Coleridge's Distinction between Primary Imagination, Secondary Imagination & Fancy

Coleridge gave much thought to the Imagination. He considers poetry the product of the secondary imagination. The secondary imagination dissolves, diffuses and dissipates in order to recreate; it struggles to idealize and unify.

The two Cardinal Points of poetry according to Coleridge are:

1) The power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature.

2) The power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of Imagination.

Primary Imagination: (Living power and prime agent of all human perception). Coleridge asserts that the mind is active in perception. This activity which is subconscious and is the common birthright of all men is the work of the Primary Imagination, which may be defined as the inborn power of perceiving that makes it possible for us to know things. The Primary Imagination is a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The power of perception, Coleridge called as Primary Imagination whereas the poetic imagination as the Secondary Imagination. It differs from the Primary Imagination in degree, but not in kind. While all men possess the Primary, only some men possess the heightened degree of the universally human power to which the poet lays claim.

Secondary Imagination: (Echo of the Primary Imagination) differs in two important respects from Primary Imagination. First, Primary Imagination is subconscious, while Secondary Imagination coexists "with the conscious will" and involves, therefore, elements of conscious and subconscious activity. Poetic "making" blends conscious selection with subconscious infusion, some elements are intentionally chosen while others are mysteriously given or supplied from the deepness of the poet's subconscious mind. Second, the secondary Imagination is described as a power that "dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate." It dissolves and then reintegrates the components in a new way that draws attention to their coalescence. Secondary Imagination bridges the gap between the world of spirit and matter; it fuses perception, intellect, feeling, passions and memory. It struggles to idealize and unify.

Fancy: On the other hand, is distinguished from Imagination (both primary and secondary) because it is not poetic. It differs from Imagination in kind. Fancy is merely aggregative and associative; it is a mode of memory receiving all its materials ready made from the law of association. In other words, fancy joins without blending; it works together with the pre-existing sensations without creating anything originally new, fabricates without refashioning the elements which it combines.

To Coleridge poetry was fundamentally and formally distinct from other modes of writing, and it possesses a logic of its own, as severe as that of science, and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more and more fugitive causes. Poetry could and should bring together thought and feeling; it should reconcile the workings of both the head and the heart. Coleridge says that Wordsworth had unified thought and feeling in poetic utterance; he has both realized and idealized the commonplace and had made the reader see man and nature as if he was seeing them for the first time. Therefore; at times he seems to be still aware of the sensationalist philosophy of his youth which from it he inherits a conception of a world of facts, an inanimate cold world in which objects as objects are essentially "fixed and dead." But as a poet, his task is to transform it by the imagination. He has a deep trust in the imagination and considers it as something which gives shape to life. His dead world may be brought to life by Imagination. He believes that meaning is found for the existence through the exercise of the creative activity which is akin to that of god.

As a poet, Coleridge was fascinated by the notion of unearthly power at work in the world. Thus, because of his belief that life is ruled by powers which cannot be fully understood, the result is a poetry more mysterious than that of any Romantic. However, because it is based on primary human emotions, he thought that the task of poetry is to convey the mystery of life. Coleridge believes in Imagination as a vehicle for truth. He felt about the creation of his imagination something similar to what he felt about dreams. He assumes that while we have them, we do not question their reality. Coleridge believes that creation needs joy, so without joy, the poet is helpless and miserable.      

A poem Coleridge defines as an organic construct which, unlike works of science, proposes for its immediate object "Pleasure not Truth." In other words, while the truth is the ultimate end of poetry, pleasure is its immediate end. Coleridge's definition of the ideal poet is characterized by its emphasis on imagination. The poet described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends and fuses each into each by that magical power, imagination, and synthesis. In Coleridge's view, Wordsworth's particular genius was Miltonic; his strength lay, as the Prelude had demonstrated, in impressing the stamp of his own mind and character on all that he chose to write about.

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Theory of Impersonality by T S Eliot

T.S. Eliot’s impersonal conception of art and the fullest expression of his classicist attitude towards art and poetry are essentially given by him in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent.

Eliot explains his theory of impersonality by examining first, the relation of the poet to the past and secondly, the relation of the poem to its author. According to his view, the past is never dead, it lives in the present. “No poet or no artist has his complete meaning alone.

His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.” Above all, the artist or the poet has to work in the long-established tradition of the literature to which he belongs. We cannot value the poet alone; we must set him for comparison and contrast among the dead poets of his language.

In the next part of the theory, he examines the relation of the poet to the poem. According to him, the poem has no relation to the poet. The difference between the mind of a mature poet and an immature one is that a mature poet has more finely perfected medium. Eliot thinks that the poet and the poem are two separate things. The feeling or emotion or vision resulting from the poem is something different from feeling, emotion, and vision in the mind of the poet. The art emotion is different from personal emotion. In other words, the poet should be passive and impersonal.

To explain the theory, Eliot has brought the analogy of chemical reaction. When oxygen and sulfur-di-oxide are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulfurous acid. This combination takes place only when platinum is a presence. Platinum is the catalyst that helps to process of chemical reaction, but it itself is apparently unaffected. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. Its presence may be necessary for partly or exclusively to operate for the combination of the experience in order to give birth to a piece of poetry.

Eliot says that the business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and in working them up in poetry, to express feelings which are not actual emotions at all.

The emotion of art is impersonal. It has its life in the poem and not in the history of poets. So, honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. The biography of the poet is not to be studied; the structure of the poem and its evocation powers are important.

Edited by: Mahbub Murad. Dhaka,

Touchstone Method by Matthew Arnold

Poetry is something which sustains, console and interprets life for us. Arnold had given a very high position to poetry that it is a substitute for religion. Arnold says "The strongest part of our religion today is its unconscious poetry". At this point, Arnold offers his theory of Touchstone Method.

