CRITICS

MODERNISM
The Modern Tradition- Backgrounds of Modern Literature
Modernism refers to sth INTIMATE, ELUSIVE, NOT OBJECTIVE and easily ANALYZED. The modern is NOT like
the reassuring landscape of the past, open and readable everywhere. It is at once more IMMEDIATE and
OBSCURE, a MOOD IMPATIENCE with anachronisms, a DIFFUSE FEELING of DIFFERENCE. One characteristic
of works we call modern is that they positively insist on a GENERAL FRAME of REFERENCE WITHIN and
BEYOND themselves. Modernism supplies some sort of HISTORICAL DISCONTINUITY, either liberation from
INHERITED PATTERNS or DEPRIVATION and DISINHERITANCE.
Trilling singles out a radically anti-cultural bias as the most important attitude of the modern imagination. Modern
literature has elevated individual existence over social man, UNCONSCIOUS FEELING over self-conscious
perception, passion and will over intellectual and systematic morals, DYNAMIC VISION over the static image,
DENSE ACTUALITY over practical reality. It has been that H. James called imagination of disaster.
The personal urgency of the modern masters is a sense of LOSS, ALIENATION, DESPAIR. These are the two
faces of the modern: FREEDOM and DEPRIVATION, LIVING PRESENT and DEAD PAST.
Modernists have been searching for a never-finding starting point- the end of Victorian literature, the beginning of
Romanticism, the mid 17th century or the end of the Middle Ages. The paradoxical task of the modern imagination,
whether liberated or alienated, has been to stand both inside and outside itself, to articulate its own formlessness,
to encompass its own extravagant possibilities. The modern is the embodiment in current imagery of a situation
always larger than the present and as such it is also a (zadrzavanje- ?outainment) of the resources of the present
by rediscovery of a relevant past. Modernism is synthetic in its very indeterminacy. Unevenness is in the nature of
the case.
Richard Ellman and Charles Feidelson
THREE HONEST MEN
L. Trilling- On the Teaching of Modern Literature
Trilling is one of the three critics of whom Philip French talked in Three Honest Man. French praises these critics
because their approach to literature was honest and personal. The same division is found in American philosopher
Rorty who distinguishes between methodical criticism and unmethodical. Methodical criticism has a very
established concept. It approaches literature as a kind of science and is thus indifferent. Unmethodical is inspired: A
critic approaches a novel by saying in which way it influences him, whether the work in question changes him. Its a
personal approach. He is inspired by a work of art, admits its influence and that what is contained in work of art is a
real world, human nature.
The aim of these three critics (unmethodical): they didnt strive to create a kind of science: to make literature a
social form. They didnt aim just to convey the meaning of literature to professionals- but to all. Everyone can
understand the meaning. They try to democratize literature- sth. general. Trilling was concerned with ethical, moral
side of literature. He thought that it is a great moral fight. Literature presents what a whole human being should be.
This concept is often at conflict with the concept offered by the culture. Literature provides the image of self more
deeply understood.
Trilling was a teacher. He talked about his experience of teaching- literature asks shockingly personal questions. He
points out that the hero of modern work is most usually unhappy, depressed, angry, even criminal and suicidal. In
the previous periods the authors tried to help an individual integrate into the culture. Modern literature creates a
hero who is in conflict with culture. What can be observed throughout literature, says Trilling, is hostility towards
culture. To explain this hostility, he quotes Arnold Mathew and his ideas of what a perfect culture should be. For him
it is one guided by reason, in which there is a material wealth, order, tolerance, peace. All these ideals have been
betrayed. Tolerance is capricious. The whole world tolerated the ill invasion of Iraq. Well-being is corrupted. People
in certain country will accept some political solutions if they provide wealth. Peace becomes exporting war
somewhere else. The ideology is different but the principle is the same. What we witness today is seduction an
individual doesnt know that he is seduced into compliance.

In his course of teaching he introduces some theoretical basis of modern literature. One of them was Nietzsches
Birth of Tragedy- a dialectical relation between Dionysian (non-ethical energy) and Apollonian standing for our
urges, sexuality, passion, desire and turbulent emotions. Apollonian stands for our reason and it is predominant
principle today. Because this balance has been lost, there is a danger that a suppressed portion of ourselves can
burst in a destructive way. If we put some elements on the right side and those not acceptable for the society on the
left there must be a balance, but only if these two are equal. If we push much on this dark part, there is a loss of
balance and we flip to the other side. We can talk about the outburst or revenge of the suppressed energies.
Trilling- Freud: Within and Beyond Culture
Trilling maintains that modern culture gives us a very narrow concept of the self. It gives us an inadequate concept
of the self. Although modern culture gives high importance to an individual it does not have accurate knowledge of
the self, what his general needs are. The self is usually identified with the intellect. The danger lies in the fact that
the intellect is not connected with the rest of the world. It is detached and observes the rest of the world as an
object. However, if we approach the world by imagination, feelings, Eros, it will give us a sense of belonging. So, it
is important to restore this half of our being that connects us to the world. If we are not connected with the world, we
can easily become destroyed, because intellect is able of destroying anything which is not the self. Culture forces
an individual to accept this wrong, narrow concept of the self. In the totalitarian society it is open oppression, in the
other type of society it is coercion- you are seduced into accepting this narrow concept.
Adrienne Rich- American poet, talks about this. Our true desires are stolen from us, fabricated and sold back to us.
We have a desire to belong somewhere and to love. It is very deep desire. The modern society makes us forget it,
makes us believe that what we really desire is a place in a high society. It grants such desire. This is a process
Trilling calls seduction. He discusses the way in which such culture can be opposed:
1) Different traditions- in his essay, Freud: Within and Beyond Culture, he says how Freud manages to survive. He
lived in horrible culture, tradition and he managed to survive. He kept his diary in Greek, loved English culture, knew
about history. If you cant find significant truth, you should look in some other cultures for them. Our culture is not
the only one.
2) Freud was able to think about himself as a biological fact. There is a residue of being, this biological aspect about
being which cant be reduced. This also can be a standpoint for opposing culture. It is important to find a standpoint
from which culture can be judged, condemned and revised. Trilling says that this idea of biological defense can
even go as far as death wish. Sometimes the hero of the modern literature chooses, makes a drastic choice
between staying alive and death- he commits suicide. He doesnt want to be changed by society.
Freud: Within and Beyond the Culture(2)
First part of the essay investigates the separation between science and literature in relation to Freud. Above all,
Freud is a scientist, he has a scientific mind and he sees literature from without, not from within. His great
contribution to our understanding of literature does not arise from what he says about literature, but from what he
says about the nature of human mind. He saw poetry as an inborn faculty because in the very nature of human
mind is to be poetic and to think in images and metaphors. Though the minds of scientists and literary men are very
similar, they are also different in some aspects. Literature, as in relation to Freud, is dedicated to the conception of
the self. Literature is able to conceive of the self and the selfhood of others far more than the general culture ever
can.
L.Trilling, F.R.Leavis, E.Wilson
The 20th century is the period of criticism and theories. Two basic theories are: 1. Humanist tradition based on the
commitment to creative self, the search for wholeness, healing power of imagination and continuity with the past,
and 2. Anti-humanist theory based on the fact that man is crated, constructed, a subject, not a self- complete denial
of originality and spontaneous creativity. Literature is just one of the many ideology practices- rejection of judgments
and traditions.
1) Humanists-they are disappointed by the bourgeois society utilitarianism, imperialism. Rationalism is in the 18 th
century marginalized emotion. For them what is good is what is useful. They made a deep split in a human psyche.
Romanticism- they claim that a split-man can be different. Wholeness is achieved by the supreme human facultyimagination- which unites both sides in a harmonious unity. Humanists preserved the continuity of the past. They
looked back in the past to find smth. we cannot in the present, to revive the dead forms of the past.

2) Anti-humanists-they (Marxists) believe that man is created by outside ideological forces. We are reduced to
construct, we are reduced to subjects- the products of media, history which formed us and we fell into this social
net. The moment we are born, we are gripped by all these connections. The writer is not original, no spontaneity. He
reproduces meaning that already exists. Literature is not a kind of enclave to examine values, but just one of many
ideological processes.
Trilling, Leavis and Wilson are the first group of contemporary critics who continued with the romantic tradition in
some way. They never developed any special method. Wilson and Leavis are the first teachers of modern literature.
Trillings books The Liberating Imagination, The Opposing Self, Beyond Culture show the way literature helps
us. Wilson was a journalist who believes that by writing essays in an ordinary language he is being the most
democratic. All of them confronted the whole literature phenomena with the whole personality. They strive to pay
attention to everything and mobilize all their faculties. They are people of high integrity. Thats why French called
them the three honest man- because their approach to literature is moral. Trilling says that now it is fashionable to
regard literature as a structure of words. Literature is not merely it. It is moral criticism- great moral fights over
images of personal being. Our culture doesnt have the adequate knowledge what a person should be. They (the
culture) produce stereotypes of what identity should be by seduction or oppression. There are two ways in which
one can resist culture- the capacity to familiarize with other tradition and the other is biology. Biology is smth. culture
cannot penetrate. This nature in us can resist culture- cannot discard some needs in us. Culture is not omnipotent.
There are people in touch with their biological reason.
E.Wilson- he also speaks about options. His book Symbolism also deals with a question of identity. Symbolism,
Romanticism and Modernism are all related to that attempt to resist the reductive ideas about self. Romanticism
couldnt have been satisfied with the concept of the self created by the classicists, because it was very reductive. It
excluded too much of life, so that Romanticists turned against that and opposed it by visionary knowledge, or like
Byron who recovers his sexual energy. They opposed the idea that man is strictly rational. Positivism didnt have
enough strength to oppose culture. The 19 th century Puritanism and Positivism were such that Symbolism had to
respond. They refused to live a life made by culture. There are two options- cultivate your private feelings or death.
The two options are exemplified inAxel and Rimbaud. Axel is eternally rich, handsome. He meets Sara and
wants to marry her. He is leaving this world and wants to travel mentally. He says:We have lived to the full. She
accepts and they killed themselves. Suicide is a metaphor here- a complete withdrawal from slavery of life.
Rimbaud ended in Africa. Before that he wrote poetry. He did all to get to his deepest self, to recover himself. He
says: I hate Christianity, I want to discover who I really am. I- it is something else. I want to get to this another.
For that he needs an epiphany. He deranged all his senses. Then he finally sees his soul and exclaims: I am a
Nigger, I am a beast. There is in him that elemental energy which is banned. He left Europe because there was no
room for beasts there. Masters, teachers, you know nothing about the soul. For them it is smth. abstract. He left
poetry. He says: I want to dance, no more words and he dies.
Axel and Rimbaud (2)- In comparison with Romantics who participate with society we have symbolists who
withdraw. One goes to nature, and then turns to society to share his experience and try to change it. Modern world
is reduced to material values. Romantics reacted against that world. However, the bourgeois world prevails. The
Romantics could turn society into a spiritual community. It is not, but it can become one. Symbolists just withdraw.
Page215-Here we have the declaration of Rimbaud who chooses a life of pure action. He simply left poetry. He
explains in what ways he wants to see reality, his difference to his own age and culture. He talks about the
deranging of senses. He doesnt want to see the reality. Its rational society- only those things which we can prove
empirically exist. He wants to go beyond that empirical vision of the world. He wants to feel hallucinations-the whole
inner life. The poet is like a criminal who opposes the society. The stealer of fire- Prometheus rebels against God
and authority. He also wants a new lg., deep human communication- against pragmatic, rational communication.
The lg. has to correspond to this visionary experience.
2. Rimbaud addresses the whole culture in general. Every body possesses that savage side but the others are not
willing to admit it and experience it. That part is suppressed. No more words- he wants to reject lg. Theres also a
feeling that that rational lg. we use also participate in all. It deals in concepts: he cannot express his inner being by
standard lg. Dance is a body lg., expresses the whole being.
Rimboud- hero and pioneer who struggled with the world and survived.
E. Wilson(2)

In his essay Symbolism, Wilson gives us continuity, linking together Modernism, Symbolism and Romanticism
which are the manifestations of the single fight, an effort to resist official, culturally promoted world view which is
reductive. Both Symbolism and Romanticism didnt want to be determined by external forces, by culture; they gave
a private subjective view of the world. Wilson hopes that the oscillation between reason and imagination would
cease and that unity of intellect and emotions, objective and subjective will be reached. Examples of such unity are
the Modernists such as Joyce, Eliot.
Symbolism is an essay devoted to Symbolist writers. The purpose of the book is to establish the continuity link
between Romanticism, Symbolism and Modernism. Both Romanticism and Symbolism are concerned with the
concept of self. Symbolism is not degeneration or elaboration of Romanticism. It is a counterpart to it, a second
flood of the same tide. It is a distinct movement which has arisen from different conditions and must be dealt with in
different terms. Romanticism is a reaction against Classicism. It is a revolt of an individual. In the domain of politics
and morals, Classicism meant a preoccupation with society as a whole, and in art it was an ideal objectivity.
Classicism
-the artist is out of the picture. It is artistic bad taste to identify himself with his hero or to intrude himself between
the reader and the story and give vent to his personal emotions.
Scientific discoveries gave rise to scientific ideas, mechanistic ideas especially. It was the period of the
development of mathematical and physical theories.
The poets like the astronomers and mathematicians regarded the universe as a machine obeying logical laws and
susceptible of reasonable explanation; God was figured as the clockmaker. People applied this conception to
society which had the character of a planetary system or well-regulated machine.
Man was sth apart from nature.
Romanticism
The writer is either a hero or more likeably identified with his hero, and the personality and emotions are presented
as the principal subject of interest.
They vindicate the rights of the individual against the claims of the society as a whole. The romantic is a rebel.
Mechanical order felt as a constrain. There were aspects of their experience which were imposible to analyze on
the theory of the world as a clockwork mechanism.
The universe is more mysterious, less rational.
Poet saw his soul as sth not reducible to a set of principles. He saw fantasy, conflict, confusion.
Blake, Wordsworth affirm the superior truth of vision over mechanical universe.
Byron says that mechanical universe is indifferent to man.
Romantic poets are preoccupied with individual sensibility or the individual will.
Literature concerned with the individual soul.
The world is an organism, man involved in the same great entity.
The Romantic poet is a prophet of a new insight into nature.
In the middle of the 19th century, science made new advances and mechanistic ideas were brought back to fashion.
But they came this time from biology. It was the effect of the theory of evolution to reduce man from the hero stature
to which Romantics had tried to exalt time, to the semblance of a helpless animal at the mercy of forces around
him.
Humanity was the accidental product of heredity and environment. This doctrine in literature was called
Naturalism
Put into the practice by novelist Zola who believed that composing a novel was like performing laboratory
experiment- you had only to supply your characters with a specific environment and heredity and then watch their
autonomic reaction. (no free will)
A reaction against the sentimentality and looseness of Romanticism, characterized by scientific observation which
closely corresponded to that of biological science.
The highest development of Naturalism took place in prose- the plays of Ibsen, which are non-personal and
objective insisting on precision of language and economy of form. Ibsen began to study man in relation to his
particular environment and time while the 17 th century writers sought to discover the universal principles of human
behaviour. The method of approach in both cases is a scientific one leading in to mechanistic conclusions. Ibsen
was occupied all his life with the conflict of the Romantic conception of ones duty to oneself and with the
conception of ones duty to the society.

However, the objective point of Naturalism began to cramp the poets imagination, to prove inadequate to convey
what he feels. Literature is rebounding again from the scientific- Classical role to the poetic- Romantic one. And this
second reaction at the end of the century was known as Symbolism.
Symbolism
The prophet of Symbolism was E. A. Poe for he had formulated a new literary program which corrected the
Romantic looseness and extravagance.
The principal aim of Symbolism was to approximate the indefiniteness of music, which was produced by the
confusion between the imaginary world and the real by means of a further confusion between the perceptions of the
different senses.
The tendency of Symbolism was to make poetry even more a matter of sensations and emotions of the individual
than it had been the case with Romanticism. Symbolism had the result of making poetry so much a private concern
of the poets that it turned out to be incommunicable to the reader. The familiar kind of Symbolism is conventional
and fixed, but the symbols of the Symbolist school are usually
-arbitrarily chosen by the poet to stand for special ideas of his own- they are a sort of disguise for these ideas,
-to intimate things rather than state them plainly was one of the primary aims of Symbolism.
Each poet has his unique personality and it is the poets task to find, invent the special language which will allow by
capable of expressing his personality and feelings. Such a language must make use of symbols: what is so special,
so fleeting and so vague cannot be conveyed by direct statements or descriptions, but only by a succession of
words, of images which will serve to suggest it to the reader.
What the symbols of Symbolism really were, were metaphors detached from their subjects. And Symbolism may be
defined as an attempt by carefully studied means- a complicated association of ideas represented by a medley of
metaphors- to communicate unique personal feelings.
The works of Yeats, Joyce, T. S. Eliot are continuance or extension of Symbolism (Modernism). Our literary history
is to a great extent that of the development of Symbolism and of its fusion or conflict with Naturalism.
Axel and Rimbaud(2)
One great objection to the Symbolist school is its lack of curiosity of life. Poetry had become for them a refuge, the
only escape from the hideous reality. The ideal of Symbolism was the renunciation of the experience of the outside
world for the experience of the imagination alone. the withdrawal of one individual from society. The individual is to
himself the measure of all things.
Axel- one possible response to the outer world (idealism). An intellectual, a noble man who studies the hermetic
philosophy of the alchemist chooses the life of pure reflection and imagination showing contempt for the
conceptions of honor and pleasure. He voluntarily exiles from a society which has betrayed and murdered his
father. He falls in love with the French noblewoman, Sara. They are holding the whole world in their hands- they
have love, youth, social position, power and treasure, yet Axel proposes they should kill each other. Sara thinks:
We have all the dreams to realize, and pleads: Come and live. Axel renounces the world. All that future can offer
is a pale reflection of the moments they have experienced. Life is a servitude, culture turned life into a servitude. He
admits only inner reality to save what is most human in oneself. Refusal to interact with the society.
The type of all the heroes of the Symbolists were contemplative, inactive, sensitive young men. They isolate
themselves from the world And practice the cultivation of the refined and bizarre sensations. The real world couldnt
possibly come to the one they had imagined.
Difference between Romanticism and Symbolism:
- The Romantics sought experience for its own sake- love, travel, politics- to try the possibilities of life.
- The Symbolists carry on their experimentation in the field of literature alone, exploring only the possibilities of
thought and imagination.
- The Romantic had usually revolted against of defied society.
- The Symbolist has detached himself from society and is indifferent to it.
- The Symbolist does not assert his individual will but shifts the whole field of literature from an objective to a
subjective world. They abandoned all efforts to put their dreams into reality. That was a sacrilege against dreams
themselves. Reality can never equal the dream.
Yeats spoke of the inferiority of the life of action to the life of solitary vision.
They have lost the touch with the world so completely that they no longer know precisely what it is like. The poets
withdraw from the general life of their time which was produced by the industrial revolution because they seemed to

have no place and it was hopeless to oppose. They didnt try to struggle with it but they did their best to ignore it, to
keep their imagination free of it. they were considered maladjusted persons.
Rimbaud- 2nd response to the outer world- to struggle with the world and survive but to survive as sth other than a
poet.
The poet must be a visionary and he makes himself a visionary through derangement of all the senses. He arrives
to the unknown because he has cultivated his soul. He has indulged in all kinds of perverted activities in order to
penetrate to that layer of being. He discovered it and the result was One reason in hell and Illuminations.
I am another- he didnt want to watch through culturally colored glasses.
I am a nigger, a beast- return to his biological, irrational soul.
No more wordsdance- he gives up language because it was contaminated. Biological beings cannot be
expressed in words, but gestures.
He planned an escape from European reality by more effective means than self-hallucination. He felt that in spite of
his poetry he couldnt assure the kind of life he wanted to live so he left Europe. he rejected Europe altogether its
society, ideas and even the sensibility that literature supplied. He chose the life of action and a more primitive
civilization in contrast to Axel who chose pure contemplation. You have to combine these opposites: action and
contemplation/imagination, a public person and inner self in order to live in this society. Ultimately, the oscillation
between reason and imagination must cease.
F.R. Leavis- Poetry and the Modern World
He believes in the autonomy of perception and judgment. The poet asks and answers the questions about the goal
of life: What is that man live for and live by?- keep touch with cultural heritage. The poet is more alive and more
conscious and has a power of communication. He communicates his sense of what to fully live is like. If the criterion
by which we judge the poet is life than we can see that in certain periods poet succumbs to culture and its
stereotypes and is banned from communicating to his deepest self due to the split between intellect and emotions
which is reflected in the wrong conception of the self, of poetry. According to these misconceptions poetic is only
what is simple, passionate and sensuous. Late Victorian poetry is a failure- the poet was prevented from
communicating with the wholeness of his being and expressing his whole being in poetry. It was poetry of
withdrawal, escape. The result of this was that the feelings divorced from intellect which lead to sheer sentimentality
and the intellect divorced from feelings degenerated into vulgar cleverness. The intellectuals lost touch with poetry
which led to the lack of finer awareness, lack of creative wholeness and spiritual blindness.
The line that connects Leavis and Trilling is their reference to Blake who fought the mental fight against the
reductive influence of industrialism, materialism. Blake created a metaphysical system to see what a whole,
resurrected man could be like. This system consists of Urizen (reason) and Loss (imagination) which are two
conflicting aspects of man and which should be reconciled. Leavis states that if we diminish the importance of Loss,
the vital game of life stops. Derrida- free game presupposes that we never know ourselves; but Leavis states that
Blake always belonged to himself through his surrender to creativity.
NEW CRITICISM
In England- Richards, in America Ransom, Eliot. The new criticism focused only on one element: the text. It is
called objective criticism. It discarded everything except the structure of words. It excludes the reader. They were
interested in the words on the page. The poem is a verbal icon, a beautiful urn, the well-Wrought Urn- autonomous
structure of words. They use specific poetic lg.: irony, paradox, symbols, ambiguity. They believe that what justified
this close-reading is that we find values based on utilitarianism and those true values that in such a world have
been forgotten. By reading closely we see differently, we change our perceptions. We change our mode of
perceiving the world. The images are more specific, correct, accurate than knowing the world in any other way.
NEW CRITICISM (2)
New Critics were explicitly and self-consciously anti-romantic. But implicitly they continued Romantic values.
Wholeness, completeness is the major value they kept. Divided self can become one in our culture; the dissociation
of sensibility can be overcome in literature.
New Critics provide us with the defense of poetry against the monopoly of the scientific world view. The three of
them restate the basic ideas of Trilling, Leavis and Wilson.

NEW CRITICISM (3) approach focused on short literary forms. Most usually they analyze lyrics with a smallest
detail. They were also interested in the formal devices: metaphor, paradox, symbols, irony it was also called
immanent or intrigue approach. They focus on the poem without discussing the cultural context. They claim that
the poem should be viewed as a verbal icon- never be completely paraphrased. You cant convey its full context.
Although they focus on aesthetic forms we still consider them humanists- since they are concerned with important
human values. They view a poem as a model of natural and inner harmony.
Ransom- Poetry; A Note on Ontology
We find similar ideas in Ransom. He also defends poetry from science. He speaks in terms of ideas and images.
Poetry conveys its meaning through images. Science operates with ideas. The word consists of the skeleton and
the flesh. He says those who can respond to the world by ideas refer to the skeleton. It neglects all things in nature
in their contingency, richness.
There is a fear that man is subordinated to nature. We tend to think that we can master the world by ideas but
scientific man is ----------- and arrogant. It is very dangerous attitude. We impoverish our sensibility and get numb.
The world is killed and also we ourselves. Platonic impulse the idea is important things have no concreteness.
The western man is pround, but it derives from his desire to master the world. Everything becomes abstract and we
became habitual killers.
Ransom says: A person can be cured. He says there are two ways- love and poetry. A person who is a Platonist
believes in ideas meets another person and there is the enigma, the mystery of life. He thinks that he knows his
world and his pride changes into humility. Another person cant be reduced to a formula. Poetry- images never
reduces meaning. There is multiplicity. Its never exhausted. Metaphor is important. Why? It connects experiences.
Science detaches us from poetry to preserve sth. which constantly crumbles under the touch of other languages.
Therefore, he says the kind of poetry that uses metaphor is true kind of poetry. We see that ideas are explorative
and lead to dangerous things. Donne- ideas, blood, nervous system- all together create an image.
J.C.Ransom (2) Metaphor in poetry is important because it helps us connect physical images with abstract images.
The basic distinction is between ideas and images. When we encounter images they appeal to our whole being, so
we react to images, to some phenomena in nature with our intellect, intuitions and instincts. We can also react with
our senses. We react with our whole sensibilia as Ransom calls it. The tendency in our modern scientific world is
to reduce this complexity of experience. This is what we do with the whole universe- reduce everything into simple
manageable formula. Ransom says that the basic reason for that is our fear. We are afraid of complexity and
unknown. If we reduce the world to formula, categories, this gives us a sense of mastery. Then we have the feeling
that we are in control of things. If we master the world in such a way, however, Ransom says that we reduce the
worlds body into its skeleton. In this way the world is reduced to a skeleton. This tendency is called platonic
impulse. In such circumstances you just kill concepts and not people. In this way platonic impulse can make us
habitual killers.
As opposed to platonic impulse, Ransom says that we can be cured by poetry and art in general. The kind of poetry
specially praised is metaphysical poetry. By this he doesnt mean the 19 th century poetry but any poetry which uses
metaphor. It is smth that should help us sum up our experience into a meaningful whole. It helps us connect inner
and outer experiences: it should make use both - our intellect and emotions. (Blakes symbols-Urizen he makes
borderlines, he creates those types- borderlines definitions. This attitude gives us the feeling of mastery. Therefore,
you must have this opposite figure loss- as the symbol for his desire to be free, creative, to be the servant of life).
Ransom says that poetry teaches us to approach the world with humility. He also says poetry initiates the act of
perception.
*In what way our dreams approach us? In dreams we return to the images which have the multiple possible
meanings. The science is specific- literature is interested in the whole man-sun- light, masculine principle, life. We
start from one image and derive very many ideas from it. If we reduce to one of the ideas we use just one of it
properly. This is what makes us habitual killers.
*Platonic poetry makes us masters. Logos is god; we give all our trust in the power of reasons. Platonic world and
scientific do not coincide- we are aware that the reality is more complex.
* conceit- a sort of metaphor. Metaphor is all together replacing one thing by another. What is the purpose of
conceit? To connect abstract ideas with physical world of images and sensual impressions. This metaphor is also
important in religion.God wouldnt be so abstract platonic idea. Metaphors help us connect the world of experiences

with that spiritual, divine world. What the poet does is necessary in order to express our need to have the purpose
of life, meaning in life.
J.C. Ransom- Poetry; A Note on Ontology
According to Ransom the worlds body consists of two things:
- skeleton which is made of underlying laws, ideas, and
- flesh which is made of concrete, unpredictable, unrepeatable, contradictory and infinitely rich phenomena.
When we are thinking in terms of general, abstract laws, we are thinking about the worlds skeleton. Science, prose,
logic use ideas- the reduction of the flesh of the world to its underlying laws. Ideas tend to reduce the world, simplify
it. Thats why Ransom criticizes the kind of poetry which relies only on ideas. Art should be based on images.
Images as we encounter in the physical world consist of numerous qualities and appeals to our whole being. In this
way, if poetry deals with images it will also appeal to our whole being. Metaphors bind together two disparate
phenomena which to the scientific mind have nothing in common, and thus enable us to see the world as a whole.
Modern man tends to experience world through ideas. This tendency to reduce a complex image or a complex life
experience to an idea is what Ransom calls the platonic impulse. We do it out of fear because we are afraid of the
things we cannot understand. We tend to oversimplify. This is the sort of the activity of human mind which Blake
personified in the figure of Urizen- a tendency to reduce the complexities into a set of manageable formulas (the
same as Leavis). This is activity which is needed because it helps us understand the world. On the other hand it
can destroy the feeling of novelty, our capacity to wonder, to experience sth new and fresh- the counter figure of
Loss. The Urizenic attitude to life makes us feel as masters. The Losss creativity makes us feel as joyous servants
of life, as Leavis says. The destruction of the Loss is a habitual murder in two senses: 1. kills the variety, the
richness of the world and ends the vital game (Leavis), 2. impoverishes mans own sensibility. This can be cured
by love and poetry. Richards doesnt define the goal properly, but at one point he says: Still human nature is very
resilient (obnavlja se). Love and poetry seem able to out-play psychoanalysis. This means that what psychology
can say about human soul is not as good as what love and poetry can. In love you are cured if you are ready to
surrender to uncertainty, to sacrifice order and security to new experience. What matters most in a poem is the
tissue which is not important from the logical, prosaic point of view (meter). Poetry initiates the act of perception, it
defamiliarizes the object that we perceive in the habitual way and preserves sth that is constantly crumbling under
our touch. Ransom in this essay says that the public was inclined to seek in poetry ideas, but what the Imagists
identified with the stuff of poetry were images, things.
IDEA: a derivative, a product of sth else, second-hand knowledge, abstract, conceptual knowledge (tamed).
IMAGE: the raw material of ideas, it is superior in relation to ideas because it cannot be dispossessed of its
freshness which an idea cannot claim.
Science deals with images as well, but it reduces their rich infinity to one special interest. It is not by refutation
(denial) but by abstractions that science destroys the image. With the commitment to science we lose our power of
imagination, we are not able to perceive things in all their richness. However, those images come to us in our
dreams with original freshness. We dream in images. Jezik racionalnog coveka je konceptualan a jezik snova,
mitova, religija je slikovit. Na slike deluje citavo nase bice, emotivno I culno. He disclaims the possibility of existence
of pure, physical poetry- it cannot consist only of objects, there is at least a grain of idea in it. Platonic poetrypoetry of ideas. Platonic poetry tries hard to look like physical poetry but at the same time platonic poetry
propagates ideas specific ideology. In this kind of poetry images are sacrificed for ideas, they serve only as an
ornament for basic ideas. There is a hidden moral and platonic poetry is an allegory, a discourse in things.
Platonism is an impulse that is present in all of us, tending to take complete possession of our minds, to destroy all
other impulses. Platonism reduces the world because it explains the world in terms of facts. Modern man is
Platonist because this platonic impulse rests upon the urge of mastery which he embraces. He is led to believe that
nature is rational and that by the force of reasoning he shall possess it, which is the misconception of mans
superiority. Platonic view of the world is ultimately predatory for it reduces the world to the scientific one. Platonic
world of ideas fails to coincide with the original world of perception (Leavis- Loss). The only way to save freshness
of things is to approach the objects with humility- that we cannot control them, that we are inferior. The world of
perception is inhabited by contingent (nasumican) objects. The artists feel that platonic explanation are not enough,
so they return to the world of sensations.
Metaphysical poetry

Ransom expresses the same ideas as Richards: the best, the most proper kind of poetry is the metaphysical poetry
because it manages to unite physical images with abstract metaphysical ideas. In this way the poet not only
represents the physical reality to us but he also supplies meaning. Science gratifies a rational or practical impulse
and exhibits the minimum of perception. Art gratifies a perceptional impulse and exhibits the minimum of reason.
For Ransom, an aesthetic movement is a fusion of platonic impulse and an impulse towards innocence- two
conflicting impulses in man struggling to prevail. Metaphysical poets used conceits- a metaphor in which
identification is complete. It blends all the meanings together. A poet has come up with connecting things which
logically cannot be connected and makes a complete identification (unlike in similes). Miraculism initiates an act of
cognition. Religion is full of powerful images. These images address our whole being, they invoke all sorts of
responses. Every myth, religion is a metaphor for our need to understand life and to give meaning (similar to
Richards).
I.A.Richards- Pseudo-statements
Richard talks about pseudo-statements and scientific statements. Science uses objective knowledge. Its
neutralized nature, which is relevant for our emotional life. We just explore it. So he wants in his essay to define
poetry showing people what they should find there. Science gives us knowledge that is objective, you can prove it.
It is verifiable knowledge. It contributes to our ability to control our surroundings. However, this knowledge is limited.
It cannot offer the raison dete. It cant give us meaning because it is neutral. Science gives the answer to the
question How? But the most important question human being can ask is Why? Pseudo-statements are not to be
judged by asking. It is a kind of organization of our impulses. We tend to reduce our lives to only one option.
I.A.Richards- He talks about two different kinds of statements. There are scientific and pseudo-statements.
Scientific statements are true, valid, they answer to the question How?. They explain the natural phenomena.
They are descriptive- describe factual reality. These statements are important for us because they help us utilize
nature, use natural resources. We can say that they serve certain practical goals. The problem is that those
statements can contribute to the neutralization of nature. If we base our view on scientific statements we no longer
feel any sympathy with the natural world, that inner world remains a kind of orphan. Richards says that because of
this we also need pseudo-statements. They are made by poetry, myth and religion. It is valid because it helps us
organize our inner life. It is true but in a different way. It is true for our emotions and instincts. Scientific statements
cant give us sense of purpose in life. Thats why we need pseudo-statements. As scientific can help us in our
practical goals, pseudo-statements help us in spiritual goals. We no longer believe in those pseudo-statements
such as religion. Our world view is basically scientific and rational. Although it is not scientifically true, its still true
for our inner being. We need imaginative pseudo-statements to organize our inner life and help us perceive the
world as a meaningful whole in which man has his place.
*Scientific vs. poetic statements. The use of pseudo-statements help us organize our urges. They give us a sort
of meaning- pseudo-statements which refer to religion, myths. They also deal with goal in life, god, and soul.
Richards- the danger of this civilization is in Platonic impulse. We dont believe in those states anymore. We cant
organize our inner life upon scientific statements.
*Neutralization of nature: both inner and outer nature. We have lost that emotional contact with nature. We have
lost the basis of our life and became groundless- a thirst for a life giving water. It should be sth spiritual- a need for
spiritual refreshment. How does he explain our state of being? There are some exceptions. There is sth. missing
between our intellect and our inner being. Our urges nowadays have only biological justification. There is no deep
meaning. According to Richards we cannot have a pure knowledge. We have always the need to moralize our
needs according to our hopes. Love poetry gives more comprehensive nature than psychoanalysis. This is how he
justifies these pseudo-statements.
I.A. Richards- Pseudo-statements
He makes a distinction between science and literature by making a distinction between units by which they operate.
Science operates with proper statements- referential statements which have their reference in the world, their truth
depends on the correspondence with the world outside. Those statements are verifiable and they offer us objective
knowledge as science establishes facts and deals with factual reality. It replies to the question How? These
statements are no doubt true, but they are not sufficient. On the other hand, poetry operates with Pseudostatements which are emotional utterances that describe attitudes which may be acceptable. The purpose of
pseudo-statements is to release and organize our instincts and emotions. In this way it gives us a sense of direction

and provides us with meaning. Notions such as God and soul are also pseudo-statements. They cannot be
scientifically proved, but they are the metaphors for our inner reality and for our need to give life meaning. They try
to discover the question Why?
Science cannot supply the meaning of life. Science is able to describe, but our feelings cannot be explained.
Without the workings of religion, myth, creative imagination our inner world cannot be expressed. We cannot
express any feeling of empathy with nature because science neutralizes nature- we see nature as an object of
investigation, there is no more ethical, emotional view of nature- dissociation of man from poetry. Nature is
indifferent, amoral, devoid of all meanings.
It is pseudo-statements that can organize our contradictory impulses. They direct our impulses towards spiritual
goal. They can help us in the search of the images of wholeness.
The scientific knowledge has displaced many accustomed models of believing of the past, but we shouldnt
renounce our religious and other beliefs. What we should do is cut our pseudo-statements free from that kind of
belief which is appropriate to verified statements. In this way pseudo-statements would be changed but would be
the main instrument by which we order our attitudes to one another and to the world. While we believe in poetry, the
world seems to be transfigured; we give new meaning to it. If we recognize the neutrality of nature, we divorce from
poetry.
Men are not only biological beings, but spiritual ones as well and they need meaning spiritual goal. Verifiable
scientific knowledge cannot provide us with the purpose. So, justification of any attitude lies not in the object
(verifiable) but in itself. The imaginative life is its own justification.
T.S.Eliot- Tradition and the Individual Talent
All these people preserved tradition. Looking back, they identify the best poetry as metaphorical. Eliot is the most
conservative. He was very contradictive he is anti-romantic, classicist and royalist. In religion he was a catholic
and in art he was a classicist. In all these choice he repudiated the individual option.
He claims there is a self that is generic- possessive part. Ego is motivated by the desire to acquire things (food, sex,
shelter). This generic part has an acquisitive relation to its community. This is insignificant self. There is also
significant self-spiritual reality beyond the social. We are all in the prison of our ego and cant get out. You become
significant through transhumanization. We must become impersonal by developing historical sense. Tradition for
him is the living one. We cant live in the vacuum of the present. Turn back to the past to see how valid it is. He
bended himself to the dead tradition. He was against the dissociation of sensibility. He blames the Romantics for
their insignificant emotions such as self-pity. Metaphysical poetry most successfully achieves that unified sensibility.
T.S.Eliot-Tradition and the Individual Talent- Eliot was keen on tradition. His idea is transcending that egoistical
self and reaching the whole self. It is called transhumanization. Historic sense can help in this process he is
criticize this modern tradition; in the tradition of the past we can find some examples of those people who knew how
to transcend that selfish self, the people who knew and were looking for the genuine self. History can give us
knowledge about the genuine self which modern tradition cannot offer.
*He is describing the process of poem-making. He compares it with two gases combined. The mind of the poet is
the catalyst; it helps the poet combine various experiences and creates a new whole. Eliot is trying to transcend this
selfish self. The poet shouldnt write from the point of egocentrism. He is just a medium.
*Eliot criticizes one sentence by W. Wordsworth-emotions recollected in tranquility. He says that the poet doesnt
recollect his emotions in tranquility. The poet uses all his experiences not by merely remembering them but creating
sth new.
T.S. Eliot- Tradition and the Individual Talent
Like others, Eliot believes that the concept of the self offered by the modern world is inadequate. He claims that
there exist:
1. selfish/generic self which is egoistical, selfish. It demands the satisfaction of physical, generic needs (food, sex,
physical comfort). If our life is based on the needs of this selfish self, then it could be presented as birth-copulationdeath. It is aggressive and it always demands more. It is acquisitive towards the society.
2. genuine self. When ego decides to surrender all its private ambitions, generic needs to sth that is larger, to
spiritual values. It is called transhumanization.
As long as we are entrapped within that selfish self, we cannot truly communicate with the world.
We think of the key,

Each in his prison,

Thinking of the key,
Each confirms a prison - T.S. Eliot
This culture gives absolute freedom to aggressive, egoistical self, and the result is devastating: the community
disintegrates and we are doomed to loneliness and isolation within the prison cell of the ego. There must be a realm
beyond a material realm and one surrenders to that spiritual realm, to love (the kind of love presented by Christ, not
possessive) then one becomes truly real. Without this spirituality, Eliot claims that life is meaningless. This idea of
transcending personality can be practiced in literature. Eliot demands in literature that the writer should not express
his personality but try to relate to the mind of Europe which is much more important than his own private mind. The
poet has to decide where he belongs in the tradition. Belonging to a tradition is not repeating the past. In the mature
poet, past is a part of his personality. The past is part of present. The poet must develop the consciousness of the
past. The poet should acquire Historical Sense. He should be aware of the values of the past which are still relevant
for the present. Historical sense involves a perception not only of the pastness of the past but of its presence as
well. As much as present is directed by the past, the past should be altered by the present. The spiritual values
which Eliot emphasizes may be found in the past. It is the role of the poet to explain how and why they should be
restored to the modern world. Another way in which the poet surrenders his egoistical self is to the creative
process a selection among the emotions in order to fit them in the network of words in which this emotion is
important. No importance is given to the relation between a poem and a poets biography. This Impersonal Theory
suggests that a poem is a part of a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written and that there is no
relation between poets emotions and the poem. A poet is just a catalyst, a shred of platinum, a medium that fuses
emotions (that neednt be his at all) into new and unique forms (man who suffers and the mind which creates are
kept aside). What is praised in poetry is not the intensity of a personal emotion, but the intensity of a fusion. The
poet has not a personality to express but is a medium whose impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and
unexpected way. What happens is a continual surrender of the self, a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction
of personality, a continual process of depersonalization by surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done, and
the poet must not live only in the present, but in the present moment of the past- to be conscious of what is living. In
his poetry, he has fragments of most important traditions of the past which rested on love (the only traditions that he
saw as living ones). His poetry is the expression of his genuine self. He felt that he belonged to bed from
Shakespeare to the metaphysical poets. The metaphysics possessed a unified sensibility. At the moment when
metaphysical poets were writing, it was still possible to connect the imaginary and the scientific. They used a
scientific notion, discovery in a poem as a part of a metaphor. They didnt experience it as a kind of a split. They
were capable of using any experience for poetry. They didnt experience the dissociation between reason and
emotion. For Eliot, poetry is an escape from emotion, an escape from personality. And, the poem is an expression
of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poem.
T.S. Eliot- Tradition and the Individual Talent
For Eliot, the term tradition is imbued with a special and complex character. It represents a simultaneous order,
by which Eliot means a historical timelessness a fusion of past and present and, at the same time, a sense of
present temporality. A poet must embody the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer, while, simultaneously,
expressing his contemporary environment. Eliot challenges our common perception that a poets greatness and
individuality lies in his departure from his predecessors. Rather, Eliot argues that the most individual parts of his
(the poet) work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.
When Eliot writes that new works are inevitably judged by the past, he means that successful works must resemble
preceding works in some way. Paradoxically, in order to appear individual, a work of art must conform.
But, this fidelity to tradition does not require the great poet to forfeit novelty in an act of surrender to repetition.
Rather, Eliot has a much more dynamic and progressive conception of the poetic process. Novelty is possible, and
only possible, through tapping into tradition. When a poet engages in the creation of new work, he confronts an
aesthetic ideal order, as it has been established by the literary tradition that has come before him. As such, the act
of artistic creation does not take place in a vacuum. The introduction of a new work disrupts the cohesion of this
existing order, and causes a readjustment of the old in order to accommodate the new. Thus, the poet speaks to the
past, but also, rewrites it. In Eliots own words: What happens when a new work of art is created is something that
happens simultaneously to all the works of art that preceded it. Eliot refers to this organic tradition, this developing
canon, as the mind of Europe. The private mind is subsumed by this more massive one.

This leads to Eliots so-called "Impersonal Theory" of poetry. Since the poet engages in a continual surrender of
himself to the vast order of tradition, artistic creation is a process of depersonalization. The mature poet is viewed
as a medium, through which tradition is channeled and elaborated. He compares the poet to a catalyst in a
chemical reaction, in which the reactants are feelings and emotions that are synthesized to create an artistic image
that captures and relays these same feelings and emotions. While the mind of the poet is necessary for the
production, it emerges unaffected by the process. The artist stores feelings and emotions and properly unites them
into a specific combination, which is the artistic product. What lends greatness to a work of art is not the feelings
and emotions themselves, but the nature of the artistic process by which they are synthesized. The artist is
responsible for creating the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place. And, it is the intensity of
fusion that renders art great. In this view, Eliot rejects the theory that art expresses metaphysical unity in the soul of
the poet. The poet is a depersonalized vessel, a mere medium.
Great works do not express the personal emotion of the poet. The poet does not reveal his own unique and novel
emotions, but rather, by drawing on ordinary ones and channeling them through the intensity of poetry, he
expresses feelings that surpass, altogether, experienced emotion. This is what Eliot intends when he discusses
poetry as an escape from emotion. Since successful poetry is impersonal and, therefore, exists independent of its
poet, it outlives the poet and can incorporate into the timeless ideal order of the living literary tradition.
MARXIST CRITICISM
G.Lukacs
According to Lukacs, modern literature is hopeless. It doesnt give us any hope. This view is similar to Leavis and
Wilsons views. Wilson criticizes poets because they escape into the dream world. The symbolists withdraw and
offer us no ethics. They present perfectly the inner self, but they lose connection with the outer world. With the
modernists there is a feeling that reintegration is no longer possible. In the world which is largely scientific,
utilitarian, the poet with his visions no longer has a place. Lukacs is also similar with Ransom, who says that we
need a map of meaning- smth which will provide him with the origin and goal of the existence. In the past this
map was provided by religion. Richards expect poetry to provide us with such map of meaning nowadays.
According to Lukacs, modern literature fails to give us a map of meaning. This is related to the answer which
modern literature gives to the question What is man? Literature in the past saw man as a zoo politician- a social
animal. It saw man in interaction with society. Modernists see man as a solitary being. This is presented by
modernists as a general condition.
This is reflected into the philosophy of Heidiger he has that idea that man is thrown-into-being cannot establish
the origin and goal of his existence. Lukacs also thinks that modern literature is static. There is no development of
characters. They dont change, they do not become more aware, dont develop. The only thing which develops is
the understanding of this static isolated position. The character remains unknown to himself and the others, e.g.
Waiting for Godot. There is a road leading from one place to another. After going we become mature. Here, two
characters and the road leads nowhere.
Lukacs says that this is very dangerous concept. If we dont think about the interaction between man and the other
world, then the personality will disintegrate. Why? He says that we can see each man as a large number of
potentials- myriad potentials. These myriad potentials which exist in each of us Lukacs calls abstract potentialities
Only in a moment in some critical moment, in some crisis in life when we have to make a choice, we chose one of
these potentials and this is how our character is revealed. This is concrete potentiality- making choices. If we never
interact with the social reality we have no way to establish personality.
Lukacs says modern literature is correct in its criticism of capitalism. This would be terminus-quo- a starting point.
But he criticizes the modernists because they do not have terminus quem. It turns to be for many of them
psychopathology. Modernists present characters that are neurotic, mad, and Lukacs says that gives us no hope.
What is good, since he is Marxist, is some social change, progress. He criticizes writers, because they dont have
Marxist perspective. They are not aware that the society has been changing through centuries.
G.Lukacs (2), The Ideology of Modernism
1) He is describing the view of modern man. Heidegger- man is thrown-into-being. Man doesnt know the goal of his
existence. Man is a historical being. He doesnt have personal history- we only see the subjective notion of reality.
The subjective view on reality from slavery to feudalism- the hope for social progress.

2) There are numerous potentials- they together create potentiality. If man remains within his subjective inner world.
In real, in the moment of crisis man makes a choice and his character is revealed. Its concrete potentiality. He
criticizes the modernism because they present man detached from reality, so we cannot determine his character
because he is not in interaction with the outer world.
3) Naturalist- psychopathology a kind of aesthetic need. Modernism is a kind of moral protest. Terminus of quema starting point for the criticizing society. The goal is to change it. Writers dont give us a sense of direction.
Lukacs- The Ideology of Modernism
Hope is an essential human characteristic. Likewise, it is a moral obligation of a writer to offer a kind of hope in his
work of art. Without hope we are reduced to beasts. Every human action is based on a presupposition of its
inherent meaningfulness, at least to the subject. Absence of meaning makes a mockery of action and reduces art to
naturalistic description.
It is possible to observe through history a gradual decrease of hope in literature. For Romantics, hope was a moral
obligation. They were aware that society was not a spiritual community but they hopped it might have become one.
Their withdrawal to nature was only temporary as they hoped to acquire vision and then to return to society and
show it how it can reform. In Symbolism and Modernism there is less and less belief in the possibility of integration.
They no longer believe that the poetic vision can be integrated into society. For example Wilson (Axel and
Rimboud- he goes to the uncivilized parts of the world) and Leavis- poets at the turn of the century who withdrew to
the dream world.
Lukacs criticizes modern literature. Modern literature is hopeless and it doesnt offer the new vision by which the
society can be reformed. Since he is a Marxist, a proper goal for him would be a social reform. He sees Marxism as
a new map and way of reading history. Marxism offers social hope because it shows how human society evolves
and moves forward. The development is not horizontal but vertical (ascent and descent). In his essay he states that
what matters is not the concern with formal criteria- style and literary technique, because it can lead to a serious
misunderstanding of the character of an artists work. What counts is the view of the world, the ideology that
underlines writers work and determines the style. Content determines form. Again, the basic question is What is
Man?
Traditional literature defines an individual as Zoon Politikon, a social animal. The individual existence cannot be
distinguished from their social and historical environment. An individual cannot be separated from the context in
which it was created.
Modern literature: Man is by nature solitary, asocial, unable to enter into relationships with other human beings.
Man, as such, may establish contact with other individuals but only in superficial, accidental manner. Solitariness is
presented as a general human condition. This is similar to Heideggers description of human existence as a
throwness-into-being- man is constantly unable to establish relationships with things or persons outside himself
but also it is impossible for him to determine the origin and goal of human existence. Man, thus conceived, is a
historical being. In Modern literature the negation of history takes two different forms:
1. The hero is strictly confined within the limits of his own existence. There is not any pre-existent reality beyond his
own self acting upon him or being acted upon him.
2. The hero himself is without personal history. He is thrown- into- the world. He doesnt develop through contact
with the world. There is no way to change this condition. The only development in the work of art is the gradual
revelation of the human condition- Waiting for Godot The examined reality is static.
Lukacs wants to point out how important it is to act in the real world. Within each human being there is a great
number of potentials for good and bad, for all sorts of actions and behaviors. There are abstract and concrete
potentialities. The abstract character of potentiality cannot determine development- subjective mental states cannot
be decisive. Rather the development of personality is determined by inherited gifts and qualities, external or
internal, which further on inhibit their growth. Concrete- actual decision in a real-life situation. Sometimes there
comes a moment in life, in the real world when we are forced to make a choice. In this moment we choose one of
these potentialities and this is the moment of self-realization. In the act of choice, a mans character may reveal
itself in a light that surprises even himself. The actual decision reveals the distinction between the concrete
potentiality an abstract, and it is a decision which will alter the direction of his life. The subject, after taking his
decision, may be unconscious of his own motives. In Realism, abstract potentiality belongs wholly to the realm of
subjectivity, whereas concrete potentiality is concerned with the dialectic between the individuals subjectivity and
objective reality. In Modernist literature- if the human condition- man as a solitary being- is identified with reality

itself- the distinction between abstract and concrete potentiality becomes null and void. The categories tend to
merge. If the distinction between abstract and concrete potentialities vanishes, if mans inwardness is identified with
an abstract subjectivity, human personality must necessary disintegrate. The negation of outward reality leads to
attenuation (decrees) of reality and dissociation of personality. Objective reality is substituted by angst-ridden vision
of the world and dissociation of personality- man cannot be a moral and thinking being at the same time. His
external deeds are no guide to his motives. Modernist literature has a good starting point- terminus a quodiscontent with the corrupted society, but it doesnt have a good goal- terminus ad quem (destination)- escape into
psychopathology which is an escape into nothingness. Because in any protest against social conditions, these
conditions must have the cultural place. This fight is an ideological problem which derives from the ontological
dogma of the solitariness of man. Modernism must deprive literature of a sense of perspective which determines
the course and content, it draws together the threads of the narration, it enables the artist to choose between the
important and the superficial. Modernism drops this selective principle and replaces it with its dogma of the
condition humaine- an escape into neurosis as a protest against the evils of society. The obsession with
psychopathology in modernist literature is diagnosed as a desire to escape from the reality of capitalism. This
implies the absolute privacy of the terminus a quo, the condition from which it is desired to escape. Any movement
towards a terminus ad quem is condemned to impotence. As the ideology of most modernist writers asserts the
inalterability of outward reality, human activity is rendered impotent and robbed of meaning.
Althuser- Ideology and Ideological State Aparatus
One of the main concerns of Althusers theory is Ideology which he defines as an imaginary relation to the real
conditions of existence. Why is it needed? Causes are: 1. to enslave other minds by dominating their imaginations;
2. material alienation- the conditions of existence are dominated by the essence of alienated society. An ideology
always exists in an apparatus and its practice, or practices, which Althuser calls ISA (ideological state apparatus)concrete form of ideology. These are the structures within a society such as the family, educational system, political
system, language media, health service. All these structures conspire to create a world-view which will make
individuals believe and think in a socially desirable way. They appear to be objective and natural but they are really
ideologically slanted to serve the interests of some particular groups. Each of us is really a practitioner of ideology.
Individuals who live in ideology act according to their ideas which are in the actions of their material practices.
These practices are governed by the rituals (certain modes of behaviour) which, in turn, are governed to the
material ideological apparatus (Owners- ideology of owning). Althuser says that we are no longer individuals
produced by nature, but Subjects produced by society. Subject is the constitutive category of all ideology and man
is an ideological animal by nature. We are all concrete, individual, distinguishable, irreplaceable subjects. The word
subject can have two possible meanings:
1. a free author of and responsible for its actions; and 2. a subjected being who submits to a higher authority and is
therefore stripped of all freedom except that of freely accepting his submission. Within a society we have an illusion
that we are free in our decisions, that we act according to our own personal ideas and beliefs. The only freedom we
display is that we subject ourselves freely. The process by which an individual becomes a subject is called
interpellation or hailing (prepoznajemo se u ulogama koje su nam dodeljene). The hailed individual will turn
around because he has recognized that the hail was really addressed to him, and that it was really him who was
hailed. Subjects work all by themselves. Bad subjects provoke the intervention of RSA (repressive state apparatus).
A Letter on Art
There are two ways of becoming aware of ideology. One is by means of art, the other by means of scientific
knowledge. In this essay Althuser says that the real art is not ranked among the ideologies. Art doesnt replace
knowledge but stands in a specific relationship with knowledge. Art has the ability to make us see, perceive, feel sth
which allude reality. It makes us see, perceive and feel the ideology from which it is born, from which it detaches
itself as art, and which it alludes. Ideology slides into human existence, therefore the ideology in great novels
appears as the lived experience of individuals. It helps us to distance ourselves from ideology and perceive it. both
art and science have the same objects of interest, but the difference lies in the specific form in which they give us
the same object in quite different ways: art in the form of seeing, perceiving and feeling; science in the form of
knowledge. Science makes us penetrate the mechanisms of ideology and defines the means by which the effects
nay be transformed. Art makes us see conclusions without premises, whereas knowledge makes us penetrate into
the mechanism which produces the conclusions out of the premises.

