Summary and Analysis: Hamlet

Hamlet:

                A play by William Shakespeare.  It is written in the typical elevated poetic style of Shakespeare, relying heavily on long monologues by the protagonist, Hamlet.  There are very few stage directions, leaving a great deal up to the interperetation of the director and the reader.

·         Plot: The play opens with the changing of the guards surrounding Elsinore, Denmark.  This reflects both the shifts of power going on and the warlike atmosphere of Denmark.  We learn that Hamlet I made a bet with the King of Norway, Fortinbras I—they dueled, and since Hamlet I won, he got all of Norway’s land.  However, Fortinbras II is out for revenge and is trying to take back Norway.  Hamlet I is also dead now, but the guards see his ghost.  This causes them to go to Hamlet II, his son.  Hamlet II (we’ll just call him Hamlet from now on) is in Elsinore instead of college in Wittenberg because of his father’s funeral, and his mother’s wedding.  We learn the Queen, Gertrude, is marrying her dead husband’s wife, not two months after he died.  Hamlet is furious about this.  Hamlet, genuinely grief-stricken about his father’s death, rushes out when he hears about the Ghost’s appearance.  The Ghost speaks to Hamlet, telling Hamlet that Claudius actually murdered him and that Hamlet now needs to take revenge.  Meanwhile, Hamlet’s family becomes concerned he is mad, especially after his conversation with the Ghost.  It is unclear whether Hamlet is actually mad or just pretending, but by the end of the play the reader suspects that whatever it began as, Hamlet is now actually mentally unstable..  A subplot emerges with the departure of Laertes.  Both Laertes and Polonius caution Ophelia against her relationship with Hamlet, and Polonius forbids her from having a relationship with him because he believes it will look like he is just grabbing for wealth and power.  It is unclear whether Ophelia is actually planning to stay away from Hamlet or not, but when Hamlet runs into her room apparently insane, she does go tell Polonius all about it.  Polonius decides that the cause of Hamlet’s madness must be his love for Ophelia, so he and the Queen and King spy on Hamlet with her.  Hamlet seems to figure out they are watching, causing him to further distrust Ophelia.  He is all alone in Elsinore, with no one to confide in about his misgivings.  Hamlet has been fighting with himself since the Ghost, deciding when he should take revenge and if he should do it at all.  He is utterly at odds with the warlike society of Denmark.  Instead of impulsively taking action, he sets up a trap for Claudius—a play mirroring the murder in real life.  When Claudius reacts strongly to the production, Hamlet decides that he must actually have murdered his father and sets out to kill him.  However, Claudius is praying and Hamlet does not want him to go to heaven, so he waits.   Hamlet’s misery intensifies, as does his belief in the meaningless of life.  Gertrude calls Hamlet to her while Polonius spies on them, again trying to find out why he’s acting mad.  Hamlet furiously tells her off for her marriage to his uncle.  Polonius cries out from his hiding place, and Hamlet stabs him through the curtain.  Claudius decides to send Hamlet to be executed in England, but Hamlet gives his escorts the slip (either he was actually captured by pirates, or made up that story) and comes back to England.  Meanwhile, Ophelia has gone insane and committed suicide, and Laertes has returned from France threatening to overthrow the King to avenge his father’s death.  Claudius talks Laertes into dueling Hamlet.  They poison some wine and Laertes’ sword so that Hamlet will certainly be killed.  However, at the duel, Gertrude drinks the wine and Hamlet is scratched by the poisoned weapon.  In the confusion, Laertes and Hamlet switch weapons.  Hamlet stabs Laertes and, realizing what has happened, kills the King as well.  He dies in Horatio’s arms.  Fortinbras arrives just as Hamlet dies, and Horatio demands that Hamlet be given a hero’s funeral and says he will spread the story of Prince Hamlet so that it will never be repeated.

·         Characters

o   Hamlet: the protagonist of the play, who is faced with the command to revenge his father.  Hamlet is extremely intellectual and good with words.  Hamlet is the epitome of the need for certainty—he needs, almost compulsively, to have a positive answer for everything, and thus is constantly generating big questions and spitting out the “solution” without much evidence.  This is rather ironic considering the amount of evidence he needs to make up his mind about killing Claudius.  His actual amount of knowledge is ambiguous, but he is certainly very intelligent.  He is at odds with the society around him because he is not so violent in nature, or impulsive.  He is incredibly unhappy in Denmark.  He also seems to feel inferior to his father.  He is most famous for doing nothing—taking the entire play to make up his mind as to whether he’s going to act or not.

o   Hamlet’s father: the former King of Denmark, a war hero, killed by his brother Claudius.  He comes back as a Ghost and tells his son Hamlet to avenge him.

o   Claudius: Hamlet’s uncle, who killed his brother by pouring poison in his ear.  It is unclear whether he did this for power, for the Queen, or both.  The way in which he killed his brother reflects his way of speaking—he is the ultimate manipulative politician, essentially  speaking poison into everyone’s ears.

