Broken Glass By Arthur Miller - scene one analysis

Broken Glass: scene 1; Hyman and Margaret
The change of tone that occurs upon Gellburg’s exit is obvious; it changes from that of formality to informality, and on from this, the supposes taken on by the couple in their dealings with Gellburg and their everyday personas. The first line after the exit is Margaret’s ‘that’s one miserable little pisser’, clearly establishing the relinquishment of formality which characterises this anticipatory ending of the play’s opening. This is very much the end of the beginning, as we begin to feel that what’s past is prologue, and this is the real beginning. Apart from Margaret becoming significantly more judgemental and more realistic, so too does Hyman, as we see the man behind the mask, the real person who disguises himself as a doctor for his patients, as he expresses fear, in that ‘he’s not completely sure he ought to get into it’, and desire, as he ‘tell[s her] what [he’d] like to do with [her].’ This adds another dimension of realism to these already fleshed out characters, and challenges the conceptions we have sought to establish up to this point. The change of tone here challenges the status quo, and reminds us the what we see is not always what we get, and to challenge the seemingly obvious, something that becomes increasingly important throughout the play.
Two characters that we have previously seen with Gellburg, but only existed in relation to one another, with this relationship influencing our view of them, are now brought together. Up to this point we have not had sufficient time to imagine what this conversation might entail, but had we done so, this may be very close to our preconception. On the surface it seems as if Margaret is inferior to Harry, needing him to reassure her of his fidelity, at ‘She’s a very beautiful woman’, when the uncertainty at this point is within Harry’s faith in his abilities, as he expresses that he ‘barely know[s his] way around psychiatry’, and it should be her reassuring him. However, in the same way that for us Margaret exists primarily as a dramatic foil, for Hyman she is nearly as one dimensional. He does not need any actually input from her, only for her to listen to how he’s ‘beginning to get a sour feeling about this thing’, and it is alone he realises that he’d ‘really love to give it a try’. The aspect of Margaret realised only by Harry is the sexual, as, on the stage, it is only information which establishes our link to her, not sensibility. This unusually intimate moment introduces us to the fact that we are seeing more private moments than most plays would allow us to see. This, along with the new aspects of the Hymans, will lead us to trust the information being given to us. Hymen is the god of marriage, and, in the final scene of As You Like It, speaks these lines: “'Tis Hymen peoples every town; /High wedlock then be honoured”, making Hyman an expressionist representation of a celestial force of goodness beyond Gellburg’s comprehension, as well as this layered, desirous individual we are presented with. Hyman’s marriage is functioning better that Gellburg’s, a stark contrast, and just as Hymen in As You Like It tells Rosalind ‘You to his love must accord’, so Harry tells Gellburg effectively the same thing. Both Hyman and Hymen are the marriage guru, and here we see that Harry is quite justified to be giving this advice.

The tone at the close of the scene changes surprisingly, as ‘the lone cellist plays. Then the lights go down’. Throughout this scene we have been presented with a dynamic mix and shifting scene of comedy, awkwardness, drama, emotion and sheer peculiarity, but this choice of a sad, low register instrument indicates Miller’s clear desire to bring our attention back to the more tragic elements of the scene, which, when considered, really make up everything it is about; Gellburg’s dull personality, his wife’s paralysis, Harry’s self-doubt and his wife’s lack of depth. Every character in this scene, either present, as the main three are, or only referred to, as Sylvia and the men scrubbing the streets in Berlin, are innately troubled. Sylvia is paralysed, perhaps by lack of love, Gellburg and the men who scrub the streets are persecuted for their faith, either by others or themselves, and the Hymens, though on a smaller scale, have fundamentally human problems. These issues cause almost all the action in the scene, save Dr Hyman’s transcendent professionalism associating him with his divine namesake. Therefore, regardless of anything else in the scene, tragedy is both fundamental and paramount, framed at the fundamental, the beginning, and at the paramount, the ending, with the inherently tragic sounding cello.

