So as I was walking around with my friend Mina, so sort of came across a book launch for a book about Imran Khan.
BJ Saqid was the author, and he seemed like a very nice man, and he was polite enough to answer all of our questions regarding his book and his beliefs about the subject.
He also mentioned that he will be working on more publications, and we can’t wait to see them.
Please follow my YouTube channel.
I’ll be posting there more often.
For those who don’t know, for the last three to four weeks Pakistani YouTube had been breathing in the satisfaction of a ‘roasting’ YouTuber, by the name of Ducky Bhai, exposing the zameen from under the feet of Sham Idrees and his counter part Froggy.
To cut the story short, Sham Idrees and Froggy are Pakistani – Canadian YouTubers who make, well, technically harmless but questionable and not that funny content. They however talk the talk, and lies, cheat and steal their way to the top and they’ve done enough to get on everyone’s nerves. From stealing content from smaller YouTubers, to wrongfully flagging their content, lying to the public, shitting on the people they make money off of, to pretending to be in an accident.
They are truly the love child of clickbaits and phappi kutnis.
Ducky Bhai is a newer YouTuber, who intially made a roast video on Sham Idrees. After which Sham Idrees went on a strange attack against him behind the scenes, and did the most. But what topped the list is that he striked Ducky’s page to the point of being banned. After which Ducky Bhai went out to make three videos that exposed for the cheap filth and lies.
This resulted in Ducky Bhai being on the top trends in Pakistan. It brought a lot of people into seeing these people for what they really are, and I think this was a big step for content creators in general.
Ducky Bhai’s has stood up for himself against people who are an insult to the name of entertaint. He has by example proven that by being honest, you can tak\nnt and different opinions that actually elivate society and not poison it.\n#RespectHijaab\n#PakistanYoutubeArmye on corrupt people and push them straight off their high horse. Safe to say all of the Pakistani YouTuber community was with him, and they also came with their stories of inspiration.
What I really liked about what Ducky Bhai did was that he hit all the right points in a way that the people could understand. It was necessary to bring in the topic of censorship, because Sham Idrees has words like ‘Copy’, ‘Drama’, ‘Fake’ and ‘Chuss’ banned from comments. Which really is questionable. It’s alright to ban insults , racial slurs and bad words but the truth is also something you can block apparently.
I’m also happy that he talked about how Sham Idrees, Froggy and other people in certain fields ‘ Islam bait’ people in a way that people are blind to the other weird or unislamic things they do. I mean they’re all love, peace and support one minute but then make false allegations and shove materialistic ideals everywhere. Sham Idrees will will talk about religion and ‘Islam bait’ his followers, and claim his channel to be family friendly, but he has songs there that look like rejected Honey Singh tracks. He himself walks around in revealing clothes and directs women in skimpy clothes in his videos, in which they are sexualized or objectified to the male but some how all of this went through the muala radar for years.
I just understand how society in general is unable to see that they are being fooled and played. How did they not see this? And they have the nerve to defend him for it.
It’s like all you have to do say a bunch of words in arabic, make a few religious songs and people are blind to all the frauds, content theft, censorship and general munafqat. But hey if people could accept it when actors, scholars , singers, singers pretending to be scholars did it. Then is it really just the fault of one party for taking advantage of the stupid?
Now staying on the topic of these two and ‘religion baiting’. The was a part of the discussion where the Hijab came up, and Ducky talked about how Froggy and Sham collectively insulted the Hijab. Sham Idrees was low enough to the controversy of attack a Muslim day or something like that and turn it into a prank. A prank. Apprently our collective, racial and religious discrimination is nothing more but a way to get views. Nothing serious here. Just another Adam Salah in the making .
I won’t really comment on the whole dancing and singing in Hijab thing, because rapping and Hip hop music is a bigger field outside of this, and it’s really something that bothered me. What does bother me is that this Froggy already knows that people don’t see as ideal or appreciate the things she does, but instead of defending herself she decided to go in on another Hijabi YouTuber by the name of Immi. So basically this Hijabi ( froggy) who several reasons people question about Hijab, attacked another girl because her neck was visible.
Wow. I mean the absurdity of everything.
