Assignment Paper-110.

• Name: Drashti Joshi

• Batch: M.A. Sem.2 (2022-2024) 

• Enrollment N/o.: 4069206420220016

• Roll N/o.: 05

• Subject code & Paper N/o.: 22403  Paper: 110

• Paper Name:- History of English Literature from 1900 to 2000 

• E-mail Address: drashtijoshi582@gmail.com

• Submitted to: Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English M.K.B.U. 

• Date of submission: 31 March 2023

This Blog is an Assignment of paper no.:110 History of English Literature from 1900 to 2000.In this assignment I am dealing with the topic of Stream Of Consciousness from History of the 20th Century.

Stream Of Consciousness

Definition:

In English Literature, Stream of Consciousness is a narrative device used by the novelist to make the reader know the thoughts and feelings of the characters present in the novel.A number of people often wonder what is the other name for the stream of consciousness novel. As it focuses on the inner feeling of the characters, Stream of Consciousness is often known as an internal monologue though both the terms have a slightly different meaning.

In Internal Monologue, the thoughts and feelings of the characters are often presented using logical progression from one idea to the other, whereas in Stream of Consciousness, the actual experience of thinking is presented in all its chaos and distress

Origin:

The term “stream of consciousness” was first used by William James in 1890 in his The Principles of Psychology. He used this term to explain the free flow of thoughts.

According to him “it is nothing joined; it flows. A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let’s call it the stream of thought, consciousness, or subjective life.”

This term was first used by the novelist May Sinclair in a literary context while discussing Dorothy Richardson’s novels. However, it was three novelists Dorthy Richardson, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce who used this concept in their works.

 The term 'stream of consciousness' was first applied by Virginia Woolf to the latest innovation of the technique as well as the theme of the modern English novel. The kind of novel was entirely new and original. Marcel Proust in France, Dorothy Miller Richardson, an English woman and James Joyce, an Irishman wrote the modern psychological novels almost simultaneously between 913 and 1915. The novels turned fiction away from external to internal reality from the outer world to the hidden world of fantasy and reverie. Marcel Proust's Remembrance of things past; Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage and Joyce's 'A Portrait of the artist as a Young Man' have striking similarities. All these novels are voyages through consciousness.

Characteristics:

Following are the main characteristics of the stream of consciousness novel:

1. The Stream of Consciousness is characterised by ample thoughts and images. The technique lacks punctuation and associative leaps.

2. This technique is different from Dramatic Monologue and Soliloquy as in the latter the speaker addresses another person or audience whereas, in the former, the thoughts remain in the mind of the character.

3. Dramatic Monologue and Soliloquy is associated with the poetry whereas Stream of Consciousness is associated with the novel.

4. Today it has also been used in drama and movies.

5. It emerged during the early twentieth-century modernist movement.

The significant feature of contemporary fiction is the movement towards greater inwardness. Stream of Consciousness literary technique first used in the late 19th century employed to evince subjective as well as objective reality. It reveals the characters, feelings, thoughts and actions, often following and associative rather than a logical sequence without commentary by the author. It has a progression in the direction of inwardness of the characters from the earliest impression.

This is sheer psychology and seems to echo the very words of Freud himself. It means that human experiences come in some exceptional moments and not the ordinary deeds of everyday life. Time is no factor in determining the length of life. The morning and the evening do not constitute one day. A morning or evening might represent eternity (the 'instant made eternity' as Browning has put it). Thus one person's whole life story has no greater time-value than the twenty four hours in the life of another. "One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name." Hence if life is a complicated succession of experiences, the novelist whose aim is to present life, must "record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, trace the pattern however disconnected and incoherent in appearance which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness".

What Is the Purpose of Stream of Consciousness Writing?

Stream of consciousness writing allows authors to provide a more intimate portrayal of their subjects. It prevents them from being confined to physical descriptions or accounts of spoken dialogue, which was a standard issue literary technique prior to the rise of the stream of consciousness approach. Via stream of consciousness writing, readers are able to track characters’ thoughts in real time, thus enabling them to understand not only what a character does but why they do it.

Function of Stream of Consciousness:

Stream of consciousness is a style of writing developed by a group of writers at the beginning of the 20th century. It aimed at expressing in words the flow of characters’ thoughts and feelings in their minds. The technique aspires to give readers the impression of being inside the minds of the characters. Therefore, the internal view of the minds of the characters sheds light on the plot and motivation in the novel.

