Antigone: The First Feminist

 Even after the birth of Christ the world’s societies were strongly patriarchal. Obviously, things weren’t too good for women before that either.  Proof of this is the fact that misogyny is quite evident in the last of Sophocles’ Theban plays and Drama is supposed to reflect the society to which it belongs. However, Antigone’s actions challenged the ideals of her era. She stood up to the men of a time and place where women were practically considered slaves, which is why she is widely considered to be one of the earliest feminist figures in literature.

 If we look at the social structure in the play, we can see that all important posts are occupied by males, such as: the messenger, the prophet, and the sentry. And let’s not forget how Creon got the throne after Oedipus’ death, despite Antigone and Ismene being his next of kin, simply because females weren’t allowed to rule and Creon was their closest surviving male relative. In fact, women as a whole are almost invisible throughout the play, we hear of them but we scarcely see them. Antigone, is the only female character that actively participates in the action with the males. She’s the only woman that does anything important or brave and she is punished for it.

Then,  we have Ismene, who is a representative of the women of her time. She is scared, weak, useless and submissive to the will of men. She’s so afraid of the males of her entourage that she’s willing to abandon her sister when she needs her the most and to leave her brother unburied, his soul forever tormented.  Ismene is the kind of woman  that misogynist societies strive on,  she is told that  she is inferior and she believes it:“I am not strong enough”. She is obedient even to injustice because her society brainwashed her with gender roles:  men are supposed to be big and strong and women should be weak and quiet. She exhibits those beliefs when she says:

“O think, Antigone; we are women; it is not for us

To fight against men; our rulers are stronger than we,

And we must obey in this, or in worse than this.”

Patriarchal societies tell women to be like Ismene, and women as weak as Ismene will not object to being so ill-used.

 Despite all this, Antigone does not submit to conventions. She does not see her gender as an obstacle keeping her from achieving Holy justice and she will stop at nothing to accomplish her goal. She is the opposite of Ismene and so the opposite of the women of her society, she is not weak, she is not obedient and she does not take family ties lightly:

“Is he not my brother, and yours, whether you like it

Or not? I shall never desert him, never.”

Antigone also exhibits great strength, something uncharacteristic of what men like Creon think a woman should be, she proves that by going through with her dangerous and risky plan even after learning that she will have to do it alone when Ismene refuses to help her:

“Go your own way; I will bury my brother;

And if I die for it, what happiness!”

It should also be noted that what enraged Creon most, was not that he was defied, but that he was defied by a woman, his niece. To Creon, women should be compliant and docile, abiding by men’s laws. But Antigone breaks this “rule” and rebels against the strongest man in the kingdom, the king. She does not accept society’s definition of a woman and she does not do what is expected of her by other people. She is an independent individual who does what is right no matter the consequences.

  Antigone, a play written in 441 B.C., shows the typical reaction with which even modern societies, respond to change and the rise of the oppressed. Antigone was a woman that did what no man dared to do. She buried her brother despite the edict forbidding it and she took responsibility for her actions unlike Ismene who refused to share the task with her despite its noble nature. Antigone clashes with her society, specifically with its males but gains the respect of the people because she did what was right by the gods rejecting what was considered right by a mortal man.

 - Mada El-Horr

William Blake - "The Chimney Sweeper" and "The Laughing Song" - Analysis

 Originating from Western Europe in the mid-eighteenth century, Romanticism, has had an enormous and undeniable effect on the realms of Art and Literature. Romanticism was at its core, a revolution against the changing world. As everything morphed around the Romantics, with Industrialism and Urbanization becoming the norm, they held their pens and brushes and opposed this materialistic new way of life. They considered Imagination better than reason, nature pure and the city dirty. They emphasized emotion and intuition over logic and technology, and sympathized with the human beings that were being replaced with cold, lifeless machines. They were emotional, creative, irrational and they attempted to free the human race from civilization, which they believed, made us all sick. Many of the characteristics of this humanitarian movement are displayed in poems such  as “The Chimney Sweeper” and  “The Laughing Song“ by William Blake, who was only recognized as a poet worthy of the name, posthumously.

