Comparison and Contrast of Literary Pieces - Essay Example

Module Module ID: Comparison and Contrast of Literary Pieces Introduction: A refined pieceof literature is aptly viewed to be the reflection of the developments being made in the culture the literary piece belongs to. Hence, the high-quality literature is the representative of the era and society under which it has been produced. It is therefore, Shakespearean plays depict the Elizabethan era characteristics by concentrating upon the activities associated with the royal families and aristocracy, while the poets belonging to Romantic Age concentrate upon mystery, love and beauties nature offers to man (Daiches 1979). Similarly, the works produced by George Eliot, Emily Bronte and other nineteenth century authors draw out domestic and social problems attributed to the middle and lower classes because of the rise of middle class and feminism during the Victorian era (Jayapalan 2002). In addition, literature also appears to be the reflection of the thoughts and ideas the author maintains, and expresses the same in the light of his/her profound observation about the natural and physical phenomena existing all around. Consequently, it aptly appears that the authors of one and the same era produce divergent thoughtfulness, while the writers belonging to different eras could share one and the same ideology while creating their works. The same is applied to the under-consideration literary pieces including Othello, Wuthering Heights and End of the Affair, due to the very reality that all the three literary pieces focus upon the feelings of jealousy prevailing in the human breast against the rival, enemies and opponents through their protagonist characters and their challengers. Jealousy serves to be one of the essential elements of human nature, which is observed by almost all humans, though its nature and intensity varies from one person to the other. The psychologist-theorists have also declared it as a normal human behaviour, which urges the desire of competition and combating with the rivals in order to meet targets and achieve goals during the course of life. Men and women, according to Buss (2000), are primed to perceive subtle indicators of potential infidelity, which in turn trigger jealousy suspicions. As a result, the fear regarding losing someone or something precious for one produces feelings of jealousy, which ultimately urges and instigates him to take revenge from the person(s) responsible for causing the loss and depriving him of the person or thing he longs for. Since the writers appear to be one of the most sensitive social strata, they observe and perceive the slightest feelings of jealousy appear in the wake of the financial, material and emotional losses the individuals experience in their life. It is therefore the authors in the works under investigation have elucidated the feelings of jealousy as well as the outcomes of the same in their respective works. While analysing the Shakespearean tragedy Othello, it becomes evident that the play appears to be identifying the emotions of hatred and revenge in human breast, which could only be revealed at the eve of the individuals’ expressing the same while dealing with the persons responsible for bringing miseries and woes to their life. It is particularly applied to both Othello and Iago, the tragic hero and villain of the play respectively. Shakespeare has depicted how the deep feelings of love and dedication could be converted into hatred and jealousy because of the miscommunication and false portrayal of the state of affairs. The play demonstrates how Iago, out of sheer feelings of envy against Othello’s decision of appointing Cassio as the Othello, spins a yarn by launching a condemnable conspiracy against Othello. He not only misguides him about the fake love affair between Cassio and Desdemona, but also infuriates him against both of them in such a manner that he kills his wife in cold blood in the wake of circumstantial evidence produced by the jealous Iago. As a result, Othello not only is deprived of his innocent wife, but also commits suicide in utter despair and repentance. The beginning of the play demonstrates Othello to be head and ears in love with his beloved wife Desdemona, with whom he has recently got married. Gradually, however, the jealous Iago fills Othello’s heart with the hatred for Desdemona in such a way that he smoothers her to death out of sheer feelings of jealousy that she is committing infidelity towards him by getting involved with Cassio. On the other side, Iago is undergoing even the worse kind of jealousy first to Cassio because of his promotion at a superior position in army, and secondly to Othello in the wake of Othello’s granting promotion to Cassio instead of Iago, as Iago states: “One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, a fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife; that never set a squadron in the field, nor the division of a battle knows” (I.i.20-23). As a result, he plans to kill two birds with one stone in order to take revenge for his humiliation from Othello and Cassio. In order to convert his revengeful thought into a dreadful practical form, Iago poisons Othello against both the persons he trusts in, i.e. Desdemona and Cassio. Iago elucidates his plan of revenge in Roderigo’s presence that he would not be the same Iago in the service of the Moor (Othello). On the contrary, “in following him I follow but myself; Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so for my peculiar end. For when my outward action doth demonstrate the native act and figure of my heart in compliment extern” (Shakespeare 58–63). Othello appears to be displaying indifference to the infidelity claimed by Iago to be being observed by Desdemona, though actually he is struggling against the envy he undergoes because of Desdemona’s infidelity, as he submits: Thinkst thou Ild make a life of jealousy, to follow still the changes of the moon, with fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt Is once to be resolved (Shakespeare 177-180). Thus, jealousy takes many forms, from sexual suspicion to professional competition, producing death and destruction in its wake. The same is also applied to the wonderful novel created by nineteenth century distinguished poetess and author Emily Bronte. In Wuthering Heights, Mr. Earnshaw patronises a dirty wanderer boy Heathcliff, who is accepted by her little daughter Cathy, though is abhorred and maltreated by his son Hindley Earnshaw. Hindley’s hatred for the boy grows with the passage of time, particularly after the death of his father, which also gives birth to the same disliking in Heathcliff’s mind. Since Heathcliff is not accepted socially at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross as equivalent to the Earnshaw and Linton Grange, Cathy declares marrying him to be socially degrading for her. As a result, he leaves the place for few years, only to return as an affluent person. Since fate has drifted him apart from his beloved Cathy, he turns extremely jealous of her husband Edgar Linton, and longs for snatching away Cathy from Edgar. Consequently, he looks determined to take revenge from all the people responsible for imposing separation between