Category: Free Essays

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

Abstract

Different environmental conditions contribute to the limitations of plant growth. Salts are common and a natural constituent of all soils. Normally, salts are present in low amounts in top soil and plant growth is not affected. However, accumulation of salts, through natural means or man’s activities, can cause plant growth problems and result in poor growth or death of plants.

Considering that Bermuda is such a small island, farmers’ crops are constantly being exposed to salt spray. Therefore, there must be a saline threshold for the various crops. Bermuda is famous for The Bermuda Yellow Onion, therefore I felt it was appropriate to investigate The Salinity Tolerance of the Bermuda Yellow Onion.

The objective of this study is to find out if the Bermuda Yellow Onion has a saline threshold, and if so what is this saline limit. To examine this question, I have constructed several small experiments, including the Saline Affect on Biomass, Germination Rate, Onion Growth, and the Water Content in Soil after Plant Growth.

Throughout this investigation, I found that salinity effects both germination and overall growth of the Bermuda Yellow Onion, decreasing the yield percentage produced. The appearance of all plants grown in saline solutions are recognized as an effect of salt stress; poor germination and establishment, reduced plant vigour and stunted growth, smaller than normal leaves, slightly yellowing leaves, and a burnt appearance on tips of leaves.

All experiments carried out show that salinity has an affect on the osmotic ability of both seed and plant, which has an effect on other plant functions such as photosynthesis and transpiration. Without the plant able to function effectively nor efficiently, the plant will produce fewer yields or eventually die, depending on the salinity strength.

This discovery suggests that there is a definite saline threshold for the Bermuda Yellow Onion.

Introduction

Originally, Bermuda grew and exported tobacco, but during the 1870s and 1880s Bermudians approached the production of crops with a more serious attitude, and agriculture became a thriving export business.

Every onion was hand picked, wrapped and packed for the market in New York. Every member of the family was involved in preparing the garden produce for export for the steamers that sailed twice a month from Hamilton. Bermuda did not only export onions to the New York market but also other garden produce such as arrowroot, celery, tomatoes, and potatoes.

Because Bermuda’s onions were so delicious they were widely sought and enjoyed not only in the U.S. but all over, so production increased to meet the growing demand. Bermuda was often referred to as The Onion Patch and Bermudians were obviously nicknamed Onions because of this. The export of Bermuda onions came to an abrupt end when U.S. tariff walls were raised against such imports.

Bermuda is quite a small island, only 21 square miles, and the crops are often exposed to salt spray from the surrounding ocean, which affects the soil that will in the long run affect plant growth.

Soil is a multicomponent system, which means that soil is made up of solid, liquid and gaseous components. This system consists of inorganic and organic solid components, soil solutions and as well as a gaseous phase. These three states are in a constant flux, maintaining a state of equilibrium. This is maintained by a chain reaction, one phase will manipulate the following phases until the equilibrium state is achieved. One way of achieving equilibrium is cation exchange; this involves cations interchanging between the solid phase and the liquid phase. This exchange reaction occurs from the negative charge of soil colloids.

Soil contains a mixture of different types of clays; soil salinity causes particles to bind together into aggregates, this process is called flocculation. Flocculation is good for soil aeration, root penetration, and root growth. Increasing soil salinity may have a positive effect on soil aggregation and stabilization, but high salinity also has a negative effect on plants.

High sodium concentration in soil, gives an opposite affect than soil salinity. Sodium causes soil dispersion and the clay platelets and aggregate swelling. When too many sodium ions come between the clay particles, the bonded clay particles are disrupted. This separation of clay particles causes them to swell and soil dispersion occurs. Soil dispersion causes clay particles to clog soil pores; this reduces the permeability of the soil. When soil is wetted and dispersion occurs repeatedly, it then becomes solidified to a cement-like soil with little or no structure.

The reason why other salts such as calcium and magnesium do not have the same affect as sodium is because they are smaller so they can collect closer to the clay particles. As shown in figure 1. Soil dispersion also has an affect on infiltration and hydraulic conductivity of the soil.

A Lack of Water

Salinity also affects the Evapotranspiration (ET), as salinity in the soil increases the ET decreases. Because of the saline soil having an osmotic pressure greater that the plant cell sap, there is a link between the effect of salinity on ET and the yield of plants.

The tolerance of plants to salinity is linked to the salinity of the soil, which is known as the total amount of soluble salt in soil. The relative growth of plants in saline soils will determine their salt tolerance.

You measure salinity by the range of electrical conductivity levels throughout the soil. Electrical Conductivity (EC) is the ability of a solution to transmit an electrical current. In order to determine soil salinity EC, an electrical current is imposed in a glass cell using two electrodes in a soil extract solution taken from the soil being measured. The units are usually given in deciSiemens per meter (dS/m).

The salinity of seawater is usually 35 parts per thousand (also written as ppt) in most marine areas. This salinity measurement is a total of all the salts that are dissolved in the water. Although 35 parts per thousand is not very concentrated (the same as 3.5 parts per hundred, pph, or percent) the water in the oceans tastes very salty. The interesting thing about this dissolved salt is that it is always made up of the same types of salts and they are always in the same proportion to each other (even if the salinity is different than average). The majority of the salt is the same as table salt (sodium chloride) but there are other salts as well. The table below shows these proportions:

Salinity has many consequences to the growth of plants. Considering the small size of Bermuda, salinity can contribute to hindering plant growth of farmer’s crops. Since Bermuda has been recognized for growing onions, I felt that it is rational to investigate the salinity tolerance of the Bermuda Yellow Onion. From the knowledge I have attained, I expect throughout my investigation that the yield produced by the onion will decrease with increasing salinity.

Method and Materials

I will concentrate on germination and the growth of onion seedlings to investigate the salinity tolerance of the Bermuda Yellow Onion. I will investigate the affect of various salinities on the germination rate and the affect of various salinities of the growth of the onions by measuring height and the biomass and dry biomass of the onion samples. Salinity concentration used will be constant in both investigations, consisting of a constant of 0ppt concentration, as well as concentrations of 0.5ppt, 1.0ppt, 1.5ppt, 2.5ppt and 3.5ppt.

All experiments will be carried out in my biology classroom under controlled conditions. Experiments will be set up along side the windows so exposure to light is the same. Temperature may fluctuate because of air conditioning in the classroom, but since each sample is exposed to the same conditions, there will be no contamination to the final results. Hence, if the temperature should affect the growth in any way, each sample will be affected in the same way.

Watering of samples will be daily and in precisely equal amounts, no matter what saline level the water is the samples will be supplied with the same amount of water.

However there is one variable I can not have control over, human contamination. Since I will not be in the room supervising at all times I am not able to account for other students interfering with the samples, but I trust no one will cause disorder.

Biomass

Initially I will investigate the average dry biomass of random onion seedlings so I will be able to compare water content at a later stage. Dry bio mass will be found by firstly recording 10 random onion seedling samples masses then leaving them in a drying oven until a constant mass is obtained. Drying oven will be set at a temperature of 100oC; because of course 100oC is the temperature at which water boils. Therefore I will be able to evaluate the average percentage water mass loss of the seedlings grown in the

Investigation of saline affect on Germination

Using Petri dishes I will investigate the affect of various salinities on the germination rate. It takes 7-14 days for an onion seed to germinate, so I will carry out the experiment over a 2 week period. Each Petri dish will be lined with three layers of paper towel and watered daily with 5 ml of water to ensure accuracy (show in the figure below). For each saline concentration there will be five Petri dishes containing 20 seeds each.

Investigation of saline affect on Onion Growth

Pot trials will be carried out in 4 gallon pots over a 7 week period; in each pot I will grow 5 onion seedlings 10-15 cm apart in -3/4 inch of soil deep. Each seedling will have an initial height of 6.75 cm above soil, and I will be weekly their progress or even retreat.

Seedlings require 1 inch of water per week, so each sample set will be watered 1 inch relevant to the 4 gallon pots, which is approximately 1.5L of water. Therefore Plants will be watered daily with 200ml of water. Deionized water will be used to eliminate other ions as a variable. To make the saline solutions I will add 1 kg of water approximately for every ppt amount in grams of dissolved salts, for each specified saline percentage Consider 5ppt: when 5g/1kg=5g/1000g and 1g=1ml, then 1000g=1liter, therefore 5g of NaCl per liter of water(5g/1l)=5ppt

To avoid phototropism pots will be rotated daily because sunlight thorough the window is the only source of light plant samples will receive. Following the seven week period seedlings will be extracted from the soil measured and weighed and then placed into the drying oven until a constant dry bio mass is found.

Investigation of water content in soil after plant growth

Along with the experiments I will also take samples of soil from each individual saline percentage pot at the end of the experiment to investigate the water content of the different salinity concentrated soils. (Soil samples will be taken from a dept if 10cm) I will take 3 samples of each concentrated soil and place them in small crucibles, in order to obtain the soils mass, I will have to weigh the crucible before and after placing the soil sample in the crucible.

To find the water content of the soil samples I will place the crucibles containing the soil samples into a drying oven at a temperature of 100oC, and then measure the mass of each sample after (samples will be left in drying oven for 3 days and measured each day to obtain a constant mass result).

Salinity effect on germination rate is very evident. At the highest salinity levels 2.5% and 3.5%, seeds are not able to germinate at all. While at the lower salinities, germination rate increase as salinity levels decrease. This is because the NaCl in the saline solution attracts the water molecules restricting the uptake of water. As a result the more saline the solution is, the greater the attraction between NaCl molecule and water molecules will be. This results in an impact on the osmotic ability of the seeds.

The germination of seeds is dependent on both internal and external conditions, with one of those conditions including the availability of water. Mature seeds are often extremely dry and need to absorb a significant amount of water, relative to the seeds dry biomass, before cellular metabolism and growth can resume. Most seeds respond best when there is enough water to moisten the seeds but not soak them.

The uptake of water by seeds is called imbibitions, which leads to the swelling and the breaking of the seed coat. When seeds are formed, most plants store a food source, such as starch, proteins, or oils, to provide nourishment to the growing embryo inside the seed. When the seed imbibes enzymes are activated that break down the stored food into metabolically useful chemicals, allowing the cells of the embryo to divide and grow, so the seedling can emerge from the seed. For that reason, without the right supply of water, the cellular metabolic pathways will not take place.

There is an immediate effect on the growth of onions once salt is introduced to the environment. Plants grown in 0% salinity progressively grows over the seven week period, while salinities 0.5% and 1.0% decrease within the fifth week and begin to slowly progress again. Plants grown in salinities of 0.5% began to grow with high progression and had a very large decrease. Plants grown in salinities of 1.5% progress slightly and in the fourth week, growth declines and in the last week plants begins to progress again. Plants grown in salinities 2.5% and 3.5% had scarcely any progression, plants seem to stay at almost a constant height until plants die.

Although in the beginning, plants seem to make some sort of progression, in the end plants grown in saline solutions show an extreme case of drought stress. As plants are continually watered with saline solutions, the salt begins to accumulate in the soil. With increasing salt accumulating in to soil, the greater the inhabitation of uptake of water to the plant is. Explaining why plants grown at lower salinities appear in the beginning to progress then suddenly have a great decrease in growth.

As the experiment progressed unpredictably, seedlings began to disappear. I concluded a possible answer causing this problem could be that as water was being retained in the soil and roots begin to rot. There is an excess of water in plants grown in saline waters, because of the fact that salt inhibits water uptake, the excess of water makes it difficult for the roots to receive any oxygen, thus leading to roots rotting. As well, of course without roots there is no way in which a plant is able to transport material in and out leading to overall death of the plant. Explaining why plant began to disappear throughout the experiment.

It is apparent that salinity has an affect on plant yield. All plants grown in saline soils parentage yield has decreased in fresh biomass. That fact that only plants grown in saline soils of 1.5%-3.5% has a decrease shows that there may be a saline threshold for Bermuda Yellow Onion. Since water moves into the cells because they are full of salts and sugars shows that Bermuda Yellow Onions cell sap concentration of salt is lower than 1.5%.

Root cells receive sugars from the leaves and actively absorb salts from the soil. This concentration of salts and sugars causes water from the soil to move into the cell. But if the solution out side the root cells are more concentrated with salt than the solution inside the root cells than water will not diffuse into the cells.

Water is truly vital for growth. Plants grow in two ways, cell division and cell expansion. Cell division creates more cells and cell expansion is the increase in cell size. Cells grow by taking up water. If water is reduced during growth, final cell size and overall plant growth is reduced. Increasing salinity values causes drought stress for the plants resulting in smaller, weaker plants.

With the lack of water, there is a of soluble salts and sugars therefore photosynthesis cannot occur efficiently, explaining the less biomass produced in the higher salinity levels. Plants need water for photosynthesis. Photosynthesis produces biomass in which energy from sunlight converts carbon dioxide and water to carbohydrates and oxygen. If they lack it, they wilt. When they have a deficiency of water, the stomata close and CO2 cannot diffuse into the leaves. Without CO2, photosynthesis would not occur, as it should.

(Refer to Appendix 1, Table 6)

The water content if saline soils are very similar on either end of the saline scale. Low salinities of 0-1 are similar and higher salinities of 1.5-3.5 are similar. Although there is a generous jump between the two set groups. This jump further enhances the possibility of a salinity threshold of the Bermuda yellow Onion.

As salinity inhibits the osmotic affect less water is taken up by plants roots, so daily watering will not help the plant to absorb any more water. Therefore, more water is left in the soil. Plants grown in salinities 2.5% and 3.5%, demonstrate this because towards the end of the experiment water began to retain in the bottom on the trays.

A saline soil is defined as having a high concentration of soluble salts, high enough to affect plant growth. In saline soils water is held tighter to the soil, the presence of salt in the water causes plants to exert more energy extracting water from the soil. The main point is that excess salinity in soil water can decrease plant available water and cause plant stress.

There are several factors that hinder water flow from the soil to the roots. One is the soil-root contact, and as the root dries out it shrinks away for the soil particles. Therefore, soils of higher salinities retain a greater amount of water, thus providing more evidence that salinity inhibits plants osmotic ability.

