English Literature: Novel Analysis

   WOMEN`S ROLE IN THE  PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

 

In this post, I will examine the pride and prejudice novel and examine the role of women in society at that time.The author is considered among the first feminist writers of the period, but this is a controversial opinion. Even though the author questioned the equality between men and women between the lines, the ending of his works with happy "marriages" was tired by some groups that the author had nothing to do with feminism, but tells about the marriages he could not perform alone. Let's evaluate this interpretation by examining masculine literature and the historical process of the novel.

In the 1700s, literature continued to exist in the form of hymns, sermons, plays, poems and short stories. Novel and periodical publishing is based in the middle of this century. Considering that the famous work of Daniel Defoe, “Robinson Cruose”, which was the first novel in English literature, was published in 1719, it would not be wrong to say that prejudices to the genre of novel continued during the author's work. Although he did not fully reject his period, he interpreted the popular in his own way. This is a very important challenge when the current conditions are taken into consideration. Despite the waxing language used especially in poetry and games, Austen used a plain and fluent language and frequently used word games. It is considered to be the first British writer who can add the feelings of the character to the text as much as necessary and still retain the dominance of the text and use indirect narratives in his works in a broad sense. Even being able to shape the structure of the sentences according to the mood of the character is a success in itself. For example, Elizabeth's sentences, which refused Darcy, meant that she was briefly told in herself and was injured, continuing with curvature in an increasing tone.

 ``At the very beginning, or even at the very first moment I saw you, your attitudes made me believe that you were someone who was arrogant and selfishly mouthless to others' feelings, my anger was born like this and turned into a heavy discontent with the following events; It has never been a month of getting to know you that even if you were the last man in the world, I felt that no force could persuade me to marry you.

 Austen was the first woman to use humor in her works. While using it to overcome people and traditions he found stupid in his social environment like Elizabeth, he also brought ethical principles to this humor and drew attention to them.

 The position of the woman in the society, especially in the house until the 19th century, to be concerned with housework alone, especially with her emotional aspects, to be emphasized, to be deficient and weak, to be separate and distant from the outside world, the issues in the house are insignificant, the interests of men are important. For reasons such as impositions that there are issues, it is not possible to give women a strong role in the literature scene, and there is not even a space for them to write. We understand that the act of writing is considered a secret and special pleasure, as only the diary and the letter are popular among women. With the period, which is also called women's literature and started in the 1800s, female writers started to come to the fore. In the classical period texts, since the woman found herself as “missing and weak” and often “the source of evil”, it was not possible for the woman to find an infrastructure in which she could identify herself and explain her problems and awareness. Despite the masculine mentality that finds useless and unnecessary to make the woman's literature, considering the limited living space, and even fears that the balance of power may change against her; Women's literature, with the desire to appeal to the universal instead of addressing only the woman, attempted to distinguish from the masculine language under the influence of the male-dominated culture, discourse, subject, point of view and intellectual approaches. We can say that the publishing of the first works with male pseudonyms is a fear caused by the male dominant culture. Because many men who learn that their writers are women read and stop reading. Austen also signed his works as "A Lady" in order to preserve his reputation as women's engagement with literature is also shameful, yet we can think that he is brave, because his contemporary Brontë brothers, his first works with male names as "Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell" have published.

To give prejudices against women writers, writer Mark Twain said, “Any library without Jane Austen's books is a good library even if there are no other books in it,” Borges responded jokingly: “Ah Elizabeth, please Twain Don't take 's word seriously. I remembered; "It was too mediocre to be in the fourth-class writer category in Europe," Faulkner said for him. "

Until 1840-1880, female writers could only imitate male writers. Austen, in accordance with the conditions of the period, consciously avoided a womanly and emotional expression and a masculine style was adopted.

The most prominent feature of the language of the author is the social life of the era, which he ironically narrates with his simple and fluent language, based on love. In the 19th century, women addressed the inheritance of women as spouses and children, their inability to take part in society without marriage, the mistakes caused by their families and necessities when choosing a spouse, ignorant clerics who drank the wealthy, the soldiers who spent time in balls instead of fighting, the social class distinction and its strict limits.

English Literature: Novel Analysis

FRANKENSTEIN

 

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was published on January 1, 1818. The Gothic stories that were first emerging are for the ruined castles, castles, monasteries, and spirits hidden passages and vast dense forests in the majestic medieval atmosphere. Evil, intrigue, violence, incest and rape are common themes. Until  Marry Shelly  wrote the novel Frankstein.

