The Neo-classical age

 This task was given by Kavisha ma'am. It is based on Neo-classical Age.

1.Tom Jones as a picaresque novels:-

     

The term picaresque has been derived from a Spanish word 'Picaro'. Its meaning is - a rouge or knave or a villain etc. Thus a picaresque novel is an episodic depiction of the adventures and the misadventures of a picaro. Mostly he wanders on the highways. He moves from one place to the other.

The picaresque form gives ample scope to the novelist. This form does not require a well organised plot. The movements of the protagonist give an opportunity to introduce a wide variety of events and characters. The hero is now in the country, now on the highways, now in London. He confronts thieves, rescues beautiful damsels and falls in love. He fights duels, suffers arresting and comes in touch with a vast variety of people. In fact, the novelist paints the society as a whole. This form gives the novelist enough scope to throw light on the life, culture and morality of the age.

Picaresque novel emerged as a distinctive genre in the 16th century in Spain. A notable French example of the form is Lesage's Gil Blas. In Spanish Cervantes' Don Quixote is also a fine example of it. In English Thomas Nash and Defoe followed the tradition. Later Fielding and Smollett maintained it.

Fielding's Tom Jones has been considered a picaresque novel. Though it is not a regular picaresque novel, it reflects the major characteristics of the picaresque form.Tom Jones, the protagonist of the novel, is an illegitimate child. He is turned out of home by his patron. The one-third of the novel depicts Tom's adventures in the countryside. Molly's battle in the churchyard and Tom's escapade with Molly in the bushes are all in picaresque tradition.

When Allworthy dismisses Tom in Book VII, he takes the road to bristol. Here the picaresque nature of the novel becomes evident. In this novel one can find Tom's involvement in some breathtaking adventures on the roadside. Sophia and Mrs. Honour are also put on the road to London. As the protagonist passes through various scenes, meets with various incidents. He comes in contact with a great variety of characters. He joins the army. He rescues the man of the hill.

Tom fights several times for a good cause. He is beaten and wounded. He saves Mrs. Waters. He stays at the Upton Inn. Here some hilarious comedies take place. Tom continues on the roadside. He meets ruffians, beggars, highway-men and gypsies. Many thrilling and sensational incidents take place. Once he is arrested and presented before civil magistrate. In this way Fielding employs a lot of picaresque elements. It enables him to bring his hero in contact with different strata of the society. With the help of this form, he presents the true and complete picture of the life of the times. He presents the contemporary social evils as well as human follies and foibles.

In short, Tom Jones has a lot of picaresque elements. But in many respects it does not follow the picaresque tradition. Its hero is not a rogue. He is kind, generous and sensitive person. He is a man of helping attitude. Its plot construction differs from the picaresque novel. The aim of the novelist is definitely moral. Its adventures are not arbitrarily designed. Thus it can be said that though Tom Jones has a lot of elements of picaresque novel, but it is not a regular picaresque novel.

2.Alexander Po

 

 

Alexander Pope was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century.

• His famous works:-

Essay On Criticism:-

An Essay on Criticism was first published anonymously on 15 May 1711 and had taken Pope around three years to finish. It is written in a heroic couplet style, which, at the time, was a moderately new poetic form.

The poem is a response to an ongoing debate on the question of whether poetry should be natural, or written according to predetermined artificial rules inherited from the classical past.

The Rape of the Lock:-

    

The Rape of the Lock is Pope’s most famous poem and was first published in 1712. A revised version was published in 1714. It is a mock-epic poem that satirises a high-society quarrel between Arabella Fermor and Lord Petre, who had snipped a lock of hair from her head without her permission. However, the satirical style is toned down by the genuine and almost voyeuristic interest in the fashionable world of 18th century English society.

The Dunciad:-

The Dunciad was first published anonymously in Dublin in 1728, but it was clearly authored by Pope. It was published three different times between 1728 and 1743. The poem celebrates a goddess Dulness and the progress of her chosen agents as they bring decay, imbecility, and tastelessness to the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Many of Pope’s targets were so enraged by The Dunciad that they threatened him.

Moral Essays:-

Pope published his “Epistle to Burlington” in 1731, which, on the subject of agriculture, was the first of four poems which would later be grouped under the title Moral Essays (1731–1735). In the first poem, Pope criticised the bad taste of the aristocrat “Timon” and Pope’s enemies claimed he was attacking the Duke of Chandos and his estate, Cannons. This ended up harming Pope’s reputation.

An Essay On Man:-

An Essay On Man is a philosophical poem that was written and published between 1732 and 1734. It was written in heroic couplets and Pope intended it to be the centrepiece of a proposed system of ethics that was to be put forth in poetic form. He had planned on expanding it into a larger piece of work, but died before he could do so.

