Cacoethes: Destruction through the Illogical

In Lord Byron’s Sardanapalus the inequitable division of passion and virtue paints an uttermost conflict between the inherently rational and animalistic realms of a being on a canvas of his existence. Sardanapalus, the king of Nineveh and Assyria, is an epicene ruler who distances himself from traditional royal principles. Sardanapalus’s inability to separate vice and virtue is voluntary; nonetheless, the satisfying of his desires through lust and luxury relies on the unconscious deliberations of the non-rational. The insidious, destructive, and malevolent aspects of Sardanapalus’s passions have no self-restraint, diminishing many and bringing about his tragedy. The protagonist’s and his lover’s, Myrrha’s suicides are resulted not only by the king’s compelling emotions and miscommunication, but also by Myrrha’s decision to give in to her lover’s non-controllable irrationality. The play is comparable to Shakespearean tragedies such a Romeo and Juliet; however, it is in direct contrast with Paul’s definition of love in I Corinthians, Plato’s definition of “happiness,” and John Winthrop’s notion of charity. Sardanapalus’s reasons are overwhelmed by his passions, which in turn cast a shadow on his ability to act logically, thus becoming a catalyst to the failure in achieving the praise of his own people and Myrrha, the Ionian slave, further leading him to his doom.

The missing precepts of Sardanapalus’s “charitable” actions are reason and justice—the pellucid positive guides of human behavior. The disorderly elements of the non-rational cloud his judgment, making him to pay frequent homage to his heart rather than to his mind. In the play, the voice of reason, Myrrha, is in stark contrast with Sardanaplus’s pathos. During the hour of possible attack by revolutionaries, Sardanaplus’s mind wanders toward the execution of a festive banquet: “Come, we’ll think no more on’t—/But of the midnight festival” (Byron 26). In direct opposition with his uttering is Myrrha’s logical rejoinder: “’Tis time/To think of aught save festivals. Thou has not/Spurn’d his sage cautions?” (Byron 26). Myrrha’s reasonable assertions illuminate the fact that the king follows his desires, rather than rules the kingdom. The letting go of traditional royal responsibilities foreshadows possible disarray. Sardanapalus’s fallacy lies in his delusional cognition of desire and love, trying to patch the blemishes of certain conditions, such as the upcoming turmoil in a form of rebellion. Nonetheless, reality dictates something irrevocably polarizing to the former analogy: Sardanapalus’s passions and vices mold together as one entity and venture forth for destruction. Wittingly noted by Salemenes, his brother-in-law, Sardanapalus is “short of the duties of a king” (Byron 22). There is a replacement of kingly duties and responsibilities with the urge of lust, which contributes to the disarray in Sardanapalus’s court. The animalistic side of human consciousness becomes the destructive element and is no stranger to Sardanapalus’s cosmos, where reason, as a faculty of mental insight, is a mere derelict in an abandoned shore.

The reminiscence of Sardanapalus to Shakespearean tragedies is almost a given fact, rather than a possible observation. For Sardanapalus, what ought to be valuable (virtue) is regarded cipher and vice versa. When reason rules, the faculties of the body become subdued; however, such approach is the missing ingredient in these plays. Sardanapalus’s overwhelmed address to Myrrha in the moment of hazard is beyond logic, as it manifests internal disposition to irrationality, which is not immune to invasions of mania. The king refers to his beloved Ionian slave: “I love thee far—far more/Than either the brief life or the wide realm” (Byron 27). The vulnerable assertion is responded by Myrrha’s critical stance: “That means thou lovest nor thyself nor me;/For he who loves another loves himself,/Even for that other’s sake” (Byron 27). Clearly, Sardanapalus’s conception of love bears very little relation to Myrrha’s logical address, however “consequential” it seems, yet it proves the arid nature of his actions. As critic Arthur D. Kahn notes, “Sardanapalus is presented as a lax, irresponsible monarch, an incorrigible, effeminate hedonist, unfaithful to his wife and blindly enamored of his paramour” (658). The king is constricted in the labyrinth of his passions whose insecurities surface, and he becomes incapable of focusing his thoughts. These faults are the essence of his character bringing him later to his tragedy.

Considering a stylistic perspective in comparing Sardanapalus’s “passion-over-reason” stance to Romeo’s and Juliet’s tragedies, analyzes the former’s artificiality in terms of expressing his affections toward his subjects or mistress. Sardanapalus’s “benevolence” toward his court is contingent, and his enthusiastic speeches do not have a powerful crescendo, despite Byron’s abundance with exclamation points throughout the king’s sentimental speeches: “I have by Baal! done all I could to soothe them:/I made no wars, I added to new imposts,/I interfered not with their civic lives,” (22). Similarly, Juliet’s unconsciousness caused by a potion is exaggerated by her family, emphasized in the play with legions of exclamation marks in the family members’ passages such as “O me, O me! My child, my only life!” (Shakespeare 4.5.19). Capulets’ absurd over-dramatization of situations and obsessive grief-play at a particular scene gives insight to the idea of miscommunication and over-sentimentality, showing that these are possible causes of the tragedies. Further, Romeo acts in the same over-dramatized manner, ignoring all and residing his attention to the potion which is part of his dramatic speech deliverance, rehearsed earlier in his mind: “Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavory guide!” (Shakespeare 5.3.101). The artificiality of passionately staged worries and pity form the question whether such innovations are taken too far. In Sardanapalus, such factitiousness is proven to be present, despite the king’s earlier persuasion of his “benevolence”: “So my dogs’ are;/And better, as more faithful” (Byron 22). It can be stated that both plays’ protagonists’ optimistic views, ornamented with artificiality, are heartening; nevertheless, the present metaphors and similes do not always succor furnishings what they pretend to be implying.

