World Literature

“Nirmala was thunderstruck.  A fierce conflict started between the first tears and the words to answer: each was determined to come out first and neither was willing to give way an inch to the other.  Considering the weakness of the voice and the power of the tears, if the battle were to last one moment it would be difficult to decide which would win the field.  At last both burst out together, but as soon as they had emerged, the stronger suppressed the weaker.”

This paragraph feels like a reference to one of the general themes of The Second Wife, in that Nirmala quite clearly does not possess the maturity nor the skills to be an authority figure in a household.  As a child, even though she is married to Munshiji, she clearly doesn’t have the ability to properly express her feelings.  In this instance, Premchand describes her emotional state as an intense battle between an expression of her sadness over Mansaram getting sent away to school, not wanting to hear from her, and becoming sick, all while feeling that the whole situation is her fault, and being able to respond to what Munshiji says with some form of composure.  Nirmala doesn’t actually do either of these things, as she and Munshiji just argue about whose fault it is that Mansaram is sick, and Munshiji just leaves thinking that she is coming up with a diabolical plot.

Interestingly, Premchand also says that Nirmala has a weak voice and strong tears.  I think he is alluding to her age as a theme throughout the book because her voice, or lack thereof, and her emotions are so important to how we as readers feel about Nirmala and the characters in the story treat Nirmala.  I think that we can be sympathetic towards Nirmala because her voice is consistently challenged by other characters, like her sister in law and her husband.  Nirmala often says or thinks that there is no joy to be had in the world, and we can connect with that sadness, but we empathize with her because she is only fifteen, and her childhood, a time where she should feel happier and free, has been taken away from her, and many of us have never quite encountered this level of sadness or depression.

Munshii spent the whole day lost in such delibrations. He spoke about it to a few friends. They said “Dont put any obstacles in the way of his playing” from now on don’t keep him prisoner. There’s much less possibility of his going wrong paying in the open air than shut up in a room. Of course, keep him away from bad company but not to the lint where you don’t let him go out of the house. In adolescence islolation is a very damaging to the character. Pg 76

The author puts this in this and gives us a close insight to the fathers thoughts . Since his wife has passed he’s filled his life with such professional occupancies that have led him to neglect his fatherly duty of being compassionate, understanding, and loving. He’s finally getting a realization that wow, what has he neglected. He’s starting to realize how much of a void his first wife left to fill, that gap of affection and understanding of his 1st wife he had little understanding of. In the Indian culture everything is based on what the others “peer evaluation” thinks. What’s my reputation? Munshiji is so consumed with his reputation and standings, someone saying anything negative about his son would not be tolerated since its an extension of him.  He took action to the extreme by locking his son away. Even in times of trust and escape socially he cant stop pondering about his sons situation. He clearly feels unconfortable about his punishment yet comfortable enough with a select few peers to ask for their advice. The author specifically puts “few” in there for the few that he asked were probably close friends of his that knew him very well. Munshiji was a popular man and knew lots of people but his trust circle was very small.  They even say his punishment was a bit harsh, Kids need to be kids. Isolating them hinders them and has long terms affecting their character. Which as you read further in this book clearly comes to light. His friends even realize that Munshiji is treating his family like the courts he’s running, not a home. For an adult the isolation would work well for their brains have developed enough to consider their wrongdoings, but for a child its hindering their mental growth. As fathers sometimes people take things to the extreme to protect their offspring from going in the wrong direction, especially if they hear or see them going in the wrong direction.

“Seated in his mother’s lap the child was as happy as if he were seated on some throne. When he saw the child Mansaran burst into tears. For was not this child happier than himself? In the whole wide world what was there that he could find to take the place of that lap to make him happy?”

The following scene in The Second Wife reflects Mansaran’s emotional break down from his unhappiness, loneliness, and thirst for a mother’s affection through the viewpoint of the narrator. As the narrator observes Mansaran more closely, he sees how the hollowness and isolation transform Mansaran’s playfulness nature into a miserable one. This is a painful moment in Mansaran’s life as he envies a beggar’s child for having a mother that makes the child happier than one can imagine. But he questions himself that how is it possible that someone on the street whose mother can barely afford to feed him a meal is happier than Mansaran, who has everything. This very thought in his mind brings tears in Mansaran’s eyes which could not be hidden anymore by his happy mask.

