ADAB ARCHIVES

The Hungry Tide: A Book Review

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 | 0 comments

Sumanya Anand Velamur

This review may be downloaded as a Word document from here.

The following review was written with a focus on the community and its development.

The Hungry Tide is a novel set in the Sunderbans. Piyali Roy, an American of Indian origin, comes to the Sunderbans in search of the Orcaella brevirostri or the Irawaddy Dolphin. A cetologist by profession, she is unsuspectingly thrown into the events of the story. A typical independent American, someone who likes to be left alone, she for the most part, tries to keep to her business. But the tide country pulls her into the story. In many ways, Piya can be considered the protagonist, because she shares a value system with the reader (most probably urban and western). So Piya’s reactions to that indigenous culture would be understandable to the reader. Kanai Dutt, a businessman in Delhi who specializes in different languages, comes into this mini community in order to read the letters written to him by his uncle, Nirmal. But, he too becomes intensely involved in the story, so much so that his self-composure and self-confidence that is so striking in the beginning, is destroyed by the end of the book. Kanai again represents a typical male chauvinist urban dweller. His initial interest in Piya is purely sexual. There are certain places in the story when Kanai’s literary and intellectual talents surface but only momentarily, for he has been forced to make a business of his talent. Fokir, a member of the community is a fisherman by profession and one may argue, the protagonist of the story. He specializes in catching crabs. He is the typical tribesman, proud of his traditions and heritage. This ‘noble savage’ aspect of his character makes him extremely attractive to Piya.

Piya and Kanai met each other on the train to Canning. After they parted ways, there is a section where Ghosh describes Piya’s unpleasant experience with government officials and the nexus they have with big businesses, in this case the owner of a launch who obviously tries to cheat Piya. As a fallout of this event Piya lands in Fokir’s boat where she spends a couple of days and nights with Fokir and his son Tutul. Meanwhile, Kanai reaches Lusibari and there he finds that Moyna, a trainee nurse in the hospital, is missing her husband Fokir and son, Tutul. In Fokir’s boat Piya catches her first glimpse of the Irawaddy dolphin. Throughout the journey Piya is taken up with Fokir and the rituals he performs. And for her, this last gesture of leading her straight to the Irawadddy dolphin only increases the mysticism surrounding him. They did not seem to feel the language barrier that existed between them. They just seemed to understand everything the other says.

The package that his uncle Nirmal had left for him before his death some years ago contained a notebook where Nirmal had written about Morichjapi, an island in the Sunderbans. Nirmal, a Marxist from Calcutta, came with his young bride Nilima to teach in a school in Lusibari in 1950. Originally from Dhaka, Nirmal had come to Calcutta as a student where he subsequently married Nilima, an enterprising student whom he had the good fortune to teach. Coming from a highly educated background that was also known for its tradition of public service, having been involved in the Congress party, she was mesmerized by the passionate and fiery lectures given by Nirmal, her English teacher. She pursued him relentlessly and announced her marriage plans to her outraged family. Subsequently, the couple settled in Lusibari. The plight of women in the Sunderbans was shocking to Nilima, who began the Mohila Saghoton or the women’s union that later became the Badabon Trust.

During the British era, a Scotsman, Sir Daniel Hamilton had a vision that the fertile lands of the Sunderbans could produce gold. He learnt that this land had been occupied before but people were driven out by tempests, tides, crocodiles, tigers and above all the Forest Department that acted as if the land was their ‘kingdom’. The mangroves, the prime vegetation of the land, make it impossible for people to live, and once they are gone erases all evidence of their sojourn there. In 1903 he bought ten thousand acres of the tide country from the British sarkar. He opened the land to people who were willing to work. At that time, land was such a scarcity that people came in droves. They left their petty differences and came to work hard and control the unruly land. Predictably, the tigers and the crocodiles began killing people and soon Sir Daniel started rewarding those who killed these predators. Daniel Hamilton’s vision involved creating a utopian society where there wouldn’t be any exploitation, where men could be farmers, poets and carpenters all at once. He had also evolved his own currency which carried the inscription, “ The Note is based on the living man, not on the dead coin. It costs practically nothing, and yields a dividend One Hundred Per Cent in land reclaimed, tanks excavated, houses built, &c. and in a more healthy and abundant LIFE”.

