English Literature And Theory This blog contains the explanation of various critical theories that provide a new insight to view literature and interpretation of various literary texts.

Paper is written by famous Singaporean woman Catherin Lim. Catherine explores the greed towards easy money making and how it leads city people to the tragic result.

Tay Soon and Yee Lian are main characters of the story. They belong to middle class family and they have strong ambition to buy a well managed building with all perfection. They dreamt of beautiful house having marble floors, oval shaped sitting rooms and fantastic swimming pool. They both share their plan to all the family members including Yee Yeng, Yee Lian's sister but mother of Tay Soon didn't pay any attention or concern to them. She was engaged in her traditional profession, i.e, vegetable business. She was completely contained and happy. She also suggested them not to keep such dream but for Tay Soon. it was not only dream. He thought it could be fulfilled if he handled the money appropriately because he had saved 40,000 in bank.

In that period, Tay was attracted to share market because share price was rising. So, he invested his 30,000 at risk in share market. Fortunately, he was able to make $100,000 within short period of time. At that time, he proudly told his mother that he was able to buy 50 houses like mother's. He further was excited towards the share and invested more money. But unfortunately, the value of share began to fall rapidly. There was no any device to control the declining. He invested all amount of money. Few remaining money was also invested in last attempt but it was also in despair. His hope of building modern house was broken into pieces. He himself broke physically. He left eating and started beating his wife and children. His condition was worse and worse and he was admitted in hospital. At last, it was mother who ordered a beautiful paper house somewhere in the market to satisfy his son. At last, Tay Soon was dead and paper house was put on his dead body and they both were burnt together and turned into ashes.

This story is giving satire on the ambition of young generation in Singapore who are crazy for material gratification. The structure of story is divided into three parts - opening, climax, and anti-climax. In opening, we can see Tay Soon and his strong aspiration to have modern house. In the climax, we can observe his excessive greed towards money hoarding. The anti-climax is a total ruin of Tay Soon due to the greed for paper in this story. "Paper" stands for many things such as plain paper, money, etc. The growth of the value of paper means their success in matter. In this story, "Paper" denotes bank, cash, share, certificate, prosperity, game, etc. And on the other hand, it also indicates Tay Soon's ambition, effort, sleeplessness, broken and deserted. And lastly "Paper" also stands for material success and failure both. "Generation Gap" between young and old is also shown in the story. The feeling of Tay Soon is taken lightly by his mother and feeling of mother is taken lightly by son.

The poem, "When Icicles Hang by the Wall " is taken from Shakespeare's play "Love's Labour Lost". It is a song to criticize the winter season but poem doesn't present the direct and strong criticism. Poet is able to manage modest criticism to select the objective words. In the poem, the poet very cleverly to shows his dislikeness towards winter season.

According to the poem, when winter comes it brings several influences, the walls are covered with ice, everything including human's life get influenced by the cold and due to extreme cold, each phenomena come to freeze. To prevent excessive cold, Dick blows his nail and Tom Carries fire logs into the house. Milk freezes as soon as it is poured into the pail. The blood of living creatures comes to freeze. The snow has covered the way and made it muddy. The staring owl sings at night while Joan is keeling kitchen pots. Priests is unable to deliver his preaching due to his old age and coldness. Birds sit for brooding into their nests to skip away from the cold and due to heavy cold Marian's nose becomes red and raw. These all are the symptoms of winter season mentioned in the poem that shows the arrival of winter season. All people used to sit around the fire-place and the sounds of the roasted crabs could be heard. They ate and drank to prevent the coldness of winter season. Through all these images, we can notice winter is not pleasant in England.

Like Salman Rushdie, Mr. Feynman too does not show any direct concern with the conventional philosophy of religion persuading man kind to be divided into different sects, races and nationalities. To Feynman, education is ever good if its result or purpose serves the needs of broad humanity, as done by their contributions to make man capable of showing his potential to benefit mankind and safeguard humanity against any natural calamity. Maybe, if a scientist or learned man is tagged with a bias of sex, religion or nationality, his vision is restricted and would not do any service to broad human race. Since the passage is from scientific pen, it has given space for many technical terms used in physics, biology and biochemistry. So unless the student taps the Internet, latest encyclopedias, dictionaries and concerned experts, he would find the discourse very difficult to understand.
And man can never be sure about what happens to him in a fraction of a money. In many cases, people makes gains from things they have never hoped and face losses from things they have long expected. Studying science alone is not enough to understand the miracles of life. It should be coupled with the study of spiritualism.

There are few contradictions in between what young Salmon thought about preservation of his liberty and the manner he compromised with the disgusting Cambridge principles while obtaining the degree with his body down at the knees below the Vice-Chancellor who seemed very likely to drop direct over him from the high placed chair. In a sense, he did right by following all of the University principles as the price for making himself eligible to be conferred with a degree. Otherwise, no value system of higher education could be substantiated unless the individuals resigns himself to the established principles handed down as the legacy from the long past in a way of giving credit to those who paved the course for the development of educated culture.

Though Salman surrendered his individual liberty in receiving the degree, he regrets later and feels very sorrowful for being forced to do so and compromise with repulsive Cambridge traditions and show passivity before gods and the university authorities. In this light, any type of defiance is a counter to the established value system followed as a legacy for ages to achieve the educational goal. So, if no respect is shown for academic formalities established ion the past, that would prove to be a great weakness and result merely in causing social chaos and endangering base of human culture honoring the seniors and being safeguarded by seniors and authorities.

Salman reacts negatively even about the things he did to serve his purpose but addresses the audience not to and says nothing about the duties to be fulfilled by the degree earners. He should fully know that no human right can be ensured or practiced without fulfilling the corresponding duties in a way as expressing "thanks" to those who show favour to the other. Of course, this practice doesn't prevail among the beasts always centred for the fulfillment of personal needs. And we know education flourishes only through the practice of mutual care and respect. Keeping the same in mind, the teachers teach and the scholars guide those who come to be guided or instructed.

Salman details largely about pros and cons of Cambridge University from where he graduated but ignores almost to highlight the academic greatness of Southampton University. He simply shows his indebtedness to the University for honoring him with an opportunity to give 96th Commencement Speech and extends gratitude to the President of the Bard, who offered him a position of teaching in the Department of English even during the crucial moments of his life.

To the rationalists and the scientific men, religion is moral code of conduct. They want it to be applied by all men and women for mutual welfare,, trust, and happiness. So, they are against the purpose of 'organized religion' characterized these days by blind faith and as means for the power mongers to exploit the ignorant and exert the power over those who are powerless for the fulfillment of their false-ego. Maybe holding for similar ideas , Salman was declared as an atheist and condemned to death by Mullahs as Thomas Becket and Martin Luther King for their fair attempt to stand up against religious repression. So, as the educationists with free mind, Mr. Feynman, Riva Palatino or Rushdie would not show regard for distorted conventional wisdom and for 'organized religion' characterized now by blind faith, irrational beliefs, power grabs, ulterior motives of greedy ministers, a lack of love and no personal respect.