MATURITÀ SINTESI (DICKENS; BRONTE SISTER; OSCAR WILDE; EMILY DICKINSON; BROOKE; OWENS…..), Appunti di Inglese

Scarica MATURITÀ SINTESI (DICKENS; BRONTE SISTER; OSCAR WILDE; EMILY DICKINSON; BROOKE; OWENS…..) e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! INGLESE 1. DICKENS (242)(1812-1870) Charles Dickens had an unhappy childhood. That experience marked him forever. After the success of The Pickwick Papers, humorous stories about a group of eccentrics who met to recount their adventures, Dickens started a full-time career as a novelist. The protagonist of his autobiographical novels, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit became the symbols of an exploited childhood (un'infanzia sfruttata) confronted with the grim and bitter realities of slums and factories. Characters Dickens describes characters, habits and language of the middle and lower classes in modern London. He was always on the side of the poor, the outcast, and also the working class. A didactic aim Children are often the most important characters in Dickens's novels. Children are the moral teachers, models of the way people ought to behave towards one another. Dickens's task was never to induce the most wronged and suffering to rebel. Dickens's narrative Dickens was first and foremost a storyteller (narratore). His novels were influenced by the Bible, fairy tales, fables, nursery rhymes. His plots are well-planned even if at times they sound a bit artificial, sentimental and episodic. Publication in monthly or weekly instalments discouraged unified plotting and created pressure on Dickens to conform to the public taste. London was the setting of most of his novels. Dickens rejects the principles on which an industrial society is based: money and individualism. He is critical toward his society. OLIVER TWIST The novel Oliver Twist first appeared in instalments (a puntate) and was later published as a book. The novel tell the humiliation Dickens experienced when he was a boy. The plot: Oliver Twist is a poor boy of unknown parents. He is brought up in a workhouse in an inhuman way. One day he runs away to London . There he falls into the hands of a gang of young pickpockets , who try to make a thief out of him. At last the boy is helped by a middle/class family that adopts Oliver and shows kindness and affection towards him. After some investigations it is discovered that Oliver has noble origins. HARD TIMES PLOT This novel is set in an imaginary industrial 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. SETTING The fictional city of Coketown stands for a real industrial mill town in mid-19th-century Victorian England. It is a sort of brick jungle: the machineries of factories are like mad elephants, and their smoke looks like serpents. This place of 'hard facts' and 'hard lives' seems to be turned into some kind of magical but hellish land. AII the buildings, which are covered with soot coming from the coal burnt in factories, are the same. However, nothing seems to bother the mill owners. They seem to be proud of the polluted air of Coketown. To some, the black residue that wraps up the town may symbolise productivity and industry. To others, it may just be depressing. STRUCTURE Hard Times is divided into three sections, or books, and each book is divided into separate chapters. Book One, Sowing, shows us the seeds planted by the Gradgrind/Bounderby education: Louisa, Tom and Stephen Blackpool. Book Two, ‘Reaping, reveals the harvesting of these seeds: Louisa's unhappy marriage, Tomis selfishness and criminal ways, Stephen's rejection from Coketown. Book Three, 'Garnering, is linked to a dominant symbol - instability - which is no longer the solid 'ground' upon which Mr Gradgrind's system once stood. CHARACTERS The philosophy of Utilitarianism comes forth largely through the actions of Mr Gradgrind: as the former educates the children of his family and his school through facts, the latter treats the workers in his factory as emotionless objects that are easily exploited for his own self Mr Gradgrind believes that human nature interest. Me Gradgrind belives that can be measured, quantified and governed entirely by reason. Indeed, his school tries to turn children into little machines that behave according to such rules. Dickens's primary aim in Hard Times is to illustrate the dangers of the teaching method called ' object lesson. There, forma acquired more importance than subject matter, leading to lessons where humans were actually dehumanised. 2. BRONTE SISTERS( 252) The famous Bronte sisters who wrote ( Charlotte, Wmily,Anne), are three of five daughters of an irish reverend educated at Cambridge. Patrick was rector at Haworth, in Yorkshire, and asked his sister-in-law to look after them, but the girls were often left to themselves. In 1824, 4 of the 5 girls went to school, but there the two eldest (Maria and Elizabeth) died for tuberculosis, so Charlotte and Emily came back home. They continued studying methodically and started writing novels and poems with lots of imagination. In 1846, Charlotte, Emily and Anne published a volume of poems, without success. All the Bronte sisters, and their brother too, had a tragic destiny: Anne died at 29 years old, Emily at 30, Charlotte at 39. MOST IMPORTANT WORKS: CHARLOTTE ‘JANE EYRE" (1847): a romantic love story about a governess and her master ANNE "THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL" (1848): a romantic tale of a beautiful woman who wrongly assumed to be a widow. The hero seems to be modelled on her brother. EMILY "'WUTHERING HEIGHTS" (1847) a morbid and mystic romantic passion in which the poet is a link between human nature and a trascendental world. liked the wild moorlands, the stormy winds and the free air of the heath. She was a mystic and had extra-sensory experiences. THE PLOT: Mr EARNSHOW, master of wuthering heights, picked up a gipsy child, HEATHCLIFF, and brought him into his house and let him live with his own children: CATHERINE and HINDLEY. Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine, who loves him, too. The situation changes when Heathcliff hears Catherine saying that she would consider degrading her marriage with him. So Heathcliff escapes. He returns 3 years later, wanting revenge but still in love with Catherine. But now she is married to EDGAR LINTON, master of Trushcross Grange and while giving birth to her first child, CATHY, she dies. Heathcliff, in the meantime, has married ISABELLA, Edgar Linton's sister, who gave him a wicked son, called LINTON. Now Heathcliff is a rich man and has all the family in his hand because he had become the master of Wuthering Heights. To complete his revenge, he forces a marriage between Cathy and Linton, but the latter soon dies. At the end Heathcliff also dies and he can finally rejoin his beloved Catherine. After Heathcliff's death, Cathy is free to marry her beloved, HARETON, Hindley's son. THE STRUCTURE: the structure is complex because it is not based on a chronological sequence of events. The book starts when MR LOCKWOOD, the new tenant of Trushcross Grange, pays a visit to Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights and he's obliged to sleep there because of a sudden storm. At night Mr Lockwood is disturbed by the scratching of a branch on the window but, when he opens it to remove the branch, his hand is touched by mysterious cold fingers, while a voice begs to let in. So he cries out and then Heathcliff comes and begs the ghost of Catherine to come in. The day after Mr Lockwood comes back to Trushcross Grange and asks NELLY, the housekeeper, to tell him the story of Heathcliff. Nelly's narration is the bulk of the novel, in which all the events of the plot until the present time are narrated: Heathcliff is living with Cathy and Hareton (both of whom mistreated) because everyone else is dead. The book restarts when, a year later, Mr Lockwood comes again at Wuthering Heights and finds that Heathcliff is dead and that hareton and Catherine want to marry. FEATURES: * Use of time: it moves backwards and forwards through memories : DIVISION IN 2 SECTIONS, in each of them is narrated a generation. The two parts are linked by the presence of Heathcliff, who is in both sections: 1. The first section is centred around Heathceliff and Catherine. The story is romantic and imaginative; 2. The second one is centred around Hareton and Cathy: the approach to love is now more mature and more natural. ; there are two story tellers: the first is Mr Lockwood, who tells the story at the beginning and at the end, the otheri is Nelly, the housekeeper, who tells the main part of the story. * Romanticism: the romantic elements are: the LOVE THEME, the role of NATURE, the character of HEATHCLIFF (defined as a Byronic hero: dark-haired, wild and demoniac) * Realism, it consists in the SOCIAL ASPECT( conflict between 2 cultures and 2 social classes), the description of the SETTING and the complexity of the CHARACTERS' PERSONALITY. * GOTHICISM the gothic elements are: the NIGHTMARISH DREAMS, the country folks belief in GHOSTS, the superstitions, the prophecies, the presence of something SUPERNATURAL and the relationship between the human and the alien sphere. ; it is strong and uncontrollable as a force of nature, it continues after the death (Heathcliff and Catherine). It is DESTRUCTIVE and CREATIVE at the same time: it is an impulse which binds the two lovers to each other: they become one. Joseph Conrad once called himself'homo duplex, and indeed duplicity characterises both his fascinating life and the contradictions in his work. Evidence of this can be seen in his double nationality, the two professional careers he pursued, his mixed social identity and the extensive use of the theme of the double in his writing. was born in 1857 in the territory of Poland partitioned and occupied since 1795 by Russia, Prussia and Austria. The tyrannical rule of Russia never extinguished the Polish nationalist fervour nor the insurrectionary movement in which Conrad's father was very active. Conrad's family was forced into exile in Russia. After his parents' deaths, Conrad was brought up by an uncle. In 1874 he left for Marseilles to go to sea. For four years he sailed on French merchant ships, training as a mariner. In 1878 he joined an English ship and in the following years he sailed to the Far East and Australia. Learning English was required for his Master Mariner qualification, which he achieved in 1886. His career as a seaman put himin contact with men from a different social class and background from his own. From them he learnt to appreciate the values of a simple devotion to a demanding, monotonous, dangerous job. Work is in fact a powerful theme in his novels. In 1890 Conrad received a commission which took him to Africa. This journey is recorded in his work The Congo Diary, which bears Witness to his direct experience of the brutalities of colonial exploitation. Feverish sickness and near mental breakdown were the results of the horrors of Congo. He abandon the sea and devote himself to writing. From The Nigger of the ' Narcissus' (1897), Youth (1898), Lord Jim (1900) and Heart of Darkness (1902), Conrad