waiting for Godot

 

Here is the link of given task on the play waiting for Godot click here

Here is my response to the given questions

Q: what connection do you see in the setting (‘A country road. A tree evening.’) Of the play and these paintings?

The setting of the play is inspired by painting ‘longing’ by two paintings by Caspar David Freidrich. Act of waiting can be considered as act of longing.

Q: the tree is the only important ‘thing’ in the setting. What is the importance of tree in both acts? Why does Beckett grow a few leaves in Act II on the barren tree?

Tree has its own importance in setting.  In first act tree is barren. Barren tree can be seen as hopelessness and nothingness, Vladimir and Estragon thinks to hanging themselves from tree which can be seen a reference to the crucifixion of Christ. In Act two leaves sprouts from tree which shows hope for the next. Found happiness out of despair and anxiety of human life.

Q:  in both Acts, evening falls into night and moon rises. How would you like to interpret this ‘coming of night and moon’ when actually they are waiting for Godot?

Evening falls into night and moon rises signifies that universe is indifferent to us.  Whatever happens in human life despair, anxiety, absurdity; nature’s cycle goes on.

Q: the play begins with the dialogue” nothing to be done”. How does the theme of ‘nothingness’ recurs in play?

Nothingness recurs in the play. Vladimir and Estragon have nothing to do expect waiting. And that’s why Vladimir says this line ‘nothing to be done’.

Q:  do you agree:”the play (waiting for Godot), we agreed, was a positive play, not negative, not pessimistic. As I saw it, with my blood and skin and eyes, the philosophy is: ‘no matter what- bombs, anything-life goes on. You can kill yourself, but you can’t kill life’.(E.G. marshal who played Vladimir in original Broadway production 1950s).

The play is positive play. Play is not absurd but rather meaningful.  Only dialogue are going on but that is only common conversation, at first reading we may not find it that much meaningful but find it meaningful at deep inside. Waiting signifies hope; process of waiting is process of keeping hope towards something to be achieved.

Q: How are the props like hat and boots used in the play? What is the symbolical significances of these props?

Hat signifies Vladimir’s capacity of thinking who remembers every event of past where as boots signifies skepticism in character of Estragon. He is taking his boot on and off Who forgets things very easily, carelessness towards life.

Q: do you feel the effect of existential crisis or meaninglessness of human existence in the irrational and indifference universe during screening of the move? Where and when exactly that feeling was felt, ever it was? Vladimir and estragon talks about ‘hanging’ themselves and commit suicide, but they do not do so. How do you read this idea of suicide in existentialism?

Yes I do feel effect of existential crisis during screening of the movie; when the sentence is repeatedly said that “nothing to be done” we feel meaninglessness of human existence. Vladimir and Estragon talks about ‘hanging’ themselves and commit suicide but they do not do so rather they come again and starts waiting. Here we find out the existential idea that true challenge is when you face despair, absurdity and anxiety of human life and come that absurdity rather ending your life by committing suicide. In movie Mera nam joker there is a song “

                                                         

                                       जीना यहाँ, मरना यहाँ
                                       इसके सिवा जाना कहाँ  - 

We are born here, we will die here where we will go from here(nothing can be done)In this movie Raj kapoor is playing role of joker is life is full of despair but every day comes in front of people to make them laugh by playing the role of joker in circus he is doing his duty same as Sisyphus.

Q: The subject of the play is not Godot but waiting. Do you agree? How can you justify your answer?

The subject of the play is not Godot but ‘Waiting’. Waiting can be seen different by person by person. Waiting can be seen as death.. Waiting can be seen as desire to complete, for a spiritual person it can be ultimate way of salvation.

