7 the twentieth century - part ii extra material · 2014. 4. 11. · is ingsoc and ingsoc is...
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7 the twentieth Century - Part ii
extra Material
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The Twentieth Century - Part IIExtra Material
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George Orwell
Ninteen Eighty-Four (1949)
Ninteen Eighty-Four TexT 2
Winston works at the Ministry of Truth (which is actually the ministry of lies) where he modifies records. Here he is in the canteen talking to Syme, a colleague of his, who is working on the Newspeak dictionary (the 11th edition).
‘How is the Dictionary getting on?’ said Winston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
‘Slowly,’ said Syme. ‘I’m on the adjectives. It’s fascinating.’ He had brightened up1 immediately at the mention of Newspeak. He pushed his 5 pannikin2 aside, took up his hunk3 of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese
in the other, and leaned4 across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting. ‘The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,’ he said. ‘We’re getting the
language into its final shape5 – the shape it’s going to have when nobody speaks 10 anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it
all over again. You think, I dare6 say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We’re destroying words – scores7 of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone8. The Eleventh Edition won’t contain a single word that will become obsolete before the year
15 2050.’ He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls9, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant’s passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking10 expression and grown almost dreamy.
‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage11 is 20 in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid
of12 as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good’, for instance. If you have a word like ‘good’, what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just
25 as well – better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good’, what sense is there in having a whole string13 of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning; or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of
30 Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words – in reality, only one word. Don’t you
1. he had brightened up: si era illuminato.
2. pannikin: tegamino (piccolo contenitore di metallo).
3. hunk: grosso pezzo. 4. leaned: si sporse. 5. shape: forma. 6. dare: oso. 7. scores: grandi
quantità. 8. we’re cutting...
bone: stiamo riducendo la lingua all’osso.
9. mouthfuls: bocconi. 10. mocking: ironico. 11. wastage: spreco. 12. can be got rid of: di
cui ci si può liberare. 13. string: sfilza.
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see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.’s idea originally, of course,’ he added as an afterthought14.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across15 Winston’s face at the mention of 35 Big Brother. Nevertheless16 Syme immediately detected a certain lack17 of
enthusiasm. ‘You haven’t a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,’ he said almost sadly.
‘Even when you write it you’re still thinking in Oldspeak. I’ve read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They’re good enough, but
40 they’re translations. In your heart you’d prefer to stick to18 Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades19 of meaning. You don’t grasp20 the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?’
Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically21 he hoped, not 45 trusting himself22 to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured
bread, chewed it23 briefly, and went on: ‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of
thought24? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime25 literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can
50 ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out26 and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s
55 no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,’ he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. ‘Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not
60 a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?’
Over TO yOu
❶ Syme goes into great detail about his work. Complete this summary.
He builds the new language, Newspeak, by .............................................................................. (1) old words and .............................................................................. (2) new words. The words that he tends to eliminate in the old language are in particular verbs, .............................................................................. (3) and .............................................................................. (4). Syme thinks there is no need for words which simply represent the .............................................................................. (5) of others.
❷ Which example does he give for the elimination and substitution of antonyms?
❸ He also gives an example of adjectives that suggest a superlative of good. What are they?
❹ Who invented Newspeak?
❺ Why does Syme reproach Winston?
14. afterthought: pensiero successivo.
15. sort...across: una specie di blando entusiasmo gli illuminò il viso.
16. nevertheless: tuttavia.
17. lack: mancanza. 18. stick to: aderisci,
rimani attaccato. 19. shades: sfumature. 20. grasp: afferri. 21. sympathetically: in
modo comprensivo. 22. not trusting
himself: non fidandosi.
23. chewed it: lo masticò.
24. to narrow the range of thought: restringere/limitare il raggio di coscienza.
25. thoughtcrime: crimine fatto con il pensiero (espressione inventata dall’autore).
26. rubbed out: cancellati.
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❻ He then goes on to explain the characteristics of the language. Complete the following.
The aim of Newspeak is to ............................................ (1) human cognitive ability. It will make thought-crime ............................................ (2) because people won’t have any ............................................ (3) to express it. Every word will have only one ............................................ (4). The process of elaboration of the language will ............................................ (5) for a very long time. The ............................................ (6) will be complete when the language is perfect. He also claims that Oldspeak will be obsolete by the year ............................................ (7).
❼ What is Syme’s attitude towards his work?
❽ Does Winston have the same attitude as Syme?
❾ The effect of the language changes the Party is operating are explained very clearly by Syme. People will lose self-awareness, their identity and they will not be able to describe their lives anymore, even to themselves. But there will also be other effects. explain each of the following consequences.
1. They will forget the past. Why? 2. There won’t be any charismatic leaders in politics or society. Why? 3. They will not need to communicate with each other. Why? 4. They will be exploited more easily by the government. Why?
�� In 1946 Orwell wrote an essay ‘Politics and the english Language’. He gave five rules for effective writing. Here are three of these rules. read them and their explanations, then answer the questions.
1. Never use a long word where a short one will do. Because they may present difficulty in understanding.
Do you see a prevalence of short words in the text? What are the long words used for?
2. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Any words that are not important for the understanding of the text reduce its effectiveness.
In the passage you have read do you think the language is basic or are there some non-essential words and phrases?
3. Never use the passive where you can use the active. The active is shorter and more direct.
Are there any passive forms in the passage you have read?
�� How many of Orwell’s ‘prophecies’ have come true? Think about the following.
1. flat-screen TVs 2. national lottery 3. a surveillance society
�� Syme speaks about ‘vague useless’ words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’. Can you think of other synonyms for ‘very good’? Discuss in class.
�� Syme foresees that the Newspeak language will get smaller every year. How is the language of mobile phones and computers affecting languages? Discuss in class.
�� In Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell explores the concept of the power of language. Do you think human ideals can be changed through language? Can you give any examples of ‘life-changing’ speeches from the past?
�� As language students, what can be the consequences of staying in a country whose language you can neither speak nor understand? Discuss in pairs then relate to the rest of the class. Add any of your own personal experiences if you want.
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George Orwell
Ninteen Eighty-Four (1949)
Nineteen Eighty-Four TexT 3
Winston finds himself imprisoned in the Ministry of Love. Here he must endure brutal torture: continual beatings, electric shock treatment, and psychological abuse. He tries to resist but he is powerless. As his torturer, O’Brien, administers increasingly painful shocks he begins to lose his mind.
O’Brien’s manner became less severe. He resettled his spectacles thoughtfully, and took a pace or two up and down. When he spoke his voice was gentle and patient. He had the air of a doctor, a teacher, even a priest, anxious to explain and persuade rather than to punish.
5 ‘I am taking trouble with you, Winston,’ he said, ’because you are worth1 trouble. You know perfectly well what is the matter with you.You have known it for years, though you have fought against the knowledge. You are mentally deranged2. You suffer from a defective memory. You are unable to remember real events and you persuade yourself that you remember other events which never happened.
10 Fortunately it is curable. You have never cured yourself of it, because you did not choose to. There was a small effort of the will that you were not ready to make. Even now, I am well aware, you are clinging to your disease3 under the impression that it is a virtue.’[...] ‘There is a Party slogan dealing with the control of the past,’ he said. ’Repeat it, if
15 you please.’ ‘Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the
past,’ repeated Winston obediently. ‘Who controls the present controls the past,’ said O’Brien, nodding4 his head with slow approval.
20 ‘Is it your opinion, Winston, that the past has real existence?’ Again the feeling of helplessness5 descended upon Winston. His eyes flitted towards the dial6. He not only did not know whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was the answer that would save him from pain; he did not even know which answer he believed to be the true one.
25 O’Brien smiled faintly7. ‘You are no metaphysician, Winston,’ he said. ‘Until this moment you had never considered what is meant by existence. I will put it more precisely. Does the past exist concretely, in space? Is there somewhere or other a place, a world of solid objects, where the past is still happening?’ ‘No.’
30 ‘Then where does the past exist, if at all?’ ‘In records. It is written down.’ ‘In records. And ?’ ‘In the mind. In human memories.’
1. you are worth: ne vali la pena.
2. deranged: confuso. 3. you are clinging
to your disease: rimani attaccato alla tua malattia.
4. nodding: annuendo. 5. helplessness:
impotenza. 6. flitted towards
the dial: corsero al quadrante.
7. faintly: debolmente.
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‘In memory. Very well, then. We, the Party, control all records, and we control all 35 memories. Then we control the past, do we not?’ ‘But how can you stop people
remembering things?’ cried Winston again momentarily forgetting the dial. ‘It is involuntary. It is outside oneself. How can you control memory? You have not controlled mine!’ O’Brien’s manner grew stern8 again. He laid his hand on the dial.
40 ‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘you have not controlled it. That is what has brought you here. You are here because you have failed in humility, in self-discipline. You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity. You preferred to be a lunatic, a minority of one. Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in
45 its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only
50 in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.’
55 He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what he had been saying to sink in9. ‘Do you remember,’ he went on, ’writing in your diary, Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four?’ ‘Yes,’ said Winston. O’Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden
60 and the four fingers extended. ‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’ ‘Four.’ ‘And if the party says that it is not four but five then how many?’ ‘Four.’ 65 The word ended in a gasp of pain10. The needle of the dial had shot up11 to fifty-
five. The sweat had sprung out12 all over Winston’s body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans13which even by clenching14 his teeth he could not stop. O’Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly eased15.
70 ‘How many fingers, Winston?’ ‘Four.’ The needle went up to sixty. ‘How many fingers, Winston?’ ‘Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!’
75 The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars16, enormous, blurry17, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four. ‘How many fingers, Winston?’ ‘Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!’
80 ‘How many fingers, Winston?’ ‘Five! Five! Five!’ ‘No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?’ ‘Four! Five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!’
85 Abruptly he was sitting up with O’Brien’s arm round his shoulders. He had
8. stern: serio. 9. sink in: di compiere
il suo effetto. 10. gasp of pain:
gemito di dolore. 11. shot up: schizzò. 12. had sprung out:
aveva inondato. 13. tore into...groans:
entrava a forza nei polmoni e a forza furiosamente ne usciva mista a profondi ruggiti.
14. by clenching: serrando.
15. slightly eased: facilmente alleviato.
16. pillars: colonne. 17. blurry: imprecisi.
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perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. The bonds18 that had held his body down were loosened19. He felt very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth were chattering20, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For a moment he clung21 to O’Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy arm round
90 his shoulders. He had the feeling that O’Brien was his protector, that the pain was something that came from outside, from some other source, and that it was O’Brien who would save him from it. ‘You are a slow learner, Winston,’ said O’Brien gently. ‘How can I help it?’ he blubbered22. ’How can I help seeing what is in front of my
95 eyes? Two and two are four.’ ‘Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.’
Over TO yOu
❶ Complete the following passage summarising the extract.
O’Brien takes on a different attitude now. In fact he is compared with ………….................………… (1). He doesn’t want to punish Winston now but rather ………….......................………… (2). He tells him that he is taking trouble to retrain him because he ………….......................………… (3). He considers him mentally ………….......................………… (4) and suffering from ………….......................………… (5). And what he finds really bad is that Winston believes that his attitude is the right one, that it is ………….......................………… (6).
❷ O’Brien asks Winston to repeat the slogan of the party which deals with the con-trol of the past. What is this slogan?
❸ Winston asks how O’Brien can ’stop people remembering things’ and O’Brien explains. What does he say? That:
everybody sees reality in a different way, but there is only one objective reality reality is not objective but only exists in the collective mind which is the mind of
the party reality is not subjective and not objective, it doesn’t exist
❹ O’Brien concludes by saying that it is important for Winston to see reality through the eyes of the …................................................................... . and to do this he needs an act of …................................................................... .
❺ Then O’Brien increases the pain until Winston agrees to accept that O’Brien is holding up five fingers, though he knows that he is actually holding up only four. What does O’Brien want to obtain by this?
❻ What is Winston’s crime, according to O’Brien?
❼ O’Brien says Winston must become sane. What does he mean by ’becoming sane’?
❽ In your opinion what is the party’s aim in controlling memory?
❾ At the end of the passage Winston’s feelings towards O’Brien have changed. How? What does he feel for him?
�� Discuss the idea of doublethink. How important is doublethink to the Party’s control of Oceania? How important is it to Winston’s brainwashing?
18. bonds: legami. 19. were loosened: si
erano allentati. 20. were chattering:
battevano. 21. he clung: si attaccò. 22. blubbered:
borbottò.
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Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
Salman Rushdie was born into a wealthy family in Mumbai (previously known as Bombay), his father was a lawyer-turned-businessman and his mother a teacher. His studies began in Mumbai but he was later sent to England and attended the famous school of Rugby, before going on to Cambridge University where he studied history. His first work was in the advertising world but he soon began to dedicate himself full-time to writing. In 1988 he was thrown into the public spotlight when his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, became the cause of international controversy, sparking violent protests in the Muslim world as many regarded the work as
blasphemous. Rushdie was issued with a fatwa, a death sentence, by the then leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, and was forced to spend the following ten years in a secluded and heavily guarded existence. Britain and Iran interrupted their diplomatic relations as a result. Despite the fatwa Rushdie continued to write novels, short stories and essays and has accumulated many prestigious awards throughout his career. He has held a post as lecturer at Emory University, Georgia, since 2006 and has also had minor acting roles in films such as Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001).In 2007 Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature. In his private life he has married (and divorced) four times and has two children.
Main works• Midnight’s Children (1981)• Shame (1983)• The Satanic Verses (1988)• Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)• Shalimar the Clown (2005)• The Enchantress of Florence (2008)
As a postcolonial writer Salman Rushdie has had a great influence on many other British/Indian writers and on postcolonial literature in general. All his works are a conscious mingling of cultures, the eastern and the western. Profoundly aware of his Indian origins and the contrasting reality of his life in Britain, Rushdie has produced works with an emphasis on the idea of identity and who we connect with.
StyleRushdie’s style has become known as ‘magic realism’ since it mingles fairy-tale elements with realistic historic elements. Stylistically Rushdie was influenced by such writers as Lawrence Sterne, Garcia Marquez, Lewis Carroll and Italo Calvino in their combination of fact and fantasy. But Rushdie was also very much involved in his own, Indian narrative traditions of story telling and in his greatest work, Midnight’s Children, he himself said that he based the structure of the novel on the Indian oral narrative tradition, saying in an interview: ‘An oral narrative does not go from the beginning to the middle to the end of the story [...] it goes in spirals or in loops, it every so often
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reiterates something that happened earlier to remind you, and then takes you off again [...] it frequently digresses [...] then it comes back to the main thrust of the narrative [...] So that’s what Midnight’s Children was [...] and that was the thing that I felt when writing it that I was trying to do.’ The result, then, is a highly digressive style and the way in which the narrative directly involves the reader is very similar to Sterne’s Tristram Shandy.