worked in and out of a society and literary culture which called for a radical reassessment. By the time of his death, which came suddenly from a heart attack in 1924, Conrad had massively answered that demand. The writer's task the writer's task should not be to try to amuse his readers or to teach them a lesson, but rather to record the complex pattern of life as he saw.it. His aim was to explore the meaning of the human condition. Conrad's characters Conrad's stories deal with extreme situations and often with violence and mystery. Conrad's heroes are all solitary figures, rooted in no past, committed to an uncertain future. In general they are viewed externally, through the mind of others or through their actions. Narrative techniques Conrad experimented continually; his style is not straightforward but ‘oblique. He found hronological sequence inadequate, so he broke the normal time sequence and preferred time shifts to create the illusion of life being lived by a number of very different people at the same time. He used various narrative techniques: first person narration, an invisible narrator, journals and letters. Many of his novels and short stories are told by the same narrator, Marlow, or have more than one narrator. Language Conrad's native tongue was Polish and his second language was French. However, he wrote in English because he thought that it offered him the ideal expression for his complex vision of life. The ‘fluid form' of his novels reflects the complexity of man's consciousness. The dialogue is idiomatic, characterised by question and exclamation marks, by dashes and interjections. HEART OF DARKNESS Plot It's a story in which the main character is Marlow, a sailor that works for a British company that involve the ivory trade with Africa. When he went there, he met a lot of people, and all of them talked about Kurtz, a Company agent who wanted to take more ivory than other agents and he became an idol for the native. But indeed Kurtz is only an ill man that want to suppress the savage customs. When finally Marlow met him and could take him on board, he unexpectedly died and in that moment he said “The horror! The horror!”. The historical context of the novel The historical context of the novel is the colonial imperialism of King Leopold Il of Belgium in Africa, in particular in Congo, which he regarded as a personal territorial possession. Leopold presented his interest in Congo as a campaign antislavery and in the name of philanthropy, and also he declared that all was made to civilize African men, reducing the primitive barbarism and deleting customs of the natives; at the same time, the task was to educate them at the European customs. But indeed he only wanted to exploit their resources. The indictment of imperialism Conrad wrote this book in the period in which he doubted about imperialism politics, that in his work is seen as a system of politic and economic dominance. He expressed all his hostility for imperialism in the situation of Marlow and in the character of Kurtz. A complex structure The book is composed by a series of stories, one embedded within the other. The first story is the one in which is presented the situation and Marlow, the narrator. After this, the rest of the stories are narrated with the use of flashback and flash-forwards and all is described in minimum details. Symbolism In the novel we can find a rich symbolism, in parallel and in opposition. It's important to speak about the opposition between light and dark: «light is associated with calm, peace and beauty; *darkness is associated with insidious menace to light and evil. For Marlow, instead, this two things change connotations: *darkness become something of positive (black people); «light is the emblem of imperialism (withe people). A quest for the self Hearth of Darkness can be seen as the journey of Marlow in order to discover himself. Kurtz too is gone to the jungle to find himself, but he transgress his limits and he is punished with madness and death; Marlow instead don't transgress his limits, so he can return back to home. So Marlow is saved because the only thing that he want was to know himself, so he demonstates a sense of humility, that is fundamental. 8. JOYCE(375) The life James Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882. His interest was for a broader European culture. Joyce believed that the way was by showing a realistic portrait of Ireland's life.He left Ireland and moved to the Continent. He lived in Trieste for ten years. He died in Zurich in 1941. Joyce's narrative One of his most important works is Dubliners, a collection of short stories all about Dublin and Dublin's life. The poet Ezra Pound was enthusiastic about this work and helped Joyce print A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, his semi-autobiographical novel. His great masterpiece is Ulysses. This book was strongly criticized and after being declared obscene and banned in Britain and America. Dublin Though Joyce lived in Europe he set all his works in Ireland and mostly in the city of Dublin. His effort was to give a realistic portrait of the life of ordinary people doing ordinary things and living ordinary lives. The rebellion against the Church: Though he was well-trained by the Jesuits he challenged catholicism. His hostility toward the church was the revolt against the official doctrine and a provincial church which had taken possession of Irish minds. A subjective perception of time The facts are always explored from different points of view simultaneousiy. Joyce cares a lot for the