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The short dialogue from Act IV of Pygmalion shows the
way Higgins treats Eliza after the aristocratic party at which she was a great success. He h<Js never thought of Eliza <JS a human being, therefore he is surprised <Jt her violent reaction.
Liz a (pulling herself loge/her in desperation). What am I fit for) What have you left me fit for) Where am I logo) What am I to do) Wh<ds to become of me)
Higgins (enlightened, but no/ at all impressed) Oh, thats whats worrying you, is it? (He thrusts his hands into his pockets, and walks about in his usual manner, rat/ling /he contents of his pockets, as if con descending to a trivial subfect out of pure kindness.) I shouldnl bother about it if I were you. I should imagine you wont have much difficulty in
sellling yourself somewhere or other, though I haunt quite realized thJt you were going away. (She looks quickly at him: he does not look a/ her but examines the dessert stand on the piano and decides that he will eat an apple.) You might marry, you know (He bites a large piece out of the apple and munches it noisily.) You see, Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel. Most men arc the marryin!.! sort (poor devils!), and youre not badtooking. Its quite a pleasure to look Jt you sometimes- not now, of course, because yourc crying and looking as ugly as the very devil: but when youre all right and quite yourself, yourc what I should call attractive. That is, to the peorle in the marryin1"1nc you understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest and then ct
and look at yourself the glass; and you wont fl'cl cheap
(Eliza again looks at him, speechless, and does not The look quite lost on him: he eats his apple with a dreamy expression of happiness. as it is quite a good one.
Higgins (a genial aflerthoughl occurrin[; to him) I daresay m mother could find some chap or other who would do very well
Liz a. We were above!hal at the corner of Toltenham Court l o; Higgins (waking up). What do you mean)
Liz a. l sold flowers. l didnl sell myself. Now youve made a lady of mr
I'm not fit so sell anything else. I wish youd left me where you found ml'
Pygmalion is a very humane play In it Shaw discloses his deep feelings for the common people, their hum<Jnism, the beauty of their inner qu<Jiities. He shows the absurdity of the opinion that good language, correct pronunci<Jtion, the right modulations of voice and intonation, can only be the attributes of people of high social, cultural and mor<JI standing.
Professor Higgins, the modern Pygmalion,* believes
• According- to a Greek myth. the sculptor Pygmalion created a beautiful statue of Galatea and fell in love with it. His great love brought the statue to life.
that he can create a new Eliza by teaching her good lan guage and manners. However, this is just one of Shaw's favourite devices; the paradox lies in the fact that Higgins only gives an' outer polish to Eliza, whose inner qualities have always been greater than the Professor's. Her indi viduality remains the same, but she is the one who awakens human feelings in the Professor's heart.
Language can be learned; the inner qualities of a per son do not depend on it. Eliza stresses this in the last sentence in the above dialogue.
Shaw's mastery of dialogue and the witty colloquial speech of his characters give a specially rich colouring to
the comedy. Pygmalion, as well as many of his other plays,
have often been staged in various countries of the world and are greatly appreciated by theatre-goers.
Shaw was awarded the Nobel prize in 1925.
I. What changes did Bernard Shaw introduce into the theatre of
England'
2. What arc the main questions raised by Shaw in his Widower's
Houses?
3. What is Pygmalion Jbout'
VIII. LITERATURE BETWEEN THE TWO WORLD WARS
LITERATURE OF THE 1920s
The tragedy of the First World War, the social and political upheavals in the world, of which the October Revolution in Russia was the greatest, had a marked effect on a!! English writers. In the 1920s a sharp division of literary tendencies was noticeable. Some writers were enthusiastic about the revolutionary changes in the world, others realized the failure of the old values, but did not know which way to choose and how to behave under the new circumstances.
The English -..,riters of the 20s were searching for new modes of expression but often fell under the influence of Decadence, which at the beginning of the 20th century acquired the new name of m o de r n is m. Modernism be carne the leading trend in English literature of post- World War I period.
At that time the works of Sigmund Freud (1856-1930),
an Austrian psycho-analyst, professor of neurology, be came very popular in England and had a great influence on the development of modernism.
The attitude of modernists to life and Man is different from that of realists. Modernism is characterized by an absolute disregard of social problems, by a strong empha sis on the hero's private world, his feelings, reactions, subconscious life. It refuses to depict characters as deter mined by concrete historical conditions. Man is pessimisti cally shown as a primitive and low creature guided by instinct.
