.

Dr Hilarius, who sounds like a „Gestapo officer‖ [10] asks Oedipa to join his experimental program: We still need a hundred-and-fourth for the bridge.‘ Chuckled aridly. The bridge, die Brücke, being his pet name for the experiment he was helping the community hospital run on effects of LSD-25, mescaline, psilocybin, and related drugs on a large sample of suburban housewives. The bridge inward. [10]

It is no coincidence that Dr Hilarius speaks with a German Gestapo accent. Most likely it is a reference to Operation Paperclip which was a ―program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II.‖39 Later on, Oedipa finds Mucho out of his mind because he has been tripping on LSD for some time. He got the LSD from Dr Hilarius who had expanded the experiment "to include husbands".[99]

38

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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The sixties were also a time of violent deaths. In 1962 Marilyn Monroe died under mysterious circumstances and Kennedy‘s involvement was rumoured. White supremacists murdered Medgar Evers hours after Kennedy's Civil Rights Address. Civil rights activist Malcolm X was murdered. A Ku Klux Klan bombing of a Baptist church killed 4 black girls.

Then there is, of course most famously, the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas and the subsequent murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Hollander argues that ‗The Crying of Lot 49‘ is a coded narrative about the assassination of John Kennedy. When asked about the extent of the Peter Pinguid Society mail-delivery he answers "Only in our San Narciso chapter. They've set up pilot projects similar to this one in Washington and I think Dallas chapters."[35] At the time ‗The Crying of Lot 49' publication the mention of Dallas would have raised red flags in the minds of readers he argues and was "nearly synonymous with assassination and cover-up, as loaded with sinister implication for Americans as the name Tristero was for the Jacobeans at the time of The Courier’s Tragedy."40 The fact that Washington as seat of the government is mentioned in combination with Dallas which is mentioned only once in the novel and the word Trystero only once in Driblette's edition of

The Courier’s Tragedy means that ‗the singularity

signifies the name‘s highest importance‘.

It was also a period when racial tensions were high. Non-violent marches against racial segregation were led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Alabama State Troopers severely beat and used tear gas against nonviolent demonstrators in the Selma to Montgomery marches.

The Watts Riot in Los Angeles resulted in the deaths of 34 people. The racism and inequality must have touched Pynchon for he wrote the essay "Into the Mind of Watts" (1966) expressing his sympathy for the residents. His sympathy for the disinherited, losers, the poor and desperate is also apparent in 'The Crying of Lot 49' when Oedipa comforts a tattooed old sailor:

40

Hollander, Charles. Pynchon, Jfk and the Cia: Magic Eye Views of the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'., 1997. p. 14 IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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The eyes closed. Cammed each night out of that safe furrow the bulk of this city's waking each sunrise again set virtuously to plowing, what rich soils had he turned, what concentric planets uncovered? What voices overheard, flinders of luminescent gods glimpsed among the wallpaper's stained foliage, candlestubs lit to rotate in the air over him, prefiguring the cigarette he or a friend must fall asleep someday smoking, thus to end among the flaming, secret salts held all those years by the

insatiable stuffing of a mattress that could keep vestiges of every nightmare sweat, helpless overflowing bladder, viciously, tearfully consummated wet dream, like the memory bank to a computer of the lost? She was overcome all at once by a need to touch him, as if she could not believe in him, or would not remember him, without it.

Exhausted, hardly knowing what she was doing, she came the last three steps and sat, took the man in her arms, actually held him, gazing out of her smudged eyes down the stairs, back into the morning. She felt wetness against her breast and saw that he was crying again. He hardly breathed but tears came as if being pumped. "I can't help," she whispered, rocking him, "I can't help."[87] Conclusion As was mentioned in the introduction, The Crying of Lot 49 may be more accessible than some of Pynchon‘s other work, yet Duyfhuizen comments that "Meaning, in The Crying of Lot 49 is never simple. From the very outset when Oedipa discovers that she has to execute Pierce Inverarity's will, questions proliferate faster than answers."41 When compared to the later work, Inherent Vice, also set in California about 6 years later in 1970, one may easily see the post-modern mannerisms in the book which include mind and language games.