If anything I pray that people become more aware this year and are able to see through stunts and fakeness. And if anything the Pakistani YouTube community could use more journalists and any people who actually open up people’s minds and teach them something. Not just show them luxury or inflate their ego’s or get into fights for attentions. There has to be a respect for good content and different opinions that actually elivate society and not poison it.
#RespectHijaab
#PakistanYoutubeArmy
Hi everyone
This is my essay for my American poetry class. I got good reviews on it, and I think I did a good job, but I really want to improve my writing and analytical skills. So if you have any expertise, suggestions or remarks, be generous.
Emily Dickinson had a rather interesting relationship with death itself, and she acknowledged this throughout her life, that she was haunted by the ‘menace of death’.Her poetry has several accounts of her experiencing funerals and death takes on different forms and faces to communicate with her. This alludes to the establishment of a bond of finding solace and companionship with death.
One might suggest that it was the aversion she felt towards the futile existence of real life, that led her to crave death. For, she did make a constant effort to not experience a full life, or lead an existence like the others around her. She spent her life rarely leaving her room, communicating through closed doors, and she didn’t even her own fathers funeral down stairs. She never married, and only wore white. She lived not living a life of the common woman of that time.
She was indeed a prolific writer who expressed herself unlike anyone else in poetry, but even her poems were a well-kept secret, discovered after her death by her sister. It is also important knowing that her room had a clear vision of a graveyard – and that her family had taken work as caretakers for funerals.
By this outline, one can easily see why the interest in death would develop, as it was all around her.
But death is not ugly,sad, terrifying or distasteful for her. in her narrations and poems, Dickinson is someone who is not a stranger to the face of death and death is often personified as someone she interacts with. She also experiences in full vision her own funeral without a peep of fear, regret or unease and even her descriptions of death are not filled with typical colors of black, purple , green or images of grit but all images come with easy emotions.
One may analyse that because her life was absent of catalysts that engaged her interest. She found activity and stimulation in these thoughts of dying.
“Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me “
Death with its many faces is sometimes a friendly companion, a devil-like fly and also a lover. This could be an indication to the repressed feelings within her, as she could not physically digest the reality of those commitments in real life, she decided to have them in her imagination.
It is interesting for death to be her lover, because according to the psychoanalytical theory the desire not to die and to reproduce are what form a persons basic moving factors in all humans, but there is obviously an inversion of this concept here. She is attached to the desire of dying and in it finds the place to create life. Maybe her poems are one of those creations of her love for death.
There is obviously no denial of death in her poems, as she bluntly mentions it. What one might suggest is that the constant occurrence of death might be an act of ‘sublimation’. Sublimation is a defense mechanism in which bad memories and feelings are made uplifting and beautiful in order to ease the pain of those memories. So her ordeal with death in her poetry is a way of dealing with the death of loved ones – a kind of therapy to ride her heart and mind of trauma.
“I could not see to see”
Compared with writers on the same topic, the death of women, or death in general her poems are very sensual, active and through the vivid and watching eyes of the dying soul.
Edgar Allen Poe would often write about the death of his wife, and in his poems, would mention her death body, which in a way objectified her. And the tragedy in his poems does not follow the death of his wife, but follows his loss and depression of the loss of her to him, and everything that he felt and saw.
And if one sees that through the waiting days of John Keats, one finds a sad man, waiting like a caged animal to meet death as something that he knows is coming, and there is no hope for him. So for Keats there is often that denial or exclusion of the body of death, and a focus on the beauty of what is felt, and an obsession of wanting to freeze time and be immortal through poetry and art.
“Why did I laugh tonight? No voice will tell:
No god, no demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once-
Heart! thou and I are here sad and alone;
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!”
All of which is not there in Emily Dickinson’s words, who is comfortable and at ease with the grim reaper. Her ‘voyeurism’ transcends the simple plot of dying, that one might say that because she an intellectual ahead of her time, she knew her thoughts would not be accepted in her polite, puritanical society. She therefore exiled herself for her own safety.
And this becomes apparent in her poems ‘ I heard a fly buzz’, in which she is aware of the eyes watching her and how a small fly has blocked her vision. The fly is a symbol for the devil, because the people around her would believe she belonged to hell. The devil is often called the lord of the flies and this fly denies her clear vision.
