Summary of Francis Bacon’s Of Studies

 

Introduction

Francis Bacon is called as the father of English prose.  He was the pioneer of English prose.  He has written many prose pieces on various subjects.  Bacon is known for his short yet poignant language.  He uses less number of words and sentences, yet he delivers great meaning and message to the readers and the society.  Of Studies is a short essay, which gives Bacon’s views on studies and its varieties. 

 Three Purposes of Studies

            Bacon opens his essay in a direct way.  He opens by establishing and listing out three major purpose of studies – delight, ornament ability.  People use studies for delight when they are within their private circle and when they rest and enjoy life.  Studies would help them to be at peace with themselves and with their close ones.  Some people use studies as an ornament in their discourse, either in their speech or when they write.  Some people use studies to prove their ability of judgement and to transact business. 

According to Bacon, expert men can execute a work when they handle a situation one by one.  They cannot handle things that come in groups.  On the other hand, only learned people have the quality and capability to handle things in groups. 

 Negative Impact of Studies

            Bacon talks about the negative impact of studies.  If a person spends too much of time in studies then he would become lazy, a sloth.  If a person uses too much of what he or she has studied for ornamentation, it would affect his personal character and would lead to self pride.  If a person uses too much of studies to make judgement about others, then it would degrade the learner into a mere clown and not a scholar.

 Studies and Nature

            Studies perfect nature.  Studies are perfected by experience.  Studies are like natural plants that needs little caring.  Studies would get a complete shape and will be capable of reaching to others through experience.  Crafty men condemn studies because they are involved in their skills.  Simple men admire studies and wise men use studies to acquire wisdom. 

            Bacon warns the readers not to study to contradict and confute, to believe and take for granted and not to talk but to consider and judge with patience.

 How to Read?

            Bacon also advises on how to read a book, “Some books are to be taste, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested”.  There are a variety of books among which some are to be read only in parts, a few books are meant to be read but not with eagerness and some books, which are really good, should be read as a whole with more concentration.

            While describing the importance of reading books, Bacon says, “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”  He also explains that, if a man writes little, he is lacking memory.  If a man talks little, he is lacking wit.  If a man reads little, he will be cunning.  Reading makes a human out of us. 

Cure given by Studies

Bacon establishes his Latin proficiency by quoting “Abeunt studia in mores” which means Studies pass into and influence manners.  Bacon compares studies with that of exercises, which keep the diseases away from our body.  “Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like.”  Similarly, if a man needs to improve his wit he should study mathematics.  If he is not able to differentiate or distinguish, he should study ‘Schooldmen’ (kind of logics, puzzles and riddles), which would make him split his hair and think.  If someone is not good at proving himself, let him study lawyer’s cases. 

            Bacon concludes the essay saying that every defect of mind could be cured by studies.

Gender in Film Studies

Introduction/A Short History

            Gender in film studies means the representation of women in cinema.  Such studies came into existence along with the raise of feminism.  In 1970s, along with the rise of second wave feminism, the patriarchal bias of the society was slowly diminishing and the female stereotypes were stopped and women protested for a realistic portrayal.  The following books laid the foundations for gender studies in cinema:

1)      Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics

2)      Marjorie Rosen’s Popcorn Venuses: Women, Movies and the American Dream

3)      Joan Mellen’s Women and Their Sexuality in the New Film

4)      Molly Haskell’s From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies

            All these works talk about the role of women in cinema.  These feminist views of cinema were highly criticized for demonstrating a naive understanding of social reality and of the operations of films.  They were also said to lack psychological study.  In spite of all these negative criticisms women changed their ideologies and registered their thoughts in more powerful ways.

Theories of Spectratix

            In 1989, a special issue of film journal Camera Obscura appeared under the title The Spectratrix.  This term means how feminist film critics came increasingly to regard the female spectators’ situation as a locus of both theoretical inquiry and political intervention.  Laura Mulvey’s essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema is the most influential essay.

            Mulvey presents a pessimistic note about portrayal of women in narrative cinema.  She talks about ‘3 looks’ in cinema about women:

        i.            The characters’ look at each other during the narrative

      ii.            The camera’s look at the screen

    iii.            The spectator’s look at the screen

            Though these 3 looks are interdependent and they vary accordingly, they are very different from one another.