ThemesHis themes, often real facts in themselves, are entwined with mythological, autobiographical and fairy-tale elements which reflect the diversity and variety that is India, a colourful milieu of ethnicity. Having lived in Britain since the age of thirteen Rushdie has been influenced by western culture which also features strongly in his works. He thus manages to fuse the two different cultures and literary traditions, saying something important and relevant about both and also, perhaps, stating that the new, postcolonial, multi-ethnic scenario that makes up this modern world has produced an original, hybrid identity which is still trying to learn to come to terms with itself.
Midnight’s ChildrenTwice awarded the best all-time winner of the Booker Prize, the most prestigious British literary award, Midnight’s Children is regarded as Rushdie’s greatest work to date and has become an international best-seller, studied in schools and universities around the world. Disruptions, migrations, connections and identity are all themes to be found in this work where Rushdie focuses on India’s independence in 1947 and the creation of the new, Muslim state of Pakistan. This is the year in which the author himself was born and many critics see autobiographical elements in the novel. The work adopts the Indian tradition of story-telling technique and is often compared to such epics as the oriental The Thousand and One Nights and the Hindu Mahabharata.
The plotDivided into three books, the novel is a form of allegory on the events of modern India. It focuses mainly on the events after India’s independence and partition with Pakistan which took place at midnight on 15th August 1947. The protagonist and narrator is Saleem Sinai, who is telling his life story to his future wife, Padma. Born at midnight at exactly the same moment of India’s independence Saleem, along with all the other children born in the same hour, is doted with magical skills. They are the Midnight’s children and their growth in many ways runs parallel to the growth of India as a new country, with its many problems and conflicts. Problems inherent in its cultural, religious, linguistic and political diversity. Saleem dedicates his life to writing a chronicle on growing up in a country undergoing great change. The events of the story move constantly between India and Pakistan, between Hindus and Muslims, all interwoven in the wars and politics of the time.Finally Saleem, along with all the Midnight’s children, loses his special powers but hopes to continue his chronicle for his son who must follow and create his own historic path.
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Midnight’s Children (1981)
BefOre reADINg
❶ In pairs write down all the possible differences in your lives if you had been born in the following places.
1. in a poor area in India 2. in Italy in 1930
❷ Think about your hypothetical family, their work, everyday life and pastimes. Do some research on the Internet if necessary then compare your results with the rest of the class.
Midnight’s Children Saleem is talking about the Midnight’s children...
Understand what I’m saying: during the first hour of August 15th, 1947 – between midnight and one a.m. – no less than one thousand and one children were born within the frontiers of the infant sovereign state of India. In itself, that is not an unusual fact (although the resonances of the numbers are strangely literary)
5 – at the time, births in our part of the world exceeded deaths by approximately six hundred and eighty-seven an hour. What made the event noteworthy1
(noteworthy! There’s a dispassionate word, if you like!) was the nature of these children, every one of whom was, through some freak of biology2, or perhaps owing to some preternatural power of the moment, or just conceivably by sheer
10 coincidence3 (although synchronicity on such a scale would stagger even C.G. Jung4), endowed with5 features, talents or faculties which can only be described as miraculous. It was as though – if you will permit me one moment of fancy6 in what will otherwise be, I promise, the most sober account I can manage – as though history, arriving at a point of the highest significance and promise, had
15 chosen to sow7, in that instant, the seeds8 of a future which would genuinely differ from anything the world had seen up to that time. If a similar miracle was worked across the border, in the newly partitioned-off9 Pakistan, I have no knowledge of it; my perceptions were, while they lasted, bounded10 by the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Himalaya mountains, but also by the artificial
20 frontiers which pierced Punjab and Bengal. Inevitably, a number of these children failed to survive. Malnutrition, disease11
and the misfortunes of everyday life had accounted for no less than four hundred and twenty of them by the time I became conscious of their existence; although it is possible to hypothesize that these deaths, too, had their purpose, since 420
25 has been, since time immemorial, the number associated with fraud, deception and trickery12. Can it be, then, that the missing infants were eliminated because they had turned out to be somehow inadequate, and were not the true children of that midnight hour? […]
By 1957, the surviving five hundred and eighty-one children were all nearing 30 their tenth birthdays, wholly ignorant, for the most part, of one another’s
existence – although there were certainly exceptions. In the town of Baud, on the Mahanadi river in Orissa, there was a pair of twin sisters who were already
1. made the event noteworthy: ha reso l’avvenimento notevole.
2. some freak of biology: qualche anormalità della biologia.
3. by sheer coincidence: per pura coincidenza.
4. C.G. Jung: Carl Gustav Jung, famoso psicologo svizzero (1875-1961).
5. endowed with: dotati di.
6. one moment of fancy: qualche momento di capriccio.
7. sow: seminare. 8. seeds: semi. 9. partitioned-off:
divisa/separata. 10. bounded: confinati. 11. disease: malattia. 12. trickery: inganno.
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a legend in the region, because despite their impressive plainness13 they both possessed the ability of making every man who saw them fall hopelessly and
35 often suicidally in love with them. [...] With the exception of such rare instances, however, the children of midnight had grown up quite unaware of their true siblings14, their fellow-chosen-ones15 across the length and breadth of India’s rough and badly-proportioned diamond.
And then, as a result of a jolt16 received in bicycle-accident, I, Saleem Sinai, 40 became aware of them all.[...] Because none of the children suspected that their time of birth had anything to
do with what they were, it took me a while to find it out. At first, after the bicycle accident [...], I contended myself17 with discovering, one by one, the secrets of the fabulous beings who had suddenly arrived in my mental field of vision. [...]
45 Midnight’s children!... From Kerala, a boy who had the ability of stepping into mirrors and re-emerging through any reflective surface in the land – through the lakes and (with greater difficulty) the polished metal bodies of automobiles18... and a Goanese girl with the gift of multiplying fish... and children with powers of transformation: a werewolf19 from the Nilgiri Hills, and from the great
50 watershed20 of the Vindhyas, a boy who could increase or reduce his size at will21, and had already (mischievously22) been the cause of wild panic and rumours of the return of Giants [...]
One remarkable fact23: the closer to midnight our birth-times were, the greater were our gifts. [...]
55 So among the midnight children were infants with powers of transmutation, flight, prophecy and wizardry24... but two of us were born on the stroke of midnight25. Saleem and Shiva [...] to Shiva, the hour had given the gift of war [...] and to me, the greatest talent of all – the ability to look into the hearts and minds of men.
Over TO yOu
❶ Answer the following questions.
1. When were the Midnight’s children born exactly? 2. How many of them were born and how many survived? 3. Why did some of them die? 4. In what way were the Midnight’s children different from other children? 5. Did they know that they were part of a special group? 6. How old were all the children when Saleem became aware of them? 7. What incident set in motion his awareness? 8. What did Saleem have in common with Shiva? 9. Why was this important?
❷ In the passage Saleem describes some of the children’s gifts. Match the gift with the child.
Child gift
1. boy in the Nilgiri Hills multiply fish 2. boy in Kerala increase or reduce his size 3. twins in Orissa step into mirrors 4. Goanese girl make men fall in love 5. boy from Vindhyas transform into a werewolf
❸ What were Saleem and Shiva’s gifts?
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❹ 420 of the children had died before the age of ten, what does this tell the reader of life in Saleem’s period?
❺ In the commentary we spoke of rushdie’s juxtaposing realism and magic in his works. find examples of both from the passage.
❻ It was also mentioned how rushdie’s style uses digressions. find two examples of this from the passage.
COMPAre AND CONTrAST
❼ The novel focuses on the birth of children and the birth of two new countries, India and Pakistan. What parallels do you think may be found between a new life and a new country?
❽ Saleem says in line 65: ‘One remarkable fact: the closer to midnight our birth-times were, the greater were our gifts.’ Saleem and Shiva’s gifts were very different but why can they both be considered ‘great’? Discuss in class.
➒ If you could have a special gift what would you choose? Look at the following list.
1. to be telepathic (like Saleem) 2. to be able to make people fall in love with you (like the girls in Baud) 3. to be able to fly 4. to have an exceptional singing voice 5. to be a great musician 6. other (state your choice)
ON THe NeT
�� Do some research on the causes and consequences of the events in India in 1947. find out to what extent Mohandas gandhi was involved.
revIeW
➊ Why is Salman rushdie considered a postcolonial writer?
➋ In what ways do his works bring together two different cultures?
➌ Complete the following summary.
Rushdie’s style is referred to as ......................................................... (1). The novel Midnight’s Children is regarded as an allegory for the events in ......................................................... (2) during 1947. It is narrated by ......................................................... (3) and its style is closely tied up with the ......................................................... (4) of the Indian narrative.
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Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot (1952)
Waiting for Godot TexT 2
The extract you are going to read is near the end of the play.
ACT II VLADIMIR. Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now?
Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot?
5 That Pozzo1 passed, with his carrier2, and that he spoke to us? Probably. But in all that what truth will there be? (ESTRAGON, having struggled with his boots in vain, is dozing off3 again. VLADIMIR stares at him). He’ll know nothing. He’ll tell me about the blows he received and I’ll give him a carrot. (Pause) Astride4 of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave-digger puts
10 on the forceps5. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. (He listens). But habit is a great deadener. (He looks again at ESTRAGON). At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, he is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (Pause). I can’t go on! (Pause). What have I said?
He goes feverishly to and fro, halts finally at extreme left, broods6. 15 Enters Boy right. He halts. Silence.
BOY. Mister... (VLADIMIR turns). Mr Albert... VLADIMIR. Off we go again. (Pause). Do you not recognize me? BOY. No, sir. VLADIMIR. It wasn’t you came yesterday.
20 BOY. No, sir. VLADIMIR. This is your first time. BOY. Yes, sir. Silence. VLADIMIR. You have a message from Mr Godot. BOY. Yes, sir.
25 VLADIMIR. He won’t come this evening. BOY. No, sir. VLADIMIR. But he’ll come tomorrow. BOY. Yes, sir. VLADIMIR. Without fail7.
30 BOY. Yes, sir. Silence. VLADIMIR. Did you meet anyone? BOY. No, sir. VLADIMIR. Two other... (he hesitates)... men8? BOY. I didn’t see anyone, sir. Silence.
35 VLADIMIR. What does he do, Mr Godot? (Silence). Do you hear me? BOY. Yes, sir.
1. Pozzo: un altro personaggio della commedia.
2. carrier: facchino. 3. dozing off:
sonnecchiando. 4. Astride: a
cavalcioni. 5. forceps: forcipe. 6. broods: medita. 7. Without fail:
sicuramente. 8. men: Pozzo e Lucky.
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VLADIMIR. Well? BOY. He does nothing, sir. Silence. VLADIMIR. How is your brother?
40 BOY. He’s sick, sir. VLADIMIR. Perhaps it was he came yesterday. BOY. I don’t know, sir. Silence. VLADIMIR. (softly). Has he a beard, Mr Godot? BOY. Yes, sir.
45 VLADIMIR. Fair or ... (he hesitates) ... or black? BOY. I think it’s white, sir. Silence. VLADIMIR. Christ have mercy on us! Silence. BOY. What am I to tell Mr Godot, sir? VLADIMIR. Tell him ... (he hesitates) ... tell him you saw me and that ...
50 (he hesitates) ... that you saw me. (Pause. VLADIMIR advances, the BOY recoils. VLADIMIR halts, the BOY halts. With sudden violence). You’re sure you saw me, you won’t come and tell me tomorrow that you never saw me!
Silence. VLADIMIR makes a sudden spring forward, the BOY avoids him and exit running. 55 Silence. The sun sets, the moon rises. As in Act I. VLADIMIR stands motionless and
bowed9. ESTRAGON wakes, takes off his boots, gets up with one in each hand and goes and puts them down centre front, then goes towards VLADIMIR.
ESTRAGON. What’s wrong with you? VLADIMIR. Nothing.
60 ESTRAGON. I’m going. VLADIMIR. So am I. ESTRAGON. Was I long asleep? VLADIMIR. I don’t know. Silence. ESTRAGON. Where shall we go?
65 VLADIMIR. Not far. ESTRAGON. Oh yes, let’s go far away from here. VLADIMIR. We can’t. ESTRAGON. Why not? VLADIMIR. We have to come back tomorrow.
70 ESTRAGON. What for? VLADIMIR. To wait for Godot. ESTRAGON. Ah! (Silence). He didn’t come? VLADIMIR. No. ESTRAGON. And now it’s too late.
75 VLADIMIR. Yes, now it’s night. ESTRAGON. And if we dropped10 him? (Pause). If we dropped him? VLADIMIR. He’d punish us. (Silence. He looks at the tree.) Everything’s dead but the tree. ESTRAGON. (looking at the tree). What is it?
80 VLADIMIR. It’s the tree. ESTRAGON. Yes, but what kind? VLADIMIR. I don’t know. A willow.
ESTRAGON draws VLADIMIR towards the tree. They stand motionless before it. Silence. ESTRAGON. Why don’t we hang ourselves?
85 VLADIMIR. With what?
9. bowed: a testa china.
10. dropped: lasciassimo perdere.
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ESTRAGON. You haven’t got a bit of rope? VLADIMIR. No. ESTRAGON. Then we can’t. Silence. VLADIMIR. Let’s go.
90 ESTRAGON. Wait, there’s my belt. VLADIMIR. It’s too short. ESTRAGON. You could hang on to11 my legs. VLADIMIR. And who’d hang on to mine? ESTRAGON. True.
95 VLADIMIR. Show all the same. ( ESTRAGON loosens the cord that holds up his trousers which, much too big for him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord.) It might do at a pinch12. But is it strong enough? ESTRAGON. We’ll soon see. Here. They each take an end of the cord and pull. It breaks. They almost fall.
Over TO yOu
❶ Answer the following questions.
1. What kind of relationship is there between Estragon and Vladimir? 2. Why has the boy come? 3. Why can’t Estragon and Vladimir leave?
❷ focus on the dialogue between vladimir and the boy.