o   Gertrude: Hamlet’s mother.  She appears to love Hamlet, but be either extremely power hungry or unfaithful, depending on how you read her relationship with Claudius.

o   Ophelia: Hamlet’s girlfriend.  It is unclear exactly how intimate their relationship is, but Ophelia is forced to stop communicating with him by her father.  It is unclear whether she obeys her father or if she had every intention of continuing to see Hamlet anyway, but once Hamlet rejects her and her father dies, she commits suicide.  She is often viewed as the “innocent bystander” of the play, who got swept up in other characters’ complicated affairs without really understanding the situation.

o   Laertes: Ophelia’s brother.  He likes to party and is close to his sister (maybe incestuously close).  However, he makes rash decisions without getting all the facts, and is willing to take violent action at the slightest impulse.

o   Polonius: Ophelia and Laertes’ father, the toadying helper of Claudius. 

o   Rosencratz & Guildinstern: Hamlet’s old friends who are hired by the king to spy on Hamlet and eventually bring him to his death.  It is unclear whether they knew what they were bringing him to be killed or not.

·         Theme: The human quest for certainty is the enemy of action, and we all have a predetermined destiny, a fate we cannot escape, no matter how much we procrastinate—and all our fates end in death.

o   Hamlet is at odds with his instinctively violent society.  He is a wordsmith, constantly changing himself depending on who he is talking to.  He is clearly very intelligent, but many conjectures he draws about big questions like the meaning of life are spur of the moment and presumptuous.  Yet Hamlet constantly needs to answer big questions and be absolutely certain about everything.  Even when his father’s Ghost comes back from the dead, he feels the need to positively verify the Ghost’s story through scientific experiment.  Hamlet does not possess some high knowledge, but he desperately wants to.  This is why he cannot act—because he needs absolute certainty, perfect conditions, scientific evidence.  Through Hamlet’s inability to act, Shakespeare shows us that the human quest for certainty is the enemy of action.

o   Denmark clearly has something wrong with it.  No one has normal or happy relationships: Claudius has killed his brother and married his sister in law, and vice versa; Gertrude and Hamlet consequently are fighting and furious and Hamlet may have Oedipus-like feelings for her; Hamlet is keening toward madness; Ophelia may be pregnant with Hamlet’s child (because of her “carrying” his tokens, the rue, her suicide, ect.) and he simply abandons her regardless; and Polonius cares nothing for his daughter’s feelings.  The only happy relationship seems to be between Laertes and Ophelia…and that may be incestuously close.  Denmark is bad the core—this is why everyone in the royal family must die at the end, so that Denmark’s royal house is purged.  In fact, it’s so bad that we need to bring in the King of Norway to totally wipe out what once was.  The problem started when Claudius killed his brother.  Shakespeare argues that killing your brother and marrying his wife will lead to horrible problems for everyone involved.

o   Finally, due to frequent uses of synecdoche connecting the royal heads of state and the state themselves, Shakespeare ties in Hamlet’s life with his kingdom.  Hamlet is constantly struggling to create himself as an individual—not just Hamlet the Second, not just the Prince, not just Denmark—and completely fails.   When his family is purged, so is Denmark.  This ties into the larger idea of predetermined destiny.  Shakespeare argues that not only is one Prince tied inexplicably to his country, but we are all tied to our specific destinies, which we are unable to escape in the end.

·         Quotes:

·         “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”  This is stated by a guard, after seeing the Ghost.  This is an unquestionably true statement—something is so rotten in Denmark that everyone must die and Norway must take over in order to purge it.  The problems began when Claudius killed his brother and married his brother’s Queen.  But now the canker of his sins has infected the whole royal family: the whole estate must be purged in order for the natural way of things to be restored.

·         “Frailty—thy name is woman!” Hamlet shouts this line, referring to Gertrude.  But by making his statement general, he brings up a very prevalent question in this play.  While not central to Shakespeare’s main argument, the issues of gender are very useful topics for any essay, and are just plain interesting.  Hamlet’s experiences with his mother have caused him to distrust women.  He sees Gertrude’s marriage as weakness, and modern readers tend to agree—as they tend to view her and Ophelia’s helplessness and Ophelia’s suicide as weakness as well.  That being said, Gertrude’s marriage was the only way to empower herself, and Hamlet says that committing suicide is the courageous action.  Also, while Gertrude and Ophelia never take any action and always run to the men for what to do, the men do the same thing.  They run to the women to discover why Hamlet is mad.  Nobody takes action—they all run to someone else, trying to be absolutely certain.  In this way, it does tie into Shakespeare’s main point.  Humanity is constantly searching for certainty, constantly trying to run to someone else to help do the job or do the job for them.  This is the enemy of action.  Everyone is weak, and no one can act.  But the end—inevitable death—is going to come anyway.

·         “Who’s there?”  This is asked by a guard in the first scene.  This quote directly introduces a very prevalent theme in the play—paranoia, confusion, characters asking who is there, and not knowing who actually is.  Hamlet is paranoid people are spying on him (and they are).  He does not know who is behind the curtain when he stabs Polonius.  Hamlet initially doesn’t know who’s pulling the strings.  He finds out that Claudius is literally “there”, literally behind the curtain pulling strings all along, but the reader sees the bigger picture.  The more metaphysical answer to the vague question “Who’s there?” is a higher power—a divine observer pulling strings, pulling everyone along their inevitable path, and eventually to their death.

