Romantic Prose

Introduction:
In the eighteenth century a change had taken place in the prose style. Many eighteenth century prose-writers dependent on the assumptions about the suitability of various prose styles for various purposes for which they shared with the relatively small but the sophisticated public. Writers in the Romantic Period were rather more concerned with subject matter and emotional expression than with appropriate style. They wrote for an ever-increasing audience which was less homogenous in its interest and education than that of their predecessors. The autobiographical exploitation of personality manifests itself in a great variety of ways among writers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; it is symptomatic of a significant change in the relation between the writer and the society. There was an indication of a growing distrust of the sharp distinction between matter and manner which was made in the eighteenth century. In the Romantic Period the tendency was for the writer to draw on his own personality either as illuminating case history or as a gesture of defiance of showmanship or ‘alienation’ rather than to objectify it in terms of a cause or a system. The growth of the familiar essay, with its highly personal, often whimsical, flaunting of the writer’s tastes, prejudices, and idiosyncrasies, represents another aspect of the Romantic exploitation of personality.

Non-fictional

Charles Lamb (1775-1834):
Charles Lamb was an English prose writer. Charles is a subtler and more interesting writer than his influence might lead one to suspect. He is not the cultivated gentleman of leisure relaxing in easy chat due to the circumstances of his personal life were harsh and even tragic. He never married and devoted himself to care of his sister, Mary Lamb, who was a subject to mental fits. Charles Lamb was in large measure self-educated and his views on life and letters were worked out with an almost desperate geniality in order to preserve and develop a relish for the color and individuality of experience which for him was the only alternative to despair.

Important Works:

·    His sentimentality can be seen at its strongest in his early work “A Tale of Rosamund Gray” (1798). It was a melodramatic story of a girl ruined by a villain. Charles Lamb rejected the rational and Utopian systems so popular in his youth and cultivated a mixture of restrained hedonism and humane feeling which appears in his essays in his appreciation of certain physical pleasures.
·    Lamb was essentially a Londoner. His Essays of Elia (1820-23) and Last Essays of Elia (1833), artfully artless in their personal, conversational tone, show his interest in curious persons and places, his relish of the color and variety of London life and characters. In these Essays he talks intimately to the reader about himself, his own personality, his quaint whims and experiences, and cheerful and heroic struggle which he made against misfortunes.
·    The work for children which he produced together with his sister Mary in an effort to provide something less crudely moralizing than the children’s literature of the period include the Tales from Shakespeare (1807) and The Adventures of Ulysses (1808). Lamb shared with many writers of his generation a feeling for childhood, but this was not enough to make him a great children’s writer.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830):
William Hazlitt, the son of an Irish Unitarian clergyman, was born in Maidstone, Kent, on 10th April, 1778. His father was a friend of Joseph Priestley and Richard Price. As a result of supporting the American Revolution, Rev. Hazlitt and his family were forced to leave Kent and live in Ireland. The family returned to England in 1787 and settled at Wem in Shropshire. At the age of fifteen William was sent to be trained for the ministry at New Unitarian College at Hackney in London. In 1797 Hazlitt lost his desire to become a Unitarian minister and left the college. At first Hazlitt attempted to become a portrait painter but after a lack of success he turned to writing. William Hazlitt is a more vigorous and less mannered essayist than Lamb. He was an independent spirit who maintained his radicalism throughout his life. In his judgment of others he was always downright and frank, and never cared for its effect on them. During the time when England was engaged in a bitter struggle against Napoleon, Hazlitt worshipped him as a hero, and he came in conflict with the government. His friend left him one by one on account of his aggressive nature, and at the time of his death only Lamb stood by him.
Important works:
·    Hazlitt wrote many volumes of essays, of which the most effective is The Spirit of the age (1825) in which he gives critical portraits of a number of his famous contemporaries. This was the work which only Hazlitt could undertake because he was outspoken and fearless in the expression of his opinion.
·    Representative of his critical style is Characters of Shakespeare's Plays (1817), which contains subjective, often panegyrical commentary on such individual characters as Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet. This work introduces Hazlitt's concept of "gusto," a term he used to refer to qualities of passion and energy that he considered necessary to great art. Hazlitt felt that Shakespeare's sonnets lacked gusto and judged them as passionless and unengaging despite the "desperate cant of modern criticism."
·    In addition to literature, Hazlitt also focused on drama and art in his critical essays, many of which are collected in A View of the English Stage (1818) and Sketches of the Principal Picture-Galleries in England (1824).
·    The many and varied familiar essays that Hazlitt wrote for magazine publication and collected in the volumes of The Round Table, Table-Talk (1821-22), and The Plain Speaker (1826) are usually considered his finest works.
·    His characteristics energy and enthusiasm are exhibited in his three collections of lectures, On the English Poets (1818), On the English Comic Writers (1819), and On the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (1820).
Thomas De Qunicey (1785-1859):
Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) is one of the greatest English prose writers. He shared the reaction of his day against the severer classicism of the eighteenth century, preferring rather the ornate manner of Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne and their contemporaries. The specialty of his life consists in describing incidents of purely personal interest in language suited to their magnitude as they appear in the eyes of the writer. The reader is irresistibly attracted by the splendour of his style which combines the best elements of prose and poetry. The defects of his style are that he digresses too much and often stops in the midst of a fine paragraph to talk about some trivial thing by way of jest. But in spite of these defects his prose is still among the few supreme examples of style in the English Language. He was a highly intellectual writer and his interests were very wide. Mostly he wrote in the form of articles for journals and he dealt with all sorts of subjects; about himself and his friends, life in general, art, literature, philosophy and religion.
Important works:
·    His autobiographical Confessions of An English Opium-Eater (1821) tells the story of his early life, which was unusual enough, and goes on to recount the dreams, some magnificent and some terrifying, which were stimulated in him by his taking of opium, a habit he first indulged in when quite younger in order to alleviate neuralgia and in which he persisted intermittently throughout his life.
·    Suspiria de Profundis (1845) was his other autobiographical work which reveals his interest in his own psychology and show an attitude to the significance of dreams and an awareness of the different levels of consciousness that are surprisingly modern.
·    De Quincey published his expanded version of the Confessions in 1856, but this version is considered obscure and stylized.
·    His numerous essays, which initially appeared in periodicals in the Lake District, London, and Edinburgh, treat a large variety of issues, both parochial and international: Britain's imperial conflicts in Asia and northern Africa, criminal violence, theological history, Enlightenment philosophy, as well as numerous more explicitly literary reviews. Among these literary essays, De Quincey's essay on William Shakespeare, “On the Knocking on the Door in Macbeth,” has received acclaim as an outstanding piece of psychological criticism, and his critique of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads is considered a brilliant analysis of the poet's creative process.
·    In addition, De Quincey published essays that sketched personal portraits of other Romantic authors; his reminiscences of his interactions with Coleridge and Wordsworth offer largely sympathetic insights into their literary circle.
Fictional:
Jane Austen (1775-1817):
Jane Fitzwilliam Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction set among the gentry, has earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature. Amongst scholars and critics, Austen's realism and biting social commentary have cemented her historical importance as a writer. Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to Austen's development as a professional writer. Austen's artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years until she was about thirty-five years old. She first gave the novel its modern character through the treatment of everyday life. During Austen's lifetime her works brought her little personal fame and only a few positive reviews. Through the mid-nineteenth century, her novels were admired mainly by members of the literary elite. However, the publication of her nephew's A Memoir of Jane Austen in 1869 introduced her to a far wider public as an appealing personality and kindled popular interest in her works. By the 1940s, Austen had become widely accepted in academia as a "great English writer". The second half of the twentieth century saw a proliferation of Austen scholarship, which explored many aspects of her novels: artistic, ideological, and historical.
Important works:
·    From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815), she achieved success as a published writer.
·    She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.
·    Austen's works critique the novels of sensibility of the second half of the eighteenth century and are part of the transition to nineteenth-century realism. Austen's plots, though fundamentally comic, highlight the dependence of women on marriage to secure social standing and economic security. Like those of Samuel Johnson, one of the strongest influences on her writing, her works are concerned with moral issues.
Mary Shelley (1797-1851):
Mary Shelley was daughter of writer and pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft  and philosopher/novelist William Godwin, wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley and friend of Lord Byron. Mary Shelley was educated at home, where she met her father’s literary friends, including the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who admired her father for his philosophical beliefs. Mary eloped to France with Percy when she was only 16. Their first child, a daughter died in Venice, Italy, few years later. They returned to England, where their son William was born. They only married in 1816 after Percy’s first wife committed suicide.           
    She also edited and promoted the works of her husband. Mary Shelley was known mainly for her efforts to publish Percy Shelley's works and for Frankenstein. Mary Shelley remained a political radical throughout her life. Mary Shelley's works often argue that cooperation and sympathy, particularly as practiced by women in the family, were the ways to reform civil society. This view was a direct challenge to the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by Percy Shelley and Enlightenment political theories.