1. What does the boy call Vladimir? What is Vladimir’s reaction? 2. What information does Vladimir receive about Godot? 3. Focus on the dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon. What does Estragon
do when he wakes up? Do his actions serve any particular purpose? Are they connected with his words?
❸ Which of the following subjects is vladimir and estragon’s dialogue about? (Choose.)
nature waiting
suicide travel
happiness Godot
dreaming life
❹ Do estragon’s words always fit into a logic?
❺ Why does vladimir reject estragon’s suggestion to give up waiting for godot?
❻ In the light of the activities you have done so far, what conclusions can you draw about the scene and the general meaning of the play? Choose from the following list and give reasons for you choice.
The setting is an empty space which symbolizes the solitude surrounding man in the universe.
The language is everyday/ordinary and sometimes illogical.
The scene represents some aspects of the human condition.
The scene portrays the typical behaviour of a certain social class.
The setting is an authentic reflection of real life.
The characters are recognizable types from a specific social group.
The language is witty and refined. The characters are symbols of the
human dilemma.
❻ Which elements in the text and stage directions look or sound comic? Discuss in class.
11. hang on to: appenderti alle.
12. at a pinch: se necessario.
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Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Godot (1952)
Waiting for Godot TexT 3
The end of the play.
ESTRAGON. Why don’t we hang ourselves? VLADIMIR. With what? ESTRAGON. You haven’t got a bit of rope1? VLADIMIR. No. 5 ESTRAGON. Then we can’t. Silence. VLADIMIR. Let’s go. ESTRAGON. Wait, there’s my belt. VLADIMIR. It’s too short. 10 ESTRAGON. You could hang on to my legs. VLADIMIR. And who’d hang on to mine? ESTRAGON. True. VLADIMIR. Show all the same. (ESTRAGON loosens2 the cord that holds up3 his
trousers which, much too big for him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord.) It might 15 do at a pinch4. But is it strong enough? ESTRAGON. We’ll soon see. Here. They each take an end of the cord and pull. It breaks. They almost fall. VLADIMIR. Not worth a curse5. Silence. 20 ESTRAGON. You say we have to come back tomorrow? VLADIMIR. Yes. ESTRAGON. Then we can bring a good bit of rope. VLADIMIR. Yes. Silence. 25 ESTRAGON. Didi? VLADIMIR. Yes. ESTRAGON. I can’t go on like this. VLADIMIR. That’s what you think. ESTRAGON. If we parted? That might be better for us. 30 VLADIMIR. We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes. ESTRAGON. And if he comes? VLADIMIR. We’ll be saved. VLADIMIR takes off his hat (Lucky’s6), peers inside it7, feels about inside it8, shakes it,
knocks on the crown9, puts it on again. 35 ESTRAGON. Well? Shall we go? VLADIMIR. Pull on your trousers.
1. a bit of rope: un pezzo di corda.
2. loosens: scioglie. 3. holds up: tiene su. 4. pinch: nodo. 5. not worth a curse:
non vale niente. 6. Lucky’s: è il
cappello di Lucky, un personaggio che è intervenuto precedentemente.
7. peers inside it: ci guarda dentro (nel cappello).
8. feels about inside it: ci passa la mano.
9. shakes it, knocks on the crown: lo scuote, batte ai lati (del cappello).
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ESTRAGON. What? VLADIMIR. Pull on your trousers. ESTRAGON. You want me to pull off my trousers? 40 VLADIMIR. Pull ON your trousers. ESTRAGON. [realizing his trousers are down]. True. He pulls up his trousers. VLADIMIR. Well? Shall we go? ESTRAGON. Yes, let’s go. They do not move.
Over TO yOu
❶ What do they want to do with ‘a good bit of rope’?
❷ This final passage reveals what the two characters expect from godot. What is it?
❸ The last sentences do not refer to godot nor to the meaning of life. They simply refer to a comic gesture. Similar ones have been repeated throughout the play. What is the gesture in this particular passage?
❹ Are there any other comic gestures in the passage?
❺ What feeling is conveyed by the two characters? Choose.
happiness desperation
amusement resignation
liveliness
❻ What is absurd about lines 8-18?
❼ What contributes to a sense of immobility and immutability in this last part of the play?
❽ Why do you think they do not move and that the play ends with them in exactly the same position they were in at the beginning?
❾ Do you think the ending is appropriate?
�� Waiting for Godot is a strange play, very different from others you may have read. There is no plot, no real action, the dialogue does not make sense… In spite of this it was a hugely successful play and is still entertaining people in theatres all over the world – not only ‘intellectuals’. When it was performed in San francisco’s maximum security prison, St Quentin, in 1957, the prisoners loved it. Why, do you think? What may prisoners like about this play? Discuss in class.
�� Do you think you would like to see Waiting for godot performed in a theatre or do you prefer a more traditional kind of play?
WrITer’S COrNer
�� What would happen if godot actually turned up in the end? How do you imagine godot? Describe him in about 100 words. Think about the following.
– What he looks like. – What he’s wearing.
– How he walks and behaves. – What he says to Vladimir and
Estragon.
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John Osborne
Look Back in Anger (1956)
Look Back in Anger TexT 2
In the extract below, Jimmy returns home after visiting his friend Hugh’s dying mother who is alone as Hugh is abroad. On returning Jimmy discovers that his wife, Alison, has left him but her friend, Helena, is waiting for him in the flat.
JIMMY.(...) She hands him Alison’s note. He takes it. Oh, it’s one of these, is it? (He rips it open.) He reads a few lines, and almost snorts1 with disbelief. Did you write this for her! Well, listen to this then! (Reading.) ‘My dear I must 5 get away. I don’t suppose you will understand, but please try. I need peace so
desperately, and, at the moment, I am willing to sacrifice everything just for that. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us. I know you will be feeling wretched and bitter, but try to be a little patient with me. I shall always have a deep, loving need of you - Alison.’ Oh, how could she be so bloody wet2! Deep loving need!
10 That makes mepuke3! (Crossing to R.4 ) She couldn’t say ’You rotten bastard! I hate your guts, I’m clearing out, and I hope you rot!’ No, she has to make a polite, emotional mess out of it! (Seeing the dress in the wardrobe, he rips it out, and throws it in the corner up L.5 ) Deep, loving need! I never thought she was capable of being as phoney as that. What is that a line from one of those plays6
15 you’ve been in? What are you doing here anyway? You’d better keep out of my way, if you don’t want your head kicked in. HELENA. (calmly) If you’ll stop thinking about yourself for one moment, I’ll tell you something I think you ought to know. Your wife is going to have a baby. He just looks at her
20 Well? Doesn’t that mean anything? Even to you? He is taken aback7 but not so much by the news, as by her JIMMY. All right yes. I am surprised. I give you that. But, tell me. Did you honestly
expect me to go soggy at the knees, and collapse with remorse! (Leaning nearer.) Listen, if you’ll stop breathing your female wisdom all over me, I’ll tell you
25 something: I don’t care. (Beginning quietly.) I don’t care if she’s going to have a baby. I don’t care if it has two heads! (He knows her fingers are itching8.) Do I disgust you? Well, go on slap my face. But remember what I told you before, will you? For eleven hours, I have been watching someone I love very much going through the sordid process of dying. She was alone, and I was the only one
30 with her. And when I have to walk behind that coffin9 on Thursday, I’ll be on my own again. Because that bitch10 won’t even send her a bunch of flowers I know! She made the great mistake of all her kind. She thought that because Hugh’s mother was a deprived and ignorant old woman, who said all the wrong things in all the wrong places, she couldn’t be taken seriously. And you think I should
1. snorts: sbuffa. 2. bloody wet:
maledettamente ipocrita.
3. puke: vomitare. 4. R.: a destra del
palcoscenico (right). 5. L.: a sinistra del
palcoscenico (left). 6. plays: Helena era
un’attrice. 7. taken aback: molto
sorpreso. 8. are itching:
prudono. 9. coffin: bara. 10. bitch: stronza.
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35 be overcome with awe11 because that cruel, stupid girl is going to have a baby! (Anguish in his voice.) I can’t believe it! I can’t. (Grabbing her shoulders.) Well, the performance is over. Now leave me alone, and get out, you evil-minded little virgin. She slaps his face savagely. An expression of horror and disbelief floods his face.
40 But it drains away, and all that is left is pain. His hand goes up to his head, and a muffled cry of despair escapes him. Helena tears his hand away, and kisses him passionately, drawing him down beside her.
Over TO yOu
❶ What does Helena give Jimmy? What news does she break to him?
❷ What are Jimmy’s reactions:
1. to Alison’s letter? 2. to Helena’s news about her?
❸ What happens before the curtain falls?
❹ Compare Jimmy’s behaviour with Osborne’s description of his character below.
He is a disconcerting mixture of sincerity and cheerful malice, of tenderness and freebooting cruelty; restless, importunate, full of pride (…). Blistering honesty, or apparent honesty, like his, makes few friends. To many he may seem sensitive to the point of vulgarity.’
Which of the aspects outlined by the author is/are apparent in Jimmy’s behaviour in the extract you have read?
❺ Why is Jimmy angry with his wife?
❻ How would you define the language in the dialogue? Choose from the following adjectives and give reasons for your choices.
formal colloquial plain artificial figurative
funny serious ironic natural aggressive
❼ Do you sympathise with Jimmy? Why/Why not?
❽ What attitude do you think the author has towards Jimmy? give reasons for your answer.
❾ What impression do you get of Helena from her words and behaviour?
11. awe: timore reverenziale.
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Tom Stoppard (b. 1937)
Tom Stoppard was born Tom Straussler in Zlin, former Czechoslovakia, in 1937. He emigrated with his family to Singapore in 1939, to escape the Nazi invasion, and then went on to India to escape the Japanese (allied with Germany during the Second World War). His father remained in Singapore and was killed during the war. His mother re-married Kenneth Stoppard, who became Tom’s step-father. After the war the family moved to England. At the age of 17 Tom left school and started work as a journalist. He wrote reviews and several pieces for radio, television and theatre. His first successful play was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1964-65). Over the years he has written many successful plays for the theatre and also screenplays for television and cinema. One of his most important recent works was the screenplay for the film Shakespeare in Love (1998) for which he was awarded an Oscar. In the 1970s and 80s he became involved in social and political issues, especially concerning eastern European regimes. He was knighted in 1997.He has married twice.
Main works• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1964-65)• Jumpers (1972)• Travesties (1974)• Arcadia (1993) • Rock’n’Roll (2006)
When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was performed, first in Edinburgh (1966) and then the following year in London, it was immediately recognised as a masterpiece. Since then Stoppard has been regarded as one of the most important playwrights of the last century and the adjective, Stoppardian, has come to signify a witty dialogue containing philosophical concepts, in an unusual theatrical setting. In Time magazine’s list of the most influential people in the world (2008), Stoppard was voted number 76.
Stoppard and the theatre of the absurd Along with Harold Pinter, Stoppard is often associated with Samuel Beckett and his theatre of the absurd. However, although it is true that Stoppard’s theatre shares some features with that of Beckett’s, such as the presence of only two characters on stage, an atmosphere of uncertainty and the idea of being in a constant state of anticipation, waiting for something to happen, Stoppard’s theatre also presents something new. This ‘something’ makes the Stoppardian form unique. His plays have been defined as ‘plays of ideas’ because he deals with philosophical issues but expresses these issues in the form of witty dialogue, full of humour and jokes. One of the most important features of his
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work is in fact the language; it is complex, based on innuendo and wordplay. Stoppard himself said: ‘I am not a playwright who is interested in character with a capital K and psychology with a capital S. I’m a playwright interested in ideas and forced to invent characters who express those ideas.’
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are DeadRosencrantz and Guildenstern are two characters from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. They are not important characters like Hamlet, Ophelia and King Claudius, but two minor figures. In Shakespeare’s play they were ordered by Claudius to kill Hamlet but they failed and when Hamlet went back to court he reported that it was they who were dead. Stoppard moves in and out of Shakespeare’s plot with great freedom and flexibility. In his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern become the protagonists, he gives them a personality and a colloquial, modern language, transforming the tone of the original Shakespearian drama from tragic into comic – even farcical at times.
The play The dominating theme in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is man’s relationship with reality. The characters can never be absolutely certain that what they are perceiving is reality or illusion. The concept could be expressed as: ‘what we know is only how we choose to interpret what we see and live’. There is an absence of time in the play. Like the protagonists Estragon and Vladimir in Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern cannot remember their past and this increases the play’s sense of timelessness, a sense of living in a world they do not understand. They are even unsure about who they are, where they are going and where they came from.
The plot Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are on their way to the court of King Claudius. During the journey they play a coin-tossing game to pass the time. When they arrive at court they follow the instructions given to them by the king and queen and cross-examine prince Hamlet to find out his intentions, but their plans fail, leaving them more confused than before. They then watch the performance of a tragedy in which ‘two smiling accomplices’ escort a prince to England and are murdered. They do not understand that this story refers to them and that it is predicting their deaths. After Hamlet has killed Polonius – as in the real Shakespearean tragedy – the two are sent to England by ship to accompany the prince. They have been given a letter which they read during the voyage. This letter orders them to kill Hamlet but before they decide what to do, the letter is stolen by Hamlet himself and he changes the wording. The ship is attacked by pirates, Hamlet escapes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern open the letter again and read how it is now they who must be murdered once they arrive in England. This will be their destiny.
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1964-65)
BefOre reADINg
Here are two quotations from the play.
‘Uncertainty is the normal state. You’re nobody special’. ‘There’s a logic at work – it’s all done for you, don’t worry. Enjoy it. Relax’.
What do these quotations infer? Tick the interpretations you think are correct on the basis of what you read in the commentary.
Everything in life is uncertain. There is something extraordinary about every one of us. We are part of a big machine and must accept it. Man’s destiny is pre-ordained. Human beings can mould their own destiny. Someone else decides for each of us. Rebel against events and do what you choose to do. Be resigned to life’s events.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Taken from the beginning of the play. The two characters have stopped on their way to King
Claudius’s court and they are tossing coins, playing a game of heads or tails.
Two Elizabethans passing time in a place without any visible character. They are well-dressed – hats, cloaks1, sticks2 and all. Each of them has a large leather money bag.
