Justified the title “the return of the native”

Justified the title “the return of the native”

         

   The title must be appropriate and significant, just as the signboard indicates the contents of shop. This title certainly seems a straightforward enough-it’s all about a native returning from somewhere, but Hardy loves its deeper meanings. He always gives titles to his novels after a good deal of consideration. As such, his titles are really appropriate, significant and suggestive, of the central theme or spirits of the novel. Most of his titles are after the names of the heroes or heroines of the novel concerned.  They are ‘A Pair of Blue Eyes’, ‘Two on a Tower’, ’Under the Greenwood Tree’, ‘and Far From the Madding Crowed’. The title ‘The Return of the Native is also a poetical and highly suggestive.

            The story of this novel revolves around a long absent native of Egdon Heath returning from the Paris and stirs up the drama. The story of this returning native is kind of like a biblical story of prodigal son but with a twist. In the story of prodigal son(Luke 15;12-35), a son loves to party and waste the money but finally partied himself out, came back home, humbly, ask for money from the family whom he had ignored long.

Egdon Heath forms the tragic background of the novel “The Return of the Native”.

  “The place perfectly accordant with the man’s nature, neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly; neither common place, unmeaning, nor tame; but like          man, slighted and enduring; and with singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony.”

All the characters of this novel belong to the vicinity of the Egdon Heath, and all the action also take place in the same heath. All those characters that have accepted and adopted completely themselves according the condition and the environments of the heath are happy, while those characters that have not been able to adopted themselves completely according to the surroundings of the heath are unhappy and came to a tragic end.

“It had a lonely face, suggesting tragically possibilities.”

Eustacia ‘queen of night’ though a native of heath, has not been able to adopt the heath as her own regional background and to adjust herself according to the condition of the vicinity, with the result that she comes to a tragic end. She cries out before her death;

“Tis my cross, my shame and will be my death.”

            The title “The Return of the Native” is quite justified, suggestive and meaningful. Clym the hero of the novel is a native of the Wessex countryside around the Egdon Heath. He migrated to Bud mouth in France to work with a diamond merchant while he was quite young. Then he went to Paris and became the manager of a big firm dealing in diamond merchant.

            He comes back home to spend his Christmas with his mother after a long time. He has become fed up with the fast going and artificial life of the Paris and longs to come back and settle down peacefully in his native countryside. Earlier he had thought the life of city is better than the life of the village. After living in Paris he has come to see that city life is not better than the rural life. He also feels tired of the flashy trade of diamonds and fined out that this does not suit his genius.

            _____________________________________________________________

Differentiate between short stories, novel and drama?

v Differentiate between short stories, novel and drama?

SHORT STORY	NOVEL	DRAMA
ü  A short story is usually written in short narrative prose, a classical definition of a short story is’ one should be able to read it in one sitting’. ü  A short story always presents one plot and any diversion from it is considered bad art. ü  A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. ü  A short story has less dialogs, details and description. ü  Short stories can be dramatic, funny, romantic, horror, science fiction.  ü  In a story, the writer describes the events. ü  In short story, the writer does not describe the background of events or characters. ü  The words required for short stories are under 7,500. ü  Short story has a limited number of characters. ü  In the case of short story, the introduction is always in cut short. The writer makes a direct introduction and sketches the few facts which are essential for a correct appreciation. ü  Short story’s writer is always in a hurry to end the story so he leaves the conclusion to the reader. ü   Short stories often have just one theme. Mostly related with the social aspects.	ü  A novel is usually written in long narrative prose which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story. ü  A novel mostly consists on one main plot and some sub plot. ü  A novel is a long work of fiction that is also usually written in narrative form. ü  A novel has more events describe in details but less dialogs. ü  A novel also can be dramatic, funny, romantic or science fiction but with at least 300 pages. ü  In Novel, he also describes details of environment and thinking/ feeling of various characters. ü  In novel, the writer describes the background of events or characters in details ü  The words required for novel are 40,000. ü  A novel has unlimited numbers of characters. ü  A novel usually has a long draw of beginning. Sometimes the novelist takes about fifty pages in introducing the characters and setting to the reader. ü  Novelist explains why things happened, in a particular way and what would be the future of the characters. ü  Novels usually have multiple themes.  A major theme has been whether people can change their situations in life or whether they are in the grips of forces beyond their control.	ü  A composition in verse or prose intended to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance. ü  Drama scripts are broken down into one or more acts, or major divisions of the play. And each act is then subdivided into a scene. ü  Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. ü  Drama has a lot of dialogs. ü  The drama may come from sadness of the main characters. ü   In Drama, ‘environment’ and ‘thinking/ emotions’ of characters are not ‘described’ but are ‘presented’. ü  1 In drama, the writer describes the background of events or characters mostly through soliquices. ü  The length of time for a drama to be performed usually ranges from 30 to 90 minutes, but may be as few as 10. ü  Number of characters in drama may be unlimited. ü  In drama, the writer does not bother to introduce the introduction. The introduction proceeds as the action proceeds. ü  Dramatist does not explain the things but through the dialog we can able to understand the future of the characters. ü  Mostly themes are related with attitudes toward work, illness and war. Each theme is developed with the specific social, moral and political issues.

