Pincher martin

CHAPTER-2 Pincher Martin, Golding's most powerful and greatest literary achievement, has certain elements that enable us to discern it as a novel of situation. The competition against the sea by a Naval Officer for survival is the basic tension and conflict before death and endows this relevant situation with some kind of religious sanctity. It is a complex work of art, and it appears to be the most significant expression of Golding's capacity to fuse content and form in the novel. The novel has a very simple story. What we enjoy in the novel is the soul-drama of the protagonist. Martin, the naval officer is thrown into the North Atlantic at the time of attack from a submarine. Once in the vast Ocean, he fights for life and finds a rock in the ocean for help. Having reached it and occupying it, he began finding ways of escape. The novel is filled with Martin's thoughts and recollections of the by gone days. This offers a peep-hole to look into the secret in a hopeless situation on the Rock, in North Atlantic Sea. Since the novelist gives importance to the situation, it is no question whether Martin died within the second page of the novel itself or suffered for seven days. The story is about Martin and his struggle and suffering and his death becomes sublime, which is therefore non-specific with regard to time. In Pincher Martin the psychology of the protagonist

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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lord of the flies

Chapter-1 The whole scheme of Golding's writing is based on the concept of situation, even though he has varied approaches in his novels. 'Lord of The Flies', the first novel, has incorporated some moral issues and has thus drawn on an indigenous tradition of sober moral enquiry. Like any religious writer, Golding, has treated the question of 'Good' and 'Evil' and the theme of original sin in allegorical method. In his own way, Golding tries to bring home the idea that man by birth is sinful. As though a moralist, he points out the fallen nature of man. It is this thesis that attempts to construct in this novel. He has done a critical investigation into a primitive spectrum of human experience and the question of religious and moral aspects comes to the fore front. In a way the implied argument of the novel seems to be specific and arresting because we may agree at the end of the novel that if we scratch the civilized man a little, we find the savage inside. It is beyond doubt that 'Lord of The Flies' is based on and reshaped from the situation of Ballantyne's 'Coral Island'. In his interview with Frank Kermode, Golding has stated that 'Lord of The Flies' is in fact a realistic view of the Ballantyne situation. But what is unique with this novel is that it is cast in a modern atmosphere and it deals with the contemporary predicament. Golding invents a new

  • Word count: 2855
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Assess the subversive politics of gender and masquerade Louisa May Alcott's Behind a Mask

Assess the subversive politics of gender and masquerade in Louisa May Alcott's Behind a Mask Written in 1866, Louisa May Alcott's sensationalist novella Behind a Mask explores the subversion of gender by sex itself, and through masquerade. The central character, Jean Muir, 'a haggard, worn, and moody woman of thirty at least' (**), is an actress, playing her way through the reductive gender politics to gain security and social status. The Victorian "Cult of True Womanhood", as it was known, was an established view amongst the middle and upper classes that women should embody perfect virtue, through piety, purity and domesticity. This was in accordance with the "Separate Spheres" ideology, in which women's domain was the private, domestic sphere and men's was the public. However, there is obvious crossover in these spheres, for example, women educating their children in the home who were then to go into the public environment. These blurry distinctions and the pressures of submitting to expectations, combined with the significant lack of protection from the law made it almost impossible for women to advance themselves in society and 'actually encouraged people to subvert it' (Keyser 1993:49). Women who had broken out of these expectations, given into seduction or sin were "fallen women" who were disregarded by society. As the 'divorced wife of a disreputable actor'

  • Word count: 2581
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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