Nevertheless, the careful reader notices a curious trend in many of Shakespeare’s plays: many of Shakespeare’s female characters exercise a rather great deal of subtle forms of power and influence, and often do so in unusual and even subversive ways that challenge traditional gender roles. Although the male characters generally fail to notice or refuse to acknowledge women’s authority and influence openly, they are affected by it, often significantly so, and although Shakespeare himself might not have been “aware of the dissonances he create[d]” (Lindheim 679), the contemporary reader cannot help but be aware of them and in many cases, to view many of the characters present in several plays by Shakespeare as some of the main motivators of action as well as some of the most complex characters overall.

Some of the most interesting female characters in Shakespeare’s oeuvre are Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Viola and Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Gertrude, the Queen of Denmark and Hamlet’s mother, in Hamlet. Although each of these women finds herself in a social position and challenging situation that differs from the other, and though each employs a unique strategy for coping with her problems and contesting gender roles by exerting authority and influence subtly and subversively, these four women are similar in that they all insist upon their right to direct their own destinies and, at times, the destinies of others as well. Furthermore, all three of these female characters from the aforementioned plays are all quite developed and are in many ways some of the most complex characters presented in their respective plays. As literary critic Ehnenn remarks regarding the women in many of Shakespeare’s works, these characters, both in their own time and in ours, “reveal tensions and ruptures” in traditional gender roles and ideologies that are not resolved easily (319). Although Shakespeare permits some of the female characters to exist fully outside of conventional norms, others are put back into their place, so to speak, provoking an anxiety that gender roles are “neither stable nor essential” (Ehnnen 319). In other words, there is a constant tug-of-war in terms of gender and power in many of these works where women are at once exerting a great deal of power and influence while on the other hand are often being set back or marginalized at other points; there is no certainty.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the reader recognizes right away that Hermia is no ordinary woman. Her father, Egeus, has dragged Hermia off to Theseus’s court in a desperate attempt to compel his daughter to comply with his wish that she marry Demetrius, rather than her beloved, Lysander. Egeus does not choose the court on a whim; rather, he is hopeful that by taking Hermia to the literal and symbolic seat of the highest authority of the land, she will recognize and honor masculine authority and, by extension, will comply with traditional gender roles, which dictated that a woman should marry to either preserve or advance social ties and familial goals, not to gratify her own romantic or sexual needs or desires. Egeus, who has arrived at the court “full of vexation…and complaint against [his] child” (I.i.22-23), is so insistent about the importance of maintaining the dominant gender paradigm that he entreats Theseus to use the full weight and penalty of the law to punish his daughter if she does not obey, even if the punishment means death. Theseus, clearly invested in maintaining the prevailing social order because it advances his own interests, concurs with Egeus, and admonishes Hermia, saying, “To you, your father should be as a god…/[O]ne to whom you are but as a form in wax/By him imprinted….” (I.i.47,49). In other words, gender roles and expectations are being stated to this strong female character in no uncertain terms.

What is remarkable about Hermia’s response to both her father and to Theseus is that it is impassioned but logical, convincing but calm. She protests, but is neither aggressive nor apologetic in doing so. In fact, Hermia deploys a clever and intelligent argumentative strategy to respond to the men and to maintain her own position and the right to direct her own destiny rather than have it chosen for her and uses the fine art of rhetoric to defend her ideas as opposed to simply her gender or sexuality. “I know not by what power I am made bold,” Hermia begins thoughtfully but not tentatively, “But I beseech your grace that I may know the worst that may befall me in this case….” (I.i.58, 61). With this statement, Hermia demonstrates respect for authority by using the formal address of “your grace,” but articulates clearly that she is a woman who will decide what she deems best for herself based on a consideration of the consequences of the alternatives that are available to her. Interestingly though, she is using the delicate but weighty issue of power within her own defense, thus is offering a nod to the fact that there are such power differences between genders but not allowing this to completely dominate her and not allow her to make her own decision. When Theseus replies that Hermia has two choices—either to “die the death or abjure for ever [sic] the society of men” (I.i.64-65), neither of which is palatable—Hermia replies, again with calm assertiveness, that her soul “consents not to give sovereignty” of itself to another, even if that other is a powerful man who holds the highest authority in the land (I.i.80). It is clear that this is a bold statement to make and the reason why this is so enervating is that she is openly refusing to offer her own right to make decisions to authority simply because it should be respected because it is a male-based authority.

Following a year-long walking tour of Europe, Faulkner settled back in Mississippi and began writing more frequently and began to enjoy some success. While he left for some time to write for the film industry in Hollywood, he returned rather quickly back to the South, choosing Virginia over Mississippi, and eventually received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 with books he wrote that include The Sound and the Fury, among others. Just as in many of his works, the South and its characters are among the primary issues for exploration—especially in terms of the South’s dark history of slavery and its efforts to reconcile itself with modernity. These are primary struggles in “A Rose for Emily” as well as the townspeople, both curious and repulsed by the strange, fascinating, and fallen figure of Miss Emily are themselves caught in a web of perceptions of the Old and the New South.

Briefly, in Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” the main character, Miss Emily Grierson (click here for a full character analysis of Miss Emily), is described in great detail by a local narrator who provides a very personally nuanced and chronologically disjointed narrative. Emily and her family (which was really only her father) represented the town’s aristocracy, but upon her father’s death and the apparent disappearance of her suitor, she sinks into a depression and becomes a recluse in her massive, antiquated and decaying old house with only a servant permitted in. This provides the narrator opportunity to talk about her past, her family, and her oddities but eventually leads to the revelation that she poisoned her suitor and had been sleeping with his corpse for several years. While “A Rose for Emily” is about this plot itself, it is almost more about her community and how Emily serves as a monument or broken relic to remind her community, even if they tend to romanticize the past, of days gone by and an era passed.