Important works:

·    Mary Shelley’s first novel, Frankenstein (1817) was published when she was 21. In the style of a sinister gothic novel which was popular at that time, the story deals with the ambitious young scientist who wanted to be the creator of life, the horrors that follow his experiment and his destruction by the monster he creates. Frankenstein was immediately successful.
·    After Percy’s death in 1822, Mary Shelley returned to England. Her second novel, Valperga (1823) was published when she was 26.

·    She also edited and promoted the works of her husband was known mainly for her efforts to publish Percy Shelley's works.

Importance of Language:

Definition of language:

Language is defined in different ways according to the different authors.

According to Edward Sapir:

          "Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols."

According to Robin:

         

Another linguist, Robins defined language in the following way:

          "Language is a symbol system based on pure or arbitrary conventions infinitely extendable and modifiable according to the changing needs and conditions of the speakers."

According to Henry Sweet:

Language is defined by Henry Sweet, a phonetician and language scholar in the following way:

          "Language is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering to that of ideas into thoughts."

According to Britannica Encyclopedia:

          "Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals such as voice, sounds, gestures or written symbols."

Origin of word Language:

The word language is taken from the Latin word "lingua", which means "tongue" as the tongue is the metaphor based on the use of physical organ in speech.

What is lingua franca?

Lingua Franca can be defined as a language used for communication among people of different mother tongues or we can say that a world language used as a common language by speakers of different languages.

          Synonyms for lingua franca are "vehicular language" and "bridge language". Whereas a vernacular language is used as a native language in a single speaker community, a vehicular language goes beyond the boundaries of its original community, and is used as a second language for communication between communities. For example, Spanish is a vernacular in Spain, but is used as a vehicular language (that is, a lingua franca) in the Philippines.