Althuser- All of these theorists (Wilson, Leavis, and Lukacs) believed that the writers inside can convey
knowledge, get into the society. They have a kind of faith in the personal vision of the author. Althuser does not
have this faith. He thinks that writer is not capable of transmitting knowledge. He is just like other persons and we
are all brain-washed by ideology. We are all constructed, shaped by ideology. The writer is limited by ideology.
However, by reading literature, we still manage to understand smth about society. But this is not thanks to the
conscious wisdom of the author. This is not the merit of the author. Althuser calls it distantion- aesthetic effect.
Literature enables us, gives us some distance from ideology. This happens because of aesthetic effect. According
to him, literature enables us to feel and see. It is, however, only by the means of social science that we can
understand how a certain society functions. In other words, with the help of literature we can feel and see, with the
help of science we get to know. Writer is one of us- the subject in ideology whereas science tries to transcend
ideology. He distinguishes between an individual and a subject. Individual should be natural, our given human
nature. Whereas subject is our identity constituted by ideology. We become subjects in ideology through a process
of hailing. In reality for the system we are just functioning within it. We are a cog in a machine. We do not perceive
in this way. This is done by ISA- it can be family, school, health service, education, law system, all the institutions.
And he says that they are also internalized, operate within us. Most of us are good subjects. When a bad subject
appears, the society uses RSA- such as the army, police, prison There are two meanings of the word subject: 1)
free subjectivity-somebody who does not suffer an action, he is the author of his action; 2) we can be subjected to
somebody. There is a master and we can be submitted. Somebody who is submitted to a higher authority. The
system is called the subject. It becomes a sort of God. Ideology gives us an inspiration that we are subjects in the
1st meaning but we are subjects of the 2nd. The only thing we really do freely is that we freely accept our subjectivity.
Althuser (2), Ideology and ISA (ideological state apparatuses)
1) The process of hailing. A representative of institution is calling a person in the street. We are trained to turn
around. The guilty person will recognize himself. We have the illusion that we are unique, unchangeable individuals.
Individual is given by nature. Subject is an object without will, subordinated to authority. The process happens
without succession. Its not temporal, it cant be observed in time. According to him the only way out is scientific
knowledge. Only those who use it are capable of perceiving the mechanism which makes us subjects.
2) We are subjected to the subject. ISA is constructed within society. All these institutions make a system which
makes an individual function by the laws of society. There are bad and good subjects. The good subjects freely
accept their subjection to the God authorities. All their practices are led by ISA. The bad subjects refuse to believe
according to normative rules. RSA police, army. Ideology- interpolation the process which gives you illusion of
freedom, a wrong perception of yourself in the society because of ideology. Two meanings of subject: a doer, and
author of his action and subjected being who submits to higher authority. The only freedom is to accept freely to
subject. There is also the Subject- the system which becomes a kind of deity- accepted without questions. Religion
can also be viewed as a kind of ideology. Amen so be it. I have to use conscious will to make things appear like
this.
A Letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre
Art vs. society. The difference is in form. Science can just give a concept; tells us in the form of concepts what the
ideology is about. Solzhenitsyn- a Russian who talks about Stalinist era and by reading his novel we get an
impression what the cult of personality of Stalin was like. However, he doesnt explain the mechanism of this cult.
Althuser says that we need a literary criticism which would be scientific and would explain how it is possible. Only
science gives concepts of the mechanism which creates ideology. It gives theoretical explanation of how it is done
to people. Science- the object in the form of knowledge and art in the form of perceiving, seeing. Art cannot give us
a concrete suggestion how to change this mechanism. It cannot give any remedy.
STRUCTURALISM
New Criticism started as a reaction against Positivism. Positivism is a way of studying literature which Frye explains
as centrifugal. These critics pull you away from the work of art. They will try to explain a work of art by referring to
the authors biography or historical conditions, philosophy, any other social science. As opposed to this there is a
centripetal movement. They focus on the work of art. A New Critic will perform a detailed analysis of a poem and
he will look for means and devices within the poem to discover the poets worldview. The drawback of New Criticism
is that it completely rejects the context and concentrates only on the words on the page. T. S. Eliot focuses on the
inner structure of the work but he also introduces a term of tradition. A poem is partly explained by referring to other

poems, but at the same time the author has his meaning in relation to the mind of Europe. The result of this was
that critics tended to experience works of art as many unrelated, isolated, discrete items which have nothing in
common- no feeling, no connectedness. For Frye the work of art doesnt exist independently of other works of art.
Every work of art is unique, but they are all conveying paths leading to a concealed centre. The works of art form a
kind of structure of interrelated elements, images, symbols (the sea). Frye says that his aim is to contextualize
literature as a whole within the culture as a whole. He tries to understand the phenomenon of literature within the
culture.
N.Frye, R.Barthes, T.Hawkes
Structuralism is a vast concept. Basically, it is motivated by the desire to discover the hidden, invisible, basic
principle that makes interrelativeness possible. Saussures idea is that reality is created by language rather than
reflected in language. False polarization- exclusion of the context. Whatever surrounds the poem is more important.
They decontextualized poems. According to Frye this is the false polarization. Literature has the purpose very
similar to a myth- the synchronization with nature. The goal is to make us free from slavery. Desire for freedom, to
live in a created, not in a given world. Structuralists idea is that man perceives the world in opposites. The most
important underlying rule is means of ISO. These opposites for Frye desire and reality- are to be resolved by the
myth. Basic genres derive from myth. There are two visions: comic and tragic. Comic vision is successful
transformation of reality into the creative world. One such creative world was offered by Christianity. It was a
mythological universe- time obviously doesnt begin with the fall of man, nor ends with the resurrection. It was
closely associated with love. The whole myth was a story which also referred to a deeply psychological event. It
was psychological; a fiction about the fact of human psyche- then it got institutionalized. It lost its initial power and
turned into dogma.
T. Hawkes- Introduction to Structuralism and Semiotics
Vico- New Science 1725- he is important because he was the first proto-structural thinker. Man must start to
understand primitive myths before understanding civilization. Everybody has Sapienza Poetica these are myths,
not superstitious. Every man originally is a maker, a poet. We live in a man-made world, not a given. Once we have
structured the universe through myth, this myth generizes the order, politics, history, the world of human society.
What happens is that those institutions naturalize what man has made. Once having structured the world, he
believes that it is natural, unchangeable. It makes man forget that it can be decreased. The process of turning
factum-made by man, verum- true, genuine. They finally break this illusion but it is extremely difficult. From the
critical point there is an idea.
1) Primitive myths- smth childish. Primitive people possess poetic wisdom. They look at world through metaphors to
find meaning. Hawkes tries to humanize nature, not to make it natural, creates a meaningful whole- a projection of
our human experience upon the outer reality. It is the need to humanize nature. It is not a decoration, but a way of
coping with reality. Man has a certain place within the universe.
2) Myths- modern man suffers from fragmentation of his experience. Primitive man generalized experiences- their
attempt to show graspable shape. Vico- We perceive structures of our own mind; we perceive culture as smth
natural, absolute reality. Things are only true if they are a part of this system. We impose the shape of our own
mind, and then start perceiving it as natural. What the structures do to us is a brain-washing process. Structures
end up influencing us. We are structured by the institutions. We must be aware that these structures are man-made
and therefore can be changed by man.
Vico
Frye states that our tendency is to mix between the objective world and the man-made world, to start perceiving
man-made world as sth natural, unchanging.
In 1725, Vico wrote The New Science. He proposed that the New Science was the basis of social science. He
came up with some ideas which were very similar to Fryes. The principle we can observe in observing culture is the
principle of Verum Factum- istinita cinjenica. It means that within a certain structure such as social institutions, for
example, things get their meaning and start being perceived as sth which is true, natural, objective, eternal,
unalterable. We can also call it the transfer of culture into nature. Just as we know that we cannot change the
stars, the moon, we start perceiving social structures as sth that cannot be changed, whereas we should be aware
that any human culture is a man-made shape which is imposed upon the world. Vico came to this conclusion by

studying primitive (archaic) people/ society. Usually we perceive these primitive societies as incapable of
understanding reality; we consider them inferior to us, whereas Vico points out that this is wrong. He says that
primitive man possesses poetic wisdom- sapienza poetica. ; he has a metaphorical mind. Therefore, myth is not
a description of objective reality, it is a way of coping with reality. By creating a myth, primitive man imposes a
humanizing shape upon reality. At the same time he provides life with metaphysical truth. This same process, as
Vico claims, has also produced human cultures. Furthermore, Vico claims that there is no direct knowledge of
reality. This is what man always does, he always imposes the shape of his mind upon the world, and then gets to
know the world only through these categories. Vico also points out that this is a two-way-process. Not only do we
create structures such as religious, social institutions, the whole culture, but they in turn also create us. Althuser: we
only think we are acting on our own; we are being structured as well. Structures of any society condition us, they
determine our understanding of reality. It could be said they are acting as brainwashing mechanisms because they
present themselves as sth given and natural. Social structures are man-made and therefore liable to change.
Frye- The Critical Path
Every myth begins as a myth of freedom, revolutionary. Christianity focuses on the individual but later it turns into
the myth of social concern- produced into dogma by the institutions. The power was projected only on God, then on
the priests and the rest of the people simply must accept. Resurrection was turned into a historical event. The
dogma turned into revolutionary myth into repressive, reactionary. Science emerges as a myth of freedom from the
church which forbids man to love and to think. Science makes man free to explore and love. From this myth of
freedom it turns into a prison. This time, it is projected on ISA-which subjects us to a new god. In this world neither
the lover, nor the creative person can feel at home. We can be only consumers. Realism ends in irony. We see no
more hero as a superior, we look down on him.
Just as we need myth to give us a feeling that we have a whole in this world, we need some place where we
belong. There is always central myth that governs the basic structure. That is what Frye calls the Myth of concern.
Christianity was a myth of concern. It underlines the society as a whole. Then, there is a development, this feeling
that you begin to experience it as confinement, smth does not allow you to develop your potentials. All these manmade structures start acting as a sort of prohibition, brain-washing mechanism. This is when the myth of concern
turns into prison. Then, there was need for a new myth which Frye calls the myth of freedom. This is like a process
which is always going on. The origin of Christianity- the myth of freedom. Then, it turned into the myth of concern. It
limits mans freedom. The only way you can achieve it is the way prescribed by the church. So, it is no longer
freedom. It becomes a prison. It confines personal freedom, prohibits bodily love and free use of reason. Then,
science appears as a rebellion for the sake of reason.
N.Frye- Archetypes of Literature
1) Man notices regularities in nature and tries to explain himself in connection to the phenomena in nature that is
cyclic. He tries to understand his life in the context of natural phenomena. Ritual Is conscious- it is a sort of
voluntarily effort. Man tries to synchronize the rhythms of his life with the rhythm of nature. Oracle-epiphanic
moments. Although man feels separated from nature there are moments of deep intuitive insight in nature. Riddles,
proverbs- close to original epiphanic moments.
2) There is a pattern of meaning. The primitive people find it in solar cycle human life and the cycle of the year. The
central narrative is constructed around figure- a man, the sun, god and partly vegetative fertility- out of these
elements a primitive man constructs a story which gives meaning to his life and nature, because everything is
connected in a pattern of meaning. The birth of Jesus- the ritual of Christianity. At the same time this can be a
phase of resurrection which is connected to Easter. Spring- the rebirth of nature and Christ. Zenith, summer,
marriage- the marriage of Jesus to the heavenly city Jerusalem.
3) The idea of the quest and art is as dream for awakened man- rare moments of epiphany in life. The human being
dreams about triumph over nature, no longer to be subjected to biological conditioning. What is opposed to this
dream is outer circumstances, the mingling of the sun and the hero. Art is the means by which we should conquer
this subjectivity. It gives us the goal. Our heroic self awakens in dreams. In the day light we realize we are weak and
helpless. This is antithesis. Art gives us the vision of what the world would be like if we completed the dream. The
comic vision- when our desires are fulfilled. We are in that rotary cycles of nature. Here, there is a vision of a way to

liberate ourselves from the rotary cycles. Tragic vision- we stay bound to natural cycles. The cycles are ordainedthe cycle itself becomes smth as saint. Myth of eternal return.
p. 432 There is no way to pull yourself from tyrannical society. Tragic vision- which is in Macbeth. Comic visionthe animal world. Blake- unfallen world.
The Archetypes of Literature(2)
Art is the subject of scientific study, its not the scientific study itself but there is no reason why literary criticism
should not be a science. Sentimental judgments, values- judgments should be excluded from criticism because they
are not based on any literary experience. Criticism should help to build up a systematic structure of knowledge.
What counts in literary criticism is not the impact of literature on the reader or the structure analysis of a work of art,
but a coordinating principle, a central hypothesis which will see the phenomena it deals with as a part of whole. He
bases his criticism on the assumption of total coherence. Therefore, the poets task is to deliver the poem in as
uninjured a state as possible and the poem screams to be cut loose from the poets private memories and
associations (as Eliot, Jung). Every poet has his own private mythology, his own specific way of formulating of
symbols, images, but many of the poets use so many of the same images (these it is bound to expand over many
poets into an archetypal symbols of literature). The organizing principle of literature is recurrence (archetype)
which can be rhythm (temporal) or pattern (special). The rhythm of literature may be called narrative and the
pattern the meaning or significance. Rhythm or recurrent movement is deeply founded on the natural cycles. The
man tried to understand his life in the context of natural phenomena. In human life a ritual seems to be a voluntary
effort to recapture a lost rapport (veza) with the natural cycle, a will to synchronize human and natural energies. In
ritual may be found the origin of narrative. Fragments of significance are oracles in origin and derive from the
epiphanic moment. Although man feels separated from nature, there are moments of deep intuitive insights in
nature. Expressions close to the original epiphanic moments are proverbs, riddles, commandments. The myth is
the central informing power that gives archetypal significance to the ritual and the archetypal narrative to the oracle.
There is the pattern of meaning of human life in the solar cycle of the day, the seasonal cycle of the year, and the
organic cycle of human life out of which myth constructs a central narrative around a figure who is partly the sun,
partly vegetative fertility and partly a god or archetypal human being. The phases are: 1. the dawn, spring and birth
phase- myth of birth and the hero of revival resurrection, of creation; 2. the zenith, summer and marriage phasemyth of apotheosis, of the sacred marriage and of entering into paradise;
3. the sunset, autumn and death phase- myth of fall, of the dying god and of isolation of the hero; 4. the darkness,
winter and dissolution phase- myths of the triumph of these powers, myths of floods and the return of chaos, of the
defeat of the hero.
The central myth of literature is the quest-myth which originates in the dream. The human cycle of waking and
dreaming corresponds closely to the cycle of light and darkness. The correspondence is an antithesis: it is in
daylight that man is really in the power of darkness, a pray to frustration and weakness; it is in the darkness of
nature that the libido or conquering heroic self awakens. Hence, art, which Plato called a dream of awakened
minds, seems to have as its primal cause the resolution of the antithesis, the realizing of a world in which the inner
desire and the outward circumstances coincide.
The myth can have a happy or unhappy ending. Happy ending for Frye is when you pull away from the rotary cycle
of nature. Christianity is a comic myth because it promises eternal life and Jesus, the hero of the myth, has an
apotheosis (the highest or most perfect development of sth). The comic mode of the myth- a triumph of desire. If
the hero fails in his quest, the myth is tragic and we have the triumph of reality- the pagan myths. Comic vision of
human life- rotary cycle of nature which bounds human life. There is a vision of a way to liberate ourselves. Tragic
vision of human life- we stay bound by natural cycles; the quest is seen in the form of its ordained cycle.
Expanding Eye
Unlike Lukacs, Frye believes that literature moves in cycles which means that now we have arrived in this ironic
period, we outline a new myth. It wont be a return to God- on the contrary we should transform Christian myth into
creative imagination. Blake did what creative man could do, recreate the power of creativity. He simply reminds us
that all God resides in the human breast. The whole Christian myth was created by man. For him, incarnation when
Jesus appears in the form of man is not a historical sequence. That is why Blake is so tremendously important and
the comic vision as well. Blake with his prophesies reads as if literature was a mandala- our responses are not
interrelated. We are dispersed. If you read meditatively there is a tremendous burst of energy.

1) Imaginative birthright. He speaks of two kinds of the world- objective and mythological world. Even the
classical- Norse and Celtic mythologies were suppressed. Man believes in two worlds. We tend to see the desired,
constructed world as an objective. There is a problem of space and time. In the early days of mythology there was
tendency to mix up both worlds. Blake realized that myths were going to disappear because of the rise of the
science. The mythological construction was not longer valid as an explanation of a real, objective world. But, he
wants to preserve it through imagination. Blake tried to use it for our myth of imagination. We simply follow the
institutions we have created. In order to create it again you have to forget about God and use our imagination.
2) Blake created that mythological world: God the world of innocence, the world of experience-demonic and
chaotic worlds. Descending moment from God to demonic world- the fallen man, experienced man. In the fallen
state, man is subjected to the external authority, he is not free. He has fallen into the state of subjection. He is
repressed by external authority. What characterizes the world is hierarchy, authority, subordination. God is
incarnated in Jesus, and then moves to the 3 rd level. Man can recover from his fallen state. Christianity- we have
power and authority. As opposed to this we have Jesus. The point of his sacrifice is love. The principle of love
opposed to the principle of power. Blake used the myth. He saw it as the center of everlasting gospel. State is
repressive. Community positive. We have to move from state to community- the idea of using imagination.
3) Frye defines art as a means of meditation. It helps us meditate and think. Art is not smth passively accepted. We
have to think about it and understand it. By doing that we order our cosmos. Art is not an item- it is Mondale. We
should not admire it, but initiate a mental process. It is not a concept, it is a symbol. It can mean different things and
we are invited to interpret it. Ransoms idea- we have one concept, one impulse- human tendency to translate
everything into simplified abstract concepts. Art, instead of giving us concepts, gives metaphor.
4) Poets consist of both unconscious and conscious parts. It reveals smth more about ourselves. He sees the
relationship between himself and the outer world. Some unconscious parts enrich our vision of reality. Then we
have expanding eyes. We have the inside in the conscious. The second paragraph- Frye talks about an anecdotea Nazi commander- a great lover of music. Someone who loves music should be creative, and not a murderer. Artin modern world there is just a luxury; it doesnt have any effect on us. It gives pleasure, delight but cannot
transform us. He tells us to reconsider the culture of Eskimos who have poetry as a basis of life.
Expanding eye(2)
In this essay Frye talks about Christianity and a way Blake has attempted to recover this myth for human
imagination. Blake is a biblical poet but his interest in the Bible was primarily critical one. He realized that the Bible
had provided a mythological structure which had expanded into the mythological universe. Man lives in two worlds:
1. the world of nature which forms his external environment, and 2. the constructed world of civilization and culture
which he has made himself. The mythological universe (the one given by the Bible) is a model of the later world. It
is the world built into the image of human desires and anxiety. People forgot that they invented the power
structures. They started perceiving the universe as objective and given. For Blake this universe was an imaginative
construct only and had no scientific validity, and it was a conservative and an authoritarian construct. He tried to
reconstruct it and see it as of human rather than as of divine origin (given, natural). He wanted to recover the
mythological universe for the human imagination and stop projecting it on God or any other external order. The
main challenge to the older construct came from the separating of scientific space from mythological space. What
was up in the sky as Blake called it, the ghost of priest and king, what was underneath- the ghost of exploited
humanity. Mythological space, as Blake encountered it, consisted of 4 main levels: 1. Gods model of a perfect
world, 2. the original home for man that God intended is the unfallen world (Blakes world of innocence), 3. the
world of experience (our world), 4. demonic and chaotic world. The first two levels are pervaded by order, harmony,
concord, love, peace. On our third level these turn into authority, hierarchy, subordination where God is the
supreme ruler that continue to operate through the structures of church and state. This is descending movement,
man is not free. The rise of Darwinism brought about the crisis of mythological time. It tells us that the world was not
build in 7 days, there was a gradual evolution of human beings and the old creation- the apocalypse view was
reduced to a construct. Its only the universe of human imagination that can begin or end. People became aware
that there is a difference between this mythological universe, man-made world and the objective world. There is
another crisis of mythological universe- there is a difference between our ordinary, wakening consciousness,
awareness of external reality on the one hand and on the other the creating and transforming aspects of the mind.
These creative aspects of the mind are important because they offer us new perspectives. Blake was aware that
the mythological universe cannot be identified with objective reality but he used the myth of resurrection to

symbolize human, individual freedom. So, the resurrection means no longer the resurrection of Jesus, it is the
resurrection of human imagination. The arts which tell us how the human imagination operates are thus a source of
mental energy, means of achieving social and individual freedom.
Frye observes two movements in history: 2. the descending movement symbolized by Adonis, and 2. the ascending
movement symbolized by Prometheus and Eros. Prometheus- social freedom and Eros- individual freedom.
Christianity and Marxism are Promethean myths. In Christian myth, the rising movement hinges upon the
resurrection which is not renewal or rebirth but a movement upward into a different world. The great religions as
they attained social power, they tended to the opposite extreme of mistrusting any kind of liberation that their
institutions could not control. Anxiety about authority finds it very hard to come to terms with Eros. Eros symbolizes
the forces of nature which cannot be controlled (sexual love, even the physical body). The descending order is the
order of tragedy and tragic irony, the story of the fallen greatness and the subordinating of human desire and
ambition to the power of gods. The ascending order is the order of comedy, its Blakes conception of the socially
emancipating role of the arts.
Frye mentions Jung as a cultural theorist. At the centre of his vision of life is a progress from the ego, ordinary life
with its haphazard and involuntary perceptions of time and space, to the individual who works with far more
coordinated and schematic modes of perception. Jung- the symbol of the individual perception is mandala. The
art manages to bring to the forth some contents from the unconscious and they enrich our understanding of reality.
Arts are possible techniques of meditation, ways of cultivating focusing and ordering ones mental processes, on a
basis on symbol rather than concept. Blake saw works of art not as icons but as mandalas- things to contemplate.
Jung, as a psychologist, was interested in the recurring characters and images that turn up on the way to
individuation. In the book he treats the great work of the alchemists as an allegory of self-transformation, a
process of bringing an immortal body (the stone) to birth within the ordinary one (the materia prima). Social function
of art- the respond to the arts should be such that we can no longer separate the response from our social context
and personal commitments.
R.Barthes-Myth Today- Myth is Depoliticized Speech
He appears as a great humanist who believes in the possibility of the creative imagination and individuality. Myths
in which French bourgeois manifests itself in every day life. He focuses his attention on the past when it becomes a
revolutionary myth- a kind of myth which depoliticized reality. It is a speech which maintains that oblivion by
celebrating things- the status quo- to prevent any change by presenting things as they are not made by man- but by
historical processes. What you see in those instances of bourgeois myths is a change of what was historical into
smth internal, what was created into smth given, what is anti-physis into pseudo-physis. Whatever you see in this
historical world is for them natural.
Myths(2)
Myths are in the modern world used by certain societies which do not want to be changed. We erase the history we
do not want to know and things become given and natural. That is the history of colonization- smth completely
natural. Here we have a myth in the context of French bourgeois society. Things lose the meaning of what they
were once made. We are deprived of history. Myths make us accept the rules of the society as smth given
unalterable. We feel insignificant because we cannot do anything about it. We are helpless. We know facts, but
forget history. We dont know how it happened. Such myths simply state the facts- no explanation what was the
policy behind the American occupation of Iraq. Just stated facts, smth natural that goes without saying.
Toys
He wrote Toys which tells us how weapons are inevitable. Less and less will you find simple modern dices which
child use to create this world. There are no more of them, but plastic things which can be damaged, so you realize
that things are to be damaged and you can always buy new. These toys are really like the small copies which
reproduce the world of grown-ups. Exoticism- they are too remote of Europe, on the margin of human. They are
exotic. It is not relevant, available possibility to learn smth. Exoticism prevents true familiarization with other cultures
(the lost continent).
The idea is the same. That social reality is fixed and we are helpless about it. Toys represent detailed copies of
reality- repeat structures of grown-ups. Smaller versions of the object which grown-ups use. They prepare them
thinking that structures have always existed there. They were given by nature. We accepted war as smth normalthere will always be guns and wars.

Barthes (2)
Myth Today Barthes works focus on the phase when the myth of concern becomes a prison. Again the same
idea- the structures of the French society which he describes act as brainwashing mechanisms. They tend to
present themselves as sth that cannot be changed. Their purpose is to celebrate and preserve status quo. He gives
an example of a photograph which appeared in a newspaper. There was a French soldier saluting French flag. The
point is that this soldier is black. Barthes says that this photograph functions in our minds like a myth. It changes
anti-physis into pseudo physis. Physis- sth natural, a part of nature. That picture is not natural because he is black.
Myth makes us perceive it as sth natural. By accepting this photo we accept colonialism as sth normal. If this photo
is perceived as a sign, then this is a sign out of which history and meaning have been emptied. This photo as a
certain historical background is a story of conquest, of sth wrong, but you dont see it in that way- the history has
been erased from the photo. You are simply presented with the fact of colonialism. Bourgeois presents whatever is
created as natural, condition humaine (Lukacs), no historical sense. Bourgeois myth serves to immobilize the
world, to prevent any change by the denial, evaporation of history- the denial of difference done by depoliticized
speech. (Political in its deeper meaning is describing the whole of human relations in their real, social structure, in
their power of making the world; de- here it represents an operational movement, it permanently embodies a
defaulting.) It prevents man from inventing himself. So, if the reality is given, eternal, if it cannot be changed, then
an individual feels helpless and insignificant. Barthes gives us some examples of this restrictive sense of reality. He
talks about Petit-bourgeois which cannot imagine anything different- any different identity from his own, because
every different identity would invite comparison and then it would see what is lacking. This is why it explains all the
other identities by translating them into its own terms. Negro- some identities can be excluded or changed, turned
into a spectacle (Negro is either inhuman or a clown). Madmen are sent away into asylums, they are confined. All
these identities would be a threat to the structure in which the French petit-bourgeois lives. This can be compared
to verum factum- only what is inside the structure is true, what is outside doesnt exist. Bourgeois myth is a
constant transformation of culture into nature. The transformation involves the denial of the other (women, other
histories, races, nations). It is by that denial that oppressive societies maintain their power. When the other
appears in the form of another nation, annihilation can be done in two ways: 1. identification- a black man is
reduced to any other French man. He is robbed of both his language and history, deprived of his authenticity, taken
away from whatever makes his blackness and refilled with new concepts. 2. exotism- when sth is too remote to be
assimilated in this way (by identification), it may pose a threat. It is in the end seen with the same essence as ours,
so it cannot be used for judging, condemning.
Toys In order to avoid comparison and fit the child into the structure, the grown-ups perceive a child as a small
man. This becomes evident when we study the kind of toys which are given to children. These toys are like small
copies which reproduce the world of grown-ups. A child plays with miniature cars, planes, soldiersAll of the
structures of the grown-ups are imposed on him. In this way the child accepts all the products of the world he lives
in. he becomes a consumer of such a reality. Also, the child gets an impression that this reality cannot be changed
and that it has always existed. Such toys turn the child into small owner or a user- a small car, a small computer.
You are reproducing the ideology of owning, the ideology of capitalist world.
POST-STRUCTURALISM
Structuralism and anthropology- not man as a historical being, but related to nature. N. Frye was displeased with
the study which was I-centered. Expanding eye- there is an archetype degraded in modern time. He did it in
anthropology- item-centered- no more than a collection separately existing without bothering to discover the
underline. He applies the linguistic model according to which each utterance is the system of binary oppositionminimal structure which makes meaning. Not a single myth, but its relation to a very many other myths. Barthes
also studies the contemporary bourgeois myth- to bind all people in cohesive social structure. The thing that he
cannot forgive is that bourgeois man identifies ill humanity with himself. Man for him is a middle-class, male,
European. Everything else is exotic, marginal.
C. Levi Strauss -Myth and Incest
Strauss started from basic binary opposites: culture vs. nature (like Frye) and he used this opposition to investigate
the way in which the primitive mind structures its reality by using binary oppositions. Modern logical mind also uses
this opposition but there is a crucial difference. The primitive man perceives binary opposition within nature so he
doesnt choose one option over the other but establishes one analogy between the pairs of opposites in human

world and the pairs of opposites in nature, thus reconciling them. He criticizes the civilized mind (logical) and
praises the savage mind (analogical thinking). Civilized mind wants to destroy all who havent severed their ties with
nature. His myths are meditation between these two oppositions (culture and nature) by which primitive man is
prevented from choosing one over the other, to be destructive towards nature. He has more completed world than
the logical mind. For him literary criticism is a humanistic discipline. Whatever is the underlying structure, man can
change it. He is extremely scientific. He is an anthropologist and humanist. All his science leads to the discovery of
how this culture can be judged, condemned, resisted and reversed (like Trilling).
He investigates the myth of North-American Indians. These myths where incest happens are myths in which human
society is made to reflect natural world and in which the connection with nature is preserved. Beside the motive of
an incest, the motive of a riddle also appears. A riddle- a question which one postulates that there is no answer is
successfully solved. The solution of the puzzle brings together things meant to be separated: culture and nature.
These two motives- incest and a riddle- are accompanied by the motive of some natural disaster- a plague and an
eternal summer, which ends in corruption- unleashing of natural forces. There are also myths of reversed situationGrail myth, an answer for which there is no question, absence of speech which is associated with sexual
abstinence, chastity (draught and winter is the failure of the crops, therefore it leads to the bareness of land,
sterility). According to Levi-Strauss, these two myths reflect the capacity of the primitive man to learn from nature.
The primitive mind modeled in response according to what happens in nature. There is in nature always a middle
way (in nature there is no eternal summer nor eternal winter). The middle way is the exchange of women among
the tribes and the exchange of the words in a frank communication whose purpose is understanding among people.
So, primitive man managed to establish his life to coincide with natures cycles. They continued to live in the
garden- didnt turn their backs on nature. Nature and culture, though separated, should reflect each other. But
logical mind (modern man) responds to this binary opposition by choosing one of its poles and expelling the other.
Our culture resolves all opposites by denial- never able to think analogically. Yet, the purpose of the scientific
method is humanistic: the comparison between two kinds of mind and a possibility of choice. Levi-Strauss
represents the trend in French criticism which has not forgotten Vicos man is a maker- he can change his culture.
For Levi-Strauss primitive societies were exemplary ones because they didnt deny opposites but married them.
They were creative. Frye, Barthes and Levi-Strauss never lost sight of the way in which culture could be criticized,
reconstructed by means of comparison; they compared, chose, made ethical judgments (therefore, they are
humanists).
C. Levi-Strauss deals with myth, the beginning of anthropology- to see how myth functions. The savage mind,
etc.-all these books are algebraic- all his investigations of the primitive myths are justified, attributed to the power of
this primitive mind- to resolve oppositions. The difference is that a primitive myth resolves it without forcing any of
the two items that make up a binary opposition- how to resolve the opposition? Strauss applies Saussures
linguistics. He praises primitive myth for being able to resolve it without suppressing any item. Avery primitive
example is analogy between night and day, sleeping and waiting. Primitive mind perceives oppositions and relates
them to the natural world. Totemism- Strauss relates a particular totem to another totem. There is a similarity
between differences. That is called analogical thinking. Culture and nature are mirroring each other.
Myth and Incest- He wants to say that he cannot understand any myth and motif in isolation. That connection is
master myth. The motif of incest- he perceives the pre-similarity in the myth of Oedipus and north Indians is not
taboo. The violation of incest is related to the other myth- the solution of the puzzle. In NA Indian myth there is no
overt description of that. These two elements, then the 3 rd element refers to the play- smth goes wrong- decay of
the solution of the puzzle. There are myths such as a Grail myth- there is an answer without a question- here a
question should be asked. In this myth, there is a failure of speech- the abstinence, the man will not speak. It is
related to sexual abstinence. This is related to the sexual failure. The 3 rd element- winter-the failure of grass/ crops.
Incest is related to the question without an answer. What happens here, he says, primitive mind- man master; mind
perceives two kinds of possibilities seductive to imagination: excessive sexuality to the point of incest (promiscuity),
complete with arrogant use of words. The grail myth- sexual abstinence, chastity, not having it at all. This
opposition, seductive to the imagination is then seen to relate in the same way within nature: in summer- to the
point of decay, internal winter to the point of sterility. What does the primitive man do? Primitive man, instead of
choosing other, lets himself be taught by nature- seasons succeed each other- a midway solution- the exchange of
women between tribes which are not related, and the exchange of words without cunning. This is the meaning of
the incest taboo- only in human order. By placing it on the man, primitive myth ensures that man becomes a social

being. NC (natural cycles) are made to reflect each other- prevents man from estrangement. Unfortunately Strauss
says this analogical thinking disappeared. One of the two items is marginalized- we privilege culture, demonize the
other item. The primitive culture is a model- man teaches himself to turn back. His investigation was permeated by
the sense of nostalgia and a sense of guilt. He still believes in the Garden of Eden. Strauss- not impotent nostalgia.
J. Derrida
Derrida- the kind of critic whose target is this kind of banishing one of the items. He is a great critic of a Western
philosophy. This process- expelling- is called violent hierarchization. It is the way in which western man provides his
secret meaning: sanity, mind He was so much against it, so he deconstructed all those secret truths. He undoes
all these oppositions. These signs, sacred truths, god idea, spirit, man are, he says, logos- a kind of principle of the
foundation of various systems. We desire this logos- a founding principle. Why? Western man is insecure and his
greatest desire is certainty. He wants to believe that there are absolute logos from which all lgs. proceeds and can
be measured outside of lg. The desire for the logos- something cannot be painted by the play of lg.- present in the
mind without the mediation of lg. ( ne saznajemo kroz jezik). Metaphysics- logocentric. These traditions are
logocentric and it is also the metaphysic of present- to establish logos as sth present, beyond lg. Derrida- such
unmediated presence is possible- to show that nothing is fully present, but also absent. Oppositions are invalid, not
existent. The best way to understand is to see what he does with Saussures sign, lg. how to deconstruct
structures. For Saussure the meaning of the sign is the difference between one signifier and another. According to
Saussure, signifier is that and not some other. Derrida is back, because there are not very many other possibilities.
Anyone who looks up in the dictionary looks for the signifier, but ht explanation is also not familiar to you- not a
stable meaning. Presence/absence Derrida says nothing is fully present or absent. We must be aware of all the
absent possibilities. The meaning of the world is the meaning of the presence of the abstract. This presence of the
abstract is alternative- traits- special category- operates on a temporal level. The process is endless. Another
interpretation- lg.- a never ending chain(znacenje i presijavanje)- creating the illusion of meaning. The real meaning
never arises. The meaning is never present, nor completely absent. Deconstruction can be used creatively. It can
deconstruct people like Hitler. It is good to doubt about absolute truth. For Derrida this is not the case. He simply
believes that all thinkers cannot say what they mean, and cannot mean what they say. Lg. is totally unstable, no
way for us ever to know any kind of truth about the world, about ourselves. This radicalism turns against his
method. It turns out that everything has been the same. Any lg. no need to compare, judge and choose. This
method turned against those who were critics of western culture- unselectively deconstructed people who criticized
it. Nobody, Rousseau included, can say anything with any certainty- to disqualify any attempt to look back upon
past traditions and to connect it to our culture. Every lg. is like that- binary opposition resolved by violent
deconstruction is necessity. Everything has always been the same. Derrida- phone-centric- speech is more
authentic, immediately present- not, so he says. Writing proceeds speech- structuralizing the exclusion of certain
thing in order the meaning can be identified. In that sense, speech is no longer primary. Illusion that speech
connected those people to nature. All lgs. equally estrange us. Derrida makes ethical thinking impossible.
Judgments cannot be made because everything has been the same. Choice is out of place. He deprives man of
choice. The only ethics that he does appreciate is free play- the multiplicity of interpretations none of which is better.
The free play of words without origin, beginning and end, truth, repenting.
Structure, sign and play in the discourse of human sciences
Derrida begins with deconstructing structures (De Sausserian sign). For Saussure lg. is separated from reality, but
signs can produce stable meanings. For Derrida, lg. is much less stable and meaningful. Every signified can be
transformed into signifier and vise verse and the process goes on infinitely. He undermines the idea that the
meaning of the signifier is determined by the minimal difference between it and other signifier. What determines the
other signifier is absence/presence. It is not an absolute binary opposition. He introduces a concept of trace: special
and temporal level. There is a network of difference excluded in order that meaning of the world be constituted. We
must keep in mind other meaning so that the presence refers to the absence of other alternatives. There is a trace
in a word of all other alternatives. Temporal level- on witch trace words that preceded the word and that can come in
future- that would modify the meaning of the preceding words. The meaning is never full, complete, never arrives,
there is never a point at which the dance of signifier stops. It is a flickering which never comes, is never completed;
the process is endless; there is no beginning and end. Derrida says writing is primary, speech secondary. Language
cannot render any meaning, language is incapable of speaking. The death of the author- Barthes- critics business

is not to interpret meaning, the text I the surface. We can show how the surface is made up and indeterminate.
Because of inability to choose interpretation, the reader is not an individual, but a site place in which various
discourses intersect. Derrida wants to reduce the works of art to the surface without sense. The point of this ideaplay is to cut man off of his ethical consciousness, to reduce man to one dimension, eliminate ethical dimension
which would transcend culture. The essay by Derrida- colossal sameness- no way of going back to nature, no
origin, no goal. He wants to cut us off from the cultural inheritance. He claims we cannot find the truth. Language
tends to destroy the centre we have in ourselves and this makes us unable to resist our own culture.
Structure, sign and play in the discourse of human sciences(2)
In this essay Derrida denies the existence of any fixed point of reference, meaning, which can be looked upon as
directing the process of signification. The structure, although it has always been at work expanding infinitely, has
always been reduced or neutralized by a process of giving it a centre. The function of this centre was not only to
organize the structure but to limit what Derrida calls freeplay of structure, that is to fix the meaning. According to
Derrida, the centre is not the centre. It has to occupy two places: 1. within the structure, governing it; and 2. outside
the structure, the centre of the totality (Derrida denies it). It is not possible to conceive of a centre which is not itself
subjected to a process of signification. Derrida is concerned with the concept of the centered structure. What
structuralists try to ignore about this concept is the fact that structure implies structurality not the centre. This is the
reduction of the structurality of the structure. Desire- man always desires some fixed ground which is source of
certainty. Anxiety- has to do with the recognition that there is no fixed meaning. For post-structuralists, sign is no
longer a fixed, stable entity because there are no fixed boundaries between signified and signifier anymorefreeplay. Derrida is a critic of the metaphysics of presence: there never was a time in history when nature and
reality were immediate, present to man. He criticizes those critics who sought for a model of culture that would not
severe nature from culture (as is the case with primitive tribes). This original innocence is a delusion, mans destiny
is forever to be separated from the natural world; man totally belongs to culture. No immediate response to nature
as Levi-Strauss believed to be.
PSYCHOANALYSIS
S. Freud
Christianity and Science are a rebellion for the sake of reason. They represent the mastery of logos- a head
control. In Christianity, nature was demonized, presented as dark and dangerous. For the age of Enlightenment
there wasnt anything dark in man. The outer nature is sth you can observe, control, utilize. The qualities praised in
a human being were: consciousness, rationality, analytical mind. The ideal of the age of science is a fully
functioning adult conscious male mind. Freud was the first of modern scientists who questioned and undermined
the ideal. He says it is an illusion that we are fully conscious and rational (1:6- the relation of conscious and
unconscious). That we consciously know about ourselves is just a very small part, a tip of an iceberg. the way that
Freud explains the constitution of the human psyche is that there are 3 main parts: super-ego which represent a
set of social demands. It is an ideal of how man should behave and what he should be like. There is ego which is
really a mediator between the demands of super-ego and the demands of the dark, unconscious part of our
psyche, id- repressed; guilt, desires.
Freud- Creative writers and day-dreaming He says that we all have daydreams- we are prone to imagining
things. The fact that we like to daydream shows that we feel dissatisfaction with the culture. In our daydreams we
make short escapes from reality. A healthy person is capable of coming back from these excursions but the one
who doesnt manage to come back is neurotic. The works of art, literature, are similar to daydreams in their
function. The artists also make these excursions into the world of fantasy, so we can talk about the work of art as a
confession of discontent with the culture. Most of us would be ashamed of talking about daydreams to others. Most
will be embarrassed to tell others about daydreams whereas the artists use their talents and various esthetic
devices (style, form, rhyme) to make their daydreams plausible (prihvatljivim). In this way when we read a work of
art/literature we are also more capable of accepting our own daydreams so we can enjoy daydream without a sense
of shame or embarrassment. And we come back to reality with the sense of refreshment. The basic element of
daydream is one that relates us to the period of early childhood or prenatal period. This is the principal cause for it.
So we long for this period of perfect and complete happiness and bliss. The infant in the mothers womb feels
complete unity with the mothers body. At certain moment of childhood, the child becomes aware of the figure of the

father. The figure of the father makes the child aware that it has to abandon its incestual love for the mothers body
so it realizes it cant be its mothers lover. This for Freud is the origin of the whole culture/ social structure. The
whole society is based on this demand to repress incestual desire and to be separated from the mothers body.
Throughout the life man has to learn redirect erotic desire towards sb. else. So we have to substitute the desire for
the mothers body with some socially acceptable desire. However, according to Freud, this substitute never satisfies
us completely. Throughout the life we just shift from one object of desire to another- never recover this original bliss.
Derrida- we move from one signifier to another and never feel the completeness.
Its important to point out the difference between Freud and Frye. They both make parallels between dreams and
literature. However, in Fryes theory desire is sth socially acceptable. It shows us how society should evolve, move
forward. Desire shows a possible course of action. In works of art or in our dreams we can become aware of some
plans to change reality. For Freud no change is possible. We live in the only possible reality and the greatest desire
is to go back to mother. The reality is inescapable and unalterable. We can only make a short excursion into fantasy
or literature but then we have to come back to reality and accept it as it is. This made Freud reach the conclusion
that the other main instincts/urges in life are 1.Thanatos and 2.Eros. Our Eros moves from one object of desire to
another and we are never satisfied, never recover the original bliss so we finally long for death- to return to the
inorganic. Trilling- Freud discovered the darkness but never indorsed him. Freuds motto was where id was there
shall ego be. He wanted to liberate man from these unconscious, dark urges. Ego, although it is just a small part,
a weak mediator should become a master. Trilling criticized Freud because he thought in those rigid polarities:
dream- reality, id- ego, mother- father, unconscious- conscious. Freud thought its necessary to choose one of those
polarities so he opted for: reality, ego, father, consciousness.
Jung-Psychology and literature According to Jung, Freuds polarization: id/ego, desire/reality, mother/father
(these terms) form a totality and to choose between polarities is wrong. The goal of human life is not to suppress or
abolish this dark side, the unconscious side, but to integrate it. the goal of human life is individuation: a process of
personal growth. It is a matter of finding a link and reestablishing the link that connects us to nature, world and
biological impulses of our body. Jung was Freuds follower but their teachings diverged. What was for Freud the
desire for mothers body, for Jung it was symbolical desire for values that mother represents. This desire for Jung is
a symbolical desire to recover actually this portion of reality (dream, id, mother, unconscious). For Jung sex act in
the dream is a psychological wedding. Jung also talked about these functions within our psyche. (sensation,
thinking, intuition). Our culture is based on sensation and rational thinking- intuition and feeling are neglected in our
culture. Intuition gives us a different kind of knowledge; rational thinking also means that we are separated from the
object of our rational knowledge. Intuition is a kind of knowledge when you try to become one with the object of
knowledge. Its a kind of mystical knowledge. Collective unconscious his understanding of literature. (What we
know about ourselves is just a small pick of a cone. Then it follows personal unconscious, the one that we have
suppressed during our lives, the one that is unacceptable for the society or is forgotten. The next is the collective
unconscious- we can link with each other. The greatest part is collective unconscious which can never be
conscious.). Schema XI- heredity structure of psyche- heritage of ancestors. In biology there is sth called the law of
phylogeny- the traces of the bodily characteristics of our ancestors. Jung claims that our psyche observes (postuje)
sth similar to the law of phylogeny. Just there are remnants of our body, there are also in the deepest layer in the
psyche the traces, remnants of the psyche of our ancestors. In our psyche in this realm of this collective
unconscious there are some very old images, psyche symbols. These images of the collective unconscious are
common, they are the same for the whole mankind. If we get in touch with this layer of our psyche, we get in touch
with sth that is common for the whole mankind. (P.53- on the deeper level all people are connected- central forcelife force). According to Jung the goal in life is to be released from the separated, isolated self, ego-self. We start
from ego, a very small part of our being and by getting in touch with the unconscious part of our psyche, we reach
the self- complete being. It is the goal which cannot be fulfilled to the end. We should grasp conscious attitude as
much as we can. This is a journey which he calls the process of individuation. Then we get in touch with the
collective unconscious and we become less egotistic. We feel oneness with the whole mankind and we also feel
more ready, incline to accept some trans-personal service. The only real sin is the sin of separation. One of the
ways to get in touch with collective unconscious is through art/ literature. In dreams, in visions and works of art we
can get in touch with these ancient symbols from the collective unconscious. They are called archetypes. According
to Jung a neurotic also get in touch with the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Neurosis can be cured. The

archetypes of the collective unconscious which appear in art do not represent personal needs but the needs of the
whole epoch. Jung calls it self-regulatory function of the psyche. If our conscious outlook on reality is one-sided, too
narrow, if it is biased (pristrasan), the archetypes from the collective unconscious will function as a warning or they
will have a healing effect. So they tell us about the part of reality which we have left out. The kind of art in which
these archetypes appear is visionary art. In visionary arts there are symbols, images that cant be interpreted
rationally. Blake- Tyger, Dante- Inferno, Faust- the archetypes which served as a warning to Germans of what
will happen in the 20 th C. He (Jung) starts from ego- persona- the way we present ourselves to others. The first
thing we meet when we start investigating our sub- consciousness is the shadow we suppressed our unwanted
qualities/ traits. It is often projected on sb else- irrational hatred. We recognize in sb else our suppressed qualities. If
we cant accept that part of ourselves we cant move on. Behind a shadow there is an archetype called animus- the
opposite sex of our own, a man in a woman. Animus may be positive (Lincon) and negative (Hitcliff) figure. It is
someone who guides us to our soul. The next is a figure of the wise old man/ the great mother. They present the
spiritual guide in us. And, in the end there is self- the whole being- the road to the centre of our soul. Self occurs in
the dreams in the shape of Mondale. (ego/personal- shadow- anima/animus- wise old man/ great mother- self).
Jungs view on art/poet
He distinguishes two modes of artistic expression (writing):
1. Psychological art- self-explanatory, talks about what is familiar everyday, un-shocking. It deals from the materials
drawn from the realm of human consciousness. The poet gives an interpretation and illumination of the contents of
consciousness. The experience as well as its artistic expression belong to the realm of understandable.
2. Visionary art- is a correction, revision of narrow, one-sided concept of reality. It demands interpretation of the
artists vision which even the artist himself cannot understand in a rational way. With the visionary modes of writing,
the experience is no longer familiar. It derives from the hinterland (background) of mans mind and is primordial
experience which surpasses mans understanding. It demands explanations and interpretations. It reminds us of
nothing of everyday human life but rather of dreams, nightmares, fears. The primordial experience is the source of
mans creativity. It requires mythological imagery to give it form. That which appears in vision is the collective
unconscious (CU)- a certain psychic disposition shaped by the forces of heredity. Whenever the CU becomes a
living experience and is brought to being upon the conscious outlook of an age, this event is a creative act which is
of importance to anyone living in that age. Poet- creative man is a riddle. Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a
human being and makes him an instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own
ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose through him. As an artist he is a man in a higher sense- he is a
collective man, the one who carries and shapes the unconscious, psychic life of mankind. In this way the work of
the poet comes to meet the spiritual need of the society in which he lives. Poet is essentially the instrument for his
work. This is very similar notion to Eliots notion of the poet as a catalyst who brings the vision and yet remains
unchanged. His personal experience is not responsible for his vision.
The creative process has feminine quality and creative work arises from unconscious depths- from realm of the
mother. Whenever the creative force predominates, human life is ruled and moulded by the unconscious. A great
work of art is like a dream- it doesnt explain itself and is never unequivocal. A dream never says this is a truth. We
must draw our own conclusions. To grasp the meaning of the work of art, we must allow it to shape us as it once
shaped the artist. Artistic creation is a return to the state of participation mystique- to that level of experience at
which it is man who lives and not the individual. This is why every great work of art is objective and impersonal, and
why the personal life of the poet cannot be held essential to his art. Jungs theory of the CU (accepted by Eliot and
Lawrence) evolved a link of literary criticism in which the works of literature are explained in terms of the recurrence
of certain archetypal themes, images, patterns. (myth- conscious re-experiencing of the unconscious instinctual
process of the psyche)
Freud vs. Jung
Maturity: Freud- control the world, suppress instincts; Jung- identify with the universe, reconcile the opposites.
ID: Freud- to control it (it derives from sex); or reject it and accept the reality principle; Jung- the source of
creativity, not only sexual; to accept it and adjust it to reality; here are redeeming heeling, forces to be found as in
literature.
Literature: Freud- work of art derived from the personal experience of the artist. Artists are narcistic (his wishes are
fulfilled in his work). Art is a place where forbidden desires are given the opportunity to be expressed; Jung- work of

art relates to collective experience of the whole race. Literature is seen as a source of knowledge, a place where
you can come to terms with suppressed desires. Artists are objective and impersonal, even inhuman, for an artist is
his work not a human being.
Neurosis; Freud- disturbance without sense of meaning; Jung- a place of achieving participation, mystique.
Both: concerned with the way how psychology can be used to explain literal artistic materials.
STRUCTURALISM is associated with the movement based on linguistics of de Saussure, Chomsky. They applied
the linguistic model to the understanding of literature. the variety of phenomena can be reduced to the underlying
laws. The linguistic model was taken by literary criticism and applied to cultural criticism where culture was seen as
a system of underlying laws and the critics had to penetrate through variety of phenomena to this single underlying
structure (deep structure). What they arrived at was that the basic structuralist law producing all meanings was the
structure of binary opposites. The very structure of the human brain is binary and man projects this structure,
imposes it upon the world. Marx was also a structuralist in the sense that he wanted to find the deep structure. The
hidden structure is ideology- always a product of the ruling class in order to conceal the injustices between the
forces of production and the relations in production. The laborer is alienated from the products of his work.
Freud- our conduct is motivated by the hidden forces- the unconscious, the tension between ID, EGO and SUPEREGO. In ID we find the Oedipus complex, desires. SUPEREGO demands a repression of the forces of the ID. EGO
is a mediator between the two and is feeble. Freud also thought in terms of binary opposites: reality principle and
pleasure principle. Literature in transcribing our daydreams leads us away from reality. The writer, reader must
return to civilization and to reconcile with the discontent. He disregarded the fact that the real world is man-made,
creative, created and as such can be changed. He is the most pessimistic.
Jung- much more humanistic. Deep structure is fantasy/ vision of a neurotic (neurosis- the protest of a body, soul
against one-sided, too narrow concept of the real). The vision offers us the corrected conception of the real, the
deepest knowledge of the real. This is not a spring of destructive energy, on the contrary.
Frye was the first to use the term structure. He didnt rely on linguistics for his criticism. Literature is a transfer of
energy which can help us change the reality. The main source of this imagination is found in literature. He uses
binary opposites, but he calls them antithesis: dream/reality. We are torn between what is real and the dream.
Literature is not a collection of unrelated items but there is an underlying structure- myth. The purpose of myth is
to reconcile desire and reality. The third realm in which culture and nature can come together is literature, myth.
Thus reconciled, they are a model of what we can become (comedy/tragedy).
For all of them, the antithesis is used for a highly humanistic purpose. They are all scientific humanists, like LeviStrauss and early Barthes.
T. Eagleton- Post-Structuralism
The difference with the earlier structuralism: 1. images, texts, archetypes are emptied of any human contentintrinsic meaning. All stories have the same underlying story: no difference between high literature and the soap
operas. 2. not concerned with the cultural value of literature. Thats why the question What purpose does literature
serve? is dropped. Everything is reduced to text, writing, signification. 3. laws that govern production of meaning
pre-exist individual, thus individual can no longer be treated as the origin or the end of meaning. Reading is not a
creation of meaning, but unconscious use of conventional, pre-existing laws, codes.
The individual is denied originality or creative power, he is only a consumer of prescribed, fixed meanings within
language itself. The speaker, the author, the reader are denied of their originality. That is why these structuralists
are anti-humanist.
R. Barthes essay The Death of the Author is an example of the post-structuralism. For him writing is the
destruction of every point of origin. An author enters his own death when writing begins. The authors genius does
not count, but the mastery of the narrative code is admired. The responsibility for a narrative is never assumed by a
person but by a mediator, human or relator whose performance, narrative code, is valued. It is language which
speaks, not the author as language knows a subject of a person. Book and author stand automatically on a
single line because the author is thought to nourish the book and is in the same relation to his work as a father to
his son. On the contrary, the modern scriptor is born simultaneously with the text, is not the subject with the back
predicate, and every text is eternally written here and now. The scriptor no longer bears within him passions,
humors, feelings, impressions but rather (?) dictionary from which he draws a writing that can know no halt. Reader

is without history, biography, psychology, he is someone who holds together in a single field all the traces by which
the written text is constituted.
Derrida- Deconstruction, a liberating theory. Its purpose is to deconstruct all fixed, rigid meanings and signs of
structuralism on which society lies upon and depends on for its power. The main aim of deconstruction was not to
see how the structures work but how they may be undone, deconstructed in order to release energy they possess
to create better culture. Deconstruction is a criticism of logocentrism- western tradition which always sought to
define the absolute truth. It tended to reduce the world to a static diagram of absolute, unchanging truth.
Deconstruction defined itself as a reaction against structuralism which suffered from platonic impulse as it wanted to
reduce the variety of literature to a few formulas. Structuralism showed us how meaning is constructed by imposing
binary structure upon the world, without offering new knowledge. Derrida shows how meaning can be
deconstructed by deconstructing basic binary opposition: signifier vs. signified is not valid. He started from de
Saussuerian sign- the unity between the signifier and the signified leads to the meaning of the word which is stable,
fixed, full, within language. Derrida showed that language is much less meaningful, stable because there is no
stable relationship between the signifier and the signified. It is because the signifier can become the signified and
vice versa endlessly. Binary opposition: Absence/ Presence. According to de Saussure and structuralists, the
meaning is exclusively defined by the relation of one signifier to another. For example- bat vs. pat- the difference
between them is seen in that one is voiced and the other is voiceless. In deconstruction the opposition
absent/present is not valid, absolute. Derrida introduces a new concept- trace, which can operate on two levels as
a spatial and temporal category. On the spatial level trace refers to the presence of all the absent alternatives. We
see that words, in order to mean sth, exclude other words, but the exclusion of these words defines the word in
question. A word is defined by the presence of the absent words. Trace also appears on the temporal level of
language. It is identical to postponements- our anticipation, memory of all the words that preceded the trace and all
that can come. So, meaning is never static, never present, never full. There is never point at which the dance of
signifiers stops. The process is endless. We can never mean what we say nor say what we mean. Meaning is never
that and never there. Binary opposition: Speech/Writing. He tended to favor speech believing that writing is just a
supplement. We believe that in speech the meaning is present, immediate, closer to the speaker and listener.
Writing is open to various interpretations; its not as original as speech. For Derrida, writing always precedes
speech, though not in its graphic form. In order to think sth, to say sth we have to use signs arranged by certain
rules and norms which have to precede any thought, language in order for it to have meaning. A Paradox- he
creates binary opposition although all the time he wants to deconstruct them. His theory is not really liberating, not
valid because he refuses to conceive, as a kind of myth, language in which binary opposition would be reconciled.
Derrida criticizes Levi-Strauss, who uses the opposition nature/culture, which for Derrida doesnt exist. (incest
prohibition, both natural and cultural). Derrida has for his purpose to disqualify Levi-Strausss humanism, ethics,
nostalgia about the past, sense of values. He reduces all ends of minds, all kinds of language, all kinds of myths to
one and the same pattern, so there is no choice, no comparison, no presence, no ethics. There is no need to feel
guilty for the primitive tribes, no need to look back into the past because language, structure is always the same
and binary oppositions are inescapable. We should learn to understand the world as having no meaning, we should
enjoy in such a world without guilt, remorse, fault. The only alternative he offers is freeplay, free from any truth and
guilt of sense of identity and thus of responsibility, of any sense of guilt or what our culture has done to other
cultures. Derrida is anti-scientific, anti-humanist. (the incest prohibition is universal, thus it is natural, but at the
same time prohibition implies a system of norms and in this sense it is cultural).
T. Eagleton- Post-Structuralism(2)
De Saussure argues that meaning in language is just a matter of difference. If every sign is what it is because it is
not all the other signs, every sign seems to be made up of a potentially infinite number of differences. This brings
Saussures idea that language forms a closed, stable system into question. Furthermore, meaning is always the
result of articulation of signs (the signifier boat divides itself from the signifier moat). This questions Saussures
view of a sign as a neat, symmetrical unity between one signifier and one signified. There is no fixed distinction
between signifiers and signifieds. If you want to know the meaning (or signified) of a signifier, you can look it up in
the dictionary, but all you will find will be more signifiers, those signifieds you can in turn look up and so on. This
process is not only infinite but circular also: signifiers keep transforming into signifieds and vice versa. Poststructuralism divides the signifier from the signified. Meaning is never fully present in one sign alone, but it is rather
a kind of constant flickering of presence and absence together. Another sense in which meaning is never identical

with itself is that signs must be repeatable and reproducible. Signs can be reproduced in a different context which
changes their meaning (metaphorical/literal). Because their context is always different it is never absolutely the
same, never quite identical with itself. The signified will be altered by the various chains of signifiers in which it is
entangled. The implication of all this is that language is much less stable than the classical structuralists had
considered. Instead of being a well-defined structure containing symmetrical units of signifiers and signified, it is
more like a limitless web where there is a constant interchange and circulation of elements, where none of the
elements is absolutely definable and where everything is caught up and traced through by everything else. Thus,
nothing is ever fully present in signs, it is an illusion for us to believe that we can ever be fully present to each other
in what we say or write, because to use signs entails that our meaning is somehow dispersed, divided, never quite
one with ourselves. If we are made of language, the whole idea that we are stable, unified entities must be a fiction.
The only way to persuade ourselves that we can have a pure meaning and experience is by listening to our voices
when speaking. Our spoken words seem immediately present to our consciousness, spontaneous medium. In
writing, meaning threatens to escape from our control. Writing seems to rob us of our being, it is a second-hand
mode of communication, a mechanical transcript of speech, and so removed from our consciousness. For this
reason, the Western philosophical tradition from Plato to Levi-Strauss saw writing as a mere lifeless, alienated form
of expression and celebrated the living voice. Behind this prejudice lies a particular view of man: man is able
spontaneously to create and express his own meanings, to be in full possession of himself, and to dominate
language as a transparent medium of his inmost being. what this theory fails to see is that the living voice is as
material as print, and that since spoken signs, as written ones, work only by a process of difference and division,
speaking could be just as much said to be a form of writing as writing is said to be a second-hand form of speaking.
Just as Western philosophy has been phonocentric, centered on the living voice, so also it has been logocentric,
committed to a belief in some ultimate word, presence, essence, truth or reality which act as a foundation of all our
thought, language and experience. It has yearned for the sign which will give meaning to all others- the
transcendental signifier- and for the unquestionable meaning to which all our signs can be seen to point- the
transcendental signified= God, the idea, the World Spirit, the self, substance and so on. According to Eagletons
theory such transcendental meaning is a fiction. There is no concept which is not embroiled in an open-ended play
of signification. It is just that out of this play of signifiers, certain meanings are elevated by social ideologies to a
privileged position, or made the centers around which other meanings are forced to turn (freedom, the family,
democracy, authority). Sometimes such meanings are seen as the origin of all the others, but for this meaning to
have been possible other signs must have already existed. It is that web-like complexity of signs; the back and
forth, present and absent, forward and sideways movement of language that post-structuralism designates by the
word text. These are the views of Jacques Derrida who labels any thought system founded on first principle as
metaphysical. He suggests that such first principles can be deconstructed- to be shown to be products of a
particular system of meaning. First principles of this kind are defined by what they exclude; they are part of the sort
of binary opposition. Thus, for male dominated society, man is the founding principle and woman the excluded
opposition of this. Deconstruction is the name given to the operation by which such oppositions can be partly
undermined. Woman is the opposite of the other, of the man; she is non-man, defective man, assigned a negation
value in relation to the male first principle. But equally, man is what he is by virtue of ceasessly shutting out this
other or opposite. Woman is not just an other in the sense of sth beyond her ken, but an other intimately related to
him as the image of what he is not, and therefore as an essential reminder of what he is. Deconstruction has
grasped the point that the binary oppositions with which classical structuralism tends to work represent a way of
seeing typical of ideologies, which like draw rigid boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not.
Structuralism was generally satisfied if it could carve up a text into binary oppositions and expose the logic of their
working. Derridas own typical habit of reading is to seize on one apparently peripheral fragment in the work- a
footnote, minor term- and work it through to the point where it threatens to dismantle the oppositions which govern
the text as a whole. In writing itself, there is a continual flickering, spilling and defusing of meaning, what Derrida
calls dissemination- which cannot be easily contained with the categories of the texts structure. The concept of
writing is a challenge to the very idea of structure: for a structure always presumes a centre, a fixed principle, a
hierarchy of meanings, a solid foundation. Deconstruction rejects the literary/non-literary opposition of any absolute
distinction. The work of Derrida and others had cast doubt upon the classical notions of truth, reality, meaning and
knowledge. For Derrida, deconstruction is an ultimately political practice, an attempt to dismantle the logic by which

