This document appears to be a student's reflective essay on their experience as an English major. It discusses several papers and literary works the student analyzed over their undergraduate career. The essay begins by describing how a re-reading of a William Carlos Williams poem helped them decide to major in English. It then summarizes several papers the student wrote, including analyses of works by Jack London, Margaret Atwood, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rudyard Kipling, and Oscar Wilde. The student reflects on how their skills in literary analysis and ability to convey ideas clearly developed over four years of study. The document serves as a retrospective on the student's intellectual growth and inspiration gained from their English major courses.
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The first time I read William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow”, I
despised it. My superficial read yielded the most unimaginative interpretations, and
I decided that I strongly disliked poetry. When I reread the poem as assigned in my
first 2000-level English course, however, it read very differently. Those 16 words
that haunted me in high school now aroused imaginative interpretations, most
noticeably with attention to the significance Williams associated with the contrast of
colors and animate/inanimate objects. But in trying to share my interpretation with
peers in class discussion, it became convoluted and no longer made as much sense
as it did in my head. At the time, I was still in the liminal period of “undeclared”. But
my second encounter with “The Read Wheelbarrow” was epiphanic enough to
finally declare something about what I wanted to do with the rest of my
undergraduate career: Find a way to cogently convey my ideas.
Like many undergraduate students, I spent four years trying to figure out what I
want to be when I grow up. With four years under my belt and an unsettling sense of
doubt, I decided to take a fifth year of instruction in hopes of attaining more definitive
answers. I spent the latter-majority of my undergraduate career as an English major with
a Literature concentration, reading the works of great men and women and trying to
justly assemble explanations as to what they meant. Classics like Aristotle and
contemporaries like Oscar Wilde and Margaret Atwood have enriched my ability to think
critically and ultimately compose my own set of thoughtful scholastic opinions. I read
self-consciously in treading the infamous bewilderments of literary figures like Charles
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Dickens and Friedrich Nietzsche, meticulously noting in margins my own layman’s
translations of passages and highlighting phrases that I found particularly attractive.
My self-consciousness was relieved in the gradual development of my literary
savvy, but my admiration remains. The words and ideas of other great men and women I
have had the pleasure of interacting with over the course of my undergraduate career as
an English major have motivated me to formulate my own compilations of great words
and ideas as exercised in the following papers. I explicitly imply this inspiration in the
top right margins of my papers with an excerpt or quote that embodies my ensuing
arguments and assertions. My process for writing even the most mundane assignments
began in the pursuit of inspiration. The following items represent my most successful
quests for developing inspirations, and from that development the inherent ability to
clearly and thoughtfully convey my ideas.
“The Law of Life”, however, is a paper without a right-margined quote. I wrote
this paper in my first semester as an English major, which was coincidentally my last
semester without literary theory or criticism. My intent was to exemplify the implication
of style specific to the American Naturalist movement. I quote both Jack London’s short
story “The Law of Life” and the anthology’s editorial notes directly in an effort to
connect the movement with London’s piece. I conclude that the lower case “law of life”
is a product of its environment, with pun intended. I chose to include this paper in my
portfolio because it represents one of my earliest attempts to convey an idea. Professor
Norton gave me the most practical commentary on this paper, and it is still the most
utilitarian advice I have received in my entire 4 years as an English major: “Don’t
overwrite.”
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Thus far, I had a tendency to flood my papers with multiple adjectives and
adverbs that convoluted what could eventually be recognized as astute concepts. Like my
“The Red Wheelbarrow” interpretation, this read on London’s “The Law of Life” was
rather inarticulate because it was in a sense “overwritten” and incidentally underachieved.
The following semester I took an introductory course to literary theory. Laurah Norton
again vehicled my growth as a writer as exemplified by the paper entitled “Margaret
Atwood: ‘Happy Endings’”. Throughout the course, we were assigned to write a paper
per almost every theory we studied via Lois Tyson’s Critical Theory Today. Tyson’s
ability to articulate highbrow theory via layman’s terms taught me that you don’t need to
overstate already brilliant ideas, and remained my go-to theory point of reference for
papers I wrote in my senior-level courses.
