TyroCity: Major English XII Notes

The Penalty of Death

Major English XII Notes — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 05:41:42 +0000

The Penalty of Death
by H.L. Mencken

Analysis

At last, a writer who fully understands that all society wants from the justice system is “a healthy letting off of steam” (Mencken). In his satirical essay The Penalty of Death, H.L. Mencken, through use of humor, exaggeration, and mocking euphemisms and anecdotes, satires America’s use of capital punishment. His essay attacks in particular the purpose of the death penalty and the public’s light treatment of “hanging a man (or frying or gassing him)” (Mencken). Mencken’s informal essay is persuasive in the sense that it is satire and uses irony to support his thesis.

Should The Penalty of Death be taken literally, the thesis would explicitly be: “What I contend is that one of the prime objects of all judicial punishments is to afford the same grateful relief (a) to the immediate victims of the criminal punished, and (b) to the general body of moral and timorous men” (Mencken). As a satire however, Mencken ridicules this statement as he supports it, and therefore his thesis is implicit, expressing his criticism of the American treatment of the death penalty. Mencken speaks satirically in the essay as an upstanding citizen patriotically supporting his country’s justice system while, also patriotically, offering helpful suggestions to improve it. The syntax is kept simple and many colloquialisms and clichés are used to give the speaker a personal, conversational voice. Mencken writes mainly for the pro-death penalty audience, as this “patriotic” perspective is exaggerated to the point where it mocks these advocates. This tone is achieved through exaggeration, such as the first “argument against capital punishment” that is discussed, saying “that hanging a man…is degrading to those who have to do it and revolting to those who have to witness it” (Mencken). Mencken does not mention the obvious arguments against the death penalty, such as a person’s right to life, instead exaggerating the American priority on a person’s own comfort. Also contributing to the sarcastic, mocking tone is euphemism, such as the repeated use of “katharsis” as a blatant replacement for “revenge”.

The essay is structured at first in a problem-solution form. Mencken wastes no time refuting the two “arguments against capital punishment” that open the essay, and offers his satirical thesis about “grateful relief” as a solution to the problem of the death penalty’s apparent uselessness. The “grateful relief” solution is, of course, ironic; it implies that that absurd goal is the only real reason that American uses the death penalty. Through example, he supports his argument of katharsis until arriving at the issue of a prisoner’s lengthy stay on death row. Here, Mencken’s true intentions start to emerge as he begins sympathize with the condemned criminals. He describes how it is unjust that “a murderer, under the traditional American system, is tortured for what, to him, must seem a whole series of eternities” (Mencken). Now that the criminal is being viewed as human again, the Mencken’s moral argument of whether the death penalty is right becomes apparent. This ends the essay with the message that all people should be treated ethically, which is effective after the completion of four or five paragraphs that claim the death penalty is not ethical. The essay’s abrupt end, without any sort of conclusion, may be jarring to the reader but also ensures that the reader is actively thinking about Mencken’s final message when the essay is put down.

In these final paragraphs, Mencken uses strong imagery such as being “tortured…a whole series of eternities” as an appeal to pathos and ethos, stimulating the reader’s emotions and sense of ethics. While this appeal to pathos closes the essay on a serious note, the rest of the satire appeals mostly to ethos and logos. Logos is present everywhere, particularly in Mencken’s refute of an executioner’s misery and his introduction of katharsis as a reason for the penalty, which he, in sarcasm and irony, supports heavily. As the essay is a satire, ethos is called on in nearly every point Mencken makes, as he suggests “you’re not anything like the people I’m mocking, are you?”

The Penalty of Death is very effective in its delivery of Mencken’s opinions. Mencken’s sense of humor makes it clear from the beginning what he intends to discuss and how he will do it, and his detailed support of his satirical thesis “katharsis” makes his message enjoyable as well as informative. His satirical voice is believable as pro-death penalty American, but his meaning is clearly driven home when the essay, like the life of a doomed prisoner, is ended before its natural close. As Mencken suggests, maybe the judicial system needs a new “healthy letting off of steam”.

