Fall On Your Knees Essay

* It is the story of James Piper, orphaned child, who becomes a piano tuner. When James was 18, he met Material, 13, and they elope to the close by village. Materia’s family were against her marriage. James then has three daughters, Kathleen, Mercedes, and Frances. James was a good man, but slowly dark side of his nature asserted itself. He serves in France during the Great War to make money. But the war comes to an end. He returns to his family. Kathleen is dispatched to New York City to study opera, she gets pregnant and later finds a lesbian partner. James finds out and brings his daughter back. Soon he is widower and Kathleen dies while giving birth to the twins. Mercedes tries her best to be the mother of Frances and her niece Lily, Kathleen’s daughter. Ambrose, Kathleen’s son is killed by Frances accidentally. Frances goes completely off track and starts doing prostitution to make money for Lily. Frances also gets pregnant and stops prostitution. James dies later on and everything depends on Mercedes since Frances is in a big shock. Later on, Lily goes to New York and Frances dies. Mercedes sends Ambrose, France’s son to New York. * Sacrifices are made by a lot of people in the whole universe for the sake of people who they love. In Ann – Marie Macdonald’s Fall on Your Knees, James and his family sacrifice important things that they desire or want for the sake of their family. Through the use of characterization, symbols and diction, Macdonald shows that healthy sacrifices benefit everyone. Similarly in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Sacrifice is shown throughout the play for the benefit of self or others that they love or want. This is also shown by Shakespeare by using the above elements, which proves that the sacrifices that are made for the benefit of everyone will lead to the happy ending. Characterization is used to show the decisions that are made for the benefits of other or self. In Fall on Your Knees, people make decisions that benefit others which have huge impact in their life, while in Hamlet, the decisions that are made are for the benefits of self for which someone else has to pay. * There are many characters in Fall on Your Knees that choose to live for the sake of others. One of them is Kathleen. Kathleen is a great singer who poses beauty and singing talent but she has no friends and is not even close to her mother. The only friend that she has is her father. She gave up everything that she could have just for the sake of her daddy. She wants to be singer just because her daddy wants her to be famous, so people can appreciate her talent. â€Å"At first she did it for daddy’s sake† (Macdonald 99). This shows that Kathleen gave up her whole childhood and teenage moments that she could have for herself for the sake of daddy. She never goes anywhere by herself. Later, James sends her to USA to study Opera. And she agrees without even saying anything. * Similarly her sister, Mercedes also sacrifices her educations and her future for the sake of family. Mercedes is a good girl who is taking the role of mother for her sisters. â€Å"Mercedes is so accustomed to doing everything for Daddy’s sake† (299). Mercedes does not tell her father about her dream of going to university. She knows that her father will be all alone if she leaves him. She buries her dream in her heart, so she stays home and takes care of the family. * Similarly in Hamlet, Hamlet sacrifices his future and his love for the sake of his father. He needs to take revenge. Hamlet is always sad and depressed since his father is no more. When he found that his uncle was the murderer of his father, he promised the ghost to take revenge for his father’s death. To accomplish his motive, he gave up the love of his life, Ophelia, so he can have no weaknesses. â€Å"You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so/ inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you/ not. † (III. 1. 128-130). Hamlet is refusing that he never loved Ophelia. He also used her to confuse Claudius. * Kathleen has never got love from anyone else except her daddy, whose love also changes after coming from war. This causes her to crave for love. The crave for the love leads to many ironies such as her turning into a lesbian and eventually her death. However, this is not same for Mercedes. Even though Mercedes is not pursuing her education any further, she is learning to be a responsible women and she does not marry in the future because she needs to take care of her sisters and her father. She is gaining even though she is giving up something. Whereas, Hamlet’s sacrifice caused Ophelia to not trust Hamlet anymore and later on in the play, that lead to her death. * The other element that has been used is symbolism. Symbolism is used to show what each character has become because of the decisions that they choose to make. In both texts, there are a lot of symbols that represents the characters or the meaning of their life. * In fall on your knees, darkness is used to represent the sacrifices that the characters make without knowing the consequences. They do not know what lies ahead and what the result might be for taking that action. But, they continue to do it because they feel that they need to do it. The other symbol that is used is