BEGC-133 British Literature Text Book

BEGC-133 British Literature Text book

Block-1 Shakespeare Macbeth

UNIT 1
MACBETH: AN INTRODUCTION

UNIT 2
MACBETH: PART-I

UNIT 3
MACBETH: PART-II

UNIT 4
MACBETH: CRITICAL RESPO

INTRODUCTION

Block 1: Shakespeare: Macbeth

Without doubt, Shakespeare enjoys a unique place in not just English literature but also in world literature.
In this block, you have the opportunity to study one of the greatest plays of Shakespeare. There are a large
number of issues that crop up in Macbeth. It is a political play raising issues of governance, harmony in
the state and society, human emotions of sympathy and loyalty, and the resolution of problems peacefully.
There is also an interplay here of positive and negative emotions. The block presents the picture of this
play in clear terms and takes up stances and attitudes of characters for comment. The subtle ways of
statecraft are laid bare with the help of elaboration of stands that different characters adopt. As in
Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus, so in Macbeth we are face to face with a villain hero. The question
raised here is whether we should sympathize with Macbeth or reject him as the devil in human form. The
units in the block link up the play with its context at two levels, as based in the Scottish background and
as reflective of the Elizabethan-Jacobean political scene. The block also goes into the aspect of human sympathy that is built upon the sufferings of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The view of the witches and of the power game being played by other lobbies in the plays lends subtlety to the discussion.

UNIT 1 MACBETH: AN INTRODUCTION

Structure

1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Elizabethan World
1.3 Humanist Thought
1.4 Machiavelli’s The Prince and James’s Basilikon Doron
1.5 Drama in the Renaissance World
1.5.1 Stage in the Elizabethan Period
1.5.2 The Globe Theatre
1.6 Drama and Censorship in Elizabethan England
1.7 Date of the Play
1.8 Sources of Macbeth
1.9 Let Us Sum Up
1.10 Glossary
1.11 Questions
1.12 Suggested Readings

1.0 OBJECTIVES

This unit will acquaint you with the England of Shakespeare’s time. It will help you understand the social
setting of the period as well as the changes that set in from the reign of Elizabeth. It will also introduce you to Machiavelli’s thought. The chapter will also trace briefly the evolution of the stage in Shakespeare’s time to help you visualise the experience of theatre-going in those days. This will be followed by a discussion of the historical sources used by Shakespeare for Macbeth and the possible dateof the play. There will also be a discussion of the idea of humanism and its relation to the world of Shakespeare’s plays.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

This unit goes into the aspects of thought and perspective that shaped Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In our
view nothing traditional helped to make sense of whatever was happening in the field of English drama in the closing years of the sixteenth century. Instances coming to mind are the humanist thought and Machiavelli giving version of conceptualising the new scenario. Secondly, within drama, experimentation and innovation were resorted to, for capturing the unfolding trend. Stage in the Elizabethan period and sources of the play Macbeth are other crucial areas covered in this unit.

1.2 THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD

Renaissance literally means a re-birth or awakening. It was a rebirth of Classical Greek and Latin literature. It began in the latter half of the sixteenth century and continued into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It has been divided into early, middle-high and late Renaissance (Cuddon 739). The sixteenth century, or the period of high renaissance was rife with changes that led to a re-orientation of the relation between man and the world he inhabited. The renaissance period was marked by a relook at the classics and this helped writers posit a new idea of man who was at the centre of the scheme of things. As the ideas of the renaissance spread to different parts of the world writers responded creatively through various mediums to interpret the position of man in the cosmos. Development in scientific ideas, a shift from the Ptolemaic idea of the universe to that of Copernicus brought in modern view things. Copernicus was to prove that the earth was not the centre of the universe, but it was the sun 1+and t2he former was only a planet revolving around the latter. This shift was not merely astronomical and had an impact on the way in which man was perceived in the universe. The idea of man at the centre of things was effectively deflected. He was to be seen as part of a kind of organic unity in the universe. The displacement of the earth, meant that the social groups that were at the centre of things could also be displaced. Coupled with the wisdom of the classics a new phase set in and formed the backdrop to the Elizabethan period.

This was a time of major changes. The authority of the church stood challenged in the protest by King Henry VIII. He wanted to divorce his wife Catharine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. At the outset
divorce appeared to be the issue, otherwise not permitted under Catholicism. But at a deeper level this was about consolidating the authority of the monarch and challenging that of the Pope of Rome and the Church. This led to what is known as the period of Reformation and the establishment of Protestant faith.
It was followed by a move to restore the powers of the church through Counter-Reformation. But the split
in the church had been effected and Protestantism had been established. As Elizabeth came to power she had to contend with dissatisfaction amongst the Catholics and had to struggle to establish her sovereignty.

Under Elizabeth, England moved towards various levels of social mobility. At the level of religion, the Anglican settlement tried to create peace amongst the religious factions. Through the settlement she managed to keep the Protestant spirit alive. In the economic sphere, England was gradually transforming itself into a world of mercantile capital. In the world of kings and queens and the nobility, the traders and merchants also gained both mobility and power in the form of money. This is the world to which Shakespeare belonged. According to Boris Ford:

Though most of Elizabeth’s five-million subjects were country dwellers, their prosperity depended on foreign trade; and all the main events of the reign were connected with the rise of merchant capital—the long duel with Spain, ranging from Ireland to the Indies; the raids on Spanish treasure; the sudden expansion of English trade to touch all four of the known continents. (Ford, Boris, ed. Age of
Shakespeare: A Guide to English Literature. Volume 2. London: Cassell, 1955.17)

The feudal world of England was churning. It was not as if it had transformed itself into a kind of
capitalist economy. But one can see the presence in the feudal world of new forces that were gradually gaining power, especially in the wake of travel and trade in other countries. A nobility that was gradually becoming economically weak also meant that other social groups especially the ones who were trading would gain power. The consolidation of power by Elizabeth could be seen in works of literature. Sidney’sArcadia (1580) and Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590) evidence the power wielded by the queen. The defeat of the Spanish forces with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 further helped Elizabeth consolidate her reign. But the influx of renaissance ideals, the displacement of earth from the centre and the renewed interest in man meant that these ideas would no longer be accepted unquestioningly. Coupled with the economic changes in society there was a new ferment brewing in sixteenth century England. Thegentry remained connected to the court even as it started pursuing its own monetary interests. By the end of the sixteenth century they were much better placed and tried to buy estates and be on a par with the nobility.

As Robert Weiman points out,

It was an age of social compromise and economic confusion which yet achieved, politically, a temporary stability and a cultural balance distinctly its own. In the sphere of economics,
traditional forms of trade and agriculture existed side by side with the newly emerging modes of
capitalist enterprise, and an unprecedented and often conflicting number of heterogeneous developments and activities resulted. The growth of the market, first for commodities, then for
land and labour and finally for money, the development of an extensive cloth industry serving overseas export markets (which accelerated enclosures), the extraordinary influx of gold and silver, and the remarkable rise in prices—these and their concomitant factors had proved powerful dissolvents of the traditional economy. (Kettle, Arnold. Shakespeare in a Changing World: Essays on His times and His Plays. New York: International Publishers, 1964. 20)

In short you can see that the period of Elizabeth’s reign was relatively stable and yet rife with changes at
the level of both social and economic structure. The amorphous social group that was gaining gradual ascendancy was that of the merchants and traders. At the same time the conception of man in society and its representation in literature underwent change. In a more scientific environment, the individual man came to the centre of things.

1.3 HUMANIST THOUGHT

One of the chief ideas that the renaissance brought in was that of a humanistic ideal. From an earlier time when man’s relationship with god was a subject of artistic and literary depiction, the renaissance with its scientific thrust looked at man in his own world, rather than one that was not seen. Humanism explored man in terms of its relationships with the people around. As Arnold Kettle explains:

The humanist tradition cannot be described as though it were a set of unchanging ideas, much less a revealed philosophy. It implies, rather, an evolving outlook which has developed with man’s increasing knowledge and control of the world he lives in and hence of his own destinies…Humanism in the very nature of things can only be seen and understood in terms of actual human experience and history. (Kettle 11)

Humanism can therefore be looked at as a movement that restored to man the dignity of existence. Manwas to be seen, observed and looked at in terms of his relationships with other beings. The idea of mancontrolling his own destiny becomes sharply felt. Shakespeare too partook of these ideas as he belongedto this world of the late sixteenth century infused with socio-economic changes and humanist ideals. AsV.G. Kiernan states, “Shakespeare was in search of fresh and living, instead of fossilized, connections.
His quest was part of the all-round emancipation of the individual that was unfolding” (Kettle 50).
Towards the latter part of the sixteenth century the individual came at the centre of things.

Whereas Elizabeth’s rule was a period of stability, it was not without its rebellious forces. Two very famous incidents from this period were the Northern rebellion of 1569 and the Essex rebellion of 1601. In the former, the Catholics felt side-lined in the court and rebelled against Elizabeth favouring Mary Queen of Scots. The Elizabethan Settlement suggested a median between the different faiths but was not
acceptable to all. This was followed by other plots to remove Elizabeth. But the next significant uprising was from within the court by the Earl of Essex. The Essex Rebellion was led by the Earl of Essex, Sir
Robert Devereux in 1601. After his failure to curb the Irish rebellion he returned and was spurned by Elizabeth. Interestingly, A.L. Morton explains the chief cause of the rebellion of the Earl of Essex differently. The Queen had given him the “monopoly” for the sale of “sweet wine” for ten years. But her
refusal to renew it created discontent in him. One of the reasons for this was the rise of a group of people who resisted such monopolization in trade and put forth their own interests (Morton 178). In any case, the“rebel” was a figure who had no position and sanction according to religious discourse. In a Churchhomily the figure of the rebel is explained thus:

Thus you see that all God’s laws are by rebels violated and broken, and that all sins possible to be committed against God or man be contained in rebellion: which sins, if a man list to name by the accustomed names of the seven capital or deadly sins, as pride, envy, wrath, covetousness, sloth,
gluttony, and lechery, he shall find them all in rebellion, and amongst rebels. (Abrams, M.H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century The Early Seventeenth Century. New York and London: Norton, 2000. 558)

It is therefore no surprise that in 1585, in the light of various attempts on Elizabeth’s life, “An Order of
Prayer and Thanksgiving for the Preservation of the Queen’s Majesty’s Life and Safety” was read in the Church of England. It stated, when “a traitorous subject…lay violent hands upon her royal person and to have murdered her. But still the blessed eye of Thy blessed providence did either prevent him by some sudden interruption of his endeavour or, by the majesty of her person and princely behaviour towards him,
didst strike him so abashed that he could not perform his conceived bloody purpose” (Stump 343).
Through this prayer, the Queen’s position is divinely ordained and all rebellion is qualified as evil and as a result quelled in this war between good and evil.

1.4 MACHIAVELLI’S THE PRINCE AND JAMES’S BASILIKON DORON

Nicollo Machiavelli’s The Prince (1513) focussed on a new discourse of politicking and its working in the state. In it, one can mark the advent of the “usurper,” a shift from the king as divinely ordained.
Machiavelli raises the question of how a ruler must preserve his power; whether the ruler must employ cruelty to preserve his power or not. Further, should the ruler be feared or loved. The answers to these questions make us aware of the changes setting in the Renaissance period in Italy and its impact in England. Take a look at Machiavelli’s writing in The Prince:

Hence we may learn the lesson that on seizing a state, the usurper should make haste to inflict what
injuries he must, at a stroke, that he may not have to renew them daily, but be enabled by their
discontinuance to reassure men’s minds, and afterwards win them over by benefits. Whosoever, either
through timidity or from following bad counsels, adopts a contrary course, must keep the sword always drawn, and can put no trust in his subjects, who suffering from continued and constantly renewed severities, will never yield him their confidence. (Machiavelli, Nicollo. The Prince (1513),
Harvard Classics collection. New York: Collier, 1910.33-34)

The Renaissance began in Italy and its focus on the individual in society at the centre of things has interesting manifestations. The idea of individual dignity works in different ways. In the context of theidea of Kingship, mark the attention given to the “usurper”. The divine sanctity of the king is challenged by the usurper. Machiavelli, in his treatise, suggests both the method of operation and the sustenance of
rule for the usurper. In the context of England, under the veneer of the divinely elected monarch, one canalso sense a challenge to it in the form of contesting claims and political unrest. Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Richard II is an example of these changes in the relation between the monarch and the society. In fact to the question of whether the monarch must be “feared or loved” Machiavelli explains:

And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather
than love. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear
can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.
(57-58)

In contrast to a work like Machiavelli’s The Prince is King James’ Basilikon Doron (1599). It too delves into ideas about the monarch, ‘good’ governance and his relationship to his subjects. The title is a “Greekphrase translated as ‘kingly gift’.” (Nostbakken, Faith. Understanding Macbeth: A Student Casebook toIssues, Sources and Historical Documents. London: The Greenwood P, 1997. 45). In it King Jamesexplains the difference between the “good king and a usurping tyrant.” Where the former is answerable to God and is “ordained for his people.” The latter considers “his people to be ordained for him.” Honour for
the good king meant a “due discharge of his calling.” But for the tyrant it rested in a realisation of his“ ambitious pretences.” This was of course in contrast to Machiavelli’s ideas. But what is more important
to understand is the fact that the idea of a monarch and a ‘good’ monarch was a contested one. This meant
that change was setting in, in the way issues related to monarchy were perceived by the people. The seventeenth century with the execution of Charles I and the establishment of Cromwellian republic is an example of the same. Shakespeare’s Macbeth written and performed at the beginning of the seventeenth century carries within it the seed of this unrest.

1.5 DRAMA IN THE RENAISSANCE WORLD

1.5.1 Stage in the Elizabethan Period

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Illustration-4

Theatre in England evolved significantly in the sixteenth century. Entertainment space in this period took the form of acrobatics and bear-baiting rings, from there it went to the round stage used by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Watching bulls fighting, dogs baiting a bear, performances of acrobats and actors,
all, took place and the one in inn yards and other informal structures. (See Illustrations 1, 2 and 3). Such aspectacle tells us how the audience stood close at hand and watched the performers. This interaction was direct, exciting and engaging. The people of Elizabethan England would visit the bear baiting rings and watch these shows with real blood and gore. This was a popular form of sport for the people. It is interesting to mark that the people also went to watch public executions. The structure of the inn yardswas quite close to what we see in terms of the later stage developments. As Frye states:

Certainly, some of his early theatrical experience would have been with courtyards of inns, where the actors would set up their stage at one end and play to an audience collected on the yard and on the balconies. The permanent theatre buildings erected around Elizabethan London after 1576 preserved much of the feeling of these innyards, by their placing of stage, yard and galleries. (Frye No. 19). Playswere also performed at the Inns of Courts. These were “a combination of law schools, professional
societies and gentlemen’s clubs” (no. 39 Frye, Roland Mushat. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. London:
Faber & Faber, 1967).

Theatre in the Elizabethan period hinged on providing entertainment and a close interaction with the audience. The structure of the inn yard when transformed to the formal stage of Shakespeare’s time made space for the gentry and nobility as it did for the commoners who stood in the pit. Shakespeare’s formal
theatrical association was with Lord Chamberlain’s Company. It was patronised by Henry Carey, The Lord Chamberlain, hence the name. The theatre was owned by a group of people and this included Shakespeare. Theatre was a popular form of entertainment and it also had a commercial side to it. The association of money with the world of theatre was important. There were tickets to be bought and sold,
people invested in the theatre and also made profits. In this way theatres were rooted in the everyday life.

1.5.2 The Globe theatre

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Illustration-7

 

There were many theatres during the period. For instance one of the oldest was Red Lion theatre. Then there was the Theatre, Rose Theatre and Swan Theatre. In 1599 The Globe Theatre was built by Shakespeare and others. It continued till 1613 when it was burnt down. Based on the sketch of the Swan Theatre by the Dutch, Johannes de Witt, we get to know the structure of the stage in that period. The Swan Theatre could accommodate 3000 people. The stage space was surrounded by three tiers of galleries.
To sit there one would have to pay extra money. The space in front of the stage was referred to as the pit
and had the cheapest tickets. The “groundlings” could stand and watch the play for a nominal amount.
There was no roof over that space and they had to brave weather conditions. But the people in the galleries had to pay more and were protected due to the roof. The gallery also had rooms for private viewing called the tarras. As we know from the sketch of the Swan theatre, there was a part of the stage that extended into the audience space. This was called the apron stage. A part of this was covered. It
provided protection to the actors from the weather and also space to designate parts such as the heaven or
even keep some kind of equipment required in the play. There was a trapdoor to indicate hell. (SeeIllustrations 5 and 6)

The two main groups of performing companies were the Admiral’s Men and Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
The former performed in the Rose and the latter in the Theatre. These were located in the areas that also housed the brothels. Later the Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed in the Globe theatre. As King James I
came to power as the King of England, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men became the official group and were henceforth called King’s Men. The private theatres such as the Blackfriars theatre was bought by Shakespeare and other partners in 1608. It catered to the elite and could seat only about 200-300 people.
(See Illustration 7). It is interesting to therefore mark the use of the theatrical space for a presentation and discussion of issues related to the ways of the world of kings and nobility. The intervention in these spaces by the actors said a lot about the kind of change and unrest setting in society.

1.6 DRAMA AND CENSORSHIP IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

Illustration-8

Theatre, an act of performance has always been seen as a threatening force in society. In the context of
Elizabethan England the relation between performance of plays and the monarchy was complex. On the one hand watching plays was a popular pastime for the ordinary people. On the other hand the plays made references to the existing structures of power. This was noted by the monarchy. For instance the immense popularity of Richard II disturbed Queen Elizabeth. As William Lambarde records in “His Notes of a Conversation with Queen Elizabeth I about Richard II:

Her Majestie fell upon the reign of King Richard II, saying, “I am Richard II. Know ye not that?…Hethat will forget God, will also forget his benefactor; this tragedy was played 40 times in open street sand houses. (McDonald, Russ. Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents. Boston: Bedford Books, 1996. 178)

The manifold ways in which theatre and society existed become clear. The gaze of censors was being directed towards the world of theatre and performance. For instance, the day before the uprising by the Earl of Essex a performance of Richard II was presented. Also as McDonald points out, “Richard II, for
example, was originally printed, almost certainly for political reasons, without the section in act 4, scene 1in which the king is actually deposed” (55). Numerous Acts and statutes were passed to control the kind of plays that were put up.

Spatially, the theatres were located outside the city in the space called the “liberties”. By their spatial
dislocation from mainstream society, it became a space that contested the structures of power. Amongst
many such Acts was that of the Act of Common Council for the Regulation Of Theatrical performances in London (December 6, 1574):

. . . for the safety and well ordering of the people there assembled, be it enacted by the authority of the Common Council that from henceforth, no play, comedy, tragedy, interlude nor public show shall be openly played or showed openly within the Liberties of the City wherein shall be uttered any words,
examples, or doings of any unchastity, sedition nor such like unfit and uncomely matter upon pain of
imprisonment by the space of fourteen days of all persons offending in any such open playing or
showings, and five pounds for every such offense. (Pollard, Tanya. ed. Shakespeare’s Theatre: A Sourcebook. USA: Blackwell, 2004. 306)

The church represented a powerful space that framed the rules on which society rested and the theatre became an alternative space to contest those normative ideas. In 1597 the Privy Council passed an order
against the “disorders” committed in the playhouses, the decree being that no play shall be performed in London city and the playhouses too shall be brought down. Clearly there was a tussle between play housesand the authorities.

In this milieu there was an active discussion on theatrical performances. What then was the role and function of theatre in society? A staunch critic of theatre, Stephen Gosson wrote The Schoole of Abuse(1579). Gosson considered theatre to be immoral in its import and exhorted:

This have I set down of the abuses of poets, pipers, and players, which bring us to pleasure, sloth,
sleep, sin, and without repentance to death and the devil…Let us but shut up our ears to poets, pipersand player; pull our feet back from resort to theaters, and turn away our eyes from beholding of vanity;
the greatest storm of abuse will be overblown, and a fair path trodden to amendment of life. (Pollard28)

Gosson suggested a movement away from theatre. Philip Stubbes in Anatomy of Abuses (1583) saw theperformer as the devil’s partner. He was uncomfortable with the presentation of the bawdy in plays,
especially the use of abuses. John Rainolds in The Overthrow of Stage-Plays (1599) condemned the performance of female roles by men. Henry Crosse in Virtue’s Commonwealth (1603) understood plays tobe “scandalous and scurrilous”. The experience of performing and watching plays was subversive at
many levels. Apart from the use of the bawdy, the performance of women’s roles by men disturbed certain critics as this challenged gender roles and was also seen as women’s association with the bawdy.
Men cross-dressed as women and performed in ways seen as flouting the norms of social behavior. The fact that these were being watched by women themselves upset the social fabric and its guidelines of prescriptive behaviour for women.

However watching plays had struck a chord with people in a manner that was not easy to separate. Hence,
there were others like Thomas Lodge who wrote A Reply to Stephen Gosson’s School of Abuse, inDefence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays (1579) as a response to Gosson’s virulent attack on theatres:

First therefore, if it be not tedious to Gosson to hearken to the learned, the reader shall perceive the antiquity of playmaking, the inventors of comedies, and there with all the use and commodity of them.
So that in the end I hope my labor shall be liked, and the learned will sooner conceive his folly.
(Pollard 51)

Thomas Heywood’s An Apology for Actors (1611) looked at “playing as an ornament of the city.” Theseconflicting views indicate that one of the most popular forms of entertainment, rooted in society was seen by many as subversive. The debates and arguments around it continued. The Puritan influence and a conservativeness that sought to hold this free flow of ideas culminated in the shutting down of theatres in1642.

Playwriting and watching disturbed the monarchy and this led to the passing of Acts and Decrees that
tried to control and censor plays. The actor for all his commercial profit-making was equated with vagabonds. In 1572, the Act For The Punishment Of Vagabonds, And For The Relief Of The Poor And Impotent was passed and brought back in 1604. The Act stated that “fencers, bear-wards, common players of interludes, and minstrels wandering abroad” were to be “adjudged, and deemed as rogues, and vagabonds” and punished accordingly. In another act, An Act To Restrain Abuses Of Players, (1606)
stated that if any person committed profanity against God or his name he shall have to pay ten pounds for
every such offense.

Theatres were also the first to be shut down due to the repeated onset of plague in England. John Stow in Survey of London records that “between December 1592 and the following December, 11,000 people in London out of approximately 200,000 died owing to the plague” (Baker, William. William Shakespeare. London: Continuum, 2009. 15). Peter Thomson too points out in “Playhouses and Players in the time of
Shakespeare” that, “It became an established custom to order the closing of the London theatres when registered deaths reached forty in any one week.” Germaine Greer too corroborates this idea:

The playhouses were known to be unhealthy places, which is why they were the first institutions to be closed down in times of plague; they were also the only places where also the denizens of London,
from the meanest pickpocket to the grandest functionary, could foregather and experience their
membership of a community. Even the largest churches did not afford the same spectacular
possibilities, for the pulpit was raised above the congregation who stood all on one plane. In the theatre the audience could see itself as a tapestry of faces, surging below in the pit and rising on the tiers around the wooden walls, with the actor on his promontory, the projecting stage, at their mercy.
(Greer, Germaine. Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford, 1986. 24)

Theatres, play-going and performance was central to Elizabethan life. Watching a performance was asocial act binding the people and the world of stage in complex ways. An intermingling of different social
groups, of men and women had a bearing on the plays written, performed and discussed.

1.7 DATE OF THE PLAY

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is believed to have been written around 1606. This was the period after
the accession of King James I to the English throne. He was King James VI of Scotland and became the first Scottish king to become the monarch of England. His rise was not without opposition and as a result
rebellion against the king followed. One such opposition was the failed rebellion of the Gunpowder Plot.
This plot points towards the murky aspects that surrounded monarchy in those days. Macbeth captures the tensions and contradictions that belong to the Jacobean age.

Though there is no clear evidence regarding the dating of the play, scholars pitch for a date between 1599and 1606. This is based on William Warner’s poem A Continuance of Albion’s England (1586) that
mentions Makbeth as:

One Makebeth, who had traitorously his sometimes Souereigne slaine,
And like a Monster not a Man vsurpt in Scotland raigne

Some years later, in 1605 a Latin playlet, Dr. Gwin’s Tres Sibyllae was written and performed for KingJames in Oxford on August 27, 1605. The title translated as “Three Sibyls” praised the King andrecognised his royal connection to Banquo and established him as King of England and Scotland(Nostbakken 29).The greetings of the three sibyls to King James in Tres Sibyllae are as follows: “Hail
thou who rulest Scotland/Hail thou who rulest England/Hail thou who rulest Ireland/Hail thou to whom France gives titles whilst the others give lands/Hail thou whom Britain, now united though formerlydivided, cherishes/Hail thou supreme British, Irish, Gallic Monarch” (Nostbakken, Faith. Understanding Macbeth: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources and Historical Documents. London: The Greenwood P,
1997. 30). These are echoed in the witches’ predictions to Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play.

The performance of the play was confirmed in an eye-witness account, by the English astrologist SimonForman of the play’s public performance. Forman records in Book of Plaies how the play was performedon April 20, 1611 at the Globe. He states:

In Mackbeth at the Glob, 1610, the 20 of April [Sat], there was to be obserued, firste, how Mackbethand Bancko, 2 noble men of Scotland, Ridinge thorowe a wood, the[r] stoode before them 3 womenfeiries or Nimphes, And saluted Mackbeth, saying 3 tyms vnto him, haille Mackbeth, King of Codon;
(Bloom, Harold. Ed. Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages: Macbeth. New York, Infobase P, 2008.
44)

Forman’s record of the play is primarily a summary and it differs from the Folio account of the play in1623. But it pins the play to a plausible date.

Keeping in mind Warner’s poem and Forman’s account of the performance most take 1606 to be the year
in which it was written. There is evidence that the play was also performed at the King’s court. AsNostbakken states, “The Scottish historical setting, the Banquo legend, the inclusion of witches, and the debate about kinship all reflect personal interests of King James, indicating that Shakespeare may have had a court performance in mind” (121).

1.8 SOURCES OF MACBETH

This section will provide a brief overview of the source texts used by Shakespeare for Macbeth. A brief
look at different historical accounts that find reference in the play provides a layered complexity to the play. It functions dialectically with texts that suggest a formative base to the Shakespearean text. These interact with other documents and texts of the world of the play. We also read it in the twenty-first
century context and the stance creates another level of interpretation interacting both with the formative texts and the play, text.

Amongst the possible sources, it is believed that Macbeth is based on Raphael Holinshed’s The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1587). Other historical documents that work their way into the play are John Major’s A History of Greater Britain (1521) and George Buchanan’s History of
Scotland (1582). (See Illustration-9). Most researchers have pointed out that Shakespeare relied primarilyon Holinshed’s Chronicles but that he was possibly aware of other historical accounts too. We can,
therefore, state that the primary source of Macbeth was Holinshed’s Chronicles.

Illustration-9

Historically, Macbeth was the eighty-fifth king of Scotland who ruled from 1040 to 1057 C.E. He killed his predecessor, King Duncan and was succeeded by the latter’s son, Malcolm III. In the sixteenth century,
the ascent of the Scottish king to the English throne prompted interest in the dynamic between the two nations. The reconstruction of Macbeth in historical documents places him at the cross-section of the cultural and political history of the two countries as they are conjoined in the rule of King James I. Let us examine the depiction of Macbeth in the possible sources chronologically. John Major’s historical
account of “Greater Britain”, presents Macbeth as follows:

This Duncan was secretly put to death by the faction which had till then been in opposition. He was mortally wounded by one Macbeth at Lochgowane, and was then carried to Elgin, where hedied…Machabeus, or Macbeth as some speak it, when Duncan had been thus betrayed to his end,
assumed the sceptre of sovereignty, usurper fashion, to himself, and would have pursued the sons of
dead Duncan to their destruction. (Carroll, William C. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. New York:
Bedfor/St. Martin’s, 1999.126)

The above extract from Major’s A History of Greater Britain (1521) draws attention to two antagonisticfactions. One is of Duncan, or ruler by inheritance and the other is Macbeth or the usurper. Is monarchy amatter of inheritance or can the king be displaced by deception and murder? The “usurper” as new king is certainly Machiavellian and necessitates interpretation. Interestingly, Major’s History makes no mention of either Lady Macbeth or the witches.

George Buchanan’s History of Scotland (1582), describes Macbeth as a man of “sharp wit, and of a very lofty spirit; and, if moderation had accompanied it, he had been worthy of a command, though an eminent
one” (Carroll, William C. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. New York: Bedfor/St. Martin’s, 1999. 128). He is presented as brave and one capable of dealing with rebels in a manner that is called “severe”—“But, in punishing offenders, he was so severe, that having no respect to the laws, he seemed soon likely to degenerate into cruelty” (128). His severity is evidenced by his cutting off of Macduald’s head. However,
Duncan is seen by Macbeth as the slothful cousin. Macbeth meets the witches in a dream. They salute him as Thane of Angus, Thane of Murray and finally king of Scotland. He is also “spurred on” by his wife who “was privy to all his counsels” (130). Buchanan’s account mentions seventeen years of Macbeth’srule in which ten years were peaceful as he punished the “free-booters or thieves, who had taken courage from the lenity of Duncan…The public peace being thus restored, he applied his mind to make laws”(Carroll 131). However, as his kingly ascent was “obtained by violence” he became insecure and his anxieties egg him on to greater violence as he kills Banquo. He is succeeded by Malcolm III as the eighty sixth king.

The primary source of Macbeth was Holinshed’s Chronicles that relied on John Bellenden’s Scottish translation of Hector Boece’s Latin history. Holinshed’s Chronicles presents Duncan and Macbeth as born to the two daughters of Malcolm; Duncan to Beatrice and Macbeth to Doada. The Chronicles describes Macbeth as a “valiant gentleman, and one that if he had not been somewhat cruel of nature,
might have been thought most worthy the government of a realm” (Carroll, William C. Macbeth: Textsand Contexts. New York: Bedfor/St. Martin’s, 1999. 135). On the other hand Duncan has been described as of a very mild temperament, “soft and gentle of nature”. Close to Buchanan’s account that mentions the ten years of Macbeth’s rule is Holinshed’s that describes Duncan’s reign as “quiet and peaceable,
without any notable trouble; but after it was perceived how negligent he was in punishing offenders,
many misruled persons took occasion thereof to trouble the peace and quiet state of the commonwealth,
by seditious commotions which first had their beginning in this wise” (Carroll 135). This is reversed when Macbeth becomes King as he, “set his whole intention to maintain justice, and to punish all
enormities and abuses” (Carroll 144). He is described as the “sure defense and buckler” of the innocent
people. Holinshed accounts ten peaceful years of a reign of seventeen years as the latter part of Macbeth’srule is a period of violence and anarchy. This difference in the governance of the two kings or the period of Macbeth’s rule is glossed over by Shakespeare.

In Holinshed’s version (as also in Buchanan), the Stuart line descends from Banquo in keeping with the witches’ prediction. Macdonwald is the rebel who managed to persuade people to join him. From Irelandcame the “kerns and gallowglasses” in the hope of spoil (Carroll 137). Macbeth’s fight against
Macdonwald is a kind of rebellion itself. He contradicts Duncan, accusing him of “slackness” and demands that he and Banquo be allowed to fight Macdonwald. However, unlike the play in whichMacbeth ‘unseams’ the enemy from the navel to the chops, in the Chronicles, Macdonwald first kills his wife and children and then himself; his head is sent to Duncan and the body is then put up on the stavesby Macbeth—“Macbeth entering into the castle by the gates, as then set open, found the carcass of
Macdonwald lying dead there amongst the residue of the slain bodies, which when he beheld, remittingno piece of his cruel nature with that pitiful sight, he caused the head to be cut-off, and set upon a pole’send, and so sent it as a present to the King who as then lay at Bertha” (Carroll 137). Meanwhile, in the fight against the Danes, Duncan was losing face. The Scots mixed the juice of mekilwoort berries with poison and sent it with victuals to the enemy; after this Macbeth and Banquo killed them all. In this historical version Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches—“It fortuned as Macbeth and Banquojourneyed towards Forres, where the King then lay…when suddenly in the midst of a laund, there met
them three women in strange and wild apparel, resembling creatures of elder world…” One by one, theyrefer to him as “Thane of Glammis”, “Thane of Cawdor” and finally “King of Scotland” (142). Whenasked by Banquo they reveal his fate as better because Macbeth “shall reign in deed, but with an unluckyend; neither shall he leave any issue behind…” (Carroll 142). There is also mention of Lady Macbeth asone who was “ambitious, burning in unquenchable desire to bear the name of a queen” and compelled Macbeth to kill Duncan. Here too Macbeth rules for ten years but gradually his insecurity caused him to“put his nobles to death”.

In converting the available historical material into a text to be performed on stage, Shakespeare uses the sources meaningfully. At a time when the matter of succession and sovereignty had gripped the minds of
the people, a play such as Macbeth would have functioned in complex ways to problematise these issues.
The play negotiates between a new King in England, his Scottish connection, the legacy of the Queen and the percolation of these factors to the imagination of the people. The rebellions against the monarch such as the Gunpowder Plot resonate in the play along with the established claims of inheritance and power. A play written and performed in the early years of the reign of King James I would certainly have been read,
watched and understood on these counts.

Set in Scottish terrain, Macbeth makes explicit, divergent and conflicting voices in the form of Macbeth’saspirations for the kingly crown as against the projected legitimate claims of Malcolm through the system of primogeniture. In doing so, the play problematizes the insecurities and tentativeness brewing amongst
the people during James’ rule. The contradictions of King James’ rule soon transform into the tumult of
the reign of Charles I. The events of the 1640s challenged the lineal descent of monarchs. In writing Macbeth Shakespeare presents a complex amalgam of issues that are tentative and lasting at the same time.

1.9 LET US SUM UP

This chapter introduced you to the England of the sixteenth century and particularly the humanist thought.
It acquainted you with monarchical debates in the form of Machiavellian strategy and King James’
Basilikon Doron with help from this unit. You will be able to visualise the social world of London andits theatre going audience. A brief history of the stage with special reference to the Globe theatre drawsattention to the experience of watching a play in the Elizabethan times. The section on drama andcensorship reveals how many a feather were ruffled by the plays with reference to the monarchical issuesof the time. Finally you would have understood the historical rootedness of the play in terms of thedifferent sources that Shakespeare was familiar with and thus relied on for the subject of his play.

1.10 GLOSSARY

Baiting: In this case to provoke the bear

Copernicus: He challenged the Ptolemaic system in the sixteenth century byproposing the heliocentric model with the sun at the centre and the earthand other planets moving around it.

Elizabethan Settlement: When Elizabeth became the queen of England she had to confront manyproblems, one of them being the Catholic response to her Protestant leanings. She finally proposed the Elizabethan settlement and theAnglican faith that allowed people to practice their Catholic belief byaccepting the Queen as sovereign.

Humanism: A term associated with the Renaissance. A revival of classical learningshifted the focus on to the human and its refinement.

Protestant: It is a form of Christianity. People who were dissatisfied with theCatholic tenets of Christianity, especially papal supremacy constitutedthe Protestant group.

Ptolmey: An astronomer who in 150 AD proposed the geocentric model of thesystem—earth at the centre and all other planets going around it.

Renaissance: The French word literally means awakening. It refers to a movement that
started in the fourteenth century in Italy, gained prominence in thefifteenth century and spread to other parts of Europe in the sixteenth andseventeenth century.

Spanish Armada: It was a fleet of ships that invaded England in 1588

1.11 QUESTIONS

1. Write a note on Renaissance and humanist thought.
2. Describe the world of drama in the sixteenth century.
3. Write a note on the issue of censorship in theatres in the sixteenth century.
4. Discuss the issue of the date assigned to the writing of Macbeth. 5. What are the different sources on which Shakespeare’s Macbeth is based? Explain.
6. Write a note on the Chronicles as the primary source to Macbeth. 7. Study Macbeth’s character as an instance of Machiavellian strategy.

1.12 SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Abrams, M.H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century The EarlySeventeenth Century. New York and London: Norton, 2000.
2. Baker, William. William Shakespeare. London: Continuum, 2009.
3. Bloom, Harold. Ed. Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages: Macbeth. New York, Infobase P, 2008.
4. Carroll, William C. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. New York: Bedfor/St. Martin’s, 1999.
5. Cuddon, J.A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New Delhi: Doaba, 1998.
6. Ford, Boris, ed. Age of Shakespeare: A Guide to English Literature. Volume 2. London: Cassell,
1955.
7. Frye, Roland Mushat. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. London: Faber & Faber, 1967.
8. Greer, Germaine. Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford, 1986.
9. Kettle, Arnold. Shakespeare in a Changing World: Essays on His times and His Plays. New York:
International Publishers, 1964.
10. Machiavelli, Nicollo. The Prince (1513), Harvard Classics collection. New York: Collier, 1910.
11. McDonald, Russ. Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents. Boston: Bedford Books, 1996.
12. Morton, A.L. A People’s History of England. New Delhi: AAkar, 2014.
13. Nagpal, Payal. Ed. William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Worldview P, 2016.
14. Nostbakken, Faith. Understanding Macbeth: A Student Casebokk to Issues, Sources and Historical
Documents. London: The Greenwood P, 1997.
15. Pollard, Tanya. ed. Shakespeare’s Theatre: A Sourcebook. USA: Blackwell, 2004.
16. Stump, Donald V. and Susan M. Felch. Elizabeth I and her Age. New York: Norton, 2009.

UNIT 2 MACBETH: PART-I

Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Act I
2.3 Act II
2.4 Let us sum up
2.5 Glossary
2.6 Questions
2.7 Suggested Readings

2.0 OBJECTIVES

This unit will acquaint you with William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth. The play is one of the most
widely discussed and oft performed ones. This unit will discuss the important issues raised in Acts I andII of the play. It will also draw attention to the different social spaces outlined in the play—from the court
to the heath and Macbeth’s home. The soliloquies of Macbeth will be analysed in detail in this unit.

2.1 INTRODUCTION

William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a tragedy. It is believed to have been written around 1606. This is ayear after the failure of the Gunpowder Plot against the King. As discussed in the previous unit, the playis based primarily on Raphael Holinshed’s The Chronicles of England Scotland and Ireland (1587).
Shakespeare’s Macbeth explores the issues of kingship against the changing political landscape of
England; the transition from Elizabeth’s reign to that of the Scottish King James VI who became KingJames I of England. The uncertainty of the political context as well as a changing social structure findsexpression in Shakespeare’s plays. During this period Shakespeare wrote other famous tragedies such asOthello (1603-4) and King Lear (1605-6).

2.2 ACT I

The play is written by an English playwright but is situated in Scotland, not England. We must keep inmind the parallel between the Scottish claim for kingship and its relevance to the political climate of
England.The play begins on an ominous note with thunder and lightning. These signal the advent of thewitches in an open place. A play that deals with the world of kings and queens begins within a social
space that is beyond the purview of normative society. This is the supernatural world of the witches.
Instead of the Scottish court we see the witches in an “open space”. The first scene draws attentiontowards a battle that is both “lost” and “won”. It presents a kind of ambiguity that develops intoequivocation; a recurrent theme in the play. The presence of familiars like “Graymalkin” and “Paddock”give an eerie beginning to the play with the constant refrain:
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air” (1.1. 11-12)

In this first scene, the witches make their intentions clear—they plan to meet Macbeth on the heath. Thesecond scene presents King Duncan and details about a certain battle are presented to him. There isreference to a rebellion countered by Duncan’s forces—an invasion from forces both inside and outsidethe country. From within Scotland an uprising has been initiated by Macdonwald. From outside Scotland,
there are the Norwegian forces to be countered. The captain, who has returned from the field as a “bloodyman” is asked to report to the King. His narrative introduces Macbeth as a “brave character”. The context of the war and rebellion are also provided to the reader/viewer. We are given to imagine the bravery andpower wielded by Macbeth who possesses the ability to counter both these uprisings. The hurly-burly of
Scene I is presented in the form of a rebellion in Scene II.

For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name),
Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish’d steel,
Which smok’d with bloody execution,
Like Valour’s minion, carv’d out his passage,
Till he fac’d the slave;
Which he ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to th’ chops,
And fix’d his head upon our battlements. (1.2. 16-23)

One must mark the nature of rebellion. In these lines one can see the adulation of the Captain for the“brave” Macbeth. Physical bravery and violence is glorified to reinstate kingly power. Killing isvalourised and sanctioned by the Scottish state as it is employed for its defence. The Captain comparesMacbeth’s valour to the wounds inflicted at “Golgotha”, the place of Christ’s crucifixion. As the Captainfaints due to his wounds, the nobleman Rosse enters the scene to inform the King that the Norwegianpowers had been fighting valiantly. But Macbeth, referred to as “Bellona’s bridegroom”, provides “Point
against point, rebellious arm ‘gainst arm”. This leads to the victory of the Scottish forces.

The first Act establishes the play not just as a tragedy but a sharply political one in which themethodology used by the state to establish and sustain itself is presented. Duncan’s final statement in thisscene, “What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won” gives the sense that more is to follow. Has Macbethonly won the battle instead of Macdonwald or has he somehow stepped into his place and will soon beable to execute a rebellion that the Thane of Cawdor could not achieve?

The third scene is again situated in the heath where the witches meet. This alternation of scenes providestwo different worlds. In one the entities that exist outside the margins of society are presented. In theother, the dominant powers that occupy centre stage are presented. In both cases there seem to be ripplesof disturbance that destroy and question the sense of normalcy. In fact peace is nowhere in sight, and if soit is only fleetingly present.

The scene begins once again on an ominous note. The witches’ scenes and the space in which they meet
to plot and prophesy is presented in an eerie manner. They recount how they played truant with a sailor
who had gone to Aleppo. This reference is important as Aleppo was an important trading city in Syria.
Like the many people who sought the sea route to trade and make money, the sailor too goes to Aleppo torealise his dreams of making money. Take a look at these prophetic lines, “Sleep shall neither night nor
day/ Hang upon his penthouse lid:/ He shall live a man forbid” (1.3 19-21). The witches’ conversationindicates that the sailor will no longer be able to rest peacefully. These lines predict the course of eventsto follow. The pathetic condition of the ambitious sailor who has left for Aleppo to make money issymptomatic of what is soon going to happen to Macbeth. It is interesting to mark two important changesemerging from two different spatial zones. In court,Macbeth has acquired the title of Thane of Cawdor
and will soon step into the rebel’s place. In their space, the witches’ too want to play “truant”and soonenough Macbeth will be like the sailor who travelled to Aleppo with dreams of acquiring wealth andpower but was eventually left bereft of sleep.The sailor’s “bark” might not be lost but will surely be “tempest-tost”. Similarly the reference to the “pilot’s thumb” is an indication that the witches have hadfun at the expense of the pilot. It is interesting to mark that the witches attack both the sailor and the pilot,
people who move outwards to journey for mercenary purposes. In a sense they are people who pursuetheir ambition. Macbeth too will seek his heart’s yearning for power and pursue “vaulting ambition”. Thewitches cast a spell:

Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
And thrice again to make up nine
Peace!—the charm’s wound up. (1.3. 35-37)

In this scene the two worlds—of the witches and the nobility come together. On their way back from thewar, Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches on the heath. The spell has already been cast. The two mensee them as strange creatures. They look like old women even as they sport a beard. Banquo asks,

What are these,
So wither’d and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ earth,
And yet are on’t? (1.3. 39-42)

The duo finds it difficult to rationalise the witches in human form. Macbeth urges them to speak and theyrefer to him as:

All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
All hail, Macbeth! thou shalt be king hereafter! (1.3. 48-50)

These prophecies are indeed “fantastical”. They voice Macbeth’s as yet concealed desire to be the King ofScotland. Banquo too is predicted to be “Lesser than Macbeth and greater” (1.3 66-68).The witches’
predictions create an alternative structure as Macbeth and Banquo wonder at how these can be realised.
Macbeth’s bewilderment is well captured in the following lines:

Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.
By Sinel’s death I know I am Thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be King
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? Or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you. (1.3. 70-78)

Macbeth’s curiosity has been stirred. He wonders as to his proposed rapid ascent to the top. In a system of
primogeniture it is the King’s eldest son who inherits the throne. The plausibility of Macbeth becomingKing is therefore remote as Duncan is succeeded by Malcolm and Donalbain. The realisation of thisprophesy seems quite impossible. In the next part of this scene,a part of the witches’ prophesy is realised,
as Macbeth is made the Thane of Cawdor. This reward is an acceptance and ratification of the gruesomeviolence perpetrated by Macbeth on the battlefield. Mark how violence is being celebrated as it is used todefend the Scottish state. Macbeth has created “strange images of death” that have won him the title of
the Thane of Cawdor. His fierceness and bravery is enmeshed in a masculine aggression that finds noequal at this juncture. However, he has inherited the title from one who was a rebel. Macbeth is perplexedat this new position. Angus, a nobleman, clarifies,

Who was the Thane, lives yet;
But under heavy judgement bears that life
Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combin’d
With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
He labour’d in his country’s wrack, I know not;
But treasons capital, confess’d and prov’d,
Have overthrown him. (1.3. 109-116)

It is clear from the above lines that any energy channelized against the state is to be curbed. Macbeth indefeating the rebel has earned the title of the Thane of Cawdor. State politik works towards thereinforcement of the dominant powers as vested in the king. The monarchical powers hold ground.
Macbeth is disturbed by the predictions of the witches. But, on the other hand, when asked about thewitches’ prophecies, Banquo gives a very balanced answer—“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/
The instruments of Darkness tell us truths;/ Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s/ In deepest
consequences” (1.3. 123-125). Faith in the monarchical organization that privileges inheritance throughbirth leads Banquo to believe that the dark powers [witches] might win them over with “honest trifles”.
He deploys a more balanced and rational approach rooted in the existing social framework. However
Macbeth who nurtures these secret ambitions, ponders over the goings on:

Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.—I thank you, gentlemen.—
[Aside.] This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good: —
If ill, why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man,
That function is smother’d in surmise,
And nothing is, but what is not. (1.3 128-142)

The witches’ predictions have been realised to some degree. Macbeth was Thane of Glamis and has nowbecome the Thane of Cawdor. These are the “two truths” that move towards the “imperial theme”. He isindeed tempted to neutralise it as neither good nor bad. It has brought success to Macbeth without any useof violence. He believes if “chance” has given him this title it will crown him king. However Macbeth iscognizant of the fact that the final prediction cannot come through without bloodshed and this createsdisturbing images. The scene also brings in the idea of equivocation. For instance, “Cannot be ill, cannot
be good” or “And nothing is, but what is not” introduces the idea of equivocation. In a world governed byrigid rules and regulations the idea of equivocation introduces a rupture. This break/ rupture indicates that
whatever was held to be true can be otherwise and vice versa. Therefore the subject’s allegiance towardsthe King becomes weak. The possibilities are manifold. Whether it is his heart’s innermost desire or thewitches’ prophecy, Macbeth begins to head in the direction of realising the final prophesy of thewitches—“If chance will have me King, why, Chance may crown me,/ Without my stir” (1.3. 144).
Macbeth dispenses with these troublesome thoughts leaving all to “chance” and tells Banquo that theymust speak freely to each other.

Meanwhile, Duncan questions the nobles on the execution of Cawdor. It draws attention to thepunishment meted out to traitors in those days. Malcolm’s reporting of Cawdor’s execution shows him asone who was repentant. His rebellion and consequent defeat and execution becomes a point of reference as we know that Macbeth too might be headed the same way. Macbeth has now taken Cawdor’s place andin a sense the events that are to follow are already being predicted. As Duncan says,

There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentlemen on whom I built
An absolute trust— (1.4 11-13)

Duncan refers to Macbeth as “worthiest cousin” and praises him for his loyalty. This confounds the reader
as one wonders if Macbeth has any valid claim to the throne. Ostensibly the bond between Duncan andMacbeth is feudal as king towards his subject. It is bound by “service and loyalty”. But Shakespeare’sfocus draws attention to a fast changing world in which feudal bonds were gradually giving way to aworld driven by competition. The flip side of loyalty was treason and it did not take very long for either
Cawdor or Macbeth to follow the path. In professing loyalty to the king, even if momentarily, Macbethreinforces the idea of the divine right of kingship. According to this the king is divinely ordained and all
owe allegiance to the monarch. In early seventeenth century, as the rule of the Queen had given way tothe control of King James I in England, there was a conflict of allegiances. Will the English subject paythe same kind of obeisance to its new King as it did to the Queen during her reign? These were turbulent
times as Queen Elizabeth’s reign was marked by the famous Earl of Essex rebellion just as King Jame’srule that was witness to the Gunpowder Plot. It appeared as if rebellion had become the norm. The playpoints towards a world fast changing and the traditional footholds were giving way to a more mercantiledisposition marked by competitiveness.

These conflicts are effectively summarised in this scene where the play on loyalty and treason takes place.
The idea of nurture and growth that Duncan brings in is no longer a viable one. As Duncan names hiseldest as the Prince of Cumberland, one who will become the King after him, conflict ensues. As thewitches’ prophesy is belied, Macbeth wonders and thinks to himself in an aside:

(Aside) The Prince of Cumberland!—That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires;
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
(1.4 46-53)

The aside well explains Macbeth’s psychological predicament. He knows that Duncan has declared hisson as the heir. Yet Macbeth nurtures ambition; he is the brave one. The witches’ prophesies have beenpartially fulfilled. And he wonders why they can’t be realised completely. Macbeth’s thoughts express hisunderstanding of the dangers that beset him in this endeavour. Such thoughts impede his path and makehis desire appear unnatural.

In the next scene Lady Macbeth enters reading a letter sent to her by Macbeth, about his meeting with theweird sisters. It mentions prophesies by these weird creatures who soon vanished into thin air. He tellsLady Macbeth, “This have I thought good to deliver thee (my dearest partner of greatness) that thoumight’st not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promis’d thee” (1.5. 10-13).
She assesses the letter and is circumspect about Macbeth’s essential character. Lady Macbeth finds himtoo full of the “milk of human kindness”. According to her, Macbeth has the ambition but not the“illness” that should attend it. She takes it upon herself to work towards making real the witches’
prophesy. She says:

Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
And chastise with the valour of my tongue All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown’d withal. (1.525-29)

Lady Macbeth decides to lead and show the way. In this game of power, Lady Macbeth’s access to thethrone can only be through her husband and she decides to realise his ambition by making it her own. Theactive role and support provided by Lady Macbeth has led to varied interpretations of her character bycritics. She has been considered an ally of the witches. Mark the use of the supernatural in these lines—“pour my spirits in thine ear” or the “valour of my tongue”. Such phraseology connects her to thesupernatural world of the witches. It seems as if she has access to a totally different world where the ruleof order does not prevail. There is also speculation about her as being another aspect of Macbeth’spersonality. She is willing to be the poison that will lead Macbeth to the “golden round”. Lady Macbeth’sbelief that some sort of “metaphysical aid” has decided that Macbeth be crowned reaffirms her faith inMacbeth’s ambition and her own. In this fulfilment of ambition Lady Macbeth sheds her ‘natural’
appearance. She says:

Come, you Spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty!make thick my blood,
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse;
That no compunctious visitings of Nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murth’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on Nature’s mischief! Come, thick Night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry,‘Hold, hold!’ (1.5 40-53)

This is one of the most oft-quoted speeches of Lady Macbeth as she renounces her feminine qualities.
Lady Macbeth’s demand to be ‘unsexed’ is taken to be an instance of her proximity to the world of thewitches. She demands the milk in her breasts be turned to poison. She calls upon the “murth’ringministers” to act on her and give the strength to make true the witches’ prophesy. Femininity, as part of
the patriarchal system is the cornerstone of the feudal world. As loyalties towards the king graduallycrumble, the femininity needed to support feudal values also falls apart. A new order seems to be at workand would therefore be seen as unnatural. The deed has to be executed in the dark, at night—“Heaven”itself must not peep. Lady Macbeth’s reference to “every point twice done, and then done double” echoesthe witches’ “Double, double toil and trouble”.

The tension between the different worlds of the kings and the witches is poignantly created. The former isa feudal world where order based on the premise of loyalty and honour prevails and the other is markedby disorder and anarchy. The latter disturbs and ruptures the premises of order. In this sense LadyMacbeth belongs to the world of disorder and brings it in to disturb the entrenched loyalties towards theKing. She tells him, “To beguile the time/ Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,/ Your hand,
your tongue; look like th’innocent flower,/ But be the serpent under’t” (1.5. 63-66). A woman who leavesno stone unturned to see her husband wear the kingly crown poses a challenge. We shall take up theseaspects of Lady Macbeth’s character for discussion in Unit-IV.