The community was relatively new and had to contend with natural disasters to survive. In this case the land itself was the enemy of the people. The Sunderbans are an immense archipelago of islands formed by the Ganga as she makes her way to the sea. The uniqueness of this area is that the tides submerge whole pieces of land and throws up new sandbanks where earlier there were none. So almost everyday, there is a change in the landscape, making it a very difficult terrain to conquer. This also explains the title of the book, The Hungry Tide because the tide seems to swallow whole masses of land. Added to this, the kind of vegetation it offers is nothing short of fatal. The mangroves and the wild animals that lurk within are a constant source of threat in this region. This also gives the tide a predatory nature as humans become the prey. Even the existing folklore revolves around this hostility of the land. For example, the tales of Bon Bibi who is supposed to keep the forests safe for the people, safe from Dokhin Rai, the bad Demon. Moreover immense destructive storms are known to hit these lands, sparing nothing as they destroy everything. In fact, the novel ends with precisely such a storm.

Another source of concern is the government, i.e. the forest department. In its efforts to conserve wildlife, the government does not consider the lives of the people living there. In the incident involving the forest officer dispatched to guide Piya in her search for the Irawaddy dolphin and Fokir, first the forest officer insists they take a certain launch because he may benefit from the proceeds. Moreover, the launch owner and the forest officer demand a lot of money by way of pay. When Fokir’s boat is seen at a distance fishing in off-limits waters, the officer gives chase. When they catch up with the small boat, the forest officer points his rifle at Fokir and tells Piya that he is a poacher. Most government policies for conservation of natural wild life are effective only in keeping the local people, fisherman, hunters etc from reaping the benefits of the land. Where as big business, for the most part, gets away with exploiting the land. Ultimately, Fokir had to pay huge amounts to get rid of the forest officer.

In another incident, Moyna, Fokir’s wife tells Kanai, that there is no future in fishing since the nylon nets that are used to catch the prawns are so fine that they succeed in catching the eggs of the prawn too. Nilima had tried to ban these nets because with the momentum that fishing and trading had gained, it only meant the death of the fish and an imbalance in the marine ecosystem.

In yet another incident, the Fokir’s boat nears a village and drops anchor for the night. During the night they witness the killing of a tiger by villagers. They learn that the tiger had been troubling these people for some time and had killed many people as well as some animals that belonged to the village. When it attacked a poultry shed that night, the villagers locked the shed and set it ablaze, thereby killing it. Next morning, forest boats were seen to make their way to the island and the people were punished. What is glossed over is that the tiger has been a natural predator in these parts and the people have taken the most logical obvious step of collective action. Also, there is a difference between a primitive and poor people, struggling against the destructive forces of nature, killing a tiger, and that of big business interests poaching tigers. One must also remember that a primitive and poor people provide and are part of the ecosystem unlike mass forest destruction carried out by business interests.

Moreover, these people have their own form of conservation. Their folktales tell of the good land controlled by Bon Bibi, their goddess, and the dangerous land controlled by Dokhin Rai, the bad demon. Whoever ventures into this land may not return alive. There is also a symbiotic relationship that the tide people have with the rest of the ecosystem. This is reflected in one incident where Ghosh describes how a pair of Irawaddy dolphins herd a school of fish towards the boat, in the process getting a catch themselves. The government needs to take cognizance of that. After all, the idea of forming a community is to make a collective effort at battling the forces of nature. One is again reminded of the hungry tide, as the tide of the government that swallows all efforts to settle made by people.

Another issue is that of refugees coming in from Bangladesh. As a sad fallout of communal politics and the division of Bengal into East Pakistan and West Bengal, the Sunderbans were divided. So many refugees crossed over and finding lots of land available to them decided to settle there.