          English is the current lingua franca of international business, science, technology and aviation. It has replaced French as the lingua franca of diplomacy since World War II.

Lingua franca at different times:

Aramaic is the first example of a lingua franca - a common second language, shared by people who are unable to communicate in their native tongues. Such languages, essential in the history of communication, are usually a by-product of empire.

          Aramaic, used in the Persian empire, is gradually displaced by Greek in the vast area conquered by Alexander the Great. (Even so, three centuries after Alexander, Aramaic is still the everyday language of Palestine, spoken by Jesus Christ and his disciples). Latin becomes the lingua franca of most of Europe during the Roman empire, and strengthens its hold in the Middle Ages through the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church.
          In more modern times French is the western world's first lingua franca, owing to the prestige of France in the age of Louis XIV. During the 20th century its position is gradually usurped by English, as a result of the global spread of the British empire and the commercial dominance of the United States.

How can a language be important?

For the linguist Edward Sapir, language is not only a vehicle for the expression of thoughts, perceptions, sentiments, and values characteristic of a community; it also represents a fundamental expression of social identity.

Sapir said:   

"the mere fact of a common speech serves as a peculiar potent symbol of the social solidarity of those who speak the language." In short, language retention helps maintain feelings of cultural kinship.

Language is important because the people who speaks it are important because there is a relation between a language and the people who speak it and both of language and people speaking cannot be thought apart. Language is important because it is directly linked politically, economically, commercially, socially and culturally to its speakers.

          Sometimes the cultural importance of a nation has at some former time been so great that their languages remains important among cultivated people long after it has ceased to represent political, commercial, or other greatness. For example Greek is studies in its classical form because of the great civilization which its literature preserves the most complete record of; but in its modern form as spoken in Greece today the Greek Language is largely neglected by the outside world.  

Importance of English Language:

          English is the current Lingua Franca of the international business, science and technology after it has taken the place of French as the lingua franca of diplomacy since World War II. As we know that we are living in the world of globalization. English language is a common language and is spoken in many countries. It is considered as universal language. Most of the universities worldwide include English as one of their major subject. It is spoken as the first language by more than 340 million people in the United Kingdom, the United States and the former British Empire. Following are some important points which will show us the importance of this language:

Language of the world power and world bodies:

          English is the language of the world powers like United States and United Kingdom as most of the policies of the world are made by these leading world bodies.

Today the USA's influence on world information is dominant, English, being their native tongue, the same is true for Britain and due to the political influence of these countries English has become so much important.

           English is the mother tongue of nations whose combined political influence, economic soundness, commercial activity, social well being and scientific and cultural contributions to civilization give impressive support to its numerical precedence.

Language of the UNO:

English is important as it is one of the five languages recognized by the UNO. The five recognized languages by UNO are English, French, German, Chinese, Arabic.

Language of science and technology:
 

We can say that the English is the language of Science and Technology as most of the inventions relating science and technology are in English and if we notice then we will find our that the most of the books relating science and technology are in English and most of the researches regarding science and technology are also in English and as we know that the most of the names of the latest inventions in technologies are in English as it contains latest scientific and technological material.

Language of Trade and Commerce:

We can say English as the language of trade and commerce as it is an international language and it is used as a second language for dealing in the field of trade and commerce in different countries as it is the mean of the communication between the two countries through which they interact with each other.

Language of great culture:

Language is of course an integral part of a culture. English is the language of a great culture as we move around the world we will see that the English people are more civilized and they have a strong cultural background. English is the first language of the world diplomats that is also a reason that it is rich in culture as the standards of the living of these societies are high.

English is a living language:

English is a living language because when a language ceases to change, we call it a dead language. English language is a living language as it keeps on changing as we can take the example of a the vowel sounds the old English "stan" has become our "stone" now. We can also see the addition of the new words in English language as we have a word "Googled" which is taken from the name of search engine "Google".

English having a large number of speakers:

About one-and-a-half billion (1,500,000,000) people spoke English at the start of the 21st century. That was one quarter (¼) of all people on earth. More than 400 million (400,000,000) speak English as their first language. The rest speak English as a second or third language for their professional and personal lives.

Language of great literature:

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; Joseph Conrad was born in Poland, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, Vladimir Nabokov was Russian. In other words, English literature is as diverse as the varieties and dialects of English spoken around the world. Despite the variety of authors of English literature, the works of William Shakespeare remain paramount throughout the English-speaking world. English is rich in literature as most of the literature from different languages is also translated into English.

Official Language:

English is important as it is used as the official language in many of the countries. It is an official language in 52 countries as well as many small colonies and territories.

Conclusion:

          We concluded from this that English as a lingua franca has a great importance in the global world and it is an international language and a lot of work relating business, science, technology is done in this language and this language is used as a medium of exchange between the people from different parts of the world and a number of people spoke English either as their first language or second or third language.