a particular system of thought, and behind that a whole system of political structures and social institutions,
maintain its force.
Language is Barthes theme from beginning to end and the Saussurean insight that the sign is almost a matter of
historical and cultural convention. The healthy sign for Barthes is one which do not try to palm itself off as natural
but which in the very moment of conveying a meaning communicates sth of its own relative artificial status. Signs
which pass themselves as natural, which offer themselves as the only conceivable way of viewing the world, are by
that token authoritarian and ideological. It is one of the functions of ideology to naturalize social reality, to make it
seem as innocent and unchangeable as nature itself. Ideology seeks to convert culture into nature. Ideology, in this
sense, is a kind of contemporary mythology. In Barthes view, there is a literary ideology which corresponds to this
natural attitude- realism. This natural language gives us reality as it is: it doesnt, as Romanticism and Symbolism,
distort it into subjective shapes but represents the world to us as God (?) it. the sign is not seen as a changeable
entity- its only job is to represent sth else, because the vehicle of a meaning conceived independently of itself. The
word becomes the only proper way of viewing this object or expressing this thought. The realist, or representational
sign, then is for Barthes essentially unhealthy. The sign as reflection, expression, or representation denies the
productive character of language. Barthes double sign, the sign which gestures to its own material existence at the
same time as it conveys a meaning, is the grandchild of the estranged language of Formalists, used for
denaturalizing and defamiliarizing political society showing just how deeply questionable what everyone took for
granted as obvious. The early Structuralist Barthes still trust to the possibility of a science of literature, though
this, as he comments, could be only a science of forms rather than of contents. For the Structuralist, criticism is a
form of meta-language- a language about another language. There can be no ultimate meta-language: another
critic can always come along and take your criticism as his object of study. The most intriguing texts for criticism are
not those which can be read, but those which are writable (scriptable)- texts which encourage the critic to carve
them up, transpose them into different discourses. The reader of critic shifts from the role of consumer to that of
producer. All literary texts are woven out of other literary texts; every word, phrase or segment is a reworking of
other writings which precede or surround the individual work. All literature is intertextual- a specific piece of writing
thus has no clearly defined boundaries. The movement from Structuralism to Post-Structuralism is in part, as
Barthes himself has phrased it, a movement from work to text. It is the shift from seeing the poem or novel as a
closed entity, equipped with definite meanings which its ethics task to decipher, to seeing it as irreducibly plural, an
endless play of signifiers which can never be finally nailed down to a single centre, essence or meaning. The textless a structure than an open-ended process of structuration and it is criticism which does this structurating. There
is no clear division for post-structuralism between criticism and creation: both modes are subsumed into writing as
such. Not writing for particular purpose in a specific topic, as in the age of classical literature, but writing as an end
and a passion in itself. All theory, ideology determinate meaning, social commitment has become, it appears,
inherently terroristic and writing is the answer to them all. Post-structuralism was a product of that blend of euphoria
disillusionment, liberation and dissipation, carnival and catastrophe, which was 1968. Unable to break the structures
of state power, post-structuralism found it possible instead to subvert the structures of language. Reading is not a
matter of fusing two different but determinate meanings, as it was for the New Critics; it is a matter of being caught
in the hop between two meanings which can be neither reconciled nor refused. Whereas for earlier literary theories
it was experience which was elusive, evanescent, richly ambiguous, now it is language.
Psychoanalysis
The motive of human society is an economic one- the need to labor which means that we must suppress some of
our tendencies to pleasure and gratification. According to Freud, every human being has to undergo this repression
named the pleasure principle by the reality principle, but for some of us or for whole societies the repression may
become excessive and make us ill. This form of sickness is known as neurosis. One way in which we can cope
with desires we can not fulfill is by sublimating them, by which Freud means directing them towards a more socially
valued end. It is by virtue of such sublimation that civilization itself comes about by switching over to higher goals,
cultural history itself is created. The contradiction on which Freuds work rests is that we come what we are only by
a massive repression of the elements which have gone into our making. Indeed, we couldnt be conscious of this
since the place to which we relegate the desires we are unable to fulfill is known as unconscious. Since we are born
prematurely, we depend on our parents for the satisfaction of our instincts- biologically fixed needs we have for
nourishment, warmth and so on. However, for Freud, sucking at mothers breasts is not only a biologically
essential activity but it is also pleasurable- the first dawning of sexuality. Sexuality has been born as a kind of drive

which was at first inseparable from biological instinct but which has now separated itself and attained certain
autonomy. Sexuality, for Freud, is itself a perversion- swerving away of a natural self- preservative instinct towards
another goal. The pre-Oedipal stages of sexual life: 1. oral stage- associated with a drive to incorporate objects; 2.
anal stage- anus as an erotogenic zone. This stage is sadistic in that the child derives erotic pleasure from
exclusion and destruction, but it is also connected with the desire for retention and possessive control, as the child
learns a new form of mastery and manipulation of wishes of others through the granting or withholding of faces; 3.
phallic stage- begins to focus the childs libido (sexual drive) on genitals (penis and clitoris). At this point the child
takes erotic delight in its own body but without being able to view its body as a complete object (auto-eroticism).
Oedipus complex:
The boys close involvement with his mothers body leads him to an unconscious desire for sexual union with her,
whereas the girl, who has been similarly bound up with the mother and whose first desire is always homosexual,
begins to turn her libido towards the father. For the child, the parents of the same sex will come to figure as a rival in
its affections for the parent of the opposite sex. Boy abandons his incestuous desire for the mother because of the
fathers threat of castration. He adjusts himself to the reality principle, submits to the father, detaches himself from
the mother. The boy makes peace with his father, identifies with him, and is thus introduced into the symbolic role of
manhood. Surmounting his Oedipus complex, the boy has driven his forbidden desires underground into the
unconscious. This is not a place that was ready and waiting to receive such desire, it is opened up by this act of
primary repression. If the boy is unable to overcome the Oedipus complex successfully, he may privilege the image
of his mother above all other women, which for Freud may lead to homosexuality. The girl, perceiving that he is
inferior because castrated turns from her similarly castrated mother to the project of seducing her father. But since
this project is doomed, she must turn back to her mother, identify with her, assume her feminine gender role and
consciously substitute for the penis she envies but can never possess a baby, which she desires to receive from the
father. Oedipus complex is a structure of relations by which we come to be the men and women that we are. It
signals the tradition from the pleasure principle to the reality principle, from the enclosure of the family to society at
large, from nature to culture. For Freud, the Oedipus complex is the beginnings of morality, conscience, law and all
norms of social and religious authority. By the prohibition of incest, the child begins to form what Freud calls
superego- the voice of conscience. The human subject who emerges from the Oedipal process is a split subject,
torn between conscious- ego (or individual identity) and unconscious- the place of guilty desires. The royal road to
the unconscious is dream. They are for Freud symbolic fulfillments of unconscious wishes and they are cast in the
symbolic forms. This constant condensation and displacement of meaning is what R. Jakobson identified as the 2
primary operations of human language- 1. metaphor (condensing meanings together) and 2. metonymy (displacing
one on to another). Dreams provide our main but only access to the unconscious. There are slips of the tongue,
failure of memory, misreading, even in jokes. We may have certain unconscious desires which will not be denied
and force its way in from the unconscious, the ego blocks it off defensively and the result of this internal conflict is
neurosis (obssessional, hysterical or phobic). Freud calls the Oedipus complex the nucleus of neurosis. The aim of
psychoanalysis is to uncover the hidden causes of the neurosis. In psychosis, ego unable to repress the
unconscious desire comes under its way. The link between ego and the external world is then ruptured, and the
unconscious begins to build up a delusional reality (paranoia and schizophrenia). The cure for Freudian theory is
what is known as transference- the ascribing to others of feelings and wishes which are actually our own. The
work of psychoanalysis may be summarized in Freuds slogan: where id was, there shall ego be (id- unconscious
desires, ego- reason, self-mastery). In his later work, the final goal of life is death, a return to that blissful inanimate
state where the ego cannot be injured. Freuds compassion for the ego is a compassion for the human race,
laboring under the intolerable demands placed upon it by a civilization built upon the repression of desire. Erossexual energy, Thanatos- death drive. His theory has been greatly criticized by feminists because of his view of
women as narcisstic, masochistic, penis-envying. Psychoanalysis as a medical practice is a form of oppressive
social control, labeling individuals and forcing them to confirm to definitions of normality. Then, that he brings
everything down to sex, his thinking is individualist. Layers of human psyche: 1. id- the reservoir of guilty desires,
forcing us to do things which ego forbids; 2. ego- desiring to satisfy demands of superego, trying to reconcile the
oppositions, drives of id and superego; 3. superego- internalized principle of reality which forbids the gratification of
guilty desires.

Freud
A man is an exile from the Garden of Eden. Like Strauss, he believed that there was a time when man did enjoy
blissful identity with nature. Those periods refer to the first periods of development when man was not conscious.
The prenatal period and the first few months of the childs life, the child enjoys unity with the mothers body and is
not aware of the difference between his and mothers body. We are completely merged in the world around us and
there is an absolute reign of pleasure principle- oceanic feeling. But in order to become a social being, the child
must renounce the pleasure principle, separate from it and experience the world as the other- accept the reality
principle. And the agent for this is the father who faces upon the child the incest taboo by the threat of castration.
What happens is that the desire for the mother (natural reality) is repressed. Repression is a condition of
individuality, but it also brings about the split in man. That is why we are unhappy. Our unhappiness can be
observed in our fantasies.
Frye vs. Freud
Frye- art is a dream for waking minds. But this dream is not shameful, guilty desire; it is reconstructive, a source of
new possibilities because it is an origin of a new kind of reality that we are able to make in order to change the
reality which is man-made. Reality is not absolute. From desire, new societies emerge.
Freud- reality principle is given, and cannot be changed. So, desire is just an escape, illusion and is inferior and
must be overcome by going back to reality, which is a sign of an adult, healthy mind. Art is a substitute gratification
and man is doomed to be unhappy, and finally man desires to die, to become one with the mother. Freuds
conception of the self is based on binary opposites: reality/fantasy, ego/id, conscious/unconscious, father/mother.
We are supposed to master our drives, not to use them for creation. His concept of individuation is a matter of
mans liberation from the natural world and the biological impulses inherent in his organism.
Lacan
He is the French psychoanalyst who tried to apply the linguistic model to the study of human soul. He rewrites
Freudian theory as to relate it to language. For Lacan, no knowledge about oneself is possible. For him the start
and the end of the analysis is that we recognize that we are completely ruled by the law of the father- the cultureand there is no escape. We have no desires of our own, we want what others want and because they want it. The
real identity starts with death. The phase which Freud calls pre-Oedipal, Lacan calls imaginary- a condition in
which we lack any definite centre of the self and the child feels the complete unity with the mothers body. It doesnt
experience itself as a separate subject. The whole external reality is presented to him through the mothers body
and the child doesnt feel separate from her. Next phase is according to Lacan the mirror-stage- there is a blurring
of subject and object. The childs first development of an ego begins to happen, a process of constructing the centre
of the self. This self is essentially narcisstic: we arrive at the sense of I by finding that I reflected back to ourselves
by some object or person in the world. This object is at once somehow a part of us- we identify with it, and yet not
ourselves, somehow alien. This phase can be called metaphorical because the child compares itself to all the
images. This is a world of plentitude. This harmonious state is disrupted when the child becomes aware of the
father. The father signifies what Lacan calls the law- the childs first awareness of the social laws- incest
prohibition- the child cannot have its mother for a lower. The child represses his guilt desire- what is called
unconscious. Lacan claims that once the child realizes that its identity is separated from the mothers, it will never
again have the access to reality. The child also becomes aware of the difference between his own identity and the
one of the mother. It becomes aware of the absence, it can no longer desire the mothers body; it is pushed into the
unconscious. In this way the childs social and sexual identity are defined by exclusion and absence. This
psychological process coincides with the acquisition of language. Because the child can no longer feel that it
possesses the whole world through mothers body, it now accepts language as a substitute. Pre-Oedipal phase is a
phase of wordless possession. Lacan rewrites this process of the childs socialization (Oedipus complex) in terms of
language. The child contemplating itself in the mirror- a signifier, and the image the child sees in the mirror- a
signified. The relation between the signifier and the signified is a harmonious one as in Sausserean sign, no gap
between subject and world. However, with the entry of the father the child is plunged into post-structuralist anxiety.
Identities come about only as a result of differences- that one term or subject is what it is only by excluding mother.
So, in gaining access to language, the small child unconsciously learns that a sign has meaning only by its
difference from other signs, and learns also that a sign presupposes the absence of the object it signifies. In

accepting all this, the child moves from imaginary to the symbolic order- the pre-given structure of social and
sexual roles and relations which make up the family and society (successful passage through the Oedipus
complex). This potentially endless movement from one signifier to another is what Lacan calls desire. Lacan
regards the unconscious as structured like a language. The unconscious is a continual movement and activity of
signifiers, whose signifieds are often inaccessible because they are repressed. For Lacan, the unconscious is rather
outside than within us. Language always pre-exists in us; it is always already in place, waiting to assign us our
places within it. We shall never wholly dominate it or subdue it to our own ends. Language, the unconscious, the
parents, the symbolic order are the terms which are, in Lacan, allied- the other- that which are language is always
anterior to us and will always escape us, that which brought us into being as subjects in the first place but which
always outruns our grasp. Just like Freud, who sees no alternative to our civilization, Lacan also sees no alternative
to the symbolic order. We have to enter language and accept that we no longer have a direct access to reality. We
have to enter the symbolic order- The Cool Web.
Kristeva
She is a French feminist. She criticizes Lacans symbolic order and says that in reality it is the patriarchal, sexual
and social order and the law covering this order is the fathers law. This is how the patriarchal society
conceptualizes men and women. As an alternative, she suggests semiotics. She means by this a pattern or play of
force which we can detect inside language, and which represent a sort of the residue of the pre-Oedipal phase. This
phase is bound up with the childs contact with the mothers body, the original sense of unity and semiotic is thus
closely connected with femininity. Semiotic takes pleasure in destroying the signs with precise, stable, fixed
meanings on which male, patriarchal society relies for its power. Literature becomes a kind of equivalent in the
realm of language to revolution in the sphere of politics. The semiotic is a bisexual form of writing (no clear division
between masculine and feminine) and offers to deconstruct binary oppositions. James Joyce as well as V. Woolf
exemplify Kristevas theory- fluid, diffuse, sensuous style offers a resistance to the patriarchal world dominated by
abstract truths, sharp divisions and fixed essence. Semiotic is a process within our conventional sign-system which
questions and transgresses their limits. Women are represented within male-governed society, fixed by sign, image
meaning, yet because they are also the negative of that social order there is always in them sth which is left over,
unrepresentable. The feminine signifies a force within society which opposes it, and this has its obvious political
implication in the form of the womens movement. The message of the womens movement is not just that women
should have equality of power and status with men, it is a questioning of all such power and status. Kristeva starts
her theory with a presumption that the separation between the child and the mother is not complete and that the
baby preserves in its body the instinctual, pre-linguistic knowledge which manifests itself as a flow in the
consciousness of the child which precedes language. When language appears, the flow is dropped. Kristeva claims
that the notion of the oceanic oneness still remains in some way. It can still be discerned in some physical features
of the language- tone, rhythm, physical qualities of certain sounds. The semiotic doesnt exist separately from the
symbolic language but operates within it and manifests itself as silence, ambiguity, absence, contradictions,
metaphors, paradoxes. This layer in language (body language- semiotic) has the function to renew the language of
the father law which is otherwise separated from the natural world and would become a sort of madness. The
speech of the body is not exclusive to women. It is possible to discern it in works of male authors as well, especially
because it is related to the pre-Oedipal stage in which there is no distinction of gender. The point of Keistevas
criticism of Lacan can be explained by comparing it to the difference between Freud and Jung. For Freud, the
desire for the mothers body is wrong because it is incestuous. It has to be suppressed in order to create
civilization. For Jung, what we desire is not the mother but what the mother symbolically stands for- the sensual,
irrational, emotions, imagination, unconsciousness, intuition, instinct- one whole aspect of our beings. Kristeva
claims that through semiotic we have contact with this. As for Jung, for Kristeva there are no gender barriers. She
presupposes that both men and women are damaged by the patriarchal society and that they both think of a vision
of a better kind of life.
Lacan & Kristeva(2)
The most important point about Lacan is that he relates Freuds theory to language. The Oedipal phase- the
moment child becomes aware of the father- pre-oedipal phase Lacan calls imaginary. He also refers to it as the
mirror stage. At this stage the child feels unity with the mother body and doesnt have a clear notion of its own ego,
personality. There is no clear distinction between the child and the mother in the childs consciousness and between

child and anything else in external reality. There is this blurring of child and any other object of external reality.
Mirror stage- the child seems to see the reflection of itself on everything else. Lacan also calls it metaphorical
world. The child sees the metaphor for himself in everything around. The external reality is primarily defined
through the mothers body. For Freud the fathers law- the incestual desire, for Lacan it is the entrance/ entry to the
symbolic order. Symbolic order means that the child has no direct connection with the mothers body. Its no longer
one with the mother
When the child leaves the mothers body it enters the symbolic order. These sexual differences happen
simultaneously- the differences in gender, language, social identity. Language is connected with the Oedipus stage
in which we have a kind of wordless possession. We feel that we possess the whole world. 2 nd phase- language
appears to fill the gap. We use language to fill the gap. For Lacan it is the only possible way- you either enter
symbolic order or become a neurotic. There is no alternative.
Kristeva- pre-oedipal- semiotic. When we felt oneness with the reality in general (oceanic oneness) we dont
speak, do not use language. Kristeva explains our conscience in this period as a sort of flow. She calls it semiotic
flow. She is more hopeful than Lacan. She says that throughout life something of semiotic flow still remains. It is not
completely lost to us. Semiotic flow is present in the physical elements of speech (rhythm, stress, the parts of body
that you use when you talk). Semiotic is in a way subversive. It tends to subvert the binary opposition which the
culture lives by.
FEMINISM
There are two kinds of feminisms:
1. Essentialism- Essentialists are perhaps more political. They talk about oppression, social injustice,
consciousness, position in society. What they offer to us is prescription for action. Gender as a set of essential
qualities- Showalter, Rich.
2. Constructionism- Kristeva belongs to constructionism. She is looking for a feminine as a quality which can be
discerned in the works of both male and female authors. Feminine is a part of both male and female psyche.
Constructionists are concerned with repression, that which is in the subconscious. Instead of offering prescription
for action, they talk about inscription in culture. They are looking for the way in which this feminine, subversive,
semiotic has left a trace in writing, culture. Gender as a cultural construct.
FEMINISM(2)
How does feminism relate to the central question- what is literature? Is the ideology manifested in literature or is it
the ideological identity questioned and developed? Feminism is not homogenous- various approaches reduced to 2
basic movements. They are associated with America & England on one hand and with France on the other. Literal
criticism is different from French criticism. In order to make a distinction well have to ask what is feminine. The
whole point is what is feminine. There are different answers from these 2 schools. Feminism is a movement which
criticizes patriarchy. Women for Anglo- American tradition- they are simply persons of female sex. In their criticism
they speak about this person who has to fight for the freedom. The text is feminine; it is defined by the sex of the
author. Not so with French feminists, more recent thinkers who rely on Derrida, psycho-analyst Lacan. They dont
speak about biological and social women but womanhood of femaleness. They are concerned with the sexuality of
the text. It represents a certain type of speech, uttered/ written whether by man or woman- a kind of story not
completely in control of itself. In any narrative there is sth repressed in the text, sth unspoken. You might call it the
non-knowledge of itself- the presence of sth which is absent in the story. This according to them is automatically
feminine. What is this repressed element? What the text cannot control? According Kristeva this element is a
residue of Lacans imaginary. Lacan based his writing on Freud. Lacan is reworking the whole French theory. The
first period of life is demic the child enjoys uninterrupting oneness with the mother. There is no I and non-I. This
is the pre-oedipal period which Lacan calls imaginary. The father must appear breaking the ideal; prohibit the desire
for the mother. The child identifies with the father and becomes social being. This Oedipal crisis coincides with the
acquisition of language. In Lacan terms the child passes from the sphere of imaginary (speechless) into social order
which Lacan calls the symbolic register marked by emptiness, lack. It is that moment that language becomes a
surrogate, substitute for what the child has lost. Language- symbolic- the dance of signifier. Language is motivated
by the desire- can never be fulfilled. We are left with the empty signifier. Lacan rewrites Decart- I think where I am
not; and I am where I dont think. Yet, says Lacan, whoever doesnt enter the symbolic language is doomed, he
becomes a psychotic. We live beyond ambitions- cant get to the real thing. For Freud the desire for mother is there,

deep in a man. Lacan destroyed it- that deep is usurped by the speech of the other, by the name/ law of the fatherthere is no choice in culture. This is not for Kristeva, too. French feminists- she stood up against the symbolic order.
Kristeva stood up against Lacan. She based her work on his ideas but she says if you enter symbolic order and
repress the imaginary, the residue of the memory of the mother, you become psychotic. Delirium- all memories of
the mother, all that is not logic. In order for the person or society not to lose itself in the delirium this language must
be renewed. What renews it is a semiotic flow, a phenomenon which derives from the imaginary. Unlike Lacan who
says that we should repress it, she says it is not possible completely. If it is completely repressed we become
deliric. This incompleteness of the repressiveness manifests itself in the kind of speech. That is the speech of the
body- it manifests in the physical properties of the language. Not only those properties constitute the semiotics but
also ambiguity, silence, meaninglessness. This is the meaninglessness from the point of logic discourse- the
discourse of power. It undermines the (ISO- valjda) on which particular society relies on. For Kristeva man and
woman are not contrasted- in the 1 st phase the differences between sexes dont appear. The remnant of the
imaginary is the birth right for both sexes. Id doesnt associate writing with the sex of the author.
Anglo-American movement. Kristeva sums up what is the best in the French criticism. It doesnt focus only on
female or male writing (Joyce). Anglo- American feminism associates writing exclusively with the sex of the author.
E. Showalter- Toward a Feminist Poetic
She makes a difference between 2 kinds of feminist criticism:
1. Feminist critique which is concerned with a woman as a reader, as the consumer of male-produced literature.
Woman as a reader reads the works of the important, canonized male authors and she looks for the way in which
woman is represented in these writings. She points out misconceptions, stereotypes, ideas that the man who wrote
had about women and the ways of exploitation and manipulation of the female audience. The misconceptions of the
whole society are reflected in these works. The problem of this criticism is that it is male-oriented. We study the
sexism of male critics, we are not learning what women have felt and experienced. The criticism has also a
tendency to naturalize womens victimization.
2. Gynocritique is concerned with woman as a writer, as the producer of textual meanings with female creativity,
language. The question is whether there are certain themes, imagery, some characteristics of language which can
be seen especially in the works of the female authors. This is often related to a certain historical or cultural period.
In the Victorian period, in many works of female authors there appeared the image of a bird, or a bird in the cage.
This was probably the expression of how women felt confined by the culture. This kind of criticism is not fixed at
male literature but wants to construct a female framework for the analysis of womens literature to develop new
models based on the study of female experience, rather than to adopt male models and themes.
As Showalter observes the development of female writing, she distinguishes 3 historical phases:
1. The Feminine Phase (1840-1880)- Women wrote in an effort to equal the intellectual achievements of the male
culture and internalize its assumption about female nature. They imitated the system of thought. The distinguishing
sign of this phase is the male pseudonym. The content of feminine art is oblique, displaced, ironic, subversive.
2. The Feminist Phase (1880-1920_- The winning of the vote. Women are enabled to reject the accommodating
postures of femininity and to use literature to dramatize the ordeals of wronged womanhood, about all the injustices
which the women suffer in the patriarchal society. These two phases are dependant ones. Either the women imitate
the culture or protest against it, they are dependant on it in the same way.
3. The Female Phase (biological), (1920 onwards) is marked by the independence. The women turn to female
experiences as the source of an autonomous art. In this phase, authors such as V. Woolf, look for a specifically
feminine approach to language and to the writing process in general.
Masculine and feminine trends in criticism:
Deconstruction- typically male, scientific, objective, impersonal and it tries to use the tools similar to natural
sciences. We encounter very strict, scientific terminology- form, structure.
Female criticism should oppose this and it should focus on experience. The task of feminist critics is to find a new
language, a new way of reading that can integrate our experience and our intelligence, our reason and our
suffering.
Gilbert & Gubar

The theory of author- Creativity is strived only to men. In the patriarchal society only man can be creative. Art is a
property of a man. There is a close connection between the authority (God, father) and the author. Each writer is
like a masculine God who has power. Women are not supposed to be creative. Woman is a muse, a model. She
just inspires male author to create but she herself is not creative.
The Mad Woman in the Attic
Is a pen a metaphorical penis? Is there a connection between the sexual energy and the energy which informs the
work a masculine writer? Hopkins seems to have thought so. According to him, a crucial feature of his theory of
poetry is a kind of male gift and especially marks off men from women- the male quality is the creative gift. Male
sexuality is not just analogically but actually the essence of literary power. The patriarchal notion that the writer
fathers his text just as God fathered the world is and has been all pervasive in Western literary civilization, so
much so that the metaphor is built into the very word author with which writer, deity and father are identified. The
word author is also related to the word authority- the master- the author holds sway over his work. At the same
time this is related to the authority of a father in a family, and God the Father. Just like there is the notion in the
patriarchal religion that God the Father is the sole creator of the universe, the writer is the kind of a lesser God.
Underneath all these is the imagery of succession of paternity and hierarchy. Male authors through centuries have
felt that creativity is sth essentially masculine, seems to be an exclusive right of men. Women in this system of
ideas are denied any creative power, even in creating a child. In patriarchal Western society, the texts author is a
father, a procreator, an aesthetic patriarch whose pen is an instrument of generative power, like his penis. More, his
pens power, like his peniss power is not just an ability to generate life but the power to create a posterity which he
lays claim. The author/father is the owner of his text and his readers attention; he is also owner/possessor of the
subjects of his text, that is to say of those figures, scenes, events. Thus, because he is an author, a man of letters
is, like his divine counterpart, a father, a master, a ruler and an owner- the spiritual type of a patriarch. What if such
a profoundly masculine cosmic Author is the sole legitimate model for all earthly authors? Or, what if the male
generative power is not just the only legitimate power but the only power there is? Writing, reading, thinking are by
definition male activities and as such are alien to female characteristics. Female sexuality is associated with the
absence of literary power- woman has no share in ontological reality- women exist only to be acted on by men, both
as literary and as sensual objects. Woman is seen as a vessel. Her role is passive; an empty container in which
mans child actually grows. Anne Finch explores Weiningers assumptions in her poem which criticizes the idea that
women are passive, that they have no creative powers and that they can only serve as an inspiration for mans art.
Finch says that all females are Cyphers- nullities, vacancies- existing to increase male Numbers (either poems
or persons) by pleasuring either mans bodies or their minds, their penises or their pens. In both cases, women are
given passive roles. The notion is that women are here to be acted on by men.
This concept has also been criticized by Ibsen. He wrote a play When we dead awaken- there is an artist who
meets Irene, falls in love but they dont proceed to make a full meaningful relationship but they decide to make a
work of art. She is a model; he doesnt pay attention to her emotional nature and uses her as a raw material. She is
an accomplice, part of ideology. They are supposed to make a sculpture Resurrection. However, instead of this
rebirth that should appear in transformation, it seems that they wasted human energy, used her as a model
displaying a devouring ego. When the sculpture was complete, they separated. This was disappointing for her.
Throughout their lives they continued living like ghosts; they wasted their potentials for meaningful life. They go to
the mountain and die. This is the wrong concept of egoistic masculine writer and the women depraved of creative
powers.
G&G quote James Joyce. In his poem Ulysses he says that paternity is a legal fiction, a story requiring
imagination is not faith. A man cannot verify his fatherhood by either sense or reason. That this child is his is in a
sense a tale he tells himself to explain the infants existence. A woman doesnt need this because the child grows
within her. For the father, there is always a sense of anxiety, a little bit of doubt. The whole patriarchal society is
based on this little fiction.
Adrienne Rich
When we dead awaken
(She loses touch with herself. She couldnt write anymore- the problem of discontinuity in womens life. She says- a
kind of work undone by others- the need of little children. The 2 nd reason is fatigue. She doesnt feel energy
anymore. Discontinuity is a problem. Why? Creative writing vs. fantasy- imagination is active unlike day-dreaming.

For a poem to be created the author needs attention. The need to be sustained. The other thing- living in a
marriage is conservative. Why? A writer should challenge, question everything. You have to be free to play with all
the terms. If you are conservative you are not free to do that. A. Rich- women have to find a way to be able to do
both- the energy of creation and relation. We have to unite these two energies.)
Her essay is a lecture which we feel worldwide and not personally. She is aware that there is just a very small
portion of women who achieved some kind of anticipation, and patriarchal culture cherishes this small portion of
them. She starts thinking about her own life and development of the poet. She says she read a lot of male poets as
a student but she also said its just form and style that she adopted. She says we can express sth we dont
consciously know that we express. She wants to prove herself as a full female life. She got married and by the age
of 30 had 3 sons. In 1950 the family was glorified. She published another book but there was a feeling of
discontent. She tries to be a good wife and a mother but she says she no longer feels this unity of being. She feels
a great fatigue- the thinking process is interrupted by small chores. The fatigue is the consequence of not being in
touch with herself. She tries to find the reason. All people have day-dreams, fantasies. Fantasies are passive.
They are not sth we have to act upon. As opposed to this there is the transformative process of imagination and this
has to be very active. Its important to be able to think in continuity, in long stretches of time, to be able to focus on
inner processes. Another point she makes is the function of imagination. It is to be subversive. The poet using the
imagination has to be able to turn everything upside-down. In the process of writing sth has to be sacred. The poet
must feel free to examine and question every concept- so the day may be night and love might be hate. This
subversive way of thinking is contrasted, is very incompatible with a conservative marriage. To live with a husband
and children in an old-fashioned way doesnt allow you to have imagination subversively. Its confusing. This is why
she says writing is renewing because the author should be enabled to name everything differently. However, she
says marriage life and authors life must not be opposed. A. Rich is looking for a way in which her love for her
husband, children, family and the energy which she invests in this relation can be united with the energy of creation.
She says she doesnt want to be a devouring ego. This emotion for family, children can be used as a source of
writing. In the essay she quotes a poem Orion- constellation representing a warrior with a sword. She sees Orion
as a symbol of her creative personality, the principle of imagination. She also calls him a half-brother. In this poem
she examines this egotistic urge in her, the need to be ambitious, to create, to make achievements. In a way, its
like the imaginative principle in her is masculine. She says throughout the patriarchal culture there has always been
this division- women have always been supposed to be altruistic, to sacrifice themselves for the family. Their goal,
destiny in life was this motherly altruistic love. On the other hand, the desirable destiny for man throughout
patriarchy has always been to be ambitious and creative. In a word, they were allowed and encouraged to be
egotistic. A. Rich says this division is very wrong. She says she will not accept this concept of an egotistic artist who
is unavailable to others, because she says this is the concept of the patriarchal structure. This is why she says that
the very word love is in need of revision

DRAMA
Henrik Ibsen
Modern drama in England and everywhere in Europe begins with Ibsen. An open quarrel with the culture- the
defying feature of the modern drama- for the spiritual salvation, salvation which is a matter of freeing oneself from
the constraints of bourgeoisie respectability. For this purpose a bourgeois artist opens a quarrel initiated by Ibsen.
Joyce wrote a letter to Ibsen expressing his admiration for spiritual salvation. Ibsen starts this war with his
naturalistic plays. His first nature plays are his greatest. Setting is remote in place and time. The themes, setting is
placed in a space/place remote and they are treated in a manner that is unnaturalistic. Brand- Ibsens works
possess a unity. There are several themes. One of them is the chain of vacation- mans duty to become what he
really is- the fulfillment of the self. In Brand- the protagonist is summed to reform the society so that every individual
can be whole. How to achieve self-fulfillment in context? Barrier which prevents it Ibsen calls inherity debt- a kind
of sin but not an individual. A notion of the self is what we inherit. In most of his plays the end is tragic or
contradictory. Why is it difficult to fulfill yourself? Why are we all born to be exiled from the sun? A kind of
illumination comes at a tremendous crise(?) Peer Gynt. He is prevented from self-fulfillment- examination of culture

in terms of patriarchal culture. In Gynt the plot is a kind of fairy-tale. Characters are archetypal, non-realistic. A
young man who lives in a village is disliked by all the lads there. He possess sth that attracts all the girls. But he
becomes disliked by men. During a festival a shy girl- he sees that she is her self-fulfillment. Sth happens. At one
point one of her gestures was misinterpreted, he undergoes a demonic initiation. In order to become one of them
(like an animal), he spends a night with a green woman, dances with them. He adopted their main principle- to
thyself be enough (troll principle). The manifestation of this principle is shown immediately- he finds out that he
cannot. Using this freedom he becomes successful- requires money, reputation- except the feeling that he is an
authentic human being. Patriarchal principle- self-sufficiency. In the end he is a broken man. He met 2 persons: the
devil and a personage- button molder. Everybody accuses him of not being truly himself. The self is not what he
thinks he is. You should be a button on the coat of the world (able to be attached to other people), but the loop is
wrong. He managed to postpone this molding process. He approaches his native place and comes across a hut(?).
He cannot at first recognize her. Then she says she is happy but he says I am broken man. I have never been
whole. She says he is a whole in her hope, love and faith. He comes home finally. Only her love can restore
wholeness in him.
New Testament: if you gained the whole world, but lost yourself
Lawrence: IT- one is truly free when one listens to the inner voice.
Eliot: transhumanization from selfish self to genuine self- we think of the ray.
Jung: individuation- journey from ego to self; self-mystical center of being; unity with mankind; lifes higher calling.
Shadow: the dark, morally inferior side of ego.
Anima: mans guide to the self.
Peer Gynt: fantasy- escape from unbearable reality, but also from lifes higher calling.
ASE: fairy tales as defense.
Fantasy eventually leads to the reversal of reality (black/white, ugly/fair): trolls: to thyself be enough, indulge in
ones lowest urges.
Boyg, brat and hag: shadow created by thoughts and desires.
Go round about- evade conscience.
soria-moria castle
Gynts kinsman in spirit: peasant Goy who runs away from lifes higher calling.
Solveig: The path I have trodden leads back nevermore.
Gynt: choice-free foot.
The dangerous viper- a point beyond retreat.
The Gyntish self: ego lost of wishes, appetites, desires.
Lunatics and the self confinement of each egotistic self, selfhoods taiser.
Marriage- also not the way to transcend ego- the ship.
Gynt peeling an onion: layers of persona.
The Button Moulder- you were designed for a shining button of the vest of the world, but your god gave (?).
To be oneself is to slay oneself, it is to stand forth everywhere with masters intention displayed like a sign board.
Peer Gynt
In some part of the play Peer Gynt remembers the sentence from New Testament. This is the crucial point of the
play- what is the path of
Lawrence: IT- whole man alive, complete human being including all components of the human nature. He also says
that this is the deepest self in man. Just when the flock of birds flies in a certain direction. They are acting in
accordance with their inner nature. Man has to find what is his inner nature. Real freedom is to make any choice
you want. In fact we are not the marvelous choosers and deciders that we think we are. There is inner life flow (this
IT) which chooses and decides. We are really free only when we act in accordance with this IT, with this core of our
inner being.
T.S.Eliot: distinguishing between two forms:
1. selfish self, egoistic self- concerned with its own interests, gains, fulfillment of his own egoistic desire. The higher
purpose of life according to Eliot is transhumanization- to transcend the boundaries of ones isolated ego and reach
the 2. genuine self- which is related to the whole mankind.
The key word in Eliot is surrender- how to surrender your selfish desires to sth higher; to become selfless. For Eliot,
this sth higher is divine love or the divine plan.

Fromm: self vs. self-interest (he is not religious). Society often criticizes us if we pursue our self interest. However,
it is important to distinguish between self and self-interest. Self means satisfying selfish desire. From says that
thinking about our own needs is not going to make us happy, it is not really in our best self-interest. What is really in
each persons best self-interest is to develop the most important human faculties: productivity, creativity, capacity to
love and faculty for right human relationship.
The whole play Peer Gynt can also be interpreted in terms of Jungian notion of individuation. Jung talks about this
journey from Ego to Self (same as Eliot- selfish to genuine self).
What is characteristic of Jung is that the purpose hidden in deepest self cannot be rendered in theory, cannot be
described in words because it is sth specific for each individual. The self is defined by Jung as the totality
(conscious+ unconscious portion of our being) and mystical center of this totality. The experiences related with the
center are timelessness, spacelessness and also the feeling of unity with the entire mankind. From the innermostself, inner master comes a kind of guidance in life.
When a man gets in touch with his deepest self he realizes what is his highest calling.
Jung says that the first thing you meet on the journey of your individuation is your shadow- dark, inferior,
suppressed, hidden portion of our ego. This is where most people stop. Once they are faced with this dark part of
themselves, they give up. They cannot face this dark portion, shadow directly, so they try to evade it, to go round
about.
This is what happened to Peer Gynt. His whole life he is trying to evade facing the shadow by going round about.
He is also trying to evade the voice of the deepest self. He doesnt want to hear his lifes higher call. His grandfather
was very rich, but his grandfather and father spent their fortune. Peer Gynt faced with death and the feeling of
material insecurity. His mother tries to protect him from this unbearable reality by telling him fairy-tales. This was a
sort of an escape into the fantasy world. But when Peer grew up, he used this as a principle to escape reality. He
became the devils story teller. He invented fantastic stories. The first idea Peer has is to evade reality. So, we can
admire his capacity for day dreaming. Peer carries fantasy so far to such an extent that eventually it leads him to
the reversal of reality. He meets this troll maiden dressed in green. Fantasy was carried so far that you can see the
opposite of reality. The other trolls also stand for egotism. Trolls message: to yourself be enough. This is the
message that trolls consider their most important message. The trolls also stand for ones lowest, animal urges,
indulging in ones bestial instincts. But he wanted to keep his human sight, human vision. But the next scene when
he is middle-aged, he wears eye-glasses- an indication that he didnt manage to keep, preserve his human vision
(ipak je postao troll). Peer has this encounter with Boyg, a symbol of shadow: I will not fight but I will conquer,
without force I will conquer. Boyg is very threatening. He keeps saying to Peer: go round about, you cannot go
through me. This is Peers dark side, the reality that he cannot face. It is not just evading the rules of society, social
reality, it is also evading ones own consciousness, evading to see ones self, evading the truth about oneself. The
scene when his mother is dying and is asking for a book and he brings her to the world of fantasy. He has a need to
escape facing suffering, duty, consciousness. Anima- a kind of an archetypal figure which can serve as a guide to
the deepest self and a guide to wholeness and completeness. It is anima for men and Animus- male element in
female psyche. Hieros-gamos- the holly marriage- the joining of a woman and a man should lead to psychic
wholeness. A character Solveigh is symbolically his anima. Solveigh is Peers guide to his deepest self. In his
encounter with Solveigh, Peer realizes what complete self realization would be. Through his fulfilling, true loving
relation with Solveigh, he would be able to reach his deepest self. She is at the entrance of the hut, but between
them there was a hag and an ugly child (troll maiden), and she says that that is his child, he made it. but he cannot
face the ugly part of himself and he goes round about.
Next act- Peer is traveling around the world and experiencing some events. All these events serve to gratify his ego.
He becomes a merchant, scientist, slave-owner. All the time he is very proud that he is always being himself. He
calls it the Gyntish self. We have this Lawrentian idea: he thinks he is free, he is himself, free to do whatever he
likes, but he really escapes from his deepest self, from IT (according to D.H.Lawrence). Throughout his life, Peer is
always afraid that he would reach the point of no return; he will do sth after which the retreat is not possible. He
calls it the dangerous vapor, which makes you do sth irretrievable. Through his life, we see Peer doing sth
opposite that somehow neutralize his acts of moral corruption. His idea of life is always to preserve a choice free
foot. He wants to remain at the point in which he could fantasize about various things, but he would never do
anything. On one side this is good because it preserves him from doing some bad things. But on the other hand, not
going beyond the point of no return prevents him from transcending his selfish self. He doesnt want to change

drastically, he remains in this closed ideal. You can compare it with Solveigh who goes beyond the point of no return
because of her great love for Peer. She says: The path I have trodden leads back no more. This is sth that Peer
cannot do. There is a parallel between Peer and a young peasant (kralj sakuplja vojsku a mladi seljak isece sebi
prst da ne bi isao u vojsku). It was a sort of demand, a call to do sth for others, for your country, a demand to
transcend your personal interest and serve sth higher (according to Ibsen). In this peasant we have a character who
runs away from the lifes higher calling. Peer hears about him again at the end of the play. But this peasant is dead
and the preacher is giving a sermon (he was a good father, he took them to school over the rock, he was sacrificed,
he took care of himself and his own). But the notion of his own was quite narrowly defined, just his closest family.
Ibsen wants to point out that conventional marriage is not the way to transcend ones own ego. You are not willing
to sacrifice yourself for a stranger. (na brodu svakog ceka neko a Gynt-a niko. Zaboravio je na Solveigh. Niko od
mornara na brodu ne pomaze davljenicima/ strancima jer imaju zenu I decu- own responsibility and love). At one
point Peer is pronounced the king of lunatics- the Selfhood Kaiser. The lunatics symbolize people who have
become egoistic to the extreme, focused on themselves to the utmost point. They symbolize total confinement of
each egoistic self. Man is so confined in his ego that he cannot longer encounter reality. (We think of the key, each
in this prison, thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.- T.S.Eliot, Wasteland). In the final act we see Peer, who
has lost everything, is an old man. He is in a forest, he looks for sth to eat and he finds an onion. now I am this
onion, which each layer of the onion he removes, his layers of ego. He peels one persona after another, peels his
masks, roles he had. Persona- the mask that acts individually. He strips all layers, all personas, but in the centre
there is nothing. Near the end of his life he encounters the Button Moulder. The Button Moulder explains to him that
a man who did sth very bad goes to hell and destroying to heaven, but the rest of the people should be moulded
again and reshaped. Moulder says to Peer that he is going to be melted again because he has not pursued his lifes
highest calling. Peer didnt live his life in accordance with his inner desire. He was never really himself. The Moulder
says to him:you were supposed to stay your selfish self and to divine your masters intention- a notion that we
have some inner divinity, inner master. Peer wes never himself, but lived like a troll. (peer pokusava da dokaze da
on ne treba da bude istopljen, ne pokusava da se nagodi sa djavolom da ga primi u pakao). Finally, he finds
Solveigh and in her he finds his real, inner self. Solveigh was aware of his most valuable notions, of his inner self,
and was simply waiting for these highest values to fall to the floor. He asks: where was I as a whole man, a true
man? Solveigh: in my faith, in my hope and in my love.
(excerpts)
Ase (tossing about her arms): all things are against mein his head
Ase is Peers mother. She is a good mother and she loves her son. She is worried for him, she cannot bare to lose
him. She describes Peer as a lazy person who runs away from duties or daily life. He doesnt want obligations.
Whos sole strength was the strength of his jaw. He has the great capacity to fantasize, he likes to invent stories,
to imagine. The reality in his childhood was unbearable. His father died and it was a sad reality. His mother tried to
comfort him by telling him fairy-tales, a sort of defense from unbearable reality.
Ay, but stop, my ladat his rear
Peer finds himself in the realm of mountain trolls, and he wants to court the troll kings daughter. But he must fulfill
some conditions (he must be in the realm of fantasy. The valley is the place where people dwell, and Peer goes
beyond that to the mountains and the fantasy realm. The realm of light may be action and reason.) The troll king
asks him whether he perceives some difference between trolls and men. Peer says that there is no difference. One
man would roast another- he points out there is a good deal of bestial in man. Man often succumbs to his lowest,
basic urges and instincts. But the troll king says there is a difference. Men say be thyself, whereas the saying in
the troll world goes to thyself be enough. The principle of the trolls is egoistical, they dont care about others, and
never indulge in empathy. Be thyself invites men to find out what their true nature is, and to live in accordance with
it. Peer must also obtain a tail in order to court the troll maiden. The trolls want Peer to succumb to his bestial
instincts, without humanizing them in any way. The trolls symbolize bestiality, egoism, and unredeemed animal
nature.
My kings daughterpathless wood
The troll maiden was turned into an ugly witch (and an ugly brat with her). They represent his debt in life and they
came to remind him of his mistakes. They came as a sort of an image of his shadows- woman/brat. These are his
sins that he has to face. She will become beautiful again if Peer forgets Solveig. The love with her represents his
higher potentials and also he should forget these potentials and remain in his realm of dreams and fantasy-

irresponsible realm. Because of the thoughts and desires, Peer deserves his curse. And the two figures are his
thoughts and desires. He lived in the realms where he indulged in the lowest desires. There are two possibilities for
him: 1. to go straight, 2. to go round about. 1 st means that he should realize his mistakes, but he doesnt know how
to do that. He had to face his transgression, confess to Solveig and to himself his past life/deeds, his past love
advantage and to repent. If he ever knew and had his concept of repentance, he has forgotten about it.
We, Northlandchildhoods home
Irretrievable- dangerous viper- when you cant go back. One should always be able to go back. Peer praises this as
a kind of courage, whereas it is cowardice. Solveig crossed the point of no return. He is afraid of commitment. He is
afraid of some actions that would transform him. The difference between Peer and the peasant is that Peer never
cut his finger because it is action.
(2nd version Dangerous viper tells him to do sth irretrievable. Peer says one should be always able to retreat,
never go beyond the point without return. He praises this as courage. He is afraid of commitment, of doing sth that
would determine his life as either good or bad. Solveig did quite the opposite- she left her family. The peasant who
cuts off his finger- Ibsen is ambiguous here- he does that for his family, but fails his community).
Ay, but thatsthe very man
Lunatics proclaimed Peer for their Kaiser. He says that lunatics are very inside themselves- the maximum of being
thyself. Lunacy is equalized with egotism. Those people dont care for other peoples woes, ideas, opinions. They
are closed inside their own ego. They dont understand others and do not sympathize with others. Peer, as the most
selfish of all, is proclaimed their king.
(2nd- peer says its true the point is he is always himself (whereas the higher calling is to be outside oneself). The
lunatics are inside themselves, hermetically sealed in themselves. They represent the maximum of being oneself,
but in a negative sense. )
Now, when the soulunto the end
Positive and negative aspect of this character. This peasant was committed to his family, but not to his country,
race, church. He believed that his call was to protect his family. He rebuilt his house, helped his children go to
school, he was a good parent, he worked hard, he was diligent. But he was short-sighted; he saw only his family.
He couldnt perceive his duty within some larger community. He cut his own finger in order not to go to war. But he
kept hiding his hand in a pocket because he was ashamed. So it was sth ethically problematic/ambiguous.
You are notas so much metal
So-so- neither good nor bad, a sort of material for making buttons. Melting- he belongs to the mass. Peer never did
anything significant in his life, never reached the point of no return. He has never become an individual, he hasnt
managed to acquire full shape, so he has to go back into his mass. He has a potentials to become human being.
He is a raw material for a potentially good human being, sth can be made out of him. He drifted for some higher
purpose of his life. He didnt answer the higher calling, he never recognized it. A button has a place where it fits, just
like Peer was designed to invest his whole being into sth.
One question onlyhis best hook
To be oneself is to slave oneself. You must give up your egoistic needs, you must kill your old self and transform
into your true self. One must be loyal to its calling. Peers master- God, but it may be the Self, the Inner Master. The
same motif like in St. Joan, when she hears some voices- the deepest self. We should allow to this nature to
develop- the calling of the self. One is supposed to hear the voice of the Master, to get in touch with it. Master can
be ones own deepest self. Jung- a mystical center of being. It is like sth that has supremacy over sth. Other people
tell you it is superior to all the other voices. The deepest self compelled him to undertake this journey. When we try
to hear our inner voices we can often make mistakes.
When we dead awaken- Henrik Ibsen
(1st version ) Rubek doesnt feel guilty. Maia is full of life. He treats her coldly, arrogantly. He has also destroyed a
woman, Irene, whose principle was tremendous love. She was reduced to an object. The Nun is a projection of her
dead soul. Woman in this mysterious life is sth you love, but you kill it. He feels that turning against a woman the
flow of inspiration dried up. He hopes that she can be used again, betrays the reality(reality- an alibi for murder).
Irene lost all the children. She never enters a thought of being mother. What they finally discover is a vision, the
final vision, Rubeks vision of his mistake to know they have never lived. The late awakening. The top of the
mountain is not just the top of the spiritual intensity, but the top of icy snowy mountain- a symbol of sterility. Maia

and Ulfhelm- unsophisticated man. He mentions blood, animals. The difference between Rubek and Ulfhelm is not
big. Both love height; predatory. He seduces Maia, takes her to the path dangerous to come down. But she is not
afraid at all. She reveals him the story of her bondage, he pities her and it turns out that he used to be in his life in
love with a woman. He calls her for the first time a friend- a new possibility- they are overcoming their stories. The
proof is that he calls her a friend and asks her to begin a life with him. Rags- false identities imposed on
women/men. Ulfhelm and Maia go down, but Rubek and Irene go up because it is too late for them.
(2nd version) a woman killed into art. Artist Rubek has created a sculpture resurrection day by killing the soul of
his model, Irene. He actually betrayed Irene, he didnt perceive her in her totality. She renounced her role as a
mother. She is incapable of having children because her soul is dead. Knife under her pillow- symbolic- inner being
totally destructive. The Nun suggesting death; Irene is dead inside. She is full of hatred. The play is an exploration
of Ibsens own sense of guilt for having abandoned poetry and having turned to naturalistic plays. The play is about
his guilt and an artist who abandoned, killed his model and betrayed himself. When we meet Rubek, his creativity
has dried up. This is a bitter reproach of an artist who uses a female being to show the betrayal of life. Irene hates
Rubek, carries knife in her blouse to kill him. She tells him the truth in the mountains, but she says he is already
dead. He destroyed his own soul by abandoning love and her soul by betraying her. He calls her to live in a
marriage of three people- his egotism. He realizes what a tremendous mistake it was to give more attention to the
dead clay than to the living soul. When he realized that he said: Can we dead two beings live a full life?. When he
admits his fault she is transfigured. She doesnt want to kill him but says: when we dead awake. What they can
see is the unlived life. They go to the peak of the mountain and see what they have missed. They go on a plato of a
mountain, storms are coming, whiteness- sterility. The play ends with an avalanche. After this illumination they can
die. Maia feels betrayed and cheated by him. He married her but was never inspired by her. She is treated in a
dismissive way. She meets a bear-hunter, Ulfhelm- raw, illiterate, vital hunter seems to be the opposite of Rubek.
Yet, there are similarities. Ulfelm is a mountaineer; hunts whatever is warm-blooded- bears, rabbits, birds, women.
Desire over nature and women. When they go mountaineering it turns out that he has premeditated to force upon
her. She begins to tell him about her life as a confinement, prison to which she doesnt want to return. He
recognizes in her a fellow sufferer and triggers his own story of an injured person- his first wife, a prostitute, but
ungrateful to him. Since then he became a womanizer, a mere hunter. When they tell their stories, they recognize in
each other their own doubles. They were equally disabled by the wrong roles imposed on them. Shall we patch up
our talters?- to make a decent human life. No, its too late, they are torn out. But they have preserved their
authentic selves. let us be friends- which indicates that they are equal- two beings preserving their authenticity and
able to confront themselves on equal terms. On the mountain they meet Rubek and Irene going up; Maia and the
hunter are coming down, they are free. The polar opposition: HEIGHTS and DEPTHS solved because Maia and the
hunter are not just the physical aspect but also the spiritual one.
( Rubek feels some sort of guilt, a sort of pity. He thinks he can do away with his consciousness by portraying. He
thinks its enough to clear his consciousness of guilt. Irene doesnt agree with it.)
The play is connected to the text of feminist writers talking about liberating women when the women awake from
the dead language, ideal words- the theme of Gilbert and Gubar, the possibility of a woman writer to step out of
male tradition and write about herself. The women will deconstruct the stereotypical role imposed on them by a
patriarchal society. Man defined himself as associated with nature and malter Women are seen as a mirror in
which man sees his reflection (spirituality, pure essence). Women are denied the ability to create themselves. In art,
they are eternally models, inspiration of male artists, who gazing upon them superimpose on them their desires,
sucking their blood, turning them into images that would satisfy their desires. Generative power is males
prerogative as well as authorship-fathers of their books. Adrienne Rich: opposition between male egotism/
womens selfness, altruistic love of mother. Mothers have no creativity, they were supposed to passively attend to
the physical needs of the child. Education of the child- the task of the father. Selfless- not only unselfish, but destroy
her own self- mother without a soul to realize.
(excerpts)
ACT1- Irene talks about her former husband. There is some hidden meaning. She doesnt have a knife
metaphorically. He destroys her soul instead of giving her pleasure. The bed is a place where she keeps her
dagger, it symbolizes her lost femininity. She is stressing passionate nature of her which has been destroyed.
2. Rubek meets Irena, asks her to be his model. She wants a marriage. She experiences sth very profoundconventional marriage, respecting the particular authority of God and husband; the authority we obey- father

creates his children and is authority. The male artist is also a kind of author and authority of his work. She is
supposed to serve his authority as a male artist. Resurrection Day- all the people will transfer for some higher
sphere, eternal happiness. Rebirth- conventionally it is positive, sort of entry into bliss. Here they realized they
wasted their time- the only awakening is here in the forms of recognition that they are dead. They woke up and
realized that their inner being is destroyed. Rubek as a Puritan- he wants sb not touched by physical experience- a
perfect angelic woman. There is a motif which is called self-realization- to enter new existence, to become a perfect
person. She wants to achieve the wholeness in life. Irene has a potential to become a complete person. She
decides willingly to leave her parents but she fails.
3. Professor Rubek: Exactly of her. When I didnt need her any longerblocks of stones
Art as sth opposing to love- empty and hollow, not life-like. The artist is supposed to combine all sorts of human
experiences and make a story (to make it more significant). He longs for life because there is no life in his art. He
has killed sth both in him and her. This sculpture doesnt recreate life.
with animal faces behind the masks- life-like. At a closer look they recover animal trait of a person. Reveal a
perverted part of him. He betrays the idea of art, what it should really be. He betrays the idea of completeness,
wholeness.
4.Irena: resurrection day, you call it. I call it our childyou poet
He has based their relationship on wrong base- there is no real resurrection for him- it is ironic representation of it.
She sees a contrast between the original idea and what happens in the end. She is a little subdued. She blames
herself. She should have given birth to children. There is however a sense of guilt in Rubek- he realizes what he
has done.
5. Ulfhelm (mastering the anger): I once took a young girl
Maia:a human life out of them
The idea of self-realization- a young girl who wants to achieve it, goes out into the world with sb who will provide it
for her. Hell take her to the highest mountain- some sort of growth. Stone specters- his sculptures, they dont
manage to capture, recreate life. It appears to her as a group of ghosts, no life. The 2 of them have potentials to
make a meaningful relationship. Irene and Rubek- perfection vs. coldness. Rubek thinks only about his ambition; a
puritan. In the end they go beyond human, in a place covered with snow, sterile. Ulfhem and Maia have a chance
for a complete human existence with sensual characteristics.
G.B.Shaw- ST. JOAN
The Quintessence of Ibsenism (False Ideals Exposed)
Shaw was a great admirer of Ibsen. However, he didnt see the poet in Ibsen. He wasnt so interested in what Ibsen
discovered in human psyche and subconscience. He mostly praised Ibsen as a social reformer. Shaw calls both
Shelly and Ibsen realists. He says that living in society we live by certain ideals- our behavior, life is governed by
certain ideals. This set of ideals is used in order to mask reality. To maintain itself, society uses certain ideals of
control. They are used to mask certain facts which would threaten the stability of society. Realists are special, rare
individuals who have the courage to strip these masks and to expose the hypocrisy of these ideals. (Vicostructures powerful brain-washing mechanism). Ibsen- marriage- the ideal which Ibsen exposes as hypocritical.
Some people came to realize that the facts of their lives do not confront to those ideals. The people who realized
that think of their lives in terms of failures; they realized the fallacy of those ideals. Nevertheless, most of them are
afraid to recognize it because then theyd have to recognize the waste failure in their own lives. They feel discontent
but they hide it. They are afraid of changing everything. Hypocritically, there will be 700 of those who dont even
think about structures, 299 feels it but are afraid of stripping the mask, and there is just one realist who has courage
to face reality as it is. When a realist appears, his greatest enemies, the people who want to do away with him, will
be idealists (koji su i sami svesni kako drustvo funkcionise ali su uplaseni da ista menjaju). Shaws idea is that
these realists always see the possibility. They see the way in which man and his society should move forward. They
stand for progressive ideals which will move society forward. Shaw himself was a socialist but he didnt believe in
revolution. He didnt propose violent change of society. He was an evolutionist. However, his theory of evolution is
different from Darwins. It is based on La Marks thinking. The idea of evolution according to La Mark is that there is
some sort of will, some kind of will is inherited within the forces of evolution, towards creating more and more
perfect life and also towards creating self-consciousness. This will is what Shaw calls life force. According to the
conventional standard theology, God was at the beginning and he created the world. According to Shaws new