Inherent Vice, interestingly, is even more in the style of the detective genre. Oedipa was an amateur sleuth in The Crying of Lot 49, but Doc Sportello, the main character in ‚Inherent Vice‘, is an actual private detective. Although the novel is in mock hard-boiled noir style, Doc is nothing like Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. He is not a tough gumshoe but rather more of a ―gum sandal‖42 and is not a hard drinking, slugging private dick; he is constantly high on weed and often asks silly questions. He lives in the fictional Gordita Beach in California which is assumed to be based on Manhattan Beach where Pynchon lived in the late 60s and early 70s43 according to an ex-girlfriend with whom he lived at the time.

There are many characters in the novel and again these have distinctive names such as Doc‘s apparently kidnapped ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth, Doc‘s lawyer Sauncho Smilax, the property developer Mickey Wolfmann, a band called Spotted Dick, Boris Spivey and so on. As in The Crying of Lot 49, a vast and secret organization is included in the plot: Golden Fang. Furthermore, there are plenty of references to American culture of that time: Dark Shadows (a popular gothic soap opera), killer Charles Manson, Frank Zappa and the

42

From the teaser commercial for ‚Inherent Vice‘ voided over by Pynchon.

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Dubini, Donatello. ―Thomas Pynchon: A Journey Into the Mind of P.‖ (2002) IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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Duyfhuizen, Bernard. ―»Hushing Sick Transmissions»: Disrupting Story in the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖ New Essays on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1991. Ed. Patrick O›Donnell.

Cambridge University Press, 2001.p. 237

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Mothers, president Richard Nixon, governor Ronald Reagan, Brylcreem and much lingo of the time such as groovy, dig it, righteous and hey man.

On the surface it seems that Inherent Vice is more accessible than The Crying of Lot 49 as it reads quite easily and relatively faster. However, as is the case with The Crying of Lot 49, perhaps even more so, there are many plot twists and the novel can be called genuinely labyrinthine. ―An obsessive and labyrinthine style, conspiracies and esoterica, an intimation of great and subterranean powers at work, with so many multiple levels of frantic activity the text resembles an archaeological dig more than a book44." Further examination and close reading is required to make a thorough comparison.

Neither The Crying of Lot 49 nor Inherent Vice are meant for speed reading; one who tries will miss out on their beauty and all the fun. It is fair to say that Pynchon is not for everybody, but readers willing to put in some extra effort and perhaps an occasional lookup on Wikipedia will find the experience rewarding and enriching. So relax, keep an open mind and enjoy the ride because both novels will take the reader to many strange and unexpected places.

References 1. Anon. ―The Straight Dope.‖ 1995. Ed. San Narciso Community College 3 Jan 2014. <http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/bio/facts.html>.

2. Berressem, Hanjo. ―How to Read Pynchon.‖ The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon. Eds. Inger H. Dalsgaard, Luc Herman, and Brian McHale. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

3. Harold Bloom, ed. Thomas Pynchon. Chelsea House Publishers, 2001.

4. Butler, Christopher. A Very Short Introduction to Postmodernism., 2002.

5. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Fontana Press, 1993.

6. Castillo, Debra A. ―Borges and Pynchon: The Tenuous Symmetries of Art.‖ New Essays on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1991. Ed. Patrick O›Donnell. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

7. Castro, Benilda A. ―An Analysis of the Signs in Thomas Pychon›s ‹the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'›.‖ (1997) 8. Cowart, David. ―Pynchon in Literary History.‖ The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon. Eds. Inger H. Dalsgaard, Luc Herman, and Brian McHale. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

9. Inger H. Dalsgaard, Luc Herman, and Brian McHale, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon.

Cambridge University Press, 2012.

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Billot, Victor. ―Book Review: Inherent Vice.‖ Otago Daily Times 2010, sec Entertainment: IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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11. Duyfhuizen, Bernard. ―»Hushing Sick Transmissions»: Disrupting Story in the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖ New Essays on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1991. Ed. Patrick O›Donnell. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

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10. Dutta, Aninditta. ―The Paradox of Truth, the Truth of Entropy.‖ 1995. <http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/entropy/paradox.html>.

12. Editors, Pynchon Wiki. ―Pynchon Wiki.‖ 2013. <http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1>.

13. ―Entropy.‖ San Narciso Community College. <http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/entropy/i>.