It was then that a group of writers appeared whose views on Man and his role in life reflected the main prin ciples of modernism. The outstanding representatives of this group were James Joyce (1882-1941) and Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).
James Joyce was born in a well-to-do Irish family in a small town near Dublin. His father was interested in politics, his mother was very religious. The Irishness of his parents' outlook had a most important influence on his creative work. His education, in both school and university, was catholic. However, at the age of 16 he became a·n atheist.
His articles written when a student (1899-1902) give a good idea about the formation of his aesthetical views. It was then that he became utterly engrossed in the Dublin literary atmosphere which became a new Irish Renais sance. The leaders of that moveme11 t took a great interest in the ancient Irish traditions, in its folklore. They fought for the formation of national literature and the revival of national language which the English had endeavoured to do away with. His article The Day of the Crowd (1901) is tYf>ical of his further position. His point of view was thai a real artist could only create abroad, far from his native land.
After the university he went to Paris to study medicine. There he met Nora Barnacle, his future wife. His mother's sudden illness, however, made him return to Ireland.
His mother's death and the political situation in Ire land, which hl!d been strugglini! for many centuries for its liberation from Eni!lish oppression, forced him and his wife
to leave the country. However, Joyce missed his native land during all the thirty-seven years that he lived on the con
tinent. He died in Switzerland, in January 194I and was buried there.
In 1914 his first book Dubliners appeared in print. The stories in it were true to life, they conveyed the gloomy atmosphere that ruined the hopes of the Irish intellectuals.
In 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published. Its plot is complicated and much of it is au tobiographical. Here we find the exposition of Joyce's aesthetic credo. The novel acquaints the reader with the difficult political situation in Ireland. It also shows the
author's sufferings after he broke with religion. The approach to the "stream-of-consciousness" method of which Joyce is supposed to be the initiator is obvious in the
last chapter of this novel. Here Joyce presents the reader with a new form of writing: short notes in which the main character Stephen Dedalus puts down his disconnected thoughts.
This method is again taken up and developed by the writer in the masterpiece of English modernism -'Ulysses
(1922) As Joyce's biographers say the story of Odys
seus* made a great impression on the young James. He considered the theme of Ulysses most beautiful and over whelming, greater in its philosophical essence than the themes of Hamlet and Don Quixote. Joyce was impressed by the character of Ulysses, by his humaneness, which he always opposed to human evil.
The action of the novel covers one specific day, June 16, in Dublin in the year 1904. Joyce shows life and history through fragments of thoughts, recollections, feelings of the main characters Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus and Marion, Bloom's wife. This method of presenting the events resulted in an extensive novel. It consists of 18 epi sodes. Here is the essence of some of them:
I. Stephen Dedalus feels an outsider in his own house,
where an Englishman has settled.
5. Bloom's wanderings about the city and looking at
the shopwindow ot the tea-selling firm bring to his im
agination pictures of the East and its people.
10. Dublin in the afternoon. Each of the characters meets a lot of acquaintances, and friends.
15. Midnight. Stephen is at a students' drinking party. Bloom goes after Stephen to take care of him.
17 Night. Bloom takes Dedalus home and they go over
the adventures of the day.
18. 3 a. m. Marion is in bed. She calls to mind the
• Ulysses is a variant name of Odysseus.
fragments of her life, the images of her relatives.
All the episodes of the novel correspond to the 18 in
cidents of Odyssey, and its characters have prototypes in Homer's epic. Bloom's wanderings about Dublin are compared to Odysseus' homecoming. If Bloom stands for Odysseus, Stephen resembles his son Telemachus and Marion is like Odysseus' wife Penelope, then the 14th epi
sode where Bloom finishes his travels and meets Stephen becomes the culminating point of the whole novel. The reunion of father and son symbolizes their comprehension of truth and of the sense of life, it is the moment of en lightenment for both of them.
According to Joyce, Bloom, Stephen and Marion sym bolize the eternal features of man's character, Bloom is the embodiment of "everyman": primitive, limited, ever wandering, lonely and suffering. The character of Stephen Dedalus conveys the author's idea of the intellectual side of human nature. He is educated, well-read, free from low instincts, yet never at peace either Marion incarnates perpetual womanhood. And Dublin symbolizes the whole world. Ulysses represents Joyce's notion of contemporary life, chaotic and senseless.
Joyce's contemporary, Virginia Woo If, in her turn, showed through the "stream-of-consciousness" the tragic aspects of human life and the way people were bound together by mE'mories, reactions and obsessions.
