Write the critical appreciation of the essay entitled In Defence of

Write the critical appreciation of the essay entitled In Defence of Ignorance.

Ans.

Introduction

Gardiner’s essays are extremely popular because they deal with everyday occurrences and problems and offer invaluable help and enlightenment. These essays help the readers to remain objective and realistic. The essayist has made his essays lively and interesting with the help of humour, wit, satire, sarcasm, irony, pathos, apt comparisons and contrasts, episodes and anecdotes, his vast fund of scholarship, his good taste and above all his innate noble nature. The essay In Defence of Ignorance is a very fine essay. It comments on the ignorance of people in general. It saves us from becoming vain. But it does not make us unduly humble. It is not pessimistic or discouraging. It is realistic and optimistic.

Thought-Content

A young man writes to the essayist lamenting his ignorance and seeks his advice about the books he should read to become learned and wise. The essayist gives him the advice as he thinks proper. But after writing back to the young, man the essayist indulges in honest introspection about his competence to give such advice and finds that he is, in reality, a very ignorant person. He realizes that the vastness of his ignorance was like a huge mountain contrasted with the molehill of his knowledge. The essayist surveys the vastness of his ignorance and his self esteem sinks to zero. He does not know much about his own body, about the stars and constellations in the sky, about the knowledge contained in books, about sciences, about languages and he cannot do innumerable things. He feels that it is not the case with him alone. The persons who are credited with knowledge are, in fact, as ignorant as the boy, who, on being asked by his teacher where the diaphragm was, replied that it was in North Staffordshire, when it comes to the ultimate mysteries. The essayist agrees with Carlyle who says that human beings are like exhalations floating in the great and deep sea of Nescience i.e., the human beings have a very short existence and are surrounded on all sides by ignorance. The essayist observes that he wonders that the young man approached him for advice. The essayist confesses that he is ignorant man but his ignorance does not humiliate or degrade him, as has observed that he sank in his self-esteem. On the contrary, his ignorance is ennobling and elevating. It saves him from becoming vain. He recognizes the ultimate reality of life.

The Use of the Episodes and Anecdotes

It is Gardiner’s standard practice to begin his essays with some anecdote and episode. This device gives story-interest to his essay and enables the essayist to plunge in the middle of his topic. He makes very effective use of episodes and anecdotes. In the present essay, the essayist tells that a young man wrote to him lamenting his ignorance and seeking his advice about the books he should read to become learned and wise. In order to illustrate his ignorance about his body, he takes the example of the boy who, on being asked where the diaphragm was, replied that it was in North Staffordshire. While being driven through a woodland country by an old inn-keeper, the essayist talked about a tree and the old man called it a poplar.

His Optimistic Approach

Gardiner has the ability to see a silver lining in every dark cloud, to see light at the end of a long dark tunnel. He saves his readers from depression and enables them to draw comfort from such a debasing thing as ignorance. The innate goodness of his heart, his common sense, cultured sense of humour, balance and restraint and above all his love for his fellow beings make his essay so ennobling, elevating and enlightening besides being entertaining.

Style and Language

Like Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and Oliver Goldsmith, Gardiner is on the best of terms with his readers. He establishes an immediate rapport with them and moves on the same plane. Here he is in marked contrast with Sir Francis Bacon, the Father of the English Essay. Gardiner does not assume an air of superiority, but creates an atmosphere of informal cordiality. He employs the technique of Dramatic Flashback or the Association of Ideas to great advantage. Whenever there is a situation or description which is likely to give offence to somebody, Gardiner puts himself either alone or with that ‘somebody’ (who is likely to be offended) in that situation and makes his point at his own expense. He picks up the well known expressions from famous works of literature and fit them into new contexts to make them give a new meaning.