That is the basis of the Morichjhapi story. Kusum, another important character in this story, also Fokir’s mother, is one of the people who has settled in Morichjapi. Kusum’s father is killed by a tiger and Kusum’s mother is in search of a means of livelihood when she is sold into the immoral trade by a local pimp who promises her a respectable job in Calcutta. Kusum herself is rescued by Horen, a distant relative, who places her with the Baodabon Trust. That is her first meeting with Nirmal, Neelima and Kanai, a small boy at the time. She later marries a fellow migrant from the tide country. There, Kusum comes in contact with the refugees from Bangladesh. These people were the “poorest of the rural poor, exploited both by the Muslim fundamentalists and the Hindu upper castes”, dalits from the Bangladeshi Sunderbans. When these people crossed the border during partition they were met with the Indian police who took them to the settlement camps in Madhya Pradesh. The land was so different from the tide country land that these people could not live there. Sometime in 1978, they heard of a large empty island on this side of the Sunderbans called Morichjhapi. Battling the police and other government authorities, these refugees left their camps and started making their way towards the east. Kusum joins them for she too hankers for the fertile land and the rivers of the tide country. Unfortunately, Morichjhapi is detailed for tiger conservation. Consequently, there were many confrontations between the people and the government. The notebook that Nirmal leaves for Kanai to read is all about the resistance that these refugees offer to the government. To Nirmal, it acquired a revolutionary colour. Again, one gets the feeling that government ideas are skewed for the land that the refugees occupy is reserve land detailed for forest conservation.

Who are the good Samaritans? There is a dilemma that visits many do-gooders at various points of time in their lives. Which is good – propogating revolutionary ideologies or helping people cope with existing circumstances? There are differences that exist between Nirmal and Neelima that is reflective of this paradox. Neelima, like a typical enterprising social worker, established the Badabon trust and began empowering the women in the community. Her biggest achievement yet is the establishment of the hospital in Lusibari. A successful hospital, it also trains aspiring nurses like Moyna. Nirmal, does not approve of this kind of social work. His contribution to the community is by recognizing the revolution waged by the Bangladeshi refugees and taking part in it and writing about revolution. In fact, Neelima goes so far as to tell him not to go to Morichjapi since his anti-establishment actions will not help the Trust or the hospital. Her philosophy is to work with the system at changing it from within; his philosophy, on the other hand, is to work against the system by changing it entirely through revolution. This particular dynamic in their relationship is reflective of not only the paradox between the different kinds of ‘do-gooders’, it is also reflective of the paradox that exists all over India. When is it time for revolution? Can the work done by people like Neelima be nullified just because they are more practical?

Development is another issue that Amitav Ghosh tries to raise questions about in the novel. The idea of development being an issue in this novel may be contested as being far-fetched and consequently, speculative. Indeed, the community's origin itself is enterprising in nature because these people answered Sir Hamilton’s call. So there is no reason why these children of such a hard-working and futuristic people should not be, in fact, ready for change and a better life.

There is a section in this community that is enterprising, wants to progress, earn more, be educated and in other words develop into a community much like any other urban community all over India. Moyna, Fokir’s wife, is one such person. Nilima describes her as “ambitious and bright”. Without any support or encouragement from her family she had educated herself in the neighbouring school. After finishing with school, she wanted to go to college but her family balked at the idea. So they got her married to Fokir, who could ‘neither read or write and made his living by catching crabs’. But determined as she was in her ambitions she was successful in making Fokir shift to Lusibari so that she can take the nurse training course in the hospital built by the Bodabon Trust. Predictably, she does not want her five-year-old son, Tutul, to catch crabs for a living and prefers that he go to school. There is no future in crab catching. Fokir finds these concepts difficult to understand. So development at what cost? Is development a human right or are human rights the first to be discarded in the pursuit of development?

Most of these issues are general social issues. The Sunderbans are a microcosmic representation of national and international (pertaining to the Third World) social issues with minor variations. Ultimately, they represent the skewed priorities and policies of a government that achieves sanction from a process that is exclusive of certain communities and certain people.