Woolf brought together English intellectuals who were followers of Freud in a literaty circle known as the
,Bloomsbury group"
Virginia Woolf's best work, Mrs. Dolloway (1925) is an outstanding example of psychological prose of the 20th century. The novel shows Clarissa Dalloway spending one day of her life preparing for an evening party. This begins at nine in the morning when she goes out to buy flowers for her party, and finishes at dawn the next day. Here Woolf portrays the English society: the nobility, the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the middle classes. She depicts every detail of a situation with vivid, impressionistic strokes. However, she never arranges these strokes rationally, but makes them,stream" through the minds of her characters.
Owing to their complicated form and plot, Woolf's
• Virginia Woolf lived in the suburb of London, called Bloomsbury
There the members of the group met and discussed their works.
novels could only be enjoyed by a small group of intelec
tuals.
The name of D. H. Lawrence(l885-1930) is worthy
of special attention. He was an admirer of Freud, too. At the same time, however, he adhered to realism in art.
The son of a Midland miner, brought up in a working
class environment, Lawrence, for the first time introduced in English literature the working man in his everydily life, paying much attention to his inner, private world. The working people in Lawrence's novels are described as respectable, sensible, shrewd men.
The major novel that brought him success is Sons and
Lovers (1913). Like the author the main character Paul
Morel was brought up in a working class environment. His
life is greatly affected by the conflict between his pa rents- a rough, unambitious father and an intelligent and refined mother. Paul's mother has one passion in her life- a passion for her sons. And this strong feeling affects Paul's private life. He realizes that he cannot really Jove any woman. When his mother dies he finds himself quite alone. Much attention is given to the detailed and precise descriptions of men's feelings, the subconsci ous, to the world of natural human instincts. Lawrence's firm belief was that all the social injustice in the world could only be overcome by love and happiness.
The development of English critical realism continued.
The realistic tradition of the older generation (B. Shaw, J. Galsworthy, H. Wells) was followed by such writers as A. Coppard, K. Mansfield and others who paid much attention to social problems in their works.
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(1888-1923)
Katherine Mansfield was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on the 14th of October, 1888. Her father was a merchant. She received an education first in her own country, then in England. She left for London in 1908 to establish herself as a writer She was nineteen then and started her literaty career with a few sketches.
Her earliest volume, In a German Pension (1911), attracted the attention of the critics and the reading public.
The background and varied characters of these stories are almost all based on autobiographical facts.
During the years 1912-1914 Mansfield wrote stories for two London journals, Rhythm and The Blue Review. Most of the stories were based on New Zealand material.
The best story published at that tirne was A Birthday,
where she speaks about her own family The story is set in Wellington and the main character Andrew Binzer is a true-to-life portrait of her father Wellington here is so
accurately depicted that one can identify, even to-day, the
streets and the actual house in the story
During the year 1915 Katherine Mansfield wrote two of her best stories, Something Childish, but Very Natural and Indiscreet 1ourney. Here for the first time she showed a deep understanding of the inner world of her characters which later became the basis of all her mature work.
Towards the end of 1917 she fell ill with tuberculosis but continued to work hard. In the early 1920s appeared her best collections of stories- Bliss and Other Stories (1920) and The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922). In January 1923 she died at the age of 35.
Katherine Mansfield was a master of the psychological story. She wrote about the problems that showed the cruel ty and hypocrisy of the English bourgeois world. From the time of the publication of Bliss in 1920 the influence of A. Chekhov on her creative work was greatly discussed. Mansfield herself admitted the influence and even called herself "the English Anton Chekhov"
It should be noted, however, that it was not quite so as
"ihe English Anton Chekhov" did not achieve the greatness of her teacher in raising everyday problems and describing the contradictions of life.
Mansfield's first major theme is the woman alone in the world. The stories Lady's Maid, The Life of Ma Par ker, The Daughters of the Late Colonel are variations on
this theme.
Her second major theme is children in their relation with one another and with the adults in the family. Six pence, The Little Girl, The Doll's House and many other stories deal with this subject.
"Children are unaccountable little creatures", thus
Mansfield begins the story Sixpence and these words explain her interest and concern about children's souls.
