Character of Dr. Primrose

Dr.Charles Primrose is the protagonist of Goldsmith’s novel The Vicar of Wakefield. He is the narrator of the story. He is virtuous, intelligent moral and religious. He is a loving husband of Deborah and a caring father of six children. He considers that all the members of his family are “equally generous, credulous, simple and inoffensive.”

Dr.Primrose has fortune of his own. He donates his small clergyman’s salary to orphans and widows. He never cares for money. His unconcern for money is revealed in the fact that he has entrusted all his money and property with an unscrupulous merchant who finally deceives him. When he loses his money and is compelled to live with a meagre salary of fifteen pounds a year, he readily accommodates himself to the new environment. He often advises his daughters to avoid the traps of worldly pleasures and comforts.

Dr.Primrose is a committed vicar. As he keeps no assistants, he personally knows everyone in the parish. One of his favourite topics to discuss is that of matrimony.  He has written and published many pamphlets arguing that a husband or wife should never remarry if his or her partner dies.  He believes that a person should remain chaste in his or her beloved’s memory. When the vicar fails to pay his annual rent to Squire Thornhill and is put in prison, he regularly delivers sermons to the fellow prisoners. He tells them that the suffering on this world is only a preparation for the joy in the next world.  

The priest is a man of principle. He doesn’t want to compromise his ideology for anything. He argues vehemently with Mr. Wilmot against remarriage fully knowing that he is a polygamist. Even one of his relative warns him that the argument will affect his son’s marriage. But Dr.Primrose angrily cries that he will not “relinquish the cause of truth”.  Similarly, when he is in prison, he boldly attacks the criminal laws that they punish only the weak and not the corrupt. He criticises that these laws are inefficient to reform the sinners. He remains unshaken even during times of calamities.

Though Dr.Primrose usually has a sweet, benevolent temper, he does not possess much worldly wisdom. He is often deceived by the appearances and behavior of those around him.  He often misjudges his family’s supposed friends and neighbours. He has a poor opinion about Mr.Burchell. He discourages Mr. Burchell’s love for Sophia thinking that he is morally weak.  Later, it is only Mr. Burchell, (the disguised Sir William Thornhill) who rescues Dr.Primrose from all his sufferings and sorrows. However, despite all his faults, he is affectionate, faithful, loving, patient, and essentially good-natured.

            Dr. Charles Primrose, the vicar, can be compared to  Job in the Bible, who suffers and suffers but never loses faith, and whose continued devotion is ultimately rewarded by God.

SMALL SCALE REFLECTIONS ON A GREAT HOUSE

                                    A.K.Ramanujan

            A.K.Ramanujan is a well known Indian poet writing in English.  He has a rare capacity to bring to life even the smallest details of his subject.  This is obviously revealed in his poem Small Scale Reflections on a Great House. The poem is nostalgic in tone about a great house in which the poet spent his childhood

            The poet begins the poem humorously by stating that things that entered his grand parents’ house never went out.  Lame cows that entered the house were provided with shelter and gifted with a name.  Library books once borrowed from libraries never found their way back.  They remained only to serve as breeding homes for insects and worms. Dishes that belonged to the neighbours for distributing sweets were never returned.  Servants once employed, never left the house. Gramophones continued to remain there. On a distressing note, the poet says that diseases like epilepsy that once entered the blood continued to haunt the generations to come. Sons-in law who came to the house were asked to stay back to check accounts or to teach arithmetic to the nieces of the family. Women who came as wives of some male members never left the house.

            The poet then goes on to say that something that went out of the house did find their way back.  Bales of cotton carried to some textile mills returned processed as packets of cloth to be worn on special occasions by the members of the family. Letters posted by the members of the family found their way back as the postmen failed to locate the precise address. Ideas that originated in the house conveyed to outsiders returned to the house as gossip. The daughters who got married returned back home as widows. Sons of the house who had run away returned as fathers as their wives had given birth to boys.

            The poet ends the poem by saying that one thing that left the house never returned back. i.e. life.  A member of the family who ran away from the house never came back alive. A nephew who had left the house to join army had been killed in the border and only his corpse was brought home.

            Thus A.K.Ramanujan describes the people, things and events associated with the great house.

           

CHAUCER’S PORTRAYAL OF THE SHIPMAN IN THE PROLOGUE

Chaucer’s descriptive skill in the delineation of human character is evident in the portraiture of the pilgrims of The Canterbury Tales. He portrays his characters with precision and accuracy. He often makes use of the details of physical and moral attributes of the characters to describe them.

The Shipman is one of the pilgrims to Canterbury. He hails from Dartmouth. He rides on a big strong horse. He wears a coarse gown down to the knee. Around his neck and under his arm he had a dagger hanging on a lace.  The hot summer had made his complexion all brown.

The shipman is a skilled sailor. He is good at calculating the tides, navigating the stars and bringing the ship safely to the harbour. There was no one from Hull to Carthage who knows more than the Shipman about the harbours. He knows all the harbours and every creek In Britain and in Spain. He was also bold and cautious in his undertakings. In his career, he has seen many a tempest.

Chaucer describes the Shipman as ‘a good fellow’ ironically as he has certain villainous characters. He steals Bordeaux wine from the merchants when they are in sleep on the ship. He has no regard for a scrupulous conscience. If he fights with any one, he throws his enemy into the sea and sends him to ‘afterlife’

Chaucer’s Shipman is representative of the seamen of the day. The reason for Chaucer  to include the Shipman among his pilgrims is that Chaucer wants to show the newly emerging medieval middle class as a result of the developing mercantile ships.