details and the inner world of the character. The portrait of the character is based on introspection rather than on description. Time is not perceived as objective but as subjective ). Thus the accurate description of Dublin is not strictly derived from external reality, but from the characters’ mind. The impersonality of the artist Joyce believed (influenced by French authors Flaubert and Baudelaire and also Eliot) in the impersonality of the artist. The artist's task was to render life objectively. The writings of Joyce make frequent use of interior monologue, both direct and indirect and the epiphany (the peaks of intensity in the narration are called by the writer: “epiphanies"). Joyce makes frequent use of puns (giochi di parole). Stream of consciousness The stream of consciousness is a literary technique which consists in reproducing the free flow of thoughts, feelings and sensations of the characters without comment by the author. This is a technique similar to that of the interior monologue, which can be direct or indirect. The former refers to the direct presentation of a character's stream of consciousness without the guiding presence of an author or narrator (es.James Joyce's Ulysses), the latter refers to the indirect presentation of a character's throughts filtered through the voice of an anonymuous thirds persona narrator (Es. Virgina Woolf's Mrs. Dolloway) In the Joyce's works is very frequent the use of interior monologue, both direct and indirect. Through this technique, the writer almost disappears and the readers find themselves directly inside a character's mind. DUBLINERS Dubliners consists of fifteen short stories. The stories are arranged in four groups that correspond to four “phases” of life: childhood;adolescence;maturity;public life. A significant theme in all the stories is the feeling of paralysis that many of the characters experience as a result of being tied (legati) to antiquated and limited cultural and social traditions. The last story, “The Dead”, can be considered Joyce's first masterpiece. It stands out from other fourteen stories because however similar in theme it is denser. Narrative technique The omniscient narrator and the single point of view are rejected: each story is told from the perspective of a character. The linguistic register is varied, since the language used suits the age, the social class and the role of the characters. The use of epiphany The description in each story is realistic and concise with an abundance of external details, even the most unpleasant. The use of realism is mixed with symbolism (details have a deeper meaning). Understanding the epiphany in each story is often the key to the story itself. Joyce's theory of the epiphany suggests the search for something existing under the surface of things and events. The episode described is apparently unimportant but essential to the life of the characters. A pervasive theme: paralysis The paralysis of Dublin which Joyce wanted to portrait is both physical and moral linked to religion, politics and culture. Joyce's Dubliners accept their condition because they are not aware of it or because they lack the courage (gli manca il coraggio) to break the chains that bind them. But there is not paralysis alone but also its revelation to its victims. The coming to awareness marks the climax of these stories. The main theme is the failure to find a way out of paralysis. None of the characters succeeds (riesce): they live as exiles at home, unable to cut the bonds that tie them to their own world. 9. ORWELL (390) George Orwell is the pseudonym of Born Eric Blair.He was born in India în 1903, because he was the son of minor colonial official, but he Was taken to England by his mother when he was a small child where he was sent to a preparatory boarding school, where he was distinguished among the other boys by his poverty and his intellectual brilliance. Orwell won a scholarship to Eton's University where he stayed from 1917 to 1921. From 1922 to 1927 Orwell returned to Burma (India), to work as assistant district superintendent in the Indian Imperial Police. In 1928, he took the decisive step of resigning from the imperial police and became novelist and journalist. He went to report on the Civil War there and stayed to join the Republican militia. Orwell was a prolific book-reviewer, critic, political journalist and pamphleteer. In 1944 Orwell wrote Animal Farm, a political fable based on the story of the Russian Revolution under Joseph Stalin. This small masterpiece made him famous and financially secure. Orwell's last book was Nineteen Eighty-four, he started writing it in 1946 when he was seriously ill with tubercolosis. He worked between bouts of hospitalization. The book was published in 1949 and soon became a best-seller. Orwell died the following year (1950) in a London hospital. Social Themes Orwell believed that writing meant to interpret reality and had a useful social function. However Orwell believed that the writer should be independent. He wrote about social themes and used realistic language. He insisted on tolerance and justice in human relationships, and warned against the increasing artificiality of urban civilisation. He criticized totalitarianism and tyranny in all its forms. NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR PLOT The novel describes a future world divided into three blocks: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. The regimented, oppressive world of Oceania is ruled by 'the Party, which is led by a figure called 'Big Brother, and is continuously at war with