UNIT 4 DESCRIPTIVE PROSE-3

Structure

4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Passage from Mulk Raj Anand's The Village
4.2.1 Text
4.2.2 Glossary
4.2.3 Discussion
4.3 Passage from Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
4.3.1 Text
4.3.2 Glossary
4.3.3 Discussion
4.4 Let Us Sum Up '

4,5 Answers to Exercises

4.0 OBJECTIVES

In this unit, you will examillz two more passages of descriptive writing in
some detail. After reading this unit carefully and completing the exercise, you
will be able to :

recognize the literary characteristics and stylistic feature of a prose

piece;
explain the role of style in presenting the content effectively.

4.1 INTRODUCTION

Descriptive writing, as we have seen, is one of the varieties of prose. We have:

also seen that even within descriptive writing we can find writings of different
kinds. In the earlier two units, you have seen the way that historians,
travellers and anthropologists use prose for descriptive writirg. While the
content is important, it is style and presentation which separates literary prose
from the non-literary and functional variety. It is for this reason that it is
important to look at the literary aspects a little more closely by analyzing the
stylistic features.

In this unit, you will read two passages of descriptive writing. The first
passage is a description taken from Mulk Raj Anand's The Village,

The second passage is from the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens. There
are marked contrasts in the two passages. Both the passages are dramatic in 1
nature. But while the first vividly describes a dramatic episode, the second I
dramatically builds up the atmosphere of the period.
 Descriptive Prose-3
4.2 PASSAGE FROM MULK RAJ ANAND'S THE
VILLAGE

This passage is an extract from Mulk Raj Anand's novel The Village. This is a
striking description of an unusual and bizarre event which takes place in a
village. Snake bites are frequent occurrences in villages but local customs vary
in their treatment. Often magic and exorcism are part of the treatment of
snake-bites, in addition to various kinds of medication. But it is generally
believed that the poison that has entered the body needs to be treated by other
means besides medication, and the process is aided by faith cures and spiritual
powers of a hallucinatory and dramatic kind. Some others perform these rites
secretly with meditation and prayer in strict solitude.

4.2.1 Text

'There is the palanquin, there is our boy,' the peasants chorused. A tense
silence prevailed during which the father of the lad, who had been brought,
rushed to see if there was still life in the boy's body.

Harnarn Singh was going to run out to fetch Chandi, but he had hardly risen
before she rushed in, fuming and frothing, her eyes glinting like burning coals,
her nostrils dilating wide like a breathless mare.

'They torture me and torment me, these eaters of their masters, Mahantji,' she
said. 'Look, they have bruised my legs and arms. Why are they after my life?
Why can't they tease their mothers, their sisters! May they die!'

'There is no talk!' There is no talk!' consoled the Mahant. 'They are rogues!
You should keep quiet and not take any notice of what they say. Now where
is Hafiz, the drummer? You wait and rest till he comes.'

Chandi sat wearily for the moment, and closed her eyes as if she were going to
sleep.

'He is in the hall, I think,' said Harnarn Singh, and he shouted, 'Ohe!, Hafizia,
come in, ohe!, come in.'

Hafiz, the bearded old hereditary musician, came, bearing his drum. He still
led concert-parties to peasants' homes on the occasion of marriages and births,
and, as a menial, he had waited to be called to Mahant's sacred presence. He
raised his hand to his head, saying, 'Salaam, Mahantji, father-mother.'

Lalu had heard that Chandi, the witch woman, was supposed to be possessed
by the spirit of the king of snakes. She could cure anyone who had been
bitten, with the help and blessing of the Mahant.

He had now finished grinding the liquid, and was draining the mixture into
cups for the company to drink. But just then Hafiz struck up the drum and
Chandi, who had sat still and intent, brooding heavily, began to shiver like
someone possessed of a fever.
Descriptive Prose That was how she began to go into her trance, and though he had often seen
her do it in his childhood, he left the pestle and mortar and watched,
fascinated.

Even as he turned, the shivering gave place to a hissing, hard-breathing,

shaking movement, at a faster tempo. And, as he contemplated the faces of
the congregation in the eerie tenseness of the monastery courtyard, and saw
the bitten body lie as dead in the stillness, the hissing, hard-breathing, shaking
movement became the wriggling of a snake when it gives chase. The music of
the drum had mounted to a rhythm which seemed to seep into Lalu's blood,
and he felt embarrassed even as he lent himself to it.