As Macbeth enters, in this scene, it is as if the stage has been set for Duncan’s murder. Lady Macbethtakes charge of the situation personally and decides to execute the killing. She is certain of the act of murder, even as, Macbeth seems unsure of himself. Take a look at these lines. In his soliloquy, Macbeth states:

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly: If th’assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all—here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. –But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th’ inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredience of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murtherer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu’d, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And Pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s Cherubins, hors’d
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.—I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other—

(1.7. 1-26)

Macbeth’s soliloquy expresses his state of mind. He is beset with confusion and finds it difficult to sort
out his thoughts. He reasons with himself and weighs the odds. Macbeth senses the enormity of the act.
He understands that in becoming king he will have to flout the feudal order as he is in the position of the“kinsman”, “subject”, and “host” and is bound to the king. These relationships demand allegiance. As theking is supposed to be divinely ordained the position of the subject is one of subservience. In thissoliloquy, Macbeth also points towards the king’s virtuous nature. Any attack on this virtuous king will
evince a reaction equally horrific. He realises, it is only “vaulting ambition” that pushes him forwardtowards this dreadful deed. Macbeth becomes the site on which the clash between the two discourses canbe seen—the feudal monarchical and the Machiavellian usurper.

In the above quoted speech, the dominant monarchical discourse, prevails leading Macbeth to stall anysuch act. Lady Macbeth condemns this change in action. She goads him to take on this task and carve out
his future. She calls him a “coward” and applauds her own mettle—“I have given suck, and know/ Howtender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me:/ I would while it was smiling in my face,/ Have pluck’d thenipple from his boneless gums,/ And dash’d the brains out, had I so sworn/ As you had done to this” (1.7.
55-59). Lady Macbeth evokes a violent and gruesome image. In this moment she has given up her role asa woman.

Macbeth’s vacillation and Lady Macbeth’s firm stance draws attention to the beginnings of a new worldin which self-interest is going to be the norm. But this is also a world that gives a chance to people who are otherwise not entitled to the same. In keeping with this spirit, Macbeth applauds Lady Macbeth andtells her to bring forth “male-children” only.

2.3 ACT II

The second act begins with Banquo and Fleance who are soon joined by Macbeth. The stage has been set
for the murder which will fully realise the witches’ prophesies. But the weird sisters had also made aprediction for Banquo, that his children will wear the crown. In contrast to Macbeth, Banquo is clear
about his allegiances and is not driven by the predictive charms of the witches. Macbeth continues toimagine and hallucinate in his famous soliloquy, “Is this a dagger…”. The soliloquy is as follows:

Is this a dagger, which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:–
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.—
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ th’other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before.—There’s no such thing.
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes.—Now o’er the one half-world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain’d sleep:Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate’s off’rings; and wither’d Murther,
Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.—Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it.— Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings]
I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell.

(2.1. 33-64)

In this soliloquy Macbeth is hallucinating. Having been through a series of doubts and uncertainties,
Macbeth visualises the instrument required to execute the deed, the dagger. Its exact position, “handletowards my hand” has been clearly described. This indicates both the temptation and his willingness tosuccumb to it. He wonders if it is a real dagger or a figment of his imagination. Macbeth’s hallucinationsbring him a step closer to the execution of the act. The reference to the unreality of the act, described as“bloody business” prepares the reader/ viewer for what is to follow. The act in imagination is ratified by bringing in Hecate’s world. This soliloquy also seals his intentions and expresses the finality of the act—“Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell/ That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell”.

The next scene begins with signals that presage the “unnatural” nature of the murder about to becommitted. Lady Macbeth prepares for the act as she drugs the grooms and keeps their “daggers ready”.
But at the moment the deed is to be executed, she is unable to commit the gory act and says, “Had he not
resembled/ My father as he slept, I had done’t.—My husband!”(2.2. 12-13). It is Macbeth who murdersthe king. Having committed the act, his inability to say ‘Amen’indicates his loss of sanity. He hears avoice saying, “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murther Sleep,’—the innocent Sleep.” One is reminded of
the Captain who can sleep no more. Each successive moment reveals Macbeth’s psychological schism ashe is unable to deal with the enormity of the act committed by him. He continues to hear voices, “’Glamishath murther’d Sleep, and therefore Cawdor/ shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!” Themagnitude of the murder must be placed in the context of feudal loyalties governed by laws that forbadesuch crimes and considered them to be against the divine order. We must remember that the king wasconsidered to be divinely ordained so any act that went against the king was therefore considered“unnatural”. Placed in this context, Macbeth is bound to feel disturbed. Like the Thane of Cawdor he toocan no longer fit into the structure of existence as he now stands outside of it. Vivid imagery describesthese conflicts as Macbeth thinks that “great Neptune’s ocean” will not wash the blood from his hands.

Act II, Scene III is known famously for what is called the Porter scene in the play. It has been consideredby critics like S.T. Coleridge to be a later “interpolation of the actors”. On the other hand, Thomas deQuincey focussed on the “knocking at the gate” and its relevance to the play. The Porter scene works at
various levels. It provides a suitable interruption to a very tense moment in the play and also reiterates thetheme of equivocation in the play. Word-play indicates the layered connotations in this play. Be it
Macbeth and the witches prophecies, or Lady Macbeth and Macbeth there is action behind the words. ThePorter scene must be analysed in this context.

In keeping with the medieval tradition, the scene offers comic relief. The ‘hell-porter” was a recognisablefigure in the medieval plays. The first character to enter the hell-gate is the farmer—“Here’s a farmer that
hang’d/ himself on th’expectation of plenty” (2.3 4). It reflects the tendency of the farmer to hoard grainsand wait for a rise in prices, failing which he is ruined. There is a pun on the word farmer as it also refersto the trial of a Jesuit priest, Father Garnet who “went under the name farmer” (Muir, Kenneth. Ed.
William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Methuen, 1984. 59). Mark how the peasant, otherwise thehumblest has now taken to hoarding and making money. The next one to enter is the equivocator.
Literally speaking, he is a person who does not make meaning clear—“that could swear in both the scales/
against either scale” (2.3 9). This is a reference to the Jesuits. This is also a central theme in the play. Thewitches’ “Fair is foul, and foul is fair” is an enforcement of the theme of equivocation. The next one toenter is the tailor—“Faith here’s an English tailor/ come hither for stealing out of a French hose” (2.3. 14).
There are many ways of interpreting this. Critics have interpreted it variously to mean a joke about thetailors, a sexual innuendo, and reference to urinating or even the disease, syphilis. This scene brings incharacters from society who are trying to make money. The tailor, farmer, equivocator try to further their
interests. This indicates a society gradually changing. These are people, who as the Porter points out have taken the “primrose way”. In the biblical sense they have taken the easy way. One can mark the beginnings of a new social structure, where like Macbeth, people are driven by self-interest and the profit motive.

The theme of equivocation is carried further in the Porter’s conversation with Macduff. He tells him that
drink provokes, “nose-painting, sleep and urine”. Drink is seen as an “equivocator with lechery”. It
“provokes/ the desire, but it takes away the performance” (2.3 28-29).

The nobleman, Lennox draws attention to how the weather was “unruly”—“Our chimneys were blowndown, and, as they say,/ Lamentings heard i’th’ air, strange screams of death” (2.3 55-56). The unruly,
anarchic, the unnatural has finally made its way to disturb the order of things. Violence unacceptable tothe state has finally made its way. Macduff voices it as he discovers the crime:

Most sacriliegeous Murther hath broke ope
The Lord’s anointed Temple, and stole thence
The life o’th building! (2.3. 65-67)

The murder is “sacriligeous” and the “Lord’s anointed temple” has been violated. The sight is akin to a“Gorgon” or the female monster in Greek mythology, one that turned any onlooker to stone. To sum upthis idea one can state that the divinely sanctioned order has been violated. Macbeth admits to havingmurdered the grooms. He justifies his act as arising out of his sense of loyalty. Malcolm and Donalbainare quick to realise what has happened and sense that they might soon be implicated and decide to runaway. As Donalbain says, “Malcolm to England and Donalbain to Ireland.”In the final scene of thesecond act, the exchange between Rosse and the Old man point towards the unnatural nature of the act.
The Old Man tells Rosse,

Old Man: ‘Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.

Rosse: And Duncan’s horses (a thing most strange and
certain)
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turn’d wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending ‘gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind

Old Man: ‘Tis said, they eat each other. (2.4. 10-18)

Things are no longer going to be governed by the norm. It is believed that Duncan’s horses ate each other
up. The predatory motif has become significant. In this new world the idea of the kill will have to bereconsidered. The image of the falcon and the “mousing owl” inverts hierarchy signalling rule by theusurper. The second act also ends with the investiture of Macbeth as King at Scone and the shifting of themortal remains of Duncan to Colme-kill.

2.4 LET US SUM UP

In this chapter you have studied Acts I and II of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Act I introduces the idea of
rebellion and violence and its contradictory relationship to the kingly powers. Where the first act presentsthe Thane of Cawdor as a traitor, Macbeth is positioned in Act II as a murderer of the King. This unit onMacbeth also draws attention to the different spaces in the play. There is the “Heath” where Macbethmeets the witches. And then there is the space of the court. The first two acts also bring forth LadyMacbeth’s character and her renunciation of femininity. She seeks power and dares to challenge order.
Act I leads to the finalisation of Macbeth’s intention to murder. It is in the second act that the executiontakes place. By the end of this act the witches’ prophesies have been fulfilled and order disrupted.

2.5 GLOSSARY

Soliloquy: A soliloquy is addressed by a character, alone on stage, directly to theaudience. (Sean McEvoy 65)
Aside: An aside is a remark or speech directed at the audience unheardby theother characters on stage at the time, and is usually quite short. (Sean McEvoy 65)

Divine right of kinship: According to this idea in the sixteenth century, especially during thereign of Queen Elizabeth, the king was considered to be divinely ordained. He was the representative of god on earth. This was in contrast to an earlier period where the king worked with support from the lords.
The Tudor monarchy too believed in power vested in the monarch.

Nobility: They were a group of people who by virtue of their birth belonged to the aristocracy.

Feudal: The society was structured in a way that allegiances were clearly defined.
In a feudal, land based system, where the King held absolute power
people were expected to be loyal to the king.

Subject: The ordinary people governed by the aristocracy.
Familiars: Animals such as cat and toads were considered to be the “familiars” of
the witches.
Gunpowder Plot: Catholic rebellion against King James I in 1605.

2.6 QUESTIONS

1. Critically analyse any one soliloquy by Macbeth. 2. What are the different critical approaches to Lady Macbeth’s character?
3. Describe the interaction between the witches and Macbeth.
4. What is the significance of the porter scene?
5. What is ‘unnatural’ about Duncan’s murder?

2.7 SUGGESTED READINGS

1. McEvoy, Sean. Shakespeare: the Basics. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
2. Muir, Kenneth. Ed. William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Methuen, 1984.
3. Nagpal Payal. Ed.William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Worldview P, 2016.

UNIT 3 MACBETH: PART-II

Structure
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Act III
3.2.1 The Banquet Scene
3.2.2 Hecate
3.3 Act IV
3.3.1 The Witches’ Predictions, the Apparitions and the Pageant
3.3.2 Lady Macduff
3.3.3 The State of Scotland and the Healing Powers of England
3.4 Act V
3.4.1 The Sleepwalking Scene
3.4.2 The Tragic End
3.5 Let Us Sum Up
3.6 Glossary
3.7 Questions
3.8 Suggested Readings

3.0 OBJECTIVES

The previous unit presented a critical analysis of the first and second acts of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Thefocus remained on Macbeth’s ambition and Lady Macbeth’s single-minded concentration on executingthe murder and making her husband the king of Scotland. These ambitions are placed against theestablished construct of the royalty on one hand and the disruptive space of the witches on the other. Thisunit will acquaint you critically with the sequence of events in Acts III, IV and V that lead to the tragicconclusion of the play.

3.1 INTRODUCTION

This unit deals with those questions and issues that are apparently situated on the sides of the play but
reflect on the text centrally. They point towards specific scenes and characters that remain ordinarily out
of the purview such as the Banquet scene, Hecate, Sleep-walking Scene and Lady Macduff. Theydramatize the events and make them multi-dimensional. The poetic intensity therein underscores the felt
experience. Equally importantly, we take up the Scottish ethos for grasping the action of the play.
Together, these help us imagine political changes that complete the frightful picture of accumulatedviolence. It is suggested in the unit that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are only an extension of the general
pattern of happenings in the play.

3.2 ACT III

This Act has seven scenes. At the end of the second act, Macbeth has become the king. But meanwhilethere has been a lot of bloodshed. The third act is situated in a room in the palace at Forres. In it, thewitches’ predictions remain a concern throughout the play. Their understanding of the future forms thebackdrop against which the game of power will be enacted. Twentieth century criticism, especially that of
the second half focusses on the nature of the witches. Are these weird women or are these women whocapture the changes in the social structure? The play raises these questions and leaves the reader to thinkabout their nature.

Banquo iterates the witches’ prediction as all of them have come true. He also wonders about thepossibility of the realisation of the witches’ prediction regarding his progeny. Caught in the web of hisown ambitious drive, Macbeth, too thinks about the witches’ prophesies with regard to Banquo. He is insecure and wonders if the witches’ predictions about Banquo would be true. A well-known soliloquy byMacbeth appears at this crucial juncture. Let us have a look at it:

To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus:
Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear’d: ’tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear: and under him
My Genius is rebuk’d; as, it is said,
Mark Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the Sisters,
When first they put the name of King upon me,
And bade them speak to him; then, prophet-like,
They hail’d him father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they plac’d a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
Thence to be wrench’d with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding. If ‘t be so,
For Banquo’s issue have I fil’d my mind;
For them the gracious Duncan have I murther’d;
Put rancours in the vessel of my peace,
Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
Given to the common Enemy of man,
To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings!
Rather than so, come, fate, into the list.
And champion me to th’ utterance! (3.1 47-71)

Macbeth contemplates on his act of pursuing ambition and its repercussions. He asks himself if heperformed the act of murder to ensure this position for Banquo’s children. Phrases such as “barrensceptre” and “fruitless crown” indicate Macbeth’s deep-rooted ambition and the attention given to thewitches’ predictions. He has succumbed completely to the web spun by the sisters. The realm of Hecate,
one of amorality, not only plays with Macbeth’s sentiment but reflects social change. The existing valuesof the divine right of kingship, inheritance through primogeniture all stand challenged. A new order setsin, and it challenges the Elizabethan world order. The feudal notion of inheritance stands questioned andthis in turn undermines any idea of authority. The Machiavellian strategy becomes complex and begins towork against itself. Like a feudal monarch, Macbeth wants to ensure the crown for himself and hisprogeny. He seeks the intervention of “fate” in the context.

The path to fulfilment of ambition is a spiral into more murder and killing. Having murdered Duncan,
Macbeth wants to alter the witches’ prophecy. He hires murderers to kill Banquo and his son,
Fleance.The murderers are plausibly “officers, cast perhaps for some misdemeanour and out of luck”(Muir, Kenneth. Ed. William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Methuen, 1984. 76). Macbeth instigatesthem against Banquo and urges them to murder. He tells the murderers:

Well then, now
Have you consider’d of my speeches?—know
That it was he, in the times past, which held you
Also under fortune, which you thought had been
Our innocent self? This I made good to you
In our last conference; pass’d in probation with you,
How you were borne in hand; how cross’d; the instruments;
Who wrought with them; and all things else, that might,
To half a soul, and to a notion craz’d,
Say, ‘Thus did Banquo.’ (3.1 75-83)

Mark how in the above lines, Macbeth blames Banquo for their condition, creating the situation toexecute the murder. In fact, he chides them: “Are you so gospell’dd,/ To pray for this good man, and for
his issue,/ Whose heavy hand had bow’d you to the grave” (3.1 86-88). Both murderers, therefore,
commit themselves to the killing of Banquo. Who are these people who murder at Macbeth’s command?They are men who have suffered “the vile blows and buffets of the world”, “weary with disasters, tugg’dwith fortune.” Macbeth takes advantage of their situation to sustain power.

Meanwhile Lady Macbeth prepares for the King’s banquet, for which Banquo has been invited. Macbethcontinues to remain troubled about the witches’ prediction regarding Banquo and Fleance. He tells LadyMacbeth: “O! full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!/ thou knows’t that Banquo, and his Fleance, lives”(3.2 35-36). At this point, there is a distinct transformation in the attitudes of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
Where Macbeth’s language is steeped more and more in evil, Lady Macbeth’s tone changes. Thebeginning of the Act signals Lady Macbeth’s discomfiture. She realizes that desire has been realisedwithout “content” and they are in a state of ‘doubtful joy”. She seeks a sense of normalcy in Macbeth andurges him to prepare for the banquet. However, Macbeth takes on the disruptive mantle and his languagebecomes more akin to the world of Hecate and the weird sisters. He seeks the cover of “seeling Night” tohide the “tender eye of pitiful Day” as Banquo’s murder is about to take place. The imagery grows darker
in the following lines:

And, with thy bloody and invisible hand,/ Cancel, and tear to pieces, that great bond/ Whichkeeps me pale!—Light thickens; and the crow/ Makes wing to th’rooky wood” 3.1 (48-51).

In the third scene of the Act, we have not two but three murderers who prepare to kill Banquo. There isspeculation about the third one — Macbeth himself. But as Kenneth Muir points out, “Macbeth’sagitation in III.iv, when he hears that Fleance has escaped is proof that he cannot have been present at themurder of Banquo” (86-87). The murderers kill Banquo but Fleance manages to escape. This disturbsMacbeth even more, as it increases the possibility of realisation of the witches’ prediction about Banquo.

3.2.1 The Banquet Scene

The banquet scene is at once a celebration of Macbeth’s position as king and an undermining of the same.
His psychological disintegration is a symptom of the schism in the body politic. As the murderer reveals,
“Fleance is scap’d”, Macbeth begins to lose confidence and becomes insecure. He says:

There comes my fit again: I had else been perfect;
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
As broad and general as the casing air:
But now, I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.—But Banquo’s safe? (3.4 20-25)

In the banquet scene, Banquo’s ghost appears and takes Macbeth’s seat. The conflicts are rife inMacbeth’s mind. Banquo’s ghost reminds Macbeth both of his brutal killings and Fleance’s claim to thethrone. As the scene continues, Lady Macbeth tries hard to control the situation. She tells the nobles that
Macbeth has been getting fits since his youth and that this is momentary. Aside, she challenges hismasculinity and tells him, “O! these flaws and starts/ (Impostors to true fear), would well become/ Awoman’s story at winter’s fire” (3.4 63-64). At this stage, Lady Macbeth is in control of herself but
Macbeth is not. Banquo’s ghost is visible only to him and indicates a troubled mind. (Remember thehallucination about the dagger). Shakespeare’s use of Banquo’s ghost is a reminder of the loss of
humanity and friendship in the wake of Machiavellian ambition. Macbeth dreads this flash from the past,
as he says,

If charnel-houses and our graves must send
Those that we bury, back, our monuments
Shall be the maws of kites. (……)

Macbeth calls his fits of digression a “strange infirmity”. As Macbeth thinks of his deeds in the past,
Banquo’s ghost re-enters to disturb him. He describes the ghost thus: “Thy bones are marowless, thyblood is cold;/ Thou hast no speculation in those eyes,/ Which thou dost glare with” (3.4 92-94). Macbethis disturbed and unable to accept the enormity of his own actions. He challenges Banquo to come in anyform, the “Russian bear, “the arm’d rhinoceros” or th’Hyrcan tiger”, but that of the ghost. As Macbethsees Banquo’s ghost, the real world of kings and queens and the unreal ones of the witches and ghosts isseen in a flash. Lady Macbeth brings the banquet to a close. She urges the nobles to leave—“At once,
good night:–/ Stand not upon the order of your going,/ But go at once” (3.4 118). The nobles are asked toleave immediately without following rank, an indication that order has once again been flouted.
Macbeth’s subversion of Duncan’s right to the throne by violence is Machivellian; it established a neworder through blood and gore. One must keep in mind how at the beginning of the play, Duncan’s reignwas preserved by Macbeth’s display of violence on the battlefield. Both systems perpetuate throughviolence and are hence seen as wanting even as they reflect the warps and wefts of society. Macbeth cansense the anarchy:

It will have blood, they say: blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak;
Augures and understood relations, have
By maggot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth
The secret’st man of blood. What is the night? (3.4 121-125)

The brutality of killing that Macbeth had been valourised for is suspect in the new context. The playmakes us think about the nature of violence in relation to the state as body politic. Violence is anarchicand there is a thin line of demarcation in its use for or against the state. The violence used to defend thestate can soon enough work against it destroying all that comes in its wake.

3.2.2 Hecate

In the next scene Macbeth meets the Weird Sisters. In 3.5, one can mark the unreal world of Hecate andthe witches. Hecate’s monologue forms the entire scene in Act III and provides an insight into their world.
Hecate chides the sisters for having excluded her from the plan “To trade and traffic with Macbeth,/ Inriddles, and affairs of death;”. Even as she rues the fact that she was never called to play her part inaffecting Macbeth’s destiny, she also sees him as the “wayward son”. He like most others is spiteful andwrathful. One can ask about the role of Machiavellian politics in this regard. Where it marks a distinct
socio-historical shift, the brutality that accompanies it can hardly be the answer to the problems of theordinary world. The play problematizes this issue. Read the following:

Have I not reason, beldams as you are,
Saucy, and overbold? How did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth,
In riddles and affairs of death;
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never called to bear my part,
Or show the glory of our art?
And, which is worse, all you have done
Hath been but for a wayward son,
Spiteful and wrathful; who, as others do,
Loves for his own ends, not for you.

But make amends now: Get you gone,
And at the pit of Acheron
Meet me i’ th’ morning: thither he
Will come to know his destiny.
Your vessels, and your spells, provide,
Your charms, and everything beside.
I am for th’ air; This night I’ll spend
Unto a dismal and a fatal end:
Great business must be wrought ere noon.
Upon the corner of the moon
There hangs a vap’rous drop profound.
I’ll catch it ere it come to ground:
And that, distill’d by magic sleights,
Shall raise such artificial sprites,
As, by the strength of their illusion,
Shall draw him on to his confusion.
He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes’bove wisdom, grace, and fear;
And you all know, security
Is mortal’s chiefest enemy, (3.5 2-35)

Hecate’s speech indicates that things are about to change rapidly. Macbeth will soon be caught in the webof his own trap. The “artificial sprites” spun by the witches shall draw him to “his confusion”. He shall
“spurn fate, scorn death.” The power wielded by Hecate and the other witches is evident in these lines.
They have indeed caught Macbeth’s attention who will meet them again to know his destiny. The final
statement about security indicates that Macbeth in his pursuit for a secure position is wrestling with thesocial forces. Having changed the course prescribed by the kingly powers, he now seeks stasis to securehis own position. Hecate reflects on this idea as she says, “security/ Is mortal’s chiefest enemy”. The next
scene, 3.6, voices the suspicions and discomfort of the nobles as they sense Macbeth’s machinations.
Lennox says, “Men must not walk too late”. He recounts how Duncan was killed and Malcolm andDonalbain fled the country. The security guards too were killed by Macbeth as he claimed to grieve at theKing’s death. Similarly, Banquo was murdered and Fleance fled. The scene also reveals how Malcolmseeks allies abroad. Interestingly, just as Macbeth, one of the generals in Duncan’s army worked to fortifyhis position, so, too, Macduff gradually emerges to ensure Malcolm’s claim to the throne. It seems tohave become a vicious cycle offering no escape.

3.3 ACT IV

3.3.1 The Witches’ Predictions, the Apparitions and the Pageant

This act begins in the same way as Act I, with the witches at a house in Forres with a “boiling cauldron”.
Like the first scene that made significant predictions about Macbeth, this scene, too, foretells what isgoing to happen to him in the future. These lines reveal the witches’ intentions as also the world theyinhabit. They have access to plants and animals and they understand their world in a different manner.
The words are spoken like a puzzle and in a manner of equivocation. The reference to spells would“thrice” create an eerie atmosphere. The witches have access to the forest, its flora and fauna. Their
additions to the cauldron range from the “toad”, “Fillet of a fenny snake”, “eye of newt” and “toe of frog”,
and many such. It also has “Root of hemlock, digg’d I’ th’dark”, “Gall of goat, and slips of yew”. Thespell, “Double, double toil and trouble;/ Fire burn; and cauldron, bubble” remains a refrain in the play.
The witches prepare for Macbeth’s coming as decided in the previous scene by Hecate. Macbeth seeks thewitches’ attention thus:

I conjure you, by that which you profess,
Howe’er you come to know it, answer me:
Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corn be lodg’d and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders’ heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of Nature’s germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken, answer me
To what I ask you. (4.1 50-61)

Macbeth presents the witches as a disruptive force. They let lose elements that fight the order of the day.
They fight against the churches, topple castles and make palaces and pyramids slope. In this way, theworld of the witches challenges the established order. The supernatural or the fantastic is the alternativerealm. The predictions made by the witches through the apparitions they invoke determine the course of
the play. Their predictions are as follows: “Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff;/ Beware theThane of Fife.—Dismiss me.—Enough” (4.1. 70-1) And Be bloody, bold, and resolute: laugh to scorn/
The power of man, for none of woman born/ Shall harm Macbeth (79-81)

Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.(4.1 90-93)

The first apparition is that of an “armed head”. It is believed that this represents Macdonald’s decapitatedhead brought in by Macbeth to Duncan’s court and foreshadows his own which will be brought byMacduff. The second apparition is that of the “bloody child”. This could be Macduff born by Caesareansection. It could also be Fleance or the line of Banquo meant to succeed Macbeth. The third apparition isthat of a “child crowned with a tree in his hand”. This could be Malcolm who will finally inherit thethrone. However, Macbeth misses the implications of these apparitions and the tone of equivocation as hesays, “Then live Macduff: what I need fear of thee.” Hearing these predictions by the apparitions,
Macbeth is convinced that no one can dislodge him from his position. However, he misses the tone of
equivocation in their predictions, something he realises only much later. The witches warn Macbeth about
Macduff. They urge him to be brave and bold. But this glimpse of the future gives Macbeth the illusion of
security. It tells him that no one of woman born can harm him. The witches also tell him that he need not
bother till Birnam Wood marches to Dunsinane. These two ideas make him feel secure. He believes inwords such as: “Who can impress the forest; bid the tree/ Unfix his earth bound root?” (4.1 95). Doingthis would be unnatural and hence impossible. Macbeth believes he can never be defeated. However,
going by the witches’ earlier prophecy he continues to feel insecure and asks if Banquo would be king.
Following his question, there is a show of eight kings. Macbeth is disturbed as the last one in this pageant
of kings is Banquo.

Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo: Down!
Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs:—and thy hair,
Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first:—
A third is like the former.—filthy hags!
Why do you show me this?—A fourth?—Start, eyes!
What! will the line stretch out to th’ crack of doom?
Another yet?—A seventh?—I’ll see no more:—
And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass,
Which shows me many more; and some I see,
That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry.
Horrible sight!—Now, I see, ’tis true;
For the blood-bolter’d Banquo smiles upon me,
And points at them for his.—but why
(4.1 112-124)

The witches’ prediction regarding Macduff plays on Macbeth’s mind and the endless cycle of violencethat engulfs the self continues. As Macbeth gets to know that Macduff has “fled to England”, a brutal
perpetration of murder begins. In an important aside Macbeth says, “From this moment,/The veryfirstlings of my heart shall be/ The firstlings of my hand” (4.1). He decides to seize Macduff’s castle at
Fife and kill his wife and children. Note how Macbeth gets trapped in his own actions as he continues tomurder with greater ferocity.

3.3.2 Lady Macduff

The scene shifts to Macduff’s castle where blood and gore will take place. This scene with its vividdescriptions of brutal killings alerts us to the nature of violence in the play. Macduff has fled to Englandmaking his family the sacrificial goat. However, this idea sits uneasily with Lady Macduff and she isquick to ask—“Wisdom! To leave his wife, to leave his babes”. She resents this and says, “He wants thenatural touch”. According to her even the “poor wren” fights for its young ones but Macduff hasabandoned his family. This draws attention to how loyalty and construction of the nation are made on thebodies of women and children. Macduff’s son appears briefly, but plays an important role. He isreasonable, practical, witty and understands his mother. Take a look at the following lines:

Son: Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.
My father is not dead, for all your saying.

Lady Macd.: Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?
Son: Nay, how will you do for a husband?
Lady Macd.: Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
Son: Then you’ll buy ’em to sell again.
Lady Macd.: Thou speak’st with all thy wit: and yet, i’ faith,
With wit enough for thee. …

Lady Macd.: Now, God help thee, poor monkey!
But how wilt thou do for a father?
Son: If he were dead, you’ld weep for
him: if you would not, it were a good sign
that I should quickly have a new father. (4.235-43, 58-62)

This witty exchange between the mother and son is light-hearted. But mark the perceptive nature of theyoung boy brought to fore in a few lines. The killing of the entire family acquires greater tragic intensity.
Lady Macduff who had already been apprised of the situation by Rosse asks—“Whither should I fly?/ I
have done no harm/ But I remember now/ I am in this earthly world, where, to do harm/ Is often laudable”(4.2 72-75). She thinks herself to be a pawn in the hands of her husband and his state machinations. In all
these strategies and counter strategies she is abandoned by Macduff and can be easily dispensed with.
Lady Macduff has the chance to flee but does not do so. She decides to stay on and is brutally killed bythe murderers.

3.3.3 The State of Scotland and the Healing Powers of England

The next scene is between Malcolm and Macduff and it describes the state of Scotland. Malcolm’s speechis reflective and searching as he laments: “Each new morn,/ New widows howl, new orphans cry”. He
maps Macbeth’s transition from a good person to a treacherous man. His speech indicates how one that isgood also has the potential to transform into something evil or monstrous. This is in line with the tone of
equivocation in the play. Malcolm notes how Macbeth who worked for the interest of the state has endedup destroying it completely. He says, “Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:/ Though all thingsfoul would wear the brows of grace/ Yet Grace must still look so”. Malcolm asks Macduff as to why heleft his family in haste. To this Macduff replies:

Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, …. Malcolm:
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.
It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds. I think withal
There would be hands uplifted in my right;
And here from gracious England have I offer
Of goodly thousands. But, for all this,
When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head,
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
Shall have more vices than it had before,
More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever,
By him that shall succeed. (4.3 31-32, 39-48)

Malcolm presents England as a solution to the problems that Scotland is facing. Scotland has become acountry with gashes and wounds whereas England provides the healing touch. Malcolm tests Macduff’sloyalty towards him and the state as he says that even if the “tyrant” was quashed, the “poor country” will
have more vices than before. The exchange between Malcolm and Macduff ponders over the attributes of
a good ruler. Malcolm deliberately assigns negative qualities to himself to assess Macduff’s allegiance.
He tells the nobleman that he has vices which if they are revealed, “black Macbeth/ Will seem as pure assnow”. To himself Malcolm assigns “voluptuousness”—“your wives, your daughters,/ Your matrons, andyour maids, could not fill up” (4.3 61-62). However, Macduff believes in him and says that “Boundlessintemperance” is a tyranny but “there cannot be/ That vulture in you, to devour so many”. The second evil
Malcolm presents in his persona is that of “avarice”. Here, too, Macduff believes that “Scotland hadfoisons to fill up your will”. Malcolm then shares with Macduff his complete lack of “king-becominggraces”. Malcolm considers himself devoid of “Justice, Verity, Temp’rance, Stableness,/ Bounty,
Perseverance, Mercy, Lowliness,/ Devotion, Patience, Courage, Fortitude”. At this Macduff laments that
such a person is “Fit to govern?/ No, not to live.—O nation miserable!/ With an untitled bloody tyrant
bloody-sceptered,/ When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again/ Since that the truest issue of thythrone/ By his own interdiction stands accus’d,/ And does blaspheme his breed?” (4.3102-109).

With this response Macduff has won Malcolm’s confidence. He refers to Macduff as “Child of integrity”.
Malcolm finally speaks his mind to Macduff as he tells him that all the blames he had taken on himself
are “strangers to my nature”. He tells him, “I am yet/ Unknown to woman; never was forsworn;/ Scarcelyhave coveted what was my own;/ At no time broke my faith: Would not betray/ The Devil to his fellow;
and delight/ No less in truth, than life: my first false-speaking/ Was this upon myself.” (4.3 125-131). Theidea of kingship and loyalty is discussed again. Macbeth’s loyalty to the King and the state wins for himDuncan’s confidence. A new cycle can be seen at work and one can observe a similar pattern at work here.
Macduff will be the loyal subject to Malcolm through his love for the nation. Macbeth’s sentiment wasentwined with ambition. At this stage Macduff advocates selfless love for Scotland and rejects thepossibility of a corrupt ruler. Such an attitude endears him to the state.

This scene also brings in the relationship between Scotland and England. The former is seen as a countrywith worries but the latter is a nation that has the capacity to provide the solution. The King of England is
seen as exemplary; he is both a king and a healer. Take a look at Malcolm’s speech to understand thisdynamic.

‘Tis called the evil:
A most miraculous work in this good King,
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I have seen him do. How he solicits Heaven,
Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: And, ’tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace. (4.3 147-158)

These lines present the English King as one who gives stability to the nation and heals its people especially through his “miraculous work”; an idea found wanting in Scotland. The scene ends with Rosseinforming Macduff of the murder of his family and servants. Malcolm extends the metaphor of healing ashe urges Macduff to make “med’cines of our great revenge,/ To cure this deadly grief”. But there is a shift
in tone at the end of this scene. It is as Malcolm points out “manly”. Macduff seeks revenge in killingMacbeth who he refers to as the “fiend of Scotland”. This once again brings all within the cycle of violence.

3.4 ACT V

3.4.1 The Sleepwalking Scene

The last act begins with a discussion of Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking. The Waiting-Gentlewomanapprises the Doctor of Lady Macbeth’s strange behaviour of walking in her sleep. She informs him:

“Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gownupon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, andagain return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep”. (5.1 4-8).

The Doctor interprets this as a “great perturbation in nature” and asks if she speaks anything in this“slumbery agitation”. The Gentlewoman refuses to reveal the details. At this point, Lady Macbeth walksin with a candle in hand. They both watch her rubbing her hands in her sleep. The following lines fromLady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene are the oft quoted ones and shed new light on her character:

Lady M. Out, damned spot! Out, I say!—One; two; why, then ‘tis time to do’t. –Hell ismurky. –Fie, my Lord, fie! A soldier and afeard? –what need we fear who knowsit, when none can call our power to accompt? –Yet who would have thought theold man to have had so much blood in him?

Doct. Do you mark that?
Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?—What, will these hands ne’er
be clean?—No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that. You mar all with this starting.

Doct. Go to, go to. You have known what you should not.
Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. Heaven knows what she has known.
Lady M. Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, Oh, Oh!

Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
(5.1 33-51)

Lady Macbeth’s understanding of recent events is important. It seems as if the deeds of blood and goreare condensed into the spots on her hands. The sight of blood disturbs her. It remains ingrained in her
mind as a symbol of the deed performed by Macbeth and her; even though she was unable to kill Duncanas he reminds her of her own father. But her erratic speech is important for the reference to the Thane of
Fife and his wife. The metonymic image of blood keeps on multiplying from Duncan to the Thane of
Fife’s wife. It is indeed a bloody picture. Lady Macbeth realises that all the perfumes of Arabia will not
take the smell of blood away from her hands. All these murders have been committed by Macbeth or
executed on his orders. But, she sees herself as one with Macbeth and the impact of these killings istransposed onto her. The Gentlewoman’s comment qualifies it further. She feels that she would not
possess a heart of this sort for the “dignity” of the body. This indicates how Lady Macbeth has violatedmind and body in being both an active and a passive accomplice. Lady Macbeth’s final call is “What’sdone cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.” The Doctor realises the enormity of what was being saidand is quick to point out that such a disease is beyond his experience. He realises that Lady Macbeth’smind is seized with horror at the deeds as they are “unnatural”. He says, “More needs she the divine thanthe physician.”

3.4.2 The Tragic End

The next scene shifts to the country near Dunsinane. The soldiers discuss how Malcolm and Macduff
supported by the English forces are fast approaching Scotland. They will meet near Birnam wood. Theyrefer to Macbeth as the “tyrant”. He is seen as anarchic by them—“Some say he’s mad; others, that lesser
hate him,/ Do call it valiant fury” (5.2. 13-16). All in all, they also realise how he will no longer be able tosustain his rule. Macbeth has failed as ruler as “Those he commands move only in command,/ Nothing in love.”

On his part, Macbeth is seen in a room in his castle as he clings to the witches’ prophesies that nothingcan harm him till Birnam wood marches to Dunsinane, and that no one born of woman can kill him. Evenas Lady Macbeth’s condition is made known to him, he instructs the Doctor to “Pluck from the memory arooted sorrow.” Meanwhile the soldiers in Malcolm’s army are instructed to prepare by cutting down abough and hold it before them and wait for the opportune moment. Macbeth is informed of LadyMacbeth’s death and he says,

She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word—
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (5.5 17-28)

Note how these lines bring forth the transience of life. Macbeth caught within the web of politics is struckby the temporariness of life as he experiences the loss of Lady Macbeth. The messenger informs Macbethof a moving grove and his worst fears prove to be true. According to the witches his safety was incumbent
on Birnam wood moving up to Dunsinane. He thought this to be an impossibility but soon enough realisesthe witches’ tone was one of “equivocation”. Malcolm with the support of Macduff and young Siward hasmoved to Dunsinane. Macbeth is confident of his invincibility as he believes that there can be none not
born of a woman. He boasts to Macduff, “I bear a charmed life; which must not yield/ To one of womanborn”. Macduff informs him that “Macduff was from his mother’s womb/ Untimely ripp’d.” Macbethrealises the real meaning of the witches’ prophecy. He calls them “juggling fiends” that “palter with us ina double sense.” The witches’ chant—“Double double toil and trouble” reverberates in this context.
Macbeth is finally slain by Macduff. In the final scene in the castle, as Macduff enters with Macbeth’sdecapitated head, one can mark the beginning of another cycle of violence. Macduff’s rhetoric about lovefor the state has evidenced itself in the form of an extreme state of violence. It is precisely this kind of
valour that Macbeth had been praised for at the beginning of the play. These overtones disturb thesemblance of peace and prosperity as Macduff stands in the same relation with Malcolm as did Macbethwith Duncan. One is left with uneasy thoughts as one thinks whether this cycle of violence will really end.
The play ends with Malcolm’s coronation at Scone. He also calls his thanes and kinsmen, earls, a termthat belonged to the English court. The play remains a tragedy not just because of the killing of Macbethbut also due to the relationship of the subject to the king and the state, an allegiance cemented with violence.

3.5 LET US SUM UP

This chapter analysed Acts III, IV and V of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The play is a tragedy and it endswith the killing of Macbeth. These three acts trace a rapid deterioration in Macbeth. The second act endswith establishing Macbeth as king, but in the third one that power of his as a king becomes unstable. Asblood and gore continue with the killing of Banquo and Macduff’s family, it starts hanging heavy onMacbeth’s mind. He is both disturbed and insecure as he sees Banquo’s ghost take his seat in the banquet
scene. Hecate’s world and the witches’ predictions continue to influence Macbeth. Brutality and anendless sequence of violence finally shakes all sense of normalcy. The fifth act focusses on Lady Macbethand her sleepwalking and death. The Act also concentrates on the attributes of a good king whilebringing forth the relationship between England and Scotland. The problems of Scotland are resolvedwith the help of the English forces. The witches’ prophesies are realised as Macduff kills Macbeth. Theplay ends with Malcolm as king and Macduff his loyal subject, a replication of the Macbeth-Duncanequation. The tragic overtones disturb the sense of peace established at the end of the play.

3.6 GLOSSARY

Barren sceptre: The idea that Macbeth will not beget kings.
Misdemeanour: Bad behavior.
Parricide: Killing of the father; in this case the King.
Lion-mettled: Brave heart.
Hyrcan tiger: Hyrcania is a place known for its tigers.
Acheron: one of the rivers of Hades.
Twofold balls and treble sceptres: They refer to King James I who had united the thrones of
England and Scotland.
Boundless intemperance: over-indulgence.
Juggling fiends: deceptive.
Palter: trick.

3.7 QUESTIONS

1. Critically analyse the Banquet Scene. 2. Does Macbeth understand the real meaning of the apparitions? Comment.
3. What are the implications of Lady Macbeth’s sleep-walking?
4. Discuss Hecate’s monologue.
5. Analyse the theme of equivocation in the play
6. What do the witches predict about Macbeth’s future? Are these realised? Discuss
7. Bring out the idea of violence and its relation to the state in Macbeth.

3.8 SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Muir, Kenneth. Ed. William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Methuen, 1984.
2. Nagpal Payal. Ed. William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Worldview P, 2016.

 

UNIT 4 MACBETH: CRITICAL RESPONSES

Structure
4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Criticism: A Brief Note
4.2.1 Samuel Johnson: “Preface to Shakespeare” (1765)
4.2.2 S.T. Coleridge: “On Macbeth” (1819)
4.3.3 Thomas de Quincey: “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth” (1823)
4.3 A.C. Bradley: Shakespearean Tragedy (1904)
4.4 Marxist Approach to Macbeth
4.5 Cultural Materialism
4.6 The Witches in Macbeth
4.6.1 Debates around witches and witchcraft
4.6.2 Terry Eagleton: “The Witches are the Heroine of the Piece….” (1986)
4.7 England and Scotland
4.8 Let Us Sum Up
4.9 Glossary
4.10 Questions
4.11 Suggested Readings

4.0 OBJECTIVES

Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of the most critically acclaimed tragedies. It has a rich critical oeuvre.
Critics have responded in varied ways to the play. There are Feminist, Marxist, New Historicist
approaches amongst many others to the play. This unit will outline some of these approaches to providean overview of the way in which the play has been read and interpreted over the years.

4.1 INTRODUCTION

In this unit, you will be reading the wide ranging interest that Shakespeare’s Macbeth evoked over thecenturies following the play. In a true sense, the play was at the centre of critical comment and analysis.
The process began in the early eighteenth century and from then on has continued uninterrupted. Initially,
it appealed as a play that showed the ethos of Elizabethan-Jacobean period. Later, it was a subject of
psychological probing. Still, later, the play assumed the form of political conflicts and assessments of
nationalist as well as crime-related developments across the ideological spectrum. The culturalideological concerns gained depth of vision as well as sustained engagement with the good fighting evil inthe human imagination.

4.2 EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURY CRITICISM: A BRIEF NOTE

4.2.1 Samuel Johnson: “Preface to Shakespeare” (1765)

The eighteenth century critic Samuel Johnson, edited the bard’s plays and in the Preface, calls him a manwho holds a “faithfull mirror to manners and life.” In tune with critical thought of his time, Johnsonappreciates Shakespeare’s plays for their observation of the society in the late sixteenth and earlyseventeenth centuries. Johnson calls Macbeth a “tragedy dependent upon “enchantment” to “produce thechief events by the assistance of supernatural agents.” This would have been seen as an act of
transgression in its time. However, Johnson proposes that Shakespeare was in no danger as the “reality”of witchcraft and enchantment has been “credited by the common people” (Miola, Robert S. Ed. WilliamShakespeare: Macbeth. New York and London, 2014. 227-228). According to the critic, the trial of thewitches at Warbois during Elizabeth’s reign was an example to corroborate this idea. Johnson drawsattention to King James’s concerns about witchcraft as presented in Daemonologie (1597). This book was reprinted at London when James assumed the English throne. Subsequently the Act against Witchcraft
was revised in 1604. As a result, the world of witches and the supernatural was a believable one—“it
became not only unpolite but criminal to doubt it” (229). Against this background, according to Johnson,
Shakespeare would not have been censured. He has only followed “such histories as were then thought
true; nor can it be doubted that the scenes of enchantment, however they may now be ridiculed, were bothby himself and his audience thought awful and affecting” (229). Graymalkin parallels the witches’ use of
the cat. The ‘familiars’ were known to destroy the neighbour’s cattle, and “killing swine” also produced melancholy fits and loss of flesh. All these ideas prevalent at the time are used by Shakespeare in Macbeth.

In discussing the character of Lady Macbeth, Johnson praises Shakespeare for his understanding of
human nature. She persuades her husband to commit the murder by urging “excellence and dignity of
courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age” (229). Macbeth’s famous lines onthe death of the queen, “She should have died hereafter./ There would have been time for—such aworld!—/ Tomorrow,…” has evoked critical response. Johnson considers them to be an example of theunderstanding of human nature that “tomorrow will be happier than today, but tomorrow and tomorrowsteals over us unenjoyed and unregarded.” In short Johnson’s appreciation of Shakespeare’s plays restedon their presentation of observed reality of the time in a manner that was real, objective and humane.

4.2.2 S.T. Coleridge: “On Macbeth” (1819)

A thinker, philosopher of the Romantic tradition, S.T. Coleridge, praised Shakespeare for his use of
imagination. In his essay “On Macbeth”, the nineteenth century critic, Coleridge posits Macbethincontrast to Hamlet especially in terms of the opening of the play. In Hamlet, there is a transition from “thesimplest forms of conversation to the language of impassioned intellect—yet the intellect still remainingthe seat of passion.” In the case of Macbeth, the appeal is to the imagination and the emotions therewith”(Miola 233). In short for Coleridge, Macbeth appeals to the passion via imagination whereas Hamlet
appeals to the intellect. Coleridge’s comments have particularly been cited for his comments on the Porter
scene. He says:

Hence the movement throughout is the most rapid of all Shakespeare’s plays; and hence also,
with the exception of the disgusting passage of the Porter (2.3), which I dare pledge myself todemonstrate to be an interpolation of the actors, there is not, to the best of my remembrance, asingle pun or play on words in the whole drama. (233)

Coleridge defends Shakespeare on the charge of “punning” and sees in Macbeth the absence of puns. Healso notes an “absence of comedy, nay, even of irony and philosophic contemplation in Macbeth—theplay being wholly and purely tragic” (233).The important points made by Coleridge pertain to Macbeth’sappeal to the imagination and the absence of pun restoring it completely within the ambit of pure tragedy.
Morality is not “equivocal” and the play focuses on “rage” caused by “disruption of anxious thought andthe quick transition of fear into it” (233).

Coleridge attributes the creation of the witches entirely to Shakespeare as part of his collection of Ariel
and Caliban. Differing from Johnson he argues,

They are wholly different from any representation of witches in the contemporary writers and yet
presented a sufficient external resemblance to the creatures of vulgar prejudice to act immediatelyon the audience. Their characters consist in the imaginative disconnected from the good; they areshadowy, obscure and fearfully anomalous of physical nature, the lawless of human nature,
elemental avengers without sex or kin. (234)

It is clear that for the critic, Macbeth remains a product of the imagination. The witches are markedlydifferent from contemporary portrayal despite any “external resemblance.” He understands them as“imaginative disconnected from the good;” they are anarchic and out of the structure of morality. In thisway they determine what Coleridge calls the “character” of the drama. As for Lady Macbeth, Coleridge sees her as “deluded by ambition” and bringing shame on her husband. Her invocation of the spirits isanother example, for Coleridge, of the imagination familiarised to “dreadful conceptions.” Note that thecritic had in the famous Biographia Literaria written about the role of imagination and made a distinctionbetween the primary and secondary forms of imagination. It was a faculty particularly important for
thinkers of this period. Coleridge’s understanding of Shakespeare’s plays is mediated through the role of
imagination in creative thinking.

4.2.3 Thomas de Quincey: “On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth” (1823)

Another nineteenth century critic, de Quincey, focuses on Act II, Scene III. The gruesome murders havealready been done and the moment is followed by Macduff and Lennox knocking at the gate, followed bythe Porter scene. His comments have been understood to mean a defence of the Porter scene in the play.
Unlike Coleridge’s stress on imagination, de Quincey interprets in Macbeth “strife of mind” and one that
is greater than that in his wife. But the “murderous mind of necessity is finally to be presumed in both. ”This was a neat contrast to Duncan’s “gracious” nature. It also explained, in Macbeth the transition from“ human nature” to “fiendish nature”. Lady Macbeth is “unsexed” and Macbeth seems devil like. The normalcy of human nature has as if gone into a “syncope” for a new order to set in. He explains the knocking thus:

Hence it is, that, when the deed is done, when the work of darkness is perfect, then the world of
darkness passes away like a pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard; and it
makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human has made its reflux upon thefiendish; the pulses of life are beginning to beat again; and the re-establishment of the goings-onof the world in which we live, first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that hadsuspended them. (238)

4.3 A.C. BRADLEY: SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY (1904)

Shakespearean Tragedy is a series of lectures delivered by A.C. Bradley on Shakespeare’s tragedies. In it,
the critic interprets the play in the context of the text. Even as references to certain other texts of the timemight be there, Bradley analyses the cause of tragedy and the fall of the tragic hero. In the case of
Macbeth, he takes on from the point made by Coleridge. Whereas the nineteenth century critic hadcompared the play to Hamlet and cite difference, Bradley compares the two plays in terms of their
likeness. He cites the fact that a Shakespearean tragedy “has a special tone or atmosphere of its own, quiteperceptible, however difficult to describe” (278). Macbeth is marked by “darkness” or “blackness”. Hethen cites many instances in the play that contribute to this idea.

According to Bradley, even though “the influence of the Witches’ prophecies on Macbeth is very great, it
is quite clearly shown to be an influence and nothing more. There is no sign whatever in the play that
Shakespeare meant the actions of Macbeth to be forced on him by an external power, whether that of theWitches, or of their ‘masters’, or of Hecate” (287). For the critic, Macbeth’s tragedy lies within himself
and not on some outside agency. His criticism of the play rests on an understanding of words in the playthat carry it to its tragic outcome. Bradley presents a long commentary on the thought processes inMacbeth’s mind and the way in which he would have been influenced by his own desire as also later theenormity of his act. As he says, “…the consciousness of guilt is stronger in him than the consciousness of
failure” (301). Bradley points out how we continue to sympathise with Macbeth even at the end of theplay and see in him something “sublime.”

With regard to Lady Macbeth, he says that she is “the most commanding and perhaps the most aweinspiring figure that Shakespeare drew” (307). Mark that Bradley’s analysis of her rests entirely on theway she is drawn in the play. He says of her, “She helps him, but never asks his help. She leans onnothing but herself” (309). She is marked by “courage and force of will”. These lines show how at theturn of the century, the response to Shakespeare’s plays changed. His plays were understood only interms of conventional ideas of plot and character. Moreover, all this was filtered through Bradley’s understanding of character and the sequence of events. Later criticism begins to incorporate texts of thetime to assess how the characters were ‘fashioned’ in specific ways.

4.4 THE MARXIST APPROACH TO MACBETH

A movement that arose in the mid-nineteenth century with the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
Marxism was developed in many different ways in the twentieth century. It made a great contribution toliterature and literary studies as it drove home the consciousness of class antagonism and social
positioning of the marginal social groups. In the modern period these ideas manifested themselvesthrough other movements that kept culture in the forefront. Through it, critics approached the social
context of socio-economic groups relegated to the periphery of society. It is important to look at someseminal thinkers who have looked at Shakespeare’s Macbeth from a Marxist perspective. In the article“Macbeth”, Victor Kiernan explores the historical context and the plausibility of Shakespeare’sfamiliarity with the same. The critic interprets Macbeth’s character as one that brings in ‘change’. Thisbelongs not to Macbeth as an individual, but it is a ‘change’ that belongs to its time. There are social
forces in a state of collision and this is of interest in the play. He places Macbeth as the “second of twousurpers of a throne in the tragedies”, the first being Claudius in Hamlet. Kiernan sees the time of the playas close to the succession of James I and one that is surrounded by uncertainty due to rebellion; theGunpowder Plot being a case in point. The critic also points towards Shakespeare’s understanding of
Scotland as one that needed a purging of sorts as it had “an undefined malady in the body politic”.

Macbeth’s “reign of terror” is contrasted with Duncan’s virtue as “most sainted king” or that of Edwardwho is seen as the healer, who has “heavenly gift of prophecy”. According to Kiernan, Malcolm isintroduced “as a young prince of a new strain”. So Malcolm is supposed to cleanse Scotland off its evils.
Kiernan rightly explains how this raises the issue of people’s right to throw off a ruler like Macbeth. He states:

He is a usurper, but the argument would seem to hold good even against the most legitimate monarch;
the dividing-line is at any rate faint. Shakespeare is not free to follow it to its logical conclusion; but
he is ineffect challenging James’s doctrine that the worst conceivable ruler, once anointed andsceptered, must be submitted to unmurmuringly. (Kiernan, Victor. Eight Tragedies of Shakespeare:
A Marxist Study. London & New York: Verso, 1996. 128-129)

Kiernan places the Macbeth-Lady Macbeth partnership in the context of the murders. On the one hand the critic looks at how Macbeth has to prove himself to her, on the other how he later becomes assertive in planning and executing. Macbeth faints in the banquet scene even as Lady Macbeth retains her composure.
In this context the critic sees the family, “the microcosm of the society” as being torn apart. Kiernan doesnot pay too much attention to the witches. He sees them as prompting Macbeth further in his enterprise.
But his primary interest remains seeing the play in its context and the equation between Scotland and England. As he finally explains:

Macbeth makes an apt symbol of times when men feel mysterious forces at work, at bottom social forces not yet clearly recognised for what they are, which turn individuals almost
irresistibly against their fellows. He felt it somehow dishonourable to shrink from a challenge to reach the summit, whatever the hazards. In Lukacs’ words, the play is an illustration of how great
historical collisions could be translated into human terms and imbued with dramatic life(Historical Novel 137). In a time like Shakespeare’s a society may be ripe for change, but only individuals ruthlessly prepared to defy old rules of conduct can lead the way towards a shatteringof the old order, and an opening towards a new one…It led him to a nihilistic rejection of life, as a cosmic failure, without meaning…Feudalism was giving way to capitalism, even if neither of these terms had yet been invented. (138)

Kiernan’s point of view analyses the triggers in Macbeth’s decision making from believing in the witches,
Lady Macbeth and most of all to his own inner impulses. He locates the Scotland–England conflict and Macbeth’s own developments in this context. This understanding of the changes fermenting in the social
structure places Macbeth within a social context. His disregard for the old order helps us understand Macbeth not as an individual but as a symbol of change as brought out by the individual as force.