When Emily Grierson passes away, the community comes to pay their respects not out of genuine sadness about her death, but more due to “a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument.” Despite this more direct and unmistakable association between Emily and a fallen monument, Faulkner urges his readers to make this connection throughout the text by using characterization techniques and imagery. These tactics that subtly urge readers to make connections between Miss Emily and a fading monument reinforce the idea that Emily represented the old way of life in her town. Emily is a relic from another era who refuses to accept changing times and who persists without change, like an old monument that is always present but immobile and steady in its spot.

Miss Emily’s house itself stands as a fallen monument and reminder of days gone by and is symbolic of Emily’s position in the community. It sits with its “stubborn and coquettish decay” among signs of modernity such as garages and signs of mass production, thus rendering the house “an eyesore among eyesores.” Just like the structure that housed her for so many years and decayed right along with her, Miss Emily refused to take note of the changes occurring around her and instead chose to confine herself in her monument of a home and become a relic herself. The stubborn nature of home that persists among an entirely new world is representative of her personality as well and it seems it is still standing out of sheer stubborn defiance due to the grudge over her tax notice and inability to escape a bygone era.

“The house is a shrine to her father’s narrow values, with everything left in its nineteenth-century place” (Roberts 159). While it is all left intact and in much the same condition it had always been, the exterior is rotting away and the house looks particularly out of place amidst the growing modernity that Emily is oblivious to. One scholar makes connections between the decaying old home and what it represents symbolically in terms of the “rot” that was taking place inside. “Her house, with its musty unused rooms and locked doors—a prison and a mausoleum—signifies how she has pretended to confirm to the Old South code of chastity, all the while reveling in her deviancy” (Roberts 159). What this suggests that the outward appearance of wealth, no matter how faded it was becoming and how much of a relic of the Old South it was, hid horrible truths—just like the entire history of southern slavery. While this is a much broader topic that would require its own set of multiple pages, it is worth pointing out that the external state of decay and denial of modernity reflected the antiquated view of the Old South, which was kept alive only by strange figures such as Miss Emily.

The use of imagery in “A Rose for Emily” reinforces the idea that Emily is like a fallen monument. For example, following the death of her father and the desertion by her suitor, some of the male town leaders are unable to find a way to tell her that her house smells. People are afraid of her and have no idea how to approach her, thus in this case, they are forced to sneak around her house at night to lay down lime to resolve the horrible smell. Interestingly, instead of saying anything to them, Miss Emily sits with the “light behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol.” This image of Miss Emily silhouetted in the window of her aging home, completely still, reminds one of a monument; a still, lifeless (but somehow still life-like) object silently looking out on a world it cannot touch. What is notable about this passage is that this is an observation from when Emily was a younger woman. Few aspects of her life changed because just before her death, the same image is used again when the narrator states just before she died, “Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs windows—she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house—like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which.”

Still, despite these general contextual differences, both of these plays’ roots in talking about social injustice are based on language differences. While the language issues certainly are not operating alone, they do offer an interesting and narrow point of examination between two texts that while thematically similar, are different in far too many ways to address together in a general way.

In terms of the creative thrust behind the exploration of the issue of social injustice in A Raisin in the Sun, the way characters use language is the most revealing and in fact, indicates how they view their position in their societies. All of the main characters in “A Raisin in the Sun” have their own unique “voice” that is aligned with their personality. For example, as people who strive toward and greatly value education, characters such as Beneatha and her suitors speak with an emphasis on using language derived from their education, just as being people with experiences rooted in the everyday, Mama, Walter, and Ruth all speak clearly, although in ways that are influenced by vernacular.

While this characterization through dialogue and distinct voices comprise an expected component of drama, the way language functions in terms of representing social injustice in black America in A Raisin in the Sun is a bit less expected and are especially cutting during dialogue by Linder. For the main characters in A Raisin in the Sun, these expressions of individuality in the form of language are meant to convey certain truths about the speaker and although this is consistent as each character has his or her own “voice” that corresponds to the personality, there is no contrivance behind it–the language is not simply for show and meaning can always be derived from it with minimal digging. However, in the case of Linder this is not at all how language operates and in fact, his language is representative of the sneaky form of injustice, not to mention the overt form of it that the family is victim to.

The meanings of Linder’s words are clouded and submerged under layers of double-speak and it is difficult to understand his point clearly, thus making the entrance of his “voice” highly contrasting to the voices of the characters introduced up to that point. Instead of being clear and open, even though he speaks eloquently, unlike the eloquence of Asagai or Beneatha, it is for the purpose of confusing the people he is speaking with and making the impact of what he is saying sound less severe, humiliating and unjust. ). For example, instead of simply getting to his point about not wanting Mama and her family buying a house, he spend a long-winded paragraph before getting to his point, which is unclearly stated, “at the moment the overwhelming majority of our people out there feel that people get along better; take more o a common interest in the life of the community when they share a common background” (100).

Using this kind of manipulatively innocent language to convey deeply-held racist views on the part of his community, Linder is at once insulting the members of the Younger family by trying to use double-speak and confusing language to mislead them and although it does not work, it is nonetheless representative of the ways in which buried meanings packaged in niceties is used as tool to manipulate people, thus leading to social injustices such as barring a family from a community because of their color. He presents his racist proposition from his community to buy the house as being “at a financial gain to [the] family” (100) since people “get awful worked up when they feel their whole way of life and everything they’ve worked for is threatened” (101). While he tries to use persuasive speech cloaked under the rather transparent veneer of civility, it is clear that this is a major act of injustice and it is made all the more infuriating because of the way it is masked in polite, eloquent language.