2

 

THOMAS HARDY

BIOGRAPHY

There is a condition worse than blindness, and that is, seeing something that isn’t there.

Thomas Hardy

One of the great English novelist, poet, playwright, short story writer, and essayists of the late nineteenth century Thomas Hardy was born in the village of Bockhampton located in Southwestern England on June 2, 1840. . His father was a stone-mason and a violinist. His mother enjoyed reading and retelling folk songs. From his family, Hardy gained the interests that would influence his life and appear in his novels, architecture and music, the lifestyles of the country folk, and literature itself.

His mother was well-read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at age eight. However, most of his education came from the books he found in Dorchester, the nearby town. He taught himself French, German, and Latin. At the age of sixteen Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester. At age twenty-two, Hardy went to London to pursue his architectural training. But Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was acutely conscious of class divisions and his social inferiority. Five years later, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, and decided to dedicate himself to writing. In 1870 Hardy met and fell in love with Emma, whom he married in 1874.

Hardy examines the social constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England, and criticizes those beliefs, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people's lives and caused unhappiness. Hardy first politically controversial novel The Poor Man And The Lady in 1868 was failed to find a publisher. But his new next two novels Wessex tales and Far from the Madding Crowd about an early saxon kingdom were  successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next twenty-five years Hardy produced ten more novels. Two on the tower, the return of the native, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure are his famous novels.

Fate or chance is another important theme of his work. In 1898 Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems, a collection of poems written over 30 years.  While some suggest that Hardy gave up writing novels following the harsh criticism of Jude the Obscure in 1896, the poet C. H. Sisson calls this "hypothesis" "superficial and absurd". In the twentieth century Hardy only published poetry. Thomas Hardy wrote in a great variety of poetic forms including lyrics, ballads, satire, dramatic monologues, and dialogue, as well as a three-volume epic closet drama The Dynasts (1904-8), and though in some ways a very traditional poet, because he was influenced by folksong and ballads. Hardy’s work has a great influence on other writers and poets such as D. H. Lawrence's Study of Thomas Hardy (1936), indicates the importance of Hardy for him, even though this work is a platform for Lawrence's own developing philosophy rather than a more standard literary study.

His first wife’s death in 1912 had a traumatic effect on him and after her death, Hardy made a trip to Cornwall to revisit places linked with their courtship, and his Poems 1912–13 reflect upon her death. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior. However, he remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry. Hardy became ill with pleurisy in December 1927 and died at Max Gate  11 January 1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed; the cause of death was cited, on his death certificate, as "cardiac syncope", with "old age" given as a contributory factor. His funeral was on 16 January at Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy and his family and friends had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the same grave as his first wife, Emma. However, his executor, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, insisted that he be placed in the abbey's famous Poets' Corner. A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford with Emma, and his ashes in Poets' Corner.