Synonyms of Stream of Consciousness:

Stream of Consciousness has no other word or phrase as an exact meaning. However, the following words can be used interchangeably in general meanings such as apostrophe, association of ideas, chain of thought, interior monologue, monologue, aside, or a soliloquy.

This flow of feeling or consciousness over a long stretch of life - 'the stream of consciousness' follows no particular logical design or order. The great novelist who seeks to bring us into close touch with life, must therefore present this over-changing consciousness over a long stretch of life "the stream of consciousness" follows no particular logical design or order. The great novelist who seeks to bring us into close touch with life-must therefore present this over-changing consciousness, this flow of feelings, continuously affected by external contracts of incidents and ceaselessly transforming itself from within. Thus it is not a definite pattern of life but only scattered fragments of life, mostly inner, that the novelist aims at. The treatment is more or less psychological. It is the inner working of the mind that is the main concern of the novelist and there is little mixture of incidents or actions which are altogether alien or subordinate. Outward, events serve only as spring-boards of thought and the stage is shifted from the outward to the inward. As a result, plot, character, comedy, tragedy, love interests in fact all conventional elements of the novel are completely subordinate as they are not quite adequate to capture and communicate this stream of consciousness. This 'action' is almost banished from the novel and only psychological analysis of mind remains, making the novel succession of what is called the interior monologues' ' of the "hero or heroine" of the novel. The term 'interior monologues' means the device by which the dissociated fragments of thoughts passing through the mind are represented.

Many novelists use an in-depth analysis to describe the unspoken thoughts of conventional dialogue. But technically the trend was begun by the French novelist Dujardin's novel 'The Laurels'. The technique was adopted and developed by James Joyce himself D. Richardson, Virginia Woolf, M. Prout and others in English.

The ability to represent the flux of character throughout impressions, emotions and memories often without logical sequences or syntax marked a revolution in the form of the novel. The related phrase interior monologue is also used to describe the inner movement of consciousness in a character's mind. However Stream of Consciousness is often confused with interior monologue, but the letter technique works the sensation of the mind into a more formal pattern: flow of thoughts inwardly expressed similar to a soliloquy. The technique of Stream of Consciousness, however, attempts to portray the remote preconscious state that exists before the mind organised sensations. Consequently, the recreation of Stream of Consciousness frequently lacks the unity, explicit cohesion and selectivity of direct thoughts.

How to Write Stream of Consciousness?:

A writer must keep the following points in mind when writing in a stream of consciousness style.

1. It must be character-specific.

2. It must sync with the character’s world; profession, relations, work, near and dear ones, and even daily activities.

3. It must seem to follow the thoughts of that person.

4. It must have some links and pieces of evidence of the thought process.

5. It must not have a structure, grammar, or any other formal linguistic evidence unless it is recorded for an educational academic.

Examples of Stream of Consciousness in Literature:

The stream of consciousness style of writing is marked by the sudden rise of thoughts and lack of punctuation. The use of this narration style is generally associated with the modern novelist and short story writers of the 20th century. Let us analyse a few examples of the stream of consciousness narrative technique in literature:

• 1. James Joyce, Ulysses (1922). 

• -This novel tracks a single day in the life of Irishman Leopold Bloom. It contains long lengthy passages of stream of consciousness, truly mimicking a brain’s free-associative abilities. Joyce pushed this technique even further in later works, culminating in the arguably narrative-free Finnegan’s Wake.

“He is young Leopold, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precious manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old house in Clanbrassil to the high school, his book satchel on him bandolier wise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother’s thought.”

• 
  

• 2. Samuel Beckett, Molloy (1951). 

• -Beckett used many of the same narrative techniques as his Irish contemporary Joyce. Most famous as a dramatist, Beckett placed streams of consciousness style monologues in the mouths of many of his characters and later applied the method to his novels.

• 
  

• 

• 
  

• 3. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (1925). 

• -Woolf used stream of consciousness writing to articulate her characters’ inner monologues, both in this novel and others like To The Lighthouse.

• 

• 
  

“What a lark! What a plunge! For so it always seemed to me when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which I can hear now, I burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as I then was) solemn, feeling as I did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen …”

• 4. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930). 