Using a platonic perspective in analyzing Sardanapalus’s passions will illuminate the deleterious causes of his tragic end. Let us pretend for a moment that values, in general, are objective and are inherently instantiated in one’s physical realm. However, any value, to some extent may seem valueless considering different points of views. Furthermore, in order to consummate what is indeed the most valuable, one ought to strive for the ideal, the “Form” of the value that contains no such contradictions. The quest for the ideal value can only be attained by intellectual means—through reason. By rationalizing, one ascends the obscure values of the physical, faulty world in order to grasp, for instance, the Form of Justice or Wisdom. Sardanapalus, as the object of this analysis, drives away from such strife, embracing his passions. When criticized by Salemenes, “another thing thou knowest not,” (Byron 12), Sardanapalus responds in rather satirical fashion, basing his assertion on the word “virtue”: “Not know the word!/Never was word yet rung so in my ears—/Worse than the rabbles’s shout, or spliting trumpet;/I’ve heard thy sister talk of nothing else” (Byron 12). Sardanapalus, the non-oppressive king, is strictly constricted into the visible realm; thus not being able to combine noesis and dianoia in order to pursue happiness. His vices—love for lust, luxury, and artificiality are not representative of the Form; however hazy, however dubious. As Rupert Clendon Lodge suggests, “The Platonist regards all such roads, as commonly understood, as failing to lead one, with any sureness, to anything worthy the name of happiness” (226). The king is mistaken where happiness lies, and his constant rejections of criticism prove a weakness of his will. Plato’s passage encapsulates the above-mentioned more precisely: “In the visible realm, light and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think that either of them is the good—for the good is yet more prized” (500). Whatever Sardanapalus considers to be the path to happiness, runs counter to his real desires, thus shifting all the failures to being non-deliberate. Such approach justifies the tragedy; his and Myrrha’s suicides, undeniably blaming one of the faculties of human psychological make-up—the appetite. The potent appetite of passions conquers reason, ignorantly causing destruction and self-destruction.

Sardanapalus’s definition of love is different than Myrrha’s comprehension of it. For Sardanaplaus, love is equivalent to pleasure; however, for his beloved, that is not the case. Sardanapalus’s definition of love can be contrasted with Paul’s depiction of it in I Corinthians. Since for Sardanapalus, love’s worthy competitor is pleasure, the occurrence of the latter subduing the former is not impossible; in fact, such stance betrays not only the welfare of the being adapting such faculties, but also it is harmful to the well-being of communities. Although indirectly, yet Paul contrasts Agape, the highest form of love, with the impatient, the boastful, the malevolent—all that fits Sardanapalus’s definition of love:

[Love] doth not behave itself unseemingly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth no in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether ther be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. (The Holy Bible, I Cor. 13:5-8)

Sardanapalus has no self-control or moral restraint and most importantly, cannot stand criticism. Sardanapalus’s ability to enamor his beloved Myrrha fails, as his words are not steeped in the highest form of love, but in lust. His apparent gift of speech knows nothing of virtue; moreover, offering nothing eternal. The humble willingness to allow such love and oppress the destructive elements is missing from Sardanapalus’s definition of love. It is not to be confused that there is an expectancy of the king to know the scriptures; rather, the concept of such love (Agape) should be praised and valued. Sardanapalus’s failure to act in such a manner; moreover, embracing fleeting passions, lead to the destruction of his court and to his inevitable doom.

At another instance, Sardanapalus’s idea of love is in contrast with John Winthrop’s concept of charity. Unlike Sardanapalus, Winthrop has a personal motive for reassessing his spiritual state and the commonwealth of the people. There is the idea that love must come from the soul; moreover, charity or love toward another being only a manifestation of well-ordered life. Furthermore, he dwells on the soul’s purest faculties; whereas Sardanapalus tries to initiate Utopia based on bodily elements. His love for the court and the people of Assyria is exemplified by artificiality. Salemenes recognizes the need for avoidance of luxury and warns Myrrha of the dangers of such attitude: “ . . . to have him king, and yours, and all/He should, or should not be; to have him live,/Let him not sink back into luxury” (Byron 76). This is not the way to the commonwealth, and certainly not Winthrop’s idyllic society, in which everyone has need of the other, and all work together in a bond of brotherly affection (Winthrop 69). Sardanapalus’s aristocratic pride disables him be the leader who is capable of building “a city on the hill.” Although at times he is the “benevolent” emperor—“enough/For me, if I can make my subjects feel/The weight of human misery less” (19); nonetheless, at many instances he is a bloodthirsty despot, ready to “use the sword/Till they shall wish it turn’d into a distaff” (Byron 21). He speaks of “vile herds” referring to citizens who have “grown insolent with feeding” (Byron 21), his pride verging on disgust. His ironical attitudes and ineradicable pride are the seeds of his illogical behavior, which is a result of his uncontrollable passion that imprisons and oppresses him. The sense of communalism is the missing ingredient from Sardanapalus’s reign, so evident in Winthrop’s “Model of Christianity.”

Sardanapalus’s excess sentimentality becomes a barricade for his acting of kingly duties, making him vulnerable to illogical judgments. At one instance, his refined sensibility is ornamented with his love for luxury, capturing the essence of his character. He is poetic and touched by the slave’s death: “Slain! Unrewarded!/And slain to serve my thirst: that’s hard, poor slave!/Had he but lived, I would have gorged him with/Gold” (Byron 74). Sardanapalus’s vernacular assertions create a sense of deceit that not only poses a threat to himself as an individual, but also to the whole nation of Assyria. According to drama critic, Charles J. Clancy, “Sardanapalus is the catalyst of the play’s antagonism. His poetic language develops, by means of false starts unsuccessful concrete examples, and, on occasion, unsuccessful literary and cultural anachronisms (70). Such poetic reality clouds Sardanapalus’s mind, disabling him to sense complicated and serious situations or events such as war. His search for personal satisfaction and meaning in life disable him to capitalize situations that ought to be dealt with much consideration. Sardanapalus’s reason is missing a link to the controlling button to his emotions, therefore, leaving him non-adaptive to his world, which is not forgiving to adaptive failure.