Luke Dyer

He Jests At Scars and Loud Rumour - accompanying commentary

Creative Commentary

My creative pieces, 'He Jests At Scars' and 'Loud Rumour' are both explorations of Shakespeare plays; namely, an illumination of the contrived nature of a tragedy, and the limitation of art imitating life. The first, a response to Romeo and Juliet, looks at how a play only gives us an incomplete image of people's lives, which are not 'resolved' at the end, whilst 'Loud Rumour' looks at how we can see truth in a work of fiction, and whether anything not mentioned in the text can be taken to exist.

'He Jests At Scars' is taken from the line directly preceding Romeo's famous monologue beginning 'But soft!'; 'He jests at scars that never felt a wound'. This introduces the idea of those outside the action being able to take the damage lightly; an audience can go home after the tragedy, and 'jest at scars', for they have never 'felt a wound' that the characters in the play have inflicted. The tone of the play is absurdist and realistic, beginning with absurd dialogue reminiscent of Beckett, the irony being that the scene is a hanging. The idea of two characters with separate consciousnesses breaks down, leaving one creative entity which speaks through two characters, 'You have to leave/I have to leave'. It also introduces the theme of existential apathy, how no one can find reason to make sense since life as has been known is now changed, bringing a dissatisfying peace.

The next scene is spoken in a more realistic dialogue, exhibiting the characters who have enough purpose to stay in Verona, as opposed to those in the previous scene who left. The ellipses of 'No, no, I wasn't...that...I wasn't' characterises in a more realistic sense than the blank verse of Shakespeare, a stylistic reflection of this more everyday depiction of their lives. Benvolio's monologue in scene three metatheatrically confuses the date of events as '1562. 1595. Umm...oh never mind'. The first is the rough date of events, the second the date of the play's composition, highlighting the temporal duality of any text. His exchange with the prince begins 'Who's there?/Nay, answer me. Stand, and unfold yourself', famed as the opening lines of Hamlet. This original text appropriations serve both to remind us of the characters' origins, as well as providing an awkward clash of styles which exposes fiction as merely a consistent construct, by removing the consistency part.

In this section Benvolio shouts 'Cut it!' at the prince. As the style and storyline of the original composition deteriorate, so does the social hierarchy which is so present in all of Shakespeare's canon. The scene ends with an introspective monologue by the prince which, along with Benvolio's opening speech, frames the scene. This marks the move from a chorus-like exposition to a hard-line realism which will become painfully stark in the next scene. The prince also reflects on the meaning of life, and the absence of that meaning for characters in a play by observing that 'it's just...purposeless. This life, is purposeless.' Scene four introduces an expressionistic element to the play, as the conversation involving lady Capulet is a projection of Montague's dream, who lies on the ground in this section. This satirises Shakespeare's disregard for proper time in many of his plays, and by most playwrights who do not adhere to the classical unity of time.

Whilst Lady Capulet talking to herself may read oddly, it exposes the impossible duality of literary reflection: how can a character reminisce about an episode involving them, when a person can only exist in one place at once? This is a paradox avoided by literature. The ensuing dialogue includes more Shakespearean quotations, such as the passage from Two Gentlemen of Verona, 'if the gentle spirit of moving words can no way change you to a milder form, I'll woo you like a solider, at arms' end, and love you against the nature of love - force you'. This highlights rape as a theme present in both Shakespeare and modern drama. The final scene of the play brings the style full circle, back to absurdism. Capulet and Montague have lost all purpose, devolving into cyclical speech patterns such as 'What's the point?/What's the use?/What's done is done.' Petruchio, of a younger generation, has more hope and continues to make sense. The prince enters, and delivers a monologue full of parenthesis, reminiscent of glib dukes such as Vincentio from 'Measure for Measure'. He also, however, refuses to take action, and he becomes nonsensical as he refers to Petruchio as a servant . Petruchio is surrounded by prating lords, each having surrendered themselves to an empty fate, and himself is caught in a loop of 'Doesn't make sense, doesn't make-'. The only character who may provide any hope is the tactfully silent Peter, the only character who has chosen to think, rather than speak or act rashly with terrible consequences.

