THE LOST JEWELS-Rabindranath TagoreSUMMARY-A stranger sat on the stone steps or old bathing ghat of a river, near a huge, abandoned house with broken windows and dilapidated verandahs. A dishevelled schoolmaster engaged him in conversation. He asked him his name and whereabouts to which the stranger's reply was only partially truthful. He said that he was a merchant from Ranchi but gave a false name. He told the schoolmaster that he would be staying in the broken-down old house above the ghat. The school master then told him the story of what had happened in that big house many years ago.

Ten years ago, when he had come to the place, an educated modernized Bengali, Bhusan Saha lived in the house. His uncle Durga Saha, who was childless, had left his entire property to Bhusan. Bhusan's weakness was that he could not be strict with his beautiful wife, Mani. He loved her but was unable to be either firm or severe with her. He had brought her away from the family home. Full of relatives, thinking he would have her completely to himself but that only resulted in losing her more. He indulged in all her whims and fancies and lavished on her jewels in a desperate attempt to gain her love. But she was cold hearted in her responses to him and all his lavish overtures of love. He turned out a failure not only at home but also in his business for which he could neither borrow money in the market where he was known nor get it from a stranger because it would necessitate some security. He had pampered his wife and when his business ran into losses, he did not have the courage to ask her to help him out by giving her jewellery as a security for a loan. In fact, most of the jewellery that she possessed had been bought by him. When he finally mustered the courage to ask, she set her face hard and did not respond to his request, which hurt him. So, Bhusan went to Calcutta to find some way to raise funds. Mani, Meanwhile approached her cousin Modhu, who was working on Bhusan’s estate, for advice. Modhu was of the opinion that Bhusan would never be able to raise the money. He warned Mani that she would eventually have to part with her jewellery. Agitated at the thought, Mani asked Modhu what she should do to which he suggested that she take all her jewellery and leave to her father's house. Modhu, being sly and opportunistic, hoped that a portion of the jewels would finally be his. Though Mani acted on the suggestion of Modhu, she did not trust him. So, when he asked her for the box of jewels, As soon as she stepped into the boat she told him that she would give it to him later. The truth was that an obsessed Mani had spent the whole night covering her entire body with the jewellery. Modhu wrote a letter to the chief steward informing him that he was taking his mistress to her father’s house. The steward, who was an old and loyai caretaker, was quite enraged and wrote a long letter to Bhusan, in which he strongly criticized Bhusan’s laxity, blaming it for the turn of events. Bhusan was very hurt that though he had allowed his wife to have her way and not part with her jewellery, even though he was undergoing hardship, she had not appreciated his gesture and had certainly not trusted him. Instead of bursting out in anger as any man would have, he passively accepted his fate and decided to do his duty. After ten or twelve days, on obtaining a loan, he returned home, expecting to find Mani there but to his disappointment found the house empty. Bhusan was hurt and distressed but decided to wait till she came back. However, on the advice of his steward, Bhusan sent messengers to Mani’s father’s house and it was found that neither Modhu nor Mani had ever been there. A search was