14. Gioia, Ted. ―Review of ‹the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'›.‖ 15. Hayles, N. Katherine. ―»A Metaphor of God Knew How Many Parts»: The Engine That Drives the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖ New Essays on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1991. Ed. Patrick O›Donnell. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

16. Hollander, Charles. ―Pynchon‘s Inferno.‖ Cornell Alumni News (1978) 17. ———. Pynchon, Jfk and the Cia: Magic Eye Views of the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'., 1997.

18. Iommi, A., J. Osbourne et al. ―Paranoid.‖ (1970) 19. Johnston, John. ―Toward the Schizo-Text: Paranoia as Semiotic Regime in the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖ New Essays on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1991. Ed. Patrick O›Donnell. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

20. Kohn, E. Robert. New Close Readings of the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, 2013.

21. Krafft, John M. ―Biographical Note.‖ The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon. Eds. Inger H. Dalsgaard, Luc Herman, and Brian McHale. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

22. Mendelson, Edward. ―The Sacred, the Profane, and the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖ Thomas Pynchon.

Ed. Harold Bloom. Chelsea House Publishers, 2001.

23. Patrick O›Donnell, ed. New Essays on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1991. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

24. Petillon, Pierre-Yves. ―A Re-Cognition of Her Errand Into the Wilderness.‖ New Essays on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1991. Ed. Patrick O›Donnell. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

25. Poirier, Richard. ―Embattled Underground.‖ The New York Times 1966, 26. Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'. 1965. Picador, 1979.

27. Schaub, Thomas Hill. ―The Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49' and Other California Novels.‖ The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Pynchon. Eds. Inger H. Dalsgaard, Luc Herman, and Brian McHale. Cambridge University Press, 2012.

28. Sorondo, Alex. ―What is Postmodern Literature?‖ 21-12-13. Examiner.com. 29 Dec. 2014. <http://www.examiner.com/article/what-is-postmodern-literature>.

29. Editors, SparkNotes. ――Sparknote on the Crying of 'The Crying of Lot 49'.‖.‖ 2013. Ed. SparkNotes LLC 28 Dec. 2014. <SparkNotes.com.>.

 The Author

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Robert Versteegen studied at Fontys University of applied sciences in Tilburg for a Master's degree in Education. He is a teacher of English and has worked as an educator for over 25 years. He has a passion for reading, painting and music. Robert and his wife and two sons live in Maaseik, Belgium. Email: robert.versteegen@me.com

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IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

The tragic-comic in The Merchant of Venice Anais Munoz Donaire University of Extremadura, Spain / University of Leicester, UK

As Snider (2009, online) states, Shakespeare‘s tragedies have some comic parts and almost all his comedies have a serious plot or a tragic background. The Merchant of Venice is listed in the First Folio among the comedies. However, this labelling historically generated considerable controversy as some critics considered it mainly as a comedy and others as a tragedy. Nowadays, this play is often viewed as a ―tragicomedy‖ with the argument that it mixes elements of both. It is the objective of this essay to look into some comic and tragic elements in the play and analyse its tragic-comic characteristics.

On the one hand, it is of utmost importance to consider the factors that lead The Merchant of Venice to be seen as a comedy. Firstly, as Mahood (2003, p.9) remarks, this play is a romantic comedy because it portraits, to a certain extent, the victory of love and friendship. Bassanio and Portia seem to represent the intricacies of courtly love. Bassanio needs money because he wants to court Portia, the rich heiress, appropriately. In fact, when he chooses the lead casket (III.ii. p.128), he rejects the gold and silver ones comparing them with ―beauty‖, ―ornament‖ and ―money‖. Rejecting these valuable things, he seems to be trying to prove that his love is certainly true. In addition, two other love stories occur in the play: Nerissa and Gratiano, Jessica and Lorenzo. All these three couples are married by the end of the play. Furthermore, Antonio is eventually saved by Portia‘s cleverness, who acts as his heroine. That is to say, the play seems to end happily with all the problems solved.