theology God should be at the end. So, life is evolving all the time towards sth perfect, towards more and more
reason In terms of human beings, Shaw also believed that man is evolving and the growth of man should be the
growth in spirit and courage. Man should become increasingly more able to face reality, to unmask those ideals,
those hypocrisies. He says that throughout human history there was fear and fight. Man has become accustomed to
fear and fight but in the future he should learn to love and trust realist people who have courage to get rid of brainwashing structures- people who recognize life force. They refuse to live for their own selfish personal goal, and
instead they turn their lives into instruments of life force. Realists try to develop their minds eye in order to be able
to perceive what is the will of their life-force. So, the mans highest purpose is to become aware of this will (volja
koja tezi napretku), then to serve it to this progress of evolution. For this reason Shaw praised human brain,
intelligence. Brain is the instrument which we use to understand this will, the will of the life force. All these ideas can
be applied to St. Joan. Nema nacionalne svesti i pojavljuje se Joan sa novom idejom povezivanja ljudi na visem
nivou- progresivna ideja- svest o celini kojoj pripadaju. Povela ih je da oslobode Orlean. Posto im je smetala, na
kraju su je Engleski i Francuski plemici proglasili za vesticu i spalili. She is one of those people who worship to
serve life force. She says: I dont want to mind my own business but Gods business. This will of the life force
comes to Joan in terms of voices. She claims that she has heard the voices of two saints- St. Margaret and
Catharine. She also says that these voices came from her imagination and this is how God speaks to us. She is
also realist in this other aspect because she threatens the existence of social structures- these are the church and
aristocracy. Why the church? Because she has a personal contact with God, doesnt need any mediator. She is a
rebel in this sense. She always relies on her individual conscience in all decisions. She claims that everyone has
the right to this individual contact with God. Covek ima pravo da se oslobodi I osloni na odluke svoje svesti a ne na
strukture. She threatens the structure of feudalism. Another progressive ideal which she brought is nationalism. She
in a way raises peoples consciousness for this ideal of nationalism. England for the English, France for the French.
There is the idea that the land belongs to all people, not just to feudal lords. The representatives of aristocracy and
church of both England and France start seeing her as a threat. In Shaws terms they are the idealists. These are
the people who know how the structures function but are terrified of changing them. There is also an idea that
without those structures there will be an anarchy. The people who are most afraid of change are those threaten by
Joan. There is also some motif of Joans heart- when she is burnt at steak, her heart remains whole. This suggests
that Joans message cannot be completely annihilated, erased. Rebels such as Joan are crucified, but they still
point the way towards progress. Eliot: Human mind cannot stand too much reality.
(2nd version)
In St. Joan idealists prosecute Joan- the realist. It is a social comedy- an occasion to turn his irony against Englishthe idea of life is superior to the idea of English. Shaw wrote about prostitution, slums, snobbery. For him, women
didnt have moral virtues. They are admired when they are like men. My business on Earth is Gods business- she
doesnt want to accept social roles but it is only through the metaphor of God that Shaw could show the idea of life
force, creative force. Gods business is to save France and hers to do sth about it. She sacrifices herself and is a
rebel against the role of a woman (wears mens clothes, refuses to have children). She steps beyond the role
assigned to women.
The play is rebellion against feudal aristocracy and the church. Joan believes she is the most devoted prayer of the
Catholic Church but she wants to listen to her inner voice- the connection with her deepest self- to discard what
only institutions interpreted. Therefore, she is the first protestant. Protestantism is a demand that individual should
interpret the Bible according to his imagination. Where does the Gods voice come from but from imagination.
God- the imaginative vision of what the purpose of her life is- to see the works of life force. Her minor rebellions are
just manifestations of her chief rebellion against priests interference between man and God- imagination, her
vision, life force. I will dare and dare in the name of God. She subordinates to life force even when she is to die.
She is the 1st naturalist. The land belonged to the aristocracy and the king- a symbol without any substance, no
power. The aristocracy ruled through the king. In saying that France is for French and England for the English she
comes up with the idea that land is identified with the people speaking one language. The king rules the land in the
name of God. Aristocratic power immediately realizes that her nationalism is a blow against the power of
aristocracy. From the point of view of the 17 th century king-worship and nationalist state was a step forward as well
as Protestantism. She fought for what was to come identifying with the life force within her. She breathes courage
into common people, inspires soldiers, achieves all political aims when she starts feeling coldness, though she is an
enormously creative person wholl never stop. In fact, she becomes burden to them all. She becomes an obstacle,

a reminder of their mediocrity, thus they want to ruin her, particularly Caushan and Warric. She is brought to a trial.
Double catastrophe: 1. at the trial accused by the inquisition, she will lose her life unless she renounces her beliefs.
She signs eventually but realizes that she will lose connection with inner self and tears the paper. She is, therefore,
burnt. She remains loyal to her vision. Her heart wont burn. The death of a realist is never a waste. This is a story
of a sainthood- the way a cultural hero asserts the power of spirit on the fear of death. Its also the comedy of
making amends (saying youre sorry)- an epilog taking place in Charles dream. Must a Christ perish in every age
for the sake of those who have no imagination?. She became a saint. The irony of making amends consists in the
fact that when all the dead come around kneel in front of her, they all admit they learned from her courage. She
suggests shell return again- Do you want me back?-and then one by one they all step back. Oh, beautiful Earth,
when will you be able to accept your saints? Wed rather have no saints because such realists would show other
people forthcomings. Those who killed her, proclaimed her a saint just because of feeling of guilt.
Thematic similarities between St. Joan and The Cocktail Party. Love not the same for Shaw/Eliot and Ibsen. For
Ibsen, ego becomes most real when it becomes attached to womans love. For Eliot and Shaw- completeness
without sensual love.
(EXCERPTS)
Robert: What is your name?
Robert is a feudal lord (one of his peasants). Why does he ask all these question? Hes trying to establish her
identity. For Joan these things are quite unimportant. She has a higher consciousness than the others. They are
divided by themselves. She hears voices but doesnt want to talk about them. Its like a part of intimacy of her soul.
The voices come from God. Robert thinks that they are not real. For her, imagination is sth positive- thats how
voices come to us. We use the imagination to understand the life force, the idea of evolution, creative self.
Joan: Thou poor child
The conversation with King Charles. Charles is a weak person. Everybody mocks him. He is not strong enough to
wear arms. He is afraid of responsibility. He is selfish, hed like Joan to live him alone. She says that her business is
to help people. She thinks egotism is not healthy, not good for your soul. They are supposed to fight against
occupation forces. He asks for miracles that Joan does with people- they became courageous, they got
inspiration. She brings up the courage in people. She activates their potentials. Its like when people start seeing life
force, they become courageous.
Cauchon- French priest and Warwick- an English Gentlemantwo structures threatened by Joan. They explain why
the church is threatened by Joan. He is afraid for his institution. She doesnt need the church to mediate with God.
She doesnt recognize the authority of the church. Simple people assume that they can talk to God, they dont need
the church to help them. It undermines the authority of the church, the whole structure which keeps them subdued,
in control, in inferior position which exploits them. They dont need this structure. He defines the structure- without a
structure thered be total anarchy. Other examples- people who fight against the structure- Hamlet, ??. They show
that these are some new trends, tendencies coming. We use creative power to create structures such as churchBlake- we projected all our creative power on them. The idea is to regain our creativity. Thats what Joan is doing
with her voices.
Warwick: Oh, my Lord
He is talking about why Joan is a threat to feudal lords. Even the King, according to Joan, has no power. The land
belongs to people. Warwick makes a connection between these two threats- just like Joan doesnt need the church,
she also doesnt need feudal lords to mediate with the land. These are false structures. She rebels against
structures and what they think is natural for a woman, then the church, England. Peasants- in this historical period
nationalism expends their consciousness, progressive ideas, giving a sort of pride.
Joan: Where would you all have been know?
God be with me. She wants to say that she is the one who hears voices. One realist is exceptional, first in his
family. To her family, their private selfish matters are important. How does she feel at the court? As a piece of
poverty. She expected to find politicians there carrying for the countrys future. However, there are again selfish
people interested in power. She expected that the priests would obey the life force, but they are striving for power.
They want to cast her out. She puts all her life into the service of this life force. She remains faithful to her vision
and thats why shell be remembered.

Additional material
J.B. Shaw- Don Juan in Hell
Modern theology conceives heaven and hell, not as places, but as states of the soul; and by the soul it means the
divine element common to all life, which causes us to do the will of God in addition to looking after our individual
interests, and to honor one another solely for our divine activities and not at all for our selfish activities.
This world, or any other, may be made a hell by a society in a state of damnation: that is, a society so lacking in the
higher orders of energy that it is given wholly to the pursuit of immediate individual pleasure, and cannot even
conceive the passion of the divine will. Also that any world can be made a heaven by a society of persons in whom
that passion is the master passion- a communion of saints in fact.
The devil is here true to himself: that is, he does not disguise his damnation either from himself or others, but
bodily embraces it as the true law of life, and organizes his kingdom frankly on a basis of idle pleasure seeking, and
worships love, beauty, sentiment, youth, romance, etc. Don Gonzalo, having, as he says, always done what it was
customary for a gentleman to do until he died defending his daughters honor, went to heaven. Don Juan, having
slain him, and become infamous by his failure to find any permanent satisfactions in his love affairs, was cast into
hell by the ghost of Don Gonzalo, whose statue he has whimsically invited to supper. Don Gonzalo was a simpleminded officer and gentleman who cared for nothing but fashionable amusement, whilst Don Juan was consumed
with a passion for divine contemplation and creative activity, this being the secret of the failure of love to interest
him permanently. Consequently we find Don Gonzalo, unable to share the divine ecstasy, bored to destruction in
heaven; and Don Juan suffering amid the pleasures of hell an agony of tedium. Don Gonzalo determines to settle in
hell permanently. The devil, eager to as ever to reinforce his kingdom by adding souls to it, is delighted at the
accession of Don Gonzalo, and desirous to retain Dona Ana. But, he is equally ready to get rid of Don Juan, with
whom he is on terms of forced civility, the antipathy between them being fundamental. Finally, Don Juan goes to
heaven. As the mother of many children, Ana has shared in the divine travail and with care and labor and suffering
renewed the harvest of eternal life; but the honor and divinity of her work have been jealously hidden from her by
Man, who, dreading her domination, has offered her for reward only the satisfaction of her senses and affections.
She cannot, like the male devil, use love as mere sentiment and pleasure; nor can she, like the mail saint, put love
aside when it has once done its work as a developing and enlightening experience. Love is neither her pleasure nor
her study: it is her business. So she, in the end, neither goes with Don Juan to heaven nor with the devil and her
father to the place of pleasure, but declares that her work is not yet finished. For though by her death she is done
with the bearing of men to mortal fathers, she may yet, as Woman Immortal, bear the Superman to the Eternal
Father.
T.S.Eliot- THE COCKTAIL PARTY
Revealed in terms of atheistic bourgeois life- transhumanization- achieving goal which is universal. In the C.Party
we are back in the bourgeois room in which the cocktail party is going to be given. The first party is a failure, the last
is successful. Who is in charge; dramatization of the various play of conscious/unconscious many. Edward and
Lavinia both have lovers. They are mutually accusing each other. They live in illusions. With lovers they hope to
escape the boredom of their marriage. They didnt succeed. Lavinia is convenient, Celia is demanding partner. With
Celia he wants to escape the conventional nature in which only his ego can find satisfaction. Yet, when his wife
abandoned him, he reacts, he wants her back. He cant live up to the idea in the reality. He says there are two
selves- the superficial will to do sth, and inner self- the spirit of mediocrity. It was only an illusion. They are not yet
made aware. Reilly helps them. Their achievement is very limited. They pass the responsibility of the failure to each
other all the time. Reilly then suggests they should reverse the proposition: accept Lavinia that you are unlovable,
and Edward that you are unloving, and then you will suit each other. Accept your limitations. The only thing the
unconscious many cannot achieve is consciousness of their own limitations. Celia is not like Edward and Lavinia.
She belongs to the conscious few. She comes as a person not self-important. From her conversation with Reilly we
find out that her desire is to realize the vision of reality, more significant than common. She is an actress who wants
to go beyond everyday living to transcend her ego in heterosexual love- to stop being 2 persons but the 3 rd one
=we. Theyll have beyond desire without possessiveness the delight of loving in spirit in which Edward fails. She
sees Edward as an insect. His words are no more than noises. He cant become real, he appears to her as an

illusion. She ends up with an intense sense of sin and solitude. Then in the end the thing is explained: the sin is
produced by knowing that Ive sought the realization of my vision (treasure) in the wrong place, in the relationship
with unworthy person. Then she goes on and comes to the conclusion that not only persons like Edward and
Lavinia are unloving and unlovable but that we are all unloving and unlovable- nesposobni za ljubav I nedostojni
ljubavi. We produce a vision on our partner and then we recognize that he is not capable to live up according to
those visions. Since we are all projections, she feels she is alone- the feeling of solitude. Reilly says there is a cure,
salvation. Celia ends up being confronted with the choice. There are two possible ways of curing her condition:
1. Reconciliation, and that is what Edward and Lavinia managed to do- human condition, ordinary living. I can
return to it, but you must know you will live surrounded by strangers. But who becomes conscious he accepts that
theyll be never anything more than strangers. This is a decent life yet you have to forget about your visions. She
says: This bears me cold. My vision is more real than reality you are offering to me.
2. The second way out is the journey to the unknown- he says- in which you will forget about human, will save you
from desires. You will achieve or find out what you fail to achieve in the wrong place. She leaves it all and goes
somewhere in the exotic East, becomes a nurse, goes to a mission in an African country. She was standing with the
dying people, she didnt want to desert them but wanted to give them comfort and there was an attack of a hostile
tribe. The tribe killed her in a hostile manner. She was eaten by ants. She actually committed an act of willing
sacrifice. She stayed faithful to her vision of selfish love. Shed rather die than betray her vision. Another important
thing about the play is that we do not see her death in a play. We have a messenger who tells that she is dead.
Celias death is sth that happens outside the society. She doesnt want to die but merely accepts the situationradical dilemma. She remains faithful to her passion. They are all shocked except Reilly- imperceptible smile of
perfection. She remains faithful. She is crucified over an anthill. Reilly knows that we die sooner or later. But how?
Her dream has its final transformation into reality- the movement she sticks to it that is the complete pattern. The
spiritual reality is revealed. We see Edward and Lavinia having a successful party. They are pleased and this is the
end. Shaw and Eliot were philosophically and politically different but they had sth in common- refusal to accept the
self-egothe idea that common life is not a container of the whole pattern.
Shaw & Eliot- simply transhumanization out of marriage.
Osborne- marriage shouldnt be disgented(?).
For Eliot, this movement to spiritual realm is sth that does not happen in society, its not compatible with the norms
of society. What is specific about Eliot is that the kind of love he values most is the selfless universal love. He
doesnt believe in the potential of a personal relationship. This further on also makes him reject, not appreciate
physical, erotic love as a conservative Christian.
EXCERPTS
Reilly: Now, I want to point out to both of youcondition
Reilly- a psychiatrist. They go to him and he tells them to accept each other. They both have lovers- Celia and
Peter. When Edward sees his wife has left him she suggest a free relationship. But he got afraid. He discovers sth
about himself. He is not loving. The fear of being unlovable Reilly connects to the fear of impotence. Lavinia
discovers that she is unlovable- no one can love her. Reilly says that they can make the best of a bad job- accept
their own limitations. Saints are those who transcend limitations- a general human condition- unloving and
unlovable. We live in the isolated ego, the selfish self. Then we cannot truly love. Only those who transcend that
become capable of real life. To transcend the prison- self-isolated ego. We think of the key each in his prison,
thinking of the key each confirms prison- the Waste Land.
Celia: Well there are two things I cant understandsymptom
If shes normal then sth is wrong with the world she lives in. Two symptoms she talks about- awareness of solitudethe end of her illusion- everyone is isolated in that isolated ego- a general human condition. Human relationshippeople do not communicate really, they just make noises, no deep understanding of another human being.
Delusion- to get rid of it. Edward and Lavinia- to face the truth about themselves. Celia realizes some truth about
people and she has to start from there, to accept that truth of isolation, the state of being we have to accept and go
on from. Solitude bothers her but its not a simple kind of solitude. Its solitude with everybody. Its no longer
worthwhile to speak to anyone. One is always alone. She makes a kind of generalization. Its a general condition of
all the people. Its sth like universal human condition. She doesnt refer only to herself but to all people.
Celia: Its not the feeling of anything Ive doneyoull cure me

The sense of soleness and sin. We feel a sense of sin when we do sth wrong. Its not a guilt of an action but of
emptiness- a kind of failure. She has failed in sth. The relationship with Edward doesnt work. He is married and
she is his lover. He wants Lavinia back although their marriage doesnt work. He betrays their relationship. He is
afraid of change. She wanted to outgrow the ego with Edward, to reach identity which is not selfish. They were both
investing in that 3rd person- us. She is disappointed in love in general. We think that we love other person but we
actually love the projection. We fall in love with the projection and thats why we are strangers. She couldnt achieve
transhumanization with Edward. The metaphor of the forest- the symbol of experience. Its like two of them set out
to experience sth in love and life. Edward is not mature enough. He feels compassion for her. She feels sorry for
him. He is like a child. He wants to go back from the forest, to go back home. The idea of treasure- a sort of vision
of meaningful life- decode life to some transpersonal service. She has a vision of meaningful life. She doesnt want
to betray it. She feels guilty about not having found this. The feeling of guilt tells her that this vision is real, sth that
exists. She was trying to achieve sth real. This vision can be achieved.
Reilly: The condition is curableanything else
Celia wants to be cured. There are two ways. 1 st is to reconcile with the human conditions. People live a sort of
tolerant life, simply accept common routine. There is a superficial contact. Its a good life in a world of stupidity.
However, she wants to cherish her vision. 2 nd way is a journey into the unknown. In term of Eliots philosophy- the
unconscious many and the conscious few. 1 st are the ones who reconcile with the human conditions, the 2 nd are
those who love mankind- transhumanization. Za Eliota nema nade u istoriji. Izlazimo iz istorije in the realm of saints.
Each way means loneliness and the communion. Its out of time that my decision is taken- kada se Beket odlucuje
da se bori za svoja ubedjenja, prikljucuje se podrucju svetaca (Murder in the Cathedral).
(2nd version)
Lukacs, Shaw and Eliot believed that situation of modern man is not hopeless- certain movement is possible.
Lukacs- a Marxist- this movement is through history and society (development is horizontal/ time development).
Shaw- an evolutionist- a belief there is a life force and God at the end of evolution, all living beings and man
especially are moving towards perfection. His perfection is the ecstasy of brain. The potential of human
improvement is in our intelligence (vertical development/ ascent opened to any personality- spiritual reality of
descent (Eliot)- to the level of the biological, repressed, instinctual energies (Osborne)). Eliot- hope doesnt lie in
history which for him has a shape of an inverted U- the best period, the peak of history- Elizabethan age because
human faculty of imagination wasnt separated from intellect. Then spirituality permeated the whole culture/ social
life. Further on, history leads to the dissociation of sensibility- thoughts and feelings no longer in harmony. Another
thing brought about by the historical development is the modern society which supports and favorises the selfish
self. Eliot criticizes modern democracies because although they assign great importance on an individual, they
really encourage the selfish tendencies of an individual. Eliot claims that within every man theres a potential to
transcend the selfish self and reach the genuine self by means of surrendering ones selfish needs and interests to
sth more important. This more important sth for Eliot is either love, selfless Christian love or the Divine Plan. For
Eliot, hope doesnt lie in social progress but in the spiritual realm.
The Cocktail Party
The central character of the play is Celia. She belongs to the conscious few. She has a vision of a meaningful and
fulfilled life and she wants originally to fulfill this vision through her love relationship with Edward. Edward is
unhappily married to Lavinia, so he has an affair with Celia. Celia has great aspirations, ideals regarding this affair,
hoping that through loving Edward she will manage to transcend her ego and that in their love they will grow into a
third person- us. However, it turns out that Edward is not worth of such love. When Edwards conventional marriage
is in crisis, all he wants is his wife back. He is afraid and cannot leave conventional life. He needs the security of his
conventional marriage. Reilly is a psychiatrist. He is really a spokesman of Eliots ideas, a true guide, capable of
making people know themselves truly. He has an aura of the priest. He understands the human soul. Celia goes to
Reilly after her relationship with Edward has finished and tell him that she is troubled by the sense of solitude and
by the sense of sin. Solitude- she feels that all the people around her and she herself are unloving and unlovable.
We feel alone because we live in this prison cell of the isolated ego and unless we transcend it we never actually
get to know other people. Celia says that we only think weve fallen in love with sb, but what we love is really just
our projection, and we are strangers to each other. Sin- she feels she had vision of sth very important and that she
has betrayed that vision. She calls it the treasure. She feels like a child who went to the forest to find the treasure

and then failed to find it, but there is still this urge to cherish this vision, not to betray it. She says to Reilly she
doesnt want to forget this vision- I can put with anything; I can live without everything, if I might cherish it. Her
vision is a greater reality than one with which she is faced everyday and she sticks to her decision never to be
unfaithful to her vision yet she promises never to try to find it in an erotic, sexual attachment to a man. The other
two people who go to the psychiatrist are Edward and Lavinia. Edwards problem is that at first he thought his wife
didnt love him and he couldnt love her. He felt he wasnt capable of giving deep meaningful love and thought his
wife was to blame. So, he had a love affair with Celia and then realized he couldnt love her deeply either. He
realized he is unloving, incapable of loving sb deeply. Reilly says that for some men this is as disturbing as the fear
of impotence. Lavinia has the opposite problem. At first she thought it was because of him that he couldnt love her,
and then she found that another lover couldnt love her either. She realizes then that she is unlovable kind of
person. Actually, what Eliot tries to tell us is that we are all unloving and unlovable unless we manage to transcend
the selfish self. Still, even this situation is not seen as tragic for Edward and Lavinia. Reilly teaches them to learn
and accept their own limitations and he actually reconciles them with the human condition. Its important they no
longer delude themselves, so there will be certain improvement at the end of the play. What they do is make best
out of the bad job. According to Eliot this is still a good life in a world which is full of violence, stupidity, greed. Celia
says this good life leaves her cold- she cant accept it. So, she chooses the other option- transhumanization. She
also says it is a horrible journey into the unknown as our selfish self dies for the genuine self to be born. It is like a
total deconstruction of our ego consciousness. Celia changes her life and becomes a nurse and goes to a mission
in Africa. She was standing with dying people (Lisa- The White Hotel). She didnt want to desert them, but to give
them comfort. There was an attack of a hostile tribe and she was killed in a horrible manner. In fact, she commits an
act of willing sacrifice. She remained faithful to her vision of selfless love. The important thing about the structure of
the play is that we dont see her death in a play. From the beginning to the end, she stayed in the room of upper
class English society. We have a messenger who tells us she died. Celias death is sth that happens outside the
society. Within the confinements of conventional life, Celia couldnt have the kind of relationship that would enable
her to transcend her ego. This movement of the spiritual realm to Eliot is something that is incompatible with the
norms of society. He doesnt believe in the potential of personal relationship. He thinks that any kind of love which
leads to the attachments to another person will not lead to the spiritual fulfillment. This further on makes her reject
erotic love and praise the universal love. This is similar to Shaw because both St. Joan and Celia have to renounce
their physical being (erotic love, flesh) in order to become saints. The idea of sainthood as a trans-historical
phenomenon achievable at all times. Reilly offers 2 cures: 1. To exit from the room. 2. A return to the human
condition. She chooses the first. The erotic love is always an illusion. For Shaw marriage is hell and to seek
pleasure is vulgar. For Eliot, marriage was a kind of hell but it could be transformed. Edward and Lavinia remained
within the room accepting descent but partial life.
J.Osborne- LOOK BACK IN ANGER
The meaning of the room- trap or refuge? Protection for bears and squirrels from the outside world. But there is
cruelty, hysteria, conflict- lack of happiness.
Osborne was uncertain about his attitude to women. Yet, he is the most furious enemy of Eliot who says human
love cannot be achieved through physical love. He was not happy with his two wives. What does Jimmy want?
Some people push him as a neurotic young man, but he is not. There is a political criticism in a play. Here the
action takes place in one room flat in a provincial town in Midlands. The Room- the central stage metaphor. Ibsen
and Eliot defined the room as the social place with people suffering rather than fulfilling. Jimmy is a very poor man,
living in one room flat with his wife Alison. The room defined as the refuge. When Jimmy talks about topics
happening in the outside world- the world is a trap. In order to cultivate our natural feelings we should withdraw- an
experiment that may be salvation. Marriage is a place where experiments must go on. Its not hell for him. Jimmy
refuses to get out of this hell. They are unhappy. There are three people: Alison, Jimmy and Cliff. Its Sunday, its
traditionally a day when you stop working and devote yourself to spiritual pursuits. Sunday is a crown of a weekly
cycle when man is the most himself. They do nothing but read newspapers. This dreary routine scene develops in
the scene of conflict, hysteria. Jimmy shouts at his wife. It turns then into anger, hysteria. Why is Jimmy angry? He
is furious, angry with Alison. One of the reasons- they are substitute for the invisible enemy. Whos they? That is the

social establishment specified historically- after WWII- labor government promised greater justice, opportunity for all
the classes in England after the war. Jimmy was one of those who thanks to this aspiration were able to go to
university, newly-built, public red brick. On his leaving university he realized for the upper-class the promise of
freedom was just empty words. They ended up feeling unwanted. Jimmy is sensitive, energetic young man. Nobody
wants what he can offer. He is frustrated. He lives in a hypocritical culture- result of the war not against German
fascism but for the justice at home. Revolution didnt lead anywhere but to the false democracy which is another
version of fascism. Osborne left England, wrote A Letter to My Fellow Countryman- a declaration of hatred
against false democracy constituted to fight red Lords(??). So, he wrote that letter, compared England with the pile
of junk covered with mannerism and on the top there are those who pretend they dont feel the terrible smell.
Socialism- the moral failure. That was the situation after the great fascism. He feels impotent anger. This new
system is represented best in the play by Alisons family. Her father belongs to the pillars of empire. Now that the
empire has collapsed, he is confused because he is a loser. He is a man who belongs to culture, past, to the prewar years. The majority of people at that time believed in beneficial and noble projects of imperialism. One of them
was Alisons father. Jimmy knows that he has ideals which are phony. Her father didnt see the truth, he serves
England. In the modern world after WWII is no longer possible not to know the truth that England has been
plundering the world. The rage directed at those like brother Nigel who cannot appeal to any justification of his
stupidity. Jimmy cannot forgive Nigel who belongs to the generation of plunders. He is vague about everything. He
deliberately suppresses the truth of plundering. Nigel- cynical people who brought to education in American age
which will force the ideology of plundering without winking(??). Jimmy says American age- no cause to fight for.
Nigel knows and yet cultivates deliberate stupidity to protect himself from the awareness of his immoral position.
Universal business to produce a sort of vaguery(?). He knows nothing about real world; unaware of the social
situation. They hate people in their desire not to know. He is full of platitude, vague. He hates Nigel in particular. He
also hates Alisons mother- moral criminal betray- their function- love, justice- in particular. Alisons mother is the
embodiment of upper-class conventions. Her contribution is her complaining against anything which divorce from
upper-class convention. She is a snob. Her obsession with her long hair. He hates also his own mother. The only
feeling she has is that his father was fighting on the losing side. These people dont appear, we hear about them.
Their absence on the stage emphasize Alison and Jimmys isolation- only 3 characters, they are isolated. He is
tremendously angry- newspapers- hypocritical. He quotes sb called the Bishop koji se svim silama zalaze da se
napravi atomska bomba. The Bishop of Bouly- church will give support to the manufacturer of atomic bombs.
Church is highly hypocritical. Jimmy cant bear the sound of church bells because of the perversity of the church.
Its a political force helping the waste of human potentials. These are no causes he can fight for. The church bells
sum up the corruption of the church and on the other hand jazz is the music of those who were enslaved. Church is
charged with all the connotation of injustice but he cant do anything, he is impotent. He plays Jazz. Its all he can
do to oppose church bells. The idea is that the war against fascism was won and yet it survived. It manifested itself
in social injustice, racism, and what hurts Jimmy is that this turning of revolutionary struggle into opposite doesnt
bother anybody. Nobody is prepared to be angry. Hamlets dilemma- everything is perfectly adjusted, nobody suffer,
nobody opposes. Alison and Helena are not to be suffering, they are less than human beings. Let us at least suffer.
She is different- sleeping beauty. He marries her believing she is relaxed. He assumes wrongly. She has always her
hair in the place. Relaxation- she is pragmatic. Hes attracting her by spiritual flame. She doesnt burn, no moral
intensity of small mind, soul courage. Hed do anything to wake her up. She continues the correspondence with her
parents. She is another Ophelia- she is secretly betraying him- a tool in the hand of establishment. He is angry to
that extent his anger is justifiable. Id like you to suffer, to have a baby to grow into recognizable being and Id like
you to lose the baby. That kind of loss must make you a complete human being. Soon she is pregnant. She leaves
him and Helena takes over her place. She removes Alison and grasps Jimmy for herself. We discover that she is an
actress in her life; she does everything from the book of rules. She reads from scenario. She is a church-goer. The
only light she can find is in the middle dark ages. Alison is given an opportunity to perfect a truly Christian. Jimmy
wants Alison to accompany him to visit his friends mother. Helena insists on Alison accompanying her to the
church. Alison is won over by Helena. She goes to church instead of exercising real charity. She goes to church to
observe formal rituals which are meaningless. He feels terrible and Alison leaves him. He accepts Helena at first but
then realizes that both wear his shirts. Then Alison appears crying. She has lost her child. I am here because I love
you. Helena withdraws willingly because all the time she was breaking the rules. Jimmy is revolutionary at firstrefusal, desire to escape from the pain of being alive. Love is not a soft job. It is an admiration that shed be rather a

saint than a complete human being. Eliot- to be saint is to develop your human potentials. Osborn of Eliot- you
have to choose either this life or sainthood. Sainthood is defined by refusal of human life, pain relationship. He is
very much against Christianity, Eliot and the best point in his lyrics- his style, theatre dance, language of the
working class. He repudiates Eliot in his lyrics- cesspool, there is no dry-cleaners in Cambodia- a response to Eliot
and Celias death for abstract love. Life is a cesspool. If you want to live you will never become a saint. There is no
exit from this hell. Celia is pure. For Osborne any such purity is a failure in humanity. Life is complicated by the
bodily, flesh and mind of human vain. You have to accept it, cant clear your life from that. In Helena he sees less
than a human being. Alison comes then, relaxed, in the game of squirrels and bears- a kind of development. They
are less then human. Yet, that is a new beginning, a new departure. Not a saint beyond the bodily, nor a movement
forward- in Shaw, it develops in term of descend to the level of uncomplicated sensual affection. They cant
understand each other intellectually. Lets resolve our conflict on the level of affection- quite different from Shaw, an
attempt to find salvation in a love relationship. Yet it is not as simple as that. He is raging against Alison because
she is an enemy by the fact she is a woman- devours him while making love. The main obstacle for the progresswomen, sex, married life.
(2nd version)
Room as a setting reappears but its function changes. In Eliot, Ibsen room- the trap of society, shapes man, but
here no one goes out of the room. It defines less the conventional life, not a social structure but an image of a
private life, shelter in which the consciousness of man is dramatized. An alternative to the life outside (the world of
corruption) and through the windows the sound of this world come in- church bells. The sound of the bells is
unbearable because the church supported atom bombing. Therefore, church is an institution based on profit
through the alliance with the secular powers. The hypocrisy of this institution to which he cannot answer in any
other way but playing a trumpet- Jazz music. Jimmy is disappointed, angry, frustrated. He is intelligent, talented but
the world outside has no use of him. Thats why he brutally treats Alison as its representative. This hostile world is
historically defined in 1957. Young men, working class, were given the opportunity to acquire education at red brick
university, but top positions were reserved for those who went to Oxford and Cambridge universities. People like
Jimmy were fitted to become misfitted. Osborne gave voice to the whole generation of angry young men. They
had democracy but all remained the same as the values of the older system. Opportunities were not given to
ordinary men. Osborne wrote A Letter to My Fellow Countryman- a letter of hatred towards England. He compared
England with a pile of junk. He left Britain. The education he acquired gave him self-consciousness but no
opportunities. Just like Jimmy- educated but keeps a sweet store. All that Osborne/Jimmy could do was to be angry
because there is no change but for the worse. His anger is mainly turned against mothers because when his father
was back from Spanish war, his mother was embarrassed and said that he wasnt on the victorious side even
though he was on righteous one. His mother didnt even consider that his father deserved any attention. All
revolutions turn in their opposites. Even Alisons father is more acceptable than her mother (his anger is turned
towards his and Alisons mothers). Jimmy doesnt accept women who allow to be instrumentalised by society. The
change is towards hopelessness because the world is taken by Nigels (Alisons brother) with no ideas, shaped by
colleges knowledge so has no true knowledge. He is absolutely vague- should be given a medal for vagueness. He
was manufactured to be protected by stupidity. He will never recognize that he and his pals are robbing his country.
Nigel is the embodiment of hypocrisy, negligence, stupidity. Such practical, ruthless, greedy people without ideals
and in pursuit of power run the country- the American age. Perhaps all our children will be Americans manufactured
not to notice societys corruption. A pervasive, disillusioned (?) that there are no brave causes left to fight for.
American age also presupposes that suffering is the sin of maladjustment, abnormality, inferiority. Jimmy is very
much like Hamlet (to suffer or to oppose)- surrounded by people who dont see theres sth rotten in England, so
they dont oppose and dont suffer. He turns all his anger towards Alison: indifferent, poltroon, of small mind, soul,
courage, not daring to do anything- similar to Ophelia. She keeps correspondence with her family not mentioning
Jimmys name as a dirty word. Alison abandons her class for Jimmy because she is drawn by his vitality. Alison,
however, (as Helen) doesnt want to step out of the conventional way of thinking, therefore she cannot stand out for
Jimmy against her family, society, to change view of life. Alisons mother is the representative of snobbish empire.
For her Jimmys long hair was a sign of sth demonic (St. Mawr). Jimmy wants Alison to wake up from her beauty
sleep, so he wishes her to have a baby and then lose it and feel the suffering. Alison and Helen are both cases of
emotional virgins- never lost anything. Helen is more initiative than Alison- 1 st instance of her hypocrisy. She is
class/moral enemy of Jimmys, but it appears to him as more intellectually developed than Alison. 2 nd instance of her

hypocrisy- she is an actress. 3rd instance- the way she goes to church is meaningless- in Diors clothes goes to do
conventional act empty of any meaning instead of doing a real thing- to go to a person who is dying to show that
she cares. Both of them try to become Jimmy (wear his shirts) but they cant. All this- saints in Diors clothes- is a
parody of Eliot. It is either sainthood or humanity. A saint is sb who doesnt want to be emerged into life, love;
people who fail as human beings. Helen wants to escape the pain of being alive. For Osborne the sainthood of
Celia (communication of love) is an escape from pain- No dry cleaners in Cambodia.
EXCERPTS
Jimmy: Have you ever seen her brother
This play is based on certain historical context. The labor party promised to abolish class distinction, to enable poor
people to educate. Jimmy comes from the working class. He manages to study in the red-brick university (cheaper).
Jimmy is disappointed, he realized all top jobs are still reserved for the rich. He wants to revenge. His country is still
imperialistic. Alisons brother symbolizes all these things Jimmy is against. Nigel is not bright at all, he talks in
phrases which are not specific. Krije se iza uopstenih fraza. He doesnt know anything about ordinary life. Nigel is
one of those who maintain status quo. He cannot talk about other way the society can be organized- conservative
politician. Education is to blame- it is reserved for the upper class, it teach you to serve this structure (character
building). The purpose of this education is to make you incapable to conceive any alternative. You should accept
the society as it is. He defends himself from alternatives by stupidity, also from his consciousness. He never
examines his consciousness. Education is to blame for producing people such as Nigel.
Jimmy: I told you pusillanimous
- wanting of firmness of mind, of small courage, having a little mind, mean-spirited, cowardly. She doesnt want to
participate in Jimmys suffering. Hamlets dilemma. In Jimmys, people have the feeling of idealism. He is against all
these struggles. He cant find a cause of fight but still wants to rage against injustice. He asserts all his humanity.
Alison refuses to support him in this attitude. Pusillanimous- its running away from life, from passionate
involvement in life. Predskazanje- when Helena calls her to come to the church with her, she will betray Jimmy
when he most needs her.
Jimmy: Oh, my dear wife, youve got so much to learn
He wishes for her sth cruel- to lose her child. Shes never suffered from any pain so she cant sympathize with
others who have. She does have a certain passion. The image of Alison- someone who devours Jimmy, passive
feminine, a symbol of some sort of passivity, a python. It doesnt refer only to sex, but their marriage as well. He is a
visionary man with progressive ideas. Alison doesnt support him but becomes an obstacle of his ideas. She is
comparable to Ophelia- obedient daughter. Alison is obedient to her mother. Her mother represents the upper class.
Alison regularly sends letters to her family. She is an informer, just like Ophelia. She betrays Jimmy. She serves the
system- her father. She has sexual passion.
Alison: You see thatno brain
The game they play- love game. When they make love they pretend they are bear and squirrel. It is very
affectionate game, a game to escape the reality. Jimmy is so angry and the life is often like a hell. At this level their
relationship still works- the animal, passionate part of ones personality. They symbolize uncomplicated emotions,
strong emotions. They agree on a love level, on the intellectual they dont.
The man is in bad position. How do the critics see that?
Lukacs- the movement is through social progress (the way forward).
Shaw: evolution (the ecstasy of brain).
Eliot: the realm of saint (transhumanization).
For both Shaw and Eliot there is the idea of spiritual grow up.
Osborne: you move down to uncomplicated affection- bears and squirrels- in order to recover our basic humanity.
Jimmy: Reason and progress
Jimmys criticism of Helena. She is a friend of Alison. She is an actress. She stays for a few more weeks. Jimmy
doesnt like her. She is a church-goer. He doesnt approve of it. She goes there to perform rituals, however he
criticizes her religious attitude for other reasons. Just like Nigel escapes in his own stupidity, Helena escapes into
religion. She doesnt want to face reality. She gives up reason and progress, the tendency to social progress, free
enquiry; no longer have values. Vracaju se konvencijalnoj religioznosti. Symbolically her escape is represented- she
is a bit like Miss Solness- she has a sense of guilt- she has to give up. Its wrong that she is with a married man- in
a way hypocritical. This passage tells sth about Osborns attitude towards Eliot- Eliot rejects love. He always

returns to old beliefs. Osborne thinks we should be involved in the current affairs, common human life. They spent
their time mostly looking at the past- an allusion to Eliot.
Helena: Very well, Im going to
Helena and Jimmy have a certain sort of relationship. Helena doesnt want to remain faithful to her love to Jimmy.
She betrays it. Hot-house- staklena basta- fragile feelings- they can only survive in a protective surroundings. Ako
bi ostala, morala bi da uprlja ruke- moralni konflikt. But she runs away. To be a saint, for Osborne, is a failure. For
Shaw and Eliot its sth positive. Saint refuses to mess up his hands.
Cocktail Party, Look Back in Anger and St. Joan- SAINTHOOD
Examination of theme of sainthood. No saints in Ibsen. Salvation- difficult; no character whose triumph is not
accompanied by loss, failure- egotism. Shaw, Eliot- saints- submission to vocation, force larger than themselvestrue reality.
One of the themes that connects Shaw, Eliot and Osborne is the exploration of the phenomena of sainthood in
which salvation can be achieved. Salvation from bourgeois respectability and conventional way of life. Shaw was
the beginner of the modern drama in England. Sainthood would be a tread run through analysis- the stage
metaphor- the room- significantly in St. Joan. The room doesnt appear here. Shaw was an incurable optimist- there
is no room. Modern drama begins and remains in England in order to find the new natural drama- like the early
Ibsen. The best of Ibsen he found in his plays dealing with social issues. Ibsen was the best in his earliest and last
plays- turns social issues into symbols- reveals the difficulty in arriving at any simple truth- symbols reveal how
salvation is difficult because the price is in terms of other peoples happiness. For Ibsen that was not an easy price
to pay. He realizes in his last plays spiritual intensity between heights and depths. In him there is no saints. Eliot &
Shaw explore the possibility of sainthood in absolute truth. Saints are those who are subordinated to a kind of
reality that transcends their personal egoistic desires. They are only capable of revealing that reality by death.
Common place, everyday life- for Shaw this reality- evolution- philosophically he was an evolutionist- evolution by
conscious will and in his political theory he was a socialist. He believes in gradual social change- the spokesman of
justice and equality. What is needed according to Shaw is order, that is, movement should be ensured in itexceptional individual- a cooperation on the part of man in order that this life force should be made possible. These
are realists.
Most people refuse to see the reality. This is the great majority- unthinking. They are not sensitive, imaginative
enough to need anything more than what the society offers to them. They are contented. Idealists are sensitive
enough to feel that they are secretly suffering from social conventions but have no courage to change reality. They
invent romantic illusions, ideals- deceptions- to facilitate their own life within the trap of social conventions.
Example: marriage- social convention within which men/women secretly suffer. The idea of everlasting love is
romantic illusion. For that he says idealists imagine reality to endure the society. Only one faces the reality, free
erotic love. Its the ideal that persecutes them. Saints and realists have courage to face reality by their life force
manifested in evolution. Intelligence appears to orient us psychologically and physically. Perfect society is for Shaw
synonym for God. God is the goal, moral intelligence. Realists are important because they see the working of life
force, submit common interests in order to become instruments of life force. For Shaw, to believe in passion is to
live in an illusion. By living for erotic joy Im drifting. Those in heaven stir the ship of human society. One should
reject flesh and body. Its too boring. St. Joan- How is this life force manifested in Joan? About historical event. He
uses it to dramatize the sainthood. Joan is a saint. She has subordinated whatever was her personal aim to do
Gods business. She identifies with God- another name for life force. She becomes a rebel against the church and
aristocracy. She first rebel and protestant(?). Protesticism- rebellion of the individual soul against social, or
inferiority of the church in the private communication with God. For Shaw and Eliot imagination is that organ in
man that enables him to see the true society. God- her vision of that life force. Is her death a waste? No- she didnt
chose to die. She insists upon her life, rights. But when they tell her that she will spend her life in prison, shed
rather die than be a slave. She refuses life under such terms- a cultural hero. Her heart couldnt burn. She supplies
us with criteria of humanity. You become human when you accept to die for your vision of freedom. She completes
the pattern of reality. It is revealed. People surrounding profit immensely around her. Her greatest achievement was
the support of her death. They cant stand her wearing mens clothes. They later see how terrible it is when you kill
other person. Then a note- must Christ die for the sake of those who dont have imagination to see the total reality.
It seems it is a necessity. Why do they kill her? As a realist, brave shed remind them of their faults; criteria on which

they will judge their failures. She reminds them of what they could be, but dont have the courage. The same is to
be found in Eliots Becket- different from Shaw. Eliot was a Christian, Shaw was an evolutionist- he believes his
story moves forward. Eliot- history is descending. Although they are different, they have in common that ordinary
nature- doesnt contain a full pattern. Its echoed in The Murder in the Cathedral- in the text concerning Beckets
death. People will remember his death but the story will be changed because people cannot hear too much reality.
If Shaw insisted on one person to be a realist, Eliot has similar division- the conscious few and the unconscious
majority. They represent (Celia) a modern secular version of sainthood. They die to show the whole pattern. Henry
II killed Becket in the Counterbery Cathedral. Eliot- all his plays are written in versus- when you see development
away from naturalism. It is to dramatize the complete pattern he resorted to verse. Shaw- naturalism. The play he
wrote consists his mature works. He denoted the end of his life- ego character- the majority. You subordinate it to
more higher, larger self. He returns to this same theme. There is no mind(?) historical references in Becket- valid
process- an instance of sth can happen always. Becket escaped to France, returned and yet already knowing that it
is hostile to demonstrate that the freedom of spirit is beyond necessity. To whom? There is a chorus. It comprises
the voices of the women of Canterbery- unthinking majority. The unconscious men- they are faced between Henry
and Becket and the play is transformation towards the acceptance of the whole pattern. First, they live on the level
on the cycles of seasons- pay taxes, award misfortunes. Their greatest fear is to face the possibility of freedom.
Theyd rather go on partly living. There is a realm of spiritual freedom. Becket stands for it. At first the chorus pleads
Becket to return to France. We dont witness the difficulty of moral choice. Then 4 tenors tempt him with various
things. He rejected sensual pleasure, political power- an offer to become a part of aristocracy. Then the crucial
temptation- the 4th tentor offered him to become a martyr for the sake of glory, vanity, fame. Then Becket says this is
the worst temptation- to choose the right thing for the bad reason. He wants to strip himself from any personal motifonly if it is a desire of God. Its not out of my personal will but for the sake of revealing the whole pattern. Im not in
danger, Im near to death. To be faithful to spiritual freedom. There is the comment of the chorus showing that those
unconscious many dont see the whole pattern, accept own limitations, cant live up to the criterion of the saint.
Becket and Joan are the cultural heroes, they point to the whole pattern- what it means to be complete human.
Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot
Beckett is more hopeful than Pinter. That is found in Waiting for Godot. Waiting for Godot defiantly renders itself
to be a kind of interpretation that allows for legitimate hope. Waiting for Godot is about four people- optimistic. The
two of them are waiting for Godot- salvation, new hope. The hope is legitimate because they made decisive steps to
become drop-outs (waiting for a better chance). They are contrasted to two other characters. We see them as being
alternative to those shut within the culture. They are on the road. There is a tree of life (hope for regeneration). A
play about waiting- they fill the emptiness of time by playing games. They remain together voluntarily- two tramps
terribly incompetent, never get wiser, sustain each other by remaining together( friendship- an alternative against
obedience- the game that ruins them both in the end; reminds one perhaps of the games spoken about Pinterplay, play again relationship within the culture that V&E stepped beyond.
S. Becket- Waiting for Godot
The theme of Becketts play as well as of the Shaffers The Royal Hunt is the loss of faith in all variety of cultural
ideals, beliefs and in the power of mind to give us definite explanation of the world which is inaccessible to rational,
philosophical mind. The philosophical assumption: reality is inaccessible; man cannot determine the origin and the
goal of human existence (Luckas). This impotence of mind is present as sth unchanging. But that is not so. This
unknowability of the quality of a rationalist, Cartesian mind is due to the split from other modes of knowing (intuition)

At the beginning of his carrier, Beckett thought that the artist was a non-knower, non-comer. However, he didnt
remain on this nihilistic stage. He wanted to bring people to zero-position so that we could go on. If a modern man
was to make any step beyond, he had to go beyond social norms, beyond convential life. He was aware of the
waste of life. Therefore, his characters, Vladimir and Estragon go beyond culture (Trilling). His play Waiting for
Godot has two pairs of characters (phases in Pizaros life) and it is a defense of all techniques. This play is
seemingly without movement, change- no climax, no resolution, as if nothing happens. The play is about the time
and the frustration of waiting.

In Beckett, characters cant explain themselves to each other, cant orient themselves in space and time, spectators
cant see motives. The characters know nothing about the past except that once they were presentable, respectable
in the society but now they are not significant for the society. They step out of it and there is their salvation. In his
plays, casual, logical explanation is missing.
Waiting for Godot- the theme of death and time in a world that is devoid of God, explanations, consolation of
traditional beliefs. The metaphor of the room disappears because the problem is no longer being closed within a
cultural space, it is about the possibility once one finds oneself outside the culture. That is why in Becket we have
an open road- a search for a better option, facing naked reality, leading nowhere except perhaps to death. The
same theme is explored in Shaffers The Royal Hunt. Pizzaro (this cage)- the prison cell of time- how can the
problem of time be solved. In Pinter we have depiction of the absurdity, senselessness of life in the network of
relationships offered by culture which reveals the destructiveness of culture without moving to depiction of an exit.
In Beckett and Shaffer- we have not only the absurdity of culture but also the step outside culture- they didnt
describe life outside culture as absurd, so they allow us to see that human condition is not tragic, theres a shred of
hope, there is the conviction that once you step outside culture, you face naked reality- death and time- but the play
is about finding sth that suffice. The very first sentence of Becketts play Nothing to be done, shows a kind of
absurdity of life. Estragon says it and Vladimir repeats it on a higher level. The reasons for this nothing to be done
are supplied through allusions to the Bible which gave Western men a map for orientation, of Holy land, where he
will be given all explanations, meanings. In Bible, there was an ideal of origin and goal, and this reference to the
Bible emphasize that this map of reading is no longer valid. Hope deferred makes the heart sick but when desire
comes it is a tree of life- Vladimir remembers quotations from the Bible when he has problems with the bladder,
waiting for the last moment. We connect this sentence with the scenery on the stage- there is a tree but its no
longer a tree of life. Bible can no longer sustain us, it cannot take us to the place where hope and desire are
realized and it also points to the loss of faith in all cultural ideals as well as the collapse of the old traditional beliefs.
Luckys speech seems to be meaningless, but it is paradoxical, moves in circles and yet you can extract meaning,
message. Lucky, by parodying the Bible, scientific discoveries, is saying that there is no salvation. He begins by a
reference to religion- God- at first there is personal God (traditional conclusion in that we will be saved) but turns it
into opposite: apathia- inability to feel to have moral; aphasia- inability to speak (theres God but this God is
suffering from muteness, indifference); anthemia- lack of capacity for terror and amazement and perhaps moral
indifference. Then he goes on to philosophy, parody of science of men. In spite of God, science, other various
down-to-earth activities are resort to give life appearance of meaning. The passage concludes with repetition: the
man, master and pines, the skull, the skull, the skull- the world is meaningless. The speech points that all traditional
(philosophical, religious, scientific) coherent explanations have lost power to supply us with the sense of meaning
and this should be discarded. The society destroys the creative potentials of the mind. Once Lusky was able to
express himself in beautiful dances. He now calls the dance a net- the mind is entrapped.
Pozzo and Lucky believe in social hope- they live within culture believing that there is social hope- meaningful
change, development, which is an old ideal of social progress. Pozzo has a watch- believes in time; a schedule- his
life is organized according to timetable; a suitcase- traditional belief, his cultural heritage (religious, philosophical)
are there to imbetter(?) his belief in cultural progress but this belief is a sham because the relationship between
Pozzo and Lucky presupposes cruelty and exploitation. Pozzo is very self-complacent and he governs the society.
The artist and philosopher are slaves in the consumer society. Pozzo and Lucky- master and servant relationship,
presumption and cruelty to Lucky is what reveals essential hypocrisy of all meanings defined in culture. Therefore in
act II we have Pozzo blind, he has lost his schedule, his suitcase is full of sand- Christian illusion of nothingness
and vanity. He is being pulled on the rope by Lucky who is now dumb. Pozzos suitcase represents the burden of
civilization. Pozzos blindness, the lack of vision: he had the vision of progress, meaningful life within society. Now
he is desperate because he ha cherished false hopes. Lucky is dumb- as an artist he has nothing else to say.
Master is mastered by the one he has dominated: harmful to both Vladimir and Estragon, respond to Pozzos
philosophical speech: at least we know what to expect. Once they shared the same illusion but made a timely
departure from culture; that is why they are in a better position. They have only one illusion that is not dependent on
cultural heritage- Godot. They believe that some meaning will be revealed to them some day, may be God or any
kind of guidance that is supplied outside themselves. Godot may be some external authority. A desire to go to a
place where you are safe because life is meaningful again. They are waiting meaning. Godot may be whatever can
provide to a particular person a sense of fulfillment, human creativity. If Godot is an external authority than waiting is

illusory, if it is an internal authority, then there is hope. They have found their Godot. First they have freed from false
ideals of relationships, as their relationship is voluntary- they decided without forcing from the outside to stay
together. Those who are tied with a rope, they dont have a hint of free choice. Consciously, Vladimir and Estragon
are waiting for external authority, but unconsciously they have learned that no fixed, absolute, reliable truth is ever
to come, so in the meantime while waiting, they are playing with words (Derrida- freeplay). The most offensive
word is critic (it fits into the general theme) because Beckett is making fun of those who want life to consist of fixed
meanings. Beckett, therefore, gives us the image of 2 tramps, tolerant, informal, forever playing and the purpose of
their being together is affection. They are saved by affection because they refused to emphasize hierarchical,
exploitative, violent relationship in the society. Pozzo and Lucky have an imperfect relationship of body and mind.
Lucky is Cartesian mind which cannot console the body and is abused by it- Pozzo. Lucky as a mind is forced to
perform miracles for Pozzo- western mind supplied man with all illusions in religious, scientific explanation which
has disintegrated. The mind unsuccessfully tries to recreate the traditional concepts but it fails. Thats why Lucky
cant think, cant give answers and Pozzo wants to sell him. The mind is a scapegoat which will be sacrificed.
Vladimir and Estragon are also projections of the mind and body. Vladimir: playing with a hat, mind connected to
higher spheres (stinking breath) and Estragon: playing with boots- body, unconscious (stinking feet). They
complement each other. They are materially shabby but they stick to their dignity. They have found what will suffice.
The body and the mind dont humiliate each other but base relationship on affection, love. Love is a redeeming
force. Body doesnt expect from the mind big explanations but a sign, a lullaby. The ability to see others makes us
dignified. The revelation: although life is inaccessible to rational mind, it is not absurd, it ultimately consists in our
ability to love. This is the cultivation of the mind which is not rational but is capable to love. Vladimir is sitting next to
sleeping Estragon, singing him a lullaby and then Vladimir says: someone must be watching me too- the desire to
watch means that someone loves him too, an archetypal need for a spiritual principle so that man doesnt feel
alone. Everything is perhaps, nothing is final, sure. Logic and casualty are betrayed all the time. Even the Bible
contains uncertainties, a paradox that the Bible ends with a book of Revelation. We dont arrive at any logic.
Endgame (2 acts) is one act play which stresses the end- in this play we do not have a contrast and a possibility.
They all belong together- the room is like a cell, they are playing the end of the game- they desire for it but ending
seems to be endless- the most resonant emotion is the emotion of desire to be finished- Hamm and Clov -seem to
be Pozarard & Lucky tired by the roles they have been forced to play. They want to make the end of the game
whatever it is. The hope you feel when you see that desire- to end smth- anything else might come up. There is a
glimpse of sth new- a child in the end. What we see is not that possibility. We see suffering, ending, dying and
nothingness. Clove looks out what he reports is zero version- thats nothing. Nothing is so real as nothing- the
uncertainty about salvation. Here, there seems to be no chance- absurd, nothing. Everything is reduced to the zero
condition. What is the origin of the sense of nothingness in Beckets plays? Many factors- part of his nihilism,
pessimism is found in his personal life (an Irishman, well-to do family). He had a happy childhood. There was too
much misery around him. He did love a woman who died after which he never surrendered himself to any kind of
relationship. This misery convinces him that he cannot share his mothers religion- Protestantism. For some time he
shooed the belief everything turns to the lost- he lost this belief, but this loss of faith, death of God was the loss of
eschatology refers to after life when we pass out of this world. The philosophy of Protestantism continued to affect
his works- the idea of predestination. Calvinism- every individual is either doomed or saved. This vision affected
him. The God who loves us but with some exceptions- for reason are unknown but time will tell. What we can say
about Beckett is that the death of God never was a sense of release ( as for Show ). Beckett- the death of God
inspired in him worse pessimism. Show- creative revolution- ecstasy of brain- monumental comic epic dedicated to
one organ of the human body. Beckett- both conscience and the body are the source of despair- a source of
torment to each other. Never harmony, relaxed acceptance- the body and the mind are tied in inadequate way.
Beckett suffered from depression very early. He began writing poems. He was conscious of time and he wrote
about it. He went to Germany, retired and spent some time in London seeking oblivion (avoiding women, too).He
visited Joyce and his daughter Lucia fell in love with him. She became schizophrenic
Endgame-an allusion to the final moment in chess. That final point remains for the few final moments the king,
the master. He is expecting the checkmate. Ending-The metaphor which works on several levels- the end of God,
nature- here in the form of love-the human ending. The end of physical strength. Nag, Nell, Clove and Hamm- the
end of nature. Hamm is blind. Clove has to see for him- reports a zero of nature- nothing outside. A kind of