Apart from being a novel that raises many social questions, The Hungry Tide primarily tells of the personal stories of Piya, Kanai, Fokir, Kusum, Nirmal and Neelima. The novel deals with conflict and affinity in personal relationships. Piya is attracted towards Fokir and vice-versa. Kanai is attracted towards Piya and Moyna. His urban and elite chauvinism makes it difficult for him to understand what makes Fokir attractive to Moyna and Piya. He goes so far as to ask Moyna if her ambitious nature would not prefer a successful man like himself to a primitive man like Fokir. Therefore, there is a visible and obvious hostility between Fokir and Kanai. This hostility reaches its climax in the incident where Fokir successfully scares Kanai out of his wits when they are rowing together in Fokir’s boat. That is Fokir’s way of showing he is the master of the tide. A similar parallel is seen in Nirmal’s adoration of Kusum pitted against Horen’s love for Kusum. The author goes into great depth in describing the work of a cetologist or a marine biologist; his history of the tide country also seem to be well-researched. Both shows of scholarship only increase the reader’s conviction of the story. Also, the authors description of Nirmal, a Marxist, shows both the glory of Marxism and the poignancy inherent in it. The author also shows sensitivity to people and emotions, a quality found in another of his novels, Shadow Lines.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Hungry Tide, Ravi Dayal Publisher, New Delhi, India, 2004.

The Woman Within...

Friday, April 22, 2005 | 6 comments

Balaji Rajam

Her mis-timed giggles
Her nonchalant hair toss
Her pouts of fake anger
Are just glimpses of the li'l girl within

The tears on her cheek
The compassion in her eyes
The affection in her heart
Are just shades of the mother within

Her playful ruffling of my hair
Her burst of laughter at my jokes
Her reassuring grip on my hand
Are just traits of the good friend within

Her furrowed eyebrows at my laziness
Her anger at my reckless spending
Her concern at my falling sick
Are just faces of the wife within

Her changing of roles
Faster than she changes her clothes
And her ease in every single one
Is nothing but just the true woman within.

At Night

Thursday, April 21, 2005 | 2 comments

Amena Farooq

The moon and I,
We come out at night —
She with her pale light,
I with my pale hopes —
Feeble folk afraid to face
The merciless illumination of the day.

She comes out when
Her anaemic glimmer
Can outshine the rest;
I take refuge where my brightness
Is my orange bedclothes,
The glare from my laptop screen
And the naked kitchen bulb.

My pride is plated with gold
And wrapped in raw silk.
It sits on the mantelpiece
And crawls closer to the edge every day.
Soon it will tumble into the blazes
And I will let out one last shriek,
One last firework shall I see,
A dismal display
Eclipsed by the bustling skies of day.

thoughts penned during war (Afghanistan)

Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 1 comments

Sumanya Anand Velamur

Wearing my opinion on my sleeve
— A little label 4" long , 3" wide —
In a little place in the world
Where I'll neither be seen nor heard

The place has claims to injustice too
I did not protest — with any label blue
Against the riots so near.
So why now and why here?

Is it because it is someone else?
A war somewhere else?
Easier to blame than to be blamed?
Stand up for people you don't know — unashamed?

In the bus I elicit smiles from a few people
With my opinion on the label
Perhaps they think, “what a wannabe”
Perhaps they think, “In time she will see.”

For a time I muse, “Perhaps I AM a wannabe.”
“Perhaps, in time, I WILL see.”
“Is this what this is all about?”
A faint flickering flame swiftly snuffed out!

Further along, in an un-peopled path, a child
Looks as if to plead, “Pray, stay wild.”
There is no place for musings now
Youth is all about the ‘here’ and the ‘now’.

Ramblings of a Confused Mind

Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 1 comments

Saurabh Datta

He lay there battered and bruised under scorching sun. Unable to move he was in terrible pain. He could not even raise his hands. Sweat mixed with blood from his wounds trickled all over him. He could not think of anything. Only what seemed to be comprehensible was the severe pain he felt all over. Apart from the pain, which he now felt a part of himself, he was at complete peace with himself and his surroundings.
And suddenly his world began to tremble. His whole body was shaking now. His mind trying to re-collect and re-examine his current state. Where was he and what was this trembling and shaking all about?

