A BACHELOR’S COMPLAINT OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE – CHARLES LAMB

A BACHELOR’S COMPLAINT OF  THE BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE – CHARLES LAMB

     ‘A Bachelor’s Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People’ was published in September, 1822 in London Magazine. In this essay Lamb criticizes at the behaviour of newly married people. Lamb begins this essay by saying that being a bachelor, he has a god deal of time in noting down the infirmities of the married people. To married people, bachelors have lost ‘superior pleasure’ of life by remaining single. But Lamb did not think so. Lamb dislikes married people not because of their quarrels but because of their excessive love showing.

     Lamb says “Many good things can be learnt from learned”. But a bachelor can not derive any good things by watching or listening to the married people. The married people boast about their privilege to others. The married people think, the bachelor as intellectually inferior person. Once, a married woman refuses to discuss the breeding of Oysters with Lamb. She asked Lamb what an old bachelor could know about breeding Oysters.

     The pride of woman is unbearable, if she has children. To Lamb, children are common and not as rare as Phoneix. Even poor people have a number of children, so married should not feel proud just because they had children.

     Lamb loves children because they are engaging. He loves children not because they are the children of his friends. He quotes a proverb, ‘Love me, Love my dog’. One can love inanimate things of one’s friend but not children.

     Lamb complaints that young wives try to separate the old friends of their husbands from him. To separate, they use many cunning methods. One such method is to laugh at everything the friend says and make their husband to think that his old friend is not fit to be his companion. Another method is the exaggeration. By exaggerating the qualities of her husband’s friend, her husband himself became jealous and will cut down his friendship.

     Lamb complaints that most of the wives treat their husband’s friend with contempt. Once, a woman made him wait for long time to serve supper. Another woman served ordinary food to Lamb and some special food for herself and her husband.

      Lamb concludes this essay by warning his married friends to correct themselves. If they fail to do, Lamb says that he will publish all their names.

DREAM CHILDREN: A REVERIE -CHARLES LAMB

DREAM CHILDREN: A REVERIE

                                   -CHARLES LAMB

Dream Children: A Reverie is one of Lamb’s famous essays. This essay shows the character of boy Lamb, his brother and grandmother.

     Children love to listen to stories about elders. Lamb’s little children, Alice and John gathered near Lamb to hear something about their great –grandmother Mary Field. She lived in a big mansion in Norfolk. She maintained the mansion very well. She was very pious. She knew the Psalms of the Bible by heart. In her youth, she had been very tall, graceful and a very good dancer. She was afflicted with cancer and this put an end to her dancing. She was bold enough to live alone in the big house and how she thought that ghosts of two children used to be seen wandering on the staircase at midnight. Mrs. Field’s funeral was attended by many people, because of her cordial relationship with all.

     As a boy, Lamb used to visit his grandmother house very often. He gazed at the busts of twelve Caesars in his grandmother’s house. He used to roam around the big house and spent his time all alone of his own way. He would lie on the warm grass and look at the fishes in the fishpond.  Thus the boy Lamb idled his time.

     Next Lamb told the children about their Uncle John L.  John was little lame but courageous and high- spirited. He loved riding and hunting. He used to carry Lamb on his back many miles. When John died, Lamb missed him badly. Here the children began to cry and requested the father to talk about their dead mother.

     Lamb narrated to his imaginary children how he counted Alice Winterton in ecstasy and despair. Looking at the child Alice, Lamb felt that his child’s eyes and hair resembled his beloved’s eyes and hair. When he narrated his unsuccessful love for Alice Winterton, the imaginary children began to fade away. Before they made it clear that they were not the children of Alice and Lamb. In reality Alice married Bartrum. So the children would claim Bartrum as their father and not Lamb. The children added that they were only figures in Lamb’s dream and were bound to disappear.

     After the figures disappeared, the dream came to an end and Lamb found himself seated in his bachelor arm-chair.

     There is a mixture of humour and pathos in the essay. Lamb’s language in this essay is simple and it also free from obscure allusions.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)

          In the Victorian age there was rapid development of industry and increase in material wealth.  It led to the neglect of religion and culture.  Arnold wanted to lift men from this degenerated condition, therefore he propagated forcibly the importance of culture and religious values.  He had a faith that poetry can help immensely in bringing about this moral reformation, therefore he insisted on its use for that purpose.  His first important essay was the “Preface to the Poems” (1853).  He delivered lectures as the Professor of Poetry at Oxford University which were later on published in two volumes, entitled “On Translating Homer” (1861) and “The Study of Celtic Literature” (1867).  He also contributed to literary Journals.  His essays were published in “Essays in Criticism”  in two series in 1888.  These writings form the main body of his critical work.

