Comparing Punishment by Tagore and The Conscience of the Court by Hurston - Research Paper Example

Compare and contrast In this paper, I will be comparing two short stories written by different and in different placements. However, I will compare and contrast their creation of the two masterpieces in terms of characterization, theme selection and creating among other literary features that the two renowned authors used in the works. The stories are Punishment written by Rabindranath Tagore and The Conscience of the Court written by Zora Neale Hurston. The two stories have several features in common that therefore compel the comparison of how the authors use them in developing the conflicts, which sustain the story (Klinck 21). Additionally, the stories also have several different factors and utilization of different literary features, which thus validates the contrast on such among many others. Conflict is a fundamental feature that sustains stories and the two established authors appreciate this, the discussion below thus analyses the different use of such features. Among the similar features portrayed in the two different stories is the role of women. For a long time the role and position of women in societies remained a contentious issue. Most societies treated women as inferior thus secondary to their male counterparts. The two authors address this in their different stories each developing the concept as was the case in their different societies. the Punishment revolves around the life of a poor but intelligent woman known as Chndara. Owing to the role and the inferior position of the women in the society, Chandara faces a death penalty for a crime that she did not commit. She remains silent despite the eminent death sentence and is eventually killed. Her gender does not permit her to argue with men in public. Furthermore, her poor backgrounds compound her predicament as she lacks any form of material wealth with which to influence the decision of the court. In her death however, the society acknowledge and addresses some of the predicament facing women among them. The same is the case in the story, The Conscience of the Court. The lead character Laura Lee Kimble has no one to support her in her obviously inflamed court case. The male plaintiff takes advantage of her gender and the associated inferiority to manipulate the terms of his contract with Lee’s employer, Mrs. Claiborne who is yet another poor woman. The plaintiff Clement Beasley had loaned some money to Mrs. Claiborne but manipulate the terms of the agreement and takes advantage of the poor woman’s ailing health and the absence of her husband to try to reclaim her furniture which she used as collateral for the loan and value higher than the six hundred dollars she sought as loan. Lee intervenes in her attempt to protect her employer whom she loves and in the process assault Beasley. In the court case, nobody sympathizes with the poor woman as the male plaintiff manipulates the evidence. However, the judge sympathizes with her and later as he scrutinizes the most important piece of evidence, the terms of the loan, she realizes that the loan was not yet due and that Lee was merely protecting her employer’s property from the evident theft attempt by Beasley. The two authors also address the plight of the poor in the society. They do this differently owing to the relativity of their contexts. In the Punishment, Chandra is a poor woman and the author uses her as a representation of the many poor women in the society. The poor have minimal rights and cannot contest issues especially against the rich inn the society. With wealth, people obtain both power and influence, the poor on the other hand have very little to show for their lives. The rich who influence even the law to their favor subject them to manipulation. The same is the case in the Conscience of the Court where the poor women have nobody to protect her as the rich try to influence the law. The plaintiff Mr. Beasley believes that since Lee is not learned, she would not understand the terms of the loan agreement. He therefore decides to confiscate the poor woman’s furniture and manipulates the evidence as he presents the before the jury. Besides the similarity in themes and structures of the two stories, the two authors also employ several other literary features in order to develop their stories. Among the most, similarly literary features by the two authors are vivid description, point of view and figurative language among others. Firstly, both the stories are written in the third person narration. In this, an all-seeing witness who thus records the occurrences of both the protagonist and the antagonists in different accounts reports the accounts of the stories. This point of view gives the author authority to preempt eve the thoughts and ideas of the characters. It is one of the most effective narration techniques, as the author does not leave any room for suspense. The two authors use the technique in telling their stories a feature that contributes to the exhaustiveness of the conflicts in the two different stories. Additionally, the authors employ vivid description to develop their stories. In the Conscience of the Court for example, the author begins the narration by describing the defendant “a tall brown skinned woman with a head rug on” (Zora 02). The description become part of the story as the author ensures that he reveals every detail in the story. Vivid description helps the audience visualize both the setting and the characters in the story thereby validating the conflict that the author develops. The same is the case with the Punishment as the author describes every feature he believes is important and part of the narration. This way, he develops the society and attributes the background to a particular time and setting. Besides the similarities, the two stories have several other differences as the author try to develop their different stories. Some of the differences are embedded in the themes of the stories while others are structural and therefore influence the understanding of the stories. Among the evident different themes in the stories is the institution of marriage. In the Conscience of the Court, the institution is holy and the parties involved love and respect each other. Mrs Claiborne promises her husband that they would burry each other should any of the die first. In the spirit of the love-filled pact, the old woman accesses a loan from the unscrupulous Beasley and honors her husband by taking her home to bury him next to his ancestors. This is not the case in the Punishment in which the institution of marriage is filled with doubt and mistrusts. Chidam does not trust his wife Chandara. The woman is both beautiful and bright two feature that make the husband uneasy. He hates that fact that the woman will never lose a discussion. Owing to the evident lack of love and affection in their marriage, he conspires to kill his wife. Another evident difference in the two stories is the setting, the two stories are set in different times and societies. The authors therefore portray this by addressing issues and social structures that best define their settings. In the Punishment, the society is mundane and a little more backward. The laws within the society do not value the value humanity thus permitting the senseless murder of the lead actor (Tagore 31). In the Conscience of the Court, the case is different as the society has effective and humanitarian laws that uphold the value of humanity. The judges in the court are learned and experienced and therefore strive to analyze every feature of the case a feature that helps acquit Lee of the charges of assault. In retrospect, the two are literary products and are therefore bound from the start to share several literary features. The two established author have effective understanding of the discipline and therefore employ the features effectively. However, the stories are set in different societies and in different times. This implies that they are likely to be address different social factors owing to the changing times. This becomes the case as the two authors analyze different special interest factors in a bid to portray their societies through their literary works. Literatures reflect the societies and the two stories exhibit this as they analyze different social factors differently. Works cited Klinck, Dennis R. Conscience, Equity and the Court of Chancery in Early Modern England. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2010. Print. Tagore, Rabindranath. Punishment. , n.d.. Print. Zora, N. Hurston. The Conscience of the Court. Bedford: St Martin’s Press, 1984. Print. Read More