Comparing Early Novels: Robinson Crusoe vs. Gulliver's Travels, Apuntes de Literatura

¡Descarga Comparing Early Novels: Robinson Crusoe vs. Gulliver's Travels y más Apuntes en PDF de Literatura solo en Docsity! Enlightenment according to Immanuel Kant. Enlightenment is political, philosophical, social and economic movement. According to Kant, was a movement against tradition, religion, laziness (apathy). For him there were people with lack of courage (cowardice) who liked/wanted to stray in their comfort zone, but he wanted people to question things (unknown). Also, he called the people who were in charge or the authority = Guardians. They were fighting for freedom, and freedom understood as liberate your mind. Think for yourself. Lack of knowledge keeps us from create a personal opinion and we are to comfort. Individual power is not always as effective as group power. If we compare who or which were the Guardians in the 18th century the answer is: Kings, Religion, Morals, Laws, Economy. Those were some of the ISA’s of the time. On other hand, “the Guardians” of the 21st century is: Money, Companies, Presidents/world leaders, social media, literature… These are some of the ISA’s of today. The Rise of the novel What is known as the Rise of the novel refers to the publication and relevance of the first texts in Europe of what we now identify as a novel. When? What? Critics often identify the beginning of the Rise and Shine of the novel as taking place during The Restoration Period between 1660-1689, with many of examples we are going to study being published during the 18 th century. In Spain we can find earlier examples, such as Don Quixote (1605). As we will see later, the novels of the Restoration and the 18 th century are a bit different from the novels by Mary Shelly, Charles Dickens or Jane Austen published during the 19th century. The definition of a novel: a short one could be “a long text written in prose that tells a fictional story” but with this definition in front of us, could we say that novels were truly new? Did they truly rise as something entirely new? Were novels novel? The answer could be yes, mostly. Because novels are directly connected to two existing genres; the epic poem and the romance. The main difference between these two is simple, poems are written in verse and novels are not. However, the share some other characteristics such as their length or some themes (e.g. the adventures of a lone hero). Questions: What are the first two books of John Milton´s Paradise Lost about? Do que have a clear protagonist the two books pay attention to? In terms of length and amount of narrative detail, could Paradise Lost be transformed into a novel? The relationship between the romance and the novel is a bit more complex. In terms of form, many of the romances published in Europe before the emergence of novels are not distant from novels. However, thematically romances are more limited than novels with constant references to idealized, heterosexual love, the representation of the loved one as an idealized, almost divine perfection, reference to a chivalric code, deeply influenced by religion, presence of elements found in traditional and folk tales… by contrast in the Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740, Michael McKeon argues that novels take the search to answer questions about virtue and expand it to include questions about truth. The focus on virtue signals a religious society while truth is meaningful in a more secular society, interested in the separation of the State and religion, science and more secular politics. Michael Bakhtin, one of the most influential literary theorists of the 20 th century, claims that novels excel precisely at their capacity of voicing a wide variety of sensibilities and identities. Is this completely true for novels written during the Rise of the Novel? Only in a limited form. While novels written later do give voice to characters, contexts and written from a wide variety of background, earlier novels are a bit more limited thematically. One of the characteristics shared by writers of this new genre is their desire to separate the novel from the romance by questioning it, satirizing it or by making fun of its readers. We have a close example in Don Quixote, a man who apparently goes mad from reading too many romances. But also have a very relevant example in the novel we will be discussing Gulliver´s Travels, Part 1, chapter 5. If we go back to Don Quixote and we take a look at its date of publication, we may realize that it was published 100 years after the first Spanish trips to the Americas and the beginning of its expansion and imperial conquest. Similarly, the most representative novels of this period, Aphra Behn’s Oronoco (1688), Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) were all written around 100 years after England’s first incursions in the Americas. This deeply influences these first novels by making the relationship of England and the new territories a central theme: - Slavery - -colonial economic expansion - Religions vs cultures - Personal experiences of the traveler (this particular is central to these novels at the level of form) Many critics link the rise of the novel with the rise in popularity of printed news (newspaper) both linked, of course, to the improvements made to the printing press and the high literacy rate (when compared to many other European countries). The rise in popularity of the novel and the printed news had a direct impact on people’s taste. People started to demand stories that were to be perceived as real and that were close to their own realities. This influenced novels at thematic level. Colonialism was part of the reality of many people. But it also influenced the way novels were written. The publisher to the reader (RC) Chapter 1 Robinson Crusoe (Part 1 Gulliver’s Travels) Early novels, such as Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels tried to portray their stories as history/ “histories”. Descriptions