CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF “THE
ORPHAN GIRL BY HENRY” LOUIS VIVIAN DEROZIO:
Her hair was black as a
raven’s wing,
Her cheek the tulip’s
hue did wear,
Her voice was soft as
when night wings sing,
Her brow was as a
moonbeam fair,
Her sire had joined the
wake of war;-
The battle-shook, the
shout, and scar
He knew, and gained a
glorious grave-
Such is the guerdon of
the brave!-
Her anguished mother’s
suffering heart
Could not endure a
widow’s part;
She sunk beneath her
soul’s distress,
And left her infant
parentless.-
She hath no friend on
this cold, bleak earth,
To give her shelter, a
home, and a hearth;
Through life’s dreary
desert alone she must wend,
For alas! the wretched
have never a friend!
And should she stay
from virtue’s way,
The world will scorn,
and its scorn can slay.
Ah! Shame hath enough
to wring the breast
With a weight of sorrow
and guilt oppres’d;
But oh! ‘tis coldly
cruel to wound
The bosom whose blood
must gush unbound.
No tear is so bright as
the tear that flows
For erring woman’s
unpitied woes;
And blest be for ever
his honoured name
Who shelters an orphan
from sorrow and shame!
INTRODUCTION TO THE ORPHAN GIRL:
The poem, The
Orphan Girl is written by very famous Indian Poet Henry Louis Vivian
Derozio (H.L.V. Derozio). This poem is about a young orphan girl and the
poet is concerned about her future. The young girl father died in war and her
mother is died in the grief of his husband death and she is left orphan. The poem
consists of two stanzas having 12 lines each.
ABOUTH THE AUTHOR OF THE
ORPHAN GIRL:
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (H.L.V.
Derozio) was born on 18 April, 1809 in Kolkata, India. He was a poet and
Assistant Headmaster at Hindu College, Calcutta, a radical thinker and one of
the First Indian educators to disseminate western learning and science among
the young men of Bengal.
Henry
Louis Vivian Derozio was son of Portuguese Father and Indian
Mother, Derozio was influenced by the English Romantic Poets. He began
publishing patriotic verses when he was 17. His writings brought him to the
attention of the intellectual elite of Calcutta. In 1826 he was appointed
instrument at Hindu College, where his reportedly brilliant teaching influence
his students and won him their loyalty. In 1828 his students organised the
Academic Association, a debating society that drew both Britishers and Indians
to discussion of religion and Philosophy.
In
the spirit of English Rationalism Derozio criticized the social practises and
religious belief of orthodox Hinduism. Accused of irreverence by his student’s
orthodox Hindu parents, he was forced to resign by the directors of Hindu
college in 1831.Derozio died 1831 due to cholera. Long after Derozio’s death
his influence lived on among his former students, who came to be known as Young
Bengal and many of whom became prominent in social reform, law, and journalism.
CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF THE ORPHAN GIRL:
The poem “The Orphan Girl” of H.L.V. Derozio
depicts a story of a young beautiful vulnerable orphan girl who has recently
became parentless. Her condition appears absolutely pathetic because of the
circumstances she is in. The poet depicts miserable condition of the orphan
girl. Previously she was too blessed with a beautiful family. But the time took
a drastic change and the life of girl totally turned upside down. Her father
died in the war and the shock was too unbearable for her mother to bear. Thus,
she too left the world leaving her little girl alone in this selfish world full
of hardship with on one to look after her. In the sudden wave of time the girl
became orphan and homeless with no protection.
The
vivid but lunar world makes the situation more pathetic. She has no home nor
hearth where she can feel protection and can grow-up. The orphan girl will unsurprisingly
stary from the path of virtue, become a wrong woman, wretched, humiliated and
filled with sorrow, guilt and shame as the world is not sympathetic to such
individual. The poet seems very kind towards her and shows her hopefulness. The
poem ends with poet appeal to the people to provide her food protection and a
shelter. The poem have social message of humanism.
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