carried out to trace the two of them but it was not successful. One day, when all his hopes had almost died, Bhusan was sitting by the window brooding about his lost love when he heard a strange clinking sound of ornaments come up the steps of the ghat up to the house. Then there was a torrent of harsh metallic blows on the door and when Saha shook the locked door he awoke from his dream, soaked in sweat. The next nights he left the main door unlocked and sat up waiting, restraining himself from moving, as the sound reached up to the threshold of his room. Unable to contain the wild excitement within, he called out ‘Mani’ and sprang out of the chair, only to wake up to the noises of the rain and frogs and reality. The following day, he felt a strange peace and knew within that the mysteries he longed to know were to be revealed that night. As on the previous nights the jingling sound came up to the bedroom door. Bhusan sat with his eyes closed. It finally came near Bhusan and stood there. Bhusan, when he opened his eyes, saw a skeleton covered in jewels, with lifelike wet eyeballs between the long thick eyelashes staring from the bony face. The skeleton stretched out its hand which was covered with sparkling rings and bangles and motioned to him to follow. Bhusan followed the skeleton in a dreamlike daze past the verandah, the staircase, lower verandah, the hail and came to a brick paved garden. It led him out to the river ghat down the steps and descended into the river. When his foot touched the water he slipped headlong into the river. Although he knew how to swim, his limbs seemed powerless and not in his control. He appeared, for an instant, to awaken from dreams to momentarily hover in reality, only to be sucked into everlasting sleep. When the schoolmaster stopped talking, they suddenly became aware of the still silence of the surrounding darkness. Unable to see the expression on the stranger’s face he asked whether he believed the story. In reply to the stranger’s query whether he did, the schoolmaster said ‘No’ because he perhaps felt that it was too imaginative and ghostly to be true. The stranger, however, interrupted him to say that his name was in fact Bhusan Saha but his wife’s name was Nitya Kali. Tagore leaves the story hanging in ambiguity, a deliberate ploy to facilitate varied interpretation. However, it does appear that the ghost of Bhusan Saha had come and sat on the steps of the ghat, pining for his wife, ‘his lost jewel.

POINTS TO NOTE-Significance Of The Title:• The point to ponder here is what is being meant by 'jewels’. What is lost here? Is it the material trinkets and adornments that the wife held so dear to her or is it the life that vanished as easily as the aforementioned jewels did? • A deeper look would reveal that the lost jewels, in Mani's case would be the jewellery and trinkets but in Bhusan Saha's case would be his wife, the jewel he lost. Theme:• Loneliness and insecurity of a childless woman married to a rich, educated businessman which makes her turn obsessively to jewels and ornaments to try and fill the vacuum within her. • Avarice and Greed - An opportunistic cousin of Mani, Modhu has his own selfish and devious plan laid out. His sight is firmly fixed on the jewels and he is ready to ensnare the vulnerable, obsessed Mani. • Obsession with objects of material value which fills one with a pseudo sense of security.

Point of View: • The story is narrated by a local schoolmaster with a penchant for conversation and storytelling to a stranger, sitting on the steps of an old bathing ghat or a river. The narrator here gives his version or the story cloaked in the chauvinistic orthodoxy or that era. Symbolism:• The jewels become a material representation of love when Bhusan Suha showers his wife with it in return for her Love.• The jewels represent security in the lonely and barren life of Mani.• It is not without reason that Tagore ends the story with Bhusan saying his wife's name is Nitya Kali (a name of Ma Kali — the divine source of consciousness). Nitya Kali means 'the dark, forbidding eternity’. Thus, playing on truth and fiction, the author allows the reader to wander into whichever realm he chooses to.

The Drover's Wife

1. Introduction

The Drover's Wife is a short story written by Henry Lawson, published in 1892 in The Bulletin –

an Australian weekly magazine with a great influence on culture in politics until World War I.

Lawson is considered one of the best-known writers in the colonial period but he is also often

placed among the greatest Australian writers.

Lawson's short story was written during the colonial period but its central theme of a lone

woman on the farm seems to be of no importance to the postcolonial studies. But once the story

is subjected to the postcolonial reading and interpretation one will find covert elements in the

underlying structure that give an insight to the perspective of the settlers and their attitude

towards the natives – the Aborigines. This is the main focus of the seminar which will attempt to

reveal possible unwitting elements of the story and interpret it in terms of postcolonial theory.

2. Previous Works and Postcolonial Reading

Previous studies on The Drover's Wife had a focus on various aspects: the theme of a woman in

19th century rural Australia and the conditions farmers' and rural wives were meeting while

taking care of a household were presented by Katrina Alford (1986) while literary analysis

mostly elaborated Lawson's skills of storytelling of a difficult human situation. All these works

omitted the context of colonialism.