ecological catastrophe, philosophical, religious end. Everything is the endgame- the end of everything which could
keep the western man alive. Nuclear catastrophe- vague fear of the imminent disaster. Entropy- metaphor for the
end of anything human. Catastrophe is also spiritual- the entropy of love- the decisive movement which made them
to this position. Hamm & Clove- any relationship turns into deadly ending- the loss of any emotion. But, love existed
once. I am leaving but he does not. Two people continue to live together after love death. There is nobody elsenowhere to go. We are dependent on each other. Hamm is an invalid. Clove, who cannot seat, provides him with
biscuits. The end of meaningful relationship- people are lazy to change anything. They are all members of the
family- sexual, family love. Hamm curses his father (Negg) - failure of parental love. He is also a story teller. A story
about a father asking him to save his child. The narrator says: If I give you bread, you can feed him only today- he
loves this story. He and Clove- Hamm tortures him. The point is that love once did exist- no possibility but reality.
Love was possible once- Once you loved me and Clove said once- resonant note in the play. Once, but not now.
Even though they have dreams about forests, nature, he wakes up and says What forests. If I could sleep I could
love again. The end of human nature and love. We remember only in a mixture, indifference. They together
hesitate. Nell-she remembers a moment similar to the moment with her husband- they were engaged. Now, in the
lake in Italy I remember the boat, the water you and I, and I was so happy. She remembers instantly. He says it
was a joke- it is gone for him. For her, it keeps reappearing. No, it was not your joke. Then the rest will not agree
that she is talking about happiness. Clove misunderstands her- they refuse, too bearable for them. The least
adopted- the greater rememberer-The final end of a dream of love in the play. The death of memory. Her mention of
the desert- Nell- a key piece in a chess game- the fisher king. The whole myth about the archetype of western man
wounded by the sin of loss of love. Land surrounding his castle is bare. In the Grail myth; in Eliots The waste
Land- the water suggesting the flow of emotions. The fisher king- the others- collective archetype of western
fisher king- no wounded. Clove carries Hamm- aspect of the sick mind. The whole endgame is the end of the whole
existence which betrayed love. Not only they are aspects of the single personality. Nell- consciousness of a man.
The end of man is seen in the skull of man. Hamm- innovative mind lost any aspect with his personality. The
reason- practical ego exploited by the mind. The father- superego. Nell- the anima, the female. If this is the drama
of the consciousness of a collective man, what is the meaning of a boy in the end? (Richard III)- the knight-to free
the fisher king, to heal his wound and when he dies to be replaced by a new king. Another beginning is possible. Is
he the innocence? Clove I will be allowed to die- another man involved in a horrible game? Or a new beginning?
Clove exits, the boy enters. Hamms death- the boy is a new servant. This death is indistinguishable from the final
liberation. There is a hint- final end of the psyche (the worst possibility is that the game may not come to an end).
Excerpts
Bare interior
Beckett used a lot of chess symbolism- Endgame- when the king surrenders (the end of the chess game). Masters
of chess, they study endgame. They know all movements are determined, fixed, cannot be changed. In the end you
are going to die- in the game of life- it is inevitable. The game is already decided Grey light- the loss of everything.
The game is not finished. The characters are in a bare room. Hamm & Clove- two small windows- the room is the
skull- everything happens in mans consciousness. The windows are eyes. The play is taking place in the single
human skull. He keeps his parents in an ashbin. They are inevitably a part of who we are. They are here, in our
psyche. Chess symbolism- Hamm is the king, he gives orders. He insists on being in the centre of the things. He is
egocentric. They have red faces. Negg- Nell-white faces- red and white figures. Clove is a knight. Hamm is an
invalid- he is bleeding, he is suffering physically- he asks for painkillers. The room- the skull; the shelter from the
outside world. There is a suggestion of general catastrophe, devastation-to see this as a projection of their inner
feeling that there is nothing. This is the place where Hamm is protected from the world. Clove starts his
monologue: Finished, near finished, it must be nearly finished. Jesus- finish- a kind of rebirth- salvation. Clove
wants to leave Hamm. They are in a sort of father-son relationship, trapped in interdependency. He sees individual
moments- if he gathers them he can create a heap accumulation. I cannot be punished anymore. Hamm makes
him a sufferer. He is serving him all the time. Master- servant, sadomasochistic unhealthy relationship. Clove- nail;
Hamm-hammer- someone pushing, dominant. Hamm is also biblical name- the son of Noah( the story of Noah- the
story of regeneration). Life starts all over again after a catastrophe. Here, it is ironic- there is no regeneration.
Nagg: What does that mean?...
Nell- a joke about his tailor who is delaying to make trousers- again sth not finished- a sort of a lie- delaying. It
seems that the game wont finish. The first time he told this story was long time ago when they were engaged-

spring- everything blooms- suggests a time of love- religious resurrection. Nell was happy. They were in love. She
recalls her happiness. The color of the boat is white. She is the only one who can remember. She points to the
importance of love. She dies and manages to finish the game. She says she sees the bottom of the lake. If you look
deep down- sth important in life, a deep inside of life- into the spiritual meaning of life. Her final word is desert- no
meaning. There is no the spiritual water of life, spirituality. The life is now a desert. Clove looks outside and
everything is grey. She said what the world without love is like. There is this impossibility of communication. They
dont understand each other.
Hamm: One
Hamms story. Is he emotional about his story? He assumes this narration as giving a performance; he assumes the
role of a story teller. He uses some figure, then he gets detached from his story. The story is about a man who asks
for some food. The world described in the story- there is no one around; some great disaster would happen. The
world is like a desert- just a man and his child. He is in a desperate position- he is exhausted, he is dying. Hamm is
reserved; he is not touched by that story. He is not disturbed by this mans suffering. He enjoys in smoking. He is
selfish, egocentric, preoccupied with himself. Its Christmas Eve- symbolically the time of generosity- the birth of
Christ- the birth of this little boy- resurrection of life- a new hope of humanity- sth hopeful, some new life. There are
other actions implying that he is selfish. He is obsessed with material wealth. He is calculating, not emotionally
involved. Inevitably connected with nature- we feel hunger, thirst- our body requires sth which cant be denied- we
cannot escape- no cure for that- its a sort of curse- you cant escape from the desire of your body as well as of your
death. He is not capable of transcending it by the means of love. Hamm- the sense of futility of life- incapable of
loving. His parents didnt give him proper love, therefore he lost the ability to love. The same thing between Hamm
and Clove proceeding from father to son, from one generation to the next. Motive in drama- the characters lost their
ability to love.
I warn you- Clove
He sees zero projection. He sees a boy, a new salvation. This entire desert is simply a projection- nothing outside.
They convince each other but here it is not so. Clove realizes that he could survive without Hamm. There is a
possibility that he wants to kill that boy (gafl- ostra kuka). They want to kill the flee and rat throughout the play. The
boy can also start the game again and perhaps he should be killed. Clove- they said to me- they- the human
society. He is taught friendship, beauty, order- a kind of consolation, gives meaning to life. Here these are just
phrases. He imagines how he would leave Hamm. He will be very happy then. There is some hope in the end. If
that boy is outside alive, maybe the life outside is possible. Stalemate- no one has won. They are just standing
there. Hamm is now sensual and before he was focused on his body, he was egocentric. Clove symbolizes intellect,
spiritual kind of life. He wants to leave, to be free. It is possible that the whole play was happening in the head
(skull) of only one person.
H. Pinter- THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, THE DUMB WAITER
Pinters characters are hopeless. Everything seems to be rather dark. Pinters plays are comparable with Osborns.
The room is of the central importance- central stage metaphor. Naturalist room- the room- by tracing the use of this
metaphor- the stages it undergoes we understand the transformation of naturalism to expressionalism. 2
differences: naturalist theatre vs. the theatre of absurd. One room flat for Jimmy and Alison is a refuge. Its a
container of potential intimacy. Alison waking up- she is a moral sufferer now. They lose the world but find each
other. She participates in suffering with her husband. Some moral awakening is possible still. Another thing
characterizing Osborne is that the world that they have renounced is very definitely, concretely, historically defined.
Its recognizable. We know who the enemy is- the middle and the higher class which conspire with the church,
education etc. against anybody. Its the conspiracy of the wealth and the ISA. We know who the enemy is- the
system. This is not so with Pinter. He offers little information about the forces that crash his characters. In his plays
what you find is the room into which characters escape. No understanding, no communication will ever take place.
We witness a spectacle, horrible triviality- no affection or subdued aggression against each other. The critics
describe his plays: its not that his characters fail to communicate, its too easy for them, they are terrified at the
possibility to have anybody enter their inner emptiness, its avoidance of communication. The kind of speechobstructing communication. Whenever sth is said, you have to have an ear for these unspoken emotions. You
should watch closely the kind of conversation in that room. This is the only thing available in the private sphere in

which they escape- no salvation in his plays. The archetypal motif for any drama- 2 people in the room enjoying a
small talk. They feel secure from some danger from outside. The emptiness of psyche. Yet they enjoy within this
boring life. The motif- 2 people going through their rituals, pretending communicating and then a knock on the doorthe forces of the world of outside, which is discrutive(?), mysterious, unrecognizable, invisible- this is
expressionalism. It is objectively there but with Pinter they look out of the window- forces embodied in the structure.
The world is frightening and funny- its comedy of menace (straha)- vague drag, anxiety in the heart of modern life
but not recognizable. Nightmare experience- subjective experience, the vision of the world as the characters see it.
Instead of showing us the system, we are shown a person transformed into an insect. Dehumanizing forces- to
survive in a room as an insect. A nightmare of the experience of the living in the modern world. All those motifs- the
horror of communication- reading newspapers- one of the most powerful barrier against real understanding
between two people. The play is more demanding- the motifs are similar.
The Dumb Waiter
The relationship of those who are in the system, whereas, in The Birthday Party- the relationship between those
who are in the system and those who try to evade it. In The Dumb Waiter the system produces paid killers who
serve the system without questioning it and are unaware of the consequences of their acts. A kid of eight killed a
cat- a child killed a cat and they are appalled at it but unable to relate this to their own actions. We indulge in
violence, yet we are disgusted with other violence. We realize that Ben and Gus have to kill someone. One of them,
Gus, is less perfectly adjusted to the system. He is worried. Yet, Ben is perfectly adjusted- serves someone dumblybureaucratic obedience to the system. He is quite cool, his partner is restless. Gus cannot restrain from asking
questions. This arises insecurity in Ben. They are the lowest part of the system. They are in the room in a basement
which used to be a kitchen of a high-class hotel and at the same time they are victims- exploited by the system.
This is dramatized by the dumb waiter. How? The dumb waiter comes with a food order even though it was
abandoned and these two start desperately searching their pockets for sth to give to the system. The orders
became more demanding. They try to give the last they have to provide the system. The system squeezes them out
of their whole identity, selfhood without questioning. The system empties them of the last scrap of humanity. There
is no food left down here. Gus is angry. Ben tells him to do the job without questioning. No food, no clean sheets,
no gas for making tea- Gus is angry. Gus wonders how and why the system operates. He is the next victim- the last
of those who are asking questions to be destroyed. The system has to be purged of all potential subversive
elements. Ben- not burdent with the past, memory of another kind of life is wiped out so he is adjusted. Gus has a
memory of a former identity, humanity which forces him to ask questions. Who is going to be this time?- suggests
that he doesnt take job for granted, but that he is concerned that the victim is a woman- the destruction of the
feminine.
(2nd version)
The tension between the privacy and the intruders that snatch the victim- is replaced by another- inside look into the
system- the relationship between 2 servants instrumentalized. Nema coveka koji je pobegao iz sistema i onih koji
ga vracaju. They are Ben and Gus. The play is important, it reopens the issue. Any meaning in the bourgeois
civilization- no origin and goal of their existence; they escape into psychopathology. Lukacs- this conditiondistortion- is raised on the level of eternal human condition, not on episode of the history. Pinter makes it difficult to
recognize the enemy. He wants you to re-experience the horror of the modern life. He wants to force people to see
how difficult it is to identify the enemy. His plays stimulate us to see through words to go out and resist. The 2 men
came to a deserted place, to a basement room. They came to kill sb. The important moment when they reproduce
the motif as in the Birthday Party. Mccane was a bit shaken by the spectacle of Stanley, a bit nervous. Play up, and
play up, he- some remnants of humanity. Goldberg- sentimental, hypocritical. This motif- difference between
them is emphasized. Gus- the younger is nervous, doesnt feel at ease. He is complaining they were treated worse
than a long time ago. He, the employer, has left no matches, gas, tea. All the time Ben, the weaker one,
subordinated, predat sluzbi sistema, is sitting and reading the newspapers. The other one is insisting on knowing,
thinking, on which Ben shield himself by reading newspapers, instances of violence- a child of eight kills a cat. I am
disgusted- this is true to life. Dissociation between professional (?) and private intimacy. Inability to recognize the
connection. Process of recognition is made impossible. All the time Gus, who is nervous, keeps repeating: Ive
meaning to ask you. Whats there to ask? He is also upset by the lost job- the killing of a woman. He is vaguely
disturbed that the next job may involve a woman- a character who is thinking upon the destruction of a feminine.
Ben no remnant of humanity, then a symbolic thing- a dumb waiter comes- a wooden box carrying orders. It turns

out that it used to be a kitchen- cooks prepared the food for those who eat up- the invisible power is fed. The
basement is usurped (the structure of the system). It comes down with the order. Ben- to give everything its left to
the system. He makes his friend produce whatever he has. He doesnt want to give everything up. Gus- vaguely
rebellious. The system squeezes everything out of them. After that Gus proceeds with his dissatisfaction. Finally,
the moment approaches, the last instructions came. They are respectable. The next scene- instead of through the
door of the lavatory, Gus appears through main door. They find each other staring at. Gus is the next victim. The
system has to be purged from the one asking questions.
EXCERPTS
Ben slaps down the paperits enough to
Ben and Gas are paid killers. They are at the bottom of the social structure. Ben is reading the newspapers, hiding
himself. He retells two stories about the lorry run over a man and a little girl who killed a cat. They are disgusted,
horrified by violence. Its ironic. They are both shocked by violence. Cleavage- pukotina- kao da covek ima 2
strane. (Kurtz- The Heart of Darkness). 1 cini nedela I odvojen je od dela za moralno rasudjivanje. Gas wants to
question the meaning, he doesnt obey everything without questioning. Another motif- the child of 8 kills a cat. Ben
say it was a girl- he makes the theory. I bet he did it. ne moze da veruje da je devojcica pocinila zlocin. The sort of
suppressed feelings of uneasiness about feminine.
What time
Gas doesnt like the basement they have to be in. He is also complaining about bed- he didnt have a healthy sleep.
All these complaints tell us that he is not satisfied with the position in the society. He feels injustice, he is not
completely adjusted, dont confront to the room and the situation. A window here symbolizes the rest of the world
which is incomprehensible to them. They dont know anything about the structure, the outside world. Everything
seems to be incomprehensible. This space is a sort of archetype in Pinters plays. In Osborne- also a room. Jimmy
was looking outside all the time. He criticized the society all the time. Here, the world outside is comprehensible. He
can look out and rage. The characters in Pinters plays cannot see. You cant have a structure. They may shift from
one basement to another but they are a sort of prisoners in the structure. Ben is completely adjusted. He does
carving in his free time. His activities are limited.
The box descends with
Gas complains about everything. Ben went through his belongings. Gas is trying to preserve sth for himself. He
doesnt want to give everything to the system- some private space, sense of separate personality. He is not
completely obedient. Bens accusing him for not being completely obedient. Ben is superior here.
Whats he doing
The system only wants to control them, test their loyalty. Gas reads the order. He is angry and nervous. He doesnt
want to participate. He feels angry. You took everything for us. Ben is working here. He wants to go on to satisfy
the system. Awareness that he is at the bottom- a sort of class difference. Ovde nema price; nije mu ni jednu pricu
ispricao (novine)- deo tog rituala- nema nikakvog smisla. This is just the part of the routine. What we have in Pinter
is that the language has the purpose of avoiding real communication- to feel the gap, then you have the moment of
silence that speaks more than words. You become closer to that sth. The most important thing is sth you cant talk
about.
The Birthday Party
A failure to participate in life. A play where a relationship of parents and children are destructive. The title suggests
the initiation of rebirth- the day you are born again. It is a horrible and funny play in which funny turns into appalling.
The horror of the false birthday party where we see that he is not initiated into a selfhood, maturity. The travesty of
the initiation ritual- the day of his ultimate destruction, not initiated into selfhood. The room in a shabby seaside
boarding house. Stanley exploits the good will of Meg, his surrogate mother who mothers him all the time. She is
well, meaning stupid and obsessed with food. He has cut all the ties with the outside world. He has a story to
justify his failure to participate in life. The story is that he was a famous pianist but they cut his career short. Meg
interprets his story completely differently. There is no communication, frightening misunderstanding. So this life is
arrest- to be stopped in ones development. Stanleys life has been arrested by his willful escape from life itself. Two
strangers appear- projection of his subconsciousness, guilt for having given up all ambition in the world and thus
having reduced his life. Those two strangers submit him to a terrible interrogation- seemingly senseless questions
asked with savagery. Whom do they represent? Those forces are deliberately undefined. The moment the audience

identifies them, they lose their power to frighten and enables Stanley to distance from it. if the threat is indefinable,
we project our unconscious fears. What secretly frightens us is definable on the stage. Yet, those figures, by
questions, suggest several things:
1. Why did you betray organization?- suggest political force, purging authority. 2. Do you recognize external force
which suffers for you?- theological emissaries and metaphysical authority. 3. Why do you pick your nose?reminiscence of parents, father figure, parental authority. They are figures of authority (ultimately the male) and this
authority organizes him a birthday party whose purpose is to snatch him away from the mother and claim him as the
obedient citizen. In the end he is for the first time conventionally dressed. Meg buys him drums suggesting that he
should never grow up. Two strangers organize another questioning, this time he was in darkness experiencing
death to be born again. They break his glasses to force him to see the way they want, to change the way of seeing.
In the morning, after being cross-examined, he is reduced to a set of speechless, inarticulate voices- reduced to a
baby out of which they will manufacture a new person, will give him new insight (new glasses). He will be built anew
and will be taken to Monty- a psychiatrist who will finish the job the two strangers started.
Options: hopeless for an individual trying to be born into maturity. It is either staying in private space and be
dominated by the mother who will stop your development, or to stay in a father world, authority, turned into a
machine. Only person taking interest is Megs husband Petty, who rebels against them. Dont let them tell you what
to do. But he withdraws- no alternative. They- the system.
(2nd version)
Stanley is a failure, lazy, takes a refuge in a seaside boarding house- routine. It is run by an elderly woman Meg
and her husband Petey. She adopts Stanley- a surrogate mother. She is tremendously stupid. Her speech is
horrifying in its stupidity. A kind of woman who is a surrogate mother- obsessed with food- a substitute for a real
affection. She wants to mother her son then she flirts with Stanley. Those words- platitude, then comes words with
erotic meaning- succulent. She wants to control him. Although he hates her secretly, he remains with her. She is a
better option than the world outside. When he speaks, he lies, invent stories about himself. They adopt false
names. This is indicative of their desire to have different identities. He has invented a story- he used to be a concert
pianist. They locked the door of the hall and it was an excuse of his desire to withdraw into shabby boarding house.
His stupidity- when he tells the story- they gave him a tip- monstrous stupidity. Then he feels less security- then a
girl- sth between mother and a lover. Lulu- he wants to go somewhere with her. The reason of her failure thus lies
on both sides. Withdrawal into the routine, nothing- yet an escape into a kind of better possibility. The crisis open
when 2 strangers knock on the door- Goldberg and Mccane. Goldberg is a Jewish, extremely sentimental- his
speech of power and dominance by which one wants to exercize his power over the victim. This begins by
questions- absurd, grotesque interrogation. No conclusion who or what they represent. They see Stanley,
then sit down- they force him. Then the cross examination- absurd but they still point to some forces. Questions
are funny and grotesque. This suggest some political authority. Some theological theory- questions asked by father
reprimanding his son. Then they also ask philosophical questions of origin and goal. He is unable to answer any
and he finally breaks down. Forces of bourgeoisie respectability. After the party there is a power cut. The light goes
out. They break his glasses. After this travesty(?) of the real meaning of the birthday- initiation. Neither Meg nor
they will allow him to be truly reborn. She bought him a drum. She wants to mother him. These two men break his
glasses and we see him reduced to a child capable of producing inarticulate sounds. They are going to make him a
new man. Theyll shape him again into a person that will fit the system. He is inarticulate and then they offer him the
progress. Well buy you another glasses- theyll shape him, project him to the system. He is for the first time cleanshaven, wears a tie. These two men are the forces of conventional life. The contrast between the privacy and the
system is marked out through the contrast between the patriarchal authority and the maternity. Snatch him away
from her and fit him into the system.

The Homecoming- H.Pinter

The Homecoming is a play by Harold Pinter, first published in 1965. The play has six characters, five of them men.
The plot involves the eldest son in the family's wife coming home with him for the first time from the United
States and experiencing the working class London background that he grew up with. Much sexual tension is
created throughout the play as his wife taunts his brothers.
There is also a power struggle going on between the two more dominant men; Lenny and Max. Max puts down the
other men by feminising them, while Lenny destroys Max's memory of the past. At the end though Ruth
appears to have the power as she has the men meeting her demands.
A significant staging feature is the absence of the back wall. This symbolises the absence of the female influence.
When Ruth (Teddy's wife) returns, she is asked to remain in London as the family's mother figure and also their
prostitute (replacing the hole left when Max's wife Jessie died). Teddy leaves without his wife to return to America
and Ruth says "Eddie. Don't become a stranger." The use of the name Eddie connotates perhaps that he is already
a stranger to her.
The real homecoming is that of the mother role (now Ruth) as it had been alluded to during the play Jessie was in a
fact a prostitute working for her pimp MacGregor. Ruth is taking on this mother's role that has been so craved by
Lenny especially. Lenny spends a lot of time thinking of his mother in a sexual context, hence the questions about
his conception, perhaps that is why he has become a pimp himself in Soho.
The cruel underbelly of society in the 60's really comes to the surface, when sexually explicit themes and themes of
violence are explored, in what one can refer to as almost surreal. Through the use of pauses, power is passed
around the somewhat disjointed family, and the struggle for domination enhances what can be percieved as the
harsh working class reality of the time.

OSBORNE and PINTER-- ROOM

The metaphor of the room changed from Osborne to Pinter.
Osborne
Room- not embodiment of social relationships (external world) but a private space (projection of the individual
consciousness) in which an individual withdraws in order to be protected from the outside world. Is it possible here
to develop in any sense? Is the room a container of the authentic life? People in the room resemble more to
animals than human but it is a kind of movement to more authentic life as Alison accepts the vision when they
resume a game of bears and squirrels. This affection will lead them to greater understanding, communication. Not a
regression but a new start because she is changed she is able to see the things for what they are. There was a hint
of better life. The outside world is basically historically definable; recognizable although horrible. We know why it is
unbearable, we know the time, reason, environment in which social injustice is maintained. The enemies are
defined: church, new politicians, snobbery.
Pinter
No possibility in his room. In all his plays room as the dramatization of the private space in which life that is there
possible is the life of frightening banalities of common routine. No communication, understanding is possible. It is a
private place one redraws but no growth and identity are possible, presented by means of various images, devices
(newspaper, confusion of names= identities). Private relationships are drained of all meaning. Communication is all
too easy- character try to protect themselves from it. They want to escape the truth which is all too frightening
revelation of one insignificance. Newspaper- the safest barrier of silence. Constant confusion of names- people
hiding their identities, no true names- no true identities. Speech- a smoke screen thrown against mutual recognition,
invented stories to conceal identity. Food- substitute for true nourishment. Inevitable moment- a knock at the doorthe introduction of the forces of the outside world- the world the characters look out of the window of the room is no
longer definable, recognizable- illogical, absurd, senseless, mysterious, menacing. No reason why sth happensforces just erupt and destroy protagonists. The unbearable world seems to have lost all historical identification. The
truth has become increasingly difficult to (?); the audience has to be active in perceiving the world.

Pinters and Beckets plays belong to the theatre of expressionism. The world is presented with a subjective mind.
It is a dramatization of our objective nightmare vision of the world as we ourselves experience it (the context of the
mind is dramatized on the stage). Mind is no longer capable of explaining in logical terms of the world.
And to the theatre of absurd- dramatization that the world is no longer accessible to a logical mind. It records the fall
of the Cartesian mind- whether this is hopeless or not is an open question. (Cartesian mind in Becket- Lucky). The
fall of the Cartesian mind doesnt necessarily mean that life is meaningless and hopeless (Becket- the theatre of
absurd is not hopeless).
In Pinter it is pretty much hopeless. The protagonists have the worst of both worlds (room- dramatization of their
inner world, and knock- the external world). Both realms are destructive and in neither of these realms is possible to
find the growth of an individual- private world. How?
Peter Shaffer- THE ROYAL HUNT OF THE SUN
Shaffer and Beckett are both interested in the existential question: attitude towards time and death. Both of them
point out that time can become prison and that awareness of mortality can be frightening. This attitude is produced
by a certain culture. It doesnt have to be a universal human attitude towards immortality and time. Pizarro in The
Royal Hunt- a historical play in which general questions are discussed. He leads Spaniards into the colonizing
quest of Peru. They committed a genocide- killed many Incas. Pizarro is represented as a bastard, as someone
who doesnt belong anywhere. Because he is of lower origin hes not accepted, regardless of his achievements. He
never fully embraces the values of this society. All the justifications for the quest are for him a fake. He doesnt
believe in the principles such as honor, bringing Christianity to the savages. He sees all this as false. He says that
he lives between two hates. He hates those who uphold these principles and he hates himself for losing them. I
despise the keeping and loath the losing. He sees all the values on which his culture is based and the noble words
simply as shelters. The world is like a big, dark place, like a vast plain which has no landmarks and those values,
structures of society are like pebbles that mand(?) to tell them where they are. All these values have become false
and he yearns a country after rain. He imagines some heavy rain will fall and wash away all these marks and then
search for a new meaning, new positive faith. In his previous conquests he was looking for gold, treasure, higher
position but now he realizes that he is searching for New God, sth that will give his life a goal, a meaning. Through
the play, Pizarros chief enemy is time. He is an old man fearing death. He is afraid of the fact that he is going to
die. This view of time is conditioned by his culture and Christianity. He realizes this when he encounters the Incas.
The Incas are not afraid of the passing of time because their concept of the eternity and immortality is different.
While Christians believe in the afterlife, Incas have created a kind of heaven on Earth. Their chief divinity is the Sun
which is born every day. They are closely connected to nature and the Earth. Their concept of time is cyclical. They
feel immortal in so far as they feel a part of nature. Incas are not at all greedy. They dont feel any need to posses.
Pizarro was taught that greediness is an inborn human quality. Now he sees that this is sth produced by civilization.
Incas are not greedy because they are all awarded equal share of property. There is synchronization between the
human ages and the cycles of nature. The Christian priests in Peru refuse to accept such concept of life. Christians
believe that it is necessary to make a choice either you enjoy this life or you devote yourself to the next one. Either
you live in nature or in some heavenly realm beyond natural cycles. The whole Western civilization seems to be
based on these binary opposites. By making this strict oppositions we cause great damage to our souls. The
Incas concept of divinity proposes a kind of union. Experience of individual love: Pizarro captures Atahuallpa and
he slowly builds the first human relationship. The play is the criticism of the hypocritical betrayal of Christianitys
original concepts. The original ideas have been betrayed. What used to be a promise of universal love became a
kind of gang love. It all comes down to us against them. The play emphasizes the importance and value of the
individual love. The first deep, meaningful relationship Pizarro has with Atahuallpa. Atahuallpa teaches him how to
dance and then Pizarro laughs for the first time. When Atahuallpa is killed, Pizarro cries for the first time. Pizarro
hopes that Atahuallpa is really a God. Atahuallpa said that he would die willingly to save Pizarro from the fear of
death. In a way Atahuallpa is God in his fearlessness and faith. He is a God-like man. In some objective sense he
cannot find the truth. Both these religions are just pebbles structures that people make. I lived between two hates,
I died between two darks. The dark sky- no longer believes in Christian God. The dark eyes of Atahuallpa who
hasnt resurrected. Then he starts to cry for the first time in his life. This is our ability to make water in a sand
world. This is some immortal business. The only positive faith is found in our capacity to love (emotional and
imaginative). This is the only marvel we can create. Waiting for Godot- they are waiting for sth transcendental to

give them hope, whereas hope is in their friendship. Shaffers vision of atheistic- we are the creators of the world.
We create the landmarks. We impose meaning upon the world.
Pizarro- an outsider, trying hard to win his place in the society; while Vladimir and Estragon are born in the society
but run from it. Pizarro succeeds to get in society in order to find out that culture is a moral defeat, so in the end he
becomes outsider again. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot, Pizarro is going to hunt Godot. The meaning:
the Sun- the source of eternal life. Pizarro enters society by behaving by the rules of society. Values he believed in
were illusions, shelters that protected one from the universal vastness (fame, money, gold). By killing the Incas he
becomes acceptable to the society. The greatest disappointment is God. God is just a name carved on a knife
before burying into someone. Christian love is gang love- you love only one group of people and hate all the others.
Christians treat Virgin Mary as a business partner while Incas treat white men as gods and lay their weapons only
to be mercilessly killed. So, Christian myth is fiction, words only, empty signs. These have been excuses for
bloodshed, conquests. They strayed hypocritically from Christianity all the time. Pizarro comes to the conclusion
that no religion is true in a literal sense. You cant expect the coming of any external meaning in a form of outside
deity. What is that will transcend life?- purity. In ability to love another being Pizarro has found his God, he has
found what will suffice him- love. In the end Atahuallpa is killed and Pizarro is sitting in the way Vladimir is sitting
next to (??).
In all plays Shaffer presents his single theme: the desire to go beyond the culture and a theme centers on a pair of
characters who are doubles. One is the victim the other is the executioner. The executioner is very powerful and
backed up by the powers of the structure. He in the end crushes and destroys the other. The victim is seemingly
powerless. However, as the play develops, we discover that the victim has some insight attitude to life which makes
him morally superior. The executioner slowly begins to doubt his position and the structures and the system he
represents. Pizarro has power over Atahuallpa and wants to destroy him; however, he defends him in the end. What
destroys Atahuallpa is the process of destroying other races, started by Pizarro. As long as Pizarro stays shut within
the system of his assumptions (the church, the army, the king and behind them all the imperialism) shared by this
culture, he cannot possess what Atahuallpa stands for.
2nd version
Shaffer began to write family plays- this remains- although he experimented with various techniques. This logical
story, will(?)- made plot remains as one of the characteristics of his plays. The theme is the time- how to confront
with the time, how to escape the prison which is time. He did it by using a traditional story and plot. Those plots
centered around the protagonist- illiterate- a kind of intellectual, he describes his problem. You understand
everything. The theme- refusing to formulate in any form- the dialogue is disconnected, meaningless, not logical,
rational, life-like. The characters are deprived of history (Waiting for Godot), they are undefined. Here we have a
story of the concrete historical event- the conquest of Peru. Pizarro- a real character. He did exist, he is famous for
this conquest. We know his history, biography, 16 th century Spain. We understand his experience. 2 themes- not
really full-grounded.
1st-The theme is Western European Empire- excuses for imperialism. The centre is genocide- very important theme.
Shaffer quarrels that culture is articulated in this theme. Genocide over the primitive people. What is the kind of
white mans subconsciousness that makes him kill? What are the excuses? Exploitation, enslavement, profit.
2nd- the development, the change, the transformation of the protagonist Pizarro- it is the theme of salvation. Can
man escape this kind of false beliefs in order to save himself? Is the salvation possible? The differences are local.
The mayor thing is to step beyond culture. These two themes in Waiting for Godot and the Royal Hunt share some
parallels. Waiting for God- a new pattern, option, possibility to find a new foundation for faith- he believes in sth.
Here we have a person who goes to hunt God- doesnt wait. He identifies the place where the sun rises as the
place of source of life. Sun- mythical. Then he comes across this guy who is the son of the Sun. One is hunting for
God, the two are waiting for him. They are not the same although they are both disappointed. V & E used to belong
to the society, then they stepped beyond that. Pizarro never belonged to the society. He struggled to get in, to find
his place but he couldnt. He was born illegitimate. He was found at the church door. Church- to preserve life. He
spent his life in a pig stale. He never gets a place in the society. He struggled to get in. Then sth happens to
Pizarro. Actions enable him to achieve power. He becomes an adventurer, goes all around the world serving Spain.
Partially he succeeds to be accepted. He goes on serving them and is confronted with constant no(?). He goes to a
final expedition on Peru for wealth, but it turns out that his expedition to Peru is the quest for God and meaning. He
begins to see that those values are illusions, empty words. He doesnt desire it anymore. It happens slowly. What

he discovers is that army honor, chivalry. (Old Martin is telling the story). Pizarro was full of hope and then lost
desire. He realizes that those values are signifiers without substances, empty words. In order to protect himself
from vacuum(?) of universal, he builds psychological shelters- these are lies, myths. He discovers the principle we
can describe as a FACTUM VERUM- Vico- the world created by man. Ideals are perceived as natural- nothing but
illusions man-made. They are illusions protecting man from his loneliness. But what makes Pizarro even more
desperate is the fact that when he discovers that the myth (Frye- Christianity- myth of freedom- to be honorable)
which begins as a creative fiction ends up as a myth of social concern. It turns into reactionary myth. Those myths
are misused for bloodshed. This is particularly true for Christianity- pretext for those who kill those who dont believe
in Christianity. He describes his condition very eloquently- I live between two hates. He hates those who lose
illusions. The movement of time towards death- he confront time. He is imprisoned in that jail called time. He no
longer has the faith in Christian God. He has nothing in himself to redeem. One way is to love sb- a love for a
woman. Because of his nature- no family, no children. He is a prisoner of time. He goes to Peru for money and
fame. Fame is long but death is longer. All his life has been a preparation for the meeting of this king God- to
encounter another culture. But it comes gradually. Two attitudes co-exist at first. His cynicism against Christ- he is a
conqueror, he must kill him. These two attitudes co-exist until the end of the play. He approaches A.- the only way to
survive is to believe that Indians are Gods. A. is imprisoned by Pizarro. Hed be free if this man fills a room with
gold. The use of words- dishonest. Then he thinks about the necessity to kill. How he changes his mind? In the 2
months A. spends as a prisoner, he makes comparison between two modes of life. The Incas live in complete
harmony. Nobody is poor or rich. They love their king, their god. He is the Sun, a source of life for them. The
Spaniards celebrate the society of inequality. They are defending capitalism. His conception of freedom is to get
rich. If the Incas refuse to be converted, they should be killed by this right- he appoints to the Bible. Serious
comparison between 2 religions. Pizarro chooses the Pagan. Their attitude is love. The Spaniards prays for
success and money. Profit is behind all these excuses. A. is also personally superior to Pizarro. There is a motif that
both are bastards. A. was also illegitimate. They are each others doublers. Pizarro is, however, emotionally cold,
while A. is capable of love. Pizarro is afraid of death, A. is not. Pizarro is cynical. A. is serene, dignified, believes in
what he says and yet Pizarro wants to kill him. At one point he makes Pizarro laugh- the first joy that he feels from
companionship. Then A. because he is dignified, decides to protect him- he wont kill him. A. turns out to be more
authentic Christian. He consents to die- not to resurrect but to demonstrate to Pizarro that love and affection are
more important than death. He is killed. They arranged a trial in which A. is accused of very many crimes although
he is not guilty. And there is his body- the audience believes that the miracle will happen. Pizarro comes to his
deepest despair when he says: I live between two hates- the blind eye and the dark sky. There is no after-life. The
blind sky- inability to feel. He experiences the final recognition- no transcendental signified- no principle to be the
objective source of life on the Earth. You believe for a moment that it is the end of the play. Within the same speech
there is a final transformation- a word of acceptance. He begins to cry. He grieves A. These tears remind him of
what Nietzsche says: If we are loyal to the illusions the most significant reality is human reality. Our immortalityour capacity to create belief. Therefore, love is an exit from the prison of the time and the self. We pass water in the
desert. Water- tears- by feeling we transform the desert into a kind of garden. No transcendental signified- it is the
source of human dignity. To be good without the help from the outside is the essence of life. To love without a motif.
The play ends in this final hopeful tone.
EXCERPTS
Pizarro: Look boyfor the books
Young Martin- inexperienced. Pizarro is old, disillusioned. The conversation between the 2 of them. Vico- man
makes structures and imposes meaning. Christian Church, Army are man-made structures. We start viewing the
world in order to feel secure in the world. They preach some values as noble but these values are used for some
wrong deeds. Platonic impulse- everything is reduced to some formula. End justifies means. According to Pizarro
it doesnt. if you kill sb the cause is noble no more. For them the cause is conversion. Means are ends- in the
making.
Pizarro: I had a girlanyway
Two paragraphs with Pizarro- when he meets a girl and in the 2 nd he speaks about the time. He feels one with her
and nature. Everything is connected in some net. Epiphany- Frye- trenutak kad imate uvid u stvarnost. (NellBecket)- deep insight into nature and everything emerges into meaningful whole. According to Pizarro it cant be
conveyed by language. Everything is linked together. This is sth beyond language. Our language is based on

concepts, based on logic. This is beyond logical, conceptual thinking. The time- he hasnt managed to capture this
moment. He didnt use this epiphany throughout his life. At this moment the time wasnt important. He just sees the
meaningless passage of time which leads to death. He understands that life is a process. There is nothing for him
to make this passage meaningful.
Leave it nowall
The conversation between Atahuallpa and Pizarro. Pizarro fears death. He explains his fear about death. He cannot
connect with nature. He hates its cycles. Symbols related to spring- women are biologically connected with naturethey drew certain energy from it. there is a sense of immortality- the nature renews itself year after year. There is a
sense of immortality related to nature. Pizarro ne moze da se pomiri sa tim konceptom. He cannot connect himself
with nature in the creative way. He loses the faith. Seeing time as a prison could be seen as a Christian notion but
then comes this second life and you are liberated from prison. He was a sort of outcast, he didnt belong anywhere.
Thats why he loses the faith. He is aware that the structures are man-made and the principles are betrayed so he
no longer believes in them. He hates those who believe in God an himself for not believing in anything. Pizarro: I
am going to kill you Time becomes meaningless for him. He has also lost his moral principle. No ethics- any
myth to live by. This leads to the loss of ethics (Hamm).
Pizarro: Dungballs none for him
Pizarro quarrels with the priest. They oppose each other. Pizarro stops to believe in Christianity. Myths are
justification for conquest. The Incas know how to live in time an Christians see time as a prison. Christianity sells
choices- they can choose the way they want to live. Our civilization- binary opposites. If Christwould he kill the
Incas? the original teaching of Christianity is brotherly love for the whole mankind. Through institution Christianity
becomes gang love. it serves as a justification for killing anyone who is not us. Two ways of life- Christians and
Incas. Incas are equal. They are neither poor nor rich. For De N. this is horrible. Everybody should be able to
advance, to have more power. He believes in ambition. Here everybody is consent. The Christian civilization is
hungry. You are always hungry to have more- greed for a position and material things. There is no here power
structure, no need to distance yourself from nature. Binary opposition- they have created a kind of eternity. The
Christians believe it is necessary to choose. Tomorrow- after-life. The whole culture is of binary opposition and you
have to choose. Incas live in the culture you dont have to choose. The priest is using the ideology of the church as
the justification for the destruction of other cultures. To replace the myth of indigent people for the myth of
conquerors because when you break this link it is easy to govern those people. What follows conquer is replacing
one myth for another. Arrogance- no personal love beyond religion. Only that which belongs to the institutional
definition is acceptable.
Cheat!
Atahuallpa dies to show he is not afraid to die. The Sun will resurrect him. However, it doesnt happen. Pizarro is
crying. It was his first meaningful relationship. Atahuallpa has steereded an emotional response in Pizarro. 2 darks:
blind eyes- no absolute divinity, neither the God in the sky nor is Atahuallpa the God on the Earth. We are the ones
who have projected the God. Still, there is hope. Atahuallpa dies to save Pizarro from his fear of death. He has this
great love- he is willing to die-self-sacrifice. He is capable of selfless, a kind of immortal, god-like quality. We make
our principles, ethics, structures. De Soto- you mustnt break your promise- he really believes in honor. Vico- we live
in a chaotic world; meaning is man-made. This life is like a desert but his love can make the world meaningful. To
create myths on structures and to be able to feel. There is some hope in creating our own myths. We can live by
our own capacity for creativity.
Caryl Churchill- OWNERS; CLOUD NINE
Both Churchills plays have sth in common. Cloud Nine deals with colonialism and Owners deals with the concept of
having and greed. In Cloud Nine we encounter the idea that one aspect of colonialism is to replace one aspect for
another. The colonizers impose their own myth to conquer them. This is exemplified in the character of Joshua.
Joshua is a black servant of the family in which Clive is a colonial administrator. This is the time of Queen Victoria,
colonial period. He is the Black who completely rejected his original matriarchal tradition. There is an episode when
he tells the myth of his people to Edward, the myth of Great Goddess which symbolizes harmony. There is the
Goddess and a tree- they produce life. Then he says it is a lie. The true story is about Adam and Eve and the
Christian tradition. Then he tells the story of Adam and Eve but in such a way that he emphasizes the supremacy of
the white race and the wickedness of women. All the evils come from women. Also in the forward Churchill says, he

wants to make a parallel between colonial and sexual oppression. This patriarchal colonial imperialist tradition is
oppressive both towards other races and cultures and towards women. Patriarchal culture strictly defines,
establishes male identity. The forces, the energies which threaten to deconstruct or destabilize this identity are
perceived both in the dark continent and in the dark feminine lust. Subconscience is projected on Blacks who are
associated with sth dark in us, and on the female passion which cannot be controlled.

Cloud Nine
It is a comedy, quite funny. All these characters, however, are suffering. They are extremely unhappy in these rigid
structures. They are forced to channel everything into duty. There is no place for private loyalty. Love, sex and
marriage are perceived as act, duty- duty to the Empire. Everything is done in service of Empire. Clive says You
have to love me always; through father we love our country. Love is directed towards abstract principles. Because
marriage is so perverted in this way, because gender roles are so rigidly defined, the characters in this play try to
establish their true sexual identities beyond the conventional heterosexual relationship. They are all damaged inside
and perverted. In the act 1 they all betray these private loyalties in the name of Empire. In the act 2 we move into
the present time and now all these characters are trying to confront their inner damage. In the present, sexual
identities are more fluid, not rigidly defined. Its useful to explore this other side of our identity, to go through these
experiments. Betty was very conventional but in the end she leaves Clive, then she lives alone, experiments her
independency. Its the reconciliation with oneself. An interesting motif in act 2 is the invocation of the Great
Goddess. There are Victoria and Edward, her brother. She talks about the Great Goddess. The tradition of
matriarchy has been rejected. If it hadnt been rejected, the whole history of our culture would have been different.
This is the idea give us the history we haven had. They fail to draw the Great Goddess from our sub-conscience.
Ireland is the last colony of the English. It is the end of colonialism. He is the last, the most recent victim of the
imperialist culture.
EXCERPTS
Come together
The setting is Africa, the historical period is Victorian England. The song promotes patriotic feelings, loyalty to the
governing structures. Come gather sons of England. This is a strictly patriarchal society- a white rational colonizer.
The song celebrates imperialism. It means the whole scope where the Empire is spread. These are Englishmen
who live in all places. Clive- I am a father- he sees himself as a ruler. There are two concepts- male domination
over women, over the whole family and also colonial domination. White man domination over women and colonial
territories. She is a mans creation, what he wants her to be. This is why Betty is played by a man. Joshua is played
by a white man. Just like Betty wants to adjust, to comfort to the male definition of what he is, he tries to adapt to
the white civilization. They have brain-washed him in a way. Blake Little black boy- my skin is black but my soul is
white- positive idea. We all have the same soul but here its utterly ironic. He accepts the concepts of the white
civilization but betrays his original identity. Edward- father wants to make a man of him. The feminine part is active
in him, cannot be suppressed. It is there.
Clive: You can tame
Clive has just punished some rebels (natives). He found out that his wife, Betty, has an affair. The Blacks, the whole
continent is his enemy. He has the need either to destroy them or to make them as Joshua, servants. The part of
his own psyche which doesnt fit in the concept of what man should be. This is projected on the Blacks. The color of
their skin symbolizes our shadow and sub-consciousness. He feels this animosity. It is related to another fear, the
fear of dark female lust. He recognizes all those qualities in a woman. How is a woman tamed? By being forced to
enter the fixed patriarchal structure called marriage. The structure of family protects us from feminine lust. These
concepts are connected. Betty feels guilty. She says that she is bad and wicked. She has accepted the patriarchal
concept of what is supposed to be.
278. p.
How is Edwards mother treated by Joshua? He is not rebellious towards Clive but here he is. He is in a subjective
position, still he feels superior towards women. Although he is a servant, he is still a man. Womens exploitation is
worse than the Blacks. On one hand, she forces Joshua to obey her orders, then he doesnt want to exchange
intimacy with her. He moves away.
279. p.
Joshua is telling a story of his original tradition. This is the myth of creation- the Great Goddess and the tree. The
sky vs. the earth- the balance, harmony between opposites. There is a notion of equality between sexes. Then he

says its a bad story. He has accepted the white colonists and their myth. Women are considered a door through
which evil comes. They are untrustworthy. The white people are supposed to be superior to all the others.
283. p.
Clive- the idea of male friendship in the whole patriarchal tradition- in a way to keep away from the female dark lust.
It is completely platonic, devoided(?) from the female dark lust. It is a kind of purity of consciousness, not subverted
by these irrational urges. Harrys inclination towards homosexuality- it ridicules the concept of platonic friendship.
However, it may be a cause. Africa influences people. It makes people get in touch with their consciousness.
Everything is different. The nature is much more wild. The climate is confusing.
Act II: 300. p.
Victoria is a woman who reads a lot. She tries to find out about different cultures and religions, about sexual
relationship. Martin is her husband. He is a different kind of man from Clive. He has read various things about
women. He is a progressive kind of a man. They are disputing about their relationship. They live in London with
their son Tommy. He is trying to keep control. He says she doesnt know what she wants. He offers her two options:
either stay here in London or go to Manchester and be a working woman. He doesnt love her enough. There is a
sort of detachment. Emotional warmth is missing in their relationship. The idea of modern country is independency.
Dependency in a normal sense is suppressed.
306.p.
Gerry and Edward. Gerry feels sick with his wife. Edward feels that his man lover doesnt allow him to display the
feminine side. Here, he has the same problem again. In the end he says he is a lesbian. The feminine principle
becomes predominant- now he wants to experience women from the feminine part.

Owners
The Owners has a link to The Royal Hunt of the Sun. The Spaniards had that belief that we are all born greedygreed was an inborn human trait. When Pizarro encounters the country of Incas, he sees that there is sth wrong.
Erick Fromm in his study To Have and to Be also claims that greed is not inborn in us, we dont have to be
greedy. There are two forms of having: existentional having referring to shelter, food, tools, and the other is
characterological having. This means that ones whole identity is defined in the sense of having. It means a kind of
obsessive need to possess; he accumulates possessions. This kind of having is not normal. It is pathological. It is
not inborn, it comes as an impact of social conditions. Fromms idea is that it is the society that teaches us to think
this way. Capitalism as a social system not only relies on human greed but also generates this trait to sustain itself.
It produces a kind of ideology of having. Having is always encountered and encouraged by ideology. Marx says that
in this way capitalism produces an impoverished and diminished human psyche. There are various ways of
appropriation- you can pick a flower and paint it. You are blind for all these ways and think that utilitarian
appropriation is the only possible. In this way human psyche is impoverished. We are not aware of other potentials
of having. This is what we encounter in The Owners- characters who are suffering in these having structure. They
are all obsessed with having except one- Alec. One specific form of owning is related to patriarchy. Even if a man is
very poor, he can still has the feeling that he owns his wife and children. He owns living beings. The issue of
feminine inequality. Women are also considered property. This is the way Marion is treated by her husband. In the
kind of pre-history of the play, she is considered property by her husband and she doesnt like it. She is vital, of
great energy and she naturally rebels against this submissive role. She tries in various ways to change her position,
she attends an evening school, has an affair and ends up in the mental institution. She buys her first house and
starts her business of buying and selling houses. We can interpret this play by recalling Althussers theory- ISAinstitutions. They create a kind of an illusion so that you dont realize that you serve the system. Family, marriage,
education, health service- all these ISA-s channeled Marions energy. They translate the energy of Marions original
protest into sth socially acceptable. Bunt se transformise u nesto sto drustvo moze da prihvati. She has creative
potentials but the society doesnt value it. She wasnt encouraged to explore herself through creativity. She was
taught to think about painting as a hobby nice for women. She was encouraged to become an owner, a proprietor,
because what society values most is profit, making. Althusser: when you are hailed, you are not an individual, you
are just a subject. She remains a subject. She hasnt managed to become an individual. She was before her
rebellion and she is still. She only shifts her position within the structure. She was a sort of victim, now she is an
executor within the same structure. She is still ideologically conditioned. She never questions the validity of this
structure. The only thing she cannot possess is Alec- her formal lover. She tries to buy his house, blackmails him,
takes his baby. She cannot possess Alec- a very different attitude to having. She tries to take his new-born baby.

This is like a substitute for a true affection. Shylock was rejected. He couldnt get true love to pluck the heart.
Marion is perceived as a kind of modern Shylock. She cant perceive true love. Alec does offer true love. He is
willing to offer genuine love but she wants to take symbolically this pound of flesh- a baby, as a substitute for love.
She orders Worsly to set a fine and kill Alec and a baby. She kills the last portion of her humanity. Once you kill
love, you are capable of anything. The same thing is happening on the larger scale- war stories. You can kill
anybody in the army. The same thing Marion did- the whole Western culture has killed love and humanity in the
pursuit of wealth. Alec is the only character who manages to leave this structure. Alec didnt find a different tradition
but Churchill recognizes Buddhist philosophy in Alecs behaviour. Marion also feels sth is wrong with her
possession. Alec keeps books under his bed but he realizes it leads nowhere. Education is also one of these ISA-ssupports the same ideology. He realizes that he wants to find out the solution, to go beyond language, institutions.
He has a kind of mystical experience. When he describes it to Marion she says it is a break-down, but he says no, it
is the break through to see everything from different positions. He manages to reach some stage of inner harmony,
some kind of quiet contempt. He no longer wants to possess things. He simply wants to go beyond ambition and
greed. Behind of this faade of total possessiveness, there is true love. He doesnt want to deny help, send police
after a thief. When he sacrifices his life to save the baby, it is a kind of concept of selfless love, devoid of
possessiveness. Button fell off a pail- a symbol from the Buddhist religion. Otpalo dno sa kofa- to ne znaci da je
problem resen vec da se ne vidi kao problem. It is interesting to compare Worsley and Alec. He tries to kill himself,
his life is meaningless, he is suffering in this structure. Worsley symbolizes the failure of both life and death in the
modern world. On the other side, we have Alec whose death is meaningful sacrifice, a different choice, mode of
being.
EXCERPTS
Clag: Ive been a butcher
Clag is talking about his family and childhood. His father was a proprietor of his wife. He wants his son to continue
the tradition, to be butcher. He is very narrow-minded, wants to continue the masculine line. The son is considered
the value, sth that gives life a meaning. Daughter is irrelevant here. He cant put himself in an inferior position. He is
completely structured by the patriarchal structure/principle. He has to be dominant. There is a notion of ambition,
greed for material values, to be successful. Greed and position are closely connected. He has respect for
psychiatrists. He teaches Marion to be a good wife. Mental institutions, structures (ISA) which keep you a subject.
The society doesnt value her creative potentials- its just her hobby. Creativeness is not valid. She only has to ask
for what she needs and hell be glad to provide it. He feels jeopardized by her energy to be independent.
My face will go like hers
Marion talking to Alec. The first observation is about Alecs mother who is dying. We realize that they all are going to
die. When youre faced with death, greed doesnt make any sense. Alec is trying to point out that accumulation of
wealth doesnt make sense when you are faced with death. Marion then talks about the favorable song when she
was young. The idea of ambition, to reach the position in the society- you have to be ambitious. They have this
illusion of progress but the progress doesnt satisfy our innermost being. This is also a religious song. Its also ISA.
Religion encourages you to be greedy and ambitious- domination over all life on the earth. You have to fight to be
dominant. Guilt is essential to progress. She feels guilty but doesnt act upon it- a part of the system. She identifies
herself with the masculine tradition.
Theres always been people- 49.p.
This is about her agony. She is never active; she suffers the actions of others. Lisa is possessive, too- a typical
woman in the patriarchal society. She wants to own but she cant. She has given up her baby. She says: I dont
care whether I want him. Its an extreme. Even the mother-child relationship is discarded by ideology. She wants to
take actions to get baby which is unusual as she is passive. She suffers the consequences of others actions.
I should like him back
She wants to hurt him. The only part of Alec she cant possess is love. Her idea of love is possessiveness. She
intends on keeping the baby when she sees Alec and Lisa may be living. At the end of the passage we see that the
baby is a substitute for normal love. She rejects the feminine part- the milk of human madness. She identifies
herself with the conqueror- masculine tradition. Marion is easy to understand. She wants to own things. However,
Alec is problematic. Lisa is ready to do anything to return her baby. Alec is not. Buddhists principle- nothing to be
wished.- another extreme.
Alec: I took him to Lisa

Worsley feels guilt. He gives back the baby to Lisa. Then there is a paradox. He has feelings; however, he is quite
helpless. Alec comes back to save the baby. He is ready to sacrifice his life to help others. He is ready to risk his life
for any baby. He has universal love which inspires his sacrifice. Worsley tries to kill himself, but it was too hot- a
juxtaposition. Worsley tried to kill himself and never succeeded and Alec sacrifices his life. The play ends. Worsley
represents the failure of the whole Western civilization. Life is meaningless; he just obeys Marions orders. Alecs
life is meaningful. There is a purpose, sth that makes life worth living. Marion is not sorry about his death. She is
now capable of everything. The last remnant of humanity is lost. She killed her own capacity to love and feel, and
when you kill that, you are capable of anything.
XX CENTURY NOVEL
Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness
Conrad: memories, dreams, reflection
This is the dream when he visited Africa. There is this disturbing climate. His subconscious part seems to stir to
come to surface. It happens in a form of a dream- a young prince who owns a castle and he is trying to draw him in
the water.
The Heart of Darkness Jung- one part of him emerges and he calls it shadow- sth we suppress. We repress
some part of being and we are asked to adopt to the society. What we show is a kind of persona. These
suppressed parts appear in a destructive way. Our suppressed energy is a shadow. Jung- a remedy is to bring it to
the conscious level and respect that part. It is not to be rejected anymore. We have to make some way of life in
which we will appreciate this other part. Jung says the whole aim of our life is to become more conscious. Kurtz
projects his hostile attitude either to convert these people to Christianity or to kill them- an aggressive method and
attitude towards the nature.
Joseph Conrad
The main theme is imperialism. However, his approach is different from Churchills. She takes for granted that we
know what the imperialism is. She treats it humorously. The purpose is not to tell us what brings imperialism about,
as the desire to show the hidden consequences. In the Act1 the damage is done to the characters. She discovers
the complexity of imperialism- longer ideology patriarchy. Victorian England- all people are damaged by patriarchal
ontology. They are forced in the end by Clive to hush up the whole thing by marriage. The truth must be hidden. In
the 20th century we are released from the necessity to hush the truth up. She makes it clear that sexual liberation is
not the cure to the disease but an exposure of the hidden message. It is demonstrated as a consequence of the
repressive education in the Victorian England- to mobilize oneself to see for better reconciliation. The proper
solution would be found once men and women relate creativity to each other.
When Conrad undertone to write this, nobody knew what the imperialism really was. He wanted to reveal the reality.
Imperialism was considered a noble undertaking enterprise project. The shock was experienced by Marlow, the
listener and Conrad himself when he made a journey to Congo. He revealed the truth in a tragic mode. Sth in his
biography makes it suited to be revealed. He was born Ukraine, a son to a Polish father who was a leader of the
Polish revolt against Russia. He was an outsider and that enables him to see the truth better because his memory
of his father affiliated him, allowed him to feel with oppressed. He calls Brisel the thumb. He hits at the very heart of
the imperialism. He says that London is the devourer of the worlds light, tremendous gloom over the monstrous
city.
There are 2 narrators- the 1st surveys the glorious past of the English Empire. He believes that history is the history
of glorious achievements. Then Marlow explores the idea of colonization. A Polish, an outsider, attacks the Western
civilization. He was predestined to be a seaman. Very soon he finds himself in France- he had psychological crises.
He attempted to commit suicide for moral reasons- he was a deeply moral writer. He went to Congo, returned,
decided to give up and devoted himself to writing books.
Preface to the Nigger of Narcissus (1599)
In his famous preface Conrad crystallized his often quoted goal as a writer: My task which I am trying to achieve is,
by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel- it is, above all, to make you see. That- and no
more, and it is everything.

