The Garden of Love by William Blake

The Garden of Love

Summary

The speaker visits a garden that he had frequented in his youth, only to find it overrun with briars, symbols of death in the form of tombstones, and close-minded clergy.

Analysis

"The Garden of Love" is a deceptively simple three-stanza poem made up of quatrains. It emphasizes the death and decay that have overtaken a place that once used to hold such life and beauty for the speaker.

Following the specific examples of flowers representing types of love, this poem paints a broader picture of flowers in a garden as the joys and desires of youth. When the speaker returns to the Garden of Love, he finds a chapel built there with the words, “Thou shalt not,” written overhead. The implication is that organized religion is intentionally forbidding people from enjoying their natural desires and pleasures.

The speaker also finds the garden given over to the graves of his pleasures while a black-clad priest binds his “joys and desires” in thorns. This not-so-subtle critique shows Blake’s frustration at a religious system that would deny men the pleasures of nature and their own instinctive desires. He sees religion as an arm of modern society in general, with its demand that human beings reject their created selves to conform to a more mechanistic and materialistic world.

Source: http://www.gradesaver.com/songs-of-innocence-and-of-experience/study-guide/section33/28.03.2014

Miss Havisham -Great Expectations

 Miss Havisham is a significant character in the Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations (1861). She is a wealthy spinster, who lives in her ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella. Dickens describes her as looking like "the witch of the place."

Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens's own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-fifties. However, it is also indicated that her long life away from the sunlight has in itself aged her, and she is said to look like a cross between a waxwork and a skeleton, with moving eyes.

Miss Havisham's mother died when she was just a baby, and she was spoilt by her father, a wealthy brewer, as a result. He remarried in secret and conceived a son, Arthur, with the family cook.

As an adult, she fell in love with a man named Compeyson, who was only out to swindle her of her riches. Her cousin Matthew Pocket warned her to be careful, but she was too much in love to listen. At twenty minutes to nine on their wedding day, while she was dressing, Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realized he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar.

Humiliated and heartbroken, from that day on, she remained alone in her decaying mansion Satis House – never removing her wedding dress, wearing only one shoe, leaving the wedding breakfast and cake uneaten on the table and allowing only a few people to see her. She even had all of the clocks in her mansion stopped at twenty minutes to nine – the exact time when she had received the letter.

Miss Havisham later had her lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, adopt a daughter for her.

I had been shut up in these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella.

While wishing Estella never to suffer as she had at the hands of a man was Miss Havisham's original goal, it changed as Estella grew older:Believe this: when she first came, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first, I meant no more. But, as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.

While Estella was still a child, Miss Havisham began casting about for boys, who could be a testing ground for Estella's education in breaking the hearts of men as vicarious revenge for Miss Havisham's pain. Pip, the narrator, is the eventual victim; and Miss Havisham readily dresses Estella in jewels to prettify her all the more and to exemplify all the more the vast social gulf between her and Pip. When, as a young adult, Estella leaves for France to receive education, Miss Havisham eagerly asks him, "Do you feel you have lost her?”

Miss Havisham repents late in the novel when Estella leaves to marry Pip's rival, Bentley Drummle; and she realizes that she has caused Pip’s heart to be broken in the same manner as her own; rather than achieving any kind of personal revenge, she has only caused more pain. Miss Havisham begs Pip for forgiveness.

Until you spoke to [Estella] the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!

After Pip leaves, Miss Havisham's dress catches on fire from her fireplace. Pip rushes back in and save her. However, she has suffered severe burns to the front of her torso (she is laid on her back), up to the throat. The last words she speaks in the novel are (in a delirium) to Pip, referencing both Estella and a note she, Miss Havisham, has given him with her signature: "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her!'"

A surgeon dresses her burns, and says that they are "far from hopeless". However, despite rallying for a time, she dies a few weeks later, leaving Estella as her chief beneficiary, and a considerable sum to Herbert Pocket's father, as a result of Pip's reference.

Eliza Emily Donnithorne (1827–1886) of Camperdown, Sydney, was jilted by her groom on her wedding day and spent the rest of her life in a darkened house, her rotting wedding cake left as it was on the table, and with her front door kept permanently ajar in case her groom ever returned. She was widely considered at the time to be Dickens' model for Miss Havisham, although this cannot be proven. Although Charles Dickens had a deep-seated interest in Australia, saw it as a place of opportunity and encouraged two of his sons to emigrate there, the writer never visited it himself, but it features in detail in many of his works, notably Great Expectations itself. He obtained his information on colonial life in New South Wales from two Sydney researchers. He also had numerous friends and acquaintances, who settled in Australia who sent him letters detailing curious aspects of life in the colonies, knowing he could use it as source material for future novels. They could easily have conveyed the Donnithorne story to him. Australia features prominently in Great Expectations, and New South Wales is where Pip’s benefactor Abel Magwitch made his fortune.

In the 1965 Penguin edition, Angus Calder notes at Chapter 8 that "James Payn, a minor novelist, claimed to have given Dickens the idea for Miss Havisham – from a living original of his acquaintance. He declared that Dickens's account was 'not one whit exaggerated'." Although it is documented Dickens encountered a wealthy recluse called Elizabeth Parker on whom it is widely believed he based the character, whilst staying in Newport, Shropshire at the aptly named Havisham Court.

