1st ICELL

1st ICELL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Proceedings Book
20-21 November
Tirana, Albania
1st ICELL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Proceedings Book
Editors:
PhD. Mahmut Terci, PhD. Ilda Poshi
Publication Languages:
English, Albanian
Edition: First Edition
Number of Pages: 305
Copyright:
Shkolla e Lart Hna e Plot (Bedr), 2016
ISBN: 978-9928-4345-0-0
Publisher: Shkolla e Lart Hna e Plot (Bedr),
Publication Date: March, 2016

Printed in: Tirana
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

Conferences of Language and Literature are apparently becoming a trend in the academic
world bemused with various ways of understanding language, literature and culture. In addition
to their interrelations and interdependence, the new ideas and approaches emerging from
various disciplines like literary theory, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, education,
pragmatics and discourse analysis alongside technological revolution and socio-cultural
transformations, have a bearing on our study of language and literature. The conference aims at
exploring this dynamics with a focus on the complementary nature of English language,
literature and culture and their centrality in human life.
ICELL - The International Conference on English Language and Literature is an
Interdisciplinary Conference organized by Beder University, which aims to bring together
scholars, researchers and graduate students to exchange and share their experiences and
research work and discuss the practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted in
this field. English is compulsory paper and abstract language.
The main goal of the ICELL, both virtual and on site, is to provide an opportunity for
MA and PhD students, academics, professional researchers and intellectuals to come together
and exchange ideas and experiences as well as to provide a meeting platform for interacting
with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines. The International Conference
in English Language and Literature invites proposals for papers on English language and
literature or with concentration on other languages and literatures compared to English.
In its first edition, ICELL hosted 40 professionals from the USA, Germany, Romania,
Turkey, India, Iran, Nigeria, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Egypt, and, of
course, Albania, sealing this way its very international character.
All submitted conference papers will be blind peer reviewed by three competent
reviewers. The post conference proceedings will be abstracted and indexed in BJES, and
consequently submitted to be indexed in Copernicus and DOAJ. The conference certificate of
presentation will be distributed to the conference participants at the conference registration
desk, whereas the proceedings book and journal via e-mail.
PhD. Mahmut TERCI

International Conference on English Language and Literature
Conference Chairman
Hna e Plot Bedr University. | Proceedings Book
ii
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Prof. Dr. Ferdinand GJANA (Honorary Chairperson)
Hna e Plot " Bedr " University - Rector
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Ahmet ECIRLI
Hna e Plot "Bedr" University - Faculty of Philology and Education - Dean
PhD. Mahmut TERCI (Conference Chairman)
Hna e Plot " Bedr " University - Department of English Language and Literature Head
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Elida TABAKU (Advisor)
University of Tirana - Department of English Language and Literature Head
Dr. Ilda POSHI (Public Relations and Correspondence Coordinator)
Hna e Plot " Bedr " University,
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Tidita ABDURRAHMANI (Program Sessions Coordinator)
PhD. Isa ERBA (International Relations)
PhD Cand. Arti OMERI (Conference Information Chair)
PhD Cand. Morena CITOZI (Conference Information Chair)
PhD Cand. Mehmet ASLAN (Social Event Coordinator)
MSc. Paola MEKOLLI (Conference Secretariat)
iii
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Prof. Dr. Ferdinand GJANA
Hna e Plot "Bedr" University, Albania
Prof. Dr. Ayhan TEKINE
Hna e Plot "Bedr" University, Faculty of Humanities, Albania
Prof. Dr. Emilian DOBRESCU
Romanian Academy, Romania
Prof. Dr. Adina CIUGUREANU
Ovidius University, Romania
PD. Dr. Mirriam WALLRAVEN
University of Tbingen, Germany
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Mithat MEMA
"Aleksandr Moisiu" University, Durrs, Albania
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Elida TABAKU
University of Tirana, Albania
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Ahmet ECIRLI
Hna e Plot "Bedr" University, Faculty of Philology and Education, Albania
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Tidita ABDURRAHMANI
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Kseanela SOTIROFSKI
"Aleksandr Moisiu", Faculty of Education, Durrs, Albania
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Rregina GOKAJ
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Laureta VALVA
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Leonard DANGLLI
PhD. Mahmut TERCI
PhD. Lokman COSKUN
PhD. Ilda POSHI
Dr. Elvana SHTEPANI
iv
CONTENTS
ABOUT CONFERENCE ...................................................................................................................................... iii
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ................................................................................................................................ iv
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE ................................................................................................................................. v
CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................................................... vi
WE ARE MAKING ONE STORY, YES? THE POETICS OF INTERCONNECTION IN POSTMODERN
LITERATURE IN A GLOBAL AGE ................................................................................................................... 7
PD Dr. Miriam WALLRAVEN ....................................................................................................................7
ELEGIES FOR THE MODERN: JOHN BERRYMANS DREAM SONGS .................................................... 18
Prof. Stephen TAPSCOTT ........................................................................................................................ 18
AFRICANIZING GREEK MYTHOLOGY: FEMI OSOFISANS RETELLING OF EURIPIDESTHE TROJAN
WOMEN ............................................................................................................................................................... 28
PhD. Ingy ABOELAZM ............................................................................................................................. 28
A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF TANDY BY SHERWOOD ANDERSON ................................................ 46
PhD. Hasmukhlal Bhailalbhai PATEL, Tanja GRBESIC ..................................................................... 46
THE GENTLEMAN OF BIRTH: OLIVER TWIST ............................................................................................ 61
PhD. Mahmut TERCI ................................................................................................................................ 61
MAGICAL REALISM AND INTERTEXTUALITY IN SELECTED 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN ETHNIC
NOVELS .............................................................................................................................................................. 78
Prof.Assoc.Dr. Tidita ABDURRAHMANI................................................................................................ 78
TRANSLATING LITERARINESS: ALLEN GINSBERGS HOWL vs UK ZENEL BUPAPAJS KUJ
.. 92
PhD. Ilda POSHI, PhD. Ilirjana KACELI .............................................................................................. 92
HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN SHAKESPEAREAN HISTORY PLAYS ...... 103
PhD. Turan zgr GNGR.................................................................................................................. 103
IDEOLOGICAL MEANINGS OF LANGUAGE ............................................................................. ............... 111
PhD Mehdi GALIRE ............................................................................................................................. 111
LITERATURE (LITERARY MATERIALS) ENRICHES LANGUAGE LEARNING SKILLS .................... 119
PhD. Cand. Mustafa ERDEM .................................................................................................................. 119
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, AND TRUST AS A KEY COMPONENT OF CULTURE IN
ORGANIZATIONS AND AT SCHOOLS A REVIEW PAPER .................................................................... 126
M.A Ibrahim Can KORKUT ................................................................................................................. 126
THE RECIPROCAL EFFECTS OF BOTH RESPONSIBILITY AND MOTIVATION IN FOREIGN
LANGUAGE LEARNING PROCESS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY ............................................................. 135
PhD. Lokman COKUN .......................................................................................................................... 135
LADY MARY WROTHS PAMPHILIA TO AMPHILANTHUS: A FEMALE VOICE IN THE MALE
TRADITION ...................................................................................................................................................... 143
PhD. Cand. Merve AYDODU .............................................................................................................. 143
COMPOUND NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND ALBANIAN ............................................................................... 150
PhD. Esmeralda SHERKO, PhD. Lediana BESHAJ ............................................................................ 150
THE IMPACT OF A CITY UPON A HILL ON SHAPING AMERICAN CULTURE AND VALUES...... 156
PhD. Isa ERBA, Sidorela ZHGUNI ...................................................................................................... 156
THE CONTROVERSIAL IDEAS OF EDNA PONTELLIER IN KATE CHOPINS THE AWAKENING..... 164
PhD. Ilda POSHI , Megi KELMENTI .................................................................................................... 164
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THEMES AND MOTIFS IN JANE EYRE CHARACTERIZING VICTORIAN

ENGLAND AS A FEMINIST LITERARY WORK ......................................................................................... 175
PhD. Lediana BESHAJ, Irena SEDJA.................................................................................................... 175
A TRANSLATION ANALYSIS OF ANALOGY FROM ALBANIAN INTO ENGLISH IN THE NOVEL
THE PALACE OF DREAMS BY ISMAIL KADARE ................................................................................... 181
PhD. Cand. Morena BRAAJ (CITOZI) .............................................................................................. 181
THE NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE INFLUENCES OF INDONESIAN LANGUAGE IN THE PROCESS OF
LEARNING ENGLISH .................................................................................................................................... 189
PhD. Mahmut TERCI, Yaumil Fitria RAMADAN ............................................................................... 189
EXISTENCE OR NON-EXISTENCE OF A THERAPIST IN GROUP COUNSELING AND STAGES OF
THE GROUP DEVELOPMENT WITH VARIANT CHARACTERISTICS OCCURRING THROUGHOUT
THE BREAKFAST CLUB .............................................................................................................................. 201
PhD. Cand. Mehmet ASLAN ................................................................................................................... 201
TEACHERS ATTITUDES TOWARD EFL IN GUJARAT, INDIA ............................................................... 207
PhD. Hasmukhlal Bhailalbhai PATEL, Tanja GRBESIC.................................................................... 207
GEOGRAPHY IN TRANSLATIONS; A FOUCAULDIAN READING ........................................................... 233
M.A Mohammad Bagher SHABANPOUR ............................................................................................ 233
REALITY VERSUS FICTION: THE TRUTH BEHIND A UTOPIAN/DYSTOPIAN NOVEL .................... 244
PhD. Marsela TURKU ............................................................................................................................. 244
HONOUR IN THE 16TH CENTURY DRAMA AS A KEY MOTIF IN SHAKESPEARE PLAYS................. 252
PhD. Ilda POSHI, MSc Ardita HASMADHI.......................................................................................... 252
HOW DO WE PUT SHORT STORIES MODELS INTO PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE (LITERATURE
HERMENEUTICS )............................................................................................................................................ 263
MSc.Vahidije KADIU, Prof.Asoc.Dr. Tomi TRESKA .......................................................................... 263
THE APPLICATION OF BILINGUAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION STRATEGIES IN ALBANIA (Two
case studies) ....................................................................................................................................................... 268
PhD. Lediana BESHAJ, Suzana LEKAJ ............................................................................................... 268
COMPLEXITIES OF BLACK FEMME IDENTITY, ARTICULATED AND DELINEATED IN "SULA"
ALLURES ALBANIAN READERS .................................................................................................... 276
PhD. Lediana BESHAJ, Msc. Albana VOLUMI.................................................................................... 276
ELEMENTS OF CREATION, AND THE EMPEDOCLEAN VIEWPOINT IN WASTE LAND OF T. S.
ELIOT................................................................................................................................................................. 283
PhD. Brikena SMAJLI.............................................................................................................................. 283
THE EFFECT OF CULTURE SPOT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING............................................. 284
Prof.Assoc.Dr. Rregjina GOKAJ, MA. Anisa KASTRATI................................................................... 284
GAINS OF SYMBOLIC MYTHOLOGY ON THE POEM DESERT LAND OF T.S. ELIOT.................... 285
PhD. Jolanda LILA.................................................................................................................................... 285
PSYCHOANALYTICAL CRITICISM AS A METHOD IN LITERATURE INTERPRETATION............. 286
MSc Sonila TATILI, Prof.Assoc.Dr. Tomi TRESKA............................................................................. 286
IMPLEMENTATION OF E-HEALTH IN COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE EU AS A METHOD TO REDUCE
COSTS AND INCREASE EFFICIENCY AT THE EUROPEAN LEVEL....................................................... 288
MSc. Fjona CUKANI, MSc. Laert MEZANI, MSc. Anila CUKANI ................................................... 288
EUROPE BETWEEN COMMON AND CIVIL LAW THE NEW CHALLENGES OF EUROPEAN COEVAL
LEGISLATION.................................................................................................................................................. 294
PhD. Irvin FANIKO, PhD. Cand. Arti OMERI...................................................................................... 294
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE IN ALBANIAN SOCIETY OVER THE YEARS........................................... 298
PhD. Valbona MUA, MSc Margarita MUA (LAKA).................................................................... 298
vi
PD Dr. Miriam WALLRAVEN

Eberhard Karls University
Tbingen, Germany
WE ARE MAKING ONE STORY, YES?

THE POETICS OF INTERCONNECTION IN POSTMODERN
LITERATURE IN AGLOBAL AGE
Abstract
During the last decades, theories of interconnection and linking have been in the centre of
many academic discourses: what goes back to the ancient hermetic worldview that regards
everything as connected has been taken up in studies on our globalised world, for example as
relationality in the form of cosmodernism. Thus, society has been regarded as linked in areas as
different as social networks or globalised markets. In this paper, it is shown how such
interconnections are created by storytelling. For this purpose, three metafictional novels with a
multiplot structure are analysed. In Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Everything is Illuminated
(2002), storytelling helps two very different characters to search for their identity and a
traumatic family past influenced by the Holocaust. In the novel, three textual levels and several
narrators make it visible that the search for identity and the past is only possible by interlinked
stories and a process of co-authorship. The intricate structure of Catherynne M. Valente's
fantastic novel Palimpsest (2009) thematises the connection between human beings and their
stories which even spans different worlds. Metafictional structures especially the structure of
the palimpsest illustrate how the whole world consists of stories written on other stories.
David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas (2004) consists of six narratives set in different times and
places which are connected by symbols, intertextual links, or intermedial adaptations. Hence,
in the novel it is shown that despite wars, violence, and the struggle for power throughout
history, human beings are connected across time and space by their stories. By analysing
these literary devices, a postmodern poetics of interconnection becomes visible that shows how
human history is created by transglobal storytelling.
Keywords: literature in a global age, cosmopolitanism, interconnection, postmodernism,

metafiction
1. "Everything is linked to everything else": Theories of connection and linking for the
global age
Our world seems more than ever to be in a state of war, and division and separation become
visible in xenophobia, racism, religiously motivated attacks, and civil wars. At the same time,
however, theories of interconnection and linking have been in the centre of many different
academic discourses in the last years. How do they visualise and discuss interconnection? And
why does literature play the central role for highlighting and creating interconnection? In the
following, it will be shown that interconnections in a global age are created by storytelling, as
many postmodern novels illustrate. For this purpose, three metafictional novels with a
multiplot structure are analysed Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated (2002),
Catherynne M. Valente's fantastic novel Palimpsest (2009), and Cloud Atlas (2004) by David
Mitchell where apparently disparate stories are linked by various literary devices that
together create a poetics of interconnection. 1
The concept of universal interconnection discussed in many academic fields goes back
to the ancient hermetic worldview that regards everything as connected in a web of
correspondences. In Access to Western Esotericism, Faivre states that "Symbolic and real
correspondences [...] are said to exist among all parts of the universe, both seen and unseen.
('As above, so below.') We find again here the ancient idea of microcosm and macrocosm or, if
preferred, the principle of universal interdependence" (1994, p. 10). Far from being antiquated,
this world picture has undergone periodical resurgences, for example in postmodernism where
this concept "has recently been contributing to the development of a postmodern worldview of
environmental and psychic relatedness, a re-enchanted cosmology of meaningful
correspondences that would offer itself as a response to what is sometimes called the crisis of
modernity" (Ivakhiv 1996, p. 237). This belief in "relatedness" and "a re-enchanted
cosmology" is likewise crucial for many approaches to ecology. Spretnak, among others,
shows that "Ecological postmodernism recognizes not only that all human beings are
structurally related through our cosmological lineage, but also that all beings are internally
constituted by relations with others, even at the molecular level" (1991, p. 20). The
mechanisms creating such a cosmic connectedness will be analysed in the three postmodern
novels.
During the last decades, it has become clear that we live in a "network society" and a
"Weblike universe" (Barabasi 2002, p. 5) which is structured by connections in areas as
different as social networks or globalised markets. Thus, as Barabasi states, "We have come to
see that we live in a small world, where everything is linked to everything else." (2002, p. 7). 2
These theories concerned with connection are in fact connected to and make use of the
umbrella term globalisation which is notoriously hard to define: While the dangers of
globalisation are widely discussed 3, the concept of cosmopolitanism has been regarded as a
reaction, a resistance strategy, or even a solution to the unequal power relations of
globalisation. In this context, Moraru states that "the cosmoderns read the world in terms of
self-other interconnectedness" (2011, p. 6). 4 Thus, on the one hand, we are confronted with the
1
Whereas in theoretical approaches to phenomena of linking, the terms of connection and interconnection are
often used interchangeably, the term connection mainly refers to the linkage between two elements
while interconnection refers to connections among multiple nodes and can assume a more global meaning.
2
See Easley and Kleinberg 2010 who approach such links by focusing on graph theory, game theory and strategic
market interactions in networks as well as on the structures of information networks.
3
These debates are summarised and commented on for example by Schoene 2010, 1-34.
4
See D'haen 2013 for an utilisation of Moraru's cosmodernism for an analysis of the novels Omega Minor and
Cloud Atlas.
"leveling thrust of globalization" which often triggers the "resurgence of violent factionalisms,
'clashist' views, and crude antinomies such as we/they, the West/the rest, or 'McWorld'/'Jihad'"
(Moraru 2011, p. 4). On the other hand, we encounter cosmodernism which emphasises our
common humanity, a concept which presents a countermodel to egotism, the fear of the
"other", and the foregrounding of difference.
2. Creating stories creating interconnections: Postmodern literature
Each culture can be regarded as "a complex social network" (Barabasi 2011, p. 7), but how are
those interconnections and links created? By foregrounding storytelling itself, postmodern
fiction furnishes an effective vehicle for exploring the mechanisms of interconnection in a
global age. For this purpose, three novels are analysed in which the often intricate multiplot
structure as well as various techniques of metafiction mirror postmodernist doubts about truth
and metaphysical security. In this way, storytelling time and again thematises its own
mechanism; therefore, metafiction has been variously described as fiction with selfconsciousness, self-knowledge, or self-awareness. 5 In this paper, a poetics of interconnection is
traced which is based on various metafictional techniques of storytelling.
2.1 Everything is Illuminated
In Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Everything is Illuminated (2002), storytelling is the vehicle for
different characters to search for their identity and a traumatic family past affected by the
Holocaust. In a typically postmodern metafictional manner, the author of the novel writes
himself as a character into the story, a young American Jew journeying to the Ukraine to
search for a women called Augustine who had saved his grandfather's life during the Nazi
liquidation of Trachimbrod, his family shtetl. He only has an old photograph showing
Augustine and his grandfather and has contacted the Ukrainian Alex Perchov who becomes
Jonathan's translator, although his English skills are very limited so that he has to invent new
words and phrases. Alex' grandfather drives the car.
During the journey, the three characters meet a woman who is the last survivor of the
lost shtetl. She keeps the memories in labelled boxes in her house one of the scenes that
illustrates Foer's use of magical realist writing techniques especially in order to represent
traumatic experiences. When the characters meet her, the story turns out not only to be relevant
for Jonathan but also for Alex because his grandfather Eli played a major role in this story:
When the Nazis came to Trachimbrod, they forced all inhabitants under pain of death to reveal
the Jews in the town. In this situation, his grandfather revealed his best friend Herschel who
was then immediately shot by the Nazis. By being confronted with the last survivor of
Trachimbrod, the grandfather also recovers his memories and has to face the trauma he had
never talked about.
The journey for recovering the past becomes the focal point for the multiplot structure
of the novel which is at the same time full of metafictional reflections 6 on how to narrate the
past and how to connect the stories. First, there is the account of Jonathan's journey to search
for Augustine, the woman in the photo, and thus for his family history. This story is written
down by Alex and is send to Jonathan who corrects it. Second, Alex' letters form one strand of
the plot; in those, he reflects on the writing process of the journey story and he comments on
the third layer, the story of Jonathan's ancestors written by Jonathan himself. In fact, like the
5
Compare Stonehill 1988 and Currie 1995.

For historiographic metafiction see Hutcheon 1995. She utilises Hayden White's theories as point of departure on
her reflections on the connection between history and fiction. Also compare Wallraven 2014.
other plot strands, the letters are connected with the two other narratives: They are answers to
Jonathan's letters to Alex (which are not presented in the novel) and they contain comments on
Jonathan's text.
Thus, every text is dialogical and only comes into existence in the process of textual
exchange, of reading, commenting, and rewriting. Metafictional devices such as the repetition
of "We are writing... We are writing... We are writing..." (Foer 2002, pp. 212-213) repeated for
one and a half pages in the novel effectively question and problematise storytelling as such:
How can experiences be written down? How are truth and storytelling connected, and how
much liberty to modify the story does a narrator have? Telling a story opens up various degrees
of truthfulness, which makes the storytelling process one of continual negotiation between
truth and fiction: "We are being very nomadic with the truth, yes? The both of us? Do you
think that this is acceptable when we are writing about things that occurred?" (Foer 2002, p.
179). Such metafictional reflections constitute a central device for a postmodern poetics of
interconnection because they underscore the fact that the stories are not separate but instead
connected by a process of co-authorship.
By reading, exchanging, commenting on, influencing, and "correcting" each other's
stories, the seemingly separate quests for identity become connected. Writing a story together
although in markedly different voices and styles leads to the revelation, in fact the
"illumination" of the novel's title, that the past and present stories are really connected. This
process of co-authorship, of connected storytelling, is shown in many instances in the text. For
example, Alex writes: "I undertaked to input the things you counseled me to, and I fatigued the
thesaurus you presented me, as you counseled me to, when my words appeared too petite, or
not befitting. If you are not happy with what I have performed, I command you to return it
back to me" (Foer 2002, p. 23). By thus influencing each other and their respective stories, they
become friends and connected in a closer way than any of them had thought possible. At times,
the traumatic story that connects both of them becomes so painful that it is only possible to tell
the story together: "Here it is almost too forbidding to continue. I have written to this point
many times, and corrected the parts you would have me correct, and made more funnies, and
more inventions, and written as if I were you writing this, but every time I try to persevere, my
hand shakes so that I can no longer hold my pen. Do it for me. Please. It is now yours." (Foer
2002, p. 226).
This discovery of a connected past that has to be told by both of them together leads to
a connected present, and the ensuing co-authorship not only connects stories in a temporal
respect but also on a spatial level. This form of connected storytelling thus creates a transglobal
connection: The search for a place the shtetl Trachimbrod turns out to be a connected
search for the past that brings together different generations, perpetrators and victims as well as
different nations. Past and present, it turns out, are connected by this act of storytelling:
"Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was" (Foer 2002, p. 145).
Remembering is thus a connected effort, too: "With our writing, we are reminding each other
of things. We are making one story, yes?" (p. 144). Confronting the trauma of the Holocaust is
only possible together and collectively, because the different stories created in Everything is
Illuminated indeed make one story.
The connection that is build up throughout the journey and the search for the past
initiated by Jonathan also highlights the connection between the three men. As their past is
connected, and their identities which they had perceived as very different in the beginning
merge. Alex writes to Jonathan: "Let us not praise or reproach. Let us not judge at all. We are
outside of that already. We are talking now, Jonathan, together, and not apart. We are with
Hna e Plot Bedr University. | Proceedings Book 10
each other, working on the same story, and I am certain that you can also feel it. Do you know
that I am the Gypsy girl and you are Safran, and that I am Kolker and you are Brod, and that I
am your grandmother and you are Grandfather, and that I am Alex and you are you, and that I
am you and you are me?" (Foer 2002, p. 214). In the end, all characters realise that there is no
separation between victims and perpetrators, between past and present when each character
sees that "I am you and you are me." In the novel, the different textual levels and narrators
who reflect on the processes of storytelling and fiction-making make it visible that the search
for identity and the past is only possible by interconnected stories.
2.2 Palimpsest
Catherynne M. Valente's fantastic novel Palimpsest (2009) thematises the connection between
human beings and their stories which spans different worlds and thus develops a global
dimension. The novel focuses on two women and two men who discover a portal to the
fantastic world of Palimpsest. It follows those characters who travel to and explore this
mysterious world: Oleg, a New York City locksmith, the beekeeper November who lives in
California, Ludovico, an Italian binder of rare books, and a young Japanese woman named Sei.
Every character has lost someone or something important a wife, lover, sister, or their
direction in life and is only left with a story of the past. Each of the characters is portrayed as
living a solitary and isolated life and longing for fulfilment, and each of them spends a night
with a stranger who has a tattooed map of a section of the city of Palimpsest somewhere on
their bodies. When they enter into a sexual connection with the stranger, they travel to
Palimpsest where they find a world full of meaning. By sexual connection they travel to the
area carried on the skin of their sexual partner. When they awake again in the real world, they
too are marked with a map of a different part of Palimpsest which other characters are eager to
explore.
In the novel, various symbols are connected to each other: The tattooed mark, the
map, writing, and the body become inextricably linked. From the beginning, the tattoos are like
maps and create an access to the other world of Palimpsest: "November stroked the inside of
Xiaohui's thigh gently, a mark there, terribly stark, like a tattoo: a spidery network of blueblack lines, intersecting each other, intersecting her pores, turning at sharp angles, rounding out
into clear and unbroken skin [...] 'It looks like a streetmap'" (Valente 2009, p. 19). This map is
created and expanded by a connection that is made physical and thus it becomes clear that this
fantastic world is only created and written by interpersonal connections. Sexual connection and
travelling to a foreign country are thus explicitly linked: "To touch a person... to sleep with a
person... is to become a pioneer," she whispered then, "a frontiersman at the edge of their
private world, the strange, incomprehensible world of their interior, filled with customs you
could never imitate, a language which sounds like your own but is really totally foreign,
knowable only to them. I have been so many times to countries like that" (Valente 2009, p. 267).
Crossing the borders to a country such as Palimpsest is only possible by crossing the
borders of the individual body, an act which creates a web of interconnections between people.
Yumiko tells her lover Sei about the map-tattoo: "It's ... like a ticket. And once you've bought
the ticket, and been to the circus, ridden the little red train, then you can sort of see other
people who've done it, too. They... walk a certain way. Smell a certain way. Their whole body
becomes like an accent. And you always recognize your own accent. I recognized you"
(Valente 2009, p. 43). Each character with access to Palimpsest walks "a certain way" and
smells "a certain way." The tattooed map thus connects them, while their "own accent"
remains. In this way, individuality and interconnection exist together. The mentioning of an
"accent" also brings in the level of language; it hints at the personal stories that constitute the
map. Hence, the map is only expanded when there is contact with a new character: "'Why did
you bring me here?' [...] 'It's where I've got, Oleg. Only place I could take you. That's how it
works. You sort of... lease your skin to this place. This is the part you saw on my chest, so this
is where we end up'" (Valente 2009, p. 70). In this way, Palimpsest turns out to be a world
made from different layers of stories.
Metafictional reflections and structures in the novel especially the structure of the
palimpsest illustrate how life and indeed the whole world consist of stories written on other
stories. In this sense, a palimpsest is a parchment which has been written upon twice or even
more times, while each time the original writing has been erased in order to make place for
another layer of writing. Since the writing has often been erased imperfectly, the traces of the
underlying story are still present: "The palimpsest is an involuted phenomenon where
otherwise unrelated texts are involved and entangled, intricately interwoven, interrupting and
inhabiting each other" (Dillon 2005, 245). In Palimpsest, "otherwise unrelated" characters are
suddenly brought in relation to each other because their stories become "entangled" and
"intricately interwoven." In the novel, the interconnection of various stories in the past and the
present are reflected on as palimpsestuous layers: "Do you know what a palimpsest is, Ululiro?
It's vellum, parchment that has been written upon and then scraped clean, so that someone else
can write on it. Can't you hear us? The sound of us scraping?" (Valente 2009, p. 311). In this
view, a palimpsest consists of stories of the past and the present and can also be written on
again in the future. This temporal aspect will also be prominent in Cloud Atlas.
Access to Palimpsest does not only require bodily sexual contact with a stranger but in
order to enter the world, four characters are connected to each other and from this point
onwards their stories and emotions remain inextricably interconnected. The frog-woman
Orlande welcomes the travellers to Palimpsest: "Thus it is that four strangers sit in the red
chairs, strip off their socks, plunge their feet into the ink-baths, and hold hands under an
amphibian stare. This is the first act of anyone entering Palimpsest: Orlande will take your
coats, sit you down, and make you family. She will fold you four together like Quartos. [...]
Wherever you go in Palimpsest, you are bound to these strangers who happened onto Orlande's
salon just when you did, and you will go nowhere, eat no capon or dormouse, drink no
oversweet port that they do not also taste, and they will visit no whore that you do not also feel
beneath you, and until that ink washes from your feet [...] you cannot breathe but that they
breathe also" (Valente 2009, p. 5). In this passage, two symbols link writing with creating a
world and with interconnection: When the characters have to place their feet in an ink-bath,
they quite literally become the creators of new maps and new stories. Second, the name
"Quarto" for the four people who become interconnected when entering the world refers to the
book format. In this way, people become books: they are written und folded. Apart from that,
they remain connected in both worlds, since "What happens here happens there" (Valente
2009, p. 199). Thus, they feel everything one of them experiences, which illustrate their bodily
and emotional connection by the maps and the stories.
Finally, in order to be able to stay permanently in Palimpsest, the four people have to
find each other in the real world. Only when the interconnected people are linked in the real
world, can the worlds be connected and the bridge be crossed. Ironically, in the "real" world,
they cannot even talk to each other since they all speak different languages. What seems to
separate them, however, is no issue in Palimpsest where they all speak the same language. It
appears to be the special characteristic of the world of Palimpsest that human connections are
made visible and palpable.
Essentially, Palimpsest is a world made up from stories that can only be created by
interconnection to others, hence the travellers turn out to be co-dependent if they want to enter
and even stay permanently in Palimpsest. On a more general level, the novel hints at the fact
that worldmaking is a communal event dependent on interconnecting stories. The whole world
only exists in connection to others and new stories only come into existence in connection to
previous stories, as the concept of the palimpsest suggest. The world of Palimpsest turns out to
be a network based on a community which is created by all the individuals together who meet,
connect, travel. It signifies the all-encompassing interconnection created by stories and bodily
contact of seemingly isolated individuals.
2.3
Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas (2004) consists of six nested narratives 7 set in different
time periods and characterised by various generic features (such as traveller's diary, crime
novel, dystopia) while being interlinked by intertextual references and symbols. 8 Each of these
six tales is read, seen, or heard by the main character in the next. The first five stories are each
interrupted at a pivotal moment. After the sixth story, which is told as a whole, the other stories
are closed in reverse chronological order.
The first story and outer layer is "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", a diary written
in the middle of the nineteenth century by a Californian notary on his way home from the
Chatham Islands. Before he is almost poisoned by a "doctor" who is after his money, he is
saved by an escaped slave. Ewing's diary plays a role in the second story, the "Letters from
Zedelghem", which is set in Belgium in the 1930s where Robert Frobisher offers himself as a
muse to the famous composer Vyvyan Ayrs. During this time, he writes letters home to his
lover Rufus Sixsmith in London and finds "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing." The third
section of Cloud Atlas is the detective story entitled "Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery"
set in California in 1975. The reader meets the now much older Rufus Sixsmith, a retired
atomic engineer with a company whose dangerous plans are investigated by the young
journalist Luisa Rey. Luisa meets Sixsmith and is given secret material about the criminal
schemes of the company and also comes into the possession of Frobisher's letters to Sixsmith
which connect these stories. The fourth part in the novel is constituted by the comic story "The
Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish" set in Great Britain in the present day. Cavendish is a
65-year-old vanity press publisher and has to escape from his gangster clients. Cavendish's
brother, fed up with Timothy's endless pleas for financial support, tricks him and books him
into a nursing home from which Timothy cannot escape. There, he reads the manuscript of
"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery." The fifth text, "An Orison of Sonmi-451," is set in
the future in the dystopian state Nea So Copros (Korea). The story consists of an interview
with Sonmi-451 who is a genetically engineered clone ("a fabricant") designed as a worker in a
fast-food restaurant. In this totalitarian society, fabricants are created as slaves who are
exploited by the "purebloods." Sonmi's story is connected to "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy
Cavendish" which has been made into a film which Sonmi watches. "Sloosha's Crossin' an'
Ev'rythin' After" occupies the central position in the novel. In it, the protagonist Zachry lives in
a post-apocalyptic society in the future on Hawaii. The people he belongs to are peaceful
farmers without any technological equipment, and they are often raided by another tribe. The
connection to the previous story is central for the lives of the people, because they worship
7
This structure has been analysed as "Chinese Box", or "Russian Doll"; compare O'Donnell 2015, 74 and Schoene
2010, 113.
8
O'Donnell justly states that the stories in Cloud Atlas are "all intertextual in a triple sense: they bear multiple
references to previous literary texts, to Mitchell's other novels, and to each other" (2015, 71).
Sonmi as a Goddess. The island is regularly visited and studied by a technologically

sophisticated people known as the Prescients. When Zachry becomes suspicious of one of the
visiting women and he sneaks into her room, he finds an "orison," an egg-shaped device for
recording and videoconferencing. In the orison, Zachry sees Sonmi's interview.
All these texts are linked, since characters in other places and different times read or
watch the previous stories. Robert Frobisher, for example, finds a part of Ewing's journal: "I
came across a curious dismembered volume, and I want you to track down a complete copy for
me. It begins in the 99th page, its covers are gone, its binding unstitched. [...] To my great
annoyance, the pages cease, mid-sentence, some forty pages later, where the binding is worn
through" (Mitchell 2004, p. 64). For the whole novel, this image of the story that survives even
if it is incomplete, "dismembered", and "unstitched" is crucial because it turns out that all
stories are interconnected. Frobisher is desperately searching for the missing parts of Ewing's
story. Although he is not consciously aware of it, other people's stories take on a great
significance due to the connection between them. Sonmi, for example, watches the first part of
the film "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish" (p. 243), whereas Ayrs dreams of the
future and of Sonmi's world: "'I dreamt of a ... nightmarish caf, brilliantly lit, but
underground, with no way out. I'd been dead a long, long, time. The waitresses had all the
same face" (Mitchell 2004, p. 80). These unexplainable connections already have a temporal
aspect ("I'd been dead a long, long, time") but are not conscious but intuitive brought about by
dreams and strange feelings. In the central story, Zachry finds Meronym's "orison" in which he
watches Sonmi. Although he does not understand her, he feels strongly drawn towards her:
"But I cudn't forget that ghost-girl neither, nay, she haunted my dreams wakin' and sleepin'"
(Mitchell 2004, p. 278). The name "ghost-girl" draws attention to the connections that exist
without the characters' awareness and "haunt" them.
Apart from the explicit reading or viewing of the other stories, the interconnections in
the novel are created by subtle signs that the characters are unable to decode. First, there is the
sense of dj-vu, the feeling of "knowing" as well as the symbol of the comet-shaped
birthmark that connects most of them. When Luisa reads Frobisher's letters, she reflects on the
unfathomable feeling of connection she experiences: "the dizzying vividness of the images of
places and people that the letters have unlocked. Images so vivid she can only call them
memories. [...] Robert Frobisher mentions a comet-shaped birthmark between his shoulderblade and collar-bone. I just don't believe in this crap. I just don't believe it. I don't" (Mitchell
2004, p. 121-2). The fact that Luisa has the same birthmark is explained by her as coincidence:
however, she has "memories" of another story being mysteriously linked to her life.
Essentially, the connection of many of the characters by a "birthmark" evokes the idea of a
blood connection over different times and places. 9 When Cavendish reads the manuscript of
"Half-lives", he ridicules the idea of reincarnation that is behind the symbol of the birthmark:
"One or two things will have to go: the insinuation that Luisa Rey is this Robert Frobisher chap
reincarnated, for example. Far too hippie-druggy-new age. (I, too, have a birthmark, below my
left armpit, but no lover ever compared it to a comet...)" (Mitchell 2004, p. 373). While
ridiculing it, however, he at the same time reaffirms its existence.
The second device for creating interconnection in Cloud Atlas is the image of the
clouds itself which evokes the idea of the transmigration of souls. The cloud atlas in the title is
a map that is ever changing and can be compared to the constantly changing tattoo map in
9
In the 2012 film adaptation, the same actors play multiple roles, which reinforces the notion of rebirth and
interconnection of human souls transcending time and space. Compare O'Donnell 2015, 100.
Palimpsest which each character expands and changes with his or her story. Clouds and souls
are connected in an intricate way; hence, soul travel is connected with the cloud atlas, a
connection that Zachry reflects on: "I watched clouds awobbly from the floor o'that kayak.
Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the
same it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the
soul'll be 'morrow?" (Mitchell 2004, 324).
This symbol is directly connected to the main topic in the novel, the reflections on
history and civilisation, and the Social Darwinist "Eat or be eaten" (Mitchell 2004, p. 509).
Instead of defining the "nature" of humanity, it is people's belief system which shapes
humanity, as Ewing argues who becomes an abolitionist in the end: "If we believe that
humanity may transcend tooth & claw, of we believe divers races & creeds can share this world
as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just,
violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & the Oceans shared equitably,
such a world will come to pass" (Mitchell 2004, p. 528). The interconnection of human beings
is crucial to his reflections: "'He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human
nature must pay a world of pain & and his family must pay it along with him! & only as you
gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a
limitless ocean!' Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?" (Mitchell 2004, p. 529). In
this way, the motif of the drops in the ocean is linked to the symbol of the clouds both
signifying the universal interconnection of humanity. Hence, on the one hand, the history of
humanity is characterised by the exploitation of other human beings, conquests, enslavement,
genocide, colonialisation, and oppression. On the other hand, however, the interconnections
also counterbalance these tendencies because human beings love and support each other and
fight for freedom and equality, as all the interlinked stories show. These two opposing forces
are thematised in all of the six stories in Cloud Atlas.
The interconnections symbolised by the comet, the cloud, and the ocean across
temporal and spatial domains become quintessentially global. Since they appear random and
unorganized, and on the whole more virtual, elusive, unfathomable than in the other two
novels, it is drawn attention to the fact that connections exist naturally and just have to be
noticed. Mostly people, however, are not aware of these connections of humanity as a whole
and of the subtle signs that indicate their existence. Whereas in the novel they are not made
conscious for the characters, the readers are able to decode them.
Finally, Cloud Atlas pursues the idea that while every story appears as new, it is
nevertheless dependent on and connected with stories that came before and stories that will
come after. Again, this evokes the concept of the palimpsest where old stories are always
visible on the parchment and can be glimpsed through the new stories and at the same time
form the foundation on which new stories are written. Hence, in Cloud Atlas it is shown that
despite wars, violence, and the struggle for power throughout history, human beings are
connected across time and space by their stories.
3. Interconnection, Storytelling, and the Global World
In the last decades, society has been understood as a dynamic cluster, network, or web of
narratives. In fact, storytelling has a crucial significance for the self-reflection and meaning
production processes of societies in functioning as a cultural pattern of understanding as well
as for critically questioning dominant cultural formations. Hence, it is a cultural force that
enables human beings to make sense of a world that would otherwise be unstructured and is
therefore an anthropological universal, as Roland Barthes states: "narrative is present in every
age, in every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and there
nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative. All classes, all human groups have their
narratives, enjoyment of which is very often shared by men, with different, even opposing,
cultural backgrounds. Caring nothing for the division between good and bad literature,
narrative is international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life itself" (1977,
p. 79).
The three novels discussed not only stress the connection of stories in and for a culture
but the transcultural interconnection that is created by storytelling, and together they create a
postmodern poetics of interconnection: Whereas in Everything is Illuminated, the connection is
created in a conscious process of co-authorship, in Palimpsest it is much more complex and
convoluted. Here, multiple connections link all the stories in Palimpsest, which is essentially a
world made up by all the past and present stories. In Cloud Atlas, the interconnections are more
unfathomable still so that the characters and the readers have to actively search for these
interconnections in the forms of stories that are passed on and symbols that link humanity in a
web of temporal and global interconnections.
As Schoene argues, "In the twenty-first century the task is to venture beyond our
nationally demarcated horizons into the world at large and understand the domestic and global
as weaving one mutually pervasive pattern of contemporary human circumstance and
experience, containing both dark and light" (2010, pp. 15-6). His argument can be read as a call
for thinking in a more interlinked way which signifies the opposite of a perception of human
beings as singular, isolated, separate, and ultimately different. When Moraru states that "the
cosmoderns read the world in terms of self-other interconnectedness" (2011, p. 6),
interconnection is not only about writing interconnected stories but it is actually also the
reader's task to search for it, to read for what connects all human beings in life and in
literature.
The three novels reflect on the topical issue of interconnections and thematise how
they are created in a globalised world: The act of storytelling does not only connect human
beings throughout history but with that also places, identities, and different worlds. Hence,
with their metareflections on narration and their structure of multiple connected plots, these
novels create a postmodern poetics of interconnection that proposes an antidote to wars,
violence, the struggle for power that leads to fragmentation, a fear of difference, and a fear of
the "other." In Everything is Illuminated, Alex asks Jonathan: "We are making one story, yes?"
(Foer 2002, p. 144). If we are able to read these interconnections in a global world, we can see
that the whole of humanity actually makes "one story."
Bibliography
Barabasi, A. L. (2002). Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus.
Barthes, R. (1994). The Semiotic Challenge. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Currie, M., ed. (1995). Metafiction. London: Longman.
D'haen, T. (2013). European Postmodernism: The Cosmodern Turn. NARRATIVE, 21(3), 271283.
Dillon, S. (2005). Reinscribing De Quinceys palimsest: The significance of the palimpsest in
contemporary literary and cultural studies. Textual Practice, 19(3), 243-263.
Easley, D. & Kleinberg, J. (2010). Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly
Connected World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Faivre, A. (1994). Access to Western Esotericism. Albany: State UP of New York Press.
Foer, J. S. (2002). Everything is Illuminated. London: Penguin.
Hutcheon, Linda (1995). Historiographic metafiction. In M. Currie (Ed.), Metafiction (pp. 7199). London: Longman.
Mitchell, D. (2004). Cloud Atlas. London: Sceptre.
Moraru, C. (2011). Cosmodernism: American Narrative, Late Globalization, and the New
Cultural Imaginary. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
O'Donnell, P. (2015). A Temporary Future: The Fiction of David Mitchell. New York:
Bloomsbury.
Schoene, B. (2010). The Cosmopolitan Novel. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
Spretnak, C. (1991). States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age. San
Francisco: Harper.
Stonehill, B. (1988). The Self-Conscious Novel: Artifice in Fiction from Joyce to Pynchon.
Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Valente, C. M. (2009). Palimpsest. New York: Bantam.
Wallraven, M. (2014). 'To Make a History From This Kind of Material is Not Easy': The
Narrative Construction of Cultural History in Contemporary Fiction. ZAA, 62(2), 131148.
Professor Stephen TAPSCOTT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA, USA
ELEGIES FOR THE MODERN:

JOHN BERRYMANS DREAM SONGS
Abstract
John Berrymans Dream Songs, first published in adumbrated book-form in 1964 as 77 Dream
Songs, makes claims to be the first major book-length poet-modern American poem. Its
ambitions and range derive from the ambitions of the influential High Modernist project of the
early 20th century. However, Berryman diverges from Modernist praxis. For instance, he
fractures the integrity and the voice of the central speaker into component speakersprimarily
into Henry (a.k.a. Henry Pussycat) and his partner (in blackface, who calls him Mr. Bones).
Berryman signals his revision of the Modernist ambitions of the long poem (a poem about
American power) by embedding in its lyric interludes a series of short elegies for High
Modernist writersincluding Dream Songs 37-39, about the death of Robert Frost. In those
ambivalent Oedipal elegies Berryman pointedly mourns the loss of Frost the individual man; in
parallel elegies for poet-friends like Theodore Roethke, however, Berryman elegizes the loss of
his poet-friends in terms that recall and honor the diction and concerns of their poems. At the
same time, Berryman acknowledges the irremediable loss of Roethke the man; Berryman
aspires, that is, to what Jacques Derrida calls an impossible mode of elegy, a form of
memorialization that, instead of internalizing the dead, honors the alterity of the lost.
JOHN BERRYMANS DREAM SONGS

By the time his long poem Homage to Mistress Bradstreet appeared in print, in 1956, John
Berryman was already writing poems that would be included in his 1964 book 77 Dream
Songs. At this historical distance, that overlap seems signal. The Bradstreet poem reads to me
like the last of the great Modernist poems. For all its innovation in tone and figuration, the
poem seems continuous with the ambitions of the largest late-Modernist projects, especially
Hart Cranes The Bridge (in its formalist commitments and its ambition to create a coherent
modern myth), William Carlos Williams Paterson and the early Cantos of Ezra Pound (in
their attentions to the pace-of-information as a metrical determinant, and to reformulation of
attitudes toward cultural histories). One hears the influence of the late Audens diction, and the
central narrative gesture of the poemas the modern male poet imagines a physical
relationship with the 17th-century female poetseems a move related to Yeats willingness to
interpose himself as an historical figure, into the destinies of the people of his encomiastic
poems (the Irish Revolutionaries of Easter 1916, Major Robert Gregory). The ending of the
poem memorializing Anne Bradstreet returns to the present, in an elegiac gesture of both
closure and historical rupture:
Headstones stagger under great draughts of time
after heads pass out, and their world must reel
speechless, blind in the end
about its chilling star: thrift tuft,
when cushionnothing. Already with the wounded flying
dark air fills, I am a closet of secrets dying,
races murder, foxholes hold men,
reactor piles wage slow upon the wet brain rime.
I must pretend to leave you. Only you draw off
a benevolent phantom.
I dont mean to suggest that the Bradstreet poem is derivative in its methods (and certainly not
in its diction), but I do think that the historicizing and aesthetic ambitions of the poem are
continuous with the ambitions of the larger poems of the high-Modernist generations. (I didn't
want to be like Yeats, Berryman wrote of his earlier self, I wanted to be Yeats.) The Dream
Songs open something startlingly new and rewardingly strange. Despite the continuity of some
of the poetic effects and the experiments at the level of the line (the idiosyncratic mashup of
Elizabethan sonnet and street-jive, the tectonic slippage between tenor and vehicle in
metaphors), Berrymans dream technique permits him a way out of what had come to seem
several Modernist cul-de-sac. It permitted him, that is, a way to integrate the narrative self into
the historical critique of the poem without Yeatsian self-dramatization, without the sourcehunting of the Cantos and of parts of Paterson (c.f., Book II: Fire in the library!). In
important senses through the fundamental grammar of his poem Berryman already anticipates
the work of the Confessionalist poets, both the grandeur and the limitations of their aesthetic,
when he frames the poems as dreams: sometimes personal, sometimes self-referential,
sometimes allegorical and allusive, sometimes moving forward on the Freudian slippage
between denotation and connotation of words.
Berrymans narrator is one person, or possibly two: Henry the central character
(a.k.a. Pussycat, even Henry Pussycat), who is often in conversation with his friend,
apparently a white man in a vaudeville sketch, or a earlier blackface comedian with an
exaggerated stage-black dialect, who (pace vaudeville) calls Henry Mr. Bones. The central
rhetoric of the Dream Songs, that is, assumes a diffraction of the central lyric speakerpersonality. Berryman derives his model from American burlesque. --from Yeats double-voice
poems like A Dialogue of Self and Soul. and from Lears pointed badinage with his Fool.
Oddly, from all of these apparently-irreconcilable sources: the diffraction of the discourse, the
terms of referent (from the Upanishads to Paul Muni adventure movies of the 1930s, often in
the same line) replicate his sense of wide, vertiginous diffraction. And yet, as in the Whitman
line, the more the speaker spreads himself, the more his central integrity emerges,
paradoxically defined by this rangy inclusiveness. Like Whitman hes writing an epic grounded
in the self, who is American and proudly polyvalentboth singular and plural. Where
Whitman expands the voice by sections, Berryman can change the speaker, with a simple dash,
from line to linesometimes within the same line. One of the great themes of the Dream
Songs is American power, Berryman proposed at one timeboth its hegemony in the
twentieth-century and its need for dispersal. The great formal discovery of the poem, a
recurrent formal issue since Whitman, is how to enact this democratizing theme through the
power of the single American voice.
One of the ways in which the Dream Songs enacts this separation from the Modernist
tradition is to problematize it, making it part of the theme of the poem itself, one of the
thought-concerns of Henry, the central character. The problem appears as a kind of poemoccasion, as if the poems were responses to life-situations, including the deaths of several of
the great High-modernist writers. Poem 36, for instance, seems to take place in the winter of
1962. (It occurs among poems apparently set at the Modern Language Convention, between
Christmas and New Years Eve of 1962). The two speakers talk, Henry in high sublime
despair, Mr. Bones typically more down-to-earth:
The high ones die, die. They die. You look up and whos there?
--Easy, easy, Mr. Bones. I is on your side.
I smell your grief.
--I sent my grief away.
The problem becomes a question of what to do with grief, how to integrate it into ones
experience, and how memory and the fading of memoryboth memorialize the dead and
works to preserve and protect the living. The progress of cultural history depends on the
dynamic of personal memory.
What if I
roiling & babbling & braining, brood on why and
just sat on the fence?
--I doubts you did or do. De choice is lost.
--Its fools gold. But I go in for that.
The boy & the bear
looked at each other. Man all is tossed
& lost with groin-wounds by the grand bulls, cat.
William Faulkners where?
(Frost being still around)

Among the high ones of whom Henry is mourning the loss, one understands, are William
Faulker (who had died in late July of 1962) and Ernest Hemingway (who had died in early July
that same year). Famous figures from their works are taken as metynomies of the writers
themselves: the boy & the bear from Faulkers piece The Bear (which first appeared as a
separate story in 1942), and the bull-fighting, presumably from Hemingways enduring
interesting in the glamorized violence of bull-fighting (from to The Sun Also Rises, 1926, to
Death in the Atternoon, 1929, to The Dangerous Summer, 1959). These instances become, in
the poem, iconic instantiations of the power of the high one themselves. Tellingly, all are
examples in which protagonists put themselves in harms way. The lines Ike McKaslins
relinquishments as he faces the bear and the implications of his familys legacies, and the
drama of the great toreadors, tossed / & lost with groin-wounds by the grand bulls, recalling
how Hemingway called the corrida a tragedy, not a sport. Each behaves with dignity in
relation to his self-induced danger. For a moment in the middle of the poem Henry speculates
that his propensity to broodon the metaphphysics of annihilation (roiling & babbling &
braining) --even beyond a human capacity to arrive at satisfactory answersmight be a
pursuit of a kind of fools gold. At that moment, however, Henry acknowledges that this
tendency may be constitutional (I go in for that)and yet it may be a conditioned or learned
tendency, a function of a received Modernist style. This short elegy for the high ones thus
both praises the High Modernist writers whose examples it enlistsand suggests the
something of the limitations of their example. The tone of ambivalent eulogy seems to draw a
distinction: between the high earnestness of purpose in the models of Faulkner and Hemingway
and the apparent incomensureateness that opens between their high thematic moral seriousness
and the final interminancy of an experimental style.
Robert Frost, the poem concludes almost as an afterthought, does not fit the pattern:
both because of the determinancy of a broody and ultimately inconclusive Modernist style
doesnt seem to describe the effect of Frosts ironic poetic voice, and (more realistically)
because its premature to mourn for him. Frost himself is still alive (being still around.)
Frost died in January of the following year, 1963. Berryman marks the occasion
exactly in the middle of the 77 Dream Songs, in a sequence of elegiac responses (Three
Around the Old Gentleman, numbers 37-39). Together the sequence continues the books
argument about the diminishment of the high ones, both as observing personal loss and as
detailing the limits of the Modernist mode. Retrieving the argument from the earlier poem (by
alluding to the recent losses of the shooter and the bourbon man presumably Hemingway
and Faulkner), the sequence problematizes the Modernist issue, and yet the elegiac tone in the
poems is emotionally complicated. Henry grieves for Frost the individual man as a metonymy
for the decline of the Modernist ideal, but he does so obliquely. The foci of the poems are Frost
the man (37); then the domination of the Poetry Industry at the weekend of Frosts funeral in
New England as the Professional-Friends-of-Robert-Frost determine his legacy (38); and
finally an encomium for the blessed relief of death for the old man (39). Here is the first poem
of the series:
His malice was a pimple down his good
big face, with its sly eyes. I must be sorry
Mr. Frost has left:
I like him so less I dont understand
he couldnt see or hear well all we sift
but this is a bad story.
He had fine stories and was another man

in private; difficult, always. Courteous,
on the whole, in private.
He apologize to Henry, off & on,
for two blue slanders; which was good of him.
I dont know how he made it.
Quickly, off stage with all but kindness, now.
I cant say what I have in mind. Bless Frost,
any odd god around.
Gentle his shift, I descussate & command,
stoic deity. For a while here we possessed
an unusual man.
The critic Samuel Dodson was the first, I think, to notice the applicability of a pattern that
other critics have recognized at work in some of W. B. Yeats most personal elegaic poemsa
pattern which, arguably, Berryman adapts for his purposes in relation to Frost, both to elegize
the dead and to define an emergent poetic voice in counter-relation to the elder poets.
According to Dodson, in poems like In Memory of Major Robert Gregory Yeats writes from
a position of emotional ambivalence, in a rhetoric of doubled or compromised praise. Auden,
among others, learns from the Yeatsian paradigm that the personal note of an elegy like
.[Robert Gregory] required that the poet not only praise the dead but also suggest their
limitations To criticize Yeats in an elegy is to commend him for his opening up of the
genre. (Dodson, 90; Ramazani, 131, 184).
Clearly, Henrys opening characterization of Frost associates the older poets physical
appearance with the notoriously polyvalence of his irony, throughout the poems (His malice
was a pimple down his good / big face, with its sly eyes); the speakers element of baffled
coercion, even of reluctance (I must be sorry)and an element of performance that echoes
through the rest of the poem. The younger finds himself replicating the performative, even
ironic, powers of the predecessor (this is a sad story,): while recalling that Frost himself had
been courteous in person, as if in social performance (he had told fine stories, while on the
stage). The transference of poetic power that often seems a symbolic dimension of such
elegies for poetic predecessors seems compromised, here, by a more primary Oedipal
resistance to the residual power of the Father-poet. Although he remembers an occasion when
the older poet had gossiped maliciously about him but had subsequently regretting the damage,
the younger poet seems, ironically, unable to forgiveperhaps refusing to relinquish a
resistance to the Father-poet, perhaps resisting in Henrys own character those qualities he has
learned from the Father. Biographers have expatiated about the biographical episodes to which
the poem refersand Berryman retells the story years later, in Dream Song 230.
All these accounts recall the admiration and awe the younger Berryman felt for Frost;
when he actually met the older poet, the usually voluble younger poet was uncharacteristically
silent ( Heffenden 308). Still, the elegy seems stingy with praise at the end, challenging any
odd god to Bless Frost while banishing off-stage all but kindness. This line seems to me
a triumph of praetoritia, reminding us that other responds might be possible, even justifiable,
for legitimate reasonsbut that Henry is choosing kindness from among possible responses.
For a while here we possessed / an unusual man. In the final lines of the poem Henry
concludes in parsimonious and measured praise.* The tone contains ambivalence, rancor,
admiration, affection, praise, withholding, kindness, and a mode of passive-aggressive
slyness like that which the poem initially had found in Frost himself. The elegiac mode
seems remarkably personal, a settling of accounts with Frost the individual through a mode of
irony that Berryman clearly has learned from Frosts example. 10
This mode of elegy moves a long distance from a Romantic mode of poetic elegy, by
which the poet-speaker uses language performatively to enact a memorializing form of
language (Esterhammer, 143), or by which the poet finally grieves a internal ideal object
abstracted from the historical personand the workof the earlier poet. What interests me
about the personal and ironized mode of elegy with which Berryman addresses the loss of Frost
and the death of the high ones is that in other elegiac poems throughout the 77 Dream Songs
he does in fact approach, or allude to, that traditional elegiac mode. In poems addressed to
poet-friend in death and whose ambitions had approached his own, Berryman sounds High
Romantic, in the clarity of Henrys grief and in the relation between the diction of the dead
poet and the memorializing language of the elegiac Song. Consider, for instance, this elegy for
the poet Theodore Roethke, who died in August of 1963. The poem (Dream Song 18: A Strut
for Roethke) frames itself as music for a dance (a strut, recalling the vaudeville tradition
from which the voices of Henry and Mr. Bones derive).
Westward, hit a low note, for a roarer lost
across the Sound but north from Bremerton,
hit a way down note.
And never cadenza again of flowers, or cost.
Him who could really do that cleared his throat
& staggered on.
The bluebells, pool-shallows, saluted his over-needs,
while the clouds growled, heh-heh, & snapped, & crashed.
No stunt hell ever unflinch once more will fail
(O lucky fellow, eh Bones?) drifted off upstairs,
downstairs, somewhere.
No more daily, trying to hit the head on the nail:
thirstless: without a think in his head:
back from wherever, with it said.
Hit a high long note, for a lover found
needing a lower into friendlier ground
to bug among worms no more
around um jungles where ah blurt What for?
10
The version of the poem published in the book, in 1964, differs in diction from the poems first appearance, in
the New York Review of Books: Quickly, to hell with all but kindness, now. / I cant say what I have in mind.
Bless Frost, / any god around. / Gentle his transit, I doom you & command, / idiot deity. For a while here we had /
an unusual man. One wonders if the revision is designed to open a space for the spectacular verb decussate; it
contains second-order suggestions of cussing and even of pure Frostian cussedness.
Weeds, too, he favoured as most men dont favour men.

The Garden Masters gone
The elegy is framed, that is, as directions toward the production of music for a funeral, New
Orleans-style (hit a low note, hit a way down note, Hit a high long note). The sense of
affectionate swelling cadenza-cum-dirge extends even to the language of the America
Northwest--to Bremerton, Washington, where Roethke lived (the poem puns on the sound of
Puget Sound). Then agency changes, to cadenza again, as Roethke himself had done:
Berryman liked to tell a story about the first time he and Roethke had met at a party. (Roethke
had brought flowers for the hostessand insisted on telling her how expensive they had been.)
All nature mourns Miltons Lycidas, and the trope of the grief of the natural world hovers, I
suspect, behind these opening lines of Berrymans elegy. He merges it, wittily, with
recollections about his friend and the economics of budget and of tact. (How much does it
cost William Carlos Williams asks in Paterson III, 1949, to love the locust tree / in bloom?
famously problematizing the psychic costs of the life of the artist)
Berryman follows the Romantic momentum of this spreading grieffollowing it as it
spreads so widely (the bluebells, poolshadows, etc.) that it literally spills out of the form of
the poem; the couplet interrupts the other otherwise strict format of the Dream Songs, each
poem a string of 3 inter-rhythmed 6-line stanzas). The vegetative, organic world that registers
this grief recalls the pattern of floral images throughout Roethkes work. His family of origin
had run a greenhouse; elements related to that enterprise (organic growth, Adamic-naming,
business orderliness) underlie Roethkes linguistic attempts to recreate an adult poetic diction
of childhood consciousness and of encounter with primal energies. Paradoxically, perhaps, this
business element of the organic metaphors required an attention to the price of the
primary organic experience. What had seemed Roethkes eccentricity (in stanza one), an
affectionate memory of an individual, becomes through a recollection of Roethkes poems a
more generalized cultural tendency: the return to the natural comes at a physical and psychic
cost.
Stanza 2 extrapolates an admiration tinged with envy (O lucky fellow, eh Bones?)
that Roethke the poet has moved to another dimension, bringing to a stop the recurrent and
particular distress of his artistic struggle (No more daily, trying to hit the head on the nail),
and yet the terms of assertion that its a blessing to escape this daily life measures the
paradoxical costs and accomplishments of the artists life (back from wherever, with it
said.) In this elegiac cost/benefit analysis of artistic achievement, Berryman seems to be
retrieving a set of terms that Kenneth Burke had famously used, in an early essay on Roethke
(1950) to explain the radical social implications of Roethkes poetic experiment. Roethkes
vegetative images embody, according to Burke, a particular set of stresses in the bourgeois
experience. This vegetal dimension is not the place one would ordinarily look for comments
on the economic motive, Burke acknowledges. Yet you can take it as a law, in our culture,
that at a moment of extreme mental anguish, if the sufferer is accurate there will be an account
of money, too. It will be at least implicit; in the offing-- hence with professional utterers it
should be explicit. (Burke, 269) And Burke carries the argument beyond the simple
recognition of the profit-motive involved in the formation of middle-class concerns: he
generalizes the question to a dualistic rhetoric by which any monetary system displaces
organic energies into symbolic and manipulable units of denotation. If money is equated
with the practical and the rational, then by the dialectics of the case art is on the side of an
irrational, nonmonetary Nature, Burke concludes.
Berrymans elegy for Roethke, that is, makes claims to elegize the terms by which we
systematically encounter the organic world (Burkes irrational Nature) by displacing it. The
poem associates that set of trans-portations (etymologically metaphors), with Roethkes lifelong concerns, with his solitudes, and with the accomplishments of his poems (Weeds, too, he
favoured as [spaces:sic] most men dont favour men.) Compare the systematic terms of
elegy, energy, displacement, and control in A Strut with parallel terms in section 4 (The
Return) of Roethkes famous sequence The Lost Son (1948). Like much of the Dream
Songs, the poem details the loss of the son through the death of the father, repeating in
regression memories of the father and his power:
[.] The roses kept breathing in the dark.
They had many mouths to breathe with.
My knees made little winds underneath
Where the weeds slept.
[.] Once I stayed all night.
The light in the morning came slowly over the white
Snow.
There were many kinds of cool
Air.
Then came steam.
Pipe-knock.
Scurry of warm over small plants.
Ordnung! ordnung!
Papa is coming!
A fine haze moved off the leaves;
Frost melted on far panes;
The rose, the chrysanthemum turned toward the light.
Even the hushed forms, the bent yellowy weeds
Moved in a slow up-sway.
Berrymans poem, it seems to me, eulogizes The Garden Master by doing Roethke the honor
of appropriating and reformulating the terms of poems like this one, from The Lost Son.
Although Berryman claimed several times that much of his reading of Frosts Poems derived
from Randall Jarrells famous essays on the older poet, in those essays Jarrell had
concentrated on the linguistic and tonal elements of Frost poems (their responsibility and
seriousness despite the public image of the Famous Poeteven their utility and melancholy
joy). Berrymans Dream Songs for Frost concentrate on the loss of the old man himself; they
dramatize the literary politics around his death, including the behavior of people at his funeral
and Berrymans own competitive speculation about how Frosts death would rearrange the
hierarchy of surviving American writers. His elegy for Roethke, by contrast, treats the loss of
Roethke in terms of the achievement of his poems as lost ambition, as admirable aesthetic
achievement, and as the poignant music of American cost-and-benefit valuation. Dream Songs
37-39 lament the loss of Frost the man; Dream Song 18 locates Henry in Roethkes poetic
territory in order to praise the dead friend-poet by reinscribing his poetic accomplishment
(around um jungles where ah blurt What for?) and yet the poem concludes with a fierce
recognition that the friend-poet, for all his mastery, is gone. The original poem from the
Lost Son series had insisted on the orderliness and power of the fathers presence, his arrival
marking the end-mode of the poem (Ordnung! ordnung! / Papa is coming!) Berryman
memorializes Roethke by an allusion that honors the multiple lost-ness of his friendas fellow
lost son within the poems, as lost voice, and as dead friend. The Garden Masters gone,
Henry concludes.
Critics have often described a Romantic view of poetic mourning, by which in the
intensity of his grief and the psychological appropriation of the alterity of the lost predecessorpoet, the elegiac poet finally laments, in the long run, an inner ideal object: the poem by
which the surviving poet internalizes the missing friend does the lost one the honor of
proposing for him a kind of survival through the life and soul and work of surviving poets
(Esterhamer, ch.2-4). However, this verbal after-life can come at the cost, as Jacques Derrida
warns in his lectures on Paul de Man (1984), of the historical and specific otherness of the
dead. When Derrida that he aspires to an impossible mourning for his dead friend, he points,
I think, to a symptom of this Romantic concept of elegiac and mimetic memorialization.
Derrida aspires, he asserts, to an impossible mourningin a mode that tries to permit an
accurate grief by honoring the alterity of the lost: a poetic non-mimetic grieving which, leaving
the other his alterity, respecting thus his infinite remove, either refuses to take or is incapable
of taking the other within oneself, as in the tomb or the vault of some narcissism (C.f.,
Raskolnikof, 69ff; Derrida, 35). This necessary-and-impossible mode, Derrida concludes,
reaches toward paradox because the failure succeeds: an aborted interiorization is at the same
time a respect for the other as other, a sort of tender rejection, a movement of renunciation
which leaves the other alone, outside, over there in his death, outside of us. (Derrida, 35)
Finally, it should be mentioned, I think that Henrys last word is not always
Berrymans nor, indeed, is it Henrys. In Delusion etc. (1973), Berryman runs close to the
boundary of narcissistic sentimentality, as in Lines to Mr. Frost he remembers an episode in
which Frost (with tales / gay of your cunning & colossal fame / & awful character) gave
advice to the young poet and then juxtaposes that memory with a moment in which the speaker
offers similar advice to his students:
I said the same goddam thing yesterday
to my thirty kids, so I was almost ready
to hear you from the grave with these passionate grave
last words, and frankly Sir you fill me with joy.
In later Dream Songs Henry returns to the question of his abjection in relation to the High
Modernist Fathers Yeats and Frost (the senior genius) even returning, in # 230, to the
issue of the unspecified lies Frost had putatively told about the young Berryman, and for
which he had subsequently apologized.
I love great men I love. Nobodys great.

I must remember that.
We all fight. Having fought better than the rest,
He sings, & mutters, & prophesies in the West
And is our flunked test.
Samuel Dodson (93) calls attention to the ways in which this competitive, aggressive poet
revised his earlier draft of this late poem of ambiguous reconciliation. In earlier drafts of the
poem Berryman had acted out, cannily, a more complex elegiac self-awareness: I hate great
men I love.
Bibliography
Berryman, John. Delusions, etc. NY: FSG. 1973.
-------------------. The Dream Songs. NY: FSG. 1969.
-------------------. Three Dream Songs New York Review of Books, Feb. 1, 1963.
-------------------. We Dream of Honor: John Berrymans Letters to His Mother, ed. Richard. J.
Kelly. NY: Norton. 1998.
Burke, Kenneth. Roethkes Vegetal Radicalism, Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley:
California. 1968, 254-282 [reprinted from The Sewanee Review, 1950.]
Derrida, Jacques. Mmoires: For Paul de Man. New Haven: Yale, 1984.
Dodson, Samuel Fisher. Berrymans Henry: Living at the Intersection of Need and Art.
Amsterdam: Ridopi. 2006.
Esterhamer, Angela. The Romantic Performative. Palo Alto: Stanford, 2001.
Hemingway, Ernest. Bullfighting a Tragedy October 23, 1923]. Deadline:
Toronto. (NY: Simon and Schuster/eBooks, 2002.
Jarrell, Randall. Two Essays on Robert Frost. Poetry and the Age. NY: FSG/Noonday, 1953
[1972]
Mariani, Paul. Dream Song: The Life of John Berryman., NY: Wm. Morrow, 1990.
Ranazani, Jahan. The Poetry of Mourning: The Modern Elegy from Hardy to Heaney. Chicago:
Chicago, 1994.
Raskolnikov, Masha. Between Men, GLQ, 10. 1: 47. 2003, 47-75.
Santner, Eric. Stranded Objects. Ithaca: Cornell, 1990.
PhD. Ingy ABOELAZM

Ain Shams University
Department of English Language and Literature, Egypt
AFRICANIZING GREEK MYTHOLOGY:

FEMI OSOFISANS RETELLING OF EURIPIDESTHE TROJAN
WOMEN
Abstract
Nigerian writer Femi Osofisans new version of Euripides' The Trojan Women, is an African
retelling of the Greek tragedy. In Women of Owu (2004), Osofisan relocates the action of
Euripides' classical drama outside the walls of the defeated Kingdom of Owu in nineteenth
century Yorubaland, what is now known as Nigeria. In a Note on the Plays Genesis,
Osofisan refers to the correspondences between the stories of Owu and Troy. He explains that
Women of Owu deals with the Owu War, which started when the allied forces of the southern
Yoruba kingdoms Ijebu and Ife, together with recruited mercenaries from Oyo, attacked Owu
with the pretext of liberating the flourishing market of Apomu from Owus control. When
asked to write an adaptation of Euripides tragedy, in the season of the Iraqi War, Osofisan
thought of the tragic Owu War. The Owu War similarly started over a woman, when Iyunloye,
the favourite wife of Ifes leader Okunade, was captured and given as a wife to one of Owus
princes. Like Troy, Owu did not surrender easily, for it lasted out a seven-year siege until its
defeat. Moreover, the fate of the people of Owu at the hands of the allied forces is similar to
that of the people of Troy at the hands of the Greeks: the males were slaughtered and the
women enslaved. The play sheds light on the aftermath experiences of war, the defeat and the
accompanied agony of the survivors, namely the women of Owu. The aim of this study is to
emphasize the plays similarities to as well as shed light on its differences from the classical
Greek text, since the understanding of Osofisans African play ought to be informed by the
Euripidean source text.
Keywords: Osofisan, Yoruba, Greek tragedy, Intertextuality, Lamentation
1.
Femi Osofisans Version of Euripides' The Trojan Women
Nigerian writer Femi Osofisans version of Euripides' The Trojan Women, is an African
retelling of the Greek tragedy. Born in 1946, Osofisan is basically the best-known playwright
of the generation after Ola Rotimi and Wole Soyinka. The Nigerian playwright, essayist,
editor, and poet has written over fifty plays and has always been a consistent critic of his
society who attacked political corruption and injustice. One of the most important thematic
concerns of his writings, especially his dramatic genre, is the power and agency of women
not only to take charge of their own lives, but also to chart the course of progress for all of
society (Irele and Jeyifo 2010, 203).
The Trojan Women was the third tragedy of a trilogy dealing with the Trojan War,
waged by the Greeks against the Trojans after the Trojan prince Paris took Helen from her
husband king Menelaus of Sparta. The Trojan War is one of the most important events in
Greek mythology and the topic of many ancient Greek texts, most famously Homers Iliad and
Odyssey (Weyenberg 2013, 143). In The Trojan Women, Euripides follows the fate of the
women of Troy after their city has been sacked and their husbands killed. In the Greek tragedy,
war is presented in its aftermath and almost exclusively through the eyes of the women who
are its victims (Walton 1991, xxi).
Greek tragedy was introduced into Africa during the colonial era. It was used as a
model for indigenous African playwriting and playmaking, for Greek tragedy was perhaps the
most suitable model for African playwrights to build a hybrid modern drama (Wetmore 2002,
21). The similarities between Greek and Yoruba drama include the utilization of songs,
music, dance, ritual, chorus, and gods as well as open-door performances. The success of the
choral work and portrayal of the gods in Women of Owu, owe much to such affinities between
the two theatre traditions (Budelmann 2007, 33).
In Women of Owu, Osofisan relocates the action of Euripides' classical drama outside
the walls of the defeated Kingdom of Owu in nineteenth-century Yorubaland, what is now
known as Nigeria. The wider historical backdrop is the fighting between rival groups in
Yorubaland in the first half of the nineteenth century, in the course of which large groups of
people were displaced and enslaved (Budelmann 2007, 17). Owu was destroyed in the 1820s
after a siege that lasted for many years.
On the title page, Women of Owu is followed by (An African Re-reading of
Euripides The Trojan Women first commissioned by the Chipping Norton Theatre, UK)
(Osofisan 2006, iii). Distancing pre-text from adaptation, Osofisan does not appropriate the
canonical text, but rather cites it as an available source (Weyenberg 2013, 142). The aim of
this paper is to emphasize the plays similarities to as well as differences from the classical
Greek text, since the understanding of Osofisans African play ought to be informed by
Euripides original text which is an obvious intertext1.
Women of Owu was first staged at the Chipping Norton Theatre in 2004 before being
published in 2006. A Note on the Plays Genesis explicitly ties the play to the period of its
first production, in the season of the Iraqi War (Osofisan 2006, vii). Osofisan represents
himself as pondering over the adaptation of Euripides play while remembering the tragic
Owu. Such memories were fostered because the Yoruba Owu city had lasted out a seven-year
siege by the Allied Forces of the southern Yoruba kingdoms Ijebu and Ife, along with
mercenaries recruited from Oyo, at the conclusion of which all the males were executed and
the females enslaved. The Allied Forces had attacked [Owu] with the pretext of liberating the
flourishing market of Apomu from Owus control (Osofisan 2006, vii). Since the Ijebu and
Ife troops probably did not call themselves the Allied Forces, this is likely to be read as an
invocation of the contemporary British and American escapade in Iraq (Goff 2013, 23).
Osofisan not only evokes the contexts of Troy, ancient Greece and nineteenth century
Yorubaland, but also refers to the War in Iraq in order to trigger critical reflection. Hence,
despite the nineteenth century setting, Osofisan gives the war present-day resonances, as two
examples will show. First, the slavery theme that runs through Euripides play is made even
more prominent in Women of Owu. Throughout the play, the women of Owu voice their fear of
slavery, aware of their imminent departure for their new fates. Secondly, the play alludes to
the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when the Unites States of America along with other nations
including the United Kingdom, deposed ruler Saddam Hussein. The besieging army is called
the Allied Forces (of Ijebu and Ife), as was the US-led coalition. (Budelmann 2007, 18-19).
It claims to have come in order to liberate Owu rather than act out of any material greed,
nonetheless, the women of Owu repeatedly question their motives for invading the city.
Spectators with a good knowledge of Nigerian history, know that Owu was one of the
oldest and most prosperous Yoruba city-states. In the first half of the nineteenth century, slave
trade and control of the trade routes to the British trade markets on the coast yielded great
profits. The Owu War (1814-1820), to which Osofisans play refers to, is seen as the start of a
series of wars between Yoruba kingdoms with the prime purpose of taking prisoners to sell as
slaves to the British. Populations were scattered and kingdoms devastated, and as a result,
colonialism was established. Hence, as a result of greed, salve trade may become an
explanation of the causes behind the Owu Wars which devastated the area and facilitated
British colonization. Such an interpretation makes the reason behind the colonization more
complex and points not only to an external enemy, but also an internal one (Gtrick 2008, 856).
There are several similarities between Euripides mythical Troy and Osofisans
historical Owu: both were autonomous city-states forced to give up their sovereignty when
having been under siege for a long time and then sacked, their citizens either scattered or were
taken as prisoners of war. Both plays present the horrors of war, for cities become ruins and
even infants are killed (Gtrick 2008, 85). Moreover, in A Note on the Plays Genesis,
Osofisan elucidates his choice to draw on The Trojan Women by calling attention to the
correspondences between the contexts of both plays as well as the correspondences between
the stories of Owu and Troy. The Owu War similarly started over a woman, when Iyunloye,
the favourite wife of Ifes leader Okunade, was captured and given as a wife to one of Owus
princes. Like Troy, Owu did not surrender easily, for it lasted out a seven-year siege until its
defeat. Moreover, the fate of the people of Owu at the hands of the allied forces is similar to
that of the people of Troy at the hands of the Greek: the males were slaughtered and the
women enslaved. Hence, where Euripides has tried to make his audience aware of the horrors
of the Peloponnesian Wars, Osofisans retelling facilitates it for Yoruba-competent
spectators to find important references to a political reality in the recent past (Gtrick 2008,
85).
Each of Osofisans characters corresponds to one of Euripides characters, and his
play follows the plot structure of its source text closely, with just a few significant deviations.
Similarly to Euripides women of Troy, the women of Owu witness the destruction of their
city, the execution of their husbands and sons, and their fate as slaves. They mourn as Yoruba
women traditionally mourn: their hair cut short and their bare shoulders made grey by ashes
(Gtrick 2008, 84). The play focuses on the group of women lamenting what has happened to
them. Their lamentations are expressed partly in the text, partly through Yoruba songs. The
importance of orality is highlighted in Women of Owu by the dirges2 it contains. Nevertheless,
what is significantly different from the Greek text is the fact that Owu, Ijebu and Ife are all
Yoruba, hence, the aggressors and victims all share the same Yoruba identity.
Osofisans stress on the suffering of women in war resembles Euripides The Trojan
Women. The Greek tragedy reveals the other side of war, focusing on the defeated Trojans
rather than the Greeks, on women rather than men. The condition of the captive women is
desperate: because their defeat is still so recent, they have not had a chance to accommodate
themselves to misfortune (Gregory 1991, 155). Worth mentioning is the fact that in the
context of ancient Greece, where citizenship was exclusively male, Euripides focus on women
is remarkable (Weyenberg 2013, 154). Women of Owu differs from its Euripidean source text
in that the lamenting women of Owu focus on their stories rather than praising their heroes or
city. Like the women of Troy, they narrate history; unlike the women of Troy, the histories
they sing are primarily their own (Weyenberg 2013, 157). They describe how they saw their
husbands, brothers and sons slaughtered in front of their eyes:
Woman: Not one was spared! Not a single male left now
In Owu, except those who escaped the night before
With our king, Oba Akinjobi.
Woman: And shame, oh shame! Our women were seized
And shared out to the blood-splattered troops
To spend the night. Only some of us we two, and
The women you see over there
Were spared, those of us from the noble houses
And others whose beauty struck their eye:
We are being reserved, they say, for the Generals (Osofisan 2006, 3)
The women of Owu convey the pain of not being allowed to bury their loved ones and refer to
the sexual violence, of which many women become victims in wars. In Euripides play, the
Trojan women assume they have lost everything that their very identity has disappeared
along with their city, families, fortune, and freedom (Gregory 1991, 157).
Whereas The Trojan Women opens with a deity who explains the context and
introduces the characters, the ancestral deity Anlugbua, who opens Women of Owu, has no idea
about the siege and the defeat, and has to be informed by the two women he meets. The
women display a sharp political awareness, commenting on their defeat as follows (Goff 2013,
123):
Nowadays,
When the strong fight the weak, its called
A Liberation War
To free the weak from oppression.
Nowadays, in the new world order, it is suicide to be weak. (Osofisan 2006, 8)
George Bush used a similar rhetoric to legitimise the invasion of Iraq. Although the
justification for the invasion primarily rested on the allegation that Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction, Bush repeatedly framed the invasion as a war of liberation,
intended to grant the Iraqi people freedom and democracy (Weyenberg 2013, 173).
The god concludes, It is the law of victory, the law / Of defeat (Osofisan 2006, 7).
When Anlugbua first finds out about the citys fate, he could not understand why his people
did not call on him, as he had told them to:
Why didnt anybody call me?
My words were clear enough, I thought!
Whenever any grave danger threatens the town,
I said! Whenever some misfortune arrives
Too huge for you to handle, run
To my hill and pull my chain!
How is that no one remembered? (Osofisan 2006, 3)
On the other hand, the women could not understand why he didnt help them earlier. The
scene is one of mutual incomprehension and it ends with both parties further apart; Anlugbua
departs lamenting his lack of worshippers, while the women leave with stinging rebukes for the
gods lack of concern:
Anlugbua: I ask you without a shrine, without worshippers,
What is a god? Who now will venerate us?
Who sing our praises among these ruins?
Woman: Go back to your heaven, Anlugbua,
And learn also how to cope with pain.
If only you gods would show a little more concern
For your worshippers! (Osofisan 2006, 9)
So far, so Euripidean; the god even admits that he is shamed by the women, which is a
conclusion often invited by Euripidean gods even if never articulated. Here, both humans and
their god claim to have done the right thing offered help, or asked for help and to have
received no answering gesture from the other side (Goff 2013, 123-4). Also the idea that the
gods are dependent on the humans is made clear from Anlugbua concern that a god is not a god
without worshippers, opposite to the Greek belief in the power of the gods to affect human
destinies. This interdependency of humans and gods is characteristic of the Yoruba belief
system.
The following scene introduces the Hecuba-figure, Erelu Afin, who like Hecuba
shares the scene with the chorus leader and women of the chorus. They begin with
lamentation, then move to anger and a storm of curses against their conquerors, which is
completely absent from the Greek source text:
Erelu: Savages! You claim to be more civilized than us
But did you have to carry out all this killing and carnage
To show you are stronger than us? Did you
Have to plunge all these women here into mourning
Just to seize control over our famous Apomu market
Known all over for its uncommon merchandise? (12)
Woman: No, Erelu, what are you saying, or

Are you forgetting?
They do not want our market at all
Woman: They are not interested in petty things
As profit
Woman: Only in lofty, lofty ideas, like freedom
Woman: Or human rights (Osofisan 2006, 12-13)
Contemporary terms like human rights again invite a comparison with the Euro-American
invasions of Iraq, which were repeatedly accused of disguising economic motives with talks of
noble political ideals. Hence, endowed by suffering with a moral intelligence that enables
them to see through these politics, the women of Owu can play ironically with the categories of
savage and civilized, satirizing the invaders motives (Goff 2013, 125).
Furthermore, Osofisans women of Owu mock the official narrative of liberation
wars and the rhetorical conflation of democratic ideology and economic interests that
characterize that narrative. Their ironic song of the official history of the invasion of Owu
through negation, points to the profit, merchandise and glitter of gold that determine wars
as well as the stories of slavery and oppression that are their result (Weyenberg 2013, 174).
Hence, according to the women, the Allied Forces are not interested in such petty things / As
profit:
Woman: Oh the Ijebus have always disdained merchandise
Woman: The Ifes are unmoved by the glitter of gold
Woman: The Oyos have no concern whatsoever for silk or ivory
Woman: All they care for, my dear women
All they care for, all of them, is our freedom!
Woman: Ah Anlugbua bless their kind hearts!
Woman: Bless the kindness which has rescued us
From tyranny in order to plunge us into slavery! (Osofisan 2006, 12)
It depends on the audience which of the contexts Osofisan evokes will resonate the most. For
the Nigerian audience, the dramatization of internal warfare is likely to evoke resonances to
other internal conflicts in Nigeria, especially the Biafran War, which resulted in around three
million deaths. The suffering the women recount also resonate with that of many victims of
Nigerias successive military dictatorships, prompting viewers to reflect on Nigerias
contemporary political situation. The women in the dirge above, refer to the Ijebus, Ifes and
the Oyos, hence, their criticism is directed toward the internal strife within Nigeria. On the
other hand, for the British audience of the plays premire in 2004, being probably unfamiliar
with Nigerias history, the allusion to Iraq may have been more prominent since the United
Kingdom aided the United States invasion of Iraq. With more than eight thousand British
soldiers stationed there and recurring headlines of British casualties, the UKs involvement in
Iraq was, and is still a topic of political debate (Weyenberg 2013, 174).
Responding to the news that the ancestor Anlugbua has deserted Owu, the chorus
leader concludes that, The lesson is clear. Its us, not the gods, / who create war. Its us, we
human beings, who can kill it (Osofisan 2006, 15), emphasizing the idea that it is up to human
beings to shape their own fate now. The lesson that human fate is in human hands, will be
emphasized later in the play.
In Euripides The Trojan Women, the play opens with a prologue involving the two
gods Poseidon and Athena. They agree to join forces to punish the Greeks and make their
homecoming journey as painful as possible (Walton 1991, xix). Hence, where Athena joins
Poseidon at the beginning of the play to plan for the shipwreck of the Greeks, Osofisans
Anlugbua does not meet his female counterpart until after the scene between Erelu and the
chorus. Significantly, Osofisan displaces the dialogue between the gods from its original place
as a prologue to the third scene. While Euripides informs his audience from the start that the
mortals are at the mercy of the gods, Osofisan makes it clear that the gods stand by helplessly
while humans hold responsibility (Gtrick 2008, 88). The Yoruba pantheon and the Greek
pantheon alike are characterized as being human in the sense that they behave like human
beings, being subject to many failings and follies. In their quarrels they often use human beings
as their instruments.
In Greek mythology, Athena, together with Hera and Artemis, once initiated and
competed in a beauty contest and when they asked Paris to be their judge, he chose Artemis
and so made Athena and Hera his enemies. When Artemis kept her promise to give him the
most beautiful woman, Helen, as his reward, the other two goddesses used this as a reason for
taking revenge and consequently instigated the Trojan War. The opening dialogue between
Poseidon and Athena in the Greek tragedy reveals that Athena has started the war because of
her enmity towards Troy. However, when the Athenians did not respect the divine temples in
Troy, she changed her mind and decided to punish the soldiers who had carried out her
revenge. Their journey back home is to be made as difficult as possible. Hence, it is quite
clear in the prologue that the war as well as its consequences were initiated by the gods, and
that humans are at the mercy of the gods (Gtrick 2008, 87).
In Women of Owu, Anlugbua is joined by Lawumi, his ancestor, who like Athena, is
responsible for the destruction of the city. The striking difference is that here, destruction is a
punishment not for the wrong vote in a beauty contest, but for the citys involvement in the
slave trade, human beings learn only from suffering and pain (Osofisan 2006, 21). She
reveals to Anlugbua that his Owu people, arrogant and drunk with prosperity, violated a law
that, no Yoruba should ever sell other Yoruba into slavery (Osofisan 2006, 19). Hence, the
people of Owu were the initial aggressors, as they were enslaving other Yoruba and their guilt
marks a significant distance from the Euripidean tragedy.
Anlugbua thus comes too late to save his city and is angrily scolded by the women of
Owu for this. Nevertheless, not only does Lawumi seek the destruction of the city, but she also
talks Anlugbua into unleashing a storm on the attackers on their way home to make them pay
for their religious impropriety; hence, she holds a grudge against both warring parties. The
plays first three scenes show that the gods have a role in human suffering, yet in the end,
Anlugbua puts the blame squarely on humans, leaving it to the audience to draw their own
conclusions (Budelmann 2007, 20).
In Osofisans play, Cassandras counterpart is Orisaye. Like the Greek Cassandra,

Orisaye is perceived as mad by her mother and all the other characters. In the Greek source
text, Cassandra is known as a woman who had declined the advances of the god Apollo, and
whom he therefore punished by giving the gift of prophecy, which was taken for madness.
Thanks to her gift from Apollo, she knows that her mother, Hecuba, will soon die. Euripides
audience knew that her prophecies would come true, unlike the rest of the characters who took
her prophecies for madness. Cassandra exhibits an uncontrolled craving for revenge, which
confirms her madness to the other characters (Gtrick 2008, 89). In Women of Owu, Orisayes
mother, Erelu, points out that she is no longer in control of her senses (Osofisan 2006, 26) as
a result of the violent war, nonetheless, it is clear that she is not mad. Although Orisaye is the
bride of the god Obatala, the god of purity and creativity, she is to be taken as a wife to one of
Ijebus kings. Like the Greek Cassandras delirious wedding song, she sings and dances
deliriously, although she knows that there is no reason for a celebration since she is planning to
kill the general who is claiming her to join his harem (Osofisan 2006, 24):
Orisaye: I shall take my revenge!
Yes, I swear it to you mother, this wedding will be
Kusas dreadful, unbreakable pact with death!
My presence shall bring such suffering and anguish
To his household, to his city and his people
That the wreck they have caused here will seem in the end
Like a joyous feast. I will destroy them
Totally, totally, without remorse! They will rue the day
They set out to conquer the city of Owu! []
All our dead will be avenged! (Osofisan 2006, 28-9)
When Orisaye embarks upon her mission of revenge, it is not at all in accordance with
Obatalas principles, for he stands for balance and patience. When seeing herself as a deathavenging spirit, she weighs revenge over balance and patience since this revenge is solely hers
and not Obatalas. Very much aware that she will die after killing the king, she also knows
Ijebus destiny. Most of them will not get home and those who will, shall find their land
invaded by others, and shall suffer a defeat worse than Owus:
Orisaye: Ill watch his blood flow, gurgling like fresh wine
From the palm tree! I will be singing, mother!
Then of course they will seize me, and hack me to death!
Ah, what happiness is waiting for me!
[]
As for the others, you will see.
They will never make it back home, will never again see
Their wives or children! They will not
Chorus Leader: Please Princess, thats enough. Youre embarrassing us
With these futile prophecies []
Orisaye: [] Only a few will ever make it back home, and when
They do, they will find, waiting for them there, not peace
But new rulers, strange conquerors
Who in their absence would have taken over
Their land and their wives!