Arnold’s touchstone method is a comparative method of criticism. According to this method, in order to judge a poet's work properly, a critic should compare it to passages taken from works of great masters of poetry, and that these passages should be applied as touchstones to other poetry. Even a single line or selected quotation will serve the purpose. If the other work moves us in the same way as these lines and expressions do, then it is really a great work, otherwise not. We are to make a comparison with any master in order to justify its validity

Arnold wants us to avoid the false evaluation of the historic estimate and the personal estimate, and to attain to a real estimate by learning to feel and enjoy the best work of the real classic, and thus to appreciate the wide difference between it and all lesser work. If you want to know whether any poetic work is of a high quality, we should compare it with specimens of the poetry of the highest quality. According to him the most useful method of discovering the worth of poetry is "to have always in one’s mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry". The real classics can serve as the touchstone by which the merit of contemporary poetic work can be tested. This is the central idea of Arnold’s Touchstone Method.

Arnold was basically a classicist. He admired the ancient Greek, Roman and French authors as the models to be followed by modern English authors. The old English like Shakespeare, Spenser or Milton were also to be taken as models. Arnold took selected passages from the modern authors and compared them with selected passages from the ancient authors and thus decided their merits. This method was called Arnold's Touchstone Method. He quoted the two lines from Milton;

"And courage never to submit or yield

And what is else not to be overcome"

It has been said that the sentiment or the moral here is noble, but that the diction and movement are faulty. Perhaps, in offering these two lines as a specimen of the highest poetry, Arnold just tripped.

However, this system of judgment has its own limitations. Arnold would probably have agreed that his method of comparing passage with a passage is not a sufficient test for determining the value of a work as a whole. Arnold himself insisted that we must judge a poem by the 'total impression' and not by its fragments. But we can further extend this method of comparison from passages to the poems as whole units. The comparative method is an invaluable aid to the appreciation of any kind of art. It is helpful not merely thus to compare the masterpiece and the lesser work, but the good with the not so good, the sincere with the not quite sincere, and so on.

Arnold seems to go too far insisting all the time on work of the highest excellence in literature. It is not fair to demand that "all hills should be the Alps". There may be an excellence in some minor poetry worthwhile on its own account. Arnold expresses the view that good literature will never lose its currency. There might be some vulgarization and cheapening of literary values, as a result of the increase in numbers of the common sort of readers, but the currency of good literature is ensured by, "the instinct of self-preservation in humanity." So strong is Arnold’s faith in the value of poetry of the highest kind. Arnold declared that it would be much better to disregard the mass of current literature. By this method, we can set apart the alive, the vital, and the sincere from the shoddy, the showy and the insincere.

He declared, "In poetry, it is the glory, the eternal honor

that charlatanism shall find no entrance".

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What Shortcomings does Arnold find in Chaucer as Poetical Classics?

Arnold’s “The study of Poetry” can be taken as a kind of legislative criticism where he puts up his belief as a literary critic. He proclaims that Chaucer and Burn are not the great classics. Now, the question comes why does Arnold put Chaucer outside the domain of classic writers? To solve this riddle, we should first know his idea of a classic and touchstone method.

According to Arnold, poetry is a criticism of life under the conditions fixed by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. Great poetry alone possess the power to sustain, console, delight and to interpret life to us. He thus sets a high standard for great poetry. In order to be a classic, the poet must be able to fill us with such strength and joy that will guide us in our life. He suggests a practical method for finding a true classic. It is his famous “Touchstone Method.” One has to take a specimen of the poetry of the high quality and apply them to the poetry under judgment. When we judge a contemporary piece of poetry by such touchstone we can determine whether it can be justifiably turned as the product of a genuine classic. So it can be said that when poetry can fulfill all the criteria said in touchstone method can only be able to regard as a classic poetry.

Accordingly, the best poetry is characterized by truth and seriousness. As regards the manner and style, the best poetry is characterized by the superiority of diction and of movement. Thus according to Arnold, a poet is to be regarded as a classic if he fulfills the conditions stated above.

Arnold is of the opinion that many writers are considered to be classics but actually, they are false classics because their poetry does not live up to the high standard of poetic art attained by such great masters as Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare.

Comparison with Chaucer and Dante Arnold at first applies his Touchstone Method on Chaucer. He quotes a few lines from Chaucer and then compares them with a line from Dante and comes to the conclusion that the poetry of Chaucer does not have the account of the classics. At first, Arnold praises on Chaucer’s poetical performance and poetical achievement. But he denies to Chaucer the status of a poetical classic. In his opinion, Chaucer does not possess high poetic seriousness.

Chaucer appreciation and lacking: Arnold has high praise for Chaucer’s poetical performance. The poetry of Chaucer is far superior to the French romance poetry of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Chaucer’s power of fascination is enduring. The substance of Chaucer’s poetry, his view of things and his criticism of life has largeness, freedom, shrewdness, and kindliness. His poetry is the criticism of life and it has the truth of substance or matter. Chaucer is a perpetual source of good sense. Yet he does not have that high seriousness which Homer had, which his successor like Shakespeare, Milton etc had.

Lack of moral lessons in Chaucer’s writing: Chaucer does not pose himself as a stern moralist, as a social reformer. Chaucer has a genial humor devoid of spite and cynicism. Chaucer endeavored to picture life truthfully without either exalting unduly or demeaning unnecessarily any of his characters.

By such means,

we can derive the benefit of being able clearly to feel and deeply to enjoy the best, the truly classic in poetry.

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Imagination and Fancy in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria

Coleridge defines imagination by saying that "The imagination then I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite, I am. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degrees, and in the mode of operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate, or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects are essentially fixed and dead."

