Arthur Miller

The essay "Tragedy and the Common Man" (1949) by Arthur Miller is available here. Although this transcription has more than a few minor errors, I would urge you very emphatically to read it. It is an uplifting piece of work.

The essay is relevant to contextualising Death of a Salesman as a tragedy. (Note that the essay was published around the same time as the play) Some of the key points Miller makes in it are as follows:

1. Tragedies are not written as frequently as they used to be in the ancient times. Why? - "paucity of heroes among us"? Or was it because scepticism (also the Second World War, the rise of existentialism?) had shaken humanity's conviction in itself so badly that it was impossible to conceive of a tragic hero.

2. Either way, tragedy is assumed to be above the common man, in some way:

· This (Miller contends) is not true. e.g. Psychiatric evidence proves that complexes like the Oedipal, although drawing their names from the actions of kings, may be exhibited in the commonest of men and women.

· Also, when the question of "Tragedy" (as a genre) doesn't arise, it is not hard to accept that a corporate tycoon or a daily wage labourer should respond to similar emotional situations in similar ways.

· Finally, if Tragedy were truly only the domain of the "high-bred", then such mass popularity of the form would be unlikely.

3. Miller suggests that the “tragic feeling” is evoked in us when we see that the character is willing to “to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing--his sense of personal dignity.”

· For example: Orestes, Hamlet, Medea and Macbeth were all looking to regain their rightful place in society.

· It may be that either s/he has been displaced from it or is looking to acquire it for the first time – but the motivation behind their tragic actions is that of “indignation” (Latin dignus meaning worth or worthiness – therefore the feeling of being denied worth?).

· Therefore, since the hero’s fall is initiated by the hero himself/herself – the plot of the tale reveals the hero’s “tragic flaw” (hamartia).

4. The tragic flaw may not by itself be a drawback – it may be just an “inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his dignity, his image of his rightful status. Only the passive, only those who accept their lot without active retaliation, are flawless.”

5. The average person therefore is (by Miller’s definition) “flawless” – only the few who risk questioning every accepted statute of life can be deemed heroic. And the fright or terror associated with classical Tragedy is evoked because of the frightening nature of this “total examination of the unchangeable environment.”

6. From this heroic process of reorienting the world – the hero learns. And this learning from experience, from unceasing inquiry is not limited to nobility alone.

7. Insistence on the rank of the hero is obstinate clinging to the outward, superficial formal aspects of Tragedy. But, even the formal definition of Tragedy is obsolete – our notions of justice have changed radically from the classical age when these rules were established.

8. (Imp: The crux of the argument) The “tragic night” therefore is the state of human existence that is most conducive to its progress – suppressive, unquestioning existence is wrong. The tragic, dynamic world where nothing is taken for granted, even at the risk of falling – is the true freedom humanity must pursue.

· This revolutionary questioning of the world is what is terrifying (see pt. 5) – and no common person is debarred from doing this.

9. Extending this view of tragedy, its lack in the present (Miller’s immediate context) time could be accounted for.

· Literature had largely moved towards incorporating either a sociological or a psychiatric worldview.

· Adhering only to the sociological perspective would mean taking away all individual agency from the character – also, if society were to be blamed solely then the protagonist, the tragic hero, would have to be entirely blameless. And thus, an invalid character.

· Similarly, if a purely psychiatric view of the world were to be maintained then everything wrong with the world would arise and die in our minds alone – heroic action, tragic action would cease to exist.

10. Therefore, the tragic plot cannot arise in a world where any institution is above question – “everlasting, immutable or inevitable”.

· (Imp.) But tragedy need not necessarily preach revolution – the questioning may only reaffirm the hero’s initial beliefs but for the moment that the world is being questioned, everything is in flux.

· During this flux, the character gains “stature” – the stature that is wrongly attributed to nobility, can actually be gained by any average person during this dynamic state of risk and inquiry (make sense?)

11. Another misconception (that Miller tries to refute) is that tragedies are necessarily pessimistic.

· Tragedies are commonly accepted as “stories with sad ends”

· This is the exact opposite of what Tragedy actually asserts – Tragedies are actually more optimistic than say, Comedies.

· Tragedy assumes that human will is actually “indestructible” – that it can take on the collapse of the world as it exists, in the hope of finding what is real, what is true.