Doesn’t history inform that rulers and sovereigns practice power rather gladly, finding it easy to vindicate their peculiar use of it by reference to necessity? The necessity appears in the form of overwhelming passion in Byron’s Sardanapalus. The king is caught in a paradox he has created, by molding his definition of love with his definition of pleasure. When uncontrollable lust and desires sink in, the result is tragedy, as reason becomes possessed by lower, bodily faculties. The corrupting effects of such emotions become apparent in the subservient rebellion and Sardanapalus’s and his lover’s suicides. Sardanapalus’s escape from responsibility and his clear adaptation to artificiality invoke images from works such as Romeo and Juliet, and Othello. Despite the similarities to other works, the play can be contrasted with a segment of Paul’s ponderings on love and Winthrop’s idea of charity. The king’s “charity” fails, as does the strife to grasp platonic happiness.

Works Cited

Byron, Lord. Sardanapalus. Print.

Clancy, Charles J. “Death and Love in Byron’s Sardanapalus.” Drama Criticism 24 (2005).

66-73. Print.

Kahn, Arthur D. “Seneca and ‘Sardanapalus’: Byron, the Don Quixote of Neo-Classicism.”

Studies in Philology 66.4 (1969): 654-71. Print.

Lodge, Rupert Clendon. “Platonic Happiness as an Ethical Ideal.” International Journal of

Ethics 36.3 (1926): 225-39. Print.

Plato. “Republic VI.” Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: from Thales to Aristotle. Eds.

Cohen, S. Marc, et al. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.,

2005. 477-503. Print.

Shakespeare, William. “Romeo and Juliet.” The Complete Pelican Shakespeare. Eds.

Stephen Orgel, et al. Penguin Books Inc.: New York, 2002. 1257-1294. Print.

The Holy Bible: King James Version. Iowa Falls, IW: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001. Print.

Winthrop, John. “A Model of Christian Charity.” 69-83. Print.

Just something about it . . .

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Diction and Tone--A Powerful Crescendo

After great pain a formal feeling comes--

The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

“After great pain a formal feeling comes—

Pondering on McConvillian Synthesis

** McConville's essay (not available) is an interpretation of "The Lotos-Eaters" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

McConville’s interpreation of Tennyson’s “The Lotos-Eaters” as a possible biblically referenced piece of work is impressive because too often the second voice in the poem is neglected.

In his essay, “Genesis and ‘The Lotos-Eaters,’” McConville states: “the lines allow the reader to believe that the poem is transferring from waking-life to a dream,” referencing the poem’s “Along the cliff to fall and pause did seem” (Tennyson 10). The earlier assertion of the word “courage” molds with the stated lines above with its unequivocally placed accent, providing a trochaic response to the unfaltering iambics of the mariners’ mourning. Such rejoinder indeed triggers the dream vision; furthermore, the author here treats the aesthetic experience in its imaginative rather than its observable qualities. The symbolic landscape, reminiscent of Eden, as McConville states: “A return to Eden, perhaps?” emerges as the imagination’s own kingdom, something that grants form to the inner life of the aesthetic. This biblically ornamented version of reality for which the mariners relinquish their collective life is found not only in the elevated awareness drawn from the splendor of the external world, but exists merely with the volitions laid asleep and the grip of the external world upon consciousness broken. The mind can move in liberation, through unbounded space amidst that chimerical order produced by dream which forms the poem’s major analogue.

from "On Sublimity"

"The universe is not wide enough for the range of human speculation and intellect. Our thoughts often travel beyond the boundaries of our surroundings. If anyone wants to know what we were born for, let him look round at life and contemplate the splendour, grandeur, and beauty in which it everywhere abounds. It is a natural inclination that leads us to admire not the little streams, however pellucid and however useful, but the Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, and above all the Ocean. Nor do we feel so much awe before the little flame we kindle, because it keeps its light clear and pure, as before the fires of heaven, though they are often obscured. We do not think our flame more worthy of admiration than the craters of Etna, whose eruptions bring up rocks and whole hills out of the depths, and sometimes pour forth rivers of the earth-born, spontaneous fire. A single comment fits all these examples: the useful and necessary are readily available to man, it is the unusual that always excites our wonder."

--Longinus (first century C.E.)

Milton's Paradise Lost (Book I)

Paradise Lost Book I: The Soaring Song

The most basic story of our civilization is embedded in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The narrative is in the most demanding genre of the time—in epic form, that man had developed and elaborated. Anticipating too much from this piece is nearly unconceivable; rather expecting the inaccurate things is not difficult. Paradise Lost has its similarities to the classics: The Aeneid, The Odyssey, and The Illiad; however, reading this blazing work of art only through its predecessors is nearly a crime. For doing so prevents the reader to live its artistic originality and its pedantic resoluteness. For Milton, “Truth is his aim and the elimination of untruth is essential” (French 470). The cognition of truth and beauty is the suitable way to patch the blemishes of humanity. The chronology of events in this work is crucial for observing significant effects and helps to draw parallels and contrasts throughout the epic. It is not an easy task to hold the events of Paradise Lost, particularly Book I, in mind and approach the piece as a coalesced body of work. Sin, death, and deception mould together as one entity and venture forth for more destruction. Bringing Satan to the reader’s attention as the Fiend of Book I, Milton clearly deprives him of being the hero; although that is not the case in Books II to IV. Milton justifies the ways man has disobeyed God, but at the same time emphasizing the significance of obeying the Omnipotent.