A Day in the Life of "Salaryman"

Major English XII Notes — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 05:41:42 +0000

A Day in the Life of “Salaryman”
– John Burgess

Background (With the compassion of 2 different stories)

A slave is a person who works extremely hard under a horrible condition. He also needs to work for a long time but with very limited benefit. In George Orwells Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell says that the dishwasher is a slave. However, is not salary-man in A Day in the Life of Salary-man by John Burgess also a slave? Actually, the answer is no. In my opinion, dishwasher is a slave, but salary-man is not.
First of all, their working hours are distinctly different. According to Orwell, George works from seven in the morning until a quarter past nine at night for six days a week. Sometimes he has to go to work on his off day too. Differently, salary-man only works from ten past nine in the morning till seven in the evening for only five days, and he does not need to work on his off days. The lunch break of Salary-man and dishwasher are different too. As George says, This was our slack time-only relatively slack, however, for we had only ten minutes for lunch, and we never got through it uninterrupted (Orwell 64). In contrast, salary-man has much more time than dishwasher during the lunch break. The salary-man does more things during this break than the dishwasher does. Over lunch, they talk of their passion, golf At lunch, salary-man sometimes manages to stop into a driving range on the roof of a building near his company (Burgess 255). Moreover, salary-man and dishwashers lives after work are totally different. For dishwasher, he has nothing to do after work because he has only few hours left and not even enough for sleeping. Nevertheless, the salary-man has a good life after work. He may have been included in a dinner at a nearby restaurant and enjoy his moment.

And the writer thus, compares and tabulates a single day life in the story by giving the following distinct background in the lines that follows.

Zeroing in on Science Friction

Major English XII Notes — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 05:41:42 +0000

Background: From Physics to Fiction

As a physics major in the 1960s, Goshgarian and a few friends were drawn to their English professor, the late James Hensel, whom he calls “the teacher of all teachers.” Goshgarian named a character in Elixir for Hensel, and another is named for former WPI president Harry P. Storke.

“We were literature geeks in an otherwise science geeky kind of place,” Goshgarian says. “In the afternoon, after classes were out, we would meet up in Jim Hensel’s office to talk about everything from Charles Dickens to Tolstoy to Albert Einstein.” The young Goshgarian put his writing talents to use as an editor of Tech News and the Peddler, and started an offbeat humor magazine called Absolute Zero.

“I was reading science fiction by the pound,” he says. By his sophomore year, Goshgarian knew that he would work with words rather than atoms. “I liked words. I could see them and manipulate them. I could not see atoms, didn’t quite believe in them.” After earning a master’s degree and doctorate in English, he joined the English faculty at Northeastern University.

In the early 1970s Goshgarian’s department head challenged him to create a new elective to boost enrollment. He saw his chance to teach quality science fiction as a reputable literary form. Some 30 years later, his courses are popular and well-respected, although parents occasionally balk, “My child is taking what?” In addition to science fiction, Goshgarian teaches a detective fiction class and has developed courses in horror fiction and modern bestsellers. He also offers a graduate-level creative writing seminar.

Required reading for Goshgarian’s classes ranges from Edgar Allen Poe to Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clark and Dean Koontz. A centerpiece of the science fiction curriculum is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Discussions are supplemented with movies and guest speakers, which have included best-selling authors Stephen King, Tess Gerritsen, Robert B. Parker and Michael Palmer.

Goshgarian wants his writing students to learn “the ability to look at another person’s writing the way a carpenter looks at a house–to study the architecture of it, the freshness of the language, the narrative thrust that keeps the story going. And to see that the bones have flesh on them, that you have characters who are interesting and aren’t cardboard cut-outs.

“My goal is to make them better readers, too. That’s the secret of good writing. We do a lot of close reading. That’s what Jim Hensel taught me, way back at Worcester Tech.”

The Jar

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by Luigi Pirandello

An examination of the source of joy in a person’s life, The Jar is a thoughtful drama with a strong positive message. Where does joy come from? At a young age, Anna is presented with a mysterious jar and thinks its contents are hers to keep. As she gets older, she finds that her life is not all she expected and questions the gift that the rest of her family seems to enjoy. Meanwhile, she has neglected the opportunity to connect with others around her, including an elderly neighbor in need. Only when she reaches out for help is the secret meaning of the jar revealed.