Thank you 😊😊😊

To the light house

This blog  is part of  my classroom thinking activity on the novel 'To The Lighthouse'.
Here is the given task:click here

 

1) Beauty of the novel ‘To the lighthouse’ is human nature and human relations. Writer has not told story in traditional way of describing events but she has concentrated on a small number of characters with their interior monologue. In this novel nothing happens, there are no events only stream of consciousness goes on and on. Use of parentheses say for example James wishes to visit the lighthouse but Mr. Ramsay strongly opposes because of bad weather thus James feels:


“Had there been an axe handy or any other weapon, he would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast…”


This is the inner feeling of James when Mr. Ramsay refused to go. This is how Woolf has made use of parentheses throughout which we came to know that what character thinks at particular time and situation.


2) The novel is both the tribute and critique of Mrs. Ramsay. Mrs. Ramsay’s character is a tribute as well as critique on womanhood. She is caring and kind who pampers her husband’s ego. Taking care of everyone. Woman full of good-will and no ill-will. Mrs. Ramsay’s character is like a character of आज्ञाकारी and संस्कारी बहू we see in Indian daily soaps. According to her she is happier than Lily because she herself is married while she considers Lily as Poor. She repeats the sentence time and again open ‘Open the window and close the doors’- which signifies that allowing yourself to think but close the door means closing the wider way for change or say not allowing yourself for change.
Both Lily and Mrs. Ramsay’s character presents different personality of womanhood. If we look from modern perspective toward the character we consider Lily’s character more independent.

5) Kunstlerroman means apprenticeship novel that deals with the youth and development of an individual who becomes and on threshold of becoming a painter musician or poet. Throughout the novel if we read Lily’s character she develops as a painter. In the third part she completes the painting of Mrs. Ramsay, and finally she has had her own vision. Same as Augustus Carmichael he is also a poet who is unknown chapter one but his poetry meets unexpected success afterwards. So both the characters develop: one as a painter and another as a poet.

9) On one hand it is a tool for preservation. Against that is also a symbol of change of technology, changing and presumably improving human culture. James is guided in his choice by Mrs. Ramsay and it should therefore be associated with her role as preserver and shaper of culture.Traditional woman who is not allowing the change, and preserver of old tradition.

10) Virginia Woolf with the use of fairy tale subverting the misogyny of the fairy tale. Fairy tale in novel challenges the myth about female desire and dangers of unopposed female will and desire. The real danger seems to be male needs and desire. 

Thank you...😊

movie review

As a  master students we are studying modern literature, and as a part of our study we have watched two of Charlie Chaplin movies and in both of these movies Charlie Chaplin had worked as director and producer and actor it is interesting to see that how he satirized things in a comic way.

(1)    Modern time:-Modern time is a story of individual enterprise humanly crusading in the pursuit of happiness. Charlie played a role of factory worker and how he was living his everyday life in a factory like a machine and he gone crazy because of his everyday work. On other hand gamin’s (Paulette Goddard) character represents poverty of 20th century era, when writer were interested in poor and working class. How Chaplin and gamin’s father suffered from unemployment. At that time it was fiction having machinery like that but now in present time  it is reality, slowly and steadily machine started to replace humans, we can put question that whether humans have control over machine or machine have control over humans?

(2 )    The great dictator:-The great dictator is political satire on Adolf Hitler. This is story of a period between two world wars. The story is based on Hynked looking like a Jewish barber who was also a soldier and lose his memory in plane crash. 

      Thank You .......😊

Modern Age:-

Modernism doesn’t speak about contemporary time; but about past time, prim time of modernism is between first war and second war world war (1940-50).questioning everything was important in modernism.


Here is my interpretation on some modernist poems, which is part of my classroom activity.



(1) The Embankment :-T.E.Hulme


Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,


In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.


Now see I


That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.


Oh, God, make small


The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,


That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

Poet is recounting his past by using the words like finesse of fiddles, musical gathering and flash of gold heels used for women star-eaten blanket is used as negative word. But now what all he need is warmth; which he will get under the blanket of sky where he will get comfort, comfort from the harshness of life.

(2) Darkness:- Joseph Campbell

Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.

Title itself reflects negativity. Here star is metaphor, by which poet actually means Victorian age , he is not affected with the shine of Victorian age, he just looked at it and pass on.