The conclusion to my theory paper “Margaret Atwood: ‘Happy Endings’” yielded
an argument positively distorted by both a New Criticism and a Reader Response
criticism. While the course curriculum primarily allowed for individual theory
conceptions, I was ultimately able to combine the forces of multiple theories to construct
or deflate other anticipated concepts. But this overlap of concepts was tested and
somewhat dismantled in my introduction to more classical critics ant theorists the
following year. English 3230 “History of Literary Criticism I” with Dr. Paul Schmidt
somewhat antagonized the contemporaries Laurah introduced me to in English 3040.
In the heavily theoretical texts of Aristotle and Plato, I lost a sense of my interest
in the realms of theory and criticism. Their primal ideas were at first removed and
somewhat indecipherable in my at-home reads. But Dr. Schmidt’s in-class discussions
mediated my dislike with the texts. He lectured for a portion of the class in an effort to
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translate the intimidating ideas of Sigmund Freud, Horace, Matthew Arnold, Karl Marx
and Alexander Pope. The rest of class was structured around specific close readings and
interpretations there in. I found myself constantly referring back and making connections
with one of the initially most unattractive assigned readings: Aristotle’s “Poetics”. The
paper entitled “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: A Canonical Aristotelian
Tragedy” is a critical theory application paper that I produced at the culmination of the
course. It elicits the relationship I had with Aristotle’s text that I developed throughout
the semester and my ability to apply its content to an analysis of a contemporary piece of
literature like The Great Gatsby.
In constructing my final paper for my English 4300 “Senior Seminar: Victorian
Literature” last spring, I found myself revisiting facets from each Literature course I had
taken thus far. I drew from Laurah’s initial advice, contemporary theories, classical
criticisms, and quotes or excerpts I compiled course by course by highlighting phrases I
appreciated most or making notes that extended on certain ideas. I revisited both Tyson’s
manual and the works of highbrow critics from David Ritcher’s The Critical Tradition.
Throughout the semester, we produced fractions of what would amount to a final paper. I
have included each facet that ultimately attributed to my own master interpretation of my
chosen text Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”: the prospectus, annotated bibliography, and the
paper itself. Ultimately, we presented our findings and what we argued in our papers to
the class in a 20-minuted formal presentation. Unlike my explanation of “The Red
Wheelbarrow”, my perception of “If” transcended from the clear articulations I made in
my paper into my oral presentation.
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Spring 2014 and Fall 2014 were semesters in which I expected to lull into the
infamous epidemic of “senioritis.” But the courses I took as choices among several to
satisfy the last of my required areas were unexpectedly engaging. I have included an
essays from both English 4200 “Topics: Incarceration Literature” and English 4100
“Single Author Course: Oscar Wilde” because they were two of my last but most
enjoyable courses. After four years of studying English, I was able to confidently
approach texts and recall infallible support from literary critics and theorists to protect
my assertions.
“Memory” was the last paper that I wrote for Ellen Stockstill’s Topics class—it
demonstrates the polished ability to close read and make interpretations from recognized
literary devices. Although the novels we read for the course were less unenjoyable and
therefore more appealing than some of the monotonous works I had become accustomed
to reading, they were similar to Tyson’s explanations of highbrow theory: clear and
concise, yet brilliant. Although more flamboyant in character and style of writing than the
authors from my Topics class, Oscar Wilde’s plays, short stories, and didactic lists of
aphorisms were similarly unforgettable. While my less-invested interpretations of his
poetry were somewhat parallel to my amateur relationship with Williams’s “The Red
Wheelbarrow”, I developed a profound fascination with his societal paradoxes in plays
like An Ideal Husband. The paper entitled, “Lord Goring: The Heroic Dandy” explores
Wilde’s theme of dandyism and its agency in a main character. As the last paper I wrote
for English 4200, “Lord Goring: The Heroic Dandy” embodies the course’s intent: to
identify, study, and master the themes and ideas of one particular author.
