Thinking Activity

Thinking Activity: The Waste Land 

This Blog is response of thinking Activity given by Professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir. Here I discuss about The Waste Land. 

The Waste Land

     

About the poem 

The Waste Land, a long poem by the American writer T S Eliot, is one of the most famous works of literary modernism.The waste Land , widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. This poem is divided in five parts , that are : 

       

Across the poem’s five sections – ‘The Burial of the Dead’, ‘A Game of Chess’, ‘The Fire Sermon’, ‘Death by Water’ and ‘What the Thunder Said’ – Eliot presents a bleak picture of the landscape of the contemporary world and its history; ‘the most important personage’, as he put it, is ‘the old man with wrinkled dugs’ Tiresias, a hermaphroditic character from Greek mythology who is blind, but can see into the future.

Eliot had the idea for the poem in 1914, but a breakdown brought on by his father’s death in 1919 precipitated its completion, and it has largely been read as a comment on the bleakness of post-war European history. The pervasive metaphor of dryness is generally read as expressive of spiritual emptiness.

The Waste Land was first published in 1922 in Criterion, a magazine edited by Eliot, then a few days later in the magazine The Dial, and later that year, as a book by Boni & Liveright in New York. This latter edition included ‘Notes’ explaining some of the vast range of references contained in the poem, and its particular basis on the legend of the Holy Grail, and the vegetation ceremonies in The Golden Bough (1890; expanded 1906–1915), a comparative study of world mythology by J G Frazer. However, in ‘The Frontiers of Criticism’, in 1956, Eliot described these notes as ‘a remarkable exposition of bogus scholarship’, which he had only written to make the text long enough for book publication.

About the poet

    

 IT IS HARD to conceive of any poet, ancient or modern, who encompasses both the literary genius and metaphysical vision of Thomas Stearns Eliot (26th September 1888–4th January 1965); indeed, rare it is to encounter anyone who is able to combine a poetic sensibility with a philosophical discipline, thus creating a body of work far more beautiful and profound than its component parts.

By the end of his life, Eliot had produced such an impressive portfolio of artistic output, including poetry, plays, essays and literary criticism, it made him one of the most important English-language writers of the twentieth century, earning him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. 

Themes of the poem

Fragmentation and decay 

 Enacted through the poem’s use of free verse (especially in ‘What the Thunder Said’) and its references to ‘fragments’ and ‘broken images’. 

Sex and relationships 

 Seen in the conversation in the London pub at the end of ‘A Game of Chess’, the section describing the typist and ‘young man carbuncular’ in ‘The Fire Sermon’, and the Earl of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth I (the ‘Virgin Queen’), among others. 

War  

See the poem’s references to an ‘archduke’ (suggesting Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination caused the outbreak of WWI), rats, dead men and their bones, demobbed soldiers, and possible shell-shock victims (the man in the middle section of ‘A Game of Chess’) 

 Here I geve answer to the questions 

1, What are your views on the following image after reading 'The Waste Land'? Do you think that Eliot is regressive as compared to Nietzche's views? or Has Eliot achieved universality of thought by recalling mytho-historical answer to the contemporary malaise? 

     

Ans, I disagree that Eliot is regressive as compared to Nietzsche’s view. Eliot goes into the past but he is very much in present also. He uses many references from the past, different myths, religions etc. Eliot stands for Regressive, backward looking as it tries to find answers of contemporary malaise in Upanishad, Buddhism and Christianity let's discuss it.

Nietzsche was a German philosopher, essayist and cultural critic. His writings on truth, morality, language, aesthetics, cultural theory, history, nihilism, power, consciousness and the meaning of existence have exerted an enormous influence on western philosophy and intellectual history. 

The Waste Land is composed of five parts (I. “The Burial of the Dead”; II. “A Game of Chess”; III. “The Fire Sermon”; IV. “Death by Water”; and V. “What the Thunder Said”) complete with a set of notes, which are arguably more abstruse than the poem itself.

Whereas Prufrock is one man’s lamentation against the world, The Waste Land (1922), Eliot’s next important piece, effectively becomes a requiem for humankind in its presentation of the hollowness of living; both the saints and heroes of the past rub shoulders with the typists and clerks of the present in their subjugation to “memory and desire” and the perennial problem of the nature of human suffering. Interestingly, the original epitaph of the poem included Joseph Conrad’s infamous declaration, taken from Heart of Darkness alluding to the pervading feeling of angst prevalent in early twentieth-century Europe: “The horror! The horror!”

