Paper -3 Assigment

• Name : Asari Bhavyang  

• Roll no :-4

• Enrollment No:-3069206420200002

• Course:-M.A (English)Sem1

• Subject:-Literature of The Neo-Classical period

• Topic:- critically analyze Frankenstein as a Gothic scientific fiction

• Teacher Name :- Dilip Barad sir 

• Batch :- 2020-2022

• Email :- asaribhavyang7874@gmail.com

[1.] critically analyze Frankenstein as a Gothic scientific fiction?

Mary Shelley :-

Mary Shelley was born Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in Somers Town, London, in 1797. She was the second child of the feminist philosopher, educator and writer Mary Wollstonecraft and the first child of the philosopher, novelist and journalist William Godwin. Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever shortly after Mary was born. Godwin was left to bring up Mary, along with her older half-sister, Fanny Imlay, Wollstonecraft's child by the American speculator Gilbert Imlay.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft.

video lecture on Frankenstein :-

Frankenstein :-

The plot begins with a Captain Walton waiting for passage into Russia. He discovers an emancipated man on the ice in his journey and this man is Victor Frankenstein. Victor introduces himself and starts his story beginning with his childhood. Victor was born in Naples where he lived with his parents and brothers. Their parents adopt Elizabeth whom Victor falls for later on.
Some weeks before Victor leaves for University, Elizabeth and his mother contract scarlet fever and his mother’s condition deteriorates. Grief-stricken Victor tries to find ways to handle this problem using science. He starts by developing a way to reanimate non-living matter. He extends his research further and decides to create a human. Putting together parts of different bodies, he succeeds, but his creation turns out to be hideous. The creature wakes up, and Victor runs away, disgusted.
He runs into Henry, his friend on the street and decides to take him back to his apartment. Victor fears what Henry will have to say when he sees what he had created, but when they get there, the creature had escaped. Henry becomes ill after this and is nursed back to health in four months. Henry receives information that his youngest sibling had been killed and returns home. Henry spots the creature from a distance in the crime scene and becomes certain that it had done it.

Victor goes to hide in the mountains, but the creature finds him. The creature pleads with Victor to create another that looked like him so it would not be alone. The creature argues that if Victor made him a companion, they would retreat into the wilderness and if not he would destroy victors family.
Victor starts on the female companion but in fear, destroys it, convinced it would be the eviler than the former.  The creature vows vengeance and kills Henry, then plants the body to ensure victor was blamed for the murder. The creature goes on to kill Elizabeth, and Victor vows to take revenge on the beast. He follows it to the north pole where he falls due to hypothermia and exhaustion. Walton resumes his story from here. Walton saw the creature and pursued it only for the ship to get stuck in ice. He takes Victor’s story as a warning and turns the ship around. He then finds the creature mourning over Victor’s body. He vows to kill himself and retreats in the darkness.

Gothic fiction :-

The term Gothic fiction refers to a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and very high emotion. These emotions can include fear and suspense.

This style of fiction began in the mid 1700s with a story titled, The Castle of Otranto in 1764, by Horace Walpole. This story was about a doomed family and is filled with death, desire, and intrigue. This story is considered to be the first of the Gothic fiction tales, since it encompassed many of the characteristics of the genre. The term Gothic actually originated as a term belittling the architecture and art of the period, which was dark, decaying, and dismal.

The settings were often old, dilapidated buildings or houses in gloomy, lifeless, fear-inducing landscapes The Fall of the House of Usher, mentioned later, is a great example of the use of nature and setting as a fearful element. Much of the literature involved monsters, such as vampires, who brought suffering and death to the forefront. There were also stories that simply displayed these elements of fear and suffering in the settings themselves.

Gothic fiction, sometimes Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a genre of literature and film that incorporates horror, death and at times romance. It is said to originate with the English author Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Early contributors included Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford and Matthew Lewis. It tends to stress emotion and a pleasurable terror that expands the Romantic literature of the time. The common "pleasures" were the sublime, which indescribably "takes us beyond ourselves." Such extreme Romanticism was popular throughout Europe, especially among English and German-language authors. Its 19th-century success peaked with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and works by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens , and in poetry with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Also well known was the later Dracula by Bram Stoker. The name Gothic spread from the Goths to mean "German". It also conjures up the Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, where many of the stories take place. Twentieth-century contributors include Daphne du Maurier, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice and Toni Morrison.

Frankenstein as a Gothic Novel :- 

The first Gothic horror novel was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, published in 1754. Perhaps the last type of novel in this mode was Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, published in 1847. In between 1754 and 1847, several other novels appeared using the Gothic horror story as a central story telling device, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1794) by Ann Radcliffe, The Monk (1796) by Matthew G. Lewis, and Melmouth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Maturin.

Gothic novels focus on the mysterious and supernatural. In Frankenstein, Shelley uses rather mysterious circumstances to have Victor Frankenstein create the monster: the cloudy circumstances under which Victor gathers body parts for his experiments and the use of little known modern technologies for unnatural purposes. Shelley employs the supernatural elements of raising the dead and macabre research into unexplored fields of science unknown by most readers. She also causes us to question our views on Victor's use of the dead for scientific experimentation. Upon hearing the story for the first time, Lord Byron is said to have run screaming from the room, so the desired effect was achieved by Mary Shelley.