[]
So my dear women, suspend your dirges! Let us sing and
Dance instead for the victory that is coming! (Osofisan 2006, 29-30)
Locating vindictiveness and its devastating effects on mankind in the world of the gods,
Euripides could make his audience condemn the actions of the gods. However, Osofisan
locates vindictiveness in Orisaye, that is, in the human world as opposed to the god she is to
serve, and so his drama differs considerably from Euripides (Gtrick 2008, 89).
Additionally, Osofisans mortals threaten to punish the gods by extinction because as
Anlugbua puts it in the first scene, the gods cannot survive without their worshippers. Also
when the last male in Owu, a child, is killed, one of the women state that, They [the gods] too
will die without worshippers (Osofisan 2006, 46). One of the most heart-breaking laments in
Women of Owu is uttered by Erelu when the soldiers bring in the corpse of her grandson
Aderogun, the counterpart of Astyanax in The Trojan Women. Erelus lament takes the form
of an Oriki3. Erelu celebrates her murdered grandson as a brave one, as the son of the
warrior Jagunmolu, who is a collector of heads except the new-borns (Osofisan 2006, 778). The lamentation of Aderogun entails a celebration of the bravery and warfare of his
ancestry, for through the funeral ritual, he will be united with his ancestors (Weyenberg 2013,
158-9). As the women of Owu prepare Aderoguns body for burial, they sing a dirge whose
title translates as If Id known, Id not have come to the World:
If Id known, Id not have come to the world
Id have stayed peacefully in heaven instead
[] A woman gives birth and begins to cry
As nursing mothers rejoice, war breaks out
The mother of twins will soon be mourning
Refrain
The handsome turn sacrifice to the god of war
The brave go to battle and never return
Why have children then, if they wont last? (Osofisan 2006, 76).
Then Erelu starts singing her grandsons oriki whose title translates as My son, Aderogun!
My son, Aderogun!
Farewell, till we meet again!
Son of the warrior Jagunmolu
Offspring of Owus ancestors
[]
Sleep on, but you will rise again
Youll not eat millipedes or worms:
When you get home there, say my greetings:
And tell them I am on my way! (Osofisan 2006, 78)
While Aderoguns oriki praises bravery in war, the dirge emphasizes the loss that bravery
involves, particularly for the mothers left behind. The reference to twins in the fifth line adds
weight to the hardship. Since the Yoruba perceive twins as special children who bring fortune
to the family, their death is antithetical to the promise of their birth (Ajila 2004, 143).
For the women of Owu, a song is not merely a form of expression, but it also holds
active potential. They sing to regain power from the men who have hurt them. This is clear in
the following exchange between the chorus of women and the chorus leader:
Chorus Leader: Sing! Sing! In defiance of their whips!
Women: We curse you all!
Chorus Leader: Of their insults!
Chorus Leader: Of their rapine and assault!
Chorus Leader: Our curse on all men, and especially men of violence!
Chorus Leader: All those born of women, but who use us as dogs!
Women: We Curse! We curse! (Osofisan 2006, 38)
According to stage directions, the women then start a ritual song of malediction that reaches its
highest point as they bare their breasts collectively, which is an ill-omened act in many African
cultures, and utter their curse, We curse you all, hence, mourning turns into resistance
(Weyenberg 2013, 160).
Interestingly, this dramatization of the womens powerlessness and resistance is
juxtaposed with a rather different treatment of gender in Women of Owus retelling of
Euripides Helen scene (Budelmann 2007, 23). In Greek myth, Helen is said to be the cause of
the Trojan War, which was started by her husband King Menelaus after the Trojan prince Paris
took her away with him. Helen thus embodies the conflict between the Greeks and Trojans. In
Osofisans play, the Owu War started when favourite wife of Okunade, Ifes General, Iyunloye
was captured and given to one of the Owu princes, Erelus son. Okunade became bitter and
swore to get her back. What happens to Iyunloye here basically resembles what has happened
to Helen in the Greek tradition: all responsibility for the war falls on her shoulders. She alone
is to blame:
Erelu: Many times I offered to lead you through one of our secret exits,
So you could go and intercede for us with your husbands
Forces. If youd gone, the war would have ended years ago,
And certainly without this catastrophe we see now.
But did you listen to me? All you did was play me along,
Agreeing to go when it seemed we were about to lose
The war, and then quickly changing your mind
When fortune turned on our side! So whats this story
About loving or missing your husband? Listen,
Its time to face the truth and stop lying! (Osofisan 2006, 54)
The May Okunade now comes to punish his wife, undecided whether to take her back home
or have her die right away. A scene of debate takes place between Iyunloye and Erelu in which
she portrays herself as a victim of circumstances, always missing her husband, whereas Erelu
tries to persuade the May to kill her for abandoning him for her rich and handsome youngest
son rather than living in the small and wretched hamlet of Ife (Osofisan 2006, 55).
In Euripidess tragedy, Helen emphasizes the difference between Greek self and
Trojan other. Comparably, in Osofisans retelling, Erelu insists on the difference between
Iyunloye and the women of Owu. This is emphasized in the scene where Iyunloye tries to
convince her husband that she did not go to Owu with prince Dejumo (the counterpart of Paris)
voluntarily. At this point, Erelu responds fiercely (Weyenberg 2013, 160-1):
Erelu: Confess, you liked my son, and
You liked this city! Dejumo was handsome, young,
Strong and wealthy. It was a breath-taking sight watching him
Ride a horse! And he had in his stable some of the most
Magnificent breeds. I know as a woman how it feels
To be chosen as the favourite of such a man. Besides,
Who would rather live in backward Ife than the city
Of Owu, if given the choice? When you gave yourself up
In Apomu, and were brought here to Owu, you saw suddenly
Such wonder as you had never imagined! You saw
Our city walls and our paved streets! Crowds that made you
Dizzy; the silk on the women, coral beads on our neck,
Gold in our hair! You were dazzled! Confess! (Osofisan 2006, 54-5)
When Erelu describes how the luxuries of Owu impressed Iyunloye, as Troy did Helen, her
version of history sharply distinguishes between the women of Owu, legitimate victims of war
and sexual violence, and Iyunloye who gave herself up willingly. However, Iyunloye responds
to this with unexpected resistance:
Iyunloye: Yes, be cruel! Be arrogant! Boast of your riches,
Of your dazzling streets! So Ife is backward! Go on,
Jeer at us because we are a minority people!
[]
But you and your chiefs always claimed, before this,
Didnt you, that we were one and the same people in all of
Yorubaland? So this is what you meant: the monkey
Does the work, while the baboon eats the food! (Osofisan 2006, 55-6)
Osofisan points here to the intra-ethnic conflicts that persist among Yoruba sub-groups in
South-West Nigeria. These conflicts, Ifeanyi Onwuzuruigbo explains, usually reflect
unresolved issues from the Yoruba Wars of the nineteenth century (2010, 1797). Dramatizing
the conflict between Owu and Ife, Osofisan also demonstrates that what is seen as a unified
Yoruba ethnic identity is a construct. The people of south-western Nigeria, the Republic of
Benin and Togo, who are today all referred to as Yoruba, were until the late nineteenth
century organized in independent polities (qtd. in Weyenberg 2013, 161). The emergence of
the modern pan-Yoruba identity was largely the result of British colonialism, which organised
its administration in a way that shaped ethnic communities as well as modes of ethnic political
mobilization and organization (Berman 1998, 312-13). The image of a unified Yoruba people
has become increasingly strong because the nascent sense of belonging to a larger cultural
collectivity has been catalysed by external perspectives introduced through regional and
international political and economic networks (qtd. in Weyenberg 2013, 162).
In Euripides play, Helens final line of argument is that although she did betray her
country, she was the victim of force. She claims that she was impelled to follow Paris by the
superior power of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, that no one, not even Zeus, can resist
(Gregory 1991, 173). Osofisans Iyunloye, on the other hand, blames her husband for being
away when she was abducted at Apomu. She points to the vulnerability of women and girls
during wars and civil conflicts. Osofisan might be pointing out here that may be she is no
different from the women of Owu and suffers as they do:
Iyunloye: When the Owu forces attacked us at the market
At Apomu, you were not around, remember?
There was no one I could call upon for help!
You must have heard what the soldiers did to us,
You are now a soldier yourself!
[] In desperation, I had to buy my life with the only asset
I had my beauty! (Osofisan 2006, 51-2)
The confrontation between Iyunloye and Erelu demonstrates that the women of Owu are not
the only victims: Erelu is complicit in the abuse of power and the exploitation of fellow
Yoruba. According to Erelu, It is the fate of the conquered to toil for the strong! / That is the
logic of war, the logic of defeat! (Osofisan 2006, 55). Here she speaks of herself as a
conqueror, thus, the defeated queen uses the language of her conqueror, for she already belongs
to a city that enslaved other Yoruba. Hence, by focusing on the suffering of Iyunloye,
Osofisan challenges Helens traditional representation as the root cause rather than a victim of
war.
Iyunloye quite explicitly flatters and seduces the May since she has understood that
her only weapon is her sexual seduction. The women later find out that [] beauty / Has
conquered again, as before after being informed that Iyunloye has finally, regained the
Mays heart, and joined his caravan (Osofisan 2006, 61). This proves Erelus opinion about
the type of woman Iyunloye is:
Erelu: [] Women like her are dangerous,
Especially to their lovers. Once they catch you, youre hooked
For ever: They have such powers of enchantment, eyes
That will set cities ablaze. (Osofisan 2006, 48)
Hence, the queen of lust, as Erelu calls her, is pardoned and reunited with the May,
becoming the supreme victor who conquers one man after the other. This announcement is
devastating to the women of Owu who envisaged her death because what actually happens to
Iyunloye is completely different from what they expected: the irony of the situation is
savoured to its logical conclusion, for [the Greek] Menelaus and Helen are fully united
before they get back home (Goff 2013, 132).
The slave trade is certainly an important element in The Trojan Women, but it is the
effect rather than the cause of the war. Women of Owu, on the other hand, adds a rational
reason for the slave trade and clearly points out that human beings, rather than the gods, are the
reason behind the war. Moreover, Osofisans condemnation of the slave trade is extended to a
condemnation of economic exploitation of people. When criticizing his own people for being
involved in the type of slave trade that benefits the West, Osofisan not only attacks the
economy on which that trade rests, but also uses the gods as a tool to criticize the Yoruba
people for allowing themselves to be deceived by the false glamour of the West (Gtrick 2008,
88-9).
Historically, slavery was indeed at the start of the Owu war. One of the main reasons
Yoruba kingdoms fought against each other was to take prisoners to sell as slaves to the
British. Olatunji Ojo explains that the Owu war began when Ife violated a law that precluded
the enslavement of Oyo citizens. When captives from war were sold to Ijebu slave traders,
Owu soldiers rescued them. In retaliation, Ife and Ijebu troops attacked Owu for trying to
stop a lucrative trade (2005, 383). The women of Owu have left this complicity in the slave
trade out of their lamentations, and it is specifically for this reason that their ancestral god,
Anlugbua, blames them (Weyenberg 2013, 165-66), [] you chose to glorify the story with
lies! Lies! / Our apotheosis as you sing it is a fraud! (Osofisan 2006, 66)
Thus according to their god, the history they perform through their lamentations is
partly fraudulent. Nevertheless, the women defend themselves by objecting that it is not they,
the common fool, but the rulers who write history; it is the hunters who compose the
story of the hunt / It is the revellers, not the slaughtered cows, / who record the fable of the
feast! (Osofisan 2006, 66). They thus present themselves as victims of historicism, reducing
the histories they sing to a mere echo of the dominant narrative to which they have no access
(Weyenberg 2013, 166). The women of Owu perceive themselves as the passive victims of a
history determined by their ancestral gods, nonetheless, the god Anlugbua simply replies that:
Anlugbua: Then the deer must train themselves to seize the gun from
Their hunters! The cows to take over the narration of
Their own story (Osofisan 2006, 66).
He urges them to take matters into their own hands and compose their own history; this is a
valuable lesson in self-emancipation. When the women ask their ancestral father Anlugbua for
help, he offers them the following proverb, a father can only chew for a child: he cannot
swallow for her (65). Thus the emphasis now is not on divine resolution, but human agency.
Surprisingly, while gender has been prominent in the play so far, it is now relegated to
the background. The women are no longer addressed as women, but become the
representatives of a collective that is co-responsible for a history of warfare. One the one hand,
they are transformed from passive victims to possible agents of change. On the other hand, to
disregard gender when talking about wars that generate gendered violence seems problematic,
especially when bearing in mind the history of colonial and military violence in Nigeria, of
which so many women have become victims (Weyenberg 2013, 166).
The transformation of queen Erelu displays a similar dilemma. It also suggests a
change from passive victim to agent of social change. Without her royal status as well as a
man to offer her protection, Erelu felt unable to stand by herself, I am not the widow of a
hero. Only an old woman / With fallen breasts. Without this stick to lean on, / I could not
stand alone by myself (Osofisan 2006, 25). However, towards the end of the play, the chorus
of women remind her that as, the mother of the city and the only mouth they have left to
speak to their ancestors, Erelu has the duty to perform the necessary burial rites so that the
spirits of the dead be released and sent home:
Chorus Leader: I know how you feel Erelu, but Kabiyesi,

Your husband is no longer here. All our priests and
Princes have been turned to corpses. Their bodies lie around
In the rubble there unburied. They and the other victims
Need someone to release their spirits and send them back
Safely home to the ancestors, someone trained in the task.
Among us theres no such person left now,
Except you. (Osofisan 2006, 62)
The womens lament and appeal to Erelu to save their future, result in her acceptance of the
task to lead the newly dead to the ancestors. Thus this inspires her to abandon her passivity
and play an active part again (Weyenberg 2013, 175):
Chorus Leader: [] Erelu knows
What we must do to save our future from eternal damnation. It is
A duty she cannot evade or refuse. (Osofisan 2006, 62)
After a series of hesitations and interruptions the rite is performed, the songs sung, Erelu
entranced and possessed by Anlugbua (Goff 2013, 133). Worth mentioning is the fact that,
[w]hereas nobody answers the call of the Trojan women in the Greek source text, Anlugbua,
makes his presence noticed in Women of Owu being the foremost ancestor of the Owus, since
he was the founder of the city (Gtrick 2008, 90). Together the women start their ritual
dances:
The Women begin the dirge till they gradually separate into two Choruses dancing around
the figure of Erelu. The dances are slow and ritually ceremonial, and will gradually
conduct Erelu and the Chorus Leaders into a trance.
Erelu: Let this be our dance of defeat, our final dirge
To our wrecked city, to perfidy, the folly of war.
Dance with me now the dance of our death!
Chorus Leader 1: We dance
For those who fell in the field of slaughter
For all who fell to feed the greed of power
For all the innocent silenced in their prime,
Silenced so that someone could win an argument
For the numerous souls wasted again and again
In the ceaseless clash of liberty and lust
For the widows and orphans who survive
But who will soon be drawn into fresh confrontations

For the numerous ghosts we leave behind
For the bodies abandoned on these broken bricks. (Osofisan 2006, 63-4)
Through song and dance, the women perform a valediction of the dead and summon their
ancestor Anlugbua who takes possession of Erelu, so that she speaks with his voice and
delivers the plays final message. The contact is created on stage when the two choruses call
him, Come, Anlugbua! Come down! / Maabo, Anlugbua! (Osofisan 2006, 64), while Erelu
is dancing herself into a trance. The lights then go down, the women lose their balance when
they feel his presence, and a strong light is focused on Erelu (Gtrick 2008, 90). At the same
moment, caught in a spotlight, the god Anlugbua appears. Nonetheless, when performing the
ritual, Erelu is attacked by forces stronger than herself, and she dies. Hence, Erelu is now
transformed into a queen who saves her people, for she sacrifices her life for the sake of her
community.
The trance dance and accompanying songs, however, communicate differently
depending on the audiences competence. On the one hand, when spectators with Yoruba
competence see the dance, they understand that Erelu is venturing into the dangerous realm of
superhuman powers which overtake and kill her. They also realize what an enormous task
Erelu has taken upon herself to fulfil, and they see her development into a responsible person
who sacrifices herself for her community. By doing this, she opens a way not only to the
ancestors but also to the future, because the ancestors stand for the collectively acquired
knowledge that is needed in order to survive. On the other hand, spectators without Yoruba
competence merely see a dance and might perceive it to have some relevance to the funeral.
To them the songs performed in Yoruba basically convey a sad atmosphere (Gtrick 2008, 901).
Through Erelus mouth, Anlugbua places the blame for the Owu conflict on the Owu
people themselves because of their involvement in the slave trade, You were given this life.
You chose to waste it / In a senseless quarrel over a woman. He predicts that there will be a
penalty beyond the loss of the city for their guilt of not learning from history, and not just for
this guilt, but for the larger humanity failings of not learning from history:
If only you had read your history right, the lessons
Left behind by the ancestors! Each of us, how else did we go
Except by the wrath of war? Each of us,
Demolished through violence and contention! Not so? (Osofisan 2006, 66)
The women plead that they did not read or write the history, because they are its
victims rather than its makers, however, the god tells them that they should learn the wisdom
of sticking together and loving one another (Osofisan 2006, 66). In this line, the god has
ceased to be entirely Euripidean, because he can envisage the kind of compassion that in
Euripidean drama characterizes the relationships of humans only, and offers them a defence
against the machinations of the divine (Goff 2013, 134).
Anlugbua predicts that the women of Owu will go into years of wandering and slavery
as a punishment for their wasted lies. Thus the god has the final word. He condemns human
beings for their ceaseless desire for bloodshed, yet leaves some hope when predicting that new
Owus will come into existence; Owu will rise again, but not as itself, instead, the people will
build new communities scattered over Yorubaland and in other locations of slavery (Goff
2013, 134-5). Hence, the message Osofisan delivers to his audience is explicit:
Anlugbua: Poor human beings! War is what will destroy you!
As it destroys the gods. But I am moved, and I promise: Owu will rise again! Not here,
Not as a single city again []
[] but in little communities elsewhere,
Within other cities of Yorubaland. Those now going
Into slavery shall start new kingdoms in those places.
Its the only atonement a god can make for you
Against your ceaseless volition of self-destruction.
You human beings, always thirsty for blood,
Always eager to devour one another! I hope
History will teach you. I hope you will learn. Farewell. (Osofisan 2006, 67)
In actual history, new Owus did come into existence, for the migration Anlugbua predicts has a
historical basis. After the Owu war and the fall of the Owu kingdom, the migration of Yoruba
refugees resulted in the rapid expansion of the settlement of Ibadan, which grew to be the
second-largest city in Nigeria. Although Anlugbua restricts his predicted migration to other
cities of Yorubaland, it could also refer to the Yoruba diaspora. During the transatlantic slave
trade, many Yoruba were taken as slaves to different parts of the New World (Weyenberg
2013, 168).
Hence, Orisayes prophecy that Erelu is to die in Owu comes true in the last scene, a
scene partly without a counterpart in the original Greek play. Notably, at the end of Euripides
play, the Trojan women are forced to leave Troy without being able to bury their dead. In
despair, they try to summon the attention of their dead husbands, but as the gods have heard
nothing before, now the dead also hear nothing. Finally, the women walk away to slavery
hopelessly. In Women of Owu, however, Osofisan extends some moments from The Trojan
Women. When told they are to leave, the women of Owu, too lament those not buried, but here
their lament and their appeal to Erelu to save our future result in her acceptance of the task of
leading the dead to the ancestors which has no counterpart in the Greek source text (Gtrick
2008, 90). It is through Erelus sacrifice that the reason for the gods punishment is
communicated to the surviving Owu citizens who are punished for their own misdeeds, namely
their slave trade with the West.
Furthermore, there is a difference in tone between the endings of both plays.
Euripides ending shows that the Trojan women are left with no help. This hopelessness might
have been his means to arouse his audiences sympathy for the slave women and prisoners of
war in general. In the Greek tragedy, the gods do not care and the mortals are puppets in their
hands. Osofisans drama, however, indicates a possibility for change and improvement since
people should learn from history how to avoid war, thus making humans in control of their
own destiny. He ends his play with a ray of hope amongst the prevailing gloom, a sign that is
underpinned by the women remaining on stage to sing a dirge until the final blackout, unlike
Euripides women of Troy who probably leave the stage to walk to their destined slavery.
Moreover, when Osofisan deviates from the original source text and adds a new
ending, spectators familiar only with the Euripidean tragedy, are left with no guide, while at
the same time the signs on stage become increasingly difficult for them to interpret. They are
less likely to grasp the importance of Erelus sacrifice for the murdered men, the surviving
women, and the yet unborn. Nevertheless, the Yorubanizing devices are compensated for by
the detailed dialogue. Thanks to Anlugbuas lines, the audience can understand that: Iyunloye
is not the cause of the war; the kind of crime the citizens of Owu have committed; and how the
life of future generations can be improved. Hence, it is apparent that Osofisans focus is on
mankind rather than a particular colonial power (Gtrick 2008, 92).
Conclusively, although set in a colonial context, Women of Owu has clear
postcolonial and neo-colonial overtones. It is about the consequences of military aggression
and the brutalities of war anytime, anywhere: in nineteenth and twentieth century Africa, in the
Middle East, or wherever spectators care to make connections (Budelmann 2007, 19). In this
play, Osofisan sets up a three way relationship: ancient Greece, nineteenth century Yorubaland,
and any present day war relevant to the spectators (Budelmann 2007, 17). While the various
contexts Osofisan evokes will resonate differently for different audience, his portrayal of
suffering as a condition that transcends those differences insists on a common humanity. It
invites all audience to go beyond their own position and challenge the dehumanization of the
other. He achieves this by inviting the audience to reflect on their contexts regardless of their
cultural background, making it easier for feelings of loss and compassion that are evoked in
one context to transmit to another distant one. Correspondingly, by tracing a wider and more
diverse context beyond the plays setting in nineteenth-century Yorubaland, Osofisan tends to
show that Africa is part of a larger world; that it is with this world, not merely the colonial
heritage, that African literatures are concerned and to which African countries are connected
(Weyenberg 2013, 175).
Finally, the different contexts and time-lines Osofisan includes, makes it impossible to
determine the single pre-text to which his play responds. Its complex intertextual framework
makes it hard to identify Euripides The Trojan Women as its singular point of origin. Women
of Owus variety of pre-texts about Troy, Owu, and Iraq are each inscribed in different
historical contexts and cultural traditions. The plays intertextual dynamic provides a lens
through which all the texts that are referenced, including the Euripidean tragedy, are reflected
[] to bear upon one another (Weyenberg 2013, 175). Lastly, Women of Owu as an
intercultural performance, opens up new possibilities for diverse cultural interpretations and
readings.
Notes
1
Intertextuality denotes the way in which texts gain meaning through their referencing or
evocation of other texts. For Julia Kristeva, this concept concerns much more than simply
identifying literary references or inspirations. Rather, the idea of intertextuality is an
expression of the complicated dependence of literary works on all the literature that has come
before them.
2
A dirge is a sad song of mourning and lamentation. It is basically a lament for the dead,
especially one forming part of a funeral rite.
3
An Oriki is a type of attributive name that the Yoruba give to a newly-born child, expressing
how it is hoped he or she will turn out to be. More generally, the term refers to praise chants or
recitations of achievements. Oriki are uttered at births and different kinds of ritual festivals. At
funerals, however, they function as a ritual farewell of the deceased and a celebration of the
ancestors with whom the deceased will now be reunited.
Bibliography
Ajila, C.O. (2004). Hope Fostering Among the Yoruba Speaking People of Nigeria: The Use
of Proverbs, Cognomen, Prayers and Names. Anthropologist 6 (2): 141-146.
Berman, Bruce. J. (1998). Ethnicity, Patronage and the African State: The Politics of Uncivil
Nationalism. African Affairs Vol. 97: 305-34.
Budelmann, Felix. (2007). Trojan Women in Yorubaland: Femi Osofisans Women of Owu.
In Lorna Hardwick and Carol Gillespie (Eds.). Classics in Post-Colonial Worlds.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 15-39.
Goff, Barbara. (2013). Euripides: Trojan Women. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gtrick, Kacke. (2008). Femi Osofisans Women of Owu: Paraphrase in Performance.
Research in African Literatures 39 (3): 82-98.
Gregory, Justina. (1991). Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Irele, Abiola & Jeyifo, Biodun. (2010). The Oxford Encyclopaedia Of African Thought. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Ojo, Olatunji. (2005). Slavery and Human Sacrifice in Yorubaland: Ondo, c. 1870-94. The
Journal of African History 46 (3): 379-404.
Onwuzuruigbo, Ifeanyi. (2010). Researching Ethnic Conflicts in Nigeria: The Missing Link.
Ethnic and Racial Studies 33 (10): 1797-1813.
Osofisan, Femi. (2006). Women of Owu. Ibadan: University Press PLC.
Walton, Michael. (1991). Introduction. In Euripides. Euripides Plays: Two. London:
Methuen, ix- xxxi.
Wetmore, Kevin J. (2002). The Athenian Sun in an African Sky: Modern African Adaptations
of Classical Greek Tragedy. Jefferson, North Carolina, London: mcfarland &
Company.
Weyenberg, Astrid Van. (2013). The Politics Of Adaptation: Contemporary African Drama
And Greek Tragedy. Amsterdam: Rodopi
PhD. Hasmukhlal Bhailalbhai PATEL

Principal, Grow More College of Education,
Himatnagar, Gujarat,India
Tanja GRBESIC
English Teaching Assistant,
Mostar University Academy of Fine Arts,
Siroki Brijeg, Bosnia and Herzegovina
A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF TANDY

BY SHERWOOD ANDERSON
Abstract
English language as an International language has made it essential to do many researches on
its linguistics for the Speakers of other Language for many years. Many of the English
language users in the world are non-native speakers known as NNS. It is essential to do
linguistic analyses for students of EFL in countries such as India so that they can gain an
insight into linguistic aspects of a literary piece written in the English language. The researcher
has selected the short story Tandy by Sherwood Anderson in order to do a linguistic analysis.
A linguistic analysis is a wider study area; however, the researcher has restricted his study to
certain points only: Noun, adjective, adverb, article, pronoun, prepositions, verb, infinitives,
co-coordinators and subordinators for the linguistic analysis of Tandy. There are no further
sub-divisions of grammatical items other than the ones mentioned above. The verbs are divided
into two categories for the analysis: finite verbs and to-infinitives. The conjunctions are
divided into two categories: co-coordinators and subordinators. The researcher has considered
a sentence unit as displayed in this example. In this type of sentence- (I have not lost faith. I
proclaim that. I have only been brought to the place where I know my faith will not be
realized, he declared hoarsely.), the researcher has considered each sentence separately. The
first sentence is (Ifaith), the second sentence is (Ithat.), the third sentence is
(Irealized, he declared hoarsely.) In this manner, all the sentences are divided in Tandy.
The linguistic analysis of Tandy was carried out by the researcher, the co-researcher and
some students of Bachelors in Education. All the selected grammatical items as shown above
are entered in MS Excel. All these selected grammatical items are analyzed both in frequency
and percentage. In this manner, a comparative depiction of the uses of grammatical items by
Sherwood Anderson in Tandy is presented with the aid of some students so that the students
can develop an insight into a linguistic analysis of a literary piece.
Keywords: NNS , EFL, linguistic analysis, grammatical items
1. Introduction
The English language as an International language has made it essential to do many
researches on its linguistics for the speakers of other languages for many years. Many of the
users of the English language in the world are non-native speakers known as NNS. It is
essential to do linguistic analyses for students of EFL in countries such as India so that they
can gain an insight into linguistic aspects of a literary piece in the English language.
2. Genesis
A natural question that arises from a readers mind is Why was the text of Tandy
analyzed by the researcher in a quantitative form? The answer is that, being a language
teacher, it is interesting for the researcher to find out where students of EFL make mistakes in
the English language. Students seem to be knowledgeable in the theories of grammar items
such as noun, verb, etc. For example, they are able to define noun and explain the types
of noun. However, sometimes they fail in identifying a noun that exists in a particular text.
In other words, students of EFL sometimes have good theoretical knowledge of grammar
elements/parts but are not comfortable with the grammar used in a piece of literary work.
Keeping in view this experience, the researcher decided to do a linguistic analysis of Tandy
with the aid of students of EFL.
3. Statement of the Study
A Linguistic Analysis of Tandy by Sherwood Anderson
4. Operational Definitions
4.1. NNS
As Wikipedia says Non-native pronunciations of English result from the common
linguistic phenomenon in which non-native users of any language tend to carry the intonation,
phonological processes and pronunciation rules from their mother tongue into their English
speech. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not found in the
speaker's first language. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds
not found in the speaker's first language. For instance, the English language spoken by the
Indians is considered as NNS.
4.2. EFL
EFL is defined as a traditional term for the use or study of the English language by nonnative speakers in countries where English is generally not a local medium of communication.
EFL is usually learned in environments where the language of community and school is not
English. English for Indian people is termed as EFL in this study.
4.3.
Linguistic Analysis
Linguistic analysis is defined as the description of language in the context of its

morphological, syntactical, and semantic structures. It is the study of the description of the
internal phonological, grammatical, and semantic structures of languages. In the present study,
the linguistic analysis is restricted to certain points of grammar; hence the text of Tandy was
analyzed keeping in mind only some selected grammar points.
4.4. Grammatical Items
The word Grammatical items in a language may sound unusual to some people, but in
Gujarat the word is widely used. The Teachers and students of the English language refer to
noun, pronoun, verb, etc. as grammatical items, so, in the present study, the researcher
also uses the same terminology in order to do the linguistic analysis of the text Tandy.
5.
Method Of Study
The researcher has selected six students of EFL of Grow More College of Education.
They were asked to divide the text into paragraphs.
They were also asked to divide the sentences and to assign a code to each sentence.
The code 2.3 means that the paragraph number -2 and the sentence number -3 of that
paragraph viz. the digit before . represents the paragraph number and the digit afterwards .
represents the line number of that paragraph.
The researcher has considered a sentence unit as demonstrated in this example. In this type
of sentence- (I have not lost faith. I proclaim that. I have only been brought to the place
where I know my faith will not be realized, he declared hoarsely.), the researcher has
considered each sentence separately. The first sentence is (Ifaith), the second sentence is
(Ithat.), the third sentence is (Irealized, he declared hoarsely.) All the sentences in
Tandy are divided in this manner.
The six students of Grow More College of Education were assigned the task to identify
each word of the text of Tandy from a grammatical point of view.
The students were supposed to do an analysis of each word of Tandy. A linguistic
analysis is a wider study area, but the researcher has restricted his study to certain points only:
Noun, adjective, adverb, article, pronoun, prepositions, verb, infinitives, co-coordinators and
subordinators for the linguistic analysis of Tandy. There are no further sub-divisions of the
grammatical items other than the mentioned above. The verbs are divided into two categories
for the analysis: finite verbs and to-infinitives. The conjunctions are divided into two
categories: co-coordinators and subordinators.
The researcher reviewed the analysis done by the students and noted down the mistakes
made by the students in identifying words of the text. The analysis of the mistakes in the
identification will be useful for the researcher for his further teaching planning in the
classroom. The mistakes by the students were rectified.
The co-author had also gone through the text and identified each word. In that manner, the
final analysis of each word emerged.
6.
Participant
The researcher has selected six students of EFL of Grow More College of Education from
the academic batch of 2015-16. These students are pursuing their Bachelors in Education
degrees. Their specialization is teaching English as a second language.
7.
Quantitative Analysis
The analysis of each word of the text was entered category wise (noun, verb, adjective, etc)
in MS Excel format.
All these selected grammatical items are analyzed both in frequency and percentage. In this
way a comparative depiction of the uses of grammatical items by Sherwood Anderson in
Tandy is presented with the aid of some of students so that the students can develop an
insight into a linguistic analysis of a literary piece.
8.
Discussion on the Analysis of Tandy
8.1.
Pages
The text of Tandy consists of two pages.

8.2.
Paragraphs
The text Tandy is divided into 14 paragraphs.

8.3.
Sentences
8.3.1. Longest Sentence

The longest sentence is 1.4 numbered. It consists of 47 words.
8.3.2. Shortest Sentence
The shortest sentence is 12.10 numbered. It is Be Tandy. It consists of two words only.
8.4.
Words
There is a total of 1043 words in the text.
8.5.
Adjectives
The author has used 45 different adjectives 55 times in the text of Tandy.
The following adjectives are used by the author once (1.82 %). They are- all, alone,
another, babbling, better, big, brave, breaking, childish, city, concerning, courageous,
darkened, drunken, earnest, easy, enough, half, harder than, inevitable, late , long,
lovely, manifesting, more, much, one, only, passing, prolonged, red-haired, rich, rural,
sharp, tall, together, trembling, true , very.
The adjectives dead, my, new and strong are used twice (3.64 %) in the work.
The adjective young is used thrice (5.45 %) in the work.
The adjective little is used five times (9.09 %) in the work. The adjective little is used
most of all the adjectives in the text of Tandy.
Count of Adj.
Total of
Frequency
Little
young
strong
new
my
dead
As per list (39

Adj.)
Adjective
The following table represents adjectives, frequency of adjectives and % of the frequency of
the adjectives.
Frequency of Adj.
55
% of Frequency
1.82
3.64
3.64
3.64
3.64
5.45
9.09
100
45
The following chart represents adjectives, frequency of adjectives and % of the frequency of
the adjectives.
8.6.
Adverbs
The author has used 29 different adverbs 35 times in the text of Tandy.
The following adverbs are used by the author once (2.86 %). They are- almost, always,
better, bitterly, ecstatically, ever, hard, hoarsely, instead, later, new, old, once, perhaps,
sharply, softly, sometimes, somewhere, then, there, unpainted, unused, violently
The adverbs again, enough, here, never, now and only are used twice (5.71%) in
the work. These adverbs are used most of all the adverbs in the text of Tandy.
The following table represents adverbs, frequency of adverbs and % of the frequency of the
adverbs.
Adverb
As per list (23 Adv.)
again
enough
Here
never
now
only
Total of Frequency
Total of Adv
Frequency of Adv.
1
2
2
2
2
2
2
35
29
% of Frequency
2.86
5.71
5.71
5.71
5.71
5.71
5.71
100.00
The following chart represents adverbs, frequency of adverbs and % of the frequency of the
adverbs.
8.7.
Articles
The author has used 3 different articles 115 times in the text of Tandy.
The article a is used 32 times (27.83 %) in the work.
The article an is used 4 times (3.48 %) in the work.
The article the is used 79 times (68.70 %) in the work. The article the is used most of all
the articles in the text of Tandy.
The following Table represents articles, frequency of articles and % of the frequency of the
articles.
Article
a
an
the
Total of Frequency
Total of Article
Frequency of Article
32
4
79
115
3
% of Frequency
27.83
3.48
68.70
100.00
The following Chart represents articles, frequency of articles and % of the frequency of the
articles.
8.8.
Pronouns
The author has used 26 different pronouns 162 times in the text of Tandy.
The following 10 pronouns are used by the author once (0.62 %). They are- anything,
few, he, her, herself, his, myself, she, something, this.
The pronouns me, them and they are used twice (1.23%) in the work.
The pronouns him, himself and something are used thrice (1.85%) in the work.
The pronouns that and you are used four times (2.47 %) in the work.
The pronoun my is used five times (3.09 %) in the work.
The pronoun there is used six times (3.70 %) in the work.
The pronoun it is used nine times (5.56 %) in the work.
The pronoun she is used eleven times (6.79 %) in the work.
The pronouns his and her are used nineteen times (11.73 %) in the work.
The pronoun he is used thirty-four times (20.99 %) in the work. This pronoun is used
most of all the pronouns in the text of Tandy.
The following Table represents pronouns, frequency of pronouns and % of the frequency of
the pronouns.
Pronoun
As per list (10 Pronouns)
Me, them, they
him, himself, something
that and you
my
there
it
she
His and Her
I
He
Total of Frequency
Total of Pronoun
Frequency of Pronoun
1
2
3
4
5
6
9
11
19
26
34
162
26
% of Frequency
0.62
1.23
1.85
2.47
3.09
3.70
5.56
6.79
11.73
16.05
20.99
100.00
The following chart represents the pronouns and % of the frequency of the pronouns.
8.9.
Verbs
The author has used 111 different verbs 175 times in the text of Tandy.
The following verbs are used by the author once (0.57 %). They are- am, am addicted, am
not cured, are, aroused, barked, be good, become, call, could be no, dare, did not come, did
not look, did not see, did succeed, do not get, dont want, forgot, fell, got, grew, had been
invited, had been sleeping, had brought, had come, had crept, has been born, has crossed,
have, have been bought, have destroyed, have missed, have not found , have not lost, is not,
kissed, leaned, looked, makes, may be, mean, might destroy, need, overcome, pleaded,
proclaim, proclaimed, raised, ran, ran away, rocked, scolded, smiled, spent, spoke, staggered,
stand, stared, stood, stopped, talked, think, thought, took, touched, trembled, venture,
wandered, wanted, was, was absorbed, was destroying, was drunk, was not, was recovering,
was touched, went, wept, were, were not, will not be realized, winked, would be, would have,
would not be quieted.
The verbs- became, cried, dropped, lay, led, lived, made, saw, see, seemed, shook, turned
are used twice (1.14%) in the work.
The verbs- arose, came, declared, gave, returned, tried, understand are used thrice
(1.71%) in the work.
The verbs be, sat and want are used four times (2.29 %) in the work.
The verbs began, know and said are used five times (2.86 %) in the work.
The verb was is used eight times (4.57 %) in the work.
The verb is is used eleven times (6.29 %) in the work. This verb is used most of all the
adverbs in the text of Tandy.
The following Table represents the verbs, frequency of verbs and % of the frequency of the
verbs.
Verb
As per list (84 Verbs)
be, sat and want
began, know and said
was
is
Count of Frequency
Total of Verb
Frequency of Verb
1
2
3
4
5
8
11
175
111
% of Frequency
0.57
1.14
1.71
2.29
2.86
4.57
6.29
100.00
The following Chart represents verbs, frequency of verbs and % of the frequency of the verbs.
8.10.
Infinitives
The author has used 23 different to-infinitives 29 times in the text of Tandy.
The following 21 to-infinitives are used by the author once (3.45 %). They are-to address,
to babble, to be called, to be called, to be cured, to bear, to caress, to comfort, to cure, to
dare, to fall, To let, to look , to love, to quit, to realize, to roll, to run, to spend, to talk ,
to weep
The to-infinitive to be loved is used thrice (10.34 %) in the work.
The to-infinitive to be is used five times (17.24 %) in the work. This to-infinitive is used
most of all the to-infinitives in the text of Tandy.
The following Table represents to-infinitives, frequency of to-infinitives and % of the
frequency of the to-infinitives.
to- infinitives
As per list (21 to-infinitives)
to be loved
to be
Total of Frequency
Total of to- infinitive
Frequency of to- infinitives

1
3
5
29
23
% of Frequency
3.45
10.34
17.24
100.00
The following chart represents the to-infinitives, frequency of to-infinitives and % of the
frequency of to-infinitives.
8.11.
Prepositions
The author has used 32 different prepositions 129 times in the text of Tandy.
The following 15 prepositions are used once by the author (0.78 %). They are-aboard,
about, after, away, back, because of, beneath , for, forth, forward, in to, of , off , out of,
under.
The prepositions about, beside, by, down, off and up are used twice (1.55 %) in
the work.
The prepositions along, into and over are used thrice (2.33 %) in the work.
The preposition at is used four times (3.10 %) in the work.
The preposition before is used five times (3.88 %) in the work.
The preposition from is used six times (4.65 %) in the work.
The preposition with is used seven times (5.43 %) in the work.
The preposition on is used ten times (7.75 %) in the work.
The prepositions in and to are used nineteen times (14.73 %) in the work.
The preposition of is used twenty three times (17.83 %) in the work. This preposition is
used most of all the prepositions the text of Tandy.
The following Table represents the prepositions, frequency of prepositions and % of the
frequency of the prepositions.
Preposition
As per list (15 Prepo.)
at
before
from
with
on
in
to
of
Total of Frequency
Total of Proposition
Frequency of Preposition
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
10
19
19
23
129
32
% of Frequency
0.78
1.55
2.33
3.10
3.88
4.65
5.43
7.75
14.73
14.73
17.83
100.00
The following chart represents the prepositions, frequency of prepositions and % of the
frequency of the prepositions.
8.12.
Nouns
The author has used 157 different nouns 254 times in the text of Tandy.
The total of 112 nouns is used by the author once (0.39 %). The list of these nouns is long,
so it is not mentioned here.
The nouns- agnostic, arms, attention, blast, Cleveland, daughter, drinking, engine, girl,
hotel, house, knees, man, men, one, passenger, quality, road, sidewalk, Tandy Hard, thing,
time, Tom, town, vision, whistle, Willard House are used twice (0.79 %) in the work.
The nouns body, chair, darkness, defeats, drink, faith, Winesburg are used thrice (1.18 %)
in the work.
The nouns name, street, voice are used four times (1.57 %) in the work.
The nouns Evening, father, god, woman are used five times (1.97 %) in the work.
The noun Tandy is used six times (2.36 %) in the work.
The noun Tom Hard is used seven times (2.76 %) in the work.
The noun child is used ten times (3.94 %) in the work.
The noun stranger is used twelve times (4.72 %) in the work. This noun is used most of
all the nouns in the text of Tandy.
The following Table represents the nouns, frequency of nouns and % of the frequency of the
nouns.
Noun
As per list (112 Nouns)
name, street and voice
Evening, father, god and woman
Tandy
Tom Hard
child
stranger
Total of Frequency
Total of Noun
Frequency of Noun
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
10
12
254
157
% of Frequency
0.39
0.79
1.18
1.57
1.97
2.36
2.76
3.94
4.72
100.00
The following Chart represents the nouns, frequency of nouns and % of the frequency of the
nouns.
8.13.
Co-Ordinators
The author has used 3 different co-ordinators 51 times in the text of Tandy.
The co-ordinator or is used twice (3.92 %) in the work.
The co-ordinator but is used eight times (15.69 %) in the work.
The co-ordinator and is used forty-one times (80.39 %) in the work. The co-ordinator
and is used most of all the co-ordinators in the text of Tandy.
The following Table chart represents the co-ordinators, frequency of co-ordinators and % of
the frequency of the co-ordinators.
Co-ordinators
or
but
and
Total of Frequency
Total of Co-ordinators
Frequency of Co-ordinators
2
8
41
51
3
% of Frequency
3.92
15.69
80.39
100.00
The following chart represents the co-ordinators, frequency of the co-ordinators and % of the
frequency of the co-ordinators.
8.14.
Sub-Ordinators
The author has used 16 different sub-ordinators 38 times in the text of Tandy.
The following 7 sub-ordinators are used by the author once (2.63 %). They are-although,
as yet, before, if, more than, such...as, until.
The sub-ordinators- as, as though, sothat, what, where, which are used twice (5.36 %)
in the work.
The sub-ordinator who is used thrice (7.89 %) in the work.
The sub-ordinator when is used five times (13.16 %) in the work.
The sub-ordinator that is used eleven times (28.95 %) in the work. This sub-ordinator is
used most of all the co-ordinators in the text of Tandy.
The following Table represents the sub-ordinators, frequency of sub-ordinators and % of subordinators.
Sub-ordinators
As per list (7 Sub-ordi.)
N of Sub-ordinators
1
% of Sub-ordinators
2.63
As per list (6 Sub-ordi.)

who
when
that
Total of N
Total of Sub-ordinators
2
3
5
11
38
16
5.26
7.89
13.16
28.95
100.00
The following chart represents the sub-ordinators, frequency of sub-ordinators and % of

frequency of sub-ordinators.
9.
General Presentation
The following table presents the number of words used in the text of Tandy, the frequency
total of words and % of the frequency of the word
Details
to-infinitive
Adv
Sub-ordinators
Co-ordinators
Adjective
Article
Preposition
Pronoun
Verb
Noun
Total
Total of Words
23
29
16
3
45
3
32
26
111
157
445
Frequency of Words
29
35
38
51
55
115
129
162
175
254
1043
% of Frequency
2.78
3.36
3.64
4.89
5.27
11.03
12.37
15.53
16.78
24.35
100.00
The following chart presents the number of words used in the text of Tandy, the frequency
total of words and % of the frequency of the words.
10.
General Discussion
The researcher has learnt the points of grammar in which the students of the college of
education are more competent and less competent.
The researcher has discovered that the students were making many mistakes in identifying
the difference between adjectives and adverbs.
The students were also sometimes found making mistakes in identifying nouns and verbs
too.
The researcher may plan his teaching for the upcoming year students on the bases of this
result.
The researcher has found that the students were more interested in doing this type of
analysis of the text Tandy than simply learning the language in the classroom.
11. Scope for Further Research
The linguistic analysis is carried out on the text Tandy keeping in mind some selected
items/points of grammar. There is scope for further study on the same text as demonstrated
below:
The verbs can be further studied as per the types of verbs and verb phrases.
The nouns can be further studied as per the types of nouns and noun phrases.
The adverbs can be further studied as per the types of adverbs and adverb phrases.
The pronouns can be further studied as per the types of pronouns.
The sub-ordinators and co-ordinators can be further studied as per the types.
There is scope for study keeping in mind various clauses such as noun, adjective and
adverb clauses.
There is scope for study keeping in mind various sentence types such as simple, compound
and complex sentences.
There is scope for study keeping in mind various sentence types such as affirmative,
negative, interrogative and exclamatory ones.
There is scope for study keeping in mind various participles.
It can be concluded that the study can be carried out on the same text from various
dimensions.
Bibliography
https://www.uni-trier.de/fileadmin/fb2/ANG/Linguistik/Stubbs/stubbs-1996-text-corpus-ch1.pdf
https://www.academia.edu/3230814/A_Comparative_Analysis_of_Two_Texts_Using_Hallida
ys_Systemic_Functional_Linguistics
https://sites.google.com/a/sheffield.ac.uk/all-about-linguistics/branches/discourseanalysis/example-research
http://das.sagepub.com/content/3/2/193.short?rss=1&ssource=mfr
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Linguistic+analysis
http://www.appen.com/solutions/language-technology/treebanking-and-other-linguisticanalysis/
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-linguistic-analysis.html
PhD. Mahmut TERCI

Faculty of Philology and Education Sciences,
Department of English Language and Literature,
Bedr University, Tirana, Albania
THE GENTLEMAN OF BIRTH: OLIVER TWIST
Abstract
As the focus in this article is mainly on Dickenss descriptions of the gentleman of birth in
Oliver Twist, selected extracts from the novel as well as critics opinions will help us analyze
the gentlemanly attitudes of the main characters connected to their noble origin and gentle
manners.
While Oliver opens his eyes in poor conditions, he always feels that he has noble
blood. Dickens believes that manners not social status make people true gentlemen yet, he
mixes the noble origin issue in his novel Oliver Twist, probably as a result of the Victorian
peoples perception of gentility which was very close to the concept of nobility. Since
Dickens added the flavor of noble birth, his nave nature as well as his perceptions the way
how he interprets peoples behavior and things which happen around him and which construct
his identity, his pure heart and his fate (reference to his belief and sincere praying) remarkably
influence the positive changes in his life time.
Dickenss little hero, Oliver Twist, while naturally appreciating goodness, is
disgusted by immoral things like stealing, which was unfortunately happening around. What
are the main factors that shape his kind, noble and nave character? Is it nature or nurture?
What could be the major reasons for Nancy, Rose and Mr. Brownlow to give their assistance
to Oliver? Whose Mr. Brownlows or Fagins teachings or influences are welcomed by
Oliver? The answers to these questions will eventually illustrate how gentlemanly manners
are inherited or acquired by Oliver.
Keywords: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Victorian gentleman, nobility, gentility, wicked
gentleman, true gentleman, gentleman of birth
1.
Introduction
Childhood is the highly crucial period of time in the formation of gentlemanly manners and
behaviors in ones life. In Oliver Twist Dickens portrays the main character, Oliver, who is
born noble and, thus, inherits this noble quality from his parents. Whatever the
circumstances he is pushed into later in his life, he manages to get rid of wrong doings. A
young child, Oliver, finds himself without any parental support in the society is treated cruelly
and instead of being pitied, he is hated and scorned. He is twisted with the merciless, heartless
and brutal incidents.
It cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce any very
extraordinary or luxuriant crop. Oliver Twist's ninth birthday found him a pale thin
child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference. But
nature or inheritance had implanted a good sturdy spirit in Oliver's breast. (OT, 9)
Dickens suggests that Olivers spirit will be good and strong due to his nature and inheritance
even though all the troubles and difficulties will be very hard for a little boy. Critics, such as
Cates Baldridge, claim that it is not so realistic that a child raised in poor conditions and later
living with the criminals would be innocent and manage to be away from pick pocketing or
stealing. To me, Dickens implies that difficult times, hard work, or harsh conditions force
people to struggle more, to endure more, and to learn better how to survive in life. It is a
biological or natural fact that viruses improve the immune system in a healthy body. And it is
a pedagogical and sociological fact that the hardships make peoples characters and
personalities stronger. As to the inheritance, Olivers little body could be biologically healthy
and strong due to the immune system he inherited from his parents; a noble character cannot
be inherited. The people parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers who are around us
psychologically and pedagogically have great influences and effects on us so that our
characters are shaped in that environment. The effect of inheritance is also added to Olivers
formation of the character by Dickens so that the negative of his nurturing could be ignored
and his kind behavior and gentle manner could be explained.
2.
Nurture or Nature?
Cates Baldridge mentions this issue in his article entitled The Instabilities of Inheritance in
Oliver Twist. He argues that
Nurture cannot explain Olivers character since he was nurtured in the workhouse;
nature in the sense of a physical and moral inheritance becomes the only
explanation we can reasonably consider once we begin to discover the identities of the
heros parents. Oliver physically resembles his progenitors, and the unmistakable
implication of his likeness to Brownlows pictures and memories is that his middleclass personality comes from the same source. (Baldrige, 186)
Partly, I agree with Baldridge in terms of Olivers unchanged character that any bad
environment cannot affect him in a negative way. He is protected and helped unexpectedly
within many coincidences in the story. First Rose and then Mr. Brownlow and even Nancy
gave assistance to Oliver and are some examples that might rarely happen in the real life.
Moreover, it is quite difficult to find this sort of people who can protect themselves from evil
doings despite that fact that they live with wicked people. It is almost impossible for such an
unprotected small orphan child like Oliver who lives among professional criminals to be away
from evil, i.e. Fagins teachings. It is true that the chance to see such selected or protected
people is too low in the normal life, but even a small possibility should be taken into the
consideration so that various people in the society should behave how they are supposed to
do. And it is also true that it is not a common thing to meet this kind of characters, but there is
always a possibility that people in such hard conditions could save themselves or could be
saved by benevolent, gentle and generous people. Dickens creates a kind of child hero who
could be a good example for the other children facing a lot of difficulties in their childhood
without parental support. There might be a difficult period for anybody to endure so that the
result of the patience in these hard times might be very fruitful. While Dickens attracts the
public attention to the poor conditions in the workhouses and implies that the government
should pass some certain laws to improve the conditions and standards of the people in these
public places, namely parishes, he also gives a special emphasis to the benevolent gentlemen
who are ready to help these poor orphans who really need sincere love, close care and
generous assistance during their hard times while growing up.
Is nature or noble blood the explanation of Olivers ideally kind character? Why
does not Monk, Olivers half-brother, have kind and noble attitudes like him? And how come
the two brothers are the opposite of each other? The same thing may be observed in Nicholas
Nickleby; while Ralph Nickleby is so mean, cruel and rude, it is assumed that his brother or
Nicholass father is probably a true gentleman as nothing bad about him is mentioned in the
novel. So, we could argue that nature itself in the sense of physical and moral inheritance
could not be the single explanation of their gentlemanly manners. Not only these two cases in
Dickenss novels, but also examples from real life, even today, the brothers and sisters who
are nurtured by the same family and even in the same schools could be different from one
another. Why? Because everybody is born with certain qualities such as pure heart, pure
mind, will power, physical inheritance. Yet, it is the person himself who decides to learn
or acquire bad or evil deeds. Whatever the surroundings they live in, it is each persons free
will of what to do, what to learn, how to live, and how to behave in life. The education given
in the family and at school, and the moral values one gets in his culture; they all have some
effects on people. But peoples own truths or their own choices of what to do and how to
behave shape each persons character.
According to Aristotle, educating the mind without educating the heart is no
education at all. 11 It is really crucial for a gentleman to keep his heart pure or to educate it if
he is to be considered a true gentleman. As long as a person tries to keep himself away from
all evil deeds, such as gossiping, lying, slandering, stealing, killing, torturing, insulting,
robbing, or any kind of evil deeds or crimes, he/she does not harm directly the others
physically or psychologically. Unfortunately, many hearts are blackened with the crimes and
mischievous behaviors. Thomas Taaffe uses of the term heart with various nuances as
follows:
Our hearts may be glad or sad, troubled, aching, or sick. They may be heavy or light,
warm or cool, cruel or kind. Our hearts may be aflame with love, or broken. To have a
heart is to be empathetic, to have no heart is to lack feeling; and we pray to change our
hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and blood. This sense of "heart" as the center of
feeling includes its place as access to the other. We open our hearts, or close our
hearts. We hold another in our heart; or reach for another in heart-to-heart
communication. Hearts speak to hearts. Two hearts may beat as one; indeed, a whole
community may act with one heart. The general association of "heart" with affectivity
11
See http://www.quoteswave.com/picture-quotes/240986
is clear enough, but even in ordinary usage there are further important nuances to this
rich word. (Taaffe, 380)
In order to keep the heart pure and to make gentlemanly behavior permanent in ones
character, it is essential to know human nature with its strengths and weaknesses. How can
one keep the heart pure, then?
Dickens, who exposed the harsh reality of the Industrial Revolution, has direct and
indirect contributions in discussing the gentlemanly behavior with the Victorian readers. He
sympathized with the plight of the underprivileged; mainly the poor, children and women, and
he sought to raise awareness in the Victorian society. The injustice and unbearable living
conditions experienced by the people probably touched his heart so that he used these facts
and reflected them in his works. He was not only an author, but also a social activist who used
to raise awareness through his works, social charities and public speeches to bring social
reforms in his time. In her study, Pamela Makati states that:
His works were a form of direct appeal to society to take action against poverty,
exploitation of children and the oppression of women. Apart from writing novels as a
form of fuelling social change, Dickens was also actively involved in charities which
funded schools for the poor and also reformation institutions for prostitutes. His essay
writing and the delivery of speeches also acted as vehicles for social change.
Therefore, this research ultimately seeks to proclaim that Dickens was not just a
fiction writer, but his works had a social mission, to make the readers take note of the
unprivileged members of the Victorian society so that they could take action to
improve their plight. (Makati, 4)
Makati also claims that realism is often concerned with the highlighting the need to create a
morally upright society. And she backgrounds this premise to John Peck and Martin Coyle
who propose that realist novelists are often moralists, concerned with how correct conduct
can be achieved in the complex conditions of the real worlds (39) Dickens, therefore,
ventures into social realms and deals with subclasses of humanity. In the preface to Oliver
Twist, Dickens explains why he has written this novel as follows:
It appeared to me that to draw a knot of such associates in crime as really do exist; to
paint them in all their deformity, in all their wretchedness, in all the squalid poverty of
their lives; to show them as they really are, for ever sulking uneasily through the
dirtiest paths of life, with the great, black, ghastly gallows closing up their prospect,
turn them where they may; it appeared to me that to do this, would be to attempt a
something which was greatly needed, and which would be a service to society. (Oliver
Twist, xii)
The detailed descriptions of the wretchedness, poverty, dirtiest paths of life are used to terrify
the ordinary people for the sake of goodness and a crime-free society. Especially in Oliver
Twist Dickens portrays the miserable lives of orphans, poor children and women who lived in
parishes and he makes a connection between the boosting of crimes and the poor conditions
these people have overcome. In this way, he does not only increase the public awareness
about the sources of the crimes, but he also provokes the government to pass needed laws for
the workhouses. At this point, it has to be mentioned that Dickenss attacks on the old Poor
Law through this novel had some influences on the parliament. Sirinya Pakditawan points out
this fact as follows:
The Poor Law of 1834 wanted to make the workhouse more a deterrent to idleness as
it was believed that people were poor because they were lazy and needed to be
punished. So people in the workhouses were deliberately treated harshly and the
workhouses were similar to prisons. Nonetheless, the plan was successful from one
point of view, for within three years the cost of poor relief was reduced by more than
one-third. However, this system was sharply criticized and censured: Dickens, for
instance, attempted to improve the workhouse conditions with his novel Oliver Twist
and as a result, this work helped influence changes in the problem. (Pakditawan, 4)
Hence, this novel could also be considered as an example which had positively influenced the
members of the parliament to pass laws so that the conditions in workhouses were improved.
Dickens himself suffered the hard times caused by the English legal system and used his own
experience in his works. Thus, in Oliver Twist Charles Dickens describes the life of Oliver,
whose hardships begin as soon as he is born:
Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse, is in itself
the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being, I
do mean to say that in this particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist
that could by possibility have occurred. (Oliver Twist, 4)
However, paradoxically, being born in a workhouse is described to be the most fortunate and
enviable circumstance that can possibly befall a human being. First of all, his mother was
very sick and she was coming from a long way that nobody knew who she was and where she
was going. Fortunately, she found herself near people who could help her during delivery.
Second, if she had died before giving birth, Oliver would not have survived. While portraying
a very sad moment for Oliver (losing his mother), Dickens leads readers to an optimistic
vision, by implying that the character will have better conditions later in his life. As it can be
guessed from the family name which was chosen for the main character, the burdens, hardship
and the unbearable circumstances twist Oliver all his life. Obviously, Dickens aims at
provoking the good, gentle and merciful side of those who witness the people living in those
wretched houses. The Victorian society had lots of problems such as child labor, poverty,
unemployment, all sorts of crimes and absence of laws. Dickens describes the terrible and
miserable conditions for a new-born baby who is not aware of anything, as follows:
What an excellent example of the power of dress, young Oliver Twist was! Wrapped
in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the
child of a nobleman or a beggar; it would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to
have assigned him his proper station in society. But now that he was enveloped in the
old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged and
ticketed, and fell into his place at once--a parish child--the orphan of a workhouse--the
humble, half-starved drudge--to be cuffed and buffeted through the world--despised by
all, and pitied by none. (Oliver Twist, 6)
With this description, Dickens sets the tone of the events in Olivers later life. Sadness
symbolized by the color yellow which will be his harsh experience at the workhouse, at the
undertakers house and in London. A parish child, the orphan of a workhouse, humble and
half-starved drudge, cuffed and buffeted and despised by all but pitied by none are the
combinations of the words skillfully chosen to make the readers get the clear picture of Oliver
Twists conditions. When Oliver is nine, he is demanded to work like an adult. It becomes
quite hard for Oliver to go for a work at this age and this becomes his second difficult stage in
his life.
This was no very great consolation to the child. Young as he was, however, he had
sense enough to make a feint of feeling great regret at going away. It was no very
difficult matter for the boy to call tears into his eyes. Hunger and recent ill-usage are
great assistants if you want to cry; and Oliver cried very naturally indeed. (Oliver
Twist, 12)
This age was considered the proper time to work in the workhouses at that time. The
Industrial Revolution was the time when there were very limited opportunities for children.
Children had to work under terrible conditions and were paid less than adults. For example,
John Robert Clynes, who used to be a politician working in the House of Commons a couple
of times, was ten in 1879 when he worked as a piecer and was employed in spinning mills to
tie broken threads in textile factories. He describes the hard conditions which the children
suffered as follows:
When I achieved the manly age of ten I obtained half-time employment at Dowry Mill
as a "little piecer." My hours were from six in the morning each day to noon; then a
brief time off for dinner; then on to school for the afternoons; and I was to receive half
a crown a week in return. ... I remember no golden summers, no triumphs at games
and sports, no tramps through dark woods or over shadow-racing hills. Only meals at
which there never seemed to be enough food, dreary journeys through smoke-fouled
streets, in mornings when I nodded with tiredness and in evenings when my legs
trembled under me from exhaustion. 12
There were many other children such as William Dodd, Angus Reach and Frances Trollope in
real life who worked in those hard times, who prayed that the Lord would take them to
himself before the next morning. Dickens ironically describes the board members of the
workhouse as fat gentlemen:
Not having a very clearly defined notion of what a live board was, Oliver was rather
astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite certain whether he ought to laugh or
cry. He had no time to think about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a
tap on the head, with his cane, to wake him up: and another on the back to make him
lively: and bidding him to follow, conducted him into a large white-washed room,
where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round a table. At the top of the table,
seated in an arm-chair rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with
a very round, red face. (Oliver Twist, 12)
The readers notice that on the one hand, there are skinny children who have been harmed
physically, mentally, morally and deprived from a proper education, but on the other hand
there are fat-gentlemen who never care for them and think only of their own selfish benefits.
The fat-gentlemen never attempt to work; what they really know best is just to sit lazily, eat
gluttonously and make bulgy bellies. That is why they are stereotypically portrayed as fat with
red faces:
'Boy,' said the gentleman in the high chair, 'listen to me. You know you're an orphan, I
suppose?'
'What's that, sir?' inquired poor Oliver.
'The boy is a fool--I thought he was,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.
'Hush!' said the gentleman who had spoken first. 'You know you've got no father or
mother, and that you were brought up by the parish, don't you?'
'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, weeping bitterly.
12
See Piecers in the Textile Industry http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUclynes.htm
'What are you crying for?' inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat.
And to be sure it was very extraordinary. What could the boy be crying for? (Oliver
Twist, 14)
Dickens portrays the fat gentlemen as ignorant, shameless, insensible and insensitive, so that
the readers may easily see that they do not have any pedagogical expertise of how to treat a
small child, especially a parentless sensitive child. Dickens pinpoints the fact that it is surely
an extraordinary case for these people and he invites us to think what the boy could be crying
for. As Walter Allen explains in his book Six Great Novelists, it is the abandoned childs
cry of anguish at the inhumanity which he is subjected, scorched and orchestrated by a
composer genius and the childs cry becomes the arraignment of the age.(W.Allen in
Srivastava, 32)
Oliver is chosen by his friends to ask a question. They cannot dare to ask because
they already know how children are punished for being inquisitive. But they are so hungry
that they want to use an alternative way to convince their master that they would like more
food:
Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from
the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat
alarmed at his own temerity: 'Please, sir, I want some more.'
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied
astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the
copper. The assistants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys with fear. %
'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice?
'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'
'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'I know that boy
will be hung.' (Oliver Twist, 17)
They know that the ones who ask for more are hung as a punishment. It is decided that
Olivers name has to be hung as an announcement! A notice or a kind of flyer is hung for any
volunteer who wishes to look after him. It is amazingly remarkable how the fat, healthy
and red-faced men turned pale, paralyzed and astonished with an innocent demand. Sending
away or getting rid of these poor people was the policy of the boards in the parishes because
more people meant more expenses for them. When compared with the total population (one
million) who lived in London 13, the historian Ben Wilson points out the number of the
parishes in 1800s as follows:
The oldest areas lay under the administration of the Common Council of the City: the
Square Mile (population 58,400) and sixteen parishes (72,000) lying outside the City
walls but within its jurisdictionA further five parishes such as Marylebone and
St.Pancras lay outside Londons ancient boundaries, but were still part of the
metropolis, connected by an interrupted succession of houses; 224,300 people lived in
these parishes. (Wilson, 248-9)
Wilson, in fact, states these numbers to show that the number of the police assigned to patrol
the different areas in London, was not sufficient to prevent the crimes in those years. From the
figures we clearly see that there were many poor people to take care of. This might be one of
the other reasons why the children were sent away as soon as any volunteer was found. It was
13
See http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/London-life19th.jsp
not a great matter for the fat members of the board whether the children are sent away for
hard work or not.
3.
The Gentleman in the White Waistcoat
From a different perspective, John R. Reed focuses his attention to the gentleman in the white
waistcoat in his essay The Gentleman in the White Waistcoat: Dickens and Metonymy. He
claims that he might be an intensifier, since Dickens not only endorses the board's treatment
of Oliver but seems to relish it with sadistic enjoyment. (Reed, 413) Leaving the detailed
analysis to the chapter The Wicked, Devious Gentleman, we should note that the unkind
and insulting manners applied in ones attitude not only attract other peoples hatred which
might cause counter uncontrollable outbursts, but also they cut off mutual understanding and
dialogue.
It is also claimed that Dickens wrote Oliver Twist just after three years the Poor Law
Amendment Act 1834, because he was strongly against this act and this provoked his angry
memories of his deprivation, of his separation from his family and his own obsessive
comparison of the need for food with the need for love. Nevertheless, L.Smith 14, S.J. Thorton
15
A.N William 16 agree that Dickenss novel is a timeless chronicle of abused childhood. Its
strength and vigor still reminds people today of those who are disadvantaged and outside of
society. And they conclude their views with the fact that Dickenss fictional truth does not
always coincide with the facts.
On the contrary, as Dr. P. O Brennan from Sheffield Childrens Hospital in UK
mentioned in her article entitled Oliver Twist: Textbook of Child Abuse 17, what might have
been acceptable in Victorian England was not acceptable with Dickens, who expresses his
disapproval of this situation. According to the childcare standards in Britain in the year 2001,
much of the childcare described in Oliver Twist constitutes child abuse. The examples are
listed from Olivers mothers death in childbirth attended by a drunken midwife and an
uncaring doctor to the children neglected, barely fed or clothed in baby farms and later in the
workhouses; from childrens emotionally abused, being deprived of all human adult love or
affection to the punishments as being locked in a small dark room after asking for more;
from physical abuse to the sequel abuse, including absconding, passivity, stupidity,
depression, poor self image, and vulnerability to corruption by anyone who seems to show
them some love or attention; and from sexual abuse, vaguely referred to in descriptions of
Nancy and Betsy, the prostitutes to substance abuse, in the form of alcohol abuse like Bill
Sikes who drank alcohol at almost every appearance.
From the examples mentioned above, how people, especially the weak ones like
children, behaved, had a deep impact on their characters. Psychological and pedagogical
refined approaches to children have much more importance to create gentle manners in their
behavior. There were many poor and unemployed people at that time.
14
Dietetic assistant Department of Dietetics, Northampton General Hospital, Northampton. NN1 5BD
Senior pediatric dietician Centre for the History of Medicine, Medical School Birmingham, Birmingham B15
2TT
16
Consultant Community Pediatrician, Virtual Academic Unit, CDC, Northampton General Hospital,
Northampton NN1 5BD
17
Dr. P. O Brennan Oliver Twist, textbook of child abuse Arch Dis Child 2001;85:504-505
doi:10.1136/adc.85.6.504
15
Oliver fell on his knees, and clasping his hands together, prayed that they would order
him back to the dark room--that they would starve him--beat him-- kill him if they
pleased--rather than send him away with that dreadful man. (Oliver Twist, 27)
Somehow Olivers sincere facial expressions and touching begging impress the board and
they give up the idea of sending him away with that dreadful man. Luckily, Olivers
destination from the workhouse is postponed for a few days. But he is on the black list and
sooner or later he is to leave the workhouse.
When little Oliver was taken before 'the gentlemen' that evening; and informed that he
was to go, that night, as general house-lad to a coffin-maker's; and that if he
complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to
sea, there to be drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so
little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal,
and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwithThe simple fact was that Oliver,
instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather too much; and was in a fair
way of being reduced, for life, to a state of brutal stupidity and sullenness by the ill
usage he had received. He heard the news of his destination, in perfect silence; and,
having had his luggage put into his hand--which was not very difficult to carry,
inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown paper parcel, about half
a foot square by three inches deep--he pulled his cap over his eyes; and once more
attaching himself to Mr. Bumble's coat cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new
scene of suffering. (Oliver Twist, 32)
The bolded words are used to draw the attention on how these gentlemen behave to a young
boy. Oliver is threatened severely, abused emotionally, scorned heavily and treated sullenly.
The term gentlemen is in quotation marks for the reason that Dickens implies its opposite
meaning. It is almost impossible to make this kind of gentlemen aware that other people are
also human. Unfortunately, their feelings and thoughts are so badly deformed that the terms
virtue, goodness, grace and merit do not make any sense for them at all. As Dickens uses the
term gentleman in quotation marks, he makes the readers think if these gentlemen are true or
fake.
Mr. Sowerberry, the coffin-maker and a friend of Mr. Bumble the beadle, takes
Oliver from the parish to use of him for his own work. On the way, Oliver starts crying again
leaving all the acquaintances behind whilst getting into a new scene of suffering.
'So what?' inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement?
'So lonely, sir! So very lonely!' cried the child. 'Everybody hates me. Oh! sir, don't,
don't pray be cross to me!' The child beat his hand upon his heart; and looked in his
companion's face, with tears of real agony. (Oliver Twist, 34)
It is human nature that people prefer living, travelling, talking and sharing their lives with
other people. Socializing is one of the crucial needs of human beings. In addition, loneliness
for an orphan being deprived of parental love is much more a sensitive case. In another place,
Dickens emphasizes a similar impression when Oliver is shot and abandoned in the middle of
a remote countryside. At that time, he was with the criminals who captured him and forced
him to steal with them and he was trying to escape from the people whose house he attempted
to burglarize.
He looked about, and saw that at no great distance there was a house, which perhaps
he could reach. Pitying his condition, they might have compassion on him; and if they
did not, it would be better, he thought, to die near human beings, than in the lonely
open fields. He summoned up all his strength for one last trial, and bent his faltering
steps towards it. (Oliver Twist, 264)
With these descriptions, Dickens aims at creating a hopeful atmosphere that not all the
humans are as bad as he had described by then. There are some generous, benevolent, gentle,
and caring people as well in this world.
In his new home, Oliver is shown his bed which is located under the coffin counter.
Why did not the Sowerberrys show Oliver a better place? Dickens invites us to think of a little
childs psychology that was forced to sleep among the coffins. Sometimes, the gloomy
atmosphere confines us on every side and we feel that death is much better than being alive.
In such dreadful situations, one should have patience, courage, and determination that every
winter is followed by spring and every dark night is followed by a bright and sunny day.
Therefore, Dickens sets a similar hopeful atmosphere for Oliver and the readers are led to
think of the death which could be better for him. Actually, Mr. Sowerberrys occupation has a
close relationship with death. Dickens gives a clue for the readers choosing an eccentric name
for these people, as the term sower is the homophone of the word sour. While people enjoy
eating strawberry as they have delicious taste, they most probably dislike the sour-berry.
Dickens criticizes people like the Sowerberrys by giving them names with certain
significance.
Oliver meets Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry, the serving girl Charlotte and Noah Claypole
who is the other high ranker boy working for this family. Dickens again gives some clues
about his mean character from his family name. While the term clay implies dirtiness,
impureness, filthiness and mess, the term pole implies that Oliver and Noah have completely
opposite personalities.
It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how
impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest
charity-boy. (Oliver Twist, 40)
Dickens takes the readers attention to Noahs background and then he especially focuses on
the human nature. Although the boys are impartially in the similar conditions, the qualities,
the personalities they will turn into in the future, will be different. The lived hardships for the
finest lord type (reference to Oliver) and for the dirtiest charity-boy (reference to Noah) will
grow and have opposite impacts on them. Similar to goodness or disasters, the lifes ups and
downs, usually have different effects on people and things according to the strengths and
weaknesses which they encounter. We will be involved in many events and cases and will
have experiences in this life. There will be inputs and outputs. Nevertheless, all the inputs and
outputs will be different from one another. Therefore, Dickens implies here that Olivers
noble background has some effects on his nave and honorable character containing the
features of a true gentlemans nature.
'There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear,' resumed Mr. Sowerberry,
'which is very interesting. He would make a delightful mute, my love.' (Oliver Twist,
41)
The unbearable sufferings which have drawn melancholic features on Olivers face mean
something else for Mr. Sowerberry. Whereas he might have shared Olivers heart-breaking
grief and be helpful as much as he could, his hardened heart has never had any mercy for the
others. Selfishness, ignorance and callousness make the eyes blind at other peoples
sufferings. Another weakness or illness in human nature, which a true gentleman should stay
away from, is jealousy. Noahs jealousy rises when Oliver is promoted by Mr. Sowerberry to
another job due to his natural melancholy that works better in funerals. Noahs ill-treatments
get worse each day as a result of this jealousy.
That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good people, I
cannot, although I am his biographer, undertake to affirm with any degree of
confidence; but I can most distinctly say, that for many months he continued meekly to
submit to the domination and ill-treatment of Noah Claypole: who used him far worse
than before, now that his jealousy was roused by seeing the new boy promoted to the
black stick and hatband, while he, the old one, remained stationary in the muffin-cap
and leathers. (Oliver Twist, 50)
Dickens describes a very important turning point about Olivers life at this stage.
And now, I come to a very important passage in Oliver's history; for I have to record
an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance, but which indirectly produced a
material change in all his future prospects and proceedings. (Oliver Twist, 50)
Thus, fighting for honor plays an important role in human nature and the positive results will
be mentioned shortly afterwards.
Crimson with fury, Oliver started up; overthrew the chair and table; seized Noah by
the throat; shook him, in the violence of his rage, till his teeth chattered in his head;
and collecting his hole force into one heavy blow, felled him to the ground. A minute
ago, the boy had looked the quiet child, mild, dejected creature that harsh treatment
had made him. But his spirit was roused at last; the cruel insult to his dead mother had
set his blood on fire. His breast heaved; his attitude was erect; his eye bright and vivid;
his whole person changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly tormentor who now
lay crouching at his feet; and defied him with an energy he had never known before.
(Oliver Twist, 52)
Since his mother is a very sensitive subject to him, Oliver becomes really furious. Noah
continues to taunt him and insults his mother until Oliver attacks him. Oliver, who used to be
nave and calm until then, cannot stop fighting the boy who verbally attacks his mother. We
may argue that this is another important noble feature of character: fighting for the honor,
which is portrayed by Dickens to show another quality of the gentleman, reminiscent, perhaps
of the knightly code. Despite the fact that Dickens is against dueling, he uses fighting to
recover the characters honor from time to time in his novels. For instance, in order to save the
miserable boy, Smike, from the mercilessly beating hands of Mr. Squeers, Nicholas Nickleby
stops his beating and then gives him physical punishment which might be more effective.
Therefore, it could be deduced that Dickens agrees to give punishments to the villains when
they cross limits. He uses this kind of violence when it is meant to stop tyranny, cruelty or
oppression.
'Meat, ma'am, meat,' replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. 'You've over-fed him,
ma'am. You've raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma'am unbecoming a person of
his condition: as the board, Mrs. Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell
you. What have paupers to do with soul or spirit? It's quite enough that we let 'em have
live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would never have happened.'
(Oliver Twist, 58)
The outrage against Noah is wrongly interpreted by Mr. Bumble, who is the representative of
the unfair system, as the effect of consuming meat. According to these gentlemen, giving
meat to children is a great mistake! They should be been given gruel only! As they believe
that, a kind of luxury like meat, cause to raise an artificial soul in them! The unfair system
makers and its parasites have always considered the weak and the poor as second-class
citizens. Dickenss purpose in describing these atrocious conditions was both to reveal the
reality behind the industrial faade of the British economic system and to create a
melodramatic scene which would increase the number of readers. The fat gentleman and the
gentleman in the white waistcoat are meant to caricature portraits of what may wrongly be
named gentlemanly behavior. They are the characters set in opposition to the requirements of
the ideal portrait of the gentleman, as envisaged by Dickens and offered to the Victorian
readers as a goal to attain.
3.
The Making of a Gentleman
Counted alongside George Meredith and Thomas Hardy as one of the best three novelists of
the turn of the century, George Gissing writes about Dickenss political views that, like other
men of letters, Dickens was very much concerned about social questions. Therefore,
he imagined that the columns of a great newspaper would afford him the best possible
field for making known his views and influencing the world. One step which has
tempted writers from their appointed task he seems never to have seriously
contemplated; he received invitations to stand as a Parliamentary candidate, but gave
no ear to them. The term which described him as politician and social reformer is no
longer in common use; he was a Radical. (Gissing, 66)
Through Gissings view it could be concluded that Dickens, who brought forward the
miserable and harsh conditions of the poor children by writing the novel Oliver Twist, did not
show any tendency to be a politician to solve social problems and he never claimed that he
was a social reformer. According to Gissing, it could probably have been quite easy for
Dickens to become a member of the Parliament if he really desired and attempted to use his
fame and popularity. However, Dickenss preference for writing, instead of getting involved
in politics, is considered as radical choice by Gissing so that he describes him as a Radical
man rather than a politician or a social reformer. Dickenss main concern was to serve the
society willing to see everybody taking a part in solving the socially unfair and unjust
regulations or laws and their application to the underprivileged and the poor. Thus, to Dickens
gentility could be inherited, but it could also be obtained through education, which, we may
argue, was of two kinds: street education and school education. This is what also awaits
Oliver in his life journey and growth into a real gentleman.
After his fight with Noah and the punishment, Oliver makes up his mind to flee to
search of new opportunities in London. Hoping to meet kind people and get better conditions,
he runs away. Dickens uses this fictional trick, sending the main or important characters to
other towns or countries (namely to London and Australia), in the hope of getting better
conditions of life and job opportunities, to reflect the positive thinking and the dreams of the
Victorian people. On the way to London, he meets a good-hearted turnpike-man and a
benevolent old lady who voluntarily help Oliver, in spite of their own poverty. The kind
behavior, which has a deep impact on the protagonist, is praised by Dickens as follows:
In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and a benevolent old lady,
Oliver's troubles would have been shortened by the very same process which had put
an end to his mother's; in other words, he would most assuredly have fallen dead upon
the king's highway. But the turnpike-man gave him a meal of bread and cheese; and
the old lady, who had a shipwrecked grandson wandering barefoot in some distant part
of the earth, took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little she could afford-and more--with such kind and gentle words, and such tears of sympathy and
compassion, that they sank deeper into Oliver's soul, than all the sufferings he had ever
undergone. (Oliver Twist, 65)
Although the old lady has very little food, she shares it with Oliver. Especially her kind and
gentle words with sympathy and compassion affects Oliver deeply. He forgets all his suffering
and the way that she approaches him feeds his soul. In other words, kind and gentle words
have deep influences on his noble character. Dickens gives a special emphasis on how a very
little help with the kind and gentle words transferred into sympathetic and
compassionate mood could give positive energy to a child and how this kind of attitude may
shape ones character and develop kind and gentle manners.
According to Alfred Adler, a psychotherapist and founder of the school of individual
psychology in the twentieth century, the most important and the most valuable part of our
existence is inner life. (Adler, 417) He explains this view as follows:
For in the life of a child and in his physical and mental growth, there is a largely
hidden trend that leads upwards, that unceasingly guides and regulates all the
psychological realities mentioned above, thus placing them in its service: Instincts and
reflexes are adjusted, recognized as appropriate, modified and utilized; movement of
eyes, limbs, and trunk respond to a plan; all emotions pleasure, joy, grief, pain,
anger, love, hate, desire manifest themselves at appropriate occasions, and by the
manner and the degree in which they are expressed, they establish close contact with
the environment and with the people in their immediate surroundings. There also soon
appear traces of character traits, like call and response to the demands of the
environment, represent a further connection to the outside world. (Adler, 417)
Adler pinpoints the formation of a childs manners with the faculties of his inner life and his
surroundings outside world. Whether people are aware or not, children who record all kinds
of behaviors and manners they come across within the social life record or codify them on
their minds. Then, they behave according to the recordings which they acquired
unintentionally or naturally before. Mr. Brownlows and Roses continuous kind, benevolent
and generous behavior that Oliver experiences later in the story has a deep impact on his
character. Even Nancys desperate attempt to save Oliver from Sikes severe punishment has a
deep influence on his manners. Since it is not quite an extraordinary behavior to see goodness
from a kind person, but it is extraordinarily remarkable to see that a dood deed is performed
by an evil, sinful character. With this, Dickens aims at emphasizing a very significant human
nature about the wicked characters that they are not always so bad. Since they are also human
beings they might behave well because from time to time their compassionate and merciful
sides hidden in each individuals nature - might weigh more than their cruel and ruthless
side.
After a long and tiring journey, Oliver succeeds in reaching London with the help of
Dodger whom he meets on his journey. Dodger invites him to the place where he loves. There
he meets Fagin and the other boys and girls. He is shown a bed and offered some food. The
next morning, the boys begin playing a game in which they practice picking Fagins pockets
without being noticed. Fagin asks Oliver if he would like to try the game. Oliver is praised
with his great talent and in time he begins to learn how to unmark silk handkerchiefs.
Oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman's pocket in play, had to do with his
chances of being a great man. But, thinking that the Jew, being so much his senior,
must know best, he followed him quietly to the table, and was soon deeply involved in
his new study. (Oliver Twist, 79)
Fagins teachings start with these games. Stealing without being noticed is systematically
and professionally taught to little children in the den. They are taught in a play format so that
children would enjoy these unofficial lessons. Meanwhile, Oliver gets bored to stay at home
alone when the other boys are out. He asks Fagin to go out with the other boys and finally he
is allowed. On his first day out, Oliver realizes that the boys commit crimes and is shocked
when he sees them stealing a gentlemans handkerchief. While the readers expect better
opportunities for Oliver, Dickens, who also planned to show the dark world of the criminals
located in London, intentionally pushes his nave protagonist to Fagins den so that his readers
may become aware of the various crimes in a city in which poverty reached a high percentage.
Lynn Pykett describes the city as follows:
As experienced by Oliver the city is a maze, an infernal labyrinth, at the centre of
which are Fagin and his criminal associates. (Pykett, 47)
The traps and webs are set by all sorts of criminals whose behavior resembles the spiders or
hunters deadly waiting for their prey. The big cities have always been the centre of criminal
conduct. Newcomers, especially children, might fall into these traps easily. As mentioned
before, by Philip Collins, crime was topical issues in his time (Collins, 2) and Dickens gets
the opportunity to point out the criminal gangs who appeared in the poor areas of London. In
general, while Dickens makes the readers see how Fagin has created an illegal system in a big
city, he also points out the weakness of this system and the need for proper education to turn
the poor into peaceful members of the society. In The Making of Victorian Values, Ben
Wilson reveals the large number of poor children going to Sunday schools, learning to read
and more importantly learning good manners. He states that
On average a child who attended a school on Sunday and learned to read from the
Bible might be tolerably literate within three years. The possibilities of better life were
apparent enough to motivate children and parents. Employers such as shopkeepers and
keepers of warehouses and who needed servants preferred to take on boys and girls
with good manners and at least a rudimentary education. By no means all children
went to a Sunday school, but the numbers were impressive; in London 35,460 poor
children were taught each week by four thousand voluntary teachers. (Wilson, 268)
To prevent crime and built an educated and well-mannered society, the literate individuals
(boys and girls) with good manners are offered jobs and a motivation to improve their
economic and social position in life. Hungry and jobless people might get involved in crimes
but especially uneducated and aimless people are potential criminals in the society. To be a
gentleman, to behave like a gentleman and to be respected like a gentleman becomes an
important goal in life, a social force for the lower and the middle class Victorian people. We
therefore argue that Dickenss purpose in this novel is to stress not only the in-born noble
nature of Oliver, but also the way in which a poor child may grow into a gentleman.
4.
Conclusion
We have mentioned that, firstly, Dickens is a radical who wished to improve the conditions of
underprivileged and ordinary people in the society and aimed at increasing awareness to social
problems, especially to the crimes and criminal organizations that threatened thousands of
lives. Instead of being a Member of Parliament and becoming a politician, Dickens prefers to
write. Believing that the words that touch hearts have special powers on people, Dickens aims
at influencing the minds and souls with his books that can contribute to the construction of a
healthy society. Only the individuals whose moral faculties are enriched by useful knowledge,
love, affection, kindness, respect, gentleness, goodness, and honesty can form such a society.
Secondly, Dickens gives a special emphasis to the moral issues related to heart which forms
the real dimension of a person. Thirdly, like peoples strong social consciousness, their beliefs
have great influences on the positives changes in human souls and in society. Fourthly, I
oppose critics, like Castronovo, who think that a person just like Oliver Twist, is almost
impossible to retain his goodness in an environment of crimes and evil deeds. It seems that it
is not logical, but, on the other hand, there are many examples in history of such pure-hearted
individuals disgusted of evil things. Millions of them were born, lived and even gave their
lives just for an ideal.
With Oliver Twist Dickens chooses a sentimental way to touch the hearts of his
readers with brutal incidents experienced by a pure-hearted child, draws the peoples and the
governments attention to the social problems in a metropolis and raises awareness of
childrens abuse and psychology. However, these are concrete paths to the rise of the
gentleman, or at least to gentlemanly behavior, irrespective of the nobility of birth. Oliver may
be seen as the first illustration of the gentleman of birth and manners in Dickenss fiction.
Olivers inborn qualities make him a gentleman, not his allegedly noble parents. In other
words, Oliver becomes the image of the democratic gentleman, the person who goes through
suffering but does not lose his pure heart, the essential characteristic of a gentlemans attitude
towards the society. Oliver is the nineteenth-century Romantic kind of gentleman, whose
ancestor seems to be the very parfit medieval knight, whom Chaucer describes.
Bibliography
Primary Resource
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist free eBooks at Planet eBook
http://www.planetebook.com/ebooks/Oliver-Twist.pdf
Secondary Resources
Adler, Alfred. Individual Psychology Vol.44, No.4, December 1988
Baldridge, Cates. The Instabilities of Inheritance in Oliver Twist HighBeam Research
Article. Published on 6/22/1993.
Castronovo, David. The English Gentleman: Images and Ideals in Literature and Society. New
York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1987.
Deepika, Srivastava. Charles Dickens: A Perspective Sarup & Sons New Delhi 2001
Gissing, George. A Critical Study: Charles Dickens Elibron Classics series.
Adamant Media Corporation. London. 2005
Makati, Pamela. A Critical Study of Charles Dickens Representation of The Socially
Disadvantaged University of Fort Hare 2008
Pakditawan, Sirinya. Childhood in Victorian England and Charles Dickens Novel Oliver
Twist GRIN Verlag 2002 Norderstedt Germany p.4
Pykett, Lynn Charles Dickens Palgrave New York 2002
Reed, John R. The Gentleman in the White Waistcoat: Dickens and Metonymy Wayne State
University Style: Volume 39, No.4, Winter 2005
Paris, Bernard J. Imagines Human Beings A Psychological Approach to Character and
Conflict in Literature. New York University Press. New York. 1997
Srivastava, Deepika. Charles Dickens: A Perspective Sarup & Sons New Delhi 2001
lan Press Ltd., 1999.
Thomas Taaffe Education of the Heart Cross Currents, Fall 95, Vol. 45 Issue 3, p.380
Wilson, Ben. The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain, 1789 1837.
New York: The Penguin Press, 2007
Internet Resources
Quote from Aristotle http://www.quoteswave.com/picture-quotes/240986
Child Labor Information http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
Treatise on Food and Diet with Observations on the Dietetically Regime
www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a2722.full
Londons Population in 1800s http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/London-life19th.jsp
Dickens and religion http://dickens.ucsc.edu/resources/faq/religion.html
Prof.Assoc. Dr. Tidita ABDURRAHMANI

