American Literature

Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway has been rewritten a number of times and in 1999, Michael Cunningham has once again revisited the novel and has written The Hours where he traces a single day in the lives of three women. Interestingly Cunningham has fictionalized Virginia Woolf, the writer apart from the two other characters Clarrisa Vaughan and Laura Brown. The Hours is homage to Virginia Woolf and the two female characters namely Clarrisa Dalloway of Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway and Clarissa Vaugham of The Hours pose a number of similarities and dissimilarities and this essay delves into the commonalities and contradictions of these two characters.

Young states, The relationship between The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway is impossible to simplify Cunningham interweaves aspects of Woolfs life, her novel, and her theories (38). WWoolf and Cunningham describe the life a woman called Clarrisa on a single day in June. Both these women are hosting a party and have come out to buy flowers. They happen to get a glimpse of a celebrity near the florist. Their spouses, being invited by some famous personality, have gone out to dine without taking their wives. On their way home both meet an old friend accidently. But the two women belong to entirely different background and time period. While Mrs. Clarrisa Dalloway lives in 1923 London, Mrs. Clarrisa Vaugham lives in the modern day New York. Woolf represents the modernist society of 1920s in her novel, whereas Cunningham depicts the contemporary life style in The Hours.

The protagonist of The Hours Clarrisa Vaugham shares her first name with Woolfs Clarrisa Dalloway. Though the characterization of Clarrisa Vaugham is different from Mrs. Dalloway, the similarity in the first names does cause some ripples. But the names of other characters are not the same. For instance, in Mrs. Dalloway Clarrisas husband is Richard but Clarrisa Vaughams husband is not Richard. Sally is an important character who appears in both the fictions. While her relationship with Woolfs Clarrisa is latent, Cunninghams Clarrisa maintains a long-term lesbian relationship with Sally. Critics argue that Virginia Woolf is inclined towards homosexuality and therefore her Clarissa Dalloway expresses her secret homosexual interest in the novel. Further Cunningham himself being a gay writer, has penned down his own experiences in the world through Clarrisa Vaughams lesbian relationship with Sally. Virginias society treated homosexuality as unnatural and perverted and therefore she did not write about it overtly.

Loneliness is common to both Clarrisas. When Clarrisa Vaugham is invited for the party which her husband attends, she is utterly frustrated and states, I am trivial, endlessly trivial (94). Similarly, Clarrisa Dalloway is depressed when she comes to know that Lady Bruton has not extended an invitation to her. Both these women represent the triviality of life. Both these women play the role of hostess to perfection and are interested in throwing parties that Peter Walsh remarks that Clarrisa is capable of only hosting parties and taking care of the household chores. Their lives are not essentially significant but they continue to live in the society.

Clarrisa Dalloway and Clarrisa Vaugham are fascinated towards the ordinariness of everyday life. Cunninghams Clarrisa does not have the quest to achieve lofty goals in life. She simply enjoys without reason the houses, the church, the man and the dog. Its childish, she knows. It lacks edge (12). Both Clarrisas are mature enough to understand that both ordinary and extraordinary are part of the world and have developed a fondness of an ordinary day in life.

Clarrisas not only live with triviality and ordinariness but also with dissatisfaction towards life in general. The hollowness of human life and the masks worn by people to retain their false identity in the society is reflected through both the women characters and it is considered as a failure when the incidents around them do not take place as per heir plan and schedule. While Clarrisa emphasizes on winning the literary prize, none is bothered to listen to her. But she treats it as a precious possession which should be well-guarded and does not take into account of how the rest of the world views it. But in spite of the dissatisfactions and failures, they continue to live with a hope and cherish the same hope throughout their life as they believe that such dissatisfactions and darkness reflect the true inner joy of life and society as a whole.

The attitude of both the Clarrisas towards fame is almost similar. Clarrisa Vaugham during her shopping at the florists, she wishes to guess the celebrity and with a child-like enthusiasm she waits for her appearance as she believes that movie actors represent eternity. Cunningham states, Clarrisa stands guiltily, holding her flowers, hoping the star will show herself again, embarrassed by her own interest (50). Clarrisa Dalloway is also inquisitive about the celebrity and by seeing the car she guesses the name of the actor.

The communication between the characters is essentially strong in Cunninghams fiction. The characters for instance could discuss about homosexuality openly while some degree of discretion and secrecy has been maintained in Woolfs version. Clarrisa and Sally for instance are always generous with kisses (89) though they do not express their love verbally. Sally sends Clarrisa roses to expresses her love similar to Richard who also is not able to express his love verbally. Clarrisa Vaugham also fails to express her love for her daughter Julia and is scared that she might lose her to someone. Similarly Mrs. Clarrisa Dalloway is also afraid that she might lose her daughter and that insecurity turns into hatred towards Miss Kilman, the tutor of Julia. In Virginia Woolfs novel, Elizabeth, daughter of Clarrisa Dalloway loathes the easy way of living of her mother and attaches herself with the feminist Doris Kilman. On the other hand, Julia, Clarrisa Vaughams daughter is in love with a New York lesbian by the name Mary Krull who is much older to her. Since Miss Kilman and Ms. Mary Krull are non-conformists who challenge the restrictions imposed upon them by the society, both Clarrisa treat them as adversaries.

