Women’s Challenge to Patriarchalism; Feminism Approach to “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen

“Pride and Prejudice,” probably the best work ever written by Jane Austen, has satisfied people in a number of ways. There are a lot of fascinations employed in this novel to make readers feel that way, especially engaging females in a sense of comfortableness. The story is successfully designed to make us conscious of new aspects of women that previously have been unseen or even ignored. For instance, while a number of eighteen-century novels demonstrate that women were actually sacrificing themselves pressured by a desperate need of getting married, this novel paves the way for defining women’s self-respect as totally independent of their husband hunting (Johnson, 92). For it “happily averts a showdown between survival and self-respect” by potentially settling some “competing claims without conflict or sacrifice” in the end (Johnson, 92). The compatibility between the necessity of marriage and pursuit of self-satisfaction is insisted on here, with a belief that women really need not even struggle faced with this impossible choice. A long-time agony for women in history, the stereotyped notion thus fades toward obsolescence in this story that they are supposed to forfeit their own happiness once married.
Among these kinds of employments of female fulfilment emerges one possible motif the author Jane Austen seems to have adopted in her writing of this novel. It can be safely said that there are some descriptions scattered in the story that make us convinced that Austen must have had a strong will to dispute a social trend in which women were looked down on. It is true, though, that this idea has been often susceptible to challenges suggested by those confident that this story’s overall plot contributes to female powerlessness confirmed after all. They say for example, the mere fact the Bennets women are struggling in their present situation created by an unfair patriarchal entailment system clearly suggests that they are abused by society, even void of an ability to challenge it.
However, the purpose of this paper is to prove that despite every argument proposed by those people it is still undeniable that we can clearly see in this novel Austen’s strong insistence upon women’s independence. In later sections, this opinion is confirmed mainly by three ideas: firstly by meticulous analysis of the unique way that the meaning of “female friendship” operates in the story, followed by an intriguing “absent-minded” theory established by critic Susan C. Greenfield; secondly by observation of the personality of Elizabeth Bennet, a heroine in this story, and of the relationship between her and her fiancé, Darcy Fitzwilliam, involving a theory by Jean Jacques Rousseau about sexual characteristics; thirdly by an interesting argument attached to a funny female character, Mrs. Bennet. Again, each of them is highly rewarding and useful to make convincing the thesis of Austen’s motive to establish women’s self-value in this novel.
Closer observation of female friendship in this novel reinforces the idea of Austen’s arduous challenge to the traditional approach to women. A lot of female characters appearing in this story, their relationship should not be defined as just mere “friends”; it is more than that. They try to construct a strong female community based on a common sense of aversion against the world dominated by male. In this regard, their relationship in this story can be identified as a female “alliance,” in which they are desperately eager to subvert the male’s governance over themselves. Elizabeth Bennet, one of the most major protagonists, is a chief leader of that party constantly obsessed by a hatred for patriarchal values. That is why she is all the more disappointed when faced with an unforgivable betrayal perpetrated by one of the members in her unity. Charlotte Lucas, whom Elizabeth definitely believed to be her closest friend, has decided to make an engagement with a man of great consequence and property merely searching for his security. This shocking news seems to have flabbergasted, and even mortified Elizabeth. He, called Mr. Collins, is actually the one whose passionate proposal she refused with such a determined resolution a few days before, that she was finally put under the necessity of declaring herself as “a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart” (Austen, 122). Her every effort thus done to reject Collin has been totally ruined by Charlotte’s later insensitive acceptance of him.
However, what Charlotte has ruined is not only Elizabeth’s refusal itself. Depending only on the mercenary motives without any real affection attached, Charlotte betrays her disloyalty to the community she belongs to, on the verge of ruining her friendship with Elizabeth. For Elizabeth, easily accepting a proposal only out of economic reasons is nothing but the subjugation to men. For those women who are really loyal to their own sex, she might say, would never concede that females lack an ability to own objects and advance in life. Of course they know it is true that women are apt to follow wealthy men to secure their own life; a man of a good fortune being “the rightful property of some one or other of their daughter” (Austen, 3). However, it is totally unprofessional for a member of the female community to relinquish her dignified pride as a woman and determined attitude against succumbing to the temptation of men’s property. Charlotte’s disloyalty has thus led to Elizabeth feeling alienated and their friendship becoming weakened (Kaplan, 104). Actually, an awkward politeness is suddenly produced between the two, in which “there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent on the subject” (Austen, 144). Thus, taking a rather austere attitude to the renegade careful lest any sign of forgiveness should escape herself, Elizabeth Bennet seems to show how the whole betrayal has been exasperating to herself. Her outrageous disappointment and devastation is accordingly indicative of how huge amount of confidence in and attachment for the female solidity she has held with strong loyalty.
In addition to the meaning of friendship as a “female alliance,” there is another implied definition of friendship operating in this novel. Austen also seems to indentify women friendship with a “sisterhood” (Kaplan, 195). This story’s use of the meaning of a women companionship as a sisterhood becomes particularly apparent when Elizabeth Bennet decides to refuse a proposal from Fitzwilliam Darcy. Unable to demonstrate her impartial discernment blinded by the distorted prejudice toward Darcy previously suggested by Mr. Wickham, Elizabeth dismisses his sincere proposal very negligently. One of the most disgusting things about Darcy Elizabeth has heard from Wickham is his intrigue to separate her dearest sister Jane from her intended fiancé Mr. Bingley. Elizabeth is actually so deeply astonished to hear this unforgivable information as to find herself in a need of mental consolation to apart from her “agitation and tears which the subject occasioned” (Austen, 208).
In this sedate meditation, Elizabeth lets her resentment against Darcy growing stronger and stronger, deeply sympathizing with her sister by reading “all the letters which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent” (Austen, 209). Darcy, unaware of her being amid the increasing hatred against himself, confesses his enthusiastic love to her with every gentlemanlike gallantry possible. In this scene, Darcy himself seems to be confident in seeing his sincere proposal immediately accepted by her a few moments later, because he has never imagined Elizabeth can be allegiant to her sister enough to kick out the great chance to marry him (Johnson, 91). However, by declaring no amount of reflection will allow herself to condone the man fully responsible for every disaster of “a most beloved sister” (Austen, 212), Elizabeth refuses his love confession in a very disrespectful manner. In this context, it is fully obvious that Elizabeth shows strong loyalty to a sisterhood with Jane by dumping a great opportunity of marriage which if accepted must have secured her subsequent life; camaraderie between them has intensified itself more than ever in her strenuous effort to defend her sisterhood.
One of the intriguing theories confirming the idea of this novel’s relatively stronger friendship is explained by the hidden fact that female characters in this story, especially Elizabeth, become more discerning when they are isolated by the power of absence (Greenfield). That is, estrangement from the public allows them to exercise the most sophisticated observation of things around them. For uncertainty makes one feel the need of stopping to think about things while those confident that they are well informed do not care about them (Greenfield). For example in this story, only after Darcy disappears from Elizabeth in his quest of Lydia and Wickham, a eloped couple, to reconstruct peace of the Bennets, does Elizabeth realize how admirable he is. Thus, separated for a while from the tangible Darcy and therefore allowed to re-identify him inside her head through a different perspective, Elizabeth implements her perception and judgement the best without any prejudice.
Now, what is to be noted here is that this highly-sophisticated exertion of judgement through the power of absence can be applied to other female characters too, with the result of contributing to their friendship intensified. They find themselves more conscious of and identified with each other when they are detached. Their relationship cultivates itself through “emotional intimacy and frankness” (Kaplan, 192). The most interesting example is maybe the one between Elizabeth and Jane. Their strong companionship, which we will examine closely in a different approach later, is a very convincing evidence to confirm the idea of intensified friendship by absence. For instance, Elizabeth is constantly preoccupied with her sister in her imagination when the latter stays at Mr. Bingil’s home, three miles away from the city the Bennets lives in. Her consideration for the absent Jane even encourages her to go to see the sick sister on foot; even though the weather is so dirty that anyone can guess easily Elizabeth in a few hours would be the person victimized by “weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise” (Austen, 36), that she really is. Also, a great deal of correspondence itself with the two also shows that they are connected so strongly, constantly caring about each other even though they are not physically seen. Since absence enhances the quality of judgement, camaraderie between the sisters is made all the more reliable and solid amid the growing considerations for the intangible. This unique type of friendship is built on female solidarity eager to make their relationship stronger, a firm evidence of women’s desire for independence.
To vindicate the idea of Austen’s all discontent with the conventional way that women are looked down on, it is also highly rewarding to analyze Elizabeth’s personality itself, apart from the viewpoint of friendship. One of the keywords to describe her character is the word “individualism.” Elizabeth always does what she thinks is right, not shaken by any confrontation, especially the one provided by male. When dancing with Darcy at the Netherfield ball, she denies being subordinate to him, which women are supposed to be (Kaplan, 186). She says, “It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. －I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples” (Austen, 102). In this context, individualism can be established as part of the interpretation that Elizabeth plays a dominating role over Darcy in this story. Generally expected to show that men’s exertion of their educated knowledge leads women to change more dignifiedly and maturely, Austen seems to try to challenge the trend by her use of the relationship between the heroine and hero. Actually, it is Elizabeth who dominates the other with the result of his personality enhanced in the end. Elizabeth’s strong individualism thus exerted on Darcy, in its didactic effect on him, obviously demonstrates that she is totally against the conventional way women are supposed to be.
Here, this unlikely interaction between Elizabeth and Darcy suggests one possibility concerning conventional sexual characteristics. There has been a perennial debate as to whether a conventional behaviour of male and female is constructed naturally, or just acquired later in one’s life. That is for example, whether a commonly acknowledged female quality that they are of elegant propriety is intrinsically determined or contingent on their later experience. Jane Austen, by means of her use of Elizabeth’s deviation from a conventional female behaviour, insists that their characteristics be entirely acquired, not natural, and therefore actually replaceable (Cohen). It also leads us to be aware that Austen must have challenged the philosophy of sexual role suggested by a famous theorist in the mid-eighteenth century, Jean Jacques Rousseau (Cohen). He maintained the characteristic available to each sex is irrevocable and nothing can be done to change it because it is definitely natural, saying “Where they [men and women] differ, they are not comparable ... One ought to be active and strong, the other passive and weak” (Rousseau, 358). In later paragraphs, it will be argued that there is every intension scattered in this novel to call it into question that stereotyped characteristics attributed to each sex are innately determined, through the portrayal of “reversion” of conventional behaviours between male and female; presented in Elizabeth and Darcy. Since it is almost obvious, from hitherto arguments, that Elizabeth behaves rather male-like way, the focus will be on Darcy Fitzwilliam, proving he has gradually acquired womanish mannerism in the story. To verify the inversion of sexual traits would be to corroborate Austen’s insistence on women’s independence.