Such an almost-structural analysis of this story would take a central theme of a lone woman

versus dangerous nature as the dominant one. Analysis stops at this rather nodding point – the

historical or social context was not completely taken into account because colonialism and its

possible manifestation in the underlying structure were obviously omitted. Finding and

interpreting the basic structure does not seem to be sufficient in the process of understanding

broader meaning of The Drover's Wife regardless of the postcolonial theory.

Bill Ashcroft elaborated the term of postcolonial reading as a form of deconstructive reading

that draws attention to the effects of colonisation process by reading or rereading anthropological

accounts, historical records, scientific and literary writings. The form can be applied to the works

of colonizers and those that were colonized. The purpose is to find and elaborate elements which

demonstrate the ideology of colonialists and the relationship between the colonialists and the

colonized.

3. The Elements of the White Culture in the Story

A central figure of the story is the woman with her children lives in a two-roomed house built of

timber. She and her husband are both Australian – a part of settlers invasion and cultures that had

started almost a century before. Her house is the world that she needs to preserve and defend. All

around the house is the bush – a vast area of danger and the bushmen with their lives. Lawson's

story telling created an apocalyptic atmosphere where the drover's wife and her children are

found in the middle of dangerous threats. If she leaves the house area she is immediately

exposing herself. Bushmen are the other world. Their lives are strange and unknown and their

appearance around the house is absolutely unwanted unless needed in terms of the help or the

physical work. On Sundays, the woman takes a walk in the bush but the walk is far from casual

one. She gets dressed, tidies the children and goes for a walk by pushing a perambulator1 as if

1 A type of a baby-transport

she was walking the block in the city. Although she hardly meets anyone, this might be her form

of statement – dressed and cleaned as she should be on Sunday, she takes her children and enjoys

a walk on the last day of the week, a day when both working and rich people of the western

cultures take time for themselves, the families and the city presentation. In her free time, she

finds excitement in reading Young Ladies’ Journal thinking about a frivolous matter such as

fashion.

4. The Relationship Between the Wife and the Blackmen

One of the critical questions that is raised in studying colonial and post-colonial literature is the

relationship between the settlers and the natives. In this case of literature written during the

colonial period in Australia it is the question of the relationship between the indigenous

populations in settled areas and the invading settlers (Ashcroft, 2008). Indigenous people are

those born in a place or a particular region; the term „aboriginal“ was coined in 1667 in order to

describe the indigenous people encountered by European explorers, adventurers or seamen.

Although the term was used to describe indigenous inhabitants of settler colonies it is now

usually used as shortened term for Australian Aborigine.

Aborigines, or the blackmen as presented in the story, are appearing in the story on several

occasions. The wife and children have a story which they laughed over many times. Because of

the fire she was fighting in the bush her face was black, and once she reached to take up the baby

it screamed and struggled convulsively thinking it was a blackman. Alligator, the dog, also took a

defensive position. Their reaction to a supposed blackman entering the area of the house may

serve as a valid indicator that shows a position of the blackmen in their world: they are

unwanted, dangerous and the cause of fear.

Living with children without the help from her husband created many challenges for the wife.

She has to fight all kinds of dangers and threats in order to provide for her family. Lawson built

up her character of a fearless woman who is eager to do anything – she seems to be a hero of the

story. Still, she is occasionally scared to death by a bushman in the horrors2 or a swagman3

2 A bushman in delirium tremens ; alcohol poisioning 3 A temporary worker who travels by foot from farm to farm carrying the swag - bedroll

looking for a place to say when evening approaches. She tells them that her husband and two

sons are working below the dam to get rid of them.

5. The Aborigines Viewed by the Settlers

When the European settlers began invading Australian continent in 18th century the Aborigines

were the sole occupants. The adjustment between the whites and the Aborigines wasn’t peaceful

and was often marked in blood. Settlers had a distinctive perspective of the natives. They found

them miserable, nasty and they were appalled by their physical appearance. In order to start them

on the path of civilisation the whites gave them work to do and paid them in alcohol and tobacco.