Faculty of Philology and Education,
Department of Educational Sciences
MAGICAL REALISM AND INTERTEXTUALITY IN SELECTED

20TH CENTURY AMERICAN ETHNIC NOVELS
Abstract
The focus of this contribution is on the elements of magical realism and intertextuality in 20th
century American Ethnic Novels. To some critics a text is just a palimpsest or tablet that has
been written upon or inscribed two or three times. The other texts having been perfectly erased
and remaining still partly visible. To this trait is associated even the idea that the intertext is a
general field of anonynymous formulae, of unconscious or automatic quotations. Given
without quotation marks. Sometimes attention to the character of intertextuality goes so far as
to argue that the reader's own previous readings, experinces and position within the cultural
formation also form a cruxial intertext. An in depth reading and analysis of John Barth,
Thomas Pynchon, Irving Howe and Michael Kohler presented in this paper aims at proving
proof to the widely held belief that intertextuality is the parasite that dwells within every
postmodern text, especially American Postmodern literature.
On the other hand unlike the fantastic or the surreal , magical realism presumes that
the individual requires a bond with the tradition and the faith of community, that he or she is
historically constructed and connected. The elements employed in magical realism are not
completely fantastical and unearthly, they are just part of another culture and are dismissed by
our rational Western minds as unreal and inpossible integral part of their reality. To put back
together shattered cultural fragments through storytelling , often implies to remember , that is
to put oneself , ones identity back together. The magical realism elements in Rudolf Anaya,
Ralph Ellison. Leslie Marmon Silko and Thomas Pynchon show that this technique is the most
adopted stylistic effect of relating the postmodern world to the preserved and revisisted cultural
and historical traditions of the ethnic americans.
1.
Introduction: Intertextuality and Magic Realism Definitions
Derived from the Latin "intertexto", meaning to intermingle while weaving, intertextuality is a
term first introduced by the French semiotician Julia Kristeva in the late sixties. A literary
work, then, is not simply the product of a single author, but of its relationship to other texts and
to the structures of language itself. "[A]ny text," she argues, "is constructed of a mosaic of
quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another" (Kristeva
1964:37).Another definition is that provided by "A Glossary of Literary Terms Abrahams
M.H. in which intertextuality appears as "A relation in between two texts which has an effect
upon the way in which the intertext (that is the text within which other texts reside or echo
their presence) is read." (Abrahams 1981:56).Yet dictionaries and glossaries do not just limit
themselves to providing definitions about intertextuality as a literary term, they even plunge
into the unfolding of the characteristics and categorizations of intertextuality. One of the traits
of the concept of intertextuality is that it subverts the concepts of a text as a self-sufficient,
hermetic totality, foregrounding the fact that all literary production takes place in the presence
of other texts.
One can not speak of intertextuality without himself falling victim of it. Julia Kristeva
refers to the literary phenomenon of intertextuality as a permutation of texts:"In the space of a
given text, several utterances taken from other texts intersect and neutralize oneanother"(Kristeva 1964:79). According to John Frow on the other hand the text "has not only
an intertextual relationship to previous texts, but also an intertextual relationship to itself as a
canonized text.(Frow qtd in Abrahams 1981:79).While, according to John Barth literature has
reached a point of "exhaustion" as there exists the "dread that the precursors have told all the
stories, exhausted the genres, used up the very language available for artistic creation."(Barth
1967:30).
The only way out of the vicious circle of intertextuality according to Roland Barthes
seems to be acknowledging the death of the author and avoiding the possibility of something
new.On the other hand he defines intertextuality as a phenomenon bringing together a new
tissue of past citations:"bits of code , formulae, rhythmic models, fragments of social language
pass into the text and are redistributed within it for there is always language before and around
the text."(Barthes qtd. in Abrahams 1981:120). To summarize the whole we can say that
intertextuality has to be seen in association with the texts referred to along the work and the
whole complex issue of the readers varied expectations.
It was Franz Roh, who in the mid 1920s introduced the term magic realism into the
artistic discourse It was brought all along by him as "Magischer Realismus" a
countermovement in art in which "the charm of the object was rediscovered". The essays
generally agree that magic realism is a mode suited to exploring and/or transgressing
boundaries, it often facilitates the fusion or co-existence of possible worlds, spaces, systems
that would be irreconcilable in other modes of fiction.
By including a plurality of worlds magic realist texts posit themselves on territory
between or among these worlds--in phenomenal and spiritual regions where trasformation,
metamorphosis and dissolution are common.Some characteristics of magic realism
include:1)intentional creation and incorporation of alternative spaces, 2)juxtaposition of
natural and supernatural worlds, 3)clash of different semiotic domains, 4)inclusion of different
world-views and cosmologies 5)distortion of cyclical time, 6)mirroring of past and present
astral and physical planes 7)extensive use of sensory details,and of symbols and imagery
8)incorporation of legend and folkore and 9)presentation of events from multiple perspectives.
Unlike the fantastic or the surreal, magic realism presumes that the individual
requires a bond with the traditions and the faith of community, that he/she is historically
constructed and connected.The elements employed in magic realism are not completely
fantastical and unearthly, they are just parts of another culture and are dismissed by our
rational Western minds as "unreal" and impossible integral part of their reality. To put back
together shattered cultural fragments through storytelling, often implies to remember, that is, to
put oneself, ones identity back together.
In America by inscribing specific indigenous belief systems in the narrative,authors
recreate cultural practices that radically differ from Western paradigms based on a separation
of culture and nature, phenomena and consciousness, the natural and the supernatural.The
hallucinations and impressions which man receives from his environment tend to become
reality, especially in cultures with a determinate religious and cultish background.
1.1. Intertextuality Examples
On my way to finding out examples of intertextuality researches have been running across
texts which are distinguished for their marked use of this device and others which make use of
it in a less frequent and subtle way, but which nevertheless can not escape being haunted by the
presence or the echo of other texts within them. The device of intertextuality is more widely
used in texts like The Crying of the Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon, and "The Literature of
Exhaustion" John Barth ,but it comes out in a subtler way even in Mass Society and
Postmodernization.
1.1.1. Intertextuality in The Crying of the Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
The Crying of the Lot 49 has been defined as Pynchons most accessible work, though also one
of his densest.There are many cultural,technical,scientific and historical references packed into
less than 200 pages of the novel.It is a labyrinth of references and details and parodies which
lead, according to some, toward /or away from meaning and structure.In presenting a
postmodern reality in which the genre and discipline borders are blurred or shifted, people are
becoming more and more machine-controlled and the continuous flow of information is
leading to an ever more puzzling chaos and multiplicity of choices, the author has taken
references from the world of literature, that of science,media etc, by in this way making
intertextuality one of the most widely used devices in the novel. Once at Echo Courts, Oedipa
is accompanied to her room by Miles, a 16 year-old drop-out manager with Beattle haircut,
singing a song which is perhaps indirectly meant to court her:
Too fat to Frug
Thats what you tell me all the time,
When you really trynto put me down
But Im hip
So close your big fat hip (Pynchon 1965:16)
Another intertextuality is the quoting of the song the Paranoids keep singing while Oedipa and
Metzger are consuming their love relationship, and watching everything from the window of
the hotel room. In the same context, when Metzger, the lawyer has reached Oedipas room, on
TV. is running Cashiered, a movie in which Metzger had been starring as a young boy in the
role of Baby Igor. Pynchon succeds in creating an inter-media atmosphere where the action of
the movie runs parallely to the developing of the action in Echo Courts Room and the
novel."Listen, Listen , heres where I sing"......(In the movie Baby Igor is singing)
Gainst the Hun and Turk, never once do we shirk,
My daddy, my doggie and me
Through the perilous years, like the three Musketeers
We will stick just as close as can be (Pynchon 1965:19)
An instance of intertextuality is even the informal advertisment Oedipa finds on the grafitti
covered walls of one bathroom, where the outgoing guy invites girls to get in touch with him,
but only through the Waste system.The mentioning of this system as an alternative postal
service, as well as the occurrence of the sign of muted horn beneath it, will be the initial clues
of a series of ever more puzzling clues and hints concerning the Tristero system:"Interested in
sophisticated fun?You,hubby,girl friends.The more the merrier.Get in touch with Kirby,
through Waste only, Box 7391,L.A"(ibid 38).The most genuine example of Pynchons marked
intertextuality is the incorporation of verses from The Couriers Tragedy, a play wose
scenarios and characters are meant to parallel Oedipas quest and her encounter with different
facets of the American reality.In the third act of the play Pasquale plots to do away with young
Nicol by suggesting a game of hide-and -seek and by then making him crawl inside an
enormous canon:
Out in a bloody rain to feed our fields
Amid the Maenad roar of the nitres song
And sulfurs cantus firmus (ibid 50)
This technique of Thomas Pynchon is repeated throughout the book, alluding to almost all the
chapters of the play. Oedipas desperate search for hints even where they do not exist, leads
her into envisioning clues of the Tristero even in the historical marker of the Fangoso
Lagoons:"On this site in 1853, a dozen Wells, fargo men battled galantly with a band of
masked marauders in mysterious black uniforms"(ibid 71).When Oedipa fails to find the so
much-sought responses to her questions concerning the Tristero even in an article issued by
Bibliothque des Timbrophiles of Jean Bapiste Moens "Did the organization enter the
penumbra of historical eclipse.From the battle of Austerlitz until the difficulties of 1848, the
Tristero drifted on, deprived of nearly all the noble patronage"(ibid 142), she recurs to a stamp
auction. Oedipas knowledge of stamps and of physics, including the Maxwell Demon
machine, is an act of subtle intertextuality, even though the scientific knowledge mentioned in
the book is not provided by means of quotations marks.
In the dark 15 dark green from the 1893 Columbian Exposition Issue, the faces of
three courtiers, receiving the news at the right hand side of the stamp, had been subtly
altered to express uncontrollable fright.In the 3 , Mothers of America Issue, put on the
Mothers day, 1934, the flowers to the lower left of Whistlers mother had been
replaced.(ibid 144).
1.1.2. Intertextuality in The Literature of Exhaustion, John Barth

Since the beginning of his essay, while unfolding in front of us the issue meant to be treated in
his work, John Barth, provides us with insights about his special concern with
intertextuality.The intermedia arts, the in-depth consideration of another authors literary
career, and the treatment of the literature of exhaustion, all make us predict the degree of
intertextuality of Barths own essay.He starts with a quotation from Jorge Luis Borges
Labyrinths "Every writer creates his own precursors .His work modifies our conception of the
past, as it will modify the future"(Barth 1980:19) and then goes on with another quotation by
himself. What attracts the attention of the readers at first glimpse is the graphic presentation of
the beginning of the text:the name and surname of the author have not been capitalized on
purpose(the author wants to show that, no author can any longer hold the exclusivity, and the
brand of originality),the quotation from Lost in the Funhouse has been graphically represented
by gaps(without the literature of its predecessors, the creation of any author would sound
nonsense).
Although himself not commiting a pure instance of intertextuality Barth starts by
considering the intermedia arts, themselves a form of trans-medium intertextuality."Robert
Fillious "Ample food for stupid thought" is a box full of postcards on which are inscribed
apparently meaningless questions to be mailed to whomever the purchaser judges them suited
for"(ibid 20). On the surface this document is a catalogue, but in any case the wares are lively
to read about and make for interesting conversation in fiction writing classes.Later on Barth
commits a double-intertextuality when he quotes excerpts from Borges "intertextuality based text" Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. According to Barth, the hero, a sophisticated turnof-century French symbolist produces, not copies or imitates, but composes several chapters of
the Servantes novel.By juxtaposing instances of the same text as excerpted respectively from
the Borges and Servantes texts, Barth, ironizes the claim of many authors that they have
produced new literature, when in fact they have just unfairly copied parts, or ideas of their
predecessors works.
Barth goes on mentioning another much anthologized story of Borges "Tlon,
Uqbar,Orbis Tertius".Characteristic of this story is that here we encounter the phenomenon of
intertextuality twice or thrice removed.It is a story about the invention of a secret society of
scholars who elaborate its every aspect in a surreptitious encyclopedia, The First Encyclopedia
of Tlon.So Borges on his side makes reference to the Encyclopedia of Tlon ,a probably nonexistent text written by an anonymous writer, and Barth refers to Borges by at the same time
referring even to the anonymous writer of the encyclopedia.The network of intertextuality, and
the realization of the exhaustion of literature goes even further, when while going through "a
footnote to a scholarly edition of Sir Thomas Browne"(ibid 26),Barth comes upon a perfect
Borges datum reminiscent of Tlons self realization, "the actual case of the book called The
Three Impostors alluded to in Brownes Religio Medici among other places "(ibid 26).So
within a paperback edition of a book one can trace more than three instances of intertextuality,
or of marked referentiality (The Encyclopedia of Tlon, The Three Impostors, Religio Medici).
Another instance of intertextuality appears through the essay when Barth mentions
Borges frequent allusions to the 602nd night of The 1001 Nights, when owing to a copyists
error, Scheherezade begins to tell the story from the beginning.Borges considers it as an
instance of a story-within a-story turned back upon itself, and if we consider it from the point
of view of what this story constitutes for Barth, we can name it as a bifold intertextuality.
Finally Barth tries to summarize Borges stance by quoting the considerations of other critics
regarding his literary career and his style, and by in this way commiting another act of
intertextuality.In the words of one of his editors"For (Borges)no one has claim to originality in
literature, all the writers are more or less faithful amanuenses of the spirit, translators and
annotators of pre-existing archetypes"(Borges qtd. in Barth 1980:30).It is worth emphasizing
the fact that whenever Barth quotes something from Borges, he does not identify that quotation
by title of the book, publication place, edition etc.So according to Barth, there is no original
literature and even Borges inclination to write brief comments on imaginary texts, adds
overtly to the corpus literature. The major intertextuality in this essay is the continuous allusion
to Borges that Barth makes all along.
1.1.3. Intertextuality in Mass Society and Postmodern Fiction, Irving Howe
In order to actualize the situation of fiction in the modern and the postmodern society the
author starts with the story of Raskolnikov (lying on his bed despondent, the landlady has
planned to have him evicted, he has received a letter from his mother telling him that his sister
is going to marry an old man just for the sake of money and he has already visited the old
pawnbroker and measured the possility of murdering her.Written by Dostoyevsky, the story
together with the accurate content of the letter have been extracted from The Partizan
Review edition of 1959 and comprise a clear instance of intertextuality."It is my pleasure to
infom you, on behalf of the Gugenheim Foundation, that you have been awarded a fellowship
for the study of colour imagery in Pushkins poetry and its relation to the myths of the ancient
Muscovites"(Howe 1970:3). Even the content of the letter itself seems to make clear reference
to intertextuality as a device.
In speaking about a group of novelists who have chosen to write about the American
experience by choosing subjects and morals that have been removed from that very experience,
Irving Howe quotes some evaluations from a film critic who regards the post-war writers
experience as one of ambushing rather than as one of accurate reflection: "The writer who
wants to let go, has figuratively to leave the urban and suburban and either go abroad, or go
into the past, or go into those few pockets of elemental emotional life left in the country"(ibid
5) Regarding the San Francisco fathers as a reflex of the circumstances of mass society, Howe
quotes Paul Goodman who states that "they have the theory that to be factless ,not to care, is
the ultimate rebellion, but this is a fantasy ;for right under the surface is burning shame, hurt
feelings, fear of impotence." (ibid 139).
If we stick to the postmodern idea advocated by John Barth, that no literature is
original literature, we would go on saying that even Howes mentioning of D.H.Lawrence,
Norman Mailer,Wright Morris, Nelson Agren ect. is an act of intertextuality, though not a
traditional "quotation based" one.Yet the routes of postmodernism are limitless and Howe ends
with another quotation of Faulkners The Hamlet" I cant stand no more.....this case is
adjourned" (ibid 7). One can never expect to find relief and solace of interpretation in a
postmodernist text.
1.1.4. Intertextuality in Postmodernismus Ein begrieffsgeschichtlicher Uberblick,
Michael Khler
In his article Michael Khler traces the development in American criticism of the concept
of"postmodernity" and discusses the relative merit of the various definitions it received. In
trying to juxtapose the different definitions emanating with regards to the term,the author
shows instances of intra-lingual intertextuality.The explanation and expounding of the
definitions or the critical statements are in most of the cases made in German, while the quoted
definitions excerpted from dictionaries or encyclopedias are in English: "Das bestreitet auch
ein Gegner des Begriffs wie Philip Stevick nicht:"Postmodernist is an epithet that I, for
one,find annoying and unhelpful.But it is true,all the same,that recent fiction no longer orients
itself according to its own relations to the modernist masters. (Kohler, Michael p.9)"
2.
Magic Realism Illustrations
2.1. Magic Realism in House Made of Dawn

In The House Made of Dawn Momaday reveals the psychological situation of a man who is
lost between two worlds, torn apart culturally and spiritually, and drifting toward death. Abel is
"reeling on the edge of the void," but he does not fall. The very moment when Abel seems to
have exhausted all the possibilities of finding redemption he holds the seed to his ultimate
recovery. Magic realism in The House Made of Dawn comes out through the countless
episodes typical of Indian cosmology, the techniques and the imagery adopted by the author.If
we consider that the prevailing themes of the book are the healing force of nature and the
existence caught between two worlds, this may be sufficient to provide us with an insight
about the magic realism elements of the book.
The opening chapter is marked by a series of flashbacks, while in the second chapter
Momaday abandons a continuous plot line and operates instead with a device resembling the
cutting technique employed in film. Without any apparent logical connections, fragmentary
scenes from Abel's past alternate with blurred perceptions of his immediate environment.The
intensity of the images, the apparent disjunction of time elements, and the surface illogicall
typical of dreams and hallucinationsaccount for the haunting, nightmarish effect of some
chapters as well as for the development of the magic realism elements.Dream-like elements are
added to the story especially through the chapter "Priest of the Sun" in which the narrative
voice is centered in Abel's consciousness as he is lying, delirious from alcohol and the brutal
beating he received from Martinez.
The magical elements of the novel start from the very title and from the very first
chapter. At the opening of House Made of Dawn, Momaday introduces Abel, the protagonist,
saying that Abel is running through a desolate landscape by himself. The landscape is "the
house made of dawn, made of pollen and of rain."(Momaday 1999:79). Such a house, in which
the wall is the dawn and whose roof is the rain, is a place that is limitless and free. Abel is born
into this freedom, and he is the one who has the responsibility to tend to the natural world
around him, to take care of it and foster it. In one of the episodes of the novel when Abel
decides to run we know that he is probably incapable of running far, as he is still recovering
from the severe injuries he sustained in Los Angeles.Yet the most credible explanation is that
he is figuratively running with the ancestors in an attempt and promise to look back to their
tradition and to preserve them.
In another episode of the novel, the saintly Santiago is depicted on his ride southward
into Mexico. According to Father Olguin, Santiago had disguised himself as a peon and won a
contest at the royal court. As his prize he wed one of the king's daughters. The king tried to
have Santiago killed, only to be thwarted by the same rooster, which Santiago pulled out of his
mouth whole and alive. The rooster gives Santiago a magic sword that he used to slay the
king's assassins.Typical of the Indian cosmology are also the ceremonials.In the episode of the
killing of the albino, huge festivities rage through the town as a storm sets in towards the
evening. Francisco has spent the evening in the ceremonial kiva, or hut, along with the other
holy men in town. Additionally, a bull is running through the streets as part of the ceremony.It
is that night that Abel kills the albino and watches his blood drip in the rain.
The basic magic realism of the story is created through Abels being situated in
between two cultures:the world of his grandfather, a world of seasonal rhythms,a land with
creatures traditions and ceremonies reaching back thousands of years, and the urban world of
post-war white America.Even though it was the war that severed Abel's connections to the
"house made of dawn" the world of spiritual and physical wholeness and connectedness to the
land, he is able to come back and rediscover his identity.
Remarkable is the relation of the tribes to the weather and the natural
phenomena.Their impersonation in nature, comprises a great part of the magic realism of the
novel.Francisco teaches his grandsons, Abel and Vidal, to observe the sun. He tells them that:
they must know the long journey of the sun on the black mesa, how it rode in the
seasons and the years, and they must live according to the sun appearing, for only then
could they reckon where they were, where all things were, in time. (173)
It is worth mentioning here the connection of the tribes to the moon.The moon's reappearance
after her three-day "death" has traditionally been read as a symbol of rebirth.Momaday uses a
number of devices to reinforce further the connection between Abel and the moon. In two
instances the course of the moonlight on the water functions as a bridge, and in the following
passage a flock of birds serves as a link:
Then they [the birds] were away, and he had seen how they craned their long slender
necks to the moon, ascending slowly into the far reaches of the winter night.They made
a dark angle on the sky, acute, perfect; and for one moment they lay out like an omen
on the bright fringe of a cloud.(105)
The natural elements also serve as forecasting and predictive devices in the hands of the
supersticious tribes.When Francisco listens to the fields and sounds around him, what he hears
often foreshadows an event relating to Abel. Likewise, several nights before Abel's murder of
the albino Francisco hears "whispers [rising] up among the rows of corn"(56) and cannot put
his finger on what the whispers mean until later, when he becomes conscious of an "alien
presence close at hand."(59).In most tribal cultures the body is considered to be the shelter of
the soul and as such, when the soul becomes corrupted, the body mirrors the whole and the
individual undergoes purgation or initiation rituals.In The House Made of Dawn physical
disintegration is the outward sign of Abel's inner conflict: "[now] his body was mangled and
racked with pain. His body, like his mind, had turned on him; it was his enemy."(89).
Purgation,otherwise called catharsis is the cleansing of individuals or community of
rebellious tendencies. Such a ceremony could have given to Abel the opportunity to vent his
agression and avoid killing the albino.Abel does not undego a real initation rite, but the beating
Abel receives results from his attempt to get even with Martinez, who has tyrannized him,
incite him and Momaday to bring in front of us some aspects of the initiation procedures. As it
is common for initiates to be placed into a shallow grave, Abel is "lying in a shallow
depression in which there were weeds and small white stones and tufts of long grey
grass."(88).
His numerous injuries point to his symbolic death, the knocking out of teeth and the
amputation of fingers being common initiatory tortures:"His hands were broken, and he
could not move them. Some of his fingers were stuck together with blood, and the
blood was dry and black; . .there was blood in his throat and mouth.(91).
Magic realism in the novel unfolds also through the episodes of grandfather Francisco applying
magic portions :"Francisco chanted and prayed; the old man applied herbs and powders and
portions and salves, and nothing worked."(89).Five days after Abel's return, the people of
Jemez celebrate the game of the Chicken Pull.The Rio Grande Pueblos view the insertion of
the rooster into the ground and its subsequent removal as a symbolic representation of planting
and reaping. The scattering of the rooster's feathers and blood are representative of rain and are
believed to increase the fertility of the land and the success of the harvest.Yet familiar, as he
seems to become with the Pueblo traditions and rites Abel can not avoid feeling afraid of
witchcraft and its effects.
The different stages that Abel`s consciousness and identity shaping go through
become clearer through Abels affiliation with the motions of the silversided fish:
There is a small silversided fish that is found along the coast of southern California. In
the spring and summer it spawns on the beach during the first three hours after each of
the three high tides following the highest tide.These fish come by the hundreds from the
sea. They hurl themselves upon the land and writhe in the light of the moon.They are
among the most helpless creatures on the face of the earth.(79)
The fish imagery not only reflects Abel's suffering but also indicates the upward movement in
his development after he has become aware of his situation. When Abel raises the energy to
fight against and eventually escape the drift towards death, the fish too have found their way
back to safety in the depth of the sea:
And far out in the night where nothing else was, the fishes lay out on the black water,
holding still against all the force and motion of the sea; or close to the surface, darting
and rolling and spinning like lures, they played in the track of the moon.(107)
Once Abel has by means of his subconscious gained insight into the meaning of ritual and the
controlling forces in the universe, he is ready to establish a formal union with his tribal heritage
through the ceremony of the Night Chant which Ben Benally conducts for him.In doing so, he
shows his newfound trust in the effectiveness of Indian ceremonials.Another major step
towards restoration and initiation into his tribal culture is Abel's vision of the runners after evil.
Dreams and visions have always been of utmost significance in the lives of American Indian
peoples.
The runners after evil ran as water runs, deep in the channel, in the way of least
resistance, no resistance.His skin crawled with excitement; he was overcome with
longing and loneliness, for suddenly he saw the crucial sense in their going, of old men
in white leggings running after evil in the night. They were whole and indispensable in
what they did; everything in creation referred to them. Because of them, perspective,
proportion, design in the universe. Evil was. Evil was abroad in the night; they must
venture out to the confrontation; they must reckon dues and divide the world.(91).
The race is connected with the ceremony of clearing the irrigation ditches in the spring. It is an
imitation of water running through the channels, a magic bid for the vital supply of rain, and a
ritual act to prevent the harvest from being influenced by evil powers.
2.2. Magic Realism in The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Typical of Magic Realism is the extensive use of symbols and imagery and Ellison has
achieved this more proficiently than any other person:flowery diction, vivid imagery, and a
colorful, but complex sentence structure are the distinguishing traits of his style.Despite all of
his use of stylistic elements, the characteristic that makes Ralph Ellisons novel so remarkably
unique is his ability to combine such diverse elements as realism, surrealism, folklore, and
myth.
Invisible Man is a novel that illustrates the finding of ones identity as being no easy
task.The Man has no name; he is anonymous, which parallels with the knowledge of his own
individuality.He is extremely vulnerable and susceptible to the influence of several social
groups as the ones we can see throughout the novel, which is written and constructed in an
episodic fashion.The man is invisible because the other characters in the novel fail to seeand
cannot understand his spiritual identity; rather they see him as an object whose mind and body
can be manipulated like clay.Some critics consider the black man to be "the least invisible of
all men".The narrator does not realize this about himself until he awakes with amnesia from
being injured at the paint factory. Then, suddenly, he is no longer afraid to face the real world.
His newfound confidence inspires his passion and begins to do things he never thought
possible because no one would ever listen.
The novel takes the character to great lengths until he witnesses a riot and realizes
that even an invisible man has a socially responsible role to play(Ellison 1995:93). This
comes out through the "Battle Royale"where most of the magic realism lies in the unconscious
fight that Antonio is involved in while standing up for his ideals and his dignity.
Almost consciousless he could hear a hypnotic voice hazily counting down. He fought
for the seemingly golden coins but every time he seemed to grab one his hand would be
frantically removed by the others and he would be shifted aside, a boy would flip up in
the air like a circus seal, and would land with his back on the charged rug (27)
or
"I was fighting automatically and at the same time worrying about the delivery of the
speech... An hypnotic voice said five emphatically." (24-25)
In another dream sequence typical of magic realism his grandfather tells him to open the
briefcase and see what is inside. Inside the subsequent envelopes, he finds the message "keep
that nigger boy running", a message to the whole black community to go on fighting for their
rights. Harsh as the struggle of life may sound, the invisible man always finds the courage to
find the beautiful even in the most hideous sides of it. While approaching the ring, he takes a
glimpse (or at least dreams) of a beautiful blonde girl, among the naked faces of the spectators:
"I wanted at one and the same time to run from the room, to sink through the floor, or to go to
her, and cover her from my eyes and the eyes of the others with my body"(20). In the
Epilogue, one of the elements of magic realism is its challenge to the established ideals.
According to the invisible man, reality is as irresistible as a club is and he was clubbed into
the cellar before he caught the hint.
When one is invisible good/evil, honesty/dishonesty, shift shapes so that one confuses
one with the other. He thinks he was never more hated than when he tried to be honest and
never more loved and appreciated than when he tried to justify and affirm someones mistaken
beliefs or when he tried to give his friends the incorrect, absurd answers they wished to hear.
He was always trying to go in everyones way but his own, so after years of trying to adopt the
opinions of the others, he finally rebelled "he was an invisible man so he took the cellar and
hibernated " (462).The use of hibernation, a wintry dormant state, as a social protest grants
fantastical elements and makes us empathize with the spiritual state of the invisible man. The
ancestors, important elements in the African cosmology, come in the novel through the
grandfathers advices to the invisible man:

Or did he mean that we had to take the responsibility for all of it, for the men as well as
the principle, because we were the heirs who must use the principle because no other
fitted our needs. Not for the power or for vindication, but because with the given
circumstance of our origin, could only thus find transcendence(462)
In Dr. Bledsoe, the author mostly recurs to social realism to reveal the social determinism that
revolves around the existence of the blacks, but still he doesnt fail to include even hints of
magic realism. One such instance comes out in the episode when Dr.Bledsoe keeps
emphasizing that black folk can be powerful only in dark, blackness referring to an abstract
state of prejudice and discrimination, or a mysterious shelter for the ancestors, and the invisible
man felt that "his grandfather was hovering over (him), grinning triumphantly, out of the
dark"(123).
2.3. Magic Realism In Bless Me Ultima, Rudolf Anaya
In my consideration of the magic realism in Bless Me Ultima, I have concentrated mainly in
"Dieciocho", and some other episodes of the book .Bless me Ultima is a beautiful story of a
young boy who becomes a man, who grows up so fast with the help of la grande, Ultima.He
goes through so many things, seeing three people he knew either killed or drowned and
contemplating all this time whether or not God was really there.The boys quest for knowledge
at an early age and his interaction with characters provided with fantastical powers, accounts
for the presence of most magic realism elements in the novel.Besides Antony another major
character in the story is Ultima, an old frined of the Marez family,and a curandera ,one who
cures with herbs and magic and fights evil away from the Marez family.
From the very first confrontation with Ultima we come to foresee that elements of
time travel, sorcery, and confrontation between good and evil will unravel through the
story.Only Antonia Marez and Anayas magic realism dares dreaming such gruesome images
as "The human race dies and only the "she-goats and the he-goats" remain (176).(Anaya
1972:88) or "The lake cracked with laughter of madness" and the "ghosts stood and walked
upon the shore" (120).He argues with God and the Virgin Mary. He commutes with the dead;
the dead ask him for blessings.He is considered to be valiant, and this courage sometimes
reflects his curiously precocious nature. He is to be considered courageous because he stands
for what he believes is right and he is not afraid to go to extreme measures to protect the people
he loves. Being forced into being Catholic leads him into having insights into protestantism,
witchcraft and eganism.
Typical of Anayas magic realism is even the merging of the fantastical with the real,
and the questioning of what is widely accepted as sustainable reality: The first thing he
wonders about when he witneses Lupitos death is "where was Lupitos soul"(26) and this
shows how deep Tony`s thoughts are.Already at age seven he thinks on a spiritual level.Even
his dreams are witnesses to his spirituality. Adults do not dream of God saying "Vengence is
mine"(173) or whether "the baptism water is really holy water" (120). The inclusion of dreams
is actually magic realism, a stylistic device that Anaya uses to overwhelm the readers with the
themes and to express the meanings of the themes in a more impacted manner.His first dream
portrays his insecurity about his identity "Is he a fine vaquero or a farmer priest"(5), he is also
confused about which God to believe in The Golden Carp- or the Catholic God "he marvels at
the bright golden -pagan god" (114) but at the same time fears "God who could not forgive
sinners"(138). At the same time he does not understand evil and good. He does not understand
why "god cannot forgive the good Narciso while Virgin Mary can forgive the evil
Tenorio?"(173)
Other magic realism elements include: the encounter of Antonio and Ultima with
Tenorio Trementina and the three witches, the state of being stuck in between two cultures, the
ritual of the Indian torture, the image of blood becoming the river, the blending of the
fantastical with earthly crime fiction etc.
In Dieciocho magic realism elements come out through the challenging of the widely held
religious concepts:
Thou are dust and in dust shall return.The body is not important, it is made of ashes, the
winds and waters dissolve it and scatter it to the four corners of the earth. What we care
most for lasts only a brief lifetime then there is eternity. Millions of worlds are born,
evolve and pass away into unnmeasurable skies and there is eternity.I knew that
eternity lasted forever, and a soul because of one mistake could spend that eternity in
hell (195-196), I saw a frightening truth in his eyes.He was telling the truth!He did not
believe that he had ever sinned against God(203).
Even when speaking in religious terms Anaya can not refrain himself from mentioning the
magical herbs of the curandera"The confession of Saturdays morning sounded to them like a
test. The herbs of the priest smelled to him like those of Ultima "(197).
2.4.
Magic Realism in The Crying of the Lot 49
Although The Crying of the Lot 49 as a novel is well-known for its marked use of
intertextuality,along the way we encounter even some hints of the use of magic realism. One of
the otherwordly experiences Oedipa is confronted with on her quest is the episode with the
awaken-dreaming children.Oedipa responds to the children who are awake imagining that they
are dreaming, that they are asleep by rejecting them. She also flees from a situation she simply
cannot fathom, the silent agreement that permits the mute dancers not to collide with oneanother and to stop in concert.They have a way of communicating that is alient to her
understanding:
In Golden Gate Park, she came on a circle of children in their nightclothes, who told
her they were dreaming the gathering.But that dream was really no different from being
awake,because in the mornings when they got up they felt tired, as if the had been up
most night.(96)
In another passage Oedipa listens to Mr.Thoths tales of false Indians,interspersed with cartoon
segments about how on certain days he feels the presence of his God.Mr.Thoths name is that
of the Egyptian god of magic and learning who is pictured as a scribe.Thus he is connected
with the writing of wills and through magic ,with oracles tries to provide Oedipa with crucial
information.Even the sensations Oedipa has in the presence of Thoth are compared to the ones
one experiences when we feel surrounded by the magic and witchcraft of a sensitive:"She
looked around,spooked at the sunlight pouring in all the windows, as if she had been trapped at
the centre of some intricate crystal, and said Me god "(74).One of the traits of magic realism is
that interweaves magical and realistic events in that we can sometimes hardly distinguish in
between them.So in The Crying of the Lot, the sect of the Scurvhamites are concerned with an
orderly universe and the reference to God as being somehow equivalent with a digital
computer.Thus God as a supernatural element is merged with a man-made machine, the
computer.
2.5.
Magic Realism in Tony Morrisons Paradise
Toni Morrisons Paradise is said to be written in a difficult, Faulknerian style--with twists,

turns, and ghosts.She has also been praised for using magic realism in the style of Gabriel
Garcia Marquez. The setting of the story itself is typical of magic realism, Ruby, a fictional
town founded by blacks who came West to escape the horrors of Reconstruction. Morrison has
given the town's founders a biblical stature, they have been assigned the duty to build an"all
black mans paradise"on earth, where neither death ,nor famine or destruction threaten, but
they become themselves initiators of a discrimination they were meant to fight, and the assault
of the posse on the Convent stands for the bringing of the Ruby reality, from paradisiacal down
to earthly terms.
The magical elements of the novel unfold through: the inclusion of the fantastical and
witchcraft elements typical of the queer practices of the Convent inhabitants, the introduction
of characters who live in between two worlds without easily finding solace in either of
them,the distortion of cyclical time, and the presentation of a fantastical setting like that of
Paradise.So in the Chapter Consolata of the novel, Morrison shows the loud-dreaming in
which the members of the Convent got involved
Then they ringed the place with candles.Consolata told each to undress and lie
down......She spoke of fruit that tasted the way sapphires look and boys using rubies for
dice.Of scented cathedrals made of gold where gods and goddesses sat in pews with the
congregation.......That is how the loud dreaming began .How the stories rose in that
place.Half-tales and the never dreamed escaped from their lips to soar high above
guttering candles, shifting dust from crates and bottles...In spite of or because their
bodies ache, they step easily into the dreamers tale....In loud dreaming, monologue is
no different from a shriek;accusations directed to the dead and long gone are undone by
murmurs of love (Morrison 1997: 263-264).
Further on in the novel while Morrison is writing about the assault and the effects of it she
brings in front of us men attacking,murdering some women and scattering others to the
winds.Mystical in the story remains the presence of Piedade, a creature coming out of the
womens fancies,and haunted minds.Consolata says :
"We sat on the shorewalk.She bathed me in emerald water.Her voice made proud
women weep in the street....Piedade had songs that could still a wave, make it pause in
its curl, listening to language it had not heard since the sea opened.At night she took the
stars out of her hair and wrapped me in its wool.Her breath smelled of pineapple and
cashews...(284-285).
In the chapter named Paradise the Convent members appear as angelic creatures, recognized
as dead by the rest of the community, and returning to earth in war clothes to ask for the
redressal of the injustices.It is only toward the end that Toni Morrison brings clear in front of
us the image of shifting grounds, events taking place on earth and in paradise:
"When the ocean heaves sending rhythms of water ashore, Piedade looks to see what
has come.Another ship, perhaps, but different, heading to port,crew and passengers, lost
and saved, atremble for they have been inconsolate for some time.Now they will rest
before shouldering the endless work they were created to do down here in
paradise"(318).
Before concluding, it is worth mentioning that there are several fantastical episodes in the story
which endow it with elements typical of magic realism such as:the episode where the
community members and especially the ambulance man realizes that after the assault all
corpses have vanished and all chaos has been swiped away.
Bibliography
Abrahams, M.H. (1981), A Glossary of Literary Terms, Cornell University,
Anaya, Rudolf (1972), Bless Me Ultima ,Hoboken NY
Barth, John. "The Literature of Exhaustion". The Atlantic Monthly (August 1967): 29-34.
Broich, U. (1997), 'Intertextuality', in Bertens (ed.) (1997). Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man,
Vintage, U.S.A
Fokkema, D. (1997), 'The Semiotics of Literary Postmodernism', in Bertens (ed.)
Howe, Irving Mass Society and Postmodern Fictionin the Decline of the New 211-265.
Hutcheon, L. (1988), A Poetics of Postmodernism, London & New York: Routledge.
Jameson, F. (1993), Postmodernism, or, The cultural logic of late capitalism, 4. print. Durham:
Duke Univ. Press
Kohler, Michael (1977,) 'Postmodernismus': Ein begriffsgeschichtlicher Oberblick,
Amerikastudien, vol. 22, no. 1.
Marshall,Brenda. (1992), Teaching the Postmodern: Fiction and Theory, New Yorkand
London: Routledge,
Momaday, Scott(1999) House Made of Dawn, Harper Perennial Modern Classics,
Morrison, Toni(1997) Paradise, Alfred Knopf, Canada,
Pynchon, Thomas(1965) The Crying of the Lot, Harper Collins Publishers,
PhD. Ilda POSHI

Department of English Language and Literature
PhD. Ilirjana KACELI

Department of Turkish Language and Literature
TRANSLATING LITERARINESS:
ALLEN GINSBERGS HOWL vs UK ZENEL BUPAPAJS KUJ
Abstract
Prior to being accepted as a real and systematic discipline translation has been lengthily
considered a multi-sided driving force used to enable multi-cultural/linguistic communication.
As experience shows, translation was born as a practical endeavour to convey social, historical
and cultural disparities between countries and only in the 1960s, thanks to Holmes, it was
recognised as a solid discipline inexorably intertwined with other disciplines. Moreover, and
above all, translation is not just science, it is not a mere process of decoding the encoded it is
an art. Such categorisation is what made Otokar Fischer and other scholars faithfully promote
translation as an interface between science and art. This is what this research will try to
encompass. We will see how in literary translation, the art of translating marries the theory so
that to explain the uniqueness of this discipline.
In addition, we will see the concept of literariness as an element of paramount importance in
literary translation and especially in poetry, the most sublime aka most problematic genre of
literature. As P.B Shelley confesses in A Defence of Poetry: Poetry ... awakens and enlarges
the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of
thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be
as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that it represents, and the impersonations clothed
in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in the minds of those who have once contemplated
them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts
and actions with which it coexists. (P.B. Shelley, 1904, 33)
Dynamic equivalence is the key to achieve the explanation of complex phenomena through
simpler phenomena happening in literary translation and especially in poetry. Through an
inductive-descriptive method we aim at bringing light to how and to what extent literariness
can be translated by analysing coram Allen Ginsbergs Howl and its translation in Albanian
Kuj by Uk Zenel Bupapaj. This way we will see the essential and irreplaceable niche
literariness occupies in poetry translation.
Keywords: literariness, poetry translation, art of translation, cultural/ linguistic disparities,
comparison,
1. Introduction
Literary translation has intrigued linguists, scholars, and translation practitioners since the
times of Cicero and the Bible. The more you know and experience the more it challenges you,
the more obstacles you meet and the more mysterious it becomes. Whenever you think you
have found something, another thing surges, as to question if your findings are exact, loyal and
unequivocal. Whatever the case, the love for this art brings a need to protect it from being
deviated, maltreated or derailed away from the science-art path. Why?
First, the translators seem to belong to extremely diversified categories and the number of
factors they hinge is so high that what can really be achieved are mostly statistical
generalizations.
Second, because of the multitude of disciplines taken into account, a question arises: what
kind of science is likely to be developed through such an undertaking, and, after all, would that
make sense?
Third, since the outcome of such inductive research will crucially be determined by its
flows, how can the risk of a closed circuit be avoided? In other words, how can we avoid the
risk that the concept of the translation being developed is not simply a reflection of what one or
the other has given vital importance, of what one researcher-translator beholds and what
another opinions?
Fourth, are all the efforts equally accessible to the audience? Are the semantic features
ambiguous and shallow or are they loyal to the purpose the source language is communicating?
Surely we cannot call or sing Will the real Translation now please stand up? The how,
to what extent and on what cost literariness can be captured and gavelled are the questions
we will try to answer when the source poem eyes her target sibling. But first, what is
literariness?
Literariness (revisited in Jacobson, 1968, pg. 597-609) is commonly known as a
togetherness of features present in a literary text and the use of special language and
impersonal attitude to reality. To grasp literariness the translator needs to be aware of:
discourse
polysemy
textual self-reference
repetition
ambivalent meanings
The concept of literariness is born as the basis of estimated concrete texts and influences the
text in 3 levels:
i. formal
ii. semantic
iii. ideological
and because of some factors like:
a. who published the text and where
b. who reads the text
c. why was it published
d. what knowledge / expectations does it bring
e. how is it interpreted / classified
Therefore, literariness appears as a variable of the sensitivity towards time / culture /

environment / interlocutors and emerges as "adjustment" of mutual adaptation.
Literariness comprises 3 components:
1. the visible text-narrative features: i.e. the stylistic and memorable features of the essence of
the text
2. the readers non-cognitive reactions: i.e. the way how the reader-translator ostracises the
text
3. the changes special meanings bring: i.e. the readers endeavour to find elements in the text
that bewitch them
Hence, literariness can be translated if the disclosure of stylistic variations, ostracism of the
text due to the bewitchment of such variations and the transformation of the concept / common
sensations (allusions, imagery) happen at the same time. This is the key to literariness and this
is what will be explored in the next part of this paper. Finally, literariness is not a conventional
regulatory transformation process, stemming from culture and experience but a sprout of
psychological inheritance, of linguistic, sensorial and perceptive ability of the self.
2.
Howl vs Kuj
Howl is a 1955 manifesto full of rebellious commentary upon what the Beats generation has
undergone through in the American society of the 20th century. It is a poem of protest, of cry
and pain indicating what Ginsberg and his companion of suffragettes, Carl Solomon, whom he
dedicates the poem to, have experienced because of envisioning a culture not precisely
matching the mainstream culture and way of thinking.
Howl is a lament of alienated minds, actually the best minds of (his) generation destroyed
by madness as Ginsberg confirms in the opening line of the poem. These were the years
where the best scholars were born but also subjugated and repressed due to incongruities of
their literary and cultural production. The poem is narcotic in the way that it makes you feel
full of it and wanting nothing more than it so that you could transcend to reality, a reality of
darkness, darker than Conrads, of metamorphosis, but much more elegiac than Shelleys
Queen Mab, and of repulsive cataloguing similar to Whitmans. That obscene are the events
that they resemble to hell, as William Carlos Williams warns us in the preamble of the poem
Hold back the edges of your gowns, Ladies, we are going through hell.
There is a whole sense of movement in the poem, not just of tenses, not of senses, but of
people and ideology travelling from one place to another; a movement of culture away from
the mainstream, a physical shifting from New York, the base, and its neighbourhoods to
Brooklyn Bridge, then to New Jersey, Mexico, Morocco until we meet in Rockland, as to find
peace from all the journey. The whole image is recreated in the target language maintaining
such poetic refrain.
There are generalised recognising steps when translating a poem. Initially, we read poetry,
and then recreate or translate. In any circumstance, it is difficult to achieve a translation of
poetry without flaws or errors, stemming from misreading the original poetic text. According
to Ji Lev (1967) translations of poetry and literature show that professionals understand little
of its object of study. Hardly ever have they considered if the translated poetry is read and
understood properly. Thus, in comparative studies of translation, a text is treated as an
independent creation, a fatal mistake and not as a "tool" through which the translator
establishes communication between the author and target reader.
As a matter of fact, first, the act of translation is a set of original poetry reflections on the
text, created in the mind of the interpreter whose meaning cannot be taken as final and sole.
Secondly, the target poetry text is a "derivative", which is cooked in the mind of the
translator who makes adjustment on it and is likely to add his own aspects of knowledge,
thoughts and beliefs. Thirdly, reading and recreation strategies in poetry translation are
inextricably linked. Fourth, as a communicative tool, poetry text appears "dynamic". The
translator, as a reader and creator, has to rebuild the relationship between the continuity of the
target symbols and the features of reality. Moreover, it is advisable to investigate how the
author continually changes the grammar of the language, how "unusual" syntactic ingredients
appear typical of poetry, and to determine the function of their use. Let us compare:
Molok! Vetmi! Flliqani! Shmti! Tiganat skuqin hi dhe dollar hupanak! Fmijt
irren nn shkallare! Djelmoshat ngashrejn ushtri m ushtri! Pleq e plaka shkrehen
n vaj park m park!
(Bupapaj, Kuj, )
[Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming
under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!]
(Ginsberg, Howl, )
Considering this range of several verbless sentences, where the source language (English) is
compared to the target language (Albanian), it is enough to see how the translator, once
explicating the essence of the text in terms of semantic content and artistic form, "recreates",
but "stays faithful". Moreover, the equivalent "tiganat skuqin hi dhe dollar hupanak " to
"ashcans and unobtainable dollars" has added significant strength to the source clause
(English) in the target clause (Albanian), and maintained the matrix of the source culture.
Thus, this sentence is an enumeration of metaphors, four to be exact: tiganat skuqin hi;
tiganat skuqin dollar; hi hupanak; dollar hupanak, which enrich the target language
(Albanian) as well.
The translator has maintained the versification of the original poem, but he has also
advocated his creative spirit. Moreover, through the exhaustive use of the structural model of
the free verse, the translator has managed to convey his inner reactions, but avoiding getting
out of the context of the source poem. Compare:
trut ia treguan Qiellit, hekurudhave, pan engjj krahshkruar e mendjekthjellt duke u
kalamendur maj kalibeve,
(Bupapaj, Kuj,)
[who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering
on tenement roofs illuminated,]
(Ginsberg, Howl,)
u strukn dhomave t parruara, n brek, dogjn parat e veta n kosha mbeturinash,
dgjuan Kngn e Dajakut matan murit,
(Bupapaj, Kuj,)
[who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and
listening to the Terror through the wall,]
(Ginsberg, Howl,)
Poetry translation specifically gets the translator into the vortex of anguishing attempts to
follow his own rules and making skilful decisions, so that his version could turn up into an
enumeration of striking linguistic findings. Compare:
gazavajas, shijepar, fytyrengjj, duke u djegur pr lidhjen e mome hyjnore me
dinamon yje-yje n makinerin e nats,
(Bupapaj, Kuj,)
[angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in
the machinery of night,]
(Ginsberg, Howl, )
At first look, such findings might derive from common words. The translator did not find
impromptu tools to achieve the effect of the original. He had to choose between the prosaic
variant and the awakening of emotions to the target reader. But he should be aware of the
"stubborn" character of poetry as well, which encompasses a range of problems, and, therefore,
the translated version is final when once one of the findings is altered, the poetry is alienated.
Translation of free verse is not only a challenge in itself but it embodies a strict form of
versification and as such it allows or awaits "word-weaving" so it would be the faille dress to
the poetry. Free verse is not just scribbling of a sudden thought and it has its own rules. A free
verse built is well-conceived if the verse has got music or rhythm although there is no definite
rhyming. If the translator conveys the words of the free verse text whimsically he will maintain
the integrity of the source poetic text intact. Instead of believing in the translation of a
concrete verse he should believe in showing faithfulness towards the source versification.
Why? Because the source versification does not allow him or provide him the ground to act
this way and consequently the imitation of it would bring the rebirth of the outside form of
the poetry or the alteration of the metre of the source poetry text. What the translator has done
in this case is: he has grasped the sound enumeration and rhythm as the unique peculiarity of
the source verse. Compare:
t kputur, rrecka-rrecka, zgavrat pa sy, n humbamendje, n oje, turravrap territ
mbinatyror t shtpive t akullta, varka q ajn majave t qyteteve t prmallura pr
xhazin,
(Bupapaj, Kuj, )
[who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural
darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,]
(Ginsberg, Howl, )
In fact, the idea of translating free verse confuses the translator-reader and the tendency to
freely choose the rhythm, metre or rhyming is so strong that he might feel irresolute of
choosing which technique is the correct one to show his faithfulness to the source text.
Whatsoever, the translator has definitely restrained himself from doing it in this poetry.
Compare:
biseduan shtatdhjet or pa nda, nga parku te jataku, n Belvju, n muze, n Urn e
Bruklinit,
(Bupapaj, Kuj, )
[who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to
the Brooklyn Bridge,]
(Ginsberg, Howl, )
The meaning of poetry can be found: 1) in using the text as evidence of the writer intention:
what is significant is what the writer means by the text; 2) viewing the text signalling its own
intrinsic meaning, whatever the writer might have intended: what is significant is what the text
means; and 3) reading it the readers way, i.e. what is significant is what the text means to the
reader, whatever the writer might have intended or whatever the text might objectively appear
to mean. According to Cox and Dyson "a poem that is in any degree successful blossoms
under our careful attention, and comes into fullness as we proceed. includes a new sense of
the poems structure and imagery, its tone and verbal delicacy, its precise effects" (Cox &
Dyson, 1965: 12-13).
However, the fruitlets of poetry are never clear: sometimes they evoke, remind, or emit a
different taste, sometimes they lurk or forge. The translator, therefore, is required to play the
role of "resuscitator" that possesses special mastery in reading the signs and their association
with the relevant meaning of the poem. In no case he must act as an independent "author" of
individual reactions. He needs to interpret the real taste of the poem and the effects necessary
to capture the central message and additional secondary messages. This way he maintains
"intact" the significance to the symbolic value of the poem this is what we see in this
translation: Compare:
I pash mendjendriturit e brezit tim t rrnuar nga menduria, duke vdekur pr buk,
epshar, lakuriq, zhag rrugve t zezakve n agim n krkim t syve idhnak,
(Bupapaj, Kuj, )
[I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,]
(Ginsberg, Howl, )
On one hand, the fear embodied in the inability of a completely faithful translation of the texts
is associated with the risk of producing a weak translation because of being humble to what is
lying underneath it" so that the product is a togetherness of usual, necessary and utilised values
of language. But being grasped after this means damaging the creative freedom required in
such case, and failing to seize or discover the inconceivable or unconceivable, the unstated and
the non-stated. On the other hand, the belief embodied in the possibility of a completely
faithful translation is associated with the risk of producing a constraint translation, where the
translator experiments, plays with language use, seeks to coordinate polyvalent meanings,
allusions and accentuation of the source text, acting upon his ways, judgment and intuition.
Both these risks are avoided in the translation of "Howl". Compare:
u strukn dhomave t parruara, n brek, dogjn parat e veta n kosha mbeturinash,
dgjuan Kngn e Dajakut prtej murit,
(Bupapaj, Kuj, )
[who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and
listening to the Terror through the wall,]
(Ginsberg, Howl, )
However, two questions naturally arise: If we accept that the translation is "achieved" as a fruit
of the translators creative freedom, then to what extent can it be used? Is there a risk that by
rampantly playing with style and expressive nuances of the words we sacrifice the faithful
conveyance of source text message?
Creative freedom is not only connected to the playful nature of the translator, it is a
"compromise" where the translator is "biased" to the content and the metaphorical expression
of the poetic text and "breaks" the rules of syntax or metonymy. Creative freedom stems from
the textual "energy", whether from words, verses or complex formulations appearing as
interdependent nodes between the translated poetic text and the language of translation, which
consequently brings the enrichment of the latter. Compare:
lypsi i mendur dhe engjlli rrahin Kohn, t panjohur, por, prsri, duke hedhur n
letr at q u la t thuhet n kohn pas vdekjes,
(Bupapaj, Kuj, )
[the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be
left to say in time come after death,]
(Ginsberg, Howl, )
Obviously, poetic translation involves reading and recreating and the literary translator is a
reader and a creator.
On one hand, the ways of reading the literary text, of understanding its content and rhetoric
differs from one reader-translator to another, and it comes a moment where the translator starts
playing the role of the source poet and transforms the text into his native language. Moreover,
the style that the translator-reader conveys into the translation is sealed with the stamp of the
tradition, the taste of the time and place where he translates.
On the other hand, there is a myriad of ways of reading and conveying a source poetic text
and there are no final, definite and exhaustive methods or techniques the poetic text is
translated. Hence, in this translation of Howl the translator-reader has utilised the
extraordinary flexibility of the target language, creating new words, metaphors, and syntactic
displacements and maintaining the rhythm. Compare:
I pash mendjendriturit e brezit tim t rrnuar nga menduria, duke vdekur pr buk,
epshar, lakuriq,
(Bupapaj, Kuj,)
[I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,]
(Ginsberg, Howl,)
The structure of the poem is rather strange but it has symbolic significance. For example, in
Part I the poet used the verb "see" in the simple past tense saw and a list of other events
following in the past; in Part II he switches to present but using a repetitive gerund and in Part
III simple present tense but echoing a future and everlasting aspect, creating a refrain "I'm with
you in Rockland", which repeats 19 times. It is done to maintain the symbolic effect of
movement in time and space.
The reality of this poem happens in certain time and space and what appears in it
symbolises a shift or challenge to their borders. But such challenge is "fantasy" that echoes the
pain still present "here" and "now", "there" and "then", "here" and "then", "there" and "now". It
is precisely this "crash" of "concrete" and "abstract" simultaneously happening that "recreates"
the sense of movement in time and space in the translated version as well.
However, this "recreation" is not limited just to these categories, nor is the level of
language. The allies to this are the alliteration, assonance, metre, rhyme and metaphor. By
understanding how poetic language is modelled vertically, the interpreter harmonises the force
of the uniformity to that of liberation from judgement. Though the position described in the
poem resembles limbo, the significant movement within the images, the vertical painting
following a prosaic model enforces the composition and orchestration of the music in the
poem. Compare:
Ngadhnjime! kalime lumi! vrtitje! kryqzime! lartsi! Zotshfaqje! Dshprime! Dhjet
vjet jerrje kafshrore, vetvrasje! Mendje! Dashuri t reja! Breza t krisur! atje, n
shkmbinjt e Kohs!
(Bupapaj, Kuj,)
[Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs!
Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad
generation! down on the rocks of Time!]
(Ginsberg, Howl,)
The poem howls for liberation from judgement. Though the title is Howl, it does not function
as a way to pity or judge what is happening in it. On the contrary, there is no space for it. No
surprise to that. Poetry is the sublimation of the ordinary. Poetic use of language is not
"frozen". It develops continuously enriching human expression. Everything inside it is
positioned in its naturally-defined place. There is no room for divergence.
Compare:
Molok, ti, burg i pakuptueshm! Molok, ti, qemer i pashpirt qelie, Kongres kobi! Molok,
ndrtesat e tua, gjyqe! Molok, ti, shkmb gjigand lufte! Molok, ti, qeveri gojmbyllur!
(Bupapaj, Kuj,)
[Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and
Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war!
Moloch the stunned governments!]
(Ginsberg, Howl,)
The way how the poem is conveyed into the target language (Albanian) requires clear, precise
and approachable rhetoric free from misunderstandings or different interpretations to the
central message or additional messages. This can not only be related to the idea of
untranslatability, i.e. the translation is impossible due to the lack of lexical, grammatical
and meticulously stylistic equivalents of the languages being confronted, but also to the fact
that the translation should transfer all the product deriving from the original meaning within a
framework which imposes a different discourse and creates a dissimilar reality. Compare:
t kputur, rrecka-rrecka, zgavrat pa sy, n humbamendje, n oje, turravrap territ
mbinatyror t shtpive t akullta, varka q ajn majave t qyteteve t prmallura pr
xhazin,
(Bupapaj, Kuj,)
[who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural
darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,]
(Ginsberg, Howl,)
Since the translation in itself requires the linguistic conveyance of the original, on the other
hand it urges the complete inexhaustible and "healthy" retake of the source text (English
language), - the whole Semitic symbolism of Moloch 18 was maintained, the grandeur of the
chain of cries and apocalyptic effect reflects in the translated version as in the following case.
Compare:
Molok! Molok! Makthi yt, Molok! Molok, ti, dashurizbrazur! Moloku i mendjes! Molok,
ti, gjykats shpirtkosore i njeriut!
(Bupapaj, Kuj,)
[Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch
the heavy judger of men!]
(Ginsberg, Howl,)
In this case, the translator has not only succeeded in doing this, but also managed to increase
the expressivity of the source language text (English) in the target text (Albanian) through two
new composites loaded with dense emotional and metaphoric components
i.e.
"dashurizbrazur" and "shpirtkosore", used as equivalents to "the loveless" and "heavy Judger"
respectively. So, it is clear that, conceptually and practically speaking, translation includes the
image and imitation, analogy and metaphorisation. Moloch is the subject to all such madness
and the metaphor to what lies within the human soul of those people supporting the
government, maybe the government itself who could do anything to kill that stream of youth
and love who were positioned contrary to mainstream.
Poetry translation recognises different forms, such as "variant", "imitation", "reproduction",
"adaptation" or "transformation" (Andre Lafevere in Bassnett-McGuire, 1980: 81-82).
Poetry translation entangles the translator into a nightmarish game, where no violation of
self-invented or self-defined rules is allowed. His mastery and apprenticeship is bound to
submit to the self-critical attitude which becomes more and more present in the whole process
of translation. From this perspective, it seems clear the important role the translator plays at
reproducing a poetry by being "loyal" or "ignoring" the cultural reality of the source text no
matter how impersonal it is to his reality, to the different factors that have influenced his
conception and creativity and the individual circumstances which directly and/or indirectly are
reflected in the target poetry text. In addition, translators often recreate a poetry text only
considering the target culture, where the text is unhooked from the influences of its origin
and then translated as if it was a genuine creation and not a product of the source culture. Such
thing is not observed in the translation of the poem that is the subject of our research.
3.
Conclusion
By understanding and practicing poetry translation as a literary creation conditioned by the

respective source text, the translator becomes able to convey multiple strata of voices, images,
symbols, meanings and implications of a literary work to the audience in an exhaustible, loyal,
18
Moloch was a idolatrous God to whom children were sacrificed by placing them on fire.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10937-moloch-molech
truthful and fluid way. The translator should avoid ventures that cause ambiguous reading,
interpretation or translation. He should overcome the difficulties deriving from four
"languages" (the source language, the target language, the author language, the personal
language). He can do this through the knowledge, through the discovery of literariness, through
separately probing the semantic content of the words, and the implications coming from their
relationship.
Literary translation has been "baptized" with different terms. Thus, some call it "variant",
some "imitation", some "recreation" or "transformation". Meanwhile, based on the comparison
of Howl and its relevant translation, we have proposed the term "retake". There is always some
lack of loyalty when it comes to translation. Still the following criteria, but not only, were
followed in the translated version of this poem:
(1) the use of free verse.
(2) the attempt to maintain the patterns of the original language
(3) the use of complex alliteration patterns, similar to the original.
(4) the attempt to imitate syntactic inversions, collocations, archaisms of the source language.
(5) the attempt to reproduce the sound of the source text.
(6) the attempt to understand and rebuild the ideology embedded in the source text.
(7) the attempt to reproduce the mood of the source text.
(8) the attempt to maintain the visual form of the source text.
(9) the attempt to maintain the regular pattern of the source text.
(10) the attempt to build complex alliteration structures in the target language.
(11) the mis-reading of the central essence of the source text message on purpose or by
mistake.
It is often said that poetry is untranslatable. However, the experience embodied in the
translation of Ginsbergs Howl proves the contrary, - whenever the translator reaches the depth
of the source poets thinking, perception and experience, he becomes one with the text. Here
the translator-reader appears to be the "ideal" one and led by the imagination of the author, but
without getting imprisoned" in the text. The translator resulted conscious in conveying the
means, the meaning, the image and the hysteria of Howling. As in the original Kuj properly
and faithfully is transmitting the cry which is not a cry, it is an unarticulated cry, as if it
flounders into your throat aiming at taking away every atom of life but leaving the pain,
making you consciously stupid of reality but augmenting the adrenaline to push you forward to
do something that is awaken.
Albeit the upshots of translation are not a consequence of the carefully-determined concept
of translation moulded according to a precise function, all translations reflect the translators
reading, interpretation and personal selection criteria as defined in the concept of the function
of the source and target text. The success or failure of such attempts depend on the readers
maturity, but variations of the methods used to translate aka write emphasize the idea that there
is no single and right way to translate aka write a poem. Translators are given the
opportunity to see themselves freed from the constraints of conventions that govern translation,
and to be responsible while tackling with the source poetic text. This is the very starting point
where meta-text or translation-reading (inter-lingual translation) originates.
Bibliography
Aviram, Amittai F., (1994), Telling rhythm: body and meaning in poetry, University of
Michigan Press,
Bassnett-McGuire, Susan, (1980), Translation Studies, Methuen, London.
Chukovskii, K., (1984), The Art Of Translation, (trans. & edit. by Lauren G. Leighton),
University of Texas Press, Knoxville.
Cox C. B. & Dyson A. E., (1965), Modern Poetry-Studies in Practical Criticism, the Camelot
Press Ltd., Southampton.
Ginsberg, A., (1956 ), Howl and Other Poems, City Lights Books, San Francisco, USA. & its
translation by Bupapaj, U.Z, Kuj, print (retrieved on January, 2015,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/50982969/Kuje-per-botim#scribd
Jakobson, Roman, (1968 ), Poetry Of Grammar And Grammar Of Poetry in Lingua 21, pg
597-609.
Larson, Mildred L. (1984), Meaning-Based Translation: A Guide To Cross-Language
Equivalence, University Press Of America, New York,
Lev, Ji (1967), Translation as a decision process, in To Honour Roman Jacobson, Vol. II,
Mouton, The Hague, pg. 1171-1182.
Newmark, Peter, (1988), Approaches to Translation, Prentice Hall, Hempstead.
Nida, E. A. & Taber, C. (1969) The Theory and Practice of Translation, E. J. Brill, Leiden.
Shelley, P.B. (1904), A defence of Poetry, edited by Mrs. Shelley, The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publications.
Prof. Assiss. Dr. Turan zgr GNGR

