The process of history in TULoB and We

History, and the progress of time, is thoroughly investigated in both The Unbearable Lightness of Being and We. In both books the authors answer the questions: How is history made? How does time progress? Does it have a direction or does it keep going in circles? If it does have a direction, then what is the trend?

In both novels there are two schools of thought as to how history progresses. One school of thought believes that it continuously follows a certain direction (or at least it should be) while the other belives it keeps on repeating. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being these two categories are defined as "light" and "weight". The reason why a linear history is deemed "light" is because everything happens only once, and according to the saying "Einmal ist Keinmal" (what happens once might not as well have happened at all) this gives them an infinite temporal insignificance, like dust blowing away in the breeze. Likewise eternally recurring history is defined as "weight" as the knowledge that one's actions will be forever repeated will constantly bear down on the actor. The classes of "lightness" and "weight" with respect to history are one of the main features of the novel.

Meanwhile, in We, there are also (more or less) similar schools of thought on history. The One State visions history as a linear progression, which suits the fact that they are the culmination of history very nicely. (There is one exception in Record 20 where D-503 compares the progression of history to circles on an aero. However, the cliff of the One State blocks any further cyclic movement, thus providing an overall negative view to the inifite repetidity of history.) Key to this argument is that revolutions in particular will not repeat indefinitely. The Mephi, of course, believe in the infinity of revolutions. Here I believe the word "revolution" is important, as a revolution is a cycle, a circle. When something turns around once it is considered a revolution. By claiming the infinity of revolutions I-330 and the rest of the Mephi subsequently claim that time itself will continue infinitely along these cycles. I-330 also described history as seasonal (and thus cyclic) when she claimed that some time in the future the Mephi itself must fall "like the autumn leaves from a tree".

What if history wasn't cyclic, however? Here both books also take a more or less similar path. Kundera investigates the process of kitsch, in which beauty and individuality loses its significance and become mundane and banal. Prime examples are the conversion of the castles into barnhouses and the conversion of Sabina's own battle against kitsch into a picture of her surrounded by barbed wire, making her no different from other (again, more or less) anti-Communist protestors. These events are seen as irreversible, as right outside the old church in Amsterdam (kitschified into a hangar) there flows "like a river dividing two empires...an intense smell of urine". "Urine" points to kitsch (as it is created by a bodily process from something possibly beautiful, tasty or artistic into something mundane) and the reference of it to a "river" points to it as having a direction. Equating history to a river means that history, like the river, has a definite direction, and is as much impossible to reverse or return to as a river is to flow back upstream or return to itself. Perhaps the darkest examples of the irreversability of kitsch is what Tomas and Franz are remembered for as they die. Without the ability to understand Tomas and Franz after they were dead their relatives had to resort to kitsch. Tomas became nothing but "He wanted the kingdom of god on earth" while Franz became nothing but "A return after long wanderings". The process of kitsch has reached its conclusion, and Franz and Tomas have been obliterated.

We's hypothesis on a linear history is, in some ways, even darker than The Unbearable Lightness of Being, as in the latter there is always new beauty and individuality created all the time. We equates a linear history to a similar process to kitsch, the process of entropy, whose logical conclusion is not only the obliteration of everything that exists right now, but everything that will ever exist in the future (Zamyatin, however, most likely didn't believe in the process of social entropy, as he didn't believe in the linear progression of history. This is another contrast to Kundera, who acknowledged the process of kitsch to be a truth, which makes kitsch apperar scarier than entropy in some ways.) Entropy is a scientific term which describes the gradual and irreversible slide of the universe towards uniformity. Tending "towards blissful peace, to happy equilibrium", one stressed consequence of absolute entropy is the obliteration of life itself, as "it's in the thermal contrast [the scientific opposite of entropy] that life lies." D-503 himself states that "the ideal (clearly) is a state where nothing actually happens any more."

The contrast between a linear and a cyclic view of history is a rich one and fortunately happens to be deeply explored in both novels with a large number of differences and a small essential number of contrasts, making it quite a good topic to explore further.

Destruction in We and TULoB

In both We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera there is a constant motif of damage, and destruction, pervasive and often inexplicit. Although both writer's attitudes on the theme of destruction, damage and obliteration have some similar points, in many ways they often hold quite different views. Although obliteration is, not surprisingly, vehemently detested by both writers, destruction itself is a more controversial, subjective issue.

For the most part of We destruction is often seen as a necessary, if not essential, part of life. The destruction of the Green Wall and the planned destruction of the entire One State itself are seen as good things in the novel. D-503's message of "It is essential that we all go crazy - as soon as possible!" calls upon the readers of the necessity of damage. D-503 himself, with his eyebrows "struck through" and "a vertical scar between them", with his "sickness" is himself damaged in a way. These positive meanings given to damage and destruction are possibly because the opposite of damage and destruction, perfection and eternity, are two concepts that Zamyatin was fighting against by writing the novel.