____________________________________________________________________________

HENRIK IBSEN

HENRIK IBSEN (1828-1906))

“A thousand words will not leave so

 Deep an impression as on deed”

                                                                                                                  Henrik Ibsen

§  Henrik Ibsen

§  His personal life

§  His specialty of writing

§  His style of writing

§  The synopsis of his work

            A Norwegian playwright and poet Henrik Ibsen is considered as the father of Modern Theatre. He is also referred as the father of realism. After Shakespeare, he is considered as the second most influential and insightful dramatist and poet of the 19th century. Ibsen was born on 20th March 1828 in the city Skien, Norway. Henrik Ibsen was the eldest of his five siblings. He belonged to a merchant family.

Henrik father, Knud Ibsen (1797-1877) was a well-off merchant. His mother, Marichen Altenburg (1799-1869) was a daughter of one of the richest merchants of the Skien. When Henrik Ibsen turned eight his father went bankrupt and became alcohol addicted. This was the most shattering thing happened to his family. All through his childhood, Ibsen had been depressive that can easily be seen in his work which is as much a reflection of his own life. Even in most plays he had named his characters after his family.

            At the age of fifteen, he was forced to leave his school. Then he moved to Grimstad and worked as a pharmacist. That was the time when he discovered himself as an author. He worked at the pharmacy for six years and in the rarely given spare time he started writing plays and painting. Then in 1850 he moved to Christiania for the sake of getting admission into University of Christiania but couldn’t pass all the entrance exams. Quitting the idea of studies Ibsen fully concentrated on his writing. He completed and published his first verse drama, a tragedy, Catilina with the help of a friend. Nor the play did sell any significant number of copies neither it got accepted at any theatre for performances. In 1851, he got a job at the National Theatre of Bergen. The Burial Mound was his first drama to be staged and attracted few. In the following years he wrote numerous plays that went unsuccessful but his determination to be a playwright stayed strong.

             Henrik Ibsen is referred to by most critics as one of the best playwright of the modern times. His plays are also the second most performed right under Shakespeare.  Ibsen's plays were very controversial at the times because of his realism ideals that he incorporated into his plays.  Henrik Ibsen had multiple things that affected his style of writing from his father losing his job and becoming an alcoholic bitter old man or how Henrik Ibsen himself had a very poverty like life with his wife and kid.  Overall, the majority of his writings revolve around social problems.  Another very easily spotted style of Henrik Ibsen is his use of psychological problems in the majority of his characters.  Either they're making poor decisions in the story or they actually are psychologically different.  A good example of psychological problems is in the play Ghosts where Jakob Engsrand thinks it is a good idea to try to hire his adopted daughter to work in his brothel or "sailors establishment”.

 He has poverty as a main idea.  In A Doll's House Nora Helmer has to act and take out a loan under her father’s name to save her husband. "How painful and humiliating it would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed me anything! This quote is from Nora showing how what she did was something done out of poverty and if her husband knew she had to work to pay that off he would be mad.   Henrik Ibsen had a very tough life and went through a lot, which can clearly be shown in his writing.  Almost all of his writings have a similar style that he uses which reflects his own life almost perfectly.  Mainly, his styles include social problems like in A Doll's House, psychological problems like in Ghosts, and poverty problems such as the ones found in A Doll's House. But even with these controversial ideas for the time it is quite apparent why Ibsen is still to this day one of the best playwrights of all time. 

            Ibsen left Norway in 1862, eventually settling in Italy for a time. There he wrote Brand, a five-act tragedy about a clergyman whose feverish devotion to his faith costs him his family and ultimately his life in 1865. The play made him famous in Scandinavia. Two years later, Ibsen created one of his masterworks, Peer Gynt. In 1868, Ibsen moved to Germany. During his time there, he saw his social drama The Pillars of Society first performed in Munich. The play helped his career and was soon followed up by one of his most famous works, A Doll's House. A few years later, Ibsen moved back to Germany where he wrote one of his most famous works. With Hedda Gabler (1890), Ibsen created one of the theater's most notorious characters. Hedda, a general's daughter. The character has sometimes been called the female Hamlet, after Shakespeare's famous tragic figure. In 1891, Ibsen returned to Norway as a literary hero. When We Dead Awaken, written in 1899 was proved to be his final work

          On 23 May 1906, Ibsen died in his home at Arbins gade 1 in Christiania (now Oslo) after a series of strokes in March 1900.

                             _____________________________________________