High sodium concentration in soil causes soil dispersion and the clay platelets and aggregate swell. When too many sodium ions come between the clay particles, the bonds between the clay particles are disrupted. This separation of clay particles causes them to swell and soil dispersion occurs. Soil dispersion causes clay particles to clog soil pores; reducing the permeability of the soil.

The ideal soil is one that holds moisture and at the same time allows a constant flow of air through the soil. Soil cannot be over-saturated with water or air would be excluded. The reason why soil is so important to a plant’s survival is this need to maintain a balance between moisture and air.

The quality of the soil, as determined by physical characteristics, can help or hinder a plant. In this case the quality of saline soils hinder a plants growth, with soils retaining water, it prevents airflow getting to the roots. Airflow brings oxygen to the roots and to micro-organisms, and removes carbon dioxide from the soil. With a lack of oxygen to the roots respiration and ATP production via oxidative phosphorylation, a process that essentially requires the presence of oxygen will not occur.

Evaluation

During the investigation of Salinity effect on Onion growth experiment, I ran into some problems with collecting the data. Since Onion seedlings grow with multiple leaves I was not completely sure how to measure the height, hence do I measure only the tallest leaf. Then again, do I measure each individual leaf? I decided to measure each individual leaf, but then I ran into a problem with my decision, as the investigation progressed, leaves began to die and new shoots appeared. With this I could not keep track of what leaves had died and which leaves are the new ones, with that I decided to jus keep the measurements of the tallest leaf, and continue taking only the measurement of the tallest leaf.

I also could have grown the plants in a more controlled area, because I am not able to account for anyone tampering with the experiment.

Conclusion

The Bermuda Yellow Onion can tolerate salinity levels up to 1.0% – 1.5%, but only for a short period. If plants are continually watered with the same saline solution, the salt will eventually accumulate in the soil and show severe signs of drought stress.

This tolerance level is present because the cell sap has a certain concentration level and once the saline soils exceeds the cell sap concentration, the plants can no longer grow, (tolerate) the saline soils. This is because once the solution outside the soil is higher than the solution inside the cells, naturally osmosis occurs and the cells become flaccid.

Water is essential in the plant environment for a number of reasons. Water transports minerals through the soil to the roots where they are absorbed by the plant. Water is also the principal medium for the chemical and biochemical processes that support plant metabolism. It also acts as a solvent for dissolved sugars and minerals transported throughout the plant.

In addition, evaporation within intercellular spaces provides the cooling mechanism that allows plants to maintain the favorable temperatures necessary for metabolic processes. Without the essential amount of water, the essential minerals would not be transported throughout the plant leading to growth deficiency.

As this is a problem in Bermuda because the island is so small farmers land is constantly exposed to salt spray. There is no way to reverse the effect of salinity, but there are ways in which farmers could successfully grow plants in high saline soils. By providing adequate drainage, maintain adequate soil moisture, and simply grow salt tolerant plants.

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

What is the environmental impact of market-based approaches to environmental policy and are they effective in controlling greenhouse gas emissions?

Introduction

Greenhouse gas emissions, and other forms of environmental pollution, are economic externalities as they impose costs on individuals and communities who did not create the pollution (Jaffe et al, 2005). These economic externalities are side effects that are experienced by individuals not connected with the polluting process (Owen, 2006). As such, the individual or entity from which the pollution originates does not need to reflect the pollution costs within their prices. The problem therefore lies in the associated costs to society that environmental pollution causes. These damages and costs, which include climate change, in the form of biodiversity loss, rising sea levels and extreme weather events, are not paid for by the companies or industries that emit the pollution and so they do not need to factor these costs into the market price of the goods or services that they provide (Muller et al, 2011). The result of this is that society produces and consumes high volumes of pollution-creating products, whilst industries continue to produce these goods and services without having to account for the costs associated with environmental pollution (Frankel and Rose, 2005).

This form of market failure is addressed by market-based environmental policies that construct systems which incorporate the costs associated with environmental pollution into the industry’s decision making and financial process (Metcalf, 2009). The theoretical basis for these market-based policies is that when an industry or other pollution making entity see, and must pay for, the societal cost of pollution, then they will design innovative ways in which to reduce their environmental impact. In addition, the full environmental cost of the products will be reflected in the price, therefore enabling consumers to make informed purchasing decisions (Owen, 2006). The remainder of this document will consider the effectiveness of market-based policies compared with traditional command and control regulations.

Command and Control versus Market-Based Policies

Traditional command and control policies required polluters to reduce emissions by installing specific technology in order to meet specific performance emission standards (Hepburn, 2006). However, opponents to the command and control mindset state that this form of regulation is inflexible and does not take into consideration that some industries are able to meet these targets at a much lower cost than others (Liu et al, 2014). Additionally, the command and control regulatory approach does not incentivise industries to innovate and reduce their environmental impacts by more than what is required by the standard (Haselip et al, 2015).

Conversely, market-based approaches have been reported to provide greater flexibility for industry (Pirard, 2012). However, it is necessary to address the type of pollutant being emitted, as there are some that need to be maintained at a very low level for health-related reasons (Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions, 2012). As such, it may be necessary to control these types of pollutants with command and control regulations in order to ensure that health-related thresholds are not breached. Greenhouse gases are not harmful on a localised basis. Their effects are only seen when they are globally mixed within the atmosphere and cause damage on a global scale (Meinshausen et al, 2011). As such, many proponents claim that market-based regulatory approaches are particularly appropriate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Pirard, 2012; Hrabanski et al, 2013; Boisvert et al, 2013). Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that these policies provide greater compliance flexibility and can reach and improve environmental objectives at much lower overall costs (Boisvert et al, 2013).

One key aspect of these market-based policies is that they provide a financial incentive for industry to develop and deploy lower environmental pollution emitting technologies, whilst leaving the private market to decide which technologies can be expanded and utilised (Pirard, 2012). Within this structure, each regulated industry is able to independently choose the most cost-effective method to achieve the required pollution abatement. As previously mentioned, some industries are able to reduce their pollution more easily and cheaply than others, due to the technology or equipment that they are using. This enables them to reduce their pollution more, therefore compensating for those industries who are unable to meet traditional command and control targets due to the costs involved. As such, the overall environmental target can still be achieved but at a much lower societal and industry cost (Pirard, 2012). A good example of the success of market-based policies has been seen within the US. At the federal level, sulphur dioxide emissions have been reduced at a fraction of the original estimated cost (CCES, 2012). In addition, at state level, market-based approaches have been successfully incorporated into cap-and-trade and renewable energy programs to reduce nitrogen oxides and other greenhouse gases (CCES, 2012). The following sections will consider two distinct examples of market-based policies that can control greenhouse gas emissions.

Taxes

Taxes, that set a price on each unit of pollution, are the most basic form of market-based policies. This pollution tax ensures that the industry producing the pollution pays an additional cost dependent on the amount of pollution that is emitted (Vossler et al, 2013). This cost incentivises the industry to reduce the amount of pollution produced and encourage them to change their processes or incorporate better technology within their production line (Suter et al, 2005). As such, the more emissions that are reduced, the less pollution tax the industry needs to pay. However, it is necessary to calculate the societal cost of the pollution in order to set the price of the tax (Chiroleu-Assouline et al, 2014). This can be a complex process with the societal costs of pollution being difficult to quantify. For example, if the pollution emitted from a certain industry caused a population decline in a commercial shellfishery, then the damages could be based on the lost value of the shellfish at current market price. However, if the emitted pollution causes the extinction of a species or the destruction of a habitat, it is less clear on how society should assign a financial cost which equates to that loss. In addition, it is necessary to address how the environmental pollution emitted from today’s industries can cause damage to future generations and how to quantify these consequences when there are a range of possible outcomes (CCES, 2012).

Cap-and-Trade

The cap-and-trade approach sees the regulatory authority determining a total quantity of pollution that is acceptable (Betsill and Hoffmann, 2011). This is the cap. Industries are able to trade emission allowances based on their needs. However, there is a limited number of these allowances, so trading comes at a cost (Betsill and Hoffmann, 2011). Each regulated industry holds enough allowances to ensure that the cap is not breached whilst also creating demand for the allowances (Stephan and Paterson, 2012). For some businesses, it may be less costly for them to reduce their emissions than to buy allowances, therefore encouraging them to analyse their polluting activities and reduce their environmental impact. Some businesses are able to reduce their emissions to such an extent that they have excess allowances, which can be either banked for future use or sold to businesses that are struggling to reduce emissions. However, due to the scarcity of the allowances and their tradable nature, a price is placed on greenhouse gas emissions (Stephan and Paterson, 2012). This price results in an incentive for businesses to develop innovative technology to reduce emissions, with an added incentive to reduce their emissions to such a level that they can avoid buying allowances or can trade allowances they have been given (Betsill and Hoffmann, 2011). With the latter, businesses are able to raise revenue by selling these excess allowances (Piraud, 2012). This reduced environmental cost can then be passed on to their consumers, with cheaper goods and services, therefore giving them an advantage within the consumer market.

Problems with Quantity-based and Price-Based Market Policies

Evidence suggests that there is a tradeoff between quantity-based (cap-and-trade) and price-based (pollution tax) approaches (CCES, 2012). This tradeoff is either greater environmental certainty or greater compliance cost certainty. By setting an explicit price on each unit of environmental pollution, the regulated businesses have a high degree of price of certainty (Pizer, 2006). However, what is less certain is the amount of environmental pollution reduction that can be achieved, as each business will respond differently to the tax costs. For example, by placing a tax on each litre of fuel, one company may reduce its fuel consumption by 20%, whilst another company may only reduce its consumption by 2%. As such, it is difficult to estimate what price to place on the tax in order to achieve a specific emission reduction goal.

Conversely, with quantity-based market approaches, such as the cap-and-trade program, there is more certainty surrounding the environmental outcomes due to the scarcity of pollution allowances that make up the cap (Pizer, 2006). However, with this environmental certainty comes a cost uncertainty for the businesses emitting the pollution, as the cost of this pollution will be determined by the market price for the allowances (Pizer, 2006). Yet some market-based policies can be designed to allow more certainty for both price and quantity. For example, The Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (2011) included price floors and allowance reserves, which act as prices ceilings, within the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in California, in order to give more compliance cost certainty.

Revenue Uses from Taxes or Allowance Sales

Both price-based and quantity-based regulatory approaches have the potential to raise revenue for the government (Nordhaus, 2007). With environmental taxes, potential revenue raised will equate to the total quantity of greenhouse gas emissions released to the environment within a set timescale multiplied by the price of the tax. With cap-and-trade programs, the amount of revenue generated depends on the price allowances make on the open market and the number of allowances that are offered up for sale (Nordhaus, 2007). Regardless of how these revenues are raised, the benefits to society of this revenue stream are clear. Revenue use examples include the reduction of existing distortionary taxes on capital and labour investments in order to reduce the economy wide cost of the program, and the offset of taxes on the labour markets, individuals and businesses, as seen in both Sweden and British Columbia (Aldy et al, 2008).

Nevertheless, some experts suggest that this carbon revenue should be used for other purposes. These experts argue that there is a need to address the question of equity in addition to economic efficiency (MacKenzie, 2009). This equity would avoid burdening some households and businesses, particularly if they adopted clean energy approaches, technological adaptation, or positioned themselves within the research and development arena. An example of this can be seen within the member states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. In this initiative, 100% of allowances are auctioned and 25% of the revenues generated are targeted towards consumer benefit, energy efficiency programs and renewable energy schemes. In total, over the last 7 years, these allowance auctions have generated more than $2 billion (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, 2015).

Conclusion

It can be seen from the above narrative that both price-based and quantity-based market approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions can be highly successful and popular methods of achieving environmental targets. Environmental taxes ensure that the cost of environmental pollution is covered by the polluter in a “polluter pays” approach. Each unit of pollution is given a specific price which the polluter has to pay. These costs incentivise the industry to adopt more environmentally friendly approaches in order to reduce their financial outgoings. Cap-and-trade programs have a given number of allowances distributed between businesses within an industry sector. Companies that can produce their goods in a more environmentally friendly manner, which sees them having an excess of allowance, are able to trade these allowances on the open market to companies who are less able to meet environmental targets. However, due to the costs of these allowances, there is an added incentive for businesses to adopt, or develop, new technologies that reduce their environmental impact. However, both approaches have their limitations as it is difficult to quantify the financial costs of pollution in order to set a price on environmental taxes, and there are many uncertainties for the environment and for businesses with the cap-and-trade approach. Nevertheless, despite these uncertainties and challenges associated with price setting, it is considered that the flexibility for businesses and potential improvements for the environment by adopting these approaches over the traditional command and control regulation outweigh any negatives. Whilst it is accepted that market-based approaches will not work for all environmental pollutants, for greenhouse gases, which cause effects on a global scale, the evidence suggests that these approaches will encourage innovation and incentivise businesses to adopt best available technology.

References

Aldy, J. E., Ley, E., & Parry, I. (2008). A Tax–Based Approach to Slowing Global Climate Change. National Tax Journal, 493-517.

Betsill, M., & Hoffmann, M. J. (2011). The contours of “cap and trade”: the evolution of emissions trading systems for greenhouse gases. Review of Policy Research, 28(1), 83-106.

Boisvert, V., Meral, P., & Froger, G. (2013). Market-based instruments for ecosystem services: institutional innovation or renovation? Society & Natural Resources, 26(10), 1122-1136.

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (2011), Climate 101: Cap and Trade. Available online at http://www.c2es.org/publications/climate-change-101/cap-trade accessed 26 September 2015.

Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions. (2012). Market mechanisms; understanding the options. Available online at http://www.c2es.org/publications/market-mechanisms-understanding-options accessed 26 September 2015.

Chiroleu-Assouline, M., & Fodha, M. (2014). From regressive pollution taxes to progressive environmental tax reforms. European Economic Review, 69, 126-142.

Frankel, J. A., & Rose, A. K. (2005). Is trade good or bad for the environment? Sorting out the causality. Review of Economics and Statistics, 87(1), 85-91.