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being the themes of damage and destruction are also present, but resemble closer to the much darker concept of obliteration. For example, the destruction of the soul that Tereza sees with her mother or the destruction of the individual created by the Russians or kitsch. Of course, there is no objective definition of destruction. When Sabina puts the bowler hat on it destroys her concept of herself as it was "violence against Sabina, against her dignity as a woman" however one of the concepts of the bowler hat was that "it was a sign of her originality", that is the bowler hat creates herself at the same time. Therefore destruction, like most of the other themes in the novel, are treated with the same fence-line fuzzy subjectivism that comes out of an investigation into the postmodern universe.

TULoB and We - Privacy and Panopticon

The theme of privacy and enclosement is apparent both in Yevgeny Zamyatin's We and Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. More specifically, the lack of it is generally seen as a good sign of authoritarian control in both novels. They both can also be connected to the Panopticon philosophy, which deals with people under a constant gaze or the complete obliteration of privacy. Interestingly, many characters in both novels try to use a similar type of gaze to understand their life.

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being many of the citizens of occupied Czechoslovakia are living under the constant gaze of the Russians. This is connected to the idea of the concentration camp, a place where privacy is meaningless. In these places not only is every life or soul insignificant but every action has a weight to it, a highly uncomfortable situation.

In We the themes of privacy and the Panopticon gaze are probably explored more, as unlike The Unbearable Lightness of Being the novel has an explicit political motive. The most obvious example of the loss of privacy is that all the houses are made of glass. Then although every single cipher is not under constant watch by the Guardians, there is always the risk that they are being watched. The philosophy of privacy, based on sayings like "My (sic!) house is my castle" are laughed upon for being silly.

However in both novels many of the characters wish to see using a gaze similar to the Panopticon, in order to explore more about the world around them. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being both Tomas and Tereza wish to see more and expand their knowledge, thus decreasing the privacy of their deepest truths. Tomas, as seen in Part 5, chose his job as a surgeon because of his wish to explore, and uses the same policy in his exploration of women. Whenever Tereza or anyone else analyzes themselves in the mirror they wish to expand their knowledge. Likewise during an intimate moment with I-330 in We D-503 envisioned himself becoming "glass" and "seeing myself, inside". This was an attempt to expand knowledge into his inner world and use the Gaze to understand more about himself. In general We's approach to enclosement is quite mixed as exploration and Gazing into the world of crazy mysteriousness is seen as better than enclosing it off and essentially keeping it "private". The One State's forefathers, and more importantly Zamyatin, made the Green Wall's glass "foggy and dim" for a reason. One of the reasons is because with that area walled off the One State has essentially cut off a huge area of the world, making it much easier to abolish privacy in the rest of the world. Therefore privacy is not always seen as good.

The relationship between social and personal life in TULoB and We

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being and We there is often social or external conflict that mirrors internal conflict. In We D-503's conflicting inner self is mixed with a conflict between the One State and the Mephi. Furthermore we in fact see a third battleground in the novel which is the core of Zamyatin's intentions in writing the novel the battle between the One State's philosophy, which is based on modernism, belief that absolute knowledge, "the ultimate wisdom" as D-503 calls it, can be determined and the utopian ideal can be reached; and the Mephi's philosophy, based loosely on postmodernism and in the belief that absolute knowledge cannot be determined and, more importantly, the utopia, if possible to achieve, is bad. (I-330 claims that absolute happiness needs a minus sign). The reason it is bad is because nothing will happen next, as "the ideal is (clearly) a state where nothing actually happens any more", which means that history, revolution and innovation will all disappear. This third battleground connects up the other two as each side contains a part relating to the psyche and mind (the true nature of absolute knowledge) and a closely related part concerned with politics (the true nature of utopia). The novel ends in the complete separation of the external, political world (through the wall of high voltage waves) and the complete separation of the internal world of D-503 (through the Great Operation).

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being there is also a relation between social world and the personal world, however a great conflict between two opposing theories is, if not completely false, a humongous oversimplification. But just like in We there are overlying and underlying concepts of the novel which are portrayed by the duality of the exterior world and the interior one. Tereza's attempts to attach lasting significance to the Russian invasion is connected to the similarly totalitarian universe of her mother where bodies have none of this lasting significance. While Tomas tries to defend his letter to the editorial that connected the Communists to Oedipus he gets the Oedipan realization of the effect his affairs were having on his wife's health.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being - "Soul and Body" sections 1-8

Sections 1-8 of The Unbearable Lightness of Being's part two "Soul and Body" trace the origins of Tereza and the relationship between the soul, the body, lightness and weight in her early life and in her mother's life. Section 1 shows "the irreconciliable duality of the body and soul" by showing how the body, when under neglect, begins giving the soul pain. It is almost as if the body and the soul are a married couple. The soul and the body cannot be the same, yet they cannot be separate or opposite. In We there seems to be the a similar relation, because although the soul, through the use of the root of -1, is seen as transcendant of physical values (the domain of the body) it is also shown as confined to the body as once a certain area of the body (the section of the brain cauterized during the Great Operation) is gone, the soul is gone with it (although it is interesting to note how D-503 still remembers the number 112, the number of the auditorium where his soul first emerged).