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In writing the papers discussed above, I wrote testimonials of the student I was at
the time. Each represents a particular interest or claim I was intent on pursuing, includes
an author or work I was most invested in, and is introduced by a quote that inspired me to
construct these thoughts clearly and thoughtfully. Being an English major with a
concentration in Literature has allowed me to grow as a reader, writer, and person outside
of academia. I am not only able to clearly articulate my ideas and arguments in papers
and in presentations, but in conversations, coaching athletes, and deciding what I want to
be now that I have finally grown up. I intend to use these skills to clearly, concisely, and
attractively articulate opinions and arguments, and make premeditated statements in the
court of law. Because I have learned how to cogently convey my own ideas, I am well
equipped and eager to help others communicate theirs.
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Alissa Katz
Professor Norton
Fall 2012
English 2130
The Law of Life
Romantics like Emerson and Hawthorne left America lustful and high strung
until 1861. Post- Civil War Americans were paralyzed by the over-due reality of
“bloody conflict and its aftermath” (Bedford 31). Suppressed by Colonialism,
deprived by Reason and Revolution, satisfied yet shielded by the impracticality of
Romanticism, and finally jaded by the harsh reality of war, America faced a familiar
yet abstract force: Nature. Jack London reinforced America’s reality check and the
imminence of death in the merciless eye of Mother Nature through “The Law of
Life.” His short story speaks to the animal that every human truly is by way of an
inherent “barbaric mind” (London 391). Through the perspective of a Naturalist,
London attempted to manifest a nation bewildered by reality, which “Such was the
law”: “It was easy. All men must die” (London 391,392). London’s omniscient third
person narrator personifies the elusive yet almighty presence of Mother Nature.
The introduction of realism brought with it the burden of denoting
transcendentalism and romanticism. London was obligated to expose the flaws in
representing “things as they should be” and emphasize the essence of “representing
things as they actually [were]” (Bedford 31). London’s third person point of view is
a cache for the neither feminine nor masculine voice of Nature. Although often
referred to as her, London strategically gives his narrator no hint of personality. The
sex is irrelevant, which London further confirms through his examples of both men
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While Nature is not discriminatory in the sense of who dies, she also does not
discriminate who lives. She provides each flesh in the light of life a task. Old
Koskoosh’s granddaughter, like him at one point in time, was destined to leave her
grandfather to die for “Life called her, and the duties of life, not death.” He too had
the same calling to life that his granddaughter was called by, but his task was
complete therefore he was “very close to death now” (London 391). The maiden was
flesh for a reason as well, for she had the task not only to perpetuate life but also to
feed the perpetuation of lives needing to be born.
The narrator makes an example of the maiden in a tribute to the life cycle.
She is described as a “good creature to look upon, full-breasted and strong, with
spring to her step and light in her eyes. But her task was yet before her” (London
391). She, like Koskoosh was the born leader of his tribe, was the born mother of
children. In presenting the maiden’s life as somewhat of a death sentence, the
narrator seeks acceptance within the reader. London makes a point to show that
with the gift of life comes the inevitability of death. The narrator reassures us that
although Koskoosh’s tribe faced the trials and tribulations of life that brought death,
“he had seen times of plenty, too” (London 392).
“The Law of Life” self-actualized the “romantic selves” into their underlying
“human beasts.” London exposed Americans to the people that had gone ignored
and misrepresented: themselves. His 3rd person narrator, Nature, played a paternal
role in easing America into an era of harsh realities, debunked misconceptions, and
recovery. Like “the law of life” itself, the realist era was an imminent result of
humanity. His piece lends a hand in reuniting a segregated nation that did not have
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Alissa Katz
Professor Norton
Spring 2013
English 3040
Life is not so much about beginnings and endings as
it is about going on and on and on. It is about
muddling through the middle
- Anna Quindlen, NY Times
Margaret Atwood: “Happy Endings”
Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” elicits a dystopian implication through
both a New Criticism and Reader Response criticism lens. While an “efferent”
agenda provides textual evidence through linguistic devices such as ambiguity,
tension, paradox, and irony, a subjective read fills the “gaps” between determinate
and indeterminate meanings (Tyson 173,174). A disturbed irony to be explored
from the title will ultimately yield a mutual thematic conclusion: there is no such
thing as a happy ending. Who could truly be satisfied with a life that was all too
simply “worthwhile”, “stimulating and challenging”, “charming”, or “exceptionally
well” (Atwood 326,328)?