Only God has both the sovereignty and the worry for man that is indispensable, if connotation is to be made of the conspicuous rudimentary. The first twenty-six lines of the poem are like the prelude to an oratorio; they hold the intonations and dominant designs that appraise its thematic tautness. The lines display Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience and the paradise that soon to be lost. “The beginning corresponds to the sequence in Virgil’s Aeneid, from the fall of Troy through the journey to the founding Rome” (Kerrigan, et. al 12). The lines “At last within a land delectable/Their journey lay, through pleasurable bowers/Of groves where all is joy,—a blest abode!’ (Virgil 6.639-41) correspond with “Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,” (Milton 1.5). By translating Virgil’s epithet, Milton is acknowledging he is informed of the classics and indicating that he has mastered their format. Later, Milton invokes the “heavenly Muse” (1.6) as the divine entity of the Trinity showing that his muse (poetic inspiration) is above the classics and surpasses Virgil, Homer, and others. On the other hand, Milton’s supplication is exceedingly modest, indicating his everlasting dependence on God.

The purpose of the beginning of the poem is apparent to the reader: “. . . justify the ways of God to men” (Milton 1.26). However, some critics are not so sure of this utterance. C. S. Lewis asserts that “the real function of these twenty-six lines is to give us the sensation that some great thing is now about to begin” (41). Along with the sensation of the good thing to come, there is also the spiritual preparation: “And chiefly thou O Spirit, that dost prefer” (Milton 1.17), and also perpetuating in “. . . what in me is dark” (Milton 1.22). Milton’s optimistic views on humanity are heartening; nevertheless, Miltonic metaphors and similes do not always succor furnishings what it pretends to be furnishing. Although it has been asserted that Milton is justifying the ways of God to men; sometimes the idea seems hazy and dubious. Many times it takes on a polar form which will assert: justifying man’s ways to God. “[The infernal serpent] first seduced them to that foul revolt?” (Milton 1.33) suggests that Milton defends the faulty humans. His word “seduces” is chosen carefully, in which Milton tries to indicate the humans’ partial innocence. However, the word also connotes a deviation of the will and a turning from the right reason. Its physical connotations are to be developed in two aspects: first, Satan’s conversation with Eve while seducing her, instigates nightmares of serpents engaging sexually with women; yet the other view is more unambiguous: Adam is not deceiving or deceived, but plainly overcomes with female allurement. In this remark, another possible conflict is instituted: reason and order versus passion and chaos. According to David M. Miller, Milton’s argument is, “the fall occurs not because the flesh gives pleasure but because sense usurps the place of reason and lures the will to act against man’s best interest” (83). This tentatively answers the question “Why did they commit the sin?” implying the illogicality and the contrariness of disobedience.

Despite the fact that one of the themes of Book I, especially the opening part is man’s disobedience, Milton refuses to start his poem with man. His poem begins in medias res, pushing all the existence theories beyond the known in a strenuous attempt to have the macrocosm of evil and agony comprisable, and an extraterrestrial agent is customarily at fault. The serpent is the agent in Genesis, yet there is no clue whether the serpent embodies the Fiend. Milton impels the evil canon a step further, for not only the snake is a physical, sensual organism—an animal and beyond human analysis, it is undeniably possessed by Satan: “[God] had cast [the serpent] out from Heav’n, with all his host/Of rebel angels . . .” (Milton 1.37-8). Milton here is concerned with serious metaphysical question as how is it possible for such a celestial entity as God to have created such an imperfect being as man?

The paradox of good and evil appears to be ineluctable as one might as well ask the question as to why God creates an angel who tempts him? The malicious being exists prior to the creation of mankind; therefore, the worry should not be concentrated upon the origins of evil, but upon man’s foremost encounter with a given power of wickedness. There is nearly no information on Satan’s fall until we are solidly fixed in Eden; pride is what leads Satan, previously known as Lucifer, to envy God and therefore to revolt, revolt to be expelled from heaven. The poem does not begin with Satan’s rebellion, although it would make more sense in terms of chronology. However, Milton’s goal is not in starting the poem with the origin of evil, but trying to teach of man’s disobedience. Milton does not attempt to justify God’s ways to devils. Satan is already fallen: “Nine times the space that measures day and night/To mortal men, he with his horrid crew/Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf” (Milton 1.50-52). The fall of the demonic angel manifests the evil’s existence in opposition to good. If the epic is to prolong our curiosity, a credible controversy must exist to divert the notion that the Fiend might succeed. At least in the upcoming Books, Milton describes Satan as the hero. However, a solution to the paradox is adroit. The strategic outcome of the conflict is given, absolute in the nature of Milton’s universe, Satan has to lose. On the other hand, the tactical product of the conflict is also given, Satan has to win.

A simile intended to focalize our prospect of the countless stunned legions of hell, right before they are stirred by Satan, at the same time focalizes our sense of the tranquil order of the creation, and of coming of the dark clouds, also and of man’s endurance through God’s prudence and his will. Satan, positioning himself clear of the rout, contrives to provoke his legions to novel evil deeds: “Of that inflamed sea, he stood and called/ His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced/Thick as autumnal leaves . . .” (Milton 1.300-03). The scenes Milton indicates, mimic hell’s defeat before the Fiend’s voice is heard. Whatever seeks to demolish the tranquility of “autumnal leaves” lies lifeless as “scattered sedge” (Milton 1.304). The continuity of the similes hinges on the middle image of Orion, which sketches both Satan’s power to rouse the fallen hordes and God’s power to scatter and destroy them: “Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed/Hath vexed the Red Sea coast,” (Milton 1.305-06). A further instance compares the legions of hell to “bees in springtime” (Milton 1.768-69). It is plainly a simile that diminishes hell while it amplifies creation. The absurdity of Satan’s condition makes him to submit to the destructive element. Milton’s cosmos is nothing if not purposive; liberty and independence lie in obedience to God, living under his providence, not in self-assured rebellion. Decisively, the Fiend is caught in a paradox: he only exists in self-assurance, yet for this assurance not to be fake, there must be no God; and if God does not exist then what is the Fallen Angel doing in hell? Milton, through his verse, tries to assert that nothing and no-thing exist outside of God.