On the whole, the niceties of Clarrisa Dalloways Bloomsbury style are completely out of way and Clarrisa Vaugham adopts the rigorous New York way of living. Cunninghams Clarrisa is fiercely independent and looks into the future than the past. Happer states that Woolfs Clarrisa looks for the meaning of life primarily in the past (112-113). Clarrisa Vaugham has no dominant male in her life and in a way, it is remarked that the Cunningham has successfully helped Clarrisa to evolve and overcome the oppression that Woolfs Clarrisa suffered from. Woolf has primarily focused on Mrs. Dalloways life. But Cunningham has extended the boundary and expressed the fact that love and hope are common to everyone in the society.

To conclude the two women characters Woolfs Clarrisa Dalloway and Cunninghams Clarrisa Vaugham exercise a number of similarities as well as differences. Cunninghams Clarrisa is seen as an evolution of Woolfs Clarrisa as she not only has imbibed the qualities of Mrs. Dalloway but also enriched the same and is appreciated for the fierce independence along with love and compassion for others.

Fiction, like poetry is often posed with the challenge of conveying, not only the story to the readers, but most especially the emotions of the writer such is achieved by expert used of the various elements of fiction.  One of the elements that is effective in conveying emotions is symbolism.  Symbolism is used in a story or a piece of fiction to express subliminal messages or emotions.  In other words, it is used to convey emotions that are not directly referred to in the text of the story.  In John Steinbecks The Chrysanthemums symbolism is used to convey the theme of dissatisfaction and express the implicit emotions of Elisa, the protagonist in the story.

Steinbecks tale begins with Elisa working on her flower garden which contains a crop of Chrysanthemums.  Later, Eliza is visited by a travelling handyman who insists that he be allowed to fix the damaged pots and pans of Eliza for a fee.  Naturally, because Eliza considers the handyman a stranger she initially refuses the offer but later, as they begin to have more intimate conversations with the chrysanthemums as the backdrop the unlikely pair develops a liking for each other which is discreetly referred to in the symbols.  When the handyman leaves, Eliza is left with more thoughts of insufficiency about her married life which is again, implicitly suggested.

The Chrysanthemums leads one to to reexamine not only ones interpretation of Elisa and women but also the process of interpretation itself.(George, 2005)  This basically means that the story is told in various layers of meaning which are due wholly to the use of symbolism to convey the theme of dissatisfaction and domestic insufficiency.  For instance, early in the story, one has the lines, Some of those yellow chrysanthemums you had this year were ten inches across. I wish youd work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big. (Steinbeck, 1938) which is the comment given by Elizas husband to her tending to her flower garden.  In this line one sees that the husband expresses his discontent for what his wife is doing.  The line serves a symbol that reveals a contrast in the flower garden, which is suggested to be useless, and the apple orchard which will produce fruit as opposed to flowers that are not as useful as flowers in these lines one finds the implied discontent of Elizas husband for what she is doing.  Other than this, because Eliza continues to tend her flowers, she also expresses an unspoken reaction to how her husband felt, in the lines, Her eyes sharpened.Maybe I could do it, too. (Steinbeck, 1938)  Here one sees how Eliza does not fully submit to her husbands and shows how she feels distastefully for the comment.  She uses the word maybe to refer to her planned course of action to the request of her husband to show that she is not a hundred percent sold out with the idea.  Other than this, the garden here is also used as a symbol to represent the differences between the couple while one is happy with flowers, the other is not as well as the projection of Eliza of her husbands insufficiency on something that makes her happy.   This symbolism is further deepened when Eliza describes the scent of the flowers in the line, Its a good bitter smell, she retorted, not nasty at all. (Steinbeck, 1938)  Here, she expresses how she contends with something that is actually unpleasant, but because she has no other choice she is left to just accept what she has hence the use of the phrase, good bitter, quite like bitter-sweet.  Here Eliza makes a discreet reference to her married life.

Steinbeck also uses symbolism to reveal the emotions of the protagonist in his story.  The objective style insures the ambiguity of Elisas character and helps to make The Chrysanthemums one of Steinbecks finest short stories. (George, 2005)  In effect, the apparent indifference of Elisa when describing the flowers in her garden reveal so much of how she feels, not only towards her husband but also toward the travelling handyman whom he had spoken to while tending her garden.  Elisas dissatisfaction over her married life is symbolically suggested in the lines, Well, I can only tell you what it feels like. Its when youre picking off the buds you dont want.  (Steinbeck, 1938) Elisa reveals in these lines, through the buds as symbolism, that there are elements in her life that she would much rather pick off and throw away.  The act of picking off the undesirable buds could be likened to being critical about ones life and selecting only the elements or aspects that are bound to give one happiness.  So like her life, the flowers are not all beautiful and useful because some have to be picked off of the lot otherwise all of it goes bad.  Obviously, while there is no direct reference here to her own life, the contemplative approach of Elisa to this particular line suggests that although she is talking about the flowers she is actually referring to something else.  The symbolism deepens when Elisa begins to talk more about how to cultivate the flowers, in the story she says, You can feel it. When youre like that you cant do anything wrong. Do you see that Can you understand that (Steinbeck, 1938)  In the way that these lines are delivered in the story Elisa, while referring to planters hands, actually offers a glimpse into her own regret for being with her husband.  By saying that nothing can go wrong Elisa implicitly suggest that something in fact went wrong.  So, one sees in these lines that the garden and the flower symbolism is given an additional layer as she speaks about the process of gardening and how the gardeners hands can in fact determine how the garden will turn out in the end.  In addition, this line also shows Elisas admission of the act that had put her in this state by seemingly trying to justify the act by verbalizing her expertise in tending the flower garden.  In these lines Steinbeck effectively goes deeper into the psyche of the protagonist and presents this as an open book to the reader, however, the use of symbols allows other layers of interpretation other than just the interpretation that is obvious in the story.  So, what this does is it creates another facet in the story itself, which, at first reading, is just a plain conversation between a stranger and a garden tender.  The garden is used as an effective backdrop for other symbols to emerge in the story and for the audience to read more meanings mostly into the dialogue as well as the garden imagery.