The poem was dedicated to Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke and is an effort to rationalise or rather “vindicate the ways of God to man” , a variation of John Milton’s claim in the opening lines of Paradise Lost, that he will “justify the ways of God to men” . It is comprised of four epistles and received great admiration throughout Europe when it was published.

There was most famous works of Pope.

3. Write on 18th Century Women Poets.

Aphra Behn, 1640?-1689

            

Often credited with being the first woman writer to earn a living by her pen, Behn apparently led a most unusual and eventful life. Although the details concerning her life are scant and often based on speculation, evidence suggests that in her youth she visited Surinam, where she had an affair with the political radical William Scot. Returning to England, she may have married a "Mr. Behn" in 1664; however, she was probably widowed and penniless by 1665. To earn money, she took employment by the Crown as a spy in Antwerp, but arrived back in England in debt, and in 1668 was thrown in debtor’s prison. Upon her emergence, she started to support herself by writing plays for the London theater, and later novels for print. She is best known for Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave (1688), the story of a captured African prince who is forced into slavery in Surinam. Oroonoko is at once an adventure narrative and a horrific tale of the African experience in the New World. Overall, Behn composed at least sixteen plays for the stage, and wrote fourteen novels, only six of which were published during her lifetime.

Fanny Burney, 1752-1840

                

Burney’s novels were immensely popular during the late eighteenth century. However, Burney herself had to overcome family disapproval in order to make a name among English literary circles. Her father, Charles Burney, a renowned musicologist, discouraged his daughter’s literary activity and provided her with no formal education. In spite of this, she read widely and began writing at a young age. But at the age of fifteen, in response to her father and perhaps her stepmother’s objections to imaginative poetry, plays, and stories, she dramatically sacrificed all of her writings to a huge bonfire. Not completely deterred, she resumed writing and anonymously published her first novel, Evelina (1778), which became a great success. Evelina won Burney not only her father’s approval, but also writer and critic Dr. Samuel Johnson’s. She went on to secure a place in Queen Charlotte’s court and in English literary society. She later left court to marry French General Alexandre D’Arblay (1791) and lived until the age of eighty-seven.

Her novels deal with women’s roles in relation to the British aristocracy, marriage, wealth, and power. Her successful works influenced other women writers, including Jane Austen, whose name is among the list of subscribers to Camilla.

Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress. By the Author of Evelina. London: Printed for T. Payne and Son, and T. Cadell, 1782. 5 vols. First edition.

Burney’s second novel, Cecilia, concerns a heroine who, in order to save her inheritance from her guardians, must marry a man who will take her name. In her writing, Burney uniquely abandons the common epistolary (or letter writing) first person form to use authorial narration, and becomes one of the first novelists to employ style indirect libre, or free indirect speech.

Ceciliasmall_fade.jpg (11329 bytes)

Camilla: Or, a Picture of Youth by the Author of Evelina and Cecilia. London: Printed for T. Payne, T. Cadell, and W. Davies, 1796. 5 vols. First edition.

Burney’s fourth published novel involves the "courtship of lighthearted Camilla by somber Edgar. Led by his tutor Marchmont, a misogynist, to demand perfection and the full possession of his lady’s heart before he declares himself, Edgar puts Camilla through a series of tests and suffers torments of misapprehension and jealously, for the girl has been warned by her father never to let her feelings show" (Doody).

Mary masters , (1706?- 1759?)

Not a great deal is known about Mary Masters. According to James Boswell, she was acquainted with Samuel Johnson, who may have helped to edit some of her verses. She is also linked with Edmund Cave, editor of Gentleman’s Magazine. She advocates women’s rights in her Familiar Letters and Poems on Several Occasions (1755): "a Woman is equal to a Man, as being of the same Species, and endow’d with every Faculty which distinguishes him from the Brutes."

Poems on Several Occasions. London: Printed by T. Browne for the author, 1733.

Jude the Obscure

This task given by Dr.Dilip Barad on the novel Jude the Obscure which was written by Thomas Hardy.

1. Themes of Jude the Obscure:-

1.Marriage: 

It could be argued that the rejection of marriage is the central didactic point of this novel. Hardy repeatedly emphasizes that marriage involves making a commitment that many people are emotionally unequipped to fulfill - this sentiment comes from the narrator, but it is also expressed by Sue, Jude, Phillotson, and Widow Edlin at various points in the novel. Whether the institution of marriage can be saved is open to interpretation. Jude and Sue are clearly a good match for each other, so Jude wants to get married. Sue, however, feels that marriage will poison the relationship. The narrator does not seem to favor either side; it is left up to readers to decide how the problems with marriage might be solved.

