24853164 hard times charles dicken plot overview t

7/31/2019 24853164 Hard Times Charles Dicken Plot Overview T

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Hard Times

Charles Dicken

Plot Overview

T HOMAS GRADGRIND, A WEALTHY, RETIRED MERCHANT in the industrial city

of Coketown, England, devotes his life to a philosophy of

rationalism, self-interest, and fact. He raises his oldest children,

Louisa and Tom, according to this philosophy and never allows

them to engage in fanciful or imaginative pursuits. He founds a

school and charitably takes in one of the students, the kindly and

imaginative Sissy Jupe, after the disappearance of her father, acircus entertainer.

As the Gradgrind children grow older, Tom becomes a dissipated,

self-interested hedonist, and Louisa struggles with deep inner

confusion, feeling as though she is missing something important

in her life. Eventually Louisa marries Gradgrind’s friend Josiah

Bounderby, a wealthy factory owner and banker more than twice

her age. Bounderby continually trumpets his role as a self-mademan who was abandoned in the gutter by his mother as an infant.

Tom is apprenticed at the Bounderby bank, and Sissy remains at

the Gradgrind home to care for the younger children.

In the meantime, an impoverished “Hand”—Dickens’s term for the

lowest laborers in Coketown’s factories—named Stephen

Blackpool struggles with his love for Rachael, another poor

factory worker. He is unable to marry her because he is already

married to a horrible, drunken woman who disappears for months

and even years at a time. Stephen visits Bounderby to ask about

a divorce but learns that only the wealthy can obtain them.

Outside Bounderby’s home, he meets Mrs. Pegler, a strange old

woman with an inexplicable devotion to Bounderby.

James Harthouse, a wealthy young sophisticate from London,

arrives in Coketown to begin a political career as a disciple of



Gradgrind, who is now a Member of Parliament. He immediately

takes an interest in Louisa and decides to try to seduce her. With

the unspoken aid of Mrs. Sparsit, a former aristocrat who has

fallen on hard times and now works for Bounderby, he sets about

trying to corrupt Louisa.

The Hands, exhorted by a crooked union spokesman named

Slackbridge, try to form a union. Only Stephen refuses to join

because he feels that a union strike would only increase tensions

between employers and employees. He is cast out by the other

Hands and fired by Bounderby when he refuses to spy on them.

Louisa, impressed with Stephen’s integrity, visits him before he

leaves Coketown and helps him with some money. Tomaccompanies her and tells Stephen that if he waits outside the

bank for several consecutive nights, help will come to him.

Stephen does so, but no help arrives. Eventually he packs up and

leaves Coketown, hoping to find agricultural work in the country.

Not long after that, the bank is robbed, and the lone suspect is

Stephen, the vanished Hand who was seen loitering outside the

bank for several nights just before disappearing from the city.

Mrs. Sparsit witnesses Harthouse declaring his love for Louisa,

and Louisa agrees to meet him in Coketown later that night.

However, Louisa instead flees to her father’s house, where she

miserably confides to Gradgrind that her upbringing has left her

married to a man she does not love, disconnected from her

feelings, deeply unhappy, and possibly in love with Harthouse.

She collapses to the floor, and Gradgrind, struck dumb with self-

reproach, begins to realize the imperfections in his philosophy of

rational self-interest.

Sissy, who loves Louisa deeply, visits Harthouse and convinces

him to leave Coketown forever. Bounderby, furious that his wife

has left him, redoubles his efforts to capture Stephen. When

Stephen tries to return to clear his good name, he falls into a

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mining pit called Old Hell Shaft. Rachael and Louisa discover him,

but he dies soon after an emotional farewell to Rachael.

Gradgrind and Louisa realize that Tom is really responsible for

robbing the bank, and they arrange to sneak him out of England

with the help of the circus performers with whom Sissy spent her

early childhood. They are nearly successful, but are stopped by

Bitzer, a young man who went to Gradgrind’s school and who

embodies all the qualities of the detached rationalism that

Gradgrind once espoused, but who now sees its limits. Sleary, the

lisping circus proprietor, arranges for Tom to slip out of Bitzer’s

grasp, and the young robber escapes from England after all.

Mrs. Sparsit, anxious to help Bounderby find the robbers, dragsMrs. Pegler—a known associate of Stephen Blackpool—in to see

Bounderby, thinking Mrs. Pegler is a potential witness. Bounderby

recoils, and it is revealed that Mrs. Pegler is really his loving

mother, whom he has forbidden to visit him: Bounderby is not a

self-made man after all. Angrily, Bounderby fires Mrs. Sparsit and

sends her away to her hostile relatives. Five years later, he will

die alone in the streets of Coketown. Gradgrind gives up his

philosophy of fact and devotes his political power to helping the

poor. Tom realizes the error of his ways but dies without ever

seeing his family again. While Sissy marries and has a large and

loving family, Louisa never again marries and never has children.

Nevertheless, Louisa is loved by Sissy’s family and learns at last

how to feel sympathy for her fellow human beings.

Analysis of Major Characters

Thomas Gradgrind

Thomas Gradgrind is the first character we meet in Hard Times,

and one of the central figures through whom Dickens weaves a

web of intricately connected plotlines and characters. Dickens

introduces us to this character with a description of his most

central feature: his mechanized, monotone attitude and

appearance. The opening scene in the novel describes Mr.



Gradgrind’s speech to a group of young students, and it is

appropriate that Gradgrind physically embodies the dry, hard facts

that he crams into his students’ heads. The narrator calls attention

to Gradgrind’s “square coat, square legs, square shoulders,” all of

which suggest Gradgrind’s unrelenting rigidity.

In the first few chapters of the novel, Mr. Gradgrind expounds his

philosophy of calculating, rational self-interest. He believes that

human nature can be governed by completely rational rules, and

he is “ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature,

and tell you what it comes to.” This philosophy has brought Mr.

Gradgrind much financial and social success. He has made his

fortune as a hardware merchant, a trade that, appropriately, dealsin hard, material reality. Later, he becomes a Member of

Parliament, a position that allows him to indulge his interest in

tabulating data about the people of England. Although he is not a

factory owner, Mr. Gradgrind evinces the spirit of the Industrial

Revolution insofar as he treats people like machines that can be

reduced to a number of scientific principles.

While the narrator’s tone toward him is initially mocking and ironic,Gradgrind undergoes a significant change in the course of the

novel, thereby earning the narrator’s sympathy. When Louisa

confesses that she feels something important is missing in her life

and that she is desperately unhappy with her marriage, Gradgrind

begins to realize that his system of education may not be perfect.

This intuition is confirmed when he learns that Tom has robbed

Bounderby’s bank. Faced with these failures of his system,

Gradgrind admits, “The ground on which I stand has ceased to be

solid under my feet.” His children’s problems teach him to feel

love and sorrow, and Gradgrind becomes a wiser and humbler

man, ultimately “making his facts and figures subservient to Faith,

Hope and Charity.”

Louisa Gradgrind



Although Louisa is the novel’s principal female character, she is

distinctive from the novel’s other women, particularly her foils,

Sissy and Rachael. While these other two embody the Victorian

ideal of femininity—sensitivity, compassion, and gentleness—

Louisa’s education has prevented her from developing such traits.

Instead, Louisa is silent, cold, and seemingly unfeeling. However,

Dickens may not be implying that Louisa is really unfeeling, but

rather that she simply does not know how to recognize and

express her emotions. For instance, when her father tries to

convince her that it would be rational for her to marry Bounderby,

Louisa looks out of the window at the factory chimneys and

observes: “There seems to be nothing there but languid andmonotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts out.”

Unable to convey the tumultuous feelings that lie beneath her own

languid and monotonous exterior, Louisa can only state a fact

about her surroundings. Yet this fact, by analogy, also describes

the emotions repressed within her.

Even though she does not conform to the Victorian ideals of

femininity, Louisa does her best to be a model daughter, wife, and

sister. Her decision to return to her father’s house rather than

elope with Harthouse demonstrates that while she may be

unfeeling, she does not lack virtue. Indeed, Louisa, though

unemotional, still has the ability to recognize goodness and

distinguish between right and wrong, even when it does not fall

within the strict rubric of her father’s teachings. While at first

Louisa lacks the ability to understand and function within the gray

matter of emotions, she can at least recognize that they exist andare more powerful than her father or Bounderby believe, even

without any factual basis. Moreover, under Sissy’s guidance,

Louisa shows great promise in learning to express her feelings.

Similarly, through her acquaintance with Rachael and Stephen,

Louisa learns to respond charitably to suffering and to not view

suffering simply as a temporary state that is easily overcome by

effort, as her father and Bounderby do.