Faculty of Science Letters Kafkas University
Turkey
HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN SHAKESPEAREAN HISTORY

PLAYS
Abstract
William Shakespeare (1554-1616), English national poet and the most distinguished English
literary figure, produced his most well-known works between 1589 and 1613. He first began
his literary career as a comedy and chronicle writer, but he did not confine his literary genius
with comedies and chronicles. He also produced very prestigious tragedies, tragi-comedies,
romances and poems. His history plays deal mainly with the events from King John to Henry
VIII. His main concern was order, disorder, importance and continuity of monarch in these
plays, in which he also emphasized the Englishness and advised on the destructive
characteristic of civil wars and disobedience against the monarchs. The Wars of the Roses, in
which the Houses of York and Lancaster, two branches of the Plantagenet house, fought on the
monarch of England between 1455 and 1487, was an important historical event for the history
plays. Henry Tudor defeats Richard III and succeeds to the throne as Henry VII. He achieves to
unite the two royal families, marrying Elizabeth of York. Tudor dynasty ruled England and
Wales until 1603. Shakespeare lived under the reign of Elizabeth I, who was the last monarch
from Tudor dynasty. Shakespeare advises against war the dangers of civil wars and speaks well
of the Tudor dynasties in his history plays, such as King John, Edward III, Richard II, Henry
IV (Part I, II), Henry V, Henry VI (Part I, II, III), Richard III, Henry VIII. This plays were
about the English history. His plays, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra
were taken from Roman history. In this study some important historical event before the
Elizabethan period and how Shakespeare used historical event in his will be discussed in detail.
Keywords: William Shakespeare, Chronicles, Order, Kingship, Ideology, Civil War
1.
Introduction
In this study after giving brief information about some essential concepts such as Great Chain
of Being, order, degree and kingship, the rise of history plays, the main subjects of them,
Shakespeares history plays and the effect of nationalism and partriotism will be discussed.
Elizabethans world view had deep roots in the history and mainly based on mixture of ancient
and classical writers, the Old and New Testaments, and the moral and religious values of the
Middle Ages and Renaissance. (Aksoy, 1986) Great Chain of Being, order, degree and
kingship had importance in the formation of the philosophy of the life in the Elizabethan
period and Shakespeare was familiar with these doctrines.
Like his contemporaries, Shakespeare adopted the concept of The Great Chain of
Being, which was inherited from the Middle Ages. According to this concept, it was believed
that there was a spiritual order from God through archangels and angels, through kings,
princes, nobles, merchants, peasants and workmen, through higher and lower animals, to the
very plants and stones. Each had its proper place in the order and each was an essential link in
this Great Chain of Being. The Elizabethan believed that everything in the world had its natural
way of working, and its natural place in the system of things. Before the creation of mankind
and the world, there had been chaos an actual physical state in which particles of matter were
not linked to one another, and all things were in a permanent state of anarchic conflict and
hostility. God then imposed his own will on matter, and formed the world out of chaos. As
everything was created by God the whole universe was like a carefully linked and complex
machine created and kept working by the one Being. (Aksoy, 1986)
Degree was considered as the social equivalent of order. In Elizabethan society, it was
believed that without degree society would disintegrate and civilisation would not be possible.
Order is seen as the frame upon which the elements of civilised life are placed. The wellbeing of an individual as well as of nations depended upon the maintenance of order and
degree. The ignorance of the order in family relationship and in governmental affairs would
bring chaos and destroy the harmony of all universe. According to Elizabethan people, order
and degree governed not only the physical universe but also social and political institutions and
the individual. (Aksoy, 1986)
Another concept that the Elizabethan people supported was the belief that derived
from the the kings were appointed by God as representative. Man is not allowed to decide who
shall be king under any circumstances, and this task is Gods alone. (Urgan, 2007) Hence
obedience to kings was suggested even though they misused their power and ruled the country
unjustly. Therefore the maxim Kings do no wrong protected the office or function of the
kings against the courts of law and Parliament.
The Tudor monarchs, from Henry VII to Elizabeth I, propagated another doctrine
passive obedience, which meant that when a monarchs rule seemed to be tyrannical and
unjust, they should remember that kings are sent by God to rule the states. (Urgan, 2007)
People should pray God to lead their kings heart to better ways and forgive their sins which
had brought the punishment of oppression, because passive obedience was always better than
armed rebellion. Armed rebellion would divide a country into warring factions and offend God.
(Aksoy, 1986)
Elizabethan people also believed the need of having a powerful monarch to establish
and keep peace at home, so monarch was given many undiscussable divine rights. According
to the concept of divine rights of kings God alone was responsible for the appointment of a
person to kingship. The king held his office from God, and no from human beings. Since the
monarch is the representative of God in the world, any attempt to usurp him/her was not
merely a crime against human law, but it was a crime against God. The overthrow of the king
from the throne was something to be decided only by God. The only thing that the people
should do is to endure with reliance and patience and not to attempt to remove a King or revolt
against him which is considered as a crime against the God. (Uzmen, 1973)
The result of this major sin and crime is civil war. English people bore in minds the
detrimental effects of the civil wars, which devastated England for almost a hundred years.
Considering the bloodshed and destruction caused by the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth
century, and also the rebellions and conspiracies during the reign of Elizabeth I and James I, it
is not surprising that Shakespeare mentions civil war with horror and fully accepts passive
obedience in his plays. (Aksoy, 1986) He presented consistently the conception that State could
survive only by loyalty, otherwise chaos would emerge and no-one would be in safe. Without
loyalty there would be insoluble conflicts between father and son, as Shakespeare shows in a
symbolical scene in Henry VI, Part 3.
2.
History Plays in the Elizabethan Period
Shakespeare did not only concentrate on comedies and tragedies, he also wrote some
outstanding plays mainly based on the historical data. History plays, originally called
chronicles, flourished in the second half of the sixteenth century and declined soon after the
death of Elizabeth I in 1603 and popular during the Elizabethan Period. English history play
developed as a popular genre because there was demand for new plays for the public stage, and
history plays tried to meet the demands of the theatre-goers.
The history took its modern form in Tudor England and it dealt with the lives of
secular heroes, mostly kings. John Bales Kynge Johan (1538) and Christopher Marlowes
Edward II (1592) contributed significantly to the development of history plays. (Ribner, 1965)
Marlowe not only provided the link between history and tragedy which would be elemental to
later English Renaissance history plays but also set a new standard for effective use of the
history play as propaganda. (Mills, 1934) According to Thomas Heywood and Thomas Nash,
English history play created sense of national pride and patriotic feelings through eternalising
English heroes. (Helen Ostovich, 1999)
According to Coleridge the aim of history is to introduce great heroes in history to the
people and arouse respect for patriotism and social institutions which unite the public together.
Obedience to social institutions and rulers are the two basic concepts which these plays
propagandize. (Uzmen, 1973) In a way the writers of history plays used historical facts in
dramatic medium for historical propaganda in theatrical form for nationalist and patriotic
purposes. The writers of historical plays drew their English historical materials from the
sixteenth century chronicles and stressed the patriotism and nationalistic feeling of the times.
These plays served as medium for stirring nationalistic and patriotic feeling in the country and
teaching English history to the uneducated population. (William Harmon, 1995)
There were not any remarkable history plays before the Elizabethan period. 1588 was
an important date for the plays based on English history. These plays had increasing popularity
following the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 which the Catholic Phillip II of Spain, who
had a claim to the English throne through Mary.
The defeat of the formidable Spanish Armada in 1588 contributed much to the growth
of strong feelings of patriotism and nationalism in England. The nationalistic feelings were
surging all over England, and Shakespeare voiced the public emotion proudly. (Aksoy, 1986)
Some playwrights used this historical success in their plays to provoke nationalistic feelings.
(Uzmen, 1973) They reflected the strong nationalist feelings following the Protestant
Reformation and the commercial wars with European countries. (Wells, 2001)
3.
Shakespeares History Plays
History play was a popular dramatic form in the London theatres. Shakespeare conformed to
the fashion of the time and entered into the history play. He produced some history plays seven
of which are are based upon the history of England. Shakespeare, though not the inventor,
was the most prolific author of such historical dramas. (Truman J. Backus, 1882) In his
history plays, Shakespeare deals with the lives of the kings between 1377 and 1485 such King
John, King Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, Richard III and King Henry VIII. All of
these history plays are based upon the fifteenth century England with the exception of King
John and Henry VIII, set respectively in the twelfth century and in the first half of the sixteenth
century. They constitute an historical epic covering over a hundred years and divided into
long chapters corresponding to reigns. (Kott, 1974) Shakespeare changed the actions and
characters in his history plays, and he did not write them in a chronological order, although he
based his plays on real events in history. Of the English kings he dealt with, Richard II ruled
(1377-1399), Henry IV (1399-1413), Henry V (1413-1422), Henry VI (1422-1461), Richard III
(1483-1485). Shakespeare began with Henry VI and continued with Richard III, Richard II,
Henry IV and Henry V. (Aksoy, 1986)
Raphael Holinsheds Chronicles (1587) was an invaluable source for poets and
dramatists at this time. (Wells, 2001) Holinsheds Chronicles furnished much of the material
for them, beginning with King John, and ending with Henry VIII. They are grand panoramas of
national glory or national distress. Richard II, Richard III, the two unequalled dramas on the
reign of Henry IV and that chant of patriotic triumph, Henry V, illustrate his power in
representing epochs in the life of his nation. (Truman J. Backus, 1882, p. 92) Another source
Shakespeare used to give him the records of events was Edward Halles The Union of the Two
Noble and Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York (1548). Hales admiration for the Tudor
monarchy inspired him to compose this work, in which Henry Richmond ends the cycle of
bloodshed caused by the murders of Richard II and Henry VI. The Unions influence upon
Shakespeare is most apparent in the Henry VI plays. (Wells, 2001) For historical material
Shakespeare also consulted Samuel Daniels The First Four Books of the Civil Wars (1595),
while his comic scenes draw broadly on the traditions of medieval mystery and morality plays.
Another source he consulted in his history plays is the anonymous Elizabethan play The
Famous Victories of Henry the fifth: Containing the Honourable Battel of Agin-court: As it
was plaide by the Queenes Maiesties Players. (Wells, 2001)
a.
Henry V
In his history plays Shakepeare follows the general views of his time and tries to satisfy the
audience. That is why he produces history play in order to reflect the common sense and the
patriotic and nationalistic view in his time. Shakespeare is in harmony with common views in
the Elizabethan views. In his The Elizabethan World Picture (1943) and Shakespeares
History Play (1944) E. M. W. Tillyard argued that Shakespeares history plays represent a
nationalist enterprise celebrating the providential restoration of order following the accession
of the first Tudor king to the English throne in 1485. (Wells, 2001)
Henry V (probably written in 1599) is the last of the plays known as Henriad, including
Richard II and both parts of Henry IV. In this play, Shakespeare deals with the rise of the
House of Lancasters in history. The play tells the historical events in Medieval England and it
is filled with love of country and success of English army.
In Henry V, like his other history plays, Shakespeare mingles fact with fiction. For
example, although the real Henry V defeated the French army at the Battle of Agincourt, he did
not actually take the French throne. Many characters in Henry V are based on real people, but
the personalities and actions of these characters in the work are imaginative. Shakespeare
used his imagination bring to life the inner motivations and private conversations of historical
figures that history books will simply never be able to capture. (Muse, 2015)
In Henry V, Shakespeare portrays the king and the war in more interesting way than
they seem in history. The play is full of incredibly provocative moments for a leader. Henry
has to deal with committing his country to go to war, and then he has to deal with the betrayal
of one of his best friends. He has to execute a beloved old companion in the middle of a war in
order to send the right message to the rest of his troops:
KING HENRY V
God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
You have conspired against our royal person,
Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd and from his coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God of his mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence. (Shakespeare, Henry V, 2015)
The young Prince Hal, the future king of England under the name of Henry V, becomes
friendly with Sir John Falstaff, who has no sense of morality. Falstaff is certainly not a model
of knighthood and the last person on earth with whom the heir to the throne should make
friends. He is thief, a parasite and a lecher, and also a selfish and a braggart man, but he is
amusing, witty and free from any feelings of responsibility except toward himself and the
satisfaction of his physical needs.
Before young prince Henry ascends the throne, he wastes time drinking with Falstaff.
As soon as he comes to the throne, Henry, as a king, cannot have Falstaff as a friend. He can
only allow him some money instead of giving him a position of high honour since he considers
the affairs of England more important than his former friend. When Henry becomes King, he
rejects his jolly old friend, Falstaff, as he represents the holiday mood and lack of
responsibility. (Raw, 1998)
In the play Shakespeare reminds the monarch his/her duties. He uses Falstaff and
Prince Henry to express his ideas about the order and kingship. Falstaff represents misrule and
anarchy in the society which Henry V has to govern. The ideal king cannot have anarchy at
hand as he tries to govern. Prince Hall should reject Falstaff although Prince Hall enjoys his
carefree way of life with him.
b.
Henry VIII
There were political debates and upheavels during the Wars of the Roses, but the confusion did
not stop after the wars. English people had to suffer many uncertainties and they were open to
many internal and external threats. Henry VIII succeeded his father Henry VII in 1509.
England under Henry VIII became a Protestant country, with the monarch instead of the Pope
as the head of the English Church, but many still held to the Catholic faith. Protestant
reformers were eager to spread Protestantism in England, but the fear of Catholic rebellion
continued to be strong for a long time in the society. Henry VIII died in 1547 and was
succeeded by his nine year old Edward.
The years following Henrys death were full of religious disagreement and rebellions.
Henry VIII had changed the ownership of the Church; Edwards reign succeeded in changing
the form of the church service from the Catholic form into the protestant one. Thus confusion
was added to confusion when Edward died. For the next five years the new Queen Mary I
(1516-58) daughter of Katherine of Aragon, tried to re-establish the Catholic faith in England.
Queen Mary ordered many bloody persecutions to re-institude Catholicism. Mary had to fight
against the attack by rebels and supporters of Protestantism. She died childless and succeeded
in 1558 by her Protestant half sister Elizabeth. When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, she
tried to return Enland a Protestant country, but during her queenship religious unrest did not
come to an end. The Elizabethans felt they were living in a world of full of uncertainties and
open to all sorts of dangers. To counter this fear, they had a firm and fixed concept in order,
which was both a belief and a need. (Aksoy, 1986)
In the play some historical facts can be seen. For example in Henry VIII (1613)
Shakespeare focuses on the instabilities of the royal court in the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries. This play represents significant moment in English history, namely
Englands religious break with Rome and the Catholic Church. In 1531, King Henry VIII,
disappointed that his wife Catherine (spelled "Katharine" in this play) had borne him no male
heirs, decides to divorce her. His advisors argue that the marriage is invalid, but the Pope rules
against the divorce. Nevertheless Henry divorces his wife and marries Anne Boleyn ("Anne
Bullen" in the play) in 1533. The Pope promptly excommunicates Henry. Henry then takes
command of religion in England, declaring himself the head of the Church of England and
seizing the wealth of the monasteries. The rest of Henrys reign is beset by rebellions both
small and large by groups who want to restore Catholicism. The actual event of the break with
the Pope is not represented within this play, but we see Henrys advisors discuss ways to
negotiate a legal divorce. We even see Cardinal Wolsey urge the Pope to refuse the divorce.
But the actual break is only alluded to.
However in some parts of the play, Shakespeare uses his imagination in presenting
the real facts. He also serves to contribute to the establishment of a powerful and stable
monarchy. For example, in Henry VIII, archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer baptises Elizabeth
and makes a speech about her future greatness. He says the infant holds great promise for
England, and few now can imagine the great things she shall accomplish. She will know truth,
she will be loved and feared, and she will be a great ruler. The king is amazed at the wonders
of which Cranmer speaks. Cranmer goes on to announce that Elizabeth will bring happiness to
England, and when she dies a virgin, the world will mourn her. Since Queen Elizabeth I died
ten years before Shakespeare wrote this play, this praise cannot be accepted as a flattery. It can
be accepted as an indication of the respect and admiration of people respect and admiration for
the queen in Elizabethan Period. (Urgan, 2007) Shakespeares aim is not to ingratiate himself
with the Queen Elizabeth but to articulate the sincere feelings of the people in his time. The
most important diplomacy of Henry VII was to secure England from internal disorder and civil
war that the country suffered in the previous periods.
4.
Conclusion
In his works Shakespeares main concern was to reflect the common sense and he tried to do
his best in order to warn both the rulers and the people against the dangers of chaos, disorder
and civil war. The horror of civil war can be seen in Shakespeares history plays, because
Shakespeare, like his contemporaries, was aware of the danger and the destruction of a civil
which was caused in the Wars of the Roses. Therefore, he brings forward the idea of harmony,
order and congruity in society and supports the hierarchical social structure.
Shakespeares age was one in which, there was general interest in history and the
people were eager to be told about the past. The sixteenth century history plays were aimed to
respond this demand from the public. Shakespeare made use of this demand on behalf of the
monarchy and order in society. These plays put the essence of the new historical view into
popular form for the theatre-going public. History plays had been valued as a lesson for kings
and the people, what to and what to avoid. Since history has lessons for the people.
Shakespeare showed how the misfortunes of society followed the sins of its rulers in his history
plays. In his plays Shakespeare also insisted on the sacredness of kingship, the wickedness of
rebellion.
Bibliography
Aksoy, Y. (1986). Introduction to Shakespeare. Erzurum: Ataturk University.
Cuddon, J. A. (1984). A Dictionary of Literary Terms. New York: Penguin Books.
Evans, I. (1968). A Short History of English Drama. London: MacGibbon and Kee Limited.
Evans, I. (1973). A Short History of English Literature. Harmondworth: Penguin Books.
Helen Ostovich, M. V. (1999). Other Voices, Other Views: Expanding the Canon in English
Renaissance Studies. Delaware: University of Delaware Press .
Kott, J. (1974). Shakespeare, Our Contemporary. New York: Norton Library.
McRae, R. C. (1998). The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland.
New York: Routledge .
Mills, L. J. (1934). Modern Philology. Chicago: The Universityof Chicago Press.
Muse, D. (2015, 7 20). Shakespeare's Theatre Company. Henry V by William Shakespeare:
http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/_pdf/first_folio/HenryV.pdf
Raw, L. (1998). The History of Culture: The Culture of History. zmir: The British Council.
Ribner, I. (1965). The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare. London: Routledge.
Shakespeare, W. (2002). Henry V. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shakespeare, W. (2015, 7 20). Henry V. Agincourt Computing:
http://www.aginc.net/henry_v/act1scene2.htm
Truman J. Backus, A. (1882). Shaw's New History of English Literature. New York: Sheldon
and Company.
Urgan, M. (2007). ngiliz Edebiyat Tarihi. stanbul: Yap Kredi Yaynlar.
Uzmen, E. (1973). Shakespeare'in Tarihi Oyunlar: Kaynaklar Inda Balca Kiiler.
Ankara: Hacattepe niversitesi Yaynlar.
Wells, M. D. (2001). The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
William Harmon, C. H. (1995). A Handbook to Literature. New York: Macmillan Publishing.
PhD. Mehdi GALIRE

Szeged University
Hungary
IDEOLOGICAL MEANINGS OF LANGUAGE
Abstract
Ideology is sometimes considered only as set of ideas, as Karl Mannheims relativist theory
would put it, for instance. It is also sometimes considered more critically as set of ideas whose
political aim is to help sustaining domination, by concealing the contradictions present in
society. Drawing on Jan Blommaert, Norman Fairclough, Susan Gal and Antonio Gramsci, this
paper investigates the link between ideology, meaning and power. Then, the issues of text,
context and agency will be examined, firstly in relativist theoretical approaches to ideology and
language, and secondly in critical approaches. It will eventually be shown that the two stances
are in conflict about the meaning of the word ideology itself, which brings to light the
discrepancy between the implications of descriptive and critical research.
Keywords: Ideology, linguistics, relativist theory, critical theory, power, meaning
1.
Introduction
Ideology is a term for which definitions are lavish. In order to understand the relationship
between ideology and meaning, we first need to have a clear overview of the main definitions
and representations of ideology in discourse studies. Only afterwards will it be possible to
investigate in which way these different definitions allow us to analyse different ways
ideological meanings emerge from language uses. The most relevant ways of examining how
ideological meaning comes about will be emphasized.
2.
Defining Ideology
Ideology can be seen as plural set of ideas common to a social group. Particular ideologies in
this case are ideologies that ought to be total (Blommaert 2005, 166). The capitalist ideology
that dominates our societies is a class-specific total ideology, but overthrowing capitalism by
another class-specific ideology, i.e. a socialist one, will only result in the latter becoming total
instead of the other. These ideologies are material practices of modulation and reproduction,
thus they are materially mediated ideational phenomena (Blommaert 2005, 164). This
position can be qualified of Mannheimian, from the name of Karl Mannheim, founder of the
sociology of knowledge, who attempted to neutralize the negative connotations of the
ideology concept by extending its scope to any system of thought that is collectively shared
and socially situated (Woolard 1998, 8).
However, this definition of ideologies as equivalents is extremely relativist and lacks a
classification criterion and therefore lacks a political stance. Blommaert considers ideologies in
society as a relative phenomenon, which social and material processes make evolve. He
doesnt take into account the fact that ideology helps concealing domination using language in
order to make social processes look natural (e.g. inequalities). He only sees ideology as a set of
hegemonic ideas, imposed through consent and coercion, independently of their content. But a
set of ideas sustaining domination isnt the same as a set of ideas aiming at undermining
domination. Human societies are unequal: the overthrow of a system, whose total ideology
justifies and reproduces inequalities by another system that would fight for justice against
inequality, is still an ideal worth fighting for.
The term ideology is useful for designating that form of systematic meaning which
functions to legitimate relations of ruling (D. Thompson 2001, 23). Giving this meaning to
ideology helps us to grasp the very close relationship between ideology and non-coercive
forms of domination, and to identify the agents of domination. Claiming that ideology is
neutral leads to conceal human agency and interests from the concept, therefore to abandon
politics (ibid, 23). It is a political act to decide whether meanings are ideological or liberating:
The only criterion for judging whether something is ideological is whether or not it reinforces
relations of ruling (ibid, 25) and whether or not they suppress the interests of the
subordinated (ibid, 29). We always are in systems of meaning, and systems of meaning that
reinforce domination are thus the results of ideology (ibid, 27).
Adding another dimension to this idea, Patrick Studer claims, agreeing with Michael Billigs
view, that ideology reinforces domination by concealing contradictions present in society
(Billig 1982, 3460 in; Studer 2013, 194):
in one of his early studies, [Billig] proposes a Marxist re-interpretation of ideology as
a concealment of contradictions. According to this interpretation, Billig not only
recognises ideology fundamentally as (linguistic) action but equally as rational and
knowledge-based activity aimed at concealing the legitimacy of the other side the
view opposing another and thus at achieving hegemony in a debated belief system.
Hegemony, a Gramscian term useful to grasp the systematic aspect of ideology, is also a
concern for Susan Gal, who claims that some signifying practices are dominant and ideological
not only because they are held by dominant groups, but because their evaluations are
recognized and accepted, indeed partially constitute, the lived reality of a much broader range
of groups (Gal 1998, 321). By valorising a social position to the expense of another,
ideological representations are at the forefront of the battle over hegemony lead by the
dominant class as they can win the consent of social groups with totally different interests
(ibid). A hegemonic ideology is, in other words, internalized by subaltern classes in society
because representations and meanings embedded in it may give these classes some benefits
from domination. The way ideological meanings have such effects will be investigated in part
3. The result of hegemony is, according to Norman Fairclough, projecting ones practice as
common sense (Fairclough 1989, 33), and what comes to be common sense is thus in large
measure determined by who exercises power and domination (ibid, 92).
Power relations have a key role in the production of ideology. Jovchelovitch, who
considers ideology to be a specific form of knowledge, takes power relations as the root of
creating such knowledge, as it relies on domination via the power of one interlocutor in the
other. The communication between the interlocutors is, according to Jovchelovitch, the how
of representation. She agrees with John B. Thompson on the fact that the study of ideology
focuses on the connections between meaning and relations of power (J. B. Thompson 1990 in;
Jovchelovitch 2007, 92).
Parts 2 and 3 will analyse the way language mediates meaning and the way these two
different approaches, the relativist and the critical one, are concerned with the relationship
between ideology and meaning, and in which way they may overlap.
3.
The relativist approach to ideology and language
3.1. Texts and contexts

Ideology, seen as a neutral phenomenon, is still able to influence meaning and the knowledge
people grasp from meaning.
For Blommaert, a means of expression of ideology and the issue that defines
linguistic inequality in contemporary society is Voice (Blommaert 2005, 5). According to
Blommaert, although he seems to be concerned with linguistic inequality, context limits itself
to the speakers worldview. In his analysis of the Flemish Socialist Partys (SP) 1998
statements, he considers the partys ideology as a set of ideas resulting from the party
members worldview, as constituting their own truth among other truths rather than a
systematic system of meaning embedded in the partys (and who they represent) interests
(Blommaert 2005, 198).
In social representation theory, the theory of social knowledge within which
language and communication play an essential role in acquiring and changing knowledge,
(Studer and Markova, 254) context is key to understand the differences of meaning ideology
generates, but it is limited to the specific context of speech acts. Social representation theory
isnt only concerned with the speech, but with the interaction between the speech and the
relevant conditions in which the talk takes place (Studer and Markova, 263). In other words, it
is focused on the text/context interaction happening in speech: democracy means different

things in different contexts French, Czech, British etc.
For S. Moscovici and social representation theorists ideology is no more than a
system of specific beliefs and therefore, it is redundant as a concept They also reject the idea
of investigating power like discourse analysts do, thus reject their political stance.: in
discourse analysis all phenomena seem to be ideologized and politicised before the research
starts. They rather see society as composed of a majority and a minority, where feelings of
guilt in the majority could become factors of social change. (Studer and Markova, 267 268).
Replacing the political with the moral is also a trait that J.P Gees theory has in common with
Moscovici and Malkova, however morality takes place at the individual level of making sense
of meaning.
3.2. Ideological Meaning-making and agency
Gee sees ideology as embedded in social theories that fulfil peoples need to interpret reality by
making generalizations about phenomena. He does not consider ideology as a way to maintain
domination, but as a rather neutral phenomenon, consisting in both bad and good social
theories: the latter being liberating, the former aiming at sustaining inequalities or being the
root of human evil (Gee 1996, 24). In other words, he gives the name overt theories to
liberating theories, and calls nave theories tacit theories (ibid, 16). There is ultimately, once
one has been exposed to both theories about a phenomenon, an ethical value judgment to be
made in order to decide which theory is correct, and the morally good decision is to favour
the social theory that will help to lead to a more just, humane and happier world (ibid, 18). I
think that it should be added that such moral or ethical judgments are influenced by ones
position in society, i.e. ones agency, and on whether a social theory will allow the maintaining
of a favourable social position or not. The choice is therefore more political than moral.
Nevertheless, according to Woolard, because almost any human act of signification
in some respect serves to organize social relations, in order to study language ideology, it is
worthwhile to consider social aspects that are not always directly determined by power
relations such as affiliation, intimacy and identity (Woolard 1998, 89). In other words,
Mannheimian ideological analysis, although non evaluative and lacking a distinction between
different ideological significations, can be useful to study a broader range of social
significations.
4.
The Critical Approach to Ideology and Language
4.1. Texts and Contexts

The critical approach to ideologys goal is to study language ideology to examine the cultural
and historical specificity of construals of language, not to distinguish ideology of language and
ideology in other domains (Woolard 1998, 4). This view is in agreement with Susan Gals
approach in which she claims that ideologies that appear to be about language are revealed to
be coded stories about political, religious, or scientific conflicts and vice versa ideologies
that seem to be about say, religion, political theory, human subjectivity or science invite
reinterpretation as implicit entailments of language ideologies (Gal 1998, 323). The context
considered by such positions on ideology is therefore the whole body of signifying practices of
a given society, with an emphasis put on (unequal) power relations and the places in which
they are, or should be conflicting, while keeping in mind an emancipatory agenda, i.e.
undermining unjust social contradictions.
The relationship between language and context is a complex one. Ideological

meanings are influenced by context through different social processes, one of them being
indexicality. Indexical relationship consists of three types of semiotic processes: iconization, in
which a linguistic feature becomes an iconic representation of the social group indexed by it
(thereby the feature is believed to reveal the nature, essence, of the social group); fractal
recursivity, consisting in the projection of an opposition salient at some level of a relationship
onto some other level and erasure, under which representations simplifying reality are created
by a totalizing ideology, while features that do not match with the model are being ignored or
unnoticed (Irvine and Gal 2000, 3738). Nationalist ideologies generally provide an example
that demonstrates how these three semiotic processes are used in order to sustain the
domination of one social group on another: they link language with peoples essences, for
instance, a simple language with a childish people (ibid, 58); they interpret differences
between social groups based on broader ideological models having the same purpose of
interpretation by creating equivalences, e.g. nation/minorities/families (ibid, 65); and they omit
historical considerations that does not fit their essentializing representations (ibid, 58). Through
these three processes of indexicalization, ideological meanings in turn influence their own
context, and one of their suggested effects is that they are one of the factors of linguistic
change (ibid, 77).
Grammar and grammatical correctness is another powerful ideological idexicalizing
tool. Deborah Cameron claims grammatical correctness is ideological in the sense that it
equates grammatical incorrectness with delinquency, hiding the relevant social reasons of
criminality. Considering grammatical correctness as a proper use of language is an ideological
way of valorising the dominant classes language use, thus making seem logical and natural
that people using un-proper or incorrect language are in subaltern positions in society
(Cameron 2003, 448).
The context of a patriarchal society in which gender inequalities are widespread is
also a very important point to consider. Gendered language ideology has always been related to
the dominant representation of women among the dominant class and the form of the economic
system allowing them to exist. The aristocratic ideology naturalized the fact that women were
talkative, as one of the occupations of aristocratic women was public verbal duel (Cameron
2003, 451). The overthrow of the feudal system by the capitalist bourgeoisie permitted the
latter to impose the silent woman as the ideal. These ideologies about gender and language
aim at the naturalization of two aspects of social life: there are two opposite sexes, and they are
hierarchically ordered. Gender roles are therefore unquestionable, the proper use of language
loaded with feminine values exclude women from certain spheres of activity (ibid, 452). The
communication ideology (ibid, 462), by valorising communication skills naturalized as
womens speech, serves to confine women in underpaid jobs of the neoliberal service economy
such as call centres. Ochs adds that indexicality means that particular acts constitute social
identities (context) and social activities. She makes the parallel between gender as context; and
a gossip session or communicative practices associated with care giving (Ochs 1992, 337), as
social practises. Whether acts of indexicality make parallels that sustain domination is a way of
determining whether ideology is involved. In the case of care giving communication, the use of
simplified speech by American women with their children socializes them into an image of
women as accommodating or addressee-centred in demeanour (ibid, 351).
We have seen how text and context mutually influence each other through ideological
production of meaning. It will be now shown the ways in which subjects are related to
ideological meaning production and learning.
4.2. Ideological Meaning-making and Agency

Ideological meanings and ideological representations are linked. According to Jovchelovitch,
collective representations fulfil the need of human beings to reassure their worldview in front
of unfamiliar experiences (Jovchelovitch 2007, 101), and in such cases, ideology is of great
help in order to consolidate the dominant social representation: this problem is related to
hegemony. The unfamiliar doesnt necessarily involve resorting to ideology; nevertheless the
balance of power relations in a given society determines the strength with which ideological
representations will be imposed as the truth. Ideology thus distorts representations in order to
sustain domination. She adds that all representational systems can be permeated by the
ideological function and be used to dominate although not all representations are meant to
distort, therefore not all are ideological (ibid, 99).
Gees theory of social representations (social theories) mentioned above in 3.2 allows
us to understand how subjects relate to representations and how representations structure their
knowledge system. According to him, generalizations present in social theories consist in
different types for their origin is diverse. There are primary generalizations, resulting from
debates and research and they are thoughtfully considered (Gee 1996, 20). More distant from
primary generalizations are removed generalizations, they come from less direct sources
such as reports about an original thought. Even more distant from these, there are deferred
generalizations, and they are based in the assumption that others, experts know how to
ground this belief. The theory which grounds it [the nave social belief is], at best, a removed
theory, and, more usually, a deferred theory, since they do not know the generalizations that
ground it, but think that some experts do know them. (Gee 1996, 21)
Widespread generalizations that are not primary constitute common sense. Focusing
on micro-interactive environment is what will help us to grasp what ideology and common
sense consist of, as such environment is the place where ideologies are jointly constructed:
this is a social psychological perspective (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, 123). According to
Studer, Social psychology lies on the content, structure and processes of common sense itself
rather than on the relation between formal ideology and informal common sense (Studer
2013, 195). Studers stance is therefore similar to Gees, as a social-psychological analysis of
language ideologies focuses on what seems rational-conceptual in peoples conversations in
order to reveal how common sense comes about (ibid, 195). When people interpret reality, they
do it rationally drawing at the same time on reflected ideas and on unreflected ones: there are
thus conflicts over representations, as there is a contradiction between these two aspects.
Ideology in this context can be seen as a function of communicative behaviour, levelling out
contradictory phenomena relating to opposed social beliefs p196. As Voelklein and Howarth
claim (Voelklein and Howarth 2005, 446), ideology comes about by elevating as scientific
certain social representations, that will therefore delegitimize the other side.
To claim that an ideological representation is scientific does not happen for common
sense representations only. According to Thompson, domination is not control over truth but
control over meaning, as meaning precedes truth. Familiar ideology can take the form of
common sense; nevertheless ideology can take a more incomprehensible form, notably in
theories originating in the academia (D. Thompson 2001, 31). This doesnt mean that all theory
is ideology: although making theory is a privilege, it allows subjects concerned by
oppression to challenge ideological systems of meaning and dogmas at the level of the
academia. Common sense meaning and theoretical meaning are not intrinsically ideological
(ibid, 33).
A certain discourse, carrying ideological meaning, can be imposed as the dominant

representation by reported speech, which is not only a way to conceal contradictions but also to
force ones vision upon the other as legitimate: according to A. Duranti, a way to create
dialogical oppositions, as the quoted talk of one party is embedded in the speech of another
(Duranti and Goodwin 1992, 20). Analysts can get at the interplay of alternative interpretations
of language by investigating verbs of saying, i.e. reported speech, as they are local framing
for expressing local language ideologies. Utterances can, with the help of reported speech,
blend different voices, thus blend different sets of meanings and representations at the same
time (Ochs 1992, 338). Gal gives examples about the operation reported speech in the
production of ideological meaning and its imposition as hegemonic: reported speech can be
authoritative speech (Gal 1998, 332): in this case, reported speech allows to construct
authority invoking a more or less naturalized and abstracted construct such as gods or
science and therefore conceal ones interested agency.
There are other institutional ways of production of ideological meaning. We have seen
that ideological meaning can be common sense. Norman Fairclough claims that common sense
conceals the variability of meaning, i.e. the other side, by the naturalization of meanings of
words: ideology means a different thing from a Marxist point of view (i.e. a set of ideas with
struggle for power as the context) or from a mainstream US discourse (relativized sets of ideas,
that can be reduced to an -ism suffix). Naturalization of meaning is the effect of power
relations, and the dictionary can be considered as one of the best examples of such institutional
naturalizing processes (Fairclough 1989, 9495). Naturalized systems of meaning therefore
help naturalizing specific ways of representing the social world: as the meaning of a word is
embedded in meaning systems, with values such as similarity, contrast, overlap or inclusion,
closing meaning to a particular interpretation helps situations of discourse to be naturalized and
this in turn helps to consolidate particular images of the social world (ibid 105). Fairclough
claims that challenging naturalization of meanings should be done at the school level, thanks to
Critical Language Awareness. CLA should make children aware of their purposeful discourse,
in order to increase its range, and they will be conscious of social determination and effects of
ones purposeful discourse and this will facilitate the development in children of
emancipatory discourse (ibid, 241).
5.
Conclusion
The meaning of ideology is at the centre of a battle for control: the side chosen has a great
influence on the extent to which one can grasp the implication of ideological meanings. A
critique of ideology is a more powerful tool than a description of it as it considers ideology as a
situated phenomenon and as it reveals processes of essentialization that are responsible of
sustaining domination in society, rather than concealing power relation behind a moral faade,
which is more than insufficient. Because it leads to represent the world as a static place,
essentializing equates depoliticizing; critique is a precondition to any political claim and
praxis, and therefore a concern to any researcher who considers his or her agenda as just.
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PhD. Cand. Mustafa ERDEM

Department of English,
University of Tirana,
Albania
LITERATURE (LITERARY MATERIALS) ENRICHES

LANGUAGE LEARNING SKILLS
Abstract
Literary materials that give a boost for target language learning provide linguistic model,
authenticity, motivation, convenience and linguistic competence through which a foreign
language is likely to be learned properly. Therefore, teachers might benefit from literature of a
target language in order to enhance students language learning skills such as; reading, writing,
speaking, and listening in language classroom.
Teachers have enough freedom to choose the topics they will use in the class.
Especially, teachers need to consider the materials, which increase the involvement of the
students properly, since those materials give students courage to be active in the classroom and
make them to be more confident in order to interact for the topics chosen by their teachers.
Also, literature is considered the main source to make students creative, for the students
experience properly literary usages in the literary materials, which involve samples of real life
situations.
The qualitative and instructional approaches were utilized in order to clarify language
learning skills with aid of literary material. First & secondary data and also the researcher
personal views were taken into account in the present study. The study revealed that literature
increases all language skills, since it extends linguistic knowledge through giving evidence of
extensive and subtle vocabulary usage, and complex and exact syntax. It also gives students the
opportunity to strengthen language skills more as it often considerably enables oral discussions
and exchange of opinions.
This study demonstrated that literary materials firstly, provide opportunities of
examples of good writing, linguistic diversity, expressive ranges, etc. Secondly, they give a
scope for genuine linguistic material, thirdly, they motivate a learner genuinely not artificially,
and lastly, they present a handy and photocopiable resource for teachers/students.
Keywords: literature, motivation, authenticity, literary material, language classroom,
linguistic model, convenience, language skill.
1.
Introduction
English Language Teaching (ELT) is continuously increasing the spread in four corners of the
world and it has become a necessity for every citizen of the 21st Century. The importance of
the language is expanding every day in this rapidly changing globalized world. Incorporating
literature in ELT increases the motivation of the students to learn a Foreign Language as they
are independent to choose the topics they are interested in reading. It also gives them courage
to be active in the classroom as they are more confident to interact for the topics they have
chosen. Literature is considered the main source to make students creative and adventurous.
Because of personal involvement, literature helps students increase the English learning
process (Collin and Slater, 1987). But how is it possible to enhance language skills of the
particular students in language classroom? Is literature a right option for improving those
language skills?
The continuous and increasing spread of English language teaching all over the world
has made it necessary for teachers in this field to deal with literature in English language
teaching. In 18th and mid-19th centuries, English Literature was broadening its scope except of
educational purposes. Literature started to be treated as classical rhetoric aiming to enhance
learners skills of communication and discovery states (Spack, 1985). Literature is the added
value of language learning and it is also considered as an important medium for
teaching/learning a target language.
Literature and language are closely related and this is a fact that no one can deny.
Literature is constituted by language and it represents one of the most recurrent uses of
language. Therefore, the belief that Literature in English helps to improve the students scope
of reading and their mode of expression is reiterated. Brumfit (1986) mentions that, although
the texts being used are literary, and some of the responses of readers will be discussed in
literary terms, the prime intention is to teach language, not the literature, and the texts may be
used as contexts for exemplification and discussion of linguistic items which have no bearing
on the value of work as literature. The main reason of using a literary text is to teach a
language and the texts can be used as a material to show the linguistic items clearly.
Amongst many advantages, language enrichment is one of the advantages gained
through literature. Literature offers students the chance of getting more, deeper and variable
information as well as joy whilst reading. At the same time literature helps teachers assess
students in all linguistic skills at once; reading, writing, listening and speaking, which are
essential in English language teaching. Reading and writing skills is the target of improvement
by use of literature, as the written treasury helps students read substantial texts helping them to
be familiar with formation of sentences and increases their conceptual skills by making them
able to connect more appropriate ideas in a Foreign Language. As Povey (1972) states,
literature will increase all language skills because literature will extend linguistic knowledge
by giving evidence of extensive and subtle vocabulary usage, and complex and exact syntax It
gives students the opportunity to strengthen language skills as it more often enables oral
discussions and exchange of opinions.
2.
Literature Review
As proposed by Collin and Slater (1987), literature must enhance the students listening,
speaking, reading, and writing skills if it is being used as a successful teaching tool. The
student will be able to master these four skills if they balance their own reading preferences as
opposed to the reading material they are fed. If this balance is achieved, the reader will not
only be able to gain language knowledge but they will also enjoy what they have read.
Enjoying material that one reads is important because it ensures personal involvement.
This means that while reading, the reader is simultaneously comparing and contrasting what
they read to the world and society in which they live in. This in turn ensures motivation, which
increases reading proficiency.
In other words, it is a chain-reaction. If a reader is interested in what they read, they
not only applying the language skills they are acquiring as they read, but they are provoked to
consistently conceptualize what they read and compare it to modern-day society. This paves
the way for the creation of new thoughts and opinions.
Most importantly, should a reader choose texts that they can personally relate to, and
then the process of analysis and conceptualization becomes more thorough as they are able to
understand and relate to the characters and themes presented in the texts? Lastly, for the reader
to enhance all four skills, listening, speaking, reading, and writing they must be given or is able
to choose material that does not prevent their success due to language difficulty. Readers must
be given material that is slightly above their level so that they are not only able to understand
what they are reading, but they are able to push themselves to understand newer concepts that
may or may not arise in texts.
The exposure to different literary texts has its advantages not just in strengthening
speaking skills but writing skills as well. This is especially evident in the structuring of a
sentence. A successfully written sentence obtains both grammatical strength and ability to
connect ideas. Thus, the more one reads the more they allow themselves to grow as writers
because they are being exposed to different formations and functions of a sentence.
Simultaneously, they are digging deeper into the roots of the English language and being able
to comprehend it better. By doing this, readers are not merely ensuring that they are capable of
learning syntax and differently vocabulary discriminations, but they are being exposed to a
whole new culture and its literary works.
Literature not only feeds language skills but also as Lazar (1993) suggests, it
encourages language acquisition, expands language awareness, develops students
interpretative abilities and educates the whole person in so far as it enhances our imaginative
and affective capacities. On the other hand, according to Collie and Slater (1987), using the
literary materials might increase the foreign learner's insight into the country whose language
is being learned.
As Povey (1967) claims that the examples from literary works may encourage and
guide students to be creative in language learning classroom. Also, according to Burke and
Brumfit (1986); literature promotes literacy and orally, critical and analytical ability, social
skills and the use of the imagination.
As Stern (1987) claims that literature itself offers a special depth for language
learning. The link of the literature with the linguistic rules is an indivisible and continuous
bond. Most of the literature in todays world has a wide range of linguistic rules and the
effective usage of them in their context, which makes them a sum of grammatical, linguistic
and communicative knowledge.
On the one hand, McKay (1982) argues that sometimes readers are forced to cope
with language that is otherwise intended for a specific audience or a native-speaking audience.
This has its advantages because readers are exposed to a certain authenticity or reality. In
addition, they familiarize themselves with different literary uses, forms and conventions of
writing such as: irony, expositions, argument, narration, etc.
On the other hand, McKay (1982) also states that reading is an interaction between
reader and writer and not just a mere reaction against a text. Identical to how human beings
are forced to react with one another to better understand each other, a reader must interact with
a book and the concepts it is enforcing in order to better comprehend the text. McKay (1982)
states that the literature provides the affective, attitudinal, and experiential factors which will
motivate students to read. In order to achieve this sound interaction, the teacher must ensure
that reading material meets the students emotional, mental, and physical needs. The texts must
match the students interests, language level, and their cultural backgrounds. If there is a gap in
the above-mentioned, the ideal of communicating and relating to a text is not a success. If the
students language level does not suffice and they are not familiar with different literary
conventions, they will simply be lost and not motivated.
According to Himanolu (2005); not only literature helps students acquire a nativelike competence in (foreign language), express their ideas in good (that foreign language),
learn the features of modern (this type of modern language), learn how the (the foreign
language) linguistic system is used for communication, but also, literature offers opportunities
in terms of the figurative and daily use of the target language. With the aid of the literary
texts, the students encounter various literary materials and observe numerous usages of
speech, such as simile, metaphor, metonomy, etc. so as to express their communicative
intention, students learn how to write English more clearly, creatively, and powerfully
Himanolu (2005, p. 65).
Moreover, literature appears as a model, if the respective students start writing
closely similar to the original work. It might come into being as interpretation or analysis of
the original text. For that reason, it can be said that literary materials stimulate students to be
creative and the reading, literature serves as subject matter (Himanolu, 2005, p. 58).
3.
Method and Methodology
Qualitative and instructional approaches were utilized in order to clarify the details of language
learning skills, which are fed by literary materials in language classroom. With the aid of these
two approaches, language skills such as; reading, writing, listening, and speaking were
explained to some extent.
4.
Discussion
Literary materials enhance the students listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills if it is
being used as a successful teaching tool by the respective teachers. But the teachers need to
balance the activities of all skills in the classroom. Actually, if there is balance in the skills, the
students start loving the target language and enjoy learning it. If they enjoy learning, then they
begin to motivate more than before for gaining more knowledge of that language. For that
reason, motivation results in more involvement of the students in learning language.
i. Researcher finds educatory benefits of the following approaches as proposed by Sell
Johnathan (2005), the below-mentioned four benefits appeared enough for the scope of
the present study, they are as follows;
ii. Linguistic model is related to various samples of good writing, linguistic diversity,
or different types of expressive ranges, etc.
iii. Authenticity contains genuine linguistic material (Duff and Maley, 1990).
iv. Motivating material involves that these types of materials make the students engage
and motivate thoroughly not in an artificial fashion. (Duff and Maley, 1990).
v. Convenience offers useful and benefial resource.
vi. Extension of linguistic competence presents the opportunities about to obtain the
competences of linguistic rudiments.
However, literature has traditionally been used to teach language usage, rarely has it been
used to develop language use McKay (1982). It stands for that literature throughout history
has been used to teach students the linguistic rules, structural and proper language usage but it
is less used for further development of the language.
On the other hand, literature improves the four language skills with the help of belowproposed approaches expressed by Himanolu (2005). First of all, the translation of text,
poetry or stories into students mother tongue is likely to give opportunities in order to
practice the lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and stylistic knowledge they have acquired
in other courses, translation both as an application area covering four basic skills Because,
teachers need to have not only oral and written language use in terms of producing words,
phrases and sentences, but also they need to have both referential and interactional meaning for
creating a positive classroom environment, as stated by Himanolu (2005, pp. 54-57).
Secondly, literature presents authentic materials, so that the respective students might
find various samples of language regarding real life like settings. Thereby, they are exposed to
actual language samples through which the students learn actual samples of the target language
(Himanolu, 2005, p.54).
Thirdly, literature enhances language enrichment, because the particular students have
a chance to learn about the syntax and discourse functions of sentences, the variety of possible
structures, the different ways of connecting ideas, which develop and enrich their own writing
skills through literary materials (Himanolu, 2005, p. 55).
Fourthly, literature improves reading. Actually, through reading a literary text, the
students will have a long-term and valuable contributions to their linguistic knowledge, in case
it is meaningful and amusing, Actually, in reading lesson, discussion begins at the literal
level with direct questions of fact regarding setting, characters, and plot which can be answered
by specific reference to the text. Regarding reading and writing, the teacher generally
discusses its theme or an issue it raises, and the students write about it with reference to their
own life experience. This helps interest them in the work and makes them ready for reading
and writing about it and Having students read literature aloud contributes to developing
speaking as well as listening ability as well (Himanolu, 2005, pp.57-59).
All these benefits cannot be gained through grammatical learning or academic books
that students have the chance to see in high school. Literature is the key to right pathway
toward the benefits of a new language, as through literature reading students have the change
of autonomously choosing the diversification of their culture and knowledge.
5.
Conclusion
Literature offers many opportunities to the students in language learning. In the classrooms,
teachers use both oral and written materials in order to teach fruitfully. Because, it motivates
the particular students to learn better, since they can choose the topics they are interested in
reading that are available in the literature. Both teachers and students consider the literature as
main source to have creative and adventurous atmosphere in learning process, since it provides
authentic materials.
Literature helps respective students to be familiar with formation of sentences and
increases their conceptual skills by making them able to connect more appropriate ideas from
the real texts available in the literature, since literature provides native-like competence in
language learning. Literature presents authentic materials through actual samples of the target
language presented in the literature. Also, literature enhances language enrichment, because the
particular students have a chance to observe numerous structures of sentences and connecting
ideas.
In addition to this, literature improves reading. Actually, through reading a literary
text, the students will have considerable positive contributions to their linguistic knowledge.
Moreover, literature appears as a model, in case the respective students try to write similar text
in accordance with literary work.
Lastly, literature also offers the following fruitful opportunities such as; firstly, daily
usages of the particular language. Secondly, it provides opportunities of examples of good
writing, linguistic diversity, expressive ranges, etc. It gives a scope for genuine linguistic
material. Thirdly, it motivates a learner genuinely not artificially, and lastly, it presents a handy
and photocopiable resource for teachers/students.
Bibliography
Burke, S. J., & Brumfit, C. J. (1974). Is literature language? or Is language literature? English
in Education, 8(2), 33-43.
Collie, J., & Slater, S. (1987). Literature in the Language Classroom. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.p.4/p. 266
Collie, J., & S. Slater. (1996). Literature in the Language Classroom: A Resource
Book of Ideas and Activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Duff, A., & A. Maley. (1990). Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Himanolu, M. (2005). Teaching English through literature. Journal of Language and
Linguistic studies, 1(1), 53-66. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
Lazar, Gillian. (1993). Literature and Language Teaching: A Guide for Teachers and Trainers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McKay, S. (1982) Literature in the ESL Classroom. TESOL Quarterly Vol.16. (4), 529-536
Povey, J. F. (1967). Literature in TESOL Programs: The Language and the culture. TESOL
Quarterly, 1, 40-46
Povey, J. (1972). Literature in TESL programs: The language and the culture. In H. Allen and
R. Campbell (ed.) Teaching English as a second language. New York, McGraw-Hill,
1972.
Spack, R. (1985). Literature, Reading, Writing, and ESL: Bridging the Gap. TESOL Quarterly,
19, 703-721.
Stern, S. L. (1987). Expanded dimensions to literature in ESL/EFL: An integrated approach.
English Teaching Forum, 25(4), 47-55.
Sell, Jonathan P.A. (2005). Why teach literature in the English language classroom?.
Encuentro Journal of Research and Innovation in the Language Classroom, pp. 86-93.
PhD Cand. Ibrahim Can KORKUT

Department of Business Administration,
Epoka University,
Tirana, Albania
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, AND TRUST AS A KEY COMPONENT

OF CULTURE IN ORGANIZATIONS AND AT SCHOOLS A REVIEW
PAPER
Abstract
Culture and trust are both very important concepts shaping relations, effectivity and outcomes
of any organization including schools. As organizations, schools differ from others as the input
and output of schools are human, almost every individuals road passes through schools and
schools are responsible for building a healthy environment for their members and society.
Bringing up generations with a sense of distrust is the last thing a society should desire.
Without e sense of trust and culture within itself a school cannot bring up generations that will
serve and shape society. Culture in any organization reflects the identity and image of the
organization and shapes the trust to the organization from inside and outside. However,
building organizational culture and trust takes time as trust can be learned through experience.
Keywords: Organization, school, culture, trust
1.
Organizational Culture, Climate and Identity
Organizations as broader bodies than individuals play a key role in realizing potentials of
communities. Therefore, they should pay attention to employees needs and increasing their
satisfaction to increase productivity and efficiency of organizations [1] (Soheila Zamini,
1965).
Culture, a long-term and perpetual concept, is a significant component of all organizations
as organizational culture is considered a system of shared meaning held by members that
distinguishes the organization from other organizations [2](Robbins, 1994). Robins also
counts identity, individual self-government, support, conflict and risk lenience, construction
and performance/prize as the fundamentals of culture.
Organizational culture as a result of distinctive exchanges of organization members
[3](Smircich, 1983) and a set of common/shared beliefs, values, and ethics can be well-built if
administrations and employees share the same values as much as possible. Organizational
culture determines the features and structure of an organization [4](Dutton & Dukerich, 1991)
that distinguish them from others and it systematizes and regulates its associates attitudes
through the shared elements to gather around the joint drive and perform and reflect in a
similar way [5](Scholl, 2003). Shared values, drives and purposes generate dedicated members
within organizations. However, the level of dedication can vary according to the type of
organizational culture. Quinn and Gareth [6](1991) provide four types of organizational culture
as rational, ideological, consensual and hierarchical culture. The same source explains rational
culture puts emphasis on internal incorporative activities, competition with other
organizations and efficiency, ideological culture on decentralization of power, external
competitiveness and organizational commitment, consensual culture on decentralization of
power, diversity of activities and confidential relationship and hierarchical culture on
attention and system maintenance, centralization of power and integration of activities [7]
(Ghorbani and Razavi, 1991).
Organizational climate is the atmosphere engendered by organizational culture. While
organizational culture determines the ways that affect members of an organization - as it can be
derived from Smircichs above-mentioned definition-, Bridge [8](2003) describes
organizational climate as the shared values, beliefs, norms, and understanding of the group
members. Thus, it is possible to say that organizational climate is the worthwhile mental and
emotional atmosphere within an organization. Table 1 [9] in Appendix provides examples of
definitions of organizational climate, organizational culture and organizational culture.
Longman Exams Dictionary [10] (2006, p.759 Essex, England) describes identity as the
qualities and attitudes that a person or group of people have, that make them different from
other people. People are introduced and evaluated by others through their identities. From the
point of organization, Ulutin [11] (2010, p.2) claims that identity is expressed as the features
that render individuals works which they do while fulfilling their jobs and actions in every
part of their life more different and superior from others. As individuals have their own
identities affected by their backgrounds such as families, education, environment etc.,
consequently, organizations built by individuals also have their own identities based on their
peculiarities. Understandably, any organization that wants to stand out should pay attention to
its identity as how they perceive themselves and how they are perceived by insiders and
outsiders. In brief, organizational identity is the features which are perceived by the
organization members and peculiar to the organization and which render the organization
different from the others [12] (Albert and Whetten, 1985). Along with shared values and
commitment to them, communication and identification also play crucial roles to build
organizational culture and identity. Formal means of communication such as meetings and
informal ones such as stories about the organization and social events affect new comers
acceptance of the organization. Turun and elik [13] (2010) defines identification as the
employees perception of unity or belonging to the group in the event of success or failure.
Organizational identity emphasizes how personnel understand features of the organization,
whereas organizational identification concentrates on how a communication varies in the
organization and how organization associates form the identity [14] (Tzn, 2006).
However, although organizational culture is built on values, beliefs and norms, it is
adopted by members of the organization and those members can resist to change, less
productive than management goal and build a barrier to diversity.
2.
School Culture and Climate
Schools are open to almost every individual in society and almost everyone is connected to
schools as a student, staff, parent, worker, relative of a student - even as a grandparent -, or a
patron. As organizations, inputs and outputs of schools are humans. As long as there is cultural
struggle in a positive way between school and community, there is improvement. And only
schools with cultural identity and influence can shape society and long-lasting. Teachers and
administrators with shared values can build influential/powerful school culture and such
schools can prevent detrimental subcultures [15] (elikten, 1997). As organizational culture,
school culture is also defined as the basic assumptions, norms, values and artifacts that are
shared by school members, which influence their functioning at school [16] (Engels et al.,
2008). It is the collection of the values, conventions, beliefs, etc. shared by all its members
along the history of the educational institution. This culture builds the image of the school and
directly affects all the operations of the school. According to elikten [15], school culture is
the combination of ideals, values, suppositions, beliefs and attitudes that bring the school
community together. In literature, it was stated that when the common values are shared
bound by school culture, academic staff felt more self-esteemed, motivated, open-minded and
had better sense of sharing and appreciation [17, 18] (Ozdemir, 2006; Terzi, 2007). In addition,
school members shared mutual trust, had the feeling of proper job environment, commitment,
desire and the sense of priority of their cooperative responsibilities [19] (Staber, 2003).
Furthermore, students academic outcomes were increased within a positive school cultural
environment [20] (Dumay, 2009), higher levels of commitment and motivation were realized,
and conflicts were prevented more beforehand in many cases owing to shaped behaviors of
school members [18] (Terzi, 2007).
As a sub-category of school culture, school climate built on common values, beliefs,
attitude, like organizational climate plays a significant role on school outcomes as a key
component of the system. Among with many others, interpersonal actions and attitude is the
major element to build a positive school climate. A positive school climate that requires time is
created through sincere relations and ways of communication. It is obvious that people are
more productive where they want to be a part of the system. Primarily, it is a school leaders
responsibility to build a positive school climate in which members of the school feel trust and
support. Researches indicate that administrators managerial behaviors have impact on the
organizational climate of the school [21] (Tuna, 1996) influencing teachers and students
behavior [22] (Bulach & Malone & Castleman, 1994). According to Hirases research findings,
students have better success levels within a positive school climate in comparison with a
negative one [23] (Hirase 2000).
Literature specifically in higher educational establishments - show that schools do not

have sturdy organizational culture [24, 25] (Argon & Kstereliolu, 2009; Yldz & Bakr,
2006). Thus, it is clear that building a positive school culture and climate is a priority from the
point of school members satisfaction and success. To begin with, a survey/investigation
among school members can be very productive. It was found that allowing school members
specifically students to conduct with others improves schools publicity and appeal [26]
(Yelkikalan et al., 2006). Yeltikalan also claims that schools should be aware of their cultures
in order to advertise themselves to students, attract students, and survive in the competitive
environment [26] (Yelkikalan et al., 2006). Schools where students can freely express their
opinion in a manner are more effective, progressed and have better quality [27] (Wren, 1999).
Building symbols, rituals and ceremonies is another affective way to create school culture as
Arslan et al. [28] (2005) stated. Other means of building a positive school climate/culture can
be counted as:
3.
Sharing information and responsibilities to build commitment and self-esteem

Supporting school members and putting them in the first place
Enhancing schools identity
Building a sense of justice and trust
Distributing rewards fairly and balancing performance/prize
Improving tolerance and conflict solving methods
Allowing members to express their ideas and feelings in a proper manner
Organizational Trust
Cooperation in any organization can be realized only through common values and trust is
one of the common values to form healthy relationships and society in any environment, let
alone organizations. All organizations survive and soar if they are effective and produce
quality outcomes. Quality outcomes are achieved through prolific and effective co-operations
based on healthy human relations as human resources are core elements of organizations. It has
been stated in literature that trust is a vastly significant part of any organizations constancy
[29] (Cook and Wall, 1980). According to Mayer [30], et al., (1995) organizational trust is the
willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation
that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability
to monitor or control that other party. In a simpler way, organizational trust is making and
being sure of others behavior and intention. Tschannen and Moran [31] (2001) count the five
aspects of trust as benevolence, reliability, competence, honesty and openness. Trust as a
cement of social and professional life in organizations enables administrations to share
workload and responsibility with seniors. Otherwise, lack of trust may lead to employees work
dissatisfaction and burn-outs [32] (Fukuyama, 2000, 47). Workplace safety, self-esteem and
faith on one another are also results of trust. Keeping in mind that trust is a cumulative result of
all interactions and manners from administration and people have tendency to trust each other
[33] (Birtchnell, 1993, 184), it is also easier to lose ones trust than gaining it [34] (OToole,
2002, 9).
While talking about trust, communication and demographic variables are worth
mentioning to explain the matter from the point of individuality [35] (Gilbert and Tang, 1998).
Gilbert and Tang [35] (1998) count harmony of working group, centralization of
communication network and relation of mentoring as communication variables and age,
gender, number of children, status, position in the organization (being at the temporary or
permanent position) and ethnic origin as demographic variables. Trust within an organization
can also be categorized as trust to other individuals and to the organization.
4. Trust at School
Trust is one of the crucial feelings in human life and a mutual value to build a healthy
relationship and society [36] (Tschannen-Moran ve Hoy, 2000, 546). It is established through
vulnerability, integrity, competence, consistency, loyalty, openness and care [37] (Erden and
Erden, 2009).
Since schools are social environment and their main objective is to prepare young
generations for the future they have great responsibility to enhance trust in society as trust is a
core element for family, school and professional life, and relationships. It is sufficient enough
to mention that trust is a subject in very different scientific fields such as social psychology
[38] (Lewicki and Bunker, 1996), sociology [39] (Lewis and Weigert, 1985), economy [40]
(Williamson, 1993), organizational behaviour [41] (Zaheer, McEvily and Perrone, 1998),
strategical management [42] (Barney and Hansen, 1994), international business [43] (Inkpen
and Currall, 1997) as Erden and Erden [37] stated.(2009). Dirk and Ferris [44] (2001) state that
trust is a significant component in organizational effectiveness. They also state that an
important peculiarity of trust is that individuals learn trust through their experience and trust
that is earned in earlier stages of life can be stable by age [37] (Eden & Eden, 2009). As
schools are the establishments that formal and social learning take place and they influence on
the society around them can contribute greatly to establish the sense of trust. Firstly, lack of
trust and safety in society and to school can prevent parents to send their children to schools. It
is understandable that distrust in society and schools can be serious obstacle in front of
development. For instance, teachers may withdraw themselves from new experiences and
innovations due to lack of trust and justice. In addition, taking decisions and responsibilities,
and pursuing the results of those decisions also demand trust. Tschannen-Moran and Hoy [36]
(2000) demand collaborative learning demands teachers trust to their students. Although
teachers may have reasons to feel distrust against their students, they should keep giving
responsibilities to their students to build self-esteem in themselves and trust within the school
environment for the beginning. According to Lahno [45] (2001), inconsequential anticipations
or expectations do not affect students behavior. Hence, building a sense of trust within the
school environment for the beginning is a vital task that school administrations and teachers
should fulfill. As mentioned before giving responsibilities to students and showing
expectations may improve students commitment to their schools and enhance their sense of
trust towards themselves and their superiors.
Along with others, one of the reason behind that can be traditional management style that
leads to social withdrawals from others individuals and organizations are in competition. Since
relationships are tighter, small schools may have an advantage to build better
friendships/relationships and consequently trust. Parents trust to their schools leads to cooperation with school and better control over students. Teachers experience, social
environment of school, perception of trust from the point of administration, teachers and
students are also factors affecting trust levels at schools. From the point of participants of
school education Hoy and Tschannen-Moran [46] (2003) provide four aspects of trust at
schools as trust in clients, colleagues, principal and parents.
In conclusion, culture and trust are crucial element of social identity and without them it is
impossible to build healthy organizations, let alone mentally and emotionally healthy
generations.
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Behavior, 7, 263-295.
Argon, T., & Kstereliolu, M.A. (2009), University students perceptions of quality of life
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Arslan, H., Kuru, M., & Satc, A. (2005), lkretim Okullarndaki rgt Kltrnn
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Barney, J. B. & Hansen, M. H. (1994), Trustworthiness as a source of competitive
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Bridge, B. (2003), Visionary Leadership and Effective Management in Education, Istanbul:
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Cook, J., Wall, T. (1980), New Work attitude measures of trust, organizational commitment
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Dirks, K. T. & Ferrin, D. L. (2001), The role of trust in organizational settings.
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Dumay, X. (2009), Origins and consequences of schools organizational culture for student
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Engels, N., Hotton, G., Devos, G., Bouckenooghe, D., & Aelterman, A. (2008), Principals
in schools with a positive school culture. Educational Studies, 34 (3), 157-172.
Erden, A. & Erden, H. (2009), Predicting organizational trust level of school managers and
teachers at elementary schools. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 1 (2009)
2180 2190
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Gilbert, J. A., & Tang, T. L. (1998), An Examination of organizational trust antecedents.

Public Personnel Management, Vol. 27, Iss. 3; p. 321-336.
Hirase, S. K., (2000), School Climate, Utah. P. 171.
Hofstede G. 1991, Culture and organization. New York: McGraw-Hill. Ghorbani, M. 2011,
The Study of the Relationship Between Organizational Culture and Conflict
Management, Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 10 (6): 711-717, 2011
Inkpen, A. C. & Currall, S. C. (1997), International joint venture trust: An empirical
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Uygulamal Bir alma (Unpublished PhD Thesis). Gazi niversitesi Sosyal
Bilimler Enstits.
Lahno B. (2001), On the emotional character of trust. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice,
4, 171-189.
Lewicki, R. J. & Bunker, B. B. (1996), Developing and maintaining trust in work
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Lewis, J. & Weigert, A. (1985), Trust as a social reality. Social Forces, 83, 967-968.
Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H., & Schoorman, F.D., (1995), An integrative model of
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APPENDIX
Table 1. Examples of definitions of organizational climate, organizational culture and
organizational culture
(Source: Mikula, B. (2000), Organizational climate and organizational culture - an

attempt to systematize concepts, Scientific Papers MWSE, Tarnow, 3, 33-40.)
PhD. Lokman COKUN

Department of Educational Sciences,
THE RECIPROCAL EFFECTS OF BOTH RESPONSIBILITY AND

MOTIVATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING PROCESS:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY
Abstract
This study aims to analyze the significance of personal responsibility and its positive benefits
and also its relations with motivation in foreign language learning environment. Particularly,
responsibility enhances motivation and benefits from values and capabilities, since they are
considered as central to what it means to learn in the life. In accordance with it, each individual
has freedom how to consider his/her choices, behaviors, and actions in the life as well.
The study on personal responsibilities and motivation were taken into account to
demonstrate how these two features of foreign language learning process can help students take
control of their own learning in order to become self-regulated learners. In this regard, selfregulated learning/learner (SRL) model based on social cognitive, cyclical, triadic, and multilevel models by Zimmerman (2001, 2002, 2008, 2011 & 2013) shed lights to explain the
details of this article in terms of foreign language learning and the benefits of those models
were added in the conclusion.
The features of personal responsibility, motivation, cognition, and individual
differences (capabilities) were presented in details in order to find out their reciprocal relations,
which cause positive outcomes in learning process.
Instructional approach was used to compare both responsibility & motivation also their
reciprocal relations. As limitation, the study does not include any questionnaire and interview,
only the first data, secondary data and the researchers individual views were used to explain
the study.
The study reveals that responsibility not only makes the ways for high level
motivation also creates a positive atmosphere for both instructors and students in terms of
fruitful outcomes. Actually, responsibilities cause the particular person to benefit from his/her
available abilities through self-control and self-regulation.
Keywords: responsibility, motivation, cognition, individual differences, reciprocal relation
1.
Introduction
With the aid of this study, the researcher would like to find out which rewards of motivation;
intrinsic or extrinsic is more effective? How/how much capability (abilities) is influential on
responsibility in order to motivate the particular person. Actually, how responsibility and
motivation affect each other reciprocally? Do responsibilities make the ways to benefit from
existing abilities of the respective learner? And why do the teachers prefer students who know
their responsibilities in foreign language learning environment? Also, when the particular
student thinks how enjoyable the result of success is, conversely he thinks how painful the
result of failure is. Thus, can the responsibility overcome those problems in order to get
positive outcomes? As a result, to what extent the responsibilities cause/contribute motivation
in learning environment with the help of values/capabilities/satisfaction?
Through this study, the above-mentioned questions will be studied from unifying approaches,
emphasizing the mutual effects of responsibilities and individual motivation in learning foreign
language learning environment. To analyze these features, the researcher considers here the
importance of personal assessment, values and capability, since students are already assessing
their own work and generating their own capability (Nicol & MacfarlaneDick, 2006) and
values with the aid of their responsibility.
But what makes learning more meaningful, so that the students are demonstrating better
motivation for learning foreign language. More than that, what makes students engage their
capabilities, values and assessment as the side effects of responsibilities? In addition to this,
teachers always consider the students willingness to assume personal responsibility for their
academic learning and performance (Zimmerman, 2013, p. 135). In this regard, self-regulated
learning/learner (SRL) model by Zimmerman (2001, 2002, 2008, 2011 & 2013) illuminates
this article to clarify the details.
Also, the more the teachers are responsible, the more they care about the learning process
for the good of their particular students. A caring teacher creates an atmosphere for the
students in order to make them use their capabilities well. Whenever the students use their
capabilities, then they become satisfied by what they are doing. Therefore, the self-regulated
approach might be a good option for answering above-mentioned questions regarding
motivation and responsibilities in foreign language learning process. In this regard, the selfregulated model can also solve the problems of both teachers and students in foreign language
learning as stated by Nicol & MacfarlaneDick (2006, p. 202) self-regulated learning is an
active constructive process whereby learners set goals for their learning and monitor, regulate,
and control their cognition, motivation, and behavior, guided and constrained by their goals
and the contextual features of the environment. This definition also expresses the purposes of
the present article and supports the idea of self-regulation and also presents the positive
contributions of responsibility in learning process.
2.
Literature Review
The responsibilities and motivation and also their reciprocal effects are interpreted in various
ways, which can help students how to demonstrate their capabilities & values in learning
environment and how to engage in learning activities to satisfy their needs.
Having continuous responsibility and enhancing motivation involve individual
differences, since the individual differences (IDs) are characteristics or traits in respect of
which individuals may be shown to differ from each other and also individual differences in
psychology have been equated with personality and intelligence (Drnyei, 2005, pp. 1-7).
Actually, individual differences and features of human cognition involve capabilities. Thus,
respective teacher needs to consider how to reconcile the motivated (hot) and rational
(cold) features of human cognition, and could be used in any setting where a demand for
motivated beliefs arises (Bnabou & Tirole, 2002, p. 87).
Also, teachers have wrestled with the presence of substantial differences in individual
students backgrounds and modes of learning. Some students grasped important concepts
easily and seemed highly motivated to study, whereas others appeared disinterested. And a
students failure to learn was widely attributed to personal limitations in intelligence
(Zimmerman, 2002, pp. 64-65).
For that reason, it is necessary to accommodate students individual differences, such as
grouping of students homogeneously according to age or ability, introducing perceptual-motor
learning tasks, and broadening course work to include training in practical skills
(Zimmerman, 2002, p. 65).
Zimmerman (2002, p. 65) states that students individual differences are coming to light as
metacognition and social cognition. The first is known as the awareness of and knowledge
about ones own thinking. Students deficiencies in learning were attributed to a lack of
metacognitive awareness of personal limitations and an inability to compensate. The latter
involves in social influences on childrens development of self-regulation, and such as the
effects of teacher modeling and instruction on students goal setting and self-monitoring.
The present study focuses on metacognition and social cognition in order to clarify the
issues of motivation and responsibilities and presents their reciprocal effects for obtaining
positive outcomes in foreign language learning process.
Thereby students metacognitive (i.e., self) awareness of particular aspects of their
functioning could enhance their self-control. Of course, self-awareness is often insufficient
when a learner lacks fundamental skills, but it can produce a readiness that is essential for
personal change. Not only the teachers but also the students are in need of knowing students
strengths and limitations in learning, and the respective teachers goal should be to empower
their students to become self-aware of these differences (Zimmerman, 2002, p. 65).
Thus, the students are guided by metacognition that makes ways for self-control and they
are guided by social cognition, which opens the ways for self-regulation. Self-regulation
refers to self-generated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are oriented to attaining goals. If
the students have self-awareness and self-regulation, they can easily monitor their behavior in
terms of their goals and self-reflect on their increasing effectiveness, (and) this enhances their
self-satisfaction and motivation to continue to improve their methods of learning
(Zimmerman, 2002, pp. 65-66).
According to Zimmerman (2002, pp. 66-68), self-regulation makes ways not only for
detailed knowledge of a skill but also self-awareness, self-motivation, and behavioral skill
to implement that knowledge appropriately and self-regulated students self-motivation
quality might stem from intrinsic interest. Therefore, intrinsic interest refers to the students
valuing of the task skill for its own merits, and learning goal orientation refers to valuing the
process of learning for its own merits. Moreover, self-motivation stems from students
beliefs about learning and having the personal capability to learn.
In relation to self-regulated learning (SRL), Moos & Ringdal (2012, P. 2) express four
assumptions regarding students; firstly, they have potential to monitor and regulate their
cognition, behavior, and motivation, processes that are dependent on a number of factors
including individual differences and developmental constraints. Secondly, they know how to
construct their own, idiosyncratic goals and meaning derived from both the learning context
and their prior knowledge. Thus, students engage in a constructive process of learning.
Thirdly, they demonstrate a behavior of goal-direction and the process of self-regulation in
order to obtain their goals. Fourthly, self-regulation appears as the relationship between a
students performance, contextual factors, and individual characteristics.
On the contrary, if the students do not have incentives to enhance or maintain their
interest during the task and if they do not consider self-consequences, which help them
overcome difficulties while experiencing progress (Panadero & Alonso-Tapia, 2014, p. 456),
they might face handicaps in the motivational process. Therefore, they need to take individual
responsibility in order to manage the motivation not only while taking incentives for
maintaining interests during the task but also for taking into account the consequences of
progress. Actually, individual responsibility is necessary to control the success of the
motivation when self-control, self-regulation and self-monitoring are considered together.
3.
Method and Methodology
In the present study, a comparative approach was used to clarify responsibility and motivation
in foreign language learning process. Through instructional approach, the researcher aimed to
discuss responsibility, motivation, capabilities, metacognition, social cognition, and values in
order to explain their effects on responsibility and motivation reciprocally.
4.
Discussion
Responsibilities pave the ways for the students to show rational behaviors more than irrational
behaviors, for responsibilities are likely to channelize the students to benefit from their
capabilities for positive outcomes.
As a matter of fact, we are responsible for our choices (thinking), behaviors, and actions
(motivation) in our lives. Responsibilities seem to appear as consequences of our choices,
behaviors and actions. But students are motivated when their responsibilities are meaningful
and engage their abilities and values. The most motivating responsibilities are those that stretch
and develop skills. Responsibilities are most meaningful when they fit a persons values
(Maccoby, 2010, p. 1).
For that reason, with the aid of metacognition and social cognition, we can self-control
and self-regulate the above-mentioned responsibilities for the good of us overall in life. If there
is responsibility within the students, more or less they can consider consequences of what they
do and will do with the aid of motivation.
As mentioned by the researcher; motivation affects students performance in language
learning environment (Coskun, 2014, p. 150). But what about the factors, that affect
motivation? There are internal and external factors for students motivation in learning process
and they are mainly known as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The researcher focuses on
which one is the more effective motivation when compared to another? And, what the positive
contribution of the respective motivation is? Extrinsic motivation stems from rewards and
intrinsic motivation is the result of individual interest and desire within the respective person.
In this regard, teachers need to be careful, because rewards (extrinsic motivation) have a
limited impact on current performance, and reduce the agent's motivation to undertake similar
tasks in the future (Benabou & Tirole, 2003). In relation to intrinsic/extrinsic motivation,
students are intrinsically motivated, when they seek personal success, competency,
development, excitement and have fun. For example, they like to write a story for fun of
learning, curiosity and sharing experience. In extrinsic motivation, students like grades,
money, medals, discount of school fee and trophies. For that reason, they are likely to learn,
behave and achieve as a result of highly regarded outcome (Cokun & ztrk, 2012. P. 141).
But, responsibility has potentials to develop intrinsic motivation considerably, which engage
students in long-term learning.
On the other hand, offering rewards for performance may signal low trust in the abilities
of the agent (child, student, worker) or in his suitability to the task, such extrinsic motivators
may have only a limited impact on his current performance, and undermine his intrinsic
motivation for similar tasks in the future (Bnabou & Tirole, 2002, p. 908). As a matter of
fact, the management of responsibility can meet the needs of intrinsic motivation by dint of
self-control and self-regulation.
In understanding the values, the researcher considers shortly the following components
proposed by Drnyei (1998). They are as follows; attainment value (or importance), intrinsic
value (or interest), extrinsic utility value, and cost. Attainment value involves doing well a
task based on personal values and needs. Intrinsic interest value is related to the enjoyment or
pleasure stemming from engaged task. Extrinsic value considers how useful the task is in order
to obtain future goals. The first three components involve positive valence of the task. The last
component, cost contains the negative valence of a task, involving factors such as expended
effort and time, and emotional costs (e.g. anxiety, fear of failure) and all the values are
believed to determine the strength or intensity of the behavior (Drnyei, 1998, p. 120).
The benefits of all models for the present study by Zimmerman and the others can be as
follows; the more the students have responsibility for self-control and self-regulation in their
foreign language learning, the more they are motivated intrinsically, which paves ways for
long-term learning. Also, due to students superior motivation and adaptive learning methods,
self-regulated students are not only more likely to succeed academically but to view their
futures optimistically (Zimmerman, 2002, p. 66), since individual responsibility paves the
ways not only to control the success of the motivation but also to maintain the motivation in
learning foreign language with the aid of self-control, self-regulation and self-monitoring.
Cyclical self-regulation model by Zimmerman (2011) makes clear that students are influenced
by their previous success in order to maintain the same success or to do better success than
before. Also, Zimmerman (2013, p. 145) adds that the cyclical model gives a scope in order to
explain the results of repeated efforts to learn, such as when learning a new language and a
cyclical phase model that depicts the interaction of metacognitive and motivational processes
during efforts to learn (Zimmerman, 2013, p. 135). So, overall the foreign language learning
process, the managerial role in motivation is a requirement and which is in the hand of personal
responsibility for successful outcomes. Actually the core assumptions are active engagement
in learning and learner responsibility for the management of learning (Nicol &
MacfarlaneDick, 2006, p. 200).
The cognitive modeling was also found to increase observers personal choice of the learning
task, a key indicator of enhanced motivation (Zimmerman (2013, p. 136). In social cognitive
model, each self-regulatory process or belief, such as goal setting, strategy use, and selfevaluation, can be learned from instruction and modeling by parents, teachers, coaches, and
peers. Actually, self-regulated students seek out help from others to improve their learning
(Zimmerman, 2002, pp. 69-70). And, teachers never forget the role of responsibility, which is
most meaningful when they fit a persons values. Also, teachers need to put students in
roles with responsibilities that fit their values and stretch their capabilities. Thus, students are
satisfied when they felt that their capabilities were being fully engaged (Maccoby, 2010, pp.
1-2).
5.
Conclusion
With the help of both cognitive and social psychology, the present paper proposed a selfregulated approach of why students consider their responsibilities more valuable in order to
motivate themselves in foreign language learning environment and how they tempt to show
rational behaviors in this endeavor, since responsibilities prompt to consider awareness
management and cause the capabilities to be used for beneficial outcomes.
Students regulate their own learning process through their capabilities and values, which
engage them in learning activities well in order to benefit from their own features of human
cognition. The self-regulated approach can provide some valuable directions. If the students
are self-regulated learners, they generally actively get engaged in self-controlling and
regulating their respective performance in order to obtain their desired goals.
The term responsibility is used in various ways by various researchers. In the present
paper, the researcher makes clear that self-control and self-regulation entail more
responsibility, which makes ways for motivation everywhere in learning process. Our main
point is that the more students have responsibility the more they have motivation. We base our
recommendation on evidence that self-regulated students focus on how they activate, alter,
and sustain specific learning practices in social as well as solitary contexts (Zimmerman,
2002, p. 70). Therefore, it can be said that only responsible students devote their time for
learning, wherever they are. Actually, responsibility crosses the border of learning environment
and triggers motivation of students for better learning even beyond teachers/parents
expectation and beyond formal learning environment.
Moreover, if the students have self-awareness and self-regulation, they can easily
monitor their behavior in terms of their goals and self-reflect on their increasing effectiveness,
(and) this enhances their self-satisfaction and motivation to continue to improve their methods
of learning (Zimmerman, 2002, p. 66). Also, Nicol & MacfarlaneDick (2006, p. 199) express
that self-regulation refers to the degree to which students can regulate aspects of their
thinking, motivation and behavior during learning.
In addition to this, the researcher adds that we are responsible for our choices (thinking),
behaviors, and actions (motivation) in our lives. Responsibilities seem to appear as
consequences of our choices, behaviors and actions. For that reason, with the aid of
metacognition and social cognition, we can self-control and self-regulate the above-mentioned
responsibilities for the good of us overall in life. Also, responsibility makes the way for
student-centered learning, because in student-centered-learning, the core assumptions are
active engagement in learning and learner responsibility for the management of learning
(Nicol & MacfarlaneDick, 2006, p. 200). Thus, it can be said that responsibility has a role of
management in learning; it can regulate & control motivation as well. In this regard, teachers
should focus on how to strengthen the skills of responsibility in their instructional activities for
their respective students.
The contribution of the present article is to clarify how personal responsibility can develop
self-control and self-regulation for better motivation due to the managerial role of
responsibility in learning. So, teachers can make beneficial changes in their instructional
activities in order to give more responsibilities to the students to regulate and control their own
learning, which channelize them to be more motivated in foreign language learning.
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PhD. Cand. Merve AYDODU