2. Education: -

Hardy highlights many kinds of education in Jude the Obscure. Most obviously, we have Jude's desire to get a university degree and become an academic. However, Hardy also emphasizes the importance of experiential education. Because Jude is inexperienced with women and with social situations more generally, he is especially susceptible to Arabella's seduction. In the novel, the level of traditional education one reaches is closely tied to the class system, and if someone from Jude's class wants to learn, they must teach themselves. Although the narrator seems to admire Jude's willingness to teach himself, he also points out the limits of autodidacticism, noting that despite Jude's near-constant studies, he cannot hope to compete on the university entrance exam against richer men who have hired tutors.

3. Disappointment:-

Disappointment crops up over and over again in this novel: Jude is disappointed by his career; he is disappointed in his marriage to Arabella and then his cohabitation with Sue; he is disappointed by Mr. Phillotson, who never achieved his dream of getting a university degree. Even Time's assertions that he never asked to be born suggest a certain disappointment with life. Since most of the novel's tragedies come as lost opportunities, the ways that the characters deal with disappointment contribute to their characterization. For example, Phillotson takes a relatively mature perspective when he is disappointed in his marriage to Sue, and allows her to be with Jude. Arabella, in contrast, deals with her disappointment in Cartlett by spying on Jude and scheming to get back together with him.

4.  Social class:-

In addition to his points about education, Hardy also criticizes the rigidity of social class more generally. Jude is limited in his career options because as a working-class man, he cannot hope to be promoted beyond a certain level, even in fields like the clergy that are supposed to be open to all. However, Jude and Sue also benefit from their low social class in that their respective divorces are processed quickly and without inquiry and they can get away with living together unmarried for quite some time. Even this is a mixed blessing - they are caught eventually, and the reason they weren't caught sooner is that they are unimportant to the people around them.

 5. Religion:-

As Jude the Obscure can be interpreted as critical of the institution of marriage, Hardy is equally as possessed with the church. Throughout their relationship, Jude and Sue have many conversations concerning religion, the former being initially more devout than his intellectually curious cousin. At a diorama depicting Jerusalem, the major characters' feelings on religion crystalize. Sue wonders why Jerusalem rather than Rome or Athens is deemed important, Phillotson counters that the city is important to the English as a Christian people, and Jude is utterly absorbed by the work - though he also strains to agree with Sue. Later, Sue mentions a friend who was the most irreligious but also the most moral. Hardy points out that these concepts are not mutually exclusive.

6.Women's rights:-

Sue Bridehead is a strikingly modern heroine in many ways - she lives with men without marrying them; she has a rich intellectual life; she works alongside Jude. Hardy criticizes the social conventions that prevent her from fulfilling her potential as an intellectual and as a worker. However, he also reinforces some of those social conventions unintentionally; by portraying Sue as anxious and hysterical, Hardy perpetuates a common Victorian stereotype about women being especially emotional. Also, we are expected to accept Sue having lived with the Christminster undergraduate because they were not having sex; despite his professed liberalism, Hardy upholds traditional values by offering this piece of information and (apparently) expecting it to color our judgment of the character.

7. Old versus new:-

The narrator of Jude the Obscure often laments the ways that old things are replaced by the new, especially when it comes to urban architecture. Likewise, the Widow Edlin suggests that older, more laid-back attitudes toward marriage are better than prudish Victorian norms. Nineteenth-century British society was, in many ways, more conservative than the historical periods that preceded it, so Hardy's admiration for the older aspects of English culture ties in to his social liberalism and his reverence for intellectual inquiry.

2.Write a short note on the structure of the novel – Jude the Obscure

The structure of the novel might be described as the reversals of belief in Jude and Sue and their changing marital relationships as they both go down to defeat. In the beginning Sue's view of things is secular and rationalist, expressed, for example, in her sympathy with ancient rather than medieval culture, her scorn of conventional religious belief, her buying of pagan statuary, her reading of Gibbon. Jude's beliefs are, at first, conventionally Christian, as his desire to be ordained, his reading of standard authors, and his love of medieval culture and architecture show. By the end of the novel Sue has reverted to conventional beliefs, as evidenced by her concern for the sanctity of marriage and her desire to perform penances for her sins. On the other hand, Jude no longer professes his old beliefs and finds himself, as he says in his speech to the street crowd in Christminster, in "a chaos of principles."

This change in beliefs is closely paralleled by their marital relationships. At first, they are separated by marriage to other people as they are apart in belief As Jude's ideas change, they are legally freed by divorce, and they come to live together and to be "married," in fact, if not in name. When Sue returns to conventional Christian beliefs, they separate and remarry their first spouses.