Steinbeck often spoke of his works as having several layers of meaning and he carefully suggested those layers through patterns of implication. (Steinbeck and Timmerman, 1995)  This meant that while most of Steinbecks stories were mum and quite contemplative, reading through these stories would allow one to critically analyze how the author used symbols to present a whole new reading dimension of his pieces.  In The Chrysanthemums Steinbeck achieves his objective of using symbols as a tool to convey the theme of the story to the audience very discreetly as well as make the character of Eliza more accessible to readers by allowing the audience access into her deepest emotions.  Steinbeck achieves this not only by using symbols as representations but as gateways into deeper domains which are not directly stated in the tale.

Rutherford Calhoun, a freed slave finds himself in the middle of the complicated sociopolitical conflict within the ship, Republic. Because of his many affiliations, being a Black American, a former slave and part of the ships crew as the assistant of Sqibb, the ships cook, he has formed unlikely alliances and connections with the people in ship. Calhoun, being a former slave, is closely associated with the African slaves that the ship has illegally picked up to sell to the American society although being educated he has a certain affiliation with the free men in the ship, especially as he is working as part of the ships crew. His experience in the ship also made him value his affiliation to the American society, being able to become free himself.

Affiliations are connections and relations to the people, but not necessarily blood relations. Affiliations are the common characteristics, values and norms that paves way for people to understand each other. This is how Calhoun was able to identify with the different affiliations he had within the ship. He has various affiliations as, one way or another, he is connected with other people through experience, values and race. This is an important aspect of gaining trust from other people. Trust, therefore, is given to someone an individuals believe that will understand, support and not judge his decisions and perspectives in a point of view that is different from ones own. It is earned by someone who is able to show that he can relate to the person without betraying him. Affiliation is a big part of trust as affiliation shows that one is connected to the other and there is a certain value in that connection.

Calhoun was able to gain the trust of the different groups within the ship because of his affiliation with them. Knowing the background and the connection that he has with a certain individual allows him to activate his affiliation, using it to further establishing connection, communication and, eventually, trust. Calhouns position as the middle man between the different groups in conflict within the ship shows that he was able to come to that position because of his many affiliations, allowing himself to move between, inside and out of the groups, with those groups believing that Calhoun is on their side because of his affiliation with them.

Calhoun, then, represents dualism and conflict as Falcon explains that dualism is a bloody structure of the mind (Johnson, p.98). Calhoun is caught between the different cultures, which incidentally shaped his personality. This indicates that affiliation greatly influences ones identity and beliefs. Ones identity is shaped by blood affiliation with different cultures. Shared meanings and values are passed on from one culture to another, comprising an individuals origins. One has no one origin, as an individual is a mix of everyone else. As such, Calhoun was seen by his fellow crew members as the one who will go his own way, like hes always done, believin in nothin, belongin to nobody, driftin here and there and dyin (Johnson, p.88). This emphasizes that although Calhoun has relations with everyone in the ship, he does not belong to anyone as he has multiple affiliations unlike the other crew members who are white, believing that they are the ones that are true Americans.

Having different affiliations makes it both easy and hard for someone to gain trust from another individual or a group. Easy because it creates a connection between individuals and hard because the other person knows that you are also affiliated with the other side of the group. Knowing who one is talking to, he will be able to determine what affiliation to emphasize, thus, allowing him to gain trust and confidence from the individual he is relating to.

The concept of color in America has long been a polarizing issue, not only politically but individually in helping Americans understand our national and social identities. From the long history of racial subjugation and degradation, founded by the slave trade and continued long after slavery had been abolished, to present day America where we try to attain colorblindness but have still not lost the awareness of racial differences, color has continued to be an important foundation for how we define ourselves. It would be incorrect to assume that simply because color is still part of our social and political awareness that it has not changed in the century and a half since the abolition of slavery or the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The color lines have doubtlessly been blurred as Americas collective attitudes have changed to embrace a broader view of our relationship to humanity. However, the idea of color is still present and as a concept acts equally as burden and liberator, in Americas desire to paradoxically ignore but value racial differences. We cannot ignore it, being so deeply ingrained in our political and social history but nor can we use it as the political and social litmus tests of old that based its rules of inclusionexclusion upon the color of ones skin.

Americas idea of color has been created from a combination of factors, including legal and political edicts and restrictions, social definitions and revolutions, but the one that persists in our minds is something that is impossible to put our finger directly upon. While slavery helped to propagate the idea of color as a dividing barrier, when slavery ended the awareness of differences in color did not. When slavery ended the African Americans who became free and parts of the larger American society were still kept out of the American dream. Its no wonder, given the predominance of lynch mobs and Jim Crow laws to keep black separate from whites in the South that any feelings of being integrated into the larger perspectives of America was paltry at best. In 1964, Malcolm X noted, Im one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. Its this feeling of victimization that prevails even today within Americas national and individual concept of color the psychological damage remains because we cannot erase the damages of over a century of institutionalized racism. Lorna Dee Cervantes expresses a similar sentiment in her poem, Every day I am deluged with remindersthat this is not my land and this is my land (ll. 52-54). Constitutionally part of America, they were still excluded on the basis of legal and social rules and ideals.