Obviously, their presence in the lives of whites was wanted only when it was of use. This point

of view was well maintained throughout the following century and its manifestation can be found

in The Drover’s Wife. On one occasion the wife ordered from a blackfellow to bring her some

wood and went in search for a missing cow. When she came back she found a pretty large heap

of wood and rewarded him by an extra fig of tobacco. Contrary to the white view of the 18th and

19th century Aborigines, they had an organised social structure – they shared norms and rules

(Dousset, 2002). Their life interaction usually derived from kinship and they weren’t simply

scattered in wandering groups as proposed by many white settlers. Having a developed social life

and culture but also a care for families and acquaintances from the groups, the Aborigines were

willing to help the whites when they were in trouble. The wife was in painful labour with her

second child with no one around in the bush when Black Mary, the whitest gin4 in the land,

appeared on the door and helped her to have a child. The wife found it to be an act of God

himself.

6. The Black Snake

4 Aborigine

The plot of the story revolves around the snake entering the house walls and floors through the

cracks in the wood. Symbolically, the snake might refer to the colonial situation - allegory is

often used in “reading” the texts of colonialism (Ashcroft, 2008) as it may reveal the point of

view of the colonialists. Therefore, the snake in the story carries the role of an intruder which

represents danger for the family. The wife is determined to not only protect the children but to

dislodge the snake as soon as possible. The house is almost a sacred place to the wife. That very

house is a place of her living and existing, a place where she and her children are building their

lives. Other lives that differ from what they know and are used to are unacceptable and

unwelcomed. They are disturbing their existence, whether it’s a blackman or a black snake. At

first, she places a bowl of milk in front of the wood crack in order to allure the snake. Her act is a

typical white thinking and the proof of the settlers’ imperialistic ethnocentrism. Not only she is

offering a somewhat of a materialistic good to the snake in trade for her leaving the house so she

could get rid of it but she is also giving her what she thinks the snake would like and need – a

bowl of milk. While it is in fact a possibility that milk would allure the snake, it is also just as

possible that the snake was looking for a place to say for a while, just as those nasty swagmen

she has to deal with.

Once the snake matter is resolved, mother and her children watch the snake burning having their

peace recovered.

7. Conclusion

In 1788 when the first European settlers started invading Australia the path of pain, destruction

and alienation began for the Aborigines. Their land which they found sacred and spiritual was

put in the white possession, they were tortured and degraded and put to hard labour. Although

they had an organised society consisted of rules and terms and their own culture, the settlers

found them uncivilised and almost non-human. Lawson wrote The Drover’s Wife in a tradition of

a populist nationalist mode of writing which served to claim Australian tradition. One of those

traditions was the life in the bush. Since his story is not only about the bush but about an

Australian woman with children fighting all the difficulties including the Aborigines, it is quite

understandable why Lawson and the story are keep a special place in the Australian literary

tradition. The Aborigines were of no importance such tradition since their very existence is

simply an intrusion in it. Still, this short story served its purpose of an evidence of colonial

period. In only few pages of the plot, Lawson unintentionally left the proof of the colonialist

ideology and Euro-centric perspective of the Aborigines.