Use of satire in Pride and Prejudice

Introduction:

                   

Prejudice is one of the most popular novels of Jane Austen due to its multi-dimensional versatility of themes. Jane Austen is an accomplished artist within her limited range, she handles characters, dialogues, events and plot-construction with an exquisite mastery, weaving and interweaving all main elements of novel into one. Jane Austen used satire in her famous novel Pride and Prejudice. Satire is basically used to attack the characters to bring a change about them. The tone of the novel is light, satirical, and vivid. Scenes such as Mr. Collins proposal to Elizabeth, and Lady Catherine visits to Lizzy at Longbourn, provides comic relief to the reader while at the same time revealing certain traits of the characters. For example, Lydia’s lack of common sense and responsibility is revealed when she takes pride in being the first Bennet girl to be married. Lydia does not take into consideration the circumstance of her marriage, the personality of her husband, or the prospects of their marriage for the future.

            Jane Austen uses different literary devices throughout Pride and Prejudice and most of them are used to create humour and various other elements that enrich the story. Satire is used in Pride and Prejudice to make fun of human vices or weaknesses.

The range of Jane Austen’s characters is rather narrow. She selects her characters from among the landed gentry in the countryside. Sir Walter Scott very accurately describes this range:

“Jane Austen confines herself chiefly to the middling classes of society … and those which
are sketched with most originality and precision, belong to a class rather below that standard.”

Satire:

Satire can be described as “a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice is held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule”

Or

“the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly etc.”

Satire and the absurd in Pride and Prejudice:

The principal, most widespread and most obvious form of humour in the novel is satire - lampooning by means of caricature or exaggeration customs and attitudes that the author disapproves, or characters who embody these hated attitudes.  Austen also has an eye for the absurd in human behaviour, and we meet, in the pages of the novel, a number of memorably silly characters who go beyond stereotypes: the best of these are probably Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine and Mr. Wickham. In some cases, Austen will use her chief character, Elizabeth, to point this ridicule, while in others she allows the absurdity to manifest itself. Mr. Bennet is also used as a more detached commentator on the society he evidently despises and from which he holds aloof.  Austen, despite or because of her sex, aims most of her satire at women. Her favourite target seems to be the small-mindedness of the sex, the typical preoccupation with fashion, comfort and domestic security. Men are also ridiculed, but more for their individual failings. Perhaps the exaggerated and undignified self-abasement of Collins and, to some extent, Sir William Lucas, is a more widespread fault, as, perhaps, is the philistinism of Hurst and the avarice of Wickham.

Different Examples of Satire from Pride and Prejudice:

We have different examples of satire through out the novel and we will discuss them according to the different characters in the novel.

William Collins:

William Collins, aged twenty-five, is Mr Bennet's clergyman cousin and, as Mr Bennet has no son, heir to his estate. Austen described him as "not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society." Collins boasts of his acquaintance with and advantageous patronage from Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Mr Bennet, Jane, and Elizabeth consider him pompous and lacking in common sense.

            Austen disapproves of Mr. Collins and that is why she attacks and satirizes him. His living with Lady Catherine has caused him to demoralize himself. He thinks and talks highly of people higher than himself, such as, Lady Catherine DeBourgh. An example of this is when they were invited to dine with Lady Catherine DeBourgh and Mr. Collins then tells Elizabeth:

"Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about  your apparel. Lady Catherine is far form requiring that elegance of dress in us which becomes herself and daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest ...she likes to have the distinction of rank preserved"

This shows how high he thinks Lady Catherine is and this sort of shows that he thinks he's sort of better than her by implying that she doesn't have an elegant dress.

Mr. Collins is so thickheaded that he didn't notice Mr. Darcy's contempt towards him. When Mr. Bennet commented on Mr. Collins letter, Mr. Bennet said that Mr. Collins letter contained a "mixture of servility / and self importance". This is why Mr. Collins is also a fop.

Elizabeth finds Mr Collins “a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man”. Her observation is quite correct. Elizabeth¹s rejection of Mr Collin¹s marriage proposal was a revolutionary landmark in the context of the novel. Although rejecting a man who you do not love is a self-evident truth for us in todays society, in 1813, it was a far less obvious matter. Mr Collins was socially desirable, he would provide Elizabeth a home, respectability and long term stability for the Bennet family. However, on a personal level, Elizabeth realizes that Mr Collins would have brought her to insanity and that she could never love such a man.

Another quote from Mr. Collins is:
"The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this."

In this quote, Austen uses satire through Mr. Collins simply by showing how much he is a people pleaser. Austen shows that Mr. Collins would rather deal with death, or would prefer death, than to make a ripple, or to ruffle the feathers of society and propriety in that day and age.

In Chapter 19 Mr Collins proposes to Lizzy. The conversation on her part is dripping with sarcasm.

"The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing that she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him farther, and he continued"

Austen satirizes Mr. Collins because people shouldn't demoralize themselves for the sake of people higher than them on the social ladder of society. People shouldn't think that they are better than most people because thinking that doesn't make you better, it makes you worse. People like this needs to be changed.

Mr. Williams Collins, the silly and conceited baboon who is completely stupify by Lady Catherine in every aspect of his life that he has forgotten his own morals and duty.

Lady Catherine De Bourgh:

She possesses wealth and social standing, is haughty, domineering and condescending. The highest person on the social ladder mentioned in Pride and Prejudice is Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Jane Austen also disapproves of her. Lady Catherine is demanding and thinks that she can order whomever she wants around.

An example of this is when she visits Elizabeth after hearing the rumor that Mr. Darcy was to propose to her. Lady Catherine thinks she and people like her are better than everyone because she says to Elizabeth:

"I know the rumor it must be a scandalous falsehood"

She accuses Elizabeth of trying to get Mr. Darcy from the beginning.

