Appunti completi di inglese per il programma del quinto anno superiore, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Appunti completi di inglese per il programma del quinto anno superiore e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION The revolution began in the late 18th century and ended in the early 19th. It began in England cause of the large availability of rivers, canals and coal mines. The soil is made more fertile and so agriculture improved; farming became more selective. People started to spend more on personal pleasure as well. The sector that improved even more was the industry where cotton and wood were processed with the introduction of new machines, such as the steam machines. With the industrial revolution people began to move from the countryside to the cities to improve their living condition by working in factories. So there's an overcrowding of cities, more family living in the same house and the hygienic conditions were poor. The workers worked many hours a day and children and women also worked and their wages were very low. Children were used to repairs machines since they could ship in more easily. WILLIAM BLAKE He was born between two centuries; therefore he lived both the revolution: the Industrial revolution and the French revolution. During the industrial revolution, Blake wrote two works: the ''Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience'', especially in the second one he reported the negative effects of this event underlining the bad consequences, as we can see in the poem ''London''. The influence of the French revolution, which initially made him really believe in his ideals but then disappointed the poet, is expressed in the work ''Song of Innocence''. Blake also believed that the ''Bible gives a complete view of the world'' and that life consists not only of good but also evil. These two aspects, just like hate and love and many others, coexist and complete each other, that’s why they are called complementary opposites. THE LAMB AND THE TYGER ''The lamb'' is an optimistic poem because when Blake wrote it, he still believed in the French revolution's values, as opposed to ''The Tyger'' that reflects, instead, the delusion of the revolution’s failure. The lamb stands for good, purity, innocence but also God (the God's lamb) and the Tyger stands for evil, violence, strength. In both poems the main theme is creation. The two main characters are: the lamb → sweet, tender and mild. the tiger → violent, fearful, dreadful and wild. But among all they are complementary opposites. The lamb – analysis → the lamb is included in ''Songs of Innocence'' and it's a very simple and musical poem, with a musical verse, given by the rhyme scheme. The poem consists of two stanzas of 10 lines each one. In the 1st stanza the poet asks to the lamb if he knows who created him and lists all the quality of the lamb, like sweetness, simplicity, purity that designate the figure of a very great and gentle God. In the 2nd stanza the poet answers to the questions of the 1st stanza, so he tells the lamb that he was created by God and that he was called with the same name (God's lamb). In the end the poet introduces a similarity between the poet, the lamb and God → they have a common identity; in fact they share by the same innocence. The Tyger – analysis → it's part in the collection ''Songs of Experience''. The tiger is a wild animal, dreadful, terrifying and is in contrast with the lamb's adjectives. The tiger is the symbol of strength, violence so the evil which matches with adulthood. As the lamb, also in this poem the theme is the creation and the poem's purpose is to help the poet to understand the reason of evil's existence in the world. The poem is composed by 6 stanzas with 6 different questions that the poet doesn’t answer. In the 1st stanza Blake refers to the tiger asking how God could create such a dreadful animal, and if this God is the same that created the mild and pure lamb. In the 2nd stanza he asks if the tiger was created in the heaven or in the hell and if God had wings how could he get so close to the fire. In this stanza there are 2 Greek myths ''the Icarus and Prometheus myth''. In the 3rd stanza the poet asks to the Tyger what strength and what art God used to create the tiger and when his heart started to beat how could God grasp the tiger and which creature could stand before it. In the 4th stanza God is presented as an artisan and the poet asks what instruments God uses to create the tiger (hammer, chain, furnace → metal working). In the 5th stanza there is a reference to Christianity; the poet asks if God was pleased about his creation when the stars cast their light on the Tyger and the clouds started crying; the stars stand for the fallen and rebel angel that after Satan's domination were afraid about God's punishment. At the end of this stanza he wonders how God could create both the lamb and the tiger (significative question). The last stanza is a repetition of the 1st one with the only difference that while in the first stanza the poet uses the verb ''could'' in this