This group of sections, which seems to investigate the body primarily, also portrays two schools of thought about the body's purpose. One school of thought sees the body as "an instrument panel", significant only as a function or a machine and eternally recurring. Tereza's mother harbours this school of thought. She constantly displays her nudity, breaks wind in public and shows her false teeth to everyone. To her these movements are no more shocking than seeing an engine blow steam or a wobbly replacement pipe (again there is a good connection to We). She sees the world as "a vast concentration camp of bodies, one like the next, with souls invisible". Notice that by downgrading the value of the body she, and therefore the school of thought she embodies, also downgrades the value of the soul.

The second school of thought is the one which Tereza more easily aligns with, that is besides being a function there is something special about the body which lets it be able to be classified along with her soul as what makes up herself. This can be seen when she looks in the mirror in Section 3. When she does this "she forgot that the nose was merely the nozzle of a hose that took oxygen to the lungs; she saw it as the true expression of her nature". Souls are not invisible but reside in the body ("the bowels" in the case of TULoB) and can be seen. Tereza, as the representation of this school of thought, does not like the body being seen as identical and thus insignificant (compare to We Record 2's "We are so identical" passage) and thus tries to rid her body of her mother's presence. Therefore this school of thought subscribes to the uniqueness of the body, and that it is attached to the transcendant soul in some way.

Section 1 sees a painful argument emerging between Tereza's soul and body, which ends in the presence of Tomas. The pain that the body gave Tereza's soul was caused by a neglect and distancing of the soul from the body. Is it true, then, that Tomas causes soul and body to reconcile? Section 8 provides the answer. Throughout Sections 2-7 we have seen a struggle for Tereza to see the importance and the unique significance of her body. In order to be significant her body must be unique, therefore it must deviate away from the light world of her mother (in other words her mother's school of thought must be betrayed; similar but definitely not identical to how the Mephi must betray the One State in We.) Books were this betrayal and Tomas was the symbol of these books. Therefore Tomas has made Tereza apparently achieve the significance of her body that her soul had longed for, and thus the body is no longer the soul's prison. However, this mindset is rigorously challenged later in "Soul and Body", where Tomas's infidelities challenge the uniqueness of the body (while they leave the uniqueness of the soul relatively unscathed).

Connections between We and The Unbearable Lightness of Being

There is a handful of connections that I have seen before from these two books. Each of them might be a potential Research Assignment topic.

1. The ideal. In We the One State emphasizes striving for the ideal, "where nothing actually happens any more". In The Unbearable Lightness of Being (hereafter shortened to TULoB) kitsch represents an image of the ideal which many characters especially Sabina find horrifying. Both authors resent the idea of the ideal and the attempt to reach it in different ways.
2. Conformity. We is quite self-explanatory (maybe a little too much so) in this case. Conformity pops up in many dimenstions in TULoB, for example in the Communist system or in Sabina's mother and her nightmares. However, it might be hard to relate to TULoB's central themes.
3. Betrayal and Revolution. Zamyatin considered the revolution an essential and eternal aspect of history. In TULoB Kundera offers a balance of betrayal and fidelity. However, again it might be hard to connect to central themes in TULoB.
4. The book's format - how it's written. We's diary format is important in understanding D-503's transformation. It also contains a few inconsistencies, maybe to impose the author's presence in the novel. In TULoB the author is all-important and the book is written in an essay format, diminishing Tomas, Tereza and co. to ideas. This helps the readers understand that TULoB's function is not so much to portray the relationships of people but the relations between different concepts. However it might be very hard to relate the two novels' formats together.
5. Postmodernism. The One State in We is portrayed as the ultimate modernist society, where "the ultimate wisdom" is achieved and there is no more to be known. However that's where Zamyatin injects postmodernism in his novel, as D-503 struggles to define new, mysterious concepts transcendant of the One State's borders. In TULoB Kundera keeps returning to the same events except in a different light, showing how there is no right or absolute viewpoint to the world.
6. Eternal reccurence and infinity. There are many references to infinity in We, for example I-330's notion that "revolutions are infinite" and that the One State keeps the illusion that there is no infinity, which ties in nicely with postmodernism. In TULoB this is shown in the "heavy" concept of eternal recurrence, most noticably how Parts 1 and 2 describe the same events (as well as Parts 4 and 5) and Parts 2 and 4 are both called "Soul and Body" while Parts 1 and 5 are both called "Lightness and Weight". There are some nice connections here, however the topic is probably too broad and needs some narrowing down.
7. Soul, body and machinery. In We's One State the soul is diminished and the body, as a piece of machinery, is all-important. TULoB also discusses soul and body, albeit maybe in a different way.
8. Awareness. Awareness of the world of mysteriousness, of the postmodern, is ever-pervasive in We, however, not much is known about TULoB to say a lot about it. More research needs to be done if this topic is to be chosen.
9. Significance and insignificance. We's One State demands that its ciphers are insignificant and just "a millionth part of a ton". In TULoB insignificance and significance are in a four way balance with lightness and weight. Significance means weight, however objects that are signficant are unique, individual (a good connection to We's portrayal of the individual can be made here) and therefore only happens once. Yet that makes them light. Vice versa, insignificance, which seems like a light concept, is pervasive across space and time and is thus eternally recurring, and therefore heavy. This might make a good topic if it could be made less broad and if the philosophical, not political, implications of significance and insignificance in We is better explored.
   