As if someone heard his minds plea, there was a loud whistle. Was there a train approaching? What was a train doing here? Where was he? And then he saw a green light. It…it was a signal of an approaching train. Oh God, he was on a train track. This realization brought back the pain he had till now found a part of his existence. He could barely open his eyes. They were swollen. Using immense will power he opened his eyes. He saw a train turn towards where he was lying. It seemed to be a super fast.

He tried to shout, but he could not. He did not have the energy. Tried raising his hands, but they wouldn’t leave the ground. The hot train tracks burning into him. His legs were not responding. He felt immense pain and remorse at himself.

He wanted to react to the situation. But what would that yield? The pain again seemed to go into the background. His mind became clear. He had a choice to make. Either he could try to get off the track and save himself or he would let the train run him over and finish all misery once and for all. He had to decide this, and that too fast as the train had turned the corner and was coming nearer and nearer. The whistles of the engine getting louder and louder.

He closed his eyes trying to think. Suddenly, as if in a slide show, the pictures of his life came dancing in front of him. He saw his childhood. His parents. Remembered their aspirations. He saw his school. His friends. His first date and the movies. He saw the wrong decisions he made, and why he was where he was right now. And as soon as he thought that, the pain became excruciating. He opened his eyes and saw the train even closer. The whistle louder and piercing.

But there was no way to get out of the current mess. Part of him wanted to end it all. Finish it off once and for all. People would cry for a few days and then they would lead their lives. With the amount of pain he was in, the crushing of his bones by the incoming train would not even feel much. Or may be he would suffer an arrest from the shock. He was realizing what death was like. He was seeing the difference between life and death. And as far as he thought of his current self, there wasn’t much of a difference.

He weighed his options. He could not move his body an inch. Would someone come crashing down like an angel and take him off the track or would the train stop. But these things only happened in movies. Not in real life. He was destined to die here.

But somewhere inside him, someone wanted to live and show the world what he was made up of. He was a born fighter. A person who came back from the ruins like a Phoenix. He would fight and get over his despair. He wanted to live.

The voices within were getting as loud as the whistle of the approaching train. But now he had an answer. He wanted to live. He wanted to fight. He tried to move his legs but could not. Using all his power, he was trying to trudge his way out. His body was not co-operating, but he tried on. The train was now even closer. Using his elbows he tried to trudge, but could not. And the anguish became so much that he resigned to die here on the track. He closed his eyes, remembered his parents and God. And with Elvis’s song on his lips, he closed his eyes.

‘Good bye mama, pray for me… …I was the black sheep of the family… …a hundred miles… …miles..from home’

The tracks were shaking because of the incoming super fast. He was waiting for the pain to end. But why was it taking so long? Why does this moment of truth have to be in slow motion? And then there was a shrieking sound. That must be it, he thought. But still the pain persisted. He tried hard to open his eyes. The train was passing in front of him. He was on the other track.

Tears rolled down his eyes. He tried to smile. The pain was easing out. He shouted in ecstasy. Miracles do happen. He had been given a new lease of life. Now nothing could happen. He lay there feeling himself getting better. The tracks were still trembling but he paid no heed to it. What a relief, he was alive. He could go back and create a new world. He lay there getting his strength back.

And then came a loud shrieking noise. He felt a big thud. After that, nothing. The signal of his track was green.

Welcome, new Week

Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 3 comments

Prabhu Rajagopal

Like the early bird singing merry across
the dark skies eagerly awaiting the caress of fresh warmth,
I welcome the new week, rejoicing in the joy
Of pervasive greyness vanishing in a hundred hues of crimson

Like that chirpy one that lets its song glissade
Into wind humming through empty vistas of sorrounding space,
I welcome the new week, letting go bygones,
Into the torrents of time that speeds into the unknown

As mists blown away by cheering breeze, knowing,
When the hour arrives, no illusion can halt progress anymore
I welcome the new week, enraptured in the rapture
Of tender light dancing on velvet ripples of lakes below

Peaks! the earth seems nearer,and plains Oh! earth's
further off; but like the bird, flying undeterred by appearances
I welcome the new week, poised, that, the journey's Ahead-
And Brooding over falls,is just surrendering to the apparent

And like that bird persevering at another attempt
at seeking shelter in the loving embrace of the golden horizon,
I welcome the new week, greeting another chance,
to never return, to forget the false, in remembrance of Truth.