Josiah Bounderby

Although he is Mr. Gradgrind’s best friend, Josiah Bounderby is

more interested in money and power than in facts. Indeed, he is

himself a fiction, or a fraud. Bounderby’s inflated sense of pride isillustrated by his oft-repeated declaration, “I am Josiah Bounderby

of Coketown.” This statement generally prefaces the story of

Bounderby’s childhood poverty and suffering, a story designed to

impress its listeners with a sense of the young Josiah

Bounderby’s determination and self-discipline. However, Dickens

explodes the myth of the self-made man when Bounderby’s

mother, Mrs. Pegler, reveals that her son had a decent, loving

childhood and a good education, and that he was not abandoned,after all.

Bounderby’s attitude represents the social changes created by

industrialization and capitalism. Whereas birth or bloodline

formerly determined the social hierarchy, in an industrialized,

capitalist society, wealth determines who holds the most power.

Thus, Bounderby takes great delight in the fact that Mrs. Sparsit,an aristocrat who has fallen on hard times, has become his

servant, while his own ambition has enabled him to rise from

humble beginnings to become the wealthy owner of a factory and

a bank. However, in depicting Bounderby, the capitalist, as a

coarse, vain, self-interested hypocrite, Dickens implies that

Bounderby uses his wealth and power irresponsibly, contributing

to the muddled relations between rich and poor, especially in his

treatment of Stephen after the Hands cast Stephen out to form a

union.

Stephen Blackpool

Stephen Blackpool is introduced after we have met the Gradgrind

family and Bounderby, and Blackpool provides a stark contrast to

these earlier characters. One of the Hands in Bounderby’s

factory, Stephen lives a life of drudgery and poverty. In spite of

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the hardships of his daily toil, Stephen strives to maintain his

honesty, integrity, faith, and compassion.

Stephen is an important character not only because his poverty

and virtue contrast with Bounderby’s wealth and self-interest, butalso because he finds himself in the midst of a labor dispute that

illustrates the strained relations between rich and poor. Stephen is

the only Hand who refuses to join a workers’ union: he believes

that striking is not the best way to improve relations between

factory owners and employees, and he also wants to earn an

honest living. As a result, he is cast out of the workers’ group.

However, he also refuses to spy on his fellow workers for

Bounderby, who consequently sends him away. Both groups, richand poor, respond in the same self-interested, backstabbing way.

As Rachael explains, Stephen ends up with the “masters against

him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only

wantin’ to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right.” Through

Stephen, Dickens suggests that industrialization threatens to

compromise both the employee’s and employer’s moral integrity,

thereby creating a social muddle to which there is no easy

solution.

Through his efforts to resist the moral corruption on all sides,

Stephen becomes a martyr, or Christ figure, ultimately dying for

Tom’s crime. When he falls into a mine shaft on his way back to

Coketown to clear his name of the charge of robbing Bounderby’s

bank, Stephen comforts himself by gazing at a particularly bright

star that seems to shine on him in his “pain and trouble.” This star

not only represents the ideals of virtue for which Stephen strives,

but also the happiness and tranquility that is lacking in his

troubled life. Moreover, his ability to find comfort in the star

illustrates the importance of imagination, which enables him to

escape the cold, hard facts of his miserable existence.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Themes



Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored

in a literary work.

The Mechanization of Human Beings

Hard Times suggests that nineteenth-century England’s

overzealous adoption of industrialization threatens to turn human

beings into machines by thwarting the development of their

emotions and imaginations. This suggestion comes forth largely

through the actions of Gradgrind and his follower, Bounderby: as

the former educates the young children of his family and his

school in the ways of fact, the latter treats the workers in his

factory as emotionless objects that are easily exploited for hisown self-interest. In Chapter 5 of the first book, the narrator draws

a parallel between the factory Hands and the Gradgrind children

—both lead monotonous, uniform existences, untouched by

pleasure. Consequently, their fantasies and feelings are dulled,

and they become almost mechanical themselves.

The mechanizing effects of industrialization are compounded by

Mr. Gradgrind’s philosophy of rational self-interest. Mr. Gradgrindbelieves that human nature can be measured, quantified, and

governed entirely by rational rules. Indeed, his school attempts to

turn children into little machines that behave according to such

rules. Dickens’s primary goal in Hard Times is to illustrate the

dangers of allowing humans to become like machines, suggesting

that without compassion and imagination, life would be

unbearable. Indeed, Louisa feels precisely this suffering when she

returns to her father’s house and tells him that something hasbeen missing in her life, so much so that she finds herself in an

unhappy marriage and may be in love with someone else. While

she does not actually behave in a dishonorable way, since she

stops her interaction with Harthouse before she has a socially

ruinous affair with him, Louisa realizes that her life is unbearable

and that she must do something drastic for her own survival.

Appealing to her father with the utmost honesty, Louisa is able to



make him realize and admit that his philosophies on life and

methods of child rearing are to blame for Louisa’s detachment

from others.

The Opposition Between Fact and Fancy

While Mr. Gradgrind insists that his children should always stick to

the facts, Hard Times not only suggests that fancy is as important

as fact, but it continually calls into question the difference

between fact and fancy. Dickens suggests that what constitutes

so-called fact is a matter of perspective or opinion. For example,

Bounderby believes that factory employees are lazy good-for-

nothings who expect to be fed “from a golden spoon.” The Hands,in contrast, see themselves as hardworking and as unfairly

exploited by their employers. These sets of facts cannot be

reconciled because they depend upon perspective. While

Bounderby declares that “[w]hat is called Taste is only another

name for Fact,” Dickens implies that fact is a question of taste or

personal belief. As a novelist, Dickens is naturally interested in

illustrating that fiction cannot be excluded from a fact-filled,

mechanical society. Gradgrind’s children, however, grow up in anenvironment where all flights of fancy are discouraged, and they

end up with serious social dysfunctions as a result. Tom becomes

a hedonist who has little regard for others, while Louisa remains

unable to connect with others even though she has the desire to

do so. On the other hand, Sissy, who grew up with the circus,

constantly indulges in the fancy forbidden to the Gradgrinds, and

lovingly raises Louisa and Tom’s sister in a way more complete

than the upbringing of either of the older siblings. Just as fiction

cannot be excluded from fact, fact is also necessary for a

balanced life. If Gradgrind had not adopted her, Sissy would have

no guidance, and her future might be precarious. As a result, the

youngest Gradgrind daughter, raised both by the factual

Gradgrind and the fanciful Sissy, represents the best of both

worlds.



The Importance of Femininity

During the Victorian era, women were commonly associated with

supposedly feminine traits like compassion, moral purity, and

emotional sensitivity. Hard Times suggests that because theypossess these traits, women can counteract the mechanizing

effects of industrialization. For instance, when Stephen feels

depressed about the monotony of his life as a factory worker,

Rachael’s gentle fortitude inspires him to keep going. He sums up

her virtues by referring to her as his guiding angel. Similarly, Sissy

introduces love into the Gradgrind household, ultimately teaching

Louisa how to recognize her emotions. Indeed, Dickens suggests

that Mr. Gradgrind’s philosophy of self-interest and calculating

rationality has prevented Louisa from developing her natural

feminine traits. Perhaps Mrs. Gradgrind’s inability to exercise her

femininity allows Gradgrind to overemphasize the importance of

fact in the rearing of his children. On his part, Bounderby ensures

that his rigidity will remain untouched since he marries the cold,

emotionless product of Mr. and Mrs. Gradgrind’s marriage.

Through the various female characters in the novel, Dickenssuggests that feminine compassion is necessary to restore social

harmony.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that

can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Bounderby’s Childhood

Bounderby frequently reminds us that he is “Josiah Bounderby of

Coketown.” This emphatic phrase usually follows a description of

his childhood poverty: he claims to have been born in a ditch and

abandoned by his mother; raised by an alcoholic grandmother;

and forced to support himself by his own labor. From these

ignominious beginnings, he has become the wealthy owner of

both a factory and a bank. Thus, Bounderby represents the

possibility of social mobility, embodying the belief that any



individual should be able overcome all obstacles to success—

including poverty and lack of education—through hard work.

Indeed, Bounderby often recites the story of his childhood in order

to suggest that his Hands are impoverished because they lack his

ambition and self-discipline. However, “Josiah Bounderby of

Coketown” is ultimately a fraud. His mother, Mrs. Pegler, reveals

that he was raised by parents who were loving, albeit poor, and

who saved their money to make sure he received a good

education. By exposing Bounderby’s real origins, Dickens calls

into question the myth of social mobility. In other words, he

suggests that perhaps the Hands cannot overcome poverty

through sheer determination alone, but only through the charityand compassion of wealthier individuals.