His Criticism:

            There was a group of poets called the ‘Spasmodics’ in Arnold’s time some of whom were P.J. Bailey, Sydney Dobell and Alexander Smith.  These poets gave importance to two matters.

(i)                  Poetry must be an expression of the poets mind and

(ii)               Poetry must be colourful and striking in language.  It must have an extravagance of thought and excess of metaphor.  Arnold disliked it.  He aimed at an austere subject and a simple language.

Arnold removed his early Poem “Empedocles on Aetna” from his Volume of poems of 1853, because the poem is preoccupied with thought, to the neglect of action.  Arnold says that the “Passing actions”  have only a passing or temporary fascination.  Such subjects are fit only for comedies.  But the Spasmodics did not accept this argument.  They were hopeful that they could hide their poverty of thought with stylistic devices.

Arnold admires Shakespeare for choosing excellent subjects, but Shakespeare had an incurable weakness – he couldn’t say a thing directly.  Therefore, Arnold says that Shakespeare is not a safe model for the Victorian Poet.  He advices the Victorian Poets to follow the ancient Greek dramatist because, they attached importance to action and not thought, the whole and not the part and found joy even in painful situations.

Grand style:

          Arnold praises the ancients as the masters of the grand style arises ‘When a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or a serious subject’.  Homer, Dante and Milton are masters of the grand style.  Modern poets do not have the power. Only the ancient poets have the substained and all pervasive magnificants. 

Arnold’s concept of poetry as criticism of life:

          Arnold defines poetry as a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a poetic beauty.  Science appeals to reason Morality appeals to good sense but great poetry appeals to reason Morality appeals to all the faculties of the soul and so to the whole man.  Great poetry is governed by the law of poetic truth and poetic beauty.  According to Arnold it has the power of foring, substaining and dedicating us, as nothing but conforms to the ideals of truth, goodness and beauty.

The Touch Stone Method:

            To examine poetry, Arnold introduces advances the famous touchstone method.  He dismisses the historical and personal estimate as fallacious.

The Historical Estimate and its limitations:

            The Historical estimate lies in estimating a poet against the background of his age and judging him accordingly.  The fallacy of this method is that too much importance is given to a poet because he is the originator of a trend of movement.  Arnolds says that operating writes for historical reason is condemnable.

The Personal Estimate

          The fallacy of Personal estimate lies in overvaluing a poet because of reader’s personal likes and dislikes.

The Touch Stone Method:

  This method is used by the goldsmith to test a piece of metal is real gold of not.  Arnold advises us to select some passages from, Milton, Shakespeare, Dante and Homer and asks us to use them as a touchstone with which to examine the value of a given poet.  Arnold says that a classic writer has “High seriousness”; a sublime style corresponding to a sublime subjects etc.

            Arnold’s “Practical Criticism”  is marred by his exacting standards.  Any poetry that does not conform to the level of his touchstone passage is sternly rejected by him.

 

THE STORY TELLER H.H. Munro

THE STORY TELLER

 H.H. Munro

      The story teller is one of the famous stories of H.H. Munro.  His pen name is Saki.  The story teller deals with the psychology of children.  Usually children are active and busy.  Their behavior gets on the nerves of the elders.  This psychology of children is reflected in this story.

     An aunt and three children are travelling in a train.  They are on the way to Templecombe.  In the carriage an unknown bachelor observes their behavior.  The aunt is not able to control the children.  The children ask her trouble some questions regarding their surroundings, so the aunt decides to tell them a conventional moral story.  To control the children, the aunt tells them a story of a good girl.  The girl made a lot of friends because of her good character. These people save her from a wild bull.  The aunt tries to derive a moral lesson but the children are not ready to accept the moral.  They call the story stupid.  The Bachelor points out the flaws in aunt’s story.  As the result, he is challenged to tell a better story.  He tells the story of good girl named Bertha who is horribly good.  She has worn three medals for obedience, punctuality and goodness. For the goodness, Bertha is permitted to walk in prince’s park where normally no children are permitted.  He says that there are no sheep in the park there are no flowers in the park.  Bertha entertains herself by walking around the park and listening to her medals clink together.  Suddenly a wolf enters the park. It is black, brown and grey.  It comes to the park to eat a pig.  It sees Bertha.  Bertha runs away from the wolf and hides in a Bush.  She starts to shake from fear causing her medal to make noise, by the medal sound the wolf finds Bertha and eats her.  The man finishes the story with a surprising moral that being good can be bad.  The children praise the man’s story but the aunt’s scolds the man for telling a story which is not appropriate for children.  The man replies that unlike her the story kept them quite for few minutes.  The bachelor gathers his things and leaves the train when he leaves he thinks himself that the children will demand for improper story.

     Thus the story “The Story Teller” provides an antidote to crude didacticism.  It expresses an attitude of cynicism.