We - Record 1

Although it is shown considerably less in the handout, the diction style and sentence structure of D-503 is very unique. Instead of an unbreaking flow of words, D-503's writing is peppered with numerous colons, hyphens and a bizzare mixture of very short sentences and extra long sentences. To him, the colon is a device where he is able to relate statement to fact. If he has a feeling that his cheeks are burning, he would equate the statement to his feeling and the fact to his cheeks burning and would thus write "As I write this, I feel something: my cheeks are burning". His hyphens work in a similar function, providing a set up point in which detail can be added on. If he thinks that the One State is a line, then he uses a hyphen for more detail. "The line of the One State - it is a straight line." This starkly mathematical, calculating approach to writing emphasizes how D-503 has cocooned himself in the world of mathematics. Mathematics is perfection, so writing a calculating diary must be perfection too.

In this respect some of his imagery is mathematical as well. The One State is a line. The universe is a curve. However, his imagery is also very human. His diary is "a tiny, unseen, mini-being" within the womb of a woman. Already we see the split sides of D-503: one sees the universe in equations and integrals, the other sees the universe from an aspect we humans can relate to easier. These become the two personalities of D-503 that struggle against each other throughout the book. This conflict between his rational and human self may explain the chaotic mix of short and long sentences. D-503's rational side wants sentences that are short, explain the facts and are true to the point. "Integrating the grand equation of the universe: yes. Taming a wild zigzag along a tangent, toward the asymptote, into a straight line: yes." His human side goes for explanations that do not require this kind of structure, such as describing how "it [the journal, the baby] will feed for many months on my sap, my blood, and then, in anguish, it will be ripped from my self and placed at the foot of the One State." He doesn't need colons to describe how the growth to the journal equates itself to its sacrifice to the State.

Sometimes D-503 would use parallelism to carry out phrases he believes are significant. He defines himself with parallelism. "I am D-503. I am the Builder of the Integral. I am only one of the mathematicians of the One State." These are D-503's defining qualities. In his eyes these words that define him are the most important words, the words that sum up all of his character. He must stay within these boundaries.

Often he repeats words that have importance. Lines, for example. For D-503, it is all about lines. The universe is "a wild zigzag", something which must be conquered, which must be tamed "toward the asymptote, into a straight line". He repeats the notion of the line to make sure the reader understands the importance of the line. The One State "is a straight line....the wisest of lines." By repeating the concept of the line he makes the reader understand the importance he places in the line, and how it turns concepts of real life into mathematical models.

Another word he repeats is "we". "Yes, that's right: we. And let that also be the title of these records: We." D-503's use of colons return with the word "we". Just as he equates statement to fact using a colon, he must equate these statements to one word, "we". "We" is a fact, an answer, which he uses colons to connect to. He believes that "what we think" is a more exact phrase then "what I think".

If he places so much importance into the word "we" it might seem unusual then that he only uses the word in two lines of the journal. He uses the pronoun "I" everywhere else. This might be because the concept of We, however mighty, is made up of thousands of I's and it is the nature of these I's that give the We strength. What do these I's have to act like? For one thing, all the I's have to act like one another. To D-503 it is important that "I [he] am only one of the mathematicians of the One State" and that "I am [he is] willing, just as every one ... of us." The I's also have to work for the sake of We. This is why it is important that D-503's journal "will be ripped from my self [his self] and placed at the foot of the One State". In doing so D-503 acknowledges that he must make We strong in order to make I work for it.

(It is interesting to note that the name of D-503's revolutionary romantic companion is also called I, and so is i, the root of minus one which D-503 seems to equate with wild unknowness.)

On the Subway - sections and caesurae

In the poem "On the Subway" written by Sharon Olds, there is occasionally a shift in tone as Olds explores different contrasts and connections between the black "mugger" and the white observer. Most of these tone shifts are caused by caesuras, which separate different parts of the poem but serve to keep the flow going and offering that those different parts may be connected.

The first part is the observation phase. This is when the observer and the "mugger" "face each other" in the subway, while the observer describes the two of them. This passage contains subtleties that will be explained further in the poem. For example the two stand at "opposite ends" of the subway. They represent opposite ends of the racial spectrum. The "mugger"'s hoodie is described as being "red, like the inside of a body exposed", while the observer is wearing "the whole skin of an animal taken and used". It is almost as if the observer has stolen the black man's skin and used it for her own protection. She is doubly protected against America's racist heart while the black man has no protection. This theme of theft seems ironic considering that the black man is described as a "mugger".