'Loud Rumour' is a phrase from the prologue of Henry IV pt. II. This is how the chorus refers to herself, expressionistically personifying a social phenomenon. The poem opens with an emphatic spondee, setting the tone as 'loud'. The regular four line stanzas are often in a loose iambic tetrameter, giving a sense of state, whilst the variation adds to both effect and confusion. We at first see that which the courtiers see, the sennet and the pomp, but the illusion is dispelled at once, referring to all this majesty as 'vacuous' and 'casual'. We are then introduced to something akin to the second scene of the play, and are presented with several antitheses: 'cloudy' and 'sunny', 'father' and 'lord, and to some degree 'kinsman' and 'son'. The poem places Hamlet somewhere in the middle of all these, but fails to find a word for any of these states, instantly recognising the failures of the medium if language through which the poem is expressing itself.

Whilst enjambment is used often, caesura is mostly avoided, contributing to the imagine of a 'riverrun' poem, unable to stop easily. The rhyme scheme is somewhat convoluted, seeming at first well thought out, ABBA, but then descending into a much more occasional rhyme, 'dust' with 'trust', returning again for 'lust'. The idea that rhyme is a pretence such as court appearance which is difficult to keep up, and as the events amongst the courtiers become less decorous, so does the poetry. The motif of the verse 'Blacker than young Hamlet's was' is used both to chart the progression of a character, but also expose the ambiguity of language. At first it speaks in his defence, as to the character of his soul, but in the second instance it refers to the blood on the gown of the man he had killed. Not only has Hamlet changed, but the words have taken on new meaning because they were removed from context, just as we cannot be sure we understand the events of 'Hamlet' because we only have a glimpse of his life, not the full picture.

The long stanza beginning 'The whisper' serves to mock dramatic structure, an idea imposed upon us by dramaturgy. It is altogether unrealistic, since if we were to choose a section of someone's life it is unlikely it would begin with an exposition, end with a denouement and include such processes as climax, catharsis and peripeteia. In the same way, the visual structure of this poem, whilst interesting or aesthetically pleasing for a reader, does not reflect the way language is really used, showing literature not to imitate life at all, but a stylised adaptation of it. It also introduces us fully to the theme of rumour, 'debris from muddy shoals' metaphorically, and how this is one way in which 'truth' is obscured, as well as being taken out of context in literature. The idea of "the 'only truth' [...] in an abyss' is the idea of a single truth being something we strive for but are here mocked for because it doesn't exist, it's merely what we've constructed to fill the 'abyss' of ignorance in which we live, a social constructivist theory.

The ensuing prose exists in sections paragraphicalally: exposition, the Hamlet brothers' story observed from afar, a commentary on this, the Gertrude episode, the Laertes episode in which Gertrude briefly appears, and a question. This contributes to a heavily self-conscious piece of literature, frequently mocking itself and reflecting. An example of this is when it is questioned what happened to old Hamlet, the writing posits that 'it could be the former, the latter, the one in the middle, or all of them at once'. The writing taunts the reader, as it could just deliver the answer, supposedly, but takes the role of a critic instead and speculates philosophically, unhelpfully reminding us that as long as we are unaware, it could be anything. The piece ends with the question '"Who's there?"', the first line from the play. We here have the idea that we have been presented with events prior to the action of the play which may change our understanding of it, and that any excerpt of storytelling is so far from the whole truth that we cannot presume to really know anything about what has occurred.

We Are Underlings - accompanying commentary

Commentary: 'We are underlings'

The quote, of course, is from Cassius of Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar', a play well known if anything for its relationships between masters and men, and for the timeless issue of social class . 'We are underlings' attempts to address some of the issues which either arise as a direct result of or derive from the human condition. Decadence, ignorance, violence, and, above all, poverty. Miranda the sweeper girl is subjected to poverty and violence as she watches the violated Helena murdered, and Cecily is perhaps subject to the worst of the conditions, decadence and ignorance.

Although the play is set in 19th century Paris, it is meant to be transcendent in its message. Some are always more privileged than others, some work while others play, some are abused, others are amused, and all choose to ignore each others' plights if they are not involved. Few, such as Andrew Reed, have attempted to transcend this inner disregard for others under the crude pretext of 'it's not my problem'. Charity in its purest form is rare, and we are lucky at Reed's to live under its legacy.