Even now, as we try to approach the world with a view toward equality, the awareness of color is still persistent. However, it is now from a different perspective. Whereas black skin was seen as reason for exclusion in the 19th and early 20th centuries, by the late 20th century political and social changes fought for by civil rights leaders, Malcolm X included, made inclusion a reality of color. Such things as the Equal Rights Amendment and Affirmative Action have created a legal framework for addressing the issue of color. However, as Malcolm X noted in his speech, How can you thank a man for giving you whats already yours How then can you thank him for giving you only part of whats already yours As American citizens, freed by the actions of President Lincoln, they remained enslaved to a social and political pandering of individual politicians and groups, showing how deeply the slave-owner mentality had penetrated into the fabric of Americas identity. When such views were overcome and political equality became more a reality, the concept of color still remains. Even laws such as Affirmative Action, which were created to help provide equality, have been met with contention because of the need of such a law to see and value color in order to work effectively. Is this wrong Not entirely, because while we may legally and politically be colorblind, the reality is much different and there continues to be racism.

In this country we cannot escape color. America is a country where, in fact, we value its contribution to who we are as individuals and how we relate to the world around us, where we take pride in our color and its associations to history and broad political or social accomplishments we must embrace it without allowing it to divide us. Color in America is a racial Catch-22 that has no solution in our present views. As long as we value color as part of a persons identity, we allow the door to stand open for the devaluation of this same person based upon their racial identity. Without an awareness of difference and without the social and political stain placed upon color by our forbearers as an excuse for slavery, Jim Crow laws would never have existed and the integration of society would have been a much smoother process. In the same instance, when we close the door to racial difference, we will also be closing the door on a part of American history that while horrific, nevertheless, shows both the hypocrisy and beauty of the American dream. Americans, regardless of their color, understand the world, in part, based on how color relates us to the world. Politically and socially polarizing, color is nevertheless important to who we are and perhaps most important to who we can, as a country become.

The nineteenth century was marked with the growing womens dissent over their position in the patriarchal society. Women no longer wanted to tolerate the pressure of the patriarchal norms and wanted equality and freedom of self-realization. Literature became an excellent means for women to express their social disagreement. Charlotte Perkins Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper describes how women rebelled against their patriarchal imprisonment. The Yellow Wallpaper discusses, evaluates, and expresses negative implications of the continuous opposition between a woman and the rest of the patriarchal world. In her story, Gilmans reflects upon the complex connection between a womans insanity and her conflict with the realities of the patriarchal life. In Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper, the female characters visible insanity is nothing but a rebellion against the stifling conventions of her society, as well as the reflection of her continuous striving to break the dichotomy between a Victorian woman and the rest of the world.

In the nineteenth century, the society expected women to maintain the domestic sphere (Quawas 35). Women had to be a pure haven for their husbands every evening they returned from work (Quawas 35). Only women who exemplified patriarchal submissiveness and domesticity were believed to be happy and contented with their life at home (Dock 53). However, a woman is not always what society wants her to be sometimes, a woman will try to rebel against the stifling conditions of her patriarchal life Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good (Gilman). The narrators ideas about her life, her work, and self-realization go against the basic patriarchal ideas about womanhood. Victorian womanhood comprised the four essential elements a dichotomy between home and the rest of the world, the designation of home as the womans only proper sphere, the moral superiority of women, and the idealization of motherhood and functions of wife (Quawas 36). As a Victorian woman, Gilmans narrator lives (or, rather, exists) in a small world of her bedroom, waiting for her husband to come and decide upon her future. The woman does not like her room and wants another one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window (Gilman), but she cannot go against her husbands decisions. This room and the yellow wallpaper gradually lead the woman to the state, in which resembles an insane woman. In reality, however, her insanity is just a reflection of the conscious rebellion against the stifling conventions of her life.

The young woman rebels against her relations with John her husband, the bright example of the utmost love and care, is a person absolutely indifferent to his wifes inner anxieties. His love and care border on tyranny and discrimination, which the young narrator finds difficult to tolerate He is very careful and loving. And hardly lets me stir without special direction. I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more (Gilman). Care is not the only thing John takes from his wife he does not let the narrator use her rights and privileges. Instead, he deems necessary to close the woman in a yellow papered room without any chance for an escape. John applies to Neuropathy to justify his intentions, and his medical degree makes his arguments even more convincing. Delashmit compares Gilmans John to Brontes John Reed from Jane Eyre  both men are equally caring and authoritative (32). Gilmans John, according to Delashmit, uses his medical knowledge to create an impression of an infallible professional correctness and the young woman, due to the lack of appropriate education, can hardly oppose to it (32). Her insanity is no more insane than the patriarchal norms she is bound to follow. This insanity is a form of rebelling against the stifling conditions of her patriarchal existence. She cannot work. She is physically and morally imprisoned. She dreams of jumping out of the window, but the bars are too strong even to try (Gilman). The room on the second floor of a remote gothic house becomes her insanity ward she is torn between the standards of her family life and her own standards of self-realization.