· “The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy” – where the entire battle is pathetic, where the hero had no chance of winning, the work is pessimistic. But in tragedy, the distance between the potential of the hero and the ultimate outcome (his/her fall) is narrower.

12. Because of this belief in the “perfectibility of man”, tragedies have been revered over the centuries. And this belief is grounded, and should remain grounded in the common man.

---

I am including two passages from the text that relate to points 10 and 11 respectively, because whether or not you read anything else, you must must read these lines:

“The Greeks could probe the very heavenly origin of their ways and return to confirm the rightness of laws. And Job could face God in anger, demanding his right and end in submission. But for a moment everything is in suspension, nothing is accepted, and in this stretching and tearing apart of the cosmos, in the very action of so doing, the character gains "size," the tragic stature which is spuriously attached to the royal or the high born in our minds. The commonest of men may take on that stature to the extent of his willingness to throw all he has into the contest, the battle to secure his rightful place in his world.”

“For, if it is true to say that in essence the tragic hero is intent upon claiming his whole due as a personality, and if this struggle must be total and without reservation, then it automatically demonstrates the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity. The possibility of victory must be there in tragedy. [...] And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief--optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man. It is time, I think, that we who are without kings, took up this bright thread of our history and followed it to the only place it can possible lead in our time--the heart and spirit of the average man.”

A Note

Dr. Lal suggested a few minor edits on the Waiting for Godot - 2 post and they have been made. I've also added a few more observations, so go ahead and check.

A makeshift key to understanding some of the abbreviations, symbols etc:
(?) - this usually means the statement is open to debate. Feel free to argue, respond or comment on if you have anything to add.

MT - bold, capital abbreviations of this sort usually refer to a recurring theme in the work which is mentioned somewhere in the post itself. Everywhere that the symbol repeats itself, marks another aspect of the same theme.

I've also added little "Reaction" check-boxes at the bottom of the posts.

Leave comments, start a debate, vent frustration - whatever. The shout-box is for you to use. I know I've been slacking off on the Shakespeare course, will try and update as soon as I can.

Waiting for Godot - 2

Try watching the play tonight if you still haven't read the text.

Waiting for Godot, with its sparse, nondescript setting and strangely absent "action", was Beckett's first play to be performed. Its starkness and opacity, both in terms of its visual representation and content has helped raise it to iconic status in the literary and theatrical circles today.

Who or What is Godot?

When asked this seemingly obvious question, Beckett's own infamous reply was "If I knew, I would have said so in the play." Beckett's fierce reticence (the man gave one official interview) is of no help to critics and students. When actor Ralph Richardson (who was supposed to play Estragon at the play's premiere) asked Beckett if it was God, Beckett again answered that if he had meant it to be God, he would say so explicitly.

Can Godot be "God"?

When the playwright himself claims to know nothing about Godot, room for interpretation opens up dramatically. Apart from the obvious resonance in the naming, Godot can be said to have other traces of the Biblical God too - The boy who appears at the end of both acts describes Godot as having a beard (God is popularly depicted with a benign beard); Also, it is mentioned that Godot has goats and sheep and in Matthew 25: 32-3, God is described as separating good and bad by separating goats (to the left) and sheep (to the right). Also, God does in a way give "direction" to the lives of Vladimir and Estragon. (How?)

Can this then be called an allegory of post-theistic life? A post WW-2 world where Godot has abandoned us sinners? To subscribe to this view alone would be greatly diminishing its significance. Godot is God, and then some. Religious elements are definitely present, but they are not the end all. The play has philosophical, political implications too.

"Striving All the Time to Avoid Definition"

Beckett drew from Arthur Schopenhauer's (19th century German philosopher) in his essay Proust (1930). Beckett talks about a series of selves as opposed to a coherent, consistent "Self." He claims (though he is probably not the first to) that our desires are necessarily frustrated - "our thirst for possession is, by definition, insatiable." 

This theory can be applied to myself and Johnny Depp or Chocolate - but I digress.

Godot can be said to represent the constant human desire for prospective attainment. When one ambition is fulfilled, desire is automatically projected on to the next thing. 

Is it All this Gloomy?

No. The redeeming features include: the humour. It's biting, dark and more tragic than funny, but it's unmistakably present throughout the play. The relationship of Vladimir and Estragon: despite their arguments, threats to leave each other, they never really do. Also the refreshing theatrical structure of the play. The narrative is tight, the dialogues clipped. 