The problems, however, continue, and will never be truly solved. One can never do everything, be it read all the books in the world, save all the lives in the world or see every inch of the world, as the vastness of the earth and it's population means too much is happening at once for it all to be solved. It can merely be reduced, infinitesimally, but worth every second nonetheless.

I have deliberately contradicted stereotypes here, as the poor and uneducated speak in archaic iambic pentameter, the inner city girl is a soldier in a war zone, and the beautiful princess can no more string a sentence together than she can survive without her handmaidens. Speech should be a reflection of the person, but, like so much else, is instead hoarded and rationed by the rich and educated, for the most part at least. Is Miranda a servant girl and her father a weaver, or an aspiring student of rhetoric and her esteemed master? Is Helena a bread thief, destined to die a lowly serf, or a noble knight in the midst of war? And is Cecily a princess of a kingdom with luxuries abound, or an abused slave of decadence, who cannot express her thoughts as she would, subject to a basement by her master, ignorance.

We Are Underlings, or Class - a social and moral commentary

Miranda

Dearest child, hast thou quenched the floors outside,
The master didst but tell of how his pride,
Belike for want of value true, will nought
Than both of us pursue, 'til sans-culottes
Both here and thence no more - please yet my haw
Forgive - feel the draw of our adamant.
Dearest child, the broom still weighs you down, though
Still weigh you down it shall not.

Oh dearest father, I have done all said
and so your inquisition is bootless.
But as I swept the floors, did strike me such
A thought. An we were to take a loaf, just
A fruit or less, would we hereby be damned
To Hades fires, or no? What thoughts do cross
The abysm of mind when we have none
For eat. Back to your weaving, say I or
Else we shall have no francs for food. Death is
written in our looks, thinks me.






Helena


Helena took to the road. She kept her head low as a round of stares looked their way into the wall barely inches a over her head. A desperate lunge for a window resulted in her being thrown to the floor, leaving her but seconds to make a dive for the safety of an upturned market stall. Traipsing along the hardened mud on hands and knees like a sewer beast, she fought the effluence away from the explosions of laughter and footfall that she dared not look back on.

A cart drew up not four feet in front of her, but of course in her lowly state it could not notice her. Why should it? She was inconsequential. The ugly horse of oppression reared before her as she waved her arms frantically, bearing arms in defiance at this assault. She would not be brought down. Evidently satisfied with its intimidation, oppression withdrew from the attack and raced off. Helena took her chance. She saw a glimmer of hope in the shape of a bunker, or more aptly a stable by the Queen's palace.

At the window of the renowned Queen's palace, short bursts of orders and commands broke out though the thrown open windows. The noxious gas of bread was intoxicating Helena. She dared not look up. Wiping the worst of the waste off on her knees, sweating like the most rancid soldier of the war, and reached for the bread. The cold grip of death grabbed her wrist like a vice, and she felt as if it were preparing her for the saw. She was not wrong. She soon blacked out from the pain, but not before she saw a young girl, although not much younger than herself, watching her from the doorway of the opposite building, sweeping the drowned pavements with a broom.







Cecily
Demétrio Abrantes
34 Calle de brasil
Vigo
Galicia

Ar'ight dear, how's the Duchy treatin' y'all? Up in ol' Paris we en't got much in the way o'servants right now, only our handmaid'a quit herself not three nights since. See, there was this thief'o'bread, stuck'er hand right through the window, which were wide open might I add, and grabbed a loaf! Poor ol' handmaid were fright'd t'death but she stuck it out and grabbed the lil'filcher by the arm, cut her right across. Left her in the gutter somewhere, don' matter now, do'it? En't no one checkin' for nought these days, no one'll notice a beggar girl gone missin'.

I be makin' me way up to Albion to meet him with'oo I'm betrothed. I couldn't find me best silks so I'm stuck with me animal furs 'till the white cliffs. 'Parrently my futur'usband only got himself few hundred acres 'r so, 'ardly worth the time, I says, but father ent having none e'that. He's got himself an obsession with a marriage with them Angles, 'tho can't see why. By the by, to for the presents, I loved 'em, they look the part and all with those I got from father last spring. One was broken on the way, but like I says, no one ent goin'a notice a beggar girl in the gutter, ay?