Gilmans female narrator wants to erase the existing dichotomy between her and the rest of the world. She rebels against the norms of the patriarchal society, which associate women with domesticity and motherhood and treat them as childlike and incapable of taking adult decisions Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain (Gilman). The narrators husband is doing everything possible and impossible to close his wife from the outside reality. That reality and the real world can harm her health and nervous stability is a good justification of his patriarchal intentions. Meanwhile, the woman imagines herself far outside the domestic circles (Golden 80). The conflict between her and the outside world becomes even more complex and problematic, when the reader understands that the woman is not insane at all. Her thoughts are reasonable and well-formed, and her arguments are well-crafted I it so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now (Gilman). In the dichotomy between the woman and the world, the former is secondary to everything else. She does not have power necessary to invite her relatives and family members and to see them.

The world interprets every attempt to express her dissent as the sign of her mental sickness that is why she must take medicines  another patriarchal convention to follow. The narrator wants to erase the existing woman-world dichotomy in which any sign of rebellion is considered as hysteria, neuropathy, and requires medical treatment and isolation from the rest of society. This visible insanity is the reflection of the double standards, which tear the woman between her inner world and her society and do not leave her a single chance to protect her rights and to realize her strivings.

The yellow wallpaper is the turning point in the understanding of this moral and spiritual rebellion. The yellow wallpaper is the direct reflection of the womans inner fears and anxieties it is the mirror of her female spirit and soul. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store (Gilman).

Through the yellow wallpaper, the narrator associates herself with an inanimate object, while the rest of the patriarchal society seems unaware of how much expression she hides within herself. In the second half of the story, while looking at the yellow wallpaper, the female narrator suddenly sees a woman behind the bars. This is where she finally understands that she must free the shadow of the wallpaper woman from her imprisonment (Quawas 47), but is there any opportunity to help her realize her strivings These are the realization of her weakness and her inability to change the conditions of her life that result in the state close to that of insanity. When the woman rebels against her husband, she also rebels against the rest of her society. Knight is correct, saying that the womans anger is the basic driver of her desperate actions. The conditions she lives in are worse than those in a madhouse the faceless gaze of her husband and the rest of society finally throw her into madness (Bak 42). This madness, however, is not madness in usual terms. Rather, it is the womans expression of the dissent with the dominant conditions of her life. Her insanity is nothing but a rebellion against the stifling patriarchal conventions, as well as the reflection of her continuous striving to break the tragic dichotomy between her and the rest of the world.

Conclusion
Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper was written at times when an ideal woman had to exemplify motherhood and her commitment to home and her husband. A Victorian woman had to display submissiveness to the norms of the patriarchal society and did not have a single chance to realize herself outside of her home. The Yellow Wallpaper is the cry of a woman for equality and freedom. The narrators visible insanity is just the reflection of her dissent with the stifling conditions of life in a patriarchal society. She tries to break the dichotomy between herself and the rest of the world. She rebels against her spiritual and moral imprisonment. The faceless gaze of her society leads to a state close to that of madness, but this madness is no more insane than the norms and standards of life a woman must follow.

In the works of Mark Twainspecifically Tom Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court, the early tale Julus Caesar and, most poignantly, Huckleberry Finnthe relationship between nature and civilization is complex.  Nature is both refreshing and frightening, spiritually edifying and deadly dangerous, while civilization offers positive human values even as it hypocritically de-values humankind by the practice of slavery.  Nature and civilization make competing existential claims on Twains characters, and the author negotiates these claims using humor as well as eloquent description and commentary.  During his adventures in nature with the runaway slave Jim, which are punctuated by forays into various white-dominated social worlds, the protagonist of Huckleberry Finn wrestles with a double conscience his sense of right and wrong has been constructed by a pro-slavery society, yet he develops a competing ethical sense of human solidarity through his positive experiences with Jim in the natural world.  What makes Hucks development so powerful is that Twain refuses to reduce it to a clear-cut, two-sided affair.  In the same way, he refuses to reduce the relationship between nature and civilization to an antinomy.  In many of his works, Twain develops the themes of natures simultaneous danger and beauty, and of natures stimulation of a higher ethical consciousness centered on human solidarity, but nowhere do these themes come together so powerfully as in Huckleberry Finn.

I Nature in Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain never represents civilization and nature as a simple dichotomy.  The irreducible contradictions within nature are present from the very beginning of Huckleberry Finn.  Huck finds the Widow Douglass attempts to sivilize him oppressive, and dangerous to his own free selfhood (Huckleberry Finn, 1).  He longs to be rested and refreshed by existence in the natural world, his former way of life.  At the same time, while nature is rejuvenating, it is also shown to be threatening, even literally dangerous.

I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead.  The stars were shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die and the wind was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldnt make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me.

Here, a precedent is set for the view of nature in Huckleberry Finn nature, while representative of and responsive to the human longing for a better life, is also threatening and full of death.  At the same time, Hucks wish to be dead at the beginning of the passage is a response not to the threat of nature but to the isolation and alienation he experiences within civilized society.  His ability to communicate with nature is repressed by his location in society he couldnt make out what the wind was trying to whisper.  This failure of intuitive communication contrasts with Jims ability to communicate clearly with nature once he is away from the confines of society Chickens know when its gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile (Huckleberry Finn, 60).  For Huck, natures attempt to speak is muffled if not completely drowned out by the confines of his room and his submission to a civilized social existence.
This confinement, which makes Huck wish for death, nevertheless provides protection against the death that nature threatens him with.  Jim is later able to teach Huck the art of reading nature, in part because their lives depend on it once they have run away, there is no barrier protecting them from the real dangers in nature.  And yet it is through experiencing and withstanding this danger that Huck experiences communion with nature.

