JUDAS by Mervyn Morris(full text)

                            JUDAS

That evening, not so long ago, 

The Master, fingers in the dish, 

said gently: 'Did i not choose

you twelve, yet one of you's

a devil? 'Mocking, he glanced 

at me; and others, quick

on cue, looked my way too. 

The odd man out is always

Judas. 'We're from Galilee'

(Nasty little province, 

smells of fish)

The Point is, 

Jesus never trusted me

John,  who's favourite, he's

from Galilee. Like Peter, 

Andrew,  all the cosy band.

Which Galilean, Lord, 

will sit at your right hand? 

Tonight I kissed him

and I saw

that mocking glance again.

'Betrayest thou the Master

with a kiss? ' he said, ironic ;                                             -then

  seemed pleasing or                                                      something

like relieved he'd got me

right. That knowing judge of                                               men, 

he surely ought to realize  

that truths are often                                              complicated:

what he spotted hr created, 

distrusting with those distant 

foreign eyes.

The point is not the money.                                                      I'll 

go give it back. For, hell, 

what's thirty bits of silver? 

I would not sell

the Master, he's for free.Just

preserve my purity of hate

 for him I served and loved                                               well. 

My Lord, the Master of my                                                 fate, 

always withheld his trust.

                 By-Mervyn Eustes                              Morris.

Sylvia Plath|Edge|CriticalSummary|Analysis|Theme|Medea in Edge|Greek necessity|Death theme|

EDGE(Feb 11 1958)

                                              - Sylvia Plath

The women is perfected

Her dead 

Body wears the smile of accomplishment.

The illusion of a Greek necessity

flows in the scrolls of her toga

Her bare

feet seem to be saying

We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent

One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty

She has folded

them back into her body as petals

of a rose close when the garden

stiffens and odours bleed

                                            From the sweet, deep throats of the night                                                                          -flower

The moon has nothing to be sad about,

Staring from her hood of bone

She is used to this sort of things

Her backs crackle and drag.

                           

                     Sylvia Plath, an American woman writer is famous for her symbols of death and suicidal themes through her works. In most of her works she has revealed herself as a woman aspiring for death. The concept of death seems to be an unresolved mystery even now. And woman like Sylvia Plath has grown ardent to find out the mystery in that. Death is always portrayed positively by Plath in her poems. Even the poem Edge is not an exceptional to it.
                    The poem Edge by Sylvia Plath was  published on  February 11 1958. She begins her poem by expressing that women
can be perfected only in her death. According to her, women cannot be unchained from all her fetters until and unless she is dead. This is the reason why she hon ours death in this poem. Only after death, women's life is accomplished and that is evident through the smile on the dead body of a woman.
       " Her dead,
          Body wears the smile of  accomplish
                                                                    meant"
                   Plath, in order to support this idea on death she draws an example from Greek mythology. She brings in the illusional concept of mythology through the character called Medea, who sends a poisoned dress to kill the princess. Because her husband Jason deserted her to marry that princess. This is a poisoned dress motif in Greek mythology.
             "The illusion of a greek necessity
                flows in the scrolls of her toga"
                      Sylvia Plath herself has been compared to Medea as she has an unhappy married life. Also the comparison of toga can be comprehended as an insecure life of women in society. And sometimes the persons who ought to secure them, turns out to be an evil in their(women's) own life.
And that kind of frustration is expressed through Plath by all these comparisons.
                Also Medea is a character who kills her own blood relations out of pain that she gets from the person whom she trust. It's like she kills herself emotionally by killing her own flesh (her children and her father). Similarly.according to Plath ; a woman torments herself by exposing her madness to others due to the pain that she recieves from the society. At one point she will get fed up of everything and will rest in peace , which means death is the only medium of peace.
             "Her bare,
               feet seem to be saying
               we have come so far, it is over"
Then, the following lines in the poem deals with the comparison of women's phases of life to an incidents in the life of Medea . I.e., Medea kills all her children not because she hates her children but because of the hatred and love that she has for Jason, a man who remains as a cause for all her mad behavior.
                      Plath justifies this act of Medea in her poem. She says that Medea, by killing her children " she has folded them back into her body" from where all her children came out to this world. The word " the garden" refers to the body of Medea( woman) who holds all her children in her body as the petals of rose and she bleeds that sweet odour outside. This refers to the sacrifice of women both physically and mentally for the sake of her loved ones. They concieve the pain inside and deliver happiness and comfort outside.
                      Again Plath compares the women to the " night flower" who is being used for pleasure by men during night, there too she remains as a flower spreading fragrance. The line " The moon has nothing to be sad about" refers to the male dominated society that does not cares any of this sacrifice of women. But if one notices it from the perspective of women ( " her hood of bone"), one can understand that she has got used to all these kinds of  pains because " her backs crackle and drag" which means pains became a part of her body right from the day she starts to menstruate. So accepting pains is not at all a big deal in case of women, but justice to all her pains can be attained only through her death according to Sylvia Plath.
                   Therefore Sylvia Plath reveals the painful introvertedness of women in comparison to Greek mythological character Medea. Also as usual she never fails to give death as a solution for the pains in the life of a woman. And this ideology of Plath is due to her  bitter conception of her own life.