Summary and Analysis: Fifth Business

Fifth Business:

                This is a novel by Robertson Davies.  The whole novel is a letter the protagonist is writing to the Headmaster of the school where he worked.  It is in first person, with an academic and authoritative tone predominantly devoid of emotional descriptions, with very little rich imagery. 

·         Plot: The novel begins with Dunstable Ramsay writing a letter to the current Headmaster of the school where he taught.  He claims to be complaining of an article which portrayed him in a (he thought) insignificant light.  However, he then proceeds to describe his whole life story in detail.  He begins when he was small and having a snowball fight with his best friend/enemy Percy Stanton.  Percy threw a snowball with a rock in it at Dunstable, but Dunstable dodged and it hit the pregnant wife of the Baptist priest, Mary Dempster.  She went into labor, delivered a premature baby Paul, and was forever afterward “simple.”  Dunstable had a pretty indifferent relationship with his family, but his mother made him go over and help and care for Mary Dempster.  He grew to love her.  However, Mary sleeps with a tramp, causing the town to scorn her.  Dunny stands up for her and teaches Paul card tricks.  He is beaten for continuing to associate with her, prompting him to join the military.  In battle, he sees her face as the Madonna, saving his life.  He recovers due to and enters a relationship with a nurse called Diana, but does not marry her because he thinks she will be too mothering.  He goes to college, constantly fuming with silent jealousy and admiration of Percy, who attends his university.  Percy and Leola marry, but their relationship ends in shambles because Leola can’t keep up with him (he is mind-blowingly wealthy and successful).  Dunny becomes a teacher and ends up teaching for forty years, all the while the Staunton’s confidant.  During the course of his academia, he develops an obsession with saints that causes him to travel to South America and run into the magician troupe that contains Paul (who had run away with a circus) and Liesl.  He and Liesl talk about his role in the universe, then sleep together.  He also discusses the fact that Mary may be a saint with     

·         Characters:

o   Dunstable Ramsay:  the protagonist who is writing the letter of his life to justify his existence.  He is an unreliable narrator, twisting events to put himself in a better light.  At the same time, he is confusing in his intentions because the one thing you can be certain of is that Dunstable does not know himself.  On one hand, he wants to validate his own existence as someone important.  He also seems to want to paint himself as a saint, a martyr, someone who is bearing other people’s problems and crosses.  But he also wants to paint himself as someone imperfect, humble, and insignificant—perhaps because he thinks that a saint wouldn’t think of himself as a good person.  But the reality is that Dunstable (whether important or not) isn’t saint-like.  He is narcissistic, selfish, and jealous, caught in a lifelong identity crisis.  He tries to be objective, but views himself  unconsciously as superior to everyone else because of that “objectivity.”  Altogether, and ironic character who’s quest for identity fails, never knows himself, and is unable to escape the importance of his actions but insignificance of his thoughts.

o   Mary Dempster: the sweet, mad woman who lives next door to Dunstable.  She is said to laugh at nothing and to be sweet to everyone, and resembles in many ways the Virgin Mary (especially in the birth of her son Paul).  Dunstable suspects she is either a saint or a fool-saint, because she has preformed three “miracles.”  Mary seems to be entirely selfless and unconcerned about her own existence.  All that matters is other people.  She is utterly devoted to everyone she encounters, and is unconcerned about her own reputation or happiness.

o   Amasa Dempster: the passive husband of Mary, who views her as his burden, though he originally seemed to love her.

o   Percy “Boy” Staunton: Percy is the eternally successful golden boy, whom confides in Dunny and is eventually killed to avenge his accidental attack on Mrs. Dempster.  He thinks himself blameless, and is constantly aspiring to greater things.  He is obsessed with the Prince of Whales—his most desperate wish is to be, essentially, royalty—revered and wealthy.  His family is more of a slot filled for his position than anything else.  He is utterly oblivious to the feelings of others—a kind of anti-saint, selfish but not malicious.

o   Leola: the first love interest of Dunstable, who eventually marries Percy.  She is weak, dependent, and likes to be admired.  She has little drive, but hates to disappoint.  She needs a man—when she finds out she doesn’t really have one, she tries to kill herself.

o   Liesl: the gargoyle-like but brilliant and charismatic Swiss magician.  She is in a relationship with practically everyone around her, and is in some ways the real Fifth Business.  She is Dunny’s confidant and tries to help him toward self-realization.  It is unclear what her motives are, or whether she is actually telling him the truth about himself.  She is a very mysterious figure; one character refers to her as the devil.

o   Paul Dempster (aka Magnus Eisengrim):  Paul is Mary’s son, and in many ways is a Jesus figure.  The relationship he has with his parents, like so many others in the novel, has molded him into a brooding, serious, mysterious figure who wants to instill fear and awe in his audience.  His Jesus-like origins, when juxtaposed with his vengeful character (he kills Percy Staunton), seems to point to the fact that there is no such thing as an entirely “saint-like” disposition. 

o   Padre Blazon: a religious old man who is one of Dunny’s two confidants.  He asks a lot of questions, but doesn’t provide any definitive answers.  He is a very positive character—he seems to accept the impossibility of knowing about the divine for sure.