• -Faulkner had already worked with stream of consciousness in earlier novels like The Sound and the Fury, but As I Lay Dying stood out in its method of narrating the novel through the perspective of 15 different characters, each of whom narrated in a stream of consciousness style.

“Well, it isn’t like they cost me anything,” I say. I saved them out and swapped a dozen of them for the sugar and flour. It isn’t like the cakes cost me anything, as Mr Tull himself realises that the eggs I saved were over and beyond what we had engaged to sell, so it was like we had found the eggs or they had been given to us.

“She ought to taken those cakes when she gives you her word,” Kate says. The Lord can see into the heart. If it is His will that some folks have different ideas of honesty from other folks, it is not my place to question His decree.”

• 5. Jack Kerouac, On the Road (1957). 

• -Kerouac’s novel stood out for using the stream of consciousness as actual narration. Via the largely autobiographical narrator Sal Paradise, Kerouac presents the story as a largely uninterrupted flow of ideas. Driving home the point was the fact that Kerouac typed the entire novel in epic bursts on a continuous roll of typewriter paper.

• 

• 
  

• During the following week, he confided in Chad King that he absolutely had to learn how to write from him; Chad said I was a writer and he should come to me for advice. Meanwhile Dean had gotten a job in a parking lot, had a fight with Marylou in their Hoboken apartment – God knows why they went there – and she was so mad and so down deep vindictive that she reported to the police some false trumped-up hysterical crazy charge, and Dean had to lam from Hoboken. So he had no place to live. He came right out to Paterson, New Jersey, where I was living with my aunt, and one night while I was studying there was a knock on the door, and there was Dean, bowing, shuffling obsequiously in the dark of the hall, and saying, «Hello, you remember me – Dean Moriarty? I’ve come to ask you to show me how to write.

• 
  

• 6. Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground (1864). 

• -Decades before “stream of consciousness” became a literary term, authors were using it to create intimate portraits of their narrators. The technique was popular in Russian literary culture, with strong examples written by the likes of Tolstoy, Chekov, and Dostoevsky.

• 
  

• 

I have been going on like that for a long time—twenty years. Now I am forty. I used to be in the government service, but am no longer. I was a spiteful official. I was rude and took pleasure in being so. I did not take bribes, you see, so I was bound to find a recompense in that, at least. (A poor jest, but I will not scratch it out. I wrote it thinking it would sound very witty; but now that I have seen myself that I only wanted to show off in a despicable way, I will not scratch it out on purpose!)

Conclusion:

In conclusion, stream of consciousness technique is a great achievement of modern fiction. But, it is not a technique for its own sake, but rather it is based on a realisation of the drama that takes place in the mind of human beings. The stream of consciousness novelists have opened up a new area of human experience in fiction by adding mental function to the already established areas of human motive and human action in creating human-like character. While the traditional well-made novel was wide in scope for its characterization and depiction of the society, the stream of consciousness novelists have concentrated on the subjective lives of their characters. In this way, they achieved greater psychological depth.

Thank you so much for reading this blog and Assignment..

{Words-2507}

{Images-09}

Assignment Paper-109

Rasa theory in Film DDLJ

• Name: Drashti Joshi

• Batch: M.A. Sem.2 (2022-2024) 

• Enrollment N/o.: 4069206420220016

• Roll N/o.: 05

• Subject code & Paper N/o.: 22402  Paper: 109

• Paper Name:-Literary Theory & Criticism, and Indian Aesthetics.  

• E-mail Address: drashtijoshi582@gmail.com

• Submitted to: Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English M.K.B.U. 

• Date of submission: 31 March 2023

This Blog is an Assignment of paper no.:109 Literary Theory & Criticism, and Indian Aesthetics.In this assignment I am dealing with the topic of Rasa theory in movies.

Rasa theory in movies

Introduction In Aesthetics, Schechner(2001) has stated that “rasa is a cumulative result of vibhava (stimulus), anubhava(involuntary action) and vyabhichari bhava( voluntary reaction) . For example, just when various condiments and sauces and herbs and other materials are mixed, a taste is experienced. So is it with the different bhavas (emotions), the sthayi bhava (permanent emotions expressed inside ) becomes a rasa".introduction In Aesthetics, Schechner(2001) has stated, that “rasa is a cumulative result of vibhava (stimulus), anubhava(involuntary action) and vyabhichari bhava( voluntary reaction) . For example, just when various condiments and sauces and herbs and other materials are mixed, a taste is experienced. So it is with the different bhavas (emotions), the sthayi bhava (permanent emotions expressed inside ) becomes a rasa”.

