Thursday, December 24, 2009

Weaknesses of the novel- ADAM BEDE

Though Adam Bede is a well-constructed novel, critics have unanimously found fault with two things in it: the harsh treatment meted out to the poor wandering Hetty and the mechanical marriage of Adam and Dinah. According to George R. Creeger, Hetty’s transportation for the murder of her child through Arthur does not fully square with George Eliot’s conception of suffering as a prerequisite of her protagonist’s regeneration. “In all frankness it is not much of a regeneration, particularly when compared with that of Adam or even of Arthur; for although Hetty is no longer hard, is able to ask Adam’s forgiveness, and is willing in turn to forgive Arthur, the only new life she faces is that of exile. Pardoned from execution, she is nevertheless transported to the colonies, where she dies some years later. George Eliot might just as well have had her hanged to begin with. As a matter of fact it is at this point that Hetty becomes the victim of her creator; for after all allowance has been made. Hetty there is some of the same hardness in George Eliot she deplores in other. That there could be no room for Hetty in Loamshire is, from a symbolic point of view, bad enough; that apparently there could be no room for her anywhere in George Eliot’s scheme of things stands as an indictment against the ethic the book suggests.” But Creeger considers the marriage of Adam and Dinah very necessary for their growth into maturity in terms of George Eliot’s religion of humanity which makes mutual love between men and women a pre-condition for the development of their potentialities. Walter Allen says, “One cannot help revolting against what seems her creator’s vindictiveness towards Hetty.” Hetty’s pretty sensuality is beautifully rendered: everyone in the novel who meets her feels it, and so does the reader. But for George Eliot it seems a bad mark against her, something in itself reprehensible.
George Eliot, we learn from her biographers, was perhaps over-conscious of what she construed as her own ugliness, and it sometimes appears that in her fiction she had to mortify women beautiful as she herself was not. She could not, one feels, forgive sexual passion. Hetty has to suffer because she has fallen a victim to it herself and arouses it in others. “The lack of feeling for sexual passion, indeed, this deliberate turning way from it, makes Adam Bede’s marriage to Dinah at the end of the book difficult to accept. And here a further complication obtrudes: neither Adam nor Dinah quite convinces. The ‘good’ characters set in contrast to Donnithorne and Hetty, they are too good to be true.
Lettice Cooper remarks, “The weakness of the book, besides the oppressive virtue of Adam and Dinah is, as with many Victorian novels, the sacrifice of probability to plot, and the tidiness of the ending. George Eliot was moving towards a new kind of novel in which representation of life was to more important than the resolution of a plot, but she was still partly bound by the old convention. Hetty’s pardon, so dramatically and improbably brought to the place of execution by Arthur Donnithorne, is an artificial device to spare the reader. In the relationship between Hetty and Arthur, and in all that grows out of it, there is a sense of destiny which is falsified by this resolution. Again, while Adam’s love for Hetty is utterly convincing and the thing that brings him most to life as a human being, his final marriage to Dinah has none of that inevitability, but seems like a mechanical device to round off the story.”
Henry James points out that ‘the central figure of the book is Hetty Sorrel and the story should have ended with the conviction of Hetty. The continuation of the story after that point is fatal to the artistic integrity of the novel. If the story had ended, as I should have infinitely preferred to see it end, with Hetty’s execution, or even with her reprieve, and if Adam had been left to his grief, and Dinah Morris to the enjoyment of that distinguished celibacy for which she was so well suited, then I think Adam might have shared the honours of pre-eminence with his helpless sweetheart. But as it is, the continuance of the book in his interest is fatal to him. His sorrow at Hetty’s misfortune is not a sufficient sorrow for the situation. that his marriage at some future time was quite possible and even natural, I readily admit but that was matter for a new story.”
In answer to all the aforesaid critics it may be sad that Hetty cannot escape punishment for abandoning her newly born baby to its death in the wood, that the novel cannot end with her transportation as it is intended to study her life in relation to the lives of the other characters in it, and that the marriage of Adam and Dinah is necessary not only for the restoration of the harmony of their community which has been disrupted by Hetty’s seduction by Arthur but also for their growth into maturity. As Alan W. Bellringer says, “The coming together of Adam and Dinah, both exemplary figures, yet restrained by difficulties in their attitudes, is handled with considerable delicacy. Their un-claiming mutual regard is compared with ‘little quivering rain-streams’, ‘the first detected signs of coming spring’, ‘the tiniest perceptible budding’. The passionate partnership which these two can form is, I think, well suggested. It is essential for its success that Adam offer Dinah freedom of religious conscience. She will continue to teaching as a Methodist, only with more means now to make the sick comfortable. Adam argues that ‘feeling’s a sort of knowledge,’ so that her married life would equip her with experience which would help her in counseling others. With this viable arrangement in prospect, Dinah’s vision of Jesus ‘pointing to the sinful’ begins to appear less imperious and frightening. ‘She was so accustomed to think of impressions as purely spiritual monitions, that she moves towards him for his embrace, admitting that without him she had lost ‘fullness of strength’ for the ministry. With Adam, Dinah is able to combine practical religion with family life, and it is clear that, despite the late Methodist Conference’s ban on women-preachers, she is not held from other kinds of teaching.”

GEORGE ELIOT

• Philosophical element:
• Psychological realism:
• Plot Construction:
• George Eliot’s concept of tragedy:
• The problem of the ending of the novel:
• The autobiographical element:
• A modern novelist:

Philosophical element:
George Eliot was a philosopher. She was the first novelist to introduce the philosophical element in the English novel. She has also presented her philosophical views and ideas in her novels “The Mill on the Floss” and “Adam Bede”. She has discussed the nature and purpose of human life. She has also tried to analyze the relationship of the individual with the society particularly the relationship of the talented and gifted individual with a convention-ridden and narrow minded society. In this way her novels present her philosophical study of the essentials of life and also of the ideological standards of both of the society and the individual. For the purpose of the study she has presented “Maggie” and “Hetty” as an exceptionally gifted individuals who have to face the restrictions and on-floats of a narrow minded, rigid and unfriendly society: whereas it is not difficult for an ordinary individual to harmonize or coordinate with the rigid traditions and conventions of society. The intellectually gifted persons have to face innumerable problems in this regard. Maggie could not compromise either with the family routine of her relatives or with the traditions of her society. This strife between the intellectually gifted persons and the tradition-ridden society is the central theme of her novels. Her characters are not blind-followers of the practices and conventions prevailing around them, their society become hostile and unfriendly to them. They have to face many moral complications and complexities due to this strife. For George Eliot has not presented any systematic or direct situation of these moral complication and spiritual complexities of her characters. Her characters sank very deep in moral complications and spiritual complexities. George Eliot has not clue to suggest any idea how a compromise or level of coordination could be brought about between the intellectually gifted individuals of the motivated forces of the conduct of her characters but has also made this analysis and organic part of her structure. By virtue of her psycho-analysis of her characters, she has created complex characters in her novels. We not only read about the revealed conduct and behaviour of her characters but we also get knowledge about the inspiring impulses and the motivating sensations of her characters. We learn from her story that Maggie’s love for Philip was motivated by the impulses of pity and sympathy. In the same way we can understand that Maggie was attracted towards Stephan Guest due to a sense of deprivation which she had been experiencing by leading a life of extreme piety, obstination and asceticism.

Plot construction:
The plot of her novels is compact and organic. The action moves smoothly, logically but the plot is not totally without defects and blemishes. Proper proportion and symmetry have not been maintained in the narration of the story. Some important elements have been discussed too briefly and some less important elements have been given too much space. The childhood of Tom and Maggie helps in giving too much space. George Eliot has narrated the story of their childhood with unnecessary details. Although her psychological study of the mind and conduct of children is both excellent and impressive, yet it goes a distinct and remarkable disproportion with the main structure of the novel. This story of the psychological study of the child’s mind does not have a direct or significant bearing with the central theme of the novel. Maggie Stephan affair, which was a very important element for enunciating the central theme of the story related with the moral complications and spiritual complexities of an exceptionally gifted young woman, has been narrated too briefly. Her characters’ efforts to face moral complications after their desertion from family or society which has a direct link with the central theme of the novels, has also been presented too briefly in her novels. Then the ending of the story is also questionable and not technically viable.

Concept of Tragedy:
For George Eliot, tragedy occurred due to the strife between the exceptionally gifted individual and convention-ridden society. But, according to her, tragedy does not occur in the case of ordinary people. Only the gifted and talented people who cannot compromise and coordinate with their narrow minded social set up, have to face a tragic end. They have to suffer troubles and hardships. Their lives become miserable and unbearable and in George Eliot’s thinking only physical extermination is the solution of their complications. Maggie was a gifted and talented individual. She has to suffer many hardships and difficulties at the hand of societies. George Eliot could not find any solution of Maggie’s communication. She could not think of any workable process and coordination and compromise between Maggie and her society. Death adheres to her as the only solution of her troubles and miseries.

