TITLE:
“Ye Are Many, They Are Few”: Nonviolence as Response to Oppression and Repression in the Poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley
AUTHORS:
George Ewane Ngide
KEYWORDS:
Oppression, Repression, Nonviolence, Government, Governed, Class
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.8 No.6,
June
30,
2020
ABSTRACT: This
article sets out to examine the relationship between the government and the
governed in the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. We posit that such a
relationship is generally characterised by oppression and repression of the
governed (the people, the many) by the government (the few, the ruling class).
The ruling class inflicts pain of untold proportion on the masses that they
subordinate and subjugate. As a result of the gruesome pain inflicted on them
and the harrowing and excruciating experiences they go through, the masses are
obliged to stand in defiance of the system and through nonviolence techniques
they overthrow the governing class. This overthrow does not lead to a
dictatorship of the proletariat rather it leads to a society of harmonious
living. The Marxist theory of thesis, antithesis and synthesis is used to
inform this argument.