Clocks and Time

Dickens contrasts mechanical or man-made time with natural

time, or the passing of the seasons. In both Coketown and the

Gradgrind household, time is mechanized—in other words, it is

relentless, structured, regular, and monotonous. As the narrator

explains, “Time went on in Coketown like its own machine.” Themechanization of time is also embodied in the “deadly statistical

clock” in Mr. Gradgrind’s study, which measures the passing of

each minute and hour. However, the novel itself is structured

through natural time. For instance, the titles of its three books

—“Sowing,” “Reaping,” and “Garnering”—allude to agricultural

labor and to the processes of planting and harvesting in

accordance with the changes of the seasons. Similarly, the

narrator notes that the seasons change even in Coketown’s

“wilderness of smoke and brick.” These seasonal changes

constitute “the only stand that ever was made against its direful

uniformity.” By contrasting mechanical time with natural time,

Dickens illustrates the great extent to which industrialization has

mechanized human existence. While the changing seasons

provide variety in terms of scenery and agricultural labor,

mechanized time marches forward with incessant regularity.



horse with “golden stars stuck on all over him.” The pegasus

represents a world of fantasy and beauty from which the young

Gradgrind children are excluded. While Mr. Gradgrind informs the

pupils at his school that wallpaper with horses on it is unrealistic

simply because horses do not in fact live on walls, the circus folk

live in a world in which horses dance the polka and flying horses

can be imagined, even if they do not, in fact, exist. The very name

of the inn reveals the contrast between the imaginative and joyful

world of the circus and Mr. Gradgrind’s belief in the importance of

fact.

Smoke Serpents

At a literal level, the streams of smoke that fill the skies above

Coketown are the effects of industrialization. However, these

smoke serpents also represent the moral blindness of factory

owners like Bounderby. Because he is so concerned with making

as much profit as he possibly can, Bounderby interprets the

serpents of smoke as a positive sign that the factories are

producing goods and profit. Thus, he not only fails to see the

smoke as a form of unhealthy pollution, but he also fails torecognize his own abuse of the Hands in his factories. The smoke

becomes a moral smoke screen that prevents him from noticing

his workers’ miserable poverty. Through its associations with evil,

the word “serpents” evokes the moral obscurity that the smoke

creates.

Fire

When Louisa is first introduced, in Chapter 3 of Book the First, the

narrator explains that inside her is a “fire with nothing to burn, a

starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow.” This

description suggests that although Louisa seems coldly rational,

she has not succumbed entirely to her father’s prohibition against

wondering and imagining. Her inner fire symbolizes the warmth

created by her secret fancies in her otherwise lonely, mechanized

existence. Consequently, it is significant that Louisa often gazes



into the fireplace when she is alone, as if she sees things in the

flames that others—like her rigid father and brother—cannot see.

However, there is another kind of inner fire in Hard Times— the

fires that keep the factories running, providing heat and power for

the machines. Fire is thus both a destructive and a life-giving

force. Even Louisa’s inner fire, her imaginative tendencies,

eventually becomes destructive: her repressed emotions

eventually begin to burn “within her like an unwholesome fire.”

Through this symbol, Dickens evokes the importance of

imagination as a force that can counteract the mechanization of

human nature.

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

Plot Overview

R OBINSON CRUSOE IS AN ENGLISHMAN from the town of York in the

seventeenth century, the youngest son of a merchant of German

origin. Encouraged by his father to study law, Crusoe expresses

his wish to go to sea instead. His family is against Crusoe going

out to sea, and his father explains that it is better to seek a

modest, secure life for oneself. Initially, Robinson is committed to

obeying his father, but he eventually succumbs to temptation and

embarks on a ship bound for London with a friend. When a storm

causes the near deaths of Crusoe and his friend, the friend is

dissuaded from sea travel, but Crusoe still goes on to set himself

up as merchant on a ship leaving London. This trip is financially



successful, and Crusoe plans another, leaving his early profits in

the care of a friendly widow. The second voyage does not prove

as fortunate: the ship is seized by Moorish pirates, and Crusoe is

enslaved to a potentate in the North African town of Sallee. While

on a fishing expedition, he and a slave boy break free and sail

down the African coast. A kindly Portuguese captain picks them

up, buys the slave boy from Crusoe, and takes Crusoe to Brazil.

In Brazil, Crusoe establishes himself as a plantation owner and

soon becomes successful. Eager for slave labor and its economic

advantages, he embarks on a slave-gathering expedition to West

Africa but ends up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad.

Crusoe soon learns he is the sole survivor of the expedition andseeks shelter and food for himself. He returns to the wreck’s

remains twelve times to salvage guns, powder, food, and other

items. Onshore, he finds goats he can graze for meat and builds

himself a shelter. He erects a cross that he inscribes with the date

of his arrival, September 1, 1659, and makes a notch every day in

order never to lose track of time. He also keeps a journal of his

household activities, noting his attempts to make candles, his

lucky discovery of sprouting grain, and his construction of a cellar,

among other events. In June 1660, he falls ill and hallucinates

that an angel visits, warning him to repent. Drinking tobacco-

steeped rum, Crusoe experiences a religious illumination and

realizes that God has delivered him from his earlier sins. After

recovering, Crusoe makes a survey of the area and discovers he

is on an island. He finds a pleasant valley abounding in grapes,

where he builds a shady retreat. Crusoe begins to feel moreoptimistic about being on the island, describing himself as its

“king.” He trains a pet parrot, takes a goat as a pet, and develops

skills in basket weaving, bread making, and pottery. He cuts down

an enormous cedar tree and builds a huge canoe from its trunk,

but he discovers that he cannot move it to the sea. After building

a smaller boat, he rows around the island but nearly perishes

when swept away by a powerful current. Reaching shore, he



hears his parrot calling his name and is thankful for being saved

once again. He spends several years in peace.

One day Crusoe is shocked to discover a man’s footprint on the

beach. He first assumes the footprint is the devil’s, then decides itmust belong to one of the cannibals said to live in the region.

Terrified, he arms himself and remains on the lookout for

cannibals. He also builds an underground cellar in which to herd

his goats at night and devises a way to cook underground. One

evening he hears gunshots, and the next day he is able to see a

ship wrecked on his coast. It is empty when he arrives on the

scene to investigate. Crusoe once again thanks Providence for

having been saved. Soon afterward, Crusoe discovers that theshore has been strewn with human carnage, apparently the

remains of a cannibal feast. He is alarmed and continues to be

vigilant. Later Crusoe catches sight of thirty cannibals heading for

shore with their victims. One of the victims is killed. Another one,

waiting to be slaughtered, suddenly breaks free and runs toward

Crusoe’s dwelling. Crusoe protects him, killing one of the

pursuers and injuring the other, whom the victim finally kills. Well-

armed, Crusoe defeats most of the cannibals onshore. The victim

vows total submission to Crusoe in gratitude for his liberation.

Crusoe names him Friday, to commemorate the day on which his

life was saved, and takes him as his servant.

Finding Friday cheerful and intelligent, Crusoe teaches him some

English words and some elementary Christian concepts. Friday,

in turn, explains that the cannibals are divided into distinct nations

and that they only eat their enemies. Friday also informs Crusoe

that the cannibals saved the men from the shipwreck Crusoe

witnessed earlier, and that those men, Spaniards, are living

nearby. Friday expresses a longing to return to his people, and

Crusoe is upset at the prospect of losing Friday. Crusoe then

entertains the idea of making contact with the Spaniards, and

Friday admits that he would rather die than lose Crusoe. The two

build a boat to visit the cannibals’ land together. Before they have



a chance to leave, they are surprised by the arrival of twenty-one

cannibals in canoes. The cannibals are holding three victims, one

of whom is in European dress. Friday and Crusoe kill most of the

cannibals and release the European, a Spaniard. Friday is

overjoyed to discover that another of the rescued victims is his

father. The four men return to Crusoe’s dwelling for food and rest.

Crusoe prepares to welcome them into his community

permanently. He sends Friday’s father and the Spaniard out in a

canoe to explore the nearby land.

Eight days later, the sight of an approaching English ship alarms

Friday. Crusoe is suspicious. Friday and Crusoe watch as eleven

men take three captives onshore in a boat. Nine of the menexplore the land, leaving two to guard the captives. Friday and

Crusoe overpower these men and release the captives, one of

whom is the captain of the ship, which has been taken in a

mutiny. Shouting to the remaining mutineers from different points,

Friday and Crusoe confuse and tire the men by making them run

from place to place. Eventually they confront the mutineers, telling

them that all may escape with their lives except the ringleader.