Research Assistant, Middle East Technical University,
Department of Foreign Language Education,
Ankara, Turkey
LADY MARY WROTHS PAMPHILIA TO AMPHILANTHUS:

A FEMALE VOICE IN THE MALE TRADITION
Abstract
Lady Mary Wroth(1587? - 1651?) as a female author of the Jacobean period did what was
distinctive of her sex in a period when women were restricted to the domestic sphere devoid of
their authentic voice: she appropriated the sonnet tradition, a genre allotted to men ever since
its invention, and presented a female subjectivity through her lines. What differentiates Wroth
from her contemporaries is that in her sonnet sequence Pamphilia to Amphilanthus,she creates
a female voice within a male genre without merely imitating her predecessors but fashioning
her own style to reveal her posture and, in so doing she goes further than her female
counterparts who solely deal with religious works and translations. Wrothis the first English
woman to write a complete sonnet sequence and her subversive work deserves more scholarly
attention. In this context, I will attempt to demonstrate the distinctive qualities of Wroths
selected sonnets suggesting that she deviates from the male sonneteers in order to create
private space for herself within her lines in which she can reveal the inner self in the
suffocating atmosphere of the Jacobean society.
Keywords: Sonnet, Lady Mary Wroth, Renaissance poetry, female voice.
1.
Lady Mary Wroths Pamphilia to Amphilanthus
Lady Mary Wroth (1587-1651?) was an impressive female author of the Jacobean era whose
work includes two firsts for a lady: she was the first English woman to write a complete sonnet
sequence of 103 sonnets and songs titled Pamphilia to Amphilanthus as well as a prose
romance of 558 pages The Countesse of Montgomeries Urania. She was probably the first
female to pen a dramatic comedy, Loves Victory as well (Bolam 288). Mary Wroth was an
heir to the literary talent of her family the Sidneys. Her uncle was Sir Philip Sidney -the
leading Elizabethan poet and statesman, her aunt was Mary Sidney Herbert -herself an authorwhose mansion was a gathering place for artists and poets, and her father was Robert Sidney
who was also the author of poems though he was not as renowned as his brother. The fact that
she was a member of a prominent literary family gave Wroth an opportunity to have an
enduring place in the literary circles much as her marriage to Sir Robert Wroth at the age of
seventeen enabled her to attend the court activities. Wroth performed a role in The Masque of
Blackness by Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones as well as in several other masques. After her
husbands death, she had an extramarital love affair with her cousin William Herbert, earl of
Pembroke, who was himself a poet, a courtier, and a patron of literature. She bore him two
children.
Such few sentences might not be enough to know Mary Wroth in depth but I believe I
have sketched the life of a dissident lady. Wroth had an unconventional life and she wrote
unconventionally because she chose to write in courtly genres that were traditionally the
preserve of male writers (Walker 170). Although writing in the patriarchal 17th century
society belonged to the male domain and the female writing activity was generally limited to
translations, dedications or religious works, Wroth trespassed into a male territory; she
transgressed the traditional boundaries by writing secular love poetry with a female loverspeaker. Wroths perception of the sonnet is the key for us to understand her interest in the
form: she was attracted to it not only as the genre of her male relatives but also as a potential
model for her own subjectivity (Dubrow 161).
The influence of her family is undeniable on Wroths literary career yet she made use
of that legacy counter to itself: where we have strong male characters in Sir Philip Sidneys
work, we find their female equivalents in Wroths pieces. At this point it should be noted that
much as Wroths work appears to have been influenced by her predecessors in the sense that
she also writes about what is common to all sonneteers -love-; it is also apparent that she is
motivated by an aim that would make her a pioneer in the sonnet form. She struggled to
constitute her idiocratic sonnet sequence, not merely a bad replica of her antecedents. In this
context, I will attempt to demonstrate the distinctive qualities of Wroths selected sonnets
suggesting that she deviates from the male sonneteers in order to create private space for
herself within her lines in which she can reveal the inner self in the suffocating atmosphere of
the Jacobean society.
When the sonnet was first invented by Giacomo da Lentini at the School of Sicily in
the 13th century, it was well-established who would father the form. The tradition, developed
by Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Henry Howard, Sir Thomas Wyatt, Edmund Spencer,
Sir Philip Sidney, Lope de Vega and William Shakespeare as its most important nurturers,
served men for centuries as a major form through which they can display their desires,
passions, disappointments, rages against their beloved lady -the stereotypically pure, cruel,
unreachable, silent other- but Wroth chose the form in her attempt to create a female
subjectivity making her one of the initiators both in the sonnet tradition and secular female
writing. Wroths sequence is ground-breaking because, writing, in the Western civilization, has
always been a traditional privilege given to men. As Gilbert and Gubar have argued, the texts
author is a father . . . his pens power is not just the ability to generate life but the power to
create a posterity to which he lays claim (6).
Mary Wroth starts the sequence with allusions to her predecessors but we notice the
difference from the beginning regarding the titular characters, Pamphilia and Amphilanthus.
The characters are from Wroths prose romance and Wroths choice of the persona,
Pamphilia, suggests the double role of female writer and constant lover [since] [t]he Greekbased reading of Pamphilia is all-loving, while Amphilanthus, her unfaithful lover and
cousin, has a name meaning lover of two (Bolam 290). Wroths intentional choice of names
points to Pamphilias firm, indestructible, constant love while Amphilanthus proves unfaithful
loving the two at the same time. The name analysis shatters two cores of the male sonnets: the
poetic persona is a woman in love with a man and the beloved is unavailable only to his lover.
Lady Mary in Urania remarks that Pamphilia and Amphilanthus are first cousins, and it is
highly possible that Amphilanthus refers to William Herbert, the reason why Pamphilia
engages in an internal struggle between rebellion and submission to love (qtd in Kuo 269) as
she has fallen in love with someone she should not. Wroths choice of persona enables her to
express her ambivalent feelings towards this love. For example, in Sonnet 16, Pamphilia
declares that she has lost her freedom because she is in love:
Am I thus conquerd? Have I lost the powers
That to withstand, which joys to ruin me?
Must I be still while itt my strength devours
And captive leads me prisoner, bound, unfree? (1-4) 19
She loses her freedom and she tries to regain her liberty by rejecting Love yet, in the end, she
remains captive to it. Indeed, her object of love Amphilanthus- is absent in the sonnet while
Pamphilia is imprisoned in Love struggling to overcome it. The important point is that she does
not take the object role assigned to women in the male sonnet sequences but the female
protagonist expresses her thoughts as a speaking subject: the sequence focuses on her inner
turmoil rather than the object of her love (Robin 399). Such another instance is found in
Sonnet 32 when Pamphilia addresses grief. The sonnet suggests that she is not devoid of
feelings and she has the capacity to possess, to express, and to welcome the pain she has:
Grief, killing grief, have not my torments been
Already great, and strong enough, but still
Thou dost increase, nay glory in mine ill,
And woes new past, afresh new woes begin
...
If it be so, grief come as welcome guest
Since I must suffer, for anothers rest:
Yet this good grief, let me entreat of thee, (1-4; 9-11)
The sonnet also highlights Pamphilias strong character. Although she has been usurped by
Love and grief, she still welcomes suffering. She does not lay herself as Loves helpless
19
For the poems of Lady Mary Wroth: http://wroth.latrobe.edu.au/poems.html

victim. She is self-aware and ready to stand up to its agony. Pamphilia is brave enough to
speak out what she experiences through her poetry undermining the passive status of a
traditional sonnet woman. So, Wroth still writes in the Petrarchan style despite being antiPetrarchan.
In the same vein, Wroth does not simply reverse the roles: Pamphilia addresses few
sonnets to Amphilanthus and seldom assumes the Petrarchan lovers position of servitude to a
cold, cruel beloved; instead, she proclaims subjection to Cupid who is usually identified with
the force of her own desire. This revision identifies female desire as the source and centre of
the love relationship. That is, the focal point turns out to be what dwells within the poetic
persona. For instance, Sonnet 41 exemplifies a depiction of Cupid to convey a message about
Pamphilias entrapment by desire. Cupids association with it and Pamphilias mother-like
compassion towards him are also remarkable:
Late in the forest I did Cupid see
Cold, wet, and crying, he had lost his way,
And being blind was farther like to stray:
Which sight a kind compassion bred in me,
I kindly took and dried him, while that he,
Poor child, complained he starved was with stay,
And pined for want of his accustomed prey,
For none in that wild place his host would be,
...
Carrying him safe unto a myrtle bower
But in the way he made me feel, his power,
Burning my heart who had him kindly warmed.
Wroths choice of her title is notable as well. Unlike her uncle who uses the conjunction and
in his sonnet sequence, Wroth picks out the preposition to in her title (Kuo 273) because
Wroth only intends to pen Pamphilias feelings to her beloved. The conjunction and suggests
harmony and unity yet she does not aspire to unite with her beloved. Hers is only an attempt to
present a females dedication to her beloved. By the same token, it is possible to claim that
Wroth is struggling to establish her individuality through the sonnet sequence. Pamphilias
perpetual use of the pronouns I and me in several sonnets stresses her quest for
individuality. She tries to draw attention to herself rather than to the lover she is addressing.
Indeed, as seen from the examples below, she addresses to night, to silence and to grief while
we expect her to address to her beloved:
Night, welcome art thou to my mind distressed,
Dark, heavy, sad, yet not more sad than I;
Never couldst thou find fitter company
For thine own humour then I thus oppressed.
...
Silence, and grief, with thee I best do love
And from you three, I know I cannot move.
Then let us live companions without strife. (1-4; 12-14)
Wroth depicts the female characters secret feelings towards her beloved. Even though she
makes use of the Petrarchan themes and its images, she subverts the tradition because of her
withdrawal into private space. In this sense, sonnet 23 is illustrative of her introverted position.
Rather than indulging in free time activities and being in dialogue with others, she prefers to
contact with her inner self and creates a psychic space in which she will be able to meditate
upon love:
When every one to pleasing pastime hies
Some hunt, some hawk, some play, while some delight
In sweet discourse, and music shows joys might
Yet I my thoughts do far above these prize. (1-4)
Masten also remarks that Wroths sonnets stage a movement which is relentlessly private,
withdrawing into an interiorized space; they foreground a refusal to speak in the public (69).
In fact, even from the beginning, we realize that Wroth makes use of dream to maintain an
internal space for her poetic persona. Cupid implements fire in Pamphilias heart in her dream,
which at the same time helps her claim a unique personal space for herself (Bassnet 54) and
Pamphilia manages to establish her agency through the use of a dream sequence in her first
sonnet:
...
In sleep, a chariot drawn by winged
Desire, I saw, where sate bright Venus, Queen of love,
And at her feet her son, still adding fire
To burning hearts, which she did hold above.
But one heart flaming more than all the rest,
The goddess held, and put it to my breast.
Dear Son, now shoot, said she: thus must we win.
He her obeyed, and martyred my poor heart.
I waking hoped as dreams it would depart,
Yet since, O me, a lover have I been.
Wroth makes use of Venus and justifies her protagonists agency in love as stemming from the
Goddess of Love herself. Thanks to the command by the goddess, Pamphilia is now justified to
love Amphilanthus. Pamphilia loves him yet she does not announce her love publicly. She
wants to keep it only for Amphilanthus. Indeed, she believes that the more you are in love, the
less possible you are able express it (Kuo 282):
Nor can I as those pleasant wits enjoy
My own framed words, which I account the dross
Of purer thoughts
...
For where most feeling is, words are more scant (45:6-7; 10).
Pamphilia is aware that her love is too much to be expressed. As Bolam relates, true feeling,
then, is privately expressed to the self in purer thoughts than words can verbalize: it is not for
public consumption [and] [t]he reader feels privileged to be party to such private explorations
(293). In fact, Wroth, being a female writer in a male-dominant culture, knows that the public
sphere is not the place for her to exhibit her love and this is the reason why she retreats into
private sphere. Pamphilia invites the reader into her private realm, and, while her making use
of dream and her seeming passivity due to her devotion to an unfaithful lover reflects her
oppressed situation, it also gives her an authentic voice who can confess her captivity to love
sincerely and whose feelings we can trust in. That is, the enclosed space becomes not only a
womb for poetic production but also for self-production (Bassnet 62).
What is distinctive in Wroth is that Pamphilia does not write with the aim of earning reputation
(Kuo 284). She attempts to show what is hidden in the female poetic personas mind without
any attempt to be famous. And, indeed, she never speaks to the reader. She does not want to
make her love(r) public but writes to get comfort through writing- to obtain some small ease
(Sonnet 8) by putting her grief into lines. She does not promise to immortalize her beloved in
her verse either, because, according to Pamphilia, demonstrating your love explicitly is not the
proof of love. True love resides in soul:
It is not love which you poor fools do deem
That doth appear by fond and outward shows
Of kissing, toying, or by swearings gloze.
O no, these far are off from love's esteem;
...
But in the soul true love in safety lies
Guarded by faith which to desert still hies,
And yet kind looks do many blessings hide. (46: 1-4; 12-14)
Pamphilia does not talk about her beloveds physical features either. She does not write a
eulogy for the beloveds physical features, only when she likens Amphilanthus eyes to stars
of Heaven (Sonnet 2) does she exhibit the conventional imagery of former sonneteers.
However, her unconventionality still remains due to her application of Petrarchan metaphors to
a man. Besides, Pamphilias blazon is to emphasize that her love is natural, not inaugurated by
the beloveds eyes. Love just happens in her and, to sustain it, external beauty is not of
importance remember Cupid put the fire in her heart. Therefore, there are no blazons
scattering the parts of her beloved, no fetishizing of a veil, a foot, an eyebrow, and thus no selfcreation out of the scattered parts of the beloved (Fienberg 177) in Wroths poetry. In this
sense, [her] rewriting of Petrarch leads [Wroth] to define female subjectivity not through the
beloved as object, but by direct introspection and self-analysis (Lewalski 811).
In the light of the evidence put forth so far, it is safe to conclude that Lady Mary Wroth was
able to surpass her family heritage and restructured the sonnet form with a feminine touch. She
wrote about women and brought in a female voice lost in the tradition. As Juan Gil aptly states:
Wroths sequence [serves] as a response to Petrarchan poems in which a masculine
speaker writes about, and at the expense of, a silent beloved who is reduced to a token
of masculine desire deprived of any subjectivity of her own; within this context,
specifically female authority is apparently conceivable only as the assertion of the
heightened emotional experience that testifies to a female speakers refusal to be the
object of a masculine poets desires. (Masten qtd. in 1)
Wroth, through her sonnet sequence, created a new subjectivity based on the expression of a
womans love for her beloved. The female as the gazed object with no subjectivity in the male
sonnets gained a new place by asserting her voice. She created a female zone in a male
discourse; she surmounted the gender constraints of the Petrarchan tradition and paved the way
for the women writers of the following generations.
Bibliography
Bassnett, Madeline. Injoying of true joye the most, and best: Desire and the Sonnet
Sequences of Lady Mary Wroth and Adrienne Rich. ESC 30.2 (June 2004): 49-66.
Bolam, Robyn. The Heart of the Labyrinth: Mary Wroths Pamphilia to Amphilanthus. A
New Companion to English Renaissance and Culture. Ed. Michael Hattaway. Malden:
Blackwell, 2010. 288-98. Print
Dubrow, Heather. Echoes of Desire: English Petrarchism and Its Counterdiscourses. Ithaca:
Cornell UP, 1995. Print
Fienberg, Nona. Mary Wroth and the Invention of Female Poetic Subjectivity. Reading Mary
Wroth: Representing Alternatives in Early Modern England. Ed. Naomi J. Miller and
Gary Waller. Knoxville: The U of Tennessee P, 1991. 175-90. Print.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. London: Yale UP, 1984. Print.
Juan Gil, Daniel. The Currency of the Beloved and the Authority of Lady Mary Wroth.
Modern Language Studies, 29.2 (1999): 73-92. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov 2013.
Kuo, Hui-chen. A Feminine Crevice in the Male Genre: Lady Mary Wroths Pamphilia to
Amphilanthus vs. Sir Philip Sidneys Astrophil and Stella. Retrieved
http://www1.chass.ndhu.edu.tw/journal/15/9.pdf
Lewalski, Barbara Kiefer. Writing Women and Reading the Renaissance. Renaissance
Quarterly, 44.4 (1991): 792-821. JSTOR. Web. 20 Nov 2013.
Masten, Jeff. Shall I turne blabb? Circulation, Gender, and Subjectivity in Mary Wroths
Sonnets. Reading Mary Wroth: Representing Alternatives in Early Modern England.
Ed. Naomi J. Miller and Gary Walller, Knoxville: The U of Tennessee P, 1991. 67-68.
Print
Robin, Diana, Anne R. Larsen, Caroline Levin eds. Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance
Italy, France, and England. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. 2007. Print.
Waller, Gary. English Poetry of the Sixteenth Century. London: Longman, 1986. Print.
PhD. Esmeralda SHERKO

Department of Foreign Languages, Agricultural University of Tirana
Tirana, Albania
PhD. Lediana BESHAJ

Department of the English Language and Literature, Bedr University,
Tirana, Albania
COMPOUND NOUNS IN ENGLISH AND ALBANIAN
Abstract
This study aims to pinpoint similarities and differences between compound nouns in English
and Albanian. Both languages rank compounding and derivation as the most prolific word
formation techniques. Compounding is first analysed theoretically in both languages.
Comparisons are drawn between compound nouns collected by the Dictionary of
Contemporary Albanian Language (from now on DCAL -1980) and Oxford Students
Dictionary (from now on OSD). Compound nouns are analysed through a quantitative and
qualitative approach in both languages. The quantitative approach considers their positioning
in relation to all compound words per each dictionary.
On the other hand the qualitative approach deals with detailed analysis of the elements
constituting the compound words. Different elements that make up English compound nouns
include nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions and particles, whereas in Albanian there
are nouns, adjectives, adverbs, even pronouns and numerals. In both languages compound
nouns are formed from simple words, derivative words as well as the combination of simple
and derivative words. Another important part of the study includes highlighting the differences
and similarities between compound nouns when translated from English into Albanian and vice
versa.
Obviously this issue involves quite a considerable amount of discrepancies as
compound nouns in Albanian are not necessarily compounds in English and vice versa. Each
part of the study is illustrated with abundant examples. From the statistic point of view the
results of the study show that Albanian compound nouns outnumber the English compound
nouns (DCAL vs OSD). The ratio resulting from the study is: Albanian compound nouns as of
DCAL 1973; English compound nouns as of OSD 1093. The final outcome is interesting,
because compound nouns in English are the most prolific in comparison with other parts of
speech. On the other hand Albanian compound nouns are the second most prolific form when
compared to other parts of speech.
Keywords: compounding, compound nouns, English, Albanian, dictionary

1.
Introduction
Compounding is defined as a word formation process which denotes a lexical unit made up of
more than one word which functions as such not only grammatically, but also semantically.
2.
Compound nouns as of Dictionary of Contemporary Albanian Language
Compound nouns collected by Dictionary of Contemporary Albanian Language rank second
among different parts of speech. DCAL contains 1973 compound nouns. The graph as follows:
As of semantics morphology of Albanian language classifies nouns into two categories;

concrete and abstract. Based on this classification the 1973 compound nouns are classified into
1125 concrete nouns and 848 abstract nouns. The graph as follows:
Compound nouns are formed according to different schemes. They are:

A.
Compound Nouns Formed by Two Simple Words:
Some examples: andet, anroj, atdhe, atgjysh, babagjysh, barkart, bishtpen,
bashkautor, bashkqenie, bishtaqen, bregdet, breglum, buzgaz, buzsheg, fjalkryq,
fletrrufe, luftanije, mmdhe, pulbardh, rrugkryq, vargmal
B.
Compound Nouns Formed by a Simple Word + a Derivative Word.
Examples: ahmarrs, ajkshits, aktgjykyim, akullars, anijedrejtues, bakrmbajts,
barnashits, botkuptim, bletrrits, elsambajts, datlindje, dashamirsi, dhallshits,
ndrrshpjegues, xhamaprers, zdhns, zemrngushtsi
C.
Compound Nouns Formed by Another Compound + a Simple Word
Examples:
aktmarrveshje, bashkmarrdhnie
D.
Compound Nouns Formed by Another Compound + a Derivative Word
Examples:
atdhedashuri, atdhedashje,
E.
Compound Nouns Formed by Words Borrowed from Latin or Grek:
aero-, auto-, bio-, etno-, epi-, hidro-, centi-, filo-, kilo-, hekto-, foto-, gjeo-, helio-,
hiper-, hipo-, kardio-, pan-, psiko-, poli3.
Compound Nouns as of Oxford Students Dictionary
Compound nouns formed by the combination noun + noun seem to be the most productive as
of compounds collected by Oxford Students Dictionary. However there are also other
combinations. The total number of compound nouns collected by OSD is 1093. The graph as
follows:
Some examples:
aerodynamic, airplane, airbrush, airbed, airbus, airbag, airspeed, airstrip, airway, airwave,
altarpiece, anthropomorphism, armchair, armhole, armpit, countryside, countrywoman,
crossbar, crosscheck, crossroads, cupboard, cardboard, caretaker, chairman, dateline,
daybreak, daylight, day return, dayshift, daytime, dining room, eardrum, earring, earthquake,
eyeball, eyebrow, eye-catching, eyelid, eyeliner, eye-opener, eyesight, mankind, mantelpiece,
moonlight, moonstone, network, newsagent, newsflash, newsletter, newspaper, newsreader,
nightclub, nightdress, ringworm, roadway, runway, safety belt, salesman, salesperson,
screenplay, scriptwriter
Compound nouns are formed by the combination of different lexical units. Graphic distribution
based on constituents and parts of speech as follows:
Compound nouns are formed according to different schemes. They are:

1.
Noun + noun
This is the most productive type. The majority of the nouns in this group are formed by
the combination of two simple nouns, respectively 859 nouns.
Examples: airplane, airbrush, airbed, airbus, airbag, barman, bathroom, crossbar,
crosscheck, crossroads, cupboard, cardboard, chairman, dateline, daybreak, daylight,
gateway, gentleman, Simple noun + derivative noun, respectively 171 nouns.
Examples: goalkeeper, grasshopper, handwriting,
loudspeaker, newsreader, weightlifting, weightwatcher
landholder,
landowner,
- This grouping also includes compounds made up of three elements. Schemes as

follows:
aircraftsman (woman)
aircrafts
air
2.
man/ woman
crafts
verb + noun
Examples:
breakwater, copycat, cutthroat,

drawback, drawbridge, carrycot, catchphrase,
catchword, causeway, copyright, daredevil, daydream, hitchhike, keepsake, kick starter,
killjoy, layman,
3.
noun + verb
Examples:
chimneysweep, daydream, manhandle, footfall, foothold, footwear, footprint, handmade, payroll

4.
adjective + noun
Examples:
briefcase, bighead, bighead, bigmouth, bigwig, blackball, black belt, blackbird,

blackboard, blackguard, blackhead, blackleg, blacklist
5.
preposition + noun/ verb
Examples:
aftermath, aftereffect, afterlife, afternoon, afterthought, income, inflow, inland, input,

inquest, inroad, inrush, intake, inshore, output, outback, outbreak, onset, onrush, offwhite, overcoat, overhaul, overkill, overdose, overdraft, overshoe, underlay, underline,
underpants, underpass,
6.
verb + preposition
Examples:
breakdown, breakup, breakthrough, break-in, breakout, castaway, changeover, checkout, cutback, comedown, countdown, knockdown,
7.
verb + verb
Examples:
breakfast, cross examine, make-believe, seesaw, typecast
4.
Conclusion
The following graph shows the data collected by both dictionaries for the ratio between
compound nouns in Albanian and English.
Translation of compounds presents us with matches and mismatches. Some examples:

1.
translation of the same word

aero + dinamik
2.
compound in Alb
aero+ dynamics
compound or derivative in Eng
aero+ plan+ mbajtse

3.
air + craft + carrier
simple word + derivative word

ajrshprndarse
4.
hay-drier
compound word in Alb derivative word in Eng

hakmarrs
revenger
Bibliography
Fjalori i Gjuhs s Sotme Shqipe 1980
Gramatika e Gjuhs Shqipe I, Tiran 1995, p. 75
Oxford Students Dictionary A S Hornby, Christina Ruse, OUP, 1992- 2nd edition
Quirk R, Greenbaum S., A comprehensive grammar of the English language (1985) p.1567
PhD. Isa ERBA

Department of English Language and Literature, Bedr University
Tirana, Albania
Sidorela ZHGUNI
Tirana, Albania
THE IMPACT OF A CITY UPON A HILL

ON SHAPING AMERICAN CULTURE AND VALUES
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between Puritanism and American
culture. It displays why this two cultures are often correlated with one another and the impact
that Puritan culture have had on the other cultures. The importance of studying the Puritan
legacy upon America is because it is crucial to understand the culture of a nation, thus to know
and to understand the language of that nation. Therefore studying the influence of Puritanism
in America makes it more facile to approach the language.
This religious group, which was influenced by religious and political upheavals of the
Europe, especially England, of the seventeenth century, moves to the New World. They
brought new ideas and a new manner of life. Their simple, religious life and their vision of the
world would shape the standpoints of the New Continent. Values such as individualism,
exceptionalism, the values of the self-s (self-reliance, self-improvement), and their attitudes
towards hard work and education serve as the core values of America today.
Hence, this study makes an analogy of the same values being represented during
seventeenth century Puritans and modern Americans. It describes the reflection of those values
on American society and the changes, if there is any, that have these values have undergone
through time. It draws the similarities between Protestant and American values.
Keywords: Puritans influence, American culture and values, exceptionalism, individualism,

self-reliance, education and self-improvement
1.
Introduction
In 1630, 20.000 immigrants coming from England went across the Atlantic to a new world
(Maier). They went to a land which God had promised them. It was a land of prosperity where
they could settle and build their lives. This moment would be as a turning point in the history
of United States after the sailings of Columbus.
The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of Puritanism in the core
values and culture of Americans. At this stage of the research, the Puritanism will be generally
defined as the main factor to have an impact on the American national identity.
2.
History of Puritanism
2.1. The Emergence for a New Religious Movement

There are many factors that influenced the new religious movement in England including
social, economic, religious, cultural and political factors. By the sixteenth century England
faced a rapid growth of population which resulted in people suffering famine and great
population shifts from village to towns and cities. According to Boyer, Large or small, towns
were dirty and disease ridden and towns people lived closely packed with their neighbors
(Boyer, 2010, pp. 19-24). Religion and church is another factor. Church and clergies start to
sell indulgences by the 15th century, which were used to pay off the sins that people had done.
They were supposed to be blessings that would shorten the repentant sinners time in
purgatory (Boyer, 2010, pp. 22-24), (Lord, 2008, pp. 1-9). Renaissance and the cultural
reformation it brought had their impact as well. New ideologies and philosophies were
represented and more and more people became literate. This signed a new era. People started to
have a more rational judgment over things, their social life and activity etc. (Head, 2004),
(Lord, 2008, pp. 1-9). Also, the conflict between Henry VIII of England and the pope because
of the pope not solving King Henrys marriage with his first wife was another factor not to
emerge, but to spread the new religious movements (Boyer, 2010, p. 24).
2.2. Puritanism in England
Reformation began in England under King Henry VIII who ruled from year 1509 to
1547. King Henry VIII asks pope to annul his marriage. The pope refused to
dissolve it. He met the Parliament and pushed it to draft the laws that would cancel
Kings marriage. According to these laws, the marriage between Henry and
Catherine was annulled, and the king was declared the head of the Anglican
Church or the Church of England. This dates a new era for England, which
religious conflicts and disagreements would follow for a longer period than 100
years (Boyer, 2010, p. 24).
After the death of Henry VIII, his son Eduard VI becomes the king. He allowed more
forms of worship and practices of Protestantism in England. He died at the age of fifteen after
six years of reigning. Mary I became the queen of England when her half-brother dies. She was
a religious woman and a devoted Catholic and asked for the restoration and reformation of the
Catholic Church in England and fought for that. She is known in the history as the Bloody
Mary because of her execution of Puritans and other Protestants (Boyer, 2010), (Lord, 2008,
pp. 60-68), (Wilsey, 2014). After five years of terror for Protestants, Elizabeth I becomes the
new queen of England and the Bloody Mary dies. She returned England to Protestant Christian
rule, and permanently exiled the Roman Catholic Churchs rule from England for the next 453
years. Though she had Protestant convictions, Puritanism and Puritans were not supported as
Anglicans were (Wilsey, 2014). In 1603, James I becomes Elizabeths successor. In 1603,
English puritans had high hopes that James I being more amenable to ecclesiastical reform than
Elizabeth I had been, but their hopes were soon violated (Sommerville), (History World, p. 9),
(History of England). [Their] leaders asked him to grant more reforms, including abolition of
bishops., but King James responded negatively (Kang, 2009, p. 148). Bremer notes on King
James I relations with Puritans.
He rejected most of the puritan requests, though he did make provision for a new
translation of the Biblewhich became known as the Authorized Version, or the King James
Bible. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the distinction between the establishment and
puritan reformers was not always clear since many bishops and key members of the Queens
Privy Council were sympathetic to further reforms in the church. Under James I and his son
and heir Charles I, friends of the puritans were less likely to be found at court or in bishops
palaces (Bremer, 2009, pp. 10-11).
Those Puritan ministers who refused to subscribe the changes were deprived to their
livings. There were a number of conflicts between the Church of England and the Puritans that
diminished during the leading of George Abbot as Archbishop of Canterbury who called for
Puritans to join other Protestants against Catholicism which, according to him, was the real
threat (Lord, 2008, pp. 133-180).
2.3.
Puritanism in New England
By the beginning of the 17th century Puritans in England were struggling under repressive
conditions by the government of the time and the church hierarchy. They had to emigrate to
Netherland and the New World so they could be free of persecution. Kearny, Kearny and
Crandall emphasize the reason of their settlement in New England Consequently, among the
early settlers who came to America in the 1600s, there were many Protestants seeking religious
freedom (Kearny, Kearny, & Crandall, 1984),
Puritanism reached North America with English Puritans who were usually referred to
as the English Pilgrims. In 1620 they founded Plymouth Colony. Afterwards more Puritans
emigrated and they built more colonies, including Massachusetts (1628), New Hampshire
(1629), Connecticut (1633), Maine (1635), Rhode Island (1636), and New Haven (1638). The
Puritans brought strong religious beliefs to bear in all colonies north of Virginia (Kang, 2009,
p. 148).
Their settlement in New England had the results, with Puritanism being the major
religion and Puritans instituting 35 churches at the time. They attempted to create a godly
kingdom in America (Bremer, 2009), (Puritanism, 2015). According to McKenna, The
settlement of America was turned into a holy quest and was put into the context of a millennial
crusade. (McKenna, 2007).
3.
Understanding Puritan Values
In order to understand the influence that puritans had in America, one must at first understand
the puritans. Puritans were a religious group that emerged in England in the 16th century. They
were devoted to God and they wanted the purification of the Catholic Church.
Puritans different than other Protestants, did not become institutionalized which
means they did not have a church leader or any official documents to state the faith. They
never achieved that type of clear identity. Puritan attempts on changing the society
depended on making the Gods will ones own will. They used the instruments of power as
well as those of persuasion (Bremer, 2009) to imply, to persuade and to have an impact on
others. Their attempts to live an exemplary life would help them on the persuasion of the others
to follow the path of the belief that they thought was right. Having the political power in
America after the Civil Wars of 1640, Puritans had the ability to use those instruments and to
not alter their objective on making the society they lived a godly kingdom, though the
responsibilities they had while being on power were followed by many challenges. Puritans
attempted to employ their understanding of God on education, being the firsts to promote
education in America, on redefining marriage and family life, and on other institutions having
still nowadays a huge impact on America and England (Bremer, 2009, pp. 2-3).
4.
The Impact of Puritanism - A City Upon A Hill on American Culture
The influence of the sermons of Puritans was not seen only in the Massachusetts Bay colony,
but afterwards in the American nation as well. The most important values, ethics and morals of
Americans are a continuation of Puritan morals.
4.1. Americas Exceptionalism
The belief in America's exceptionalism is deeply rooted in the Americans mindset. According
to Jack P. Greene, Puritans that settled in Massachusetts Bay colony believed they were a
spiritual model for Europe and the world. (Calabresi, 2006, p. 1347). They believed in the
idea that America would be as a New Israel. Morgan emphasizes this when says that Puritans
brought to Massachusetts,
The sense of a special mission that had formerly attached to England. Englands
covenant with God had been jeopardized, if not forfeited, by the failure of her monarchs to
press forward in the reforms so happily begun. Massachusetts, however, had taken up the cause
and made its own covenant with God. In the eyes of its founders Massachusetts was at once a
new Israel and a New England (Calabresi, 2006, p. 1347).
Americas exceptionalism stands today as a core value of Americans. They regard
themselves as being an exceptional country with a holy mission in the world. This belief is
deeply enrooted in Americans consciousness and the American Dream is the best example to
display it.
4.2. Individualism
Individualism is one of the basic values of Americans which derives from Puritan heritage,
Puritans being regarded as the first individualists landing the New World. There are two
reasons for this: a) puritans were the first Christians to deny the authority of Pope (Kang, 2009,
pp. 149-150), and b) they rejected the system of hierarchy of Catholic Church and founded a
new church of their own (Kang, 2009, pp. 149-150)
According to Kang Puritans anti-authority and their strong self-awareness paved
the way for the development of individualism in colonial America, and later becoming one of
the most important values of American people. (Kang, 2009, p. 150). Jost, Kay & Thorisdottir
(2009) view individualism as the core value building the national character of Americans
which differs them from other countries (Jost, Kay, & Thorisdottir, 2009, pp. 33-34).
Tocqueville observed American culture and notes on American individualism,
Since men are no longer attached to each other by any bond of castes, classes,
corporations, families, they are only too inclined to become preoccupied solely with their
particular interests, and are always too ready to consider only themselves and to withdraw into
a narrow individualism in which every public virtue is suffocated (Tocqueville, The Old
Regime and the Revolution, 1856, p. 74).
The American individualism, being represented by Puritans in America, has a great
attachment to other American core cultural values as well, meaning that the self-reliance, work
ethic, self-improvement etc, are values that basically derive from this sense of individuality
being enrooted in American beliefs and understanding.
4.3.
Self-Reliance
Relying on ones self is another American value which is a derivation of individualism or the
self-s. Since the colonists first came to New England, they wanted to be free of the controls that
existed in the old continent so they wanted to rely on their own selves. Different than other
colonists settled before in New World, the Puritans of New England learned how to grow their
own food, how to plant and many other farming. Paul Boyer, when describing the colonizing
of the New World says that the colonists coming from England would steal food and corn from
natives. In order to avoid this, when Puritans settled, Indians taught them to farm by
themselves. So since the Puritans first settled New World, they learned to rely upon their own
selves and not upon Indians (Boyer, 2010, pp. 33-36).
This idea of relying on your own is still a representation of Americans mindset.
Scholars, starting with Tocqueville, have observed this trait as a typical American one. When
Tocqueville came to America in 1830s, he explains about Americans.
The latter owe nothing to anyone, they expect nothing so to speak from anyone; they
are always accustomed to consider themselves in isolation, and they readily imagine that their
entire destiny is in their hands. (Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1998, p. 884).
Kearny, Kearny & Crandall emphasizes that Americans believe that individuals must
learn to rely on themselves or risk losing freedom (Kearny, Kearny, & Crandall, 1984, p. 21).
For this reason, a typical American family is so nuclear because the Americans have that
attitude to rely on their own. Weaver (Weaver, 1999, p. 7), concludes in his study that the
children by the age of 18 separate by their parents when they become able to support their own
finances, even when they do not become able to do so, because they want to be independent
and not to rely on their family finances. This shows the inner feeling of Americans to feel
independent and self-reliant, a feeling that their Puritan predecessors held as well.
4.4.
Work Ethic
Hard work and strong work ethic is a value that is deeply rooted in the Protestant origin of
Americans. Alexis de Tocqueville emphasizes in Democracy in America that the English
Pilgrims were hard-working, egalitarian, and studious, and they provided a firm foundation
for American democracy (Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1998). Puritans believed hard
work was a religious duty through which they could oppose their sins and could gain their
salvation. For Puritans the achievement of an individual through hard work was a blessing
from God and showed the position of that person before God (Kang, 2009, p. 149). Kearny,
Kearny & Crandall display the impact that Puritans work ethic has had upon Americans view
of work. They explain its importance,
It is important to understand that the Protestant work ethic has had an effect far
beyond influencing only the members of the Protestant Churches. Members of all the many
religious groups found in the United States share much of what is called the Protestant ethic.
Americans who have no attachment to a particular church, Protestant or Catholic, have still
been influenced by the Protestant ethic in their daily lives (Kearny, Kearny, & Crandall, 1984,
pp. 43-44).
4.5.
Education and Self-improvement
The contribution of Puritans to the education in America is of fundamental importance. Their

eagerness to education is found in the doctrine of Covenant. The main and central book to
perform their studying was Bible. Puritans held such a strong zeal for education because they
wanted people to learn to read and to understand Bible. Through this they could achieve the
purification of the church and they could attain a living in accordance with the Gods laws
(Kang, 2009, p. 151). Puritans would afford education for all children by providing public
teachers for them.
Traditionally, Americans have considered higher education as of primary importance in order
to achieve success and to improve oneself (Kearny, Kearny, & Crandall, 1984). Thus for
Americans being degreed in college appears to be very significant. Americans consider
education as essential in order to achieve success, to have a good job and to achieve some
financial security which is related to their individualistic, self-reliant and hard-workness as
well. According to a report by Public Agenda, Higher education is perceived as extremely
important, and for most people a college education has become the necessary admission ticket
to good jobs and a middle-class lifestyle. (Immerwahr & Foleno, 2000). This supports another
time the value that Americans put on being educated.
5.
Conclusion
This article introduced Puritans and explained their impact on American cultural values. It
introduced the manifestation of Protestantism (Puritans being a group of the Protestants) due to
social, political, cultural, religious and economic problems of England and Europe of the time
and Puritans settlement in the New World. The difficulties, through which this religious group
was founded and evolved, affected on the elaboration of some basic characteristics that are
typical of Puritans.
Puritanism provided a social, cultural and economic ethic known for their values. The
first individualists in America are considered to be the Protestants, who, while seeking
religious freedom, settled America. It stands today as one of the core values of Americans. The
second important value is exceptionalism, indeed the belief on Americas exceptionalism.
Puritans viewed America as a New Israel with a special mission in the world. According to
them, New England was a Godly kingdom on earth, meanwhile in the todays America this
belief still takes place. People still believe that America is an exceptional country with a holy
mission in the world. The third value is self-reliance. It is closely related to individualism and
hard work. This article explained why this value derives from Puritanism beliefs and how it is
presented in America. The forth value explored is work ethic. Puritans are described as
hardworking people. They viewed work as holy. Americans are as much hardworking people
as Puritans were, regarding work as a way to improve themselves and to achieve success. They
also connect work with holiness. The last American value being observed is education and selfimprovement. Puritans zeal for education is inherited by Americans. Both Puritans and
Americans viewed education as a way to improve themselves.
In this article, we realized the similarities that stand between Americans and Puritans
and their resembling perception of and attitude toward life, work, and education.
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PhD. Ilda POSHI

Megi KELMENTI
THE CONTROVERSIAL IDEAS OF EDNA PONTELLIER IN

KATE CHOPINS THE AWAKENING
Abstract
In America, the 1890s were a decade of tension and social change. In its origin, American
feminism was at the verge of a social reform, and the term abolitionism was on the walls of
movements including socialism and the establishment of public schools. A milieu of names
emerged female writing in American realism and naturalism - among them Emily Dickinson
and Kate Chopin. A central theme in Kate Chopins fiction was the independence of women. In
Louisiana, most women were their husbands property. The codes of Napoleon were still
governing the matrimonial contract. Since Louisiana was a Catholic state, divorce was rare and
scandalous. In any case, Edna Pontellier of Kate Chopin in The Awakening (1899) had no
legal rights for divorce, even though Lonce undoubtedly did. When Chopin gave life to a hero
that tested freedoms limits, she touched a nerve of the politic body.
However, not Ednas love, nor her artistic inner world, sex, or friendship can reconcile
her personal growth, her creativity, her own sense of self and her expectations. It is a very
particular academic fashion that has had Edna transformed into some sort of a feminist heroine.
If she could have seen that her awakening, in fact, was a passion for Edna herself, then perhaps
her suicide would have been avoided. Everyone was forced to observe, including the cynics
that only because a young female showed interest in a young man that was not her husband,
what need was there to argue this female who all her life had lain coldly asleep. Edna sees
herself as a possession of her husband and even as imprisoned by her children. The whole
tension gave rise to contradicting the reality, to pushing oneself to limits because what was
proclaimed to be neat and appropriate was now the fissure to the accepted norms of a
society. In this paper, we will preset Ednas controversial ideas as she awakens and captivates
that the fissure is becoming more and more unfathomable. Throughout the analysis of these
ideas and Ednas character, we will bring light into the unquestionable role of Kate Chopin in
signing the path to the modern woman writing in American novel of the beginning of the 20th
century.
Keywords: controversial ideas, feminism, Kate Chopin, Edna, Awakening, limits, fissure,
possession, accepted norms, personal growth, sex, sense of self, expectations, suicide
1.
Introduction
A certain ungovernable dread hung about her when in the water, unless there was a
hand nearby that might reach out and reassure her. But that night she was like a little
tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for
the first time alone, boldly and with over confidence. [] A feeling of exultation
overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the
working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her
strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before. (Chopin, 32)
Kate Chopins book, The Awakening, originally The Solitary Soul, is now one of the
favourite works of critics, especially female ones. In it they find a forerunner of Liberation.
Wyatt in his study Ways of Interpreting Ednas Suicide: What the Critics Say points out that
in Chopins time suicide was a popular ending of a novel, an expected Victorian tradition
and he mentions other novels with similar plots and endings of the 1890s, such are Madame
Bovary by Gustave Flaubert Flauberts heroine, Emma, killed herself after a story very
similar to Edna's. The Awakening was even called a Creole Bovary by some. In Anna
Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Anna throws herself under a train after her romance. Maggie
Tulliver, the heroine of Mill on the Floss by George Eliot, drowns herself. Well, Emma Bovary
awakens tragically and belatedly indeed, but Edna only goes from one reverie mode to another,
until she frowns in the sea, which represents to her mother and the night, the inmost self and
death. Edna is more isolated in the end than before. It is a very particular academic fashion that
has had Edna transformed into some sort of a feminist heroine. In The Awakening, the
protagonist, thus Edna, is a victim because she made herself one. Chopin shows it as having a
hothouse atmosphere, but that doesnt seem to be the only context for Edna, who loves no one
in fact- not her husband, children, lovers, or friends- and the awakening of whom is only that
of self-gratification.
Ednas has an ecstatic rebirth, a self-investment so narcissistic that awarded a new ego
to her. If she could have seen that her awakening, in fact, was a passion for Edna herself, then
perhaps her suicide would have been avoided. Chopin, an uneven writer, was erotically more
delicate compared to her critics. She, like Whitman, writes about falling in love with herself,
with her own body: observing closely, as if it were something she saw for the first time, the
fine, firm quality and texture of her flesh.(XIII, Edna, 41) Edna listens to the voice of the sea
as she awakens to self, and then comes the experience of the seas Whitmanesque embrace:
The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.( XXXVIII,
Edna, 120). By the time Edna enters the sea, naked, for the last time, what we hear is an echo
of the serpentine death that is welcomed by Whitman in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard
Bloomd: The foamy walvelets curled up to her white feet and coiled like serpents about her
ankles. (Whitman, 1865). Is this a chant of the Liberation of Women?
But, why focusing on controversial aspects of this woman seeking liberation? We chose the
title for a purpose: according to the MacMillan Dictionary 20 controversial refers to a
topic/proposal/decision/idea which does not follow what conventionally is accepted i.e. a
distraction from settled neat conceivable norms of society and normally brings or causes
peoples gainsay of what a person supports; awakening refers to a moment when you first
realise or experience something i.e. supposedly, a person has been on a kind of sleeping
mode the whole life and had time or moment given her a chance to experience a change, she
embraces and follows it no matter if the conventions play against it. There is an awakening of
some kind, either inner and individual or social whenever controversial ideas surge and there
20
www.macmillandictionary.com
is a controversial reaction if such person claims experiencing an awakening. This is what

happened to Edna. The end of the 19th century was the beginning of the modern feminist
movement. The women leaders pushed on until 1870 when the 15th Amendment allowed
women the right to vote. (Seyersted, 45) Unlike the women in America, those in the estate of
Louisiana were not advancing. Under the Louisiana Civil Code, article 1388, a woman was still
the legal property of her husband, and the male had absolute (legal) control over the family. In
the article 1124, married women, babies, and the mentally ill were incompetent in making a
legal contract. (Herman, 53).
To carry out this analysis, the non-contact method was used. This is an empirical method of
literary approach where from the exploration of the novel's content and several exploiting of
literary researches a thorough analysis of a piece of literature can be achieved. We have
thought to include in this paper the different aspects of Ednas psychology, how she was meant
to fail in the first place, the social-historical background, racism, Ednas passion for art,
analysing her from different points of view: Edna as a wife, Edna as a mother, Edna as a lover,
Edna as a friend and finally Edna as an artist. In doing so, we will endeavour to show how all
these contributed in making The Awakening, one of the most outstanding novels of the
American naturalism.
2.
The Psychological Aspects of Ednas Life
Given the obvious terror whose emotional involvement inspires Mrs. Pontellier, her marriage
to Lonce is no accident. He cant be called remarkable, instead most readers think of him as
insensitive, dull, callous and even unperceptive. He is a prosaic man essentially. One would
assume that marriage is supposed to be an affair both intimate and of deep understanding, but
these qualities would condemn Mr.Pontellier. For Edna though, these are just the right qualities
recommended to him. The acme of bliss, which would have been a marriage with a tragedian,
was not for her in this world( VII, Edna, 22); Indeed, such a bliss shouldnt be for anyone in
this world. It is a romantic dream, an allusion- defined by its incapability to be consummated.
Furthermore, the intensity of such dreams have become frustrating for Edna. So after
all, she decides to become Mrs.Pontellier; after all as the devoted wife of a man who
worshiped her, she felt she would take her place with a certain dignity in the world of reality,
closing the portals forever behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams. ( VII, Edna,
22). So this marriage was a designed defensive manoeuvre to maintain these two Ednas, to
reinforce the space between them and to form her character. Edna found herself face to face
with the realities. She grew fond of her husband, realizing with some unaccountable
satisfaction that no trace of passion or excessive and fictitious warmth colored her affection,
thereby threatening its dissolution. (Chopin, 23). Her inner Edna was safe, while her outer
Edna was confirmed by her conventional marriage. Only she knew that her inner self was safe.
A sensitive husband, an intuitive man, might threaten it; her hidden self might lure into the
open by a passionate husband, tempting her to attach her emotions no longer to phantoms but
to flesh and blood instead. Mr.Pontellier is neither, and the marriage between them two would
ensure the safety of Ednas secret about her real self.
If we try to assess Ednas personality configuration at the novels beginning when she first
comes to Grand Isle, we might do so by using the description of one type of personality called
schizoid personality. As Prez-lvarez describes it, this personality consists of a number of
defences which are established for trying to preserve a sort of semblance of identity. The self
in order to develop and sustain its identity and autonomy, and in order to be safe from the
persistent threat and danger from the world, has cut itself off from direct relatedness with
others, and has endeavoured to become its own object: to become, in fact, related directly only
to itself. Its cardinal functions become fantasy and observation. Now, in so far as this is
successful, one necessary consequence is that the self has difficulty sustaining any sentiment
du rel for the very reason that it is not in touch with reality. it never actually meets
reality.(Prez-lvarez, 2003).
The insights of Laing provide an explanation for some elements of the novel that in a
way are unclear. For example, the susceptibility or the fragility of Edna in the Grand Isle
atmosphere (compared to Madame Ratignolle to Madame Reisz). To be more specific, this
kind of person might be alerted simultaneously and protected from interacting with the outside
world because all interactions expose the real self to danger. These habits of the mind
happen inside of Ednas head concerning even her relationships. Apparently her boring
husband seems not to notice her, even though he is described as looking at his wife as one
looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage( I, Lonce, 6),
early in the novel. Yet, his attentions are more indifferent. For example, in the summer party,
when he desires sexual relations with his wife and she doesnt comply, all he does is say a few
sharp words and after that goes out to keep her company. His only small-minded concern is to
save appearances.
Yet, Edna sees herself as a possession of her husband even as imprisoned by her
children. Her thoughts when she died, confirm this She thought of Lonce and the children.
They were a part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body
and soul. ( XXVIII, Edna, 121). Given this latitude that Edna had, we might interpret her
feelings as projections of her own fears and attitudes. This view is confirmed ironically in the
end of the novel, when she returned from Madame Ratignolle. She could picture at that
moment no greater bliss on earth than possession of the beloved one. (XXXVIII, Edna, 117).
There is some sort of ambiguity in the word choice- he might possess her, she might possess
him (Robert). The possession (XXXVIII, Edna, 117) is used instead of sexual union- still
thats the key word and is also the word Edna uses. Mr. Pontellier was very fond of walking
about his house examining its various appointments and details. [] He greatly valued his
possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a
painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtain - no matter what - after he had bought it and placed it
among his household gods. (Chopin, 54)
3.
Ednas Failure
In the first half of the novel, Ednas sense of longing is represented by the sea, which makes
the soul lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation, so that the connections between Ednas
romantic sensibility, her isolation and her situations social significance do not emerge until the
guests gather for an entertainment evening in Madame Lebruns. Even there, no statement that
can link the motifs is made; instead Chopin gives us music as a motif which leads to images of
escape and flight. One of the pieces called Solitude that Adle plays: When she heard it
there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the
seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a
distant bird winging its flight away from him. (IX, Edna, 30).
The image of the bird doesnt get fully significant until after sixty pages, when Mrs.
Pontellier remembers a saying from Mademoiselle Reisz: when I left today, she tells him,
she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades to see if my wings were strong,she
said. The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have
strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to
earth. (XXVII, Mademoiselle, 88). As the reader knows, going away from the self requires
something that Edna does not have, a cunning. On the last page of the novel, this failure
becomes explicit: A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering,
circling disabled down, down to the water (XXXVIII, Edna, 120). Trapped in romantic
longings whose objects are always vague and shifting in her minds eye, and in a culture whose
codes of duty and responsibility make escape impossible for even the most reluctant of
mother-women (IV, Lonce, 12), in this imagery we have a clear foreshadowing of Ednas
fate.
During that century, there were no hopes for women in New Orleans to gain their
independence. In other words, Edna couldnt see past the imprisonment of her imagination.
The author introduces Mademoiselle Reisz, to illustrate Ednas myopia, because the clarity of
mind of Mademoiselle Reisz contrasts the abstract nature of Mrs.Pontellier. Mademoiselle
Reisz perceived her agitation... She patted her... upon the shoulder as she said: You are the
only one worth playing for. Those others? Bah! (IX, Mademoiselle, 30). She realises that
music is the equivalent of passion for Edna just as it is for herself, but with the development of
their relationship, she discovers that the sensitivity of Edna doesnt encompass the clarity
requisite to either the rebel or the artist. A harsh response comes from the older woman; You
have pretensions Madame... to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul,,, that dares
and defies. (XXI, Mademoiselle, 68).
The only example of an independent and free woman is Mademoiselle Reisz. There is
no doubt that this woman provides Mrs. Pontellier with a better model than Adle, who after
all is also trapped and has no idea. Nevertheless, the role of Mademoiselle Reisz in the novel is
problematic, because she is a model, but an imperfect one whose egocentrism and abrasiveness
are balanced by her positive qualities. This is also shown by the author when shes introduced
for the first time, She was dragging a chair in and out of her room, and at intervals objecting
to the crying of a baby, which a nurse in the adjoining cottage was endeavoring to put to sleep.
She was a disagreeable little woman, no longer young, who had quarreled with almost
everyone, owing to a temper which has self-assertive and a disposition to trample upon the
rights of others (IX, Mademoiselle, 29). Mademoiselle Reisz, as a model fails because the
passions of Edna at this point, cannot be only to music, but physical expression is needed as
well. Moreover, when Edna tells her about her decision to leave the luxurious family house and
live on her own, she is not surprised:
Mademoiselle, I am going to move away from my house on Esplanade Street.
Ah!ejaculated the musician, neither surprised nor especially interested. Nothing ever
seemed to astonish her very much. []
Aren't you astonished?
Passably. Where are you going? to New York? to Iberville? to your father in
Mississippi? where ? (XXVI, Mademoiselle, 84)
Eventually, even Mademoiselle Reisz is left behind as Edna dissociates herself increasingly
and moves into the pathways of solitude more and more.
4.
The Social & Historical Background - The Question of the Colour in The
Awakening
The background of this novel is filled with faceless, nameless black women categorized as
mulatto, black, Griffe and quardroon. Also, Mexican women and Mexican American women
play subordinate roles. Altogether, all of these women, white or not, make the liberation of
Edna Pontellier possible. They free her form cooking, from work to childcare.
Compared to Thomas Dixon or Thomas Nelson Page, Chopin had enlightened liberal
views of race. For example, she shows the despicability of Victor Lebrun by providing
glimpses of the racist he was- for black people generally, for black women who kept doing
their jobs, etc. We can also argue that, with the awakening of Edna, these black nameless
characters become individuals with voices and names. The blacks tend the children of white
women, sweep porches and carry messages. As the book progresses, individuals emerge from
the boy( XVII, 57), the mulatresse( XXXVI, 110) to Griffe(XXXVII,114) the nurse.
Deeper is the problem of the liberation, which the book is all about, is purchased on
black women. If the children of Edna wouldnt have a quardroon, it is unlikely that at the end
she would swim off in a glorious burst of free will. Though she fails to see it, her liberation
comes at the expense of black women of lower class, whose facelessness, voicelessness and
namelessness record a profound opression, more than the story of Edna does in The
Awakening. The examined story is the break for freedom of its heroine. The unexamined story,
more disturbing by far than the fiction, is the narrative of oppression across class and race.
Toni Morrison argues in her essay Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The AfroAmerican Presence in American Literature that is how race constitutes the very important
question: What intellectual feats had to be performed by the author or his critic to erase me
from a society seething with my presence, and what effect has that performance had on the
work?(Morrison, 1988 ). In The Awakening the answer to this question is quite simple. The
repsession of the stories of black women- and with them the identity of Edna as opressed as
well as opressor- plunges Edna and Chopin into a silence that has no coming back. It is agreed
that Chopin did not write after this novel because the reviews of The Awakening devastated
her. However, one might ask after The Awakening, what was left to say? The book spins in a
brilliant way the fanatsy of privileged white women of complete and utter freedom out to the
end, which is the sea- death.
In America, the 1890s were a decade of tension and social change. Criticism of the
Bible and Darwinism established new thinking ways about destiny and human origins. The
1890s brought also Jim Crow laws and segregation to the South.The woman question had
also been a matter of discussion for nearly fifty years in America. In that year two
organizations of national suffrage merged to win the rights to vote- which didnt happen until
thirty years later.
A central theme in Kate Chopins fiction was the independence of women, even
though she wasnt active in any organization, instead she was well-known to laugh at some
womens clubs. She was committed strongly to individual freedom, and defined convention in
several ways, including horseback riding, cigarettes smoking, walking alone, running a
business, not having to remarry and taking lovers.
In Louisiana, most women were their husbands property. The codes of Napoleon
were still governing the matrimonial contract. All the accumulations of a wife after marriage
belonged to her husband, even her clothes and money. In case of divorce, the custody of the
children was granted for the father. The position of the woman in front of the law is captured in
the laws of Louisiana, article 1591:
The following persons are absolutely incapable of bearing witness to testaments:
1. Women of any age whatsoever.
2. Male children who have not attained the age of sixteen years complete.
3. Persons who are insane, deaf, dumb, or blind.
4. Persons whom the criminal laws declare incapable of exercising civil functions.
(Culley, 120).
Louisiana being a Catholic state, divorce was rare and scandalous. In any case, Edna Pontellier
of Chopin had no legal rights for divorce, even though Lonce undoubtedly did. When Chopin
gave life to a hero that tested freedoms limits, she touched a nerve of the politic body. Even
though she hadnt lived in New Orleans for a long time, her visits there had made her aware of
the situation.
5.
Ednas Passion
The Awakening required us to believe that this young female who was married for several
years, and had children, in all that time had never been really awake. She was called Edna
Pontellier. She was almost thirty- yet she did not taste properly the apple of knowledge. She
had to wait until this man, that was not her husband, came and introduced her to passion and
flushings of desire. So, what Kate Chopin did, was asking us to believe. Of course, After
Robert returns to New Orleans, he finally reveals his love to Edna:
There in Mexico I was thinking of you all the time, and longing for you.
But not writing to me, she interrupted.
Something put into my head that you cared for me; and I lost my senses. I forgot
everything but a wild dream of your some way becoming my wife. ()
Oh! I was demented, dreaming of wild, impossible things, recalling men who had set
their wives free, we have heard of such things. (Chopin, 113)
And, everyone was forced to observe, including the cynics that only because a young
female showed interest in a young man that wasnt her husband, at a watering-place, what need
was there to argue this female who all her life had lain coldly asleep. In the world, there are
women as versatile as the butterfly, and todays physical sprounting, does not mean that before
that everything was spiritual. As indelicate as it may seem, time should elapse, and then it did,
because Robert returned. Of course, he didnt know that in Ednas awakening even Arobin had
been giving a little help. It seems like the reason why Robert went, was the love he felt for
Edna and the fact that she was married. But no scruples were left for Edna, she hastened to
intimate to him that her husband meant nothing and that she loved Robert. Yet, she never
mentioned Arobin, by any chance. Now, what did he do? Went away- just like that! Went
away, saying how much he loved Edna. Edna finally completely and fiercely awoke- and the
man she did all of this for, went away. Not only, Robert accepts the impossibility of his
intentions, and he ignores Ednas claims of independence and self-ownership, when she
explains that she belongs only to herself and manifests her freedom:
You have been a very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible
things when you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no longer one of Mr.
Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If he were
to say, 'Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should laugh at you
both. ((Chopin, 113)
Of course, she drowned herself. Fire can only be put out with water. She realised that she was
too aflame, this awakening was too great; that it was now Men what she desired, not Arobin or
Robert and thats why she eventually took a dip in that passionate Gulf. As Showalter
acknowledges the readers of the 1890s were well accustomed to drowning as the fictional
punishment for female transgression against morality, and most contemporary
critics...automatically interpreted Ednas suicide as the wages of sin (Showalter, 81) She also
entails drowning as a popular literary death: Drowning itself brings to mind metaphorical
analogies between femininity and liquidity ... the female body is prone to wetness, blood, milk,
tears, and amniotic fluid, so in drowning the woman is immersed in the feminine organic
element. Drowning thus becomes the traditionally feminine literary death. (Showalter, 81)
6.
Ednas Painting
In The Awakening, we get so struck by the discovery of Ednas own sexuality that we forget
about her artistic awakening, Edna seems to have the essential economic prerequisites to the
artist; and being married to a wealthy man, she has servants to provide child care and to cook.
She has time, money and space, and despite she develops nonetheless. Her art though is
characterized by three stages: her early work, her daring and her rebellious portraits.
The initial motive to make art was not to only have a pastime, but to be part of a
pleasurable, positive endeavor. Edna attempts to imitate masters when painting Madame
Ratignolle and capturing her as a sensuous Madonna. Madame Ratignolle is disappointed
that the painting doesnt resemble her because she was waiting for a realistic drawing.
Anyway, the purpose of Edna was not that of photographic realism. The reason she crumples
her sketch is not Adles comment; she did so because she couldnt capture the Madonna-like
intangible quality. During that time, realism was getting replaced by impressionism, and it is
likely that the author was well aware of that.
To Madame Ratignolle, the role of women, as far as art is concerned, was domestic
decoration. In this, she and Ednas husband, Lonce Pontellier, agreed absolutely. Their home
was filled with statues and paintings that gave him the pleasure of possessing them. Anyway,
he becomes angry as Ednas devotion of art increases. Moreover, even her absence (physically)
annoys him, who believed that she must be available to him anytime. Pontellier thinks of her
body as of everything else, his property. The desire that Edna has to paint is in a way
showing her wish to own her body. She wants to possess her art, not her husband to display
and possess it, just as she wants her body to be her own.
Throughout the novel, Edna takes aggressive and positive actions to learn art, even
though she faces criticism. She does improve, and with her lovers and fathers portraits, she
achieves control and autonomy over herself, and over them. However, not Ednas love, nor her
artistic inner world, sex, or friendship can reconcile her personal growth, her creativity, her
own sense of self and her expectations. She feels her inner-strength while acting as an artist,
which unfortunately, she cant transfer to other aspects of her reality.
7.
Conclusion
As Chopin points out at the very beginning: Ednas intuition of her passion for Robert is the
key to the thematic intention of the author.
In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a
human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and
about her. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul
of a young woman of twenty-eight perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is
usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman. But the beginning of things, of a world
especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few
of us ever emerge 18 from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult! The
voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamouring, murmuring,
inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of
inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is
sensuous,
enfolding
the
(Chopin, 17); (Seyersted, 146).
body
in
its
soft,
close
embrace.
Edna goes from one reverie mode to another, until she frowns in the sea, which represents to
her mother and the night, the inmost self and death. Chopin uses the idea of being able to swim
a symbol of empowerment.
But that night she was like the tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who all of the
sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with overconfidence. She could have shouted for joy. She did shout for joy, as with a sweeping
stroke or two she lifted her body to the surface of the water (McQuade 1668). The sea
seems to be calling to Edna. In the end she runs to it, it is her perfect lover, speaking
to the soul while caressing the body (Skaggs, 110).
Edna is more isolated in the end than before. Her awakening is that of a woman who loves
her own spirituality and a sensuous world. The pursuit of pleasure gives shape to her selfdiscovery, but with results that are disastrous. She had to wait until this man, that was not her
husband, came and introduced her to passion and flushing of desire. Edna finally completely
and fiercely awoke- and the man she did all this for, went away. She realised that she was too
aflame, this awakening was too great and fire can only be put out with water. Her thoughts
when she died confirm that she was thinking of Lonce and the children. They were part of her
life, but they need not have thought that they could possess her, her body and soul. At this
point a question comes out, why did the author chose a male as a symbol for her solitude in a
novel about the fate of a woman in society. The reason seems to be the fact that Edna could
escape or be set free only by a man. This is also consonant with what happens in the rest of the
novel. We see that men alone were free to do as they wanted and go where they wanted :
Lonce to New York, Robert to Mexico, Alce from one bed to another. Women remain, men
escape.
Finally, as Seyersted wrote, The great achievement of Kate Chopin was that she broke
new ground in American literature. She was the first woman writer in her country to
accept passion as a legitimate subject for serious, outspoken fiction. Revolting against
tradition and authority; with a daring which we can hardly fathom today; with an
uncompromising honesty and no trace of sensationalism, she undertook to give the
unsparing truth about womans submerged life. She was something of a pioneer in the
amoral treatment of sexuality, of divorce, and of womans urge for an existential
authenticity. She is in many respects a modern writer, particularly in her awareness of
the complexities of truth and the complications of freedom. With no desire to reform,
but only to understand; with the clear conscience of the rebel, yet unembittered by
societys massive lack of understanding, she arrived at her culminating achievements,
The Awakening and The Storm. (Seyersted, 81)
Perhaps Chopin with her The Awakening, as many might not perceive, served as the
herald of the most controversial milestones in the history of American literature.
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W.W. Norton and Company
Black, Martha Fodaski. 1992. "The Quintessence of Chopinism." Boren and Davis, 95 - 113 .
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Culley, Margo (ed.) (1994) Kate Chopin. The Awakening: an Authoritative Text, Biography,
Contexts, Criticism (2nd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Ewell, Barbara C. (1997) Changing Places: Women and the Old South; or, What Happens
When Local Color Becomes Regionalism. In: Amerikastudien/American Studies 42:2,
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Koloski, Bernard (2009). Awakenings - The Story of the Kate Chopin Revival; (Southern
Literary Studies)
McCullough, Kate (1999) Regions of Identity: The Construction of America in Womens
Fiction, 18851914. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
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Volume American Literature Third Editon. (1999) Addison-Wesley Educational
Publishers Inc.
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Morrison, T. (1988). Unspeakable things unspoken: The Afro-American presence in American
literature. Retrieved from http://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-toz/m/morrison90.pdf
Nilsen, Helge Normann (1990). American Women's Literature in the Twentieth Century: A
Survey of Some Feminist trends; American Studies in Scandinavia Vol. 22,
Prez-lvarez, M. (2003). The schizoid personality of our time. International Journal of
Psychology and Psychological Therapy, 3(2), 181-194.
Seyersted, Per (1990) Kate Chopin. A Critical Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
University PressSeyersted, Per, and Emily Toth, eds. A Kate Chopin Miscellany.
Natchitoches: Northwestern State University Press, 1979.
Seyersted, Per. Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography. Louisiana State University Press, 1969.
Kate Chopin: The Awakening. Ed. Margo Culley. New York: W.W. Norton, 1994. 202208.
Showalter, Elaine. Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book. The
Awakening: A Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical
Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives.
Ed. Nancy Miller. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
Showalter, Elaine. Sister's Choice: Tradition and Change in American Womens Writing.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Skaggs, Peggy. (1985) Kate Chopin G. K. Hall & Company.
Spanckeren Von, Kathryn. The Rise of Realism: 1860-1914. Outline of American Literature.
15 August 2009 http://www.america.gov/media/pdf/books/outline_us_lit.pdf#popup
Spangler, George. M. (1994). The Ending of the Novel. The Awakening: An Authoritative
Text, Biographical and Historical Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Margo Culley. New York:
Norton, , 208-211. The Southern Review 26:2. 285292.
Toth, Emily. (1999). Unveiling Kate Chopin, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi
Toth, Emily. A New Biographical Approach. A Norton Critical Edition: Kate Chopin: The
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Walker, Nancy. Feminist or Naturalist. A Norton Critical Edition: Kate Chopin: The
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Culley, Margo (ed.) The Awakening: an Authoritative Text, Biography, Contexts,
Criticism. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 241247.
PhD. Lediana BESHAJ

Department of English Language and Literature ,
Beder University, Tirana, Albania
Irena SEDJA
Tirana, Albania
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THEMES AND MOTIFS IN JANE EYRE

CHARACTERIZING VICTORIAN ENGLAND AS A FEMINIST
LITERARY WORK
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is the understanding of feminism in the 18th century specifically in
Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is a good illustration of the women of the 18th century. To have a clear
picture and to understand feminism in the Victorian period and all the ways which lead to it are
interesting because they are helpful devices in conceiving the reality of that particular period.
The scope of this thesis is the representation of the remarkable relationship among themes and
motifs, their correlation, influence and contribution on feminist literary work. This is an
attempt to display the portrait of the major character of Jane Eyre in accordance to some
elements which make her a significant character for Albanian readers. What is more, this piece
of work endeavors to approach to the society, to make them see the reality of that time, to
make inquire themselves if they are Janes. And if they are not a real Jane Eyre, they can make
an attempt to be Jane in some ways because her character develops in a very natural flow that
makes us grow fonder of her femininity. In a world of masculinity there is a great necessity of
Janes. What we are to grasp in this text is the idea that a woman is far better stronger than we
think, and she can face adversities even then when she sees no light in the horizon. This piece
of work unfolds the integrity in Jane Eyre. The reason behind this topic is the necessity to get
acquainted with a woman who is the embodiment of independence, a complex entity in search
of great ideals.
Keywords: feminism, themes, motifs, portrait, woman
1.
Introduction
I, if I were a boy, I would show to the masculine world that the hand which rocks the
cradle is that which rules the destinies of humanity, because it is her and only her who
rules the bright or gloomy horizons. But miserably I am not a man and as a woman I
cannot raise my voice (Stermilli, 2002).
That is the lament of a woman who could not free herself from the vicious circle of
masculinity. This piece of work is addressed to the whole society to have less Dije and more
Janes.
This work stands for women in general. The purpose behind this work is to have less
Dije, who lived and passed away as mere victims of masculinity. It is important to emphasize
the typical woman of the 19th century Jane Eyre, who claimed her rights no matter of
conventionalities.
2.
Biographical Elements in Bronts Work
In the very beginning of the story, readers are able to notice some biographical elements which
are evident in Jane Eyre. Jane was an orphan and Charlotte endured her mothers death at an
early age as well. The literary theorist Eagleton says:Charlottes protagonists typicaly set out
on their narratives bereft of all kinsfolk, with nothing but their own robust enterprise to sustain
them (Eagleton, 2005). Moreover, our Jane, in order to embrace freedom, applied as a
governess. Charlotte worked as a governess too. If we are to compare elements of Brontes life
immersed in Jane Eyre, there would be no other reliable source rather than that of Elizabeths
Gaskells biography of Charlotte Bront because she was a friend of hers.
As it is evident in the novel, Jane does not go along with one of her teachers and
Charlotte did not either. Gaskell also points out the fact that Bront has already embodied
Maria Bront in the character of Helen Burns. Consequently, this means that she has not taken
some biographical elements, but she has pictured a real individual in her work. Maria is
mirrored so fine through Burns that even people could understand its writer.
It was in Rochesters arms where Jane found love, but it was in the Moor House where
she took her autonomy. Yet, she was not happy by having love and autonomy separately. She
wanted both and she did have them both. At this point, love and autonomy become two notions
that melt with one another. In these terms, our protagonist cannot conceive love as a concept
that leads to humility. She does seek equality. Jane cares not about custom or rather
conventionalities. Our heroine addresses him through another dimension, through her spirit and
the point which reaches the climax is equality regarding God. Basically, in each religious
ideology, human beings are equal to God, no matter color, race, physical appearance etc. This
is the ideal in which Jane is in search for, the equality which is flawless and only belongs to
God.
In this novel there are three different representations of Christianity. The three of them
had a great impact on Janes life. The former one emphasized the severity of people
surrounding her and attributed to Christianity qualities. Unlike Mr. Brocklehurst, Helen gave
reasons to her thoughts and gave answers to her inquiries. Still, Jane had to go through the
dilemma that St John posed to her that of a missionary. All these characters played a major role
in Janes life, but still it was the same Jane, devoted, but not fanatic.
An important issue, which is very widely treated in the novel, is social class as it is a
great representation of the Victorian era. In the lines above it is discussed the role that the fine
line that made the difference among classes of society. Mitchell asserts: English society in the
19th century consisted of hierarchical structure containing the upper class, the middle class and
the working class. The difference in social classes could be distinguished by inequalities in
wealth, education, working and living conditions (Mitchell, 1996).
Throughout the events of the novel, Jane is depicted as meek, kind-natured, and quiet and
sometimes rebel against the conventions of the time. It is to emphasize the firmness when it
came to the bad-treatment of women. It was not only Jane enduring the oppression of women.
It was the whole society belonging to this mutual sorrow, but it was Jane the heroine who
manifested so strongly the yearning for women to have the same rights as men do have. It was
her voice raised loud towards societys limits. It was her character who represented all
Victorian women having to suffice anything in price of nothing but disgrace. Over the course
of this novel, readers are mostly known with her character by her thoughts and the inner world
she expresses all the way through. Her thoughts do seem like manacles trying to get free, such
were the following lines:
Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt
against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment
in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally:
but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for
their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a constraint, too
absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their
more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making
puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is
thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more
than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex (Bronte, 2010).
Moreover, fire and ice are two terms used to express emotions. On one hand, in the presence of
Mr. Rochester Jane is generally happy and excited. That is why such words regarding fire are
used in the description when being together: the flame flickers in the eye, I thought only of
hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochesters shoulder, to the soul made of fire, both your
cheek and hand are burning hot etc. All these phrases taken from the novel are illustration of
strong feelings and abrupt emotions.
One of her intrinsic desires is independence. Jane longs for independence. She is afraid
of being oppressed. Maybe this happens due to the fact that she has always experienced
misfortunes and has been in very hard situations and in which her freedom of choice has been
repressed. Furthermore, the demand to get independent can be noticed even in some occasions
which can be seen as ludicrous. In the following example extracted from Janes staying in
Thornfield Hall it can be decoded somehow her ill-spiritedness when she says:
The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame,
but a dependent like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the contrary, I felt
better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result
of condescension on her part: so much the better-my position was all the freer (Bronte,
2010).
Conclusion
The goal of this work is mainly to sensitize the society in general and women about their
potentials and place in society. Therefore, through this work it is provided enough information
and arguments on feminism of the 19th century based on the viewpoint of Jane Eye. Taking
everything into consideration, the objective of this paper to address to the reader with the voice
of a heroine, which hopefully can be achieved. Furthermore, to the Albanian readers, whose
unquenchable desire to know more would be satisfied. However, it may be interesting to give
them an insight of what was like to be a woman in Victorian era and the difficulties women
faced those times and the hardship they endure are still present nowadays.
Bibliography
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Stermilli, H. (2002). Sikur te isha djale. Tirane: Letrat.
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Routledge Press.
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http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199799558/obo9780199799558-0139.xml
PhD. Cand. Morena BRAAJ (CITOZI)

A TRANSLATION ANALYSIS OF ANALOGY FROM ALBANIAN INTO

ENGLISH IN THE NOVEL THE PALACE OF DREAMS BY ISMAIL
KADARE
Abstract
Literary translation is probably the most well-known and widely debated form of translation,
which requires not only the knowledge of source and target language but also the knowledge of
subject matter. Therefore, literary translators unlike other kinds of translators need to be
proficient in all these requirements in order to produce an equivalent and original text in the
target language as well. Thus, this paper focuses on transmission of analogy in translation from
Albanian into English version in the novel The Palace of Dreams written by Ismail Kadare.
Since the novel describes the events under communist regime in Albania and it is a reality
experienced only by Albanian people, this paper will try to present different cases and
examples from Albanian to English version in terms of linguistic and architecture analogy and
how it is conveyed and perceived by the readers into English language.
Keywords: literary translation, analogy, linguistic analogy, stylistic features language,

culture.
1.
Introduction
Translation is an artistic communication between the author, the translator, and the reader, and
the selection of words by the translator is a core act in the process of translating as
communication. Translation is a communicative act, and literary translation is especially an
artistic communication. Literature is both the condition and the place of artistic
communication between senders and addressees, or the public (Bassnett, 2002:83). In this
communication process, the translator has first to read, comprehend, and interpret the source
text, then to represent it in a different medium. In all this process, what the translators
challenge most at the end of the translation process is having the identical version as the
original one. So, Rojo's statement that "Translators usually dream of achieving an ideal replica
of the ST, but in practice they often have to accept that not everything can be translated exactly
into different language" is good to start with (2009: 22). Indeed, translators, literary or other,
do their best to produce an identical version of the SLT in the TL, or a version in the TL as
close as possible to the original. Yet, it goes without saying that it is not possible to do it in
practice, only relatively if we mean everything. A general truth as it sounds; the statement does
not disclose the type of 'replica' involved in the definition. That is, is it a replica of meaning
(Linguistic, pragmatic, etc.), Equivalence (semantic, stylistic, syntactic, functional), Sense
(general neutralized meaning) Grammar, Style, Function, Intention, or a combination of two or
more of these.
As we all might know, the age of information explosion brought about the expansion
of human communication throughout the world, increasing the role of translation and
translators as mediators in the process. A large amount of information in the form of books and
scientific articles has been first published in the well developed and industrialized countries
and then translated into the less developed countries giving a great contribution to their
progress. In particular translated literature has played an important role in the intercultural
exchange, feeding the secondary literatures with new forms of writings and styles (Ivan Etmar
Zohar, 2008:136) as the result of which the national culture and identity has further developed.
Whenever two different languages are involved in communication, people find themselves
facing a communication gap which has fortunately been resolved through translation.
Through translation the transmission of the messages and ideas from the source text
into the target text is made possible, facilitating target readers understanding of original texts.
As we know, sometimes for a good translation not only the knowledge of source and target
languages is enough. A good translator must be able to transfer the message from the source
text into the target text without with the same naturalness and fluency as the original version,
so that the readers can feel as they are reading not the translated text. In fact, this is a very
difficult process since translators face difficulties because of the differences in cultures and
languages and this is mostly difficult for literary translation because author`s stylistic features,
cultural elements, sentences, their length and types represent a serious challenge in translation.
Therefore, literary language has been assigned a special character since antiquity. It has been
considered as sublime to, and distinctive from all other types of language, written or spoken,
due to the special use of language that is deviant, or 'estranged' from ordinary, everyday,
nonliterary language. It breaks the common norms of language, including stylistic,
grammatical, lexical, semantic and phonological norms. The deeper a text is embedded in the
source culture, the more difficult it is to work on it. In this respect the task of the literary
translator is more or less the same as that of the original writer. Somehow translators use the
target language features to create a credible and engaging literary reality which belongs to
characters unknown to the target reader but who are eager to discover it in their own language.
Translation typically has been used to transfer written or spoken SL texts to equivalent
written or spoken TL texts. In general, the purpose of translation is to reproduce various kinds
of textsincluding religious, literary, scientific, and philosophical textsin another language
and thus making them available to wider readers. If language were just a classification for a set
of general or universal concepts, it would be easy to translate from an SL to a TL; furthermore,
under the circumstances, the process of learning an L2 would be much easier than it actually is.
Among the problematic factors involved in translation, I would like to mention the form of the
text, the meaning, style, proverbs, idioms, etc. The central problem of translating has always
been whether to translate literally or freely. The argument has been going on since at least the
first century BC up to the beginning of the nineteenth century when many writers favored some
kind of Tree- translation: the spirit, not the letter; the sense not the words; the message rather
than the form; the matter not the manner-This was the often revolutionary slogan of writers
who wanted the truth to be read and understood. Then at the turn of the nineteenth century,
when the study of cultural anthropology suggested that the linguistic barriers were inseparable
and that language was entirely the product of culture, the view that translation was impossible,
gained some currency, and with it that, if attempted at all, it must be as literal as possible. The
argument was theoretical: the purpose of the translation, the nature of the readership, the type
of text, was not discussed. Therefore, the focus of this study is to analyze whether some aspects
of literary figures such as analogy, which is the main literary figure in the novel The Palace of
Dreams is transmitted into English version.
Ismail Kadare is one of the Albanian writers, who has given a huge contribution to the
development and enrichment of Albanian literature not only in Albania but also in many
different countries over the world. In this way, our literature, history, culture and traditions are
presented to the foreign readers through Kadare `s works. Kadare has continuously brought
through his valuable works not only structural, lexical or conceptual novelty in writing
tradition, but also has introduced our literature successfully and worthily even in the countries
where Albania was not known for its existence. Since in Kadare`s works, social phenomena
prevail, also in this novel, the author brings into focus the dimension of dictatorship. Through
this novel, he tries to convey to the readers the hard situation of Albanian people`s psychology
and also the fact that these people had to work under this psychological pressure. Thus, this
entire political and psychological situation created before 1990, is brought to the readers by
Kadare in a master and artistical way, making use of different literary devices such as analogy,
allegory, symbol and simile. This novel contains an extraordinary story, where on focus of it,
there are thousands of clerks of Ottoman Empire who collect dreams of different people in
different parts of the empire. In the capital of this empire, there is a terrible institution called
The palace of dreams, which is unknown and unheard in other parts of the world. What is the
main point of this paper is the focus on the transmission of the analogy because it is a literary
figure on which this novel is based on. Therefore, this is one of the reasons why we decided to
study this novel and discuss whether some of these stylistics features in the translated version
are transmitted into English in the same way as it is in the original.
2.
The Transmission of Linguistic Analogy in Translation
As we have mentioned above, analogy is one of the most important point in the novel
Palace of Dreams written by Ismail Kadare. We can find two kinds of readings, where the
first one belongs to Ottoman Empire period and the other reading does not belong to that. It
means that the second one appears to us through description signals which do not refer the
Ottoman Empire and all these signs refer to the totalitarian system in Albania, therefore, we are
going to discuss how these signals or terms are transmitted into English language and how a
reader, especially a western one, finds all these terms while reading the novel. As we know, a
foreign reader has difficulty understanding the reality of that period in which Albanian people
lived and let us have a look below how these terms come into English version by the translator.
Zyrat qendrore - Ministries
Pallati i ndrrave the Palace of Dreams
Banka qendrore Central Bank
Nnpuns Clerks
Zyr qeveritare government office
Flet rekomandimi letter of recommendation
Leje e veant special pass
Institucionte themeltare t shtetit ton mbretror one of our great imperial states
most important institutions
Degt e bazs provincial sections
Ministr i Jashtm Foreign Minister
Mbikqyrs inspector
I krijuar me nxitjen e drejtprdrejt t sulltanit sovran created directly by the
reigning sultan
Bashndrra Master Dream
Dosje - file
Tjetrmends (untranslated)
pasi kreu pun kundr shtetit - whod committed a fraud against the State
Drejtori i prgjithshm Director-general
Hetuesit pople who work there
Procesverbale - depositions
Dhom veimi (izolimi) solitary rooms
Bufe cafeteria
Shkelbalts (untranslated)
Mbikqyrsi the supervisor
Hetimet e befta sudden inspections
Raki - raki
Udhzim i drejtprdrejt nga lart by direct orders from on high
Regarding the above terms and their usage in the novel, we can say that analogy, although not
with the same intensity, can be seen in the translation as well. We can understand from the
translated words that we can identify the signs of contemporary in words such as: Central
Bank, clerks, government Office, Director-general, cafeteria, Ministry of Finance, the Assistant
Minister of the Interior, which keep their form in English, but there are some words which lose
their essential meaning during translation process and we are presenting some of them as:
Degt e bazs provincial sections, where the usage of the word provincial loses the
hierarchy of Palace of Dreams, or Hetimet e befta sudden inspections, where the usage of
the word inspection does not transmit the same feeling of anxiety as the word hetim.
Apart from this, the reduction of the words such as tjetrmends and shkelbalts in
the English version, do not give the same feeling as does the text in Albanian. It means that
there are some words, which describe best the reality of that period and the omission of these
terms from the text, do not give the same effect as the original. In fact, the translator had no
other choice but to omit these words since these terms do not have their equivalents in English
and that made a big problem for her. However, there are some other cases in the translation
where we can find words which are used as they are in Albanian in order to describe and
transmit the same situation as it in the original. So, the words raki and Loke are kept the
same and they are used in italic, although a foreign reader who doesn`t know what raki
means, has difficulty in identifying it as a sign of Albanian contemporary.
3. The transmission of Architecture Analogy
Apart from linguistic analogy, another important part of novel is also architecture analogy.
Both urban planning and architecture play an important role in identifying Albanian
contemporary signs. The important thing for us is to focus on the fact that how these terms are
transmitted into translation and to what degree the reader can perceive the Albanian reality
during communism period. Can the reader identify all these terms throughout the translation
into English?
We are presenting some examples to show how this kind of analogy is given in the
text and how are all these signs transmitted into translation:
Rruga gjer n Tabir Saraj ishte m e gjat se
`kishte menduar dhe, ve ksaj, n kt
sqot mund t rrshqitje keq. Po kalonte
prpara Banks Qendrore. M tutje
dukeshin karroca t shumta t mbuluara me
brym prpara nj ngrehine tjetr
katrkatshe, q kushedi e `ministrie ishte.
(P.,f.35-36)
The Tabir Sarrail was further away than he`d

thought, and a thin layer of half-melted snow
was making the pavements slippery. He was
now walking past the Central Bank. A little
further on, a line of frost-covered carriages
stood outside another imposing building. He
wondered which ministry it was. (P.D,p. 910)
Ra nj or diku nga e majta, me nj tingull Somewhere in the mist, away to his left, a
t bronxt, si n pun t vet, n mjegull. clock let out a brazen chime, addressed as if
to itself. Mark-Alem walked on faster.
Mark Alem shpejtoi hapat. (P.., f.36)
(P.D,p. 10)
Mark-Alemi i erdhi rrotull nj sheshi He crossed a small, almost deserted
gjysm t shkret, ku ngrihej nj xhami me esplanade over which rose the strangely
dy minare, uditrisht t holla. (P.,f. 37)
slender minaret of a mosque.
In the above description, we notice that the word square is mentioned and this square where
Mark-Alem passes through refers to Skanderbeg square and we Albanian people know this
fact. There are some other buildings around and they are Central bank and other ministries. On
the left side, there is the clock or sahat as we all know. The presence of the mosque in the
square, Makes it even clearer that we are talking about the main square of Tirana. We know
that mosque has two minarets but the thing that we have noticed in english vesion is that the
minaret is reduced into one.
Nj dit, pa rn ende zilja e pushimit t One day, before the bell rang for the break,
mngjesit, e lajmruan t paraqitej n zyrat e he was told the Director - General wanted to
Drejtoris s Prgjithshme. (P.,f.100)
see him.
In the above paragraph, the phrase the offices of Director General refer to the main office of
Central Committee and an Albanian reader can easily perceive this reference and what it means
if you are summoned to be present in that office. However, we noticed that in English version
the translator has translated it the Director-General, a phrase which has lost its referential and
meaning because it doesn`t give the same effect as in Albanian language. Whereas, the
Ministry of Finance is transmitted into English version referring to the same meaning and it
can easily be perceived by the reader.
...Ndrtesat hijernda, q oheshin drejt e
mbi lvizjen e rrugs, me portat e me flegrat
e mbyllura, e bnin edhe m t hirt fillimin
e dits. (P.,f.35)
The tall buildings, looking down on the

bustle in the streets with their heavy doors
and wickets still shut, seemed to add to the
gloom. (P.D,p.9)
In the paragraph, the phrase ndrtesat hijernda, me portat e me flegrat e

mbyllura, gives us clue that the capital was suffering in that hell and the suffering of the
people was unbearable. However, in English version, we will notice that this phrase loses the
reference of analogy, because ndrtesat hijernda is translated to tall buildings, where the
word tall, doesn`t transmit the same meaning and value as in Albanian.
Another phrase like portat e me flegrat e mbyllura is translated as heavy doors and
wickets still shut and what we notice in this phrase is that the reference of analogy is not
transmitted fully, because the word portat is given equivalent with doors; in fact this word
does not convey architecture analogy of the building. As we can see many signs of urban
planning and architecture in the novel cannot be noticed because of the time reference.
Therefore, it is a big challenge for translators to transmit in the translated language the signs
that even the Albanian reader in Albanian wouldn`t be able to identify them.
In the following paragraphs, we are going to present some details related to archives,
as an important and inseparable part of the architecture of this building, in which a large
number of files with the dreams of innocent people is kept in it. Therefore, our focus is on how
these ideas are transmitted in English version and if the words chosen by the translator are the
proper ones, so that they can convey the same effect as in Albanian language.
Arkivi sht posht, n nntok, - tha The Archives are downstairs in the basement,
mbikqyrsi. (P.,f. 158)
- said the supervisor. (P.D,p.
- I gjith ky sht Arkivi? pyeti Mark- Do the Archives realy take up all this room?
Alemi, duke br me kok nga galerit e said Mark-Alem, nodding towards the
shumta q kryqzoheshin me njra-tjetrn. network of passages. F 125
(P.,f.162)
In the first example, the translation of the words posht, n tok, is given equivalent
with downstairs in the basement. In this example, we think that these words which have dark
connotation and have been used by Kadare intentionally, have been transmitted into English
with the proper referents, conveying to the reader the same effect and feeling
In the other example, the phrase galerit e shumta q kryqzoheshin me njra-tjetrn
is translated as the network of passages, which we can translate it as rrjeti i korridoreve. In
the translated version, the word passage, according to Longman Dictionary means a long and
narrow space with walls which connects a room with another and in this case it is given
equivalent with the galeri. We think that this word has a wider sense than the word passage
in English version.
4.
Conclusion
To conclude, translation plays a crucial role in human communication in nowadays.

