Anthony Trollope’s He Knew He Was Right
Anthony Trollope’s He Knew He Was Right is unique among the prolific writer’s novels in having as its title a complete declarative sentence. Such a title stands as a sort of challenge to the reader: it invites us, as we make our way through the novel’s densely detailed presentation of lived reality, to consider the relation between that reality and the proposition put forward in the title sentence. What does it mean to say that Louis Trevelyan “knew he was right”? Even if we are unconvinced by J. Hillis Miller’s argument that “a long multi-plotted novel like He Knew He Was Right, with all its wealth and particularity of character, incident, realistic detail, may be an exploration of a single ‘complex word’” (Miller 77), Trollope’s choice of title inevitably throws us back, as we attempt to make sense of the events narrated under that title, on questions of moral epistemology; that is, it compels reflection on how we know what is right and on the extent to which we can be secure in that knowledge. Obliged to read the narrative as, among other things, a meditation on “knowing” and on “rightness,” we can perceive that Trollope’s concern here is with the manner in which his characters come to possess certainty in their moral judgments, with the process by which they acquire the disposition towards what is “right” that we can label “virtue.” “Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?” an irritated Caroline Spalding asks her zealously romantic sister, a credulous devotee of the genre. We might turn her question on its head and ask how it is that people learn how to live in an English novel, and what He Knew He Was Right in particular has to say about becoming good.
If the novel’s most prominent interest is in the breakdown or perversion of moral certainty, exemplified in the grotesque errors of judgment that deprive Trevelyan of his family and his sanity, it also manifests a subsidiary interest in the ways in which moral agents can replace such false certainty with the sort of just and balanced ethical vision that Trevelyan so conspicuously lacks. As we will see, this concern with moral education is displayed most directly in the novel’s secondary narrative threads, in which both Jemima Stanbury and her niece Dorothy attain an empathetic subtlety of perception and a depth of understanding of others that are absent in their former selves, as depicted at the opening of the novel.
Cyberbullying has become a widespread problem. The more people have been using the internet, the more the number of cyberbullying incidents increase. According to document A, 25.1% of girls and 16.6% of boys reported being bullied in their lifetime. In addition to this, document A also
Rochette-Crawley, S. (2004) James T. Farrell. The Literary Encyclopedia. April 2, 2004. Retrieved on May 13, 2009 from http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1487
Experience is the hidden inspiration in all of literature. Every letter, word, and sentence formed, every plot imagined, and every conflict conceived has a trace amount of its creator’s past ingrained within it. But most of all, authors reflect themselves in the characters they create. The protagonist of any story embodies certain traits and qualities of his or her creator; the virtues and vices, ambitions and failures, strengths and weaknesses of an author are integral parts of their characters lives. When authors’ experiences differ, so do their characters, as seen with Welty and King. Both authors had distinct upbringings, each with their own forms of hardship. The contrasting nature of these authors’ struggles is why their characters are the antithetical. As a result of these
Watt, Ian, “Realism and the Novel” in Rosenbaum, S. P. (ed.), English Literature and British Philosophy: A Collection of Essays (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1971).
...it up to each reader to draw their own conclusions and search their own feelings. At the false climax, the reader was surprised to learn that the quite, well-liked, polite, little convent girl was colored. Now the reader had to evaluate how the forces within their society might have driven such an innocent to commit suicide.
Vastag, Brian. "FDA Reviews Expanded Claims On Health Benefits Of Certain Foods." JNCI: Journal Of The National Cancer Institute 96.16 (2004): 1198-1199.
By saying that he is the “darker brother” he asserts his identity, but also makes a reference to brotherhood. Since he is talking about America, one can say that Hughes is referring to the brotherhood of all men in America, and therefore we are all related. The next couple of lines begins to show a historical reference to slavery, when house servants were to not be seen when guest appeared at the houses of white folks.This demonstrates the difference of private relationships versus public relationships, because in private being seen at the din...
Margaret is an intelligent, articulate, and ambitious woman who desires to rise up in social status by marrying a man of higher social rank. She attends to those above her, in hopes of elevating her status as she becomes closer to the upper-class. As a minor character, she plays a small yet crucial role in advancing Don John’s plot to slander Hero and spoil her wedding. As a lower-class character, Margaret serves as a foil to the rich girls, particularly Hero, who embodies every attitude and mindset Margaret does not. But she also offers an alternative perspective on the upper-class characters in the play. Because Margaret is victimized because of her social ambitions, punished for wanting to rise above her ...
Reading a book once in a while helps us from being ignorant from the outside world. Readers many times dare to compare and discuss about the books that they have read. This works when we read two master pieces of literature that could be very similar and in the same time very different stories. I had the great fortune of reading the screenplay of “To Kill a Mockingbird” as well as the part of the memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. After reading these two great pieces of literature I dare to compare the main characters, Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Maria from “I know why the caged bird sings”. The main intentions of this two books are to teach lesson to their readers whether they could be children or adults.
Although physician-assisted suicide is legal in some states, euthanasia is illegal throughout the United States. There are three classifications of euthanasia. One is passive euthanasia, which is the withdrawal of medical treatment with the intention to hasten an ill person’s death. Another is physician-assisted suicide, which involve a doctor knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means to commit suicide. This can include counseling about, prescribing, or supplying lethal doses of drugs. The last kind of euthanasia is active euthanasia or the intentional act of causing death of a patient experiencing great suffering. Another controversial piece to euthanasia is non-voluntary euthanasia. Most people, who are candidates for lack of a better phrase, are either in a coma, too young, senile, cognitively impaired, brain damaged or mentally disturbed. Euthanasia comes down to really what the medical definition of death is. According to Robert M. Vetch from the Yale University Press
"Sense and Sensibility." Novels for Students. David Galens, ed.Vol. 18. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group, 2003. 119-122. Print.
Through remarkably realistic characters like Elinor, Marianne, Fanny, Lucy, and Col. Brandon, Austen brings our attention to the way we should and should not act. She highlights sense’s importance, but insists that sensibility must temper it. These lessons, as much as the compelling stories, explain why Austen’s work is still relevant today. Read her works; learn what she teaches; strive to live your life in a way that unites sense and
Work Cited Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Ed. Donald Gray. Norton Critical Editions. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 2002.
Literary elements are demonstrated throughout the story and further improve our understanding of the central idea. The setting is important to the central idea because it shows the reader the type of society being described in the story. The language is also important to the central idea because it contains metaphors which further prove that the people are afraid of going against tradition because they are scared of being the target of violence. The conflict contributes to the central idea as well, because there are many examples of the society going against character, Mrs. Hutchinson, for not respecting the traditions put in place. The central idea is important to our understanding of the story because it sums up the main objective and furthers our
During the time-period when they authored this essay, the commonly held notion amongst people was that “In order to judge the poet’s performance, we must know what he intended.”, and this notion led to what is termed the ‘Intentional fallacy’. However, Wimsatt and Beardsley argue that the intention, i.e., the design or plan in the author’s mind, of the author is neither available nor desirable for judging the success of a work of literary art. It is not available because the author will most certainly not be beside the reader when he/she reads the text, and not desirable because intention as mentioned already is nothing but the author’s attitude towards his work, the way he felt while writing the text and what made him write that particular piece of writing and these factors might distract the reader from deciphering the meaning from the text. This method of reading a text without any biographical or historical background of either the poem or the poet practiced by the New Critics was known as ‘Closed Reading’. This stemmed from their belief in the autonomy of the text.