Secondly, The Merchant of Venice can be regarded as a comedy because of its comic tone. Although it is true that the serious style is also present in the story, this seems to be broken at many instances by wordplay or some comic characters. For example, after the tense moment in which Bassanio chooses the casket, Gratiano breaks the seriousness announcing that he will marry Nerissa and saying, ―We‘ll play with them the first boy for a thousand ducats‖ (III.ii p.133). Moreover, the scenes in which Lancelot and his father appear also

him (II.ii p.99). They use unfinished sentences, giving the turn to talk to each other. This

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creates a sense of nervousness and amusement representing an ordinary scene. In addition,

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introduce a comical relief, as when they speak with Bassanio because Lancelot wants to serve

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when Jessica runs away and is disguised as a man (II.vi. p.109), the scene seems to be a stock dramatic device used in the comedy of intrigue.

Thirdly, it is important to notice that the plot of the play follows the basic principles of Comedy as a genre. In The Merchant of Venice, Bassanio is a poor man and the whole play gives the impression that has its seed in his desire to court Portia and, for this reason, he asks Antonio, his friend, for money (I.i p.76-77). This creates a complex situation because Antonio has to ask Shylock, the Jew usurer, for a loan (I.iii p.83-90). In other words, Bassanio is flawed because he wants to look like a rich suitor to Portia. At the end of the play, he ends up married to the rich heir and she had saved his friend‘s life, so his problems have been resolved and he has finally obtainedwhat he wanted. However, Bassanio‘s flaw mot only leads to laughter and to a happy conclusion for all the characters, but it also establishes the tragic plot that is going to be analysed now.

On the other hand, several characteristics of tragedy are present in The Merchant of Venice. If Comedy is about ordinary themes and, as Aristotle (1942, p. 8) described it, an attempt to represent everyday life and poor men that provoke laughter with their faults; tragedy, on the other hand, is about serious issues. Firstly, the love between Antonio and Bassanio, a possibly homoerotic relationship, is important for the gender dynamics of the play (Gay, 2008, p.49). In fact, the film directed by Radford (2004) shows it very accurately with the gestures between the two characters which give their relationship a sense of intimacy when they are together. An important example of this implied homoerotic relationship is the moment in which Bassanio asks Antonio for money and he says that he cannot deny anything to him (I.i). In addition, Salarino seems to make Antonio‘s love clear when he says ―And even there, his eye being big with tears, turning his face, he put his hand behind him, and with affection wondrous sensible he wrung Bassanio‘s hand, and so they parted‖ (II.viii). In addition, at the end of the play, Antonio is the only character who is left alone. Therefore, the play has a tragic resolution for Antonio and ultimately puts into question the supposed victory of love.

Second, The Merchant of Venice also deals with the abuse of law and justice. This is seen mainly in the courtroom scene (IV.i). It is a battle between formal positivism and the

Portia, at first, assures that he is right, but then she uses natural law to twist the argument.

Portia is abusing her rhetorical powers because she does not acquiesce with leaving Shylock IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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claims what he understands belongs to him because Antonio has signed the contract, while

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natural law that shows the hypocrisy and abuse of power (Nisker, 2006, p.259). Shylock

free to go without his pound of flesh and his claim but also seeks to punish him and make him lose all he has, including his dignity ordering him ―Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke‖ (IV.i. p.161). In this scene, Venice proves to use the law in favour of Christian citizens making questionable the principles of justice and mercy (Miller, 2001, p.202).

This leads us to another serious question in this play, which is racism. Notably, the type of discrimination seen in The Merchant of Venice is religious, between Christians and Jews (Gil Harris, 2010, pp. 209-12). This anti-Semitism is shown in many instances through the play. When Antonio and Bassanio ask Shylock, the Jew usurer, for money, the latter gives a speech emphasising the moments in which Antonio has insulted him, and, in fact, Antonio answers ―I am as like to call thee so again‖ (I.iii p.88). In addition, it is of utmost importance in Shylock‘s speech as a victim (III.i p.122). He expresses in this speech his frustration and begs the Christians for understanding, saying that he is also human, and feels the same as them. The climax scene is in the courtroom where Portia denies him his name and calls him ―Jew‖. The people around are all against him and laugh at him when they make him lose his dignity. Eventually, Antonio orders him to convert to Christianism. Shylock is thus humiliated in all possible ways. However, as Gil Harris (2010, p.211) argues, ―if circumcision marks the unseen bodily difference of Jew and Muslim from Christian, Shylock‘s conversion at play‘s end cannot eradicate that hidden mark‖.