The Problem of the Ending of the Novel:
Most of the critics have raised many technical objections concerning the ending of the novel. They have called the ending hasty, abrupt and malo-dramatic when after the Stephan-Maggie episode, Maggie was deserted by her family as well as by her society, her situations became not only complicated but also hopeless. She became a victim of very much spiritual complexities and very severe moral complications. At this junction, things went out of control of George Eliot. She could not run the proceedings with the same technical perfection and skill with which she had carried out the earlier proceeding. Her confident, coolness and equilibrium of her philosophical and psychological attitude were disturbed. She began to move the story in a sensational male-dramatic manner. She was not able to compose a philosophically proper situation for Maggie’s problems. If she had carried out Maggie’s marriage with Stephan Guest, she would have been facing self-sacrifice which Maggie had been demonstrating from the whole action of the story. It could also have impaired the enunciation of the theme of love and duty which was the hallmark of the life not only of Maggie but also that of George Eliot. However not distinct or explicit plan of the ending of the novel is explicable in its action. The story does not suggest any concise philosophically balanced ending. Had a character been introduced somewhere in the middle of the story and who should have been free from all moral encumbrances. It could have been possible endings, i.e. a gradual and logical solution of the moral complication and spiritual complexities of her characters. It could have been shown that relations of love, sympathy and friendship developed between Maggie and that character without indicating them in any moral complications, then Maggie’s marriage could have been possible and a reasonable solution could have been achieved, but in that case such an ending would have negated, George Eliot’s concept of tragedy. In this way, we see that the problem of the ending of the novel is in-explicatory complicated and one cannot suggest any type of ending of this novel. We should have seen a gradual and logical outcome of the proceeding actions. Perhaps the autobiographical strain also make things more difficult and complicated for George Eliot as for as the ending of the story is concerned.

The Autobiographical Element:
“The Mill on the Floss” has a very strong autobiographical element. The autobiographical element of this novel does not exclusively depend on a true and realistic representation of the life of the writer through her heroine. It is in the analysis of the inner life of Maggie’s mind i.e. her moral and spiritual complications that the autobiographical element becomes prominent. George Eliot has shown in the story of Maggie the same spiritual complexities and moral complications as she herself had faced in her life. George Eliot was an intellectually and artistically gifted person and it was very difficult for her to compromise and coordinate with the rigiid conventional society. She has shown the same problems in the life of Maggie. Maggie is also an exceptionally talented person and she also finds it difficult to harmonize and coordinate the rigid conventional attitude of her society. Then there is also the problem of the principle of love and duty. George Eliot, throughout her life, remained firm and loyal to this principle. Maggie also shows the same furnace and loyalty in adhering to this principle. Then there are also some resemblances of events and relations. George Eliot was passionately attached to her brother Isaac. Maggie has also been shown to be very deeply attached to her brother Tom. George Eliot has the tendency to become emotionally attached whenever she came in contact with the personality of her liking. Maggie has also been shown to have this inclination. Hence, she becomes attached to Philips and then she is attracted towards Stephan Guest.

A Modern Novelist:
George Eliot has been called a modern novelist. She brought about her revolutionary change in the art of novel writing. She transformed the art of novel writing from a mere story-telling practice to philosophical description and human relations of life. She was inclined to introduce the philosophical element in the genre of novel writing. She discussed the nature and purpose of life in her novels. She also studied the problems of the relationship of individual and society. She also radically showed a critical and analytical attitude towards orthodox Christianity. She has also shown the struggle of the talented individual with a narrow minded, tradition-ridden society. Another factor that makes her a modern novelist is her great skill of psycho-analysis. She is the first to introduce psychological realism in the English novel. She not only presented the revealed conduct of the characters but also presented a psycho-analysis of the motivating and inspiring forces and sensations behind their conduct. In this way, she presented complex characters in her novels and from this beginning the later novelists specially the 20th century novelists developed the technique of the stream of consciousness in novel writing.

JANE AUSTEN AS A NOVELIST

Jane Austen wrote out of sheer love of writing without having an eye on popularity or monetary gain. She has often been praised for the silvery perfection of her art. Macaulay has in his journal the entry: "I have now read once again all Miss Austen's novels; charming they are. There are in the world no compositions which approach nearer to perfection." She is perfect because she never strays outside the material and method of her art
Jane's creative range is in some respects a very limited and narrow one. In the first instance it is confined to her portrayal of the gentry class in which she was born and which she knows best. Leonie Villard has rightly pointed out: "The 'gentry,' that class which is essentially proper to English society, holding to the aristocracy as well as to the middle class, and forming a link between them, is not only the class which Jane Austen knows best, it is also the only class that she wishes to know."
Jane further limits herself by taking not a large canvas for her portraiture but selecting only "the little bit of irony (two inches wide)" to work upon. According to her, "3 or 4 Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on," as she wrote to her niece, the literary Anna. Owing to the fascinating pictures of domestic life portrayed by Austen, her novels are considered the classics of "domes¬tic comedy" novels. She lived through the French Revo¬lution and the Napoleonic Wars, but she does not mention these historic events even once in her novels. There are no adventures, no sensational incidents, and no romantic musings in her novels. There are incidents of elopements such as those of Lydia and Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, or Julia and Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park. They are, however, in no sense romantic affairs but fall in the natural course of events in the story.
Jane Austen's novels deal with commonplace humdrum events of everyday life, in which people do little more than talk to one another about their trivial interests. Life mostly consists of paying Visits, quizzing and speculating about new arrivals, driving to meet relatives or to do shopping, walking in parks, etc. The quiet drama of life that is treated is mostly confined to drawing rooms. That is why Charlotte Bronte regrets that Jane's novels lack the picturesque aspects of external nature for there is "no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck" in her novels. Owing to Jane's preoccupation with ordinary, common¬place events of life, her novels are called "tea-table romances." Walter Scott praised her for her exquisite treatment of ordinary events: "The young lady has a talent for describing the involvements of feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with." He also praises her "...exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters inter¬esting...."
According to Professor Garrod the central situation in Austen's novels is more or less the same, namely, young women in search of husbands. In Somerset Maugham's view, "She wrote very much the same son of story in all her books, and there is no great variety in her characters." Even in the treatment of love Jane is limited in her inability to express impulsive emotions, associated with love, directly and passionately. Charlotte Bronte emphasizes the lack of passions in her novels when she remarks: "She ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound. The passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy sisterhood." According to George Eliot, Jane
Austen "never penetrated into deeper experience, the powerful and spiritual things of life."
The most important aspect of Jane's narrow range is her comic mode of holding a mirror up to life. She is a comedian and her literary impulse from the beginning to the end, has been humorous. On being asked to write an historical romance by the Prince Regent's librarian, Mr. Clark, she clearly told him that she "could no more write a romance than an epic poem." She could under no condition go beyond her range of the comic vision of life. Most of her successful characters are regular comic char¬acter-parts like Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins.
Within her narrow range Austen is among the greatest literary artists, the greatest "artificers" of fiction. Her picture of life is "a delicate water-colour to put beside the more vigorous oil-painting of Fielding." Her work is that of a miniaturist or illuminator. According to Charlotte Bronte "There is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting" of life by Austen. Like a true artist Jane holds to the classical ideal, "nothing in excess; everything in its proper proportion." She, however, conceals the effort of her creative activity so well that her work seems absolutely spontaneous and natural, almost a free outburst. Her own conception of a perfect novel as given in Northanger Abbey is "a work in which the greatest powers of mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowl¬edge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language."
Professor Garrod's remark that Jane Austen is inca¬pable of writing a story refers to her inability of narrating sensational and exciting happenings. In fact, such a se¬quence of happenings was beyond her range. But, even while dealing with commonplace events of life, she goes on manipulating relationships among characters by giving twists to them in such a way as always keeps the reader in suspense. The story of the struggle of mutual attraction against mutual repulsion of Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, passes through" such situations as keeps the readers eager to know the next development, till the end. Jane Austen also anticipates Henry James* favourite tech¬nique of telling the story not as the author perceives it, but as one of the characters in the story perceives it. This device helps to eliminate the frequent intrusions of the author, which break the illusion of reality and make the novel rambling and loose in form. The story of Pride and Prejudice is narrated from the point of view of Elizabeth.
All of Jane Austen's novels are meticulously inte¬grated. There is not a character or incident that does not make its necessary contribution to the development of the plot. Structurally her novels belong to that type of the "dramatic novel" in which the hiatus between the charac¬ters and the plot disappears. The given qualities of the characters determine the action, and the action in turn progressively changes the characters, and thus everything is borne forward to an end. In Pride and Prejudice, the pride of Darcy and prejudice of Elizabeth give rise to action which in its turn brings about a change in them. Darcy discards his pride and Elizabeth her prejudice and thus the hero and the heroine are finally united. Baker divides the plot of Pride and Prejudice into five acts of high comedy corresponding with the five stages of situa¬tion at the beginning, development of conflict, climax in the middle of the plot, followed by the decline of conflict and final resolution. In the novel the climax is reached when Darcy's proposal is rejected by Elizabeth.
Austen's skill to fuse together good and bad in her characters in the same proportion as is found in nature makes them real and life-like. She has an unerring eye for the outward idiosyncrasies of her characters, their manner, their charm and their tricks of speech. Her characters are therefore so much individualized that each is different from the other. In Macaulay's view she approaches nearest to the manner of Shakespeare in this respect. He says: "she has given us a multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet everyday, yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings."
Austen has a deep psychological insight which enables her to correlate the surface peculiarities of her characters with their inner nature. She also reveals a keen insight into the processes of the heart and the hidden internal workings of the minds of her characters. These hidden tumults of heart often bring about changes in her characters. Austen's characters are, therefore, not static or flat but well-rounded and vibrant Being embodiments of essential human na¬ture, her characters transcend the bounds of time, to become figures of as timeless and universal a significance as the pilgrims of Chaucer.
What makes Jane Austen a source of perennial interest is the all - pervading presence of humour and irony in her stories. It is the irradiating spark of humour that enlivens her commonplace subject matter and gives to her novels their exhilarating charm. But she never ridicules "what is wiser or good." "Follies and nonsense, whims and incon¬sistencies" (Chapter XI) divert her and she laughs at them. In Pride and Prejudice, Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins arc constantly the source of laughter because of their vulgarity and mean understanding. Mr. Bennet misses no opportu¬nity of amusing himself at their cost. Mr.'Collins' foolish display of self-importance and humility and his pompous proposal to Elizabeth are also full of great fun and laughter.
Jane Austen's humour is quiet and delicate. She never exaggerates the fun. Her sense of ridicule is proportioned to the follies which divert her. Her humour is cultivated and genial; it is the humour of an observer — of a refined, satisfied observer — rather than the humour of a reformer. This is why even her satire is mild and genial, and often tinged with irony. When Lydia in Pride and Prejudice suggests to her mother that the family visit her for she can get husbands for her sisters easily there, Elizabeth remarks: "I thank you for my share of the favour; but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands".
Irony is the most important element of Jane's comic vision. According to Professor Chevalier, "the basic fea¬ture of every irony is a contrast between a reality and an appearance." While "verbal irony" shows the contrast between the apparent meaning of a statement and its real meaning, "situational irony" provides the contrast between the expectation and fulfillment of a situation. "Irony of character" presents the contrast between appearance and reality of characters. Irony is at play continually and all through Pride and Prejudice. All the characters do the opposite of what they wish to do and experience the opposite of what they and others expect them to experi¬ence. Darcy and Wickham are the impressive examples of the irony of character. Elizabeth who describes Wickham as "the most agreeable man I ever saw" and considers Darcy to be "the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry", has to revise her opinion soon to her great mental agony Darcy, who at first sight finds Elizabeth "not handsome enough to tempt me", later on describes her "as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance". He in good faith tries to prevent his friend Bingley from marrying a Bennet girl, but marries one himself. Mrs. Rennet thinks Darcy to be the most disagreeable man in the world, but soon after goes "distracted" with delight when she hears he is to be her son-in-law. She takes Elizabeth to her husband so that he may persuade her to marry Mr. Collins, but Mr. Bennet instead tells Elizabeth: "An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents — your mother will never see you if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do".
Jane Austen is undoubtedly one of the great prose stylists among prose writers in English. She uses proper and apt words and her sentences are balanced, clear, precise, and simple, yet refined and lively. Though she sometimes uses archaisms and stilted diction, her dia¬logues are very natural and suited to her characters. Dr. Chapman calls her "one of the most accurate writers of dialogue of her own or any age."
Jane Austen's moral-realistic vision, the perfection of her art, her sparkling humour and irony, her skill in framing compact plots and natural dialogues, and portray¬ing living characters, and the universal significance of her stories — all contribute to making her in the words of David Cecil "one of the supreme novelists of the world."