Madame Jumel of New York City was known by Charles Dickens and impressed him enough to come up with the basis for Great Expectations; there are many parallels. Madame Jumel received Mr. Dickens at the Jumel Mansion in Harlem, and while visiting she showed him her cobwebbed dining room left just as it was after a night of entertaining Joseph Bonaparte, with petrified leftover food still on the plates. She was eccentric and a dowager with an adopted niece by the name of Eliza, who is a perfect model for Estella. Madame Jumel inherited her wealth from her first husband, a wealthy French liquor importer in NYC (and not a brewer). Her first love was Aaron Burr but, as he was just after her money, he left her when his political career started to gain momentum. She would later marry Burr after the death of her first husband, and Mr. Burr would work his way through much of her estate until their divorce. Madame Jumel spent much time in France and was known in the royal court there. In 1854, she introduced her 17-year-old granddaughter to the Court of Louis Philippe. On her own she created great wealth and was the wealthiest woman in America upon her death in 1865.

The Open Window by Saki

1.       Identify 3 literary devices in the short story and their significant.
2.       Where is the climax in the short story? How is this achieved?
3.        Describe the setting of the short story?
4.       What is the lesson that you can learned in this short story?
5.       In the short story, does Vera shows hospitality to Frampton Nuttel? If Vera were Malaysia, would she have in like manner?
6.         If you were Nuttel, would you trust every word Vera said? Why?

1.                   The first literary device that can be found is symbolism. The symbol in “The Open Window” is the open window itself. When Mrs. Sappleton’s niece, tells Mr. Nuttel the story of the lost hunters, the open window comes to symbolize Mrs. Sappleton’s anguish and heartbreak at the loss of her husband and younger brother. When the truth is later revealed, the open window no longer symbolizes anguish but the very deceit itself. Saki uses the symbol ironically by having the open window, an object one might expect would imply honesty, as a symbol of deceit. The next literary device is irony. Mr Nuttel first came to Mrs. Sappleton’s house was to find “peace” or to find cure for his. However, instead of finding cure, his condition got worse when he was deceived by Vera that her aunt is grieving over her dead husband and younger brothers. That she still leaves the window open so that they may walk back through it. Mrs. Sappleton then arrives and introduces herself and tells Mr. Nuttel that she is waiting for her husband and brothers. Mr. Nuttel looks through the window and comes to find that there are three men walking towards that window, looking exactly how the neice described them. A voice from one of the men yells out to Mrs. Sappleton and Mr. Nuttel rushes out of the house.  The final literary device is personification. The personification is defined as a representation of a non-living things or objects which have human’s attributes or qualities. The personification in this short story is foundin paragraph 14,  the phrase "a treacherous piece of bog". A bog is defined as a soft, wet ground. And in this short story, the bog is called as treacherous because it is where Mrs Sappleton husband and brothers were missing and can never be found as it has “engulfed” them. 

2.                   The climax of this short story is where Mrs Sappleton’s husband and her two brothers came back, along with the dog. This climax is achieved by the used of suspense. When Mrs Sappleton’s husband and her two brothers came back, along with the dog, readers can feel the suspense when Mrs. Sappleton keep on looking at them and the horrified Mr Nuttle. The suspense increases when Mr Nuttle looked at the terrifying looked from Vera’s eyes.

3.                   We can describe the setting of the short story the Open Window into 3 parts which are time, place and society. In this novel, there is no specific dates are mentioned in the story. However, it is assumed to take place in the early twentieth century, most likely during the reign of King Edward VII. While for the place, most of the plot is set entirely in one room of an English country home belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Sappleton. Finally, the setting of society in the novel the Open Window is describes as the upper class of English society. 

4.                   The lesson that we can learned in this short story is we must check the validity of a story before we trust it completely. Even the person who tells us about the story itself is a teenager like Vera, but we cannot assume that they will tell us the truth. Maybe their body is small and younger than us, but who knows what they have in mind. So, no matter wherever we are and whoever the person or society that we lived in, we must ensure the truth of a story before we believe them and make our own about opinion the story. 

5.                   After a period of hard time doing research on “The Open Window”, by the well-known “Saki”, we discovered the answer of this question. It was long night. For us, we absolutely come with one opinion. We believe Vera was not giving our protagonist, Frampton Nuttel, hospitality. Based from the “Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary”, hospitality is “friendly and generous behavior towards guest”. Telling lie is obviously is not a type of hospitality and that what we learned in school. Vera told lie and make Mr. Nuttel flee away. As the host of the house, she should not do that. She supposed to serve him better and let the man of the house talk. Of course, that is not Malaysian style. Not even the Singaporean. We Malaysian, we serve our guest the best. Mr. Nuttel came here for peace. But instead of peace, he found chaos. “What an ironic moment!” said Wandi. We will serve our guest better than any services that provided by the any 5 stars hotel around Bukit Bintang. In fact, not only as Malaysian, but as anyone from anywhere all around the world, we must show our guest a great hospitality. Umofian also taught their people to serve their guest even their guess come only to collect debt. Simply, no matter where you come from, Malaysian or Singaporean, or anywhere across the map, we must honor our guest, show the best hospitality and don’t tell lies. Even if you were came from Venus.

6.                   Based from “The Open Window”, by the great Saki, we finally come out with this. After a long thrilling discussion; we all agree not to believe in Vera. “Why must we believe in 15 years old girl? We don’t even believe to 40 years old politician. Bribing is anywhere”, said Joe. People started to lie at their beginning of life. Teenagers nowadays mostly influenced to do negative activities and practicing bad habit mostly from the mass media. Based from the short story, Vera also told lie to Mrs. Sappleton at the end of the story, so obviously that she often lie in her daily life. Besides, as Mr. Nuttel, you should not believe in anyone because you just arrived and met them. You should be more careful and aware because you don’t know who you are talking with. She can be an American most wanted, or a 15 years old serial murderer. Maybe they are small, young, innocent and a girl, but your life is more important as a guest. By the end of the day, you are the one that suffered. 

Source: http://study-addict.blogspot.com/2012/09/analysis-on-open-window-by-saki.html-23.03.2014