Reunion – W. St. John Tayleur

W. St. John Tayleur’s one act play ‘Reunion’ brings out successfully how a man changes himself according to the circumstances and become selfish.  In the hour crisis the well trained soldiers decided and promised among them that they should sacrifice their lives for the nation in the process of its rebuilding. Soon after the war, all their promises and moral values were kept aside for their personal growth and development. 

Four friends — George Carter, Reverend Philip Rowlands, Mark Tallis and Peter Ransome — meet in an exclusive West End Hotel to celebrate their ‘Reunion’.  They have come here to meet after ten years to honour their ‘promise’ that they had made to one another as soldiers fighting together in the war. Ten years ago, exactly on this particular day, they (seven soldiers) had fallen in a great risk being surrounded by enemy armies from all sides. There was no hope to escape from the attack of enemy armies. Defeat and death was almost imminent for them.  In that hour of crisis they made a pact: if they survived the war, they would all meet again after ten years to share their experiences and contributions to the society as citizens of the nation. 

The four friends share their experiences of the their intervening years and the audience learn that George Carter is now an important public figure, Mark Tallis has become London’s most successful playwright and Reverend Rowlands has risen in the church as a clergyman. These three persons are well settled except Ransome. Ransome, the youngest among four, is embittered and disheartened with his life, informs them that he is about emigrate to United States in search of an opportunity. In the course of their conversation they wonder whether their other comrades —Sergeant Smith and Colin Grayson have been able to pull through.

Reverend Rowlands recalls Colin Grayson’s sacrifice, after cutting the lowest value of cards according to their agreement, in venturing into enemy territory to save other’s lives. The situation has become very grim and serious when they recall how Grayson had received fatal wounds from the enemy’s bullets and how he had been taken away by them as a prisoner of war. At this juncture, a rather changed looking Grayson makes his entry. All four are startled at Grayson’s appearance. They thought that the Grayson’s appearance is an apparition. After a little while, they believe that Grayson is still alive against their belief of his death in the enemy camp.

Grayson enquires his friends about their lives after the war. His penetrating questions lay bare how their success is a sham, and how they have failed to live up to their ideals. He reveals the shocking truth that George Carter’s corrupt practices, unknown to Carter himself, have led to Sergeant Smith’s suicide. He also exposes how Mark Tallis has compromised his intellectual integrity to win easy fame and popularity. He shows how Reverend Rowlands has abandoned his East Mission and Ransome his motherland.

Finally, he proceeds to make the most startling revelation of all: that he is not Colin Grayson, but the brother of their dead friend. Before succumbing to his injuries in the enemy camp, Colin Grayson had written letter to his brother (John Grayson) about his comrades, their lives and future aspirations, and also directed him to attend the promised ‘Reunion’ in his stead.  The dead Colin Grayson’s brother John Grayson confronts with Colin Grayson’s friends about the futility of Colin’s sacrifice. They have survived the crisis of war on the sacrifice of their friend but dishonoured their friend’s heroism and sacrifice by forsaking their nobler goals for their personal ambitions. At this point John Grayson leaves, hoping that, at least in the future they would be true to their promises, by leaving their personal means and ends. 

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Spoken English And Broken English - George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw begins the essay ‘Spoken English and Broken English’ supposing that any foreign student of the English language; and desire to speak it well enough to be understood when you travel in the British Commonwealth or in America and think of speaking correct English for getting employment opportunities. Irrespective of the country that one belongs to, it is clear that there is no such thing as ideally correct English. No two British people speak English exactly alike. Shaw, being a member of a committee established by BBC, was given a position to decide how the utterances of speakers should be to make it as a model of correct speech for the British Islands. All the members of the Committee are the educated persons and they speak in a polished or refined manner in London. The Chairman himself is the Poet Laureate who is not simply an artist but a specialist in pronunciation of words. As a writer of plays Shaw was selected by the committee to superintend the rehearsal and to listen to the way in which way it is spoken by actors who are professionally trained speakers.  

Though that Committee  knows everything about the English speech, and yet its members do not agree with the pronunciation of some of the simplest and commonest words in English language i.e. the two words in any language are – ‘yes’ and ‘No’. It is made clear that no two members of the Committee pronounce them in the same way. Every member pronounces them differently. There are Irish members, Scottish members Welsh members, Oxford University members and American members – all recognizable by their differences in speech. They differ according to the country in which they were born. Since they all speak differently, it is nonsense to say that they all speak correctly. Similarly if you speak clearly you will be understood and recognized you will be understood and recognized as a person of good social standing.

Shaw very clearly states that as a public speaker, he has to take care of every word that he uses is heard distinctly at the far end of the hall consisting of thousands of people. But at home when he converses with his wife sitting within six feet distance that he does not bother about her words who says “don’t mumble and don’t turn your headway him as a deaf because he is more than seventy years old.