In “The Chimney Sweeper” ,   Blake talks about the children whom poverty has forced into  a life of labor. The poet speaks from the persona of a child whose mother had passed and father had sold before he could even speak. He was, henceforth, sentenced to descend into the narrow and dark chimneys of England, to clean them. Working hard only to sleep in filth.  The child tells of one of the other children, named Tom Dacre,  who cried when he was forced to cut his white curly hair. He asks him to quiet down because at least now, his beautiful hair will be spared the dirtiness of their intoxicating job. Tom Dacre falls asleep and dreams of all the other children, sealed in black coffins. An angel appears and with a special key, lets all the children out of their grim confinements. The children enjoy their freedom, while running through green plains and laughing under a bright sun. They wash away the soot in a river, and leave their bags behind and climb up clouds and fly with the wind. The angel approaches Tom and reveals to him how to earn God’s protection and His gift of everlasting happiness: Being A Good Person. The dream ends and the children wake up in the early morning to get back to work. But something was different about Tom Dacre. Though the air was cold, he was warm and he knew that as long as he was a good boy, no one could hurt him, for God is salvation.

“The Laughing Song”, is a simpler poem. It depicts a scene in nature where all is good and  pure and everyone is happy.  The woods, the stream, the air, all of nature seems to be laughing. Even children seem to be in this merry piece of nature, and they too are gleeful and laughing. Even the colorful birds laugh in the sky, and the poet beckons the reader to join them in their pic-nic.  The poet invites the reader to a life of joy  amongst the woods where everyone sings: “Ha Ha He”.

 “The Chimney Sweeper” opens with a jab at the cruel urban society,  that sells children as if they weren’t human beings and puts them to work. Essentially robbing them of their childhoods:

“And my father sold me while yet my tongue ,

Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep.

So your chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep.”

The Industrial Revolution lead the way for Urbanization which caused the split of the English society into two distinct classes: The Poor, and The Rich. To the Romantics this was proof of the value of Pastoral life, seeing as Urban life has dehumanized so many. They felt compassion towards the common man and cared especially  about the children who were considered the spirit of innocence and the wisest of all. The poet is showing  how urbanization has stopped children from being children. In a sense, he’s saying that Urban Life is the death of innocence. The Romantics were bothered by the horrible conditions children and women were doomed to face because of poverty. Just like Tom Dacre, many children were forced down tight, cold tunnels, away from the sun and fresh air, to clean the soot from the chimneys of the people who could afford them. They were unhealthy and some died after getting stuck in someone’s chimney. Child labor laws were not yet  conceived and so the children suffered.

Another key characteristic of Romanticism is Imagination. In this poem,  Tom Dacre has a dream that delivers a great divine message.  To the Romantics, Imagination was the path to truth. In his dream, Tom sees the other chimney sweepers in black coffins. Presumably, they are dead. Then an angel comes, holding a key that frees all these tortured souls. After the children wash themselves and fly off to heaven, the angel tells Tom the secret to Salvation. Put simply, children, which urban life has killed, are so pure that they are sure to ascend to heaven. The black coffins symbolize our world, the world of greed and the material. The key is death. Death has liberated them from their glum lives. The angel is the angel of death or a representative of God. The children are free in what seems to be natural scenery, reflecting  Wordsworth’s belief that God resides in nature. Heaven is after all, a garden. They wash away the ugliness of our filthy world and can now finally go to the garden of Eden.

It’s  like when Tom cut his white hair and the other child tells him that now it won’t get dirty:

“Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head’s bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.”

His white hair is gone and has been spared the bleak harshness of this reality. Or, the image could just as well be a symbolization of Dacre’s loss of innocence. His “white” hair is now forever gone.

We here have a contrast of black and white, for Dacre’s hair, or his innocence, is white, while the coffins of the children are black. When white becomes black, innocence is spoiled and so urban life’s coldness besmirched the children’s pure souls.

This dream could also have a second meaning where the coffins stand for the city. Upon their return to nature, and their liberation from the horrendous city, they can finally be happy between green plains and a bright sun. The angel would again, be God, because God resides in nature and nature is the word of God.

The Angel’s message to Tom is a typical Christian message. Be good. Only by being good can the hardships of life be followed by the bliss of heaven. Although the Romantics didn’t believe in systematic religion, and preferred to adore God through his creation, man being one of them, hence the importance they adorn to  human beings, exceptions existed and Blake was an Orthodox Christian.