But Chandi was almost going mad as, with a majestic sweep of her loose
black hair, streaked with white, a smile on her lips that lit the haggard,
sunken-cheeked ugliness of her face into an ecstasy, she began to revolve her
head while she blew forth sharp whiffs of breath, like a cobra when it dances.
Round and round the head went, round and round, till, while Lalu felt tickled
to laugh, the blood of Chandi's face seemed to merge into an illusory circle of
fire. And while she moved her head thus furiously she began to crawl on all
fours, still revolving her head, still blowing and puffing short gasps of breath,
spitting the profuse froth that was gathering on the corners of her mouth, and
describing circles round the palanquin.

From shivering she passed to shaking, from shalung to wriggling and crawling
in circles. Then she began to jump and caper, with short steps more like a
monkey than a snake, and her head revolved with the violence of a whirlwind
as she blew her breath in spurts of anger, and cast her spittle about the air as if
she were spreading her venom against the world with a malevolent wrath. Her
face struck the earth sometimes, and she seemed to lose control of her head
complktely, so that it struck against the edge of the palanquin and bled. But
on and on she went, in a ceaseless, dangerous movement, the curves of a
snake dance that was as fascinating in its mixture of human and reptile
gestures as it was frighteningly terrible to behold. And time and space seemed
to swirl in this mad dance to which the continuous thunder of the drum added
a mighty abandon. Life seemed to lose its meaning and its reality on the
shimmering waves of the steady stares that waited, half full of doubt, half full
of hope, for the miracle to be performed.

The tension grew to a strange and uncanny height as Chandi, wrapt in the
ecstasy of her movement, tired and violent, lifted by the swirling tides of her
furious activity, became completely involved in her own warmth and seemed
to forget the purpose for which she had summoned the spirit of the king of
snakes. She drifted almost to the edge of the kitchen, which, to her as an
outcast from society, was forbidden territory.

But then she changed her direction suddenly as if, even in her trance, she
remembered her birth. And she danced to the foot of a banyan tree which
stood overshadowing the courtyard in a comer, and blew into the holes at its
roots to propitiate the snake gods who were supposed to live there. Then,
absorbed in the shaking splendour of her dance, she whirled across to the
palanquin where the bitten body of the peasant boy lay. And she began to
blow at the various parts of it, drifting away after a brief spell as if to intensify
her movement. And the father of the boy whispered: 'Wah Guru, Hey, Wah
 Guru!' as if each movement of suspense, while his son still lay dormant, was Descriptive Prose-3
I like the load of centuries on his tight-stretched heart.

At this stage, the Mahant got up and, going towards Chandi, made as if to
breathe a divine secret into the snake spirit's ear And B e musician shouted
short little cries of encouragement as he hastened the tempo of his thumps on
the drum.
1I
Chandi followed the Mahant, spitting and snarling as a snake to its charmer,
and moved towards the body. She circled round, while the holy man explored
the pale olive skin of the boy for the spot where it had been bitten. But he
couldn't find it.

The father of the boy, unable to bear the suspense any longer, rose eagerly and
'came forward and laid his fingers on his son's left ankle.

Upon this the Mahant led the snake spirit up to the ankle of the boy and
breathed again into Chandi's ears.

The possessed woman sat, her head revolving, sweeping the dust with her
hair, with a playful movement which rapidly assumed the utmost ferocity.
Then, falling upon the boy's ankle, she blew upon the wound again and again
spitting and spattering, and rubbed the sweep of her hair on it.

The Mahant bent down when she had repeated this for several seconds, and
breathed something else into her ear.

Then he motioned to the palanquin bearers to take the body and lay it on the
terrace and signed to the musician to stop beating the drum.

Chandi's head revolved frantically for a while, as it had done when she had
blown at the ankle. Then, as if the fuel to the fire of her movement was
exhausted now that the music had stopped, she slackened. Her shaking
became a wriggle, and then her wriggle relaxed into a quivering and the
quivering into a shiver, till at the end she sat still, brooding and intent, her
lean, ugly face dropping from the flushed warmth to a surly, lined hardness,
'Give her some chapattis, ohe Sitalgar,' the Mahant ordered, 'and some lentil,'
and he went back to his seat.