Compare it with Woolfs On Modern Fiction and Huxleys The Integrated Education. Then he wrote very
great books: Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent Under Western Eyes and Victory in 1914. All of these works are
based on his real life experiences but externally they are sailors stories about human nature and its failures. The
Pacific, the life of mariner, not stories of exotic scenes but serious meditation upon the meaning of human life.
(Trillings quarrel with culture). Metaphors through which he carries out his meditation are very important. He was a
seaman, a sailor which made him invulnerable, no homeland on land, no particular country was his homeland.
Therefore, he didnt feel constraints, he developed a metaphor for successful human community in the wellmanaged ship. He was deeply ethical man who cherished not the loyalty to political parties but sth comparable to
the sea- mans honor loyalty to work- to prevent the civilization from disintegrating. Solidarity in work.
(In his very beautiful story Typhoon he uses this metaphor- a well man on a ship- to express the idea of fidelity to
the great business absence of rational prejudice. What happens in Typhoon is following the man sticks to the
steering wheel and saves the ship without thinking of anything- an instinctual moral decision.
In Lord Jim- a romantic white man jumps off the ship. He quits it without his conscious attention. He couldnt do his
duty. Then there is a test- the ship partner carrying Pilgrims. It struck against sth and the ship sailed on the ocean.
Our civilization sticks to its dream- that this is an illusion- dream. The water is rushing in, he stands on the phantom
ship. In the rest of the novel Marlow, the narrator, is trying to mediate between the reader and Lord Jim. He helps
the reader to imagine, penetrate Jims soul and Jim is one of us- honest seaman, not just a captain who falls. What
is it that made him betray his dream? There is sth submerged, invisible in his soul- a dark partner, a secret doublethat takes over, faces us and conquers us. Jim possesses a soft spot, vulnerable spot, which prevents him to be
faithful to the loyalty. Jim is one of us. It may happen to us all. It is significant that one of the captains commits
suicide. Why? Probably he recognizes the same secret double. Jim never acquires self-knowledge. Whenever a
person appears who seems to know him, he disappears. We avoid facing the double secret part. He is concerning
Lord Jim, my task is to make you see Jim.)
Preface
That is the manifestation of the general task, the purpose of Conrads writing- not see rationally but see in the soul
by means of the inner, mental psyche. He says truth is the concern of a scientist, philosopher and a novelist. Both
plunge into facts or ideas which appeal to us, to certain capacity of man. The 2 nd appeals to his intellect but it is not
so with the novelist. He was to discover what he has to appeal to. Marlow-Kurtz (I didnt know in the name of what
to appeal to him)- he is egotistic and mad in his narcisstic mania. He says the novelist plunges into himself and
there he finds what is the capacity to which he should appeal to the reader- pity, sense of kinship with the rest of
creation. Blood relation with everything on earth. The sense of kinship, of connection with the rest of the world is
what makes us human beings. Kurtz disconnected that link and he loses that essential human nature. He wants to
make the reader see, to find the technique hell address the reader, to express his vision, to stimulate the reader to
see properly. It makes him a modern writer. Conrad, unlike Becket who approaches the world from the outside, is
obsessed with the soul. He is close to the Russian writer Turgenjev. The English write novels without concern of the
moral soul, the plunge into the soul to see what is inside. Even if you find perversions, you should turn inside.
Lukacs condemns it. Woolf- that urge to record the working of the inner mind, even to find perversion. It is not antirealistic. Disconcern helps to dispel what the reality is. Subjective exploration is true to our reality. He wants various
techniques not just established to plunge into the soul. It may help you. The stammer of the moral conscience. We
must define what morality is. Dedalus says: I am going to encounter the reality of experience, the meaning.
Rimbaud- to penetrate the reality of my soul. This is what makes him a modernist. The task for himself is to make
the reader see the truth, very shocking and unpleasant. In order to awaken in the reader the moral response he
must find a new way to go over, beyond the common place (words- to make these words suggest what they cant
say; strange words- to create a whole of meaning that envelopes the story). What truths? The factual truth was
hidden about the reality, hidden by the excuses that are used to justify the colonial project. Is colonization taking the
land? Marlow is a young man fascinated by the big river, eager to go there- that is one of his illusions. Sth you are
ready to pray to the whole project is saved if the white man believes that they bring the civilization to the black men.
The Dark continent- scene after scene the whole truth. The whole white civilization is the planting of power, disorder
on his way to inner station. All culminates in the final scene. When he finds people who belong to this chain gangthe only idea, no progress. They are brutally exploited. 10 million people were killed. Marlow witnesses the crimethe only effect was annihilation. The only thing that the white men pray to is ivory, profit, wealth. These people come
to make money. Pilgrims- the only motif is greed, the hypocrisy, the penetration into the white mans soul to find the

answer why they distract. For the exploration he uses Kurtz. He is interested in Kurtz. His penetration in the final
encounter with Kurtz- he went there to civilize the savages. Kurtz is the product, the final most brilliant gift. He goes
there with all noble ideas but a discrepancy occurs. He is intellectual, high forehead, no hair. He has a fiance.
There he marries a gorgeous black woman. He ends his pamphlet with the words: Exterminate all the truths. Soon
he begins to take part in more horrified reasons. Why does Kurtz fall so enormously. One answer is that he goes in
wilderness, nothing binds him, there he becomes a savage.
Fromm- The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.
E. Fromm offers an essential conclusion: "This type of destructiveness is a consequence (derivative) of not having
had ones life". When the environment, that is social conditions fail to satisfy the existential needs of man (love,
recognition, relations with other people), his behavior becomes destructive.
The general view presented by Fromm is that malignant aggression is the consequence of existential needs
interacting with the modern, industrial age.
Destructiveness is a part of human nature living in culture. It is included, induced, not given. Man has an option.
Every organism expresses aggression in self-defense. Man reaches the stage where he is defined by the minimum
institutional program and he has separated himself from the natural world. Freedom to choose max self-awareness.
Yet this freedom is burden. Partly he still lives within nature, partly he is free. Nature is the other in relation to him
who is I- subject vs. object. Man annihilates the relationship by destroying the other which threats him- to annihilate,
eradicate the other. The second way is masochistic. You can use drug, belong to the party, destroy your
consciousness. More self-awareness, work and more consciousness. There is another thinker, Baudrill, who says
the same thing. There is a difference between the archaic community and the modern society which focuses on the
impulse to kill and possess. This is what Kurtz represents. He is a devourer. He wants to devour everything, he has
tremendous possessiveness. My station, my jungle I will ring your heart by my weapons. I will master you.
Conrad says this is the madness of the soul. In his exploration Marlow meets Kurtz and he sees this madness. It is
not that he is an archetype of madman but a western man. That madness is not the inherent madness of the human
soul but induced by the culture. Our culture defines our soul in a narrow sense. It has begun with ?oenates. He has
identified it with the reason. The soul is not reason, it is much more primitive. White men always consider the blacks
inferior because of that. A series of critics say that the soul is much more older. That is as Trilling says a biological
reason. Our biology is a moral judger. Rimbaud says- I cultivate my soul. He identifies with the Blacks. My soul
comprises the soul of the black man and animal. For Conrad the soul is the sense of the solidarity, inseparable link
with what constitutes the soul. Kurtzs soul is mad under the pressure of Christian education which reduces the soul
to reason, repress, marginalizes the soul. Once you severe the soul, your soul goes mad. He was hollow within.
Creative force turned into sth else- desire for those unspeakable rights. He is tragic because he believes he has
mastered these things. There is an outburst of destructive energy. Then there is a quick change in his face- a moral
fall in Africa- horror. He sees in the end. This makes him a tragic hero, he sees his error. What is it that saves
Marlow? This madness was caused by the culture. His inner restraints and that is soul which is healthy. He says
this is monstrous. Marlow serves as a mediator. He shares prejudices with the reader only at the beginning. He
sees the monstrosity of the white man. The Blacks have more inborn strength. They have that which is given and
cant be spoiled by the culture. Marlow is saved by the feeling that they are human beings. He has to take care of
the ship alone and that work saved him.
Kurtzs soul is mad because it is separated from the moral intelligence. He thinks that his intelligence is perfectly
fluid and lucid but the soul should have intervened because it is against moral law. It is perverted. His intelligence is
lucid but his soul is mad. The point is that his soul has been mad all along. His stay in the jungle provides the
circumstances in which his madness invisible in Europe becomes visible. Marlow sees, however, sth heroic in
Kurtz. He is a memory to which hell remain faithful. How come? After Marlow compelled him to go back to the ship,
he has to compel him to see the enormity(?) of his fall. Kurtz belongs to nothing. If Kurtz sees his soul, there is a
possibility for Europe to see the same thing. What saves Marlow are dedication to work and the capacity to see the
savages as common humanity and kinship. He doesnt consider them inferior. The idea of savages being human
comes gradually. At first he is appalled and calls them monsters. Then the truth is shocking. This is the revelation of
that order that 10 million people are killed every day. Heads were ornaments at first. If he had written a story in a

direct way nobody would have believed, so he had to invent a character like Marlow in order to gain his readers
trust. The journey to the heart of Africa turns out to be the journey to the heart of darkness of our morality.
Narration: it is an inconclusive story based on questions. Here all our attitudes towards the Western civilization are
problematic.
The other narrator is even more prejudicial, more prone(?) than Marlow at the beginning of the story. There is a river
which takes place, people with the torch who bring progress to Africa. Then comes Marlow introducing the theme.
When we finally finish the book we see that the purpose Marlow ascribes to himself is to transport the experience to
the readers- who are the pillars of civilization. Now that the truth is problematic it requires to be examined by 2 or
more narrators. If the narrators can tell and accept the story, so can the readers.
Heart of Darkness (excerpts)
There are two narrators and sb listening to Marlow. The importance of this lies in that the people listening to Marlow
are the people of our civilization. At the end, this listener looks around, there is darkness, he sees a cigarette lit and
we see that at least one person is awaken. The novel begins with Marlow telling to the other people that this is also
one more dark place of the earth. The darkness is also there (in Britain) as in Africa.
But Marlow was not typicalhate
He is talking about Britain which is also dark. The meaning is outside. The moon shine illuminates the darkness. It
symbolizes rational mind. The moon doesnt make such strict divisions. This is not the usual perception. The idea of
illuminating the darkness- the dark portion of the psyche. Marlow is talking about Britain. Before it started its colonial
project it also was the victim of colonization. He is talking about this continual process- taking lands, robbing,
stealing- the pattern always present. Work- the colonizers came to do the work, bring progress, science, laws,
Christianity. This concept is being ridiculed by Marlow- taking away the land from those different from us. (The
Royal Hunt- they must be killed since they are not believers; Cloud Nine- a mythical justification; Jung- ego,
shadow, the self. If we dont realize, dont recover, the shadow can burst out in a destructive way. The shadow in us
is projected on sb and we want to destroy that person as we see it as evil.) Marlow tells us about the continuity of
conquest. When we perceive a group of people different from us, they become an object of our destructiveness as
we do not have any link with them. We dont see, perceive them as the part of the self.
I left in a French steamer
Marlow is sailing down the ocean. He feels isolated. He feels unreality- the feeling of disillusion. He mentions 2
things- black people rowing in some boats and the surf seems real to him. The reality is natural phenomena. They
are naturally there. He sees a French ship firing at the continent. There is sth insane in that picture; unreal, irrational
as if he was moving in a nightmare. To some degree he perceives them as the other but positive. They were a great
comfort to look at. They were a part of a picture- perceived a great energy and power. They seem to belong to land.
Marlow himself has a sort of illusion. The whole enterprise of colonizing Africa was like an illusion- the image that
seems unreal. We see how irrational this hatred is and that the motives for the conquest were materialistic. The
idea is to destroy a part of us that we rejected so that Africa reminds us of the other part of the self that we rejected,
that is irrational, creative.
A horn
They are building a railway- a sort of parody of this work. They are doing the work which is meaningless. Savages
are not free workers. They are doing this work as a kind of punishment. The white man comes, imposes that these
people are criminals. Then there is an appearance of another black, a reviser. He is one of the reclaimed blacks
from the darkness. He has been rejected, then integrated into the white civilization as Joshua. They gave him some
power, the uniform and the gun and he is proud of this role. How does he behave towards Marlow? He is one of the
whites, he should be trusted. The last sentence is ironic. We see 6 black men in chain, starving. Marlow juxtaposes
the reality to ideological phrases used to cover those phrases.
I went to work
Marlow is repairing his ship. There is a number of people waiting to go with him. Work is an important aspect of
civilization. Marlow doesnt condemn the whole culture. It helps him preserve his integrity. Two images in the novel
symbolize the positive aspect of civilization- one is the ship and the other is a book. When he talks about culture,
Conrad compares human efforts to dream. Its a human aspiration. It could be seen there are two dreams that Kurt
dreams. One is arrogant, a dream of mastery typical for the WC. Marlows dream is symbolized by the ship. He tries
to wake up Kurtz. His dream is not one of conquest. He has a positive aspiration to work. He has an inquisitive mind
but doesnt want to be a master. Work generally keeps his integrity. People are waiting for Marlow to repair the ship

and they have long sticks in their hands. They look like pilgrims but they are not. They are going there for ivory. It
looks like a pilgrimage but what they worship is ivory. At the end of the passage he feels that the whole wilderness,
jungle is waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion. What they are doing is irrational and
meaningless and cant harm this wilderness. It is a vague attempt to change it. Whatever he did is pointless. It will
always be there- it is some ancient entity. The wilderness waits them to finish. It is fantastic invasion- you cant
conquer this pare of your being.
The Earth seem unworthily
We are accustomed to look free. The White can perceive the others only on their own terms. You can see the
outburst of these instincts. They could display them freely. There are no restraints. Marlow doesnt consider them
human. We are accustomed to shackled form but here in Africa the Blacks didnt suppress their instincts. They were
not inhuman, they were not savages. They are human as he is. They belong to this environment and they are
considered the others. Most white people would observe them dancing but Marlow would feel the kinship between
them. That is the idea of the common humanity that prevents you from killing the others. It connects you with
different cultures. This saves Marlow. He is aware of that kinship but he doesnt want to mingle with them. He says
they have a voice but I have my own voice. Lawrence- to surrender to that flow. Conrad- to control it by conscious
effort and also to recognize it. The only way to be saved from this destructive impact of the shadow is to recognize
it. Marlow doesnt project his shadow on the other but finds the kinship, he recognizes the same traits- the need to
dance, exotic instincts. Therefore, he will not be destroyed from the shadow. Shadow will not be rejected and he will
not feel destructive towards the natives. The only sin is the sin of separation. Only if we perceive some group of
people as separate from ourselves well find the reason to destroy them, to annihilate them. Its important to admit
there is a friendlily part in him. He is honest enough to recognize the kinship. Why didnt decide to join them? He
said he had work to do. Marlow controls his instincts by means of work. Jung- when the European gets in touch
with other culture, he cant control his urges.
There remained unmistakable real
Marlow finds a book. He admires the honest work. He has a very honest and humble concern about the book. It is
about how to go, about sailing. He sees in it a kind of humble approach. Work is supposed to be done by people
who conquered Africa (vs. humble work). Black-breaking business- it will save your integrity. The book struck him
as sth unmistakably real. What Whites do is real. The positive aspect of civilization is in contrast with the honest
work. What is real is the jungle but the human work as well.
I would no doubt
Marlow has lured some black people to help him with the ship. They happen to be cannibals. They are hurrying.
There is a dead body on board and they want to throw it. Cannibals say dont throw it, give it to us. They are
supposed to be exchanged for food. They have a heap of meat, it gets rotten and the whites throw it over the ship.
The group of cannibals are hungry, they are starving. Why didnt they eat them? They may look unappetizing to
them. It is a superstition. It seems there is some sort of restrain. It is not an external restrain such as law, police. No
white men but the inner restraints do not allow them to eat them- sth in human psyche. They manage to control
their instincts unlike Kurtz. Negroes are capable of controlling the instincts of their hunger. Man is ready to do
anything when they are starving, but they signed a contract- they had some inner integrity that makes them able to
resist. Inborn strength. Its natural goodness, the tendency to be kind. To be good is inborn. Kurtz has no inner
restraints. When the strong instinct demanded sth from Kurtz, he did it, whereas, they have much more restraints,
they do not do anything dishonorable. Its not the matter of abstract principle but human inner code which prevents
him from doing sth dishonorable.
You should have
This is Kurtz speech. A kind of possessiveness characterizes it. He is aggressive, arrogant, possessive. He wants
to believe everything belongs to him. He is not really a master. He is mastered by these facts (subconscious
forces). Kurtz looks at this darkness but he cant control it because he doesnt have inner restraints. Marlow says
the listeners cant understand this. Marlow hopes to hear the laughter coming from the jungle. Its just an illusion of
mastery. Everything belonged to him but it was a trifle for their own. He wants to know what he possesses, but not
where he belongs to. He was claimed by those powers which he wanted to claim. He wanted to claim the
wilderness, but wilderness claimed him. Wildlife of Africa somehow invoked his instincts. He tried to control the dark
part but it bursts out. The Shadow becomes a master. The wild, destructive instincts ruled him. So, instincts can
burst out. Kurtz had a very improper attitude toward wilderness and it turned against him.

There is the fear of scandal, punish, lunatic exile. Public opinion controls our instincts. The asylum is a place where
you end up if you do sth wrong. We dont control our instincts by our inner restraints but external. When Kurtz
comes there, there were no external restraints, just silence and solitude. There are various people in jungle. It may
be too much of a fool to go wrong. They are never tempted by devil. The 2 nd are exiled people- saints. They have
only heavenly sounds. People seem to be detached from the experience, then you have to experience temptation to
know. Most of us are neither of them. We feel temptations. Work can, however, save us. Kurtzs attitude toward
work is not honest.
All Europe
All Europe contributes to making Kurtz. He symbolizes the mid-set of Europe of his time. He is the perfect
representative of the values both on the surface and deeply inside. When Marlow makes him see the horror he has
committed, he makes the whole Europe see it. if there is hope for Kurtz, there is hope for whole Europe. He was to
make the report for the International society for the suppression of savage customs. The whites were trying to
suppress savages. They wanted to damage them.
Kurtzs report is written for the society. This is the idea of the white conquerors. They came to suppress savages
customs. This is very eloquent, arrogant report. It embodies the whole white society based on this moral superiority.
Kurtz is such a wonderful narrator but behind this eloquence- the sort of attitude conveyed in this report. He begins
with we the whites look like deity to them. Kurtz, before his fall had this arrogant, hostile attitude towards the
Blacks. He writes 17 pages in small letters and Marlow says it is difficult to understand. Why? Because there is no
concreteness, just abstract attitude. He speaks in abstract terms which do not mean anything. The exposition of
the method; Exterminate all the truths. He was filled with hatred for these black, dark element of the psyche. He
was supposed to bring enlightenment but this impulse bursts out.
Lukacs- the idea of potentiality. The choice defines us. At some moment of crisis we choose one of the abstract
potentials. His report is a kind of abstract potentiality but he chooses the potential for killing and destructiveness.
I had immense plans (p.279)
the eveningthe horror, the horror (p.283)
Marlow says that watching Kurtz death was like a veil of death. He admires Kurtz. The veil suggests sth hidden
from us. Eliot- Human kind cannot stand too much reality. Throughout the novel Marlow is haunted by the feeling
of unreality. Everything seems to be on the verge of madness. Here the ultimate reality- the man able to pronounce
the judgment, to recognize the death of the downfall, and the crime he had committed. Up to that moment there was
a split between what he said and what he did. He had courage to look at himself and recognize what he had done.
That is the moment of complete reality. Marlow calls this moment the moment of supreme knowledge. The moment
when Kurtz gains this supreme, total, self knowledge. Black boy- the way he reported of Kurtzs death.
Marlows life- the mysterious arrangement, futile purpose. Everything is useless. Merciless logic- he talks about life
in general. He thinks that life is rather chaotic. This knowledge of the self is sth that we only can get from life. Selfawareness is the only thing we can achieve in life, but even it comes to late. Kurtz is called a remarkable man. He
was able to say the horror! the horror! Marlow was also on the verge of that but he didnt have anything important to
say, whereas Kurtz glimpsed the truth.
D.H.Lawrence
St. Mawr
Lawrence belongs to those writers whose work can be understood without earlier influences. He was born
Eeastwood and he saw the heavy contradiction. He enjoyed the beautiful countryside but he was also angry
because it was butted by ugly works of industrialization (the small suffocated people). The betrayal of life originated
in his childhood observations. He saw the consequences on the lives of the people. His father was a miner. People
were spontaneously and rapidly ruined because they were just instruments of the other people. They were
subjected to too much hours of work, lost their spontaneity and became very ugly. That was the case with his father.
His mother was a higher class. They quarreled a lot. He had an ambitious mother and uneducated father depending
on alcohol. His gift was to do all things by hands. All that appears in all his works. The theme is the opposition
between the life of the body and mind. He was his mothers favorite. She was an ambitious woman who taught him
to despise his father- the body, sensuality, the values of his father. His early life was a struggle to free himself of the
possessive mothers life and excessive, puritanical spirituality. She wanted to possess her poor Lawrence, but he
resisted her, then he broke the engagement and cherished fathers qualities. In his book Sons and Lovers we see

the beginning of this process- his dependence on his mother, then the engagement with Jacky and his helping his
mother to die. She was ill but she hadnt given up to control her son. He gave her an overdose of morphine. He
sped up the whole process. Why? He did it to get rid of this kind of possessive motherly love, to become a complete
man and lover, not merely a son. From this book you have this theme: symbolic opposition which is enormous. The
life of the body and conscience conditioned his mother. The women were responsible for this split (sensuality- the
men). The life of the mind is related to women. Here there is this archetypal reversal- he was against women who
allow themselves to be seduced by the tradition. They allowed themselves to assimilate this system of values. They
are responsible for the betrayal of life. He was not against the feminine principle itself. The feminine principle- a
quality of being completely alive. This was represented by his father. Later he asserted that his mother was a male
and father female. Although in Sons and Lovers he described one phase of getting rid of his mother love; he
remained ambivalent towards his mother. When he found a woman to marry, Frida, she represented another figure
different from his mother, yet the archetype of the mother- enormous, huge woman, exceptional personality. The
moment they met they recognize the exceptional personality. Important theme is the marriage is a proper place
where hetero-sexual relationship can be managed. She was powerful and creative and so was he. They
succeeded; she abandoned her husband and three children. They lived in Germany and Italy where he wrote
beautiful poems. This was his 1 st departure from London, the break-out of the WWI. He called it an evil which was
not a mistake accidental that was invisible. It was there all the time. Everybody was polite, but behind that there was
the desire not to spoil the game- to undermine their fellow creatures. What is it that these people want? He saw a
secret betrayal of life on all levels- the principle of Judah. He was disgusted and wanted to leave Europe in 1918
and never come back. For very short time visits voluntarily exile to escape culture, to join other traditions. He lived
in Italy, Australia, then went to a ranch in New Mexico and that is where St. Mawr originated. Finally he died of
tuberculoses. He burnt by the flame of vitality, was tremendously active. His unconventional marriage, his exile, his
writing- a passionate desire to escape deadly western tradition which cuts sb off from the authentic life, from
himself. He wonders, explores what is wrong with this. He found the answer in unnatural hierarchy. Our tradition is
based on a hierarchy- the opposite between the intuitive mind and conscious will. They are turned into the intuitive
mind. Conrad called it the soul madness. Lawrence calls it in his essays unnatural hierarchy- the beginning of
catastrophe. In this very book, The Spirit of the Place, we find statements about personality. He calls it IT. This IT
is the subconscious mind, is the creative author of our lives. You see the difference between Freuds ID.
Lawrences psychology is different. Freud discovered the subconscience but never endorsed it. it is a place of all
sorts of shameful aggressive impulses, the place of horror. Indeed Freud wants to make this anti-social desires
conscious that ego can control them better. Quite different is with Lawrence. The IT is not an obstacle to mans
functioning but the author of our creative life. We should move in accordance with this deepest self, soul. We should
obey the dictates coming from the outside. If we oppose to it than the disaster is bound to happen, which was he
says what happens to America. They were free, they had the dream of freedom. The immigrants fled to America to
get rid of external restraints, political authority- to develop property but in knowing what the freedom was for. They
never defined what the freedom was for. The only way to use it is paradoxically to use it to make one see, to be the
master within IT. The Americans fail to do so. The trend of people who fled from Europe but also themselves. From
now on we shall be masterless. This is why Low who goes to live on ranch when she meets the cowboys says 2
things: they were much better than the upper class of Englishmen yet she was disappointed. They were hollow.
There is sth missing in them. They are two-dimensional. They miss the deepest self. Unnatural hierarchy in the
book is described in the fact that they struck the reader as having their all lives being in their heads- clean-shaven,
well-comb. They didnt need body to represent themselves. The consequence in modern context England- this
mobility manifests itself in the kind of life which proceeds from the head. since it comes through head those people
are dangerous, they want to undermine the other with the kiss. The origin of this split in modern life he finds in
Christianity. He goes on to illustrate this idea. Compared to pagan tradition it is inferior. What we witness in the icon
is the body which is distorted. It remains down and the soul goes up to live forever. The misused of the pagan
symbol- the intersection of the body and soul.
Just as the cross is used to mean sth opposite in the same way the apocalypse is the corruption of the pagan
symbol. The final promise. He says that the Christian apocalypse expresses that this whole world will be
annihilated; the second coming of the Christ. As opposed to this destruction the pagan apocalypse envisages the
destruction but it happens periodically- a moment when life becomes rigid. The world would disappear in disillusion
not in order to appear another life but they should be reappeared, they should come again in a better way. Totality

was the pagan ideal. Thats why Lawrence wrote The Death of Pan, the God of all. In this essay he speaks
about this mythological event and the fragmentation of life. He dies because Christianity was a way to introduce an
abstract idea between and nature. He lost his totality and wholeness. All novels written by Lawrence have the motif
the desire to restore Pan in the modern world. This essay describes the religious problem of modern America and
Europe as being the feeling that Pan is dead; Lawrence advocates a return to Pantheism.
WHY THE NOVEL MATTERS- D.H.LAWRENCE
In "Why the Novel Matters," for example, Lawrence explores in his own way the Romantic concept of the relativity
of parts and wholes to construct a doctrinal statement celebrating the novel over other fields of thought. Unlike
philosophy, science, and religion, which only address "part" of us, he says, the novel reaches us "whole hog."
Incorporated into this argument is a diatribe against moral "absolutes," the target of both the passage and the entire
essay cited above. In "Why the Novel Matters," however, Lawrence's hatred of absolutes is made supplemental to
a larger theory on the relativity of parts and wholes. In this essay, he contends that "man alive" is as much or more
the physical body than it is the mind or spirit, and he supports his thesis by first disassembling the old cliche that the
body is merely a vessel for the soul.
Why the Novel Matters is a bright book of life. In the novel we see that man can be recreated, rendered in his
wholeness. This is me- the whole man of life. The essay reminds of The Preface to the Nigger of Narcissus- there
is sth deeper in man. Lawrence wrote novels, that his prose can recreate the experience of the wholeness.
Marriage- he believes that the disease of modern life can be cured. He begins with the most important relationship,
marriage- a space where heterosexual life can be released. Sort out our relationship to another person. He
demanded that sex should be marriage sex. Why? Marriage is the place where two people can find fulfillment- his
answer to sexual emancipation. He hated the puritan morality (pornography)- dirty little secret. He was disgusted by
it all. This stands from the idea that we are close to each other. There are two flows- new life and disposition- the
fashionable promiscuity. For him sexual unity was physical and it is pure and healthy. It is not anymore secret. We
use it for the battle of wills- to try to master our power (Lou and Rico). He pleaded for a marriage as a complete
union and his novels The Rainbow, Woman in Love, Lady C Lover 1927 are about marriage as a complete
union and his attempt to define marriage and defend heterosexual love. in the Rainbow there are three
generations whose life is marked by stadual(?) drifting away from close relationships, the soul (also feel the
difficulty in marriage). Lady C Lover is about a woman upper class, married. She experiences an affair and she is
pregnant, and we expect a couple union of the two.
St. MawrA late-Romantic assault of industrialism and materialism of modern world. This novel presents a conflict between
the raw vitality of wild nature and the sterility and sickness of modern industrial society. Pan is a favorable symbol of
vitality which represents harmonious inter-relatedness with ones world. When all is said and done, life itself
consists in a live relatedness between man and nature- the sun, moon stars, earth, trees, flowers, birds, animals,
man, everything We can still choose between the living universe of Pan, and the mechanical conquered universe
of modern humanity. In essence, this is the main theme of St. Mawr, the choice between these two universes.
There is a divorce because Lou says precisely sex should be such a complex mystery. Its not easy. Ultimately,
chastity is preferable to compromising oneself. Will the woman choose Pan figure marginalized in our society or a
man who is dead, often an artist. Rico is an artist who pretends. Women are expected to choose. The future of the
civilization depends on the right choice of a woman, if she knows how to choose. It is preferable to be on a ranch.
She decides to be chaste. When she wants to make a choice she realizes that she is sb else. She begins to
question herself creatively. She tries to see what is to blame for Ricos incident. The riches beneath the horse(?)the metaphor of the unnatural in us. Once you suppress it, you become vicious. She choose to go to Arizona, to go
to nature. It is not the renunciation of the mind but a particular kind of knowledge- man with the intuitive mind and
the knowledge without thinking. There is head and blood knowledge. She wants a man with a blood knowledge.
She asks herself what is real. For Conrad it is jungle and the book. The life in Europe is not real.

Techniques: his stories do not have experiments. There is no narrator technically which mediates. There is no
multiple choice. But what is new is that his story is highly poetic. He doesnt narrate the story really. It is a
description of an event. He recreates modes of feelings- represents what is blood knowledge which is not logic.
In St. Mawr there are two servants. One is Welsh and the other is American- Phoenix (Indeon) and Lewis. They are
the representatives of these traditions. There is a poetic passage in which Lewis talks about stars and how we are
connected with them. This is some other mystical tradition. Important episode: Mrs. Witts cuts Lewis hair and she
feels the flow of energy. Hair symbolizes this flow of natural energy. Lou and Rico belong to the upper class, they
are socially successful, they are both handsome, young rich and popular. However, very soon after their marriage it
comes down to a friction of two wills. It seems that bodily passion is not present in their marriage. When Lou buys a
house and looks at the horses(?) eyes for the first time sth happens. It is an instant when we acquire a different
insight on reality, a different vision. She suddenly starts to cry when she sees his eyes. We are told she has never
cried before in her life. St. Mawr acts as an agent of change in the world. When she encounters the horse, that
encounter opens a crack in her being, in her perception of the self. She gets in touch with her inner being. Here we
have a parallel with Conrad. When she starts wondering what is real- the positive human effort, the natives and the
jungle. So, here Lou realizes that she has been living in a phony world and this world of parties shows much
pretence. Everything is unreal. Now she gets in touch with this deep, hidden reality. Her social role, the role of being
Ricos wife now seems unreal. She says this is not really we. It seems to her that the young men she meets on
those social occasions are wholly contained in their heads. They all have these handsome, clean-shaven faces and
they keep on talking. They keep on exercising their minds. They take pride in their minds and wit and they seem to
her completely bodiless. It is like they are all losing touch with their bodies, with their natural instinctive portion of
the being. St. Mawr reminds her of this lost totality of being. He symbolizes Pan, the God of all. He is a creature in
whom Pan is still alive. Here Lou fails to find a man in whom Pan is still alive unlike Lady Chatterley. She leaves
Rico and hopes to find a mystical man, the kind of man who would have the blood knowledge. Lawrence believes
when we use our intellect we are separated from the object of knowledge. When we use our intuition we try to
become one with the object of knowledge. So, Lou leaves Rico, gets to America and buys a ranch somewhere in
wilderness. She says that living on that ranch, working, struggling with that nature, she wants to get in touch with
the wild spirit. Again she says that living on the ranch would not be a romantic unity with nature. It will be just like in
Conrad. Mrs. Witt- Lous mother is an interesting character because she appreciates good mind in man, she
admires witty and intelligent men but at the same time she beats men in the games. She seems to overpower them
all the time. She is ironical and cynical. Lawrence compares her to a pillar of salt. He got to this image- the seafeminine, sun- masculine element. In our civilization the masculine principle becomes dominant so that the sea is
dried up and what is left is salt. The woman is now destructive, corrosive element and not creative. This is her
destructive element over men, but she is not in touch with vital source- she is also dried.
St. Mawr (excerpts)
She never did..
This is the first time she cries. There is another side of psyche which is suppressed. She identifies the horse with
God. He is the real embodiment of that world. Lawrence mentions Pan, the God of everything. In this horse Pan is
still alive. Throughout the novel he mentions the eyes- some sort of vision. The horse stares at her and he offers her
a different vision of reality. The question the horse asks is one of the notion of the self. She has taken for granted
this social conception of what she is. Trilling also talks about the concept of the self the society offers to us which is
inadequate. According to the social role she is Mrs. Carrington- the wife of Rico. Rico is compared to horse. He is
like a tamed horse. The horse symbolizes the wild energy. In Rico it is suppressed. He is self-controlled. She has
the idea that everything around her is false and unreal. People pretend, they are not their real selves. The horse is
real (Conrad- book and jungle). There is the deepest self that she now begins to grasp. Rico is always quick and
sensitive to understand changes in here. He is intelligent and perceptive. His eyes are blue. Dark eyes of the horse
are juxtaposed to his blue eyes. Blue eyes symbolize intelligence. She compares him to the horse. He will be cold
and distant. There is something dangerous in him, like this animal which is in him perverted. It is suppress animal.
Rico is not in touch with nature, so he is powerless. The only real thing for Lou is the look in the horses eyes. There
is sth lacking in her husband and the society she lives in. Everything seems to be a bluff. Social life is not real.
Often
For her this is like a performance, sth not real. People enjoy without questioning. Eating symbolizes physical
aspect. This life doesnt satisfy anybody. People take food because they feel empty inside.

Isnt that
Mrs. Witt feels the primal power in Lewis while she is cutting his hair. She is not in touch with the source. Like a
human cat. She doesnt see him as a human being. She thinks in mythological terms. She has a strange sort of
intelligence. Lewis has an intuitive mind. She is fascinated by him but doesnt respect him. He is like an animal. For
her, intelligence defines man- conceptual thinking. Lou opposes her conceptual thinking- to unite the meaning by
becoming one with the object. The dark part of the psyche has to be recognized and controlled for Conrad. For
Lawrence we should be mastered by this life force, IT. The hierarchy is not observed. People like Lewis and
Phoenix are alive and the strong ones in the hierarchy of the society, they are at the bottom. Those weak are at the
top. The natural hierarchy has been destroyed. Their intelligence is like a knitting pattern- the same phrases used
all the time; like brother Nigel in Look Back in Anger. A good mind is an intuitive mind, creative. Mrs. Witt
regards Lewis only as a servant. She is under natural hierarchy.
I dont want
People are not in touch with creativity of nature. Still man has that animal part. The animal in man is perverted. We
have moved away from the source of life and thats why we have deadness, the comparison to the camel. We dont
take life straight from the source, natural energy we find in animals. There is still animal in us but in civilized people
it is perverted. It did not use to be like that. It is a sort of dullness. It is domesticated like dogs. They cant live
without masters. We are tamed. Rico is a typical representative of such mind. He is tame and humble. He is like a
woman. She appreciates men like Phoenix and Lewis but they are servants. Shed like the society where people
like Lewis are mastered, sb who is in touch with deepest layer of psyche. He wouldnt repeat phrases but he would
be an explorer. Hed also had this shifting character. He will be complex, sth you have to discover. She is looking for
a mystical man. She compares him with lots of animals. They suggest beauty, the body she can admire. He would
be part of unseen. We will have an inquisitive mind trying to find more about the self but in an intuitive way, to be
capable of experiencing life as a mystery, a place meaningful to explore, to search for meaning.
And she had
She has a vision of evil. She uses the metaphor of tick-like, a natural disaster. People are not aware of the evil.
They conceive evil as a mere negation of good. People have a very vague notion of evil. They have an ideal in life.
They want to be good and live enjoyable life without questioning. They fallow the same pattern of belief. They want
to stay on the surface, to have good time. They are not interested in depths, in hidden reality. We are not in touch
with the source and we project the shadows- suppressed energy must burst. People produce great shadows. Even
if they do not want to contribute to war, by participating in creating the shadows they do subconsciously participate.
All that shadow energy has to burst out unless we are in touch with nature. There is an image that makes her think
about evil. She sees it. Mawr falling on his back and the rider is under the back. The horse is on the top of the rider.
The situation is reversed. The image of the evil existing in us nowadays. Sth evil in us comes to surface and we fall,
but we still hid the reins believing we are still masters. The rider is to blame. He represses his ego. It tries to control
the whole self. Ego is just a part of the ice hill. This is the way our psyche is constructed. We know just one part of
us. Ego cannot be the master of the whole psyche. Undermining- when sb tries to give an expression to it, he is
undermined by all the others- the society which does not allow us to become authentic. It is a sort of hidden ego.
What is undermined is a true nature of man. Lou is undermined by Rico whenever she tries to be authentic. It is a
sort of hidden ego. What is undermined is a true nature of man. Rico is undermined by Marbys. Whenever sb
shows he is in touch with source there is undermining hatred towards any strength of spirit. All those who are
naturally strong are made weaker because people who are socially strong are afraid of the conception of life
different from their own.
The evilthe most potent
She mentions Fascism, Bolshevism, Stalinism- they made a mess of the outside life. By those movements we have
the outbreaks of evil. This is when evil becomes visible, the open manifestation but we can not confine evil to those
instances. Jung- shadow projection of the self. (Surfacing). The culture is based on an inadequate concept of the
self. Thats why evil exists. It continues to exist. It will appear in different forms. The game of betrayal- Judah- of our
true self. They appear good on surface but they suppress that natural energy. They are not loyal to the flow of
natural energy. When we suppress it, it becomes perverted and evil. The betrayal of life is betrayal of this energy.
When we do not respect it, the game of undermining is the betrayal. We betray our nature. Apocalypse- there is a
notion of spiritual aristocracy- the rule of those who are not in touch with the source. They are spiritual actors.
Christ was one of them. Judah is a symbol of those weak in spirit and undermines those who are strong. In our

civilization we have the weak undermining the strong and the life itself. It is a normal process in nature to die. We
cannot come to terms with natural process. We should change the civilization we have created. Mankind
manipulates the city upon the city, millions upon the millions. He is trying to say that this civilization has become
death in life which in spite of the deadness we want to save life. You have to reconsider our concept of civilization
and perhaps rebuild it again. That which is created must be destroyed. There is sth more horrible than death- and
that is the paralysis of life. Civilization loses all vitality yet refuses to change, to destroy inadequate structures.
Mothertoo late
Mrs. Witt watches a funeral and Lou says- so, you really like watching, mother. In order to live fully in accordance to
your inner, deepest being. If you dont live in such a way, you dont live it at all. You live death in life. Since the
whole life is unreal, superficial death is going to be the same. Those who believe are not afraid of death. If you are
capable of renouncing your own life for the sake of everlasting heaven- death has no sting for them because theyll
ascend to heaven. Mrs. Witt has never lived fully and thats why death has no sting for her. She is already dead so
she cannot die. She has a desire for death. Real and painful for her is at least this final experience. The life is
reduced to social conventions described in newspaper articles; reduced to what your social role is. She didnt live in
accordance with natural feelings in her. This is the moment when she realizes she has lived wrong. She feels
detached from her own existence, no time experience, just the superficial one. the terror of too late- the revelation
has come too late for her, but Lou realizes that she has changed. It is not too late for her. Its a sort of paralysis in
life. So, all we do, all our lives can be reduced to the newspapers, announces. He refers to the upper class. He is
forgetting them. What we do in life seems repetitive, conventional. She is detached from her own experience. She is
not emotionally involved. She is witty, intelligent, so she is reduced to that part of her being that is conscious.
The scene with cowboys: they are two dimensional. There is an idea of freedom from and freedom for. Freedom
from is negative. You have to be free from sth oppressive. People run away to America where there was no class
constraints. Lou says you are not really free unless you find sth, some goal to serve; free to find some aim in your
life. You have to be free to invest your energy into sth. Cowboys are masterless. They should be mastered by lifeforce. When you serve this central power you have positive freedom.
So, its mother
Lou has bought a ranch in America. She doesnt want to meddle with men. She wants to find mysterious man and
have sex with him. That will be spiritual experience. Unless she finds him, shed rather have no man at all. She
wants to find that deepest self and live for sth bigger. Mrs. Witt is cynical. When she was young women went to
convent to live for sth bigger. Lou doesnt agree with that kind of religious view. It seems as running away from men.
She doesnt run from men. She hates them but because they are not full of energy. She longs for a mystical man.
Shell either find that man or shell keep to herself. The sexual encounter with that man has to have deep meaning,
deep mystical unity with the man in touch with the source. It want be a cheap sex. For her men are just handsome.
Jung- to become whole is to unite feminine and masculine principles in ourselves. When man falls in love with
woman, the archetype presenting their relationship is hieros(?) games, wholly marriage. What they are looking for
is the completeness. There is a potential promise for spiritual growth by meeting a person of opposite sex. You
should get in touch with other principle of your living.
James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Joyce left Ireland in 1882 never to return again. Unlike Lawrence, he voluntary exiles in order to become an artist
and a lover. He finds a girl, a chambermaid, uneducated woman whom he trusted all his life. He married Nora. He
insisted that love must be free. They both decided that they must make a break through from their homeland in
order to save their souls. Both recorded these separations in books whose protagonists also decided to leave the
place where they were born.
In this book we have the recreation of his own experience. It is autobiographical. Stephen decided to leave Ireland
to find a more congenial place. Conrad has a different attitude to the soul from Lawrence and Joyce. They
conceive mans subconsciousness as creative, while Conrad as monstrous. Kurtz doesnt start questioning the
ideas he is asked to live for. Leavis says we must ask, reexamine the values we are required to live by. He goes to
the jungle and there he makes a delicate discovery that his soul is mad. His only victory is this victory and passing
the jungle- horror, horror! In Lawrence, Lou, and in Joyce, Stephen start questioning their own lives, ideas to make
timely escape to some other environment and preserves their souls in time. They continued to develop into

complete human beings. That is the question that is important and that can be misused against naturalism.
Lawrence decided to leave Europe defined by money, and choose the promising land- America. Joyce decided to
leave the provincial Ireland. Their lack of education and tolerance is sth he cant cope with. He decided to go to
Europe. He turns his back on the political struggle of Ireland, left Europe (socialist)- he was against money. He said
he was not a nationalist but you have to be careful and know a lot about Joyce to understand this cosmopolitan
freedom from any political pressure, to re-imagine Ireland and write about it. He left Ireland to find space in which
hell distinguish what in Ireland was wrong and narrow-minded. Once he found himself in Europe he Irelanded
himself against European policy. He also said that Ireland is the least bureaucratic from most countries. His idea to
be civilized doesnt have to do anything with law and bureaucracy but tolerance, pacifism (WWII). The Irish fought
for liberation. Parnel was betrayed in the end by the priest- he fell in love with a married woman. He should be
obedient- to cherish dogma. Then Joyce turns his back from the struggle for independence which is betrayal from
the inside. He took Nora with him. Her uneducated wisdom came from the most primitive part. He saw in her the
true Ireland. He mythologizes her. She is a goddess and he worships the female principle. Although Lawrence and
Joyce are different they are searching for the same thing- to escape from the universal tradition that was Christian
tradition, to go beyond it and to say a great yes to life. Nietzsche associated it to the pagan tradition. The weak in
the soul seek protection- Lawrence. Christian apocalypse is the revenge of those cold-blooded against those who
are afraid of life. Christianity introduces the desire for permanence, absence of the flow of life. It must be a
permanent flow. The permanent life, unchanging life of the bodily flow. As opposed to it is the pagan tradition. Both
find alternative in love. Pan is a complete man. Joyce- we have many figures. Lucifer is the angel who says no
services. Dedalus- the pagan artist. Ulysses- they all perceive how within those static, stable structures life decays.
On Modern Fiction- V. Woolf
The business of the artist is to liberate the reader from the ideal corselet. there is no stable ego. The least stable
ego is the imagination. There are 2 aspects: the libido and the imagination. The aim is to liberate them from the
ideal corselet. They do that through the assault of the linguistic forms against literary traditions. Traditional realists
say that life is orderly, what is significant is what is common- a series of events logically connected describing
people, rooms from the outside. W.Wordsworth says life is illuminated hollow- the stream of techniques to describe
the life as sth inside, in the mind. Impressions in the mind are shaped into the life of Monday, Tuesday, etc. What is
important neednt coincide with the conventional idea. What is important is the metaphor of the costume- all the
buttons are sewn exactly at the same place. Wordsworth, Lawrence and Joyce tried to subvert culture by
subverting literature- no common, no subject, predicates to create the simultaneous flow. Within those static
structures life is decaying.
(The "vast external world" is not the most conventional "outside" of subjective consciousness, the world of human
communities, but instead a vital, fundamentally other realm, the object of scientific and also artistic apprehension.
This world, "which recks so little of the happiness, of the marriages or deaths of individuals" has affinities with the
experience of that far from ordinary faculty "an ordinary mind on an ordinary day," which Woolf invokes in her
modernist manifesto "Modern Fiction," published the same year as Night and Day. Although the mention of a mind
most often connotes disembodiment, the Democritean language of this essay, equating "a myriad impressions-trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with the sharpness of steel" with "an
incessant shower of innumerable atoms," on the contrary insists on the material nature of sensation, the
inescapable organicism of this "mind"--especially in its visionary contacts with the "real" or "being." [9] The
difference between a "modern fiction" representing this kind of palpable experience and the "materialist" novels of
the Edwardians that Woolf denounced in "Modern Fiction" has less to do with mind-body dualism than with the
emphasis and values of Edwardian naturalism. The body represented in the "materialist" novels is embedded in
social life. All its experiences have social consequences. By contrast, that sensitive organism the "ordinary mind on
an ordinary day" is alone, absorbing and contemplating its "myriad impressions" without thereby either contracting
to be married or being "ruined"--the two eminently social conclusions for the female body as the subject of
nineteenth-century realist representation. 8 The visionary body is the body that experiences without social
implications.)
Within Brisel he discovered death. Lawrence also wrote a story dealing with Christian tradition and paganism as an
alternative The man who died. It was Jesus who dies, rises back to life because he wants to marry. The proper
resurrection is getting married. His alternative to Christian ascetism(?). In Joyce too the centre of this emotional

paralysis is Ireland because of the unquestioned rule of the Catholic religion. The country in which young people
are trapped into the nets preventing them to mature properly. To my church the greatest hierarchy is a human
being. He distanced himself to discover what was wrong and it was Christian concept of life. He wrote the most
unpredictable prose. His poetry was very conventional. Then he wrote The Dubliners- 15 stories. The theme is not
obvious, naturalistic subdued. In each story on epiphany- a revelation of meaning. Epiphany- not preordered by
God but by exercising ones own mind. Each of the stories centers on a scene in which there is an epiphany- some
kind of a failure, a full (im)passionate life. The book ends with The Dead. They are all in various senses dead.
The living and dead are united. They are more dead than the dead. The book is about the gestation of the soul.
Such gestation is not interrupted by the wrong concept of life. Stephen Dedalus in his effort to escape the various
nets finds the question in contrast to his name. Stephen and Dedalus- 2 alternatives. He finally realizes that he is
going to be Dedalus- a pagan craftsman who escapes culture. He also escapes the Irish, the nets of his family by
means of art. Each chapter ends in epiphany- deconstructing false relationships based on obedience. Dublinershe changes his style. He began it by using traditional conventions. In Ulysses there are interior monologues. He
started with the Dubliners with naturalistic style which he calls the style of scrupulous meanace(?)- by describing
characters he pointed towards the end of the story which seems to be a minor epiphany- revelation of the failure
and impassionate living. The boy heard the news and was struck by the word paralysis- the freezing of life by the
Church and respectable piety which middle- class people choose to live by- the denouncement of passionate life.
When the soul is born nets are flown over it to prevent it from flight. The word paralysis becomes an opt description
of the life of Dubliners.
The last story is called The Dead. The story is about Gabriel Conray and Greta. They came to the house of three
spinsters. Its Christmas- the renewal of life should be celebrated but it is under the influence of the Catholic
Church. So the evening is usual, nothing happens but they are talking about the music. We find the significance
when they are all preparing to leave and there is an epiphany. Its important that Gabriel finds his wife is missing
and sees her standing on the staircases, listening to an old-fashioned melody. In his heart there is a pang of
jealousy because he realizes that there is sth which separates her from him. He is insecure, asks her questions.
She tells him about an impression- a story from her youth when she was in love with a boy of 16. Michael Fury was
in love with her and spent all his life in the rain under her window, got pneumonia and died. Greta realizes the
epiphany- when he was capable of rising his life; but now the feelings she showed to him are never showed in the
married life. There is no such passion. He sees her life wasted. The snow is falling upon the living and the dead.
Michael Fury is more alive in his death than Gabriel is alive in his real life.
A Portrait of the Artist
Liberation, resisting the church whose main purpose is to implant in one shame and weakness and Stephen wants
to reject this feeling of fear, shame and guilt. Its a book of series of events culminating in an epiphany- slowly to
liberate himself from pseudo-identity, to deconstruct that false constructions imposed on him. In the 1 st chapter there
is a song Red Rose. The child has myriads impressions bombarding us- stopped by a 6-year-old using his sensory
faculties, not intellectual data. He builds meaning. His life is a wild red rose- an image of creative potential. His song
will be transformed into Stephen- apologize, apologize. He is manipulated and made a construct, the song about
the shame, guilt vaguely associated with women. He does sth that doesnt please the adults- the function of the
poetic mind- he brings the 2 into 1 song. His imagination was directed into wrong direction- to create a life, denying
poem based on fear and shame. He has ability to make a whole and hell use it for sth constructing what they want
to make of him. He goes under the table and Dante asks him to apologize or eagles will pull his eyes- the sense of
guilt. It demonstrates how the female, or ISA, were to turn him into a subject and how he already manipulates poetic
ability- to combine impressions into sth that has the meaning. It refigures his successful operation of imagination. As
a boy he writes I am SD on the leaf of geography book. He tells us he wants to find his true position in even larger
concentric circle of the society. It will culminate when he is carried by his class-mates. He is a hero. He will have to
do in even larger context until he achieves his major epiphany- he will not serve what he doesnt believe in. his
biological father is not the same as his spiritual father. The priest offers to join the Jesuits. He experiences an
encounter with a prostitute. He rejects his father who wants his son to be a gentleman, to return to respectability, to
family. He says no to all false concepts of faith. He is then torn between 2 concepts that woman is either a prostitute
or a virgin. Throughout the novel he oscillates between passion and fear. The House of Ivory- he doesnt
understand that but later he would realize that it is a feeling of womens hair, the house of gold. He is put on the
test- he goes to a prostitute in order to find a dream-like girl and he finds himself in a labyrinth. Stephen goes to

meet his physical and erotic power. (His experience is different from the experience of Lou when she sees St.
Mawar.). Dedalus- this is like a pagan ritual bringing him to life. Once he kisses her he is strong in body and soul.
They mingle. With every epiphany the sense of power strengthens. He sees sth real- the likeness of pagan
institution. He feels temporary reunion. In the next chapter, he is listening about the hell- he feels the pressure of
the bread (za pricest)- the vision of how he is going to subject his body to his soul/spirit. In the next part he really
entertains this idea of becoming a priest- beyond sin- until he goes to an interview with the priest- he is subdued.
The priest is leaning behind the window; his head is like a skull. He is offering Stephen a trap of the soul- to test
how successfully Stephen subjected his body. The sound of ejoupe(?) implies womanhood so he is tempting him.
Stephen realizes this so he replies to him and feels the epiphany on the beach. That is the final epiphany. There is
the flow, the life, the girl wadding in the water. He identifies himself with Dedalus- true spiritual father. In Ibsen, he
recognizes the necessity to find a woman as the inspiration, the transcendence of ordinary, the body. In Joyce- he
sees his father as Dedalus, and thinks that the soul/spirit is capable of flying. Yet, once you recognized him as his
spiritual father. He meets a girl and in her looks, image she is an angel; in her glance neither a shy nor a whore.
She hears the invitation for life. The call to life demands him to fall; and he says to fall into sin, creation, glory. One
goes up the other goes down. The 2 directions must be balanced. You fall into life; you plunge into experience not
purged by bodily pleasures. You fly from or beyond cultural restraints. Art combines both without bowing to either. In
the final chapter he is completely free. He separated from Irene and reconciled body and soul. He started sparkling
with creativity. The book ends by entries he makes into his diary- he lets us know his final welcome to life.
A portrait of the artist (excerpts)
Once upon. The memory from an early childhood. It is him in a fairy tale. He is like a baby- tickoo- a nursery
story. For him imagination and real life exist at the same level. We learn about his family relations. They were
fighting for independence. There is high awareness of political problems. The idea of patriotism. There is an
experience with Eileen. He hides under the table. He is shy. He oscillates in his attitude towards women. It starts at
this early age- there is a threat connected with this experience. Dante says the Devil (eagle) will come and pull his
eyes. Stephen makes a song. It suggests that he will deconstruct structures- this suppressive structure we have to
obey. He defines himself by his creative imagination.
He had wondered... His adolescence. He is about to meet a prostitute- his first sexual experience. This is not a
physical experience but a kind of initiation. Jew- a kind of ritual. Jews have different tradition. He gets in touch with
different traditions. He is in a realm of different tradition (Trilling). Frye- Eros, personal freedom, erotic experience.
Eros is a kind of energy we cannot control. Alter- a pagan ritual in which sexual experience is a kind of initiation,
spiritual. The woman is like a priestess- the moment of enlightenment. The slumber(?) of centuries(?)- refers to
Christian tradition. Senses, urges, our sexuality, bodily energy, erotic energy all that is suppressed in Christianity.
She embraces him gaily and gravely, her face lifts in serious calm. It is sth sacred for them. It is sth serious. He
feels joy, he feels relief. She releases the flow of natural energy. This encounter gives him a sense of strength and
creativity. Joyce calls this kind of moment an epiphany- you receive certain deep meaning. It is not here connected
with the official religion but his own.
I sent for youStephen
Stephen talks with a priest. He is persuading him to become a priest. He tells him that he is exceptional. He alludes
to his pride. Religion is one of the ISA. He is healing him. He is telling him he is unique, but actually if Stephen
follows it he will become the subject. There is a kind of betrayal of the original religion.
As he descended the steps
mirthless(?) mask- the face of the priest tempting him. Stephen compares it to a skull- no life, no joy; like death in
life. He attends the Jesuit school. He has to share his accommodation, no intimacy, no privacy. He has to share with
others. He loses his identity- the fear of losing identity. The face was eyeless- hollow man. Sour-favored (?)- this
man is not satisfied. With pink tinges of suffocated anger. He realizes that what he saw in their faces is not
contempt. Jesuits building- all the buildings, i.e. windows are the same- no individuality. He realizes that in this way
he will lose his freedom. He was tempted by the priest appealing to the psyche, but it doesnt touch his soul. It
appeals to his ego. He doesnt want to join any social order. He would rather fall and fully live.
Their burden was not
Stephen Dedalus. Stephen is the 1 st saint, Dedalus- an artificer. He builds a famous labyrinth. Icarus flies too high,
Dedalus doesnt. He is a creator and he can also fly by the wings of imagination. It can also symbolize freedom.
This name becomes symbolical to Stephen. His name is patriarchal, Christian whereas the tradition implied by his

surname is pagan. His name is like a prophecy- the end can also mean the aim. He is also an artist so this is artistic
freedom. He is creating a new being for himself. He creates himself with his own art- to create some structure of
meaning which is your own. He listens to this boy. They are on the beach. They are jumping into the water- the call
of life to his soul. He rejects the voice of the priests, this is the call on which his soul depends. This is the call of art.
This is what he wants to do with his life. What characterizes his boyhood is the feeling of uncertainty and fear. The
grave of boyhood refers to all structures imposed on him. This is like a project- a kind of art he wants to create.
A girl stood before him
He sees this girl who symbolizes sensual life. Symbolically, she can be his muse- the goddess of art and music.
The muse inspires artists to write- the feminine part of his psyche called anima (for woman it is rimus (?)). The
creativity is connected with this feminine principle within the male psyche (Rich-Orion). This girl could represent his
awaken sensuality. Out of this image Stephen realizes what sort of art he wants to create. She resembles a sea
bird. It symbolizes freedom just like Dedalus who has wings- the symbol of transcendence. You can translate the
dogma and look for your own reading. Symbol which appears in dreams is a bird. Seaweed- a sign of nature. She
represents the natural part of the psyche. She is later compared to a dark dove. This girl is not supposed to be a
symbol of purity. She is from this Earth. There is natural beauty on her face. She looks at him without shame.
According to the church doctrine the woman is either a virgin or a whore. This girl is neither of them. She doesnt
get into these structures imposed by the church. She is a natural girl, spontaneous. Madonna/whore. Stephen
encounters a natural girl who doesnt behave according to society patterns. He talks about her foot. There is a lot of
vocabulary connected with water as the flow of life.
Look here
Lucifer- non-servicum(?)- a fallen angelhis refusal to obey. He wants to obey no more his father hand,
patriarchal society, the Church. He talks about freedom- to express his personality. Silence- exile, cunning. A selfimposed exile; silence- listen to your own voice; cunning- to fight against the society.
D.Dutchess, vol.4: Dorothy W.
Ulysses- a book in which there is a streak of consciousness. There are 3 characters: Stephen is still there,
Leopond Bloom is an ordinary sensual middle-aged man, a Jew and an outsider married to Molly. These 3 people
are according to Joyce aspects of complete personality. The hero of the book is Leopond. Stephen is an intellectual,
so he is interested in Leopond who is sympathetic and has an extreme capacity for epiphany. Christ is not a father,
husband and lover so he doesnt want to choose him as a figure but Ulysses, the father, the lover and the husband.
Ulysses is the version of a complete man. A book whose chapters are an excellent biography of Joyce. Each
character is related to each body organ (mind). Stephen is a digestive tract. The flow experience in the book is
created by the stream of consciousness. The first chapter starts in a naturalistic style but the next chapters become
more strange using various styles, dramatic passages, comic magazines- stream of consciousness, no punctuation,
commas, full stops. It is a monumental comic epic. The last word is given to Molly identified with the flow of life.
Thats why women menstruate- there is that flow of blood. There is the influence of the moon which changes
constantly. It is associated by women but never controllable by men. Women, like life, are not to be controlled. Life
is to be represented like flow.
There are 3 ideas: decreation of the real, made patterns of life; to encounter the fullness of life; to make new
patterns of meaning. Ulysses- the technique is complex but his ideas are simple. 3 men and Ulysses in the
background. Is there a connection? Can out of this chaos some meaning be established? The novel says yes.
Mollys monologues begin with yes and end with yes. Yes is the most positive word in a language. It is in itself
creative. She will surround(?) to life. Leopond is a Jewish in Dublin, a scientific man. He understands women. They
are going beyond the middle-class values. Ulysses- a celebration of life. The stream of consciousness- signals from
the memory, from our body sexuality or hunger. History is a nightmare from which Stephen Dedalus wants to wake
up. The unity of opposites. There are 2 principles in Nietzsches term: Aponision and Dyonision.
Dedalus, Stephen "Kinch": Joyce's autobiographical young hero who first appears in A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man. Stephen is one of Joyce's two major characters in Ulysses, and her plays the role of "Telemachus" to
Leopold Bloom's "Ulysses." Stephen is a schoolteacher who has returned to Dublin after spending time in Paris.
Throughout the hours of June 16, Simon is obsessed alternately by the recent death of his mother, his spiritual
departure from Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church, Shakespeare and Hamlet, as well as his own literary bardlike ambitions. Stephen's self-esteem suffers at the hands of his friends, particularly his roommate Malachi "Buck"

Mulligan. Mulligan has nicknamed Stephen, Kinch, which means knife-presumably a patronizing reference to
Stephen's wit.
Decreation of the pattern- and recreation from the inside it conditions the interior monologue- to transcribe the
stream of consciousness, renders the flow of experience. The whole life is placed in one day only- a new
conception of time and personality. As you enter the consciousness of the character you enter your subjective time.
In the modern psychological novel subjective time allows for the action of the book to last only a day. Subjective
time is infinitely stretched. He manages to write down in a day what is in the mind of the main character. That
means that all life is in mind. Plunge inward to describe what the criteria of the subjective time is. But if you reject
the objective patterns you are again faced with the confusion. Time becomes a mere flow; it doesnt seem to carry
any meaning. It doesnt offer a shape of life. What is this new pattern? Lawrence and Joyce find a pattern in the
pagan way of life, the traditions which are life giving. They both turned against Christianity. They turned to the
pagan idea of a complete man, the natural rhythm. The connection between seemingly disconnections in life
(Bloom). Stephen chooses a Jew. He has sth feminine in him. Stephen and Bloom are ready to accept these 2
principles. He has found that connection inspired by pagan way of life. Ulysses- 2 principles are united. Freedom
from stereotypes, compassion, empathy- the theses of the inner monologue. If all life and time is within it means
that we are prisoners of our subjective lives. Modernist novel deals with the theme of communication. Joyce finds a
way- loneliness or life. Bloom is lonely. He shows tremendous empathy.
He manages to guess the desire of the girl and feels compassion and pity for her. His monologue is full of empathy.
He merges his mind with anything surrounding him. Finally he falls asleep. He cries- his connection with Stephen.
He goes home to his wife together with him. Everything is very subdued. The last part is her monologue. Things do
not only vanish, they appear again. The circular repetition of history, connection of the opposites. The life is the
constant cycle of inexhaustible energy. (Finegan woke up). Finegan dies, then all those who came got so drunk, so
he simply was resurrected. His own idea of immortal Finegan. Lawrence- the ship of death; when a body dies a soul
continues to live. V. Woolf didnt succeed. Mrs. Dalloway- after rejecting all, she encounters confusion. For her time
was a passage of moments and after death she found nothing. Personal problem- whether life is worth living. She
witness several deaths in her family. Sexually she was very insecure person. She couldnt find a solution in that
pagan wholeness. (A room of ones own- an essay). She was sth of a snob. She who first welcomed Ulysses
concludes that the book is unbred(?) and vulgar. There is a touch of snobbery. The book is about whether she has
chosen right and she fails.
V.Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
There are some similarities between Clarissa and Stephen in terms of their names. The choice that each of the
characters represent is the choice between name and surname. Stephen is a name of Christian martyr and the
surname of the pagan character. He chooses to live in accordance with the symbolism of his surname and the
pagan attitude to life which he considers more comprehensive. Clarissas choice is somewhat different. She really
tries to make a choice throughout the novel between her private and social self. Socially her identity is Mrs.
Dalloway. She is the wife of the upper-class parliament member, distinguished representative of the upper-class in
the English society (just like in St. Mawr- lady Carrington). Her private self is Clarissa. Her problem is basically with
emotions. She is afraid of deep emotional involvement. In the novel this symbolically represented as plunging. She
always has the feeling she is on the surface of the sea. She never plunges into the deep. Once upon a time, she
threw a shilling in a fountain. This is a sort of symbolical sacrifice. You throw a coin and make a wish. Symbolically,
this is the only plunge she made in life. One protagonist of the book is Clarissa who in her life runs away from the
disturbing emotions and lives on the surface. The only major character in the novel is Septimus. He belongs to the
lower class and due to a shock he experiences in the war he loses his ability to feel. For Septimus this is horrible for
the life without emotions is impossible. On one hand, we have a person who runs from emotions, and on the other
we have the person with emotions. The 2 of them never meet in the novel, but their motives, emotions, stream of
consciousness are common. The moment when they really meet in the novel is when 2 stories come together. It is
when Clarissa is giving a party and Dr. Bradshow, a psychiatrist, apologizes for being late because one of his
patients committed suicide. Hearing the news about the young man committing a suicide, Clarissa thinks about her
own life. We can see that she can sympathize with him. In a way, they seem to be two halves of the same person.