5 Guildenstern’s bag is nearly empty. Rosencrantz’s bag is nearly full. [...] Guildenstern sits. Rosencrantz stands (he does the moving, retrieving coins3). Guildenstern spins4. Rosencrantz studies coin. ROS. Heads5. 10 He picks it up and puts it in his money bag. The process is repeated. Heads. Again. ROS. Heads. Again. 15 Heads. Again. Heads. GUIL. [flipping a coin]. There is an art to the building up of suspense. ROS. Heads. 20 GUIL. [flipping another]. Though it can be done by luck alone. ROS. Heads. GUIL. If that’s the word I’m after. ROS. [raises his head at Guildenstern]. Seventy-six love6.
Guildenstern gets up but has nowhere to go. He spins another coin over his shoulder 25 without looking at it, his attention being directed at his environment or lack7 of it.
1. cloaks: mantelli. 2. sticks: bastoni. 3. does...coins: fa
un movimento, ritirando la moneta.
4. spins: getta (la moneta).
5. heads: testa. 6. seventy-six love: 76
a zero. 7. lack: mancanza.
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Heads. GUIL. A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else at
least in the law of probability. He flips8 a coin over his shoulder as he goes to look upstage9. 30 ROS. Heads. Guildenstern, examining the confines of the stage, flips over two more coins, as he does so,
one by one of course. Rosencrantz announces each of them as ‘heads’. GUIL. [musing10]. The law of probability, as it has been oddly11 asserted, is
something to do with the proposition that if six monkeys [He has surprised 35 himself.]... if six monkeys were... ROS. Game? GUIL. Were they? ROS. Are you? GUIL. [understanding]. Game. [Flips a coin.] The law of averages12, if I have got this 40 right, means that if six monkeys were thrown up in the air for long enough they
would land on their tails13 about as often as they would land on their – ROS. Heads. [He picks up the coin.] GUIL. Which at first glance14 does not strike one as a particularly rewarding
speculation, in either sense, even without the monkeys. I mean you wouldn’t 45 bet15 on it. I mean I would, but you wouldn’t... [As he flips a coin.] ROS. Heads. GUIL. Would you? [Flips a coin.] ROS. Heads. Repeat. 50 Heads. [He looks up at Guildenstern – embarrassed laugh.] Getting a bit of a bore16, isn’t it? GUIL. [coldly]. A bore? ROS. Well... GUIL. What about suspense? ROS. [innocently]. What suspense? 55 Small pause. GUIL. It must be the law of diminishing returns17... I feel the spell about to be
broken18. [Energising himself somewhat.] He takes out a coin, spins it high, catches it, turns it over on to the back of his other hand,
studies the coin – and tosses it to Rosentcrantz. His energy deflates19 and he sits. 60 Well, it was a even chance20... if my calculations are correct. ROS. Eighty-five in a row21 – beaten the record! GUIL. Don’t be absurd. ROS. Easily! GUIL. [angry]. Is that it, then? Is that all? 65 ROS. What? GUIL. A new record? Is that as far as you prepared to go? ROS. Well... GUIL. No questions? Not even a pause? ROS. You spun them yourself. 70 GUIL. Not a flicker of doubt22? ROS. [aggrieved, aggressive]. Well, I won – didn’t I? […] Guidenstern sits despondently23. He takes a coin, spins it, lets it fall between his feet. He
looks at it, picks it up, throws it to Rosencrantz, who puts it in his bag. Guildenstern takes 75 another coin, spins it, catches it, turns it over on to his other hand, looks at it, and throws
it to Rosencrantz who puts it in his bag. Guildenstern tales a third coin, spins it, catches it in his right hand, turns it over on to his left wrist24, lobs25 it in the air, catches it with his
8. flips: fa volare. 9. upstage: verso
il fondo (del palcoscenico).
10. musing: riflettendo. 11. oddly: a caso. 12. the law of averages:
la legge delle medie statistiche.
13. tails: code. 14. at first glance: a
una prima occhiata. 15. bet: scommettere. 16. getting...bore: sta
diventando noioso. 17. law of diminishing
returns: legge di riduzione dei profitti.
18. spell...broken: l’incantesimo sta per essere spezzato.
19. deflates: viene meno.
20. even chance: un’uguale probabilità.
21. in a row: di seguito. 22. not a flicker of
doubt: neppure l’ombra del dubbio.
23. despondently: con aria scoraggiata.
24. wrist: polso. 25. lobs: lancia.
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left hand, raises his left leg, throws the coin up under it, catches it and turns it over on to the top of his head, where it sits. Rosencrantz comes, looks at it, puts it in his bag.
80 ROS. I’m afraid – GUIL. So am I. ROS. I’m afraid it isn’t your day. GUIL. I’m afraid it is. Small pause. 85 ROS. Eighty-nine. GUIL. It must be indicative of something, besides the redistribution of wealth.
[He muses.] List of possible explanations. One. I’m willing it. Inside where nothing shows, I’m the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private atonement26 for an unremembered past. [He
90 spins a coin at Rosencrantz.] ROS. Heads. GUIL. Two. Time has stopped dead, and a single experience of one coin being
spun once has been repeated ninety times... [He flips a coin, looks at it, tosses it to Rosencrantz.] On the whole, doubtful. Three. Divine intervention, that is to say,
95 a good turn from above concerning him, cf. children of Israel, or retribution from above concerning me, cf. Lot’s wife27. Four. A spectacular vindication of the principle that each individual coin spun individually [he spins one] is as likely to come down heads as tails and therefore should cause no surprise that each individual time it does. [It does. He tosses it to Rosencrantz.]
100 ROS. I’ve never known anything like it! GUI. And a syllogism: One, he has never known anything like it. Two, he has
never known anything to write home about. Three, it’s nothing to write home about... Home... What’s the first thing you remember?
ROS. Oh, let’s see... The first thing that comes into my head, you mean? 105 GUIL. No – the first thing you remember. ROS. Ah. [Pause.] No, it’s no good, it’s gone. It was a long time ago. GUIL. [patient but edged28]. You don’t get my meaning. What is the first thing after
all the things you’ve forgotten? ROS. Oh. I see. [Pause.] I’ve forgotten the question. 110 [Guildenstern leaps up and paces29.] GUIL. Are you happy? ROS. What? GUIL. Content? At ease? ROS. I suppose so. 115 GUIL. What are you going to do now? ROS. I don’t know. What do you want to do? GUIL. I have no desires. None. [He stops pacing dead.] There was a messenger...
that’s right. We were sent for. [He wheels at Rosencrantz and raps out30 –] Syllogism the second: one, probability is a factor which operates within natural forces.
120 Two, probability is not operating as a factor. Three, we are now within un-, sub- or supernatural forces. Discuss. [Rosencrantz is suitably startled – Acidly.] Not too heatedly31.
26. atonement: espiazione.
27. lot’s wife: si riferisce a una storia della Bibbia.
28. edged: irritato. 29. paces: cammina
avanti e indietro. 30. wheels...out: si
dirige verso Ros e sbotta (dice bruscamente).
31. heatedly: con passione/scaldandosi.
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Over TO yOu
❶ read the first part and answer true or false.
1. The two characters are playing a game at home. T F
2. Guildenstern’s bag is nearly empty and Rosencrantz’s bag is nearly full because Guildenstern is losing money during the game. T F
3. Every time Rosencrantz calls the coin, it is heads. T F
4. Guildenstern is very angry because his friend keeps winning. T F
5. Guildenstern speculates about the philosophical explanations of the phenomenon. T F
❷ In line 26 guildenstern makes a reference to a law of probability which speaks about six monkeys. According to him what does this law assert?
❸ When guildenstern speaks about the suspense (‘What about suspense?’ line 52) what do you think he means? Choose.
he is sick of waiting there is still suspense in the game because they don’t know for sure what is going
to happen in life there is no suspense ❹ Complete this short passage with one or more words.
Rosencrantz doesn’t seem interested in his friend’s philosophical speculations. In fact while he speaks he ............................................ (1) and often doesn’t answer ............................................ (2) or doesn’t even ............................................ (3) the meaning of them.
❺ What record does rosencrantz hold?
❻ These are the explanations that guildenstern gives for rosencrantz constantly winning the toss. ‘I’m willing it. Inside where nothing shows, I’m the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered past’.
❼ Why does this happen according to guildenstern? Choose.
destiny wills it his friend wills it he (Guildenstern) really wants it to happen
➑ In the last part of the play guildenstern is trying to make rosencrantz remember home, but rosencrantz doesn’t remember anything. Does this make rosencrantz feel uneasy?
➒ Which of the two characters appears more reflective and profound and who is more absent-minded and superficial?
�� What is the relationship between the two characters? Choose the definition that best fits, in your opinion.
They are friends and seem to be fond of each other. They are simply acquaintances and don’t seem to particularly like each other. They are hostile to each other and treat each other badly.
�� give an example from the text of Stoppard’s typical way of playing with philosophical ideas.
�� In the passage there are references not only to philosophical ideas, but also concepts concerning mathematics and economics. Can you identify them in the text?
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�� As with other plays from the theatre of the absurd a part of the action on the stage consists of a game. Why in your opinion? Choose.
the protagonists like playing there is a need to pass the time games are funny and amusing �� Which of the following would you say is the main theme of this scene? Choose.
friendship a lack of meaning in human life destiny versus free-will
�� Can you find any links between Stoppard’s theatre and Beckett’s?
�� What do you think of this kind of theatre?
1. fascinating interesting involving thrilling modern or 2. too complicated too conceptual strange boring too absurd
revIeW
❶ Answer true or false.
1. Stoppard attended Cambridge University. T F
2. He only ever wrote novels. T F
3. He wrote not only plays but also screenplays for television and cinema. T F
4. He was never interested in politics or social issues. T F
5. His play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was immediately recognised as a masterpiece. T F
6. For his works he often inspired by the works of other authors. T F
7. For Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead he was inspired by the work of a contemporary playwright. T F
8. His plays are defined ‘plays of ideas’ because they in them he plays with concepts. T F
9. His name is often linked with the theatre of the absurd. T F
10. The plots of his works are quite traditional. T F
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Tennessee Williams (1911-83)
Born in Missouri and educated at the University of Iowa, Thomas Lanier Williams, better known as ‘Tennessee’ Williams, had a family up-bringing which gave him ample material for his future work, writing about the alienated in society. His father was a travelling salesman, often violent and never affectionate with his three children. His mother also had an aggressive and dominating character and his sister, Rose, was mentally disturbed, spending most of her life in institutions. Also disturbed by his upbringing, Williams became a wanderer, a kind of misfit, and only managed to gain some stability when he met and fell in love with Frank Merlo in 1947. Merlo’s premature death of cancer, however, in 1961 threw Williams into a deep depression which lasted many years and resulted in addictions to drugs and alcohol.
Williams’s first great success was The Glass Menagerie (1944) and in the years that followed his literary output became enormous, producing over 25 full-length plays, dozens of short plays, novels, poetry and his own autobiography. His many awards included two Pulitzer Prizes (A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). He died in February 1983.
Main works• The Glass Menagerie (1944)• A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955)• Suddenly Last Summer (1958)• The Night of the Iguana (1961)
Tennessee Williams’s first plays were written as the Second World War was ending, a difficult period for Europe but also for America. For Williams this was also a time of personal crisis in which he felt cut off from traditional values, such as religion, family, and a well-defined, positive image of America. Thus Williams expressed in his early plays this psychological and spiritual displacement, the loneliness of the individual and the tensions within the American family. He provided an image of a world in which the hero was no longer a ‘doer’ – a person who acts and challenges society, overcoming all obstacles. On the contrary, the heroes, or rather anti-heroes, of his plays are tragic figures, belonging to a jungle-type society who either fight to survive or, more often than not, become the victims of that society, leading desperate lives. For these reasons many have seen him as being the voice of America’s social conscience.
Memory plays In his production notes for The Glass Menagerie Tennessee Williams defined his plays as ‘memory plays’. They can be divided into three parts: in the first part the character goes through a deep and intense experience; in the second this experience is the cause of what Williams calls an ‘arrest of time’, in which the character is imprisoned or frozen, unable to react; in the third and final phase the character must re-live his initial, intense experience and try to make sense of it.
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The Glass MenagerieThe Glass Menagerie, Williams’s first great success, presents some of the most important themes of his work: the desperate loneliness of the feminine characters torn between the fragility of a romantic dream and the reality of the apathetic and corrupt south dominated by men. This first work by Williams is generally seen as being strongly influenced by autobiographical events from the writer’s own life. Laura Wingfield, the protagonist, is probably modelled on Rose (Williams’s sister who had mental problems); Amanda Wingfield, the mother, is usually seen as representing Williams’s mother while Tom Wingfield is thought to represent the playwright himself. The general mood of the play is one of desperation and depression.
Themes A dominant theme in the play is the difficulty the characters have in facing, accepting and relating to reality. All the members of the Wingfield family, each in his/her own way, cannot overcome this problem and each of them lives in a private world of dreams and illusions in which they find refuge and comfort. Even Jim, who seems strong in the beginning, has his own illusions and is disappointed by life. The desire to escape is another important theme in the play. Tom escapes briefly from his reality by continuously going to the movies until, at the end of the play, he leaves forever, as his father did some years earlier, so abandoning his mother and crippled sister. Laura would like to escape but she can only do it metaphorically in her world of glass animals. She becomes close to an old school friend, Jim, but when she understands that he is engaged to be married she regresses into her imaginary world more than ever.
Style Williams’s style greatly contributes to the energy of his plays. His language is intense and powerful and he uses images and symbols, such as the animal figures in The Glass Menagerie.Williams generally inserts a narrator who moves in and out of the play. His scripts are also full of detailed stage directions and his onstage screen device is a unique characteristic of some of his plays. On it he projects words and images which are relevant to the story, perhaps a reference to something from a character’s past. In The Glass Menagerie, for example, an image of Amanda as a young girl is shown.
The plotThe play tells the sad story of a family in turmoil which is about to fall apart. The father moved out years earlier and his son, Tom, has been left to provide for his mother and crippled sister, Laura. Tom introduces the play as a memory play, with his own memories of the past. In the first scenes we see the Wingfield family eating dinner. Amanda, the mother, is obsessed about trying to find a husband for her daughter, Laura, who is extremely shy and introverted probably as a result of her physical handicap. Tom works hard during the day and goes out every evening with the excuse that he is going to the movies though he actually wants to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the house. One evening, giving in to his mother’s continuous insistence that he finds a boyfriend for Laura, he brings home a friend of his, Jim, whom Laura met at school. After dinner Laura spends some time alone with Tom’s friend, Jim. They talk for a while (the passage you’re going to read) then Jim kisses Laura, regretting it at once. He tells her that he is already engaged, and Laura is desperate. Jim leaves. Amanda and Tom argue – his mother attacks him for not saying that Jim was engaged – but Tom insists that he did not know. Finally, at the end of the play, Tom leaves the house, never to return.