At the end, Tom wakes up from  his fantasy and he has to go to work. But now he had new hope, that things will be better for him. If not in this life, then in the next. Intuition is emphasized here. Tom is warm despite the cold, because he feels as if things will be good. His intuition is telling him not to worry. The Romantics idealized feelings and intuition almost as much as they did children. Children are the wisest of us all which is why a child is the one receiving a holy message from God.

And finally, there is the individualism, which is prominent here since the story is focusing on a single character going through a personal experience. It’s Tom Dacre who is the hero of the story, Tom Dacre who has the sacred dream,  Tom Dacre who arrives to the religious conclusion and Tom Dacre who gets a happy ending.

“The Laughing Song” focuses more on the nature loving side of Romanticism. All is happy in nature, because Nature is truth and cleanliness and the whereabouts of God. By being in nature you are with God and by admiring nature, you worship God. And of course, wherever God is, bliss is. Blake personifies elements of nature in order to get his point across:

“When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy.”

See, even the trees are happy !  This is another attempt to convince the reader of the wholesomeness of pastoral life, and the benefits of all that is natural:

“Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread.”

This poem brings up the image of a nice quiet morning spent in a forest or such, eating fresh fruits and basking in the fresh air. Basically, he is trying to seduce the reader into loving nature as much as he does.

Children are there as well, and they are happy. Looking back at “The Chimney Sweeper”, we see a comparison. The children of the city are miserable, mistreated and dying, while the children of the country are happy and gleeful with laughter never leaving their mouths:

“When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing ‘Ha, ha he!’”

After showing off all the happiness and glee and seeming perfection of nature, the poet asks the reader to come join him as if asking people to leave their enslavement to the city and go back to pastoral life which was clean and good:

“Come live, and be merry, and join with me,

To sing the sweet chorus of: ‘Ha, ha he!’”

The poet says “come live” as if a life in the city is no life at all.

The Romantics considered nature to be the realm of God and the city to be evil and enslaving. They cared about the well-being of people too much to condone the advancement of technology and the cold, soulless machines that came with it. In conclusion, they wanted what was best for mankind, and they saw the best in pastoral life which is why they urge our species to go back to its roots in poems such as these.  Willaim Blake exhibits the Romantic spirit perfectly and his works are proof of both  his belonging to this movement and his credit as a great poet.

-Mada El-Horr

How Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Parallels the Myth of Prometheus

  Prometheus, a famous entity in mythology, has been an influence on countless authors and their works. The story of the fallen Titan who challenged Zeus, giving fire to the human race, is a prime example of what happens when you go against the will of the gods. In times where religion, and religion-induced fear of science was the social norm, it is no surprise that such an idea would be suggested and in a way, rewritten by the literary creators of the era.

 Accordingly, Mary Shelley’s  Frankenstein was dubbed “The Modern Prometheus.” It is, in fact, sound to state that both works, despite the various versions of the myth of Prometheus, follow the same story arch. Prometheus could practically be a more metaphorical, or symbolic copy of Frankenstein. This article will attempt to show and prove how that is.

 Prometheus was the titan responsible for the creation of man. Later on, when Zeus took fire away from us, he stole it back from the sacred hearth of Mount Olympus, which of course, engendered the wrath of the gods. He was punished by Zeus, by being bound to a rock, forced to suffer as an eagle pecked his liver every day, retiring at night fall, leaving the organ to regenerate so it could come back the next day and renew its efforts. Such was his life of until he was liberated by Hercules. Prometheus, who was naturally viewed as a god by  men, was considered a clever trickster who, on multiple occasions, attempted to outsmart Zeus. He did not respect the holiness of the hearth and what lied in it, he over-reached and he was, as some believe, rightly punished for it. Many scholars can clearly see the relation between the mythical Titan and Victor Frankenstein, such as Professor David Punter of the University of Bristol.