India cinema, since its conception, has relied on natyasastra for its skeletal structure in terms of both its theme and structure. Its domestic themes that circle around love and overpowering grief , the stereotypical roles of the chivalric hero and pristine heroines, the larger than life backgrounds, exquisite makeup and costumes and innumerable musical and dance sequences bear testimony to the aesthetic principles of this ancient text. Unlike Euro-American cinema, based on Konstantin Stanislavsky's acting methods, that emphasises on 'becoming' the character, Indian cinema is completely based on conveying the emotion to the spectator and experiencing the 'spectacle'. 

Indian cinema is completely based on experiencing each rasa. Every aspect of the performance in cinema must be in synchronisation and performance must display to perfection every rasa. In Indian cinema, the actors, or the Rasic performers portray their emotions even more than the actual characters they are playing thus conveying well the emotion to the audience, which is the main aim of performative art according to the Natyasastra. The role of the eight ragas is quite central to Indian cinema and its structure. It not only works to drive the plot and accentuate the behaviour of the characters; its function is deeply engraved in the basic storyline. The ragas have a dominant role to play in creating the characters in a film. Sringara signifies beauty, love and faithfulness or devotion and is always a strong trait of the lead female character, the pure and innocent heroine. 

This is precisely what differentiates between the Euro American cinema and the Indian cinema. Indian cinema relies mainly on the Rasa and the idea of the Spectacle. The performance of the actors is but a medium to channelize the emotion from the movie to the audience. A comparison between some aspects of the movies Slumdog millionaire, Rang De Basanti and Coolie reveals well the difference between the two theories and also the dependence of Indian cinema on the Rasa theory. In Slumdog Millionaire, the British actor portraying the character of Jamal Malik strictly adheres to the method of Stanislavsky and becomes one with the character that the movie demands rather than becoming an embodiment of the rasa. When compared to movies like Coolie, this performance stands out as being completely Anti-Rasic. The actor is a dull eyed, lost, slack jawed, pale, out of place twenty five year old throughout the movie, maintaining the unchanging personality even when he is tortured by the police or is losing his beloved ill-fatedly, never utilising the scope of expressing the emotion that would quite obviously burst out of the actor to reach the audience in traditional desi Indian cinema. Expressing the emotion that would quite obviously burst out of the actor to reach the audience in traditional desi Indian cinema. 

Not only on feeling, but Satyajit Ray‟s doctrine rests predominantly on conveying and channelling it in an artistic way to the spectators. Satyajit Ray understood well this imbrication of rasa. His awareness of this very sutra is evident in all his films. He has written “Experience tells us that the subtlest of emotional states affects a person‟s speech and behaviour and such revealing speech and behaviour is at the very heart of cinema‟s eloquence.”

Book: Cinema through Rasa: A Tryst with Masterpieces in the Light of Rasa Siddhanta

Author: Prachand Praveer,

Publisher: D.K. Printworld

Cinema being perhaps the newest art form for depicting various human emotions has the distinct advantage of liberally borrowing from the other, more ancient, art forms like architecture, painting, literature, drama, music, dance and so on, using the resultant mélange for its own benefit. In the words of Mrinal Sen, who, incidentally, does not find any mention in this book that lauds his contemporaries, Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, as “... by far the most celebrated and respected directors in India”, cinema is a “bastard culture that freely philanders with and appropriates other cultural art forms”.

Based on the premise that history is always taught with a Western perspective, this thesis-like work by Prachand Praveer aims to reverse this trend by endeavouring to study and understand world cinema through the lens of ancient Indian aesthetic theory, more specifically the Rasa theory as depicted in Bharat Muni’s Natya Shastra and its famous commentary Abhinavabharati. This isn’t absolutely unexplored territory. In his book, The Indian Film Theory, published in 2010, the Calcutta-based Catholic priest and pioneer of film studies, Father Gaston Roberge, had propounded this idea, albeit in the context of Indian films.

