A Talk on Advertising – Herman Wouk

‘A Talk on Advertising’ is an attack on the Advertising Business. In this essay Herman Wouk expresses his bitter sense of displeasure on today’s surprisingly prospering business of advertising. He strongly pointed out that the field of advertising business has been degenerated into a ‘racket’ than a business and how it is grossly abusing even the noblest things like Language, Nature, Art and Youth. Wouk strongly deplores on how advertising business is corrupted with social evils and immoral values. 

Herman Wouk addressed to the gathering of advertising professionals just after the formal dinner speech of Marquis. He pointed out that all these professionals are finding their daily bread in this advertising business and tried to entreat them to redeem this strange, bittersweet miracle of their lives by giving up the advertising business at once.  He boldly states that the professionals of advertising business are not entitled to enjoy the wealth that has been earned (by them) through their advertising business.

A shoemaker makes shoes for his bread. A singer sings for her supper. A capitalist leads a large enterprise. A pilot flies, a coal-miner digs, a sailor moves things, a minister preaches, an author tells stories, a laundryman washes, an auto-worker makes cars, a painter makes pictures, a street-car conductor moves people, a stenographer writes down words, a lumberjack saws and a tailor sews. The people appreciate their services and cheerfully feed them for their skilled craft. But what does an advertising man do?  

The advertising men induce human beings to want things that they do not want. They create unnatural desire for unnecessary and undesirable things among the people. They create ‘want’ where ‘want’ does not exist. They induce people to use more things than they naturally desire. The more useless and undesirable the article is; the greater effort of advertisement is needed to dispose of it.

People naturally crave for meat and so the advertising of meat is on a negligible scale. Nobody is born craving tobacco. Therefore, tobacco is the largest item of expense in its distribution. The advertising people thrive richly in the service of utterly useless commodities like tobacco, underarm pastes, soaps and whisky. Hence, both producers of undesired things and the people of advertising business share the immoral haul. 

Advertising is unproductive and wasteful. Its evils are still more worse. Advertising destroys everything that is good and beautiful in this land. It has tarnished creation. The advertising people have destroyed the purity of Love, the beauty of Nature, Art, Language and Youth in the harness of commerce.

The advertising people ill-use the language in the service of advertising. They make the language so cheap that they would begin to think of it as a lie. 

God has created this wonderful land. The advertising people have turned ‘Nature’ into a painted hag, crying ‘come buy’. Artistic inspiration is misutilised. The beautiful young girls are used as models for lying. This is sheer misuse and vandalism. They sell everything by the falsehood of advertising business. 

An artist has the privileges of the court fool. Advertising evades truth for gain. They spoil everything that is fair for sheer greed of earning money. It is certainly not a decent work. At the end, Herman Wouk apologises for attacking the advertising business and wishes and expects his efforts will be successful if anyone of them repents and leaves the advertising industry.

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Refund — One Act Play: Summary

The Refund, one Act play, is an unusual story. A student who was a bad performer in school comes back to the school as a young man and wants a refund of all the fees that he paid. He jeers his professors, calling them names and tells them that they were as much “good for nothings” as he was and since he did not derive any value from them, it is only rightful that he be paid back all his tuition. He also threatens the school with legal action if they don’t return his money. The Principal is livid, but the Maths teacher sizes up the situation quickly and proposes a solution.

She says that each of the teachers would administer an oral quiz to him and if he gets even one question right, then he is deemed to have passed all his exams and so he will not be entitled to any refund, otherwise he can be given a refund if he fails to answer ALL of the questions correctly. According to her plan, every professor should ask him two questions – one easy and the other hard. The young man agrees to this proposition since he is determined to get his money and so he looks forward to answering every question incorrectly even if he knows the right answers to some or all of them. So, one by one, the teachers quiz him – the Biology professor, the English professor, the Chemistry professor and the Physics professor but he answers all of them incorrectly and is quite delighted at the progress he is making. The Principal feels uneasy but the Maths professor assures her that she can handle it. Finally it is the turn of the Maths professor. She says she is going to ask him the easy question first.

Her first question is, “If we represent the speed of light by X and the distance of the star Sirius from the Sun by Y, what is the circumference of a one-hundred-and-nine-sided regular polyhedron whose surface area coincides with that of the hip-pocket of a state railway employee, whose wife has been deceiving him for two years and eleven months with a regimental sergeant major of hussars”.

The young man is flummoxed with this question but recovers quickly and says “28 apricots” as the answer. There is tension in the air as the Principal and other Professors look expectantly in the direction of the Maths Professor, who coolly says that it is the wrong answer and that the correct answer is 27 apricots. The young man is greatly relieved and looks extremely happy in flunking this quiz. The Maths teacher turns around to the horrified Principal and coolly says that the young man is right about asking his fees back and that the school should refund him.

The Maths teacher turns to the young man and asks him how much the school owes him. Overjoyed at the prospect of getting some money, the young man goes over each year and the fees for that year in detail and comes up with the final amount the school owes him. All along as he is counting mentally and saying what is due to him, the Maths teacher writes the figures down on a piece of paper and calculates the total. Finally the teacher acknowledges to the young man that his mental arithmetic adds up correctly. The young man says that they can bet on it since he has it all worked out.

That is when the Maths Professor drops the bombshell that her asking him what the school owed him was her “hard” question and that since he got it right, he has now passed his course with flying colors and so the school doesn’t owe him anything now. That is when the young man realizes that he has been tricked and as he prepares to leave the school in disgust, he is mocked at by each of the professors in turn. 

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The Rising of the Moon — Lady Gregory

Lady Gregory’s The Rising of the Moon is a political play dealing with the relation between England and Ireland. Here we find Ireland trying to free itself from the English rule. The English has dominated over Ireland for a long period of time. In this play we find that the characters are torn between duty and patriotism and are ultimately united together as Irishmen through the folklore, myths and songs which they share as a nation. The thought of being the citizen of a country is considered as more important over one’s feelings of duty towards of foreign nation.

Patriotism is the force that unites the people of a country. Lady Gregory’s play written in Irish English presents two characters. One is an Irish patriot with a prize on his head who is involved in the Irish struggle for freedom. The other person is a sergeant who is on the look-out for him. He is posted at the harbor to check whether the wanted man who has escaped is seen passing by. The sergeant is a poor family man who is badly in need of money. The patriot comes that way disguised as a ballad singer. He sings patriotic folk songs and arouses the sergeant’s nationalistic feelings. Finally he identifies him but does not arrest him. He lets him go and willingly loses the reward. His patriotism outweighs his duty. The scene is a harbor somewhere in Ireland. The British are still the rulers and the Irish patriots are still fighting for their country’s independence. One such Irish nationalist has been arrested but he has escaped from jail. The authorities put a prize on his head and the play begins with a sergeant and two policemen pasting a notice or a placard with physical details of the escaped prisoner.

The sergeant suggests that they put up the notice on the barrel. There is a flight of steps that lead to the barrel.  This place must e watched because there is every chance that the friends of the escape might bring a boat there to help him get away to some a safe place. The sergeant reads the placard and feels sorry that he had not seen before he escaped from the jail. He knows that the wanted man is no ordinary criminal but an important political figure. He is the person who makes all the plans for the entire Irish nationalist organization. The sergeant believes that he could not have escaped without the support some of the jailors. Policeman B says that the hundred pounds reward is not enough but he is sure that any policeman who captures him will get promotion. The sergeant then says that he will mind the place himself because he is sure that he will be able to catch the wanted man himself. However he regrets the fact there is no one to help him. He, being a family man requires the money.    

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