The next part, starting at "used. I look at his raw face", is about power and security. Unlike the first part, the second part's descriptions are less subtle: it is clear to see that in certain ways the observer is in the black man's power and in other ways the black man is in the observer's power. However we begin to see a difference between the choices of the individual and society: The observer's fear of the black man is a personal description. She is afraid the black man might mug him. However the observer's sense of power over the black man describes not the individual difference between them but how they are placed as a society. The group in society that the white woman belongs to is feeding off the group that the black man belongs to, "eating the steak he does not eat". Since this is an aspect of society, not an aspect of the individual, there is nothing she can do to change it if she is to remain within the bounds of her society. It is interesting to note that the theme of theft now ties with the theme of society: as an individual the black man is the one who might steal from the white woman, however as a society white people are stealing from black people constantly.

In some ways the last part, beginning with another caesura, "mouth. And he is black and I am white" presents a 'cliff face' to the reflections discussed in the previous paragraph. In other words all the subtleties discovered before have been revealed as true in this paragraph. This paragraph describes how the black man's skin gives him a permanent place in society which "absorbs the murderous beams of the nation's heart" while the white woman's skin reflects them. The connection between the black man and a "seedling" further emphasizes the fact that his blackness is a fact about him that he has owned since birth. Neither of them cannot change what they are.

In conclusion, breaking the poem into sections with caesurae serve to help the reader adress the poem in various different parts, however because caesurae encourage the reader to read on there is no stopping between parts, therefore helping the reader to draw connections between the parts in order to adress prevalent themes in the poem such as theft and the difference between the choices of the individual and the choices of the society. In addition Olds helps the poet understand these themes better with the use of an ending "cliff face" section.

Mrs. Linde

Mrs. Linde is portrayed in the first act as a woman who has gotten through a lot of hardships but has become an independent, mature and strong-willed woman. However, what is more important than Ibsen’s portrayal of her is Nora’s portrayal of her and how we are able to explore Nora using the character of Mrs. Linde. Her matureness and independence mean that she has become Nora’s idol and her interaction with Nora is essential for us to understand Nora’s dreams and ambitions.

Firstly, although Nora treats her with a good amount of respect, for example she catches herself when she begins to speak too much, she speaks to Mrs. Linde in a very childish and informal manner. She uses phrases like ‘Pooh!’ and she playfully built up the drama before she told Mrs. Linde that she borrowed money for Torvald’s life-saving trip to Italy. This is in clear contrast to Mrs. Linde’s more sober phrases like ‘I haven’t a father to pay my fare’. Thus Nora is portrayed as a lot more childish and immature than Mrs. Linde, a fact which can easily be deduced by their contrasting histories.

By itself this fact doesn’t highlight Nora’s aspiration to achieve Mrs. Linde’s degree of independence. But this can be shown by how Nora has heroized her one act of independence: borrowing the money from Krogstad. She also gets very reproachful when Mrs. Linde calls her a baby. This shows that Nora doesn’t want to be dependent on her husband. She says that Mrs. Linde looks down on her even though Mrs. Linde says she doesn’t. This shows that in Nora’s eyes that the impression she made on Mrs. Linde; that of a dependent immature woman who’s never experienced hardship, is something that Mrs. Linde has the right to look down upon. Therefore Nora already believes that a woman who has to rely on the constraints of male-dominated society is inferior to a woman independent of those constraints.

This would explain why Nora gets very dramatic and triumphant when she describes how she borrowed money to send Torvald on his life saving holiday. But there is no doubt that Nora must’ve felt that her sense of independence has been challenged by this visit. For example before she describes how she borrowed the money Nora suddenly starts getting very aggressive, saying phrases like ‘Don’t be so superior’ and, as mentioned before, when she accused Mrs. Linde of looking down on her. That means that the reason she describes her secret is in response to Mrs. Linde’s passive challenge to her independence. Although Mrs. Linde appears satisfied at this proof of Nora’s independence, it’s highly unlikely that Nora will.

In conclusion, the importance of Mrs. Linde in A Doll’s House is not as a character but as a way for Nora to reflect on her independence in a male-dominated household and to serve as a personal goal which Nora strives to reach.

A Doll's House p, 1-5 scene directions+dialogue

The first four or five pages of A Doll's House is meant to highlight the relationship between Torvald and Nora Helmer at the beginning of the play, before the introduction of new characters such as Krogstad, Mrs. Linde and Dr. Rank.