They are closely connected. Clarissa wasnt always like this. When she was young she had experiences of deep
emotional involvement of passionate life. The 2 persons with whom she can communicate deeply, whom she loves
are Sally Seton and Peter Walsh. They are unconventional people. Clarissa was very much in love with Peter. She
was also afraid of him in a way. He always demanded of her deep emotional involvement and complete intimacy.
She was afraid of his demands, of passion and wanted to stay reserved and detached. Peter always plays with a
pocket knife- it symbolizes his tendency to see what is behind the surface. He wants to go beyond the surface of
life. Even later in life we see that Peter has retained his passion for life, he hasnt lost his vitality. At the moment
when he comes to attend Clarissas party, he has a romance with a married woman. He is passionate; he is not dull
and dreaded. Sally also inspired Clarissa in her youth. The 1 st thing she learns about her is that she comes from the
family which had a lot of quarrels. They do not get along with each other very well. At first Clarissa is shocked at the
fact that the parents dont agree. Sally represents for Clarissa a revolutionary unconventional element in Sallys life.
She has the idea of social equality; wants to change the world. She inspires Clarissa to read books by
revolutionarists- Shelly and W. Morris. There was one of the greatest intensities in her life when she was the
happiest- it was when Sally kissed her in the garden. Clarissa was perfectly happy at that moment. This moment is
like the treasure in which Clarissa had a sort of epiphany realizing what means to be fully in love, to have
passionate love. However, she lost this treasure. She runs away deliberately from the intensity of her relationships
with Sally and Peter. She was afraid because they invited her to live an unconventional life. Instead, she married
Richard Dalloway with whom she had a very conventional life and marriage and not too much emotional
involvement. The moment the book starts we learn they dont even share the same room. There is a vague notion
of female illness. Women suffer from some disease usually with reproductive organs and symbolically this indicates
certain sterility and dull emotional life. When the novel starts we learn that Clarissa is ill for a while, her hair turns
white. She loses her vitality she is getting from inside. Doctors advised to live in a separated rooms. Rich and
Clarissa do not have much of their sexual life. The marriage is sterile; the husband and wife are kind, they never
quarrel but there is a feeling of separation and detachment. One of the motives in the novel is the deepest meaning
of communication between two people in love. Love is the most profound communication. Septimus tries to
compensate for his ability to feel by marring an Italian girl Lukrezia. He is attracted by the communication when he
enters the house and by marring Lukrezia he hopes to find the lost ability to communicate. Septimuss professionhe is a clerk but he wants to become a poet. He has wonderful ideas about becoming a poet. We have the motive
that poets are capable of communicating. Septimus believes in certain ideas of English culture and when he goes to
WWI he believes he is going to war to defend the English of Shakespeare, of all those people such as Byron,
Milton, etc. He also tries to comply with this notion of a rigid masculine identity, he tries to confront to this identity.
He tries to fit in so that when his best friend, Evans, dies in war, he tries to believe in this rigid masculine manner,
he tries not to feel too much. He congratulates himself on feeling very little and very reasonable. Because he has
suppressed this shock, deep suffering, deep pain, he stopped feeling and eventually he suffers a great emotional
disturbance. Two doctors healed him and tried to cure him. One of them is Holmes, but he is a bluffer, doesnt know
too much. He is a middle-class doctor and he simply tries to make Septimus fit again in this masculine structure. He
tells him to take on some sport and be a proper Englishman. The other, Bradshow, is much more dangerous.
Bradshow is the same kind of character as Dysart- has the same social role but Dysart is much more because he
feels uneasiness. With Bradshow we have certainty; he doesnt question what he is doing. Bradshow symbolizes a
very dangerous tendency in modern society- to force every individual to feel secure average notion of what is
normal. In his work he is guided by two goddesses. Their names are Proportion and Conversion. Proportion refers
to his sense of rational ability and order. There are some norms of behavior in society that you have to fit in in order
to be considered normal. There is always strict division between a lunatic and a normal mind. Its the case of socalled over structuring everything has to fit certain rational structures. The other goddess is much more cruel and
it refers to the ability, capacity of society to exert power on those who are misfits, on those who do not confront to
the norms. In a way, either you are mentally convinced to fit or some sort of pressure is exerted on you, so you are
forced to fit. There are two sorts of apparatus- ISA and RSA which society use to make you fit either by using
ideology or force. Clarissa has a vague notion that Bradshow is in a way evil and she hears Septimus committed
suicide, she understands what happens to him. He somehow had to be mad but he thought victims managed to
cure him. At one moment she has visions, but vaguely she is able to feel again. It can be seen in a scene with a hat,
when she talks. Those visions are of the collective, unconscious character and are necessary for her to feel.

Septimus is afraid that he will be forced to fit in the society and that is the moment when Holmes arrives at his door.
Not wanting to lose the notion of love and real communication, he commits suicide.
In a way, Clarissa is capable to sympathize with Septimus and understands his action. She says he plunges holding
his pressure. Clarissa lost her visio of meaningful life, lost her treasure on the one hand and on the other we have
Septimus died rather than to lose his treasure. His death is also in a way an attempt to communicate. Clarissas
substitute for in-depth communication is parties- this surrogate, this pretence of communication. Thats why Peter
always calls Clarissa a perfect hostess. There is an interesting reference to Shakespeare throughout the novel.
There is a quote from Othello very often repeated: If it were how to die, it were now to be most happy.
Desdemona comes to Othello after the rain and they hug. It is the moment of perfect happiness. That moment is so
beautiful that nothing matters in life anymore. Septimus tries to preserve this moment of perfect vision and he kills
himself in order to preserve perfect vision. For Clarissa this moment is when Sally kisses her and then she wants to
die. Fear no more the heat of the Sun- Cymreline. The time when the novel takes place is June- early summer.
The nature is fully awakened. Everything is ripe, everything is in bloom. The natural life is at its peak and Clarissa
says: I shall fear no more the heat of the sun. Symbolically it means passion, erotic intensity, emotional intensity.
All these things are now behind her and she is practically dying. She feels out of danger now, she decides that shell
feel no more the heat of the sun.
Mrs. Dalloway (excerpts)
Fear no more the heat of the sun p.32
Shakespeares quote- not to be afraid of passion and emotion. She has lost it forever. Its a kind of emotional death.
The problem is not jealousy but sth else. The face of Br. seems to be like a clock. She is afraid of getting old. She
cant see the meaning in life. This is the moment she realizes how superficial her life has been. She can now see
inside herself. Then she recalls her youth. She compares herself with the diver before plunging. She looks things
only on the surface, never looks deep. The pearl is at the bottom but she can just catch a glimpse of it. It is the
treasure of life. All this is happening in June when everything is blooming, everything is rape. It makes a contrast
with her life. She suddenly feels breastless sterility, feminine sexuality. Her life becomes sterile. She compares
herself with a nun who withdraws from life, escapes from intensity of life. When she puts off her clothes she can see
the damage. Her bed is narrow like a coffin. She fears death. She will be closer and closer to death. The candle will
burst. She reads memoirs- her present life is dull so she goes back to the past. Napoleon occupying Moscow- she
is like Moscow, too cold, men cannot approach her. She gets ill and the doctor advises her to have her own room.
She withdraws to this little room and suffers from insomnia. She is not a virgin physically but emotionally she is. She
has never allowed herself to love intensely. (Helen- Look back in anger). When she enters the room she feels
emptiness. She undresses taking off the social mask.
Lovely in girlhood how she laughed
Her relationship with Richard. She remains an emotional virgin. She is not very much with him. He is conventional,
wants much less than Peter. She even fails him who has less expectation in terms of emotions. She can feel it from
time to time- she couldnt really love him. Sth warm that breaks surface- people getting beyond the surface.
Clarissa has never loved a man, but she felt some moment of emotional relation with a woman. She had this
chance for emotional involvement. She describes that feeling. She has seen a kind of illumination. It was brief. Most
of the time she spent without emotional involvement. When she feels sth it is usually towards women.
But this question Papa said
She met Sally. She was sitting and smoking. She is not conventional. Her parents were quarreling all the time.
Clarissa is shocked. It is unusual for her. It makes her feel that her life is protected. She lives in the structure which
functions perfectly. She talks about her physical appearance and ancestors. She is more passionate, open and
spontaneous. There is sth romantic in her. Sally is the first one to introduce certain issues such as social problems,
class problems. She gave her to read Morris- a socialist, Shelly- social revolutionary, interested in social changes.
She makes Clarissa become sexually and socially aware. She was engaged in life at all levels. She is open-minded
and careless about conventions. She has new liberal ideas about society and sex. Sally enlarges her mind, makes
her more conscious of social system and womanhood.
To his patientsproportion
Septimus had idealist image of England. He went to WWII to fight for it. He lost his friend and was shocked by the
inability to feel. He is driven to madness because of his inability to feel. His wife Lukrecia takes him to a doctor. He
told him to live normal English life and engage in sports. Bradshow is a more dangerous one. He doesnt care for

these people. He has a schedule, he works by the clock. His notion of proportion- it refers to death, rest in peace,
passivity, a spiritual death. To fit into the society- to commit a kind of spiritual death, just to eat, get fat and dull. His
project is the project of the whole society. secluded her lunatics- they are bringing instability, they make you ask
questions, they make you certain about the ideology they live by. He didnt allow them to have children- a kind of
fascist project. Lady Bradshow is not a loving mother. She spends 4 days a week with her son. She lives by the
rules of rational structure. Everything is submitted to that sense of proportion. Bradshow is a typical tough-minded,
and Septimus is tender-minded. He has to slip into madness in order to find some definition of reality that would
satisfy him.
But proportion has a sister
Conversion- Bradshow is not an individual doctor; he serves the society- the sense in the whole England. These
people who live in different climate have different cultural patterns. This conversion of the British Europe is imposed
on them. Trilling- coercion and seduction. The great tendency of the WS is to create a uniformed society, to abolish
individuality. The great project of the modern society- dangerous aspect. Althuser: RSA and ISA police and
ideology- propaganda, brain-washing, TV, slogans. Bradshow uses proportion as a kind of ideological medianism
for people who are not orthodox. But when it fails British Empire uses conversion. Conversion is more forceful; it is
applied in India and Africa and in the suburbs in London where poor people live. This forceful method uses certain
disguises: brotherly love, pretence that you have good intentions. This is an attempt to break the human will (his
wifes will, particularly). She went fishing, caught a salmon- the symbol of freedom. The life is squeezed out of her.
When the guests come, they can see to what degree he destroys her. Dysort- they both are aware but Dysort feels
uncomfortable whereas he enjoys what he is doing and he believes completely in what he is doing.
There in the grey roomhis victims
Bradshows room in which he accepts his patients. It is well-furnished. He is a very rich man. He belongs to the
upper-class. For him life is good. He doesnt give a damn that other people are poor. His patients question is; is
there God?. There is no absolute authority to tell me in which way we should live by. They simply accept this
doctrine. Sir William says: certain values are imposed on us and they are internalized in us; if they fail the society
has to use the openly oppressive apparatus. The lack of good blood- the poor lack of good blood and they do not
belong to the upper-class, than other races, people of other religion, uneducated. His patients ask question and
rebel against his ideas. Why is life good for him? He has large income, has social status, has a beautiful life.
Patients lacked the sense of proportion. If they had it, they will be able to accept the position in the class system
and they wouldnt protest. Ideals to encourage the sense of proportion- family affections. These are the goals that
the tough-minded live by. If you cant comfort to these goals there is sth else to force you- the support of police. If
you cant be convinced by ideology, you are convinced by police. Unsocial impulses- the origin- is the lack of good
blood, lower class, foreign nations, uneducated- make problems. At the end of the paragraph we have 2 verbsswooped and devoured. It suggests some animals, a predator- like a bird of prey (Bradshow).
Sinking her voice
Woolf- explores her character through some kind of tunneling. She is digging deeper and deeper in the psyche.
Septimus and Clarissa share some experiences but they never meet. She sympathizes with him when she finds out
that he is dead. She organizes parties to make up the emptiness of her life. Those parties present a kind of world of
pretence. When she finds out about his death sth changes. She can no longer deceive herself; she can no longer
escape reality. She withdraws to a little room- the private intimate self. At the party she shows her social self. Now
she enters this small room and there is nobody. She cant hide anymore this burden. Her body experiences
everything Septimus experiences. She tries to feel the way he feels. Once she sacrificed a coin to make a wish. It is
connected with love. She always remains on the surface. The only thing she sacrificed was a coin. She was not
able to plunge, to surrender herself to life. This small shilling symbolizes just a small sacrifice. There is sth she has
lost and Septimus preserved- that is capacity to feel. Septimus got mad and managed to cure himself; he could love
again. Society creates a tendency for people not to feel too much. This is the treasure Septimus wants to preserve.
In corruption lies chatter- meaningless communication. The idea of treasure (Othello- they hug and it is the happiest
moment). Sally kisses her and it is the moment of perfect life; life has meaning- the vision of meaningful life.
Bradshow is to blame for his death. He tries to fit him to the society, to make him an average citizen. He imposes
the idea of proportion. Then she continues to think about her own life, and the life in general. The parents give us
life, we feel a certain responsibility to use it creatively. The horror of an empty life. There are some rare moments
when she forgets- while reading newspaper. She always tries to escape the urge of death.

A.Huxley
Brave New World
Civilization has abolished the nature of reproduction- no motherhood, no family, no coming to world by reproduction.
Like a factory they x-ray an egg by several processes (Bekanorski process), they produce twins. Do all the people
in Brave New World go through this? No, just the lower classes- those who are going to be linked to machine, the
process of mass production. There is strong division among classes. Any symbolism intended here? What does the
society do? Arrest intellectual development, psyche, an individual- it resides in all, doing the same job and looking
the same. They insert alcohol in their bottles to get lower intelligence people. Arrest of development in the stage of
embryo. Trilling- general tendency of modern society towards the uniformity which would produce social stability.
Brave New World warns of the dangers of giving the state control over new and powerful technologies. One
illustration of this theme is the rigid control of reproduction through technological and medical intervention, including
the surgical removal of ovaries, the Bokanovsky Process, and hypnopaedic conditioning. Another is the creation of
complicated entertainment machines that generate both harmless leisure and the high levels of consumption and
production that are the basis of the World States stability. Soma is a third example of the kind of medical, biological,
and psychological technologies that Brave New World criticizes most sharply.
It is important to recognize the distinction between science and technology. Whereas the State talks about progress
and science, what it really means is the bettering of technology, not increased scientific exploration and
experimentation. The state uses science as a means to build technology that can create a seamless, happy,
superficial world through things such as the feelies. The state censors and limits science, however, since it sees
the fundamental basis behind science, the search for truth, as threatening to the States control. The States focus
on happiness and stability means that it uses the results of scientific research, inasmuch as they contribute to
technologies of control, but does not support science itself.
The motif of alienation provides a counterpoint to the motif of total conformity that pervades the World State.
Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, and John are alienated from the World State, each for his own reasons. Bernard
is alienated because he is a misfit, too small and powerless for the position he has been conditioned to enjoy.
Helmholtz is alienated for the opposite reason: he is too intelligent even to play the role of an Alpha Plus. John is
alienated on multiple levels and at multiple sites: not only does the Indian community reject him, but he is both
unwilling and unable to become part of the World State. The motif of alienation is one of the driving forces of the
narrative: it provides the main characters with their primary motivations.
Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers, introduces himself to the boys and begins to explain the history
of the World State, focusing on the States successful efforts to remove strong emotions, desires, and human
relationships from society.
John and Mond debate the value of the World States policies, John arguing that they dehumanize the residents of
the World State and Mond arguing that stability and happiness are more important than humanity. Mond explains
that social stability has required the sacrifice of art, science, and religion. John protests that, without these things,
human life is not worth living.
John overcome with anger and sadness at his submission to World State society, hangs himself.
John becomes the central character of the novel because, rejected both by the savage Indian culture and the
civilized World State culture, he is the ultimate outsider.
Johns extensive knowledge of Shakespeares works serves him in several important ways: it enables him to
verbalize his own complex emotions and reactions, it provides him with a framework from which to criticize World
State values, and it provides him with language that allows him to hold his own against the formidable rhetorical skill
of Mustapha Mond during their confrontation.
Shakespeare embodies all of the human and humanitarian values that have been abandoned in the World State.
Johns rejection of the shallow happiness of the World State, his inability to reconcile his love and lust for Lenina,
and even his eventual suicide all reflect themes from Shakespeare. He is himself a Shakespearean character in a
world where any poetry that does not sell a product is prohibited.
Johns nave optimism about the World State, expressed in the words from The Tempest that constitute the novels
title, is crushed when he comes into direct contact with the State. The phrase brave new world takes on an
increasingly bitter, ironic, and pessimistic tone as he becomes more knowledgeable about the State. Johns

participation in the final orgy and his suicide at the end of the novel can be seen as the result of an insanity created
by the fundamental conflict between his values and the reality of the world around him.
(p.71, the end of the chapter 4) Speaking very slowly. Did you ever feel? he askedtry and try
A conversation between Helmholtz and Bernard. Helmholtz is a writer, he writes some articles about daily life of that
community and he teaches how to produce propaganda and great slogans how to preserve social stability. Bernardthe highest class, unhappy because he feels sth is missing for some mistaken production. He is shorter than the
others from his class. He is frustrated, he cannot express himself, he has more intelligence than the rest of the
society but doesnt know how to put it in use. He would like to express sth meaningful, sth that has more
significance. The effect of your writing should be to help people inwardly. He doesnt know how to use his writing
serving good. Bernard is able to change people as well as x-rays. X-rays can help you come to deep meaning, go
under the surface of reality, change world. This is what Harnolds wants to do, but he want.
(p.144- chapter 11, 6th page from the beginning ) it was a small factory
Cefalus- glava.
Electrical parts for the helicopters are produced by the lower class people- artificially produced twins. Identical
people doing identical jobs. The human element manager. Huxley wants to stress that human element has been left
out- human manager- that has nothing to do with humanity. By those people we can see the real characters of this
society. Mental mechanism which prevents compassion is created in class society. The savages reaction- he
quotes Shakespeare and the sight makes him disgusted.
(chapter 17- near the end) Do you remember that bit in King Lear
Mustafa and savage are talking about God. Mustafa- chief of society. He was once a great scientist. Art and science
are suppressed in Brave New World. Science is looking for truth. A real scientist is looking for ideal- ultimate truth.
Science and wisdom should not be separated (Renaissance). Therefore science is dangerous. Savage says that
Gods are just and they will punish everyone who does injustice- here they are even more just; you can do what ever
you want. There is no punishment for this way of life in this society. They live prescribed life and are designed as
human beings. Their human capacities are reduced to narrow range of things.
The savage nodded
Savage-John
A quote from Hamlet- whether to suffer or oppose. Here people neither suffer nor enjoy. (line in Look Back in
Anger). Instead of getting some insights of experience, they just abolish and get a trip.
Savage was in love with Lenina. He always idealized her, compared her with heroines from Shakespeare, wanted
to perform some act of sacrifice, worship in order to show how much he loves and adores her. They inject
adrenaline to feet. Sort of passion Othello has for Desdemona. It is just bodily, physical reaction, biological need
(divorce between biological urgence(?) and their psychological justification, component). Richards in Pseudo
Statements- we cannot live in the world of biological urgence(?)- bioloske potrebe. How to live in the world that is
demythologized? Blake- we should express our sexuality; but he didnt have Brave New World in mind. We cannot
organize our life, world based on biological urgence, but also some psychological needs. Thats why we need
Pseudo-statements. Savage says he doesnt want to comfort civilization. He wants to feel the fullness of life even if
sadness is a part of it. Physical pains are abolished in Brave New World.
G.Orwell- 1984
1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian
government.
Orwell was deeply disturbed by the widespread cruelties and oppressions he observed in communist countries, and
seems to have been particularly concerned by the role of technology in enabling oppressive governments to
monitor and control their citizens.
Orwell portrays a state in which government monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that
even having a disloyal thought is against the law. As the novel progresses, the timidly rebellious Winston Smith sets
out to challenge the limits of the Partys power, only to discover that its ability to control and enslave its subjects
dwarfs even his most paranoid conceptions of its reach. As the reader comes to understand through Winstons
eyes, The Party uses a number of techniques to control its citizens, each of which is an important theme of its own
in the novel.

The Party barrages its subjects with psychological stimuli designed to overwhelm the minds capacity for
independent thought. The giant telescreen in every citizens room blasts a constant stream of propaganda designed
to make the failures and shortcomings of the Party appear to be triumphant successes. The telescreens also
monitor behavioreverywhere they go, citizens are continuously reminded, especially by means of the omnipresent
signs reading BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, that the authorities are scrutinizing them. The Party
undermines family structure by inducting children into an organization called the Junior Spies, which brainwashes
and encourages them to spy on their parents and report any instance of disloyalty to the Party. The Party also
forces individuals to suppress their sexual desires, treating sex as merely a procreative duty whose end is the
creation of new Party members. The Party then channels peoples pent-up frustration and emotion into intense,
ferocious displays of hatred against the Partys political enemies. Many of these enemies have been invented by
the Party expressly for this purpose.
Physical Control
In addition to manipulating their minds, the Party also controls the bodies of its subjects. The Party constantly
watches for any sign of disloyalty, to the point that, as Winston observes, even a tiny facial twitch could lead to an
arrest. A persons own nervous system becomes his greatest enemy. The Party forces its members to undergo
mass morning-exercises called the Physical Jerks, and then to work long, grueling days at government agencies,
keeping people in a general state of exhaustion. Anyone who does manage to defy the Party is punished and
reeducated through systematic and brutal torture. After being subjected to weeks of this intense treatment,
Winston himself comes to the conclusion that nothing is more powerful than physical painno emotional loyalty or
moral conviction can overcome it. By conditioning the minds of their victims with physical torture, the Party is able to
control reality, convincing its subjects that 2 + 2 = 5.
Control of Information and History
The Party controls every source of information, managing and rewriting the content of all newspapers and histories
for its own ends. The Party does not allow individuals to keep records of their past, such as photographs or
documents. As a result, memories become fuzzy and unreliable, and citizens become perfectly willing to believe
whatever the Party tells them. By controlling the present, the Party is able to manipulate the past. And in controlling
the past, the Party can justify all of its actions in the present. The Party controls everything in Oceania, even the
peoples history and language.
As the novel opens, Winston feels frustrated by the oppression and rigid control of the Party, which prohibits free
thought, sex, and any expression of individuality. Winston dislikes the party and has illegally purchased a diary in
which to write his criminal thoughts. He has also become fixated on a powerful Party member named OBrien,
whom Winston believes is a secret member of the Brotherhoodthe mysterious, legendary group that works to
overthrow the Party.
In the end Winston, after being arrested and tortured, accepts the party entirely and learns to love Big Brother.
(excerpts)
Part I- the very beginning
Chapter III
Winston was dreaming of his mother. Winston woke up with the word Shakespeare on his lips. Dream is sth
personal (his privacy), not sth imposed by the party. Dreams are sth human. He tries to preserve his humanity
through his memories, dreams, by writing his diary and later on by falling in love with Julia. (Purges- Stalinism- the
totalitarian system modeled by Stalinist system.). The dream focuses on his mother and sister on a sinking shipthey are sinking deeper and deeper into subconsciousness and it is harder to have contact with them. They
sacrificed for him but we know the way they did it. at that time people were loyal to one another, had to sacrifice to
each other. His mother has died loving him. In his time people were thought to be loyal to party, abstract things. It is
juxtaposition. Garden- where we come from; city- a place of civilization. He meets a girl here. She takes off her
cloths. (the layers of society which are not essential). The image implies erotic encounter, but it is political
connection- Eros= a symbol of personal liberation. Winstons love is called Julia. Shakespeare is important for his
dreams (as for Savage in Brave New World). Art is a place where we preserve our meanings, values. Lovecounting point to civilization. It refers to old notions. Shakespeare is also representative of this old world. For Jung
dreams are important if our conscious outlook of reality is too narrow.
Part II, (p.145), chapter VII (two pages before the end)

The dream is still vivid in his mind. He ate his part of chocolate and wanted more; ate his sisters. Mother didnt give
her a chocolate but a hug (love). A film he watched produced a moment- a gesture of love (refugees). An embrace,
a tear, a person staying with a dying person (as Celia). A psychology of people able of acting this way. Nowadays
those people are powerless if the party gets them doing sth against the law. People simply vanished from the
course of history. People do not only have existence in the course of history but also in this emotional sphere, in the
sphere of loyalty to each other. The proals(?) remained human- those lower parts of society. His observation- party
members had been hardened inside. What demonstrates him he has lost the human element was when after the
accident he saw several hands giving, touching- symbol of communication, love. He just kicked them aside.
Chapter VIII- the conversation between OBrien and Winston- no it is realyou will understand byno! (Julia and
Winstons secret brotherhood to fight against party)
Machiavellian motto: the end justifies the means
Means are ends-in-the-making- if you want justifiable aim you must have justified means. Winston is determined
to go to the end- to destroy the party. Party destroys humanity. But it seems that he has lost his own humanity. His
love for Julia is his last part of humanity.
Part III, chapter III, p.227- Now I will tell you the answer to any questionreality is inside the skull
Party in 1984 is similar to Nazism, but they openly admit what they want- they are only interested in power.
OBriens face looks tired, pale, like he is going to die in a few years, alone. Power is, according to him, collectiveto submit oneself to collective body. Any person, as long as he is individual, cannot feel power. To overcome this
feeling is to join some party. What party control? In Brave New World there are technical achievements, here they
control what is in the mind.
The Age of Iron- J.M. Coetze
Violence in all his works is his greatest theme. Both The Age and The White Hotel deal with archetypal source
for that violence. We live in a close space which some of us try to escape. How to go beyond the culture (Joyce,
Lawrence)? Is the exit possible? There are 3 categories of characters: 1. masters- the defenders of this history of
violence; 2. outsiders- Vietnamese, Hottentots, Blacks, animals (barbarians vs. empire, garden vs. camp, cyclical
vs. linear time, silence vs. language); 3. want to reconcile the border between the masters and the barbarians,
inhabiting the zone between the camp and the garden. Mrs. Curren rebels against men who created The Iron Age
spoiling the lives of good people. Vietnam- imperialism is just a manifestation of patriarchy. Reason for war is not to
be found in economic or other reasons- the cause are archetypal; the terror of history. Empedocles- disillusioned by
politics, exiled and became a prophet. There was a time when people only worshiped Aristotle- Golden Age- but
there was this corruption of being and all love went outside and hatred went inside and that will be the Age of Iron.
Mrs. Curren- I hate those men who created the Age of Iron because not only have they killed their victims but they
also spoiled my life; I feel crippled and dead. Desire, love- to return to the garden as opposite to the camp (the
picture of her family).
(2nd version)
Mrs. Curren, a retired classics professor in Cape Town, South Africa, is dying of cancer. The novel is in the form of
an extended letter to her only daughter who has fled apartheid (political system in South Africa where only whites
can be in charge) and lives in the United States. During her final days, Mrs. Curren takes in a homeless alcoholic
man who appears on her doorstep. Her housekeeper's son Bheki is involved in an uprising. While helping his
mother search for him, Mrs. Curren witnesses the burning of a black township and discovers the boy's bullet-ridden
body.
Later, Bheki's friend, who seeks refuge at her house, is killed there by government security forces. In anger and
despair, Mrs. Curren is forced to confront the "age of iron" apartheid has wrought. Her only companion in all this is
the alcoholic drifter, who agrees (or does he?) to send this last letter to her daughter.
In coming to grips with her own cancer, the dying woman in this novel encounters the social and cultural "cancer" of
South Africa. Just as her daughter has separated herself physically from the abomination of apartheid, Mrs. Curren,
and most of the white population have separated themselves emotionally, unaware of injustice and the rage it
generates.

Set in apartheid-era South Africa, Age of Iron explores the insidious nature of complicity and reflects on the failure
of language to maintain its authority in a complex postcolonial world. Like many of her white compatriots, Elizabeth
Curren, a professor of classics who is dying of cancer, has remained willfully blind to the violence and degradation
around her. The novel takes the form of a letter she writes to her daughter during the death throes of the apartheid
system itself, in which she attempts to see clearly both the present and those pieces of the past that she has
chosen not to examine. Coetzee does not indicate, however, whether this letter absolves Mrs. Curren of her past
blindness, and we are left with the question of how much responsibility each individual must bear in a corrupt or
diseased society. By casting the novel as a personal letter addressed to a particular recipient, Coetzee links reader
and narrator in a way that a third-person narrative or even a more conventional first-person narrative would not. The
reader becomes another addressee of Mrs. Curren's letter and therefore, perhaps, implicated in this tale of
collective blindness and guilt.
If Mrs. Curren's crime is one of complicity, then this novel in many ways reads like a confession. But it is a very
problematic confession. Her crime is not easily articulated, not only because she has trouble seeing it, but also
because she has trouble finding the language to describe it. She writes to her daughter, "As far as I can confess, to
you I confess. What is my error, you ask?...it is like a fog, everywhere and nowhere. I cannot touch it, trap it, put a
name to it" (p. 136). Confession demands the naming of a crime, as well as some sort of public acknowledgment of
it. But what if neither is possible? Mrs. Curren's complicity is intangible both legally and morallynot only is there
no legal context for her confession, but there is also no moral framework for it within her society. Yet, like a fog, her
complicity permeates everything.
Although Mrs. Curren writes this confession to her daughter and speaks at least part of it to the homeless Mr.
Vercueil, it is not clear whether either of them hears it. Mrs. Curren implies that the letter she composes may never
be mailed, and Mr. Vercueil turns out to be asleep during much of her confession. Is a confession still valid if it is not
heard? The novel does not provide a definitive answer to this question. The role of the listener or witness is also
unclear. The witness may be meant to pass judgment or merely to allow Mrs. Curren to express her shame. And
while Mrs. Curren seeks some sort of salvation through her words, she may or may not be ultimately redeemed by
them. Mr. Vercueil's final embrace seems to be a gesture of deliverance, but Mrs. Curren also acknowledges to her
daughter that she is "having a death without illumination" (p. 195). Thus Coetzee raises doubts about the possibility
of redemption and renewal in a society where true confession and acknowledgment of guilt may be impossible.
Language fails Mrs. Curren in more ways than one. Beyond her difficulty of finding the proper words for confession,
Age of Iron devotes much attention to the way in which the meaning of words has been lost or distorted. As a
professor of classics, Mrs. Curren is proficient in the dead language of Latin. At one point, she gives Mr. Vercueil a
false etymology for the word charity, saying, "But what does it matter if my sermons rest on false etymologies?" (p.
22). The word charity has become unmoored, unanchored from its root, care. "Care: the true root of charity. I look
for him to care, and he does not. Because he is beyond caring. Beyond caring and beyond care" (p. 22). Perhaps
language fails because words have lost their connection to experience. Because people rarely care for one another
in this society, the word becomes meaningless, and the false etymology no more misleading than the true one. But
the novel also suggests that assigning false etymologies to words may not be harmless. What are the potential
consequences of words losing their connection to experience or meaning? Mrs. Curren speaks of the way that her
words fell off Bheki's friend "like dead leaves the moment they were uttered" (p. 79). The way that characters in this
novel communicate, or fail to communicate, may be due in part to the misuse or distortion of language.
Also central to the novel is the relationship between Mrs. Curren and the vagrant Mr. Vercueil. She remarks earlier
that he is "beyond caring and beyond care" (p. 22). But their connection to one another suggests that this may not
be true. The information that we are given about Mr. Vercueil is scant, and his role remains ambiguous. His name
may provide some clue: Verskuil, one of the variations of his name that she mentions, comes from Afrikaans and

translates into English as alter ego or masked self. Mr. Vercueil, who belongs to the older social order, seems to
represent some aspect of Mrs. Curren. She says, "He is and is not I. Because in the look he gives me I see myself
in a way that can be written" (p. 9). Like her disease and her child in America, Mr. Vercueil is both part of her and
alien to her. In him, she may see reflections of her own ties to the past, as well as her spiritual homelessness. Why
is she more apt to recognize in him what she would rather not see in herself? Perhaps Mrs. Curren is practiced at
blinding herself to things she would rather not see. Or perhaps seeing oneself fullyand taking responsibility for
one's actionsis a more complicated and difficult act than seeing another. While Mr. Vercueil is linked to the past,
there is also some indication that he makes it possible for her to prepare for the immediate future. He is the
appointed messenger for her letter, and it is in his otherworldly embrace that she passes out of the world of the
living.
In Age of Iron, as in many of Coetzee's novels, neither the past nor the future escapes close scrutiny. If the novel
raises questions about the diseased culture that is passing away, it also raises questions about the unbending "iron"
culture, perhaps engendered by the old one, that is replacing it.
Excerpts
Invisible humanity- one cannot degrade or brutalize the other without degrading or brutalizing oneself. A system of
oppression has no winners, only losers.
Like an old tom
She thinks he is the reincarnation of Vergil, the Roman poet. Vergil appears as a character in Dantes Inferno, or he
guides him to heaven, hell and to Beatrice. He is like Vergil, a symbolical guide to Elizabeths soul. Two black boys
beating him- cruelty, test for our own humanity, banished human soul coming home. He is an outcast, a tramp.
Florence- Elizabeth criticizes her for giving up authority over her children; children need moral guidance. Florence
blames everything on the White men- they were made for cruelty. Rebels- to fight the oppression; they are full of
wrath; they have suppressed everything gentle and innocent in them in order to fight and, thus, they lost all of their
humanity. One must never severe the connection with the inner good. Calvin is one of the people to blame for the
Age of Iron.
p. 58
blood- more precious than gold or diamonds. Blood: life force energy. Then he juxtaposes the white blood- the white
South Africans who are detached from their flow of life. Daughter (childbirth)- gave birth to a new life. Cancer- will
give birth to death (similar to Surfacing- death was planted in me like a seed).
p. 73
History may be servitude, history may be freedom- T. S. Eliot
The talk of Thucydides: what happens to our humanity in times of war. Classifying; depersonalize the enemy.
p. 100
Doll life- post-structuralist (Derrida)- divided, never fully present. Cant you see I am burning- Freuds case.
Father/child relationship in the patriarchal world: father is not aware of how much wrong he had inflicted. Sth. is
burning in the soul of the child and the father cannot help him.
M. Atwood- Surfacing
Margaret Atwood's novel 'Surfacing' demonstrates the complex question of identity for an English-speaking
Canadian female. Identity, for the protagonist has become problematic because of her role as a victim of colonial
forces. She has been colonized by men in the patriarchal society in which she grew up, by Americans and their
cultural imperialism. What is presented by Atwood's 'Surfacing' is the analogous nature of patriarchy, cultural
imperialism and geographical colonisation and how this combined colonial experience has left the victim with
feelings of displacement and disconnectedness from their language, history and culture, which in turn has led to a
fractured sense of self and a desperate need to regain and reclaim identity. Throughout the novel there is a definite
condemnation of this Americanisation of people and places but it is most poignantly and symbolically demonstrated
with the narrator's final rejection of her 'friends', her clothes and any food that is not natural. She rejects neo-

colonialism in every form and travels to a precolonial space that she must visit in order to return with an
understanding of herself and her identity as a Canadian and as a woman. Through the struggle to reclaim her
identity and roots, the Surfacer begins a psychological journey that leads her directly into the natural world. Like the
journey itself, the language, events, and characters in Atwood's novel reflect a world that oppresses and dominates
both femininity and nature. Strong and unmistakable in Surfacing, the ecofeminist theory establishes itself in three
specific ways: through the references to patriarchal reasoned dualities between the masculine and feminine world;
through the domination and oppression of the feminine and natural world, and through the Surfacer's own internal
struggle and re-embracement of nature.
In Surfacing- a female narrators stream of consciousness. Both women are (?)(un)damaged. The disturbances
are similar. In Surfacing the heroine complains on numbness. We live in civilization we separate body and soul. We
posses neck, a barrier (fish dont)- shallowness, abuse of language (as in Pinter) causes refusal to speak. The
other woman- a patient, a Freudist. She tries to cover what she can remember. The narration and the technique
changes. A quarrel between Freud and Jung.
(there is a connection between this book, The White Hotel and The Iron Age). (Freuds report of the dream- he
was burning while his father was sleeping- Coetzee).
These women live in that age, the age of iron. The first cannot feel, the second is anorexic ( Lisa). A flood,
avalanche- hallucination that prevented her from marring and having career as a singer. Her ovary and left breast
hurt. Why are they suffering? Neurosis comes from suppression. They are searching for the truths to recover. They
are both weak to realize what it is about. They both invent lies to cover the truth. They both renounced the maternal
function. One of them had an abortion and invented the lie about damaged body and throughout the book she says
her story of divorced marriage. She actually had a lover who was a married man and proposed abortion. Death is
implanted in me like a tumor from then.
(Like Lisa in The White Hotel. She got pregnant with Russian officer and had miscarriage because she fell from
the stairs. She refused to have child because it would be half-Jewish (not because of her opera singer career, as
Freud says). She has a fantasy about the hotel and that helps her.)
Shes going back to the farm of her childhood (Canada). She is traveling north together with her friends David and
Ana who are a couple. Ecology- trees are dying (traveling north). The disease threats from the south (moral disaster
is spreading from the south). A dead heron- a beautiful bird was killed and she thought that Americans done that.
Why? Its not edible. Then she finds out that two Canadians and not Americans killed the bird. They look like
Americans- friendly, shallow, ignorant, expressing what Americans look like- friendly American killers. Affected by
American virus. Dirty capital pigs. He speaks as American (phrases from cartoons). His pretensions- along the way
he has a plan to make a film. Random samples- you take a shot of this and that. Never mind, he says, the main
idea is flow. Hes a post modernist. Not anything deep. His superficiality is seen on all levels. His marriage with Ana
is a mental friction- Ana losing the battle of the power because she is not attempted enough. He keeps her down by
threatening with adultery. The only thing that can save the relationship is suspense. She must live up to his
standards. She is obsessed with her make-up. He is interested in surface only. The only transformation of Ana is
her make-up to make her skin to look young. Unlike Ana and David, the heroine is going to search for her identity.
She reaches the farm. Her mother died, her father wasnt there (probably died too). She figured they were her
guides- rural, not urban one. They must have left her sth. her father made some drawings, and there were maps
leading her to old drawings of Indians. She goes and finds those drawings of saint things. The last drawing she
thought is the last man. She died into the lake- symbolic. She died in self-consciousness and experienced
hallucination. There was no drawing on the bottom of the lake, but this is a place for hallucination. A fetus of her
aborted child- she is facing the truth. It is the amputated part of her personality. When she comes down she realizes
she had reconnected herself with her real past and regained the lost part. She gets the real knowledge and at the
same moment experiences the real sensation- she begins to feel again and her numbness has gone out. My father
taught me how to see but I must know how to act. Her father was rationalist, Pacifist, botanizer, yet logic. He
experienced vision, hallucination, came to the end of logic and gained visionary knowledge as Indians had. It was
not just rational knowledge, but also knowledge gained through hallucinations. She learned how to see not just
through logic but also visionary optic. Mother- the daughter= a designer, creating fairy-tales. Pre-arranged,
sweetened illustrations. Children should encounter the thing they are afraid of and realize that it is not that scary.
Indian God with a tail (The Death of Pan- Lawrence), and opposite to him a pregnant woman. Secret bond:
mother-father-the urban child. The next thing she does is conceive. I dont seek pleasure anymore. Conceives her

child with Joe and knows immediately she is pregnant. And the moment aptness dies she knows that new potential
life started in her. I am like ferry (boat). She believed that power can be hurtful, and now she realizes she must
have power. One must not be a victim. She as a victim also hurt someone- her unborn child. She goes to forest.
Purifying in order to be whole again. She purges herself. She immerses herself in water, having all the time her
dead parents, who are gods now, instructing her. The silence will preserve her and open her to some other kind of
communication. If you must see, you must not see yourself. She survived on roots. She didnt eat anything cooked.
She is there alone and she grows stronger. Joe, her lover, comes and calls her name. it is necessary to refresh
oneself. You have to live some time like an animal, and be one with them. When she leans on the tree and watches
fish which do not have mouth (they are not necessary to them), she becomes a place, she becomes a more
powerful person. Now, accepting Joe, she would no longer be a victim but responsible woman, living with
Americans but not imitating them. She is a man-hater- I dont hate men, but all human beings who turned their
backs to gods. Joe is there, calling for her, and she has to decide. He is a good choice- silent, unable to lie. He may
turn out to be a good partner and its a promising project. She has strengthen her vitality.
Surfacing (excerpts)
Literally, Surfacing is the novel when a heroine sinks in the lake. Actaeon- shore-dweller- the one who stays on the
shore. Myth- Goddess Diane was hunting, Actaeon bowed and stared at her instead to turn his face. Shoredweller used to refer to character that cannot go deeply into their being (such as Mrs. Dalloway- she is always on
surface and never surrenders herself to love).
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
The question about life which he doesnt dare to ask.
Sb who did plunge and resurfacing is what this novel is about.
Chapter 15, p. 598, But theyd kill the heron anyway
p.600, time he felt he was ready
those people were Canadians whom she found Americans because of their looking. The characteristic of these
people she calls American- those are people who converted everything into phrases. They reduced their own lives
to phrases. Shallow attitude to life. She uses the term American to characterize certain life-style, way of living. (She
also calls them creatures from out of space, aliens from out of space who came to earth and enter humans body.)
Eyes are symbolizing soul. Those people have lost their soul. When she was young, she thought Hitler was the only
source of evil. You cannot destroy evil in the vision of one person or ideology. Friendly metal killers- they appear to
be friendly but metal indicates that they are not human. Then the heroine recalls her childhood- aggressive act she
did. She destroyed the doll with her brother. On the one hand, doll is not alive, but on the other, children think all
things are alive. They still killed the doll. Their parents did not go deep into that thing- enemies and (???) can be
killed. They sort of qualified the statement that killing is wrong, but did not go deeper. The whole symbolism of
heroines abortion is somewhere between the enemy and the human. Her parents werent ruthless. They were
basically good. Her parents did not help her understand some things. She, in the end killed herself seeing the
sacredness of human and animal lives. She described how the heron was hanged. Someones death can be
redeemed if killed or gave life for certain reasons, but the life of the heron is unredeemed. If animals could speak,
they would accuse us. Its wrong to prescribe all evil to one nation. The death of the heron was causeless,
undiluted (nerazblazena). Her brother catches animals and keeps them in jars- laboratory. He is a proto-scientist.
He enjoys logical thinking and fits well in main stream civilization. She freed some animals but feared to free all and
they died because of her. She was accomplice in murder. He was adjusted to reality.
Chapter 17, p.608, I lay on the bottom of the canoe
p.610, purple trees and redand green
Her father was interested in Indians. Another picture on the bottom of the lake. When she dives, she doesnt see the
picture but thinks of fetus and sees (imagines) it in a jar. Another vision- she is lying at the hospital and looking at it.
An evil grail- she calls it like that because of the grail legend. The blood of Christ is supposed to be symbol of life.
It here symbolizes death- reversed symbol. Glass- mental blockade placed between this picture and conscious
awareness. Where was it that she had an abortion? Not in the legal hospital but in some house, private clinic. Her
lover is a married man. He gives her the ring not to feel so awkward about the abortion. Life-denying attitude.
Abortion- taking away the seed of life. She felt a seed of death was implanted in her. He said it wasnt a person,
only an animal- the way her lover justifies a murder. Then she thinks about gods, pagan gods. In official religion

she couldnt find this meaning. Sacred places of Indians are in nature. They didnt preach, just marked places
where you can go and have a vision. Visionary tradition will help his daughter.
Chapter 19, p.620, I went into the other room and took
p.620, How to act
Her father left her the message by drawings. This refer to sth her mother left her. She closes the eyes, touches the
coxers. Our senses are divided into the: higher- seeing, hearing (more cerebral), and lower- touch, smell, taste.
The part of the being the heroine wants to reconnect with is animal part connected to lower senses. Horns and tail
are the animal features. God is not just humanlike, but has animal, too. Playing cards- here are also pictures on the
cards- they are looking on numbers and titles instead and they are saving monosyllables. Joe is not like that.
p.637 I am a place
Her vision- she leans on the tree and experiences herself as a tree. Dissolution of ego when she emerges with
nature. This experience and moment are healing but of course cannot last forever.
Chapter 27, p.644, Those above all
p.645, asking and giving nothing
Victim= someone who is not guilty. She projects power on other people. I allow that lover to convince me. If denies
that power, she cannot be active. She thinks that nothing she does can hurt others- victim position. Withdrawing is
no longer possible. She lived in nature for couple of days, but she must return to civilization. If I die, it dies- this
time she will preserve her child. My love is useless- she loves him but she knows their relationship is going to fail.
The White Hotel (excerpts)
In The White Hotel the narration is more complicated- several chapters are written in different techniques and point
of view. The chapter with Freuds interpretation is questioned. There are light motives- cat, milk, oranges, corslet,
rose, maple leaves, swan, blood. Misinterpretation of Lisas symptoms: she feels pain in her left breast and ovary
and eats only oranges. She is treated by Freud. One of her fantasies is about the white hotel- meeting Freuds sonstaying at the white hotel beside the lake and the mountains. Pornographic- she describes all acts. At the white
hotel there is love without sin. They have love triangles there but the scenes of love-making interspersed with
scenes of other peoples experiences. Freud interprets whatever is connected with the mother as related to death.
Oceanic oneness- when we suckle our mothers breast. All the rest is our wish to recover our first love for the
mother. Although it is the desire for love, for him it is also the desire for death, to bury that period in cultural
revolution of matriarchal period. Love is masochistic desire for death. We obey Thanatos in the orgasm- the desire
not to exist, to feel nirvana- all instances of visions in which ego dissolves. There is no healing after the orgasm.
Thats where he is wrong. Her pains are hysterical for him. All that stems from sexual trauma from her childhood.
The scene she witnesses in summer- house, the love triangle. She could not resolve her Oedipal complex because
she saw her mother as a sinner, a medusa. She saw her mothers genitals. You petrify when you see it. Lisa meets
a half-Jewish man and marries him. What petrified her has nothing to do with her mother but with men. She was
abused by soldiers. They burnt her breast, forced to Felacio. As a Jew she deserves nothing better. She had a
precognition that she would die in some disaster. She had adopted Victors son Kolja. She died when they collected
and shot Jews. The only way to help Kolja is to persuade the soldiers that she is a Jew and that he is her son. She
is not a passive victim. They strip off her corset. The corset for womans body is like church dogma for human soul.
She utters the only sentence she knows in Hebrew: no waters can quench love nor floods drown it- the only way to
persuade the soldiers that she is a Jew. Love triumphs. Love is the only hope for us. The best chapter: she has
survived. We meet them all in the environment which can be Palestine- a term suggesting life after death. She is
showing id- gives not the surname of her father but mothers maiden name. She is back into the matriarchal
tradition- necessity to combine the Christian tradition with the pagan worship of the mother. Freud is being
connected here. Freuds theory cant explain Lisas psyche. We have to refer to Jungs theory. Lisa is Freuds
patient. She suffers for several reasons. She has visions. She has strange pains. She has an erotic fantasies abou
the white hotel. Lisas protest against patriarchal civilization- she longs for motherly love, not pleasure.
Excerpts
Freuds explanation of Lisas fantasy. There is a joking
Freud- Lisa has a vision. The White Hotel is her mothers womb- a place of selfless love- there is no limit. We all in
our dreams express the yearning to return to the paradise. Love object- breast. The nipples are oranges. She
receives the food of love. Oceanic oneness- a flow of sperm, blood. Life is merged with erotic love, when people are

in puberty they look for a substitute. We just move from one object to another and never experience that bliss again.
Libido- escape from death. The other impulse is destructiveness- Eros and Thanatos. Unlike Freud Jung returns to
the mother principle. Jung is different in that he sees it as a positive impulse, archetypes appear in our dreams. It
means a positive impulse towards healing. The mother principle, the feminine part of our being is not represented in
our culture. For Freud it has to be abandoned. For Jung it is possible to recover this part of our psyche- a portion of
Lisas fantasy Freud doesnt understand. Lisa attempts to become an embodiment of the wholeness of earth. Her
love in the hotel is not just erotic, but maternal also. The 2 aspects are not separated. The only time the person is
truly happy is either while being in a womb or while sucking. She wants to return to place of original bliss. The white
hotel- the place without sin and social norms.
I began to seemore
She has given him this pseudonym Anna G- Gea- the goddess of earth(birth). Freud tries to explain the death
instinct- we yearn not to exist, to return to inorganic state. These are 2 points: this perfect bliss of the beginning of
life and death. Children build castles and destroy them. On orgasm people experience a little death- ego ceases to
exist. The moment of black out of the consciousness. It is possible to offer different interpretations of those two
principles: Eros- the yearning to return to mothers body and Thanatos- to return to inorganic state. However there
is a positive approach- the wish to transcend ego- to look upon both principles as a desire to transcend ego. In this
sense Eros would be an act of merging with the rest of creation. Christian- 3 conditions in the sexual act: physical
pleasure, the feeling of tenderness, of selfless motherly love and the mystical feeling. Through loving one person
you transcend your ego and reach the state in which you are capable of loving the whole world. The sexual
encounter in Church was a mystical experience. The mystery of the goddess includes these 3 principles. They are
all connected. What we have in Christianity the principal notion is no longer ascribed to motherly love but male
divinity. Sexual pleasure is unimportant. Mystical experience is no longer ascribed to Eros. It is possible to observe
Eros- to return to the experience when you transcend your ego and become connected with the whole mankind.
There is a positive tendency in Tanathos- a yearning to sacrifice your ego to sth larger. (Eliot- genuine self,
meaningful sacrifice). Lisa turns her death to sacrifice. Instead of being a passive victim she becomes a willing
victim. Lisa longs for love in which these 3 elements will be united. This is a pagan attitude to love, what the Great
Goddess represent. These are the elements separated in our patriarchal culture.
An event from long way away
Kurten- a mass murderer who kills women and children and rape them. There is a total reversal of the natural
impulse. We have here Eros in the service of Thanatos. He has need to suck blood (Lisa to suck milk). There is a
service of death. We have also the fascination for death. However, the writer tells us that everybody feels horrified.
Lisa tells that it is not her fault. She has sympathy for him. She is capable of having sympathy for people who are
extremely evil. Many of the people who feel he is a monster, later become soldiers in WWII. Shadow projection- this
part which is negative, we recognize it in sb. else. You are not capable of recognizing it in yourself. You can find no
base for sympathy. Kurten is for them the only evil. Lisa is capable for feeling sympathy even for him. Lisa has this
motherly love which is not excusive. She identifies herself with Kurtens victim, Maria. She thinks that it was by
chance. She sympathizes deeply with this case because it could happen to her. She feels deeply connected with
other people- the sense of humanity. Suffering of other people is also mine. Now Kurten was executed. But Lisa is
worried- the fact that he is executed doesnt solve the problem. Destructiveness remains. There are massive
appearances of people like Kurten with the same destructive impulse. He is just the symptom. Hitler was just a
symptom of evil, not a case. When a soldier rapes Lisa with a bayonet, everybody talks whether Kurten should be
killed. Its a projection of Thanatos. Kurten was a molested child, his sister abused him, his father was a drunkard.
He had a horrible childhood. Lisa feels compassion for him. She feels related to all human beings in the world. The
killing of the heroine and the swan. If you kill a part of nature you kill a part of yourself.
She had the feeling that (p190)
Tree as the symbol of wholeness; pine tree as the symbol of eternity. It comes to the level of collective unconscious.
Mystical experience related to the scene of a pine tree. Tree symbolizes life, immortality. Lisa is with Kolja. He is her
adopted son, a son of her husband. Lisas attitude to children- she marries Victor and becomes a mother to Kolja.
The first time she accepts responsibility of being a mother to a child. The world is still destructive but she becomes
a mother and decides to protect her son. She becomes a victim willingly. Her experience- returning to blissful one,
joins Anima Mundi, joins the soul of the world. She is totally separated from the time. She was disconnected from

past but the concept changes and she remembers herself as a child. She doesnt feel death as the end. She gets
the sense of immortality by joining the spirit of the world.
What was really amazing
Pagan heaven (paradise)- after she sacrificed herself for Kolja, she went to heaven which is connected with natural
cycles. The vintage of grapes. The cat survived everything- the symbol of Eros, of sth that lasts forever- positive life
energy. Paradise- different from the Christian concept of paradise. It is a transitory period. When she comes she
participates in vintage in the cycles of nature. The place is not removed from cycles of nature. In Christianityparadise beyond change and nature. It is a sort of pagan paradise. Kurten also appears here- a hope of
improvement, change. He is now good. We are born to become lovers. There is a potential for good even in Kurten.
Thats why Lisa feels compassion for him.
They satto (p.235)
Lisa and her mother- sucking each other. Returning to the oceanic state- recovery of the mother principle- the whole
part of the psyche. She blames her of an incestual incident. For Lisa it is sinful. Lisa fell in love and she loves the
young English lieutenant. She wants to give him both erotic and motherly love. Structures in patriarchal traditioncorselet. Here there is the return to the mother. Drinking each others milk is a symbol of love, mixing of maternal
and sexual love- both unified the fact that she and her mother drink each others milk- points to the fact they have
reconciled. Lisa at first thought that