The Use of Force

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by William Carlos Williams

“The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams addresses the exertion of physical superiority over others, asking the fundamental question: is it ethical to hurt someone for his own good? More importantly, is there shame in enjoying it? The narrator, a doctor making housecalls in a setting that is likely the 19th-century (as hinted by the author’s minute details, such as the three-dollar charge for the service), is host to conflicting feelings about his own actions-forcibly gathering the throat culture from the stubborn child he is examining-and expresses shame at his perverse pleasure in doing so. The story is fundamentally ordered by the passive descriptions of the surrounding environment and the agitated conclusion that absorbs those supporting details to present the speaker’s view that, though there are reasons often justifiable, what compels the use of force against others isn’t simply altruism alone.

From the outset, the doctor appears to be compassionate and keen to human behavior, characteristic of a good doctor, though he is also undeniably blunt and slightly prejudiced. Williams’ choice to use interior monologue as a “stream-of-consciousness” tool reflects the narrator’s experience of dialogue and gives insight into the character and his appraisal of the situations he encounters. He immediately assesses the mother upon seeing her as “clean and apologetic,” and dedicates more time a much more thorough description for the daughter, to whom he already has taken a fancy. He portrays the parents as eager to cooperate, yet nervous and distrustful of the stranger who is only in their house by forced circumstance, and therefore he finds them obstructive. In any case, his contempt for the parents (whom he barely knows) changes from implicit to overt as they are cajoling the young girl after initial efforts, particularly when he grinds his teeth in disgust at being called a “nice man.” Their inane comments serve to do nothing but hinder the doctor’s efforts to get the child to understand what he needs to do, and the placement of their comments in the speaker’s own internal thoughts allow them to be felt in the same way the speaker felt them (usually as spontaneous and substanceless interjections: “Do you think she can stand it, doctor! Said the mother.”). The father (who recieves very little characterization) provides one example of the weakness and ineptitude of the parents in dealing with the situation when he is attempting to hold his daughter back and fails restrain her at each pivotal moment due to his fear of hurting her. This behavior and the behavior of the family as a whole is spectacularly ironic, considering that all of their fears are preventing them from stopping what they should truly be fearing: a fatal case of diptheria.

The weakness on the parents’ part and the stubbornness on the daughter’s part contribute to the doctor’s escalating frustration, to the point where he asserts his power: with a smooth spoon, he forces the girl’s mouth open. He admits that he could have taken a more rational approach and tried again in an hour, of course, but he confesses that he had become just as irrational as everyone else in the room: “I could have torn the child apart in my own fury and enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to attack her. My face was burning with it.” It is evident that he had been forceful and enjoyed it, but it is not likely that he would have done it in any other case. “The damned little brat must be protected against her own idiocy, one says to one’s self at such times. Others must be protected against her. It is social necessity. And all these things are true. But a blind fury, a feeling of adult shame, bred of a longing for muscular release are the operatives.” Indeed, it appears that he was compelled to action more strongly by his fury than his professional duty. As a professional, he has a barrier of rationality that prevents him from doing such irrational things; however, in this case, he had a strong justification for that action due to its “social necessity,” which then permitted him to act upon his primal instincts without conscientious interference.

– Thanks to Graarrg, for this article

Episode of War

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by Crane, Stephen

In this very short piece, the author plunges the reader immediately into a scene from the American Civil War. A lieutenant, never named, is wounded in the right arm while resting with his troops during an active battle. The next segment of the vignette, almost surreal in its presentation, is comprised of the lieutenant’s perceptions of the war going on around him as he walks to the rear in search of the field hospital. At the hospital, the wounded man has a brief, terse, and most unpleasant encounter with the surgeon, who is rude and lies to him. The lieutenant’s fear and despair is captured by single lines of tightly controlled metaphor and stark description.

Further Comments:

The power of this short piece resides in the author’s exquisite control of language. No word is wasted and the reader walks in the lieutenant’s shoes as he moves to the field hospital. The particular values of this piece to the medical humanities are its ability to draw the reader into the lieutenant’s reactions to his wound and the dramatic illustration of the surgeon’s absence of empathy.