Gothic novels also take place in gloomy places like old buildings , dungeons, or towers that serve as a backdrop for the mysterious circumstances. A familiar type of Gothic story is, of course, the ghost story. Also, far away places that seem mysterious to the readers function as part of the Gothic novel's setting. Frankenstein is set in continental Europe, specifically Switzerland and Germany, where many of Shelley's readers had not been. Further, the incorporation of the chase scenes through the Arctic regions takes us even further from England into regions unexplored by most readers. Likewise, Dracula is set in Transylvania, a region in Romania near the Hungarian border. Victor's laboratory is the perfect place to create a new type of human being. Laboratories and scientific experiments were not known to the average reader, thus this was an added element of mystery and gloom.

Just the thought of raising the dead is gruesome enough. Shelley takes full advantage of this literary device to enhance the strange feelings that Frankenstein generates in its readers. The thought of raising the dead would have made the average reader wince in disbelief and terror. Imagining Victor wandering the streets of Ingolstadt or the Orkney Islands after dark on a search for body parts adds to the sense of revulsion purposefully designed to evoke from the reader a feeling of dread for the characters involved in the story.

In the Gothic novel, the characters seem to bridge the mortal world and the supernatural world. Dracula lives as both a normal person and as the undead, moving easily between both worlds to accomplish his aims. Likewise, the Frankenstein monster seems to have some sort of communication between himself and his creator, because the monster appears wherever Victor goes. The monster also moves with amazing superhuman speed with Victor matching him in the chase towards the North Pole. Thus, Mary Shelley combines several ingredients to create a memorable novel in the Gothic tradition.

Reference :-

1. Seymour, Miranda. Mary Shelly. Faber, 2011.
2. Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851. Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus : the 1818 Text. Oxford ; New York :Oxford University Press, 1998.
3. WASSON, SARA, and EMILY ALDER, editors. Gothic Science Fiction: 1980–2010. 1st ed., vol. 41, Liverpool University Press, 2011. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vj98n. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021.

Thank you 

Dilip Barad sir

Words :-1560

Paper -1 Asssigment

 

• Name : Asari Bhavyang  

• Roll no :-4

• Enrollment No:-3069206420200002

• Course:-M.A (English)Sem1

• Subject:-Literature of The Elizabethan &Restoration Periods

• Topic:-What is Restoration comedy ? Justify The Rover as a Restoration Comedy? 

• Teacher Name :- Dilip Barad sir 

• Batch :- 2020-2022

• Email :- asaribhavyang7874@gmail.com

• Department :- The Department of English.

[1.]  What is Restoration Comedy? Justify ‘The Rover’ as a Restoration Comedy?
Ans :-

• Aphra Behn :-

Aphra Behn, a favorite of feminist literary critics, is considered to be the first woman to have made a living through her writing. There were other women writers before Behn, but few of them enjoyed financial success. Behn turned to her literary talent after the death of her husband, and she quickly proved her merit as well as her perseverance. Behn suffered from the biases of her time against women writers in general and women dramatists in particular. She was assumed by many of her contemporaries to be a prostitute; because of her connection to the theater and because at the time, women who sold their writing were seen as selling themselves. In her prefaces, Behn sometimes commented on her unique status as a woman writer and asked to be taken seriously as a writer, with equal right to freedom in what she wrote.

session video :-

•  Restoration comedy.

" Restoration comedy " is English comedy written and performed in the Restoration period from 1660 to 1710. Comedy of manners is used as a synonym of Restoration comedy. After public stage performances had been banned for 18 years by the Puritan regime.

• The Rover as a Restoration Comedy :-

Restoration comedy, like most other literary genres, was deeply influenced by its historical context. With the abolition of the monarchy, England entered a period of puritan repression call the Interregnum or Commonwealth led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell's rule was fraught with problems between himself and Parliament. Tensions arose over the nature of the constitution and the issue of supremacy, control of the armed forces, and debates over religious tolerance. In 1653 Cromwell dissolved Parliament, appointing himself Lord Protector. After Cromwell's death in 1658, and the failure of his son Richard's short-lived Protectorate, the army invited Charles I's son, Charles, to become King. The restoration of the exiled Charles II to the throne of England in 1660 put an end to the claustrophobic Cromwellian regime and its preoccupation with hard work, at the expense of leisure.  This gave rise to an atmosphere of euphoria and a deliberate reversal of the Puritan ethic. People were determined to enjoy their newly regained luxury and there was a general spirit of Carpe Diem. King Charles II brought with him a sense of the fun and frivolity of the French court where he had resided in exile. The king had a hedonistic character - he had numerous mistresses and illegitimate children, and loved racing and gambling - which constituted a considerable influence on the art and literature of the time. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, the theatre companies were reopened and cast aside the Puritan restrictions of the previous eighteen years. The theatre of the time reflected the political and social changes brought by King Charles II's return to English soil. King Charles II’s most notorious mistress was Nell Gwynne, who was also one of the most famous actresses of the day. The unsentimental or "hard" comedies of John Dryden, William Wycherley, and George Etherege reflected the atmosphere at Court, and celebrated with frankness an aristocratic macho lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. Thus, sexual promiscuity, systematic frivolity and unabashed materialism were evident characteristics of the restoration period. However, viewing the age only in terms of its Epicureanism would amount to having a rather narrow perspective of the times, as Bonamy Dobree points out in the essay ‘Restoration Comedy’. Great emphasis was, in fact, laid on taste and cultural refinement, with men from all sections of society striving to prove themselves as ‘wits’. All these features are reflected in the writings of the period, especially Restoration comedy plays, with Aphra Behn’s The Rover both conforming to the genre, as well as cleverly subverting it.

