A Raisin in the Sun

Quoting Poetry

In order to quote poetry in your paper in a proper way, you can follow the requirements below according to MLA rules.

Quoting less than four lines. This quotation does not require special emphasis, put it in quotation mark within your text. If you need to quote two or three lines, you have to use a slash with a blank space before and after it.

Dylan Thomas gives this poem a powerful sense of personification, also called prosopopeia: "The tombstone told when she died" (1).

Robert Bruce addresses his army in Robert Burns´s poem : "Wha for Scotland´s king and law / Freedom´s sword will strongly draw / Freeman stand, or freeman fa´?"  (13-15).

Quoting more than three lines. You should begin on a new line and you need to indent each line ten spaces from the left margin without adding quotation marks.

Tennyson shows us how people remain indifferent to the loss of his friend:

          O well for the fisherman's boy,

          That he shouts with his sister at play!

          O well for the sailor lad,

          That he sings in his boat on the bay! (5-8)

If you need to begin the quotation in the middle of a line you have to write the first word in the same position where it is in the original, That is, you do not have to indent ten spaces and you do not need to use ellipses points:

The Mariner speaks aloud after shooting the albatros:

                            I had killed the bird

          That brought the fog and mist.

          'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,

          That bring the fog and mist. (99-102)

If you want to remove one or more lines, you need to use a line of points in order to indicate the omission:

Alliteration in the following stanza:

          About, about, in reel and rout

           . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
      
          The water, like a witch's oils,

          Burnt green, and blue and white (45-48).

Source

Gibaldi, Joseph, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers; The Modern Language Association of America; New York, USA; 2003

Misogynist In Gulliver´s Travels

“. . . among people of quality a wife should be always a reasonable

and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be young”.

Gulliver´s Travels (59)

Critics and scholars state that the misogynistic attitudes are evident and obvious in Gulliver´s Travels and in addition to the whole work of Jonathan Swift. As a matter of fact, Swift by means of Gulliver writes that “I see myself accused of . . . degrading human nature . . . and of abusing the female sex” (3). However, did these words belong only to the author´s own convictions?, Were the words shared with his contemporaries?. Did Swift only write against the woman or instead of misogyny it would be better talking about misanthropy?.

Swift was a man in his time and the perception about the woman in the 18^th century was not very different from the role that women play in Gulliver´s Travels. Moreover, if Swift parodies travel literature in his work, it stands to reason that the way in which he will show us women in the story will also be a caricatured way. 

In other words, as Jacques Lacan wrote in Ecrits, "A word is not a word except in so far as someone believes in it" (264). And Swift makes use of the words in order to change the perception of the reality. Satire is a question of points of view and Swift was above all a satirist writer, a writer from the 18th century where the female role had nothing to do with the role of women in our time.

In 1782 a British judge, Sir Francis Buller declared that it was “Perfectly legal for a man to beat his wife, as long as he used a stick no thicker tan his thumb”. This sentence was passed in an English court 37 years after Swift´s death. Taking a look at English men´s behaviour in the century we are dealing with, we will realize that the female role in Swift age is very close to the female role in Gulliver´s Travels. In this way, the following quotation can be considered as a general opinion about the lack of influence of the woman in England and not as a personal opinion of Swift, “But my wife protested I should never go to sea any more, although my evil destiny so ordered that she had not power to hinder me” (161).

 

Moreover, an English tory, John Shebbeare states in 1758 that “The woman was the companion in the hours of reason and conversation in France, but in England she was only the momentary toy of passion”. According to this statement, it could be posible to consider that the Swift´s thoughts are quite justified when he writes “A wife should be always a reasonable and agreeable companion, because she cannot always be Young” (59).

However, the English society was not only the civil society. Swift was a cleric and became Dean of St. Patrick in Dublin. In other words, he belonged to the Church of England with an important office. And the role of the woman in the Anglican Church was not different from the role in the society. Women could not speak in terms of Theology and they were considered as the beginning of the sin. The Anglican Church did not considerer the woman capable of having virtues and in this way it is possible to understand something wrote by a cleric like Swift “The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skill in dressing . . . but constance, chastity, good sense and good nature were not rated, because they would not bear the charge of collecting” (208).