of real events told directly by the person who experienced the events or by a second person who was told about the events. In both novels we find: - The presence or documents trying to prove to veracity of the events told by the novels. - First person narrators that tell the story from their own perspective, thus shortening the communication channel between: person who experienced the events and writer are the same person, by using 1 st person narrator, the writer disappears as someone writing/inventing a story and is replaced by a voice telling you about his/her personal events. From our perspective we know that the events described in these novels are fictional, but the boundary between reality and fiction was not so clear at the time. We are talking here, of course, about Robinson Crusoe. However, (a Letter from Captain Gulliver to his cousin) here Gulliver is saying that everything he apparently said about Queen Anne later in the book is a lie inserted by another person. Swift, by giving us a letter falsely written by Gulliver, directs our attention to a very particular point in the book and negates it. But, since the negation itself (the letter) is a lie, the reader’s attention is directed to the criticism highlighting it and making it relevant. Thus, making it real and that is the power of satire! Saying that things that are, are not & saying that things that are not, are. In both cases, satire is deeply connected to the write’s and readers’ present and thus another witty way of commenting present events. Satire and the desire to explain history (even if it is present history9 is also connected to the most relevant intellectual movements in Europe at the time. ENLIGHTENMENT B. Defoe eften uses first person narrators. However, these narrators tell their own story in a way that often serves their own goals. Defoe’s narrators should be read from a critical distance. Characters in Defoe’s novels work hard to improve themselves and improve their living conditions. Pays a lot of attention to this labor and describes the process of his character’s efforts. This follows a Puritan view of life, improving is possible through their hard work. Also, people favored by good results through their work are often protected and favored by God. C. Defoe’s protagonists often work hard to improve in life, but sometimes their efforts make them do things that are often morally questionable (slave- driving, stealing and lying). They tend to justify their own actions as inevitable if improvements in file are to be achieved. Both Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe characters are related to a Puritan way of interpreting life, which still informed and influenced many English thinkers and authors at the time. Obtaining good economic/ social results did not have to do exclusively with money or social status, it also was to be interpreted as a sign that God’s This excerpt is set late into Robinson Crusoe. Whit Friday`s help Crusoe has just defeated a group of cannibals and has liberated Friday’s father and a Spanish sailor, who are both very weak. What are the side effects of Crusoe’s improvements inf life to those around him? Crusoe is a hard worker who manages to master the island where he is stranded. He is resourceful, capable of growing crops, building defensive walls, constructing basic tools, etc. But he also considers himself above others, take control of them, and make use of them as he sees appropriate. Is Crusoe happy with the idea of being a member of what his father calls “the middle class”? obviously he Is not! He leaves England and becomes an example industrious individual even when stranded on the island. This personality can be noticed through Crusoe’s use of relationship with his relation with nature and his relationship whit other people (we can see it on the 2º fragment of Robinson Crusoe, and during the first quarter of the novel, teachings were being followed and his expectations meant. Just llike Defoe’s use of people, nature is a mean to an end something that must be used to pursue one’s goals. This use of people and nature follows a view of the world that is religious and political at the same time. Is Crusoe happy with the idea of being a member of what his father calls “the middle class”? obviously he Is not! He leaves England and becomes an example industrious individual even when stranded on the island. This personality can be noticed through Crusoe’s use of relationship with his relation with nature and his relationship whit other people (we can see it on the 2º fragment of Robinson Crusoe, and during the first quarter of the novel, Crusoe values other people particularly non- European ones, by the use he can make of them Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) - One of the most famous texts from Swift is “A Modest Proposal” and the main thing is Ireland, not England (1729) - It is important to analyse from each excerpt of a modest proposal some specific questions like the principal ideas swift is defending, his vision of the individual and community as a hole and the way his ideas are similar/different from what Daniel Defoe said. If the goal of every individual should be to improve his own living conditions, Crusoe offers us a model of using whatever means are necessary to achieve those goals. TEXT 1. Too many beggars who doom (condenan) their children because they have to beg too. The solution could be applied to everybody not only beggars TEXT 6. Literally: The only solution to all those problems is Swift suggestion. Meant: In Ireland, the things, the utilities they are using were bought from other country. Because of that they have an economic problem. The state doesn’t have money. People not going to work is a problem and Swift suggests that they should punish them. The entire paragraph are solutions to the problems of Ireland. Literally: sell or eat babies and then you’ll have money to pay your rent. Meant: the rents are so high that Irish people can’t pay them Literally: The children who