Chapter 2: The Great Gatsby

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

Summary

Halfway between West Egg and New York City sprawls a desolate plain, a gray valley where New York’s ashes are dumped. The men who live here work at shoveling up the ashes. Overhead, two huge, blue, spectacle-rimmed eyes—the last vestige of an advertising gimmick by a long-vanished eye doctor—stare down from an enormous sign. These unblinking eyes, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, watch over everything that happens in the valley of ashes.

The commuter train that runs between West Egg and New York passes through the valley, making several stops along the way. One day, as Nick and Tom are riding the train into the city, Tom forces Nick to follow him out of the train at one of these stops. Tom leads Nick to George Wilson’s garage, which sits on the edge of the valley of ashes. Tom’s lover Myrtle is Wilson’s wife. Wilson is a lifeless yet handsome man, colored gray by the ashes in the air. In contrast, Myrtle has a kind of desperate vitality; she strikes Nick as sensuous despite her stocky figure. Tom taunts Wilson and then orders Myrtle to follow him to the train. Tom takes Nick and Myrtle to New York City, to the Morningside Heights apartment he keeps for his affair. Here they have an impromptu party with Myrtle’s sister, Catherine, and a couple named McKee. Catherine has bright red hair, wears a great deal of makeup, and tells Nick that she has heard that Jay Gatsby is the nephew or cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm, the ruler of Germany during World War I. The McKees, who live downstairs, are a horrid couple: Mr. McKee is pale and feminine, and Mrs. McKee is shrill. The group proceeds to drink excessively. Nick claims that he got drunk for only the second time in his life at this party.

The ostentatious behavior and conversation of the others at the party repulse Nick, and he tries to leave. At the same time, he finds himself fascinated by the lurid spectacle of the group. Myrtle grows louder and more obnoxious the more she drinks, and shortly after Tom gives her a new puppy as a gift, she begins to talk about Daisy. Tom sternly warns her never to mention his wife. Myrtle angrily says that she will talk about whatever she chooses and begins chanting Daisy’s name. Tom responds by breaking her nose, bringing the party to an abrupt halt. Nick leaves, drunkenly, with Mr. McKee, and ends up taking the 4 a.m. train back to Long Island.

Shall I Compare thee a Summer’s Day

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

SONNET

PARAPHRASE

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?	Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:	You are more lovely and more constant:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,	Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:	And summer is far too short:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,	At times the sun is too hot,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;	Or often goes behind the clouds;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,	And everything beautiful sometime will lose its beauty,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;	By misfortune or by nature's planned out course.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade	But your youth shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;	Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,	Nor will death claim you for his own,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:	Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,	So long as there are people on this earth,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.	So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.

Di Grasso: A Tale of Odessa

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by Issac Bable

Summary

Because this brief work is a sophisticated commentary on the nature of art as well as “just a story,” it is all the more interesting for the reader to know that it is the last work Isaac Babel published in his lifetime, before he fell victim to Stalinist justice. Although the exact circumstances of Babel’s arrest in 1939 are not known, it is believed that he was charged with espionage, a patently contrived accusation; he was executed in 1941. The Jewish author, whose collections of stories were often reprinted during his lifetime, was “rehabilitated” after the death of Joseph Stalin—and his stories were reprinted again.

“Di Grasso” ostensibly focuses its attention on the Jewish theatrical world of prewar Odessa (about 1908), where one learns that the narrator as a boy of fourteen has recently “come under the sway” of the “tricky” ticket scalper Nick Schwarz and his “enormous silky handle bars.” Without looking further into the relationship between the boy and the older man who is his “boss,” the narrator instead describes (entertainingly) almost the entire action of a very bad play being newly performed by a traveling troupe of Italian actors. In this play, a “city slicker” named Giovanni temporarily lures the daughter of a rich peasant away from her betrothed—a poor shepherd played by the Sicilian actor Di Grasso. Di Grasso pleads with the girl to pray to the Virgin Mary—a huge, garish, wooden statue of whom is on the stage—but to no avail. In the last act, when Giovanni has become insufferably arrogant, Di Grasso suddenly soars across the stage, plunges downward onto Giovanni, bites through his throat, and sucks out the gushing blood—as the curtain falls.