one he uses the verb ''dare'' to make a clear attack against God. LONDON London is the industrialised city of Blake's time, and he presents in this poem a negative portrait of it. In fact the city is under the negative effects of the industrial revolution so it is: - polluted, because of the fumes from the factories. - exploited because the workers are exploited, mostly the children and women which were low paid. - Infected and dirty because there were poor hygienic conditions and so diseases could spread really very easily. The poet is the speaking voice/eye and his observations are made at night while he was walking along London’s streets. He describes what he sees and hears, such as: suffering on the face of the people, unhappiness, desperation, fear in their voices. Analyses → in the 1st stanza the poet says that the city is under the government’s restriction and while he walks, he sees the suffering on the people’s face. The words EVERY is repeat several time to underline that no one can escape from this situation. In the 3rd stanza the poet identifies the institution which were the cause of this problems and their victims: - the church → and the victims are the chimney sweeper. The poet images that the soot from chimneys could blacken the white walls of the church. DAFFODILS This poem expresses the poet's love of nature. It's a typical romantic poem, in fact it began from the poet’s recollection in tranquillity. There's the close relationship between the poet and nature. It's the best example of emotion that the poet feels when he's in tranquillity, and this poem takes his origins from an autobiographical experience, in fact he was walking along lake District with his sister. Analysis → in the 1st stanza the poet's mood is sad because he feels lonely as a cloud (his state of mind) he feels detached from reality and the external world. This mood was modified by the sight of daffodils, he sees them like a crowd (living beings) which flutter and dance in the breeze. So there's a joyful nature and the poet interacts with it. Furthermore nature is populated by things, no people alive. In the 2nd stanza the place where the flowers frow. He sees the daffodils as stars in a never- ending line which stretch in the Milk way (like celestial things), the curve of Heaven. There's the poet's pantheistic view of nature, the presence of God in nature. The flowers are part of a universal order, the poet instead feels lonely, he's forced to wonder. In the 3rd stanza nature is in a state of joy. He says that also the waves danced behind daffodils and also the poet feels the same joy of them. He feels joy because he and nature are in close contact. He changed his mood. The last stanza is important because express all the importance of the poem and the recollection in tranquillity. The poet is now in present, in fact represent the link between past and present. The poet recollects his emotion (the sight of daffodils). When he reminds the flower since they flash upon ''his in world eye'', the poet recollects all his emotion, because he's in his solitary state, that he calls the bliss of solitude, he feels an immense emotion that allows his to write his poetry. In fact he says that ''his heart dance with daffodils''. COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE The poem (written in form of a Petrarchan sonnet) is a description of the city of London in the early hours of morning seen by Westminster Bridge. The poet has a panoramic view of the city, he sees: the Tower of London, the Harbour, the Saint Cathedral. Unlike Blake’s view of London, Wordsworth presents a positive view of the city because it is represented as peaceful, smokeless, silent, bare and beautiful. The poet only considers the positive aspects simply because he wants to ignore the negative ones. London is in fact not seen as a city under the effects of the Industrial Revolution but it is compared to a beating heart and to a woman who wears a beautiful dress. In the poem it is also expressed the close relationship between man and nature, they are not in contrast or separated but in harmony (“Open unto the fields, and to the sky”). SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE He is a poet of the first generation and he writes with Wordsworth the ''Lyrical ballads''. He was influenced by the French revolution, but after his disillusionment he planned a utopian commune, like a society, but his project failed and he started to write poetry. He has to deal with the supernatural and mystery. Main work → - 1798 he writes the ''Rime of the Ancient Mariner'', the first poem of the Lyrical Ballads Differences between Wordsworth and Coleridge → Wordsworth's content: ordinary incidents, - aim: to give the ordinary things the charm of novelty, - style: the language of common people - main interest: to deal with man and nature and their close relationship and imagination as a means of knowledge. Coleridge's content: supernatural characters, mystery, visionary, - aim: to give them a semblance of truth, - style: archaic language - main interest: is the creative power of