Haselip, J., Hansen, U. E., Puig, D., Tr?rup, S., & Dhar, S. (2015). Governance, enabling frameworks and policies for the transfer and diffusion of low carbon and climate adaptation technologies in developing countries. Climatic Change, 131(3), 363-370.

Hepburn, C. (2006). Regulation by prices, quantities, or both: a review of instrument choice. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 22(2), 226-247.

Hrabanski, M., Bidaud, C., Le Coq, J. F., & Meral, P. (2013). Environmental NGOs, policy entrepreneurs of market-based instruments for ecosystem services? A comparison of Costa Rica, Madagascar and France. Forest Policy and Economics, 37, 124-132.

Jaffe, A. B., Newell, R. G., & Stavins, R. N. (2005). A tale of two market failures: Technology and environmental policy. Ecological Economics, 54(2), 164-174.

Liu, Z., Mao, X., Tu, J., & Jaccard, M. (2014). A comparative assessment of economic-incentive and command-and-control instruments for air pollution and CO2 control in China’s iron and steel sector. Journal of Environmental Management, 144, 135-142.

MacKenzie, D. (2009). Making things the same: Gases, emission rights and the politics of carbon markets. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 34(3), 440-455.

Meinshausen, M., Smith, S. J., Calvin, K., Daniel, J. S., Kainuma, M. L. T., Lamarque, J. F., & Van Vuuren, D. P. P. (2011). The RCP greenhouse gas concentrations and their extensions from 1765 to 2300. Climatic Change, 109(1-2), 213-241.

Metcalf, G. E. (2009). Market-based policy options to control US greenhouse gas emissions. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(4), 5-27.

Muller, N. Z., Mendelsohn, R., & Nordhaus, W. (2011). Environmental accounting for pollution in the United States economy. The American Economic Review, 1649-1675.

Nordhaus, W. D. (2007). To tax or not to tax: Alternative approaches to slowing global warming. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 1(1), 26-44.

Owen, A. D. (2006). Renewable energy: Externality costs as market barriers. Energy Policy, 34(5), 632-642.

Pirard, R. (2012). Market-based instruments for biodiversity and ecosystem services: A lexicon. Environmental Science & Policy, 19, 59-68.

Pizer, W. A. (2006). 38 Choosing Price or Quantity Controls for Greenhouse Gases. The RFF Reader in Environmental and Resource Policy, 9(1), 225-227.

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) (2015). CO2 Budget Trading Program – Auction Results. Available online at http://www.rggi.org/market/co2_auctions/results accessed 26 September 2015.

Stephan, B., & Paterson, M. (2012). The politics of carbon markets: an introduction. Environmental Politics, 21(4), 545-562.

Suter, J., Poe, G., Schulze, W., Segerson, K., & Vossler, C. (2005). Beyond optimal linear tax mechanisms: an experimental examination of damage-based ambient taxes for nonpoint polluters. In Selected Paper prepared for presentation at the American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Providence, Rhode Island, July 24 (Vol. 27).

Vossler, C. A., Suter, J. F., & Poe, G. L. (2013). Experimental evidence on dynamic pollution tax policies. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization,93, 101-115.

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

Assignment 1:
Comparative Study

How does Ionesco and Beckett’s dramaturgy in ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘The Bald Soprano’ express the absurdist and existentialist view that life is essentially meaningless.

‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘The Bald Soprano’ are two of the most classic examples of why life is called the theatre of the absurd. The Theatre of the Absurd came about as a reaction to World War II. It took the basis of existential philosophy and combined it with dramatic elements to create a style of theatre which presented a universe which cannot be logically explained or defined; life is therefore meaningless and lacks purpose.

The conventional qualities of traditional theatre: realistic characters and situations, comprehensible dialogues and a clear plot, were abandoned to convey this vision of absurdity. Instead, the characteristics which coincide with many of the plays in this modern absurdist theatre: broad comedy, tragic images, characters in hopeless situations, nonsensical dialogues full of cliches and wordplay; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive were adopted and replaced the concept of the “well-made play”.

Of these characteristics, this essay focuses on the dramaturgy, more specifically the ‘cyclical’ dramaturgy that Beckett and Ionesco adopted in their plays, and how this is effective in expressing the absurdist and existentialist vision that life is inherently without meaning or purpose.

As many Absurdist playwrights, Beckett and Ionesco did away with most of the logical structures of traditional theatre. Thus, ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘The Bald Soprano’ are often described as ‘anti plays’; they reject a coherent story-line, deviate from the traditional episodic structure, and seem to move in a circle, ending the same way they began. The plays have a beginning, but the beginning seems in a way arbitrary because what happened before the beginning does not seem important.

The plays have an end, but the end somewhat recalls the beginning and thus a sense of circularity is created replacing the sense of closure that conventional stories generally provide. John W. Fiero makes an interesting observation that the ‘Ouroboros’, a snake devouring its own tail, can serve as the new structural paradigm. It suggests an endless, tedious, and futile cycle.

Beckett’s and Ionesco’s plays both rely on repetition and ‘looping’: in ‘Waiting for Godot’ the protagonists decide to move and then do not move, over and over again; the two sets of families in ‘The Bald Soprano’ become interchangeable at the end of the play. This reinforces the absurdist and existentialist idea of life as having no clear purpose and of life being an interminable waiting for a sense of purpose or closure that is unlikely ever to arrive.

The seemingly endless waiting that Estragon and Vladimir undertake for the mysterious Godot reflects this idea and to effectively express it, Beckett abandons traditional plot development and creates a circular symmetrical movement throughout ‘Waiting for Godot.’ The second act parallels the first. Nothing new happens: Godot fails to appear in both acts, Vladimir and Estragon find themselves caught in these pointless routines and repetitive pantomimes, further emphasizing the ridiculous purposelessness of their lives.

In Act 2 the characters engage in ways that closely parallel the first act; the key difference seems to be an increased struggle in the second act to pass the time, which passed quickly in the first act because of Pozzo and Lucky, whose appearance is briefer in the second act. This pointless waiting and boredom makes Estragon more desperate to leave and Vladimir continually reminds him why they mustn’t leave because they’re waiting for Godot:

VLADIMIR: We can’t.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We’re waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON: (despairingly) Ah! (Pause.)
You’re sure it was here?

Here we are given information that these two men are waiting for someone called Godot and Estragon’s tone suggests the possibility that it is not the first time and that they have done it before and been disappointed. This adds to the effect that there is no real beginning and their present situation is somewhat static. The characters want to go but feel stuck waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON: What about hanging ourselves?
ESTRAGON: Don’t let’s do anything.
VLADIMIR: Let’s wait and see what he says.
ESTRAGON: Who?

VLADIMIR: Godot.
They want to commit suicide, but have grown either too lethargic or too helpless to act on their desires, they are too caught up in their routines and habits. In their presence, even Pozzo catches on to this feeling, at the moment of his departure, they have an absurdly repetitive dialogue and Pozzo finds himself unable to leave:
VLADIMIR: Adieu.
POZZO: Adieu.
ESTRAGON: Adieu
[silence]
POZZO: And thank you.
VLADIMIR: Thank you
POZZO: Not at all
ESTRAGON: Yes yes
POZZO: No no.
[silence]
POZZO: I seem to be unable…[Long hesitation]…to depart.
ESTRAGON: Such is life.

Paralysed, immobilised, forced to remain stationary, they must remain passive as well. Unable to act, they are capable only of waiting, waiting for the end they know will never come. But they remain still, in constant hope of being acted upon and remain in the same situation throughout the play, just as nothing really begun, nothing ever finishes.

This structure of the play serves to reinforce the timelessness of their situation, thus emphasising on the pointlessness of their lives, that time passes by and nothing changes, but they remain in this static situation helplessly waiting for something, a reason or purpose to live, that they subconsciously know will never come to them.

This similar cyclical, repetitive and absurd structure, ending where it first began, is adopted in Ionesco’s ‘Bald Soprano’. In fact the “Bald Soprano” itself was inspired by the inane sentences Ionesco read again and again in the textbook he used to learn English. Already, Ionesco had acquired this sense of repetition and practical cyclical movement through his learning of a language.

‘The Bald Soprano’s’ cyclical structure suggests that an infinite and tedious replay is possible but is aborted, not because there has to be an ending, but simply for practical necessity. Ionesco had to find a way to bring his play to closure; His first working solution was to end the action abruptly, using a sort of ‘deus ex machina’ device in which the performance was closed down by the Superintendent of Police and his men, who open fire at the rebellious audience and simply order the theatre vacated.

Other possibilities were considered but they were rejected as too problematic. Eventually, it was decided that the play should simply begin again, giving the work its cyclical structure. The final structural refinement was to substitute the Martins for the Smiths in the repeated opening. So the story begins again at the ‘end’, but the characters now play new roles. The actor that first played Mrs. Smith now plays Mrs. Martin; the former maid becomes the fire chief; and so on.

[The play begins again with the Martins, who say exactly the same lines as the Smiths in the first scene, while the curtain softly falls]

In ‘The Bald Soprano’, the repetitive structure also parallels the language, one of the main themes in the play. Repetition is the perfect example of the freezing of language; the discussion between Mr. and Mrs. Smith for example. Following a long series of coincidences, told in exhaustive detail and in an irritating repetitive pattern (the same sentence structure, even the same sentences are repeated: “How curious! How bizarre! What a coincidence!”) The two come to the conclusion that they are married.

Similarly to the characters in ‘Waiting for Godot’, the characters in ‘The Bald Soprano’ find themselves caught up in a ridiculous, vicious cycle of repetition, nonsensical yet logically thought through. This also expresses an absurdist and existentialist view on society and its meaningless conversation between people, words are used to express the most banal facts, but essentially they mean nothing, they express nothing but emptiness. This therefore reflects the meaninglessness of life in general.

Also, there is a parallel symbolism between the circular structure of the play and the eminent presence of the clock. Both are a representation of time; Time is not linear, on the contrary it is circular, much like a clock, whose hands constantly turn in a circular motion. In ‘Waiting for Godot’, the moon plays a similar role as a symbol which intensifies the passing of time and as an image of circularity.

This repetitive cyclical structure also serves as a representation of memory (or lack thereof), a theme expressed in both ‘The Bald Soprano’ and ‘Waiting for Godot’; life is happening to Vladimir and Estragon but they recall little of what is past and Mr and Mrs Smith only find out through a long conversational process that they are in fact married.

In ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘The Bald Soprano’ we see that the [absurdist and existentialist] ideas that inform the plays also dictate their dramaturgy. In both plays there is little dramatic action (in the conventional sense); however the repetitive actions and dialogues serve to highlight that no matter how they try to fill time, nothing happens to change their existence.

In Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, plot is eliminated, and a timeless, circular quality emerges as Estragon and Vladimir spend their days waiting (but without any certainty of whom they are waiting for and whether he, or it, will ever come) In ‘The Bald Soprano’ this quality parallels language; The characters in ‘The Bald Soprano’ sit and talk, repeating the obvious until it sounds like nonsense, thus revealing the inadequacies and futility of verbal communication and conversation. The ridiculous, repetitive and purposeless behaviour and talk give the plays a sometimes comic surface, but there is an underlying philosophical message, the absurdist and existentialist view that life is essentially without meaning or purpose.

Bibliography:

Beckett, Samuel, 2006, Waiting for Godot, London, Faber and Faber Limited

Ionesco, Eugene, 1958, The Bald Soprano & Other Plays, New York, Grove Press Inc.

Esslin, M., The Theater of the Absurd. 3^rd ed. 2004, Vintage, USA.

Graver, L., Beckett: Waiting for Godot: A Student Guide. 2^nd ed. 2004 CUP, UK.

Schechner, Richard, The Bald Soprano and The Lesson: An Inquiry into Play Structure http://www.drama21c.net/writers/ionesco/schechner1.htm: accessed on 31/08/08

Scope- Archive: Articles, Portals Special Issue, Anti-Theatre on Film http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/article.php?issue=3&id=85&section=article&q=jean: accessed on 31/08/08

Niehuis, Terry, in an essay for Drama for Students, Gale, 1997 Waiting for Godot (Criticism).
http://www.answers.com/topic/waiting-for-godot-play-8: accessed on 28/08/08

WCU- Spring 2006 Analyzing WAITING FOR GODOT.

http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2005/godot-notes-05.html: accessed on 20/08/08

Godot

http://samuel-beckett.net/Penelope/Godot.html: accessed on 20/08/08

Answers.com, “The Bald Soprano (Style)”

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-bald-soprano-play-4: accessed on 31/08/08

Answers.com, “Waiting for Godot (Style)”

www.answers.com/topic/waiting-for-godot-play-5: accessed on 31/08/08

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Theatre of the Absurd

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Absurd: accessed on 20/08/08

Theatre of the Absurd — Britannica Online Encyclopedia

www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/2002/Theatre-of-the-Absurd: accessed on 28/08/08

Resume de la piece En attendant Godot de Samuel Beckett 2006

www.etudes-litteraires.com/forum/sujet-592-resume-piece-attendant-godot-samuel-beckett: accessed on 31/08/08

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

Theatre academic and cultural commentator Christopher Bigsby makes the point that theatre, as opposed to, say, the novel, is essentially a public experience (2000, p. 9). Where a novel may make comment on political issues, it does do in private, in a one-to-one relationship between author and reader. A play, on the other hand, is written for the public: it is experienced live and with a live audience of others who are experiencing the same production as you are in the same moment. This, for Bigsby, is what makes theatre uniquely poised to draw parallels between the specifics of the drama on stage, and the generalities of the social and political contexts of the play’s writing, its original and its revival productions. This essay will examine this in relationship to twentieth century American politics and society. It will do this by drawing on two preeminent examples of US theatre from different generations of writing: The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet. The political contexts of both plays will be considered, and thematic and textual aspects will be considered, alongside critical and wider reactions and responses to the plays, both at the time of their first presentations, and over time. Two different approaches to using drama as commentary will be introduced and explored: allegory and specific example.