The men surrender. Crusoe and the captain pretend that the

island is an imperial territory and that the governor has spared

their lives in order to send them all to England to face justice.

Keeping five men as hostages, Crusoe sends the other men out

to seize the ship. When the ship is brought in, Crusoe nearly

faints.

On December 19, 1686, Crusoe boards the ship to return to

England. There, he finds his family is deceased except for two

sisters. His widow friend has kept Crusoe’s money safe, and after

traveling to Lisbon, Crusoe learns from the Portuguese captain

that his plantations in Brazil have been highly profitable. He

arranges to sell his Brazilian lands. Wary of sea travel, Crusoe

attempts to return to England by land but is threatened by bad

weather and wild animals in northern Spain. Finally arriving back

in England, Crusoe receives word that the sale of his plantations



has been completed and that he has made a considerable

fortune. After donating a portion to the widow and his sisters,

Crusoe is restless and considers returning to Brazil, but he is

dissuaded by the thought that he would have to become Catholic.

He marries, and his wife dies. Crusoe finally departs for the East

Indies as a trader in 1694. He revisits his island, finding that the

Spaniards are governing it well and that it has become a

prosperous colony

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe


Themes


in a literary work.

The Ambivalence of Mastery

Crusoe’s success in mastering his situation, overcoming his

obstacles, and controlling his environment shows the condition ofmastery in a positive light, at least at the beginning of the novel.

Crusoe lands in an inhospitable environment and makes it his

home. His taming and domestication of wild goats and parrots

with Crusoe as their master illustrates his newfound control.

Moreover, Crusoe’s mastery over nature makes him a master of

his fate and of himself. Early in the novel, he frequently blames

himself for disobeying his father’s advice or blames the destiny

that drove him to sea. But in the later part of the novel, Crusoe

stops viewing himself as a passive victim and strikes a new note

of self-determination. In building a home for himself on the island,

he finds that he is master of his life—he suffers a hard fate and

still finds prosperity.

But this theme of mastery becomes more complex and less

positive after Friday’s arrival, when the idea of mastery comes to

apply more to unfair relationships between humans. In Chapter



XXIII, Crusoe teaches Friday the word “[m]aster” even before

teaching him “yes” and “no,” and indeed he lets him “know that

was to be [Crusoe’s] name.” Crusoe never entertains the idea of

considering Friday a friend or equal—for some reason, superiority

comes instinctively to him. We further question Crusoe’s right to

be called “[m]aster” when he later refers to himself as “king” over

the natives and Europeans, who are his “subjects.” In short, while

Crusoe seems praiseworthy in mastering his fate, the

praiseworthiness of his mastery over his fellow humans is more

doubtful. Defoe explores the link between the two in his depiction

of the colonial mind.

The Necessity of Repentance

Crusoe’s experiences constitute not simply an adventure story in

which thrilling things happen, but also a moral tale illustrating the

right and wrong ways to live one’s life. This moral and religious

dimension of the tale is indicated in the Preface, which states that

Crusoe’s story is being published to instruct others in God’s

wisdom, and one vital part of this wisdom is the importance of

repenting one’s sins. While it is important to be grateful for God’smiracles, as Crusoe is when his grain sprouts, it is not enough

simply to express gratitude or even to pray to God, as Crusoe

does several times with few results. Crusoe needs repentance

most, as he learns from the fiery angelic figure that comes to him

during a feverish hallucination and says, “Seeing all these things

have not brought thee to repentance, now thou shalt die.” Crusoe

believes that his major sin is his rebellious behavior toward his

father, which he refers to as his “original sin,” akin to Adam and

Eve’s first disobedience of God. This biblical reference also

suggests that Crusoe’s exile from civilization represents Adam

and Eve’s expulsion from Eden.

For Crusoe, repentance consists of acknowledging his

wretchedness and his absolute dependence on the Lord. This

admission marks a turning point in Crusoe’s spiritual



consciousness, and is almost a born-again experience for him.

After repentance, he complains much less about his sad fate and

views the island more positively. Later, when Crusoe is rescued

and his fortune restored, he compares himself to Job, who also

regained divine favor. Ironically, this view of the necessity of

repentance ends up justifying sin: Crusoe may never have

learned to repent if he had never sinfully disobeyed his father in

the first place. Thus, as powerful as the theme of repentance is in

the novel, it is nevertheless complex and ambiguous.

The Importance of Self-Awareness

Crusoe’s arrival on the island does not make him revert to a bruteexistence controlled by animal instincts, and, unlike animals, he

remains conscious of himself at all times. Indeed, his island

existence actually deepens his self-awareness as he withdraws

from the external social world and turns inward. The idea that the

individual must keep a careful reckoning of the state of his own

soul is a key point in the Presbyterian doctrine that Defoe took

seriously all his life. We see that in his normal day-to-day

activities, Crusoe keeps accounts of himself enthusiastically andin various ways. For example, it is significant that Crusoe’s

makeshift calendar does not simply mark the passing of days, but

instead more egocentrically marks the days he has spent on the

island: it is about him, a sort of self-conscious or autobiographical

calendar with him at its center. Similarly, Crusoe obsessively

keeps a journal to record his daily activities, even when they

amount to nothing more than finding a few pieces of wood on the

beach or waiting inside while it rains. Crusoe feels the importance

of staying aware of his situation at all times. We can also sense

Crusoe’s impulse toward self-awareness in the fact that he

teaches his parrot to say the words, “Poor Robin Crusoe. . . .

Where have you been?” This sort of self-examining thought is

natural for anyone alone on a desert island, but it is given a

strange intensity when we recall that Crusoe has spent months



teaching the bird to say it back to him. Crusoe teaches nature

itself to voice his own self-awareness.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Counting and Measuring

Crusoe is a careful note-taker whenever numbers and quantities

are involved. He does not simply tell us that his hedge encloses a

large space, but informs us with a surveyor’s precision that the

space is “150 yards in length, and 100 yards in breadth.” He tellsus not simply that he spends a long time making his canoe in

Chapter XVI, but that it takes precisely twenty days to fell the tree

and fourteen to remove the branches. It is not just an immense

tree, but is “five foot ten inches in diameter at the lower part . . .

and four foot eleven inches diameter at the end of twenty-two

foot.” Furthermore, time is measured with similar exactitude, as

Crusoe’s journal shows. We may often wonder why Crusoe feels

it useful to record that it did not rain on December 26, but for himthe necessity of counting out each day is never questioned. All

these examples of counting and measuring underscore Crusoe’s

practical, businesslike character and his hands-on approach to

life. But Defoe sometimes hints at the futility of Crusoe’s

measuring—as when the carefully measured canoe cannot reach

water or when his obsessively kept calendar is thrown off by a

day of oversleeping. Defoe may be subtly poking fun at the urge

to quantify, showing us that, in the end, everything Crusoe countsnever really adds up to much and does not save him from

isolation.

Eating

One of Crusoe’s first concerns after his shipwreck is his food

supply. Even while he is still wet from the sea in Chapter V, he

frets about not having “anything to eat or drink to comfort me.” He

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soon provides himself with food, and indeed each new edible item

marks a new stage in his mastery of the island, so that his food

supply becomes a symbol of his survival. His securing of goat

meat staves off immediate starvation, and his discovery of grain is

viewed as a miracle, like manna from heaven. His cultivation of

raisins, almost a luxury food for Crusoe, marks a new comfortable

period in his island existence. In a way, these images of eating

convey Crusoe’s ability to integrate the island into his life, just as

food is integrated into the body to let the organism grow and

prosper. But no sooner does Crusoe master the art of eating than

he begins to fear being eaten himself. The cannibals transform

Crusoe from the consumer into a potential object to be consumed.Life for Crusoe always illustrates this eat or be eaten philosophy,

since even back in Europe he is threatened by man-eating

wolves. Eating is an image of existence itself, just as being eaten

signifies death for Crusoe.

Ordeals at Sea

Crusoe’s encounters with water in the novel are often associated

not simply with hardship, but with a kind of symbolic ordeal, ortest of character. First, the storm off the coast of Yarmouth

frightens Crusoe’s friend away from a life at sea, but does not

deter Crusoe. Then, in his first trading voyage, he proves himself

a capable merchant, and in his second one, he shows he is able

to survive enslavement. His escape from his Moorish master and

his successful encounter with the Africans both occur at sea. Most

significantly, Crusoe survives his shipwreck after a lengthy

immersion in water. But the sea remains a source of danger and

fear even later, when the cannibals arrive in canoes. The Spanish

shipwreck reminds Crusoe of the destructive power of water and

of his own good fortune in surviving it. All the life-testing water

imagery in the novel has subtle associations with the rite of

baptism, by which Christians prove their faith and enter a new life

saved by Christ.



Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to

represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Footprint

Crusoe’s shocking discovery of a single footprint on the sand in

Chapter XVIII is one of the most famous moments in the novel,

and it symbolizes our hero’s conflicted feelings about human

companionship. Crusoe has earlier confessed how much he

misses companionship, yet the evidence of a man on his island

sends him into a panic. Immediately he interprets the footprint

negatively, as the print of the devil or of an aggressor. He neverfor a moment entertains hope that it could belong to an angel or

another European who could rescue or befriend him. This

instinctively negative and fearful attitude toward others makes us

consider the possibility that Crusoe may not want to return to

human society after all, and that the isolation he is experiencing

may actually be his ideal state.

The Cross

Concerned that he will “lose [his] reckoning of time” in Chapter

VII, Crusoe marks the passing of days “with [his] knife upon a

large post, in capital letters, and making it into a great cross . . .

set[s] it up on the shore where [he] first landed. . . .” The large

size and capital letters show us how important this cross is to

Crusoe as a timekeeping device and thus also as a way of

relating himself to the larger social world where dates andcalendars still matter. But the cross is also a symbol of his own

new existence on the island, just as the Christian cross is a

symbol of the Christian’s new life in Christ after baptism, an

immersion in water like Crusoe’s shipwreck experience. Yet

Crusoe’s large cross seems somewhat blasphemous in making

no reference to Christ. Instead, it is a memorial to Crusoe himself,

underscoring how completely he has become the center of his

own life.



Crusoe’s Bower

On a scouting tour around the island, Crusoe discovers a

delightful valley in which he decides to build a country retreat or

“bower” in Chapter XII. This bower contrasts sharply withCrusoe’s first residence, since it is built not for the practical

purpose of shelter or storage, but simply for pleasure: “because I

was so enamoured of the place.” Crusoe is no longer focused

solely on survival, which by this point in the novel is more or less

secure. Now, for the first time since his arrival, he thinks in terms

of “pleasantness.” Thus, the bower symbolizes a radical

improvement in Crusoe’s attitude toward his time on the island.

Island life is no longer necessarily a disaster to suffer through, butmay be an opportunity for enjoyment—just as, for the

Presbyterian, life may be enjoyed only after hard work has been

finished and repentance achieved

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

Analysis of Major Characters

Robinson Crusoe

While he is no flashy hero or grand epic adventurer, Robinson

Crusoe displays character traits that have won him the approval

of generations of readers. His perseverance in spending months

making a canoe, and in practicing pottery making until he gets it

right, is praiseworthy. Additionally, his resourcefulness in building

a home, dairy, grape arbor, country house, and goat stable frompractically nothing is clearly remarkable. The Swiss philosopher

Jean-Jacques Rousseau applauded Crusoe’s do-it-yourself

independence, and in his book on education, Emile, he

recommends that children be taught to imitate Crusoe’s hands-on

approach to life. Crusoe’s business instincts are just as

considerable as his survival instincts: he manages to make a

fortune in Brazil despite a twentyeighyear absence and even



leaves his island with a nice collection of gold. Moreover, Crusoe

is never interested in portraying

. When Crusoe tells us that he has gotten married and that his

wife has died all within the same sentence, his indifference to herseems almost cruel. Moreover, as an individual personality,

Crusoe is rather dull. His precise and deadpan style of narration

works well for recounting the process of canoe building, but it

tends to drain the excitement from events that should be thrilling.

Action-packed scenes like the conquest of the cannibals become

quite humdrum when Crusoe narrates them, giving us a detailed

inventory of the cannibals in list form, for example. His insistence

on dating events makes sense to a point, but it ultimately ends upseeming obsessive and irrelevant when he tells us the date on

which he grinds his tools but neglects to tell us the date of a very

important event like meeting Friday. Perhaps his impulse to

record facts carefully is not a survival skill, but an irritating sign of

his neurosis.

Finally, while not boasting of heroism, Crusoe is nonetheless very

interested in possessions, power, and prestige. When he firstcalls himself king of the island it seems jocund, but when he

describes the Spaniard as his subject we must take his royal

delusion seriously, since it seems he really does consider himself

king. His teaching Friday to call him “Master,” even before

teaching him the words for “yes” or “no,” seems obnoxious even

under the racist standards of the day, as if Crusoe needs to hear

the ego-boosting word spoken as soon as possible. Overall,

Crusoe’s virtues tend to be private: his industry, resourcefulness,

and solitary courage make him an exemplary individual. But his

vices are social, and his urge to subjugate others is highly

objectionable. In bringing both sides together into one complex

character, Defoe gives us a fascinating glimpse into the

successes, failures, and contradictions of modern man.

Friday



Probably the first nonwhite character to be given a realistic,

individualized, and humane portrayal in the English novel, Friday

has a huge literary and cultural importance. If Crusoe represents

the first colonial mind in fiction, then Friday represents not just a

Caribbean tribesman, but all the natives of America, Asia, and

Africa who would later be oppressed in the age of European

imperialism. At the moment when Crusoe teaches Friday to call

him “Master” Friday becomes an enduring political symbol of

racial injustice in a modern world critical of imperialist expansion.

Recent rewritings of the Crusoe story, like J. M. Coetzee’s Foe

and Michel Tournier’s Friday, emphasize the sad consequences

of Crusoe’s failure to understand Friday and suggest how the talemight be told very differently from the native’s perspective.

Aside from his importance to our culture, Friday is a key figure

within the context of the novel. In many ways he is the most

vibrant character in Robinson Crusoe, much more charismatic

and colorful than his master. Indeed, Defoe at times underscores

the contrast between Crusoe’s and Friday’s personalities, as

when Friday, in his joyful reunion with his father, exhibits far moreemotion toward his family than Crusoe. Whereas Crusoe never

mentions missing his family or dreams about the happiness of

seeing them again, Friday jumps and sings for joy when he meets

his father, and this emotional display makes us see what is

missing from Crusoe’s stodgy heart. Friday’s expression of loyalty

in asking Crusoe to kill him rather than leave him is more heartfelt

than anything Crusoe ever says or does. Friday’s sincere

questions to Crusoe about the devil, which Crusoe answers onlyindirectly and hesitantly, leave us wondering whether Crusoe’s

knowledge of Christianity is superficial and sketchy in contrast to

Friday’s full understanding of his own god Benamuckee. In short,

Friday’s exuberance and emotional directness often point out the

wooden conventionality of Crusoe’s personality.

Despite Friday’s subjugation, however, Crusoe appreciates Friday

much more than he would a mere servant. Crusoe does not seem



to value intimacy with humans much, but he does say that he

loves Friday, which is a remarkable disclosure. It is the only time

Crusoe makes such an admission in the novel, since he never

expresses love for his parents, brothers, sisters, or even his wife.

The mere fact that an Englishman confesses more love for an

illiterate Caribbean ex-cannibal than for his own family suggests

the appeal of Friday’s personality. Crusoe may bring Friday

Christianity and clothing, but Friday brings Crusoe emotional

warmth and a vitality of spirit that Crusoe’s own European heart

lacks.

The Portuguese Captain

The Portuguese captain is presented more fully than any other

European in the novel besides Crusoe, more vividly portrayed

than Crusoe’s widow friend or his family members. He appears in

the narrative at two very important junctures in Crusoe’s life. First,

it is the Portuguese captain who picks up Crusoe after the escape

from the Moors and takes him to Brazil, where Crusoe establishes

himself as a plantation owner. Twenty-eight years later, it is againthe Portuguese captain who informs Crusoe that his Brazilian

investments are secure, and who arranges the sale of the

plantation and the forwarding of the proceeds to Crusoe. In both

cases, the Portuguese captain is the agent of Crusoe’s extreme

good fortune. In this sense, he represents the benefits of social

connections. If the captain had not been located in Lisbon,

Crusoe never would have cashed in on his Brazilian holdings.

This assistance from social contacts contradicts the theme ofsolitary enterprise that the novel seems to endorse. Despite

Crusoe’s hard individual labor on the island, it is actually another

human being— and not his own resourcefulness—that makes

Crusoe wealthy in the end. Yet it is doubtful whether this insight

occurs to Crusoe, despite his obvious gratitude toward the

captain.

