How has context influenced writer’s response to enduring human concerns?
The context has played a major role in influencing writers’ response to enduring human concerns. One of them is love. Barnett-Browning sonnets’ “Sonnet from the Portuguese” shows that her Victorian context have influenced her to see love as liberating source; on the other hand F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Hedonistic context shaped his view of love as entrapping, seen through his novel “The Great Gatsby”.
The Victorian era has played a large role in influencing Browning’s values. Its religious beliefs and tight moral codes have developed her spiritual beliefs, which have helped her discover love. The Christian allusion “And if God choose, I shall love more after death” (sonnet 43), shows that faith gave Browning’s love the scope to transcend death. However, the wild behavior and the decay in morals in the 1920’s have made Fitzgerald to believe that love is entrapping. Fitzgerald makes a point that there a lack of morals in this era and is disgusted by it. The motif of T.J Eckelberg is used by Fitzgerald to show the displacement of religious spirituality with consumerism. Myrtle’s death, which occurred in front of the billboard, is a symbol for the tragedy that can happen when there is decay in morals.
Browning’s context has influenced her to see love as a liberating source. This is shown through the contrast of her first sonnet and last sonnet, as it shows how love has changed her. The first sonnet is a reflection of her gloomy state before discovering love. Her melancholy tone, demonstrated through the use of alliteration of “sweet, sad years” shows that she feels hopelessness and empty. She thought that all that awaited her was “Death”. However this contrasts to the tone of happiness shown in sonnet 43. Her use of religious imagery “My soul can reach for the ends of Being” shows how love has freed her from her old insecurities of living a life that is “dauntless, (and a ) voiceless...