Jude's death as a failure in Christminster and Sue's forcing herself to go to Phillotson's bed are striking signs of their defeat in life. This defeat is mirrored as well in Phillotson, who at Marygreen has fallen to the bottom professionally and who stiffly requires Sue to swear loyalty to him on a New Testament, and to a lesser extent in Arabella, who though she loses Jude does not lose her vitality.

In these changes and defeat Hardy has embodied the theme of his novel: Jude and Sue have been caught up in the modern spirit, have struggled to break free of the old ways, and have suffered and failed. It is this that justifies Hardy's description of the novel, in his preface to it, as a "tragedy of unfulfilled aims."

 

Hard Time

Hard Times: For These Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirises the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways.

Discuss the theme of ' Utilitarianism' with illustrations from the novel?

 Charles Dickens, an author witnessing firsthand the harsh impacts of the industrial revolution, wrote a novel that contains in it some of the themes still present in degrowth discourse today. His novel Hard Times demonstrates the invasion of utilitarianism and its economic implications into human relationships and education. Art is Dickens preferred form of dépense to replace the hegemony of utilitarianism.

Dickens was a staunch anti-utilitarianist. While Dickens was writing Hard Times, Utilitarianism was the prominent philosophy in industrial England, founded by Jeremy Bentham.Utilitarians believed that human actions should be judged based on how much pleasure (sometimes referred to as happiness) or pain they produced for the greatest number of people. Anti-utilitarians, as described in the anthology Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era, believe there is more behind human action than selfish desires for pleasure or aversion to pain. Humans are also driven by social bonds and concerns that go beyond themselves and their immediate communities.

Among other things, Bentham claimed that people would always choose to do what was pleasant and therefore the poor would always claim public assistance rather than work. Bentham’s secretary and disciple, Edwin Chadwick, thus designed England’s Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 to discourage the poor from seeking relief by making it only available in unpleasant workhouses with painful working and housing conditions where there was little food. Dickens was already criticizing the conditions in workhouses in his journalism and fiction. Dickens’ most famous character, Oliver Twist, is born and lives in meager conditions in a workhouse during his childhood.

Hard Times is Dickens’ most biting fictional critique of these moral principles and their consequences. The central utilitarian character in Hard Times is Thomas Gradgrind, a school board superintendent and father who forces the children under his mandate to memorize facts and statistics. The children are encouraged to maximize utility through their actions by basing their decisions on selfish, cold calculation. In turn, the children are punished for enjoying artistic entertainment such as storybooks about fairies and watching circus performers. With lives dominated by facts and void of art, the children are frustrated and discontented. Gradgrind’s children ultimately grow to find that the utilitarian system of ethics fails them when they are confronted with the complexity of justice and emotions.

Gradgrind first finds his antithesis in Sissy, a girl at his school who is adopted by the Gradgrinds when her circus-performer father abandons her. Sissy is of another world, that of the circus that is governed by art and emotion, which contrasts with Gradgrind’s school and upper-class home, governed by facts, logic and selfishness. Sissy fails, both at school and at home, to comply with the mathematical rationalizations of utilitarianism because she is empathetic and imaginative.

Like Bentham, the school teaches that nations are thriving when they are maximizing utility by achieving pleasure for the majority. When Sissy is told by a teacher about a city where only 25 of one million inhabitants were starving, she comments, “it must be just as hard upon those who were starved.” She is asked by the teacher if a nation with “fifty millions of money” is a prosperous nation. In a response that reflects the concerns of degrowthers with income inequality, she says she couldn’t know whether it is a prosperous or thriving nation, “unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine… but that was not in the figures at all.”

Dickens’ ultimate message is to show the value of imagination, art, and human connection in a place dominated by fact and rationality. When Tom Gradgrind’s children, Louisa and Tom face hardship because they followed their father’s utilitarian thinking, it is ultimately Sissy who will be the one who pilots change in the imaginary of the Gradgrinds. Sissy is a magnetic storyteller, someone who can light the spark in the minds of others that illuminates a new vision of the world. That vision might be a fantastic one of fairies and other forest spirits, or of a different, more compassionate future. We see this in Sissy’s undying hope that her father might still come back home to her one day. She has faith in a better tomorrow that is based on love, not material improvement.

But the jewel that any environmentalist would surely appreciate is the passage in which Dickens describes the fictional town of Coketown, the setting of Hard Times, for its air, water and noise pollution from its industrial activities. The description resembles that of modern China’s ‘cancer villages.’

Dickens would probably have agreed with the passage in Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era stating that “a more solid path towards anti-utilitarianism and degrowth might be built, on the one hand, by integrating the theoretical stream opened by Bataille with his notion of dépense, and by a wider look on the numerous and unnoticed anti-utilitarianist experiences in society.” Dickens was in fact outlining these anti-utilitarianist experiences in his humanistic stories, and honoring art as the form of dépense that can lift humanity out of the dregs of productivism.