While dealing with the aesthetics of Hindi cinema in an initial chapter, Praveer refers to the thumb-rule propagated by V. Shantaram that cinema was 80 per cent business and 20 per cent art. He illustrates this through several other films of that period. He deplores that many new-age directors have sacrificed old values for speed and thrill facilitated by advances in technology.  

To make his point, the author devotes separate chapters to the more prominent Rasas that manifest themselves predominantly in the performing arts — Bhayanaka Rasa, Vibhatsa Rasa, Adbhuta Rasa, Vira Rasa, Karuna Rasa, Raudra Rasa, Hasya Rasa and Sringara Rasa. The structure followed in these individual chapters is more or less similar. Each chapter begins with the detailed definition of the respective Rasa and its manifold manifestations through the lens of ancient Indian aesthetics, which are then juxtaposed with philosophical interpretations of those human emotions from the perspectives of great global thinkers through history. These particular Rasas embedded in films are then identified through examples of acknowledged great works in world cinema.

APPLICATION OF RASA THEORY IN THE MOVIE DILWALE

DULHANIA LE JAYENGE

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge also known as DDLJ, is an Indian Hindi-language musical romance film written and directed by Aditya Chopra in his directorial debut and produced by his father Yash Chopra. Released on 20 October 1995, the film stars Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. DDLJ broke all the box office records, as well as the record for the longest theatre run. DDLJ is a phenomenal movie which abides by a simple storyline that follows Raj and Simran, two young non-resident Indians, who fall in love during a vacation through Europe with their friends. Raj tries to win over Simran's family so the couple can marry, but Simran's father has long since promised her hand to his friend's son. Even though the storyline seems very simple, it still has a dominant impact over the minds of the Indian folks even after 26 years of its release. People appreciate the great star cast and the catchy dialogues of the script but beyond the performance and dialogues, it is the extraordinary blend of the various rasas of the Natya Shastra that drives the characters, dialogues and the complete flow of the script.

There are nine kinds of rasa basically known as Navrasa are as follows:

1. Shringara (meaning “romance” or “passion”)

2. Hasya (meaning “comedy” or “laughter”)

3. Karuna (meaning “sorrow”)

4. Raudra (meaning “fury”)

5. Veera (meaning “heroism”)

6. Bhayanaka (meaning “horror”)

7. Bibhatsa (meaning “disgust”)

8. Adbutha (meaning “amazement”)

9. Shanta (meaning “peace” or “tranquillity”)

Let us now talk about how these rasas are used in the movie Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. DDLJ unlocks with a scene set in London. Everything is grey: the buildings, the sky, and the roads. And in this, we see a man in subdued Indian clothing, but a deep red coat, feeding pigeons from a pouch in his hands. A voiceover plays in a sombre tone. And as the voiceover continues, the tempo changes, and the audience is transported to Baldev’s memories of vibrant Punjab, where the fields are yellow, and the people are colourfully clad. As the scene ends, the viewers and Baldev return to England, where he has done feeding the pigeons for the day. The tone of the start and end of the scene is melancholic which clearly portrays karuna rasa. The rasa is also portrayed when Kajol (Simran) is shown in the train when she is coming to India.

The theory of Rasa clearly states that the visual sight, including colour, gesture, dance, and song all contribute to creating the intended Rasa within the spectators. The visual aspects of DDLJ clearly supersede the spoken effects. When speaking of DDLJ, viewers most often mention the yellow fields in Punjab, and it is obvious that this is an iconic message, reinforced

by several scenes in the film, as well as the film’s poster. Clearly, the yellow fields evoke an emotional response within the viewers, enough that every viewer who has ever spoken to about the film mentions them in their descriptions of the film. In the Natyashastra, the colour yellow is associated with the Adbhuta Rasa which is connected with the emotional state of amazement and wonder. 

In DDLJ’s iconic reunion scene, Simran is in a dream state, when she runs outside into the fields and comes upon Raj in a yellow mustard field. The yellow mustard fields are a repeated visual image in the film, with Baldev seeing them in his memories, from the train as he arrives with his family from the UK, in Simran and Raj’s reunion scene, and in subsequent scenes between Raj and Baldev feeding the pigeons, indicating that they are motifs.Yellow is also the colour of the outfit in the scene where Simran walks away from Raj toward the train. Raj says to himself, “Raj, if this girl loves you, she will turn around.” As he mouths to himself, “turn,” The audience sees Simran walking away in a pale-yellow haze. When she turns around, the audience is amazed. Also, at the end when Simran finally goes with Raj in the train, the colour of her dress is yellow. Overall, the colour yellow is ubiquitous in DDLJ.