Atwood’s characters are mundane by name and lifestyle: John, Mary, Fred,
Madge, and James. Each character gains depth through interchangeable tropes as
subject to a John/Mary/Fred/Madge/James in happy ending A, B, C, D, E, or F. For
example, happy ending B. advocates a dissatisfactory John and a sympathetic Mary:
“Mary falls in love with John but John doesn’t fall in love with Mary” (Atwood 326).
Happy ending C. obverses John and Mary’s roles. New Criticism will see our
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inconsistent interpretations as affective fallacies, but Reader-Response will
encourage it (Tyson 137). Judgment of the characters based on their moralities is
filler to the gap that “determinate meaning” does not satisfy (Tyson 174).
The consideration of indeterminate meanings builds our relationship and
therefore understanding of the characters and their subjective tropes.
“Retrospection” evades the disrelation implied by Atwood’s bolded letters A. B. C. D.
E. and F., intended to keep the detachment from one story to the next. New Criticism
argues that the John and Mary presented in happy ending A. are considered
independent and completely objective to the John and Mary presented in the
following happy endings. But Reader-Response criticism confirms a reader’s
humanistic instinct to provide “interplay”. “Anticipation” is a subjective application
of foreshadowing who the characters will be in the following happy ending.
“Fulfillment/Disappointment” of this anticipation and/or our moral assessment of
who the characters end up being leads us to what Tyson refers to as “impressionistic
response and relativism” to the text. The final step of “revision” can then possibly
distort our prior interpretations and interrupt the organic unity Atwood’s elements
built, therefore jeopardize our understanding.
Although Atwood incorporates tension and ambiguity among repeated
words and ideas, the paradox of her title “Happy Endings” ironically resolves any
confusion. Her descriptions of mundane lifestyles carries a context that becomes
more distorted and epitomized by each following happy ending. What Atwood
makes out to be commonplace and dream-worthy in part A climaxes with death.
While a “stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends” seem like
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reasonable elements, we generate a dissatisfaction when she abruptly ends with
“Eventually they die. This is the end of the story” (Atwood 326). What we consider
mediocre and blue-collar is now not enough. Therefore, our anticipation of happy
endings B., C., etc. stem from the expectation that the mediocre will not carry over.
Atwood’s concrete universal of death diffuses any subjective distractions
with an objective idea. While the mediocre lifestyle becomes enhanced with “a
lustful brawling saga of passionate involvement” (Atwood 329) in happy endings B.
and C., the tension of death’s inevitability haunts each happy ending the same as the
first. Atwood’s death acts as a universal concrete in unison with the idea of a prosaic
“John/Mary/James/Fred/Madge”. But each happy ending implies death in a
conflicting context: death as a tragedy, death as a relief, or death as the inevitable.
Happy ending B. elicits a tragedy of death to be sympathized, for “she dies” while
“John marries Madge and everything continues as in A” (Atwood 327). Happy ending
E. elicits death as an end to the suffering in death as a relief: “ … but Fred has a bad
heart. The rest of the story is about how kind and understanding they both are until
Fred dies” (Atwood 329).
Ultimately, Atwood’s F. recognizes death as the concrete universal: “You’ll
have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it.” Although deaths may
be tragic, sympathetic, or satisfactory, they mean the same thing literally: “John and
Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die” (Atwood 329). The title “Happy
Endings” is paradoxical in that although endings imply connotations based on the
context of everything else that happened, the endings are blunt and flat. Endings do
not involve depth, for death is “the end.” Atwood’s “Happy” applies to “the stretch in
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Alissa Katz
Professor Schmidt
Spring 2014
English 3230
“Action is character.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: A Canonical Aristotelian Tragedy?