Language is a paramount issue in terms of addressing social inequality in the play by Tracey Scott Wilson, The Story as well although as stated, in a different context. Interestingly, it is someone who likes to consider herself a victim of inequity who is doing the manipulating through language. Words are Yvonne’s business and her construction of well-crafted eloquent works of journalism speaks volumes about her ability to lie; to construct an identity through words. However, in doing so, she is both revealing issues of social inequity and is creating her own. When Yvonne says of her co-workers Neil and Pat, whom knows realize that she is fraud “it’s like grammar school all over again and all the cool black kids hate me….something in my walk. Something in my talk tells them I’m not ‘down’” (Wilson 62) she is seeing the relationship between the way she talks and how she is perceived unjustly. There is pressure on her, as in the case of Beneatha, to be like those around her and not conforming to this expectation creates a situation of double-inequity; blacks who suffer from a lack of equality are subjecting other blacks to stereotypes and railing against them if they do not make a conscious effort to fit in. As she suggests by saying it is something in the way she talks, it is clear that language for her is creating this unjust situation, even if she is a liar and a cheat.

In the play by Tracey Scott Wilson entitled, The Story, language serves as a different kind of marker for different social groups who are constantly the victims of social inequality in the form of stereotyping. It should be noted that this is a particularly complex social inequality situation because this stereotyping, which leads to injustice, is perpetuated by the same media where Yvonne, herself a black woman who works against stereotypes in her own way. For instance, in the case of Latisha, who is confused about her identity as an educated black woman who is constantly kept down by low expectations of black women says, “I look around my neighborhood and I wish I could move. Everybody acts so stupid, But they’re not stupid. They just act stupid…the oppressed are taught to believe the worst about themselves. So I just wanted to see. I spoke Italian and German to you and you still believed I was in a gang” (Wilson 46). In some ways, this offers a varied approach to the importance of language in the context of social injustice; in A Raisin in the Sun elevated language dictated a higher level of education and self-worth, whereas here it has been rendered virtually meaningless because stereotypes are so strong that even being multi-lingual and having an above-average grasp on the English language is not enough. In other words, the stereotypes have won and the language has become a form of trickery or manipulation—the victims of injustice now must resort to the same double-speak tactics used by Linder, for example.
Both of these texts, due to their degree of variance in terms of context, setting, and other important features are difficult to compare, even though they explore the same theme of social injustice. What emerges is interesting, however, as it offers two ways of thinking about the interaction of language and social injustices; language reflects the self in A Raisin the Sun whereas in The Story, languages helps to create the self, even if that self is entirely devoid of truth or pure meaning. What happens with this interaction is that injustices are far more nuanced than in plays such as To Kill a Mockingbird, for instance, where the racism is overt and unhidden. In this new territory, language tries at once to be a way out of injustice, although in doing so, in some cases, only creates more resentment.

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References

Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Samuel French Inc., 1984.
Wilson, Tracey Scott. The Story. New York: Dramatists Play Service Inc., 2004,

The gods are, in this sense, quite like the human characters whose lives they manipulate and influence; they are all prone to fits of rage, passion, concern, and outright disgust. The mortals in both of these stories are subject to these whims and while they experience favor from divine entity, they may be violently shunned by another. This creates a chaotic element in both of these texts as the wild emotions of the gods and goddesses are beyond control and do not change based on the cunning, will, or sheer might of any of the main characters.

They are volatile, unpredictable, and fickle forces without limit and forces that cannot be altered once set into motion, unless an equal force intervenes. Nonetheless, despite these similarities in the volatile nature of the gods, the concept of their role in fate is different because the gods in both texts view fate differently. Homer’s gods see humans as directly responsible for their own fate whereas there is a more ethereal sense of fate as destiny in Virgil’s epic. The gods shape and manipulate fate in both works with various forms of temptation but to different ends and for vastly different causes and whereas Homer’s epic reflects fate as mutable, in Virgil’s tale, fate reigns supreme, even over the will of the gods.

The opening lines of Virgil’s Aeneid immediately prepare the reader for a text driven forward by fate and divine prophesy in addition to the major themes. The poem’s speaker says, “ I sing of warfare and a man at war. / From the sea-coast of Troy in early days / He came to Italy by destiny” (Virgil I.1-3). It becomes immediately clear that there will be great battles between nations, which is implied in the broad, all-inclusive term “warfare” but importantly, the narrator also says, “man at war” in the singular sense, which could be referring to “man” as a species or could also refer to one man in particular. The fact that the speaker goes on to talk about a mysterious “he” who landed upon foreign shores by force of destiny rather than expressed will does imply that this man himself will be at war. The war he wages is both against and with his own fate as he attempts to maneuver his life to obey the higher divine calling. The idea of this man at war with his own fate will become more clear as the text moves on and the various victims of this war Aeneas has with his own destiny—as ambivalent as he is about it—will become more numerous. The most striking example of a victim of this war, for instance, is Dido, who is sacrificed in favor of this greater calling by the gods to abandon the comfort and love and press forward. This opening tone and its thematic preparation for the reader’s sake is not present in Homer’s Odyssey because, despite an enormous influence from divine beings in that text, fate and the gods are treated much differently, despite a similar presence in the lives of both Odysseus and Aeneas.

The gods and goddesses of Homer’s Odyssey exert an enormous amount of influence on the main characters, including Odysseus and his son in particular but as suggested previously, there is no consensus among the gods about Odysseus’ worth. Due to this discordance among the gods about Odysseus, he experiences extraordinary amounts of positive divine intervention in his quest to return home, but the effects of this are often negated or set back due to an equal negative reaction on the part of another, opposing divine entity. In other words, while wit and strength—both human traits in the tale—can overcome most of the obstacles that are central to his quest, especially at the end when the archery contest is devised, acts of strength or reason are powerless, especially in the face of a wrathful god. This means that one of the most volatile and unpredictable elements in this epic are the gods and their influence on the fate of Odysseus, Telemachus (click here for a full character analysis of Telemachus), and other characters. At one point, when in conversation with his fellow divine entities, Zeus, the king of the gods, bemoans how mortals seem aware of this volatility among their gods and goddesses when he says, “Ah how shameless—the way these mortals blame the gods. / From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, / but they themselves with their own reckless ways, / compound their pains beyond their proper share” (Homer I.37-40). What he is suggesting is that the gods are not acting in aggressive (or for that matter benevolent) ways out of random desire—they are either provoked or evoked and react accordingly. Nonetheless, this means that for a character like Odysseus who invokes strong feeling among the gods, he is subject to the utmost goodness and at the same time, the most powerful wrath.