Drovers Wife – AliterIn the short story “The Drover’s Wife,” Henry Lawson acknowledges the hardships of Australian women whose bravery and perseverance is unfairly overlooked. It is often the men who receive all the glory while the women suffer silently in the background. In this story, Lawson sheds light on the life of one of these heroic women as she struggles to keep her children safe in the Australian bush.The vivid imagery of the environment creates feelings of isolation and monotony that the main character experiences in her day to day life. Instead of focusing on the contents of the bush, Lawson focuses primarily on what is lacking. The bush has “no horizon”, “no ranges in the distance” and “no undergrowth”. The scarcity of scenery shows the reader a glimpse of the bleakness and emptiness in the bushwoman’s life. There is more of this dreary imagery in the description of the house where the wife and her children live. It is crudely made out of slabs of “stringybark” and “round timber”. The kitchen, which is “larger than the house itself”, has a dirt floor and “there is a large, roughly-made table in the centre of the place”. The rugged house reveals the poor conditions that the drover’s wife must endure every day. Even the weather is dismal as a “thunderstorm comes on, and the wind, rushing through the cracks in the slab wall, threatens to blow out her candle”. She protects the fragile flame of the candle, like her life, against the harshness of her environment. By visualizing the bushwoman’s surroundings, the reader can connect with her frame of mind. One is left with an overwhelming sense of loneliness and hardship.Lawson’s admiration of women is evident in the portrayal of a strong and independent female protagonist. The drover’s wife fights many battles without her husband, and each struggle makes her stronger. She thinks about some of the difficulties she has faced in her life while she keeps watch for a snake that has slithered under the house. She remembers when one of her children died and “she rode nineteen miles for assistance, carrying the dead child”. This must have been a traumatic experience for her, but the bushwoman was able to move on and deal with other obstacles. The drover’s wife recalls the fire that almost destroyed her home. She took on the role of her husband, wearing his trousers while she snuffed out the flames with a bough. She has sacrificed her femininity because “her surroundings are not favourable to the development of the ‘womanly’ or sentimental side of nature”. The only thing to feed her womanhood is the Young Ladies’ Journal. It is a reminder of the dreams she had as a girl that never came to be.Amazingly, the drover’s wife is able to confront challenges single-handedly. Every difficult experience that she can remember has taken place in her husband’s absence. She has raised their children on her own and constantly protects them from dangers like snake bites and fires. Many people would not be able to handle the incredible loneliness of life in the bush, but the drover’s wife says she “is used to being left alone. She once lived like this for eighteen months”. She must miss her husband terribly, but she explains that “they are used to being apart, or at least she is”. She speaks of the “maddening sameness of the stunted trees–that monotony which makes a man long to break away and travel as far as trains can go, and sail as far as ships can sail–and further”. She is stronger than these men, and perhaps stronger than her husband who has also broken away from this dull life. She stresses that the monotony is not a problem for her, and that “she would feel strange away from it”. By repeating the fact that she is used to loneliness, she is able to cope with being alone for so long.

Beneath her tough exterior, the drover’s wife is a sensitive and expressive person. When a flood breaks the dam that the woman’s husband made, “her heart [is] nearly broken too, for she [thinks] how her husband would feel when he [comes] home and [sees] the result of years of labour swept away. She cries then”. It is not for herself that she cries, but for her husband. She cries again at the collapse of a woodpile that was stacked by a native man. The bushwoman trusted the man and praised him for his fine work only to discover that “he had built that woodheap hollow”. She is genuinely hurt by this breach of trust and “tears spring to her eyes”. The drover’s wife is overcome by emotion once more at the end of the story, after the snake has been killed. The battles of her life have worn her out, and in her exhaustion, she begins to weep. Her eldest son notices her tears and comforts her, saying, “mother, I won’t never go drovin’; blast me if I do”. This perceptive child realizes that his father’s absence is the cause of his mother’s suffering. Like the boy, the reader is drawn closer to the drover’s wife by seeing her pain and understanding the reasons for this pain.Lawson is successful in creating a bond between the reader and the protagonist through his powerful scenery and the highly developed characterization. This bond enables the reader to truly appreciate the accomplishments of this young woman and other women like her. “The Drover’s Wife” is a tribute to these women and gives them the recognition that they rightfully deserve.