Themes?

• Other than the above-mentioned concept of Selves and insatiable desire, the play explores the idea of stasis as being exciting. (Important: henceforth marked as A for action)
• It also deals with the unreliability of memory. Eg. "What did we do yesterday" repeated by both characters in Act I.
• Also, the lead characters share in the audience's puzzlement. This is important. (Meta-theatrical, henceforth MT) The audience and the characters are puzzled by different things - the characters about Godot and when he will arrive, whether he will at all and the audience about what this strange, unrestrained play could possibly mean.
• The only guiding principle in all this confusion becomes the wait for Godot - "one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come." This is representative again of both the characters' and our preoccupation with the elusive ultimate desire-fulfilment, at the cost of ignoring the present crises. (MT) Self-reflexive commentaries like this on life abound in this play and Beckett's other works.
• Because of the obscurity of the play, the focus tends to shift from the content of the play to its functional structure. The plot is routed - no clear cause-effect exists (Remember Tintinda's ref. to Marquis de Sade?) - exposition, complication and a neat resolution will resolutely be denied to the audience.
• Beckett is striving for a new grammar of theatre, a new way to express his understanding of life. A distinctly anti-dramatic style. His plays seem to embody boredom, inaction (A) and the line - "Nothing to be done" comes to symbolise the general thrust of his work.

The Theme of Action (A):
When does action happen? When people do things - to be simplistic. When can people do things? When they are free to do so. But in Beckett's world they are not. In Beckett's world, the characters are in absolute uncertainty of themselves and have little or no self-possession. Also, the logical interplay of cause-effect that is inherent in action (an action is caused by something and creates an effect, yes?) is almost entirely absent in WfG. Why does Lucky allow himself to be ill-treated by Pozzo? Why are the two waiting for Godot? Why does Godot never come? Why do they not know where they were yesterday? Endlessly cyclical questions that lead nowhere except to square one.

Vivian Mercier remarked on this play "Nothing happens, twice." While in your current hair-tear state of mind, you might feel inclined to agree with this dismissive statement - it isn't really true. It's not like there is no action at all.

There is a lot of action once Pozzo and Lucky arrive for instance. There is farcical action involving hats, boots, trousers falling off. There are pratfalls (falling on one's bottom) and a lot of Vaudevillian humour.

Speaking of Cyclical: What does the Repetitiveness Mean?
The seemingly repetitive cycle of events, questions in WfG have an important meta-theatrical implication. (MT). When the characters declare that they will come again every night - they are referring to a meta-theatrical, literal truth. These actors do in fact return every night to put up this play!

The cyclicity is also an important comment on the dreary routines that people fall into. "Habit is a great deadener" as Didi or Vladimir says. Another social criticism that Beckett hides in his obscure play.

In What Other Ways is it Meta-Theatrical?
The play constantly reminds the audience that it is in fact a play. Vladimir tells Estragon in Act I "Return the ball, can't you, once in a way?" - as if their very conversation is play, rehearsed and meaningless, only a game.

Also, in Act II, the two characters pretend to be Pozzo and Lucky, drawing to attention play-acting.

In another of Beckett's plays (never performed) Eleutheria, the characters come down from the stage and walk amidst the audience, much like Six Characters in Search of an Author.

The characters also prefigure audience opinions, lampooning them sometimes. Like the lines "This is becoming really insignificant" or the part where they compare their own evening to the music hall, circus, pantomime and so on. They also refer directly to the stage audience when Didi leaves near the end of Act I to relieve himself and Gogo cries out "End of the corridor, on the left." and Didi replies "Keep my seat."

What About Language?
Beckett once declared that language is a "veil that must be torn apart" - in order to reveal meaning or absence thereof, beyond it. Beckett is very critical of soppy language. Expressive soliloquys and high-sounding philosophical abstractions remain suspect.


This is noticeable in the play, in the way Beckett deals with dialogue. The sequences are tight, interspersed with silence. Most of Didi's and Gogo's exchanges happen rapidly, suggestive of the ego-alterego theory (as discussed in class).

Lucky's "think" is a parody of dense, academic rhetoric. Pozzo's farcical elegy, deflated by the constant shift between the lyrical and the prosaic, is another instance of Beckett's critique of emotive language. The sequence between Vladimir and Estragon with the fervent "Say Something!" is important - it reflects the social human's constant need to talk. For Beckett silence perhaps is most meaningful.