Some of divine intervention is allowed to go without a negative response from another, opposing god and the intent and consequences are that of benevolent good. For instance, without the divine intervention by the goddess Athena, it is likely that Telemachus would have fallen victim to the plot by his mother’s suitors to kill him and take over what was rightly his in the absence of his father. For instance, Athena states as she makes her case for Zeus, “But my heart breaks for Odysseus / that seasoned veteran cursed by fate so long—far from his loved ones still, he suffers torments / off on a wave-washed island rising at the center of the seas” (Homer I.57-60). Her pity, especially when she appeals to Zeus about all of Odysseus’ past sacrifices and noble actions, moves the god to take pity as well. This proves to be a rare example in the text of two gods in accordance with one another who work in tandem rather than with opposing motivations. Furthermore, it shows the gods as being capable of basic human emotions and that they do not always act with reckless, violent abandon, but have measured responses, based on the mortal in question.

Although it may be a frustrating ending for the reader in that it fails to resolve the themes and psychological dilemmas introduced earlier which seemed to drive the text, even introducing new themes it could not possibly address meaningfully, the ambiguity and fragmentation of the conclusion serves to underscore the narrator’s profound psychological distress.

By leaving the reader with lingering doubts and unresolved questions about the story’s central character, Dostoyevsky masterfully compels the reader to identify with the troubled Underground Man. If the reader can overcome his or her need for a neat conclusion where all loose ends are tied up and which seem to be forced in Notes from Underground, it becomes possible for the reader to understand that all does not always end well or even end at all. Dostoyevsky uses the ambiguous ending of this story in a strategic manner as he attempts to convey the message that an intelligent human being will have a lifelong struggle with dilemmas that can never be resolved. This ultimate theme that is present in both the beginning and end of the story, in effect is the resolution, though it is not likely to be the one the reader might have wanted or expected.

A number of important psychological themes are introduced early in the novel. One of these themes, which persists throughout the text, is the tension between the Underground Man’s sense of intellectual superiority versus his profound self-loathing. The first lines of the novel introduce this theme, as the main character and narrator, the Underground Man with no name, says about himself, “I am a sick man… I am a wicked man…” (1). He goes on to hint at the conflict that besets him and which makes his life miserable, saying “I’m sufficiently educated not to be superstitious, but I am….Now you will certainly not be so good as to understand this” (1). Although the Underground Man is pushing the reader away before the two even really know each other, the reader cannot help but be interested in witnessing this man’s despair and his utter contempt for himself, which is only exceeded but his disgust with almost everyone else.

The reader is prepared, then, for the type of character with which he or she will be dealing, a misanthrope who uses the word “hate” with astonishing frequency, applying the sentiment to “phrases, phrase-mongers, and tight-fitting waists…, gallantry and gallantizers” (77) and all other manner of objects as often as he applies it to people. Despite the Underground Man’s bitter temperament, though, the reader is interested in what will happen to him. After all, most readers can remember a time when they have felt superior yet unrecognized. The difference between the reader and the Underground Man, of course, is that the former is generally able to sublimate that feeling and experience other emotions, while the Underground Man stews in resentment and has a limited emotional repertoire. Will the Underground Man have an experience that changes his views significantly, bringing him back into meaningful contact with society? Might he instead live out his days as a hermit, insistent until the end about protecting the solitude which he prefers? These are the questions the reader asks while in the midst of the novel, hoping they will be resolved at the end.

The fact that these questions are not answered, however, should not come as a surprise to the astute reader, as everything about the Underground is ambivalent. Throughout the novel, he has a difficult time making a decision about anything, and he never seems to advance in being able to act decisively. Characters, especially protagonists, are typically expected to mature and grow over the course of a novel, their mistakes and disappointing experiences serving as lessons for them about how to act differently in the future. The Underground Man, however, never grows. Again, if the reader looks back to the novel’s opening, he or she can find numerous hints that suggest the Underground Man’s resistance to change is entrenched for life. Musing about humanity, the Underground Man says to himself: “[E]ven if you had enough time and faith left to change yourself…you probably would not wish to change; and even if you did…you would still not do anything because…there is nothing to change into” (8). The reader should begin to get the idea, then, that the novel may not be about one man’s growth and the neat resolution of his life’s dilemmas, but about a theme that is far more profound.

The novel ends where and how it does because the Underground Man is resistant to change, but also because he believes that reason alone cannot produce the final resolution. This is why the narrative must trail off even before all of the Underground Man’s experiences have been conveyed and before any of them are really adequately resolved. “You see,” he says, “reason…is a fine thing, that is unquestionable, but reason is only reason and satisfies only man’s reasoning capacity….” (28). In other words, reason alone is nothing and while it may offer some answers, it cannot account for everything and is not an answer and does not offer a final solution. Although Dostoyevsky leaves the plot hanging at the end of the story, he has nonetheless fulfilled his obligation as a writer. By “failing” to resolve the novel in a traditional sense where there is a definite conclusion, the inconclusive ending actually serves as the best possible one, as it reinforces—though does not resolve—the themes introduced in the beginning.