The Crucible was Arthur Miller’s third major play, coming after 1947’s All My Sons and 1952’s Death of a Salesman. Miller was by then established as a major playwright, having won the Pulitzer Prize for Salesman (Pfister 2005). Miller later commented that:

the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up a new relationship between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us know more, and not merely to spend our feelings (Miller, in Pfister 2005).

It was in The Crucible that Miller would explore these connections, by writing a play that would make allegorical comment on contemporary American politics and society.

The use of the Massachusetts witch trials as a device for theatrical comment on contemporary America was not one unique to Miller. Welland (1979, pp. 74-5) notes that three other plays had done so in the previous decade. Marion Starkey, author of 1949’s The Devil in Massachusetts, comments thusly in her introduction to her play: “[o]ne would like to hope that leaders of the modern world can in the end deal with delusion as sanely and courageously as the men of old Massachusetts dealt with theirs” (in Welland, 1979, pp. 74-5). The issue by 1952, the year prior to The Crucible’s first performance, was that of the congressional investigation into un-American activities headed by Senator Joseph McCarthy (Bigsby, 2000, p. 87-8).

The McCarthy hearings, seeking to unmask Communist sympathisers in the contexts of a United States that was wary of the world order post-1945, the fresh superpower dynamic between the States and the USSR, and the emerging superpower antipathy between those two nations, were seen by Miller – and many other liberals – as a threat to the nation (Bigsby 2000, 88). Miller said (quoted in Bigsby, 2000, p. 88) that “there was a new religiosity in the air … conscience was no longer a private matter but one of state administration. I saw men handing conscience to other men and thanking other men for the opportunity of doing so”.

The Crucible tells the story of the witch trials, focusing on the character of John Proctor.Proctor first seeks to query the burgeoning fear gripping the Salem community when the witchcraft allegations are first made, and then is drawn in as the charges widen to include his household; he is forced to defend himself and his conscience. The inquisitorial manner of the legalistic Puritans who pursue the truth behind the allegations soon becomes overtaken by a zeal to find all who are accused guilty by whatever means possible. Welland (1979, p. 84-5) states the experience of watching the play “is to be overwhelmed by the simple impotence of honest common sense against fanaticism that is getting out of control”, and provides a reminder that “sheer goodness … is just not enough to counter such deviousness”. The language of the powerful overwhelms: it “establish[es] the grammar of human relationships, who determine the vocabulary in which the social debate is conducted” (Bigsby, 2000, p. 90). Proctor in the play – and by extension those in the 1950s theatre audience who are subject to McCarthyite inquisition, or who have sympathies with them – finds himself caught in their rhetoric and in their discourse, and is entrapped in their language.

Though to some extent The Crucible is indelibly linked to the contexts of its writing and first performance, it has proved to “not be limited to its time” (Bigsby, 2000, p. 93). The play is frequently revived and is given fresh vitality and currency by its allegoric nature: a play of the 1950s set in that time and which approached the McCarthy-led hearings head-on might well have less of the universality of Miller’s piece, which has since been staged and restaged widely, from the 2014 London Old Vic revival to “a successful production in the 1980s in the Peoples Republic of China” (Bigsby, 2000, p. 93).

Whereas Arthur Miller tackled a specific political reality in the context of the Cold War, in his 1983 play Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet examined something more nebulous, though still a political reality of its time: that of capitalism and of corporate greed in the Reagan era. Ronald Reagan was US president from 1980 to 1988 and in many ways the American counterpart of the UK’s Margaret Thatcher (prime minister from 1979 to 1991) in pursuing a free market-oriented and commercial-focused agenda within a wider brief of opposing what turned out to be the latter day of the Cold War (Kopkind, 2004). Both administrations promised to “to implement parallel monetarist, free market, and incentive-based economic policies” (Cooper, 2013).

For Bigsby (2000, p. 213) Glengarry Glen Ross is, like earlier Mamet stage productions, is “a play ‘set deeply in the milieu of capitalism’, an idea which [Mamet] suggests has exhausted itself”. The play concerns a group of real-estate salesmen led by Richard “Ricky” Roma, and their office manager Williamson; they are locked together in conflict for sales and for the security of their jobs. The play takes place over an evening and the following morning, in a Chinese restaurant near their offices, and the following day in the office. Central to the plot of the play are sales leads: the current leads are weak and sales are suffering, but the new leads will only be given out to proven sellers. The rest of the sales force will be dismissed.

Bigsby (2000, p. 219) sees this set-up as “a neat paradigm of a competitive capitalist society”. As only the successful are prioritised by the keeping of their jobs and the access to the new leads, then success is seen to lead to success: the rest must fall by the wayside. So pressure is applied to succeed; this leads to sharp practice and to criminality in order to secure that competitive edge. In the play this is illustrated by the theft of the leads, and the conversations the salesmen have where the leads’ potential is discussed. Failing salesman Shelley Levene pleads, with mounting hysteria, about his need to sell; he is desperate for access to the new leads, which Williamson is unwilling to give. Salesmen Aaronow and Moss discuss the potential theft of the leads; Moss works to sell the concept of stealing them to Aaronow. Third is a conversation between two men who, we come to learn, are Roma and a client, James Lingk. Roma works to seduce Lingk into making a buy by appealing to both their manufactured friendship and to Lingk’ss masculinity. Each of these conversations is marked by power relationships; these are all unequal exchanges.

The second act focuses on the aftermath of the theft. Levene is ecstatic because of a much-needed commission sale overnight; Roma likewise has sold to Lingk, but becomes distressed when Williamson undoes his work; Aaronow and Moss react with confusion and frustration respectively when accused of the crime and when called in for police questioning. It is revealed that we have been misdirected: Levene is the one who’s been manipulated by Moss into taking and selling the leads to a competitor. Furthermore, Levene has been outwitted and outmanoeuvred again, this time by the people he made the sale to overnight, as they are revealed to be cranks with no money.

The second act relationships mirror those of the first act; the same characters are involved in the exchanges, but their positions are altered by shifts in power. Levene glories at fist in his power over Williamson, Moss has his crime unpicked, Roma finds the limits of his seductive sales technique.

Mamet’s salesmen are desperate men, forever living on their wits – on their ability to use and to manipulate language to own ends. Bigsby (2000, p. 221) notes that each relationship they have or enter in is a negotiation: human interaction becomes capitalist in this context. A competitive edge is always sought. Furthermore, the possibility of duplicity or betrayal is always possible, not least because these characters are all trying to do that to others. Their whole society is predicated on social engineering and on corruption of language towards venal ends; to that extent, they and their society are corrupt also. Bigsby (2000, p. 222) sees that if Mamet’s characters “pervert language, distort values and divert profound psychological needs into temporary social objectives, this is no more than do those who direct national policy or construct the fantasies of commercial and political life”. The link between the specifics of the drama on stage and its correlation to the national and cultural dynamic of Reagan’s America are clearly drawn here.

Nightingale (in Bigsby, 2004, p. 102) sees Glengarry Glen Ross as “a play virtually unequalled in the quantitative and qualitative evidence it provides for moral dismay and grim social re¬‚ection”. For Nightingale (in Bigsby, 2004, p. 96), the play is not solely an expose and a rebuttal of business ethics but also of “an America that, as Mamet has said, is ‘a very violent society full of a lot of hate: you can’t put a band-aid on a suppurating wound’”. This is drama as a political critique: an examination of the ethics of a worldview (that of Reaganism) through the filter of a contemporary case study intended to be seen as emblematic of a greater, and similarly problematic, whole.

This essay has sought to outline and examine the ways in which American theatre in the twentieth century has been applied to wider political conversations. Miller’s The Crucible takes a seventeenth century cause celebre and a foundational story of pre-Constitution America and draws parallels between Puritan religious hysteria and anti-Communist searches as spearheaded by the Senate Committee on Un-American Activities under Joseph McCarthy. This is drama as allegory, and as such, not only were contemporary audiences able to make that link for themselves – the play has demonstrated over time that its messages have resonance for other times and geographies, even though that link to the 1950s remains dominant. David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross takes another approach: that of didactic example. Reagan’s 1980s are held to account through a case study of capitalism in action. Mamet’s salesmen are in turns aggressive, hectoring, pleading, desperate, seductive, criminal , manipulative, and self-serving. The society in which they operate, and the political system that not merely sustains but which actively supports this; is thus critiqued. Murphy (2006, pp 411-29) sketches the ways in which American theatre developed through the twentieth century. From being almost wholly mass entertainment and spectacle-based with little original writing to a theatre that was able to, as Murphy (2006, p. 429) puts it, “confront audiences with the issues of the day”, the century has seen the American stage become a mechanism by which US playwrights might hold the country’s politics to account.

Bibliography

Bigsby, C. W. E. (2000)Modern American Drama, 1945-2000. 2nd edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Cooper, J. (2013)History & Policy. Available at: http://www.historyandpolicy.org/opinion-articles/articles/reagan-vs.-thatcher-unpicking-the-special-relationship (Accessed: 7 October 2015).

Kopkind, A. (2004)The Age of Reaganism. Available at: http://www.thenation.com/article/age-reaganism/ (Accessed: 7 October 2015).

Mamet, D. (2004)Glengarry Glen Ross. London: Methuen Drama.

Miller, A. (2000)The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts (Penguin Modern Classics). London: Penguin Classics.

Murphy, B. (2006)The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture (Cambridge Companions to Culture). Edited by Christopher Bigsby. 1st edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Nightingale, J. (2004)Cambridge Companion to David Mamet (Cambridge Companions to Literature Series). Edited by Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pfister, J. (2005)The Crucible. Available at: http://www.ibiblio.org/miller/crucibleteachnotes.html (Accessed: 6 October 2015).

Saddik, A. J. (2007)Contemporary American Drama (Edinburgh Critical Guides to Literature). Edited by Martin Halliwell and Andy Mousley. 1st edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

The Crucible – The Old Vic(no date) Available at: http://www.oldvictheatre.com/whats-on/2014/the-crucible/ (Accessed: 7 October 2015).

Welland, D. S. R. and Well, D. (1979)Miller: A Study Of His Plays. London: Eyre Methuen.

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

From the novel Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) edition Chris Baldick argues that “the ‘monster’s’ most convincingly human characteristic is of course his power of speech.”

Explore the significance of the ‘monster’s’ voice in Mary Shelley’s novel.

Few texts have pervaded the cultural consciousness to take on the afterlife of a haunting myth, as with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818). To a twenty-first century reader, the image of ‘Frankenstein,’ often wrongly identified as the creature rather than creator, has become conflated with that of Boris Karloff, an actor in a 1931 filmic representation, which, in a true expression of creative license, was a non-speaking role. However, readers of the text will remember the creature as both intellectual and articulate in voicing his account of life through to the projection of his death. This paper seeks to explore the significance of the creature’s voice, arguing that it adds a philosophical and moral dimension to the novel that would have otherwise been absent.

The narrative structure of Frankenstein involves imbedded stories, where tales appear nested within other tales. Even the very epistolary nature of the text itself is fraught with tension, as the final pages reveal the letter-writing to align itself more closely with journal entries, with the poetic ending to the text neglecting either a form of signing off to the reader or a self-reflexive ending common to diary entries. This makes us question whether Walton’s sister, Margaret, was indeed the intended reader of the entire narrative, which notably and often conceals the letter-writing format to allow the action of the narrative to take precedence.

The narrative structure thus problematises any interpretation of language as straightforward and individually assigned and distinct. A study of Frankenstein as a gothic novel would introduce readings of cultural binaries, where the juxtaposition of normal and human with monstrous and inhuman would suggest that the creature’s voice was intended to sharpen these distinctions. However, as Joyce Carol Oates argues, ‘everyone in Frankenstein sounds alike’ (1983: 549). All events are relayed retrospectively; conversations have often been mediated by knowledge of more recent events, and have been filtered, in the creature’s case, through an expanding consciousness. Voices echo one another, in a blurred and indistinct fashion. This is largely because the epistolary format means that the only voice we hear is actually Walton’s own, and even this has been mediated for a selected female readership. The monster’s voice is largely heard through his petition to the one who seeks his ruin, and even the reliability of Walton’s tale is mediated and arguably jeopardised by his earnest desire for friendship and his wish that Victor would fulfil that role.

Noticeably, the voice of the creature appears identical in both Walton’s account of Victor’s story and of Walton’s narration of his own encounter with the creature. This is largely attributable to the fact that all events are filtered through multiple layers, including Walton’s own memory. Interestingly, Oates further argues that it is naive to read Frankenstein as one would a novel, for ‘it contains no characters, only points of views; its concerns are pointedly moral and didactic…’ (1983: 549). Baldick interprets this as ‘dialogical openness,’ (1997: 44) whereby the moral framework of the novel is an open debate between the perspectives of Victor, the creature and Walton. The employment of multiple narrations is an effective tool for undermining verisimilitude, as it compromises the certainty of identity and narration, proving these to be unknowable and always mediated. These ‘contrasting’ points of view do not hold fast; the monster is both sympathetic and vengeful, and his reflections are unreliably mediated by his transformation into a heightened state of consciousness.

In terms of the creature’s identity as a gendered being, many feminist critics have argued that the creature is constructed as a woman through his acquisition of language. The creature’s passive surveillance of domestic life mirrors the female sphere, and his education is largely informed by Felix’s tuition to his intended bride, Safie. As one criticism that is oft levied against Mary Shelley is that her female characters do not take an active stance but conform to traditional ideas of femininity, we have no reason to believe that Safie’s education is atypical or controversially aligned with the masculine sphere. Although it is outside of the remit of this essay to speculate on a gendered construction through language, it is important to note that the creature’s voice is a product of an education largely intended and deemed suitable for the domestic sphere.

As a foreigner, Safie is allowed access to the shared collective that is language; however, her right of access is granted on the grounds that she has a musical voice and a ‘countenance of angelic beauty and expression.’ (Shelley, 1993: 93) She does not posit a challenge to conventional definitions of normality. Indeed, the blind De Lacey permits a conversation with the creature before his impressions become mediated through the eyes of the dominant group. Participating in a shared system of language is thus only effective in generating empathy or connection up until the moment that sight is introduced. Shelley reveals here that language may be knowledge, but it is not wisdom. Indeed, De Lacey mimics the reader, for the oral nature of storytelling restricts visibility and privileges the command of language.