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The Glass Menagerie (1944)
BefOre reADINg
The title of the play is The Glass Menagerie. In Italian it is translated as Lo zoo di vetro. What do you think it could be?
The Glass Menagerie Jim and Laura, are alone in the living room while Amanda and Tom remain in the kitchen.
Jim reminds Laura that they were actually at school together.
JIM. Didn’t we have a class in something together? LAURA. Yes, we did. JIM. What class was that? LAURA. It was – singing – Chorus! 5 JIM. Aw! LAURA. I sat across the aisle1 from you in the Aud2. JIM. Aw. LAURA. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. JIM. Now I remember – you always came in late. 10 LAURA. Yes, it was so hard for me, getting upstairs. I had that brace3 on my leg – it
clumped4 so loud! JIM. I never heard any clumping. LAURA. [wincing5 at the recollection]. To me it sounded like – thunder! JIM. Well, well, well, I never even noticed. 15 LAURA. And everybody was seated before I came in. I had to walk in front of all
those people. My seat was in the back row6. I had to go clumping all the way up the aisle with everyone watching!
JIM. You shouldn’t have been self-conscious. LAURA. I know, but I was. It was always such a relief when the singing started. 20 JIM. Aw, yes, I’ve placed you now! I used to call you Blue Roses. How was it that I
got started calling you that? LAURA. I was out of school a little while with pleurosis7. When I came back you
asked me what was the matter. I said I had pleurosis – you thought I said Blue Roses. That’s what you always called me after that!
25 JIM. I hope you didn’t mind. LAURA. Oh, no – I liked it. You see, I wasn’t acquainted with8 many – people... JIM. As I remember you sort of stuck by yourself9. LAURA. I – I – never have had much luck at – making friends. JIM. I don’t see why you wouldn’t. 30 LAURA. Well, I – started out badly. JIM. You mean being – LAURA. Yes, it sort of – stood between me – JIM. You shouldn’t have let it! LAURA. I know, but it did, and – 35 JIM. You were shy with people! LAURA. I tried not to be but never could—
1. aisle: corridoio. 2. aud: auditorio. 3. brace: apparecchio. 4. it clumped: cadeva
pesantemente (facendo rumore).
5. wincing: trasalendo. 6. row: fila. 7. pleurosis:
polmonite. 8. I wasn’t acquainted
with: non ero in confidenza.
9. you sort of stuck by yourself: te ne stavi più o meno sempre per conto tuo.
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JIM. Overcome10 it? LAURA. No, I – I never could! JIM. I guess being shy is something you have to work out of kind of gradually11. 40 LAURA. [sorrowfully]. Yes – I guess it – JIM. Takes time! LAURA. Yes – JIM. People are not so dreadful12 when you know them. That’s what you have to
remember! And everybody has problems, not just you, but practically everybody 45 has got some problems. You think of yourself as having the only problems, as
being the only one who is disappointed. But just look around you and you will see lots of people as disappointed as you are. For instance, I hoped when I was going to high school that I would be further along13 at this time, six years later, than I am now – [...] I’m twenty-three years old. How old are you?
50 LAURA. I’ll be twenty-four in June. JIM. That’s not old age! LAURA. No, but – JIM. You finished high school? LAURA. [with difficulty]. I didn’t go back. 55 JIM. You mean you dropped out14? LAURA. I made bad grades15 in my final examinations. [She rises and replaces the
book and the program16. Her voice strained17.] How is – Emily Meisenbach getting along?
JIM. Oh, that kraut-head18! 60 LAURA. Why do you call her that? JIM. That’s what she was. LAURA. You’re not still – going with her? JIM. I never see her. LAURA. It said in the Personal Section that you were – engaged! 65 JIM. I know, but I wasn’t impressed by that – propaganda! LAURA. It wasn’t – the truth? JIM. Only in Emily’s optimistic opinion! LAURA. Oh – [LEGEND: ‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE SINCE HIGH SCHOOL?’ 70 Jim lights a cigarette and leans19 indolently back on his elbows smiling at Laura with a
warmth and charm which lights her inwardly20 with altar candles. She remains by the table and turns in her hands a piece of glass to cover her tumult.]
JIM. [after several reflective puffs21 on a cigarette]. What have you done since high school? [She seems not to hear him.] Huh? [Laura looks up.]
75 I said what have you done since high school, Laura? LAURA. Nothing much. JIM. You must have been doing something these six long years. LAURA. Yes. JIM. Well, then, such as what? 80 LAURA. I took a business course at business college – JIM. How did that work out? LAURA. Well, not very – well – I had to drop out, it gave me – indigestion22 – [Jim laughs gently.] JIM. What are you doing now? 85 LAURA. I don’t do anything – much. Oh, please don’t think I sit around doing
nothing! My glass collection takes up a good deal of time. Glass is something you have to take good care of.
JIM. What did you say – about glass? LAURA. Collection I said – I have one – [She clears her throat and turns away again23, 90 acutely shy.]
10. overcome: superare. 11. work...gradually:
superarlo gradualmente.
12. dreadful: terribile. 13. I would be further
along: mi sarei fatto più strada.
14. you dropped out: hai lasciato, mollato.
15. made bad grades: ho preso brutti voti.
16. the book and the program: Laura aveva preso un libro di fotografie e il programma di studio della scuola.
17. strained: si fece tesa.
18. kraut-head: testa di cavolo.
19. leans: si appoggia. 20. inwardly: dentro,
interiormente. 21. puffs: soffi, sbuffi. 22. indigestion: cattiva
digestione. 23. turns away again:
distoglie lo sguardo.
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JIM. [abruptly.] You know what I judge to be the trouble with you? Inferiority complex! Know what that is? That’s what they call it when someone
low-rates himself24! I understand it because I had it, too. Although my case was not so aggravated as 95 yours seems to be. I had it until I took up public speaking, developed my voice,
and learned that I had an aptitude for science. Before that time I never thought of myself as being outstanding25 in any way whatsoever! Now I’ve never made a regular study of it, but I have a friend who says I can analyse people better than doctors that make a profession of it. I don’t claim that to be necessarily true, but
100 I can sure guess a person’s psychology, Laura! [Takes out his gum.]
[...] JIM. Isn’t there something you take more interest in than anything else? LAURA. Well, I do – as I said – have my – glass collection – 105 [A peal26 of girlish laughter from the kitchen.] JIM. I’m not right sure I know what you’re talking about. What kind of glass is it? LAURA. Little articles of it, they’re ornaments mostly! Most of them are little animals made out of glass, the tiniest27 little animals in
the world. Mother calls them a glass menagerie28! Here’s an example of one, if 110 you’d like to see it! This one is one of the oldest. It’s nearly thirteen. [MUSIC: ‘THE GLASS MENAGERIE.’] [He stretches out his hand.] Oh, be careful – if you breathe, it breaks! JIM. I’d better not take it. I’m pretty clumsy29 with things. 115 LAURA. Go on, I trust you with him! [Places it in his palm.]
Over TO yOu
❶ Answer the following questions about the first part of the passage.
1. Laura and Jim knew each other from school. What class did they attend together? 2. At the time Laura always came late to the lessons. What was hard for her? Why? 3. What nickname did Jim give Laura? Why? 4. What reason does Laura give for not making friends (l. 30)?
❷ Complete the following summary of the second part of the passage with the missing words/phrases.
glassmenagerie•‘furtheralong’•nothingmuch•problems•disappointed• businesscourse•engaged
Jim says that Laura is far too conscious of her defect and that everybody has ....................................................................... (1). A lot of people are ....................................................................... (2) with themselves or with their lives. He himself thought he would be ..................................................... (3) by now. Then Laura asks him if he is still ....................................................................... (4) to the girl who went to the school they attended. He explains that she was never actually his fiancée and that the girl had said this because she wished to think this. When answering the question about what she has done since high school Laura replies ‘...............................................’ (5). She didn’t do very well in her exams and when she took up a ................................................................. (6) she couldn’t finish it because it gave her ‘indigestion’. Now she is staying at home, but she underlines that she is not doing nothing, she is taking care of her ....................................................................... (7) which it takes up a lot of her time.
24. low-rates himself: ha una bassa considerazione di se stesso.
25. outstanding: rilevante.
26. a peal: scoppio. 27. the tiniest: i più
piccoli. 28. glass menagerie:
zoo di vetro. 29. clumsy: goffo,
imbranato.
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❸ Laura says that when she went into class at school, the ‘clumping’ ‘sounded like – thunder’. Here Laura’s main problem is highlighted. What is it?
❹ When speaking about the nickname Jim gave her she says that she liked it and adds: ‘you see, I wasn’t acquainted with many – people.’ What does she mean by this? Choose.
she was glad that he had found her she liked the nickname because it made her appear more beautiful to others she was happy that he gave her a nickname because this meant that he had
noticed her
❺ In his short speech (ll. 43-50) about the problems of common people Jim also talks about himself. from the few words he says how does he feel about his life?
very satisfied quite satisfied not satisfied at all
❻ Laura did not pass her exams at high school. Why do you think? Choose.
she didn’t study she was shy and lacked confidence, so panicked she hated school
❼ A screen legend appears in line 70 which would be projected above the stage. It says: WHAT HAve yOu DONe SINCe HIgH SCHOOL? What is the aim of this device used throughout the play? Choose.
It explains what is going to happen. It makes the story clearer. It increases the impact of specific scenes.
❽ Jim seems to understand Laura and gives an interpretation of her problem (ll. 92-94). What does he say Laura’s biggest problem is?
➒ What function does the music have in line 113?
�� The glass menagerie is symbolic: it represents the private world in which she lives. Why is the fact that the ‘zoo’ is made of glass animals symbolic? Choose.
These objects are, like Laura’s inner life, fanciful, delicate and fragile. The glass animals are small like Laura who wants to make herself smaller so as not
to be noticed. The glass animals are all rare/different like Laura.
�� Jim’s personality is completely different from Laura’s. What makes him so different?
�� Though he’s different, Jim has one aspect in common with Laura. Which one?
He is disappointed with his life. He is insecure and lacks self-confidence. He wants to escape the world in which he lives.
�� Jim says ‘Practically everybody has got some problems.’ But Laura is physically handicapped so her problems do seem bigger than most people’s. Can you suggest ways in which her family could have helped her more (even in a practical way)?
�� Do you like the idea of a performance in which images and phrases appear on a screen? How does this affect the audience?
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WrITer’S COrNer
�� Imagine what might happen to Laura and Amanda after Tom has left home. Write about 200 words.
revIeW
❶ Answer true or false.
1. Tennessee Williams’s plays are set in the south of the US. T F
2. He writes in the years after the Second World War. T F
3. The main themes of his plays are psychological and spiritual displacement, loneliness of the individual, tensions in the American family. T F
4. He strongly believes in the American society. T F
5. The protagonists of his works are stoic heroes. T F
6. He gave great importance to female characters. T F
7. The Glass Menagerie has autobiographical elements. T F
8. This play has a cheerful atmosphere. T F
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Ray Bradbury (b. 1920)
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, United States, in 1920. In 1934 when Bradbury was 14 he moved with his family to Los Angeles where he lives to this day. He still considers Waukegan his hometown and has set two of his novels there, under the fictional name of Green Town. In his youth Bradbury developed a passion for magic and the fantastic and wanted to become a magician. But he also had a great talent for writing which emerged at an early age. In fact when he was only seventeen he became a member of the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, through which he published his first work. Since then Bradbury has written and published more than 500 works – including short stories, novels, television scripts, plays, screenplays and
poetry – of science fiction, fantasy, horror and mystery. Ray Bradbury married Marguerite McClure (1922-2003) in 1947, with whom he had four daughters.
Main works• The Martian Chronicles (1950)• Fahrenheit 451 (1953)• I Sing the Body Electric! (1969)• A Memory of Murder (1984)• Farewell Summer (2006)
Fahrenheit 451Fahrenheit 451 (the title refers to the temperature at which paper burns) depicts a society enslaved by conformity and completely manipulated. It is a cruel and prophetic vision of a populace rendered impotent by technology. Although published in 1953, it presents frightening and fascinating comparisons with our present world.
A science-fiction novel?Fahrenheit 451 is usually defined as a science-fiction novel. Bradbury used the genre of science fiction, which was extremely popular at the time of publication, to attack all forms of censorship (what he saw as the ‘thought-destroying force’) and more generally to attack all oppressive and totalitarian governments that damaged society by limiting creativity and freedom. This dystopian motif, similar to other famous novels such as Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four or Huxley’s Brave New World, is evident in the depiction of a futuristic and technocratic society that offers order and harmony but at the same time sacrifices individual rights.
The historical backgroundIt is not a coincidence that Fahrenheit 451 was written only eight years after the end of the Second World War. Bradbury condemned the anti-intellectualism of the German Nazi party (an example of which was the book burning in Nazi Germany 1933) and
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the totalitarian governments of the time. But his criticism is targeted more towards the political situation of the early 1950s in the US when senator McCarthy created an oppressive political climate, resulting in the author’s deep concern that the US could also develop into an oppressive and authoritarian society.
The plot Set in the 24th century, Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of Guy Montag, a fireman. But firemen in the new world do not put fires out: they cause them. Guy Montag burns houses in which books are hidden because in his world it is forbidden to keep and read any form of book.Initially he enjoys his work but after ten years, when he meets a seventeen-year-old girl who tells him of a past when people were not afraid, he begins to have doubts about his profession and the life he leads. He looks for and meets a professor who talks to him of the future… and he suddenly realises what he has to do. He leaves his home and joins an underground group of intellectuals. The novel ends on a shocking but slightly optimistic note. The society in which Montag previously lived almost completely collapses and a new society must be built, a better society which the protagonist helps to build.
Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
BefOre reADINg
A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon1.
These words are spoken by Captain Beatty, the captain of the fire department who is also Montag’s boss. What does he mean by defining a book as a weapon? How can a book be a ‘weapon’?
Fahrenheit 451 TexT 1
Guy Montag is happy in his job as a fireman. But one day he meets a girl in the street. They talk and become friends. She is spontaneous, lively and asks him about his job and his feelings. When they meet this time she is on her way to see a psychiatrist…
‘The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike1 around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies. I’ll show you my collection someday.’