are more than 2 years old cost too much money, but if we sell them, we could earn the money back Meant: Ireland has public deficit, the state doesn’t have money, is poor. As we can see from the excerpts, Jonathan Swift is one of the masters of satire. He was born in Ireland but was a firm defender of the Anglican (and not catholic) Church. When he finished his university studies, he became an Anglican clergyman. Initially he was a member of the Tories, and, from the beginning of his life as an author he used his direct use of grammar (even though he used a pretty complicated language) and immense sense of humour to write about and question the political (and of course religious) events that surrounded him. He played a key role in influencing public opinion in fundamental causes, such as the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. (directing the citizens’ opinion into accepting the role England played at the end of the European conflict between Spain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Savoy. However, when doing this, he worked for the locals but very powerful governments of the Viscount of Bolingbroke and the Earl of Oxford. By serving powerful people and being a clergyman, he expected a very particular type of reward. He expected to be named a bishop in London. However, he was named Dean of St. Patrick’s, in Dublin. And then, a year later, he lost his chance of going back to London when the Tories lost control of the Parliament and the Whig party rose took power. Summarizing, Swift worked for the Tories, expected to be rewarded in London but instead, was sent to Dublin (while he was there, the Tories lost control of the parliament) and, without political support or powerful friends, he was basically stranded in Ireland. Even though he must feel sadness and passivity about this fact, he instead felt as we can intuit in the excerpts, we have already read that his feelings were the opposite. As the Dean in St. Patrick’s, Swift not only became a very efficient administrator, but also one of the main heads in the fight of Ireland against the oppression exerted by England. A modest Proposal is, of course, a prime example of Swift’s resistance to England through satire and wit. His most significant form of resistance can be found in a series of letters he wrote under the false name of M.B Drapier. These letters denounced the unfairness of an English attempt to debase the value of the coinage in Ireland. A legend says that even if everyone in Dublin knew Drapier’s true identity, when English authorities went to Dublin to find and punish the author, nobody denounced him. With another excerpt of “Drapier’s” letters is important to remember that the English Enlightenment was different from its European Counterpart and it’s also remarkable remembering how and why they were different. Robinson Crusoe would be a good example of such an approach to the Enlightenment? Why? So, Defoe was preoccupied about individuals, but, instead, Jonathan Swift worries about society. Part of his interest in society as a whole is rooted in the way he perceived individuals. He had a negative vision of human beings and has TEXT 7. Literally: Eat babies to don’t make the brits angry Meant: It is a call to action (army, weapons). Key idea – Confront the UK. “There is no need to eat ourselves because there is another country who does it already”. been labelled by historians and critics as being a misanthrope (person who hates/ dislikes other people). This can be an idea that is not very easy to defend nowadays by looking at how active he was in his defence of Ireland. However, the truth is that Swift deeply believed that humans were not beings of reason (or rational animals) and instead, he believed that humans were capable of reason, which means, in turn, at least two things: 1- That there are many examples of humans not acting reasonably. What do you do then? Swift used the power of satire to criticize such instances. But his criticism was not empty (meaning, exclusively based on a pessimistic or negative view of the world). Satire has the power to identify problems, describe them in a humorous way, and make people aware of them (and awareness is the first step towards change). 2- Against injustice (or unreasonable acts), people can be stirred in the right direction (meaning, they can be taught to be reasonable). This is something that can be taken as a sign of hope. In fact, what truly infuriated Swift was that, despite their potential, humans would choose to act unreasonably. Improvements could only be made if moral and intellectual human flaws were identified. Gulliver’s Travels has also been studied as a clear example of Swift’s hatred, but is this novel just a mere example of an author’s hatred against humanity? Or an attempt to identify flaws in order to correct them? Let’s discuss Gulliver’s Travels. “Gulliver’s travels” is divided into four parts (the first part covering Lilliput, the second part covering Brobdingnag, the third one deals with the flying island of Laputa and the fourth one covers Gulliver’s visit to the land of the Houyhnhnms and the yahoos). Also, between parts 3 and 4, Gulliver visits Japan, the only real place where he spends a significant amount of time besides England. We will centre in Lilliput to then explore the other four areas. In Lilliput, Gulliver manage to speak the language of the island and he tries to describe their customs, clothes and manners in detail. But even though traveling is a great way of learning about oneself, Gulliver does not manage to learn much about himself while we have in Lilliput. If we keep in mind words as Whig, Tory, Queen Anne, England, France… We can notice in this excerpt that in his description of the current state of politics in Lilliput, Gulliver is focusing on details that would sound silly to an outsider. So, should we say that people from Lilliput are absolutely unreasonable and different from us? Well, we shouldn’t In Lilliput, Gulliver paus a lot of attention to the