The Stolen Bacillus"The Stolen Bacillus” by H.G. Wells is a satiric short story about the potential dangers posed by the world of science. Satire is using humor or wit as a form of ridicule which exposes flaws or faults in mankind or his institutions; the intention must be to help improve either man or the institution. In this story, Wells is satirizing the institution of science as well as the role of anarchists in society.The atmosphere of "tension and fear" is created from the beginning in several ways. First, of course, is the consistent mention of the dread word: cholera. Just the word conjures up images of death, horrible suffering and the plague. We are afraid of what might happen, even though the bacteriologist assures us that these specimens "have been stained and killed" and are therefore no longer dangerous.Second, the mysterious visitor to the lab is consistently described as "the pale-faced man," something which conjures a mystery of danger and intrigue.Third, the deadly virus is being kept in a tube, a tube which keeps readers just a little breathless with anticipation because we know a little glass tube can easily be broken or stolen--and both things eventually do happen. Fourth, we begin to see a transformation in the pale-faced man as we see a gleam in his eyes as he becomes more and more mesmerized by the sight of the deadly bacteria in the tube, "devouring the little tube with his eyes." It is especially chilling when he begins to recite the litany of ways in which the deadly virus might be silently transmitted to every person and animal. The more he talks, the more we know that this is not only something he has given much thought to, but it is something he almost anticipates with delight.Note the language of death in this description:Only break such a little tube as this into a supply of drinking water...and death - mysterious, untraceable death, death swift and terrible, death full of pain and indignity - would be released upon this city, and go hither and thither seeking his victims.... He would follow the watermains, creeping along streets, picking out and punishing a house here and a house there where they did not boil their drinking-water, creeping into the wells of the mineral-water makers, getting washed into salad, and lying dormant in ices. He would wait ready to be drunk in the horse-troughs, and by unwary children in the public fountains. He would soak into the soil, to reappear in springs and wells at a thousand unexpected places. Once start him at the water supply, and before we could ring him in, and catch him again, he would have decimated the metropolis.

The word "death" is repeated for effect, and then it is personified as a person who goes, seeks, takes, creeps, lies in wait, appears and disappears, punishes and eventually "decimates." There is a cumulative effect to these words and images, and our sense of fear and doom increases until it reaches a crescendo of destruction--an entire city has been destroyed. This could happen.As we feared, the man steals the tube and runs; and we know exactly what will happen because he has told us. The satire (wit and humor) happen once the desperate, life-and-death chase ensues. The scientist is a ridiculous figure who runs off half-dressed, and the chase is a spectacle that the cabbies place bets on. We are horrified that the tube breaks, unleashing destruction, until we discover it was not cholera and the man is likely to turn blue--like a monkey. Science looks just as foolish.

EnterpriseSummary and Analysis of the Enterprise by Nissim Ezekiel

Nissim Ezekiel is one of the prolific Indian writers in English of the 20th century. He was playwright, editor, critic and poet. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for his Poetry collection, ‘Latter-Day Psalms. He was also awarded the Padma Shree by the Government of India in 1988. He is often called the “Father of Modern Indian English Poetry.” Ezekiel’s poetry has different themes and styles. His poems are a depiction of his craftsmanship, restraint and intellectual approach to everyday life.How many of you have read T.S Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi?’ While reading Enterprise, one may think of Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi.’ Though that poem is different in approach but it is also about a very cold and tiring journey by three wise men in search of spiritual pacification. Enterprise is one of those wonderful poems published in Ezekiel’s collection of poems named ‘The Unfinished Man.’ It revolves around a metaphorical journeyof man on this earth followed by hardships and failures which man is subjected to by the very nature of the earthly life that he leads.Summarization:Stanza:The poem, Enterprise, begins with a group of people which includes the poet himself (as it is clear from the use of ‘we’ in the sixth line) journeys to a holy place. At that time, their minds were full of ideas to reach their destination. Therefore, they started their journey with a lot of vigour and excitement, sure enough that they can easily overcome all the difficulties that they face. Inconveniences seemed insignificant to them. However, our real strength emerges when we face a crisis, isn’t it? Similarly, the travellers were full of enthusiasm and reached the second stage of their journey. During this second stage, they confronted the adverse natural difficulties, symbolizing the blazing Sun. But nothing could detain them from reaching their destination or take away their enthusiasm. Their passion to reach their destination was as hot as the blazing Sun above their heads. The heat of the sun is symbolic of Mother Nature being hostile towards human ambitions. The more the human beings aspire, the more the nature tries to put up a hindrance to beat them down.Stanza 2:The group of the travelers continues their journey, experiencing the difficulties put in their way. Carried away by the unrestrained excitement, the pilgrims kept a record of the events that they witnessed- goods being bought and sold by the peasants and the ways of serpents and goats. The travelers passed through three cities where a sage has taught. But they were unconcerned about what e taught or what his message was.Stanza 3:The third stanza talks about the differences that cropped up among the members which made a hole in their unity as they continued their journey. As they reached a desert, differences arose among on the question of how to cross the challenging landscape. One of the members, an excellent prose writer, left the enterprise. He was considered the most intelligent among the lot. Therefore, a shadow of discord fell onto their enterprise and continued to grow as one of the members parted from the group.