the other two States. In order to control people's lives, the Party is implementing Newspeak, an invented language with a limited number of words, and threatening them through the 'Thought Police. Free thought, sex and any expression of individuality are forbidden, but the protagonist, Winston Smith illegally buys a diary in which he begins to write his thoughts and memories, addressing them to the future generations. At the ' Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites historical records to suit the needs of the Party, Winston notices an attractive dark-haired girl staring at him, and is afraid she might be an informant who will prove him guilty of ‘thoughterime. The girl's name is Julia; she proves to also have a rebellious attitude, and they begin a secret affair. One day O'Brien, a member of the powerful 'Inner Party, summons them to his luxury flat and tells them that he too hates the Party and works against it as a member of the Brotherhood" led by Emmanuel Goldstein. This mysterious group is trying to overthrow the Party. O'Brien gives Winston a copy of Goldstein's book, the manifesto of the Brotherhood. Winston is reading it to Julia in their room when some soldiers suddenly break in and arrest them. He is taken to the "Ministry of Love, where he finds out that O'Brien is a Party spy. O'Brien tortures and brainwashes Winston for months, but he struggles to resist. At last O'Brien sends him to Room 101, the final destination for those who oppose the Party. Here Winston is forced to confront his worst fear: rats on his head, ready to eat his face. Winston's will is broken and he is released to the outside world. He meets Julia, but no longer loves her. He has completely given up his identity and has learned to love Big Brother. Historical background The novel is set in a state of perpetual war reminiscent of World War Il. The idea for the three countries described in the book came to Orwell in 1943, the same year of the Tehran Conference where US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met to coordinate their military strategy against Germany and Japan and to make important decisions about the post-war period. The society reflects the political atmosphere of the tyrannies in Spain, Germany and the Soviet Union. That is why the novel is pervaded by descriptions of hunger, forced labour, mass torture and imprisonment, and perpetual monitoring by the authorities. The ‘character’ of Big Brother is both Stalin and Hitler. So Orwell made clear that he was against any form of totalitarianism, either from the left or the right of the political spectrum. Setting The setting of the novel is Oceania, a large country including the Americas, the Atlantic Islands, Australia and the southern portion of Africa. The story takes place in a terrifying London in the year 1984. The shortages, the bomb sites, the regular failure of things to work properly, the prevailing squalor, were drawn from real life. Orwell's aim was to work on a memory that every reader was likely to have. Oceania's political structure is divided into three segments: the Inner Party, the ruling class, consisting of less than 2 percent of the population; the Outer Party, that is, the educated workers, around 18-19 percent of the population; and the Proles, or the proletariat, the working class. For a socialist such as Orwell, class distinctions meant the existence of conflict and class struggle. Characters Winston Smith, the last man to believe in humane values in a totalitarian age. ‘Smith, the commonest English surname, suggests his symbolic value;' Winston' evokes Churchill's patriotic appeals for ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat' during the Second World War. Winston is 39 and physically weak; he experiences alienation from society and feels a desire for spiritual and moral integrity. His main concern is the manipulation of history by the Party, and he greatly fears the moment when no one will have any memories of actual history. He is in love with Julia and he remains loyal to her until his last torture experience. Julia is more naive and is pessimistic about the Party, since she believes that it will never be overthrown. She is not much concerned with historical truth. ©'Brien is a member of the Inner Party who tricks Winston and Julia into believing that he belongs to the secret Brotherhood, which is dedicated to overthrowing the Party. He is a mysterious character,he is the main agent of Winston's torture, asking him to believe in the Party in order to be cleaned and saved. Themes Nineteen Eighty-Four is a satire on hierarchical societies which destroy fraternity. The dictator is called 'Big Brother' but he actually does not watch over his people as a brother; so ‘watching' here does not mean 'taking care of' but'controlling. Memory and mutual trust become positive themes in the struggle put up by Winston to maintain his individuality. Orwell believed that if man has someone to trust, his individuality cannot be destroyed because his identity arises from interaction, not autonomy or isolation. Decency is mutual trust, tolerance, behaving responsibly towards other people, acting with empathy. It is extremely important for political action and civic culture. The major theme of memory is linked to a view of morality. An egalitarian post-revolutionary society would not change values or expect them to be different but would put an end to exploitation and draw on the best of the past. Thus Winston attempts to write a diary in which private memory is defended against the official attempts to rewrite history.