Vision, was something of great importance to her. The eyes were a mirroring symbol for people, death is never watching her, death is becoming to her. In death she found her muse, lover,friend, foe and a canvas to express herself and everything inside her mind.
Further reading.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson
https://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/vvspot/Dickinson.html
On the second of April, I drove up to a cafe where ‘She’, an organization led by Zoya Ishaq, was hosting a session on ‘Trauma’. The guest speaker for this would be Lisa Cherry, who has written and researched a lot on the topic, and in her own words continues to learn about it.
Leading the event were members of ‘She’, Anam Bhatti and Sadaf. The group they had amassed was full of psychologists, counselors and other professionals active in training, facilitating and dealing with human development and resources. They were of course silent and reserved intially, as people are when the subject is on them, but eventually became open to have a discussion about how Pakistani society deals with traumatic experiences .
Lisa Cherry proceeded to talk about her work and contributions to the field, and showed it through her presentation and discussed her experiences that caused her stress, she on a lighter note talked about her trip and joked about the traffic.
She explained that ‘trauma’ by experience is an injury to the brain. It is something that crosses all borders and if not treated of healed could with time cause physical ailments and an overall existence tainted with fear, hypervigilence and emptiness.
The participants talked about their own encounters that caused them pain in the long run.
What was and is important to consider is the collective trauma that Pakistani people received in the face of terrorism and how that has injured us. The injury truly something that everyone agreed upon is something that we have to heal from and actively talk about. As a society we have otherwise been desensitized to it’s effects. We have walked into the future with an acceptance of behaviors and wounds which we are unware of their urgency.
Someone even mentioned how in the past we didn’t need all this extra security and we weren’t always afraid of our children’s future, or in stress of not letting them out of our sight. We can’t have huge gatherings as often or as freely because of an instinctive fear that something might happen.
So in conclusion there is entire country and other countries that have millions of people dealing with historical injuries with all of their individual scars.
There was also a discussion about the inability, unawareness or general disregard of parents when is comes to abuse of their children. For a long time children have been silenced when they’ve come forward with news of abuse, harassment or rape. Even with the public out cry of the recent rape cases in Kasur and Sailkot , even in India. People do raise their voices against the injustice, but perhaps when it’s one of their own they don’t know how to help.
It became obvious that parents should not hold a finger on closed lips when their children come to them for help. There are better ways to protect your child without silencing them, just to save face or not cause a scene. It is extremely disheartening for a child or adult to ask for help and to be denied the compassion.
The group further discussed why it was common among women to sabotage each other and make their lives difficult. This was discussed through examples of work area rivals and the pressure that comes from mother-in-laws. Mostly in that they are almost driven to deny their daughter-in-laws to freely move around or visit their family home. One participant who was a trainer phathologized it as ‘ since the mother-in-law did not have those opportunities they are not willing to provide it for their daughter-in-laws’.
I would personally say that in South Asian communicaties there is lack humane treatment when it comes to daughter-in-laws. They for the most part are viewed as commodities and not seen with the human dignity that people deserve. There is no fear in people when it comes to abusing their rights, and perhaps as a defense mechanism the same women have kept the cycle alive because in order to survive they had to be strong without someone to share the burden with.
But even if they don’t want to acknowledge their own pain, we cannot ignore the obvious psychological, spiritual, social and emotional attack that is going on. How can such women live their life to the fullest? How can stressful and broken women raise happy and undamaged children? And how can they not be unhealthy? Why should they be denied the right to a peaceful environment?
These are things that we should address and we should stand up for our own safety and for the safety of others.
There later was a discussion on how men are silenced and denied a space to be able to be emtional and to cry. They talked about this absence of release leads to people full of anger and aggressive tendencies.
One final break through was that despite being a country that a has an obvious high percentage of trauma victims, there are no proper trauma centers. One participant shared her own input on this because she was unable to find the proper kind of treatment for her issues, but who is inform those who think they are being saved?
This is something that should be available for the greater bulk of the community.