Stanza 4:The poet describes the hindrances that follow the enterprise. In the next stage of their journey, the travelers are attacked twice and while saving themselves they lose their ways and forget the noble ambitions which had motivated them to come so far. The enterprise slowly breaks into two. Some of the members, claiming their freedom, quit the journey and went their own ways. The poet feels helpless and upset at the breaking of the enterprise, looking at the disorganized lot of pilgrims, the only thing he could do was to pray. And why do you think we pray? The answer is that the act of praying implies seeking the help of a divine personality when human efforts go in vain.Stanza 5:There is still an assurance from the leader of the group. He assures them that the sea or the destination was at hand. It seems that they members have lost their enthusiasm and hope as they see nothing noticeable as they move forward. The pilgrims have now turned into a crowd of aimless wanderers instead of being bounded by a well-focused goal like before. They were not bothered about the roar of the thunder; some of them were too exhausted to stand erect.Stanza 6:The final stanza of Enterprise is a relief to the readers, as the poet tells us that they did reach their destination in total disorder- exhausted and frustrated- and without any sense of satisfaction. Instead of bringing a sense of fulfillment and achievement, the journey had only brought them frustration. They now started to doubt the importance of their journey; they began to find it futile and meaningless. They found nothing heroic in their achievements. They had a belief that their journey would be unparalleled and that its success would give them a place in history. So was it disillusionment? They later realized that such a journey was already undertaken by others before them and would be repeated in the near futile. This gave them a sense of disillusionment and they felt the journey was futile. In the end, they feel that staying back home would have been better than venturing out on such a dangerous journey with disastrous consequences.There might be a question that may come to our minds. That was the journey really a fruitful one or was it as the members think, meaningless? What are your views?For a better understanding of the poem, the critical appreciation is discussed below.Critical Appreciation of the Enterprise:Form and Structure:The poem ‘Enterprise’ is written in a conventional form. The poem consists of six stanzas, each having five lines. The pattern is iambic tetrameter, with rhyming scheme ababa that is the first line rhymes with the third and fifth, while the second rhymes with the fourth.Use of Verbal Antithesis:The poem has used verbal antithesis to achieve a balance. Antithesis is a contrast or opposition in the meanings of contiguous phrases, lines or stanzas. In this poem, verbal antithesis is not only found in the entire poem but in the same stanza and in the same lines. Some of the examples are listed below:*The initial activities of the pilgrims are juxtaposed with those in the final stage as the pilgrims turn into ‘a straggling crowd of little hope.’*The ‘exalted minds’ of the pilgrims are turned into ‘darkened faces.’*in the beginning the pilgrims found themselves as the ‘burdens light’ but at the end of the poem they are broken in spirit and bent down physically.Symbolism:‘Enterprise’ is a symbolic poem. Symbolism refers to the use of symbols to represent ideas or facts. The various symbols used in Enterprise are listed below:*Pilgrimage in the poem symbolizes life.*The ‘crowd of pilgrims’ symbolizes a group of men, who undertake to achieve common goal which begins with excitement and hope but ends with disillusionment and frustration.*The ‘Sun’ is the symbol of hostility of nature towards human aspirations and ambitions.*A ‘desert patch’ is symbolic of the challenges and hardships which the group faces or the differences that rise among them.