The significance of Milton in the literary tradition cannot be overestimated. In his Paradise Lost, he adapts the diminished view of man’s place in the grand scheme of universe. The posing of eternal, paradoxical questions as to the nature of man, of his place in the cosmic mass, and his relationship to transcendence seem to be Milton’s greatest achievement, at least in Book I. The integration of fundamental questions into a talking piece is starkly modern. Milton’s blank verse has so many interwoven patterns that at some instances one may regard the work as non-English verse. As one editor puts it: “The way the world is imaged in Paradise Lost, in passionate fullness of detail, isoriginal. Milton’s cosmos; however, orderly, has always something of life’s capacity to surprise” (Carey et. al. 447).

Works Cited

Carey, John, and Alastair Fowler, eds. The Poems of John Milton. London: Longman

Group Ltd., 1968. Print.

French, Milton J. “Milton as a Historian.” PMLA 50.2 (1935): 469-79. Print.

Lewis, C. S. “The Stule of Secondary Epic.” Paradise Lost: A Collection of Critical

Essays. Ed. Louis L. Martz. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Print.

Miller, David M. John Milton: Poetry. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978. Print.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Ed. John Leonard. London: Penguin Group, 2000. Print.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Eds. Kerrigan, William et. al. New York: Modern Library,

2007. Print.

Vergilius, Publius Maro. The Aeneid of Virgil. Trans. John Connington. Ed. Edgar S.

Shumway. Boston: The Macmillan Company, 1910. Print.

On Marxism

A Tale of Two Cities: Through A Marxist Lens

The range of emotions of the rich and the powerful, who have no experience of the hard work and drudgery of a working man, is narrow, limited, and insignificant compared to the range of feelings of the simple laborer. Full of constant discontent and turmoil of trivial events, a simple day of a rich being becomes complicated by insignificances; therefore, unworthy of praise. On the other hand, a peasant’s day is unembellished and ordinary so that a small description provides much detail. Charles Dickens’s famous phrase—“ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” does not purge every characteristic of the French Revolution depicted in his novel A Tale of Two Cities; rather offers a Marxist perspective on the bloody events and social realities of eighteenth century England and France. The character of Charles Darnay becomes insignificant in the midst of manipulations of the bourgeois society in the area of politics, economy, government and acts as a tool for the unfolding of the events. The French Revolution—the seemingly main enterprise of this novel, is just a stylistic device, but its proximate and staggering causes and implications leave the reader metapmorphosizing her speculations. The novel dramatizes the natural and fundamental human need for liberation of social strains, the evils of capitalism, and the means by which the bourgeois keep the proletariat oppressed.

The lavish representation of a French Court authority’s family, called Monseigneur, paints the divided line with utmost clarity between the two societies—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Dickens’s social-exposure technique depicts the harsh reality of the lower classes’ dehumanization. Monseigneur’s narrow thoughts are satirized by Dickens in a moment of choice to further emphasize the ravages of class distinction: “Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that the world was made for them” (106). Each action of the “noble” group embeds larger historical controversies—the “superior” beings only defined in terms of their class. This kind of consciousness fits into Marxian view of the masses and enforces the following analogy: “Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat” (Marx and Engels 658). Being defined through property which has “every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could achieve” (Dickens 107), generates conflicts, a high to a low ratio, and an absurd differentiation. One of the guests at Monseigneur’s, named Marquis Evremonde further proves the above noted Marxian passage, by running over a little boy with his carriage and showing his “compassion” towards the lower class. Preceding the incident, Dickens describes the man as “handsomely dressed, haughty in manner . . . A face with transparent paleness; one set of expression on it” (110). Evremonde, taking his place in the respected and “excepted” class, is just a collection of atoms ornamented with abundant commodities. Despite the entire negative aura caused by the incident; the noble Evremonde only adds another vulgar and despising phrase as a result of his reaction to the incident: “It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live” (Dickens 112). The fact that there are no common bonds of humanity, but only an obvious protection of status relations manifested in this dreadful event.

Charles Darnay’s (Marquis Evremonde’s nephew) return to France from England, most clearly dramatizes another implication by the great divide—the alienation in the area of family and relationships caused by the invisible, yet real borders between the two classes. However, unsurprising, the estrangement occurs in the bourgeois family and the conversation between an uncle and a nephew (the former has not seen the latter for a while) is anything, but familial or depicted with positive connotations. Evremonde’s seemingly indifferent advice, in the midst of the stupor conversation “a good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude might influence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for yourself” (Dickens 123) further fits the Marxian notion of capitalism causing disaffection. The alienation depicted here is not a given, but it formulates via giving individuals certain titles as for instance referring to Darnay as “Evremonde’s nephew” and not by his real name. The situation is clearly depicted in The Communist Manifesto as “The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation” (Marx and Engels 659). Evremonde’s impulses and hatred towards his nephew not only reveals the atrocity of his nature, but also elucidates the ruthlessness of the French influential classes on its dependants. In the stage-play of alienation, the players or the participants wear masks of the estrangement, in order to hide their real essences behind it; whether they are a slave, a master, or a master’s relative. Darnay’s realization of Evremonde’s “fine mask looking at him sideways” (Dickens 124) and of the evils of his uncle, slowly makes him to recede from his family and from the class where he originate. Evremonde’s other passages such as “repression is the only lasting philosophy” or “the dark deference of fear and slavery” (Dickens 124) only contributes to Darnay’s withdrawal from the structure. The main cause of the event is “the intensity of alienation in response to a problematic social reference” (Twining 421). Such response is a foreshadowing of the French peasantry’s rebellion.

