The Magic Toyshop, The Collector, Brave New World, Sailing to Byzantium,Should Lanterns Shine and The Lady of Shalott - Essay Example

? 09 December English literature: Uncle Philip runs a “magic toyshop” but is anything but magical himself. He hates children, hates adults, and hates life. He’s monstrous and brutal. Why do you think such a terrible man is so good at a craft that is normally associated with enchantment, children, magic, fantasy, innocence, purity and so on? Given the objectionably ruthless manner in which Uncle Philip treats those around him, he cannot be considered magical in person though he owns a magic toyshop. In contrast to the dark side of his personality which Melanie describes as “this elemental silence which could crush you to nothing” (Carter 168), he is exceptionally good at what he does professionally. Despite monstrously treating his own children, he is singularly attentive to the needs of other children by offering mystical playthings which they are not able to find anywhere else. This difference between how Uncle Philip reacts to his family and his craft stems from the fact that the only thing he is capable of loving in the whole world is the puppets and toys which are his ideals. He has love reserved only for his work and not even a minute portion of it he seems willing to share with anyone else in the world no matter if it be his own blood relations. It is the enormous amount of love and eagerness he has for his craft that he as a puppet-maker excels at his work, but as a father and a husband is despicable at his home. It can be often seen how many people who are exceptionally good at what they do professionally end up being emotional deadpans in personal lives. In the same way, it is only possible for Uncle Philip also to emotionally attach only with the products of his own creation. Because he is able to love only his puppets, he stays at his toyshop most of the time throughout the novel. Imagine that you’re a psychoanalyst working on a case study of Frederick. Explain his view of women. If Frederick’s character is analyzed from a psychoanalytic perspective, it becomes clear that he has a staggering fear of intimacy. He views women not as persons, but as little objects which he can add to this butterfly collection whenever he wants to. He has difficulty connecting with real people, but seems to be at perfect ease with his imprisoned victims. In order to enable himself to relate with women too, he has only one option to reduce them to helpless butterflies. It is due to Frederick’s intimacy issues in reference to women that an overpowering fear of rejection from them discourages him from healthy way of approaching them. Because with the butterflies, he is exposed to no such fear and does not care for their approval, he resolves to turn the women into butterflies after kidnapping them. It is because he is deficient in intimacy that he is subjected to social isolation. It becomes apparent from the collector’s narration that he had a lonely and disturbed childhood. His mother leaves with another man too. Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective stresses that such childhood experiences leave a permanent impression on a child’s mind. In order to stop the women from leaving him like his mother left him in childhood, he decides to turn them into butterflies. When he speaks of Miranda, “Having her was enough. Nothing needed doing. I just wanted to have her, and safe at last” (Fowles 95), he suggests how having his mother with him would have made him feel safe too. The speaker of “Sailing to Byzantium” and “John the Savage” long for the same thing. Discuss this longing that they share. The longing for death to escape the conflict of the real world is shared by both the speaker of “Sailing to Byzantium” and John the Savage from the novel “Brave New World.” The speaker of the poem appears to be badly exasperated from the place he has lived in all his life and decides to sail to Byzantium which is a place he thinks will suit him in old age. The country he resides in has tolerance only for latest trends and modern people which makes a man like him with grey hair an outsider. Similarly, John the Savage is an outsider or an outcast both on the Reservation and the World State. It is suggested that the only thing which has any significance for John is death (Buchanan 79). He is unwanted and isolated both in Malpais and London, just like the speaker of the poem is unwanted in his world. Both of them feel out of place and long for a new place. However, after sailing to Byzantium the speaker develops an inexplicable obsession with death in the same way that John the Savage after shunning the society longs for an escape from real life and its despair, but being unable to stay at peace hangs himself. Both the speaker and John view death as the only way to kill their despair and begin to long for it because they are that much overwhelmed by their inability to relate to the real world and its people. Both are social outcasts and the crippling sense of loneliness strengthens their pathological interest in death. The speakers of “Should Lanterns Shine” and “The Lady of Shalott” are protected from “reality.” Discuss ONE way in which they, though protected from the so-called real world, are different from each other. The speakers of both poems are victims of self-arrestment and protected from the real world. However, one thing which creates a giant difference between them is while the lady listens to her heart and breaks free from her self-imposed punishment to look at the real world and Lancelot, the youthful speaker of the other poem refuses to reason by his heart and does not allows himself to devote to the loved one. The lady catches one glimpse of Lancelot and is eternally devoted to his beauty. This devotion even compels her to violate her rules and break the magic spell. She is enchanted by her loved one’s appearance and most of the third part of this poem is devoted to describe Lancelot’s appearance at length. In contrast, the speaker of “Should Lanterns Shine” is quite afraid of getting attached to the beauty of the lover and is insecure that her charming looks will not last. When he says, “Would wither up, and any boy of love / Look twice before he fell from grace” (Dylan 3-4), he imagines that upon a closer look, his lover’s beauty will curdle into shame and he will consequently fall from grace for devoting himself to an unworthy person. This possibility or risk of falling from grace keeps him from reasoning by heart and he decides that true beauty does not lie in front of him in the image. In contrast to the lady who is instantly taken by Lancelot’s beauty, the speaker in this poem believes that his loved one’s beauty “will curdle under closer investigation” (Maud 232). Works cited: Buchanan, Bradley W. Oedipus Against Freud: Myth and the End(s) of Humanism in Twentieth-century British Literature. University of Toronto Press, 2010. Print. Carter, Angela. The Magic Toyshop. Virago Press, 2008. Print. Fowles, John. The Collector. Random House, 2010. Print. Maud, Ralph. Where Have the Old Words Got Me?: Explications of Dylan Thomas's Collected Poems. McGill-Queen’s Press, 2003. Print. Thomas, Dylan. “Should Lanterns Shine.” Collected Poems. Green Light, 2012. Print. Read More