Finally, another serious issue in The Merchant of Venice is the notion of a patriarchal society. Portia represents a ―lottery price‖ that her suitors have to gain, choosing the right casket (Gay, 2008, p.51). An important scene that shows this is the one in which she is talking with Nerisa about her frustration (I.ii p.77-82). She is displeased because of her father‘s decision, but she has to obey him. This seems to demonstrate how women were dependent on their fathers and then of their husbands. Furthermore, Portia shows a duality saying, ―I could teach you how to choose right, but then I am forsworn. So will I never be.‖ (III.ii p.125). She wants to tell him which is the casket he has to choose, but she does not want to betray her father.

To conclude, it is common in Shakespearean comedies a mix of several plots (Snider, 2009, online) occurs. In this play, there are two main plots, and it can be said that one is

consider the reactions of the 21st century audiences, we will probably conclude The Merchant of Venice is a tragic play that leads to a sense of catharsis (Letwin et al., 2008, p. 98.) and IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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the same time, it can be a painful place, full of of misery for others (Gay, 2008, p. 125). If we

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comic and one is tragic. This play shows how the world can be kind for some people but, at

because of the complexity of the serious themes. By contrast, if we look into the form and the characterization, the play can be seen as a comedy (Klein, 2000, online). All things considered, it is possible to approach The Merchant of Venice as a play with tragic –comic elements that shifts between both largely depending on the aspects audiences focus on.

References Aristotle.n.d. The Poetics of Aristotle. Translated by Preston H. Epps, 1942. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Gay, P. 2008. The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare’s Comedies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gil Harris, J. 2011. Shakespeare and race. In: M. De Grazia and S.Wells, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.

201-215.

Klein, A. 2000. ―Theater Review; The Arguable Comedy in 'Merchant of Venice'‖. The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/05/nyregion/theaterreview-the-arguable-comedy-in-merchant-of-venice.html [Accessed: 27 October 2016].

Letwin, D., Stockdale, J. and Stockdale R. 2008. Genre. The Architecture of Drama.

Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc. Pp. 93-116.

Mahood, M. M. 2003. Some attitudes and assumptions behind the play. The Merchant of Venice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press pp. 8-24.

Miller, A. 2001. Matters of State. In A. Leggatt, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 185-200.

Nisker, J. 2006. ―The (comic) tragedy of formalism in Shakespeare‘s The Merchant of Venice‖. Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies. [Online] Available at: https://ojs.library.dal.ca/djls/article/view/4197/3838 [Accessed: 21 October 2016] Radford, M. 2004 The Merchant of Venice. (film) Shakespeare, W. 2003. The Merchant of Venice. M. M. Mahood (ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Snider, D. 2009. Exploring the Nature of Shakespearean Comedy. The System of Shakespeare’s Dramas. St. Louis: G. T. Jones and Company. Available at: http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/elementsofcomedy.html [Accessed: 21 October 2016] 

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Anais Muñoz is an English Language and Literature student at the University of Extremadura, in Spain. She was an Erasmus student at the University of Leicester in 2016.

Anais is particularly interested in teaching English as a foreign language. In the future, she intends to do a PhD on teaching English literature to adults.

Email: anny_miajadas@hotmail.com

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The Author

IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

Tyrannical power in Othello and The Winter’s Tale Eduardo Lima Brunel University London*

*This paper is a version of the work originally submitted as an assignment for the BA in English at the

University of St Mark and St John, Plymouth.

I am glad at soul I have no other child, For thy escape would teach me tyranny, (Othello I.iii.195-6)

Power, in all its forms and manifestations, has been a matter of utmost importance for humanity since ancient times for all relationships hinge on a delicate balance of power and influence: from the openly social, such as those between monarchs and their subjects, to the most private, such as those in a family. It is no surprise then to see matters such as the nature and abuse of power to frequently show up in literature and much less surprising to see it in the works of the author considered by many to be the greatest ever in the English language. It is the objective of this essay to look into the political and historical context of Elizabethan England and analyse the treatment of tyranny under monarchy and republicanism along with an analysis of the characters who embody power and its abuse in Shakespeare‘s Othello and The Winter’s Tale.