            Mulvey, while talking about the characters’ look at each other, distinguishes the male gaze and the female reaction.  In all films the male characters gaze at women and they are free to do it.  On the other hand, the women are denied of that free gaze or look.  Men are considered as active spectators and women are passive “to-be-looked-atness”.  Men dominate with their gaze and women allow to do it.  The male’s gaze, though a pleasure for him, creates panic in the women.  The worst case is, where these characters look at.  Mulvey concludes this gaze into two terms – voyeurism and fetishtic scopophilia.  Mulvey analyses Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Vertigo and Marnie for the pleasures of male gaze and the perils it gave women.  Many critics were against Mulvey’s view point.  She, however, criticizes main stream cinema and the need to break away from it and create new forms of cinema.

            Later a critic named Mary Ann Doane, concentrated on the performance quality of women in cinema and not with her biological rootedness.  She compared women’s role and acting with the male counterparts.

Problems of Psychoanalytic Feminism

            Flo Leibowitz, a film critic, argues that feministic film critics spoil the view of a cinema.  According to Flo, a cinema bypasses gender and race and audience watch a movie as a whole.  Gendering cinema concentrates on one aspect of a movie and this brings out the unconscious into conscious level, which would lead to confusion and misunderstanding.  A cinema is an open and common medium, which must be seen only from an open perspective and not with a biased attitude.  Jacquline Bobo, a feminist critic, studies about the responses of common audience for the movie The Colour Purple (1985) by Spielberg.  Every audience did not see the deviation from the novel, neither they termed the movie as feministic  instead they found the moves as uplifting and motivating.  All these are works against the feministic approach of cinema and they show the limitations of psychoanalytic feminism.

Masculinities in Film

Image of ‘man’ as shown in cinema – their physical and muscular strength – their roles could be acted by women also – their morality – being the iconic ‘male’

Film Studies and Question of Class

Introduction

            Films are representations of life.  To be realistic and to portray human life, a few directors use the class politics in their films.  Robyn Wiegman uses the term “genderraceclass”, a portmanteau term, to talk about the intricacies of a film.  Robyn mixes 3 words because they are interrelated.  He believed that gender based questions come after the questions of race and class.  This coinage leads to a conclusion on which comes first – gender or race or class?  The second question is the meaning these words given when they are detached.

Class in Film Studies

            Robyn simply concluded his arguments by including another term in his portmanteau and the term goes like this – “gendersexualityraceclass”.  The study of class starts with Marx and Engels’ work The Communist Manifesto, in which they say “the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles.”  This work and words date long back in the history, but till today there is no classless society.  Intellects in all fields have observed this and cinema is not exemption of this philosophy of thought.

            Class in film studies does not stop with the screen presence of class based issues, but it also voices out the class struggle behind the screen.  For example, there is class struggle in the production of a film.  Inequality exists in all parts of movie production.  Movies about the disadvantaged class are often produced by the people who are out of social fraction.  Movies representing these disadvantaged classes in a low budget film will be driven away or they will vanish by big budget movies.     

            Making a class based movie is totally impossible even while using montage or surrealism.  Franz Kafka said about movies, “sight does not master the picture; it is the picture which masters one’s sight.”  This is applicable to class based movie making, which does not master one’s sight.

            Louis Althusser, a Russian director, attempts to represent the politics of class in his films.  According to him, capitalism could not only be represented by a soldier’s gun or policeman’s baton but by using Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA), such as church, media and arts.

Conclusion

            It is hard to represent class and its troubles in a cinema and even when someone attempts to do that it would be a failure on his or her part.  Critics conclude saying “Cameras are no more impartial.”

Summary of Rabindranath Tagore's The Problem of Self

     

Introduction

            Rabindranath Tagore is a famous Indian pre-independence writer.  He is the only Indian to have won the noble prize for literature for his translation of Geetanjali, an anthology of poems.  Tagore is the only poet in the world who takes the pride of writing national anthem for two countries – India and Bangladesh.  The prose The Problem of Self is a philosophical essay about the uniqueness of the self and its importance.

Two views of Human Beings

            Every human being could be given two views – one individual as a part of the universal and the other is the individual as a unique self, which the universal cannot crush.  The individual as a self is proud of its isolation and the whole world seeks this individuality.  This separation of the individual is very precious, which could be achieved after sufferings and sometimes by sins.  The sacrifice or suffering represents the cost and the attainment of the individuality represents what we have gained.