Socio- economic changes in England led to the rise of writing as a profession, with more and more writers becoming free agents, who wrote for the market. This greatly influenced their writings as the text now became a commodity, subject to criticism by the consumers, and vulnerable to being shaped by the same. In such a milieu, Aphra Behn was not only one of the first professional writers, but the earliest woman writer. Her very act of writing for money was a subversion of societal norms and expectations.  In fact, it coincided with the introduction of women actors into English drama. Behn was thus a subversive entity herself, a woman operating in the world of literature, the domain of men. She exercised her wit- and made her women characters do the same- in a time when the predominant mindset decreed that women were sentimental creatures, “antagonistic to intellect”. There was a growing tendency, in theatre, to serve the interests of the audience slavishly by playing to their commodity fetish. The audience mostly consisted of market-oriented, pleasure-seeking individuals who watched plays not for contemplation, but merely for leisure. Behn, in many ways, played the same role as other playwrights, allowing the watcher to act as voyeur and serving him with a heady mix of eroticism, sex antagonism and materialism. However, what sets Behn apart is that she made sure her plays offered a critique of her times even while conforming to them. The fact that critics sometimes question Behn’s positionality while mocking the belittling of women, when she herself was ‘putting herself out there’ as a published author, only serves to throw more light on the double standard accorded to the judgement of women since times immemorial. As Shyamala A. Narayan says in ‘The Rover as a Restoration Comedy’, “The Restoration aristocrats prided themselves on their bawdy wit. The male playwrights were applauded for it, but Aphra Behn, being a woman, was vilified for it.” It is a function of the same society that refused to pay equal wages to women actresses and criticised the same when they were forced to become mistresses for fear of poverty.

The Rover submits to many Restoration comic tropes but also flouts them, primarily by setting the text within the carnival- a space characterised by licentiousness and short lived ness. This heightens the spirit of Carpe Diem- Seize the Day- and the flouting of rules in true Restoration style, but also serves to problematize behaviours as all acts can be explained away as part of the masquerade. In Florinda and Helena we have the stock figures of the aristocratic virgin and the witty heroine, respectively. Florinda is afraid to outrightly rebel against her brother and has to resort to entering the carnival to achieve her desires. She is aware of the value of her virginity and protects it to the very end to present to her beloved in marriage. The image of the youthful dame getting repulsed by a rich decrepit old man is also rather typical of the comedies of the time. The subversive aspect of Florinda’s behaviour is that she uses wanton means to achieve her ends. Florinda in the garden in a state of undress with a box of jewels in her hands is her moment of empowerment where she not only asserts that she will settle for no less than what she is ‘worth’ but also that her sexual desire, contrary to her brother’s expectations, is a force to be reckoned with.

Helena’s wit is a significant tool for setting up the battle of the wits. With her intellect, she becomes the sole match for Willmore, who despite his Casanova nature is drawn repeatedly to her. Her wilful pursuit of Willmore becomes the subversive element in this case, with her admiration for his inconstancy becoming a threat to the patriarchal notion of women as sentimental beings. Of the Rover women, Helena fares best because, although she is lustful, her power is based not in her sexuality but in her wit for adventure. It is true that both women- like many other characters in the play- return to the folds of society towards the end by seeking legitimacy from the institution of marriage. Women are almost always at the receiving end in Behn’s plays, especially since Restoration literature sought to be realistic. However, the fact that her women put up a mighty fight against restrictive norms mirrors her own sense of agency. Angellica Bianca’s romantic longings and her act of gifting her sexuality as well as money to Wilmore not only disrupts the usual transaction in the space of the courtesan’s house, but also acts as a facilitator of the general vocabulary of commerce used in the play. 

Also many Restoration Comedies include a character “disappointed in love or fortune” who was written in especially to provide the extreme passion of despair . The rich prostitute Angelica Bianca, without chastity and modesty, thinks it is her privilege to seduce whomever she fancies. Behn’s radical awareness of the double standards of morality, by which men and women are enjoined to live, sounds most clearly in The Rover when Angelica points out that men effectively prostitute themselves in the marriage market when they marry a woman for her money and not for love. She tries to claim equal status with the men by using her sex as her power. Sadly, all her courtesan’s wealth cannot save Angelica from the bondage of “submissive passion” in which her true love for Willmore snares her.

Willmore, after whom the play is named, is the quintessential philandering rake, much like the model set by Charles II himself, imitated enthusiastically in many Restoration texts. However, Willmore is an alienated figure- an outsider, not tied down by any social roles- not because of deep cynicism or an active disregard for norms, but simply because of his free spirit and epicurean tendency. It can even be said that his fickleness arises from his natural attraction to charming women. Readers in more recent times may be more aware of the inappropriateness of Willmore’s behaviour, with our awareness of the feminist movement against the double standards that society uses to judge women. Yet, in order for the play to succeed, the audience must enjoy Willmore. We do not need to approve of him; in fact a critique of his licentiousness is built into the structure of the play as his chaotic sensuality almost destroys the happiness of the other characters, and does destroy Angelica. Antonio, for example, is a scheming, dishonourable two-timer who marries for money, betrays Florinda the day before her wedding and inveigles Belvile to fight his duel for him. By contrast, Willmore is neither calculating nor corrupt. He is naive. He assumes that everyone is motivated by the same indomitable, sensual Will as himself. His evil is more a blind spot than active malice. Willmore lives completely in the present tense. This frees him from the dominant motivations of greed and politics which Behn loathes in social relations. Willmore tells Don Pedro, “A Woman’s Honour is not worth guarding when she has a Mind to part with it”. By accepting Hellena at face value without her fortune and despite her warnings of intended inconstancy, Willmore roves outside the conventional Restoration fears of cuckoldry and material poverty. It is this spontaneity and honesty of spirit that Aphra Behn loved in him and which the audience must grasp at the same time that they see his shameful, dangerous sexism is unacceptable. The two rovers, Willmore and Hellena, share the same propensities; both are frank about their temperaments. Hellena’s attitude to female sexuality is as natural as that of Willmore. She has a natural urge to have a man who she likes. In fact she appropriates masculine discourse in her attempt to escape the nunnery. Willmore is undoubtedly the rakish hero, a Cavalier and flirts with women without any qualms of conscience, but it is Hellena who seems to be the real rover in the play.  Behn wants to crown her with success in her revolt against the father’s decision to confine her to a life of nunnery.