differences existing between this island and his own world. However, just because Gulliver fools himself into only seeing what makes Lilliput different, you should not do the same. Lilliput is, in fact, a distorting mirror that reflects an image of England hidden under a layer of difference in size. Sometimes the image reflected is really close to England itself. In the first excerpt, everything is a mirror image of the Tory and Whig party, their relationship with the queen and the rivalry with France. Sometimes Gulliver only pays attention to differences and tries to make you believe that the book is just a fancy tale about tiny people, the clothes they wear, the language they use… In other cases, he forces you away from details you could find interesting but he doesn´t to focus instead on himself. And in some other cases, his inability to perceive anything beyond difference prevents him from perceiving the fact that, in some respects, the reflected image (Lilliput) is, arguably, better than the original not. Gulliver’s losing hope and ending up alienated from himself and his fellow humans represent forgetting that humans, despite their flaws, are CAPABLE OF REASON. The role of a critical, enlightened mind such as Swift’s (and yours, but not Gulliver’s) is to point at the flaw’s society has to then encourage individuals to work hard to solve them. Be critical, denounce injustice, do not lose hope. Pamela, Shamela and Ideology As we said before, the Rise of the Novel can be linked to the rise of the middle classes in England. This meant the rise of a group of people with a similar amount of money and a similar set of moral values and ways of understanding themselves within the economic and political system at the time. Central to the rise of this middle class is the consolidation of a very specific way of understanding love, marriage, and each individual’s sex and sexuality Moving a bit forward and whit the rise of consumer culture and the production required to meet the needs of a rising population during the 18th century, we can identify and definite emergence of a capitalist England and Europe. For Marx and Engels, in capitalist societies, production cannot be kept if the means of production are not reproduced continuously. The two main ideas are borrowed from Marx and Engels “A communist Manifesto” (1848) and the other one from the French philosopher Louis Althusser and his “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (1970) Ex. In order to produce chairs, you need 10 people to work for you, and you pay them salaries. But, how do you make sure that they keep working for you instead of setting their own companies with the money they make from you? You regulate their wages so that they earn the minimum to survive, so, they can’t stop working for you (not working would mean not having food and/or shelter). Also, by paying your employees you are also reproducing another vital condition for the production: the presence of workers. Louis Althusser expands these ideas by focusing on the ideological conditions required for capitalist societies to keep working (funcionando). For Althusser, capitalist societies make use of two main tools to influence their citizen’s behaviour. Going back to the chairs example, you, as an employer, want to make sure that your employees believe that working for you is the only thing they can hope to do, and that working conditions you offer them are fair, and you make them think that they should spend their salaries on the products you make or on your friends. One method to make them believe so, according to Althusser is REPRESSION. You punish behaviours you don’t find desirable. The other method is PRODUCTION OF IDEAS THAT FAVOR YOUR CAUSE. According to Althusser, CAPITALIST SOCIETIES have at their disposal what he calls “ISA” ISA: IDEOLOGICAL STATE APPARETUSES. In general terms, ISAs are tools governments use to disseminate specific discourses about individuals. In order to, promote certain desirable behaviours, and to interpellate certain individuals. Interpellation is the ability someone or something has to address others and make them feel like the message is directed at them. But, is also a way of making other people’s identities real as soon as they answer as addressees, which means that the fact of feeling addressed make you also participative and identify with some of the ideas of the something/someone that interpelles you. To sum up, ISAs have the capacity to produce ideas that have to do with your identity and make you feel addressed by these ideas, making you respond them. Some examples of ISAs could be: Religion, Education (schools, colleges…), Family, Laws (legal ISA), Politics, Communication (tv, radio, adverts, social media…) and Culture (literature and the arts …) Nowadays the most “important/powerful” ISA is Communication and Cultural ISA. Now we are going to see how an ISA works by making use of the A Modest Proposal. The kind of reader that Swift is interpelling is an Irish person who is suffering the policies that the British are imposing them. Even if the situation was pretty bad in Ireland, Swift made it look like they were as desperate as their only solution to the lack of food was to eat babies. He used the babies because “everybody” likes babies and by saying this he tried to cause shock between his readers and made them question about how they are living. Samuel Richardson – Pamela (1740) & Henry Fielding – Shamela (1741) Both novels are the earliest examples in English of novels trying to consciously shape the perception people had of gender and sexuality. Pamela. In The Rise of the Novel, Ian Watt identifies Pamela as the first novel that manages to present its plot not as an episodic compilation of events, but as a single thread (hilo argumental) with a beginning and an ending. If we think about Crusoe of Gulliver’s Travels each chapter works, in a sense, as an isolated adventure connected thematically with the rest of the book. On the other hand, Watt identifies a single