Here I share a link which is related with my answer:

https://youtu.be/AySkVanlvKI

Importance of Being Earnest

This task given by Dr.Dilip Barad. I give my best answers on all questions.

The Importance of Being Earnest has proven to be Oscar Wilde’s most enduring—and endearing—play. Filled with witty Victorian aphorisms and Wilde’s own brand of wisdom, The Importance of Being Earnest tells the story of Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff who use clever deception and truth-bending to accommodate their social pursuits. Jack bends the truth to include an imaginary brother, Ernest, whom he uses as an excuse to escape from the country to party among urban socialites, while urbane Algernon uses a similar technique (Bunburying) that provides him opportunities for taking adventures in the country. Of course, courting and liaisons ensue, but not without complications. Oscar Wilde builds a farcical—albeit realistic—world of Victorian social mores by using double entendre, aphorisms, and witty repartee.

Wilde seems to have been toying with audiences by giving the play a title with more than one meaning. The play’s title can be deceptive. Rather than a form of the name Ernest, the title implies earnestness as a quality one should seek to acquire, as in being honest, sincere, sober, and serious. Throughout the play, Ernest is a name that encompasses qualities of the ideal man: deeply trustworthy, truly loving, honorable and passionate, and absolutely sincere. Gwendolyn says, “We live in an age of ideals . . . and my ideal has always been to love some one of the name of Ernest. . . . The only really safe name is Ernest.” That both Gwendolyn and Cecily dream of marrying a man named Ernest seems more than a coincidence. Cecily admits, “It had always been a girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest. There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence.”

 2. Which of the female character is the most attractive to you among Lady Augusta Bracknell, Gwendolen Fairfax, Cecily Cardew and Miss Prism? 

Here is link of short summary :-

More than any other female character in the play, Gwendolen suggests the qualities of conventional Victorian womanhood. She has ideas and ideals, attends lectures, and is bent on self-improvement. She is also artificial and pretentious. Gwendolen is in love with Jack, whom she knows as Ernest, and she is fixated on this name. This preoccupation serves as a metaphor for the preoccupation of the Victorian middle- and upper-middle classes with the appearance of virtue and honor. Gwendolen is so caught up in finding a husband named Ernest, whose name, she says, “inspires absolute confidence,” that she can’t even see that the man calling himself Ernest is fooling her with an extensive deception. In this way, her own image consciousness blurs her judgment.

Though more self-consciously intellectual than Lady Bracknell, Gwendolen is cut from very much the same cloth as her mother. She is similarly strong-minded and speaks with unassailable authority on matters of taste and morality, just as Lady Bracknell does. She is both a model and an arbiter of elegant fashion and sophistication, and nearly everything she says and does is calculated for effect. As Jack fears, Gwendolen does indeed show signs of becoming her mother “in about a hundred and fifty years,” but she is likeable, as is Lady Bracknell, because her pronouncements are so outrageous.

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice:-

A task given by Yesha Ma'am is that the topic is Pride and Prejudice. Yasha ma'am also held a movie screening for our better understanding. In this blog I shared my views about movie screening and novel.

  

1. Which version of the novel is more appealing? Novel or film (adaption)? Why?

Books are great because they allow the reader to be a part of the story; we are the observers that have insight into the character’s thoughts and feelings, and all the nuances that create three-dimensional characters. With books, there’s just more. More detail, more focus on character development, and more depth to the meaning of the artwork. It’s also the more time-consuming form of the two, and after finishing a novel, after a couple of hours of being immersed into a different world and mind space, it seems like you have suddenly been thrust back into reality.

On the other hand, the great thing about movies is their ability to show, and the overall experience of watching one. While reading a book, I often have a movie reel playing in my head. I can map out the setting, I can see the characters’ expressions, and I can empathize with their emotions.

However, watching the same story unfold on the big screen is a different experience. While reading spurs your imagination, a movie helps you visualize all the elements of the books that were previously confined to your imagination. It immerses you into the story in a different way than a book.

''The book was better'' is a common reaction to hear among the crowd exiting a movie theater. Indeed with the sheer volume of books being turned into movies today, it's almost impossible to find a movie on the big screen that wasn't first written on paper. And it's not just books, video games are finding their way to the big screen, too. For some, the adaptation is never as good as the original, while for others, the movie is the only thing worth enjoying.

                

In the classroom, the differences between an original story's form and movie form can be analyzed to develop critical-thinking skills and discuss the differences between plots, storylines, characters, and even the different merits of each medium, or the form in which a piece of art is presented. In this lesson, we'll explore a few of the different ways you can start thinking about these important questions before analyzing one such example.