"Fancy, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with but fixity and definitions. Fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space. But equally with the ordinary memory, it must receive but its materials ready made from the law of association."

So, Coleridge seems to be saying that one can use fancy as a kind of power to create memory mosaics or colleges, rearranging what we've experienced into a new contribution or share to suit our fancy.

Coleridge has distinguished between Fancy and Imagination in the following ways:

# Fancy in Coleridge's eyes was employed for Tasks those were 'passive', 'mechanical', the accumulation s of fact and documentation of what is seen. Fancy, Coleridge argued, was "too often adulterator and counterfeiter of memory." (59)

The imagination, on the other hand, was 'vital' and transformative, "a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation". For Coleridge, it was the imagination that was responsible for acts that were truly creative and inventive and, in turn, that identified true instances of find or noble art. (60)

# Fancy is "the faculty of mere images or impressions, as imagination is the faculty of intuitions."

# Fancy is light and playful, while Imagination is grave and solemn.

# Fancy was concerned with the mechanical operations of the mind, those which are responsible for the passive accumulation of data and shortage of such data in the memory.

Imagination, on the other hand, described the "mysterious power," which extracted from such data, "hidden ideas and meaning"

# Fancy sports with the definite and static images and doesn't modify them; while imagination dissolves and reshapes them into new wholes.

# For Coleridge, fancy is the attribute of poetic genius, but imagination is its soul, which transforms all photo one graceful and intelligent whole.

# Fancy is equated with a mechanical mixture and Imagination is equated with a chemical compound. In a mechanical mixture, a number of ingredients are brought together. They are mixed up, but they do not tear their individual properties, they will exist as separate identities.

In a chemical compound, on the other hand, the different ingredients combine to form something new. The different ingredients no longer exist as separate identities. They kore their respective properties and fuse together to save something new and entirely different. A compound is an act of creation; while a mixture is merely a bringing together of a number of separate elements.

Thus imagination creates new shapes and forms of beauty by during and unifying the different impressions it receives from the external world. Fancy is not creative, it is a kind of memory; it arbitrarily brings together images and even when brought together, they continue to retain their separate and individual properties. They receive no coloring or modification from the mind. It is merely mechanical juxtaposition and not a chemical fusion.

Coleridge explains the point by quoting two passages from Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. The following lines from this poem serve to illustrate fancy :

"Full gently now she takes him by the hand
A lily prisoned in a hold of snow
Or ivory in an alabaster band
So white a friend engirds so white a foe.

In these lines images drawn from memory, but they do not interpenetrate into one another.

The following kind from the same poem, illustrate the power and function of imagination:

"Look! How a bright star shooteth from the sky
So glides he in the night from Nenus' eye.

"How many images and feelings", says Coleridge, "are here brought together without effort and without the discord-the beauty of Adonis - the rapidity of the flight - the yearning yet helplessness of the unarmoured gazes- and a shadowy, ideal character thrown over the whole."

Coleridge's brief discussion of imagination and fancy in Biographia Literaria has been called, "perhaps the most famous single prose passage in all of English literature, yet... .Also one of the most baffling ". He was also one first critic to distinguish between them and define their respective roles.

Gist of The play Look Back In Anger

A Realistic Subject Matter: Look Back In Anger received an overwhelming response from the audience when it was first produced. It appealed to the audience because of the realistic subject-matter. Through the character of the protagonist, Osborne revealed his feeling for the contemporary scene and the frustration and the temperament of post-war Britain found expression through the speeches of Jimmy. The use of contemporary idiom the sharp comments on matters ranging from “posh” Sunday newspaper and “whiletile” universities to the bishop and the hydrogen bomb.

Symbols in look Back on Anger

An “unpleasant” Social Play: Unlike another realistic playwright, Osborne presents the social problems apprehended by the characters. The stinking rhetorical speeches go beyond realistic prose drama. Many of his impressive tirades are concerned with the debased values of modern life but the action of the play is very little influenced by such social questions as a class system. Alison describes Jimmy’s invasion of her upper-class world as a part of the class war he was waging with Alison as a hostage.

Learn about Helena Charles

Jimmy’s Anger: Jimmy’s anger seems to be deep-rooted. For him “the misery of the world is misery and will not then rest”. He suffers for others and likes other people’s lives. As a young boy, he watched his dying father and learned more about love-death and betrayal that people like Helena would know all their lives. He recalls the experience with bitterness and says that every time he had sat near his father’s bed and listen to his father’s talk he had to fight back his tears. He says he had become a ”veteran after his experience of remaining by his father’s bedside for twelve months. He also suffers for Mrs. Tanner, Augh’s mother who ac­cording to him went “through the sordid process of dying.”

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Incompatibility between Jimmy and His Wife: the Social disparity between his working-class origin and the upper middle class to which his wife belongs is also a reason for Jimmy’s anger. He wages an unending battle against the upper middle class whom he holds in contempt and treats Alison as a “hostage”. He constantly bullies his wife and provokes her to retaliate Alison’s silence, her withdrawal into detached indifference makes communication between him and herself impossible. “That girl there can twist your arm off with’ her silence,” he comments on her infuriated by her silent disposition.

Jimmy’s Deep-Seated Need of Allegiance: Jimmy is over demanding in his relationship. He seeks from women much more than he could ever hope to get. When disappointed he turns his wrath on them with savage resentment. He expects everyone to be loyal not only to him but to all the things he believes in, not only to his present and future but to his past as well. Alison’s failure to live up to his expectation irritates him.