Akin to much metaphysical poetry, The Waste Land is effectively a mimesis of the mind as it withdraws from outward perception into a meditative trance, whereby seemingly random and disconnected thoughts arise and pass by, with no apparent underlying significance—drinking coffee in the Hofgarten, a famous clairvoyant playing cards, a cockerel crying atop a treetop, “co co rico co co rico”; a surrealistic landscape, populated with anaesthetized people, and comprising the stuff of apocalyptic dreams:

Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

—T. S. Eliot, “The Burial of the Dead”, ll. 60–3

Despite the overt bleakness of Eliot’s poem,

 written at a time when Nietzsche’s pronouncement that “God is dead” was undoubtedly ringing in the reader’s ear, its inherent message is one of attempting to come to terms with the wretchedness of life.Nietzsche introduces the concept of Ubermensch in contrast to his understanding of the other worldliness of Christianity. So we can conclude that it is also right that problems of contemporary crisis' solution is in faith and self but, the level of faith and understanding of self must be necessary.

2,Prior to the speech, Gustaf Hellström of the Swedish Academy made these remarks:

    

What are your views regarding these comments? Is it true that giving free vent to the repressed 'primitive instinct' lead us to happy and satisfied life? or do you agree with Eliot's view that 'salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition' 

Ans, I do not agree with Freud's idea. Because liberating a repressed primitive instinct will automatically lead to chaos. We should not create chaos in the society for the transition of happiness. This can lead to many problems and disturbances in our lives. And according to Eliot, if all adhere to such cultures, traditions and beliefs in such lifestyles and morals, human beings can live in peacefully a life of understanding. And that is why I agree with Eliot. 

3,  Write about allusions to the Indian thoughts in 'The Waste Land'. (Where, How and Why are the Indian thoughts referred?

Ans, There are many Indian thoughts in waste land. Eliot uses many Indian thoughts in The Waste Land. Let's discuss it 

The Fire sermon:

  The fire and sermon is name of sermon given by Buddha. Gayasisa is the place where buddha preaches the fire sermon about achieving liberation from suffering through detachment from the five senses and mind, by that Eliot also wants to convey a message tp stay detached from all body and sense's desire. 

River Ganga and Himalaya

"Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves

Waited for rain, while the black clouds

Gathered far distant, over Himavant".

Eliot refers to Wisdom of India for spiritual salvation of modern humanity. Holly river Ganga is known for its purity and also for purification , and Himalaya is known for spirituality and peace.

Three Da's 

Datta: Human

Damayata: God 

Dayadhvam: Demon 

👉Datta give Greedy control(Human          beings)

👉Damayata give self control(Godly beings)

👉Dayadhvam give  Demonic control( Demons) 

Shantih Mantra:

Eliot uses this mantra in the context of : after all the understanding peace will be there and this peace comes after the agony which takes us towards the new hope.

   Every man needs peace in life. So life is surrounded by satires. In which man cannot get peace all the time. Peace mantra is mentioned in Indian culture.

4, Is it possible to read 'The Waste Land' as a Pandemic Poem? 

Ans, Reading T.S. Eliot’s THE WASTE LAND in the Throes of the CORONAVIRUS. 

The Waste Land is a complex poem: employing a variety of voices, literary forms, and allusions to reflect the sterility of modern life. Eliot offers this tableau not as a unified image, but more as light and fog echoing off pieces of shattered glass. No single reading of the piece is possible, nor was that Eliot’s intent. It is as if the reader delves into a world with sights and sounds all its own, with fragile textures and arid imagery.

Eliot’s Waste Land is a dark, hypnogogic landscape. Littered with contradictory images — dust and rain, impotence and promiscuity, the occult and the biblical — it leaves the reader, in search of redemption, between “[a] heap of broken images” and a Hindu benediction, feeling as if this apocalyptic tribulation is not only inescapable, but, in the end, is as hopeless as what may lie beyond the poem’s 434 lines.

Eliot’s pièce de résistance retains its relevancy — its themes woven into the hearts of a generation facing a virus with a potential not seen since the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), “It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.”Black-and-white photographs of this crisis show parts of the world as a virtual wasteland, with casualties being two-and-a-half times what they were in the First World War. It is hard not to connect the Spanish Flu and the Great War: the former beginning eleven months before the latter and lasting for two years post armistice. Eliot’s Waste Land emerged from the debris of this milieu.

War is still with us, though we have not faced a global conflict for three quarters of a century. However, we are facing an international pandemic, the likes of which we haven’t faced in a century. Notwithstanding what the naysayers proclaim — e.g. more people contract and die from the regular flu each year — the Coronavirus is different. It is highly contagious, and we have no medicinal way to combat it.

That said, the Ides of March brought heightened anxiety across the United States. Looking at what occurred in China and Italy over the past few months, people see a tide washing across our shores, bringing with it an infection that may be more devastating emotionally and economically if not physically. There are questions. There is confusion. There are images, almost prophetic, that find a counterpart in one of the first poems of the modern literary movement.

