Thomas Hardy’s Philosophy of Life

Thomas hardy is critic of life, not of personal characters, not an observer of man in society, but of human conditions in the more philosophic sense an observer who has already made up his mind about his conclusions.

Hardy’s conception of life it’s essentially tragic the conflict is one in which there is only the remotest chance of escape , so heavily are the scaliest weighted by man’s lack of foresight nature, and the snakes and ladder place in his path by a mysterious view less  ice less turner of the wheel.

In Hardy’s outlook of life there are two important points his sense of law and his sense of pity.

The first gives him the conviction that a spiritual logic governs man’s lives, the Greeks called it nemesis but are attended by scientific formulate, attribute it to low another novelist who has touched the logic of life with the same persistence as hardy was George Eliot. But whereas the con sliders it rather from the standpoint of retribution, and treats it as a moralist, Hardy is affected rather by the the injustice of its working. He admits, as she does, the dreadful vitality of our deeds, but he dwells for longer on the disproportionate punishment.

Melancholic and gloomy picture of life, pessimism, At times Hardy shows too much bitterness of feeling what he urges may be true, but there is another side of the life picture which is actually true, and upon which he is silent. As for this attitude to life Hardy stated his position.

Different natures find her tongue in the presence of differing spectacles in the presence of differing spectacle , some are made vocal by comedy and it seems to be that to whichever of these aspects to life a writer enlistments  for expression the more readily responds to that he should allow a to responds.

 In Thomas Hardy’s earlier writings he mingled sweetness and bitterness of life ‘and are admirably contrasted, but in the later novels Tess, judge the gloom is intensified even though these novels are rich in power and insight.

No reflective person can fail to be struck by the littleness and sordidness of life, and by the overwhelming pain and suffering which exist in this world but with Hardy this view becomes a prevalent way of looking of things, and a temperamental habit of mind. Sublimity and beauty of life are as much a matter of human existence but are excluded from his writing.

  “The poet in him will make trees as lively as men while the next moment the philosopher in him will make man as helpless as trees”.

Man a victim of circumstances fate:

A struggle between man on the one hand and on the other, an omnipotent and indifferent fate that is human predicament in Hardy’s vision of life.

The conflict is not necessarily between man and man, or between and institution, Man is pitched against impersonal forces, these forces condition his fate.

Hardy’s philosophy grows out of reflection and experience before he is acquainted with Schopenhauer from an early time he feels or obscures volition in the depth of things, and curbs our individual destinies under   a low greater than our selves. At a later stage, he readily adopts the theory of an imminent will seeking unconscious ends through a blind striving.

Everywhere in his novels human being appears to us crushed by a superior force, that of nature, at first and of an indifferent, so most   often a hastily chance than that of he errors implied in our own desires whether his creed is fatalism or determinism, he is grasps its grandly, like a tragic poet, and illustrate it with untiring persistence.

Hardy’s gaze perceives times as well as space. His pessimism is not only a way of thinking lived by his most instinctive sensibility, it imbues all his vision, it is the very essence of his admirable poetry of nature.

Hardy does not regarded nature as a kind and generous mother, for Hardy nature is the agent of cruelty and beings insensible to the feeling of man.

According to David Cecile ‘’However Hardy‘s attitude towards nature to man. Was not Wordsworthian  He did not believe that nature has any holy plan or healing power. Being influenced by the theory of education he found much in nature that was cruel   and antagonist to man’’.

The influence of nature of humanity has been presented in different ways nature influences the moods and actions of Hardy’s human characters.

In most of his nature scenes, Hardy presents an emotional connection between nature and beings .Sometimes Nature is affected by human emotions, and sometimes man is affected by nature feelings. IN Tess, we see a change in nature’s feeling in accordance with the emotional change in Tess’s life.

Nature is one aspect of fate, like chance, accidents and coincidence.

The Month of May:

Tess is young, fresh, lively and happy maiden, Merlot village has fertile land and springs never dry.

The Month of October:

After her sad experience with Alec planned into gloom she locked upon herself as a figure of guilt intruding into the haunts of innocence.

The Month of August:

And following months of winter the time of storms and snow one of the cruelest month –sorrow dies, she changes form simple girl to complex woman.

Summer:

Talbot hays Dairy, butter, milk, pure environment, sunshine, breeze, true love all these goes on through the summer and the autumn, marriage with Angel in winter, desertion, sorrow seen follows her.