The boy's body on the terrace turned and heaved and his eyes opened with a
start. His father fell upon him with cries and pressed his limbs, turning the
while to the Mahant and uttering short cries of gratitude, 'You are blessed!
Blessed is the Wah Guru! Blessed are you, oh you of the line of the saints of
Nandpur'

The audience, which had missed many heartbeats, whispered, 'Wah Guru!
Wah Guru!'

The bells in the temple were tinkling for evening worship and everyone felt a
sense of relief after the orgy of the miracle.

4.2.2 Glossary

dilating: becoming wider or more open

hereditary: passed down from father to son
Descriptive Prose trance: sleep-like state when one appears to be unaware of the
things around
tempo: the rate of pattern of movement, work or activity; speed
at which music is played
congregation: a group of people gathered (often for worship)
eerie: causing fear, because strange
caper: to jump about in a funny way
abandon: the state when one's feelings and action are
uncontrolled
uncanny: mysterious; not natural or usual
propitiate: to win favour by offerings or rituals, to attempt to
please
dormant: inactive, or as if asleep
surly: seeming angry; habitually bad-mannered

4.2.3 Discussion

The scene that is described here is of the ritual performed by a 'witch', a

women who mimics a snake in an elaborately symbolic dance performed to
the accompaniment of music and wild rhythmic movements. In the course of
this performance, which to the woman is almost a routine demonstration of
her occult and unconscious powers, she is transformed from a wretched and
pathetic old woman into a powerful agent of life-giving, or at least life-
restoring, mysterious divine forces. Scepticism and faith, superstition and
religious ecstasy mingle with hope and despair in a dramatically shifting
scenario of an old woman-beggar becoming a sorceress-enchanter and agent
of divine providence, at the climax of which the poison seems to have been
drained out of the body of the boy restoring him to life, refreshed as though
after a long sleep. This dramatic episode is vividly described by Mulk Raj
Anand. You will have noticed that there is only a thin dividing line between
narrative and descriptive prose in this passage. This will be discussed at
length in the next block.

The scene is described through the eyes of Lalu, a young boy, the hero of the
novel. He was engaged in making a drink, into which he was grinding some
hemp for the Mahant and others present, when the boy who was bitten was
brought in a palanquin by his father with the help of other villagers. But each
time the miracle was performed by the old woman, Chandi, under the
direction of the Mahant, there was great suspense and fear that it might not
after all work. The old woman, who has been tormented by the urchins in the
neighbourhood, was in a foul mood, but fortunately was immediately available
along with the drummer. So without any delay the ceremony of propitiating
the king of snakes was started. Before long she went into a trance and danced
the snake dance, imitating the movements of a cobra, infuriated and ready to
strike. She went through the various stages of its angry arousal and the
vicious fatal strike of its poisonous fangs. After the propitiation of the king
cobra, she symbolically enacted the process of taking back the poison from the
spot in the left ankle of the boy where he was bitten, thus repeating the entire
cycle, happily bringing back the boy from the jaws of death and restoring him
to his desperate father, to the relief of the entire crowd which was holding its
collective breath in agonised suspense. Chandi, the witch-beggar woman, once
again became a pathetic old woman to be rewarded by a few chapattis and
some lentils. But in her trance she had performed a life-restoring miracle.
 Check Your Progress I , Descriptive Prose3

i) Describe the stages through which Mulk Raj Anand transforms the old
beggar woman.into an instrument of divine providence.

4.3 PASSAGE FROM BLEAK HOUSE BY CHARLES

DICKENS

Let us now take up the next passage, which is from Bleak House (1852-53), a
novel by Charles Dickens. This passage from the opening chapter of the novel
1 sets its whole tone and mood and strikes the keynote of its theme. Fog is a
symbol of the confusion and obscurity ,created by the endless complexities and
the twisted and winding nature of legal proceedings. Litigation, especially, for
equity, for fair play, for redressal of the law's own confusions and
ambiguities, has a way of dragging on interminably, not only for a lifetime but
often for generations together. In the meantime untold miseries are inflicted
on innocent and unsuspecting children, adults and old people who had become
destitute solely because of "law's delays".