Marxist critic, Anand Prakash in an essay written especially for an edition on Macbeth titles his essay,
“Reaffirming Humanity Against Odds: A View of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.” The present-day critic explains the play in the context of the struggle for humanism, an idea he thinks, is central to the world of
Shakespeare’s plays. He is quick to point out how the play is about “larger processes than individual
initiatives”. It is not any one factor but “a whole train of tendencies rooted in the existing political
climate” that work to control the “main players”. This line of argument places the play against the context
of its age. For instance, the witches are seen as “figures situated at the periphery.” The people who are at
the centre of things have pushed them to the margins. According to Prakash, the play is then a “head-on collision of the two discourses, one that determines the operation of high politics and the other of the deprived” (178). Macbeth is therefore placed at the centre of these conflicts. Shakespeare may have referred to a ‘source’ for the character of Macbeth, but the play belongs to the England of its time—“thesubstance of modernity in Tudor England” (180).

4.5 CULTURAL MATERIALISM

Most criticism of the early twentieth century toed the line of Bradley and the New Critical theory by focussing on the text as a closed unit. The Marxist understanding of Shakespeare’s plays in terms of class and later culture led to new ways of interpreting the plays. Feminist criticism, new historicist and cultural
materialist reading brought in a whole range of issues that led to the discussion of Shakespeare’s plays in a way that was vital and dynamic. New Historicists and cultural materialists have understood the play against the socio-cultural and historical milieu of the period in which the play was produced and read.
Placing Macbeth in the context of the social histories of the time helps understand the different ways of
interpreting the manifold aspects of the play. The cultural materialist position helps us read into the construction of people located on the margins of the society. The women, commoners and people belonging to the lower orders can be understood just as well as the world of kings and queens. One of the important aspects in Macbeth is that of the monarch and his claim to the throne. The play is set inJacobean England i.e. the time period when King James VI of Scotland has taken over as the monarch of
England as King James I of England. In the process the English and Scottish thrones were united.

This was not an easy transition given the fact that there was no direct heir to Queen Elizabeth. The vacuum left by the Queen led to rival claims. Even as the ascension of King James was seen as viable, it
was not without its opponents. In this context it helps to look at some interesting documents from that
period that foreground this debate.

In his article “Macbeth: History, Ideology and Intellectuals” (1992), Alan Sinfield uses a cultural
materialist approach to discuss the disturbances in the play that create conflict in a Jamesian reading of
the play. Sinfield uses George Buchanan’s De jure regni (1579) and History of Scotland (1582) in his argument.

He looks at the sixteenth century England as a development from “feudalism to the absolutist state”. He explains how in the case of the former, the king’s power was “often little more than nominal”. According to him, “authority was distributed also among overlapping non-national institutions such as the church,
estates, assemblies, regions, and towns. In the absolutist state, power became centralized in the figure of
the monarch, the exclusive source of legitimacy” (219). This indicates how the monarch tried to amasspower and assert her/himself. An absolutist assertion, partial or total also meant that there would be“dissidents”. For Sinfield, this was a broad category that comprised, “aristocrats like the Earls of
Northumberland and Westmorland who led the northern rising of 1569, and the Duke of Norfolk, who plotted to replace Elizabeth with Mary Queen of Scots in 1571; clergy who refused the state religion;
gentry who supported them and who tried to raise awkward matters in Parliament; writers and printers who published criticism of state policy; the populace when it complained about food, prices, enclosures,
or anything” (Nagpal 219).

The rebellions in the sixteenth century draw our attention to the dissatisfaction as well as the potential of
assertion in the different social groups in society from the clergy onwards to the commoners. For instance,
the Catholic persecution and the Gunpowder Plot. In this context the monarch sought to naturalise the idea of the absolutist state. Sinfield uses documents such as the sentence passed upon Jane Wiseman in1598, the works of George Buchanan to examine the formation of the absolutist state and Macbeth’srelation to the same. King James’ own work Basilikon Doron (1599) protected the idea of absolutism in the state by making a distinction between the “lawful good king” and the “usurping tyrant”. This distinction meant that an act of violence committed by the king was acceptable and in the latter it was a crime. Analysed against this distinction Macbeth becomes a play that can no longer, as Sinfield points out,
be read in terms of a Jamesian reading. It has to be read also in terms of the disturbance created by theBuchanan text. He refers to Buchanan’s De jure regni (1579) and History of Scotland (1582). Keepingthese in mind, Sinfield draws attention to Macduff who at the end of the play stands in the same relation to Malcolm, as Macbeth did to Duncan:

The Jamesian reading requires that Macbeth be a distinctively “evil” eruption in a “good” system;
awareness of the role of Macudff in Malcolm’s state alerts us to the fundamental instability of power
relations during the transition to absolutism, and consequently to the uncertain validity of the claim of thestate to the legitimate use of violence. Certainly Macbeth is a murderer and an oppressive ruler, but he isone version of the absolutist ruler, not the polar opposite. (Nagpal, Payal. Ed. William Shakespeare:
Macbeth. New Delhi: Worldview P, 2016. 226)

Sinfield makes a case for a clear political analysis of the play keeping in mind the relevance of the textsand documents of the time that found their way into the play or had a bearing on it in some manner.

A brief look at some of the debates of the time make Sinfield’s point clear. For instance, Catholic priestslike Robert Parsons contested James’ right to the English throne in 1595 in A Conference about the Next
Succession to the Crown of England. He raised the issue of the succession to the English throne, an issuenot meant to be discussed at the time. Parsons also brought in the role of the commonwealth andchallenged the “absolute’ power of the monarch. Given the uneasy political context to England andScotland, King James’ claim to the throne was not uncontested. He stated:

…albeit the nearness of each man’s succession in blood were evidently known, yet were it uncertain whoshould prevail, for that it is not enough for a man to be next only in blood, thereby to pretend a crown, but
that other circumstances must concur, and he that is second, third, fourth, fifth or last, may lawfully bepreferred before the first. (Caroll, William C. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. New York: Bedfor/St.
Martin’s, 1999. 195)

At the same time Henry Constable challenged the same in A Discovery of a Counterfeit Conference(1600). He explains how, “in most nations of the world, the people have lost all power of election; and succession is firmly settled in one descent, as before I have declared” (Carroll 204). James’ transition from the Scottish to the English throne was therefore troubled and conflict-ridden.

4.6 THE WITCHES IN MACBETH

Some of the most intriguing characters in Macbeth have been the witches. They have of course drawn a lot of attention. Early criticism has looked at them in terms of the influence of the evil forces and it has only with attempts to historicise them that the witches have been looked at as real beings. Recent critical
inputs have helped understand them in the context of the debates around witchcraft. Before we analyse the witches as characters in Macbeth it is important to understand the nature of these debates around witches and witchcraft.

4.6.1 Debates around witches and witchcraft

The sixteenth century held particularly strong views regarding witches and they were fiercely condemned.
Witch trials and executions were prevalent. The St. Osyth witch trials of 1582 and the North Berwicktrials of 1591 are instances of the seriousness with which the monarch looked at the world of witchcraft.
In 1563, Elizabeth passed a statute against witchcraft. Scotland also passed an act against witchcraft at the same time. This Act was introduced as a new statute again in 1604 by King James I. The Act stated:

That if any person or persons, after the said Feast of St. Michael the Archangell next comming, shall
use, practise, or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked spirit: or shall consult,
covenant with, entertaine, imploy, feed, or reward any evil and wicked spirit, to or for any intent or
pupose; or take up any dead man, woman, or child, out of his, her, or their grave, or any other placewhere the dead body resteth; or the skin, bone, or any other part of any dead person, to be imployed,
or used in any manner of Witchcraft, Sorcery, Charme, or Inchantment, or shall use, practise, or
exercise, any Witchcraft, Incantment, Charme or Sorcery, whereby any person shall be Killed,
Destroyed, Wasted, Consumed, Pined, or Lamed, in His or Her body, or any part therof; that thenevery such Offender, or Offenders, their Ayders, Abettors, and Counsellors, being of the said offencesduly and lawfully Convicted and Attainted, shall suffer paines of death as a Felon or Felons, and shall
lose the priviledge and benefit of Clergy and Sanctuary. (Newton, John and Jo Bath Witchcraft andthe Act of 1604: Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008.
238)

Queen Elizabeth passed the Act in 1563 and King James I brought it back (encompassing a broader rangeof offenses” in 1604. This Act was finally revoked in 1736. Note that as per the Act, anyone who eveninvokes, consult or even covenants with the witches is liable to be punished. The Act reflected people’sbelief in the supernatural and the world of witchcraft. The Acts passed by both the monarchs is anindication of their views on witchcraft.

The possible source texts for Macbeth mention the witches in different ways. John Major makes nomention of the witches and Buchanan talks of them as part of a dream. Holinshed’s Chronicles describesthe meeting between Macbeth and the “weird sisters.” (See Illustration-1). Faith Nostbakken points out
how Holinshed in the historical narrative of King Duff ‘s reign in Scotland “tells of rebels attempting tooverthrow the king by seeking assistance from witches who are discovered one night secretly burning awax image of the king and chanting incantations to try to destroy him through the power of evil spirits”(84). According to Nostbakken, Holinshed provides two contrasting views to the witches—the weirdsisters are really “three goddesses with supernatural powers over human beings”, but RenaissanceEngland with its belief on demons saw the witches as related to them. Are they the goddesses of destinyor do they signify demons? King James adopted a clear position and condemned them as evil inDaemonologie (1597). (See Illustration-2). But Reginald Scot dismissed this as superstition inTheDiscovery of Witchcraft (1584). The witches in Macbeth must be read against such sixteenth centurydebates that surrounded witchcraft. Scot wrote his book two years after the St. Osyth trials in which sixwere women were condemned to execution. In his book, Reginald Scot presents the witches as:

…women which be commonly old, lame, blear-eyed, pale, foul, and full of wrinkles; poor, sullen,
superstitious and papists; or such as know no religion: in whose drowsy minds the devil hathgotten a fine seat; so as, what mischief, mischance, calamity, or slaughter is brought to pass, theyare easily persuaded the same is done by themselves…They are lean and deformed, showingmelancholy in their faces, to the horror of all that see them” (308).

To this he adds:

But whatsoever is reported or conceived of such manner of witchcrafts, I dare avow to be false and fabulous (cozenage, dotage and poisoning excepted): neither is there any mention made of
these kind of witches in the Bible (Carroll 309).

In short, Scot sees them as old women, poor women and rejects any Biblical mention of the same. King James’ concerns about witchcraft were well known. Scotland was more severe in its treatment of
witchcraft. As a result the laws were implemented with greater severity. The Scottish Witchcraft Act was passed in 1563 and according to it those people were punished who invoked the witches for any purpose.
The North Berwick trials of 1591 accused a group of people for plotting against the king. After the North Berwick trial and its relation to the plot against the monarch, King James took a stricter stance towards witchcraft in Daemonologie:

The fearful abounding at this time in this country, of these detestable slaves of the Devil, the witches, or enchanters, hath moved me to dispatch in this post, the following treatise of mine, not
in any wise (as I protest) to serve for a show of my learning and ingine, but only (moved of
conscience) to press thereby, so far as I can, to resolve the doubting hearts of many; both that
such assaults of Satan are most certainly practised, and that the instruments thereof, merits most
severely to be punished. (Carroll 325-326)

It is to be noted that the book was republished when James took over as monarch of England. The revision of the act and the re-publication of the text indicate the insecurities of the monarch regarding resistance especially through any alternative worldview. One can say that the witches are marked by are bellious attitude that disturbs the monarch.

It is clear from these divergent attitudes to the ‘witches’ that there were people like Scot who saw witchcraft as “false and fabulous”. And there was the monarch, be it Elizabeth or James, who reinforced belief in witches only to castigate them. In doing so, they created a polarity between the world of good as run by them and the world of evil of the witches that deserved to be punished. It is therefore not
surprising that the sixteenth century is known for trials and subsequent execution of the witches. These were mostly women.

Illustration-1

4.6.2 Terry Eagleton: “The Witches Are the Heroine of the Piece ” (1986)

Eagleton analyses the context of the witches in Macbeth. According to Eagleton the real heroines of the play are the witches. He associates them with a “positive value” as he calls them, “Exiles from that
violent order, inhabiting their own sisterly community on its shadowy borderlands, refusing all truck with its tribal bickerings and military honours’. The “riddling ambiguous speech” by the witches is another
instance of their subversion of the structure of power. In that sense, the witches are considered by the critic to be the “’unconscious’ of the drama” (211-212). Posing a threat to the normative society, this power needs to be repressed even as the possibility of its return remains a vital one. This argument is inline with our discussion of witches and witchcraft in terms of the debates and texts around it. They challenge the monarch’s power and the ones in power exercise control through legislation; the passing of
an Act. In trying to quell these forces, the monarch’s ‘writing’ tries to contain the domain of witches and witchcraft.

Eagleton foregrounds these women as “androgynous (bearded women), multiple (three-in-one) and‘ imperfect speakers’. They undermine the “stable social, sexual and linguistic forms” which is essential
for the working of the world in the play and even outside it. Take a look at the following lines by Eagleton:

Their words and bodies mock rigorous boundaries and make sport of fixed positions, unhinging received meanings as they dance, dissolve and re-materialise. But official society can only ever imagine its radical
‘other’ as chaos rather than creativity, and is thus bound to define the sisters as evil. Foulness—a political
order which thrives on bloodshed—believes itself fair, whereas the witches do not so much invert this opposition as invert it”. (Nagpal, Payal. Ed. William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Worldview P,
2016. 213)

Eagleton traces the transgression by the Macbeths within history and the subversive nature of the witches within cyclical time. The use of the moon, dance, verbal repetition is seen as “inimical to linear history”.
For the critic, the witches know no narrative. Applying the logic of Marxism to the witches, Eagleton feels that once their energy is placed within the political context, it becomes a “freedom which remains enslaved to the imperative of power” and thus reproduces the same “oppressive law”. As a result when Macbeth kills Duncan he attacks the body politic as also his own life. As a result, the Macbeths are “torn apart”. But the witches are “mutable” and do not experience this kind of disintegration.

See Illustrations 3, 4 and 5 for an understanding of the way the witches in Macbeth have been depicted in visual art.

The Case of Lady Macbeth

In the play, Lady Macbeth instigates Macbeth to become a man by killing Duncan and claiming his due on the grounds of valour. As a woman character situated in the sixteenth century, Lady Macbeth can realise her ambition only viz-a-viz her husband. If Macbeth claims the throne, then in the process, LadyMacbeth too makes a ‘strange’ narrative of her own. She uses one that does not follow the syntax of
normative society. The freedom in choice of words that she makes her own is only seen in the supernatural world of the witches. It is therefore no surprise that she has often been called the fourthwitch. In studying the character of Lady Macbeth we need to understand her class concerns as also her
use of language.

Terry Eagleton interprets Lady Macbeth in the following manner:

Like most of Shakespeare’s villains, in short, Lady Macbeth is a bourgeois individualist for
whom traditional ties of rank and kinship are less constitutive of personal identity than mere obstacles to be surmounted in the pursuit of one’s private ends.(213-214)

Would it be correct to use the term “bourgeois individualist” for Lady Macbeth? To understand this, we need to place her character against a combination of changing gender and class discourses of the time.
This was a world that was increasingly more mercantile than before, even as it continued under a monarch.
It leads well into the Cromwellian period where the monarch has been executed and the republicestablished. This became possible with a group of traders and merchants becoming more important in the seventeenth century. To call Lady Macbeth a “bourgeois individualist” would then be appropriate. It is a world in which people are driven by their desires to acquire personal benefit. But in doing so they alsoflout the existing social mores. Lady Macbeth in her desire for power subverts the deterministic structures of the time. Boundaries have to be redrawn to accommodate personal interest. She can realise her
ambition only as Macbeth seizes the crown. As Eagleton points out,

Lady Macbeth is akin to the three sisters in celebrating female power, but in modern parlance, she is a ‘bourgeois’ feminist who strives to outdo in domination and virility the very male system which subordinates her. Even so, it is hard to see why her bloodthirsty talk of dashing out babies’
brains is any more ‘unnatural’ than skewering an enemy soldier’s guts.

The world of violence, the unnatural is located well within the natural. It signals a world that is changing.

Illustration-3
Illustration-4
Illustration-5

4.7 ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND

Another important perspective in analysing Macbeth critically is to look at it in terms of the tension between England and Scotland. By now, the dynamic of power must have become quite clear to you given that the play is set in Scotland and not in England. King James I united the thrones of Scotland and England. One can mark how the play negotiates between the two countries given the common perception of Scotland as feudal and England as showing the way ahead. In the play too, Macbeth creates anarchy in Scotland and it is a visit to England and exposure to King Edward the healer that the way ahead can be seen. Meanwhile it is of some use to look at the different perceptions of these two countries.

The perception of Scotland in the English mind was constructed in terms of a polarity with Scotland asfeudal and rustic, and a difficult terrain. England was seen as more civilised in comparison to itsneighbour. James VI was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a Catholic who had unsuccessfully plottedthe death of Elizabeth. She was executed in 1587. This meant that the relation between these twocountries would have been strained. It also meant that James’ claim to the English throne was not anatural one and could be contested. In short, the relation between England and Scotland was a complexone. This carried into common cultural perceptions as well. As Carroll points out:

English attitudes towards Scotland in the late sixteenth century were mixed, of course, but certainlyanti-Scottish discourse pre-dominated…[It] comprised of maps, legends, unreliable histories, andoccasionally, narratives of travellers who had actually gone to Scotland. Much of the English attitude,
it seems, derived from the English project of nation-building and self-definition. (Carroll, William C.
Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. New York: Bedfor/St. Martin’s, 1999. 272).

One can see that the tension between the two nations would have taken a new form in the situation that
James was to be the successor to the English throne. This would have been a matter of debate and discussion. But as James’s ascent united the English and Scottish throne these views would have surely found creative representation. In setting the play in Scotland and presenting the English as a constructiveally to the Scots, Shakespeare is certainly raising complex issues.

4.8 LET US SUM UP

This unit would have given you a fair idea of the different trends in criticism on Shakespeare’s Macbethfrom the eighteenth century onwards. Today, we might base our understanding of the Bard’s plays oncurrent trends in literary criticism. But it is the legacy of Shakespearean criticism over the years that hasled to debates and discussion of ideas brought out in the play.

4.9 GLOSSARY

Machiavellian: The influence of Machiavelli’s views expressed in The Prince. In it the strategyto be adopted by the usurper has been discussed.
Imagination: The early nineteenth century privileged the faculty of imagination as against theidea of reason in the eighteenth century.
Normative: The norms of the society formed by the dominant social group.
Culture: in Marxist criticism, as per the base-superstructure model, culture is a part of thesuperstructure.
New Historicist: This way of thinking combined the presence of cultural texts, visual art and other
mediums to study a text of the period.
Cultural Materialism: It combined a view to the hierarchies in society with the idea of culture andrepresented the point of view of marginal social groups.

4.10 QUESTIONS

1. Discuss the key aspects of criticism on Macbeth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
2. Critically analyse Lady Macbeth as the fourth witch.
3. How do you interpret the role of the witches in Macbeth?
4. What were the different perceptions of the English about Scotland?
5. Analyse Macbeth from the point of view of Marxism.

4.11 SUGGESTED READINGS

1. Abrams, M.H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Sixteenth Century The EarlySeventeenth Century. New York and London: Norton, 2000.
2. Alker, Sharon and Holly Faith Nelson. “Macbeth, the Jacobean Scot, and the Politics of theUnion.” Studies in English Literature. 47.2 (2007): 379-401.
3. Baker, William. William Shakespeare. London: Continuum, 2009.
4. Belsey, Catherine. Shakespeare in Theory and Practice. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2008.
5. Bhatia, Nandi. Acts of Authority/Acts of Resistance: Theater and Politics in Colonial andPostcolonial India. New Delhi: OUP, 2004.
6. Bloom, Harold. Ed. Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages: Macbeth. New York, Info base P,
2008.
7. Bradley, A.S. Shakespearean Tragedy. New Delhi: Surjeet P, 1995.
8. Carroll, William C. Macbeth: Texts and Contexts. New York: Bedfor/St. Martin’s, 1999.
9. Dahiya, Bhim S., ed. Shakespeare’s Intellectual Background. New Delhi: Viva Books, 2008.
56
10. ————. Shakespeare: A New Biography. Kurukshetra: TSA, 2010.
11. Desai, R.W. Shakespearean Latencies. Delhi: Doaba P., 2002.
12. Dollimore, Jonathan and Alan Sinfield, eds. Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural
Materialism. London: Manchester UP, 1985.
13. Dollimore, Jonathan. Radical Tragedy: Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of Shakespeareand His Contemporaries. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
14. Greer, Germaine. Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford, 1986.
15. Harris, Jonathan Gil. “The Smell of Macbeth.”Shakespeare Quarterly. 58.4 (Winter 2007): 465-
486.
16. Kiernan, Victor. Eight Tragedies of Shakespeare: A Marxist Study. London & New York: Verso,
1996.
17. Miola, Robert S. Ed. William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New York and London, 2014.
18. Nagpal, Payal. Ed. William Shakespeare: Macbeth. New Delhi: Worldview P, 2016.
19. Newton, John and Jo Bath Witchcraft and the Act of 1604: Studies in Medieval and ReformationTraditions. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008.
20. Nostbakken, Faith. Understanding Macbeth: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources and Historical
Documents. London: The Greenwood P, 1997.
21. Prakash, Anand. “Reaffirming Humanity Against Odds: A View of Shakespeare’sMacbeth.”William Shakespeare: Macbeth. Ed. Payal Nagpal. New Delhi: Worldview P, 2016.

BLOCK 2 THOMAS HARDY: FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

Introduction

Some of the greatest British novelists lived and wrote in the nineteenth century. It was a period
of great transitions in Britain, which was being transformed from a primarily agricultural nation
into an industrialised one. Novelists like Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and George Eliot,
wrote with sensitivity and sympathy about the great changes happening in British society, the
problems caused by industrialisation and urbanisation, and about the miserable conditions of the
poorer sections of society.

In this block, we will be studying the novel Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy.
Hardy’s novels which are set against the fictional landscape of ‘Wessex’, explore the major
issues of the century, such as the crisis in religious belief caused by Darwin’s theory of evolution
and the condition of the rural communities. Far from the Madding Crowd is one of his most
popular novels.

Unit 1 of the block traces the history of the British novel from the eighteenth century till the
present and introduces various sub-genres within the novel form.

Unit 2 introduces you to the writing of Hardy and the salient aspects of his novels.

Unit 3 discusses the summary of the novel Far from the Madding Crowd and some of its major
themes.

Unit 4 focuses on the major characters of the novel and discusses Hardy’s philosophy.

We hope you enjoy reading the novel and that this block will help you to critically analyse it.

UNIT 1: THE NOVEL IN BRITAIN: AN INTRODUCTION

Structure:

1.0 Introduction
1.1 Aims and Objectives
1.2 What is a Novel?
1.3 A Brief History of the English Novel
1.3.1 Reasons for the rise of the English Novel in the 18th Century
1.3.2 The Novel in the 18th Century.
1.3.3 The Novel in the 19thCentury
1.3.4 The Modern Novel
1.3.5 The Postmodern Novel
1.4 Summing Up
1.5 Questions and Answers
1.6 References
1.7 Reading List
1.8 Glossary

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Far from the Madding Crowd is the fourth novel written by Thomas Hardy, a 19thcentury British
novelist belonging to the Victorian Age. This was published in 1874. It appeared originally as a
monthly serial and as it gained wide readership, it was later published as a full-length novel. The
novel has been made into a film quite a few times, with the first attempt in 1967. The film based
on Hardy’s novel was a bold attempt to centre stage a single young woman who takes up the
daunting task of managing her late uncle’s farm at a time when the patriarchal community was
strong and dominant. It was also an indictment of the moral code of conduct that privileged the
male over the female who was subjected to harsh treatment for any perceivable violation of the
Victorian moral code.

After you finish reading the novel, watch the1967 film production, starring Julie Christie and
Alan Bates. You can also view subsequent film productions of the novel. This will give you an
idea of how the literary medium and the film medium parallel each other to create the
atmosphere of the novel that has truly captured and rendered the rural life of the Victorian age in
the latter half of the 19th Century.

1.1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

After going through the Unit, you will be able to discuss the following:

*What is a Novel?
*A Brief History of the English Novel from the 18thcentury to the present time
and the causes for the rise of the Novel in the 18th century.

1.2 WHAT IS A NOVEL?

Before we take up Hardy’s novel for a detailed study in Units 3 and 4, we must get to know what
a novel is and follow it up with a brief history of the English novel. This will help you to place
Hardy’s work among the novels written during the second half of the 19thcentury.
The novel has many forms and any attempt to seek a single definition that is applicable to all the
forms is like trying to catch a leviathan(a monster) in a fly net. No definition is likely to be
adequate to cover all of them. Novels are generally classified into two broad categories- the
literary novel and popular fiction. In this Unit, though our focus is on the first one, namely the
literary novel, we need to distinguish it from popular fiction. Fiction has to be first and foremost
entertaining i.e., hold the interest of the reader. The primary difference between the literary novel
and poplar fiction is in its range of appeal, as the interest of readers vary. Popular fiction is
sometimes pejoratively referred to as the airport novel, novels that you pick up at the airport or in
a bus or railway station for reading while waiting or travelling to your destination and cast them
aside once you finish reading. Unlike the literary novels that we love to go back for a re-read and
for another re-reread, popular fiction does not leave us with any residual interest. Literary fiction
aims to hold up a mirror to the human condition while popular fiction aims to entertain and
provide excitement. Popular fiction is associated with straightforward narration to keep the
interest of the reader. This genre of story writing is popular among a majority of readers. As
popular fiction provides light entertainment, it gets sold in large numbers. Literary novels are
complex both in characterization and content.

Some critics consider popular fiction as the opposite of literature. For example, they concede
Mills and Boon and Harry Potter novels are popular, but they are different from classics written
by novelists like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, Leo Tolstoy,
and George Eliot .The two categories cater to two different tastes and it is not correct to privilege
one over the other. The aim of a literary novel is the self expression of the author while the focus
of popular fiction is the reader. “Popular culture is the television we watch, the movies we see,
the fast food, or slow food, we eat, the clothes we wear, the music we sing and hear, the things
we spend our money on, our attitude toward life. It is the whole society we live in, that which
may or may not be distributed by the mass media. It is virtually our whole world”1
. In the literary
novel, the character takes centre stage while popular fiction is driven by the plot.

Activity 1:

What types of fiction do you read? Do you automatically think literary means quality? Do you
think popular fiction leaves a lasting impact?

Activity 2:

Analyze any one popular novel you have read in the light of your views on its lasting impact.

However let us attempt a simple definition of a novel that can be applicable to a majority of
fiction written either as literary fiction or popular fiction. The novel is a genre of fiction writing
distinct from the other forms of storytelling like a short story or novella or drama. The novel has
much in common with these other forms of fiction writing, but has certain formal traits
especially with reference to its length.

One defining trait of the novel is the use of prose, which uses natural speech unlike poetry which
is generally marked by a rhythmic structure and often rhyming words. Prose is the best medium
to tell a story as the story is narrated through dialogues between characters, though we now have
graphic novels–novels using either a comic, or an artistic format where graphics substitute for
words.

In simple terms, the novel can be defined as an extended narrative in prose, longer than a
short story and longer than a novella and consisting of a plot (or multiple plots), characters
caught in the turmoil of problems arising out of the plot, development of the characters
shaped by life experience and the resolution at the end.

Traditional novels-in particular of the 18th and the 19th centuries, offer a strong plot that pose a
problem or set of problems to the characters in the narrative, some of which are resolved in the
action of the novel. On the contrary, modern novels of the 20th Century break with tradition and
in place of conventional plot structure, have multiple plots and multiple stories and have a
greater focus on characters. Considering this type of flexibility in the genre, we can see that there
is a great deal of variety allowed by the novel form. There are innumerable forms of novel –
adventure novel, picaresque novel, fantasy novel, epistolary novel, the Gothic novel, the graphic
novel, historical novel, dystopian novel, sentimental novel, science fiction novel, and Utopian
novel- just to name a few.

Activity 3:

Refer to the Glossary (1.6) to learn about the different forms of novel and attempt to find
examples of each one of them other than those given in the section.

From the above analysis, we can conclude that
*The Novel is a prose narrative normally of 40000 -50,000 words or even more.
*It deals with characters like you and me -characters we can easily identify with and
*It presents events involving the characters that again are realistic and easy for us to
connect to.

This is a broad definition. “People in significant action is one way of describing it”2
. The narrative line shows the development of characters in their growth and discovery of themselves
and fellow characters through their life experience.
.
1.3 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH NOVEL

This section will give you a brief history of the English novel from the 18thcentury to the post
modern period which spans the second half of the 20thcentury till date. So this brief history covers more than two hundred years starting from the 18thcentury to the present times. You may
wonder why we have chosen the history of English novel from the 18thcentury and not before
that. The novel as a literary genre became popular only in the 18thcentury, though there were a
few novels earlier in the 17th century.

For all purposes, the novel as a literary genre came into existence in 18thcentury England. If
you read the History of English Literature, you will find the reference to the 18thcentury,as the
Age of Prose and Reason. Before the 18thcentury, the dominant forms of writing were poetry and
drama. Not that there were no prose writings prior to the 18thcentury. But prose literature was
not as prolific as poetry and drama during the period from the 14thcenturyto the 17thcentury.
Examples of quality prose written in that period include Francis Bacon’s Essays, Sir Philip
Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry, John Milton’s Aeropagatica, and Tyndale’s translation of The
King James Bible, from Greek and Latin languages. But the novel as a literary genre did not get
prominence, though notable mentions can be made of Francis Bacon’ Utopian novel, New
Atlantis, Francis Godwin’s Imaginary Voyage to the Moon, the earliest science fiction in English
literature and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress, an allegorical narrative. Aphra Behn, the female
writer who wrote Oroonoko in 1688, is considered the first professional novelist and the first
female novelist in English. It was only in the 18thcentury,that the novel became popular and had
a wider readership than in the past. Before we take up the development of the novel in the next
two centuries leading to our present times, let us list out the reasons behind the rise of the novel
in the 18thcentury.

1.3.1 The Reasons for the Rise of the Novel in the 18th century

There are many reasons for the rise of the novel in the 18thcentury. This period in English
Literature is known by multiple names- the Augustan Age, Age of Prose and Reason, the Neoclassical Age, and the Age of the Periodical Essay. The main reason for the development of the
novel is the development of prose in this period. Prose, as we have shown, is the medium of the
novel.

The development of prose can be traced back to the interest the writers had in the classical
writings of the ancient times. That is why this period is known as the Augustan Age. The
Augustan Age has been one of the most illustrious periods in Latin literary history, from
approximately 43 BC to 18 AD. It is known as the Golden Age of Latin literature. Emperor
Augustus was the ruler when great Roman writers like Horace, Ovid and Virgil were at their
creative best and that period has been known as the Classical Age. When we use the term
‘classical literature’, it refers to writings that affirm order, harmony, restraint, balance, rationality
and the importance of unity in literature. When we read 18th-century literature in England, we
recognize how it was characterized by realism, reason, correctness, intellect and satirical spirit
similar to the writings of the Augustan period. Many of the writers looked back to the ancient
Roman geniuses and hence this period was rightfully called the Augustan Age.

It was also known as the neoclassical age i.e., a return to classical age. The birth of a new literary
movement, Neoclassicism was facilitated by the rational and scientific thinkers of that period
like the English philosopher and thinker, John Locke and the great astronomer and physicist
Isaac Newton. They were influential thinkers of the 18thcentury. Science became the new
authority and Reason was given a higher status than imagination and feeling to enable man to act
and behave in a civilized manner. So the writings that come under the rubric of Neoclassicism
endorsed the use of correct language, high degree of objectivity and rationality that we associate
with scientific spirit and temperament. Literature of this period sought to express universal
truths that had stood the test of time. This means, the writers discarded subjectivity as they
expounded truths that were timeless and universal.

There was yet another reason why prose flourished in the 18thcentury. The Royal Society of
London, the oldest scientific institution in the world, was formed in 1660 to improve natural
knowledge and promote Science. It stands to reason that scientific concepts needed prose as they
cannot be expounded and explained in the medium of poetry. Scientific theories had necessarily
to use prose to express with clarity and un-ambiguity.

After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that ensured England would have a Constitutional
monarchy in which Parliament would enjoy the majority of power, the political system in
England changed. With the balance of power moving away from monarchy in favour of
Parliament, two principal parties emerged- the Tories and the Whigs. The Parliamentary system
demanded political debate and political manifestoes from the two contending parties and this in
turn demanded once again clear, unambiguous and straightforward prose.

Then there was the rise of the middle class which was getting educated. They needed something
to read which they could understand and enjoy. They did not want heavy reading but something
light, interesting, educative and entertaining. This gave rise to the emergence of periodical
essays. Periodical essays typically appeared in affordable publications that came out regularly,
usually two or three times a week, and were only one or two pages in length-short, witty, elegant
and entertaining. “Unlike other publications of the time that consisted of a medley of information
and news, essay periodicals were comprised of a single essay on a specific topic or theme,
usually having to do with the conduct or manners. They were often narrated by a persona or a
group personas, commonly referred to as a ‘club’.”3

Notable periodical essayists of the 18th century include Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Samuel
Johnson, and Oliver Goldsmith. Again the periodical essay demanded simple prose of easy
comprehension. Hence Addison and Steele who started a daily publication called The Spectator
wrote that their objective was “to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality”.
The journal was meant for the vast middleclass majority which was to be “something that every
middle-class household with aspirations to looking like its members took literature seriously,
would want to have.”4 The two pioneers of the Periodical essay said their aim was to bring
“philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools, and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies,
at tea-tables and coffee–houses”5
.
“The Periodical essay dealt with society and fictitious characters who exemplified the values of
an old country gentleman, portrayed as lovable but somewhat ridiculous (‘rather beloved than
esteemed’) making his Tory politics seem harmless but silly”6
. This was a major step towards the development of characters that became a feature of the novel in the 18thcentury. Thus, the rise of the middle class was one more reason for the rise and popularity of the novel in the 18thcentury

1.3.2 The Novel in the 18thcentury

Daniel Defoe who wrote three novels – Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders and Roxana is often
considered the father of the English novel. These were the early novels and were published in
1730. They were in the form of connected episodes centred on a single character. His novels
were in the nature of fictional autobiographies, which the 19thcentury novelist Charlotte Bronte
followed in her novel Jane Eyre. The other early novelists included Samuel Richardson who
pioneered the epistolary novel.

The epistolary novel is a distinct form where the story line is developed through letters
exchanged between different characters. The entire novel is written as a series of documents
either in the form of letters, or diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents. Samuel
Richardson’s Pamela is written in the form of letters and this is considered to be the first real
English novel. His characters are from the middle class and the novel stresses on a moral code of
conduct. Since the 18thcentury, there have been many examples of epistolary novels. Popular
among them are: Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley; Moonstone(1868) by Wilkie Collins
;Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker; Diary of a Young Girl (1952) by Anne Frank, and The Color
Purple (1982) by Alice Walker.

Henry Fielding introduced the picaresque novel in Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones and Jonathan
Wild. You must have read in your school days the abridged version of Gulliver’s Travels by
Jonathan Swift. This is a satirical novel which satirizes not only British society and imperialism,
but also satirizes the human race in general for its destructive and selfish characteristics. Yet
another great writer of the 18thcentury was Lawrence Sterne who wrote a masterpiece Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman. This is in the autobiographical form with Tristram as the narrator. It is made
up of multiple stories, stories within stories and is a highly experimental novel.

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders (1722) are considered to be among the early
English novels although his characters were not fully realized enough to be considered fullfledged novels. Much later in the 19thcentury, Jane Austen, the author of the well known classic
novels-chief among them being Pride and Prejudice (1812), and Emma (1816)-was considered
the greatest of early English novelists who wrote a distinct kind of novel, the ‘Novel of
Manners’. Jane Austen’s novels are perhaps the most recognizable works in this genre. Because
of Austen’s works, the Novel of Manners is mostly associated with the early 19th century. The
special features of the Novel of Manners are given below.

It is a sub-genre of the realist novel i.e., novel that presents events that could have actually
occurred to you or me or anyone in a believable setting. Thus the stories depict real life situations
and fictional characters within these stories react similarly to real people. It is about a particular
class of people in society at a particular time of history. For example, Jane Austen writes about
the 18thcentury middleclass trying to follow the genteel or the upper class. It examines the
customs and manners, behaviour and language of a specific cultural group, here the middle class.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, “The Novel of manners is a work of fiction that recreates a social world, conveying with finely detailed observation the customs, values, and mores
of a highly developed and complex society.”7The famous novelists of this genre from the 19th to
the end of the 20th Century were Jane Austen, Henry James, Evelyn Waugh, Edith Wharton, and
John Marquand.

1.3.3 The Novel in the 19th Century

English literature has seen alternate periods of Classicism and Romanticism, propelled by
political and social ideas and developments. Classicism laid emphasis on reason, logic and
objectivity while romanticism gave free rein to expression of emotions, feelings, imagination and
subjectivity. While objectivity is based on observable phenomena, uninfluenced by emotions
and personal prejudices, subjectivity is based on
individualpersonalimpressions,feelingsandopinionsratherthanexternalfacts.So 18th century
writers following classical norms wrote objectively about society, manners, the follies and
foibles of mankind, while the first half of the 19th century, influenced by the call of the French
Revolution (Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) allowed personal feelings and imagination to
replace objective reasoning and logic.

The first half of the 19th century came under the influence of Romanticism and the focus was on
Nature and imagination that extended to supernaturalism. This gave rise to the Gothic novel with
its emphasis on mystery and the supernatural. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Wuthering Heights
by her sister Emily Bronte, The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel
Hawthorne and Moby Dick by Herman Melville are fine examples of this kind.

The second half of the 19th century is known as the Victorian Age. It denotes the reign of Queen
Victoria from 1837-1901.The novel was the dominant literary form during her reign. This was
also the time of Industrial revolution in England and there was a perceptible shift from the rural
agrarian England to the industrial towns and cities. Thus Victorian era had two parallel and
contrary characteristics- it was the era of expansion, great technology, communication and
colonial empire on the one hand and in contrast the era of urban poverty, injustices, and
starvation experienced by a vast majority of the middle class and the working class. Victorian
novelists portrayed the middleclass with its strict morals and values. These morals included
sexual restraint, low tolerance of crime and strict adherence to the social code of conduct. The
Victorian values prioritized respect for the Christian Church, morals, hard work and personal
success. Notable Victorian authors include Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, the Bronte sisters,
George Eliot, Thackeray, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Antony Trollope.

Theses novelists, in particular, Charles Dickens portrayed characters caught in the swirl of
industrialization. They were neither wholly good nor bad, and his writings eschewed all the
idealism and romanticism of the early 19thcentury. Realism and Naturalism were the main
characteristics of the novels of this period. The great realism of the first half of the 19th century
was followed by a period of relative mediocrity after 1848 and Victorian imperialism gave rise
to new realism which was a humanist revolt against imperialism. Anatole France, Romain
Rolland, Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Mann reflect this humanist revolt leading to a new form of
bourgeois realism.

1.3.4 The Modern Novel (The first half of the 20th century)

Modernism can be seen as two phases of literature-modernist literature(1900-1945) and
contemporary literature (1945 to the present), also referred to as postmodern literature .Modernism marks a radical shift from the previous centuries in form and content, in the
aesthetic and cultural sensibilities in art(painting), architecture, music, sculpture and literature.
The new world order that came into existence, questioned the Victorian world view of a stable,
meaningful and fairly comprehensible world, based on reason and logic inherent in the scientific
and Industrial revolutions of that period. The catch phrase of the modern period was ‘to make it
new’. Modernism thus marks a distinct break with Victorian bourgeois morality( what Bernard
Shaw caustically refers to as ‘middle class morality’), its optimism, its cultural robustness and in
its place brought in a pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray. When cultural roots do not
provide the strength needed to live a life of hope and cheer it results in cultural despair giving
rise to moral relativism and moral apathy. Relativism is the new view of the 20thcentury, that
says there is no absolute truth or value and everything is relative. The characters in modern and
contemporary novels questioned the existence of God, the supremacy of the human reason, and
the nature of reality.

George Lukacs, the Hungarian writer and philosopher detects three strands of modern literature:
(1) Experimental, where works are unorthodox and experimental. (2) Social realism presented
mainly in the writings of the Communist Eastern Europe, that promised a utopia, a perfect world
without conflicts, hunger and unhappiness. But in trying to depict an imaginary society of perfect
order, the writers did not factor in the everyday problems, conflicts and contradictions. (3)
Critical realism, best represented by Thomas Mann, Bernard Shaw and Conrad which is a return
to realism away from the above mentioned experimental and social realistic strands.

The 20thcentury novel was very different from the novels of the earlier two centuries. It had the
following characteristics:

*No linear flow of narrative, i.e., a beginning leading to them iddle and the end as though
on a straight line.
*No unity of plot or character, and therefore no cause and effect in the development of
the novel.
*No single moral or philosophical meaning as a result of the use of irony and ambiguous
juxtapositions of multiple views. Thus the concept of relativism is brought in with no
absolute truths of good and evil presented in black and white.
*Talks not about progress but the decline of civilization. The earlier optimism is replaced
by despondency and pessimism.
*No more of dialogue and relationship with others, but more about loneliness as a result
of the machine age. The idea conveyed is ‘people herd together, but the crowd is no
company.’
*Novels often written in first person and use of stream of consciousness technique that
gives the feeling that the plot is going nowhere, also called “internal monologue,” as the
style incorporates the natural chaos of thoughts and feelings that occur in any of our
minds at any given time.
*Exposure of bourgeois rationality and hypocrisy through the adoption of a tone of selfmockery;
*Replacement of objective and rational discourse by subjective and inward consciousness
and
*Rejection of the 19thcentury bourgeoise social world8

1.3.5 The Postmodern Novel (from the second half of the 20thcentury till date)

Realism and naturalism paved the way for postmodern novels. The postmodern novel includes
magic realism, metafiction, and the graphic novel. Some of the postmodern novels include: The
Color Purple by Alice Walker; In Cold Blood by Truman Capot; Roots by Alex Haley; Fear of
Flying by Erica Jong and A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Midnights
Children and Satanic Verse sby Salman Rushdie.

1.4 SUMMING UP

In this Unit we focusedon the novel as a literary genre and discussed the differences between the
literary novel and popular fiction. We also discussed briefly the history of the novel in English
from the eighteenth century till the present. The different forms of the novel were also
introduced. After this introductory unit on the novel as a genre, in the next three units of this
block, we will proceed to study the novel Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy.

1.5 UNIT END QUESTIONS:

1. What are the typical characteristics of the novel?
2. What are the different forms of the novel?
3. List out the reasons for the rise of the English novel in the 18thcentury.
4. What are the characteristics of the 18thcentury English novel?
5. What are the characteristics of the 19thcentury English novel?
6. How does Modernism differ from the artistic and literary sensibilities of the previous
ages?
7. What are the characteristics of the 20thcentury novel?

1.6 REFERENCES

1. Stephen Bates and Anthony J.Ferri, Studies in Popular Culture, vol.33, No.1.Studies in
Popular Culture © 2010 Popular Culture Association in the South.
2. Robert Harris: A Glossary of Literary terms.
3. DeMaria, Robert, Jr. “The Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essay.” The Cambridge History
of English Literature, 1660-1780. Ed. Richetti, John. CUP, Cambridge.
4. “Joseph Addison & Richard Steele”. The Open Anthology of Literature in English.
Retrieved 19 September 2017.
5. Ibid.
6. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator Papers
7. Encyclopedia Britannica
8. Peter Barry, An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory

1.7 READING LIST

Patrick Parrinder, Nation & Novel: The English Novel from its Origins to the Present Day
Bell, I.F. and Donald Baird, The English Novel

Baker, Ernest A, The History of the English Novel
Kettle, Arnold, An Introduction to the English Novel
Watt, Ian, The Rise of the Novel
Paulson, Ronald, Satire and the Novel in Eighteenth-Century

1.8 GLOSSARY

Novella: a short narrative tale, especially a popular story having a moral or satirical point. A
novella is considerably longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel. Example: Boccaccio’s
Decameron, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness.

Adventure novel: The adventure genre of fiction is fast-paced and usually centers on a
protagonist in a dangerous or risky situation. Science fiction novels always contain elements of
adventure. Examples: Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Henry Melville’s Moby Dick.

Picaresque novel: a genre of fiction that depicts the adventures of a roguish, but “appealing
hero”, of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. Examples: Henry Fielding’s
Tom Jones, Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, Mark Twain’s The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Fantasy novel: a type of fiction that ideologically and aesthetically subordinates reality to
imagination by depicting a world of marvels that is contrasted to everyday reality and to
accepted views of what is credible. Examples: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings,
His Dark Materials (which begins with The Golden Compass)

Epistolary novel: a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although
diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used.
Gothic novel: is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic
elements, such as nature, individuality, and very strong emotions which include fear and
suspense.

Graphic novel: uses the interplay of text and illustrations in a comic-strip format to tell a story.

Historical novel: a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past, in
historical times. Sometimes it borrows true characteristics of the time period in which it is set.
Historical fiction is a fictional story that is written around, and includes historical events, usually
from the past. Sir Walter Scott is the father of the English historical novel . His Ivanhoe is a
classic example of historical fiction.

Dystopian novel: Dystopian is the opposite of Utopian. Dystopian novels describe an imaginary
society that is as dehumanizing and as unpleasant as possible. Famous dystopian authors include
Aldous Huxley, H. G. Wells, George Orwell, and Ray Bradbury who wrote Brave New World,
The Time Machine, Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 451.

Utopian Novel: works of fiction depicting ideal societies, where the citizens are bearers of a
perfect moral code, or at the least, every violator of the moral code is harshly punished. A
utopian society is one where all social evils have been cured. Examples: News from Nowhere by
William Morris, A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells

Sentimental novel: exalts feeling above reason and raises the analysis of emotion to a fine art.
Examples: Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield and Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental
Journey.

Science Fiction novel: a genre of fiction in which the stories often tell about science and
technology of the future. It is important to note that science fiction has a relationship with the
principles of science—these stories involve partially true, partially fictitious laws or theories of
science. Examples: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Ubik by Philip Dick.

Allegorical Narrative: A complete narrative that involves characters and events that stand for an
abstract idea or event. It presents straightforward embodiments of aspects of human nature and
abstract concepts, through such characters as Knowledge, Beauty, Strength, and Death.
Examples; John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress and the Morality play Everyman.

Romanticism: a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century,
emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual.

Classicism: the following of ancient Greek or Roman principles and style in art and literature,
generally associated with harmony, restraint, and adherence to recognized standards of form and
craftsmanship, especially from the Renaissance to the 18th century.

Bourgeois Realism: an artistic style characterized by simple scenes of peasant life with a moral
message.

Relativism: the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society,
or historical context, and are not absolute.

Stream of Consciousness: a literary style in which a character’s thoughts, feelings, and reactions
are depicted in a continuous flow uninterrupted by objective description or conventional
dialogue. James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust are among its notable early
exponents.

Magic realism: an approach to literature that weaves fantasy and myth into everyday life.

Metafiction: fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness
of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions and traditional narrative
techniques.
15

UNIT 2 THOMAS HARDY’S LIFE AND WRITINGS

Structure:

2.0 Introduction
2.1 Aims and Objectives
2.2 Three phases of Thomas Hardy’s writings
2.3 Hardy’s classification of his own novels
2.4 Hardy’s Wessex
2.5 Thomas Hardy and the novel of realism
2.6 Salient aspects of Hardy’s novels
2.7 Hardy’s religious beliefs
2.8 Summing Up
2.9 References
2.10 Glossary
2.11 Unit end Questions
2.12 References

2.0 INTRODUCTION

Thomas Hardy is a writer with protean talent. He is a versatile writer whose literary output
includes short stories, novels, poetry and drama, each one of them reflecting his insight into the
deeply disturbing social and religious issues of his time. His works also reveal his empathy and
compassion towards the underprivileged people who bore the brunt of social injustice as a result
of the Victorian moral codes that were particularly discriminatory against women. Hardy’s
novels are a scathing indictment of Victorian beliefs about women, its adherence to archaic
Church doctrines, its iniquities, the lack of equal access to educational and judicial systems, and
the destructive disruptions caused in the life of the agrarian population by the industrial
revolution.

2.1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES.

This Unit gives you a brief introduction to Thomas Hardy and his writings. At the end of your
study of this Unit, you will be able to discuss:
* the multifaceted talent of Thomas Hardy as a writer of short stories, a novelist and a poet
* the three phases of his writing
* the classification of his novels
* Wessex as the location and setting of his novels
* Hardy and the novel of realism
* Major features of his novels
* Hardy’s religious beliefs

2.2 THREE PHASES OF THOMAS HARDY’S WRITINGS

Hardy’s work can be divided into three phases – the early phase, the middle phase and the later
years. These three phases roughly correspond to the two genres of his writing: poetry, fiction and
a return to poetry. One should not think of such a division as water tight and rigid, since in the
last phase, as also in the first, Hardy wrote both novels and poetry. Between 1867 and 1872,
when he was in his late twenties and early thirties, he wrote three novels- one of which, The Poor
Man and the Lady, a class conscious novel was never published. The second one, Desperate
Remedies, a less opinionated story with a dense plot had a lukewarm reception while the third
one Under the Greenwood Tree, a humorous idyllic novel revealed his distinctive style of
writing. It also reflected Hardy’s early attempts at presenting the social change that was taking
place in Victorian England. In 1872, he started sending monthly installments of his next novel A
Pair of Blue Eyes which, thanks to its popular appeal, was published a year later. Hardy’s rise to
fame as a novelist began from this period and his next venture was Far from the Madding
Crowd, with a female protagonist wooed by three suitors. Far From the Madding Crowd was the
first of the ‘Wessex Novels’ which had Wessex as the setting. Wessex is a fictitious landscape,
located in the South and South west of England, principally in Dorset which was the setting of
many of his novels. “This term, Wessex, has become so common and been so closely associated
with Thomas Hardy’s works, that we can easily forget that Hardy invented the term–or at least
resurrected the term from centuries of obscurity.”1

His novels written in the middle period had a mixed response. The Return of the Native was a
highly successful novel while the others like The Trumpet Major set in the Napoleonic period
and two more, A Laodicean (1881) and Two on a Tower (1882) did not make the grade. The later
novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D’urbervilles and Jude the Obscure are his
outstanding novels and they deal with the socio-economic issues of the day and offer deeply
sympathetic representations of the working class people. While Tess of the D’Urbervilles
criticizes society’s sexual mores, Jude the Obscure is a critique of the educational system of the
latter half of the 19thcentury. Both novels had a hostile reception as they affronted the Victorian
sexual morality and it is then that Hardy moved away from fiction and turned to poetry.

Any writing on Hardy will remain incomplete without a reference to Hardy, the poet. When his
poetry written in his early years did not receive favourable response, he switched to fiction.
Later, he returned to poetry, and at the turn of the century, i.e., the 20th century, (in Hardy’s later
phase) he wrote only poetry. Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems in 1898,
a three-volume epic drama The Dynasts (1904–08) as well as several war poems in the context
of the Boer Wars and World War I.

2.3 HARDY’S CLASSIFICATION OF HIS OWN NOVELS

“Hardy himself has classified his novels into three groups:

Novels of character and Environment (Rural Studies): Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the
Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the
D’Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure.

Romances and Fantasies: A Pair of Blue Eyes, A Group of Noble Dames and The Well Beloved.

Novels of Ingenuity: The Hand of Ethelberta, A Laodicean and A Changed Man.

It was only in the novels of the first category with which Thomas Hardy became associated as
one of the finest English novelists.2

Check Your progress: 1

1. What are the three phases of Hardy’s writing? What were the issues he dealt with in
those three phases?
2. Write briefly on Hardy’s classification of his novels. What do these three categories
relate to?