thread in Pamela that begins at the start of the novel and concludes at the end. Pamela is about “courtship”. The character of Pamela is a teenage servant (15/16) who works for Lady B. The story begins after Lady B death and Pamela starts to receive the attention of Mr. B (Lady B’s son). The novel follows Pamela’s description of her situation through a series of letters sent to her parents of her “situation” and by “courtship”. Mr. B is very insistent in having sex with Pamela almost from the beginning of the book, but Pamela resists and rejects Mr. B continuously. Pamela is a servant who resists her master’s advances and puts her in situations where is questioned by the others and also puts her job at risk. Pamela’s resistance against her master’s attempts does not depend on physical strength. She speaks about her moral values and the purity of her soul but mostly she just suffers, escapes and faints; she faints continuously Throughout the novel, there are several examples of Mr. B trying to sexually assault Pamela, and each time she defends her virginity on the grounds of religious purity and the salvation of her soul, and she often faints as a result of Mr. B’s attempts. What starts as a very direct coercion, becomes an even more direct form of pressure through which Pamela is offered money possessions in exchange of sex. However, she refuses all advances and defends her own purity. Pamela is in red and Mr. B in blue. In the rise of the novel, Ian Watt claims that whenever there is an increase in the wealth people have access to, there is also an increase in the control exerted on peolple’s sexuality as well as the ways of moralizing about sex ( a society who has more access to money is also more willing to be more conservative, and more prone to contol its citizen’s sexual behaviour. Which in a sense could be rougly traslated as “the more things people have at home (and the better are to control what happens whitin their houses) and other people’s houses”. The economic expansion of England during the 18 th and also the 19th centry also coincides with an increasing control over women’s sexuality. The moral values people are supposed to have and display continuous attempts at defining what “normal” is and means and a cotinuous obsession with purity despite the comparatevly lesser importance of religion in public affairs (a trend thar arguably does not change until England loses to the United States its status as the main superpower after the first third/half the 20 th century). Powerfull societies are more opresives. Watt also claims that English/Anglican individualisim also resulted in a very particular form of understanding marriege and families. Accordng this author, societies who are more focused on community, also tend to understand families as rather extended bodies that include more than just the two people getting married and their children (Spain and Italy are the perfect examples of that). Watt identifies in the 18th century England an growing perception that family means the two people united by marriege and their children (who then leave their original family unit as soon as they themselves form their own families (once they get married). This creates a continuous flow of union (marriege) and independence (children cutting families ties when they marry) that fosters a sense of you being part of an “individual unit formed by two people”. Outside of marriage, there was a common consensus that women had to avoid sex at all costs. While men had a bit more freedom (some thought that the same rules for women applied to men, but many like Samuel Richarson, Pamelas’s author, belived in the cleansing powers of marriage which allowed men to repent from their past actions protected by the virtue of their devout spouses This also responds to specific historical facts: 1. In 18th century in England there were far more women than men (this meant that women had to face the possibility of dying single). Which prompted a rise in popularity of the figure of the frustated / evil / castrating spinster which, with the passing of time developed into Samuel Richardson , being a firmbeliver of all these ideas, wrote Pamela with a very clear objective: showing readers an example they could potentially follow. Another consequence connected to the number of women was hypergamy: marring someone richer than you or from a higher class than yours. Hypergamy was far more common when it was a woman marrying a richer man and not the other way around. 2. there was a rise in the number of unmarried middle class (something Samuel Richardson criticized quite often) men who seemingly “enjoyed” their freedom and economic independence. All of this leads us to ISA’S. in England there were some very specific discourses regarding gender, sex, and sexuality such as - Remaining pure and remaining a virgin should be every respectable woman’s main goal. - Marriage is a reward an the correct place where love, sexual desire, and prosperity (remember individualism) may (or should) happen. - While social class may be important, purity and moral values may justify hypergamy. - Men are not to be treated so strictly Pamela offers female readers a familiar context and a familiar set of moral values that can be used in very specific ways to solve problems related to sex, sexuality and gender in also very familiar ways. By rewarding Pamela with a happy ending, Richardson also defines very clearly the fruits of following Pamelas’s example. In Pamela, we find a clear example of a cultural ISA – a text reproducing very specific identity discourses people had at a specific point of history while disseminating those ideas shaped under a new form (Pamela) On the other side, Shamela by Fielding In conclusion, the whole novel of Pamela is an ISA. Shamela marries Mr. B after having had sex repeatedly with Parson Williams, the man she truly likes. This is what happens when confronted with the possibility of having sex with Mr. B/Booby This are the last words Pamela said to her mother.