‘Good.’ ‘They want to know what I do with my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit 5 and think. But I won’t tell them what. I’ve got them running. And sometimes, I
tell them, I like to put my head back, like this, and let the rain fall in my mouth. It tastes just like wine. Have you ever tried it?’
‘No, I…’ […] ‘You have forgiven me2, haven’t you?’ 10 ‘Yes.’ He thought about it. ‘Yes, I have. God knows why. You’re peculiar, you’re
aggravating3, yet you’re easy to forgive. You say you’re seventeen?’
1. weapon: arma.
1. hike: vagare, camminare.
2. forgiven me: [she had offended him, saying it was a shame he wasn’t in love with anyone].
3. aggravating: irritante.
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‘Well, next month.’ ‘How odd. How strange. And my wife is thirty and yet you seem so much older at
times. I can’t get over it4.’ 15 ‘You’re peculiar yourself, Mr Montag. Sometimes I even forget you’re a fireman.
Now, may I make you angry again?’ ‘Go ahead. ‘ ‘How did it start? How did you get into it? How did you pick your work and how
did you happen to think to take the job you have? You’re not like the others. I’ve 20 seen a few: I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the
moon, you looked at the moon last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten
me. No one has time any more for anyone else. You’re one of the few who put up with me5. That’s why I think it’s so strange you’re a fireman. It just doesn’t seem
25 right for you, somehow.’ He felt his body divide into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a
trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding6 one upon the other. ‘You’d better run on to your appointment,’ he said. And she ran off and left him standing there in the rain. Only after a long time did 30 he move. And then, very slowly, as he walked, he tilted7 his head back in the rain, for just a
few moments, and opened his mouth…
Over TO yOu
❶ In this passage guy Montag is having a conversation with his new friend. What do we find out about the girl? Complete the following.
1. Age ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... . 2. Hobbies, etc. ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .
❷ What do we find out about guy Montag? Complete the following.
1. Job ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... . 2. Marital status ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .
❸ What does guy Montag think of the girl?
❹ What does the girl think about guy Montag?
❺ Why does she say he is different from the others?
❻ Why do you think the girl is visiting a psychiatrist ? Choose. because she needs psychiatric help because in their world her behaviour is unacceptable because she says strange things
❼ Do you think guy Montag understands the girl? Describe their relationship.
❽ What do the final lines of the text suggest? Choose (more than one is possible). he is annoyed he is very confused something has ‘moved’ him he feels sick
❾ Do you find the girl unusual? Can you identify with her? Why? Why not?
4. get over it: accettarlo.
5. put up with me: mi sopportano.
6. grinding: stridere. 7. tilted: gettò.
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Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
Fahrenheit 451 TexT 2
Guy Montag lives with his wife Millie, who does not work but stays at home watching (what she calls) programmes on a huge three-wall television. After his conversations with the girl he met on the street, Montag begins to question himself and his life.
And suddenly she was so strange he couldn’t believe he knew her at all. He was in someone else’s house, like those other jokes people told of the gentleman,
drunk, coming home late at night, unlocking the wrong door, entering a wrong room, and bedding with a stranger and getting up early and going to work and
5 neither of them the wiser. ‘Millie…’ he whispered. ‘What?’ ‘I didn’t mean to startle you1. What I want to know is…’ ‘Well?’ 10 ‘When did we meet? And where?’ ‘When did we meet for what?’ she asked. ‘I mean – originally.’ He knew she must be frowning2 in the dark. He clarified it. ‘The first time we ever met, where was it, and when?’ 15 ‘Why, it was at…’ She stopped. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. He was cold. ‘Can’t you remember?’ ‘It’s been so long.’ 20 ‘Only ten years, that’s all, only ten!’ ‘Don’t get excited, I’m trying to think.’ She laughed an odd little laugh that went
up and up. ‘Funny, how funny, not to remember where or when you met your husband’s
wife.’ […] 25 Well wasn’t there a wall between him and Mildred, when you came down to it?
Literally not just one wall but, so far, three! And expensive, too! And the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the nieces, the nephews that lived in those walls, the gibbering pack3 of three apes that said nothing nothing
nothing and said it loud, loud, loud. He had taken to calling them relatives 30 from the very first. ‘How’s Uncle Louis today?’ ‘Who?’ ‘And Aunt Maude?’ The
most significant memory he had of Mildred, really, was of a little girl in a forest without trees ( how odd!) or rather of a little girl lost on a plateau4 where there used to be trees (you could feel the memory of their shapes all about) sitting in the centre of the ‘living room’. The living room; what a good job of labelling5 that
35 was now. No matter when he came in, the walls were always talking to Mildred.
1. to startle you: spaventarti.
2. she must be frowning: stava aggrottando le sopracciglia.
3. the gibbering pack: borbottante gruppo.
4. plateau: altipiano. 5. labelling:
etichettare.
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‘Something must be done!’ ‘Yes, something must be done!’ ‘Well, let’s not stand and talk!’ ‘Let’s do it!’ 40 ‘I’m so mad I could spit6!’ What was it all about? Mildred couldn’t say. Who was mad at whom? Mildred
didn’t quite know. What were they going to do? Well, said Mildred, wait around and see.
Over TO yOu
❶ Complete the following passage summarising the first part of the extract.
At home Guy Montag feels as though he is in the wrong ............................................ (1). He talks to his wife, whose name is ............................................ (2), and asks her a simple question: ............................................ (3) and ............................................ (4) they met. She doesn’t ............................................ (5) because she can’t ............................................ (6) it. Guy thinks that between him and his wife there is not just one ............................................ (7), but three.
❷ What is the most significant memory he has of his wife?
❸ Who or what is always talking to his wife in the living room?
❹ There is one detail in the setting of this passage that suggests that the scene is taking place in the future. Which one?
❺ guy is angry (‘I’m so mad I could spit’ line 41), but Mildred doesn’t understand who he is mad at. Who or what do you think he is mad at? Do you think his anger is justified?
COMPAre AND CONTrAST
❻ Look back at george Orwell’s Nineteen eighty-four. Can you find any similarities or differences between Winston Smith and guy Montag?
❼ What do you know about McCarthyism and the 1950s period in the united States?
ON THe NeT
❽ A film version of fahrenheit 451 was made in 1966, directed by françois Truffaut. find some information about the film on the Internet. for example: can it be considered a faithful representation of the book? Was it popular with audiences of the time (1960s)? If you can get hold of the film on DvD, try and watch it in class.
6. spit: sputare.
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revIeW
❶ Choose the correct alternative.
1. What nationality is Ray Bradbury? American English Irish 2. His works are mainly thrillers science-fiction novels amusing stories 3. The society depicted in Fahrenheit 451 is negative positive has negative and positive aspects 4. The novel is a warning against communism censorship a primitive society 5. The protagonist of the novel is a policeman writer fireman 6. In the course of the novel what does Montag think of his situation? he accepts it blindly he accepts it partially he refuses to accept the society in which he lives
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Jean RhysJean Rhys was born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams on the Windward Island of Dominica in 1890. Her father was a Welsh doctor, her mother a Creole (white, West Indian). While living in the Caribbean, as a white girl in a place which was inhabited predominantly by black people, she always felt isolated. In 1907 she left Dominica to attend a school in Cambridge. Her attitude to her birthplace remained ambivalent throughout her life: on the one hand she deeply appreciated the great vitality of its black people, on the other she constantly felt like a stranger among them. After studying briefly at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, Rhys had several different occupations (a model, film extra and, during First World War, volunteered as a cook). She married three times. In 1919 she left England with the first of her three husbands and lived abroad for many years. It was during this period that she began to write. She published her first novel in 1928 and continued
writing until 1939, the year in which she disappeared from the public eye until 1958 when one of her novels (Good Morning Midnight) was adapted for the radio. The publication of Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966 brought her fame and freedom from financial problems. She died in 1979.
Main works• Good Morning Midnight (1958)• Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)• Smile please (1979)
When published in 1966, Wide Sargasso Sea was an immediate success, catching the attention of critics and winning the prestigious W. H. Smith Award and Heinemann Award, earning Rhys great popularity. In this novel Jean Rhys recreates the story of Bertha Mason, one of the (minor) characters of Jane Eyre, the novel by Victorian novelist Charlotte Brontë (1815-55). In Brontë’s novel Bertha was the West Indian wife of Mister Rochester, who had gone mad and lived in the attic of their house. Rhys focuses on this character and tells her story. The result is one of the most famous sequels in the history of English literature.
Wide Sargasso Sea: the structureIn Rhy’s novel Bertha becomes Antoinette Cosway, while Edward Rochester maintains his original name. The novel is divided into three parts. In the first, Antoinette is the narrator. In the second part Mister Rochester takes over, although his narrative is briefly interrupted by Antoinette. In the third part, the English nurse, Grace Poole becomes the narrator and in the final part of the book Antoinette takes over the narrative once again. As the whole novel is narrated in first person, though by different narrators, the reader is always given a subjective (and extremely emotional) view of the events.
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Background The novel is set mainly in Jamaica and Dominica, where Jean Rhys was born. Rhys’s birthplace plays an important role in the novel as the setting itself becomes an important protagonist, along with the characters. And, similar to the human characters, it presents striking contrasts: between the idyllic aspects of the deep green vegetation, fantastic waterfalls and blue waters and the rugged aspects of the endless stretches of arid wasteland and desert.
ThemesThe essential themes in the novel are the relationships between people of different races and the prejudices they hold. In Jamaica social relationships are presented as complex due to the racial mixture of peoples and the social hierarchy which exists between them. On the one hand there are the whites, and those born in England (like Mr Rochester) are distinguished from the white, Creole (like Antoinette), who descend from the Europeans who lived in the West Indies before the English. The majority of the population is black, however and are descendants of black slaves with their own social hierarchy. In the novel Rhys analyses the complex relationships and prejudices connected with race and her version of Bronte’s novel tempts the reader to look again at the original, looking at it in a new light, that of the aspect of race in a 19th-century novel. Madness is another important theme in Rhys’s work: both Antoinette and her mother suffer from nervous breakdowns. This hereditary feature is exacerbated by feelings of rejection and isolation. The end of Antoinette’s marriage and her move to England conclude her fate.
PlotThe story begins in 1839, six years before slavery was abolished in the British Empire, of which Jamaica was a part. Antoinette, the protagonist and narrator of Part I, lives with her family in Jamaica. She leads a life of poverty and isolation. After a violent accident Antoinette’s mother Annette loses touch with reality and becomes mad, ending her days in an asylum. Antoinette inherits her mother’s beauty but also her psychological instability. She is given in marriage to an Englishman, Mister Rochester. He does not love her but is attracted to her and for a time the couple is carried away by a strong physical passion. When that passion comes to an end, however, Mister Rochester begins to show an indifference towards her which gradually degenerates into hatred (see Text 1). Feeling rejected, Antoinette withdraws into herself and into her confused and disordered mind. Eventually she is taken to England where she is closed in the attic of Mister Rochester’s house. Here she will live the rest of her life shut away from the world.
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Wide Sargasso Sea (1966)
BefOre reADINg
❶ read this short passage from the third part of the novel. Antoinette, the protagonist of the story, is speaking.
There is no looking glass here and I don’t know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. […] Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?
❷ Why isn’t there a looking glass (mirror) in Antoinette’s room? What do you think ‘this place’ is? Who does ‘they’ refer to, who have taken everything she had away? Answer this question with reference to the summary of the novel.
Wide Sargasso Sea TexT 1
As for the happiness I gave her, that was worse than nothing. I did not love her. I was thirsty for her, but that is not love. I felt very little tenderness for her, she was a stranger to me, a stranger who did not think or feel as I did. I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets
5 of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.
Over TO yOu
❶ Does Mister rochester think he makes Antoinette happy? Why?
❷ Why doesn’t he love her?
❸ He begins to quote the things he hates. What do these things belong to?
❹ What reason does he give for hating her?
❺ He says that he ‘was thirsty for her’. What does he mean by this?
❻ Define the role of the narrator here.
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❼ When speaking about the Caribbean what does rochester mean when he says: ‘I hated the mountains and the hills … I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know’? What was this secret, in your opinion?
COMPAre AND CONTrAST
❽ Jane eyre’s rochester, the protagonist of Brontë’s novel, was quite different from the insecure character presented here. Do you remember how Brontë portrayed him? If not, re-read the passage on pp. 40-41 of volume II of the anthology and focus on the similarities and differences between the two Mister rochesters as far as character and personality are concerned.
❾ rochester implies that he does not love Antoinette because she is not like him. List some of the main differences between them, as stated in the commentary and say whether, in your opinion, it would be possible for two people to love each other today, despite such differences. Discuss in class.
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Jean RhysWide Sargasso Sea (1966)
Wide Sargasso Sea TexT 2
This excerpt is from the final part of the novel. Here it is Antoinette who is speaking. She is in England now, living in the attic in Mister Rochester’s big house.
When night comes, and she has had several drinks and sleeps, it is easy to take the keys. I know now where she keeps them. Then I open the door and walk into their world. It is, as I always knew, made of cardboard1 . I have seen it before somewhere, this cardboard world where everything is coloured brown or dark
5 or red or yellow that has no light in it. As I walked along the passages I wish I could see what is behind the cardboard. They tell me I am in England but I don’t believe them. We lost our way to England. When? Where? I don’t remember, but we lost it. Was it that evening in the cabin when he found me talking to the young man who brought me food? I put my arms around his neck and asked
10 him to help me. He said, ‘I didn’t know what to do, sir.’ I smashed2 the glass and plates against the porthole. I hoped it would break and the sea come in. A woman came and then an older man who cleared up the broken things on the floor. He did not look at me while he was doing it. The third man said, ‘Drink this and you will sleep’. I drank it and I said, ‘It isn’t like it seems to be,’ – ‘I know. It never
15 is,’ he said. And then I slept. When I woke it was a different sea. Colder. It was that night, I think, that we changed course and lost our way to England. This cardboard house where I walk at night is not England.
Over TO yOu
❶ Answer true or false.
1. Antoinette is speaking here. T F
2. It is night time. T F
3. Everyone else in the house is sleeping. T F
4. Antoinette is talking to someone. T F
5. She walks around the house without being seen. T F
❷ How does Antoinette describe Thornfield House?
❸ Why is she convinced that she is not in england?
❹ Answer the following questions.
1. Whose is the voice speaking in the extract? What type of narrator does the writer use?
2. Why do you think she refers to the house as ‘their world’? 3. What does Antoinette mean when she says that their world is ‘made of cardboard’? 4. What effect does the use of repetitions have in the passage?