There was then a little activity or exercise done to relieve stress and tension in the body. But the discussion ended on the potential of what innovation Pakistan and Pakistani could do for healing trauma in it’s people and be an example for the world.
Because we are a community driven and family based society that values relationships and wants to take care of our relations. And we are also individualistic or are now searching for a more out spoken individual identity outside of family or tribes, which is not like what is there in the Western world, which is extremely individualistic.
We can truly come up with a system or environment that meets the psychological and social needs of our people, and I personally look forward to seeing and serving that vision.
This is a poem after a long time. About my grandfathers.
A long time ago
A traveller built his hut
Outside the town park
Where two boys played
This was after the king was poisoned
And the Queen sent to the nunnery
And the children sent close away
These boys didn’t leave
And maybe they never met each other
But ran through the same grass
They rose to their charms and beauty
And left for war
And left for the forests
Within track struck trains
And in the curves of lost thoughts
Their children inherited
Languages now lost
Stories still echoed
Both young…troubled
Amazed and in tears
That God fed them
As if they were –
And now just a few steps aside
They lay deep in eternal sleep
With the graves almost lost
Where nobody came
Where everyone forgot
Then why do I
Blushed like the petals
Cry
I’m probably not going to be able to get everything off my chest, but hey it’s worth a shot. Maybe all those producers, directors, writers and actors will listen to me.
In the case of Journalism
Shuru hee is hee baat say kar laytay hain, kay thoray bahut Ethics ka hee khayal kar liya karein.
Agar app kay show par loog debate key jaga larnay marnay kay liyay ayi hain, tou inko bhi nikaal dain.
Audiences ko policies kay barain mein educate kiya karain. Evidence, history and expert opinions hee day diyan karein unko- Treat them like intelligent people.
Jabb koi bhuri khabar kay bahray mein baat karni ho tou please thori izzat kay saath, aur fazool ghanay na dala karein. Mujhey yeh nahi samaj ayya kay agg tak un ghanoon kay liyay koi copyright claim kyon nahi ayain? Ya isi baat par logon nay boycott nahi kiya. Show some social responsibility and respect .
Have educational sessions that look nice, and don’t hurt someone’s ears, related to family planning, education, health, shopping, life in general.
Hold politicians accountable for what they do, question them on TV and make documentaries on their careers which are comprehensive.
Please stop saying you broke the news first, nobody cares. We don’t want to know that you broke the news about bam bhamaka pehlay, yeh hum sunna chahain gay key kon app ko batata hai kay iss tarah key insensitive, tone deaf, fazool batain karney key. Un uncle key shakal bi saath display kar dain. Please and thank you.
PLEASE koi ethics ya social responsibility class lay lou. Koi standard of moral integrity ka khayal kar lo, apnay anay walon nasal loon ka khayal kar lo.
Have some sharam, have some Haya.
In the case of Movies
One of the reasons it is hard for us to make the most of our films both economically and culturally and socially is the lack of theaters that cater to different levels of society. Pehlay sahi tha, based on what I heard, kuin kay tab tickets itnay mehngay nahi thain. Ab theatres buhaut expensive hain, buhat kum hain, aur majority awaam kay pass access he nahi hai. Jis key waga say humari movies ka itna impact nahi banta, jitna pehlay tha, so humay apnay ghaltitoun say sikna chayia and make more movie theaters, that are cheaper and family friendly or reserve some only for women or men, jo bhi kaam karey.
Our writers have focused so hard on dramas, and TV productions and the crowd for movies is so specific that it has lead to shakiness and a lack of quality. And every good movie that ever comes out, that actually has something to say gets banned.
Good content should be generated and made available to the public, I believe it is a right.
Movies should be written well, acted well, educate and share, document history and open things up for question, they should expose and shed light, they should not anything.
Is sab kay saath saath humar awaam ko media literate honay kee shadeed zaroorat hai. They should know how TV, commercials and songs both help and get in the way of society.
I would also like direct to TV films, and have international movies dubbed in Urdu and other regional languages so people can be exposed to other forms of media. Japanese stuff is pretty good.
Overall movies asee bhi hon chahiya jo Pakistani history, icons aur kitboon kay upper based hon. Takay logon ko representation or sense of history and identity paida ho.