I     

To sorrow

Bade good morrow

And thought to leave her far away behind

But cheerly, cheerly

She loves me dearly

She is so constant to me, and so kind

I would deceive her

And so leave her, But Ah1 She is so

Constant and so kind

The month of October:

Hardy comments:

To the sum up Hardy give the comments ‘’ so the two forces were at work here as everywhere the inherent will to enjoyment. 

Kadiye: Hypocrisy in his character

The Kadiye, the religious figure in Wole Soyinka’s Swamp Dwellers, is masterfully portrayed and is very covincing.Kadiye is portrayed in this drama as the main priest of the swamp dwellers. Though he is a priest by his profession, he is anything but pious. He is essentially a corrupt and self-centered person. But Kadiye is not the sole example of his type. There are many Kadiye in every part of the world. There are some hypocrites who trade religion and live on it. This typical feature of Kadiye makes him more convincing.

The physical feature of Kadiye indicates that he is more like a villain than to be a religious person. He is fat like a blood-swollen insect. He is a monstrous looking person. He is described as ’a big, voluminous creature of about fifty.’ He is smooth-faced and his head is shaved clean. He is bare above the waist and at least half of his fingers are ringed. This physical look suggests something ugly about his moral nature. Kadiye is very rich and has a good control over the swamp like a Godfather featured in the western films. Kadiye destroys people wearing the mask of religion.

The Kadiye betrays the trust of the villagers by encouraging them to indulge in meaningless cult. The Kadiye is the priest of the Serpent. The villagers give of their harvest to the Kadiye so he can appease the serpent. No one questions where the goods go, because it is almost blasphemous to do so. But it seems that the dramatist is very critical to the Kadiye and Kadiye’s real nature is exposed through the confrontation between the Kadiye and Gweru. The protagonist of the play, Igwezu, an ideal son of the Swamps who is loyal to tradition, has performed all the necessary rites required by the deity to ensure a good harvest and a happy life with his wife. The impotence of this god gradually creeps into his awareness from several inexplicable mishaps that confront him, both in the city and the Swamps.

In his short stay in the city to try his hands at making money, his twin brother, Awuchike, seduces his wife, contrary to the spiritual values of the Swamp. Much frustrating, he fails in his commercial enterprise.Igwezu's tragedy is more severe when he returns to the Swamps with the hope of recovering from his despair by harvesting his crops. But he discovers with utter disappointment and disbelief that the floods had ruined his farm and "the beans and the corn had made an everlasting pottage with the mud.’

The Kadiye, thus trapped and humiliated, leaves the scene threatening blood. But Igwezu’s   mind is now open. He has emancipated himself from the manacles of deceit, realizing in a consolatory stand. "I know that we can appease the Serpent of the Swamps and kiss the Kadiye's feet, but the vapors will still rise and corrupt the tassels of the corn”. Thus through the disillusionment of Igwezu the dramatist also exposes the real nature of the Kadiye. But due to the Kadiye’s threat Igwezu has to leave the village. In this way the Kadiye brings the final tragedy to Igwezu’s life.

The Kadiye is dramatized as a very convincing character. Though the Kadiye is portrayed in a Nigerian setting, but he can be transported to an Indian village, Bangladeshi or Irish village where the religious Sadhus exploit the general people in the name of religion.

The Swamp Dwellers is almost far removed from the themes of colonial rule and the culture clash characteristic of most plays. The play which was staged by the National Troupe/National Theatre and directed by Nick Monu, an alumnus of the American University Washington D.C and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts London, assesses the lives of the inhabitants of swamps.

Symbolism is used in The Swamp Dwellers for the revolutionary conscientisation of a people who are dwelling pious. He portrayed as a corrupt and self-centered person. But Kadiye is not the sole example of his type.

Soyinka places emphasis on the symbolism in nature right from the beginning of the play. And the characters talk about how the rains have washed away their farm crops and the blind stranger talks about a severe drought in the north.       

The play also exposes religious hypocrisy in the character of the Kadiye. The Kadiye is the religious figure in Wole Soyinka’s The Swamp Dwellers, is masterfully portrayed and is very convincing. Kadiye is portrayed in this drama as the main priest of the swamp dwellers.

The physical feature of Kadiye indicates that he is more like a villain than to be a religious person. He is fat like a blood-swollen insect. He is a monstrous looking person. He is described as ’a big, voluminous creature of about fifty.’ He is smooth-faced and his head is shaved clean. He is bare above the waist and at least half of his fingers are ringed. This physical look suggests something ugly about his moral nature. Kadiye is very rich and has a good control over the swamp like a Godfather featured in the western films. Kadiye destroys people wearing the mask of religion.