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Moreover, the Portuguese captain is associated with a wide array

of virtues. He is honest, informing Crusoe of the money he has

borrowed against Crusoe’s investments, and repaying a part of it

immediately even though it is financially difficult for him to do so.

He is loyal, honoring his duties toward Crusoe even after twenty-

eight years. Finally, he is extremely generous, paying Crusoe

more than market value for the animal skins and slave boy after

picking Crusoe up at sea, and giving Crusoe handsome gifts

when leaving Brazil. All these virtues make the captain a paragon

of human excellence, and they make us wonder why Defoe

includes such a character in the novel. In some ways, the

captain’s goodness makes him the moral counterpart of Friday,since the European seaman and the Caribbean cannibal mirror

each other in benevolence and devotion to Crusoe. The captain’s

goodness thus makes it impossible for us to make oversimplified

oppositions between a morally bankrupt Europe on the one hand,

and innocent noble savages on the other.

Chinua Achebe hThings Fall Apart

Plot Overview

O KONKWO IS A WEALTHY AND RESPECTED WARRIOR of the Umuofia clan, a

lower Nigerian tribe that is part of a consortium of nine connected

villages. He is haunted by the actions of Unoka, his cowardly and

spendthrift father, who died in disrepute, leaving many village

debts unsettled. In response, Okonkwo became a clansman,

warrior, farmer, and family provider extraordinaire. He has a



twelve-year-old son named Nwoye whom he finds lazy; Okonkwo

worries that Nwoye will end up a failure like Unoka.

In a settlement with a neighboring tribe, Umuofia wins a virgin and

a fifteen-year-old boy. Okonkwo takes charge of the boy,Ikemefuna, and finds an ideal son in him. Nwoye likewise forms a

strong attachment to the newcomer. Despite his fondness for

Ikemefuna and despite the fact that the boy begins to call him

“father,” Okonkwo does not let himself show any affection for him.

During the Week of Peace, Okonkwo accuses his youngest wife,

Ojiugo, of negligence. He severely beats her, breaking the peace

of the sacred week. He makes some sacrifices to show hisrepentance, but he has shocked his community irreparably.

Ikemefuna stays with Okonkwo’s family for three years. Nwoye

looks up to him as an older brother and, much to Okonkwo’s

pleasure, develops a more masculine attitude. One day, the

locusts come to Umuofia—they will come every year for seven

years before disappearing for another generation. The village

excitedly collects them because they are good to eat whencooked.

Ogbuefi Ezeudu, a respected village elder, informs Okonkwo in

private that the Oracle has said that Ikemefuna must be killed. He

tells Okonkwo that because Ikemefuna calls him “father,”

Okonkwo should not take part in the boy’s death. Okonkwo lies to

Ikemefuna, telling him that they must return him to his home

village. Nwoye bursts into tears.

As he walks with the men of Umuofia, Ikemefuna thinks about

seeing his mother. After several hours of walking, some of

Okonkwo’s clansmen attack the boy with machetes. Ikemefuna

runs to Okonkwo for help. But Okonkwo, who doesn’t wish to look

weak in front of his fellow tribesmen, cuts the boy down despite

the Oracle’s admonishment. When Okonkwo returns home,

Nwoye deduces that his friend is dead.



Okonkwo sinks into a depression, neither able to sleep nor eat.

He visits his friend Obierika and begins to feel revived a bit.

Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma falls ill, but she recovers after

Okonkwo gathers leaves for her medicine.

The death of Ogbuefi Ezeudu is announced to the surrounding

villages by means of the ekwe, a musical instrument. Okonkwo

feels guilty because the last time Ezeudu visited him was to warn

him against taking part in Ikemefuna’s death. At Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s

large and elaborate funeral, the men beat drums and fire their

guns. Tragedy compounds upon itself when Okonkwo’s gun

explodes and kills Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s sixteen-year-old son.

Because killing a clansman is a crime against the earth goddess,

Okonkwo must take his family into exile for seven years in order

to atone. He gathers his most valuable belongings and takes his

family to his mother’s natal village, Mbanta. The men from

Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s quarter burn Okonkwo’s buildings and kill his

animals to cleanse the village of his sin.

Okonkwo’s kinsmen, especially his uncle, Uchendu, receive him

warmly. They help him build a new compound of huts and lend

him yam seeds to start a farm. Although he is bitterly disappointed

at his misfortune, Okonkwo reconciles himself to life in his

motherland.

During the second year of Okonkwo’s exile, Obierika brings

several bags of cowries (shells used as currency) that he hasmade by selling Okonkwo’s yams. Obierika plans to continue to

do so until Okonkwo returns to the village. Obierika also brings

the bad news that Abame, another village, has been destroyed by

the white man.

Soon afterward, six missionaries travel to Mbanta. Through an

interpreter named Mr. Kiaga, the missionaries’ leader, Mr. Brown,

speaks to the villagers. He tells them that their gods are false and

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that worshipping more than one God is idolatrous. But the

villagers do not understand how the Holy Trinity can be accepted

as one God. Although his aim is to convert the residents of

Umuofia to Christianity, Mr. Brown does not allow his followers to

antagonize the clan.

Mr. Brown grows ill and is soon replaced by Reverend James

Smith, an intolerant and strict man. The more zealous converts

are relieved to be free of Mr. Brown’s policy of restraint. One such

convert, Enoch, dares to unmask an egwugwu during the annual

ceremony to honor the earth deity, an act equivalent to killing an

ancestral spirit. The next day, the egwugwu burn Enoch’s

compound and Reverend Smith’s church to the ground.

The District Commissioner is upset by the burning of the church

and requests that the leaders of Umuofia meet with him. Once

they are gathered, however, the leaders are handcuffed and

thrown in jail, where they suffer insults and physical abuse.

After the prisoners are released, the clansmen hold a meeting,

during which five court messengers approach and order theclansmen to desist. Expecting his fellow clan members to join him

in uprising, Okonkwo kills their leader with his machete. When the

crowd allows the other messengers to escape, Okonkwo realizes

that his clan is not willing to go to war.

When the District Commissioner arrives at Okonkwo’s compound,

he finds that Okonkwo has hanged himself. Obierika and his

friends lead the commissioner to the body. Obierika explains that

suicide is a grave sin; thus, according to custom, none of

Okonkwo’s clansmen may touch his body. The commissioner,

who is writing a book about Africa, believes that the story of

Okonkwo’s rebellion and death will make for an interesting

paragraph or two. He has already chosen the book’s title: The

Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.



imself as a hero in his own narration. He does not boast of his

courage in quelling the mutiny, and he is always ready to admit

unheroic feelings of fear or panic, as when he finds the footprint

on the beach. Crusoe prefers to depict himself as an ordinary

sensible man, never as an exceptional hero.

But Crusoe’s admirable qualities must be weighed against the

flaws in his character. Crusoe seems incapable of deep feelings,

as shown by his cold account of leaving his family—he worries

about the religious consequences of disobeying his father, but

never displays any emotion about leaving. Though he is generous

toward people, as when he gives gifts to his sisters and the

captain, Crusoe reveals very little tender or sincere affection in hisdealings with them.

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe


Themes


in a literary work.

The Struggle Between Change and Tradition

As a story about a culture on the verge of change, Things Fall

Apart deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect

various characters. The tension about whether change should be

privileged over tradition often involves questions of personal

status. Okonkwo, for example, resists the new political and

religious orders because he feels that they are not manly and that

he himself will not be manly if he consents to join or even tolerate

them. To some extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is

also due to his fear of losing societal status. His sense of self-

worth is dependent upon the traditional standards by which



society judges him. This system of evaluating the self inspires

many of the clan’s outcasts to embrace Christianity. Long

scorned, these outcasts find in the Christian value system a

refuge from the Igbo cultural values that place them below

everyone else. In their new community, these converts enjoy a

more elevated status.

The villagers in general are caught between resisting and

embracing change and they face the dilemma of trying to

determine how best to adapt to the reality of change. Many of the

villagers are excited about the new opportunities and techniques

that the missionaries bring. This European influence, however,

threatens to extinguish the need for the mastery of traditionalmethods of farming, harvesting, building, and cooking. These

traditional methods, once crucial for survival, are now, to varying

degrees, dispensable. Throughout the novel, Achebe shows how

dependent such traditions are upon storytelling and language and

thus how quickly the abandonment of the Igbo language for

English could lead to the eradication of these traditions.