Shakespeare‘s time was a period of great political changes and disturbances. While England prospered under its Virgin Queen, it was also a time when the Crown had acquired powers far beyond those of its predecessors. With Henry VIII‘s Reformation, the Sovereign became also the head of the English Church and came to hold religious as well as secular powers. It then became a great preoccupation for the courtiers at the time to determine the exact limit of a monarch‘s power. How could the people and the Parliament protect themselves in case a tyrant came to the throne? Considering that the Sovereign could now claim divine rights and powers, disobedience and revolt became not only crimes against the

nature of a tyrant. What was it that separates a good and godly king from this most foul of all

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creatures?

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State but also mortal sins. Such discussions reawakened, not surprisingly, questions on the

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These concerns were not only England‘s, as works such as Erasmus‘ (1516) The Education of a Christian Prince, highly influential in its time, show. Erasmus deliberates on how a good Prince should behave and on how to be ‗a good Monarch‘ as opposite to ‗the scourge of nations‘ that is ‗a wicked and evil prince‘ (cited in Wells, 2009: 90-1). Another work on the subject, translated into English in 1606, was that of the French thinker Jean Bodin (1576) The Sixe Books of a Commonweale (cited in Wells, 2009, pp. 104 106) which sets out to draw a contrast between a king and a tyrant, the former as a selfless ruler steeped in law, and the latter as selfish and the follower of his own lusts, appetites and fears.

According to Bodin (cited in Wells, 2009, pp. 104 106), another aspect of a bad monarch is that he does not listen to his wise counsellors or quite simply has none; instead, he surrounds himself with advisors that are as wicked as he is. This facet of the prototypical tyrant came to bear a heavy impression on English minds with the coronation of James VI of Scotland as James I of England, notorious for his extreme views on the divine right of kings and his denial of parliamentary power. James I insisted that kings were to submit to no laws but God‘s and the ancient customs, and above all that the Parliament had no right to tell him how to perform his kingly duties, as can be seen on his own work on the matter The True Law of Free Monarchies (1996). This is not to say that James I was a dictator, only that his unwillingness to heed parliament was a matter of great concern. However, even if the king of England was not a tyrant, Shakespeare‘s Leontes, from The Winter’s Tale, most probably written during James I‘s reign, is a different matter. A good natured king, he turns into a tyrannical ruler, as can be seen in his failure to heed to Camillo, and later to his council and Paulina, as the former pleads Hermione‘s innocence to his king, Leontes: Say it be, ‗tis true.

Camillo: No, no, my lord.

Leontes: It is. You lie, you lie.

I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee, (I.ii.300-3)

Leontes turns irrational at the thought of her adultery, incapable of discerning sound counselling or even reality any longer, as can be seen at his misrecognition of his son

protests her innocence. Leontes‘ reply to them closely resonates with James I‘s views on the powers of kingship, IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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denounce Hermione publicly as an adulteress, much to the distress of his council, which

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Mamillius, (I.ii.127-163), first as not his, and then as he himself. He goes forth then to

Why, what need we Commune with you of this, but rather follow Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness Imparts this; which, if you – or stupefied Or seeming so in skill – cannot or will not Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves We need no more your advice. The matter, The loss, the gain, the ord‘ring on‘t, is all Properly ours. (II.ii.163-72)

However, James I is not the only monarch that Leontes can be associated with. As Palmer (1995, pp. 331) argues, it is possible to link him to the notorious tyrant Ivan IV of wintery Russia. The connection can be made not only through his cruelty by committing the newborn baby and his wife to the fire (II.iii.95-6), but also through Hermione‘s admittance that, ‗The Emperor of Russia was my father‘ (III.ii.117). We should also have in mind the bear scene that marks the end of Act 3, Scene 3 since the bear is a widespread symbol for Russia.

Leontes is, thus, overcome with what Paulina calls ‗tyrannous passion‘ (II.iii.37) and this causes him to even ignore the gods which reveal to him his wife‘s innocence (III.ii.131-8).

He only comes to his senses when the oracle‘s prediction of the death of his son comes to pass. Leontes, however, is far from being Shakespeare‘s only tyrannical ruler; another, quite clear case can be found in Richard III, with the titular character making for a more stereotypical despot.