In less than two weeks we will enter April, “the cruelest month.” It will breed lilacs from a dead land. This image, funereal in itself, suggests somnolence: lilacs being an alternative, herbal therapy to help people sleep. The Waste Land is filled with people who are both awake and asleep at the same time: be they images that arise from the Tarot deck, or the drowned Phlebas adrift in suspended animation, or the crowd flowing over London Bridge (which, by the end of the poem, is falling down), or the woman who submits to the lifeless sexual advances of “the young man carbuncular” (a bacterial infection that emits puss), or the “lidless eyes” playing a game of chess while “waiting for a knock upon the door.”

Because of its spasmodic structure, The Waste Land takes us on a journey that transcends time and place. It’s overarching thesis (if it has one) comes in its fourth to last line: “These fragments I have shore against my ruins.” This line enables us to look at the poem in retrospect to gain some semblance of where we have been and what we have experienced. We have been through a world of fragments and have seen that the world is fragmented. The Waste Land shows us that the surreal is a more accurate depiction of reality than what we assume.  

5, Give link of the goggle sheet with Tabular information on myths, Allusions, Language, animal/birds, colours etc. 

Ans,Click here

Thinking Activity

Film screening: Waiting for Godot 

This blog is reaponse of Thinking Activity given by Professor Dr.Dilip Barad sir. Here I discuss about some questions regarding this film screening.  

About the Flim:

    

Only one attempt to capture "Waiting for Godot" on film deserves mention. In 2001, an Irish TV movie came out as part of a project titled "Beckett on Film." Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg managed to prove that the play is indeed flammable. The key to his success at doing so was by focusing on directing the actors, marinating the one simple set, and using minimal cinematography. With "Waiting for Godot," it's a case of less is more. Still, watching it on stage is preferred, as Lindsay-Hogg does tend to overuse close-ups.In this version (above), Barry McGovern plays Vladimir and Johnny Murphy is Estragon. 

About the play: 

   

Waiting for Godot is a modern play written by Samuel Beckett. It was written or we can call it was first performed on 5th January, 1953. This play has modern art in it as per critics. It is one of the most discussed and debated plays by critics and scholars. The story is very simple- Vladimir and Estragon- two tramps are waiting for someone called Godot, but Godot never comes. Who or What is Godot? Why is he not coming? Why are both tramps waiting for Godot? What will happen if Godot comes?? Since how long Estragon and Vladimir are waiting? These and many other similar kinds of questions remain unanswered. 

Samuel Beckett's language is very simple, but that simplicity is deceiving.

Waiting for Godot falls under the category of Theatre of Absurd. It has no plot, neither beginning nor end. it ends at a similar mode from where it begins. Existentialism is a prominent theme of this play.Beckett‟s time in France also coincided with an active period in Existential philosophy, most of it centered in Paris. Existentialism is a philosophy focused on existence and how a person exists in the world. The philosophy holds that people do not have an inherent nature or essence, but instead define their "self" through their actions and choices. While Beckett is not an Existentialist, a generally existential view of the human condition comes through very clearly in the play.

Why should you read "Waiting For Godot"?

Two men, Estragon and Vladimir, meet by a tree at dusk to wait for someone named “Godot.” So begins a vexing cycle where the two debate when Godot will come, why they’re waiting and whether they’re even at the right tree. The play offers a simple but stirring question- what should the characters do?

1, In both Acts, evening falls into night and moon rises. How would you like to interpret this ‘coming of night and moon’ when actually they are waiting for Godot?

            

Ans, In the play Waiting for Godot there is two act play.  Both play ending with same time like.

1, Evening time to fall of night.

2, Evening time to rise to moon.

We can say that, ‘Nothing to be done’ is central idea of the play. This is exactly the central idea of the play.

" Nothing happens , nobody comes , nobody goes, it's awful."

Evening turns into night. Light always not gives the positive attitude in life. Somehow night is connected to Death. And Valdimir said that ' Will Night never comes?' it's also connected to the fall of night and rise of the moon.This way i interpret this coming of night and moon. 

2, director feels the setting with some debris. Can you read any meaning in the contours of debris in the setting of the play?

Ans, Waiting for Godot'  is an Absurd play which highlights the absurdities of life. The play is written around Second world war so we can see the effect of world war ll. Many buildings were demolished during the war and all spaces were covered with rubbish. This Idea  director use as a setting of the film. And also we can connect with this second world war with today's Russia and Ukraine war.

3, Do you agree: “The play (Waiting for Godot), we agreed, was a positive play, not negative, not pessimistic. As I saw it, with my blood and skin and eyes, the philosophy is: 'No matter what— atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, anything—life goes on. You can kill yourself, but you can't kill life." (E.G. Marshal who played Vladimir in original Broadway production 1950s)?