There are many scenes which convey joy and laughter which means hasya rasa. The character of Raj himself is shown as a naughty, fun loving character in the first part of the movie who can never get serious in his life. The things he does like playing a prank of flower with Simran or taking the bottles of beer from the store or saying to his friend all the best during the graduation ceremony all convey Hasya rasa. Thus, Rasa is produced in many ways by this film, where the audience cries with Raj and Simran, but recognizes Baldev’s dharmic attitude. The effective use of colour,gesture, and music is a great example of the different Bhavas that have led to Rasa.

There are many scenes which convey joy and laughter which means hasya rasa. The character of Raj himself is shown as a naughty, fun loving character in the first part of the movie who can never get serious in his life. The things he does like playing a prank of flower with Simran or taking the bottles of beer from the store or saying to his friend all the best during the graduation ceremony all convey Hasya rasa. 

Thus, Rasa is produced in many ways by this film, where the audience cries with Raj and Simran, but recognizes Baldev’s dharmic attitude. The effective use of colour, gesture, and music is a great example of the different Bhavas that have led to Rasa.

Conclusion:

It can be concluded by saying that Indian cinema is completely based on Performance aesthetics. The depiction of rasa and channelling it to the audience is the quintessential aspect of Indian theatre and cinema. Rasa theory is the very essence of what makes Bollywood unique and eternal and it constitutes the very structure and backbone of Indian cinema. 

Here is my Blog on RASA THEORY:- https://drashtijoshi.blogspot.com/2022/09/indian-poetics-rasa-theory.html

Thank you so much for reading this blog and assignment…

{Words-2166}

{Images-04}

Assignment Paper-108

Robert Jordan as a typical Hemingway hero. 

• Name: Drashti Joshi

• Batch: M.A. Sem.2 (2022-2024) 

• Enrollment N/o.: 4069206420220016

• Roll N/o.: 05

• Subject code & Paper N/o.: 22401  Paper: 108

• Paper Name:- The American Literature

• E-mail Address: drashtijoshi582@gmail.com

• Submitted to: Smt. S.B. Gardi Department of English M.K.B.U. 

• Date of submission: 31 March 2023

This Blog is an Assignment of paper no.:108 The American Literature

In this assignment I am dealing with the topic of Robert Jordan as a typical Hemingway hero. 

About Hemingway:

• Born: in Oak Park, Illinois, The United States, July 21, 1899

• Died: July 02, 1961

• Genre: Fiction

• Influences: Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Anton Chekhov, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry David Thoreau, Ivan Turgenev, Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, Stendhal, Dostoyevsky.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections and two non-fiction works. Three novels, four collections of short stories and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of these are considered classics of American literature.

Shortly after the publication of The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, Hemingway went on safari to Africa, where he was almost killed in two plane crashes that left him in pain and ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway had permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba during the 1930s and 1940s, but in 1959 he moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho, where he committed suicide in the summer of 1961.

 Robert Jordan as a typical Hemingway hero. 

Robert Jordan As A Typical Hemingway Hero In ” For Whom The Bell Tolls”. Hemingway’s heroes have their own brand of uniqueness in their characterization. They are not less than Shakespeare heroes in their unique traits of heroism. His heroes are successful in their presentation of action and adopt themselves as the action follows or proceeds. That’s why, most of the critics dub Hemingway as a successful writer of tragic heroes. The element of pessimism is very much evident in it. He creates his own fiction style in his writing.

Hemingway’ writings because his heroes often fail in their struggle and get nothing in the end. Santiago in The Old man and the Sea, Romero in The Sun also Rises and Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls can be best quoted in this regard.

A tragic hero in the play or novel is that person who achieves greatness at the cost of himself. As it is known that the tragic death of a hero turns a play or novel into a tragedy and it is the death of the hero which mounts the appeal of the tragedy. The hero intentionally does everything for the good of the public and it is his death for the fulfilment of his mission which fills the hearts of the readers, with sympathy and respect. The greatness of the tragedy depends on the bigness of the goal of the hero. In other words, it means to say that the bigger the goal of the hero the higher the tragedy.