·         Theme: People’s thoughts or emotions don’t matter—all that matters are their actions.  The only perfection that exists is the perfect storm of coincidences, manipulated by a divine to some unknown end.  We just have to follow along in our designated role.

·          

o   While Dunny is constantly struggling with his identity, his true self, and how he views the world, none of it ultimately makes any difference.  He never finds his true identity, but it doesn’t really affect his actions.  Dunny, in a sense, fulfills his role.  Despite his mixed feelings and resentment for Boy, he never does anything about it and remains his Fifth Business confidant.  When Liesl tries to tell him about himself he essentially ignores her.   He does what he thinks he should—goes to war, helps Mary—but doesn’t really go the extra mile that makes the reader (me, at least) believe he is actually driven to do this things.  He fulfills his role as the butterfly in the cycle, but his raging thoughts, his whole letter, doesn’t affect the world at all.  Despite his thoughts, he just has to follow along in his role.

o   While Mary and Paul are much like the Virgin Madonna and Jesus, they aren’t entirely perfect.  Paul in born in December at a time when he should not have been, to an angelic mother named Mary.  While the perfect storm of coincidence that resulted in Paul's birth reflects the birth of Christ in some ways, there is a problem with this interperetation.  Mary sleeps with a tramp and utterly lacks prudence (causing some to doubt her “legitimate” sainthood).  Paul is a brooding, vengeful character, scarred for life by the adults he encountered early on.  His last act recorded by Dunny is the murder of Percy Boy Staunton.  Perfect saints may have existed at one time—and even that is doubtful—but there is no such thing as perfection now.   The circumstances of Paul’s birth—the cause of all their troubles—are also very…coincidental.  It seems as though something is pulling strings to make Paul the way he is…yet all he does in the end is kill Boy.  The reader—and Dunny—doesn’t know why things have turned out this way.  But both need to accept that they have.

o   The fact that Paul’s most important action seems to be the murder of Boy, the reader must question why everything has come together to get rid of him.  What does Boy represent that needs to be eradicated?  One possibility is that Boy is constantly striving for perfection, the epitome of success.  On the surface, he seems to be “perfect.”  (Though Dunny alternately disagrees and agrees…he sees Boy as a kind of hated, but god-like figure).  One could argue that Boy is the ultimate mortal striving to be divine—more so than Dunny or anyone else.  Therefore, the “fool-saint” of Boy must be taken out, because perfection cannot exist on Earth.  But this is ambiguous, because what has Boy done that has set him so dangerously close to perfection, and why is it Paul and Liesl that must do away with him?

·         Quotes:

o   “Having me in the dining-room was almost the equivalent of having a Raeburn on the walls; I was classy, I was heavily varnished, and I offended nobody.”  This is how Dunny felt about his relationship with the Stauntons.  This essentially sums up his role as Fifth Business—the necessary fly on the wall.  This is his role, and he cannot break free from it.

o   “Life itself is too great a miracle for us to make so much fuss about potty little reversals of what we pompously assume to be the natural order.”  This quote exemplifies the message that mortals cannot possibly comprehend how things “should be.”  We just have to go along with our roles.

o   Liesl refers to Paul’s magic as “clockwork.”  This reinforces the idea that some unknown divine being has set the world in mechanized motion where emotions have no merit.  Everyone is a specific gear in the clock—they function the way they need to for the machine to run, and it doesn’t matter if they like it or not.

Summary and Analysis: Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice:

                A novel by Jane Austen, famous for its use of free and indirect discourse.  It is written in language common in the 1800's, the Victorian era in which Austen lived. 

·         Plot: The novel begins the arrival of eligible young bachelor Mr. Bingley.  Mrs. Bennett begins to get excited about the prospect of setting her daughters up with him.  Jane, the eldest, ends up being the object of his fancy at the dance.  The lively second sister, Elizabeth, is seemingly dismissed by his prejudiced friend Mr. Darcy, who thinks he is too high-class for the company.  The family gets very excited about the possibility of marriage between Jane and Bingley—except Mr. Bennett, who seems fairly indifferent—and Mrs. Bennett sends Jane in the rain to Bingley’s house.  She falls ill and stays there.  Elizabeth visits her and the reader learns that Darcy is struggling with his feelings for her—he is falling in love with her, but thinks she isn’t good enough for him.  Elizabeth turns down the proposal of a cousin Mr. Collins, and starts to like a poorer man called Mr. Wickham.  Darcy warns her against Wickham but won’t say why.  Just when it seems Jane and Bingley will really get together, Bingley leaves unexpectedly with his sisters and doesn’t contact Jane.  Elizabeth learns that Darcy convinced Bingley to test Jane, to ensure she wasn’t just marrying him for his money, and so turns down Darcy’s proposal.  Then, Wickham runs away with Elizabeth’s younger sister Lydia.  Darcy reveals that Wickham had done the same thing with his younger sister Georgia.  Darcy manages to get Lydia back home and gets Wickham to marry her.  This problem solved, Jane and Bingley marry, as do Elizabeth and Darcy. 