A dramatic response to Jane Austen's Emma

Scene 1
A bare stage with white walls. Across the walls is written, in its entirety, Jane Austen’s Emma.
Enter NARRATOR. He wears black and presents the prologue, which is acted out in dumb show by WILLIAM and JOHN. These two wear regency dress.
HEATH: John Eastleigh, wealthy, striking and bright, with a thriving business and an unyielding nature, seemed to present himself as the paragon of his high-standing community.  His every need was met by a young page boy, who fell little short of a servant in assistance. (Spoken in unison with WILLIAM) Between them it was more the relationship of slavers. Even before John came into their employment, William’s treatment had not allowed any minor fault to go unpunished. (Only Narrator) The real evils of William’s temperament were his assumed superiority over almost all others, even where it was, perhaps, unwarranted. Sorrow came – though not in any form he could have predicted: Mrs Eastleigh requested a divorce.

Exit NARRATOR

WILLIAM: As I have said, John, I will not speak with her. She will come to her limited senses once she has spoken in her characteristically inane manner for a sufficient time. She is one of those women who are likely to talk incessantly and never hear another. Such prudence is not to be thought tolerable in a woman, or indeed in any man, any at all!
JOHN: Any man, sir?
WILLIAM: Say you? No, I beg you to listen whilst I am speaking! No, any man, but mostly any woman. For women’s mind are of such hollowness, that they must instead listen to the wise saws of men to fill them.
JOHN: Are they really, sir?
WILLIAM: Why, of course. After all, the empty vessel sounds the loudest. Yes it does. But she should follow your prime example, for you respect me as your superior, which of course I am.
 Pause. MRS EASTLEIGH enters, seen only by JOHN
WILLIAM: Am I not? Am I not superior, to you, and to her?
MRS EASTLEIGH shakes her head at JOHN.
JOHN: I...I dare say you are sir.
WILLIAM: Good. Good.
Exeunt. Lights dim to near darkness.


Scene 2
Lights up slightly, sunset, or sunrise. Enter NARRATOR. WILLIAM, JOHN, and MRS EASTLEIGH, now in modern dress, act the chorus.
NARRATOR: Now Mrs Eastleigh failed in her suit. (Said with WILLIAM) But only as she realised the extent to which she relied upon her husband. (Now with MRS EASTLEIGH) But what might have happened, were they born in another time. Were her options less limited. Were her husband’s influence negated.
Exit.
MRS EASTLEIGH: No! Will, can you not- stop making this harder than it has to be, I…it can’t be any other way. Men like you have done this for generations; I’m going to live with John, alright? That’s how it is! (WILLIAM lunges for MRS EASTLEIGH) Get you- get off of me! (JOHN hits WILLIAM) Stop acting…it’s… not proper!
WILLIAM: proper! Don’t you talk to me about what is proper! You shun your own husband, just to run off with the bloody postman! (MRS EASTLEIGH attempts to interrupt) He brings our mail, Anne! How can you do this to me-?
MRS EASTLEIGH: Please don’t- just don’t you speak to…to me! You, my husband... no one cares if you’re a respected figure in our community, or if you’re from a wealthy family, or any of that! When do you think we live! It’s not the nineteenth bloody century Will!
WILLIAM: You can’t speak to me like that! I won’t let you!
This isn’t th’end of social caste!
From me you have not heard the last!
My lineage once would earn respect,
But to your will you me subject.
Is it cruel, unfair, unjust
To tell my wife have her I must?
Be it wrong, unkind, improper
To fight for her you love?
Good Mrs E, with adoration
Did I entice you to my bed,
But through your out of place flirtation,
From our glad house you are now fled.

Pause. MRS EASTLEIGH laughs.