Recognizing a hit when he sees one, Schwarz rushes to the box office, where he will wait all night, first in line to buy at dawn as many tickets as he can afford, for resale. The narrator shortly remarks that everyone in Theater Lane has been made happy by the new hit—except himself.

Now an entirely new story line develops. It seems that the lad has taken his father’s watch without permission and pawned it to Schwarz—who eventually grows very fond of the big gold turnip. Even after the boy pays off the pledge, Schwarz refuses to give back the watch. The boy is in continual despair, imagining his father’s wrath. He suggests that Schwarz and his father have the same character.

Then one night Schwarz and his wife, along with the boy, attend the final performance of the Italian troupe, with Di Grasso playing the shepherd “who is swung aloft by an incomprehensible power.” Schwarz’s wife, a fat and sentimental woman with “fish-like eyes,” is overwhelmed by Di Grasso’s great leap of love. She laments her own loveless life and berates her husband as they walk home from the theater with the boy trailing behind. The boy sobs openly, thinking of his father and the watch. Madam Schwarz hears the sobs and angrily forces her husband to return the watch, which he does, but not without giving the lad a vicious pinch.

The Schwarzes walk on, reach the corner, and disappear. The boy is left alone to experience ultimate happiness; he sees the world at night “frozen in silence and ineffably beautiful.”

Themes and Meanings

At an elementary level of meaning, this story reveals the hidden relationships that may exist between apparently unconnected things and events. The Italian play, with its fantastic Sicilian actor, acts powerfully on the unloved wife of the swindler Nick Schwarz—and the boy and his watch are saved.

The story becomes more interesting when the reader sees that it is precisely the power of art that is significant, rather than merely “a play.” Finally, it is not art in general that is at issue but art of great passion. Here, bad art is “transformed” by a passionate actor. Commenting on Di Grasso’s acting, the narrator insists that the Sicilian, “with every word and gesture,” confirms that there is “more justice in outbursts of noble passion than in all the joyless rules that run the world.”

Such an explicit statement, not all that common in Babel, must be taken seriously. One wonders if “joyless rules” might refer to the Soviet Union of the bleak 1930’s, and if Nick Schwarz, with his handlebar mustaches, is not intended to be seen as a pitiless Stalin figure. In any case, however, such political overtones are not the central focus of the work.

Passion in life, as in art, is a recurring motif in Babel’s writings. Often it is accompanied by violence, as in the present work—which depicts not only the murderous leap of Di Grasso but also the descent of the curtain “full of menace” and the “vicious pinch” exacted by Schwarz. If life is lived fully and passionately, some violence is inevitable.

As art influences or works itself into life (here moving Schwarz’s wife to take pity on the boy), so may life be transformed into art. Thus the boy, dizzy with happiness, sees the ordinary world of the city transformed into ineffable beauty. Here reality, art, and transcendent beauty merge in a remarkable vision. The boy’s epiphany has the character of a future writer’s first glimpse of the world beyond everyday reality (or of the way reality really is if one looks at it right).

Dover Beach

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by Matthew Arnold

Summary & Analysis

This is a poem about a sea and a beach that is truly beautiful, but holds much deeper meaning than what meets the eye. The poem is written in free verse with no particular meter or rhyme scheme, although some of the words do rhyme. Arnold is the speaker speaking to someone he loves. As the poem progress, the reader sees why Arnold poses the question stated above, and why life seems to be the way it is. During the first part of the poem Arnold states, “The Sea is calm tonight” and in line 7, “Only, from the long line of spray”. In this way, Arnold is setting the mood or scene so the reader can understand the point he is trying to portray. In lines 1-6 he is talking about a very peaceful night on the ever so calm sea, with the moonlight shining so intensely on the land. Then he states how the moonlight “gleams and is gone” because the “cliffs of England” are standing at their highest peaks, which are blocking the light of the moon. Next, the waves come roaring into the picture, as they “draw back and fling the pebbles” onto the shore and back out to sea again. Arnold also mentions that the shore brings “the eternal note of sadness in”, maybe representing the cycles of life and repetition. Arnold then starts describing the history of Sophocle’s idea of the “Aegean’s turbid ebb and flow”.