❺ Do you think madness is an objective state or do you think it it determined by the historical and cultural context in which one lives? Discuss in class.
1. cardboard: cartone. 2. smashed: ho rotto.
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Anthony Burgess (1917-1993)
John Anthony Burgess Wilson, born in 1916 in Manchester, started writing novels quite late, when he was almost forty. After studying at Manchester university, he spent most of his adult life abroad working as an education officer. Wrongly diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1960, Burgess started writing novels at a rapid rate, completing five novels in one year, and continued to write after discovering he had been wrongly diagnosed. Of the forty novels published, A Clockwork Orange is his most famous owing much of its popularity to Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation in 1971. The writer himself did not consider it his best work. The film brought him fame and several TV appearances. Burgess continued writing and composing music (the other great passion of his life) until his death in 1993.
Main works• A Clockwork Orange (1962)• The Wanting Seed (1962)• End of the World News (1982)
Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange has been defined as ‘an interesting, disturbing and controversial work of fiction which since its first apparition, has provoked thought and reaction’. It has been criticised for glorifying sex and violence, but the author has always denied this. In a prefatory note to the novel he wrote: ‘What I had tried to write was, as well as a novella, a sort of allegory of Christian free will. Man is defined by his capacity to choose courses of moral action. If he chooses good, he must have the possibility of choosing evil instead: evil is a theological necessity. I was also saying that it is more acceptable for us to perform evil acts than to be conditioned artificially into an ability only to perform what is socially acceptable.’
A Clockwork Orange: the plotSet in the not too distant future in a society full of gang crime, a group of teen-agers, Alex and his friends, spend their time committing violent crimes, stealing, beating men and raping women. Alex is arrested and sent to jail where he undergoes a form of brainwashing which results in him associating violent acts automatically with nausea and headaches. The result is that he is no longer able to commit violent acts as just the thought of violence makes him ill. After two years in prison, Alex is released. He meets his old victims who take their revenge on him, along with the man whose wife Alex and his friends had raped years earlier. Alex is forced by him to hurl himself out of the window of an attic, but manages to survive. He lies in hospital for some time but when he leaves he has turned into the old Alex again, wicked and violent. He re-assembles the gang, but in the final chapter he has changed once more. He is described as having ‘grown up’ and given up violence. The American version, however, the edition Stanley
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Kubrik used for his film, was published without the final chapter thus giving the impression of an evil which cannot be redeemed.
The titleWhen Alex undergoes the brainwashing in prison and becomes sick at the thought of violence, he says he feels like a ‘A Clockwork Orange’ comparing himself to an inanimate object with no will. But as the prison chaplain says, ‘When a man ceases to choose, he ceases to be a man.’
ThemesThe main themes of A Clockwork Orange concern the fundamental issues of human nature: the existence of good and evil and the importance of free will. Alex, the protagonist of the novel, is a young criminal, guilty of violence, rape and theft. After being arrested he undergoes the treatment which conditions him to avoid violence. The result of this is that Alex is incapable of performing evil acts, not through choice (his own free will) but because of his new, enforced physical reaction to evil, choice has nothing to do with it. His good behaviour, therefore, has no significance as his character has remained fundamentally the same.
LanguageOne of the most revolutionary features of the novel is the language. The language of Alex and his friends is called ‘nadsat’, a transliteration of the Russian suffix ‘teen’, and in Alex’s imaginary world when the events in the novel occur (somewhere in the world in the seventies) this is the language of young people. The language is essentially Anglo-American, with many words taken from London’s Cockney dialect. Many of the words are also Slavic. For example, in the passage you are going to read ‘droogs’ (friends) derives from the word drugi, which in Russian means ‘friends in violence’. It is not easy to read nadsat, although the meaning of the words often becomes clear from the context.
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A Clockwork Orange (1962)
BefOre reADINg
read in the first part of the commentary what Burgess says about the novel and free will. He claims man must have a choice between good and evil, and he must therefore have the possibility to choose evil. Do you agree with this statement or do you think that the state should prevent evil at all cost, as it does with Alex?
A Clockwork Orange ‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’ There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is
Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassodocks what to do
5 with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you
may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read
10 much neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new
veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with velocet or synthemec or drencrom
15 or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog and all His Holy Angels and Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over you mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen
20 you and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I’m starting off the story with. Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley
25 and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the takings and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-
violent on some shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till’s gut. But, as they say, money, isn’t everything.
Allora che si fa, eh? C’ero io, cioè Alex, e i miei tre soma, cioè Pete, Georgie, e Bamba perché era davvero Bamba, e si stava al Korova Milkbar a rovellarci il cardine su come passare la serata,una sera buia fredda bastarda d’inverno, ma asciutta. Il Korova era un sosto di quelli col latte corretto e forse, O fratelli, vi siete scordati di com’erano quei sosti, con le cose che cambiano allampo oggigiorno e tutti che le scordano svelti, e i giornali che nessuno nemmeno li legge. Non avevano la licenza per i liquori, ma non c’era ancora una legge contro l’aggiunta di quelle trucche nuove che si sbattevano dentro il vecchio mommo, così lo potevi glutare con la sintemesc o la drenacrom o il veloce o un paio d’altre robette che ti davano quindici minuti tranquilli di cinebrivido stando ad ammirare Zio e Tutti gli Angeli e i Santi nella tua scarpa sinistra con le luce che ti scoppiavano dappertutto dentro il planetario. O potevi glutare il latte coi coltelli dentro, come si diceva, e questo ti rendeva sviccio e pronto per un porco di diciannove, ed è proprio quel che si glutava la sera in cui sto cominciando la storia. Si aveva le tasche piene di denghi e così non c’era proprio una gran necessità, dal punto di vista caccia alla bella maria, di festare qualche poldo in un vicolo e locchiarlo nuotar nel sangue mentre soi si faceva lo conta dell’incasso e lo si divideva per quattro, né di fare gli ultraviolenti con qualche tremante semprocchia in un negozio e poi alzare il tacco col budellame della cassa. Ma, come dicono, il denaro, non è tutto.
Traduzione di Floriana Bossi
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Over TO yOu
❶ Complete the following sentences.
1. The name of the narrator is .............................................................................................................................................................................
2. His friends are .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
3. They are sitting in .........................................................................................................................................................................................................
4. They are deciding what .........................................................................................................................................................................................
❷ What kind of place is the Korova Milkbar? What can you drink there?
❸ Alex and his friends put ‘substances’ (hallucinogenic drugs) into their milk. Why? What does this usually give you according to Alex?
❹ In the last lines Alex says that they have got money so they do not need to…
Complete the paragraph by choosing from the following words.
manviolent•bleed•alley•person
To assault some ……………….............. (1) in an …………….............…. (2), hit him as to make him ……………........……. (3), (viddy him swim in his blood) nor to rob a ……………….........……. (4) assaulting and being ……………….........……. (5) to some frightened clerk.
❺ from which details in Alex’s account do we understand that the story is set in a future society (or in a society that is not the present)?
❻ velocet, synthemec, drencrom. What do you think they are?
❼ The most original feature of this passage (and of the novel) is the language. underline in the first six lines all the words that are not english. Do you find they make the text incomprehensible or is it still possible to understand from the general context?
❽ Define the type of narrator used in the novel and the point of view.
❾ Do you like the original language of the novel? Or would you prefer a more conventional language?
�� Have you seen any films which you felt glorified violent sex and crime? Do you think it is difficult to be influenced by films, novels or Tv? Discuss in class.
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John Fowles (1926-1995)
John Fowles was born in 1926 at Leigh-on-Sea, a town in Essex described by the novelist himself as ’dominated by conformism’. When he left school he served as junior officer in the Royal Marines in the Second World War. After the end of the war he went to Oxford, where he graduated in French in 1950. He worked as a Lecturer in English both in France and in Greece. After his marriage in 1956 he settled in London where he continued to teach and write but he and his family did not like city life and moved to Lyme Regis where he has since lived a rather secluded life, especially after the death of his wife in 1990.
Main works• The Collector (1963)• The Magus (1966)• The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969)• The Ebony Tower (1974)
Themes and fortuneFowles’s main interests lie in psychology, fantasy and experimentation. One of his main themes is eroticism, which he uses as an attack on lingering Victorian values in 20th-century society. He is one of the best-known of the more experimental modern, British novelists. His later works, however, did not have the same popular or critical success as his first three, all of which were made into films, although he did receive a nomination for the Nobel Prize in 1999.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman: The plotSet in the 19th century, the novel tells the story of an amateur palaeontologist, Charles Smithson, who goes to spend a few days at the seaside, at the house of Mrs Poulteney, the aunt of his wealthy fiancée Ernestina. While looking for fossils, Charles meets Sarah Woodruff, Mrs Poulteney’s secretary, who is said to have been deserted by her French lover and whose behaviour is looked upon with suspicion by the prudish villagers. Charles is deeply affected by his meeting with Sarah and consequently his relationship with Ernestina is also affected. He becomes Sarah’s lover, but soon after this Sarah disappears. Charles finds her after a long and difficult search. The novel has two endings: one is typically Victorian with Charles and Sarah finally getting married and living happily ever after, while the second ending provides no reconciliation and Charles will never see Sarah again.
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Literary techniquesThe novel is a combination of traditional realism and French, nouveau roman techniques. These techniques first influenced British novel-writing in the 1950s, though they have proved more popular with literary critics and academics than the reading public as they often result in a highly intellectual, essay-like type of prose. Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, however, does succeed in engrossing the reader in a form of traditional narrative while at the same time challenging the very conventions of that tradition. The characters are simultaneously presented as realistic people belonging to the world of the 19th century and fictional people whose role in the novel the narrator openly analyses and challenges.
The narrator(s)From the very beginning of the novel the reader is confronted with two different narrators. One is the traditional, intrusive, third-person, omniscient narrator who indulges in digressions and addresses the reader in a friendly and familiar tone; the second is a modern evolution of the traditional, omniscient narrator who does not take up the role of a God-like creator but becomes an objective observer who openly states that the world portrayed in the novel is fictional. The narrator provides long digressions on the characters’ fictional nature and the novelist’s task. The novelty of this work also derives from the author’s skilful mixture of various writing styles, blending naturally traditional forms of narration and 20th-century, interior monologue techniques. The result is a very original style, as illustrated in the extract you are about to read.
The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969)
BefOre reADINg
❶ read the following extract from Chapter 13 of the novel. It highlights one major innovation of the author’s narrative technique.
The novelist is still a god, since he creates (...). What has changed is that we are no longer the gods of the Victorian image, omniscient and decreeing; but in the new theological image, with freedom our first principle, not authority.
❷ Now indicate which of the following statements best conveys the thoughts of the narrator.
20th-century narrators cannot accept a fixed point of view 20th-century narrators have very similar principles as the Victorian ones the role of the narrator has totally changed since the Victorian age
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The French Lieutenant’s Woman TexT 1
The following extract is taken from Chapter 16. Charles has overcome his crisis following his meeting with Sarah and has gone out to indulge his hobby of gathering fossils.
He knew at once where he wished to go. He had had no thought except for the French Lieutenant’s Woman when he found her on the wild cliff-meadow1; but he had just had previous time to notice, at the foot of the little bluff2 whose flat top was the meadow, considerable piles of fallen flint3. It was certainly this which
5 made him walk that afternoon to the place. The new warmth, the intensification of love between Ernestina and himself had driven all thought, or all but the most fleeting4, casual thought, of Mrs Poulteney’s secretary from his conscious mind. When he came to where he had toscramble up5 through the brambles she certainly did come sharply to mind again; he recalled very vividly how she had
10 lain that day. But when he crossed the grass and looked down at her ledge6, it was empty; and very soon he had forgotten her. He found a way down to the foot of the bluff and began to search among the scree7 for his tests8. It was a colder day than when he had been there before. Sun and clouds rapidly succeeded each other in proper April fashion, but the wind was out of the north. At the foot
15 of the south-facing bluff, therefore, it was agreeably warm; and an additional warmth soon came to Charles when he saw an excellent test, seemingly not long broken from its flint matrix lying at his feet. Forty minutes later, however, he had to resign himself to the fact that he was to have no further luck, at least among the flints below the bluff. He regained the tuft9 above and walked towards
20 the path that led back into the woods. And there a dark movement! She was half way up the steep10 little path, too occupied in disentangling11 her coat from a recalcitrantbramble12 to hear Charles’s turf-silenced13 approach. As soon as he saw her he stopped. The path was narrow and she had the right of way. But then she saw him. They stood some fifteen feet apart, both clearly embarrassed,
25 though with very different expressions. Charles was smiling; and Sarah stared at him with profound suspicion. ’Miss Woodruff!’ She gave him an imperceptible nod14, and seemed to hesitate as if she would have turned back if she could. But then she realised he was standing to one side for her and made hurriedly to pass him. Thus it was that she slipped on a treacherous angle of the muddled15 path
30 and fell to her knees. He sprang forwards and helped her up; now she was totally like a wild animal, unable to look at him, trembling dumb.
Over TO yOu
❶ Answer the following questions.
1. Where is Charles? 2. Why does he go back forty minutes later? 3. Who does he meet on his way back? 4. Ernestina is mentioned. Do you remember who she is?
❷ Is the narrative voice omniscient or non-omniscient?
❸ What expectations are created about possible developments in the story?
1. cliff-meadow: prato sulla scogliera.
2. bluff: precipizio. 3. flint: selce. 4. fleeting: passeggeri. 5. scramble
up: arrampicarsi. 6. ledge: cengia. 7. scree: pietrisco. 8. tests: campioni. 9. tuft: ciuffo. 10. steep: ripido. 11. disentangling:
districandosi. 10. bramble: rovi. 13. turf-silenced: il cui
rumore era attutito dalla torba.
14. nod: cenno. 15. muddled:
sconnesso.
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John FowlesThe French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969)
The French Lieutenant’s Woman TexT 2
This last extract is taken from Chapter 48. Charles has just made love to Sarah and left her. He is sitting in church reflecting on what he has done and what he should now do. Where shall I begin?
