I wish the old good times come again

2. Group members :
1. Syeda shahnoor Jafari #03
2. Misbah Ashraf #09
3. Mehwish shezadi #24
4. Noor Fatima durani #15
5. Nimra Afzal #13
Submitted to :
Mam Zulaikha

3. CHARLES LAMB (OLD
CHINA)

4. CHARLES LAMB
• Born: February 10, 1775, The Honorable Society of the Inner Temple, City
of London, United Kingdom
• Died: December 27, 1834, Edmonton, London, United Kingdom
• Education: Christ's Hospital
• Known for: Essays of Elia, Tales from Shakespeare

6. OLD CHINA
Old China by Charles Lamb is not about Ancient
China nor is it about delicate China- tea cups,
vases, and dishes. Old China, 1823 - March
included in Last Essays of Elia is rather
contemplation upon the nature of youthful
pleasures irrespective of physical and economic
situations

7. • The Conflict
Between the
Pleasures of
Youth and the
Pleasures of
Poverty

8. “I wish the good old times would come again,” she said, “when
we were not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want to be
poor

9. SUMMARY
• One afternoon while Elia is drinking Hyson tea with his cousin Bridget, he
remarks on china they're drinking from—a set he just bought recently. He reflects
on their good fortune in recent years, and how they can afford such luxuries now.
But Elia sees a look of disagreement on Bridget's face, and she launches into a
monologue questioning the extent to which they can actually appreciate this
china now that it's financially easily within reach. She recalls a time from their
past when they were poorer, when Elia held off on buying a new suit when his
old one was looking shabby because he bought a book that Elia and Bridget had
to rebind and repair. Now he never brings her any gifts, much less a dilapidated
book. She recalls when they used to go for picnics and ask people to borrow a
table cloth, and when they used to sit in the rafters when seeing a play, even
though Elia would now only attend one sitting in the pit.

10. • Bridget reminds him of the foods they used to eat that they considered luxuries, such as
strawberries early in the season. Now, she says, anything they could treat themselves to
above their typical means would be a greedy indulgence. She asks whether perhaps they
were happier when they were poorer, if they could better enjoy those ephemeral
pleasures, and whether they are now too easily satisfied by anything they can afford.
• Elia responds that perhaps they were happier when they were poorer but notes that they
were also younger then. The fact that things were harder when they were younger should
make them appreciate their current lot even more. Desiring those old, poorer days to
return is a fantasy. Instead, Elia suggests, they should focus on the fantasy tableau
portrayed in the china they're holding.

11. ANALYSIS
• Old China" is often considered something of a riddle amongst Lamb's
essays, as it drifts into a memory in a similarly fluid manner that Elia drifts
into the tea ceremony scene that he gazes at in the piece of china earlier in
the story. In both the case of the scene in the china and his conversation
with Bridget, drinking tea opens a door to a speculative kind of reflection.
A parallel can be drawn here with the famous madeleine cookie that the
protagonist of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time tastes right before
he's catapulted into a vast landscape of memory.

12. • At the heart of the essay is a meditation on class. The essay begins with Elia
speaking of the "great houses" he enters—meaning homes of the wealthy—and
he is clearly infatuated with the material trappings of the wealthy's lifestyle.
Bridget, on the other hand, invites him to remember a time when they couldn't
even afford to buy a table cloth to throw a picnic with. This class discourse
speaks to a tension in British life at the time just before the Victorian period
when the gulf between the rich and poor was about to explode.
• Additionally worth noting here is Lamb's use of ekphrasis, a literary device in
which writing describes a piece of art. Here, the description of china both helps
draw us into the essay by sparking our visual imagination and helps characterize
Elia himself, as we learn about his fixation on the masculine/feminine dichotomy
and the dandyish pleasure he takes from enjoying the finer things in life. The
description of the scene in the tea cup also primes the reader for another kind of
reflection, one equally rooted in a character's imagination.

13. CHARLES LAMB: ESSAYS THEMES
THE
IMAGINATION..
CLASS VS.
CLASS.
MISCHIEF. SKEPTICISM
IN RELIGION.
KINSHIP. STORYTELLING. MEMORY
AND
NOSTALGIA.