In this context, it is important to point out that one of the most important moments in the Swift´s career as a clergyman was performed by a woman, the Queen Mary II in her role of head of the Anglican Church did not allow the presence of Swift in an English parish and he was appointed to a little church near Belfast. However, he do not argue against the Queen, but he writes in Gulliver´s Travels “Her Majesty the late Queen Anne, of most pious and glorious memory” (1).

Swift did not know his father and his mother did not educate him. The first images of a woman are related with his nanny. In his adult life, it is thought that the woman he loved did not correspond him. In addition we have seen the episode with the Queen. Nevertheless, his thoughts about women were not negatives at all. Specially, in terms of education he was a follower of giving the same education to men and women and this position was not very common in his time. In this way, the episode of the Project for abolishing all words could be regarded with the Swift´s irony “And this invention would certainly have taken place . . . if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion” (203).

It is important to insist on the concept on satire while we are dealing with Gulliver´s Travels, because it could be possible that the thoughts Swift had about women were close to the thoughts he stated about kings, politician, scientists and so on. Taking this fact into account, we can speak about misanthropy instead of misogyny as he recognized at the very beginning of his work “I see myself accused . . . of degrading human nature” (3).

Gulliver is a satire. A satire where is deformed the reality of both, women and men. The woman in Gulliver´s Travels is satirized as bitterly as other characters in his whole work.

A deeper reading of Gulliver´s Travels can bring us a different visión of Swift and the woman. If the reader comes near the age in which Swift lived and worked, it will possible to understand some clues for thinking in Swift not only as in a misogynistic but in a person who lived in his time.

Sources

Boddington, Andy,  "The Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos", 2009 

Miami University, "Women´s Lives in Eighteenth Century England", 2010 

Slavoj, Zizek; How to Read Lacan; Granta Paperbacks, NJ, USA; 2006.

Swift, Jonathan; Gulliver´s Travels; Penguin Popular Clasics; London, 1994

Pembroke´s Benevolence

PEMBROKE

Hard is the heart that injures such a saint

(4.190)

PEMBROKE

My Lord Mortimer, and you, my lords, each one,

To gratify the king's request therein,

Touching the sending of this Gaveston,

Because his majesty so earnestly

Desires to see the man before his death,

I will upon mine honour undertake

To carry him, and bring him back again;

Provided this, that you my lord of Arundel

Will join with me.

(9.74-82)

These two speeches are delivered by the Earl of Pembroke in different scenes of Christopher Marlow´s Edward II. Is Pembroke at the Queen side? Is the Earl one of the King´s men?. This aparently odd behaviour in Pembroke´s character can be explained if the reader takes a look at the title page of the play.

Christopher Marlow´s Edward II was "publiquely acted by the right honorable the Earle of Pembrook his seruantes" (title page). This Elizabethan playing company best known as The Earl of Pembroke´s Men was supported and financed by Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (1538-1601). Being Henry Herbert a sucessor of the Earl of Pembroke who is characterized in Marlowe´s play it is possible to argue that the role and the nature of this character should be showed in such a way that the patron of the performance had no complains about how the good name of his family was showed to the audience. 

 

Moreover, it may also be possible that Marlowe had taken into account historical reasons in order to give this character a benevolent nature because the Earl of Pembroke who lived at the time of the play (early 14^th century), had died two years before Edward`s death. In other words, it would be impossible to know if the Earl of Pembroke had been at the Edward´s side or against him.

Isabella in Marlowe’s Edward II

Queen Isabella is perhaps one of the most complex characters in the whole range of Marlowe’s drama, Edward II: The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer. She is drawn from various angles and she plays a very pivotal role in the progress of the plot and devised the destiny of the play. Overall she appears as a passionate wife, a bundle of pretension a greedy, self-seeking woman.

From the very beginning of drama none can identify the true character of Queen Isabella. At first she appears as a deeply devoted and loving wife. She is ready to sacrifice everything for the shake of her husband. She wants to leave the court and live in the forest in order to find the happiness of her husband with Gaveston. Though she is ill treated by her husband yet she is found to be worried about her husband’s safety. The ill treatment that Queen Isabella has received from Edward II is beyond to bear for the shake of peace and to avoid civil war. She agrees for the repeal of banishment order of Gaveston. She requests the barons not to revolt against the king. She succeeds in bringing back Gaveston but she fails to bring back the love of Edward-II for her. All her womanly zeal is crushed. She is stricken out and perhaps this cause is in working to bring forth the aspect of her character.