Varying Interpretations of Masculinity

Okonkwo’s relationship with his late father shapes much of his

violent and ambitious demeanor. He wants to rise above his

father’s legacy of spendthrift, indolent behavior, which he views

as weak and therefore effeminate. This association is inherent in

the clan’s language—the narrator mentions that the word for a

man who has not taken any of the expensive, prestige-indicating

titles is agbala, which also means “woman.” But, for the most part,Okonkwo’s idea of manliness is not the clan’s. He associates

masculinity with aggression and feels that anger is the only

emotion that he should display. For this reason, he frequently

beats his wives, even threatening to kill them from time to time.

We are told that he does not think about things, and we see him

act rashly and impetuously. Yet others who are in no way

effeminate do not behave in this way. Obierika, unlike Okonkwo,



“was a man who thought about things.” Whereas Obierika refuses

to accompany the men on the trip to kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo not

only volunteers to join the party that will execute his surrogate son

but also violently stabs him with his machete simply because he is

afraid of appearing weak.

Okonkwo’s seven-year exile from his village only reinforces his

notion that men are stronger than women. While in exile, he lives

among the kinsmen of his motherland but resents the period in its

entirety. The exile is his opportunity to get in touch with his

feminine side and to acknowledge his maternal ancestors, but he

keeps reminding himself that his maternal kinsmen are not as

warlike and fierce as he remembers the villagers of Umuofia tobe. He faults them for their preference of negotiation, compliance,

and avoidance over anger and bloodshed. In Okonkwo’s

understanding, his uncle Uchendu exemplifies this pacifist (and

therefore somewhat effeminate) mode.

Language as a Sign of Cultural Difference

Language is an important theme in Things Fall Apart on severallevels. In demonstrating the imaginative, often formal language of

the Igbo, Achebe emphasizes that Africa is not the silent or

incomprehensible country that books such as Heart of Darkness

made it out to be. Rather, by peppering the novel with Igbo words,

Achebe shows that the Igbo language is too complex for direct

translation into English. Similarly, Igbo culture cannot be

understood within the framework of European colonialist values.

Achebe also points out that Africa has many different languages:the villagers of Umuofia, for example, make fun of Mr. Brown’s

translator because his language is slightly different from their

own.

On a macroscopic level, it is extremely significant that Achebe

chose to write Things Fall Apart in English—he clearly intended it

to be read by the West at least as much, if not more, than by his

fellow Nigerians. His goal was to critique and emend the portrait



of Africa that was painted by so many writers of the colonial

period. Doing so required the use of English, the language of

those colonial writers. Through his inclusion of proverbs, folktales,

and songs translated from the Igbo language, Achebe managed

to capture and convey the rhythms, structures, cadences, and

beauty of the Igbo language.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that

can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Chi

The concept of chi is discussed at various points throughout the

novel and is important to our understanding of Okonkwo as a

tragic hero. The chi is an individual’s personal god, whose merit is

determined by the individual’s good fortune or lack thereof. Along

the lines of this interpretation, one can explain Okonkwo’s tragic

fate as the result of a problematic chi —a thought that occurs to

Okonkwo at several points in the novel. For the clan believes, as

the narrator tells us in Chapter 14, a “man could not rise beyond

the destiny of his chi.” But there is another understanding of chi

that conflicts with this definition. In Chapter 4, the narrator relates,

according to an Igbo proverb, that “when a man says yes his chi

says yes also.” According to this understanding, individuals will

their own destinies. Thus, depending upon our interpretation of

chi, Okonkwo seems either more or less responsible for his own

tragic death. Okonkwo himself shifts between these poles: whenthings are going well for him, he perceives himself as master and

maker of his own destiny; when things go badly, however, he

automatically disavows responsibility and asks why he should be

so ill-fated.

Animal Imagery




In their descriptions, categorizations, and explanations of human

behavior and wisdom, the Igbo often use animal anecdotes to

naturalize their rituals and beliefs. The presence of animals in

their folklore reflects the environment in which they live—not yet

“modernized” by European influence. Though the colonizers, for

the most part, view the Igbo’s understanding of the world as

rudimentary, the Igbo perceive these animal stories, such as the

account of how the tortoise’s shell came to be bumpy, as logical

explanations of natural phenomena. Another important animal

image is the figure of the sacred python. Enoch’s alleged killing

and eating of the python symbolizes the transition to a new form

of spirituality and a new religious order. Enoch’s disrespect of thepython clashes with the Igbo’s reverence for it, epitomizing the

incompatibility of colonialist and indigenous values.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to

represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Locusts

Achebe depicts the locusts that descend upon the village in highly

allegorical terms that prefigure the arrival of the white settlers,

who will feast on and exploit the resources of the Igbo. The fact

that the Igbo eat these locusts highlights how innocuous they take

them to be. Similarly, those who convert to Christianity fail to

realize the damage that the culture of the colonizer does to the

culture of the colonized.

The language that Achebe uses to describe the locusts indicates

their symbolic status. The repetition of words like “settled” and

“every” emphasizes the suddenly ubiquitous presence of these

insects and hints at the way in which the arrival of the white

settlers takes the Igbo off guard. Furthermore, the locusts are so

heavy they break the tree branches, which symbolizes the

fracturing of Igbo traditions and culture under the onslaught of

colonialism and white settlement. Perhaps the most explicit clue



that the locusts symbolize the colonists is Obierika’s comment in

Chapter 15: “the Oracle . . . said that other white men were on

their way. They were locusts. . . .”

Fire

Okonkwo is associated with burning, fire, and flame throughout

the novel, alluding to his intense and dangerous anger—the only

emotion that he allows himself to display. Yet the problem with

fire, as Okonkwo acknowledges in Chapters 17 and 24, is that it

destroys everything it consumes. Okonkwo is both physically

destructive—he kills Ikemefuna and Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s son—and

emotionally destructive—he suppresses his fondness forIkemefuna and Ezinma in favor of a colder, more masculine aura.

Just as fire feeds on itself until all that is left is a pile of ash,

Okonkwo eventually succumbs to his intense rage, allowing it to

rule his actions until it destroys him.

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

Analysis of Major Character

Okonkwo

Okonkwo, the son of the effeminate and lazy Unoka, strives to

make his way in a world that seems to value manliness. In so

doing, he rejects everything for which he believes his father stood.

Unoka was idle, poor, profligate, cowardly, gentle, and interested

in music and conversation. Okonkwo consciously adopts oppositeideals and becomes productive, wealthy, thrifty, brave, violent,

and adamantly opposed to music and anything else that he

perceives to be “soft,” such as conversation and emotion. He is

stoic to a fault.

Okonkwo achieves great social and financial success by

embracing these ideals. He marries three women and fathers

several children. Nevertheless, just as his father was at odds with



the values of the community around him, so too does Okonkwo

find himself unable to adapt to changing times as the white man

comes to live among the Umuofians. As it becomes evident that

compliance rather than violence constitutes the wisest principle

for survival, Okonkwo realizes that he has become a relic, no

longer able to function within his changing society.

Okonkwo is a tragic hero in the classical sense: although he is a

superior character, his tragic flaw—the equation of manliness with

rashness, anger, and violence—brings about his own destruction.

Okonkwo is gruff, at times, and usually unable to express his

feelings (the narrator frequently uses the word “inwardly” in

reference to Okonkwo’s emotions). But his emotions are indeedquite complex, as his “manly” values conflict with his “unmanly”

ones, such as fondness for Ikemefuna and Ezinma. The narrator

privileges us with information that Okonkwo’s fellow clan

members do not have—that Okonkwo surreptitiously follows

Ekwefi into the forest in pursuit of Ezinma, for example—and thus

allows us to see the tender, worried father beneath the seemingly

indifferent exterior.

Nwoye

Nwoye, Okonkwo’s oldest son, struggles in the shadow of his

powerful, successful, and demanding father. His interests are

different from Okonkwo’s and resemble more closely those of

Unoka, his grandfather. He undergoes many beatings, at a loss

for how to please his father, until the arrival of Ikemefuna, who

becomes like an older brother and teaches him a gentler form ofsuccessful masculinity. As a result, Okonkwo backs off, and

Nwoye even starts to win his grudging approval. Nwoye remains

conflicted, however: though he makes a show of scorning

feminine things in order to please his father, he misses his

mother’s stories.

With the unconscionable murder of Ikemefuna, however, Nwoye

retreats into himself and finds himself forever changed. His



reluctance to accept Okonkwo’s masculine values turns into pure

embitterment toward him and his ways. When missionaries come

to Mbanta, Nwoye’s hope and faith are reawakened, and he

eventually joins forces with them. Although Okonkwo curses his

lot for having borne so “effeminate” a son and disowns Nwoye,

Nwoye appears to have found peace at last in leaving the

oppressive atmosphere of his father’s tyranny.

