THE LAST LEAF - O.HENRY CBSE CHAPTER CLASS IX

1. What is Johnsy’s illness? What can cure her, the medicine or the willingness to live?

Ans: Johnsy was suffering from pneumonia. Only the willingness to live could cure her. She had made up her mind that she was not going to get well. The doctor said that if she did not want to live, then medicines would not help her.

2. Do you think the feeling of depression Johnsy has is common among teenagers?

Ans: Yes, I think the feeling of depression Johnsy is very common among teenagers. Because of the present lifestyle, teenagers are under constant pressure to outperform in every field. They are burdened with studies and the anxiety of future. They are also subjected to a lot of parental and peer pressure. Along with all this, they are also expected to behave in a certain manner as deemed appropriate by the society. Most of the times, they are unable to bear so much of stress and end up being depressed.

3. Behrman has a dream. What is it? Does it come true?

Ans: Behrman was a sixty year old painter. His lifelong dream was to paint a masterpiece. It does come true when he paints a leaf such that it looks extremely natural. He painted the last leaf left on a creeper.

4. What is Behrman’s masterpiece? What makes Sue say so?

Ans: Berhman’s masterpiece was the last leaf on the ivy creeper. Sue calls it masterpiece because this painting rekindled the willingness to survive in Johnsy’s heart and she was able to recover from her illness. Johnsy thought that she would die when the last leaf fell from the ivy creeper. But Berhman spent an entire night in a heavy storm to paint a fresh green leaf. Berhman suffered from pneumonia because of getting drenched while painting and eventually died. However, on seeing that leaf Johnsy thought it was real and got a feeling of self-belief. She realized she could get well if she wanted to and came out of her illness.

IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION

Essay on Importance of Education

Education is very important tool for everyone to succeed in life and get something different. It helps a lot in lessening the challenges of life difficult life. Knowledge gained throughout the education period enables each and every individual confident about their life. It opens various doors to the opportunities of achieving better prospects in life so promotes career growth. Many awareness programmes has been run by the government in enhance the value of education in rural areas. It brings feeling of equality among all people in the society and promotes growth and development of the country.

Education plays a paramount role in the modern technological world. Now-a-days, there are many ways to enhance the education level. The whole criteria of education have been changed now. We can study through the distance learning programmes after the 12^thstandard together with the job. Education is not so costly, anyone one with less money may study continuously. We can get admission in the big and popular universities with fewer fees through the distance learning. Other small training institutes are providing education to enhance the skill level in particular field.

NUN'S PRIEST TALE - A mock epic

According to Aristotle: 

“An epic is the tragedy of a conspicuous man, who is involved in adventures events and meets a tragic fall on account of some error of judgment i.e. Hamartia which throws him from prosperity into adversity; his death is not essential.”

So, the subject matter of an epic is grand and that’s why it is written in bombastic language in heroic couplets. Its style, too, is grand. On the contrary, a mock-epic is a satire of an epic. It shows us that even a trivial event can also be treated on epical scope.

A mock-epic is a literary parody of heroic style. It imitates serious characters and grave events in a comic manner. The subject matter is trivial and unfit for an epic but the subject is clothed in the conventional epic style. For example, in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” the ordinary event of taking away of a cock is compared and contrasted with famous and grave historical events of the past.

Nun’s Priest’s Tale is a mock-epic. The tale is ordinary and common. There is a widow, having two daughters. She has cattle and sheep as is usual with the villagers. She has a cock and many hens. Once, a cock is carried away by a fox but later escapes. Though the subject is trivial, yet this trivial subject has been exalted because fowls have been invested with the qualities of learned human begins. The cock and the hen behave, talk, argue and conduct like extraordinary human beings. We find the cock and the hen having learned and philosophical discussion on dreams which later includes some vital issues of human life. This is not at all a fanciful discussion; it is substantially learned. They also make historical references and illustrations to substantiate their respective points of view. We hardly believe that they are fowls. We are always reminded of two philosophers. Both stick to their own points of view on the reality of dreams and the discussion ends in no conclusion. So an animal fable has been elevated to the level of a philosophical poem, having deep thoughts and ideas. The cock is raised to the status of a hero and, thus the tale becomes a mock-epic.

Chaucer’s style in the poem is grand. He employs bombastic words for a trivial subject. For example, Chanticleer is called a gentle cock and his crowing is sweeter than that of any other cock. Pertelote, likewise, has the best colouring on her throat and she is called “a fair damsel”. She is courteous, discreet, gracious and companionable. So the description of the cock and the hen is sufficiently comic.

Humour is one of the essential prerequisite of a mock-epic and this tale is full of humour. Most of the comedy is introduced through the incongruity and disproportion between grand style and trivial subject. The trivial events have been enlarged to look lofty and grand. For example, the fox has been called “The False Murderer” and the false dissembler and has been compared to various notorious rascals of the past – Judas, Iscariot, Simon, Gauclon, etc. Likewise, the ordinary event of the taking away of the cock has been equated with well-known, historical events of the past e.g. the capture of Troy, the murder of King Priam etc. The outcry and lamentation raised by Pertelote at the event is louder than the hue and cry raised by Hasdrubal’s wife at his painful death. The sorrowful cries of the hens have been identified with the woeful lamentation, uttered by the senators’ wives when their husbands were burnt alive by Nero. On the taking away of the cock whole village – human beings as well animals – madly run after the fox and there is a stale of chaos as if it is the day of judgment whereas the carrying away of the cock by the fox is not a grave event. The awful noise produced at that time has been compared with the uproar created by the members of the Peasant’s Revolt. The chase of the fox is described in an inflated tone.

