Exam 3 Study Guide
Know the four ideas defining the mental attitude of the 19th Century.
Know the historical changes going on in the 19th Century.
Know the inherited conditions that Naturalism claims humans are trapped by.
Know the literary characteristics of Realism.
Know what social organization Ivan Ilyich belongs to.
Know the literary importance of the inscription on Ivan’s watch.
Know the qualities of a Literary Hero.
Know the concept of Chekhov’s gun.
Know the reason for Hedda Gabler’s suicide.
Know the verbal clues Tolstoy uses to how Ivan Ilyich’s story is universal and relates to the
general human condition.
Know why Realism focuses on the middle class.
Know why Naturalism focuses on the lower class.
Know the general definition of Realism.
Know how Naturalism represents characters’ control over their lives.
Know the Point of View of “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”
Know the importance of Gerasim in “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”
Know what Dostoevsky believed about humanity’s chains.
Know why the Underground Man is unable to take action.
Know whether Hedda Gabler adheres to the classical unities.
Know the general conflict found in many of Ibsen’s plays.
Know what is so terrible about being simple and ordinary, according to the narrator in “The
Death of Ivan Ilyich.”
Know why the Underground Man believes we are all stillborn.
Know the definition of Orientalism.
Know the characteristics of Realism and/or Naturalism in Notes from Underground or “The
Death of Ivan Ilyich.”
There will also be one subjective question (about Hedda Gabler) and five quote
identifications.
Hedda Gabler
Henrik Ibsen
http://www.goucher.edu/x14419.xml
Henrik Ibsen
• 1828-1906
• Norwegian
• Many of his play’s themes involve the conflict between the
social self and the essential self. The social self is the
“person” we show to others that conforms to social norms
and expectations. The essential self expresses a person’s
thoughts, feelings, etc., and is the true self.
• While Ibsen was an atheist, he was greatly influenced by
philosopher and theologian, Søren Kierkegaard, who is
considered by many to be the first existentialist
philosopher.
• Remember the discussion of existentialism when we read
Notes from Underground? How does the Social vs.
Essential self conflict relate to the human struggle as
existentialism expresses it?
To supplement your reading of of Hedda Gabler,
locate the film in through the UNA library
UNACAT. You should find the listing here:
http://unavoyager.una.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?
searchId=115&recCount=20&recPointer=5&bibId
=568933
This is an excellent filmed version of a stage
production of Hedda Gabler. Watching a play
performance always enhances understanding of
the text.
Important elements:
Chekhov’s Gun – Playwright Anton Chekhov said, "If a gun is loaded in Act One, it must be
fired by Act Three.“ This evolved into a theory (or rule) about payoff for the audience. You
can’t draw attention to something at the beginning of the play and then just drop it. It has
to have some significance, or payoff, in the evolving action of the play. In Hedda Gabler,
the Chekhov’s gun is, literally, a gun (or guns). General Gabler’s guns are introduced early
in the play and, following the rule of Chekhov’s gun, are the items used for the most
important action at the end of the play – the death of Lovborg and Hedda’s suicide.
I am not a gun.
I am a literary device
Unities – note that, like Tartuffe, Hedda Gabler adheres to the classic unities of time,
place, and action.
Foreshadowing –
Act Four:
Hedda: I’d sooner die!
Brack: People say such things. But they don’t do them
Hedda: I shall be silent in the future.
Discussion of the play:
We have discussed the idea of the anti-hero as one who, unlike a tragic hero, can take action, decides to take action, but is
unable to follow through on the action. In the case of Underground Man, he thinks too much and talks himself out of
action.
Hedda Gabler is often analyzed in terms of tragedy. In order to be a tragedy, there must be a tragic hero, and that would
have to be the title character. Some people might be uncomfortable labeling a person who commits suicide as a hero.
Consider, however, the situation that leads to Hedda’s final action in the play. As a woman who is, therefore, trapped by her
social and biological heredity, Hedda is ultimately unable to unify her social and her essential selves. Society does not
“allow” for women’s creative impulses or their autonomy. Lovborg is Hedda’s “canvas” on which she attempts to create and
exercise her autonomy, but that attempt is ultimately a failure. All she is left with, then, is society’s expectations of how
Hedda should live (as a wife, neice, woman). She sees not possibility for ever fully being her essential self.
A slight problem in reading Hedda as a tragic hero is that Ibsen presents her as a woman who avoids dealing with the
consequences of her actions. In Act Two, she comments on this:
Hedda: My impulsiveness had its consequences, my dear Mr. Brack.