My Masks

Thursday, April 14, 2005 | 2 comments

Natasha Ali

I wear not one, but many
Masks that protect me and shelter me.
Hide and disguise me,
From this big, and I’ve been told--Bad World.

My Mask is a necessary evil.
It is a robe that allows me to be “proper” and
“harmonious”
with those in this world.
And yet, it allows me moments to myself.
And a chance to retain my individuality.

There may be a smile on my lips,
But an ache in my heart.
No one need know,
I have my blessed Mask.

Turmoil rages within me.
Anger has a place there too.
But, my cherished Mask allows me
To keep the face I show the world--Serene.

At first, I mocked
When told I needed a Mask.
But learnt the hard way
That frankness and honesty are but foes.

Alas,
Total trust I dare not give anymore.
It brings me but pain and anguish.
Along with a wish………
That I had been wiser in my ways.

Now,
I know.
I survive.
By wearing my Masks,
And showing a different face.

Untitled

Wednesday, April 06, 2005 | 10 comments

Nidhi Khurana

I close my eyes and open the door
To a world of possibilities and allure
We'll see what life has in store,
Ah yes, we'll see for sure.

From the castle's perch, I see a virgin road,
winding up the country to my door,
Through lush meadows and sun-kissed farms,
Balmy air wafts in to soothe a sore.

I hear in distance the sound of light steps,
Anticipation shining in my eyes,
I scurry to the foyer clutching at my dress,
And as I start to open the door,
It just flies open in my face,
A gust of wind and of him, no trace!

Fantasy spins beautiful yarns of gold,
embellished with diamonds and lace,
Alas, life's brutal and cold
Dreams get shattered in a jiffy,
and the eternal dreamer falls from grace!

Shakespearian And Jonsonian Comedy

Wednesday, April 06, 2005 | 3 comments

A Brief Discussion by

Amna Afzal

[This article can be downloaded as a Word document from here.]

Criticizing Comedy

In comparison with tragedy, the growth and criticism of comedy as a genre is a considerably more complex subject to tackle, as it has been explored in much lesser measure. There may be two reasons for this:

a) The relatively greater profundity of the issues which tragedy deals with; and,
b) Critical discourse on tragedy rests on solid foundations, as Aristotle’s treatise on tragedy is extant while that on comedy has been lost.

The Nature of Comedy

So what, one may ask, constitutes a comedy? What is its nature and purpose? As Sydney has put it:

Comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which he [the dramatist] representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be; so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one.

Or to put it another way, its purpose is to create laughter to the end that men’s lesser faults may be made to appear ridiculous and so may be avoided.

Keeping in mind the fact that all artistic endeavors and manifestations of artistic expression are variable with time and place, the following passage covers our present purpose in exploring Elizabethan comedy; to wit,

...the mass of Renaissance comedy is seen to settle itself into some sort of intelligible pattern, if the survey of it is stretched to cover English, Italian, French and Spanish variations of it. In all these countries the problem was similar: it was the attempt to gratify a world-old sense of the comic or ludicrous at the same time as a new sensibility of the romantic.1

Comedy therefore, may be said to cater to two instincts: the sense of the ridiculous and humorous in human life, and the perennial interest in the romantic. This may obviously take a variety of forms, as it did in the European theatres, but the most perfect combination of comedy and romance was achieved in England, not surprisingly especially in the works of Shakespeare.

Elizabethan Comedy

The Elizabethan dramatists were required to produce plays that represented a juxtaposition of what was romantic and comic; this presented some difficulties as the two elements seemed resistant to harmonious amalgamation.

Romance, in its pure form, as found in Medieval literature, focused on chivalric heroes dedicated irrevocably to their loves, overcoming various obstacles and encountering fierce monsters in precarious adventures in order to prove their worth to the loved one. This was the spirit that the Elizabethan dramatists tried to adapt for comic purpose, but something went amiss: they could not make comedy out of romance without undermining the seriousness of affairs of the heart. Inevitably, the comic element predominated, with something a little farcical, even in the inexhaustibility of the hero’s love for the heroine.

