Summarise the essay'the man in black' in your own words
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Oliver Goldsmith Critical Essays
Oliver Goldsmith Short Fiction Analysis
(LITERARY ESSENTIALS: SHORT FICTION MASTERPIECES)
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Oliver Goldsmith’s essays reflect two significant literary transitions of the late eighteenth century. The larger or more general of these was the beginning of the gradual evolution of Romanticism from the Neoclassicism of the previous one hundred years. Oppressed by the heavy “rule of reason” and ideas of taste and polish, readers of this transitional period gradually began to respond more to the imaginative and the emotional in literature. This transition serves as a backdrop for a related evolution that played an essential role in the development of the modern short story. At this time the well-established periodical essay began a glacially slow movement away from its predominant emphasis on a formal exposition of ideas; contemporary essayists, none more prominent than Goldsmith, began to indulge more their taste for the personal approach and for narrative. The result was increased experimentation with characterization, story line, setting, and imagery; concurrent with these developments, style, theme, tone, and structural patterning received particular attention. Varying degrees and types of emphasis on these elements pushed the essay form in many diverse directions. Of all the contemporary essayists, Oliver Goldsmith best reflects these developments.
THE MAN IN BLACK
The man is a charitable man. He cares about others, gives to others, and shares with others, but he pretends to not care about the well-being of others. He is “ashamed of his natural benevolence.” While he pretends to have a disliking for mankind, he’s not very good at pretending to be. The author reveals that his poker face is not up to par. “… While his looks were softened into pity, I have heard him use the language of the most unbounded ill-nature.”
The “Man in Black” is so concerned with the place of the poor, that he complains to the author of how ignorant the countrymen, or wealthy, are to the state of living of the poorer people.The man in black gives a beggar a piece of silver, but when doing so, he appeared “ashamed” to present his weakness to the author; the man has too much pride to show his soft spot for the less fortunate.
The man in black and the author ran into a woman who was an obvious example of helpless, but he had no money to give her. He became shameful, as it was presented in his face, but once he found a “shilling’s worth of matches”, and placed it in her hands, he was pleased with himself seeing the smile in the woman’s face. This anonymous man, the Man In Black, is a man of benevolence, and is bluntly shameful of it. There is no understanding of why.
The man is one who cannot exhibit generous behavior without being ashamed of it. He wants the world to see him as a man who does not care too much about the well-being of others; much less, the unfortunate. He is the “Man In Black”, because he hides his benevolence. He does not want to be noticed for it. He is, the Man in Black.
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