 ---
Work Cited: McDonald, Ronald. The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett.

Waiting for Godot

We're starting with Beckett's play tomorrow. Read it here or watch a film adaptation here. Recap of the slides on Beckett we saw today:

A scene from Happy Days

• The use of stark images of confinement: The woman half-buried in Happy Days; the actor strapped to the chair with only her mouth visible in Not I and so on.
• Also: Parents in drums in Endgame.

Martin Esslin came up with the term "Theatre of the Absurd." Marked by formal experimentation. A worldview of post-Nietzsche sensibilities - a godless universe. And the firm conviction that a godless universe is necessarily meaningless, "absurd". Communication therefore always breaks down into nonsensical rambling or utter silence (think of plays like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf). The presence of black humour. There are horrific, tragic scenes simultaneously staged with vaudevillian humour. Stark visual contrasts - heavy use of symbolism. More here.

Modernism: Overview

Thomas Aquinas.

(From Shobha di's class lectures 1 and 2)

1. The notion of Modernism: The movement's most distinctive feature was its drive to dislocate existing traditions, tendencies. 

- Peter Ackroyd: traces this back to the 17th century

- Flaubert: "The only truth in this world exists in a well-made sentence"
- Rationalist thought generally viewed to have existed till Aquinas. 

- Influence of Absurdity, Nihilism and Solitude may be attributed to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud and Dostoevsky. Existential crises, the loss of god, socialist ideals - some of the shaping influences of early Modernism.

2. How the critics have attempted to temporally locate Modernism:

- James McFarlane suggests that the movement progressed in "increasing waves" right through the 19th century.

- Richard Ellmann considers 1900 to be an accurate and convenient starting point.

- Virgina Woolf: "On or about December 1910, human character changed."

- D.H. Lawrence: "It was in 1915, the old world ended."

- 1922 is a notable year because of the publication of Ulysses, The Wasteland among other critical Modernist texts.

- 1924 also is an important year => E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, Melville's Billy Bud, Sailor and more.

- The Interwar period (1918 to 1939) was especially productive to Modernist literature. Key figures (in addition to those already mentioned): Aldous Huxley (dystopian literature); Katherine Mansfield (for her contribution to the short story)

3. "Characteristics" of the Modernist Movement:

- The rise of polyglot cultures in the upcoming literary cities like New York, Berlin, Paris.

- Similar to A.O. Lovejoy's contention of "Romanticisms", "Modernisms" too may be distinguished within the larger stream of "High Modernism."

- A global phenomenon - focus redirects from England.

- Stephen Spender differentiates between the "recognisers" and "non-recognisers" of the modern situation. He goes on to suggest that the recognisers were out to deliberately create a new literature and took it as the duty of art to support progress.

- (Imp.) Spender also distinguishes the "moderns" (like Woolf, Joyce) from the "contemporaries" (like H.G. Wells): the contemporary is located firmly in the modern time and hence views it from within. The contemporary accepts the forces of science, history that move the world but may more often than not, be critical of it. The modern  is aware of the contemporary scene but does not participate in it in the same way. The modern has the vantage point of the past, s/he is the "past become conscious at certain points" (Spender, Struggle, 78). The modern therefore is preoccupied with trying to bridge the gulf between the past and the present. Eg. Ulysses conflates a setting of contemporary, localised, day-to-day life with the grand scale of the Homeric epic.

- The Modernist author challenges generally accepted "shared values". 

- Edward T. Hall calls it: "disenchantment of our culture with culture itself" (Hall, Beyond Culture).

Suggested Reading:

1. Preface to Plays Unpleasant - G.B. Shaw. (Will scan if you need - let me know)

2. The Social Context of Modern English Literature - Malcolm Bradbury

3. The Context of English Literature, 1900 to 1930 - Michael Bell

Works Cited:

Hall, Edward T. Beyond Culture. Anchor Books, 1977.

Spender, Stephen. The Struggle of the Modern. University of California Press, 1963.

--
Notes on "Characteristics" to be continued in addition to NG's lecture on Post-Modernism.

Recap: Weeks 1 & 2

Comedy: Dicussions of Old Comedy, Middle Comedy and New Comedy. Attic Comedy and its origins. The Dionysia festivals. Structural elements of Comedy. Aristophanes' contribution to Greek Comedy. Frogs - begun.

