Online discussion :oneness of literature

• NORTHROP FRY'S 's theory of ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM is based on the idea that whole of literature has oneness.

 Literature is the most important part of our life. It is like a Tree. It has many branches but they all connected with each other and it has a same root.   So like this in literature it has many different subjects but all are connected with each other. Also it is like same skeleton with different body. So all has the same root and all are connected with each other. New literature takes few things from the past literature.

 T. S. Eliot 

T.S.Eliot said in his "Tradition and Individual Talent", that the best individual part of poet's work is the maximum influence,which is reflection of writers of past.He covers various topics, myths in his long poem "The Wasteland". This poem carried very deep meaning inside it.


We find oneness of literature in T.S.Eliot's ''The Waste Land'' and Anton Chekhov's ''A Joke''.In Waste land we find this lines which is connected with Chekhov's short story.



"And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened.  He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight.  And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free."

 These are the lines from Wasteland. In this lines Marie feels Nostalgic. She is frightend to going over the mountain on the sled. During this time one male person who is her cousin tells her to hold her tight. So he take advantage of Marie fear and tells her to hold him tightly. The spiritual degradation and sexual perversion and lust in this lines. 

  "A Joke" by Anton Chekhov 

             We can find many similarities in short story of Chekhov and these lines of Waste Land. In both the context surrounding and incidents are same. In both the context driving on sled plays important role to evoke such emotions. Or we can say one difference, there is attraction for opposite gender while in short story it is only love. "A joke" by Anton Chekhov is also shows the same structure of story, only the character name has changed. It is Nadia instead of Marie.In this short story, we find same incident with the girl Nadia.
She also has that feelings which Marie felt and also freightned from the sled. But after that she has interest for sled and she doing it again and again. Everyday both the character were coasting.Every time he silently speaks,"I love you" and One day Nadia decided to do coasting alone, just to make sure that who is speaking. Or it's true or illusion.. But when she gone alone,she didn't listens anything because she was too much frightened that day because her friend was not with her to give her courage.
So,here we can find the oneness between the poem and short story.

"A joke" by Anton Chekhov is translated in Gujrati language. It is published in the Gujrat Samachar Newspaper. The title of this story is " Nankdi Majak". Because it translated into Gujrati. This story has lost its charm. Also in the Gujrati story few lines are not translated. So the translation of any work lost its  original  charm after translation. The same thing happens here.  writer has not translated well also  the few words lost their charm after the  translation. 



Theme of Sexual Perversion.

 In the Wasteland we can find sexual perversion,He has done with Nadia is just a kind of lustful act. we find Sexual perversion as theme. It describe the lustful desire and attraction. But in the Short story of Chekhov I have not found any kind of lustful desire of man..So we can compare both the literary genre and find oneness in literature..but,the theme is different.