Khazar university

Chapter I deals with historical prerequisites for creating “The Forsyte Saga”.

The core of this chapter consists of finding how “The Forsyte Saga” gathered in it hard social processes, spiritual and lawful problems of the proprietorship England. As some con-flicts emerged in the first trilogy, Galsworthy needed to continue their progress and solution in the second trilogy “Modern Comedy”, especially it concerns social collisions. For this rea-son, “The Forsyte Saga” by John Galsworthy consists of several comparisons. Sometimes a great interest arises, what was the difference between Soames Forsyte in 80‟s of XIX century and in the 20‟s of the XX century, how the socio-psychological condition changed. Another type of comparison brings explanation to the features of Galsworthy‟s outlook and different periods of work on Forsytes‟s history.

Time which pushes the author forward the creative activity and the literary activity it-self, as a reflection of the time and historical period, which feeds literary activity are closely connected to each-other. This durable and disintegrated epoch distinguished with the begin-ning of the end of capitalism and great revolutionary changes, which brought to socialistic system. This is the end of the XIX and first 20 years of the XX centuries. One century bore the other one, but on the border of them emerged Galsworthy‟s creative work. Both centuries are reflected in his work, in the series of the plot. Dying century with its old norms, coming century with its new, but not tested norms of living was reflected in the activity of the author.

Most of the literary historians try to put Galsworthy between two periods: Galsworthy, who wrote just after the Victorian writers, and who wrote before Wolf, Joyce, Lawrence, and Freud. So, he is considered a transitional figure.

Chapter II is about the socio-literary analysis of the desire for property in “The Man of Property” by John Galsworthy.

In the background of the novels which enter the beginning of the XX century England, “The Man of Property” differs with the sharpness of the problem put. One of the young con-temporaries of Galsworthy, Compton Mackenzie wrote in his memoirs that, “the impact of

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this book on young people of his age was like an “electric light”. There are a lot of evidences to think of “The Man of Property” as the highest achievement in the literary activity of J.Galsworthy. At the end of his literary way, observing that, he wrote novels with more plea-sure rather than plays, and that “The Man of Property” is the most beloved of them, the author himself came to such a conclusion, too.

The Forsytes constitute not one, but several systems of characters, which are related to each-other. Reacting to the viewed political, business, family and spiritual life of the previous time, Forsytes reveal their family features. Galsworthy repeatedly points out that, the Forsytes are close to each-other with their psychology of possession. A significant feature of them is their chin. This general feature of their appearance can be differently understood, but the au-thor several times repeats that the Forsyte chin is associated with their intransigence and the ability to stand up for themselves.

Besides that, in the Forsyte cycle characters are introduced several times separately, and also joined to open fights and intercourse, in order each could show his individual fea-tures, and could evaluate the partner or competitor. The inner monologue and direct speech expresses the time of unity. Such kinds of occasions are viewed not only in the “Forsyte Sa-ga”. Galsworthy uses generally accepted methods of montage in literature. J.Joyce in “Ulysses”, especially in “Finnegan‟s Wake” tries to picture that, the world is chaotic, only where you find organized and logical tendency, there it is unique, non-standard and creative. Such kind of concept is realized in a principal fragmentary novel writing, which finds and ex-presses relations of characters as sketches. J.Joyce tries to give such a picturing, which candi-dates to analysis of temporary or permanent state of the world, in order to cope with chaos, events as a result of the impression of chaos. He gives myth as an organizing power of crea-tive reality.

In the Forsyte family the rules were as in the finance world: behaviour of the family members were counted according to their personal interests. All the rest were thrown away as a useless thing. It was such about the Irene‟s feelings, which were so unimportant for For-sytes. It was such with the fate of Young Jolyon, who also wanted to have a family with love. But Irene‟s behaviours caused more rough reproach than the second marriage of young Jol-yon. He was the object of gossips, all the Forsytes spoke about him only bad words, and he became an unimportant figure in the clan, but no one openly strived against him, just he was rejected by all relatives. But Irene was another case. Neither Soames, nor other members of the clan could compromise her, and not to judge about her behaviours, because she didn‟t obey their rules. They did not turn her out, but she couldn‟t bare that kind of life, and left

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them, in general the world of Forsytes. For this reason, she was judged by all of the clan. Soames‟ aunts, who valued him very much, tried to blame her in everything. Because they had a lot of evidences for it, as Soames was a man of family. He lived only for a family, didn‟t have a lot of friends and also he had a good hand in business. He tried to protect the interests of Forsytes in the business sphere when they had any problem.

From the surface the Forsyte family can have such an impression that they ignore everything, which is not connected with them, but with the deep observation we can under-stand that they are not indifferent towards the events happening around them. They are afraid of any kind of influence to all Forsytes. So, they keep unity in order to prevent forthcoming collapse of the Forsyte world. The appearance of Bosinney and Irene shook the world of For-sytes. They were different from them, at the same time horrible. They could predict the col-lapse of the power of property. That‟s why, none of the Forsytes wanted to see them together.

Conclusion mainly finalizes a brief content of the previous chapters, and depicts the shady aspects of the novel. Besides this, there is made an attempt to express personal views referring to some aspects of the novel.

John Galsworthy‟s “The Forsyte Saga” is one of the valuable pieces of the English and also world literature. The author gave the description of the time and the people of the period so precisely that, the readers believed the existence of the characters in a real life. Even they claimed that, exactly their family was portrayed in “The Man of Property”. It is a great suc-cess for a writer, to win such sympathy from the readers.

This novel is of great importance from different sides. It reveals the period, which is really very confused. It has autobiographical importance; the love affair of the writer with his cousin‟s wife depicted very skillfully in the novel. There are a lot of humanistic problems put by the author; most of them do not find their solution.

“The Man of Property”, in general, “The Forsyte Saga” depicts the period between the end of XVIII and the beginning of XIX century, where the human values were diminished. A group of people was wealthy, and day by day the amount of their money grew, and another group was shabby, which did not interest the rich. There was a huge valley between them, which could not be passed.

The main character of “The Man of Property” is Soames Forsyte, who is shown from different sides.

The events happening in Soames‟s family life are related, interconnected and interde-pendent with historical events. Human problems such as passion, infidelity, estrangement,

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divorce are uncovered and disclosed with the fusion of social, cultural changes of society and political chaos.

To my mind, Soames is the central line in the novel. He is given from different sides. As a man of property he causes pity with his being limited in his feelings, his proud, dictate character to his surrounding. Being ideal for his relatives, colleges, partners, he makes his wife - Irene afraid, with lacks and shortages, with his being a Forsyte.

Unfortunately, people like Soames exist in modern society, too, who cannot evaluate the human feelings and high values.

Another human problem put forward by the author is generations and changes. Thus, the generations of the Forsyte clan change only when the old generations die. For instance, after some generations the Forsytes‟ main source of proud, the fact that they are superior over the others, because they have property loose its importance, it does not matter neither to them, nor to others so much. The changes happen even in the marital status of Irene and Soames. Their children do not care so much their parents conflicts in their past. Another important fact is that, the Forsytes‟ offspring decreases in number. Their second generation has not so many children. So the fewer they are the fewer the Forsytism.

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