Robert Jordan is a left-wing radical, or was modelled after several of them. He palled around with terrorists, or at least people whom many Americans, of his era and beyond, thought so. His specialty is blowing things up for a cause. He is at minimum a socialist, someone so eager to spread wealth around that he'd lose his life to do it.

Robert Jordan is also honourable, steadfast, selfless, determined, stoic, generous, tolerant, courageous, conscientious, forgiving, altruistic, tender, wise, loyal, independent, taciturn, disciplined, dutiful, patient, exacting, empathetic, idealistic, introspective, charismatic and handsome. No wonder the beautiful Maria falls for him the first time she sees him, and the earth moves beneath the two the first time they make love.

Robert Jordan is the hero of Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," an American fighting Franco's Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. And despite his radical roots, he's a literary sensation during this election season. Senator Barack Obama told Rolling Stone that Hemingway's novel, published in 1940, is one of the three books that most inspired him. As for Senator John McCain, few men, real or fictional, have influenced him as much as Jordan.

Hemingway never revealed on whom he based Jordan, who taught Spanish at the University of Montana before heading to Spain. Cecil Eby of the University of Michigan proposed to Robert Merriman, who, like Jordan, was a Westerner and a teacher (he had studied economics in Moscow). But Merriman, who was killed in 1938, was never a guerrilla behind enemy lines, as Jordan was. Three others whom veterans speculate could have been models — Michael Jimenez, William Aalto, and Irving Goff — were, in fact, guerrillas; Goff, a New Yorker who died in 1989, actually blew up bridges, but unlike Merriman, he never met Hemingway. (He once joked that he never met Ingrid Bergman, either; if he had, he said, "I might still be there.") Large swaths of Jordan, including his "red, black, blinding" temper and his father's suicide, clearly come from Hemingway himself.

In For Whom the Bell Tolls, we see that Robert Jordan plays a role of such a character who fights for an ideal in a foreign land. He has a firm belief in the Republican cause because he loves Spain. He is of the view that if there establishes a government of fascists in Spain then the future of this country will be in danger and the country might be spoiled. Moreover, he thinks that in spite of all its flaws a republican form of Govt. It is better than a totalitarian state because an individual feels cramped and suffocated under fascism.

This novel has been written in order to test the quality of Jordan’s idealism and the chain of obstacles in his path forms the basic structure of the novel. As the action of the novel proceeds, Jordan’s task gets more and more complicated. Pablo is absolutely against Jordan’s plan. He takes it impossible to put into practice because it means the destruction of the land. Hemingway’s heroes are always brave in their acts. Jordan is brave enough that he does not even feel fear in his great risky task of blowing up the bridge.

The reason being, Hemingway’s heroes always like to face risks like Santiago in The Old man and the Sea, Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises, Frederic Henry in A Farewell to Arms and Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Jordan is such a character who does not give any importance to what happens to himself. He accepts the risky task of blowing up the bridge with an open heart and never shows any sign of cowardice. Though General Golz warns him about the difficulty of the assignment yet he gives a promise to complete it within the limit of time.  In spite of creating obstacles by Pablo, he balances Pablo’s hostility by Pilar’s support. It was being assumed by some critics that Jordan’s falling in love with Maria might become a threat or obstacle in fulfilling his mission. In spite of this, he does not care and we see with the passage of time that it is his love for Maria which enhances his zest. He keeps the two roles that of lover and that of a dynamiter apart, though towards the end of the play, they merge into one another.

Some critics raise objections by saying that sometimes, Jordan appears like a dummy but Hemingway makes him a convincing and imitable personality by his superb art of characterization. So, their objection does not remain for a long time when we see that it is Jordan who fights against many abstractions: liberty, equality, rights of the people, democracy and atrocities of the fascists.

In fact, he is a religious zealot who fights for a secular ideal. A prominent critic has very rightly said, “He dies for the American dream”. He sacrifices for all the poor people in the world. There is no doubt in saying the fact that his ideals are worth imitating for the people of the rest of the world. He fights for those ideals which are practicable for most sensible persons.