Brack: Unfortunately… impulsiveness does that only too frequently, my lady.
Her inability to deal with consequences is a problem for Hedda before the action of the play and in its early stages, but her
desire to find courage as well as her desire to have control over something ultimately allow her to deal with the
consequences of her actions, even is the consequence is failure. Act Two:
Mrs. Elvsted: You’ve got some reason for all this, Hedda!
Hedda: Yes, I have. For once in my life I want to feel that I control a human destiny.
Mrs. Elvsted: But surely you do already?
Hedda: I don’t, and I never have done.
Act Four:
Hedda: It’s a liberation [for me] to know that an act of spontaneous courage is yet
world. An act that has something of unconditional beauty
possible in this
Hedda here expresses a connection between action and creation, courage as a thing of created beauty. Just as
courage is something socially relegated to males, creation or art is considered a male activity. It is insinuated that
Lovborg’s book was inspired by his past relationship with Hedda, making it, therefore, partially an act of her creation
(as is Lovborg himself in her eyes).
Ironically, the ultimate consequence of Hedda’s actions with Lovborg (the gun, etc.), lead to her being placed more
firmly under the control of men. Brack, who knows the truth, engages in a little emotional blackmail. Act Four:
Hedda: And so I am in your power, Mr. Brack. From now on I am at your mercy.
Brack: Dearest Hedda… believe me… I shall not abuse the position.
Hedda: In your power, all the same. Subject to your will and demands! No longer
free!
Ibsen is not an idealist. We should not read Hedda Gabler as a suggestion that all women, or people in general,
should resort to suicide or other final actions when realizing that they will never gain complete freedom or autonomy.
Instead, we should read the play as a lesson on coming to terms in a healthy way with the impossibility of having such
complete freedom in our lives and learning to live with others within our social restrictions. After all, at the end of
the play, Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted are shown working together to recreate Lovborg’s book. Mrs. Elvsted has found a
way to be creative within the restrictions of her gender, an Tesman has found a way to contribute to his scholarly field
even though his own works may not rise to the level of Lovborg’s.
Things to consider:
Ibsen creates a parallel between Hedda and Tesman’s marriage and the marriage between
Mrs. Elvsted and her husband. How do they compare or contrast? What do you think
Ibsen’s purpose for this is?
Why do you think the play is not titled Hedda Tesman?
Why are so many of the characters referred to my their last names?
Hedda flirts with both Lovborg and Brack in the play, but insists she will never be unfaithful
to her husband. Is fidelity limited to sex? If not, has she “cheated” on her husband in the
play?
Tesman’s aunts are important characters in the play even though we never see Aunt Rina.
What purpose do they serve to the major theme in the play?
Stage directions and descriptions should always be considered a part of the play itself.
What do the set descriptions add to our reading of the play? Think in terms of open vs.
closed spaces. And what do the stage directions for the title character offer our
understanding?
Dostoevsky’s
Notes from Underground
Fyodor Dostoevsky
1821-1881
Father, a tyrant, owned a large “plantation” with serfs
When Fyodor was 18, the serfs revolted an murdered his
father
Fyodor began to hang around proto-socialist circles and,
when he was 20, was arrested by the Tsarist
government and sentenced to prison in Siberia
His epilepsy worsened under conditions in prison, so it was
a dark time for many reasons
While in prison, however, he interacted for the first time
with the lower classes and began to see them as real,
multi-dimensional people
Thus, his presentations of lower class characters are free
of romantic stereotypes and caricatures
Came out of prison with the idea that common, illiterate
Russians were full human beings who carried the same
complex moral burdens as anyone else.
Dostoevsky’s literature is highly philosophical
– the philosophical presentation happens
two ways:
Directly – long monologues about ideas come from
the characters
Indirectly – the unfolding of characters’ destinies
unfold a philosophic position. A character acts
upon certain beliefs and when we see what
happens as a result, the psychological and
spiritual consequences, we have an idea about
the philosophy.
With Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, and others,
Dostoevsky changed ways of thinking in
the 19th Century away from rational
(Enlightenment) or even emotional
(Romantic) thought into psychological
thought focusing on the unconscious
(contradictory and/or suppressed motives
were seen as influencing men and
nations)
Dostoevsky could not accept optimistic plans to
rationalize society in order to quickly free
humanity from its chains (various revolutions,
utilitarianism, Fourier)
Instead, he believed most of humanity’s chains
were moral ones that could be removed only by
spiritual rebirth (not social reorganization)
From this, a dominant theme in his major novels is
the soul’s journey from crisis to resolution,
always involving a search for spiritual values
Three others ideas that are in the
background in Notes from
Underground
1. Nihilism – the idea that all values are
baseless, and life is meaningless
2. Existentialism – A philosophy that
emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation
of the individual experience in a hostile
or indifferent universe, regards human
existence as unexplainable, and stresses
freedom of choice and responsibility for
the consequences of one’s acts.