2.4 HARDY’S WESSEX

Hardy’s novels are grouped under the rubric The Wessex Tales. Thomas Hardy’s Wessex is a
literary landscape that inspired the novels. So much so, Wessex became a part of his characters
with its moods and destiny.

Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Brockhampton, Dorset, where he spent much of his adult life.
He was well acquainted with the local customs and location in this part of England and which are
in evidence in his novels and also his poetry. They form an integral part of his writings. Wessex
was the fictional name Hardy gave to this part of Southern England. “Hardy’s intense study and
accurate portrayal of nineteenth-century rural society in Dorset …presents a microcosm of
human life through which Hardy intended to comment on the universal condition of human
existence”3
.Wessex is the setting for his four major novels, Far From the Madding Crowd,
Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

“…in Hardy’s fiction, the natural world is often described in great detail, rendering it
more significant than a mere setting against which the narrative unfolds. Hardy
establishes a reciprocal relationship between environment and character; an interaction
which serves to demonstrate the changing position of humans in the post-Darwinian
Victorian period. Hardy’s narrative voice depicts the natural world in the same way the
appearance of different individuals are described, and vice versa. This technique removes
the sense of authority from human hands, placing humans within the natural world rather
than ruling above it.”

Hardy had come under the influence of Charles Darwin who in his Origin of Species had
postulated the theory that the human species as it is today, is the result of natural selection which
is a random selection, without any intent. It is circumstance that has enabled different species to
evolve into the human species. Natural selection is the central concept of evolution which is the
process where organisms evolve by adapting to their environment. Such a postulation went
against the prevalent Christian belief in God as the Creator.

Hardy’s emphasis on environment demonstrates the influence of Darwinian theory. The role of
fate and circumstance are important features of the plot, echoing the stress evolutionary ideas
place upon chance, extinction, and survival. Darwin’s emphasis upon the power of circumstance
to alter the outcome of natural selection is evident in Hardy’s fiction. Human forces are
ultimately rendered inconsequential against the unseen powers that appear to govern their
immediate environment. 5

2.5 THOMAS HARDY AND THE NOVEL OF REALISM

Hardy was a well read man and the literary and classical allusions in his writings serve as
testimony to the vast reservoir of knowledge he had stored in his memory. He could cull out of
his memory stories that he had listened to from his personal interactions with the people of rural
England and from his reading of newspaper articles and he made them a part of his novels. He
was a good prose writer and equally a good poet, and his writings reflect both his talent for
expression and his enormous empathy with the rural and underprivileged people.

Hardy had a tormented adult life as he recognized the problems, sadness and lack of educational
opportunities for peasants and rural people. He was also highly critical of the society’s sexual
mores that weighed in favour of men and victimized innocent women. He hardly communicated
his grief except through his writings. Hardy once told his friend, Edward Clodd, in respect of his
novels, that “every superstition, custom, etc., described therein may be depended on as true
records of the same — and not inventions of mine”.

Hardy’s novels are realistic novels. What is realism in literature? A simple definition of realism
in content, is that it is a faithful representation of reality with special focus on the representation
of middle-class life. Realistic novels in the Victorian age were about the common man, in
particular about the struggles of the lower classes especially when the lower class tried to gain
upward mobility. Thus these novels came much closer to real life. Charles Dickens’s Great
Expectations and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure illustrate the Victorian preoccupation with
this genre known as social realism. Sometimes realism is defined as a ‘slice of life writing’ that
presents a close observation of contemporary life. Realism in form relates to a literary technique
to describe story elements, such as setting, characters, themes, etc., without using imagery or
decorative language. Writers depicting realism use simple, transparent language. The
characteristics of realism in novels include:

*An emphasis on the here and now
• Attention to specific action and verifiable consequences
• Realists evoke common actions, present surface details, and emphasize the minor
catastrophes of the middle class
• They employ simple direct language and write about issues of conduct
• Characterization is very important. There is often an abundance of characters and social
types.5

Check Your progress 2

1. What do you understand by ‘realism’ in a novel?
2. Write a note on Hardy’s Wessex.

2.6 SALIENT ASPECTS OF HARDY’S NOVELS

Hardy examines the social conventions that hinder the lives of the poor rural folk in Victorian
England, and criticizes such conventions, especially those relating to marriage, education and
religion, that constrained the aspirations of those people and caused them unhappiness. Such
unhappiness, and the suffering it brings, is seen by poet Philip Larkin as central in Hardy’s
works:

“What is the intensely maturing experience of which Hardy’s modern man is most
sensible? In my view it is suffering, or sadness, and extended consideration of the
centrality of suffering in Hardy’s work should be the first duty of the true critic for which
the work is still waiting “6

In his novels, Hardy boldly takes a stand against the harsh and strict Victorian morals that do not
accommodate passion and love that cuts across class differences. Tess is punished in the
eponymous novel (Tess of the D’Urbervilles) for her sexual involvement with a person from the
aristocratic class. Hardy wants his readers to be conscious of the societal conventions that are
forced on men and women as moral codes, without factoring in the passion and emotion
underlying the relationships between men and women.

Fate or chance is another important theme. In Hardy’s novels chance plays a predominant role
almost reducing the characters to puppets who are pulled up and down by chance or Fate which
often is malicious in its dispensations. Fate is not the same as Destiny though both terms are
often used as synonyms. Fate is that which we cannot change. Destiny is something that holds
the possibility of doing something by taking chances. For example, when we say someone is
destined for great things, it means that the person can achieve it through making active and
conscious decisions. Destiny is when we take chances even if we cannot control fate. Fate
implies a force beyond human control that directs our actions. Indeed, Hardy’s main characters
often seem to be held in Fate’s overwhelming grip. The role of Fate in the case of Tess is her
tragedy. Far From the Madding Crowd is an example of a novel in which chance has a major
role: “Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not missed her wedding, for example, the
story would have taken an entirely different path.”

2.7 HARDY’S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Lastly it is essential to understand Hardy’s religious views that get reflected in his writings. We
had touched upon it in section 2.4, focusing on Darwin’s influence on Hardy. Hardy’s family
was Anglican, but not very religious. He was disturbed by the struggles and often tragic events of
life and Man’s struggles while confronting them.

This made him question the traditional belief in Christianity that viewed God as all powerful and
as the dispenser of rewards and punishments for good and evil committed by humans. He found
it difficult to reconcile the existence of evil with the idea of God as omnipotent, omniscient,
omnipresent and a repository of goodness. He substituted the Christian God by the force called
the Immanent Will that controls the universe – not in an orderly divine fashion, but through
indifference, arbitrariness and caprice. Hardy believed that the Universe was devoid of meaning
and in place of the divine force controlling the universe, he put the blind and unconscious will.
Though he remained with the church he found that institutionalized Christianity with its belief in
a divine and omnipotent God was incompatible with the human sufferings he witnessed all
around him. Hardy developed “a consistent world-view through the notions of Chance and Time,
Circumstances, Fate, Nature, Providence, Nemesis and Will tinged with metaphysical idealism”

While we study Hardy, we may have to keep in mind all these views – his views on Fate, the
Immanent Will, the moral and societal codes of the Victorian period and his deep sympathy with
the common people.

Check Your progress 3

How do you relate Hardy’s religious views to Darwin’s theory of evolution?

2.8 SUMMING UP.

In this Unit we have discussed: a brief summary of Hardy’s novels; the salient features of his
writings and Hardy’s skepticism regarding religious beliefs. In the next two units, we will be
discussing the novel Far from the Madding Crowd, in detail.

2.9 REFERENCES:

1.Suzanne Johnson Flynn, Hardy and the Creation of Wessex.
2. Thomas Hardy, quoted in “Notes on Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd”,
Methuen
& Co, Ltd
3. Charlotte Barrett, ‘Character and Environment in Thomas Hardy’s Fiction’, Thomas Hardy
4. ibid.
5. British Literature, Wiki
6. Philip Larkin,, “Wanted: Good Hardy Critic” in Required Writing, London: Faber and Faber.
7. Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy – Introduction (Twentieth-Century Literary
Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 153. Gale Group, Inc.,)
8. Brennecke, Ernest Jr. Thomas Hardy’s Universe: A Study of a Poet’s Mind, Boston: Small
Maynard and Company

2.10 GLOSSARY

Multifaceted: Having many aspects
Protean: Many sided, versatile
Iniquity: Lack of justice or righteousness, injustice.
Archaic: Old, ancient, outdated, antiquated.
Agrarian: Agricultural, farming, rural
Watertight: Foolproof, firm, impregnable, airtight.
Lukewarm: Uninterested, unresponsive, indifferent
Idyllic: Pastoral, picturesque, peaceful
Mores: Customs, conventions and practices.
Critique: Analysis, appraisement, assessment.
Rubric: Class, category, heading
Microcosm: A little world, world in miniature.

Post Darwinian: period after Charles Darwin, the British naturalist whose ‘Theory of
evolution based on Natural selection’ in 1859 revolutionized the study of Biology. Evolution, he
said was due to the process of changes and adaptation since the origin of the species.

Eponymous: A book or a Novel named after something else or deriving from an existing name
or word:, the title of the novel has the same name of a character in it or the eponymous
character in a story has the same name as the title of the story.

Boer Wars: Between 1899-1902, the Boer War was fought between the British and the Boers in
South Africa (now called Afrikaners) as Britain wanted control of South Africa.

2.11 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1.Why do we regard Thomas Hardy as a protean writer?
2. Discuss the salient aspects of Hardy’s novels.

2.12 REFERENCES

Wilson, Keith, ed. Thomas Hardy Reappraised: Essays in Honour of Michael Millgate. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2006.
Wilson, Keith, ed. A Companion to Thomas Hardy. Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Turner, Paul. The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
Weber, Carl J. Hardy of Wessex, his Life and Literary Career. New York, Columbia University
Press, 1940.
Stevens-Cox, J. Thomas Hardy: Materials for a Study of his Life, Times, and Works. St. Peter
Port, Guernsey: Toucan Press, 1968.
Stevens-Cox, J. Thomas Hardy: More Materials for a Study of his Life, Times, and Works. St.
Peter Port, Guernsey: Toucan Press, 1971.
Stewart, J. I. M. Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1971.
Millgate, Michael (ed.). The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy by Thomas Hardy. London:
Macmillan, 1984.
Millgate, Michael (ed.). The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy by Thomas Hardy. London:
Macmillan, 1984.
Millgate, Michael. Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004.
Morgan, Rosemarie, (ed) The Ashgate Research Companion to Thomas Hardy, (Ashgate
publishing), 2010.
Morgan, Rosemarie, Student Companion to Thomas Hardy (Greenwood Press),2006
22

UNIT 3 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD: SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

Structure

3.0 Introduction
3.1 Aims and Objectives
3.2 A short summary of the novel
3.3 Analysis of the novel
3.3.1 Nature: its role in the novel.
3.3.2 Themes of the novel
3.3.3 Conclusion: a tragedy with a happy ending
3.4 Summing Up
3.5 Unit end Questions
3.6 Glossary
3.7 Reading List
3.8 References

3.0 INTRODUCTION

Far From the Madding Crowd is Hardy’s fourth novel and this is considered to be his warmest
and sunniest novel. Most of his major novels especially those written in his later years like Tess
of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure have tragic endings. But this novel is in line with
happy, meaningful and conventional endings, with the marriage of the female protagonist
Bathsheba to the unpretentious hero, Gabriel Oak who has been in love with her right through
the narrative. This is a conventional love story where constancy in love, however unflashy and
restrained, gets its just reward.

This unit attempts to give a summary of the novel, but not as a shortcut to learning the story
without reading the full novel. The story in brief is meant to perk your interest to read the book
in the original and enjoy Hardy’s storytelling technique and his power of describing the scenes
where the story takes place.

3.1 OBJECTIVES

After studying this Unit, you will be able to
*discuss the summary of the novel
*analyse the plot in relation to the role of Nature
*discuss the themes that are interwoven in the novel.
*explain how this novel is both a tragedy and a comedy.

3.2 A SHORT SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL

The novel is remarkable for its presentation of the charm of rustic life and the simple, guileless
character of the rural people. It is the inter weaving of the story with the scenic description that
gives the novel an easy momentum, making it one of the great pastoral novels of English
literature.

The story runs smooth without any complexity from the beginning to the end as though on a
straight line, involving the three suitors of Bathsheba – the loyal, simple Gabriel Oak; the Don
Juan, Sergeant Troy; and the frustrated middle-aged wealthy farmer, William Boldwood. It ends
with the happy marriage of Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak. This novel was written towards the end
of the 19th century and a few years later, it was adapted as a play for the stage and much later for
film. Though both film and theatre productions were financially a success, they could not do
justice to Hardy’s imaginative description of Nature and the rustic Wessex that one reads about
in the novel. The merit of Hardy’s novel rests on his picturesque realism, enhanced by his
sensitive understanding of his characters. Hardy displays a highly romanticized version of rustic
life that is in evidence in the almost idyllic descriptions of Wessex. His protagonist, the rustic
shepherd Gabriel Oak with his love of the flute and love for his sheep is a contrast to the
attractive playboy image of Sergeant Troy and the stiff, wealthy farmer Boldwood.

The plot is simple. Gabriel Oak is the owner of a small farm of 200 sheep, and as the novel
opens, he is seen tending to his sheep. He leaves his farm and goes in search of a job where he
meets Bathsheba, a beautiful young woman who happens to be in a wagon near a toll gate close
to his field. He notices her smiling at her own image in a mirror even as she haggles over the toll
charges. Farmer Oak steps in and pays the amount and the woman drives away without a word.
Despite his attraction for her, Oak is sharp in the observation he makes to the gate keeper that
she has one fault: “Vanity”.

Bathsheba Everdene is an attractive young woman, highly independent and educated, who in a
male dominated rural world of the 19thcentury has the boldness to work in a farm on equal terms
with men. She is without fortune at the beginning, but soon after, she inherits her uncle’s
prosperous farm and in a world where managing farms and estates is in the domain of men, she
proves she is no less than anyone of them.

One of the fortuitous incidents that brings Oak closer to her is when she saves him from fire that
engulfed his hut when he was asleep. He had fallen asleep in his shepherd’s hut with the hearth lit
and windows closed. When the hut catches fire, he almost dies of suffocation but Bathsheba
breaks in and saves him. He thanks her and asks her name. Not only does she refuse to give her
name, she also challenges him to find it out for himself. There are a few more occasions when he
spots her without her knowledge and he slowly realizesthat he is in love with her. He makes bold
to seek her hand in marriage, but she refuses saying she is not in love with him. When he asks
her a second time and she again refuses, he agrees to drop the matter, though he declares he will
always love her.

Activity 1

What in your opinion does this tell us about Oak? Is he shy and willing to accept Bathsheba’s
rejection of his love or is he a practical man willing to wait to win over Bathsheba?

Bathsheba leaves for Weatherbury after inheriting her uncle’s farm. Meanwhile, disaster strikes
Gabriel Oak as one of his young sheep dogs unwittingly chases his flock of sheep into a huge
chalk pit where they drown. Gabriel loses all his life’s savings that he had invested in his sheep.
He loses not only the sheep, but, since many of them were pregnant ewes, all their unborn lambs.
He leaves his farm in Newcombe Hill and goes to find a job in Weatherbury in response to an
advertisement asking for a bailiff to work in a farm. But he could not get the job as the hiring
employers learn that Oak himself had been an owner of a sheep farm and therefore will not be
the suitable person to be employed as a farm hand. Oak is not disheartened and tries to earn
money by playing his flute.

Activity 2.

What trait of Gabriel Oak do you see in the above episode?

Yet another fortuitous event takes place. Oak falls asleep in a wagon that was going to
Weatherbury, where Bathsheba has settled. When he wakes up and slips out of the wagon, he
sees something on fire at a distance. He finds a straw-rick (a large stack of straw, wheat, or other
grain) on fire. As a shepherd, Gabriel has the knowledge to extinguish a farm fire and with his
quick action and response, he succeeds in putting out the fire. The mistress of the farm in a veil
comes to him and thanks him and asks him how she should repay his services. He tells her that
she could hire him on her farm to give her a helping hand. The woman lifts her veil and Oak is
delightfully surprised to recognize her as Bathsheba. She engages him on her farm.

Oak is accepted by the farm labourers as he easily mingles with them. He learns from others that
Bathsheba was left penniless by her father, but her uncle has made her his heiress. He also learns
that she is a strong woman who has decided to manage the farm by herself and displays her
strength when she dismisses her bailiff for stealing barley from the farm. He also hears that one
of her young servants, Fanny Robin has mysteriously disappeared and is suspected to have
committed suicide. Bathsheba asks her workers to find Fanny, or get information about her as to
who her lover is with whom she might have fled. She comes to know vaguely that Fanny had a
soldier sweetheart.

A third fortuitous event takes place when Oak has an unexpected meeting with a poorly dressed
young woman as he walks back to the inn where he stays. The sparsely clad woman is Fanny
Robin who pleads with him not to tell anyone that he has seen her. On seeing this pathetic,
poorly clad woman, Gabriel offers her a shilling. Bathsheba receives a visitor in her farm: he is
Boldwood, a middle-aged farmer. Though she does not meet him immediately, she comes to
know that he is a wealthy man, kind, and fond of children. He resists all female attempts to
impress him and shows no interest in women.

Bathsheba wins the approval of all the male farmers by her firm standing and she proves a
match to her competitors in the market where she sells her grains. She lets the men talk, but in
arguing on prices she holds her own firmly like any experienced dealer even though she is a
woman in a man’s world. But there is an elasticity in her firmness which makes her far removed
from obstinacy and at the same time there is a naïveté in the way she reduces the price
Boldwood is the only man who does not focus his attention on her. In a whimsical gesture,
Bathsheba sends him a Valentine card with a seal that says “Marry Me”. But she does not affix
her signature.

Boldwood is puzzled as to who could have sent the Valentine card. At that time, the mailman
hands him an envelope which he opens to find that the mail is for Gabriel Oak. Seeing Gabriel
Oak walking across the field, he hands him the letter with apologies for having mistakenly
opened it. Gabriel reveals to him the contents of the letter which is from Fanny Robin. The letter
says that she is going to marry Sergeant Troy. Even though Fanny had requested him to maintain
secrecy about her, Gabriel informs Boldwood as the latter is genuinely concerned about Fanny.
Boldwood feels skeptical as he knows Troy to be untrustworthy. Boldwood then shows Gabriel,
the unsigned Valentine card and asks him if he can identify the sender. Gabriel recognizes the
writing, and Boldwood is puzzled and bewildered when Gabriel tells him that it is from
Bathsheba.

In a twist of fate, Fanny fails to turn up at All Saints’ Church, where she is supposed to get
married to Sergeant Troy, a dashing, handsome soldier, as she mistakenly waits for him in a
different church, All Souls Church. Troy, who is waiting for Fanny feels embarrassed as the
congregation at All Saints’ Church – mainly comprising inquisitive women begin to move out.
Troy is infuriated by his humiliation before the old women who wait to witness his wedding and
takes out his rage on poor, confused Fanny. He is noncommittal to Fanny’s plea to get married
the next day. She is terrified to see his fury, the first hint at his real nature.

For the first time Boldwood meets Bathsheba in the market and finds her beautiful. Hardy
describes this meeting thus: “Adam had awakened from his deep sleep, and behold! there was
Eve. and for the first time he really looked at her.” Bathsheba becomes aware of having made an
impression, but regrets her capricious, impulsive action of sending him a Valentine card. Hardy
briefly shows the new awareness of Bathsheba and Boldwood for each other. Boldwood is naïve
and he fails to notice Bathsheba’s wilful caprice and intentional frivolity in sending him the
Valentine message with the two words ‘Marry Me’. So also Bathsheba does not realize how her
careless and impulsive act will have tragic consequences.

Activity 3

Explain the reference to Adam and Eve in this section. Whom does the reference relate to?

Boldwood meets Bathsheba when she is in the fields with Gabriel Oak. Though Boldwood does
not speak to her, Oak intuitively senses that Boldwood is deeply in love with Bathsheba. He also
suspects her to have done something impish that may lead to future complications. A few days
later, Boldwood overcoming his shyness, suddenly proposes to Bathsheba. Her response was
quick: “Mr.Boldwood, though I respect you much, I do not feel – what would justify me toaccepting your offer.” Boldwood tells her that despite his age, he will make a better husband who
cares for her than any young man. Bathsheba asks for six weeks time to give him her final
answer.

Hardy, who is famous for weaving his tale through a series of twists, brings in Sergeant Troy, the
third suitor to seek Bathsheba’s hand. He is untrustworthy, a charmer, a flatterer, and a liar.

After rejecting the offers of Oak and Boldwood, Bathsheba is captivated by the charm and ardent
wooing of Sergeant Troy. Troy initially has no intention of marrying Bathsheba and true to his
nature, merely pursues her lightheartedly. She is flattered by his pretentious solicitousness and is
completely taken in by him, revealing herself to be rather gullible and guileless. It is her own
vanity that makes her think he is sincere. Boldwood is upset as he knows Troy as a seducer of
women. Boldwood is angry and launches into a long, distraught harangue with Bathsheba:
“Bathsheba, sweet, lost coquette, pardon me! I’ve been blaming you, threatening you, behaving
like a churl to you, when he’s (Troy) the greatest sinner. He stole your dear heart away with his
unfathomable lies! . . . I pray God he may not come into my sight, for I may be tempted beyond
myself . . . yes, keep him away from me.” This sounds ominous as Boldwood shoots Troy
towards the latter part of the novel.

But at this point in the story he tries to bribe Troy and offers him 500 pounds to marry Fanny and
leave Bathsheba. Boldwood is shocked when Troy pockets the money but does not marry Fanny,
driving her to a penniless state and death. Boldwood approaches Troy once again and in order to
protect Bathsheba’s honour, makes yet another offer of 500 pounds if he leaves her. Troy teases
him by showing a newspaper announcing Bathsheba’s recent marriage to Troy. Derisively Troy
tells Boldwood: “Yours is the ridiculous fate which always attends interference between a man
and his wife.” Bathsheba’s vanity, Boldwood’s naive and artless nature, and Troy’s libertinism
and profligacy come together to spell disaster for Bathsheba. She settles for the glib, suave
soldier in place of the anxious and clear thinking Boldwood and the truthful and steadfast
Gabriel Oak.

Gabriel Oak is honest, fair in his judgement and has the courage to confront Bathsheba and
warn her about Troy. Though he is almost certain that she will not listen to him, he deems it his
duty to speak. He begs her to be discreet: “Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to consider –
that, both to keep yourself well honoured among the workfolk, and in common generosity to an
honourable man who loves you as well as I, you should be more discreet in your bearing towards
this soldier.” She dismisses his advice with a foolish comment that Gabriel Oak’s remarks were
born out of his frustration over her refusal to marry him. Oak’s honest response that he has
stopped thinking about the possibility of marrying her hurts her. Bathsheba is upset not only by
his frankness, but more so by his indifference to her.

In a fit of anger, Bathsheba dismisses Gabriel Oak from her service for meddling with her
personal life. But he agrees to go only if she hires a good bailiff in his place. When she does not
do so, Gabriel refuses to leave the farm. As luck would have it her lambs are taken ill and the
only one who can cure them is Gabriel Oak. Bathsheba immediately recalls him to join back.
While Oak experiences anxiety over Bathsheba’s relationship with Troy, Boldwood, very unlike
the dignified, Boldwood at the beginning of the story displays great anger. Hardy gives us a hint
of the potential violence in him.

Troy, a charming liar ensnares Bathsheba. He indulges in flattery to woo and win her. He
exhibits his skill with his sword, and Bathsheba is overwhelmed, and falls in his trap. What Troy
asks her in jest to accept him, she takes it seriously and agrees. Troy feels trapped by his own
foolish jest. Her falling for Troy, a handsome, charming, chivalrous, skilful swordsman blind
her to the deceit of the artful dodger. The strong self reliant woman who has never had such an
encounter with someone who is clever and who manages to win over the opposite sex by fake
charm, suddenly loses her strength and shows herself to be a weak and helpless woman. Hardy
writes:

“Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon
their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength, she is
worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away. One source of
her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She had never had practice in making the
best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.”

Except for the perceptive Gabriel, no one notices her infatuation for Troy. In the absence of
Boldwood who has gone out of town, Gabriel feels responsible to protect her from Troy and
advises her to be more discreet in her bearing towards the soldier. Bathsheba does not wish to
think ill of Troy, does not want to believe the stories about him, and fights against the possibility
of their truth.

Bathsheba marries Troy, and Gabriel is uneasy as he feels that in the near future she will regret
her hasty decision. Boldwood is angry that Bathsheba has preferred the untrustworthy Troy to his
own constancy and loyalty in love. Troy returns to the farm after giving up soldiering. He
celebrates his marriage by drinking with all the farm hands except Gabriel who refuses to get
drunk. It happens to be a stormy night. While Troy and all the farm workers are in a heavy
drunken stupor, Gabriel goes to Bathsheba’s farm and saves the hay ricks from the storm.
Bathsheba also goes out in the night and meets Gabriel at work. Gabriel asks her to leave but she
stays and gratefully says “you are kinder than I deserve. I will stay and help you.” Bathsheba
abruptly confesses the reason for her trip to Bath; she had intended to break off with Troy, but
jealousy of a possible rival and her own distraction had led her to marry him instead.
Bathsheba’s impetuous and hasty actions lead her to disaster. Three men – Troy, carefree and
reaping the advantages of being master of a farm; Boldwood, angry, hurt and experiencing
severe emotional tension and Gabriel, remaining loyal to her despite her refusal to accept his
proposal – change her life.

Their marriage starts crumbling. Troy’s claims to Bathsheba’s money to cover his gambling
losses hint at the disquietude that has set in. He accidentally comes across Fanny, feels guilty for
abandoning her after having an affair with that timid young woman, and leaving her pregnant.
Troy’s concern for her is real. Fanny is another victim of his inability, or his refusal, to live by
anything but impulse. Impulse dictated his marriage to Bathsheba, which now is obviously
crumbling.

Fanny dies and both Boldwood and Bathsheba who had been her employers in the past, feel duty
bound to give her a decent burial. The farm labourers know that Fanny had run away to follow a
soldier. Only Boldwood and Gabriel are aware that the soldier was none other than Sergeant
Troy. Gabriel sees the coffin with a scrawl on the lid saying ‘Fanny and child”. Gabriel erases
the last word to save her honour.

Bathsheba becomes aware that Fanny had died in childbirth. She had earlier seen Fanny’s golden
hair in Troy’s watch case. Intuitively, Bathsheba arrives at the truth about who Fanny’s lover
was. She shows her pity for the mother and child by placing flowers around their bodies. Troy’s
emotion and remorse at Fanny’s death, reinforce her realization that her marriage is over.

Troy who always desires fun and excitement gets bored with the life in the farm. He feels some
remorse for his flirtation with Fanny and leaving her to take a forlorn path that ends with her
death and also that of his child she was carrying . He feels a savage aversion to Bathsheba and
leaves her, seeking solitude. He goes for a swim, is carried away by the deeper currents of water
but is rescued by a passing ship.

Though news of Troy drowning reaches Bathsheba, she refuses to accept it, as deep within she
believes he is alive. She has no emotions left for him and goes about her daily duties. Bathsheba
is remorseful but somewhat relieved when Troy disappears. His clothes are found on the shore of
a bay where he had gone for a swim. The circumstantial evidence points to his death, but
Bathsheba knows intuitively that he is alive. After much persuasion she agrees to wear mourning
clothes as Troy’s widow. Boldwood continues to seek her hand but she says she cannot accept
him before the seven year period of mourning is over. Boldwood who was earlier known for his
farming and managerial skills is reluctant to work and take charge of his farm. Gabriel accepts
his request to attend to his farm after consultation with Bathsheba, whose farm he is already
managing.

Six years pass by, and Boldwood approaches Bathsheba to marry him as per her promise (that
she would marry him after the seven year mourning period, when the law will declare her legally
widowed). Troy returns and interrupts the Christmas party that Boldwood is giving prior to his
marriage. Shocked at his return, the infuriated Boldwood loses cool and shoots him. Troy is
buried beside Fanny, his wronged love. Because of his insanity, Boldwood’s sentence is
eventually commuted to internment at the pleasure of Her Majesty, the Queen. Gabriel, who has
served Bathsheba patiently and loyally all this time, marries her at the story’s conclusion. The
augury is that, having lived through tragedy together, the pair will now find happiness.

3.3. ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL

The novel has 57 chapters. Harper and Brothers’ first edition of the novel in1912 had 464 pages.
Here we have abridged the book with a focus on the story. In this abridged version of the story,
we have only given a short summary of the novel and not dealt with Hardy’s description of the
rural countryside and the role played by Nature in the progress of the novel. In this section we
will take up the role of Nature in the novel. You will gain an insight into Hardy’s picturesque
description of the Wessex countryside and understand how Hardy uses Nature to echo human
feelings and thoughts. Before analyzing the role of Nature, let us first learn about the location of
the story.

The novel is the first to be set in Thomas Hardy’s fictitious countryside, Wessex, which he
locates in rural southwest England. Hardy set all of his major novels in the south and southwest
of England. He named the area “Wessex”, which he described as ‘a realistic dream country’. But
in reality, there exists no such place. What Hardy does is to recreate real places from the
southwest region of England and fill them with fictional characters from the rural countryside.
His portrayal of the folks from small towns in the farming areas is authentic and real.

In this novel, we find life in the rural region presented idealistically and ends on a happy
fulfillment of human emotions unlike in his later works notably Tess of the D’Urbervilles and
Jude the Obscure which end in tragedies. Far from the Madding Crowd is an early novel of
Hardy where love and constancy win in the end.

The main story of Far from the Madding Crowd, as we discussed above, is that a young woman,
Bathsheba Everdene, has inherited a farm and is courted by three men: Gabriel Oak, a shepherd
who is devoted to her but is ruled out as a suitor due to his low station; Boldwood, a
neighbouring wealthy farmer, upright and reserved; and Sergeant Troy, a dashing soldier. Far
From the Madding Crowd is a great, emotional story about three interesting characters in love
with one strong, beautiful and self-confident woman, and whose one wrong choice changes the
fortunes of all the three suitors. Her impetuous decision causes fatal disaster to one of the suitors
(Sergeant Troy), leads another to crime and punishment (farmer Boldwood) and ends happily
with her marriage to the third suitor (Gabriel Oak). Apart from some minor characters, we have
Nature presented as one more important character playing a very significant role.

3.3.1 Nature: Its role in the Novel.

Though Wessex with its rich pastoral setting does not exist, the simple rustic, jolly characters
bring it alive as they seem to be carriers of old traditions. Hardy says that he went back to early
English history to understand the rural myths and beliefs, their traditions of farming and
transposed them on to 19th century England under the reign of Queen Victoria. Hardy’s attempt,
he said, was to seek a continuity of the past and the present. The rural countryside continues the
age-old serenity and peace which Hardy captures through his Wessex, where society and Nature
are in harmony. In this novel, the Wessex countryside has not felt the impact of the industrial
revolution. Nature and Man still live in close proximity to each other.

Nature does not remain a static entity, but an animated presence and its pristine purity, its
abundant generosity and its energy are embodied in Gabriel Oak. It is the same with Bathsheba
but she deviates through her impulsive acts. She is equally a woman rooted in the rural soil, selfconfident, vivacious and beautiful but unlike the calmness of Nature, she reveals an impulsive
and whimsical self, as a result of which she is restless, agitated and needs a calming influence
that Gabriel Oak, is ever willing to offer.

Boldwood in the early part of the novel, represents the best of Nature in his disciplined and
confident way of living, far from the madding emotions of love and passion, jealousy and
vengeful rage, but Bathsheba’s playful and thoughtless note expressing her interest in him – and
which is not true, but only an impish act – changes him, and in the latter part of the novel he
gives himself to passionate jealousy and kills Troy for coming in the way of his marriage to
Bathsheba. He goes against his natural traits and gets out of tune with Nature which is the
personification of selfless generosity, of giving in abundance without any expectation of
receiving in good measure. While Gabriel Oak seeks nothing after Bathsheba rejects his proposal
and works for her selflessly, looks after her personal interest and also her farm, Boldwood is
jolted out of his calm and gentle nature when he begins to love Bathsheba, mistaking her
impetuous request to marry her as genuine and turns violent, in violation of his basic nature. He
shoots Troy because his return will hinder his proposed marriage to Bathsheba. Tory is the antithesis of Nature displaying the city-country conflict as he represents the city’s superficiality and
shallowness in contrast to the country’s naturalness and wholesomeness. His agitation, his
restlessness and flirtatious behaviour is pitted against the quietness, tranquility and serenity in
Nature.

The title “Far from the Madding Crowd” is a line adapted from the 18thcentury “Elegy Written in
a Country Churchyard,” by Thomas Gray (“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife”). The
word ‘madding’ means frenzied. This serene countryside is far removed from the hurly burly of
the city. Hardy shows the rural peace of the countryside that is not disturbed by the inhabitants.
But it is breached by the man from the town who intrudes into the lives of Bathsheba, Boldwood
and Fanny and wrecks all of them. But Nature’s tranquility represented by Gabriel Oak restores
peace at the end. Nature is constant in her serenity even when there are stormy nights.

Gabriel does not change even when there are ups and downs in his life. He encounters disasters
like the loss of his entire flock of sheep, rejection of his marriage proposal by Bathsheba, and his
instinctive anxiety about her relationship with Troy, and despite all these troubles, he continues
with his professional work and remains loyal to Bathsheba and feels responsible for her
wellbeing. “The constancy of the rural life and of dependable characters such as Oak are still
there when all the trials and tribulations are over, to provide sheet anchor for such as Bathsheba,
‘Far from the Madding Crowd’s ignoble strife’.”1

The calm pastoral landscape, free of strife is set against the turmoil and conflict among men.
Nature with all her calmness poses a challenge to human beings who are compelled to face
natural disaster. The story shows how the one who is able to navigate through vicissitudes of
natural disaster triumphs at the end. The sudden disaster that overtakes Gabriel Oak when he
loses all his sheep changes his life and he is forced out of his home to go in search of a job. He
gets a job when he puts out a fire in Bathsheba’s farm and later he saves a group of lambs from
being poisoned by clover. He is a man of the soil and is skilled to navigate around natural
disasters. In contrast, Troy cannot face Nature’s storm that washes away the flowers he had
planted over Fanny’s grave. He is listless and dissatisfied after his marriage to Bathsheba. He
only wanted to flirt with her, pompously strut around as he is conscious of his handsome
appearance, his soldier’s uniform and his skill as a swordsman. He is surprised at Bathsheba’
willingness to marry him. He marries her not out of genuine feelings of love, but to show off to
the poor, innocent villagers his prize catch and that too won by outsmarting Boldwood. After the
wedding, he celebrates by getting drunk along with the wonderstruck workers in Bathsheba’s
farm. Troy’s pretension of love is in conflict with Nature’s spontaneity and generosity. His
behaviour is yet another conflict generating aspect that ends in tragic disaster.

When the storm breaks out at night when Troy and the farm labourers are in a drunken stupor,
Bathsheba joins Gabriel to race against time and storm to safeguard all their farm produce.
Humans then, can work to mitigate conflicts within nature, can rebel – unsuccessfully – against
it, or can become hostile forces of their own. Whichever the case, the novel makes clear that
country life is not exempt from such conflicts”2
. And while humans manage natural forces as
best they can, there is little they can do to halt them. In the novel, Hardy uses nature as a
premonition, as a clue to understand the future of some relationships between different
characters. For example, Fanny, most of the time, appears alone, at night, hidden in the darkness.
In chapter seven, she meets Gabriel for the first time; she is alone at night, she is fleeing
Bathsheba’s house, to ask Troy to marry her. She is what can be best described as ‘darkness
visible.’ She is no doubt betrayed by Troy, but she is a victim of her fate as she misses out the
church where she is supposed to marry Troy.

Check Your Progress 1

1. What does Wessex stand for in the novel?
2. How does Hardy relate nature to the different characters?

3.3.2 Themes of the Novel

(1) Unrequited love: Gabriel’s love, Boldwood’s passion for Bathsheba, Bathsheba’s
misplaced love for Troy and finally poor Fanny’s innocent love for Troy illustrate this
theme.
(2) Concept of class structure- Bathsheba’s earlier rejection of Gabriel Oak, Farmer
Boldwood’s consciousness of his superiority, Troy’s supercilious attitude towards the
rural folk and Bathsheba’s treatment of her farm workers and her maids are examples of
this class structure.
(3) Catastrophe: Gabriel’s loss of his entire flock of sheep at the beginning of the novel
changes his life, leading him to seek work in Bathsheba’s farm. Nature’s fury and the
stormy nights bring Gabriel and Bathsheba together when she begins to appreciate his
commitment and loyalty despite her rejection of his proposal to marry him.
(4) Fate: Fate, chance, and circumstance rule Hardy’s rural world. Fanny turns up at the
wrong church to marry Sergeant Troy – if this marriage had taken place, one of
Bathsheba’s options would have been removed and Fanny’s tragedy averted. So is the
return of Troy at the nick of time when Bathsheba agrees to keep her promise to marry
Boldwood after the official mourning period of widowhood is over. The result is the
shooting of Troy by Boldwood and his imprisonment as a consequence. Destiny brings a
happy ending to the story with Bathsheba’s acceptance of Gabriel and marriage to him.

Check Your Progress 2:

Write a note on the themes of Far from the Madding Crowd.

3.3.3 Conclusion:

This novel is one of the very few novels of Hardy that ends on a happy note though the elements
of tragedy cannot be ignored. It has elements both of tragedy and comedy and approximates to
the dramatic genre called ‘tragicomedy’. The German writer and philosopher Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing speaks of tragicomedy as a mix of seriousness and pain: “Tragicomedy allows works of
literature to explore depths and paradoxes of human experience unavailable to strict comedies
and tragedies.”3
In this respect Far From the Madding crowd explores different human
experiences – of love, constancy, rejection, depression, and anger. Far from the Madding Crowd
starts on a tragic note with the memorable image of all Gabriel Oak’s flock of sheep running
over a cliff in the dark. Although this is disastrous for him personally, it proves to be lucky, as he
goes in search of a job and meets Bathsheba, whom he ultimately marries. Troy’s desertion of
Fanny and the death of Fanny and their unborn child is tragic. In fact, later Troy mourns at
Fanny’s grave and although he had been false to her in life, he decorates her grave with
expensive flowers. Ironically the heavy rains that night made water leak from the church roof,
and through the mouth of one gargoyle floods the grave. Boldwood’s shooting of Troy is
sensational and overtly melodramatic. It is a calamitous ending for both the suitors who with a
single bullet have put an end to both their claims over Bathsheba. It enables the novel to end on a
happy note as there is nothing to come in the way of the union of the lead pair. The happy
ending after a series of tragic events makes almost everything turn out for the best for the
protagonists. We may recall here, Thomas Hardy’s wise observation on writing: “The whole
secret of fiction and the drama – in the constructional part – lies in the adjustment of things
unusual to the things eternal and universal.” 4

3.4 SUMMING UP

You should definitely read the story in the original to appreciate Hardy’ gifts as a story teller. In
this Unit, we have discussed the summary of the novel in brief; analysed the role of Nature in the
novel, focusing on the one–to- one correspondence between nature and the four major characters,
and considered Far from the Madding Crowd as a combination of elements of tragedy and
comedy.

3.5 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1. Justify the novel’s title Far from the Madding Crowd.
3. Is the novel a tragicomedy?

3.6 GLOSSARY

Rustic: Rural, of the countryside
Guileless: Simple, undesigning, not scheming
Interweaving: interlacing, blending
Momentum: impetus, thrust, drive
Pastoral: Rural, rustic, countryside
Don Juan: A habitual seducer of women
Idyllic: idealized, picturesque
Protagonist: Leading character
Playboy: Womanizer, Pleasure seeker
Ewes: female sheep
Haggling: quarreling, arguing
Fortuitous: Happening by chance, lucky, fortunate
Hearth: A fireplace
Bailiff: An overseer of an estate; a steward.
Shilling: in Britain until 1971, a coin worth one-twentieth of a Pound
Hoary: ancient, venerable
Naivete: Unaffected simplicity, lack of worldliness
Mailman: One who deliversmail, postman
Skeptical: Having doubt
Congregation: A gathering
Inquisitive: curious, inquiring
Adam and Eve: The first Man and the first Woman, ancestors of all humans
Capricious: Unpredictable, impulsive
Impish: Mischievous, prankish
Solicitousness: excessive concern
Gullible: Easily trusting, unsuspecting
Distraught: Deeply agitated
Harangue: A long, pompous speech
Coquette: A flirt
Churl: A rude boorish person
Libertinism: a tendency to unrestrained, often licentious or dissolute conduct
Profligacy: immorality, dissipation, depravity
Suave: smooth tongued, charming
Artful Dodger: A sly rogue, a miscreant
Stupor: a state of numbness, drunken state of reduced consciousness
Impetuous: hasty
Augury: forerunner
Proximity: Closeness
Static: Fixed, stationary
Entity: Something that exists as a particular unit
Animated: lively, dynamic
Pristine : remaining in a pure state.
Anti-thesis: opposite
Navigate: drive, maneuver, steer
Vicissitude: change
Unrequited: Unreciprocated, not returned

3.7 READING LIST: CRITICAL WORKS ON THOMAS HARDY

Page, Norman, Oxford Reader’s Companion to Hardy.
Nathalie, Bantz, “Far from the Madding Crowd and the Anxiety of Place.”
“Notes on Far From the Madding Crowd.” Methuen & Co.
C. G. Harper. The Hardy Country.

3.8 REFERENCES:

1. Notes on Far from the Madding Crowd, Metheun&Co.
2.www.litcharts.com › lit › themes › conflict-and-the-laws-of-nature.
3. A Hardy Companion: A Guide to the works of Thomas Hardy by F.B. Pinion, Springer
publications, 2016.
34

UNIT 4 FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD: CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Structure

4.0 Introduction
4.1 Aims and objectives
4.2 A brief sketch of the major characters
4.3 Quotes from the text in illustration of the characters
4.4 Hardy’s philosophy
4.5 Summing up
4.6 Unit end questions
4.7 References
4.8 Glossary
4.9 Reading list

4.0 INTRODUCTION

In this unit, we discuss the major characters and themes of Far From the Madding Crowd. We
will be looking at the ways in which authors create and develop characters and how these
characters reflect the realities of the period when the novel was written (in this novel, the later
period of the 19th century). Characterization includes description of the physical features, the
social status and the ideas, attitudes and behaviour of the characters, their interactions with each
other and their interaction with the outer world.

4.1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

After studying this Unit in conjunction with Unit 3 you will be able to:

 Develop a critical understanding of characterization in novels with reference to Far From
the Madding Crowd
 Understand how character traits contribute to the progression of the plot
and
 Discuss the themes of Far From the Madding Crowd in the context of Thomas Hardy’s
philosophy.

4.2 A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE MAJOR CHARACTERS IN FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

All novels have two major elements – story and characters apart from the narrative style, i.e.,
how the story is narrated. The plot or events drive the novel from the start to the finish, while
characters move the story forward with their words and actions.

Characters are of many types; each has its unique characteristics and functions. Normally the
characters do not change midway in the course of the novel. Some characters develop and grow
and these are the ones who contribute to the progress of the story. These characters start out one
way and end up different, and the change in the story is brought out by what happens to them.

Who are the main characters in this novel? The major characters pivotal to the story, whose
actions develop it from beginning to end are discussed below.

4.2.1 Bathsheba Everdene

Bathsheba, the orphaned daughter of a wealthy farm owner, is raised by her aunt in the
countryside. She is the protagonist as the novel centers around her. The story progresses through
her relationship with three suitors and her final choice reflects her personal growth from the
impulsive and headstrong woman that she was at the beginning to a mature woman who can
manage her emotions. She is pivotal to the story and her final choice of Gabriel Oak as her
husband shows she is far from her mad obsessed lover, Farmer Boldwood and a pretentious, self
absorbed husband, Sergeant Troy who deserts her soon after marriage. Bathsheba is by far the
best-drawn and strongest female character seen in Hardy’s work, despite her vacillations. Hardy
shows her to be a strong and self-reliant woman and although she makes some poor choices, they
do make sense. She is a realistic character whose statement made late in the novel helps to
explain Tess, Eustacia and Sue the central female leads in Hardy’s later novels: ‘it is difficult for
a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”

4.2.2 Gabriel Oak

Gabriel, like Bathsheba, is different from all other characters in the novel. He is far from the
madding crowd of Weatherbury, for he is originally from Norcombe Hill and he comes to
Weatherbury in search of a job. He is an outsider to Weatherbury and learns about the people of
that place and their way of living after he gets a job under Bathsheba to manage her farm and
settles down there. While the Weatherbury folks are given to gossip and are skeptical about a
woman deciding to manage her own farm, Gabriel Oak, a shepherd who was reasonably well off
in his native place till tragedy struck him with the loss of his two hundred sheep, suffers from no
false pride and accepts a job under a woman. He does not gossip about anyone. He is humble and
gentle and accepts Bathsheba’s instant rejection of his marriage proposal in his stride. His
humility, unboastful character and selflessness are in marked contrast to the vain, boastful, selfcentric Sergeant Troy who marries Bathsheba and leaves her. He is also a simple rustic shepherd
from an obscure village and thus is a contrast to the country-bred, complex and wealthy
gentleman Farmer Boldwood, who falls a victim to his own passion that was initially kindled by
Bathsheba’s prankish message to him to marry her. Thus Gabriel Oak is far removed from both
the suitors of Bathsheba – Sergeant Troy and Boldwood. Gabriel Oak stands out in the midst of
the Weatherbury crowd, and proves to be a likeable loner, far from the madding crowd.

4.2.3 Sergeant Francis Troy

Sergeant Troy is a handsome, dashing young soldier, charming to women and a pleasure seeker.
He is not one of the Weatherbury types; he feels superior to the countryfolks in Weatherbury and
his conquest of Bathsheba provokes awe and admiration in the innocent rural farmhands. He is in
their eyes a hero who could tame Bathsheba, the spirited young woman of the place. He is not
like Gabriel Oak who is self- effacing and withdrawing by nature. He is unlike Farmer Boldwood
who is a strict no-nonsense type and who adheres to Christian morals. Boldwood has a
congenital hatred for Sergeant Troy who with his pretentious charm, woos and wins Bathsheba.
If Gabriel Oak, who ultimately proves successful, is the hero, Sergeant Troy is the antagonist of
the novel. He should not be seen as totally evil for he has shades of good qualities. He keeps to
his promise he made to Fanny Robin that he will marry her by waiting in the church for her to
turn up. Unfortunately it is destiny that mars their marriage as Fanny reaches another church and
thus fails to arrive at the right place. He feels a deep sense of remorse, when Fanny dies along
with his unborn baby.

4.2.4 Farmer Boldwood

Boldwood is the second of the three suitors for Bathsheba’s hand. Boldwood is not a young man
like Gabriel Oak or Sergeant Troy. He is middle aged, dignified and respectable. He owns a farm
close to Bathsheba’s and is a highly respected farmer, especially for his knowledge and
management of his farm. He had never regarded marriage as a necessity and despite the gossip of
the villagers about his unmarried status, the truth is, he had never really been in love. He is kind
and sympathetic towards the poor and the submissive like Fanny Robin. He is a man with a kind
heart and he feels responsible for Fanny, initially for her schooling ,then for her employment in
Bathsheba’s uncle’s farm and finally for her safety when she suddenly disappears from the
village with no one having any information about her whereabouts.

In spite of his no-nonsense approach to women and marriage, he misunderstands Bathsheba’s
mischievous Valentine card sent to him with the tag line ‘Will you marry me?” He is flattered to
be paid such attentions by a beautiful, almost imperious woman and slowly becomes obsessed
with her – an obsession that eventually turns into madness. He is insistent on Bathsheba agreeing
to marry him after it is rumored that her husband Sergeant Troy had died of drowning. The
Valentine card makes him for the first time look at women and think of marriage that he had till
then shunned. For the first time, he experiences love which turns into obsessive passion. He
becomes possessive of Bathsheba and gets upset with Sergeant Troy whom he knows to be a
pretender with no genuine love for Bathsheba. The change in Boldwood is palpable. He is far
removed from his earlier serious and solemn nature. He forces Bathsheba to promise that she will
marry him after the official mourning period for her departed husband is over. His character
undergoes change twice in the course of the novel – from a stiff, sedate, sober, almost a boring
character to a passionate and obsessed lover and then, when he is denied the fruition of his
obsession, to a vengeful murderer.

4.2.5 Fanny Robin

She is not a full-fledged character and her appearance is limited to her meeting with Gabriel Oak
on a gloomy winter evening. Yet she is pivotal to the development of the story. Both Boldwood
and Bathsheba wonder where the girl had disappeared, as they are not aware of her pathetic
condition of pregnancy and destitution. She is young and innocent and is taken in by the
charming Sergeant Troy. She believes in him as a true lover with his proposal to marry her. But
it was just her fate that she waits for him outside a wrong church while Troy waits inside
another church. Troy gets angry and refuses to listen to her pleas for forgiveness and abandons
her even as she carries his baby in her womb. Fanny dies in childbirth and but for Gabriel Oak’s
presence of mind to erase the word ‘child’ on the coffin and retain only ‘Fanny’, her name would
have been sullied as an unwed mother. She is guileless, innocent and honest as she returns the
shilling that Oak had lent her earlier on seeing her distressed condition.

The rest of the characters who appear are the people of Weatherbury, mainly farm hands and
employees of the farm owners. They are illiterate labourers, and work manually in farms to earn
their livelihood. The only pleasure they get is from their drink and gossip.

Check Your Progress 1

Write short notes on the major characters of the novel, and show how Hardy develops these
characters in the course of the novel.

4.3 QUOTES FROM THE TEXT IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE CHARACTERS

These quotes are taken from the Penguin Classic edition (2003) of Far from the Madding Crowd.

4.3.1 Bathsheba

Let us start with Bathsheba. She is a pretty young woman and Hardy without giving details,
creatively suggests her beauty. In the opening chapter, her good looks are suggestively
introduced:

“She did not adjust her hat, or pat her hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do any one
thing to signify that any such intention had been her motive in taking up the glass. She
simply observed herself as a fair product of Nature in a feminine direction—her
expression seeming to glide into far-off though likely dramas in which men would play a
part—vistas of probable triumphs…”

Early in the novel, in chapter 4, she says:“ nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart, instead of my
having a dozen as my aunt said; I hate to be thought men’s property in that way—though
possibly I shall be had some day.” Two things strike us – the 19th century woman is presented as
a modern heroine, refusing to be a man’s property. But realizing the patriarchal mindset of the
age, she retreats and says she possibly will have to be the property of some man at some point of
time. She shows herself to be strong willed and fiercely independent, though aware of the social
compulsions that will force her to accept a man. She does not want to be the centre of gossip and
pity over her unmarried status among her labour force that constitutes the village majority. More
than that she is keen to prove she is equal to the other sex in terms of owning, managing, and
administering the farm and the farm labourers.

In chapter 13, after she sends the Valentine card, the novelist Hardy comments:“So very idly and
unreflectingly was this deed done. Of love, as a spectacle Bathsheba had a fair knowledge; but of
love subjectively she knew nothing.” This sums up the naivety of Bathsheba who has had no
experience of love, a corroboration of what she had earlier said that she did not want to be any
man’s property. She is presented as a happy–go- lucky young woman, self confident,
independent but impetuous and acting whimsically. She has no love for Boldwood, which is but
natural since he is middle aged and appears mature and stiff in contrast to her youthful
appearance, vivacity and high spirits. She had noted his aloofness from women and wanted to
tease him.. Hence her Valentine card with the inscription ‘will you marry me’ was a spontaneous
prank just to see what the women-shy Boldwood’s response would be! The same impetuousness
can be seen in her impulsive acceptance of Sergeant Troy. Despite the mature Gabriel Oak’s
warning, she sticks to her impulsive decision and faces tragic consequences.

She grows up as she experiences the ups and downs of life and we see her a mature young
woman when she accepts Gabriel Oak after her earlier impulsive rejection of his marriage
proposal. Hardy’s comment on Boldwood’s shock and awe on receiving the Valentine card
reveals Boldwood’s lack of understanding of women. “Boldwood’s blindness to the difference
between approving of what circumstance suggests, and originating what it does not, was well
matched by Bathsheba’s insensibility to the possible great issues of little beginnings.”

If Bathsheba’s action reveals her insensibility and lack of feeling as well as her inability to
foresee the problems it would create, Boldwood’s acceptance of her Valentine card and the
message it carried as a genuine manifestation of a woman’s love, reveals his ignorance of women
and matters of the heart. On close analysis, we can see how in their respective ways both are
shown to be immature and given to impulsive responses. Boldwood feels flattered that a young
woman loves him while Bathsheba is shown to be a woman given to rash and devil-may-care
attitude. It is said, opposite pairs attract and like pairs repel each other. Boldwood and Bathsheba
seem to have similar characteristics while Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak are dissimilar. The first
pair failed while the second pair shows that the strongest affinity happens when two people are
dissimilar.