THE GARDEN PARTY
Mansfield's success in presenting children springs from the fact that she portrayed them as seen through their own eyes. In the story The Garden Party Laura, a sensitive girl, the daughter of rich parents, is preparing for a party. Suddenly she finds herself faced with the darker part of life: death and grief in a nearby poor family. Her desire to stop the party because a man has been killed is called absurd by her parents. She feels with a child's intuition that compassion is not to be found in her own circle. She decides to talk to the workers who have come to put up large tents for the garden party. At first she seems awkward and tries to copy the behaviour of her mother, but immediately changes her tone in response to the easy and natural manner of the workmen. They become linked in her mind with the general sense of the beauty of the morning. She complains about the "absurd class distinctions" and thinks "why could not she have workmen for friends, rather than the silly boys she danced with"
The sensitiveness and childish naivety of Laura, who refuses to take part in the entertainment is contrasted with
the rationality of her mother She almost convinces her daughter that her attitude is absurd. She tries to divert Laura's mind from the painful subject by giving her an attractive hat. Though at first sight the mother's decision not to stop the party seems more practical and sensible, the writer very artistically emphasises that the naive feelings of the girl are more humane than her mother's common sense.
The last question of the story remains unanswered. When Laura is on her way back from the dead man's house, her brother Laurie comes to meet her:" Isn't life", she stammered, "isn't life?" But what life was- she could not explain. No matter He quite understood: "Isn't it, darling?"- said Laurie"
The following extract (abridged) from The Garden Par ty reveals both Laura's and her mother's attitude to wards the grief of their neighbours.
"Mother, a man's been killed", began Laura. "Not in the garden)" interrupted her mother, "No, no!"
"Oh, what a fright you gave me!" Mrs Sheridan sighed with relief and look of! the big hat and held it on her knees.
"But listen, mother", said Laura. Breathless, half choking she told
the dreadful story. "01 course, we can't have our party, can we?" she pleaded. "The band and everybody arriving. They'd hear us, mother; they're nearly neighbours!"
"But, my dear child, use your common sense. It's only by accident
we've heard of it. II someone had died there normally- and I can't understand how they keep alive in those poky little holes- we should still be having our party, shouldn't we?"
Laura had to say "yes" to that, but she felt it was all wrong. She sat
down on her mother's sola and pinched the cushion frill. "Mother, isn't it really terribly heartless of us?" she asked...
This lime Mrs. Sheridan lost patience...
"You are being very absurd, Laura", she said coldly. "People like that don't expect sacrifices!rom us. And it's not very sympathetic to spoil everybody's enjoyment as you're doing now"
Mansfield's characters are mostly well-to-do people and the poor are generally introduced for the sake of con trast. Usually the writer tries to avoid sharp social con flicts; however, in some cases we find a critical approach to bourgeois reality Thus her story The Cup of Tea which in itself is a small masterpiece of the short story form, shows
the social contradictions of the bourgeois society of the day.
Depth of perception, genuine knowledge of man's psychology make Katherine Mansfield one of the popular
short story tellers in world literature. Mansfield's lan
guage is laconic and precise.
I. How can!he situation in English lileralure u[ \he 20:; be charac·
lcrizcd)
2. Why Mansfield call her "the English Chckhov"
3. What were \he two rnain thernl'. o[ Mansfield's stories)
4. What The Garden Party abouP
LITERATURE OF THE 1930s
At the end of 1929 a general economic crisis occurred, which lasted up to 1934. It brought unemployment, hunger and misery Class contradictions became especially sharp and obvious.
The complicated political situation in Europe, especially in Germany (Hitler came to power in 1933), could not but
affect Britain both politically and economically It was then that "The British Fascist Union" was organized and financed by British industrialists. The broad masses of
England reacted negatively against it. Then came the Civil War in Spain, and English workers showed their solidarity with Spanish republicans. They organised protest meetings and refused to load <Hms for the fascists.
The 1930s were years in which British writers also had to make a choice. Progressive literary people were fighting against modernism and defending the tradition of realism.
Richard Aldington, John Boynton Priestley and Archibald Cronin were the writers who together with the older gener ation continued the realistic tradition in literature.
For the first time in Britain a group of writers appeared
whose work was influenced by marxist ideas.
The ideological leader of that group was a communist
whose name was R a I ph Fox (1910-1937). He was a pub licist, a historian and a literary critic. Though he lived a short life, (he was killed in Spain) everything he wrote, especially his book. The Nouel and the People (1937), is of great importance for those who study the evolution of realism and of the contemporary English novel.
The 1930s also saw an ever-increasing interest among English writers and publicists in the USSR and Soviet literature. The works of Sholokhov, Furmanov, Fadeev, V. Ivanov and others were translated into English.