In some movies, they switch up the characters because in the book they are different and totally the opposite.

When we read a book, we tend to visualize the characters a certain way and in movies they don’t look like the way we want them too. It disappoints us in many ways. I’ve read books before that have a plot twist at the end and in the movie it never happens.

Movies tend to last about two hours and books take their time and last longer. Movies rush things so that they can end it fast and there. Not everyone has access to movies or can afford going to movie theatres but books can be borrowed at the library or from a friend.

Books are portable and can be read online as well, anytime. When reading books, we get more knowledge and it helps us improve our vocabulary. Characters are described much better and with more detail.

One important thing that books do have and movies don’t is that they provide more background information than a movie does.

2. Character of Elizabeth ( Headstrong women, women with pride, judgemental mature, strong-opinions, controlled, honest)

The second daughter in the Bennet family, and the most intelligent and quick-witted, Elizabeth is the protagonist of Pride and Prejudice and one of the most well-known female characters in English literature. Her admirable qualities are numerous—she is lovely, clever, and, in a novel defined by dialogue, she converses as brilliantly as anyone. Her honesty, virtue, and lively wit enable her to rise above the nonsense and bad behavior that pervade her class-bound and often spiteful society.

Nevertheless, her sharp tongue and tendency to make hasty judgments often lead her astray; Pride and Prejudice is essentially the story of how she (and her true love, Darcy) overcome all obstacles—including their own personal failings—to find romantic happiness. Elizabeth must not only cope with a hopeless mother, a distant father, two badly behaved younger siblings, and several snobbish, antagonizing females, she must also overcome her own mistaken impressions of Darcy, which initially lead her to reject his proposals of marriage. Her charms are sufficient to keep him interested, fortunately, while she navigates familial and social turmoil. As she gradually comes to recognize the nobility of Darcy’s character, she realizes the error of her initial prejudice against him.

Jane Austen’s literary heroine Elizabeth ‘Lizzy’ Bennet is one of the most badass female literary characters ever written. Fiercely vocal about challenging stereotypes related to gender, social, and cultural norms, Lizzy remains a paramount figure of defiance and pride.

While her pride has proved costly at times, ironically portraying her as the very judgmental figure she often fights against, it nonetheless proves to be one of the many qualities of her character which fans adore. She isn’t perfect. However, there is a lot to learn from her character.

Here are nine reasons why Lizzy is a female role model to all readers!

1. She is confident in herself and won’t let others’ biases bring her down.

2. She is fiercely loyal to her sisters…even the annoying one. 

3. She refuses to let men intimidate her AND calls them out on their rude behavior.

4. She challenges others through her witty and intelligent retorts rather than through anger and petty remarks.

5. She doesn’t conform to others’ low expectations of her.

6. She would rather sacrifice financial security than be stuck in a loveless marriage with a man unworthy of her.

7. She doesn’t place a man’s value on his appearance. She judges a man for his morals rather than his attractiveness. 

8. She recognizes her faults and tries to right her mistakes rather than stay in denial.

9. Most importantly, perhaps, is her pride in books! 

3. Character of Darcy : -

Fitzwillia Darcy is a very arrogant man of England's upper crust. He is lord of Pemberley, an expensive estate located in the county of Derbyshire. He is fairly tall and handsome, but his demeanor is unfriendly, aloof, and unapproachable.

He has a sister, Georgiana, who adores him, and the feeling is mutual. It seems safe to assume that Darcy is a private man and that his upbringing has highly influenced his opinions of those around him. He is arrogant almost without knowing it, such has been the entitled world he has known.

We know that his housekeeper speaks highly of him, as she praises Darcy for being such a kind master in front of Elizabeth Bennet and her aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, when they take a tour of Pemberley. As is often the case with people, the negative first impression Darcy gives is not an accurate reflection of his noble character, though he has his flaws.

Mr. Darcy's flaws are best seen in the difficulty he has with relationships. Although he is loyal to those who are close to him, he doesn't seem to see the need to develop new friendships, particularly with those he feels are beneath him socially.

However, Mr. Bingley, Darcy's best friend, rents Netherfield Hall, an estate in the country near the Bennet family. Mrs. Bennet, whose one aim is to marry off her daughters to wealthy men, insists that her husband go and introduce himself. She hopes the Bingleys throw a ball, and they do. The idea of a ball most likely annoys Darcy, as he sees no need to associate with 'country bumpkins.'

Almost instantly, the eldest Bennet daughter, Jane, and Mr. Bingley fall in love. At the ball, Elizabeth overhears Darcy say of her, 'She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.' She concludes that he is the most arrogant and prideful of men. She wants nothing to do with him. Sometimes first impressions are not completely accurate. Ironically, Darcy comes to think of Elizabeth as one of the most attractive women he has ever met, and Elizabeth's view of Darcy changes, as well.