The creature becomes highly articulate, and is also considered persuasive by both Walton and Frankenstein. Walton responds to the monster’s declaration by stating,

His voice seemed suffocated; and my first impulses, which had suggested to me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend, in destroying his enemy were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and compassion. (Shelley, 1993: 187)

However, Walton can only register the persuasiveness of the monster’s words whilst he is neglecting the sensation of sight. To sustain communication with the creature, he must avert his eyes, for as soon as his eyes encounter the deformed being, his indignation returns and his sympathy dissolves. Likewise, Frankenstein destroys the female being that he is creating, after gazing upon the monster’s distorted features and being consumed by a fit of passion. The monster’s articulate powers of persuasion are thus rendered subservient to sight, which takes precedence over a convincingly human-sounding tongue. Echoing the villagers, who pass condemnation before allowing the monster to speak, Victor states upon first encountering the monster in his bedchamber; ‘he might have spoken, but I did not hear’ (Shelley, 1993: 40). The creature correctly articulates that ‘the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union’ (Shelley, 1993: 119).

Indeed, the word monster, which Shelley frequently repeats, is derived from the Latin word mon-strare, which means ‘to show… bodily anomaly signified’ (Ingebretsen, 2001: 211). It thus implies an element of display, of visual difference. Interestingly, the way that the monster interacts with humans throughout the course of the novel alters from being visually sighted to, as in the last few encounters, his presence being heard or detected through sound. This calls into question the very notion of his monstrosity, as he has been transformed from an object on display to a being, endowed with the powers of communication. Baldick argues that the ‘monster’s’ most convincing human characteristic is of course his power of speech’ (1997: 45). Harold Bloom echoes this premise: the creature is both more ‘intellectual and more emotional’ and ‘more human than his creator’ (1965: 613). The ability to experience and convey pain is transmitted entirely through the creature’s use of language: voice enlightens where the narratives of others fail.

The creature is portrayed as thoroughly a product of the grand narratives that were central to the Romantic period, born a blank slate with works of cultural standing subsequently informing his mind. His moral and intellectual compass is largely shaped by the reading of three texts, which form what Peter Brooks refers to as a ‘Romantic cyclopedia universalis’ (1993: 205). Mastering the Romantic worldview enables him to speculate and self-identify as a sympathetic figure. One such influential text that forms his education is Milton’s Paradise Lost, which seeks to recast the tragedy of creation on a scale of mythological and biblical magnitude. The creature views his struggle through the lens of Milton’s epic, as a victim of the violation of the natural order. Indeed the epigraph of the novel, also from Paradise Lost, laments his very existence:

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me? (Milton, 1873: 743-745)

Borrowing a line from such an epic work underpins the central argument of a disgruntled creation wrestling with his creator. By allowing the monster’s viewpoint to dominate the epigraph and frame the novel, Shelley provides an authorial and sympathetic sanctioning to the monster’s plight of unsolicited existence.

The techniques that Shelley uses to construct the monster’s voice are both informed by and a comment on the philosophical views held by leading figures at the time of writing. The creature is not merely presented as a sympathetic character, but as a portrayal of emerging consciousness. In the act of relating his narrative, the creature does not repeat the incident that had originally formed such an unfavourable impression upon Frankenstein. That is to say, the creature does not begin his tale from the scene where he invades his creator’s bedchambers and is rejected in his quest to seek community. Shelley thus sacrifices an opportunity of soliciting sympathy from the reader through allowing the monster to offer an explanation of innocence that would have added colour and dimension to Victor’s account. The creature’s story leaves Frankenstein’s account unmodified, neglecting the tale of rejection for a higher purpose.

Shelley instead commences the monster’s narrative from his dawning of consciousness, and compares it to that of a newborn. Arguably, Shelley plays with philosopher John Locke’s idea that we are born as a blank canvas, with the mind a ‘white paper void of all character’ (1952: 11, 1, 2). The monster actively sets out to acquire language out of his need for human intimacy, mirroring the acquisition of language of a child. Infancy has its stem in the Latin word infans, which translates to one ‘who cannot speak’ (Brookes, 2004: 606). He thenceforth learns language through imitation, as a child would; learning is thus how one forms human consciousness. The creature learns through causation and effect, often experiencing pain and learning how to address the sensation by taking action.

Upon mastering language, the creature retrospectively constructs a narrative out of a flood of competing sensory signals that characterised his early days of education. By relaying his past impressions through an enlightened state of consciousness, the monster shows that he has the emotional sensitivity of a baby who weeps upon first entering the world. This evocation is not just using heavily emotive language to elicit sympathy from Victor, but through the narration of his initial sensations, the reader is positioned to view him as one would a vulnerable, abandoned child.

As Jones argues, Shelley ‘emphasise[s] the importance of learning to the emergence of human consciousness and understanding’ (2003: 158). The monster hypothesises that a mastery of language will bring him into communion with humans, and compensate for deficiencies of countenance. In this aim, he acquires articulacy and understanding of the cultural codes that construct human civilisation. The acquisition of education results in producing a voice that ultimately proves ineffectual, as it only heightens his disconnection to the social group that he desires communion with. Importantly, the relationship between Felix and Safie demonstrates that romantic attachments can transcend language barriers. However, as Jones argues, the cultural discourses that the creature seeks to emulate ‘are borrowed from the very ideology that excludes him’ (2003: 211). Shelley shows that language is artificial, a cultural construction that benefits only the ruling class.

In Frankenstein, the creature’s voice has been intricately crafted by Mary Shelley to aid her portrayal of a sympathetic character, who refuses to conform to our expectations of the ‘other’. Shelley problematises conventional ideas of what is monstrous, revealing a character whose speech at the very least simulates human consciousness, but also is inseparably connected with and filtered through another’s way of seeing. The creature’s narrative is a profound philosophical and moral comment on the Romantic consciousness, ultimately revealing that no perspective reigns supreme, and labels and perceptions of difference collapse at their very borders.

Bibliography:

Baldick, C., (1997) In Frankenstein’s Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Bloom, H., (1965) Frankenstein, or the New Prometheus, Partisan Review, xxxii, 618.

Brookes, I., (ed) (2004) Chambers Concise Dictionary. New Delhi: Allied Chambers.

Brooks, P., (1993) What is a Monster?aˆ?(According to Frankenstein) In Body Work. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, pp. 199-220; reprinted in Frankenstein/Mary Shelley (1995) ed. Fred Botting. New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 81-106

Ingebretsen, Edward J., (2001) At stake: monsters and the rhetoric of fear in public culture. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Jones, Jonathan D., (2003) Orphans: childhood alienation and the idea of the self in Rousseau, Wordsworth and Mary Shelley. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

Locke, J., (1952) “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” in Great Books of the Western World 35 ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Milton, J., (1873) Paradise Lost. London: Basil Montagu.

Oates, Joyce C., (1983) Frankenstein’s Fallen Angel. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 3 Mar., pp. 543-554.

Shelley, M., (1993) Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text, ed. Marilyn Butler, London: William Pickering.

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

Compare and contrast the ways in which the writers present the theme of isolation to construct the characters of Rochester, Jane and Antoinette in “Jane Eyre” and “Wide Sargasso Sea”.

The theme of isolation is utilised in English literature to shape the principal characters and provide a particular vision on some crucial aspects of their identities. The aim of this essay is to compare and contrast the ways, in which Charlotte Bronte and Jean Rhys interpret the theme of isolation to construct such characters as Rochester and Jane from the novel Jane Eyre and Antoinette from Wide Sargasso Sea. In these literary works the ideas of isolation are presented as a direct result of characters’ loneliness that they have experienced since early childhood, thus the writers apply both to social and inner isolation. The reality, in which these people live, is so harsh that they isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Such alienation is a complex psychological disorder that influences the formation of characters’ identities. Isolation results in the expulsion of a person from all social affairs and interactions, preventing him/her to become a full member of society. Although Jean Rhys utilises the similar idea of isolation as Bronte’s narration, she provides her own interpretation of this issue. Contrary to Bronte, the writer considers that madness of a woman is not innate, but rather is a consequence of the injured self that is formed in a person because of isolation and oppression. In this regard, isolation is perceived by characters as a certain rescue that seems to save them for a time being, but, in fact, it gradually destroys these protagonists. The fact is that the identity of a person is created through certain social and cultural interactions with people, but isolation deprives him/her of acquiring the completeness of identity.

Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway, the principal female characters of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, are portrayed as entirely isolated personalities who, despite the different background and different living conditions, experience similar loneliness and despair. Jane is a little orphan who is treated cruelly by her aunt and who is isolated from the rest of the household. When Jane is sent into Lowood Institution, her isolation is aggravated; she is transformed into a reserved and serious woman with low self-esteem and lack of hopes. Similar to Jane, Antoinette’s isolation starts at home and continues in the nunnery, influencing her identity. She spends almost all time in the room and close people regard her as mad, although she acts in a rather normal way. But, contrary to Jane, such prolonged isolation results in more complex psychological destruction and further madness of Antoinette . As she claims at the beginning of the narration, no one came near us. I got used to a solitary life (Rhys 18). No one notices her and her family; instead people betray her trust and hopes. Antoinette’s isolation in childhood shapes her personality, negatively influencing her adult life and relations with people. This vulnerable and emotionally destroyed woman lives in her own created world, and when Rochester, a person whom she loves, alienates from her, she can no longer endure this isolation. Antoinette seeks love and attention, but her own husband fails to understand her.

Rhys reveals that Rochester’s isolation can’t be explained by his severity; instead he is portrayed as a destroyed personality who is forced to marry a person chosen by his family and who has to live in a place alien to him. Antoinette regards Rochester’s alienation as his inability to accept something that is different from his well-ordered life and habits. As a result of Rochester’s alienation, his attitude to Antoinette is sometimes negative, and gradually, she is transformed into a mad female, like her own mother, but Rhys opposes to the view that Antoinette inherits this madness from her mother. Instead, throughout the narration she stresses on the fact that isolation inevitably brings a woman to this psychological disorder. Antoinette’s mind is split and she flees into the past, isolating herself not only from the outside world, but also from her present life. Such isolation appears to be really dangerous for such a sensitive woman, and, as Coral Howells puts it, Antoinette’s moment of authenticity is also the moment of her destruction (121). In pursuit of escaping this isolation, Antoinette commits a suicide.

Thus, Antoinette fails to eliminate the negative emotions and feelings that are evoked by her loneliness and isolation. Although Jane Eyre also experiences anger and scorn towards her relatives, she manages to destroy these emotions. Unlike Antoinette, this young woman who feels isolation since childhood meets a person who experiences the same loneliness, and falls in love with him. This powerful feeling saves her from despair and finally destroys her isolation, she no longer wants to alienate from people, and especially from Rochester. The relations between Jane and Rochester differ from the relations between Rochester and Antoinette; in the case of Bronte’s narration both characters destroy their isolation and find necessary strength in each other, they are identical in many ways and are unable to live apart. As Jane claims, I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities or even of mortal flesh; – it is my spirit that addresses your spirit equal, – as we are! (Bronte 238). Rochester’s wives have really traumatic past that is aggravated by their isolation, but they respond differently to it. Although Jane loses her parents and is constantly ignored by society, her isolation helps her to develop some skills that provide her with necessary strength and allow her to overcome negative feelings. She becomes a mature young woman who possesses own viewpoints and who is able to evoke powerful feelings in another person. Jane expresses her dreams and loneliness in her beautiful drawings that allow her to successfully cope with her isolation. When Jane learns about Rochester’s wife, she decides to isolate herself from him, but finally she feels that he needs her and returns to him. Being an orphan, Jane understands that she has nobody to rely on, and she learns to rely only on herself. Contrary to Jane, Antoinette lives with her mother at the beginning, but she is alienated from her, because her mother is attached only to her brother, and when she loses him, she is destroyed.

As a naive and lonely girl, Antoinette finds comfort in her isolation, but deep inside she strives for attention and love. When she marries Rochester, she believes and trusts him, considering that he is her closest person. But when his attitude towards her changes, she isolates herself from him, destroying their relations. According to Schapiro, Both characters are furious at being unrealised by the other (99). Unlike Jane who becomes mature in Lowood School, Antoinette remains a little child who is greatly depended on other people and who is unable to act independently. In this regard, Antoinette’s madness aggravates alienation of Rochester who isolates himself even more after his unsuccessful marriage. Rochester finds it impossible to love a woman who is imposed on him, and when he starts to name her Bertha, he reveals his isolation from her. When Rochester meets Jane, he is attracted to her from the very start, but he finds it difficult to trust a woman again. He makes constant attempts to alienate from her, but he is unable to escape his feelings. Therefore, Antoinette’s isolation from reality and from close people slightly differs from isolation of Jane and Rochester. Their isolation is of different nature, they are socially isolated human beings. This especially concerns Jane who is distinctly alienated from society throughout the narration. When she marries Rochester, a member of the upper class, she still distances herself from others. Contrary to Antoinette who sometimes applies to provoking behaviour to attract attention of people towards her, Jane limits her relations to some close people. But unlike Antoinette, she doesn’t isolate herself from reality, trying to overcome the difficulties with her powerful spirit and moral principles.

Perhaps, Jane’s social isolation is explained by the fact that this young woman is unable to accept society that has constantly pushed her away. In childhood, instead of playing with children, Jane sits in the room in Gateshead listening to the sound of the piano or harp played below the jingling of glass the broken hum of conversation (Bronte 21).She is prohibited to enter the drawing room; only these sounds unite Jane with the world. Such isolation deprives Jane of any social interactions with other children or adults, resulting in her loneliness. As Jane claims, long did the hours seem while I awaited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs (Bronte 22). Bessie is the only person in this house who helps Jane to endure her complex position. Further in the school Jane meets Helen Burns and Miss Temple, the persons who have greatly influenced the character’s identity. Due to their close relations, Jane starts to feel warmth, love and sympathy, gradually destroying her negative feelings. Unlike Jane, Antoinette doesn’t have such people in her life, thus her isolation and loneliness result in the tragic end. While Jane finally finds her identity, Antoinette’s alienation complicates her relations with people. As Schapiro puts it, Rhys’s novel explores a psychological condition of profound isolation and self-division (84).