Deprived of a mother’s affection at a very early age, Mansaran doesn’t know how it would feel to be in his mother’s lap again. He has everything that he needs to live a good life but the only “missing thing” in his life torments him deeply as he starts to grieve for himself.  The more distance Mansaran starts to feel from his only living parent, Totaram Munshiji, the more he comes to realize that all he needs is a mother’s love who would fulfill the emptiness in his heart. He wonders if such place like a mother’s lap exists in this world which would make him happy like the child on the street. He sees through the cheerful eyes of that child that only a mother’s warm lap is the most comforting place in the world where happiness is certain for one.

“she accepted that there was to be no happiness for her in life, so why should she ruin her existence by dreaming of happiness?”

Through this short passage from The Second Wife, it is clear that the character Nirmala learn to simply accepted her own faith. From the beginning of the story, Nirmala is sadden over the idea that her parents wanted to kick her out of the house and marry her off in arrange marriage. She did not understand why and felt as if everyone in her family will forget about her once she is gone. Nirmala’s first arrangement was canceled and was then married off to Munshiji Totaram by her mother due to financial harship. No matter how hard Munshiji tries to prove his love for Nirmala, it is always turned down. Nirmala did not grow any love for her husband but only act out as respect and sense of duty as a wife. Just from the fact that there is arrange marriage involved, one can conclude that Nirmala will feel trapped in her own faith. She does not change her views on the whole thing as she does not doubt her feelings and knows that the marriage is honestly out of duty and not love. The whole idea of marrying off the daughter is common in different cultures. In some culture parents or even grandparents create arrange marriage with older generations for financial and social status reasons. Most marriages were not based off of love. Nirmalas acceptance to the way her life is shows that she finally realized that this is faith and there is nothing she can really do about it. Her happiness does not matter in this case. There is no point in dreaming about happiness because sometimes dreams make us more disappointed.

“Is there anything in the world more insubstantial than life! Is it not as transitory as a lamp which a mere puff of wind extinguishes? Consider a bubble—but even that lasts some little while. There’s not even that much substance in life! One cannot rely on so much as a single breath, but on its so perishable base what vast designs do we construct out of our desires”

This excerpt followed the murder of Udaybhanu, a lawyer who was preoccupied by the monetary stress of giving his daughter away. Each comparison of life by Premchand, compares life to increasingly volatile objects. First, he compares life to a lamp, then a bubble, then just a single breath. We’ve all had lamps by our bed side, maybe they stay on for a few hours, but eventually we turn them off. We’ve all blown bubbles, with each new bubble we blow, we hope we can admire them for a few more seconds before they eventually pop and disappear. And we all take short breaths constantly, but we almost never think of them.

We’ve all probably thought about, or been taught, how life can’t be taken for granted, how it can be taken away from us at any moment, and this is why the last sentence of the excerpt was even more striking. “but on its so perishable base what vast designs do we construct out of our desires.” Even though the volatility of life might have registered with us, I don’t think we’ve ever realized that we dream of big plans in our lives that we say shouldn’t be taken for granted. This is why this excerpt perfectly captures the death of Udaybhanu, a man who mere hours or minutes before was arguing with his wife about the expenses of the wedding, was to be murdered unexpectedly by a man who he had long forgotten about.

“When Nirmala wanted to set him down, still sleeping, on the cot, the child in his state of somnolence threw his two tender arms around her neck and clung to her a though there were some abyss beneath him.”

This excerpt from The Second Wife depicts a pure moment of love and tenderness, a moment that was a result of negligence and the yearning for care. After the child, Siyaram had gotten disciplined by his father (the book indicates this is a rare incident) his step mother comforts him. After his birth mother had passed the child had not felt maternal love, and its sudden presence from this woman he had regarded an intruder to his domain, shocked him.  Siyaram is the youngest child of the three boys in the family, a question that arose as I read through this was, how would this scene have changed if it was any of the other children? Siyaram, being the youngest provides the most innocence, and thus the one who is most capable of accepting and holding onto this new source of love. Him being the first to feel and accept Nirmala as his mother is no coincidence. When one goes to sleep (state of somnolence) , the unconsciousness is influenced by our conscious reality. It can be inferred that his life, up to this point, was full of harshness, sadness, and materialistic ‘love’. This was the nightmare that he had felt, so in his sleep he held on to the only hand that had stuck out to save him. Nirmala protected him from facing the darkness of reality, the abyss ready to grab him,already on the corner patiently waiting for the right moment to tarnish his innocent soul.

“‘I have an aversion for people?’ smiled the princess, shrugging her shoulders in astonishment. ‘I have!’” 