Sexual Passion No Remedy for Jimmy’s Trouble: Sexual passion occasionally helps Jimmy to overcome his frustration, and assists him to escape his troubling mind now and then. But it does not provide a permanent solution to his problems. In the first act the ever critically Jimmy takes a brief break and is shown to share a tender moment of togetherness with his wife. But immediately after some time on learning about Helena’s impending visit he returns to his farmer self-cursing and condemning people. He alternates between sexual teaming and sexual passion. In the Act III & Sc. II he asks contemptuously why women bled men to death. He says that men have no alternative but to it themselves be butchered as there is no brave cause to die for.

                                                                                                        

Relationship between Alison and jimmy

John Osborne's play Look’ Back in Anger’ mainly describes a failed marriage between Jimmy and Alison who live with Jimmy‟s uneducated friend Cliff Lewis. Through it, Osborne presented „a new type of angry young hero‟ whose sense of working-class position prejudices his judgment about those of upper social status and this brings him into conflict with Alison who becomes a victim of his cruelty. For this, there is no healthy atmosphere in their house and she is always in great miseries. Therefore, she withdraws herself into a detached indifference to him and a rift is created between them. After more than three years of their marriage, when the pregnant Alison is unable to take her bullying husband any more, she retreats from the Porterhouse hoping to get rid of her sufferings as she realizes that her upper--class background angers Jimmy. Unfortunately, she loses her unborn baby, suffers terrible isolation and agony and returns to Jimmy and embraces further pain. Thus, Look Back in Anger is a play in which Alison’s mental distress is prolonged and unrelieved

Symbols in look Back on Anger

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Alison is Jimmy‟s age and is tall, slim and dark. Moreover, she has a sorrowful look which indicates her unhappy state. There are also hints in the opening scene that crisis has been brewing in their house without sufficient money and peace and she is getting burnt slowly. Her parental house was just like an Eden compared to her new one. Actually, Jimmy‟s house is unable to provide everything an upper-class daughter could possibly want as he cannot realize that he has a wife and it is his obligation to support her financially as well as mentally.

Learn about Helena Charles

As in every aspect of life, Jimmy and Alison are different from each other, their huge social gap matters a great deal to Jimmy who sees her family as part of the traditional British ruling class. But Alison hardly loses temper in spite of Jimmy‟s nonstop offensive criticism towards her. Her silence also angers him greatly which is the result of his incessant talking and he is unaware of its cause. Hence, he sarcastically calls her “monument to non-attachment” and tells Cliff: “Nothing I could do would provoke her”(14). Jimmy cannot understand that her silence is unnatural and rather forced by him as she shares a warm bond with Cliff who also belongs to Jimmy‟s class. In her words: “If things have worked out with Cliff, it‟s because he‟s kind and lovable ...” (41)

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Actually, the differences between Alison and Jimmy‟s families dramatize a basic conflict in their marital life from the beginning of the play. It is true that he faced strong opposition prior to his marriage from her parents. But it does not mean that he has the right to offend her in front of Cliff, and her friend, Helena Charles. Critic Mander suggests: “Jimmy is presented as a fighter, and one would expect him to relish a fight with someone of his own caliber” (Mander, 5). On the other hand, Alison is cultured, well-bred, and possesses the grace and bearing of a mild woman unworthy of his fighting and he never takes her pleas for a little peace seriously; rather curses her: “ I wish you could have a child, and it would die”(36). It seems her serenity is at the mercy of him. Even Cliff consoles her seeing her dilemma: “He‟s being offensive. And it‟s so easy for him” (7). Whereas Jimmy is unmoved and finds pleasure in torturing her with invectives. So she recalls the strong opposition from her parents as they predicted Jimmy and Alison mismatch as a couple and she regrets her marriage: “If only I knew what was going” (25). Thus, she admits that her marriage has brought never-ending miseries for her.

Significance of the tittle - Look Back in anger

Look back in anger is a suitable title for the play. It has two part-look back and- in anger. certainly, there is enough anger in the play. Its hero Jimmy Porter, is an angry young man. As one critic puts it he is furious with life. The title of the play is apt and appropriate. I t is significant and suggestive. It hints the theme of the play. The story of the play moves around the play. In the play, Osborne has depicted the mood of despair, anger, and frustration of the postwar generation. It is a study of class conflict and frustration caused by it. The title of the play indicates it. Seeing the title reader comes to know what the play is about.

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The title of John Osborne's play "Look Back in Anger" is very much suitable with the flow of the theme of the play. The entire play experiences the tremors of Jimmy's violently angry tirades directed at his fellow inhabitants in the play. Jimmy's anger is one of the predominant themes of the play affecting all those characters related to him. Another recurrent motif is Looking Back as most of the characters including Alison, Helena, and Colonel Redfern reassess the past as they remember it. Unlike Jimmy who isn’t able to transcend bygone sufferings, the others acknowledge their previous mistakes and express regret or repentance.

Learn about Helena Charles

"Anger" is the right word to describe his character as he hated a lot of people, including Helena and his wife, Alison, Alison's mother, brother and a whole lot bunch of friends and always vent his anger and ire on them, sometimes hurling nasty and disturbing insults towards them. He hated them due to their social ranking in the power hierarchy, her social standing and is well brought-up "upbringing".

"Looking back" is what makes Jimmy so furious and frustrated when he looks back to the past during the Spanish Civil War at World War Two, which he witnessed the horrors and psychological scarring of war. When he was ten years old, he watched his idealist father died due to complications of his wounds for a year during his fight for democracy, so he lashes out his anger on everyone due to his helplessness and his vulnerability.

Symbols in Look Back In Anger

He also hates the class system in the country, where the built-in preferential for those of the rich and the famous and the top of the world, the higher-ranking people to those people at the lower end which were excluded from all power and privileges and have no say in anything, that makes Jimmy's existence on earth seems not worthwhile and meaningless.

