New Grub Street as a Microcosm of English Victorian Life Essay

  Ã‚   New Grub Street presents the reader with an accurate and comprehensive picture of late Victorian society, despite the fact that it predominantly focuses only on a small group of literary men and women. At first, one may have difficulty locating Gissing's voice within the narrative. The perspective leaps from character to character, without establishing any clear candidates for the reader's sympathies. Jasper Milvain is ambivalently portrayed, despite the fact that his moral and literary values were anathematic to Gissing. This is but one example of ambiguity in a novel that is filled with confusion and inversions of the 'natural order'. The world of New Grub Street is one where the unscrupulous Jasper Milvain triumphs, the mediocre Whelpdale stumbles upon commercial success, while others such as Edwin Reardon, Alfred Yule, and Harold Biffen undisputedly become casualties in the battle of life. What is Gissing trying to say about Victorian England? (Or is literary life his so le intended subject?) Throughout this chaos of view-points are interwoven the themes of money, class, and sex. Yet it is precisely the ubiquity of these themes, and the prevalent disorder of the world that makes the novel reflective of late Victorian society. Whether or not Gissing intended his novel to be purely a study in the changing literary life of the late nineteenth century, New Grub Street is effectively a microcosm of English life in the closing years of Victoria's reign.    New Grub Street depicts some of the consequences of the structural and compositional changes that were - and had been - taking place in the social and class structures of Victorian England. The increasing size of the middle class1, the reductions in working hours2, an... ... Unwin, London, 1968, p. 154. 5 Gross, John, The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters: English Literary Life Since 1800, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, p. 220. 6 Altick, p. 61. 7 Gissing, George, New Grub Street, Wordsworth, Hertfordshire, 1996, ch. XXXIV, p. 393. 8 Gross, p. 220. 9 Gissing, ch., XIV, p. 146. 10 Cited in Gross, pp. 220-1. 11 Ibid., p. 221. 12 Gissing, ch. XIV, p. 146. 13 Gross, p. 149. 14 Gissing, ch. XXXV, p. 402. 15 Ibid., p. 400. 16 Ibid., ch. XXXVII, p. 422. 17 Ibid., Introduction. 18 Ibid., ch. VII, p. 74. 19 Ibid., ch. XXXV, p. 401. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., ch. XIV, p. 151. 22 Ibid., ch. XXVII, p. 301. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid., ch. XXXV, p. 403. 25 Fowles, John, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Vintage, London, 1996, p. 445. 26 Ibid., p. 283. 27 Altick, p. 17.      

Candide Characters Essay

In Candide, the character called Pangloss is believed to be a parody of philosophers who spent their time idly wondering about the world or debating points that have no real significance to life situations.   For instance, Pangloss keeps on saying that the world is good despite all of the misfortunes that have befallen him. Many experts believe that Voltaire was also making fun at G.W. von Leibniz, a seventeenth-century philosopher who was part of a greater movement called theodicy.   This school of thought explains that evil exists in the world because they serve particular purposes.   That even if the world is perfect because it was created by a perfect God, it is necessary to allow evil to happen.   It’s clear that Voltaire does not believe, like how philosophers did, that there is an inherent goodness in everything and that everything happens for a reason, even the bad ones. Setting: The nobility of France In this play, the setting could be defined as the society, which is present at that time.   In other words, some members of the nobility of France were part of Candide’s life, like Cunegonde and her brother.   One example wherein Voltaire poked fun at this class is when he related that the baron’s sister didn’t marry Candide’s father because he only had â€Å"seventy-one noble lineages.† Action: Jacques Death Jacques, a good man who helped Candide and Pangloss, fell on a turbulent sea as he was rescuing a sailor.   The sailor, instead of helping Jacques to get back to the ship ignored the poor man, which resulted to his death.   In this example, it would seem that Voltaire is parodying the Christian preaching of good overcoming evil.   Here, Jacques did a good deed and was a good man but he died because of it.   To add to the mockery, Pangloss even said that the sea outside Lisbon was specifically created so that Jacques could drown in it. Works Cited Arouet, Francois-Marie.   â€Å"Candide by Voltaire.† Courier Dover Publications, 1991. Ward, Selena, and Jaffee, Valerie.   â€Å"Candide.†Ã‚   Sparknotes Home Page.   21 July 2008

The Most Widespread College Application Blunders

So, you’ve got a college application to write, you have a clearly written prompt before your eyes, but all you do for the last couple of hours is write a sentence, shake your head, delete it, try to approach the topic from another direction, delete it, and so on? You have a vague understanding of what is expected from you, but the moment you start putting it into words you feel that it just isn’t right. However, the trick is not so much to know what to do but to know what not to do. Let’s help you with this one. What You Should Avoid in Your Application Essay Don’t let yourself drift from one thing to another. Fairly often the topic you get for your essay is fairly vague: â€Å"Experience that was important for your personal development†, â€Å"The most memorable experience of your life†, this kind of thing. It is, actually, a good thing, because it allows you to choose whatever you can write well about. A lot of people, however, feel disoriented and cannot settle on anything particular; as a result, the essay turns out jumbled, messy, disorderly – they try to cram all they can think of into it without any concern for general idea, unity of thought and so on. Remember – you only have a limited number of words at your disposal, so you should make everything as clear-cut and concise as possible. Choose one thing and write about it. Don’t pretend. You know what feels like a breath of fresh air when you read an application essay? When somebody is being sincere – it is a wonderful change from all these students who drivel about how much they love humanity, want to help people, hope that studying in this college will give them an opportunity to make the world a better place and so on. In addition to tasting like diabetes, it also immediately feels false. You should probably avoid writing about it even if it is your goal in life – the committee have seen it so many times that they’re probably just going to roll their eyes in exasperation anyway. Don’t be too down-to-earth. Both you and the committee know that you want to attend a more prestigious college to get a degree, land a better job and earn more money. It goes without saying. But saying that it is the sole purpose of your application is sure to put some people off; so don’t focus on it. Your love of learning, enthusiasm for the subject and suchlike should come into picture as well. Be Yourself Or as close to it as possible. Don’t write what you think they want you to write – thus you’ll end up writing what 90% of applicants write.