The dialectic of natures danger verses its attractiveness is manifested throughout the novel.  Huck finds sleeping in the woods to be restful, and finds more of a home in living outdoors than he does inside a house.  We said there warnt no home like a raft, after all.  Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft dont.  You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft (Huckleberry Finn, 155).  With this freedom and ease, however, also comes the danger of destruction in chapter ten, Jim is nearly killed by a poisonous snakebite, while in chapter fifteen, the two friends become separated due to the thick fog, and Jim concludes that Huck has been lost.  Additionally, in chapter six, the pain of physical violence from Hucks father undermines Hucks comfort and freedom in living a natural life more or less apart from civilization provided by his fathers remote cabin.  Life in nature, then, is represented as both liberating and violent.

There are passages in Huckleberry Finn that powerfully capture the meditative aspect of beauty in nature.  Part of this power, however, derives from the realism by which these descriptions of natural beauty are tempered.

Then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers but sometimes not that way, because theyve left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank and next youve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it (Huckleberry Finn, 157)
Here, nature affects Huck on multiple sensory levels, saturating him with smells, the sounds of birds, and the feel of the wind and sun.  But the pleasure of these sensory experiences is portrayed along with the presence (rather than the suppression) of natures ugliness.  The sweet smell of woods and flowers competes with the rank smell of dead fish, but these two smells somehow work together to give way to everything smiling in the sun.  Nature provides existential joy and a sense of peace, but it does so precisely because it is a real representation of life, comprehending both vitality and death, the beauty and the ugliness, of the human life experience.

II The Construction of Nature in Other Works
The dualistic realism in the above passage from Huckleberry Finn was a conscious choice on Twains part.  An earlier copy of the manuscript, from 1879-80, reveals that he did not originally include the reference to dead fish and their smells, or the provision that nature is sometimes not perfectly lovely (Huckleberry Finn, 475).  This suggests the likelihood that Twains understanding of nature became increasingly complex during the course of his career.  A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court, written in 1889, several years after Huckleberry Finn, portrays nature as a source of both solace and pain.  The countryside was most lovely and pleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning in the first freshness of autumn (Yankee, 98).  Unspoiled nature (uniquely so in ancient England, as opposed to modern Hartford) gives the narrator a sense of comfort and existential peace, in large part because it provides a much desired escape from the confines of civilized society.

We crossed broad natural lawns sparkling with dew, and we moved like spirits, the cushioned turf giving out no sound of footfall we dreamed along through glades in a mist of green light that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves overhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of runlets went frisking and gossiping over its reefs and making a sort of whispery music, comfortable to hear and at times we left the world behind and entered into the solemn great deeps and rich gloom of the forest (Yankee, 98-99)

Just as in Huckleberry Finn, nature is experienced here by its saturation of the narrators senses the natural world is visually stunning, but it also makes whispery music, and the narrator imagines the touch of the clearest and coldest of runlets.  The deepest part of naturethe forestis described as removed from civilization and as an escape from the world, suggesting a strong dichotomy between civilization and nature.

At the same time, however, Hank contains the claims of both nature and civilization within himself, though his relationship with nature is ultimately overshadowed by his commitment to the advancement of civilization.  This negotiation between nature and civilization is symbolized in chapter twelve by the painful effect of the sun upon the narrators armor.  The sun, which is initially described as complementing the roof of leaves overhead, soon makes Hanks journey hot and unpleasant (Yankee 99).  It heats his armor to an unbearable degree, turning his sojourn in nature into a process of slow torture.  In this chapter, Hank is imprisoned by the elements of nature (the sun) as well as the requirements of society (his armor), and the nature-society dichotomy that is present in the first part of the chapter is collapsed in Hanks painful condition.  As he does in Huckleberry Finn, Twain discourages the sentimentalizing of nature by revealing, on the other side of his exalted account of natures beauty, its oppressive side.  This shows how the complex and paradoxical view of nature seen in the final incarnation of Huckleberry Finn continued to influence Twains work.  Furthermore, in Yankee, as the account of Hanks discomfort becomes increasingly comedic, the beauty of nature becomes less romantic and less serious.

Humor is one way in which Twain draws attention to the paradoxical character of nature.  In one of his early stories, Julus Caesar, he satirizes Romantic poetry about natures spiritual splendor, placing absurd and comical verses in the mouth of a well-intentioned but ridiculous buffoon.  Just as in Yankee, but in a much more pronounced manner, Twain uses humor in Julus Caesar to undermine the sentimentality that often accompanies the experience and description of natures beauty.  And now the hail begins to pelt  On hill and vale and level,  And now the rain comes pouring down  Just like the very devil (Julus Caesar, 113-14).  Here, Twain makes fun of the sentimental, Romantic view of nature, and also lampoons the act of trying to capture nature through language.  It is clear in many of his works that Twain prized nature, attributing real solace and existential transformation to the experience of it.  But Julus Caesar and Yankee show that, in Twains view, genuine love of nature must be shielded from sentimentality and informed by a hunger for realismotherwise it becomes false and ridiculous rather than healing and enlightening.  His simple point throughout is that it is only through a realistic view of nature that its true beauty and value for human growth can be experienced.