* ‘A shadow falls on us and grows’ is symbolic of the differences in opinion that leads to a discord in the enterprise and consequently, a member leaves the group and the disharmony grows.* ‘A straggling crowd of little hope’ symbolizes a group of people who had a well focused goal and during the course of their journey loses their zeal and becomes a crowd of aimless and frustrated wanderers.* ‘Thunder’ is symbolic of man’s inner voice.* ‘Home’ symbolizes remaining rooted to the soil or remaining true to oneself.Allegory:Allegory can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. The poem ‘Enterprise’ is allegorical in nature. The group of men all set for the journey, enthusiastic and full of vigour set out for the spiritual quest. They face hardships, difficulties yet they do not lose their aspirations. But during the second stage of their journey, disharmony and differences in opinions among the members arises and soon a conflict breaks out which results in disunity. The final stanza raises a question, ‘Was the journey worth all the struggles?’ The journey here is a metaphor of life. The poem is a stark depiction of the condition of men on this earth who are subjected to such failures, hardships and disillusionment during their course of journey of life.Epigrammatic:An epigram is a brief, sharp, witty and polished saying giving expression to a striking thought. It is used to convey the poet’s message in the poem.‘Home is where we have to gather grace’ is epigrammatic. Here, the poet wants to convey the message that in the journey of life, home is symbolic of one’s inner self which must be accepted and faced and not shirked away. This is the only sane and balanced way of life that man should accept.Questions for Self-Study:1. Bring out the allegorical significance of the poem.Hints for the answer-*What is an allegory?*Journey of life- (first stage, second stage, conflicts among members, disillusionment)*Psychology of the group members (conditions they went through, conflicts)*Journey to the holy place-(symbolizing life, final destination)2.Do you think ‘Enterprise’ is a symbolic poem?Hints for your answer-Use the symbols used in the poem in your answer and explain them.

A Very Old Man with Enormous WingsGabriel García Márquez

PLOT:

Exposition One day, while killing crabs during a rainstorm that has lasted for several days, Pelayo discovers a homeless, disoriented old man in his courtyard who happens to have very large wings. The old man is dirty and apparently senile, and speaks an unintelligible language.

Rising Action After consulting a neighbor woman, Pelayo and his wife, Elisenda, conclude that the old man must be an angel who had tried to come and take their sick child to heaven. Pelayo and Elisenda keep the old man in their chicken coop, and he soon begins to attract crowds of curious visitors. Father Gonzaga tells the people that the old man is probably not an angel because he’s shabby and doesn’t speak Latin.

The old man’s existence soon spreads, and pilgrims come from all over to seek advice and healing from him. The crowd eventually grows so large and disorderly with the sick and curious that Elisenda begins to charge admission. The old man ignores the people, even when they pluck his feathers and throw stones at him to make him stand up. He becomes enraged when the visitors sear him with a branding iron to see whether he’s still alive.

Climax The crowd starts to disperse when a traveling freak show arrives in the village. People flock to hear the story of the so-called spider woman, a woman who’d been transformed into a giant tarantula with the head of a woman after she’d disobeyed her parents. The sad tale of the spider woman is so popular that people quickly forget the old man, who’d performed only a few pointless semi miracles for his pilgrims.

Falling Action Pelayo and Elisenda grown quite wealthy from the admission fees Elisenda had charged. The old man continues to stay with them, still in the chicken coop, for several years, as the little boy grows older. When the chicken coop eventually collapses, the old man moves into the nearby shed. He often wanders from room to room inside the house, much to Elisenda’s annoyance.

Denouement Just when Pelayo and Elisenda are convinced that the old man will soon die. He begins to regain his strength and his feathers grow back. One day the old man stretches his wings and takes off into the air, and Elisenda watches him disappear over the horizon.