Crisis in the aristocracy- of which Pedro’s character is a function- is also turned on its head by his ultimate acceptance of Florinda and Belvile’s marriage. At this point, it may be argued that the Belvile-Florinda romance itself, though very generic and typical of comedies, is problematized through the repeated attempts at the rape of Florinda, which Belvile reacts to a little too mildly, considering he has been set up the ‘knight in shining armour’. Belvile’s friends act as typical rakes by mocking his love for Florinda and claiming that women could only be used for sexual needs. Blunt initially seems to be purely a stock figure- one often found in Restoration comedies. He is an English country gentleman, rich but foolish, a ‘country bumpkin’, fooled by a wily prostitute. His attempts at projecting himself as a wit evoke much laughter from the reader. However the same character later become a mouthpiece for violent, horrific misogyny and his speech directed at Florinda where he threatens to rape her, beat her up and hang her from a window, disrupts the harmless bumpkin stereotype.

It cannot be refuted that the play ends in rather typical ways, with the prostitute returning to her trade, and the virgins being awarded with marriage- a proverbial ‘happy ending’. However, all men, women and institutions pass through the marketplace and are valued, just as the text, and even its author, is. Through the carnival, Behn gives space to her characters to explore their true natures, albeit behind masks. To quote Anand Prakash in his essay, ‘“Designing” Women Socially and Market- Wise: Glimpses of the Restoration Strategy in The Rover’, “ … Behn is not attempting in The Rover a typical Restoration comedy with fops and wits in the fray out to merely titillate us but a representation that focuses upon serious issues of freedom, identity and physicality, particularly with respect to women.”

Reference :-

1. Butler, Sally. Suduiko, Aaron ed. "The Rover Summary". GradeSaver, 21 May 2015 Web. 15 February 2021.
2. Fujimura, Thomas H. 1952. The Restoration Comedy of Wit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3. Hoyt-Disick, Gabrielle. "The Rover." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 11 Aug 2015. Web. 15 Feb 2021.

Thank you ,

Dilip Barad sir

words :-2413

The Rover

 

1. Aphra Behn's The Rover: Evaluating Women's Social and Sexual Options:-
   
   
   

The Rover was Performed in 1677, Aphra Behn’s play, The Rover, speaks to this double standard, which limited her female peers’ sexual desires to the realm of convent, brothel, or home. Set loose in the topsy-turvy world of Carnival, her characters demonstrate the active, complicated game required of women seeking to secure personal happiness.  The dangers of the chase and the play’s tidy conclusion, on the other hand, suggest at how ladies neither could nor should stray too far into the masculine roles of wooer and possessor.  Late Stuart society, Behn seems to lament, offered no place to the sexually free, libertine woman.

session videos "The rover":-

The fall of the Puritan Commonwealth did little to dispel the political and religious tensions that affected the early Modern British conception of womanhood.  Even after the Protectorate’s end, Roundhead beliefs dictated “the necessity for female subordination and obedience” to her husband, as ordained by several Bible verses .  Eve’s role in the division of mankind from God “fuelled conviction of the weakness and sinfulness of women” .   Thus female sexuality was perceived as a spiritual flaw to manage. Male governance of the female body, once responsible for Adam’s downfall, led to a Puritan “masculinization of desire the creation of woman as other and as object—that crucial to a sexual ideology that insists on the indivisibility of feminine chastity from feminine identity” .  By appropriating sexuality, Roundhead men narrowed the confines of women’s acceptable roles in society to one alone: the wife, family-oriented and sexually pure.  Neither Catholic nun nor transgressive prostitute met Puritan expectations for women.

Hellena and Angellica also take on the appearances of men during the play.  Such costumes permit them to alter their lovers’ choices and lives.  “Dressed in man’s clothes,” Hellena can punish Willmore for his infidelity with “something do to vex him”.  She interferes in a meeting of Willmore and Angellica by informing the courtesan of “a young English gentleman” who wooed another woman and then “paid his broken vows to you”.  Seeking revenge an act later, Angellica Bianca dons “a masking habit and vizard” and threatens Willmore with a pistol .  Her choice of weapon—guns were used almost exclusively by men during Behn’s time—is “symbolic of her attempt to usurp phallic control” of her own sexual desires .Instead of feminizing her lust, Angellica masculinizes herself.  By masquerading as men, both women demonstrate how ladies may take ownership of rights associated only male Cavaliers, romance, justice, and sexuality.The “obligatory happy ending” of The Rover reveals the unfairness of the libertine system and the demand indeed, the unquestioned assumption that women would fit into the socially set role of prostitute or wife.  Florinda and Hellena’s attempts to challenge their brother’s arrangements are successful; the former marries her lover and the latter escapes a future as “handmaid to lazars and cripples” in the nunnery .  However, their enterprising boldness in chasing men leads them into the same wifely duties of most women.  Their challenge to “the repression of their autonomy and desires” still leads to the hierarchical man-woman relationship of Puritan wedlock .