But quality and good writing is extremely important.
Also please stop cutting movies down into dramas, bus aik movie hee laga do TV par.
Now About Daramas
Again I would like to see more novel and history adaptions, but I would also like more variety in actors, in filming style and writing. It would be nice if actors were beyond children of actors who just got in because of their parents. I do not appreciate singers and models who cant act for shit, but can only speak in English – that is not a talent.
We should as a society respect art,culture, artists and respect the work and effort that goes into creating what we call entertainment. There should be public opinions, analysis and critics on our projects and of those that we are exposed to.
Writers kay saath interviews honi chayiya, aur un say fazool sawal nahi karni chahiya aur unko promote karna chahiya jis key waja say shayab book buying aur reading ka culture promote ho.
Have marathons on the weekend during which old dramas and movies are shown so younger audiences can come to like them and see the development and growth of our media.
Puranay scripts key new adaptions bhi bun sakti hain. Itnay jo loog Ashfaq ahmad say pyar kartay hain, kya woh unkay drama yah plays nahi dekhain gain? Do we not owe him that. Since now we have better cameras and sound systems.
Aur aik buhat bara issue yeh kay Pakistani media main ajj tak koi collective stand nahi aya for children’s and teen media. I know there are shows here and there, but how many of our own cartoons are widespread or ones that kids actually watch?
When we watch western or foreign cartoons, why do we view the Indian dubbed version of them and not ones which we have dubbed ourselves, with lingo that our kids will more readily understand.
I do not agree with any resistance against any language, but then why are they able to demand cartoons which are directly dubbed in their own language? Why can’t the interaction be more direct instead of just banning everything without a second thought or some study.
Where are movies that show the struggle or issues that our teenagers go through? where are shows that inspire them and give them an idea about their future?
Why is the only love triangle we are aware of is between the rich phopo ka baita with all the jaidaan, who is caught between the modern slut and the desi good girl ? is that only thing we should expect from life. Why are the voices and narratives we listen to so narrow and limited?
Why cannot we have urdu adaptions of plays from other countries, which in between takes Professors and teachers walk the audience through what is happening and explain things to them.
I would love love love more documentaries, about our history , our food our people, and other societies with the same level of respect.
I write all this to say that we must as a society look beyond commercial gains, and tested formulas and reach out to innovation and new grounds, that will help in the uplifting of our culture and media standards.
Main nay recenly aik friend say baat keiya tha, jo kaam karta hai industry main. Main uss kaha tha kay as an idea, kay hum fairy tales kay upper based kafi content bana saktay hain. Aur uska jawab yeh tha kay ‘our TV channels don’t like this’.
But then it their own loss, to one make money of the most clear cut money making commodity there has been in cinema. It is time that stepped up, and went back to doing good for our people, and work beyond just affirming and entertaining them.
Hi there,
I haven’t been able to post much, despite writing more, this time around. I’ve done a lot this year regarding photography, and gained some fame for it. I’m not sure how I feel about it.
Here are some pictures I took of horses. And some facts because…I don’t know.
Arab horses are one of the strongest endurance runners in the animal kingdom and are capable of running over 100 miles (160 km) without rest.
The horse is one of the 12 Chinese signs of the Zodiac. Those who are born in the hear of the horse are thought to be intelligent, free-spirited, and independent.
A horse’s eyes are about 9 times larger than that of a human. In fact, horses have the largest eyes of any land mammal. They can also see nearly 360 degrees.
While technically not a horse, a unicorn is the national animal of Scotland. According to mythology, unicorns hated lions, which were the symbol of British royals. Unicorns also symbolize power and grace.
Horses use their ears, eyes and nostrils to express their mood. They also communicate their feelings through facial expressions.
One of the really old ones, I actually put some effort into this one.
The Chorus does indeed give the audience many moral lessons according to that time and society .Acting as fourth wall of dialogue and even a dramatic enhancement to the already emotional and moral questioning play .Arguably pride is a major factor which propels the action sequence and complexity of the play , but there are also key aspects that may control the events like fate or the will of the gods .It is among all of these reasons that audiences struggle with the sight of the fall of Oedipus from glorious king to a homeless, friendless and blind nomad .