The True Self

            In a meeting, one of the audience asked Tagore whether the destruction of the self or individuality was not held as a supreme goal of humanity in India.  Tagore tries to answer this question.  Tagore says that according to Indian thought the deliverance of an individual is deliverance from avidya, ignorance.  We must get rid of our ignorance so that our mind will find freedom in the inner idea.  ‘Dharma’, a Sanskrit word, means the innermost nature, the essence, the implicit truth of all things.  The freedom of the self from the ignorance is dharma.  This freedom could be seen in two ways – the self displays itself and the self which transcends itself and thereby reveals its own meaning.  To display itself it reveals to be big, to reveal itself it gives up everything it has.  Tagore compares this with a lamp.  A lamp which contains oil is separate from its surroundings and seems to be miserly or selfish.  Once when it is lighted, it relates itself with the things far and near it and freely sacrifices its oil and feed the flame.  This freedom of self is preached by Buddha.  This freedom is not simply breaking of the self, but widening of love.  This state of widening of love is termed as ‘Nirvana’, the highest point of love.  Everything raises the question ‘Why?’ in our mind but when we say ‘I love’ there is no question of ‘why’.

The Eternity of Self

            When things are done with such love, there is no pain.  There will only be freedom in action.  This is what Bagavat Gita teaches.   Show your nature in love and do it freely and never expect anything in return.  This action is more like God’s creation and this creation is self revealment.  When we do things with love, we separate ourselves from our action.  This separateness of our self is described as ‘maya’, an illusion.  This maya is deathless and eternal, ‘amritam’.

Society and the Self

            We live in a society.  When we as individuals in the society, want to pay less and gain more, there will be confusion and fight.  But we should transcend this attitude and wish for the welfare of the society we will realize the higher self, which is the function of love.  This is ‘bodhi’ or ‘true awakening’ which will lead us to darkness but to illumination.  ‘Bodhi’ could be attained only by self will and not by compulsion. 

Conclusion

            This self will has its own limitations like a chess game, where we cannot move coins as we wish.  Our self power must act within limits, so that there is joy in the player.  It is like a father who divides his properties among his sons.  It is the father’s will to give the property, though smaller in portion, to his sons.  It gives freedom to the sons yet has its own restrictions.  These limits will lead us towards the unlimited.  This thought gives the self a proper meaning.

Summary of Jawaharlal Nehru's The Panorama of India’s Past

Jawaharlal Nehru is India’s first Prime Minister.  He is educated in England Cambridge University.  He spent most of his life for India’s freedom struggle.  This short prose piece is an excerpt from his famous book, The Discovery of India.  This book is written by Jawaharlal Nehru, when he was imprisoned in Ahmadnagar Fort.

Nehru begins the essay by saying that his mind is full of India and his attempts to understand and analyse her.  To do this he goes back to his childhood days, when he experienced the country.  At present Nehru is proud of the nation and at the same he is ashamed of the nation.  He is ashamed because of the superstitious practices, outworn ideas and the poverty of Indian people. 

As he grew up he became busy with India’s freedom.  He considers the British power over India as monstrous.  He asks a basic question – “What is India?”.  He thinks of India in geographical terms, her past, the present condition, the future and her role in the modern world.  To talk about the future of India, Nehru needs the present.  To talk about the present, Nehru needs to study about the past India.  He decides to approach India’s past as an alien, through the West, so that he will not be prejudiced and partial.

He thinks of the days, when he stood in Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley, where he saw houses all around him with streets, which was laid before 5000 years.  The Indus Valley civilization, according to Professor Childe, is a representation of a perfect adjustment of human life to a specific environment.  During those days, India was in touch with the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Arabs and the people of central Mediterranean.  India changed those countries and it was changed by those countries.

Jawaharlal Nehru remembers his readings about India’s past, through the books of wanderers from China and other countries.  Nehru has been to the Himalayas, which say about India’s past and rich culture.  The mighty rivers of India talk about the history of India.  The Indus or Sindhu, from which India got its name; the Brahmanputra and the Ganges talk about the story of India’s civilization and culture and about the rise of fall of great empires and cities.

Nehru’s visits to old monuments like Ajanta, Ellora, the Elephanta Caves and other places like Agra and Delhi has made him learn more about India.  He talks about the festival Kumbh Mela, which takes place in his hometown, Allahabad.  The festival has a history of thirteen thousand years.  The place called Saranath, near Benaras, makes him visualize Buddha.  The Ashoka pillars of stone speak a different language to him.

These visits and places has taught a lot about India to Nehru.  His pride about the country becomes sad, when he thinks of the present reality.  According to Nehru, no other country in the world has such a long history and tradition.  The vast panorama of India talks about the great past, but the 180 years of rule by the British has changed everything in India and we are unhappy slaves today.  Nehru promises to bring out the hidden past of India and make the Indians feel proud of their nation.