Angellica’s attempt to unite her sexuality with true love fails.  She is initially immune to “the general disease of [the female] sex…that of being in love” .  She can sleep with whomever she wants and has found a way around Behn’s observation that women need reliable male support.  However, her life lacks the romantic passion of the hedonistic lifestyle.  Moreover, Angellica’s sexual liberation, for which lovers must pay to experience, contributes to her inability to snag Willmore’s long-term affection.  His lust could have been satiated with her portrait since someone else would “have the thousand crowns to give for the original” .  Her relegation back to courtesan shows how transgressive, premarital sex and proper marriage cannot mix.  As a sexual female, Angellica has no place in world when in the throes of libertine love: she can be neither indifferent courtesan nor devoted wife.

The actions and treatment of women in Aphra Behn’s play expose the narrow social limitations within which early Modern British women found themselves. Hellena and Florinda have the potential to explore their sexual freedom at Carnival, but they focus instead on securing financial futures with men they like.  Sex may be used, as Hellena shows, as a bartering chip to obtain a promise of marriage; when loosed for a young woman’s pleasure, however, sexuality keeps her from happiness.  Through Angellica, Hellena, and Florinda, Behn reveals that the libertine female has no place in late Stuart society.  The playwright’s observation comes as a wistful warning at a time when women seemed to push the limits of tradition.  Actresses appearing on stage might feel they had found a career of bodily expression, but from Behn’s experience as a woman with male colleagues, the freedom is a façade.  Women on stage faced fetishization and loss of status.  Behn’s commentary on women’s position in the late Stuart period serves to point out the double standard of libertinism in court life and the public sphere.  By exposing and mocking the Puritanical and Cavalier restraints imposed on ladies, she encourages viewers to reevaluate women’s limited roles in the new age.

Whatever professional activity women in the theatre performed – whether playwright or actress - they soon lost their good reputation. It was seen as immoral to be an actress and thus, an actress was always assumed to be a prostitute when she displayed herself on-stage. This meant that women in the theatre were regarded as sexually available and no actress had "effective protection against male advances". In fact, many of the actresses during the Restoration period were actual prostitutes off-stage. In this way, they tried to handle the libertine belief of men that all theatre women were fair game and to retain at least some kind of reputation. If they were not prostitutes, actresses could achieve a good position through sexual patronage.

Female playwrights, however, were considered to be intruders on male territory as literature and poetry were exclusively meant for men. Women's writing existed but was rather restricted to writing letters in private. As soon as a woman published her works, she violated a woman's virtue of modesty, i.e. to be passive, quiet and cautious. Modesty was equated with chastity. Thus, women who published literary works were seen to making themselves public and therefore shameless, characteristics which were assumed as leading to eventual sexual excess and promiscuity. Being a female playwright was even worse because drama represented the most public literary genre, which meant that whatever opinion the playwright had it was made known to the public as soon as the play was shown on-stage. Hence, displaying a woman's opinion in public was the highest violation of modesty and therefore it was not worth regarding that woman as being respectable.

Aphra Behn's play The Rover subverts the traditional concept of women as the property of men and as being modest and thus, presents a new type of woman - the female rake. The following chapters will show how language manifests sexual domination. The next chapter presents different characters of the play and also looks at the characters' way of speaking and behaving. The third chapter then will examine how those different characters act when they meet. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn as to whether there is a relationship between language and sexual domination.

• The Sexual Politics of Behn's "Rover": After Patriarchy - Stephen Szilagyi :-

Each woman begins the play bound one of the three fates: Florinda to marriage, Hellena to the nunnery, and Angellica Bianca to well-paid prostitution.  Through Carnival, however, these women abandon their prescribed positions with disguises to “be mad as the rest, and take all innocent freedoms,” including to “outwit twenty brothers” . The masquerade serves multiple purposes.  First, disguise equalizes the class distinctions, “and even the difference between the categories available to women” . When lost in the festivities, the ladies join all that “are, or would have you think they’re courtesans,” the most sexually liberated women .  Their initial costumes as gypsies allow them to approach men in a feminized, desirous way.  Gypsies already occupy the role of outcast on the liminal edge of society; by taking on their looks, Florinda and Hellena put themselves and their sexuality outside the confines of cultural expectation.  Their decision implies Behn’s opinion that her peers should seek to escape the restrictions that define them.

Behn’s female characters strive for independence within the limitations of the English system of courtship and marriage. In The Rover, the three leading ladies are all capable and proactive young women who exhibit “the initiative and daring reserved for cavaliers” .  Over the course of the play, each takes upon herself the position of active wooer.  Maidenly Hellena openly vows to do “not as my wise brother imagines but to love and to be beloved” by reeling in a husband .  Her virginal sister, Florinda, and the sexually liberated courtesan, Angellica Bianca, adopt similar goals in pursuit of passion.  They are nothing like the subordinate females of Puritan propriety, but witty, competent matches for the men they meet.  Through their strong personalities, Behn suggests at early British women’s potential to feel and act confidently on sexual feelings, thus “desire” and “ the construction of woman as a self-policing and passive commodity”

Thank you

Dlip Barad sir

words :- 1565

The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde :-

Oscar Wilde,  full  name was Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, he was born in October 16, 1854, Dublin, Ireland and died November 30, 1900,in Paris, France, Irish  wit, poet, and dramatist whose reputation rests on his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray , and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art's sake, and he was the object of celebrated civil and criminal suits involving homosexuality and ending in his imprisonment .

• How he became famous :-

Oscar Wilde came from a prominent family. While studying at Oxford in the 1870s, he gained notice as a scholar, poseur, wit, and poet and for his devotion to the Aesthetic movement , which held that art should exist for its beauty alone. Wilde later established himself in London’s social and artistic circles.