Without translation, the communication between different people with different nationality and
culture of course, would be impossible. Thus, translators who are considered as bridges that
connect different cultures has enabled and facilitated human communication by transferring the
ideas and messages form the source language (SL) into the target language (TL). The necessity
in many countries like Albania for more translation of scientific, social cultural texts and
imaginative writings requires nowadays expert and competent translators who must be familiar
with the native language and culture as well as with the language and culture they translate
from. In order to have a good translation of the original text, it is very important for the
translator to have knowledge not only in the target language but also in the subject matter,
because only in this way the message is preserved better and clearer. Although any translator
tries hard to convey the message and the style of the original author in his/her best way, it is
impossible not have loses during translation process because of many reasons which are
embedded in the literary translation especially. Therefore, regarding the novel The Palace of
Dreams by Kadare, I can state that the style of Kadare, the setting which describes the
communism throughout the novel and the stylistic feature used in the novel as analogy have
put the translator into difficulties and challenges to translate some specific items and literary
figures. Thus, what we noticed in the comparison of these two versions is that most of the
original message is preserved but in some cases, especially the transmission of linguistic and
architecture analogy have been hard to be preserved and therefore, they are lost during the
translation process.
Bibliography
Bassnett, S. Translation Studies (3rd version), London: Routledge, 2002.
Even-Zohar, Itamar 2008. The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary
Polysystem.
Kadare, I. Pallati I ndrrave, Onufri, Tiran, 2011.
Newmark, Peter. 1988. Textbook of Translation. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Rojo, A. (2009). Step by Step: A Course in Contrastive Linguistics and Translation. Peter
Lang, p.22.
PhD. Mahmut TERCI

Tirana, Albania
Yaumil Fitria RAMADAN

Tirana, Albania
THE NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE INFLUENCES OF INDONESIAN

LANGUAGE IN THE PROCESS OF LEARNING ENGLISH
Abstract
In this article we will investigate how the Indonesian language affects English language
learning. Both the negative and positive influences of the Indonesian language as a mother
tongue through the linguistic point of view will be our main focus. Many fascinating facts
happen with Indonesian native speakers when they try to learn English. English language
learners from any background would find it useful about the unique side of Indonesian
language which brings the advantages and disadvantages during learning process.
The grammatical influences and the impact that it could raise in learning foreign
language will take a part in this article. Furthermore, the structure of Indonesian and English
languages, and what they have in common, including letters of alphabet, identical words and
how they are formed in sentences will be evaluated in another section. Additionally, the
historical background between Indonesia and Britain that unintentionally make a significant
influence in the language itself will be explained briefly.
To sum up, this article mainly deals with the negative and positive influences of
Indonesian language while learning English as a foreign language.
Keywords: Mother tongue, Indonesian Language, learning English as a foreign language,

negative and positive influences of first languages
1.
Introduction
While the role of mother tongue is very important in learning a new foreign language, because
every new language is confronted by an already-existing mother tongue (Butzkamm, 2003),
and it shapes the way we learn that language and the way we use it. We have aimed at
pinpointing the strategy of learning English language searching for the negative and positive
influences of Indonesian language. Both positive and negative effects could be a practical key
to personalizing the knowledge we get when we learn English language. Therefore, in order to
learn English language successfully learners are supposed to have proper strategy that precise
and concise not only for handling the problems that will appear during the learning process, but
also developing a strategy that would be used to maximize the positive effects of mother
tongue while getting rid of its negative effects to enhance the effectiveness of learning English.
The negative influences of Indonesian language definitely play an important role in
learning English language, and some linguistic differences could be an obstacle in
understanding English as a foreign language. One of the problems might be the grammatical
aspects from Indonesian language which might confuse the learners when they learn English,
because the structure of the tenses is completely different in both languages. Moreover, the
pronouns, attributives, and auxiliary verbs are other aspects of grammar which would be
difficult to understand by learners, on account of the difficulty to finding the right form to
guide them according to their mother tongue. Then, the phonological difference is another
element which we need to take into consideration for the negative influences. Several examples
are provided to help us portray clearly the negative impacts in Indonesian language towards
learning English language. In this part, we try to understand and perceive the logic of target
language and find the best way to minimize these negative influences, and later on, to use a
strategy that we need to apply in this learning process.
However, the positive influences of the first language would play a different role in
facilitating learners to study. In other words, several elements of Indonesian language in certain
degree affect the result of proficiency or competency while learning English. The most obvious
ones are the syntactical and lexicological aspects, especially when the root of the languages are
the same, for example, English and German, both languages come from the same root, West
Germanic language (Schuffelen, 2006). In contrast, even though Indonesian and English
languages come from different root, there are still similarities that we could find in both
languages in terms of lexicology and word order. People learn or acquire foreign languages
easier when they find similar linguistic elements on the target language. For example, there are
some similarities between Indonesian and English languages, such as, letters of alphabet,
identical and similar words, and word order that bring advantages when the learners try to
understand and perceive English. In addition, there are some negative effects behind these
positive effects or the consequences of positive influences that could destroy the essential
purpose of the language itself. The words from the English language that have been
standardized to Indonesian language and would have intention to be used more often in
Indonesian books or even in public speeches ensued other important phenomena. This
phenomenon could slowly destroy the originality of Indonesian language.
This article is completed by analyzing and searching data through several practical
steps. The fundamental step is through analyzing the mother tongue first and then evaluating
the way native speakers of the target language using the language. After that, we have focused
on comparing and contrasting Indonesian and English languages thorough linguistic point of
view.
2. Negative Influences
In the process of learning a foreign language, mother tongues, have some negative and positive
influences to the learners. They are often called, negative transfers and positive transfers.
Indonesian language normally has more differences rather than similarities when we compare
it to English language. Considering this circumstance, here we will investigate these negative
influences. The available evidences suggest that negative influences of Indonesian language in
English language learning are mostly identified in their difference through the concept of
grammar. Some of these negative influences are the grammatical ones such as tenses, the logic
of plural and singular forms, modifiers, auxiliary verbs, and pronouns. The rules of tenses in
English tend to be more convoluted than Indonesian, it must follow the rules in order to form a
sentence. While the plural and singular forms of nouns in English and Indonesian have their
own uniqueness and logic to be followed, the modifiers are comparatively have different
usages creating another obstacle in learning English. Furthermore, auxiliary verbs and modal
verbs that give grammatical and additional meaning for the main verb of a sentence also come
up as a negative effect for learning process. Again, different concepts of grammar such as
pronouns, especially, third person pronoun occurs to be the other negative influence of
Indonesian language while learning English. Ultimately, the phonological influence of
Indonesian language that gives different impact on pronouncing English words regarded as
another negative influence.
2.1. The Grammatical Influences
One of the negative transfers that Indonesian language has towards English is the tenses which
are completely different in both languages. The English grammar constructed from many
elements of linguistic that interdependent to each other and frame one sentence with specific
period of time, or we can say the formulation that define the structure, a system of inflections
associated rules of syntactical agreement (Farley, 1904). For example, in English language
when we form a sentence we determine the specific time like, the past, present, or future.
Within this period of time there are more specific tenses to be used, in order to make a clear
way of understanding when the event happen which is very confusing for Indonesian people to
be understood, for instances, past perfect continuous tense, present perfect tense, or even past
future perfect continuous tense, (I would have been swimming when you called me yesterday).
In other words, English is an explicit language with the interdependent participles and certain
rules that shape the way grammar works and form the sentences. Moreover, there are special
circumstances of the verb in the past form, often called irregular verbs. These verbs have a
random change and contradict the usual rules of the verb in the past form ed. Indonesian
people who are in the process of learning English at the first sight will find the rules
frustratingly difficult, because they do not have certain rules to be followed, and if they refer to
Indonesian language there are no similar principles of verb in the tenses. In fact, Indonesian
language syntax is really simple; it does not have any perfect tenses and merely consists of
three major period of times, like, past, present, and future. The consistency and simplicity that
Indonesian has within the language are the keys to lead other people find easy to learn, but, at
the same time make Indonesian native speakers face many obstacles when they learn other
foreign languages, particularly, English language. For instance, in Indonesian language we just
need to add adverb or adjective at the end of the sentence to refer to the particular time, there
are no needed to change verbs and auxiliary verbs to create a specific tenses in Indonesian
language. For example, if we compare both tenses of the languages, it would be like:
I drink coffee (saya minum kopi) in present tense

and
I drank coffee (saya sudah minum kopi),
with this word sudah we can clearly reveal our intention to specify time in the past form
without considering other elements of grammar. One of the common mistakes that Indonesian
students make, obviously a tense confusion. When Indonesian people speak English they
sometimes use present tense in order to refer to past or even future, for example, saying;
Yesterday I go to school instead of
Yesterday I went to school.
We have to admit that this flexibility of Indonesian language leads negative influences for
Indonesian native speakers to learn tenses English as well as other foreign languages.
2.1.1. Singular and Plural Forms
The other negative transfer that learners might face is the logic of singular and plural forms of
nouns. For example, in Indonesian language, the plural form is made by reduplicating the
singular form, whereas English has its own pattern and rules that should be followed.
Indonesian
singular
kertas
Indonesian
plural
kertas-kertas
English singular
English plural
paper
papers
kotak
kaki
Laki
kotak-kotak
kaki-kaki
laki-laki
box
foot
man
boxes
feet
men
And sometimes it could be more complex when it comes to different letters ending of the
words, so that Indonesian language does not have a plural suffix which is comparable to the
English "s". The logic of plural could be analyzed through the examples of sentences below:
Indonesian Language
English Language
Andi memotret gedung.
Andi takes a picture of building.
Andi memotret gedung-gedung.
Andi takes a picture of buildings.
Randy memiliki satu rumah.
Randy has one house.
Randy memiliki dua rumah-rumah.
Randy has two houses.
Thus, another common mistake that some students might make could be a reduplicating the
form of English plurals and treat them as the logic of Indonesian plural. Indonesian plural
concept is understood from the context or the addition of other words to express the concept of
something being "more than one" (Kencana, 2014). So, when Indonesian people try to learn the
plural forms of English, they become a bit confused at first, and try to apply the rule of
Indonesian language syntax to English. Generally speaking, this case usually happens in lower
levels, when learners face this structure for the first time.
2.1.2. Modifiers
Modifiers are important elements to express the idea in a more specific way, They are divided
into two fundamental components in English language. The first one is premodifiers, an
optional modifying elements in a noun phrase which come between the determiner and
the head noun. The Second one is postmodifiers, an optional modifying words, phrases, and
clauses which follow the head noun in a noun phrase (Wisconsin-Parkside, 2014). The negative
influences in these elements always happen from their difference in a way of expression. For
example, the attributives in Indonesia are always put before the modifiers, so we only need to
think in one way when we try to give a noun some kind of modification with adjective, adverbs
or participle, while it has distinction between premodifiers and postmodifiers in English, for
instance;
English
Premodifiers
English
Postmodifiers
Indonesian
Postmodifiers
English
Translation
red balloon
the day before
sup ayam
chicken soup
married man
the
abroad meja kayu
wooden table
nail clippers
a book on the table
trip
telepon gengam
mobile phone
Thus, Indonesian students have great difficulty in mastering the usage of the pre modifiers in
English, because the place where the learner should put the words and modifiers when they
form a sentence will be often exactly the opposite as in Indonesian language. According to the
experts, Albert and Obler, people show more lexical interference on similar items (Bhela,
1999, p. 23). So, it may follow that languages with more similar structures like English and
French are easier to learn than languages with fewer similar features like English and
Indonesian, as the learner would find it difficult to learn and understand a completely new and
different usage.
2.1.3. Auxiliary Verbs
In English, auxiliary verbs assist main verbs to give grammatical information, for example
about tense, which is not given by the main verb of a sentence. Some words are categorized as
auxiliary verbs such as, have, do, dare, need, be, etc. Then, be consisting of some verbs like,
am, was, are, and were, which can not be interpreted to Indonesian language. In other words,
English has different spelling rules for the third person singular, Indonesian language maintains
the verb for all singular verb forms. Indonesian language in its spoken form has no auxiliary
verbs like the English words, such as, be, am, is, are, was, or were. (Understanding Indonesian
Translation, 2015). As we have mentioned before, the tenses in English language are
completely different compared to Indonesian language and if we include this element of
auxiliary verb, it becomes more complicated to be understood by learners.
Because the further distinctions of both languages have, the more difficult problems
they face, due to literally untranslatable forms of sentences and obstructions in grasping the
sense of them. It has to be kept in mind that Indonesian and English languages do not come
from the same family of language; likewise, there are few languages that do not have auxiliary
verbs in their grammar concept, such as, Indonesian and Malaysian languages. Hence, the
outcome of this interference become a factor that we can categorize as negative influences in
both directions. For example,
English Language
Indonesian Language
Literally Translation
I am a pilot.
The soldier was killed in
the war.
Small fish are eaten by big
fish.
They are attractive people.
Saya seorang pilot.

Prajurit itu terbunuh saat
perang.
Ikan kecil dimakan oleh
ikan besar.
Mereka orang-orang yang
menarik.
I a pilot.
That soldier kill during war.
Small fish eat by big fish.
They people who attractive.
2.1.4. Pronouns
Additionally, there is another aspect in Indonesian language that influences the process of
learning English language negatively, namely, pronouns, Even though, the personal pronouns,
he and she are the only specific gender pronouns in English, it is often confusing to Indonesian
learners. Indonesians categorize them just by natural gender and generalize them into dia
which refers to he and she. As we know that he refers to males, and she refers to females. The
use of pronouns has an inflection on the verbs and auxiliary verbs, not like first and second
person pronouns, it is considered a special case when it comes to third-person pronouns.
Although the pattern of the verb is consistent, the use of these particular pronouns is tricky for
new learners. For instance, in the present tense form of third-person pronoun the verb changes
like, he goes to school (go),while negative and interrogative form we need to add auxiliary
verb like, does for third single personal pronoun and do for the first and second personal
pronouns, such as, he doesnt go to school - does he go to school ?. In other words, we can
categorize them like, do is used for the subject pronouns , such as, I, you, they, we, and does is
used for, he, she, and it in English language. These small elements of grammar might seem
easy and unimportant for English native speakers or other nations, but for Indonesian people,
they are the impediments that could render the different type of difficulties. Some examples are
shown in the following table:
Subject
Pronouns
He, she, it
English Language
He watches a play.
He does not watch a play.
Does he watch a play?
I, you, they, we We teach biology.
We do not teach biology.
Do we teach biology?
Indonesian Language
Dia menonton pertandingan.
Dia tidak menonton pertandingan.
Apakah dia menonton pertandingan.
Kami mengajar biologi.
Kami tidak mengajar biolog..
Apakah kami mengajar biologi.
2.2. Phonological Influences

The phonological system of the language is the system of phones used in particular language,
or in this case pronunciation. It has a crucial influences, because the basic purposes of learning
language are to use it in written and spoken forms. Indeed, pronunciation has their own impact,
as mentioned before students tend to refer to their mother tongues features when they learn a
foreign language, because they are familiar with it. Even though, alphabets of Indonesian and
English languages are identically the same, the sound of the letters are differed in both
languages. As a matter of fact, when the English letters are formed into words, they would
have more sounds than the exact total numbers of the alphabet. Many English consonants and
vowels sounds do not exist in Indonesian language, so students would struggle to say what they
intend to, though they know how the words are spelled and how the words are formed in
sentences. For example, we can recall our own experience when we learn English at the low
level, we made some mistakes when it came to pronunciation, so we wrote the sentence in two
times. First, the correct sentence with the correct way of spelling, second the correct sentence
with the spelling refers to Indonesian way of spelling. For instance, we try to write this
sentence Ken ay barou yor pen plis? in order to guide us to pronounce this sentence correctly,
Can I borrow your pen please?. Here are some examples to be considered :
Correct Spelling Words
Bad
plate
Hot
Fail
Can
borrow
IPA (International Phonetic Indonesian

Alphabet)
Pronouncing
baad
/bd/
pleyt
/plet/
hat
/ht/
feyl
/fel/
ken
/kn/
barou
/br.o/
Way
of
On the one hand, this method of writing is useful, but, on the other hand we realized that this
method do not help, because we will be accustomed to see the wrong writing form of a
sentence. Still, the phonological effects could lead to misunderstanding among Indonesian
people when they use the English language as a way to communicate with interlocutor or
conversational partner of English native speakers or other users of English. In some cases they
assume that they have uttered the word perfectly, but somehow they fail to pronounce them
correctly. As a result, the conversational partner could be confused and this kind of
mispronunciation lead them to misunderstanding. Therefore, this phonological influences of
English are to be categorized as negative influences or transfers to Indonesian language.
3. Positive Influences
So far we have investigated the negative effects of Indonesian languages in learning English as
a foreign language and saw how they could affect the learning process. As Butzkamm states
that every new language is confronted by an already-existing mother tongue (Butzkamm,
2003), and it shapes the way we learn the language and the way we use it. That is why not only
negative influences that mother tongues could cause, but they may also have positive
influences. It has often been said that a learner who really wants to learn a language succeed
whatever the circumstances are. Despite this possibility, theses negative transfers could be
obstacles that may slow down the process. On the other hand, the positive transfers are
considered as remarkable factors which facilitate the process. Several positive effects in this
chapter are the basic and the most influential aspects that both languages share in common.
Here, the positive effect or positive transfer of Indonesian language in learning
English as a second language will be investigated. Positive influences have some advantages
that mother tongue gives to facilitate learners in their foreign language learning process. Since
the learners main goal is to grasp the target language, the learners begin the process of
learning a foreign language through a consistent way of studies to reach the highest point. In
this process, the role of mother tongue functions as an impetus to increase their knowledge in
the learning foreign language.
3.1. Letters of Alphabet
Indonesian language has exactly the same alphabet like English consisting of twenty-six letters
without any differences. It has positive influences for Indonesian learners in their English
language learning process. Indeed, the Indonesian language is hospitable towards foreign
languages, especially the English. Also, because of the immigration phenomenon to the
Netherlands, from which it has borrowed words to find their equivalents. The history tells that
Indonesia was one of the Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, and after the Dutch most of the
area of southeast Asia were British colonies. As early as 1602, the Dutch East India Company
was competing with Portugal and Britain for dominance over the trade market in Indonesia
(World Class Language Solution, 2015). Britain arrived in Indonesia and took control over
some parts of it for a short period of time, although it was short they had an opportunity to
share their cultures and languages as well. The most significant example that they brought was
the alphabetical system and borrowed words. However, it does not necessarily mean that all the
letters have the same spelling system with English, because, later on, the language was
standardised the term Bahasa Indonesia was adopted as the name of the language (Ager,
2015). After that, they implemented a common spelling and the alphabet reform like in English
language. However, unlike English, Indonesian language was designed to be phonetic meaning
that a word's spelling can almost certainly be predicted from its pronunciation, and its
pronunciation can be predicted from its spelling. Hence, Indonesian speakers find English
language learning easier as a result of these similarities of writing system in both languages.
3.2. Identical and Similar Words
Words are the key elements to understand and communicate with each other in any language.
They are extremely important because when two people meet they reveal their ideas through
words. If average Indonesians were asked about their knowledge of grammar, they would say
they do not know any of them. What we mean by this, of course, they can not explain to you
about the formulation of grammar and its component, but they can communicate and reveal
what they meant without misunderstanding. That is why, identical words are advantages for
learners who learn foreign languages, because they can use the same words in a different
language without becoming confused, even without knowing grammar at all. As a matter of
fact, there are many words that are identicals to both Indonesian and English languages, at least
780 identical words and approximately 1,200 words are very similar (Danielson, 2010). These
words might include terms in technology, such as, software and hardware, or even jargon. At
certain point, the history of both countries that we have been mentioned previously must have
influences to this phenomenon, such as, the words from colonization era, globalization, music,
and entertainment. Also, their Indonesian counterparts follow an easily predictable pattern for
example; promosi, aksi, atraksi, evaluasi ambisi, profesi, diskusi, konsepsi, emisi, transmisi
oposisi, globalisasi, informasi (Macmillan English Dictionaries magazine, 2006). We can
easily guess what the words would be in English, the pattern si in Indonesian equal to pattern
ion in English, below is a list of some examples:
English Word
Direct Borrowing
Indonesian
Neologism
English
Meaning
promotion
discussion
evaluation
Promosi
Diskusi
Evaluasi
dipromosi
berdiskusi
dievaluasi
menevaluasi
berevaluasi
Promoted
to discuss
Evaluated
to evaluate
to be evaluated
While we look at these examples, first thing that comes to our mind is the ease of interpreting
these two languages when we understand the patterns, because they are consistent. Then, the
process of learning foreign language meets its harmony and, as a result of this positive transfer
learners are able to understand the contexts and the words without any difficulties.
3.3.
Word Order
According to Chomskys theory of language acquisition device (LAD), a correlate of the LAD
is that human languages must share a Universal Grammar (UG); that is they share the same
general design characteristics, are subject to the same formal constraints, and draw on a
common pool of language universals (Singleton & Ryan, 2004, p.186). Considering this
theory, Indonesian language basically has almost the same word order as English. It follows
the same pattern (Subject-Verb-Object), below you could find some examples with modifiers
and phrases as well.
English Language
(subjec+verb+object)
I love weekends.
Indonesia Language
(subject + verb+object)
Saya menyukai akhir pekan.
He rides a bike.
Dia mengendarai sepeda.
My father teaches math.
Ayahku mengajar matematika.
With this similarity it is certainly a great advantage for Indonesian students who learn English.
Every language has something in common, and for Indonesian and English people this is the
most useful concept of grammar that they share. When native speakers of both languages try to
form a sentence they do not find it confusing. Consequently, it assists the progress of learning
process and accelerate the competency result of understanding the foreign language.
3.4.
Consequences of Positive Influences
However, many denominations not only in learning process of second language, but, in the
field of information technology, finance, market economy, business, modern art and so on
which today have a separate development enters the Indonesian language with the concepts
that they express, and in the meantime replacing the vocabulary of those languages. This
borrowing definitely has its enriching value, but, if it were done without any control, it would
turn into a harmful phenomenon for Indonesian language, especially when the spoken or
written form in public activities such as, writers, journalists, political and social activists,
people of culture and art are replaced with foreign words. There is a growing support for the
claim that companies and business report in Indonesia tend to use many English or other
foreign language words to make it sounds more international and intellectual.
In addition, there are more linguistic borrowings with their equivalents in Indonesian
language, coming from the press and the internet. Therefore, serious efforts should be taken to
prevent the meaningless tendency of using new words from other languages or to avoid the
use of foreign words. If Indonesian people do not use their own existing words in the daily
life or in all means of communication, then it might cause a great loss in terms of the
quintessential purpose of the language itself. As we can see, even though mother tongue as a
great asset that wait to grow and develop in a foreign language learning, there are still many
risks behind it that can destroy itself. Even worse those risks might create another phenomenon
namely language death; a phenomenon that a language extincts and vanishes as a result of
the domination of other popular languages like English. The current research seems to
validate the view that:
Every fourteen days a language dies. By 2100, more than half of the more than seven
thousand languages are spoken on Earth--many of them not yet recorded--may
disappear, taking with them a wealth of knowledge about history, culture, the natural
environment, and the human brain (National Geographic Society, 2013).
4.
Conclusion
Thus, mother tongue as a basic knowledge of Indonesian learners in the process of learning
foreign language or in this case English language has two main influences, namely negative
and positive influences. Negative influences emerge when the elements of syntax and
phonology in the Indonesian language are rarely encountered in the English language. As we
have investigated, they include the grammatical influences, such as, tenses, singular and plural
forms, modifiers, and pronouns. In the tenses, one of the major problems was to find the
equivalent of the right tenses in Indonesian language which does not exist, and results the tense
confusion that obstructs the learners in lower level to form a sentence in English.
Meanwhile, the logic and structure of the singular and plural forms between
Indonesian and English that are entirely different lead into another obstacle in the learning
process. The modifiers bring out another negative influence to the learners. This kind of
modification of the words in English language has two major types, premodifiers and
postmodifiers, whereas only postmodifiers that exist in Indonesian language. As we expected,
learners would find it difficult to learn and understand a completely new and different usage of
post modifiers. Likewise, the tenses confusion related to auxiliary verbs has its own distinction
between Indonesian and English languages and could be categorized as a negative influence in
both directions. Having some sort of simpler rule than English, Indonesian generalized the
third person pronoun only by dia that refers to he and she in English, and without any
inflections to the verb or auxiliary verbs make it easier to understand. Although, it caused
negative influences to Indonesian learners in terms of finding the right forms of each pronoun
when it comes to the inflection on the verb and auxiliary verbs. In addition to the negative
influences, there is phonological effect that we have analyzed and investigated. Realizing the
fact that several consonants and vowels sounds in English do not exist in Indonesian language,
there is a simple method that we have evaluated and could be a tool for Indonesian learners to
assimilate the pronunciation of English words.
On the other hand, the positive influences appear when there are many similarities that
could be found between Indonesian and English language. Some of them are, the letters of
alphabet, identical and similar words and word order. Fundamentally, the letter of alphabet in
both languages are exactly the same with the same writing system. Even though, the sound is
different, the letters could help learners, because they do not have to encounter a new different
usage of writing system or alphabet. Then comes the similar and identical words that help in a
more sustainable way. They become very useful and facilitate the process of learning using the
language with the predictable pattern that exist in Indonesian language and easily interpreted
and translated into English. Moreover, the word order of both languages which have the same
structure give a great advantage in the process of learning language. However., while drawing
conclusion is risky, because the contexts vary so widely when it comes to more long and
complicated sentence. For that reason, the similarities of grammar that both languages shared
in common is limited and depend on the context and circumstance.
Although positive influences have numerous advantages that facilitate the learners,
they still have other disadvantages that could possibly happen during the process of foreign
language learning. For example, language death is a phenomenon when a language is not used
anymore due to the frequent preference of foreign words from other popular languages slowly
displace the original language filling the vocabulary of that language or it results with the
complete displacement of one language by another in the meantime.
Further research in this study may include different kind of strategies with a broader
range of implementation. However, the current research is basically a combination of our own
experiences in learning English, theories from experts, and the facts from English language
learners. Target audience of this paper is not only professional and academics, but also students
who are in the process of learning foreign languages and have some difficulties on deciding the
best strategies to use. Indeed, English language is becoming more and more important
language in this era of globalization when everything has been grown to a global and
worldwide scale. Thus, the need of using English as a way of communicating to each other has
become an important quality not only in various sciences but also in communication skills.
Considering this relevant relation between our new era and English language, we settle an issue
of this thesis based on this phenomenon and try to make some contributions by classifying the
negative and positive influences of Indonesian language in the process of English language
learning.
Bibliography
Ager, S. (2015). Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia). Retrieved 04 12, 2015, from
Omniglot: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/indonesian.htm
Bhela, B. (1999). International Education Journal , 23.
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http://www.fremdsprachendidaktik.rwthaachen.de/Ww/programmatisches/pachl.html
Danielson, L. (2010). English Compared to Bahasa Indonesia. Retrieved 04 13, 2015,
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408.
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language: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/enduring-voices/
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English, Dutch and German Words from A Common Root:
http://www.heardutchhere.net/duengero.html
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Languagetranslation.inc:
ttp://www.languagetranslation.com/translation/languages/indonesian-translation2.html
Wisconsin-Parkside, U. o. (2014). Glossary of grammatical terms. Retrieved 04 26,
2015, from UW Parkside:
http://homepages.uwp.edu/canary/grammar_text/glossary_of_terms.html
World Class Language Solution. (2015). Retrieved 04 12, 2015, from Accredited:
https://www.alsintl.com/resources/languages/Indonesian/
PhD. Cand. Mehmet ASLAN

EXISTENCE OR NON-EXISTENCE OF A THERAPIST IN GROUP

COUNSELING AND STAGES OF THE GROUP DEVELOPMENT WITH
VARIANT CHARACTERISTICS OCCURRING THROUGHOUT THE
BREAKFAST CLUB
Abstract
The role of a therapist is a high stake issue in group counseling for its variant roles in providing
safe havens, not only in regard with providing a secure setting but also for the overall
development of all group members as they go through some certain stages until they reach a
termination of meetings as in achieving the desired change in the behavior among the group
members. One of the well-known roles tailored to a therapist in group counseling is being a
moderator rather than being a therapist as well as being a counselor, and\or psychologist etc.
Thus, the question of the need for existence or non-existence of a therapist in group counseling
arises given that the group members take such roles instead. In this study, the inquiry of an
answer to such a question is investigated together with developmental stages observed on a 5
membered counseling group in Breakfast Club that has no therapist; instead the members of
the counseling group take the role of a therapist one for another to overcome their
psychological difficulties, and moderate the 5 stages of the development together with an
additional stage that can be called post termination stage or follow up of the development.
Keywords: Termination, therapist, counselor, developmental stages, counseling group
1.
Introduction
Group therapy is known for its portrayal of people coming together for mutual benefits as they
share some common grounds and\or problems, thus help each other to overcome with their
difficulties by feeling the sense of belonging as well as feeding their needs to be listened or to
listen to some extent. The types of groups varies depending on specic aims, the role of the
leader, the kind of people in the group, and the emphasis given to issues such as prevention,
remediation, treatment, and development as a result the practice of group work has
broadened to encompass psychotherapy groups, psycho-educational groups, and task groups
as well as counseling groups.(Corey, 2011)
The literature on group counseling, apart from the types of groups, emphasizes the
importance of group counseling as it helps each person within the group to achieve goals as
well as productivity and progress by relating himself\herself to the others (McClure, 1990).
The literature also has a focus on the role of the therapist as they are supposed to make their
plans beforehand and show sensitivity to the stages of development and most importantly they
should be equipped with required knowledge (Gladding, 1994). One of the most important
issues held by studies conducted on this field is the stages of the development as there have
been different approaches their existence is primarily accepted. To some it`s described as Life
Cycle (Frances, 2008), however the names used for stages are variant depending on the
approaches used by the researchers. Nevertheless, the stages are mostly named as; Forming,
storming, norming, and performing also known as Tuckman`s stage model (Tuckman, 1965).
In this article, unlike other studies, six stages of development are studied, the last one being
evaluation and follow up. As an intervention, group counseling is considered to be pivot for
career, academic and social\emotional issues (Gerrity & DeLucia-Waack, 2007; McGannon,
Carey, & Dimmitt, 2005; Paisley & Milsom, 2007; Whiston & Sexton, 1998). Some other
studies are more focused on motivation and its role in group counseling. Motivation is seen as
the essence and heart of not only counseling but also psychotherapy as it helps for more stable
and long lasting results and brings active engagement on client`s side (Overholser, 2005; Ryan
& Deci, 2008). This article, different than other studies, is mostly concentrated on the role of
the therapist, the need for his\her existence and the stages of the development through the lens
of group members.
The Breakfast Club is a portrayal of a group coming together on a Saturday morning
for school detention as they have to come together by forming a kind of counseling group of
five members each of whom display different hidden and visible personality traits through
which they try to find jointing points for understanding each other and common grounds for the
problems they start to reveal to each other at different breakpoints throughout the warming
climax of the four early and later stages of the development group. As the group members are
teenagers from a high school, the counseling is somewhat related with school counseling as
well, hence the absence of a school counselor is observed. The importance of a school
counselor is related with responsibilities on monitoring group members, informing them when
needed, elaborating on purpose of the group, goals, confidentiality, participation etc. as well as
inclusion of parental consent and student agreement (Falco, 2011). The major difference from a
traditional counseling group is that they don`t have a therapist to moderate their development,
nevertheless they seem to replace the therapist one by one when needed as in doing it in shifts.
In a normal group therapy or counseling; change or development - apart from values - is the
key goal set to achieve by each member, thus indicating success for the sessions which is
presented in the movie in a very professional way.
2.
Methodology
The Breakfast Club as suggested by the name itself is very much related with counseling and
its design in getting the utmost benefit out of a counseling group, thus the observation of the
movie in regard with understanding formation of the group, stages of the development and
most importantly the role of a therapist is subject of study in this article together with the
movie as the main source of data as well as secondary data collected through written literature
are used for the analysis of above mentioned aspects of group counseling. Stages of
development are mostly accepted to be 5 by the literature; nevertheless follow up and\or post
group issues is added as the sixth stage of the development in this article. One of the major
aims of this article is to use the movie as a device for understanding the need for a therapist as
well as analyzing some scenes to discover developmental themes through formation of the
stages. As suggested by Kaye, D. L., & Ets-Hokin, E. the movie is rich for engagement and
learning about adolescent development and psychotherapy. (Kaye, D. L., & Ets-Hokin, E.,
2000), which also gives a synopsis to the methodology used in this article as well. Although
Tuckman`s four stage model is taken as the base model in this study the number of the stages,
names used are major differences. The four stage model is as follows: Forming, storming,
norming, performing (Tuckman, 1965).
3.
Early Stages in the Development of a Group
3.1.
Stage 1: Pre-group IssuesFormation of the Group
The formation of the group happens through a compulsory detention resulted from different
infractions of each member as they show up with different personalities. Alison, the
encourager, comes in a dark reflection as in trying to hide herself from the world; Claire, the
standing figure, comes in by a BMW emphasizing her economic status; Brian, the harmonizer
and the brainy one, shows up with a dialogue with his mother, meaning that he won`t be doing
anything for studying as it is just for staying the whole day; John or Bender, the dominator,
comes in with his shabby wearing and non-matching shoes; Andrew, the other dominator,
comes in with his father`s SUV indicating his father`s expectation from him as a former bully.
The group members are also given nicknames as; the criminal, the athlete, the brain, the
basket case and the princess.
Each of them indicate behavior for the desire of being accepted by the others, and they
seem to be comfortable by the image or mask they have in the others` eyes. This stage would
be roughly equivalent to Tuckmans forming, which is usually described as a tentative
testing of the boundaries of interpersonal and task behaviors(Frances, 2008). They start
to gather information about each other, and try to avoid conflicting behavior at the beginning.
Formation of the group happens either formally or informally, although the group here is
informal, there is a compulsory participation due to detention. At this stage, the group needs a
facilitator to help members feel safe and lead them for the coming stages and steps to be taken
on the process. members may be looking to facilitators for a fairly strong lead, and
for guidance about what might happen and how things might work(Frances, 2008).
Although the group doesn`t have an assigned counselor or therapist for guidance at this stage,
Bender seems to be taking the initiative in facilitating the other group members.
3.2.
Stage 2: Initial StageOrientation and Exploration
This stage complies with Tuckman`s storming in which members start to have conflicts and
show some polarizations around the conflicts especially on interpersonal issues, thus they may
start to shape some sub-groups depending on reactions, conflicts affections, emotions etc.
Since the group may be relatively unaware of what is core for each member, the levels
of volatility and strength of reaction to each others contribution may be difficult to make
sense of and accept(Frances, 2008). At this stage the group starts to find some common
grounds on which they can relate with each other, and maintain unity against common threat or
problem. In the movie, the group reflects unity against Mr. Vernon and shows some little
subgroups which may later change as Andrew and Claire seem to form a relation of unity
against Bender. On the other hand, the other members keep their images preserved by not
being on any side. Nevertheless, they start to reveal some truths behind their images as Bender
starts to force the others to reveal themselves. Although Bender seems to be taking most of the
role of therapist, especially at this stage, it`s observed that group members are taking turns
figuring out ways off the conflicts.
3.3. Stage 3: Transition StageDealing With Resistance
At this stage the members start to force each other in order to gain power or knowledge about
each other. Andrew and Bender fight to dominate the group, Brian gets anxious and assumes
others are friendly; Bender is hostile but also engaging. Important issues that break their
resistance start to emerge, minor confrontations occur as they start to show implications of
bursting initial hidden problems, on the other hand some members try to go back to their
images.
This stage is crucial in group counseling as it can be either a breakthrough or a total
failure in regard with the desired change in the behavior. In a normal group therapy the
therapist play a key role in helping members overcome their difficulties at this stage and have
them ready to face their problems by avoiding their previous images to gain control over them.
However, this key role is distributed among the members of The Breakfast Club. As
Tuckman`s model suggests storming occurs among the members as they resist in keeping
their images.
4.
Later Stages in the Development of a Group
4.1
Stage 4: Working StageCohesion and Productivity
At this point the members start to challenge the confrontations they have faced, and start to
show implications of little changes or development. The sub-groups start to change and replace
with real relations amongst the group as Andrew`s relation with Claire shifts to Alison; Bender
starts to have concrete changes as he forms a new developmental relation with Claire. Brian, on
the other hand, takes the matters in his hands and decides to write the essay in the name of the
group. These are little steps toward change and development of each member as important
issues start to emerge. They also start to work together as they escape from Mr. Vernon and
help Bender hide himself from him.
The group is very close to termination as they no longer show resistance and\or
tendency in hiding behind their previous images which were mostly like masks worn to hide
their true identities as well as to be seen by the others with the face they wanted to be seen.
4.2
Stage 5: Final StageConsolidation and Termination
At this stage the norms within the group start to shape, the roles of each member becomes
clear, and they act in an harmonized way, because they understand each other much better. The
group whistles all together, they raise their hands and close their eyes in a unity, they accept
Bender`s leadership as he sacrifices himself for the sake of the group. Group feels comfortable
in moving into private, intimate topics as trust is established, group identity, morale, and
loyalty reaches its peak. They also start with self-disclosures in order to reach termination as
the final stage.
Although termination is the final stage in most of the studies and in Tuckman`s
models, in this group we have the following stage as well.
4.3
Stage 6: Post-group IssuesEvaluation and Follow-Up
The group members start to accept the self as the way it is, and they withdraw from projected
images presented at the beginning. Trust reaches its summit through feedback and disclosures.
They reflect higher self-esteem. The group members dance all together, and they trust Brian in
writing the essay for all of them through which he becomes the voice of the groups change
and development as he writes: we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday
in detention and they discover the self when he says: each one of us is a brain; an
athlete, and basket case, and a princess, and a criminal (Hughes, 1985).
This stage is an addition to Tuckman`s both models as in 1965 he proposed his four
staged model of forming, storming, norming, and performing and in 1977 he updated his four
staged model into a five-staged model by adding adjourning. Development models in group
counseling as well as in therapy of so far conducted in other studies followed the same pattern
in general. In The Breakfast Club the pattern is also followed and kept with a sixth stage as
an addition that can be named as Evaluation and Follow Up which is quite vital in keeping
the change in the behavior stabilized and strengthened by providing the group members the
opportunity of continuity and further progress. They have been through a tough journey and
reached the peak of the mountain, on the other hand, they need to make sure that they won`t
fall back and keep staying on the peak.
5.
Conclusion
The research conducted on group counseling and\or therapy has gone through two trends of
group development. One has been dealing with dynamics within the group and the other has
been focused on phases of the development and thus problem solving throughout stages
(Gersick, 1988). In this study the first stream is mostly emphasized as the development
occurred through stages in which members could face their hidden problems and reach
termination by gaining control over their fears and realized the desired changed in the behavior
with a difference of not having an assigned therapist or school counselor. On the other hand,
the members were successfully able to go through six developmental stages.
As seen throughout the film, each group member starts to become a propeller in
forcing each other for change and development. The way they come out of the school is also
quite significant as each of them reflect higher self-esteem even through their wearing styles.
The Breakfast Club in regard with above mentioned features conveys unique
elements for group counseling and its format. Thus, featuring movies are worth to further
studies in clearing the questions on the role of a therapist as well as his\her necessity.
Bibliography
Corey, G. (2011). Theory and practice of group counseling. Cengage Learning. Eight edition;
chapter one, page, 7.
Falco, L. D. (2011). Why groups? The importance of group counseling in schools. School
Counseling Research and Practice, A Journal of the Arizona School Counselors
Association, Inc, 3, 17-23.
Frances, M. (2008). Stages of group developmenta PCP approach. Personal Construct Theory
& Practice, 5, 10-18.
Gerrity, D. A., & DeLucia-Waack, J. L. (2006). Effectiveness of groups in the schools. The
journal for specialists in group work, 32(1), 97-106.
Gersick, C. J. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group
development. Academy of Management journal, 31(1), 9-41.
Gladding, S. T. (1994). Effective Group Counseling. ERIC/CASS, School of Education,
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 101 Park Bldg., Greensboro, NC 274125001.
Hughes, J. (Director). (1985). The Breakfast Club [Motion picture]. United States: MCA
Universal Home Video.
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McClure, B. A. (1990). The group mind: Generative and regressive groups. Journal for
Specialists in Group Work, 15(3), 159-170.
McGannon, W., Carey, J., & Dimmitt, C. (2005). The Current Status of School Counseling
Outcome Research. Research Monograph, Number 2.Center for School Counseling
Outcome Research (NJ1).
Overholser, J. C. (2005). Contemporary psychotherapy: Promoting personal responsibility for
therapeutic change. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 35(4), 369-376.
Paisley, P. O., & Milsom, A. (2006). Group work as an essential contribution to transforming
school counseling. The Journal for Specialists in Group Work, 32(1), 9-17.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2008). A self-determination theory approach to psychotherapy:
The motivational basis for effective change. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie
canadienne, 49(3), 186.
Tuckman, B. W. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological
bulletin, 63(6), 384.
Whiston, S. C., & Sexton, T. L. (1998). A review of school counseling outcome research:
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PhD. Hasmukhlal Bhailalbhai PATEL

Principal, Grow More College of Education, Himatnagar, Gujarat,
India
Tanja GRBESIC
English Teaching Assistant,
Mostar University Academy of Fine Arts, Siroki Brijeg,
Bosnia and Herzegovina
TEACHERS ATTITUDES TOWARD EFL IN GUJARAT, INDIA
Abstract
English as an International language (EIL) has captured attention of many linguistics research
topics and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) education for many
years. It is a fact that majority of the English language users in the world are non-native
speakers known as NNS. Many studies have been conducted on how to teach English as an
international or foreign language. EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers and learners
attitude towards EIL calls for prime focus in countries such as India, which is divided into rural
and urban areas. The English language education in India is dominated by male community. In
this developing country, women are acquiring good position in the language education field.
However, India has a strong social, caste and creed system; hence women from different strata
may not be gaining equal an opportunity at language teaching level. Women are having good
opportunity for teaching in metro cities; however, the picture in rural India is different although
the situation is gradually changing. The social, caste and creed system has a strong impact in
rural India. The society is divided into caste categories like SC, ST, SEBC and Open/General;
hence it is very interesting to study the English language education from both social and
geographical context. The researcher has endeavored to study the attitude of English language
teachers towards the English language education in India. Attempts have been made to focus
on the relative importance of attitude towards English language factors in Indian education. It
also investigates the impacts of gender, educational qualification, residential area, area of
institute and category on the attitude of English language teachers towards the English
language education in India. It has been attempted to study the attitude of English language
teachers towards the English language education in Gujarat, India from 8 different
components: Reading, Writing, Pronunciation, Speaking, Listening, Grammar, Error
Correction, and Text Book. The researcher has also tried to study the interactive effect of
gender, educational qualification, residential area, area of institute and category on the attitude
of English language teachers towards the English language education in Gujarat, India. A
questionnaire on attitude towards English language was developed for the study. The
questionnaire is based on a three-point scale. The impact of various variables like gender,
educational qualification, the residential area, area of institute and category on the attitude of
English language teachers towards the English language education in India has been studied
with the aid of ANOVA.
Keywords: EIL, attitude towards English language, NNS, EFL, Categories
1.
Introduction
In India, economic reforms have begun with GLP in 1992. India has experienced rapid
economic growth as well as social changes and development. The initiative by the government
for the adoption of a socialist-oriented market mechanism, globalization, developments in
information technology as well as the governments ambitious objective of achieving an
industrialized country status within a short span of time have made some reforms in the
education system essential. Many changes have been initiated in the last few years, including
the emergence of English as the main foreign language and the adoption of English as
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). The English language teaching in education in
India is influenced by males mainly in terms of quantity. Even in education, India is highly
affected and influenced by the caste system, gender differences, etc.; hence the role of gender
in language education catches our attention. Even the English language teaching in India is
influenced by the caste system; hence the attitude towards English language education requires
special attention. Geographically speaking, India is a large nation, in which area of residence
and area of institutes of language teachers matter a lot. An English language teacher status in
India can be obtained by obtaining certain professional qualifications, either by completing
graduation or post graduation studies; hence the impact of educational level tempted the
researcher to study this factor in the context of attitude towards language. Attitude towards
language is a much wider term, but it has been studied from eight various components:
Reading, Writing, Pronunciation, Speaking, Listening, Grammar, Error Correction, and Text
Book. The present study investigates attitudes towards various aspects of the English language
in Gujarat, India from teachers perspectives.
2. Statement Of The Problem
The statement of the present study is as follows: Teachers Attitudes toward EFL in
Gujarat, India
3. Objectives Of The Study
The following objectives were kept in mind in order to carry out the study.
To develop a questionnaire in order to study the attitude of English language teachers

towards EFL teaching in Gujarat, India.
To study the attitude of English language teachers towards EFL teaching in Gujarat,
India in the context of gender.
India in the context of educational qualification.
India in the context of residential area.
India in the context of institute area.
India in the context of category.
India in the context of different interactive variables.
4. Hypotheses
In the present study, the researcher tried to develop a questionnaire on the job satisfaction of
women leaders in the field of education and to study the job satisfaction of women leaders in
the field of education in the context of educational qualification, residential area, institute area
and category.
The first objective of this present study was to develop a questionnaire on the attitude
towards the English language by teachers, so formulation of Ho was not possible for this
objective.
Ho1 There would be no significant effect of the gender of the English language teachers on the
attitude towards the English language.
Ho2 There would be no significant effect of the educational qualification of the English
language teachers on the attitude towards the English language.
Ho3 There would be no significant effect of the residential areas of the English language
teachers on the attitude towards the English language.
Ho4 There would be no significant effect of the area of institute of the English language
teachers on the attitude towards the English language.
Ho5 There would be no significant effect of the category of the English language teachers on
the attitude towards the English language.
Ho6 There would be no significant effect of the various interactive variables of the English
language teachers on the attitude towards the English language.
5. Variables of the Study
In the present study the following mentioned was the dependent Variable:
(1) The attitude of English language teachers towards EFL teaching.
In the present study the following mentioned were the independent variables. The level of
the variables is presented in the following table.
Table-1 Variables with Level
Sr Variable
No of
Level
Name of Level
1.Male
1.Graduate 2.Post Graduate
1.Rural
2.Urban
1.Rural
2.Urban
1.SC
2.ST
3.SEBC
4.Open/General
2
3
Gender
Educational Qualification
Residential Area
Residential Area
Category
2.Female
In the present study the following mentioned were the controlled variables: (1) Medium of
instruction at Institute, (2) Age and (3) Type of Institute
6.
Limitations and Delimitations of the Study
The limitations and delimitations of the present study were following.
The study may be subjected to the bias and prejudices of the respondents. Hence it can
be said that the study can serve as a directional for further research.
The research was carried out in a short span of time, wherein the researcher could not
widen the study.
The study could not be generalized due to the fact that the researcher adapted a nonstandardized questionnaire.
The questionnaire was developed by the researcher in order to study the attitude of
teachers towards EFL in Gujarat, India, so the limitation of the mentioned questionnaire
would be the limitation of the present study.
The present study was delimited only to Gujarat, India.
The present study was delimited only to the teachers teaching English in Guajarati
medium classes.
7. Operational Definitions
7.1. Attitude Towards EFL
Attitude, which Brown (2001, p. 61) characterized by a large proportion of emotional
involvement such as feelings, self, relationship in a community of learners and emotional ties
between language and culture, is one of the affective factors. Attitude has been investigated as
an interdisciplinary subject in the field of language learning and psychology as of the
psychological importance of the theme. The role of the teacher is very important in changing a
negative attitude or in maintaining a positive attitude since positive or negative attitudes are the
result of interaction with others. It is the duty of teachers to try to find the ways to help
students to alter their negative attitudes towards language learning and language class. Brown
(2000, p. 181) believed that "the negative attitude can be changed, often by exposure to
reality". ...in a context in which there is not much daily contact with native speakers of
English, learners are not likely to have a clear affective reaction to the specific L2 language
group (Cited in Yashima, Zenuk-Nishide and Shimizu, 2004, p. 124). Attitude can be defined
as an evaluative reaction to some referent or attitude object, inferred on the basis of the
individuals beliefs or opinions about the referent. Attitude is associated with ones values,
opinion and beliefs and promotes or discourages the choices made in all realms of activity.
Recently, De Bot et al. (2005) asserted that language teachers, researchers and students should
acknowledge that high motivation and positive attitude of students facilitate second language
learning. For the present study, attitude towards EFL can be defined as teachers beliefs about
outcomes or attributes of EFL weighted by evaluations of those outcomes or attributes which
may be positive or negative. Teachers attitudes towards EFL then stand for teachers
evaluation and perceptions of self and how they feel about EFL in their own teaching practices.
7.2. EIL
EIL refers to the use of English by people of different nationalities for the purpose of
establishing communication with each other. EIL as a lingua franca of the past century and the
new millennium, English is one of the most important means for acquiring access to the
world's intellectual, technical, economical and geographical resources. English is the preeminent language of wider communication. It is used as a library language, as the main
medium of communication of science, technology and international trade, and as a contact
language between nations or parts of nations in countries such as India.
7.3. NNS
As Wikipedia says Non-native pronunciations of English result from the
common linguistic phenomenon in which non-native users of any language tend to carry
the intonation, phonological processes and pronunciation rules from their mother tongue into
their English speech. They may also create innovative pronunciations for English sounds not
found in the speaker's first language. 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 ("interference") 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. For instance, the English
language spoken by the Indians is considered as NNS.
7.4. EFL
EFL is defined as a traditional term for the use or study of the English language by nonnative speakers in the countries where English is generally not a local medium of
communication. EFL is usually learned in the environments where language of community and
school is not English. English for Indian people is termed as EFL in this study.
7.5. Category
Category in India is defined as the process of setting aside a certain percentage of seats
(vacancies) in government and some semi-government institutions for members of backward
and under-represented communities (defined primarily by caste and tribe). In India, category is
governed by constitutional laws, statutory laws, and local rules and regulations. Scheduled
Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBC)
are the primary beneficiaries of the reservation policies under the Indian Constitution. Those
who are not under the umbrella of SC, ST and SEBC are known as Open/General Category
people. In the present study, the category is defined as per the category mentioned by the
law/constitution/government of India.
8. Research Instrument
The three-point scale non-standardized Questionnaire on Attitude towards EFL (QAEFL)
was used to measure the job satisfaction of EFL teachers in Gujarat, India.
9. Construction Of The Non-Standardised Questionnaire
The process of standardization of the questionnaire has been divided into the following
stages:
9.1. Collection of Primary Information
The researcher has tried to study all the relevant information in the construction of the tool,
and he also attempted to conduct personal interviews with experts in order to develop the
insight for the construction of the tool.
9.2. Expert Opinion
The suggestions provided by the experts on the questionnaire were considered in the
construction of the questionnaire.
9.3. Structure of Questionnaire
After collecting the necessary primary information for the study, the researcher has decided
to develop the questionnaire. There are 8 components for attitudes towards EFL. Each
component has items to measure attitudes towards EFL. The details of components and items
are shown in the following table.
Table-2 Components of Attitudes towards EFL
Sr Component
Items fromto.. Total Items
01 Reading
01 to 05
05
02 Writing
06 to 10
05
03 Pronunciation
11 to 15
05
04 Speaking
16 to 20
05
05 Listening
21 to 25
05
06 Grammar
26 to 30
05
07 Error Correction 31 to 35
05
08 Text
05
Total
36 to 40
40
Each of the items had three-point scales: Totally Agree, Partially Agree and Totally Disagree.
These point scales were given digital value of 3, 2 and 1, respectively.
9.4. Administration of Questionnaire
The EFL teachers from the Gujarat state, India were randomly selected by the investigator.
The teachers were given the questionnaire via mail and Whats App. Hard copies were sent to
some EFL teachers since some of them couldnt fill in the questionnaire due to some technical
errors. The EFL teachers were given the option to give response either in an online mode or in
a word format.
10. Data Collection Procedure
The researcher has developed a non-standardized tool in order to collect the data. The tool was
sent to the EFL teachers. They were requested to fill in the questionnaire. They were also
requested to inspire other EFL teachers to give appropriate response to the questionnaire as
well. The researcher was in a position to receive the questionnaire both through an electronic
medium and in hard copy form.
11. Population And Sample
The EFL teachers in Gujarat, India were the population. The investigator of the present
study selected the samples from the EFL teachers in Gujarat, India. The EFL teachers in
Gujarat, India were the final samples of the present study. The final sample consisted of 116
EFL teachers from Gujarat, India.
Chart-1 N and % of Variable with Level
The chart above shows that 67 male and 49 female EFL teachers in Gujarat, India
were considered as the sample of the study.

The chart above shows that 44 graduate and 72 post graduate EFL teachers in Gujarat,
India were considered as the sample of the study.
The chart above shows that 61 rural resident and 55 urban resident EFL teachers in
Gujarat, India were considered as the sample of the study.
The chart above shows that 91 rural institute and 25 urban institute of EFL teachers in
Gujarat, India were considered as the sample of the study
The chart above shows that 20 SC, 16 ST, 25 SEBC and 55 open/general category
EFL teachers in Gujarat, India were considered as the sample of the study.
12.
Statistical Treatments
In the present study, the researcher tried to investigate the attitude of EFL teachers by
means of a descriptive and analytical methodology. Quantitative research design was applied.
The responses were generated in the MS Excel format. The value of each item was calculated
in MS Excel. The value of the items was clustered into the respective components. For
example, the calculation for the first component of job satisfaction would be = 116 samples *5
items *respective value. In the same way, all of the 8 components were calculated. The data
was calculated in ANOVA with the help of SPSS version 21. The effect of variables was
analyzed at 0.05 level and the HOs were tested. The data is presented in % calculation in a
tabular form wherever necessary.
13. Data Analyses
13.1. Data Analyses for Objective-2 (For Ho1)
In the following table, the sum of square, df, Mean square and F with sig. is shown.
Table- 3 ANOVA for Gender.
Source
Dependent Variable
Sum of Squares df
Mean Square F
Sig.
Reading
8.019
8.019
1.473 .23
Writing
5.793
5.793
1.127 .29
Pronunciation
.001
.001
.000
.99
Speaking
.057
.057
.008
.93
Listening
.644
.644
.125
.72
Grammar
1.631
1.631
.309
.58
Error Correction
.002
.002
.000
.99
Text
.936
.936
.123
.77
Gender
*Significant at 05 level
It is observed from the table above that all the calculated value of F of the male and female
gender of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language is greater
than the table value at 05 level for all of the components. It is concluded that there is no
significant effect of the male and female gender of English language teachers on the attitude
towards the English language for all of the components, so the gender of English language
teachers on the attitude towards the English language does not affect the attitude towards the
English language for any of the components.
Table- 4 ANOVA for Educational_Qualification
Source
Educational_
Qualification
Dependent
Variable
Sum of Squares
df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
2.870
2.870
.527
.47
Writing
.950
.950
.185
.67
Pronunciation
6.039
6.039
.743
.39
Speaking
3.894
3.894
.569
.45
Listening
6.259
6.259
1.219
.27
Grammar
.062
.062
.012
.91
Error Correction
.107
.107
.023
.88
Text
6.434
6.434
.848
.36
It is observed from the table above that all the calculated value of F of the graduate and post
graduate education level of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
language is greater than the table value at 05 level for all of the components. It is concluded
that there is no significant effect of the graduate and post graduate education level of English
language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for all of the components, so
the educational qualification of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
language does not affect the attitude towards the English language for any of the components.
13.3.
Data Analyses for Objective-4 (For Ho3)
Table-5 ANOVA for Residential Area
Source
Dependent Variable Sum of Squares df Mean Square F
Sig.
Reading
20.628
20.628
3.788 .06
Writing
9.685
9.685
1.884 .17
Pronunciation
19.160
19.160
2.358 .13
Residential _ Speaking
.091
.091
.013
Area
Listening
16.371
16.371
3.187 .08
Grammar
1.254
1.254
.238
Error Correction
18.132
18.132
3.992 .05*
Text
7.823
7.823
1.031 .31
.91
.63
It is observed from the table above that the calculated value of F of the residential area of
English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language is equal to 0.05 at 05
level for the component: Error Correction. It is concluded that there is a significant effect of the
rural and urban residential area of English language teachers on the attitude towards the
English language for the component: Error Correction.
Table- 6 ANOVA for Area of Institute
Source
Area of Institute
Dependent Variable Sum of Squares df Mean Square F
Sig.
Reading
9.735
9.735
1.788 .19
Writing
10.890
10.890
2.119 .15
Pronunciation
31.479
31.479
3.874 .05*
Speaking
.893
.893
.130
Listening
17.591
17.591
3.425 .07
Grammar
1.829
1.829
.347
.56
Error Correction
3.018
3.018
.665
.48
Text
51.523
51.523
6.787 .01*
.72
It is observed from the table above that the calculated value of F of the rural and urban institute
area of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language is .05 and .01
respectively at 05 level for the components: Pronunciation and Text. It is concluded that there
is a significant effect of the rural and urban institute area of English language teachers on the
attitude towards the English language for the components: Pronunciation and Text.
Table- 7 ANOVA for Category
Source
Dependent Variable Sum of
df
Mean Square
Sig.
Squares
Reading
26.902
8.967
1.647
.19
Writing
16.030
5.343
1.040
.38
Pronunciation
21.508
7.169
.882
.45
Speaking
6.884
2.295
.335
.80
Listening
3.398
1.133
.220
.88
Grammar
5.315
1.772
.336
.80
Error Correction
21.456
7.152
1.575
.20
Text
9.282
3.094
.408
.75
Category
It is observed from the table above that all the calculated values of F of the category of
English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language are greater than the
table value at 05 level for all of the components. It is concluded that there is no significant
effect of the category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
language for all of the components, so the category of English language teachers on the attitude
towards the English language does not affect the attitude towards the English language for any
of the components.
Ho6 There would be no significant effect of the various interactive variables:
13. 6.1. Gender* Educational Qualification

Table-8 ANOVA for Gender * Educational Qualification

Source
Gender
Educational
Qualifications
Dependent
Sum
of df
Variable
Squares
Reading
.991
Writing
5.340
Pronunciation
Mean
Sig.
.991
.182
.67
5.340
1.039
.31
5.632
5.632
.693
.41
Speaking
.437
.437
.064
.80
Listening
1.280
1.280
.249
.62
Grammar
.073
.073
.014
.91
Error Correction
.623
.623
.137
.71
Text
1.401
1.401
.185
.67
Square
It is observed from the table above that all the calculated values of F of the interaction of the
gender* educational qualifications of English language teachers on the attitude towards the
English language are greater than the table value at 05 level for all of the components. It is
concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the gender* educational
qualification of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for all
of the components, so the interaction of the gender* educational qualification of English
language teachers on the attitude towards the English language does not affect the attitude
towards the English language for any of the components.
13. 6. 2. Gender* Residential Area
Table-9 ANOVA for Gender * Residential Area
Source
df
Squares
Gender
Mean
Sig.
Square
Reading
16.375
16.375
3.007 .09
Writing
6.525
6.525
1.270 .26
Pronunciation
.108
.108
.013
.99
1.111
1.111
.162
.69
.056
.056
.011
.92
Grammar
1.730
1.730
.328
.57
Error Correction
.007
.007
.002
.97
Text
6.227
6.227
.820
.37
* Speaking
Residential Area Listening
It is observed from the table above that all the calculated values of F of the interaction of
gender* residential areas of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
language are greater than the table value at 05 level for all of the components. It is concluded
that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the gender* residential area of English
the interaction of the gender* residential area of English language teachers on the attitude
of the components.
13. 6. 3. Gender* Area of Institute
Table-10 ANOVA for Gender * Area of Institute
Source
Dependent
Variable
Sum of
Squares
df
Mean Square F
Sig.
Reading
4.936
4.936
.907
.34
Writing
.085
.085
.016
.90
Pronunciation
1.144
1.144
.141
.71
.393
.393
.057
.81
.014
.014
.003
.96
Grammar
5.544
5.544
1.051 .31
Error Correction
.503
.503
.111
Text
8.551
8.551
1.127 .30
Gender * Area of Speaking

Institute
Listening
.74
gender* institute area of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the gender* institute area of English
the interaction of the gender* institute area of English language teachers on the attitude
of the components.
13. 6. 4 Gender* Category

Table-11 ANOVA for Gender * Category
Source
Dependent
Variable
Sum of Squares df
Mean Square F
Reading
19.206
9.603
1.764 .18
Writing
9.780
4.890
.951 .39
Pronunciation
1.696
.848
.104 .90
Speaking
7.598
3.799
.555 .58
Listening
.256
.128
.025 .97
Grammar
1.388
.694
.132 .88
Error Correction
5.029
2.515
.554 .58
Text
6.060
3.030
.399 .67
Sig.
Gender * Category
gender* categories of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language
are greater than the table value at 05 level for all of the components. It is concluded that there
is no significant effect of the interaction of the gender* category of English language teachers
on the attitude towards the English language for all of the components, so the interaction of the
gender* category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language
does not affect the attitude towards the English language for any of the components.
13. 6. 5. Educational Qualifications * Residential Area
Table-12 ANOVA for Educational Qualifications * Residential Area
Source
Dependent
Variable
Sum of Squares df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
1.222
1.222
.224
.64
Writing
2.259
2.259
.440
.51
Pronunciation
10.067
10.067
1.239
.27
.123
.123
.018
.89
.163
.163
.032
.86
9.265
9.265
1.756
.190
Error Correction
3.361
3.361
.740
.39
Text
4.538
4.538
.598
.44
Educational
Qualifications * Speaking
Residential
Listening
Area
Grammar
educational qualification* residential areas of English language teachers on the attitude
towards the English language are greater than the table value at 05 level for all of the
components. It is concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the
educational qualification* residential area of English language teachers on the attitude towards
the English language for all of the components, so the interaction of the educational
qualification* residential areas of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
13. 6. 6. Educational Qualifications * Area of Institute
Table-13 ANOVA for Educational Qualifications * Area of Institute
Source
Dependent Variable Sum

Squares
of df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
4.671
4.671
.858
.36
Writing
5.681
5.681
1.105
.30
Pronunciation
2.282
2.282
.281
.60
Educational
Speaking
Qualifications *
Area of Institute Listening
.029
.029
.004
.95
2.027
2.027
.395
.53
Grammar
.449
.449
.085
.77
Error Correction
7.216
7.216
1.589
.21
Text
2.301
2.301
.303
.58
educational qualification* institute areas of English language teachers on the attitude towards
the English language are greater than the table value at 05 level for all of the components. It is
concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the educational qualification*
institute area of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for all
of the components, so the interaction of the educational qualification* institute area of English
13. 6. 7. Educational Qualifications * Category

Table-14 ANOVA for Educational Qualifications * Category

Mean
Square
Sig.
1.107
.203
.89
9.980
3.327
.647
.59
28.094
9.365
1.152
.33
Educational
Speaking
Qualifications *
Listening
Category
13.109
4.370
.638
.59
31.427
10.476
2.039
.12
Grammar
17.694
5.898
1.118
.35
Error Correction 14.748
4.916
1.082
.36
Text
27.537
3.627
.02*
Source
Dependent
Variable
Sum
Squares
Reading
3.321
Writing
Pronunciation
82.610
of df
It is observed from the table above that the calculated value of F of the interaction of
the educational qualification* category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the
English language is 0.02 at 05 level for the component: Text. It is concluded that there is a
significant effect of the interaction of the educational qualification* category of English
language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for the component: Text.
13. 6. 8. Residential Area * Area of Institute

Table-15 ANOVA for Residential Area * Area of Institute
Source
Residential Area
*
Area
Institute
of
Dependent
Sum
of df
Variable
Squares
Reading
8.944
Writing
1.099
Pronunciation
Mean
Sig.
8.944
1.643
.20
1.099
.214
.65
8.404
8.404
1.034
.31
Speaking
1.604
1.604
.234
.63
Listening
.220
.220
.043
.84
Grammar
6.085
6.085
1.153
.29
Error Correction
1.787
1.787
.394
.53
Text
8.921
8.921
1.175
.28
Square
residential area* institute areas of English language teachers on the attitude towards the
concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the residential area* institute
area of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for all of the
components, so the interaction of the residential area* institute area of English language
13. 6. 9. Area * Category

Table- 16 ANOVA for Residential Area * Category
Source

Squares
df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
10.846
3.615
.664
.58
Writing
5.273
1.758
.342
.80
Pronunciation
2.713
.904
.111
.95
Residential Area Speaking

* Category
Listening
22.562
7.521
1.098
.36
32.262
10.754
2.094
.11
Grammar
11.383
3.794
.719
.54
Error Correction
24.900
8.300
1.828
.15
Text
.259
.086
.011
.99
residential area* categories of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the residential area* category of English
the interaction of the residential area* category of English language teachers on the attitude
of the components.
13. 6. 10. Area of Institute * Category
Table-17 ANOVA for Area of Institute * Category
Source
Area of
Institute *
Category

Squares
df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
11.868
5.934
1.090
.34
Writing
12.403
6.202
1.207
.31
Pronunciation
4.324
2.162
.266
.77
Speaking
16.237
8.119
1.186
.31
Listening
13.197
6.599
1.285
.28
Grammar
17.922
8.961
1.699
.19
Error Correction
1.440
.720
.159
.85
Text
5.096
2.548
.336
.72
institute area* categories of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the institute area* category of English
the interaction of the institute area* category of English language teachers on the attitude
of the components.
13. 6. 11. Gender * Educational Qualifications * Residential Area
Table- 18 ANOVA for Gender * Educational Qualifications * Residential Area
Source
Sig.
10.576
1.942
.17
1.445
.281
.60
1.678
1.678
.207
.65
Speaking
.825
.825
.120
.73
Qualifications * Listening
.596
.596
.116
.73
Residential Area Grammar
2.352
2.352
.446
.51
Error Correction
.022
.022
.005
.94
Text
1.397
1.397
.184
.67
Gender
Educational
Dependent
Sum
Variable
Squares
Reading
10.576
Writing
1.445
* Pronunciation
of df
Mean
Square
gender* educational qualification* residential area of English language teachers on the attitude
components. It is concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the gender*
educational qualification* residential area of English language teachers on the attitude towards
the English language for all of the components, so the interaction of the gender* educational
qualification* residential area of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
13. 6. 12. Gender * Educational Qualifications * Area of Institute
Table-19 ANOVA for Gender * Educational Qualifications * Area of Institute
Source
Dependent Variable
Sum of df
Squares
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
.021
.021
.004
.95
Writing
.534
.534
.104
.75
Pronunciation
1.228
1.228
.151
.70
7.510
7.510
1.097 .30
.000
.000
.000
.99
Grammar
.457
.457
.087
.77
Error Correction
15.191
15.191
3.345 .07
Text
.152
.152
.020
Gender * Educational Speaking

Qualifications * Area
Listening
of Institute
.89
gender* educational qualification* institute area of English language teachers on the attitude
components. It is concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the gender*
educational qualification* institute area of English language teachers on the attitude towards
the English language for all of the components, so the interaction of the gender* educational
qualification* institute area of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
13. 6. 13 Gender * Residential Area * Area of Institute

Table-20 ANOVA for Gender * Residential Area * Area of Institute

Source
Dependent
Variable
Sum of
Squares
df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
22.898
22.898
4.205
.04*
Writing
15.657
15.657
3.046
.09
Pronunciation
16.453
16.453
2.025
.16
4.475
4.475
.654
.42
13.861
13.861
2.699
.10
Grammar
.350
.350
.066
.80
Error Correction
7.208
7.208
1.587
.21
Text
.300
.300
.040
.84
Gender *
Speaking
Residential Area *
Area of Institute Listening
It is observed from the table above that the calculated value of F of the interaction of the
gender* residential area* institute area of English language teachers on the attitude towards the
English language is 0.04 at 05 level for the component: Reading. It is concluded that there is a
significant effect of interaction of the gender* residential area* institute area of English
language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for the component: Reading.
13. 6. 14. Gender * Residential Area * Category
Table-21 ANOVA for Gender * Residential Area * Category
Dependent
Variable
Sum of
Squares
df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
17.082
17.082
3.137
.08
Writing
3.686
3.686
.717
.40
Pronunciation
1.719
1.719
.211
.65
Speaking
.565
.565
.082
.78
* Listening
.012
.012
.002
.96
Grammar
.001
.001
.000
.99
Error Correction
2.039
2.039
.449
.51
Text
1.017
1.017
.134
.72
Source
Gender
Residential
Area
Category
gender* residential area* category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the
concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the gender* residential area*
category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for all of
the components, so the interaction of the gender* residential area* category of English
13. 6. 15. Gender * Area of Institute * Category
Table-22 ANOVA for Gender * Area of Institute * Category
Source
Dependent
Variable
Sum of
Squares
df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
1.035
1.035
.190
.66
Writing
5.077
5.077
.988
.32
Pronunciation
.023
.023
.003
.96
2.801
2.801
.409
.52
1.960
1.960
.382
.54
Grammar
.182
.182
.034
.85
Error Correction
.349
.349
.077
.78
Text
11.130
11.130
1.466
.23
Gender * Area of Speaking

Institute *
Listening
Category
gender* institute area* category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the
concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the gender* institute area*
category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for all of
the components, so the interaction of the gender* institute area* category of English language
13. 6. 16 Educational Qualifications * Residential Area * Category

Table-23 ANOVA for Educational Qualifications * Residential Area * Category

Source
Educational
Qualifications
Residential Area
Category
Dependent
Variable
Sum
Squares
of df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
47.671
23.835
4.378
.02*
Writing
1.959
.979
.191
.83
Pronunciation
11.734
5.867
.722
.49
.169
.084
.012
.99
3.244
1.622
.316
.73
3.095
1.548
.293
.75
Error Correction 1.051
.525
.116
.89
Text
5.718
.753
.47
* Speaking
* Listening
Grammar
11.437
It is observed from the table above that the calculated value of F of the interaction of the
educational qualification* residential area* category of English language teachers on the
attitude towards the English language is / are 0.02 at 05 level for the component: Reading. It is
concluded that there is a significant effect of the interaction of the educational qualification*
residential area* category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English
language for the component: Reading.
13. 6. 17. Educational Qualifications * Area of Institute * Category
Table-24 ANOVA for Educational Qualifications * Area of Institute * Category
Source
Educational
Qualifications
Area of Institute
Category
Dependent
Variable
Sum
Squares
Reading
4.465
Writing
Pronunciation
of df
Mean
Square
Sig.
2.232
.410
.67
4.342
2.171
.422
.66
24.318
12.159
1.496
.23
* Speaking
*Listening
3.013
1.506
.220
.80
5.760
2.880
.561
.57
Grammar
.848
.424
.080
.92
Error Correction
4.174
2.087
.460
.63
Text
11.042
5.521
.727
.49
It is observed from the table above that all the calculated values of F of the interaction of
educational qualification*institute area* category of English language teachers on the attitude
components. It is concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the
educational qualification*institute area* category of English language teachers on the attitude
towards the English language for all of the components, so the interaction of the educational
qualification*institute area* category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the
English language does not affect the attitude towards the English language for any of the
components.
13. 6. 18. Residential Area * Area of Institute * Category
Table- 25 ANOVA for Residential Area * Area of Institute * Category
Source
Dependent
Variable
Sum
Squares
of df
Mean
Square
Sig.
Reading
29.207
14.603
2.682
.08
Writing
3.756
1.878
.365
.70
Pronunciation
12.904
6.452
.794
.46
18.929
9.465
1.382
.26
18.017
9.008
1.754
.18
4.773
2.386
.452
.64
Error Correction
11.569
5.785
1.274
.29
Text
.374
.187
.025
.98
Residential Area
Speaking
* Area of
Institute *
Listening
Category
Grammar
residential area* institute area* category of English language teachers on the attitude towards
the English language are greater than the table value at 05 level for all of the components. It is
concluded that there is no significant effect of the interaction of the residential area* institute
area* category of English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language for
all of the components, so the interaction of the residential area* institute area* category of
English language teachers on the attitude towards the English language does not affect the
attitude towards the English language for any of the components.
14. General Discussion of the Findings

After the intensive study on the attitude towards the English language by English language
teachers in the context of their gender, educational qualification, residential area, institute area
and category, the following conclusions have been drawn.
14. A Variable Wise
14. A.1Effect of Single Variable
The attitude towards the English language by English language teachers has been significantly
affected by the residential area for the component of Correction Work.
The attitude towards the English language by English language teachers has been
significantly affected by the area of institute for the component of Pronunciation.
14. A.2 Effect of Interaction of Two Variables
affected by the interactive variables of the educational qualification* category.
14. A.3 Effect of Interaction of Three Variables
affected by the interactive variables of the gender*residential area* institute area.
The attitude towards the English language by English language teachers has been
significantly affected by the interactive variables of the gender*residential area*category.
It is concluded that the variable of institute area has the highest effect on the attitude
towards the English language by English language teachers, whereas the gender and residential
area do not have any effect on attitude towards the English language.
14. B Component Wise
14. B.1 Reading
The component of Reading for the attitude towards the English language by English language
teachers has been significantly affected by the interactive variables of gender*residential area*
institute area and also by the interaction of the variables of educational
qualification*residential area*category.
14. B.2 Writing
The component of Writing for the attitude towards the English language by English language
teachers has not been affected by any of the variables.
14. B.3 Pronunciation
The component of Pronunciation for the attitude towards the English language by English
language teachers has been significantly affected by the variable of institute area.
14. B.4 Speaking

The component of Speaking for the attitude towards the English language by English language
14. B.5 Listening
The component of Listening for the attitude towards the English language by English language
14. B.6 Grammar
The component of Grammar for the attitude towards the English language by English language
14. B.7 Error Correction
The component of Error Correction for the attitude towards the English language by English
language teachers has been significantly affected by the variable of residential area.
14. B.8 Text
The component of Text for the attitude towards the English language by English language
teachers has been significantly affected by the variable of institute area and the interactive
variables of educational qualification*category.
If we arrange the components as per the effect of variables, the picture will be from the
highest to lowest as it is displayed below:
Twice affected components are: Reading and Text.