imagination that also in this poet is the most important aspect of the poetic process, as Wordsworth - power of imagination → he identifies two types of imagination: the primary: it's creative, original, used unconsciously. It's human individual power to produce images. It based on our perception of reality. the secondary: it's the poet imagination. With his power he builds new world. It's the conscious act to modify reality and create a new one. He dissolves the images linked to a past experience. Nature → unlike Wordsworth, nature is not seen as a moral guide or as a source of joy and consolation. He hasn't a Pantheistic view of nature, but it represents the awareness of the presence of the ideal in the real, it is in fact the reflection of the perfect world of the ''ideas''. Nature has an essential role in poetic creativity because it stimulates the poet to find natural symbols that can reflect his feelings and moods. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER This poem is considered Coleridge's masterpiece. The structure is typical of the romantic ballads because there's a combination of dialogue and narration, and it is rich of archaic language, alliterations, repetitions and onomatopoeia. Supernatural elements are of course included but there is also the presence of a moral at the end, that is ''man must respect nature'', so God. This poem is full of mystery and it is set in the wide sea. Plot → The plot talks about an ancient mariner that stops and grabs a wedding (symbol of fertility, love, joy) guest to tell him about his own experience. His hand, just like his appearance, is really skinny, similar to a skeleton one, in fact the guest doesn’t want to listen to him at first because of that, but thanks to the mariner’s glittering eye (symbol of wisdom, knowledge) he can’t do anything else but hear. An important detail is represented by the solid stone where he is sitting on, which represents the hard perspective of human destiny that he has to listen to. The mariner starts talking about his ship which left the harbour to go fishing, leaving behind her 3 elements: the church (religious life), the hill (familiar place where they feel safe and comfortable), the lighthouse (certainty, security). Unfortunately during their journey the crew can’t fish at all because of the fog, the snow, the storm they met; here the author starts describing a series of important elements for what they symbolise: the sun, symbol of divine justice; the sea, symbol of travel and progress but it also stands for danger; and finally the albatross, a sacred animal that represents God and nature. The guilt comes when the mariner decides to kill the bird, showing so his arrogance, like if he wants to challenge God, and this action at the beginning is seen as a positive aspect so that the same crew considers the mariner as a hero. At this point the speaker makes a comparison with the industrial revolution, an important event which brought at the beginning progress, evolution of technology and science, profit but only after time the real consequences and the bad aspects begin to show themselves, and so it is for the mariner in this case. After that moment of excitement in fact, something terrible happens: the sea becomes calm again, the ship is completely stuck in the ice, the sun starts to burn, but above all Coleridge mentions the fact that water is everywhere but they can’t drink it, so with a symbolic meaning his intention is to underline that they can die for the lack of something they are completely surrounded by. The mariner is now forced, as a punishment for his guilt, to carry the albatross around his neck and to go around and tell everybody about his story and the dramatic destiny of the human beings. Here the wedding guest starts to be really scared for what he is hearing but the ancient mariner gives him hope saying that there is always a way for redemption which is prayer, because by praying he shows himself as humble and that’s how he can finally be free from his punishment and guilt. At the end of the story, the ship sinks in the water and, even if Coleridge doesn’t say expressly how it ends, the mariner (as a general representation of human beings) survives and ends his tale saying to the wedding guest that now he is sadder but wiser because self-knowledge has allowed him to achieve wisdom. Interpretation → there are many interpretations of this work, among them: a religious one because the poem is about a man who challenge God (by killing of the albatross); the journey of the soul's life interpretation that it to go through suffering and pain and must be punished, that will never end because he has to teach other men to not commit his same crime and so to respect God; that the poem comes from a dream; and the last one is the journey of romanticism interpretation, so the mariner is the poet and his inspiration is the guilt. Symbolism→ the poem is full of symbols: - the wedding, is the symbol of fertility, joy of life. - the sea, that has always been a very important symbol in literature, with a strong dualism → on one side it's a potentially