·         Characters

o   Jane: The sweet-minded eldest daughter of the Bennett’s, who seems to fall instantly in love with Mr. Bingley.  She is the only person in the play who never judges anyone else harshly.

o   Elizabeth: The second-oldest and sharpest-tongued Bennet sister.  She is very independent and is alone uninterested in marriage.  She is very intelligent and playful and cares deeply about her family.  She is also prejudiced, immediately writing off Mr. Darcy.

o   Lydia: the sister who’s in love with love.  She flings herself at every man in sight.

o   Mary: The youngest and only unattractive daughter of the Bennett’s.  She feels like she has to make up for the fact that she is plain by being very talented in music.  However, she is only mediocre but still attempts to show off every chance she gets in a desperate bid to get noticed and still be equal to her beautiful siblings.

o   Mrs. Bennet: mother of Bennett household, it is her goal in life to get all of her daughters married to wealthy men.  She has problems with her “nerves” and is generally is a very gossipy, hypocritical, and superficial woman.  But she does deeply care about her family and especially her daughters.

o   Mr. Bennet: father of the Bennett household, he is the opposite of his wife.  He doesn’t particularly seem to care if his daughters marry or not.  He has a very sarcastic, dry sense of humor, but ultimately does what he thinks will please his wife and daughters.  He greatly favors Elizabeth, because he values her intelligence.

o   Mr. Bingley: the wealthy, charming, handsome young man who seems to fall in love with Jane as soon as he sees her.  He is an overall friendly, welcoming, generous man who doesn’t seem to be as bound to societal conventions and standards as his sisters.  That being said, when his family makes him stay away from Jane to test her motives, he doesn’t really appear to protest.  This suggests his malleable, eager-to-please, trusting nature.

o   Mr. Darcy: the wealthy friend of Mr. Bingley who eventually falls in love with Elizabeth.  He is very proud—he believes himself above the Bennett’s social station—and values his own careful intelligence. 

o   Mr. Wickham: the sex addict who runs away with young women, then leaves them

·         Theme: Today’s society is superficial and romance is never completely detached from money.  Rather than making a distinct argument, this novel explores the different paths a woman can take toward marriage.  It seems to advocate not marrying solely for money, for getting to know your partner as a person first. 

o   The novel is essentially a lot of ado about not much.  Ultimately, the outcome everyone predicted in the start of the novel occurs—the daughters marry rich husbands.  What happens in between is much dancing and afternoon tea.  Also, Mrs. Bennett is ridiculous to the reader, with her obsession with marrying off her daughters.  The reader scoffs and the frivolous, ball-and-lace filled society of Pride and Prejudice.  We criticize a society all about marriage, money, and nothing else. 

o   All the Bennetts who marry marry rich, except Lydia (who has no choice).  Though we are encouraged to look upon Jane/Bingley and Elizabeth/Darcy and sweet and positive romances, one cannot ignore that both matches advance the girls’ social status.  It causes the reader to question the reality of even Elizabeth’s love, and the possibility of true love detached from money at all.

o   The different sisters could be interpreted to symbolize different parts of the author, representing the different paths she could take.  Jane: the “good daughter”.  She is sweet and mild and marries for money and happiness at once.  Elizabeth: the “lively rebel”, a feminist fantasy of the author.  Her independence is viewed as a positive thing.  Then again, she ultimately marries a rich man and “falls in love.”  A single (and desirable) woman does not exist in this society.  Lydia is in love with the idea of love: this is not a good way to go, it seems, hankering after romance.  She ends up with Wickham because he tried to seduce her and got paid off.  The ugly daughters humble and stay single for now.  It seems as though Austen is acknowledging there really is only one way to achieve happiness: fall in love, and fall in love with a rich man.  The two are still not seperate. 

• Quotes:
• "It is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life."  This is a view expressed by Mrs. Bennett, a view eventually seeming to be critiqued by Austen.  Mrs. Bennett cares nothing for personality and is supporting the common view of the time that love had all to do with money and station and nothing with love that grows out of getting to know one another.  Austen endorses Lizzy and Darcy's relasionship--they have gotten to know one another and accept the other completely, flaws and all.  Their relationship is at least mostly seperate from money.
• "Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us." Mary voices this opinion which highlights so many of the problems of characters in the novel.  Many characters are extremely proud AND vain--they want to keep up appearances, and think themselves above it all, hypocritically criticizing others.  These are traits in society which Austen critiques.
• "I have every reason in the world to think ill of you."  This quote, spoken by Lizzy to Darcy, sums up the way all the characters run around judging one another and trying to label each other without really getting to know them.  They--Lizzy, Darcy, Mrs. Bennett, Mrs. Bingley--all think themselves superior and believe they have another all figured out, but they have not really gotten to know them.  They believe they have their reasons, but they often jump to conclusions and are misinformed.  The chaos caused by this judging and misinformation helps convey Austen's criticism of this judgemental society.
   