Ans, Yes I agree with this statement , the play is positive and pessimistic play. this play give us a very true picture of life ,through the character of Estragon and Vladimir , they were waiting for Godot , but he never came, in the process of waiting they used to kill their time by doing certain activities but after that when the Godot didn't come they got depressed and even thought to commit suicide. Then both of them started waiting for Godot again. We can connect ourselves with these characters. In our lives we are all waiting to achieve something and for that we are waiting for it. But that doesn't happen.Waiting is the prime activity of human beings and while waiting like Estragon and Vladimir we are also stringed with some achievements and goals and desire to come true. So, Waiting is at the center of the play which suggests a kind of positive attitude towards life. 

4, Do you think that the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseated? Even when the master Pozzo is blind, he obediently hands the whip in his hand. Do you think that such a capacity for slavishness is unbelievable? 

        

Ans, Yes, I think the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseatic. When his master becomes blind he has the chance to run away but he didn't do that. We are tied up with some kind of rope from which we don't want to free. This is a capacity for slavishness is unbelievable.

We never allow ourselves to come out from the bond of relations, whether it is with relatives or whether it is with God. We know that we are not tied by anyone but still we can't escape or can't think of living our ideas, beliefs, or we can say superstitions also. Lucky also does this same thing in the play, even when Pozzo becomes blind, he never feels to make himself free from the chains and give it to the hand of his master Pozzo. 

5, Do you think that plays like this can better be ‘read’ than ‘viewed’ as it requires a lot of thinking on the part of readers, while viewing, the torrent of dialogues does not give ample time and space to ‘think’? Or is it that the audio-visuals help in better understanding of the play?

Ans, yes I think that, play is better understand to read rather than watching. Reading of the play helps to understand the things in the better way. If we first see the play without reading you can't understand it properly. If we viewed film first then we can’t not understand the main themes it also requires reading & thinking. In this play we find out so many fast dialogues. If we have seen the film before we do not understand the dialogue but then when we read the drama we can understand the drama ‌‌ so we can say that reading is more comprehensible rather than watching the film.

6) Which of the following sequence you liked the most:

1) Vladimir – Estragon killing time in questions and conversations while waiting

2)Pozzo – Lucky episode in both acts

3) Converstion of Vladimir with the boy

Ans,  I like the conversational scene between Vladimir and Estragon.Vladimir and Easragon killing their time at that time both arguing with each other and both tells deep philosophy of life in their conversations. For example –

VLADIMIR:

(stooping). True. (He buttons his fly.) Never neglect the little things of

life.

ESTRAGON:

What do you expect, you always wait till the last moment.

VLADIMIR:

(musingly). The last moment . . . (He meditates.) 

the something sick, who said that?

Thank you 

Words: 1,359

Breath: Interpretation challenge and sooting a video

Interpretation challenge of play Breath by Samuel Beckett  

This blog is reaponse of  Breath: Interpretation challenge & sooting a video given by Professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir.This blog is written as a task while studying Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett. 

While discussing ‘The Theatre of the Absurd’ and Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’, we viewed film version of his shortest play ‘Breath’ - a thirty-seconds play. I am surprised to see that  there is the play perform in thirty- two- second. Then i read some point of this play then i understand about this short play.

Samuel Beckett:

Irish playwright, novelist, and poet Samuel Beckett was a literary legend of the 20th century. Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1906, he was educated at Trinity College. During the 1930s and 1940s he wrote his first novels and short stories. During World War II, Samuel Beckett’s Irish citizenship allowed him to remain in Paris as a citizen of a neutral country. He settled in Paris and began his most prolific period as a writer. In five years, he wrote Eleutheria, Waiting for Godot, Endgame, the novels Malloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, and Mercier et Camier, two books of short stories, and a book of criticism.

Samuel Beckett play 'Breath'

Meaning of the Breath :

"Breathing corresponds to the first autonomous gesture of the living human being. To come into the world supposes inhaling and exhaling by oneself".

                                          -Luce Irigaray 

Breath means both life and death. In life it consider as the symbol of action. We all are habituated of breathing in life rather than death. Person doesn't realize its actually importance of living life. The play reflects the reality of human life. It reflects meaningless and Existentialism. Meaningless in the sense that people has no any purpose of living life. While waiting for something we are living life in between and the wait is for death. Breathing help us to reach for ultimate death. So Breath is the symbol of Bridge between life and death.

 

The script of the play:

CURTAIN Up

1. Faint light on stage littered with miscellaneous rubbish. Hold about five seconds.

2. Faint brief cry and immediately inspiration and slow increase of light together reaching maximum - together in about ten seconds. Silence and hold for about five seconds.