Antoinette’s lack of identity makes her rather helpless. Jane is simply isolated from society, but Antoinette is destroyed by society, because she is depended on people that reject her. As a result of her isolation, Antoinette is unable to understand her true self or form definite principles. Such inner tension deprives the female character of normal life and reveals a complex position of a woman in a patriarchal world. Although Jane is portrayed in the similar social context, she manages to overcome these biases and make other people respect her. She possesses more strength and restraint than Antoinette, that’s why Jane’s isolation doesn’t destroy her, as she finds her identity. But Antoinette’s inability to acquire identity deprives her of normal life and happiness. She is constantly utilised as an object, but is never accepted as a woman with willpower and strength. Thus, Antoinette’s madness is a tragic sequel of her isolation. When she marries Rochester, she makes an attempt to overcome this isolation, but as Rhys claims, You can pretend for a long time, but one day it all falls away and you are alone (130).

Analysing the ways in which the writers present the theme of isolation to construct the characters of Rochester, Jane and Antoinette from Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, the essay suggests that Bronte and Rhys provide both similar and different interpretations of this issue. Jane and Antoinette are brought up in the similar environment and are constantly isolated from society. It is in this isolation that these young women find necessary solace from the cruel reality, but, though this isolation seems rescued for a while, it finally negatively influences the characters’ identity. Due to the fact that isolation of these characters is of different nature, their destinies are also different. Jane is socially isolated throughout the narration, but she manages to find her identity and overcome negative feelings, and, although she is still alienated from the rest of society, she is very close with some people who love her. Antoinette is not only socially isolated, but she is also mentally isolated from reality. Contrary to Jane, she fails to acquire her identity; as a result, isolation and loneliness finally destroy her mind and make her commit a suicide. The lack of social relations and solitude of Antoinette deprive her of the possibility to recognise her true self. Her sensitive nature wants attention and love, but when she fails to receive them, she creates an unreal world, isolating herself even from her husband. Rochester is also isolated from society and from Antoinette, but his isolation is connected with his inability to accept an imposed marriage and everything that is different from his well-ordered existence. Rochester’s attempts to isolate himself from Jane reveal that he is afraid of powerful feelings; as his marriage with one woman fails, he alienates from other females as well. Besides, Rochester is fully ignored by his own family, thus all three principal characters are isolated in one way or another, either from society or from reality.

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

To Explore the Ways in Which Toni Morrison Portrays Negative Representations of her Female Characters and How She Goes Further to Challenge These Representations in Relation to Black Feminist Thought

Introduction

Toni Morrison is considered to be one of the most popular and most important authors of the 20th Century, especially considering that much of her literary work has actively challenged the stereotypes that have been imposed on African American women throughout history. The characters in her novels are beautifully crafted in order to allow the reader to explore their journeys and the way in which they are presented, thus questioning the perspective of history that has been created. However, many of the stereotypes have undoubtedly stuck in the African American conscious and so it is necessary to initially perpetuate women in those images prior to examining exactly how to expel those stereotypes for good. According to Ghaly, “Rethinking the traditional perspectives on identity and its relation to culture, [Morrison] eschew binary logic to explore multiple forms and root causes of social marginality.” As such, with this in mind, this essay will examine the African American female self in its stereotypical form within Morrison’s work and how it is constructed in relation to black feminist thought. This will be done with a view to concluding that Morrison undoubtedly goes some way to dispelling such negative representations and furthers the achievements of black feminism thought in the process. The book used for examination will be Sula (1973).

Black Feminist Thought and Negative Stereotypes

Patricia Hill Collins is one of the foremost scholars concerning the way in which African American women have been portrayed since the 19th Century, offering analysis as to how and why many black authors, intellectuals and prominent figures have been able to challenge stereotypes over the years. She stated that: “Black women intellectuals have laid a vital analytical foundation for a distinctive standpoint on self, community, and society and, in doing so, created a multifaceted, African-American women’s intellectual tradition.” Collins’s argument is indeed correct in that numerous authors have provided a firm analysis of the race’s female self through the eyes of the individual rather than the dominant white perspective. In highlighting this, Collins has also identified numerous themes, or “…six distinguishing features that characterize Black feminist thought may provide the common ground that it so sorely needed both among African-American women, and between African American women and all others whose collective knowledge or thought has a single purpose.” Those six areas that provide common ground and thus a common feminine experience are work and family, controlling matriarchs, self-definition, sexual politics, love relationships, motherhood and activism. Although these six areas provide common ground and thus can also form a collective identity of African American womanhood, they also provide the foundation of negative representations.

Dubey states that “…the black writer must replace negative stereotypes with positive images.” However, the use of the term “replace” gives the impression that negative stereotypes should be ignored rather than examined and developed in order to expel them, ensuring that female characters are allowed to evolve into positive images. Conversely, Collins advocates empowerment via experience and consciousness and that implies exorcising negative representations by exploring them thoroughly in order to humanise the black female experience. Morrison subscribes to this particular perspective, as her characters prove. However, it is necessary to explore the characters in Sula in order to assess whether or not she goes further to challenging representations in relation to black feminist thought or not.

The Whore and the Good Wife

Morrison offers two specific characterisations of the negative stereotypes that had traditionally been foisted on African American women – the whore and the good wife. The former is of course a means of describing Sula and the latter her “good” counterpart, Nel. The relationship between the two serves as one of the “black women’s friendships” that Collins states are vital to expelling negative representations. However, before examining the relationship between the two, it is important to examine the stereotypes they present individually. Sula is the promiscuous black woman that steps neatly into the role of whore at first glance as a result of her attitude towards sex and thus womanhood: “To Sula, sex is disconnected from emotion, a disembodied act of the body that allows her to feel a sorrow unattainable through any other means.” Although this highlights the aspect of the negative stereotype that suggests that black women are promiscuous by nature, it also hints at a far deeper significance that the act itself adopts for Sula, thus challenging the traditional representation. This is reinforced in the description of her upbringing that is offered by Morrison. Her mother “…taught Sula that sex was pleasant and frequent, but otherwise unremarkable.” As such, the stereotype presented by the character is effectively created by a maternal liberal attitude towards sex rather than it being an innate destructive quality that she was born with, as the traditional stereotype suggests. This directly challenges the stereotype by humanising the figure of the whore and thus also dispels the negativity associated with it, regardless of how taboo the subject of promiscuity may be.

However, the stereotype of the whore, which Sula is designed to both embody and challenge within the book, is not only challenged via the use of the her back story but also via her attitude towards sex: “For Sula, sex becomes a means to assert herself and to defy social convention. She seduces her best friend’s husband and is accused of the worst degradation of all: sleeping with white men.” As Collins highlights, African American women were traditionally used by white men and objectified as a result. However, in the case of Sula the roles are reversed. She actively uses men to feel alive, to explore who she is and to form her own self-identity that does not depend on conforming to the social expectations that were imposed on African American women at that point in time. Sula is therefore not a whore but instead a woman simply searching for her place in the world, thus rendering her race incidental. Finding that sex put her “…in a position of surrender, feeling her own abiding strength and limitless power”, Sula explores her true self by rejecting the accepted boundaries of sex and forming her own expectations of life: “Single-handedly, she rejects the values of the margin to which she belongs, a margin that mirrors the centre in that it represses any stirrings of discontent.”Sula’s discontent is tangible and thus renders the stereotype of the whore a societal construction that is designed to oppress rather than a viable label with which it is possible to brand her. Morrison therefore uses the themes established by Collins in order to examine the negative representation of the whore and pushes back the boundaries that had previously been imposed with little understanding of what drove the women perceived as promiscuous. Even though the entire community condemned Sula, including her best friend Nel, the judgement is subtly passed by Morrison on them for not embracing the collective conscious rather than Sula herself.

The whore is not the only negative representation of the African American woman that black feminist thought has acknowledged and tried to dispel. The timid good wife who absolves her husband of all fault is another. The role is filled by Nel in Sula: “Nel, Sula’s complementary “other,” is presented as the prim and proper child who grows up to be a selfless wife and mother who unquestioningly conforms to the stereotypes of womanhood. She is everything that Sula was supposed to become but did not and would not.” She is subordinate to Jude, her husband, keeps house, remains faithful and never goes against her man in any way. In essence, she releases her own identity in order to assume that of her husband, thus meaning that she has no identity and so cannot be said to be living her life on her own terms as Sula is. The two girls contrast greatly but Morrison ensures that they share one element of their lives – that their characters and thus representations are not inevitable but instilled. Just as Sula’s promiscuity is encouraged, so is Nel’s role of the good wife: “Under Helene’s hand the girl became obedient and polite. Any enthusiasms that little Nel showed were calmed by the mother until she drove her daughter’s imagination underground.” She was forced to relinquish her identity and only ever retained it when around Sula, with whom she shares a sisterhood that Collins advocates as being essential in dispelling stereotypes. However, that sisterhood is negated by the conscience of the good wife: “And Nel creates a scapegoat in Sula to absolve Jude of deliberate acts of moral evil, marital infidelity and familial desertion, which destroy their marriage. Nel abnegates Jude’s potential for evil.”. The wife overtakes the sisterhood, thus subverting the notion of community once again. However, although the good wife stereotype is adhered to initially, Morrison later challenges it via a process of self realisation, self determination and the discovery of an autonomous identity. The realisation comes as Nel rejects the stereotype.

Marriage is consistently perceived as damaging by Morrison. She states the following in relation to the institution and its effect on women like Nel, the good wife: “Those with husbands had folded themselves into starched coffins, their sides bursting with other people’s skinned dreams and bony regrets” In doing so, she highlights the importance of other elements of life through the eyes of Nel and Sula with particular emphasis on friendship. However, it is Sula who initially realises the value of friendship in black womanhood: “She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be – for a woman.” This is somewhat ironic given the fact that she threw that friendship away by sleeping with Nel’s husband. However, Sula dies without having been given Nel’s forgiveness. It is not until after her death that Nel realises the true nature of friendship between African American women, as per Collins’s examination of black feminist thought and Morrison’s will to push the women further in order to dispel stereotypes: “It is only after Sula’s death and burial that Nel realizes that it has been Sula – not Jude – whom Nel has missed through the years.” In short, according to Morrison, it is the love of the sisterhood that is necessary to survive and nurture an identity instead of the institution of marriage. This undoubtedly rejects the stereotypes of the whore and the good wife because it negates the role of men in general, thus empowering women to forge their own destinies. This is undoubtedly an evolution of black feminist thought rather than in keeping with it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Morrison uses her characterisations of Sula and Nel in order to thoroughly examine the viability of African American female stereotypes and effectively offers enough proof as to why they must be challenged and dispelled. They not only mask the true nature of what it means to be a woman but also set her alone when in fact the collective conscious defies the imposition of any such stereotype. Collins’s theory as to the nature of African American womanhood via black feminist thought provides an excellent foundation for understanding Morrison’s work, but she goes above and beyond the values and factors offered by Collins in order to ensure that the novel undoubtedly goes some way to dispelling such negative representations and furthers the achievements of black feminism thought in the process. In Sula and Nel, the whore and the good wife are undoubtedly negated in favour of friendship, identity and true black womanhood.

Bibliography

Beaulieu, Elizabeth Ann, 2006. Writing African American Women: An Encyclopedia of Literature by and About Women of Color. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Collins, Patricia Hill, 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge.
Davis, Anita Price, 1998. Toni Morrison’s Sula. Piscataway, NJ: Research & Education Association.
Dubey, Madhu, 1994. Black Women Novelists and the Nationalist Aesthetic. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.
Eckard, Paula G., 2002. Maternal Body and Voice in Toni Morrison, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Lee Smith. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
Ghaly, Salwa, 2004. Evil Encounters with “Other” in Tayeb Salih and Toni Morrison: The Case of Mustafa Saeed and Sula Peace. In Richard Paul Hamilton & Margaret Sonser Breen eds. The Thing of Darkness: Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 21-36.
Jennings, La Vinia Delois, 2008. Toni Morrison and the Idea of Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morrison, Toni, 1987. Sula. New York: Penguin Books.

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

Explore the relationship between fiction and metaphysics and/or ethics in D. H. Lawrence’s short story “The White Stocking”

D.H. Lawrence was well known, arguably notorious, for advocating the doctrine of romantic vitalism both in his life and in his writings. Originally a scientific term, the Oxford English Dictionary defines romantic vitalism as “The doctrine or theory that the origin and phenomena of life are due to or produced by a vital principle, as distinct from a purely chemical or physical force” (Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 1999, p1603). Lawrence’s championing of the philosophy persisted right up until his death in 1930: indeed, as Daniel Fuchs comments, “The voice of romantic vitalism speaks with intransigent integrity in Lawrence to the last” (Fuchs, 2011, p156). In the early twentieth century, romantic vitalism, as Lawrence conceived of it, championed the view that people’s intellectual development had taken precedence over their spiritual and emotional development.

This brief essay will examine how the metaphysical concept of romantic vitalism is explored through the treatment of human love and human weakness within the institution or marriage, and how individuals should behave towards one another within D.H.Lawrence’s early short story “The White Stocking”. “The White Stocking” is a narrative about desire and more specifically about repressed desire: as the very title of the story implies, it is about the idea of repression of sex and sexuality as being injurious to the spiritual and mental well being of the subject. It explores in tangential form a conflict between the physical nature of the body on the one hand, and the external pressures of social convention and an unexpressed, yet omniscient Christian morality which is supposed to govern people’s external conduct.

At surface level, the story is about the relationship between a married couple, in this instance the Whistons- Ted and Elsie- and about a husband and wife at the beginning of another working day, yet the narrative voice foregrounds a potent dichotomy or duality which associates warmth and sensuality with femininity, and more particularly the female body, and conversely coldness and reason with masculinity. Yet, one must acknowledge that ‘The White Stocking’ is a story in which the physical atmosphere and physical objects are invested with a powerful symbolism for characters that convey meanings and resonances that they themselves are not yet aware of, but the process of the story is to show how they gain deeper awareness of these resonances, and their implications for their identities and their relationships with each other.