4.3.1 Text

London. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in
Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the
streets, as if the waters had but neyly retired from the face of the earth, and it
would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so,
waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down
from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big
as full-grown snow-flakes - gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the
Descriptive Prose death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better;
splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's
umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at
street corners, where tens of thousand of other foot passengers have been
slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new
deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to
the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where. it flows among green aits and
meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of
shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the
Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of
collier-brigs, fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great
ships; fog dropping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the
eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides
of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful
skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of
his shivering little Oprentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges
peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all around them, as
if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.
Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun
may, from the spongy E~lds,be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy.
Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time - as the gas seems to
know, for it has a haggard and unwilling hok.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy
streets ar,e muddiest, near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate
ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation; Temple Bar.
And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog,
sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too
deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High
Court of Chancery, most pestilent and hoary sinners, holds, this day, in the
sight of heaven and earth.

On such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High Chancellor ought to be sitting

here - as here he is - with a foggy glory round his head, softly fenced in with
crimson cloth and curtains, addressed by a large advocate with great whiskers,
a little voice, and an interminable brief, and outwardly directing his
contemplation to the lantern in the roof, where he can see nothin'g but fog. On
such an afternoon, some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar
-
ought to be as here they are - mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand
stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents,
groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horse-hair
warded heads against walls of words, and making a pretence of equity with
serious faces, as players might. On such an afternoon, the various solicitors in
the cause, some two or three of whom have inherited it from their fathers, who
made a fortune by it, ought to be - as are they not? - ranged in a line, in a long
matted well (but you might look in vain for Truth at the bottom of it),
between the registrar's red table and the silk gowns, with bills, cross-bills,
answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, reference to masters,
masters' reports, mountains of costly nonsense, piled before them. Well may
the court be dim, with wasting candles here and there; well may the fog hang Descriptive Prose3
heavy in it, as if it would never get out; well may the stained glass windows
lose their colour, and admit no light of day into the place; well may the
uninitiated from the streets, who peep in through the glass panes in the door,
be deterred from entrance by its owlish aspect, and the by drawl languidly
echoing to the roof from the padded dais where the Lord High Chancellor
looks into the lantern that has no light in it, and where the attendant wigs are
all stuck in a fog-bank! This is the Court of Chancery; which has its decaying
houses and its blighted lands in every shire; which has its worn-out lunatic in
every madhouse, and its dead in every churchyard; which has its ruined suitor,
with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress, borrowing and begging through
the round of every man's acquaintance; which gives to monied might the
means abundantly of wearying out the right; which so exhausts finances,
patience, courage,. hope; so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart; that
there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give -
who does not often give - the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done
you, rather than come here!"
4.3.2 Glossary
implacable: which cannot be satisfied, or whose demands cannot be
reduced
megalosaurus:' a gigantic carnivorous dinosaur (megalo means huge)
waddling: a heavy awkward way of walking, like that of a duck
blinkers: a pair of flat pieces of leather fixed over a horse's eyes
tenaciously: holding firmly
ait: a small island, especially in the River Tharnes above
London
caboose: a ship's kitchen
collier brig: a ship for carrying coal
rigging: all the ropes and sail$ of a.sailing ship
gunwale: . the upper edge of the sides of a small ship or boat
prentice: short form of apprentice
floundering: struggling, losing control, almost sinking
pestilent: having an evil influence
hoary: grey with age, or having white hair in old age
interminable: (seemingly) endless
precedent: a former action or case used as an example or rule for
the present or future action
goat-hair and
horse-hair
warded heads: British lawyers usually wore wigs made of these
matted well: the courtroom floor covered with coconut matting.
languidly: lacking strength or will
blighted: having a destructive effect i