The Kadiye betrays the trust of the villagers by encouraging them to indulge in meaningless cults which are profitable. The villagers give of their harvest to the Kadiye so he can appease the serpent but unknown to them he is feeding fat on their sweat. No one questions where the goods go, because it is almost blasphemous to do so. But it seems that the dramatist is very critical to the Kadiye and Kadiye’s real nature is exposed through the confrontation between the Kadiye and Igwezu.

Narrative Style of “The White Tiger”

"Narrative Style of “The White Tiger”

The White Tiger novel contains seven tatters which were writer separately, each in one night. The story is not narrated chronologically. The protagonist takes every freedom to move from one event to another without placing that event within a chain of action. Flashback method is also used in a shrewd way. The protagonist writes his letter to the Chinese premier when he is already established as an entrepreneur in Bangalor.

Arvind  Adiga took up the epistolary form for the white tiger and gave it necessary twist so as to incorporate elements from the stream-of –consciousness novels of the modern era and also from the postmodernist prose fiction having recognizable socio-cultural scenario without any symbolic intentions.

The protagonist’s name is thus revealed as well as his back-ground. And he dwells on each bit of information, providing the addressee, the details of everything. He narrates how he was given the name Balram by his school teacher as he had been known by ‘Munna’ meaning a boy. His parents or other family members did not have enough time for selecting his name,

 he writes.

The single paragraph highlights the essence of Adige’s style: wit, panache and dark humor. In an apparently simple style the narrator explores his past his anger, suffering, humiliation and detachment- and along with it the contemporary history of the land and the people.

The secret of Adiga’s innovative narrative style lies in juxtaposing an insignificant act of spitting on the hill top and the heinous act of slitting one’s master’s throat. The link between the two acts lien in the strong hatred generated in Balram’s mind. His ability to reach the top of the fort is suggestive of his fearlessness that he gradually gained.

A witty remark combining of Adiga’s uses of Irony, the essence of his narrative art. The area that is referred to as Darkness was the very place where the great enlightenment took place.

The entire novel is full of such witty remarks which fill the roader’s mind with a kind of joyfully submissive energy.

          When the entire narrative is constructed on a driver’s observation of facts, one may not expect a tight plot. Adiga is aware of the looseness of the plot and makes his protagonist confess that he cannot explain how the events described by him are connected to one another.

Comparing human mind to the entrails inside a car, Adiga suggests a mechanical approach to life according to which there is no conscious choice of an individual, because an individual is completely controlled by circumstances.

Use of rhetoric enriches his narrative style and also becomes a weapon of satire. Comparing the drudge of the poor to the condition of the brightly colored cages. Stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. The protagonist says, “The greatest thing to come out of this country in the ten thousand years to its history is the Rooster Coop”. The comparison is further elaborated: “hundreds of pale hens.. Packed as tightly as warms in a belly, peaking each other and shitting on each other. Jostling just for breathing space: the whole care off a horrible stench the stench of verified, feathered flesh. The very same thing is done with human beings in this country”. It is because the common Indians are in the Rooster Coop, the protagonist emphasizes, and they cannot by going against the existing rules.

Adiga’s capacity to make the story interesting, even when it is the story of a pervert. Attracts the reader’s attention, he keeps up the suspense till the end of the book, as he follows some tricks used in a thriller. The revelation in the beginning of the novel that the protagonist murdered his master is one such trick, the readers are eager to know how that murder was committed and in which condition. The narrator rouses the reader’s anxiety as he goes on narrating apparently insignificant but interesting event, alluring the readers to be entangled in the story of murder.

In fact, Adige did not try a conventional novel with a tight plot and well drawn characters. Rather he chose to come close to the postmodernist narrative technique.

In his essay “postmodernist” narratives depend on the voice , a voice that is ‘panting’, ranting, and corrangling on in a space and time that it seems to be making a as it goes along, so that what ever we see in to see of the sconces it revokes is and emotion of this voice and liable at any moment to revocation “ .

The description of Balram’s voice “The white tiger interesting despite its harsh criticism of contemporarily life, thanks to the witty remarks that are scattered through the novel. The narrator’s voice, bold and   funny, spares no country or race, be it white, black or yellow.

The entire book is filled with such witty remarks full of satire and black humor, with which Adiga portrait a real picture of correlation and poverty in India while pointing at the failure of democracy in India. We doses not forget to comment that China has no democracy having revolt all the dark side of the village of Laxmangadh. He continues to call it a paradise and even sookes to comport it with a Chinese village.