(3) Image :- Edward storer

Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chaste white moon,
Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.

By the title of this poem may be poet wanted to present image of modern age people. White color presents positivity but here it seems in negative sense. Other metaphor are loneliness and drought.



(4) In a station of the metro:- Ezra pound


THE apparition of these faces in the crowd;


Petals on a wet, black bough.


Title itself says that its about Metro. Poet sees various faces and gives it metaphor ‘apparition’. This means ghostly. He compares these faces to ‘petals on a wet black bough”- suggests that on the dark subway platform, the people look like flower petal stuck on tree branch after a rainy night.

(5) The Pool:- Hilda Doolittle 

Are you alive?


I touch you.


You quiver like a sea-fish.


I cover you with my net.


What are you—banded one?

speaker asking person that ‘are you alive?. Person shivers like a sea fish.


which indicates that someone is dying and presents liflessness.


(6) Insouciance:- Richard Aldington

IN and out of the dreary trenches,

Trudging cheerily under the stars,

I make for myself little poems

Delicate as a flock of doves.

They fly away like white-winged doves.


Here poet have used metaphors like deary trnches, trudging cheerily flock of doves, white winged doves.






(7) Moring at the window- T.S.Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.



At first reading of this poem way feel that this poem is about everyday life. But we also can say that this line:- ‘” tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts.”


(8) The Red Wheelbarrow – William carol Williams

so much depends
upon a red wheel 

barrow
glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

This poem is difficult to understand. But f we go on by words like Barrow(stones raised over a grave) Glazed (showing no liveliness) chicken(young man); these words indicates a young man’s death.


(9) Anecdote of the jar:- Wallace stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,And round it was, upon a hill.


It made the slovenly wilderness


Surround that hill.


The wilderness rose up to it,


And sprawled around, no longer wild.


The jar was round upon the ground


And tall and of a port in air.


It took dominion everywhere.


The jar was gray and bare.


It did not give of bird or bush,


Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Here in this poem metaphor is jar. And poem is about the Tennessee( a state of the united states of America)

(10) I(a, :- E.E.Cummings

l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness


A falling leaf is symbol of loneliness. The word ‘fall’ symbolized in any way. Fall means death, fall of spirituality; fall word also presents the damage caused because of world war and its effect on people.
Modernist literature is difficult to understand, it is absurd, there is hidden meaning, it becomes hard to get the whole meaning of poem.


Thank you....

La Belle dame sans merci

La Belle Dame sans merci is ballad written by well known poet of romantic age John Keats. love and death are intertwined in 'Isabella or the pot of basil','Bright star','the eve of st Agnes' and ' la belle dame sans merci'.
The Fatal women; the woman whom it is destructive to love, like Salome,Lilith and Cleopatra appears in "La Belle Dame sans merci".

The poem opens with an unnamed speaker asking a knight at arms what troubles him. the night tells his strange story. he met a young beautiful woman in the flowering field, who in real is a femme fatal. the knight  came under her influence, perhaps hypnotized by her powerful eyes. he was not able to understand her language, they communicate in other ways. he made a garland of flowers a bracelet and a belt and set her on his warhorse.she found strange food for him. she took him to a cave,where weeping and singing knight fell asleep, he was shaken by terrible dreams of knight , princes and warrior him that he was enslaved by the beautiful lady awakening from the nightmare, the knight found himself  on  the cold  hillside alone and the beautiful lady had disappeared.
  

Yussouf

Yussouf is poem by Jame Russell Lowell. This is poem about Yussouf, who is kind at nature. tribes called him "The Good".


Only a stranger came to Yussouf's tent at night and said that he outcasted. one who needed help and he came to Yussouf for shelter and food.


Yussouf treet him as his honored guest. next day in morning Yussouf gave him gold and told that he has best horse ready for him, and told to escape before his enemies come. stranger fell at feel of Yussouf and said that he is the one who killed Yussouf's son. he was shocked but after that he drew out more gold. he give it to stranger. and said that "here is gold three time more".