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS BY JONATHAN SWIFT

VOYAGE 1

Gulliver is a doctor by profession and every ship must carry a doctor by law. He had gone to many voyages. After traveling form a number of voyages, he had written a letter to his cousin Simpson to convey him what he has observed from different voyages.
A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT:
In this voyage Gulliver gives a telescopic view of man. The people of Lilliput were of six inches and Gulliver was of 72 inches. He looked strange among them. His high height also gives the concept of human being thinking himself very high, above all and powerful, thinking that others are of no value and no status before him. And the smallness of those people who live in Lilliput represents the actual human society and its affairs have been made to look ridiculous by being represented as very small.
The first point in the letter was:
• “When part and faction was extinguished”
Here in Lilliput people were divided into two parties known as Tramecksan and Samecksan. There was no unity between them. These two parties are the parody of Tories and Whigs. Tories belong to the high church (In book which is stated as high heel) and Whigs belong to the law church (in book which is stated as low heel). The difference between the two parties was that Tories were more ceremonial in their prayers and Whigs were less ceremonial or we can also say that Tories were strict Roman Catholic where as the Whigs were liberal Proteston.
• It is a thin flip of allegory through which we can easily see that swift is talking about England but not the imaginary land of Lilliput. He is satirizing the religious and political parties. He is ridiculing sectarianism.
• During this voyage he is also telling us the fithness of humanbeings. He says that humanbeings are a store of filthnese. Actually Swift wants to say that man is all filth. If you look at the body of man, it is ugly. Inside he is a store of filth. For this reason he has been given the charge of misanthropist. But he is not a misanthropist. But he is not a misanthropist but a reformer and an idealist.
• While talking about the king of Lilliput, he said, “He is taller by almost the Breadth of my nail.” This smallness indicates the small and shallow character of the man from inside. Man is no more than 6- inches. He is physically ugly and small but talks about the whole universal authority.
• Then he comes towards the condition of court. He saw that there is going on rope dancing in the court offing and it is quite though to dance on a rope., so a number of people fell down and had broken their limbs but the thing which is found different is that when one of the favourite of the king “Flimnap” danced and was about to fall down, the king kept down a cushion so that he could not damage himself by felling down.
The fact behind these words is “Nepotism”. Rope dancing is a typical term used for diplomacy. Swift is now trying to show the corruption found in court. Again if we go his letter we will find that “Judges honest and upright, pleaders learned and modest”. It is an irony. The situation found in the court is opposite to it. Those who are found near the king or those who are loving to king are saved by them whereas the others are of no importance. Next he talks about the greatness of the Emperor.
“GOLBASTO MOMAREN EVLAME GURDILO SHEFIN MULLY ULLY”
“Most mighty Emperor of Lillput, Delight and Terror of the universe,
Monarch of all Monarchs: Taller that the sons of men: whose feet press down to the center and whose head strikes against the sun: at whose Nod the princes of the Earth shake their knees: ; pleasant as the spring, comfortable as the summer, fruitful as Autumn, dreadful as the spring.”
These all are shown the qualities of the king of Lilliput who is only a man of 6 ½ inches. Actually this is the situation of man. He think that he is very high to all others, he is verymuch powerful but he is nothing but a store of filth in reality.
• Further more is that he needs the betterment of society and humanbeings. When there was a war in Lilliput and the king said him to destroy the opposition, Gulliver opposed him and said, “And I plainly protested that I would never be an instrument of bringing a free and brave people into slavery.”
• This sentence makes our mind clear that such a kind of man can how be a misanthropist. He is against slavery and clonaism. He want to reform and idealize the society. The point which he has given is a strong point of view of his being philanthropist. He says that he is not prepared to use power for the destruction of humanity. He is condemning colonialism. He is against people making slaves. He has a great love for human liberty. He respects the freedom of humanity. So, such a man can never be a misanthropist.
• One who hates humanity, he only curses humanity, he does not want to entertain them, the entire purpose of Swift is to make us laugh, he is entertaining entertain. He will only curse.
• He is an idealist. To an idealist everything appears imperfect and there is nothing perfect in actual fact with the ideal. So he condemns humanity not because humanity is wrong rather he condemns humanity because it is away from the ideal.

LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects against discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, sex, religion and national origin. However when the judicial system has examined English Only workplace policies in light of Title VII, it has generally determined that such policies are not discriminatory if an employee is able to speak English. Although plaintiffs have argued that language is inextricably linked to national origin and cultural identity, the courts have stated that the use of a language other than English is detrimental to the morale of monolingual English speakers and a single language is necessary to ensure workplace harmony and proper management. This paper examines the court cases where English Only workplace policies have been challenged, and identifies the prevalent myths and ideologies held by businesses and the courts about language use, identity, and bilingual speakers. Through the process of homogeneism, linguistic diversity is rejected as monolingual English speakers are able to create and enforce rules that favor themselves as they construct the identity of “American” in their own image.

Language is a central feature of human identity. When we hear someone speak, we immediately make guesses about gender, education level, age, profession, and place of origin. Beyond this individual matter, a language is a powerful symbol of national and ethnic identity. (Spolsky, 1999, p. 181)