The basic plot remains the same: there are people who fall in love, and there are complications in their path, and all is resolved happily in the end; the complications simply take on the nature of farce, with much confusion generated through strange twists and unlikely coincidences.

Shakespeare’s Comedy

Shakespeare comes into his own as a dramatist in his comedies, much more so than in his tragedies, because the comic is congenial to his temperament. Comedy has always been less entrenched by rules than tragedy and so it was in comedy that Shakespeare’s genius achieved its zenith

Shakespeare’s comedy is not satiric; it is poetic. It is not conservative; it is creative. The way of it is that of the imagination, rather than that of pure reason. It is an artist’s vision, not a critic’s exposition.2

Shakespeare is romantic and sentimental; he is all for love, choosing simple tales of wooers and their wooing, ’it was a lover and his lass’.

His comedies, and particularly Twelfth Night, follow much the same pattern. Intrigue, deception, disguise and a surreal atmosphere of unreality seem to recur. Farcical elements, Malvolio in Twelfth Night, are thrown in to compound the comic effect.

In Comedy of Errors, a series of laughable situations arise from the great physical likeness between two characters who are mistaken for each other, and a comparable pattern is found in Love’s Labor Lost. Shakespeare’s more mature comedies, in which Twelfth Night is generally bracketed with Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It, evince much the same elements but are more skillfully executed and exhibit a more finished dramatic purpose.

Twelfth Night

The device of confusion of identity seems to have been popular with Elizabethan audiences, which is perhaps why Shakespeare repeats it so often in his comedies. In Twelfth Night, a lady, Viola, disguised as a page, serves the man she loves, Orsino, in the courtship of another woman, Olivia, only to find her rival falling in love with herself. Olivia takes Viola’s twin brother Sebastian to be the object of her love, while he is perplexed at her advances, having never seen her before. With more confusion added in the subplot, with Olivia’s steward, Malvolio, her uncle, and her uncle’s friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who is trying to woo her, plus the smart maid Maria whom Olivia’s uncle ends up wedding, the play is a veritable hotchpotch accentuating the perils of love.

It is all resolved, of course, recalling Rosalind’s shrewdness in resolving the love troubles created in As You Like It. Olivia gets her pageboy after all, in the guise of the pageboy’s twin, who is providentially of the right sex. Orsino returns his page’s love, who conveniently turns out to be a woman.

Jonson’s comedy

Ben Jonson, setting himself apart from the rest of the dramatists, contemptuously said that their comedies had to be of a duke in love with a countess, the countess to be in love with the duke’s son and the son to love the lady’s waiting maid with other such cross wooing. His comedy then, needless to say, had little of the inconsequential and romantic about it.

Jonson felt that comedy, as distinguished from tragedy, in which the remote or the ideal does not hinder and may even help the dramatist’s purpose, had lost its touch of life in romantic extravagance.3

Jonson’s comedy is essentially didactic, recognizing with Sydney that laughter is a means to an end and not an end in itself. We are to be amused, certainly, but not merely to be entertained: we are to recognize ourselves in the follies we are invited to laugh at.

The parts of a comedy are the same with a tragedy, and the end is partly the same. For they both delight and teach.4

As tragedy works out its morality by the effects of pity and fear, so comedy achieves its aim which is also ethical, by mockery of baseness and folly in their lesser degrees, by ’sporting’, as Jonson puts it, ’with follies, not with crimes.’

Volpone

Jonson tells the Universities in the dedication of Volpone that his ’special aim’ is ’to put the snaffle in their mouths that cry out, we never punish vices in our interludes.’

What is striking upon reading Volpone is the apparent seriousness with which Jonson regards comedy. For him, comedy is not farce, not pure entertainment, though that too has its place. To him, comedy meant that there would be a wider audience to appeal, and by luring people with the promise of entertainment, he could have them stay to gain instruction.