In Existentialism:
Experience precedes Essence
(vs. essence precedes existence – in
Christianity, the person has an essence from
conception; thus, experience follows)
For the existentialist, this means there is a great
burden of responsibility because we must, by
our choice of experiences, create our own
essence.
We create values rather than discover them, so
creativity is action and very important
3. The hero vs. the anti-hero
Qualities of the hero:
Ability to act in the world
To make decisions
To carry out those decisions
To deal with the consequences
May fail, be wrong, suffer, die, or have to
adjust or learn from their mistakes
The anti-hero CANNOT ACT
The Underground Man
Does not live in a world where actions
matter (he has seemingly removed himself
from that world, but does it really exist?)
He lives underground by choice
He is not satisfied with his choice
He has no intention of changing
WHY?
He is dissatisfied with conditions of life:
Consciousness
Science
He can’t attach himself to anything in the
world, so he is driven inward
He can’t love
Colonialism:
MaCaulay, Rhodes
(and others)
exploringafrica.matrix.
msu.edu
http://www.resourcefinder.org/imperialism/co
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The Colonies . . . are yet babes that cannot live
without sucking the breasts of their motherCities. . . .
- James Harrington (Harington) (1611-1677)
"[Kipling] sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while
other men, inevitably less civilised, are there to guard and
feed them."
- George Orwell
Mark Twain, from Roughing It
Nearby is an interesting ruin--the meager remains of an ancient
temple--a place where human sacrifices were offered up in
those old bygone days...long, long before the missionaries
braved a thousand privations to come and make [the natives]
permanently miserable by telling them how beautiful and
how blissful a place heaven is, and how nearly impossible it is
to get there; and showed the poor native how dreary a place
perdition is and what unnecessarily liberal facilities there are
for going to it; showed him how, in his ignorance, he had gone
and fooled away all his kinsfolk to no purpose; showed him
what rapture it is to work all day long for fifty cents to buy
food for next day with, as compared with fishing for a pastime
and lolling in the shade through eternal summer, and eating
of the bounty that nobody labored to provide but Nature.
How sad it is to think of the multitudes who have gone to
their gaves in this beautiful island and never knew there was a
hell.
”When the British came they introduced the concept of title deeds
for land, which they insisted be in the name of the head of the
household. That was always the man ... That undermined the
traditional setting whereby land belongs to the family. This reform
stopped women having legal right to the land ... When the cash
came in, it went into a bank account held by the man, even though
it was women and children who did the work in the fields. Women
were completely disenfranchised.”
-Wangari Maathai, From the article “Planting
the future”, The Guardian, 16 February 2007.
"For it is implicit that to speak is to exist absolutely for the other. //
The black man has two dimensions. One with his fellows, the other
with the white man. A Negro behaves differently with another
Negro. The this self-division is a direct result of colonialist
subjugation is beyond question. . . ." (17).
"To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture. The Antilles
Negro who wants to be white will be the whiter as he gains greater
mastery of the cultural tool that language is. Rather more than a
year ago in Lyon, I remember, in a lecture I had drawn a parallel
between the Negro and European poetry, and a French
acquaintance told me enthusiastically, 'At the bottom you are a
white man.' The fact that I had been able to investigate so
interesting a problem through the white man's language gave me
honorary citizenship" (38).
"while I was shouting that, in the paroxysm of my being and my fury,
he was reminding me that my blackness was only a minor term. . . .
Without a Negro past, without a Negro future, it was impossible for
me to live my Negrohood. Not yet white, no longer wholly black, I
was damned" . . . "I defined myself as an absolute intensity of
beginning" (138).
Frantz Fanon, from Black Skin, White Masks
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?
from “A Far Cry from Africa,” by Derek Walcott
Ngugi Wa Thiongo, from Kenya
The difference between colonial education and Africa’s
reality created people (students) “abstracted” from their
reality, yearning for lost identity and lost heritage.
Education’s role is to serve as “a means of knowledge
about ourselves” – after examining the ourselves, we
“radiate outwards and discover peoples and worlds around
us.
Aime Cesaire
The colonizer is dependent on
the colonized. It cannot
pursue its imperial purpose
unless the colonized is
inferior, a barbaric “other.”