INTRODUCTION

Language—both code and content—is a complicated dance between internal and external interpretations of our identity. Within each community of practice, defined by Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1999, p. 185) as groups “whose joint engagement in some activity of enterprise is sufficiently intensive to give rise over time to a repertoire of shared practices,” certain linguistic (among other) practices are understood by the members to be more appropriate than others. While monolingual speakers are restricted to altering the content and register of their speech, bilingual speakers are able to alter the code, as well as content and register, of their language dependent upon the situation. Speakers who embrace the identity of a particular community will engage in positive identity practices, while those who reject the identity will use negative identity practices to distance themselves from it (Bucholtz, 1999). However, this framework only takes into account the intentions of the speaker, and neglects the role of the hearer. As Spolsky implies above, language is not only a means for us to present our own notion of “who we are,” but it is also a way for others to project onto us their own suppositions of the way “we must be.” Conflict arises when the hearer has a different understanding of the speaker’s identity than the one the speaker desires. The tension is further compounded when the hearer is in a position of power and can not only misinterpret the desires of the speaker, but can actively thwart this expression, forcing the speaker into an entirely different, perhaps unwanted, identity. This plays out daily in the workplaces of America, where English Only policies are enforced to maintain the powerful hearers’ view that good workers speak English among themselves and refrain from other, inappropriate, languages.
The use of language to construct identity has been explored in education (Adger, 1998; Bucholtz, 1999; Fordham, 1998; Toohey, 2000), specifically among bilingual Spanish-English speaking students (Garcia, 2001; Zavala, 2000) and in bilingual Spanish-English society as a whole (Johnson, 2000; Morales, 2002; Stepick & Stepick, 2002; Valdés, 2000; Zentella, 2002), but little research has focused on bilinguals in the workplace (Goldstein, 1997; Martinovic-Zic, 1998). Court cases provide us the most revealing records of the struggle between bilingual workers and their monolingual employers and illustrate that, while other language groups have been affected by English Only policies, the policies have predominantly affected Spanish speaking communities. Court cases show that the linguistic practices of the workplace community of practice have been dictated successfully by the employers, not the members themselves. This disempowerment has been upheld by the judicial system, which believes that language is not a component of ethnic identity, especially in instances where the employee has the ability to speak the majority language. As long as the employer makes a statement of business necessity, no matter how weak or spurious the argument, the courts have agreed that English Only policies are not discriminatory. By identifying English as the only appropriate language between workers, the employer is attempting to mandate a uniform identity (that of English speaking worker) while perpetuating the idea that other languages should be neither seen nor heard. Thus, as arbiters of appropriateness and controllers of the homogenization process, the majority is able to maintain its position of power.
How is it that, even as the courts are looking at the application of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which was written to protect minority groups from discrimination, they support these discriminatory workplace practices? Why is it that a country that bills itself as “a nation of immigrants” seeks to deny its residents their cultural heritage? How can a citizenship that proclaims to value independence, individuality, and innovation simultaneously support the homogenization of itself? In this study, I will examine cases of English Only in the workplace to try to answer these questions. Lippi-Green (1997) states that discrimination based on accent is the “last back door to discrimination,” but this in no way implies that it is the only form of language discrimination that still occurs. Even a cursory scan of these court cases will show that many forms of language discrimination remain pervasive and are, in fact, sanctioned by the courts. An examination of the reasons given by employers to justify their negative identity practices, as well as judicial reasons for accepting these justifications, will reveal the myths held about language use and the ideologies supporting them.

RELATION BETWEEN IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE

Neither identity nor language use is a fixed notion; both are dynamic, depending upon time and place (Norton, 1995). How we perceive ourselves changes with our community of practice, allowing us multiple identities over the years or even within a day. In discussions of ethnic identity, many have pointed out that language is not a necessary requirement to identify with an ethnicity (e.g., a person may identify themselves as Irish yet not speak Gaelic; see Eastman & Reese, 1981, or Liebkind, 1999). Additionally, an ethnic group or individual ascribing to that group may have a symbolic attachment to an associated language, but may use another more utilitarian language instead. More commonly an ethnic group identifies with a specific language:
For the majority of Hispanics, the Spanish language runs deeply into cultural and personal identities. Anzaldúa’s (1987) eloquent phrasing of this principle captures the language-identity fusion: “Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity—I am my language” (p. 59). To relinquish Spanish either literally or symbolically (which many monolingual citizens of the United States seem to think is appropriate for integration into the country) is to relinquish a significant and powerful dimension of personal and social identity. (Johnson, 2000, p. 177)
However, all this presumes the speaker is able to self-select their ethnicity, or more broadly, their identity.
The work of the sociologist Goffman has been influential in showing that the self is constructed entirely through discourse, making our language choices of paramount importance to our identity construction. In fact, he states that personal identity is defined by how others identify us, not how we identify ourselves (1963). The speaker can attempt to influence how others perceive them, but ultimately it is the hearer who creates the speaker’s identity. If the speaker is not allowed any influence on their own output, then the hearer is able to construct an identity for the speaker which may be entirely disparate from the speaker’s desired identity. This allows the hearer an inordinate amount of power, and diminishes the self-sufficiency and independence of the speaker. This is a frequently used technique to control populations in settings as diverse as schools, prisons, and workplaces. It is also used in national language policies to extinguish the power associated with politically “subversive” and “inappropriate” languages, such as Catalan in Spain or Hokkien in Singapore (see Pennycook, 1994). Being multilingual in the wrong languages is seen as an impediment to integration and hegemony, which is equated with harmony, although Phillipson (1999) has pointed out that there is “no straight correlation between a single language such as English and positive ascriptions such as progress, peace, international understanding, or the enjoyment of human rights” (p. 99).

BILINGUAL IDENTITY

Bilingual language use by a minority group is often analyzed as having two components: the “we” versus “they” code (Gumperz, 1982; Lambert, 1972 in Zentella, 1990), or the high versus low language (Valdés, 2000). The minority language “we” code represents in-group speech. It connotes intimacy and is largely confined to the home because it suffers lower prestige than the “they” code or high language, which is the language of the more powerful group and is associated with wealth and status. In an English speaking environment, Spanish speakers may choose to use Spanish to signify themselves as different from the dominant group, while simultaneously creating camaraderie with other Spanish speakers. These choices are made not only within situations, but within conversations. Code switching is another form of language use, which can be at once exclusionary and inclusionary.
It serves to create an important sense of ‘them’ and ‘us’, as outsiders cannot easily share in this linguistic code…. To insiders this is a legitimate form of communication with its own unconscious rules and forms. It serves as an important identity marker for the Spanish-speaking community, and like any linguistic code, is a dynamic, evolving symbol of solidarity. (Mar-Molinero, 2000, p. 185)
While outsiders may view code switching or code mixing as a deficient ability to speak English (Zentella, 2002), those who speak “Spanglish” may see it as representative of their identities as Spanish speaking Americans. “Spanglish is what we speak, but it is also who we Latinos are, and how we act, and how we perceive the world” (Morales, 2002, p. 3).
So much of the discussion of multilingualism assumes that the speakers are equally proficient in all languages. But for many, although they have at least a fundamental proficiency in English, they are not comfortable with the language. Although able to create grammatically correct utterances, they are unable to fully express themselves and create their desired identity. They may rely on their primary language because it is a quicker and more effective communication tool. For many then, language is not a uniform that can be put on when they arrive at work and removed at the end of the day, but is integral to their being, in the way that religion or political affiliation is to others.

HOMOGENEISM

A nation of immigrants, Americans have always feared the newest arrivals (for historical snapshots of American xenophobia, see Crawford, 1992; Daniels, 1990; Reimers, 1998; Ross, 1994). Increasing numbers translate into increasing power, and new immigrants threaten the status of those who have come before. Allport notes “it is not a person’s present status in society that is important. It is rather the shifting of his/her status upward or downward that regulates prejudice” (1979, in Ochoa, 1995, p. 244). More specifically, Beer (1985) states “when certain subordinate groups break out of a traditionally subservient position and improve their situation relative to others, the likelihood is that there will be conflict” (p. 217). Reacting to this loss of power, the majority establishes laws and policies most favorable to themselves. English Only workplace policies are generally an attempt to dictate the identity of workers in order to exercise hegemony, and to remake the workers in the image of the English speaking employer. Within this is the unspoken assumption that it is both natural and preferable to be monolingual.
Work-related language attitudes can also be founded in cultural notions about national, class, or ethnic privilege. Even characterizing the United States as “an English speaking country” presumes the privilege of not mentioning that millions of its residents speak languages other than English. A person with this sense of language privilege believes in the right not to be subjected to varieties other than his or her own.” (Johnson, 2000, p. 290)
Irvine and Gal (2000) call this practice erasure: “the process in which ideology, in simplifying the sociolinguistic field, renders some person or activities (or sociolinguistic phenomena) invisible” (p. 38). Here, citizens, and their languages, are erased from the landscape by the prevailing ideology.
The importance of understanding ideologies concerning language use has recently been highlighted by the work of several linguistic anthropologists. Irvine (1989) defines language ideology as “the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests (p. 5) and Kroskrity (2000) emphasizes that it is “constructed in the interest of a specific social or cultural group” (p. 8). In the United States, that prevailing interest is the population of monolingual English speakers, and they benefit most from an ideology that believes a single language creates national unity and is vital to establishing a resident’s identity as an American. Blommaert (2004) reminds us that ideology need not reflect reality, and through the process of erasure Americans who subscribe to this ideology can conveniently ignore instances of conflict and confusion conducted in English, as well as their fellow citizens who identify themselves as American yet speak a language other than English. This ideology has many names, but one goal. Called Standard Language Ideology (Lippi-Green, 1997), monoglot ideology (Silverstein, 1996; Blommaert, 2004) or homogeneism (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1998), it assumes monolingualism can and does exist and is a necessary component of nation building, and attempts to return society back to its pure, harmonious roots.
When a single language is prized above all others, there is danger that those others will be silenced, both literally and figuratively. Lippi-Green (1997) states that “a standard language ideology, which proposes that an idealized nation-state has one perfect, homogenous language, becomes the means by which discourse is seized, and provides rationalization for limiting access to discourse” (pp. 64-65). A monoglot ideology, warns Blommaert (2004), will not only deny that linguistic diversity exists within its borders, but will put in place practices that prohibit such diversity. When English is the only language that is allowed to be heard, other languages and their entwined cultures and ideas are effectively silenced. “Through sameness of language is produced sameness of sentiment and thoughts,” declared the Federal Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1887 (Crawford, 1992, p. 48) as he instituted English Only boarding schools in an effort to eradicate the Navajo language and Native American resistance to the U.S. government. When society ascribes positive values to one language over others, speakers of devalued languages may be shamed into abandoning their native tongue. In the quest for a more positive social identity, they may choose to assimilate linguistically. “If language is a salient marker of group membership, the individual may face linguistic adaptations that may result in subtractive bilingualism or even language erosion” (Hansen & Liu, 1997, p. 568).
The process of homogeneism is especially troubling, as homogeneity is not only seen as necessary and desirable, but is also viewed as the norm. Blommaert and Verschueren (1998) raise several important points regarding this process. First, simply by stating that monolingualism is the norm, all bilinguals are positioned as abnormal, and consequently take on the role as “the other.” Linguistic diversity is immediately rejected as deviant. Second, when the ideology calls for the integration of the other (as in the American melting pot idea), positions of power are taken up. Not only is the bilingual positioned as the outsider, as “integrate” assumes there is an undesirable outside and a desirable inside, but they must follow a path defined and controlled by those on the inside. Inequality is inscribed in the process. As a result of this inequality, the majority makes demands on the outsiders in exchange for their admission to the inner circle. So, in order to enjoy the privileges of voting, one must read the ballots in English, or to take on the identity of an American one must speak English. Both these demands propel the “need” to test applicants for U.S. citizenship on their English language proficiency. However Piller (2001) has pointed out that the tests are less about establishing the applicant’s true language proficiency than they are a means to exclude undesirable applicants. This gatekeeping function maintains the privileges of the majority, and ensures that only those who can sustain the prevailing ideology (Americans speak English) will be allowed entry. The proprietary hold on American values and identity is seen in Huntington (2004): “There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English.” Finally, the disproportionate balance of power even shows up in the notion of identity. Blommaert and Verschueren illustrate this “asymmetrical view of identity.” The majority demands that the outsiders must adapt to values “so fundamental to our identity that we cannot accept their being questioned by people in our midst who would not share them” (p. 121). In this case speaking English is the unquestionably fundamental pillar of American identity. And yet, “outsiders” are expected to easily give up their language, which by right should be innate to their identity.
Maintaining one’s native language is seen as spiteful—the purposeful rejection of American norms and values. Those who use a language other than English in the workplace are characterized as rude and insubordinate (see Haviland, 2003 for analysis of one such workplace). In order to be a good worker, and a good American, one must repudiate one’s native tongue and assimilate completely. Only then does monolingual America believe it can be a nation at peace with itself.

