English Elective CBSE Class 12
Includes:
● Essay summaries
● Analysis
● Themes with keywords
● Reference links
Non-fiction
Freedom
G.B. Shaw & J. Krishnamurti
G.B Shaw
Summary
● Shaw’s works present a fearless intellectual criticism, sugar coated by a pretended
lightness of tone. He rebelled against muddled thinking and sought to puncture hollow
pretensions.
● A perfectly free person: someone who can do what he likes, when he likes and where
he likes or can do nothing at all
● No such ‘perfectly free person’. We are all bound by the natural constraints of having
to eat, sleep, drink, wash etc., which we cannot shirk
● We must produce things for these natural wants. When produced, they can be stolen.
● They can be stolen from nature, but we can also get the upper hand on people through
fraud and trickery
● By getting the upper hand on them, we shift our slavery to Nature to that person
● The people being tricked work harder than ever
● Governments should prevent people from being imposed on in this way, but they
usually do the opposite. They enforce your slavery and call it freedom; also regulate
slavery
● When African slavery begins to cost too much, they abolish it, establish a choice
between one employment or another, call it freedom
● They refute complaints by offering a general election every few years
● The vote between rich friends leaves you no freer than before, but we are convinced
that our vote has decided the election and therefore we are in a democracy
● Nature is kind to her slaves. Whatever she forces us to do is so pleasant that we want
to do it
,● We do not resent our natural wants for this reason
● Slavery of man to man is hateful to the body and spirit
● Poets say no man is good enough to be another’s master
● Marx: slavery of man to man will not be stopped at any cruelty, only by law.
● This produces class war
● St Thomas More: we must abolish slavery altogether, make people do their own share
of work with their own hands and brains, not attempt to put it on anyone else
● Master class wants us to not realise our slavery by promising that we are in the land of
the free, our freedom has been won by our forefather
● Eg. signing of Magna Carta, defeat of Spanish Armada, acceptance of Bill of Rights,
issuance of American Declaration of Independence, Battle of Waterloo, changing of
empires into republics
● Upon grumbling, we are told that our miseries are our own doing because we have the
vote
● ‘What good is the vote?’ - Factory Acts, Wage Boards, free education, New Deal, rich
are taxed a quarter. But poor pay that much of their wages in rent and have to work
twice as long
● Rulers talk of many steps taken to protect the rights of people, but the fact remains
that the common person has to labour like a slave and has no real freedom
● Famous writers protesting against this are called murderers, scoundrels, atheists,
libertines; their books are criminalised. If their disciples have a revolution, England
joins the war against them to restore slave order
● E.g Waterloo
● When the revolution wins (eg Russia), fighting stops, but abuses continue until the
state grows into a first rate military power. Then the diplomats’ stance changes and
they support the ‘villains’
● The enslaved masses are deluded, but the master class is deluded more. The
gentleman’s education teaches him that he is superior than the common run who must
serve him. A system that places him in such an agreeable position and done justice to
his merits must be the best system, so he is willing to give up people’s lives for it
● Other people cannot believe so completely in the system, because the facts are too
harshly against it. They have to be rescued by some Napoleonic genius. But whether it
is a monarchy or democracy, their situation remains unchanged
● Aristotle: law and order would be impossible unless the persons that people have to
obey are beautifully dressed and decorated; very rich without any obligation other
than to produce an impression of almost godlike superiority on the minds of common
people
● Make men ignorant idolaters before they will become obedient workers
● Proof: very few people can be convinced to vote for people from their own class. Eg
women when they got the vote
● Human nature is the easiest thing to change if you catch it quick enough; idolatry and
arrogance are entirely artificial products of education and propaganda that influences
us from birth, so an opposite mentality could be fostered by opposite education
● How can the day to day income of the country best be distributed?
, ● Industrial and electrified production may lead to such great product that distribution
of it would allow unskilled workers to have as much as managers
● But such production includes materials that we can neither eat nor drink
● Nature may have tricks up her sleeve to check us if the chemists exploit her too
greedily
● Wipe from your dreams of freedom the hope of being able to do as you please all the
time. Nature orders you for ~12 hours; laws restrict you; 12 hours for work
● Reasonable laws give no reason to complain as they increase our freedom
● Intimate compulsion of landlord and employer: landlord can refuse to let you live on
his estate for arbitrary reasons (religion, political inclination, employment).
Employers dictate our clothes and hours
● Only remedy against employers is Trade Union weapon of strike
● Most extreme form of human folly: general strike of all workers at same time, as if
carried out it would extinguish the human race in a week.
● Sane trade unionism would never sanction more than one big strike at a time, with all
other trades working overtime to support it
● Work 12 hours + 4 hours to do what you like. However, if work hard=you are too
exhausted
● We must change our politics before we can get what we want
● England has to stop talking about freedom because they have never experienced it
● Always call freedom by its old English name of leisure; clamour for more leisure,
more money to enjoy it in return for honest share of work
● Never vote for a leader who talks about freedom because he is sure to be an anarchist
who wants to live on our labour
● If we win a lot more leisure than we are accustomed to: not easy to know what to do
with leisure unless we have been brought up to it.
Themes
● Shaw condemns the devices of the elites and the rich who foster an environment of
false freedom and enslavement of the poor and underprivileged.
● Satirical chastisement of the existent social condition and scheme of power.
● Obligations of nature and society leading to obstruction in absolute freedom of man
● Exploitation of poor labourers by rich class
● Flawed democratic system
● False portrayal of democracy by media
● Difference between slavery of man to nature and slavery of man to man
● Role of newspapers, Parliament, school in brainwashing public
● Pscyhological superiority of rich
● Ironical portrayal of necessity of slavery
● Inevitability of natural slavery and consequences of defying it
● Exploitative tendency of landlords and employers
Includes:
● Essay summaries
● Analysis
● Themes with keywords
● Reference links
Non-fiction
Freedom
G.B. Shaw & J. Krishnamurti
G.B Shaw
Summary
● Shaw’s works present a fearless intellectual criticism, sugar coated by a pretended
lightness of tone. He rebelled against muddled thinking and sought to puncture hollow
pretensions.