To understand fully the depth of the role and opinion of the chorus , concerning morality . Along with the influence of the sin – pride on the characters and plot. We will first go through a small introduction of “Chorus” in the setting of a Greek play – later analyzing the objectionable actions or statements of characters like Oedipus and Jocasta.
As is the case with many other Greek plays , the chorus in Oedipus Rex is the voice of the society and traditions of ancient Greece . Their odes are filled with religious knowledge and submission towards the gods and the kings . They also provide a deeper , more philosophical journey into the themes of the play . In many plays the chorus had a role of action , or an ability to influence the action of the plot – but that is not in the case of Oedipus . Here they dryly preach morals and pass judgments while invoking the help and curse of the gods . A curse initially on the one who brought forth the plague but by the end they to lose the moralistic , unforgiving tone , adopting sympathy and lost love for the damned king .
Of course the chorus has other roles to play . Sophocles himself , raised the importance of the chorus and even added more actors – they magnify the significance of the tragic nature of his play and give little relief from the already apparent doom .
Daniels and Scully the authors of “what is really going on in Sophocles Theban plays “ wrote that .
“No feature of Greek tragedy is more intractable than the chorus “
(What is really going on in Sophocles Theban plays)
The two basic moral lessons that the chorus does insist on giving the audience ,directly through speech, are obedience to the gods and loyalty towards their ruler . Both are the rules of the society , but this behavior is in contrast with the attitude of the nobility . They are humble and lack both the responsibility and hubris of the rulers to look towards to cure the disease that harms the land .
In the first ode they make a long prayer to the gods asking for a remedy and laying themselves at complete mercy . Acknowledging the full power or authority of oracles , which Oedipus and Jocasta do not . This may be deliberate to teach the masses a lesson about not angering the gods . To follow their commands , because the nobility cannot escape their wrath no matter how much they try .
Strangely at the beginning of the play while at the alter , they look towards Oedipus as a god himself . As he is the only one that can safe them – all responsibly is on his shoulders and like a good king he treats them like his children – with a sense of pride and defiance towards the gods .
“Come then my children : Leave the alter steps “
_ Oedpius Rex
It is after this order by Oedipus that the chorus enters with their song and praise the powers of the gods . They call out their names , doing so giving a break for the action of the play and reminding the audience of authority .
“Let me pray to Athene , the immortal daughter of Zeus . And to Artemis her sister ..And to Apollo , bowman at the far butts of heaven “
_ – Oedipus rex , Parodus .
This does indeed show the religious ,pious side of the chorus of the play but one must remember . The gods do not make an appearance in the play , the closet to them are the oracles and the priests who do little to stop disaster . Oedipus In all glory and heavy headedness still makes more efforts of changing his troubled destiny then other characters. The plague came far long after the sin was committed, he was able to be default save the riddle and bring peace to land . It is a quality among leaders to be unapologetic of the decisions they make and try by all means to reach the goal . The chorus and other characters barely try to alter what can be altered .Oedipus points out this flaw , even if he is blind to his own . The flaw, that they could properly manage their own affairs. Waiting till the brink of destruction to clear matters.
It is then in the second ode of the play , that the chorus again adopts a highly moralistic vocabulary , quite literally . They name social and personal sins , ironically the ones Oedipus possesses .
“The tyrant is a child of pride
Who drinks from his great sickening cup
Recklessness and vanity “
Kings and princes have throughout history have been known more for their luxury and vanity than piety. The protagonist of the play is no exception, but can he really be blamed? When he calls for the blind prophet and insults him, in turn disrespecting the gods the prophet returns the curse. This may also show his show of haughtiness. The prophet does not remain calm , just like Oedipus he becomes angry and agitated and relies on curses . One common explanation of why Oedipus might have killed Lias in the forest is his royal upbringing. A prince would not be held highly accountable for the death of common people . The Thebans place him on a pedestal and treat him like a god – so obliviously he is going to think of himself as important and untouchable. It is evident in the way he talks about himself
“But I am a child of luck I cannot be dishonored”
To conclude this part of the question , yes , the chorus provides moral lessons but they are not free of weakness or wrong doing . The chorus undergoes a change in character along side Oedipus , by the end of the play their last song becomes pessimistic and is unable to think of fate as justice . They remain loyal to Oedipus , the most royal one .