positive symbol because it means travel and so progress, but on the other side it's a negative symbol because it means danger. - The sun is the symbol of the divine justice. - Nature is extremely personified, it's similar to an animal, the albatross, who is sacred animal and it's the representation of God. JOHN KEATS He is the poet of beauty, in fact the main theme of his poetry is the beauty of the classic world, the Greek world, and the immortality of art. He also sees the beauty with the eyes of a romantic poet and he fused the romantic passion with the coldness of classicism. His poetry doesn't reflect his own life and own time, and he doesn't refer to a human being or to a specific person, but to a universal audience. He also identifies two types of beauty: VICTORIAN COMPROMISE The Victorian Age was marked by complexity, contradictions: progress, reforms, political stability coexisted with poverty and injustice. There was a tendency to deny and hide some unpleasant aspects of progress through optimism. This attitude is referred to as the VICTORIAN COMPROMISE KEY THINKERS - Karl Marx and his studies about the harm caused by industrialism in man’s life. He stated the importance of a new organization and distribution of wealth. - C. Darwin whose theory of evolution claimed that man descended from apes and the world was ruled by the law of natural selection, so that the strong survive the weak perish. - The Evangelicals influenced people’s moral conduct and behaviour. They wanted to bring Enthusiasm in Church, they were in favour of humanitarian causes and social reforms, obedience to a code of morality, the importance to read the Bible and praying at home. CHARLES DICKENS Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812, he had an unhappy childhood since his father was imprisoned for debt and at the age of 12 and he was put to work in a factory. He identified himself with all problems of his own age: child labour, exploitation of workers, bad factory system, poverty. He knew all of them because he lived that reality and wanted to denounce this situation. Dickens wrote autobiographical novels and the most important are: Oliver Twist and Hard Times (only novel not set in London). The main features of this works are:  Themes: horrors of factory employment, scandals in private schools, the faults of the legal system, bad living conditions in workhouses, realism, sentimentalism, morality.  Setting: parochial world of workhouses; criminal world of murderers, pickpockets; Victorian middle class of respectable people.  Characters: people who belong to all social classes but children are often the most important characters of his novels, they are the moral teachers instead of the taught; he is also always on the side of poor people, the working class and the outcast.  Aim: his task was to make the ruling class aware of the social problems of his time, so he has a didactic aim. OLIVER TWIST Oliver Twist is a poor boy of unknown parents; he was born in a workhouse in a small town near London in the early 1800s. His mother dies almost immediately after his birth and he is brought up in a workhouse in an inhuman way. The boy commits the unpardonable offence of asking for more food when he is close to starving, so the parish official offers five pounds to anyone willing to take Oliver on as an apprentice. In fact, he is later sold to an undertaker, but the cruelty and the unhappiness he experiences with his new master make him run away. There he falls into the hands of a gang of young pickpockets who runs a school for would-be thieves. Unfortunately, Oliver is not a successful student: he is caught on his first attempt at theft. Mr Brownlow, the victim, is stricken by the ragged and unhealthy appearance of Oliver and rather than him with theft, he takes him home and takes care of him. Oliver is eventually kidnapped by Fagin’s gang and forced to commit burglary; during the job he is shot and wounded. Oliver is adopted by Mr Brownlow and at last receives kindness and affection. Investigations are made about who Oliver is and it is discovered that he has noble origins. In the end the gang of pickpockets and Oliver’s half-brother, who paid the thieves in order to ruin Oliver and have their father’s property all for himself, are arrested. HARD TIMES This novel is set in an imaginary industrialised town named Coketown. Thomas Gradgrind, an educator who believes in facts and statistics, has founded a school where his theories are taught, and he brings up his two children, Louisa and Tom, in the same way, repressing their imagination and feelings. He marries his daughter to Josiah Bounderby, a rich banker of the city, 30 years older than she is. The girl consents since she wishes to help her brother, who is given a job in Bounderby’s bank, but the marriage proves to be unhappy. Tom, who is lazy and selfish, robs his employer. At first, he succeeds in throwing the suspicion on an honest workman, but he is finally discovered and obliged to leave the country. In the end Mr Gradgrind understands the damage he has caused to his children and gives up his narrow-minded, materialistic philosophy.  