3. Expiration and slow decrease of light together reaching minimum together (light as in 1) in about ten seconds and immediately cry as before. Silence and hold about five seconds. 

CURTAIN Down

My interpretation 

      

Present video prepared as a task of interpretation challenge of samuel Beckett's thirty second play which tries to capture the existential crisis. Life is futile, meaning less. It just goes on. 

Humans are reduced to machines. Their lives has turned mechanical. This is the reality which has been captured here.

 My video start with clock. Clock is symbol of life. Like life is gone with time. Then we seen many of people and he all are work like a machine. Anyone don't care about what's happening to each other life.I can say that Human life is meaningless and full of absurdity. The video of modern interpretation shows people walking like machine. People have no time, they have become more mechanical. Or say people are running, but what is meaning of their life. And then I show the whole life journey of a human being how people run for money and power for no reason. And the last conclusion of the video shows the end of life and finally I use the grave as a symbol of death. Last end say that Time is waits for no one.'

Since the day of birth to the day of death, our breathing marks the autonomy of our Being; it sustains our life and formulates our thoughts and actions.One breath only can describe agony, hope, passion, despair in the most concise manner.

Breath, what a terse and eloquent way to talk about life.Even Breath- title suggests Absurdity. We breath to live, but even Breathing is absurd. Similarly human life is also like this. This is my interpretation of Samuel Beckett play Breath.

Flipped Learning

 Flipped Learning: Existentialism

      

This blog is reaponse to  flipped Learning task given by Professor Dr. dilip Barad sir here I discuss about my understanding of every video. 

 What is Existentialism:  

     

Existentialism is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on the experience of thinking, feeling, and acting. In the view of the existentialist, the individual's starting point has been called "the existential angst", a sense of dread, disorientation, confusion, or anxiety in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and value of human existence. 

Here are some thoughts which I like in this 10 vidios:

Video 1 Existentialism 

    

Video 1:.Existentialism is about Individuality, Passion and Freedom. And then Camus say that " Believe in God is philosophical suicide for him Existentialism. 

 

Video 2: The my of Sisyphus 

      

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."

 

"I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living."This to thing say that how life is important. 

Video 3: The myth of Sisyphus: The notion of philosophical suicide.  

      

A Total absence of hope = Despair 

A continual rejection= Renunciation 

Conscious dissatisfaction = Immature unrest

This notion is essential and i consider it to stand as the first of my truth. This think say that Believe in your own truth. 

Video 4: Dadaism, Existentialism, Nihilism

       

Dada movement rose up against world war one in 1916. Most people believe that Dadaism is associated with Nihilism is not true. Dadaism is a quest for change. And Dada movement is also say about the Art. Art is rise in Dadaism. 

 

Video 5: Existentialism: A Gloomy Philosophy 

    

Existentialism is often accused of being a gloomy philosophy. And he say truth of life and that is believing in God. 

Video 6: Existentialism and Nihilism 

      

" All suicide have the responsibility of fighting against the temptation of suicide." 

Video 7: Introduction to Existentialism

    

Existentialism thinkers over the last few centuries have created some of the greatest work of philosophy and literature.

"[Existentialism] is an attitude that recognizes the unresolvable confusion of the human world, yet resists the all-too-human temptation to resolve the confusion by grasping toward whatever appears or can be made to appear firm or familiar ... The existential attitude begins with a disoriented individual facing a confused world that he cannot accept." (Robert Solomon) 

 Human, Yet resists the all-too-human . 

Video 8: Explaine Like i am five: Existentialism and Friedrich Nietzsche.

    

This video is a fairly personal description of what attracts me to existential thinking, and of what I get out of it. 

Video 9: Why i like Existentialism

    

Life is just DNA' s way of trying to propagate itself. Because it is tends to drain the magic and poetry out of things. This easy way to we all understand of our life Meaning. 

Video 10: Let us sum up: From Essentialism to Existentialism 

  

Essence: A certain set of core preperites that are necessary. Or essential for a thing to be what is it.

My Questions:

 Video 1

1, Believe in god is philosophical suicide for him Existentialism. Why Albert Camus say that?

2, what does Absurdity require?

Video 2 

1, why true serious philosophy problem that is suicide? 

2,  The myth of Sisyphus And absurd reasoning why both are related to the philosophical problem? 

Video 3 

1, what is philosophical suicide? 

2, what does life mean in such an absurd universes? 

Video 4 

1, Which kind of art rose up in Dadaism? 

2, How Dadaism influence of modern art ?

Video 5 

1,  What is Gloomy Philosophy? 

2, How related to Existentialism with Anxiety, Absurdity and Despair?

Video 6

1,Why rebellion is the only proper response to Absurdity of life?

2, Existentialism and Nihilism which way connected? 

Video 7

1,what is Existentialism?