Impact Of  Cinema on Society

Cinema is a creative expression. It Performa the tractions of mass media, such as information, education, films are widely popular and their audit visual nature provides them a pervasive power for social influence. Therefore, they have the potential to play an important role as a medium of entertainment, information and education and as a catalyst for social change.

Almost every person of the society has participated in the activity of going to cinema hall and enjoying a film. According to Jovett and Linton,

“Obviously there is still something unique and inherently appealing about going to the movies.”

The social institution of movie going is firmly established in our society and movies have played in an important part as one of the factors contributing to the dramatic changes which have taken place in he last so years in the way we live and also in how we perceive the world us not only with entertainment, but also with ideas, and it would be difficult to conceive of our society without them.

 Films have psychological impact on people. The extent of reality that can be presented through films is far greatening than television or any other medium. Their language is universal and this helps in breaking any social or cultural barriers.

Each genre of film is capable of creating impact on the masses. For example, comedy and hilarious movies entertain people and relax them. Social or tragic movies provide outset to the emotions of the viewers.

Types of Films:

When are talks of cinema there are two major forms, generally known by people.

1) Commercial Cinema:

It primarily aims at providing entertainment to the people. It includes the ingredients of popular cinema star system, high budget, abundance of music, song and dance. It mostly repots to phantasm to provide entertainment to people for example, films like vaqt, Sholay, Muqhdar ka sikkandar. Hum apke hain kaun, are a few examples of such films.

2) Art Cinema:

It is more realistic and relevant to the needs of the people and society. This form is not very popular. It is also called ‘parallel cinema’. Alternative cinema’ or ‘new wave cinema’. These new trend films are male at law cost. Outside the main stream of commercial cinema.

In the last fifty years, cinema has become not only a serious art form nut a field of study by itself. Continuous advantage/ Advancement in film take viewer to the world outside his day-to-day world providing entertainment. This has made cinema a popular medium of masses.

Indian educationists and sociologists have shown a surprising lack of interest in the film as an educational force and a social challenge. Hardly any academic, systematic, scientific, studies have been undertaken on the social and psychological impact of the films in India.

Films have a hypnotic influence on most children and heroines. They indulge in day dreaming and fantasy and when it increases. Children become unable to accept the hard realities of life. Apart from these, films create fear, terror, sorrow and pathos, love and passion, thrill, excitement and stimulation people suffer from have over after watching a film. Thus, films have a dynamic influence on people which ultimately, affects the society as a whole.

Most films implicitly subscribe to the view that the highest goals in life are power, money, luxury, public adulation and one can use any means to achieve these goal. Thus, most of the films glorify false patterns of life.

There have been fear studies on effects of violence and sex in specific films on children and youth. When we want to know the impact of films: one has to look at had stories of cinema attest the actual life of the people.

The main reasons for going to see films have been to learn about the world of ides and things, to forget and get away to escape, to pass time, to relive boredom, to impress others.

Having seen a film saves as it shows that an integration as it the mainstream cultural activities of his reference group. Having seen film in first week of its release is a minor form of prestige. People tend to use scenes from films as analogies to real life situations, or use dialogue from movies as a common means of expression understood by all.

Films as mass media continue to play an important role in our society. Despite television many people today go to the theater to see the films to enjoy the photography and music and sound effects, whenever they leisure time.

Many foreign films are also being shown in theatres as well as a television. Many feel that these films pose a threat to our austral identity. These films help people to know the culture, values, people at the would. As a result they are able to select their value system with more wisdom and maturity because cultural ripeness also contributes to the development of mind.

The films affected television also. the film directors and producers turned to television to produce either mythological like Mahabharata and Ramayana or soap operas like Buniyaad, Rajini, Nukkad and Swabhimaan. Telefilma, were also produced such as ‘Janam’and ‘Phir Teri Kahani Yad Aye’etd. In Indian cinema the awerness of social relevance was very much there till recently.  

Violence in Films:

Most of the films Enders social evils like Dowry, bigamy, role stereotypes, pragmatism and domination of anti social elements and so on. Films being powerful and popular medium having, strong reality dimension in its presentation encourages adolescents and youth in resorting to crime, violence and taking law into one’s own hands.

Woman is being more and more prostrated as sex objects in the films. They are used to include the elements of vulgarity in films by making them to suggestive gestures and udity and to entertain the audience with cheap, vulgar dances and songs. Their costumes or dresses are shown vulgarly in the name of modernity.

Advantages of Cinema:

The emotional impact left by films helps in shopping personal and social attitudes. They presto the situation in a dramatize recreation form which brings reality also and assures the involvement of the velar and leaves emotional impact.