Once affected components are: Pronunciation and Error Correction.
15. Suggestions for Further Research

The researcher of the present study would like to suggest certain problems for further studies
that occurred in his mind during this study. Further studies can be carried out on the attitude of
EFL teachers towards EFL in the context of emotional development, SES, aptitude,
personality, religious belief, leadership, level of mental health, level of adjustment, the class,
caste and creed, types of organization, medium of the employees, achievement level of
employee, attitude, achievement motivation, self-concept, medium of schools, and types of
school, etc.
Bibliography
Baker, C. (1992). Attitudes and Language. Clevedon Hall, England: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Brown, H. D. (2000). Principles of language learning and teaching. White Plains, NY:
Pearson Education.
Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language principles.
White Plains. NY: Pearson Education.
De Bot, K., Lowie, W. & Verspoor, M. (2005). Second language acquisition: An advanced
resource book. London: Rutledge.
Dornyei, Z. (1990). Conceptualizing motivation in foreign language learning. Language
Learning. http://www.zoltandornyei.co.uk/
McGroarty, M. (1996). Language attitudes, motivation, and standards in S. L. McKay & N.
H. Hornberger (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language teaching, (pp. 3-46). The United States of
America: Cambridge University Press.
Yashima, T., Zenuk-Nishide, L. & Shimizu, K. (2004). The influence of attitudes and affect on
willingness to communicate and second language communication. Language
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http://www.jimelwood.net/students/adv_english/Yashima%20et%20al%20 (2004).pdf
Electronic References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_English
http://iteslj.org/Articles/Talebinezhad-EIL.html
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-native_pronunciations_of_English
http://www.zoltandornyei.co.uk/
http://www.jimelwood.net/students/adv_english/Yashima%20et%20al%20(2004).pdf
https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uC24FqNcfXYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=bak
er+c.+(1992).+attitudes+and+language.+clevedon+england+multilingual+matters&ot
s=J7ihzDWYZn&sig=lR99BTDpdg6x3jQVYUAUJDmaWro#v=onepage&q&f=false
M.A Mohammad Bagher SHABANPOUR

English Language and Literature,
University of Tehran Iran
GEOGRAPHY IN TRANSLATIONS; A FOUCAULDIAN READING
Abstract
In the last decades of the twentieth century, with Michelle Foucaults theories, the definition of
place changed drastically. Place had been regarded as a dead, fixed, and passive space
occupied by man, but Foucault argued that place was an alive, dynamic, and active space
which is produced by man and also produces man. Consequently, presently, scholars,
especially those of historiography, put a premium on the role of place in history. In addition,
Geography, which is officially the science of studying place, has received great attentions
partly due to Foucaults theory of power and knowledge along with his emphasis on the
manipulated distribution of spaces in social arena by dominant discourse. In this paper,
Foucault's theory of knowledge and power is applied to Brian Friels play Translations to show
that how the Irish culture, specifically the Gaelic language, became extinct by the Royal
Armys implementation of Ireland Ordnance Survey in 1830, in which (Irish) toponyms, which
provide a great volume of a peoples history of their land, were Anglicized. Immanuel Kants
establishment of geography as an independent university discipline, a science, and the
development of geographical and surveying equipment, especially the optimization of
Theodolite, paved the way for the colonizer to strengthen its domination over Ireland via
creating new maps of its Northern territories. Also the paper shows that geography was an
essential part of the contemporary knowledge which aided the reconstitution of the British
power, after the reverberations of the French Revolution as well as American Revolution, to
manage and hamper the potential revolution or invasion from the inside and the outside. The
study maintains that in Translations that is a historical play, the role of place outweighs that of
time, so does the erection of new historic places, like National schools, or the extinction of old
places, such as hedge schools.
Keywords: Foucault, Place, Geography, Ordnance Survey, Toponym
1.
Introduction
Brian Friel (1929) is an Irish dramatist and short story writer who is regarded as one of the
greatest living dramatists writing in English. Friel was born in Omagh, in County Tyrone, one
of the six counties of Northern Ireland. He was educated at St. Patricks College and St.
Josephs Training College, and then went to Londonderry/Derry to teach in schools. He taught
there for 10 years, before he began writing full time in late 1950s. His first success in drama
was Philadelphia, Here I Come! (1963), and later successes were The Freedom of the City
(1973), Making History (1988), Translations (1980), and Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). In his
plays he discusses Irish history, language, and land.
Translations deals with the problem of history and identity in Ireland. It also concern
different groups confrontation in Irelands exposition to modernity like the colonial projects of
Ordnance Survey and National School. This paper shows that All elements of the play is
deeply entangled with geographical concepts, making it kind of spatial narration-different from
the traditional, established historiography.
2.
The Notion of Place in History
Questions about place, whether physical or mental, have always occupied human mind. The
cosmology sketched by Ptolemy (127-151 A.D.) and the geometry made by Euclid (fl. 300
B.C.), hundreds years BC, show mans enquiries on the physical world. The best trace of the
long history exists in the epistemology of various eras. The term cosmos, as an example, in
cosmology refers to the Greek kosmos meaning order, harmony, and the world, and geo
in geometry refers to the Greek geo or ge meaning earth.
Interestingly, Platos allegory of cave classifies the universe into different places,
showing the states of some observers against the physical and metaphysical worlds just as, in
his Timaeus, he puts things into three categories; each has its specific spaces (Hugget 4). Later,
he delineates place as a container occupied by objects (Hugget 4). His disciple, Aristotle (384322 BC), also defined place as a container in where a body positions.
Long later in the Middle Ages, as Foucault explained in the order of things, objects are
categorized in a closed network of places in terms of hierarchy (61 Foucault 1980). The whole
world was regarded as a place in which objects are categorized based on their, whether obvious
or obscure, resemblance to each other. The nature of things, their coexistence, the way in
which they are linked together and communicate is nothing other than their resemblance (33
Foucault 1980).
At the outset of 17th century, the predominant system of thinking, ideas, and signs in
the previous century shattered. It was, in fact, the moment of a discontinuity. Right at the turn
of the century the right changed into wrong. The chimeras of similitude loom up on all sides,
but they are recognized as chimeras (Foucault 1980 57). Besides, Foucault maintained that
both Descartes and Bacon had showed the inability of the method of resemblance to build
knowledge anymore (Gutting 1989 146). Foucault called this a new era, labeled Classical Age,
as rationalism (Foucault 60 1980).
Foucault in an interview with the editor of the journal Herodote, titled Questions on
Geography, notified the devaluation of space prevailing for generation (Foucault, 1980 194).
It might be rooted in human language that is far better suited to the narration of events than to
the depiction of scenes (Tuan 391). The other speculation is that nature provided man with
tools to calculate time, e.g. sunrise, sunset, but did not give man any tools for measurement of
space (Tuan 391). In philosophy, the primacy of time is seen more than the primacy of space.
As Foucault said:
Space was treated as the dead, the fixed, the undialectical, and the immobile. Time, on
the contrary, was richness, fecundity, life, dialectic. For all those who confuse history
with old schemas of evolution the use of spatial terms seems to have the air of an
anti-history. If one started to talk in terms of space that meant one was hostile to time. It
meant that one denied history (Foucault, 1980 70).
3.
Place and Historiography
Obviously, the concept of being is strongly related to the notion of place since any object is
recognized as an entity only if it is in/out of a place. By the same token, vacuum is commonly
associated with the idea of nothing or nil. Most of a persons identity is part of the place he or
she living; name, nationality, blood, and language. However, man has always been more
conscious of time than place. The mysterious nature of time, throughout history, has distracted
historians to take enough consideration of place. Most history books, chronicles, annals, and
diaries were written in terms time rather than place. Similarly, the definition of history focuses
on two pivotal things: time and place, while place was always neglected as the second
influential element in historiography. Nevertheless, place, defined as a humanized form of
space, has been, more and less, the subject of discussions among some prominent modern
thinkers like Michel Foucault.
Many words are roughly spatial, of course with some nuances; for instance, space,
land, terrain, soil, location, position, area, region, etc. Despite the relative neglect of place as a
key factor in historiography, it is not much neglected in language. The reason is that place and
language are always interconnected. Their link is manifested in place-names, toponyms.
Moreover, many histories abound with the heroic or valorous life of warriors in their wars over
lands and boundaries. The importance of place in history becomes clear on occasions when
people introduce themselves; first names, then places of birth or residence.
Phil E. Wegner in his article spatial criticism: critical geography, space, place and
textuality presents the latest theories on space and its interrelations with language and culture.
He asserts that western modernity was both a historical and a graphical-spatial project. He
believes that space is both production and force; it is influenced and it influences. Therefore,
there is give-and-take between the subject and the object. The theory of the production of space
is notable since it brings into focus the effects of a countrys domination over space and the
interactions of different cultures and identities. Moreover, language itself is an actor in space.
Henri Lefebvre and Michael Foucault revived the interest in the role of space in western
modernity. Lefebvre in his The Production of Space rejected Cartesian definitions of place and
notified that place is not preexisting void being to be filled. He asserted that social place
subsumes thing produced.
Accordingly, Foucault devised a novel theory of historiography and refuted the
traditional style of writing history. His methodologies of writing history were archaeology and
genealogy in which he analyzed the shifts from one discourse to another and the consequential
change of social space.
4.
Geography Attracted Attentions
Geography studies place as its focal subject. Hence, the volume of consideration to the concept
of place or the emphasis on the primacy of place over time can be a yardstick for measuring the
value of geography as a science among academia.
Yi-Fu Tuan argues place defines the nature of geography (Tuan 387). Geographical
studies involve partly the spatial and temporal distribution of phenomena, physical features,
and the interaction of humans and their environment.
Immanuel Kant ventured to make geography a science, so the enterprise did not take
long to be successful. Alexander Von Humboldt (1768-1859), known as one of the fathers of
modern geography, kicked off the institutionalization of empiricism in geography. He was after
establishing scientific research as the basis of all geographical studies (Dikshit 42). His
geography was established upon three principles:
(1) That measurements are of paramount importance, and that measurements must be
made of many qualities of the environment as possible; but (2) that an holistic and
aesthetic sensibility must be present in ones summary appreciation of and report on
landscape; and (3) that geography is strictly about the compilation and synthesis of the
present facts of the landscape it is neither a historical nor causally interpretive science
(Elden and Mendieta 29).
According to the first principles, scientific measurement got the utmost importance in the 19th
century. Moreover, based on the third principle, space as the case study of geography was of
greater importance than time. The second principle is crucial in the history of systems of ideas
in geography. According to the Foucaults theory of power and knowledge, the goal of power
to explore more unknown lands and preserve the known lands as its territory has existed.
Before the establishment of geography as a science, most of the geographical surveys
in Europe were overloaded with religion and Eurocentric ideas although this excessive
overload existed in a subtle and covert way after the great shift of geographical perspectives.
Geographical descriptions of before 19th century were based not only on some calculated
mathematical principles but also on some economic and political systems of ideas so that the
dominance of Europe on other places in the world, say, discovered lands, would be preserved.
Studying the 19th century shift in geographical insights, it may be concluded that Kant regarded
geography as one of the main bases of his philosophical speculations (Dikshit 38). His
emphases on geography paved the way for geographers to lay the foundations of placing
geography in sciences; and consequently among other scientific fields of study in European
universities (Dikshit 38).
The significance of Kants positive impact on geography-regarded positive in the
context of Enlightenment-is recognized when the state of geography is compared with each
other before and after Kant lectures on geography from 1756 to 1796. Geography had been
mostly descriptive and more like travelogues. It was one of the old and main sources of
knowledge for human. Through history it has had different forms and absorbed different
volumes of attention from the ancient Greece which most of the European tradition of
geographical learning is traced (Dikshit ix) to the Arabs breakthroughs in geography during
the middle ages when geographical learning in Europe had suffered complete eclipse owing to
the stranglehold of theocracy (Dikshit ix) to the Renaissances great investment of knowledge
and money in exploration when the greatly expanded horizon of geographical knowledge
about lands and peoples across the globe stimulated a renewed spirit of inquiry about mans
relationship with nature (Dikshit ix).
5.
Friels Translations; a Spatial Narration
Translations is full of historical events in the 19th century Irish history, but the play is never
called a historical play. The whole play pivots on the events like Ordnance Survey, the
establishment of National School, and the incidents happened around. Choosing Ordnance
Survey and the establishment of National School as the main subjects is of great significance.
According to the Foucauldian approach of history, intellectual ventures to write the history or
even rewrite it, not just to read what others wrote. In his or her initiative to rewrite the history,
the intellectual emphasizes the threshold, the moment of disruptions, in history. Ordnance
Survey was the military manifestation of the Enlightenment. In North Ireland, the British
Empires enterprise to do survey the Isles was one of the phases of its reconstitution of power.
A new discourse emerged in 19th century. It was the time of waning and waxing of discourses.
In his new approach toward history, Friel utilized a historical event which showed the best way
the emergence of a rejuvenated discourse.
Under the Penal Laws in the 18th century, Catholic schools were forbidden; therefore,
classes were held secretly, especially in rural areas, in barns. The practice was continued in 19th
century, known as hedge schools. After burgeoned Mercantilism in 17th century, Irish peasants
felt the need to educate. They attended such classes to learn Latin, English, and Math, being
taught by local educated people. After the foundation of National Schools in 1830s, hedgeschools declined but remained off the beaten track for the catholic underprivileged.
Translations starts in a hedge school in the town land of Baile Beag or Ballybeg, an
Irish-speaking community in County Donegal (Friel 10). County Donegal is on the Border
Region located in the Province of Ulster. Act one takes place in late August 1833. The two
other acts happen in the following days. Most of the events, in fact, happen in a hedge-school
held in a barn.
Anglicization of the local toponyms, in the play, is great part of Ireland Ordnance
Survey. The consequences of changing place-names and the impact of it on a nation, language,
or culture are of the concerns of the play although the play attempts to depict the impetus of
this change. Yolland, in love with the Irish girl and landscape, says something is being
eroded (Friel 43). According to the play, changing toponyms brings about a cut, that is, the
old generation is not able any more to pass its heritage to the young. Owen, talking to Yolland,
tells the story behind the name of a crossroad. He continues that I know the story because my
grandfather told it to me (Friel 44). Consequently, when place-names are changed, there will
be no story to be (re)told, especially when a national school is to be established where lessons
are going to be in English and the curriculum will be set by the British Empire.
Captain Lancy of the play is there to talk with the people there, especially Hugh who
is known in the region, and warn them of the consequences of trouble-making. During the
surveying, Owen and Yolland do their duty to anglicize all the Gaelic place-names to be
scribed in the maps.
Foucault asserted intellectuals standing beyond the discipline in order to study it; Friel did the
same thing in Translations. He stood aside so as to offer his own analyses of some specific
historical events, not in a manner to commemorate. One of Foucaults main methodologies to
study the histories of ideas was archaeology or archaeological analysis. In the archaeological
analysis, according to Foucault, a group of elements are packed to make a totality. In

Translations, Ordnance survey, the establishment of National School, and changing placenames are deployed to form a totality in specific period of history in spite of the fact that these
historical events might not take place at the same exact time. The Irish Potato Famine occurred
between 1840s and it is estimated that over a million people died and more than 1.5 million
emigrated from Ireland to North America. However, the Famine is referred in the play.
MAIRE: Sweet God, did the potatoes ever fail in Baile Beag? Well, did they everever? Never! There was never blight here. But we are always sniffing about for it,
arent we?-looking for disaster (Friel 21).
This Anachronism is not of significance in archaeology. Friel did not intend to record some
historical event but to mass some event and make a totality in order to show a new phase in
history of Britain and Ireland. All these events show the emergence, as said before, a new
dominant discourse, a new episteme, the advent of Modern Age in the history of Ireland. One
of the most principal objectives of an archaeological analysis is to ignore the temporal relations
of events in history and to describe the role of science in incorporation of a dominant
discourse. Science was part of the knowledge which helps the power to constitute and
reconstitute itself. Friel does the same in his play, the geographical breakthroughs of the time,
Theodolite, was taken advantage to strengthen the pillars of Royal power in the Ireland.
6.
Friels Translations; Geographical Breakthroughs (A New Version of Theodolite)
The arrival of Royal military engineers in the region is the seminal concept which causes other
actions and changes in the play. Right at the beginning of the play, in the Act I, we see
characters have been alrealy involved in the Royal military measures, when Maire comes in the
barn, the hedge school, she talks about the presence of Royal soldiers in the regional plains.
After Maire, Doalty comes in, brandishing a surveyors pole (Friel 17). These poles were
used to mark a point in land for the purpose of measurement. So pulling out these poles or
replacing them will definitely make problems for the surveyors as Doalty points out:
every time theyd stick one of these poles into the ground and move across the bog,
Id creep up and shift it twenty or thirty paces to the side then theyd come back and
stare at it again and scratch their heads. And Cripes, dyou know what they ended up
doing? They took the bloody machine apart! (Friel 17-8)
Doalty also talks about the presence of the Red Coats (Friel 17) who were working with
chains and peeping through that big machine they lug about everywhere with them (Friel
17). This big machine is a Theodolite, Ramsden Theodolite, which was constructed to be used
for Ordnance Survey costing the state 373 pounds (Owen and Pilbeam 3). The 'great
Theodolite' which was to observe the angles of the triangulation was ordered in 1784 from
Jesse Ramsden, the foremost instrument maker of the day (Owen and Pilbeam 7). Jesse
Ramsdens Theodolite was the most precise generation of Theodolites in the Isles because it
was capable of observing more than 70 miles with no more than 2 seconds of arc error
(Owen and Pilbeam 7). Using Ramsden Theodolite shows that the English government used
the state-of-the-art tools of the time to survey the land. Governments utilizing the most
modern equipment indicates exactly Foucaults theory of knowledge and power.
7.
Translations; Ordnance Survey
Along with the shift in nature of approaches to geography and its becoming a field of study in
European universities, European government started to undertake the changes. Consequently,
new attempts commenced to make new maps of territories; British Empire was not an
exception. Seymour in his book A History of the Ordnance Survey quoted from Thomas
Burnets The Theory of the Earth:
every prince should havea draught of his country of dominions, to see how the
ground lies in the several parts of them, which highest, which lowest. What respect they
have to one another, and to the sea; how the rivers flow, and why; how the mountains
lie, how heaths, and how the marches. Such a map or survey would be useful both in
time of war and peace, and many good observations might be made by it, not only as to
natural history and philosophy, but also in order to the perfect improvement of a
country (Seymour 1).
Burnt wrote the book in 1684. The quotation is mentioned here just to indicate that mapmaking
was one of the priorities of British Empire to utilize his dominions at most. It was, in reality, a
must for the British Empire to reconstitute its measurements of colonies in the closing years of
18th Century (Seymour 1). Captain Lancy of the Royal engineers (Friel 24) is introduced as
the person who is engaged in the Ordnance Survey of the area (Friel 24).
Nearly the all regions and counties in Britain had been surveyed but they were not
accurate enough to be used for military purposes. Thus, Ordnance Survey was going to make
maps suiting military purposes (Owen and Pilbeam 3).
Surveying Northern Ireland started after the establishment of Ordnance Survey, and
become fully fledged in early 1830s (Seymour 87). The Ordnance Survey was established in
1824 which was part of British Empires increase of control over its colonies (Jackson 126).
Thus, Ordnance survey was implemented in other colonies, e.g., the Great Trigonometrical
Survey in India (1818) and the Geological Survey of India (1851) (Jackson 126).
8.
Objectives of Ordnance Survey
The Royal ascendancy over the Isles was jeopardized by some influential and consequential
events at the time. These critical events are indicated directly or implicitly in the play; the
American Revolution in 1775-1783, French Revolution in 1789-1799, the threat of Irish
dissidents, and land reevaluation for levying more tax. A direct reference to the nature and
objectives of the project says:
Lancy: His Majestys government has ordered the first ever comprehensive survey of
this entire country a general triangulation which will embrace detailed hydrographic
and topographic information and which will be executed to a scale of six inches to the
English mileso that the military authorities will be equipped with up-to-date and
accurate information on every corner of this part of the Empirethe entire basis of land
evaluation can be reassessed for purposes of more equitable taxation I wish to quote
two brief extracts from the white paper which is our governing charter: the present
survey has for its objects the relief which can be afforded to the proprietors and
occupiers of land from unequal taxation. So this survey cannot but be received as
proof of the disposition of this government to advance the interests of Ireland. My

sentiments, too (Friel 31).
Accordingly, the British government used the trailblazing innovations and sophisticated
equipment of the time for several intentions exactly as quoted by Seymour from Thomas
Burnets The theory of the Earth. The main purpose was to make the government immune of
potential uprisings in the Northern region regarding the experience of American revolution in
1770s and the 1798 rebellion inspired by the American revolution (Bartlett 81), it aimed to
provide the army with more accurate maps in case of Frances invasion, re-evaluate the land
for more taxation, and less conflicts between owners and the government, and the as
Seymours quotation from Burnet indicates, provide considerable and precious information
about natural history and philosophy. The last intention of the English government is the most
important one regarding Foucaults notion of power and knowledge, the theory states that
power is succored by knowledge to reconstitute itself and that powers reconstitution of itself
brings about more knowledge. So here the latest technology of the time helped the power
strengthen itself against the potential invasions, and on the other hand, the dominant power
through the implementation of the Ordnance Survey added to the volume of natural and
geographical knowledge about Ireland.
According to the official website of Ordnance Survey, after the French revolution
shook France in 1987, the British Empire, in fear of an invasion, founded Ordnance Survey in
1791. It felt the need to make a comprehensive and accurate map of the South Coast England.
It authorized the defense ministry of the day, Board of Ordnance, to shoulder the survey task.
Later, the need to survey the whole Isles arose.
9.
Anglicizing Toponyms
One major part of the Ordnance Survey in Ireland was to anglicize the place-names. The
process of Anglicization of place-names, seemingly a complicated phenomenon of
etymological analysis and word-creating, was done in an absurd manner.
Principally, place-names signify topographical features of places. Individuals
perceive spatial and mental places described by toponyms differently (Guyot and Seethal 2).
Names of flats, plains, fields, mountain, rivers, streets, villages, cities, and neighborhoods
denote or used to denote the geographical or demographical features of the location. Besides,
place-names, whether made arbitrarily or by reason, are regarded as cultural repositories of a
nation. Each place-name provides a great volume of information on the oral, unofficial, or
peoples history of a land. Place names inform on cultural history and language of a place
(Jordan 2).They make an environment, a land, or a soil part of the identity of the people who
reside in that land. They pass the feeling of nationhood to generation after generation. When
people encountering place-names, not only recalling their factual concept of the place their
memories of the place but also memories of persons and events they are associating with
it activates their emotional ties, their feel of a place (Jordan 6).
In addition, place-names are part of a geographical education. Maps without any
names cease to function efficiently; even any geographical education, without gaining dexterity
in toponyms, is futile. Place-names are basically used to make distinctions among places, i.e. to
give particular significations to places. They set the boundaries between two places, both on
maps and minds; Place naming is, from a geographic point of view, a territorialization process
that contributes to the identity of particular places, at different scales (Guyot and Seethal 2).
In large scale, in pre-modern eras, countries used to be separated not by very exact borderlines,
but by their names and especially names of frontiers.
All together, they elucidate many branches of scientific, historical, and archaeological
research (Taylor 6), interconnected to different fields of studies, including geography,
etymology, history, politics, and cultural studies. Owing to their importance, changing them
would be consequential. Any change in place-names is as a change in a peoples history, its
feeling of territory, and its nationhood.
In Translations, Anglicization of the local toponyms is truly illustrated as a great part
of Ireland Ordnance Survey; the same has been accounted in the history of 19th century Ireland.
Yolland says something is being eroded (Friel 43). It brings about a cut, the old generation is
not able any more to pass its heritage to the young. Owen, talking to Yolland, tells the story
behind the name of a crossroad: I know the story because my grandfather told it to me (Friel
44).
The play narrates that the team of translation in Ireland Ordnance Survey was
composed of two translators, a national, Yolland, an orthographer, and an expatriate, Owen, an
interpreter, well-informed of the regional place-names and the stories behind them. They used
the etymological information of the toponyms and then get what they needed to find or coin an
English equivalent, for instance, for Bun na hAbhann (Friel 35).
OWEN: Bun is the Irish word for bottom. And Abha means river. So its literally the
mouth of the river (Friel 35).
OWEN: I suppose we could Anglicize it to Bunowen; but somehow thats neither
fish nor flesh.
YOLLAND: We are trying to denominate and at the same time describe that tiny area
of soggy, rocky, sandy ground where that little stream enters the sea! An area known
locally as Bun na hAbhann. Burnfoot! What about Burnfoot?
YOLLAND: (Indifferently) Good, Roland. Burnfoots good (Friel 35).
By means of etymological information Bun na hAbhann and its pronunciation, changes into
Burnfoot in English. The English equivalent is not any identical to the original version. Friels
concern in Translations is not only place-names. The notion of name, name-changing has been
repeated in the play several times. Owen is called Roland by the Royal soldiers.
MANUS: And they call you Roland! They both call You Rolland!
OWEN: Shhhhhh. Isnt it ridiculous? They seemed to get it wrong from the beginningor else they cant pronounce Owen (Friel 33).
And Owen believes it is not much important what to be called. Changing names makes nothing
change.
OWEN: Easy, man, easy. Owen-Roland-what the hell. Its only a name. Its the same
me, isnt it? Well, isnt it? (Friel 33)
Its OK for the British soldiers to change peoples name, and coin a new one.
OWEN: George! For God sake! My name is not Roland!
YOLLAND: What?
OWEN: My name is Owen.
YOLLAND: Not Rolland?
OWEN: Owen (Friel 44).
.
OWEN: O-w-e-n.
YOLLAND: Whatll we writeOWEN: -in the Name-Book?!
YOLLAND: R-o-w-e-n!
OWEN: Or what about OlYOLLAND: Ol- what?
OWEN: Oland! (Friel 45)
The way they change Owen to Oland is identical to the way Owen and Yolland anglicize the
place-names; the outcome is an absurd name. Historically, by the late 19th century, Gaelic
language had been become nearly extinct. The play shows that Gaelic extinction began after
the project of Anglicizing place-names and establishing national schools in Ireland.
10. Conclusion
Geography was always used by the dominant power to enlarge its dominances. European
colonizers have utilized geographical and cartographical advances to explore new lands and
sources of wealth. Immanuel Kants contribution in last years of 18th century made geography
to be established as a discipline in European universities. It was also received great attentions
by colonial power at the outset of 19th century. Likewise, the British Empire utilized great
advance in cartographical technologies. Optimization of Theodolite in 19th century helped the
Royal army to launch very accurate survey of the Isles, especially in Ireland. The Surveying
project in Ireland, Ireland Ordnance Survey, is the pivot of actions in Translations. This paper
maintained that, according to the play, the British Empire conducted Ireland Ordnance Survey
to prevent any invasion from France and revolutionary measures by the Irish dissidents. The
contributions that power and knowledge made to each other are hugely manifested in the play.
It analyzed the indication of surveying machine and technology in Ordnance Survey via
Foucaults theory power and knowledge. In general, in Translations, geography as a science is
introduced as an area of knowledge which helped the British government to augment its
dominance in Ireland and wipe out the Irish Culture to consolidate the position of English
power in the Isles.
Bibliography
Bartlett, Thomas. Ireland, Empire, and Union, 1690-1801. Kenny, K. (2004). Ireland and the
British Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dikshit, R. (1997). Geographical Thought: A Contextual History of Ideas. New Delhi:
Prentice-Hall of India.
Elden, S. (2011). Reading Kant's Geography. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Friel, B. (1981). Translations. London: Faber & Faber.
Foucault, M., & Gordon, C. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings,
1972-1977. New York: Pantheon Books.
Guyot, S., & Seethal, C. (n.d.). Identity Of Place, Places Of Identities: Change Of Place
Names In Post-Apartheid South Africa. South African Geographical Journal, 55-63.
Huggett, N. (1999). Space from Zeno to Einstein classic readings with a contemporary
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PhD. Marsela TURKU

Aleksandr Moisiu University
Durrs, Albania
REALITY VERSUS FICTION:

THE TRUTH BEHIND A UTOPIAN/DYSTOPIAN NOVEL
Abstract
Utopian and dystopian fictions occupy an important part in English literature. As a literary
device they both incorporate different techniques and genres which are intermingled with the
authors vision of the society and his prediction about the future. The vision and this future
pretended society are inspired from his personal experiences and his interpretation of the
present reality. This paper focus on the main features present into a utopian or dystopian novel.
The paper briefly revises the concept and the main contributors of the genre, its main features
and the fictitious reality being created in these novels. Furthermore the paper focuses on
George Orwells novel 1984 analyzing and pointing out its typical utopian/dystopian feature.
Keywords: utopia, dystopia, 1984, totalitarian world, humanity.
1.
Introduction
As a literary device and as a literary genre, utopian fiction occupies a strange yet undeniably
important position in English literature. The utopia in itself is a product of different genres and
techniques mixed together such as: fact, fiction, fantasy and science fiction. The author
presents a clear vision of what sort of society he wishes to have in the future. His desires and
their production in this future pretended world are derived from his personal experience and his
understanding of the present reality. In 1979, Frank and Fritzie Manuel published Utopian
Thought in the Western World, in the Preface they define utopia as:
Every utopia, rooted as it is in time and place, is bound to reproduce the stage
scenery of its particular world as well as its preoccupations with contemporary social
problems. Here analogies to the dream and the psychotic fantasy may be telling.
Observers of paranoid behavior report that though the disease remains relatively
constant, the mysterious, all-seeing forces that watch and persecute their patients
change with time and technology. [] Often a utopian foresees the later evolution
and consequences of technological development already present in an embryonic
state; he may have antenna sensitive to the future i
Utopian novels or utopian elements in a novel are caused by the problematic present state
where the authors live in. It was Sir Thomas More who thrust the
words utopia and utopian into the canon of modern language. The word utopia, in More's
hands, is actually a play on words. In Greek, the word topos means "place." But the
prefix ou or eu, rendered in modern English as "u" has a double meaning: ou means "no"
while eu means "good." In other words, utopia meant a "good place": it embodied a vision of
the world with all its social evils removed. But as fiction [] -- utopia has also come to
mean "no place" or simply "nowhere."ii
A considerable number of authers have tried to give their vision of the future and of
the perfect place to live in. In 1891, William Morris (1834-1896), produced his best known
work of fiction, titled, News From Nowhere. Almost twenty years earlier Samuel Butler (18351902), wrote Erewhon, a satire in which conventional practices and customs are all reversed.
Edward Bellamy (1850-1898), whose novel Looking Backward of 1888, took the now classic
utopian format of a man who goes to sleep and wakes up 100 years in the future. H. G.
Well's (1866-1946) classic, The Time Machine? In 1623, an Italian philosopher by the name
of Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639), a heretic who was confined for 27 years in Naples,
published his utopian fantasy Civitas Solis (The City of the Sun). Moreover, elements of the
utopian world are present in the Albanian writer Kasem Trebeshina and his book Odin
Mondvalsen, written in 1955-1956.
In the nineteenth century, a new literary technique was developed, a device born not
only of apparent advancement, but also the clear experience of disillusionment, resentment,
terror, depression and misery. The dystopian genre emerged and developed mainly as a critical
response and an antithesis to utopian fiction. The word may have derived from Greek and can
be translated as bad place. The entire tradition of the dystopia, might have started around the
1920s and 30s. One of the earliest dystopias of the twentieth century was written in 1921 by
Yevgeny Zamyatin. His novel We became the first genuine dystopian novels that gave
argument and insight for the novels to come. This genre found its most persuasive example in
the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1903-1950).
Orwell wrote the novel after observing the atrocities and violence by Stalin towards
Russian citizens, the influence of Hitler in Germany and communist propaganda in the
intellectual circles round Europe. Thus Orwell was afraid that a communist or fascist virus
might spread through Europe during the World War II. In his anti-utopian world Orwell
describes a never-ending war, surveillance, dictatorship and horrible condition. The ideology
and propaganda manipulated not only people attitude, thought and behavior, but also historical
events. As a dystopia, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four contains both mythic and real elements.
One of the main problems which is part of the anti-utopian/dystopian fiction is to learn to read
it according to its own premises and limits,iii
2.
The Main Features of Dystopian Novel
Mainly on the bases of the dystopian novels is the government as an absolute and corrupting
power. To maintain and to remain omnipresent the state must have complete control of the
society. Thus, the manipulation of human bodies and minds, language control, thought control
and the transformation of history occurs. By considering the people as subjects the state
discovers a way to use the human body to its full potential to achieve maximum productivity
and perform their tasks conscientiously (Althusser 128). Tearing apart their humanity,
repression of human mind, affections, creativity and invention keeps a person focused only on
their tasks.
Another element that we find in a dystopian novel is paralyzes or the weakness of the
individual. Constantly oppressed by disciplines or activities that people are purposefully
engaged in, they do not have time to think about their situation, about their present state.
Through a planned routine the state has a perfect opportunity to subdue people, by turning
them into unthinking robots. The characters are convinced that it is their duty to serve and
sacrifice themselves for the state and embrace their social responsibilities. Smith the main
protagonist of the novel 1984, is the editor of the newspaper Times, whose job is to forge
information presented in the media to ensure that every prediction made by the Party could be
shown by documentary evidence to have been correct (Orwell 36).
An important and vital element in dystopian novels is the use of language. From the
linguistic stand the analysis of language can provide an additional lens to understand and
penetrate into the society. The author tries to set up a new code of speech, a new way of
speaking. George Orwell names this new code as Newspeak in his novel 1984. A specific
section of the Party revises the language in the name of efficiency, but the purpose is to remove
specific words form the vocabulary. Orwell shows how language can be used politically to
deceive and manipulate people, how it becomes a mind-control tool, with the ultimate goal
being the destruction of will and imagination. So by designing Newspeak, a totalitarian system
narrows the range of thought and shortens peoples memories. Anthony Burgess sets up a new
way of speaking in A clockwork Orange, with the language spoken by the youth is he
created Nadsat.
The frustration and lack of free communication is present in many dystopain novels.
Communication is vital to the human being, and the more restricted the language becomes, the
more limited the human relationships become. Making the Paty/State as the only object to be
admired and to be loved.
A typical feature that all anti-utopians share is a profound belief in equality, science and
reason. They do not attack progress; neither do they reject modernism, but the way people use
and abuse with them. In their view every attempt ended in the grotesque inversion of its
promise- democracy produced despotism, science barbarism, and reason unreason. iv Jessica
Langer in her work The shapes of Dystopia: Boundaries, Hybridity and the Politics of Power
says that rather than imagining a world in which the criticized aspects of the authors society
have disappeared, dystopia instead imagines a world in which those same aspects are
overgrown and run amok, displacing them into an alternative universe where life is defined by
them (Langer; 171)
Thus it seems evident that this genre mainly depicts the discrepancy between individual
identity and collective identity imposed by the state. As Walsh asserts by weakening the sense
of individual identity, they make it more likely that the average man will merge his own frail
identity with the social whole and cease to demand that he be called by a name instead of a
number (143)
3.
Orwells 1984
Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written directly or
indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.
(George Orwell Why I Write)
Orwell explains in a 1946 essay that a writers subject matter will be determined by the age he
lives in . . . but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from
which he will never completely escape (1981: 311). As such, the materials for this novel are
drawn from the Spanish Civil War, Second World War, and the early years of the Cold War.
He tried to incorporate all these elements to provide a realistic atmosphere rather than
imaginary speculation about the future (Meyers 2000; 281).
By setting his novel in England, a country proud of its tradition of democracy, Orwell
was clearly offering the message that if totalitarianism could triumph here it could
happen any and everywhere. By the same token, since he felt that the totalitarianism is
not either to the right or to the left, we must be aware of the danger that lurks within our
very selves of ceding to the totalitarian lure. v (Gomez; Martinez; 1997)
Howe (1971: 44) contends that 1984 is at once a model and a vision- a model of the
totalitarian state in its pure or essential form and a vision of what this state can do to
human life. The sense of the uneasy is established immediately in the first sentence by the
clock striking thirteen which is a sinister sign but at the same time it sets a negative atmosphere
from the beginning. Even the following paragraphs display a harsh, uncomfortable and anxious
atmosphere which is reinforced by the fact that they are constantly being watched via the
telescreen and have the appearance of the overriding force of Big Brothers image. The novel
is based on the presentation of a dystopian world, where the citizens live in an atmosphere of
mistrust and extreme surveillance, where the state is the only dominant power and individuality
and personality have become criminalized.
The main protagonist, Winston Smith, is established from the very beginning as an unheroic figure. Winston is read as an idealistic and is obsessed in the typical humanist way,
with unanswerable questions, and particularly the question of Why (Orwell 1983: 113). It
seems that its main aim throughout the novel is to remain human, not to be de-humanized
under the tyranny of the state. This mission somehow fails when he betrays his belief.
Abrahams (1983: 5) suggests that Winston is a type of colorless, minor civil servant who does
what he is told to do- always. Whereas Watt (1983:112) contends that he is neither a
conscious nor a heroic protagonist of moral and intellectual convictions and according to them
he is presented as a failed hero and coward (Meyers 2000: 287). I believe that these
descriptions are superficial and simplistic and they miss an important element Winstons
resistance and they overlook the broader message of Orwell.
The imaginary world of 1984 of a totalitarian society is modeled after the (real) fascist
state of Mussolinis Italy, the nationalist-socialist state of Hitlers Germany and the
communist sate of Stalins Soviet Union. The form of social control, accordingly is
manifested more broadly in the control of thought and the discretion of memory, history
and the debasement of language, and thus speaks to totalitarian systems in general.
(Tyner 2004: 135)
The novel is divided into three giant countries Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Three countries
embrace totalitarian systems. They govern through ideology, propaganda, absolute control of
peoples lives, spies and secret police. Every movement or facial expression of the people is
monitored by telescreen, posters of Big Brother are displayed throughout the city with the
sentence Big brother is watching you. OBrein an important exponent in the Inner party says:
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a
revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish dictatorship. The object of
persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of
your own choosing. (Orwell, 1949:332) This is one of the main philosophies that they run the
country. Orwell tries to incorporate the utopian and dystopian elements in a historical
perspective. Oceania combines two political and historical structures, the capitalist England of
1948 and the post capitalist-totalitarian of 1984.
Another important element present in a dystopian novel is the control of the present
history. In 1984 this time control is achieved through the control of the past: Who controls
the past, controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. (Orwell, 1949, 44).
Only through changing history and event they can subdue people but also hide their collective
memory of the past, thus the people can compare and understand what they have lost form this
totalitarian system.
In a society where power is ultimately possessed by the state, like that presented by
Orwell, is resistance possible? During the novel, we understand that resistance, for Winston,
means to retain a semblance of humanity, of individuality and not to acquire power.
Consequently, the actions of Winston are directed toward a personal liberation rather then a
complete revolution. Winston recognizes that overt resistance is neither practical nor desirable
because the disciplinary control of the party was near complete. And yet, there are several
fleeting instances of resistance in the novel, just to mention the diary, the avoidance of the
telescreen; (Winston) kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though as he well
knew, even a back can be revealing (Orwell 1983: 3); even the sexual relationship with Julia is
read as a form of resistance; Winston reflects Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a
victory. It was a blow struck against the party. It was a political act. (Orwell 1983: 112)
After the arrest OBrien interviews and tortures Winston in the Minilove and asks
Winston if he remembers writing the question (Orwell 1983: 70) Why the huge posture was
undertaken? and asked him to explain (Orwell 1983: 233): Now tell me why we cling to
power. What is our motive? Why we should want power? Winston replied that the Party
believes that human beings are not able to rule themselves and they act to protect the majority.
But for OBrien the reason is another (Orwell 1983: 234-235) The Party seeks power entirely
for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.
Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure powerPower is not a means;
it is an end.
OBriens purpose in his interviews in Miniluv is to turn Winstons love for himself
into love for Big Brother, implying that mere obedience is not enough, but Winston must
achieve a moment of genuine love for Big Brother. In order to tell this love Winston has to
reject, and to admit to himself that he has rejected all feelings of love and loyalty to anyone
else. Under the sufferings, degradation, torture and humiliation he tried to resist, but when
threatened with what is for him the worst thing in the world, he betrays Julia, something is
killed in his own heart, he is not the same man anymore: burnt out, cauterized out. Now he is
no longer a threat to the state or to anyone else.
In the totalitarian world of Orwell power becomes the State and the State is power. It is
through the power/knowledge nexus that all semblances of humanity are eradicated leaving
ostensibly nothing but the State: Never again will you be capable of love, friendship, or joy of
living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze
you empty, and then we shall feel you with ourselves (Orwell 1983: 228-229). Orwell
hyperbolized the control of the state over the human beings and the possibility and the ability
of the state to change peoples ideas, to subdue them totally through the terror.
4.
Conclusion
Nineteen Eighty-Four when it is viewed as both a warning and a prophecy, it is in the tradition
of modern utopian and anti-utopian fiction, being at the same time an analysis of the
contemporary world and a vision of the future, which Orwell sees as totalitarian. It is difficult
to restrain this novel into one of the literary genres above, utopian or dystopian novel, because
Orwells novel incorporates both of them. If we analyze 1984 based on the literary canon we
might come to the conclusion that it is a well written dystopian novel that neither come true nor
did touch European countries. But if we confront it with the reality that communist countries
had established we would come to the conclusion that the reality had overcome fiction, and the
Big brother reality of the 1984 would be a better place than the Odin Mondvalsen reality of
Trebeshinas novel.
Notes:
i
Steve Kreis, 2000, revisited 2012, http://historyguide.org/europe/lecture13.html
ii
Ibidem
iii
Irving Howe, The Fiction of Unti-Utopia, in Irving Howe (ed.), Orwells Nineteen EightyFour: Text, Sources, Criticism. (new York: Harcourt Brace, 1963, p. 197.
iv
Krishian Kumar, Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), p.
110.
v
Anette Gomis Van Heteren, Utopia, Genre and Nineteen Eighty-Four, In Anette Gomis,
Miguel Martinez (ed) Dreams and Realities, Versions of Utopia in English fiction from
Dickens to Byatt, Almeria, 1997.
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PhD. Ilda POSHI

MSc. Ardita HASMADHI

Tirana, Albania
HONOUR IN THE 16TH CENTURY DRAMA

AS A KEY MOTIF IN SHAKESPEARE PLAYS
Abstract
The Renaissance is known as a glorious age for drama. Many have been the names and
contributors to Renaissance literature, but most of all Shakespeare has sealed this age with his
plays. Elizabethan drama is full of issues but most importantly Shakespeare plays are a
reflection of the most intriguing and inspiring thematic among which honour. Dealing with
the issue of honour in Shakespeare works is even a more challenging matter. The aim of this
paper is to put evidence that honour has been treated in Shakespeare plays as a key motif which
has determined the life and fate of the characters in them. Even though honour is dealt under
dissimilar names, the consequences are the same. All the main characters of his tragedies or
comedies use honour as a means to shape their actions. Hamlet kills to avenge his fathers
death, Othello kills to purify his name from the patch of dishonour caused of Desdemona`s
betrayal, Romeo and Tybalt kill in the name of their family honour, Claudio rejects Heros love
because he thinks she dishonoured him. This paper will delineate the question of honour as a
concept and as a value; how honour was treated in England of the 16th century and how it
influenced Shakespeare and his plays. Hence, honour is not only a theme in Shakespeare, it is
an important and striking leitmotif which appears with different names and features, but has the
same effect: death, in whatever forms it may appear.
Keywords: vengeance, honour, restoring honour, duelling, betrayal, honesty, dishonesty
1. Introduction
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one.
Take honour from me and my life is done.
says one of Shakespeare`s great characters, Richard II, in the tragedy with the same name in
(Act I, scene I, lines 182-185). Considering the writer this phrase shows how important honour
is. Honour is one of the indispensable values of humans because it makes the difference
between us as humans and other creatures. Honour is the needed criterion to define people as
honest or dishonest. But what is honour in itself? Is it simply a word? What does it embrace?
Does it impose anything on the bearers of honour? Why is it so important? If we need to
honour someone, who are the people that deserve it and why? To give the answer to these
questions, we must first define what honour is. According to one of the definitions in the OED,
honour is defined as quality of character entitling a person to great respect; nobility of mind or
spirit; honourableness, uprightness; a fine sense of, and strict adherence to, what is considered
to be morally right or just. 21. Honour is defined as value, great respect, or esteem. Thus, in
order to honour someone, it also means that we should respect that person.
Honour could also create a form of bond between two people as it establishes ones
personal character and dignity. On the other hand, when talking about morality, honour could
be perceived as arising from universal concerns for status and material circumstance rather
than differences. Honour is a vital virtue. Because living a life without honour would
deteriorate our values as humans. Because honour means living honestly. It means good
personality and good reputation.
True honour is an attachment to honest and beneficent principles, and a good
reputation; and prompts a man to do good to others, and indeed to all men, at his own cost,
pains, or peril. False honour is a pretence to this character, but does things that destroy it: And
the abuse of honour is called honour, by those who from that good word borrow credit to act
basely, rashly, or foolishly. (Gordon , 1721)
Honour is one of the most important contributors to a healthy society. At the same
time it has been and still is, a very sensitive issue for both women and men, especially for
women. Because women are the basis of the society, are the ones who will give birth and raise
the future generation. We cannot expect honest children from adulterous mothers. We laugh at
honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.( Lewis, 1943). When the question of
matter is not given the proper importance, its consequences are grave. From a society who
lacks honour, it is possible to find all types of immoralities. The nation's honour is dearer than
the nation's comfort; yes, than the nation's life itself (Wilson, 1916). Because it would be
better for a society not to exist at all, rather than have fellows who would commit all types of
dishonourable acts.
Honour is a quality, a virtue, a characteristic which not all people possess. The sense
of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are
naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education .
(Addison, 1713).
Joseph Addison considers honour a sense, just like our five senses and he equates
honesty with nobility. He says you can only find honour in noble minds. In my opinion, honour
21
honour | honour, n. a. Great respect, esteem, or reverence received, gained or enjoyed by a person or
thing; glory, renown, fame; reputation, good name.
is a characteristic of great people and one cannot win honour, honour can be earned, day
after day. It needs hard work to be obtained. Because honour is not a theory; it needs to be
practised and the best way is through honest deeds. Only after being persistent in being honest
one can deserve being called an honest and trusted man.
Honour has also been one of the main themes in literature. Many writers have used it
as a motif in their works. They have dealt with honour as a quality of their characters,
sometimes as a lacking quality. Pedro Caldern de la Barca, in his very famous drama The
Mayor of Zalamea puts it down through one of his character Pedro Crespo: To the King, one
must give his possessions and his life; but honour is a possession of soul, and the soul is only
God's. 22 One of my favourite quotes from Alexander Pope is : Honour and shame from no
condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies. (Pope, 1734)
The famous French poet Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, says: Honour is like an island,
rugged and without shores; we can never re-enter it once we are on the outside. (Boileau,
1670) Honour is a driving force in humans, it leads their actions. Whenever it is displayed, it
makes conscience feel relaxed. On the contrary, when our actions lack this noble feature, we
suffer from remorse. Because Honour remains awake in us like a last lamp in a temple that
has been laid to waste. (De Vigny, 1835)
Honour has been treated in literature as a key motif, but at the same time these works
reflected real life situations. Honour has always been significant, in all periods, but it has
changed its shape and definition to many people according to the situation. Different periods in
history have treated the question of honour differently. This thesis will focus more in treating
honour in the 16th century and how it has been reflected in three of Shakespeares tragedies.
Considerations of honour, good name, and reputation were of central importance in early
modern England. (Sharpe, 1980 pp.1).
A statement of Aristotle which was frequently noted in this period is that honour is
the prize of virtue and is paid to none but the good. In the first place, honour is external; as
examples Aristotle mentions Sacrifices, memorials in verse and prose, special distinctions,
allotments of land, the foremost seats on public occasions, sepulchral monuments, statues,
maintenance at the public charge, barbaric compliments, as for example the prostrating oneself
before a person or giving him place, and such presents as are valued in the particular country
where they are made. Aristotle also state that honour seem to depend more upon those who
render it than upon those to whom it is rendered. As for virtue, he characterized it as a state of
deliberate moral purpose, a state lying between two vices, a vice of excess on the one side,
and a vice of deficiency on the other; and the elements of virtue he held to be justice, valor,
temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, sagacity , and speculative
wisdom. He said, finally, that no moral virtue is implanted by nature, but is a result of habit.
Because we are born the same, it depends on us which values we will cultivate more until they
become our virtues.
2.
Honour: Between a Theme in Renaissance Literary Works and a Value
Honesty is a value, a good quality that is an important contributor in creating a good individual
and a good society. Thomas Gordon elucidates: A good conscience, an honest heart, and clean
hands, are inseparable from true honour; nor does true honour teach any man to act against his
judgment. (Gordon, 1720). Regarding the theme of honour many writers have written,
22
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Honour
Shakespeare himself has treated honour in many works like: Richard II, Romeo and Juliet,
Much Ado About Nothing, The Twelfth Night, King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth.
Because of the high significance it has as a moral value, honour has also been a theme
in many famous literary works. In this paper, we will deal with honour in some of
Shakespeares plays. The aim of this paper is to deal with honour not as a positive contributor
but as a destructive element. In the writing of this paper consulting scholars has been necessary
and vital. One of the main ones is Harold Bloom.
Bloom has a deep appreciation for Shakespeare (Bloom 1994, pp. 23) and considers
him to be the supreme centre of the Western Canon. (Bloom 1994, pp. 245). He has written
numerous works regarding different aspects of Shakespeare as a playwright. In 1998, Bloom
conducted a survey named Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. In this survey, Bloom
provides a detailed analysis of each of Shakespeares 38 plays, twenty-four of which are
masterpieces. (Bloom, 1998). Since it is written as a companion to the general reader and
theatre goer, Bloom states that bardolatry ought to be even more a secular religion than it
already is. (Bloom, 1998).
In his other book, The western Canon, Bloom asserts Shakespeare's singular
popularity throughout the world. He declares him as the only multicultural author, and rather
than the social energies historicists ascribe Shakespeare's authorship to, Bloom pronounces
his modern academic foes and indeed, all of society to be a parody of Shakespearian
energies. (Bloom, 1994).
Another Shakespearean scholar, Edmund Kerchever Chambers, discusses about the
authenticity of Shakespeares works and precisely of Romeo and Juliet.
He states that: The theme of escape from marriage through a sleeping draught is as
old as the Ephesiaca of Xenophon of Ephesus. It came to Shakespeare through an Italian
channel. Mascuccio of Salerno told the story, much in his later form, of Sienese lovers in his il
Novellino (1476). Luigi da Porto`s Istoria di due Nobili Amanti transferred it to Romeo and
Giulietta at Verona, and connected it with the noble families of Dante, Purgatorio, Vieni a
veder Montecchi e Cappelletti, although the Cappelletti seem to have been really of
Cremona. (Chambers, 1930)
Another author who was passionate about Shakespeare was John Dryden. In spite of
his criticisms, Dryden admitted and emphasized the brilliance of Shakespeare. A clear example
can be seen in the following quote, taken from the Prologue to Aureng-zebe:
But in spite of all [the poet's] pride, a secret shame Invades his breast at Shakespeare's
sacred name: Aw'd when he hears his Godlike Romans rage, He in a just despair would
quit the Stage; And to an Ageless polish'd, more unskill'd, Does with disdain the
foremost Honours yield. (Dryden , 1675, line 13-18)
Edward Dowden was another great Shakespearean scholar. He was one of the greatest Irish
literary critics. In his book Shakespeare: A Critical Study of his Mind and Art, he has made a
deep analysis of Shakespeare as a writer and also of his tragedies. About Romeo and Juliet he
says:
Shakespeare was aware that every strong emotion which exalts and quickens the inner
life of man at the same time exposes the outer life of accident and circumstance to
increased risk. But the theme of tragedy, as conceived by the poet, is not material
prosperity or failure: it is spiritual; fulfilment or failure of a destiny higher than that
which is related to the art of getting on in life. To die, under certain conditions, may be
a higher, rapture than to live. (Dowden, 1875, p. 109-110)
This book was successful and of high importance because he thoroughly analysed
Shakespeares style and some of his works including Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. Not only
did this book contribute in Shakespeares analysis, but he also opened the way for other
Shakespeare biographers. In his book, Dowden considers Romeo and Juliets death as an
honourable act:
Shakespeare did not intend that the feeling evoked by the last scene of this tragedy of
Romeo and Juliet should be one of hopeless sorrow or despair in presence of failure, ruin, and
miserable collapse. Juliet and Romeo, to whom Verona has been a harsh stepmother, have
accomplished their lives. They loved perfectly. Romeo had attained to manhood. Juliet had
suddenly blossomed into heroic womanhood. Through her, and through anguish and joy, her
lover had emerged from the life of dream into the waking life of truth. Juliet had saved his
soul; she had rescued him from abandonment to spurious feeling, from abandonment to morbid
self-consciousness, and the enervating luxury of emotion for emotion's sake. What more was
needed? And as secondary to all this, the enmity of the houses is appeased. Montague will raise
in pure gold the statue of true and faithful Juliet; Capulet will place Romeo by her side.
Their lives are accomplished; they go to take up their place in the large history of the
world, which contain many such things. Shakespeare in this last scene carries forward our
imagination from the horror of the tomb to the better life of man, when such love as that of
Juliet and Romeo will be publicly honoured and remembered by a memorial all gold.
(Dowden, 1875. pp.109-110).
Shakespeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors, as he is out of the
crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others, conceivably. A good reader can, in a sort, nestle
into Plato`s brain, and think from thence; but not into Shakespeares. We are still out of doors.
For executive faculty, for creation, Shakespeare is unique. No man can imagine it better. He
was the farthest reach of subtlety compatible with an individual self,-the subtlest of authors,
and only just within possibility of authorship. With this wisdom of life, is the equal endowment
of imaginative and lyric power. He clothed the creatures of his legend with form and sentiment,
as if they were people who had lived under his roof; and few real men have left such distinct
characters as these fictions. (Bloom,1973, p. xiv).
Harold Hulsky considers honour in hamlet and particularly Hamlet a very complex
matter, which can be seen and analysed under different copes in many different way. In his
article Revenge, Honour, and Conscience in Hamlet he says:
By the Prince's own standards, it would seem, revenge is an indulgence of the fallen
will, and the honour that claims to control it, for all its legalism, is will all over again.
Hamlet embraces revenge in its extreme, but with honour, as we have observed, he is
not wholly satisfied; it is a fantasy and trick of fame. An alternative sanction,
however, is not easy to find; against revenge as against self-slaughter the Everlasting
has fixed his canon. And the ambiguity of the ghosts origin, even more than that of its
words, compounds the difficulty: if revenge is a counsel of the devil, as the faith
testifies, and the ghost is a spirit of health, as the Prince eventually concludes, the
anomaly of Hamlets position achieves cosmic proportions. In this respect his
invocation is prophetic indeed: O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? / And
shall I couple hell?" (Act I. Scene V line 92-93). Later he will not find it necessary to
ask whether he is prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell (Act I. Scene

I.line588); and this last is the coupling on which Hamlet's final interpretation of his
role seems to depend. (Harold Hulsky, 1970 pp. 84)
Hulsky continues his arguments about Hamlet and the way the characters are inter related with
honour:
In Shakespeares Denmark, honour is for better or worse a young man's game-and one
suspects for worse, if what the characters have to say about youth is any indication. Youth to
itself rebels, though none else near, says Laertes (Act I. Scene III. Line 44). In youth, Hamlet
agrees, compulsive ardour gives the charge (Act III. Scene IV. Line 86). Polonius warns us,
with some reason as it turns out, of Laertes savageness in unreclaimed blood (Act I. Scene I.
Line 34). And our first news of Fortinbras of unimproved mettle hot and full (Act I. Scene I.
line 96) is scarcely more reassuring. Like Pyrrhus, Laertes, and Hamlet, Fortinbras too has a
father to avenge. His enterprise, we are clearly informed has no legal or moral basis; it is
purely an affair of honour. And when he is thwarted in it, he simply chooses another path to his
goal:
to employ those soldiers,
So levied, as before, against the Polack
(Act II. Scene II, line74-75).
It is this expedition that inspires Hamlets remark on the discrepancy between the intrinsic
unimportance of an argument-a patch of ground or even an eggshell will do-and the
importance one can confer on it by engaging one's honour in its defence.
Rightly to be great, he contends,
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake.
(Act IV. Scene IV.53-56)
Thomas Gordon in his Catos letter no.57 deals with honour as the highest of moral values and
as a leader to only good things.
A man cannot act honourably in a bad cause. That he thinks it a good cause, is not a
good excuse; for folly and mistake is not honour: Nor is it a better excuse, that he is engaged in
it, and has pledged his faith to support it, and act for it; for this is to engage his honour against
honour, and to list his faith in a war against truth. A good conscience, an honest heart, and
clean hands, are inseparable from true honour; nor does true honour teach any man to act
against his judgment. Moreover Gordon explicates the issue of honour as a means to regain
honour, which was a common practice in the 16th century.
It is moreover become a mighty piece of honour to repair one crime by another, and a
worse; and when one has done you an injury, he must, by the rules of honour, fight to defend it.
Having affronted or harmed you, contrary to justice and honour, he makes you satisfaction by
taking away your life, according to the impulses of true honour; so here is a war of honour
against honour and justice and common sense. (Gordon , 1721)
Even though Shakespeare has written about characters of the 16th century, the theme
of honour is present nowadays. Honour is a matter of importance, it is a value, but it should not
be misused in order for it not to become a trigger for tragedies. This is what makes this thesis
coherent and useful in the field.
3.
Honour as a key motif in some Shakespeares plays
We will briefly explain how honour has affected each of the plays that are going to be dealt
with. The concept of honour in Hamlet, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, and Romeo and
Juliet will be analysed.
Hamlet. - The first scene of the play opens with the soldiers on guard who have seen a
ghost and have asked Hamlets friend, the scholar Horatio, to verify what they have seen. The
ghost is the spirit of Hamlets father. They call Hamlet, and the ghost tells his horrified son that
he was murdered by his brother Claudius, the man who now wears the crown of Denmark.
Hamlet promises to avenge his fathers death, and the rest of the play revolves around this
promise and Hamlet`s struggles to complete it. The revenge of his fathers death becomes the
purpose of his life because that is a matter of honour. His father has been killed in such a
dishonest way and behaving as if it were a normal death would be a second dishonesty. In all
the three plays Shakespeare treats honesty as personified with at least one character. In Hamlet
he has personified dishonesty with Claudius. Not only has he been so dishonest as to kill his
brother, lie to everyone about his death, usurped the throne but also has married his widow.
Claudius decides to hide his crime but Hamlet, opposed to his uncle behaves honestly and
faithfully towards his father and his memory. Of course honour is also present when treating
the character of Gertrude, because she remarries after the death of her husband in less than two
months. So, has she forgotten her husband, the kind and honest king so quickly? How is it
possible that she did not hesitate in marrying again? Why has she behaved so unfaithfully? Or
is it possible that she might have not ever been loyal to him? Other characters also revolve
around the virtue of honour. For example how honest can the ghost be considered? Can we be
sure of it? Another character who shows deep signs of dishonesty is Laertes, because he plans
to kill Hamlet by inviting him in a duel, but at the same time he has poisoned the tip of his
sword. Hamlet has killed Laertess father Polonius, while he was hiding in Gertrudes
chamber, thinking that he was Claudius. Laertes might be right in claiming to kill Hamlet to
avenge his fathers death, but the way he chooses to do this is dishonest. In a subtheme
Shakespeare deals with Ophelias dishonesty. Ophelia is Laertess sister and Hamlet is in love
with her. But her father Polonius asks Ophelia to stay away from Hamlet and she obeys to him.
She later tells Hamlet she does not love him and that she has been unfaithful to him. But none
of these is true. Scholars have discussed the effect of Ophelia in Hamlet`s madness and there is
a general opinion that it has had a great contribution. Generally speaking this thesis will agree
with this idea, because Hamlet needed support. He was going through hard times and was in
need of Ophelia. But she decides to distance herself from him and furthermore lie about her
loyalty and love.
To sum up, in this play honour revolves around all characters, and defines the stream
of the events. The one being more affected by honour and dishonour is of course Hamlet. He
has to be loyal and honest towards his father, but this means committing a murder. The girl he
loves claims not to be loyal to him. So he finds himself in the middle of this big circle of
dishonest people, meanwhile he tries to bring his and his fathers honour back.
Othello. - Othello was written directly after Hamlet and is one of Shakespeares four great
tragedies. Othello is unique in many regards. Most significantly, Othello explores issues of a
singularly domestic nature. In this play we will see a tale of passion and extremes that deals
with the themes of fidelity, honour, justice, but especially and more extensively with the theme
of honour.
This article attempts to briefly summarise this play and focuses more on the elements
of honour and both honest and dishonest characters. The main characters are Othello, who is a
moor, but at the same time an esteemed general of the Venetian army and Desdemona who is a
beautiful, young, white Venetian debutante. She is Brabantio`s daughter and is at the same time
his pride and joy. He wants Desdemona to marry one of the white men he chooses for her, but
she falls in love with Othello and secretly marries him. This is our first encounter with honour,
actually dishonesty. Desdemona has betrayed her father and has been dishonest when she
escapes with Othello. In the opening act, the Venetians are searching madly for the valiant
Othello. Because war is so close, and the army requires the services of Othello to fight off the
Turks army. The third important character is Iago. Iago is one of the most notorious villains of
all Shakespeare`s characters. He spends all of his time plotting against Othello and
Desdemona, ultimately convincing Othello that his wife has been cheating on him, despite the
fact that Desdemona has been completely faithful. The reason why he hates Othello that much
comes from the fact that Othello unfairly passed him over for promotion and made Michael
Cassio his lieutenant, even though Cassio, unlike Iago, had no military experience. The
problem is that Othello has put all his trust in Iago, he takes advice from him, discusses all his
important matters with him insensible to Iagos hatred and jealousy. Paradoxically Othello
calls him the honest Iago many times throughout the play, knowing not that his honest
dear friend is complotting against him in the worst and dishonest way possible. So, Iago
accuses Desdemona of having been unfaithful to Othello and here we have our third big
encounter with the theme of honour as vital to the play. Honour was important for a woman in
the 16th century. Was she not honest, she was not worth marrying to or living. What such a
woman deserved was death. That is why in order for Othello to regain his honour, Iago
persuades him to kill Desdemona and he does so. As we have previously mentioned,
Shakespeare has made honour or dishonour a characteristic to a specific character. In this play
Iago is the embodiment of dishonesty, filthiness and fraud, but he is known as honest.
Meanwhile Cassio, who is really honest and deeply loves Othello and obeys him, appears in
the eyes of Othello as most cunning liar and indecent person. Either in Hamlet or in Othello we
notice that honour is decisive in the characters destiny.
Romeo and Juliet - Romeo and Juliet is the greatest love story of all times. The
story is about two youngsters who belong to two families that are in a feud with each other:
Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet. They belong to two of Veronas most rich and wellknown families. Shakespeare does not mention the exact reason of their feud, but it is
somehow implied that it is about maintaining family honour and pride. Unfortunately, this
pride becomes the source of the loss of lives for many people. The young Romeo and Juliet fall
in love when they meet each other in a masked ball. Later on, they learn they belong to two
feuding families, but they feel such a deep love that they decide to go on with their
relationship. They get married secretly. After their marriage, Juliets cousin Tybalt offends
Romeo for his intrusive appearance in the ball and wants to pay back by duelling him.
Romeo`s friend Mercutio fights with him and Tybalt stabs Mercutio. Romeo acts impatiently
and immaturely and kills Tybalt. After his act Romeo is banned from Verona Juliet is left alone
and desperate. In order to help them, another character Friar Lawrence, makes a plan: he tells
Juliet to drink a potion which will fake her death. In the meantime he will inform Romeo to
come and they can unite and be together after she wakes up. But the plan fails to work properly
and when Romeo learns Juliet is dead he drinks a deadly poison. Then Juliet wakes up and
when she sees Romeo dead, she stabs herself with his dagger. The play ends tragically, but in
the end the two families decide to end the feud.
Honour is present differently in this play. Here Juliet`s marriage to a Montague is
treated, as a daughters dishonesty towards her family and relatives. It is understood from the
play that what makes both families keep their hatred alive is the desire to uphold their family`s
pride and honour. So important it was for them that they thought whenever an intrusive act was
made families had to intervene for the sake of their honour. One of the most common ways of
gaining back the honour was through duelling. That is why Tybalt challenges Mercutio in a
duel and the latter one accepts as the only way of protecting his honour. Even though treated
differently as compared to other tragedies, honour continues to be a leading factor in the stream
of the events.
Much Ado About Nothing Although not a revenge tragedy as the above mentioned
ones, Much Ado About Nothing treats honour but in an exaggerated and sarcastic way since it is
a romantic comedy. Don John, feeling jealous about Hero and Claudio, infamously plans to
dishonour Hero in front of Claudios eyes. He pays Borachio, a drunkard servant and lover to
Margaret, to make Claudio think that Hero has lost her virginity aka honour in a sexual
intercourse with Borachio. At the wedding ceremony in Act IV, Scene I, Lines 31-34, Claudio
says: Shes but the sign and semblance of her honour/ Behold how like a maid she blushes
here! /O, what authority and show of truth/ Can cunning sin cover itself withal!, implying that
she has dishonoured herself and such thing was evident in her face, for she is blushing and
feeling shameful of such a sin. Honour was the fact of being virtuous and virgin and losing it
was a cunning sin. Not only, Shakespeare keeps on ridiculing such fact by having Hero dead
(though not physically) Hence from her, let her die (Act IV, Scene I, Lines 153), and only
once re-born she could gain her honour back. Using a faked death, Shakespeare ridicules
medieval values of virginity through Christian values of re-birth in Renaissance England, sins
on earth were finally forgotten and Hero could marry Claudio, now that his honoured was
finally resettled since Hero be clean again - O she is fallen / Into a pit of ink, that the wide
sea / Hath drops too few to wash her clean again (Act IV, Scene I, Lines 138-140). On the
other hand to resettle such honour, Beatrice, seeking revenge, uses the love Benedict has for
her and presents him to an alternative, if Benedict duels Claudio to defend her cousins honour
then she would definitely marry him, otherwise he would not be worthy as a man and as her
future husband.
4.
Conclusion
In Hamlet and Othello Shakespeare has treated the issue of honour as a specific characteristic
of one character, creating this way the villain of the story. In Othello we have to do with the
honest Iago, who is the person who does not even know what honour is and how is lived
honestly. Shakespeare uses this pseudonym for Iago to create a greater contrast between his
character`s words and actions. In Hamlet we encounter Claudius who is the villain and tries
to reach his aims by manipulating other characters according to his will. In both these
characters we notice no concern about the matters of honour and dishonour. They are merely
driven by their desires, no matter if they are ethic or not. In Romeo and Juliet the matter of
honour is present, nonetheless not as an attribution to one single character. We do not find a
Iago or a Claudius in Romeo and Juliet. Instead we find a Tybalt and a Mercutio who
kill in the name of honour. We have a Capulet and a Montague who have kept alive for years a
feud, with the sublime purpose of maintaining their family honour. Honour is the reason
though not the real one, why people die in the plays. Hamlet dies while trying to restore his
father`s honour. Desdemona is a victim of her supposed dishonesty. Romeo and Juliet are
two of the victims of family honour. In Much Ado About Nothing, Don John has to dishonour
Hero to stop Claudio from marrying her, and Hero has to die so that her honour can be
restored. Shakespeare is tactful and insightful in choosing such a serious issue as honour to be
a key motif entangling the two lovers, Claudio and Hero, into the vortex of misunderstanding.
It is the ridiculousness of such a phenomenon that Shakespeare aims at dressing his sarcasm to.
In the 16th century, though a hereditary issue of the Middle Ages, virginity or chastity was still
a motif to end up a relationship and publicly disgrace a woman. But honour is rather used as a
mask behind which the real aims of other characters are hidden. After the Iago`s exemplary
sense of honesty hides the filth and dirt of dishonesty.
The negative characters that are analysed considered dishonesty as the only way of
achieving their goals. So they relied on it and then could not get out of the vicious circle of
malice. But they never tried changing, they did not even consider solving their matters
honestly. In other cases they did not stop and think in the name of what they were acting. So
evil brought more evil, until the fatal end. Another important issue of this thesis has been
duelling. Nowadays it does not exist as a practice, so it may seem cruel and irrelevant to us but
it was considered very significant, especially in the 16th century. It was considered a
constitution of its time, and as such it could constitute a right and duty for men to apply it to
resettle honour. Disobeying meant dishonour.
Bibliography
Addison J, (1713), The Guardian, No. 161
Bloom, H. (1994), The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages
Bloom, H. (1998), Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, New York: Riverhead, p. 19
Bloom H. (2009), Blooms Modern Critical Interpretations: William Shakespeares Romeo
and JulietNew Edition
Dowden, E. (1876) Shakespeare: A study of his mind and art
Dryden, J. (1675) Prologue to Aureng-zebe, lines 13-19
Edmund Kerchever Chambers, (1930), William Shakespeare: A Study of the Facts and
Problems
Gordon, T. (1721), Cato's Letter 57, Of false Honour, public and private, (Saturday, December
16, 1721)
Holland, B. (2004), Gentlemens blood: A History of Duelling
Hugh R. & Margaret M. (Jan. 29, 1916) Wilson W. Speech, retrieved from The Oxford
Dictionary of American Quotations p. 321
Hulsky, H. (1970), Revenge, Honour, and Conscience in "Hamlet"
Lewis C.S, (1943), The Abolition of Man
Sharpe, J.A. (1980), Defamation and Sexual Slander in Early Modern England: The Church
Courts at York Borthwick Papers, 58, p.1
Pope, A. (1891), An Essay on Man. Moral essays and satires, Cassell & Company, Limited:
London, Paris & Melbourne, line 193.
MSc.Vahidije KADIU
Prof.Asoc.Dr. Tomi TRESKA
European University of Tirana
Albania
HOW DO WE PUT SHORT STORIES MODELS

INTO PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE (LITERATURE HERMENEUTICS)
Abstract
Based on the model of teacher-pupil relationship in a situation of mutual cooperation: the
teacher explains the difficult points in the story and describes the relations between the
characters and the events which take place in the story, talks about the stylistic means used in
the story; the teacher provides factual and spiritual background for the adaptation of the story
and uses active discourse patterns as basic regulator in interpersonal communication; the pupil
perceives and deliberates on the artistic ideas or rather their reflections on its mind and projects
them in its contacts with reality by means of games and talks; the pupil comprehends the ideas
woven in short stories to the extent it can grasp the variety of plots in them, acknowledge the
use of different stylistic techniques in the stories and apply and test them in different activities
and situations; the pupil has a critical attitude towards the aesthetics of the magical story as an
artistic reproduction of reality. It uses its own experience and transforms it accordingly to its
acquisition of the moral standards of the community it lives in. In this way both perfom a kind
of interpretation and realise deep analysis from the point of Literary Hermeneutics with the
purpose of dechiphering and illucidating the messages transmitted by the author. However
these stories offer variabilities and possibilities to manage the classroom and educate the pupils
and children from the pedagogical point of view. Hence the principles of pedagogical
interaction, short stories result in: discussions of the story's linguistic, cognitive and stylistic
structures as part of the system of interpersonal communication; focusing on the pedagogical
situation as basic in discussing works of art, in providing empirical knowledge and in
transfering of situations into the practical, cognitive and emotional plan; description and
analysis of magical events and magical actions in short stories;highlighting the necessity of
uniting the pedagogical objectives aiming at the achievement of educational effects in
communication and the asset-oriented behaviouristic patterns of the pupil in its "personal"
contacts with art; the use of pictures, illustrations, films, etc. to accompany the explanaition of
short stories;the teacher-pupil cooperation patterns should stress on selecting the educational
objectives, defining the educational subject matter, finding out a specific approach to each
individual pupil and encouraging the children's initiatives to interpret the stories in different
situations. For this, various methods taught in the course of Foreign Languages Teaching
Methodology can be utilised, methods and techniques elaborated in the journal of the teacher/s.
The methods of pedagogical approach, i.e. the use of visual aids, role plays, quizzes and games
reveal a wide range of educational strategies applied in activities based on work with art. They
provoke the child's participation as a synthesis of responses aiming at cognition, assessment
and expression of different stands and their adoption in the child's own behaviour codes.
Keywords: short stories, teacher-pupil, Hermeneutics Theory;
1.
Introduction
What encouraged us in this undertaking was the purpose to demonstrate the validity and
applicability of short stories to the classroom. The role of short-stories, in developing reading
comprehension skill, has been acknowledged for centuries by many professionals and
pedagogues. This use of short-stories has been widely discussed and recommended,
particularly, in places where English is taught and learned as a foreign language. Short stories
provide a variety of tools and tasks which help the teachers to manage the class, to establish
good eye contact, to establish techniques and approaches from the pedagogical point of view.
There are two well generated issues which deal with education strategies and models in
pedagogical practice. It is well known that short stories proliferate with educational practice
applicable models. Thus they should become an intrinsic part of the educational technologies
presented in the child-oriented programme for educating children in Albania. Lately short
stories are adopted in pre-school strategies by providing models of communication and
creativity, encouragement of the children individuality, the variety of the educational
strategies and so on. Beside the above short stories models are put into pedagogical practice.
By dechiphering and illucidating the messages transmitted by the author there are met the
necessity of uniting the pedagogical objectives, children's initiative to interpret the stories in
different situation etc.
2. Short stories in Pre-School Education Strategies
Rowlings ideas and artistic merits have got constructive assessment value for the
development of the child's personality. We should find out the way how to reach the wisdom,
love and magic in short stories world. The question that counts is the following: It is well
known that short stories generate educational practice applicable models. They should become
an intrinsic part of the educational technologies presented in the child-oriented programme for
educating children in Albania, which may result in the following:
subject form of communication as well as creativity-focused methods;
the child's personal experience and spiritual comfort forms the basis and objective in
the child's upbringing;
flexible approaches and recognition of transition stages in the completion of the
objectives of the child's personal experiencing, cognition and transformation of experience
by intended and unintended educational forms;
encouragement and support of the child's individuality in social communication in joint
(teacher and children) activities;
variety of educational strategies based on communication with art in different age
groups.
The world of short stories has been suffered with, dreamed of, deliberated on and enjoyed by
each and every child and even by the adults. Both well-known and ever-surprising it is tenderly
cherished deep in the child's heart. Thus in the short stories world of realistic fantasies the
child's selfrealization continually grows. It inspires the child's manifestations of creativity in its
contacts with the world of every day and influences its projection upon the child's spiritual
experiences.
3. How We Put Short Stories into Pedagogical Practice