HISPANOPHOBIA

Monolingual English speakers, predicting dire consequences for the country, contend that allowing immigrants to continue using their native language allows them to reject American values. Currently, Spanish speakers are the latest wave of immigrants to threaten the security of White America, prompting Zentella (1997) to coin the phrase “Hispanophobia.” (The irony is not lost on Castellanos (1992) who documents the exploration of America by Spanish Europeans long before White Europeans.) Present day migration is seen as an “aberrant form of human behavior” (Blommaert & Verschueren, 1998, p. 118), and confronted with neighbors who do not sound or look like them, these Americans call for their integration, if not their return from whence they came. As Susan Tulley, a southern California resident and President of the Citizen’s Committee on Immigration Policy states, “Your heart goes out to people who are just seeking a better way of life. We do have an obligation to help Mexico develop. I’d rather do that than say all you people come here and become my problem. I’m willing to give money to my church to build houses in Mexico. But I’m sick to death of my own children competing in the classroom for a decent education” (in Maharidge, 1996, p. 163). Tulley believes Mexican children are receiving an unfair share of the decent (apparently finite) education earmarked for her children, and that their parents are a burden she must shoulder. It would be much easier to send money through an intermediary and wipe her hands clean, though one has to wonder why she is more comfortable aiding those unknown and far away than her children’s classmates. The fear that Spanish speakers are taking away something that rightfully belongs to the English speaking majority is common across the country. This customer’s complaint, which resulted in the firing of a New Jersey Rite Aid clerk, hits a common refrain: “‘Shouldn’t you be speaking English? Isn’t this an American store?.… You are taking an American job and you are working for an American company, so you should speak English.’” (Cook, 1994, in Zentella, 1997, p. 77). And yet, oftentimes the Spanish speaker is not taking an American job, or to rephrase, is not taking a job that an English speaker would desire. The American economy is balanced on the backs of those immigrants whose limited English dictates they must accept the low paying or dirty jobs that White America disdains. Gardeners, housekeepers, babysitters, factory workers, trash collectors … there is no doubt that Tulley’s vision of America would radically change if the immigrants who keep her day running smoothly returned to their home countries.
The majority, demanding that immigrants assimilate, encourages them to cast aside (or at least hide at home) any traces of their ethnicity. “Immigrants are not supposed to be heard.… Immigrant culture and language—assumed to have little prestige or usefulness in comparison with the dominant American culture and the English language—are supposed to fade away quickly as assimilation runs its course” (Castro, 1992, p. 180). Huntington (2004) warns that the migration of Latinos will ultimately cause America to divide along language and culture lines because Latinos refuse to integrate linguistically. “If the second generation does not reject Spanish outright, the third generation is also likely to be bilingual, and fluency in both languages is likely to become institutionalized in the Mexican-American community.” It is not only speaking Spanish as a primary language that is troubling to him, but the bilingual’s ability to speak Spanish at all. The entire language, and its accompanying culture, must be eradicated within the U.S. borders if America is to remain unified.
The late 1990s saw an explosion of Spanish language advertising as businesses courted Spanish speaking consumers, adding fuel to monolinguals’ fears about a linguistic takeover of the country. Ironically, it was the result of American values—capitalist ones. An untapped market was discovered and everyone scrambled to get their piece, necessitating bilingual workers. Suddenly, being a member of the majority was no longer the privileged position. Dicker (1996) notes this was especially problematic for monolingual English residents in Miami:
This was a telling sign for mainstream Americans that they no longer had the upper hand; for the first time for many of them, being a monolingual, native English-speaker carried no presumption of advantage in the labor market. In addition it defied the proverbial melting-pot fantasy; Hispanics in Miami did not have to give up their native identity in order to make it in America (in Mar-Molinero, 2000, p. 183)
How then to deal with bilingual employees? Financially, employers need them to reach out to non-English speaking customers (or those who prefer to use another language, as the customer is always right when they have cash in hand) as well as fill low paying jobs, but at the same time employers still need to maintain control over these workers. Many businesses have initiated English Only policies as a way of managing and monitoring their employees’ speech, consequently managing and monitoring their identities. The schizophrenic message to these employees is that their language is valued and appropriate when it means dollars for the business, but otherwise is inappropriate in the workplace.

LANGUAGE AND THE LAW

The desire to designate English as the official language of the United States appears whenever the English speaking population is threatened by an increasing number of immigrants. The need to “protect” English (from dying out or being sullied?) has led groups such as English First and US English to call for a constitutional amendment, and individuals like Ron Unz to lobby for the elimination of bilingual education and support English Only at the state level. Although recently initiatives in Arizona, Alaska, and Oklahoma were declared unconstitutional, English Only legislation remains on the books in 24 other states. What the states mean when they say English is the official language has caused confusion because the legislation is different in every state. Several states simply say that “English is the official language” with no further discussion of how that status should be enacted (Arkansas, Colorado). Some note English should be “preserved and enhanced” (Alabama, California), while others state that English is the language of public record (Georgia, Iowa). Utah’s policy is the strictest, restricting state agencies from using languages other than English with the exceptions of law enforcement, public health and safety needs, educational institutions, judicial proceedings, and libraries. (See Crawford, n.d., for each state’s legislation.)
While the judicial system has noted that the laws are largely symbolic and non-prohibitive, citizens often interpret them to mean English is now the mandatory language of daily life. In one instance, an elementary school bus driver prohibited students from speaking Spanish on their way to school after Colorado passed its legislation (Zentella, 1997). Businesses have enforced English Only policies at the workplace, mistakenly thinking it is mandated by the state. Although the mandatory use of English in government is legal in states where such legislation has been passed, the private workplace is under no such mandate. California took action in 2002 to clear up the confusion. Though the state passed an Official English constitutional amendment in 1986, this recent law prohibits English Only policies in the workplace “in recognition of the fact that ‘speak English-only’ rules can be discriminatory because of the close connection between a person’s language and their ethnicity” (ACLU, 2002). Though it does not impose penalties, this law will strengthen the case of workers who file suits. This, coupled with the existing federal law, should make clear to California businesses that workers are entitled to language rights in the workplace. A similar amendment to Illinois’ Human Rights Act went into effect in January of 2004.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects against discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, and national origin (42 U.S.C. §2000e-2). As a result of Garcia v. Gloor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) created Guidelines in 1980 to aid businesses in the application of Title VII legislation. According to the Guidelines, language is “often an essential national origin characteristic” and English Only rules are discriminatory if applied at all times, including breaks and lunch. However businesses may have such a rule if they can show business justification for it (29 C.F.R. §1606.7). There are two ways to challenge such policies. The first is disparate treatment, which states that the policy intentionally discriminates on the basis of national origin. The second, more commonly cited, is disparate impact. Here, a seemingly neutral policy disproportionately discriminates against a minority group.
Many courts have disregarded the EEOC Guidelines entirely, and even those that have recognized them have sided favorably with the justifications given by the defendant businesses. The two justifications most commonly cited—to promote harmony in the workplace and the need for supervisors to monitor employees—privilege the desires and abilities of English monolinguals over those of their bilingual counterparts. Language use (that is the ability to speak at all, let alone in a chosen language) has been viewed as an employee privilege, not right, that can be granted and rescinded by the employer. On the whole, the courts have ruled that language is not a characteristic of national origin, and that employees that can speak English must speak English when such policies are in place. The “inconvenience” of speaking English is not grounds for a lawsuit. However, no tests have been introduced to measure the extent of that inconvenience or how much English an employee must know so that they can speak it.
Workers who believe they have suffered as a result of workplace language policies first file a complaint with the EEOC. The EEOC investigates the claim in a two-step process. First, the employee must prove the company had an English Only policy. If the policy applied to only parts of the workday, the company is made to illustrate why such a policy was necessary for the operation of the business. If the EEOC believes the reasons of business necessity provided are insufficient, or if the policy covered the entirety of the workday (including breaks and lunch), it will file a lawsuit on behalf of the complainant in state district court. Many times, companies will settle before the case goes to court and will agree to make policy changes and/or pay damages to the affected worker. If the case is heard by a judge at the state district court, the party that is ruled against in the opinion, or decision, has the option of appealing the case, that is, asking the courts to reconsider. If that option is taken, the case goes up to the federal circuit court, which handles the appeals of several district courts. Circuit court cases are usually heard by a panel of three judges, and those in agreement (the majority) write the opinion of the court, while the disagreeing judge is allowed to write a dissent presenting the reasons for disagreement. It is rare, but a rehearing with the same three judges or with all active judges of the specific circuit court (en banc) can occur. If a party is still unhappy with the outcome, they can ask the US Supreme Court to hear the case. This however is entirely at the Supreme Court’s discretion, and it is not obligated to explain why it denies a hearing. (See del Valle, 2003, for a thorough explanation of the legal processes, and the courts’ interpretations of language rights in all facets of society, including the workplace.)