Right from the very outset, it is heavily implied that Mrs Whiston as a character is (in the eyes of her husband, at least) imbued with a powerful sensuousness and an openness to nature and the natural world:

They had been married two years. But still, when she had gone out of the room, he felt as if all his light and warmth were taken away, he became aware of the raw, cold morning. So he rose himself, wondering casually what had roused her so early. Usually she lay in bed as late as she could. (Lawrence, 2006, p49)

Mrs Whiston has an innate warmth in spite of the coldness of their physical surroundings and of the cold English climate, and it is inferred, in spite of the repression of Christian civilisation that expresses itself through the conventional institution of marriage, as the authorial voice seems to imply. This sensuality and easiness with her body is portrayed as almost descending into a form of sluttish behaviour: in the eyes of her husband, the reader is told that “She looked like an untidy minx, but she was quick and handy enough.” (Lawrence, 2006, p50) The impression that is conveyed is not that of a respectable marriage and a respectable Christian household, but rather of a couple who have perhaps just engaged in frenetic sexual intercourse with each other.

Mrs Whiston/Elsie is presented as a character who is much more open to the possibilities of living within the moment and awareness of the sensuous and sexual possibilities that existence can offer one. The story speaks of how she is ‘interested only in her envelopes this morning’ (Lawrence, 2006, p50). Throughout the story she is repeatedly connected with physicality and with physical objects, as exemplified by the lengthy attention paid to her receipt of the Valentine’s gifts and more specifically, her lengthy interaction with the story’s title object: the eponymous white stocking itself.

Lace as a fabric is associated with physical feeling, with the body and with the skin. Indeed, the story mentions how Elsie/ Mrs Whiston was employed as ‘a warehouse girl in Adam’s lace factory before she was married’ (Lawrence, 2006, p56). Her role within a lace/hosiery factory defines her position and her identity in life prior to marriage: within the context of the story, the idea of fabrics, of lace and in particular, the idea of the white stocking seems to invoke the idea of freedom, independence and an elevated social status, as implied by Elsie’s strange yet eager embrace of the physical clothing and the pearl ear-rings that she presumes she has received as a Valentine’s present from her former suitor.

Examining the incident in closer detail, Elsie’s emotional reaction to each of the gifts that she receives is individually noteworthy: she basically rejects the cartoon Valentine that she receives, more or less, because it offends her romantic and possibly aspirational nature. She is then described as smiling ‘pleasantly’(Lawrence, 2006, p51) at the white silk handkerchief that she receives in the white cardboard box, which contains ‘her initial, worked in heliotrope, fully displayed’(Lawrence, 2006, p51). The third gift, the eponymous white stocking contains a very pleasant surprise in its toe. The authorial voice talks of how she lifts ‘a pair of pearl ear-rings from the small box’ (Lawrence, 2006, p51) and goes ‘to the mirror…looking at herself sideways in the glass. Curiously concentrated and intent she seemed as she fingered the lobes of her ears, her head bent on her side.’(Lawrence, 2006, p51) The message that accompanies the gift that ‘Pearls may be fair, but thou art fairer. Wear these for me, and I’ll love the wearer’ (Lawrence, 2006, p51) and the fact that Elsie has not received these items from her husband, suggests that either she has been and remains an object of romantic infatuation.

As we subsequently learn, Elsie suspects that the pearl ear-rings are a gift from the rich lace manufacturer, Sam Adams, who was previously her employer and, it seems, a suitor who vainly tried to woo her. Suddenly a whole back story opens up, in which a vivid physical portrait of Adams as a lonely bachelor with a ‘fondness for the girls’ (Lawrence, 2006, p56) emerges, and for whom Elsie is the main target of his amorous affections. He is described as wearing ‘a red carnation’ (Lawrence, 2006, p56) in his buttonhole in order ‘to impress her’. (Lawrence, 2006, p56)

Why the intense focus on the details of the Valentine’s gifts? For a start, they appear to symbolise Elsie’s apparent ascent in the world and the sense that the reader gets of a desire on her part to ensure an improvement in her social status and the sense of social identity as being somehow fluid, and no longer fixed. As we learn towards the end of the first story, Whiston has risen in the world, having left Sam Adams’ employ and struck out on his own as a commercial traveller. The irony is that Elsie has apparently rejected the higher social status and greater financial and material security that would have come through marriage to Sam Adams, her former employer, and has followed her heart and her romantic nature and married Ted Whiston instead. Whiston is described in the story as being more physically attractive and more restrained in manner than Adams: the latter is ‘too loud for [Elsie’s] good taste (Lawrence, 2006, p56) whereas the former is described as being ‘a shapely young fellow of twenty-eight, sleepy now and easy with well-being (Lawrence, 2006, p50) The story’s narrative structure shifts towards engagement with the romantic triangle between Elsie, Whiston and Adams. Within the triangle Elsie believes that her beauty and her attractiveness to Adams give her a power over her husband through his rage and jealousy at Adams’ unabated courtship.

The triangular relationship is expressed through the story of the Christmas party: Elsie dances with Adams and seems to revel in the physicality of dancing with him. Indeed, the experience is described as being ‘an intoxication to her’, (Lawrence, 2006, p60) and we see how much she shapes her own identity through her own enjoyment of physical and erotic contact with others. At the same time, her husband’s ontology and identity are defined in terms opposite to her own which ostensibly reject the erotic and which enforce boundaries of contact and affection. Ted Whiston instructs his wife to shun close contact with Adams, telling her that: “You don’t want to be too free with Sam Adams…You know what he is”,(Lawrence, 2006, p63) and yet a mixture of pride, anger and reticence prevent him from explaining to Elsie why she should reject Adams’ attentions.

At the heart of the story, the titular white stocking comes to represent the rift in the marriage between Ted and Elsie, and yet to symbolise how Elsie draws out the passion and an unexpected redemptive quality in Ted’s character. When they are walking back from the Christmas party after the incident in which Elsie mistakenly dropped the white stocking, it is Elsie’s apparent remorse and regret which leaves her tearful and vulnerable, and which evokes in Ted a need to forgive, and in a moment of sudden epiphany to realise that he cares for and loves her very deeply indeed:

And he held her very safe, and his heart was white-hot with love for her. His mind was amazed. He could only hold her against his chest that was white-hot with love and belief in her. So she was restored at last. (Lawrence, 2006, p66)

In essence, the Christmas party establishes a pattern of behaviour within the marital relationship whereby Elsie’s continued attraction to Adams both provokes her husband’s violent jealousy to the point where he almost lashes out at her in piques of violence. Yet, if one looks at the relationship and the subsequent marriage between Ted and Elsie, it becomes the way in which her social identity is subsequently defined, and in which she finds a peculiar sense of security:

Inside of marriage she found her liberty. She was rid of the responsibility of herself. Her husband must look after that. She was free to get what she could out of her time. (Lawrence, 2006, p66-7)

This leads us towards consideration of the treatment of marriage within the narrative. At its heart it explores issues of trust, forgiveness and fidelity within marriage, and how well the social institution of marriage can withstand possible betrayal and compromise. The third great epiphany of the story centres on Elsie’s admission to her husband that the pearl ear-rings are not the first present that she has received from Sam Adams. This time, Ted Whiston is unable to restrain himself and hits his wife with a savage force:

Then, quick as lightning, the back of his hand struck her with a crash across the mouth, and she was flung back blinded against the wall (Lawrence, 2006, p71)

One might assume that the modern twenty-first century reader would be shocked and horrified by this expression of violence, and by Whiston’s apparent brutality towards his wife, yet this moment of aggression and physical injury seems to have the paradoxical effect of bringing Ted and Elsie closer together in a sudden and surprising moment of tenderness and compassion. It is almost as if Lawrence is implying that tenderness, cruelty and violence cannot exist apart from one another in marriage, being almost in a form of mutual symbiosis.

In conclusion, this might be a very useful way of describing ‘The White Stocking’ because it is very much a story about relationships and human connections are mutually, helplessly dependent upon each other, and this is how the relationship progresses between Ted and Elsie.

Reference List

Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1999): Oxford UP, Oxford

Fuchs, D. The Limits of Ferocity: Sexual Aggression & Modern Literary Rebellion. (2011): Duke University Press, Durham NC

Lawrence, D.H. Selected Stories. (2007): Penguin, London

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

The theme of masculinity suggests itself as an obvious area of focus with Hemingway’s collection In Our Time, as these short stories and vignettes are explicitly concerned with men, male activities, male professions and traditionally masculine areas of human experience such as war, hunting and fighting. The collection is notable for its focus on male characters, most notably figures such as Nick Adams, and for the relative absence of women (indeed, Hemingway titled another of his short story collections Men Without Women). Where women do feature, it is often in a secondary or passive role, with the male characters in the story wielding power in the text and also providing the perspective of Hemingway’s narration. This essay will argue that masculinity is a central theme in In Our Time, and moreover that much of the tension within the texts comes from the conflict between characters’ self-perceptions of their own masculinity and the reality of their masculine behaviour. Defining what masculinity means, both for themselves and in the context of other characters’ perceptions of them, is a central concern of Hemingway’s male protagonists in this collection, as in his oeuvre more generally (Fore, 2007).

In the early story ‘The Indian Camp’ and the vignette Chapter II, Hemingway presents women from the perspective of men: they are associated with children in general and with childbirth in particular. Notably, women are not given a voice in either of these stories; instead, they are seen from the perspective of men. As passive individuals whose primary role is to give birth, women in In Our Time are figured as secondary. Their lack of masculinity means a lack of driving force in the text, which instead comes from male characters, male actions, and male interactions. Hemingway championed, in his fiction as well as in his life, the notion of the competent, masculine male; his motto on this subject was the masculine notion of ‘grace under pressure’ (Durham, 1976). The ability to perform a task or job well is one that Hemingway values in his life and fiction, and in In Our Time we see this confident, competent male type embodied by Nick Adams’ father the doctor. In the story ‘The Indian Camp,’ his visit to the camp is predicated on the notion that he is an extremely competent doctor, able as he notes to perform a caesarian with a jack knife and stitch it up afterwards. In this same story, the doctor can be contrasted with the Indian father who kills himself, thereby dichotomising the able male and the unable male and introducing another of Hemingway’s key themes: namely, suicide. That suicide in the text is no less gendered than professional competence is made evident in the exchange between Nick and his father which follows their leaving the Indian Camp:

“Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?”
“Not very many, Nick.”
“Do many women?”
“Hardly ever.”
“Don’t they ever?”
“Oh, yes. They do sometimes.” (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.)

The differences in the behaviour of men and women take on an almost anthropological quality in the gendered presentation of character in In Our Time. Men are explicitly figured as active, aggressive and macho in contrast to women’s passivity. Whilst Hemingway of course nuances his presentation to include different types of men, and to suggest that there is more than one way of being masculine, there are recurrent themes which can be said to centre around the idea of violence. Men in the stories measure themselves and each other in terms of acts of violence. In the story ‘The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife,’ masculinity is presented as a form of awareness of one’s own capacity to commit acts of violence. Dick Boulton’s very felicity as a male seems to depend on the accuracy of his awareness of his own masculinity: ‘Dick Boulton looked at the doctor. Dick was a big man. He knew how big a man he was. He liked to get into fights. He was happy’ (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.). Violence, recognition of one’s capacity to commit violence, and comfort in one’s own power as a male, are here presented as key features of felicitous masculinity. By contrast, those male characters who are unhappy and who commit acts of violence against themselves (alcoholism, more literally suicide) are ones whose self-perceptions of their own masculinity do not accord with the reality, leading to what some critics have identified as the ‘crisis of masculinity’ in Hemingway’s fiction (Hatten, 1993). The very title of the story ‘The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife’ contrasts the male and the female characters as Hemingway sees them: the Doctor is impulsive, angered, and takes the more cynical interpretation of his adversary’s actions; by contrast, his wife is presented as pious, forgiving, and somewhat naive in her reading of human motives. However, she is able to calm the doctor down and he goes outside to see Nick. Tellingly, however, Nick decides to go off with his father at the end of the story rather than go inside to see his mother. He tells his father he knows where there are black squirrels, and they set off to take part in that most male of activities: hunting. Ultimately, female piety and compassion only temper the masculine urges and drives in the story; it is masculinity which pervades as a theme, and violence – or the potential for violence – which is restored by the story’s close.

Hemingway’s presentation of masculinity must therefore be contrasted with his notions of femininity, and it can be noted that both are presented in terms of types. In In Our Time, the greatest type division is between men and women; within these divisions, there are sub-categories. Thus the short story ‘Mr and Mrs Eliot’ presents the dichotomy of the male and female in its title, and then proceeds in the story itself to break down this division further into different types. At no point, however, is it questioned that there are certain characteristics which can be considered exclusively or predominantly feminine, and those that can be considered masculine. Femininity and masculinity are not abstract notions but rather the locus of concrete differences in the text. Thus Mrs Eliot is presented in terms of stereotypes concerning her gender and geographical origins: ‘Like all Southern women Mrs. Elliot disintegrated very quickly under sea sickness, travelling at night, and getting up too early in the morning’ (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.). This sentence is not a qualified presentation of an individual, but a stereotyping of all females from the South of the United States. This is typical of the way in which gender, masculinity and femininity, are presented in the texts: there are clear archetypes for human characteristics, and characters are presented as conforming to them or deviating from them. Implicit in the short story ‘Mr and Mrs Eliot’ is a critique of the ways in which Mr Eliot departs from the ideal of masculinity presented in the collection more generally: he is a poet, he drinks white wine, he has not been with many women and he tries, unsuccessfully, to have a baby with his wife. Ultimately, he is emasculated and usurped from the marital bed and his role as a masculine impregnator of women: ‘Mrs. Elliot and the girl friend now slept together in the big mediaeval bed. They had many a good cry together’ (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.). Instead, the bed becomes the site not of any female (lesbian) eroticism but instead of female communication and empathy: the women cry there together. This is presented as an antithesis to the idea of idealised masculinity, in which actions speak louder than words. In such a context, Mr Eliot’s being a poet, and dedicating his nights to writing verse and drinking white wine instead of more becoming masculine pursuits, can here be read in a critical light as a satire on the ‘modern’ man who departs from the traditional notion of masculinity as embodied in the collection by figures such as Nick Adams and his father.