As essential prerequisites of an epic as well as mock-epic is the moral. There can be no mock-epic without moral. In “Nuns Priest’s Tale” moral is explicit as well as implicit. Though this story, Chaucer wanted to discuss important and vital issues of life, such as flattery predestination, the qualities of a good man and a good woman, the nature of dreams and irony of fate etc.

In short, we can say that “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is a parody of an epic in which all the leading epic features and conventions are brought in connection with a very trifling theme.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLASSICISM,NEO- CLASSICISM AND ROMANTICISM

Classicism: 
Classicism is aesthetic attitudes and principles based on culture, art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, and characterized by emphasis on form, simplicity, proportion, and restrained emotion.

Characteristics of Classicism are belief in reason, civilized, modern, sophisticated, interest in urban society, human nature, love, satire, expression of acceptance, moral truth, realism, beleif in good and evil, religion, philosophy, generic obstruction, impersonal objectivity, public themes, formal correctness, idea of order.

Neo-classicism:
Neo-classicism was the trend prevailing during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, characterized by the introduction and widespread use of Greek orders and decorative motifs, the subordination of detail to simple, strongly geometric overall compositions, the presence of light colors or shades, frequent shallowness of relief in ornamental treatment of facades, and the absence of textural effects. The period of Neo-Classicism relies heavily on mimicking Greek art. During the time period, the concept of naturalism was a main concern. Artists especially made great efforts to model the ways in which the ancients portrayed bodies and emotions in their works of art.

Romanticism:
Romanticism emerged as a reaction against Neoclassicism. The Neoclassical age emphasized on reason and logic. The Romantic period wanted to break away from the traditions and conventions that were dear to the Neoclassical age and make way for individuality and experimentation. One of the fundamentals of Romanticism is the belief in the natural goodness of man, the idea that man in a state of nature would behave well but is hindered by civilization.

Characteristics of Romanticism are belief in feelings, imagination, Intuition, Primitive, Medieval, natural modes, rural solitude, aesthetic, spiritual, value of external nature, love for vision, mysteriousness, idea, infinite, myth-making, beauty, truth, faith in progress, belief in man and goodness, individual speculation, revelation, concrete particulars, subjectivity, private themes, individual expressiveness, intensity, curiosity, images, symbols, common language, self-consciousness, romantic Hellenism.

Difference between Classicism and Romanticism

Romanticism emerged as a response to Classicism. 

Classicism stressed on reason. Romanticism on imagination.

Classicism follow the three unities of time , place and action. Romanticism only follows the unity of action, but does not follow the unities of time, place. 

Romanticism uses simple diction of common men from their everyday life. Classicism uses strict, rigid and logical diction and theme.

Classicists thought of the world as having a rigid and stern structure, the romanticists thought of the world as a place to express their ideas and believes. 

Classicism was based on the idea that nature and human nature could be understood by reason and thought. Classicist believed that nature was, a self-contained machine, like a watch, whose laws of operation could be rationally understood. Romanticists viewed nature as mysterious and ever changing. Romantic writes believed that nature is an ever changing living organism, whose laws we will never fully understand. 

Classicists thought that it was literature's function to show the everyday values of humanity and the laws of human existence. Their idea was that classicism upheld tradition, often to the point of resisting change, because tradition seemed a reliable testing ground for those laws. As for the Romantics, they wrote about how man has no boundaries and endless possibilities. The Romantics stressed the human potential for social progress and spiritual growth

Caroline and Cromwellian Literature

Caroline and Cromwellian Literature

The turbulent years of the mid-17th century, during the reign of Charles I and the 

subsequent Commonwealth and Protectorate, saw a flourishing of political literature 

in English. Pamphlets written by sympathisers of every faction in the English civil 

war ran from vicious personal attacks and polemics, through many forms of 

propaganda, to high-minded schemes to reform the nation. Of the latter type, 

Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes would prove to be one of the most important works of 

British political philosophy. Hobbes's writings are some of the few political works 

from the era which are still regularly published while John Bramhall, who was 

Hobbes's chief critic, is largely forgotten. The period also saw a flourishing of news 

books, the precursors to the British newspaper, with journalists such as Henry 

Muddiman, Marchamont Needham, and John Birkenhead representing the views 

and activities of the contending parties. The frequent arrests of authors and the 

suppression of their works, with the consequence of foreign or underground printing, 

led to the proposal of a licensing system. The Areopagitica, a political pamphlet by 

John Milton, was written in opposition to licensing and is regarded as one of the 

most eloquent defenses of press freedom ever written.

Specifically in the reign of Charles I (1625 – 42), English Renaissance theatre

experienced its concluding efflorescence. The last works of Ben Jonson appeared on 

stage and in print, along with the final generation of major voices in the drama of the 

age: John Ford, Philip Massinger, James Shirley, and Richard Brome. With the 

closure of the theatres at the start of the English Civil War in 1642, drama was 

suppressed for a generation, to resume only in the altered society of the English 

Restoration in 1660.

Other forms of literature written during this period are usually ascribed political 

subtexts, or their authors are grouped along political lines. The cavalier poets, active 

mainly before the civil war, owed much to the earlier school of metaphysical poets. 

The forced retirement of royalist officials after the execution of Charles I was a good 

thing in the case of Izaak Walton, as it gave him time to work on his book The 

Compleat Angler. Published in 1653, the book, ostensibly a guide to fishing, is much 

more: a meditation on life, leisure, and contentment. The two most important poets 

of Oliver Cromwell's England were Andrew Marvell and John Milton, with both producing works praising the new government; such as Marvell's An Horatian Ode 

upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland. Despite their republican beliefs they escaped 

punishment upon the Restoration of Charles II, after which Milton wrote some of his 

greatest poetical works (with any possible political message hidden under allegory). 

Thomas Browne was another writer of the period; a learned man with an extensive 

library, he wrote prolifically on science, religion, medicine and the esoteric