"Your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and all his family"

When Elizabeth replied with a "smart-aleck" comment, Lady Catherine De Bourgh says:

 "Miss Bennet, do you know who I am?"

What she means by this is that Elizabeth shouldn't talk back to her because she is one of the highest people on the social ladder. When Lady Catherine De Bourgh was "interrogating" Elizabeth, she demands Elizabeth to promise no to marry Mr. Darcy if he proposes. Lady Catherine thinks she can order whomever she wants just because she is high and mighty. Ordering servants around is a lot different from ordering other people around because servants work for you and other people don't. These are reasons why she needs to be changed. The main reason of Austen’s disapproval of Lady Catherine is her arrogant nature and that is why Austen satirizes her.

Here is another quote from Lady Catherine character relating satire:

"And that I suppose is one of your sisters."

Austen uses satire in this particular quote by showing that Lady Catherine, who is looked up to as the example for how you should behave, dress, and be associated with, is stiffly and rudely addressing Elizabeth's sister, Kitty, while showing none of the manners that she so strongly preaches about her community.

Lady Catherine comes to speak to Elizebeth Bennet about a supposed engagement to Mr Darcy in Chapter 56. These lines are the strongest example of the satire in Pride and Prejudice:
"If you believed it impossible to be true," said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, "I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?"
"At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted."

"Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family," said Elizabeth coolly, "will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence."

            Pride and Prejudice has satire through out the entire book. The most outrageous characters in the book like Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine De Bourgh are so over inflated with their self pontificating that Elizabeth Bennet only has to observe and smile at the prideful boasting for the others in the room to observe the situation.

Mrs. Bennet:

Mrs Bennet is the wife of her social superior Mr Bennet, and mother of Elizabeth and her sisters. She is frivolous, excitable, and narrow-minded, and is susceptible to attacks of tremors and palpitations. Her public manners and social climbing are embarrassing to Jane and Elizabeth.

Mrs. Bennet with five marriageable daughters has fond hopes of arranging a match between the eligible suitor Charles Bingley and any one of her daughters. And she is such a fool and greedy woman that she sends Jane in a rainy storm to visit Mr. Bingley as in Chapter 7, Elizabeth remarks sarcastically about Jane’s sickness:

“If Jane should die; it would be comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley”

 This shows that Mrs Bannet is such a foolish and greedy woman that for her the first priority is that Jane’s marriage to Mr. Bingley and she even does not care if she lost her daughter in this scenario and the following lines are a proof of her greedy nature and is also a good example of satirizing.

"You had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain and you must stay all  night"

another important line:

                        "As long as she stays there, it is all very well"

This shows that how Mrs. Bennet is trying to tempt Mr. Bingley using Jane’s illness as a weapon and she does not want to miss any chance and she plays the game even on the sake of the life of her daughter.

Austen uses satire against characters with deficient characteristics. One of these characteristics is ignorance. Austen attacks characters, such as, Lady Catherine and Mrs. Bennet, which all have deficient characteristics. The first sentence of this novel, "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife" establishes Austen's reason for satirizing the characters in this novel.

Jane Austen satirizes Mrs. Bennet because she is only looking for a rich fellow for her daughters and she has no concern with the happiness of her daughters and she is just running after the wealth and the high class aristocratic society. She must also have thought about the happiness and feelings of her daughters too but for her the wealth was more important.

Conclusion:

Austen had extremely radical views for her time. She believed that marriage should not occur on the grounds of superficial feelings, pressures to marry, or wealth and social status and for this purpose she satirizes the society of the 18^th century of that time through different characters in her novel. Austen uses satire against characters with deficient characteristics. One of these characteristics is ignorance. Austen attacks characters, such as, Lady Catherine and Mrs. Bennet, which all have deficient characteristics.

impact of allusion in Bacon's essays

What is the impact of using different allusions in Bacon’s essays?

Allusion is a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature. Allusions are often indirect or brief references to well-known characters or events.

Allusions are often used to summarize broad, complex ideas or emotions in one quick, powerful image. For example, The essays of Bacon are full of illustrations, allusions, and quotations, some of these quotations being from Latin sources. These allusions and quotations show Bacon’s love of learning. The essay bear witness to Bacon’s learned mind in the extensive use of quotations and allusions drawn from various sources, classical fables, the Bible, History, the ancient Greek and the Roman writers.  Bacon employs allusions to and quotations in order to explain his point. These allusions are having a great impact to enrich his essays. So, Bacon shows mastery of the principles of prose by using allusions in his essays.  These allusions lend to his ideas greater weight and serve to make his point more strong and vivid.

In the essay, Of Truth, we have allusions to Pilate, Lucian. Lucretius, and Montaigne with quotations from the last two. He also gives us a quotation from the Bible in this essay. These allusions and quotations enrich this essay and make it more interesting. In the allusion to Pilate, the Jews accused Jesus Christ before the Roman Governor of Judea, for perverting the nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king. The charge was false as Jesus said;

“My kingdom is not of this world, to this end was I born and for this cause came I unto the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice”

Pilate did not wait to be told that the truth was what Jesus spoke. Pilate looked upon Christ as a harmless lunatic or enthusiastic, and was anxious to release him, but was forced to sentence him to death by the cries of the infuriated Jewish mob. Actually, by using this allusion Bacon wants to emphasis the reality that certain people do not bother to find the truth and they sometimes hide it even they know and find great pleasure in changing their opinion frequently because they desire unlimited freedom to act and think which would not be possible if they had to believe in fixed principle. Bacon’s utterances through allusions are thoughtful, insightful, lively, witty and meaningful to the core that enrich the essay and cause his essays to be packed with astounding wit.