Although the term novel in reference to the genre of literature has various
meanings of intent, the following provided by The Oxford English Dictionary is the
most appropriate in relation to describing the text itself: “A long fictional prose
narrative, usually filling one or more volumes and typically representing character
and action with some degree of realism and complexity; a book containing such a
narrative.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is considered one of the greatest
American novels, for it employs both entertaining characters with paralleled
actions. Because The Great Gatsby is potent with qualities pertaining to and
therefore often categorized as tragedy, it is important to ascribe the father of
tragedy and his canonical definition of the term when discussing such a work:
Aristotle.
Through application of the Aristotelian criticism to Fitzgerald’s novel, we can
truly assess whether or not The Great Gatsby successfully embodies the essence of
tragedy. The application of strict formalism involved with Aristotelian theory will
both attest yet constrict the genre of tragedy we recognize; this has the potential to
either confuse or confirm our preconceived notions and overall relationship with
the novel.
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The Aristotelian definition of tragedy found in section six of Poetics should be
considered primary, for its antiquity supersedes the lifespan of all other definitions
to date:
Tragedy is, then, an imitation of a noble and complete action, having
the proper magnitude; it employs language that has been artistically
enhanced by each of the kinds of linguistic adornment, applied
separately in the various parts of the play; it is presented in dramatic,
not narrative form, and achieves, through the representation of
pitiable and fearful incidents, the catharsis of such pitiable and fearful
incidents. (63)
Because Aristotle is most recognized as a mimetic and formal theorist, his definition
is list-like and requires adherence to a series of what he refers to as “parts” (63). In
Poetics, Aristotle firstly recognizes the universally fundamental parts involved
within this construction for the development of all types of literature: prose, poetry,
and drama. For tragedy, there are six contributory parts involved in “achiev[ing] its
particular quality”: “ plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and melody.” (63)
Because Aristotle’s Poetics was a criticism originally intended for the evaluation of
the poet and his poetry or the dramatist and his drama, some references such as
those pertaining to spectacle and melody may be absent or represented by different
devices in the novel The Great Gatsby. For the purpose of this paper and its
discussion of Aristotle in relation to a tragic novel, we will focus on the two
principles that Aristotle deems are “the soul of tragedy”: plot and character (64).
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Alissa Katz
English 4300
Spring 2014
Rudyard Kipling’s “If—“: Prospectus
T.S. Eliot regards Rudyard Kipling as timeless in his essay “The Unfading
Genius of Rudyard Kipling”: “There are boyhood enthusiasms which one outgrows;
there are writers who impress one deeply at some time before or during
adolescence and whose work one never re-reads in later life. But Kipling is
different” (Eliot 119). Although modernism proposed the late 18th century and early
19th century reader with a taste Kipling’s works did not fulfill, his adherence to
Aristotelian formal-features insured his caliber. Kipling’s poem “If—“ appears in the
volume of prose, Rewards and Fairies. While the majority of his career faces much
criticism, this poem differs in that it was highly popularized. To Kipling’s detriment,
the poem became used as a droning punishment to be re-written by reprimanded
grade-school boys. His dissatisfaction with its reputation similarly alludes to his
dissatisfaction with the period of Imperialism and eventually rather radical
nationalism he witnessed in India and England.
Arguably, Kipling is both a direct yet altered product of his environment.
Born into Anglo-India, Kipling was the son of British parents infused with what he
sees as “the white man’s burden.” His discourse alters between the cultural-identity
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Alissa Katz
Professor Schmidt
Spring 2014
English 4300
“I’ve tried to become
someone else for a while, only to
discover that he, too, was me.”
-Stephen Dunn
Rudyard Kipling’s “If—“: The Speaker/Audience Relationship Explored
In “The Art of Poetry,” Horace regards the purpose of literature as a duality of
responsibility: “Poets would either delight or enlighten the reader, Or say what is
both amusing and really worth using.” (91) Joseph Rudyard Kipling has been
regarded as “rather the antithesis of modernist persona,” for his work continued to
“combine [this] sweet and [this] useful,” after such characteristics were considered
less desirable. Modernism proposed the late 18th century and early 19th century
reader with a taste Kipling’s more didactic and political works did not necessarily
satisfy. While the majority of his career faces much criticism, the poem “If—“ from a
volume of his prose Rewards and Fairies redeemed Kipling in the light of British
acclaim he denied for the greater half of his life. Kipling’s personal dissatisfaction
with the poem’s popularity and reputation alludes to his dissatisfaction with the
period of coercive British imperialism and eventual rather radical nationalism he
witnessed in both India and England throughout the entirety of his life.