Begin with what you have done, my friend. And stop wishing you had not done it. I did not do it. I was led to do it. What led you to do it? 5 I was deceived. What intent lay behind the deception? I do not know. But you must judge. If she had truly loved me she could not have let me go. 10 If she had truly loved you, could she have continued to deceive? She gave me no choice. She said herself that marriage between us was impossible. What reason did she give? Our difference in social position. A noble cause. 15 Then Ernestina. I have given her my solemn promise. It is already broken. I will mend it. With love? or with guilt? It does not matter which. A vow is sacred. 20 If it does not matter which, a vow1 cannot be sacred. My duty is clear. Charles, Charles, I have read that thought in the cruellest eyes. Duty is but a pot. It holds whatever is put in it, from the greatest evil to the greatest good. She wished me to go. I could see it in her eyes a contempt2. 25 Shall I tell you what Contempt is doing at this moment? She is weeping her heart out3. I cannot go back. Do you think water can wash that blood from your loins? I cannot go back. Did you have to meet her again in the Undercliff? Did you have to stop this night 30 in Exeter? Did you have to go to her room? Let her hand rest on yours. Did you I admit these things! I have sinned. But I was fallen into her snare4. Then why are you now free of her? There was no answer from Charles. He sat again in his pew5. He locked his fingers
with a white violence, as if he would break his knuckle6, staring, staring into the 35 darkness. But the other voice would not let him be. My friend, perhaps there is one thing she loves more than you. And what you do
not understand is that because she truly loves you she must give you the thing she loves more.
1. vow: voto. 2. contempt:
disprezzo. 3. weeping her heart
out: piangendo tutte le sue lacrime.
4. snare: trappola. 5. pew: panca di
chiesa. 6. knuckle: nocche.
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Over TO yOu
❶ Answer the following questions.
1. Who is the ’I’ of line 1? 2. In line 3 ’it’ refers to... 3. In line 10 the pronoun ’she’ refers to... 4. What do you think ’that thought’ in line 24 is? 5. Why was their marriage impossible according to Sarah? 6. Is it clear what he decides to do in the end?
❷ Say who Charles is talking to. (Choose).
a priest himself the narrator his conscience
❸ In the last line: the one thing she loves more is
❹ In what ways do the two voices differ regarding the values they put forward?
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Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Sylvia Plath was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. She published her first poem when she was only eight years old. Intelligent, sensitive and good at school she seemed to be the ‘perfect girl’. By the time she entered Smith College on a scholarship in 1950, she had already published other works and, while at college, wrote over four hundred poems. Her success was real but her image as a happy young woman was not. Under the surface she began to struggle against the initial manifestations of a mental illness. During the summer, after her third year at college, Sylvia spent a month in New York City. Here she should have covered the position of guest editor for a magazine but the experience was not what she had hoped for and, when she went back to college, she tried to kill herself with sleeping tablets. This,
together with episodes from the month she spent in New York, is chronicled in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. She also describes in the novel how she was treated with electric shock and psychotherapy while in a mental hospital. In 1955 Sylvia went back to college and graduated the same year. She won another scholarship for the University of Cambridge in England and in 1956 married the English poet, Ted Hughes. They settled in a village in Devon, but after only a few years of marriage they separated. In 1962 Sylvia moved to a small London flat where she struggled to look after her two children with the money she was earning through her poetry. These difficult times took their toll on her already fragile mental state and in February 1963, she committed suicide. She was only 30 years old.
Main works• The Colossus and Other Poems (1960)• The Bell Jar (1963)• Ariel (published in 1965)• Crossing the Water (published in 1971)• Winter Trees (published in 1972)
Sylvia Plath is known mainly for her beautiful poetry which is rich in imagery and deals with painful themes such as suicide. In her short and tormented life she found herself confronted with the issue of a woman’s place in society and culture. She had lived in America and moved to England, thinking wrongly that things would be different there for a female writer. Her attempt to be free and live independently failed in a tragic way. After her death the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s adopted her and her poetry as a symbol for their struggle.
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PoetryHer poetry has been defined as ’at once confessional, lyrical and symbolic’. Confessional because it is strictly linked with her own experiences and life, lyrical because it expresses intimate feelings and states of mind, symbolic because it is charged with imagery and is intense, sometimes even surreal and shocking. In her poetry she incorporates many natural images and symbols and uses figurative language widely (metaphors, personification, allusions).
ThemesShe dealt with themes such as self-loathing, problematic family relationships, the role of women in society. Many of her themes are linked to her life and experiences as she attempted to analyse herself and society. Much of her poetry contains themes of feminist criticism. ’Mirror’, the poem we are presenting here, is no exception.
‘Mirror’’Mirror’ belongs to Plath’s collection, Crossing the Water (1971). It is a short poem and presents life from a pessimistic point of view. A woman is looking into a mirror, no longer young and beautiful and this, for her, is a source of anguish. The dominant theme is youth and the emotional and physical changes brought on by ageing, but the poem also touches on the idea of truth and finding oneself.
‘Mirror’ (1971)
BefOre reADINg
One of the main themes of ’Mirror’ is the preoccupation we have with our self image. Do you think this is a natural preoccupation or that too much importance is given to appearances, especially in today’s society?
‘Mirror’ I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow1 immediately Just as it is, unmisted2 by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful- 5 The eye of the little god, four cornered3. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles4. I have looked at it so long I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers5. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. 10 Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars6, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. 15 I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned7 a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
1. I swallow: inghiottisco.
2. unmisted: priva di veli.
3. four cornered: quadrangolare.
4. with speckles: picchiettato di macchie.
5. it flickers: appare e scompare.
6. liars: bugiardi. 7. drowned: affogato.
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Over TO yOu
❶ In the first lines it is the mirror who is speaking. It describest its qualities. What are they?
❷ What does the mirror do (l. 6)? What does it see?
❸ up to now the mirror has appeared cold and dispassionate. Here suddenly it says something which suggests that he has feelings. What feelings?
❹ In the second part (l. 10) there is a change. Now the mirror is a woman. She bends and looks into the mirror. What does the mirror do for her? (l. 12)
❺ The mirror considers itself important for the woman. Why?
❻ What do the last two lines suggest about the woman? (Choose.) She is getting ugly. She finds herself like an old fish. She is getting old.
❼ What does the expression ’I have no preconceptions’ mean?
❽ In l. 9 you read the expression ’faces and darkness separate us over and over’. Who do you think ’us’ refer to? (Choose.)
to herself and the mirror to herself and other people This can be interpreted as expression of the mirror’s: sadness serenity loneliness
❾ In the second stanza the woman looks into the mirror/water. ’Searching my reaches for what she really is.’ Here the mirror becomes a symbol for:
her istincts the private and true self she is looking for appearance
�� Why do you think she calls the candles and the moon ’liars’ (l. 11)?
�� How do you interpret the phrase ’the terrible fish’ of the last lines? It is the relationship of the woman with herself. It is the inevitable aging of the woman. It is the depressive state which she feels is taking possession of her.
�� Which of these techniques does Plath use throughout the poem? personification flash back allegory
COMPAre AND CONTrAST
�� Can you name any other women writers of the fifties and sixties, either in english literature or Italian literature? Say whether their themes were similar to Plath’s.
�� The mirror as an everyday object plays a very important role in the lives of most of us. Almost everybody looks into one several times a day. Why? To look for one’s true self or for other (more superficial) reasons? And you? Is the mirror an important object for you? Do you look into one many times a day? Why? Why not? Discuss in class.
�� How could a mirror be a good symbol for some of the values in our 21st century? Discuss in groups and then relate to the rest of the class.
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Don De LilloThe son of immigrants, Don DeLillo was born in New York City in 1936. A very prolific writer, his production includes novels, plays and stories. After graduating in Communication Arts at the University of Fordham, he took a job in advertising where he worked for five years. His first novel, Americana (1971) investigates the ‘American Dream’, the sense of hope and possibility that drew immigrants to America of which he was to become highly critical. At the end of the 1970s DeLillo moved to Greece where he lived for several years. He has continued to write and publish novels and has received several awards for his work.
Main works• Americana (1971)• Great Jones Street (1973)• White Noise (1984)• Libra (1988)vMao II (1991)
One of the most important representatives of Postmodernism, DeLillo became famous for his depiction of the multi-faceted, contemporary American life in his novels. All his works deal with aspects of American society and history and are based on contemporary political and social situations. Their main features are: complex narrative structures, detailed descriptions of real life and an elaborate language. DeLillo’s style is quite unique. It draws from various registers, including the language of mass media and uses the terminology of business, the sciences and information technology. His negative view of American life and culture is enlivened by his humour which often verge towards black humour. Some critics have accused him of paying too much attention to language and too little interest in feelings for life, others consider him one of the leading post-modernist writers for his linguistic precision and attention to detail.
White NoiseWhite Noise is narrated in first person by the main protagonist Jack Gladney. It is a satirical novel which revolves around the fear of death and the waste produced by the American consumer society. The term ‘white noise’ is taken from physics, where it refers to an unpredictable and casual sequence of sounds unrelated to each other. In ordinary language it refers to the noise of a radio or television when not properly tuned. In the novel it symbolises the unpredictable and constant flow of media-created images and sounds and the impact they have on the individual. In this novel the author uses post-modernist techniques such as references to shared knowledge by media-wise audiences along with black humour and satire to expose and criticise the evolution of present-day American society.
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The plotJack Gladney, chairman of the department of Hitler Study in Blacksmith College, lives in the suburbs with his fourth wife, Babette, their small son and some of the sons and daughters from his previous marriages. The plot develops through a series of events to which the various members of the family respond in different ways. Their differences of opinion lead to never-ending discussions in which the television and the radio, which are always turned on, play a surrealistically active role. The family’s everyday life, characterised by emotional instability, is struck by an environmental catastrophe which involves the whole region. A cloud of poisonous gas, caused by a train crash, contaminates the area and the people are forced to leave. This episode is symbolic of the emotional quality of the novel which revolves around the concept of the precariousness of life and man’s constant fear of death. It is this fear which forces Babette to take part in the experimentation of a new anti-depressant which involves her in an ambiguous relationship with the drug promoter. Jack discovers their relationship and starts looking for his rival to kill him. When he eventually finds him, he discovers that he has lost his job and has turned into a drug addict. After a nasty confrontation in which both men are slightly injured, life goes on as a usual and this episode becomes just one of the many components which make up the white noise that forms the backdrop to the narrative.
White Noise (1984)
BefOre reADINg
Don DeLillo is one of the most important representatives of American, postmodernist literature. Do you remember the main features of Postmodernism? If not, re-read them in the anthology, vol. II, p. 302 and say which of the features listed below are characteristic of this literature.
irony romanticism the language of the media refined language parody meta-fiction black humour surrealism allusion political criticism intertextuality
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White Noise The text you are going to read is taken from Chapter 18. Jack has gone to the airport to
meet Bee, his daughter from one of his former marriages and there he also meets Bee’s mother, Tweedy.
At the airport we waited in a mist of plaster dust, among exposed wires, mounds1 of rubble2. Half an hour before Bee was due to arrive, the passengers from another flight began filing through adrafty3 tunnel into the arrivals area. They were gray and stricken, they were stooped over4 in weariness and shock,
5 dragging5 their hand luggage across the floor. Twenty, thirty, forty people came out, without a word or look, keeping their eyes to the ground. Some limped6, some wept. More came through the tunnel, adults with whimpering7 children, old people trembling, a black minister with his collar askew8, one shoe missing. Tweedy helped a woman with two small kids. I approached a young man, a
10 stocky9 fellow with a mailman’s cap and beer belly10, wearing a down11vest12, and he looked at me as if I didn’t belong in his space-time dimension but had crossed over illegally, made a rude incursion. I forced him to stop and face me, asked him what had happened up there. As people kept filing past, he exhaled13 wearily. Then he nodded, his eyes steady on mine, full of a gentle resignation.
15 The plane had lost power in all three engines, dropped from thirty-four thousand feet to twelve thousand feet. Something like four miles. When the steep14 glide15 began, people rose, fell, collided, swam in their seats. Then the serious screaming and moaning began. Almost immediately a voice from the flight deck was heard on the intercom: ‘We’re falling out of the sky. We’re going down! We’re a silver
20 gleaming death machine’ This outburst struck the passengers as an all but total breakdown of authority, competence and command presence and it brought on a round of fresh and desperate wailing16. Objects were rolling out of the galley17, the aisles18 were full of drinking glasses, utensils, coats and blankets. A stewardess pinned to19 the bulkhead20 by the sharp
25 angle of descent was trying to find the relevant passage in a handbook titled ‘Manual of Disasters’. Then there was a second male voice from the flight deck, this one remarkably calm and precise, making the passengers believe there was someone in charge after all, an element of hope: ‘This is American two-one-three to thecockpit21 voice recorder. Now we know what it’s like. It is worse than we’d
30 ever imagined. They didn’t prepare us for this at the death simulator in Denver. Our fear is pure, so totally stripped of distractions and pressures as to be a form of transcendental meditation. In less than three minutes we will touch down, so to speak. They will find our bodies in some smoking field, strewn about22 in the grisly23 attitudes of death. I love you, Lance.’ This time there was a brief pause
35 before the mass wailing recommenced. Lance? What kind of people were in control of the aircraft? The crying took on a bitter and disillusioned tone. As the man in the down vest told the story, passengers from the tunnel began gathering around us. No one spoke, interrupted, tried to embellish the account.
1. mounds: mucchi. 2. rubble: macerie. 3. drafty: con correnti
d’aria. 4. stooped over: curvi. 5. dragging:
trascinando. 6. limped:
zoppicavano. 7. whimpering: che
frignavano. 8. askew: di
sghimbescio. 9. stocky: corpulento. 10. beer belly: pancia
da bevitore di birra. 11. down: piumino. 12. vest: giubbotto
senza maniche. 13. exhaled: espirò. 14. steep: precipitosa. 15. glide: planata. 16. wailing: lamenti. 17. galley: cucina di
bordo. 18. aisles: corridoi. 19. pinned to:
inchiodata. 20. ulkhead: paratia. 21. cockpit: cabina del
pilota. 22. strewn about:
disseminati. 23. grisly: macabro.
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❶ focus on the description in the first part. Take notes next to the headings below.
Setting ...............................................................................................................................................................
People physical appearance ...............................................................................................................................................................
Attitude ...............................................................................................................................................................
Actions ...............................................................................................................................................................
❷ focus on the second part of the extract and summarize it using the following outline.
1. event 2. people’s reactions 3. the crew’s reaction 4. subsequent event 5. the crew’s reaction 6. people’s reactions
❸ How would you describe the language?
precise graphic symbolic detailed realistic
❹ What atmosphere is evoked?
❺ How does the second part differ from the first?
❻ Which parts do you think are good examples of ‘black humour’? explain your choices.