14. THE IMAGINATION
• Many of Lamb's essays revolve around imaginative conceits, and the world that
Lamb describes is most easily understood through his wild imagination. This
plays out in novel fantasies such as the days of the month partying together and a
boy eating a pig burnt by a house fire, as well as in the fabrications of something
similar to Lamb's own life, such as the made up workers in the South Sea House
or his fictive children in "Dream-Children; A Reverie." The innovation that Lamb
brought to the essay was this very sense of the imagination, helping expand the
form from its philosophical roots.

15. CLASS VS. CLASS
• Lamb is very interested in the distinction between social class and the type of
class one exhibits (i.e. how a man comports himself). A trope in these essays is
the idea that the rich don't really have any class, that they simply indulge their
whims but live life rather insincerely. On the other hand, Lamb often depicts the
poor and marginalized as noble people who struggle to enjoy themselves within
their modest existence. Look no further than "The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers"
to find the type of person Lamb considers noble. A debate on the merits of
privilege is central to the essay "Old China."

16. MISCHIEF
• Lamb himself is a bit of a mischievous writer. For example, he draws his reader
into a heart-wrenching story that ends up being little more than a dream, or crafts
an elaborate ruse like the one in "The South-Sea House." But we also see him
valuing the mischievous, whether that's April Fool's Day in "Rejoicings Upon the
New Year's Coming of Age," or Bo-bo in "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig."
Lamb's playful sense shines through all of these essays, as his objective is to
keep his reader entertained, just as he himself liked to be (if "Ellistoniana" is any
clue).

17. SKEPTICISM IN RELIGION
• A complicated relationship with religion is developed throughout the course of these
essays. Lamb clearly has a spiritual side and his own understandings of living life in
accord with God, but he frequently takes organized religion and people hypocritically
wielding religion to task. A prime example of his ambivalent attitude toward religion
comes with "Grace Before Meat," when he laments both the rich people who recite a
rote, meaningless grace before yet another sumptuous banquet as well as people who
flippantly make a joke about saying grace. What's clear about Lamb is that he has a clear
sense of ethics and a strong moral compass, yet disagrees with the way that religion
guides other people's ethics and morality.

18. KINSHIP
• We know from Lamb's biography that he was particularly close to his sister Mary, and
we can glean from these essays that he gave primacy to his family relationships.
Whether it's the conversation with Cousin Bridget in "Old China" or the tales told in
"Dream-Children; A Reverie," Lamb likes to demonstrate the influence of the people
close to him. Yet that sense of kinship is not limited to his family. Rather, it's an attitude
that extends to many of the subjects of his essays, be it friends like Elliston and James
White, his beloved hero John Milton, or the chimney sweeper who laughs at him for
slipping on ice. While Lamb is a proponent of solitary reading, he is constantly
advocating for a life lived with others.

19. STORYTELLING
• While essays are non-fiction, Lamb uses the theme of storytelling to push the
boundaries of the form, often dabbling in fiction. For instance, his stories of the
tea ceremony depicted on a piece of China and the various pork-related stories in
"A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" serve to conjure fictional histories. There are
also the stories he tells of the people he loves, or the stories he relays from
friends. In all of these, Lamb expands the typical boundaries of the essay form,
creating rich, human, and consummately living prose.

20. MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA
• Lamb is nothing if not a nostalgist, and so many of his essays are rooted in
recalling something from the past. Sometimes this is painful stuff, such as his
rejection by his unrequited love Alice. But in the chimney sweepers, Lamb sees
something of himself as a boy, and in the story about James White throwing them
a banquet, he's fondly remembering both a person and and event that are history.
He loves old china specifically because it bears some marks of a past, showing
that Lamb's nostalgia is not for a specific time or state of affairs, but more
broadly a yearning and affection for past times.

21. REFERENCES
• https://www.gradesaver.com/charles-lamb-
essays/study-guide/themes
• https://www.google.com/search?q=charles+lamb+poet+introduction&sxsrf=ACYB
GNTOrHVr3jF_2QQ7MFVaQW5PV1h_Sw:1580140317725&source=lnms&sa=X&
ved=0ahUKEwjJ5tSykaTnAhVOAGMBHbK1AIAQ_AUIDSgA&biw=1366&bih=6
25&dpr=1
• https://www.gradesaver.com/charles-lamb-essays/study-
guide/summary-old-china
• https://www.gradesaver.com/charles-lamb-essays/study-guide/themes