He also hates his loved ones as they didn't want to fully commit to loving and refuses to have strong feelings with him, preferring to have it "low-key" relationship, and also at the society which doesn't fulfill promises of windows of opportunity and good fortunes, all the white-lies bastards that Jimmy hate for deceiving the gullible and innocent victims of outrage brainwashing and deception. He also deplored the higher social ranking people in the social and power structure who sits smugly in their sits and who do not leave a helping hand or a guiding light to the less fortunate and those below them and prefers to be self-centered, caring for their own welfare and not of others.

Symbolic elements in Look back in anger by John Osborne

The Bears-and-Squirrels Game: The bear and squirrel game in a look back in anger is a symbolic device that serves an important dramatic purpose. The conjugal life of Jimmy and Alison is marked by tension.The game, in fact, makes them forget the bitterness of their married life and give them momentary happiness.Alison and jimmy's bear and squirrel game give them a way to access a simple affection for each other that they can not achieve in normal life. Their relationship is a site of class and social conflict as Alison comes from middle-class family and Jimmy from a working-class.W hen they act like an animal they only concern about food and shelter and sex, they forget the conflict and feel a simple version of love for each other.

A Statement of the Nature of Human Love: According to another critic, the game of bears-and-squirrels seems at first a trivial evasion of the complexities found in any marriage. But at the end of the play the game, according to this critic, becomes a statement of the nature of human love—the willingness to immerse oneself completely in creativeness, to share the pain and the pleasure of the limited animal. Jimmy thus ultimately reconciles himself to an animal relationship with Alison. In her squirrel's nest, Alison is precisely a warm, generous animal who will lie by Jimmy's side every night. Thus, according to this critic also, the symbolic device of the bears-and-squirrels game serves to illustrate the theme of marriage and the sexual relationship between Jimmy and Alison.

A Refuge From the World: According to yet another critic, Alison comes back to Jimmy at the end after having really suffered, and she can, therefore, be presumed to have realized her own defects and to have returned with the intention of a deeper commitment to Jimmy's love. Jimmy and Alison then revert to the bears-and-squirrels game as a refuge from the world which sets "cruel steel traps" for its animals. It seems likely that this basis of warm, animal love might, on the other side of suffering, lead to a happy and continuing relationship. Some critics, however, feel otherwise and see in the ending merely a temporary escape from realities which will have to be faced later.

Alison's Explanation of the Bears-and-Squirrels Game: Let us see how this symbolic device of the bears-and-squirrels game develops in the play and how the dramatist expects us to be affected by it. The first hint of this game is given to us in the stage-directions at the very beginning of the play, when we are told that, among miscellaneous articles on the chest of drawers, there is a large toy teddy bear and a soft, woolly squirrel. At this time we hardly pay any attention to the toy bear and the toy squirrel. These two toy animals seem to be just a part of the random collection of things on the chest of drawers. However, we become aware of the supreme importance of these two toys in Act II when Alison is talking to Helena about the failure of her marriage to Jimmy. Alison explains that she had married Jimmy in the teeth of the fierce opposition of her parents and that she had subsequently found herself leading a very unsatisfactory life on account of Jimmy's poverty and his lack of an occupation. For quite some time, Alison and her husband had to live under the roof of Hugh who was a friend of Jimmy's. Hugh was a detestable man, says Alison, and she had hardly been able to tolerate him. Jimmy and Hugh used to invade, the homes of her relatives and friends as uninvited guests and they used to take her also along with them. They were gate-crashers who went to people's homes for free food and drinks. Alison further tells Helena that her relations with Jimmy now are such that she is reluctant even to tell Jimmy about her pregnancy. In short, the marriage, according to Alison's account, has come to nothing. Alison then shows Helena the toy bear and the toy squirrel lying on the chest of drawers and says that the bear represents Jimmy and the squirrel represents herself. When Helena does not understand Alison's meaning, Alison explains that it is a game which she and Jimmy have played on certain occasions but that now even that game seems to have lost its purpose. She goes on to say that this game was the only way in which she and Jimmy could escape from everything. This game was a kind of "unholy priest-hole" of being animals to one another. Jimmy and she could imagine themselves as "little furry creatures with little furry brains". In the roles of animals, a bear, and a squirrel, they could feel "dumb, uncomplicated affection" for each other. And they could spend a happy time like "playful, careless creatures in their own cozy zoo for two." Alison further describes the game as "a silly symphony for people who couldn't bear the pain of being human beings." But now, says Alison, even those poor little silly animals are dead, These animals were "all love and no brains," says Alison in conclusion.

The Game, a Way of Forgetting the Actual Reality: The bears-and-squirrels game, then, was a kind of escape for Alison and Jimmy from the harsh realities of life and from the failure to have adjusted themselves to each other in a harmonious relationship. When a man and his wife fail to come to terms, and they find themselves at loggerheads with each other, they yet try to find some common basis for mutual harmony, instead of separating or resorting to a divorce. This would especially be the case where the marriage was one of love and had taken place against the declared wishes of the parents of one of them or the parents of both of them. Alison, having married Jimmy against the wishes of her parents, could not easily break up the marriage, although the breaking point does ultimately come partly because of the role played by Helena. In the case of Alison and Jimmy, the basis for some sort of mutual understanding was found in the bears-and-squirrel game. Animals feel only a dumb, natural affection for each other, without this affection being complicated by intellectual disparities. Nor are there any class-distinctions among animals. The main reason for Jimmy's bitterness against Alison was, after all, his opposition to the middle class which she represented while he himself comes from the working class. The only way that the two could, therefore, discover, in order to forget their respective social positions and the intellectual gulf between them was to imagine themselves as animals, the bear representing masculine strength and the squirrel representing feminine softness and gentleness.