The story which perhaps most clearly presents the idealised model of masculinity, and the key notion of the potential difference between men’s perceptions of themselves and the reality of their masculinity, is ‘Big Two-Hearted River.’ Here, Nick Adams is presented as happily in an elemental, masculine state. Men are happy in Hemingway when they are doing an activity well, and here Nick Adams is presented as engaged in fishing the river, a feeling which he enjoys and an experience which he knows well. Hemingway explicitly presents this activity in physical terms; masculine behaviour is notable in the collection for being physically impressive and physically demanding, and the impression is of behaviour which is rewarding for men to the extent that it is physically draining. Thus Nick is happy in proportion to the degree to which he exerts himself: ‘The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill. His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy’ (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.). The pleasure of physical exertion is a defining theme of masculinity in this collection as well as in Hemingway’s writing more generally (Fore, 2007); it is seen in the context of a number of typically male activities, from fishing as in this story through to war, bullfighting and shooting (Vernon, 2002). The story also presents a key Hemingway theme in the context of masculinity: namely, male bonding and the ways in which men negotiate their own masculinity together. Much has been made of homoeroticism and suppressed homosexualities in Hemingway’s work as well as in his life (Blackmore, 1998; Cohen, 1995; Elliott, 1993; Fantina, 2004), but what is more obviously present here is the notion that masculinity is something which is negotiated between men, indirectly rather than directly. Thus Nick Adams measures his own masculinity alongside his old friend Hopkins, who is now presumably dead, drinking a tribute coffee to the man whom he bonded with and against whom he measured some elements of his own masculinity:

Not the first cup. It should be straight Hopkins all the way. Hop deserved that. He was a very serious coffee drinker. He was the most serious man Nick had ever known. Not heavy, serious. That was a long time ago. (Hemingway, 1925, n.p.)

Significantly, this male bonding is something which is negotiated indirectly, with intervening time and space coming between Nick and Hopkins. Even more significantly, Hemingway presents this masculine bonding indirectly, through the free indirect discourse of Nick’s thoughts and reminiscences. This device allows Hemingway to present masculinity indirectly, and to emphasise in the nostalgia and pathos of this longer story the loss and pain that the masculine world of war creates (Clifford, 1994). Nick is not presented as having any direct contact with Hopkins, there is no quoting or speech, but instead Nick and the reader are obliged to experience this process of masculine connection from a distance, at a remove.

To conclude, it is evident that masculinity is an extremely important theme in In Our Time. In particular, it allows for a dichotomy to be present in the texts between males as active, violent and powerful on the one hand, and women as passive, responsive and objectified on the other. Women are the subject of the male gaze, which is always seeking to define itself in terms of idealised masculinity. However, men also turn their gazes on themselves and each other, and it can be noted in conclusion that a central source of narrative tension in the text is the conflict between characters’ perceptions of their masculinity and the reality. This comes to the fore in relationship problems with women, but also in acts of violence and conflict between males, where the need to assert one’s masculinity comes at the expense of denying another man the opportunity to fully exert his. The pathos of this disconnect between idealised masculinity and the harsh reality of many of his male characters’ existences is what gives to Hemingway’s collection In Our Time its unmistakably elegiac tone.

References

Blackmore, D. (1998). ” In New York it’d mean I was a…”: Masculinity anxiety and period discourses of sexuality in The Sun Also Rises. The Hemingway Review, 18(1), 49.

Clifford, S. P. (1994). Hemingway’s Fragmentary Novel: Readers Writing the Hero in In Our Time. The Hemingway Review, 13, 12-23.

Cohen, P. F. (1995). ” I won’t kiss you… I’ll send your English girl”: homoerotic desire in’A Farewell to Arms.’. The Hemingway Review, 15(1), 42-54.

Durham, P. (1976). Ernest Hemingway’s Grace under Pressure: The Western Code. The Pacific Historical Review, 425-432.

Elliott, I. (1993). A farewell to arms and Hemingway’s crisis of masculine values. Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory, 4(4), 291-304.

Fantina, R. (2004). Hemingway’s Masochism, Sodomy, and the Dominant Woman. The Hemingway Review, 23(1), 84-105.

Fore, D. (2007). Life Unworthy of Life?: Masculinity, Disability, and Guilt in The Sun Also Rises. The Hemingway Review, 26(2), 74-88.

Hatten, C. (1993). The Crisis of Masculinity, Reified Desire, and Catherine Barkley in” A Farewell to Arms”. Journal of the History of Sexuality, 4(1), 76-98.

Hemingway, E. (1925) In Our Time. New York: Simon and Schuster. Available online at scribd.com [accessed 3rd March 2016] at: https://www.scribd.com/read/236832081/In-Our-Time.

Vernon, A. (2002). War, Gender, and Ernest Hemingway. The Hemingway Review, 22(1), 34-55.

This work was produced by one of our professional writers as a learning aid to help you with your studies

THE REPRESENTATION OF BLACK CULTURE IN BELOVED BY TONI MORRISON

African-American author Toni Morrison’s book, Beloved, describes a black culture born out of a dehumanising period of slavery just after the Civil War. Culture is a means of how a group collectively believe, act, and interact on a daily basis. Those who have studied her work refer to Morrison’s narrative tales as “literature…that addresses the sacred and as an allegorical representation of black experience” (Baker-Fletcher 1993: 2). Although African Americans had a difficult time establishing their own culture during the period of slavery when they were considered less than human, Morrison believes that black culture has been built on the horrors of the past and it is this history that has shaped contemporary black culture in a positive way. Through the use of linguistic devices, her representation of black women, imagery and symbolic features, and the theme of interracial relations, Morrison illustrates that black culture that is resilient, vibrant, independent, and determined.

Published in 1987, Beloved is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that recounts how those who survived slavery healed themselves and reflects on the period of slavery in “a manner in which it can be digested, in a manner in which the memory is not destructive” (Morey 1988: 2). It is this rememory as Morrison calls it that helps those considered “others” become individuals. Set in Ohio, the book focuses on Sethe; Sethe’s surviving daughter, Denver; Sethe’s mother-in-law, Baby Suggs; and the ghost of Sethe’s dead daughter, Beloved. Throughout the book, “Morrison communicates an unforgettable sense of the strength, terror and devastation that is part of the black community, whilst skilfully portraying the unalterable connections between spiritual and physical life” (Morey 1988: 1093).

One linguistic device used throughout the novel is the use of songs. Slaves use songs as a way to pass down stories but also to help them maintain a sense of inner strength. Morrison “shows how song defines and affirms slave “personhood” in a world where slave humanity is constantly challenged and denied” (Capuano 2003: 1). Rather than thinking of song in a negative fashion, “it chronicles her characters’ endurance and ability to survive during and after these periods of physical brutality and psychological abuse” that they experienced during slavery (Capuano 2003: 2). This illustrates how black culture has resilience and an ability to overcome hardship. Singing is an essential aspect of the characters’ lives alongside food, sleep, and shelter. As the novel related, if Paul D could “walk, eat, sleep, [and] sing,” he could survive and “asked for no more” (Morrison 1987: 41). While others may not understand the jargon used in the songs, those singing it and other slaves hearing those songs know what it means, and this is a way to strike some independence and distinct culture for themselves during a period where it is uncommon to think of blacks as even human (Capuano 2003: 4). This community of song enables those within black culture to become stronger. It is “the collective sharing of that information heals the individual — and the collective” (Morey 1988: 1039). In revisiting Morrison’s overall theme of turning traumatic memories into a positive force, the songs are a cathartic process used to take this memory, which is “vital for revisioning communal and social transformation that is healing” (Baker-Fletch 1993: 4). It is the singing of the women that help exorcise the ghost of Beloved and enable Sethe to break free as if she has been baptized (Morrison 1987: 308). The novel describes Sethe as “running into the faces of the people out there, joining them and leaving Beloved behind” (Morrison 1987: 309).

In addition to songs as a linguistic device, Morrison constantly returns to the word, “rememory” and “disremember” rather than using words, such as “remember” or “forget.” Morrison uses rememory to show how Sethe constantly keeps the past in her present existence because she cannot forget what happened and lives with the ghost of her guilty conscience and moral dilemma for murdering her daughter and living through slavery. For example, Sethe explains how she struggles with the past:

It’s so hard for me to believe in [time]. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. . . . But it’s not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place-the picture of it-stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world” (Morrison 1987: 36).

Morrison’s creation of her own terms related to how the black culture has to continually deal with its past as though it is a metal neck chain that they cannot unlock. Throughout the book, it seems as though this struggle with rememory is constant for Sethe rather than looking forward to a more opportunistic future: “But [Sethe’s] brain was not interested in the future. Loaded with the past and hungry for more, it left her no room to imagine, let alone plan for, the next day” (Morrison 1987: 70). The other characters in the novel attempt to help Sethe loosen the binds of the past. One of the women in town wants to help Sethe exorcise the ghost of Beloved because she “didn’t like the idea of past errors taking possession of the present” because “the past was something to leave behind” (Morrison 1987: 302).

As part of the black culture, black women represent the pillars of strength within that community as protectors and healers. They are the glue that holds everything together when the world is falling apart around them. Many of the characters have been torn from their families because of the slave traders splitting up families and selling them as slaves to various white masters. Together, they share a history of suffering and an urge to heal and become whole people again. In isolation, black women formed bonds to survive and empower each other to withstand the atrocities of slavery. There is also a sense of the sisterhood still found in African American culture today as the women in the community band together to exercise the ghost of Beloved from Sethe’s house. It is this camaraderie that helps Sethe heal as an individual and strengthens the black community. In contrast, Paul D and Beloved clash because Beloved sees this male presence as a threat as does her sister, Denver. Both Beloved and Denver want their mother to themselves, furthering the idea that black women stick together while black men are seen as untrustworthy. Paul D does not like Beloved either because he feels isolated from the bond that the women share. However, he lets Beloved seduce him, thereby proving to Sethe and Denver that men cannot be trusted.

In terms of imagery, the ghost of Beloved represents the idea that both Sethe and black culture are haunted by a horrible past but being able to live with that spectre in a positive way instead of dreading and fearing their slavery past. As one character states: “Anything dead coming back to life hurts” (Morrison 1987: 35). Beloved also is what is known in African American literatures as the “trickster.” According to one writer, “the trickster, whose fluidity and rule breaking define and maintain culture, embodies a central paradox in Morrison’s work: that of balancing the urge to maintain and foster cultural tradition and the equally powerful urge to rebel” (Smith 1997: 112). Beloved, as a trickster, is playing with Sethe by stirring up the past rather than continuing to repress it. In some ways, Sethe is still enslaved because she cannot remove the shackles of what happened in the past, including her decision to murder her daughter. Beloved works her magic by getting Sethe to re-examine how the past should be dealt with in the present.

Beloved’s presence is like a re-birth for Sethe to acknowledge the past while moving forward a stronger, wiser woman for what happened to her and the rest of the black community. The ghost of Beloved really becomes an outward representation of the inward retrospective Sethe is taking of her life so far. While other characters in the novel experience a situation of an alternative self that helps them recover from the past, it is only Sethe that goes through the process under the most extreme conditions.

In positioning the black culture as part of society as a whole, Morrison also explores interracial relations in the novel. During and after slavery, relations between black and white cultures are “harsh” (Angelo 1989: 1). The relationship between the two cultures is based on the idea of exclusion and lack of tolerance for others. All the black characters have suffered horrific experiences at the hands of white people. Sethe had been raped while Paul D was imprisoned and Stamp Paid lost his wife. Sethe kills her own daughter, Beloved, because she does not want her to have to be treated to the harshness of life that whites have brought on black people. Between the whites and blacks, it is a relationship of take until there was nothing left of the black person:

That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn’t like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn’t think it up. . . . The best thing [Sethe] was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing (Morrison 1987: 251)

For Sethe, it is easier to lose her daughter to death than it is for her to see Beloved suffer in this world. It did not seem right to live in a world where they were nameless and faceless to white society. Morrison describes this state as being “dismembered and unaccounted for”(Morrison 1987: 323).

In writing about the black culture rising from the ashes of a horrific period in history, Morrison makes the point that individuality and community are what bind African Americans together. In an interview about her novel, she said: “The book was not about the institution — Slavery with a capital S. It was about these anonymous people called slaves. What they do to keep on, how they make a life, what they’re willing to risk, however long it lasts, in order to relate to one another” (Angelo 1989: 3). While Morrison shows that black people are the same as white people because they are all human beings, the black culture has struggled with an identity and a purpose after white people had taken that away during slavery. Beloved is about an awakening to the ability to be individuals again and feel empowered after shaking the ghost of a dehumanizing history. Each character – man and woman – within the black community of Beloved go through a process of denial and then self-awareness. A sense of community and sisterhood along with the tight bonds of family that cannot be broken even by physical distance are what help Sethe and the black culture overcome the trauma and sorrow of the past.

REFERENCES

Angelo, B. (22 May 1989). “The Pain of Being Black.” Time. Available at: http://www.time.com/time/community/pulitzerinterview.html.

Baker-Fletcher, K. (April 1993). “Tar Baby and Womanist Theology.” Theology Today. Available at: http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1993/v50-1-article3.htm.

Capuano, P.J. (2003). “Truth in Timbre: Morrison’s Extension of Slave Narrative Songs in Beloved.” African American Review.

Morey, A.J. (16 November 1988). “Toni Morrison and the Color of Life.” Christian Century, 1039.

Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. New York: Vintage Books.

Smith, Jeanne Rosier. (1997). “Chapter Four—Tar and Feathers: Community and the Outcast in Toni Morrison’s Trickster Novels.” Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethnic Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press.