   

Summary and Analysis: Ceremony

Ceremony:

                A novel by Leslie Marmon Silko.  The novel takes place in the Southern United States after World War II, predominantly on the Laguna reservation.  The novel is written in flowing, poetic prose which both emphasizes the dreamlike connection Tayo experiences between past and present, and contributes to the overall beauty of the work—a work all about the beauty of storytelling.  Sometimes this prose is interrupted by poetry, combining ancient folklore and modern stories, like the characters in the novel.  These poems also often reflect events occurring in the “present” time of the novel.

·         Plot: The story begins when Tayo is in the hospital, recovering from apparent post-traumatic stress disorder pending his service in Japan during WWII.  Tayo is clearly mentally confused, flitting between past and present events, resulting in vomiting.  He is released from the hospital, but is still very sick and confused.  He returns to the Laguna reservation.  His relatives try to get him to behave “normally” and help out along the ranch.  Through a series of flashbacks we learn that he was exceptionally close to his cousin Rocky (fully Native American) and uncle Josiah.  He has a rocky relationship with his Auntie because he is half white.  Tayo is wracked with guilt—he believes because he prayed to stop the rain in the Japanese jungle, there is now a draught going on in the reservation.  Tayo spends time drinking with fellow veterans, but he ends up sickened by their attachment to a white culture that scorns them now that they are out of uniform.  Tayo flashes back to the past even more, and the reader sees Josiah in a relationship with a Mexican dancer called Night Swan, who Tayo also slept with once.  We also learn that Josiah was breeding white cattle with Mexican cattle, to form a breed that could survive the tough desert conditions.  Meanwhile, Tayo’s grandmother calls a medicine man to try and help Tayo.  Tayo is not “healed”, but the medicine man sends him to Gallup, to another medicine man, Betonie.  Betonie is an odd mish-mash of white and Native American culture, and explains to Tayo that they must change the ceremonies to adapt to these combining cultures.  Betonie also says that this is part of a wider ceremony that must be completed to stop the “witchery.”  He tells a story of how some witches got together and one of them created white people as a curse that would destroy the world.  Tayo begins his ceremony by looking for Josiah’s escaped cattle, following them south.  Before he finds them, he meets and sleeps with a woman called Ts’eh.  The cattle have been caught in a white ranch, but he releases them, after encountering a mountain lion.  The cattle end up back at Ts’eh’s house—once Tayo leaves, he realizes he is in love with her.  He returns the cattle—at this point feeling more at ease with the connections between things, staying grounded in the present—and then goes back to Ts’eh.  Their time together is interrupted, because Emo has been hunting Tayo down with the police.  Tayo flees to an abandoned uranium mine.  The mine is the perfect sight for this part of the ceremony: it is related to earth and land, which Silko argues he must reconnect with, and is also a symbol of white culture, industrialism, and abuse of the land.  Tayo watches Emo arrive and torture Harley, but prevents himself from reacting violently, because this is what the witches would expect him to do.  He must break the cycle of violence.

·         Characters:

o   Tayo: the protagonist of the novel.  He fought in WWII and since an encounter in Japan struggles with connections between his past experiences and the present.  When he sees something that reminds him of another experience, he flashes back to that moment in time.  This is accompanied by vomiting.  Tayo also has many conflicting ideas about how white culture and his experience in the military should relate to Native American culture, which are intensified by his mixed background.  Through a series of ceremonies, Tayo eventually is able to reconcile with the connection between all things and defeat the witchery of prejudice.

o   Rocky: Tayo’s cousin, very close to Tayo, who dies fighting in Japan.  Rocky is very careless about Native American culture and eagerly wants to embrace white American values.

o   Josiah: Tayo’s uncle and father figure.  He dies while Tayo is at war, and represents a man very in-tune with his Native American culture, but who is also willing to adapt his customs to the times.

o   Auntie: Tayo’s aunt.  She does not love Tayo and is disgraced by his mother sleeping around with non-Native American men.  She is a devout Christian and Rocky was her pride and joy.

o   Robert: husband of Auntie. 

o   Night Swan: a half-Mexican dancer who is both the lover of Josiah and of Tayo. 

o   T’seh Montano: Tayo’s lover (the one he’s actually in love with) who lives apart from the Laguna reservation.  She is one of the steps in Tayo’s ceremony toward being able to cope with his knowledge of the connections between all things.  She symbolizes the land, indicating that Tayo—and all people—must learn to love and become closer to the land.

o   Emo: the evil veteran who Tayo attempts to kill.

o   Harley and Leroy: two veterans who have abandoned Native American culture and drowned their struggles in alcohol.