Based on the model of adult-child relationship in a situation of mutual cooperation: the adult
explains the difficult points in the story and describes the relations between the characters and
the events which take place in the story, talks about the stylistic means used in the story; the
adult provides factual and spiritual background for the adaptation of the story and uses active
discourse patterns as basic regulator in interpersonal communication; the child perceives and
deliberates on the artistic ideas or rather their reflections on its mind and projects them in its
contacts with reality by means of games and talks; the child comprehends the ideas woven in
short stories to the extent it can grasp the variety of plots in them, acknowledge the use of
different stylistic techniques in the stories and apply and test them in different activities and
situations; the child has a critical attitude towards the aesthetics of the magical story as an
artistic reproduction of reality. It uses its own experience and transforms it accordingly to its
acquisition of the moral standards of the community it lives in. In this way both perfom a kind
of interpretation and realise deep analysis from the point of Literary Hermeneutics with the
purpose of dechiphering and illucidating the messages transmitted by the author. However
these stories offer variabilities and possibilities to manage the classroom and educate the pupils
and children from the pedagogical point of view.
Hence the principles of pedagogical interaction, while reading short stories result in:
discussions of the story's linguistic, cognitive and stylistic structures as part of the
system of interpersonal communication;
focusing on the pedagogical situation as basic in discussing works of art, in providing
empirical knowledge and in transfering of situations into the practical, cognitive and
emotional plan; description and analysis of magical events and magical actions in short
stories.
highlighting the necessity of uniting the pedagogical objectives aiming at the
achievement of educational effects in communication and the asset-oriented behaviouristic
patterns of the child in its "personal" contacts with art; the use of pictures, illustrations,
films, etc. to accompany the explanaition of the text taken from Harry Potter books.
the adult-child cooperation patterns should stress on selecting the educational
objectives, defining the educational subject matter, finding out a specific approach to each
individual child and encouraging the children's initiatives to interpret the stories in
different situations.
For this, various methods taught in the course of Foreign Languages Teaching Methodology
can be utilised, methods and techniques elaborated in the journal of the teacher/s.
The methods of pedagogical approach, i.e. the use of visual aids, role plays, quizzes and games
reveal a wide range of educational strategies applied in activities based on work with art. They
provoke the child's participation as a synthesis of responses aiming at cognition, assessment
and expression of different stands and their adoption in the child's own behaviour codes.
4.
Conclusion
The use of short-stories in the classroom has always been recommended by the pundits in the
field for developing reading comprehension skill as stories offer infinite linguistic as well as
personal, socio-cultural, cognitive and emotional benefits for the language learners. Being the
product of creative writers who have better command over language, stories are considered to
be rich in language and amusing in nature and help in overcoming the problem of negative
attitudes of learners towards reading comprehension skill. Stories expose learners to the
functional, situational and idiomatic use of language and thus, help in understanding and
mastering the intricacies and nuances of a foreign language like English. With the use of shortstories for developing reading comprehension skill, many misconceptions, were cleared up and
they were offered an alternative learning material which is considered to be rich not only
linguistically but from many other perspectives. This learning material, presented in the form
of short-stories, helped in transforming their initial negative attitudes towards reading
comprehension skill into positive ones and also contributed significantly to easy fostering of
their other related language skills. Concluding, it is offered below a brief review of some
activities in a work-with-art based pedagogical situation in order to demostrate the pedagogical
aspect of short stories and their availability and usage in the classroom. Hence it is assumed the
pragmatic aspect of short stories from the methodological and pedagogical point of view
affirming the importance of literary approches utilised in the comprehension and desciphering
of the meaning of the texts. In the issues treated it is generated the most probable interpretation
of short stories and in the conclusion part the intentions are to demostrate the potentiality of
these within the realm of pedagogy and methodology; within the realm of teaching in order to
justify how short stories can be applied.
Bibliography
Black M. Images of education in popular literature University of Texas, pg 2
Erickson E. New York Times Books Review , Boston Globe Posted by: 13, 2008, Burnshaw, S
Literary Critisism poet poem and reader .
Jefferson A. Modern literary theory,.(Albanian version :Floresha Dado) pg 219
Gillian In a Different Voice of Psychological
In varietes of the literary experience. New York, 1963
Proff. V. Ja (1973) La morfofologia della fiaba, Newton Compton ,Roma (1992
Theory And Womens Development, 171
Qafleshi E. Childrens Literature, text-book for students, 2007, pg 55
Web Sources
http://www.aucklandcitylibraries.com/kids/childrensliteraturecollections/harrypotterandhildren
sliterature.htm
muse.jhu.edu/journals/lion_and_the_unicorn/v028/28.1kidd.htm
Articles
"In an Era of Testimony: Claude Lanzmann's Shoa", Yale French Studies, No. 79 (1991),
Literature and the Ethical Question, reprinted in: Yale French Studies, No. 97, 50 Years of
Yale French Studies:
A Commemorative Anthology. Part 2: 1980-1998 (2000), pp. 103-155
The Pedagogical Imperative: Teaching as a Literary Genre (1982), pp. 21-44
PhD. Lediana BESHAJ,

Bedr University Tirana, Albania
Suzana LEKAJ
Tirana, Albania
THE APPLICATION OF BILINGUAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

STRATEGIES IN ALBANIA (Two case studies)
Abstract
Nowadays bilingualism phenomenon, though a novelty in Albania, is becoming more and more
prevalent and widespread all over the world. There are many people who are bilingual or
multilingual around the world. We all are living with the benefits coming from speaking two or
more languages, being bilingual or multilingual gives people a good opportunity to have a
good career and a happy future. The following research investigates the application of
bilingualism strategies at home, focusing particularly on strategies of Turkish-Albanian and
EnglishAlbanian group of families, which are the most applied strategies and how they apply
these strategies with their children in order to succeed in teaching both languages at the same
time. For this study, five families for each group were interviewed. All these families live in
Tirana and they are all working and upper-middle class families. Recently, bilingualism as
socio-linguistic phenomenon is widely spread in Albania as well. This paper aimes at having
an understanding of bilingualism, specifically exploring bilingualism strategies used by people
in Albania.
Keywords: bilingualism, learning strategy, language acquisition, society, native speaker.
1.
Introduction
From the sociolinguists perspective communication among people who speak the same
language is possible because they share such knowledge, although how it is shared or even
how it is acquired is not well understood. Certainly, psychological and social factors are
important, and genetic ones too. Language is a communal possession, although admittedly an
abstract one (Wardhaugh, 2006). However, all children commonly acquire at least one
language at a time. This happens due to several factors, the main one is the surrounding
environment where the child grows up, from his/her parents, relatives, society etc. What
presents a great interest is the situation of the children whose parents do not speak the same
language and even more interesting is the case where both parents speak different language and
they live in a place, where the native language is different of the one that both parents speak.
Nowadays there are many bilingual people all around the world. Bilingualism is a
prevalent phenomenon worldwide, for centuries there have been many bilingual families
raising their children bilingually. Extensive movement of people from one country to the other,
which happens for several reasons, has a great impact; it has influenced this phenomenon of
bilingualism and especially the cross-cultural and cross-linguistics relationships which
definitely play an important role in increasing the number of bilingual children. These bilingual
children are exposed to more than one language in their families.
Bilingualism is a very widespread and a much discussed topic. This paper focuses on
application of bilingual childrens language acquisition strategies which are noticed in other
countries and are being applied in Albania as well. It is a fact that this phenomenon is
increasing rapidly, we see a cross culture between Chinese, Turkish, American, French, Italian
people with Albanians.
This study is focused only on Turkish-Albanian and American- Albanian families. All
these families application language strategies are observed by a closer contact. All families are
met and interviewed, they all gave enough information about the strategies they applied for
teaching both language at the same time, how they found teaching to their children two
languages, how they started it, etc. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the newly
commonplace phenomenon of bilingualism as a prevalent and much discussed topic in
Albania, which is increasing rapidly day by day. The questions asked are related to which of
the bilingual language strategies does each of family consider the most effective one, if
bilingualism is an advantage or a problem in the school environment, how the children feel or
if they have difficulties in acquiring the whole information as it required and meant to be
perceived, if there is any big difference between Turkish-Albanian and American-Albanians
families in applying language strategies. Such core questions come naturally and exploring to
find the answer is daunting and challenging as well.
1.1 Research Methodology
The type of research that is used in this study is quantitative research. A questionnaire is
handed to ten families living in Albania, five Turkish-Albanian and five American Albanian
families. All parents are met by a close contact. Apart from the information which is extracted
from the respective responses given when asked the questions from questionnaire these parents
were willing to give more details during the long conversations we have had.
2.
A Brief Introduction to Bilingualism
Bilingualism seems to be viewed as a noncontroversial concept. According to Websters

dictionary(1961) bilingualism means:
Having or using two languages especially as spoken with the fluency characteristic
of a native speaker; a person using two languages especially habitually and with
control like that of a native speaker and bilingualism as the constant oral use of two
languages (Hamers & Blanc, 2000, p. 6).
Taking into consideration this definition bilingualism means being able to speak both
languages fluently in the four basic skills such as reading, speaking, writing and listening. The
person who masters these skills adequately is called bilingual. According to the American
linguist Leonard Bloomfield bilingualism is the native like-control of two languages
(Bloomfield, 1933, p. 56). In addition, the bilingual Canadian writer Nancy Huston based on
her experience she defines true bilinguals as people who learn both languages in early
childhood in advanced 8 level, those who have mastered both in early age and still know
perfect. (Grosjean, 2010, p. 19). On the other hand some other linguists have a contradictory
concept about bilingualism. People who know both languages in an advanced level he calls
them balanced bilingual but he says the few bilinguals are balanced the majority of them are
non-balanced who are more dominant in one language (Grosjean, Life with two Languages ,
1982). All the above mentioned definitions are taken into the consideration but this thesis
focuses on bilinguals who have learned two languages in their early childhood, especially those
who are brought up by parents from different nationalities.
It can be seen that the concept of bilingualism is discussed by many linguistics all
over the world. In Bilinguality and Bilingualism book by Josiane F. Harmes and Michel H.A.
Blanc bilingualism is defined as:
Having or using two languages especially as spoken with the fluency
characteristic of a native speaker; a person using two languages especially
habitually and with control like that of a native speaker and bilingualism as the
constant oral use of two languages.
What is understood is that being bilingual means being able to speak two languages in a perfect
way; Bloomfield supports this approach (1935: 56), and defines bilingualism as the native-like
control of two languages (F.Hamers & Blanc, 2000, p. 6). On the other hand there are some
controversies related to this definition which is based on perfect bilinguals Macnamara
(1967a) asserts that a bilingual is anyone who possesses a minimal competence in only one of
the four language skills, listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing, in a language
other than his mother tongue (Hamers & Blanc, 2000, p. 6). There are noticed these two main
controversial ideas: Bloomfields (1935)where a bilingual should be able to speak both
languages fluently and Macnamaras (1967) where a bilingual is not necessary expected to
know perfect both languages he\she but one should possesses a minimal competence in the
other language apart from his\her mother tongue.
Many other researchers have conducted a research on bilingualism strategies, for
example in Edinburgh University in Brazil the author has written about The application of
bilingual language acquisition strategies: two empirical studies. An empirical study was carried
out in Portuguese-English families to investigate how languages strategies are put in practice in
real-life conversation. Also to analyze the effectiveness of the languages strategies, the
collected information showed that none of the families rigorously applies the policies.
Following there will be introduced briefly these strategies in order to see if they are applied in
the Albanian cases.
3.
Strategies of Language Acquisition
Typically a language or languages are learned during the childhood period. Parents play an
important role in the childs language acquisition. The strategies that the parents apply in order
to make their child\children bilingual are of a great interest. As it was mentioned previously the
strategies found by the linguists are being used consciously or unconsciously by parents of
different nationality here in Albania. Thus, it is appropriate to introduce briefly the strategies.
According to Railey(1986) and Harding(1995) language learning approaches are classified:
3.1. One-Parent-One-Language (OPOL) Strategy
In this strategy each parent has a different native language with some degree of competence in
the others language. Each parent speak his\her own native language to address child since the
birth. Both parents are able to understand each-others mother tongue at least on the
communicative level. According to Grosjean this strategy allows each parent to communicate
with the child in his or her native language while trying to make the children bilingual, at the
same time this strategy helps both parents to improve the second language spoken in the family
by hearing around at home (Mey, 2009, p. 41).
3.2. Non-dominant Home Language Strategy(NDHL)
In this strategy parents have two different languages. The home language is the minority and
one of the parents uses the majority language. In this strategy members of the family speak
their minority language. The language of the community is spoken outside, for example with
friends or at school. This is a strategy used throughout the world, for example the minority
language is used at home or with neighbors, while the majority language outdoor at work or
school etc.
3.3. Non-dominant Home Language without Community Support Strategy
Comparing to the abovementioned strategy in this strategy parents use the same language, even
when they have different native language. The majority language is the language used by the
community and at home is used the same language. In this strategy parents give priority to one
language till the age of three, they believe that the best way to teach child the second language
is after the age of three (Mey, 2009, p. 41).
3.4. Double Non-dominant Home Language Without Community Support Strategy
Parents have different mother tongue, one of the parents is the dominant language of the
community, but at home both parents address the child the other language non-dominant one.
Children are exposed to the dominant language only outside at school, with friends etc (Mey,
2009, p. 41).
3.5. Non-native Parents Strategy (NNP)
In this strategy parents share the same language at home. Communitys language is same with
parents language. Parents always address the children in the language that is not his \her
language. The principle of this strategy is that both languages are used interchangeably in and
out of the family, letting such factors as topic, situation, person and place dictate which
language should be used (Mey, 2009, p. 41).
3.6.
Mixed Languages Strategy (ML)
In this strategy parents are bilingual, some sectors of community may be bilingual. For the
effect of family language use the parents mix and code-switch languages. According to
Schmidt-Mackey some families use language time approach, in other word they may use one
language in the morning the other in afternoon or may be one language during the week days
and the other language during the weekend (Mey, 2009, p. 41)
4.
Bilingualism is Present in Albania
Albania is one of ethnically homogeneous country in the Europe, where the majority of
population speaks Albanian. It is one of the most polyglot nation in Europe. Italian is widely
spoken by Albanians, Greek in the south part of the country, also recently because of many
Albanian emigrants living in Italy and Greece, Italian language has become a spoken language
by many Albanians. The vast majority of the young generation is interested in learning English
and they communicate and understand it to some extend. Recently, Albania has become a
multicultural country. Many minority groups are living in Albania such as Italians, Chinese
whose number is increasing rapidly every day, Americans, a few Germans and many Turkish
people. These groups of population belong to different nationalities. Besides the fact that they
live in Albania and work here they have created bilingual families as such as many ItalianAlbanian, American- Albanian, Turkish-Albanian families. This thesis focuses on TurkishAlbanian and American-Albanians families. Being parent of different ethnic background their
children have become consequently bilinguals. In this thesis ten families are subjected to this
case
study,
five
Albanian-Turkish
families
and
five
Albanian-American.
5. Two Case Studies
To make this work come to fruition ten families were interviewed, five Turkish-Albanian and
five American-Albanian families. They are raising their children bilingual, to each of them it
was given a bilingual language proficiency questionnaire. Five families were TurkishAlbanian, three of them American-Albanian and two Anglo-Albanian families. The aim of this
question was to get information about parents ethnic background.
FAMILIES
MOTHERS
ETHNIC FATHERS
ETHNIC
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
F1
Albanian
Turkish
F2
Turkish
Albanian
F3
Albanian
Turkish
F4
Albanian
Turkish
F5
Albanian
Turkish
F6
Albanian
English
F7
American
Albanian
F8
Albanian
American
F9
Albanian
American
F10
English
Albanian
In the families where the questionnaire was conducted it resulted that there were seven
Albanian, one Turkish, one English and one American mother. Fathers were four Turkish,
three Albanian and two American and one English father. The majority of mothers were
Albanian seven Albanian mothers and the majority of fathers were Turkish.
The majority of above listed parents understand and communicate in some level the
language of the other spouses mother tongue, accept one father of the 8th family does not
know, but is able to understand a few words in Albanian. Apart from the mother tongue which
is a natural process understanding or speaking your spouse mother tongue in some level is an
advantage for the children to learn both languages easier because if in a family there is a
problem including all family members or any celebration they should speak a mutual language,
which should be understood by all members, otherwise it will take longer or a translator should
be or the member who is speaking should speaks in one language and translate it into the other,
which is not very helpful and the other members may become bored.
As mentioned above the majority of parents understand their spouses native language
accept one parent who speak only his native language, but is trying to learn Albanian with the
help of his children and his wife. 30% of fathers are multilingual they know more than two
languages, the father of 2nd family is able to understand and communicate in Albanian,
Turkish and English, the father of 4th family knows Albanian, Turkish and English, the father
of F9th family knows Albanian, English and German and the mother of the same family 9th
family knows Albanian, English and Italian. This fact helps children become multilingual. By
different researches has been approved that a bilingual can learn other languages easier and
comprehend quickly.
When asked about the language used at home, the results are:
Families
Mother to
child\children
Child\children
to mother
Father to
child\children
Children to
father
F1
Albanian 90%
Turkish 10%
Albanian 80%
Turkish 20%
Albanian 90%
Turkish 10%
Albanian 90%
Turkish 10%
Albanian 90%
Turkish 10%
Albanian 80%
English 20%
English 100%
Albanian 90%
Turkish 10%
Albanian 80%
Turkish 20%
Albanian 95%
Turkish 5%
Albania 90%
Turkish 10%
Albanian 90%
Turkish 10%
Albanian 80%
English 20%
English 90%
Albanian 10%
Albanian 70%
English 30%
Albanian 95%
English 5%
English 90%
Albanian 10%
Turkish 99%
Albanian 1%
Turkish 90%
Albanian 10%
Turkish 99%
Albanian 1%
Turkish 90%
Albanian 10%
Turkish 90%
Albanian 10%
English 95%
Albanian 5%
Albanian 90%
English 10%
English 100%
Albanian20%
Turkish 80%
Turkish 90%
Albanian10%
Turkish 90%
Albanian10%
Turkish 90%
Albanian10%
Turkish 90%
Albanian10%
English 70%
Albanian 30%
Albanian90%
English 10%
English 90 %
Albanian10%
English 95%
Albanian 5%
Albanian95%
English 5%
F2
F3
F4
F5
F6
F7
F8
F9
F10
Albanian 70%
English 30%
Albanian 95%
English 5%
English 95%
Albanian 5%
English 95%
Albanian 5%
Albanian 95%
English 5%
Children
with eachother
Turkish 80%
Albanian20%
Turkish 70%
Albanian30%
Turkish 80%
Albanian20%
Turkish 90%
Albanian10%
Turkish 90%
Albanian10%
English 50%
Albanian50%
English 50%
Albanian50%
English 70%
Albanian30%
English 50%
Albanian50%
English 50%
English
As we see from the above results all families apply One-parent-One-Language strategy. They
all address children in their own mother tongue, but rarely they address in their spouses
mother tongue. Accept in two families in the F8 father addresses 100% in his mother tongue
English because he cannot speak Albanian and in the F7 the mother speaks 100% English
because she cannot speak Albanian, but is able to understand it. Her children speak 10% in
Albanian in order to teach Albanian to their mother. The method One-Parent-One-Language is

the best way to teach both languages to children.
A difference that we can easily be noticed form the questionnaires results TurkishAlbanian families children communicate with each-other in the fathers language, this
happens because Turkish fathers have difficulties in understanding Albanian or they give more
priority to Turkish rather than Albanian. Children of American-Albanian families communicate
with each-other almost in both languages 50% in one language and 50% in the other language.
Whereas in F8 children most of the time communicate with each other in English because their
father cannot understand Albanian, but 30% communicate in Albanian in order to teach their
father Albanian accent.
The aim of this question was to know the languages they address to child\children in
order to understand the strategy they use to teach their child\children both languages. They use
One-Parent-One-Language strategy, the parent addressesto his/ her child\children in their
mother tongue and possess some knowledge in the other language.
Overall in the families where the questionnaire was conducted it resulted that the
parents put the strategies in practice in this way:
6.
Parents speak their native languages only while addressing to children
TV movies make the difference in favor of one language
English as a third language can be taught without making it priority
Daily school life and social situation have a great impact
Learning by making use of different context
Reading, especially to the children in their favorite language

Conclusion
By studying and interviewing ten families five of them Turkish-Albanian and five AmericanAlbanian, who are raising their children bilingually, it is hoped to bring a clear picture of the
present day situation in Albania regarding bilingualism, at the same time this research can be
considered as a crucial work and a help for the researches conducted in the field of
bilingualism. Based on their answers in the questionnaire we are able to distinguish which is
the best strategy for raising a bilingual child successfully, it is One-Parent-One-Language
strategy. The parents are raising bilingual children because their parents belong to different
nationalities and each of them speaks a different language. They speak a certain language at
home and another language at work or within the community.
What really stands out in all of the families is that, in the question where they were
asked to list the most often used languages in their family, father to child, child to father ,
mother to child, child to mother and children with each-other all of them gave similar answers.
Each parent addresses to the child in his\her mother tongue accept in same case where it is
necessary to speak the other languages. Also children address their parent in the same
language, while children most of the time address each-other in the fathers language or the
language spoken by community.
Bibliography
Awaits, A. (2011, Spring). Retrieved from
http://www.mailoutinteractive.com/Industry/LandingPage.aspx?id=717168&p=1
Bloomfield, L. (1933). Language. London: Allen & Unwin.
Bloomfield, L. (1933). Language. London: Allen & Unwin.
F.Hamers, J., & Blanc, M. H. (2000). Bilinguality and Bilingualism. London: Cambridge
University.
Grosjean, F. (2010). Life and Reality. United States Press.
Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with two Languages. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,.
Hamers, J.F & Blanc, H.A. (2000). Bilinguality and bilingualism (2nd ed.). New York Press
Matsumoto-Gray, K. (2009). Connection between language and society. In K. MatsumotoGray*, langugae,Meaning and Society (p. 29).
McLaughlin, B., Blanchard, A., & Osanai, Y. (1995). Assessing language development in
bilingual preschool children. NCELA Program Information Guide Series, 22.
Retrieved January 22, 2009, from http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/pubs/pigs/pig2.htm.
Wardhaugh, R. (2006). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Australia: Blackwell
PhD. Lediana BESHAJ

Bedr University
MSc. Albana VOLUMI

Teacher at Hasan Riza Pasha College
Albania
COMPLEXITIES OF BLACK FEMME IDENTITY, ARTICULATED

AND DELINEATED IN "SULA" ALLURES ALBANIAN READERS
Abstract
The focus of this paper is on Toni Morrison, a prominent contemporary Afro-American writer,
who should be given a special attention and should be present and part of the permanent library
collection at universities, in book shops in Albania for she is one of the most critically
acclaimed living writers. Her books play a pivotal role in the American literature, but not only.
Her books have crossed the borders, belonging not only to the Americans, but to the whole
world. In Albania, publishing houses have translated only one of her books entitled Sula.
To read her books is like you are entering another world, which has not been explored
by the Albanians yet, to read her books you learn more about Afro-American history as she
performs a deep excavation into Americas history. At the same time she introduces the readers
to the most relevant issues of slavery, racism, discrimination, and above all gender inequality.
Keywords: feminism, gender equality, racism, discrimination
1.
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to analyze Toni Morrisons second novel Sula (1983).The
significance of the two female protagonists, Sula Peace and Nel Wright. The analysis aims to
explore a fraction of African American literature, which helped African Americans to find their
voice in a country such as the United States supposedly the land of ones dreams which turned
out to be a place, where laws were set against them. In literature, African American writers
with their stories have depicted their intricate experiences.
Sula (1974) is Toni Morrisons second published novel. Like The Bluest Eye, the
novel is a story of two girls coming of age. As children, these two girls, Sula Peace and Nel
Wright, function as two halves of a whole, often seeming to complete each others strengths
and weaknesses.
When they reach maturity, the different ways they react to the norms of their
community separate them and split their bond, until the end of the novel. Sula confronts issues
of loyalty, family, assimilation, innocence, gender, and sexuality, examining the criteria that
determine the character, quality, and relationships of a womans lifetime. Nevertheless, Toni
Morrison in her book aims to create an invincible strong female personage who not only
refuses the role [the standard role assigned for a woman], she steps outside the caste of woman,
beyond any class or definition [and] insists on making herself (Christian, Black Feminist
Criticism 76)
2.
Reasons Why Tony Morrison Must be Read by the Albanian Readers
It is quite apparent that Sula is a novel of oppositions. Morrison works with the balance
between good and evil and the complex relationships between black women. Through various
characters and themes, Morrison tries to balance between good and evil or life and death.
This opposition is most obvious in the primary relationship of the novel, the
friendship between Nel Wright and Sula Peace. Reflecting upon the two characters in a 1976
interview, Morrison noted that:
if they had been one person, I suppose they would have been a rather marvelous
person. But each one lacked something that the other one had. (Lister, 2009)
Morrison creates Nel as raised in a strict though stable home that strongly contrasts with the
disorder of Sulas family. While Nel is taught to obey social conventions, Sula learns at an
early age that sex was pleasant and frequent, but otherwise unremarkable (44). Her mother
sleeps with whoever interests her, but with such a lazy, carefree attitude that the women of the
town take her flirtations with their husbands as a compliment rather than as a threat.
Eva also exemplifies this man-love but because of her physical handicap, she is
limited to good-natured flirtations and to warning young wives to carefully attend to the desires
of their husbands. Although Eva is one of the fiercest characters in the novel, here she seems to
be following the traditional gender roles. Morrison, chooses to depict her as becoming fierce
because of motherly sensibility. The novel is full of shocking scenes, and one of them is when
Eva sets her son, Plum, on fire after he comes back from the war and emotionally ravaged and
addicted to drugs.
Despite their different upbringings, Sula and Nel become instant friends. The thirdperson narrator explains:
Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and
that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had set about creating
something else to be. Their meeting was fortunate, for it let them use each other to grow
on. (Lister, 2009)
Daughters of distant mothers and incomprehensible fathers (Sulas because he was dead; Nels
because he wasnt), they found in each others eyes the intimacy they were looking for.
While Nel becomes the more obedient of the two, Sula is marked by her recklessness.
In another gripping scene, she cuts off the tip of her finger to scare off a group of threatening
Irish boys. For a black girl to find the way to scare a group of white boys is against every
expectation, showing that Toni Morrison undermines conventional oppositions in the novel.
The boys presumably bear far greater social power because they are white and male.
The girls special company allows them to explore the world around them with
curiosity, not fear. However, this unlimited freedom also has dangerous consequences as in the
case of Chicken Little.
After ten years of travel, Sula returns to the Bottom to tell Eva, Dont talk to me
about how much you gave me, Big Mamma, and how much I owe you or none of that. . . . I
dont want to make somebody else. I want to make myself (92).
She clearly shows that she is focused only on her own desires, but at the same time
one could say that she is tough and resolute in creating her own identity. Sula rejects Evas
advice to settle down and have children and to the astonishment of the Bottom community she
even sends her grandmother to a nursing home. (Lister, 2009)
The focus on Nel and Sulas friendship is Morrisons aim to describe the emotional
support that black women have always provided for one another. As she explains, Friendship
between women is special, different, and has never been depicted as the major focus of a novel
before Sula.
In the final scene of the novel, Nel visits Eva in the nursery house. The elder woman
asks about the death of Chicken:
How did you get him to go in the water?
I didnt throw no little boy in the river. That was Sula.
You. Sula. Whats the difference? You was there. You watched, didnt you?
Me, I never wouldve watched. (168)
This part suggests that however much different Nel and Sula are, they are united by a sense of
culpability over Chicken Littles death. And indeed these words make her reflect on herself and
her now dead friend. At the end of the novel Nel recognizes that All that time, all that time, I
thought I was missing Jude. . . . We was girls together (174).
Asked about the stress on the community Morrison explains:
Black people never annihilate evil. They dont run it out of their neighborhoods, chop it
up, or burn it up. They dont have witch hangings. They accept it . . . Its as though God
has four faces for themnot just the Trinity, but four.
Even though Sula is against every convention, as a woman who throws her
grandmother into a nursing home and who is rumored to sleep with white men, the
community does not attack her. They believe that the presence of evil was something
to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over (118).
There is another way the community looks at her, though, making Sula a highly ambivalent
character. Morrison demonstrates how Sulas presence in the Bottom actually improves the
community. For example, Sulas loose ways and disregard of familial bonds inspires a derelict
mother to reform her lifestyle and care for her son. Using Sula as a key point of contrast, the
townspeople began to cherish their husbands and wives, protect their children, repair their
homes and in general band together against the devil in their midst (11718). The evil that
Sula represents acts as a force of good for the community.
This attitude illustrates once more Morrisons viewpoint that one can never really
define good and evil. Sometimes good looks like evil; sometimes evil looks like goodyou
never really know what it is. It depends on what uses you put it to. Evil is as useful as good is.
Morrison demonstrates that the creation of strict dualities only limits our
understanding of how people operate as complex, multifaceted beings. Oppositions between
good and evil, black and white, self and other definitely overlap. Though we may rely upon
such labels as neat categories of identity, they restrict our ability to understand the dynamic
nature of human motivations. (Lister, 2009)
3.
Feminism in Albania
Much of the black feminist thought tries to convey black womens increasing willingness to
oppose inequality regarding gender and color. Septima Clark states:
I used to feel that women couldnt speak up, because when district meetings were being
held at my home . . . I didnt feel as if I could tell them what I had in mind . . . But later
on, I found out that women had a lot to say, and what they had to say was really
worthwhile. . . . So we started talking, and have been talking quite a bit since that time.
(C. Brown 1986, 82)
Feminist methodology promises a more interpersonal relationship between researchers
and those whose lives are the focus of research. Feminist methodology seeks to break
down barriers that exist among women as well as the barriers that exist between the
researcher and the researched (Leslie Rebecca Bloom, 1998)
Feminism is a wide notion with one single orientation: gender equality, same rights for people,
no matter what gender they are. Albania is almost devoid of such notion. A great number of
people confuse the term feminism and apply it derogatively to a number of different
contexts. Still, out of a minority who understands the term, there are those who think that
feminists claim only female rights. In fact, a feminist is anyone who dares to stand against any
discrimination based on gender. Besides it's not only a fight to gain woman's rights, but also to
release the man from a pre-defined and absurd role he is given in a patriarchal society.
The French writer and philosopher Simone De Beauvoir, 1986, in her book The Second Sex,
explains that one is not born a female, one becomes a female, thus stating that when we are
born we are infants. No infant has an idea that male infants will have more priorities in life
than female ones. It is from their families and through the process of socializing that we learn
which gender outweighs the other in every aspect.
It is from the early childhood that we acquire definite and separate roles for males and
females, and though recently the subject of feminism has begun to be dealt with, it is still in its
infancy, it is quite common even nowadays, to decide which toys boys play with and which
ones are for girls, which color fit boys and which one flatter girls.
When puberty comes or even later, these distinction between males and females
become even sharper, for most families in Albania it is customary to let their boys go out and
come home at will, while restrict young girls to parental supervisory all their teenage hood.
Surprisingly when these girls grow up their parents don't hold the grip anymore, letting go of
their daughter to their husbands families like properties under another family supervision
now.
No matter how emancipated our society claims to be, there are sign of this patriarchy
everywhere in our country. And all females, in one way or another suffer from this oppression.
Patriarchy is tyrannical and it is based on a rigid hierarchy on top of which are males, and at
the bottom of it are poor woman of color.
The Albanian TV station top Channel has broadcast a program called Tendencies
toward female books The categorization made to female literature in Albania has been a
heated debate and as such it has been the cause for many discussions. According to a survey
which intended to analyze the kinds of books Albanian women preferred to purchase in
different fairs, most Albanian females chose chick lit, a genre fiction that addresses issues of
modern womanhood mostly lightheartedly. The top favorite ones were Sex and the City, the
Diary of Bridget Jones, the Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, Lipstick Jungle ..etc.
Many female critics, like Iva Tico, the head of MapoMadamme, the distinguished
writers like Diana Culi and FluturaAcka, view such books as shallow or literature to be read
at the beach as most of them do not require specific highly intellectual power in order to be
understood. According to their observation, male writers like OrhanPamuk, HarukiMorakani or
Amos Oz, were among the most favorite.
Question like : What about Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, ElfrideJelinek, these
Oscar winners, widely acclaimed throughout the world? began to arise.
There is ever growing female intellectual concern about the domination of chick lit in
Albania. The question that doesnt seem to have a clear cut answer yet is ; Is this kind of
literature finally sealing the reputation of the woman as shallow and dreamy?
With the intention of making just a small step toward the change, I have prepared the
survey below and handed it out to a specific group, namely students studying at the
Department of Foreign Languages, University of Shkodra, English Language. It is a group of
40 students who attended to my survey.
4.
Conclusion
Toni Morrisons decision to use an African female as protagonist reflects her interest in gender
oppression as well as race and class oppression. In fact, all three forms of oppression are
explored in each of Morrisons works. However, their primacy varies depending on the
authors level of consciousness. In The Bluest Eye, sexism, like class exploitation, plays a
secondary role to race oppression. Morrison does make clear, however, that the African female
is the most vulnerable to capitalist propaganda in the United States, for it is the female in
general who, in the United States, has often had her worth measured in terms of beauty rather
than character or accomplishment. Also, Morrisons concern with gender oppression is
reflected in the rape of Pecola.
If there is one thing that Toni Morrison author, playwright, librettist, lyricist, Nobel
Prize winner, social and literary critic has taught us, it is that we are all responsible for those
choices, we have to take the lead, think as individuals potential enough to bring about changes,
no matter what color or what gender.
To me it is the role of the writer and the critic to elaborate and explore in depth the
gender discourse in Albania. This way the process would be developed gradually starting from
the intellectual elite and ending in rural areas which are yet accurate models of male-dominant
societies, where men lead the way and where the women follow. Yet I do acknowledge the
fact that the cause is not only cultural, but also economical. Economic male autonomy has to
be adjusted reducing womans dependency on male as the only bread-winners.
As Morrison herself has noted, responsibility is also response-ability, the
capacity for a dialogue between writer and reading public, often mediated by the critic, which
demands that (1) we take the author and her work seriously and meet her on her own terms,
and (2) we prepare ourselves, yes, academically, but equally important, psychically to free our
minds from the constraints of the inherited, the given, the unquestioned, the unspeakable, in
order to meet marginal authors on their own terms.
It must have taken her enormous effort to obtain the canonization seldom granted to
women writers, almost never to blacks. And yet Morrison was hardly the first non-white, nonmale author to challenge the hegemony of the white-male center: that effort has also been both
political and collective in nature as, for example, in the open letter to the New York Times by
forty-eight black writers, decrying the non-recognition of Beloved, inexplicably passed over in
1987 for both the American Book Award and the Pulitzer. (She later indicated that that support
and recognition by her own writerly community was one of the most meaningful awards she
has ever received.)
It is fascinating that in an informal survey among writers and other literati by the same
news institution in May 2006, the very same book was voted the best piece of fiction written in
the US in the last twenty-five years.
Our work has attempted to look at some of her works as an entity basically lingering
on Sula, but mostly focusing on her themes and her ideas as inspiring incentives to make a
change in our everyday reality. In the middle of the Albanian cultural reality, badly wounded
from the lengthy communism regime, it is extremely difficult to even ask a question that is at
the heart of feminist theory: how Albanian women may come to understand themselves as
speaking subjects within this historical frame of patriarchal society? In Albania women lack
the concrete means to organize themselves and stand against this categorization as the other.
They live spread among men, closely connected to their homes, work, economic interest
depended by their men, fathers, husbands.
It takes great courage to stand against such a well established system, it takes both men and
women to be more sensitive on the issue of gender equality. It is everybodys issue.
Bibliography
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Translated by H. M. Parshley. New York: Vintage
Books, 1989. English translation of Le deuxime sexe (Paris: Gallimard, 1949).
Bloom, L.R. (1998), Under the Sign of Hope. Paperback.
Brown, C (1986) Gender-role Analysis, Psychoanalysis, p. 82
Christian, Barbara. (1986), Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers.
New York: Pergamon Press. Print.
Collins,P. H. ( 2000), Black Feminist Thought . Routledge New York and London
Holloway, Karla F.C. (2004), Blooms guide Toni Morrisons Beloved , Philadelphia: Chelsea
house publishers
Lister, Rachel, (2009) Reading Toni Morrison, California: Greenwood Press
Morrison, Toni, (2004) Sula , New York: Random House
PhD. Brikena SMAJLI

Department of Educational Sciences
ELEMENTS OF CREATION, AND THE EMPEDOCLEAN

VIEWPOINT IN WASTE LAND OF T. S. ELIOT.
Abstract
We almost studied the well-known work of Eliot based on the notes of the author himself, the
mythological concepts of Fraser in his Golden Bough, that of Jessie L. Westons in From
ritual to Romance, focussing mostly in the symbols of fertility.
Here we suggest another view of reading; an analysis based on primal Empedoclean elements
of creation: fire, water, earth and air, not as symbols of fertility but of that of creation. In fact,
for Sir James Frazer, fertility myth is the key to all mythologies; and therefore the key concept
of every interpretation of all literary works written in mythical method. Instead of James Fraser
it is Mircea Eliade who emphasizes the creation myth as the key of all. In this paper we go on
approaching M. Eliade point of view and that of by Laurence Coupe in his book Myth, who
emphasise that: The creation paradigm gives us the idea of facing up to primordial chaos,
manifest in the absurdity of repetition, and so beginning life anew, as if from the very moment
in which the universe began., linking together the elements of creation as mythical symbols
and the concept of birth and life which here has to be found in front of an Waste land. Why, by
this creational point of view we find no life in the waste land? How are interrelated the primal
elements of creation in the poem itself? Do they really give us a creation, a poem?
Keywords: elements of creation, Empedocle, poetic of creation, symbols, waste land, creation
myths.
Prof. Assoc. Dr. Rregjina GOKAJ

M.A. Anisa KASTRATI
Faculty of Education, University A. Moisiu
Durrs, Albania
THE EFFECT OF CULTURE SPOT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

TEACHING
Abstract
This paper spotlights on teaching Culture Spot in the foreign language classroom and
endeavours to show that Culture maintains an important place in foreign language teaching and
learning. Widely speaking, most of our colleagues of English teaching think that language and
culture are closely related. While language reflects the value shared by people in society,
culture is considered the set of values that society shares. In this sense, culture is a crucial
component in language teaching and learning. In our everyday teaching of English as a foreign
language to our pupils or students, it is difficult to shun parts of English culture. Sometimes it
seems quite impossible, but shortly thinking, learning a language without its culture is also
quite impossible. If we experiment this, it brings the result of turning our students into a fluent
fool, meaning someone speaking a foreign language fluently but not grasping the social or
philosophical content of the language. This makes us think deeper that teaching a foreign
language means incorporating the target cultural knowledge as well. This paper will bring a
case study of the impact of Culture Spot in textbooks of English in some middle schools in
Durres District.
Keywords: culture, language, teaching, outcome, society, pupils etc.
PhD. Jolanda LILA

Faculty of Humanities,
Department of Communication Sciences,
Beder University, Tirana, Albania
GAINS OF SYMBOLIC MYTHOLOGY

ON THE POEM DESERT LAND OF T.S. ELIOT.
Abstract
Mythologyc symbol as an alegoric and logic form, like concience and creative form is very
present on the modern literature. One of dominating tools of T. S.Elliotts poetry is return to
the myth, as a way to build up an apocalyptic vision about the world.( ...at my very end is my
very beginning..)-T.Elliott. This means that the past is present at the moment as well as in the
future. This scientific paper will reveal specifics of the use of mythologic symbols on this
author poetry. It is worth mentioning that those symbols have not only enriching function of
understanding sphere but, fondamental effect on poetry structure building. Seen from this point
of view, we can easily reach the conclusion that the mythological ingredient has three main
points which shape up the poetry structure.
Firstly: Resemantizn of mythic symbols where they are taken and reformed in a new
background on time and space. Transformation and adaptation of those mythologic symbols in
a new context seems quite usual and natural. It enables the author to bypass the declarative
expressions by using instead the suggestions. This exactely missing kind of language leads
through a penetration on the semantic mist and towards finding analogy between mythic
reflections of all time.
Secondly: The dissolve of mythic signs showing up as a determinant as well as destinguished
factor of Elliotts style, on the background of modern literature. Different from the usual way
of retaking and the vulgar way of myths by using multi contects means, he takes messages and
ideas and different mythological elements. So, we dont have the return of mythological
symbols but, their semantic fields only and their penetration on the fondamental characteristics
of the myths is revealed through the prefrase.
Thirdly: Mythic atmosphere through analogue situations, where we find flat situations
tied up with the element of prophecy, dialogues between humans and gods, all those come to
light through textual examples.
Keywords: symbol, myth, poetry, universality
MSc Sonila TATILI,

Prof. Assoc. Dr Tomi TRESKA
Universiteti Europian i Tirans
Albania
PSYCHOANALYTICAL CRITICISM
AS A METHOD IN LITERATURE INTERPRETATION
Outline
Psychoanalysis is a significant method which explores various possible meanings of what is
seen in the surface 23. It has a strong relation with the literature and both of them do have one
thing in common: they open the window on the human life that enriches the readers beyond
what they might conceive by themselves. 24 So this means that both, the literature and
psychoanalysis are good methods of going beyond what is seen in the surface of the reality.
They navigate in the depth of the things by helping us to think in the real meanings concerning
language and dealing with thought. Psychoanalysis is a good approach to interpret different
genres of literature such as: fairy tales, legends, myths and so on and so forth. This is why
psychoanalysis stands closely to the literature. It speaks the unspoken, discovers the hidden,
and transmits what tries to stay concealed in the parts of the human unconsciousness.
For different reasons, psychoanalysis is too near childrens literature. Freud had a
strong affection to children. He was of the opinion that the child hides a lot of wishes, desires
and thoughts in his mind. The purpose of psychoanalysis as a method is to explore all these
wishes, desires and thoughts. It was necessary for Freud to deal with all of them, because they
are the basic features on which the foundations of the future are built. These wishes and inner
thoughts are the determiners of the childs decisions, conflicts and perspectives. In one of the
Freuds studies, he found out that child as fragile human beings use their wishes to determine
their actions in their future life.
Freud thought that psychoanalysis is helpful to uncover what is hidden in order to make
children clear and able enough to see the reality.
Children often face a lot of difficulties in their own lives, and it happens that when they
finish their specific stories they still remain attached to them, destroying they everyday
equilibrium. The same thing happens when reading a fairy tale. While reading it the children
suddenly develop a fear or attraction to the characters through which the plot occurs. The
specifics of the analyst's interventions typically include confronting and clarifying the patient's
pathological defenses, wishes and guilt. Through the analysis of conflicts, including those
contributing to battle and those involving change onto the analyst of unclear reactions,
psychoanalytic treatment can elucidate how patients unconsciously are their own worst
enemies: how unconscious, symbolic reactions that have been inspired by experience are
causing symptoms
Psychoanalysis is a good method of transmitting literature genres; it also helps the
reader especially the child to clarify his ideas and to explain his fears, attractions and other
different aspects of behavior. The psychoanalysis helps children to be free of fears and at the
same time to face his life as it is, challenging triumphantly the reality, creating a good relation
with it etc.
Literary critics see and consider psychoanalysis from different point of view. A good
example to be mentioned is Carl Jung.
Carl Jung gave his contribution to what psychoanalysis is needed for. According to him, our
consciousness is composed by different issues such as models of behaviors, ideas etc.
It can be considered as a universe surrounded by myths, thoughts, symbols which affect our
behaviors. Here we come to the conclusion that psychoanalysis helps one individual to
understand myths and to adopt their features to themselves.
D .W Winiscott helped in the exactness of the good psychoanalytical interpretation. As he was
a pediatrician, he was more interested in the childs relations with the literary interpretation and
elucidation. His ideas were shaped correctly by doing a lot of experiments to the children after
reading a piece of a literary work. The impact was unbelievable. All the literature genres
influence every aspect of human, especially of a child behavior. This happens, because the
child sees and considers them as good models to follow.
Through Psychoanalysis as a method we can make children meet with the fairy tales,
legends, myths, etc. While reading all these genres, readers face a lot of new things, absorb
new knowledge. Psychoanalysis helps children to acquire morals and values. Children cope
with adoration and antipathy, kindness and cruelty, in few novels the good and the bad,
friendship and hate. All these features are comprehended by the application of psychoanalysis.
The child learns that the kindness and the goodness are always victorious towards the cruelty
and the evil. The child in this way understands that he/she should always be good and kind
because in this way they will be honored and respected by the others. That is why the children
have a hero in their minds and make it an example to follow and to cope with.
Are these things the ones that the children learn from a fairy tale /myth/legend?
Certainly not; while reading children can meet different stories and learn from them their
history and antiquity, admiring the countries and develop their knowledge. They see how
progression is developed in a society of a certain country, and how traditions are inherited from
one generation to another, how the purity of spirits always wins. All these values and
characteristics help the children to establish the "groundworks in a prosperous society.
MSc. Fjona CUKANI

MSc. Laert MEZANI
MSc. Anila CUKANI
IMPLEMENTATION OF E-HEALTH IN COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE

EU AS A METHOD TO REDUCE COSTS AND INCREASE EFFICIENCY
AT THE EUROPEAN LEVEL
Abstract
In national European sanitary systems, there is a substantial gap in terms of managing the
patients based on their state of origin. Even after powerful communication campaigns and
investments in the sanitary sector to create a European clinical database, the current level of
information is insufficient and brings about exorbitant costs. There are a plethora of reliable
data speaking about the positive effects, in terms of time, cost and health of the patients,
facilitating the communications between two or more geographically distant hospitals. This
article reviews the evidences that the recent academic literature and enacted European projects
gave rise to, and tries to evaluate the application of e-health in the candidate status countries
where Albania is part of.
Keywords: e-health, sanitary communication, informative sanitary system
1.
Introduction
Is it possible to increase the efficiency of European healthcare system containing costs? And is
it 'possible to ensure the patient a better management of his medical shortening? Our research
project, taking as target group emmmigrants from non-EU countries, seeks, through the
implementation of new technologies, to find appropriate solutions to ensure optimal in order to
short the service delivery. This system allows healthcare organizations to access the medical
records of the country of origin of the patient to minimize the number of analyzes to be
performed and ensure a complete diagnosis in a shorter time. The goal of the project is to
analyze the current state of information technology in the health sector, the feasibility of the
project, the perceived benefits and the barriers that prevent the use of these methods in a large
scale.
2.
Theme and Methodology
In the above work once the concepts have been defined and the modifications and changes
been undertaken, the objective would be of analyzing e-health with regards to understanding
the current issues related to the provision of health care, preserving the data and creating
reports for reformist purposes, hence it is divided into two parts. It tries to put to comparison
the unified model of the European Community and the one proposed by us at the continental
level, analyzing the feasibility and the resultant opportunities. This way, we can give a great
contribution in helping to understand e-health and, moreover, develop new theoretical
foundations able to produce increasingly efficient and consumer oriented systems in the future.
There is strong pressure to innovate in the enterprise information systems, being these of public
or private companies domain, in order to ensure as better a service for the customer as better a
management of costs. To implement such systems, we should take into account not only the
financial costs but also other factors related to the digital divide between different countries.
Therefore, besides the proposed model, this paper tries to stimulate discussion and the
development of sustainable strategies in order to reduce the digital divide in the country.
3.
E-health Actual State of the European Healthcare Sector
With the development of the technology in addition to the economic benefits and the impact of
the world economy has fundamentally changed the way we do. This change was also caught in
the Digital Agenda for Europa20202 strategy. The information technologies applied to the
health care system, such as digital health card, the information system requirements, the
database of analysis of the patients, the electronic management of patients during their
recovering time in hospital, and other implementations have significantly reduced costs and
doctorserrors, in addition to help the entire health system and the decision-making process.
Actually the eHealth Network program is applied only by 28 countries belonging to the
European community and only concerns the health care in any country where the citizen is
located with the objective that in 2020, to create a data which includes informations and
services in order to make the European health system efficiently and economically for its
citizens. In the program are not included citizens outside the EU, resident or not. Our project,
which identifies the critical points in the program tries to give a solution, which implemented
in the current one, increases efficiency and contain costs in the long term. According to the
report "Migration and Asylum "there are 20 million legal immigrants who are entitled to access
to healthcare in the EU and about 420,000 irregular besides the 440,000 asylum seekers. Even
the last ones by medical facilities accommodation have free access to basic health services.
Currently although with different speeds EU countries are adopting the methods for recording
information electronically. In Italy the Ministry of Health has started pilot projects basis and
others already fully operational offering a summary of the patient including clinical and
administrative data and also participates in the project epSOS.
4.
Definition of the Project and the Methodology
The countries of Europe are making the necessary reforms until it is possible to access the
European Union especifically as a result the participation in all European programs, the
considered health sector. This implicates over major countries' efforts to adapt their system to
the European one as the creation of European funds for the implementation of information
systems and the change of the legal framework in these countries. The project considers the
implementation in the short terms, to do a study of the recent literature and by creating
statistical processing.
The project proposes the goal of building where there is a real platform for storage and access
to patient clinical data and integrating it with the existing platforms in the EU.
Analysing, through the European database, the state of health on the continent. We want to
develop a survey by creating two study groups, as well as to synthesize previous studies in the
literature, with those that are part of our target groups, namely:
1. Citizens outside the EU, in time of the survey are using the health service for routine
checks, or for problems not attributable to extraordinary factors such as accidents,
violence and so on
2. Citizens outside the EU, in time of the survey are using the health service for routine
checks, or for problems not attributable to extraordinary factors such as accidents,
violence and so on. but as participants in the study, they will also show their medical
records from the country of origin.
The poll will be directed to the hospital staff in order to get feedback relating to the advantages
in terms of time of hospitalization of the patients and the number of analyzes carried out to
arrive at the diagnosis. By analyzing the change in a logical context as is - to be, we can
determine the mode and the effects this produces.
How:
1) Study of the Sector
The integration to the European information system requires a study of the current legislative
framework of countries outside the EU:
a. Legislative framework on health care
b. Privacy
c. Processes and information management in the health system
Fig. 1 Information Management in the health service
As described in the figure, there are different sources of information that once elaborated lead
to complete diagnosis. In the case of patients non-EU citizens there is an information gap that
to be bridged must be supported by a greater number of analyzes to achieve the same level of
information of EU citizens and lead to a more complete picture.
5.
Effects
So given the current state of the countries considered they proceed with the inclusion in the
package of the reforms, to be taken to enter in the European Community, the necessary
directives to scan until the health care system.
The free movement of people with the entry into the European community of the candidate
countries, also requires a growth check-up as a result of the perception of the quality that has
the health service in European comparer with the country of origin. On the other hand, the
doctors have previous information to the visit required fewer information to complete the
diagnosis.
Therefore it can be run in two stages :
a) implementing information systems at Community level and supporting the costs of
the duplication of analysis for non-EU citizens and later finance the integration system
to the incoming EU States.
b) implementing the information systems at the continental level,including even the
countries that have the candidate status, to omit the duplication of analysis.
Thus gaining in terms of time and cost and making the community health service more
efficient.
6.
Conclusion
There is strong a pressure innovating the enterprise information systems, public or private
companies, in order to ensure both a better service for the final customer in a better
management of costs. We can give a great contribution in helping to understand the e-health
and to develop new theoretical foundations which are able to produce, in the future,
increasingly systems more efficient and oriented to the consumators. Certainly to implement
the system should take account not only of the financial costs and other factors but even to the
digital divide between the different states. Being short-term negative factors the lasts once we
are confident that the implementation of a clinical database for the country over the internal
management of patients and of reforms in the health sector will be also the positive effect
abroad, where nearly reside 30 of the population. It is our challenge to give our best to
promote new technologies and make this happen.
Bibliography
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Reliability and Validity John E. Ware, Jr., Mark Kosinski and Susan D. Keller
Anderson, James G. "Social, ethical and legal barriers to e-health." International journal of
medical informatics 76.5 (2007): 480-483.
Barriers to proliferation of electronic medical records- Ignazio Valdes, David C Kibble, Greg
Tolleson, Mark E Kunik, Laura A Pettersen
Bates, David W., et al. "A proposal for electronic medical records in US primary care." Journal
of the American Medical Informatics Association 10.1 (2003): 1-10.
Coiera, Enrico. "Building a national health IT system from the middle out."Journal of the
American Medical Informatics Association 16.3 (2009): 271-273.
Darkins, Adam, et al. "Care coordination/home telehealth: the systematic implementation of
health informatics, home telehealth, and disease management to support the care of
veteran patients with chronic conditions."Telemedicine and e-Health 14.10 (2008):
1118-1126.
E-health: transforming the physician/patient relationship -Marion J. Ball *, Jennifer Lillis
Electronic Health Records and Quality of Diabetes Care Randall D. Cebul, M.D., Thomas E.
Love, Ph.D., Anil K. Jain, M.D., and Christopher J. Hebert, M.D.
E-Records in health - Preserving our future - Richard E. Scott
Rethinking Communication in the E-health Era Linda Neuhauser and Gary L Kreps J Health
Psychol 2003; 8; 7
The Evolution of Health-Care Records in the Era of the Internet -Edward H. Shortliffe
Towards Semantic Interoperability for Electronic Health Records:Domain Knowledge

Governance for openEHR Archetypes Sebastian Garde, Petra Knaup, Evelyn J.S.
Hovenga, Sam Heard
Predicting the Adoption of Electronic Health Records by Physicians: When Will Health Care
be Paperless? - Eric W. Ford, Nir Menachemi, Thad Philips
Use of Electronic Health Records in U.S. Hospitals Ashish K. Jha, M.D., M.P.H., Catherine M.
DesRoches, Dr.Ph., Eric G. Campbell, Ph.D., Karen Donelan, Sc.D., Sowmya R. Rao,
Ph.D., Timothy G. Ferris, M.D., M.P.H., Alexandra Shields, Ph.D., Sara Rosenbaum,
J.D., and David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.
Eysenbach, Gunther. "What is e-health?." Journal of medical Internet research3.2 (2001).
Wilson, E. Vance, and Nancy K. Lankton. "Modeling patients' acceptance of providerdelivered e-health." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 11.4
(2004): 241-248.
Web Sources
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/information_society/strategies/si0016_it.htm
http://ec.europa.eu/health/ehealth/policy/network/index_en.htm
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http://www.epsos.eu/home.html
http://ec.europa.eu/health-eu/doc/ehealth.pdf
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9good_eHealth-report.pdf
PhD. Irvin FANIKO

Faculty of Humanities,
Department of Law
PhD. Cand. Arti OMERI

Department of English Language and literature
EUROPE BETWEEN COMMON AND CIVIL LAW

THE NEW CHALLENGES OF EUROPEAN COEVAL LEGISLATION
Abstract
The road of Europe towards the economic union and political unification is an example which
deserves to be analysed in every aspect.
It begins with the Treaty of Paris (1952) which founded the European Coal and Steel
Community and continues with the Treaty of Rome which founded the European Economic
Community and European Atomic Energy Community.
Meanwhile, EU in 2004 had the European Constitution Project signed from Member
States. The ratification process of this constitution wasnt simple and it was rejected by the
negative results of the referendums made in France and Netherlands between May to June in
2005. The European showed once more how difficult it was for them to put their national
constitutions in the 2nd place. The term Constitution created a fear to those who considered
the ratification of this constitution as a violation of national sovereignty.
This paper covers a period starting with the European constitutional crisis which ended
only with a compromise made at five oclock- under German Energetic Presidency. The
European Council decided the waiver of the European constitution and the ratification of a new
treaty on 19 June 2009. On 13 December 2007 the Member States of EU signed the Treaty of
Lisbon that amended the Treaty of EU and the Treaty of European Community
The purpose of this article is to discuss whether this new revolutionary democratic form
consists in popular participation, where EU is engaged to create and offer to European citizens
the opportunity so they can present to the European Commission a request for the composition
of a new legislation.
The coming into force of the Treaty of Lisbon was reflected more over the institutional
changes of EU, but the revolution of this treaty was undoubtedly the European Civil
Initiative which engaged other structures of EU in the preparation of the special regulations
and directives which would make possible the instalment of this Revolution.
Keywords: Legislation, Treaty, Constitution, European Union, Law.
1.
Institutional Law in European Community
Regarding the constitutional law of the member states as a rapidly developing topic,
sovereignty has undergone historic and judicial process of European integration. Court of
Justice has an important role with regards to observance of internal resources to international
ones and vice versa respecting the principle of Prevalence of the latter, given that the European
Union is expected to add new member states. Can all the current EU member states guarantee
their citizens a welfare state in the union since its jurisdiction extend to all areas of internal
orders?
According to this moment we see that the institutional role loses its sovereignty in
traditional terms and at the same time we are before a hardened administrative sovereignty.
2.
Common Law and Civil Law Applications
Since ancient times the western world have mainly two major political opinions, Greek and
Roman. Their perspective has been somewhat different. Greek political thought is primarily
interested for the state conception, while the Roman model is more concerned with the study of
the law. (Omari 2004).
Regarding the state governing, it can be said that Christianity in its essence transformed
the concept. In ancient times the state and religion were one, related to this Jesus Christ teaches
that his theory does not belong to this world and separates religion from government and he
adds: give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is Gods. It was precisely at this moment
that it noticed the first division between God and state because in that moment all power
belonged to Caesar. Jesus Christ with this division decided that religion is not the state and that
obedience to Caesar was not the same thing as obedience to God. (Omari 2004). During the
prosperity period of Republican Rome, it was the Senate that exercised legally the highest
power, sovereign power, representing at least formally the will of the people, where every act
begun with the expression: Senatus Populus quem Romanus ". At this period it could seem
difficult that all the power was in the hands of the sovereign.
In Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, there were the Germanic people
that first brought a different concept of law which differed from the Romans concept. It was
inherited from the Greek Law School. The creation of this new empire was due to the concept
that law would be qualified as fair, unique, and universal.
In the medieval thought the royal power was related to the right and to the common
good and at this moment we can use the expression of Saint Augustine "Omnis potestas a Deo"
in order to argue that obeying the royal power was a form of obedience to God.
The idea of medieval thought of Thomas d'Aquin mentioned by Aristotle in the
theological lectures of Cicero which states that the Republic is a set of many human beings
gathered in a society through the acceptance of law and the common interests of the
community, indicates the foundation of the modern states (Omari, 2004).
This initial Germanic law idea about limiting the power of the king who does not create
the right himself but was forced to declare it constitutes the essence of English law. In
England, the Roman and the canonical law were denied. The Roman-Byzantine principle to
which the king was a Solutus Legibus, was opposed by the principle announced in the XIII
century, according to which the king stands sub Deo et lege, quia lex facit regem. On the basis
of this principle it was found the English doctrine, which is based on the primacy of law (Fasso
1979, Omari 2002).
3.
Conclusion
In this paper we can conclude that in terms of new challenges to the European
contemporary legislation, we should bear in mind the historical process in which we are now.
We should also not neglect the institutional juridical process. Europe with all the Member
States represents a set of institutionally unified states but not on juridical terms, and with
regard to the latter, not only for lawyers but for all legal scientists there exist a division
between common law and civil law. They represent significant differences in terms of political
and institutional organization of member States. The latter even though in harmony with the
other has differences in the form of legal organization. Thus institutional bodies of the EU
should have the task of harmonizing the legal systems .
Regarding the civil law legal system, it was born with the foundation of Rome and
expanded mainly in all countries of the Roman Empire and still finds application in those
countries which have more institutional inherited tradition. This system with its practicality
makes possible the evolution of legal science together with social changes through history by
adapting different state orders. As we can see, it is a legal system in socio-economic
development of elements that define each member state although each member country
belongs to a different socio-economic condition.
Regarding the common law legal system, it was born and developed in England and
finds full application in the Anglo Saxon countries inside and outside Europe especially in all
Commonwealth member states. Although it resembles as a consolidated legal system which
has been practised over centuries there are still many significant deficiencies regarding the
contemporary developments. In this system differing from the civil law, there is present in
addition to the judge, a jury which often appreciates the importance of guilt on the offense.
This system although it looks like solid, it results more democratic and popular than the other
older system.
Bibliography
A. Cervati, Studi sulla riforma costituzionale; itinerari e temi per linnovazione costituzionale
in Italia, (Torino, Giappichelli G. Editore, 2001).
A. Cervati, Per uno studio comparativo del diritto costituzionale, (Torino: Giappichelli G.
Editore. 2009).
Bartole S., Riforme costituzionali nell'Europa centro-orientale. Da satelliti comunisti a
democrazie sovrane, Bologna, il Mulino, 1993.
Biscaretti di Ruffia P., Costituzioni straniere contemporanee, vol. I, Gli Stati Socialisti,
Milano, Giuffr, IV edizione ed int. rifatta in due volumi, 1987.
Biscaretti di Ruffia P., Introduzione al diritto costituzionale comparato, le form di Stato e le
form di governo, le costituzioni moderne, Milano, Giuffr, 6 edizione, 1988.
Bobbio N., Let dei diritti, Torino, Einaudi, 1990.
Fasso G., La scienza e la filosofia del diritto, ne Storia delle idee economiche, politiche e
sociali Vell. VI, UTET, 1979, f. 796 tek Omari L., Shteti i se drejtes, Elena Gjika,
Tirane 2002,
Omari L., Kuptimi i shtetit te se drejtes, Elena Gjika, Tirane 2004,
Omari L. Ndarja e pushteteve dhe pavaresia e institucioneve kushtetuese, Elena Gjika, Tirane
2011,
Omari L., Kuptimi i shtetit te se drejtes, Elena Gjika, Tirane 2004, .
Onida V., La Costituzione, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2007.
Tesauro G., Diritto comunitario, IV ed., Cedam, Padova 2005.
H. Kelsen, Teoria generale del diritto e dello stato, IV ed., (Milano: Etas, 2000).
N. Bobbio, Pluralismo, n Dizionario della politica, Torino, Utet, 1990.
N. Picardi, (a cur.) Martino Roberto., La giurisdizione nellesperienza giurisprudenziale
contemporanea, Milano, Giuffr Editore, 2008.
PhD. Valbona MUA

Education Sciences Faculty,
Sociology Department,
University Aleksandr Xhuvani,
MSc Margarita MUA (LAKA)

Education Sciences Faculty, Social Sciences Department,
Aleksandr Xhuvani University,
Elbasan, Albania
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE IN

ALBANIAN SOCIETY OVER THE YEARS
Abstract
In this article we will see a general description of marriage and divorce. Marriage and divorce
in the Albanian society have had their time to be lectured and institutionalized. Nowadays we
can talk about divorce without fear. Prejudice and mentality for divorced women are somewhat
faded, but still remain strong in all these rural areas. Despite all these changes to
"emancipated" that have occurred over the years in our country, it is noted that the number of
divorces is rightly increased. It may be considered as a painful wound that is destroying
Albanian family. In this article I will cover the forms and ways that have changed the concept
of marriage, the causes that lead a couple to divorce, as increasing numbers of divorces in
Albania, the types of divorce or phases in which passes to be divorced couple etc.
1.
The concept of marriage in the Albanian society over the years and centuries
Numerous studies that have been done over the years, prove that the traditional culture of the
Albanian people, especially since the fifteenth century until the beginning of World War II,
have worked more detailed cultural norms that encourage and "legitimize" the realization of
marital ties, at least in several social areas. Prosecution of tribal norms was different in time,
different regions and social groups.
According to the Canon of Lek Dukagjin, whose cultural norms applied mainly in
Northern and Northeastern Albania, banned marriage and betrothal of girls if the boy had blood
up to four hundred generations. This Canon forbidding marriages between people whose tribes
had any godfather respect, brotherhood (brother or sister who had drunk the blood of each
other). Other canons statutes, particularly Canon of Skanderbeg, was implemented in central
Albania and Julie Pope Canon, which was implemented in southern Albania, encourage and
legitimize the realization of marriages. For example, Skanderbeg canon forbidding marriage
between two young people who had family ties between them to 100 generations by the father
and 7 generations by mother. Cultural norms of ekzogamia in Albania are documented and
observed by foreign traveler who visited our country, especially during the XIX and XX
century.
Edith Durham in the late '20 twentieth century wrote: "Albanian tribe is derived from
a male grandparent. All persons attend that same background of that same male progenitor,
however far in generations they are called "brothers and sisters" and they were not married to
each other. This law was strictly applied.
According to Shtjefen Gjeovi: At Albanian canons are provided strict sanctions for
those who violate norms of ekzogamia such as penalty, house burning, expulsion and murder.
These heavy punishments against "causer" appointed by the influential men of the tribe, after
marriage two persons of the same blood was considered ugly insult to tribe. Though, to do the
dirty tribe, his every member of the socialization process should be familiar with the whole
genealogical tree first."
2. The Role of Marriage in Albanian Society and how it "was used" from Our
Ancestors.
Albanian society marriage between young people was conceptualized and realized as an
alliance between the heads of their families, the alliance that was aimed primarily at
strengthening the status of mutual economic, social and the defense against enemies. Many
foreigners and local researchers have described the Albanian family, particularly the
highlander as "a small state "or a "republic" with a political and army organization. At these
families women and females in general had no rights, except taking care about food and
clothes. Such things happened mostly in the families of feudal leaders. While among popular
broad mass was the opposite a marriage connection could eliminate not only the usual conflicts
of everyday life, but often arrived to stop the marriage the blood feud. A marriage between two
families in blood feud was the only guarantee for their reconciliation.
The declaration of independence of Albania (1912) to the eve of World War II (1939),
the legal basis for regulating structured with marriage and divorce problems, (the latter until
then was virtually non-existent, especially if a such request came from the wife) was "Civil
Code", which entered into force on April 1 after 1929. On 06.26.1965 was approved "family
code of Popular Republic of Albania by the Parliament of Albania. This code was revised and
approved on 29/6/1982, which with few additional amendments is actual at Albanian society.
Democratization process at Albanian society in early 1990s of the twentieth century as the
most important component was religious revitalization. The return of Albanians into religious
beliefs, in this "forbidden apple" by the communist regime during the years 1967-1990 25, was
followed by an attempt to prevent the marriage of the young men and women who belonged to
different religious; at some cases even as an attempt "to correct mistakes of the past" by
divorced couples who had the same faith. Such phenomenon was temporary in our Albanian
society. Nowadays, in Albanian society, religious beliefs do not block marriage between
different religions.
3.
Divorce into Albanian society
Divorce or dissolution in Albania is a positive as well as disturbing phenomenon. Albania is

now introduced in the European integration process and Albanian society must face new
phenomenon, as well as the serious problems. Divorce is one of them, considered as the only
solution to a failed marriage to a non functional family, but also as the final destruction of a
marriage, with negative consequences not only for the couple but above all to the children. The
number of divorces in Albania has been increased significant year after year, especially after
the "90s, an indicator for the emancipation of Albanian women. During communism Albanian
women for the sake of the children, the mentality and the low economic level, agree to keep a
spouse who is not worthy for them. This would happen even though they suffered
psychologically, not loved their husband or in the worst case even when they were domestic
violated. The divorce rate in our country has alarmed not only the Albanian society, but also
international statistical agencies. Divorce is one of the most controversial topics and addressed
by the social sciences. Divorce is a widespread phenomenon throughout the world, it is now
fairly widespread in Albanian society as well. Divorce, just like marriage is a right of
individual which is guaranteed and protected in the legislation of almost all countries. Divorce
is defined as a valid marriage settlement during matrimony, for reasons provided by law and
the legal procedures. Connection and dissolution of the marriage are regulated by law. But
however divorce in itself presents a social problem. First legislation over divorcing are ancient
Greek, Roman, Byzantine, etc. The attitude towards divorce has been linked to the ruling class
concepts about marriage and family. In a patriarchal society like the Albanian society, the
freedom to choose divorcing in place of a relationship that did not work with, I was an
unacceptable concept as much as in many non-metropolitan areas, but not only separation often
was considered as disgrace, especially for women. A concept, that even though I faded during
25 years of political pluralism, again remains dominant, especially in the poorest strata of
society. Before 90s was not easy to get a divorce, as required very strong reasons and
furthermore the pair that required divorce was faced with heavy consequences. It was
forbidden. Divorce has not been easy, not only for but also the moral framework does not
allow the state to make divorce for reasons which not considered important, they should be
strong reasons, otherwise it was impossible. There were a number of factors that influenced
changes on the concept of marriage. Until the 90s it was a monogamous relationship and
sexually locked, we cannot say the same thing nowadays. ''Marriage is an institution of private,
intimate, individuals make the marriage, is their act in this regard has no right to interfere with
anyone".
25
Dervish Zyhdi:Grate ne syrin e ciklonit ye sfidave dhe perspektiva,Shtepia Botuese EmalTirane 2009 fq. 181.
4.
Causes and Consequences of Divorce in Albania
But what is happening with the Albanian marriages and why this growing trend to move
towards divorce? Harmony interior and exterior in every family is an expression of social and
social compactness of a people, of a society. The fact that in Albania, in years recently has
increased drastically divorce is really worrying. Alarming number of divorces come for many
reasons, but first is the very period of transition that our country is facing, is the irregular
movement of the population inside and outside the borders of Albania, then the cultural factor,
exclusion newness of life in the city or area where emigration and "collision" that happens to
the person cultural between formation has already made, the new challenges that await,
recognizing the new reality, extreme poverty, lack of communication bridges in reality new
etc.
A large portion of divorces are the result of the tyranny of public opinion and of power that
have old concepts on marriage. A motive for divorce is the poverty that exists in the Albanian
society, but poverty cannot wear all marriage problems. Most come from domestic violence.
The center for domestic violence is family, where more violence exercised upon which run
down physical and verbal violence. Jealousy is another factor. Also the technology and
digitalization of life has decreased privacy and matrimonial relationship. There are other causes
such as the conflict between the bride and betrayal. New problems on nowadays, such as
violence, jealousy, betrayal, lack of communication, cultural differences, and poverty are
threatening the institution of marriage.
When a couple decides to divorce he must bear a large number of changes in the way of life
and the concept of so-called as its conceptualization. There are six stations of divorce (by Paul
Bohannan 1970) 26 . Each of them may create tensions and difficulties that affect the couple,
children, friends and their relatives.
1. Emotional divorce-express deterioration of the marriage, the growing tension
between partners and usually leads to separation.
2. Legal divorce - is the end of marriage legally.
3. Economical divorce - has to do with the division of assets and property.
4. Parental divorce - related to child custody issues and the rights of meetings with
them.
5. Social divorce has to do with changes in the social circle of the divorced.
6. Psychological divorce - occurs when the individual interrupts the previous links and
combats emotional demands of living alone.
According to Robert Weiss women divorce suffer most from the economic
perspective, while from social and psychological adjustment is the same for both genders. At
most cases of divorce is noted that the consent and respect for one another disappear even
before separation. They are replaced by distrust and enmity. At the other side, it continues to
exist feeling of being emotionally connected with each other. Even though partners may be
removed before separation argument, after it they experience a sense of sorrow called grief of
separation. The absence of the husband immediately creates a sense of panic. A very small
26
Ceci Nuredin Sociologjia e pergjithshmefq.101-102.
number of people prove the contrary, the feeling of boredom, because feel free and with more
time to deal only with themselves. After some time these feelings are replaced by loneliness.
They are detached by their familiar life and the friendly relationship always change.
Social consequences, the play of divorce has become more dangerous, very serious
consequences disturbing social, economic, educational and debilitating impact of disintegration
and social cohesion of our country. Divorce obviously is the solution to a failed marriage and a
family of her dysfunctional and perhaps most fundamental as is the function of upbringing and
education of children, and they are the most damaged ones. Even though actors of divorce
become parents, children are the ones that experience all the consequences. Even social
consequences that brings the phenomenon of divorce the greatest damage is over children.
There are a lot of orphan children at Albanian institutions that take social services. Most of
them have divorced parents or have deep social problems. Children of divorced parents have
higher figures psychological stress and mental illness.
The effects of parental divorce on children are difficult to valuate. Should be kept in
mind the degree of conflict between the parents before the separation, the child's age at the
time, if there are other brothers and sisters or the children, or grandparents holding position
relatives others, that continue to maintain links with each of the parents-all of these and other
factors trace the process of adapting the child to a new life after parental divorce awaiting. But
still difficult for them is keeping on foot of an unhappy marriage, full of tension between
parents who do not divorce for the sake of different foster their often show that children suffer
spiritually parents after separation.
Usually preschool age children are concerned and intimidated and think that
they themselves are to blame for the separation of parents.
While the oldest children are more able to understand the motives of the
separation of their parents, but they are very concerned about the impact that the
divorce will have on their life in the future. They appear feelings of anger.
It needs a long time to pass this stage and usually after a period of 5 years a large number of
children with divorced parents cope with reasonable so their new life. So a positive fit with it.
Some others remain dissatisfied by life they do. They suffer from depression and loneliness,
especially when the parent with whom they live, is remarried. Even though experience has
proven that children develop better when after separation related continuing with both parents,
than when only regularly meet with one of them. Also noticed that all those parents divorced
and consequently also their children when seeking help from psychologists are better able to
cope with the separation positively and the major changes taking place in their lives. Singleparent families are so random. Most of them are headed by women because usually they take
custody of children after divorce. These families belong to the poorest groups of society or in
those with average incomes. This latter occurs mostly when the mother has a consolidated
profession and a stable job. Fortunately has long terms such as "abandoned wives", "fatherless
families", "destroyed house" is heard less and less.
The category27 of families with a parent is very diverse. For example, almost half of
divorced mothers have their house and half to remain living at rented homes. Economicpsychological situation on such families is not viable, its borders are too vague and flexible.
5. Real Data on Divorces that Uccur in Albania
27
Giddens Anthony.SociologjiaShtepia Botuese E.Cabej,Tirane 2002 fq.388.
Now there is no doubt! Divorce is eroding the institution of marriage in Albania. Figures
released by the courts and the media testify to this bitterly truth. Divorce is not a social
phenomenon, totally wrong, to be named only as destructive of marriage. Ai should be
interpreted first and, as a phenomenon in dimension and function polyvalent social causes,
legal and cultural. Increment of number of divorces nowadays, considered a social
phenomenon of universal scale, one of the features of the contemporaneous company. By
facing this phenomenon, of this size expanded, sociologists have reached the conclusion that
on nowadays marriage is an institution that is becoming more unstable. And our society seems
to abandon taboos, the unique concept of internal marriage. There are attempts to leave the
faithfulness of closed marriage. There are only men who have so rights. Women have the rights
and responsibilities in making decisions in a family have the grate. They are freer, more
independent, study, earn income and travel alone. By living in modern society, they have
numerous opportunities to live in solitude, even when they are married. They gradually got the
own right of independence and privacy of a divorce besides. Consequences of a divorce, except
ex-spouses, mostly affect children. At the same time divorce of the parents affects them
negatively because of lose family model healthy, something which is reflected in the future of
society.
6.
Divorce in Western Countries
Divorce was taboo not only in our country but also in some western countries. Over centuries
marriage was considered indeterminable. Divorce was accepted only in rare cases such as the
case of no consumed marriage. In a referendum in Ireland in 1986 most of people voted against
divorce. To be divorced a spouse had to first represent charges (for example, to abuse,
abandonment or betrayal, etc.) against the other. First lows for divorce "no blame" were
published in several countries among many Western countries viteve1960. Since then western
countries followed this practice, though specifically details over countries. In the UK Divorce
Reform Act, which was adopted in 1969 and entered into force in 1971, contained provisions
"without blame", so he facilitated getting the couples divorce.
7.
Divorce in Islamic Countries
Does the concept of divorce have evolved in these countries? Why Islam has given the right to
divorce her husband only? Or why not be the agreement of the two and the final decision be
left to the court? In the Islamic world that a couple of divorces, this or done with the consent
and the will of both parties, or by the will of only one party (that is, man) .We first case when it
voluntarily both parties is not a problem. The problem consists in the second and especially
when there is only the desire and the will of the husband. According to them woman lives
under the pressure of her husband when he wants to be divorced he gets divorced and when he
doesnt want the marriage continues. When Islam recognizes the right man to seek divorce,
obliges with some responsibility towards his wife. He must guarantee the living conditions
during the waiting period, up final divorce. If they have children he must bear their expenses
ranging from feeding, clothing and up to education. Wife can only ask for a divorce when her
husband beats, abandons, or consuming alcohol is a stingy.
8.
Conclusions
First, marriage nowadays in most cases is between two persons that love each other. Religious,
cultural, economic developments differences are not observed by persons who will be married.
Second, nowadays people have become more open-minded about concepts like
marriage and divorce. They do not prejudice divorced women. This should not taken absolute
thing for the whole territory of cities or villages of Albania. There still are villages and towns
find it hard to change their mentality. It is known that from little attempt create a more positive
and thinking of things.
Third, nowadays Albanian mothers and girls are better educated and care more about
their appearance. They are no typical example of the households that have a priority to be in
service to their family. Nowadays, women in Albania have a profession promising personal
income pretty good and make a social life. They work out, traveling and also not neglected the
care and love to the family who have.
Fourth, women do not have to fear to seek divorce when they see that love is over or
life in pairs do not function any more. They are capable to raise and educate their children.
They do not "shut the life" after a divorce but over time they rethink a second marriage without
being afraid of the shame of public opinion. All these and many others show that the concepts
with which it are imbued Albanian society is developed and being contemporaneous. Female is
taking respect and love that she merits. We should hope that all this modernization will not
raise the number of divorce and a single parent families.
Bibliography
G. Antonny (Tirane 2002) Sociologjia, Shtepia Botuese E.abej
D. Jonida (7 janar,2015) Gazeta telegraf, Dinamika ,shkaqet dhe pasojat e divorceve ne
Shqiperi,
Lajmeshqip.com , 16 January, 2013
Nuredin. (2012) Sociologjia e Pergjithshme (Cikel leksionesh.)
T.Gezim (11 korrik 2015)Shifra alarmante te divorceve: GazetaTema
Zyhdi.D (2009) Grate ne syrin e ciklonit te sfidave dhe perspektiva:Shtepia Botuese Emal
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1st ICELL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

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Sonmi as a Goddess. The island is regularly visited and studied by a technologically

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Professor Stephen TAPSCOTT

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JOHN BERRYMANS DREAM SONGS

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Femi Osofisans Version of Euripides' The Trojan Women

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In Osofisans play, Cassandras counterpart is Orisaye. Like the Greek Cassandra,

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