• How he die ?:- 

After his release from prison in 1897, Oscar Wilde lived in France in straitened circumstances. In 1900 at the age of 46, he died of  meningitis following an acute ear infection.

videos of online session:-

Introducation:-

In this play, he satirizes and mocks the Victorian society particularly the institution of marriage, morality and show off. He exposes the hollowness, hypocrisy and pretends nature of Victorian people.The subtitle of the play “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People” though seems to be unrelating to the main title yet it splendidly articulates the purpose of his play. It reveals the hypocrisy, absurdity, and triviality of the upper class of Victorian society.This class considered itself to be very important in Britain. Thus Wilde calls them “serious”. The word “Trivial” means “unserious” or “lacking importance”.  Thus in this sense, Wilde probably wants to say that the play has nothing to do with the serious people. It is just mocking their ways of life.

The Importance of Being Earnest “A Serious Comedy for Trivial People” but changed that to “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.” :-

A trivial comedy for serious people; this is what Oscar Wilde subtitled his comedy The Importance Of Being Earnest. This subtitle can be interpreted in many different ways, as it forces the reader to question what we understand from the play itself, and how characters are portrayed throughout. I understand this in two different ways: one of which that Oscar Wilde was stating that this play is in fact for serious people, going to be trivial. The second way this could be interpreted is that he meant the subtitle in a very witty and sarcastic way.

Triviality affects what it is done to the audience; in this case to purely entertain them. Similarly to when each and every one of us turns on our TV, probably more than we actually should. Why? Because it simply wastes our time away when we believe that we have nothing better to do with our lives. And even though we probably do, it is belittled against the fact that we are a world of want and desire. Oscar Wilde, being the kind of writer that he was, could have wrote this extremely amusing play just to distract people from their lives and to let his audience enjoy what was put in front of them. One element that could have made this so much more effective is by the use of satire embedded within. Satire was not only used for the purpose of amusement, but also to make people aware of issues that were occurring every day for normal people of that time period. So if triviality is what he wished to put forward, then this subtitle would be taken quite literally.

Comedy of Manners:-

The Importance of Being Earnest is an excellent example of a Comedy of Manners as it mocks the behaviours of Victorian aristocracy, it explores the social conduct of upper-middle class society. The plot revolves around lust between characters, the play features verbal wit and Algernon acts as an unscrupulous character - these are all main features of a Comedy of Manners.
One traditional convention Wilde uses in the first Act of The Importance of Being Earnest is by exploring the social conduct of the Victorian upper-middle class society. He does this with Lady Bracknell's character as she behaves as though she behaves as a male role in choosing who Gwendolyn should marry; "Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement ¦ And now I have a few questions to put to you Mr Worthing. While I am making these inquiries, you, Gwendolyn, will wait for me below in the carriage.  This implies that Lady Bracknell will choose who Gwendolyn marries as it was seen as women were too feeble and foolish to chose their husbands for themselves. Lady Bracknell will not let Gwendolyn marry without her approval, she asks Jack a series of questions which gives Jack the opportunity to gain Lady Bracknell's approval of him. " ¦ Should his health permit him Suggests that males are the weaker gender. The fact that she has taken on the fathers duty to approve his daughters marriage shows that Lady Bracknell is a strong willed woman and doesn't need a male to tell her what to do, she is very free willed and very independent who enjoys being the person in control. Lady Bracknell seems to be the sort of woman who trusts her own judgment and will do whatever she believes is the right thing, she will not listen to anyone but herself. This goes against the common behaviour of society as normally, the male is in charge and in control .

Victorian traditions and social customs:-

Although he was born in Ireland, Oscar Wilde moved to England during his studies and became known there for his extravagance and decadence. Like many others, he noted the differences in the high moral standards that people displayed in social contexts, and the less proper behavior that took place when people were outside of the public eye. Perhaps due to the fact that he himself had to put on an act in public (since his sexual orientation was illegal at the time), Wilde came to see social interaction as a farce and wrote several social satires to highlight the strange perspectives and behaviors of the aristocracy.

Satire in the Novel:-

Satire, in the time and context of the novel The Importance of Being Earnest, refers to a comedic style in which the behaviors and beliefs of a particular social class are made fun of. In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde pokes fun at the upper class by showing them to be fickle, dishonest and snobbish. Let's look at how he does this by considering the various aspects of the Victorian life that he ridicules.

In the Victorian era, people were very focused on how one behaved in public. Both Algernon and Jack make up false identities in order to get away with some of their less than ideal behaviors. Calling cards and formal invites formed a part of everyday social life in those times, and we find mention of these in the play. Algernon even goes as far as to state that Jack's 'carelessness' in not sending him a dinner invitation when he wants to avoid dinner at Lady Bracknell's, is foolish and annoying.

The British at this time considered themselves vastly superior to the French (which is why several novels at the time had villainous French characters). The play pokes fun at the idea of French promiscuity when Jack refers to 'corrupt' French Dramas.