Alongside the influentials and the elites, there are characters like Charles Darnay’s father-in-law, a poor man called Dr. Manette whose wheel of fortune turned dramatically from the once doctor to a shoemaker. The long imprisonment in Bastille, France of this now low-class being separates him from his daughter Lucie Manette and is representative of the fate of the proletariat, enclosed within the barricades of an incompliant social system. He is the dehumanized by the system and the result is a complete loss of the self. In order to find himself again, Dr. Manette busies himself with an every day task of shoemaking to fulfill his rather empty existence. Noted in The German Ideology as “what is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal” (Marx and Engels 655) describes the absurdity of such oppression which destroys the “naturalness” of an individual. The shift from the human to a machine is evident; the single effectual cause that differentiates one person from another; one set of ideologies and beliefs that goes against another, Marx believes is the result of the economic environment. Manette; therefore, is that deprived individual whose “essence,” as Isaiah Berlin notes in his understanding of Marxism “as a human being is to be social in order to develop freely and fully” (100). Nonetheless, Manette’s miserable state is uninfluenced by his will and is due to the economic structure of the given (French) society because of which his machine-likeness and desensitization emerge: “ . . . and the haggard eyes had looked up again: not with any interest or curiosity, but with a dull, mechanical perception” (Dickens 43). The events that the “crazy” man witnessed as a prisoner in Bastille, are laid out in court as an accusation against Marquis Evremonde: “We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common dogs are by those superior Beings—taxed by him without mercy, obliged to grind our corn at his. . . I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed” (Dickens 323). Manette also tells the story of a woman who is raped by Evremonde, also implying that the kind of deed is another form of social exploitation. Evremonde’s absolute power to commit any deed with no punishment angers the peasantry against the rulers at an instance, where revolution is inevitable.

Darnay’s continuous imprisonments and punishments due to his going against the social norms, the elite, and for trivial matters, is a fitted depicting of Michel Foucault’s philosophy of mechanism and theories behind the penal systems. The jails are epitomes of oppression and a place for rulers to deprive the weak. The coldness and ugliness of jails in Dickensian descriptions reflect upon the rigid-clod detachment of souls.The absurdity of courts is manifested in the courtroom where Darnay has to be found guilty in order for the court to prove its superiority over such trivial beings as him: “Mr. Attorney-General concluded on the faith of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner as good as dead and gone” (Dickens 69) and the jury “must positively find the prisoner Guilty” (Dickens 65) seemingly it having mandatory connotations. Darnay’s fault rests upon his return to France from England and arrested as an emigrant. Foucault’s passage of “the power that applied the penalties now threatened to be as arbitrary, as despotic, as the power that once decided them” (129) is appropriate for such court dealings. There is the restorative construct of a right to disciple that belongs to society as a whole. The relationship of a prisoner and an authority is comparative with the class relationship of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Those who secure the means of production (the rich) oppress those who are the producers. In the same manner, those who secure their seats in the high ranks of society (the authority) are able to control the lives of those who lack such seats. Hence, those who govern a given society, who grow wealthy and therefore powerful, dominate many influential institutions, possessing much control.

The subjectification and materialization of not only the prisoners, but also any class members as being prisoners of that particular class, advances ideologies in certain social structures. Madame Defarge’s and her husband’s wine-shop is a representation of the evils of capitalism and the tumult of the French revolution. Her quiet knitting in the wine-shop depicts her oppression by Darnay’s aristocratic clan. The vengeance she carries towards the oppressor Evremondes makes her another oppressor, subjectifying her being as a mere tool of Repressive Ideological Apparatuses, in the hands of police to capture the revolutionaries. Her knitting consists of the secret names of the revolutionaries that ought to be executed and along those is Darnay’s name. In the court “placing the [knitting] in her leutienant’s hands,” (Dickens 358) makes Madame Defarge a subject and a possession of that authority. The high ranking officials at the court where Darnay is executed to death are the bourgeois themselves who make their system to appear as the only logical one, trapping weak and irrational beings like Madam Defarge. Her conformity to the State Apparatus, which Louis Althusser defines as “in the form of distinct and specialized institutions . . . that function massively and predominantly by repression” (1344), shows the repressive characteristics of such apparatuses and their causes of the clash between the two main classes. Unlike other characters who rebel against the capitalist evils, thus establishing the “self,” Madame Defarge is and dies as the repressed conformist, not escaping her ideology—the cherished idea of her taking vengeance against the Evremondes and the other oppressed. She is trapped in an institution that uses her as a tool. These institutions do not only exist as social mechanisms, but also penetrate into the very essence of their preys, making substantive modifications impossible. They operate according to their own inner logic and not to satisfy the individual’s needs.