MRS EASTLEIGH: You are really, fucking stupid, husband. (He tries to interrupt) No, no! You are. I don’t need you! I don’t need a man to provide for men, I have skills. There are things I can do, get a job, make my own way. I married too young, I can see that now, but I was so convinced that that was the only way I could survive. And how you’d love to believe that- love me...to believe that. But it’s not true, is it. I’m not leaving you because I don’t love you...I suppose I do, to an extent. I’m leaving because I can’t be the person I’m expected to...by you. I’m sorry, I-

JOHN and MRS EASTLEIGH leave. WILLIAM cries alone. Blackout

The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises: F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway - a postmodern comparison

“In The Great Gatsby and Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises the authors use their narrators to suggest that there is no single and unequivocal truth.”
Definitions of unreliable narrators make reference to the idea of an objective reality, or truth, which the narrators deprive us of with their opinions. David Lodge tells us in 'The Art of Fiction' that 'the point of using an unreliable narrator is indeed to reveal in an interesting way the gap between appearance and reality, and how human beings distort or conceal the latter'. However, this essay argues that the although the narrators provide us with a perspective, there is no actual truth that we may attain, merely different, more accepted, points of view. The way in which the narrators characterise the others often conflicts with the actions performed by the those characters, leading us to the belief that Nick’s and Jake’s actions and opinions are determined by their schemas, or the cognitive framework in which they view the world. One slightly apathetic and detached in Nick, and also in Jake, yet here somewhat resigned and disillusioned. This disorients the reader in The Great Gatsby, and places them at a skewed perspective in Fiesta, opening the novel up to a plurality of readings. The authors’ constructions of the novels form psychologically real characters, providing us with a perspective, a version of the 'truth' of the novel; providing us with a personal truth, personal to the narrator, but often questioned the reader.
This first point discusses the authors' intentional contradictions which seek to incite uncertainty. In the first chapter of Gatsby, we are told by Nick that Gatsby had ‘an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness[…] No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby[…]that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men’. However, we are later to learn that Gatsby’s dreams have been funded by illicit bootlegging, a fact known by Nick whilst he vehemently denies Gatsby’s fault in the matter. Whatever his reasons for doing so, Nick influences our view of Gatsby before we have all the facts to form a proper opinion. We can even see Nick’s thoughts working in his ‘No’, as if Nick has to justify Gatsby’s innocence to himself as much as to us. Nick here also provides us with an example of perspective: how, during the time frame of the novel, he lost interest in people’s mood. This disillusionment gives us a feeling of loss, emphasised by the word ‘abortive’, with almost deathly connotations. We are, therefore, reading a novel written by someone with very little interest in anything other that Gatsby’s successes, and our views of the other characters may be infected with a lack of interest. Likewise, although on a smaller scale, we see Jake's pessimism when he says of Georgette that 'the girl looked sullen'. However immediately afterward he adds that 'She grinned', and goes on to criticise that as well. But for her to look sullen and then grin indicates a serious disparity in observation. His return from the war and his injury have made him bitter, and, in terms of Freudian psychology, he projects his gloomy demeanour onto others, even those who smile. His description of her as a 'girl' reflects his view of women as immature since his rejection by Brett on account of his impotency, which he views as a childish reason not to be with someone.
The imposition of these contradictions within itself constructs the schemas of the narrators. We can determine the narrator's tendencies or attitudes via actions that they actually perform in the novel. When Tom informs Nick in chapter two when they reach the valley of ashes '"We're getting off"[...][Nick] followed him over a low white-washed railroad fence'. Considering that Nick's original plan was to go to New York, his agreeability at a sudden change of destination suggests a lack of preference in the direction of his own life, the low fence contributing to the idea of having only a vague sense of the terrain under his feet he has to cover, despite their actual problematic nature. We therefore imagine that descriptions of those in whom he has