Detailed Study of a Shakespearean Play: Stage history of Macbeth.

Novel and Modernity: The prevailing social, intellectual and moral climate that allowed the birth of the Novel. The novel as an embodiment of "transcendental homelessness" (George Lukacs). Robinson Crusoe as an absolutist fantasy. Internalisation in the novel (with ref. to and distinguishing between Richardson and Sterne, in addition to Defoe). Persuasion: Publication history. Austen's Romantic nostalgia for a near-extinct social mode of existence in Persuasion.

Modernism: General distinctive features of Modernism. Modernism's fallout - Post-Modernism and its complicated lineage. Modernist Drama: Death of a Salesman. DoaS as a formally innovative work, a social commentary, a Marxist text (?).

PS: I'm going to try and post on these individual issues. Might not be possible to post on each - so let me know which ones you need the most.

Monday: Heads Up!

NaM: Remember, SC will start Persuasion. Read the book online (searchable e-text). Or at least watch the movie (link in Sidebar). Look up publication history and thematic concerns here.

• Think about how the theme of "persuasion" runs throughout the story; remembering of course, that Austen did not name it herself. 
• Also think about Anne's character - how does the modern film adaptation represent her?
• What do the Musgroves represent? How are the two girls a foil to the Elliott daughters? What is Anne's (and presumably Austen's?) opinion of them?

Modernism: NG will probably continue with the various difficulties in classifying Modernism. A recap of the last class - issues that were brought up

• In our contemporary search for "modernisms" (Frank Kermode's term), are we risking re-enacting the presumptions of older critics? Modernism was largely defined in Euro-centric, elitist terms. If we look to literatures from marginalised communities to add to the Modernist canon - how do we choose? By applying the same definitions? Isn't this still regressive and narrow? 
• Has the Modernist movement ended? The term "Post-Modern" is often used to describe art from the 1970s onwards - this is one way of reconciliation - to acknowledge the difference in later art but by retaining Modernism as a frame of reference. One could also differentiate between the two by referring to "High Modernism" (Joyce, Eliot) - but will this mean imposing hierarchy yet again?
• Think about the use of Myth in Modernist works (Ulysses, The Wasteland) - could it be a device of accessibility? To even out the obscurity caused by use of techniques like the "stream-of-consciousness"? A key to the dense allusive nature of the work? Also, How influential is The Golden Bough to the Modernist movement?
• Recommended reading: John Carey's The Intellectuals and the Masses.

Comedy: SS discussed classical comedy. Class ended with a discussion on the Dionysia. Some info on the City Dionysia here. Will upload notes on the emerging features of Comedy and on Aristophanes' contribution soon.

If you still end up on the last bench, groggy and wondering who the heck these Moss Grove Epi Cure Dedalus people are - I can only tsk tsk!at you. =D

Comedy: Reading List - 1

Katherine Lever: The Art of Greek Comedy

Kenneth Dover: Aristophanic Comedy

Rosemary Harriott: Aristophanes, Poet and Dramatist

Erich Segal: Roman Comedy

Erich Segal: Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus

Vernant and Detienne: Cunning Intelligence in Ancient Greece

Aristotle: Poetics

Arthur W. Pickard-Cambridge: Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy

From Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel - 2

Pages 9-11 discuss what constitutes "realism" in the 18th century novel. We ended with stating that the question of the novel and the reality it imitates is an epistemological debate.

1. Somewhat paradoxically, in Philosophy "realism" traditionally refers to the notions of reality advanced by medieval scholars. -> one that was thought to exist in universals, abstractions (novelists, you remember, emphasized the particularity and diversity in human experience).
2. In novels general truths only ever appear post res - this indicates the beginnings of the "Modern" conception of reality.
3. "Modern realism [...] begins from the position that truth can be discovered by individuals through his senses." (Watt, Rise, 12)
4. This is of course ushered in by the likes of Descartes, Locke and later, Thomas Reid (mid 18th. century)
5. Philosophical realism is characterised as:

• critical
• anti-traditional
• innovating
• preoccupied with semantics
• and, particulars of human experience
• free from traditional assumptions
• => all these have analogies in the novel form. 

This was P12. They won't let me continue numbering (gah blogger) - so rest in later posts.

NaM Syllabus Handout

From Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel

This book by Ian Watt was recommended by Supriyadi for the Novel and Modernity course. There are multiple copies available at the DL, although they have probably all been issued by now. E-book (in .doc format) available here.