 In the essay, Of Marriage and Single Life, we have a reference to Ulysses and a quotation from Thales, an ancient Greek philosopher. Bacons elaborates in the essay that loving husband should be serious, conventional and loyal. So, he uses the allusion of Ulysses for the greater impact of this idea and to support his argument. Here, the allusion used by Bacon relates to Penelope, who is the wife of Ulysses, the King of Ithaca and the Greek hero in the Trojan War. She must have grown middle aged by the time Ulysses returned to her after 20 years, at the end of his wanderings and adventures. The allusion here is to the circumstances of Ulysses refusing to marry and live with the goddess Calypso, though she offered to make him immortal like. This allusion more clearly illustrates the topic to the reader that men of a serious bent of mind usually follow conventions and are steady in their love for their wives.

 The essay, Of Friendship, contains a large number of allusions which illustrate Bacon’s argument that even great men, who have strong and firm minds, need friends to whom they can open their hearts. There are a number of allusions to philosophers also in the same essay. In the essay Of Friendship, for example, the argument is set in motion by a quotation by Aristotle. This is followed by Bacon’s own comment upon it, which leads to a further elaboration of the meaning of solitude. Certain allusions are being used in the essay Of Friendship such as reference to Comineus, Pythagoras, Epimenides, Numa, Empedocles and Apollonius. In Of Friendship Bacon uses the allusions related to kings and princesses to give a great impact of the relation of friendship. Great men, kings and dictators formed friendship. Sylla, the dictator of Rome, made Pompey, his friend and placed confidence in him, though later on Pompey turned against him and brought about his fall.

Julius Caesar had Decimus Brutus as his friend though he was deceived by his man and was brought by him to his fall. Augustus, the Roman Emperor, made Agrippa, as his friend, though Agrippa played foul tricks on his friend and deceived him. In spite of these examples of defalcation of friends, it cannot be denied that the love for friendship has been felt by kings and princess, and in the absence of friends life has been intolerable. Bacon wants to give the importance of friendship through the examples from history to produce an immense impact on the readers.

In the Essay, Of Discourse, we have an allusion to Greek mythology, this reference is based on the story of Pheathon, he was the son of a Greek god Apollo, god of sun. Once his son insisted to drive his father’s chariot of sun. Apollo tried to stop his son but the young man insisted and Apollo allowed him to drive and as a result this unserious driver could not control the horses and they moved towards the earth and as sun came near the earth this resulted high temperature because of that many things caught fire so, Apollo pulled the chariot back. When Pheathon was about to ride Apollo gave him a piece of advice in Latin:

“spare boy the whip and tighter hold the reins.”

Bacon used a reference from Greek mythology to give an impact to the reader through the words of Apollo that people who pass sarcastic remarks are like whip, they make the listeners unhappy, aggressive and violent. One should not talk about the things which people do not want to listen.

In the Essay, Of Revenge, Bacon uses the allusions of Cosmus, Prophet Job (Ayub A.S) and Julius Caesar.

Bacon is giving another reference of his contemporary, he says that the Duke says God orders us to forgive our enemies but never orders us to forgive our friends. If your friends hurt you than you should definitely take revenge. Through the given reference Bacon emphasis on the importance of taking revenge.

In the essay, Of Great Place, there are allusions to Tacitus of Galba, Solomon and Vespasian.

In the essay, Of Superstition, there are allusions to:

• Plutarch; the Greek biographer who lived round about 85 A.D.
• Saturn; the other name is Cronos, father of Jupiter. It is said about him that he ate all his children before the birth of Jupiter.
• Augustus Caesar; he according to Bacon, encouraged Atheism.

Conclusion:

 Bacon uses allusions to make them fit the occasion. At times the allusions not only support the argument, but are themselves elucidated by the argument. Bacon thus employs allusions and quotations in order to explain his point. They serve to make an impact more scholarly and enrich it while lending weight to his ideas.

Problems faced in English Pronunciation

Introduction:

Pronunciation can be defined as the way in which a person sounds the words of a language while speaking. The students of spoken English language or any other spoken Language face the problems in the pronunciation of the particular language. As a Pakistani student, I also face some problems in order to pronounce the English words.

The speech of non-native English speakers may exhibit pronunciation characteristics that result from such speakers imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English, either by transferring the phonological rules from their mother tongue into their English speech or through implementing strategies similar to those used in primary language acquisition. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the speaker's first language.

It is very difficult for learners to achieve a pronunciation that sounds like a native speaker's. Discussions of the pronunciation of English as an international language have emphasized the fact that native-like pronunciation is also unnecessary for many learners, and may indeed not be wanted. It has been suggested that intelligibility is a more appropriate objective than conformity to any pre-existing model.

Difficulties in English Pronunciation:

Pronunciation is an aspect of verbal communication which makes it more effective and attractive. Therefore, the significance of pronunciation becomes highly considerable in the process of verbal communication. Speakers of a particular language have a very deep and strong impact of the sounds of the alphabet on their pronunciation.