Themes: bad factory system, workers’ exploitation in factories, alienation, materialism, utilitarianism, bad school system, pollution.  Characters: Thomas Gradgrind (owner of a school in Coketown), Mr. Bounderby (owner of banks and factories). MR GRADGRIND The text presents the problem of bad school system (main theme) with the figure of Mr Gradgrind and his considerations about education. In the first part, in fact, the character himself exposes his theories and opinions about it; he applies utilitarianism to education because students had to be skilled workers and study only facts and statistics, they can’t use their imagination or express their ideas but only be productive. Children’s minds are considered like a soil that has to be filled and they are treated as reasoning animals. In the second part Dickens describes Mr Gradgrind’s square appearance exaggerating with it, almost to the point of making it ironic (his hairs are indeed compared to a plantation of firs). In the last part instead is underlined the importance of productivity, the character says that children’s mind only had to be filled to the brim of facts and statistics and nothing else. COKETOWN Dickens presents Coketown as the symbol of the industrialised city of London, it is compared to the painted face of a savage but also to a jungle made of red bricks which turned black because of the coal. The town is made of machinery and tall chimneys with a black canal and several large streets equally like one another just as its inhabitants. In Coketown pollution is not seen by them in a negative way because more the city is polluted more it is productive. In the second part Dickens underlines the aspects of workers’ life that in a town of 18 Churches never go to it instead they prefer to attend places of low morality. Mr Gradgrind and Mr Bounderby in fact think that workers are ungrateful because they live upon the best without appreciating it so Dickens using irony says that workers have a very good life. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850. Because of his poor health he spent most of his childhood in bed, terrified of the dark room he was kept in and tutored at home, under the influence of his family’s Calvinism. Stevenson became popular as a novelist in the 1880s, when he published his masterpiece The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). He didn’t identify himself with the problems of his own age but he tried to escape from them. Stevenson was really influenced by Calvinism which believed man’s salvation is not due to merits and good actions but it only depends on God’s grace and will. He is mainly known as the novelist of dualism, in fact this aspect is not only the main theme of his works but it also can be seen in his society, divided between positive and negative aspects and in his life because of his family’s religion. THE STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE Mr Utterson is a respectable London lawyer and friend to the brilliant scientist Dr Henry Jekyll. After relating a disturbing tale of a sinister man assaulting a small girl Utterson begins to question the wrong behaviour of his friend. When he starts investigating into the life of Dr Jekyll, he discovers a story so horrific, so terrifying, that he can hardly believe it. In fact, his friend has created a potion able to release his evil side, Mr Hyde. These two beings are in a perpetual struggle; once Hyde is released from hiding, he achieves domination over the Jekyll aspect, so that the individual has only two choices. On the one hand, the man may choose a life of crime and depravity or, on the other hand, Jekyll must eliminate Hyde in the only way left, by killing him. Hence Jekyll’s suicide is the final and only choice.  Characters: Dr Jekyll (perfect embodiment of the respectable Victorian gentlemen), Mr Hyde (representation of hate).  Main theme: dualism  Setting in place: The story takes place in London in the 1870s. At that time London had a ‘double’ nature and reflected the hypocrisy of Victorian society: the respectable West End was in contrast with the appalling poverty of the East End slums. This ambivalence can be found also in Jekyll’s house, whose two sides represent the faces of the two opposed sides of the same man: the front they are replaced by the succession of thoughts and feelings to emphasize the psychological life of characters instead of the external reality. The aim of modernists (writer’s task), in fact, is not to represent reality but what happens in the character’s mind dealing with themes like war, urbanisation, technology. The main features of Modernism are: the importance given to the conscious and unconscious life, the intentional distortion of shapes, the use of allusive language and the breaking down of limitations in time and space. Literature during this period was characterized by the introduction of two new narrative techniques known as stream of consciousness and interior monologue. The stream of consciousness is a continuous flow of thoughts and sensations that