           

CRITICAL ESSAY ON 'JUDAS' BY MORRIS

                                                                                 JUDAS
              This poem was written by Mervyn Eustes Morris a Jamaican poet. Morris usually stresses upon the importance of nation and its language through his verse. He wants to redefine the aspect of Jamaican culture and their creole language. In the first stanza it had told thaat the master gave Judas a mocking smile. But actually Christ simply smiled at Judas , but in these lines Morris has exggerated the smile into a mocking smile. The word 'mocking' seemed to be the striking word and therfore poet wanted to highlight the 'mocking glance' of the master.
            The poet explains the Judas feeling of being partial by his master who had given the priority for John to sit in his right. This was again the poets partial feeling even in his own homeland by the colonisers.He has  said that the truth which is in the side of colonised is alays complicated in the foreign eyes. also the coloniser is the ''knowintg judge of man''  in the sense whart ever they say is believed by the world.
           On the whole the poem 'Judas' by Mervyn Morris is nothing but a representation of history by the point of view of the victim. He had deconstructed the real and the past i.e. deconstructing the already existing ideas. Also he wanted to say that the colonised people's ideas and life thoughts are not accepted whereas the colonisers idealogy, life and thioughts were accepted. The poet uses the word 'master' and 'lord' for christ inorder to avoid the religious conflict. Though he describes the pathetic condition if 'colonised' people in the poem the comparison used in this poem is quite controversial however the poet tried to escape of controversies through his careful selection of words and diction.
                                           The old man out is always 
                                           Judas 'we're from Galilee'
                                           (Nasty little province,
                                            smells of fish!)

FIRST NEIGHBOURS BY P.K.PAGE

                                        FIRST NEIGHBOURS -CRITICAL ESSAY
                        This poem was written by P.K.PAGE . She was acknowledged as the best Canadian poet and also fellow of Royal Society of Canada. her homeland is England and so hr dialect is very from that of a people of Canada. she expresses her feeling tat all the human are equal and there is no difference in them, but the people of Canada feels that she is different with the shape of her ear. she says that the girl jeered at her for burned bread. The homeland is always secure comparing to the other nation.
                         She says that she has become a minor and invalid. Her remarks are not worthy. Her gestures are silly of sick. She has become a trivial being in the views of her neighbours. the next stanza speaks about her mental state. And she says that finally she has become hardened like a chapped tarpaulin. She started to negotiate whatever she uttered is of strange meanings to others and Vice versa. She wants to connect herself with the others. She brought herself to the level to get connected with them.
                        In the next stanza , she is exploring mindscape through landscape, she says that nothing is steady everything  inaccurate.Here, the forest is compared to the inner mind. she wants to be connected with them she gets scared and then she says that clumsiness and fright are inevitable. Finally she says that prediction is forever impossible. We cannot predict anything. Thus she concludes her poem.

CANDIDA - PROBLEM PLAY

                                                  CANDIDA  AS A PROBLEM PLAY
                  A problem play is a play in the tradition of realism dealing with a problem, social ,moral, political, philosophical and so on. The Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen pioneered this kind of drama in Europe, and Bernard shaw in England followed suit.
                  Candida is a typical shavian problem play that handles the problem of love and marriage, man -woman relationship.The arrival of the young poet, Eugene Marchbanks, James, and his long-married wife, Candida, catapults their happy married life, as the middle-aged Candida discovers herself strangely caugnht in between the-dependent husband and her independent lover.
                   Shaw chooses an apparently stereotypical love-triangle, in which a married woman falls in an extra marriatal affair. But he characteristically turns the table as a woman is neither driven out by her husband, nor does she elope with her unlawful lover Candida stays back with Morell because he is waeker than Marchbanks, and Morell is no longer the strong and self-important husband. It is rather Candida who is emotional as well as social economic condition.
                   Candida's choice reflects Shaw's insistence on the importance of the practical wisdom . Candida is a thoroughly practical minded woman in this play. However, the play has a conventional sense of pleasantness is not allowing the institution of marriage to be seriously challenged by love. Thus 'Candida' is a problem play.

''PATRIOTIC DISGUISE''

''Patriotism is seen only in  painting tricolors''

PAINTED 

        PATRIOTISM

Admirable Nature

                                                             ''Rays of Refreshment''