A Disappointed Man By Robert Lynd Summary of the Essay In English
Robert Lynd was a great journalist. He wrote essays expressing his views on life and the modern ways of the world. The essay, “Disappointed Man” has been taken from the collection of essays named “Shudder to Think”.
Robert Lynd imagines a blind man, who received his sight as a result of a remarkable operation.Another day, he was so disappointed in the world he saw that he wondered whether he was not happier when he was blind. Human beings were of a different shape and appearance from what one imagines. To him everything from motor cars to flower gardens were below his imagination. So he felt disappointment. Most of us have experienced the same sense of disappointment when we see it for the first time and do not find things according to our imagination.
The essayist remembers that when he saw a lion, a camel and an elephant the first time, he was also disappointed. He did no. find them according to his imagination. The lion, the elephant and the camel were only a miniature of what he had imagined.
The children exaggerate the size of the creature which they have not seen. The thing appears to them either very big or very small than it actually is. It is in our own favour if we do not imagine unnecessary things.
The essayist says that he was disappointed at his first sight of London. The buildings of London were not bigger. As for Backingham Palace, he was disappointed because it was not certainly a palace. The palace is a building more wonderful than any other building except a cathedral. The word ‘palace’ is extraordinary romantic. Buckingham Palace was not that. So the essayist was disappointed to see it.
The essayist further says that the picture of an ideal horse is quite unlike a real horse. The man who has never seen a horse before expects too much from the first sight of a horse. The great war-horses were really as beautiful as the cavalry horses of modern themes. Even the knights might have been disappoint to see the horse for the first time.
Big expectations very often end in disappointments. We can avoid disappointments only by not expecting too much. Very often, has our enjoyment of a good book been injured by expecting it a masterpiece. The writer says that he has been disappointed in more good films than bad films because good films are very rare. At a bad film from which we expect nothing, we are often delighted by seeing their good acting. The bad or average films do not disappoint us.
According to Lynd, travellers have known disappointment of the anticipation and the joy of unexpected. Oscar Wilde was disappointed in the Atlantic Ocean, other men have been disappointed in the Taj Mahal. People invent false pictures of famous beautiful places and complain bitterly they when are unlike their imagery pictures.
They are only disappointed because they had heard of its beauty before they visited it. If they had come to unknown place, they would have been entranced by it. Lynd says that he visited Clovely for the first time after hearing its dispraise. He found it good. He was disappointed to see Rome as he had previously heard its praise.
Lynd further says that the blind man will not be unhappy after getting eyesight if he does not imagine it before. He should have thought it ugly. Then finding it beautiful, he will be happy. It may be that the mah cured of blindness is right in refusing to come in terms with fact and in demanding a world not beautiful in patches; but as beautiful as the world of fancy.
The fact is that other people’s beautiful things and places are often to the rest of us the most disappointing things and places on earth. The things which appear good to others do not mean that they will be good to us also. They may disappoint us on the contrary.
Important Links
- John Keats Biography
- Percy Bysshe Shelley Biography
- William Wordsworth as a Romantic Poet
- William Wordsworth as a poet of Nature
- William Wordsworth Biography
- William Collins Biography
- John Dryden Biography
- Alexander Pope Biography
- Metaphysical Poetry: Definition, Characteristics and John Donne as a Metaphysical Poet
- John Donne as a Metaphysical Poet
- Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116: (explained in hindi)
- What is poetry? What are its main characteristics?
- Debate- Meaning, Advantage & Limitations of Debate
- Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) Biography, Quotes, & Poem Indian Weavers
- Charles Mackay: Poems Sympathy, summary & Quotes – Biography
- William Shakespeare – Quotes, Plays & Wife – Biography
- Ralph Waldo Emerson – Poems, Quotes & Books- Biography
- What is a lyric and what are its main forms?