Homosexual desire:-

Like oppressed minorities throughout the centuries, gay Victorians used a coded language to communicate privately with one another, a code designed to be undetectable by members of mainstream society.
On its surface, the plot of Wilde’s masterpiece seems irreproachable: Two bachelor pals, Jack and Algernon, pose as men named “Ernest” to woo the women of their dreams. But beneath its scrubbed and squeaky surface, Wilde’s play is permeated with barely concealed allusions to gay acquaintances, practices and locales. To help theater lovers crack the cipher, Ritsch and production dramaturge Lindsey Barr compiled a cheat sheet of the coded language below.
his sentence depicts a lot of the marital problems of the upper-class society in the Victorian age and Wilde was no exception to it.After getting married and having children, he lost interest in his wife and began a homosexual affair with Lord Alfred Douglas in the following years.As the plot develops, both bachelors reveal that they have created their altered egos as their beloveds have put on the condition that their respective lovers will have the name as Earnest.
Thus in the play, he mocks the institution of marriage which was considered to be sacred in Christianity. For him, this institution is quite hollow. The concept of Bunburyism that meant the practice of a double life also refers to the concept of homosexuality in the play.

conclusion:-

Though the plot of the play is not thought-provoking yet it contains hidden meanings. Through the mode way comedy, Wilde brings to light the ills of the Victorian era and mocks it. Hence, it is a trivial comedy for serious people  with hypocrisy for status and fame.

THANK YOU

DILIP BARAD

WORDS:-1571

Belinda's character in contemporary time

Belinda's character :-

In contemporary time Belinda's character name has been changed into "Benisha" . She is a very beautiful girl. She walks up at 11o’clock in the morning. Her room color is violet and windows curtain are of red and white colors. In her room there are many soft toys. She has one cat in his house whose name is “Maya” . After taking a bath Benisha is sitting in front   of a mirror and her servant  “Kavya & Siya “ comb her long hair at that time Benisha is looking into his Instagram states & chatting with his boyfriend “Rahul” she has such a precious phone Apple Iphone 11 Pro that all the people waiting to steal his phone. After getting ready she made a video call to his boyfriend and he praised Benisha beauty. At that time her parents entered the room and Benisha cut the call. Her mother gives her a car as a gift. She is excited to have a long drive, so she takes the keys from his mother and goes away from the palace. 

Benisha is having a long drive with his friend Rony, Tina,Parth,jay, Kavya,Rahul and Vikas.Benisha has come with his cat and she is taking selfie and uploading in his instagram and Facebook.Rahul and kavya are his protector .Benisha’s mother has inform that something wrong is going to happen so, plz protect Benisha. Jay & Rony have tried to propose to Benisha but she has rejected his proposal.  All are looking at Benisha’s precious phone and they all wanted to steal them from Benisha.

At 9 o’clock Benisha and his friends went to the farmhouse of Benisha and there Rahul had already arrived and he gave a surprise to Benisha . She was very happy after looking at him at the party.  All were dancing in the farmhouse at that time Rahul and Kavya inform her that your phone has been lost. Benisha is trying to find it at every place but she is not able to find it. she is crying for his mobile and then she blames everyone that they have stolen her mobile. But no one is accepting. After some minutes when Benisha called her ring she tried to follow the voice and voice was coming from a Rahul jacket . She  took out the phone and slapped him in front of his friend and then she blocked Rahul from Instagram , Facebook & What's up & sent him to jail. Then she uploaded  one break up picture with Rahul on social media and went to his home. She  tells all the things to his mom and then her mother tells her that don't be sad .

Absalom and Achitophel as a political allegory

 INTRODUCTION:-

Dryden’s poem is a thinly veiled satirical roast of the political drama that pervaded English society in the late 1670s and early 1680s, and no one is spared his wit. According to Dryden, “the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction,” and “Absalom and Achitophel” is an attempt to that end.Absalom and Achitophel as a Political Satire Summary. Dryden was a famous English poet, best known for his satirical poetry. His Absalom and Achitophel characters is considered as one of his best political satire. The poem is allegoric in nature. Dryden uses the device of allegory in order to criticize the political situation of his time.The poem tells the Biblical tale of the rebellion of Absalom against King David; in this context it is an allegory used to represent a story contemporary to Dryden, concerning King Charles II and the Exclusion Crisis.

Absalom and Achitophel  session videos by "dilip Barad sir ":-

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  political satire of Achitophel veils:-

Absalom and Achitophel veils its political satire under the transparent disguise of a Biblical Story. This poem perfectly depicts the existing crisis and political issues of the contemporary society. Absalom was persuaded by Achitophel to rebel against King David. Absalom symbolizes James Scott and Achitophel symbolizes Earl of Shaftesbury.

POLITICL ALLEGORY IN ABSALAM & ACHITOPHEL :-

Dryden called Absalom and Achitophel ‘a poem’ and not a satire, implying thereby that it had elements other than purely satirical. One cannot, for instance, ignore the obvious epic or heroic touches in it. All the same, the poem originated in the political situation of England at the time and one cannot fail to note that several political personalities are satirised in it. Published in  November 1681, the theme was suggested by the king to Dryden. At this time, the question of succession to King Charles had assumed great importance. The Earl of Shaftesbury had been thrown into prison to face a charge of high treason. There were two contenders for the succession. Firstly, Charles’ brother James, Duke of York, a known Roman Catholic; the second contender was Charles’ illegitimate son, the Protestant Duke of Monmouth. The Whigs supported Monmouth while the Tories supported the cause of James in order to ensure stability in the country. There was great public unrest on account of the uncertainty of succession. King Charles II saw to it that the Exclusion bill brought before Parliament, to exclude the succession of his brother James, could not be pushed through. The earl of Shaftesbury, a highly ambitious man, sought to capitalise on this unrest. He also urged Monmouth to rebel against his father. The King, though fond of his illegitimate son, did not support his succession because that would have been against law. The Earl of Shaftesbury was arrested on a charge of high treason and lost popular support.

