Summaries
1. Grandmother
It is a short poem composed by an American Indian poet, Ray Young Bear. Here, the poet tries to focus on the intense love of his grandmother all inspiring and full of life with all the possible images and symbols. The grandmother reflects the culture of the native Indians of America. She wears a purple scarf and always carries a plastic shopping bag. The poet can not forget his grandmother although she is no more with him due to the love and affection she had for him. He says he still remembers her and claims he can easily recognize her from a mile afar. He adds his granny would come from the farm, wash her hands and pat on his head full of cares and warmth with damp root smelling hands. The voices of his grandmother still echo around him as the light of someone stirring ashes from a sleeping fire at night.
2. About Love
The story, About Love, is a platonic love story between Alyohin (Pavel Konstantinovich), a countryman and a housewife of a city man Anna by the Russian dramatist and short story writer, Anton Chekhov. In the present story, the author wants to show love as a source of hindrance and dissatisfaction.
As the events of the story unfold, we come across Alyohin talking to his friends: Burkin and Ivan Ivanych in Sofyino. Alyohin begins the discussion with the statement that love is a hindrance and a source of dissatisfaction and irritation. He justifies this statement in the story with reference to three different stories.
At first, he brings the reference of the love between his maidservant, Pelageya and the cook, Nikanor. They are in deep love with each other but the maidservant wants to live with the cook just so—without marrying. Nikanor, on the other hand, does not want to stay with her without marrying as it is against the Russian tradition and religion. This is a problem for both lovers. They can neither marry nor stay together all through their lives.
The second anecdote he brings is his own love story between a Russian woman and his in his college days in the city of Moscow
The final and the most important reference about love is Alyohin’s love with Anna Allexyevna, the wife of an assistant president of Circuit Court, Dmitry Luganovich of Sofyino. She was the mother of a baby who was in her early twenties but her husband was about forty years old. There was a big age difference between them however, they were happily married. Alyohin met Anna in Sofyino when Luganovch had once invited him at dinner since they worked together for some time. Alyohin was at once attracted to Anna because she was very beautiful and polite. Despite the fact she was married Anna took an interest in him and so did he. Their love was but pure and devoid of any physical relationship. They would stay long hours and exchange their stories for each other. At times, they would go o the cinema together. In a way, he became one of the integral members of the Luganoviches’ family. This continued till Anna delivered the second baby.
Days started changing as Anna’s second baby grew up to six months. Now she started thinking more about her own family than her relationship with Alyohin. She grew increasingly tensed and moody. She felt being trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea. She could not think well nor concentrate on her family. Consequently, she became a victim of mental illness. Her doctors advised her to change the location to Crimea for healing. And the day of her departure arrived. That was the doomsday for Alyohin. He could not see Anna parting away from him but he was helpless as he had started thinking about the imminent miseries to him and Anna if they were married. At the time of departure, they once expressed their love for each other. Hot tears were still dripping from their eyes as the train left for Crimea .
In this way, Alyohin lost two of his most productive years. Had he not fallen victim to this love; had he been realistic and bold enough to face the realities of life; had he been a little thoughtful, love perhaps would have never become a hindrance and a source of dissatisfaction or irritation to him and Anna. Also to Pelageya and Nikanor, love was just an irritation, not a harmony.
3. The lamentation of the Old Pensioner
The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner: This is one of the remarkable poems by the renowned Irish poet and dramatist, William Butler Yeats. This is actually a revised version of Yeast’s earlier poem, ‘The Old Pensioner’ the poem basically presents the poet’s reminiscences of his young life which become more amazing when he looks at his present state and contrasts his time of youth with his state in the old age. Here the old man takes shelter under a broken tree as there are no other ways and places to resort to. He would talk of love and politics in the days of his youth, but the cruel time has transfigured him depriving all those joys and fun. He is no more akin to love and his. So he is very sad and disappointed with his aging age which has transfigured him from a handsome charming youth to a mere wrinkled writhing and weak figure. No women take notice of him still when he feels and needs the presence and cares of beautiful women for him. He, therefore, bitterly condemns and loathes time which has eaten up all the lovely days of his life thereby depriving him of love, friends and the youthful vigour. His contemptuous feelings against time are best expressed in the last couplet.
“I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.”