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Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. “Notes from Underground.” In Great Short Works of Fyodor

Dostoyevksy. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

Time and again the reader witnesses Maggie as she struggles to overcome her conditions of poverty but in each effort, it seems that the Darwinian struggle between her and her society is an impossible force to tackle. Naturalism in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets then proves to be more than simply a social message the author seems to make but also becomes the central element in the classification of this story as a tragedy. While other elements of tragedy that are often found in classical texts are present as well, the most notable of which is the tragic character flaw, these merely contribute to the ultimately tragedy but are not the powerful force that the social conditions are. In short, by presenting readers with a struggle that takes place in the modern urban jungle between aspirations to leave and “evolve” into something better and the inevitability of such conditions, Crane is suggesting that for the most part, such conditions are, with rare exceptions, signs of an inevitable impoverished fate, no matter if she was the victim of murder or took her own, tragic life (Salemi 59).

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets has been coined as “Naturalism’s first novel” (Fudge 43) although according to one scholar, “Crane never claimed to be a naturalist, though he did famously inscribe copies of Maggie with the declaration that ‘environment is a tremendous thing’” (Hunter 19). It should also be noted that as graphic as the novel is in its depictions of filthy slum life, there was an original edition that Crane had that was more graphic, but was not released initially (Stallman 530). While Crane was aware of the shocking nature of some of the descriptions, particularly in terms of sexual and violent content, the purpose was to reveal in a fictional form, a world that most of Crane’s readers were unable to conceive of, let alone personally experience. Horwitz (609) remarks on the deviation much of the content of this novel had with what was being written for mainstream audiences and suggests that this was a strong form of naturalism, especially when set in contrast to women’s roles of the time and ideas regarding the cult of domesticity that encouraged piety and purity above all else. Maggie can be seen as tragic because due to her social and environmental conditions, she is not permitted the opportunity to take part in what was historically defined as “proper femininity” and that herein lies one of the other elements of tragedy. Without an alternative environment or even any exposure to one, Maggie and many of the other characters are doomed from the time they children until they are adults to a life that is outside of the context of mainstream America during this time of growing middle-class wealth elsewhere.

Even without such a formal declaration of this text being officially naturalist, there are multiple cues that allow the reader to fully understand what Crane meant when he remarked on the power of environment. First of all, there is no point at which many of the characters suddenly “become” victims of their environment; from the moment children are born, they are introduced to an environment that does nothing but encourage the same behavior as such violence and debauchery will be all they know for the rest of their lives. At any point in which children are introduced in the text, they are done so revealingly, with great description to reinforce Crane’s perceptions about the power of environment. Children are never, as they are in other texts in different settings, represented as being innocent or full of promise. They are presented in hopeless conditions and given textual examples, there is no reason for the reader to feel that they will ever be able to move beyond their circumstances. Environment is such a powerful influence that children are beyond redemption by young boyhood, as evidenced by the opening (as well as throughout) Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.

The very fact that one of the opening lines of the book begins with a street fight where the “honor of Rum Alley” (Crane 1) is at stake is revealing in itself about some of the themes about the struggle to overcome poverty and one’s conditions. Although in this novel of naturalism the characters who are fighting at the beginning have few aspirations to rise beyond their current state and instead are engaged in petty, violent struggle, the notion this honor on Rum Alley is important to the text. Honor for the denizens of this part of New York is directly related to wealth and the appearance of wealth. While a character like Maggie desperately seeks this form of honor, when matched against the poverty and struggles of life in such a rough area, she seems doomed to fail from the very beginning. In this first opening few paragraphs, Crane is setting the reader up for two important conditions. First, the meaning of honor in a place that seems almost completely morally bankrupt and how this is an unrealistic goal and secondly, the violent, brutal struggles themselves as men fight in the street like animals in the jungle. These men have the “grins of true assassins” (2) and it is clear that anyone who were to stumble across such a scene, with those who identify themselves as members of “Devil’s Row” would not stand a chance of ever leaving alive. This is all true of Maggie who, despite her striving for some kind of “honor” nonetheless becomes yet another victim of the unending cycle of violence and base behavior.

While on the one hand characters in the Finch family represent moral and just decision making (this is best exemplified by Atticus–full character analysis of Atticus here) some of the characters in the town of Maycomb represent exactly the opposite; they are narrow-minded and unable to see past the cemented social structure in the town that is highly based on race (like so many other great American novels) and, to a lesser extent, economic class status. What the representation of this struggle with blatant injustice suggests is that fighting for what is right and just is difficult. However, by setting the example and rising above negative aspects that dominate one’s community (or society in general) a resolution to the conflict between justice and its opposite can begin to emerge.

The characters who are most concerned with the racial inequality in the town are, for the most part, people who are in or are already close to the Finch family. Scout and Jem in particular have the most difficult time reconciling what they perceive to be the intolerance and general meanness of their community when it comes to issues of race. This harsh and intensely defensive reaction from their community against what they see to be defense of people unworthy of justice intensifies with Atticus’ representation of Tom Robinson. This trial and its aftermath subjects the children to insults that range from the threatening, to the vulgar (the use of nigger) to the shaming, such as when a young boy tells Scout that “everyone says your daddy’s a disgrace!” (9). Even some of the adult townspeople such as Mrs. Dubose throw insults at the children. In her case, Jem is so angry that he destroys her flowers because she said his father “lawed for niggers” (39). There seems to be no standard of moral behavior when it comes to the issue of racial intolerance and through the dialogue, it appears that Maycomb is the very picture of Southern civility until race emerges as an issue and then the division in the community is glaringly apparent.