Now , towards the discussion of Pride as a catalyst for all the catastrophes in the play. For this may have to go the background of the play, to when the oracle first warned Jocasta and Lias about the terrible destiny of the child . It is not known if consulting oracles is a sin or not since it was common at the time . It is however as act of pride to defy an oracle , and this is done multiple throughout Oedipus Rex . The fact that mortals thinks that they can change or control the fate which the gods decide , is and act of blasphemy . It is pride and sin when Lias and Jocasta send the child to be killed in the plains , an act common of the Spartans . A Greek nation that let fate decide which children were to live and which were to die . It Is fear and pride that makes Oedipus run away from his new home after he learn of his destiny . He acts as god when he decides to run away , even if his intentions were innocent .
This is also his tragic flaw , the quality which makes him a hero in the eyes of the audience . He tries with all his might to prevent a curse but is unable to. His heart and efforts were in the right place . It could have been fear and not pride which motivated all the events prior to the scenes in the play .
The next display of his flaw is when he murders his real father on the road . This may have been due a sudden burst of anger or princely disposition but even at that time Oedipus was right . Lias had pushed his luck and perhaps something snapped inside of Oedipus . The very hand of fate perhaps took hold of him . Either way he let his ego get the better of his actions and judgment.
Oedipus has another flaw – a lack of insight. It was by strange chance that he solved the riddle of the sphinx and became king . Even the blind prophet tells him that his own eyes betray him , that is unable to see his true self . Jocasta insists that tempers like his only torment, as he is unable to let things go . All the things he holds onto destroy him In the end .
When observing the events that take place in the play , it is evident that pride does play a major role to get events moving in flow with the suspense of the plot .
It is pride that motivates Oedipus to look for a solution to the plague , that brings him to dishonor oracles and the blind prophet .
“You are a sightless , witless ,senseless , mad old man”
Pride and agitation still brings him to argue with his brother in law . It can also be denial underneath all his anger. He wants the matter to die .
It is the same with Jocasta , she gives no importance to oracles or prophecies . It is only when things become clear to her that she begins to break down and ultimately takes her own life .
“All right forget about those things you’ve said
Listen to me and ease your mind with this – no human being has skill in prophecy “
Perhaps it is pride that brought her to suicide. Then again humans are capable of feeling more than just pride , maybe it was the immense shock . The horror and the shame that may have overrun her mind and senses .
It is thought by many that the action of taking his eyes out by Oedipus is again nothing more but a show or result of pride again .He does not have any strength anymore , he cannot witness the torment he tried for so long to run away from . Of course it may also be an act of self harm and sacrifice – he no loner runs away . He does not try to escape his horrible fate anymore now that the ultimate damage is done . He does however make plans of protection for his children.
With this is mind it is apparent that pride is indeed a major catalyst – but far long before Oedipus was born there was a curse on the family . Was it destiny from the very first day , mere chance that pushed everything .it was Human compassion that saved Oedipus once when he was left to die an infant . It was human love and loneliness that made him a prince again . It was human folly , a drunk man who caused him to search for an oracle – at the end it was the will of the gods that won the toll on his life .
The plagues itself that eats Thebes came when the gods decided to remember the curse . After all those years of peace , it is the plague which opens and inquiry into all that is suppressed . Almost like a journey into the depths of the mind in search of a tangled truth .
However , we cannot decide fully what factors brought out the disaster . It is perhaps a mixture of both fate and human action . In “The kiss of the snow Queen “ the writer gives the example of a girl Greda who travels to the far ends of the south pole to save her friend kai from the snow queen . The queen is the personification of winter and the forces of nature . She in a way seduces the boy and takes him way . Greda who is innocent and personifies spring makes a journey and effort to save her love . So it is God who saves people but only through the struggle of pure hearted individuals does salvation come .