MYTHS OF THE ENGLISH ONLY WORKPLACE

The prevailing linguistic ideology promoting homogenization embodies several myths. As the court cases below illustrate, these myths are held both by the employers and the judicial system. They state that English is the language of the United States, yet deny language is a component of national origin. They believe a single language will lead to more effective communication and will create racial harmony. Those who speak a language other than English are characterized variously as insubordinate, disruptive and distracting, rude and vulgar, selfish and discourteous, lazy and untrustworthy, violent, willingly engaging in dangerous and unhealthy habits, and in need of authority to determine what is best for them.
In the majority of court cases, workers have been forced to speak English for reasons of safety, morale, and/or ease of management. Uniformity of language is equated with a positive, harmonious, and safe working environment. In each instance, monolingual speakers, usually coworkers, complained about not being able to understand what was being said. Haviland (2003) refers to this as “linguistic paranoia,” which is defined as the assumption that when those around you speak another language it can only be because they don’t want you to understand the bad things they are saying about you. In each instance, the communicative burden, or the responsibility a participant takes on in order to successfully complete the communicative process, is placed on the bilingual speaker; the monolingual English speaker need only say “I don’t understand you,” and then must be accommodated (Lippi-Green, 1997). When pressed for the business justification of the policy each business stated that an English Only policy would increase the (monolingual) employees’ morale as well as allow management to supervise the (rude, discourteous, lazy, and untrustworthy) bilingual workers properly.
With convoluted logic, companies hire workers with limited English, then require them to speak English on the job. These employees are told that knowing English will broaden their horizons and increase their employment potential. So what about those English speakers who are actually hired for their ability to speak another language? They fare as poorly, and there have been several cases where employees who were hired for their bilingual abilities were instructed that English was the mandatory language of the workplace when they were not interacting directly with a customer.

METHODOLOGY

Using Lexis-Nexis, all published judicial opinions at the state and federal levels involving English Only were searched, and I considered only those cases in which the plaintiff charged their employer had a formal or informal English Only policy. Cases where non-English speakers were precluded from positions where the English language was a job requirement were not included (Vasquez v. McAllen) nor were cases involving English language testing of employees (Rivera v. Nibco) or conversely, testing employees in Spanish (Smothers v. Benitez). Additionally, cases based on accent discrimination (Fragante v. City and County of Honolulu, Carino v. University of Oklahoma Board of Regents) were not included, nor were cases in which the courts dismissed claims of an English Only policy with so little discussion as to provide no benefit to this paper (Aguilar v. St. Anthony Hospital, Olivarez v. Centura Health, Marquez v. Baker Process). I also reviewed law review articles and legal and human resource bulletins for cases that may not have come up during the direct search of the opinions, while national and local newspaper reports provided additional background on the cases. Several articles indicated that suits had been filed at the district court level, but since they were settled before an opinion was issued, little information was available on them and they were not included in this study. Published opinions and dissents from both district and circuit courts ranged in length from two to 18 pages, with an average of length of eight pages. After the bulk of the research had been done, del Valle (2003) was published, providing a comprehensive analysis of language rights and the law. Written by a civil rights lawyer, Language rights and the law in the United States: Finding our voices provides important analysis of many language issues, including citizenship, bilingual education, litigation, and commerce. In addition, del Valle has a chapter on language rights in the workplace, which includes analysis of the EEOC Guidelines and the legal precedents established in key cases. While areas of her chapter and my paper may overlap, her work is primarily a legal analysis, while this paper utilizes an applied linguistics approach, and as such is able to address the language ideologies and myths revealed through court cases involving English Only workplace policies.
Although all attempts were made to be exhaustive, not all cases involving English Only workplace policies may be included. Further, the actual trial transcripts were not available, and therefore the judges writing the opinions and dissents played a large gatekeeping role in what evidence was available. Only the parts of the depositions and admitted evidence that the courts felt were important enough to include in their opinions were made available. This informational bias is certainly limiting. Additionally, some circuits do not publish all opinions, as in the case of Synchro-Start, where 29 F. Supp. 2d 911 is published, but 914 is not, though it is cited in the Premier Operator decision. Further studies using the court transcripts directly would broaden the spectrum of information and perhaps provide new insight into the myths held about language use in the workplace.
The next section presents analytical summaries of all the cases in which the legality of English Only workplace policies were disputed by employees. These summaries will highlight the court-sanctioned language discrimination occurring in U.S. workplaces, as well as the ideologies both the businesses and judicial system rely on to determine their “non”discriminatory impact. Following the case summaries, I will discuss underlying myths about language use, and explore how a society, which claims to value individuality and independence, can simultaneously denigrate its members because of their chosen language.

Significance of the Title “TWILIGHT IN DELHI”

The name or title of Ahmed Ali’s novel as “Twilight in Delhi” is very significant in itself. This is the most proper and appropriate name of the story he has told in the novel. “Twilight” is a word that signifies the short span of time that spreads itself between a dying day and emerging night just as “dawn” is the opposite term that signifies the death of the night and the arrival of the day. “Twilight in Delhi” deals with the dying culture and civilization of Muslim India as such. If we take Mir Nihal as a symbol of that culture etc. which he really is, we can see the civilization crumbling with our own eyes. When we go through the novel, we find out that its main male character has passed his middle age and is almost knocking at the door of old age. We are talking of Mir Nihal who is nearing sixty in the beginning of the novel as he had witnessed the fateful day of the fall of Delhi, 14th September, 1857, as a ten-year old boy. Still he is so healthy and strong that he can pick up a running snake from the gutter of the house with a swift movement of his hand and he can break its spinal cord by hitting it on the floor of the house with a powerful jerk of his hand. But, later on, we find his health going to dogs. He gets a paralysis attack and is unable even to talk. Then, three days later, his power of speech is restored to a great extant but not so the physical or bodily power. Hakim Ajmal Khan comes to Mir Nihal twice or thrice a week and brings costly medicines from his home for him. Still his condition is not improved. Mir Nihal’s nice friend, Kambal Shah, advises “Pelican oil” for massaging on the body of Mir Nihal. A pelican is arranged from somewhere. It is slaughtered and the oil is prepared under the supervision of Kambal Shah himself. Later on, the famous wrestler of Delhi, Shammoo, is called daily for massaging but with no improvement at all. At last, Mir Nihal becomes totally bed-ridden. He lies drown and goes on remembering his past. Then his son Habibuddin falls sick and dies. This tragedy casts a terrible effect on Mir Nihal and he becomes almost unable now even to remember his past. He is in a living death, so to speak. The same is the case of the Indian Muslim civilization and culture that faces a living death.
When Mir Nihal is healthy and jovial in the beginning, he looks after his hobby: pigeon flying. He also earns more money because he also has to arrange for his beloved keep, Babban Jan. he also looks after the family name and honour because they are Sayyeds and Bilqeece is a Moghal. But when the conditions deteriorate, Mir Nihal loses his beloved keep, a very great extant. Mir Nihal leaves his hobby and asks Nazir to sell out all his pigeons. Mir Nihal leaves to work for extra income. He leaves to care for family honour and self-respect etc. and gives his consent to the marriage of Asghar with Bilqeece. The world has stopped caring for him: let him stop caring for the world! So we find out that Mir Nihal has been used as a top-priority symbol to portray the deterioration of the customs, traditions, ways and means of which he has been the proud representative.
We can find this deterioration in other characters as well, symbolically enough. Begam Nihal becomes blind slowly and steadily. Begam Jamal leaves her classical residence at Mir Nihal’s. Shams loses his wife. Hafizji does not get “pulao” on the very first uttering. Astghar stops loving Bilqeece and starts to find other women for his love.
This does not happen to the world of human beings alone. Even the buildings etc. are affected by time. The gutters of the city which were deep down are dug up and laid on a shallow level. The city walls are demolished. So the stink and sand attack on the city dwellers. The Jamia Masjid whose floor has been coloured redder by Muslim sacrifices on 14th September, 1857, wears a cheap garland to welcome the procession of King George V on the Coronation Day. Even the date-palm tree standing in the middle of the courtyard of Mir Nihal’s home throws away its leaves and becomes yellow and sered. All these things have been aptly and appropriately used by the writer to show us, symbolically, the dwindling and dying Indian Muslim Civilization and Culture. So we can justly claim that although there could be many other names or titles of the novel under discussion, but the most appropriate and the best title for the same could only be (as it is!) “Twilight in Delhi.”