4. Two Long-term Problems: Too many people and too Few Trees
Moti Nissani’s essay: Two Long-term Problem: Too many people and too Few Trees, provides a brief but alarming twin problems of population growth and growing deforestation. He also shows the growing concerns about the state of the biosphere. He has collected many data about the alarming state of the environment. These data obviously warn the impending threats to the existence of humanity due to rapid environmental degradation. The population has been increasing rapidly due to proper sanitation, medicines, nutrition and healthy habits of people along with education whereas the resources are decreasing. All these cause rapid deforestation and the deterioration of the environment. Consequently, it invites the greenhouse effect of ozone depletion acid rain and other ecological imbalance as a whole. The growing industrialization, urbanization, and warfare disturb the natural cycles thereby hampering every stage of development and balance of the environment.
Nissani is more concerned with the population and deforestation of Nepal Nepal Nepal
5 Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies
Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies: This short octave (poem with 8 lines) forms the extract from one of the most popular comedy plays by William Shakespeare, The Tempest. (Act I Scene: 2).The poet shows how the spirit, Ariel sings (this song) to Ferdinand, son of the king of Naples
6 Hurried Trip to Avoid a Bad Star
This essay presents an exploration of the Karnali region of Nepal
economically downtrodden and environmentally unaware. In the beginning, they found people who were on their way to Nepalgunj carrying various local goods for sale. This was the only way to their livelihood. Their goods ranged from medicinal herbs to hashish, marijuana and bamboo baskets. The two geographers learn the way of life in this region and find it very sorry. The people process shilajit on the way because they are superstitious and thus wanted to avoid bad luck. If they did it at home they might have to wait another 15 days till the full moon arrived. They find women felling trees and chopping branches of trees to feed their animals. When they ask them why they were destroying nature, the obvious answer they got was their animals might die of starvation if they did not do so. All that made it evident that the people of this region are not only superstitious but also ignorant about the importance of the environment. In the end, when they reached Tarai, they found people overjoyed to have reached the market. There, they bought sweets, cotton, and some equipment to make liquor. Karma, one of their porters did buy the distillery equipment to earn more money.
All through their journey of around 2000 kilometers, they found that the people were very hospitable and polite but their living standard was beyond their expectation. It was indeed very wretched and deplorable.
7 Travelling Through the Dark
Travelling Through the Dark: It is William Stafford’s poem of great tension between the two realities; two forms of life. There are efficiency and responsibilities of unglamorous virtues. We learn to admire these virtues when we face danger or loss. And there are emotions warmer than efficiency and deeper than our good judgments. This is what we understand; the double-dealing nature of man.H e says one thing and does the other. Here the poet drives carelessly on the edge of the Wilson River Road
8 A Story
A story is one of the most humorous short stories by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. In the present story, he presents the adult world from the perspective of a young boy. It is all about a day outing with his Uncle Thomas and his friends like Benjamin Franklyn, will sentry, Mr. Weazley, Noah Bowen, Mr. Jervis and so on. All these characters present the world of humour.
There are about thirty members in the charabanc who head to Porthcawl on a Saturday afternoon for their trip. But they never reach Porthcawl as they don’t seem to be serious in their business. Almost every member of the outing team is a good drunkard except for the young boy. They keep on stopping at all the taverns and bars on the way. This makes their journey very late. Most members of the team object the presence of the young boy. They make a mockery of young boys, women and old people in relation to having fun and getting out of household chores.
The first public house they stop at is Mountainship where they spend around forty-five minutes. After getting boozed they started quarrelling. The boy sees all this from the charabanc. They leave the bar completely dry and continue their journey. But Mr. Weazley wants to d4rink at every bar and tavern on the way even when the bars are closed. He goes from the back door followed by others and adds to his frenzy and tipsiness. On the way, they find a river where all of them go and get drenched like a rat. This gives another reason for them to drink more so as to get warmer. By then, the night has already fallen as dark as pitch and it is only midnight when they reach back home from their outing.
9 The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship
The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship is a psychological story of a boy’s quest for growth and identity i.e. the growth of an ordinary boy into an assertive young man. Gabriel Marquez uses magic realism in his present story. He makes a mixture of realities and supernatural events in this story to express the uncontrolled thoughts and dreams of a young boy in a narrative technique called stream of consciousness.