2, what is the difference between Existentialism and Nihilism?

Video 8

1, why is titled suggest that  i like Existentialism? 

2,  who is Faiederich Nietzsche?

Video 9

1, Why important to Holism to understand of Existentialism?

2, How does Existentialism bridge the divide?

Video 10

1, What is the most important thing in Existentialism? 

2, Plato and Aristotle thought that every things has an essence including to us  and they believe that over essence exist in us before we're even born is it true or not?

 

Video I Like the most 

Video 2  The myth of Sisyphus

This video start with this thought

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."

                             Albert Camus 

I like this video most because this video is related to all. And I know that today's times suicide is big problem.  Albert Camus compared Existentialism with Philosophical Suicide.  when a person find there is no meaning in life, life is not worth living and in this despair he commits suicide.  so last we conclude that life isn't meaningless or  not worthless life is full of enjoyment so everybody should think about his life we called that is self love. And self love most important in today's time.

Learning outcome: 

First time I work flipped Learning task and this task i learn much things like how see videos and think about this all video then i learn about our main Idea What is Existentialism. Then i seen all the 10 video and every video give a useful information about Existentialism, philosophical suicide, myth of Sisyphus, Dadaism, Nihilism. This all the idea is most important to read Existentialism. Then i see all the videos and now i  understand that what is Existentialism.

Thank you

Thinking Activity

Thinking Activity: Theory of Archetypes 

This blog is reaponse of thinking Activity given by Professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir. Here i discuss about all the questions of Theory of Archetypas.

 

Theory of Archetype  

Northrop Frye 

Northrop Frye was well known critic. His full name Herman Northrop Frye. He was Canadian educator and literary critic who wrote much on Canadian literature and culture and became best known as one of the most important literary theorists of the 20th century. 

1. What is Archetypal Criticism? What does the archetypal critic do? 

   

Ans, Archetypal literary criticism is a theory that interprets a text by focusing on recurring myths and archetypes in the narrative and symbols, images character types in a literary work. Archetype denotes recurrent narrative designs, patterns of action, character types, themes and images which are identifiable in a wide variety of works of literature, as well as in myths, dreams and even social rituals. Such recurrent items result from elemental and universal patterns in the human psyche.The Archetypal critic tries to find this pattern, symbol and myth in present literary work.

 

2. What is Frye trying prove by giving an analogy of ' Physics to Nature' and 'Criticism to Literature'? 

Ans, 'physics is learning of nature'. We cannot learn literature. We can only learn about literature. Sciences like Physics and Chemistry can be learned. Art and literature is the subject of study and criticism is study itself; study of literature.

„Physics is an organized body of knowledge about nature, and a student of it says that he is learning physics, not nature. Art, like nature, has to be distinguished from the systematic study of it, which is criticism.“

Study of literature must be the central one or it should be the object of centripetal perspective. In order to do it successfully we need a coordinating principle. Literature is the inexhaustible source from which new critical discoveries are made. This helps to keep the science of criticism alive. In this way we are exhorted to look for more than what a poet might have put in a poem than just getting satiated with the common reading of the poem. Structural analysis of a work of art is necessary keeping in view that there is a subject as literary criticism. Frye trying to prove given to analogy that physics is learning of nature and literature is criticism of nature.  

3. Share your views of Criticism as an organised body of knowledge. Mention relation of literature with history and philosophy. 

Ans, Archetype criticism is based on philosophy and History of people. As it has been said that literature includes history as well as philosophy to convey its meaning so it displays events and ideas. History and philosophy are two important pillars of literature. History gives events and philosophy gives ideas and writer combines both and creates work of literature. Thus both are important to literature. We are not studying history or philosophy but talking only their help to understand literature. 

4.Briefly explain inductive method with illustration of Shakespeare's Hamlet's Grave Digger's scene. 

Ans , His Methodology

  

•    Inductive method (from particular to general)

• Deductive method (from general to particular)      

Grave digger scene - Hamlet 

Glimpse of an archetype - "Liebestod" (German word )

Liebestod : Liebe means Love and Tod means Death. So Liebestod means "Love Death" or can we say Death of one side love.

      

Northrop Frye discuss the two methods to prove his observation that is Inductive method and Deductive method. In the inductive method observation from particular to general. For understanding of this concept the best example is the Hamlet's grave digger's scene by Shakespeare. First we seen a grave digger seen he shows that every human being are dies in one's reason. And Grave as a symbol of Death. In this manner (inductive method) we back up a literary work to go deep into it later on. In Hamlet we see how the intricate verbal structure is preceded by the images of corruption and decay and also which is followed by the genre.In inductive method we probe into the genre of a work because the method is from particular to general whereas deductive method is from general to particular. 