Unlike every other character, who are products of their classes, the peculiar character of Sydney Carton, an attorney who later saves Darnay from execution, disguising himself in Darnay’s clothes, breaks the social barriers which enclose and keep him in the limits of bourgeois society. Carton’s “breaking away” is portrayed in his extraordinary deed on the day of Darnay’s execution, in his evasion from the forces of bourgeois individualism. Carton is the individual, that Antonio Gramsci speaks of in his The Formation of the Intellectuals, who “puts [himself] forward as autonomous and independent of the dominant group” (1003). Carton, possessing no other character, than his own, partakes in an operation, overpassing the smothering barricades of the bourgeois self. He is described by Dickens as someone “with wonderful quickness, and with strength both of will and action that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these changes upon him” (348). In difference with other characters, who are constantly deprived by social strains, lacking the fundamental entity of will, Carton possesses the aims and desires to make a change. The French Revolution’s imperativeness and message lays in the actions of this man, as he withdraws from the repressor class. He sees the disintegration of the conventional barriers, insuring the safety of the other oppressed characters like Darnay, his wife, and Dr. Manette.

Considering the Marx’s perspective on Sydney Carton’s dynamic character; rather viewing him from Gramsci’s lens, completely shifts the interpretations of his actions. Carton’s execution in the end of the novel, manifests his self-destruction because he does not flow along the class where he originated. In Isaiah Berlin’s passage on historical Marxism, the idea comes to be more lucid: “if you know in what direction the world process is working, you can either identify with it or not; if you fight it, you thereby compass your own certain destruction, being defeated by the forward advance of history” (114). However, looking at Carton’s decisions as merely independent is a fallacy because his actions might also derive from the oppression of his own class—being the lawyer whom no one trusts, working for an influential law firm that regards him as an instrument who accomplishes the “dirty” work. Carton’s suicidal nature and unhappiness with his being and life comes into surface in his conversation with Charles Darnay at a bar: “Nothing in life! I am a disappointed drudge . . . no man on earth cares for me” (Dickens 87). Perhaps his martyr actions toward Darnay (taking his execution on his shoulders) are a result of his deprived state and not his will. Nonetheless, even if these events are “indispensable and independent of [his] will” (Marx and Engels 662) and as Marx puts it—“men are themselves the product of objective conditions” (qtd. in Berlin 100), those actions still create patterns of change. This change is brought forward by Carton’s death. His public execution is an ineffective way to try to control the revolutionaries, as it only encourages more rebellions. As Foucault notes in his Discipline and Punish, this kind of execution is just another way for the highly ranked classes to manifest their power: “in a penalty employing public torture and execution is to show the sovereign power that mastered it” (93). Using power to strain the masses evidently reveals the suppression of the “weak” class by the “superior class,” however, in the novel; the revolution does not stop with Carton’s execution, proving such punishment as just another nonsensical action by the upper class.

Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities paints the atrocious reality of eighteenth century England and France rather obviously through the events of the bloody French Revolution. The characters of this novel, from the two main classes within the Marxian framework—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, are caught in an inexorable tsunami of historical and social proceedings that dehumanize and destroy their very essences. Charles Darnay, his wife, Dr Manette, and Madame Defarge are oppressed by societal evils like Marquis Evremonde who manipulate every social institution. To people like Evremonde, society is something that is based on commodities, rather than values or ideals. The constant conflict, between the two groups is depicted in massive imprisonments of the low-ranking class members such as Charles Darnay. The social turbulence is a direct result of the revolutionaries’ rebellion; however, even more directly— is a response to the inhumanity of aristocracy and the exploitation of the poor. In the novel, the Marxian lens (including Marx’s, Engel’s, Gramsci’s Althusser’s philosophies) overlaps with Michel Foucault’s structural perspective and his understanding of social institutions, their categorizations, and the penal systems which Dickens portrays here with constant recurrences of jail imagery. The forces between the two classes become stronger, emphasizing the line of division in between. The individual’s actions are a result of the dictations of their own class. The point is clearly manifested in Engel’s passage: “In nature these forces are physical, chemical, biological: in society they are specifically economic and social” (qtd. in Berlin 92). The individuals are left to act upon not on their will but as products of the system.

Works Cited

Althusser, Louis. “From Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” The Norton

Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed, Vincent B. Leitch. 2^nd ed. W.W. Norton

& Company Inc.: New York, 2001. 1335-60. Print.

Berlin, Isaiah. Karl Marx. 4^th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan.

New York: Random House, Inc., 1995. Print.

Gramsci, Antonio. “ The Formation of the Intellectuals.” The Norton Anthology of

Theory and Criticism. Ed, Vincent B. Leitch. 2^nd ed. W.W. Norton & Company

Inc.: New York, 2001. 1002-08. Print.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. “From The Communist Manifesto.” The Norton

Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed, Vincent B. Leitch. 2^nd ed. W.W. Norton

& Company Inc.: New York, 2001. 657-60. Print.

Marx Karl, and Friedrich Engels. “From Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of

1844.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed, Vincent B. Leitch. 2^nd

ed. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New York, 2001. 651-55. Print.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. “From The German Ideology.” The Norton Anthology

of Theory and Criticism. Ed, Vincent B. Leitch. 2^nd ed. W.W. Norton & Company

Inc.: New York, 2001. 655-56. Print.

Twining, James E. “Alienation as a Social Process.” The Sociological Quarterly 21.3

(1980): 417-28. Print.

Ethnicity Studies and Post-Colonial Theory

Act 1, Scene 1

IAGO

'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame, put on
your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say.

*************************************

Act 1, Scene 2

BRABANTIO

How! the duke in council!
In this time of the night! Bring him away:
Mine's not an idle cause: the duke himself,
Or any of my brothers of the state,
Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their own;
For if such actions may have passage free,
Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.