·         Theme: All cultures, experiences, and stories are connected, and we must coexist peacefully together—but we must all love and care for the earth and appreciate these connections, appreciate that we are all a part of a repeating ancient story that will continue to cycle.

o   The main theme of this novel is the connection between all things.  It begins with Tayo’s epiphany when he sees the Japanese man as Josiah, and when he prays the rain away in Japan and there is a draught in America.  Tayo realizes that everything is connected, but he can’t handle it.  He throws up and can’t control the connections he sees between the past and the present.  These connections are underlined by Silko’s use of the poems about Thought Woman, who spins webs with her thoughts and spins the world with her stories.  The image of the spider web ties into the circular nature of time.  There is never any new stories—they just have to adapt.  This is very apparent through the ancient stories Silko incorporates.  The events in these poems reflect the things happening to Tayo.  All stories, all cultures, all events are connected.

o   The only way for Tayo to ultimately heal is for him to adapt the old Native American ceremonies to the white culture around him.  When characters go only one way, and do not see the inevitable connection between cultures, they suffer.  For example, the veterans like Harley, Leroy, and Emo get stuck trying to sustain all-white values as Native Americans, and end very unhappily.  Just like in order for the cattle to survive, they must be white and Mexican, Tayo must adapt his traditions to suit this new way of life.

o   Perhaps the most important Native American value that must be retained is the love and care of the land.  This begins when Tayo prays away the rain and a drought begins.  He has disregarded tradition, to disastrous consequences.  The biggest problem with white culture that is underlined is the destruction of nature.  In order for Tayo to heal, he must love Ts’eh Montano.  Her last name means mountain, and she symbolizes the earth.  Only when the earth is (in this case literally) embraced can the people be healed.

·         Quotes:

o   “No word exists alone.”  This is a description of the Laguna language, which extends to so many themes in this novel about connections.  Each word in the Native American language is connected to the others, just as past and present are connected, all stories are connected, and all peoples are connected.  Nothing exists by itself.

o   “It seems like I already heard these stories before—only thing is, the names sound different.”  Old Grandma says this at the end of the play.  This is a very prevalent theme throughout the novel.  The poems of ancient stories that Silko incorporates mirror Tayo’s experiences.  History repeats itself, changing slightly with the times, just as the people must.  Everything in Ceremony is connected, especially the stories. 

o   “I will tell you something about stories…they aren’t just entertainment.  Don’t be fooled.  They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.”  In this story about stories, this is a crucial line.  Tayo must depend on the story of his life and the stories of his ancestors to heal himself and understand his world.  It is a story which created the trouble with the white people in the first place—now, stories are the only thing that can help Native American culture survive.  Everything is a story, Silko argues, a story that repeats itself and heals us.

Summary and Analysis: Death of a Salesman

Death of a Salesman:

                A play by Arthur Miller.  The play takes place in New York City, usually in the protagonists’ house, but also in a restaurant, a hotel, and a graveyard at varying point in the story.  The point of view of the reader or viewer is closely aligned with the protagonist, Willy, and you are invited to sympathize with him.  Miller has his characters speak with colloquial, realistic dialogue which emphasizes the fact that the characters’ situation is meant to directly reflect real life.  Miller also presents the reader/viewer with images of an American family fraught with dysfunction and misery to make his point about our society.

·         Plot:  The play begins with Willy returning home after a business trip.  He almost crashed the car because he was flashing back to the past and getting lost in his memories.  Willy is revealed to be aging and becoming confused.  The viewer finds out that Willy’s sons, Biff and Happy, have returned for a visit.  The brothers are upstairs, reminiscing about their childhood and getting excited about the prospect of going out West to own a ranch together.  Meanwhile, Willy becomes immersed in a past memory, when Biff and Happy were in high school.  They are both athletic and successful, and the family laughs at their schoolmate Bernard.  Biff is failing math, but Willy waves it away because he believes the secret to success is being well-liked, at that Bernard will never make it because he’s unlikeable.  We also learn that Willy is is very delusional about his own success, and keeps flashing back to his brother Ben. We learn that Ben made a fortune because he went to Alaska, and that Willy had the opportunity to go with him but turned it down.  Willy seems tortured by this decision.  Biff and Happy join Willy and tell him about their business plan,—and the possibility of Biff “making it” immediately cheers Willy, who advises Biff to go to his old college Bill Oliver.  Despite their strained relationship, Willy really wants to connect with his sons and make them proud.  Willy goes to his boss to ask to work closer to home, but he is turned down and then fired.  Willy then flashes back to the past, right before Biff’s big football game.  Willy lies to Charlie about Biff's sucess, and we learn that Biff saw Willy and The Woman having an affair (this is why he never went to summer school).  Meanwhile, at the diner where Biff and Happy are meeting Willy for dinner, they meet a couple of girls.  Happy flirts with them, but Biff doesn’t have the “old confidence.”   Willy shows up, but ends up in a fight with Biff because he refuses to accept or hear the fact that Bill Oliver didn’t remember Biff and didn’t help him start a sporting goods business.  He is delusional about success and Biff can’t handle it.  Biff and Happy leave without Willy, causing the whole family to get in an argument later on.  Willy goes and buys seeds, then plants a garden while he talks to Ben (in his imagination).  As the rest of the family reconciles, Ben convinces Willy that if he commits suicide, Biff will get the large life insurance policy money and finally be successful.  The family makes up, and then Willy leaves to kill himself in a car crash.  The play ends at his funeral.  Biff criticizes Willy’s dream, but Happy and Charley say that this is the only dream anyone can have.  Happy promises to continue the dream.  Linda weeps at Willy’s grave, lamenting that they just paid off the mortgage, and the curtain closes.