Possibly one of the main ideas prevalent through these first few pages is the way Torvald always seems to treat Nora like a pet or a child. He always calls her 'my little skylark' and 'a sweet little songbird'. This shows that in Torvald's eyes Nora is, and always will be, the frivolous innocent girl he considers his own. His pet names often begin with "my", signifying his belief that he owns Nora like a man can own a pet songbird. He gives Nora a lot of teacher-like gestures, like 'wagging his finger at her' and telling her 'But the thing is, you cant [save money]!', showing that he seems to view himself as Nora's father, which is an easy role to fill considering she no longer has one. This might explain why he always speaks to Nora with a playful, innocent tone: to him, Nora has the sophistication of a little girl and won't be able to contend with more serious, adultlike conversations. Finally, Torvald seems to think that this is what happens with all woman. When Nora claimed that if she owed money to someone and Torvald died then she wouldn't care about the money, Torvald claimed 'That is like a woman!'. These all show that Torvald views Nora as a pet unable to survive on her own and that Torvald thinks he must keep Nora as such an animal.

It seems that at face value Nora accepts Torvald's childlike depiction of her. She never complains that she is being called herself such names and even calls herself one of Torvald's pet names when she says 'You haven't any idea how many expenses we skylarks and squirrels have, Torvald.'. In someways the audience feels that Nora does act like a child or a pet sometimes. For example, she sometimes uses childlike words such as 'Pooh!' and the stage directions once described her 'squealing'. She also seems quite careless when it comes to finiancial matters; she carelessly bought a bag of macaroons and paid the Christmas tree porter twice what she should've. This childlish behaviour is heightened even more when Mrs. Linde, a widow for three years, arrives and the contrast between Nora and Linde's hardworking capability can be seen easier. This also shows that the reason Nora sometimes acts so childishly is because unlike Mrs. Linde she has a husband who expects her to behave like that.

However, it is also obvious that Nora aspires to be more than a child. This has caused her real personality to drift slightly from the personality her husband sees in her. For example, she had very little trouble keeping away the secret that she bought a bag of macaroons, even when Torvald told her to look him in the eyes. She has experience in keeping secrets from Torvald and probably derives some mischeivous sense of satisfaction from doing it (when she told Mrs. Linde how she borrowed money and kept it a secret from Torvald she felt proud of herself). Because she has diverged from Torvald's 'perfect wife model she begins to feel more afraid and secluded from Torvald than normal. For example she is afraid of disturbing Torvald at his study so she just cautiously sidles to the door and waits. When Torvald asks her whether she bought macaroons or not, or when he tells Nora he won't give her any more money, she retreats to some furniture object, such as a stove or a table, as if it's a place where she can feel secure and keep away from Torvald's probings. She also feels afraid of asking something from Torvald; for example when Torvald was asking her what she wanted for Christmas (money) Nora just hesitated and played with Torvald's coat buttons. In fact, this fear of Torvald seems to be the reason that Nora continues acting like a child; because it's what Torvald wants 'her little skylark' to act like, and Nora is to afraid of upsetting Torvald.

The final important idea of these first few lines is that all these relationships seems to revolve around money. Money was at the heart of middle class life at that time and Henrik Ibsen, being born to a middle class family which encountered severe monetary problems, understood the influence and power money can bring. In A Doll's House money seems to be at the hub of Nora and Torvald's relationship. For example, when Torvald agreed to give Nora forty dollars her mood suddenly brightened from cold to overjoyed as she turned quickly and shouted 'Money!'. Torvald himself views money very conservatively, telling Nora that the family can never borrow money even if greater riches (in this case Torvald's promotion) are just a few days away. The house seems to revolve around this attitude of fiscal conservatism, with the furniture inexpensive and the main investment being the books on the shelf. Nora, on the other hand, seems very careless around money, as we have already saw. Torvald says that 'as soon as you have got it [the money] it seems to melt in your hands.' Later we realize that this is partly because Nora actually does owe a large sum of money and is using the money she gets from Torvald to pay the debt. The fact that she's in debt, which Torvald would see as a mortal sin, probably contributes to Nora's slight emotional distance from Torvald. The importance of money in Nora and Torvald's relationship is a common feature of middle class life those days and hints that the imbalance of family status between Nora and Torvald draws some of its roots from the elements of the 19th century bourgoisie culture.

In conclusion, the stage directions and dialogue of the first five pages of A Doll's House shows how Torvald views Nora as a pet, how Nora half goes along with this notion and half wishes to be more than a pet, and how this entire relationship seems to be wrapped in the golden foil of money. Although covered by the warm, merry glow of Christmas Eve, their conversations and actions highlight the harsh coldness of their situation just outside the room, blowing its frosty reality at them all day long.

Henrik Ibsen - Biography

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik Ibsen, born in 1828 to a middle class merchant who often experienced monetary problems, grew up dissatisfied with the world around him. For example he believed that the needs of the individual was greater than the needs of the society. Although at the beginning of his life he wanted to be an artist or a physician, he eventually decided to go into playwriting, writing Catiline and The Burial Mound when he was around 20. The Burial Mound was played three times but wasn’t really noticed, and neither was Catiline. Still, his playwriting career had started. After writing a few dozen plays in Norway, mostly about Norwegian folklore and history, and not attracting very large audiences he decided to move abroad, and focus his plays on the more complicated aspects of human nature and society. He wrote abroad for the next 27 years.