When the boy was young, he saw a ghost ship in the bay near his village. At first, he thought it was just a dream and so did not tell anybody about it. But, the gigantic ship appeared the next March, he told about it to his mother. But she did not believe him. She sent a boatman to see if it was true but he only found some tuna and hairs in the sea. The mother of the boy bought a chair from the market. But the chair had an evil spell. As she sat on it, she died. Four other women died who sat on it later. The villager thought it evil and threw it in the deep blue sea. Now the harsh days of the boy began. Soon after the death of his mother, the villager started to humiliate and dominate him. He was abhorred and manhandled thinking that he was telling false about the Ghost Ship. But the boy wanted to show who he was. Each year he went to the bay, he found the same Ghost ship which was very big—bigger than his village and taller than the steeple of the temple. He was determined to show the Ship to the coward one day and prove his worth.
At the end of the sixth year, he stole a boat and headed towards the bay. It was the darkest night of the year. He was once daunted by the darkness but as he lit the lantern in his boat, the Ghost Ship brightened too. He could now see the ship that had detracted its course corrected its path and started following him. He took the opportunity to take the boat to the village and show it to the villagers. The ship seemed to be under his control. The crosses of the cathedral, the shanties, and the illusion were now very clear and apparent. The ship followed him up to the village making it dazzle with the light and frightened the villagers with its enormity. They looked at the ship with their mouths wide open and speechless. The ship was named Halalcsillag with the ancient and languid waters of the sea of death dripping down its sides.
10 God’s Grandeur
This is one of the typical poems of Gerald Manley Hopkins with profuse sprung rhythm. In this sonnet, Hopkins
But despite his indifference and avarice, nature is still in her prime youth; full of resources and habitat for many which indeed never disappear all due to the grace of God, the Holy Ghost spreading His savory canopy of bright wings over the creations of nature. Thus the poet wants to light the lamp of spirituality and the faith in God in the mind and heart of people who have been deterred from treading on the right path.
11 I Have a Dream
I Have a Dream is perhaps the most striking and moving speech ever delivered in the history of man. It was delivered by King Marin Luther in Junior1963 in Capitol Hill Washington D.C. He was a great freedom fighter who had faith in non-violence. The unforgettable speech contains the hopes and dreams of black Americans. The speech says that in spite of the spirit of the Declarations of Independence and the formation of the American constitution, the black Americans are still unable to enjoy equal rights. Only the Whites have their rights liberty, fraternity and the pursuit of happiness. But the Blacks have been ignored and doomed as slaves and untouchables. They are discriminated and deprived of freedom and justice. But Luther stills hopes that his dreams of freedom and justice will once come true. Martin argues this discrimination of race and inequalities only shake and weaken the foundation of America America
He hopes to see all the children of God be together joining hands in hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”
15 The Tell-Tale Heart
The Tell-Tale Heart is One of Poe’s remarkable short stories written in the Gothic Romance. In the story the author makes his narrator unfold in minute details the many folds of a mystery and leads his readers to the shock at the end. Here the narrator is a young boy staying at a tenet in an old man’s house. The boy’s sense of hearing is very sharp. He seems a bit psychotic in nature and he likes everything about the old man except one of his eyes. He fears the eye as if it was of vulture ’s. Whenever the old man looks at the boy, he is terrified, and his blood chills and his hair is raised. So the boy plans to kill the man and destroy his eyes. He attempts to kill the man but fails for the seventh time. He succeeds in killing the man at the eighth time. He then dismembers the corpse and hides the parts under the floor. The old man’s last shriek is unfortunately heard by his neighbours and called the police. They come to investigate the matter.
They find nothing for the boy speaks very confidently that he had gone out. But when the police were about to leave smiling at him, he hears a tick-tock sound like that made by a wristwatch. The sound becomes increasingly louder and he feels that they are also hearing it. He misunderstands them and thinks that they had already known the criminal and thus teases him by smiling at him. The sound continues which actually is made by the watch the man was wearing but the boy thinks that it is made by the dead man’s heart. The boy feels at his wit's end and confesses the crime, thinking that it is all vain and void to try to hide the crime and ask the police to pull up the carpet and the planks of the floor to find the lately murdered man as evidence.