5. Briefly explain deductive method reference to an analogy to music, painting, rhythm and pattern. Give examples of the outcome of deductive method. 

Ans, Deductive method ( general to particular). 

Time > Space 

music> Painting

Rhythm> Pattern

Rhythm and pattern can be observed in almost all kinds of arts, for example in Music and Painting. music has rhythm and painting have pattern. we might not understand music in few minutes but we might understand painting in few minutes.

Pattern of music and Rhythm of painting. Time and space all are arts. Literature combin both of them.So music , rhythm, painting, pattern  it helps to understand the literature.and deductive method help to understand literature.

6, Refer to the Indian seasonal grid (below). If you can, please read small Gujarati or Hindi or English poem from the archetypal approach and apply Indian seasonal grid in the interpretation.  

   Indian seasons

   

Gujrati poem 

In this poem, the poet recounts the winter season. This season we feel very cold and in all seasons ‌ this season ‌ is considered good. This is the beginning of winter season, so everyone seems to be preparing accordingly, and the poet presents the thoughts of winter in this poem.

Thinking Activity

Thinking Activity: The Great Gastby  

This blog is reaponse of thinking Activity given by Professor Dr. Dilip Barad sir. Here i discuss about the Film screening questions. 

 

        F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third novel, The Great Gatsby was first published ninety-five years ago in 1925. Regarded as his magnum opus, it is set during the “Roaring 20s” in America and is a vivid chronicle of the decadence, glitz and excesses of the “Jazz Age”. This representative work is a cautionary critique of the American dream which has made it one of the most quintessential American novels of all time.It is narrated by Nick Carraway, a young bachelor who moves to East Egg and settles right opposite Jay Gatsby’s mansion. Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, is a flamboyant albeit reserved man with a mysterious past. Nick is intrigued by this secretive man who throws extravagant parties every weekend and the two strike up an unlikely friendship. Eventually details of how Gatsby amassed all that wealth from his murky business interests unfurl, along with his fatal obsession with a married woman, Daisy Buchanan, which ultimately leads to his demise.The Great Gatsby explores themes of idealism, materialism, debauchery, social upheaval and more. This book is still strikingly relevant in the materialistic world we live in, a world that no longer frowns upon the distasteful show of wealth and  fame.

 👉About the author:

F. Scott Fitzgerald

 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, short story writer and screenwriter. He was best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularized. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

 

Here I write my opinion on muvie screening The Great Gastby. 

1, How did the film capture the Jazz Age - the Roaring Twenties of the America in 1920s?

    

                         The Jazz Age

Ans,  F.Scott Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of the 1920s America named by him “the Jazz Age.” The Great Gatsby is one of the most significant literary documents of this period. Prohibition, the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol , made millionaires out of bootleggers. The World War I left America in a state of shock, and the people of the generation that participated in the war turned to extravagant living to compensate. 

Chapter Two analyzes the main features of the American “Roaring 20s” such as materialistic attitude towards life, striving to attain high social status, prohibition as well as social phenomena “ flappers” and “ self made man “ in the context of the events and the characters of The Great Gatsby.In the contemporary phenomenon of “Gatsby parties”—festivities intended to capture the air of the titular Jay Gatsby’s famously lavish, bacchanalian parties—jazz is de rigueur to evoke the 1920s.this is about the Jazz Age and film also use many ideas about the Jazz Age.

2, How did the film help in understanding the characters of the novel. 

Ans, 

   

 This film helps me to understand of the all the characters. At first I read the summary of the characters of the novel but when I read the first summary of characters I am confused about all the characters and can't understand the characters properly but then I saw that movie and I can understand all the characters and their details.

  

When the film started, all the characters were introduced but Jay Gastby's character was a bit mysterious and then Tom Buchanan's character enters the film. Tom is Daisy's husband but first his character is Gray Shade so nobody likes his personality. Then Gastby reveal his and Daisy life truth' he says, That he loves Daisy and Daisy loves him, not Tom, and then Tom tells a few stories about Gastby's life and then Gastby reveals his character and he angry of Tom.

When Gatsby's deceptions are revealed and his illusions shattered, DiCaprio becomes at once terrifying and pathetic, a false idol toppling himself from his pedestal. In his final moment of realization, DiCaprio's blue eyes match the blue of Gatsby's pool, and his anguished face, framed in tight close-up, has a ghastly beauty.The rest of the cast is nearly as impressive. Nick Carraway is almost as much of an abstraction as Gatsby — an audience surrogate, with touches of The Nice Guy Betrayed — but Maguire humanizes him, just as DiCaprio does Gatsby. 