The novel begins in the frozen seas of Russia, as an ambitious young man, Robert Walton, leading the men on his ship towards, what he hopes will be, heroic discoveries, finds and saves a man on a sled. The man introduces himself as Victor Frankenstein and is given a warm bed and medical attention and quickly becomes Robert’s friend. As Robert shares his hopes with him, Victor recognizes the excessive ambition that had once blinded him and tells him the cautionary tale that is his life. The story begins at childhood, portraying young Victor as an exceptionally intelligent child with a curious interest in the natural sciences. Years later, he goes to University to study science and is irrevocably gripped with the idea of bringing a creation to life. After years of hard work he succeeds. Here we see the first parallel to the myth. Prometheus too created life. He wasn’t supposed to, but he did. He became a god or a father to the humans he created just like Frankenstein is something of a creator or a parental figure to the thing he made.

By giving life to an otherwise inanimate body, Victor has attained knowledge forbidden to humans, a knowledge that belongs only to god. Which is exactly what Prometheus did. The Titan stole fire.  Fire brings light. Light is knowledge. And Prometheus stole it from the gods and gave it to humanity. He gave to human beings what belongs only to the creators, thus violating the order of nature. Victor Frankenstein, took for himself, a human, what belongs only to god, thus also disrupting the natural code. Both wanted to discover the secrets of life and death, secrets that weren’t theirs to know, and both committed great sins to attain that knowledge. Prometheus stole, Frankenstein unleashed a monster upon humanity.

Later on, Victor’s wretch causes more harm than good. It kills his brother, an innocent servant, his dearest friend, and later his bride. Our Protagonist’s life is then dedicated to eradicating the monster, and dies in the midst of the chase, a cold icy death. Prometheus is also forsaken by his abuse of nature, he is forced to be the feast of a beast until the end of times. Both characters are then relieved of their punishment, Victor by death, and Prometheus thanks to Hercules.

The similarities between these too tales can drive a person to think that they are different retellings of the same story: A man who is not a god, wanted, for whatever reason, to discover the mysteries of the gods, in the process of his discovery took from the gods what belongs only to the gods, and was then forsaken for it. In this way, both stories follow the same story arch. Another example of  a work that resembles the classical myth of Prometheus is the play entitled “Doctor Faustus” in which, yet another man, seeking fame and glory and wisdom, desires to discover the secrets of mortality, cultivates knowledge that should be the sole property of the realm of heaven, and is then forsaken for over-stepping his boundaries.

Victor describes the beginning of his attachment to the science that doomed him in the second chapter of this work, saying: “Natural philosophy, is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a day confined to  the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of the works of Cornelius Agrippa.” In the same  chapter we see his interest in nature and his greediness for further knowledge: “I have described myself as always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies discontented and unsatisfied.”

In chapter 4, the question of life presents itself to him again, he blames fear and lack of motivation for our ignorance of an answer to this question: “One of the phenomena  which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our enquiries.” After this, he seems determined to find the answers himself: “ I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology.” He realizes, almost immediately the gore he will have to face to complete his deed, but he does it anyway. “To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.”

Upon learning the secret of life, his better judgment is reluctant to actually use that power, but he ignored it, driven by his passions in a manner that would make any Romantic proud, and decided that he would breathe life into a creation to whom he will be a god: “I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization, but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt  of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man.”

 In chapter 5, two years’ worth of work is completed, and the creature is alive. Frankenstein is awakened from his madness as the wretch awakens to life and he finally realizes the sin he has committed: “I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.” After this creation, Victor grew sick, but the beginning of his true punishment was the death of his brother William. He has committed a sin and this sin, just like Prometheus’, will forsake him.

 Victor’s sin is materialized in his creature, and in chapter 16, this creature, to whom he bestowed life without any regard to the consequences, admits to William’s murder: “ ‘Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy- to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.’ The child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.”

 His punishment continues with the prosecution and then execution of Justine, a servant accused of the crime and then the murder of Clerval, his childhood friend, also at the hands of his monster. Victor laments his victims in chapter 21: “Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other victims await their destiny; but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor-“

In chapter 23, the monster commits his final murder, at least as far as the reader knows, and Victor discovers the body of his dead bride: “A grin was on the face of the monster; he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife.”

  The pair then launch into a chase, Victor is not yet freed of his atonement. He is however, relieved of his earthly pains, when he dies of illness on board of Walton’s boat, a death which saddens Robert and one that he relates to his sister: “About half an hour afterwards he attempted again to speak but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and his eyes closed forever, while the irritation of a gentle smile passed away from his lips.” Victor smiles because he knows his suffering has come to an end. He is liberated by death just as Prometheus was liberated by Hercules.