4.3.3 Discussion
The .opening passage sets the scene. It begins with a one word sentence:
"London" The second sentence is longer, but we note at once that it has no
finite verb, the third is shorter, but again verbless. In sentence after sentence
we have the same elliptical syntax (ellipsis is a rhetorical device, involving
the omission of words and phrases, often easily supplied contextually)
building up an atmosphere of gloom, ill-temper, irritation and repetitive and
unproductive activity. Dogs, horses as well as people splashed in mud are
struggling for a foot-hold in the all-pervading fog, wallowing in the slippery
55
Descriptive Prose street, as though the earth was just recovering after the biblical floods. In such
a strange world, where everything seems to have turned black, in mourning for
the death of the sun (again a figure of speech), meeting a Megalosaurus
would have caused no surprise.
In the second paragraph the word fog occurs for the first time and is repeated
over and over again; the verbless sentences (the main verb elided) describe the
fog expanding in all directions, all over London, outside London, in Essex and
Kent, on the land, the river and the sky. It penetrates into the Closed cabins of
ships of every size and variety, into the 'eyes and the throats of ancient
Greenwich pensioners', inta the pipe the angry ship's captain was smoking.
People on bridges thought 'they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the
misty clouds'. The fog becomes a symbol of complete insulation from the
world of real people, suggesting the true nature of the Court of Chancery,
living in its own warld, isolated from humanity, hanging 'in the misty clouds'.
And this is the setting for the 'Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of
Chancery'.
The street lamps were lit earlier than usual, but they failed to dispel the gloom.
The thickest of fogs and the deepest mud and mire could not match the
confusion and ineffectualness of the Caurt. Note particularly the use of
superlatives. Then follows the contrast between the comfort, warmth and
luxury in which the Court functions routinely day after day with its
meaninglessness and utter indifference to human suffering. Justice is delayed
from generation to generation and abjcct misery and helplessness are inflicted
on the orphans, the old, the weak and the derelict. The syntax (the
arrangement of words, phrases and clauses), the sentence structure and the
tense used emphasize the unvarying routine and pointlessly interminable
procedures, 'the groping knee-deep in technicalities', 'the slippery
precedents', the wigged and gowned lawyers fighting their mock battles
'making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might'. The
repetitions with variations of certain structures serve to emphasize the futility
and the ridiculous nature of their petty wranglings, carried on from generation
to generation. Over this sterile activity' presides each succeeding Lord
Chancellor, concentrating, like the lawyers' 'on the lantern in the roof, where
he can see nothing but fog'. Reality in the form of day-light never penetrates
into the courtroom through the stained glass windows.
The repeated structures 'on such an afternoon, if ever, the Lord High
Chancellor ought to be sitting here - as here he is' and 'well may the court be
dim.. ..' both emotionally and logically build up to the climax 'where the Lard
High Chancellor looks into the lantern that has no light in it, and like the
people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog',
feeling suspended and drifting like a balloon, are all 'stuck in a fog-bank'. It
is not difficult to see how at this point all the descriptive strands are tied up,
reinforcing the central theme of the futility of whatever goes on inside the
Chancery. Instead of dispensing justice, .the Chancery delays it, causing
untold misery to generations of people.
Check Your Progress 11
'i
Now read the passage carefully as many times as you consider necessary and
then try to understand the exact.meanings and suggestions of the words and
phrases you find difficult in the contexts in which they are used in the passage.
The glossary at the end of the passage is meant to help you.
56
 What kind of atmosphere does the frequent use of the word 'fog' Descriptive Prose-3
evoke?
......................................................................................
.......................................................................................
.......................................................................................
.......................................................................................
.......................................................................................
.......................................................................................
.......................................................................................
.......................................................................................
......................................................................................

Mark TrueBalse after reading the following statements

a) The passage opens in spring TrueBalse
b) The weather is bright TrueBalse
c) It is night time TrueRalse
d) The Court of Chancery is an unpopular place TrueRalse
iii) Explain the following
a) hard by
...........................................................................
b) in the heart of
...........................................................................
c) monied might

iv) How many times is the word afternoon repeated in the final paragraph?
What purpose, do you think, is served by this repetition?

4.4 LET US SUM UP

In this unit we have analysed two fictional passages of prose. The first is a
dramatic description of an episode while the second conveys both the genuine
feel of the period described. We have:
examined some of the distinctive stylistic features in the passage such as
ev.ocative diction, imagery and syntax, miming of action and repetition.
seen how style plays a decisive role in presenting content.

4.5 ANSWERS TO EXERCISES

Check Your Progress I
i) Stage 1: Chandi is bullied by the neighbourhood urchins
Stage 2 : Suddenly, with the arrival of the palanquin she becomes the
object of everyone's attention

57
Descriptive Prose Stage 3: When she starts dancing, a gradual change takes place in the
ceremony. The transformation is complete.

Check Your Progress I1

i) You may read the passage again, keeping in mind the fact that writers
use natural background and seasons in order to trace some
correspondence between outer events and inner states of mind.

ii) a) False
b) False
C) False
d) True

iii) a) nearby
b) in the midst of
c) power that stems from great wealth

iv) Three times. Repetition serves the following purposes

• moves from the particular to the general
gives it an effect of timelessness
• conveys a strong impression of the repetitive and pointless
activity that goes on endlessly in the Court of Chancery.