There are certain sounds which every language possesses. Most of the sounds which a language has seem to be similar, but they are not pronounced in the exact manner. There are certain differences in pronunciation. Therefore, when a person speaks any non-native language, he has to face certain sound difficulties.

For example, the Japanese do not have the sound of ‘r’ in their language. Therefore they have to use an alternative sound available in their language according to their convenience. While pronouncing the sound ‘r’, they pronounce ‘l’ sound. Similarly, the Arabic language does not have ‘p’ sound and they replace it with ‘b’ sound. But there are many other factors present which affect the pronunciation of sounds. A person who is a non-native speaker of any language always faces some problems.

Following are some problems that are faced in pronunciation of English Language:

Recognition of Speech Sounds:

Speech sounds are certain acoustic effects voluntarily produced by the organs of speech and they are a result of definite actions performed by these organs. There is a problem in recognition of speech sounds and we can observe that the same letter has different sounds.

For example the letter “a” in “bath” is not pronounced in the same way of that in “bathe”. The “ou” in “South” is also different from “ou” in “Southern”. Generally verbs and nouns are pronounced differently although they are written the same.

Mother Tongue Interference:

There is a problem that the students mix up the various sounds of English language with the sounds of their mother tongue and there is lack of ability to recognize foreign sounds with ease.

In Pakistan the sounds of English and Urdu are certainly different from each other but the Pakistani students mix them up and try to shape their speech organs according to the sounds of Urdu while pronouncing English sounds. This is due to the influence of the mother tongue of the people of Pakistan.

In Pakistan many languages are spoken as the second or the third languages other than Urdu. For example Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pashto languages are spoken in different parts of the country and there is a problem for them to pronounce the English words. As we can see that the Pakhtoon people have the problem that they pronounce the ‘f’ sound with ‘ph’ as this is due to the mother tongue interference and there is a problem with the flexibility of the organs of speech.

Supra segmental features:

            Suprasegmental features are also referred as Prosodic features or Prosodies. The main suprasegmental features are length, Syllable stress and voice-pitch. It is difficult for a English learner to make the foreign sounds with his own organs of speech and the learner has to learn to put his tongue, lips and other parts of the organs of speech into certain definite positions, or to perform with them certain actions.

            “Articulatory phonetics” helps us to teach the movement of speech organs in production of speech sounds. Speech is produced by lungs, larynx, tongue, lips soft palate, hard plate etc.         

            Daniel Jones defined the articulation of the words as the “gymnastics of the vocal organs”. He states that in order to cope with articulatory problems a learner should study Phonetics Theory and do the necessary exercise based on that theory. Generally the student will be able to pronounce correctly in the matter of length, stress and pitch, if accurate information as to foreign usage in regards to these matters is supplied to him. The main difficulty is to bear those instructions in mind. The teacher is required to be a model of pronunciation and he has to provide ear training exercises to the learner and he must judge the success or the learner’s effort.

             Spoken Languages has a particular rhythm of speech and the learner of the particular language must try to pronounce the words as they are pronounced in the particular language and it is essential for a English learner that he must try to produce those sounds with the correct articulation of the words.

Segmental features:

            The segmental features deal with the vowels and the consonants. Vowels in English are uttered with different positions of lips, tongue and jaws, but in Urdu vowels are realized in the natural position of the oral cavity.

* For example, /b/, /t/, /a/ : are confused and /a:

* Cot /kbt/

* Caught /k כ : t / /Ka: t/

* Cart / ka: t/

 When a “ phoneme is replace with another phoneme” that is called phoneme difficulty and when some “sound of phoneme is confused” that is called “ sound difficulty”.

            For example Pakistan learners pronounce wine as vine and in this way they confuse /w/ with /v/.

In English Vowel intensity (quality) is significant for syllabic prominence in English and in Urdu vowel duration (quantity) is significant for syllabic prominence.

Vowels are open sounds made with the letters a, e, i, o and u. Consonants are hard sounds made with all the other letters. There is a problem in pronouncing group of consonants.

Consider the word "describe". Many students try to speak too quickly and end up missing one or more sounds. They pronounce it as "decribe" or "desribe" or even sometimes as "deribe".

Problem with learning the shapes of the Conventional letters:

There is a problem of memorizing the shapes of the conventional letters and the relations between the conventional orthography and the pronunciation. As, we mix up the symbols and which leads the mispronunciation of words. The alphabet which we use to write English has 26 letters but it has 44 sounds. One must be clear about the shapes and pronunciation of these symbols.

Problem with the pronunciation of “th” sound:

The /th/sound in the word 'this' is a voiced sound. That means that your vocal

chords should vibrate when you say the word. Put the tips of your fingers lightly on your throat and say ‘this’. You should feel a vibration in your throat. The other /th/ sound in the word ‘thanks’ is a voiceless sound. That means that your vocal chords should not vibrate when you say the word. Put the tips of your fingers lightly on your throat and say ‘thanks’. You should not feel a vibration in your throat.

Non-native English speakers usually have problems pronouncing the two English /th/ sounds because these sounds are not found in most other languages. They tend to substitute other sounds for the two /th/ sounds.