Although Othello is not a play with a clear focus on the subject of tyranny, the once good moor Othello has much in common with the oppressive and repenting king Leontes.

Othello‘s converted Moorish protagonist, however, is no king, being introduced to us as only a commander under the Venetian government. The city is also present in another play, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello‘s affiliation with Venice speaks wonders of Shakespeare‘s view of the city, its government, and its humanist myth (Slights, 1997, pp. 380) of valuing its citizens on merit and dealing equally and fairly with all. The Signory, the government of the

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discourse is heard to its fullest from both sides and only then considered and replied to

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city, while only briefly present in the play, is shown to be a place of discussion, where

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(I.iii.1 292), drawing a stark contrast between its democratic mechanisms and the workings of Leontes‘ court while in his jealous rage.

Although Othello is no tyrant per se, he certainly has a leader‘s aura of power and charisma (Hattaway, 2006, pp. 116) and eventually becomes governor of Cyprus. It is in this powerful position and on the outskirts of the Venetian Republic where he does injustice to his wife. However, he commits his crime by his own hand, making abuse of his power as a husband but not as governor; unlike Leontes, who orders his servants to do it for him. Also in contrast with Leontes, who comes to his belief about his cuckoldry on his own accord, Othello has ‗honest‘ Iago spurring him on and directing his thinking until he eventually becomes overcome with his ‗tyrannous hate‘ (III.iii.453). His attempt to associate the murder of Desdemona with religious righteousness can lead him to be associated with his enemy, the Turk, and their cruel sultans (Vitkus, 1997, pp. 171), much like Leontes can be associated with the Russian tyrant.

Both men are shown to us as good people, respectable and honourable, Othello arguably more than Leontes. Both are married to the fairest and purest of wives, and out of jealousy aroused by their supposed infidelity are led to tyrannical behaviour. Therefore, it is not in their first nature to abuse their power, but such abuse is a consequence of their emotions growing swollen and overcoming their reason, leading them to go against their better judgement and not to heed that of others. Such tyrannical behaviour affects even The Winter’s Tale other and arguably better king, Polixenes (Kurland, 1991, pp. 375). Upon the discovery of his son‘s plan to marry without his consent, Polixenes imposes extreme punishment to all involved (IV.iv.405-29) and ‗will allow no speech‘ (IV.iv.456). Yet, Shakespeare‘s intent should not be seen as an attempt to give lessons on how monarchs should behave or to determine which system of government is superior; his interest is in the drama of power (Wells, 2009, pp. 89) and its effect on the character of those who hold it.

While some marginal characters in Shakespeare‘s plays can be seen as rather two dimensional, his lead characters often show incredible depth when closely analysed. That is doubly true in the case of his tragedies, and Othello is no different. The protagonist is a Moor, a black or dark skinned man in the middle of a white society, whose whole sense of self ‗blackened‘ by his wife‘s infidelity, I will have some proof. My name that was fresh

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a reputation he cannot bear to see

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depends upon his reputation which makes him ‗white‘

As Dian‘s visage, is now begrimed and black As mine own face. If there be cords, or knives, Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams, I‘ll not endure it. Would I were satisfied! (III.iii.391-5)

His whole identity is constructed by the norms and language of a society to which he is an outsider (Greenblatt, 2005, pp. 245). He must constantly be the gallant whitened Moor. Add to that his insecurity over being black, rustic, ageing, satisfying and possessing his beloved wife‘s appetites (III.iii.267 274) and we have a very fragile sense of self which coupled with power and authority make for an extremely volatile mix, as can be seen by the play‘s tragic conclusion. Moreover, such identity fragility also causes Othello‘s focus to be completely upon himself causing his engagement with his wife to become separated from reality. His idolization and love of her come to define his sense of self, and thus become separate from the real. It heightens his fear of loss and degradation of her person to such an extreme level that leads him to hate her living, supposedly infected self, and to love her constructed image of purity. It is this contradiction within himself that causes his outburst of violence, ‗Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee / and love thee after (...)‘ (V.ii.18-9) A divided sense of self can also be found in Leontes, a fact that is most aptly noticed by his counsellor Camillo, (...) one Who in rebellion with himself, will have All that are his so too. (...) (I.ii.355-7)

Fuelled by Hermione‘s behaviour with Polixenes, which is only partly available to us and himself (Felperin, 1999, pp. 189), Leontes also suffers a fear of loss and starts to idolize his wife. It leads him to misrecognize her as a full and independent being (Danson, 1994, pp. 77).