little interest may be scarce and bare. This would explain, despite the countless characters mentioned, including a list of nearly a hundred in chapter four, there are very few 'actual' people. Daisy and Gatbsy are continually described due to Nick's infatuation, and Jordan due to their relationship. However, considering his proximity to Jordan versus Daisy, we may see an uneven distribution of blame, and Wolfsheim, key in Gatsby's downfall, is missed out almost completely after the first encounter. In chapter six of Fiesta, after Frances Clyne's rant to Cohn, of whom Jake had said he was one of a 'certain people to whom you could not say insulting things. They gave you a feeling that the world would be destroyed [...] if you said certain things', about how 'Robert's always wanted to have a mistress', Jake stands and says '"I've got to go in and see Harvey Stone a minute"', and then proceeds home instead. The comment on the end of the world is very drastic, and supposedly shows some great passion for Cohn, and yet his lack of action corroborates the saying 'the empty vessel sounds the loudest'. Furthermore, although Harvey Stone is the person he has seen most recently, and therefore in the fore of his mind, as an aimless, gambling drunkard who claims not to have eaten in five days, he provides an interesting parallel with Jake's lack of purpose. Whilst Jake has very strong opinions of the integrity of Robert and the selfishness of Frances, he is ever the pacifist, choosing to avoid conflict because he doesn't wish to make enemies, but more because he does not care enough to act. This provides a context or Hemingway's minimalist style, in which rich description is often abandoned for the sake of lists and clear events, places and people. Jake has no interest in a romantic, literary view of the world, as is quite clear from his disdain of Cohn's reading 'The Purple Land'. Instead, he lets the world pass by him, and chooses not to act, and, by extension, to comment.
Heretofore we have narrators presenting us with biased attitudes towards the world; what this does in the context of reading is give us a novel which is somewhat incomplete at times, one which we must figure out ourselves. In chapter six of 'Gatsby', Nick narrates the main events of Gatsby's life, ending by saying 'he told me all this very much later, but I've put it down here with the idea of exploding those first wild rumours about his antecedents, which weren't even faintly true'. Not only are we presented with the issue that, as a character, it is only Nick's opinion that this version of Gatsby's past is true, but now we have information that Nick did not have at this point in the novel, and would not have until chapter eight. We now experience the plaza hotel scene with a firm belief in Gatsby which none of the other characters would have had, putting us into a false sense of security, since these events may, in fact, be lies as well. We are now out of synchronisation with both our narrator, the chronology and the truth. In chapter seven of 'Fiesta', when Brett asks '"Want to go?" I had the feeling as in a nightmare of it all being something repeated, something I had been through and that now I must go through again. "......" the drummer sang softly. "Let's go," said Brett. "You don't mind." "......" the drummer shouted and grinned at Brett'. This extract, if we are to read it in keeping with the reading of Jake as rejecting difficult realities and situations, seems to work towards a dark profundity, but regresses into observation of the drummer. It could be read that Jake is omitting either strong emotions he experienced, or even something that went on between the two of them on the dance-floor which he wishes to forget.
Jean Evans, in her article 'The Unreliable Narrator: How Unreliable is Unreliable?', stipulates that Nick 'takes a very partial view of the protagonist and reveals himself to be not entirely trutstworthy within the world of the text', also admitting it is a given 'that all first person novels are in one way or another partial and biased'. But no view of any world, either first person, third person omniscient, or a general consensus of generations of readers, is so virtuous as to be impartial and unbiased, as can be seen in the world of a text: where all the information we receive is through someone who is claimed to be unreliable, and yet we have our own opinions on it. Every individual views the novels through their own schemas, with an individual collection of genes, thoughts and experiences. We may therefore say, in a world populated with vile bodies and imperfect minds, that reliability is an almost divine concept, which we, as humans, will never understand.
Bibliography
 Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: Penguin, 2000.
 Hemingway, Ernest. Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises. London: Vintage, 2000.
 Lodge, David. The Art of Fiction. S.l.: Vintage, 2011.