Carey Mulligan is physically and vocally right for Daisy Buchanan — when she flirts, the famous description of the character having "a voice like money" nearly makes sense — but the film doesn't idealize her, as Gatsby and Nick often seem to. There's a contradictory, complicated person there. She's matched — appropriately overmatched, really — by Joel Edgerton's Tom. The actor suits the book's description of the character as "hulking" and projects the jovial arrogance of a thug impersonating a cultured man with money; he's scary but life-sized, and always comprehensible. The small roles are well cast, too, with Elizabeth Debicki's Jordan Baker as a standout. 

3, How did the film help in understanding the symbolic significance of ' The Valley of Ashes', 'The Eyes of Dr, T.J Eckleberg' and 'The Green Light'? 

Ans, 👉The Valley of Ashes: 

The Valley of Ashes

The Valley of Ashes appears several times throughout the book when characters travel through it on their way into or out of Manhattan. It is first mentioned in chapter 2, when Tom Buchanan, Daisy's unpleasant husband, brings protagonist Nick to meet Myrtle, Tom's mistress. The valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result. 

The other very important detail in the Valley of Ashes is an old billboard located in the valley that advertises an oculist, which Nick describes as follows:

''Above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive... the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg... They look out of no face but... from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles... His eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.''

👉The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg: 

The Eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg

The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick explores these ideas in Chapter 8, when he imagines Gatsby’s final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of symbols and dreams.

👉The Green Light: 

The Green Light

This film start with green line and this green light represent hope and then we here seen that film use green light to many frames and Nick also compare Green Light with hope of Gastby. The green light represents Gatsby’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby’s quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation. 

4, How did the film capture the theme of Racism and Sexism? 

Ans, In 1925, instances of racism and sexism were not uncommon. However, racism and sexism are not really tolerated or accepted in today’s time. The roaring twenties, an American era of urban excellence, the rich became richer, the alcoholics became drunker, the war was over and men and women alike were thriving! In the novel The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is writing about his experiences falling into the hands of filthy wealth, a colorful, dazzlingly loud lifestyle of his neighbor Jay Gatsby and his incredible parties. He soon finds himself caught up in a love story from the past of his cousin Daisy Buchanans and his new neighbor’s affairs, even more so, becomes attached to the hip with Gatsby, devoted to him. ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together, (154)’ Nick Carraway shouts some of the last words Gatsby would hear. As times were still racist, sexist, and non-accepting of certain identities.

He makes several racist and sexist remarks. It is easy to dislike his character.  Tom says, “Have you read ‘The Rise of the Colored Empires’ by this man Goddard?”...”The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be---will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.” “Its up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.” Although Tom is an easy character to hate, it is not apparent that he is the sole villain to the story. He is not necessarily what destroys Gatsby in the end. In the book, it is Tom’s goal to have Wilson lash out at Gatsby. He does not out right tell Wilson that Gatsby is to blame for Myrtle’s death. He instead just tells Wilson the car that kills his wife is yellow. In movies there always has to be a villain. The producers decided to make Tom the villain. Tom practically tells Wilson that Gatsby is to blame for the death of his wife, Myrtle. Although Tom is made out to be the villain, the producers decided to leave out Tom’s racist and sexist remarks. In the apartment party scene, they completely omit Tom’s abusive behavior of hitting Myrtle. Racism, sexism, and abuse are not as tolerated or accepted in today’s society as they were back when the book. 

Racism, a pivotal contradiction in the 1920s, is evident in Tom Buchanon, nullifying the idea of equality presented in the American Dream.Daisy, Ms. Baker, Tom, and Nick are all at dinner when Tom starts to talk about these “scientific” books he has been reading about the white race. He goes on to say that the book say that Whites are a superior race and they are to control all the other races or they will rise to control. 

5, Watch the video on Nick Carraway and discuss him as a narrator. 

Ans, “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."Nick Carraway is The Great Gatsby's narrator, but he isn't the protagonist.

Be had at least partially responsible for Gastby's eventual Death the film however largely embraces Nick as a victim narrative reinforcing the nation of Nick as an unbiased and reliable narrator. Who finds himself victimized by difficult even shocking situations never by his own fault. Nick Carraway has been committed into a sanitarium with a laundry list of conditions including alcoholism, insomnia, anger, anxiety, depression all caused by psychological and emotional trauma. The suffered while living in New York as the audience were compelled to sympathize with him right from the beginning in this scenario. Nick Carraway is definitely a victim as a means of coping with his past trauma; the doctor assigned to the next case encourages him to write about his experience of this act of writing. The Great Gatsby is primarily conveyed as a cathartic experience for Nick moving him towards renewed well- being ironically this framing device actually plant the seed of Nick's realisability that's rooted so deeply in Fitzgerald's novel could such a psychologically trouble author's account of events even be trustworthy probably not there are other knots towards Nicks unreliability in the film to. 

Thank you