He comes to hate the living Hermione and idolizes the image of the dead one. His biggest fear, however, is to lose that which gives him his power: reputation. This can be seen in his wild imagination and frantic questioning of Camillo if it is ‗not noted‘ and if the ‗lower

of any of those around him, yet is deeply dependent upon the willingness of his subjects to be under his rule to derive his power. For a king, reputation itself is power. He cannot afford to IATEFL Literature SIG Bridges. Issue 2. April 2017

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in itself for while he is divine in right and yet ages as any mortal man; he has powers beyond

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messes / perchance are to this business purblind?‘ (I.ii.217-228). His position is paradoxical

have his subjects laugh at him for being wrong (II.ii.200-1) and follows headstrong in his conviction of his wife‘s guilt allowing only fear of the divine to change his verdict.

While Leontes is perhaps not as complex as Othello

for example, he does not have

an issue with being of a different colour than those around him

he is a king that is faced

with his own mortality. He looks upon his son and fondly remembers days past (I.ii.152-161) thus becoming aware of his aging (II.iii.162). The same can be said for Polixenes on the second part of the play (IV.iv.385-9). In a way, it is the very nature of a king‘s double existence, as both man and estate, which generates the conflict between both halves, one fallible and mortal; the other demanding flawlessness and a seeming divinity that leads to the display of tyrannical behaviour. For how can a ruler be wrong when he is the definer of rights and wrongs? And how can a ruler allow his reputation to be tarnished by rumours, either false or not, when his very existence depends on it? It is fear of loss, an all too human behaviour, which drives these characters to their tyrannical behaviour, as well as to abuse and jeopardize the very power they were trying to protect. Monarchies and Republics, as can be seen in both Shakespeare‘s and Erasmus‘ works, are only as good as the people who rule them.

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Danson, L. 1994. ‗The Catastrophe is a Nuptial‘: The Space of Masculine Desire in Othello, Cymbeline, and The Winter’s Tale. In Wells, S. (ed.) Shakespeare Survey 46.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Felperin, H. 1999. ―Tongue-tied, Our Queen?‖: The Deconstruction of presence in The Winter’s Tale. In Ryan, K. (ed.) Shakespeare: The Last Plays. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.

Greenblatt, S. 2005. Renaissance Self-Fashioning. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Hattaway, M. 2003. Tragedy and political authority. In McEachern, C. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Tragedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

James I, (King of England), D. Fischlin and M. Fortier. 1996. The true law of free monarchies: and, Basilikon doron. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies.

Kurland, S. 1991. "We Need No More of Your Advice": Political Realism in The Winter's Tale. In Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 31, No. 2, Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Spring, 1991), pp. 365-386.

Palmer, D. 1995. Jacobean Muscovites: Winter, Tyranny, and Knowledge in The Winter's Tale. In Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 323-339.

Shakespeare, W. 2008. Othello. In Greenblatt, S.(ed.) The Norton Shakespeare. 2nd Edition.

New York: W.W. Norton.

Shakespeare, W. 2008. The Winter’s Tale. In Greenblatt, S.(ed.) The Norton Shakespeare. 2nd Edition. New York: W.W. Norton.

Slights, C. 1997. Slaves and Subjects in Othello. In Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Winter, 1997), pp. 377-390.

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References

Vitkus, D. 1997. Turning Turk in Othello: The Conversion and Damnation of the Moor. In Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 145-176.

Wells, R. 2009. Shakespeare’s Politics. New York: Continuum.  The Author

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Eduardo Lima‘s research is in the interdisciplinary field of literature, game studies, and film studies. He is especially interested in narrative forms in different media and in how different chronotopes shape the readers‘ and audiences‘ experiences. In the area of literary studies, his main interests are in the Old Norse and Old English Heroic Epic and in the Fantasy Novel.

He holds a BA and an MA in English Studies and has just completed a PhD on Screen Media.

Email: dksfenrir@hotmail.com

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