Loud Rumour - a creative response to Hamlet

Loud Rumour

All hail, the King of Denmark!
Magisterial vacuousness.
All hail, imperial jointress!
Casual sennet, pomp's remark.

How is our young prince of Denmark?
More than cloudy, less than sunny,
More than kinsman less than son.
Less a father, more a sort of

Lord that lords it over thus.
'Cast thy nighted colour off',
She purposed to entreat her son,
And yet I think her blemished soul was

Blacker than young Hamlet's was.

Good, good, always good -
That's how his mother thought of him.
And he had thought of her as madam,
Since his father lay in dust
He had no care for parental trust.

'Get thee to a nunnery!'
The lachrymose Ophelia must
Have died a little then. She was
a paragon of beauty, lust

No more in her eyes could be found.
Flowing flowing, riverrun,
The fatal streams made Polonius' gown far

Blacker than young Hamlet's was.

The whisper of a town circumambulates, as a river
That collects debris from muddy shoals, and the,
Perhaps, pure truth of how it started is sullied,
Much. A letter here, a conversation there.
Words, words, words, absurd
Conclusions reached from
False assumptions,
Matched with
Presumptions,
Contribute to a
'Truth', the 'only truth',
A truth in an abyss. What
Is passed, and what is believed
To have passed, are, here, two quite
Separate entities. Catches of hearsay,
Fragments of truth amalgamated with new
'Truths' born of uncertainty. What results...that
I have set down. And now for what occurred, we
Shall see. But for the amount, order and coherence...


A bold crash of a titanium wave sent a pair of lovers scattered across the bay. Clothes flew, glass shattered, steel cans clattered and a rough wind cycled through the airborne waves, Nature her holiness breaking out torrents of supernatural carnage. It was almost too much for the small tribe of that little nation to bear: except that they had been bearing it for over a thousand years. The Danish were no strangers to the harsh truth that moonshine and tide were not curious as to the workings of the law; no, in fact, it was only custom that prevented them from giving up altogether and just leaving the coastal towns to rot. The custom was not any one in particular; merely a general tradition, a shared heritage, a collective life force. A sort of service owed, a debt needing to be repaid. A debt for what? The gracious state of Denmark would protect them from plague, keep them from poverty, and generally permit them to do as they pleased. Brother and brother would stand together and face the world as one. Well. Nearly all brothers.

An inconceivable, immeasurable lag between the water slapping the shore and the unavoidable smash that greets one's ears with scream invited an ethereal sense of calm (before the storm, almost,) into the heart of each who heard. One of these was a young man, trimly dressed with a compact form, and his brother, older by some fourteen months or a year, of slightly more generous dimensions. The pair reached the base of a tattered tower, looked at it enquiringly, and proceeded indoors. What passed within these walls is by and large unknown, but what is known is that only one man emerged, not too much later, and, putting on a hat, kept true down a perpendicular alley until out of sight.

Many theories have emerged as to the whereabouts of the older brother. Some say young Claudius was jealous of old Hamlet's power and rule. Others say he felt deprived of his father's love. Cynics and gossips have even speculated that doubt had been cast over the circumstances of the younger's birth, and he took it upon himself to silence his sibling. Of course we will never know. But we can say that it could be the former, the latter, the one in the middle, or all of them at once. The only mind in which a certain truth exists is that of he who committed the act. A mind which we are unlikely to access, soon.

After the storm, a shape appeared from a dark recess behind the tackle shop and lurched around a corner. A man approached and the shape slowed. He was taken aback, visibly afeard. Gently he tipped his toe upwards, knee bending, face cast down. Madam, he said. He passed, she waited, she continued. Past designer brands, past the new issues of Morning magazine, until she reached the end of the street. A left, a right, a dark cave, that wasn't a cave, more like a ravine, between which were...stone steps. One, two, one, two, feet ascending, the hem of her dress flipping up on every second clip of the heel. She could see high over the town now. What a thing it was, to climb and clamber up a giant mountain, how excellent, how wild. It was these days for which she lived. Not the days of the castle, but Elsinore days, where she could dip in amongst the lusty labourers and get by on stealth and quality, rather than composition and dull formality.

After passing the fierce cleaner on the first floor, Laertes jumped the last two steps to the courtyard, still chewing the stale bread he took from the pantry that morning. The swinging of his bronzed arms and angle of his chin gave away that the tired, moody man of yesterday, had died, in a sleep, giving way to a more lively, youthful man, who woke the fools he passed with his mere existence. It was doubtful that there was a single thing that evening could faze Laertes. Clang. Wait. Grind. Stop. Thump. Creak. Pause. Slam. A woman ran past him, drenched through her gown. Ophelia? Doubtful. Man on the wall. The guard. A figure behind him. Two more approaching from the courtyard. What's this? What's this? The guard turns. Weapon raised. Voice more terrified than any he would ever hear again.

"Who's there?"