T.S. Eliot divides Kipling’s career into three crucial periods he associates with
his transitory geography: “his living in India, his worldwide travel and residence in
America, and his final years settling in Sussex, England” (Cantalupo 250). Written in
1910, “If—“ is a poem from the last period of Kipling’s career. In this period, we
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majority of the poem are merely means to the concluding couplet, and according to
Mason in an assessment of James’s themes would “have little interest beyond that”
(134).
Collectively, these 32 lines compose what Henry Ricketts refers to as “a long
list of conditions … of course, impossible to fulfil” (294) in Rudyard Kipling: A Life.
Ricketts suggests that the intended partial audience, whether the son, the Easterner,
or the pre-heroic hero, is never expected to amount to the man, the Westerner, or
the hero. W.W. Robson describes Kipling’s “general sense” in an essay “Kipling’s
Later Stories” as “tragic” … and rather pessimistically aware “of the ultimate
powerlessness of man.” (278) We are again redirected back to Kipling and his own
sense of helplessness and rather unfortunate “childhood in exile” (Renwick 4).
Within the process of maturation, Kipling maintained a sense of boyhood that most
people may outgrow. From it, he “emerged physically damaged, and with an inward-
driven sensitiveness and a defensive habit that are perhaps prime causes of his
philistinism.” (Renwick 4) He will never be able to fully outgrow these qualities or
abound from childhood, for he never really had one to stem from.
But as a writer, Kipling is able to fulfill his desire for a childhood he never
had by creating a more satisfying childhood for one of his characters. Like any child
that becomes infatuated with a superhero or person of noble virtue, Kipling created
a self-professed more satisfactory version of himself: Mowgli. First created in The
Jungle Book, Mowgli is a boy raised by wolves (Dillingham 174). He is an allusion of
not only Kipling’s alternate imagined life, but also his unalterable dichotomous
identity. Abandoned in the jungle at birth, Mowgli mirrors Kipling’s “abandonment”
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Alissa Katz
Professor Stockstill
English 4200
Spring 2014
“Memory... is the
diary that we all
carry about with us.”
- Oscar Wilde
Memory
The Optimist’s Daughter is catalyzed by the unfortunate death of Mount
Salus’s beloved Judge McKleva. His daughter Laurel, second wife Fay, and the
townspeople are brought together, yet simultaneously distanced in his
commemoration. The subjectivity of memory allows for “the memory [to] be hurt,
time and again—but in that may lie its final mercy. As long as it’s vulnerable to the
living moment, it lives for us, and while it lives, and while we are able, we can give it
up its due” (179). Its vulnerability allows for its mutation amongst different people,
for ultimately everyone will remember the same thing differently. In Welty’s novel,
every character we encounter is trying “to say for a man that his life is over” (82).
Judge McKleva’s daughter Laurel recognizes their efforts as “the danger point of his
life” (82). As we follow her through the stages of mourning, she assumes her self-
professed role of “his daughter with his memory to protect” (130). The
responsibility of “outliving those you love” is a heavy load (162). By novel’s end, we
recognize this responsibility as that pertaining to memory. And with the help of a
rather omniscient narrator, we are able to share in the carrying of this load with
each character.
The first section of The Optimist’s Daughter is that pertaining to the gradual
decline of Judge McKleva after his eye surgery. The novel is told in the past tense;
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and freed, and in the heart that can empty but fill again, in the patterns restored by
dreams” (179). These “freed hands” are those of not just Laurel alone, but everyone
else we meet throughout the mourning of Judge McKleva.
But although Mount Salus is a tight-knit community, Laurel becomes rather
possessive over her father’s death. We learn that mourning can be selfish, especially
through characters like Fay who feel victimized by the deceased party: Because each
member had a different relationship with Judge McKleva, they all remember him
differently. Major Bullock’s recollection of Judge McKleva facing the “White Caps”
most noticeably upsets Laurel because that is not the light in which she remembered
her father. But as Miss Adele reminds Laurel, “It isn’t easy for them, either” (82).