Darcy exhibits all the good and bad qualities of the ideal English aristocrat — snobbish and arrogant, he is also completely honest and sure of himself. Darcy is not actually a titled nobleman, but he is one of the wealthiest members of the landed gentry — the same legal class that Elizabeth's much poorer family belongs to. While Darcy's sense of social superiority offends people, it also promotes some of his better traits. As Wickham notes in his sly assessment, "His pride never deserts him; but with the rich, he is liberal-minded, just, sincere, rational, honorable, and perhaps agreeable — allowing for fortune and figure."

4. Who would be your choice of actors to play the role of characters?

Characters are persons and individuals having their own unique personalities and qualities in a literary piece. Writers and authors use these characters to pinpoint their weaknesses and recklessness, virtues and vices and other features to make the stories impactful. Price and Prejudice have famous characters that seem relatable even in the present times. Some of these most important characters have been discussed below.

Elizabeth is my choice of actors to play the role of characters.The heroine and protagonist of pride and prejudice, Elizabeth is the most loveable character among the five sisters. Lizzy or Eliza as she is lovingly called is considered the most loveable of Austen’s all female protagonists. She is the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet who owns the Longbourn Estate. Although she is to be married to Mr. William Collins, her quick thinking and acutely conscious mind warn her against it. Even she is not in favor of Mr. Darcy in the beginning as the story progresses, she chides herself for not recognizing his balanced personality. She sheds her prejudice against him and later becomes his beloved who also likes her playfulness and loving nature. At the end of the novel, she accepts Darcy’s proposal and marries him.

5. Write a note on a scene you liked the most.

Ans. Darcy's first proposal 

I know it failed, I know. But this is still one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Let’s start with the location: the garden, the rain, the running. Top tier. Then, there’s Darcy, out of breath with simp eyes. He does this god awful job of proposing, Lizzie yells at him about Wickham and breaking up Bingley and Jane, Darcy yells back at her because he’s sad now, Lizzie delivers a devastating blow, and then they stop. Now that they’ve gotten out all of the stuff that was lingering between them, all that’s left to do is kiss. They don’t, but they totally thought about it.

6. Compare the narrative strategy of novel and movie.

Ans :

Nowadays, if you ask a number of people if they prefer ‘books or movies’, it’s most certain that, there will be an extensive collection of different answers. For many centuries books have been the biggest source of stories that human kind has, but now, things are changing. Today’s way to get introduced to a new story is, to watch a movie. The demand for movies is constantly increasing, so, why do some people still read books? Why do a countless number of people like to watch movies? There are countless differences between them, yet, they also have a great deal of things in common.

Movies convey their emotions by hearing and by the picture, thanks to the great sound and visual effects the details seem more real. However, a movie projects one main picture that can be somehow limiting to the spectator, who, will not think any further to what is depicted on the screen. Books, on the other hand, are more often than not, visually boring and not as attractive. Nevertheless, books are not just bunch of letters and words, books make the reader capable of expanding their imagining capacities. Usually, after reading a book, there are countless ways to interpret the story and details, thanks to the lack of visual limitations. The several interpretations that a story can get tend to differ between movie-spectators, and, book-readers. 

Books vs Movies :

Entertainment is most important part of life. There are so many types of entertainment. One particular kind of entertainment that’s most popular is media: movies, books and TV shows. All of this types of media have many similarities. Obviously, there are many difference between them as well. Deciding whether to read book and see a movie or a TV show can depend on the person, or what sort of people might be around the person. For those who like to ready a more publically acceptable form of entertaining one’s self. Books can be read in the library, on buses, and even in cars without distracting or bothering other people. Books are very easy to travel with. Generally, when doing class work or studies for work, books are highly preferred over movies and television. It is much easier to find a book that concentrate mostly on one particular subject than it is to find a movie or series. Reading can be done at almost any time.

After reading a book and the viewing the movie about it, a person will notice several obvious difference. The two differ in that they portray different types of stories: the movie was made to sell tickets, and the novel was written to portray the imperfect hero. There are multiple other reasons that the difference between the two clear. The ending of the movie is the most notable because it is such an important part of story and because of the extent it was changed. Characters also came off different in the movie than they were in the book. 

life of pi

• Movie Review:-

Life of Pi is a 2012 adventure-drama film directed and produced by Ang Lee and written by David Magee. Based on Yann Martel's 2001 novel of the same name, it stars Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Tabu and Adil Hussain in lead roles. The storyline revolves around two survivors of a shipwreck.

                 

• What is Life of Pi movie about?