characterise human mind without a logical organisation; the interior monologue, instead, is the verbal expression of a psychic phenomenon which takes place in the character’s mind and lacks both of a chronological and of a logical order, the speech is immediate and the narrator may be present. It is divided into two basic kinds of interior monologue: direct and indirect. In the indirect interior monologue, the narrator never lets the character’s thoughts flow without control and maintains logical and grammatical organisation. The character’s thoughts are presented both directly and by adding descriptions, appropriate comments and explanatory or introductory phrases to guide the reader through the narration; the character stays fixed in space while his/her consciousness moves freely in time: in the character’s mind, however, everything happens in the present. In the direct one, instead, the narrator seems not to exist and the character’s inner self is given directly; there are two kinds of direct interior monologue: the one with two levels of narration, internal and external the character’s mind, and the other with the mind level of narration not interrupted by external events. WAR POETS: When the First World War broke out, thousands of young men volunteered for military service, among them there was also a group of poets who volunteered to fight and, in most cases, lost their lives in the conflict. They managed to represent modern warfare in a realistic and unconventional way, awakening the conscience of the readers back home to the horrors of the war. These poets became known as the ‘War Poets’. The most important of them are Rupert Brooke and Sigfried Sassoon. Rupert Brooke saw war as a purifying experience, a noble act of patriotism and heroism, in fact: in his masterpiece “The Soldier”, a sonnet made of 2 quatrains and 2 terzets, he presents the figure of the soldier as a hero who sacrifices his life for his country, he says in fact that if he should die in a foreign country his dead body will make that land a richer place because his dust, a piece of England, is buried there. The word “England” is repeated several times to underline the importance of patriotism, there is in fact a strong sense of patriotism throughout the poem. In the first stanza, the poet also compares the relationship soldier-England to the one between mother and son saying that England for him is like a mother who gave him life, values, education, traditions, love. In line 8 there is the turning point so the author changes the theme introducing the third stanza where war is seen as a purifying act, the right sacrifice and the only way to be grateful to his country; death is personified and considered as clean and cleansing. Sigfried Sassoon, instead, has a different view of war because he experienced and fought for his country, so he witnessed that tragic experience and gives voice of all its violence, the horrors and the brutality in his poems. Among them, in “Glory of Women”, a sonnet composed of 2 quatrains and 2 terzets, he attacks the positive attitude of women towards war. They create an image of the soldier as a heroic figure; they love when they’re heroes, when they get wounded in an honourable place and when they come back home from fighting. Sassoon thinks that the soldier is not a heroic figure and war is only death, suffering and pain. In the last terzet, indeed, the poet refers to the German mother, saying that while she is knitting socks to send to his son, he might be already dead with his face trodden in the mud. JAMES JOYCE: is one of the most important modern novelists in British history. He lived during the period of the Irish Question, where Ireland wanted independence from Great Britain. He wanted to create a cosmopolitan view of Ireland as a matter of fact he considers himself as a European citizen and not as an Irish one. Joyce thought that religion had taken possession of Irish mind, controlling them, it was an obstacle for people to realize their life and their dreams, so he rebelled against the Catholic church. Being one of the authors of the Modernism, his main works, Ulysses and Dubliners, are characterised by: the new narrative techniques (stream of consciousness and interior monologue), perception of time as subjective, a great importance given to the inner world of the characters and his task to render life objectively. Joyce lived in Trieste 11 years, where he was a teacher of English at the Berlitz School and Svevo, the most important representative of the Italian Decadentism, was one of his students. The two authors present some similarities but also some differences: they both used the impersonality of the author, the psychological analysis of the character and the presentation of the character from the inside but, while Joyce used the stream of consciousness and the main character of his novels is an ordinary man who lives in an ordinary city, Svevo, instead, used the autobiography and so the main character is the narrator himself as well as the “inetto”, the paralysed man who can’t find realisation in society. Characteristic