Whether Major Bullock’s anecdote is true objectively or not, it is a memory that is
true for him.
While memory serves as a vehicle for healing and peace making for the past
for characters like Laurel and Major Bullock, it arouses disappointment in others
like Mrs. Pease and Miss Tennyson. Their memories are plagued by conditionals
concerning Judge McKleva’s remarriage: “Laurel is who should have saved him from
that nonsense. Laurel shouldn’t have married a naval officer in wartime. Laurel
should have stayed home after Becky died … But that didn’t have to mean Fay … I’d
rather not consider how … If I’d just known Clint was casting around for somebody
to take Becky’s place, I could’ve found him one a whole lot better than Fay … I could
name one now that would have leaped—” (115,116). By novel’s end, Laurel is able to
reconcile our own influenced questions and conditionals about the life of Judge
McKleva. We watch her off to Chicago in a state of contentment, for she is again able
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But unlike the archival Shakespearean hero, Wilde’s “dandy” hero possesses
rather unconventional qualities. The following stage direction is responsible for
proposing those admirable attributes, which we would otherwise trivialize and
deem simply farcical. Although it seems his purposes is to defy norms and remain at
a comfortable distance from the rest of society both intellectually and emotionally,
Wilde tells us that this distance from the rest of society is purely for the advantage
of that particular society. The Wildean “dandy” serves the purpose of not only the
fantastical but also the otherwise essential. Lord Goring rescues this Wildean society
from the falsities of ideals merely in his own conflation of a supposed character role.
We expect him to merely stir the pot of An Ideal Husband, but he is ultimately
responsible for preserving it. Mrs. Cheveley’s plight to expose a man that has
wronged society seems to reveal the true villain to be Sir Robert Chiltern. However,
it is the unlikely candidate that has relations and interactions with each other
character throughout the play that salvages his reputation: Lord Goring.
This stage direction introduces a man perfectly plagued by absurdities:
“clever, but would not like to be thought so … annoyed if considered romantic …
plays with life … fond of being misunderstood.” (520) He immediately defies the
glorified ideals characters like Sir Robert Chiltern risk their morality to abide by. He
lives in a state of “playfulness” that falls just short of romantic, for he is too involved
with the realities of others, even if he chooses to not to participate in his own. Lord
Goring’s obsession with youth is sprinkled throughout in his distaste for not only his
own susceptibility to aging but in his interactions with his father. Their interactions
are met and driven by constant trivial conflicts. Throughout Act I, Lord Goring and
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Lord Caversham share several rather insignificant side conversations which most
often begin with Lord Caversham initiating an insult and end with Lord Goring
escaping by wit.
The interactions between Lord Goring and Lord Caversham demonstrate
Lord Goring’s antagonistic prerogative that is furthered by supplementary
interactions with other plain characters. It is an exemplary instance of Lord Goring’s
“playfulness” with life. Because we associate playfulness with children, he inherits
the role of not only Lord Caversham’s son but quite obviously his childlike or
infantile son. He confirms his dislike for his real age in his defiance towards his
father and what he represents: old age. Although Lord Caversham seems to take
great interest in his son’s overdue coming of his true age in later requesting his
finding a wife, his initial dictation to Lord Goring is somewhat contradictory: “You
should be in bed, sir. You keep too late hours!” (522) He is guilty of infantilizing Lord
Goring rather than treating him like the adult he taunts him to be. In the instance of
this particular father-son dynamic, Lord Goring succeeds in his quest to burden
normalcy with the playfulness of defiance: a son that does not necessarily obey his
father, and a son that escapes growing up more or less.
Lord Goring’s interaction with Mabel Chiltern when she finds the brooch as
the party closes reveals his distinct forewarned point of “vantage.” (520) His
“expressionless face” functions in his favor as he has to formulate a “strange”
request” in asking Mabel to give him the brooch, for it conceals what will become
her brother’s salvation (531). Although we may have been unsure of to what
advantage he would use his rather detracted involvement for, his custody of the