Dryden chose the well known Biblical story of Absalom revolting against his father David, at the wicked instigation of Achitophel, in order to satirise the contemporary political situation. The choice of a Biblical allegory is not original on dryden’s part, but his general treatment of the subject is beyond comparison, as Courthope points out. But all the while Dryden takes care to see that the political satire in not lost in the confusion of a too intricate Biblical parallelism. The advantage of setting the story in pre-Christian times is obvious as it gave Dryden had at once to praise the King and satirise the King’s opponents. To discredit the opponents he had to emphasise on Monmouth’s illegitimacy; but at the same time he had to see that Charles was not adversely affected by his criticism. He could not openly condone Charles’ loose morals; at the same time, he could not openly criticise it either.

Dryden was to support the King and to expose his enemies. Of course, Charles had his own weaknesses; he was extremely fond of women. But Dryden puts a charitable mantel over his sexual sins. He is mild in dealing with his real vices. The king himself did not think unfavourably of his love affairs. Sexual licence was the order of the age and as such, it did not deserve condemnation. Dryden has nothing but praise for the king’s moderation in political matters and his leniency towards rebels. Dryden’s lash falls on the King’s enemies particularly the Earl of Shaftesbury. He was reckless politician without any principles who, “ having tried in vain to seduce Charles to arbitrary government had turned round and now drives down the current”. Dryden dreads the fickleness of the mob and he is not sure to what extremes a crowd can go. However, the king’s strictness and instinct for the rule of law won for him popular support and he was able to determine the succession according to his desire. Dryden’s reference to the godlike David shows his flattery of the King and his belief in the “Theory of the Divine Right of Kings”.

In the poem, Dryden discusses many of the men who support Achitophel and his plan to strip David of his power. In this way, Dryden also satirizes the politicians who supported the Exclusion Bill, portraying them as despicable men “who think too little and who talk too much.” Thus, Dryden implies that their proposed law—to keep Roman Catholics from the throne—is likewise foolish and dangerous. Achitophel, who encourages Absalom to rebel against his father, is a contemptable man who resolves “to ruin or to rule the state.” Achitophel is a representation of Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, a Member of Parliament and founder of the Whig party, who opposed absolute monarchy in favor of a more democratic approach. Cooper was a major proponent of the Exclusion Bill, and Dryden implies Cooper intended to use the bill to either take the government over, or completely take it down. Achitophel has several supporters, “whom kings no titles gave, and God no grace,” including the “well-hung Balaam and cold Caleb free.” Balaam and Caleb represent Theophilus Hastings and Arthur Capel respectively, both politicians and members of the Whig party who supported the Exclusion Bill. Dryden therefore implies these men are low-level politicians who have little sense and no influence. While Balaam and Caleb may have little sense, “not bull-faced Jonas,” Dryden says, “who could statutes draw / To mean rebellion and make treason law.” Jonas represents Sir William Jones, a Member of Parliament who supported the Exclusion Bill. As Attorney General, Jones prosecuted several Catholics who were falsely accused and executed during the Popish Plot. In this way, Dryden implies that Jones, especially teamed with Cooper, can do real and lasting damage to the country and to the monarchy.

Achitophel and his supporters begin to stoke “the malcontents of all the Israelites” and sway public opinion, and the Sanhedrins, the Jewish high council, becomes “infected with this public lunacy” as well. The Sanhedrins, of course, are a metaphor for the English Parliament, and the “public lunacy” is the Exclusion Crisis. Through his satirical poem, Dryden had hoped the people of England and Parliament would see the Popish Plot and Exclusion Crisis for what they really were—plots devised to keep James II, a Roman Catholic, out of royal succession.

Dryden sets forth a premise: sometimes people cannot admit to wanting something; rather, they prefer to be forced into it. Therefore, by forcing such an individual into a situation he or she secretly desires, the person doing the forcing is actually doing the "victim" a necessary and pleasing favor. Acting as a satirist, Dryden exaggerates the argument into something so shocking that it ends up actually supporting the opposite conclusion.

The Exclusion Crisis:-

Drawing from the first two ideas, Dryden links the image of the woman with the King, suggesting that since the King may wish to be overthrown, rebelling against him would "commit a pleasing rape upon the Crown". The conclusion is shocking, disgusting, and a little bit heretical. It also associates rebellion with an inherently immoral and low act, arguing through satire that rape and rebellion are both objectively bad.

The Exclusion Crisis:-

The entire poem, which tells the story of Absalom and Achitophel's rebellion against King David of Israel, is an allegory of the events that occurred in England in the late 17th century. Dryden uses biblical characters and events to comment upon the Exclusion Crisis and its major players, ultimately supporting King Charles II in his right to the throne.

Conclusion:

Dryden is correctly regarded as the most vigorous and polished of English satirists combining refinement with fervour. Dryden is unequalled at debating in rhyme and Absalom and Achitophel displays his power of arguing in verse. It may be said that Absalom and Achitophel has no rival in the field of political satire. Apart from the contemporary interest of the poem and its historical value, it appeal to the modern reader lies in its observations on English character and on the weaknesses of man in general. His generalisations on human nature have a perennial interest. Dryden triumphed over the peculiar difficulties of his chosen theme. He had to give, not abuse or politics,but the poetry of abuse and politics. He had to criticise a son whom the father still liked; he had to make Shaftesbury denounce the King but he had to see to it that the King’s susceptibilities were not wounded. He had to praise without sounding servile and he had to criticise artistically. Dryden achieves all this cleverly and skilfully. Achitophel’s denunciation of the king assumes the shades of a eulogy in Charles’ eyes. Absalom is a misguided instrument in Achitophel’s hands. The poem is certainly a political satire, but it is a blend of dignity with incisive and effective satire.

THANK YOU

DILIP BARAD SIR

WORDS :-1621