Darcy Fitzwilliam, apparently seen as if he, as most other men, were extremely loyal to his own sex － proud, conceited, arrogant, and narcissistic, － actually has undergone a huge material change in his nature. His personality is enhanced in the end, rather effeminate. First, he learns to behave in the way more devoted to others, as women were used to sacrificing themselves for men. After faced with his loving woman Elizabeth devastated a great deal by the news of a Lydia-and-Wickham elopement, Darcy suddenly disappears. A few weeks later, he is actually found to have paid a tremendous amount of debts, amounting to “considerably more than a thousand pounds” (Austen, 356), to settle the matter. It is all the more unbelievable given the long-term feud between Darcy and Wickham, which is attributed to the latter’s intolerable despicability and betrayal to the other in the past. Nevertheless, Darcy did it; mostly because he was spurred by his affection for Elizabeth, even though he was sure he would never be accepted by her. In this context, we can interpret that he, deciding to delicate himself to his loving woman, has abandoned his headstrong pride as a man, and started to gain a female-like personality of making a sacrifice. Second, a letter Darcy wrote to Elizabeth after he was refused also shows that Darcy comes to acquire an effeminate characteristic in his own self. The letter, ending itself with a phrase “God bless you” (Austen, 224), implies that it has a “show of genuine feeling,” which links “stylistic conventions to sentiment in a fashion that Rousseau would call properly female” (Cohen). Adding such a phrase means that he began to make himself considerate and thoughtful for others, a step to estrange himself from selfishness often seen in male and, reversely, to perform altruisms in female. Last, maybe the most overt, Darcy shows Elizabeth a kind of capitulation, accepting that his personality is to be blamed in some way. Men, thought of as always superior to women, generally would not admit their having faults at all, even sometimes regarding it as the most humiliating to accept that they are wrong. However, Darcy does it at the last scene. He bitterly thinks back of his life and admits he has just let his own pride and conceit growing up in his nature doing what he wants to: “I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice ... I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit” (Austen, 406). In this context, Darcy again learns to behave in a female-like manner, letting Elizabeth win himself by means of voluntarily vindicating her long-cherished argument that he has been disagreeable in a way.
Here, what must be remembered is that these reversed conventional behaviours between male and female in the story directly contribute to supporting Austen’s suggestion that sexual characteristics are entirely acquired. If they were inherently determined and unchangeable, Elizabeth would not have teased Darcy with such aggressiveness at the ball complying with female propriety; and Darcy would not have accepted his wrongness loyal to male pride. Thus, showing the fact that sexual characteristics are always interchangeable, Austen seems to say it is foolish to try to weigh up people’s value only from their sex. She might even say they originally have the same amount of ability to perform things, regardless of whether they are male or female. “Pride and Prejudice” is the work filled with her every message to claim the equality between men and women.
So far we have observed Austen’s feministic point of view mainly dealing with Elizabeth and Darcy. In later paragraphs however, a completely different approach will be done by sticking to another female character in this story: Mrs. Bennet, the mother of Elizabeth. Completely silly as she may seem, actually Mrs. Bennet, throughout the story, reveals her sense of hatred against the society being dominated by male. Her most overt criticism about patriarchal rules rooted in society perhaps is made apparent at the scene of a neighbourhood ball. At the first ball where all daughters from the Bennets are present, the origin of two of them meeting for the first time their future husband, Mr. Bingley, and Mr. Darcy, a tacit agreement at that time is vividly portrayed. Men and women are not equal there; it is only gentlemen who are qualified to ask people of the opposite sex to dance together (Kaplan, 187). While men fancy themselves in their authority to choose women and do not feel any anxiety in abundance of the objects, women are incessantly exposed to a sense of uneasiness for their powerlessness. Not until merciful gentlemen come to ask them to dance together, do they have no choice but to just wait, alone. Mr. Darcy, at first, is also one of the guys enjoying their privilege, fastidious about an eligible woman who deserves to dance with him. He, assuming there is no woman qualified to spend time with him, just stands alone with every appearance of a man who is unfriendliness itself. Such is his ill-natured behaviour that even his best friend Mr. Bingley says, rather offended, “I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner” (Austen, 11).
However, Mr. Bingley is not the only one who has criticised Darcy’s bad conduct: Mrs. Bennet, who in her freewheeling use of some strong vocabularies breaks into a violent diatribe against him. After several severe criticisms about him, she says, “He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great!” (Austen, 14). This comment reflects her feministic point of view. While the comment mentioned by Mr. Bingley is just an admonishment to a friend who behaves badly, the one by Mrs. Bennet takes on a more pregnant meaning. Her remark is based on her strenuous wish to refuse accepting a social convention at the ball exclusively beneficial to male. The usual unreliableness in her discernment is not the case with that comment she then mentioned because it “captures nicely Mr. Darcy’s tendency at the ball to flaunt his power to choose by exhibiting himself detached and free”(Kaplan, 187).
Mrs. Bennet is never so perfect in her challenge to patriarchal values as when she refers to an entailment problem inherent in the family. She is always eager to encourage her daughters to get married; mostly because she is bitterly aware what would happen were they not to have husbands. Since she has failed to produce an eligible male heir, after her husband dies those left are going to be deprived of all the property they now have. Instead, the closest relative inherits it. Bennets women, including Mrs. Bennet, will have no place to live in, completely destitute of everything necessary to live a normal life. While Mrs. Bennet is constantly obsessed by this desperate thought for their future, her husband, Mr. Bennet, seems never to have any tiny interest in the subject. For he knows his life is secured until he dies. The entailment system designed to be advantageous to men never allows it to happen that he casts aspersions on its advisability aware how sexism-like it is and sympathizes with his wife and daughters (Wylie). Mrs. Bennet tries to make him understand it is a matter of death and life for female members, saying “Ah! You do not know what I suffer” (Austen, 5), and “I am sure if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it” (Austen, 69).
Paradoxical as it may sound, actually it is also true that Mrs. Bennet refuses to understand the legal system (Wylie); “Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail. They often attempted it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason” (Austen, 69). Constantly desperate but also irrational and even silly her attitude toward the entailment problem, Mrs. Bennet seems to indicate that she is trying to make a fool of the legal system favour of the patriarchy. She herself has never admitted the validity of it. She probably knows that if she accepts the truth with her reasonable mind, she will be convinced that the problem is beyond her reach after all. She will be persuaded, she knows, that no amount of her individual challenge can be enough to change the whole social system anyway. Being irrational and silly is the only way for her to continue to encourage herself to ignore and escape from the unfair truth. Thus, rather than seriously reacting to the problem in her effort to contrive a constructive resolution, Mrs. Bennet tries to be always Mrs. Bennet; ridiculous, headstrong, and irrational. We must notice it is based upon her feministic energy to dismiss the way society is that she behaves that way.
Almost the same thing can be said with her reaction to a horrible event that is to throw the whole family into a huge trouble; a Lydia-and-Wickham elopement. This event influences those concerned in a number of ways; from the feministic point of view it is highly important to have a look at the examples of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. Although usually Mr. Bennet is described as a quiet and gentle person, faced with his real daughter’s unforgivable impropriety, he is totally upset. It is not until then that he finally realizes that he has lacked his responsibility as a parent for what he has been supposed to do for his own daughters. He even notices his knowledge about his own daughter has been quite insufficient, even not enough to predict what her conduct of herself would be like when she goes out to the dance party full of officers. Elizabeth in advance suggests to him that Lydia be prevented from going there, conscious of her disposition to resort to flirtation wherever she goes. However, he negligently dismisses this remonstrance, foolishly misjudging that Lydia will be at the ball “too poor to be an object of prey to any body” (Austen, 256). However, now that it is revealed that Lydia ran away with Wickham, and therefore that his judgement is proved to have been completely stupid, his sense of dismay at what happened is gradually replaced by an even stronger sensation: rage.
Mr. Bennet finds Lydia’s misconduct extremely infuriating mostly because she has violated the legal and moral dictates of the patriarchy (Wylie). Lydia’s impropriety is completely subversive of a set of assumptions of what most people recognized should be the norm in society through the patriarchal perspective. Any woman should be prudent and unobtrusive when she is married off, just waiting for a proposal from a man; a shotgun marriage mainly motivated by an ebullient passion on the part of a bribe is unacceptable, and even inconceivable. Thus, there is more and more resentment growing up in Mr. Bennet’s mind to such a extent that he even decides that he will not “advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter,” without which her marriage will “scarcely seem valid” (Austen, 341). It is this highly cruel punishment to his own daughter suggested by Mr. Bennet that his wife finds most incomprehensible. She, being “alive to the disgrace, which the want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter’s nuptials” (Austen, 341), reveals her wild exasperation toward her husband’s negligence of a custom essential for women. That is exactly what is the most intolerable for her. Mrs. Bennet is clearly aware of how important it is to buy new clothes for her own daughter by her use of knowledge as a woman, a lack of which obviously shows Mr. Bennet is rather indifferent to his child. Also, while Mr. Bennet is made furious by his daughter’s deviation from patriarchal values, his wife actually does not mind it at all. Even though Lydia has totally trampled morality in terms of her wild challenge to social expectations of what women are supposed to be like, her mother feels no shame about that. For Mrs. Bennet herself has “never really acknowledged the validity” (Wylie) of patriarchal values. After all, she might feel even proud of Lydia’s accomplishment, in which her elopement lets it proved that any woman is capable of doing anything she wants to if the situation demands.
Thus, what we must notice from the way Mrs. Bennet reacts to the whole event is; firstly that she is more attached to her own daughter in her feministic desire to make her marriage proceed smoothly and successfully; secondly that she is not so much offended by as satisfied with her own child’s ignorance of patriarchal ethicality, happy that woman’s ability to perform things has been verified. In both cases, it is obvious that Mrs. Bennet is portrayed as an incarnation of every feministic wish to subvert a conventional approach to women in society, as is Lydia and Elizabeth also.
As we have observed so far, a number of evidences are employed in the whole plot to make readers estranged from the conventional view on women and therefore conscious of new aspects of them. Women must not be discriminated merely for being women. They have as much amount of power as men to advance in life and establish their own adamant identity. Reading “Pride and Prejudice” is surely the best medicine to kill our prejudice toward women deeply rooted in the way society has been.