of Joyce is above all the use of the epiphany, which is a revelation of a truth about a character which emerges by an object or a situation, but also the key to understand the whole story. This narrative technique has a relevant importance in Dubliners, one of Joyce’s main works, made of 15 short stories divided in 4 groups: Childhood, Adolescence, Maturity, Public life. The Dublin he portrays is a static and provincial town, which doesn’t have the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the other countries. Its inhabitants are imprisoned in a city that doesn’t give them the possibility to grow and to develop their potential as human beings, Dubliners are presented as afflicted people while the city seemed to him the centre of paralysis which is physical caused by external forces and moral paralysis caused by religion, culture and politics. In Public life, the last section of Dubliners, Joyce presents Gabriel’s epiphany, the key to understand the story. GABRIEL’S EPIPHANY:  Main theme: contrast between life and death (Michael Furey, who is dead, is alive in Gretta's heart and differently Gabriel, who is alive, he seems to be dead in Gretta's heart)  Setting in place: Dublin, in a hotel room (the city is seen as depressing and influenced by traditions)  Setting in time: Christmas holidays  Symbols: Gabriel (Archangel of death, prince of fire), Michael Furey (death), snow (solitude and purification), journey (going westward means going to die)  Epiphany: Gabriel understands that he has never had a great importance in Gretta’s life and that they have never been really married The main characters of the story are Gabriel Conroy and Gretta, his wife. They have decided to go to spend Christmas Eve night in Dublin with Gabriel’s aunts, who live there. Every year thanks to this occasion Gabriel gives his annual speech at the dinner. He was very busy and concentrated on what to say but when he delivered it, he was very proud of himself considering how good his speech had been. Then after the dinner, the family listened to some music. During one of this music, his wife Nora was totally involved within the listening to the piano, that was playing a particular song. Gabriel was surprised watching his wife listening to that song with so much interest. At this point the evening finished, and on the way back to the hotel, where they are going to spend their night there, Gabriel who was really in love with his wife, was wondering of spending a passionate love night with her. But it happens that he saw his wife a little bit distant, she was not so involved. When they arrived at the hotel, Gabriel asked his wife the reason why she was so distant, so she revealed that the song she was listening to the dinner party, reminded her of a boy whose name was Michael Furey, who was playing that song under her window in the snow, and after playing that song in the snow, he died. So this means that this boy died for her. After the revealing begins his epiphany: he feels useless, he thinks he had a minor role in his wife's life, since Gretta had had a great love that even died for her. He started watching her as they had never lived together as man and wife. He sees her as a different person. Here it starts Gabriel’s psychological sequence of thoughts where he reflects about his role in Gretta’s life, the love and the pain she felt for Michael, the same love she hadn’t never experienced with his husband. Gabriel felt like he was losing his own identity, so while he watches the snow falling out of the window, he realises that maybe the time had come to set out his journey westward (to die). GEORGE ORWELL Journalist, (he worked for the BBC) essayist and novelist, born Eric Blair in India in 1903, he adopted later George Orwell as his pen-name. He was the son of a minor colonial official working in the administration of the British Empire. Orwell was educated at Eton College, in England where he began to develop an independent-minded personality, reacting to the rigid discipline of the educational system, and showing his indifference to accepte values. He also professed atheism and socialism. On leaving college he started to work for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma (1922-1927) where he became aware of the conditions of the poor and the oppressive role of the imperial administration. He was against any form of man’s dominion over man; he hated working in Burma and returned to England on sick leave. Social themes:  misery caused by poverty  depravation of society  Criticism of totalitarianism, and tyranny in all its forms, because of their violation of liberty. The role of the artist is to inform, to reveal facts and draw conclusions. ANIMAL FARM Animal Farm is a satire on dictatorship and on the Soviet Union. It is Orwell’s reaction to:  Stalin’s Purge Trials (1930);  Stalin’s signature of the non-aggression pact with Hitler (1939);  The book expresses Orwell’s disillusionment with totalitarianism in the form of an animal fable;  It is an anti-utopia influenced by Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1721-1725);