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(1892-1962)
.Among the younger generation of writers who carried on
'the tradition of England's great realists was Richard
Aldington.
He was born in 1892 in Hampshire and educated at Dover College and the University of London. In 1913 he became literary editor of the journal The Egoist. At that time he also joined the "Bloomsbury" group. His poetry, written under the influence of imagism, however, was
rather obscure, at times meaningless. In 1916, at the age of
twenty-four, he joined the Army and fought in World War I as a private in the infantry; later he became an officer He was soon demobilized for he was badly wounded. For several years he worked for The Times Literary Supplement and made his living as a critic and translator from Italian and Latin. During this time he managed to publish four volumes of poetry which attracted the attention of the leading literary circles. However soon he dropped writing verse to devote all his attention to prose.
World War I greatly influenced his world outlook and
he came to regard the duty of a writer in a new light. He broke with the decadents and came to appreciate only those works which were written "out of man's guts" and showed life as it really was. His hatred of wars was vividly reflected in his early works. The best examples of these are Death of a Hero (I 929), The Colonel's Daughter (1931) and All Men are Enemies (1933). TllPSe novels sound
I 21
as a warning against the danger of a new war.
Aldington's other important works are: Images Old and New (1915), Very Heaven (1937).
Aldington didn't live much in his own country. His last years were spent in America and France. His passionate, truthful, anti-war novels still live and inspire his readers to struggle against injustice and militarism.
DEATH OF A HER.O
Death of a Hero is Aldington's first and most im portant novel. He finished it, however, only in 1929, though he had planned to write it straight after World War I.
After World War I the-called "lost generation" ap peared in Europe and European literature. The mood of the young people who belonged to this "lost generation" was that of profound pessimism and disillusionment. They had fought in World War I hoping to find their lost ideals; instead of which they only suffered from its aftermath.
In 1929 writers of different nationalities presented the readers with anti-war works (E. Hemingway- A Farewell to Arms, Eric Maria Remarque- All Quiet on the Western Front). The war theme became central for Aldington.
In the novel Death of a Hero we hear the angry pas sionate voice of the writer condemning society and the war it unleashed. The novel is a tragic, satiric, lyric poem about the war and its demoralizing effect on people.
The beginning of the novel is rather original, for it starts with the death of the main character- George Winterbourne. The prologue shows to the reader that the tragic death of the hero was not at all heroic. It becomes clear from the novel that Winterbourne's whole young life had been a failure- his misunderstandings with his pa rents were continuous, his marriage with Elisabeth was not a happy one, his relations with his girl-friend were unpre dictable. His disappointment with his private life was accompanied by disillusionment with art to which he had devoted himself. The reason for this can be seen in the satirical portraits of the "servants of art" who did not understand it but only made a profit out of it.
Seeking for an escape from his problems Winterbourne decided to volunteer for the front. But the atrocities of the war, the inhumane relations between the higher and lower ranks in the army, his own misery and loneliness drove him
to look for death under the enemy bullets. Here is a pas
sage taken from the novel Death of a Hero.
... And then the Germans began a steady, systematic gas bombard
ment of all the ruined villages in the advanced area...
The gas bombardment went on until dawn, and then ceased. Winter bourne fell asleep, with his gasmask just off his face. Hilhcrlo they had slept with the box respirator slung on a nail or piled with lhe other equi pment; alter the experience of this and the subsequent nights, they al ways slept with the respirator on their chests and the mask ready to slip on immediately.
The heavies began again soon after it was light. Winlerbourne was awakened by one which crashed just outside his cellar He lay on the floor for a long time listening to the zwiiiing, crash, of the shells. He heard two ruined houses clatter to the ground under direct hils, and wondered if the cellars had held firm. They hadn't. But fortunately they happened to be unoccupied. Presently the German batteries switched off and began bombarding some artillery about five hundred yards to the left. Winter bourne profited by the lull to wash. He ran out of the cellar in his shirt sleeves and gas mask, with the canvas bucket in which he washed; and found that a shell had smashed the pump outside his billet. He knew there was another about three hundred yards to the right, although he had never been there...
The peculiarity of Aldington's style is that the writer makes the reader see the war as cameramen do. With explicit details the author shows the facial expression of the fighting men, the destroyed villages and fields. Aldington is a master of battle-scene descriptions. His language abounds in military terms; it is expressive and dynamic and helps to create realistic characters and pictures.
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