Works Cited


Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London: Penguin Groups, 2006.

Cohen, Paula Marantz. “Jane Austen’s Rejection of Rousseau: a Novelistic and Feminist Initiation.” Papers on Language & Literature. 215. From Literature Resource Center.

Greenfield, Susan C. “The Absent-Minded Heroine: Or, Elizabeth Bennet Has a Thought.” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Kathy D. Darrow. Detroit: Gale, 337-350. From Literature Resource Center.

Johnson, Claudia. “Pride and Prejudice and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Jane Austen : Women, Politics, and the Novel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. 73-93.

Kaplan, Deborah. “Pride and Prejudice: Cultural Duality and Feminist Literary Criticism.” Jane Austen among Women. Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. 182-205.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile. Trans. Allan Bloom. New York: Basic, 1979.

Wylie. Judith. “Dancing in Chains: Feminist Satire in Pride and Prejudice.” The Free Library. July 16 2009.

"Babylon Revisited" － The Indelible Affection to Alcohol

It seems as though alcohol has constantly preoccupied people’s mind, mesmerizing them with its indefinable but unignorable temptation. There is no denying that alcohol has lowered morality and interest in temperance. In fact, when implementing a cursory look at some classical works, we can easily detect the fact that the theme of “alcoholism” has been clearly reflected even in the world of literature; interestingly enough, as we will closely examine later, there is a phrase once uttered by a famous novelist Sinclair Lewis ― “Can you name five American writers since Poe who did not die of alcoholism?” (Lehmann-Haupt).

Here, we can see one short story in which alcoholism plays significant part in its overall atmosphere: “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In this story, a man named Charlie, who was victimized by alcoholism about two years before, now returns to Paris a seemingly changed man. However, meticulously observing this story, we will find that it is irrefutable that the problem with alcoholism he himself believed all but behind him is in fact still unresolved before him.

Various kinds of arguments warranting the idea that Charlie’s rehabilitation of alcoholism is nothing less than pretention can be probably best summed up by the word “pendulum” (Fitzgerald, 221). Obliged to truly rehabilitate himself in order to regain custody of his daughter Horonia, but at the same time nostalgically detained by the enthralling temptation of past hedonistic days, Charlie invariably oscillates between two opposite worlds, past and present, Paris and America, etc. Actually, it is typical of a person who has returned home after a long absence that he now finds himself being at a loss about his identity (Male, 91); probably Charlie, who has come back to Paris after a year and a half, is also confused about in what way he can identify himself most properly, and even what he wishes to do in Paris at his heart. Closely analysing Charlie’s vacillation in this story, we will discover his subconscious desire in favour of deriving his past wicked ambiance running through Paris.

Firstly, for example, it is true that Charlie willingly displays himself as a “reformed sinner” (Fitzgerald, 214) by demonstrating his deep love for Horonia, but we must not overlook that there are some signs scattered throughout this story which reveal he is still nostalgic about his past pleasure-seeking, and dissipated days: he still prowls around the Ritz bar, where he led the past days with some alcohol-addicted peers; he gives Alix the bartender a memo on which an address of his brother-in-law’s is scribbled, and asks him to hand it over Duncan Schaeffer, a former friend of his in inebriate days, with an ulterior view to keep in touch and share a drink with the friend later; he wistfully thinks back about the “sort of magic” (Fitzgerald, 208), with which he now figuratively refers to his past dream-like life; after visiting Peters’, he does not go back to his staying hotel directly, but instead calls on the nightclubs and nude revues he frequented in the previous life (Bodine).

In order to show us Charlie’s suspension between the past and present world, not only such aforementioned direct descriptions but also some metaphorical elements does Fitzgerald have scattered in this story in a dextrously unobtrusive manner. In an article ““Babylon Revisited”: A Story of the Exile’s Return”, critic Roy R. Male presents us one intriguing theory showing Charlie “still wants both worlds” (94). In a scene in which Charlie and Horonia take lunch together, he gently suggests to his daughter that she order more vegetables, saying, “Now, how about vegetables? Oughtn’t you to have some vegetables?” (Fitzgerald, 210). From this line, we are given the impression that he is trying to display himself as a morally sophisticated father (Male, 95), and therefore allowed to feel as if he sincerely derived new pleasure in the present life with Horonia. However, our assumption will see itself completely destroyed in a further reading, and we will find he unconsciously discloses to readers that his obsession with the past is not entirely liquidated. Asked where they are going to from now on by Horonia, Charlie answers they will visit a toy store and vaudeville. Horonia approves his suggestion of going to the variety show, but reveals her hostility at there being no hesitation toward squandering money at the toy store in her father (Male, 95). Here, it is especially significant that we can know that on a profound reading level, it is actually Horonia, not Charlie who is really “educating” (Male, 95) the other. In front of his loving daughter, Charlie at first tries to accomplish his present ulterior purpose to be a good father, only to find himself, in the end, failing to do so, caught by a past-days practice of unlimited use of money. Thus he still oscillates between the two worlds ― past and present ―; providing reliable clues for us to judge that his determination to rehabilitate himself is quite thin, and far from steadfast.

The second pendulous element reinforcing the view of superficiality in Charlie’s rehabilitation is can also be seen in the Paris-America dichotomy. Like past and present, Fitzgerald shrewdly displays the contrasted image of Paris and America in this story. What we have to notice is that again Charlie, thoroughly inconsistent with his attitude, vacillates between the two worlds. Here, we can take a look of what kind of symbolism each place has: exhibiting some diabolical and ominous portrayals such as sordid tourist traps and loose women, and also being suggested by the fact that one of the nightclubs’ names on the street is “Cafe of Hell”, no doubt Paris can be said to be the incarnation of a morally destroyed place. On the other hand it is noticeable that the image of America in this story is unmistakably positive, possessing everlasting energy and vitality (Bodine). Actually, it may be possible to say that almost all references to America in this story maintain a positive atmosphere, as is clearly manifested in the phrases like “warm and comfortably American” and “fresh American loveliness” (Fitzgerald, 207). Now, it is of especial importance that we must come to realization that one who really rehabilitates oneself and puts away one’s own problem entirely behind oneself, would not pay any tiny fraction of attention to morally disastrous places. Of course, it is true that Charlie feels fascinated with the “quiet and decent homelife” he wishes to “establish for his child” (Barker, 270). However, we can also know Charlie’s unwittingly clinging to the depraved world of Paris by the fact that he is very impressed by the nocturnal beauty of the city (Barker, 271) ― “He was curious to see Paris by night with clearer and more judicious eyes than those of other days” (Fitzgerald, 208).
The other unique testimony implying Charlie’s ambivalent pendulum in the Paris-America dichotomy is clearly manifested in two female characters in “Babylon Revisited”; through this idea we will be ultimately convinced that to all appearance Charlie is tenaciously obsessed by emotional attachments to both of worlds. Lorraine and Marion, the former a past friend of his in inebriate days, revealing that no tiny feeling to rehabilitate herself still exists at all, and the latter a sister of Helen, Charlie’s dead wife, whom he inadvertently led to death, and therefore having irrevocable hostility toward him. Particularly noteworthy is that we can derive the significance of both the two women in the intriguing theory that they are in fact portrayed as symbolic embodiments of the two worlds (Male, 95).

This argument will earn its validity when we scrutinize their difference in character: Lorraine, who overtly and repeatedly attempts to degenerate Charlie into a past debauched man with every appearance of a woman who is alcoholic frivolity itself, obviously must be regarded as corresponding to the immoral image of Paris; on the other hand Marion, who is sensitively inimical to any tincture of mention concerning alcohol like “bar” (Fitzgerald, 208) due to the trauma of her sister’s death, unmistakably represents her clinging to the harmonious and peaceful life with her tender-hearted home, which is “warm and comfortably American” (Fitzgerald, 207). Plus it must not be overlooked that Charlie is “indebted” to both of them: to Lorraine for hanging around together in previous days; and to Marion for taking care of Horonia (Male, 95). Thus we can find that Charlie, by displaying emotional attachments to both women, is still suspended between the two worlds. Such far from steadfast and strong-minded attitude of his becomes the great indicator of how radically untruthful his character is, and therefore we will be convinced that his determination to obliterate alcoholism in his nature is also untruthful, and just superficial.

To closely analyze the way Charlie is obediently influenced by the force of pendulum leads us to realize the unquestionable fact that he has unforgivable problems in his personality. There are obvious traces discoverable of Charlie’s selfishness and unwillingness to accept reality in the simple fact that he has been gone for a long time (Male, 92). Perhaps this suggests that it is nothing but despicable that one escapes somewhere else with one’s own nasty problems left yet unresolved in order to evade possible bursts of indignation from others; in fact Charlie, who locked his former wife Helen out of his house without knowing it, and therefore made her freeze to death half a year ago, must have wreaked incurable mental damage on Helen’s sister Marion at that time. However, far from showing Marion something sincere and conciliatory for her being incarcerated into the intolerable anguish, Charlie was gone, as though he unrelentingly rejected being confronted with harsh realities because he was sure that any sight of Marion’s lamentation would suffer him with an incessant sense of guilty. In addition to such lack of responsibility, we can see Charlie’s unreliable personality in terms of his insincerity. On the evening when Charlie and Peters’ talk about custody of Horonia, he regards the meeting as “contests or performances” in which ‘’all his behaviour must be manipulated to win’’ (Answers. com) his “point” (Fitzgerald, 214). Plus, in the very meeting Charlie supposes that his successful pretention of “the chastened attitude of the reformed sinner” (Fitzgerald, 214) will eventually let himself to see the favourable result of getting back Horonia (Barker, 272). These opinions tell us that all Charlie’s performance as a radically changed man comes from the disingenuous thought that he has only to endure a number of acrimonious diatribes by Peters’ in the coming few hours ahead, to at last achieve his big ambition unfulfilled for almost two years. Again it must be remembered that revealing Charlie’s failure in his personality largely contributes to our deciding that his rehabilitation of alcohol and goodbye to his orgiastic days is quite suspicious and untruthful. Due to such heinous escapism and hypocrisy in his nature, Charlie is no doubt all the more inconsistent with his attitude from the first to the last, invariably oscillating between two worlds.

So far, we have observed the argument that Charlie’s rehabilitation is only a superficial one in terms of the definite contemptibility in his nature. However, the idea of Charlie’s ostensible nature will be confirmed more clearly when we pay careful attention to not only the protagonists in “Babylon Revisited” but also its author F. Scott Fitzgerald himself. As many critics have pointed out, Charlie is thought to be a character onto which Fitzgerald himself is superimposed. Therefore, we can safely say that proving Fitzgerald’s outrageous alcoholism directly contributes to confirming Charlie’s strong obsession with alcohol, making us convinced that his rehabilitation is nothing but pretence.

Actually, it is well-known that Fitzgerald was incessantly preoccupied with alcohol all his life: without reference to alcoholism, it is impossible to accurately describe his life. It can be said that alcoholism seems to be something inherited from one’s parents. Fitzgerald’s father was also an alcoholic, the Irish drunker; this father, due to the notorious romantic levity particular in the Irish people, is said to have justified his drinking by insisting on the mesmerizing fascination of alcohol, sentimentally saying that there is a “kindness” in intoxication whose attraction is like “the memories of ephemeral and faded evenings” (Donaldson, 158). Perhaps such attitudes of his toward drinking may have had a non-ignorable influence on his son’s obsession with alcohol: parents’ outrageous addiction to something being exhibited noticeably on whom a child’s construction of personality is completely based, he will trace the same path as them, to find himself addicted to it irrevocably. Another reason that Fitzgerald could not stop drinking lies in his sense of insecurity. It is certain he suffered from relentless assaults of guilt in his life; feeling guilty at the misuse of his own talent, at possible contribution to his wife Zelda’s schizophrenia, and at being alcoholic itself (Donaldson, 160), Fitzgerald must have fallen down into a sea of endless anxieties so deeply that he could not help feeling the need to assuage himself. The only way he came up with to mollify his vehement agonies is to derive a sense of peace in drinking (Donaldson, 160) ― it seems as though he wished to escape into another world of imagination produced by alcohol so that he could make sure there was no force to make him faced with inhospitable realities. Probably the identification between Charlie and Fitzgerald is to some extent attributed to their common drawback of escapism.

The idea of Fitzgerald’s alcoholism is brought home to us more potently when we notice he has other stories with the ulterior motif of alcohol. One of his short stories “Crazy Sunday” is a good example. In this story, Joel, a twenty-eight-year-old screenwriter who arrived at Hollywood six months before, is invited to a party at the home of a high-ranked director Miles Calman, which a lot of other major directors are supposed to attend. Aware of his own tendency to drink too much, Joel at first decides not to take anything alcoholic during this party, which is described like this: “He wished Miles would be within hearing when the cocktails were passed to hear his succinct, unobtrusive, ‘No, thank you.’ ” (Fitzgerald, Crazy Sunday, 557). However, this promise is broken within one hour: Joel, blindly fascinated with mesmeric beauty of Stella, Miles’s wife, accepts a cocktail from her, continuing to drink to such an extent that he totally succumbs to the evil force of alcohol. Critic Jennifer Bussey criticizes his behaviour in terms of “immaturity” (Bussey). According to her, Joel’s lack of maturity is detectable in his failure to restrain himself and exercise discipline. One has only to look at the mere fact that at the important party Joel frivolously becomes all the more friendly and overconfident for the power of alcohol, to see his immaturity, because his countless accumulated experiences of drinking should have been enough for him to be aware of his bad behaviour when inebriated (Bussey). Joel’s inadequately appreciating the knowledge about his own self, which a man with a good common sense should have gotten into his bones, is the great indicator of how little he cares about mere sensibility. Thus, due to the lack of judicious awareness of his own self, Joel, like Charlie in “Babylon Revisited”, is also not able to fulfil his determination against being an obedient slave of alcohol.

Now, it is necessary to note Joel is also regarded as a symbolic character that in fact represents Fitzgerald himself. This can be safely said mainly because the fact that Joel performs a short comic act which turns out to be a complete fiasco in front of many major directors is based on Fitzgerald’s real experience (Eble, 45). Thus, in “Crazy Sunday”, it is certain that Fitzgerald insinuates to readers his outrageous obsession with alcohol by portraying the foolish way the incarnated protagonist of his own self named Joel fails to ignore the temptation of drinking even in the most self-controllable situation ― the party of such high importance that his favourable impression as a morally courteous gentleman of soberness might lead to a future connection with some big celebrity in his business world.

Also, there is a very intriguing theory warranting Fitzgerald’s alcoholism in a completely new manner. Donald W. Goodwin, who started his postgraduate career as a literature student at Columbia University, and went on to get a medical degree and to become a psychiatrist, has demonstrated an interesting correlation between writers and alcohol, presenting a curious opinion: writers tend to drink (qtd. in Lehmann-Haupt). In an article “The Alcoholism of F. Scott Fitzgerald”, Dr. Goodwin observes the connection between writing and alcoholism, and analyzes how the two interact with each other as a following:

Writing is a form of exhibitionism; alcohol lowers inhibitions and brings out exhibitionism in many people. Writing requires an interest in people; alcohol increases sociability and makes people more interesting. Writing involves fantasy; alcohol produces fantasy. Writing requires self-confidence; alcohol bolsters self-confidence. Writing is lonely work; alcohol assuages loneliness. Writing requires intense concentration; alcohol relaxes (Goodwin, 90).


Plus, Dr. Goodwin presents this theory of his about the interesting connection between writers and alcohol in his another famous book, “Alcohol and the Writer” too. He tries to elucidate his idea that writers tend to drink in various kinds of aspects; he insists that writers have drunken firstly because “the hours are good”, suggesting that the lack of restriction by hard working hours particular in blue-collar jobs makes it possible for novelists or poets to spend much time in drinking; secondly because “it is expected”, writers’ self-indulgent inebriation justified in the romantic image toward the artist in the world (qtd. in Lehmann-Haupt) while in no other jobs can it be accepted; thirdly because “writers need inspiration”, there being a favorably permeated thought among writers that intoxication by alcohol will spur their creative imagination and make their mind more perspicacious to the world (qtd. in Benedictus).

Dr. Goodwin’s theories above confirming the idea of writers’ particular susceptibility to alcoholism seem very persuasive in convincing us of Fitzgerald’s addiction to alcohol; however, this opinion will make itself clearer and take a lively part as a good reminder of our original thesis of Charlie’s pretence, when our meticulous analysis of the “writing” is carried out. Writing is one of the most demanding works; as is often said, almost intolerably relegated to the margin of mental condition due to the assaulting obsession with the deadline, the lack of congeniality with editors, and so on, writers are sometimes forced to get through the life imprisoned in a completely excluded room which could jeopardize their healthy mind, as an American writer Charles Deemer says “No one cared if I wrote at three in the morning or three in the afternoon” (Deemer). However, although there is no denying that some writers, due to such harsh realities, decide to put a perpetual end to their career as writers, it still remains undeniable that many of them feel an imperishable satisfaction in their work those heartbrokenly vanquished by these worries will never know, being proud of their own work. It is not any amount of pleasurable fan letters or even honorable prizes which so vehemently motivates and encourages them into hard work; but their comfortable knowledge that they can “exhibit” to readers their own opinion and feeling completely at will. In other words, writing is a “spending of one’s resources to gain release from the rigid grip of time, space, and circumstances” (Male, 94).

In the last scene of “Babylon Revisited”, a lot of phantasmagoric memories in past orgiastic days run through Charlie’s head like nightmares ― “the people they had met travelling”, “people who couldn't add a row of figures or speak a coherent sentence”, “the women and girls carried screaming with drink or drugs out of public places” (Fitzgerald, 223). Then Charlie remembers one memorable sight: “the men who locked their wives out in the snow, because the snow of twenty-nine wasn't real snow. If you didn't want it to be snow, you just paid some money” (Fitzgerald, 223). From the very last phrase, we can know that the spenders, by squandering money, carried out a distortion of time and space (Male, 94). Now, it is very significant that we come to the realization that combined with the aforementioned definition of the “writing” that it is a process to exhibit one’s resources to free oneself from restriction of any dimension, the conspicuous display of money by those nasty spenders clearly becomes an ultimate evidence of the identification between Fitzgerald and Charlie ― the two exhibitionisms of writers and spenders, the former representing Fitzgerald and the latter Charlie, correspond with each other in that both of them make it its business to transform and manipulate every dimension totally at will. Thus, to closely analysis what writing is like directly contributes to making more convincing the idea of togetherness between Fitzgerald and Charlie, and therefore the writers’-inclination-to-alcohol theory by Dr. Goodwin comes to us with more validity, indicating that Charlie’s alcoholism is also such an extent that he cannot so easily dispel the emotional attachment to alcohol.

As we have seen so far, there are plenty of convincing elements detectable which show that Charlie’s rehabilitation of alcoholism is nothing but superficial. The more deliberately we savor this story, the more potently his unreliable personality hits us. Constantly detaining him in a sense of disappointment, the indelible affection to alcohol will obstinately provide ruthless realities to Charlie all his life forever, as has done to Marion the extraordinarily anguished trauma of her sister’s death produced by his irresponsibility.


Works Cited


"Babylon Revisited (Themes)" Answers. com. 17 January 2009
.

Baker, Carlos. “When the Stories Ends: “Babylon Revisited.”” Short Stories Criticism. Ed. Anna J. Sheets. Detroit: Gale Group, 1999. 270-271.

Benedictus, Luke. “Those Literary Lushes.” The age. com. au. 22 January 2009
< http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/13/1029113928191.html>.

Bodine, Paul. “An Overview of “Babylon Revisited.”” 9 January 2009
< http://ftp.ccccd.edu/mtolleson/2328online/2328notesbabylon.htm>.

Bussey, Jennifer. “Critical Essay on “Crazy Sunday.”” Novelguide. com. 21 January 2009
<http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/ssfs_0000_0021_0/ssfs_0000_0021_0_00015.html>.

Deemer, Charles. “A Portrait of the Writer as a Drunk.” Liquor and Lit. 16 January 2009
< http://www.ibiblio.org/cdeemer/liqlit.htm>.

Donaldson, Scott. “Demon Drink.” Fool for Love: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Delta, 1983. 158-160.

Eble, Kenneth E. “Touches of Disaster: Alcoholism and Mental Illness in Fitzgerald’s Short Stories.” The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Approaches in Criticism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. 45.

Fitzgerald, F Scott. “Babylon Revisited.” The Collected Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. London: Penguin Books, 1986. 205-223.

---. “Crazy Sunday.” The Collected Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. London: Penguin Books, 1986. 556-572.

Goodwin, Donald W. “The Alcoholism of F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 6 Apr. 1970. 90.

Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. “Books of the Times; Odd Angles on Alcoholism and American Writers.” The New York Times. 7 November 1988. 17 January 2009
<http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3D61431F934A35752C1A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all>.

Male, Roy R. ““Babylon Revisited”: A Story of the Exile’s Return.” F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Harold Boom. New York: Chelsea House, 1985. 91-95.

"The Cask of Amontillado" － No Punishment without Impunity

No one is so optimistic but he betrays some negative attitude when assaulted by an oppressive experience of failure: for instance, disappointed love, bankruptcy of business, and so on. However, generally speaking, any distressed feeling toward such predicaments tends to be gradually disintegrated and finally vanish, as time goes by. Yes, “time” is the best, or maybe the solo medicine to get rid of our pessimism, as is often said like this: “You can laugh at it someday.”


Yet, this specific cure of time suddenly becomes good for nothing when one succumbs to the feeling of remorse. This feeling obstinately forces one to recall the miserable events and therefore changes into an odious obstacle for one to make the first step. We can see such a pitying man who is at a loss detained by the evil force of remorse. His name is Montresor, a character in the story, “The Cask of Amontillado”, by Edgar Allan Poe. We will be convinced of the idea that Montresor, who killed his rival Fortunato fifty years ago and now becomes an old man, definitely feels a sense of penitence over his past crime.

The first confirmation making us convinced of Montresor’s repentance is seen in the fundamental setting of “The Cask of Amontillado” ― the fact that this story is constructed by old Montresor’s first-person narration. He relates his perfect crime to someone, as is manifested in this phrase: “You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat” (Poe, 790). So, it is obvious that there is someone in front of Montresor. Today, a lot of scholars guess that surely the person is a priest or his own self; both can be true and seem valid, and more important is: both must be the proof warranting Montresor’s feeling of remorse.

If we interpret the unknown listener as a priest, the thesis of Montresor’s repentance earns its legitimacy in terms of a “deathbed confession” (Reynolds, 107). Montresor, who was a Roman Catholic (Reynolds, 100), can be thought to have taken refuge in religious conscience in the end, however astute and merciless a killer he once was. Actually, there are many indications of his Catholic spirit in the story: the setting of carnival, which is a Catholic period just before the Lent; the emblem of Montresor’s family’s, the heel and crushed serpents, meaning the militant superiority on the part of a Catholic church over evil; the word “catacombs”, being reminiscent of the early history of a Catholic church (Reynolds, 100). Probably, such insinuations of religious spirit can be said to succeed in achieving Poe’s ulterior purpose to maintain a moral atmosphere in this story, and at the same time, as Reynolds points out, in contributing to satisfying the religiously inclined readers, making them convinced that a sinner is supported to end up seeing appropriate punishment (108). Thus, in confessing his crime to a priest, Montresor feels contrite deeply, proving a tiny feeling of conscience is still left in his cruel heart.

The other testimony verifying the apologetic nature of this confession is the very situation in which it took place. Bearing in mind his insincere way of using language in the extremely serious scene, it can be safely said Montresor’s confession is based on a privately created setting (Renza, 100). Yes, he was talking to himself, maybe looking at his own self reflected in a large mirror face to face directly. Consider ― if he had really taken pride in his crime, and wanted to boast it, he would have set a more public, and elaborate monologue stage with which to draw people’s attention and to satisfy his vanity. However, he didn’t; instead, he tried to alleviate his vehement twinge of penitence in the situation of private confession, which could preclude otherwise possible interference produced by bursts of indignation upon his cruel crime on the part of listeners. Thus, in both cases, whether he was talking to a priest, or his own self, it is apparent Montresor regarded his confession as an ultimate way of expressing his feeling of penitence.

Second, a myriad of intended ironical expression and paradoxical involvement of the readers in this story indicate that one’s expectation will be ruthlessly betrayed in the end, and such betrayal eventually comes back as a constant reminder of one’s feeling of remorse. In fact, Poe intentionally has plenty of ironical plot lines, many of which are created by Montresor, scattered throughout this story in unobtrusive but unmistakably calculated manner. It must be worth noting that Poe shrewdly treats these series of sarcastic comments of Montresor’s as blatant preludes to the definitive irony haunting Montresor himself as much as for fifty years, which we will see closely later.

Here, we can take a look of some examples of these ironies: in the day midst the carnival season when Montresor decided to kill Fortunato, he ostensibly congratulated the adversary on how he was lucky to see himself at the convivial thought of his subsequent death; leading Fortunate into his catacombs, Montresor apparently showed his seemingly genuine sympathy for the victim’s longer life in spite of Montresor himself putting an eternal end to the dupe’s life a few minutes later; making fool of the chained Fortunato, Montresor impressed on the victim that he would provide him the least interference he could do although he was going to impose the most malevolent intrusion of killing on Fortunato later (Magistrale, 93). Plus, the astute killer is thought to have been an expert in psychology due to the dexterous manner of “inviting”, which is so called reverse psychology, another ironical point. Throughout the story, Montresor had never directly implored the dupe to come with him into the wine vaults; in fact he cleverly produced the situation in which Fortunate himself willingly decided to make his way through the catacombs, playing on his jealousy toward Luchesi (Reynolds, 104).

Again, it must not be forgotten that these sarcastic elements by Montresor function as prefaces to one decisive irony ― the compulsive sense of repentance incessantly assaulting Montresor for half a century. At the beginning of the story, Montresor elatedly relates to the unknown listener his pet theory of what impeccable revenge should be like: the revenge which has no possibility of making its redresser incur detriment of re-retaliation, and brings home to the target his overwhelming superiority. In the end, to all appearance, it is obvious that Montresor successfully exerted the “perfect” vengeance over Fortunato. However, he was not able to be happy; instead he had been suffering from the unavoidable predicament owing to an obsessive memory of dead Fortunato, contrary to his assumed expectation of deriving imperishable sense of calmness in his revenge ― the person who could really “make himself felt as such to him who has done wrong” (Poe, 790) was blatantly Fortunato (Magistrale, 94). Thus, the ultimate irony of the compulsive memory of dead Fortunato diabolically penetrates Montresor’s heart, constantly reminding him of the sense of remorse over his having committed killing at that night, insinuating that otherwise he now could lead a peaceful, if not hopeful, secluded life.

We can also confirm Montresor’s aspect of repentance by the thesis that since that night he had been forced to go through life imprisoned in ineluctable anguish resulting from “self-destruction”; the person Montresor himself believed he killed was actually an embodiment of his own self, a doppelganger (Grantz). There are many signs warranting the identification between Montresor and Fortunato in the story. For example, these very names can be interpreted as synonyms with each other: Montresor, meaning “treasure” in French, and Fortunato, associated with the word “fortunate”, both evidently imply something auspicious to us (Kennedy, 142). Plus, they are both experts in wine, and sincerely proud of their own skills, as Montresor said “I did not differ from him [Fortunato] materially; ― I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself” (Poe, 790), and Fortunato enthusiastically claimed his preeminent wine-discerning ability above Luchesi.

That Poe insinuates to readers that Montresor and Fortunato had the same identity and symbolized a doppelganger can be also confirmed by the view concerning the dichotomy between temperance and intemperance. According to critic David Grantz, Montresor can be seen as a symbol of the personality controlling “judgement” and “reasoning” while the personality of Fortunato can be interpreted as an embodiment of the self-indulgent desire for “pleasures of the flesh”; this can be safely said probably because Montresor implemented his killing plan so cruelly and ruthlessly as to totally forget or even negate his warm human feelings, which could be an obstacle of imperturbable judgement; on the other hand Fortunato was so deeply enamoured with the mention of Amontillado he completely lost his reason, disclosing readers to his highly hedonistic nature. Grantz says the two individualities are actually divided from one person. This idea earns its profundity when closely analyzed from the fact that Montresor’s coat of arms was a foot with “a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel” (Poe, 791). It is worth noting that the fact that Grantz calls the serpent “the foolish side of his [Montresor’s] nature” must be a great insinuator implying the serpent actually represents Fortunato, the “foolish side” of Montresor meaning his opposite personality ― “the pleasures of the flesh”. The serpent, implanting the fangs in one’s heel, reveals his fiercely pleasure-seeking desire toward the flesh in the same way Fortunato does toward Amontillado. Therefore, it is significantly important that we can imagine the caricatured image of that coat of arms in which Fortunato, stamped by Montresor, sticks his fangs into the enemy’s heel ― another proof showing integration of the two men.

Thus, it is quite obvious that the person Montresor walled into death was in fact his own self. We must remember that especially noteworthy is that this self-destruction contributes to Montresor’s incessant sense of remorse. This remorse feeling can be said to come from the anguish Montresor had been forced to endure as a result of the killing of his own self: what intolerable agony you are destined to experience if you obliterate your own doppelganger is clearly manifested in one of Poe’s former short stories, “William Wilson”, very similar to “The Cask of Amontillado”. In this tale, William, who had been obsessed by his namesake’s impeccable imitations ― the very same name, appearance, and date of birth ―, at last penetrated his knife into the enemy repeatedly with the clear volition of slaying. However, at the next moment, William found the namesake, in the tortures of destruction, addressing himself like this: “You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also dead – dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope!” (Poe, William Wilson). This foreboding message literally implies that William will be all but dead in the rest of his life. Probably, Poe applies the same kind of predicament to Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado”. Like William, by eliminating his odious lookalike, Montresor was made to realize the presence at an unavoidable price (Kennedy, 143).

To eradicate one’s own doppelganger is to be deprived of all vitality and incarcerated into hopeless darkness all one’s life. Thus, inactive, catatonic, and moribund, Montresor lost his way in his life, as if unconsciously obedient to that ominous prophecy by dead William Wilson. It is certain that Montresor, telling his crime, felt regretful, remorsefully imagining he might have been a happier man, had he been clever and mature enough to appreciate the importance of getting compatible with his doppelganger.

As we have seen so far, it can be safely said that the cruel killer named Montresor feels repentant of his past crime. His miserable doom itself becomes the great indicator to show us a universally significant lesson: you cannot punish someone with impunity.



Works Cited


Grantz, David. The Poe Decoder - That Spectre in My Path. <http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/spectre/>.

Kennedy, J. Gerald. Poe, Death and the Life of Writing. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1987.

Magistrale, Tony. Student Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Cask of Amontillado.” Fiction100. Ed. James H. Pickering. New York: Macmillan, 1978. 790-793.

---. “William Wilson”. Qrisse’s Edgar Allan Poe Pages. 8 February 2008
<http://www.poedecoder.com/Qrisse/works/ww.php>.

Renza, Louis A. Edgar Allan Poe, Wallace Stevens, and the Poetics of American Privacy. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002.

Reynolds, David S. “Poe’s Art of Transformation: ‘The Cask of Amontillado in its Cultural Context.’” New Essays on Poe’s Major Tales. Ed. Kenneth Silverman. New York: Cambridge Press, 1993. 93―112.

The British Obsession with the Weather

It seems as if the British people are obsessed by an incessant attachment to the weather. This idea earns its validity easily if we implement cursory eavesdropping on everyday conversations by people in Britain. Yes, they are really talking about the weather a lot, as is often represented in the following interesting situation: when the two British men who are strangers to each other share a railway compartment together face to face, they somehow start their conversation by referring to the weather (Trudgill, 13). Today, there is a perennial debate as to what exactly makes them persist in the seemingly trivial topic of the weather. Perhaps the most convincing reason is that the British weather is extremely unpredictable and changeable, and therefore draws people's attention. In fact, it is often said the drastic change of temperature in Britain makes it possible for people there to experience four seasons in one single day, and as a result a famous phrase to describe the meteorological condition was invented ― “Other countries have a climate; in England we have weather” (Mackenzie, 113).

However, the purpose of this paper is to prove that such meteorological peculiarity in itself is not enough to establish a unanimous rationale for why the British are preoccupied with the weather so much; we must notice that it cannot be necessarily said that people in Britain refer to the weather because they are really interested in the topic. In this paper, it will be shown that their obsession with the weather primarily results from the subconscious desire that they want to establish a superficial mood of sociability with others (often strangers), having two main purposes: first to grasp others’ personal background, and second to secure themselves against possible assaults from the complete strangers. Both of the two will be confirmed in subsequent paragraphs respectively, proving them to be particular in British society.

First, generally speaking, when confronted with total strangers in public places like a jammed train, no doubt we unconsciously feel inquisitive to their praivacies, sometimes exciting our imagination by arbitrarily conjecturing how old they are, what they do, and even whether they are married or not, mainly judging from their outlook. Therefore, this section will firstly deal with an intriguing theory about how the topic of weather contributes to acquiring information about others’ personal background, and then explain how exactly the theory can be applied to elucidating the British obsession with the weather.

In the previous example of a jammed train, taking such a desperate measure of totally depending on our groundless speculation in order merely to know people’s personal information is based on the unspoken agreement that it is impolite and undignified to reveal our interest in their private lives overtly. However, the topic of the weather, due to its innocuous and hackneyed nature, smoothly provides us with opportunities to talk with strangers casually without us feeling any sense of awkwardness. Therefore, as a result, one is allowed to make the first step to build intimate relationships with others so as to exchange personal information with each other without hesitation. Thus, seemingly trivial topics like the weather, bringing with themselves subtle and inoffensive verbal intercourses, function as indicators for people to decide how much they should open their heart to strangers (Mason, 77).

Now, it must be worthwhile noting that such a harmless way of verbal communication is of especial use and efficacy in Britain. This is precisely because of the undeniable fact that the whole country of Britain is made up of four nations, and people there are divided into three social hierarchies. Considering the previous situation in which two British people are seated sharing the same railway compartment, probably both of them subconsciously want to know what exact regions the other is from, and what social class he belongs to. In order to satiate his such curiosity, it is very important for him to engage his partner in conversation and to analyze closely how he speaks, because no one can reveal his own accent, speech, and some other verbal traits without exposing his personal background (Trudgill, 14). This principle is especially true in the case of British people; many of whom have distinctive accents and dialects according to their region and social class such as Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Cockney and so on. Thus, it can be safely said that preliminary verbal interaction is quite useful in discerning others’ private information, especially in Britain. Now, what we have to bear in mind is that it is talking about the weather that most smoothly carries out that kind of information intercourse; the topic of British weather is easily accepted between strangers, being justified in their superficial concern about its notorious high capriciousness. As we have seen so far, to satisfy their inquisitive curiosity about others, talking about the weather is crucial, maintaining social links between speakers.

Second, we can detect the importance of talking about the weather to create social connection with strangers in terms of protection of one’s own self; one intuitively wants to secure himself when confronted with an unfamiliar person, who is completely mysterious and therefore can be dangerous to him. That is why keeping us “speaking terms” by referring to the weather has a great significance in that we can indulge ourselves in a sense of security ― to avoid assaults from a stranger, it is important to make up the comfortable situation that we are talking at all. However, to apply this theory to the British is to totally negate the stereotyped image of British gentleness. Who could imagine that a courteous, sophisticated, and rectitudinous British gentleman, taking you into a back alley violently, suddenly shows his open hostility, and scares you to death? In this section, the image of British gentleness will prove itself to be only a myth, and therefore we will be convinced that talking about the weather, from the view of securing ourselves, has crucial importance in Britain as well as in other countries.

It might be well-known that Colin Firth, a famous British actor who played a “perfect English gentleman” in the movie “Pride and Prejudice”, said that the so-called quintessential gentleman did not exist in real life and was only a figment of folklore among British people (Firth). Sometimes a traditional, and strongly stereotyped image can permeate our mind so deeply and irrevocably that we unrelentingly reject adjusting ourselves to realities and modifying the forged assumption; those obsessed by the image of British gentleness might believe that it makes no practical sense in Britain to be ostensibly eager to talk about the weather merely to secure themselves against a total stranger, because British gentlemen, they believe, must be far from savage, terrifying and dangerous attackers. However, as Colin Firth pointed out, Britain cannot be said to be a dream-like country filled with gentlemen. According to Alexander Gross, the forged impression of British gentleness is constructed upon what he calls “the least substantiated statistic”, the yearly murder rate, which shows there are fewer murders in Britain than any other country; however in fact even government spokesmen have denied its accuracy before, being faced with the undeniable reality that the murder and violence rate, to all appearance, was growing. It is proper not so much to say Britain has fewer murders as to say a number of murders have been kept away from discovery by the police (Gross). Also, some foreign captives of imaginary “gentle and friendly” British people might be taken aback faced with a flabbergasting article issued in July this year: “14,000 Knife Victims a Year”. The article says that as much as 14,000 victims were taken to hospitals in Britain last year, getting injured by assaults involving knives, and some other sharp weapons. It is claimed that this number of victims was far worse than official statistics had expected (Green).

Thus, the fact that the stereotyped image of gentlemen is in fact not true in modern British society is brought home to us as a convincing reminder of how serious a problem public disorder in current Britain is. Again, it must not be forgotten that more noteworthy is that referring to the topic of weather, building temporary mental connection with two strangers, must be an indispensable solution to their hidden sense of crisis coming from the potential for nasty assaults by the other.

As we have seen so far, it is quite obvious that one of the causes without which the reputation of British tenacious attachment to the weather could not be produced is blatantly to establish a seeming bond of superficial friendliness with strangers, in terms of grasping their privacy and making sure the safety of oneself. By being sensitive to the weather, we can successfully continue to talk with the British people without producing the most embarrassing moment ― being in the company of someone alone, but having no proper subject about which to keep talking.


Works Cited


Firth, Colin. "Quintessential Englishman Is a Myth”. Icelebz . com. 7 March 2008. 7 December 2008
<http://www.icelebz.com/gossips/2008_03_07/9.html>.

Green, General. “14,000 Knife Victims a Year”. The Association of British Ex Service Personnel. 11 July 2008. 5 December 2008 < p="365">.

Gross, Alexander. Violence In Britain. 1992. 7 December 2008
<http://language.home.sprynet.com/otherdex/violbrit.htm>.

Mackenzie, M. D. Munro, and L. J. Westwood. Background to Britain. London: Basingstoke: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 1965. 113 – 114.

Mason, Tom, and Caroline Watkins. Stigma and Social Exclusion in Healthcare. London: New York: Routledge, 2001. 77.

Trudgill, Peter. Sociolinguistic: an Introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974. 13 – 14.

"Thank You, Ma'am." － Society for Everyone

Today, there are many people in the world who are regarded as outcasts from society for a variety of reasons ― race, the colour of skin, extreme poverty, having committed a crime, and so on. In the story Thank you, Ma'am by Langston Hughes too, we can see such kinds of characters: Roger and Mrs. Jones. Both of them have done something bad. However, in the end, they were able to change themselves. This is why it can be safely said that Langston Hughes maintains in this story that any people who are relegated to the margins of society and therefore recognized as pariahs in the world can be accepted as members in a society and take a lively part there.

　　　　　The first reason we can say that Langston Hughes wants us to notice that anyone can return to work however strong distrust he or she once had toward society is manifested in the way Roger, who tried to rob Mrs. Jones of money, has changed. One thing showing Roger was able to get rid of his delinquent character is in his voluntary decision not to run away from the woman’s home. In this story, Roger is faced with some situations in which he could run away easily without Mrs. Jones knowing it if he wanted to. For example, when he goes to the sink to wash his face, the door is open widely as if it tempted him to go out. Moreover, when Mrs. Jones makes cocoa for him, her not at all keeping her eye on Roger could make it possible for him to steal her purse and run away. Nevertheless, in both cases, he chooses for himself to stay there and does not betray the woman’s kindness, which is a sure sign of his getting sensibility back. In addition, we can see another proof which makes us convinced of his rehabilitation in the scene in which he and the woman have to say good-bye to each other. In this scene, he “wanted to say something other than, ‘Thank you, mam’ to Mrs. Luella Washington Jones” (Hughes). He thinks that the phrase “Thank you, mam” is too ordinary to express to Mrs. Jones his feeling filled with gratitude toward her. In other words, he attempts to present her with a unique and elaborate thankful message rather than the commonplace one. This way of thinking should be interpreted as manifestation of his desire to make the woman feel favourable to him and therefore can be an obvious proof showing us that he did change into a warm-hearted person. Thus, he certainly got courage to go into society.

Secondly, Hughes’s message that any good-for-nothing person has infinite possibilities of making a new start in his/her life is indicated in Mrs. Jones’s character too. In this story, she says the following: “I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son ― neither tell God, if he didn’t already know” (Hughes). This words suggest to us that she herself also has done something bad in her past. Today, some guess that it might be addiction or prostitution from the slangy meaning of the word “Jones” and the social background in those days respectively. Yet, we can say that she has changed herself in the end. We can see the way she has changed from two views. One is her strong sense of justice. When she captures Roger, she would never turn him loose, and on the contrary, she took him to her home in order to “teach you [means Roger] right from wrong” (Hughes). The other is her kindness. She is kind enough to let Roger wash his face, make cocoa for him, and even give ten dollars to him so he could buy some blue suede shoes, even though she is not his mother. These facts that Mrs. Jones has an extraordinarily strong morality and warm heart make us convinced that she was able to totally rehabilitate herself.

Last, and perhaps most important, Langston Hughes’s message can be explained by his own plight, too ― the undeniable fact that he was born as a black. He wants us to know that any black can make his own way through a society and play an active part in the world. This view is confirmed by the historical fact that he experienced the Harlem Renaissance in 1924. The Harlem Renaissance was an activity in which many African-American people insisted that they have their own opinions, culture, and of course identity as blacks, all of which no Europeans or white Americans should violate. It goes without saying that this activity had a great influence on his way of thinking about the tendency of society in those days that priorities were given to white people. In addition, Hughes's strong spirit of rebellion against white supremacism is seen in his essay the Nation in 1926. Here are some famous parts of it: "We younger Negro artists now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. . . . [. . .] If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either" (qtd. in Wikipedia ). As we can see, he hoped that both blacks and whites would be treated equally and the two could understood each other without feeling a sense of hatred, so that they could live in a society peacefully where no discrimination existed. This is why we can say that Hughes characterized Roger, who was able to return to a society, as black and made him a symbol of his message that any black can have his own place in a society.

Therefore, it is certain that Langston Hughes shows us that any person labelled as a pariah also has a bright future in the same way the other majority of people in the world do. Whatever horrible crime one has committed, whatever color one's skin is, he should not be treated badly in a society. Yes, reading Thank you Ma'am is the best medicine to kill our prejudice toward such people.


Works Cited
Hughes, Langston. “Thank You, Ma’am.” Short Story Classics. 24 Feb. 2004.
<http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/hughesthankyou.html>.
Wikipedia the Free Encyclopaedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 23 June.2008. 24 June 2008
　　　<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes>.

"Say Yes" － That's the Way Men Are

According to social statistics, more and more married couples have decided to divorce with each other in recent years. There are a variety of reasons for their desperate decision of divorce: discovery of an inappropriate sexual relationship with people from the opposite sex, constant domestic violence, troubles between wives and their mothers-in-law, etc. However, above all, we cannot ignore one universally serious problem: characteristic differences attributed to each sex. In the story Say Yes by Tobias Wolff too, we can see some conflicting opinions between Ann and her husband. Throughout the story, we can see that the husband has the very typical male way of thinking, which women will find somewhat incomprehensible.

The first thing showing us men’s typical character will be seen in inner voices of Ann’s husband. Seemingly, we tend to assume that this man is different from most general men just because, at the beginning of the story, he helps his wife to do the dishes, which most husbands in the world do not seem to do in daily life. However, behind this seemingly kind action hides one typical way of thinking that almost all men have: an inclination to self-assertion. That an inclination to self-assertion is more typical of men than women is confirmed by the book Why Men Lie and Women Cry by Allan and Barbara Pease. In this book, it is said that the historical fact that men evolved as hunters results in each man becoming "results-oriented" and defining his self-worth by "his problem-solving abilities and achievements" (43), and therefore that they want to emphasize their own accomplishments. In the previous scene, although the unnamed man helps his wife, he does so not because he sincerely wants to contribute to relieving his wife of the tedious labor, but because he intends to show "how considerate he was" (1385). We can see such self-assertiveness in the situation in which he is treating Ann's wound too. In this scene, he "hoped that she appreciated how quickly he had come to her aid" (1386). Judging from these two descriptions, we can say that he has a typical way of thinking as a man in that he hopes what he achieved could be recognized and praised by others in the same way the other majority of men in the world hope.

Second, we will find the well-known characteristic trait of men through the series of scenes of debates: men are reasonable and logical. Although Ann finally succeeded in making the husband surrender to her and say "Ann, I'm really sorry" (1387), and, "I'll make it up to you, I promise" (1387), we cannot help saying her victory sacrifices the most essential point in debating ― logic. In the story, Ann completely depends on her own intuition and whim. However, generally speaking, we are expected to convey our opinion to others in a logical and reasonable way, citing some obvious facts, quoting someone's comments, and finally, making people on the opposite side convinced of our arguments. In the light of this view, her husband is a very talented debater. This is because, for instance, he firstly shows his own experiences with blacks and then persuades her to refer to statistics, in order to support his idea that people having different cultural background are destined not to get along with each other. Moreover, until he decides to make a concession to his wife and give a priority to making up with her, he is consistent with his opinion. Thus, readers can see the husband has men’s representative way of thinking ― logic and reason.

Last, a man universally prefers something pure and immaculate, because his pride as a breadwinner do not allow any tincture of room for abnormal or deviant factors to be created in his perfectly genuine home. The same thing is true of Ann’s husband. There is something of the racist in him: the person who never tolerates the far from unadulterated state of interbreeding. We must not overlook there is one symbolic point which shows that he is a racist. The symbolic point is his cleaning the dirty kitchen. Cleaning the kitchen to such a point that "the kitchen looked new, the way . . . they had ever lived here" (1387) implies that he hates the state of mingled materials, and at the same time, that he prefers something pure. Incidentally, the fact that he promised his wife that he would accept her whatever color her skin is, cannot be a reason to decide that he is not a racist; although he finally admits his failure, and vows to marry his wife even if she were black, he does not really apologize to her at heart. In fact, this apology is attributed to his apprehension that this quarrel might trigger their relationship breaking up and his hope that the rest of their life could go smoothly. In other words, we can say this act of his is a desperate measure taken under the pressure of necessity in order to retrieve his wife's good mood. As we have seen so far, Ann’s husband is somewhat racism in that he hates the mingled and merged state, and, needless to say, he prefers something impeccably pure in the same way of the other majority of men.

As we have seen, the story Say Yes shows us the typical way of thinking of the men. It is quite certain that the story is one of the most useful how-to manuals for many married women in the world. If you feel a sense of crisis in the rest of the life with your partner, devote yourself into savoring this story, and you can find the best solution to your present problem.




Works Cited
Pease, Allan, and Barbara Pease. Why men lie and women cry. London: Orion, 2002.
Wolff, Tobias. "Say Yes." The Story and Its Writer. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston:
Bedford / St. Martins, 1999. 1384-1388.