Development of Adam Bede’s self realization through a process of emotional turmoil within him

Critics are of the view that Adam is a true and perfect human being. He is not an ordinary person. He is a towering personality. He is unique in many aspects. He is fully a matured person from the very beginning but it is not true. Though, he is a unique person, yet he is not a fully developed and mature person. In the very beginning of the novel it is clear that he is rash, proud, stiff back, self righteous, hard person. He is over serious. He lacks humour. He has a very little sympathy for the ordinary sinners which we all poor mortals are. The basic fault of his character is that he lacks the balance of head and heart which is the sign of maturity. This shows that he is not a mature person.
The whole novel shows a process by which he gradually sheds his faults of his education, enlightenment and maturity, though a process of sufferings and love; he becomes ultimately a complete man. Adam is very strong physically. His rolled up sleeves above the elbow show that he is going to win the prize for the feats of strength. He is an intelligent person. He is a skilled workman. He is very hard worker. He feels satisfied in his work. He is sincere to every person. He is sincere to his work, to his parents, friends and relatives but he is not sincere with himself. He is proud of his clarity of vision, to understand the character of others but he fails to understand himself. He does not understand Hetty also to whom he loves from the core of his heart. He is self-righteous. He thinks whatever he thinks is right. As he loves Hetty so he is forced to think that she also loves him but it is not true. He feels hesitation to express his feelings of love to Hetty.
Adam’s sense of self righteousness makes him a bit hard and unsympathetic. He becomes impatient and rash at the faults of other. He is stiff back. He is unforgiving. He becomes very harsh towards his father because he is not sincere towards his word, he is not responsible. After the death of his father he repents on his severity which is futile as now it is of no any use. The death of his father is the first step of the beginning of the process of his education and self realization. As Adam is a self righteous, proud and stiff back so he cannot learn until he suffers. Such person cannot understand any other person as he thinks that he is right and no other person has enough time to educate such a person. As true wisdom comes through sufferings when such person undergoes through a process of sufferings and mishaps then he evaluates himself to remove his faults. Till the teenage the nature of a person can be changed by elders but after teen age no body can change his nature until the person himself wants to correct himself.
Adam lacks humour, he is over serious. There is no softness or glimpse of love on his face then how Hetty can love him. She knows about him that he is rash, self righteous and hard. Moreover, Adam also does not express his feelings of love for her then how can she understand that Adam loves her. She respects him but she does not love him. She is confused about his character. When Adam finds his friend Arther making love his beloved in woods, he becomes rash and impatient. He was shocked at his confidence in his self-righteousness and clarity of vision. This was the second step of his learning and to evaluate himself that what weakness he has in his character that Hetty does not love him. Now he cannot tell her that he loves Hetty as he has come to know that somebody else has already come in her life. At this sight he becomes out of his control and fights Arthet and beats him very much. This was the only way for him to express his feelings of love for Hetty.
Adam is intelligent, diligent, trustworthy and loyal but he is not yet a mature person. The reason is that his head outweighs the heart. There is imbalance of head and heart in him. He is wrathful, unyielding and harsh. His emotional involvement with Hetty is not rational one but it is a passion that overpowers him. Adam’s heart strings are bound fast for Hetty. Perhaps it is the result of his emotional involvement with Hetty that he suffers and learns to share the sufferings of others. Adam suffers when he sees Arther and Hetty together in the woods. He suffers at various times when Arther has left Hayslope, the marriage of Adam and Hetty is fixed but when she feels that she cannot conceal her pregnancy. Moreover, she feels suffocated as her feelings and thinking cannot be restricted. Her short meeting with Arther overpowers her and she leaves home in search of Arther. Secondly, she does not want to hurt Adam. Again Adam suffers when he thinks that Hetty has run away to avoid their approaching marriage. This is the third step of the process of his education and self- realization. Hetty does not tell Adam anything as he has lost his trust by beating Arther.
When Hetty has left Hayslope, after some days she gives birth to a baby but the baby dies. People think that she herself has killed her baby when Adam hears that Hetty is arrested and tried for child-murder, he suffers still more. He suffers from deep spiritual anguish but his response is much different from Hetty. Adam lusts for revenge but Irwine tells him that to injure Arther will not help Hetty. Adam when goes to Hetty he comes to realize that now he cannot marry Hetty and Hetty cannot become his wife. So, he helps her as a friend. At the end when Hetty is taken for execution, Arther comes with bail and goes but Adam does not beat him. He cannot understand the love of Hetty and Arther. Adam’s maturity enables him to forgive Arther and it makes him capable of a new sort of love. He realizes the truth that “Love does not exist without sympathy; sympathy does not exist without suffering in common”.
Dinnah and Adam have common painful memories of Hetty. Such common sufferings give rise to mutual sympathy, love follows sympathy and it is fitness of things that they should come together and get married. This love leads to the fulfillment of his personality and process of his growth and maturity is completed. Now there is a full integration of head and heart.
It may be concluded that Adam Bede is a round character. In the whole novel there is development of Adam Bede’s self realization through a process of emotional sufferings within him.

CATHARSIS

Of all technical terms, ‘Catharsis’ is probably the one most often used in relation to tragedy. It first appears in this context in Aristotle’s definition of tragedy:
“A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.”
There is general agreement that it came into his picture through his wish to counter Plato’s argument, given notable expression in Book X of the Republic, which the poets were to be blamed, and exiled, because their arousing of emotions, including that of pity, worked against a man’s duty to follow the dictates of reason. Combining this, Aristotle asserted that the emotions, particularly those of pity and fear, in being aroused in tragedy, were also ‘purged’. Whether he meant that the emotions of pity and fear were thus eliminated from the system, or that they were purged of the dross in them, has been a matter of controversy. The latter view seems half-acknowledged by Milton in the preface to Samson Agonists, where tragedy, he declares is,
‘said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated.’

He proceeds to illustrate from medical practice: for so in Physic things of melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours. Thus he refers to the tempering of the emotions and the reducing of then ‘to just measure’, although this analogue from medicine would rather seem to imply elimination.
Butcher suggested that in tragedy we experience pity and fear without the pain that is customarily associated with them because the action presented has a universal application: the tragic figures are beings like ourselves but with a greatness transcending our reach, with a demand on then to face disasters that are more extreme than ours: consequently, the pity and fear we customarily experience are brought into thought also of the directing kof the emotional responses through tragedy:
“A tragedy rouses the emotions from potentiality to activity by worthy and adequate stimuli, it controls them by directing them to the right objects in the right way I and exercises them within the limits of play as the emotions of the good man would be exercised. When they subside to potentiality again after the play is over it is a more ‘trained’ potentiality than before. This is what Aristotle calls ____________. Our responses are brought nearer to those of the good and wise men.”
We may agree that this is an effect of tragedy for the moment we are better, more sensitive and enlightened people in witnessing tragedy than we commonly are – but we may w0onder if Aristotle’s words allow us to assume he meant ‘catharsis’ in this way, and if this utterance is adequate for the complexity of the tragic impact.
Gerold F. Else suggests that both the idea of eliminating and the idea of purifying pity and fear are mistaken. He contends that Aristotle had in mind the purging of the tragic events. We cannot in real life’ contemplate parricide or incest with any approach to equanimity, but in Oedipus we can see them as tolerable because of the special circumstances in which they are presented to us. Medea’s killings of her children, Antigone’s doom, the blinding of Gloucester and the madness of Lear – would be overwhelming if we encountered them outside a theatre. Aristotle is presented as arguing that in a theatre all the remoteness and authority of dramatic production give them the distance and compensation that allow us to observe them with equanimity. But, else freely admits, this only dubiously works in Greek tragedy and perhaps not at all in later tragedy. We do not in fact preserve our equanimity in watching Lear. If Aristotle meant what Else suggests he meant, the Aristotelian notion of catharsis does not help us much. When Renaissance and ‘Post-Renaissance writers have had catharsis in mind, as Milton for example had, it was a catharsis of a different kind – a lifting of a burden, not a purifying of a deed, as far as Milton’s intended effect is realized.
Not surprisingly, there has been total skepticism on this matter. In recent times we have all occasionally felt, with F. L. Lucas in his ‘Tragedy in relation to Aristotle’s Poetics1927), that the term is commonly used as a mere gesture of reverence and has no connection with our actual experience of tragedy’.
However, it is obvious that feelings of pity and fear are observed by him as undesirable and dangerous qualities within the human system, and it seems necessary that these be washed away regularly so that they do not build up and vent themselves in distorted and harmful ways. The implications are wider then the well-being of the individual; their import is social also. Hence the right kind of tragedy becomes a regulating device for man as a social animal. Observed fact, also, would establish that even after certain feelings have been cleansed away, they are likely to build up again. There is no permanent removal of emotion, but there can be a tempered, habituated cycle, and it is this ‘habit’ pattern which Aristotle conceives as the true foundation of moral behaviour, a pattern which can be fostered by the repeated viewing of tragedy.
As for the method, objections to the homeopathic method might well be removed when we remember that in this system, pseudo rather then actual symptoms are induced. The feelings of pity and fear aroused in the theatre are synthetic and artificial, yet akin to what a person would feel in real life. The element of real danger is removed, the participation in the action, no matter how intense, is vicarious and lacks immediacy. The process of purgation takes place while the audience is watching the play; artificial feelings are used to displace the real ones, and when it is all over, the artificial ones also fade away and a special kind of calm is left.