In Tom Sawyer, which was written in 1875, there are already echoes of the complex understanding of nature that is present in Huckleberry Finn.  Nature is portrayed as positive and peaceful yet also dark and mysterious, and the competing claims of civilization are tied to its mysterious aspect.  It provides a delicious sense of repose and peace in the deep pervading calm and silence of the woodsNot a leaf stirred not a sound obtruded upon great Natures meditation (Tom Sawyer, 106).  Later on, however, nature becomes dark and foreboding.  Tom Sawyer does not capture the contradictory elements of nature quite as clearly as the final version of Huckleberry Finn, but it does reflect three important points about the natural world that appear in the later novel.  First, by unfolding itself to the protagonist, nature leads to increased tenderness and empathy Tom empathizes with animals, imagining how strange it must be for them to encounter humans (Tom Sawyer, 107).  Life in nature also sparks empathy in Huck Finn, whose love for Jim is intensified when he sees Jims sorrow at missing his family, and realizes that he and Jim share a fundamental humanity.  Second, in Tom Sawyer, life in nature gives way to the realization of human interdependence.  Camping out in the woods of Jacksons Island teaches the boys to depend on one another for sustenance and survival.  Like Huck and Jim, the boys in Tom Sawyer form a kind of family unit, catching fish and cooperating at cooking it, as well as conversing and swimming together.  Though Tom does commune with nature in a solitary fashion, this communion gives way to a need for human solidarity.  
Third, as in Huckleberry Finn, nature provides a site for spiritual growth and meditation while, at the same time, producing fear and unease.

But the talk soon began to drag, and then died.  The stillness, the solemnity that brooded in the woods, and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the spirits of the boys.  They fell to thinking.  A sort of undefined longing crept upon them.  This took dim shape, presentlyit was budding homesickness. (Tom Sawyer, 109)

This undefined longing is the boys longing for civilization, a dawning sense that they are not fully at home in nature.  Although they initially wish to burn the bridge between them and civilization (Tom Sawyer, 107), they eventually realize that the claims of their family and friends, the essence of civilization have followed them into nature.  The nature-civilization dichotomy that they attempt to construct is broken down by homesickness, which is followed by a vision of and intense interest in civilization.  This interest is accompanied by a collective fantasy in which the boys gain a heroic place in society.  They see, first in their imaginations, then in real life, that to their friends and family they have drowned, losing their very lives in the dark depths of nature and gaining notoriety in their community.  They felt like heroes in an instant.  Here was a gorgeous triumph they were missed they were mournedand best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town, and the envy of all the boys (Tom Sawyer 111).  It takes dying in nature, imagining the ultimate confrontation with natures danger and mystery, to make the boys once again understand themselves to be a part of the human world.  Thus, Twains rich and paradoxical view of nature, along with his refusal to reduce the relationship between civilization and nature to a simple dichotomy, is present in the authors earlier works, just as it informs later works like Yankee.  Yet it is in Huckleberry Finn that he most powerfully captures the negotiation between nature and civilization, and the existential transformation that takes place in response to natures simultaneous danger and beauty.

III Huck Finns Ethical Shift
In Huckleberry Finn, empathy, human interdependence and spiritual growth are supposedly advocated by the Christian ethics of American civilization.  The widowsaid the thing a body could get by praying for it was spiritual giftsshe told me what she meantI must help other people, and do everything I could for other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about myself (Huckleberry Finn, 13).  Huck, however, only comes to realize a genuine sense of the social ethic of self-sacrifice and human solidarity, however, through the experience of life in nature, which undermines the hypocritical pro-slavery stance of society.  In nature, he learns to empathize with Jims sorrow at missing his family, and both to depend upon and to provide for Jim.  Whereas, when located in society, Huck prizes his independence above all things, the mystery and danger of nature teach him the value of moving through life with others.  His realization of empathy and interdependence can be understood as a spiritual journey which is centered in the experience of nature, but which is only possible within the context of a human relationship.

Its lovely to live on a raft.  We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happenedJim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened I judged it would have took too long to make so many.  Jim said the moon could a laid them well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didnt say nothing against it, because Ive seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it could be done.

Here, Huck and Jim join in a spiritual interpretation of nature in its most expansive form, the cosmos.  This passage reveals the co-existence of beauty and mystery in nature, a mystery that is manifested in other parts of the novel as darkness and danger.  It also shows how nature facilitates the spiritual bond that develops between Huck and Jim.  Unlike their contentious debates about Solomon and why people speak French, here they respectfully agree to disagree about these enormously large questions.  It is this bond that pushes against Hucks pre-existing ethical framework, constructed by a pro-slavery society, in which he understands himself to be wicked for helping Jim to escape.