Bathsheba is aware of her whimsical nature and her vulnerability while remaining single. She is
aware that she should marry and marry someone like Boldwood who is an earnest and
respectable man. Though she rejects him, she is aware of her recklessness and is seen throughout
the novel, seeking deliverance from her whims and rash actions.

Bathsheba proves to be a match for the men in her village. She has earned the respect and
admiration of all by her ability to run her own farm. But all her knowledge and talent are
confined to her rural society. Hardy observes: “Of the fabricated tastes of good fashionable
society she knew but little, and of the formulated self-indulgence of bad, nothing at all.” She is
taken in by the urbane charm of Sergeant Troy, wonder struck at his sword skills and falls for
him. Despite the warning of Gabriel Oak, she marries him only to discover that he is a misfit in a
rural setting. Just before her marriage, she overhears maids gossiping about her and Troy. She is
furious with herself as she is torn between her attraction for Troy and the rumours she hears
about his nature and character. Once again her furious impetuosity drives her to take the rash
decision to marry him. When Gabriel Oak warned her, she says vehemently: “You are taking too
much upon yourself! Everyone is upon me – everybody. It is unmanly to attack a woman so! I
have nobody in the world to fight my battles for me, but no mercy is shown. Yet if a thousand of
you sneer and say things against me, I will not be put down!”

Troy’s demands for money, the picture of Fanny in his purse, his dandyish behaviour and his
lack of concern for her life in the farm, turn Bathsheba away from him. She realizes that Troy’s
nature was less pure than her own. “Until she had met Troy, Bathsheba had been proud of her
position as a woman; it had been a glory to her to know that her lips had been touched by no
man’s on earth, that her waist had never been encircled by a lover’s arm. She hated herself now.”
The shooting of Troy by Boldwood when he suddenly surfaces, Boldwood’s imprisonment and
Gabriel Oak’s renewal of his marriage proposal conclude the story. The final part gives a clue to
the character of Bathsheba and also that of Gabriel Oak. That evening the couple sits down to tea
in Bathsheba’s parlor, where they’ve decided to live. Just then they hear a cannon and trumpets:
they go to the porch and hear a great clang of instruments: the farm labourers gather to wish long
life to the couple, and Gabriel thanks them. The others tease him for the naturalness with which
he says, “my wife,” though they say it needs to be a little chillier—that will come with joy.
Bathsheba doesn’t laugh much anymore, but she smiles, and they cheerfully greet the workers.

Bathsheba continues to want to pay the price for her actions, refusing grand ceremonies and
celebrations: the story’s happy ending is mitigated to a certain extent by the deaths that will
continue to hang over her head, not to mention Boldwood’s lifelong imprisonment. But the
villagers’ joviality allows the book to end on an upward, more comic bent, reflecting the dual
tragic and comic bent of the novel.

Activity

Select relevant lines, quotes and paragraphs from the different chapters of the novel to delineate
the character of Bathsheba Everdene.

4.3.2 Gabriel Oak

The opening lines of the novel give us a perfect introduction to Gabriel Oak. We get an insight
into his personality:

“When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant
distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round
them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.His
Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a young man of sound judgment, easy
motions, proper dress, and general good character.”

This description shows him to be a young man with a broad smile when his lips spread as far as
his ears. He is young and appears wise beyond his years. Till the end, he remains sober, calm,
unruffled, and stoic, seemingly unaffected by pleasure or pain, accepting life with its highs and
lows. The simple shepherd that he was, he owned two hundred sheep, all of which he loses
unfortunately.

“The sheep were not insured. All the savings of a frugal life had been dispersed at a
blow: his hopes of being an independent farmer were laid low—possibly for ever.
Gabriel’s energies, patience and industry had been so severely taxed, during the years of
his life between eighteen and eight and twenty, to reach his present stage of progress that
no more seemed to be left in him.”

So we meet this young man, twenty eight years old, who at an early age has experienced a sad
and tragic loss in the drowning of his entire flock of sheep and with it all his hopes of moving
socially upward from a shepherd to an independent farmer are shattered. The lines quoted above
show two assets that he continues to possess – patience and industry. These two qualities will
prove triumphant at the end. His surname is Oak, and true to it, he is seen to be stable and sturdy.
He goes in search of a job after the loss of his sheep. By chance he sees a serious fire, and
hastens to give a helping hand to extinguish it. Bathsheba is impressed with his skill in putting
off the fire and employs him as a shepherd in reward for his prompt action.

He finds Bathsheba beautiful though he discerns her vanity when he sees her looking at her
image in a mirror. This shows the two shades of his character – romantic and at the same time,
objective and practical in judgement. He decides to ask her to be his wife and proposes to her,
but she does not feel any love for him.

“Finally Bathsheba admitted that she did not love Gabriel, and although the farmer said
he would be happy if she just liked him, Bathsheba replied, “You’d get to despise me.”
Gabriel vehemently asserted, “Never. . . . I shall . . . keep wanting you till I die.” He
asked if he could come calling. She laughingly replied that that would be ridiculous,
considering his feelings. “Very well,’ said Oak firmly. . . . ‘Then I’ll ask you no more.”

Oak stays true to his word. He has patience and is ready to wait. He has his pride and strong
determination. Again, true to his word, he does not ask for her hand even when he later warns
her against accepting Sergeant Troy. Had he expressed his own feelings for her, maybe
Bathsheba would not have plunged into the hasty marriage with Troy. Bathsheba is hurt. She is
self centric and expects the rejected lover to come back and express his love for her. When
Gabriel Oak does not woo her, she impulsively accepts Sergeant Troy’s proposal.

Gabriel Oak remains her loyal employee. Just as he had earlier put off the fire in her farm, when
he notices the arrival of storm and rain, he saves the sheaves working through the night.
Bathsheba joins him and when he asks her to leave as she looks fatigued, Bathsheba recognizes
how Gabriel Oak is a man of great compassion for her and shows his concern for her by insisting
on working alone to save the barn. “You are kinder than I deserve…”, says Bathsheba. Hardy’s
comments reveal the character of Gabriel Oak. Even when his love was unrequited, he continues
to love her. “Oak, suddenly remembered that eight months before this time he had been fighting
against fire in the same spot as desperately as he was fighting against water now—and for a
futile love of the same woman.”

Even though he does not know Fanny, Oak feels pity for the scantily clad young woman
shivering in the cold. He offers her a shilling that she asks for. But his humaneness and
compassion for the girl who was deserted by Troy and died during childbirth is in evidence when
he protects her honour after her death.

“Suddenly, as in a last attempt to save Bathsheba from, at any rate, immediate pain, he
looked again as he had looked before at the chalk writing upon the coffin-lid. The scrawl
was this simple one: “Fanny Robbin and child.” Gabriel took his handkerchief and
carefully rubbed out the two latter words. He then left the room, and went out quietly by
the front door.”
He saves her from the callous and feeling-less gossip of the villagers if they had known that
Fanny died an unwed mother.

The end of the novel is rather swift, almost abrupt. There is no coy romance between Gabriel
Oak and Bathsheba. When he announces his intention to leave England and settle in California,
she comes to his house and asks him if she had offended him. Gabriel explains that, on the
contrary, he was leaving because there was gossip that he was waiting to buy Boldwood’s farm
just so that he would be rich enough to court Bathsheba.

Bathsheba did not look quite so alarmed as if a cannon had been discharged by her ear, which
was what Oak had expected. ‘Marrying me! I didn’t know it was that you meant. . . . Such a thing
as that is too absurd — too soon — to think of, by far!'” Gabriel heard only the “absurd,” not the
“too soon,” and their talk continued at cross-purposes until Gabriel said that he wished he knew
if she would let him court her. Bathsheba tearfully assured him that he would never know
whether she would have him unless he asked. The two found release in laughter, finally throwing
off the inhibitions and constraints of employer and employee. To Bathsheba’s embarrassed
remark that she had come courting him, Gabriel replied that it was his due for having long
danced to her tune. “They spoke very little of their mutual feeling; pretty phrases and warm
expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. . . . when the two who are
thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other’s character, and not the
best till further on.”

Activity

What does this last meeting before their wedding reveal about the personalities of Gabriel and
Bathsheba?

Following this pattern in respect of the characters of Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak, read the novel,
find suitable quotes to illustrate the characters of Farmer Boldwood, Sergeant Troy and Fanny
Robin.

4.4 HARDY’S PHILOSOPHY

Hardy is primarily a novelist, but his novels go beyond the story to articulate his philosophy and
his views on life. It will not be inaccurate to say that his novels reflect the 19th century conflict
between religion and science, faith in God and belief in human rationality. Far from the
Madding Crowd, raises many questions about society, religion, morals and ends on a positive
note that virtue garners rewards as evidenced in Gabriel Oak’s happy union with Bathsheba as a
reward for leading a life of goodness, humility, loyalty and selfless love.

The 19thcentury was an age of transition. The transition is evident in the change:

(a) from an agrarian rural life to industrial urban life,

(b) from fundamental beliefs in God as the Creator of the world and as regulator of human
affairs through his omnipotence and omniscience to acceptance of scientific laws based
on Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species about the creation of the universe as an
evolutionary process in defiance of earlier theological belief about God as the originator
of the Universe,

(c) from a predominantly rural society with its strong belief in tradition and customs that
gave some degree of security and stability and dignity to the rural folks to a urban
society, with its new outlook on life and morals, along with a focus on material well
being and a new social order that brought a sharp clevage between the educated elite
and the uneducated or semi-educated poor.

(d) from an acceptance of life’s ups and downs as the working of a beneficent, omnipotent,
and omniscient deity to questioning the function of that deity in the face of omnipresent
evil and unreasonable happenings leading to unhappiness. It had become increasingly
difficult to reconcile the prevalence of unhappiness in life with the operation of a
benevolent deity. As Brennecke observed, “He (Hardy) cannot reconcile the idea of an
omnipotent and merciful Deity with human sufferings.”1

Hardy was not a philosopher given to abstract metaphysical speculations. He was primarily a
novelist and therefore it is appropriate to describe him as a philosophical novelist. His novels are
not about an esoteric or an abstruse world but about the real world of the 19th century Victorian
society to which he belonged. The novel form gave him the opportunity to reflect on Victorian
society, its morals, ethics and worldview as it was caught between the old world that was slowly
disappearing and the new world ushered in by the Industrial revolution, yet to be born.

Though a Christian by birth and upbringing, Hardy, under the influence of the 19th century
scientific thinkers and writers like Charles Darwin, lost his faith in a Christian God. Darwin’s
work scientifically traced the origin of man as a natural evolution from a primordial form to his
present state and thus questioned the prevailing concept of the creation of man by God. As a
result, all the older Christian values appeared to the Victorians including Hardy as redundant.
Darwin’s work undermined the prevailing concept of the divine creation of man. He learnt from
Darwin that the natural order is indifferent to man’s desires and aspirations. As a consequence, he
broke with Victorian optimism and self-complacency and developed pessimism and discontent.

Hardy was an extensive reader who had read the ancient Greek tragedies, Shakespeare’s works,
contemporary thinkers such as the English philosopher, Thomas Huxley, and the French radical
reformers and philosophers, such as Charles Fourier, Hippolyte Taine, and Auguste Comte. His
conception of human life was shaped in part by his extensive critical reading of the Bible. His
novels are full of Biblical allusions and Far From the Madding Crowd is rich in its Biblical
allusions. All his readings were further supported by his rural background.

Ernest Brennecke, who wrote one of the earliest appraisals of Hardy’s philosophy of life, argued
that Hardy developed “a consistent world-view through the notions of Chance and Time,
Circumstances, Fate, Nature, Providence, Nemesis and Will tinged with metaphysical idealism”.2
His novels seem to suggest that the old Christian values did not help man to face misery and
unhappiness. Thus we see the dilemma in his writings where on the one hand he castigates
religion as it had very little to offer to the modern man and on the other he is acutely aware of
the place of religion in tradition and customs that had given some degree of solidity to the culture
of the people.

As Lennart A. Björk noted, “Hardy’s castigation of traditional religion is an integral part of his
social criticism,”3 as religion cannot offer comfort and consolation during moments of crisis.
Thus we see his writings that deal with the loss of an earlier simpler Christian faith and its total
abandonment to the will of God, and a longing for a new order to replace that loss of the older
faith in God by making the church an important social institution. He told Edmund Blunden, “If
there is no church in a country village, there is nothing.”

Hardy’s critical vision of life was deeply rooted in his Hellenic and pagan sympathies of the rural
countryside which held more charm for Hardy than did Christianity. In his Wessex novels and
stories, Hardy’s vision of an old, rustic England was essentially pagan. He shared fellow
Victorian, Matthew Arnold’s ideal of Hellenic paganism, with its emphasis of the development of
a complete man with the harmonious body and soul. He preferred Auguste Comte’s religion of
humanity as a substitute for Christianity.

One more aspect of his philosophy is that of Determinism. Determinism also referred to as
necessitarianism is the philosophical doctrine that all events, including human choices and
decisions, are necessarily determined by external forces acting on the will. Man’s life is
controlled by what we call Fate or Destiny. His major fiction shows that human existence is
intrinsically tragic because people are trapped by the laws of Nature and the laws of civilization.
Novels like Tess, Jude the Obscure and The Mayor of Casterbridge end in tragedy where Fate or
Chance plays a causal role in human affairs. Chance or Fate, can change man’s destiny. Chance
is for Hardy everything over which man has no control. It is not that fate is always sinister, but
the fact is Man cannot overcome his fate. More often than not his men and women become tragic
victims of Fate. Contrary to the Christian belief in God’s justice and compassion for humanity,
Hardy presents the universe as a rigid mechanism which is indifferent and apathetic to human
suffering.

But Far from the Madding Crowd is an exception as it ends on a positive note of bringing
Gabriel Oak and Bathsheba together. The return of Sergeant Troy at the very moment Boldwood
is getting ready to marry Bathsheba is an instance of the operation of forces outside man’s plans
and actions. Gabriel Oak shows how despite all odds against human life, man can overcome it by
taking responsibility for fellow men. Hardy saw at least one hope for mankind, which is
expressed in his view of evolutionary meliorism – that is, that the world can be improved by
human effort. Hardy said:

I believe that a good deal of the robustious, swaggering optimism of recent literature is at
bottom cowardly and insincere. My pessimism, if pessimism it be, does not involve the
assumption that the world is going to the dogs. On the contrary, my practical philosophy
is distinctly meliorist. Whatever may be the inherent good or evil of life, it is certain that
men make it much worse than it need be. When we have got rid of a thousand remediable
ills, it will be time enough to determine whether the ill that is irremediable outweighs the
good

Hardy, like many writers before and after him, is concerned with existential questions, such as
the human condition, personal freedom and determinism, the attitude to God and religion, the
role of destiny, failed human relationships and the alienation of human beings in the modern
world. He presents life’s happenings as events that are unalterable and believed that man cannot
take any preventive measures to change or stop them. Worse is the certainty of suffering.
Hardy’s world is dictated by Chance and therefore his people live in an uncaring, unfeeling and
unfriendly universe, made worse by their painful awareness of their existence.

Between man’s desire and its fruition comes destiny. Hence his philosophical outlook was
certainly deterministic, pessimistic and tragic, yet it offered a possibility of positive morality.
Hardy insisted that there is a limited personal freedom in the midst of his state of being un-free.
It is in his strength to transcend his natural bondage, he may achieve personal freedom, which
means that he is free to make his own choices – but he will have to pay dearly for them. It is easy
to resign oneself to fatalism which acknowledges that all action is controlled by Fate which is a
great, impersonal, primitive force. But it takes a lot of man’s spiritual energy to take action even
when action will prove a failure.

Thus, in his novels, man is pitted against chance or Fate. Fanny’s life ends on a tragic note
because of the fateful mistake of waiting outside a wrong church. Similarly Fate interferes at the
moment Boldwood and Bathsheba get ready for their marriage. The man who for seven years
had not turned up and was therefore assumed to be drowned, turns up at that very moment
thereby nullifying Bathsheba’s widowhood. But those who are contented, calm and balanced and
not protesting against life’s hard dispensations overcome chance and succeed at the end as is the
case with Gabriel Oak.

While in his novels barring the early ones like Far from the Madding Crowd, Hardy shows
power of Chance or Fate triumphing over the power of Man, he makes a plea that social laws and
conventions that are man-made must be changed so that man is not helplessly and hopelessly
doomed.

Activity

Which are the social conventions and views in Far from the Madding Crowd that should be
changed in your opinion? (Hints :Women cannot and are not capable of managing a farm; The
sneering comments on unmarried women; Harsh criticism of young innocent women who
become victims of the predatory nature of men; Patriarchal society).

4.5 SUMMING UP

In this unit, we have discussed: the role of characters in a novel; the major characters in Far
From the Madding Crowd who shape the novel; Hardy’s philosophy in line with the scientific
and intellectual thinkers of the late 19thcentury.

4.6 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1. Explain the terms ‘Determinism’, ‘Meliorism’, and ‘Hellenic Paganism’.
2. Give a brief overview of Hardy’s philosophy.
3. Discuss Far From the Madding Crowd in the context of Hardy’s philosophy. In what way is
his philosophy as expressed in this novel, different from that in novels like Tess and The Mayor
of Casterbridge ?

4.7 REFERENCES

1. Ernest Brennecke, Jr., The Life of Thomas Hardy (New York, 1925).
2. Op.cit
3. Lennart A. Bjork, Thomas Hardy, Palgrave Macmillan, U.K, 1985
4. Andrzej Diniejko, Hardy’s Philosophical Outlook, The Victorian Web www.victorian web.org

4.8 GLOSSARY

Protagonist: central character
Self -effacing: not drawing attention to oneself, modest
Congenital: innate. inherent
Antagonist: opponent, rival, adversary
Morose: melancholy, gloomy
Palpable: obvious, evident
Full-fledged: fully developed
Destitution: pennilessness, beggary
Sullied: dishonoured, disgraced
Patriarchal: relating to male hierarchy
Naivety: in a state of simplicity, innocence, inexperience
Corroboration: confirmation, authentication
Impetuous: rash, unthinking
Whimsically: behave eccentrically
Devil may care: reckless
Vulnerability: susceptibility, exposure
Dandyish: affecting extreme elegance in dress and behaviour
Unruffled: calm, composed
Stoic: seemingly indifferent to emotions, to pleasure or pain
Oak: hard durable tree
Discern: see, perceive
Unrequited: not reciprocated, not rewarded
Omnipotence: power, supremacy
Omniscience: total knowledge
Cleavage: the state of being split
Omnipresent: present everywhere
Esoteric: intended for or to be understood by a small group
Abstruse: obscure, complex
Primordial: existing from the beginning
Redundant: surplus, excessive, extra
Nemesis: retribution, something that causes misery or death
Hellenic: pertaining to ancient Greek culture and thought
Paganism: strong belief in supernatural power
Causal: indicative of a cause

4.9 READING LIST

1. Bloom, Harold, ed. Thomas Hardy. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004
2. Björk, Lennart. Psychological Vision and Social Criticism in the Novels of Thomas Hardy.
Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International, 1987.
3. Page, Norman, ed. Oxford Reader’s Companion to Hardy. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2001.
4. Laurence Estanove. “Some thoughts on Far From the Madding Crowd.” Fathom, A French
Journal of Thomas Hardy Studies.
5. N.Bantz, “Far from the madding Crowd and the Anxiety of Place.” Journals open edition.org

BLOCK 3 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW: ARMS AND THE MAN

Introduction

The twentieth century has been one of the most exciting periods in the history of British
literature, especially drama and theatre. The century witnessed a lot of original and brilliant
work as well as experimentation in British drama. In Block 3, you will be studying the play
Arms and the Man by the Nobel Prize winning British dramatist, George Bernard Shaw, who
dominated British drama throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
Unit 1 of the Block introduces you to Bernard Shaw’s dramatic works, and gives a brief
introduction to some of his major plays.
Unit 2 and Unit 3, discuss brief summaries of Acts 1, 2 and 3 of the play Arms and the Man,
and attempt a critical analysis of the play.
Unit 4 discusses some of the major themes and concerns of the play in detail.
Before studying the Units, do read the original text of the play. so that you get the true
flavour of Shaw’s writing and can experience his extraordinary wit and humour – for which
he was justly famous.

UNIT 1 GEORGE BERNARD SHAW: AN INTRODUCTION

Structure:

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Objectives
1.3 Bernard Shaw: Life
1.4 Bernard Shaw and Socialism
1.5 Bernard Shaw as Dramatist
1.5.1 Shaw’s Plays
1.5.2 Shaw and Ibsen
1.5.3 Shaw’s Major plays: A Brief Overview
1.5.4 Shaw and the British Dramatic Tradition
1.6 Let Us Sum Up
1.7 Glossary
1.8 Works Cited and Reading List

1.1 INTRODUCTION

In earlier blocks of this course, you have been introduced to some of the finest British writers
and their work, such as the drama of William Shakespeare, the fiction of Thomas Hardy, and
the poetry of Alfred Tennyson. In this block, we will be turning once again to drama and
study the play Arms and the Man by the British playwright George Bernard Shaw. Before we
study the play in detail, we will discuss the life and work of Shaw, so that you are able to
contextualise the play within the entire corpus of Shaw’s dramatic achievement.

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was one of the best known intellectuals of Britain in the
first half of the twentieth century. His interests were varied, ranging from music and theatre
to politics and philosophy. He made significant contributions in all the fields that he worked
in. Shaw worked tirelessly till his death in 1950, at the age of 94. In the preface to Buoyant
Billions (one of his last plays, completed when he was above ninety), Shaw wrote “as long as
I live, I must write.”

One scholar captures the variety of Shaw’s interests thus: he says, Shaw:
“was a committed socialist, a successful, if controversial dramatist, an inspired theatre
director of his own work, and an influential commentator on contemporary music,
drama and fine art. In all his endeavours, he demonstrated an indefatigable zeal to
reform existing social conditions, sterile theatrical conventions and outworn artistic
orthodoxies” (Macdonald1).

Bernard Shaw (popularly known as G.B.S.) had made a mark on all aspects of British
cultural life by the end of the nineteenth century, and was so famous, that according to his
biographer Stanley Weintraub, by the beginning of the twentieth century “he possessed the
best-known initials in England” (Weintraub).Shaw was awarded the Nobel prize for literature
in 1925.As noted in the Oxford Companion to English Literature, Shaw’s “ unorthodox
views, his humour and his love of paradox have become an institution” (893), and the word
“Shavian” is often used to suggest these qualities of his writing.

1.2 OBJECTIVES

After studying this unit you should be able to:

 assess the contribution of Bernard Shaw to British drama and theatre
 explain how Shaw attempted to revive British drama and theatre and
 identify the unique and original aspects of his work.

1.3 BERNARD SHAW: LIFE

Bernard Shaw was born in July 1856, in Dublin, Ireland in a middle-class Protestant family.
His father George Carr Shaw was a heavy drinker and unsuccessful in his business, while his
mother Elizabeth Shaw had ambitions to become a singer. The young Bernard Shaw got very
little parental attention and was mostly left to his own resources. He received a mediocre
schooling and was largely self taught. He inherited a love of music from his mother and
eventually gained deep knowledge of music. His mother left the family and moved to London
to pursue her musical career. After working as a junior clerk in Dublin for a few years, he
joined his mother in London in 1876.In London, he began his literary career by attempting to
write novels and music criticism. He desperately needed a source of income and while
“waiting for responses to job applications, Shaw procured a reader’s ticket to the British
Museum. It became his informal university, and because it was home to radical intellectuals,
became Shaw’s informal club.” (Weintraub, “George Bernard Shaw”).

He also wrote theatre criticism, and the drama critic William Archer found him a job as a
reviewer. Very soon, he established himself on the London art and theatre scene as a
perceptive critic of music and theatre. He wrote critical articles for various newspapers and
journals such as the Dramatic Review. Shaw also earned a reputation as a brilliant orator and
gave several lectures.

According to his biographer Stanley Weintraub, “the 1880s were the decade in which Shaw
found himself personally and professionally”. During this period, he became a socialist, a
journalist, an orator, a critic of the arts, writing reviews regularly for The Pall Mall Gazette,
The World and The Saturday Review, and began his work as a playwright (Weintraub,
“George Bernard Shaw”).Shaw also became a political activist and a leading member of the
Fabian society. He was a regular speaker on BBC for several years. Shaw married Charlotte
Payne-Townshend,an Irish political activist in 1888 and they lived together till her death in
1943. Shaw died in 1950, as a rich, famous and successful writer, at his home, ‘Shaw’s
Corner’ in the village of Ayot St. Lawrence.

(Sources for this section on ‘Bernard Shaw: Life’: Margaret Drabble Ed. Oxford Companion
to English Literature; Sternlicht, S. Masterpieces of Modern British and Irish Drama; and
Stanley Weintraub(“George Bernard Shaw”).

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1.4 BERNARD SHAW AND SOCIALISM

During the 1880s, Shaw became deeply involved in the activities of the Fabian society. The
Fabian Society was form edin 1884, and some of the most prominent left-wing thinkers of the
late Victorian era became its members. Fabian Essays published in 1889, contained essays by
political thinkers like George Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, and Annie Besant. The Fabians
rejected violent revolutionary methods, preferring to enter local government and use trade
unionism to transform society (www.fabians.org.uk).

The involvement with the Fabian Society left a permanent mark on Shaw’s political and
social vision. As his biographer notes, as a socialist, he believed in equality of opportunity
and in the possibility that through social change, the human aspiration to lead a better life
could be attained (Weintraub, (“George Bernard Shaw”).Shaw remained a socialist all his life
and most of his plays have socialist themes and sub-texts. His socialist perspective colours
his critique of the rigidities of the British class system and of the capitalist order in almost all
his writing.

Nicholas Grene points out how in his various prose writings, such as Fabian Essays (1889),
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928), and Everybody’s
Political What’s What (1944), Shaw maintained a consistent attack on the injustices of the
capitalist system (135). Throughout his life, he continued to support various social causes
such as women’s rights, and was an advocate of equality of income, the abolition of private
property and changes in the voting system (Drabble, Oxford Companion892).Most of his
plays are built around such social issues and concerns.

After arriving in London in 1876, Shaw lived almost entirely in England. However many
critics note a distinct Irish quality in his literary output. The critic Sternlicht points out that
like Oscar Wilde (a playwright, who like Shaw, was born in Dublin, Ireland) Shaw had a
distinctively Irish wit (19-20). The theatre critic Christopher Innes observes how living and
working in England, while always aware of his Irish heritage, gave Shaw a unique
perspective, and that “this independent perspective gave his critique additional point” (Innes,
2010).Thus many critics are of the view that his Irish heritage gave Shaw a unique
perspective on British society which made it possible for him to view its social problems
from a new angle.

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Check Your Progress 1

1. Explain the political methods of the Fabian Society.

2. Write a brief note on Shaw’s political and social vision. To what extent did this vision
colour his dramatic work?

1.5 BERNARD SHAW AS DRAMATIST

In earlier blocks of this course, you have already learnt about the Elizabethan period in
English literature, and you have studied the work of Shakespeare, the most brilliant of
Elizabethan dramatists. The theatre critic Christopher Innes says that “the twentieth century is
one of the most vital and exciting periods in English drama, rivalling the Elizabethan theatre
in thematic scope and stylistic ambition” (2002, 1). This remark gives us an idea of the
diversity of themes and the stylistic experimentation in twentieth century British drama.
Some of the leading British dramatists of the early twentieth century were Bernard Shaw, J.
M. Synge, Sean O’Casey, T.S. Eliot, Harley Granville-Barker, John Galsworthy and Noel
Coward. According to Innes, the work of Shaw marks the beginning of modern British
drama: “any study of modern English dramatists, has to begin with Shaw’s work” (2002, 8).

Activity: We have mentioned the names of some celebrated British playwrights in the section
above. Prepare a list of plays written by these dramatists. Write short notes on the dramatic
achievements of any two of them.

1.5.1 Shaw’s Plays

Some critics consider Bernard Shaw to be “the greatest playwright in the English language
since Shakespeare”(Sternlicht 23). As mentioned earlier, Shaw began his writing career by
writing music and theatre criticism and novels such as Immaturity, The Irrational Knot,
Cashel Byron’s Profession, and An Unsocial Socialist. Shaw’s early attempts at creative
writing were unsuccessful, but these writings anticipated many of the themes of his later
dramatic work.
Shaw was a prolific writer, and over a writing career spanning more than sixty years, wrote
more than fifty plays which continue to be read, performed and discussed even today. These
include Widower’s Houses (1892), Arms and the Man (1898), Mrs. Warren’s Profession
(1898), You Never Can Tell (1898), The Devil’s Disciple (1901), Caesar and Cleopatra
(1901), Man and Superman (1903), John Bull’s Other Island (1904), Major Barbara
(1907), The Doctor’s Dilemma (1908), Getting Married (1910), Androcles and the Lion
(1912), Pygmalion (1913), Heartbreak House (1919), Back to Methuselah (1921) Saint Joan
(1929) and The Apple Cart (1929). Some of his plays were published in collections such as
Plays: Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898) and Three Plays for Puritans (1901). His prose
writings include The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891), The Perfect Wagnerite (1898),
Common Sense About the War (1914) and The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and
Capitalism (1928).

1.5.2 Shaw and Ibsen:

Shaw found British theatre at the end of the nineteenth century, lifeless and uninspiring.
Even as a reviewer of theatre during the early stages of his career, Shaw was “voicing his
impatience with the artificiality of the London theatre and pleading for the performance of
plays dealing with contemporary social and moral problems” (Drabble, Oxford Companion
892-893). In his attempt to transform British theatre, Bernard Shaw was deeply influenced by
the work of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Andrew Sanders in A Short History of
English Literature notes how the spirit of Ibsen is evident throughout Shaw’s long dramatic
career(478).

Sternlicht labels Shaw an Ibsenite: “He took Henrik Ibsen’s concept of the thesis play, in
which a problem of society is presented for consideration by the society itself, represented by
the middle-class audience. He employed the concept in social comedies that sparkled with
wit, clever situations and wonderful dialogue” (Sternlicht 4). The ‘thesis play’, also called the
‘problem play’, first appeared(as noted in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama),
in France in the work of Emile Augier and Alexandre Dumas fils; these dramatists, in
reaction to the empty romantic theatre of the nineteenth century, made the theatre a platform
for moral and social reform. The ‘problem play’ reached its artistic perfection, in the plays of
Henrik Ibsen, such as The Pillars of Society, Ghosts, A Doll’s House and An Enemy of the
People. English playwrights like Henry Arthur Jones and George Bernard Shaw were greatly
influenced by Ibsen and his method of attacking “outmoded social conventions, championing
individual morality over the accepted traditions of marriage, politics and
business”(Hochman,McGraw-Hill Encyclopaedia of World Drama).

Nineteenth century European dramawas dominated by a form of drama called the ‘well-made
play’, which was based on a typical structure and artificial conventions. In his prose work,
The Quintessence of Ibsenism(revised edition, 1913), Shaw summarises the main aspects of
Ibsen’s innovative drama and shows how it transformed the European theatre of his time.
Shaw points out how, owing to the influence of Ibsen, a “new technical factor” had
appeared in popular English drama also:

“This technical factor in the play is the discussion. Formerly you had in what was
called a well-made play,an exposition in the first act, a situation in the second, an
unravelling in the third. Now you have exposition, situation, and discussion; and the
discussion is the test of the playwright. The discussion conquered Europe in Ibsen’s
Doll’s House; and now the serious play-wright recognizes in the discussion the real
centre of his play’s interest” (Quintessence141).

Here Shaw is emphasising how, due to Ibsen’s influence, the ‘well-made play’, with its
typical structure and conventions, which dominated English theatre in the nineteenth century,
gave way to a new discussion- based play . He explains how this shift happened with plays
like Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, where Nora, the heroine “stops her emotional acting and says:
“We must sit down and discuss all this that has been happening between us.” And it was by
this new technical feature: this addition of a new movement, as musicians would say, to the
dramatic form, that A Doll’s House conquered Europe and founded a new school of dramatic
art” (Quintessence144).

Shaw sums up his appraisal of Ibsen, with his remarks on how Ibsen created a shift away
from the well-made play, by making discussion central to the play, and by making ordinary
people the characters:
“The technical novelties of the Ibsen and post- Ibsen plays are, then: first, the
introduction of the discussion and its development … making play and discussion
practically identical; and, second, as a consequence of making the spectators
themselves the persons of the drama, and the incidents of their own lives its incidents,
the disuse of the old stage tricks by which audiences had to be induced to take an
interest in unreal people and improbable circumstances” (Quintessence152-53).

Thus, according to Shaw, the technical innovations brought about by Ibsen are 1) making
discussion the central feature of a play and 2) making ordinary people the characters and their
life situations, the incidents of drama, thus getting rid of the unreal characters and unreal
situations of the well-made play. Shaw was extremely critical of the ‘well-made play’ and
attacked its practitioners such as the French dramatist Scribe “for focusing on the mechanics
of playmaking at the expense of honest characterisations and serious content.”
(www.britanica.com). It was, he felt, based on “unreal people and improbable
circumstances,” whereas Ibsen’s problem play, shifted the focus to “serious content” and the
problems we actually encounter in society.

Christopher Innes says, that in Shaw’s view, Ibsen’s major innovation was that he changed
the typical structure of the well-made play, which is like this: exposition complication
crisis denoument. Ibsen replaced the denoument with discussion (2002, 19). Many
critics see Shaw’s study of Ibsen, as an attempt to bring a new kind of drama into English
theatre, and as a turning point in the history of English drama. According to Christopher
Innes, Shaw’s The Quintessence of Ibsenism marks the beginning of modern British drama,
and the point where traditionalist drama gave way to modern drama. He says:

“The ferment of the modern era was already present in the final decade of the
nineteenth century. Issues like women’s rights or class justice, which have become
major contemporary themes, were already finding reflections on the stage. The year
1890 marks the beginning of modern drama in England, as the date of Bernard
Shaw’s lecture on ‘The Quintessence of Ibsenism’. This can be seen as the watershed
between traditionalist and modern perspectives, with its call for a revolution in the
nature and function of the dramatic experience” (2002, 8).

Shaw’s drama, as well as his writings on theatre, are extremely significant, as they mark the
beginning of modern drama in England.

Check Your Progress 2

1.Write a short note on the topic ‘Henrik Ibsen and the problem play in European drama’.
2.What do you understand by the term ‘well-made play’?
3. Write a short note on the ideas put forward by Shaw in The Quintessence of Ibsenism.

1.5.3 Shaw’s major plays: A Brief Overview

We have seen in the previous section how Ibsen brought about a radical transformation in
European drama; Shaw attempted a similar transformation in English theatre. As pointed out
in the Oxford Companion to English Literature, following Ibsen’s example, Shaw made
discussion the basis of his plays, where, the dramatic conflict is the conflict of thought and
belief(893). Most of Shaw’s plays have long prefaces before the plays explaining and
discussing in detail the ideas in the plays.

Shaw’s creative writing is defined and shaped by his political and social vision. As Jan
Macdonald points out, Shaw opposed the philosophy of ‘Art for art’s sake’, and repeatedly
asserted that his motive for engaging in artistic pursuits was to promote political ideas
(Macdonald 64). Shaw wrote on the basis of his conviction that “a work of art must be
grounded in the society from which it grows and must contribute to the progress of that
society, spiritually, morally or practically. Romance, prettiness and superficial sentiment will
not serve” (Mcdonald 11). We have to keep this in mind while reading Shaw and critically
analysing his plays. Let us now look at the themes of some of his major plays.

Shaw’s first play Widower’s Houses was performed in 1892, and published along with The
Philanderer and Mrs. Warren’s Profession in the collection Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant
(1898). Based on the fact that the wealthy and ‘respectable’ character Sartorius is actually a
slum landlord, Widower’s Houses exposes “the manner in which the capitalist system
perverts and corrupts human behaviour and relationships”, by showing “respectable” middleclass people, exploiting the poverty of the slum (Oxford Companion1066). According to
Nicholas Grene, Widowers Houses, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, John Bull’s Other island,
Major Barbara and Pygmalion are the five plays of Shaw which are concerned directly with
economic, social and class questions. Widowers Houses, which analyses the economic basis
of capitalist society, adds Grene, “is the nearest he ever came to writing a purely socialist
dramatic work” (135). In the preface to Widower’s Houses, Shaw claims that this play is
“deliberately intended to induce people to vote on the Progressive side at the next Council
election in London”(Preface to Widower’s Houses). According to Christopher Innes, this is
one of the instances where Shaw used drama to campaign for specific reforms (Sourcebook
189).

Mrs. Warren’s Profession(1898): One of the ‘Unpleasant Plays’, this play was censored and
the Lord Chamberlain did not give it a licence for public performance (until 1925) due to its
controversial theme of prostitution. However, as Anthony Abbott says, “The play has
become, during the past ten years or so, one of the favourites in the Shavian repertoire
because of its feminist elements, and recent productions have put the emphasis where it
belongs- on the play’s central character, Vivie Warren”(Abbott 47). What Abbott is
emphasising here is the fact that though the play was subject to censorship for a long time, it
is now becoming more popular, since it is now seen as having feminist elements.

John Bull’s Other Island (1904): Shaw wrote this play at the request of the great poet W. B.
Yeats. John Bull’s Other Island and O’Flaherty VC are the two plays by Shaw to have an
Irish setting and themes. This play deals with issues of colonialism and land ownership in
Ireland.

Man and Superman (1903): A philosophical play centred on the characters Jack Tanner and
Ann Whitefield. Act 3 of the play includes the dream sequence “Don Juan in Hell”, which
has lengthy discussions of ideas such as the ‘life force’ and ‘creative evolution’.

Pygmalion: Published in 1916, this is one of Shaw’s best known plays, partly due to the fact
that extremely popular musical and film versions of this play appeared later. The plot centres
around the Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle, and the Phonetics Professor Higgins, and the
professor’s attempt to teach Eliza Standard English, so that she becomes presentable in upper
class society. Pygmalion, says Nicholas Grene, has an element of social criticism, as sharp as
any of his other plays. It is all the more effective since it is expressed in a light-hearted
manner.“Concentrating only on speech and accent, Shaw exposes the absurdities of a classbased society” (Grene 139). The title of the play links it to the Greek legend of the sculptor
Pygmalion, who falls in love with a beautiful statue that he has created. The play formed the
basis of an extremely popular musical titled ‘My Fair Lady’ and later a film of the same title.
According to The Oxford Companion to American Theatre, the musical comedy ‘My Fair
Lady’ (1956), by Lerner and Loewe, “managed to retain all of Shaw’s irreverence, wit and
intellectuality”.

Major Barbara: Published in 1907, this play is centred on the characters Barbara, a Major in
the Salvation Army; her wealthy father, the arms manufacturer, Andrew Under shaft; and her
lover, the scholar Cusins. This play “portrays the conflict between spiritual and worldly
power” (Drabble, Oxford Companion 609). According to Nicholas Grene, Shaw’s aim in
Major Barbara, as in most of his plays, is to “expose hidden connections and complicities,
”in this case the links between philanthropic organisations and capitalism (Greene 138).

Candida :Published in 1898, Candida is a play about the relationships between Candida, her
husband James Morell, and the poet Eugene Marchbanks. Forced to choose between the two
men, Candida chooses her husband. According to G.K. Chesterton, the last scene of Candida
is one of the moments when Shaw was truly inspired (121).

Saint Joan: (1924): This play is based on historical events in the life of Joan of Arc.
According to Sternlicht, Saint Joan was recognized as a masterpiece, from its first
performance itself. “More than any other of Shaw’s plays, it made Shaw the obvious choice
for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. Critics and audiences have found that although evil
is temporarily triumphant in Saint Joan, the young woman conquers because her spirit
remains unbroken. (Sternlicht 19). Sternlicht sees Shaw’s Joan as one of the great characters
of modern drama. “She is his most perfect construction. She is Shaw’s superwoman. His Joan
has a nonconformist mind that thinks outside the medieval box.” (Sternlicht 26)

Heartbreak House (1919): As stated by Shaw in his preface, “Heartbreak House is not merely
the name of the play which follows this preface. It is cultured, leisured Europe before the
war.” It focuses on the household of Captain Shot over and his family. According to the
Oxford Companion to English Literature, this house portrays an aspect of British or European
civilisation that is about to drive itself to destruction, “through lack of direction or lack of
grasp of economic reality,” (446).Anthony Abbott sees this play as “Shaw’s masterpiece,
fuller and more complex in characterization than his other plays”. The inhabitants of
Heartbreak House, says Abbott, “are the intelligentsia: still bright and imaginative, but
withdrawn from the practical world, drifting aimlessly toward destruction. The house,
designed by the captain in the form of a ship, is England herself. If the play’s primary
metaphor is heartbreak, or the process of disillusionment, Heartbreak House is Shaw’s
judgment on his own class and its failure to prevent the most tragic waste of life in human
history.” (The Vital Lie, 54-55). Thus this play exposes the aimlessness of the elite classes
and the intelligentsia of England and of Europe, and their inability in preventing the tragedy
of World War I.

Check your progress 3

Explain how Shaw’s plays discuss some of the important social issues of Britain in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?

1.5.4 Shaw and the British dramatic tradition

Shaw was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1925 for his work, “… marked both by
idealism and humanity, its stimulating satire often being infused with a singular poetic
beauty.” (www. nobelprize.org). Shaw brought a new energy to British theatre and imparted
to it the capacity to vigorously engage with the pressing issues of the day. According to
Christopher Innes, “If any single person set the course of British drama over the last hundred
years, it was Shaw…. He not only influenced the general direction taken by other British
dramatists, but was largely responsible for defining its terms.” Innes points out how Shaw,
through the volume of his dramatic output and his public image, occupied a central position
in British drama till his last play in 1950. According to Innes, the “mainstream of serious
English drama has continued to reflect the realistic treatment of social questions that Shaw
promoted” (2002, 13 -14). These comments show how Shaw’s influence on the mainstream
British dramatic tradition has been deep and long-lasting.

Bernard Shaw’s plays continue to be read, performed and discussed in the twenty-first
century. As Andrew Sanders notes, though his settings and preoccupations are predominantly
those of England of the early twentieth century, he continues to surprise and provoke readers
at the beginning of the twenty first century (479).

1.6 LET US SUM UP

We began this Unit by looking at the main events in Bernard Shaw’s life. We then went on
to discuss his socialist vision, which essentially colours his entire work. In the section ‘Shaw
and Ibsen’ we discussed how Shaw was influenced by the work of Ibsen, and his concept of
the ‘problem play’. The last section of the unit provided an overview of the themes of some
of Shaw’s plays, and also discussed Shaw’s influence on the British dramatic tradition. After
studying this Unit, you will have the background knowledge to critically engage with the play
Arms and the Man. In the remaining units of this block, we will study that play in detail.

Unit end question:

Discuss the achievement of Bernard Shaw as a dramatist. How did he transform the British
theatre of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s?

1.7 GLOSSARY

1.Corpus : collection of written works
2. Indefatigable :never giving up
3. zeal: enthusiasm
4. sterile: lacking imagination or new ideas.
5. paradox: a statement containing two opposite ideas that make it appear impossible.
6. Fabian Society :“The 1880s saw an upsurge in socialist activity in Britain and the Fabian
Society was at the heart of much of it. … the landmark Fabian Essays was published,
containing essays by George Bernard Shaw, Graham Walls, Sidney Webb, Sydney Olivier
and Annie Besant. All the contributors were united by their rejection of violent upheaval
as a method of change, preferring to use the power of local government and trade
unionism to transform society. The Fabian Society derives its name from the Roman
general Quintus Fabius, from his strategy of delaying his attacks on the invading
Carthaginians until the right moment.” (www.fabians.org.uk)
7. Henrik Ibsen(1828-1906) was a Norwegian playwright, “generally acknowledged as the
founder of modern prose drama.” While his early plays, such as Ghosts, An Enemy of the
14
People and Pillars of Society, were concerned largely with social and political themes, his
later plays like Rosmersholm and The Master Builder were more concerned with the forces
of the unconscious. (Drabble ed. Oxford Companion to English Literature 490).
8. Problem play: “A type of drama that developed in the 19th century to deal with
controversial social issues in a realistic manner, to expose social ills and to stimulate
thought and discussion on the part of the audience. … The problem play reached its
maturity in the works of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, whose works had
artistic merit as well as topical relevance . He went on to expose the hypocrisy, greed and
hidden corruption of his society in a number of masterly plays.” (www.brittanica.com)
9. Quintessence: the most important features of something
10. well-made play: A type of drama made popular by the French playwright Eugene Scribe.
Its features were “complex and highly artificial plotting, a build-up of suspense, a
climactic scene in which all problems are resolved, and a happy
ending.”(www.britannica.com)
11. exposition: the scenes of the play which introduce the main themes, characters and
background.
12. denoument: the end of a play where everything is explained or settled.
13. watershed: a period that marks an important change
14. philanthropic: meant to help the poor and needy

1.8 WORKS CITED AND READING LIST

1. Abbott, Anthony S. The Vital Lie: Reality and Illusion in Modern Drama, University of
Alabama Press, 1988.
2. Bordman and Hischak. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre, Oxford, OUP. 2004.
3. Chesterton, G.K. George Bernard Shaw. New York, John Lane Company, 1909.
4. Drabble. Margaret. Ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford, OUP,1993.
5. Grene, Nicholas.“Bernard Shaw:Socialist and Playwright.” The Crane Bag, Vol 7 No:1,
1983, 135 -140.
6. Hochman, Stanley ed. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama. 1984.
7. Innes, Christopher. Ed. A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre. Francis and Taylor,
2000.
8. Innes, Christopher. “Defining Irishness: Bernard Shaw and the Irish Connection on the
English Stage.”A Companion to Irish Literature Ed. J.M.Wright, 2010.
9. Innes, Christopher. Modern British Drama: the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University
Press, 2002.
10. Macdonald, J. “Shaw Among the Artists.” Luckhurst,M. Ed. A Companion to Modern
British and Irish Drama (1880-2005). 2006.
11. Sanders, Andrew.The Short Oxford History of English Literature,Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1994.
11. Shaw, George Bernard. The Quintessence of Ibsenism. 1913.
12. Sternlicht, S. Masterpieces of Modern British and Irish Drama. Greenwood publishers.
2005
15
13. Weintraub, Stanley. “George Bernard Shaw.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
www.oxforddnb.com

Reading list; (in addition to above books and articles, the following may also be
consulted)

1. Grene, Nicholas. Bernard Shaw: A Critical View. Palgrave Macmillan, UK., 1984.
2. Dukore, Bernard, F. Bernard Shaw, Playwright. Aspects of Shavian Drama.
University of Missouri press, 1973.
3. Bloom, Harold. Ed. George Bernard Shaw. Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.

UNIT 2 ARMS AND THE MAN: SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS (1)

Structure

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Objectives
2.3 Summary of Act I
2.3.1 Analysis of Act I
2.4 Summary of Act II
2.4.1 Analysis of Act II
2.5 Let Us Sum Up

2.1 INTRODUCTION

In the previous Unit, we discussed the life and work of George Bernard Shaw. The unit
provided a brief overview of Shaw’s work as a dramatist and you were introduced to some of
his major plays. In this Unit as well as the next two units of this Block, we will be focusing
on Shaw’s play Arms and the Man. We will be discussing the summary of the play first, and
then we will discuss the major themes and concerns of the play.

2.2 OBJECTIVES

After reading this unit, you should be able to
a) Discuss the summary of Act I and Act II of Armsand the Man.
b) Critically analyse Act 1 and Act II of the play and explain how they are significant in
the total structure of Armsand the Man.

2.3 SUMMARY OF ACT I

The play is set against the background of the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885.

The curtain rises on the bedroom of Raina Petkoff in a small town in Bulgaria. It is a cold
night in 1885, and Rainais standing on her balcony, looking at the snow covered Balkan
mountains in the distance. She is intensely conscious of the romantic beauty of the night and
of the fact that her own youth and beauty are part of it. She is in her night gown, well covered
by a long mantle of furs. Raina’s father, Major Petkoff, and her fiance, SergiusSaranoffare
fighting against the Serbs on the front. A decisive battle has taken place at Slivnitza between
the Serbs and the Bulgarians.

Catherine Petkoff, Raina’s mother, entersto inform her daughter of the victory of the
Bulgarians in this battle. Catherine tells Raina aboutthe heroism of Raina’s lover, Sergius,
who led a cavalry charge against the Serbs and put them to flight. Hearing this report, Raina
is thrilled, and is very proud of her lover. Louka, the beautiful maid of the Petkoffs, enters
and tells Raina that all the windows and doors should be closed, as the fleeing Serbs are being
chased by the Bulgarians, and there could be shooting on the street below. Catherine and
Louka leave Raina’s room after all the windows and doors are closed.

On hearing about the heroism of her beloved, Raina is now elated beyond words. Left alone
in her bedroom, she worshipfully adores the portrait of her beloved Sergius, and turns over
the pages of a novel. She hears some shots, first at a distance, and then close by, and blows
out the candles in the room. Someone suddenly opens the shutters, enters the room in the
dark, and warns Raina that if she called out, she would be shot. Raina lights a candle and
finds a Serbian army officer in a tattered uniform, with mud, blood, and snow all over his
body, in her room. He is being pursued by the Bulgarian army, and if Raina raised an alarm,
they would rush in to kill him. He has no intentions of dying. He knows that Raina would not
want any outsiders to come in and see her in her night gown, and uses this aspect to defend
himself. As long as Raina is not properly dressed, she will not allow the Bulgarian soldiers to
get into her room.

“The Man: “I’ll keep the cloak; you’ll take care that nobody comes in and sees you
without it …. This is a better weapon than the revolver.

Raina: It is not the weapon of a gentleman!

The Man: It’s good enough for a man with only you (Raina) to stand between him and
death.”

Louka knocks at the door, and the fugitive realises that he is in a difficult situation. He throws
up his head with the gesture of a man who sees that it is all over with him, and sword in hand,
he prepares himself to die fighting with the Bulgarians. On an impulse, Raina helps him hide
behind the curtain. Raina opens the door pretending to have been disturbed in her sleep.
Louka tells her excitedly that a Serb had been seen climbing up the water-pipeto her balcony
and therefore the Bulgarian soldiers want to search her bedroom. Catherine allows a Russian
officer from the Bulgarian side to enter Raina’s room. While the officer searches, Raina
stands with her back to the curtain behind which the fugitive is hidden, so that he would not
be discovered. When the Russian officer questions her, Raina tells him that she had not gone
to bed and that no one could have got in without her knowledge. Then the officer goes out
satisfied, and Catherine follows him. Louka, who notices the soldier’s pistol lying on the
ottoman, “glances at Raina, at the ottoman, at the curtain; then purses her lips secretively,
laughs to herself, and goes out.”

As soon as Raina locks the door, the man steps out from behind the curtain, and realising that
Raina had saved him, declares, “Dear young lady, your servant until death.” He tells Raina
that he is a mercenary Swiss soldier who has joined the Serb army merely as a professional
fighter. While handing over the revolver to the soldier, she tells him that it was really
fortunate that the Russian officer did not notice it. The pistol is not loaded as, he does not
have any ammunition. He says he usually carries chocolate, instead of ammunition, and had
finished his last bit of chocolate a long time back. Raina is shocked to hear this and this
further convinces her that he a very poor soldier. She then offers him a box of chocolate
creams, which he devours hungrily.

The Swiss soldier describes the cavalry charge undertaken by the Bulgarians. He tells her that
the Bulgarians had shown “sheer ignorance of the art of war”, on the part of its leader, adding
indignantly, “I never saw anything so unprofessional.” He describes the leader of the charge
(Sergius) thus:

MAN.
He did it like an operatic tenor—a regular handsome fellow, with flashing eyes and
lovely moustache, shouting a war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the
windmills….”

It was really a mad act to throw acavalry regiment on a battery of machine guns with the
certainty that if the guns went off, all would be killed in no time. As the Serbs were without
cartridges because of some mistake, the Bulgarians won and the Serbs had toflee from the
battlefield. The Bulgarian officer who led the charge must be a mad manto throw his cavalry
so foolishly into the jaws of death. He behaved like Don Quixote, who charged the windmills.
Raina then shows the Swiss soldier the portrait of her beloved and tells him that she is
betrothed to Sergius. Seeing the portrait, the soldier comments that it is the same foolish Don
Quixote. He then adds apologetically that perhaps her fiance had come to know that the Serbs
had no cartridges and decided that it was a safe job to attack them. As this remark means that
Sergius was a pretender and coward, Raina is more offended than earlier.

Angered at his remarks about her fiance, Raina tells him that he shouldclimb down the pipe,
into the street below; at this thought, the Swiss soldier drops his head on his hands in the
deepest dejection. Overcome by pity, Raina, calls him a “very poor soldier—a ‘chocolate
cream soldier’” and tries to cheer him up. To avoid causing inconvenience to Raina by
staying on in the room, the Swiss soldier proposes to climb down; but a terrible burst of firing
is heard from the street, and Raina pulls him away from the window. She asks him to trust to
the hospitality of the Petkoffs. The soldier does not wish to stay in Raina’s bedroom secretly
longer than is necessary, and asks her to inform her mother.