POETRY
W.B.YEATS
Sailing to Byzantium
A quest to find some way to transcend the necessity of dying (comic and tragic). Here, we deal with a comic mode.
It is not Christian way- it has to do with creative imagination. He writes this poem from the position of an old man.
He was in love with Byzantium which is a model of artistic beauty. The first thing he says- he no longer feels at
home with natural cycles. There are images of sensual love. All those people and animals are born and would die.
They enjoy sensual pleasure, but there is something more important-works of creativity in general. Trees, seas,
falls- the symbol of youth. They are very young but he calls them dying generations, because here just observes
this sensual biological life. We know they are all going to grow and die. It is a part of biological cycle. Works of art
transcend aging and mortality. An old man reminds him of scare crow- old and funny. But he can be redeemed if
he can become creative artist. Then he talks about himself. There is one way to make this shell alive. This is
through art. This is how life can be given to this spirit. This is the singing school-you have to study your own art.
He wants to sail to Byzantium to study the works of art created there.
Then he addresses sages and the images painted on the wall of the church. He asks the old artists of Byzantium
to teach him how to create, how to be an artist. Even emotions for Yeats are smth that has to be transcended.
There is sensual desire-man is just a biological creature who is going to die. "Dying animal"- his biological body.
He believes sages are above here- higher level of spirit. He wants them to come down from the spirit of life and
teach him to sing. Symbolically, he will change his appearance and be reborn as a work of art. He wants to be
transformed into a golden bird that resembles Byzantium. Gold is a symbol of eternity that lasts forever. He will
transcend himself, but he will continue to address it through his art. This song is about past, present and future- as
image of the poet who has transcended time but he doesn't want to forget it. He wants to include it in his poetry.
He doesn't want to be detached from it.
The Second Coming
He believes in secret knowledge. He uses the idea of gyre. The movement in one direction, then the other. We are
getting further from the centre and at one moment the spiral turns into different direction. If our civilization is based
on brain- unconsciousness is no longer controlled. He foresees the coming of WWII. The poem is about archaic
energies bursting out so that we cannot control them. Falcon symbolizes our instincts which we no longer control.
The blood-dimmed tide refers to destructiveness. Second coming of Christ is a positive revelation. For Yeats it will
be the coming of the beast.Spiritus Mundi is a warning of the danger that comes, it is an archetypal image. A beast
is a split between natural instincts and reason. Man doesn't know how to communicate with his nature. Desert is a

symbol of disaster. There is no bloom. It can be the desert of our soul which has gone dry. Bird symbolizes the
soul. It says smth bad about our soul. They are all negative, dark. 20th century cradle"- our instincts, the bodily
base of our instincts, biological fundamental- now they are going to burst out in a destructive way. Lion, head,
man- remind us of a sphyny. There is an attempt of a man to solve the riddle of nature. The rational man takes the
role of the master of the nature. However, there is no possibility of the reconciliation between the instinct and the
intellect. Then the kind of reversal- instead of Christ a monster is coming.
Lapis Lazuli
- A blue stones used for statues-Chinese art. Three Chinamen climbing up to the hill. He starts talking about the
war. Hysterical woman-they are criticizing artists of the war-they are always happy. Those women are angry
because the poets don't take any responsibility. This makes Yeats think about the tragic deaths of Shakespeares
heroes. Although they are tragic, they preserve some sort of stoical attitudes to tragedy. They feel that smth new
will begin. They have stoical attitude to life and death. They know the old order has to be destroyed- to create the
new one. Curtain-symbol of death. In the 3rd stanza he moves onto discuss the images of the civilizations. There
are many civilizations but all of them will come to some sort of end. Barbarians came and built the new one. We
should accept our civilization as it is. Callimachus was a sculptor and his works haven't survived. Even the works
of art are not saved. His long lamp- chimney- the beautiful, delicate works of art but the poet doesn't mourn for we
have to accept the destructiveness as natural. Even the art cannot survive the cyclical movement of civilization.
After the end comes new beginning- this should make us happy. Three Chinamen climb up the hill. Their servant
carries a musical instrument- the passage through life. This symbolizes art which transcend these cycles. Other
elements show us that in nature there is a perpetual renewal. The winter, death, everything sleeps in nature. The
winter has just past- the end of one cycle and the beginning of the new one(cherry branch symbolizes spring).
Chinamen are happy, not sad at all, because although they are old they accept this cycle called death. They know
a new cycle will come. They look at this tragic sight and accept it stoically. Then they ask for music - smth
immortal- a symbol of creativity and even though they are old their eyes are happy-the stoic acceptance of death.
The Magi
The title refers to three wise men who witnessed the Christ's birth. Yeats does not believe that it happens only
once. Such miracles happen over and over again. We all start from bestial floor, but there is hope for spiritual
growth for each of us. They are not satisfied with the mystery. They want more and more. All of us to look for
meaning in life. Yeats talks about spiritual birth which should come over and over again. Spiritual people bring a
kind of renewal. We all start from this biological and in our lives we fuse together, the animal and the divine. Yeats
was a mystic, atheist, gnostic- it is possible to reach knowledge, you should simply search for truth.
Among School Children
We have a father figure and an island after the revolution. He is a public figure, a poet, a founder of national
theatre and a politician. He is literally among school children, he visits them and talks about different subjects they
study and sees himself through their eyes. There is a biographical reference. He wants also to say that in spite of
all things they learn the true knowledge come from experience. In the 3rd stanza he looks at the faces of the
children, than he thinks about what Mand G. looks like now. Her face is worn out by age, also her political activity.
Then in the 5th stanza he talks about the/a mother - he is ironic. He cannot imagine that a baby would become a
sixteen-year old man. He feels than that life is making tired. The question about our biological life. Now he
becomes more general- he mentions some philosophers(Plato). He doesn't like him-this world seems unreal for
him. Aristotle-lost his time. Pythagoras-nothing essential. Neither of them found the answer. Then he talks about a
woman as a notion of immortality. They give birth to babies-worship of life. Yet, they too break heart. In religious
worship, in the act of giving birth he didn't find a sufficient meaning. Image of a tree - the image of wholenesssomething that connects material and spiritual; it is all things connected.
Leda and the Swan
The speaker retells the story from Greek mythology, the rape of the girl Leda by the god Zeus who had assumed
the form of a swan. Leda felt a sudden blow with the great wings of the swan still beating above her. Her thighs
caressed by "the dark webs. He held her helpless breast upon his breast. Now, the speaker asks could Leda's
terrified fingers push the feathered glory of the swan from between her thighs. This poem represents something
like the beginning of the modern history.
Like The Second Coming, Leda and the Swan describes a moment that represents a change of era in Yeats
historical model of gyres. But where The Second Coming represents the end of modern history, Leda and the

Swan represents sth like its beginning.

T.S.ELIOT
The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock
Motto-Dante is seeing a person in hell. Prufrock, a middle-aged man indecisive, intellectual invites the reader with
him through the modern city. He describes the street scene and notes a social gathering of women discussing
Renaissance artist Michelangelo. Eliot set "Prufrock" in the poetic form of a dramatic monologue. The speaker
addresses another person and the reader plays the part of the silent listener. The Epigraph is a quotation from
Dante's "Inferno. Guido is imprisoned in a flame in Hell, he relates his shameful evil life to Dante only because he
things Dante will never go back to earth and repeat it. Prufrock is also confined to Hell. Prufrock is on earth, in a
lonely, alienating city. The images of the city are sterile, deathly. We go from a general look at the skyline to the
streets to a hotel room. Prufrock is a thinker, not a feeler and his indecisive thoughts contribute to his paralyses.
He cannot make a decision and act on it. He is imprisoned in the present. His anxiety is rooted in the social world.
Michelangelo is a sculptor of the heroic individuals; Prufrock has nothing in himself of the heroic individual. The
problem of time. He is trying to console- there will be time when he will come there, but there will not be time for
him. He is agonizing himself over his social actions, worrying over how others will see him. He thinks about
women's arms, perfumes but does not how bad. The day passes at the social engagement, but he cannot master
the strength to act and he admits he is afraid. Eliot flashes out Prufrocks character and makes his worries trivial.
He twice refers to his balding head, describes his plain middle aged clothing and draws us into his point of view of
the social world.(9. strofa) This is an allusion to Dantes poem "The Relie". Prufrock continues to show his inability
to advance in time. His refrain "And indeed there will be time" is an allusion to Mabels "To His Coy Mistress".
Rather than hurrying his lady he makes excuses for himself. Not only is Prufrock paralyzed in the present, but he
seems to have a disordered sense of time.(13. strofa)The image of passiveness: he refuses love because he is
not a prophet and he is afraid(15. strofa) Prufrock wonders, after various social questures, it would have been
worthwhile to act decisively if it resulted in a woman's rejection of him. He thinks he is not a prince Hamlet figure,
but a secondary character in life. Worrying over growing old, he adopts the fashion of youth. By the beach, he
sees images of mermaids singing and swimming. He knows he is going to die soon but he still cannot even dare
to eat a peach". It is the Chinese symbol of marriage and immortality. Two things Prufrock desires. He immediately
switches his attention to the mermaids- the society of women who ignore him.
Prufrock 2: J. Alfred Prufrock appears to be an unhappy man aware of his weaknesses and riddled with self
doubts. Prufrock is portrayed as someone who is in despair and helpless. He feels as if he has never
accomplished anything in his life and is painfully aware of his failures: for I have known them all already, known
them all/have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons/ I have measured out my life with coffee spoons/ I know
the voices dying with a dying fall/ beneath the music from a father room/ so, how should I presume? This
awareness of his failures is what puts Prufrock in despair: but though no great matter. He mocks himself for
being too weak and too helpless to turn his life around. This very helplessness fills him with panic and despair:
when I am pinned: I presume? Prufrock is clueless on how to start over and to pick up the pieces. He perceives
himself as doomed to his fate: Till human voices sing to me. Eliot uses the situation of a man, trapped within
routine of everyday life within the conventions of society as a means of discussing the aridity of modern civilization
and the lack of faith and conviction in anything modern man does.
(It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man- overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and
emotionally stilted).
Journey of the Magi
YEATS-The reference is to Christian story- three wise men who witnessed the Christ's birth. Yeats does not
believe that it happens only once. Such miracles happen over and over again. He talks about spiritual birth which
should come to us over and over again. Spiritual people bring a kind of renewal. Another element- the Magidissatisfied. It happens only once. It seems to be petrified as a process. He wants to point out that we all start from
this biological, fundamental, and that in our lives we fuse together the animal, the human and the divine. Yeats
was a mystic, atheist, gnostic- it is possible to reach knowledge, you should simply search for truth.
ELIOT-he is a traditionalist-for him the story of the birth of the Christ happens only once-it's a historical event. Eliot
uses the figures of the Magi to convey a very different message. They are representatives of modern man. They
feel that their lives are deprived of spirituality and they go to witness the birth of Christ hoping they would provide

their lives with new meaning. Notice that the lg. of the Magi is very realistic, it is modern. It is not archaic. There
are many realistic detailed about the weather, journey, conditions. This is basically the lg. of the modern
demythalised world. We know that the Magi occupy the world in which there is no valid myth to provide meaning.
As they describe their journey we feel they are filled with doubt- they wonder if it was all folly. There is also a
feeling of regret- they regret living their ways of life. We see the images of what they left behind. The summer
palace..." all sorts of sensual pleasure. These are all physical pleasures-a kind of shallow life- they are looking for
a spiritual vision and truth. As they come to the place when Christ is born there are certain symbols- such as
vegetation- a symbol of vitality, rebirth, of the beginning of a new life. There are allusions of several episodes of
Christ's life and there are also three trees- where he was crucified- on the top of the hill- elements from different
episodes from the life of Jesus- a kind of predestined story. The change comes in the 3rd stanza- where we see
the failure of the Magi. Eliot has the idea that people witness some events which point to smth that invites you to
spiritual growth. Most people feel afraid and are not capable of following this vision. The birth of Christ is such an
intensive event- spiritual awakening. The whole story about the life and death of Jesus is the story of
transhumanisation- sacrifying yourself for the vision of love. But the Magi are terrified when they witness this story.
It is painful for them and they are not capable of transforming their own lives. That experience means they can't
return to their old ways of life. They no longer feel at ease. They are disturbed by this new vision, too frightened to
act upon this vision. They only wish to die. First the death of the old self now they urge for physical birth.
La Figlia
It is about parting, the end of love affair. This guy deserted a girl. It haunts him, but it happened long tome ago. It
is a long-term memory. He is exploring the whole experience, transforming the experience in his memory trying to
preserve it- the experience of desertion of a girl. They are in a garden in which he deserts her. She is with a
flower=futility. A moment he will tell her he will abandon her- a moment of surprise. The whole scene would be full
of beauty to suit the laws, the demands of aesthetic criteria. Who is he and who is I? Dissociation with a man.
Observer or i- they are parts of the same personality. He is external person, I is reflective consciousness which
now remembers- dissociation between the inner, observing, reflecting self I and the external active person. It is not
the man who suffers, but the girl. The cold detachments of the subject. He killed her soul as subject matter of his
sculpture, a material for his art. Turning his experience into artistic shaping- excluding moral. His experience to
suit his demands. This is how he wanted all to look like. Romantic exaggeration- the whole scene is exaggerated
like some drama or opera and there is some kind of sadism in it. And he now mentions- this is very Christian- the
moment when the soul leaves the body, it is a triumph. But then the adjectives bruised and used body (tiranija tela
nad dusom). (Eliot was disgusted with his body- transhumanization=to detach from human. The deep desire to
detach from female, from wholeness- egotistic, sadistic attitude of a man). I should find- now, no more past
tense. I should find some less cruel way to desert her. (Lawrence- St.Mawr- like Judas betraying you by kisspreserve the surface of social politeness and beneath it is destruction of you own potentials; but these are only
versions of destructions) she was very calm, the weather wasnt sunny but autumn and he describes his self which
is deeper and it is troubled. Many days and hours he spent contemplating that image. And I wonder how they
should have been together- ambivalent, ambiguous either with disbelief or preferability of this choice (what it
would be like if they were together). She artistic, he acting that would be artistically pleasing. If they had stayed
together he would have lost the role he was playing in one or the other way. He wanted to make sth out of that raw
experience by the power of his aesthetic mind.
Marina
The lost female- sth. he has lost and refinds it. The image of a lost daughter. Periclus: Hercules Fureus who in
the fit of madness killed his wife and children- contrast to Marina. Recovery and reconciliation with a female,
rediscovery of full life. ( The cocktail party- Celia is looking for fulfillment in human relation- it is not that but the
relationship towards principle). Imagery of the rest of the senses. Now he finds what he has lost by touch. Marina
is born at sea. The beginning- not a question but a sense of wonder. These images dont have to be decoded by
looking for details in Shakespeare. Those are the images of Eliots childhood. Childhood experiences are good. In
childhood we feel wholeness. Those childhood memories, images return to him. The images of water splashing
the prow- the water is important. He lists various sins against life (sin of cynicism= the denial of all values).
Grace the only religious word the phrase of recognized female daughter. This grace is the work of a landscape
perceived by the senses of a child. These phases of a human being are female in general. The real salvation is
through relationship, through love, humanity. One must construct a new stage. Everything he made up to now is

no longer trustworthy. Complete renewal everything I did I will give for something new, new life, acceptance of
love. What matters is the discovery of something human.
WALLACE STEVENS
Of Modern Poetry
The poem is about the aims of the modern poetry. The idea is basically the same as in Eliot and S. Plath that
we live in a demythologized world. The great myths of the past, the Christian myth is no longer valid for most of
us. We no longer live in accordance to those myths. Modern poets often feel that we need some kind of
substitute. What are the reasons? We need myths which would humanize our psychic energy. Another feeling the
modern poets share is that modern experience of life is fragmentary. Nothing makes sense. Nothing is connected
into the whole- I can connect nothing with nothing. Eliot Waste Land. The idea is that myth would be that
integrating principle which would connect all these fragments into a meaningful whole. Myth gives us a way to
orient ourselves in our life- that we have an origin and a goal that we are moving in a certain direction. He is
saying that the task of a poet is to find what will suffice- the modern poet is looking for something which will
replace this old myth. First stanza- he refers to the Bible and Christianity. Once upon a time the poet used the
images from the Bible and everybody understood it. Then the theatre changed- Newtonian crisis- Darwinian
crisis of mythological kind. The poetry has to be alive today, we cannot think of it as a dead thing. It has to
speak in the contemporary language. Women were not equally treated- now some new women. The new poet
has to think about war- a new map. The poet is compared to an actor. He is in the dark, no light from the outside
which can direct him. The dark of science- it does not give us a human vision, only facts. It doesnt explain to us
how to move through life.
The Idea of Order in Key West
There is a girl along the beach and she is inspired by the sound of waves, by the landscape- and she creates a
song. The whole poem is a song and a girl as a creator. This is very much structural idea- we need to create a
meaningful whole. Here we have a sea as a natural phenomenon and a song- a structure, a pattern imposed on the
sea like an act of interpretation. She interprets reality with her song. She imposes meaning upon nature. Her song is
beyond this genius of the sea- we no longer feel that we are part of nature- we transcend it by our articulation. The
water cannot be articulated. Nature does not have a mind and cannot communicate- it is a body, it is smth
biological. Empty sleeves in Yeats-crow- to teach the soul to sing. It suggests that the sea doesnt have a soul.
The girl is the one who has it and gives it to the sea by her song. These are not our sounds, the ocean is very real, it
is a part of our world. We understand it- we come from the sea, nature. We still have our link with nature. He
doesnt believe in transcendental reality and the world of spirits. Natural phenomena are really there-they have
indisputable reality. Difference between the sound of nature and what the girl is singing- those are not the same
sounds. Her song is articulated. It uses language- the elementary human structure. We know that the song is the
human creation. We are the makers. We create our reality and meaning in the world. Outer voice of sky- as
opposed to the inner. This is not like the world of objective reality, but subjective interpretation. Without human
interpretation the voices of nature remain unarticulated. The voices of nature have no meaning of their own. The
song of this girl imposes meaning on the natural phenomena, but also imposes human emotions. The natural
phenomena are humanized; with human emotions. She projects the feeling of solitude. We are now able to connect
with nature because we project human emotions upon nature- we humanize it. Now the sea is not the objective
phenomenon, it is the part of this myth. It gets the meaning in a human story. -again the idea that she is a maker.
She creates her own myth to find her own place in the world. She makes a map of meaning. The structuralists point
of view. The whole idea that we impose the meaning, create myths is that we have urge for order, the feeling that
we cannot live in the fragmentary world. We need to order what we see and feel, our experiences. One image of
this order is the girls song. There is also the image of order in the lights of fishing boats- human need for order.
Human structures are there to give us a sense of reality, a map, that reality has the meaning and it is always upon
the natural phenomena. It gives us a deeper sense of sympathy with an outer world- a sense of magic or mystery.
This is a blessed rage for order. Finally, we see this is a tendency which man uses to explain himself and his origin
(uses myths).
SYLVIA PLATH

The Moon and the Jew Tree

It is about modern life which is demythologized. In the past there were myths of integration. Now we live in a
scientific world. There is no sense of integrity. Sylvia is looking for integrating principle. She is trying to find it in
Christian and pagan myths but she fails to find meaning in both. She feels this cold, rational world. The light is blue.
Blue symbolizes sadness and cold. She mentions headstones which refer to death. We are all going to die. The
Moon is the symbol of the Goddess in the pagan myth- a feminine symbol- does not have a mythological meaningit is simply a phenomenon. She says it is a quest. She can find no hope. There is the feeling of emptiness. Christian
myth-she talks about the church bells. They give no hope. The Jew tree- is a pagan symbol of inner totality. It is
evergreen. It should be a symbol of spirituality. It has a Gothic shape- as cathedral. It used to be pre-historic
pagan church. We recognize nature in the figure of mother. She is not capable of humanizing the image. But it
becomes the figure of speech. No deep meaning. Again Christian myth- but she cannot find meaning there. Hands
and faces- symbols of communication. No communication between the poet and the natural world.
Black Rook in Rainy Weather
This is a poem about imagination. Our daily existence is trivial and fragmentary. The only way to connect fragments
into a meaningful whole is by imagination. This is also a poem about waiting. Our reality is a bundle of incoherent
facts and we need epiphany. So the poet is waiting for the angel to come and realize this deeper meaning. She
looks at the black rook as a natural sight but she is not capable of deriving any meaning. She has given up. She is
simply not capable of finding meaning. She would like to be able to communicate with natural phenomena by means
of imagination. However, the poet is skeptical that this flicker of light will come. Only that can save her from natural
neutrality. She wants to put some meaning upon it. She says if it comes she will manage to patch a picture. Unless
imagination transform this natural sight it will remain meaningless. The poet is afraid that the world of nature will
remain neutral, indifferent, that she will not be able to relate to it. She doesnt expect anything extraordinary to
happen. There is an idea of order. The poet just wants to communicate with nature but feels that without imagination
it is not possible. Minor light-she waits for it, for smth that would give her inside into reality. Even simple kitchen
objects could be related to some deep meaning by imagination. S. Plath depicts the feeling of meaninglessness that
haunts the modern man. There are no myths; she just states this tragic inner tradition of a modern man. No
mythologies, but a modern man with a feeling of uprootedness. The only thing she can rely on is her imagination.
Spasmodic tricks- just like minor moments of radiance. She waits for inspiration. It happens at random- the poet
doesnt control the imagination. She has a feeble hope that imagination will come. There are no big, large stories of
the past. No myths that helped man impose meaning upon the world, and without this myth of integration human
beings feel lost. The major fear is the fear of meaninglessness and death.
D.THOMAS
Fern Hill
This can be compare to Larkin. The great difference is that Thomas has every significant memories from his
childhood. The idea is that the boy feels forever separated from the bliss of childhood. He can not recover what he
had then. The only part of life which is blissful is childhood. When they grow up that cannot be recovered. Poem is
mostly concerned with the experience of time. He talks about the differences. We have different concepts of time.
We can not escape from the trap of time. As opposed to linear time there are some other cultures which have
cyclical concept of time-the notion of natural cycles. Those individuals who reconcile the cycles of nature do not
consider time a trap but they creatively connect themselves with nature and its renewal. This feeling of eternity was
only possible in his childhood. The boy in the poem feels eternal, forever young because he experiences complete
harmony with nature. Time is not experienced oppressive that threatens. The recurrent images are apples, referring
to Paradise. It is a state of Eden. You feel complete bliss; the colors mentioned throughout the poem are green as
grass and golden. Green is the color of youth, childhood, juvenile period- golden is the symbol of eternity, smth that
stays the same, never changes. The Green can also be the symbol of his innocence and naivety. You have also
images which suggest that the boy has the feeling that he is the master of the natural world. Various images when
he imagines the animals obeying him. Again, in the 30th line he is in Paradise. Then, in the next stanza he suggests
that this is going to change. When he grows up, this ego, the consciousness will interfere between the boy and the
environment and he will no longer be able to feel eternal. There will be just a few morning songs. Eventually, you
fall out of grace, out of time. The end of the poem is the moment which resembles waking up- the farm is forever
fled. (the place of unity) this link with a childhood experiences is severed. Now you have a change. He no longer

says green and golden, but green and dying. He is now aware of this. At this time, he was not aware that he is in
chains he did not consider time a person.
P.LARKIN
Church Going
A modern motorcyclist who stops near the church and enters the church. This one regrets the loss of the tradition.
Here we have a youngster who knows nothing about the church. He just looks around and then he enters.
Complete silence. Nobody around. Then he describes the interior. Although he is not a believer he says- I take of
my cycle-clips. It is an act of respect. Although he does not believe in this institution, he enters this building with a
sense of respect. Apparently, there are some people who still believe. Somebody still takes care of this place, but
the character does not know anything about this. In the second stanza he reads a book of prayers, puts an Irish
coin. He has not really given anything to church. He admits he often stops there, enters churches, wondering what
he is looking for. Then, because he realizes that the tradition of church-going is fading away, he can imagine the
future in which no one will attend church services anymore. Then he imagines what will happen with the churches in
the future-they will be just archeological sites or they will stay for useful purposes or be places of superstition. He
can depict a total collapse in the future. It is coming, it is inevitable. 4-Its original purpose will be further and further
away from us. He wonders who will be the last who will come for the real purpose. And he makes certain guesses
another biker in the future bored uniformed. The church is constructed in such a way that the outline of the ground
is in the shape of the cross. He will find the inner urge to go there. Then he explains why that nostalgia still exists.
He says the crucial elements of our lives-birth, marriage, death were held unsplit by the Christian tradition. There is
a church ritual attached to birth (baptism), to marriage and the service to death. The things that are basically
biological. But all these things are given spiritual dimension. Meaning and religion simply integrates them into a
meaningful whole, so that the whole life makes sense. This is what this motorcyclist misses now. Now, these crucial
moments of our lives are found only in separation. They are no longer parts of meaningful whole connected by the
myth. He also mentions that religion (Christianity) held unsplit our mental processes and the actual events.
Everything was integrated through myth and religion and so the modern cyclist concludes that this is the reason. He
respects this capacity of the Christian myth to give our life the sense of meaning, purpose and integration. A
serious house- this impulse to integrate is smth very serious, a serious enterprise in human life. Basically, if we not
have the myth anything to give us meaning, we simply live by compulsion, biological and sexual urges, self interest,
fragmentary. This is the place where our compulsions are met-destiny-meaning that we are going somewhere. And
that much- we always have that need to live purposeful life. Always there will be somebody to feel hunger for a
map of meaning. The old custom was to burry the dead in the back of the churchyard. It is the human story. It is not
excluded. Even the death id integrated into this story- is given meaning.
I remember, I remember
Larkin talks about our feeling of uprootedness. If church-going was about roots in the Ch. tradition, this is about the
notion of our childhood as our roots. The traditional notion is that we derive certain amount of our sense of identity,
a certain feeling of stability from some idyllic memories from our childhood. -memories of ones native village, the
first love, or some teachers who discovered your talent. Among the romantic Wordsworth talks about childhood- one
with the nature. Anything is shining. There is splendor in the grass. In traditional literature childhood is a kind of
sacred period- when you feel one with nature. Larkin now deconstructs this myth. Actually he tells that modern man
doesnt have such roots. He remembers this little town where he was born and feels totally uprooted. There is no
emotional involvement. He just notices that this is the place he was born. He does not feel any emotional link with it.
Then his friend asks him about his roots-no significant memories. The childhood is supposed to be the period also
according to some psychologists such as Jung throughout our life we know just a small part of ourselves- ego- but
we want to know the whole self and Jung claims that this self-wholeness was there in our childhood. This is why we
believe that childhood is a period of life where we should look back for certain revelation, important discoveries. If
we can remember certain important experiences from our childhood, we integrate them, they will enrich our lives
and make a small complete. However, when Larkin tries to remember the events he cant find anything because in
the industrial modern world even childhood seems the be deprived of such insights, even the childhood is
impoverished. Where my childhood was unspent. It was spent there but nothing happened. Then he remembers
his garden. He did not have any revelation connected with nature. Throughout the poem he enumerates things

which did not happened. He is totally uprooted. There is nothing to bind him to any particular part of his country. The
feeling that modern man does not belong anywhere.
THOM GUNN
On the Move
It is useful to compare it to the Sailing to Byzantium. Both are about moving, but the difference is that in Yeats we
have a final destination. The idea in Yeats is the poet is moving in order to complete his purpose. On the other
hand, in Gunns poem the feeling is incompleteness. You can never complete your purpose. Human beings are
always between their instinctive nature, spiritual nature and that is why they are always restless. First, we have the
image from the natural world- the blue jay (sojka ptica)- behaves in accordance to its spiritual program. The next
line we move to the world of man-the first image is that we are uncertain and violent. The poet almost celebrates
this violent movement. The physical image young people riding motorcycles- they convey the image of constant
movement. They do not reach final destination. We are confused, no clear sense. If we try to explain the meaning of
life, the words are approximated never explain thing completely. They resemble flies- they are insignificant.
Human beings do not matter much. Then, again, idea of doubt and uncertainty they conceal their doubt. In that
noise they make by motorcycles they find some meaning. The meaning is in the very movement. Violent attitude
towards natural phenomena, natural things. We are never completely certain about those structures. They are
never reliable-imperfect products of culture. Within them we move towards the future, but there is that sense of
imperfection. To live this way is a part solution, positive attitude towards human uncertainty. The world is valueless.
There are no fix values. We simply move and choose our direction. We both direct ourselves-both hurler and the
hurled. Those boys have just come there for one minute. They are never static, they always move. They define
themselves, refuse external definition. We create ourselves, refuse to be static, confined in the conservative
structures. They create a new sense of meaning. This is a new generation which creates their own sense of
purpose, protest against fix rules. We are neither completely animal, nor bodiless. We have to balance and for this
reason we never complete our purpose. It is a rebellion against being static. The least you can do is to moverefuse static definition. There is a hope we will reach some meaning if we do not keep still.
-Gunn-a hint of violence towards nature- a kind of positive attitude towards constant moving; rebellion against being
static.
-Larkin-the less deceived nevertheless nostalgic.
Tamer and Hawk
This poem seems to be written from the point of view of a hawk (a bird of prey), speaking to its trainer. The poet
uses this image of the hawk and its tamer in a wider sense to write about obsessive love and what can happen
when
lovers
try
to
control
each
other.
The main themes in this poem are power, control and love. The wild hawk has been successfully tamed ( 'gentled
at your hands') and now flies off only when its trainer tells it to fly ('when I go, I go/At your commands'). Even
when in flight, the bird is not free it has been hooded and is 'blind to other birds'. The only thing that the hawk
sees now is its trainer. In stanza two, the phrases 'seeled me with your love' and 'the habit of your words'
suggest that the poet is really talking about a relationship between two people. The extended metaphor of the hawk
continues,
however,
throughout
the
poem.
A sense of danger is introduced in stanza three when the hawk says describes its 'possessive' thought the only
thing it wants is to be 'caught/Upon your wrist'. Such obsession can also be dangerous and perhaps the poet is
hinting here that obsessive love, where two people can think only of each other, to the exclusion of all else, will
inevitably bring danger. The final stanza reinforces the sense of danger as the hawk tells its tamer: 'You but halfcivilize, Taming me in this way. 'The hawks meaning becomes clear in the last four lines it has become so
obsessed that it fears losing its tamer and, in order to avoid this, chooses the tamer as its prey. The poets use of
the first person here gives the poem a sense of immediacy. The reader is cast in the role of tamer as the hawk
addresses us directly. The regular meter and rhyme scheme emphasizes the feeling of control in the poem. The use
of simple vocabulary makes the chilling and disturbing final message of the poem accessible.
TED HUGHES

A Childish Prank
He has very pessimistic poems- crow- appears as a demonic figure. He presents a kind of demythologized world
which is rather hopeless and in which we are guided by our compulsions, biological necessities and urges. Myth
and Education- the deepest layers in our psyche. Our job in life is to use our life in connection to those ancient
energies- not to burst in a destructive way. The important thing is to humanize these energies, get in touch with
them and give them meaning. There are various ways for humanizing our instincts. In Heaney, it is done by means
of love. You explore it thoroughly. Myth is a way to render meaning to these compulsions. In the absence of myth
the poets use creative imagination. .This is emphasized in Wallace Stevens. Because the myths of the past are no
longer affective, we use the poet of the mind- create our own myths. Here, an example would be some of Yeats
poems. He uses myths to humanize instincts and his own experiences. Ted Hughes presents us with the image that
instincts are not humanized. There is only the image of crow that does this prank. We then see a man and woman
driven by biological urges, blind instincts. We dont know ourselves. There is this urge to connect the two halves of
the worm. The two houses symbolize the two basic instincts in life-Eros and Thanatos. This worm drags him
towards the woman. He is dragged by his compulsions. They dont understand their urges, they just follow them.
This is a simple poem connected to Yeats idea- biological instincts dont provide justification for living by
themselves. There have been moments glorifying sex, our sexual life, but the poet points out these urges dont
provide a meaningful life. The two urges are Eros and Thanatos. This is like the parody of the biblical story, an
image of Eden appears. Here, the god is trying to provide man and woman with a deeper meaning, but falls asleep,
for he is not sure how dull, foolish-connected with eyes. Eyes should be the mirror of the soul, but here there isnt
anything to make their urges noble and humanized. Man and woman are longing to reunite. Worm should be a
symbol of life, but we have a split between Eros and Thanatos. The only basis they reunite are the instincts, there is
nothing beyond that. Man is governed by libido, biological urges. Inertia of spiritual life.
Song
On the surface this is just another love poem. However, the lady is compared to some natural phenomena. What
would happen if the poet lost her? The moon- symbol of goddesses, feminine symbol in most mythologies. She is
compared with this feminine goddess. Love towards a woman, the internal muse and love towards goddess are
connected. This belief you should adore, respect processes in life and nature and even humble yourself before it.
I A myth of Venus (Venus rises from the sea) dumb. Not stupid but mute, probably alluding to the fact that
language is based on logic, and the goddess is a pre-linguistic context, notion. You cannot break her hope, she
cannot tamed. You should adore her and never try to arrest her.
II She does not speak but she makes music. Music is the speech of the goddess. She is fatal. She has numerous
lovers. It seems to be a competition among lovers. The last stanza tells what could happen if the poet lost her. If
you dont humanize nature by imposing feminine upon her, you become neutral. Human life becomes meaningless
without such love. (Another poem about devotion to the goddess is written by Robert Graves.)
ROBERT GRAVES
The Cool Web
It is a poem about language. Language is like a web that we are trapped in. Web-there is a network of meaning, the
idea of structures we impose on reality. The adjective cool which the poet imposes, claims that if we use language,
especially this rational, platonic lg. of civilization, if this is our predominant way of coping with reality, we will become
detached from reality. The idea is that if we use lg. as a kind of shield, detect experience of the world is to intense
for us. We protect ourselves from intensity by translating reality into terms, concepts, phrases. This is similar to
Ransoms idea of platonic impulse. We tend to translate the complexity of immediate experience into simplified
phrases and feel as masters. Graves says its not so with children. They havent still mastered the lg. completely
and have very strong immediate experiences. The first stanza opens with children dumb-stupid or speechless.
Children experience all aspects of reality intensely and thus still havent learnt to use lg. to protect themselves from
these experiences. They havent mastered lg. and they are stupid not to experience reality indirectly. Grown-ups
use lg. (speech) to lessen the impact of these experiences. Speech is used as a shield. Spell away- like using
some magic to makes things disappear + the meaning of spelling. By translating experience into lg. we get rid of
our fear and strong emotions. 3rd stanza- when we are using lg. in such a moment we deprive ourselves of intense
feeling; the whole range of feelings are diminished. If you are immersed in language, you feel neither too much joy
nor fear. At the end the language makes us feel as if we were living in ajar. It is like we are immersed in this medium

of language, it protects us from feeling reality and its some kind of death. We are cold and there is no spontaneity.
The poem is very pessimistic. It doesnt see other options. Its like Lacan. If we dont enter symbolical order hes
going to be unerotic, instable. No other option- we can not get rid of our language. Last stanza- watery gloss- sth
that cools your senses, passions, like we are immersed in water. The other option is madness. If you want to live in
immediate reality, like children, it will drive you to madness. Kristeva says we can also stay in contact with language
for we are still connected to our mothers body. There is sth irrational and physical in language.
To Juan at Winter Solstice
In this poem Graves says there is one story and one story only. Whenever he was writing poetry he wrote about
the Goddess- the loss and the recovery of it. Eliot groped towards the White Goddess which he consciously failed
to recognize. In the great pre-patriarchal myths the winter is significant. Solistice refers to the death of the Sun. it is
a critical point in a cycle- the death of the God of the old year slained by the rival (or river?) in which he
reincarnates. This is a symbol of psychological transformation through every poet has to pass to be a real poet.
Father is giving instructions to the son who has to die, his old self has to die, to embrace fearless self, to become a
great poet. The poet is reawakening the meaning of the Great Goddess. Birds sing under the command of the
Great Goddess. Everything is a part of the Great Goddess- through which you obey her triple will. Zodiac- he still
talks about the scenario of a myth of the Goddess prison- through which we can walk freely. It is not a real prison.
Those who turn against Goddess are lost. Water to water- In the Bible, but also in the all myths of Isthar, it is the
moment of flood. The Goddess is looking for the fragmented basis to gather it. The basis of all poems- from woman
to woman to find the goddess again. Circuit of his faith Each victim follows the cycle of ones faith. 12 apostlesthis is just the latest version in which people attended and witnessed and obeyed nature and they had 15
witnesses. Virgin is identified as the fish. Virgin is the supreme symbol of Christianity. It is in fact a mermaid
departure turning back to nature. The undying snake refers to the myth of creation in which goddess (Euriname)
created the world by creating the snake. Later it was demonized. Remember many heroes who in the claims of the
snake entered with swords to kill it. They were misguided. After the fight they were spewed on the shore. This is a
warning- you cant fight against the beings which are the emanation of the Goddess. Boar (Persephone) tramples
a flower before killing Adonis out of whom hell be born as a new person. Adonis turned into a flower representing a
resurrection. Nothing promised that is not performed- she will never betray a lover if he doesnt betray her. This is
the end of the period to reactivate the past and tradition.
S. HEANEY
Hercules and Antaeus
Antaeus-Hercules has five tasks- to pick up the golden apple- he encounters the giant. Hercules outwits him. He
separates Antaeus from his mother. Antaeus is now weak, helpless and Hercules kills him. Antaeus represents the
tradition, faithful to the mother earth. The poem is basically about colonialism. What happens in colonialism- you
have people loyal to their soil. They humanize nature in the form of the beloved mother. This emotional link gives
them strength. This motional is always cherished in the form of some indigent myth which humanizes nature. The
idea of the conquerors- to replace the original myth with the new one- then they are easy to govern and control.
Colonial process- to replace one myth for another- once he is separated from the mother he is easy to be broken. It
is also the same in Greek mythology when the patriarchy becomes victorious over matriarchy. This shift introduces
a total change in the inner nature. Herculess attitude to reality his origin is related to the sky- masculine part.
Snake symbolizes the old pagan gods; they symbolize the monster, personification of natural power. He wants to be
a conqueror; he wants to defeat the world of nature. Hercules is not trying to find some balanced, harmonious way
to live with nature. He represents the western man who wants to be victorious over nature. He does not want to be
a part of nature. This is how the heroes are remembered- a victory over the forces of nature. The element
emphasized here is his mind, intelligence, his rationality. Antaeus was faithful to archaic energies. He belonged to
the tradition that was capable of transforming them in the form of beloved father. He is called the mould-huggerthats his element. Hercules is weakened here-being separated from the mother. A fall was a renewal- the only
thing that remains to Hercules is the dream of loss. He only remembers the loss. All those memories the whole
nature is in the figure of mother. All those images are bequeathed to the poet- the one who can remind us of this
lost tradition. Elegists- they lament loss the poetry of smth. that is gone.
Digging

He has grotesque use of metaphors. He presents us with vivid image, a striking detail which is completely realistic.
Towards the end of the poem you suddenly realize that the whole physical story has a symbolical dimension. We
have those physical images which have to do with his background- he uses the imagery of the country life. Those
are the memories from his childhood. He got an important knowledge from his ancestors- land tillers. They knew
how to have this harmonious, creative contact with nature. Heaney is trying to preserve the rural tradition in his
poetry, also to see whether he can convey the wisdom of this tradition to modern man. People who live in the
country instinctively keep pace with nature and respect it. The poet wants to articulate nature through his poetry and
to transcend it to the modern man. Eliot-There are truths in the past which are no longer actively used to restore
some knowledge, to bring new meaning, spiritually to the modern age. Heaneys tradition in this sense from which
he tries to extract wisdom is this rural life in Ireland. Digging is basically about tradition. We can start by looking at it
symbolically you dip and look for this wisdom. There are several levels of meaning here. There are those solid
vivid images- you see the poets father digging potatoes. But all the time there is another level of digging. First he
looks at the past, at his ancestors, because they live in harmonious live with nature, and the other idea is digging
through the layers of ones psyche. Here the poet is exploring his inner nature because there is always wisdom at
the collective unconsciousness. You can see his father digging potatoes, grandfather digging turf. It is a family
tradition. Heaney asks himself : What about me, how will I perpetuate, sustain this tradition. He says he does not
have a spade, but a pen. The poet is digging his memory and the layer of the unconsciousness with his pen.
Between my finger he tries to say that what we dig out of out psyche there is destructiveness that can explode.
There is also this element of danger. Still, the most important meaning comes at the end, he says the roots in his
head are still leaving- the tradition is still alive.
The Diviner
Another poem referring to country life. This looks like a complete physical image. The diviner has a stick and he is
looking for water. Then you realize that the diviner is at the same time a metaphor for a poet. Again Heaney is
looking into the life of land-tillers in order to gain deeper insides into the purpose of his art. The diviner is looking for
the water hidden under the ground. The poet is searching for refreshment, creativity. Likewise he is revealing some
hidden sources of physic energy without which our life would be sterile. Everything that is in a way hidden in us, life
energy, unconscious psyche, emotions, creativity. Again we have a physical meaning- there are five different levels
of meaning. If this fork is a tool of diviner the poet uses lg. to bring to us the awareness of this unconscious energy.
The idea of stirring- of awakening the energy. You use words to stir this energy. There is also the idea that this
energy is closely connected with erotic energy. The hazel stick gets in touch with the stirring of the water- the image
is almost like a sexual metaphor. The hazel stick is like a kind of antenna. It is used to accept the secret stations of
the underground water. The poet is doing the same thing he is broadcasting from the underground layers of the
psyche. There is also a mention of other people- they suggest the community-what the diviner is doing is important
for the whole community- the village cant live without water- of use of the whole community. Poets- archetypes
convey messages important for the whole community. They either serve to balance reality and have a healing effect
- to reconcile the two worlds. The poet is bringing those images from the unconsciousness psyche for the whole
society. The last stanza- the motif of guidance. The poet is willing to teach others. Everyone of us should be able to
get in touch with these layers of the unconscious psyche and to enrich our lives, to start personal introspection,
inner growth. This is smth possible for everyone, not only the poet. The poet is about to teach us how to do this to
feel the pluck of water, he positive desire of people to learn.
Undine
This is a poem read on many levels. Undine is a water spirit, a mermaid. The Irish legend tells the only way for her
to become human is to marry a man and give birth to his children. He uses an image from the rural life and
connects it to this legend at the same time. He gives us a meaning important for the modern mans life. The
physical image is of a man, land tiller, who removes certain obstacles so that water can run down the ditches in his
garden and water his seeds in the earth which he has planted. However, the story is told from the point of view of
water itself. The water in the poem is feminine. This is Undine talking. And the moment when this water symbolizes
a wild, natural force gets in touch with these seeds, with these ditches, which symbolize human effort. This moment
is like a sexual union, a kind of marriage. The poem can be read as a marriage between human and natural, also
between man and woman, between ego and the conscious psyche and the unconscious psychic energy; the
marriage with the anima in the male psyche; and a __________ between culture and nature, water and earth. It
works on so many levels. It is fantastic. The main protagonist unblocks the way to release this inner psychic energy.

In many details, these are sexual images- a girl takes off her clothes. An encounter between a land tiller and water
feminine. It is important that this sexual encounter takes place with love. Love is what humanizes this natural
(sexual) energy. Without love it can be destructive. The union is not possible without love. If you explore your inner
subconsciousness you can grow spiritually. It is a poem about introspection and the poem ends with human married
to him with love and understanding we can humanize them.
ADRIENNE RICH
Diving into the Wreck
These are the old myths of patriarchy, the myths that split male and female irreconcilably into two warring factions,
the myths that perpetuate the battle between the sexes. Implicit in Richs image of the androgyny is the idea that we
must write new myths, create new definitions of humanity. The wreck she is diving into is the wreck of obsolete
myths, patriarchy myths about men and women. She is journeying to sth that is already in the past, in order to
discover to herself the reality behind the myth. What she finds is part treasure and part corpse and she also finds
that she herself is a part of it. A half destroyed instrument. As explorer she is detached; she carries a knife to cut
her way in , cut structures apart; a camera to record and the book of myths itself ,the book which has hitherto had
no place for explorer like herself. This quest is a quest for smth beyond myths, for truths about men and women,
about the I and the You, the He and the She, or more generally, about the powerless and the powerful.
Complex use of an image of rebirth. Her tools are carefully chosen. She has read the book of Bible. It is necessary
to know the old stories before embarking on a journey to change them. This journey is to record the sources of our
origin, hands, the camera. The knife is less obvious. As the narrator descends, the water turns from blue to green,
to black. There is the effect of blacking out becoming unconscious, while still remaining in control. As she begins to
move in this new element, the swimmer learns that the sea is not a question of power. The wreck is a layered
image. It is the source of successes and failures, the life of one woman. It is the history of all women, submerged in
a patriarchal culture. She explores the wreck and records for us her experiences of the cargo the half-destroyed
instruments. But, no questions are answered here for those who have not found their way to this place. We are
given no explanation for why the wreck occurred. She said in 1974. , two years after this poem: I absolutely\y
cannot imagine what it would be like to be a woman in a non-patriarchal society. At a moment I have this little
glimmer of it. When I am in a group of women, where I have a sense of real energy flowing and of power in the best
sense- not power of domination, but just access to sources- I have sense of what that could be like . But it is very
rare that I can imagine even that.
Splittings
The inner journey into the self. Our civilization tore onement and she wants to get rid of the false identity. She is
searching for her own identity and rejects to live according to the splitting myths.
POREDJENJA
TED HUGHES, Myth and Education
He talks about our archaic energies in our psyche-instincts and feelings. The important element we miss in our
education is myth. It helps us humanize these energies. This is a very important task for us. The fact we dont know
how to communicate with them can result in sterility or they can burst out destructively. How can we humanize
them? Various poets offer various solutions. Here, the answer would be love. Another idea would be creative
imagination. We can approach these energies in a creative way; through poetry, creativity and myth. Myth was used
very much by Yeats. He was dealing with all sorts of pain; anguish of personal love-with all sorts of disturbing
emotions- he resorts to myths. He believed if he could connect stories to his personal life with mythical stories,
through this connection he would transcend personal pain. The idea was really to channel the energy of personal
relation into the energy of creation. If I connect my personal stories with some larger mythical stories my life would
have deeper meaning .Yeats was horrified with her doings- how she was so passionate in her political struggle
but then he found a way to forgive her. Countess Cathleen -who lives in Ireland during famine. People were
selling their souls for gold: she wanted to save them and she sold her own soul. When Yeats read this, he forgives
her- she was fighting for the people in Ireland-in the same way, for the same reason he wrote Leda and the SwanHelen was born out of this coupling. Zeus had assumed the form of a swan. It was the beginning of the ten-day
war to justify Man Gond-she was born from such circumstances- myth of war and rape.
T.S.ELIOT

Many ways to enter Eliots poetry- (Leavis)- The Modernist Lyrics- tradition, historical sense, transhumanization,
unified sensibility. Leavis defines the major poet-surplus of vitality. He has an excess of vitality. He is more alive
and aware of morality than an ordinary man. He knows what he feels and he makes differences. Surplus of vitalitymore vital, alive, aware, morally conscious. he finds that the late Victorian poetry is unsatisfactory, it fails because it
was not alive. It is more dead than bad. Their poetic habit- the urban landscape. They refuse to inhabit the city- they
cant comfort it. It is not conquinial to their sensibility. They withdraw within the dream world- of roses, streams. The
rhythm is used to create a melodious burst which dragged the readers into the idyllic places. There was another
reason the creation of the dream world- to create and express what is sensuous and simple, not what is
intelligent, what relates to erudition and thinking. A split is perpetuated by simple emotions and cerebral muscleintelligence. For the poetry they reserve their emotions. The sentiment, the feeling become cheap, lacking the
intelligence attitude. Intelligence becomes vulgar. The split is fatal. The poet can break through that habit to crate a
dream world. Late Victorian poetry doesnt possess the sensibility which enables the poet to offer the valid criticism
of life- to judge and revise the culture. The only protest they made is withdrawal. Eliot says he is unmistakably a
modern poet. You inhabit firmly with bitterness the urban landscape. The inhabited big cities and his response to the
tremendous impoverishment of the city life find place in his poetry. Not only images changed. Eliot introduced that
exercise of the cerebral muscle- intelligence, tremendous erudition explain different allusions to obscure
creatures, various traditional myths- to fragment literary tradition. Very often it was not common knowledge. He
supplied footnotes to explain allusion to the literary of the past he finds relevant. It is often a trick. There were
people angry with those endnotes. Middle-class people his poetry is corrupt, he is a bookworm. We dont agree
with that. He fused together into a new whole . You will put into poetry whatever you feel. He studied philosophy
back in America, went to Paris. Bergon a new concept of time. He opposes the clock time- in the objective time all
times are present and the past is implicated. Eliot went further. He wanted ultimately to redeem this clock,
mechanical time by experiences of timelessness. The intersection between time and timelessness. He comes to
paradoxical conclusion- the only way to conquer time is through time not by stepping out of time but by
surrendering to everything time demands from you. History may be servitude, history may be freedom. This
timeless moment redeems us. We inhabit a timeless dimension. Eliots preoccupation in his essays, plays and
poetry bear the traces of his reading of Bergson. He did his doctoral thesis on Bradly- all our perceptions are mental
thing and are private to ourselves, no real communication. We are all responding as any other human being. Yet, as
with Bergson Eliot made a step forward- beyond this pessimistic doctrine. How can we escape from ourselves? The
two preoccupations are related. There is a key to the prison of ourselves- we can unlock it only by epitomize pagan
patterns which centers on voluntary self-sacrifice (of the generic self to achieve genuine self). After this failure of the
quest in the last section in the poets The West Land the whole jungle was waiting for the rain- the renewal of
life. Instead of the rain, there was only sterile thunder. It is the poetry of the city- the scenes of the morbid life- but
also complex, difficult. Eliot, like Yeats, insists on economy. They should omit any surpluses words-adjectives. We
want clear, hard, dry images that should comment themselves. They are organized not by using any connections,
transitions. You are supposed to provide the link so that it is being economic. It is an attack upon the reader, the
middle class. It is an attack on the high-class reader. This poetry demands intelligence, tremendous effort for them
to read it. The poet or the narrator refuses to adopt any of the social roles. ------------------- So in fact what Eliot (and
Bodler) is doing is to appeal to the reader to those elements that his social self repudiated- to tell him that he is with
him in the worst aspect of his life. Instead of these connectives, narrative logic, he organizes his poets by
juxtaposing images of the city squalors, envy, corruption in religion, sex. The two images comment upon each
other- the image of modern life and juxtaposition of images from mythology, Christian tradition, past tradition.
Steavens the Bible, the script is a souvenir- to forget about it, he demanded that our idea of order comes from the
mind. Yet, Eliot and Yeats were also obsessed with the past. The past for them was not merely past, but part of the
present. What is most valuable of the past is still present. He says the past still has in itself the values by which the
time can be judged, measured, revised. For Yeats, otherwise, we are naked. Eliot returns to Christian myth- a valid
paradigm. They both have their protagonists go in a quest (The Magi). The protagonists are all modern Magi who
see birth of Jesus and find it to be measures for their own lives. They cant follow the vision. Their own lives are
death in life. That is how all of the three poems end. There is a reason why they cannot undergo this
transformation- the need to ask some very significant, overwhelming question. And here it is not asked. The
question of which the protagonist is aware is not asked finally- avoiding of creative question.
Larkin, Gunn, Thomas

Yeats and Eliot rely on tradition. Yeats is almost romantic in his ideal life. In Eliot you have modern subversion of the
old tradition. All the while he dreams on the tradition. The purpose is the idea of comparison. In tradition we find
some values that miss nowadays. In Yeats- outgrowing personal experience to include mythical pattern to translate
personal pain into the work of beauty. The idea of myth is that it has integrating principle. Contemporary poets are
no longer interested in tradition. What they express is a great disillusionment. Philip Larkin published a collection of
poems called The Less Deceived. People no longer believe in the great traditions of the past, for instance
Christianity or the belief that they are fighting the just war. They no longer have the feeling that they have some
roots. P.Larkin in this collection says ironically well- at least we are less deceived. There is, however, in Larkin a
kind of nostalgia. He recognizes that the modern life is uprooted and demythologized. But he looks back with the
kind of nostalgia and recognizes the value of the tradition. When you compare him with Thom Gunn, Thom Gunn
takes pleasure; he celebrates this total uncertainty of modern life. He likes the idea that there are no absolutes,
which man can move in any conceivable direction. And create himself in this process. The Basic difference- Larkin
feels badly about uncertainty, Gunn celebrates it.
************
Majority of Eliots poems are centered on people immersed in futility of everyday life routine. However, they desire
to convert into significant self are won by snobbery.

The Waste Land- T.S. Eliot

This controversial poem details the journey of the human soul searching for redemption.Meditation on the state of
Western civilization, especially regarding the sense of depression, waste, and futility of the post-World War I era;
the poem mixes descriptions of contemporary life with literary allusions and quotations, religious symbolism, and
references to ancient and medieval cultures and mythologies, vegetation and fertility rites, as well as Eastern
religions and philosophies; the poem emphasizes themes of barrenness and desolation and portrays a dying
society, but the ending suggests hope of redemption through concepts and images grounded on the synthesis of
Christian and Eastern (Hindu/Buddhist) spirituality.
Experience of fragmentation and disconnection which Eliot saw as the essence of 20th century urban
life.Commentary on problem of modern society as lacking a sense of community and spiritual axis.
The" waste land" in the poem as modern culture having drifted away from its spiritual roots; trope of destructive
repetition controlling human history; loss of touch with cycles of life and nature.
Images of desolation, sterility, dryness, waste (as a byproduct of utilitarian attitudes and capitalistic and mercantile
forms of production and exchange); image of a society that feeds upon itself and also lies mired in its own waste.
Ancient and medieval legends (e.g.Holy Grail, classical mythology); symbolic representation of cycles of life and
death; theme of sick "Fisher King" and loss of fertility which produces a corresponding drought; replenishment of
land and healing of Fisher King by re-discovery of truth encoded in the images of ancient myths and rituals.
Hint at possibility of production of new life and redemption of humanity from the by-products of decay; construction
of truth from the nearly lost fragments of ancient thought and the wisdom of various cultures.
Truth encoded in both the imagery of Christianity and the sacred words of ancient Eastern religions and
philosophies; religious syncretism implicit in the poem.
The Waste Land summarizes the Grail legend, not precisely in the usual order, but retaining the principal incidents
and adapting them to a modern setting.
Parallels with yet other myths and with literary treatments of the "quest" theme reinforce Eliot's pattern of death and
rebirth.
Eliot's waste land suffers from a dearth of love and faith.

The Waste Land does not merely reflect the breakdown of an historical, social, and cultural order battered by violent
forces operating under the name of modernity. For Eliot the disaster that characterized modernity was not an
overturning, but the unavoidable, and ironic, culmination of that very order so lovingly celebrated in Victoria's last
decade on the throne.
Dealing with the decline of civilization and the impossibility of recovering meaning in life.