In this passage, when the princess is accused of having an aversion for people, her natural reaction is a smile. This reaction is troubling as it demonstrates her awareness of mistreatment towards others, and furthermore, shows her smugness about it all. Her lack of sympathy and remorse for the people she has inconvenienced is nonexistent. The smallest bit of agitation that she does feel, is the result of being spoken to by a lowly commoner. The prioritization of her own feelings over everyone else’s allows for readers to grow a distaste for the protagonist. By comparing the sufferings of the princess to everyone else, Chekhov is able to emphasize the princess’s oversized ego.

“Peter exhausted, worn out with misery and alarm, hardly awake …He was beaten”

Anton Chekhov alludes the idea of Westernization by incorporating story of Jesus and his disciples. The time this short story was written was after Peter the great lead Russia where he was able to westernize Russia between the time of 1672 to 1725. It is not ironic that Chekhov out of all of the disciples he could mention, mentions Peter. Even though Peter denied the fact that he didn’t know Jesus because at the time he was found in a state of darkness both literally and figuratively Peter continued to be a loyal disciple and found forgiveness and that forgiveness was his light, his hope to continue. Westernization also serves as hope for a better life to those who are in moments of “darkness” like the two widows the student found in the gardens. The widows, just like peter the disciple, were in the gardens in the dark going through tough times themselves. Westernization provides a guiding light and that’s what Chekhov was trying to convey by including the allegory of Jesus and his disciples.

Carmen Lugo

“He saw that the awesome, terrifying act of his dying had been degraded by those about him to the level of a chance unpleasantness, a bit of unseemly behavior (they acted to him as they would to a man who emitted a foul odor on entering a drawing room); that it had been degraded by that very “propriety” to which he had devoted his entire life. He saw that no one pitied him because no one even cared to understand his situation” Chapter 7

Ivan Ilyich regards dying as “…awesome, [and] terrifying…”, both words that ­­capture the trepidation he feels at knowing that death is a certainty at this stage of his illness. He knows only two things: that he is dying and that he will suffer greatly, yet no one else seems to want to acknowledge this. At this point in the story Ivan is coming to terms with the reality that he is dying and that the people in his life have already trivialized this event to the point that they could keep on living their lives as if nothing of importance was going on.  The people around “degrade” what Ivan is going through by downplaying the magnitude of what is happening to him.He recognizes that they do this because it’s what “propriety” or decorum calls for; he can see how the very thing he has shaped his life around is now taking away his chance of being comforted in his time of need. No one “…cared to understand…” him because to understand him would be to recognize that he is dying and they too will die someday.

He asked himself, “What is the right thing?” and grew still, listening. Then he felt that someone was kissing his hand. He opened his eyes, looked at his son, and felt sorry for him.– Chapter 12.

Death, though often is portrayed as a frightful end, can signal a new beginning. Such is the case for the shallow and self-absorbed main character from Leo Tolstoy’s The Death Of Ivan Ilych. During the last few hours of his life, Ilych comes to the realization that he has been unhappy for his entire adulthood. Ultimately, his escape from deception and expose to truth help him to experience actual joy and compassion before passing on. The passage above is taken from a scene in the last chapter when he has realized his “wrong” in life and is now pondering over the question “What is the right thing?”. In describing Ilych’s contemplation, Tolstoy uses the particularly interesting phrase “grew still, listening”. This word choice, though subtle, is effective in marking a vivid image in the readers’ minds. It seems like Ilych is gradually reaching out to a superior being, most possibly God, and waiting for an answer to his question. The appearance of a superior being hints at Tolstoy’s religious transition when writing this novella and at a possibility of an afterlife. It also suggests Ilych’s acceptance of his low stance in spiritual life; Ilych is shown with a display of fear by his act of motionless, putting him in an inferior position. Then, like a sign from God, the next sentence presents a sweet and loving gesture from Ilych’s son: a kiss on his hand. His son’s act of pure love and compassion has touched Ilych’s once-selfish heart, and Ilych “opened his eyes”. The last sentence is an excellent example of how Tolstoy brilliantly reveal a change in his main character through a simple but powerful sentence. While it can be understood simply as a narration of Ilych’s actions, most may view it as Ilych’s final awakening. For the first time, Ilych has really “looked at his son”. All barriers that Ilych put up to keep his life pleasant, proper and decorous come tumbling down. He finally feels a human connection and even “felt sorry” for his son. After numerous attempts to escape his suffering, Ilych has found that compassion is the only way. And maybe it is the “right” way to live life. Another interpretation of this scene is that Ilych is looking at a younger version of himself through his son and feels sorry for how a life has been wasted. But maybe Ilych is just simply feeling sorry for leaving his son behind in a world filled with deception and hypocrisy. Through Tolstoy’s astute word choice and simple but effective language, readers are able to grasp Ilych’s rebirth in death through love and compassion.