After deciding to sell their zoo in India and move to Canada, Santosh and Gita Patel board a freighter with their sons and a few remaining animals. Tragedy strikes when a terrible storm sinks the ship, leaving the Patels' teenage son, Pi (Suraj Sharma), as the only human survivor. However, Pi is not alone; a fearsome Bengal tiger has also found refuge aboard the lifeboat. As days turn into weeks and weeks drag into months, Pi and the tiger must learn to trust each other if both are to survive.

• What is story of life of pi in movie? Which version is good?

A fantasy which won the Booker Prize in 2002, Life of Pi tells the magical story of a young Indian, who finds himself shipwrecked and lost at sea in a large lifeboat. His companions are four wild animals: an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena, and, most notably, Richard Parker, a tiger.

Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" is a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery. Inspired by a worldwide best-seller that many readers must have assumed was unfilmable, it is a triumph over its difficulties. It is also a moving spiritual achievement, a movie whose title could have been shortened to "life."

          

The story involves the 227 days that its teenage hero spends drifting across the Pacific in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. They find themselves in the same boat after an amusing and colorful prologue, which in itself could have been enlarged into an exciting family film. Then it expands into a parable of survival, acceptance and adaptation. I imagine even Yann Martel, the novel's French-Canadian author, must be delighted to see how the usual kind of Hollywood manhandling has been sidestepped by Lee's poetic idealism.

The story begins in a small family zoo in Pondichery, India, where the boy christened Piscine is raised. Piscine translates from French to English as "swimming pool," but in an India where many more speak English than French, his playmates of course nickname him "pee." Determined to put an end to this, he adopts the name "Pi," demonstrating an uncanny ability to write down that mathematical constant that begins with 3.14 and never ends. If Pi is a limitless number, that is the perfect name for a boy who seems to accept no limitations.

The zoo goes broke, and Pi's father puts his family and a few valuable animals on a ship bound for Canada. In a bruising series of falls, a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and the lion tumble into the boat with the boy, and are swept away by high seas. His family is never seen again, and the last we see of the ship is its lights disappearing into the deep — a haunting shot that reminds me of the sinking train in Bill Forsyth's "Housekeeping" (1987).

This is a hazardous situation for the boy, because the film steadfastly refuses to sentimentalise the tiger (fancifully named "Richard Parker"). A crucial early scene at the zoo shows that wild animals are indeed wild and indeed animals, and it serves as a caution for children in the audience, who must not make the mistake of thinking this is a Disney tiger.

The heart of the film focuses on the sea journey, during which the human demonstrates that he can think with great ingenuity and the tiger shows that it can learn. I won't spoil for you how those things happen. The possibilities are surprising.

What astonishes me is how much I love the use of 3-D in "Life of Pi." I've never seen the medium better employed, not even in "Avatar," and although I continue to have doubts about it in general, Lee never uses it for surprises or sensations, but only to deepen the film's sense of places and events.

Let me try to describe one point of view. The camera is placed in the sea, looking up at the lifeboat and beyond it. The surface of the sea is like the enchanted membrane upon which it floats. There is nothing in particular to define it; it is just … there. This is not a shot of a boat floating in the ocean. It is a shot of ocean, boat and sky as one glorious place.

Still trying not to spoil: Pi and the tiger Richard Parker share the same possible places in and near the boat. Although this point is not specifically made, Pi's ability to expand the use of space in the boat and nearby helps reinforce the tiger's respect for him. The tiger is accustomed to believing it can rule all space near him, and the human requires the animal to rethink that assumption.

Most of the footage of the tiger is of course CGI, although I learn that four real tigers are seen in some shots. The young actor Suraj Sharma contributes a remarkable performance, shot largely in sequence as his skin color deepens, his weight falls and deepness and wisdom grow in his eyes.

The writer W.G. Sebold once wrote, "Men and animals regard each other across a gulf of mutual incomprehension." This is the case here, but during the course of 227 days, they come to a form of recognition. The tiger, in particular, becomes aware that he sees the boy not merely as victim or prey, or even as master, but as another being.

The movie quietly combines various religious traditions to enfold its story in the wonder of life. How remarkable that these two mammals, and the fish beneath them and birds above them, are all here. And when they come to a floating island populated by countless meerkats, what an incredible sequence Lee creates there.

The island raises another question: Is it real? Is this whole story real? I refuse to ask that question. "Life of Pi" is all real, second by second and minute by minute, and what it finally amounts to is left for every viewer to decide. I have decided it is one of the best films of the year.

On my point of view movie is better than novel or book. We know that reality is reduced in movies than in novels but I feel movies are a better option to understand any story.

                "Life will defend itself

            No matter how smart it is."

Words :1105