Isabella is a split personality she is the first real woman character of Marlowe.  She is more alive, at any rate than the corpse of Zenocrate or the Wrath of Helen. Isabella cherishes a soft corner for younger Mortimer. The king accuses her for her adulteress. She meets Mortimer secretly and tells him about the king’s suspicions. She vividly expresses in a soliloquy her love for younger Mortimer: 

                   “so well hathst thou deserve sweet Mortimer

                   as Isabella could live with the forever”.

She is a dissembler. She assumes the role of the Machiavelli and displays her marked characteristic of dissembling – she knows what to say and what to do and in what time and in what place. The change in her character can easily bring out her split personality. It is clear from the soliloquy of the Earl of Kent:

              “Dissemble, or thou diest; for Mortimer

                And Isabel do kiss while they conspire;

                  And yet she bears a face of love forsooth”.

Her hypocrisy is a marked one. She wants to kills two birds with one stone. In one hand to please her husband she pleads the barons to bring back Gaveston, on the other hand she conspired with the barons to kill Gaveston. She was sent to France by Edward-II to ease the situation but she returns England with force and defeats the king and even imprisons him. She asks Mortimer to make her son the king of England and yet she likes to control all over the kingdom.

Marlowe makes everyone keep before the queen the idea that she is in love with Mortimer. Gaveston says this openly the king seems willing to belief it; the courtiers glance and whispers. There could scarily be better preparation for the relations between Queen and Mortimer.

This is undeniable fact that Queen Isabella has great love for her son and she truly wants to make him the king of England. She wants to protect her son from every possible danger. It is ironical that the Queen once again is caught in adversities. The young prince suspects the hand of younger Mortimer and his mother in the imprisonment and murder of king Edward-II.

            “Mother you are suspected for his death

            And therefore we commit you to the tower

            Till further trial may me maid there of;

            If you be guilty, thou I be your son

            Think not to find me slack of pitiful”.

Evil begets evil only Isabella now faces her Nemesis. She thought to lead to happy go live after her son becomes the king but on the contrary she finds herself utterly destitute when the secrecy is revealed. The new king comes to know the actual doings of his mother and sentences her to be imprisoned. The wheel of happiness is sung into quagmire of misery.

Isabella is a multicolored character. When she is introduced to us she seems to be an innocent wife but as the play rolls on mystery of her character becomes clear. But she is also a victim of circumstances. Further her mind and action lead to the events taking place in the plot of the play.

Text from Ardhendu De

A Love Story I

Summer afternoons in Seville were very hard for a child. At home, it was compulsory being quiet, keeping silence after eating while my father was having a doze and my mother was watching television, listening to the radio or doing the ironing. However, it was the best moment for me, I knew I could spend the whole afternoon in that room. . .

In my father´s study, in that room there were many people, there were many friends waiting for me. Suddenly, I was sailing with Jack Aubrey or I was looking for a trail next to Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes I had to sing with Long John Silver and other times I had to run with “The Five”, but after running I could always rest in the Ivanhoe´s tent. Although I have to admit there were awful days, specially when Bertha Mason began to scream and Gulliver was too far from home and he could not help me.

Nevertheless, in the worst moment an overwhelming force came to save me. William Bligh, on board the Bounty expelled Mason from my mind and a few moments later, the ship tied up at a strange dock. The dock was in an lonely island where Robinson was waiting for me, he wanted tell me wonderful stories about other island, a remote island where people spoke in a language I did not know. He told me that in that remote island were born all my friends that now were living in my father´s study. An island where had been built all the ships I had in my books.

One day, when afternoon became evening my neighborhood friends came at home, we were going to play a football match. I ask my mother for my red shirt and when she gave me it . . . I realized she had sewn three letters, three capital letters near the place where the shirt and my heart had to crash, only three letters “LFC”.

These three letters came from that remote island. I went to play my football match with only one aim: I wanted to learn that language in which Defoe had written. I wanted to understand what “You will never walk alone” meant.

 

Although, that is another story. . . another love story.