monster. It is used to represent Materia. It represents Materia because she has become a monster while searching for the happiness of the family. â€Å"Materia saw herself in a clear glass at last and it was Monstrous. † This shows that even she knows that she has turned into a monster. Materia thinks that she is happy without her daughter. She does not want her daughter to come back. She is ready to sacrifice her own daughter for the family’s happiness. This is similar to the monster since monsters are ready to eat their own children to fill their own stomach when needed. The other symbol that is used in the novel is scarecrow. Scarecrow is used to represent the memories that they had in the past. It was made by Materia. James tears it down because he does not want to remember his past since there had been a lot of incidents that have happened in his life. He wants to live without having to remember his past. * Similarly in Hamlet, sponge is used to represent Rosencrantz. Hamlet thinks that Rosencrantz is giving up his friendship to suck up to the King. He feels betrayed by his own friend. He calls Rosencrantz a sponge when he says â€Å"Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! † (IV. . 12). Since, he has become a messenger that acts as a carrier of messages and spills it in front of King, Rosencrantz collects all the information like a sponge collects water and spills it in front of a king, similar to how water spills off the sponge when it is squeezed. * In Fall on Your Knees, Materia meets her consequences when she was finally able to love Kathleen. She has to sacrifice Kathleen just so the twins can see the new world. As well as James lived a happy life in the future where he didn’t had to think about his past and died in peace. Similar to Materia, Rosencrantz is sent to England where he is to be executed with his friend, Guildenstern, as soon as he reaches there. * The last element that is used is diction. Diction is used to show the consequences of the sacrifices that are made by the characters for their benefit, where someone else pays the price of their sacrifice, or for the benefit of someone else, where they pay the price by themselves. The choices of their decisions give the characters several names in the both texts. * James is a widower. He has to take care of mother less children since his wife died. He needs to make money in the Great Depression time, so he does things that give him bad name. People in the town say â€Å"Mercedes’ father [James] was a bad man. A bootlegger. A scab. An enemy of this town† (232) He makes and sells illegal liquor in the town that gives him bad reputation. He is being called a â€Å"bootlegger†, â€Å"scab† and â€Å"enemy of the town† because of the illegal business that he does. But he does not care about what the other people say, because he needs to make money to support his family financially. He sacrifices his reputation in the town for the sake of family. Similarly, the business that Frances does is not giving her a good reputation that she wants. She becomes everything of Lily, her niece, whom she calls sister. Frances blames herself for Lily being disabled. She wants to make money for her, so she starts selling herself and becomes a stripper because she thinks that is the fastest way to make money. She becomes so bad that Camille calls her â€Å"The slut who lives only to dishonour the memory of poor Materia. † (316). This shows that Frances has been selling her stuff that she got bad reputation in the town. She does all this because she feels as if this is needed to do for the sake of Lily, since Frances thinks that Lily might need these money in future. * Similarly in Hamlet, Polonius does everything that he can to suck up to the King, no matter what happens. He is even ready to sacrifice his own daughter, Ophelia. This is one reason why hamlet calls him â€Å"Excellent well; you are a fishmonger† (II. 2. 190). Polonius is called a â€Å"fishmonger†, because he can sacrifice his own daughter to curry the King as much as he possibly can. He does this just to show how much he can be trusted. This keeps on hurting Ophelia and causes her to go through more pain even though Polonius is considered a trustable person by the king. * James dies without even having any friend because whatever he does for his family is affecting everyone in the town which makes the people in town hate him more. Similarly, Frances is never loved by anyone except Mercedes and Lily. At the end, the money comes to use of Lily, but to earn that money; Frances had to go through a lot of pain. Similarly, Ophelia goes through a lot of pain since she was being used by her father to curry the king. This attitude of sucking up to the King decides Polonius’s destiny and he gets killed. * In conclusion, there are a lot of different decisions that affect the whole novel later on. While some of them are good choices, some of them are bad that they decide to do for the sake of someone or self. This is shown by the use of narrative elements such as characterisation, symbolism and diction, which all show the choices that they made and the result of those choices. Even though we all make decisions and sacrifices in our life, one will learn whether the sacrifices that they made were worth of making or not after the sacrifice has been made.