Raina goes to bring her mother, and by the time mother and daughter come back, the soldier
is fast asleep and does not wake up even after Catherine tries to shakes his hand. Raina
shocks her mother saying, “Don’t, mamma: the poor dear is worn out. Let him sleep.” Here
the first Act ends.

Check Your Progress 1

Write the summary of Act I of the play in your own words.

2.3.1 Analysis of Act I

Act I introduces the main characters; Bluntschli, Raina, Catherine, and Louka actually appear
on the stage and we are given a lot of information about Sergius. Act I performs several of
the functions that the exposition performed traditionally. The important themes, such as the
satire of both romantic love and of romantic glorification of war are introduced in this Act.

We come to know that Bluntschli is a hard headed realist, who has a very down-to-earth,
practical approach to everything. He is a professional soldier – he says “I joined Servia
because it was nearest to me.” He has no glorious visions of war, and believes that every
soldier should try his best to save his own life. His realism is tempered by his sense of
humour. Raina is a young lady whose notions are derived from her reading of romances and
novels. She is impulsive, yet kind hearted and noble. Raina is conscious of belonging to one
of the richest and best known families in Bulgaria. She is proud of the fact that her family
lives in a house with two rows of windows, an inside staircase and a library – all of which she
sees as indicators of superior economic and social standing. Having read Byron and Pushkin,
and a lot of fiction, she is extremely romantic in her view of life.

Act I initiates the satire of romantic love and of romantic views of war, which forms the main
thematic strand of the play.
RAINA.
(disdainfully). I suppose not. (She draws herself up superbly, and looks him straight
in the face, saying with emphasis) Some soldiers, I know, are afraid of death.
MAN.
(with grim good humor). All of them, dear lady, all of them, believe me. It is our duty
to live as long as we can, and kill as many of the enemy as we can.

This dialogue reveals the romantic ideas of Raina and their subsequent frustration. Also, it
reveals the humorous and realistic approach of the Serbian officer. While Raina thinks that a
truly heroic soldier should march fearlessly into the battlefield, ready to face death,
Bluntschli knows that, in reality, all soldiers fear death.
MAN.
I’ve no ammunition. What use are cartridges in battle? I always carry chocolate
instead; and I finished the last cake of that yesterday.
RAINA.
(outraged in her most cherished ideals of manhood). Chocolate! Do you stuff your
pockets with sweets—like a schoolboy—even in the field?
MAN.
Yes. Isn’t it contemptible?
(Raina stares at him, unable to utter her feelings….

In response to Raina’s suggestion that he should protect himself by loading his pistol, the
stranger tells her that he does not have ammunition, that instead of ammunition he carries
chocolates; and that his pockets are empty at present as he finished the last chocolate cake
hours ago. To her this appears to be the most unsoldierly thing to do, which makes her see
Bluntschli as a very “poor soldier”. She also gives him the somewhat ridiculous epithet
‘chocolate cream soldier’. Her romantic views of the soldier’s profession makes it impossible
for her to realise that Bluntschli’s habit of carrying chocolate reveals his practical and
realistic approach.

Raina is keen to hear about the triumphant cavalry charge led by her brave Sergius:
RAINA.
(eagerly turning to him, as all her enthusiasm and her dream of glory rush back on
her). Did you see the great cavalry charge? Oh, tell me about it. Describe it to me.
MAN.
You never saw a cavalry charge, did you?
RAINA.
How could I?
MAN.
Ah, perhaps not—of course. Well, it’s a funny sight. It’s like slinging a handful of
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peas against a window pane: first one comes; then two or three close behind him; and
then all the rest in a lump.

This is definitely not what Raina expected to hear. The soldier’s prosaic description contrasts
with the report given by Raina’s mother earlier:
CATHERINE.
(with surging enthusiasm). You can’t guess how splendid it is. A cavalry charge—
think of that! He defied our Russian commanders—acted without orders—led a
charge on his own responsibility—headed it himself—was the first man to sweep
through their guns. Can’t you see it, Raina; our gallant splendid Bulgarians with their
swords and eyes flashing, thundering down like an avalanche and scattering the
wretched Servian dandies like chaff.

For Catherine and Raina, it is difficult to imagine what it is like to actually be on the
battlefield. Raina’s romantic notions suffer even more when Bluntschli ridicules Sergius for
foolishly leading his men in what he thought was a brave charge at the enemy.

MAN.
He did it like an operatic tenor—a regular handsome fellow, with flashing eyes and
lovely moustache, shouting a war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills.
We nearly burst with laughter at him; but when the sergeant ran up as white as a
sheet, and told us they’d sent us the wrong cartridges, and that we couldn’t fire a shot
for the next ten minutes, we laughed at the other side of our mouths. I never felt so
sick in my life, though I’ve been in one or two very tight places. And I hadn’t even a
revolver cartridge—nothing but chocolate. We’d no bayonets—nothing. Of course,
they just cut us to bits. And there was Don Quixote flourishing like a drum major,
thinking he’d done the cleverest thing ever known, whereas he ought to be courtmartialled for it. Of all the fools ever let loose on a field of battle, that man must be
the very maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide—only the pistol
missed fire, that’s all.

Sergius’s misguided attack would have been suicidal; the only reason the Bulgarian side won
the battle was that by mistake, the Serbs were sent the wrong cartridges. Don Quixote, the
central figure of the Spanish classic Don Quixote by Cervantes, is probably the most famous
example of a man who, under the influence of tales of chivalry, imagines that he is an
adventurous knight and fights imaginary battles. Bluntschli is here referring to one of the
most famous episodes in this classic, where Don Quixote charges at windmills, thinking they
are giants. This comparison to Don Quixote, presents Sergius in a truly ridiculous light. Much
later in the play, we learn that Sergius, in spite of all his dramatic displays of valour, realises
that the soldier’s life is not for him, while expressing his admiration for the military
leadership and abilities of Bluntschli.

As the Act draws to a close, Raina is seen to be gradually developing an attachment towards
the Swiss soldier. When she returns with her mother, they find the soldier fast asleep.
Catherine tries to shake him awake, but Raina stops her.

RAINA.
(catching her arm). Don’t, mamma: the poor dear is worn out. Let him sleep.
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CATHERINE.
(letting him go and turning amazed to Raina). The poor dear! Raina!!! (She looks
sternly at her daughter. The man sleeps profoundly.)

Check Your Progress 2

From your reading of Act I, what do you understand about the characters Raina Petkoff and
Bluntschli?

2.4 SUMMARY OF ACT II

The scene opens in the garden of Major Petkoff s houseon a fine spring morning, nearly four
months after the events of Act I.Nicola, the middle-aged servant of the Petkoffs, is lecturing
Louka, the maid and telling her to improve her manners and be respectful to her mistress.
Nicola wishes to enjoy the goodwill of the Petkoffs; he is planning to start a shop in Sofia
after leaving his present job, and he relies heavily on their support. Louka, has a defiant
nature, and declares that she is not afraid of her mistress as she knows some of their family
secrets. Nicola, who is realistic, warns her that nobody would believe her and that onceshe is
dismissed from thes ervice of the Petkoff family, she would never get another situation. He
adds that even though he too knows some secrets of the family, the disclosure of which may
bring about problems among the members, he does not disclose them as it will not be good
for his prospects.Louka despises Nicola for his servile attitude and says, “(with searching
scorn), You have the soul of a servant, Nicola…. You’ll never put the soul of a servant into
me.”

Major Petkoff returns from the war and enters his garden. Catherine, comes to the garden and
greets him affectionately. Major Petkoff tells her about the ending of the war and the signing
of the peace treaty. Catherine says that he should have annexed Serbia and made Prince
Alexander the emperor of the Balkans.

Her husband, in a lighter vein, tells her that such a task would have kept him away from her
for a long time. When Catherine complains of suffering from a sore throat, her husband
attributes the cause of sore throat to her habit of washing everyday.

PETKOFF.
I don’t believe in going too far with these modern customs. All this washing can’t be
good for the health. … I don’t mind a good wash once a week to keep up my
position; but once a day is carrying the thing to a ridiculous extreme.

Catherine responds that he is a barbarian at heart and hopes that he behaved properly before
the Russian officers. Petkoff answers that he has done his best and even told them that his
home has a library. Catherine adds that the library now has an electric bell as well, so that
they will not have to shout for their servant, something that civilised people are not supposed
to do.

Major Sergius Saranoff knocks at the door. When Nicola goes to bring him in, Petkoffe tells
his wife that he wishes to avoid the company of Sergius as long as he can, because Sergius
pesters him for promotion. Catherine thinks that Sergius should be promoted, soon after his
marriage to Raina. Sergius Saranoff, a romantically handsome man, now enters the scene.

Catherine welcomes him with enthusiasm. When Catherine says that everybody is mad about
him and wild with enthusiasm, because of his magnificent cavalry charge, Sergius makes a
profound statement: “Madam: it was the cradle and the grave of my military reputation. … I
won the battle the wrong way when our worthy Russian generals were losing it the right
way.” He was therefore denied a promotion.

Being frustrated about not getting a promotion, Sergiushas sent in his resignation. Though
Major Petkoff advises him to withdraw his resignation, Sergius sticks to his decision. When
he asks for Raina, sheap pears, and they greet each other solemnly. To Catherine’sremarkthat
Sergiusis not a soldier anymore, he responds that soldiering is the coward’s art of attacking
mercilessly when one is strong and keeping out of harm’s way when one is weak. He adds
that he has accepted the advice of a captain who arranged the exchange of prisoners with
them at Pirot. Petkoff remarks that the Swiss captain overreached them about the horses.
Confirming Petkoff’s remark, Sergius adds, “Ah, he was a soldier—every inch a soldier!” He
was so thoroughly professional and clever that at his hands Sergius and Petkoff were like
children. Sergius thennarrates to them the story that he had heard about the Swiss soldier.
After the battle of Slivnitza, he was pursued by the Bulgarian soldiers and climbed the waterpipe of the house of a Bulgarian family and entered the bedroom of a young lady. She was
enchanted by the Swiss soldier’s manners and entertained him for a while, before informing
her mother. The next morning he was sent by the lady and her mother on his way, disguised
in an old coat belonging to the master of the house who was away at the war. Sergius and
Petkoff are totally unaware that the incident happened in the Petkoff household itself.

There being no doubt about the identity of the Swiss soldier, Raina becomes disturbed and
tells Sergius that his camp life has made him coarse, and that is why he could repeat such a
story before her. Agreeing with her daughter, Catherine says that if such women really
existed, she and Raina should be spared the knowledgeof such indecent women. Sergius begs
to be excused for his mistake, but Major Petkoff says that Raina, being a soldier’s daughter,
should be able to with stand a little strong conversation. Petkoff then asks Sergius to join him
in the library for he has to discuss some military affairs, the issue of three regiments that are
to be sent back to Philippolis. Catherine asks Sergius to remain with Raina and takes her
husband to see the new electric bell.

Raina places her hands over the shoulders of Sergius, and looking at him with admiration and
worship, addresses him as ‘my hero’ and ‘my king’, while Sergius responds by calling her
‘my queen’ and kissing her forehead “with holy awe.” She admits that she is entirely
unworthy of his love, for while he has won glory in the battlefield, she has been doing
nothing at home. Sergius replies that he had gone to war “like a knight in a tournament with
his lady looking on at him,” and could achieve victory, only because she inspired him all the
time.

Raina is delighted to hear these words and says that both of them have found ‘higher love’ and
that when she thinks of him, she can never do a base deed or think an ig noble thought. When
Sergius wants to be the worshipper of Raina, the ‘saintly lady’, she responds by saying that
she loves and trusts him, and she knows that Sergius willnever disappoint her. At this
moment of higher love, Louka enters the scene to clearthe table. (When you come to know
about the relationship between Louka and Sergius, you will realise how ironic Louka’s entry
is while Sergius and Raina are on the plane of higher love.)

The moment Raina goes into the house to collect her hat for going out with her beloved, the
attention of Sergius is arrested by Louka. He asks if sheknows what higher love is. On her
replying in the negative, he explains to her that keeping up higher love is very tiring, and so
he feels the need of some relief afterwards. Putting his hand around Louka’s waist, Sergius
asks her whether she considers him handsome. After a feigned protest, Louka advises him to
go behind abush where they may not be seen by prying eyes. Having hidden in a safe spot,
Louka tells him that Raina is sure to be spying upon them. Offended by Louka’s words,
Sergius says that though he is worthless enough to betray the higher love, he cannot tolerate
anybody insulting it.

When Sergius tries to kiss her, Louka avoids him and tells him that just as he is making love
to her behind Raina’s back, Raina was doing the same behind his back. He again feels
offended and tells her that as a gentleman he is not going to discussthe conduct of the lady to
whom he is engaged, with her maid. His jealousy is, however, arousedand so he asks her to
tell him the name of his rival. Louka refuses, saying she had not seen the person, only heard
him through the door of Raina’s room. Then Louka says she is sure that if the gentleman
comes again, Raina will definitely marry him.

At this juncture, Sergius is so much annoyed that he catches hold of her arm tightly and, as
result, her arm is bruised. He then turns away from her and declares that she is an abominable
little clod of common clay. Feeling her bruised hands, Louka says indignantly that whatever
clay she is made of, he is also made of the same and adds that Raina is a liar and cheat. When
Sergius apologizes for hurting her and offers money to make amends, she refuses to accept it.
Loukaleaves, as Raina returns, dressed for a walk.

Raina asks Sergius whether he had been flirting with Louka, and Sergius denies, asking her
how she could think of such a thing. Raina tells him that she meant it as a jest. Catherine
enters and asks Sergius to help her husband who is in the library with his work. After Sergius
leaves, Catherine tells Raina that the first thing her father asked for was his old coat in which
they had sent off the Swiss soldier. Raina remarks that it was really bad on the part of the
Swiss soldier to tell his friend that he had stayed in a young lady’s room, and adds that if she
had been there, she would have filled his mouth with chocolate creams to silence him. As
Raina’s remark smacks of love for the Swiss soldier, Catherine bluntly asks her how long the
Swiss soldier had stayed with her in her room. Raina does not give a direct answer. Catherine
expresses her apprehensions about the consequences if Sergius comes to know of the incident
.Raina firmly replies that she is not afraid even ifSergius comes to know of the ‘chocolate
cream soldier’.

After Raina leaves the scene, Louka comes in to inform her that a Serbiansoldier is at the
door, requesting to meet Catherine. He is carrying a carpet bag, adds Louka, and from his
card, Catherine recognises that it is Bluntschli. She realises that Bluntschli has come to return
Petkoff’s old coat. Catherine, then, orders Louka to bring theman at once into the garden,
without anybody’s knowledge, and instructs her to shut the door of the library. When Captain
Bluntschli, who is now clean and smartly dressed appears, Catherine asks him to leave at
once. If her husband discovers their secret, he would not spare her and herdaughter. Also, she
asks him to leave the bag containing the coat, and assures him thatthe bag would be sent back
to him at his address. As Bluntschli hands her his card, Petkoff, who has already seen him
through the window of the library and was wondering why his servants didn’t bring
Bluntschli to the library, comes there followed by Sergius. Petkoff addresses the Swiss
soldier as “my dear Captain Bluntschli”, and welcomes him. Catherine, who is afraid of the
disclosure of the secret, rises to the occasion and lies that she was just asking Bluntschli to
join them for lunch. Sergius tells Bluntschli, that they will not allow him to go so soon, as
they need his advice about sending the three regiments to Philippopolis. Petkoff appreciates
the way Bluntschli under stood the whole problem immediately. Raina returns at this juncture
and recognising Bluntschli exclaims spontaneously “Oh! The chocolate cream soldier!”

As Bluntschli stands rigid, Sergius is a mazed , and Petkoff also wonders what could be
happening. Then, Catherine, with great presence of mind, saves the situation by introducing
Bluntschli to Raina as though she has never met him earlier. Raina then explains her remark
by saying that she was referring to a beautiful ornament which she had earlier made for the
ice pudding, which had been spoiled by Nicola. Turning towards Bluntschli, she says she
hoped he did notthink that she had called him ‘the chocolate cream soldier’.

After hearing Raina’s remark, Petkoff is angry with Nicola and says that the servant must
have taken to drinking. In the first place, he had brought the visitor to the garden, instead of
taking him to the library, and in the second place, he has spoilt Raina’s ice pudding. At this
moment, Nicola appears with a bag and place sit respectfully before Bluntschli. Petkoff asks
him why he has brought the bag there, and Nicola replies that he brought it there at his lady’s
orders; but interrupting him Catherine says that she didn’t order him to bring the bag there.
Hearing Catherine’s falsehood, after a moment’s bewilderment, Nicola accepts it as his fault
and begs to be excused for it. Catherine and Raina try to soothe Petkoff. Captain Bluntschli
is then pressed by all of them to stay with them till he returns to Switzerland. Bluntschli
finally agrees to stay.

Check Your Progress 3

Write a summary of Act II in your own words.

2.4.1 Analysis of Act II

In Act II, as in Act I, we are introduced to characters like Sergius, about whom we have
heard several reports in Act I. Major Petkoff and Nicola, the servant appear on the scene for
the first time. The plot develops further, and complication sarise due to the arrival of the
Swiss soldier, Bluntschli and due to Louka’s knowledge of Raina’s secret. In this Act,
Shawcarries forward the satire of the romantic ideal of love by making Sergius, who claims
to be on the plane of higher love, flirt with Louka, the maid of the lady whom he
‘worships’.When Sergius and Raina meet for the first time after his return, they address each
other in lofty language: Raina addresses Sergius as “My hero! My king,” while Sergius calls
her “My queen”.Raina’s attitude is one of worship and admiration, while Sergius treats her
with ‘holy awe.’Sergius says that she has been his inspiration all along:

Sergius: “Dearest,all my deeds have been yours. You inspired me. I have gone
through the war like a knight in a tournament with his lady looking down at him.”
Raina: “And you have never been outfrom my thoughts for a moment. (very
solemnly) Sergius, I think we two have found the higher love. When I think of you, I
feel that Icould never do a base deed, or think an ignoble thought.”
Sergius: “My lady, and my saint!” (Clasping her reverently.)

‘Higher love’ here means‘spiritual love’, which has no tinge of physical attraction. Sergius is
conscious that this is an artificial pose, which is very tiring to keep up. He tells Louka that he
needs some relief after keeping up this appearance of ‘higher love’. After Raina leaves the
scene, within minutes, Sergius is flirting with Louka, trying to embrace and kiss her. The
insolent young Louka tells him that just as he was making love to herbehind Raina’s back,
she (whom he had addressed as a ‘saint’ just a few minutes ago) was doing the same behind
his. Sergius is himself aware of contradictory tendencies within himself: while flirting with
Louka, he says, “What would Sergius, the hero of Slivnitza, say if he saw me now. What
would Sergius, the apostle of the higher love, say if he saw me now?” Through this passage
Shaw conveys that the human mind has many contradictions and different aspects which may
be the exact opposites of each other. Also, this passage is a satire on people who believe in
higher love or spiritual love and pretend that they ignore physical passion altogether.

The satire of war is also carried further: Sergius who was acclaimed as a great hero in Act I
has resigned from the army, as he has not got his promotion, and as he has been advised by
Bluntschli. Sergius himself admires Bluntschli, whom Raina had despised as a “poor soldier”
in the previous Act, saying, “Ah, he was a soldier—every inch a soldier!” He now has a new
perspective of the soldier’s profession:

“Soldiering, my dear madam, is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you
are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak. That is the whole
secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on any
account, fight him on equal terms.”

Shaw, in the above passage, satirises the romantic notions of the heroism of soldiers and the
glory of war. We are reminded that soldiers are ordinary human beings made of flesh and
blood, who wish to avoid death on the battlefield at any cost.

In Act II we encounter more instances of the Petkoff family trying to appear as ‘civilised’
folk. When Catherine says she hopes her husband has been behaving properly before the
officers, Petkoff says that he did his best and also claims that he has told them that he has a
library at home. To this Catherine adds that there is an electric bell in the library to summon
the servants, as “civilised people never shout for their servants,” something Petkoff is
constantly doing. Her husband retorts that he has also learnt about what civilized people do
and what they do not do: civilized people don’t hang the clothes to dry where visitors can see
them. Catherine responds immediately by adding that refined people do not notice such
things. The above dialogue is a satire of people who wish to belong to the so-called elite
sections of society, and are always trying to appear sophisticated and refined.

In Act II, new developments are introduced: Sergius and Nicola are apparentlynow “rivals”
for the love of Louka. Complications arise due to Louka’sknowledge of Raina’s secret and the
arrival of Bluntschli to return Major Petkoff’s coat.Moreover, in this Act, Shaw satirises love
by juxtaposing a scene of higher love between Sergius and Raina with another of flirtation
between Sergius and Louka.

2.5 LET US SUM UP

In this Unit, we have discussed the summary of Acts I and II of Arms and the Man. We then
analysed the two summaries and discussed how the various characters are introduced. In this
26
Unit we also considered how the satire of romantic notions of love and war is gradually built
up by Shaw. In the next unit, we will discuss Act III of the play.

Unit End Question:

You have now read and discussed Acts I and II of Arms and the Man. What in your opinion,
are the main themes of the play?
27

UNIT 3 ARMS AND THE MAN: SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS (2)

Structure

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Objectives
3.3 Summary of Act III
3.3.1 Analysis of Act III
3.4 The major characters of the play
3.5 The title of the play
3.6 Arms and the Man as an anti- romantic comedy
3.7 Let us sum up

3.1 INTRODUCTION

In Unit I of this block, we familiarised ourselves with the life and work of George Bernard
Shaw. In Unit II, we discussed the summaries of Acts I and II of Arms and the Man and
critically analysed these Acts. Now, we move on to Act III, the last Act of the play. After
analysing the summary of Act III, we will also discuss the main characters of the play and the
significance of the title of the play.

3.2 OBJECTIVES

After reading this unit, you should be able to:
 critically analyse Act III of Arms and the Man.
 discuss the main characters of the play.
 explain the significance of the title of the play.

3.3 SUMMARY OFACT III

After lunch, the scene shifts to Major Petkoff’s library. Bluntschli is hard at work with a
couple of maps before him; Sergius, who is supposed to be working, is watching him,
wondering at Bluntschli’s quick, business-like progress. Major Petkoff feels uncomfortable
without his old coat, and asks for it. Catherine says that it must be hanging in the blue closet
where he had left it. But Major Petkoff emphatically says that he had looked in the closet, and
did not find it. Catherine calls Nicola and orders him to bring his master’s coat from the
closet. When Nicola returns with the old coat, Petkoff feels that because of his age, he is
suffering from hallucinations.

After Bluntschli completes the task that Petfoff has given him, Major Petkoff, Catherine, and
Sergius go out to give those papers and the necessary instructions to the messengers. Looking
mischievously at Bluntschli, Raina comments that he is looking smarter than he looked when
they last met. He tells her that it is because he has now washed, brushed, slept, and taken a
meal. Raina remarks that Bluntschli must have made a lovely story about his experience of
staying in her room and narrated it to his friends after he had gone back to his camp.
Bluntschli tells her that he had told the story to one particular friend. Raina informs him that
his friend had passed it on to others, and that it had reached Sergius and Major Petkoff. She
adds that they did not know that it was in her room that Bluntschli had taken refuge. She
warns him that if Sergius ever came to know of it, he would definitely kill Bluntschli. Also,
she does not wish to deceive Sergius, since her relationship with Sergius is the one really
beautiful and noble part of her life.

Raina declares that in her life she has lied only twice, both times for the sake of Bluntschli.
Bluntschli then tells her: “When you strike that noble attitude and speak in that thrilling
voice, I admire you, but I find it impossible to believe a single word you say.” Impressed by
his straightforward nature, Raina tells him that he is the first man she ever met who did not
take her seriously and she wonders how he is able to see through her. She is now anxious to
know whether he detests her as he has “found her out”. Bluntschli then, says that lying is a
part of her youth and charm and he reveals that he is like others, her “infatuated admirer”.
Now Raina asks him what he had thought about her putting her portrait in the pocket of the
old coat after scribbling some words on it. Bluntschli says that he knows nothing about her
portrait and had never seen it. Raina is worried that it is still in the pocket of the coat, and that
her father would find it . Then Bluntschli tells her that as he could not carry the coat while on
active service, he had pawned it to keep it in safe custody. Raina is furious to hear this and
tells him that he has a low shop-keeping mind and thought of things that would never occur
to a gentleman.

Louka comes in with a heap of letters and telegrams for Bluntschli and tells him that a
messenger is waiting for him. After going through the letters and telegrams, Bluntschli tells
Raina that his father had died, leaving several big hotels behind him to be looked after.
Bluntschli goes out to make arrangements with the messenger to leave immediately for his
country. Left alone with Raina, Louka remarks that the Swiss soldier has not much heart for
he did not utter a word of grief for his departed father. Raina responds that as a soldier
Bluntschli does nothing but kill people, and like all soldiers, he does not care for death.
Louka teases her by saying that Sergius, even though a soldier, has plenty of heart. At this,
Raina goes out haughtily. Louka prepares to follow her, but just then Nicola comes in.

Nicola tells Louka that he has received some money from Sergius and from Bluntschli. He
offers Louka some of it, provided she talks to him as to a human being. After refusing to take
the money, she says that he is born to be a servant, whereas she is not. Nicola is offended by
her remarks and says that she has great ambition in her, and if any luck comes to her, it
comes on account of him, for it is he, who has made a lady of her. Louka teases him saying
that he would prefer her to be his customer rather than his wife. Nicola advises her not to be
defiant, and says that as a servant should stand by another, he would stand by her. Rising
impatiently, Louka tells him that his coldblooded wisdom is taking all the courage out of her.

Before Nicola could retort, Sergius comes in and Nicola cryptically tells Sergius that he has
been advising Louka not to cultivate habits above her position. After Nicola leaves, Sergius
examines Louka’s injured arm. He then tries to take her in his arms, but Louka stops him.
Louka teases him saying that she is braver than Sergius, for even if she were the Empress of
Russia, she would marry the man she loved – however beneath her his position might be. She
adds that he does not have the courage to marry the one he loves who is beneath his position
or to allow his love for her to grow. She adds further that he will soon marry a rich man’s
daughter because he is afraid of what people would say of him. Sergius, retorts that even if he
were the Czar himself, he would marry her, if he loved her. He adds that as he loved another
woman, Raina, who is far above Louka, he will marry her, not Louka.

At this point, Louka reveals Raina’s secret – she tells Sergius that Raina will never marry
him, but will marry the Swiss soldier whom she loves and who has come back now. Sergius
is shocked and furious to hear this and he tells Louka that he cannot believe anything bad
about Raina because her worst thoughts are higher than Louka’s best thoughts. Upset by this
unexpected revelation, Sergius tells Louka that she belongs to him, and that he will have the
courage to marry her in spite of what the whole of Bulgaria says. If his hands ever touch her
again, they will touch his affianced bride. As Louka leaves, Bluntschli enters. Still upset
about what Louka told him, Sergius accuses Bluntschli of deceiving him and invites him for a
duel. Bluntschli responds by saying that as he is in the artillery, he would prefer to use a
machine gun and this time he would make sure of the cartridges. Thinking that Bluntschli is
joking with him, Sergius asks him to take the matter seriously.

Bluntschli, then tells him that he will fight him on foot and that he does not want to kill him if
he can help it. Raina enters at this point and hears part of their conversation. Raina is worried
about their planned duel, but Bluntschli assures her that no harm will be done to either of
them as he is skilled in the use of the sword and will take care not to kill Sergius. He further
assures that he will leave for home soon and then Raina and Sergius could be happy together.

Sergius accuses Raina of being in love with Bluntschli and adds that Bluntschli deceived
Sergius, knowing fully well the relations between Raina and Sergius. Bluntschli says this is
sheer nonsense and adds that Raina does not even know whether he is married or not. Sergius
jumps to the conclusion that Raina’s behaviour on hearing this indicates her concern for
Bluntschli, who has enjoyed the privilege of staying in Raina’s bedroom one night.

Bluntschli explains to Sergius how this happened – pursued by the Bulgarian soldiers, he had
to take shelter in Raina’s room and she allowed him stay in her room as he had threatened to
shoot her if she raised an alarm. Raina thinks at first that Bluntschli’s friend to whom he had
narrated this story, must have passed it on to Sergius, but Sergius declares that he was not the
informant. Suddenly Raina realises it was Louka who had told Sergius about this incident.

She recalls seeing them together through her window earlier that day, now she realises
Sergius had been flirting with Louka, and that it was foolish on her part to have taken him to
be a god. Sergius, then, remarks: “Raina! our romance is shattered. Life’s a farce.” He adds
that he will not fight with Bluntschli even if he is considered a coward. Raina, then,
sarcastically comments that since Sergius’s new lover is Louka, he would have to fight a duel
with Nicola to whom Louka is engaged.

Hearing this, Sergius once again loses his temper, and starts calling Raina names. Bluntschli
tries to stop this quarrelling so that they could talk things over. When Bluntschli enquires
where Louka is, Raina answers that Louka must be outside the door, eavesdropping. Sergius
opens the door in order to prove Raina wrong, and, as rightly sensed by Raina, finds Louka
standing just outside the door, listening to the conversation. In his rage, he drags her in and
flings her against the table. Louka tells Raina that her love is stronger than Raina’s feelings
for her “chocolate cream soldier”.

Petkoff enters without his coat. He tells Raina that somebody else with a differently shaped
back had been wearing his coat; it has burst open at the back and is being mended. When
Nicola brings back the coat, Raina pretends to help him in putting on the coat, cleverly takes
her portrait from the pocket, and throws it on the table before Bluntschli, who covers it with
a sheet of paper, while Sergius who looks on in amazement.

Petkoff suddenly remembers the portrait which he has already found. When he searches his
pockets, he finds it gone (since Raina has cleverly removed it). He says that Catherine may
have removed Raina’s picture with the inscription: “Raina, to her Chocolate Cream Soldier: a
Souvenir”, that he had found earlier. Major Petkoff suspects that there is something more in
this than meets the eye. He crosschecks with Nicola whether he had actually spoiled an ice
pudding made by Raina. When Nicola loyally tries to defend Raina, Major Petkoff turns
towards Sergius and asks him whether he is Raina’s “chocolate cream soldier”. Sergius
emphatically denies this.

Bluntschli then steps up and says that he is the “chocolate cream soldier”. He adds that he is
the fugitive in the story that Petkoff and Sergius had heard. Raina saved his life by giving him
chocolate creams when he was starving. Raina explains to her father that when she sent her
portrait, she did not know that Bluntschli is married; to her great relief, Bluntschli declares
that he is not married. Raina informs Petkoff that Louka is the object of Sergius’s affections
presently. Nicola makes things easier by revealing that he and Louka are not engaged; Louka,
has a soul above her station, and he expects her to be his rich customer when he sets up a
shop. Louka then asks Sergius to apologize, for she has been insulted by everybody
becauseof him.
Sergius apologizes to Louka and kisses her hand. Louka reminds him of his vow and says
that his touch has made her his affianced bride. To the bewildered astonishment of all those
present, including Catherine who just enters the scene, Sergius puts his arm around Louka
and declares that she belongs to him. Catherine rebukes Louka for telling stories about
Raina, but Louka affirms that she has done Raina no harm. She had told Sergius that Raina
would marry Bluntschli if he came back. Louka tells Raina that it appears that Raina is more
fond of Bluntschli than of Sergius.

Bluntschli declares that Raina simply saved his life, but never cared much for him. He adds
that a young lady like Raina who is rich, beautiful and imaginative would not fall in love with
a commonplace Swiss soldier like him. Also, there is a great disparity in their ages – he is
thirty-four, while she doesn’t look older than seventeen. Raina tells him that he should know
the difference between a girl of seventeen and a woman of twenty-three. She then snatches
her portrait from Bluntschli, tears it and throws the pieces on his face. Overwhelmed by the
information that Raina is twenty-three years old, Bluntschli requests Major Petkoff to allow
him to formally become the suitor of his daughter.

Catherine politely objects to Bluntschli’s proposal by saying that the Petkoffs and Saranoffs
are two of the richest families in Bulgaria, implying that a common soldier like Bluntschli is
not a suitable match for her daughter. Major Petkoff points out that Raina is accustomed to a
comfortable lifestyle and hints that Sergius who keeps twenty horses could provide her a
comfortable life. Bluntschli is amused to hear this and reveals that his father had left
enormous wealth for him. He now owns two hundred horses, seventy carriages, and many
other assets.

Petkoff and his wife are impressed by the account of Bluntscli’s wealth and are now happy to
have him as their daughter’s suitor. Raina’spride is hurt and says that she does not want to be
sold to the highest bidder. Bluntschli, then, says that he had earlier appealed to her as a
fugitive, a beggar and a starving man, and she had accepted him. Pleased by his gesture,
Raina agrees to marry her “chocolate cream soldier”. Looking at his watch, Bluntschli
becomes business-like once again. He asks Sergius not to get married till he comes back and
he assumes that he would be back in two weeks. As Bluntschli leaves, Sergius remarks
admiringly, “What a man! What a man!” The play ends here.

3.3.1 Analysis of Act III

In Arms and the Man, Act III performs several functions that the ‘denouement’ of the play in
which all the complications and conflicts are resolved, usually serves. The relationship
between Sergius and Raina breaks off; Louka and Sergius, and Bluntschli and Raina form
new relationships. To this extent, the play draws upon the structure of popular nineteenth
century British dramatic forms such as the farce and the well-made play. The play however
goes beyond the limitations of traditional dramatic structure, and achieves its serious purpose
of breaking down romantic notions and exposing some of the characters as they get rid of
false and pretentious poses. At the beginning of the Act, Raina is still holding on to her
notion of ‘higher love’. She tells Bluntschli, “I want to be quite perfect with Sergius: no
meanness, no smallness, no deceit. My relation to him is the one really beautiful and noble
part of my life.”

Raina is annoyed with Bluntschli, for narrating the story of his stay in her room to his friend,
who, in turn, passed it on to Sergius and Major Petkoff. She adds that luckily they are not
aware that she is the lady in question and that it was in her room that Bluntschli had stayed.
She is sure that if Sergius comes to know of it, he will challenge Bluntschli to a duel and kill
him. At this Bluntschli with typical good humour tells her that it would be best not to tell
Sergius the whole story. Raina asks him to take the matter seriously and to understand that it
causes her great pain to deceive Sergius or to conceal anything from him, for her relationship
with Sergius is really beautiful and noble. She claims that she has lied only twice in her life,
both times for Bluntschli’s sake. Bluntschli knows she is not telling the truth and says,
“When you get into that noble attitude and speak in that thrilling voice, I admire you; but I
find it impossible to believe a single word you say.” This remark leads to a very important
moment in the play:

“She points to herself incredulously, meaning “I, Raina Petkoff, tell lies!” He meets
her gaze unflinchingly. She suddenly sits down beside him, and adds, with a complete
change of manner from the heroic to the familiar, “How did you find me out?”

Raina here begins to throw off her romantic mask and discard her ‘noble’ pose. She presents
her true self to Bluntschli and this becomes the basis for true understanding between them.
Raina admits to Bluntschli that from childhood onwards, she had adopted “the noble attitude
and thrilling voice” and got everybody to believe her.

“You know, I’ve always gone on like that—I mean the noble attitude and the thrilling
voice. I did it when I was a tiny child to my nurse. She believed in it. I do it before my
parents. They believe in it. I do it before Sergius. He believes in it.”

She has always been assuming the noble attitude to impress people. As a child she deceived
her nurse in this manner. Her parents are deceived by her poses. Sergius, too, is taken in by
her poses and pretensions and believes what she tells him. At this Bluntschli says that Sergius
himself assumes such poses and, therefore, it is not surprising that he easily believes her.
Raina is worried that now that Bluntschli has “found her out”, understood her true nature
behind the mask, he would despise her. She is pleased to hear that he is her “infatuated
admirer”.

Saranoff also finds all his false ideals collapsing before him. In Act II itself, he had started
questioning the tactics of the military leadership and the soldier’s profession. In Act III, on
hearing about Bluntschli’s friend who was burnt alive, he exclaims, “Oh, war! war! the dream
of patriots and heroes! A fraud, Bluntschli, a hollow sham, like love.” Just as his notions of
heroic glory on the battlefield are shattered, his romantic ideal of “higher love” also turns out
to be hollow:

SERGIUS.
(cynically). Raina: our romance is shattered. Life’s a farce.
BLUNTSCHLI.
(to Raina, goodhumoredly). You see: he’s found himself out now

Raina realises that Sergius has been flirting with Louka and remarks indignantly, “Oh, what
sort of god is this I have been worshipping!” while Sergius watches “with sardonic enjoyment
of her disenchantment”. Just as Raina found her true self beneath her mask, she discovers
what Sergius is truly like, beneath his pose.

Segius who has been addressing her reverentially as “my queen”, and “my saint”, and treating
her with “holy awe” up till this point now calls her names and taunts her. The dramatist, thus,
demonstrates the hollowness of romantic love. The true natures of all the characters are
revealed through their encounters with each other; in fact they learn to see themselves as they
truly are beyond false pretensions.

Bluntschli emerges as the typical Shavian hero who is governed by the head and not by the
heart. His cool-headedness is something that even Sergius admires: “Ah, well, Bluntschli,” he
says, “you are right to take this huge imposture of a world coolly.”In Act I, Shaw presented
characters who are caught up in falsified notions of romantic love and of military glory. In
Act II, the collapse of these ideals begins and the process is brought to a conclusion in Act
III, where the characters throw off their affected poses.

Check your progress 1

1. Explain in your own words how the relationship between Raina and Bluntschli develops
in the play.

3.4 THE MAJOR CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

Bluntschli

When Bluntschli first enters Raina’s room, he is described as a man of about thirty-five years,
of middle stature and undistinguished appearance, with strong neck and shoulders, roundish
obstinate looking head and clear, quick eyes. He is shabby, unkempt, hungry and exhausted,
but has all his wits about him in spite of his desperate situation. His face reflects a humorous
disposition and his energetic body indicates that he is not a man to be trifled with.

Bluntschli regards the cavalry charge of Sergius, and his displays of valour as acts of
madness. He represents the anti-romantic view of war. His experience of war and soldiering
has taught him not to believe in heroism. He has no glorious visions of war, and believes that
every soldier should try his best to save his own life. According to him, it is the duty of a
soldier to live as long as he can, and avoid getting killed on the battlefield. This contrasts
with the view that there is glory to be gained by dying on the battlefield. When Sergius
invites him to a duel, he says, “I am a professional soldier: I fight when I have to, and am
very glad to get out of it, when I haven’t to, you are only an amateur: You think fighting is an
amusement.”His realism is reflected in his realisation that food is more important on the front
than ammunition. Bluntschli’s realism is tempered by his sense of humour.

Bluntschli is a shrewd judge of human nature. He knows that a young lady will not like to
appear before outsiders when she is not properly dressed. So he uses this knowledge to his
advantage and uses Raina’s cloak as a weapon to protect himself. It is this shrewdness that
makes it possible for him to “find out” Raina, and judge her true nature. He says, “When you
strike that noble attitude and speak in that thrilling voice, I admire you: but I find it
impossible to believe a single word you say.” Raina, then admits that she has been able to
deceive others but not him. He sees through her affectations and posing and she asks in
wonder, “How did you find me out?”

Bluntschli is practical and anti-romantic to a large extent. In this regard he is antithetical to
Raina and Sergius, who are romantic, sentimental, and who live in a world of unreality. His
honest, unromantic nature influences Raina, in getting rid of her false ideals. Further, he is a
thorough gentleman: he tells Raina that he does not want to bring disgrace to her by
remaining in her room all night. So, he agrees reluctantly, to leave and climb down the pipe
into the street. Moreover, he is man of quick understanding and penetrating insight. His
intelligence is acknowledged by everybody he comes in contact with. Petkoff and Sergius are
impressed by his shrewdness and his skill in handling military matters. They openly admire
his military leadership qualities and skills.

He is always business-like, and this aspect of his nature seems to have deprived him of
delicate feelings. Louka points out rightly that he does not utter even a word of sorrow when
he came to know the news of his father’s death. Even his departure is cool and business-like –
after offering himself as a suitor to Raina, he gives a few instructions to Petkoff, and departs
after fixing a time for his return.

Raina Petkoff

Shaw introduces Raina in this manner: “On the balcony a young lady, intensely conscious of
the romantic beauty of the night, and of the fact that her own youth and beauty are part of it,
is gazing at the snowy Balkans.” This introduction suggests Raina’s youth, beauty, and
dreamy, romantic nature.

Raina is a young lady whose notions are derived from her reading of romances and novels.
As Bluntschli rightly puts it, her imagination is “full of fairy princes and noble natures and
cavalry charges and goodness knows what!” Having read Byron and Pushkin, and a lot of
fiction, she is extremely romantic in her view of life.

Wa,r in her view is an opportunity for the gallant soldier to earn glory, even if it is by dying.
For this reason, she thinks that Sergius has performed a supremely heroic deed by leading a
triumphant cavalry charge against the Serbians – it is Bluntschli who later informs her that
the Bulgarians won the battle by accident, and not through Sergius’s leadership skills.

Raina has unrealistic ideas regarding love also. Almost all her dialogues with Sergius are
artificial and affectatious, and are suffused with the notion of “higher love”. Both Raina and
Sergius are posing and pretending; they behave as though they are searching for something
divine. Also, their love does not stand the test of time, since it has no foundation in real
feeling.

In Act I itself, Raina is attracted towards Bluntschli, who is realistic and practical, yet witty
and humorous. She is brave and shows no fear when a stranger intrudes into her chamber,
instead she boldly argues with the intruder. She does not become nervous when the Russian
soldier enters her room to search for the Serbian officer.

She is impulsive, yet kind hearted and noble. When the Swiss soldier is depressed, she is
moved, and feeling pity for him, tries to cheer him up: “Come: don’t be disheartened. (She
stoops over him almost maternally.) Oh, you are a very poor soldier, a chocolate cream
soldier! Come, cheer up!” This sympathy and pity that she feels on seeing Bluntschli’s
helplessness and her admiration for his sound logic and realistic temperament, gradally lead
her to loving him. She is intelligent enough to realise that she had all along been deceiving
others and herself with her affectations, and is willing to discard that pose.

She has a trusting nature and has absolute faith in Sergius. Even though she sees Sergius and
Louka together through her window, she does not yield to serious misgivings. When the
truth about Sergius’s interest in Louka is revealed, her break with Sergius is completes and
she accepts Bluntschli as her suitor.

Sergius Saranoff

In his extremely detailed description of Sergius Saranoff, Shaw says, “(He) is a tall
romantically handsome man with the physical hardihood, the high spirit, and the susceptible
imagination of an untamed mountaineer chieftain.” Shaw describes him as some sort of
Byronic hero marked by a “half tragic, half ironic air, the mysterious moodiness, the
suggestion of a strange and terrible history that has left him nothing but undying remorse.”

Sergius lives in an unreal world, and like Raina, constantly assumes a pose. He joins the army
and goes to the battlefield, with the aim of earning glory. He imagines himself to be some
sort of a knight and thinks that the cavalry charge led by him against the Serbian soldiers was
a heroic deed. But Bluntschli who is not only realistic and practical, but also an excellent
military leader, is appalled by Segius’s ignorance of military tactics. Bluntschli says that his
cavalry charge, about which the ladies are wildly enthusiastic, was an act of madness and
Sergius should be courtmartialled for it. Bluntschli advises him to leave the military
profession. Also, Sergius is upset when he does not get a promotion and decides to resign
from the army.

He, too, like Raina indulges in the fantasy of “higher love” and addresses Raina as ‘my
queen’, and ‘my saint’. His treats Raina as a model of perfection and believes that she does
not have any shortcomings or weaknesses. It is ironical that after a scene of higher love with
Raina, he flirts with Louka to relieve himself of the strain caused by maintaining the pose of
‘higher love’. He is himself aware of contradictory tendencies within himself that seem to
pull him in different directions; he tells Louka, while holding her in an embrace, “I am
surprised at myself, Louka. What would Sergius, the hero of Slivnitza, say if he saw me now?
What would Sergius, the apostle of the higher love, say if he saw me now? What would the
half dozen Sergiuses who keep popping in and out of this handsome figure of mine say if
they caught us here?”

As soon as he comes to know of Raina’s involvement with Bluntschli, Sergius realises that
his ideals were collapsing; he says that their romance is shattered and life is a farce. Sergius is
a conceited man, and Louka is shrewd enough to exploit his vanity and his false sense of
honour. She accuses him of not having the courage to marry the person whom he loves, since
he is afraid of what people would say. He then declares to Louka, “If I were the Czarhimself I
would set you on the throne by my side.” Louka ensures that he keeps his word.

He lacks understanding of military affairs as well as human nature. Though he has committed
a blunder on the battlefield, he thinks he has done a great heroic deed. He fails to come out
with a plan for sending regiments, and when Bluntschli does the same job meticulously, he
hides his inability with the remark:”This hand is more used to the sword than to the pen.”

His vanity is reflected in statements such as: “I never apologize”, “I am never sorry” and
“Nothing binds me.” Even though Sergius has some negative qualities, he is also a
gentleman. Though he is captivated by the charms of Louka, he is strict with her when she
talks against Raina. He says: “Take care, Louka, I may be worthless enough to betray the
higher love; but do not you insult it.” Later he says: “You have stained by honourby making
me a party to your eavesdropping. And you have betrayed your mistress.” The contrast
between Sergius and Bluntschli is very obvious, and in many ways, he is a foil to Bluntschli.

Louka

Louka, the maid of the Petkoffs, is described in Act I, in the following manner: “a handsome,
proud girl in a pretty Bulgarian peasant’s dress with double apron, so defiant that her servility
to Raina is almost insolent. She is afraid of Catherine, but even with her goes as far as she
dares.” Though she is a woman of humble origins, she has a soul above her station and is
keen on marrying a rich man. She does not heed Nicola’s advice regarding her behaviour.
Louka repeatedly tells Nicola that he has the soul of a servant whereas no one could ever put
the soul of a servant in her. There is a world of difference between the views of Louka and
those of Nicola. Though they are supposed to be engaged, Nicola, being a shrewd judge of
human nature, knows that it would be better to have Louka as one of his rich customers,
when he sets up a shop, rather than make her his wife. She longs to be elevated to a higher
status in life and achieves this when Sergius decides to marry her.

Louka’s behaviour is marked by defiance and insolence. Her defiant attitude towards Raina is
conspicuous in Act I of the play itself. When she comes into Raina’s room to inform her
about the disturbances, she behaves in a careless manner. She is uncivil towards Bluntschli
also; in Act III she flings his letters and telegrams on the table before him. She uses her
beauty and attractiveness to make Sergius interested in her. Louka shrewdly exploits
Sergius’s vanity and uses it to her advantage and finally wins him. Her sharpness and
observant nature are evident in Act I. Catherine and the Russian officers are deceived by
Raina regarding the presence of the intruder. But Louka observes the pistol lying on the
ottoman and realizes that the intruder is hidden behind the curtains. She rightly perceives that
Raina loves Bluntschli and that if Bluntschli came back, Raina would marry him and not
Sergius. In short, though Louka is defiant and insolent by nature, she is also clever, witty and
shrewd.

3.5 THE TITLE OF THE PLAY

The title of the play Arms and the Man is taken from Dryden’s translation of the
opening lines of Virgil’s Aeneid:

“Arms and the Man I sing, who forced by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate.”

Aeneid is a Latin epic of war, military exploits and adventure. In it war is glorified and man
is shown to be a creature who can attain heroic proportions. In Arms and the Man Bernard
Shaw gives an ironic twist to Virgil’s lines. Shaw glorifies neither war nor the life of the
soldier. His view in the play is that it is meaningless for men to fight wars to gain glory and
honour.
Through the character Bluntschli, Shaw makes it clear that for most soldiers, war and
weapons are not the instruments of achieving glory, but a means of earning their livelihood.
Bluntschli is a professional soldier, willing to fight in any country for payment. He would
prefer not to fight, and would rather save his life in the battlefield by taking a safe position.
In the battlefield, chocolates he says, are more important than cartridges, since they provide
quick nourishment.

Bluntschli’s professional military background and experience makes him question the
unprofessional way in which the Bulgarians led by Segius attacked the Serbs. He says that
only an amateur would lead a cavalry charge against a battery of machine guns, without
calculating the danger of the situation. If the Serbs had the proper ammunition, and the guns
had gone off, Sergius and his regiment would have been completely wiped out. Thus we get a
realistic perspective of war that does not glorify it or see it as the opportunity to gain honour
and fame. A soldier, in Shaw’s view, should ideally try to save his life, rather than die a
glorious death on the battlefield. As discussed above, the plot revolves around war, and it
deals with men and their arms, though in a sense different from that of Virgil’s lines. Hence,
the title ‘Arms and the Man’ is appropriate for the play.

3.6 ARMS AND THE MAN AS AN ANTI – ROMANTIC COMEDY

Arms and the Man is the first in the series of “pleasant plays”. Its subtitle is: “An AntiRomantic Comedy in Three Acts.” Raina lives in a world of romance and considers herself to
be in love with Sergius. Her ideas about love come from reading Byron and Pushkin, and
from operas she has seen during her visits to Bucharest.

In a recent battle at Slivnitza, Sergius has led a triumphant charge against the Serbs, and is
reported as ‘the hero of the hour, the idol of the regiment’. In true romantic fashion, Raina
picks up a picture of Sergius and gazes at it proudly. While adoring the picture of Sergius
with ‘feelings that are beyond expression’, Raina does not show it any mark of affection. She
does not kiss it but looks upon it as if it were something holy.

The entrance of Bluntschli at this moment begins to destroy her romantic dreams. Bluntschli
is free from romantic illusions about war, and does not view it as the means to win glory. His
robust commonsense strikes at the root of Raina’s affectations – her lofty ideals, her
aristocratic manner and her pride in her family’s social status. Slowly but surely, she realizes
the folly of her romantic illusions.

In the second Act, the focus is on the exposure of romantic notions of love and marriage. The
Act begins with a scene of higher love between Raina and Sergius. Raina adores Sergius for
his heroic action in the war and calls him ‘my hero, my king’, while Sergius calls her ‘my
queen’. He tells her that all his deeds have been inspired by her and he has gone through the
war like a knight in a tournament with his lady looking down at him and encouraging him.
They agree that they have found ‘the higher love’. Amost immediately, Sergius confesses to
Louka that the higher love is ‘very fatiguing’ to keep up for long. Louka exposes the ‘higher
love’ of Sergius and Raina to ridicule and shatters their noble sentiments and poses. ‘Higher
love’ is thus revealed to be a sham and those who claim to experience higher love, simply
fool themselves. In Arms and the Man, Shaw proves that romantic ideas of love and war are
nothing but delusions, and therefore Arms and the Man is an anti-romantic comedy.

3.7 LET US SUM UP

We began this Unit with a brief summary of Act III of the play and then proceeded to analyse
the significance of Act III in the structure of the play. We then discussed the major characters
as well as the title of the play. We concluded the Unit with a discussion of Arms and the Man
as an anti-romantic comedy. In the next unit, we will discuss the major themes and concerns
of the play in detail.

Check your progress 2

1. Discuss the significance of the title of the play.

Glossary
Denouement: the final part of a play in which all matters are explained or complications
resolved.

UNIT 4 ARMS AND THE MAN: THEMES AND CONCERNS

Structure

4.1 Introduction
4.2 Objectives
4.3 The Reception of Arms and the Man
4.4 Bernard Shaw’s Views on War
4.5 TheTheme ofWar
4.6 TheTheme of Love
4.7 Class Distinctions in the Play
4.8 Let us Sum up
4.9 Glossary
4.10 Works Cited

4.1 INTRODUCTION

In the first Unitof this block, we discussed the life and work of George Bernard Shaw, and in
the next two Units we read andfamiliarised ourselves with Shaw’s play Arms and the Man,
its characters and some of its themes. In this final Unit of the block, we will be discussing the
major themes and concerns of this play in detail. Before proceeding to study this Unit, you
should definitely read the original play. Also try to watch a good production of the play on
the internet.

4.2 OBJECTIVES

After studying this Unit you should be able to:

1. Identify and critically analyse the major themes of the play
2. Explain why Arms and the Man is considered to be an ‘anti-romantic comedy.’

4.3 THE RECEPTION OF ARMS AND THE MAN

Arms and the Man was written between 26th November, 1893 and 30th March, 1894, and first
performed on 21st April, 1894.The play is set against the background of the Serbo-Bulgarian
war of 1885.

Michael O’Hara assesses the significance of this play thus: among Shaw’s plays, Arms and
the Man was the first play to be performed in the famous West End of London (where some
of London’s leading theatres are located), the first to be performed in both the United States
and Germany, the first to inspire a musical version (with the title ‘The Chocolate Soldier’),
the first to become a full-length film, and the first to be directed by Shaw himself (145). It is
clear that the play made Shaw a noted figure not just in British theatre but also on the
international scene – it thereforemarked an important stage in Shaw’s career as a playwright.

