The Beginning of an Ending Monarchy - Essay Example

10 October The Power That Corrupts: The Beginning of an Ending Monarchy Some literary works seem to speak with each otherthrough their common themes and characters. Several written pieces can be related to the themes of power without responsibility, social isolation, and deception, which are all found in Moran’s Madame Tussaud. These works are Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” Shelley’s Frankenstein, Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott,” and LeFanu’s “Green Tea.” “My Last Duchess” and Frankenstein explore the dangers of blinded power. “The Lady of Shalott” and “Green Tea” reveal the drawbacks of isolation, while “My Last Duchess,” “Green Tea” and “Goblin Market” intersect the manipulations of deceitful people. These literary pieces establish the harms of social isolation that formed the core of the monarchy’s irresponsible ruling during the French Revolution. Human isolation makes people prone to deceit. “Green Tea” shows that Rev. Mr. Jennings lives in a solitary manner. During his mental malady, he resorts to isolation to deal with his delusions: “When Mr. Jennings breaks down quite, and beats a retreat from the vicarage, and returns to London, where, in a dark street off Piccadilly, he inhabits a very narrow house…” (LeFanu). The physical location of the house and the house itself promote loneliness, which is the last thing that Jennings needed. He needed people to help him remember that the sordid monkey is something that he can tackle with his family and friends. Growing up with her adopted sister, Victor became too fixated with Elizabeth in Frankenstein. Chapter 1 reveals his obsession with Elizabeth, a gift that he considered personally his: “[After mother presented Elizabeth to her son as a gift ], I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine-mine to protect, love, and cherish” (Shelley). Soon, Victor develops another obsession that drove him to a whole new level of social isolation: “It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn…” (Shelley Chapter 2). This thirst for a form of forbidden knowledge had separated him from social interactions that would have presented their arguments against achieving a God-like status. “The Lady of Shalott” describes the life of a fair lady, whom a curse imprisons. She cannot see the world as it is and is cursed to weave its shadows. Her isolation makes her unhappy, for she can never see the world as it is, and not from a mirror: “I am half sick of shadows,” (Tennyson line 71). She is one of the few who are isolated but desire true knowledge of the world. In Madame Tussaud, King Louis XVI is cut off from the realities of his people. Edmund reveals to his sister Marie that the royal family is unaware of the sufferings of their citizens: “These things are not spoken of to Their Majesties” (Moran 54). The novel shows that traditions regarding the monarch make them ignorant of the people’s lives. Marie learns that the Queen is treated like a doll, and yet, she is the favorite subject of controversy. Edmund reminds his sister of who the Queen is: “She belongs to the people. The king rules by God’s will, and the queen reflects his glory. Whether or not she likes the rules, she must abide by them” (Moran 55). Idealizing the royalty is another form of isolation. The people want to romanticize the royal family as divine beings of some kind, and yet they cannot accept that these tasks only separate them from the true conditions of their lives. The more that rulers are isolated from their people, the more that they develop power without understanding the consequences of their actions. Frankenstein exhibits the theme of power without responsibility. Chapter 4 describes Victor’s stirring need for Godhood. He wants to give life to the dead and believes himself capable of achieving it: “… among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science… I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret” (Shelley Chapter 4). He forgets what this action means to his creation and to the rest of humanity. He only sees the beauty of power for itself. The same kind of ignorance afflicts King Louis XVI. He sees that the two estates are in conflict and the people’s representatives are particularly discontented, and yet he chooses a “diplomatic” path. In his speech, he remains calm and tries to dissipate the tension: “Yet nothing he says is far-reaching or inspiring. It is clear he is too afraid of angering the first two estates to suggest any radical reform” (Moran 144). He fears the ire of the nobles and the clergy but he does not fully understand the urgency of the political strife in his country. For these novels, by the time the people realize the consequences of their decisions, it is too late. After seeing the horrible figure of his creation, Victor feels joy when he learned that the latter deserted him. But soon, he realizes that the thing he made is still alive and killed an innocent child: “It was to be decided whether the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would cause the death of two of my fellow beings” (Shelley Chapter 8). Victor has created a monster without fully understanding the implications of its existence. The same goes for the King of France. He mourns for his dead son, but the politics of his country continues to condemn him: “…Robespierre has given a speech stating that if the nobility and clergy will not join them in voting by head, they will form their own assembly and vote without them” (Moran 166). Not knowing how to control power leads to irreversible series of events, all of them the consequences of poor understanding of what