He started his abroad trips with a play that brought him a much larger audience than any of his plays back at home: Brand, 1865, was about a priest who felt he had to combat the ungodly society he lived in. After losing his family he failed and was buried in an avalanche. Liking where this was going, he wrote two other plays along the same rebellious lines; Peer Gynt in 1867 about a rebellious, wasteful youth and The Emperor and the Galilean in 1873 about Julian, a pagan emperor of Christian Rome. After The Emperor and the Galilean he began to write plays that stressed more on modern day society, like A Doll’s House in 1879 and The Wild Duck in 1884. His subjects got more frightening and touchy, for example Ghosts, 1881, which included philandering and syphilis, and Hedda Gabler, 1890, about a neurotic woman.

Many of these plays focus on problems with society and the individual. A Doll’s House focuses on the oppressed place of women in society while other plays like Brand and The Wild Duck attacked the mix of political idealism and weakness in society. Because of this he was sometimes criticized as being too conservative, although in The Enemy of the People he attacked both the ideologies of conservatism and liberalism at the same time. It appears that many of his earliest works were influenced by Henrik Wergeland, although after brand he began to pay closer attention to other philosophers and playwrights such as Kierkegaard. Bjornsterne Bjornson was also no doubt a big influence on his plays.

Persona in "I go back to May 1937"

"I Go Back to May 1937" opening lines:



I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,

I see my father strolling out

under the ochre sandstone arch, the

red tiles glinting like bent

plates of blood behind his head, I

see my mother with a few light books at her hip

standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,

the wrought-iron gate still open behing her, its

sword-tips aglow in the May air,

....



The perspectives and tones of the persona in the first part of 'I Go Back to May 1937' manifest themselves in numerous ways. Her pain, regret, sober sense of foreboding and ways of distingishing her two parents can all be seen in the ten opening lines of the poem.



Firstly, she feels quite distanceds from the parents she observe. Of course it is highly unlikely anyway that she is really with her parents, watching them leave college, so a reasonable amount of distance is expected. However, the fact that she can only see them and not use any other sense and only refers to them in the third person in the opening lines show that she is keeping distance from her parents on purpose. Is she looking at a photograph? Does this distance hint that her family will become distressing or dysfunctional in the future? Maybe.



Secondly, she uses visual imagery to portray her father and mother in different lights but in describing them uses the same pattern of lines. She sees her father "strolling under the ochre sandstone arch", making her father sound like a confident young man, as sturdy and stubborn as the stone arch he is walking under. On the other hand she sees her mother with "a few light books at her hip" and "standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks". This visual description of her mother makes her seem like an easygoing lightweight woman who would carry easygoing lightweight books around with her. It also makes her look as fine, fragile and delicate as the fine, fragile and delicate as the pillar made of tiny bricks she stands next to. Although these two people are pictured in different lights, Olds uses the same pattern to describe them. She uses four lines to describe each parent; one line to describe the parents nature, one line to describe the parent's surrondings, and two lines to link this to some unusually violent metaphor. This is the first hint that the father and the mother are equal in some way, if not in their character than in what they did to the persona.

What exactly did they do to the persona, their daughter? The use of unusually violent imagery, such as "bent plates of blood behind his head" and "sword-tips aglow in the May air" give a hint. These visual metaphors and similies seem to connect her parents with violence in a deep, fundamental way. Although they might not seem violent, the seeds of violence are looming behind them (and, in fact, really are spacially behind the parents) and one day that violence might break out. Usually when one needs to create a dark sense of foreboding about something they put the most ominous phrases at the end of its description. Likewise "bent plates of blood" appears at the end of the description on the father and "sword-tips aglow" appears at the end of the description of the mother, highlighting the importance of these images. The persona includes these images because she feels they are important to her.

Despite the persona's dark foreshadowings and the pain that her parents would give her in the future, she plays a very passive, sober role in these ten lines. She never explicitly states her feelings and always begins sentences with "I see" highlighting her role in this recollection as a passive observer unable to change anything. And of course in reality she can't. This is a recollection. She can't change the past. Her only hope is to find a way to change the future, using this recollection to explore why her family became the way it is and making sure that doesn't happen to her kids and herself. If she can find out why her parents got twisted in this web of violence then she can also find a way to deal with her parents and get out of the web. So although she can't change the past she can use it to change herself, her parents and her future. This may be why the title, "I Go Back to May 1937" sounds so awkward; it was never meant to be published. It's a poem for herself, to help her learn about the dynamics of her family.