Othello: The Outsider

The constant oppression of the orients by Europeans is manifested through centuries of colonization, wars, and invisible boundaries. The West and the East are separated through prejudiced borders that create more and more tension. Edward Said takes the subject of the civilized vs. uncivilized—the “European” terms and in a way investigates the misconceptions and justifications of Europeans of such discord in his Orientalism. Europeans in his view come to define themselves by first defining the eastern civilizations. Comparing the East to the West and stereotyping it as the “inferior” group, the West does nothing more than enlightening its bias and making it apparent. The disconnect of such dissension is lucid in Shakespeare’s Othello where the tragedy of the Moor is a result of misconceptions in regards to his origins and race.

Desdemona’s fater Brabantio acts against his own self-interest and operates irrationally by attacking Othello with irreverence in Duke’s court: “. . . if such actions may have passage free,/Bondslaves and pagans are statesmen be” (Shakespeare 1.2.98-9). Brabantio who is originally from Venice, Italy sees himself as a superior human to Othello despite the fact that Othello’s rank is incomparable with his. For Brabantio, Othello is someone he started as—an Ottoman, a Turk. Iago, who represents the evils of western culture engineers this opposition yet again, twisting Brabantio’s thoughts: “Even now, now, very now, an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!” (Shakespeare 1.1.87-8). In Said’s perspective, Brabantio is the one for whom “the ‘East’ has always signified danger” (1886). Brabantio’s expressions addressed to the Moor seem irrelevant to him and he remains collected as expected; however, later the words come to haunt him and become the recipe for his destruction.

Shakespeare’s profound thoughts then in Victorian England raise analogies as ”society and literary culture can only be understood and studied together” (Said 1887). The generalizations by Europeans, in this case, Brabantio’s obnoxious phrases of “bondslaves” and “pagans” portray the artificial characteristics that are inscribed to orientals, discrediting their “humanness.” Brabantio’s expressions act against Othello cracking his shell, getting to the weak, inner reality of his mind. They find place in Othello’s realm and he claims, “And yet, how nature erring from itself—” (3.3.227). Othello’s insecurities come to the surface, and he becomes incapable of focusing his thoughts. Branatio is acting upon impulse without giving much thought to the accomplishments and the entire being of Othello. His narrow and dusted ideas are merely a result of the societal prejudices planted in his mind. The western dehumanization of this Shakespearean easterner is complete and the result is tragedy.

Works Cited

Said, Edward. “From Orientalism.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed,

Vincent B. Leitch. 2^nd ed. W.W. Norton & Company Inc.: New York, 2001. 1866-

88. Print.

Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Othello The Moor of Venice.” The Complete

Pelican Shakespeare. Eds. Stephen Orgel, et al. Penguin Books Inc.: New York,

2002. 1402-1444. Print.

Feminism

The Piano: Speaking Through

Rather than plainly assuming that The Piano is about female deprivation, because the protagonist is a mute and therefore does not have a voice, we ought to weigh the structure of the film as a whole. The piano acts as a tool of expression for Ada (the woman playing), whose main goal in the film seems to be retaining the instrument at any cost. This clearly raises questions such as: is Ada’s disadvantage because of her disability or does her disadvantage originate from her inequality with her so-called husband Stewart? Only because her contributions as a wife are not valued and she is sold to marriage by her father is enough for Ada to feel as if she lacks the necessities of life—the being-able-to-express essential.

Ada’s passion of playing the piano comes from her need to have a voice as a woman no matter the slurred layers of social repression. Despite Ada’s mute appeals, Stewart disregards the pleadings giving her the simple excuse of it being “too heavy” and “too few of [them] to carry it” (The Piano). The viewer immediately notices Stewart’s fake excuse as the New Zealand beach in this scene is full of people who get ready to depart. Stewart does not try to take a journey in her mind and find reasons as to why she insists on bringing the piano; rather, he takes the easy path—the rejection, which only emphasizes his narcissism. However, for Ada, the piano is not just another instrument that she naively tries to carry with her, but her repressed speech that is converted to musical notes. Simone De Beauvoir notes in The Second Sex that “ . . . [a woman’s] body does not seem to her to be a clear expression of herself; within it she feels herself a stranger” (1268). Ada feels like an outsider both in her role and in this particular society. Her expressions are limited, and her oppressions are unjustified.

Ada’s sad gaze on the piano once more from afar indicates the feeling of abandonment—as if she lets go of something significant. Nonetheless, she does not cancel her commitment of keeping what is hers, by recognizing what is problematic. Ada sees her way out of such oppression through playing the piano: “According to her moods [a woman] will view her own sentiments in different light” (Beauvoir 1269). It is in these very instances of playing when Ada feels “free” and creates a fantasy wondering the possibilities of her being and existence. These created fantasy-moments are what Judith Butler calls “performative” in her Gender Trouble. Ada does not want to vanish in the framework of Stewart’s degradations. The “performative” instances of the self are, in terms of Butler, “the essence or identity that is purported to express fabrications and sustained through corporeal signs and discursive means” (2548). For Ada, the “fabrication” is the piano, but later this object may be replaced by another object that will enable fake self-expression in a passive manner.

The Piano carries universal messages and layers of understanding the oppression of women. The theme of feminism is constantly present in this starkly real film by Jane Campion. The protagonist’s (Ada) muteness suggests woman’s role as just an object which is not granted the freedom of speech. Her husband, being the representative of narcissism, disregards her feelings and opinions, even rejecting her only tool for expression—the piano. However, despite her disability, Ada stands up for her essential and basic right by staying behind her wordless statements.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. “From Gender Trouble.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.

Ed, Vincent B. Leitch. 2^nd ed. W.W. Norton & Company Inc.: New York, 2001.

2540-53. Print.

De Beauvoir, Simone. “From The Second Sex.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and

Criticism. Ed, Vincent B. Leitch. 2^nd ed. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New

York, 2001. 1265-73. Print.

The Piano. Dir. Jane Campion. Perf. Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna

Paquin. Ciby 2000, 1993. Film.