● A perfectly free person: someone who can do what he likes, when he likes and where
he likes or can do nothing at all
● No such ‘perfectly free person’. We are all bound by the natural constraints of having
to eat, sleep, drink, wash etc., which we cannot shirk
● We must produce things for these natural wants. When produced, they can be stolen.
● They can be stolen from nature, but we can also get the upper hand on people through
fraud and trickery
● By getting the upper hand on them, we shift our slavery to Nature to that person
● The people being tricked work harder than ever
● Governments should prevent people from being imposed on in this way, but they
usually do the opposite. They enforce your slavery and call it freedom; also regulate
slavery
● When African slavery begins to cost too much, they abolish it, establish a choice
between one employment or another, call it freedom
● They refute complaints by offering a general election every few years
● The vote between rich friends leaves you no freer than before, but we are convinced
that our vote has decided the election and therefore we are in a democracy
● Nature is kind to her slaves. Whatever she forces us to do is so pleasant that we want
to do it
,● We do not resent our natural wants for this reason
● Slavery of man to man is hateful to the body and spirit
● Poets say no man is good enough to be another’s master
● Marx: slavery of man to man will not be stopped at any cruelty, only by law.
● This produces class war
● St Thomas More: we must abolish slavery altogether, make people do their own share
of work with their own hands and brains, not attempt to put it on anyone else
● Master class wants us to not realise our slavery by promising that we are in the land of
the free, our freedom has been won by our forefather
● Eg. signing of Magna Carta, defeat of Spanish Armada, acceptance of Bill of Rights,
issuance of American Declaration of Independence, Battle of Waterloo, changing of
empires into republics
● Upon grumbling, we are told that our miseries are our own doing because we have the
vote
● ‘What good is the vote?’ - Factory Acts, Wage Boards, free education, New Deal, rich
are taxed a quarter. But poor pay that much of their wages in rent and have to work
twice as long
● Rulers talk of many steps taken to protect the rights of people, but the fact remains
that the common person has to labour like a slave and has no real freedom
● Famous writers protesting against this are called murderers, scoundrels, atheists,
libertines; their books are criminalised. If their disciples have a revolution, England
joins the war against them to restore slave order
● E.g Waterloo
● When the revolution wins (eg Russia), fighting stops, but abuses continue until the
state grows into a first rate military power. Then the diplomats’ stance changes and
they support the ‘villains’
● The enslaved masses are deluded, but the master class is deluded more. The
gentleman’s education teaches him that he is superior than the common run who must
serve him. A system that places him in such an agreeable position and done justice to
his merits must be the best system, so he is willing to give up people’s lives for it
● Other people cannot believe so completely in the system, because the facts are too
harshly against it. They have to be rescued by some Napoleonic genius. But whether it
is a monarchy or democracy, their situation remains unchanged
● Aristotle: law and order would be impossible unless the persons that people have to
obey are beautifully dressed and decorated; very rich without any obligation other
than to produce an impression of almost godlike superiority on the minds of common
people
● Make men ignorant idolaters before they will become obedient workers
● Proof: very few people can be convinced to vote for people from their own class. Eg
women when they got the vote
● Human nature is the easiest thing to change if you catch it quick enough; idolatry and
arrogance are entirely artificial products of education and propaganda that influences
us from birth, so an opposite mentality could be fostered by opposite education
● How can the day to day income of the country best be distributed?
, ● Industrial and electrified production may lead to such great product that distribution
of it would allow unskilled workers to have as much as managers
● But such production includes materials that we can neither eat nor drink
● Nature may have tricks up her sleeve to check us if the chemists exploit her too
greedily
● Wipe from your dreams of freedom the hope of being able to do as you please all the
time. Nature orders you for ~12 hours; laws restrict you; 12 hours for work
● Reasonable laws give no reason to complain as they increase our freedom
● Intimate compulsion of landlord and employer: landlord can refuse to let you live on
his estate for arbitrary reasons (religion, political inclination, employment).
Employers dictate our clothes and hours
● Only remedy against employers is Trade Union weapon of strike
● Most extreme form of human folly: general strike of all workers at same time, as if
carried out it would extinguish the human race in a week.
● Sane trade unionism would never sanction more than one big strike at a time, with all
other trades working overtime to support it
● Work 12 hours + 4 hours to do what you like. However, if work hard=you are too
exhausted
● We must change our politics before we can get what we want
● England has to stop talking about freedom because they have never experienced it
● Always call freedom by its old English name of leisure; clamour for more leisure,
more money to enjoy it in return for honest share of work
● Never vote for a leader who talks about freedom because he is sure to be an anarchist
who wants to live on our labour
● If we win a lot more leisure than we are accustomed to: not easy to know what to do
with leisure unless we have been brought up to it.
Themes
● Shaw condemns the devices of the elites and the rich who foster an environment of
false freedom and enslavement of the poor and underprivileged.
● Satirical chastisement of the existent social condition and scheme of power.
● Obligations of nature and society leading to obstruction in absolute freedom of man
● Exploitation of poor labourers by rich class
● Flawed democratic system
● False portrayal of democracy by media
● Difference between slavery of man to nature and slavery of man to man
● Role of newspapers, Parliament, school in brainwashing public
● Pscyhological superiority of rich
● Ironical portrayal of necessity of slavery
● Inevitability of natural slavery and consequences of defying it
● Exploitative tendency of landlords and employers