ARISTOTLE’S VIEWS ON TRAGIC PLOT

In the poetics, Aristotle devotes considerable attention to an examination of the nature, structure and constituent elements of the ideal tragic plot. Tragedy is the representation of action: and action consists of incidents and events. Plot is the arrangement or organization of these incidents and events, and without it there is no coherence and hence no tragic effect. We notice a strong predilection towards cause and effect in Aristotle, from which arises this insistence on continuity, plausibility and visible links between various parts of the story. A fantastic, piecemeal jumble of incidents would be unlikely to arouse any pity-fear feeling, or in fact, any feeling other than confusion and irritation. Modern drama has sometimes ignored this rule deliberately, experimenting with the so-called ‘philosophies’ of confusion or absurdity, but the experiments have not usually succeeded in finding consistent votaries. Of course, there is a general movement away from plot towards character in the evolution of western drama, and ‘character’ is plot has sometimes been asserted about the productions of dramatists like Ibsen. Since then, with the introduction of closed halls, good lighting and acoustics, the possibilities in this direction have improved immensely.
Even so, it is probable that Aristotle’s observation still holds true character without plot would produce no drama. The plot is a cause and effect succession, and clearly it has to be a limited one, otherwise the succession could continue to infinity in either direction. In presenting the life history of some person, the dramatist is forced to confine his writings to a selected portion of that person’s life. Aristotle’s rule for making such a selection is that the action should have a beginning, a middle and an end; the beginning is that which is not obviously linked with some proceeding episode, the ending is that which is not linked with some preceding episode, the ending is that which is not linked with anything coming after it, and the middle is that which is linked with both the beginning and the end.
This is necessitated by the limitations imposed by the capacity of the audience to comprehend and sit comfortably through a dramatic performance. If the play is too long, the audience will tend to forget the beginning and will not be able to conceive of it as a whole. If it is too short, it will have little impact and significance.
The plot should be as significant as time and audience-appreciation will allow. The more massive the plot, the more telling will be its effect, and the greater the achievement of tragic magnitude. For the same reason, the plot should be complex rather than simple, allowing for richness and diversity of action within the main framework.
The Unities:
The plot should have unity. This has been a point of debate among critics, but it is now generally agreed that the only kind of unity on which Aristotle insists is that of action, which once again really means that the plot should have recognizable, plausible links leading logically from the beginning, through the middle, to the end. He has mentioned elsewhere that it would be better if the action of the play could be limited to the movement of the sun, which could be interpreted either as twelve hours or as twenty-four, but this statement, thrown off casually as a desirable value, should never have become an authority for the ‘rule’ of the unity of time, as it did later. The third unity that of place, can muster little support in Aristotle’s text, but it is implicit in the forgoing observations. Obviously, unity of place will make achievement of unity of action easier.
To have the conduct hopping from one part of the world to the other would break up the continuity as well as strain the credibility of the audience. Yet, against this, it is fair to state that both in matters of time and place, the audience is capable of stretching a point without effort. No sense of incongruity is felt when the whole life-time of a man is compressed into a performance three hours long or if part of the action takes place in Islamabad and the other in Lahore, London or anywhere.

Peripety and Discovery:

Two other elements are introduced as desirable additions to the plot. One is peripety or the ironic twist: the hero should be shown as expecting one thing and in fact gaining something else. The example given is that of Oedipus, who, in desiring to hear the truth about his antecedents from Tiresius, something which he probably thought would help him to get peace of mind, brings about the tragedy which engulfs his whole family. The other is discovery, in which the identity of a person, hitherto disguised or hidden, is revealed to the other characters. Both peripety and discovery are within the action of the play, that is, the characters that are expected not to have the knowledge which the audience has. The ironic twist in Oedipus is no ironic twist for the audience, which knows fully well what will happen. Likewise, unless the tragedist wishes to introduce an element of mystery into his play, a disguised character is only disguised for the other characters in the play, not for the playgoers. There is a special kind of anticipatory excitement in waiting for the reaction of man on the stage to something which is new for him but not for us. All this helps to build up the emotions in the audience so that by the time the unraveling of the play takes place the mixed bag of emotions contribute one to the other to cause the feelings of pity and fear to boil over and wash away.

The denouement:

While devising their plots, the poets should take great care to make their denouements or ‘resolutions’ effective and successful. Unraveling of the plot should be done, naturally and logically, and not by the use of arbitrary devices, like chance, supernatural intervention, etc. “Gods should intervene only where it became necessary to explain the past, or announce future events external to the action.” Aristotle does not regard Poetic Justice as essential for Tragedy. According to him it is more in keeping with the spirit of comedy. Poetic Justice implies that rewards and punishments are meted out according to the deserts of the dramatic personages, while the essence of tragedy is that suffering is far in excess of the fault or error of the hero.

BACKGROUND OF 3RD VOYAGE

In this voyage, Gulliver has gone to an unknown land “LUPUTA”. In this voyage, Gulliver has ridiculed the academies of England. In the first two voyages, he is satirizing the human beings and in this voyage, he is satirizing the institutes and it is quite interesting and deeply concerning with 18th century because that was the age of science.
Royal academy of sciences has been established at that time. It was an age of James I, who said that there should be some progress and advancement in science. They requested Hobbes to establish an academy of science. Hobbes was a great philosopher. The greatest qualification of Hobbes is that he was the secretary of Sir Francis Bacon.
Here Swift is trying to give us two theories. He is talking about the use of science and research on science. The good approach towards science is scientific approach but science which is used for the sake of science is not science.
Swift belongs to the 18th century which is in the first place in as age of reason and in 2nd place; it is an age of utility. These are the utilitarian people. They believe that no useless activities are good activities. Every activity must be purposeful. Science is not hair splitting. Science is not knowledge for the sake of science. Science is purposeful knowledge, meaningful knowledge. All knowledge or extra ordinary knowledge is not good.
‘Laputa”. if we see in the map is flying in the air, therefore, it is the parody of the seat of government, kings live in Laputa. It also represents London. And the place “Balnibarbi” lying under this flying area represents the common people or the area where the king govern (England). The whole map is build on the scientific rules.

VOYAGE TO LAPUTA
As Gulliver went at that island, he saw some strange faces which he had never seen before. Their physical features were as same as that of Gulliver but their faces were quite strange looking.
Gulliver said:
“I must in their debt; having never till then seen a race of mortals so singular in their shapes, habits and countenances”.
This strange condition of them was due to their deeper interest in science and making more and more experiments which were out of any use, not for the sake of mankind but for the wastage of time. They had destroyed their personal lives in the researches of science. Gulliver said:

“Their heads were all reclined to the right, or to the left; one of their eye turned inward, and the other directly up to the Zenith.”
This was the miserable condition of the scientist of that time. They were only and only indulged in their studies and had left their own life. Here we can say that knowledge is a very good thing but it should not be at the expense of life.
Actually, there must be a balance between the intellectualism and physical life. This kind of knowledge in which man had no care about his own personality is of no use. Science is used for mankind and if man is not getting any advantage, or if he, for the sake of science, neglects himself, that kind of knowledge and science is of no use.
Another defect of these scientific men were that they lack common sense. We can take the example of the tailor. He took measurement of each and every part of his body but only due to a small mistake in calculation, the whole dress was destroyed.
They were so such busy in their scientific experiments that they even had ignored their wives and daughters. Their family members were lamenting on their ignorance towards their homes. And even making flirt in front of their eyes. But they, not caring of any thing or any of their responsibility, were only found busy in their own scientism.
The scientists found at that place were very weak. Their condition was very strange and miserable. They were all busy in purposeless research, Gulliver said:

“The first man I saw was of a meager aspect, with sooty hands and face, his hair and beard long, ragged and singed in several places. His clothes, shirt, and skin were all of the same colour.”
This way of seeking knowledge and science is of no use. The scientist about which Gulliver is talking, is found in a very bad condition. He had no care about his own life. Therefore, knowledge should not be at the expense of life. It is for the sake of life, for the betterment of humanity, but here knowledge is used for the sake of science.
The next point, pointed out by Gulliver is that the experiments they are doing, are of no uses but just wastage of time and resources.
For example:
• One of the scientist had been on a project for extracting sun beams out of cucumber since eight years.
• One scientist is busy at the work to calcine ice into gun-powder.
• One architect who had contrived a new method for building houses, by beginning at the roof, and working down words to the foundation.
• Three professors were sitting together with the consultation to shorten discourse by cutting poly syllabus into one, and leaving out verbs and participles.
Then he went to the section of magicians in the academy. They were also making wrong works and searching on how to long and long. Some who have been successful are also of no use. Gulliver said:

“As soon they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law.”
In the same way, at one more place he said:

“At ninety they lose their teeth and hair, they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get without relish or appetite.”
Therefore, this was the unfavourable condition of the institutions found at that age. Scientists were busy for the sake of scientism than that of science.