In many ways, the children are affected by the dominant issue of injustice in two important ways. First, they are, as already stated, the target of verbal and other attacks from their peers as well as adults in their community. They are forced to live outside of their mainstream society because of their father’s (and as the play goes on, their own) strong convictions and commitment to justice. Secondly, the children are affected because through their father’s place at the center of a heated trial, they are drawn into the complexity of choosing between what is just and their community. They are, at a very young age, forced to confront some incredibly complex questions about hypocrisy and intolerance and thus are forced to grow up rather quickly in this sense. The Finch children find themselves isolated in their community more generally, but have developed close bonds with the black community through Calpurnia, for instance and with a few others who are also in many ways on the fringe, such as the young Dill. While their father has a great moral influence on the children and they are far more independent than their peers, this is not always an easy position for them to be in, although by the end they come to see the value of social justice and standing up for what is right.

In terms of how characters are affected by the overwhelming injustice in the play, especially as it relates to the trial of Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch is the most composed and steady in his response and while he is affected by the apparent lack of justice, the fact that the unjust outcome of the trial only shows there is not any real justice when race is concerned. “Heck, that boy might go to the chair, but he’s not going till the truth’s told” (43) he says, knowing rather well that no matter how convincing the evidence, there will be only a slim chance of an acquittal. For Atticus, the point of the trial is not necessarily to clear Tom Robinson of the charges since it is almost a guarantee that the all-white jury (a representation of particular injustice in practice) will convict him—it is to make a point. This character trait that Atticus possesses is at the heart of the play and emerges in the dialogue when Atticus tells Jem as they observe Bob Ewell, “Courage isn’t a man with a knife in his hand—it’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win—but sometimes you do” (93). In other words, what he is telling his son is that while winning is always a fortunate occurrence, it is having the courage to undertake something great and challenging that is the most important. Atticus manifests this philosophy throughout the novel and even though he is criticized by many of the townspeople, he still remains an upstanding citizen and someone who manages to set an example apart from the cycle of intolerance and hatred in Maycomb.

Clearly, the solution to the problem of injustice in the fictional town of Maycomb is for people to think like Atticus and take his lead and become independent thinkers who consider what life is like outside of their own small world. As a man committed to representing every viewpoint and one who is dedicated to fairness and justice, regardless of color or status, Atticus seems more concerned with setting an example than anything and encourages others to do the same. For example, while Atticus is talking about the children’s morbid curiosity about Boo Radley, Atticus tells them, “You see, you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (21). While this certainly applies to the context of their conversation about the man who never leaves his house, this is an important quote in the play because it symbolizes part of what makes Atticus and, because of their father’s teachings, drastically different than others in Maycomb. Unlike many of the racist members of the community, Atticus is willing to step outside the norm and create a new standard by seeing things from more than one perspective. As a man representing the law, this ability makes him the character most committed to justice, even though there are times he knows that there will be no justice in earnest.

With all of these complex issues at play, it almost becomes easy to lose sight of the meaning of the title, especially as it relates to the theme of injustice. As Miss Maudie states in Act I, “Mockingbirds just make music. They don’t eat up people’s gardens; don’t nest in corncribs; they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (8). The mockingbirds are a metaphor for the black community in Maycomb (in terms of their status as being undesired, even though they are causing no harm) and more specifically, for the persecution of a man like Tom Robinson. He never had any desire to harm anyone and by feeling compassion for another person– by feeling sorry for her (which ended up being his worst mistake; at least in saying it out loud) and allowing his heart to “sing” with human kindness, he made an unwitting decision to help Mayella, never harming her and never knowing what was coming.

Killing Tom Robinson, like killing a mockingbird, should be seen as a sin within the context of the play, not only because he was clearly wrongfully convicted and fatally wounded, but because he was a harmless creature, just as harmless as Boo Radley. The problem is, in the town of Maycomb, many people were unwilling to see African Americans as human beings with rights and complexity and in this lies an ever greater and more wide-spread injustice. The play ends with the idea that although there is certainly a fair amount of hatred, intolerance, and above all, extreme injustice, by rising above it and standing up for what is right (even though it can come with threats and danger, either social or physical) this sets the standard and with enough people doing the same, can end the kind of injustice that is one of the most dominant themes in the play.

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Reference

Sergel, Christopher. To Kill a Mockingbird. Dramatic Adaptation of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”. New York: Dramatic Publishing, 1960.

While the entire contextual background in these narratives by Shakur and Jacobs varies drastically, this is simply a matter of the amount of time that has passed. Interestingly, the issues these women both face because they are black females are quite similar, despite the historical period and actual circumstances. So too are the ways in which, through the prefaces, which serve as appeals both to those each text wishes to persuade and as modes of verification through white authority. Although the historical context is different, the fact that both are women narrators who are offering critiques of their societies within gendered confines is significant. By the term “gendered confines” it is meant that there are certain techniques and narrative strategies that work particularly well with women narrators. This aspect of having black female narrators whose writing reflects current attitudes about women in general (not just black women) at once further complicates narrative authority in both works and also lends to it.

For a text like Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, coming as it did from a period in American history that required a sort of “approval” from the white establishment, the authority was not allowed to rest solely on the basis of firsthand experiences. With this in mind, it should be dually noted that this was a piece that was intended to be political from its inception, thus it had to both derive legitimate authority from those it was meant to persuade as well as be authentic in its account. To that end, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is not a piece Jacobs herself wrote, self-edited, and self-published by any means; it was worked on and edited by anti-slavery activists in the north as an abolitionist propaganda tool—one that would likely shock the sensibilities of white northern women, who were living in the epicenter of active lifestyles based on the cult of true womanhood. To counter this element of shock and revulsion and also to validate this text by putting the stamp of genteel white women’s authority on it, the editor of the book also saw fit to include her own preface, which at once apologizes for the context, validates it as necessary for the purpose, and asks the audience to accept it with all of its rather impure and un-pious content for the sake of liberating a “suffering sisterhood” (8).