He further adds that suppose he forgets to wind his watch and it stops. He had to ask somebody to tell him the time. If he asks the stranger by what O clock is it? The stranger would hear distinctly every syllable. Shaw’s advice to the readers is that in England don’t try to speak English perfectly because if you speak, no one will understand you. (Though there is no such thing as perfectly correct English, There is no presentable English – Good English. Shaw argues that in London nine hundred and ninety nine out of every thousand people not only speak bad English but they speak even badly. Even if they do not speak English well they themselves can understand it when it is well spoken. But when the speaker is a foreigner, the better he speaks, the harder it is to understand him. In addition to this he argues that no foreigner can ever stress the syllables and make the voice rise and fall. In question and answer, in assertion and denial, in refusal and consent. (Therefore what you have to do is to speak with a strong foreign accent and speak broken i.e. English without any grammar.) Then every English person to whom you speak --- will at once know that you are a foreigner. If you say “will you have the goodness to direct me to the railway terminus.” At charring cross.” With pronouncing all vowels and consonants beautifully, he won’t understand you and suspect you as a beggar. (But if you shout "Please! Charing Cross! Which way!" You will have no difficulty. People will certainly lead to the direction.

In the concluding part of his essay the writer advocates that even in private intercourse with cultivate people you must not speak too well. Apply this method to learn foreign languages and never try to speak them too well. Even among English people to speak too well is a pedantic affectation. Eventually he argues that it is an insult to the native who can’t understand his own language when it is too well spoken.       

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A Simple Philosophy – Seathl

# Bring out the critical significance of the Chief Seathl’s frequent use of the adjective ‘Savage’ for himself and his people in his letter to the President of the United States in the year 1855.

The letter, ‘A Simple Philosophy’, written by the Red Indian Chief Seathl of the Suwamish tribe of the State of Washington, to the US President Franklin Pierce is a great piece of Sarcasm and also bears inexorable consequences that he was apprehensive about which the Earth is facing today. The Red Indian Chief has skillfully tried to aid and abet a passionate interest towards the well being of the nature and the called ‘bests’, which the ‘white man’ used to kill with immense pleasure.

A critical ideology relating to the utter futility of nature’s destruction roused in Seathl’s heart that eventually made him try to make the white man aware of the verve and vitality of a healthy environment that is required for the existence of human race. The use of the term ‘savage’ in any way, is defending the Chief from being counter attacked. The Utter humbleness with which Seathl has tried to light the idea of being eco-benign has been appreciated with self-acceptance of the red tribe being a savage, In a nut-shell, Seathl has cogently tried to make the US President very clear about that the concept and ideologies of the white man, in accordance with their dealing with nature is merely fallacious with the sarcastic elucidation of the wrongdoings in the corridor of white man’s power and pleasure.

Seathl has to put some conditions before handing the region of Red Indian tribe to the US government. Asking for favours was not so simple for Seathl and that too, when it was about the attitude by which the flora and fauna should be preserved. He has to be genuinely coherent in explanations supporting his tribe’s feelings as a whole – to form a basic platform to put forth logical points and then ask for treating the ‘beasts’ as ‘brothers’ and letting the nature remain undisturbed and the land, undivided. Seathl more or less mulled over his tribe as a colony of nature-lovers as also while drawing a sarcastic contrast between the attitudes of the two races…. The term ‘savage’ used for the tribe implicitly annuls the ideological defiance. Also, he demanded that the aboriginals, i.e. the members shouldn’t be subjugated and hampered for the pleasure of the white-men, by turning the blacks into slaves or the so called ‘the beasts of burden’.

Repetition of the term ‘Savage’ five times in the same letter has for a considerable significance when taken in regard to the US President who had asked for the literal friendship before overpowering the region of the Suwamish tribe by letting them surrender for their own life safety and also for false footed future security.

“How can you buy or sell the sky – the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us”

Here Seathl has directly denied the fact upon which the capitalist world is residing in the world. He has been unable to fathom the way by which the whites distributed and segregate the different parts and aspects of nature. His tribe used to see them with equal appreciation and reverence. Thus, they could never even think of creating natural havocs and hence distributing the whole environment for the sake of pleasure or pain. They were much aware of the natural predicament that could have befallen due to their ruthless activities and thus could not discard the fact that human life has got its existence from its surroundings. They were quite clear in their view that it’s not only the concept or technological power that can make difference in life or positively saying, general betterment, but also – it’s the mere attitude, with which it has been acquired by the world.  

If everyone had followed the Red Indian tribe, none would have been facing the present natural cataclysmic problems of ‘Global Warming’, frequent floods, famines, pollutions in all possible forms and chronic diseases as a result of the negligence and selfishness of mankind.

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