The novel describes the tragic relationship between medical student Victor Frankenstein and the freak creature he created. "We must first apply to death to investigate the source of life," said Dr.. Frankenstein was able to “give life to inanimate beings” after long studies. “I had to cross the border between life and death and shed a flood of light in our dark world. Frankenstein discovered the secret of life as a result of her experiments and decided to use it by creating a superior person as a result of her experiments. It brings together the corpse pieces collected from graves and slaughterhouses. And in the end, he creates the freak that is anonymous in the novel. (Contrary to what is known, Frankenstein is the name of the creator, not the creature.) In this book, the main hero is not a woman, nor is there an important woman victim. However, it is very difficult to find another work written by a woman in the history of literature that can be examined by taking into account the gender of the author. Considered as the first example of the genre called science fiction today, the work is mostly evaluated as a criticism of the ideology of Enlightenment and fear of the results of scientific developments during the 19th century.

However, there are different readings. For example, according to some, Frankenstein is a "birth myth" written because the author herself is already a mother. It is useful to know some important parts of Mary Shelley's life to read Frankenstein as myth of birth. Living her first pregnancy at the age of 16, Mary Shelley is almost always pregnant for the next five years; however, she is an unmarried mother who lost her babies a few months after birth. Under these conditions, the author begins to write Frankenstein. And it is a born monster.

It would make sense to look at the period Frankenstein was written to understand the relationship between women's literature and the experience of giving birth. In the 18th and 19th centuries (at least in the west), few important female writers had children, the majority were single or childless. Perhaps the more important reason was the difficulty of writing about women's experience at the time when women were not welcome to write. Mary Shelley was born in fiction with the story of a mad scientist who was a monster, who tried to create a human by locking himself in her laboratory, secretly and guilt, before all the writers, not with the realistic genre, but with the gothic genre.

The Romantic and Gothic tradition is the literature of heroes that go far beyond the boundaries: superpeople who go beyond normal human restrictions to resist the rules of society or violate God's rules. The heroine of Mary Shelley is different. Dr. Frankenstein's desire to go beyond the prohibited limits of science is not to prolong his own life, but to create a new person.

He stands for mortality not by living forever, but by creating a new person. This indicates a change that has not been seen from the ancient myths up to that time. Since its publication, literary critics have made numerous comments about Frankenstein, and many filmmakers, playwrights have been influenced by the novel. Despite the novel's idea and anonymity, its creature, named after the main character's name, was almost a phrase used to describe the dangers of scientific knowledge. It was also seen as an existential novel that tells the division between mind and emotion, an attack on traditions, a novel in which racist prejudices are criticized.

 

I think that a novel written 200 years ago is still in the focus of such lively discussions and open to countless comments can only be explained by the author's extraordinary intelligence and talent. Moreover, if we consider intelligent robots, cloned creatures and artificial intelligence discussions, it seems that it will continue to talk and write about Frankenstein for a longer time.

 

 

TWO MAIN CHARACTERS

VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN

Frankenstein was born in a wealthy family and grew up in love with his half-sister. He is intelligent, sensitive and obsessed with the secrets of life. The University of Ingoldstadt operates natural sciences. Professor M. Waldman encourages him to do his experiments in extraordinary science. Victor also works to create a body of necessary parts from the cemeteries. After long studies, he creates a creature and kidnaps it.

When he hears the story of the beast and the threat of killing him, he agrees to make him a female wife, provided that they live far from people. However, if he thinks there may be worse, it will break the body. He blames himself for the consequences of the monster's behavior, but he does not understand the monster's revenge and cannot take responsibility.

Although he learns of the beast's help to people in the hut, he is worried that the beast will harm others. Probe shows selfishness by asking Waldon's crew to continue their journey to kill the Monster without thinking about them.

Although Victor is selfish, he's not his family. They adopted an orphan girl. Victor does not undertake the responsibility of the Monster he created, and he does not admit his guilt that he knows that Justine does not commit the murder. Elizabeth, however, defends Justine without knowing the incident.

 

MONSTER

It is so ugly that it was created by Victor Frankenstein and is a mixture of parts of the human body that his creator could not look at the gall face. He was very sensitive initially and not selfish like Victor. However, thanks to the society, it gets worse over time. He tells that if he does not make a wife before Victor, he will harm his family, and if Victor does not, he will kill Victor's family. Then Victor goes to the North in pain when he dies, because his creator is also dead, he is now lonely. It gets worse because it feels lonely and excluded.