English learners often substitute the voiceless /th/ sound with a /t/ or /s/ sound. Students say, "sanks a lot" or “tanks a lot” when they mean to say "thanks a lot". Students also say, "sinking" or “tinking” when they mean to say "thinking".

English learners sometimes substitute the voiceless /th/ sound with a /z/ sound. Many of us pronounce the hard TH like Z and the soft TH like S, which sometimes make language hard to understand. With both Z and S, we use both upper teeth and lower teeth to produce sound. With TH, just use your tongue in place of your lower teeth. You can start by biting your tongue slightly with your upper teeth, then blowing out air as with Z or S. Using the tongue makes the TH sounds quite a bit softer than Z or S.

Connected Speech:

The learners of the English language often have a craze to speak fluently and while attempting fluency in speaking skill, they become unconscious of the rules of connected speech and make mistakes in pronunciation unwittingly. Fluent speech flows with a rhythm and the words bump into each other. To make speech flow smoothly the way we pronounce the end and beginning of some words can change depending on the sounds at the beginning and end of those words.

Transliteration:

            There is a problem of transliteration with the non-native speakers in the pronunciation of English language. For example, Urdu is the mother tongue of the people of Pakistan and they are in habit of using Urdu sounds. This repetition of pronouncing English sounds in Urdu style consolidates the mispronunciation.

Problems with two types of English Pronunciation; American Pronunciation and the British Pronunciation:

There is a problem faced by the learners of English with respect to the American and English Pronunciation as we mix up the pronunciation of theses two. American English is usually defined as the language that is spoken in the United States and British English is the language spoken in England and the British empire along with countries owned by that empire.

 One of the most noticeable differences is in the spelling of some words. Words such as color in American English become a colour in British English. Another example is the American word theater. In British English it becomes theatre. Many times although words are spelled the same in both forms of English, they may have a different pronunciation. The accent is put on a different syllable in the word.

In British English the word "mature" is pronounced as "machure" and in American English it is pronounced as "Matoor". This shows that there is a difference in the pronunciation of the‘t’ sound.

In Britain, the ‘o’ vowel, [ɒ], in words like dog, hod, pot, is pronounced with rounded lips and the tongue back in the mouth. Americans do not have this vowel, instead pronouncing the same words using the ‘ah’ vowel, [ɑ], with the lips unrounded and the tongue back but more relaxed. This is the same vowel in card or bard.

            In Britain, words like what are pronounced using the same vowel [ɒ] as in dog, and so is phonetically spelled wot rather than wat. Perhaps this is why baloney (nonsense) is so spelled in American dictionaries, but primarily as boloney in some British ones.

Lack of Correspondence between Spelling and Pronunciation:

There is lack of correspondence between the spellings and their pronunciation.

For example, "tion" on the end of a word is pronounced "shun", while "sion" can be pronounced "zhun". There are often many ways to pronounce a particular spelling pattern, but it certainly helps to know what the variations are. For example, the pattern "ough" can be pronounced "uff" as in "enough" and "tough", or "or" as in "ought" and "bought" or "oh" as in "although" and "dough".

            There are penalty of words in English Language which have silent letters but these words are unknowingly pronounced which make these words mispronounced.

For example, Knife, Knowledge, Knave, Kneel have ‘K’ silent which should not be pronounced at all.

Multiple sounds of the same letters:

            There are many letter and combinations of letters which produce numerous sounds at different places.

            For example, “ch” produces three sounds as, ‘ch’, ‘k’, ‘sh’. Similarly, ‘c’ produces two sounds as ‘s’ and ‘k’.

Solutions to Surmount the Difficulties of Mispronunciation:

·                    It is important to listen to how Native speakers pronounce various words and phrases and and try to pronounce these words as they do.

·                    Pronunciation can be improved by consulting the entymolgy or the origin of the words in the modern dictionaries.

·                    Learn the Phonetics alphabets in order to pronounce the symbols exactly

·                    Every English word has its own stress, or intonation. For example, the word "believe" has two syllables (be and lieve), but only the second syllable is stressed. We say be'lieve and not 'be lieve. So, the stress must not be wrong.

·                    If you speak too fast, the danger is that you could skip over some words, fail to pronounce them completely, or mix them up. If you speak too slowly, you might end up sounding unnatural. But it's better to speak slowly and clearly than too quickly.

·                    One must learn to recognize the spelling patterns. For example, the pattern "ough" can be pronounced "uff" as in "enough" and "tough", or "or" as in "ought" and "bought" or "oh" as in "although" and "dough".

·                    A wide range of CDs and DVDs exist to provide native speech modeling of different speaking, pronunciation, national and regional English accents. It is good for a learner to listen to such conversations in order to improve English pronunciation.

·                    One must seek to good teachers and guides that can help them to learn phonetics symbols with proper sound practice and recognition.

·                    One must have the possession of a good ear because if a person has a good ear then he will be able to pronounce the foreign words correctly.

·                    One must have a good memory in order to remember the acoustic qualities of the foreign sounds.

Conclusion:

          There are a number of problems in English Pronunciation for the non-native speaker of the English language. It is necessary for an English learner to pronounce the words exactly as they are pronounced by a native speaker. Hence, it is important for a non- native English speaker or English learner that he must resolve the problems of miscommunication. However it is found and experienced that in spite of strenuous efforts to attain perfectness in English Pronunciation for a Non-native speaker it is impossible to speak exactly like the Native English speaker.