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Decline and Fall: a New Perspective Santosh Smitha Department of English, University of Madras [email protected]

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Decline and Fall: a New Perspective Santosh Smitha Department of English, University of Madras Santoshsmitha@Shasuncollege.Edu.In Journal of Interdisciplinary Cycle Research ISSN NO: 0022-1945 Decline and Fall: A New Perspective Santosh Smitha Department of English, University of Madras [email protected] Abstract— Waugh’s major works reveals that the quest for meaning and order in the chaotic flux of life becomes a readily discernible, almost consistent pattern. Waugh’s Protagonists ranging from innocent and inarticulate young men to sensitive, deeply introverted individuals reveal varying religious attitudes. The movement from Decline and Fall to Unconditional Surrender is a moment from a state of passive alienation from experience towards a state of reconciliation. Keywords— Familial relationship, Quest, Betrayal, Preoccupation, Chaos, Alienation I. INTRODUCTION The lucidity and precision of Waugh‘s style emphasises the absurdity and chaos of the novel‘s world. It is the style of the eighteenth century which Waugh greatly admired. Language is thus the only depository of values in a confused world. The form admirably supports the theme – the theme of absurd quests and circularity. The chestnut trees, the great houses, the prison and Egdon Mire – all perform a symbolic as well as thematic function. The humanism of the great Victorians is no substitute for religion which alone can give direction to modern man. Waugh has been compared with Charles Dickens many a times. In the age of post war world the quest of high idols and identity of self was difficult to achieve which Waugh was able to justify through his early novels and ―Decline and Fall‖ is one of them. II. A JOURNEY WITHOUT A GOAL : DECLINE AND FALL Evelyn Waugh is not only a major writer of English prose but a serious novelist who deals with some of the intellectual problem of his age. His career as a novelist is often compared to that of T. S. Eliot whose themes and techniques Waugh greatly admired. Broadly speaking, this novel portrays the moral confusion of the human race. Of these, the ‗quest‘ is one of the most recurring motifs in Waugh‘s canon. Passive and morally weak, the heroes of ‗Decline and Fall‘ and ‗Vile Bodies‘ have little claim to the title of ‗quester‘ in its conventional usage. The theme of ‗Decline and Fall‘ is mainly alienation, identity and self realisation. These issues were central to the novelist of the twentieth century. Sudden shifts of situations, loyalty and exchange of roles were common occurrences. Mismatch and duplicity have displaced human integrity and substantiality. By 1928, Waugh had matured as a great writer of fiction who had already discovered stylistic and narrative techniques by means of which he could convincingly present moral dilemmas. Waugh tells us in his autobiography that his early acquaintance with the great master pieces sharpened his sensibilities and made him aware of the need for craftsmanship. ―Balance‖, a short story written before ‗Decline and Fall‘ demonstrates his concern for some of the serious life issues. ‗Decline and Fall‘ was Waugh‘s first novel. It was an instant success and has ever since been regarded as the author‘s major achievement. J. F. Carens [2] called him a ―modern satirist and wrote thus: ―Waugh‘s career as a satirical novelist began in 1928.‖ W. Cook [3] said ―Waugh has consequently lessened the critical esteem with which these works might have otherwise been favoured.‖ F. J. Stopp[6] was one of Waugh‘s most sympathetic critics who saw the work as the hero‘s ―static romanticism.‖ There are not many durable characters in the modern English novel, let alone immortals, like Don Juan or Jeeves, but Grimes is part of our heritage, his language and values, his reflections on the public schools and the honour of the regiment are marvellous glimpses of a suppressed rich underworld of English life. Waugh‘s temperament is not sunny, nor is his books – even the funniest of them. From Decline and Fall to Unconditional surrender they are shot through with an awareness of most of the things that tempt men to despair: whatever lies between social boredom and concentration camp, disappointment in love and the decline of civilization.