The sea is starting to become rougher and all agitated. Also the mention of “human misery” implies that life begins and ends, but it can still be full of happiness, and unfortunately, at the same time, sadness. “The Sea of Faith was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore.” The key word in that stanza is once, because it implies that he (Arnold) used to look at the sea in a different way than he does now. Throughout the whole poem, Arnold uses a metaphor to describe his views and opinions. Now he only hears its “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.” It seems as though Arnold is questioning his own faith. The whole poem is based on a metaphor – Sea to Faith. When the sea retreats, so does faith, and leaves us with nothing. In the last nine lines, Arnold wants his love and himself to be true to one another. The land, which he thought was so beautiful and new, is actually nothing – “neither joy, nor love, nor light”. In reality, Arnold is expressing that nothing is certain, because where there is light there is dark and where there is happiness there is sadness. “We are here though as on a darling plain, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash at night”. Arnold uses much alliteration in the poem. For example, in line 31, “To lie before us like a land of dreams”, repeating the letter L at the beginning of three words. Also, in line 4, “Gleams and is gone…”, repeating the letter G. The usage of assonance and consonance is not widespread in “Dover Beach”. In line 3 – “…on the French coast the light” – the repetition of the letter T is shown, as an example of consonance. Other literary techniques, such as onomatopoeia and hyperbole, are not used in the poem, besides the metaphor for “Faith” being the Sea.

The diction Arnold uses creates a sense of peacefulness and calmness. It is fairly easily understood vocabulary, with the exception of a few words, such as cadence and darkling. From reading Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”, one realizes that there is no certainty in life. When everything is going perfectly, something unfortunate may happen at any given time, with no forewarning.

The Valiant Woman

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

by J.F. Powers

Exclusive Summary:

Set in 1944, Valiant is a woodland pigeon who wants to become a great hero someday. When he hears they are hiring recruits for the Royal Homing Pigeon Service, he immediately sets out for London. On the way, he meets a smelly but friendly pigeon named Bugsy, who joins him, mainly to get away from clients he cheated in a game of find-the pebble, and helps him sign up for the war.

Complete Summary

The Catholic priesthood was a favorite subject of J. F. Powers. In “The Valiant Woman,” he gives a sly and witty account of an ongoing struggle between a priest and his housekeeper. This small and ironic comedy is quite successfully set off against larger and darker issues involving human needs and limitations, and the theology that guides the characters.

Quite against his inclinations, Father Firman, a celibate priest, has “married” Mrs. Stoner by passively allowing her to assume the role of his domestic partner. Unlike the suggestion buried in his name, he has been anything but firm and has steadily dwindled into the role of a husband. Without asking for these responsibilities he has allowed them to overtake him, and he can no longer in good conscience back away. He cannot divorce her, just as his religion forbids divorce. In his fantasy, a Filipino housekeeper would give him the life of freedom he craves—not sexual freedom, but freedom from responsibility in his personal life. The priest is thrust into the commitment his theology teaches, and which he has no doubt preached to others.

Although the reader need not accept any particular religious view to appreciate its argument, the story is deeply rooted in its Catholic theology. None of the three characters has an unusual spiritual gift. With her garrulous and trivial nature, Mrs. Stoner is indeed a millstone around the neck of the priest. Father Firman, although conscientious in his duties, seeks only a comfortable and trouble-free life, an ideal that Father Nulty urges on him. The author thus creates limited human beings who are confused and frustrated by their needs and fantasies. On the surface, their religion is only a social framework into which they have fallen. However, the demands of that religion make Father Firman stand larger than he ever could on his own. Husbands, as well as priests, take vows before God. Father Firman finally begins to realize that his responsibility is not simply defined by the vows he took as a priest. In becoming a “husband,” he is bound by the spirit as well as the letter of the law.

Major English XII

Major English XII Notes — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 05:41:42 +0000

Encounters

Generations

Plays in One Act

Encounters

Generations

Play in One Act

Encounters

Play in One Act

The Great Gatsby

Other titles