Yussouf said that I must give up the thought of revenge. Only then my son will sleep in peace.you have been my guest and i can not kill my guest, and he went off to pray god.

A cup of Tea

Cup of tea is a short story by Katherine Mansfield.This is a story about a rich woman. Her name is Rosemary Fell. in opening of the story we find she goes for the shopping in Paris where she goes to an antique shop. very begging of the story we find rosemary is also like other rich people, but t was not so because when she goes to her car after returning from the antique shop she encounters with a poor girl Miss Smith who asked for money to buy a tea. bit instead of giving her money her took Miss smith to her house. Why she did so ? because she wanted to show her that rich people also have heart. At Rosemary's house she offers Miss smith food and tea. and miss smith tells about her life. When rosemary's husband Philip came to house he disapproves this and to convey her wife he plays a trick. he praises Miss smith's beauty. how women jealousy and insecurity works here. Philip played this trick very well. Rosemary feels jealous and insecure of miss smith and give her some money and send her away. Story ends with a question which is asked by rosemary to her husband that "Am I pretty ?".

Deconstruction

Hello readers
Here i'm sharing my views on Derrida's deconstruction.

Like all other terms deconstruction cannot be defined once and all finally. Derrida himself refuses to define the term.
Deconstruction is not destructive activity but an inquiry in to the foundation, causes of intellectual system.
the very conditions Derrida argues is based on distinctions on Binary oppositions.

                                                                                                                                                                    In this video you will find the binary opposition like Superior / Inferior, Master / slave, poor/rich , light / dark. the main idea of this advertisement is after eating this chewing gum you will get sparkling white.but if look according Derradian concept of deconstruction it is breaking the idea of  light or white. all these men are serving in royal palace to give light. at first look we din't get this.but after reading Derrida this ad present opposite binares.

Narrative technique

Here I have tried to analyze two Disney fairy tales with the help of structuralism approach and analyzed Barfi movie with help of five concepts of narrative discourse given by Gerard Genette.

Dictionary meaning: A critical discipline which studies a text in relation to other known elements. Including knowledge of author, contemporaneous culture, literary conventions and facts not mentioned in the text but known to intended readers in addition to the text itself.

According to structuralist critic, they believed that in every literature structure is same but it is presented in different manner. Whether it is love story, tragedy or revenge story.

We all are aware about Disney fairy tales Cinderella, snow white and seven dwarves, sleeping beauty etc.In sleeping Beauty we find that Aurora has been cursed that when Aurora pricks her finger on a spinning wheel and die. When Aurora pricks her fingers she falls into

a deep sleep. She can only awaken from if she is kissed by her own true love.

Snow white and seven dwarves:  In this story snow white falls unconscious with one bite of poisoned apple. She lays sleeping over years; her prince arrives eventually to wake her from her slumber. We can see that in these stories prince comes to rescue his princess, structure is same but presented differently.

 

I have done analysis of Barfi movie according to five concepts of Gerard Gennets narrative discourse. Story is in flashback technique. From present time narrator takes us into past.

Order:  In this movie kidnapping occurs rather than murder. A circumstance of Jhilmil’s (Priyanka Chopra) kidnapping is revealed and police thought it was Barfi (Ranbir Kapoor) but  we came to know that kidnapper is not Barfi but it is Jhilmil’s Father.

Frequency is singular.

Duration:  There are two times separation happens between two events. First it is of six years and then again it is of seven years gape.

Voice: voice is concern with narrator there is Intra Diegetic narration. Narrator is Sudhanshu Dutt- who is local police officer in this movie.

This is how I have tried to analyze the movie with the help of structuralist approach.

Greetings My name is Architaba Gohil, and I completed my undergraduate studies at Samaldas Arts College, M.K. Bhavanagar University. Most recently, I joined the English Department at the university to pursue a master's degree, and writing this introductory blog is a component of my academic work.