Just as Twain refuses to sentimentalize or reduce the complexity of nature, so he also refuses to sentimentalize and simplify Hucks transition to a more humane consciousness.  Hucks battle between civilized and natural or experiential morality continues throughout the book, and does not come to a neat conclusion.  The complexity of his struggle can be seen in his reaction to Jims capture, a reaction that demonstrates both the competing ethical claims of society and nature, and the way in which Huck comes to enact the civilized ethic of human solidarity by giving up on civilized morality.  The initial stage of Hucks reaction is characterized by concern for Jim.  I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as hed got to be a slaveAnd then think of me (Huckleberry Finn, 268).  Here, Huck performs his caretakers injunction to look out for other people before himself it seems that, through his relationship with Jim, he has developed those spiritual gifts which were previously beyond his comprehension.  While Twain and the reader might see it this way, however, Huck does not.  He believes himself to be wicked for even thinking that way about Jims well-being.  His tentative decision to turn Jim in makes him feel all washed clean of sin, while his subsequent decision not to, which occurs in reaction to thoughts about Jims kindness and their spiritual bond in nature, means that he will go to hell (Huckleberry Finn, 271).  Hucks ethical shift is not self-conscious, then, in the sense that he comes to consider his experiential conscience right and his civilized conscience wrongin fact, it is quite the opposite.  But his willingness to go to hell and even to die in order to secure Jims escape speaks to the strength of the humane consciousness that has come to reign in him during his natural life and friendship with Jim.  He would rather defy God and society than betray the person who has helped him, and whom he has come to love.  At the same time, Twain does not sentimentalize this love Huck does not completely reject slavery, and it is clear that the reality of slavery cannot be changed by Hucks friendship with Jim or his dawning ethical shift.

IV Conclusion
Twains worksspecifically Tom Sawyer, Yankee, Julus Caesar and the two incarnations of Huckleberry Finnreveal the ever-growing complexity with which Twain constructed his view of nature.  As the revision of chapter nineteen in Huckleberry Finn shows, the simultaneity of natures danger and beauty is of key importance, since it reflects the complexity of the human ethical transformation that is stimulated by life in nature.  Neither this ethical transformation nor the reality of nature are sentimentalized or reduced by Twain.  Civilization and nature, along with their accompanying ethics, contrast and compete with one another even as they form and inform one another.  Through his spiritual bond with Jim, which is facilitated by life in nature, Huck manifests the true meaning of the human solidarity that is advocated, yet only partially practiced, in the social world.  Yet, Hucks shift in consciousness is not clear-cut it remains, like nature, irreducibly contradictory.  It is precisely this quality of contradiction that makes Twains accounts of nature and of existential transition so realistic and therefore so powerful.

The Disruption of Social Life in the Ibo Society was the Falling Apart in Chinua Achebes Things Fall

The title of Chinua Achebes novel, Things Fall Apart, is a symbolic reference to the events that take place in the Ibo society. It alludes to the changes that disrupted the status-quo in society, occasioned by the introduction of Christianity and later on, colonialism. Consequently, long held traditions fell apart as they gave in to a new culture. At character level, the new era marked a turning point in the lives of individuals, notably the protagonist Okonkwo. Initially a prominent and respected man within the status quo, his ideals lost relevance in the new order. In reference to the events in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart, the paper examines how traditional institutions were disrupted by the new changes that took place, leading to a gradual falling apart of social life.

In the Ibo community, the turning point was marked by the oracles demands for a human offering to avert an impending crisis. However, Ikemefuna, the boy by whose blood the community was to be saved, was struck by Okonkwo (it was an abomination since he was technically his father) before they reached the altar, as it were. This incidence was an ominous warning that their efforts had aborted, and that things will fall apart at the ripe time. And it came sooner than anticipated  Ogbuefi Ezeudu, the village elder and embodiment of tradition, died suddenly, suggesting the death of the societys culture. Then, during his funeral, Okonkwos gun goes off and kills the decease mans teenage son. Okonkwo is banished from the community for his sacrilegious actions, and goes to live in his mothers village. Going into exile was a sign that he had been uprooted from the community. Indeed, when he came back after seven years, it did not take him long before he killed another man and then committed suicide. Thus, by the end of the novel, the village idol who had once felled Amalinze the Cat in a duel was no more than a disgraced villain, whose corpse hung from a tree awaiting, not to be touched by his fellow clansmen, but by a stranger to bury it.

The communitys traditions were also assaulted by the new Christian ways. The missionaries undermined the Ibo culture by challenging and condemning their beliefs and practices. There was egwugwu, the masked spirit famed for its ability to pick out guilty villains. However, Enoch, a Christian convert, dared the gods and unmasked the spirit during a hearing, which turned out to be a human being. This discredited the reverence that people had for this superstitious figure. The said Enoch also killed the worshipped python, marking the end of the traditional rituals that defined Ibo religion. The introduction of western medicine for ailments previously without cures shifted peoples beliefs from the myth that ones chi- a guardian angel and Chukwu (God) exposed people to harm for their evil deeds. In addition, when the missionaries asked for land to build a church, the elders offered them the evil forest. They believed that the spirits will come to haunt those who trespassed into their territory. However, to their astonishment, the spirits seemed to give way to the missionaries. Gradually, the superstitious beliefs that people held concerning revered objects, animals and places crumpled in. Eventually, when the Christian missionaries accepted banished members into the church without any repercussions from offended gods, the communitys beliefs and practices became irrelevant and got discarded.

Nonetheless, the final blow was the introduction of formal education, which changed peoples perceptions that many wives and Ozo titles were the yardsticks of measuring success. It particularly appealed to the youth, for instance Okonkwos son Nwoye, who abandoned tradition for Christianity and formal learning. By targeting the younger generation, the missionaries effectively severed the link of transmission of the Ibo culture, marking the beginning of its end. Thus, very gradually, the peoples way of life had fallen apart in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart.