1984

 1) What is dystopian fiction? Is '1984' dystopian fiction?

Dystopian fiction offers a speculative glimpse of the future, one often experiencing a cataclysmic decline, with characters battling their way through environmental ruin, technological control, and government oppression. As a sub-genre of science fiction, the popular dystopian novel can challenge readers’ views about current social and political climates, offer warnings, and in some instances, inspire action. But how is dystopian fiction determined? First, let’s define the difference between the utopian and dystopian world.

When Sir Thomas More coined the term “utopia” in his 1516 book Utopia, he was inadvertently shaping centuries of genre. With the advent of Utopia, which was about an ideal society on a fictional island, the dystopia was born.

Margaret Atwood once said, “If you’re interested in writing speculative fiction, one way to generate a plot is to take an idea from current society and move it a little further down the road. Even if humans are short-term thinkers, fiction can anticipate and extrapolate into multiple versions of the future.”

The significance of dystopian fiction on literature can vary from educating and warning humanity about current social and political structures, to reflecting an author’s beliefs on the pitfalls of society (H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine), to critiquing behaviorism (Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange), and cautioning on oppressive regimes (Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Orwell’s 1984).

George Orwell’s 1984 is a defining example of dystopian fiction in that it envisions a future where society is in decline, totalitarianism has created vast inequities, and innate weaknesses of human nature keep the characters in a state of conflict and unhappiness. Unlike utopian novels, which hold hope for the perfectibility of man and the possibility of a just society, dystopian novels like 1984 imply that the human race will only get worse if man’s lust for power and capacity for cruelty go uncorrected.

In 1984, characters live in fear of wars, government surveillance, and political oppression of free speech. The London of the novel is dirty and crumbling, with food shortages, exploding bombs, and miserable citizens. The government is an all-powerful force of oppression and control, and crushes the characters’ identities and dreams. This dystopian vision of the future, written thirty-five years before the year the novel is set, suggests that man’s inherent nature is corrupt and repressive. Orwell wrote the book in the aftermath of World War II and the rise of fascism in Germany and the Soviet Union, and paints a pessimistic picture of society’s ability to avoid further global disasters.

Dystopian fiction usually works backward from the present to find an explanation for the fictional society’s decline, and thus to provide a commentary on the reader’s society or a warning of how the future could turn out. In 1984, as Winston works to acquire objects from the past, find spaces without telescreens or microphones in them, and recover memories of the time before the Party, Orwell provides the reader with glimpses of how Winston’s society came to be. We learn about a nuclear war, a revolution, mass famines, and a period of consolidation of power by the Party.

Dystopian novels explore the effects of oppression and totalitarianism on the individual psyche as well as how the individual functions in a repressive society. Winston’s trouble retrieving and trusting his memories illustrates the way the Party has corrupted his emotional life as well as his daily existence, asking the reader to question the nature of memory and individual consciousness. By suggesting that Winston is initially complacent because he can’t remember whether or not life was better and he was happier before the Revolution, the book examines the importance of memory in creating a sense of self.

2) your learning about the novel from online screening of the film - share screenshots, if you have taken. 

Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the Party’s seemingly omniscient leader, a figure known only as Big Brother. The Party controls everything in Oceania, even the people’s history and language. Currently, the Party is forcing the implementation of an invented language called Newspeak, which attempts to prevent political rebellion by eliminating all words related to it. Even thinking rebellious thoughts is illegal. Such thoughtcrime is, in fact, the worst of all crimes.

As the novel opens, Winston feels frustrated by the oppression and rigid control of the Party, which prohibits free thought, sex, and any expression of individuality. Winston dislikes the party and has illegally purchased a diary in which to write his criminal thoughts. He has also become fixated on a powerful Party member named O’Brien, whom Winston believes is a secret member of the Brotherhood—the mysterious, legendary group that works to overthrow the Party.

Winston works in the Ministry of Truth, where he alters historical records to fit the needs of the Party. He notices a coworker, a beautiful dark-haired girl, staring at him, and worries that she is an informant who will turn him in for his thoughtcrime. He is troubled by the Party’s control of history: the Party claims that Oceania has always been allied with Eastasia in a war against Eurasia, but Winston seems to recall a time when this was not true. The Party also claims that Emmanuel Goldstein, the alleged leader of the Brotherhood, is the most dangerous man alive, but this does not seem plausible to Winston. Winston spends his evenings wandering through the poorest neighborhoods in London, where the proletarians, or proles, live squalid lives, relatively free of Party monitoring.

One day, Winston receives a note from the dark-haired girl that reads “I love you.” She tells him her name, Julia, and they begin a covert affair, always on the lookout for signs of Party monitoring. Eventually they rent a room above the secondhand store in the prole district where Winston bought the diary. This relationship lasts for some time. Winston is sure that they will be caught and punished sooner or later (the fatalistic Winston knows that he has been doomed since he wrote his first diary entry), while Julia is more pragmatic and optimistic. As Winston’s affair with Julia progresses, his hatred for the Party grows more and more intense. At last, he receives the message that he has been waiting for: O’Brien wants to see him.Winston and Julia travel to O’Brien’s luxurious apartment. As a member of the powerful Inner Party (Winston belongs to the Outer Party), O’Brien leads a life of luxury that Winston can only imagine. O’Brien confirms to Winston and Julia that, like them, he hates the Party, and says that he works against it as a member of the Brotherhood. He indoctrinates Winston and Julia into the Brotherhood, and gives Winston a copy of Emmanuel Goldstein’s book, the manifesto of the Brotherhood. Winston reads the book—an amalgam of several forms of class-based twentieth-century social theory—to Julia in the room above the store. Suddenly, soldiers barge in and seize them. Mr. Charrington, the proprietor of the store, is revealed as having been a member of the Thought Police all along.

Torn away from Julia and taken to a place called the Ministry of Love, Winston finds that O’Brien, too, is a Party spy who simply pretended to be a member of the Brotherhood in order to trap Winston into committing an open act of rebellion against the Party. O’Brien spends months torturing and brainwashing Winston, who struggles to resist. At last, O’Brien sends him to the dreaded Room 101, the final destination for anyone who opposes the Party. Here, O’Brien tells Winston that he will be forced to confront his worst fear. Throughout the novel, Winston has had recurring nightmares about rats; O’Brien now straps a cage full of rats onto Winston’s head and prepares to allow the rats to eat his face. Winston snaps, pleading with O’Brien to do it to Julia, not to him.

Giving up Julia is what O’Brien wanted from Winston all along. His spirit broken, Winston is released to the outside world. He meets Julia but no longer feels anything for her. He has accepted the Party entirely and has learned to love Big Brother.

3) What according to you in the central theme of this novel?

The Dangers Of Totalitarianism :-

1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. Having witnessed firsthand the horrific lengths to which totalitarian governments in Spain and Russia would go in order to sustain and increase their power, Orwell designed 1984 to sound the alarm in Western nations still unsure about how to approach the rise of communism. In 1949, the Cold War had not yet escalated, many American intellectuals supported communism, and the state of diplomacy between democratic and communist nations was highly ambiguous. In the American press, the Soviet Union was often portrayed as a great moral experiment. Orwell, however, was deeply disturbed by the widespread cruelties and oppressions he observed in communist countries, and seems to have been particularly concerned by the role of technology in enabling oppressive governments to monitor and control their citizens.

In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme realization imaginable of a modern-day government with absolute power. The title of the novel was meant to indicate to its readers in 1949 that the story represented a real possibility for the near future: if totalitarianism were not opposed, the title suggested, some variation of the world described in the novel could become a reality in only thirty-five years. Orwell portrays a state in which government monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a disloyal thought is against the law. As the novel progresses, the timidly rebellious Winston Smith sets out to challenge the limits of the Party’s power, only to discover that its ability to control and enslave its subjects dwarfs even his most paranoid conceptions of its reach. As the reader comes to understand through Winston’s eyes, The Party uses a number of techniques to control its citizens, each of which is an important theme of its own in the novel.

4) What do you understand by the term 'Orwellian'?

Orwell’s career as a writer was long and productive – at one time or another he produced novels, journalism, memoirs, political philosophy, literary criticism and cultural commentary. But the term “Orwellian” most often relates to his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, completed a couple of years before his death. The novel presents a vision of a Britain taken over by a totalitarian regime in which the state exerts absolute power over its citizens.

Think what you will of Johnson and Gove, but they are hardly representative of the dark forces at work in Orwell’s dystopian novel. The minister describing the letter seems to be watering down the adjective to mean something like a secretive and undemocratic influence of one faction over another within the government. This is certainly not the situation in Orwell’s novel in which The Party appears, on the surface at least, to be absolutely in control – something that could hardly be said of the prime minister at the moment.

Nineteen Eighty-Four presents a number of concepts and ideas that have worked their way into the contemporary imagination – and that, in so doing, have shifted somewhat from their original meanings. Big Brother, the all-seeing, all-knowing emblem of totalitarian control, and Room 101, the regime’s torture chamber, for example, are concepts that have developed a life of their own beyond Orwell’s original ideas.

It may be an exaggeration to describe the activities of some of our current cabinet ministers as Orwellian – nevertheless, there is a sense in which it might be accurate. The anonymous minister who commented on the letter also seemed to suggest that it was the language that was being used that was in some way Orwellian.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, one of the projects the totalitarian state is undertaking is to create a new language: Newspeak. This involves the simplification and purification of the English language to the extent that it functions purely as a means of maintaining state power and control.

Perhaps one of the ironies of using writers’ names as adjectives is that they become saddled with the very things that they were warning us about. Dickensian, for example, has become synonymous with the worst aspects of a class-ridden Victorian society, while Kafkaesque refers to the dehumanising effects of the individual’s encounter with inflexible state bureaucracy.

Orwell’s name will forever be associated with totalitarianism and the manipulation of language in order to maintain state control. This is particularly ironic given that in an essay of 1946 – Politics and the English Language – he was keen to champion plain speaking in political discourse. His rules for writing contain pieces of advice that remain invaluable for all writers and public commentators. For example: “Never use a long word where a short one will do”, “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out”, and “Break any of these rules rather than say anything outright barbarous.”

An Artist of the Floating World

 Kazuo Ishiguro :-

Kazuo ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan on 8th November 1954. The house he lived in for the first five years of his life had been built in the traditional Japanese style, with tatami mats and sliding shoji screens. Early photographs show Ishiguro as a baby, sitting as formally as he was then able, in front of family samurai swords, banner and heirlooms. The house was three generational, with his paternal grandfather as head of family. His grandfather had spent many years away from Japan, in Shanghai, charged with establishing Toyota, then a textile machinery company, in China. Ishiguro’s father, Shizuo, had been born in Shanghai in 1920. His mother, Shizuko, like all members of her immediate family, was in Nagasaki when the atom bomb was dropped on the city in August 1945. Ishiguro attended kindergarten in Nagasaki and learned hiragana, the first and simplest of the three Japanese alphabets.

Ishiguro left Japan with his parents and elder sister in April 1960 to live in Britain, after Shizuo Ishiguro, a research oceanographer, was invited to work for the British government at the National Institute of Oceanography. The family settled in Guildford, Surrey, thirty miles south of London, expecting to stay in England for two years at most. The young Ishiguro attended the local school and became a choirboy at the neighbourhood church. From age 11, he attended Woking County Grammar School where he was educated until going to university. Although the Ishiguro family regularly considered returning to Japan, Shizuo Ishiguro’s research continued to be supported by the British government, and the family never returned. (The storm surge machine Shizuo Ishiguro invented is now a part of the permanent exhibition at the Science Museum in London.)  

Video recode of An Artist of the Floating World by Dilip Barad  sir:-

1. 'Lantern' appears 34 times in the novel. Even on the cover page, the image of lanterns is displayed. What is the significance of Lantern in the novel?

Lanterns in the novel are associated with Ono’s teacher Mori-san, who includes a lantern in each of his paintings and dedicates himself to trying to capture the look of lantern light. For Mori-san, the flickering, easily extinguished quality of lantern light symbolizes the transience of beauty and the importance of giving careful attention to small moments and details in the physical world. Lanterns, then, symbolize an outlook on life which prizes small details and everyday moments above the ideological concerns of nationalists or commercial concerns of businesspeople. It is an old-fashioned, aesthetically focused, and more traditional way of viewing the world.

The An Artist of the Floating World quotes below all refer to the symbol of Lanterns. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

2. Write about 'Masuji Ono as an Unreliable Narrator'.?

How many voices can an author create? How evolved can craft be that there comes the point when the creator ceases to exist, and all that is left is the immersed reader, intruding in another world? The answer is Kazuo Ishiguro, the man who, for me, has taken first-person narration and a compromised narrative to the point of no return. Choose a character, and he will get into its skin like an invisible cellular organism with no home of its own. He will do so in so fantastic a way that it leaves you questioning the truth, like speaking to someone you aren’t too sure about. After he or she departs, you think, “What are they hiding? Am I in the dark?” 

An Artist of the Floating World is a masterpiece that glides in out and of many dimensions. On the one hand, it is a story of generations separated by a massive ideological gulf. On the other, it is about an older man attempting to come to terms with his mistaken philosophies. It is also a historical fiction set in the Japan of limbos; Japan, which has suffered because of its misplaced imperialism, been shattered by bombings and is now critical of the past and every person representing it. At the heart of it is an unreliable narrator, Masuji Ono. Once an acclaimed painter, Ono is our guide through post-World War II Japan and its sociopolitical and emotional trauma; felt in extremities like the once-vibrant pleasure districts destroyed by bombings and kids who loved Popeye and Godzilla.

The book is a contemplative journey, spread across four time frames: October 1948, April 1949, November 1949 and June 1950. We are introduced to a retired artist of great acclaim, Masuji Ono. Ono lives with his youngest daughter Noriko, and his attempts to secure a good match for her is a central theme. In the past, Noriko’s engagement had been called off. While Ono likes to believe that his family was more powerful than the boy’s, Noriko’s often belligerent behaviour suggests the unsuccessful engagement has more to do with Ono’s past. His older daughter Setsuko asks Ono to meet his acquaintances and rectify his errors should Noriko’s prospects inquire about the family’s history. This simple task is the starting point of his recollections, opening twisted alleys of memory.

We seek to understand concepts like Ono’s rise as an artist, his relationship with his students and peers, the moral chasm that exists between him, his sons-in-law and his grandson, and the politicisation of art. I have reasons to say that we seek to understand Ono’s life – the untrustworthy memory and what he is telling us. Ono’s narration is not dependable, and there is not a second perspective to corroborate what he is saying. This is displayed continually; Ono never completes an anecdote in one go, one recollection invariably gives rise to another or how he thinks he knows someone only for us to find that the person has no memory of him. What Ono thinks of himself does not resonate with people in that world. For his disillusioned son-in-law, Ono is one of the many traitors who led the country awry with grand plans of Japanese Imperialism that caused only pain and loss. Ono himself lost his son to the Manchurian War and his wife to a freak raid. The reader might assume these topics to be of particular importance to him. Still, Ono avoids speaking about any issue that exposes his emotional vulnerability and delves too much into his past affairs. Mentions of these deaths come and go, as little remarks stuffed into the larger scheme.  

Why our narrator is unreliable is a debatable topic. At first go, it can be age. After all, Ono is well-retired with two daughters and grandchildren. However, the irregularity in information can be attributed much more to more unpleasant circumstances than memory failing. As the novel progresses, Ono is revealed to have been a man of controversial associations. During World War II, Japan was an Allied Power alongside Germany and Italy. A considerable section of the population was pro-War, viewing any opposition to the war effort with great scepticism. Ono, a pro-government imperialist, broke away from his master and drawings of the floating world (a phrase used to describe Japan’s pleasure districts) to begin painting subjects that depicted military might. At the beginning of the war, he becomes a part of a state committee clamping down on unpatriotic art. Ono reports Karudo, once his protégé. As a result, Karudo’s paintings are burnt, and the police harass him. Ono tells us that he tried to step in and convince the authority to go easy on Karudo. However, whether it is the truth or just another way to hide his betrayal and cruelty, we don’t know.

The ideological tussle between Ono and his family members is an essential thread in the novel. To some extent, Ono realises that he was vastly mistaken during the war and the younger generation, like daughters and his son-in-law’s look at him with a degree of suspicion and contempt. The latter want men like Ono to take accountability for steering Japan on the wrong path. They now live in a post-war society where America is the centre of culture and politics. This is not a phenomenon that has gone down well with Ono, who would rather have his grandson enjoy samurais than behave like a cowboy. Although he claims to be unaware of his importance in society, we understand that Ono likes to think of himself as someone who has been quite influential, a part of the crème of the art world. Towards the end, when Setsuko (his older daughter) consoles him that his pro-militancy paintings weren’t influential enough to have caused massive harm, it is a very hurtful thought for him.

Like Ishiguro’s celebrated The Remains of the Day, An Artist of the Floating World is a beautiful lesson in restraint. The former is the story of an English butler whose commitment to service caused such emotional limitation that he could not pursue the woman he loved. In the latter, we have an ageing man whose convictions are failing him as he grapples with guilt and ethical tussles. War is an important occurrence in both, and more than war, the sides one chooses. In The Remains of the Day, the protagonist reflects on how the reputed British manorial lord he served sided with Nazi Germany because he did not know better. In such scenarios, as both age and regret become strong, exuberant or verbose writing would not be relatable. Ishiguro’s writing is fluid, hard-hitting, but not raw. His style is refined, elegant prose at its best, entirely moulded according to the narrator’s realities.  

An Artist of the Floating World was a delightful, very enlightening experience about a unique world that conventional reading may not expose one to. Despite being a history student, I was surprised at the nuance of ideology and radicalisation in post-War Japan that the author highlighted so brilliantly. The writing flows; through former pleasure districts, reception rooms in Japanese homes, the villas of master painters and pubs where artists gathered with pupils. Each of these spaces stands for a different ideology and a different time in Ono’s life. Ishiguro’s most outstanding merit is shaping his style in a way that changes with age. A young Ono is much more aggressive, while Ono as a grandfather is loving and almost endearing. The tonality changes beautifully, and this requires immense, almost God-gifted skill.

Ishiguro gifts his readers a story that is almost the truth but has enough cracks for falsities to creep in.

3. Debate on the Uses of Art / Artist (Five perspectives: 1. Art for the sake of art - aesthetic delight, 2. Art for Earning Money / Business purpose, 3. Art for Nationalism / Imperialism - Art for the propaganda of Government Power, 4. Art for the Poor / Marxism, and 5. No need of art and artist (Masuji's father's approach)

Kazuo Ishiguro’s second novel, An Artist of the Floating World (1986), is narrated retrospectively, from the post-war vantage of 1948-50, by the painter, Masuji Ono. Ono’s ambition caused him first to leave the commercial and auto-exoticizing “art for export” firm of Takeda for the art-for-art’s-sake milieu of Moriyama, which focuses on the ephemerally sensual “floating world” of the traditional Japanese pleasure district. Moriyama, influenced by European Impressionism just as Impressionism was influenced by Japanese prints, represents a convergence of East and West in the nation-nullifying utopian space of the painting, a space whose evanescence is the guarantee of its authority. (Ishiguro’s Anglophone audience may be reminded that Oscar Wilde singled out Japan, in “The Decay of Lying,” as the paradigm of the artistic nation, a country to be congratulated for its glory as an aesthetic invention rather than for its everyday life.) But Masuji Ono’s ambition, stoked by the tempter Matsuda, leads him to become involved in far-right politics. The novel’s culminating revelation, albeit underplayed by Ono’s diffident narration, is that Ono acted as a police informant on “unpatriotic activities,” which led to the arrest and torture of his protégé, Kuroda.

When summarized in this way, the novel sounds misleadingly like the depiction of a straightforward decline: as if Ono’s artistic ambition leads him first to aloof and implicitly elitist aestheticism, and then from aestheticism to overtly elitist fascism, as Walter Benjamin might have predicted:

“Fiat ars – pereat mundus”, says Fascism, and, as Marinetti admits, expects war to supply the artistic gratification of a sense perception that has been changed by technology. This is evidently the consummation of “l’art pour l’art.” Mankind, which in Homer’s time was an object of contemplation for the Olympian gods, now is one for itself. Its self-alienation has reached such a degree that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order. This is the situation of politics which Fascism is rendering aesthetic. Communism responds by politicizing art.

But Ishiguro’s novel tells a very different story, one consonant not with a Marxist critique like Benjamin’s but instead with the aestheticist philosophy of Wilde and his fin-de-siècle cohort. In this story, the aesthete becomes a totalitarian precisely because he abandons his apolitical outlook.

Ishiguro suggests as much in the novel when he presents the triggering event of Ono’s turn from aestheticism to fascism as a walk with Matsuda through a slum. This walk fills Ono with Dickensian sympathy for the suffering people and leads him to paint his first political propaganda picture, in he portrays the squalid children of the slum as nationalist fighters against international parasites. In other words, a feeling readers associate with the political left—a desire for social justice and the alleviation of poverty—sets Ono on his road to moral ruin. The novel insists on this point when the nationalist spokesman Matsuda recruits Ono by denouncing aestheticism and dropping the name of Marx:

‘There’s a certain kind of artist these days,’ he went on, ‘whose greatest talent lies in hiding away from the real world. Unfortunately, such artists appear to be in dominance at the present, and you, Ono, have come under the sway of one of them. Don’t look so angry, it’s true. Your knowledge of the world is like a child’s. I doubt, for instance, if you could even tell me who Karl Marx was.’

Ishiguro here implies an analysis that directly opposes Benjamin’s: in this novel, the turn toward the politicization of art leads toward fascism. Or, to put it another way, the aestheticization of politics and the politicization of art amount equally to totalitarianism, and Ono would have been better off remaining in his studio, indifferent to the affairs of his country.

But Ishiguro intensifies his novel’s ironies when he hints strongly that Ono has overrated the importance of his own complicity in the depredations of the World War II era. The suspense of the novel, as it unfolds, involves the question of whether or not Ono’s wartime activities will derail his youngest daughter’s marriage prospects. The reader, however, gradually comes to understand, beneath Ono’s own awareness, that his daughter’s suitor’s family is barely aware of his past and regards him only as a harmless conservative relic.

Ishiguro warns the reader, then, that the politicized artist will not only commit evil deeds—such as Ono’s informing on Kuroda—but will also be as ineffectual as he would have been had he remained apolitical. The totalitarian artist is therefore denied by the novel even the glamor of infamy; Ono’s actions are both vile and bathetic, which, Ishiguro suggests, are all that the politicized artist’s actions could ever be.

4. What is the relevance of this novel is our times?

As he relates this story of moving from artistic movement to artistic movement, Ono repeatedly claims to be proud for having struck out on his own, following his convictions, even if they proved wrong in the end. He says that this is a quality an artist can be proud of, even if his work does not stand the test of time. But, in fact, the story of Ono’s career shows that he opportunistically sought relevance and recognition by following other’s ideas, and cannot point to any unique contributions of his own. When describing his time painting at the Takeda firm to his proteges, Ono says that what he took from his experience at the firm is the need to “rise above the sway of things.” But Ono left the Takeda firm to go to another place where he was expected to closely adhere to another person’s ideas, and when he ultimately left Mori’s, it was to create art that would adhere to Matsuda’s ideas. Based on his descriptions of his wartime work, Ono seems to have created derivative, unexceptional propaganda posters. It is work that does not seem likely to have sprung from his own original ideas, but rather from copying and adapting other people’s ideas at the moment those ideas were rising to the cultural fore. When Ono sees other artists deciding to strike out on their own, he is far from supportive of their pursuit of originality. Sasaki, Mori’s favorite student early on in Ono’s time living at the villa, develops his own style and is treated as a traitor by the other students living at the villa. Ono records no effort on his own part to defend Sasaki. At the same time, while Ono leaves the villa with the support of Matsuda and his Okada-Shingen society, it seems that Sasaki leaves with no such support or guidance, truly as a result of his convictions. In dealing with his own student Kuroda, Ono is so offended by his student’s innovations that he gives his name to the Committee of Unpatriotic Activities, leading all of Kuroda’s work to be burned and Kuroda himself to be jailed and beaten.

In the end, other characters’ statements suggest that Ono’s presentation of himself is skewed; his belief that the courage of his convictions led him to paint original, ground-breaking works that have since been discredited seems nothing more than self-aggrandizement. In his final conversation with Matsuda, Matsuda says that they “turned out to be ordinary men with no special gifts of insight” and that their “contribution turned out to be marginal.” Ono rejects taking Matsuda’s words at face value, saying that there was something in the Matsuda’s manner that suggested he believed otherwise. In Ono’s last conversation with his daughter Setsuko, she reassures her father that he does not need to feel guilty for encouraging the militarism of the war years because it was not really culturally significant.

The novel’s presentation of a vain and self-deluding artist whose contributions lose their importance with the passage of time gives the title its meaning. Ono feels encouraged by a lifetime of acclaim for his work to believe that his contributions were important and will be remembered. But, in fact, he was only one of the many artists of his time who painted derivative works in styles invented by others. Although Ono leaves Mori-san’s villa and ceases to paint the geishas of the “floating world” of pleasure districts, the ultimate unimportance of his career makes him an “artist of the floating world” in a different sense. Ono finds a transitory success by shaping his work to fit the demands of specific times and places, and by copying others who have gained acclaim. But this world is neither timeless nor permanent; it is transitory, “floating.” The novel shows how the world in which Ono was an important artist is already floating away, superseded by new currents, ideas, events, and artists.

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

 

1) How did the film capture the Jazz Age - the Roaring Twenties of the America in 1920s?

In 1920’s America – known as the Jazz Age, the Golden Twenties or the Roaring Twenties – everybody seemed to have money. The nightmare that was the Wall Street  Crash of October 1929, was inconceivable right up until it happened. The 1920’s saw a break with the traditional set-up in America. The Great War had destroyed old perceived social conventions and new ones developed.

The Roaring Twenties proved to be something of a paradox. At the same time women enjoyed more freedoms and danced in the Jazz Age, there were those who pushed for Prohibition-era restrictions.

The Roaring Twenties definitely has a reputation. Based on the name alone, the Jazz Age seems like a pretty fun time to be alive. However, it was a decade fraught with conflict between old and new schools of thought. Post-war ideals about immigration, religion, piety, and sexuality were all on contested.

As is usually the case, one facet of society desired a different way of life than the rest. In the case of the 1920s, the older majority pined for the post-war "return to normalcy" that Warren G. Harding promised. In contrast, young people shunned the rigid Victorian lifestyle in favor of independence, open-mindedness, and decadence.

The 1920s were overall a freeing time for women as they earned the right to vote on August 18, 1920 and continued their involvement in the workforce. However, women also began testing the waters of a new form of freedom — their own bodies. With higher hemlines, women found themselves able to ride bicycles, in stark contrast to the heavy Victorian dress which was limiting to their activities.

2) How did the film help in understanding the characters of the novel?

The film begins with a voiceover of Nick Carraway telling a doctor that his father always told him to see the good in others. It is here that we first hear the titular characters' name: Gatsby. Gatsby is apparently the only person in whom Nick has ever seen true good.

Nick then tells the viewer about his past. As the camera pans past the bustling crowds of New York City in the 1920s, Nick tells us that while he originally wanted to be a writer, at the time of his meeting Gatsby, he worked on Wall Street as a bond broker. Nick moves into a cottage on Long Island, next door to a giant mansion that belongs to Gatsby. He visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, who is married to the brutish and very wealthy former athlete, Tom Buchanan. Nick has dinner with Daisy, Tom, and their friend Jordan Baker, a professional golfer. Their dinner is interrupted when Tom gets a phone call from a woman with whom he is having an affair. When Nick goes home that night, he sees a figure in the gloom he believes is Gatsby, staring at a green light on the Buchanan's dock across the harbor.

Tom invites Nick to go to the Yale Club with him, but they end up picking up Tom's mistress, Myrtle Wilson, in a dingy neighborhood called the Valley of Ashes, and then going to an apartment that Tom keeps for Myrtle in Manhattan. There, they have a party. Nick has alcohol for the second time in his life, and enjoys the party, later waking up on his own porch, unsure of how he got back. He receives an invitation to go to one of Gatsby's parties, which are notoriously lavish affairs that attract a "who's who" of New York society.

Nick goes to the party, where he runs into Jordan Baker, and they speculate about Gatsby's true identity. After they meet Gatsby, he asks to have a private conversation with Jordan. Later, Gatsby invites Nick to go to lunch with him in New York. The following day, as Gatsby and Nick drive towards the city, Gatsby tells Nick about his past, but Nick doesn't quite believe he's telling the truth. They go to a speakeasy bar, where alcohol is served, and Gatsby introduces Nick to his business associate, Meyer Wolfsheim, who appears to be involved with some shady business deals. Later, Nick meets Jordan for a drink, and she tells him that Gatsby and Daisy know each other and were once in love. She then tells him that Gatsby wants Nick to invite him and Daisy over for tea, so that they can be reunited.

Nick invites Gatsby and Daisy over for tea the following day, and they meet. It is awkward at first, but they manage to get more and more comfortable with each other, and eventually become romantically entangled once again. At Gatsby's mansion, Daisy remembers her love for Gatsby, but laments the impossibility of their love. Nick then narrates that Gatsby was born to a poor farming family, but later encountered a wealthy man named Dan Cody, whom he rescued from a storm. Cody becomes a mentor to Gatsby, but after Cody died, Gatsby was cheated out of money that Cody left him by Cody's family.

Gatsby throws another party, which Daisy, Tom, and Nick attend. Daisy tells Gatsby that she wishes they could run away together, and Gatsby insists that she tell Tom she never loved him. Tom grows more suspicious of Gatsby's business dealings.

The following day, Nick, Daisy, Tom, Gatsby, and Jordan have lunch at the Buchanan estate. When Tom sees the spark between Daisy and Gatsby, he becomes infuriated and suggests they all go to the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Tom takes Gatsby's yellow car, driving Jordan and Nick, and Daisy and Gatsby drive Tom's car. When they stop for gas in the Valley of Ashes, Myrtle sees Tom driving the yellow car. Later, at the Plaza, Tom asks Gatsby prying questions about his past, claiming that he never went to Oxford, and humiliating him in front of Daisy. Gatsby tells Daisy to tell Tom that she has never loved him, but Daisy is uncomfortable and unwilling to do so. Tom provokes Gatsby when he suggests that Gatsby will never fit in with the wealthy. Gatsby becomes violently angry, nearly punching Tom, which horrifies Daisy.

Gatsby and Daisy drive home in Gatsby's yellow car. As they drive through the Valley of Ashes, Myrtle and George are having an argument. Myrtle runs out into the street and tries to stop the car, thinking it is Tom driving. The car hits her and kills her instantly. While Daisy and Gatsby stop for a moment, they quickly move on. Tom, Nick, and Jordan come upon the scene. Horrified to learn that Myrtle is dead, Tom tells George that it was Gatsby who killed Myrtle, and encourages him to take revenge.

Back at the Buchanan estate, outside in the garden, Gatsby reveals to Nick that Daisy was the one at the wheel when Myrtle was killed. When Nick spies on Daisy and Tom inside the house, he hears them planning to make some phone calls to the police and go away for awhile. Nick does not reveal Daisy and Tom's plans, as Gatsby says he will wait for Daisy to call him the following morning to make arrangements to run away together. After staying up all night and listening to Gatsby tell him his life story, Nick leaves Gatsby.

We see Nick at work, visibly distracted. Meanwhile, we see Daisy looking at her phone as she considers calling Gatsby. Gatsby goes for a swim in his pool to kill time while he waits for Daisy's call. The phone rings, Gatsby hears it, and excitedly begins to get out of the pool. However, he does not see George Wilson behind him, who shoots him in the back. He falls into his pool, dead, just as George turns the gun on himself. We then see it was Nick, not Daisy, who was calling. Daisy has chosen Tom.

Gatsby is blamed for the affair with Myrtle and her murder, and not a single person who came to his parties comes to his funeral. Nick is disgusted, and leaves New York. We see him put the final touches on a manuscript, Gatsby, which he re-titles The Great Gatsby.

3) How did the film help in understanding the symbolic significance of 'The Valley of Ashes', 'The Eyes of Dr. T J Eckleberg' and 'The Green Light

The Valley of Ashes is a barren wasteland that lies between East and West Eggs and the city. It is grey and desolate, filled with the working class like George and Myrtle Wilson. In the novel, it serves a symbol of the poverty and working class that are so near to the rich and elite class. Fitzgerald places the Valley of Ashes so that any of the rich characters, Tom and Daisy or Gatsby, must travel through this desolation in order to get into the city; hence making this symbol even more poignant – poverty is very near and hard to ignore. The grey and ashy appearance of the Valley of Ashes serves as a direct contrast to the colorful glamour of the nearby Eggs. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg are present on a billboard in the Valley of Ashes. This billboard is old and faded, so much so that all that remains is the eyes from an advertisement. They symbolize a moral force looking down on the characters – a god-like force, if you will. This symbol is placed, of course, where the working class is, not the elite class. Perhaps Fitzgerald’s comment on the lack of morality among the upper class characters of Tom, Daisy, Jordan and Jay Gatsby.

The eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg can be seen as a symbol of an all-seeing God. This remarkable piece of advertising, displayed on a decaying billboard in the Valley of Ashes, stands as a constant reminder that, no matter what we do, God sees everything. The Almighty may not play a large part in The Great Gatsby, but he's there all the same, watching over the various characters as they engage in all manner of appalling behavior.

None of the characters in the story appear to pay more than lip service to the belief that God exists. For Gatsby, wealth and social acceptability are his personal deities, at whose altars he regularly worships.

As for the Buchanans, high social status is their god, which explains why Daisy, despite conducting an affair with Gatsby and telling him that she loves him, is not prepared to ditch Tom for Jay.

This appearance of the green light is just as vitally important as the first one, mostly because the way the light is presented now is totally different than when we first saw it. Instead of the "enchanted" magical object we first saw, now the light has had its "colossal significance," or its symbolic meaning, removed from it. This is because Gatsby is now actually standing there and touching Daisy herself, so he no longer needs to stretch his arms out towards the light or worry that it's shrouded in mist.

However, this separation of the green light from its symbolic meaning is somehow sad and troubling. Gatsby seemingly ignores Daisy putting her arm through his because he is "absorbed" in the thought that the green light is now just a regular thing. Nick's observation that Gatsby's "enchanted objects" are down one sounds like a lament—how many enchanted objects are there in anyone's life?

Now the light has totally ceased being an observable object. Nick is not in Long Island any more, Gatsby is dead, Daisy is gone for good, and the only way the green light exists is in Nick's memories and philosophical observations. This means that the light is now just a symbol and nothing else.

But it is not the same deeply personal symbol it was in the first chapter. Check out the way Nick transitions from describing the green light as something "Gatsby believed in" to using it as something that motivates "us." Gatsby is no longer the only one reaching for this symbol—we all, universally, "stretch out our arms" toward it, hoping to reach it tomorrow or the next day.

4) How did the film capture the theme of racism and sexism? 

Throughout human history, race has been an integral part in understanding how humans interact. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is no different. During the 1920s, race relations were much different compared to today.  In The Great Gatsby, the story is presumably dominated by the Caucasian race. Also, Tom seems to represent some the racial ideology of the time period. It is very possible that Jay Gatsby was in fact African-American in The Great Gatsby. We can see this by his mannerisms and the way he interacts with other characters.

Throughout The Great Gatsby, there are few people of the non-white race mentioned.  This is seen when Nick says, “As we crossed Blackwell's Island a limousine passed us, driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl.” (Fitzgerald 69). Also, Nick says “A pale, well-dressed Negro stepped near.” (Fitzgerald 139) during the aftermath of Myrtle’s death. These are the only times that someone’s race is explicitly described as non-white. Throughout the book, Fitzgerald does not specify the race of all of the characters. Most of the people portrayed in The Great Gatsby are upper class.

There are many differences to be found between F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, written in 1925, and the movie directed by Baz Luhrmann in 2013. These differences are examples of how times have really changed. In 1925, instances of racism and sexism were not uncommon. However, racism and sexism are not really tolerated or accepted in today’s time. To suit the modern audience, instances of racism and sexism were omitted in the production of the movie. Many other differences can be found between the movie and the book.

He makes several racist and sexist remarks. It is easy to dislike his character. On pages 12-13, Tom says, “Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard?”...”The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be---will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.” “Its up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.” Although Tom is an easy character to hate, it is not apparent that he is the sole villain to the story. He is not necessarily what destroys Gatsby in the end. In the book, it is Tom’s goal to have Wilson lash out at Gatsby. He does not out right tell Wilson that Gatsby is to blame for Myrtle’s death. He instead just tells Wilson the car that kills his wife is yellow. In movies there always has to be a villain. The producers decided to make Tom the villain. Tom practically tells Wilson that Gatsby is to blame for the death of his wife, Myrtle.

5) Watch the video on Nick Carraway and discuss him as a narrator.

Nick's capacity as the narrator is interesting because, as noted above, he is not the focus of the book. Though the story is told from his perspective, it is Jay Gatsby and his attempts to re-win the heart of Daisy Buchanan, that are the true focus of the book. This grants him a bit of the third person perspective which we discussed above. Nick is emotionally uninvolved in the love triangle that evolves between Gatsby, Daisy, and her husband Tom. This allows him to view the situation clearly and judge events dispassionately.

This is aided by any real lack of interesting or transformational storyline on Nick's part. Nick tells us he is struggling through the bond business while half-heartedly pursuing the golf star, Jordan Baker. Neither are of particular interest to the reader because they are not important to Nick either. He freely admits this when he breaks up with Jordan over the phone near the end of the book. This allows the story of Tom, Daisy, Gatsby, and the social circles they move in to take center stage. Nick attended university with Tom and is Daisy's cousin. This helps us trust the moral judgments he makes of the characters involved and further lends credibility to Nick's positive response to Gatsby's manners and actions.

Northrop Frye: Archetype Literature and Myth or religion

1. What is Archetypal Criticism? 

Archetypal criticism is a type of literary criticism examining the presence of archetypal characters within a piece of literature. Such characters can be found in works of fiction, long or short, and in more poetic works. The archetypal character is a simple character template recognizable to all readers. Archetypal criticism is a part of social anthropology and psychoanalysis. The idea of character archetypes is based on the works of psychologist Carl Jung. An archetype is essentially a character prototype. Such prototypes find their ways into all modes of literature and story across generations, cultures and languages. While the idea of such basic characters was developed by Jung in the 20th century, the word itself has been in use in England since the 1540s.Jung was from Switzerland and was the first to reject the then pervasive idea of tabula rasa. Tabula rasa is an idea whereby all babies are born as blank slates. This goes back to the theological discussions of the 4th and 5th centuries about how God gives babies souls and they are born sinful. Jung argued that each baby is instead born with a built-in archetypal template. This template remains only potential until the child grows up.Northrop Frye was a Canadian thinker who built upon Jung’s ideas. He cared less about the how and why of natural-born archetypes and more about their functions and effects. He believed that archetypes and archetypal criticism form an important part of literature. The archetypes allow stories and literature to refresh and reform itself again and again. This means old stories can be told in a new way, but with the archetypes present to give it meaning to people.

2.What does the archetypal critic do?

Archetypal criticism argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works, that a text's meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths. Archetypes are the unknowable basic forms personified or concretized in recurring images, symbols, or patterns which may include motifs such as the quest or the heavenly ascent, recognizable character types such as the trickster or the hero, symbols such as the apple or snake, or images such as crucifixion all laden with meaning already when employed in a particular work.

Archetypal criticism gets its impetus from psychologist Carl Jung, who postulated that humankind has a "collective unconscious," a kind of universal psyche, which is manifested in dreams and myths and which harbors themes and images that we all inherit. Literature, therefore, imitates not the world but rather the "total dream of humankind." Jung called mythology "the textbook of the archetypes"

3. What is Frye trying prove by giving an analogy of ' Physics to Nature' and 'Criticism to Literature'?

Northrop Frye compares “Physics to Nature” and “Criticism to Literature”. Physics is a systematic study of nature, but a student of Physics will say that he/she is learning Physics not nature. Similarly, Criticism is a systematic study of literature. We cannot learn literature but criticism of literature can be learnt.

4.Share your views of Criticism as an organised body of knowledge. Mention relation of literature with history and philosophy

Criticism is the organized body of knowledge. That through we look at various approaches.  Literature have a vital reaction with History and Philosophy. Both of strong pillars of the literature. In between literature grown. Philosophy as important as history or vice versa. In history we find that past events, action and scene. In philosophy we look for  morality, ethics and wisdom. Let's see how literature made up, literature is all about ideas and events. Without event we not get any idea and  without idea no literature.

5.Briefly explain inductive method with illustration of Shakespeare's Hamlet's Grave Digger's scene.

Inductive method – Example to Rule

Northrop Frye gives example of Gravedigger’s scene from “Hamlet” to explain this method. To study this scene we need to go step by step backwards to study this method:

a.)       First, the question of existence can be seen. Every man dies at one point.

b.)       Second, image of corruption can be seen.

c.)       Third, we see Hamlet’s love for Ophelia.

Hamlet represents Archetypal hero who is ready to die for his love.

This method moves from “Particular to General”.

6.Briefly explain deductive method with reference to an analogy to Music, Painting, rhythm and pattern.Give examples of the outcome of deductive method?

In the Deductive method we see that the Process going on general to particular. If we take reference to an analogy to music  then we can say that move in time whether the painting presented  space in terms of arts. In both cases organizing principle recurrence. So the reputation  is gives us general ideas.

In music Rhythm is temporal and in painting pattern is spatial. In the reading of the book we feel  both elements together.

Music has rhythm and Painting have pattern. We might not understand music at once and we might understand painting at first look. Literature is a bridge between music and painting. Words in literature bring the rhythm of music and pictorial image all together. This method moves from “General to Particular”.

7.Refer to the Indian seasonal grid (in the blogpost). If you can, please read small Gujarati or Hindi or English poem from the archetypal approach and apply Indian seasonal grid in the interpretation.?

In school time we have studied seasonal poem in Gujarati,

કેસુડાની કળીએ બેસી ફાગણિયો લહેરાયો...

We studied in BA William Wordsworth's poem 'The Daffodils' and in this poetry Wordsworth gives a definition of poetry.

Also in MA, we studied 'Wordsworth and Coleridge - the study of poets' 

John Keat's poetry 'Ode to Autumn' and 'The Human Seasons'.

Literature and Religion: Northrop Frye - ritual, myth and the archetype of literature

The term Myth is beginning a brief study of the opinions and definitions of the theorists and intellectuals of the relevant disciplines like Anthropology, Sociology, Cultural Studies and Literary Criticism. The term myth has multiple dimensions in the philosophical, social, cultural and psychological premises.

Myths are usually considered as fairy tales or beautifully narrated escapes of imagination created by old people for their entertainment or consolation in the face of mysterious natural phenomena. Myths have a profound impact on human lives even as they are formed by, the way human beings live.

Northrop Fry in The Secular Scripture points out that myth is a drive towards a verbal outline of human experience. It is the external presence in the psyche.  Many things have been handed down to humanity in a Satanist form in human nature, manifesting itself in man’s dream that enables a person to glimpse the past.

Northrop Frye extract archetypes and essential mythic formula from the genres and individual plot patterns of literature. He tended to emphasize the circumstance of mythical patterns in literature. He assumed that myths are closer to the elemental archetype than the artful manipulations of sophisticated writers. The death or rebirth theme was often said to be the archetype of archetypes and was held to ground in the cycle of the seasons and the organic cycle of human life.

Frye makes the distinction of shifting the notion of the archetype from the psychological to the literary. Frye proposes that concealed symbolic narratives exist across all humankind and all history, and have the potential to influence our lives at an almost invisible level. Thus, he makes myth his most important concept, supporting a new poetics that is the principle of his mythological framework.

As Northop Frye puts, the typical forms of myth become the conventions and genres of literature. Frye presents the following example of a mythic scheme with which to understand art, based upon the cycle of fertility myth. Each season is associated with a literary genre: comedy with spring, romance with summer, tragedy with autumn, and satire with winter. Comedy is associated with spring because the genre of comedy is characterized by the birth of the hero, revival, and resurrection. In addition, spring symbolizes the defeat of winter and darkness. 

Romance and summer are connected because summer is the culmination of a life in the seasonal calendar, and the romance genre ends with some sort of triumph, usually marriage. Autumn is the dying stage of the calendar, which parallels the tragedy genre because it is known for the death of the protagonist. Satire is associated with winter because satire is a dark, disillusioned and mocking form and the defeat of the heroic figure. Frye formulated that the totality of literary works constitutes a ‘self-contained literary universe’ which has been created over the ages by the human imagination.

waiting for godoth

Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' is a commercially successful experimental play. The main attraction of the play which captured the attention of the larger audience and many good readers is the central theme of 'nothingness' - practically nothing happens in the play and there is not any development in the plot yet the significance lies in the nothingness of it. Because nothing in the setting of the play changes, the characters are waiting and the audience is also waiting with the characters but the waiting is endless.

 1.What connection do you see in the setting (“A country road. A tree.Evening.”) of the play and these paintings?

Firstly, one should inquire into the very idea of a tree in order to understand its use in literature as a symbol or metaphor. For example, a 'tree' is always associated with nature and one of the profound age of Nature in the history of English Literature is that of Romantic Age where the natural objects have been represented in a variety of ways. 

                            Since a long period of time, trees in great works of art have been represented in mysteriously varied ways- everything from the powerful and divinely secretive methods of nature to immortality, to the imagination, to family, to individual. Hence, individually and collectively the idea of the same object differs. 

                            Similarly, one such play of an Irish playwright Beckett presents this image of a tree differently in the setting of his play. The setting of the play 'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett is inspired by two paintings by Caspar David Friedrich - a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter. The title of this painting is 'longing'. 

                            In 1975, in Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition, his book about the kind of modern painting that expresses spiritual longing, Robert Rosenblum offered Friedrich as a source for painters such as Gottlieb and Rothko, whose versions of intense nothingness he demonstrated to be similar illustrations of "the search for the sacred in the secular modern world."

Here longing means the deep desire and craves for something. Waiting in the play is connected with the longing of the painting. In the painting two people, probably, are seen as watching the sunrise and sunset. The more significant thing is that both the paintings have a similar background of Nature. In one painting nature(tree) stands for bright hope and in the second one, it stands for despair. Inspired from these paintings, Samuel Beckett used the thematic concern and significance of tree in his play and director Michael Lindsay-Hogg in his 2001 film called 'Waiting for Godot' an adaptation of Beckett's play also uses the tree to signify the barrenness of life, the anguish of human existence. 

                                    But it becomes hard to draw more comparison between these paintings and Beckett's play because Casper David Friedrich's paintings contain hugely romantic elements, his depiction of nature has a different and optimistic meaning and Beckett’s depiction of nature has an altogether different meaning.

                                The 'longing' maybe 'waiting' but then there is no further comparison possible. The 'waiting' for Beckett is in the indifference and uncaring universe. The most astonishing thing is that in Act 1 there are no leaves in the tree but in Act 2, Beckett gives a tree a few leaves. 

                                    Fredrich seems to be romantic in his visionary output because of his association with the romanticism in Germany but at the same time, as one of the great Romantics, Friedrich also departed from the charming landscape painting of his contemporaries, setting sparse accents in his nearly empty oil paintings. With his radical image design, he was one of the modern artists of his time. On contrary, being a romanticist he looks to catch the endless experience of nature.

                                    The depiction of debris and the barren tree, in the play, suggest abandonment, compounded by the dull plot or no plot or story element and uneven compositional balance of narration. Beckett’s simple images are often deceptive and transmographic – ideas that resist any artistic tendency to linger over specificity or detail. The discussion among Estragon and Vladimir with respect to the "tree" status is likewise significant for Godot.

2.The tree is the only important ‘thing’ in the setting. What is the importance of tree in both acts? Why does Beckett grow a few leaves in Act II on the barren tree - The tree has four or five leaves - ?

The tree is a symbol in the play. It can be said that the tree itself is a character as any other character. Generally, it is observed that a character grows in the work of art by learning from the experiences. This kind of character is called a developing character. But the play Waiting for Godot explores a static situation and static or flat characters. The characters think to move but they do not move. 

"Waiting for Godot' does not tell a story; it explores a static situation. "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful." On a country road by a tree two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon are waiting." (Esslin) 

                                 Hence, there is not any mental progression in the characters but on the other hand, an object that is the tree can be seen as growing. From the leafless tree in Act 1 to a tree with four to five leaves in Act 2. 

                                    Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot and there is a tree in the background which can be assumed a representative of Godot. The leafless tree in Act 1 represents a lack of vitality and meaning. 

Estragon: [despairingly] Ah! [Pause.] You’re sure it was here?

Vladimir: What?

Estragon: That we were to wait.

Vladimir: He said by the tree. [They look at the tree.] Do you see any others.

Estragon: What is it?

To wait by the tree for Godot signifies as if the tree is associated with Godot. The tree, in this scene, serves as an organizing plot device which anchors Vladimir and Estragon to the location that will remain constant on stage throughout Godot’s performance. They are waiting there, on stage, because “he” (presumably Godot) told them to wait by the tree.

                                    Here, Vladimir calls the tree 'a willow tree' for the image of the willow tree is religiously charged, both in the Celtic and Christian traditions. A willow tree is a sign both of grief and of hope for a new life and a willow tree is always planted on the cemetery of the dead. As Godot is not appearing, both characters are entertaining themselves in the philosophizing the tree for which Samuel Beckett can be assumed to have displayed or signified the true activity of the philosophers is to entertain themselves in their leisure time. 

As the characters argue about the nature of the tree (as a beaconing object) by which they were told to wait for Godot, they simultaneously call its role as a symbol into question. If we entertain the common interpretation of Godot’s (lack of) arrival as symbolizing salvation for Vladimir and Estragon (i.e. Waiting for Salvation), then the characters, as early as the sixth page of the play, negate the tree’s possibility as a “site of salvation.” For, in questioning its existence as a tree, Vladimir and Estragon question salvation itself. Despite their simultaneous faith and eschatological scepticism towards Godot’s arrival, the characters remain rooted to the spot, in vain, waiting for Godot.

                                    In Act 2, the tree stands for itself and not representing any character from the play. It doesn’t have anything to do with the quest and misery of any human’s life. It is growing at its own pace and time. In the second act, there are leaves on the tree which show it does not wait with Vladimir and Estragon for Godot. Nature doesn’t need any Godot and it also doesn’t sympathies with human beings. It is completely indifferent towards human existence or even human misery. 

                                              It doesn’t have rationality but human always try to give rational meanings to it. The natural object like a tree is devoid of any human purpose but it is the humans who try to justify the significance or give a tree its meaning which for a tree is completely useless!

ESTRAGON: 

(suddenly furious). Recognize! What is there to recognize? All my lousy life I've crawled about in the mud! And you talk to me about scenery! (Looking wildly about him.) Look at this muckheap! I've never stirred from it!

                                  It can be derived that what is there to remember in such a meaningless existence. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong in assuming that the leaves of the tree are increasing the hope of Estragon and Vladimir as because, sprouting of the leaves can be a sign of hope but it is an illusionary hope for both the characters in their meaninglessness.

3.In both Acts, evening falls into night and moon rises. How would you like to interpret this ‘coming of night and moon’ when actually they are waiting for Godot?

In both the acts of the play, the scenes of the moon at night can be interpreted as the time passes. It is an indication that time has passed and the next sunrise is going to be a good one- 'GODOT WILL COME" the next day. Hence, the night passes, time passes. In a larger context, it is the time passing period in the endless waiting. As the older people wait for death and everyday figure out their days that when are they going to get salvation in the same manner, both these characters are waiting for their salvation which GODot can only provide them. 

                                 In another way, we can interpret it as per the manner in which Beckett shows the importance of time in Waiting for Godot through the symbol of the moon. The moon is a noticeable symbol to the characters and the audience as well, whenever they see the moon; they know that the night has come which means that it is the time to leave and have a rest, also the moon shows that the time is in progress to them. Both the characters- Vladimir and Estragon find the moon as a sign of mercy to them to end their suffering as well as a relaxation in their futile act of waiting.

4. The director feels the setting with some debris. Can you read any meaning in the contours of debris in the setting of the play?

In the 2001 released film by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the director takes the artistic liberty in designing the setting of the play where he uses the debris in the setting may be to create the effects of a catastrophe of the World War. The director fills the setting with some debris comprising of waste and broken bits of rocks connoting the unimportance of life, the meaninglessness and futility of our actions that how the things become pointless whenever we destroy or create an enormous structure. The debris also symbolized the after-effects of the war as if the War had broken out and huge planes and aircraft have been destructed in the bombing and turned into plains and plateau. It also strikes our attention on the cities and states being destroyed in a bombing by the superpowers and creating the victim countries into a complete mess. 

                              Additionally, the debris is the opposite of nature, the debris is a human-created useless waste. It also symbolizes the 'powerless Powerfullness' of the humans. Humans in the greed of their material world have the strength to destroy but when it comes to reconstructing and healing, this powerfulness turns into complete and bare powerlessness.

5. The play begins with the dialogue “Nothing to be done”. How does the theme of ‘nothingness’ recurs in the play?

"Waiting for Godot' does not tell a story; it explores a static situation. "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful." On a country road by a tree two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon are waiting." (Esslin) 

                                    As Martin Esslin puts it, the play is surrounded by nothingness. And Beckett begins his play with a dialogue -

ESTRAGON:(giving up again). Nothing to be done 

                                        This statement - "Nothing to be done" is repeated almost four times in the play. This statement carries deep philosophical meanings. It defines the struggle to Find Meaning in Purposeless Life. The very form of the play Waiting for Godot indicates the unbearably repetitious nature of life altogether. Samuel Beckett provides us with two acts in the play – two acts which both follow the same basic plotline. A repetitious existence renders all efforts to struggle futile; in a life that repeats the same events over and over, individuals like Estragon and Vladimir can only wait out a seemingly unending, mind-numbing existence and, at best, find ways to pass the time. 

                                    Hence, through the opening scene, Beckett clears the idea of nothingness. This line represents the whole idea- the central struggle of human begins as a thematic concern. It symbolizes the nothingness of existence, the purposeless life, the life devoid of meaning and as nothing can be done within life and nothing can be done while waiting for Godot. It shows how nothing can really mean something as there is the context within this play.

6. Do you agree: “The play (Waiting for Godot), we agreed, was a positive play, not negative, not pessimistic. As I saw it, with my blood and skin and eyes, the philosophy is: 'No matter what— atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, anything—life goes on. You can kill yourself, but you can't kill life." (E.G. Marshal who played Vladimir in original Broadway production 1950s)?

Yes, I strongly agree that this play is not pessimistic, rather it provides optimistic rationality which is the significance and futility of waiting. Theologically, this play is suggesting GODOT as GOD and because the central theme of the play is waiting, that is hope, it describes the futility of hope in our lives. 

                                      The Life of human beings are surrounded in and around hope and depends on the waiting, HOPE.  The whole life of a human is passed with this waiting. Life is a continuing process and it requires something to hold on so generally, human beings tend to rely on hope. Similarly, Estragon and Vladimir both the characters are relying solely on the waiting - Waiting For Godot. But they are forgetting that they do not need any Godot for the continuation of their journey. Hence, the play is optimistically dealing with the philosophy of existentialism. 

'No matter what— atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, anything—life goes on. You can kill yourself, but you can't kill life." - E.G. Marshal 

                                    The circle of time is endless and as long as life exists, time is going to record the footsteps.

7. How are the props like hat and boots used in the play? What is the symbolical significance of these props?

The props like hat and boots are representing human’s attachment towards the mind or body. 

                                Hat symbolically represents the mind as Vladimir is with hat and he keeps on thinking, same with lucky, both use the hat as a tool for thinking and with Lucky, one has to remove his hat to make him stop thinking. It displays the mechanical life of human beings, it seems as if when one switches on- the thinking process starts and when one switches off the thinking process should end. While Estragon has hat but he doesn’t use it he is more concentrating on his boots which are not comforting to him. 

                                The boots are a symbol of daily struggling — Estragon is constantly affected by his boots, always taking them off and putting them on but never makes a difference. (Ajemian) This routine struggle of the fitting is described by Beckett. The second Act describes the hat as finally fit for him. Estragon’s boots, instead of symbolizing rational thought processes on the other hand symbolize the fact that there is nothing to be done for the two men in a less pensive and more active way. Estragon, who focuses more on boots than hats, is more earthy and realistic because he is more grounded than Vladimir.

8. Do you think that the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseatic? Even when the master Pozzo is blind, he obediently hands the whip in his hand. Do you think that such a capacity of slavishness is unbelievable?

When Milton says -

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven"

Similarly, it cannot be denied that it is  

the mind which which can make itself powerful and capable of ruling over other and it is the mind which accepts the surrendering and subjugation of others. 

                     Yes, I do think that the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseatic. Obedience to authority is the tendency people have to try to please those in charge. Psychological evidence indicates that people tend to respect and follow those whom they perceive to have legitimate authority. This can lead to trouble if it causes people to fail to exercise their own independent ethical judgment. Similarly, Lucky is habituated with his being as a slave or rather he has become Pozzo's slave in such a way that it is hard for him to even think of his being a slave. It is a satire on human beings that how they become a slave of religion, politics unconsciously that they fail to realise the real and true identity of themselves and they consider their original identity as some marks of the masters. Lucky is a submissive slave. He carries heavy luggage, thinks and dances for his master. He taught all the higher values of life - beauty, grace, the truth of the first water'.

                             He is the mind - the spiritual side of man which is spoiled in such a way that it totally is unaware of its own subjugated identity and is colonized mentally by the master.

Even when the master Pozzo is blind, he obediently hands the whip in his hand. As he carries the baggage physically, he has a mental unconscious baggage of his identity as a slave who is incomplete without his master. The luggage and the rope around lucky are very interesting symbols. If the behaviour of Lucky is not putting down the baggage and his obedience seems extremely irritating and nauseatic to us then we should ask one statement that -

 Are we putting down the theological baggage which was handed to us when we were children as a tool of playing with our sentiments?

People are carrying these baggages unknowingly- Is there any escape from all these?

Are the rope and the luggage invisible markers form which we are trying to liberate ourselves? 

As Lucky is tied with a rope, aren't we tied to something?

9. Who according to you is Godot? God? An object of desire? Death? Goal? Success? Or  . . .

When we read the play and try to situate the invisible character Godot in the context, we realize that it may be the divine power which is described by the boy (god's messenger). When we try to look for the number of times the word Godot is referred to in the play, we can certainly say that the word Godot is referred to 23 times in the play. Here is some significant reference-

VLADIMIR:

To Godot? Tied to Godot! What an idea! No question of it. (Pause.) For the moment.

...

POZZO:

who has your future in his hands . . . (pause) . . . at least your immediate future?

...

BOY:

(in a rush). Mr. Godot told me to tell you he won't come this evening but surely tomorrow

...

VLADIMIR:

He said that Godot was sure to come tomorrow. (Pause.) What do you say to that?

ESTRAGON:

Then all we have to do is to wait on here.

                     So, through this references, one can surely say that GODOT can be God. When Alan Schneider, who was direct the first American production of 'Waiting for Godot', asked Beckett who or what was meant by Godot, he received the answer

"If I knew, I would have said so in the play"

                  Hence, it is open to the interpreter to interpret the identity of Godot or to see Godot as an object also. As the title is 'Waiting for Godot' - the Godot is for whom or for what are we waiting!

10. “The subject of the play is not Godot but ‘Waiting’” (Esslin, A Search for the Self). Do you agree? How can you justify your answer?

If the title of the play is to be interpreted in a significant way then one is bound to think more on the etymological meaning of the word GODOT. Of course, it is strange and arouses curiosity but along with that, the character of Godot is mentally present in the play and not physically. So, the GODOT, throughout the play remains as a mysterious and annoying figure. One can convincingly agree with Martin Esslin's words- 

"Yet whether Godot is meant to suggest the intervention of a supernatural agency, or whether he stands for a mythical human being whose arrival is expected to change the situation or both of these possibilities combined, his exact nature is of secondary importance." 

         Hence, this statement surely emphasizes that the subject of the play is not Waiting but Godot. But 

" The act of waiting as an essential and characteristic aspect of the human condition. Throughout our lives, we always wait for something and Godot simply represent the objective of our wanting - an event, a thing, a person, death."

 the subject of the play with reference to above mentioned lines is not Godot but waiting!

11. Do you think that plays like this can better be ‘read’ than ‘viewed’ as it requires a lot of thinking on the part of readers, while viewing, the torrent of dialogues does not give ample time and space to ‘think’? Or is it that the audio-visuals help in better understanding of the play?

I think that this type of play should be viewed and read both. As we know that reading literature widens our perceptions and opens a variety of perspectives and also widens our imaginative powers. Screening of film based on texts helps in shaping our imagination in a perfect mould and shape. So, I believe, initially, one should read the original text and should develop the background knowledge of the play to get a proper idea.  After background reading this play one is free to watch, this is not advisable for all literature but plays like this one should be watched first. 

                      “Show, don’t tell,” is the motto that any good writer lives by. His words stir the reader’s imagination, thereby transporting him to the described scene. This is one of the engrossing elements of literature. 

                     Films are better vectors to reach and inform a vast audience. Films bring texts to life. Moreover, the concrete images of the film are easier to remember long after their display than the imagined ones required for reading.

                                  Beckett's plays are full of good and philosophically rich dialogues while watching the film these dialogues are skipped to be deeply pondered so it is advisable to read the play and then watch the film. Because the visual and audio will help to get the sense of the play for better understanding.

12. Which of the following sequence you liked the most:

o   Vladimir – Estragon killing time in questions and conversations while waiting

o   Pozzo – Lucky episode in both acts

o   Converstion of Vladimir with the boy

Though Beckett issuing the most simple language in his plays, his simple language is deceivingly philosophical. The philosophically rich statements in the conversation of Vladimir and Estragon when they are killing time in questions and conversations while waiting in one of the various scenes which I found having profound significance.

13. Did you feel the effect of existential crisis or meaninglessness of human existence in the irrational and indifference Universe during screening of the movie? Where and when exactly that feeling was felt, if ever it was?

Widely interpreting, the thematic concern of the play revolves around endless waiting and meaningless utterances of the characters. Yes, I felt the effect of existential crisis or meaninglessness of human existence in the irrational and indifferent Universe during the screening of the film in the attempt to commit the suicide scene.  
Vladimir: (Silence. Estragon looks attentively at the tree.) What do we do now?
Estragon: Wait.
Vladimir: Yes, but while waiting?
Estragon: What about hanging ourselves?
Vladimir: Hmm. It´d give us an erection.
Estragon: (highly exited). An erection!
Estragon: Let´s hang ourselves immediately!
Vladimir: From a bough? I wouldn´t trust it.

Estragon: We can always try



                                 More Surprisingly, the play has more number of scenes where both Vladimir and Estragon thinks and converse about suicide because of boredom raised due to the waiting. They think it better to end up their lives than to wait because they belives that their lives are unworthy of living. Essentially, value and lack of purpose are simultaneously removed from their lives by Vladimir and Estragon which, therefore, leads them to contemplate suicide without ever committing it.

14. Vladimir and Estragon talks about ‘hanging’ themselves and commit suicide, but they do not do so. How do you read this idea of suicide in Existentialism?
"Suffering is an essential part of human existence"

Humans consume much of life in suffering or trying to stay away from suffering, yet there is little accuracy or steadiness in the word what we call as ‘suffering’. In the play, Vladimir and Estragon because of their sufferings think and talk about hanging themselves and commit suicide.
15. Can we do any political reading of the play if we see European nations represented by the 'names' of the characters (Vladimir - Russia; Estragon - France; Pozzo - Italy and Lucky - England)? What interpretation can be inferred from the play written just after World War II? Which country stands for 'Godot'?
This play is composed after world war II. So the impact of the war seems natural to be reflected in the play. In the event that we pass by the names informs us about the Vladimir who is the representative of Russia, Estragon stands for France, Pozzo for Italy and Lucky for England than Godot will represent Germany. Everyone's waiting for Hitler, everyone has hope in Hitler that he will do something but nevertheless, Hitler is the person who is held up by each one and who never shows up. And when he felt to show up. he shattered the nations into debris land. 
                                                               On the other hand that we need to see Pozzo and Lucky, as master and slave, Pozzo represents England and Lucky for Ireland. Despite the fact that Pozzo becomes blind Lucky doesn't free himself. Same since Ireland is a little nation and for its own products and development it sticks with England.

16.So far as Pozzo and Lucky [master and slave] are concerned, we have to remember that Beckett was a disciple of Joyce and that Joyce hated England. Beckett meant Pozzo to be England, and Lucky to be Ireland." (Bert Lahr who played Estragon in Broadway production). Does this reading make any sense? Why? How? What?

So far as Lucky and Pozzo (slave and master) are concerned, we have to remember that Beckett was a disciple of Joyce and that Joyce hated England. Beckett meant Pozzo to be England, and Lucky to be Ireland. 
                   There was a very bitter and sataric  reference. Pozzo as England is the master- a well stabled nation and lucky is like Ireland which is like  slave and is depending on the master England for the economic stability. The condition depending upon other as a slave for personal value is conditioned in the mind of Lucky. Though Ireland  is  separate country then too it wants to become a slave.
17. The more the things change, the more it remains similar. There seems to have no change in Act I and Act II of the play. Even the conversation between Vladimir and the Boy sounds almost similar. But there is one major change. In Act I, in reply to Boy;s question, Vladimir says: 
[BOY: What am I to tell Mr. Godot, Sir?
VLADIMIR: Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw us. (Pause.) You did see us, didn't you?]
How does this conversation go in Act II? Is there any change in seeming similar situation and conversation? If so, what is it? What does it signify?
The more things change, the more they are the same. The waiting represents the action of time. What seems to be similar is paradoxically presented in the play. The change is permanent and everything keeps on changing. When we look from the farther viewpoint we feel that everything is static but from the nearest sight everything appears to be changing and the most amazing thing is that the time keeps on repeating the events. Pozzo is expressing his frustration about the concept of time and the passage of time. 
                     Almost, nothing changes in the play, both the acts have same situations happening but the conversation of Vladimir with boy is absolutely necessary to observe selfishness of Vladimir.
                 This change in act 2 can be interpreted with reference to the story of the two thieves were one is damned and the other is given salvation.