him and Cathy. Heathcliff’s inflicting pains on Catherine’s brother Hindley Earnshaw and nephew Hareton Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte signifies the feelings of his abhorrence for them. He not only ruins the life of his rivals, but also could not win his beloved Cathy, who becomes the prey of death at the prime of her youth only few years after her marriage with Edgar Linton. Consequently, he marries Isabella Linton, Edgar’s sister just for staying close to Catherine Earnshaw, though treats Isabella very harshly and in such a manner that she repents on her decision of marrying Heathcliff. At last, Isabella has to call him a lying fiend, a monster, instead of a human being, whom she had given her heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to her (Bronte 166-67). Hence, Isabella describes her pathetic situation few days after her elopement with Heathcliff during her short visit of Grange to see the narrator Nelly. Heathcliff also keeps Hareton away from learning and mannerism in order to retaliate from Hindley for his cruelty towards him in his childhood. He also engages his sick son Linton with Cathy’s daughter Catherine Linton in order to capture the entire state of Thrushcross Range. Consequently, Heathcliff appears to be burning in the flames of jealousy and envy because of his low and poor social background, which could only be concealed by snatching all properties belonging to the established and high-esteem Earnshaw and Linton families. Although Heathcliff claims of being extremely in love with Cathy Earnshaw, yet he does not refrain from destroying her domestic and matrimonial life. Actually, he looks resolute to win Cathy at any cost; it is therefore he justifies all his acts and plans, including marrying Cathy’s sister-in-law Isabella Linton, in order to keep himself close to Cathy ultimately. As a result, he expresses his love for the married Cathy in Nelly’s presence in these words: “If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn’t love you as much as I do in a single day” (Bronte 143). Nevertheless, he does not hesitate to inflict cruelties on Cathy’s daughter Catherine. First by trapping her in his net through his son’s love, and then obtains all her property after her marriage to his son Linton. Thus, his abhorrence for Catherine proves Heathcliff to be a revengeful and merciless person, who had planned to marry Cathy Earnshaw just for his socioeconomic uplift and for earning a respectable place in society. The feelings of jealousy and antagonism could also be traced out in the twentieth century work End of the Affair by Graham Greene. The novel depicts the period of WWII, which had brought turmoil and ruination all over the European continent. The story of the novel revolves around the protagonists Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Miles. Miles, a dissatisfied wife of a civil servant, falls in love with Bendrix, a growing writer, and intimate physical and psychological relations are developed between the two. Bendrix also observes the same intense feelings for Mrs. Miles, and longs for marrying her in order to keep her with him forever. Somehow, since Sarah Miles also loves her husband Henry, she looks completely reluctant of divorcing her husband. As a result, her affection for her husband creates feelings of jealousy and revenge in the mind of Bendrix, who appears to be anxious to remove Henry from his way in order to win his love ultimately. However, an expected bombardment injuring Bendrix and Sarah opens the latter’s eyes regarding the immorality she has been involved into. Consequently, she leaves the seriously injured Bendrix in order to lead a chaste life for the future years to come. It is therefore she laments that it is a strange thing to discover and to believe that you are loved when you know that there is nothing in you for anybody but a parent or a God to love (Greene 97). The sight of Henry moving here and there time and again in his apartment adjacent to Bendrix’s residence increases the scale of jealousy in his mind for Henry, and he infuriates him in such a manner that even the slightest appearance of Henry before his eyes invites his displeasure and disappointment. Bendrix, suspicious of Sarah’s involvement with some other person, hires the services of a professional detective, out of extreme jealousy and envy, in order to explore whether she is flirting someone else. Somehow, on finding her turning to her Lord to lead a pious life reaches him to the conclusion that he would not turn Sarah towards him again. Thus, he is well aware of the bitter reality that his love with Sarah has been doomed by turning into just an affair that had a beginning and ending as well. (Greene 93). So, he submits to the truthfulness regarding the existence of God Almighty, in Whom the individuals must maintain unflinching belief (Greene 102-03). To conclude, it becomes crystal clear that all the works under examination portray the morbid emotions of jealousy the male lovers undergo because of vehement possessiveness they observe in their heart. One of the most prominent similarities the three works share includes the unfortunate end of many characters. Hence, death and destruction the characters undergo make these works extremely gloomy and morbid ones. It is particularly the case with Wuthering Heights, where all main characters including Mr. Earnshaw, his daughter-in-law Frances, daughter Catherine, son Hindley, Mr. & Mrs. Linton, their children Edgar and Isabella, son of Heathcliff and Isabella i.e. Linton, and finally Heathcliff die young one by one either because of illness and disease or due to becoming the victim of Heathcliff’s brutal revenge. Hence, the novel portrays an extremely gloomy environment till the end. On the other hand, Shakespearean tragedy Othello observes the protagonist killing his beloved wife out of jealousy, and does not hesitate in taking his own life by committing suicide in sheer repentance after getting acquainted with the reality regarding the innocence of his wife. Somehow, Bendrix keeps on observing jealousy that has forced him to appoint a detective in order to intrude into the personal life of his ex beloved. Thus, all the three works under investigation demonstrate different postures of jealousy, though all of which depict possessiveness, where no lover allows any sharing of love altogether on the part of their beloved. Works cited Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Nashville: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1905. Web http://www.literaturepage.com/read/wutheringheights.html Buss, D. M. The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy is as Necessary as Love and Sex New York: The Free Press, 2000. Print Daiches, David. A Critical history of English Literature. New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1979. Print Greene, Graham. End of the Affair. New York: Viking Press, 1951. Web http://mahirbarut.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/greene-graham-the-end-of-the-affair.pdf Jayapalan, N. History of English Literature. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributers, 2001. Print Shakespeare, William. Othello. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print Read More