 In the words of Mary Shelley:  “Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.” This summarizes the moral of the cautionary tales that are Frankenstein and the myth of Prometheus. Both characters defied the gods, and both suffered for their greed and insolence. However, one is left to wonder how the story would’ve turned out if the creature was loved. Would he be evil had he been accepted? If so, was the goal to expose the consequences of messing with the balance of beings, or the consequences of human prejudice and intolerance? 

- Mada El-Horr

Realsim in Tom Jones

Realism is a literary form that emerged in the eighteenth century, in opposition to Romanticism and Idealism. It demands a certain loyalty to reality and is dedicated to presenting the reader with what could be mistaken for real life. Realism only gives us an illusion of reality and so, characters don’t have to be real but they have to behave as they would if they were. This form focuses on the common human experience and thus there is no room for the exaggerated or the extraordinary. Henry Fielding, an English novelist and dramatist, is known for the Realism of his work, and since his aim was to criticize the corrupted and hypocritical society in which he lived, that is to be expected. He did a wonderful job of faithfully replicating this society in his novel: “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.”

 The first indicator of Realism in Fielding’s “Tom Jones” is the setting. The story does not unravel in fictional places such as Hogwarts or Narnia but in real locations such as Somersetshire, which is a country in South West England, and London, which is, as everybody knows, the capital of England. The setting refers to reality, reminding the reader that the events of the story could happen to them or could be occurring this very minute in their neighbor’s house or maybe in the same hotel they’re staying in seeing as “Hercules Pillars”, the inn described in the novel, is also an existing place in Western London. The accuracy of the locations adds to the believability of the events. An example of the description of these locations can be found in the second chapter of the first book, where the story actually starts:

“In that part of the western division of this kingdom which is commonly called Somersetshire, there lately lived and perhaps lives still, a gentleman whose name was Allworthy…”

               

When writing a novel, the author usually shines the light on his protagonist. They do not elaborate on characters like maids or the help in general. A rich man will wake up in his mansion with his clothes clean and fresh and his breakfast prepared to his taste. But we barely get to see the people who worked to make said rich man’s life so luxurious. However, in Realism, which should show the small and the unnoticeable, these characters are given a voice. Food doesn’t cook itself and socks won’t stop stinking by themselves, and making this loud and clear strengthens the authenticity of the reality described. Deborah Wilkins is an example of this. She gets her spotlight and her voice is heard. Her character is well developed from the very beginning as her shrewdness is implied by her actions:  she takes the time to dress before responding to her master’s urgent call. And her opinions are expressed and understood while she speaks to her Master and his sister. Her point of view is clear but she changes her words to agree with her masters, showing that she is a dishonest and hypocritical woman. She is cold towards the baby and his mother, which signifies her piety and her conformity to the corrupt society she lives in that would condemn an innocent child whose only sin is being born.

 Probability is an important aspect of any plot, and it is especially important in Realism. What is improbable is often unrealistic. If someone has an advanced case of cancer it is very probable that they will die. A doctor finding a cure for an incurable disease just in time to save him is a highly improbable scenario, and it is also highly ambitious and far from reality. Realism follows life as it is, without exaggeration or stylization, so a story like the aforementioned one would not count as Realism. But that does not mean we can’t have plot twists, they just have to be believable. For example, Mr. Allworthy comes home at night, he is tired and wants to sleep, but he finds a random baby in his bed. In a house filled with people coming in and out like his, this wouldn’t be such a crazy scenario. Another example is Bridget being Tom’s mother. After being lead to believe that Jenny Jones is the mother of the bastard, it is revealed that the true parent is Bridget Allworthy. This too, is not so improbable. After all, Bridget had been repressed all her life, it’s not strange that she slipped once, and considering her brother’s fortune, it couldn’t have been that hard to convince Jenny to take the fall so she could save herself. These events make logical sense and can have cause-effect relations. To portray reality the sequence of events needs to be logical.

In conclusion, “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling” is a work of Realism. It captures life as it is and feeds it to the reader without seasoning. Such satire can only be achieved through the accurate depiction of life which Fielding has successfully attempted. There are many elements that imply Realism and we can certainly find most of them in this novel.

- Mada El-Horr