The Fleeting Happiness Provided by this

Game on Occasions: In short, on certain occasions, especially when they made love to each other, Jimmy and Alison used to imagine themselves as a bear and a squirrel respectively, and thus become oblivious of their human character, their rationality, and their social prejudices. One such occasion occurs in Act I when Cliff has gone out of the room for a little while and when, in a moment of mutual tenderness, Jimmy and Alison play this game. Jimmy calls Alison a "beautiful, great-eyed squirrel", "Hoarding, nut-manching squirrel", "With highly polished, gleaming fur, and an ostrich feather of a tail". This almost poetic description affords great joy to Alison and relieves the tension from which she has been suffering as a result of Jimmy's verbal assaults on her. She then begins to produce the sound which a squirrel produces, and she calls him a "jolly super bear, too", "A really marvelous bear", 'Marvellous and beautiful". She jumps up and down in a state of excitement, making little "paw gestures". They are both very happy at this time and they lovingly embrace each other. Alison says that everything just seems to be all right suddenly. Then, in her state of extreme bliss, she is about to tell Jimmy about her pregnancy when Cliff suddenly enters, and the illusion is shattered. The escape into the fantasy-world of animals had made both Jimmy and Alison forget the stern reality and had made them very happy, though happiness proved fleeting as it must have been on similar previous occasions.

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Jimmy's Throwing the Teddy Bear on the Floor: When Jimmy gets ready to go to London to attend upon the dying Mrs. Tanner, and when Alison, whom he wants to take with him, refuses to go, Jimmy feels very distressed. Alison then leaves with Helena for the church while Jimmy picks up the teddy bear gently, looks at it, and then throws it on the floor. This action of Jimmy's shows how disappointed he is feeling with his wife, and what a shock it is to him that she should have proved so callous in the matter of Mrs. Tanner's approaching death. Jimmy at this time feels solitary and forsaken. He badly needed Alison's comradeship at this time, but she has let him down. The teddy bear which symbolizes Jimmy is now of no use to him, and so he discards it. His gesture in throwing the toy bear on the floor shows that the fantasy-world of animals can no longer provide any comfort to him.

Alison's Disillusionment with the Toy-Squirrel: On the following day, when Alison is packing up her things to go with her father to her parental home, she picks up the toy squirrel from the chest of drawers and is about to put it in her suitcase when she changes her mind and puts it back. This action of Alison's also has a symbolic significance. The toy-squirrel was very dear to her because of its past associations, and she would have liked to carry it with her. But she realizes that now, with a change in her relationship with Jimmy whom she has decided to leave, the squirrel can have no meaning. For her, too, the fantasy-world of animals has ceased to exist. Her action in picking up the toy squirrel shows her feeling of nostalgia and her action in putting it back shows her feeling of disillusionment and disappointment.

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The Game Helpful in Bringing About the Reconciliation: Towards the close of the play, when Jimmy bends and takes Alison's trembling body in his arms, Jimmy consolingly says to her that he and she will be together again in their bears cave and their squirrel's nest and will live on honey and on lots and lots of nuts. Both Jimmy and Alison are now in a chastened mood on account of the suffering that they have gone through. And in this mood of renewed tenderness, Jimmy's mind has at once gone back to the bears-and-squirrels game. So he goes on to say that, as animals, they will sing songs about themselves, about warm trees and cozy caves, and will bask in the sunshine. He adds that Alison, the squirrel, will keep her big eyes on his fur and help him to keep his claws in order because he is a rough and untidy kind of bear, while he will see to it that she keeps her sleek, bushy tail shining as it should, because she is a very beautiful squirrel. And at this point, Jimmy also speaks to Alison certain words of caution and warning. He reminds her that even for animals there are cruel steel traps lying everywhere, just waiting to catch mad animals as well as timid ones. And Alison nods in agreement. Finally, Jimmy says in a pathetic voice: ''Poor squirrels!", while Alison says: "Poor bears! Oh, poor, poor bears!". And thus the reconciliation to is helped by the fantasy-world of that game, though it is possible that they are playing this game for the last time because they have now become qualified to face the realities of life.

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Ironing as a Symbolic Device: A few other symbols have also been used in the play. There is Alison's endless ironing, for instance. Her ironing represents the kind of routine with which Jimmy is fed up. The ironing serves to add to Jimmy's boredom and it, therefore, becomes also a symbol of his boredom. In one of his early speeches in the play, Jimmy complains: "Always the same ritual. Reading the papers, drinking tea, ironing." Subsequently, also he shows his impatience with the ironing. It is ironical that, after Alison has gone away and has been replaced by Helena, we find Helena also ironing the clothes like Alison, so that from one point of view at least there is no change in Jimmy's life.

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The Church-Bells as a Symbol: Then there is the sound of the church-bells. Jimmy feels annoyed when he hears this sound. He is opposed to church-going; he is opposed to religious practices and rituals; and the church-bells, being symbolic of the church, annoy him. In Act I, when he has declaimed about the noise that women make, he hears the ringing of the church-bells and says: "Oh, hell! Now the bloody bells have started". The sound of the church-bells is an irritant to him, and he feels that this sound will drive him crazy. The church-bells irritate him also because they suggest in a vague manner the existence of a world other than the one with which Jimmy is familiar, and that other world is the spiritual world.