Volpone is made up of stuff that one would not normally class as being humorous. The vice being castigated is avarice, which leads a character go for as far as being prepared to prostitute his wife and another to disinherit his son. Volpone, in his self indulgence, goes so far as to attempt rape. None of the characters, with the possible exception of Peregrine, are likable, so degenerate are they, so steeped in vice.

The play revolves around Volpone deceiving people who court him for the money they expect to receive at his demise. He extracts valuable presents from them, leading greedy gulls on, expecting to be his sole heir. What starts out as a game ends in serious hurt for all parties concerned. The focus is on vice and corruption in society, the folly of man and the prevalence of sin: hardly comic themes, and yet, Jonson is consummate in his comedic art.

Jonson and Shakespeare: Varying Approaches

Shakespeare’s comedies are, broadly speaking, more good-humored. Both Jonson and his more celebrated contemporary had the acumen to perceive mankind’s folly in all its stark reality, and the skill to put pen to paper to illumine it to best effect. Their manners of doing so, however, are as distinct as their personalities were.

Several elements stand out as being most disparate in Shakespeare and Jonson’s comedic technique:

Shakespearian comedy lacks an overt didactic purpose, while Jonson’s whole art is predicated on an ethical agenda. Jonson himself claims in his prologue to Volpone,

In all his poems still hath been this measure,
To mix profit with your pleasure

Jonson is more satirical:

As for satire, he was committed to it by his conception of the purpose of comedy. The audience must laugh to some end, and the play must deal with some folly and cure it by its ridiculous presentation. A comedy was a ’comical satire,’ as he styled more than one of his plays.5

Shakespeare is not concerned with satire: his vision, if just as piercing, is less judgmental.

Jonson makes a plea for real life, for ’deeds and language, such as men do use’. He is firmly grounded in the real facts and issues of existence. Shakespeare, on the other hand, transports his audience to Illyrias, lands of fantasy and unreality where anything is possible.

Jonson is careful to maintain a certain degree of originality in his work: familiar as he was with much literature, he never lifted the plots of his plays from anterior sources. Volpone and Twelfth Night themselves constitute an excellent case in point: Jonson declares in the prologue that the play we are about to see is wholly original, while Twelfth Night apparently has very close parallels in an Italian comedy, Inganni, of the sixteenth century.

The most striking difference is, of course, Jonson’s lack of concern with the romantic element, while Shakespeare’s comedies are largely built upon romance.

Shakespeare’s comedies end in all being well, while Jonson is not overly concerned with shielding his audience’s sensibilities.

Jonson saw language as the mirror to man’s soul: dialogue is of paramount importance. Although, Shakespeare’s language is beautiful (with the possible exception of the earlier comedies, such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona), much comic effect is derived from other techniques that Jonson despised.

Conclusion

...Jonson’s mode of drama is properly and intentionally different from Shakespeare’s. Jonson is no more trying to draw complex Shakespearian figures and failing than the later Picasso is trying unsuccessfully to paint embrandt faces...Jonson…is not in the tradition of intimate, human comedy which links Chaucer, Shakespeare, Fielding, Browning, and Dylan Thomas...but belongs to a more critical and satirical body together with Congreve, Pope, Oscar Wilde, Bernard Shaw, and T. S. Eliot.6

References

1. H. B. Charlton, Shakespearian Comedy, p. 17
2. H. B. Charlton, Shakespearian Comedy
3. G. Gregory Smith, English Men of Letters: Ben Jonson, p. 78
4. Ben Jonson, Discoveries, Chapter VIII
5. G. Gregory Smith, English Men of Letters: Ben Jonson, p. 80
6. David Cock, Introduction to Volpone, p. 13

Pieces

Saturday, April 02, 2005 | 5 comments

Rajat Dua

My heart is but an ordinary heart
And its pieces, no treasures they hold
Pieces a million, like specks of dust
Torn away by the wind apart

Broken it lay, pieces blowing away
Till moistened by tears, they stopped their sway.
I asked you silent, I asked the world
Why break my heart, why make it pay.

The answers never came
But the wind changed its way
Brought the pieces back together
Though it will never be the same.

Yes, my heart is but an ordinary heart
And its pieces, no treasures they held
But now its mine, just mine to keep
Never to be torn apart.