This is a brief summation of what Watt contends in the first chapter. I would still ask you to read through the text - it's brilliant and not dense at all.

Realism and the Novel Form:

1. A few of the questions that this chapter presumes to answer: Is the novel really a "new" form? And are Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (DRF) responsible for its inception? How different was this form from previous Medieval prose or 17th century French prose?
2. DRF do not constitute a proper "literary school" - there is very little mutual influence observable. Can their contribution to the rise of the novel be explained by "sheer genius" and "accident"? What social conditions were conducive to it?
3. "Novel" - the term became an established literary epithet only by the end of the 18th century. - Realism becomes a distinctive feature. 
4. "Realism" - from réalisme that was used in 1835 to denote the vérite humaine (true to life, presumably) of Rembrandt's paintings. As opposed to the idéalite poetique or poetic idealism of most Neo-Classical art.
5. Becomes a specifically literary term in 1856 when used in Duranty's journal Réalisme.
6. The term gets connotations of the "low life" because of the alleged immorality of Flaubert and his ilk. 
7. Older texts (prose works) were linked to newer "realistic" works on the basis of their portrayal of the low life. egs. The story about the Ephesian matron is said to prefigure the genre because in it libido triumphs over wifely sorrow. The fabliau and the picaresque is similarly connected for presenting economic or carnal motives as overriding forces.
8. => Thus, one of the reasons Moll Flanders, Pamela and Tom Jones are "realistic" works is because Moll is a thief, Pamela a hypocrite and Tom Jones a fornicator (first Gigolo novel?)
9. BUT. This interpretation devalues the novelist's purported attempt of representing all varieties of human experience. They are not just an "inverted romance" (Watt, Rise)
10. The French Realists (Furetiére, Scarron, Lesage) claimed to present a dispassionate scrutiny of real life - this brings us to an important question - that of the correspondence between The Novel and the Reality it seeks to imitate.
11. This is a more epistemological (i.e. dealing with how knowledge is acquired, processed - a branch of philosophy) question.

(This was the summary of Pages 9-11 of the book. Rest will follow soon. The purple highlighting apparently makes it easier to remember later.)

Explanation

This blog is to be a compendium of (helpful?) essays and notes on things related to our syllabus. 'Our' referring to the ribald, pie-loving gang of UG-III, JUDE. Or Jadavpur University, Department of English for SEO. Overreaching juniors and mildly amused seniors too are most welcome to join in the festivities, of course.

I shall devote myself entirely to reading awesome (not the good word) tomes and critical essays that would put concrete to shame, fight the ogres of Academia with rusty (but trusty) sword, and sprinkle your answers with such examples of delightful imagery in ways that only a Virgo with a stunted social life can. And you shall have all this for free, and you don't even have to quote me like you do all those obscure East European critics.

Why do I do this? Why this sudden infusion of the milk of kindness, the true Christian spirit, such admirable altruism, you ask? Several good, solid reasons (the kind your answer sheets should be full of). One contracts the flu on a perfectly balmy summer day and one wonders how one is reduced from topping the country to dragging a 65% average in a span of two years. This angers one. Also, one sometimes needs shampoo. And shampoo costs good money, as you intellectual types probably are not aware of. 

One then inevitably reaches the eureka! moment. Why not start studying? Hmm, possible (though doubtful) solution to Crisis #1. What about money? Why not help out poor, drowning compatriots and have them pay for shampoo too? Yes, children. That is your job. I assume here you understand the concept of Pee Pee See.

NOTE: Reading this will not guarantee you graduating. Hell, it doesn't even guarantee me graduating. But here you're not paying a cent, really; unlike all those other websites around which charge you (in USD no less) for braindead answers that don't serve the purpose of the average English literature student. Based on your responses, this shall be continued. If you lurk but refuse to show some love back - everything folds.

I shall try and post full-length answers or at least notes drawing from class lectures, JSTOR articles, other secret academic resources I shall never part with. I'll keep posting useful links and reading lists. I shall sleep with thesauruses under my pillow and have neurotic attacks from reading too many Cliff's Notes (jus'kiddin) for you. Now make up your minds. Think or Thwim? In other words, do you pledge your fingers and mice to such a charitable cause? If yes, leave a whoop whoop.

One week to decide. Tick tick one.