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The Trumpet: Finally, there is Jimmy's blowing on his trumpet. Although playing on the trumpet is only a hobby for him, it also serves a symbolic purpose in the play. In the first place, it offers Jimmy an escape from the irritating world of routine and is, therefore, a source of some comfort to him. He really thinks that the sound of the trumpet has a wholesome quality. That is why he says that those who cannot appreciate jazz can have no feeling either for music or for human beings. But the sound of the trumpet also suggests an atmosphere of breaking nerves. While Jimmy may resort to his trumpet as an escape, the sound of the trumpet annoys others. For instance, when Alison and Helena hear the sound of the trumpet, they feel very upset. Alison says: "God, I wish he'd lose that damned trumpet". She is afraid that the landlady will ask them to vacate the flat because of the noise Jimmy makes. Helena says that it seems to her that Jimmy wants to kill someone, herself in particular, with the sound of the trumpet. Afterward

, Cliff shouts to Jimmy, saying: "Hey, you horrible man! stop that bloody noise, and come and get your tea!" Thus the sound of the trumpet reinforces the tension of the play by drawing our attention to another point of difference between Jimmy and the other inmates of the house.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS OF HELENA CHARLES IN OSBORNE'S LOOK BACK IN ANGER

Physical Description: Helena is of the same age as Alison, of medium height, and carefully dressed. When she is first introduced to us, she is busy with preparing tea for the inmates of the house where she is staying as a guest. She is feeling perfectly at home and is assisting Alison in household work. She has a rather judicial expression of alertness on her face, but when this expression softens, she looks very attractive. She possesses a sense of matriarchal authority and she behaves as if she were a gracious representative of some visiting monarch. Actually, she belongs to the middle class which feels perfectly secure in its basic rights. Most men would be anxious to please and to impress a woman of this kind. Even from other young women, like Alison, she receives her due respect and admiration. Jimmy is, however, absolutely impervious to both her strength and dignity.

Helena’s Prolonged Stay at the Porters’ Flat: Helena had come to stay with the Porter’s only for a week or so, but she has been staying for a much longer time, to the great irritation and annoyance of Jimmy. In fact, Jimmy bluntly asks her why she has been staying on longer than originally proposed, and her reply is that she had been asked by Alison to stay on. This reply makes us a little suspicious about her intention in staying on, especially because she is conscious of Jimmy’s hostility to her.

Her Attitude to Jimmy: just as Jimmy is openly hostile to Helena, she too makes no secret of her dislike for him. When speaking privately to Alison, she is quite blunt in her criticism of Jimmy. On hearing Jimmy playing loudly on his trumpet, Helena says to Alison that it seems that Jimmy wants to kill someone with the noise of his trumpet. This is how she expresses her feelings on this point: “It’s almost as if he wanted to kill someone with it. And me in particular. I’ve never seen such hatred in someone's eyes before. It’s slightly horrifying”. A little later in the play, she describes Jimmy to Alison as a real savage.

Helena’s Influence over Alison: Helena seems to have a great hold upon Alison. Under Helena’s influence, Alison agrees to go to church for prayers, But Helena’s influence upon Alison is much greater than her merely succeeding in taking Alison to church. After observing Jimmy’s habitual ill-treatment of Alison, Helena begins to work upon Alison’s mind and urges her to settle once for all how the relationship between her and Jimmy is to be adjusted. Helena does not mince matters when discussing the situation with Alison. She points out that, now when Alison is going to have a baby, she cannot go on living in this way any longer. “Before, it was different—. But you can’t go on living in this way any longer”, says Helena. She goes on to say that either Jimmy should learn to behave properly and look after his wife or Alison must get out of this “mad-house”, this “menagerie.” According to Helena, Jimmy does not seem to know what love or anything else means. But Helena does not stop here. She further says to Alison: “Listen to me. You’ve got to fight him. Fight, or get out. Otherwise, he will kill you”.

Helena’s Verbal Skirmish with Jimmy: At the tea-table Helena asks Jimmy why he tries hard to be unpleasant and offensive and then says that in her opinion he is a very tiresome young man. Jimmy, of course, knows how to hit back. When Jimmy denounces Alison’s mother, Helena intervenes, saying: “Oh for heaven’s sake, don’t be such a bully! You’ve no right to talk about her mother like that”! When Jimmy still does not stop, Helena says: “I feel rather sick, that’s all. Sick with contempt and loathing”. A little later, Jimmy denounces Helena herself, and this time Helena threatens to slap him, saying: “It’s a pity you’ve been so far away all this time. I’d probably have slapped your face.” When Jimmy threatens to hit her back, Helena says: “You probably would. You’re the type.” When a few moments later Jimmy goes out, Helena expresses her reaction to him in the following words addressed to Alison:” You feel all right, don’t you? What’s he been raving about now? Oh, what does it matter? He makes me want to claw his hair out by the roots. When I think of what you will be going through in a few months’ time—and all for him! She then rebukes Cliff for keeping quiet and not doing anything to curb Jimmy’s habit of speaking offensively and insultingly to everybody.

Helena’s Responsibility for  Alison’s Decision to Leave Jimmy: It is Helena who is directly responsible for Alison’s decision to leave Jimmy. She makes Alison more conscious than she was before. Then, without telling Alison, Helena sends a telegram to Alison’s father to come and take away Alison because Alison is very unhappy. She then reveals to Alison her action in having sent the telegram to Alison’s father and obtains a promise from Alison that she will leave the letter to Jimmy and go away with her father. In all this, Helena is apparently acting as Alison’s well-wisher. We have no reason at this point to suspect Helena’s intentions or motives. We ourselves realize that it is dangerous for Alison to continue to stay with Jimmy in her pregnant condition when Jimmy is all the time scolding her and trying to hurt her. (Jimmy himself at this time is unaware of the fact that Alison is pregnant).

Helena’s Slapping, and then Kissing Jimmy: When Alison is leaving the flat with her father, Helena stays back, although it was understood that she too would go with Alison. Helena explains her action in staying behind by saying that she has an appointment in Birmingham on the following day about a job and that she would be staying here for only one more night. After Alison is gone, Jimmy returns from his visit to London and, on his speaking in his usual offensive way to Helena, she slaps him; but, to our great surprise, the very next moment she kisses him passionately and then draws him down beside her. Helena’s action in thus making love to Jimmy naturally gives rise to the suspicion in our minds that she had fallen in love with Jimmy in the very beginning, and that her having urged Alison to go to her parents’ home was a part of her planning to get an opportunity to acquire Jimmy as a lover for herself. However, this is only a conjecture on our part, because the author himself does not say anything to make the position clear.