·         Characters:

o   Willy Loman: the protagonist of the play.  Obsessed with making money and material success, Willy is tortured by his own mediocrity and his son Biff’s inability to keep a job.  He is in his sixties and is losing his senses, often flashing back to the past and talking to figments of his imagination.  He seems to love his wife Linda, but had an affair with another woman.  Willy believes in the American Dream of “rags to riches”, and is determined to pass on this belief to his sons.  He also thinks that the key to success is being “well liked”, being physically attractive, and good at traditionally masculine activities (working with your hands, playing contact sports).  Willy represents the “old values” of America, where getting rich without working is possible and the individual matters.  He is crushed by the society Miller is criticizing; a tragic hero.

o   Linda Loman: Willy’s wife.  She is utterly devoted to him.

o   Happy Loman: Willy’s elder son.  He is a mediocre businessman who is constantly vying for his father’s praise.  He cannot seem to get married, instead going out with a variety of girls he never sees again.

o   Biff Loman: Willy’s kleptomaniac younger son who cannot seem to hold a job.  He struggles with his father’s expectations of success and is miserable just trying to get money.  His kleptomania stems out of the values Willy imparted in him about getting something for nothing.  Biff alone sees the problem with society’s rat race obsession with wealth.

o   Charley: the Loman’s next door neighbor.  He doesn’t interfere with his son’s life and helps out Willy in times of need.

o   Bernard: Charley’s son, a math geek who ends up extremely successful by working hard and studying.  Biff and Happy’s foil, representing the new values of America where charm and personality don’t matter and no one cares about the individual.

o   The Woman: Willy’s lover.  Immediately signified by her title as opposed to a name, The Woman is an entity.  She represents Willy’s desire to be attractive and young, at a time when he believe success is still possible.

·         Theme: We live in a consumer-oriented society obsessed with material wealth, where the individual doesn’t matter and anyone who does not conform will be crushed. J Yay!

o   Willy’s obsession with material success is Miller’s main tool in his commentary about society.  Willy is tortured by his “mistake” in not going with Ben to Alaska and making his fortune.  He believes that the only way he can make his family happy and proud is to be successful, and tries to impart these values on his son Biff.  He wants Biff to be happy, so he wants Biff to make money—for him, these are one in the same.  It is this expectation—and his constant delusion that success is possible—that destroys him and his family.  He literally sacrifices himself for money.

o   Though Miller is arguing that today’s society is obsessed with material success, the mere obsession is not all that undoes Willy.  Willy’s final undoing is that while he has the wrong values concerning material success, he also has the wrong values trying to get there.  He believes in the American Dream of “rags to riches”—getting rich quick, on a smile and good looks.  He is constantly emphasizing to his kids that they will be successful because they are so “well-liked” and good looking.  However, Willy represents these old values, and these are not the values which today’s society upholds.  Instead, people like Bernard—those who are mechanized, not individuals, just cogs in the machine—are valued and “make it.”  It is Willy’s inability to adapt to these new ideals that causes his downfall, in addition to his hopeless obsession with wealth.

o   Willy is also portrayed as the tragic hero of the novel—his downfall is not his fault.  This is emphasized especially by Charley’s words at Willy’s funeral which recalls the heroes of ancient Greek tragedy, and Happy saying that his dream was the only one you could have.  Willy Loman is a “low man”—he is an everyman, just a victim of the larger problems of society.

·         Quotes:

o   “Nobody dast blame this man.”  Charley says this at Willy’s funeral.  The sudden change from regular speech to older language causes it to jump out at the reader.  It also connects Willy to the tragic heroes of ancient plays, emphasizing his role as the courageous, hapless victim of society.

o   “I was lonely, Biff.”  This is Willy’s excuse to his son for the affair he has with The Woman.  This reinforces Willy’s pattern of being delusional—this is not why he sleeps with The Woman.  She is an entity, something which proves to him he is desirable.  This very sexual relationship is much more like an interaction between younger people.  Willy wants to feel younger and desirable, because this is a time when success is still possible.  While it is literally only possible when young, since Willy represents old values, it also reflects how success was possible when he was younger—that is, success Willy’s way was once possible, when his values were young.  But Willy is delusional.  Success and youth are no longer possible for him.

o   “He’s liked, but he’s not well liked.”  Willy says this about Bernard.  This essentially describes his values, the things he think will get him success.  He is living in the past, when being charming and handsome could get you rich quick.  But Willy’s values don’t apply anymore—now, people don’t want individuals, they want a cog in the machine.  Bernard is the one who will get ahead.