‖ Waugh‘s Decline and Fall has been described by critics as the prose equivalent to T. S. Eliot‘s The Waste Land which gave quintessential expression to the poet‘s despair in the world of modern decline and decadence. T.S. Eliot was among Waugh‘s favourites and Eliotean echoes can be heard in many of Waugh‘s fiction. The disillusionment and despair, the lack of spiritual and metaphysical dimension to modern man‘s life and its utter futility is the theme common to both Eliot‘s first great poem and Waugh‘s Volume XII, Issue I, January/2020 Page No:1008 Journal of Interdisciplinary Cycle Research ISSN NO: 0022-1945 first great novel. The ‗waste-land‘ imagery of futility is seen ―in the context of Eilot‘s notions about the decay of western culture and the fundamental importance of tradition. Stylistically, Waugh has affinities with T.S. Eliot. Waugh‘s Decline and Fall and Eliot‘s The Waste Land have shored up literary fragments against their ruins. The two writers subscribe to the traditional view that each new work should be a fresh focus of power through which former streams of beauty, emotion and reflection are directed. Like Eliot‘s poems, Waugh‘s novel is not only a close web of quotations and adaptations but also a purposeful parody of some of the well-known masterpieces of the past. Waugh and Eliot were Augustan in their critical taste and the idea of ―originality‖ with the implication that the reminiscence of other writers is a defect in the work seemed ludicrous to them as it would have sounded ludicrous to the poets of the Augustan age. The characters in Decline and Fall, like the people in The Waste Land are exiles in the arid plains. That man is in exile is one of the dominant ideas in Waugh‘s writings: ―Man is by nature an exile, haunted, even at the height of his prosperity, by nostalgia for Eden: individually and collectively he is always in search of an oppressor who will take responsibility for his ills.‖ Behind the hilarity of the book lurks a sense of deep distress of the oppressiveness of modern times and of modern society. Modern man of whom Waugh‘s ingénue hero Paul Pennyfeather is a representative, is an exile from Eden, a scene of unsullied innocence and bliss. The bitterness of the pain of exile is progressively illustrated in Paul‘s unenviable career through life. Decline and Fall marks the inauguration of Waugh‘s ‗myth of decline‘ a catalogue of change and decay. Man‘s gradual and irretrievable alienation from his ―home‖ is told with ruthless relish. Paul, a theological student at Oxford, is drawn through no fault of his own, into a fantastic world which he cannot fully comprehend. The butt of a practical joke, he is sent down from Oxford for indecent behaviour. He is then hired by Dr. Fagan, an incompetent headmaster of a shady establishment called Llanaaba Castle. A number of grotesque characters people the place: Fagan‘s daughters, Captain Grimes, Prendergast and Philbrick. While here, he is seduced by Margot Beste-Chetwynde, mother of one of Paul‘s students. He is about to marry Margot, when he is arrested while unknowingly trying to arrange for her the transportation of a group of prostitutes. He is imprisoned and is again the victim of the Lucas-Dockery experiments in criminal rehabilitation. He is rescued from gaol by Margot who has arranged a fake release and a change of identity for him. Under a new name, he returns to college and resumes studies. The novel is geometrically arranged so that each of three parts explores one of these segments of modern civilization. Paul passes through three different worlds: the effete school systems at Scone and Llanabba, the corrupt upper-class society of the Beste-Chetwyndes, and the pretensions and ineffective penal system of Lucas-Dockery. The hero‘s life is a voyage through and a comment on diverse but commonly decadent societies. His story is thus an exploration of the values or of their loss, in the several elements of modern society. The landscape of both the artists suffers from a dearth of love and faith. The hero in Waugh‘s book, like the inhabitant of Eliot‘s wasteland, is passive and incapable of deliberate action, and equally incapable of distinction between the apparent and the real. Both T.S. Eliot‘s The Waste Land and Waugh‘s Decline and Fall are parodies of the quest-motif. The quest has ever been regarded as a symbol which expresses the purest desire and best attainment of the human spirit, an objective correlative of man‘s search for an ideal and true religion. Eliot‘s poem however has often been interpreted as a kind of narrative history of the wanderings of the quester in the unrestored wastelands. Eliot not only describes the conditions of the wasteland of his own time but in the oblique way, informs the reader that the happenings in the poem are wastelands of one kind or other, both ancient and modern. In Eliot‘s wasteland the orders of the natural world, and its cycles of seasons are reversed. In the vegetation myths, the seasons of the year are seen as reflecting the life-cycle of a god who dies and is resurrected. Adonis spends half the days with the goddess of the underworld Persephone and half with Goddess of love Aphrodite. Such a myth accounts for the demise and resurrection of the god and with him the death and revival of the vegetation.
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