Some critics might term it as a flaw in his character that his love for Maria is a weakness in his character. But it is very convincing because of his weakness as a human being. His love for Maria is pure and genuine because he loves her by the cores of his heart unlike a boozer or a womaniser. He wants to remain in her heart forever. He tells his philosophy of love to Pilar that he loves the good things of life and he will die only if it is a necessity. It is his love for Maria which makes him more zealous and enthusiastic in his mission. He is well aware of the sufferings of the Spanish people in a civil war. It is Maria’s rape by fascists which compels him to ‘teach a lesson to fascists by blowing up the important bridge. He takes Elsardo’s death as a serious one which reminds him of all other such deaths. By thinking so, he deeply becomes sad and gloomy.

It is worthy to note here that the influence of his father’s profession is very much in his life. His father was a guerrilla in the American civil war, as he is in the Spanish. Just like an ordinary human being, he is totally dominated by Maria’s love. Here we should not forget that he is an ordinary human being and not a supernatural creature or perfect human being. He has a lot of weak points like ordinary and commonplace human beings. He is an American volunteer who fights for the genuine cause of humanity and feels this crusade in his blood and soul. Being dutiful, he loves Spain. He remained there when the civil war broke up. He joined the war in order to contribute his service for the welfare of the country.

There is no doubt in saying that he becomes a new man after the arrival of Maria in his love and he starts living only for Maria’s sake but it does not mean that his sense of Dutifulness eclipses at any cost. His love for Maria and his risky mission of blowing up the bridge becomes one because fascists have now become his personal revenge for him as they rape his sweetheart. This very thinking of him leads him further to his fight for Republicans and Republic Spain and Maria becomes one for him.

Summing up the above mentioned discussion of the characteristics of Jordan as a tragic hero, we can say in the concluding remarks that at the end; his loyalty becomes personal loyalty and he is just a husband covering the retreat of his wife whom he loves by the cores of his heart. He sacrifices his life for Maria and her people i.e., Pablo and his land. He is justified in his act of sacrifice because his idealism is worth imitating and practicable for many others.

The Hemingway Code Hero

Hemingway created another recurring figure, who has come to be known as the ‘code hero’. This was a necessary outcome of Hemingway’s need for a figure to bind the wounds of the Hemingway hero. This figure, referred to as the code hero, is in sharp contrast from the Hemingway hero. His function is to balance the deficiencies in the hero and if the position or stance that he has taken is wrong, to correct them. He has been given the term code hero’ because he represents that code according to which the hero should live. If the hero adheres to this code then he will be able to live in the world of violence, misery, and disorder without discomfort and with success. He can tackle the problems of the world that he has been introduced to and live in it with success. The code hero is therefore an exemplification of certain principles that the hero has to follow. He offers the following code of honour, courage, endurance, etc. that shall serve man in a positive manner in his struggle for life. It enables him to bear the tensions and pain that life imposes on man. These qualities make him a man, stand him in good stead in his battle against life which is usually a losing battle. It enables him to live life as Hemingway prefers “with grace under pressure”. The Hemingway code is therefore of great significance in the study of the Hemingway hero.

Conclusion:

The style that Hemingway follows is a curt, unemotional, and factual style. This style tries to present experience objectively though Hemingway is a stylist of narrow limits. Hemingway’s style is a report style that includes reporting of external actions in a boring, dispassionate way and as a rule, this is all that he ever attempts in presenting his characters and especially in depicting events and accidents. The central character in his novel, the “I” who also functions as a narrator is typical of most of his novels and short stories. However, this T is almost all the time generally described as bare consciousness stripped to the human minimum. The “I” narrates the story but the style is akin to an impassive recording of the objective data of experience. The “I” is at best a de-personalized being and this is made clear by the absence of ideas and apparent emotion in him compounded by the fact that he has no memory of the past and no thought for the future. Apart from the typical Hemingway hero, he is an accomplished man from a number of angles. He is in the modern sense macho and a potent, red-blooded male. He is a sophisticated and extensive world traveller. He spends his time in the pursuit of women and sex, drinks hard, plays just as hard, and in the face of danger is cool and self-assured. In much the same ways as Hemingway lived life on the fast lane with wine and women, courting death in various ways, so does the Hemingway hero.

-Thank you so much for reading this blog…

{Words-2408}

{Images-04}