When the play was first performed in London, it created a huge sensation. However, a large
section of the audience also found the play somewhat confusing.The actor Yorke Stephens,

who played the role of Bluntschli, the Swiss captain in the playon the opening night (21st
April, 1894) writes,

“As for the first night of Arms and the Man – who will ever forget it? The whole
house was bewildered. They didn’t know when to laugh, or where, or how. … every
evening was a still more puzzling ordeal. The play created a certain sensation, there is
no doubt about that, but the great outer public simply couldn’t understand – or didn’t
take the trouble to understand – what it was driving at”(130).

After the first performance of the play, Shaw was requested to make a speech to the audience.
When someone greeted him with disrespectful shouts, he remarked with characteristic wit, “I
assure the gentleman in the gallery that he and I are of exactly the same opinion, but what can
we do against a whole house who are of the contrary opinion?” (Quoted in Satran 12)
According to the famous poet W.B. Yeats, the first performance of Arms and the Man was
sensational: “from that moment,”writes Yeats, “Bernard Shaw became the most formidable
man in modern letters”(127-28).What Yeats emphasises here is that with this performance of
Arms and the Man, Shaw was acknowledged as one of the most powerful voices in the
literary world of his time.

What Shaw himself writes in one of his letters, about the opening performance shows how he
realised that the audience had failed to arrive at his message in the play: “I had the curious
experience of witnessing an apparently insane success … and of going before the curtain to
tremendous applause, the only person in the theatre who knew that the whole thing was a
ghastly failure” (Collected Letters 1874-1897, p 462).

Many critics wrote against the play after its first performance; some of them felt that it was
mocking soldiers and the military. In the July 1894 issue of the ‘New Review’, Shaw wrote a
long article titled ‘A Dramatic Realist to his Critics’, in which he countered the criticisms
raised by theatre enthusiasts and critics, against the play.Arms and the Man, is not as complex
as many of Shaw’s later plays, such as Man and Superman,Back to Methuselah or Saint Joan.
Why then did the first performance of this play create mixed reactions among its viewers?
Also, why did the playwright, who also directed the first production, view it as a “ghastly
failure”?

Critics offer several explanations: according to David Satran, although Shaw intended the
play to depict the harsh reality of war and soldiering through the experiences of Bluntschli, he
immediately realized that “the play and its hero had been misread as farce.”Many members of
the audience failed to understand that characters like Bluntschli were meant to force them to
rethink their false ideals of love and war. Instead they ridiculed such characters for falling
short of their romantic expectations and idealizations. Therefore, “the play failed in its
critique of the romanticizing oflove and war”(Satran 12).Thus, many people in the audience
mistakenly saw the place as a farce, and Bluntschli as a comic character. They failed to see
that through a down-to-earth character like Bluntschli, Shaw was presenting an anti-romantic
view of war. Another critic David Sauer expresses the view that the play failed in evoking
the expected response from the audience, because of the complexity of Raina’s character,
which “makes difficult both acting the play and responding to it.” (Sauer 163).

Thus, even though Arms and the Man proved to be Shaw’s first commercial success on the
London stage, Shaw was concerned that a large section of the audience failed to understand
its message. This also created in him a new awareness of his role on the London theatre
scenario. David Satran points out that Shaw’s aim as a playwright and director, was to
transform the theatre, “ a popular, middle and upper-class venue into a site for social dialogue
and political action” (Satran 13).However the reception of Arms and the Man, continues
Satran, made it clear that he faced a huge challenge in bringing about such a transformation.
The London theatre goers, Shaw realised , were not yet prepared for bringing about such a
transformation, mainly because the kind of plays that they watched, did not encourage such
abilities in them. Shaw felt that the public would have to be trained in such skills by
playwrights like himself. He felt that the conventional drama, with its conveniences of plot
and fondness for exaggeration, could never succeed in helping his audience free itself from
its belief in false ideals. “His audience having been spoon-fed on little else other than farce
and “well-made” plays, has come to demand little more than much of the same.” He therefore
sets out to improve the taste of his audience (Satran 13 -18).

Here Satran emphasises Shaw’s general dissatisfaction with the kind of plays that were being
presented on the London stage, and his conviction that a new kind of drama had to be
introduced. You may remember that in Unit 1 we had discussed how Shaw was extremely
critical of nineteenth century British drama, especially of the well-made play and the farce,
whixh were the most popular forms of dramatic entertainment. Shaw focused in the rest of
his writing career, on the task of educating the London theatre audiences, and in creating in
them the capacity to fully exploit the political potential of theatre.

Check Your Progress 1

Write a short note in your own words on the reception of the first performance of Shaw’s
play Arms and the Manin London.

4.4 BERNARD SHAW’S VIEWS ON WAR

Shaw held strong views on war and military leadership, which he constantly expressed
through his letters, speeches, pamphlets and plays. His view, as expressed in these different
media, was basically that all war is a“crime based on the determination of the soldier to stick
at nothing to bring it to an end and get out of the daily danger of being shot” (‘The Human
Review’, 1901, January). As theatre critic Christopher Innes notes, in the early years of the
twentieth century, in response to the Boer war, Shaw wrote a number of essays for
periodicals, as well as public letters to newspapers, and delivered several major lectures,
attacking jingoistic militarism. In the years before the First World War, he published several
essays on disarmament, arguing for an international agreement to outlaw war. Shaw
published his thoughts about war, especially in the context of World War I, in his pamphlet
“Common Sense about the War” as a supplement to the ‘New Statesman’ on November14,
1914 (Innes 203). In fact, his pacifist views made him extremely unpopular and nearly got
him arrested during the years of World War I (Sternlicht 4).

4.5 THE THEME OF WAR

Arms and the Man (1894) was probably the earliest play in which Shaw expressed his antiwar position – in later plays like The Man of Destiny (1895), The Devil’s Disciple (1896),
Major Barbara (1907), and Saint Joan (1924), he continued to critique war and the military.
As Mendelsohn points out in the essay ‘Shaw’s Soldiers’, Shaw’s deep interest in military
matters, appears in a number of his plays in which he constantly examines questions of
bravery, cowardice, military genius, romantic glory, and death on the battlefield (30).

Apart from popular plays by Shaw, such as Arms and the Man, Major Barbara, The Man of
Destiny, and Saint Joan, some of his lesser known plays also engage with themes of war and
military glory. An example is the play O’Flaherty VC (1915), set against the background of
Ireland during the First World War. In a study comparing O’Flaherty VC with Sean
O’Casey’s play. The Silver Tassie, Heinz Kosok points out how both these plays, are
critiques of all wars:

“… both plays go beyond the specific situation of Ireland in that they are
uncompromising anti-war plays which use the front-line experience of the First World
War to call into question any type of war, conducted for any imaginable reason.
Although in each case one character is awarded the Victoria Cross, such concepts as
“courage” and “heroism” are revealed to be myths created for obvious propaganda
purposes, while the dominant emotion of the front-line soldier is shown to be fear….
In this final aspect, the universal appeal against war, any war, these two plays go
beyond the attitude revealed in most plays that were written in England. Perhaps it
needed the authors’ specific Irish perspective to unmask the complete futility of war.”
(Heinz 25).

Here the critic rightly points out how, in many of his plays, Shaw tried to show ‘courage’ and
‘heroism’ as myths, since the soldier on the front-line, like Bluntschli in this play, would be
primarily interested in saving his own life. In fact, in many of his plays, we find Shaw, the
committed pacifist, working to “unmask the complete futility of war” and trying to show the
world, how meaningless and terrible it is.(Refer Unit 1 to see how in the play Heartbreak
House Shaw expresses his frustration with the intellectuals of Europe, for failing to prevent
the catastrophe of World War I)

Check Your progress 2

What were Shaw’s views on war? How does Shaw express his views on war in plays other
than Arms and the Man? Write your answer in your own words.

4.5.1 The Title of the Play

As we discussed in the previous Unit, the title of the play is an ironic reference to the opening
lines of Dryden’s translation of Virgil’s Aenid:

“Arms and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan Shore.”

As W.H. Semple, points out, at the beginning of the Aenid, Virgil makes it clear that war will
be his main theme (Armavirumquecano), and gives hints of all the battles to follow in the
various Books of this great epic. Ultimately, he condemns war in scathing language and
shows his awareness of the pathetic futility of war (“War and Peace in Virgil’s Aenid”). Shaw
uses the first few words of the Aenid in an ironic sense – his play also focuses on “arms and
the man”, but it is not a glorification of man’s heroic exploits and military valour, but an
attempt to reveal the harsh reality of war, its essential meaninglessness and brutality. We also
have to remember that, despite the fact that the Aenidis largely devoted to the theme of war,
Virgil also expresses his awareness of the horror of war.

4.5.2 De-romanticising war in Arms and the Man:

Christopher Innes sees Arms and the Man, as an inversionor parody of the ‘military
melodrama’ which was very popular in the nineteenth century (207). How does Shaw create
such a parody of military melodrama in Arms and the Man? He does this by making the play
a satire of romantic notions of love and war, which were the typical characteristics of
military melodrama. His satire of romanticised views of war is created by contrasting the
indiscreet Sergius Saranoff, who is very theatrical in his displays of military valour, with the
cautious and down-to-earth Bluntschli. Sergius Saranoff himself acknowledges that
Bluntschli, despite his lack of valorous pretensions and bravado, is an excellent fighter and
leader. The play forces the thinking members of the audience to revise their views about the
ideal soldier.

David Satran explains how in Arms and the Man, Shaw gradually builds up his satire of
theatrical, “romanticized notions of war”, and examines what it means to actually be a
soldier on the battlefield.

“To achieve this end, he offers his viewers a Swiss captain to portray the reality of a
professional soldier’s experience both on and off the battlefield. Shaw casts Bluntschli
as a mercenary in service to the Serbians during their November 1885 invasion of
Bulgaria. Arms and the Man opens with a Bulgarian cavalry charge that compels him
to scale Raina Petkoff’s window and hide in her bedchamber. Once there, he
disappoints the young woman’s every expectation of how a soldier should behave.
Instead of behaving nobly and heroically – as she believes her beloved Sergius
Saranoff did, by leading the charge against the Serbs – Bluntschli cowers in her
bedchamber, making every effort not to be found.” (Satran 13)

This contrast between the heroic, gallant Sergius, who successfully led a charge against the
Bulgarians, and the Swiss captain Bluntschli, who tries to hide in a lady’s bedroom so that his
enemies do not discover him, is presented through the reactions of the young Raina.It is only
later in the play that we learn that the Bulgarian charge led by the impetuous Sergius, had
won their victory merely through a stroke of luck, since the Serbs led by Bluntschli had
accidentally been sent the wrong-sized cartridges. The description of Sergius’s charge that
Bluntschli gives, unaware that Raina is betrothed to him, is one of the comic highlights of the
play:

He did it like an operatic tenor—a regular handsome fellow, with flashing eyes and
lovely moustache, shouting a war-cry and charging like Don Quixote at the windmills.
We nearly burst with laughter at him…. And there was Don Quixote flourishing like
a drum major, thinking he’d done the cleverest thing ever known, whereas he ought to
be court-martialled for it. Of all the fools ever let loose on a field of battle, that man
must be the very maddest. He and his regiment simply committed suicide—only the
pistol missed fire, that’s all.
(Act 1, Arms and the Man)

Raina is furious to hear her hero being mocked in this manner, and makes it known that she is
betrothed to Sergius. Bluntschli is apologetic for having spoken disrespectfully about her
fiancé and remarks “(shamefacedly, but still greatly tickled)… But when I think of him,
charging the windmills and thinking he was doing the finest thing … (chokes with suppressed
laughter).”

From Bluntschli’s report of Sergius’s “gallant charge”, it is clear that if the Serbs had
received the right cartridges, the outcome of the battle could have been very different;
Sergius’s “heroism” is thus built on very shaky grounds. Raina herself does have an uneasy
sense of self doubt about Sergius’s heroism at one point, when she says:

“Raina: Well, it came into my head just as he was holding me in his arms and looking
into my eyes that perhaps we only had our heroic ideas because we are so fond of
reading Byron and Pushkin, and because we were so delighted with the opera that
season at Bucharest….I wondered whether all his heroic qualities and his soldier ship
might not prove mere imagination when he went into a real battle. I had an uneasy
fear that he might cut a poor figure there beside all those clever Russian officers.”
(Act 1 Arms and the Man)

On hearing about Sergius’s triumph, she realises that she was wrong in having “doubted
him”, and that he is “just as splendid and noble as he looks.”Raina worships her heroic
Sergius and expresses her admiration for him in the most sublime language, while
contemptuously referring to Bluntschli, as ‘the choclate cream soldier’. As he hides in the
young lady’s bedroom, Bluntschli becomes, as Satran points out a ‘foil’ to the triumphant
Sergius.

“Though Bluntschli manages to evade the Bulgarians’ charge, he unwittingly finds
himself performing as Saran off ‘s foil. His sudden appearance presents everyone
watching with an unplanned opportunity to rethink commonly accepted views on
soldiering, war, and masculinity. For Raina these views had until then been informed
in equal parts by Saranoff’s posturing and a regular diet of romance novels and opera
performances, while the audience, Shaw rightly suspected, was likely to have a
similarly narrow set of influences. Together the two men offer Raina competing
conceptions of what it means to be a soldier, and through them Shaw aims for the play
to challenge the audience’s ingrained beliefs.” (Satran 15).

Satran here makes the very important point that the audience’s and Raina’s views about war
and military glory are derived from “romance novels and opera performances”, and are
therefore not grounded in reality. Shaw’s attempt is to highlight the absurdity of such
romantic and unrealistic views of war, which for the soldier on the field who comes face-toface with death is a traumatic experience. When he seeks refuge in Raina’s room, Bluntschli
is not only hungry and exhausted, he is also a nervous wreck; as he tells Raina, after facing
constant shell attacks on the field, he is “as nervous as a mouse,” and would start crying if she
scolded him like a child. He represents the plight of the soldier who actually had to face the
stresses and hardships of the battlefield. It is through the contrast between the vastly different
soldering styles of the two men, Sergius and Bluntschli, that Shaw makes Raina, and through
her, his audience, revise their romantic, theatrical ideas about what it actually means to fight
it out on a battlefield.

However, it is only a discerning spectator who would realise what the playwright was
demanding from his audience. The general mass of the audience fed, like Raina, on a diet of
melodrama, would find Bluntschli to be, as Raina says, “a poor soldier”, a pathetic failure, a
farcical character. This is why the audience at the early performances laughed over the play,
making Shaw remark that the performance of Arms and the Man was “a ghastly failure”.
Probably, what made Bluntschli look even more like a farcical character, is his practice of
carrying chocolate in his pockets, instead of cartridges. He tells Raina, “I have no
ammunition,” and immediately goes on to add, “What use are cartridges in battle? I always
carry chocolate instead; and I finished the last cake of that hours ago.” To an audience that
expects a soldier to be a gallant, swashbuckling hero, a soldier who goes to battle with
chocolate in his pockets, must have appeared truly comic.

Raina is “out- raged in her most cherished ideals of manhood” when she asks, “Do you stuff
your pockets with sweets – like a schoolboy – even in the field?” (401). Bluntschli
humorously points out that an experienced soldier could be identified by what he carried in
his pockets: “you can always tell an old soldier by the insides of his holsters and cartridge
boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges, the old ones grub.”
Raina fails to understand the practical wisdom of Bluntschli’ sremark. Satran explains that
though the play’s audience may not have known it, soldiers like Bluntschli did in fact carry
chocolate on the battlefield to provide themselves with ready nourishment. “Altogether
caught up in idealized notions of war, soldiering and masculinity, Raina dubs Bluntschli a
“chocolate cream soldier” to signify his supposed immaturity, lack of character and failure to
fulfil her ideals: “Oh, you are a very poor soldier, a chocolate cream soldier.” (15-16). Raina
realises only much later that the ‘chocolate cream soldier’ is actually the true fighter and
military leader as compared to her supposedly valorous hero, who is as Bluntschli says as
foolish as Don Quixote on the battlefield.

One of the issues raised by critics against the play was that it deliberately mocked soldiers
and brave men who went to war by portraying them as comic “chocolate cream soldiers”. To
such critics Shaw responded in the following manner in his essay ‘A Dramatic Realist to His
Critics’: “The notion that there could be any limit to a soldier’s courage, or any preference on
his part for life and a whole skin over a glorious death in the service of his country, was
inexpressibly revolting to them.” Shaw emphasises here that his critics had a very unrealistic
view of war and soldiers, since they could not accept the fact that any soldier would prefer
life to a “glorious death in the service of his country.”

Shaw argues that the difference between real warfare and warfare on the stage lies in the fact
that in real warfare, there is real personal danger, the sense of which is constantly present to
the mind of the soldier, whereas in the article warfare there is nothing but glory. “Hence
Captain Bluntschli who thinks of a battlefield as a very busy and very dangerous place, is
incredible to the critic who thinks of it only as a theatre in which to enjoy the luxurious
excitements of patriotism, victory and bloodshed without risk or retribution.” (‘Dramatic
Realist’35,). In Arms and the Man as well as many other plays, Shaw attempts to compel his
readers to accept the reality that the battlefield is “ a very busy and very dangerous place”
and definitely not a theatre for “patriotism, victory and bloodshed.”

In his study ‘Shaw’s Soldiers,’ Mendelsohn explains that Shaw’s criticism of the military
establishment was based on his belief that with generally, any soldier is unaware of anything
beyond fear and self preservation, often commanded by incapable, inefficient, and
indifferent officers, and blindly guided by outdated or inadequate regulations (Mendelsohn
31).

“Arms and the Man is the early comedy in which Shaw has the most fun with this
perception of the military. Using as his principal targets the foolish Major Petkoff and
the romantic blunderer Sergius, Shaw tweaks the noses of the Army establishment of
his – or any other – day. Petkoff and Sergius, drawn away from the high society,
abandon the comforts and luxuries of home life in a self-centered attempt to cover
themselves with glory; what happens to their troops is of no great consequence.
(Mendelsohn 31-32)

Though Shaw was generally critical of the military, most critics agree that in Arms and the
Man, he does not satirise the real soldier. He attacks “romanticism and pomposity, but the
careful reader also perceives that he is not denigrating bravery and strength” (Mendelsohn
29). In the same spirit, David Satran says, “Bluntschli, with his daring escape and chocolate
eating, does not satirize the soldiering profession; rather, he satirizes its romanticization. The
play is not against soldiers, nor does it ever speak ill of them”(Satran23).

Thus, we have to remember that in this play, Shaw does not ridicule the profession of the
soldier, he satirises the romantic views of war that were prevalent among some sections of his
audience, and formed the theme of military melodramas. In fact, Shaw projects a realistic
view of the extreme dangers and trauma of the life of the soldier on the actual battlefield.

4.6 THE THEME OF LOVE

Arms and the Man questions highly idealised expressions of love, just as it questions
romanticised views of war; as David Satran points out, in the play Shaw “sets out to
challenge conventional beliefs of sacrosanct subjects, love and war foremost among them”
(Satran 16). From the beginning of the play, Raina is constantly expressing her ‘pure’ and
‘sublime’ feelings for Sergius, addressing him as “my hero.” Raina even declares, “My
relation to him is the one really beautiful and noble part of my life.”

(Raina, left alone, goes to the chest of drawers, and adores the
portrait there with feelings that are beyond all expression. She does
not kiss it or press it to her breast, or shew it any mark of bodily
affection; but she takes it in her hands and elevates it like a priestess.)

RAINA.
(looking up at the picture with worship.) Oh, I shall never be unworthy of you any more, my
hero—never, never, never.
(She replaces it reverently

When Sergius returns after the battle, they greet each other rapturously:

SERGIUS.
(hastening to her, but refraining from touching her without express permission). Am I
forgiven?
RAINA.
(placing her hands on his shoulder as she looks up at him with admiration and
worship). My hero! My king.
SERGIUS.
My queen! (He kisses her on the forehead with holy awe.)

The critic David Sauer says that when Raina speaks to Sergius of the higher love, she
conforms to Shaw’s definition of the “Womanly Woman” in The Quintessence of Ibsenism.
Such a woman, says Shaw, deceives herself in the idealist fashion by denying that the love
which her suitor offers her has any tinge of physical attraction. It is, she declares, “a
beautiful, disinterested, pure, sublime devotion by which a man’s life is exalted and purified,
and a woman’s rendered blest.” (Sauer 159).

The interactions between Raina and Sergius are entirely defined by such conventions:
SERGIUS.
Dearest, all my deeds have been yours. You inspired me. I have gone through the war
like a knight in a tournament with his lady looking on at him!
RAINA.
And you have never been absent from my thoughts for a moment. (Very solemnly.)
Sergius: I think we two have found the higher love. When I think of you, I feel that I
could never do a base deed, or think an ignoble thought.
SERGIUS.
My lady, and my saint! (Clasping her reverently.)

Almost immediately after this exchange of sublime feelings, it is ironical that we find Sergius
flirting with the servant girl Louka and trying to embrace her.

Sergius: Louka, do you know what the higher love is?
LOUKA.
(astonished). No, sir.
SERGIUS.
Very fatiguing thing to keep up for any length of time, Louka. One feels the need of
some relief after it.

Sergius’s words express his difficulty in maintaining the affected pose of ‘higher love.’
Sergius also seems to realise the emptiness of some of his cherished ideals and exclaims at
the end: “Oh! War! War! The dream of patriots and heroes! A fraud Bluntschli, a hollow
sham, like love.” Later in the play, we find Raina, asking herself, “Oh, what sort of god is
this, that I have been worshipping?” when she finds out that Segius has been flirting with
Louka. Now that Bluntschli has “found her out”, she has discarded her affectation of a “noble
attitude and a thrilling voice”. She also gets rid of her romantic illusion of ‘higher love’,
which like her views about war and soldiers, is probably derived from her reading of
romances. Raina learns to shed such deceptions, and to be honest to herself. She changes and
grows to adopt a more mature view of love based on honest, mutual understanding. The
audience grows and matures with her and learns “that love requires honesty and respect more
than romance; that soldiering is an awful and deadly business;” (Satran 30).

4.7 CLASS DISTINCTIONS IN THE PLAY

Most of the characters in this play, aspire to move to a superior social class, and thus class
distinctions and mobility between social classes becomes a major concern of the play.
Throughout the play, the entire Petkoff family is seen to be very conscious of the need to
appear “genteel’’ and cultivated. Both Raina and her mother take utmost care to be well
dressed, according to the latest Viennese fashions. In the very first Act, Catherine is
introduced as someone who is “determined to be a Viennese lady and to that end wears a
fashionable tea gown on all occasions.” Raina boastfully tells Bluntschli that the Petkoffs, are
“civilised people”, not “ignorant country folk” and adds, so that Bluntschli gets a clear
picture of how genteel they are: “We go to Bucharest every year for the opera season, and I
have spent a whole month in Vienna.” Like her parents, Raina is aware of the superior social
standing of her family; she boasts to Bluntschli that her house is equipped with all amenities
like an inside staircase. However it is their library that is the Petkoffs greatest claim to culture
and refinement – all of them are constantly boasting about it, though eventually, it turns out
to be a “single fixed shelf stocked with old paper-covered novels”. When Bluntschli asks
Petkoff to accept him as Raina’s suitor, Catherine politely turns him down, as the Petkoff
family is one of the finest families in Bulgaria, while Bluntschli is only a common soldier.
However, when they learn how wealthy he is, they are willing to overlook this difference in
social status.

The servant girl Louka has ambitions to move above her station; she is naturally rebellious
and does not show the servility expected of her class. She despises Nicola for having the soul
of a servant, and shows her independent nature by declaring that no one could put the soul of
a servant into her. Nicola warns Louka about the kind of power that the rich have when the
lower classes “try to rise out of their poverty.” Louka taunts Sergius that he dare not marry
her, as she is a servant, and he is afraid of what society would think of such a marriage. Such
taunts provoke Sergius to eventually declare his love for her. Louka, who is naturally
rebellious, has been questioning the rigidities of the class system from the beginning, and her
proposed marriage to Sergius gives her the opportunity to move to a higher station. As a
socialist, Shaw was preoccupied with class and class divisions. In this play, he depicts the
complications arising due to strict class divisions in nineteenth century Europe and the
problems encountered while trying to overcome them.

4.8 LET US SUM UP

We began this unit by looking at the reception of the play Arms and the Man and discussed
the issues which made it difficult for large sections of the audience to understand the message
of the play. In the next sections we discussed Shaw’s views on war and the satire of romantic
views of war in Arms and the Man. We also saw how this play challenges idealised
expressions of love and came to understand how, by challenging romanticised and idealised
views of love and war, this play is truly an anti-romantic comedy. The unit also briefly
discusses the issue of class and class distinctions in this play.

4.9 GLOSSARY

1. Ghastly: unpleasant.
48
2. Farce: a funny play based on ridiculous and unlikely situations.
3. Critique : to express your opinions about a work or idea; an assessment.
4. Denouement: the final part of a play in which all matters are explained or
complications resolved.
5. Jingoistic: having an attitude that one’s own country is best.
6. Disarmament: reducing the size of the army or the number of weapons of a country.
7. Pacifist: a person who believes that war and violence are wrong.
8. Parody: a piece of writing, acting etc. that deliberately copies the style of some other
work in order to amuse or ridicule.
9. Melodrama: a play in which the characters and events are so exaggerated that they do
not seem real.
10. Bravado: confident behaviour that is intended to impress.
11. Foil: a person whose qualities contrast with the qualities of another person.
12. Swashbuckling: full of action and adventure.

Unit End Questions

1. Justify the title of Arms and the Man.
2. Explain why Arms and the Man is considered to be an “anti-romantic comedy”?
3. Read any other play that deals with the theme of war, written by a playwright of
your choice. Attempt a comparative study of that play and Arms and the Man.

4.10 WORKS CITED

1. Heinz, Kosok. ‘Two Irish perspectives on World War 1: Bernard Shaw and Sean
O’Casey”. HJEAS, Vol 2 no 2, Irish Drama Issue, 1996. 17-29.
2. Innes, Christopher. Ed. A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre. Francis and Taylor,
2000.
3. Mendelsohn, Michael J. “Bernard Shaw’s Soldiers.” The Shaw Review, Vol 13,
No:1, January, 1970. 29-34. Penn State University Press.
4. O’Hara, Michael. “Arms and the Man and the Federal Theatre: Love and War in
Troubled Times.” Shaw, Vol 14, 1992. 145-152.
5. Satran, David. “The Chocolate Cream Soldier and the “Ghastly Failure’ of
Bernard Shaw’s ‘Arms and the Man’. Shaw, Vol. 28, (2008), p. 11-33 Penn
State University Press
6. Sauer, David. Only a Woman in Arms and the Man”. Shaw, Vol. 15 (1995), p.
151-166. Penn State University Press
7. Semple, W.H. “War and Peace in Virgil’s Aenid.”
www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk
8. Shaw,Bernard.Collected Letters 1874-1897, ed. Dan H. Laurence (New York:
Dodd, Mead, 1965), p.462.
9. Shaw, Bernard. “A Dramatic Realist to his Critics.” New Review, July, 1894.
10. Shaw, Bernard. Arms and the Man. Orient Blackswan, 2011.
11. Sternlicht, S. Masterpieces of Modern British and Irish Drama. Greenwood
publishers. 2005
12. Yeats, W. B. “Arms and the Man: II,” in Shaw: Interviews and Recollectionsed.
A. M. Gibbs (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990).
49
13. Yorke Stephens, “Arms and the Man: III,” in Shaw: Interviews and
Recollections, ed. A. M. Gibbs (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1990).

BLOCK 4: ALFRED TENNYSON: “MORTE D’ARTHUR”

Introduction

In previous blocks of the course, we studied the drama of Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw, and a
novel by Thomas Hardy, and in this last block we move to poetry. This block introduces you to
the poetry of Alfred Tennyson, an outstanding poet of the Victorian Age. The period of the reign
of Queen Victoria (1837 -1901) was marked by commercial expansion, industrialization and
growth of science and technology, in Britain. It was also a period that witnessed a conflict
between science and religion, especially after Charles Darwin published his work on the theory
of evolution. The writings of eminent Victorian poets such as Alfred Tennyson, Robert
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mathew Arnold, and Gerard Manley Hopkins, reflect the
intellectual and spiritual conflicts of the period.

This block focuses on Alfred Tennyson’s poem, “Morte d’Arthur”, which is based on one of
Britain’s most popular legends – that of King Arthur.

Unit 1 of the block introduces you to the Victorian age and its characteristics.
Unit 2 discusses Tennyson’s work Idylls of the King and the legend of King Arthur.
Unit 3 discusses the text of “Morte d’Arthur” and its allegorical significance.
Unit 4 analysis the major themes and symbols of the poem.

UNIT 1 THE VICTORIAN AGE

Structure:

1.0 Introduction
1.1 Aims and Objectives
1.2 The Victorian Age and its Characteristics
1.2.1 The Victorian Novel
1.2.2 Victorian Prose
1.3 Differences between Romantic and Victorian poetry
1.3.1 Romantic Poetry
1.3.2 Victorian Poetry
1.4 Differences between Victorian and Modern Poetry
1.5 Victorian Poetry with special reference to Tennyson
1.6 Summing Up
1.7 Unit end Questions
1.8 Glossary
1.9 References
1.10 Reading List

1.0 INTRODUCTION

What do we mean by the Victorian era? The Victorian Era is usually a reference to the period of
the reign of Queen Victoria between 1837 and 1901. But when we talk about the Victorian era /
Victorian age, we mean approximately the period between 1820 and 1914 i.e., a decade and a
half prior to Queen Victoria’s ascent to the British throne and similarly almost a decade and a
half after her death. To place Victorian writings (which had great names in all forms of writingprose, poetry and novel) in the history of English literature, it is necessary to recognize Victorian
literature as sandwiched between the early 19th Century Romantic literature and the early
20thcentury Modern literature. Let us first explore the characteristics of the Victorian age before
we delineate the special features of Victorian poetry through comparison and contrast with
Romantic and Modern poetry.

1.1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

This Unit introduces you to the Victorian Age and Victorian Literature. At the end of your study
of this Unit, you will be able to discuss:
* the characteristics of the Victorian Age
* the differences between Victorian poetry and its predecessor, Romantic poetry
5
* the differences between Victorian and Modern poetry and
* Victorian poetry with special reference to Lord Tennyson

1.2 THE VICTORIAN AGE AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS

Queen Victoria was the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the
Empress of India. She ruled for half a century and the period of her rule (1837-1901) is known as
the Victorian Age

QUEEN VICTORIA (source www.wikipedia.org)

Queen Victoria has remained one of the iconic queens of Great Britain. From her childhood, she
was brought up on a strict code of discipline which later gave the Victorian Age a strict code of
morality. She was multilingual and knew French, Italian, Latin and German and also some key
words and phrases of Hindustani, as that was the time when India was ruled by England.

The Victorian era was a time of rapid technological advancement and industrialization.
Electricity started to become more common, photography became a popular medium, and rail
systems spread across Britain. In 1842, Victoria became the first monarch to ride a train. Her
reign for nearly 65 years is the second longest in British history, the first being that of Queen
Elizabeth II, the present reigning monarch of England(1953-till date) i.e.67 years.

Activity:

Why do you think Queen Victoria is referred to as one of the iconic queens of Great Britain?

During Queen Victoria’s reign, the British empire expanded and reached the zenith of power and
prestige. Nearly one fourth of the world owed allegiance to the British Queen. During her reign,
Britain witnessed the Industrial Revolution which brought a strong division between the working
class and the wealthy. The wealthy grew wealthier and the poor poorer. Charles Dickens’s novels
like Oliver Twist illustrate this huge fissure in society.

Queen Victoria introduced new reforms in arts, science and politics, reforms that are still in
effect today, chief among them being the ideal of Constitutional Monarchy, political reforms,
industrial revolution and social changes . She gave attention to education and as Queen, she
followed the policy of being close to the people to understand their lives and see what positive
changes could be brought about.Victorian values were influenced to quite an extant by Queen
Victoria herself. Victorian society put a premium on morals, duty, proper behaviour and
women’s modesty. Gender rules were made and men and women were expected to adhere to
them. Men were to be the providers and women were to be homemakers who raised the family.
All these get reflected in Victorian writings.

Activity

What were the reforms introduced by Queen Victoria?

1.2.1 The Victorian Novel:

Charles Dickens is the most famous Victorian novelist whose novels like David Copperfield, The
Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist offered commentary on social problems
and in particular, the plight of the poor and the oppressed working class. William Make piece
Thackeray’s Vanity Fair depicts as well as satirizes middle-class society. The Bronte
sisters(Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and Anne Bronte), and George Eliotare among the most
celebrated women novelists. Thomas Hardy’s novels, like Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Far from the
Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, andThe Mayor of Caster bridge examine the social
constraints on the lives of those living in Victorian England and criticise those beliefs, especially
those relating to marriage, education and religion, that limited people’s lives and caused
unhappiness.

Activity: Read any novel of Charles Dickens and list out the social problems discussed in the
novel.

1.2.2 Victorian Prose

Prose writings of this period are lengthy treatises and deal with many of the Victorian problems.
They are in the nature of intellectual debates on issues of religion, philosophy, arts and politics.
Just as the 18thcentury was known as the age of Prose and Reason, the Victorian age is seen as
the age of Prose revival. In between the 18th century and the Victorian Age (the second half of
the 19thcentury), was the Romantic age(the first quarter of the 19thcentury).

18th Century(Age of Prose and Reason) Early 19th Century(Romantic period) late 19th
Century (the Victorian age).

These movements came into existence through revolt against the literary practice of the previous
era and through revival of the medieval legends and stories.

Let us briefly look at the broad features of Victorian Prose:

1. Victorian Realism:
Realism was the chief characteristic of Victorian prose, very different from the highly
imaginative prose of the Romantic Age.

2. Victorian Compromise:
The word ‘Compromise’ has many meanings.One of them is
“something that combines qualities or elements of different things.”Here‘Victorian
compromise’ relates to the combination of the positive and negative aspects of that period, of
optimism and pessimism. The positives arose out ofthe changes in the standard of living that
were brought about by the Industrial revolution and advancements in technology. Together
they contributed to Britain’s rising stature as a colonial power while the negatives related to
poverty, starvation and poor living conditions of the working class. The positives could be
seen in the objective and rational approach to issues that were once clouded by blind faith in
religion.

3. Victorian Utilitarianism:

This was first propounded by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), but his concept of Utilitarianism
came into force only during the Victorian era. Utilitarianism upheld the belief that the value
of a thing or an action is determined by its utility. In other words, the principle behind
Utilitarianism is to seek the greatest happiness of the greatest number and that this is the
measure of right and wrong of all that we do or attempt to do.

4. Agnosticism:

With the advent of science and the theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin, the belief in the
existence of God became a question mark. To believe or not to believe was thedilemma of
this period and gave rise to writings on agnosticism.

The great prose writers of this period include Thomas Carlyle(Hero and Hero Worship, Sartor
Resartus),John Ruskin(Unto this Last, Seven Lamps of Architecture), Lord Macaulay(History of
England),Matthew Arnold(Culture and Anarchy), R.L. Stevenson(Essays), John Stuart Mill(On
Liberty, On the Subjection of Women) and Walter Pater(Imaginary Portraits). Mention has been
made here of a few of their popular and celebrated works. The one thing that unites all of them is
that they were all involved in the conflicting issues of the day, such as Utilitarian ethics, political
reforms, education, growth of democracy, and Science vs Faith. In fact the Victorian age is best
defined as an age of conflict between old and new ideas in respect of science and religion, faith
and doubt, morality, rights of women etc.

To sum up, the chief characteristics of the Victorian Period were based on conflict- what is often
described as ‘Victorian Conflict’- ensuing between economic progress and prosperity as against
poverty and exploitation of the working class, between faith and doubt, between individualism as
against collective and shared responsibility and Victorian morals as against moral decay in
society.

Check Your Progress 1

a) What are the characteristics of Victorian prose?
b) Write short notes on the ‘Victorian Conflict’ and the ‘Victorian Compromise’.

1.3 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ROMANTIC AND VICTORIAN POETRY

1.3.1 Romantic poetry

As stated earlier, the Victorian age is sandwiched between the Romantic age of the early
19thcentury and the Modern age of the early 20th century. To understand Victorian poetry, let us
begin with a look at the differences in the poetry of these three periods. Let us first see what
distinguished Romantic from Victorian poetry.

The Romantic Age(1798-1830) is coterminous with the French revolution that happened
between1789 and 1799. Romantic Literature refers to the writings of the first three decades of
19thcentury Britain . The great poets associated with Romantic literature are William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bys she Shelley and John Keats.

How do we define Romanticism? As a literary and intellectual movement, it originated in
Europe coinciding with the French Revolution that supported the
motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. The goal of the Revolution was to eliminate class divisions
in the society, to do away with French monarchy and aristocracy and establish all people as
citizens with access to equal rights. Romantic poetry turned against the elite society of the
18thcentury,whose emphasis was to follow conventions, traditions and rules governing poetry. It
went counter to the neoclassical poetry which made reason and intellect the basis of all writings
.In its place Romantic poetry valued emotions and imagination. Words worth and Coleridge
defined poetry as ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” andas “emotions recollected
in tranquillity”. The key words, as you can see from these two definitions are emotion,
imagination and tranquillity. When you read the poetry of the previous century that is the 18th
century, the emphasis was on reason and logic. Even poetry that was written by poets like
Dryden and Pope approximated to prose. The early 19th century poets like Wordsworth and
Coleridge turned away from the Augustan ideals. They turned to Nature to inspire them. So the
emphasis shifted from men and society to man and Nature in its pristine glory. The experience of
joy in the presence of Nature provided them the creative and imaginative inspiration.

Romantic literature was greatly influenced by the French revolution, and its flagship slogan
“Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” made the poets celebrate the human spirit in individuals.A
majority of the protagonists in Wordsworth’s poems come from the lower rungs of society,
mainly the rural people and the lonely and the poor. For example, Wordsworth’s poems are
about the Solitary Reaper, the Idiot Boy, Lucy Gray, the Leech Gatherer- simple, innocent,
rustic, guileless people with a pristine purity very much like that of Nature. These simple
characters revealed the human spirit of courage and endurance in the most trying circumstances.
The Romantics revered and admired Nature and made Nature central to their poems. Pastoral
life, medievalism, Hellenism and supernaturalism were some of the recurring themes in their
poetry. In the introduction to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth and Coleridge stated that their aim
was to make the natural appear supernatural( we see the Spirit of Nature in Wordsworth’s poems
exalted to the Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe) and the supernatural appear natural (we see in
Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, the supernatural elements being a part of the
natural story of the mariner’s eerie experience).

1.3.2 Victorian Poetry

When we come to the second half of the 19thcentury, after the great Romantic poets had
exhausted their poetic inspiration, we have a slightly different form of poetry. Victorian poetry is
the poetry written during the period of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901). During the Victorian
age, numerous poetic ideals were developed, such as the increased use of the sonnet as
a poetic form. Some characteristics, or features, of Victorian poetry move it away from the
Romantic era poets. We have shown how the Victorian era was characterized by a class-based
society, with a growing state and economy, and a rise in Britain’s status as the imperial power.
The Victorian conflict that has been referred to is central to Victorian poetry. Its characteristics
include realism, pessimism and optimism, morality, conflict between Science and Faith, interest
in medieval legends etc.

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Check Your progress 2:

1) Explain with illustrations, the differences between Romantic and Victorian poetry.

1.4 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VICTORIAN AND MODERN POETRY

a) Modern poetry, ie. poetry written in the first three decades of the 20thcentury, was in
alignment with the Modernist slogan “Make it New”. This meant writing anew, going
against all conventional forms of writing. Victorian poetry that preceded it was closely
linked to the social thoughts and ideals that dominated the Victorian age. The main
differences between the two are “tradition vs progression, nationalism vs revisionism and
science vs faith”.2

b) Literature of the Victorian age endorsed adherence to Victorian morals. In contrast,
instead of traditional adherence to morals as emphasized by Queen Victoria, modern
writers attempted a progressive outlook on life, unencumbered by traditional morals. In
place of society and its imposition of set ideals, the modern movement laid emphasis on
individualism.

c) There came about a distinct change in the attitude towards Nature. We have seen the
difference between the Romantic approach to nature and that of the Victorian. The
Romantics had personified Nature and sought to find one to one correspondence between
Nature and man. To the Romantics, the external aspects of Nature, its beauty and
splendour corresponded to man’s physical senses, in particular the eye and the ear. The
inner glow of Nature, its harmony and tranquillity could be felt in the heart and feelings
of man while the spirit in Nature and the spirit in man were both overarched by the
Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe. The Victorians were more concerned with man and
society and related man to Nature as captured in the innocence of rural areas, far from
the madding crowd of cities and towns. The Modern poet was more interested in science
and preferred to express his / her thoughts through reason and logic. Thus we perceive a
change in the social and cultural mores between the two eras.

d) The two World Wars of the 20th century changed the outlook of the modern man who
grew sceptical about existing unquestioning faith in God or the Essence of Creation. This
led to a new philosophy called Existentialism as against Essentialism of the past. It was
no longer an acceptable axiom that all creation originates from a universal essence which
is more fundamental and immutable. In short, according to essentialism, our
existence comes out of Essence and our goal should be to reach back to that Essence.
Instead the Moderns looked at existence as the only fact that we recognize and it is for
the individual to shape his essence. Many modern writers questioned all that had been
said in the name of Faith and in the context of an Almighty God.

e) The Victorian Age saw the rise of Great Britain as an imperial force. This also bred a
sense of pride in the nation’s achievement. Nationalism was a binding force bringing the
British together. But in the Modernist period, the feelings of nationalism faded away.
Many Modernist writers questioned government and authority in general. Modernists in
Great Britain believed that the government was imperialist and responsible for wrong
doing across the world.

To sum up, the characteristics of Victorian poetry are realism, pessimism, conflict between
science and technology, nationalism, Victorian insistence on adherence to traditional morals,
interest in medieval myths and folklore, humour, and use of the Dramatic Monologue.

The main feature of modern poetry is freedom. Modern and Post-modern poets exercise the
freedom to write in any structure they choose – rhymed verse, blank verse, free verse, and they
have the freedom to experiment with new hybrid structures. As for content, there is greater
interest in individualism, science and reason, new approach to understanding the meaning of
existence and a quizzical stance towards nationalism and authoritarianism.

Check Your progress 3

1. Discuss how Victorian poetry differs from Modern Poetry.

1.5 VICTORIAN POETRY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO TENNYSON

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) is regarded as the finest Victorian poet, a true representative
of the Victorian Age. From his younger days, with his wide literary education, he wrote poems
following the style of his predecessors, notably Shakespeare and Spenser(early 17thcentury),
John Milton(late 17thcentury i.e., 1608-1674),Alexander Pope (18thcentury) and Walter Scott and
Lord Byron(early 19th century). When he was at Cambridge, he formed a close friendship with
fellow student Arthur Hallam. Six years later Hallam died and Tennyson wrote ‘In Memoriam’
mourninghis death. This was the period when Tennyson’s two brothers developed mental illness,
yet surprisingly a few of Tennyson’s masterpieces belong to this time – ‘Two Voices’, ‘Ulysses’
and ‘Morte d’ Arthur’.

In In Memoriam, Tennyson laments the loss of his close friend and the tragic loss makes him
confront the Victorian conflict between religion and science. The modern theory of Evolution
which explained evolution in terms of natural selection went against traditional faith in God and
Immortality. The new theory stated that the evolutionary process took place with change in
biological organisms over time in heritable physical and behavioural traits. Tennyson’s poems
reflected this conflict though he left it to the reader to form his own judgement. This period also
saw some of his characteristic poems- “The Two Voices”, “Ulysses,” “St. Simeon Stylites,” and,
probably, the first draft of “Morted’Arthur.” ‘Ulysses ‘is a good example of Tennyson’s dilemma
as to the function of art. The Romantics before him had made art as a subjective self expression
of their feelings and emotions. In other words art was used distinctly for arts sake i.e., that art
needs no justification, it need serve no political, didactic or other end. Ulysses depicted in the
poem desires to abdicate his responsibility as the King of Ithaca in favour of his son, Telemachus
and go on a journey in search of new knowledge, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
The question is whether his quest for personal knowledge should be at the cost of his
responsibility towards his people. The Victorian age with its attempts at reforms viewed art as
the possible means to bring about a reformation of society. Tennyson earned his laurels as a
National poet with his three poems – Ode on the Death of Duke of Wellington, Charge of the
Light Brigade at Balaklava and Maud.

The poem prescribed in your course is “Morte d’ Arthur”, one of the poems included in his Idylls
of the King .Tennyson’s poem on King Arthur was based on Book 21 of Thomas Malory’s 15th
century epic Le Morte d’ Arthur. Malory was an English writer and he wrote this classic English language chronicle of the Arthurian legend. ‘In Memoriam’ is a vast poem of 131 sections of
varying length, with a prologue and epilogue. Inspired by the grief Tennyson felt at the untimely
death of his friend Hallam, the poem touches on many intellectual issues of the period as the
author searches for the meaning of life and death and tries to come to terms with his sense of
loss.”3 Tennyson was conscious of the schism between Romantic emphasis on emotion, its
worship of Nature and beauty, and subjectivity and the Victorian ideals of objectivity, and a
constant dialogue with the intellectual and critical thoughts of the time. In “Morte d’Arthur”
Tennyson sets the narrative of Arthur’s last battle within the frame of modern life.

One of the most important and obvious characteristics of Victorian poetry was the use of sensory
elements. A majority of Victorian poets including Tennyson, used imagery and the senses to
convey the scenes of struggles between Religion and Science, to make it possible for readers to
comprehend the Victorian conflict. Alfred Tennyson lives up to this expected characteristic in
most of his works.

1.6 SUMMING UP

In this Unit, we have learnt about: Queen Victoria’s reign in Great Britain; characteristics of the
Victorian Age; features of Victorian prose and Victorian novel; comparison between Romantic
and Victorian Poetry; and the distinction between Victorian and Modern Poetry. We have also
gained some insights into Tennyson’s poems.

1.7 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1) Write a short essay on the characteristics of Victorian poetry.
2) Explain how the ‘Victorian Conflict’ is evidenced in the poems of Tennyson.

1.8 GLOSSARY

Iconic: very famous and well known, and believed to represent a particular idea
Zenith: the highest point or state; culmination; peak
Allegiance: Loyalty or the obligation of loyalty to a nation, sovereign or a cause
Fissure: split, crack, cleft
Constitutional Monarchy: a system of government in which a country is ruled by a king and
queen whose power is limited by a Constitution.
Premium: In great demand or of high value
Utilitarianism: Based on the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, it advocates the belief
that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its utility.
Agnosticism: the tenet that neither the existence nor the nature of God is known or knowable.
Pristine: pure, unspoiled, untouched
Flagship: a single item from a related group, considered as the most important
Pastoral: belonging to the countryside, rural
Hellenism: the principles and ideals associated with the ancient Greek civilization
Medievalism: strong fondness or admiration for the culture, mores, etc, of the
Middle Ages.
Supernaturalism: the condition or quality of existing outside the known
experience of man or caused by forces beyond those of nature
Individualism: Belief in the primary importance of the individual and in the
virtues of self-reliance and personal independence.
Personification: the attribution of human characteristics to things, abstract ideas, etc, as for
literary or artistic effect.
Existentialism:a modern philosophical movement stressing the importance of personal
experience and responsibility and the demands that they make on the
individual, who is seen as a free agent in a deterministic and seemingly
meaningless universe
Essentialism: a philosophical theory giving priority to the inward nature,
true substance, or constitution of something over its existence.
Organism: a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently
Heritable: that can be inherited

1.9 REFERENCES

1.https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-romantic-and-vs-victorian-poetry/
2. Michael Megirk. Victorianism vs. Modernism: Compare and Contrast
3. Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

1.10 READING LIST

Felluga, Dino Franco, et al. The Encyclopedia of Victorian Literature (2015).
Flint, Kate, ed. The Cambridge History of Victorian Literature (2014).
Horsman, Alan. The Victorian Novel (Oxford History of English Literature, 1991
Dawson, Carl (1979). Victorian High Noon: English Literature in 1850. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins U. Press.
Armstrong, Isobel. Victorian Poetry: Poetry, Poetics, and Politics.

UNIT 2 “MORTE D’ARTHUR”: READING THE TEXT

Structure

2.0 Aims and Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Tennyson’s Idylls of the King
2.3 Symbols and themes of the legend of King Arthur
2.4 The theme of Tennyson’s poem “Morte d’ Arthur”
2.5 “The Epic” and “Morte d’Arthur”
2.6 Summing Up
2.7 Glossary
2.8 Unit end Questions
2.9 References
2.10 Reading List

2.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

After studying this Unit, you will be able to discuss:

The basic characteristics of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King (of which “Morte d’Arthur” is the
eleventh book).
The theme of the original Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory.
Tennyson’s incorporation of the original poem in his “Morte d’Arthur” and
The twin poems “The Epic” and “Morte d’Arthur”

2.1 Introduction

Tennyson incorporated his poem “Morte d’Arthur” into his volume Idylls of the King, a cycle of
twelve narrative poems which he published between 1859 and 1885, retelling the story of King
Arthur and his knights and the rise and fall of his kingdom. The poem with the caption, “Morte
d’Arthur” (“The Passing of Arthur”) is the first of Tennyson’s poems to be based on Sir Thomas
Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. Tennyson had earlier written ‘The Lady of Shalott’ in 1833, but that
was not based on Thomas Malory’s work, even though it was inspired by an Arthurian legend.
Tennyson claimed that he based the poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ on an Italian work, “Donna di
Scalotta”, which was from a collection called Centro Novelle Antiche (i.e. One Hundred Ancient
Novellae). This poem represents Tennyson’s fascination for medieval literature and culture and
his early contributions to medievalism in poetry. Tennyson was always drawn towards medieval
codes of love and chivalry.

Check your progress 1

What is common between “The Lady of Shallott” and “Morte d’Arthur”?

As stated in the previous Unit(Unit 1), the figure of King Arthur in this poem, is to some extent
based on his poet-friend Lord Arthur Hallam whose tragic death deeply affected Tennyson.
Hallam is the subject of Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam. Tennyson met Hallam in 1829 and his
friendship with him was only for four years, as Hallam died in his twenty second year in
1833.Christopher Ricks writes: “The friendship of Hallam and Tennyson was swift and deep.”1
Hallam was a precocious young man, who at a young age had shown the promise of a poet with
an active mind , more original and powerful than any of his peer group. Tennyson wrote: “He
would have been known, if he had lived, as a great man but not as a great poet; he was as near
perfection as mortal man could be.”2 Hallam’s death was a significant influence on Tennyson’s
poetry. Tennyson dedicated one of his most popular poems to Hallam (In Memoriam), and
stated that the dramatic monologue “Ulysses” was “more written with the feeling of his
[Hallam’s) loss upon me than many poems in (the publication) In Memoriam.3

Activity

Read “In Memoriam” and “Ulysses” and find out how they connect with“Morte d’Arthur”.

In Memoriam A.H.H.(Arthur Henry Hallam) was written over a period of 17 years, from 1833 to
1850. Over the course of 133 cantos, it explores Alfred Lord Tennyson’s profound grief at the
death of his close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. After the initial lament, this poem along with
‘Ulysses’ and ‘The Lotos Eaters” affirmed the need to move ahead with perseverance and
optimism. Initially devastated and depressed by Hallam’s demise, Tennyson abandoned his idea
of writing an epic on Arthurian legend. Slowly he got over it and based on the legends of King
Arthur, he began a new poem “Morte d’ Arthur”. This poem also started sounding an elegiac
note over the loss of Hallam, but as the poem progressed, the mournful note of despair gave way
to a revival of the human spirit that exhorted him to proceed forward, undaunted by personal
tragedy. The poem exemplifies the heroic spirit in man who understands “the need of going
forward and to face with new hope the universal human problems of faith and impermanence”4
.
Tennyson published this along with “The Epic” providing the frame for “Morte d’Arthur” in
1842 in Idylls of the King.The poem “Morte d’Arthur” is a part of Idylls of the King.

Activity

What is the positive message that Tennyson gives through the poems discussed above?

2.2 TENNYSON’S IDYLLS OF THE KING

Tennyson’s Idylls of the King is his longest and most ambitious work. It is a collection of twelve
narrative poems, published between 1842and 1888 about the legend of King Arthur and the rise
and fall of Arthur’s kingdom. These were published in in various fragments and combinations
between 1842 and 1888. Four books, “Enid,” “Vivien,” “Elaine,” and “Guinevere”, were
published as Idylls of the King in 1859. Idylls of the King can be considered Tennyson’s magnum
opus, his biggest achievement and subscribes in many aspects to the definition of an epic poem.
The structure of an epic by definition is an extended narrative presented either in 12 or in
multiples of 12 books. Tennyson was fascinated by Thomas Malory’s work Le Morte d’Arthur
and based his poem on it. It traces the life and history of King Arthur, his lady love Guinevere,
King Arthur’s famed Round Table with his twelve knights, symbolic of equal status enjoyed by
each one of them and his final battle when he gets mortally wounded.