power means and entails. Power corrupts people, but more so for ignorant rulers. “My Last Duchess” is believed to refer to Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara. He is showing a portrait of his last duchess to a servant of the Count. He is wooing the Count’s daughter, and so by letting the latter see his last wife’s picture, he can demonstrate his power and authority. The Duke, however, as the poem reveals, is a malevolent man. He notes his disappointment with his wife, who does not acknowledge his unique importance by the virtue of his lineage: “My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name/With anybody’s gift” (Browning 33–34). He accentuates that he has 900 years of family aristocracy, while his wife has less than that. It shows his arrogance as a ruler. Furthermore, the Duke is jealous of his wife’s friendliness. She smiles to anyone, which he considers as disrespectful to him. One day, he fixes this “mistake” on his image: “This grew; I gave commands;/Then all smiles stopped together” (Browning 46–46). It is unsure how he disposed of his wife, but he did since the smiles suddenly vanished. He is saying to the Count that he is the person who gets everything and everyone he wants. This thinking is personified in these lines: “Notice Neptune, though,/Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity” (Browning 54–55). He assures to the servant that he is Neptune, a powerful ruler who can tame all seahorses beneath him. In Madame Tussaud, King Louis XVI lacks the same confidence. He does not even deal with the disrespectful actions shown toward him during the Estates General. Nevertheless, not knowing enough about who his enemies are and about the state of affairs of his country has rendered him a tyrant to the eyes of his people. The King thinks of fast resolutions: “Sending troops into Paris was the right thing to do, and anyone who disagrees with this policy –” “Shall be dismissed,” the queen finishes for him” (Moran 179). But these actions are not enough to stem the tide of the revolution. The fruits of irresponsible power are deadly. “Goblin Market” exemplifies the deception of the goblins. They offer sumptuous feasts without being clear of the drawbacks of eating their forbidden goods. Lizzie highlights the harms of what the goblins are selling: “Their offers should not charm us,/ Their evil gifts would harm us” (Rossetti 65–66). But Laura does not follow her sister’s warnings and tastes these magical fruits. After that, she suffers from longing, because she wants more but the goblins are far from her reach: “She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn/ To swift decay and burn/ Her fire away” (Rossetti 278–280). Having tasted power, she has languished. The Lady of Shalott wants freedom from her curse. She risks seeing Lancelot’s handsome features, and the curse quickly falls upon her: “Singing in her song she died, / The Lady of Shalott” (Rossetti 153–153). She has the responsibility of weaving to stave off the curse, but she yields to her other needs. Without a prompt response to the people in Madame Tussaud, the King quickly loses his power over the populace. Hungry and hopeless, they have transformed into angry and rabid beasts: “They’ve burned the barriers to the city, and thousands of peasants are flooding in from the provinces. It’s absolute lawlessness” (Moran 188). The people no longer understand the morality of their own actions. The press and revolutionaries feed them with lies and half-truths. Armand says: “By tomorrow, the king will be facing a formidable army…A citizens’ militia” (Moran 190). These are repercussions of isolation and being surrounded with people who do not tell everything to the King – the loss of control over the masses and the rise of revolutionary enemies with political interests. Without enough knowledge about the truth, the King is deceived. He thinks he has everything under control but he is completely wrong. He is similar to Laura in “Goblin Market.” He supposes that he has the favor of all the estates forever, until he wakes up and realizes that he lives in a bubble. This bubble explodes with shocking truths about his nation’s socioeconomic and political conditions. Power cannot be sustained through traditions and deception. Rulers must know the truth about their people, their enemies, and their supporters. Otherwise, they will be secluded in a kingdom of manipulation and pretense. Soon, the illusion of their power will be shattered, and they will be left with no one to turn to, aside from death. Power without knowledge and responsibility is false power. It is the kind of power that is formed and destroyed during the French Revolution. It is the kind of power that ends with sham and blood. Works Cited Browning, Robert. “My Last Duchess.” 1842. 1869. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. < http://www.english.upenn.edu/~nauerbac/tea.html>. LeFanu, Sheridan Joseph. “Green Tea.” 1869. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. < http://www.english.upenn.edu/~nauerbac/tea.html>. Moran, Michelle. Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution. Kindle Edition. New York: Random House, 2011. Print. Rossetti, Christina. “Goblin Market.” 1862. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. < http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174262>. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. 1818. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. < http://www.gutenberg.org/files/84/84-h/84-h.htm>. Tennyson, Alfred Lord. “The Lady of Shalott.” 1842. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. < http://faculty.stonehill.edu/geverett/rb/shalott.htm>. Read More