The assertions of authenticity and narrative authority attempt form the core of the narrative authority of the text. While Jacobs has her own, which appears before those of her white supporters and states that the story they are to read is not fiction, despite how strange it may seem, she relates that she has “not exaggerated the wrongs inflicted by slavery; on the contrary [my] descriptions fall far short of the facts….I have no motive for secrecy on my own account, but I deemed it kind and considerate towards others to pursue this course” (Jacobs 5). This is the point where, it can be argued, that she is making a sort of apology to her genteel female readers who, with notions of purity and piety at the forefront of their culture in conformation with the cult of true womanhood, might otherwise be repulsed by the sexual content and stories of attempted and real rape scenarios. After all, as Jacobs notes to soften the content in her recognition of her readers, “Only by experience can one realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of abominations” (6). This authority is even further extended when the white supporters of the text, including her editor, offer vague apologies for what her gentle pious, pure, and domestically-minded 19th-century female reader might find “indecorous” (8). Her editor states that “for the experiences of this intelligent and much-injured woman belong to a class which some call delicate subject, and others indelicate” and says that while these sorts of [sexual] issues are difficult for such readers, slavery, “with its monstrous features” must have the “veil withdrawn” (8). All of these disclaimers she sets forth before reminding these women that it is the name of a suffering sisterhood that this story, with all of its “indelicacies” is being told. With this established, the concerns of females of this cult of womanhood appeased content-wise, the broader mission, which is to educate—perfectly in line with this feminist ideal’s perspective—can take place.

In terms of narrative authority and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the narrative authority is also gained in the way the book mimics the form of the novel so many 19th-century readers were familiar with–especially women readers of the period. By using this form to make the horrors “digestable” to the genteel women through its packaging in the familiar and comfortable novel-like form, it possessed an overt criticism of the institution of slavery that was not difficult to read. Accordingly, the persuasive element of the anti-slavery message was achieved through appealing directly to women whom were likely very sympathetic to the treatment of “Linda” in the text as she was forced to endure humiliating situations that went far outside of what the cult of “true womanhood” expected from her. However, she was not willfully violating these codes of conduct for women in this era; she was a victim, thus she was not a female to be condemned, but rather, one who should be pitied. She was not party to what was happening; as he master whispered wicked in her ear, she “tried to treat them with indifference or contempt” (Jacobs 44). Her victimization makes her an exception to the stringent rules of idealized femininity in the 19th century and this is further legitimized in the prefaces from both the author and her white editor.

The class system had been the same for countless generations and how people would deal with that change is at center of this novel. On the one hand, the class system change could be ignored and feared by people like Paul (Pavel) or just barely accepted (as in the case with Nikolai who is trying to make the best of it) or it could be shown to be a great thing like it is by the character Bazarov who believes in a new system of greater equality.

From the beginning of the novel it is clear that the structure of the class sis changing that there are some tensions that are coming along with such changes–a theme that can be found in other famous works of Russian literature. The reader almost expects to have servants behaving in their rightful manner when beginning the novel and knowing little about the significant class changes. It becomes clear right away though the class structure is changing with a generation. The second paragraph introduces a somewhat insolent “serf” who is described as being helpful but not as being completely obedient. The book describes this valet saying that everything about the valet from “his single turquoise earring, his pomaded hair of various shades and his studied gestures—proclaimed him of a different age” (1). This new age is one where the class structure is less meaningful and the old distinctions that warranted an entirely different, more formal and ritualized code of behavior, no longer apply. This servant steps away to smoke his pipe and does not behave with the same discretion that social codes that are as ancient as the country dictated. There is a new class system developing in this book but it is not as bold as one might think from observing the valet. There are more serfs who are making much more cautious steps into the other world of the higher class. Class mobility is a new thing for these people and that is why Fenichka is so hesitant, even when she already has Nikola’s baby and lives in the house.

The changing class system is present when looking at the ways the former serfs don’t act with ultimate deference to their old masters but many times too, the serfs who are more mobile in their class do so gently. They know that they are treading new ground. As mentioned, one of the best examples in Fathers and Sons that highlights the class tensions but also shows how the class structure is changing is in the case of Nikolai, who is Arcady’s father, and Fenichka. This is a relationship that would not have been acceptable to the generation before Nikolai and is only barely acceptable when the book takes place. Because of this Fenichka often hides out of sight like a servant would. She is very self-conscious about her status as someone who is invading a class that she does not belong to, even when people are very welcoming to her.

Fenichka gets a warm reception from Arcady, but it almost seems as though this is because Arcady is trying to be more in tune with the ideas of his friend as opposed to actually believing that the relationship between his father and a woman of such low birth is okay. Even though there are people who feel that the former serfs are people and deserve human and just treatment, the move to free all of the serfs is not one that everyone feels good about. Paul is a character who is committed to the old way of life and does not think that the serfs are always good or trustworthy people and has reservations about the class system being toppled. Many of the tensions between the old Russian way or life and the newer more revolutionary way of living that Bazarov the nihilist speaks of are clear by the way opposing sides think about class. When they are having an argument, Bazarov tells Pavel that he is not in touch with reality because he is hiding from the class conflict. He says “ask any of your peasants in which of—in you or in me—he would sooner recognize a compatriot. You don’t even know how to talk to them” (59). The classes are changing but people like Pavel who are very absorbed in the old way of doing things are less easy to usher in change.

The nobility in this novel seem to disdain anything Russian and this population is represented by Pavel. The more middle class gentry population represented by Nikolai (and later, we come to see also by his son Arcady) is open to the idea of serf emancipation but they still enjoy the comforts of middle class life. The peasants are openly taking freedoms offered by the government and land owners but are in an awkward situation because either they must rebel entirely, rebel quite a bit like the valet, or be like Fenichka and accept the situation and try to make the most of it. It is not a stable class situation and a lot of the novel and the ideas it discusses offer different ways of handling the new social system in Russia.