Ezinma

Ezinma, Okonkwo’s favorite daughter and the only child of Ekwefi,

is bold in the way that she approaches—and even sometimes

contradicts—her father. Okonkwo remarks to himself multipletimes that he wishes she had been born a boy, since he considers

her to have such a masculine spirit. Ezinma alone seems to win

Okonkwo’s full attention, affection, and, ironically, respect. She

and he are kindred spirits, which boosts her confidence and

precociousness. She grows into a beautiful young woman who

sensibly agrees to put off marriage until her family returns from

exile so as to help her father leverage his sociopolitical power

most effectively. In doing so, she shows an approach similar tothat of Okonkwo: she puts strategy ahead of emotion.

Mr. Brown

Mr. Brown represents Achebe’s attempt to craft a well-rounded

portrait of the colonial presence by tempering bad personalities

with good ones. Mr. Brown’s successor, Reverend Smith, is

zealous, vengeful, small-minded, and manipulative; he thus

stands in contrast to Mr. Brown, who, on the other hand, is

benevolent if not always beneficent. Mr. Brown succeeds in

winning a large number of converts because he listens to the

villagers’ stories, beliefs, and opinions. He also accepts the

converts unconditionally. His conversation with Akunna

represents this sympathetic stance. The derisive comments that

Reverend Smith makes about Mr. Brown after the latter’s




departure illustrate the colonial intolerance for any kind of

sympathy for, and genuine interest in, the native culture. The

surname Brown hints at his ability to navigate successfully the

clear-cut racial division between the colonizers and the colonized

Beloved

Toni Morrison

Plot Overview

B eloved begins in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Sethe, a former

slave, has been living with her eighteen-year-old daughter Denver.Sethe’s mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, lived with them until her death

eight years earlier. Just before Baby Suggs’s death, Sethe’s two sons,

Howard and Buglar, ran away. Sethe believes they fled because of the

malevolent presence of an abusive ghost that has haunted their house at

124 Bluestone Road for years. Denver, however, likes the ghost, which

everyone believes to be the spirit of her dead sister.

On the day the novel begins, Paul D, whom Sethe has not seen since

they worked together on Mr. Garner’s Sweet Home plantation in

Kentucky approximately twenty years earlier, stops by Sethe’s house.

His presence resurrects memories that have lain buried in Sethe’s mind

for almost two decades. From this point on, the story will unfold on two

temporal planes. The present in Cincinnati constitutes one plane, while a

series of events that took place around twenty years earlier, mostly in

Kentucky, constitutes the other. This latter plane is accessed and

described through the fragmented flashbacks of the major characters.

Accordingly, we frequently read these flashbacks several times,sometimes from varying perspectives, with each successive narration of

an event adding a little more information to the previous ones.

From these fragmented memories, the following story begins to emerge:

Sethe, the protagonist, was born in the South to an African mother she

never knew. When she is thirteen, she is sold to the Garners, who own

Sweet Home and practice a comparatively benevolent kind of slavery.

There, the other slaves, who are all men, lust after her but never touch



her. Their names are Sixo, Paul D, Paul A, Paul F, and Halle. Sethe

chooses to marry Halle, apparently in part because he has proven

generous enough to buy his mother’s freedom by hiring himself out on

the weekends. Together, Sethe and Halle have two sons, Howard and

Buglar, as well as a baby daughter whose name we never learn. Whenshe leaves Sweet Home, Sethe is also pregnant with a fourth child. After

the eventual death of the proprietor, Mr. Garner, the widowed Mrs.

Garner asks her sadistic, vehemently racist brother-in-law to help her run

the farm. He is known to the slaves as schoolteacher, and his oppressive

presence makes life on the plantation even more unbearable than it had

been before. The slaves decide to run.

Schoolteacher and his nephews anticipate the slaves’ escape, however,and capture Paul D and Sixo. Schoolteacher kills Sixo and brings Paul D

back to Sweet Home, where Paul D sees Sethe for what he believes will

be the last time. She is still intent on running, having already sent her

children ahead to her mother-in-law Baby Suggs’s house in Cincinnati.

Invigorated by the recent capture, schoolteacher’s nephews seize Sethe

in the barn and violate her, stealing the milk her body is storing for her

infant daughter. Unbeknownst to Sethe, Halle is watching the event from

a loft above her, where he lies frozen with horror. Afterward, Halle goes

mad: Paul D sees him sitting by a churn with butter slathered all over hisface. Paul D, meanwhile, is forced to suffer the indignity of wearing an

iron bit in his mouth.

When schoolteacher finds out that Sethe has reported his and his

nephews’ misdeeds to Mrs. Garner, he has her whipped severely, despite

the fact that she is pregnant. Swollen and scarred, Sethe nevertheless

runs away, but along the way she collapses from exhaustion in a forest.

A white girl, Amy Denver, finds her and nurses her back to health.When Amy later helps Sethe deliver her baby in a boat, Sethe names this

second daughter Denver after the girl who helped her. Sethe receives

further help from Stamp Paid, who rows her across the Ohio River to

Baby Suggs’s house. Baby Suggs cleans Sethe up before allowing her to

see her three older children.

Sethe spends twenty-eight wonderful days in Cincinnati, where Baby

Suggs serves as an unofficial preacher to the black community. On the

last day, however, schoolteacher comes for Sethe to take her and her



children back to Sweet Home. Rather than surrender her children to a

life of dehumanizing slavery, she flees with them to the woodshed and

tries to kill them. Only the third child, her older daughter, dies, her throat

having been cut with a handsaw by Sethe. Sethe later arranges for the

baby’s headstone to be carved with the word “Beloved.” The sheriff takes Sethe and Denver to jail, but a group of white abolitionists, led by

the Bodwins, fights for her release. Sethe returns to the house at 124,

where Baby Suggs has sunk into a deep depression. The community

shuns the house, and the family continues to live in isolation.

Meanwhile, Paul D has endured torturous experiences in a chain gang in

Georgia, where he was sent after trying to kill Brandywine, a slaveowner to whom he was sold by schoolteacher. His traumatic experiences

have caused him to lock away his memories, emotions, and ability to

love in the “tin tobacco box” of his heart. One day, a fortuitous

rainstorm allows Paul D and the other chain gang members to escape.

He travels northward by following the blossoming spring flowers. Years

later, he ends up on Sethe’s porch in Cincinnati.

Paul D’s arrival at 124 commences the series of events taking place in

the present time frame. Prior to moving in, Paul D chases the house’s

resident ghost away, which makes the already lonely Denver resent him

from the start. Sethe and Paul D look forward to a promising future

together, until one day, on their way home from a carnival, they

encounter a strange young woman sleeping near the steps of 124. Most

of the characters believe that the woman—who calls herself Beloved—is

the embodied spirit of Sethe’s dead daughter, and the novel provides a

wealth of evidence supporting this interpretation. Denver develops an

obsessive attachment to Beloved, and Beloved’s attachment to Sethe isequally if not more intense. Paul D and Beloved hate each other, and

Beloved controls Paul D by moving him around the house like a rag doll

and by seducing him against his will.

When Paul D learns the story of Sethe’s “rough choice”—her infanticide

—he leaves 124 and begins sleeping in the basement of the local church.

In his absence, Sethe and Beloved’s relationship becomes more intense

and exclusive. Beloved grows increasingly abusive, manipulative, and

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parasitic, and Sethe is obsessed with satisfying Beloved’s demands and

making her understand why she murdered her. Worried by the way her

mother is wasting away, Denver leaves the premises of 124 for the first

time in twelve years in order to seek help from Lady Jones, her former

teacher. The community provides the family with food and eventuallyorganizes under the leadership of Ella, a woman who had worked on the

Underground Railroad and helped with Sethe’s escape, in order to

exorcise Beloved from 124. When they arrive at Sethe’s house, they see

Sethe on the porch with Beloved, who stands smiling at them, naked and

pregnant. Mr. Bodwin, who has come to 124 to take Denver to her new

job, arrives at the house. Mistaking him for schoolteacher, Sethe runs at

Mr. Bodwin with an ice pick. She is restrained, but in the confusion

Beloved disappears, never to return.

Afterward, Paul D comes back to Sethe, who has retreated to Baby

Suggs’s bed to die. Mourning Beloved, Sethe laments, “She was my best

thing.” But Paul D replies, “You your best thing, Sethe.” The novel then

ends with a warning that “[t]his is not a story to pass on.” The town, and

even the residents of 124, have forgotten Beloved “[l]ike an unpleasant

dream during a troubling sleep.”

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