House of Notes

Pride and Prejudice: Title Pride and Prejudice was first written in 1797 under the title “First Impressions ” . It was later revised and published under the title “Pride and Prejudice” in 1813 . In the novel, first impressions do play an important part: Elizabeth is misled in her judgment and estimation of both Darcy and Wickham . Her regard and sympathy for Wickham and her hostility and prejudice against Darcy are due to the first impressions . But when we study the novel deeply and seriously we can easily see that the title “Pride and Prejudice” is more apt and more befitting to it. The first impressions which the character gets of each other take up only the first few chapters. The novel is more about the pride of Darcy and the prejudice of Elizabeth an d the change of attitude in Darcy and Elizabeth’s correction of her first impression. At the apparent level , we see that Darcy embodies pride – he is possessed by family pride. ...

Pride and Prejudice: A Novel With Limited Range Jane Austen confines her creative activity to the depiction of whatever fell within her range of personal experience. While her range of observation in life is not so wide her work has been variously called as the “Two inches of ivory” and “three or four families” . All these titles exhibit the excellence as well as the limitations of her craft and outlook. Although she works on a very small canvas, yet she has widened the scope of fiction in almost all its directions. Her stories mostly have indoor actions where only family matters especially love and marriages are discussed. However, her plots are perfect and characterization is superb. All of her six novels, including “Pride and Prejudice” , have been controversial since their publication, on account of Austen’s limited range. The critical view is divided in two groups – detractors and admires. The former group had criticized her on var...

Pride and Prejudice: Art of Characterization The range of Jane Austen’s characters is rather narrow . She selects her characters from among the landed gentry in the countryside. Sir Walter Scott very accurately describes this range: “Jane Austen confines herself chiefly to the middling classes of society … and those which are sketched with most originality and precision, belong to a class rather below that standard.” She omits the servants and the labourers. They appear wherever they are needed but they are usually not heard. Aristocracy also is hardly touched and if taken, it is only to satirize. Lady Catherine in “Pride and Prejudice” is arrogant, pretentious, stupid and vulgar. Austen finds herself at home only with the country gentry and their usual domestic interests. In spite of such a limited range , Austen never repeats her characters. Lord David Cecil says: “In her six books, she ever repeats a single character … There i...

George Eliot as a Psychological Novelist Psychological Novel: Its Nature George Eliot is a Victorian novelist, but in many ways she is the first of the great modern novelists. She is a modern in her high conception of her art, in her view of the novel as a serious art form and in her interest in the human psyche. A psychological novelist analyses the motives , pulses and mental processes which move his characters to act in a particular way. He depicts the inner struggles of his characters and thus lays bare their souls before his reader. Thus in psychological novels there is much soul-dissection, as in the dramatic monologues of Browning, and the novel acquires a hard intellectual tone. Samuel Richardson, George Eliot, and George Meredith are some of the pioneers to be mentioned in this connection. The Inner Action George Eliot is an ‘intellectual novelist’ and she brought to bear on the art of the novelist an exceptionally well-cultivated and trained intell...

George Eliot as a Novelist. George Eliot was the most important woman novelist of her age. She serves as a link between the traditional form of fiction and the modern one. Her emphasis on character, the human psychology, moral values, philosophy in fiction, spiritual growth, realism, her reflective humour, depiction of society and social analysis and a lucid and simple style makes her one of the greatest novelists of all times. Let us discuss the salient features of her art as a novelist. To Compton-Rickett, “She was the first novelist to lay the stress wholly upon character rather than incident.” She is at her best in characterisation for here we find both subtlety and variety. The Florentine scholars, half-witted rustics, cultured free-thinkers, wayward, passionate natures, shallow, insincere characters, mystics and men of the world. Her wide range of observation, her generous sympathies, and the power of detachment, trained by scientific study, all helped to give breadth an...

Tess of the D'Urbervilles: Tess - A Pure Woman Tess was a simple, innocent, guideless and hypersensitive girl, trapped in a traditionally bound society. She went to the D’Urbervilles to seek help for her starved family. There she met Alec who seduced her, ruining her life. She came back and narrated the whole story to her mother truly that both Alec and she were seduced. When her mother asked her to make the best of this, she refused. Later, she met Angel who jilted her on learning her of being unchaste. However, later, realizing his own mistake, he came back to her, but, she had started living with Alec as her mistress. The last important incident was Alec’s murder at the hand of Tess. The critics accuse Tess of impurity on two accounts. Firstly, the seduction scene presupposes Tess’ implied consent. She never showed any sign of disapproval as she did when Alec first tried to kiss her. Secondly, being the wife of Angel and Alec’s being ...

Themes of “A Tale of Two Cities” Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The ever present possibility of Resurrection with A Tale of Two Cities Dickens asserts his belief in the possibility of resurrection and transformation both on a personal level and on a societal level. The narrative suggests that Sydney Carton’s death secures a new peaceful life for Lucie Manette, Charles Darnay, and even Carton himself. By delivering himself to the guillotine, Carton ascends to the plane of heroism, becoming a Christ-like figure whose death serves to save the lives of others. His own life thus gains meaning and value. Moreover, the final pages of the novel suggest that, like Christ, Carton will be resurrected-Carton is reborn in the hearts of those he has died to save. Two of the most outstanding and obvious themes in this novel are resurrection and renunciation. Resurrection appears here in several forms. Dicken...

Heart of Darkness: Marlow's Symbolic Character Marlow is one of the two narrators in “Heart of Darkness” and he is the more important of the two. Conrad has created a complex narrator in Marlow, a man who is not all good or all bad. Marlow narrates the story constituting the real substance of the novel. A mere narrator would objectively tell a story, keeping himself out of it. But in “Heart of Darkness”, Marlow himself is one of the central characters. As a narrator, Marlow is unreliable that he is not an objective teller of the story, but is instead emotionally conflicted about the events and people within his tale. He is also a figure who is alienated from the mainstream. He is also an observer, a thinker, and a commentator. Half of the interest and appeal of this novel would be lost if we were to ignore the role of Marlow in “Heart of Darkness” . Marlow also has a symbolic role. He stands for something bigger and larger than himself. Marlow symbolizes the spiri...