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Reference

Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons. Edited by Jane Costlow. New York: Signet Classics, 1997.

This is particularly the case in times of war or political strife and the resulting social upheaval. This conflicting environment of war, hardship, and chaos is exactly the environment that backgrounds three texts that question the matter of morality within chaos; Macbeth by William Shakespeare, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, and Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee. In each of these literary works, the base sense of humanity and morality that guides many in the ordinary world is called into question amidst the chaotic settings of battles, internal and literal, as well as political and social discord. What is most fascinating in these texts, however, is how morality is expressed and in what contexts. These expressions culminate in a greater understanding of how humanity responds to a lack of order through decision-making and action and questions the universal notions of “morality” that apply to relatively normal (non-war or chaotic) situations.

Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, presents depictions of both the ordinary and chaotic in terms of the mental landscape of its main character, Macbeth, and his circle of confidants as well as his society within the kingdom. While normally honorable, loyal, and clear-headed, when chaos enters the plot and forces actions on behalf of other characters and the tone of events in general, the basic sense of morality rapidly begins to break down. Questions that might not have entered the minds of central characters in the play due to the internal compass of morality that manifests in ordinary situations now emerge with startling ferocity, even surprising Macbeth himself, as he considers to himself, “If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well / It were done quickly….We still have judgment here, that we but teach / Bloody instructions which, being taught, return/ to plague the inventor” (I.vii.1-15). For this moment, among a few others, the morality of his decision weights heavily upon Macbeth as it becomes fully clear that he is murdering his lord, a man who trusts him, who comes to his home in peace. The chaos of the situation, however, does not favor Macbeth and his wife, understanding her husband Macbeth to be a bit too full of “the milk of human kindness” (I.v.15) and, seeing this morality as his greatest stumbling block on the road to success, naturally gears her persuasive actions to eliminate morality and cause even more chaos in the mind of Macbeth.

The witches in this play by Shakespeare, even with their foggy riddles, make a number of important covert references to the importance of morality and its significance for Banquo and Macbeth. In their cryptic statement, “foul is fair” and “fair is foul” (I.i.10) is contained a rudimentary statement on the topsy-turvy nature of not just the forthcoming situation, but on how the reversal and resulting chaos will turn one thing easily into another. What was once considered “foul” to Macbeth; a dishonorable murder of a kinsman and ruler, becomes, given the chaos caused by the prediction and the cunning manipulation of his wife, in particular, fair. Conversely, what might once have been “fair” such as marriage, becoming king, and enjoying the power that he secretly lusts for, becomes quite foul—just as the witches suggest in their disorienting lines. In the end, it appears that the witches, when suggesting that Banquo is (and would be) “lesser than Macbeth, and greater” as well as “not so happy, yet much happier” (I.iii.63-64) were quite correct. As a result of Macbeth’s dwindled sense of morality, his kingship is miserable and stained by the blood of his deeds. Within the incredible chaos of murder, Banquo maintains his sense of humanity and thus, by preserving his morality within chaos, is the parallel opposite of Macbeth. In short, this is play that represents extreme dualities, especially in human nature. A sense of morality that might otherwise be fair and flawless can, given a twist, become the opposite to a disturbing degree.

Just as in Macbeth, pre-chaos ordinary morality reigns in The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien before the moral compass is destroyed or set off course by war and intense emotions brought about by an unnatural situation. Like Macbeth, the main character in O’Brien’s novel, Tim, has some conflicting feelings, in this case about going to fight in a war he does not believe in, but ultimately, the morality wins out as he considers his family and the fact that he would have to live with a cowardly decision for the rest of his life. While he says, “I couldn’t make myself be brave. It had nothing to do with morality. Embarassment, that’s all it was… I would go to the war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to” (O’Brien 52) the fact is, under the circumstances, he did make a decision not to flee to Canada and although embarrassment is the cited reason, the underlying concern for something outside of the self; the lack of reliance on the id or selfish desire, wins out. This is, indeed, some speculation, but the point of this examination of the three texts in terms of morality does have quite a bit with reacting outside of the id in cases of morality and the exact opposite in terms of lacking a moral sense. Reasons of embarrassment and their relation to morality considered, this is a distinctly morality-based decision as it considers others and is not founded solely on the id or the initial gut reaction to avoid the conflict but just as in Macbeth, the founding morality that exists is shattered by chaos. In The Things They Carried,

While O’Brien’s novel and Macbeth are thematically similar in terms of the fact that morality-based decisions juxtaposed with chaotic conditions are central, the two main characters of each could not be more diametrically opposed. In the case of war, it is a matter of survival and not an attempt to achieve a position of power. As a result, the dynamics are quite different. While morality for Macbeth involved strategic decision-making and conscious recognition of the distinct immorality of decisions, the environment of war prompts base, animal reactions. For instance, one of the most poignant chapters in The Things They Carried, “The Man I Killed,” the awful murder scene has none of the moral overtones the murder in Macbeth had, simply because there was no forethought; no room for morality to play out. As Tim relates, “I had already pulled the pin on the grenade. I had come up to a crouch. It was entirely automatic. I did not hate the young man; I did not even see him as the enemy; I did not ponder issues of morality or politics or military duty” (O’Brien 132). The problem with this kind of morality is that its effects are retroactive and haunt him years later, in addition to his absorption in complete guilt as he imagines the young man he killed and what he might have been like. In the case of this novel, morality is something there is no time for. In a war, there are different ways of coping and while some of the men are hardened and rather cruel about the massive death that surrounds them some, like the narrator of this section, are torn apart by it; ripped through by the morality that there was no time for in a moment that required quick, thoughtless, cruel action or certain death. In the case of O’Brien’s novel, due to this particular kind of chaotic situation (which is quite different than Macbeth’s) morality is something that comes back later rather than something that is at stake in a frightful moment.