As Jimmy’s Mistress:  Helena then lives with Jimmy as his mistress for several months, and she is obviously quite happy with him as is he with her. Helena has been able to adjust herself wonderfully to Jimmy’s habitual manner of talking critically and resentfully about things. Helena has fully replaced Alison and is ironing the clothes as Alison used to do. She is even wearing a shirt of Jimmy’s when ironing the clothes, as Alison had done. However, Helena does not seem to have stopped going to church in order to please Jimmy. For instance, Jimmy refers to Helena‘s busy chatting with the priest on the previous day, and Helena admits the fact. We see her fondling his ear and neck, and when he speaks appreciatively to her, she says: “I love you………Oh, my darling………I’ve always wanted you always!”  It seems that Helena has entered into a steady relationship with Jimmy.

The Awakening of Helena’s Conscience and her Desertion of Jimmy: However, there is another big surprise waiting for us. Just when we had reached the conclusion that Helena and Jimmy had found in each other permanent life-partners (though without getting married), Alison returns unexpectedly. Alison’s return brings about an abrupt and revolutionary change in Helena‘s attitude. In spite of discontent, Helena declares that her having lived with Jimmy as his mistress was all wrong when Alison comes back in her own house. This is what she says to Alison: “Alison—I knew that it was all utterly wrong………..I believe in good and evil, and I don’t have to apologize for that.” In other words, Helena’s conscience has now awakened and she cannot continue living sinfully with Jimmy any longer. In fact, she says that throughout the period of her stay with Jimmy, she had been experiencing a sense of the wrong that she had been committing. She even believes that Alison’s miscarriage was a divine judgment on them all.

Our Final Attitude to Helena: Whatever we may think of Helena in the earlier parts of the play, at the end (in Act III, Scene II) we are filled with admiration for her because she gives evidence of a strong will-power and a strong sense of right and wrong. She voluntarily gives him up because of a compulsive urge to undo the wrong she has been doing. Her action in leaving Jimmy is a true sacrifice which we generally see only on the Indian screen.

Relationship between Blanche and Mitch

In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, the characters Blanche and Mitch seem to be completely different from each other. Blanche has a lustful life, whereas Mitch has devoted himself to his sick mother. Nevertheless, they are greatly attracted to each other because of their similar desires. Unfortunately, Blanche and Mitch's love ended up in tragedy because they were not able to escape from the society's expectations: one can have a healthy relationship only if they are pure.

Character analysis of Stanley Kowalski

Blanche and Mitch are extremely different in their characters. Blanche means blank, or white, which has great relations with the qualities of the character Blanche. She is eager to cover herself up from her intolerable history—her being a prostitute after her lover died. She attempts to shroud herself look clean and pure through the maneuvers and her superficial outlooks, by dressing white clothes. Such desperate attempts show her eagerness to follow the society’s expectations. Despite her efforts, her past could not be erased. On the other hand, Mitch is actually pure and naïve. Although he has a masculine body on the outside, he cannot hide his pure characters. Mitch deeply cares for his sick mother. He tells his mother everything that he knows; this can be implied from the part of the story in which he told Blanche that he told his mother about Blanche. Such depictions show that their characters are completely opposite. Nevertheless, although their characters are very different, they fall in love with each other because of their similarities in their lustful desires.

Is Blanche responsible for her own tragic fate?

Blanche admitted in the story, “I want to rest! I want to breathe quietly again! Yes—I want Mitch…very badly!” (page 95). After periods of regret and sorrow—after the death of her young husband—and shame—after a short period of her life as a prostitute— her mentality had been completely destructed. The destruction of her mind had led her to lies and maneuvers, as an escape from the reality. Another escape from the reality was Mitch because he had the masculinity on which she could rely. However, it was not only Blanche who needed a shelter. Mitch proposed to Blanche, “You need somebody. And I need somebody, too. Could it be—you and me, Blanche?” (page 116) Mitch had been through similar emotions of that of Blanche after the death of his lover. After hearing Blanche's story about her lover, he had felt a kinship. With his sick mother, he also needed somewhere he could shelter on. The kinship had given him a reason he could rely on Blanche as an escape from the unfortunate reality, protect her, and fall in love with her. Unfortunately, their desires for each other could not be fulfilled. Nevertheless, such a portrayal of their desires for each other make the ending of the story seems even more tragic.

Character analysis of Blanche Dubois

    Their love ended in tragedy despite their desires to have each other, because of their inability to fulfill the social expectations. Blanche's attempt to shroud herself with superficial image and lies failed when Stanley revealed her history-about her prostitute life. When Mitch had found out that Blanche had been lying to her, his idealistic plans for the future foundered. Blanche was now unqualified for a wife for a pure man like him because of the social bias. When Mitch found out, he was angry not only at Blanche but also the society that was halting him from having affections toward such a poor woman, only because of her unacceptable history. Blanche’s mentality completely fell apart because a man she had felt love for suddenly faced her just as any other men she had encountered in the past. As a result, Blanche was sent to a mental hospital, and Mitch cried, finally realizing his biased attitudes and regretting his actions. The author Tennessee Williams portrayed such a tragic ending in order to criticize the reality that desires for love cannot overcome the social bias during this era.

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Blanche and Mitch’s tragic ending reflects the bias that had been in existence. Although they had great differences in their lives and qualities, they had similarities in their desires to have each other. Nevertheless, they were unable to overcome their differences because of the social expectations, demanding them to fall apart. Thus, their love story ends in tragedy, not a “happily ever after”.