In conclusion, the persona in the first ten lines of "I Go Back to May 1937" exhibits a myriad of different qualities of emotions. Although she feels a certain amount of pain in the future, in the past it only becomes sober omens and a role as a distant observer. She view her father and mother in different ways, even though ultimately what each of them did to her will be the same. Finally, her present is stained with violence; violence that has spread through her mind into this day on May 1937, not only as a dark reminder of the years to come but also as a lesson that will help her find a solution to her twisted family and give her lessons that she will carry with her to the future.

Sharon Olds-Background

Sharon Olds

Personal Life:

Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Fransisco, USA. If her poems mean anything she probably didn’t have a very happy early life. One aspect she found irritating about her upbringing was her family’s stern Calvinist religion, so by the time she was 15 she had identified herself as atheist. She graduated from Stanford University in 1964 and got her PhD from England’s Columbia University in 1972. Besides writing poetry she also teaches poetry and creative writing, for example in the Theodor Herzl Institute from 1976 to 1980, the year she released her first poetry collection Satan Says. She still teaches poetry and creative writing after Satan Says, first in the New York University and now in the Goldwater Hospital for the disabled.

Writing Style:

1. Not afraid to talk about her personal life e.g. in “I Go Back to May 1937” in which she recalls her parents marrying and how this set off the chain of events which are detailed in most of the poems in the rest of the collection, The Gold Cell.

2. Her works are often on morbid topics e.g. in “Photograph of the Girl”:

“She cannot be not beautiful, but she is/ starving. Each day she grows thinner, and her bones/ grow longer, porous. The caption says/ she is going to starve to death that winter/ with millions of others.”

However all in all she means to be painfully shocking but not outright depressing. For example right after the passage above the poem finishes with:

“Deep in her body/ the ovaries let out her first eggs,/ golden as drops of grain.”

3. She often touches on aspects of human interaction and relationships, for example in “The Talk” in which a mother and her 8-year-old daughter talk about the daughter’s rudeness, ending with

“She [the daughter] took it and took it and broke, crying out/ I hate being a person! diving/ into the mother/ as if/ into/ a deep pond – and she cannot swim,/ the child cannot swim.”

This paints a picture of how children and mother interact and the mother’s role in helping the child “learn to swim”. This poem might even be a personal experience the author had, either as the child or the mother.

4. She is not afraid to be politically incorrect. This is reflected in horrifying sensationalist poems like “1954”, which is about a murdering rapist, and in other poems such as “The Pope’s Penis”. As shown in the passage from “Photograph of the Girl” she isn’t afraid to describe sexual topics like ovaries and has even developed a habit of using them in understanding human nature, as well as generating bolder feelings within the readers. Her first collection, Satan Says; and her fifth one, The Wellspring, contain exceptional use of this technique.

5. She not only likes to explore the relationships between the people in her family but also likes to explore the relationships between the black and white races. For example in the poem “On the Subway” she tries to make many accurate political comparisons between a white woman(the narrator) and a black man:

“He [the black man] has the casual cold look of a mugger, alert under hooded lids...I am wearing dark fur, the whole skin of an animal taken and used.”

“I didn’t know if I am in his [the black man’s] power –he could take my coat so easily, my briefcase, my life – or if he’s in my power, the way I am living off his life, eating the steak he does not eat, as if I am taking the food from his mouth.”

Influences:

1. Galway Kinnel: Like Sharon Olds, Galway Kinnel is a contemporary poet whose poems often detail painful truths about human nature.

2. Galway Kinnel, in turn, is a follower of the humanist poet Walt Whitman, known for his sexually “obscene” poems, and Sharon Olds’ poems have in fact been connected to Whitman.

3. Sharon Olds isn’t influenced any more by woman than by men. Although she respects writers like Sylvia Plath and believes that her IQ is probably twice that of Sharon Olds’, she decided not to follow her writing style.

Collections:

1. Satan Says (1980)

2. The Dead and the Living (1984)

3. The Gold Cell (1987)

4. The Father (1992)

5. The Wellspring (1996)

6. Blood, Tin, Straw (1999)

7. The Unswept Room (2002)

8. One Secret Thing (2008)

Bibliography

· http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sharon_olds/biography: Famous poets and poems.com. Information published around 2006-2010.

· http://www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/olds-sharon: enotes.com, Olds, Sharon, Introduction. Information updated up to 2011.

· http://www.helium.com/items/1022128-biography-sharon-olds: Helium.com, Biography: Sharon Olds. Information published around 2006 by Cheryl Flyod-Miller.

· The Wikipedia on Sharon Olds, Galway Kinnel and Walt Whitman:

· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Olds

· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galway_Kinnell

Resources from the Literature Resource Center at www.tki.org/epic

· Sharon Olds: Overview. Author: Tim Woods. Source: Contemporary Popular Writers. Ed. Dave Mote. Detroit: St. James Press, 1997.

· Soul Substance. Author: Christian McEwen. Source: Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Christopher Giroux. Vol. 85. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995

Poems by Sharon Olds:

· I Go Back to May 1937

· On the Subway

· Photograph of the Girl

· The Talk