Therefore, colonization
requires a reinvention of the
colonized, a deliberate
destruction of the colonized’s
past – “thingification”
Orientalism
Definition: The term
introduced by Edward Said
for an entire discourse
through which the colonial
other is represented by the
West as subordinate, thus
providing an intellectual
foundation for material
(imperial and economic)
domination
Introduction to Realism
and Naturalism
19th Century – Time of Great
Change
French Revolution had broken down
traditional order in Europe
The Holy Roman Empire and Papal states
were dissolved
There was a growing attitude of Nationalism
Colonization was increasing rapidly, bringing
trade and westernization to more primitive
places – colonization led to Britain
replacing France at dominant world leader
More changes …
“Liberty became dominant political slogan
Industrial Revolution spreading from England to
European continent
Traditional agrarian life transformed by market
economy
Middle class becoming increasing threat to upper class
rule
In part because of Darwin, Scientific outlook spreading
through all fields of human thought – natural and
social sciences becoming more prestigious
This Scientific outlook produced direct threat to
traditional religious views – pessimism and atheism
rose, and materialism became widespread
British Colonies
http://learning-connections.co.uk/curric/cur_pri/victorians/handson/images/emp_ans.gif
Because of all of these changes, the
19th Century was defined by the ideas
of
Liberty
Science
Progress
Evolution
These ideas are the background for
both Literary Realism and
Naturalism
One way to distinguish between the two is to
think of Realism as a technique, and
Naturalism as a philosophic position
Realism
Literary Realism was most dominant in the
1850’s and 1860’s, but actually began
earlier and ended much later as a
movement (although the technique can
still be identified in contemporary
literature)
Mostly we identify Realism with fiction –
poetry at the time was still influenced by
Romanticism
Many describe Realism as the removing of
the rose colored glasses of Romanticism
to allow a clear, true vision of life
For our purposes, we will define
Realism as:
“The Truthful treatment of Material”
What “material” was Realism
truthfully treating?
The focus of Realism is that which is
contemporary
ordinary
and middle class
More specifically, the ordinary life represented by Realism
included:
Humans as secular beings or beings living in a world not transformed
by spiritual presence
An age of mechanism, empirical thought, and materialism – what is
important is what could be shown to work
An age when the “rights of the individual” had been debated (Burke and
Paine), resulting in the self becoming the location of moral and
political importance
An age of rapid sociological change, resulting in the idea that everyday
life is significant
An age when Capitalism becomes the dominant economic ideology –
Materialism is good, obsession with property is right, and these were
more important than communal needs.
Rise of Middle Class led to increase in education
Authors could earn a living by writing, so more female authors and
more “popular” reading published
http://www.accents-n-art.com/artist_jeanhonorefragonard/images/M00376fp.jpg
Literary Characteristics of Realism
Characters are familiar TYPES – ordinary people
(mostly middle class) endowed with no supernatural
powers
Characters NOT idealized – people can be both weak
and strong, good and bad, etc., so instead of heroes
and villains, we find protagonists and antagonists
Subjects of the literature are those social and personal
subjects ordinary people experience – love, death,
birth, jobs, etc.
The plots offer everyday life experiences presented
through the lens of determinism
Determinism
The philosophical doctrine asserting a
mechanical correspondence between
determining causes and effects –
Everything that happens is determined by
a necessary chain of causes
Literary characteristics of Realism,
continued
The language is natural
The settings are often very detailed and
offered through long descriptions
The author ATTEMPTS to disappear, tries to
offer an objective narrative, although this
is never entirely possible.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/22265-large.jpg
Naturalism
Naturalism dominated in the 1870’s and
1880’s, but like Realism, it continued after
this period of domination and can still be
identified in contemporary literature.
Naturalism is informed by a post-Darwinian
form of scientific determinism:
Human life is governed (determined) by heredity,
instinct, and passion
People are prisoners of their biological and social
inheritance (thus, they are victims of their
circumstances)
People do not have freedom of choice or free will; if
they attempt to exercise free will, are met with
circumstances beyond their control
THEREFORE, People are helpless to control their fate
This results in a feeling of meaninglessness
The philosophy of Naturalism causes some
shifts from the literary characteristics of
Realism (although the localities, time
periods, and social issues remain the same).
These changes are:
The subject characters are no longer primarily the
middle class, but rather the lower, working class
where the impact of biological and social
heredity is especially clear
In this lower class, naturalism presents violent,
animalistic characters whose biologically
inherited drives, expecially hunger and sex, are
especially vivid.
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