Much like the sacrifice Jesus Christ had to make to save humanity. It is Greda’s kiss and love that saves the boy from freezing to death while solving a mathematical problem . A triumph of human compassion over human reason – Oedipus sadly has no one to make the effort for him. Jocasta leaves him alone and he cannot even return to the love of his step mother .
This failure of love is the true element that brings out the pessimistic tone in the end of the play . The reminder that man is alone and at the mercy of his fate .
An assignment I did for an early semester
Modernism is a philosophical movement that, along with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the factors that shaped modernism were the development of modern industrial societies and the rapid growth of cities, followed then by reactions of horror to World War I. Modernism also rejected the certainty of Enlightenment thinking, and many modernists rejected religious belief.
Literary modernism, or modernist literature, has its origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly in Europe and North America, and is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction. Modernists experimented with literary form and expression, adhering to Ezra Pound’s maxim to “Make it new”. This literary movement was driven by a conscious desire to overturn traditional modes of representation and express the new sensibilities of their time. The horrors of the First World War saw the prevailing assumptions about society reassessed, and modernist writers were influenced by such thinkers as Freud and Karl Marx, amongst others, who raised questions about the rationality of the human mind.
Early modernist writers, especially those writing after World War I and the disillusionment that followed, broke the implicit contract with the general public that artists were the reliable interpreters and representatives of mainstream (“bourgeois”) culture and ideas, and, instead, developed unreliable narrators, exposing the irrationality at the roots of a supposedly rational world.
They also attempted to take into account changing ideas about reality developed by Darwin, Mach, Freud, Einstein, Nietzsche, Bergson and others. From this developed innovative literary techniques such as stream-of-consciousness, interior monologue, as well as the use of multiple points-of-view. This can reflect doubts about the philosophical basis of realism, or alternatively an expansion of our understanding of what is meant by realism. So that, for example the use of stream-of-consciousness, or interior monologue reflects the need for greater psychological realism.
Hedda Gabler is indeed a modern text, and a modern tragedy, because Hedda is incapable of making the distinction between an exhibitionistic gesture which inflates the ego, and the tragic death, in which the ego is sublimated in order that the values of life may be extended and reborn. Her inability to perceive the difference between melodrama and tragedy accounts for the disparity between Hedda’s presumptive view of her own suicide and our evaluation of its significance. Ibsen with diabolical irony arranged a situation which bears close superficial resemblance to the traditional tragic end. Symbolically withdrawing herself from the bourgeois environment into the inner chamber which contains the reliques of her earlier life, Hedda plays a “wild dance” upon her piano and, beneath her father’s portrait, shoots herself “beautifully” through the temple with her father’s pistol. She dies to vindicate her heritage of independence. . . And we, having the opportunity to judge the act with relation to its full context, may properly interpret it as the final self-dramatization of the consistently sterile protagonist. Hedda gains no insight; her death affirms nothing of importance. She never understands why, at her touch, everything becomes “ludicrous and mean.” She dies to escape a sordid situation that is largely of her own making; she will not face reality nor assume responsibility for the consequences of her acts. The pistols, having descended to a coward and a cheat, bring only death without honor.
The play ends with no resolution, the characters are psychologically stressed with no proper fleshed out reasons and the audiences can sense it through their silence. Hedda herself is in a mental trap and suffers due to a self inflicted tragedy, she is unable to move on from the past, suffers from an Electra complex, and is trying desperately to free of her existential crisis .
It is the sudden confusion and the self destructive habit Of Hedda’s mind which makes this drama a tragedy. Judge Brack is given the final words of the play: “People don’t do such things!” And yet they do, in Ibsen’s play. Even the most apparently realist of Ibsen’s plays contain heavy doses of symbolism; Ibsen referred to the symbolic qualities of his plays as “the vein of silver ore in the mountain.” In Hedda Gabler, the vine leaves in Lovborg’s hair, the manuscript that he considers his child, even such props as General Gabler’s pistols, all take on almost magical qualities, recalling Ibsen’s earlier poetic dramas and pointing ahead to the mythical explorations of his late work. Hedda’s suicide, like Nora’s departure from home in A Doll’s House, demonstrates the possibility of a self-destructive, radical, romantic action that can break through the routine, realistic world of middle-class life.
Maheen's Muse 