Why did Tennyson take up the Arthurian legend to compose the Idylls? An ‘Idyll’ refers to a
narrative poem on a grand epic or romantic theme. In the earlier Unit, you have studied how
under Queen Victoria, Britain had emerged as an imperial power and had made great advances in
new scientific discoveries. It had become a growing state with a booming economy though it also
witnessed the decline of rural England. It is a part of our human nature to glorify the past of the
nation we are born in, its rich culture and civilization, its ancient history and its mythologies.
Tennyson who was a Poet Laureate, felt he owed it to his nation to pay tribute to its glorious past
and chose the Arthurian legend for his epic narrative Idylls of the King and make the people feel
proud of their glorious inheritance.

“Tennyson sought to encapsulate the past and the present in the Idylls. Arthur in the story
is often seen as an embodiment of Victorian ideals; he is said to be “ideal manhood
closed in real man” and the “stainless gentleman.” Arthur often has unrealistic
expectations for the Knights of the Round Table and for Camelot itself, and despite his
best efforts he is unable to uphold the Victorian ideal in his Camelot.” 5

The Victorian age had its strict moral codes to follow. Any infringement of the codes evoked the
anger of the society and the citizens. In such a context, Tennyson presents Arthur as the
embodiment of the highest ideals of manhood and kingship. In the first part, ‘Dedication’, Arthur
is described as modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise, just and not swaying to this faction or to
that, with no winged ambitions, and wearing the white flower of a blameless life. He was a
simple knight among his knights. There were many in his kingdom who deemed him to be more
than a man, someone who had dropped from heaven. To Queen Victoria and her husband Albert,
the description of Arthur as an exemplary King and as an ideal man was highly flattering as it
was obvious that Tennyson had modelled his Arthur on the British monarch and her consort.

The book is divided into twelve long poems, in keeping with the requirement of an epic. It starts
with the coming of Arthur as the King of Camelot, his love for and his marriage with the
beautiful Guinevere, and his setting up of the famous Round Table exemplifying the unique
democratic ideal where the King is given the status as the first among equals. The Book
introduces all the 12 knights, including Lancelot, the best among them.

The narrative through the twelve books is woven around the betrayal of King Arthur by
Guinevere and Lancelot and the gradual disintegration of the Round Table. The last betrayal of
the king was by the son of one of the Knights, Mordred. In a battle with Mordred, Arthur is
grievously injured. Book11,“Morte d’Arthur” (The Passing of Arthur) as the heading shows,
deals with the death of Arthur. The detailed discussion of “Morte d’Arthur” will be taken up in
the next Unit (Unit 3).

The entire work Idylls of the King is about Arthur’s failed efforts to usher in a new order to lift
up mankind and create a perfect kingdom, when he dies at the hands of the traitor Mordred. The
last book “To the Queen” is where Tennyson, the Poet Laureate praises Queen Victoria and her
recently deceased Prince consort, Albert, after whom he had modelled Arthur, and prays that
she, like Arthur, is remembered as a great ruler long after her reign is over.

In a nutshell, the story of King Arthur is one of the most popular legends in medieval history.
There are a number of stories and pieces of literature written about King Arthur’s reign. Among
them is Morte d’ Arthur, written by Sir Thomas Malory first published in 1485. Malory’s work
is written in Middle English. It is a reworking of existing tales about the legendary King Arthur,
Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table. Although King Arthur tried to
maintain structure and order as a king, betrayal by the people closest to him eventually led to his
demise.

Check Your Progress 2

Why did Tennyson choose the Arthurian legend as the subject for his Idylls of the King?

2.3 SYMBOLS AND THEMES OF THE LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR

Major themes from the legend of King Arthur are deception, trust, betrayal, and love. There are
also some symbols like the quest for the Holy Grail and the Round Table that are associated with
King Arthur’s legend. The Holy Grail in European medieval legend, refers to the bowl or chalice
with unusual powers that confers happiness and is therefore much sought after by medieval
knights. It is identified with the bowl used by Jesus in his Last Supper and given to Joseph of
Arimathea who brought it to Britain where it lay hidden for many centuries. Joseph had been
given the responsibility of Jesus’s burial after his Crucifixion. The search for that miraculous
chalice became the principal quest of Arthur’s knights. The Holy Grail in Arthur’s legend
became symbolic not only of spiritual perfection, but also the human perfection which
Arthur believed was fundamental to humanity. Hence the most repetitive theme in the Arthurian
legend is that of a journey, or quest. Knights of King Arthur’s Round Table, the ablest and
bravest in Arthur’s kingdom have a strong desire to seek adventure, to do noble deeds, and to
find glory within the most difficult of circumstances. It is pertinent to remember that Tennyson, a
Victorian poet used this theme of seeking knowledge in his poem “Ulysses”, a monologue where
the protagonist Ulysses speaks of going on a quest: “To follow knowledge like a sinking star /
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought…To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Yet another major symbol associated with the Arthurian legend is the Round Table, around
which he and his knights congregate. As the name suggests, it has no head, implying that
everyone who sits there has equal status. Arthur who sits with his choice selection of twelve
knights, considers himself the first among equals. The beginnings of an ideal democratic
monarchy can be seen best exemplified by the concept of the Round Table. Arthur created the
Round Table to prevent quarrels among his barons, none of whom would accept a lower place
than the others, because only the most distinguished and valiant knights enjoyed the privilege of
fellowship of the Round Table and therefore would not like to have anyone occupying a higher
seat. The Knights thus had a distinctive identity of their own and also were a part of a collective
personality. In course of time, the Round Table came to symbolise the code of chivalry, a code
that inspired people from far off distant lands to follow it. The symbolism of the chivalric
order was closely allied to Arthur’s court and his Knights of the Round Table. The term chivalry
has since then been associated with gallantry and honour that these Knights were expected to
follow.

The Round Table was supposedly patterned after a table made to commemorate the Last Supper
of Jesus Christ. One of the seats at that table was left empty to symbolize Judas, the apostle who
betrayed Jesus. Here also we have a parallel that covers the betrayal of King Arthur by Lancelot,
one of the twelve Knights at the Round Table and also the greatest among them. He betrayed the
trust Arthur had reposed in him by his relationship with Guinevere, who was Arthur’s Queen.
Lancelot’s love for Guinevere and his betrayal is presented alongside similar unholy affairs of
other Knights of the Round Table. The betrayal of the king by Lancelot, the usurpation of his
kingdom by Mordred, the son of another of the twelve Knights, brought Arthur close to his death
and led to the decline of the Round Table. King Arthur dies in the battle he fought with Mordred.

Apart from betrayal, the other factors that led to the fall of King Arthur was evisceration of trust.
The two people, Guinevere and Lancelot whom King Arthur trusted the most betrayed him.
Lancelot’s deception in particular was instrumental in the collapse of honour, gallantry and
chivalry which the Round Table had stood for. One more theme focused by the legend is that of
‘Love’’ first shown in the relationship between King Arthur and Guinevere prior to her affair
with Lancelot and then again between Lancelot and Guinevere. Thus the central theme of
Malory’s Morte d’ Arthur on which Tennyson modelled his Idylls of the King is loyalty and its
expression in chivalry.

Check Your progress 3

1. What are the characteristic features of the Arthurian legend?
2. Discuss the symbols related to the Round Table with specific reference to King Arthur.

2.4 THE THEME OF TENNYSON’S POEM “MORTE D’ARTHUR”

The above background will enable you to place the poem “Morte d’Arthur” in the Idylls of the
King. While Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, is in 21 books, Tennyson’s poem is a retelling of the
third, fourth and fifth chapters of the twenty-first book of Malory’s romance that dealt with the
legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table. While
Tennyson wrote the first draft of the poem in 1835 and completed the final version in 1842, he
included it in his Idylls of the King after fifteen years – in 1856-57. This poem is about the death
(“morte”) of King Arthur.

2.5 “THE EPIC”AND “MORTE D’ ARTHUR”

Tennyson published “Morte d’Arthur” within the framework of another poem, “The Epic”.
“Morte d’Arthur” is sandwiched between two sections of “The Epic”. The first section comprises
fifty-one lines and the second, thirty lines. The structure of the poem is:

“The Epic”(51lines) “Morte d’Arthur”  “The Epic” (30 lines).

Thus “The Epic” serves both as a Prologue and an Epilogue to “Morte d’Arthur”.

The poem is a personal statement of Tennyson, expressing his grief over the death of his close
friend Arthur Henry Hallam. Tennyson and Hallam while studying in Cambridge with a select
circle of friends often felt the lack of spiritual values in their time. They turned to literature to
sustain them in an arid world which was predominantly an age of science and its discoveries in
all branches such as physics, astronomy, natural history, medicine and biology. With his love for
poetry and medieval legends, Tennyson first conceived of the idea of an Arthurian epic in the
1830s in the context of his Cambridge circle of friends, which included Hallam.

Tennyson had begun to study Malory’s work in 1833 when news came of Hallam’s sudden
death. Tennyson did not stop writing poetry in the months and years right after his friend’s death,
but rather composed or began some of his most famous works, such as “Ulysses” and
“Tithonus.” Then Tennyson started working on “Morte d’Arthur” by the end of the year. The
first draft is deeply personal and, as critic Marcia Culver notes, it is “as if Tennyson released his
darkest vision of death in this one poem.” The brotherhood of Arthur and Bedivere parallels the
deep friendship of Tennyson and Hallam, and the profound grief of their severance is manifest in
the utter lack of faith or hope Bedivere experiences at the poem’s close.

Tennyson continued to work on the poem over the decade;“the restrained consolations and weary
peace Tennyson finally achieved … evolved only gradually, with time and revision [and] over a
period of many years, the “Morte d’Arthur” was transformed and enriched by the emergence of
new dimensions of hope and ethical concern.” In particular, the second draft has the intimations
of immortality of the King. This, of course, has biblical allusions, but it is also a meaningful and
poignant wish for the immortality of Tennyson’s cherished friend.

As shown above, “Morte d’Arthur” is framed within another poem, “The Epic,” written in 1842.
A poet, a clergyman and the narrator of the poem meet on Christmas Eve at a friend’s place for
drinks. As they discuss about the gradual loss of faith and sanctity associated with Christmas, the
narrator comes out with a suggestion that poetry can be a substitute for faith and religion. They
recall the poet writing an Arthurian epic in twelve books and the host interjects saying that the
poet had burnt all his books because he felt he had nothing new to say. The host however says he
had salvaged the eleventh book and requests the poet to read it out. The Arthurian legend is made
interesting as the poet adds modern touches to the classical story. The narrator goes to bed and
dreams of Arthur: “And so to bed, where yet in sleep I seemed to sail with Arthur.” He dreams of
a boat carrying Arthur back to the present like a modern gentleman as all the people gather
around him to welcome him as the harbinger of peace. Then, the narrator hears the sound of “a
hundred bells” and wakes to the church bells on Christmas morning.

The poem “The Epic ”serves as the frame for Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur” which he wrote as
early as 1833. It is this poem that becomes the concluding part of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King
that he published after another half a century. The poem is written in blank verse as blank verse
is appropriate to detail the conversation between friends. In fact, the Idylls is also written in
blank verse. But in the Idylls Tennyson only keeps the poem “Morte d’Arthur” and discards “The
Epic” as it has nothing to do with the Arthurian legend.

According to the critic Angela O’Donnell, the conversational tone of “The Epic” is a
counterpoint to the heroic language in which “Morte d’Arthur” has been written. What is
important to note is that “The Epic” gives a modern touch as the loss of faith which the four
friends speak of in the initial lament, gets restored as they listen to the heroic story of King
Arthur. Their faith in God and humanity is revived as they listen to the story where Arthur is
shown to achieve Christ-like immortality. J.S. Lawry writes, “the poem ends by driving its point
of Christian revival so insistently that the other recoveries of faith may be missed. The faith of
heroic ages in human greatness is recovered and validated through the ‘rapt’ response of a
modern audience to the hero, Arthur.”6

2.6 SUMMING UP

In this Unit, we have placed “Morte d’Arthur” within the frame of Tennyson’s magnum opus The
Idylls of the King. We discussed the theme of The Idylls of the King, its basic characteristics, the
symbols and themes of the Arthurian legend, the framing of the poem “Morte d’Arthur” and the
close connection between “The Epic” and “Morte d’Arthur”.

2.7 Glossary

Medieval Literature: Literature belonging to the Middle Ages, works written in Latin or the
vernacular (English and European languages)between c. 476-1500 CE, including philosophy,
religious treatises, legal texts, as well as works of the imagination.

Medievalism: strong fondness or admiration for the culture, mores, etc, of the Middle Ages.

Precocious: unusually advanced or mature in mental development or talent

Dramatic Monologue: a poem in the form of a speech or narrative by an imagined person, in
which the speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of their character while describing a particular
situation or series of events.

Elegiac: experiencing or expressing sorrow especially that associated with irreparable loss.

Magnum Opus: the greatest single work of a writer, or an artist or a composer.

Poet Laureate: an eminent poet appointed as a member of the British Royal household, the
nation’s poet.

Judas: Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles, who betrayed his master to the authorities.
This act led to the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Judas betrayed Jesus to the religious authorities
for 30 pieces of silver.

The Last Supper: the final meal that, in the Gospel accounts (the Bible), Jesus shared with his
apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion.

Evisceration:to take away a vital or essential part of; weaken, damage, destroy.

Blank Verse: unrhymed verse.

2.8 UNIT END QUESTIONS:

1. Write a note on the theme of the Idylls of the King and place “Morte d’Arthur” within its
frame.
2. Comment on the connection between “The Epic” and “Morte d’Arthur”.

2.9 REFERENCES

1. C. Ricks Tennyson, Macmillan, London, 1972.
2. H. Tennyson, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by His Son, New York, MacMillan, 1897
3. ibid
4. Marcia C. Culver, The Death and Birth of an Epic: Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur”, Victorian
Poetry Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), pp. 51-61
5. Tucker, Herbert F. (1991). “”The Epic Plight of Troth in Idylls of the King.””. ELH. 58: 701–
720.
6. J. S. Lawry. “Tennyson’s “The Epic”: A Gesture of Recovered Faith”, Modern Language
Notes, Vol. 74, No. 5 (May, 1959), pp. 400-403.

2.10 READING LIST

1. Stephen H. A. Shepherd, ed., Le Morte d’Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory, New York: W.W.
Norton, 2004.
2. “Malory’s Morte d’Arthur” and “Style of the Morte d’Arthur”. Selections by Alice D.
Greenwood with bibliography from the Cambridge History of English Literature.
3. “Morte d’Arthur.” The Cambridge History of English Literature. A.W Ward, A.R Waller. Vol
II. Cambridge: UP, 1933. Print.
5. Bangor University. “Stories of King Arthur and the Round Table.” arthurianstudies.bangor.ac.uk.
24

UNIT 3 TEXT AND ANALYSIS OF “MORTE D’ARTHUR”

Structure

3.0 Aims and Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Text
3.3 Summary of the poem
3.4. Line by line analysis of the poem
3.5 Summing Up
3.6 Unit end Questions
3.7 Glossary
3.8 References

3.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

As we have already discussed in the previous unit, Tennyson’s poem “Morte d’Arthur” is part of
his Arthurian epic which he titled The Idylls of the King. The Idylls, in keeping with the epic
tradition, comprises twelve books of which “Morte d’Arthur” (“The Passing of Arthur”) is the
eleventh Book.
After studying this Unit, you will be able to

* critically analyse the poem “Morte d’Arthur”
* discuss the main themes of the poem and
* explain the link between the poem and the Victorian Age.

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Tennyson is regarded as one of the greatest poets of Victorian England. He was made the Poet
Laureate of Britain in 1850. He is referred to as Alfred Lord Tennyson because he was honoured
with the title Baron and Barons were always known by their title, Lord.

As already mentioned, “Morte d’Arthur”, or “The Death Of Arthur”, is rated as the best among
the twelve books in Tennyson’s epic, The Idylls of the King. The Idylls is based on Sir Thomas
Malory’s medieval work of the same name, Le Morte d’Arthur. Sir Thomas Malory had
translated it from French. King Arthur was a legendary British leader who is believed to have led
the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. He was a
unifying force and loved by his people. Arthur, sometimes known as ‘the king that was and the
king that shall be’, is recognised all over the world as one of the most famous figures of British
myth and legend.

“The adventures of the legendary King Arthur, with his Round Table Fellowship of
Knights based in the mythical city of Camelot, were told and retold between the 11th and
15th centuries in hundreds of manuscripts in at least a dozen languages. “What place is
there within the bounds of the Empire of Christendom to which the winged praise of
Arthur the Briton has not extended?” wrote the 12th-century chronicler Alanus ab Insulis
(or Alain de Lille). Today Arthurian stories are told in English, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Icelandic, Dutch, Russian, and even Hebrew.”1

The Round Table is a famous concept of the Arthurian legend. The table at which Arthur and his
12 knights are seated, is round, in the likeness of the world. The Knights who sat at the table are
the bravest and truest knights who along with King Arthur are given the task of governing the
subjects fairly and justly.

The greatest task undertaken by Arthur’s knights is the quest for the grail, a mysterious vessel
linked to the story of Jesus Christ; it is believed to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper,
and afterwards by Joseph of Arimathea, to collect the blood that flowed from the Saviour as his
body was taken down from the cross. The grail became a holy relic sought by mystics and heroes
– and most famously, by Arthur’s fellowship. Many knights perished and weakened both the
Round Table and Arthur’s court, preparing the way for the dark days to come when Mordred rose
up against Arthur, and ended the dream of Camelot.

Though his end was tragic, King Arthur is celebrated today as a heroic figure, and his story can be
seen even today, depicted in the hallowed halls of the British Parliament. Thus this poem is about
King Arthur and his chivalry and therefore it serves as a model to rulers who are given the task
to rule in an equitable and just manner. The name of King Arthur had been a source of pride for
Britain in the Middle Ages and the Arthurian legends were known as ‘The Matter Of Britain’.
Tennyson brought the legend forward from the Middle Ages to the Victorian era and thereby
illustrated through his poem the enduring appeal of the Arthurian legend. To the Victorians who
were celebrating the greatness and expansiveness of Great Britain, this poem held a powerful
inspiration.

3.2 TEXT OF THE POEM “MORTE D’ARTHUR”

So all day long the noise of battle roll’d 1
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep, 5
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a nigh the field
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 10
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
“The sequel of to-day unsolder
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof thisworld holds record. Such a sleep
they sleep – the men I loved I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls 20
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,—
Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more—but let what will be, be,
I am so deeply smitten thro’ the helm 25
That without help I cannot last till morn.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 30
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
Holding the sword—and how I row’d across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king:
And, wheresoever I am sung or told
In aftertime, this also shall be known: 35
But now delay not: take Excalibur,
And fling him far into the middle mere
Watch what thou seëst, and lightly bring me word.”
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
“It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 40
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm.
A little thing may harm a wounded man.
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.”
So saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept 45
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 50
Came on the shining levels of the lake.
There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,
And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon,
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 55
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth work
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood,
This way and that dividing the swift mind, 60
In act to throw: but at the last it seem’d
Better to leave Excalibur conceal’d
There in the many-knotted water-flags,
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.
So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 65

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
“Hast thou perform’d my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?”

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 70
“I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag.”
To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:
“Thou hast betray’d thy nature and thy name,
Not rendering true answer, as beseem’d 75
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight:
For surer sign had follow’d, either hand,
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again 80
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.”
Then went Sir Bedivere the second time
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,
Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought; 85
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote
His palms together, and he cried aloud,
“And if indeed I cast the brand away,
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 90
Should thus be lost forever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
What good should follow this, if this were done?
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 95
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
An act unprofitable, against himself?
The King is sick, and knows not what he does.
What record, or what relic of my lord
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 100
And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept,
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,

Some one might show it at a joust of arms,
Saying, ‘King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake; 105
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.’
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people, winning reverence.
But now much honour and much fame were lost.” 110
So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King.
Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:
“What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?” 115
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
“I heard the water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds.” 120
To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:
“Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow’d of the power in his eye 125
That bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art,
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,
In whom should meet the offices of all,
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;
Either from lust of gold, or like a
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
I will arise and slay thee with my hands.” 135
Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch’d the sword,
And strongly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand
Madelightnings in the splendour of the moon, 140
And flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the northern sea.
Soflash’d and fell the brand Excalibur:145
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.
And lightly went the other to the King. 150
Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:
“Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?”

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
“Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 155
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men,
So great a miracle as yonder hilt.
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; 160
But when I look’d again, behold an arm,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.”
And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 165
“My end draws nigh; ‘t is time that I were gone.
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.”
So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 170
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere
Remorsefully regarded thro’ his tears,
And would have spoken, but he found not words, 175
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,
O’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,
And rising bore him thro’ the place of tombs.
But, as he walk’d, King Arthur panted hard,
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 180
When all the house is mute. Sosigh’d the King
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, “Quick, quick!
fear it is too late, and I shall die.”
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk’d 185
Larger than human on the frozen hills.
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.
Dry clash’d his harness in the icy caves
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 190
The bare black cliff clang’d round him, as he based
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels—

And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon 195
Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
Beneath them; and descending they were ware
That all the decks were dense with stately forms
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream—by these 200
Three Queens with crowns of gold—and from them rose
A cry that shiver’d to the tingling stars,
And, as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 205
Or hath come, since the making of the world.
Then murmur’d Arthur, “Place me in the barge,”
And to the barge they came. There those three Queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she that rose the tallest of them all 210
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,
And loosed the shatter’d casque, and chafed his hands,
And call’d him by his name, complaining loud
And dropping bitter tears against his brow
Stripedwithdark blood: for all his face was white
And colourless, and like the wither’d moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;
And all his greaves and cuisses dash’d with drops
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls—
That made his forehead like a rising sun 220
High from the daïs-throne—were parch’d with dust;
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,
Mix’d with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
So like a shatter’d column lay the King;
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro’ the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.
Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 230
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight.
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.
But now the whole Round Table is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world;

And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,240
Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”
And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 245
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 250
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 255
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seëst—if indeed I go 260
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 265
And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 270
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away. 275

3.3 SUMMARY

In the previous Unit, we had clubbed this poem with another poem by Tennyson, “The Epic”. In
“The Epic,” we find a poet celebrating Christmas Eve with three of his friends. One of them says
that the poet, for reasons best known to him had burnt all the books that he had written on the
Arthurian legend, except one which was saved by him. He asks the poet to read out from that
32
book. This is the poem “Morte d’Arthur”, written about the death of King Arthur. The poet
narrates the story of the dying moments of King Arthur, after his final battle with Mordred, the
betrayer and usurper of his throne. The situation is grim as all Arthur’s Knights of the Round
Table are already killed. Arthur himself is mortally wounded, and is borne by the last surviving
knight, Sir Bedivere, to a ruined chapel near a lake.

3.4 LINE BY LINE ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

Lines 1-38
King Arthur reminisces about the glorious days of the past as he tells Bedivere that there will
never be another place as great as Camelot. Camelot in the Arthurian legend is a mythical castled
city in Great Britain, where King Arthur held court. It is important because it is the location of
Arthur’s round table and his knights.
Arthur says he is so badly wounded that he may not survive till the next morning and so he asks
Bedivere to take his sword, Excalibur, throw it into the middle of the lake, and watch what
happens. Years ago, Arthur had obtained this iconic sword from a white silk-clad arm, holding it
out of the same lake. The sword gains power when wielded by a skilled warrior like King Arthur
and since his time, has retained its legendary reputation in every story which features it. This
mythological sword is identified with a single hero and the hero has to take care that it should not
fall into the hands of an enemy owing to its inherent power. Hence King Arthur at the moment of
his death calls the only surviving loyal knight, Sir Bedivere and hands him the sword with his
order that it should be returned to the Lady of the Lake, the source from where it came rather
than be entrusted to whichever knight – no matter how noble – might succeed Arthur as king.
Lines 39-65
Bedivere doesn’t want to leave Arthur alone, but he obeys. He walks in the moonlight through a
graveyard to the edge of the lake. When he draws out Excalibur, the jewels on the hilt sparkle in
the moonlight It appears to be so precious, that he prefers to hide the sword than to throw it into
the lake as ordered by King Arthur.
Lines 66-82
When he returns, Arthur asks if he did as commanded and asked him what he heard and saw.
Bedivere tells a lie that he heard the sound of a ripple and the wild water hitting the crag as
though he had thrown the sword into the water. King Arthur knows that the sword cannot fall into
water because it will be caught by an arm rising from the water. He admonishes Bedivere for
lying because had he thrown the sword as he was told, he would have got another sign almost like
a miracle. So Arthur tells Bedivere to go again and do as commanded.

Lines 83-113
The sword is such a beautiful piece that Bedivere feels it a terrible thing to lose it forever. It has a
history of having been shaped for nine years before it was given to Arthur. If the sword
disappears forever when thrown into the lake waters, it will not be seen by anyone who can tell
the story of the sword to future generations. He wonders what harm will accrue if he does not
carry out his King’s orders as the sick King does not know what he does. While implicit
obedience is the rule of law, when the King’s orders may not prove profitable to the King,
Bedivere feels that there is nothing wrong in going against the King’s command. He returns to the
King a second time without accomplishing the task his master had given him.
Lines 114-150
He answers in much the same way when the King asks him if he had done as he was asked to do.
The King gets angry and sad that his one surviving Knight has also turned disloyal and has failed
to execute the authority of the King. He reprimands him for his disobedience and asks him again
to go back to the lake once more and fling the sword into it. Bedivere then runs and flings the
sword over the lake, where it whirls and flashes like lightning before being caught by an arm clad
in white silk. The arm brandishes Excalibur three times before drawing it down into the water.
Lines 151-164
When Bedivere returns to Arthur, the king asks him what he has seen or heard. Bedivere answers
that this time he deliberately closed his eyes to escape the temptation of holding back the
beautiful sword and threw it into the lake. When he opened his eyes again, he saw an arm
catching and brandishing the sword.
Lines 164-206
Then Arthur asks Bedivere to carry him to the lake before he dies. Bedivere, in tears, carries
Arthur through the graveyard. They go along the rocky path until they finally reach the lake.
There they see a large black barge filled with black-clad forms and three gold-crowned queens.
They hear a great cry of lamentation “like a wind, that shrills / All night in a waste land.”
Lines 206-228
Arthur tells Bedivere to place him on the barge. The three queens take him. One of them, the
tallest, places his head on her lap, loosens his helmet, and calls him by name, crying. Arthur looks
lifeless “like a shatter’d column,” not like the king he was.
Lines 229-241
Bedivere then asks Arthur where he should go: “For now I see the true old times are dead / When
every morning brought a noble chance.” He realizes what has been lost with the end of the Round
Table and despairs of the dark days ahead. He is left companionless and dreads the future where
he will be thrown among new men, strange faces and other minds.
Lines 242-275
Arthur answers things are meant to change. The old order changes for the new, says King Arthur.
He tells Bedivere to pray for his soul, for men are no better than sheep or goats if they do not
pray. He says “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” The king asks him
to pray for his soul, and then tells Bedivere that he is going to Avilion, a kind of paradise, where
his wound will be healed. The barge sails across the lake and into the distance, while Bedivere
looks on, until the wailing dies away

3.4.2 Analysis of the poem

This narrative poem, written in blank verse, is based on an episode in Arthurian legend and told
most memorably in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, a prose compilation of Arthurian
legend first published in 1485. Tennyson uses some archaic diction to lend the narrative a sense
of antiquity, for example, words like “spake,” “thou,” “thee,” and “hast.”
The poem is semi-autobiographical. It is inspired by the personal loss suffered by Tennyson after
the death of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam. Arthur Henry Hallam, died suddenly at the age
of 22 in 1833. This was the time Tennyson had decided to write a poem on the Arthurian legend.
Hence one can feel the sense of sadness and despair when Bedivere loses his King Arthur: “Ah!
My Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? / … For now I see the true old times are dead”.
The events of the poem take place after Arthur’s war with the traitorous Mordred. In the battle,
though Mordred is killed, King Arthur is also left mortally wounded. All his Knights of the
Round Table except for Sir Bedivere are dead. The battle has led to the destruction of the Round
Table and the glory that was Camelot. Arthur mournfully affirms there will never again be a place
like Camelot. Tennyson, the Victorian poet is here providing the inspiration to the people of his
times who looked for legends from the ancient days, that spoke about the glory of Britain. Such
chivalric deeds were represented in the Arthurian legends and hence Tennyson’s choice of Sir
Thomas Malory’s Morte D’Arthur on which he based his poem.

Sir Bedivere is the model of a loyal follower. He tries to obey his lord even when it goes against
his better judgment. He carries the Excalibur through an ancient graveyard, in cold winds, over
sharp rocks, in obedience to King Arthur’s orders. But Bedivere’s loyalty is put to test when the
beauty and richness of the sword’s hilt make him hesitant to throw it into the lake and lose it
forever. He finds himself rationalizing why he should disobey his king. But King Arthur is hurt
that the last loyal soldier Bedivere has also turned against him, signalling his own waning
authority as king: “Authority forgets a king, / Laid widow’d of the power in his eye / That bow’d
the will.” But Bedivere proves his loyalty after his two initial hesitant attempts. Arthur is pleased
and makes one more request to take him to the lake before he dies. Tennyson highlights the
difficulty of the journey through his evocative use of harsh words: “The bare black cliff clang’d
round him, as he based / His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang / Sharp-smitten with the dint of
armed heels.”
In Malory’s story, there were three queens on the barge. These queens would carry Arthur to
Avilion. There they would supposedly heal his wound so that he may one day return to rule
Britain once more. Tennyson evokes a clear image of the mortally wounded Arthur being wailed
over by the weeping women. This image and the suggestion that he will be healed and will return
to power, suggests a comparison to the story of Jesus after the crucifixion.
Bedivere’s understanding of what is lost with the departure of Arthur ends the poem. But Arthur
had earlier offered him reassurance that change is natural: “The old order changeth, yielding place
to new.” The poem ends on that note of hope and optimism where the inevitability of change
heralds the arrival of a new order.

3.4.2 Allegorical Significance

Tennyson, the Poet Laureate of Britain desired to kindle the national pride of fellow Englishmen
and showcase the ideals that Victorians identified themselves with. He chose the Arthurian legend
as his theme, since King Arthur embodied those ideals far back in his days before the Norman
conquest of 1066. King Arthur was celebrated in all the medieval legends as an exemplary ruler.
Tennyson transposes the past onto the present to make the ideal Arthurian monarchy illustrative
of Queen Victoria’s rule. Arthur is said to be “ideal manhood closed in real man” and the
“stainless gentleman.” His idea of the Round Table where he sat with his Knights is an example of
his democratic concept of the King as the first among equal knights. Arthur thus was a democratic
monarch whose round table was itself a democratic institution. Thus King Arthur was looked
upon as the prototype of a good monarch.

Through the presentation of King Arthur, Tennyson sought to project Queen Victoria as an ideal
monarch. Those who know British history will understand that Queen Victoria was the matriarch
of the British Empire. She epitomised the values of the era and carved out a new role for the
monarchy. During her 63-year reign, a length surpassed only by the current Queen (Queen
Elizabeth II), Victoria presided over the social and industrial transformation of Britain, as well as
expansion of the empire. But at the end, Arthur was disappointed and betrayed by the Knights. To
his dismay he realized his expectations from them were unrealistic and he could not uphold the
ideals he had established for himself and the Knights.

3.5 SUMMING UP

In this Unit, we have discussed a brief summary of the poem followed by textual analysis. The
main features of the Arthurian legend and its recreation in Tennyson’s poem are also discussed.
The allegorical significance of this poem for Victorian society is also brought out in this unit.

3.6 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1. Write a note on the concept of King Arthur’s Round Table.
36
2. How are Arthur’s final lines “The old order changeth, yielding place to new” personally
significant for Tennyson?
3. Write a note on the poem as an allegory of Victorian ideals.

3.7 GLOSSARY

Medieval: Relating or belonging to the Middle Ages.
Legendary: celebrated in fable or legend (an unverified story handed down from earlier times,
especially one popularly believed to be historical.
Nigh: close to
Chancel:the space around the altar of a church for the clergy and sometimes the choir, often enclo
sed by a lattice or railing.
Saxon: Germanic tribal groups from Northern Germany that invaded Britain in the 5th and 6th
centuries AD.
Unsolder: remove
Sware: swore
Samite: a heavy silk fabric interwoven with gold or silver and worn in the Middle Ages.
Hest: Command
Athwart: from one side to the other, across
Haft: the handle of an axe or knife
Myriad: innumerable
Topaz: a gemstone in yellow colour
Jacinth: red colour hyacinth flower. Here used to refer to gemof this colour.
Marge(here used in its old meaning) : margin
Beseem: befit
Fealty: loyalty, allegiance
Lief: really, willingly
Casque: helmet, armour worn to protect the head
Greaves: residue left behind after removal of fat
Cuisses: medieval armour worn to protect the thigh
Plume: a large fluffy feather- a token of achievement
Avillion: described by Tennyson as an island valley with ideal weather and fertile land.
Blank Verse: Unrhymed verse in Iambic pentameters. Iambic pentameter refers to the pattern or
rhythm of a line of poetry or verse and has to do with the number of syllables in the line and the
emphasis placed on those syllables.
Prototype: An original type or form serving as a standard
Archetype: Something that serves as a model
Everyman: an allegorical figure who represents all of mankind

3.8 REFERENCES

1.www.historyextra.com>period>medieval
37

UNIT 4 “MORTE D’ARTHUR”:THEMES AND SYMBOLS

Structure
4.0 Aims and Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2Themes of the poem “Morte d’Arthur”
4.3 Symbols and their significance in “Morte d’Arthur”
4.4 Characters in the poem
4.5 Summing Up
4.6 Unit end Questions
4.7 Glossary
4.8 References

4.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

After studying this concluding Unit on “Morte d’Arthur”, you will be able to discuss:
 The themes of the poem and their relevance to the Victorian Age
 The significance of the symbols and allusions in the poem
 The two central characters, King Arthur and Sir Bedivere.
The aim is to critically understand and appreciate the poem by interweaving the themes, symbols
and characters with the story and show how the early Arthurian period is transposed to the
Victorian period when Tennyson wrote the poem. You will have to read this Unit alongside the
poem that is given in the previous Unit (Unit 3).

4.1 INTRODUCTION

Tennyson’s poem “Morte d’Arthur” is the eleventh book in his magnum opus The Idylls of the
King, an epic narrative in twelve books. Though this is the eleventh book, this can also be read as
a stand-alone poem without linking it to the rest of the epic. This is because the poem is
remarkable for its presentation of King Arthur and his final dialogue with his last loyal knight Sir
Bedivere. The poem marks both an end and a beginning for Tennyson – it is a poem that deals
with Tennyson’s personal grief over the death of his friend Arthur Hallam and when he included
it in the epic The Idylls of the King, it seems to signal the beginning of a new creative period in
Tennyson’s life. What begins as a lament over the loss of a close friend, ends with an affirmation
that life has to go on where the old order changes and gives birth to a new order.
The idea of writing an epic on King Arthur is due to the interest Tennyson and his Cambridge
companions had developed towards medieval values which they felt were missing in their times,
i.e. the Victorian Age. Tennyson was greatly influenced by medievalism and the values it
represented. These were values such as valour, loyalty, personal honour, and chivalry. Tennyson
decided to write an epic poem based on the Arthurian legend, but this was cut short when Hallam
died, leaving Tennyson in a state of depression. But when he returned to the story of King Arthur
(as narrated by Sir Thomas Malory in 1485 in the medieval period), he discovered the
significance of King Arthur’s last courageous words to his loyal knight, Sir Bedivere. It made
him realize the need to courageously march on and not surrender to personal grief such as that
caused by his friend’s death. This poem thus marks an important section of his epic The Idylls of
the King as it inducts the medieval values onto his contemporary times.
Tennyson understood that there was no option but to face the universal problem of life that
affects every human being – the impermanence of life, the undeniable fact of mortality summed
up in the proverb “here today and gone tomorrow”. The courage to face the timeless recurrence
of death that hangs over life is possible through recourse to faith in God and spiritual values. The
poem presents this theme of facing death by revealing Sir Bedivere’s mental agitation over the
impending death of his King and his own survival thereafter. The symbols Tennyson uses are
those of the Round Table and the sword Excalibur while the themes are those of loyalty to the
King and acceptance of death as signaling the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.

4.2 THEMES OF THE POEM “MORTE D’ ARTHUR”

“Morte d’Arthur” is the most well known poem in The Idylls of the King. This poem deals with
the death of the legendary British king Arthur, and King Arthur’s last command to his loyal
knight Sir Bedivere to deposit his sword Excalibur in the lake from where he had first received it.
Sir Bedivere hesitates to throw the sword on finding it to be elegant and beautiful and feels it
should not be lost in the lake thereby denying future generations the chance to experience its
splendour. He also feels that it should be preserved as a reminder of the glory of the King who
possessed it. King Arthur’s insists and commands for the third time that it should be thrown in
the lake, as Sir Bedivere had failed to obey him twice earlier. Sir Bedivere executes his King’s
command when he discovers that the sword thrown into the lake is grasped by an arm clothed
in white that rises from the lake and disappears with it under the water. Arthur requests Sir
Bedivere to place him on a barge where three queens attend on Arthur and all of them sail off
to the isle of Avilion, leaving Sir Bedivere to accept the truth that the old order is over and has
yielded to a new one.

If this poem is read alongside Tennyson’s life, we will discover that just as Sir Bedivere finally
accepts a new order in the place of the old order of King Arthur, Tennyson reconciles himself to
the death of his friend Arthur Hallam and moves on. Christopher Ricks in his biographical study
of the poet, wrote that “Morte d’Arthur” endeavours “to imagine and depict a person left alone
after Arthur’s death as Tennyson was after his Arthur’s.”1
(Tennyson’s Arthur is Arthur Hallam).
Hence the theme that is central to the poem is acceptance of human mortality and the acceptance
of a new life that displaces the old by a new order- in short acceptance of transition to different
phases of life, with courage and equanimity. This is conveyed first by King Arthur who
recognizes the passing of a golden era that he had established- the era of the Round Table and
loyal Knights, the era of chivalry and ideal governance, the era of glory and success he had
personally attained during his kingship.“Morte d’Arthur” is a poem about the passing of not only
a great man, but also of a great period in history. An important phase in Tennyson’s personal
history had also come to an end. The opening lines of King Arthur that start the dialogue
between King Arthur and Sir Bedivere makes clear the theme that an era is about to an end and
that this will mark the beginning of a new era.
“The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep—the men I loved. I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,—
Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more—but let what will be, be.”
These are his first words to Sir Bedivere expressing the end of an era which begins with a
summary of the loss of his beloved knights and an acceptance “but let what will be, be”. These
six words hint at the change that has come over Tennyson as he strives to overcome his grief
over Hallam’s death and starts afresh his poetic career. Hallam’s death takes place at the
beginning of Tennyson’s career and the loss of his friend brought with him a tragic sense of a
loss of all meaning in life. Twenty years later around 1850, Tennyson wrote In Memoriam
which begins on a note of sadness similar to Arthur’s opening speech to Sir Bedivere quoted
above. But the poem ends on a strong and confident note that Hallam will live on in heaven and
Tennyson will join him there. This poem In Memoriam ends on a hopeful note that with faith and
love, grief can be overcome:
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
This poem is a truly Victorian poem that affirms that we can overcome grief by faith and faith
alone.“In Memoriam reflects the Victorian struggle to reconcile traditional religious faith with
the emerging theories of evolution and modern biology. The verses show the development over
three years and the poet’s acceptance and understanding of his friend’s death.”2
In the later
poem In Memoriam, we recognize the theme of acceptance of mortality as an unalterable fact of
life and the theme of cultivating optimism to look forward to a new life that comes thereafter.
Tennyson’s “Morte d’Arthur” ends with a similar message when Sir Bedivere feels traumatised
at the thought of a future life without his King.
When loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight.
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.
But now the whole Round Table is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world;
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”
King Arthur’s reply sums up the basic theme of the poem:
And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
Accepting change, accepting a new order of life is a part of our existence. What keeps men
strong and courageous in the light of change into an unknown future is faith in God: “More
things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
Faith in God, having an optimistic outlook on what shall come hereafter is a difficult proposition.
Tennyson is aware of the Victorian struggle between science and religion, reason and faith,
biological theory of evolution and religious theory of Creation, individual aspiration and social
responsibility. The underlying hope that with faith in God, one can overcome grief is a classic
example of the Victorian attempt to hold on to religion despite the scepticism over its efficacy
engendered by scientific- in particular biological advancement. Tennyson’s poetry reflects the
uneasiness of the Victorian age, torn between established Christian faith and science and modern
progress. But what comes out at the end is a feeling of reassurance and serene acceptance of life
and its oddity. Tennyson is praised as the first great English poet to be fully aware of the new
picture of man’s place in the universe revealed by modern science. He wrestles with the new
biological theories that disputed the earlier faith in God and religion; this reflection and the
assured optimism of the dawn of a new world order were in consonance with Queen Victoria’ s
reign.
Like King Arthur, Queen Victoria is associated with the glory of England, and an age that is
celebrated as the great age of industrial advancement, scientific and economic progress, and
expansion of the British empire. Her reign of more than sixty-three years was also a period of,

cultural, political, and moral change in Great Britain. She is looked upon as an icon of the
strictest standards of morality. Tennyson transposes the medieval story from the Arthurian
legend to his times and gives it an allegorical significance. The common theme that runs through
the medieval legend and the Victorian age is the emphasis on loyalty, obedience, faithfulness and
discipline. Faithfulness and loyalty are integral to sustain the moral fibre of society. Disloyalty
and infidelity bring about the decay and collapse of society. The illicit love between Arthur’s
wife, Guinevere and his loyal and celebrated Knight Lancelot and the treachery of Mordred
result in the dissolution of the society of the knights of the Round Table and the death
of Arthur. The chivalry and heroism of the Knights of the Round table get evaporated slowly and
the poem “Morte d’Arthur” begins with the wounded King Arthur with his only surviving, loyal
knight Sir Bedivere. King Arthur is a symbolic representation of a God-like man who throughout
his life led a righteous life and aspired continuously to reach greater perfection both as a King
and as a man. Arthur thus stands for aspirations towards the ideal of a higher life. Tennyson
seeks to enhance Victorian life symbolized by Queen Victoria towards higher perfection.
The theme of loyalty is the second theme of the poem. As stated above, the poem though set in
the medieval period is essentially Victorian. Sir Bedivere’s loyalty to the King even when he has
lost power and is on his deathbed, is to be seen as paralleling the Victorian’s admiration and
pride in their Queen and their deep sense of loyalty to her and to the nation. Let us take these
lines uttered by Arthur to Sir Bedivere after he laments the demise of the Knights of the Round
Table:
And wheresoever I am sung or told
In aftertime, this also shall be known:
But now delay not: take Excalibur,
And fling him far into the middle mere:
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.”
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
“It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm.
A little thing may harm a wounded man.
Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.
So saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept.”
Though initially Sir Bedivere is hesitant to leave his King wounded and dying, he agrees to
perform all that he had commanded (“yet thy hest will all perform at full”) and so saying he steps
out in obedience to his King. This is true loyalty, as Sir Bedivere does not refuse to obey a
defeated and wounded king who is a king only in name and not a king in action. But when he
finds the sword Excalibur beautiful and bright, he decides not to throw the sword into the lake,
but he does not want to hurt his King to mistake him as a disobedient soldier. So he tells a
falsehood that he had done as he was ordered.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
“Hast thou perform’d my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?”
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
“I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag.”
To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:
“Thou hast betray’d thy nature and thy name,
Not rendering true answer, as beseem’d
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight:
For surer sign had follow’d, either hand,
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word
Sir Bedivere tells a lie and the King catches him, chiding him that it is a shameful thing for men
to lie. He again asks him to go a second time to do his bidding. Sir Bedivere wrestles within
himself and wonders
What good should follow this, if this were done?
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
An act unprofitable, against himself?
The King is sick, and knows not what he does.
He returns and once again utters a lie. King Arthur knows that if the sword had been thrown, Sir
Bedivere would have seen a miracle. Hence he repeatedly asks him “What is it thou hast seen, or
what hast heard?” King Arthur gets angry that Sir Bedievere had been disloyal and chides him
that he, who was the only knight left of his circle has also proved a traitor and behaved in an
‘unknightly’ manner. Arthur is deeply hurt that the King who has lost his power and is dying is
forgotten and disobeyed.
“Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow’d of the power in his eye
That bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art,
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,
In whom should meet the offices of all,
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;
For a third time, Arthur bids him to do his command and angrily says that if Sir Bedivere failed
to do so, the king would slay him. When Sir Bedivere returns after accomplishing the task given
to him, the King is pleased:

“Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:
“Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?”
Sworn loyalty to the King as seen in the lines quoted above, is Tennyson’s call to his fellow
Victorians to owe allegiance to her Majesty, Queen Victoria.
Thus, the three themes of the poem are
 Change and the courage to accept it when the old order dies giving way to a new order.
Change is necessary for progress, for orderly evolution
 Morality that binds the social and familial fabric of the society and
 Loyalty and obedience to the monarch
‘Tennyson’s poem deals with characteristics of Victorian age, reflected through the prism of the
Arthurian legend. The immortality he confers on Arthur’s greatness as a King is a pious wish for
his friend Arthur Hallam, and contained in it is the wish for the immortality of men of special
calibre like Arthur Hallam.

Check Your Progress 1
1. Explain the phrase “let what will be, be”. Who says this and in what context?
2. Explain the main themes of the poem “Morte d’Arthur”. Quote lines from the poem,
supporting your answer.

4.3 SYMBOLS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE IN “MORTE D’ARTHUR”

What is a symbol in Literature? A symbol is literary device to give several meanings to a word
more than its dictionary meaning. This meaning does not appear on a first reading of a line, but
when it is read in the context of the whole poem, the different layers of meaning become clear as
it is representative of the theme, idea, concept and other features of the poem. As a result, it
enhances the meaning and tenor of the poem. We have the symbols of the Round Table, and the
Excalibur, King Arthur’s sword in “Morte d’ Arthur. The Round Table with its circular design
where all the Knights sat with King Arthur is symbolic of a true democratic spirit of
participation, where the King is first among equals. Sitting at the head of a table is to assume an
exclusive role of leadership in an environment of diversity. Here King Arthur’s Round Table
clearly represents the spirit of equality where every knight has his place that is neither superior
nor inferior to the others.

The Round Table says a lot about the values that were developing during the Middle Ages. This
period was basically a violent period. The Middle ages were fraught with wars against barbarian
hordes and many other problems such as the plague, famine, distress and the normal mode of
operation was to take something by force. This is what the kings, knights and lords did. The
bravery of the King and his knights were hailed as acts of chivalry and heroism. Everyone played
his role in the success of the wars that were fought. But through Arthur’s reign, there came a
shift where there was recognition of the worth of every individual whether he wielded weapons
or not.. And the Round Table is a good example of this raising of the individual’s value.

King Arthur through the Round Table shifts power from himself to give equal weight to all the
knights seated at the table. It is truly democratic despite the fact that it was the rule of monarchy
and not democracy in Britain at that time. The King was still the king and only distinguished
Knights were at the table. But it was a move toward the belief that everyone is important and
everyone equally valuable. King Arthur and his knights met at Arthur’s Round Table in Camelot
to discuss important issues of the kingdom.

Excalibur is the magic sword of King Arthur. The sword, is regarded as a powerful weapon in
the hands of a skilled warrior and retains that reputation. In short, the sword has a magical power
only when it is in the hands of a deserving warrior like King Arthur. This is the reason why King
Arthur in his dying moments, orders Sir Bedivere to return it to its source-the Lady of the Lake
by flinging it into the lake. According to mythological legends, the sword is identified with a
single hero and should not be allowed to fall into the hands of an enemy owing to its inherent
power, or to another knight – no matter how noble –who might succeed Arthur as king. The
sword is a symbol of Arthur’s virtue and power. The supernaturalism and mystery of these
remote ages, their belief in magic and witchcraft , is seen in the magic sword of King Arthur ,
and the mystic hand which rises out of the lake at his death to take it away. Tennyson transposes
the medieval reference to the mystic “lady of the lake” to his times by speaking about the church
or religion and the Excalibur as representing spiritual power.
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way.
After Sir Bedivere completes the task, he tells Arthur that he had seen a great miracle he would
never forget, the rise of the arm from the lake to grasp the sword. The painful and arduous
journey of King Arthur with the help of his loyal Knight towards the lake gives it a mystical
touch, as the journey is his final one to a higher and a spiritual plane. Three elegant Queens with
gold crowns wait onboard and cry in one voice a moan of agony. This lamentation is like the
wind “that shrills / All night in a waste land.” Arthur asks to be placed in the barge, and Bedivere
complies. Arthur lays his head in the lap of the tallest Queen, and she loosens his casque
(helmet) and calls him by his name. Her tears drop on his bloody pale face. He lies like a
“shatter’d column,” very much unlike the heroic figure he once cut. But King Arthur is calm and
in his parting speech, he tells Sir Bedivere that he is moving to a peaceful and quiet place,
Avillon, an island valley which is a kind of paradise with ideal weather and fertile land.
Lastly the brotherhood of Arthur and Bedivere symbolizes the deep friendship of Tennyson and
Hallam, and the profound grief of their severance is manifest in the utter lack of faith or hope
that Bedivere is shown to experience at the end of the poem. King Arthur’ final journey to a
resting place in a far-off land, invisible to him and accompanied by the mystical figures of the
lake gives hope and comfort that Arthur has achieved immortality. This is a poignant wish
Tennyson holds for the immortality of Arthur Hallam, his cherished friend about whom he says:
I trust he lives in thee, and there / I find him worthier to be loved.
Tennyson in “Morte d’ Arthur” comes to the conclusion that “Somewhere far off, [he is seen to]
pass on and on, and go / From less to less and vanish into light’. The poem ends on a note of faith
that augurs the onset of the renewal of fresh life of hope and optimism, a beautiful new
beginning: “And the new sun rose bringing the new year” (line 469).

Check your progress 2

Explain the symbols and their significance in “Morte d’Arthur” .

4.4 CHARACTERS IN THE POEM

From the analysis given above, you can deduce the characters of King Arthur and Sir Bedivere.
Many of Tennyson’s poems were written in the form of dramatic monologues. This poem, which
marks the conclusion of the epic narrative is not a monologue, but in the form of a dialogue
between the two principal characters. King Arthur is seen as a great hero who deserves to
possess Excalibur, the glittering, beautiful sword. He behaves like a King even in his dying
moments. He commands obedience from Sir Bedivere, the last surviving Knight. His kingly
demeanour, his courage and heroic endurance of pain and his graceful passage into the barge to
start his journey to a land of calm and peace reveal his valour and courageous acceptance of a
new life. His advice to Sir Bedivere who is filled with fear and anxiety not only of losing his
King but also of the prospect of an unknown, uncertain future order is at the core of the poem.
Sir Bedivere’s loyalty, his genuine concern not to hurt his King in his dying moments, his
implicit obedience to the orders of his King and his awe and wonder over the mystical quality of
the sword are in conformity with the character of a faithful Knight belonging to King Arthur’s
Round Table.
Activity
Read the poem and identify the passages that reveal the characters of King Arthur and Sir
Bedivere.
46

4.5 SUMMING UP

This Unit is a continuation of the earlier Unit 3 and therefore should be read in conjunction with
the poem that is given there. In this Unit, we have discussed the poem’s themes and Tennyson’s
skilful use of symbols to convey them. We have explained in this Unit that the poem is in the
form of a dialogue that highlights loyalty and obedience to the authority and a mature,
philosophical understanding of life where change is constant and therefore to be accepted. We
have also looked at the ways in which Tennyson, the Poet Laureate of Britain, transposes
medieval values onto his own period, the Victorian Age.

4. 6 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1. What are the medieval values highlighted in this poem, and how does the poet relate them
to the Victorian age?
2. What is the central theme of the poem? Explain this by comparing it with In Memoriam.
3. How does Tennyson praise Queen Victoria, seen through the prism of King Arthur?
4. Give a brief sketch of the two principal characters in the poem.

4.7 GLOSSARY

Transpose: exchange positions without a change in value
Magnum Opus: A great work, a literary or artistic masterpiece
Medievalism:The spirit or the body of beliefs, customs, or practices of the
Middle Ages
Impermanence: Not permanent, not lasting.
Mortality: the state or condition of being subject to death
Traumatised: devastated, dismayed
Tenuous: weak, lacking a sound basis
Scepticism: the disbelief in any claims to ultimate knowledge
Efficacy: effectiveness, power or capacity to produce effect
Oddity: strangeness
Allegorical: symbolic, figurative
Infidelity: unfaithfulness to one’s spouse or partner
Tenor: the course of thought or meaning that runs through something written or spoken; purport;
drift. continuous course, progress, or movement.

4.9 References

1.Christopher Ricks, Tennyson, University of California Press.
2. www.britannica.com › Literature › Poetry